#the scene continues as normal but now neither AD or the audience knows why to be on edge but that there is reason to

[blinkpen]

found another old one i never posted enjoy

[calliecat93]

Okay, I know that the Spones content in Bread and Circuses has been talked about before, so I’m likely adding nothing new. But heck with it, I’m talking about it anyways cause it’s just too good not to!

The episode has Spock and McCoy somewhat saltier towards each other than usual. From the second the episode resumes after the opening credits, they’re snarking at each other almost immediately. It goes on for so long that we have the guest character outright ask Kirk if they’re enemies, and even he isn’t for sure. It’s almost like one of the writers anticipated the fact that some would legit think that the two genuinely hated each other, and decided to ask the question. For the most part, their banter is mutual and they’re clearly trying to rouse a reaction from the other.Even when at gunpoint, McCoy just HAS to snap at Spock for “[being] so blasted honest?’. Spock’s raised brow to me almost came across like ‘really doctor? must you be like this now?”. It’s got some amusing stuff, like the banter in the beginning and McCoy of all being being the one to suggest illogic regarding sun worshipers has Spock giving some utterly hilarious facial expressions. But still, the banter goes enough that event he audience has to ask: are these two truly enemies.

The rest of their scenes answer the question.

During the gladiator fight, McCoy’s still so pissed off that even fighting to the death won’t stop him from yelling at Spock when he asks if he needs help. Stress and you know… trying not to die is a factor, but still. But since McCoy’s a doctor, not a warrior he’s about to be killed… until Spock takes out his own opponent and nerve punches McCoy’s before he can be harmed. Doing this breaks the rules and Kirk chooses to take what would be their death sentence upon himself. Spock acted on pure instinct in that instant. Or even more bluntly, it was an emotional response. He interfered because he didn’t want McCoy to die, and he was the only one in a positon to save him. He even seems pretty started that he did so. But because of i, now Kirk is going to die in their places and neither he nor McCoy can do anything about it. He outright pulls at the cell bars, according to McCoy, fifteen times. Logically it’s pretty clear that it’s not working.

With this, McCoy’s now cooled down enough that he legitimately tries to thank Spock for saving him. It’s awkward, neither one are very good at having heart-to-hearts with each other. Spock pretty much acts like it’s the usual banter and kind of condescendingly before telling him to get to the point, which causes McCoy to just snap it out at him. Spock tries to go into the usual ‘I’m a logical Vulcan’ spiel, saying quote:

Spock: Oh, yes. You humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. You're welcome, I believe, is the correct response. However, Doctor, you must remember I am entirely motivated by logic. The loss of our ship's surgeon, whatever I think of his skill, would mean a reduction in the efficiency of the Enterprise and therefore-.

Which is what finally gets McCoy pissed off enough to directly confront him about it. Why? Because he knows that Spock’s spitballing here. He’s trying to deny his emotional responses, despite having demonstrated it at least twice with McCoy right there for both of them. Saving McCoy despite knowing the consequences of doing so was an emotional response. Trying to escape the cell due to Jim’s life being in danger despite all efforts failing is an emotional response. He tries to say it’s just due to professionalism, but at this point there’s been enough episodes that the audience knows that that’s not true. McCoy absolutely knows it. He knows how Spock tends to keep his emotions suppressed and deny that he even has them, even though he very clearly does. It is a factor that has continuously frustrated McCoy. He’d never force Spock to be outwardly emotional, Plato’s Stepchildren made that VERY clear. But when it DOES happen and Spock tries to act otherwise? And after having dealt with this for nearly two years now? Yeah, McCoy decides that he’s had it as he grabs Spock, turns him around so that they’re making clear eye-contact, and makes his opinion VERY clear.

McCoy: Do you know why you're not afraid to die, Spock? You're more afraid of living. Each day you stay alive is just one more day you might slip and let your human half peek out. That's it, isn't it? Insecurity. Why, you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling.

Which… he’s not entirely wrong. Even during this, Spock turns away from him like he doesn’t want to talk about it. But McCoy’s right. Spock’s been at war with his Vulcan and human halves for his entire life. He chose to suppress the human half, and it peaking out does concern him. He isn’t able to settle two sides, hence why he’s always insistent about being a logical, unfeelign Vulcan. Now we all know that Vulcans DO feel things. Very strongly in fact, hence why they suppress it to begin with. But I do think it’s safe to say that Spock is afraid of expressing or even talking about his emotions. Whenever he does, he needs to get his grip back on the Vulcan side as quickly as possible. Even though he knows that McCoy knows otherwise. McCoy is pretty damn good at picking up on Spock’s emotional state and Spock knows it. And I think to at least an extent, he knows that McCoy’s correct. McCoy might be being too harsh admittedly, but the point is there. Spock is afraid of letting his human half slip out and the constant struggle of keeping it in check.

I think this is what makes their relationship so important. McCoy’s really the only person who can provoke Spock like this. Sure Kirk can normally reach out to Spock, but he’s not as likely to directly confront Spock and be blunt about it the same way that McCoy can. Spock’s also really the only person who’s ever been able to provoke McCoy and get him think past his own perspective the way that he does. It’s vitriolic in many ways. Like I said, it’s hard for them to really be civil with each other most of the time. Even here when McCoy did try to start off as civil when he tried thanking Spock, it ultimately devolved into another argument. Even McCoy expressed that he isn’t sure why it’s always like this when he says “ I know we've had our disagreements. Maybe they're jokes. I don't know.” But I do think that the episode demonstrates the answer to the queation of if they’re enemies. The short answer is no. The long answer is that they have a very complicated relationship that on a surface level, comes across as hatred. It gets to the point where even they aren’t fully sure. But the truth is they do care about each other greatly. They understand each other a great deal. They’re the only ones who can reach out to the other. The way that they show it is unorthodox sure, but it’s how it works for them.

And even when they are particularly heated, it always ends with them coming down from it and finding a point of unity. In this case, there is absolutely one thing that they can agree on.

Spock: Really, Doctor?

McCoy: I know. I'm worried about Jim, too.

While their concern for Jim is true, I think McCoy brought used that more as a way to bring them both back down after the exchange. Jim and his well-being is very much the one thing that they can agree on. I serves as a calming down point for them n this particular instant. After this while they don’t have anymore direct interactions, they seem to be on good terms and even enter the Bridge together at the end. They still have their heated moments in later episodes such as The Paradise Syndrome and The Tholian Web. But I think that for those who really do think that Spock and McCoy hate each other, I’d say watch this episode again and give their interactios a closer look. Especially the prison scene. Because it shows that for all their banter, for all their differences, there is a strong connection that is very much uniquely them.

[storiesforallfandoms]

pranks ~ cody fern

word count: 1569

request?: yes!

@kellysimagines​ “Can you maybe make a cody one where him and the reader have been dating before they both got on American Horror Story and they play also love interested and she is also a youtuber and one day she wants to prank him on set by scaring him and recording ir and him being in his costume and she also scares him at home and records everytning and when they are on an interview for ahs they show all the clips?”

description: in which she loves to scare her boyfriend, who claims to be afraid of nothing

pairing: cody fern x female!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist (one, two)

“Is Cody in costume yet?” I asked the makeup person as she put the finishing touches on my makeup.

“He is,” she confirmed. “He’s waiting in his trailer to come get his makeup done. Why do you ask?”

My eyes flickered to my vlogging camera, which was set up in front of me, then to the closet that was just behind me. The makeup artist noticed my look and raised an eyebrow at me. “What are you planning?”

I looked at her through the mirror and simply smirked.

Nearly ten minutes later, I was tucked away in the closet with the door only opened a tiny bit. My camera was set up to film both the makeup chair where Cody would be sitting and the closet.

The door to the makeup trailer opened. Through the slight crack of the door, O could see my boyfriend walking in wearing his Michael Langdon costume. He sat down in the chair I was sat in minutes before.

As I expected, his eyes automatically drifted to my camera. “Is that (Y/N)’s?”

“Yeah, she left it here,” the makeup artist replied.

“She never just leaves her camera around. That thing is basically her life.”

“She was rushed to set for something and forgot it. Could you bring it to her when you go, though?”

Cody looked at the camera again, a slightly skeptical look on his face, but agreed anyways.

The makeup person started on Cody’s makeup. His eyes were closed as she applied the red eyeshadow to his eyes. Taking this opportunity, I pushed the door open very slowly, purposely causing the door to creak. I ducked away from the crack as Cody’s eyes snapped open to look at the closet.

“What was that?” he questioned.

“What was what?” the makeup artist asked.

“The closet door made a noise. I think it moved.”

“Probably something in there pushing the door open. Stop moving or we’ll have to start over.”

I covered my mouth to stifle my giggling. I hoped Cody couldn’t hear anything. I peaked out the door again to see his eyes were closed again. The makeup artist saw me through the mirror and smiled mischievously.

I pushed the door again, causing Cody to turn and glare at the closet again. “The door is definitely moving!”

There was a moment of silence where neither of them spoke. I decided to take this opportunity to pop out, screaming something intelligible and scaring Cody so bad that he toppled over from the chair.

“(Y/N)!” he exclaimed. “You scared the shit out of me!”

I couldn’t stop laughing as I collected my camera and filmed Cody on the floor, trying to recover from my scare.

“It was a good one though, wasn’t it?” I asked.

He playfully glared at me before starting to laugh as well.

~~~~~~

Some months later, I was laughing at the clip again, this time on a talk show with Cody. We were promoting Apocalypse and the talk show host had brought up mine and Cody’s relationship outside of the show, specifically my pranking videos on him.

“The amount of times she’s pranked me is a little embarrassing,” Cody admitted once the laughter died down. “I felt like I should’ve figured this out by now.”

“You trust me too much,” I teased and playfully bumped his shoulder.

“You really do,” the host agreed. “She has scared you so many times that there are compilations online that are upwards of 10 minutes long of her just pulling scaring pranks on you.”

At this, the host pulled up a shorter compilations videos of me scaring Cody at home, as well as another few times on set with the help of our co-stars.

It was true, I had pranked and scared Cody more times than I could count at that point. Besides just normal couples vlogs, my viewers seemed to be really into videos where I scared Cody. Whenever I asked on social media what type of content they’d want to see in upcoming videos, it would always be the same answer: “Prank Cody more!”

After it was announced that Cody would be playing Michael Langdon, and pictures and videos of him in his costume started coming out, it was like the requests for these pranking videos became more and more, especially after I was also announced to be on the show playing a meek witch that was charmed by Michael to help him do his bidding. Everyone wanted to see the fictitious anti-Christ being scared by his both on screen and real life girlfriend. After the first episode of Apocalypse premiered, some people even said it felt like a funny parallel to see me being the one in control in real life when my character was so timid around Michael.

I giggled as a video of me in my costume played, in which I popped out in the middle of a scene Cody was filming with Evan and scared the both of them. I got Evan so bad that he nearly hit me when he jumped. That clip became one of my most viewed for so long.

“(Y/N), why do you do this?” the talk show host asked, also chuckling along with the videos. “What inspired you to start filming these pranking videos?”

“I don’t know exactly how I came up with it, but I remember it started shortly after Cody and I started dating,” I recalled. “We had done a couple’s Q&A video on my channel and one of the questions asked was what scared us most. Cody had the audacity to say that nothing really scared him all that much, and that got the wheels turning in my head.”

“I never said nothing scared me,” Cody argued. “I said there was nothing I could think of at the time.”

“That’s the same thing!” I said. “If you can’t think of what scares you most off the top of your head, it means nothing scares you. Or you think nothing scares you.”

“Well then, what scares you?” the host asked me.

“Easy, the dark and spiders. I’m terrified of both. I always have to have even a tiny bit of light on at night, and if I see a spider I will start crying.”

Cody playfully rolled his eyes at my explanation, but I continued with my story. “Anyways, because he said that I had this idea that I wanted to scare Cody. So, I set up this prank where when he came over to my apartment next, I had the shower running. When I heard him walk in I started calling out and telling him I had slipped and badly injured myself but couldn’t get to the phone to call anyone.”

“That alone had me so scared,” Cody added. “I was terrified that she had done something to really hurt herself and had been there for a long time.”

“But, when he came into the bathroom, I was actually stood behind the door wearing a Ghostface mask and holding a prop knife from a movie I was working on at the time. Cody ran right past me to the shower at first, which made the scare so much better when he opened the shower and I wasn’t there, only to turn around and find me wielding a knife right behind him.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory. “He jumped so high and screamed so loud! I’m so glad I caught it all on video.”

Cody gave me a look and stuck his tongue out at me. I did it in return and smiled.

“After that, it just became a highly requested thing on my channel,” I finished. “People liked to see what I could come up with to scare Cody, and frankly I like trying to be creative to try and do it.”

“I don’t like it,” Cody muttered.

“Do you think you could ever get revenge on her?” the host asked Cody. “Or have you tried before?”

Cody and I shared a look before we both started laughing.

“Please,” I said. “There’s no way he could scare me. I know him too well for that.”

“I wouldn’t even try. She would figure it out right away I’m sure.”

Before anyone else could say anything, I felt a pair of hands grab my shoulders and someone scream in my ear. I screamed and jumped up from my seat, narrowly avoiding straight up punching whoever had grabbed me. The audience erupted into laughter and cheers and Cody and the host laughed together.

The culprit of my scare was one of the crew members, who was snickering as they ran back to their place on set. I watched with wide eyes before turning my attention back to Cody, who was still cracking up laughing.

“You jerk!” I exclaimed, hitting his arm as he just continued to laugh at me.

“I finally got my revenge!” he proclaimed. He stood to try and hug me, but I backed away with him. “Come on, babe. You have to admit that was clever.”

“Oh, I’ll admit it was clever,” I told him. “But you just started an all out prank war. No holding back now babe.”

Cody’s eyes widened to match mine, which the audience and the host laughed at again. I merely smirked at him before placing a kiss on his lips and sitting back down to continue the interview.

[itsclydebitches]

A weird defence I've seen of RWBY's conflicts has been that it's good writing simply by the virtue that people can disagree on what's the right thing to do in said conflict. Which doesn't work when one decision is being presented as the only valid choice while every other option is either not addressed or demonized. This isn't a story leaving a nuanced set of stances to explore, it's a guy on stage signalling the crowd to boo whenever someone goes against the Protag's decision.

Real quick, I want to talk about RWBY by not talking about RWBY. I’ve seen this argument a lot too and the tl;dr is that just because your audience debates the right action in a conflict  — something that is inevitable given how subjective media is  — doesn’t mean the story encouraged that reflection in any way. As you say, RWBY pretends that those disagreements don’t exist and that This Is The One (1) Right Answer... which entirely defeats the purpose of a morally nuanced situation in the first place. That lack is bad writing because it demonstrates the author’s inability to provide an accurate picture of the conflict while still ensuring we come out of it liking the parties involved. The conflict was too complex for them to manage alongside equally complex characterization, so they just pretended it was far simpler than it actually was. That’s not something to praise. 

But to get to the not RWBY part. I’ve mentioned this a couple times before, but one of the scenes that I think manages these sorts of conflicts really well is the funeral fight in The Haunting of Hill House, episodes 6, “Two Storms.” So warning from here on out for spoilers. Sometimes, the best way to see what’s not working well in one show is to look at another show that does (basically) the same thing successfully and compare the two. 

Normally I’d include screenshots, but Netflix doesn’t allow that :/ So I’m forced to rely on bullet points. 

The basic premise is that the Crain family has assembled in daughter Shirley’s funeral home, the night before they bury their sister, Nell. A lot of secrets are about to come to light. 

The scene kicks off when their father, Hugh, relays the call he got from the housekeeper the night of Nell’s death. She had committed suicide in the family’s childhood home. 

Though everyone knew how she’d died, son Steven is distraught at hearing the details and reveals that a few weeks prior Nell crashed a book signing of his. This shocks the others given that this was very unusual behavior for Nell. 

Shirley likewise reveals that she got a call from Nell who’d been worried about their brother, Luke, but hadn’t spoken to her the night of her death. The implication is that no one did. They’ll never know what was going through her head the night she died. 

Hugh reveals that she did call him. “I talked to her.” 

Stunned by this news, his children demand to know what was discussed and Hugh is clearly reluctant to continue. However, he eventually says that Nell wasn’t just worried about Luke, but also the “Bent Neck Lady,” a specter from her childhood.

The viewer knows that ghosts are real in this show. The kids don’t. Or rather, they all experienced supernatural occurrences in their childhood, are still experiencing them now, but only some of them are willing to admit they’re real. Steven is the diehard skeptic of the bunch and starts yelling at his father, accusing him of aiding Nell’s delusions and ignoring a family history of mental illness. In particular, he declares that this “makes you culpable [in her death].” 

Steven continues to accuse Hugh of “holding back information” about Nell and Hugh shoots back that “If I held back anything it was to protect you kids.” The viewer understands Hugh’s dilemma: the only reason he keeps things to himself is because Steven and the others refuse to believe the truth, with an added dose of this supernatural stuff being very dangerous. Steven asks, “Why do I need protection from the truth?” 

Before their fight can go any further, Shirley tells Steven, “You might want to check yourself before you start talking about the truth.” He published an autobiographical book about their childhood trauma and notably capitalized on a supernatural angle he doesn’t believe in. Shirley calls it “blood money.” 

As the argument about the ethics of his book rages, Shirley defends herself primarily with how everyone else thinks this is “blood money” too. No one took a cut when Steven offered one, proving how despicable they all think it is. 

Meanwhile, sister Theo has been getting heat for being drunk (a coping mechanism for her own supernatural troubles) and Shirley eventually pushes her far enough that she admits she did take Steven’s money and used it to get her degree. “It’s good, fucking money.” Suddenly, Steven has someone in his corner and Shirley’s main defense has crumbled. 

Shirley is furious that Theo had this secret income but was still living with her and her husband. Theo reminds her that she offered to pay rent, but Shirley isn’t interested in hearing that. She demands that Theo move out immediately and uses this betrayal as the new way to protect herself. She’s the victim here. 

Steven, sensing another secret in the works, cautions Shirley to “get off your high horse before you fall off.” 

Shirley maintains her position until her husband blurts that they also took Steven’s money. Shirley hasn’t been running the funeral home well and they would have sunk without it. 

Despite being the punching bag for the second half of this fight, Shirley is offered both reassurance and dignity. Her husband emphasizes that the only reason they’re struggling is because Shirley is a good person. She does too much work pro bono. Shirley also delivers the line, “Do you have any idea how much you’ve humiliated me?” calling into question the husband’s choice to admit this now, purely as a way to prove her wrong. 

Shirley leaves to get some distance and discovers that someone — something — has put buttons over Nell’s eyes. The shock of this keeps the fight from continuing and, as plot intervenes, gives the characters the space needed to eventually start healing and forgiving one another, notably by sitting with the various truths they all now have to grapple with. 

Phew! A long summary, but I’ve put this much detail in to highlight the nuance of the scene. Obviously RWBY would differ in many ways  — less cursing, for one  — but the core elements of any morally complex scene should be the same. The important takeaways here are that no one in the Crain family are “pure” or “evil” and everyone gets their chance to be both right and wrong. Hugh is right that Steven won’t listen to him and wrong in that he didn’t do enough to help his kids. We get Steven and Hugh’s frustration, their understanding of the world at odds with one another. Steven is wrong to put everything on his father and justified in starting his writing career with their story. We watch the scene move from “Steven is Wrong and everyone agrees” to “Oh shit nm, more and more of the family are revealing that they benefited from his money, complicating how “wrong” he actually is.” Shirley is right to point out that Theo is getting drunk during their sister’s funeral and Theo is right to point out that being drunk doesn’t erase having a good point. Theo is allowed to scream at the group and then immediately be offered help when she falls. Shirley pretends she’s better than all of them and is slowly, horrifyingly proven wrong, but is then still extended compassion and is allowed to point out how horribly they’ve just treated her. The husband is right about the money, wrong about keeping it a secret/revealing it the way he did, right in how he tries to diffuse the other fights, and VERY wrong by getting caught kissing Theo down in the storeroom! 

The scene twists and turns in a way that highlights everyone’s points and their flaws, the moments when their perspective should be upheld and questioned. The end result is a scene that has space for the audience to debate everyone’s choices without imposing the single view of This Person Is Obviously Wrong/Right and If You Think Otherwise You’re Not Watching The Show Correctly. The show itself acknowledges the complexity and nuance of these problems. It asks, “Hugh should have tried harder, but what more can he do when his kids literally don’t believe this stuff exists? Was Steven really justified in writing a book about their collective experiences? What does it mean that something his family sees as capitalizing on their trauma also helped them keep businesses and schooling afloat? Was it okay for Shirley’s husband to keep that money a secret, even if it helped them? How might he have told her in a less cruel manner? What about Shirley’s life has led to her intense need to be on that ‘high horse’?” 

And of course: “Who is really responsible for Nell’s death?” By this point the viewer already knows that there is no “really” here. This is too complicated a tragedy to lay the blame at any one person’s feet. Everyone in this room has moments of justified accusations and moments of chastisement because they’re well written, well rounded characters who are neither saints nor devils. The length of the scene (done in a single shot!) emphasizes that if you just wait long enough, even the most perfect looking person will eventually have a skeleton pulled from their closet. No one is above mistakes. 

RWBY has NONE of that. Zip. Nada. Nothing. RWBY gave us a scenario with many of the same, core themes  — secret keeping, secrets unwillingly revealed, blaming others for your mistakes, hurtful actions with helpful consequences, questioning who is responsible for a tragic death  — and instead of even attempting to give us some of the above nuance, RWBY said only that Ruby was right, Ozpin was wrong, and demanding that the audience ignore the nuance they could already see in order to accept the canon. 

RWBY’s scene asks the audience to play dumb and look at the world as a Black and White place, despite the show simultaneously insisting that “the world isn’t a fairy tale” and is, in fact, filled with shades of gray. 

Just not any shades of gray that mess with that dichotomy that now drives the story.  

That’s not good writing. It’s oblivious and contradictory writing that makes the audience frustrated. Not satisfied, surprised, contemplative, or curious. Just frustrated. 

[thosekidswhohuntmonsters]

Playing With Fire

Summary: Sure Tom is twice the readers age, but she's tired of being treated as some naive little thing. When she finally confronts Tom she soon finds out that she's playing with fire.

Word Count: 2780

Rating: v spicy, deff 18+

Authors note: almost finished reposting all my tom stories! woohoo! 

♡if you enjoy this fic you’re welcome to leave a reblog/like/comment! feedback is not only welcomed but encouraged!♡

The interviewer was nearly beaming, “So in the last trailer, there was quite the scene between you and Tom”. Instantly you smiled, knowing exactly what scene she was referencing. Without answering the question you teased, “That was in there for like a split second, how did you all pick up on it?”.

Anthony intervened, “Because it was you and Hiddleston getting it on...that’s all the world could ask for!”. The crowd ate up Anthony’s response, cheering wildly for him. Finally Tom spoke up, “I didn’t know our kiss had the ability to save an entire planet (y/n)”.

Turning to him you nodded your head, “I don’t know, it was a pretty good kiss”. While Tom tried to hide a blush, all the fans went wild again. Unable to resist you added, “I mean..am I wrong here or?”.

That caused you and all of your castmates to erupt with laughter. Evans shimmied a little bit, “Ohh (y/n) I think his inability to answer the question means it was”. You didn’t know who was more excited, the audience or the interviewer.

Quickly she added, “ I think the chemistry between your characters is quite prevolevent, we see sort of a build up in the last film and now it seems to be exploding”. Hoping you weren’t alone with the millions of dirty jokes filling your mind you turned to Sebastian, and the look on his face made you realize you weren’t the only one.

Anthony was more blunt, “Y’all are getting very creative with phrasing nowadays…”. The interviewer smiled, and she was nearly blushing herself. You laughed a little, “I was afraid I’d been the only one picking up on the double meanings here”.

Reeling you all back in as if you were children Tom finally spoke up. His voice was soft, “No other character has had an immediate effect on Loki in the way (y/n)’s character has. I think Taiki did a wonderful job in the last film not only introducing her, but almost showing her through Loki’s eyes at some points”.

He finished his sentence with a warm smile as he held your gaze. You smiled too, “Working with Taiki was amazing, I think he’s the reason why my character was able to flourish in the way she did. The response I’ve gotten from fans is just incredible”.

Evans made a face, “That was sweet, but neither of you answered the question. Let’s be real, Loki wants to smash”. Once again the entire room, the stage included, was filled with laughter.

Chris patted Tom’s shoulder, “I mean sorry bro but I’m right aren’t I?”. As if on cue the entire audience shouted back “yes” to Chris, only encouraging him. An eager hush fell over the room as everyone waited to see how you and Tom would respond.

Tom adjusted his glasses, “I mean..that’s one way to put it Chris. I’d much prefer to say that the desire from Loki’s side  is definitely there, but he’s trying to keep it hidden. It’s another internal battle Loki has with himself; to indulge in his feelings or remain closed off”.

Chris rolled his eyes at Tom’s nearly poetic response, but soon found himself smiling. All eyes turned to you, waiting to see your take on things. You saw hundreds of phones in the audience, all recording your next words.

“While I feel that my character is complex, and still developing on screen, I think she has more freedom. While she shares having a rough past with Loki, she uses hers as motivation to not waste any of her present. Chris put it beautifully, she wants to smash”.

It was so entertaining to see everyone's faces during your heartfelt answer, and the watch their reactions change completely. Tom was shaking his head but there was a clear smirk across his face.

The panel went on and you and your castmates continued to enjoy yourselves. With the movie coming out in a couple days, everyone was less stressed about having to keep secrets. You loved teasing Tom Holland about his spoiling, but you could relate to his stress.

After the panel had finally finished you were all moved to a waiting room. Instantly Evans asked, “So what are we all doing later?”. Everyone began throwing out different plans, naming certain bars and clubs, but Tom was silent.

Quietly you asked, “Are you seriously not going out with the group?”. He laughed softly before turning his head towards you. He whispered back, “Love I hate to disappoint but-”. Maybe it was because of his last breakup, but he’d been in a funk.

You didn’t even let him continue, “Fine if you’re not going out then I’m at least not letting you stay in alone”. Before he could protest Chris repeated over the final plans for tonight, the group reaching their consensus.

You smiled, “I’d love to see what drunk shenanigans you all get into, especially you Chris, but I think I’m tapping out tonight. Rain Check on making horrible decisions we’ll all regret in the morning?”.

Chris raised one of his eyebrows as he tried to figure out why you’d say no, sure you weren’t the biggest drinker but you’d always been down to come along. After finally putting things together he grinned, “Sure thing kid, I have a feeling you’re gonna enjoy yourself anyways”.

While the group continued to talk about what tonight would entail, you continued to hold Chris’s gaze. When he knew no one else was looking he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and mouthed, “finally”.

Knowing exactly what he’d meant you rolled your eyes overdramatically mouthing back, “Fuck off”. Chris laughed it off, knowing full well that you were just joking. He was one of your closest friends, and he knew nearly everything about you.

Mundane things like your favorite color and time of the year, but more interesting things like your turn offs’ and ons’, and especially the fact that you had a major crush on Tom Hiddleston.

Preparing for tonight everyone went their separate ways, different security guards escorting everyone to their rooms and such. As the room became empty Tom turned to you, “Love are you sure you don’t want to go out with the rest of the group?”.

You smiled, “One can always get drunk, but spending a night discovering what the Tom Hiddleston thinks is fun is a once in a lifetime opportunity”. Once again he tried to hold back a smirk, but couldn’t.

“Hate to disappoint but my night is going to begin in my hotel room”. You didn’t back down, infact Tom had no idea how that was all you’d ever wanted to hear. Boldly you teased, “Normally that's where a night ends”.

It felt good to see him laugh, especially if it was from something you’d said. As the guards let you both to the elevators he softly said, “Darling you are trouble”. You watched him bite his lip, and you thought you were going to explode right then and there.

Within a minute or two you were in his room, a huge fucking bundle of nerves but trying to mask it. As he closed the door you asked, “So let me guess, we start the night off with some tea?”.

He chuckled softly, “I was thinking wine”. You gasped while placing a hand over your heart, causing him to laugh once again from your teasing. Tom sat down on the bed and began calling room service.

While you waited you continued to look around the room, well really it was more of like a mini apartment. Something you’d never get used to was the rooms marvel put you all up in, it was much more luxurious than needed.

Tom’s drink choice only made your nerves only worse. He’d been acting as if this was going to be some boring night, but here you were dressed to the nines in his hotel room about to order a bottle of wine.

After you heard him hang up the phone you turned back around to face him. With fake casualness you asked, “What's next on the agenda?”. You were starting to think you had no idea where this night was going to go.

Tom began taking off his tie, “First I’m getting out of this bloody suit”. For a moment you blinked, pretty sure you were just dreaming at this point. After realizing you were staring you nodded your head.

“Oh you don’t know the half of it hun”. With that you stepped out of your heels and began taking off your jewelry. By now his button up was hanging loosely from his body, “Well you look ravishing”.

You were leaning against one of the bureaus, while he still sat down on the bed. You felt lighter now with most of your outfit off, “I’m on to you Tom, and your whole gentleman act”. He raised his eyebrows at you, still playing dumb.

“Anything leaving that pretty mouth of yours is trouble, but the word ravishing? Makes a girl feel all kinds of things”.

Slowly Tom’s tongue ran over his lips, before he bit his bottom lip altogether. You heard a knock on the door but before you answered it you repeated, “Trouble”. Tom never felt more connected to Loki than in this exact moment.

He was having his own internal struggle right now; to finally let you know how he feels, or to fight back the most intense feelings of desire he’s ever experienced. Throughout this entire night he’d slowly been losing; inviting you up to his room, ordering wine for you both, eyeing you like you were a meal, but he couldn’t help himself.

It didn’t help either that you’d been teasing him nonstop, it was like you were begging him to make a move. Leaning forward while taking off your shoes giving him a perfect look at your cleavage, teasing him about where a good night ends, it was all getting to him.

After tipping the hotel staff you entered back into the room, “Alright Hiddleston, let’s get down to it”. You’d pulled him out of his thoughts, causing him to finally look back up at you. Walking towards him you placed down the two glasses on the nightstand, still holding the bottle in your hands.

Tom was apprehensive, “And what exactly is it?”. You wiggled your eyebrows making him smile. After you both laughed you got serious, “This funk you’ve been in. Is it because your last rela-”.

He shook his head, his ex was the last thing he’d been thinking about. She’s left his mind months ago, and hadn’t entered his thoughts since. You on the other hand had nearly consumed him.

The only thing that stopped him was that he was nearly twice your age, you were only twenty-three. You were young, playful, a complete tease, but the worst part was that your qualities weren’t just skin deep.

You were also everything he’d ever wanted emotionally; always so concerned about your friends well being, empathetic, incredibly funny, so wonderful to your fans, and somehow much wiser than most people his age.

Getting up from the bed you began to pour yourself a glass, “Look, you can get tipsy and tell me what’s wrong or you can tell me when you’re sober and skip all the awkwardness of the morning after”. He shook his head, if you wanted honesty he’d give it to you.

“You sure you want the truth (y/n)?”. You nearly spit out your wine, was he being serious? Sarcastically you asked, “What can I not handle the truth?”. Your reaction caused Tom to shake his head.

“Darling, I think you’re being a little naive. You still have some-”. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing, he was playing the age card. Sure you were younger, but hey you were older than Tom Holland!

You shook your head, “Oh so I’m too young and innocent now? What could you possibly have to say that my fragile little ears can’t handle?”. You could feel the moment escalating, especially with the look in his eyes.

His voice was sultry, “Oh love you’d be surprised”. You wanted to doubt him but the current look on his face sent shivers down your spine. Trying to regain your confidence you said, “Then surprise me”.

Tom got off of the bed completely, and started walking around the room. His tie had been loosely hanging around his neck but now he’d gripped it in his hands. It was like a prop, “For starters, you’re too seductive for your own good”.

God how did he make sex sound like shakespeare? Your eyes widened, “Tom what does that even mean?”. Sighing he ran his hands through his hair, he was trying to find the words. He looked to you again, “Do you have any idea of your affect on me? How flustered you make me in front of thousands?”.

As he continued he groaned, “God it just makes me want too-”. He stopped himself mid-sentence, knowing that he was going to shift the entire mood if he continued. By now he was standing in front of you, only inches away physically by a sea away mentally.

You looked up at him, “Makes you want to want? What does it make you want to do to me?”. He’d told you that you were playing with fire but you were calling his bluff. His voice was deeper now, “Little girls shouldn't play with fire”.

That sentence went right to your core. The thing was that Tom looked like he was enjoying himself while saying it, it was the most blissful he’d been in months. You licked your lips, “Are you afraid you’re going to take advantage of me somehow? I’m twenty-three years old Tom”.

As you continued you let one of your hands trail up your body, “You treat me like I’m some innocent fragile little girl, but I’m not as vanilla as you think”. Your response only seemed to amuse him more.

“Have you ever considered that I like that you’re older than me? I don’t want some little boy, I want a man. I want someone to take control, and satisfy my needs”.

His breathing was deeper now, any control he’d been clinging on to had now vanished. Leaning forward he placed his hands on either side of you, almost trapping your body. His voice was much deeper now, “Why don’t you really tell me what you want me to do”.

You leaned forward, “What? That I want you to fuck me like a real man? Pin me down and take me? I don’t know Tom, I’m so fragile and innocent I might break”. Your smirk was the largest it had been all night.

He let his hand trail softly down your cheek before gripping your chin tightly. Tom used his grip to tilt your head up and hold it firmly in place, “You little minx”. You licked your lips, you desire showing now more than ever.

“Look at you now, licking your lips inches from my throbbing cock. Is that what you want love, my cock wrapped around those pretty lips?”.

You nodded your head, convinced that if you tried to speak you’d just moan. Shaking his head he groaned again, he couldn’t believe how beautiful you looked. He’d never had someone look up at him so intoxicated before, and he imagined he’d been looking the same way at you.

Tom was letting himself go, finally indulging in ways he’d wanted too ever since your first scene together. He clicked his tongue, “As much as I’d love to see that, I think some payback is in order”.

To your surprise Tom got down on his knees before you, his face now level with yours. Slowly his hands ran up your thighs and pushed back your skirt, “Well darling, let’s hope you’re not this quiete for much longer”.

As you watched the smirk form upon his lips you knew his whole gentlemen act had finally been through completely out the door. You started to pull your dress off completely, “Be careful what you wish for babe”.

Using his grip on your thighs he pulled you closer to his mouth. His tongue darted out of his mouth and swept across his bottom lip, “And I’m trouble?”. Together you laughed for a moment, thankful for how effortless this all felt.

Tom was amazed how you could so easily flow from making him smile and laugh to wanting to rip your clothes off and pin you against the nearest wall. He decided that he didn’t want to waste anymore time thinking, and finally start doing.

♡ thank you for taking the time to read this, you’re a babe♡

Forever tags: aka some amazing people: @moonlessnight14 @sexyvixen7 @angieptt​ @painkiller80 @becca-dolan @team-heichou @thatpeachybandgirl​ @allthesesonsobitches @buckybarneshairpullingkink @couldabeenamermaid​ @taeeemin@littleredstarfish @nali67​ @only4wakingup​ @mcenziehughes​

*if there is a line through your name that means that for some reason it won’t allow me to tag you*

*forever tags are always open*

[ori-flails]

Rewatching Guardian - Episode 07 Part 1/3

Episode List || Episode 06 || Part 2 | Part 3

SPOILERS for upto episode 40, SPOILERS for the novel.

The translation is by AvenueX. Youtube decided to not translate for me today.

A pity, I think the youtube translation had soomething like “a beauty named Shen Wei”. xD

Ah... I am a fool. At the end of the last episode, I mentioned how Shen Wei had a droopy quiff because it was the end of the day. But after Zhao Yunlan came, Shen Wei’s quiff went back to its former glory. xD

I really wonder how it would’ve gone down if Zhao Yunlan hadn’t turned up. Shen Wei could’ve obliterated these two without a sliver of dark energy.

Shen Wei looks too pretty. WAY too pretty.

Everyone isn’t full of suspicion like you, Zhao Yunlan. xD

But okay, Zhao Yunlan’s acting just a tiny bit strange. xD What, you’re worried Shen Wei would realise you were maybe following him for no reason except for your crush on him? And that maybe you did wanna show off just a little bit to him??

He’s just so automatically defensive here.

First of all, I absoulutely failed at getting screenshots for the fighting but just... I implore you to zoom into Zhao Yunlan’s face in the very last screenshot. xD Look at his eyes lmaooo

It’s too funny not to include.

I get that the SID isn’t regular police but even if Zhao Yunlan can’t arrest these two, shouldn’t he still at least hand them over to regular police? They’re muggers. Why is he leaving them here with only a warning?

“Become a consultant for the SID.”  “No.”

Absoulutely zero hesitation. xD Poor Zhao Yunlan’s like “??????”

I guess this is because 1) Shen Wei’s identity would endanger Zhao Yunlan and the other members of the SID. Specially if they aren’t aware of who he is, and also 2) I’m just guessing, but this might be because of alliances or something. SID itself is clearly its own entity at this point under Zhao Yunlan’s leadership. But on paper, it’s under Xingdu Bureau. Hei Pao Shi working for the SID would be like saying, yeah, Hei Pao Shi (at least partially) answers to Xingdu Bureau, which he doesn’t. And also, it ends up looking like the SID, Zhao Yunlan more specifically, has ambiguous loyalty or is being influenced by Dixing. But I’m not sure.

Working for the SID as a consultant would obviously be ideal because it will allow the SID and Hei Pao Shi to work together more closely to do their jobs right, and it would allow Shen Wei to remain close to Zhao Yunlan.

So once it becomes obvious to Shen Wei that Zhao Yunlan and the SID will be exposed to danger regardless of his identity known by them, and that his ‘Professor Shen’ identity it only hindering his efforts to help them out, and once Zhao Yunlan figures out his identity, point (1) becomes meaningless. If point (2) is actually an issue/being considered by Shen Wei, then it would be outweighed by the pros of working for the SID as a consultant. Hence, Shen Wei takes Zhao Yunlan up on the offer later on.

When Shen Wei’s massaging that thing on Zhao Yunlan’s arm, I know that despite whatever that reaction of Zhao Yunlan’s looked like, it’s meant to be a grimace of pain, because that’s what it was when they were rehearsing the lines in a behind-the-scenes video.

But still, it looked like what it looked like. xD And added with the comment about Shen Wei being good with his hands it’s just too much to ignore. ͡°‿ ͡°

Zhao Yunlan’s adorable and he’s such a flirt oh my poor

I have this idea that the OST used in a scene is often from the POV of the character(s) the show wants the audience to pay attention to/sympathise with, if that makes sense.

I’ll have to do a little digging to find the name of the OST used in this part. (Sorry guys, I didn’t find it :/ But it plays at 5:12 - 6:39 in the episode) The OST is very melancholic, life if repressed longing was music or something like that.

The OST is clearly from Shen Wei’s POV because at this point Zhao Yunlan has no reason to be thinking/feeling this way.

Basically the OST was wrecking my heart and soul and I didn’t want to be repetative and say the OST really made this scene for me and gave me all the feels but that’s exactly what happened.

Shen Wei... TT~TT

Also, I’m fairly certain that Shen Wei discretely used his healing powers to partially heal Zhao Yunlan’s arm just enough to get away with it without alerting Zhao Yunlan.

First of all, where the hell was that bedroom even? Just in case, I went back where the cat brothers break into Shen Wei’s home, and yep, no bedroom, no bed. His apartment looks less structured than Zhao Yunlan’s, and looks more like a big room with furnitures than a big space compartmentalized for specific functions.

In that scene, I didn’t see a bed, or even see Zhao Yunlan go into a “room”. Now, this doesn’t mean that Shen Wei’s apartment doesn’t have a bedroom for sure, just could be that we didn’t see it. But we followed Zhao Yunlan’s POV in that scene and the entire time he spent in Shen Wei’s apartment was shown. So if we didn’t see a bed or a bedroom, neither did Zhao Yunlan.

So what’s up with that?

Anyway, my man just dug his own grave and jumped in it lol

Once again with the ominous music though. It stopped me from realizing before just how funny this scene is.

Another example of Zhao Yunlan goofing up in Shen Wei’s presence. xD

And then the stuff he says to try and salvage the situation are also gold because if Zhao Yunlan had been in any state to calmly think about what he was saying, he’d have noticed the window he was talking about faces the opposite direction to the one in his apartment.

Also, I checked and the two apartments are very different even if you remove all the furnitures, so there’s that. Shen Wei wouldn’t know because he hasn’t gone to Zhao Yunlan’s apartment yet. But still.

Slightly unrelated, neither of the two apartments seem to have any washrooms. I didn’t see any doors leading to one anywhere. I also didn’t see a kitchen in Shen Wei’s. He has a balcony where Zhao Yunlan’s apartment has a kitchen. And there goes out collective headcanon about Shen Wei’s beautifully clean kitchen.

Back to Zhao Yunlan’s blunder.

Shen Wei knew it was them to begin with and would’ve probably never mentioned it.

But then Zhao Yunlan the Disaster made such a dumb mistake and then realkized himself. At that point, it was too obvious for Shen Wei to ignore. In fact ignoring it would be more suspicious. Oh my god. xD

And when Zhao Yunlan’s flailing and making further fool of himself, Shen Wei’s sarcastic nod and his smile lmaoooo He seemed so amused xD

On the other hand, Zhao Yunlan looks so uncomfortable xD Poor man’s heart’s probably about to sprint out of his ribcage. He’s so cute istg.

Shen Wei just handing the entire bottle to Zhao Yunlan because he doesn’t need it and can’t heal him himself but can’t leave him be either. Ugh. So extra and so tragic.

Zhao Yunlan just taking it though... That’s not quite the normal response here... is it? Like, shouldn’t there be some protest to taking it at least for the sake of being polite? These two didn’t meet all that long ago and aren’t that close yet as far as Zhao Yunlan’s knows.

Like, politely refuse and buy one of his own later, or try to refuse at least; isn’t that what’s meant to happen here?

Idk. Zhao Yunlan’s response seems odd to me. I can’t tell if he’s just like that or if this is him being uneasy and in a hurry to get out of there after his slip-up.

Shen Wei TTATT

Well, both of their hearts are about to sprint out and away to Cold City now for two completely different reasons.

(Continues in part 2)

[multiverse-in-archive]

Awesome, Helpless

((Sequel to this and based off of the Addict music video. Buckle up, this is a long bitch it gets heavy at points because that video was heavy as fuck and this is how I cope-))

After sweeping up the last dollar bill into his hands, Angel stood up straight, making sure to trail his fingers up his thighs with the motion. Then he turned on his heels, walked up the catwalk and to the main part of the stage. He shot the crowd one last seductive look before the curtains closed and the stage lights went out.

“Well, I can’t say that was really my taste in entertainment,” Alastor spoke up from his seat at the table, “But he did certainly put on a performance. Brava!~”

Husk slammed his glass down on the table with a muffled thunk against the table cloth.

“Yer jus’ glad it’s over, aincha?” the winged feline piped up.

“Certainly!”

“Even with his voice, I still get his gender confused. Why does he do that with his chest floof?” Nifty added.

“Because his audience is gross and he knows it,” Vaggie said flatly.

Charlie was immediately scanning around the scrambling crowd for the spider demon.

Yes, she was aware that he’d need to get dressed after his show, but she wanted to be able to spot him as soon as he came back.

Soon enough, there she spotted him, emerging by the stage. It wasn’t hard to notice him, he was nine feet tall and almost pure white. He was practically a beacon.

“Come on, guys! Let’s go congratulate him!” the blonde said, immediately standing up.

The princess rushed off with the sinners in towe. 

It didn’t take long for Angel to take notice of the approaching group and grin. He walked towards them in wide strides

As the space between them closed, Charlie’s nose twitched and wrinkled a bit. Her sensitive nose had picked up something rather sickly sweet coming off of Angel. It was a scent that already subtly wafted in the establishment enough that no one else would notice, but it smelt more concentrated off of the pornstar. Like perfume. But it wasn’t his usual perfume, that was for sure.

At the very least his sweat dulled down the scent some…

“What’s with the face, toots?” Angel prodded as soon as he and the group stopped in front of each other.

“You smell funny,” she answered without thinking.

Alastor chuckled behind her, clearly amused.

“Well, yeah,” Angel said with a snort, “I jus’ got finished dancin’ a storm up there, baby. ‘Course I’m gonna be smellin’ a bit rank.”

Charlie opened her mouth to reply to that, but decided against it. Instead, she smiled wide and grabbed him by the hand excitedly.

“You were terrific out there!”

“You certainly know your audience. I’ll give you that,” Vaggie added, a hand on her hip and a half smile on her face, “I guess I can see why you’re popular now.”

“I knew you were fluffy, but I didn’t realize you were this fluffy!” Nifty added.

Angel gave an amused and cocky grin.

“Thanks, gals~” he rang before his mismatched eyes trailed up to the men of the group, “And you...?~”

Husk rolled his eyes.

“It was fine, I guess.”

Alastor, meanwhile, chose not to comment, favoring just tilting his head to the side instead.

The spider demon merely shrugged.

“Eh, I’ll take those as compliments~”

The Radio Demon’s neck then straightened, eyes flicking past Angel.

Charlie’s sensitive black nose crinkled again. That same sweet smell from Angel. But much much more potent. And coming right towards them. That prompted her to turn her head to the source, the rest following suit.

Angel pulled away from her, the grin and pep all but fading.

A blue skinned moth demon, nearly a foot taller than Angel and wearing a bright red fluffy coat and hat, was walking towards the group. Rose tinted heart shaped shades glinted against the light of the club, and a golden tooth gleamed in that wide grin among the otherwise pink teeth. Accompanying him were two scantily clad demonesses, one cat like, and the other may or may not be an imp. Her eyes weren’t glowing in the dim lighting, so she may not have been.

“Angel cakes~” a rich, velvety voice greeted from the tall moth’s lips, “Do ya have my money?”

“Yes boss…” Angel muttered as he began digging around in his pillowy “cleavage”.

Ah. Boss. So this was Angel’s employer, then. Made sense.

The blue demon then looked at the others.

“I definitely recognize the Radio Demon, and one looks vaguely familiar. New friends of yours, sugar?”

Angel tensed up a bit at that but handed him the stack.

“No sir. They just work at the hotel I’m stayin’ at now,” he explained, “They’re more landlords than anything.”

Vaggie could only cock a brow at that.

“Sir”? This is the first time she’d ever heard Angel say that… unironically that is. So formal and polite… And yeah, this is his boss, but still. With how he behaved usually, she expected him to be bratty, or at least casual. It was… surreal…

Charlie extended a hand to shake, even despite the overwhelming scent assaulting her senses.

“I’m Charlie, the founder and owner of the Happy Hotel.”

Angel’s boss stared for a moment, gears turning in his head. Then, he started laughing. Low and slow for a moment, and then building it’s way up up up, all the way to gut busting. Even the two women with him started giggling.

The demon princess lowered her hand slightly, a tad discouraged now.

Vaggie, however, was more miffed than anything.

“What’s so funny?!” she growled.

“Holy shit, I remember now!” he blurted out, “You’re the princess from that interview! God, I haven’t laughed as hard as I have when I watched that shitshow in ages!”

“Well, at least we can both agree that it was quite entertaining,” Alastor chimed, “Don’t get used to that, however.”

The silver haired demoness looked about ready to blow a gasket. What stopped her from going around her girlfriend to punch this fucker in the face was a hand on her shoulder. Angel’s hand.

She looked up to see said spider demon looking down at her and shaking his head from side to side slowly.

She’d… never seen him look so… serious…! What the fuck!?

Charlie was about to completely lower her hand in defeat, but the laughter suddenly stopped, and one of the man’s own hand shot for hers, partially grabbing her wrist when he’d caught it in his grip.

“You can call me Valentino, baby doll~” he said cordially.

Charlie didn’t even have time to express any discomfort at the pet name before she was suddenly pulled closer to the pimp.

“Charmed!~” he added, his voice breathy.

At the “charmed”, bright red smoke rushed out of his mouth and into Charlie’s face. They saw it a few times during Angel’s show, but neither Charlie nor Vaggie knew where it came from. They just figured it was part of the show with how it interacted with Angel. At least until now.

That overly sweet scent again. But much more concentrated. Powerful. Overwhelmingly so. It blocked out all other scents, violently assaulting her senses. It was dizzying. She normally loved sweet smells, but there was such a thing as too fucking sweet! Too fucking much! And it was already too sweet in the air, and too much coming off of Angel. Even more so from Valentino. This. This just made her feel ill. Made her want to retch.

All the while, Angel was deathly stiff as he watched, his grip on the by now furious moth demoness much tighter. He had no idea what to do, what to say, all he could do was internally freak out-

Shit shit shit shit shit- Val, no! Not her! Don’t fuckin’ do this to her!

“Hey, what the hell!?” Vaggie snapped at her fellow moth.

She didn’t know what he was doing or why, but damn was she itching to bring out her spear-

Husk, Nifty, and Alastor exchanged knowing glances before, with a swish of the chimera demon’s large wings, the red smoke was fanned away and towards the two women with Valentino. Both of whom gladly inhaled it. The two then stared at each other, eyes half lidded.

Valentino’s smile ebbed slightly.

Huh… He was sure she inhaled at least some of it… and yet...

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that blowing smoke in someone’s face is rude?” Nifty chastised from below, “Shame!”

Alastor gently pulled Charlie away and out of the pimp’s grip by the shoulder in a casual motion.

“Then again, can’t expect any manners from someone who associates with Vox of all people.~”

Valentino’s attention was pulled away from the princess and onto the Radio Demon behind her. That let Angel relax enough to finally release Vaggie, who promptly moved to gently hold her girlfriend by the arms.

“Are you alright, Charlie?”

The blonde could only nod, still reeling from the assault on her senses.

Fuck, she could still taste it in the back of her throat. It was like being force fed cups and cups of nothing but pure honey. It stung!

“Speakin’ of Voxy, a shame he already left. He would have loved to have seen you, dear~” the pimp said.

“Rather fortunate that he did leave, because I do not share such sentiments,” Alastor responded rather curtly as he released Charlie’s shoulder once he was certain she was safe from anything further from Valentino.

“What does bring ya here anyways, baby?” the red clad moth continued, “I thought this wasn’t your scene. Didja finally decide to have some real fun?~”

“I would hardly consider this my definition of ‘real fun’,” the radio host scoffed, “I only came by Charlie’s insistence.”

Valentino snorted at that.

“I’m sure ya did, sweetheart…~”

The deer’s red eyes narrowed, his grin sharpening.

“You find yourself quite fortunate that I am temporarily sworn off of non self defense violence for the sake of my entertainment, or I would have made certain that you are no longer able to make such disgusting innuendos.”

After all, what sane person would check in if they felt the people working there were dangerous?

“Awwww… Learn to have fun…~” Valentino teased.

“Big Veeeeee…” the feline demoness whined, “Can we go back to the studio?~”

“Yes, daddy, I want to play, and there’s no good place to do so here~” the other agreed.

“Awh, you bitches needy?~ Alright, alright, we’ll head back…~”

The pimp’s attention finally returned to Angel.

“Angel baby, come on now.”

“W-Wait a minute,” Charlie spoke up without thinking, “Didn’t you get your money already? Shouldn’t he come back home with us now that he’s done?”

Valentino cocked his head to the side at her, his mostly pink grin quirked in amusement.

“Awh honey, donchu know how this works?~” he asked, his tone condescending, “I need to make sure that he has given me it all… Can’t have a sneaky lil’ whore tryna siphon more than their earnings off of me, you know~”

Angel hesitated, looking between the group and Valentino.

“Can’t you just count your money here?” Vaggie piped up, “It shouldn’t take that long, should it?”

Red eyes narrowed from behind heart shaped rose tinted lenses. He seemed to be struggling to keep his grin up.

“Didja not hear my bitches, sweetie? They wanna go now,” his face then softened when he looked at the spider demon, “Besides, we need to talk about his upcomin’ shoots. Don’t we, sugar?”

“... Yes mista Valentino,” Angel sighed out.

“We’ll have him back to your little joke- I mean hotel once we’re done with our business, ‘kay?”

He tucked away his stack of bills before wrapping his lower set of arms around the waists of the girls and using one of his top hands to make a beckoning motion with his finger.

“Come along, baby~” he cooed.

Before either of the girls could protest this further, Angel obediently followed after him, looking over his shoulder with an… unreadable expression.

“Well, see ya fuckas late-a, I guess.”

Once the four were gone, Charlie looked at the others anxiously. Something rubbed her the wrong way, and she couldn’t put her finger on what.

“Well! I think it’s about time we made ourselves scarce as well, wouldn’t you say!?” Alastor suddenly exclaimed.

Before anyone could respond, he ushered the group out the exit. 

They didn’t have to wait in the night long before the limo pulled up. Out of the front seat Dazzle emerged, floating to the door to open it and allow them inside. Everyone crawled in to find their places. Charlie and Vaggie sat in the back seats while Alastor and his little crew sat across from them. Nifty was seated in the lap of Husk, who had to position his large wings awkwardly to fit in his seat.

Onces everyone was seated, the red goat shut the door. Moments later, the limo started moving.

The ride was quiet for a while, everyone trying to process the encounter after the show.

Then, the silence was broken.

“Charlie…” came Alastor’s voice, his tone uncharacteristically sober.

That was enough to pull her and the others out of their thoughts and bring their eyes to him.

His usual smile was still there, but he was leaning forward, eyes hard focused on the princess across from him.

“I need you to answer me something, and I need you to do so honestly… Could you do that for me, darling…?”

Charlie nodded slowly, a brow raised. Where was this coming from?

“Are you feeling an unexplainable warmth? Perhaps some sort of strange craving?”

That only confused her more.

“N… No…?”

The Radio Demon hummed in thought for a moment.

“Are you feeling anything else, then…? Anything out of the ordinary…?”

“... I’m still having trouble getting that taste and smell out.”

Alastor raised a brow.

“Smell and taste…? From that smoke?”

“Yeah…” she said with a nod, “I don’t know how strong it is for you guys, but...”

“Charlie’s nose is really sensitive,” Vaggie explained, “While we may smell something subtle, it’s a lot stronger to her. And she can pretty easily pick up scents we probably would not be able to smell.”

“It… got my throat stinging…” the princess added.

Husk nodded.

“I have a pretty good sense of smell too. One of the only useful things of bein’ a giant fuckin’ cat…” Husk mumbled, “I ain’t still got it stuck in my nose or mouth, nor got my throat stingin’. Then again, I also didn’t get shit blown in my face.”

“... I see…” Alastor finally said softly.

There was another moment of silence before Alastor snapped back into his normal postured, the jovial lit in his voice returning.

“In that case, I know the best cure for this! Who’s up for gumbo!?”

“We already ate dinner in that club, Alastor…” Husk groaned.

The Radio Demon scoffed.

“Like that bushwa they serve can compare to what I cook! What a joke!”

A laugh track punctuated Alastor’s sentence.

When we get home, everyone is getting a bowl!~”

---

Charlie refused to go to bed tonight. Not until she was ensured that Angel was back.

Every hour she would leave her office to check the lobby. And when she didn’t see him there, she would go back to her office and busy herself to keep herself awake. She had given instructions to Husk at the bar that if he ever returned in between those times, he was to give her a shout.

It was five in the morning when she went to check again. Husk had been dead asleep three hours ago, and she didn’t have the heart to wake him up.

When she drew closer to the lobby, she could hear… singing… Soft, sad singing...

And when she emerged out into the lobby, what she saw… surprised her…

Angel at the bar, singing at a sleeping Husk.

In one his hands was a cigarette. It was strange, though. It was producing that same red smoke that she’d seen at the club they came back from.

“I’m addicted…

“To the sorrow…”

Angel was startled, nearly startled out of his melancholy song, when feeling a hand on his shoulder. He swatted at it briefly in irritation, nearly slapping it off of him. He only missed because the hand moved off of him just in time. He glared over his shoulder at the source to see…

… Charlie…

Son of a bitch she moved quietly!

… He was too tired to care enough to feel guilt for the look of hurt on her face. Just… too damn tired… So yes, he was giving her that fuck off look as she stared at him. He was in no mood for her happy sappy shit. None of it! And no amount of that kicked puppy look was going to change that.

Plus… he still had one of Val’s little… “gifts” with him. A brand new pack as thanks for… showing him a good time…

And he still wasn’t entirely sure it was safe around her. Nor did he want to take that chance. That is heart attack inducing, god dammit.

So he walked off, regarding her one last time with a glare and a middle finger as he made his exit.

The sweet smelling smoke and his voice trailed down the hallway with his pace.

“When the buzz ends…

“By tomorrow…”

And all she could do was just… stare after his retreating form and watch it steadily disappear until the only trace of him left was the fading red trail of smoke...

“What’d I miss…?” came a groggy gruff voice, pulling her out of her thoughts.

Charlie looked over at Husk to see, yup, he’s awake now.

She rubbed her face to relax the muscles before smiling at him.

“Angel just came back home…” she said gently, “Go back to sleep, alright…?”

Husk mumbled something or other before drifting back off to slumber, right on top of the puddle of drool he made in his sleep previously.

With that, she made her way back to her office. She could go to her own bed, but that was about the same direction he went, and she didn’t want to come off like she was following him. It was… clear he wanted his space...

… Why did Angel react to her like that…? Did… did she do something wrong…? She thought that… going to his show would bring his trust in them up, but… He’s shut her out more than ever… It was like she had taken one step forward and then jumped ten steps back. He wasn’t even holding her at arm’s length at this point, he was pushing her away. Far far away from him.

Her thoughts drifted back to Valentino, the reason he wasn’t home immediately…

What happened…? Should she have fought harder to ensure he immediately went home with them…?

Maybe she could ask for advice on how to help? But who could she ask? Her first thought was Vaggie, but she had the feeling that said demoness would go off on him if she mentioned the slight hostility he demonstrated. And that was the last thing he needed on top of… whatever he was going through right now... She doubted Alastor would give all that great advice. Husk was a tad… apathetic to be of much help here… And Nifty… she wasn’t sure about Nifty’s qualifications on that front either.

… She can talk to him in the morning… Not about what’s wrong if he doesn’t want to, but something to make him feel better? Maybe???

---

Charlie woke up on her desk the next morning.

… Or… well… Afternoon. It was already past lunch time.

The blonde stood up and headed out of her office and to the lobby.

… No Angel yet… And Husk has confirmed that he hasn’t come down for a drink yet. So maybe he was still sleeping… or healing… or both…

So she decided to wait on the couch, occasionally seeing Nifty zip by on her duties.

She’d passed the time texting Vaggie, occasionally glancing up to see if he was here yet.

[TEXT]: Hey love. I just woke up. Afternoon. <3

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT]: Hey, sleeping beauty. How did you sleep?

Probably shouldn’t mention that she slept in her office…

[TEXT]: I slept fine, thank you. <3

Apple of my Eye <3 [Text]: Did you see Angel come back to the hotel?

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT]: What time, if you did?

Charlie’s thumbs hovered over the keypad, hesitating.

[TEXT]: About 5am.

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT]: Was he okay? Something about him going back with that sleazeball of a pimp did not sit well with me.

More, longer hesitation.

That’s the thing. She didn’t know. She wasn’t entirely sure. He was in a significantly sour mood, that was for damn sure. And before he knew she was even there, he sounded so… sad… Looked so, too… But she couldn’t wrap her head around what could have possibly happened between leaving with Valentino and coming back to the hotel. And that… scared her…

Little to say, she… didn’t know how to answer that.

She swallowed before typing.

[TEXT]: All I know is that he was a bit cranky… I’m sorry… I’m hoping to catch him in the lobby so I could talk with him about it.

Again, she’d rather not bring up him slightly lashing out at her. No need to make things worse for him. She just hoped Vaggie didn’t figure that out.

Thankfully, she didn’t.

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT]: I guess that’s to be expected…

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT]: Did you notice how he was behaving with that Valentino douche? It was almost creepy how his attitude just shifted like that.

[TEXT]: I noticed that too. It’s kind of scary…

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT] And I thought Alastor had the most punchable face in Hell.

[TEXT]: Vaggie, no! We do not solve our issues with violence! >=0

Apple of my Eye [TEXT]: Hey now, I never -said- I would. I just said that he just has one of those faces that would be fun to punch. [smug side eye emoji]

Charlie laughed lightly despite herself.

[TEXT]: So what did I miss anyways?

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT]: Nothing much. I decided to ask Razzle and Dazzle to take some of your paperwork out of your office so they and I could get to working on them. Figured it would keep us from falling behind.

[TEXT]: Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, Vaggie! I didn’t mean to put that on you! D:>

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT]: Hun, it’s fine. You were up trying to make sure Angel was back home safe, and you needed your sleep. Any one that tries to fault you for that is a dick.

Then, the clacking of big boots against the hardwood floor. Charlie looked up to see Angel heading to the bar.

Alright… There he is…

[TEXT]: G2G, Vaggie! Angel’s here! I’ll get to my paperwork afterwards!

Apple of my Eye <3 [TEXT]: Alright, Charlie. Good luck.

Angel plopped himself on one of the stools, propping his head up on his elbow.

“Hey, Husk…”

The feline raised a brow. Huh. Lacking the usual pep. The smile looked tired, forced. He thought he could see bags under the pornstar’s mismatched eyes. His features in general seemed to… sag… like he was somewhat deflated…

“... What’ll it be, bud…?”

“I’m thinkin’...”

He heard a weight plop down on the stool next to his. It took one glance to see…

Oh boy… Charlie…

This was awkward.

He was starting to wonder if she was a cat or something with how she just kept sneaking up on him like that.

His eyes went back to staring out in front of him.

“... Some wine…”

Dammit, he was hoping to get some of the harder shit!

“What kind?”

Angel waved at that.

“Don’ matta, babe. Ain’t picky right now.”

“Rosè it is.”

Angel chuckled weakly as Husk grabbed a wine glass and poured the wine in.

“It’s ‘cuzza the pink, innit...?”

“Yup,” Husk said simply as he handed it to the pornstar.

“Well thanks…~”

Golden eyes then looked over at the princess, who’d just been sitting there quietly, patiently.

“Didn’t know ya drink, blondie.”

“Oh, no no, I’m not here for a drink. I mean, unless you have any-”

“-Virgin drinks?” the winged cat finished, “What kinda fuckin’ bartender would I be if I didn’t know how to make ‘em. Gimme a sec…”

Silence permeated the air for a second, aside from the clinking of glass of Husk doing his work and Angel occasionally sipping from his glass.

Charlie glanced up at him.

He wasn’t even looking at her. Just staring straight ahead…

It felt like an eternity before Husk handed her her drink.

“Hope ya like er whatever. Figured ya were probably sick of sweet shit from last night, so figured somethin’ more citrusy would be more to yer likin’ right now.”

Angel stiffened slightly but said nothing.

The blonde smiled gently as she took it.

“That’s very thoughtful, Husk. Thank you.”

“Don’t fuckin’ get used to it.” he huffed as he grabbed for his bottle and took to drinking from it.

… More silence, this time without much to fill it other than the occasional sipping of drinks from one of the three. The silence would have been deafening otherwise.

He still wasn’t looking at her.

… Maybe if they were alone…

Husk should know morse, right?

Gently, she knocked on the surface of the bar, looking up to see his ears twitching with each beat.

Perfect.

-H-u-s-k---p-l-e-a-s-e---g-o---t-o---t-h-e---o-t-h-e-r---r-o-o-m-

Husk straightened up, folding his bright scarlet wings on his back before moving out from behind the bar.

“Gotta go grab a snack… be right back…”

Angel’s grip on his wine glass tightened at that.

Wait yor jus’ going to leave me alone with her?!

He couldn’t come up with a natural excuse fast enough to either keep Husk here or follow him before the feline had left towards the kitchen.

Dammit!

… More awkward silence… More Angel refusing to look at her…

The blonde gently drummed her knuckles against the bar’s surface as she tried to think of what to say.

“... Ya in a percussionist mood today or something?” he asked, still not looking at her.

Charlie scratched her cheek awkwardly.

“I guess you can say that… Yooouuuu know me.”

The spider demon snorted slightly.

“Yeah, you live yor life in a fuckin’ musical.”

… A bad habit that seems to have rubbed off on him a bit…

Charlie laughed softly.

There was a moment’s hesitation before she looked up at him.

“... Uhm… You have a beautiful singing voice by the way…”

… Son of a bitch, speak of the devil. Or devil’s daughter- wait didn’t she say her dad wasn’t the- Ah fuck it.

Okay, but to be fair, he was singing during his performance last night too. He’d give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that that’s what she meant.

“... Thanks, toots…”

More silence. Charlie stared down at her hands before deciding to speak again.

“... Soooo…” she started, hoping it sounded casual, “How did you sleep…?”

“Fine,” the spider demon responded.

She smiled gently.

“That’s good. You seemed like you had a rough night, so…”

Angel just sighed.

“I was jus’ fuckin’ tired toots. It was nothin’ personal.”

And apparently that’s all he had to say on that. Fair enough. At least he said that much.

“No, it’s okay, I get that. I’m not upset about that. Honest. Just… worried…”

… Yor worried…?

He finally glanced down at her for the first time since she took the seat beside him.

… He had to know…

“... ‘Nuff ‘bout me, though, sweetheart. I wanna ask you somethin’.”

The princess perked at that.

“Anything.”

He took a sip of his wine as he tried to think of how best to ask his question.

“So how are you feelin’? Ya got any headaches, or feelin’ weaka? Maybe feelin’ any shakiness or anything like that?”

Charlie seemed to grow more and more confused the more he spoke.

“N… No…? I’m fine… Why…?”

First Alastor, now Angel. What was up with asking how she felt?

And just like that, Angel felt the tension melt away from his relief.

Thank god!

He had a love… mostly hate relationship with Val’s shit. On one hand, damn did it feel good. It was a hell of a high. Practically like you were floating. Made getting it up easier and more fun, made you more sensitive… Hell, even the smell and taste grew on you after a while, became delicious. It just gave an overall liberating feeling.

On the other hand, the liberating feeling it gave was a facade, a trap. It was a highly addictive substance. One full hit, and it was over. Your body would want more. More more more more- and it was never enough! And god were the withdrawals awful. Your body would be convinced it would fucking die without it. It was quite possible it would. It made you desperate for more. It made you reliant on the provider. Made you come back to them. Gave you no choice but to stay with them. It was a never ending cycle, a whirlpool you’d have no chance of escaping except to concede and drown.

He would know. He’s tried. He’s tried to quit it. One day and he was desperate to satiate that craving his body demanded. He’s actively trying to figure out how to wane it. No such luck so far. And going clean has not been helping.

And fuck did Val take advantage of it. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? It made business good for him. All he had to do was pay them the bare minimum and a hit from him or drugs laced with it, and that would be enough for them. Sometimes to make a job go by smoother, he’d give it to them to make them nice and ready. He could do anything he wanted to anyone hooked on his shit, and they would never be able to do shit about it…

So little to say, Angel was glad. He was glad Val didn’t manage to pull this one in. He wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Let alone…

“... That’s all I wanted to know…”

Charlie looked up at him, inching a hand to one of his arms before pausing.

… After his reaction last night… probably not a good idea…

She pulled her hand away before finishing off her drink.

“Well, you should probably go get you something to eat. I don’t think you’ve had anything since lunchtime yesterday. There might still be gombo left.”

He looked at her, a brow raised.

“Since when did we have gumbo yestaday?”

“Since we came back after your show. Al’s idea.”

Ah… made sense…

Charlie then stood up from the stool.

“... And.. hey… if you ever need to talk about something… anything at all… I’m here, okay…?”

Oh yikes-

Angel had to keep from rolling his eyes. Instead, he took a sip from his wine.

Wow she just went straight for that, didn’t she?

“A-And I mean anything at all. When you’re ready. I want to be here for you anyway I can… If you’re not ready yet… if we’re not there yet… that’s fine… there’s plenty of time… But I just want you to know… anytime… okay…?”

“... I’ll keep that in mind, sweetheart…” he said, noncommittal.

If it would get her to shut up. Not that he was thinking of ever considering it.

Charlie gave a hopeful smile at that.

“Now go feed yourself! I’ll be in the office area. Uh… Just uh… Just in case you need something… something maybe not as heavy like… Like to borrow a CD or something.”

He huffed out a small laugh at that.

“Alright…”

And with that, she bounded to the office area.

Yes, there was absolutely no commitment to him saying he would keep it in mind. She would have to be blind to not notice that. But the seed was still planted. She won’t expect him to talk about whatever he’s going through today, tomorrow, next week, or even next year. But that’s fine. They had all the time in the world for him to feel ready to open up. And when he was, she’d be right here waiting for him.

Angel sat there and watched her leave before standing up, still holding what remained of his wine in one hand as he made his way to the kitchen.

God this bitch just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Yeah, let’s divulge all the gorey details of his afterlife. That’ll be fun for everyone. The sentiments were nice for sure, but she knew nothing about him. And a large chunk of him was convinced it was better that way. This isn’t a fairytale. This was reality. Ugly, brutal reality-

We want to help you.

… Then again, this wouldn’t be the first time Charlie has tried to give the metaphorical finger to reality. That’s exactly what this hotel was, after all. Not out of the ordinary for her, really.

… Silly...

[sun-spark]

A Circlet for a Prince, a Crown for a King

Summary: Roman has been feeling a pull at the back of his mind, and the Prince is soon to remember that he was once a King.

Warnings: Blades, minor bloodshed, SPOILERS: pride!roman

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15147242

“Onto valiantly, and honestly, achieving our dreams!” Roman struck a dramatic pose with his arms raised. “Me-ahhhhhhh~!”

He sunk out and popped up back into his room, abruptly cutting off the note and dropping his theatrical pose, along with his smile. ‘Honesty.’ He thought, ‘Ha! what a joke.’ All the world may be a stage, but there was hardly a need to continue the play when there was no audience to bear witness, thus, the metaphoric stage did not extend to his room.

He sighed and looked at his surroundings, taking note that his normally bright and energetic room was muted, the colors dim and overtaken by shadows. The excitable energy that normally bounced off of every wall replaced by a steady humming of a darker power that seemed to cling to everything like smog.

Roman scrubbed his hands over his face with a groan and slumped into his desk chair, staring unseeingly at the mirror. Even the little spherical lights surrounding it didn’t seem to shine quite as bright anymore. He shook his head once more in a useless attempt to clear his mind, intent on doing something to distract himself, and sat up from his sprawled position to rifle through the messy piles of parchment on his desk until he found one that had a half formed idea written out on it that might hold his attention.

He took up his golden tipped quill of bright red from the ornate golden inkwell that sat on his desk and poised it over the page, ready to write out new ideas and expand on the old ones…..but nothing came. He didn’t write anything, merely stared blankly at the page half covered in his scrawling cursive, nothing coming to mind for what seemed to be an eternity. It felt as if the surrounding darkness had seeped into his mind, dimming the bright lights of imagination and creativity that normally burned there. He stayed there, unfocused, until something caught his attention.

The ink from the tip of his quill, thick and dark and glossy, spilling from the sharp metal tip and onto the page with a sharp ‘plop’, staining it. He felt a tug at the back of his mind….the kind he had been feeling for nearly a week now….and turned his head to rest his gaze on the wardrobe where he knew the feeling emanated from.

The piece was hewn from chestnut colored oak, ornately carved with scenes of every fanciful kind, and it stood a near head and shoulders above his height. It was beautiful, and he had spent many weeks carving those scenes by hand and polishing the wood. It rarely felt as foreboding as it did now.

The sound of dripping ink snapped his attention back to the present and to his desk, where the parchment he had intended to work on sat, irreparably stained by a large pool of ink that had fallen from his quill and marred his previous work, making it unsalvageable.

He…He didn’t understand why this was happening now…without any clear reason. Though he supposed that was the way of things…the darker shadows only coming out to play when the light had no need of them. With a tired sigh, he dropped the quill onto the parchment where it landed with a hollow ‘thwump’. He stared unseeingly ahead of him at nothing in particular as a heavy weight settled on his shoulders and in his limbs. He stood after a moment and moved to stand in front of the wardrobe, staring at it with dull and tired eyes.

His shoulders slumped as he let out a defeated breath too small to be a sigh, reaching out with both hands to grasp the intricately carved and curving brass handles, pulling open both doors with a creaking noise that did not normally accompany the action.

With the wardrobe open his gaze bypassed the hanging shirts of pristine white, the flowing sashes of apple red, and the soft cloak of deep maroon, landing instead on the shelf above them. Set in its center was an oval cushion of crimson red, on which was resting circlet befitting his rank as a ‘prince’. He picked it up and held it gingerly in his hands, running a thumb over its surface, looking at it with a frown. He had only worn it a few times, never daring to wear it more than that for fear that the others would notice.

Not fear that they would notice that the “prince” was wearing it, no, but rather that they would notice how it was made of polished brass coated in metallic paint to look like gold rather than being made of gold itself, that they may notice how the circular gems set equidistant around its circumference didn’t shine like rubies, but were muted like the paste they were, that they would notice how flimsy and light it was…like the piece of a cheap costume that it was.

He furrowed his brow and frowned down at it before placing it back on the cushion, settling it in the indent that made it appear heavier than it actually was. His gaze turned then to the rectangular section of wood that sat to the right of the shelf, reaching from the top of the wardrobe down to the shelf’s level and spanning half the width of the wardrobe. It appeared to be solid, carved with the façade of a castle set on rolling hills, a cartoon style crown hovering in the sky above it. Several small, golden hooks were dotted around the carving and ran the length of the bottom, each holding a piece of jewelry. To any who looked at it, that’s all it would appear to be: A section for hanging jewelry, extravagantly carved by the fanciful ‘creativity’. But looks could be deceiving, as well Roman knew.

He sighed as he reached into the depths of the wardrobe, running the pads of his fingers along the underside of the section, back to the farthest corner where the back and side of the wardrobe met. There he felt around for a moment before finding the raised knot of wood residing there and pressed on it, withdrawing his hand as he watched the front panel of the hollow section slowly fall open.

He stared at the compartment’s contents, and part of him longed to slam the front shut, seal the compartment up, and return to ignoring its very existence again. But that dark feeling tugged at the back of his mind again, a feeling of dark fog coating his mind and driving all the will to fight that call out of him. He stared into the compartment where the object inside seemed to suck all of the light from the room. He gave in and picked it up from where it sat on a bare shelf, well, bare save the black substance that seemed to ooze from the thing itself, yet never really touch it.

He drew it out and stepped back from the wardrobe, holding it between his hands as he moved in front of the ornate full-length gold mirror in the corner of his room, not looking up at his reflection in favor of staring at the heavy object in his hands.

Between his fingers rested a crown. It was not made of brass and painted with gold like the circlet, nor were its gems formed of paste, it was neither light nor flimsy but rather rested heavily in his hold. It was formed of solid steel, the band rising to form nine tines around its circumference, each wide at their base and remaining so until they formed a point: One stood taller than the rest, at the center of the headpiece, jutting tall like the spire of a dark church, the other eight falling short of its height by nearly an inch. The crown gleamed even in the darkness, despite its color, black as midnight pitch, with the exception of the edges of each tine which shone silver. At the base of each blade like point was a gem, and they were very, very real, and deep red the likes of blood. Each was circular in shape except the largest one that sat at the fore, under the largest spine, tear-shaped like a drop of blood.

Roman looked up at himself in the mirror, noting how tired he looked, how dull his eyes had become, and how his limbs sagged under an invisible weight. His eyes flicked to his wrists when a shadow caught his eye, and he watched as the inky substance the crown seemed to secrete moved as if alive, running up his wrists to his tunic sleeves and seeping into the fabric, turning it black.

He watched for a time, impassive and without the energy to attempt stopping it, until it reached his shoulders. As it began to creep onto his chest he returned his focus to the crown with an air of boredom, too tired for any instinct of self-preservation – for himself or for Thomas – to seem like more than a buzzing gnat at the back of his consciousness. He balanced the headpiece in his left hand, raising the right to run his thumb and forefinger along the silver edges of the center spine, from base to tip.

Of course, he knew they gleamed silver because the steel had been sharpened like the edges of a sword blade, and that’s all the nine spines were, after all: Blades.

He smiled as he watched his blood run crimson down both the spire and his fingers, a dark energy settling into his mind and body, wrapping around him like a cloak and seeping into him like the presence of a lover. Like it was returning home.

He stood straight, energy restored, as he returned his gaze to the mirror and met his own eyes, now tinged red in their depths. He watched the blackness spread and seep into the remainder of his clothes, and into his skin beneath them, staining the fabric but leaving his skin unmarred in favor of settling deeper. He smiled as he raised the crown to his head, uncaring of the blood running down the center spire’s length.

‘After all’, he thought, ‘What is Pride, but a double-edged sword?’

Fin~

Tags: If you want to be added to my tags or have an art or writing request, just drop an ask in my inbox! <3 (which now works, whoops)

@emospacegeekvirgil @modcarbz @illogical-anxieties @chipminkle@redrosella @residentanchor @that-one-newskid @neonwaffleninja@kanejandkruge @a-pastel-pan @itsneverthateasy @curlycutiekinz @birdybabybird

if anyone knows who originally wrote the first Pride!Roman fic pls tell me and I’ll credit them with the idea!

[writingtostaysane]

Prolouge

I finished it and I’m just gonna go ahead and post it. I didn’t do too much editing since I’m a bit tired rn and I currently don’t have a beta.

Word count: 5013

Taglist: @flyingsassysaddles , @ask-the-new-columbian-colonies, and @dustjacketdreamer  

If you want to be added to or removed from the taglist, just message me. Currently, I’m only tagging the people who liked/reblogged the post about the taglist. 

Now here’s the chapter.

---

It was a warm day in May when Elise had asked Annie that fated question. The pair had been walking home from school, chatting on and on about a wide variety of topics, as they often found themselves doing. There was a slight breeze and the branches of nearby trees were swaying back and forth, causing leaves of an assortment of colors to glide through the air gently. As they walked, they would occasionally stop and stare at the view, the idyllic scene providing a sort of calm happiness to the girls.

Halfway through their route was a park that they often stopped at. Today they sat on a yellow bench underneath a willow tree in the middle of the park and talked about whatever was on their mind. Annie hadn’t been assigned any homework that day and neither had Elise, so they had time to spare. Underneath the willow tree was a spot favorited by the girls, and today was no different, the hanging branches giving them a sort of privacy to just enjoy the day.

The conversation had gotten on the topic of love for whatever reason, and it seemed that Elise had a lot to say. Always having been a passionate person, she could go on and on about something that meant something to her and somehow never boring her audience. It’s one of the traits that made her so popular at school. It was also one of the many reasons Annie adored her, but she wouldn’t say that out loud.

“I’ve never known why people believe in love at first sight. If you love someone, it’s not for their looks alone, right? It’s for all their strengths, all their flaws, all the things that add up to them as a person. Their smile, their laugh, that one quirk no one else has. Personality, brains, interests, looks too. There are so many things to love about someone. And being in love is loving all of those at the same time,��� Elise had been saying.

She paused in her thoughts and turned to face Annie. The girls had been sitting side by side, and now the sudden movement brought them to sit face to face. This way Elise could get Annie’s attention better as she talked or at least that seemed to be the motivation. Either way, the sudden proximity made Annie very aware of how cute Elise looked in the afternoon light. The girl in question sighed and continued.

“Or maybe it’s not. I don’t really know, I’ve never had a relationship before. I’m still looking for The One, as people put it,” she winked, “But I’ve heard all about love from friends and family, and honestly, it sounds amazing. And it’s different for each person! Some people get this wistful expression on their face when they’re speaking about their love. Others speak of love as if it has wronged them in some way. These people are usually people who have been through a misfortune in love. But those who have suffered in love can also be sullen when it’s mentioned. It’s a bit heartbreaking to watch.”

The conversation had taken a sort of depressing turn, so Annie tried to think of something to change the topic slightly.

“Have you ever been in love?” Annie blurted out, only realizing what she had said a second later.

Elise stared at her in shock.

“I mean, I know you said you had never been in a relationship, but outside of that have you ever, well, how would you phrase it? Oh, I know.” Annie looked right at Elise and said, “Have you ever had a crush?”

At this, Elise’s shocked demeanor relaxed and a smile played at the edges of her lips.

“Well, I guess you could say that. There is definitely someone I favor right now. And in the past, I have had a few people I crushed on. But currently, it's more like someone I hold very dear to me even if they do not feel the same way. It's more like love than a schoolgirl's crush.  Then again, the feeling is more like I feel like I'm supposed to stay with them forever, even if I might not love them fully right now. Like a soulmate, I guess? It might seem silly, but I do believe in soulmates. It's nice to believe that there's someone out there that you're destined to love with all your heart and soul. What do you think?"

While she said this, Elise slowly moved to take Annie's hands in her own, in a gesture that Annie could not understand. But as Elise looked into Annie's eyes, she asked that fated question.

"Do you believe in soulmates?"

---

Annie didn't know how to answer that. She had never given it much thought, dismissing it as wishful thinking. But if someone who she held so dearly was so passionate about the topic, that might give her incentive to think about it more.

So that's exactly what she did. After their conversation the girls went their separate ways, Elise heading to her house and Annie to hers. While walking, Annie went over everything she had ever heard about soulmates. The different kinds of soulmates, soulmate marks, people not seeing color before meeting their soulmate, everything. Most of it she dismissed as local legends, but some of it was still based in truth. There were cases of people claiming to have monochrome vision before meeting their 'soulmate' as they always referred to them. But nobody could determine if their word was real. Shaking her head she decided to continue to mull it over at a later point in time. She still couldn't decide if she believed in soulmates.

At this point, she had reached her house. It stood tall before her, sturdy and worn with love. Her family had been living there for generations, and she hoped to live there when she grew up.  Annie walked through the front door into the small kitchen where her brother Davis was doing his homework and her dad was cooking dinner. It was peaceful. No drama, nothing confusing, just home.  She dropped her blue cloth backpack at the door and grabbed her phone from its place charging on the counter. Her plan was to research more on soulmates to see if something could help her make up her mind. Turning to walk upstairs to her room, it hit her. She could just ask her parents. They were one of the best matches she had seen in her life, they fit perfect together. Almost as if they were soulmates. Looking over at her dad, she decided to ask him later since he was busy with preparing food and her mom was still at work. For now, she would have to settle for her original plan of surfing the Internet for information.

Once in her room, she closed the door and got her laptop from where it was sitting on her desk. Settling down onto her bed, she grabbed a blanket and threw it over herself and then got to work. There were several resources that she could check.

First, she started by searching 'What is a soulmate?' on Google. The first result was the dictionary definition: 'soul mate; noun;  a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.'  That was a start. So that was how she found herself spending the next hour researching soulmates until she was called down to dinner by her dad.

When she walked down the stairs, she saw that her mom and brother were already at the table. Greeting her mother, she took her spot next to Davis. Her dad served the meal and they started to eat. Halfway through the meal, Annie decided to ask the question she had wanted to ask when she first got home.

"Mom, Dad, I have a question," she asked.

Her parents both turned toward her, giving Annie their attention.

"Have you ever considered yourselves soulmates?" she asked tentatively.

They looked at her for a second, before looking at each and smiling.

"You could say that. I may admit that I thought that when I was younger when we had just started dating. It was so magical. We fit so well, it seemed to be almost too good to be true. Every time I saw your dad my heart fluttered and I felt a sort of admiration. Even before we were together, when we were just friends, it always felt right to be with him. Like it was destined. The feeling hasn't died over the years. If anything it's gotten stronger. It's nice to think we're soulmates. For all we know, they could exist. Even if science doesn't have any proof of them, sometimes it's a good idea to have some faith in the magic and the mystical. You never know. Fate could have stuck you with a person as wonderful as your dad," her mom answered, going off on a little tangent.

Her dad gave a little 'aww, babe!' quietly and leaned over to peck Annie's mom on the cheek. This caused her brother to pretend to gag at the obvious PDA. The whole family had a laugh at this and dinner continued in a pleasant manner.

Annie had a slightly alarming thought rush to her mind when she heard her mom's answer. The feeling her mom had described when she was younger and in love with her dad was familiar. The admiration. The rightness. The fluttering in the heart. It was all so familiar. Then she realized why.

It was what she felt every time she was around Elise.

Whenever she saw the other girl her heart fluttered, her face heated up slightly and she felt a sort of admiration past the feeling friends have for each other.  As her mom put it, it felt so right to be around Elise. Even if she just realized it now, Annie was hopelessly in love with her friend. But that realization made her ask herself,

Are we soulmates?

---

A few months after that fateful day, the girls were once again walking home from school. This time it was fall and the color scheme of the trees lining their normal route had shifted the pink to red. It was the beginning of a new school year and for the 15-year-old girls, it was the start of a brand new school. They had just finished their first week of high school. The cool fall air provided a cool breeze and they were having fun talking about whatever came to their minds. But Annie kept thinking of a certain day that she couldn't get out of her head.

"Hey El, do you remember that day last May if you asked me if I believed in soulmates?" Annie asked, using the nickname she had given her best friend and crush.

"Yeah. Of course I do," came the reply.

"Well, I never got to give you my response. And I finally have my answer."

Elise looked at her, waiting for what she was going to say.

Annie took a deep breath, "I do believe in soulmates. And I think I've found mine."

Elise smiled happily at her answer. It looked like it was the one she wanted.

"Who?" she asked.

Annie took a deep breath.

"You," she replied.

At this Elise stopped. Nobody said anything for a few agonizing seconds. Annie panicked, repeating the same thought over and over in her head,  'I messed up. I messed up. I messed u-'

Her thoughts were broken by a small laugh. It was followed by another one and another one. The cute, bubbly laughs kept coming as a smile grew on Elise's face. Annie was hurt a bit, but also confused. Why was she laughing?

Elise turned to her, a look of adoration on her face.

"Really?" she asked Annie excitedly, "It's really me?"

"Yes," Annie said quietly, shocked at the excitement.

"This is so great! I never thought you would reciprocate what I felt. And to that extent-" Elise's smile grew until she was practically beaming, "Oh, this is wonderful!"

She attacked Annie with a hug and then let her go only to pick the other girl up and spin her around. There were smiles on both of their faces and they were both laughing with joy. Once they had calmed down, Elise took Annie hand in her own.

"So, what do we do now?" Elise asked as they continued to walk, "We both like each other. Should we be girlfriends?"

"I would like that," Annie said, a smile still on her face.

"Then it's official. You're my girlfriend, and I'm yours. I'm so happy!" Elise stated giddily, "Oh! Does this mean I can kiss you now? I've wanted to do forever."

"Yes. That means you can," Annie said with a laugh.

At that, her newly dubbed girlfriend hopped up and down in joy. Although it didn't seem that she was going to act on her wishes right away, as she continued walking. The pair headed down the path leading to the weeping willow that they had visited that fated day. To any passerby, a happier couple could not be seen. Happiness radiated off of them. It was truly a sight to be seen.

While they were walking, Annie spotted her other best friend Cameron. A sweet and caring person, they're known for having lots of friends and always being available if you need someone to talk to, even if they don't know you. Annie had known them even longer than she had known Elise, and that was saying something. Cameron spotted the pair immediately and walked over to them.

"Hey. You two still walking home?" they asked.

"Yeah. We had a small detour," Annie replied.

"I can see that," Cameron gestured to their clasped hands and smirked.

Annie blushed a bit at this and Elise gave a small giggle.

"So, what's the scoop? You two dating or what?" Cameron pried.

"Yup!" Elise replied excitedly.

Cameron's smile widened and they hugged the pair tightly.

"I'm so happy for you two! So who confessed first?"

Annie smiled embarrassedly. That was the only answer Cameron needed,

"You go, girl! Did you use that cheesy plan with you answering the question Elise asked that you told me earlier in the middle of gushing about her-" she teased.

"CAMERON! YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW!" Annie half-shouted with a red face, not one to take teasing that well, even from a well-meaning friend.

Elise giggled and Cameron burst out laughing at the outburst.

"Aw! You were gushing about me, babe? That's so sweet," Elise cooed, still giggling.

Annie didn't know it was possible for her face to get any redder, but it did.

“Can… can we just move on? I’d prefer not to go home looking like a tomato,” she said.

Elise gave a slight giggle.

“Of course.”

And so the three spent the rest of the afternoon together, talking and laughing.

---

Annie was on her way to the library when her phone rang from inside her coat pocket. She took it out and pressed 'Accept', a bit distracted by the fall colors which were still as beautiful as ever. A soft smile on her face, she answered with a 'hello?'

"Hello. Is this Annalise King I'm speaking to?" A friendly voice replied.

A bit surprised at the use of her full name she responded, "Yes. And who is this?"

"Sue. I'm a receptionist at the local hospital. I'm calling to inform you that Elise Meyers was hit by a car last night and is currently residing in our hospital. She's in critical condition with a few traumatizing injuries such as damage to major organs and several broken bones. It doesn't seem like she'll survive past the next week," the receptionist explained solemnly.

Annie couldn't believe what she was hearing. Elise, dying? That couldn't happen. It won't happen! But it would and Annie couldn't handle that. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and a anger swept through her. She wanted to scream and kick and cry her eyes out all at the same time. But doing any of those things in the middle of the street would be extremely embarrassing and her having a fit of any kind did not seem justified in her eyes. Instead, she sucked it up and continued with the conversation. She just had too many questions. They were all swirling around in her head. But only one would come out.

"Can I see her?" she asked, voice breaking.

"Yes. Of course. I'm so sorry honey. Of course you can see her. She was probably very special to you. A good friend, or perhaps more. I won't pry. You will have all the time you need with her. I promise," the lady over the phone reassured.

The comforting words helped calm down the seemingly endless tears with the promise of being able to see Elise, but there was still that silent thought Annie didn't say aloud. All the time you have to offer me with Elise will never be enough to say goodbye.

Once the call ended, she abandoned all her plans to go to the library and slowly trudged home, wallowing in her own misery. For now, she was sluggish and slow from the sudden rush of emotions that had exhausted her, but she would soon find herself in a frenzied panic over the thought of saying goodbye to Elise. She sat down at a bench in a park, under that towering willow tree where this entire emotional rollercoaster had started. And now it felt like she was just on an extremely long downhill ride. Annie was numb and felt like her emotions had escaped her in favor of this emptiness.

Suddenly she felt an overwhelming sadness wash over her and all she could do was sit there, head in her hands and cry. And cry she did. A soft sniffling was all that could be heard from her as tear after salty tear rolled down her face and fell to the ground. She was shaking and her crying got louder, bit by bit, until sobs were racking her body and she couldn’t stop the streams of tears rushing down her face. Annie brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly, burying her face in them to muffle her cries of despair.

She stayed like that for a while. A few people passing by gave her strange looks, but no one bothered her. The sun rose higher in the sky and eventually, she stopped crying. She untangled her legs from the position she had been in for a few hours and stood up. Looking at her watch, she could tell she had been here for way too long. She probably looked like shit and she wasn’t exactly ready to go home yet. Annie didn’t feel empty anymore, but she still felt numb. She knew more emotions were to come, but for now, there were none there. Exhausted and hungry, she decided to get some coffee and maybe a pastry. When she got to the cash register and was about to order, the cashier spoke.

“Sis?” the cashier said in a soft voice.

Annie was confused for a second until she focused on the cashier. It was her brother. She had forgotten he worked here. Shit. Her eyes were still red. He was going to think she had been bawling her eyes out (which she had), but she didn’t want him worrying about her. She lowered her eyes a little and responded.

“Hey, Davis.”

“Are you okay? You look terrible,” he asked, concern in his voice.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now. I just want to order some coffee.”

“Of course! Sorry, I’m just worried. How about you order and I take a break to talk to you while I’m not on duty?”

Annie thought it over. She did want someone to talk to, but she didn’t want to distract Davis from his job. But if he was taking a break, it wouldn’t harm his job if he talked to her for a bit.

“Ok. I guess that can work. Now can I get my usual and a buttered croissant?”

Her brother gave her a smile and ringed up her order. Once she had paid and gotten her food, she went to sit down at a table in the corner where she wouldn’t be bothered. After a bit Davis walked over to her table and sat down.

A small silence ensued.

“So, what’s wrong?” he asked cautiously

“Everything,”  she responded dryly.

He sighed and shook his head, “Annie, that’s not what I meant and you know it. I’ll give it to you straight. Your eyes are red, you look like you’ve been crying all day. What’s. Wrong.”

Avoiding eye contact with her brother she started, “Well I was walking to the library and I got a call informing me that-” she started tearing up again, “that Elise was hit by a car. That she was in the hospital, and she isn’t going to survive,” she broke down crying quietly, not able to speak about the subject anymore.

Davis’s eyes widened in shock. He went over to his sister’s side of the table and hugged her tightly.

“I’m so sorry Ann. I wish there was something I could say or do to make you feel better.”

She looked up at him and smiled sadly. Burying her face in his shirt, she cried until she calmed down. Thankfully, their location in the corner didn’t draw too much attention.

Davis sat down at his seat again once Annie was ready to talk again. He seemed to be thinking about something, until he finally spoke.

“Sis, I know all you want to do is continue crying all day, but that’s not going to help you deal with this. So here’s an idea. How about you go visit Elise in the hospital?” her eyes lit up at this, “You could be with her in her final moments and you would get a chance to say goodbye. You were probably already going to do this, but why not do it now? I’ll tell Mom where you are, don’t worry.”

She responded with a nod and a small ‘good idea’ before grabbing her bag to head out the door. She was about to leave when she turned around and hugged Davis tightly one more time.

“Thank you,” she said to him quietly.

And like that, she was out the door and on her way.

---

Her mind had been absent while she asked to borrow her mother’s car, getting permission with the promise to bring it back unscathed. On the road, she directed all her energy in not crashing on the way to the hospital. Racing through the city as fast as driving laws would allow her, she was getting more and more anxious to see Elise. What if she’s in a coma? What is she doesn’t remember me? What would I do?  She quickly stopped that train of thought, it was too ridiculous, but continued to worry about other possibilities. She just couldn’t help herself.

When she got to the hospital, she parked the car and all but sprinted through the parking lot and up the stair to the front door. Forcing herself to breathe normally, she waited a moment before walking in, not wanting to look too desperate to see Elise as she would if she was panting and out of breath from running. The receptionist at the front desk smiled at her politely and asked what she was here for.

“I’m here to see my friend Elise Meyers.”

The receptionist smiled sadly at her, as if pitying her in some way.

“Of course sweetie. She’s right down the hall in Room 13. Just a thing you should know before you go in. We haven’t told her that she’s not going to survive past next week, to make her final days somewhat enjoyable. I didn’t get the doctors full intentions with not telling her she’s going to die, but I assume it’s to spare feelings. Telling someone they’re dying is always a tough conversation. The parents know, of course, and so do you. I wish you luck, hun,” the lady informed her softly.

Annie nodded solemnly and walked down the bleak hallway to Elise’s room. There wasn’t too much decoration, just a picture or two. The atmosphere of the hospital didn’t help her mood much, but there was nothing she could do to prepare herself for what lay ahead of her. Seeing Elise.

Once she got to the door, she took a deep breath before opening it. Inside Elise was lying on a hospital bed surrounded by several machines, talking to her parents.  They all looked up at her when she entered. There was a bit of a silence before one of them spoke.

“Annie? Is that you?” Elise asked in a small voice.

“Yeah. It is. How do you feel?” Annie said with a smile that felt a little forced.

“A lot of things hurt and I’m really hurt, but it could be worse,” she replied

“That’s good. Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Meyers,” Annie said turning to Elise’s parents who both gave her a small nod.

They both looked tired, like they hadn’t slept all night, and like they might have been crying.

“Hello, Annie. Would you like to sit down? You can take my seat. We were just leaving, we need to go home and get a little sleep. I don’t want to leave Elise, but she insists that we take care of ourselves,” Mrs. Meyers said as she got up.

Annie watched as they left, before turning to Elise. She didn’t say anything, just dragged one of the chairs over next to her bedside and sat down in it. She took one of the other girl’s hands in her own.

“You worried me. You worried me sick, going and getting yourself hurt. And hurt so badly!” she says quietly while squeezing her girlfriend's hand a bit too tightly.

Elise gave a small laugh, “I didn’t mean to worry you, babe. Would I do something like this on purpose?”

“No. But, I-” she was tearing up shit, “I don’t want you leaving me…”

She didn’t want to say anything about Elise dying, but she couldn’t help it. It hurt so much. She didn’t want to lose her, but it was happening whether she wanted it or not. And Elise didn’t even know about it. She would die clueless. Clueless but happy. And Annie intended to keep it that way. She knows her heart wouldn’t be able to take it if her girlfriend was anything but happy in her last days.

Said girlfriend looked confused at her statement, “Leaving you? Who said anything about leaving you? I’m gonna stay right here, silly. Don’t you worry!”

Annie gave her a small smile and brought the other’s hand up to her mouth and gave it a little kiss. This prompted Elise to blush lightly and give a little laugh at the display of affection and teased her a little before giving her a little kiss on the cheek. The two girls continued to flirt and tease and just bask in the company of each other, one of them trying to ignore heavier topics on her mind in favor of spending time with her girlfriend. Occasionally a nurse came in to check on Elise, but they were mostly alone.

It wasn’t until several hours later, when it was almost evening, that their chatter died down. Annie’s eyes were starting to droop and she was having a harder time focusing on things. It had been an emotionally exhausting day for her and she felt ready to drop. But she wasn’t ready to leave Elise. So she stayed next to her bedside, holding her hand silently, listening to the ticking of the clock on the wall. Eventually, she fell asleep without realizing it. When she woke up, she was still holding her girlfriend’s hand and was still in the chair she had been sitting on. Although it seemed someone had draped a light blanket over her. Must have been one of the nurses taking pity on her. Looking over at the girl next to her, she noticed she was already awake, watching her with a smile on her face.

“Mornin’ Sleeping Beauty.” Elise said to her, “Did you sleep well?”

Annie rubbed her eyes and sighed, “No. I had a nightmare.”

“A nightmare? About what?” she asked worriedly.

“You,” she replied, not meeting her eyes, “You were in the hospital, just like now, and I was here with you. And then you died.”

Elise stared at her in silence. So she continued.

“You died and I couldn't take it. In the dream, I broke down crying and I was screaming about something I can’t remember. I just couldn’t bear losing you. That woke me up and I couldn’t fall asleep for another few hours. Finally, I got some dreamless sleep and then woke up. When I first woke up, I thought the dream had been real and that you were really dead...”

More silence followed until Elise lifted her hand to cup Annie’s cheek to comfort her. She spoke softly, “I’m not gonna die. I’m going to get better-”

Annie couldn’t take this, she started crying. It wasn’t true. She knew it wasn’t true. But Elise was saying it like it was the truth because it was her’s truth. She forces a smile on her face, “I love you, Elise. I want you to get better.”

“I’m really gonna get better for you. The nurses said so,” her girlfriend responded, taking hold of her hand and squeezing it.

“I believe you. I wanna hear it one more time.” Annie smiles fakely and brightly, crying so much.

“I’m gonna get better for you.” Elise smiles as the beeps of the heart monitor slow and the hand that Annie didn’t hold went limp.

[fearofyoongi-blog]

Oblivious To My Dreams

[ Infinity’s Answers pt. 1 ]

tags: college au, youtuber taehyung, dancer jimin, 

dancer jungkook, new york city, yoonmin, eventual taekook

main character: kim taehyung

word count: 2854

read chapter two HERE  author note: sorry this took so long to come out! and i also would like to apologize for the length. it isn’t as long as my other chapters because I decided to make this two parts. i hope you enjoy and are still interested in reading. i think it’s about to get good.

Two weeks after the release of Yoongi's song were absolute hell. Taehyung had so much fun on the project that going about his regular life felt like a nightmare. Gone was a reserved homebody. Out emerged this nightingale lusting for the sun. The college student so close to graduating was learning in a different way. Now he was leaving his apartment more. Now he had a friend other than Jimin. Even the followers of Taehyung’s social media commented on his newfound confidence. His last YouTube video feature new vinyls. All which recommended by Yoongi himself. Tae’s subscribers seemed surprised by his music taste.

As he sat in front of his computer today, the guy found himself grinning ear-to-ear. The video he was hoping to publish on his channel was very special to him. Yoongi allowed Jimin to record Taheyung and their music making process. This was a big deal for Taehyung. Not only will this be his musical debut, but it was igniting a fire inside. A fire he didn’t know lingered and lulled. Jimin offered whatever cinematography skills he had and assisted Taehyung. It followed Yoongi and him in their creative process, which led up to their collaboration’s debut.

Finally Tae was able to to publish the small documentary through his YouTube page. No wonder he was smiling so wide. There was something different about him, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Jimin said it had something to do with discovering this new creative outlet. On the contrary, Yoongi suggested that this process was similar to falling in love. Nonetheless Taehyung bit his lip as he posted the video without hesitation. Proud of the editing, of the work Jimin did for him, of himself. There had already been buzz on social media about the project, so this video felt like icing on the cake. It was a ribbon on a present.

As he leaned back in his chair, he could sense a presence behind him. The smirk on his features faded as he spun around. The one he offered, instead, oozed of a greeting. Jimin returned the smile and folded his arms. “Is it done?” His roommate asked whilst cocking his chin at the computer. “The video, is it posted?” Taehyung didn’t blame the other for being eager. Their anticipation begun last week. They both waited to show the world their project. This would be Jimin’s cameraman debut as well.

Tae offered a nod before rising from the chair. “It’s up. It’s weird, isn’t it? Feeling nervous?” To which Jimin shook his head in disagreement. “You’re right it’s not weird. I mean, this whole thing feels weird. Yoongi releasing the song and now showing this behind-the-scenes-esque documentary. It’s overwhelming.” Not to mention Taehyung had been dealing with finals throughout these two weeks. Both he and Jimin saw less of each other, because of that. When they did meet up, they would meet halfway at Yoongi's studio. Remembering that made him feel guilty for a moment. Yet judging by Jimin’s proud grin, it was easy to assume that the other wasn’t upset.

“Oh, that makes me nervous to say what I came here to say,” Jimin hesitated to stay as he pushed his palm up to his face. Tae almost did not realize that his friend was blushing. It caused him to make a confused face before Jimin spoke again. “I have-- We have something you should see.” His roommate finished as he pointed to the living room with his head. “Yoongi is here.”

“Yoongi is here?” Taehyung felt surprised by that. The project was finish, and he didn't have a reason to see Yoongi as much. Jimin and Yoongi continued to date, but invited Tae along. He agreed every now and again, but rarely. He never once felt like a third wheel. The three of them would chat and hang out like best friends. Once or twice, he and his roommate’s boyfriend had lunch or made dinner in the apartment. Well, Taehyung was no chef himself, but he discovered Yoongi’s hidden talent in the kitchen. It made him consider Jimin lucky.

Without hesitation, Tae followed his friend to the living room. His smile shining even brighter as he discovered Yoongi sitting on the couch. A part of him felt dread boiling in the pit of his stomach. The apartment wasn’t tidy, at all. Neither him nor Jimin were neat-freaks in any case. Their jackets tossed over the leather couch as well as socks and sneakers. It was embarrassing to admit that they scattered their clothes on their wooden floor. Trying not to feel humiliated by their common room’s messiness, Taehyung walked over to the couch. He placed his fists against the edge and leaned over it to greet the other guy. “Yoongi, what’re you doing here?”

Jimin and Yoongi locked eyes and smirked at each other. There was a sense of fondness at first, which Taehyung found normal. Yet something else lingered in their gaze. A different kind of fondness. Yoongi spoke up when Jimin nodded at him. It was then that Taehyung’s eyes landed on the laptop in Yoongi’s lap. He recognized it with confidence since he has seen it in the studio on many occasions. “You need to see something,” Yoongi then passed him the laptop. The first thing Taehyung noticed was that his friend was on YouTube. Next, he noticed the boy on the screen.

Taehyung’s heart must have stopped, because his jaw slacked in awe. It was hard to breathe as he tried to speak. “Is that--” He couldn’t bring himself to say Jungkook’s name, but he was squealing it in his head. Jimin giggled at the surprise on his face. “That’s him! From the bar!”

“Just press play, Tae,” Jimin said with a sense of eagerness. “Watch it.”

He hesitated. His index finger hovered over the space bar that would start the video in one click. Jungkook’s face was quite large on the video, which is what captured Taehyung’s attention the most. If Jimin and Yoongi weren’t watching, he would have stroked the screen. In spite of how busy he has been, he never once forgot about Jungkook. He never bothered to follow the boy’s dance group on Instagram. Nor did he research to see if Jungkook had a personal social media account. He never took to the idea of internet stalking. Rather than pine over a lost cause, Taehyung held on to possibilities with regret.

Seeing Jungkook’s precious face seemed to ignite his soul once again. Taehyung took a deep breath and bit his lip before hitting the spacebar on Yoongi’s laptop. The video was on, the camera was rolling, and Jungkook seemed ready to put on a show. Taehyung’s lips pushed forward as he also turned up the volume. It was difficult to hear the song playing until the volume was at its max. As Jungkook began to dance, the song started to sound more and more familiar. Taehyung shot his head up at Jimin, then he looked at Yoongi.

“That’s our song,” Tae said under his breath. “He’s dancing to… to our song?”

Yoongi nodded as he adjusted the beanie on his head.

“He’s dancing to your bridge, and into your chorus,” Jimin said to be specific. “He’s dancing to you.” The guy wanted Taehyung to realize what was happening.

Taehyung’s eyes were wide and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Not only was his song played but the boy from the bar was dancing to it. And boy, could he dance. Jungkook matched the melody perfect. He captured the mood of the song without any doubt. When Tae listened to the final piece, he had been uncertain of how he sounded. If anything, he was sure no one would like it. He figured, this was Yoongi’s audience, they weren’t interested in listening to a singer.

That was not the case, at all. When Yoongi posted the audio link, news of the song spread quite fast. Faster than any one of them could expect. Not only that, Taehyung’s subscriber count increased in a few short days. As well as his followers on Instagram and Twitter. This song was a huge success for Yoongi. So Taehyung understood why this was a big deal. Jungkook was a part of a popular, well known, group and this exposure meant a lot to the music producer.

Even so, Yoongi was sensitive enough to notice how big of a deal this would be for Jungkook to play this song. To be more specific, Taehyung’s part. Yoongi was nice enough to bring his whole laptop over so that Taehyung could watch the video. As opposed to sending a link and making Taehyung deal with this news alone. The sentiment meant a lot of him, actually, but he was too overwhelmed with his feelings to touch on the subject.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you found who you were looking for anyway?” Jimin said, as the video came to an end. Taehyung didn’t realize that it did. So immersed in the boy’s dancing that he forgot to pay attention. “I could’ve helped you find him, like for real.”

Taehyung gulped before glancing over to Jimin. “Because it’s nothing,” He said at first. “Or at least I thought it would be nothing.” Which was the truth.

“Yeah, clearly it’s not nothing. I mean, this is a call out, you know that, right?” Jimin replied.

“Well, we don’t know that,” Yoongi attempted to reason. “It could still be a coincidence. Either way, you should reach out.”

“Me? Why me?” Taehyung seemed alarmed by the suggestion, evening pushing his palm to his chest.

“To thank him.” Yoongi answered.

“To talk to him,” Jimin then added. “Maybe it isn’t a call out, but this feels calculated, doesn’t it? He knows who you are now. I mean, if I were him, and I met you? I would look for you. And when I found you, I would pull this stunt.”

Even if Yoongi hadn’t agreed with Jimin’s accusation at first, the music producer was nodding now. Taehyung felt barricaded by this suggestion though. “And… How am I supposed to find him? This is still linked to their dance group’s channel,” He explained, pointing at the laptop.

Jimin moved closer and pointed as well, daring Taehyung to find another excuse. “They link his personal Twitter and Instagram in the description.” A groan escaped Tae afterward. “Follow him and message him!”

“What am I supposed to say?” Taehyung asked, seeming naive, which caused Jimin to groan.

“Why are you acting like this? You never act like this,” He seemed impatient with Taehyung. “You’re always the first one to approach people you want to befriend! The night I met Yoongi, I even kept you in mind! I thought, what would Tae tell me to do?”  Jimin slapped his hand down to his thigh as scoffed. “You don’t need to be shy about this. He is clearly calling for you.”

“You can thank him for featuring your song on his channel. That video alone garnered sixteen thousand views in four hours. They offered a click-through link to my SoundCloud and my plays have gone up as well.” Yoongi managed to chime in, hoping to reduce some of the passion in Jimin. Taehyung believed they were a well balanced couple. Hearing this offer made him smile. “I would do it myself, but he didn’t use my verse. If he used my verse, I would have thanked him. He didn’t though, he used yours. Which, in my opinion, signifies that he wants to speak to you.”

A pained expression plastered his face. Taehyung was certain Yoongi was saying the exact same suggestion, only nicer. For a few seconds, he stared back at Yoongi. At some point in the few weeks they had hung out, the two began communicating with their eyes. Similar to what Tae did with Jimin. Whenever he wanted Yoongi to crack a smile or accept a cheesy joke, they would stare at each other. It would always end in Tae’s favor.

The staredown ended when Yoongi broke away to look at Jimin. Taehyung’s eyes followed and it did not take him long to realize Jimin was glaring at him. Clearing his throat, Taehyung looked back down at the laptop and sighed through his nose. Jimin was the first one to break the silence. “Don’t overthink this,” He said with less desire to convince Taehyung of what to do. “We gave you this hoping you would be happy to talk to him. If you’re not, then fine, don’t contact him.”

The air between the three became thin and awkward. Taehyung tucked his lips into his mouth while Yoongi stared down at his hands. A few seconds later, Jimin broke away from the social triangle and headed to his room. That jealousy hadn’t gone away for some reason. It started from Yoongi’s offer to feature Taehyung on his song, and manifested as the two became friends. As happy as Tae was to make a new friend, it was obvious that this was starting to bother Jimin.

Taehyung and Yoongi had discussed Jimin’s fits of jealousy before. As well as his failed attempts at keeping them hidden. This time, though, neither said anything. Yoongi waited in silence as Taehyung pulled out his phone. The college student took his time deciding whether to follow Jungkook on Instagram. When he followed his instinct. When he looked back to the other, Yoongi pulled his laptop away and closed it.

He watched the music producer pack his laptop away and get up from the couch. Taehyung thought the other would go to Jimin’s room, but no. Yoongi headed to the door.

“You’re not going to say goodbye?” Taehyung asked aloud, catching Yoongi mid-stride. When the other turned back toward him, he continued. “To Jimin, I mean. You’re going to leave without saying goodbye?” Yoongi remained quiet, leaving the floor open to Tae. “You know, you don’t have to say goodbye, if you don’t want to.”

He could see Yoongi gnawing on his bottom lip from afar. There was short pause before the other spoke up. Tae could tell his friend was becoming shy by this. Kicking the floor with his Vans. Yoongi pushed his tongue past his lips to swipe over them as he thought. When their gazes met again, Tae tilted his head. He waited for Yoongi to answer him. “What am I supposed to do when he gets like that?”

“Reassure him that he doesn’t have to feel this way,” Taehyung answered without hesitation. “Leaving doesn’t help. It only makes it worse, you know.”

Yoongi and Jimin were a well-balanced couple. Sure, in some ways they were complete opposites. Taehyung felt like he had seen many sides of them. He liked to see his best friend happy, there was no doubt in his mind about that. Yet at times he could sense Yoongi’s uneasiness. The closer he became to the music producer, he learned more about his personality. For one, Yoongi was much more quiet than Jimin. So he understood why Yoongi was choosing to leave as opposed to staying. It was much easier to walk away than stay.

“He knows that he isn’t supposed to feel this way. At least give him a reason to keep telling himself not to.” Taehyung added as he heaved a sigh, tilting his head toward Jimin’s door.

“What am I supposed to say?”

The question made Taehyung chuckle. Yoongi’s brows creased as he did. “Maybe he doesn’t need to hear anything. Maybe he has a lot more to say. You know how Jimin is. Let him take the lead and go from there.” He offered the advice as calm as he could, hoping not to scare Yoongi away. “Just be there for him.”

With an agreeing nod, Yoongi realized how wrong he was for wanting to leave. He started to walk again, this time in the direction of Jimin’s bedroom. Taehyung smiled to himself as the music producer passed him. Yoongi placed light pats on his shoulder as he did. “He’s right though, you know. Jimin? He’s right. It’s a call out. Jungkook is calling you out. So answer him.”

Taehyung parted his lips to speak, to disagree again, but Yoongi was too far away now. Not that it bothered him. At least Yoongi was going back to Jimin and not his own apartment. Without realizing he had been clutching his phone to his heart, he peered down and stared at the screen. Jungkook’s account was still open and ready to assist Taehyung and reuniting with the guy from the bar.

[bunnyadvocate]

An Unauthorised History of /r/visualnovels

As communities age, a mythology tends to build up around their origins, with past eras vaguely alluded to as “golden ages.” I’ve seen this happen with reddit’s /r/visualnovels, a place I moderated during its most transformative stage, so I thought I’d offer my insider’s take on its history: what we’d hoped to achieve as moderators, the unintended side-effects of our policies, and why I think /r/visualnovels is stagnating these days. Given my acrimonious departure from the subreddit, you should take this with a grain of salt, but hopefully it’ll be interesting~

The Birth of /r/visualnovels

The very first posts on /r/visualnovels.

/r/visualnovels was founded in late 2009 by /u/Hpdarkman525 (the former account of /u/gambs), who made one post about the upcoming Umineko ep5 fan translation and then promptly forgot about the sub. At this time, the VN fandom consisted primarily of those who had learned Japanese to read VNs, and those who wished they had. Official localisations were almost non-existent, and the fandom hung off the words of the few fan translators. Knowing about VNs felt like knowing a secret, like a secret handshake to be acknowledged as a fellow western otaku.

This didn’t really change until early 2012 with the release of Katawa Shoujo. We now had a Western VN that was free, easy to install (no fiddling with system locale), pretty well written (no cliche cries of “baka” or “onii-chan”), and handled a delicate subject (disability and self-identity) with a sensitivity that really spoke to a lot of gamers. The optional nature of the adult content helped attract horny teenagers while still retaining an air of respectability. KS managed something no other VN had: attention from the mainstream gaming crowd. It drew a huge wave of new fans to the medium, among which were /u/coldacid and /u/Kuiper who became mods on /r/visualnovels and began to promote it.

While the influx of new members gave birth to the community, with newbies becoming veterans, the continued dominance of KS in the VN scene began to wear thin (it wasn’t until 2016 that the number of /r/visualnovels subscribers outnumbered /r/katawashoujo). Especially grating for veterans was the cry of KS as “the best VN ever written” from those who had only ever read that one VN. The constant stream of “what do I read after KS” and rudimentary technical questions on getting Japanese VNs working drowned out the rare news posts or broader discussion threads. The mod team had a hands-off attitude to it, they’d only remove spam or blatant trolling. This only changed in early 2014 when a relatively unknown user, /u/insanityissexy, requested a mod position...

The Rise of Insanity

Insanityy was a member of the old-guard, being drawn to the medium for Japanese VNs and caring little for what she saw as a pale-imitation in Western VNs. With no regard for the old mods, she singlehandedly brought order to a community that had been lawless. She began with a ban on posts for technical support questions and VN recommendation requests. Instead, they should be asked in the new weekly questions thread so as to clear up the front page for news posts and more substantial discussion threads.

While this move was broadly welcomed by most of the subreddit regulars, it caused some disruption as activity on the sub plummeted. With the western VN scene so small, news was rare and the number of daily posts dropped from 2-4 to just 1. While some grumbled, others were enthused in having an active moderator who cared about the sub. /u/kowzz started a discussion thread on what we could do to improve activity on the sub, and from that discussion he started the weekly Sunday discussion posts and I started the weekly “what are you reading” posts. Unlike the questions sticky, the intention wasn’t to curtail activity outside of these weekly posts, but to provide a supplement to the usual discussions and encourage users to comment more.

With such regular discussion posts, users started to bump into each other more often and a sense of community began to build. On a personal level, I also grew to know insanityy better as we exchanged dozens of increasingly lengthy PMs (so much so that each reply wouldn’t fit within the 10k character limit, we had to send our replies in 3 parts), with us quickly becoming close friends.

Later that year, I proposed an overhaul of the user flairs. The subreddit only offered a basic vndb icon. I wanted to expand that to hundreds of options with a larger profile picture offset to the side of a user’s post as a way to personalise each user. With enough options, I hoped it’d be easier to identify users at a glance and it’d add some character to the subreddit. I was admitted to the mod team to oversee the flair changes, but was soon upgraded to full mod status after a few months on insanityy’s urging.

The two of us fed off each other’s passion as we sought to build a more active, mature, and compassionate community. We never paid any heed to the old mods, mod policy was discussed between us on google hangouts and implemented immediately.

To foster a sense of community, we aimed to have a community event once a month: best X contests, census surveys, recommendation charts, fanart contests, halloween/april fool themes being among just some of the activities we organised. We even got Mangagamer to sponsor some contests with free VNs.

We downplayed the seedier parts of the medium, nukige news was banned and discussions on “fapping” were frowned upon. Neither of us were against porn, we’re both fans, but we feared it’d attract a more neckbeard-type audience.

We aggressively went after trolls, but not by banning them. We had automod automatically remove comments from users prone to cause drama, then we’d manually approve non-trollish comments. That way everyone was able to participate in our community, but bad behaviour wasn’t rewarded with lots of attention.

In the following year, insanityy asked the inactive older mods to resign. Kuiper recognised that he was no longer needed and respectfully stepped down. Coldacid said his inactivity was only temporary and he’d be back, but later left reddit for voat as part of an anti-censorship protest. Gambs asked us to drop the subject as he didn’t want to step down, so we carried on ignoring him.

We also added new members to the mod team: /u/FunwithGravity for his knowledge of Japanese, /u/Cornetto_Man because he got along with everyone, and /u/Avebone because he was active at times when the rest of us were asleep. They were added primarily to approve posts mistakenly removed by automod when me and insanityy were afk and had little input on mod policy.

Everything seemed to be going great, we had a growing community that we got along with, trolls were few and far between, and our moderation seemed popular. Then we got a modmail suggesting we try out a new chat program called Discord...

Discord on Discord

When /u/Kowzz and /u/Arcanus44 suggested creating a Discord server, we were initially skeptical. It sounded just like irc, and the /r/visualnovels irc channel had been comatose for years. However Kowz and Arc promised to take care of it for us, Kowz would create the server and Arc would drum up interest. So in Sept 2015, Arc hosted a “meet n’ greet” in voice chat on Discord. While it was by most accounts a success and quite popular, we got some complaints about inappropriate conduct by a couple of users and decided that if this Discord server was going to be linked with /r/visualnovels, we’d need to take an active hand in making sure it maintained our standards.

Kowz was happy to have us onboard, making us admins on Discord. It all seemed smooth, but underneath the surface, the seed of turmoil had been planted in our differing beliefs on who owned the server. Kowz and Arc considered themselves the owners and we were partners, while we considered them to have created the server on our behalf and that it’d run on our principles. Up until then, we’d not had any disagreements on mod policy. Me and insanityy would talk an issue out, if we agreed, we’d propose it to the rest of the mod team and vote on it. We’d picked mods who generally thought the same as us, so votes were normally unanimous. That wasn’t the case with Discord. Kowz and Arc had different ideals on how to run a community, and our usual resolution process of voting felt unfair to them as we outnumbered them 5 to 2.

The problem only got worse with time as insanityy hated arguments so she avoided the staff discussions on Discord and popped in only to vote. Arc and Kowz felt increasingly marginalised by this and that their opinion wasn’t being heard. This led to a standoff where Kowz and Arc demanded their 2 votes should count for as much as the rest of us combined, while we /r/visualnovels mods threatened to create a new server unless we kept one vote each. Discussions got heated until Kowz and Arc eventually backed down. In protest, they chose to stop participating as mods.

While Discord helped bring friends together, it also brought those that disliked each other together. It’s easy to ignore someone on reddit as its tree structure allows for parallel conversations, but the format of Discord makes that harder. This started to become a problem on the server, especially as Discord attracted a different type of user to the subreddit, those who had little patience for the more verbose and patient discussions of the subreddit. We got complaints from the subreddit veterans about some of the newbies but we weren’t sure what to do. Being disliked isn’t a bannable offense, but it was driving away some valued community members.

We didn’t want to create a separate server that split the community, so our misguided solution was the creation of a hidden channel: #sub_regs (a.k.a. the fanclub) that was invite only and accessed via the tableflipper role. The hope was that it’d serve as a backup channel for when #general was annoying and that it’d keep the community veterans on the server. However it ended up encouraging an elitist attitude that divided the community further.

The Fall of /r/visualnovels

With many of the friendly conversations and community atmosphere moving to Discord, the subreddit began to suffer. Inside jokes that were incomprehensible to those not on Discord were frequent, and the community split between those using Discord and those not.

There was also a degree of burnout among the mods. It’s inevitable for all mods, you spend long enough dealing with the worst of the community, the trolls and the spammers, and you begin to develop an us-vs-them mentality. You retreat from the community and draw closer to your fellow mods, looking down upon the normal users. We mods gradually stopped being members of the community and instead became overseers.

Then there was my messy departure from the sub in April 2016. Due to a range of factors: financial difficulties, gender dysphoria, and some toxic “friends,” I became deeply depressed and tried to commit suicide. My fellow subreddit mods (and best friend insanityy) decided the best response was to out me as transgender, block me on social media, and ban me from the subreddit I’d loved so deeply. Insanityy never spoke to me again.

The rest of this is speculation, I was no longer an insider, but from my perspective it looked like this event accelerated the emotional distance insanityy felt from the subreddit as she stopped caring about the community. She tried to carry on as normal at first, running a few contests, maintaining the animated banners I’d once made, but her heart wasn’t in it. She resigned later that year.

With her went the desire to innovate, to improve the community. The remaining mods were followers, not leaders. They could maintain some cosmetic updates and copy the old contests, but they were unable to do anything new. They enlarged the mod team with an additional four members, but it only increased the sense of inertia and made it even harder to get anything done. The subreddit began to feel stale.

The mod team had also become unbalanced, where once me and insanityy spoke up for minority tastes in EVNs and otomes, now the mod team was dominated by Japanese VN fans just as the VN scene was increasingly embracing EVNs. The subreddit felt more elitist than ever just as the medium had never been more diverse.

Unintended Side Effects

While our policies may have made sense at the time, some of the decisions me and insanityy had made began to have a detrimental impact on the subreddit:

We’d brought on Automod to help remove posts when only me and insanityy had to manage everything. We found having a bot leave the removal comment sparked fewer arguments with OP than if one of us did it, and it was more effective at catching spam. But while we strived to reapprove mistakenly removed posts promptly, sometimes OP deleted their post before we could. Psychologically, it also made it dangerously easy to leave some content removed. As we mods burnt out over the years, our standards for what counted as a worthy post kept getting higher with fewer and fewer posts being approved. The end result has been a severe drop in discussion posts on the sub.

When recruiting new moderators, we sought people who thought as we did so mod decisions would be consistent and there wouldn’t be arguments in the mod chat. Modding is stressful enough without the stress coming from within the mod team. However, as you add more mods who agree with you, you can start to have an inflated view of how widespread your opinion is. A circlejerk mentality builds and outside opinion is increasingly easy to dismiss. This can leave users feeling like their opinions don’t matter to the mods and builds resentment.

Insanityy was a kind soul and hated conflict, she avoided disagreements as much as possible. As a friend, this was fine, but as a mod it meant she avoided openly discussing mod policy on the subreddit as inevitably there would be some disagreement. This lack of discussion with the sub made it hard for users to object to the direction the sub took, allowing the mod team to grow out of touch with what the userbase wants.

Hopes for the Future

While I may have been quite critical of the current state of the subreddit, I think the community is a good one and there’s hope for improvement. A smaller, more motivated mod team would help, as well as scaling back some of the restrictions like the question and image-post ban. Let activity on the subreddit explode. Should low-quality content grow to become a problem, perhaps /r/visualnovels should split just as /r/gaming and /r/games have, or perhaps a split between Japanese and English VNs would help?

Not every idea will work out, but what’s important is to be trying new ideas and be responsive to change rather than clinging to an outdated format.

As I said at the start, please remember this isn’t an impartial view on the history of the sub and that this isn’t meant to downplay the hard work of the current mod team. Modding is exhausting, it’s a constant burden with little praise. Even if I consider them poor mods, it doesn’t make them bad people.

I know she won’t ever read this, nor will she care what I think, but I still believe insanityy was an inspirational mod and a wonderful friend. It’s incredibly hard to go it alone like she did when she first took over /r/visualnovels. She stood up for what she thought /r/visualnovels could be and put in so much effort, every day, rain or shine, she never shirked from her responsibilities. I miss her every day.

If anyone wants to know more or say hi, you can contact me here on tumblr, twitter, or Discord (Sunleaf_Willow ／(^ n ^=)＼#1616)

[theloniuswomb-blog]

So I binged watched the Netflix adaption of GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) over the past two days. If you're unfamiliar with GLOW, GLOW was an all women's wrestling show that began in the 80's. It was the first of it's kind with women in the wrestling world tending to be more of a side show rather than headline material. Being a big wrestling nerd I'd always been aware of GLOW but had never really watched it. I was more content with women's wrestling I saw today, and didn't feel the need to watch 80's wrestling that probably wouldn't be much different to the other standard wrestling of the time. I was very wrong. Alongside the new Netflix drama, Netflix also aired a short documentary about the original show. Again, being a wrestling nerd, I couldn't help but want to learn something about this era in wrestling history, so I went for it. I was very surprised with what I saw. They took the campiest bits of the 80's style of wrestling and amped it up by 10. I was very impressed and instantly knew that I'd be watching the original GLOW very soon in the near future. But before that, I'd be watching the Netflix adaption. Mainly because the first season was out, I was hungover and I couldn't be bothered to try and track down the original GLOW series on the internet. There were good and bad things about this series. Mainly good, in fact, I was pretty damned impressed by this Netflix adaption. Many Netflix Original series suffer from what I consider a pandering attitude to more progressive or SJW type values. Which are often good on paper, but I often feel stifle true creative outlet. Especially when they pride that over delivering good, solid content. There are exceptions, like F is for Family, or that they also import many other comedy series that may not be considered PC or SJW friendly onto the platform. Which I admire. Netflix know not to cater to just one audience. This Netflix Series was different. It toed a line between the two areas. In some ways it was very obviously trying to be PC, in others it was not. But we'll get into that as we go along. Before all that I want to comment on a few things briefly. I have to say, the acting in this series was pretty damned good. There were some awkward actors, but luckily they had bit parts that meant they weren't as integral to the story. Writing was pretty solid, and some actors even gave what I would consider stellar performances. Maybe not Oscar worthy, but bloody good for a show like this. I was honestly taken aback. I didn't know what to expect, but one thing I definitely did NOT expect was to like it as much as I did. Anyway, lets actually review this thing. The show centres around Ruth (Alsion Brie), the lead character who later becomes one of the chief villains of GLOW. She's a struggling actor who has a friend in a fairly successful soap actor named Debbie Eagan. Debbie despite being successful, had quit acting to pursue being a mother, so both women were technically out of work actors in the beginning. The series begins with Ruth looking for acting work and being offered an audition for porn. Ruth would not take the part. I found it ironic that almost a minuet later the actor who plays Ruth was in a sex scene in which her breasts were exposed, and essentially doing soft-core porn. I feel that this was intentional and I honestly liked that they kind of blurred the lines between the characters and reality. Now, this sex scene isn't just for tits and giggles. It's actually really important. As the man in question happens to be Debbies husband who she has just had a child with. I thought it was very risky to begin a series by making the main character extremely unlikeable. I honestly found myself hating her for the first few episodes. Which is hard to do because she's genuinely a very funny character as well. The reason I could hate her was because of Debbies performance. Her reaction and her acting were pretty powerful in my opinion. By the end of the first or second episode (sorry, they kind of blend into one for me) Debbie finds out about Ruth's transgression and confronts her in the newly founded GLOW training gym. I was feeling the heat man, Debbie got me going, Of course I knew it was acting, but it was very convincing, and it was only because of Debbie that I continued to watch the show. Oh and Sam (Marc Maron), the director of GLOW, who is also fantastic in this series. (To clarify, Ruth is also fantastic in terms of her acting and humour. She takes you on a journey, where in the end, you're not sure if you hate her any more. Again, I just found that a risky thing to do, and I give the series credit for taking that path). Now I wanna mention cameos. There are a couple of wrestling cameos I wanna pick out that happen through the series. The first being Johnny Mundo/Nitro or whatever he calls himself today. I got pretty excited. He was essentially to be playing Chavo Guerrero Sr 's part as the wrestling coach for GLOW.  And I thought that was a nice touch. However, Johnny's part was written out of the show. I have no idea why this was. But I boiled it down to two reasons. Either 1) Johnny had other commitments, or he was too expensive to keep for the show. Or 2) they wanted to keep it as All-Woman as possible. Now, I don't mind it being as all woman as possible, I mean, this is GLOW we're talking about. But it felt a little unfair to write such a pivotal person out of the whole thing. It'd be like doing an ABBA movie but cutting the blonde. Chavo trained these women and he's one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. I felt a little respect was being lost there. But it didn't phase me too much, the replacement Cherry, felt a little off, but I also conceded that it may have also been a move to keep her character relevant in the series somehow. Which I applaud because Sydelle Noel is a really good actor and I loved her banter with her husband Keith (Bashir Salahuddin).   Time progresses and we get to know some of the characters more. All of which have fairly distinct personalities and are written really well. As they begin training for GLOW they start picking wrestling personas. This is where the show loses any form of PC direction. They make a character called “The Welfare Queen”, “The Mad Bomber Beirut” (A terrorist), “The Old Biddies”, the list goes on. If you wanted to you could find something to be outraged by by any character. Be it their stereotype or sexualization. But I really liked this essence of realism. The girls took it on without too much complaint, understanding they needed to appeal to audiences with simple concepts and humour. Some of course questioned it, but eventually all of them fit into their personas easily. I have to say The Welfare Queen being one of the funniest things ever. She happily fucks the government, wears a Burgerking crown and throws food stamps around like she's making it rain. It was outrageous, I loved it and gave me some of my biggest laughs from the show. (The other irony of this character being that Tamme (Kia Stevens) was actually a very successful woman who has a child in stanford university). Ruth struggles to pick a persona, and as she struggles Debbie is enlisted by Sam to join the GLOW team as the star of the show “Liberty Bell”, an all American, wholesome apple pie eating country girl. It's disgusting and patriotic and I loved that too. Of course this creates friction for both Ruth and Debbie, as Debbie still hadn't forgiven Ruth for sleeping with her husband. And neither had I. To cut a long story short, the girls band together and eventually put on the first real GLOW show to some minor success. Ruth finally gets a persona, which is also successful (and hilarious), and we see the characters grow and progress. Along the way there are ups and downs, perhaps one of the worst being Ruth's abortion scene. And as a brooding man myself, that scene actually made me tear up a little. Now a lot of people will push this series as a feminist series. But I don't see it that way. Of course it stars a bunch of women doing what men would normally be doing. But that had already been done in the 80's with the original GLOW and so I don't feel that this series is all that special when considering that. Also, when I come into contact with shows that are more “feminist” in nature, they tend to err towards a slightly more idealistic, or Mary-Sue type characters that can do no wrong. Or are just never very introspective, or cast men in a kind of bad light. This is not the case here, many different types of women are portrayed here. Successful women, clueless girls, party girls, responsible girls, weirdo girls, nerdy girls, witty girls. Of course some characters are a combination of these things as well. There are also moments where there is clarity that men and women can't always do the exact same thing, and that respect goes both ways for different strengths. I liked this a lot as this side of life is not often portrayed in current media and is something that should be mentioned and celebrated more. I also feel that this series makes wrestling more appealing to women. And I'm all for that. Anything that gets more women into watching wrestling gets my stamp of approval erry damn day. Oh, the other cameos were Brodus Clay and Christopher Daniels. There were others, but I have no clue who those guys were. They probably worked for TNA, and TNA sucks ass these days, so I never watch it. So what's my totally bias and subjective star rating for this series? 4.2 out of 5. The acting was generally good, sometimes amazing. The humour was excellent, particularly picking up in the last few episodes. The plot never felt stale, each episode felt like it's own story but also added to a bigger story. Each character was fleshed out and felt relevant. The camera work was great. The music/score for the series left a little to be desired, with just flashes of music here and there, and sometimes I thought the choice of song was a little off. The 80's aesthetic was pretty on point. Honestly, I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of wrestling and comedy. This is good stuff and I await the second series with pleasure.

[spiritcc]

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Behold the episodes that are often the most known to the Western public, about the story that is often the most known to the world, the story that, tragically for ACD, made Holmes popular once again - the motherfucking Hound of the Baskervilles. 

That story was also the first Holmes story I’ve ever read, thanks my book for putting it literally ahead of everything else including the Study in Scarlet, bitch. And it was the first episode of the Soviet show I’ve ever watched. If I go further, Hound was also the first Frogwares game I’ve ever played, so basically, whatever there was and is, it all started with the Hound of the Baskervilles. 

Let’s dive into this experience that managed to secure a place in my heart, and on my icon.

So, first of all, I own this piece of pirated wonder in no other but bluray quality itself - and boy does it show. These are legit the true colors of the episodes and it looks almost unreal. But nothing will be as unreal as the fucking fact that the Hound is literally the only episode set that they’ve remade into bluray. Fuck the rest of the series for not being the most famous Holmes story, amiright, some episodes in the middle will do. It’s like whatever, not like these guys overseas would want to watch anything else but this particular story, right?

And honestly, even outside of the Soviet context, generally watching any Hound adaptation after reading the book takes a lot away from the very beginning. All of them try to build the suspense and a story we all already know. Every time I watch it I always kind of catch myself on the thought that this movie would be so much effective if I never knew the plot. It’s like with Harry Potter, you don’t watch it for the experience, you only criticise their take at adapting the original text. The fourth HP movie, do you hear me, by the way? Remember the Quidditch World Cup? Yeah, me neither. Fuck you. 

And in the Soviet context, watching this first is not the worst idea out there, but definitely not the best one either. I guess it could be applied to any adaptation, since the main attraction, Holmes, is absent for most of the story. But in the Soviet case, it’s also missing a lot of Holmes/Watson interactions, which is kinda the main feature of this show. Of course there’s the immortal Watson/Henry dudebro tandem, but it’s obviously not something anyone came here for. And if you noticed, this episode set follows the original text pretty closely most of the time, so whatever non-canon warm scenes pass, you don’t exactly notice them in the overall picture. It just feels like something a little more than a standard adaptation, nothing else. Which is probably why it’s still fine to watch it first, but again, not exactly the best idea either. 

So, because this whole Hound business was my first in everything, and because in my times I had way too much fun watching it to take anything adequately, these episodes indeed hold a special place in my heart. The fact that these are the only episodes that follow the same continuous story without any extra cases thrown in also helps - you’re completely engaged in this spectacle that runs about two and a half hours in total.     

So, I’ll try to talk about why I become so high when I watch it, and also yeah, I’ll try to sound like a decent human being that can burp out a non-embarrassing review. 

This is the very first thing we see when the episode starts and

Df. Df the origin. 

That’s it, you’re sold, anything serious they were working for all thrown out the window. “as I had the story from my father woho also had it from his I have set lt down noth all belief”, wow. Indeed, terrific. Moral of the story: don’t get out in the night? Nope. Don’t attempt at creepypasta after smashing your face with all contents of your booze cupboard. I swear it was Hugo who came back home after a dog bit his buttock off and wrote this. 

Anyway, I was talking about how watching this first would not be a good idea, but despite this, the charm of this version hits you from the very start, and I may or may not be talking about this fucking scroll above. What is a definite representation of everything this series stands for is the very first thirty seconds after the credits roll. The cool main theme continues as Holmes eats this very English breakfast, looking all very cool and very Holmes-y, with Watson and Mrs. Hudson behind him. He asks Watson about the cane, the canon exchange about detective ears takes place, everyone is very serious, very canon and everything. But then, Mrs. Hudson, who would normally be a non-existent entity in most adaptations, speaks up: and in one-liner that would make Chuck Norris cry, she matter-of-factly tells Watson that Holmes sees his reflection in the coffee pot. This line belonged to Holmes in the story, but here, Mrs. Hudson has accidentally inherited his deduction talents since way back in the first episode - she figures out Holmes’ prank in literal seconds and is totally not surprised, and neither is Holmes at her comment. In this adaptation, Mrs. Hudson is always an important participant. And when the reveal hits, Holmes bursts into explosive laughter. Such an uncharacteristic thing to do for his canon prototype, but jesus, what a SO SO Livanov!Holmes thing to be. And here it is, in thirty seconds, - everything this show ever was. Human and lively Holmes, his friend Watson that takes no shit, and the ever-important Mrs. Hudson. 

Are we going to talk about Mortimer and how he managed to troll and insult Holmes like thrice without realising, yikes Holmes was on edge the whole time being attacked like this in his own home. The actor looks like a perfect match to me.

His manner of reading is so infinitely satisfying to me, he’s so into this creepypasta and everything what happens there, that’s what everyone means when talking about expressive reading. Mortimer’s emotions + music + scenery made a very atmospheric reenacting of the hound legend. 

I’ve noticed once that those so to say “flashbacks” were nothing more than us following Holmes’ imagination, since they start every time he closed his eyes, and ended on him opening them. These scenes honestly don’t get the credit they deserve, they are so engaging and, as I’ve already said, atmospheric. The music that plays at the beginning is one of my favorite themes from the entire series, and that was basically Hope’s cowboy theme from the first episodes recycled. The action itself was shot beautifully, the darkness, the Medieval feel to it and everything, and not only Hugo was played by, obviously, the same actor who plays Stapleton, but his unfortunate gal is played by the actress who did Baryl. I don’t know what kind of parallels that was supposed to draw, but I like this detail nonetheless. And, finally, Mortimer’s emotional delivery wraps it up nicely. 10/10, would df the origin again. 

One of the little things somebody has noticed is the extent of Watson’s participation in this. Of course there’s the doctor slang him and Mortimer often like to exchange, something that Holmes loses completely, but there’s also the original lines split, just like it happened with Mrs. Hudson. Here, the question about footprints on the snow was asked by Watson - when in the actual story, all of it came from Holmes. Just as important, people, just as important. 

Of course their casual friendship never goes anywhere.

Does the dog case sound legit, Watson?

Watson: *hits blunt*

Watson: Totally.  

So, sir Henry. Yeah, sir Henry. I can’t believe Mikhalkov shares my icon with Livanov, but for this role, I’m willing to accept this. I’ve long forgotten what actual sir Henry was supposed to be like, but obviously it wasn’t this

Of course Mikhalkov’s best roles is Mikhalkov playing Mikhalkov, but when the initial disgust with this portrayal wears off (lol im sorry but you know its true), honestly, does this look on his character make any difference? So what if he’s a Canadian cowboy who’s a complete joke, it made zero impact on the story, and added a lot of flavor to Henry’s character. Really, he’s lovely. Did you notice that he’s literally an in-universe representation of a Holmes fanboy? 

His dream came true, and yall just haters.   

That shoe exchange tho, it wasn’t only weird and awkward for the characters but for the audience on the other side of the screen as well, because literally nobody knew what the fuck was going on and what they were talking about. Nobody in the USSR knew what’s this whole shoes at the door procedure meant and the dialogue never bothered to elaborate, so we had wut on the screen and wut in front of the screen. Desired effect achieved?..

This is where I used to get high because I had a headcanon that the second Holmes heard about the Baskerville fortune, he came to the dark side. Because his laugh was very suspicious, and various goofs throughout the episodes hilariously added to the theory that Holmes framed Stapleton just to grab the money himself.

Take a look at Cartwright and remember the most unfortunate boy in this story, that started off with swimming in trash of 23 hotels and never finding anything as a result.

Let’s also appreciate the fact that Mrs. Hudson’s plank is so low she’s willing to pay anyone who comes to Holmes to answer questions, and let’s also appreciate the fact that this red suit exists.

Now, here the mystery solving finally starts and let me make it clear now: thank god. Thank god that it actually holds on such a level and never slips into the territory that makes the process of adapting this story so dangerous: you don’t miss Holmes. 

In general, if a character is absent and you catch yourself on the thought that you really miss them and the show is just not enjoyable anymore, this is a very big red flag for the creators and a very serious indicator that they’re fucking it up. It means that this particular character was the only thing pulling this show behind, and it’s an extremely bad sign if in their absence, the other cast is not able to continue holding the show on the same level. There are many reasons why this might happen, and one of them is the fact that probably this character was the only one the creators cared about to develop properly. The situation goes up to eleven with this universe, since practically the only people that ever mattered here were Holmes and Watson, and Watson, for most of the time, was often dismissed as a dumb shadow following this detective genius around. Suddenly getting rid of Holmes for the majority of the story and trusting Watson to lead the case with such a set up would be insane.

And that’s why I’m extremely glad to declare that in this series, Holmes’ absence does not affect anything at all, because Watson, altogether with other supporting characters, pull the show off brilliantly, and you never once feel like something is missing and could’ve been much better with the main character around. Even during my very first watch, I’ve never had a thought that I wanted to see Holmes instead, and after all those years, my opinion stays the same. As I’ve said before in my Tiger Hunt post - steal the show, supporting characters, steal it like you’re the only ones that matter and take nothing back. I’ll always be there rooting for you.   

So, Baskerville gang, and a scene that has spawned a meme of a national scale - and you’ll never guess what it was.

Well, of course there’s my own Bad Luck Watson meme, but it’s nothing compared to the meme that defines not only this entire series, but the entire Holmes saga in eyes of all Russian people. 

And it’s the fucking “Oatmeal, sir”. 

You would not BELIEVE how HUGE this is, even to this day the ever porridge loving nation serves oatmeal accompanied by this phrase. It is absolutely ridiculous what kind of fame this sentence has gained, the Barrymore actor is still crying because he’s the one that has to put up with 30+ years of oatmeal jokes, the popularity of this is INSANE. It’s not only oatmeal, but any sentence delivered in his deadpan voice and finished with “sir” is the ultimate British representation in the eyes of Russia and all former USSR. This meme is eternal, and if you ask a Russian what they think England is all about, I give you a 100% guarantee it will be at least once you’d hear “Oatmeal, sir” in reply. 

These guys, by the way, Mikhalkov and Adabashyan were bffs, and Adabashyan was cast in the series by Maslennikov as a way to shut both of them up on the set, make them too busy to discuss his director talents, as both of them are directors on top of many things. They’d ad-libbed a lot of dialogue and even scenes, which, I guess, made it even more memetic than originally intended. 

The faces of two bff assholes on set exactly how they should be. The Barrymore couple are the only Soviet team guys that ended up in the new series: Mr. Barrymore played Watson’s editor, and Mrs. Barrymore played the Queen. 

About weird Mrs. Barrymore, the actress really wanted to cut herself some slack because at the time she was pregnant, and her husband, the cameraman Vexler, survived a heart attack and was in the hospital. If she goes along and starts crying her eyes out, that’s really the end to both her health and her child. So decided on what we saw on the screen instead, Adabashyan, as always, helped with improvisation, and this weird woman was born. Maybe that mentally disturbed Selden thing is something that runs in the family after all, huh.

The Stapletons, Oleg Yankovsky 

Well, I guess due to his natural charisma, this guy smells of danger miles around him, that’s just how Yankovsky is. Not innocent, not expendable, but rather enigmatic and very suspicious. 

His wife, an evident native of Costa Rica

I still can’t believe she snatched Lanovoy for a husband, the man’s too unreal to exist on this sinful earth, never mind to ascend on ordinary mortals. She’s the real winner here, even though it’s not related to the matter in any way. 

I swear their sibling relationship is something I would expect in this fucking christmas coffee commercial, but in hindsight it does make a lot of sense. But just a hint, Jack, do not make your wife into your sister and get offended when dudes hit on her, that generally helps. 

So, let’s about this gift of a script called Watson/Henry dudebro interactions.

Not only it’s such a blatantly hilarious dudebro relationship, with them discussing chicks, Watson making sure Henry dresses properly and doesn’t embarrass his ass while staying like two meters away from him, and I honestly cannot fathom who came up with this fucking idea we see above. These guys catching Barrymore and going after Selden? That sounds alright, but what if everything’s the same, but…HengRIE aNd WaTSON ARe fuCKING smasHED??? GE NI OUS MR SCRIPTWRITER YOU DESERVE ANOTHER GLASS AND YOU’RE JUST IN THE MOOD TO FINISH WRITING THAT BASKERVILLE SCROLL.

I mean jeez, what a scene, these two solving one mystery and going out for a hunt while being drunk out of their asses, if that isn’t amazing storytelling. 

You could practically see alcohol dissolving there, Holmes was facepalming so hard he fell off his rock.    

The last interesting variable in the story, Laura Lyons. 

You know what I find most about her, everyone is only wondering why she’s smoking a pipe. Western reviewers also tend to whine about Holmes occasionally wearing glasses, and even claim that it ruins the entire series (!!), but honestly, what’s exactly so weird about it? Everything around her is East themed, so the designers went for a particular look and gave her a subtext interest of some sort, and this pipe could be one of it. And even if nobody has a habit of smoking a pipe in the East, to me it’s clearly a way to show her independence and a kind of estranged situation from her all-feminine counterparts. Lives alone, seeks freedom, smokes a pipe - kind of this “I’m tired of men and life” mood. Despite this, she’s far from this image, if we remember that she breaks her facade when Holmes spills the beans - she has a right to be upset and scared. 

Here goes Cartwright, a boy dragged away from his home to hobo his way through some depressing murderous village and serve some bitchy detective

Meanwhile we witness sir Henry slowly die inside, lose his initial cowboy attitude and spiral down the slide of fear, alcohol and paranoia. Talk about the real victim

So, Watson goes to hunt this mysterious man, infiltrates his hideout, falls asleep like real detectives do, trashes the entrance with his cigars like he’s asking to get killed, but luckily for him it’s just his troll friend that never trusted him to solve the case on his own and went out of his way to lie to him for the past one and a half episodes

Okay that went too deep, the reveal was very happy and everyone had a great time, no anon hate plz

So, this is the part of the case that really did not please me, oh hey there’s the tin on this picture that was later used as a phosphorus tin found in Stapleton’s shack as if it totally wasn’t Holmes framing him, anyway. This story was basically a room full of people, one of which is definitely a murderer. It did go all the unpredictable ways with some village drama slowly revealing itself in the meanwhile, but the variables stayed fixed. Obviously as a reader following the case closely, you start your own little investigation and make your own assumptions as the story goes. As you think some things are sorted, this fucker comes along and delivers VITAL information, out of nowhere, that ruins all of your own work and kind of even laughs at you for even attempting. I just hated what kind of last minute ass pull it was, to bring this know-it-all character in with information that was NEVER present in any sort or form previously, something you had no chance in guessing, rendering the first part of the investigation useless. Like hey, why bother, before we get this game-changing clue there’s no point in making any assumptions, they’re all wrong anyway. I don’t know I was just very displeased when I read that. Wife, sure. Plot twist, sure. Get out, Holmes.     

They leave his hideout, never informing Cartwright about that. Let’s hope the boy got home. 

By the way, am I the only one thinking that Stapleton and Henry kinda do look alike naturally? Not just the freaky portrait resemblance? That’s neat if that was intended. Anyhow, Yankovsky’s got a painting of himself now, that’s always a plus

 Lyons breaks after seeing Stapleton’s family pic shot by malboro. 

The family values™, unless Holmes ruined a pack in his hunt for Baskerville fortune. 

And now, I’ve just suddenly thought about this weirdly shifting attitude of this show towards its secondary characters. It does sure make no illusions about Lestrade here, it summoned Lestrade instead of whatever canon detective because it’s convenient, but then, when it came to killing the dog, it’s not Holmes who’d actually shot it five times Meursault-style (hey existential genre references), but Lestrade. Holmes misses, but it’s Lestrade who suddenly pulls the rambo and kills the dog like a boss without flinching. And in-universe all the credit goes to him, and Holmes doesn’t protest in any way, and he’s praised, both in-universe again, and basically by the writers who decided to make the change. Did they do it to keep Holmes’ kill count zero, even if it’s some fucking dog? Who knows, but the same show that made a deal out of Lestrade getting praised in the first episode now willingly made him a hero and is very proud of it. Behind the scenes character development, yo.

By the way, spiritcc bitching about the original story again, who liked the reveal that it was an actual big dog? Surely not me. I was expecting something cooler, to be honest, some kind of thing that makes dog footprints, some sort of killing scheme, and when I was reading the sentence when an actual dog ran out, boy was I disappointed. Of course, it’s just a very hungry and abused big dog. What else could it be. A big dog. Big dog of the Baskervilles. I mean yeah. Why would I suddenly expect something overly complicated. 

By the way, the first time I watched it, I was actually tense, simply because I was expecting to get jumpscared, and believe it or not I fucking was, twice, both by sir Henry and his sissy fucking shrieking in the middle of a completely silent scene. First when he saw Selden’s candle, and then when the dog ran after him. I guess the second time was fair, but jesus christ you bitch. 

THEY FUCKING KILLED SNOOPY 

I AM SHOOK.

Finally, everything is over, thanks to disposable sir Henry that turned into an alcoholic and got chewed on by some fucking big dog that eats its own kind, at least Holmes wasn’t hurrying anywhere huh

Gang porridge feeding, the man’s so broken he’d take anything by this point. 

At the end, we finally shift back to Baker Street and a very poor final explanation, that never clarified who sent that warning letter to sir Henry at the beginning, dismissed how Stapleton would’ve fought for his legal rights and just kind of flung over Lyons’ motivation, although I’m not sure if this one was in canon or not. Surprising for a movie with such a long running time that could’ve totally afforded all of this, but oh well I guess. Most of us have read the book anyway. 

Oh man, the Hound of the Baskervilles. Look at this post, it’s probably the biggest thing I’ve ever written here. It is an experience for me, I have a lot to say about some details, the story itself, the crack thoughts that transport me in a world of my own watching this - it’s not my favorite episode out there, but somehow it’s very deep in my heart because of all these moments we’ve shared. 

Maslennikov felt like his work here is done once and for all - three sets, seven episodes, whatever important things he wanted to show, he did. The series is finally over. 

Finally over, he thought, opening the Scandal in Bohemia…

[mediacalling]

Life After the News Feed: Why Facebook is Shifting to Stories (And Why Your Business Should Too)

The News Feed is one of Facebook’s marque innovations.

Rolled out to users in 2006, it became the go-to place for people to connect with their friends,  share updates about their day-to-day life and enjoy content from brands they followed. Not to mention, it also played a pivotal role in Facebook’s march to advertising dominance.

In life and business, though, change is inevitable. And just as popular culture, music, and fashion move on,  Facebook should too.

For nearly a decade, the News Feed was the jewel in Facebook’s crown. However, over the past couple of years, Facebook has been locked into a battle with misinformation, troubled by privacy issues, and found itself trying to counter a decline in original content (photos, videos, status updates) shared by users. It even admitted the News Feed can have a negative impact on mental health.

This wasn’t the way it was meant to be.

Facebook was meant to help people stay connected with those closest to them. But Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that the platform has underdelivered there. In a post on his Facebook Page back in January the Facebook founder noted:

“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

And that should be a big worry for Facebook. When the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology looked into what factors can kill a social network, they found that when the bonds between users weren’t particularly strong, neither was the users’ relationship with that network.

The study also found that as networks grow, they become more cluttered, so we begin to miss out on some of the most relevant content from those closest to us. This is most definitely the case with Facebook — and was a key factor in the company’s decision to shift the News Feed to focus more on updates from people, not brands.

In a blog post about this change Facebook shared:

“Because space in News Feed is limited, showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we’ll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses.”

The rise of Stories

While the News Feed has been experiencing growing pains, a new format has arisen: Stories.

Since Snapchat debuted the Stories format in 2013, it’s gone from strength to strength and is quickly becoming the default format for content consumption and creation. In total, consulting firm Block Party estimates that nearly one billion accounts are using the Stories format daily and Zuckerberg recently shared that people now post more than one billion Stories every day.

At its annual, flagship conference, F8, Chris Cox, Facebook’s Facebook’s chief product officer, also noted that “the Stories format is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends sometime next year.” And Zuckerberg recently added that “it looks like Stories will be a bigger medium than [news] feed has been.”

The shift to stories is coming

From making the status composer default to the camera to encourage Story creation on mobile, to adding Story preview tiles to the top of the feed, Facebook is constantly running tests and experiments to familiarise more of its user base with Stories.

Over on Instagram, 47 percent of users find that Instagram Stories helps them be more authentic in their communication with friends and family, something Facebook would love to encourage on its flagship product too.

In short, it feels safe to say that Facebook is pivoting to Stories. But when your platform is the size of Facebook’s, no change is ever simple.

The roadblocks ahead for Stories

The biggest hurdle for Facebook’s move to Stories is revenue.

Right now, the majority of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from the News Feed. As Zuckerberg recently share in a post on his Facebook Page:

“Another challenge is that we’re earlier in developing our ads products for stories, so we don’t make as much money from them yet as we do from feed ads. We’re following our normal playbook here of building out the best consumer products first and focusing on succeeding there before ramping up ads. I’m optimistic that we’ll get ads in stories to perform as well as feed over time, and that the opportunity will be even bigger because it looks like stories will be a bigger medium than feed has been.”

Though Facebook has rolled out Stories Ads, it will need to reinvent mobile video ads for this to be a success. Pre and post-roll video ads within Stories is fine for now, but if Stories are to become as profitable as the News Feed, Facebook needs to think outside the box and develop a brand new ad product from the ground up, like it did with News Feed ads five-or-so years ago.

The second hurdle is ensuring users buy into Stories.

300 million daily active users across Facebook and Messenger is great — it’s probably even more daily active users than Snapchat has on its own Stories (according to data obtained by The Daily Beast). But Facebook has 2.2 billion monthly users and the vast majority don’t use Stories yet.

Like it or not, Stories will replace the News Feed

When it comes time to shift away from the News Feed, it’s more likely that users will just have to deal with the hand they’re dealt.

When the News Feed launched, Facebook users had no choice about adopting it, and it wasn’t instantly popular — a group called “Students Against Facebook News Feed” was even formed, reaching more than 280,000 members at its peak.

Despite the pushback, Facebook persisted knowing that no matter how loud or vocal people were in reaction to the change, they would still likely continue to use Facebook anyway.

The same Swiss Federal Institute of Technology study I mentioned earlier found that when left with only two available coping strategies: to accept change or to leave, the vast majority will accept change and continue to use Facebook.

And in a 2006 post about the News Feed, then TechCrunch editor, Michael Arrington noted that: “If this feature had been part Facebook since the beginning, their users would be screaming if Facebook tried to remove it.” Eventually, I believe we’ll look back at Facebook Stories in the same way.

Stories might not be welcomed by all. But one thing is for certain: however you feel about it, it’s time to start preparing for life after the News Feed.

4 ways your business can embrace Stories

Stories are an essential part of a modern social media strategy.

Block Party’s research found that nearly four in five (79 percent) of businesses use Stories on Instagram. Instagram also found that more than one in three said that they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Instagram Stories.

As the user numbers continue to grow on Facebook Stories, it won’t be long until a large number of businesses start moving to post there too. But we’re not quite there yet.

Block Party found that only nine of 100 accounts it tracked on Instagram Stories, also posted to Facebook Stories. “All but one of those exclusively syndicated their Instagram Stories to Facebook,” it said. However, some early adopters have already started seeing better results from Facebook Stories than the News Feed.

Here are four ways you can begin to use Stories for your business and ensure you’re riding atop the next big social media wave.

1. Take your audience behind-the-scenes

Stories offer a perfect way to share unfiltered, authentic content with your audience.

Design agency AJ&Smart uses Stories to provide an authentic look at what’s happening at the business day-to-day and tries to show as much of that in real-time as possible.

For example, in its Stories, you might see behind-the-scenes at a client workshop or the team traveling to a client meeting.

The Guardian also found that, on Stories, “less polished” content performs better than heavily produced videos, so you don’t have to worry about the production quality of your content. Instead, just point and shoot with your phone and focus on creating a compelling narrative.

2. Cross-post between Instagram and Facebook

If you’ve linked your Instagram account to your Facebook page, you can cross-post your Stories content at the tap of a button, or even set your account to automatically publish all of your Stories from Instagram to Facebook.

To do this, tap your profile icon in the top-right corner of Instagram, then open your “Account settings” and choose “Story controls”. From here, tap the switch to turn on auto-posting to Facebook:

Cross-posting the same content to Instagram and Facebook might not be the best long-term strategy as your audience on the two platforms might prefer different content. But this is a great way to get started, and learn a little about what your audience enjoys on both platforms.

3. Experiment with Stories ads

Stories ads are a new addition to Facebook’s ad inventory and enable brands to share image-based or short video ads. At Buffer, we started testing Stories ads a few months back and now we’re seeing clicks to our website from Stories for just $0.06!

It’s super simple to get started with Stories ads and we’ve just launched Stories Creator, a simple tool to help you design thumb-stopping images for your Stories ads.

To help you create Facebook and Instagram Stories ads that’ll get you results, here are three tips for creating great Stories ad creatives and the exact steps to creating Facebook and Instagram Stories ads.

4. Share user-generated content to Stories

User-generated content is incredibly powerful on Instagram. In fact, it helped us to grow our Buffer account to over 40,000 followers.

And Stories offers businesses the chance to repost content from their audience at a more frequent pace than in the feed. For example, Kettlebell Kings regularly shares one or two user-generated posts to its feed each day, but by using Stories it can share 10-12 posts from followers.

This content is incredibly engaging for its audience as people who follow Kettlebell Kings love to see workout examples and techniques. It’s also incredibly rewarding for those featured and it encourages more and more customers to share their content on Instagram.

Over to you

What are your thoughts on the future of Stories on Facebook? Has your business started posting Stories? Let us know in the comments below — excited to join the conversation.

Life After the News Feed: Why Facebook is Shifting to Stories (And Why Your Business Should Too) posted first on http://getfblikeblog.blogspot.com

[cryptochurp]

Op Ed: Tulip Myths and Modern Cryptocurrency Skepticism

“Ever heard of tulips?” It’s a question anyone who is publically involved in the cryptocurrency space has been asked multiple times. With the enormous gains in value the industry has seen, many observers come to the same conclusion. It’s a bubble.

The take is not a terrible one and many experienced cryptocurrency traders agree with the sentiment. Bubbles have come to be an expected occurrence in the space. The difference in opinion comes when deciding whether the “pop” will be a minor setback or the final conclusion in an exciting but short-lived ride.

On one side are the supporters of cryptocurrency. Their motivations can be boiled down to two points: desire for profits and a belief that the technology will benefit humanity. They believe that bubbles are a natural phenomenon in price discovery and an inevitable part of the long-term upward trend in value that will occur as cryptocurrencies become more utilized. They also understand that, while bubbles can hurt some traders in the short term, they are a necessary evil in the development of a technology which stands to dramatically increase human financial freedom. Sometimes these motivations can seem at odds, but in general they coexist within the community.

Get rich making the world a better place. It’s an attractive pitch.

On the other side are the skeptics. Doubt in cryptocurrency has made strange bedfellows of a band of commentators as diverse as it is vocal. Nobel prize economists, billionaire bankers, goldbugs and central banks have all weighed in to signal their prediction of the industry’s inevitable demise. And with the spotlight of increasing coin valuations has come even more doubters. In the age of Twitter, it’s almost essential that you have an opinion on the matter and that you let the world know it. For detractors, the tulip meme often comes into play:

OG Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/qQSMJYhLR7

— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) January 6, 2018

For skeptics as much as believers, there is a personal economic motivation. While they may not have cashed in on the extraordinary rise of cryptocurrencies, they think the game is rigged from the start. By keeping their hard earned cash out of the market, they are saving themselves from an “inevitable” crash to zero.

But under this current of self-preservation is an ethical play opposite to that of cryptocurrency supporters. Many detractors believe that this technology is not just ridiculous but actually harmful to society. What drives this outlook? The true history of the tulip bubble can give us an interesting view of the motivations driving their sentiment.

An Early Mania

Tulip Mania is the go-to story whenever someone wants to talk about humanity’s penchant for irrational exuberance in financial markets. It’s the catchy name for the extraordinary rise in value, and subsequent crash, of Dutch tulip bulb valuations over a four month span from November 1636 to February 1637. This phenomenon had devastating effects on the Dutch economy and left many people in financial ruin.

At least that’s how the story is told.

But according to Anne Goldgar, Professor of Early Modern History at King’s College London and author of Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, the popular story is mostly an exaggeration.

The description of her book reads like this:

“We have heard how these bulbs changed hands hundreds of times in a single day, and how some bulbs, sold and resold for thousands of guilders, never even existed. Tulipmania is seen as an example of the gullibility of crowds and the dangers of financial speculation. But it wasn’t like that … not one of these stories is true.”

Goldgar uses extensive research to expose that, while there was a rise and crash of tulip prices, much of what we believe about the period is the product of historical exaggeration from a small number of writers.

What drove this? According to Goldgar, it was a product of societal anxieties triggered by the immense riches of the Dutch Golden Age. As Lorraine Boissoneault writes in Smithsonian Magazine’s recent piece on the book, “All the outlandish stories of economic ruin, of an innocent sailor thrown in prison for eating a tulip bulb, of chimney sweeps wading into the market in hopes of striking it rich — those come from propaganda pamphlets published by Dutch Calvinists worried that the tulip-propelled consumerism boom would lead to societal decay.”

English historian Simon Schama also writes of the period: “The prodigious quality of their [the Dutch] success went to their heads, but it also made them a bit queasy. Even their most uninhibited documents of self-congratulation are haunted by the threat of overvloed (abundance) ... a word heavy with warning as well as euphoria.”

When looked at through the lens of this historic research, the legend of the tulip bubble becomes less about financial mania and more about the way that an economic memory can reflect a society’s collective mindset. The Dutch Golden Age represents a period during the 17th century when “Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world.”

This transformation was termed the “Dutch Miracle” by historian K.W. Swart. But, while it is easy to look back now and realize this era was a huge stepping stone to the modern prosperity the Dutch people enjoy today, at the time the progress was not as apparent. Many of the Dutch found a hard time adjusting to a society where fortunes were being created overnight. Schama compares the mindset to one which was found by de Tocqueville in 19th century America: “that strange melancholy which often haunts the inhabitants of democratic countries in the midst of their abundance, and the disgust at life which sometimes seizes upon them in the midst of calm and easy circumstances.”

While there was undoubtedly a run on Dutch Tulip prices, it seems there was an equal run on seizing the opportunity to find a negative aspect to extraordinary societal progress. Today, we are seeing the same mindset from cryptocurrency skeptics.

Modern Anxieties

Cryptocurrency has arrived at an uncomfortable moment in history. There is a wide debate surrounding whether or not technology is hurting human progress. Many argue that smartphones are making kids depressed and robots are taking our jobs. The thought is that technology which was supposed to make life better is instead causing us to become stupid, antisocial and unhealthy. On top of this, the freedom of speech made possible by the internet is being questioned for the alleged harm it can cause to democracy.

It is in this atmosphere of negativity that critics have found their “tulip moment” in cryptocurrency. It is being latched onto as an lightning rod for these growing worries about a society that is becoming radically shaped by the digital age. Detractors consistently ignore any possible justification for cryptocurrency to be considered useful and instead focus on its most distasteful features:

Haha, I feel sorry for all you losers who missed out on the Bitcoin train. You should've bought in years ago, like me: A perfectly normal man who coincidentally hoarded a virtual currency during a time when it's only use was for sex trafficking and purchasing organs.

— Shane (@Shanehasabeard) December 8, 2017

Many cannot push their analysis past observations of price movements. Warren Buffett partner Charlie Munger has described the cryptocurrency scene as “total insanity” and recently told an audience at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “I think it is perfectly asinine to even pause to think about them. It’s bad people, crazy bubble, bad idea, luring people into the concept of easy wealth without much insight or work.”

Others, echoing popular sentiment questioning unbridled freedom of speech, are worried about a lack of governmental oversight. Back in 2013 author Charlie Stross wrote in Why I Want Bitcoin to Die in a Fire that “Bitcoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money-issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind — to damage states’ ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens’ financial transactions … late-period capitalism may suck, but replacing it with Bitcoin would be like swapping out a hangnail for Fournier's gangrene.”

Economist Paul Krugman cited the article in his piece Bitcoin Is Evil, adding “Stross doesn’t like that agenda, and neither do I.” While Krugman did admit he was open to conversation on the topic, fellow economist, Joseph Stiglitz, has been less forgiving. Recently he told Bloomberg “Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight...So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed … It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.”

The Progress Paradox

Are these arguments baseless? Not at all. Cryptocurrencies do in fact make many unsavory things possible. But, much like supporters believe bubbles are a necessary evil for price growth, they also believe that some illicit activities are a worthwhile trade-off for the ability to have a censorship-resistant, value-transfer system. They believe the win for personal freedom trumps all else.

It looks as if this idea is spreading. Bitcoin alone has grown from roughly 6,000 transactions per day in January of 2011 to 240,000 transactions on January 1, 2018. With 1000+ other cryptocurrencies, each growing their own communities, this desire for this financial independence appears contagious.

To the critics, these statistics do not matter. They will continue to focus on perceived faults. As the myth of the Tulip Bubble illustrates, this is rooted in human psychology. Some people are set on ignoring the progress around them.

De Tocqueville observed: “In America I saw the freest and most enlightened men placed in the happiest circumstances that the world affords; it seemed to me as if a cloud habitually hung upon their brow, and I thought them serious and almost sad, even in their pleasures.” Over the last few centuries, technology has made our lives less nasty, brutish and short. But, for some of us, the natural reaction has been to question whether it was really worth it.

Cryptocurrency now finds itself at the center of this larger debate over the morality of technology in a developing society. If supporters have their way, it holds the power to usher in a new era of human economic freedom. If critics have their way it will be regulated to death.

Let’s hope one side ends up as forgotten as Calvinist pamphlet writers.

This is a guest post by Kenny Spotz. Views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bitcoin Magazine or BTC Media.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2HnIjpp via IFTTT

[ellahmacdermott]

Op Ed: Tulip Myths and Modern Cryptocurrency Skepticism

“Ever heard of tulips?” It’s a question anyone who is publically involved in the cryptocurrency space has been asked multiple times. With the enormous gains in value the industry has seen, many observers come to the same conclusion. It’s a bubble.

The take is not a terrible one and many experienced cryptocurrency traders agree with the sentiment. Bubbles have come to be an expected occurrence in the space. The difference in opinion comes when deciding whether the “pop” will be a minor setback or the final conclusion in an exciting but short-lived ride.

On one side are the supporters of cryptocurrency. Their motivations can be boiled down to two points: desire for profits and a belief that the technology will benefit humanity. They believe that bubbles are a natural phenomenon in price discovery and an inevitable part of the long-term upward trend in value that will occur as cryptocurrencies become more utilized. They also understand that, while bubbles can hurt some traders in the short term, they are a necessary evil in the development of a technology which stands to dramatically increase human financial freedom. Sometimes these motivations can seem at odds, but in general they coexist within the community.

Get rich making the world a better place. It’s an attractive pitch.

On the other side are the skeptics. Doubt in cryptocurrency has made strange bedfellows of a band of commentators as diverse as it is vocal. Nobel prize economists, billionaire bankers, goldbugs and central banks have all weighed in to signal their prediction of the industry’s inevitable demise. And with the spotlight of increasing coin valuations has come even more doubters. In the age of Twitter, it’s almost essential that you have an opinion on the matter and that you let the world know it. For detractors, the tulip meme often comes into play:

OG Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/qQSMJYhLR7

— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) January 6, 2018

For skeptics as much as believers, there is a personal economic motivation. While they may not have cashed in on the extraordinary rise of cryptocurrencies, they think the game is rigged from the start. By keeping their hard earned cash out of the market, they are saving themselves from an “inevitable” crash to zero.

But under this current of self-preservation is an ethical play opposite to that of cryptocurrency supporters. Many detractors believe that this technology is not just ridiculous but actually harmful to society. What drives this outlook? The true history of the tulip bubble can give us an interesting view of the motivations driving their sentiment.

An Early Mania

Tulip Mania is the go-to story whenever someone wants to talk about humanity’s penchant for irrational exuberance in financial markets. It’s the catchy name for the extraordinary rise in value, and subsequent crash, of Dutch tulip bulb valuations over a four month span from November 1636 to February 1637. This phenomenon had devastating effects on the Dutch economy and left many people in financial ruin.

At least that’s how the story is told.

But according to Anne Goldgar, Professor of Early Modern History at King’s College London and author of Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, the popular story is mostly an exaggeration.

The description of her book reads like this:

“We have heard how these bulbs changed hands hundreds of times in a single day, and how some bulbs, sold and resold for thousands of guilders, never even existed. Tulipmania is seen as an example of the gullibility of crowds and the dangers of financial speculation. But it wasn’t like that … not one of these stories is true.”

Goldgar uses extensive research to expose that, while there was a rise and crash of tulip prices, much of what we believe about the period is the product of historical exaggeration from a small number of writers.

What drove this? According to Goldgar, it was a product of societal anxieties triggered by the immense riches of the Dutch Golden Age. As Lorraine Boissoneault writes in Smithsonian Magazine’s recent piece on the book, “All the outlandish stories of economic ruin, of an innocent sailor thrown in prison for eating a tulip bulb, of chimney sweeps wading into the market in hopes of striking it rich — those come from propaganda pamphlets published by Dutch Calvinists worried that the tulip-propelled consumerism boom would lead to societal decay.”

English historian Simon Schama also writes of the period: “The prodigious quality of their [the Dutch] success went to their heads, but it also made them a bit queasy. Even their most uninhibited documents of self-congratulation are haunted by the threat of overvloed (abundance) ... a word heavy with warning as well as euphoria.”

When looked at through the lens of this historic research, the legend of the tulip bubble becomes less about financial mania and more about the way that an economic memory can reflect a society’s collective mindset. The Dutch Golden Age represents a period during the 17th century when “Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world.”

This transformation was termed the “Dutch Miracle” by historian K.W. Swart. But, while it is easy to look back now and realize this era was a huge stepping stone to the modern prosperity the Dutch people enjoy today, at the time the progress was not as apparent. Many of the Dutch found a hard time adjusting to a society where fortunes were being created overnight. Schama compares the mindset to one which was found by de Tocqueville in 19th century America: “that strange melancholy which often haunts the inhabitants of democratic countries in the midst of their abundance, and the disgust at life which sometimes seizes upon them in the midst of calm and easy circumstances.”

While there was undoubtedly a run on Dutch Tulip prices, it seems there was an equal run on seizing the opportunity to find a negative aspect to extraordinary societal progress. Today, we are seeing the same mindset from cryptocurrency skeptics.

Modern Anxieties

Cryptocurrency has arrived at an uncomfortable moment in history. There is a wide debate surrounding whether or not technology is hurting human progress. Many argue that smartphones are making kids depressed and robots are taking our jobs. The thought is that technology which was supposed to make life better is instead causing us to become stupid, antisocial and unhealthy. On top of this, the freedom of speech made possible by the internet is being questioned for the alleged harm it can cause to democracy.

It is in this atmosphere of negativity that critics have found their “tulip moment” in cryptocurrency. It is being latched onto as an lightning rod for these growing worries about a society that is becoming radically shaped by the digital age. Detractors consistently ignore any possible justification for cryptocurrency to be considered useful and instead focus on its most distasteful features:

Haha, I feel sorry for all you losers who missed out on the Bitcoin train. You should've bought in years ago, like me: A perfectly normal man who coincidentally hoarded a virtual currency during a time when it's only use was for sex trafficking and purchasing organs.

— Shane (@Shanehasabeard) December 8, 2017

Many cannot push their analysis past observations of price movements. Warren Buffett partner Charlie Munger has described the cryptocurrency scene as “total insanity” and recently told an audience at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “I think it is perfectly asinine to even pause to think about them. It’s bad people, crazy bubble, bad idea, luring people into the concept of easy wealth without much insight or work.”

Others, echoing popular sentiment questioning unbridled freedom of speech, are worried about a lack of governmental oversight. Back in 2013 author Charlie Stross wrote in Why I Want Bitcoin to Die in a Fire that “Bitcoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money-issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind — to damage states’ ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens’ financial transactions … late-period capitalism may suck, but replacing it with Bitcoin would be like swapping out a hangnail for Fournier's gangrene.”

Economist Paul Krugman cited the article in his piece Bitcoin Is Evil, adding “Stross doesn’t like that agenda, and neither do I.” While Krugman did admit he was open to conversation on the topic, fellow economist, Joseph Stiglitz, has been less forgiving. Recently he told Bloomberg “Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight...So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed … It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.”

The Progress Paradox

Are these arguments baseless? Not at all. Cryptocurrencies do in fact make many unsavory things possible. But, much like supporters believe bubbles are a necessary evil for price growth, they also believe that some illicit activities are a worthwhile trade-off for the ability to have a censorship-resistant, value-transfer system. They believe the win for personal freedom trumps all else.

It looks as if this idea is spreading. Bitcoin alone has grown from roughly 6,000 transactions per day in January of 2011 to 240,000 transactions on January 1, 2018. With 1000+ other cryptocurrencies, each growing their own communities, this desire for this financial independence appears contagious.

To the critics, these statistics do not matter. They will continue to focus on perceived faults. As the myth of the Tulip Bubble illustrates, this is rooted in human psychology. Some people are set on ignoring the progress around them.

De Tocqueville observed: “In America I saw the freest and most enlightened men placed in the happiest circumstances that the world affords; it seemed to me as if a cloud habitually hung upon their brow, and I thought them serious and almost sad, even in their pleasures.” Over the last few centuries, technology has made our lives less nasty, brutish and short. But, for some of us, the natural reaction has been to question whether it was really worth it.

Cryptocurrency now finds itself at the center of this larger debate over the morality of technology in a developing society. If supporters have their way, it holds the power to usher in a new era of human economic freedom. If critics have their way it will be regulated to death.

Let’s hope one side ends up as forgotten as Calvinist pamphlet writers.

This is a guest post by Kenny Spotz. Views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bitcoin Magazine or BTC Media.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

from InvestmentOpportunityInCryptocurrencies via Ella Macdermott on Inoreader https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/op-ed-tulip-myths-and-modern-cryptocurrency-skepticism/