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weak-for-stuffedronpa · 3 years

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Ah, well this is my first fic I'm posting here- I'll admit, I was quite hesitant to get Tumblr, but here I am! And I'll admit, I'm a sucker for college AUs in fanfictions. Anyways... Enjoy part 1 of this platonic Kai.to and Kii.bo stuffing fic called Curious Experimentation!

Kii.bo was curious about a strange topic that he's heard Mi.u talk about a few times. He didn't know how his mind wandered and danced to the topic of mind, which was feeding someone food if he was remembering correctly. But he knew his best friend too well, and knew the...interesting context she usually meant these things.

And the context of why this thought occurred was strange, mainly because he was currently studying for an upcoming test in one of his classes in Asian studies. He had originally wanted to be a popstar, but his singing wasn't the best. So it was a lot more practical to study something like this. Nonetheless, it wasn't something that normally came to mind when studying for an upcoming test in one of his classes.

Kai.to was sitting in his college dorm, pondering on things to do. He didn’t have any plans until he had to train with Shui.chi and Ma.ki after their classes and studying, so who should he hang out with? He already hung out with Shui.chi quite a bit, besides, he was pretty sure the shorter boy was busy with Kae.de at the moment. He pondered on his options for a minute before he settled on Kii.bo.

The two didn’t interact often, so it would be a good chance to get to know each other! So that's what he's decided, that's what he'd do. He quickly got up and threw his jacket on, before striding out of his dorm and up to Kii.bo's. He knocked on the door a few times in a loud way, even though it was rather obnoxious. He then stepped back a few paces and waited for the student to answer the door.

The white haired student got distracted from his thoughts by knocking on the door. Wondering who it could possibly be, he got up to answer it. And would be surprised to see who it was once he answered the door. He then answered the door after he turned the knob and saw Kai.to. "Ah? Momota-san?" He didn't expect him to be here, but it wasn't unwelcome as he was planning on wanting to talk to someone to distract him and give his mind a break from studying.

Kai.to flashed the student a grin, placing his hands on his hips. “Hey, Kii.bo!” He said casually as he wasn’t usually the type to use honorifics unlike the other student. “ I hope you don’t mind me barging like this. I didn’t have anything to do today so I thought we could maybe hang out!”

Kii.bo used honorifics if he was very close to someone, but he gave a friendly smile to the aspiring astronaut. "Ah, I don't mind at all! I wasn't really doing much either besides thinking, so hanging out with you would be more interesting!" It would be a great opportunity for him to interact with Kai.to.

“What were you thinking about?” Kai.to asked, stepping inside of the other student's dorm. He leaned against a wall, looking towards Kii.bo with interest. The student walked over to his door and gently shut it before going back to answer Kai.to's question.

"Uh... I'm not completely sure myself, but Mi.u mentioned that it's a kink of sorts in a few conversations in the past." Kii.bo admitted sheepishly as he'd heard of it, but knew very little about it. Was it the fact that he genuinely didn't understand the kink or was he anxious about how the taller student would react? The answer was both.

Kai.to's eyes widened a bit, though he knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Kii.bo and Mi.u definitely hung out a lot and Mi.u was definitely into some...questionable activities, so it was only natural for Kii.bo to hear about it and be curious. “I’m not super up to date with all these.. kink things, but what was it? Maybe I can help get your brain wrapped around it...” Kai.to stated, though he sounded rather unsure.

"I think it was something like a feeder/feedee concept and weight gain if I remember correctly...?" He answered with a question and hoped he was phrasing it correctly. He knew just as much about kinks as Kai.to did: not that much. “Oh… well I definitely don’t know much about that...'' Kai.to frowned, shifting his gaze to the floor as he tried to think of something that could be helpful.“I mean, if you're really that interested we could try it out.” He mused, looking back to Kii.bo's face. “If that’s what you want, of course.” He felt his cheeks heat up as he hadn't considered actually trying it. Let alone with someone he didn't know very much. "Ah, only if it's okay with you..." Kii.bo didn't want to force the other into it, so he had wanted to make sure.

Kai.to shrugged nonchalantly “Hell, I'm so bored I’m up for anything” He got up from the spot he was leaning on and went to stand next to Kii.bo. “So, you gonna get me some food or not, Kiibs?” He joked, trying to lighten the slightly embarrassed and awkward mood that surrounded them. "Haha very funny" He lightly chuckled as he could sense what Kai.to was trying to do. Which was better than nothing, as he wouldn't have been able to come up with a joking mood himself at the time.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Kai.to asked, putting a hand on Kii.bo's shoulder. “I mean, if you still want to do this and everything.” Kai.to really wanted to make sure Kii.bo was comfortable, not wanting to make the other uncomfortable. Kii.bo nodded with a small smile. But he wanted to lock his door first before starting to walk to Kai.to.

“What kind of food should we get?” Kai.to questioned as Kii.bo caught up to him. He had slowed his pace so that they could keep an equal speed. “Should we get a meal or just snacks?” Once again, he ran his hand through his gelled up purple hair, trying to think up an idea.

He felt the other didn't have to do that, but it was kind nonetheless. "Hmm...snacks for the time being?" The white haired student offered as maybe it would be better to get snacks. “That’s fine with me!” Kai.to grinned, flashing Kii.bo his signature thumbs up pose.“I wonder what kind of snacks are down there today…" He shrugged, at this point he was pretty much thinking out loud, which he did quite often anyways.

The duo had reached the cafeteria after a couple of minutes, and Kai.to grabbed Kii.bo's hand to drag him to the vending machines. They saw a wide variety of snack size packaged chips, cookies, chocolate and so forth. There was also a vending machine with drinks like soda, so they wouldn't have to go too far to get some. He had the feeling that he'd need to buy some drinks, so he started to dig into his pocket for his wallet. Kii.bo had to admit that he was surprised by the amount of variety of food in the machines. As he only bought food from the college's cafeteria.

Kai.to began buying food from the vending machines with the money he had brought with him. He hadn't expected to use it for this, but it was going to be spent on food anyways, picking some of his favorites. Chocolate bars, biscuits, cookies, etc. He got all that he wanted before turning back to Kii.bo. “ Ready to go?” He asked, his head tilting.

"Hm-? Oh yeah, I'm ready to go!" Kii.bo started to think about the possibility of this type of thing being something that some people just find cute and endearing to be unlikely, but it wasn't impossible for that to have innocent intentions behind it. Even though it was usually referred more as a non-romantic or innocent type of kink.

“Then let’s get to it!” Kai.to beamed. He was a little nervous, this wasn’t really something he was into but he wanted Kii.bo to understand. He would be okay, he could do this! As neither of them genuinely understood why people have kinks in the first place, so they weren't sure how this would go. "Okay, let's go!" He was somewhat hesitant himself, but he reassured himself that the experience differed from person to person.

Kai.to flashed Kii.bo a genuine smile, taking his hand and leading him back to the dorms. “I’m sure this will be interesting,” He chuckled, glancing back at the shorter college student. Kii.bo returned a warm smile back to Kai.to. "Yeah, I have the same feeling to say the least" He gently chuckled as he felt this could go a million different ways, but not knowing which direction it would go in. Nonetheless, they would get back to the dorms so that they could try this.

#stuffed ronpa #stuffedronpa #kai.to mo.mota #ki.ibo

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sidemenimaginesss · 4 years

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and they were roommates - simon minter

requested: yes - “Hey can you do number 40 with Simon?☺️”

prompt: 40. “stop saying things that make me want to kiss you”

summary: you barely know your new roommate simon. what happens when the tension between you keeps rising after multiple inconvenient run-ins?

wordcount: 3500

you got linked up with simon through your mutual friend vik after he found out that the both of you were looking for a roommate in london. you couldn’t contain your excitement and immediately agreed to live with this unknown man. he’s a friend of vik’s so he must be nice. you’ll probably get along just fine... right?

you’ve been texting him back and forth about certain aspects of your new home, such as who gets which room, who brings which piece of furniture et cetera, but you haven’t really had the chance to get to know each other. guess that’ll have to wait until the day you actually meet.

it’s the day of moving into your new flat and you and your parents are the first ones to arrive. simon texted you earlier that he still needs to figure some stuff out before he can move in. and so box after box filled with your belongings and pieces of furniture fill the room. you sigh when you’re finally done bringing them all in. you thank your parents and say your goodbyes before you sit down on the floor for a few minutes and take in your surroundings. finally, your own place.

you put on some music and spend the next few hours unpacking. you start with your bedroom, making sure your bed is all set up so you don’t have to sleep on the floor tonight. you continue by setting up different pieces of furniture around the living room, making sure that there’s still enough room for simon’s stuff.

at around 9pm you realise you’ve been working the entire day and still haven’t eaten any food. you decide to quickly order some chinese before continuing the unpacking process.

at around 10pm you’ve finished your takeout meal and you decide it’s time to get some rest. you want to take a shower, but are simply too exhausted to do so. instead, you simply jump into bed and fall asleep soon after.

your alarm goes off at 8am, reminding you that you still have a lot of work to do. before you start though, you decide it’s time to go take a shower first.

grabbing a towel and some shower gel, you walk into the bathroom and get out of your clothes. you put on some music you can sing along to and figure out how the shower works before jumping in.

whilst washing your hair, you receive a notification on your phone, but you decide to ignore it. about 15 minutes later, you turn off the shower and get out.

you grab your towel and dry yourself off before realising you need to grab some clean clothes. you put your hair up in a quick bun, ready to walk to your room, before the bathroom door suddenly opens. “oh my god!” you scream loudly when the man who opened the door looks at your naked body in shock and quickly turns around.

you slam the door shut and start breathing heavily. you grab your phone, thinking of calling the police, when you notice a text message from simon on your homescreen: ‘surprise! almost here. finished up packing everything last night. can’t wait to meet you.’ you quickly wrap your body in a towel and call out “simon?”

when you don’t get a response, you open the bathroom door slightly and peek around the corner to see simon’s back facing you. you realise your music is still blaring loudly through your phone’s speakers and you turn it off completely before trying again, “simon?”

this time, he turns around slowly and you’re met with a smug face. “that’ll be me. nice to meet you, roomie,” he extends his hand and you awkwardly shake it through the small gap.

you let out a small laugh when he lets go of your hand. “hey, you wouldn’t be willing to grab me some clothes, would you?”

he smirks and answers coolly, “not a problem. where can i find them?” you step out of the bathroom slightly to point towards your bedroom door and he follows your finger with his eyes. “that room, box next to the wardrobe. you can pick out something nice,” you smile. he nods and looks back over to your face, suddenly making you realise how close the two of you are actually standing. you meet his eyes, lick your lips and look down to the floor, only looking up again when you can’t feel the heat of his body next to yours anymore.

“so how do i look?” you ask simon when you’re finally done getting ready in the bathroom.

after looking up from his phone, he looks you up and down from the couch and nods. “you look great.”

you nod and can’t help but feel flustered when you remember he didn’t just see you naked a few minutes ago, but also picked out your underwear for you. talk about a first impression.

you join him on the couch and try to start a conversation. “so, simon, tell me about yourself,” you smile at him as he puts his phone away and sighs. “well i’m simon, but you already knew that. i do youtube, just like vik. did i ever mention i have like nearly 9 million subscribers? it’s no big deal. but you probably already knew that though, right?” he asks for confirmation and you nod slowly, feeling weirded out by his big ego. you didn’t catch that vibe through his text messages.

“oh by the way, because of that, don’t get confused when i have some people over and throw parties here from time to time. that won’t be a problem, right?” he stares you down with confidence, seemingly trying to intimidate you. “as long as there aren’t too many people, it should be fine,” you answer skeptically and smile, trying to hide how uncomfortable you feel. “good. well what else do you want to know about me?”

you cringe slightly at his tone and think of how to phrase your next question without sounding too rude. “where did you get that arrogance from?” you perk up one eyebrow and watch his jaw tense, your own lips curving into a smile. he quickly readjusts his demeanour as he once again looks you up and down. he narrows his eyes at you and tilts his head to the side slightly, poking his tongue in his cheek before a sarcastic smile settles upon his lips. “where did you get your feistiness from?”

“i asked you first,” you shoot back, quick-witted. “and i asked you second,” he smiles sweetly.

the two of you stare each other down for a few seconds before you sigh and look away, making him puff out a chuckle and say something under his breath, “that’s what i thought.”

the rest of the morning was spent pretty much avoiding each other. you went back to your room and continued unpacking the boxes whilst he worked on the living room. you didn’t do any bonding, getting to know each other or even much more talking except for when you asked simon if he wanted anything to eat during lunchtime. he declined and kept on installing your new tv whilst you sat in the kitchen, munching on some leftover takeout from last night.

you watch him struggle with several cables for a while from the kitchen island, minding your own business until he groans out of frustration. you let out a snort and see his head snap up to you in anger, “what‘s so funny?”

you chuckle softly and smile it off, “nothing, please continue putting those cables in the wrong places, i’m quite entertained.”

after a few seconds of silence you look up from playing with your food to see him staring at you. “oh, so you think you can do this better?” he answers, nostrils flaring in anger. you nod cockily, jumping off of your barstool and joining him in front of the tv.

you grab the instructions out of his hands and feel his breath on your neck when he towers over you to read where you’re pointing on the paper. “see, you keep putting them in this,” you point at a real plug-in, “but you should be putting them in here,” you hold the paper next to the right plug-in post to compare the two.

you look up to see his jaw tense up once again as he nods at you stiffly. “i guess you’re right. how do you even know this stuff?” he mumbles, earning a victorious smile from you. “i studied cinematography for 4 years. i also learned how to install cables there. see, i would’ve told you earlier if you had asked. but you were too busy bragging about all your 9 million subscribers or whatever. anyway, i’ll be in my room if you need me.”

it’s 7pm when you hear a knock on your bedroom door. you look up from the box you were digging through and towards the door and answer, “you can come in.”

the door opens slightly to reveal simon holding a bag of more takeout. “so i noticed you eating chinese during lunch and didn’t know what other kind of food you liked so i just ordered us some takeout.” you laugh, making him look at you confusedly. “why did you order me chinese?”

he blinks, taken aback, “oh, uhm, i can just order us something else if that’s what you want. if you’d rather have, like, i don’t know, pizza? or anything, i don’t mind ordering-“

“that’s not what i meant, simon,” you look at him sternly and let him think over your words for a few seconds, watching the realisation hit him through his facial expression.

“right. i just wanted to say thank you for helping me earlier and sorry for accidentally walking in on you as well, i guess,” he answers awkwardly.

“and?” you smirk, liking the fact that you’re in control of the situation now. he sighs, “and sorry for pretty much being a dick the entire day without reason.”

“i accept your apology, roomie. now, let’s go eat before the food gets cold.”

about a week after moving in, your new apartment is almost fully finished and you and simon both agree on throwing a housewarming party. the two of you have had time to get to know each other better over the past few days and you’ve realised that a kind heart lies behind that stupid smirk of his. you just gotta make him feel guilty for being an absolute pain in the ass to reveal his sweeter side.

you’ve also learned that the two of you have loads of stuff in common and you seem to be hitting it off pretty well. except for the unexplainable tension the two of you have from time to time. you brush it off and blame it on your similar personalities clashing and competing for the title of the alpha in the house.

you snap out of your thoughts when you hear the front door open and simon yell “honey, i’m home!” you let out a giggle and get up from the couch to help him unpack the groceries for the party tonight.

“that’s... a lot of alcohol,” you laugh as he puts down several bags full of bottles onto the kitchen island.

he looks you in the eye and smiles, “there are going to be quite a few guests, remember? better too much than too little!”

you help him put the stuff away in silence for a few minutes before you attempt to start some small talk, “so how are you when you’re drunk?”

“i get really horny,” he answers within a heartbeat. instead of bursting out into laughter, you can feel your cheeks heat up and so you quickly turn your back to him, pretending to be putting something in one of the cupboards to hide your red face.

“oh, i-“ your breath catches in your throat and you can feel your blood stream through your veins when you suddenly feel simon’s presence right behind you. you turn around, biting your lip when you see him tower over you. he innocently smiles down at you, “well? are you going to move out of the way so i can put these chips away or what?”

you quickly close your mouth when you realise you were gaping up at him and move away from the cupboard when he gives you the space to do so.

“sorry about that. uhm, is it just me or is it getting hot in here? i think i’m just going to check the thermostat real quick,” you stutter out an excuse to leave the room, still feeling the blood pulse through your body in certain places.

you lock yourself in the bathroom and try to catch your breath. you can’t believe that just happened. you can’t believe you’re feeling this way about your roommate after meeting him just a week ago. you want this feeling to stop so you don’t ruin the small beginnings of the friendship you’ve only just started to create.

so you decide then and there that you’re going to shut him out. at least, in that way. you’re just going to ignore the sudden attraction you feel towards him. well, you’re going to try to.

it’s around 11pm when the first people start showing up. you and simon entertain your guests with tours of the house, beer pong, music playing loudly on the dance floor created in the living room and enough booze in the kitchen to pass out from. you don’t hold back on the alcohol yourself either.

“vik! oh my gosh i cannot thank you enough for messaging us about this place. this truly is all thanks to you,” you greet him with a tight hug and kiss on the cheek. he smiles at you brightly, “no thanks needed! i just felt like you and simon would be a perfect fit!” he grins and you try to shake off the stupid smile forming on your lips. “thank you again vik, please help yourself to something to drink in the kitchen! i’ll try to catch up with you later.”

after the next hour of greeting guests your house is fully loaded with people and it’s going to be a lot harder to move around in. abandoning your hosting duties at the front door, you go to grab yourself another drink in the kitchen when you bump into an old friend. “harry! hey! when did you get here?”

you can tell just by the look on his face that he has been here for a while: he looks absolutely shit-faced. “i don’t remember, to be quite honest,” he slurs out his answer, making you giggle a little. “what are you doing here? i didn’t know you knew simon,” he asks and you raise your brows. “i’m literally living with simon. this is our housewarming party!” harry seems to be in thought for a moment before it all clicks, “oh! you’re the hot bird he said he was living with, it all makes sense now. hey, wanna dance?” he practically drags you over towards the dance floor when not only your vision, but also your thoughts get a little cloudy.

your mind wanders over all the reasons why simon could’ve said that to harry. what else did simon tell him about you? does he usually describe his girl friends as ‘hot birds’? does this mean he is as attracted to you as you are to him? lost in your thoughts about simon, you barely even realise the fact that you’re grinding against harry.

when you open your eyes the room is spinning. you blink a few times until you can see clear. only now you notice simon standing across the room looking at you, jaw tensed as always, nostrils flaring and steam practically leaving his ears. still oblivious to your close proximity to harry, you eye him with a frown on your face.

you can see simon roll his eyes and disappear into the crowd so you decide to just ignore him, like you promised yourself you’d do. you continue dancing to the blaring music, swaying your hips dangerously from left to right. you finally remember harry dancing behind you when he grabs your sides and pulls you even closer. you lean into his touch, your head pretty much on his shoulder. you close your eyes, letting yourself get lost in the music.

after a while, you can feel yourself get tired and tell harry you’re going to get yourself another drink, leaving him on the dance floor.

suddenly getting overwhelmed by the huge crowd in your living room, you make a beeline for your bedroom instead. you close the door behind you, still feeling the bass of the music in your body but only hearing muffled lyrics being sung.

you sigh and make your way over to the bed to lie down for a second. you’re so intoxicated and don’t know what to do with yourself. that is, until someone barges into the room.

you sit up straight and see simon at the door, looking at you angrily. “what the hell are you doing in my room?” your eyes widen when you take in your surroundings. “shit, i thought- thought this was my room,” you stammer and stand up quickly, a little to quickly: your knees give in and you stumble to the floor. “fuck,” you groan, simon immediately coming over to help you up. “how many have you had to drink? christ, you can barely stand up,” he shakes his head in disappointment.

“i don’t- don’t remember. what about you? are you horny yet?” you ask him in a sudden boost of confidence.

he once again shakes his head in disappointment, biting his lip at but ignoring your comment. “we should probably send everyone home now, i think the party is over.”

you sit back down on his bed and pout. “you’re no fun! it’s only- it’s barely 1 am! right?” you slur out, looking at the blurry numbers of the alarm clock on his bedside table.

“it’s 3 am. i think it’s best if we send everyone home-“ you cut him off, “but harry is- he’s still waiting for me out there. i- i told him i’d be back.”

this immediately gets a reaction from simon: tensed jaw, narrowed eyes and crossed arms. “you’re not getting back out there. especially not to dance with harry,” he spits out his name in disgust, making you giggle, “hey, hey what’s up with that? i thought you were friends?”

simon rolls his eyes while he runs his hand through his hair in frustration. “i don’t want to talk about harry right now. just- stay here for a sec and i’ll-“ he is about to open the door when you cut him off. “wait wait wait! did i just hear... jealousy? in your voice?” you bat your eyelashes at him innocently while he grits his teeth.

“no, i-“ he tries, but you cut him off once again, standing up when you speak. “it sure sounds like jealousy to me! what, you didn’t like it when i was dancing with harry, huh?” you slowly make your way over to him, continuing your innocent act.

“is that it? you’d rather have been the one who was dancing with me? the ‘hot bird’ you’re living with? right? harry told me that’s what you called me. i bet you still think about that first time you saw me-“

“shut up! we’re not having this conversation right now. you’re- you’re not able to think straight right now,” he frowns, yet his cheeks still redden when you get close to him. you smirk and touch his chest with both of your hands.

“maybe not, but jealous you is like... really turning me on right now,” you bite your lip coyly and look up at him through your lashes.

you leave him breathless for a second as he rolls his head back for a second, slightly gasping for air. “you know what you’re doing to me, don’t you? you’re making it very hard for me to control myself right now,” he licks his lips and his eyes flicker between your eyes and your mouth.

“then stop trying to fight it, simon. i want you,” you drag out your words slowly. at this, he switches positions with you and pins you down against the door, foreheads touching.

“stop saying things that make me want to kiss you,” he mutters to you, breathing heavily.

you finally close the space between you and kiss him harshly. after a few seconds, you gasp for air and he leaves your lips to work his way around your neck, locking the door whilst doing so. “simon,” you moan, throwing your head back as he trails kisses down your neck. once again, you feel your blood and the bass from the music pulse through your body. “fuck,” you trail off as his hands roam your body. you meet his lips again in one of many heated kisses that’ll follow that night.

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dredshirtroberts · 3 years

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Tagged by @tumbleweedtech!!

What is your total word count on AO3?

Oh thank god you're asking me to look there where they calculate it for me so i don't have to try and figure it out across all eleventy-million of my fucking WIPs xD.

uhhhhh looks like...274,424 heh. that's lower than i thought but then again I post very little of what i actually write so...

How many fandoms have you written for?

On AO3? if I lump the related ones together (which i do) it's 4. If we're talking across the board in general? uh...f u c k. there's so much i haven't posted or thought about posting yet. just go ahead and like. add ten more on top of the four fandoms on AO3 i think that's about close if we're counting crossovers and inspired-bys

What were your top 5 fics by kudos?

Right Back to the Beginning

Constellations

Please, What?

Spearwort, Iris and Ash: Spearwort Yellow for Joy

Lia & Em's Adventure In Thedas Part I: The Wrath of Heaven

Do you respond to comments - why, why not?

I... want to? I try sometimes, if someone's comment touches me or came at a particularly bad time. It's overwhelming to respond to people - I'm a lurker by nature and never really grew out of the habit of teen-me knowing i wasn't supposed to be looking at the fics i was reading and so i wouldn't interact with them or the authors at all. So it can be hard to like. reconcile that I'm a fully grown adult person who is allowed to not only read and write what i enjoy but also that like. other adult people are reading and enjoying what i write? and that they'd want to tell me? I admit to also falling out of what little habit i'd started due to continued weirdly critical (yet not *negative*) comments that just. rub me the wrong way so I can't figure out how to respond? yeah.

What's your fic with the angsty-est ending?

Again I guess if we're going by what's actually posted, I'd probably have to say the Super Fucking Old fic I added from my FF.net days: A Late Summer Afternoon (hopefully that's the right link - sometimes copy and paste doesn't work the way i want). warnings for MCD. I...imagine you might be able to pick up on why that one's my angstiest ending xD I generally try to like. end my stories on a positive note? even if it's not all better yet - so the second angstiest would be Color of Your Eyes or Have This probably. Likely more Have This over Color of Your Eyes but they're both relatively tame as compared to my earliest writing xD

Do you write crossovers?

Uh...yes but i haven't posted any yet. Most of the reason nothing I write gets posted is because I am incapable of writing small projects and I get nervous about posting chapters before i know where i story is going yet because i feel like i can't edit if it's been posted? Anyway I'm going to try and get over that eventually. Not right now, though. I still have to edit some stuff.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Hate is a strong word. I...assume most people who have commented mean well, regardless of how their comments may come off to me on my end. Several have rubbed me the wrong way due to phrasing and an inability to read tone over text-based communication, but I refuse to believe they would have kept reading if they didn't like most of the story. Certainly it has been generally positive feedback across the board so I don't feel comfortable at all calling any negative comments i've received (intentional or not) "hate"

Have you ever had a story stolen?

As far as I'm aware, no. Thankfully I tend to write shit that people just don't care that much about so I'm pretty safe I think. Watch that come bite me in the ass xD

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nah. I hope one day to be proficient in my target language and will be able to translate my own fics myself but see aforementioned note about how no one really cares that much about what i write xD it won't happen unless i do it myself.

What is your all time favourite pairing?

You want me? to pick favorites? in THIS economy?

What is a fic you would like to finish but don't think you ever will?

currently none are looking like "never gonna finish"es which is good. RBttB sat unfinished for a long while and I probably won't polish the ending on that one, but it's technically done. I also don't want to finish that one either so. it wouldn't have fulfilled the requirements of the question.

Writing strengths?

You want me? to compliment myself? in THIS econo- alright alright i know, it's a terrible joke. Uh...I understand i'm pretty good at smut. and descriptions? i think? I feel like my humor is unparalleled but that's also because i'm pretty sure i'm the funniest person in my apartment (we'll just casually not mention i live alone...) Seamless integration of current and historical memes? Puns? i don't know. i am super confident about writing but i couldn't tell you for sure what i'm actually strong at.

Writing weaknesses?

uh. Getting anything finished. endings. d i a l o g u e. writing. flow. pacing. repetition. writing. see what i did there? i told you my humor was awesome. no but really i struggle with actually starting to write and then it ends up being a lot of me repeating myself a bunch until i find the sentence or four that work best. and like. my pacing is weird so it can be hard to...figure out what i'm trying to say? oh and commas. i use commas wrong.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages?

I enjoy the shit out of it. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I try really hard to get it right. if I'm not 100% positive it's correct I will change the whole sentence. mostly because i only know a handful of people who know languages other than English and I am bad at reaching out for help when I need it. mostly the second part though.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

YuYu Hakusho! A friend and I wrote this epic fucking self-insert not-quite-isekai style fanfic back and forth in notebooks back in the 6th grade (which was about...oh. nearly 20 years ago jesus i'm old). Only one of my notebooks survived when she decided anime was demons and the devil trying to tempt her away from Jesus so a lot of the story was lost. It was also in pencil so it's half worn out of the notebook as it is. then there was the phase i went through where i decided i could make my notebooks more interesting by cutting them into shapes which lost me a bit of text in the margins that i'd forgotten about... look we're mostly lucky i had it at all or that i've kept it all these years. Why do i still have it?...hm.

What's your favourite fic?

Of mine? So far it's probably a toss-up between Spearwort, Iris and Ash and Lia & Em's Adventure in Thedas. you know. My two biggest projects Oh...oh possibly also the Current-Reworking-The-Title fic I've started that I've not posted anything of yet in the Arcana fandom. Which is also a huge major project. I don't write small if I can help it, apparently.

of someone else's? You want me? to choose favorites? in THIS- yes i know that's the same joke three times. I think it changes based on what I need most out of my fic reading experience. I have an extensive bookmark collection on AO3. one of them in there's probably holding a spot as favorite, most likely.

Tagging: @concertconfetti, @daughterofdungeonbat, and anyone else who wants to do this! If you want a specific tag to do this, please LMK and i'll tag you <33

#about me #tag game #writing #the captain writes #tagged by

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edgythought · 4 years

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Strangers in the Bar II

Part I | Part III

Alex Turner x OC (I guess??)

Description: Two lonely people observe each other in a bar. It leads to something nice. Word count: 2,982

Warning: swearing, alcohol consumption, smoking.

A/N: Nobody wants the second part but I am posting it anyway. Maybe, you'll enjoy. If you do, let me know!

The time flew by like a super-modern spaceship through the deep void of silent space and my stay in LA was coming to an end about just as fast. I still didn't know if I liked the city or not. It was totally different from what I'd seen before, but the aftertaste wasn't that pleasurable as I thought it would be. Maybe I was a prisoner of my own superstitions and prejudices, but I will never know. Moreover, Californian weather is just not my cup of tea, I would prefer something a lot more northern than constant heat and melting asphalt. But I must admit the city has its own unique vibe you cannot casually pass by, it wipes you away with its simultaneous boldness and sneakiness.

It was a challenge for me not to think about the dancing dude I met the first night. Let's be clear, I hadn't fallen in love, but there was definitely a spark between us, even if it was a result of drinking too much. Some nights I even wanted to google him, but my drunk ass never asked for his name. His face looked familiar, like I've seen him before, but I couldn't remember for shit when and where. So, I gave googling up and continued with doing my stuff, which was a lot more important than some random guy I popped into at some bar. I thought it was a drunk adventure and this gave some assurance it will not happen again and I can move on. But I'd be lying if I said what happened didn't bother me in a way I didn't want it to.

I was always very sensitive to vibes and energy people are emitting. That feature brought a lot of pain, but also a lot of understanding, so I tried to develop it as much as I could. And what I saw and sensed that night made me think about it way too much. I saw a lonely person trying to enjoy a simple moment of happiness, but I also saw a sharp mind and a visible ache in his eyes. I totally understand it may sound like an absolute bullshit, but I got the impression we were vibing at the same frequency in some way and it would be stupid of me not to admit I would do it again without thinking. And this fact was bothering me a lot. It was something I couldn't accept, like, how can it possibly be real — to meet a guy and have such a connection with him without even speaking to one another? Bear with me, I told my friends a lot, while sharing this story with them. But could I bear with myself? The answer is not really.

My time in LA is coming to an end, I thought, it would be nice to say goodbye where I started. To finish the adventure properly and leave for good.

It wasn't much later when I saw some familiar spots I observed while smoking near the bar on my first day in LA. Those palm trees were actually fascinating in a pastel background of the twilight sky, warm and so close you may have had a chance to touch it. There was no clouds whatsoever, so I took a pic of tree silhouettes to remember this beautiful view when I'm back home. What if Los Angeles becomes my home? I thought to myself strolling down the road, searching for a sign indicating a spirit-scented place. Soon enough I saw it on the other side of the street and rushed there. It wasn't as crowded as I remember it to be, but I guess that's going to change in an hour or so. I came too early, but I desired to get wasted and nothing was standing in my way so I just followed the waitress into the bar and crawled on the stool with all the grace I managed to find in my body. The bartender asked me what I'd like to have and I ordered "Orgasm" without thinking. Dude tried to make a joke out of it but unfortunately I wasn't impressed since I heard it way too much throughout my whole cocktail-drinking life. It was only funny the first couple of times. Anyway, I came to drink and I got what I wanted in 4 minutes. I spent the time glaring around, but there was nothing unusual for my eye to catch, just a bar, millions of them around the world. The music was on point, though. I thought it was a jukebox, the one you pay to put a song on, but I was wrong. Turned out, it was one of the bartenders who was in charge of music for the night and they took turns to be a DJ. At least, that's what I heard from the bartender, when I made a remark on the music. I was quite impressed, since it's mostly jukeboxes I saw in this kind of places. I found it pretty authentic and also very encouraging for the personnel to try their chances with music. What is more LA than that?

My cocktail was tasty enough for me to distract myself with it for a while. My head was almost empty and I felt I achieved what I was striving for, so I needed to think what to do next. I was alone and a little bored. Maybe I can try to talk to someone? Just for the sake of having a conversation… - I thought - People are probably thinking I am a weirdo, I came alone and I drink alone. Well, this is who I am now and bitches shall accept that. Anyway, the drink was so delicious I finished it without realizing it. I ordered another one and decided it would be nice to smoke.

When I got out I saw the last couple of minutes of the hot Californian twilight and was left to enjoy the early night. Cicadas were singing their oddly rhythmic song and I was inhaling smoke like it was my last cigarette on earth. It was nice to feel the relaxation spread from my chest to my hands and then knees. It felt nice having nothing to worry about for a night and just do whatever your heart tells you to, even if it's totally stupid. The smoke twirled in the air above my head in irregular spirals. I watched it slowly dissolve in thick warm air, traffic noise making the whole experience a little bit ambient. I took out another cigarette and lit it from the previous one, as I had lost my lighter a few days ago and hadn't bought another one yet. I know, I know. My mind was in a weird state, I felt very calm and very nervous at the same time and I couldn't say what exactly caused it. I should probably stop drinking and smoking so much. But not today.

My cigarette was quickly coming to an end as I watched people gathering near the bar entrance for a small chat or a smoke. I went back inside to continue my contemplation with a cocktail in my hand, but I was also determined to get to know someone. Maybe, that cute bartender who served the "dancing juice" will be back? I could talk to him, at least I did last time and it wouldn't be that awkward. But I haven't seen him today yet and I wasn't sure I will, therefore I decided to concentrate on people, cruising back and forth between table area and the bar itself. Everyone seemed very comfortable and friendly, but not a one familiar face in the whole room. Suddenly, I heard a phrase that made me jump on my stool and rush to the dance floor, occupied by two young men in weird shorts.

Get on your dancing shoes!

I cannot explain why the indie tunes from 2000s made me so eager to dance, but they did and I was fine with it. I wiggled my ass to the beat, shook my head and pretended to sing the song to the boys in weird shorts. They somehow agreed to take part in my performance and the three of us had a very nice time dancing and jumping around for the next couple of songs. Soon I was very hot and went back to my place at the bar to take a sip of my drink and order a refill and some water. I went to the bathroom right after I saw the bartender nod at me, letting me know he heard what I told him, as the music was getting louder.

I was surprised to see there was no queue to the bathroom, so I used my chance not to hurry and take my time to fix my makeup and hair. I was even more surprised to see the bar crowded when I finished and I was absolutely flabbergasted to find my place at the bar occupied by some dick! Can you tell I went from 0 to 100 in a couple of seconds? My mood wasn't so great before but now it was pretty much spoiled. I saw the guy talk to the bartender and put my drink aside and my ass went off. Somehow in such situations I have a resting bitch face, which may serve an impression of me being unbothered, but it's not exactly how I felt then. I was furious because there was no other place to sit at the bar and it was just rude of the guy to sit on my stool, cause there was my drink, signifying it was occupied.

I came up to the dude and touched his shoulder to catch his attention. He turned around with half a smirk quickly changing into a look of surprise. I could feel my eyes grow in size when I saw who it was. "Is it fucking real?" - I asked myself, trying to be less shook. What an amazing coincidence, my stool at the bar was occupied by the dancing dude! - Who would have thought, am I right? — he said, fully turning to face me. — Not me, for sure. Get off my stool. — I shoo'd him from the stool but he didn't move a muscle. — Nope. You weren't sitting here when I came in, so it's mine now. — I raised my eyebrow in disbelief. — Don't be a little dick, you've seen my glass standing right here. — I will buy you another one if you get off my dick. And once we are talking about that…. — he chuckled a bit. — You can sit in my lap if you fancy. My eyes widened, I was astonished by his bold move. — Are you flirting with me? — Who knows. So, mardy bum? Are you climbing in my lap or …? — he asked, looking attentively at my face with a wide smirk, pleased with himself.

I threw my hands in the air silently and turned my back on him. I didn't fancy sitting in a random dude's lap, even if the dude was kinda hot and not actually random. Oh God, FUCK! He looked a bit different this time; his beard was trimmed and his hair was gelled back, black shirt and pants so tight I could probably see the outline of his underwear if he wore any. What a dweeb. I guess I'd recognized him instantly if I saw those pants.

Why is this so embarrassing? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wanted to sass this bitch out, but I couldn't come up with anything merely appropriate for the situation, so I decided to ignore his questions and turned to take my glass. At this exact moment a very familiar and a really slow song came on.

I somehow lost my breath and fell into a spiral of memories I had associated with the song playing for a second. I was watching people dividing into pairs on the dance floor and it broke my heart a little. I remembered my ex-sweetheart holding me tight to him while this exact song played quietly in our apartment, right after the final fight we had. I remembered the emptiness I felt then and my eyes became too watery. I am not going to cry at the bar today, I told myself. No one was going to ask me to dance today anyway, I thought, and it stroke me pretty hard. I turned to go out of the bar to have a cigarette when the dancing dude touched my hand. I looked at him, struck by the sensation. He was offering his hand to me.

"Shall we dance a little?"

I had no time to think properly and the whole situation felt a bit like deja vu. He was waiting for me to take his hand, eyes on me, wandering from hair to eyes, to boobs and back. I accepted his almost silent invitation and followed him to the middle of the dance floor.

When I'm around slow dancing in the dark Don't follow me, you'll end up in my arms

We were surrounded by different couples and that's one of the reasons I loved LA. It was just beautiful to see people simply dancing together. No one really cared what people might have thought of them, this is how it should be. He held my hands in his and as we're almost the same height I almost touched his long nose with mine. We remained silent while we were swirling in a very little space we had among all the people. His palms were soft and warm and I enjoyed his touch, even though I didn't want to admit it.

Soon enough we got even closer and danced way slower. My lips were almost on his jaw as we were almost hugging each other to a sad song. Him being so close yet so far made me puzzled in some way. I didn't want this to happen and yet here I am, staring at dude's earlobes and gelled strands of wavy hair on the neck. Pretty view, should I say. He smelled exactly the same as I remembered and I found the smell heavenly complex. This sparked an idea to spend as much time in his arms as possible, but I shooed the thought away. It would be inappropriate.

I turned my head a bit to see his face clearly. His eyes were closed, but I could sense something going on in his head. He moved easily and graciously, even with me by his side and I was pleasantly surprised to realize he led me all the time we were dancing. I smiled a little to myself. It felt good to be in his arms and I decided it won't hurt to put my head on his shoulder, so I did. I took a deep breath, inhaling his cologne and smiled again. He tilted his head a bit, so it would touch mine. I thought about how we looked like on the dance floor seen by others. We probably look like two sad people dancing to a slow song, I sassed myself and shook my head a bit. Dude asked me if I was okay and I responded "sure". That was it, the whole conversation during the dance.

Can't you see? I don't wanna slow dance In the dark

As the song was reaching its climax, we almost stopped moving at all. My hand that was placed on his shoulder slid down to his waist. He did the same with his hand, still holding mine. I liked him not pushing anything on me and appreciated the effort to be nice. It felt right to be this close to him somehow. I saw him lip-synching a little to the song and felt his warm breath on my cheek. I kept smiling as I watched his private performance. With the final phrase we stopped completely and just stood in each other's embrace for a couple of seconds longer than necessary. I didn't want to let him go. He seemed to feel the same. I blushed a bit, because it was getting awkward. Eventually, we split and I followed him to the bar.

He sat on a stool next to mine which appeared to be empty and gestured a bartender to come over. I sipped my cocktail, which I completely forgot about, to be honest. I was watching the dance floor and the dude turned to me and asked "Whatcha gonna drink, mardy bum?"

I did not expected that and took some time to proceed with the question. I looked at him, confused. "Nothing for now. Excuse me" i said and rushed to the bathroom. I didn't want to use it, however, I felt an urgent need to get away from his deep dark eyes inspecting my face. I turned on cold water and splashed some on my neck and chest to calm myself down. I guess I shouldn't have left like this, I thought, maybe I need to go back and try to have a normal conversation? I wanted to talk to someone less than half an hour ago. Oh no, there would be no conversation, darling, you will just stare at his face for an uncomfortably long time until he finds you creepy and leaves, I told myself. Well, this sucks but I have to go back anyway. I'd fancy a smoke, after all it was an experience and I definitely needed some nicotine in my system. I went out of the bathroom to finish my cocktail at the bar and found the dude's stool empty. It made me a bit sad, but I didn't say goodbye either, so it's only fair. I knocked my drink down and headed to the exit.

#alex turner #alex turner fanfic #alex turner fanfiction #arctic monkeys #the last shadow puppets #miles kane #do i wanna know #los angeles #la #oc #original character #short story #strangers in the bar

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occasionalfics · 6 years

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Always Late, part 1 (Thor x Reader)

Summary: You’re new to the Avengers, and you’re not sure you belong. But maybe the God of Thunder can help with that.

A/N: So I saw a really cute post by @seaofhathor and couldn’t stop thinking about it? In no way do I want it to seem like I stole someone’s idea - I did not come up with this concept, but I liked the post and wanted to expand, and I’ve made sure Jada was okay with me posting before I went ahead with it. There’s lots in the original post I didn’t touch and I didn’t want to take any dialog or characterizations directly because Jada’s content is theirs and theirs alone. You should definitely go read her post (I’ve read it a million times and can’t get enough of it) and follow her!

Tags: @seaofhathor (let me know if you want to be tagged too!)

Words: 3,412

~~~

Somehow, you’d become an Avenger. Or, more accurately, you were still becoming an Avenger.

One day you were living on the beach, using your water manipulation abilities to build a sandcastle, and the next thing you knew, Tony Stark had found you. You were sure you’d be discovered by the X-Men first, but they were a day late and a dollar short. Or however that phrase went.

You didn’t see how your abilities were anything special. All you could do was make water bend to your will - how did that compare to a super soldier, a Gamma radiation-induced Hulk, a tech genius with billions of dollars at his disposal, a literal witch with ethereal powers, actual spies, and generally too many others to list all at once? Especially when they had actual Gods?

You couldn’t even create water. All you could do was play with already-existing water, and normally only with a short burst of power that served you well on a beach. What made Tony Stark think you’d be useful to his team?

But you didn’t have much to lose by joining, even if it meant being useless. If Tony Stark wanted you, why not? You’d moved out to Montauk in the first place because your power had driven your human friends away - either directly or indirectly, but in any case, you were alone. You’d gotten used to it. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, someone wanted you because of your ability.

When you’d first moved into the Avenger’s compound upstate, you’d needed a guide to help you navigate. Tony was always busy, as were most of the original teammates, but you found a quick friend in Sam Wilson. He was always around, always eager to help as long as you weren’t the Winter Soldier (his words, not yours), and always pushing to see what you could do.

You showed him at the pool the first time, because it was the only place you were actually useful. You stood on the diving board, hands out over the chlorinated water, and focused. You took a deep breath in, and the water rose into the shape of a Falcon hovering in midair. Sam clapped and laughed at your choice of iconography, praising you all the way as you climbed down from the diving board.

That was the first moment you knew you’d find your place among the Avengers, one way or another. Sam was the first person to appreciate your ability, though you’d never told him so.

The longer you were around the Avengers, the more you liked most of them. They seemed to like you, too. For the most part.

For some reason - perhaps because he was around the least - Thor didn’t seemed to notice you. You knew he had important Space things to take care of, but the more you got to know everyone else, the more you wanted to know him, too. After all, he was one of the longest running Avengers. He was a mystery to you, partially because he was a literal God and partially because everyone else seemed to like him so much.

He made an announcement one night at dinner that he’d be staying a while. He wasn’t sure how long, but long enough. You figured that this was your chance to get to know him.

It happened at the pool. You were alone, feet dangling in the water as you sat on the edge. You sighed, creating a ripple in the center of the water that echoed across the surface and back. You lifted a pointer finger, and a bubble rose from the water and hovered in place. You rotated it, changed its shape, watched as a tiny cyclone formed without touching the surface of the water below, then you let the whole thing drop.

“That can’t possibly be the whole show,” you heard in that wonderful accent.

You looked across the room, and there he was. Half naked. Or, rather, dressed for a swim, according to Earth attire, anyway. He had a towel slung over one shoulder and a playful smirk on his face.

“Any requests?” you asked, leaning back on one hand.

“Pufferfish,” he said, like he’d been thinking it all along.

You furrowed your brows, but reached out and conjured the shape of a pufferfish anyway. The spines were hard to see, but by the look on his face, you knew he trusted your vision.

“Why a pufferfish?” you asked.

He shrugged, came around the pool, and sat on the edge beside you. “They’re my favorite. When they just…” He blew his cheeks out and burst his fingers in an exaggeration of an explosion. “It’s so funny!”

You balled your conjuring hand into a fist and watched the pufferfish contract. “I guess it is,” you said, kicking some water up.

“So this is what you do?” Thor asked. “You sit at the pool and make shapes?” He glanced at you, still smiling. Something in his manner made his question sound...not condescending. Curious was a better word.

You shrugged. “It’s what I did before, too. Only then, I was nice and tan on the beach.”

He chuckled. “That sounds quite nice.”

“It was fine,” you said. “The beach I lived at wasn’t actually sunny most of the year. Half the time, it was too cold to even go swimming.”

“That sounds like the opposite of nice.” He threw his towel behind him and pushed off from the wall. “Thankfully, Stark keeps this place heated all year ‘round!” He backed away, using his arms to propel him to the other side of the pool. But he never looked away from you.

You couldn’t help but smile. His smirk was adorable, and his demeanor was so sunny and warm, it felt like he was wrapping a giant blanket around you in the dead of winter. But you kept that part to yourself.

“You should come in,” he said. “It’s lovely in here.”

You chuckled lightly. “I bet it is.” The pool was Olympic grade, because of course it was. Tony Stark would accept nothing less, you’d realized.

“You never told me your name, by the way,” he said, leaning his body forward to swim back toward you.

Is the God of Thunder flirting with me right now? you wondered. You shrugged. “Tony didn’t say anything? Or Sam?” you asked. You were sure Sam would’ve mentioned you at least once. He always talked about the Falcon you conjured early on.

“Sure they did,” he said, bobbing his head low enough under the water that all that remained dry were his eye, eyepatch, and short air. When he pushed himself back up, he said, “But you never told me.”

Yes. He is definitely flirting.

You felt your face heat up, and to try to hide the redness you knew was creeping up, you decided to take your shirt off. Because that made sense. You were wearing a bikini beneath your clothes, as you did most days. Anyone in the compound knew they could probably find you by the pool at any given moment.

You threw your shirt by his towel, then removed your shorts and put them aside, too. When you slipped into the water, you shut your eyes. Anytime you entered a body of water, you felt a sudden surge of power. It was exhilarating and overwhelming, and you let it happen the same way every time. After the initial surge passed, you looked at Thor.

“(Y/N),” you said.

He came close to you and stood. His full height, you realized, was intimidating. He overshadowed you by at least a foot and a half, but his face remained kind. He held a hand out to you and said, “Thor Odinson, God of Thunder. Pleasure to meet you, (Y/N).”

You shook his hand, feeling another surge of something the second your skin made contact. Neither of you said anything until he dropped back into the water.

“You’ve been here a while, right?” he asked, his arms spread out, moving back and forth below the surface.

You nodded. “Almost six months, I guess.”

“And you like it?” he asked.

“Sure,” you said. “Beats sitting alone in Montauk.”

He paused then, his eyes widening just enough for you to notice. “Alone?” he asked.

You shrugged. “Humans don’t always react well to...what I can do, I guess. Before I met Tony, it was just easier to live alone than it was to have to explain myself to everyone.”

“What you do doesn’t...seem dangerous,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Sure, says the guy that wields literal lightning,” you mumbled with a smirk. “It’s one thing when you’re a God from outer space and another when you’re some weird girl from a small town.”

“I don’t see how that makes sense,” he said, pushing himself up just a bit. His shoulders lined up with the waving surface of the water. You tried not to focus on them when he said, “I’ll never understand how humans can trust an outsider like me over one of their own.”

You gave him another shrug. “Ask the X-Men about that one,” you said. Then you turned and dove toward the deep end of the pool.

The longer you lived on the compound, the more you wondered what your role in the whole deal was. No one had powers like you. Most of them had actual tactical abilities, but you...could make shapes with water in the pool if you thought really hard.

You tried to talk to Tony about it, but he was always busy. Sam kept reassuring you that there was a reason you’d been recruited for the Avengers, not the X-Men. The problem was that your powers seemed to come from you, rather than some external source.

The second time you were alone with Thor, he told you that that didn’t seem to matter.

“My powers are the same,” he said. You were the last two in the cafeteria, probably because most of your teammates had missions to get ready for. Somehow, Thor’d been left out of those plans. “They’re a part of me, rather than something that happened to me.”

“Yeah, but you’re not from here,” you said, hating that that kept coming up between you. “Earth or...Midgard or...whatever you want to call it, it’s full of people without abilities.”

He shrugged. “So is Asgard. And most of the Universe.” He pushed his plate away and leaned on his elbows. “Midgardians aren’t that close minded.” He paused, but you weren’t sure why. After a few seconds, he finished with, “Surely.”

You chuckled. “You’d be surprised,” you said. “I had some friends back home that tried to understand. Some of them thought I was a mutant like that Magnet guy. Some thought I was a villain like the magnet guy, too.”

“Magnet guy,” he said, suddenly laughing. “Now that’s one I haven’t heard before!”

You couldn’t help but smile with him. When Thor laughed, his voice reverberated around whatever room he was in. The world got brighter. Watching him enjoy literally anything was like watching a Golden Retriever play fetch. Only it was better than that.

When he calmed down enough, he sighed and asked, “What’s this fixation on the X-Men, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I dunno,” you said with a shrug. “I just… I guess, sometimes, I feel more like one of them than an Avenger. Probably because I’ve never been on a mission.”

“Steve’s pushed for you,” he said, taking you by surprise.

Captain America was another Avenger you were convinced had no idea you were around. He, like many of the original members of the team, was always busy planning and strategizing.

“Sam speaks highly of you. They believe you belong here.” Thor sat back in his seat. “I do, too.”

“You hardly know me,” you said quietly. You hadn’t meant it to be mean or accusatory. But it was the truth.

“Maybe so,” he said. “But I’ve seen what you can do. And I trust Sam. We both think you’re capable of more.”

You stared at him for a bit. You lost track of how many seconds ticked by. You were totally in your head, wondering what Sam had said about you and how much Thor could possibly know or feel. He was basing his opinion off of a short conversation in the pool, you thought. That couldn’t possibly be enough - someone on the team had to know that, otherwise you would’ve been sent out with a group on a mission by then.

“One day,” he said, “you’ll get what you’re looking for.”

The problem, though you didn’t tell him, was that you weren’t quite sure what that was.

Thor took it upon himself to try to train you. You were never sure exactly what for, but you followed his instruction. You spent a lot of time alone...together...in the pool, so you weren’t going to complain.

Turns out, you liked training a lot. He gave you things to focus on, goals to reach, and something of a purpose while you waited around the compound for something more to do. Also...you really liked Thor. Like as a person, not just this authoritative, heroic figure who came from Space.

He was kind. Gentle, even, despite how big and intimidating he could look. He was funny, understanding, talkative… He quickly became your friend. At least you had two at that point.

Sam caught on before anyone else, but of course he did. Other than Thor, he spent the most time with you.

You went out one night with a big group, but you, Sam, Thor, and Natasha had ended up at some club a few blocks away from most of the group. Being Avengers (or in your case, a friend of the Avengers), you were immediately given a VIP booth on the second floor of the building. You and Sam made it upstairs first, since Thor and Natasha kept getting stopped by fans of the team downstairs.

“This doesn’t bother you?” you asked Sam as you slid into the booth next to him.

He shrugged. “I guess, but it’s always kinda like this. If you’re not one of the Big Six, but one of them is around, no one notices.”

You rolled your eyes as a waitress came over. Sam ordered you drinks, then sat back after the waitress left.

“So,” he said, throwing his arms across the back of the sofa. “Are you gonna make a move on the big guy, or what?”

You stared at him. “I have no clue what you’re talking about,” you said, suddenly interested in the dirt under your fingernails.

He laughed. “Yeah you do,” he said, knocking the side of your arm with a few of his fingers. “Y’all’ve been getting real cozy in those ‘training sessions’.”

“He’s teaching me stuff,” you said, holding yourself back from rolling your eyes at yourself.

“Stuff like what?” Sam asked, smirking too wide for your enjoyment.

“Private stuff, Sam.”

He huffed, then shrugged. You felt bad, knowing that Sam was pulling for you. He was just teasing, and there you were, reacting like a child.

But you didn’t have time to apologize. Thor and Nat finally made it to the booth, so you slid closer to Sam to let them in.

“Please tell me you ordered a Whiskey sour, Wilson,” Nat sad in a flat tone.

Sam nodded. “Did indeed.”

They went back and forth like that for a bit, but you hardly noticed. You tried not to focus on how good Thor looked that night. He had on a loose blazer, tailored jeans, and a fitted baby blue shirt that made the color in his eyes pop. And one of his arms had somehow been perched behind you. Sam’s teasing played over in your head until you shook away it to focus.

“You okay?” Sam asked.

You nodded as the waitress came back with your drinks. The second she had yours on the table between you and Nat, you picked the glass up and downed half of it in one go.

You listened as the three of them talked, sipping along until your glass was empty. Another came to replace it not too long after, and then another and another. You lost track after a while.

“You sure you’re okay, (Y/N)?” Sam asked in the middle of some story Nat was telling.

You tried to nod, but your body was swaying now, not because you couldn’t sit straight, but because the music from the floor below was pounding. You pushed yourself up slowly, smoothed your dress out, put your glass down, and told them, “I’m going to dance.”

You headed for the stairs but only made it down two of them before you tripped. You gripped onto the handrail to steady yourself, then almost immediately felt a set of warm, huge hands on your back.

“Easy there,” Thor said, just loud enough for you to hear. “Let me come with you.”

You didn’t say no. You didn’t shrug him off, even though at least some part of you wanted to. But you knew it was the part that wanted to deny Sam’s claims. You weren’t making a move on Thor. He didn’t like you like that, you were sure. He was a friend, and besides, wasn’t he still...somewhat involved with that genius scientist lady from New Mexico? You couldn’t compete with that...not that you needed to.

You forced yourself to breathe and look ahead as you made it down to the dance floor. Thor’s hands hadn’t fully left your shoulders. He basically led you from behind, gently pushing you into the middle of the crowd. He towered over most of the other dancers, which you only noticed when he’d stopped and helped you turn slowly.

As usual, he was smiling at you. Damn it, Sam, you thought. He’d put the seed in your head and it had already taken root. You liked looking at Thor too much for someone that was just his friend. But you still found it hard to return the smile when you reminded yourself of the Scientist in New Mexico. And the fact that Thor was a literal God.

Even so, he danced with you. He never overstepped boundaries, didn’t even put his hands on you except to twirl you around whenever you prompted it first. Or whenever your shoe hit the floor at an odd angle and you tumbled forward, which prompted a blush to rise in your face every time. You hoped the room was dark enough that he wouldn’t notice, partially because he never said anything about it or laughed at you for it.

After a while, you were dancing with drooped arms and mostly shut eyes. Thor tugged on one of your arms, bringing you to the staircase. “Tired?” he asked.

You nodded, unable to answer. You’d drank too much too quickly, and then had expended your energy too fast. He didn’t seem to mind too much, though. Before you knew what was happening, he had one arm behind your shoulders and the other behind your knees, and he lifted you like you were nothing - like you were an easy glass of water to bring to his lips. You leaned into him as he brought you upstairs and put you on the couch beside Sam, then sat next to you.

You didn’t even notice that Nat was missing. You leaned over sideways, slowly as to not worry the men beside you, and let your head fall on Sam’s lap. You spread out, draping your feet across Thor. Neither man said anything.

“I’m sorry Sammy,” you said, putting your hands together under your head.

He laughed. “For what?”

“For chasing away all your lady friends,” you said.

“You didn’t do that,” he said. You felt his hand on your shoulder a second later, then he squeezed lightly.

“Maybe not,” you said. “But I was an asshole earlier, and I didn’t mean to be. You’re a good friend.” With the hand directly below your face, palm aimed at Sam’s knee, you tapped him three times before snuggling back into fetal position.

You couldn’t be sure, but you thought you heard Thor say something to Sam then. You were half asleep at that point, but you thought you heard him say, “For someone with an affinity for water, I’m surprised at how much of a lightweight (Y/N) is.”

#thor x reader #blessedbebucky

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theuniversitychallengereview · 6 years

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UC 48.9 - Bristol vs Queen’s, Belfast

The Humans of New York Facebook page is one of the only things on the internet that can so quickly and consistently provoke deep emotion in me. The interviewer somehow manages to get people to reveal their most private hopes and dreams to him, a complete and utter stranger. And then, with a candid photograph and a couple of transcribed paragraphs, these are shared with millions more.

Remarkably, in a world where we are increasingly unwilling to show our true selves on social media, and instead create carefully curated phantom versions of our lives for our friends to envy and admire, this page manages to showcase its subjects at their most vulnerable, and totally unfiltered. It shines a light on the hidden lives we all lead, but if you read the comments, there are always people who seem to have forgotten the previous, amazing posts, people who instead seem to think that the person in this particular picture is the single most incredible and interesting person in the world, above all others.

The comments are all along the same lines - ‘OMG you should totally write a book!’, ‘I can’t wait for the HBO series about your life!!’ - and they all miss the point of the page. Yes, this person has lived a fascinating life, but so have all the other people in the other photos. If everyone in a Humans of New York post wrote a book we’d run out of library space - and most of the books would probably be crap because while these people might be good at baring their emotional souls they’re probably rubbish at writing books.

A level up from this is the clamour for any old sod on a reality show or talent contest to ‘get their own show’. Everyone who’s been on Love Island in the past three years has been slated to host a retail development show on ITV 2 at some point. Sometimes they get the show - Nadia from Bakeoff and Scarlett from Gogglebox to come to mind. And this isn’t to say they can’t be good when they do get the opportunity, but the fact their are so many is symptomatic of our attention-hungry culture that demands brand recognition over originality. Its the same reason so many sequels and remakes get made, despite the surplus of great ideas that can’t get funding.

So you’ll forgive me for being a little bit skeptical of the program which preceded University Challenge tonight - Monkman and Seagull’s Genius Guide to Britain - starring two contestants from the 2016-17 series (I’ll let you figure out which two). They’d met in the semi-final, which had been described as the most anticipated match in UC History (and not just by me), before Monkman’s Wolfson College lost to Balliol in the final. The pair were a huge hit on social media (Monkman near-effortlessly, Seagull partly through doggedly tweeting everyone on the UC hashtag). Inevitably there were plenty of calls for the pair to front their own science show, and with a few books and radio specials out in the intervening years, the internet has finally been granted its wish.

With my cynical hat on I was prepared to be disappointed by what was surely just a rushed attempt to capitalise on a perceived hunger within the millennial demographic. But its hard to stay cynical when faced with Bobby Seagull and Eric Monkman. The unabashed enthusiasm they both have when learning about such idiosyncratic things as lawnmowers is infectious, and they’re charming and hilarious. Whether its discussing the accents of Greek frogs or saying hello to a troop of ducklings on the side of the road, the pair of intellectuals are eminently watchable, and the grins that are plastered across their faces burst out of the screen and onto your own.

And part of what makes them so good at this is what made them so good at University Challenge - they know a bunch of stuff, and have an unquenchable thirst to learn a bunch more (of course the Challenge isn’t just about knowing things, but about spotting the connections between them). Its part of what makes a show about recalling random facts inherently enjoyable. Because we constantly have google at our fingertips, knowledge isn’t as important as it used to be for someone to make their way in the world, so there’s something marvelous about people reveling in curiosity for its own sake. And come to think of it, this is why Nadia’s baking show has been a hit too, people like watching people who have a real passion for the thing they’re talking about, so maybe I’ve been chatting a load of rubbish vis-a-vis the recruitment techniques of network television. Anyway, I don’t know if that sounds more pretentious or nonsensical, but I’ve rambled on for far too long so should probably get to tonights episode.

Queen’s, Belfast and Bristol are two of the teams who have made the most quarter final appearances without ever making it to the semis (Queen’s with three and Bristol six). Only one of them will have the chance to add to that tally after this evening’s game. These stats only relate to the Paxman Era of course, and Queen’s did in fact win the trophy in 1980, beating my beloved Edinburgh in the final. Queen’s have not one, but two students working towards PhDs in Exoplanet Atmospheres (I don’t think that phrase should really be capitalised but I think it deserves it).

I’d already been prepping a paragraph on the subject before the second introduction, but apparently doctorates in Exoplanet Atmospheres are like buses. Their Captain Merritt had only gone along to see if she could beat her now-teammate Hooton, which she must have done since she’s the one in charge (I guess you could say she got there on her own Merritt... This joke would be better if I hadn’t already mentioned her name, but what else could I do?)

To make things even more surreal, there is an early starter question on exoplanets, which Hooton gets, much to his relief after a few seconds of looking worried as he imagined the hundreds of tweets that there would have been if he’d missed it.

Basu got Bristol on the board with two starters in a row, and Le Maistre chances her luck on one of the bonuses. Asked for two names which differ by one letter, they gave Toto and Togo, rather than Tojo. Paxman asked if that was what she’d meant, and she confidently announced yes. She backed down a bit when questioned, so he didn’t give her the points, but Our Jez is getting soft in his old age so I think if she’d doubled down on the deceit then she might have gotten a five point bonus for her troubles.

Bristol then committed a series of faux-pas (which had incidentally been the answer to the picture question on French definitions for loan phrases) in the music round when they gave guesses of 1971 and 1991 when they’d been explicitly warned that all of the answers would be prime numbers. How it could have slipped all of their minds that 11 times 181 is 1991 I don’t know (and don’t get me started on the myriad of factors for 1971).

The sides traded starters back and forth, but neither could open up a big gap at any point, meaning that a quick streak from either table would likely result in victory. Unfortunately, extended and unsuccessful conferring meant that the scores remained low and tight, like a well drilled baritone a Capella group.

The second picture round went to Queen’s, and they took the next starter as well to level the scores at 110 each with only a few minutes to play. Bristol seized back the initiative, with twenty five points in a row (over two sets of questions), but negged on the next one, leaving the door wide open for Queen’s to equalise again. Unfortunately, Queen’s Breen buzzed in immediately without waiting for the end of the question (though I don’t know whether it would have helped him) and hilariously said Voltaire instead of Volta (which turned out to be wrong anyway. If it hadn’t been then this may have been more tragic). Still, there was all to play for coming into the final starter, which Basu took for Bristol to seal the win.

Final Score: Queen’s, Belfast 110 - 140 Bristol

A low-scoring, but entertaining game. Well done to both teams.Join me next week when we will see the first ever French institution appear on University Challenge (okay, they’re from the Uni of London and just based in Paris, but still)

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zyzzyva1936-blog-blog · 6 years

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“Lemma the Librarian - The Last Dance”

Published: 14 April 2018*

http://www.mcstories.com/LemmaTheLibrarian/index.html

“The Last Dance” brings an end to the episodic nature of the series. Everything from here on out is welded quite tightly into the main plot - or, rather, the main plot constitutes what happens in the last three stories. Spoilers for “The Last Dance” from here on out. What seems like a straightforward get-the-book smash-and-grab (which involves Lemma and Iola going undercover in a harem, because @midorikonton knows which side her bread is buttered on) turns into the return of fairy murdergoblin “Red” for his third and final confrontation with Lemma. Red loses, although mostly thanks to Iason and Rhoda and Rhoda’s Machamp rage-demon Sonneillon. (Rhoda being, of course, the person Lemma used the ghost last time to call for.)

Lemma’s desire to be enslaved is something she’s been dealing with, more or less successfully, up until this point, but it’s something Iason and Iola don’t actually know about yet. That reticence is now coming back to bite her in the ass. The most important conflict in this story isn’t the fight against Red, or Lugal’s** magic clothes; it’s between Lemma and Iola over what the right course of action while trapped in the palace is. Lemma wants to give in, of course, but Iola’s experience with mind-control has been a lot more traumatic than Lemma’s, and she has a very strong personal/cultural “go down fighting” ethos, and she doesn’t seem to have this particular kink on any level anyways. We were reminded just last story of all of Iola’s trauma around the whole magical mind-controlled sex thing. But unlike that time, Lemma, for strategic reasons, doesn’t feel like she has to room to let Iola do her own thing. So she doesn’t just go along with the enchantments, she actively throws her magical weight behind glamouring Iola too. Iola doesn’t know the actual reasons Lemma did this, but I’m not sure it’d make a difference anyways: she would understand it, correctly, as just as awful a betrayal either way.

The party - now up to four with the addition of Rhoda - is off to Hattush to find the last, most apocalyptic book, and it’s all very dramatic. But what sticks with me the most about the end is Iola’s refusal to tell Lemma everything’s ok.

*Look, it was supposed to be out this week, but the EMCSA (my canonical reference for links and dates) is on a one week break, I’m travelling next week, and its been posted to Tumblr now. Also it’s been burning a hole in my drafts folder for nearly a month now. ;P

**His death at the hands of Red is a little abrupt, but he’s enough of a controlling jerk I can’t brink myself to feel too sorry for him. Plus, you know, dying abruptly is a peril of kingship. (If Red had murdered, say, poor Simta, I’d be a lot angrier; but Jenny seems to have learned her lesson since the Vamp!Brea business***.)

***Yes, I’m still mad. ;P

When The Fuck Are We? 🤷

For the first time, we’re further back in time than the Bronze Age Collapse! “Possession with Intent” is set in Khemeth, which is clearly K•m•t, Egypt*. Ancient Egypt is one of those things everyone at least knows a little about** so I’ll focus on two slightly more obscure points.

The first is Iason’s reference to Khemeth being “the breadbasket of the Inner Sea”, which is both true and false in an interesting way. Egypt, being spectacularly fertile, essentially one-dimensonal, and laid out on a lazy, easily navigable river, is indeed just about the optimum imaginable setting for extracting massive food surpluses with ancient technology and governance. But it wasn’t a big export from Egypt (Egypt’s main ancient export was papyrus, thanks to its ecologically-enforced monopoly). Rather, it was mostly used to pump up Egypt’s own population, and in particular the showpiece capital cities such as Memphis, Thebes, or Alexandria. In the ancient world, having an unnecessarily - nay, infeasibly - large capital was a point of pride, which is where Egypt’s actual role as a breadbasket comes in: after it lost its independence in 30BCE, the Romans told Alexandria to get stuffed and began exporting Egypt’s wonderful easy grain surpluses to Rome, instead***. But of course, there’s not much here to imaginably suggest that we’re in the Roman Empire, timeline-wise.

Which brings us to the other point: the party being around for the invention of pyramids is obviously just for the joke, but even discounting that Egypt is old. The usual comparison is to note that when Augustus began redirecting the Egyptian grain surplus to Rome, the pyramids at Giza were already older than Augustus is now. The Egyptian state that survived the Bronze Age Collapse was the already declining New Kingdom, third of the traditional old/middle/new kingdoms division of ancient Egyptian history; it’s the heir to a polity stretching back into the 31st C BCE. Egypt is old.

“The Last Dance” takes us to the one city-dwelling society even older than Egypt. Lagasch/Lagash is a Sumerian town, and Sumer (the south end of Mesopotamia, so modern-day south-central Iraq) has recognizable cities all the way back into the fifth freakin’ millennium BCE, and a historical record stretching patchily into the late fourth. Lagash ceased to exist as in independent city-state in the late third millennium*****, so about as long before our stop in Etruria as that was before Mercia, or Mercia is before the present day (and this story doesn’t seem to be taking place at the end of Lagash’s time as an independent polity, either). Based on some truly shoddy historical research******, we might slap this with a date of 2500 BCE - old enough to actually start getting close to the invention of the pyramids.

Sumerian, like Etruscan, is a language that seems to be unrelated to every other known language. (Before you come up with a brilliant theory that will revolutionize ancient history - no, they don’t seem to be related to each other, either.) Unlike Etruscan, we have such a huge corpus of text that we can translate it fairly reliably. (It helps that Sumerian remained in use as a record-keeping language for centuries after it had stopped being spoken - rather like Latin in Medieval/Early Modern Europe.) I’ve already mentioned the problems with king lists and such, but one of the great things about Mesopotamia is that unlike the logistical records of Mycenae, or the glorifying propaganda of Egypt, we have all of that and also preserved letters, and that lets us look so much further afield into the culture, you don’t even know. We even have recognizable preserved jokes: a regional administrator writes the central palace complaining that his requests for supplies to repair a dangerously deteriorating wall have been ignored, and it’s going to fall over and hurt someone. He demands supplies again, “and if you can’t send those at least send a doctor”.

Also, despite what Neal Stephenson will tell you, Sumerian is not glossolalic and you can’t use it to mind-control people.

*Look, you try transliterating Coptic into Latin characters! Like its distant relatives the Semitic languages, Coptic is based around consonantal root-words, into which vowels are slotted to make verbs, adjectives, and so forth. It makes for somewhat awkward transliterations.

**He says, and then panics trying to figure out how much people who aren’t actually historians have read about ancient Egypt. Tutankhamen’s weird Sun cultist dad is common knowledge, right?

***Rome’s peak in the Augustan period at a couple of hundred thousand, maybe a million****, was almost entirely on the back of the annona, a massive subsidized bread ration distributed to the Roman civic populace, and supplied in large part by Egypt. (It’s not terribly comparable to modern food stamps or other social welfare; in an ancient context, it’s more like spiking the football.) The population cratered between then and the burned-out husk the Goths and Byzantines squabbled over in the 6th C CE, but not because of the “fall of Rome”. Rather, the 4th C CE founding of Constantinople and the redirection of the Egyptian grain surplus there (so the new capital would bulk up to an appropriately prestigious population) was what really did it for Rome; and all of that happened when the Roman Empire was still riding high. The state of Rome was closer before and after the Visigoth sack than either was to Augustus’ city of marble.

****The brilliant if wildly opinionated historian Colin McEvedy had a great turn of phrase arguing for 250,000. (He has a great turn of phrase for everything, you should read him.) After laying out the more archaeological arguments about land use and suchlike, he notes that the one solid literary record for the annona we have, around the time of Augustus, gives a little less than a quarter of a million rations, and “who ever heard of a dictator who put a smaller figure on his largesse than he needed to. If [Augustus] had fed a million Romans he would have said so.”

*****We can peg it to exact years relative to related dates - the Mesopotamians were pretty through chroniclers, so we know how long kings ruled, in what regnal year they went on what campaign, and so forth, but they’re floating around in a little bit of a void. There are a couple of different possible chronologies depending on which recorded astronomical events you make line up with which calculated astronomical events.

******To wit, googling “Lagash king list dates” and looking for names that resemble “Lugal”. My historiography prof just shuddered and doesn’t know why.

Next time: the thrilling climax! Oh, man, does Lemma do some climaxing.

#Lemma Reviews

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roncosby7 · 3 years

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February 25th, 2021

I write blogs on Tumblr. You may or may not know this, but it is a thing I do and I receive very much deserved respect from it. I have friends because of this, high statuses because of this, lovers because of this. So many gifts have been gifted to me because of these blogs. Gifts that I cherish and embrace everyday, just as the gifts to do to me. Every morning I wake up and a new light has entered my eyes. The planet can now spin. Birds can now fly. Society can now start functioning as a whole for Grady Henderson has risen and he writes Tumblr blogs. I got 2 hours of sleep, but I feel great about this. Because I spent all night up writing another masterful blog that will be seen by all of my millions of followers on this morning. All of them will read it and be amazed by the satisfying structure, the poetic wording, the genius sense of philosophy and human perception. They will learn so much about life, others, themselves and philosophically dance with their own minds as their pupils dilate and tears fall down their faces. This happens every morning, and all of my followers do it at the same time. Every single one. They collectively exhale a breath of warm air as they experience pure euphoria and I feel it flow past me. This peaceful gust of wind that passes through me when I open my bedroom window and watch the day begin. I don’t need break feast, for my stomach is full of ideas. I do drink coffee, though. Because I am a writer. I exit my house and watch the sunlight reflect off of my black clothes, simply because it is too nervous to let me be absorbed by it. The wind stands still, the grass turns away, all animals stop what they’re doing to honor me. I have caused pure natural peace, because I write Tumblr blogs. The sun reflects off of me so much that I am now I a walking oval of light. I walk down the street this way. My light shines through neighborhoods and people recognize me. They say “Good morning Grady! Today’s blog was dazzlingly profound!” and I respond by nodding my head and taking a sip of coffee, visibly insecure. With a secret. I’m hiding something. Behind all of this light and these black clothes, there is a hidden diamond that will never be shown to anyone. With that thought in mind, I levitate to school and feel the ground vibrate beneath me. I watch 2 deer bound toward the horizon as I commence forth. “That will be us one day”, I profoundly whisper to myself

People exit their homes and congratulate me for saying something as profound as “That will be us one day”. How will the human brain ever be able to comprehend all the intricate meanings in the phrase “That will be us one day”? What a fucking genius. The light fades away as I step down from my levitation, for I have just arrived at school. All of the students greet me with thunderous applause. Each member of the school staff walks up to me and shakes my hand individually, sharing their thoughts and feelings about my latest blog and how it affected them as people. A kid runs up to me in tears and gives me a large hug, telling me that I saved his life. Then a group of well respected young women push him out of the way to consult and comfort me for being a life saver. I am not attracted to these well respected woman for what they look like for I am not a monster, I am attracted to them for the people that they are, which are people I respect. (they are beautiful, though). I all of a sudden have a bunch of brilliant thoughts rush through my head, as I always do, and I blurt out amongst the crowd. “What if we all wore yellow sunglasses?” and everyone in the school simultaneously gasps and grasps for air for they have just been hit with the intelligence of gods! This man’s understanding of the human race is unmeasurable! Multiple upon multiple tears are shed and everyone starts chanting my name, in tears. It sounds pathetic yet beautiful. Everyone ought to get to class so they all pick me up and carry me their triumphantly. I humbly reject their gratification in a sophisticated way.

When I get to class I say “All this for merely existing?” and everyone laughs loudly while also understanding the sheer amount of thought that went into that phrase. Everyone understands me. They understand who I am and what all of my intentions are, and they respect me because of it. They don’t disrespect me or resent me for being different, instead they PRAISE me for it. They PRAISE me as if I have just slayed a demon in the center of a massive Colosseum. Except the demon is uniformity!

Because I write Tumblr blogs

Yes. I am a human being that types things on to Tumblr and posts them for the world to see. This is something I do. And therefore I sit in Spanish class and do nothing. For the school system understands that Grady Henderson will not grow up to be in a position where he must talk to people that can’t speak the same language as him! Grady Henderson won’t have time for this, he’ll have stories to write! And so I sit in the back of the classroom and work on my next project of writing and gaze at the turned heads of all the normal students in front of me. Every now and then the students will turn around to look at me, just to be reminded of how brilliant and sophisticated humans can be. Just so they can put a bit more light into their dark, uneventful lives. Heh. what a bunch of Garfields. If I said that out loud 3 people in this classroom would likely have a brain seizure. I do not say it out loud, though, because I think I’ve caused enough completely worth it catastrophes in this school this morning. The multitude of tears that built up after “What if we all wore yellow sunglasses?” has made the school hallway slipperier than something that is extremely slippery. Students are slipping and falling and sliding all over the place. One struggles to walk more than 2 steps without nearly collapsing, simply because of the extremely large amount of tears that were shed. Look at all of these teenagers. Falling and wailing around in the effects of their own emotions. I write that down in my notepad, which I keep in my pocket because I’m a writer

As I’m walking to my next class, I don’t slip at all, for I am a perfect human being and this is true. I hear a feminine voice yelling my name behind me. I turn my head and see one of the well respected women from earlier sliding towards me at a very fast speed. I could’ve easily let her run into the wall, but I do not, for I respect this woman. for who she is, not because of what she looks like. (although she is beautiful). I catch her. She desperately stares into my eyes and asks “Grady Henderson! Grady Henderson! Did you stay up until 5 AM last night?” I answer honestly “Yes, I believe I did” she says “God. That is so fucking cool. Nobody else in the universe stays up that late, I can tell you that for sure! How do you manage to be this special of a human being?” I say “I’m actually very insecure about the lazy and ignorant decisions I make and therefore am deeply disappointed in myself most of the time” she says “God. That’s so fucking cool. The fact that you’re able to admit that about yourself? I honestly don’t think you should feel that way, but what do I know? Jesus, you’re amazing. Hey, you’re going out with friends tonight to throw cheese at people’s cars to metaphorically spit in the face of uniformity, correct?” I nod. she says “Well I was wondering if maybe I could tag along. At some point. With you.” I tell her I’ll think about it and then compare this situation to a Garfield strip. She faints from the overwhelming brilliance and lands in my arms. She wakes up shortly after and realizes the situation. “Oh! I must’ve been too amazed by your interpretation of Garfield! Anyway, I have to get to class. Oh shit, I can’t believe I don’t have this in the first place but what’s your Snap?” I tell her “I don’t use social media. I don’t have an undying need for attention like every student in this building”. She faints again and this time I don’t catch her, because I have to get to class. I’m really sorry about this and I hope she can forgive me.

As the day moves on, all students get called to the gym for an assembly. As I’m walking down there in the circle that the slipping crowd has formed for me, a kid accidentally bumps into me before being tackled, beaten into a pulp, getting the words “You deserve this” carved on his stomach with a knife, becoming drenched in gasoline, and being burned alive. It takes every student about 40 minutes to get to the gym because of all the chaotic slipping and falling that’s happening due to the tears but when everyone gets there, the principal walks to the center of the gym seemingly very anxious. What will he say? Something about the small drug cartel that has formed in this school? No. Fuck that. You must’ve forgotten about the fact that I write Tumblr blogs. The principal yells “Fuck it! Fuck you guys! School’s out for the rest of the day! Grady Henderson writes blogs on Tumblr!”

Everyone starts wildly cheering and screaming. Fireworks are lit in this high school gym. They rented a band. A band starts playing intense and celebrational rock music. Confetti is fucking everywhere, people are slipping all over the god damn place, and as soon as a chant of my name begins I head out. Because I don’t need attention. I don’t need to be loved, it’s just an accessory. I need to levitate home and write another Tumblr blog. I do this. I get home and greet the silence. I make more coffee and light candles. I look deep into the crevices of my soul to find the most mind bogglingly genius themes and ideas. I gather these ideas and express them through my fingers. Every time I type a letter into this laptop, a dog gets cured of cancer. People are rallying outside my house to not only thank me for the day off school but thank me for existing. Also to beg for another blog. I humbly reject all of this praise and close my blinds. Sometimes I have to turn on the sprinklers to get then to fuck off. I did that during winter once and this man stayed. In fact, he froze. Jesus. the lengths people will go to praise me. It gets fucking annoying. Don’t they understand that by constantly informing me of their obsession with my writing, they’re interrupting my writing? Holy fuck, these people. The entirety of this day consists of me writing while intermittently meditating or taking a sip of coffee. My thoughts evaporate from my brain and into the atmosphere, forming into an eagle made of pure light and energy. It flies around my house, leaving trails of light behind it. Of course it lands after a while but never truly stops. For the eagle will always fly, and so will I. God, I’m such a fucking genius. The eagle just fell into the ocean, what the fuck? The eagle was supposed to fly forever, why did that happen. Well shit. Now I don’t have a reason to write, which is good because now it is nighttime. And at nighttime, Grady Henderson must explore the natural ground of his town to discover things about everything. Tonight, he will do it with other people. He will throw cheese in the face of uniformity, something that he does a lot. He will not watch people dance, that’s fucking cringe. Fuck you. What do you know about me? You’re gonna think that I’m gonna go to a school dance and experience THAT when I can experience ACTUAL fun? You must be insane. I will not abide by the expectations given to me by my culture. I will throw cheese on people’s cars. They will see the cheese on their cars and faint, knowing that they have been defeated. Defeated by the long arm of Grady Henderson, who writes Tumblr blogs. Did you know that? Did you know that I write Tumblr blogs? You didn’t. You didn’t and now you do and you have nothing but respect to give me for it. Many people respect me for thi-

I suddenly get a phone call. It’s a voice that sounds all to familiar that sternly says “Grady, I think you’re stalling to prevent something.” What the fuck does this person know about me? Holy shit. How disrespectful that I get these phone calls from people. People that assume things, Mother of Christ. I am the equivalent of the Mother of Christ, for I birth a savior while remaining innocent. This savior of course being Tumblr blogs. Yes, these Tumblr blogs have saved many people. These blogs have made people realize that they should not kill other people and themselves, that everyone must be alive. These blogs keep people alive. These blogs are the savior of all humanity-

I get a phone call again, it is the same voice. “Grady, just get in the car. You can’t prevent it, just let it happen.” I say Fuck you to this person and hang up. Who does this person think they are? calling me and telling me things that aren’t true? I could sue this person for lying.

I get in my friend’s car.

A light immediately shines in the boring lives of everyone in this car. A smile is put on everyone’s faces for Grady Henderson is here and he writes Tumblr blogs. We laugh and tell personal stories. We laugh until the interior of the car nearly implodes. We laugh until we cannot breathe, mostly because of my stories though, because my stories are fucking hilarious. And the second I bring up Garfield, laughter shoots up like rockets amongst the stars. We throw cheese. We throw so much cheese. It slaps on buildings, it slaps on sidewalks, it slaps onto cars, it slaps onto people. There is so much solidified dairy sporadically spewed amongst this town that you can almost call it littering. You take one little look at any area of this town and you can point out nearly 100 pieces of cheese. People will wake up the next morning and not know what the fuck is going on. We revolutionized cheese warfare against uniformity! Correct! There is cheese fucking all over the place! If God’s sperm was yellow and he decided to cum all over his creation (like a narcissist) I guarantee it would look like this. Look at God’s yellow cum plastered all over this fucking place. It’s beautiful. Our town combined with this sperm is concepting a godlike being of creation and pride, and his name is Grady Henderson.

I get another phone call and chuck my phone out the window

Look at this field. This field is a metaphor for all the people that will one day plant fields. They’re all the same, they’re all bland. Me, on the other hand, I am not! I am colorful! I am unique! For I am a writer and I write Tumblr blogs and this is why I’m here, isn’t it? Because I write Tumblr blogs? Yes. This is true. This is rightfully and justifiably true. I wonder why we’re in between fields. I notice we’re driving down a pitch black country road.

“We are are driving down this road right now”, says Friend A. the only Identity this man has is Friends A. “We don’t have to”, says Jonas. You guessed it, he’s kind of a cunt, but he sells us cocaine. “What the fuck are you talking about?”, says Friends A. “We don’t have to go forward. We could go back and throw cheese forever. enough to make earth shine like the sun.”, I gotta say, I’m kinda leaning towards Jonas, here. But- “What the fuck would be the point of that? Think about all the other times that we’ve done that. Where do we end up? We end up right here, don’t we? We end up right here driving down this dark road. It wasn’t different the second time and it wasn’t different the time after and the time after and the time after, it’s not gonna be different this time.”, says Friend A. I’m starting to see this guy’s point of view but I really don’t want to. Friend B(2) chimes in “What the fuck are you guys talking about?” “Shut the fuck up!” says Jonas. “Fuck you! You only exist as a replacement for someone we thought we could save but can’t and never will be able to!” “See what I mean?”, says Friend A “You know what I’m saying is true, you just don’t wanna see the despair of her forehead agai-” “Alright.” Jonas says “I think we should let Grady Henderson decide what we should do” “That’s fair”, agrees Friend A “He writes Tumblr blogs and therefore we should always listen to him”

They stop. They’re waiting for me to respond. My mind is blank. For once in the history of the universe, there is nothing going on in the brain of Grady Henderson. They want me to say something, but I don’t think I will. Instead I just look out the window all all these stalks of corn. I watch each and every one of them pass by. I realize they’re not the same. They form sort of an inconsistent wave. Over and over and over is just corn stalks rise and falling and rising and falling. There’s no progression, they never learn anything. Every single one of those cornstalks is a led in their own story and every single one of them is repetitive and boring. I watch this for minutes They really want me to respond, I really want to think of a response but I simply cannot. I am too fixated on the cornstalks. All of a sudden, I do want to say something. I receive a surge of energy, I want to yell at the top of my lungs but I don’t because I’m respectful. Instead I just say “Let’s sleep on it” and we pass another car the second after I say that. Friend A slams on his brakes and says “That’s them!”. Jonas starts saying the word no over and over again. This doesn’t matter, because the reason we stopped is because we noticed the car that passed us. That car is full of well respected females. We must get out of our car and interact with these respected females because we are teenage males. It’s what we do! We have to do it! We simply have to! There is nothing in existence stopping us from talking to these well respected women. This is not for their physical attraction, though. It might be for my good friends but for me, of course, it is because of the people that they are. (Although you know they are extremely, dazzlingly, extraordinarily, astonishingly breathtakingly beautiful)

We get out of our car, they get out of theirs. They all say hi in various ways, dependent on how confident all of them are. They start talking to us. Not flirting with us. Talking with us. Jonas, for some reason, turns his back and nearly falls to the floor to vomit. The well respected women are all not phased by this because they’re all focused on me and how much of a genius I am. Expect for one. Yes. I notice one well respected women does not care about my genius at all, because she doesn’t seem to care at all after I tell her I’m working on my next blog. She tells me “You next blog? What is that? Why should I care?” Everyone looks at her, shocked. As do I. This doesn’t make sense. How can a human not know what my blog is? Why must a human ask if they should care about what my blog is? What the fuck is happening? I then notice that this is the same well respected woman that spoke to me today. The same woman that I let fall on the floor head first. This must be why she has a giant bruise on her forehead! This also must be why she is suffering terrible memory loss because she has obviously forgotten about my blog!

“Have you not heard of my blog?” I ask “We were talking about it earlier today.” She says “I’m gonna be honest with you, I’ve never seen you before in my life”. Oh my god. I can’t let nature get away with this. I can’t let her get away with this! I need this to be stopped! Everyone needs to love me! I can’t live without everyone PRAISING me! She needs to love me! I need to refresh her memory, that’s what I need to do. I need to make her realize how much of a genius I am, to maker her remember. This is what I do. I ask her “You wanna go for a ride?” (this is creepy, why are you so creepy. You’re not creepy! You’re a genius! You write Tumblr blogs for fuck sake!) She accepts because she has to and I lead her to my car. Some of the other well respected women emotionlessly ask me where I’m going. I tell them I’m going to space. As I step on the gas, I hear Jonas collapse on the floor, for I believe he was using this car as a way to hold himself up. I step on the breaks after Friend A screams my name. He tells me “Please end up happy this time. Please.”

His eyes are red. I wink at him and drive out into the unknown.

I’m driving like a bullet straight into the darkness, with a well respected women in the passenger seat beside me. She asks me what we’re doing or where we’re going about 7 times but the only response I have is “We’re going to space”. I start to think that maybe she’s not the villain, I am. But I’m not, because I’m a genius. Jesus CHRIST! What is happening to me? I’m seemingly forgetting how intelligent I am! Well, I’m gonna remind myself. And I’m gonna remind her. We drive further and further into the abyss that is the Nebraskan country roads. Deeper and deeper into this dark tunnel. I don’t exactly know where I’m going, except I do! I’m going right here right now! I stop the car. For a moment I experience pure inner and atmospheric peace. When I look over at the well respected women and my heart sinks. I stare at all of her beauty. Her imperfect hair rests upon her head like a feather resting upon the land, flowing and waving naturally through the wind. Below it are 2 eyes that when looked at could bring a feeling of peace that could end any war. And it’s pretty fucking hard to focus on that with that giant bruise on her head. She lays on top of the car with me. I play every song on my main playlist. Our hearts move to the music, our hands interlock. Our eyes are completely engulfed by the universe above us. This is what I show her. I show her my symphonies, my perspective, my passion, my views, my craft, I show her everything. Therefore I unveil this mask she has been wearing all her life and introduce her to a sunrise. I show her her purpose. the one reason she was put on this earth, and that is to honor Grady Henderson. I show her the beginning, the middle, and the end. Not only of the playlist, not only of this moment, but of the universe. All of existence is defined by this moment and she understands every bit of that. She looks at me, eyes and all, and asks “What’s your Tumblr username?”

She understands. She respects. She remembers. As we drive home, the streetlights of this town become more visible. Forget that beautiful, wretched land. We are here. I look at her and barely recognize the bruise. She looks at me and barely recognizes the person she saw step out of that car. I drop her off at her house. She thanks me, and says she looks forward to reading my blogs. She has no idea what she’s getting into. I have brought light and meaning into yet another soul today. I go home and finish writing tomorrow’s blog

I write about how fucking pathetic I am. I write about how arrogant and narcissistic and disrespectful I am. I write paragraphs and paragraphs about how much I feel like Jon Arbuckle every day. I write about how alone I feel. I write about how unsatisfied I feel. I write about my repulsive face and my repulsive legs. I write about how the only reason I wanted her to like was because I’m an attention seeking piece of shit that only saw value in her because of her physical appearance. I write about how creepy I am for being so descriptive about her. I write about the friends that I hurt and abandoned and how I don’t even know if they made it home or not. Because I don’t care about anyone else, I only care about Grady Henderson. I write about this lazy, pathetic, repulsive person named Grady Henderson. I post it at 5 AM and go to sleep.

I wake up 2 hours later. I look out my window and watch another Friday morning begin. I once again feel the gust of wind of all my followers expressing their emotions about my latest blog through exhalation. I feel disgusted. And yet, I still rise above nature’s ground and levitate to school. Because I have to.

My name is Grady Henderson, and I write Tumblr blogs. I don’t receive any respect because of this and rightfully so.

0 notes

wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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Bar Tab Venmo May Ease the Sting of Media Layoffs, But It’s Far From a Safety Net

Push alerts are the scourge of our #mobilefirst existence, so it makes sense that Megan Greenwell had turned them off for all her most used apps. It also makes sense that Venmo, the ubiquitous platform that allows strangers to seamlessly transfer one another funds by phone, was not one of those apps.

After all, who walks the earth expecting strangers to simultaneously begin sending them funds with little to no warning? In this economy?! And yet, one fateful late-October afternoon last year, that’s exactly what happened to the editor of Wired, who had helmed the sports blog Deadspin for 18 months before resigning in protest of what she saw as improper editorial meddling by the executives running the site’s parent company.

“All of a sudden like my phone was like too hot to touch because of all the Venmos coming in,” Greenwell told me in a recent phone interview. The money wasn’t for her, not all of it at least. In fall 2019, 20 of the editor’s former Deadspin colleagues began walking off the job in a principled stand against the firing of one of their own, and the site’s fans (who included millions of regular readers per month and many NYC media insiders) wanted to show their support. Greenwell had stepped up as a digital bagwoman on Twitter, posting her Venmo handle and offering to run point on disbursement of any funds collected.

And lo, did the funds roll in. To buy the erstwhile Deadspinners drinks, strangers on the internet ultimately pooled together a “healthy five figures,” says Greenwell. (This went to more than drinks; we’ll get to that in a moment.) “I was like, ‘Holy fuck, I have to figure out how to turn off my notifications!’”

‘In lieu of a better safety net’

Such is the power and majesty of the “bar tab Venmo,” a digital-age rite borne of journalistic tribalism, smartphone connectivity, and the excruciating death shudders of an ever-collapsing American media ecosystem. It’s a fairly simple exercise: When journalists find themselves out of work, other journalists — plus rank-and-file subscribers, fans of a free press, and so forth — toss a few bucks into a digital bucket as consolation beer money for the newly unemployed.

Unfortunately, layoffs have been a nearly omnipresent specter in the media business for the entire decade I’ve been in it. (This story, in fact, is expanding on an essay I wrote for my drinking culture newsletter after being laid off, for the first time, from a media gig of my own. Fun!) In that time, as shop after shop has shed writers and editors, hard-nosed reporters and soft-handed listicle jockeys, the bar tab Venmo routine has become a bit of a funeral rite.

(Apparently this is a thing that people also did with former staffers of failed Democratic presidential campaigns, which is different and honestly a little weird to me in ways that I can’t quite put my finger on right now. Anyway!)

Given how often journalists get laid off, it’s impossible to say how many of these booze-focused fundraisers have hit the timeline since Venmo was created in 2009. But in the past few years, as the digital-media balloon has deflated in an atmosphere of impossible growth goals, video pivots, and impatient, inept venture-capitalism and private-equity opportunism, they’ve gotten bigger. Due to the site’s stature and its writers’ popularity, the drive for former Deadspinners was arguably the highest-profile of the bunch. The last year and a half alone seen has similar ad-hoc efforts for journalists at BuzzFeed News, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times en Espanol, Outside Magazine … and on and on.

“I’ve spent a lot of time over the past four years or so specifically … donating to bar tab Venmos,” says Maya Kosoff, a freelance writer and editor who, back in the Before Times, wrote movingly for GEN on “the human toll of the 2019 media apocalypse” that put 3,000 journalists out of work. (Smash cut to 2020 and that number looks downright adorable next to the toll taken by pandemic-related media layoffs, which The New York Times ballparked at 36,000 back in April. And uh, folks, things have not gotten better since April!)

“It feels like you’re trying to help your fellow peers get back on their feet at a time when there’s complete instability in the industry, and no guarantee that you’re gonna find another staff job in journalism,” she added. Bar tab Venmo “is kind of in lieu of there being like a better safety net — for reporters, writers, editors, and freelancers.”

“I don’t know where I first saw people doing this,” says Amanda Mull, a staff writer for The Atlantic whose tweet about the Deadspin walkout was among those that prompted Greenwell to offer up her Venmo handle last fall. “Maybe it was an early round of BuzzFeed layoffs? I saw people doing it, so I sent some money. It seemed like just a nice thing to do, people who are losing their jobs or who are in an unstable employment situation.”

Mutual Aid in the Modern Era

Speaking of which: As the coronavirus pandemic continues its literal and figurative death march through the American economy, rolling layoffs and gobsmacking unemployment numbers have become a de rigeur part of the national discourse. There are a lot more workers (both in the media and beyond) in unstable employment situations than ever before.

As such, new conversation has sprung forth about the shortcomings of America’s dismal system of meat-grinder capitalism and what average folks — buried in student loan, perpetually renting, and/or clinging to garbage jobs they hate because the bad health benefits they get are still better than the obscenely expensive alternatives in our cartoonishly corrupt privatized healthcare industry — can do to help each other survive. Like, beyond buying each other drinks, I mean.

Workers, neighbors, marginalized groups, and more have been passing the hat to help their own cover the costs of sickness, death, and bad luck for centuries. That’s neither new (it was a staple of 19th-century fraternal lodges), nor particularly mainstream, in the United States at least. But things are shifting, according to Max Haiven, an author and professor at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada. Rank-and-file attitudes toward mutual aid were “changing already very quickly before the pandemic, [and they’re] changing even faster right now. … What we’ve actually begun to see is that since Covid, a lot of workers who previously were not unionized are now taking forms of collective action.”

At the very least, people seem more aware of the idea. Google Trends indicates that interest in the phrase “mutual aid” has been higher than normal for virtually the entire duration of the coronavirus pandemic. That tool also suggests searches spiked directly after a police officer killed George Floyd in the street this past spring, which makes sense because American capitalism and American racism are “different” in the sense that Bud Light and Miller Lite are “different,” which is to say sort of but also not really.

What’s the connection between neighborhood grocery deliveries and strangers paying each other’s medical bills, and random Twitter avatars throwing beer money at unemployed bloggers? Ah, so glad you asked, my dear rhetorical device!

Drinks Do Not a Union Organize

To Haiven, journalism’s money-for-booze routine isn’t quite a pure expression of solidarity — it’s long on symbol, but short on substance, and is probably predicated a bit too much on journalism’s romanticized “brand” and the popularity of individual outlets and writers to constitute real movement-building action.

On that, all the journalists I spoke with for this story agreed emphatically. “Part of me is a little unsettled by the popularity aspect of it,” says Greenwell. The success or failure of a bar tab Venmo is “not determined by who needs it the most, and it’s not determined by whose circumstances were the worst in terms of their layoff or firing or whatever, it’s determined by popularity on Twitter.”

Kosoff, who received some Venmo dough herself after leaving “new Gawker” over ethical concerns regarding the site’s leadership, echoed that reservation, warning that the practice is potentially exclusionary and even “clique-y” — words more or less incompatible with true solidarity.

Another aspect of bar tab Venmo that makes it more a “solidaristic” behavior than a true form of solidarity is that the stakes are relatively low. With the exception of alcoholics who’d be wracked with delirium tremens in the absence of drink, buying rounds for writers online is not really in the same category as, say, passing the hat to help the family of a union brother slain on the job to cover funeral costs.

And contrary to what you’ve heard, not every journalist unwinds at the end of the day with several glasses of Scotch. “Sending money for booze is a heartwarming gesture and a good expression of love and solidarity for people who have been laid off,” says Hamilton Nolan, a labor reporter for In These Times and a former staffer of the various companies that have owned Deadspin. “But speaking as someone who doesn’t drink, I would suggest that an even better practice would be just donating cash to laid off workers. They can buy their own drinks, or pay the rent.”

Still, Haiven says, if labor activism occurs on a spectrum, with strikes and solidarity actions between different unions or workers organizations on one end, “on the other end of the spectrum are these like small almost seemingly insignificant acts of mutual aid, where people say ‘actually, our fates are connected.’”

“It’s kind of a culture of solidarity that could then turn into the structures of solidarity,” he adds.

Beyond the Bar Tab

Those structures, it should be noted, are already being built both outside media — and within it. After five decades of declining union density in the United States, the digital-media industry was a bright spot in the second half of the 2010s, with a wave of successful union drives, with workers at publications like Vox, New York Magazine, Deadspin, Vice, HuffPost, Salon, and many more organizing themselves to bargain for better conditions and more stability. (Disclosure: I organized at Thrillist, another digital shop that went union in that wave. We won, but it took awhile.)

So while bar tab Venmo is an imperfect vessel for building coalition across the industry, it might act as sort of a gateway drug to more substantive acts of solidarity. For one thing, it’s more for newly activated workers to send fallen coworkers beer money with a few taps on an iPhone, than to, say, write them a check for a portion of their rent, or baby formula, or whatever.

“It’s a perfect way to say like, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about you, when we’re not close enough to say “I’m thinking about you,” so here’s 20 bucks,’” muses Greenwell. Under the guise of sending a round of send-off shots, contributors were able to offer financial support that could cover actual necessities. And it did: The Deadspin fund fueled several outings with Greenwell’s former staff, but also went toward paying months of rent and buying half a dozen laptops for those writers who had previously relied on their company-issue machines. Many of those workers went on to launch Defector, one of several promising new worker-owned media co-ops seeking to reinvent a broken business with good blogs. (Maybe the drinks helped!)

Greenwell imagines mutual aid in an ideal world simply as money doled out to people who need it most, donated by those with common cause who weren’t swayed by individual popularity or, as Kosoff put it, “the stereotype of journalists as miserable sad sacks want to drink together at the bar.” Something less like a bar tab Venmo, and more like the Journalist Furlough Fund.

Launched in late March by Seattle Times reporter Paige Cornwell as a GoFundMe, the JFF is a by-journalists, for-journalists effort to plug the gaping holes in both the media industry’s broken model and the United States’ shredded social safety net. The fundraising target was $60,000, but to date the campaign has raised over $96,000 from journalists, local businesses, public-relations pros … you name it.

Speaking on the phone while coordinating wildfire coverage in Seattle, Cornwell was intent to note two things. First: “I do this independent of my employer,” she says, noting that, though the Seattle Times has been supportive of the effort, it is not a company initiative. (The Times, for what it’s worth, is a partly union newsroom; its digital journalists are currently fighting for their right to join their already-organized colleagues, of which Cornwell is one.)

The second thing Cornwell was adamant about was something every other journalist I interviewed also brought up: The sheer deficiency of crowdfunded mutual aid, even $100,000 of it, when compared to the scope of the problem at hand. Even though the JFF is much more explicitly oriented around aid than a bar tab Venmo, it pales in comparison to the broad, systematic dysfunction of the media industry.

“This isn’t a way to make up for [a laid-off journalist’s] loss,” says Cromwell. “It’s for keeping someone from the edge.” As the administrator of the fund, she’s disbursed cash to journalists across the country for daycare tuition fees, medical bills, equipment, and more. The JFF can help some journalists in a pinch, but still, “it’s not enough,” she says.

That doesn’t mean she plans to wind it down anytime soon, though. After surging in the spring, contributions to the fund have slowed, but considering that things are only getting worse in the American media business, she’s hopeful that people will contribute again if they can — if not to “fix” the media, then at least to keep more writers and editors from the meat grinder. “Someone else can figure out how to save journalism as a whole, [the JFF] will just make sure that someone will be able to buy their daughter school supplies,” she quips.

“It’s just so ridiculous that we even have to have those conversations.”

I’ll drink to that. (Please Venmo me.)

The article Bar Tab Venmo May Ease the Sting of Media Layoffs, But It’s Far From a Safety Net appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/bar-tab-venmo-layoffs/

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johnboothus · 4 years

Text

Bar Tab Venmo May Ease the Sting of Media Layoffs But Its Far From a Safety Net

‘In lieu of a better safety net’

Mutual Aid in the Modern Era

Drinks Do Not a Union Organize

“It’s kind of a culture of solidarity that could then turn into the structures of solidarity,” he adds.

Beyond the Bar Tab

“It’s just so ridiculous that we even have to have those conversations.”

I’ll drink to that. (Please Venmo me.)

The article Bar Tab Venmo May Ease the Sting of Media Layoffs, But It’s Far From a Safety Net appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/bar-tab-venmo-layoffs/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/bar-tab-venmo-may-ease-the-sting-of-media-layoffs-but-its-far-from-a-safety-net

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nightmareonfilmstreet · 6 years

Text

[Exclusive] The Sounds of SAW: An Interview with Composer CHARLIE CLOUSER

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/exclusive-sounds-saw-interview-composer-charlie-clouser/

[Exclusive] The Sounds of SAW: An Interview with Composer CHARLIE CLOUSER

Once upon a time, way back in 2004, a then relatively unknown James Wan made his directorial debut with a little film called Saw. The film rocked the horror world and was an instant hit in the genre. Since then, the Saw universe has continued to grow, expand and ask the now infamous question;

“Do you wanna play a game?”

While Saw has experienced different directors, writers, proteges and victims, one of the constants that has helped truly unify the Saw universe is the music of Charlie Clouser. As a former member of NIN and his years working with artists such as Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, and David Bowie, Clouser was well versed in the world of electronic and industrial music when he took on his first solo scoring gig with Saw. I recently had the privilege of speaking with Charlie for a bit and we talked about all things Saw, including the upcoming Saw Anthology releases from Lakeshore Records. Check out our conversation below:

Rachel Prin for NOFS: In 2004, the very first Saw movie was released and it was our first introduction to the now infamous “Hello Zepp” theme. Did you realize you were creating a theme at the time?

Charlie Clouser: I kind of had a game plan going in that I discussed a lot with James Wan and Leigh Whannell, that we thought it would add extra impact to that twist ending, and the sort of thing that’s become a sort of trademark in a lot of the Saw movies, the ending reveal montage where there’s a lot of quick cuts and flashbacks to earlier scenes in the movie while Jigsaw’s voice narrates and explains the parts you may not have seen earlier in the film. So it was kind of on purpose that the whole main body of the movie had a score that was just very murky and indistinct and kind of blurry and didn’t really state musical ideas, thematic ideas strongly at all.

As it turns out, if you dissect the notes, chords, harmonies and everything that’s used earlier in the movie, they relate to the “Hello Zepp” theme, but they’re transposed down a couple of semi-tones so that it’s just a slight shift when the actual theme comes in at the end. We really felt like we wanted it to be as if the bright lights get turned on when that ending theme begins. So you spent the whole movie in this cloudy, murky, dark indistinct world of music and sound that then gets really insistent and shattering when it comes in full force at the end. So for that reason the sounds that are used in the ending theme aren’t used elsewhere in the movie and it’s sort of a whole different set of sounds and a different approach.

I knew that in order for that piece of music to work it would have to be fairly simple and kind of repetitive and hypnotic and not have a lot of musical information in there but still kind of start small-ish and then build as the insistent phrases kind of repeat. So once I had that game plan sort of in my mind, the creation of that “Hello Zepp” theme wasn’t something that took days, it really kind of came together kind of quickly because I had already established these kind of mental rules and conditions that it had to fulfill. I did most of the music in a few hours one day, spent the evening arranging it for a string quartet, the next day recorded a string quartet, and boom it was done.

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NOFS: What have been some of the films or composers that have influenced you and your scoring work?

CC: The kind of movies that I wind up liking and enjoying are often well outside the horror genre. Some of my earliest influences, for movie anyways, were all of Kubrick’s. That’s what I wanted to see on screen. Whether it’s movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or his version of Stephen King’s The Shining. I still think it’s the greatest horror movie ever made and even though maybe pure horror fans don’t feel like it fits in with their genre, I always thought that it was just fantastic. And of course the music that Kubrick uses a lot is not composed for his movies, but was music that he found in classical music collections and so forth.

I still remember seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey when it was in the theaters for it’s initial release when I was just a little kid and being so struck by these atonal choir pieces, by the composer Gyorgy Ligeti, and it’s just these dense tonal clusters that sounded so other worldly and unlike anything I’d heard before. Of course a lot of other music from that same kind of genre of super modern classical composers is also used in The Shining. There’s a lot of Penderecki, Bartok and these other composers and it’s almost a sonic experiment more than it is traditional classical music. The clattering, rattling, smacking sounds and weird atonal and dissonant elements; those kind of things have always been the pieces of music that stuck with me over the years. Mainly because it wasn’t anything that I knew how to do or just figure out how that music was put together by picking up a guitar or sitting at the piano. It was such a mystery to me how that music came to be and that was what drew me in.

Of course horror movies are perfect avenues to use atonal and dissonant and experimental kinds of music, more so than say an Indiana Jones kind of movie or something, and so that’s sort of what drew me into these kind of movies.

NOFS: Lakeshore Records has recently digitally released (with CD and vinyl forthcoming) the Saw Anthology Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 featuring music from all 8 Saw films. Were you involved in this process and if so what was your role?

CC: Oh yeah. They said ‘Look, you figure it out, you put it together and we’ll put it out’. So, it took me almost a month to go through all of the pieces of music. I literally went with a microscope, inspected and chose, out of the whole sum total of movies (there’s over 550 pieces of music in the source folders across all 8 of the movies). Since it’s coming out on vinyl, each side of a vinyl record is about 20 minutes, so I sort of set up a set of mental rules for myself that each movie would get 1 vinyl side and within that 20 minutes I would try to put my favorite cues from each movie in chronological order so that it felt like a miniature journey through the films themselves.

I didn’t do things like, put all the action cues from all 8 movies all together and that sort of thing. I tried to reduce each movie down to this 20 minute slab that maintained the order in which those pieces of music originally appeared in the film. Once I had that set of rules, I had at least some sort of guidepost that I could use to map things out, and it certainly was agonizing to throw away and skip over so many pieces of music that I liked, but I still wanted it to feel like it balanced. So that each 20 minute chunk from each movie would have a variety of stuff; the thematic melodic material and also some of the crazy action and trap scenes, and some of the weird floaty dark ambient stuff that fills up so much space in those movies.

So having that kind of game plan in place really helped me to organize my thoughts as I went through it. And I did combine a lot of pieces together where I might have 2 or 3 pieces of music that are only 30 or 40 seconds long, and I would combine those together and then graft them on to the front of a longer piece. To create a sort of flowing, landscape of longer pieces instead of just a million short little pieces of music with silence in between them. And I always like it when so many of my favorite albums growing up had that sort of feel, like Pink Floyd albums. Where the songs kind of cross faded against each other and it was just one long seamless experience, so I wanted to kind of emulate that as much as I could for this Anthology project.

NOFS: This is the first time any of the Saw scores have been released on vinyl. How do you view the importance of physical media and what is your connection to medium?

CC: Aside from the obvious sonic differences of listening to something on vinyl vs. CD, or streaming or whatever, the physical experience of holding something that’s large and slightly fragile and has to be treated with some kind of care and respect. You know, you don’t leave your vinyl records lying around on the floor the same way you might leave CD’s laying around in the glove box of your car, or downloads lying around cluttered on the desktop of your computer.

So that process, and that manner in which you have to physically interact with the vinyl certainly forces you to behave a little more carefully with the vinyl that you own. Not to be in such a hurry to grab one and throw it off to the side to listen to another one, and that is helpful because it kind of leads the listener to not be in such a hurry to skip over songs and get to the next one. I always prefer that on vinyl, if you do want to skip over a song you have to carefully lift the tone arm off the record and carefully place it down, as opposed to a CD or a stream where you just hit the next track button. I’m glad that vinyl makes it more difficult to skip over things because then maybe people will take the time and just relax a little bit and let the music flow along.

That’s also kind of why I wanted to combine a bunch of different pieces of music into longer suites and to kind of cross fade them all together so that you can’t get in between every track and it kind of forces the listener to sit back and let this whole 8 minute thing with it’s peaks and valleys kind happen. The resurgence of vinyl and people’s love for a big solid hunk of physical media sort of has parallels in the resurgence we’ve seen recently with big hardware synthesizers for musicians in the studio.

For a long time it seemed like everything was going to just occur inside a computer. We had so many great software programs for creating music that everybody was just jumping on that bandwagon, and then a few years ago we started to see the resurgence of synthesizers that reminded us of the 1980’s. Back when things were big and had lots of knobs and were sort of expensive and delicate. There’s been a real resurgence in that as well and I think it really comes down to the tactile experience of wanting to touch the thing, to feel like you can feel the sound waves emanating from it. I think both of those phenomena are kind of related in some way.

NOFS: Do you have any go-to Saw instruments or techniques that you only use in the Saw films?

CC: Yeah, there’s a whole category of sounds and techniques that I use, that in my mind anyway, that really only apply to that world. I have a bunch of strange handmade acoustic instruments that are basically made out of pieces of scrap metal, which you can play with a violin bow or with sticks and most of them involve some kind of metal sheet or metal rods that’ll produce sound when you operate them. I have a whole family of 5 or 6 variations of that kind of instrument that were built by a metal sculptor and musician named Chas Smith that I’ve known for a long time. In my mind those instruments are restricted for use only on Saw movies because they’ve become a big part of the sonic landscape that I use in those movies. And they also create sounds that are just so heavy-duty scary that they don’t really apply in less insane kind of scoring work.

NOFS: After a 7 year hiatus, did you ever think you’d be coming back to the world of Jigsaw?

CC: You know, I secretly knew that somewhere deep down inside that, even though the 7th movie was called the “Final Chapter”, I knew they weren’t gonna let this thing die. We had been doing the movies every year, one per year for 7 years straight, and it was always a mad dash to get the things finished. So once they decided to take some time off from the franchise I knew we’d be back. I didn’t know when, but they’ve created such a rich kind of cinematic universe of heroes and villains and victims that I knew they’d find a way. And at this point nothing would surprise me in the Saw universe. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there was even more yet to come.

NOFS: So, Saw 9…you in?

CC: Oh I’ll ride that horse into the sunset.

The response to this latest movie from the hardcore Saw fans was really good and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the phone rings and they say ‘Hey get back on the horse because we’re working on the script for the next one’. Of course, if they keep the franchise rolling, I’ll be all in for as many as they care to do. The first Saw movie was the first feature film that I scored by myself so it has a special place in my heart. I’m fine to do as many as they care to roll out. They can count me in.

The digital version of the Saw Anthology Vol. 1 & 2 is currently available from Lakeshore Records and you can find it here. CD & vinyl releases coming soon so stay tuned for more information on that.

Also available from Lakeshore Records, the digital release of the Jigsaw soundtrack. Make sure to check out that release here.

#charlie clouser #horror #horror movie #horror soundtrack #interview #james wan #jigsaw #Lakeshore records #new release #nin #saw #saw anthology #soundtrack #vinyl

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disfira · 6 years

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Steps Closer to Oppa: A South Korea Traveling Yarn Revealed

A 5-day journey finding another home.

Annyeong! After several-month-hiatus, I come back! Just in case someone’s missing my writing, anyway.

For those who are still curious and haven’t read any of my (almost covering the whole) stories during my trip in South Korea, worry not, sweetheart. I’ll serve it for ya!

Actually, the story had been posted in bwamgosh’s blog entitled as Traveling to South Korea & Being A Temporary Seoulite Starter Pack by Disfira. Yup, I joined the giveaway as the participants needed to share the South Korean experience with BWAM Trip as the organizer. I reposted my original story in this precious blog as well.

I know you would be inconvenient reading with the unproper-loaded page since Tumblr is being blocked in Indonesia, hope you find the story as an enjoyable stuff. :)

Traveling to South Korea & Being A Temporary Seoulite Starter Pack

Annyeong yeorobun! To begin with, I would like to give a brief introduction about me. Disfira Ika Amelia who succeed being a Seoulite even though it only lasted for a few days. A Yogyakarta-based online media worker. 25 years old. Life motto: Seoul is where both my heart and home is supposed to be. Through the motto, I bet you can guess what this article is going to talk about. South Korea! In case you don’t know, Soulite is a phrase to call someone who from or pertaining to Seoul. Kekekeke.

As we hear “South Korea” is mentioned, there would be 3 kinds of response that will follow. First, that would be, “Oh my goodness! That is where my home is!” The second, “Meh.” like they are not giving even a slight of their attention. Or even these “What? Where is that?” who knows nothing about this country. Undoubtedly, put me as the first responder. Hahahaha.

I was introduced to K-pop since 2009, specifically when Boys Over Flower drama made the girls in my class deeply excited all day long. After that, I am still not able to completely go out of this addicting world. Around 2015, South Korea has been pinpointed by myself.

“I should be there once in a lifetime.”

Yep, that was my self-promise and became the strong motivation for me to save more each month. People around me sometimes seemed like underestimating me for keeping it as a motivation. Well, it happened, didn’t it?

Let me commemorate the day when I fulfilled this dream at last. November 4th, 2017 around 9 am was the very first time I stepped in the land of Daehan Minguk. Sound impossible but I did. It was all thanks to BWAMTRIP. The journey of being a first-timer traveler started here. Please bear yourself while reading this later. I will mix the language into Bahasa and English. Probably a little of Korean as well!

Intinya sih, di sini akan dikupas tuntas tentang perjalanan “naik haji” ala K-popers yang pertama kali jelong-jelong ke luar negeri bersama Nadia dan Lina. That’s the shortest summary, actually.

Reasons why I chose BWAMTRIP are…..

Your mutual would ask about what travel agent did you choose for traveling to South Korea. For me, I decide to choose @bwamtrip. The reason is as simple as this: BWAMTRIP offers the most affordable price (for me)! Buat budak start-up yang uang jajan bulanannya segitu-gitu aja, yang terpenting adalah cari yang hemat bebeb dan ramah buat rekening tabungan. Karena liburan pake duit sendiri itu sebuah perjuangan keras.

Before joining, along with my friends, Nadia and Frylia, did a small survey to several Korean travel agents that based in Indonesia through Instagram. We found about 4 travels to be compared based on their packages, price, and itinerary. In the end, we agreed to choose BWAMTRIP. For a 5-day trip, we could afford it by around 8 Mio Rupiah. 8 million Rupiah! 8 juta rupiah! Who would believe we could travel there with that (super) cheap package? I screamed too. Okay, you can thank me later. Nadia, Lina, and I ended up registered in March for Autumn Backpacker Package. Sadly, Frylia couldn’t join us.

What makes BWAM Trip cheaper or cheapest than other, they NOT travel agent. They are trip organizer! They organize the round ticket plane, guest house, T-money, and visa. The itinerary and the rest are up to you. You can roam around anywhere without feeling rushed by the tour guide’s schedule and curfew.

“Will you go somewhere alone? Aren’t you afraid being kidnaped or lost there?”

The answer is, being lost in Seoul is fun and addicting. We three were excited making the itinerary and exploring the places we were curious about. As a first-timer abroad traveler, we were naïve and idealist. We wanted all places got to be visited! Hahahaha.

It was departure time from CGK! Woohoo!

Shortly, our visas were all approved in September 2017. For you who are wondering the step-by-step of South Korean visa application, you can kindly check my previous post.

I did purchase a round trip plane tickets from and to CGK-JOG as well.

November 3rd, 2017 finally came. By the time waiting for Nadia and Lina arrived at Soekarno Hatta International Airport, I installed important apps that will be needed exceptionally in South Korea. Including the maps, subway-thingy, and others, you can find more here! Be prepared, the subway will be your new best friend in South Korea!

Around 8 PM, we were finally together and waiting for the appointed meeting point. After having dinner and chit-chatting all things, we met Kak Cindy, the Founder of BWAM Trip that would be our trip leader. Then, we met the other participants, probably around 20 people in totals. Please meet the 155 cm-ish squads!

Around 10 PM, we headed to the terminal did the check-in and so forth. At 11:55 PM, the autumn groups took-off to Incheon International Airport. Julbal!

Day 1

November 4th, 2017

Our itinerary for day 1 is quite simple. Arrived then be at Epik High’s We’ve Done Something Wonderful concert hall in time. It just… happened. Since the concert date was clicked with our trip, why not? Again, we asked to help BWAM Trip to purchase our tickets and succeed!

Before going to the concert, we needed to head to some places and I was overwhelmed. Would we really make it there?

We arrived at Incheon International Airport around 9 AM. After the customs, baggage thingy, and hearing the “bad news” around 10 AM, all of the participants headed downstairs catching the subway!

We transferred twice and take the baggage of both the escalators and stairs back and forth. You could imagine how we struggled back then. Even a local woman helped me lifting my 28-inch trunk! We arrived at Sangsu Station at last and walked 5 minutes to Mamas and Papas Guest House! Reading this would make you tired already.

After took shower and well-prepared, we went to Sukmyung Women’s University at 1 PM. There were things for friends of my friends who studied at that uni. After the barter was succeeded, we finally ate something! Streetfood at its best!

We muched it all till exploding. Our stomach was fully prepared, then we head to Ewha Womans University Station to meet Danny oppa (who helped BWAM Trip) and took our Epik High tickets. He was so nice and thank God, he can speak English! Hahaha.

The transactions went well, we headed to Itaewon Station! Finally, please wait for us, Epik High ahjussi!

At 3:30 PM, it took around 15 minutes walking from Itaewon yeok (station) to the venue. Some people were queueing. It was pretty crowded but acceptable since the queues were neat and not chaos. Thank you for the staffs, they could speak English and so much cooperative. At last, we could gig together with one of my favorite K-hip-hop musician ever with their new-released album! Bonus watching IU and Kim Jong Wan as a plus! I was so touched but couldn’t even cry! We ended the day 1 with the ear-to-ear smile until sleeping.

Day 2

November 5th, 2017

The theme of day 2 trips was K-pop! Our first destination was YG Entertainment and started at 10 AM! We had breakfast in Sevel and bought kimbab, samgak kimbab, and milk! Eat like locals! The good news was, it was placed near to our guesthouse!

Since we also needed cash to live for the next 4 days, walking was the best option to find bank as well. We needed 30 minutes to reach YG Entertainment building where our oppas worked and signed! It didn’t make me tired at all. All places over there in Seoul were so much photostable-you-cannot-resist-I-swear. Jinjja, I don’t lie!

Anyway, if you are wondering where our guesthouse is, these photos are the sneak-peak. 5 minutes away walking from Hongdae, convenience stores, and cafes everywhere! What a perfect neighborhood!

The next places, we headed to Gangnam where K-Star Road is. From Hapjeong Station to Apgujeong Rodeo Station, it took around 30 minutes by subway and taraaa! We were welcomed by the statues! Taking photos with some of theme was an obligatory! Lolz!

Not wasting time, we put our strength back and walking to find SM Entertainment. While went there, we were distracted by the watery thing afar. Yep, Hangang Park and we didn’t regret going there. The peacefulness was what I found there. If I were given a chance going to South Korea again, I will definitely revisit Hangang Park just for sitting on the grass and daydreaming.

After being amazed by one of the longest rivers in Daehan Minguk, we continued our journey going to SM Entertainment. 5 minutes taking photos, we walked again to look for JYP Entertainment building. Again, 5 minutes spent taking photos, we head again to the Gangnam main road.

What makes three of us clicked besides K-pop honestly, we love “doing research” in secondhand goods. In Gangnam, there is Vinprime that sells secondhand goods! After crossing 4 or 5 zebra cross, the Vinprime is spotted! Jajjan!

What we can summarize about secondhand goods in Korea is the price is quite expensive. Better buying the new ones there.

The clock ticked at 3 PM, we decided to eat at a dakgalbi restaurant near to Vinprime. The ahjummas greeted us with their humble smiles even though we just order chicken for 2 person portions. Here is the dakgalbi! We mixed it with rice and ramyun as well. It made us so much full! What makes chicken in Korea is different to in Indonesia, it is more chewy and juicy. Nggak alot sama sekali lah ya pokoknya. Tinggal ditelen aja bisa. Hahahaha.

The journey had not ended, yeorobun! Ewha Shopping Street waited for us! No one could stop us shopping wildly there! Two words only: ALL CHEAP! Anything like socks, clothings, headbands, beauty product stands, all of them were on discount we could even decide where to stop by. We went back to the guesthouse surely happily like it would last ever after.

Day 3

November 6th, 2017

The theme of that day was: strolling around! After getting ready and had our morning kimbab and milk from GS-25, we moved our bodies to Haneul Park! This place is a must to visit when Autumn comes. You can google it and surely eager to be there! From Sangsu Station we headed to World Cup Stadium Station. We still (again) needed to walk around 30 minutes. Passing ahjussi-clothing tent made us stop for a while. Boys will be boys. Either toys or clothes, boy-to-man’s goods can never be cheaps as womans’. The price made us going to walk further. The parking lot, parks, yellowish trees took away our minds, indeed. It was beyond beautiful, I swear! And then this is Haneul Park we had been waiting for!

Taking photos made us hungry. We could not wait any longer, therefore World Cup Mall became our culinary destination! Lina and Nadia cannot eat pork, the menus in food court is mostly pork. This made us wait longer to decide. In the end, KFC was the safe choice! There was egg tart yeorobun, endues banget sumpah! If we compared the price with in Indonesia, it was all the same. We ate, the happy pills were being recharged! The next destination was Gyeongbokgung Palace since Kak Cindy, our tour leader waited there and would did photoshoot for us.

Actually, we insisted wearing hanbok and visiting Gyeongbokgung Palace.

“Males ah pake hanbok. Turis banget nggak, sih?”

However, we ended up going to Gyeongbokgung in hanbok. Don’t imagine we would look like princess with its elegant hanbok. We wore the hanbok for proletariat. HAHAHAHA.

The princess time was over. We were back to who we are and heading to Namdaemun Market! We only stopped by in Myeongdong, and walking to this market. Yep, we were hunting souvenirs for family and friends! From chopsticks, chocolates even through kim or dried seaweeds were all there. Bring cash, that’s all. Bringing 2 extra tote bags were not enough to put our goods. Lol!

The shopping-thingy didn’t stop there, guys! After taking our goods in the guesthouse, we roam around in Hongdae. It is just 5 minutes away by walking from the guesthouse. Sure, it was that close! After Ewha Shopping Street, Hongdae is the place you will have to visit for shopping. Where could you find the high-quality sweater and its other overload cuteness in clothing for 10.000 won?! Please, bear yourself or bring cash as much as possible!

That day’s journey was over, we found a small restaurant that serves its traditional menu. Bibimbap and Naengmyeong were chosen along with soju! I couldn’t finish a bottle, I was afraid couldn’t get up early for the next morning. Hahahaha.

Day 4

November 7th, 2017

The journey’s theme was going far at its best! Nami Island and Petite France were our destinations! Pssst, we got the free ticket for Nami Island and Petite France entrance from BWAM! We were surprised and happy!

These two places were pretty far, actually. It takes 1 hour and 3 times transfer by subway from Sangsu Station to Gapyeong Station. After that, we took a tour bus and stopped in Nami Island. For you who don’t know, Nami Island is a must-visited place for travelers. The scenery is no joke! After arrived in the Nami Island’s bus, we still needed the walk and went to the island by ferry. The hunger attacked we couldn’t hold it anymore. Thank you kkuldak ahjussi, you save our life! The chicken was surely delicious! Happy tummy every time!

Autumn is one of the best seasons to visit Nami Island! That’s what people recommend. Please take a glimpse of this romantic island and you are welcome.

We didn’t spend much time in Nami. After an hour, we headed back to the bus stop going to Petite France. Have you watched “You Who Come From The Star” drama with Jun Jihyun and Kim Sohyun as the lead character? That is one of their shooting locations! After exploring the whole place, we felt satisfied with its France classical concept in mini-me. It is pretty! Jinjja! Here are some pictures were taken there.

Ah, the journey of these two places were about to end. We took the tour bus again to reach Gapyeong Station. The zigzag road made me dizzy, seemed like the driver wanting to end his shift soon. It was better to sleep for a while. After touching down to Gapyeong Station, we head back to Hongdae (Hongik University Station) as our last stop. We wanted to explore Hongdae from another starting point. This was the best way for us finding a delicious chicken restaurant! Aaaak, making myself happy was as simple as eating Seoul’s chicken! We want more! We want more!

Do you think yesterday’s shopping was enough? Nope, not at all! Our legs automatically stopped by the beauty brand, cute clothing, and sort of. Again and again, our eyes could be easily distracted by things that we wouldn’t find in Indonesia. Hahahaha. We also finally found the way to ALAND, a shopping center that sells Benton and COSRX, if you need the info anyway!

Lina told us that she really wanted to visit 87MM, a clothing brand, and distro owned by his favorite model. Tons of Korean celebrities wear this brand, therefore people would really curious. It was so much near to our guesthouse, actually! We made it coming to MMLG on its operating hours! The shopkeeper, who was actually a model and spending time there, greet us warmly. I was so shy I couldn’t even look at his eyes and decided to wait outside. Hahahaha. Photo-time in front of its famous spot is a must! That was how they day be well-spent.

Day 5

November 8th, 2017

Beginning exists, farewell too. One of the binary opposition that makes me sad. It was the last day in Seoul. Kak Cindy told us that the 5-day group participants would leave to Incheon International Airport at 12 PM sharp. Three of us only wanted to buy uyu or milk. It was said the milk were much cheaper if we buy in Lotte Mart. We could purchase them in convenience stores actually. Hmmm, this made us confused whether to go or not, since it is in Seoul Station. The answer was yes, we went to Lotte Mart at 10:30 AM. Walking from Seoul Station to Lotte Mart made us think that this station is so huge. “Could me back to the guesthouse on time at 12 PM?” That was what we wondering.

Taking milk from the racks and paying in chasier only needed 15 minutes. Going back to Seoul Station to Sangsu took ages longer than when we first arrived. We were even lost and took the other way. How. Could. We. Lost. On. The. Last. Day. Minutes. Before. We. Had. To. Back?

Kak Cindy and the other participants asking where we were in LINE group. The limousine buses had arrived and it was nearly 12 PM. What we could do were to make them calm and told them that we would arrived at guesthouse in 10 minutes. After arrived in Sangsu Station, we ran as fast as we can while handling boxes of milk that actually heavy, yeorobun. Three of us couldn’t even talk while running. What was inside our head: arrived at guesthouse! Finally, we got back safely to the guesthouse. After apologizing to the other participants, we went to Incheon International Airport at 12:30 PM, in silence. I know they were angry since we made them wait. Lesson learned: if it’s available in a convenience store, why choose the far ones? Noted!

Probably after 45 minutes, we arrived in the airport. Checking the luggage weight back and forth making sure there would be not overload did take time. We checked-in and saying goodbyes to our strong tour leader Kak Cindy! It was both sad yet memorable trip for me meeting Kak Cindy in this occasion. Huhuhu.

We went in and searched for something to eat. The mood of getting tax refund was faded away! Hahahaha. We spent last moment before leaving Seoul by sitting, talking, and contemplating in the waiting room. “Ah, the dream was over. Really? Can I start another chance to daydreaming again, walking around in Seoul again?”

As I walked into the plane, I promised to myself that coming to Seoul again is a must. A MUST. Thank you BWAM Trip for granting my lost-awaited wish do come true. I don’t mind coming back then sitting and daydreaming on the top of grass near to Hangang Park. Hehehehe. There are tons of places in Seoul I still eagerly to visit and living like a Soulite again!

In the end, Annyeong means both hi and goodbye. This is going to be my next hello to Seoul, hopefully!

#south korea #korea #traveling

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takenews-blog1 · 6 years

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How hate speech crowdfunding outfit Hatreon crept back online

New Post has been published on https://takenews.net/how-hate-speech-crowdfunding-outfit-hatreon-crept-back-online/

How hate speech crowdfunding outfit Hatreon crept back online

If you wish to make a residing creating white supremacist content material, you’re in all probability not going to do it through websites like Kickstarter and Patreon, which prohibit hate speech. Happily there’s Hatreon, a hate speech crowdfunding website that, regardless of having been booted from the online by a pair hosts, is again on-line and desirous to allow you to again your favourite xenophobe.

Hatreon was primarily faraway from the general public internet in August, when its host Digital Ocean terminated its providers. However it reappeared, its area registered at Tucows by means of Njalla, a privacy-focused area registry service that obscures the identification of the registrant. Cloudflare appears to be offering DNS and the remainder of its traditional CDN and DDoS safety providers. (Replace: This paragraph beforehand said that Cloudflare terminated its providers to Hatreon in August – it didn’t. It has additionally left Njalla to now be hosted by Tucows-associated Enom.)

I contacted all three to see in the event that they’re conscious that Hatreon is a buyer and that the location encourages and financially helps hate speech; Tucows assist ultimately provided the next assertion:

Tucows/OpenSRS has no management or possession over this area. We’re simply the Registrar. We don’t host any content material or present bandwidth.

Tucows’ Ross Rader additionally replied to questions from Ryan Block (who was a useful collaborator on this publish, and tweeted his personal conclusions right here) indicating that the corporate doesn’t take into account Hatreon a buyer:

a) they aren’t a buyer – we work by means of resellers and b) even presuming we all know upfront how somebody will use a registration, ought to we additionally get to select which startups we offer registrations to? which political candidates? abortion docs? NRA activists?

That appears to be as a result of technically, their buyer was Njalla, which acts as an middleman between the efficient proprietor of a website and the registrar. It’s a bit like a shell firm for domains. I agree with Block that it’s disingenuous to faux that Hatreon is just not a buyer of Tucows — solely the thinnest membrane separates them. It’s very very similar to saying you’re not taking cash from a white supremacist as a result of they handed it to another person handy to you.

Rader’s clarification that (ought to he be ready to confess that Hatreon have been a buyer) they’ll’t choose and select who to supply providers to holds extra water. There don’t look like any limits on speech within the Tucows phrases of service — not that I might discover, anyway. There are many laws for complying with nation code necessities and so forth, however no part saying, for instance, that Nazi publications aren’t welcome. Njalla, likewise, has prohibitions in opposition to “unlawful actions” however nothing pertaining to hate speech, harassment, abuse, and so on.

Replace: Whereas Njalla didn’t initially reply to my requests for remark, founder Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi contacted me shortly in the past to say that Hatreon is the truth is not welcome on the service, though it was not mirrored within the FAQ or phrases.

“Certain, Hatreon did register with njalla to start with. They determined to not be a buyer fairly rapidly,” wrote Sunde; the location’s house owners determined to go away after being contacted by Njalla admins. “We’re not giving out any names of buyer information after all, however we additionally don’t take part in any right-wing extremist funding or something like that. I all the time try in direction of the stability of an open and secure web. Discovering the best stability is tough typically, however a call about Hatreon is sort of simple for me personally.”

The dialog round Hatreon and different websites claiming to supply shelter from what they see as politicized, left-leaning tech platforms is a charged one, and the query of when — particularly — it’s acceptable to limit speech or shut off a platform to it’s removed from settled.

However as a part of that dialog it’s additionally essential to name a spade a spade: Hatreon’s said goal is to empower and defend purveyors of hate speech, and its hottest initiatives are actually by neo-Nazis. Both a platform permits that, or it doesn’t.

Once I checked final month, Andrew Anglin, who runs the Each day Stormer, had $7,788.61 coming his manner each month. Swedish neo-Nazi group Nordic Resistance and all-purpose white supremacists Id Evropa had greater than $1,000 per thirty days in backing. Different proud racist people like Richard Spencer and Sam Hyde have been additionally receiving a whole bunch per thirty days to finance their vaguely articulated operations.

Nevertheless, the location on the time warned that “Pledging might solely work intermittently whereas we endure testing,” although Hatreon confirmed to me that its payout system (it’s unclear what fee processor is getting used, although PayPal is an possibility for payouts) was functioning regardless of that message. Since then, the location has up to date once more with a discover that pledging is disabled, and founder Cody Wilson advised The New York Occasions “main bank card firm” had eliminated them from their platform.

What is that this firm? The location contained PayPal references; that firm advised me that each Hatreon and GhostGunner.web, Wilson’s gun-printing website that he used as a proxy for funds, had been banned a while in the past. Shopify, additionally utilized by GhostGunner, advised me they’d no indication that Hatreon was utilizing the platform.

But a fee initiated on Hatreon by Block went by means of in November, processed by means of a GhostGunner account. If Hatreon makes use of GhostGunner as a proxy for funds, and GhostGunner makes use of Shopify for its personal funds, that appears to point Hatreon is not directly utilizing Shopify. I’ve requested the corporate for clarification on this, and whether or not the corporate lately booted GhostGunner — which might circumstantially determine it as the corporate that not directly hamstrung Hatreon. The corporate has indicated previously that it’ll not choose and select its prospects based mostly on ideology, however will “defer to the regulation.”

Replace: Cody Wilson contacted TechCrunch to elucidate that his firm, Protection Distributed, does use Shopify as an ecommerce platform for GhostGunner, however not as a funds processor. It follows that Hatreon is just not utilizing Shopify however another funds processor. It was my mistake to conflate the 2 and make that connection.

Regardless of these technical and monetary issues, that is an energetic funding engine for hate speech — not unlawful, and unlawful for the federal government to limit, but in addition demonstrably a goal which some privately run platforms select to not assist.

MailChimp, for example, was alerted to Hatreon’s use of its providers, and though the corporate advised me that it doesn’t touch upon particular person accounts, it additionally famous that it’ll take no half in selling hateful content material. That appears clear sufficient.

Additionally amongst these platforms is Cloudflare; as a result of founder and CEO Matthew Prince beforehand took a controversial stand in primarily personally kicking Each day Stormer off the service, I requested him for extra data on the corporate’s subsequent transfer right here, if any. Though he has been outspoken on this previously, I obtained a response from the corporate’s communications crew with the next assertion:

Cloudflare doesn’t touch upon particular prospects however is conscious of considerations which were raised over some websites on our community. One clarification: Cloudflare is just not the host of any web site. Cloudflare is a community that gives efficiency and safety providers to greater than 7 million domains. Cloudflare terminating any consumer wouldn’t take away their content material from the Web, it will merely make a website slower and extra weak to assault.

Regarding the Each day Stormer, Cloudflare has been clear that this choice didn’t set a precedent for the corporate. That stated, Cloudflare will reply to legitimate court docket course of and work with regulation enforcement in any investigations.

Certainly, Prince did remorse in some methods his choice relating to the Each day Stormer, saying that “We didn’t simply get up and make some capricious choice, however we might have and that’s terrifying.” He known as for a greater course of for this type of factor, and for now that course of doesn’t contain Cloudflare ceasing to supply providers to websites like Hatreon.

Considerably tangentially, I additionally contacted Patreon over whether or not the corporate can be pursuing some type of motion in opposition to Hatreon for what is sort of definitely a trademark violation — the corporate wouldn’t verify or deny it. However one has to think about that if the hate website have been to realize any actual traction, a lawsuit or on the very least a stop and desist wouldn’t be lengthy in coming.

The net is a hostile place in some methods for the likes of Hatreon and the Each day Stormer, however there’s simply sufficient room on the very edges that, with some cautious maneuvering, they’ll nonetheless discover their manner on-line. There’s, in spite of everything, nice demand for what they provide. Happily, these websites and providers are nonetheless nearly as good as radioactive to the platforms essential to allow them at scale, as a result of these platforms are sometimes based on progressive rules and customarily decline to do enterprise with Nazis. Hatreon and its ilk have been supposed to sidestep these platforms and rules, however as you’ll be able to see, it’s more durable than they thought it will be.

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darbiblog-blog · 7 years

Text

Donald Trump's route to fitness care victory: Andy Slavitt

New Post has been published on https://darbi.org/donald-trumps-route-to-fitness-care-victory-andy-slavitt/

Donald Trump's route to fitness care victory: Andy Slavitt

The dealmaker-in-leader badly wants a deal on health care. President Trump has even been willing to keep his nostril and assist phrases put forward with the aid of the hardcore conservative Residence Freedom Caucus which can be extremely unpopular along with his personal backers, like allowing coverage corporations to showdown human beings with pre-existing medical conditions. Piled on top of a Republican bill with best 17% public approval, the further he is going to the proper, the more likely he’s going to arise empty-handed.

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Considering that repeal didn’t cross the manner Trump idea it might, now is a good time for him to step back and determine what he desires to accomplish. The political imperative to repeal and replace the Low-cost Care Act has shifted decisively. After mastering about the alternative proposed by means of Congress, a document high fifty-five% of Americans choose the ACA. 3-quarters say the president ought to try to make the law work and 61%, which includes a majority of Trump supporters, say he and the GOP are responsible for any troubles going forward.

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A touch record is in order. Republican sabotage of the ACA predates Trump’s presidency. Championed first via outdoor organizations and attorneys, one of the GOP’s largest victories became stripping funding to insurers that changed into designed to preserve charges from growing too speedy. While Congress eliminated the money after the fact, most of the first sufferers were a dozen or so new fitness plans called co-ops, blanketed in the ACA to add opposition in low-competition regions.

The law’s warring parties went past lawn-range political strategies. They filed several lawsuits to cripple the ACA with the aid of pulling out core pieces. Insurers reported being warned by Republican congressional leaders not to participate. And, maximum significantly, Republican governors or legislatures in 19 states became down price range to cowl millions underneath Medicaid. The effects of this sabotage consist of better rates, better prices to taxpayers, millions of human beings in Southern and rural states left without insurance, and only one or two competition left in lots of markets as insurers withdrew or have been compelled out of the enterprise. All so Republicans should point to the ACA and say, “See, it doesn’t paintings.”

To date, the Trump management is persevering with that sabotage from the Oval Workplace. Widespread & Terrible pronounced closing week that the exchanges are strong and the most important impediments to fulfillment are now the administration’s personal delays and capacity tampering.

As an example, insurers are within weeks of putting their initial top class stages for 2018 and the administration hasn’t indicated whether or not it’s going to hold payments that coverage companies use to reduce deductibles for low-income clients. I met with a dozen coverage CEOs remaining week, every of whom informed me that if funding isn’t confirmed with the aid of April 30, charges will growth notably — by using 19% in one latest evaluation.

How does Trump shift to a schedule which can advantage huge aid? He can start by throwing off the most excessive components of the Republican plan to intestine the Medicaid safety internet. This turned into usually Residence Speaker Paul Ryan’s idea, anyway. It was never Trump’s and it was never famous along with his base, so it shouldn’t be difficult for him to abandon. And he has the proper cause.

The opioid disaster, one of the centerpieces of Trump’s home commitments, offers the possibility to shift the dialogue on Medicaid. At the marketing campaign trail in August, he promised to help human beings hooked on opioids. “We’re going to work with them, we’re going to spend the cash, we’re going to get that habit broken,” he said in Columbus, Ohio. Medicaid budget a full one-1/3 of opioid treatments and immediately serves Trump’s base. Greater than 4 in 10 non-elderly Medicaid recipients are white, and the percentage is better than that in rural states. In West Virginia, As an instance, it’s 89%.

Forgoing Medicaid cuts now not handiest serves Trump’s constituents, who pay plenty More and lose coverage beneath the current Republican plan, however, allows him to forge the alliances needed to create a bipartisan deal. They consist of a large congressional coalition, starting from Democrats to conservative Republicans, as well as governors who’ve been leading the combat towards opioid dependency — among them Republicans John Kasich of Ohio and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Democrats Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania.

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Till Trump takes those steps, no Democrat or centrist Republican will come to the desk. That leaves him suffering to collect a coalition of simplest the maximum severe and unpopular views, and no longer enough assist to get an invoice via both the Residence and Senate. The president’s reaction to events in Syria indicates he’s no longer moored to ideological positions and might pivot When he wants to. Trump’s preference is among sabotaging the ACA and supporting his electorate. Thankfully for him, choosing his voters is likewise the course to a deal which could position a health care victory On the board.

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fitness Care Reform – Why Are human beings So Worked Up?

Why are Americans so Labored up approximately health care reform? Statements including “don’t touch my Medicare” or “each person ought to have to get right to entry to country of the art health care no matter cost” are in my view uninformed and visceral responses that indicate a Negative expertise of our fitness care device’s history, its modern and destiny sources and the investment demanding situations that America faces going forward. Even as all of our surprise how the fitness care machine has reached what some confer with as a crisis stage. Allow’s try to take some of the emotion out of the talk by using in brief inspecting how fitness care on this use emerged and the way that has shaped our wondering and subculture approximately fitness care. With that as a basis Let’s take a look at the professionals and cons of the Obama administration health care reform proposals and Allow’s examine the ideas put forth via the Republicans?

To begin, Let’s flip to the American civil warfare. In that battle, dated techniques and the carnage inflicted by contemporary weapons of the technology blended to cause ghastly results. now not normally acknowledged is that maximum of the deaths on both facets of that conflict have been not the result of real combat however to what occurred after a battlefield wound became inflicted. To begin with, evacuation of the wounded moved at a snail’s pace and this precipitated excessive delays in treating the wounded. Secondly, many wounds had been subjected to wound care, associated surgical procedures and/or amputations of the affected limbs and this frequently resulted within the onset of big contamination. So that you would possibly live to tell the tale a battle wound best to die at the palms of medical care providers who despite the fact that nicely-intentioned, their interventions had been often pretty lethal. high dying tools can also be ascribed to everyday illnesses and illnesses in a time While no antibiotics existed. In total something like six hundred,000 deaths came about from all reasons, over 2% of the U.S. population on the time!

Let’s pass to the first 1/2 of the twentieth century for some extra perspective and to carry us up to Extra present day instances. After the civil war, there have been regular enhancements in American medicinal drug in both the information and treatment of positive sicknesses, new surgical strategies and in health practitioner education and training. but for the maximum component, the fine that docs may want to provide their sufferers turned into a “wait and see” approach. medicine ought to take care of bone fractures and more and more attempt volatile surgical procedures (now in large part executed in sterile surgical environments) however medicines had been now not yet available to deal with severe ailments. Most of the people of deaths remained the result of untreatable conditions together with tuberculosis, pneumonia, scarlet fever and measles and/or related headaches. medical doctors had been increasingly aware of heart and vascular conditions, and cancer, however, they had almost nothing with which to treat those conditions.

This very simple evaluate of American scientific records enables us to take into account that Until pretty currently (across the 1950’s) we had really no technologies with which to treat serious or maybe minor ailments. Here’s an essential point we need to apprehend; “not anything to treat you with means that visits the doctor if at all have been relegated to emergencies so in this sort of state of affairs costs are curtailed. The easy reality is that there was little for docs to provide and consequently definitely not anything to pressure health care spending. A second thing conserving down fees became that scientific remedies that have been supplied had been paid for out-of-pocket, meaning by way of the manner of an individual’s non-public resources. there was no such component as medical insurance and definitely, no longer medical health insurance paid through a business enterprise. Besides for the very destitute who have been lucky to find their manner right into a charity medical institution, fitness care prices had been the obligation of the man or woman.

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kalachand97-blog · 7 years

Text

New Post has been published on Globeinfrom

New Post has been published on https://globeinform.com/donald-trumps-route-to-fitness-care-victory-andy-slavitt/

Donald Trump's route to fitness care victory: Andy Slavitt

fitness Care Reform – Why Are human beings So Worked Up?

get entry to the kingdom of the artwork health care offerings is some thing we are able to all agree could be a good thing for this us of a. Experiencing an extreme contamination is certainly one of the life’s main challenges and to face it without the manner to pay for its miles definitely horrifying. however as we shall see, as soon as we know the facts, we can find that reaching this purpose will not be easy with out our character contribution.

those are the issues I’m able to contact directly to attempt to make a few experience out of what’s taking place to American fitness care and the stairs we will for my part take to make matters higher.

A recent history of yank health care – what has pushed the charges so excessive? Key elements of the Obama health care plan The Republican view of fitness care – loose marketplace opposition Customary get entry to nation of the artwork health care – a worthy intention but no longer clean to acquire what can we do? First, Permit’s get A touch ancient attitude on American fitness care. This is not meant to be an exhausted inspect that history, however, it’ll give us an appreciation of the way the health care gadget and our expectancies for it advanced. What drove prices better and higher?

To begin, Let’s flip to the American civil warfare. In that battle, dated techniques and the carnage inflicted by contemporary weapons of the technology blended to cause ghastly results. now not normally acknowledged is that maximum of the deaths on both facets of that conflict have been not the result of real combat however to what occurred after a battlefield wound became inflicted. To begin with, evacuation of the wounded moved at a snail’s pace and this precipitated excessive delays in treating the wounded. Secondly, many wounds had been subjected to wound care, associated surgical procedures and/or amputations of the affected limbs and this frequently resulted within the onset of big contamination. So that you would possibly live to tell the tale a battle wound best to die at the palms of medical care providers who despite the fact that nicely-intentioned, their interventions had been often pretty lethal. high dying tolls can also be ascribed to everyday illnesses and illnesses in a time While no antibiotics existed. In total some thing like six hundred,000 deaths came about from all reasons, over 2% of the U.S. population on the time!

0 notes