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ammunitionist · 4 years

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a small gift brings a little life to king company.

or, ack ack finds a guitar- and hillbilly remembers how to play.

ao3 here | full first chapter under the cut

Ack Ack honestly has no idea what it is for a good minute.

He doesn’t bother to get up to check- never stand when you can sit- so the wooden thing leans, an odd little enigma, just in the peripheral of his sight for the better part of ten minutes. It’s definitely wood, he can tell from the hint of grain at a distance. The angle is just so that the neck looks uniform, that he can’t see the strings at all. It almost looks like a broom handle.

It isn’t that Andy’s never seen a guitar. He’d had a friend in high school who played (just not very well) and guitars were common enough in small town New England. It wasn’t unusual to walk down the street at dusk and hear some old timer picking away at the instrument.

It’s funny to think back on himself, sixteen or so, thinking of anyone as elderly. With the new recruits popping up around him on the daily, he’s starting to feel like an old timer himself.

Ack Ack tries to ignore the odd chunk of wood, get in another nap before sundown, but they’ve been eating good lately. Sleeping good, too. He simply has too much energy to let go of the curiosity.

Without moving- never sit when you can lie down- he calls out to the man sitting closest to him, scribbling in a small book held in his left hand.

“Hey, Sledge,” he asks genially, his hands resting behind his head. “What’s that wooden thing over in PX? I can’t see it all too well.”

Eugene looks up from his book almost too fast, glancing first at Andy and then leaning over to scrutinize the object of interest. Ack Ack stifles a small smile at how eager the mortarman is to please.

“Hell, Skipper,” he says, blinking. “It’s a guitar.”

“Really?” Ack Ack says, almost embarrassed at his lack of observational skills. “Shit, I am getting old. I thought it was a broom.” Sledge laughs, because of course he does, but Andy’s already sitting up, looking directly at the handle of the thing. The neck, he recalls its specific name being. Slender and slightly curved, it looks out of place with the crudely made shipping crates stacked around the PX.

“Is that all, sir?” Sledge asks. Andy barely acknowledges it, too occupied with the discovery. He nods, waving the younger man off with a hand and a vague ‘yes, Private’.

Hillbilly plays guitar. Ack Ack knows because he mentioned it once, and just once, but that’s the kind of information you store away for people you care about. Somewhere in the long list of things Andy knows about Eddie- a list riddled with question marks, smudges, and the not infrequent total censor- is the fact that he plays.

He learned from his daddy, apparently. That was the kind of skill they handed down in the Jones family. Workin’, fightin’, n’ the guitar, Eddie had put it, the end of his cigarette a glowing ember in the darkness. He only really taught me th’ middle one.

Andy hadn’t interrogated, but between that one night and the other things on his list about Eddie Jones, he’d figured out what that meant.

Knowing Hillbilly played the guitar just- always did something to him, something strange. Not like giving him a hard-on, it was never the subject of a sexual fantasy, but some aspect of the idea of Hillbilly’s large, callused hands cradling the neck of an instrument was an image that stuck in his mind. Knowing a man like that could make music- enjoyed it, even- just pushed Eddie deeper into Ack Ack’s heart.

Despite himself, Ack Ack slowly hauls himself to his feet, brushing sand from his palms on the nearly-compromised fabric of his dungarees. No one pays him much mind, just another man wandering towards PX. The Seabees had touched down about a week ago, so the postal exchange is more or less looted, but Ack Ack has no burning desire for candy bars or magazines.

Still, when he gets there, he feigns interest in the dregs of merchandise. Back issues of Superman, a few melted Hershey’s chocolates, a copy of Sports Illustrated. If he beelines for the guitar, the corporal sitting in the corner will definitely upcharge him. Pocketing an extra few dollars was never above the Merchant Marines, and this young man- chubby, blonde, picking something out of his teeth with a Jap bayonet- looks like no exception.

Finally making the wide, lazy half circle to the guitar, Andy feigns mild interest in it, tilting the head of the instrument towards his belt. Upon closer inspection, it’s practically beaten to pieces- the body has a fair few dents in it, and a concerning looking crack runs nearly the entire length of the neck. One of the tuning pegs had been replaced with a roofing nail at some point, poking out like an odd splinter at a not-quite right angle from the headstock.

“You play?” The corporal asks lazily, examining a caught piece of food on the end of the bayonet with catlike self-satisfaction.

“Me? No.” Andy shakes his head, letting the guitar back to rest against the crates. “One of my boys does, though.”

He almost smiles to himself when he refers to Hillbilly as one of his ‘boys’. It’s not unlike calling the White House a ‘big ol’ mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania’.

“He any good?” the blond asks. Andy shrugs, pocketing his hands discreetly. He really has no idea if Hillbilly is any good, but it doesn’t matter much if he is or not. Ack Ack would pay out in spades to see him play even if he couldn’t sustain a single note.

Upon receiving no verbal answer, the corporal takes Andy’s silence as permission to keep chatting. He sighs and sets the bayonet down, kicking his feet up on the shoddy crates nearby. The containers creak ominously.

“That there belonged to Johnson. Buddy of a buddy, or somethin’.”

Ack Ack glances at the corporal in mild interest, mostly playing along in favor of a discount.

“Went lookin’ for some dead Japs to loot a couple nights ago.”

Andy figures what happened before the man finishes his thought, but that doesn’t stop him from clarifying. It’s with a sick glee that Ack Ack only sees in men that have never once seen a friend die in their lives.

“Got blown to hell on a landmine. Skipper said to put the thing in the PX or use it as firewood.”

“Ah.” Ack Ack says, less keen on the conversation than he would be to sitting on a land crab in his skivvies. The corporal grunts in acquiescence.

He almost up and leaves the exchange there and then. What kind of earthly gift would a dead man’s guitar be? Hillbilly’d show no outward insult, likely feel none inward either. Ack Ack can’t begin to express in words the amount of gratitude he feels for Eddie’s tolerance. Still, he deserves better than this.

But where else could he find a guitar in the whole of the Pacific?

“How much?” he asks succinctly, looking up from his boots. He hopes the curtness in his tone reminds the corporal of their ranks, of his decidedly upper hand.

“Seven dollars.” The blond replies, eyes narrowing slightly. Andy has to stifle a scoff.

“It’s not worth more than three, Corporal,” he sighs, nudging the body of the instrument with his boot. “Look at it. Beat to hell.”

“Six.”

“Four.”

“Deal.”

He leaves the postal exchange with the thing in hand, simultaneously lighter than it looks and much, much heavier. Sledge glances up at him with interest as he walks by, glancing between Ack Ack and the instrument.

“You play, Skipper?” he calls out as Andy passes, heading deeper into K Company’s cluster of men.

“No!” Ack Ack replies, a wry smile countering Eugene’s expression of confusion.

Hillbilly never went far from King Company, but he also avoided its center. Ack Ack liked to think he prowled its perimeter like some kind of guard dog, keeping an eye on even the rowdiest of the unit. It’s a reliable kind of safekeeping, one that Andy has come to value more as they’ve moved further towards the mainland. Both for himself and his men, that protection is beyond invaluable.

He’s smoking a cigarette up against some concrete rubble, the slowly setting sun dying his pale brown hair a burnt orange. Between the small ember at the end of his cigarette and the dying light, Hillbilly’s almost golden.

Ack Ack sits down quietly in front of him, the slight sound of shifting rubble enough to garner a glance from his Lieutenant. His eyes catch on the guitar and linger, though, and Andy holds it out- an offering.

“Where th’hell did y’ get that?” Eddie asks, sitting up to take the proffered instrument. Andy shrugs, pulling a crushed carton of cigarettes from his breast pocket.

“PX.” he replies simply, biting one out of the package and lighting it with a quick turn of his wrist.

Eddie turns the guitar over in his lap once, twice, three times, examining it. Andy watches mildly, his eyes catching on the neck of the guitar resting in the crook of Hillbilly’s palm. His stomach warms, just slightly, the sight of the slender thing in his lover’s hand like a hot cup of coffee on a cold morning.

“How did y’ know I play?” Hillbilly asks again, tone slightly sotto with confusion.

“You told me.” Ack Ack answers, mildly surprised that Hillbilly forgot. “A few months ago. Remember?”

Eddie shakes his head vaguely, but his attention has already re-allocated to the instrument. He settles it in his lap, the curve in the hollow body fitting over his thigh. It’s a small guitar- that, or Hillbilly’s just bigger than the last person Andy saw holding one- but he still supports it comfortably.

He runs his fingernails across the strings experimentally, and both of the men wince in tandem.

“Is it broken?” Ack Ack asks, momentarily worried that his gift is damaged beyond utility. Hillbilly snorts.

“Nah,” he sighs, a wolfish smile cracking his face in half. Ack Ack has never quite seen him smile like that before.

Unbothered, Eddie turns one of the pegs in the head, thumbing the top string in rapid succession. The tone wobbles slowly higher.

“Jus’ outta tune. I think I can handle it.”

Andy smokes as Eddie coaxes the instrument into tune, slow going considering the state of it. It’s a pleasant experience, to hear the strings slowly come up to par, and the surprising gentleness with which Hillbilly tunes it brings up the warmth in Ack Ack’s belly to a low simmer. To watch his broad hands dance across the head, fiddling with the pegs, is certainly an odd sight for the middle of the Pacific Theater, but it’s one Andy more than welcomes.

Finally, Hillbilly strums the guitar’s strings again, and even though the sound is unremarkable Eddie seems to find it satisfactory.

“Does it play?” Andy asks, tapping his cigarette on a nearby block to ash it into the sand.

“Well, why don’ we find out?” Eddie grins. He adjusts his hand against the neck of the guitar and strums carefully, a gentle note ringing out from its body. Tension leaches from Andy’s shoulders immediately. Between artillery, rifle fire, and bodies hitting the dirt, it feels like the first soft sound Ack Ack’s heard in months.

“Oh,” he breathes, and Eddie glances up to meet his eyes. They both pause for a moment, holding the gaze, before another smile breaks Eddie’s face and they start laughing. The absurdity of it is captivating. A fucking guitar, here, in a warzone. A flimsy, breakable little thing that somehow made its way to them unbroken. It feels like watching a daisy bloom on the rim of a shell crater.

“Shit, sir,” Eddie chuckles, broad shoulders shaking in amusement. “I didn’t think I’d be seein’ one of these for a long time yet.”

Ack Ack has to grin. The sun had all but fully set in the time it had taken Eddie to tune the guitar, and the long shadows on his companion make the moment all the more absurd, a strangely stark figure against the rubble.

Small fires have started up again throughout the camp. They dot the landscape like little flowers, flames blooming upward into the black sky. Ack Ack and Hillbilly have a favorite, one nearest the Captain’s tent, and relatively sequestered. Them, Haney, and a few select NCOs. It’s a good crowd, and none of them say anything if Hillbilly’s hand drifts a bit close to Ack Ack’s knee, or if Ack Ack’s head dips momentarily onto Hillbilly’s shoulder. They’re still careful, of course, but it’s good to know that a toe over the line goes unnoticed, for virtue of respect or some other unnamed force.

They get up in tandem and wander deeper into King Company, towards their fire ring of choice. Haney is sparking at some dry tinder just as they arrive, coaxing a small flame to life under the larger logs. He glances up as they settle in, eyes falling on the guitar in Hillbilly’s fist.

“The Marine Corp,” he starts, sitting back with a grin. “Must practice leisure with the same fervency as the act of war.”

Hillbilly smiles at him, the exact same accommodating smile Ack Ack gives to the Gunny when he starts his tangents. Ack Ack settles back, shifting in his seat.

“And in that leisure,” Haney continues, a wolfish grin splitting his weathered features, “Each Marine must be invested in his brother’s recreation as well as his own.”

Eddie nods, equal parts amused and obliging. Haney gestures at the instrument.

“Play us a goddamn tune, Jones.”

Eddie adjusts the guitar in his lap, fingers hovering over the fretboard in hesitation.

“I, uh, I ain’t played in a long while,” he starts, but Ack Ack nudges his side at the same time Haney gives him a genial wave of the hand. No one minds. Even bad music will be the first melody any of them have heard in months, other than the terrible raucous ballads that swell up among the men sometimes. Ack Ack tolerates those songs for the morale boost they are, but he never feels an impulse to sing along.

Hillbilly arranges his fingers against the fretboard and strums quietly, picking up a lazy pattern. Ack Ack watches his nails hit against the strings, his strong fingers even further golden in the firelight than the dying sun. He has the same sheen as a bronze statue, like the ones Andrew had seen in the greens at Bowdoin.

Eddie swaps the chord, pausing for a moment in between. He swears under his breath, obviously frustrated with his apparent rustiness.

In the protection of the shadow between their bodies, Andy presses a supportive knuckle into Eddie’s side, up underneath his jacket.

His skin is warm to the touch.

After a few minutes of fumbling around the frets (and growing gradually bolder), Hillbilly pauses, letting his arm fall from the guitar’s neck. He swipes the back of his hand across his nose discreetly, glancing around the circle to gauge his company’s apparent tolerance. Ack Ack follows his gaze, just to realize they’d accumulated somewhat of an audience. Five, maybe ten of the enlisted men from a nearby group had heard the quiet strumming and crept up on the edges of the firelight to listen. From where he sits, Andy can recognize Burgin and Shelton, meaning Sledge probably isn’t far.

“Why don’t you fellas come and join us?” he calls genially, gesturing for the men to have a seat, instead of crouching in the semidarkness like a bunch of house cats. They start, with the guilty countenance of children caught in the cookie jar, but move into the light anyway.

“Instead of standing out there like a bunch of Peeping Toms, at least.” Andy murmurs, settling in subtly closer to Eddie. From what he knows of the men, they’re either dumb as a bag of rocks or queer themselves, so there should be no issue with their standard dance on the edge of obviousness. He knows Hillbilly probably isn’t happy with the added volume, but Ack Ack figures it won’t do any of them much harm for a little

entertainment.

“Just play them one song and I’ll make ‘em leave,” he murmurs into Eddie’s neck, making it look like a subtle stretch on his part. “Promise.”

Eddie sighs, shifting uncomfortably, but Andy knows that he’ll do it. He knows that Eddie will do anything when he asks like that.

It makes his heart stutter a bit in his chest.

The strings squeal faintly as Hillbilly leans back, tongue running over his teeth while he considers his options. “Any of you, uh, heard’a Midnight Special?” he asks tentatively.

“I have,” Snafu interjects, drawing most eyes in the circle to him. His accent is deeper than Hillbilly’s, and his drawl makes his Is into long, lazy ‘ah’ sounds.

“Can’t sing, though.” he adds, picking something from his teeth.

Someone snorts. Ack Ack’s pretty sure it’s Sledge.

“Well,” Eddie sighs under his breath, nearly contemptuous, but he doesn’t finish the thought. Instead, the guitar starts up again, and everyone settles in a bit closer. The fact it’s music would probably interest most of them alone, but Andy has no doubt most of these men would pay real money to hear their very own Lieutenant Jones sing a ditty.

The introduction to the song lasts for a while, a simple and slightly jaunty chord progression, but right as Ack Ack is starting to think Eddie’s stalling he opens his mouth and he sings.

His voice is nothing special. A gentle, sweet tenor, making up for lack of range with modesty. It’s about the voice expected of a man who played music as a child and fell off, being as his instrument of choice is not included in the provisions of a Marine.

It may be nothing special to everyone else in the world, but to Andrew, it’s fucking magical.

“Yonder comes Miss Rosie,” Eddie intones, over the soft notes of the guitar. “How in the world you know.”

All at once, some otherworldly tiredness sinks into Ack Ack’s bones.

It’s strange, though, to call it that. He had felt exhaustion before- Hell, almost every single day since their landing on Peleliu- but this is different. Hillbilly’s voice makes him want to rest, to tuck his head into the crook of Eddie’s shoulder and let his voice carry him away to gentle oblivion.

“Well, I know her by the apron,” Hillbilly carries on, a loud pop from the fire interjecting in the middle of the lyric. No one so much as jumps. They’ve all been through worse. “And that dress she wore.”

“What kind’a dress?” Someone calls, to quiet chuckles. Ack Ack smiles faintly. If there’s nothing else to be said for King Company’s crude banter, it’s at least endearing.

“Umbrella on her shoulder, Piece’a paper in her hand.” Hillbilly sings. A couple men have joined their circle since the song began, ones apparently more familiar with the music the Lieutenant grew up on. Their voices join in slowly, crooning the ballad towards the smoke rising into the black sky. Andy doesn’t mind- with his proximity to his lover, Eddie’s voice easily overpowers the rest.

A few more lines pass like that, slurring together in a pleasant melody in the Captain’s head. He has to fight to keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t struggle after fixing them on Eddie.

His curls burn amber in the firelight, same as the angular plane of his cheek and just the barest corner of his jaw. With his eyes closed and lips parted, Hillbilly looks like a fucking fever dream of a man.

“Let the Midnight Special,” They all sing at once, loud enough that Andy’s pulled from his momentary reverence. Even Snafu joins in, apparent vocal ineptitude nothing but another one of his little quips.

“Shine her light on me.”

Ack Ack watches the smoke from the fire carry sparks up towards the stars.

“Let the Midnight Special,” he joins in quietly, a second after realizing the lyric repeats.

“Shine her ever-lovin’ light on me.”

#WOOH this one is long for my usual ballpark #over 3k words in just the 1st chapter #it's a lot for me #the next chapter will b up in a few days! pinky swear #andyeddie #andrew ack ack haldane #edward hillbilly jones #Snafu Shelton #eugene sledge #the pacific

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roleplay-salt · 4 years

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About; Rules; FAQ

Welcome to Roleplay Salt! This is a blog for roleplayers to vent & rant anonymously about the things that peeve or hurt them in the roleplaying community.

GENERAL

Your submission will always be posted anonymously; no exceptions. (This includes positivity submissions & shoutouts.)

Your submission’s text will be placed in a graphic and then copied as plain text as its caption for accessibility purposes.

Topics must be roleplay-related. (This can, of course, include experiences with partners doing things that may be unrelated to roleplay, but would still be considered relevant if it impacts your roleplaying experience with that particular partner.)

Anyone following our blog will be allowed to leave replies on submissions, whether in agreement or disagreement, and everyone is allowed (even encouraged) to reblog submissions, with or without their own commentary. However, we will delete any spamming comments, including ones that are or are similar to “Why don’t you come off anon and say that?” Such comments provide nothing to the discussion. In fact, they usually shut down discussion and it completely disregards the entire point of this blog’s existence. No one has to “come off anon” nor are they “cowards” for seeking safety behind anonymity. Your aggressiveness with that sentiment only reinforces the reason why they want to be anonymous in the first place. ADDENDUM: We will delete salt replies that involve simply telling others to, essentially, “shut up and move on already” and “stop sending salt replies in about this”. You’re more than allowed to say this things in the comments, but we will no longer be making them a part of any future debates.

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Just because someone isn’t being nice to you as they give their side of the argument, doesn’t mean that it cancels out their actual argument. You’re choosing to be offended and distracted by how abrasive they are, and that’s no one’s problem to deal with but your own. You have the ability to block anyone so that you no longer have to see their comments on future submissions. Why would we police what people say, the endgame of which would be to ban them from ever reblogging or commenting on submissions again if they don’t listen to us, if you’re not even willing to try solving the problem first by just blocking them? Wanting to have the last word or being upset that your submission didn’t receive the feedback you wanted is not a reason for us to step in and step on someone else’s right to speak, rudely or otherwise. If you’re not going to block them, then why should we?

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We’ve posted submissions about highly controversial roleplay topics like noncon, racism, transphobia, and pedophilia. We reassure you that your salt submission about OCs, theme trends, blog selectivity, etc. is not on that same level, least of all to the point that one of us would delete it. The only submissions that we have deleted, so far, are the ones that have included racial and homophobic slurs.

“[insert OP/commenter] is obviously a rapist/pedophilie!”

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#about #rules #faq

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tentacletherapissed · 5 years

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Public Callout: Paradox, Blue, Jay, Bird

This is a public callout post for users Paradox (@rushifaas -- previously @mournins ; @beliisms), Blue (@divinebetrayed ; @halcyonfought), Jay (@loyalbetrayed) and Bird (@soulsbetrayed). They are active in the fandoms Persona, Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Danganronpa, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Sentai, Power Rangers, and Kamen Rider.

Never in my 15 years of roleplaying have I met a group of abusers and enablers so toxic, and this post is a PSA so that I can hopefully keep others from falling into their hands. Please blacklist them ALL for your own safety, however, DO NOT ENGAGE THEM WITH HARASSMENT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Keep in mind, Paradox’s actions are so egregious, he is already getting charges pressed against him by two different people he abused so far, and more may be on the horizon. The rest all enable this behavior and defend him despite all that he’s done to harm them and people they previously called friends. While this callout has snapshots of receipts proving our claims sprinkled in at the mention of them, for full transparency, the full comment chains will be uploaded at the end so that context for everything will be supplied, with censoring only provided for those who have nothing to do with the conflict and wish to be left out of it.

Strong trigger warning for mob mentality, mental and emotional manipulation, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, transphobia, pedophilia, ableism, and a lot more. Details under the cut. (7,300+ words, be mindful)

[Gdoc link in case Tumblr’s formatting is unreadable]

OPEN ALL LINKS AS NEW TABS, I’M SORRY TUMBLR SUCKS AT THIS

Note: Paradox claims to have Dissociative Identity Disorder, and claims to have many alters which are sometimes go by the names of Abel, Vic, Nikki, Hebel, Cain, and Ana in some of these screencaps. I will not be arguing the veracity of such claims in this callout, but for simplicity’s sake, I will be referring to everyone in his system solely by the name of “Paradox” since there is a considerable amount of confusion based on who said what and it’s not entirely clear who’s supposed to be talking in a lot of these screenshots. He also claims to have several other mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and BPD, but regardless of anyone’s mental illness, they should treat those around them with respect and kindness, which is why this callout has been made.

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MAIN EVENT - Early September 2018 / June 10th

Paradox is the ringleader of this little cult. A few months ago, he was dating my friend Nael (occasionally called Arin, Ciel, Naoya or Hevel in some of these screens). I first got alarmed about the health of their relationship during an incident in early September 2018 where Paradox threatened to commit suicide over a conflict having to do with RPing and prioritizing one blog over one he liked. [September Break Up: Singles] They broke up, but after a lot of guilt tripping from Paradox and others in his group, my friend Nael decided to get back together with him. Even though I had a lot of misgivings about the situation, I told Nael that I respected their decision and wouldn’t pressure them either way. [Scout and Nael: 12, 13]

Months went by, and I didn’t hear much due to specifically asking Nael not to tell me about their significant other and that group of friends, but things were going downhill. There were many more fights over roleplaying and shipping, some of which Blue and Jay expressed concern about privately, especially since it seemed Paradox himself was ignoring his other lover Kieran for Nael. [For Me: 13, 15, 16]

Paradox’s behavior continued worsening until it came to a head in mid March 2019. Blue and Nael were getting invested in an rp campaign I was running on a private server. When Nael showed off a picture they drew portraying their character, Paradox became extremely upset at them. After a solid week of enduring abuse from their lover [Abel Suicide: 1, 2, 6], it eventually culminated in Paradox apparently trying to take his own life after Nael attempted to break off their relationship. [Abel Suicide: 22, 23, 24] Nael was able to contact their mutual partner Kieran (sometimes called Kie or Vampy in screens) so that he could send the police to Paradox’s home and he would be rushed to the hospital. [Nael: 11]

Nael has multiple health issues that include heart disease and problems with their brain, and was so traumatized by the experience, they had to go to the hospital themselves [Nael: 19, 20 ; Before / After Suicide: 43]. Because I was terrified at the possibility of Nael dying from the escalating nature of their toxic relationship, I urged them to go through with the breakup. Nael decided to take my advice and broke up with Paradox and Kieran on a group chat while on a screenshared call with me and another friend who wishes to remain nameless. [Before / After Suicide: 46]

Blue was at first on board for the breakup and supportive of Nael’s decision [Blue Agrees: Singles] but at the persuasion of Jay decided to believe Paradox’s story when he said Nael had misrepresented what he said when he told Nael he would probably drop Blue due to the breakup. [Copy of Group DM: Full] Keep in mind, we have the FULL attempted suicide dropbox [Abel Suicide: Full], and the breakup conversation including Paradox’s abusive behavior before the attempted suicide attempt. [Before/After Suicide: Full] Much of what Paradox says are blatant falsehoods. In addition, Kieran (Vampy) no longer agrees with the things he has said to support Paradox’s argument and says he was pressured to agree with everything, even if it didn’t feel right.

So instead of making it clear to either of us that Blue no longer considered us friends, she instead gave us the silent treatment and leaked what I vented to her in confidence to Paradox behind my back. She only admitted to doing this when I confronted her after finding a vague post Paradox made that used the exact same wording. [Scout vs Blue: 1, 3, 4] I was extra furious with her because Paradox was making it sound as if it was Nael saying those words when in fact they had no idea what I said to her and was highly distraught when they found out about the vague post. Her excuse was that she didn’t think we would find out. [Scout vs Blue: 7, 9]

This is a common theme with their relationship that shows the extent of how complicit Blue is with Paradox’s abusive behavior. Due to her once close relationship with Nael, she often served as the “bait” to bring Nael back, agreeing that the relationship is unhealthy at first [With Blue: 12] only to go back to heaping abuse on Nael for leaving and trying to persuade them to come back [Nael’s Last Conversation with Blue: Full].

By then, Nael had already blocked everyone else in the cult-like group except Blue due to a promise they’d made to her, and she abused this trust right away by pulling Nael into a group chat so that everyone could yell at them. [Scout vs Blue: 10, 11] IF YOU BECOME A PART OF THIS GROUP, THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN LOOK FORWARD TO. If you do anything to provoke Paradox’s ire, you will be subjected to a firing squad full of people yelling at you for whatever you did. You will not have a chance to defend yourself, only grovel for forgiveness until they decide they’re through with you. Nael and other members of the group have been subjected to it many times.

Unfortunately, there are no surviving screencaps of this particular dispute, but I do have the one I was involved with. More on that later.

Eventually Nael left and blocked Blue so that they couldn’t be added back to get yelled at more. For the sake of our RP, we agreed upon a peaceable way to continue the server RP [Scout vs Blue: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16] but Blue eventually exited that too [Scout vs Blue: 17]. During the three or so weeks they were split apart, Paradox vagued continuously about us, copied our behavior and prior ships he had with Nael with others currently in his cult, and sent Nael threatening and unstable messages [“Goodbye, Nael”: Single]. While behind their back, he was privately making light of the situation and even made bets with his stooges about when Nael would return [Betting: Singles].

Here’s where I have to put an important disclaimer: During Nael’s time away from the main cult, we both would snoop on his and Blue’s blogs to see if they had mentioned us. Also, during the period immediately after Blue sold me out to Paradox, I became enraged and sent him a pretty angry message [Scout Loses Their Mind: Single], commented on one of his posts, and indirectly threatened them with my popularity compared to theirs in the community I was in. All of those things were the direct result of piss poor decision making and I apologize for my behavior, because it was simply not right to do, no matter who I thought I was defending. Though the blog snooping continued, I thankfully sent no more harassing messages to anyone from the group once Blue indicated she wanted a clean break from us, and no vaguing messages were made on either of our blogs.

Worse still, I privately speculated if this latest suicide attempt Paradox had gone through was “real” or not, which is totally unacceptable. Though I was just concerned about my friend and worried that this might have been another attempt to manipulate them, all threats of suicide should be treated seriously and the proper authorities contacted, PERIOD, regardless of how “serious” the threat might seem. I definitely agree with Nael’s decision to contact the authorities as it was happening, and I’m relieved to know another life wasn’t tragically lost, no matter what my situation is with Paradox after the fact.

Now, with that out of the way… Eventually, Paradox was able to get through to Nael by convincing them that I had lied about a certain mental disorder he was assumed to have. This is all despite me never having said he didn’t have it as I do NOT have the medical condition described and am NOT a medical professional. Paradox willingly passed medical records through a mutual friend [Consent: Single] that Nael initially found convincing but has recently come to doubt. Note: PLEASE NEVER DO THIS, OBVIOUSLY.

Paradox then convinced Nael to pretend to be my friend for a little longer so that he could lure me into a groupchat under the impression that I was defending him from all his former friends. Here is the entire chat almost in its entirety (a few glitches in captures results in a few repeats and nearly 4 minutes straight of lost content), with screenshots proudly taken by BLUE [Her Discord Drop: Single], who played an instrumental role in helping it happen. While I would encourage everyone to read it in its entirety, please be warned that the amount of abuse I endured is very troubling. [Scout Trap: Full]

Please note that Nael (Hevel), Kieran (Ghostie), and Dave have all come to me and personally apologized to me for their role participating in that group chat and we are friends now. But at the time due to this traumatic experience, my friendship with Nael was officially ended. Even though I was worried sick about them, I knew they couldn’t be saved until they saw Paradox’s abusive behavior for what it was on their own. And of course, after a brief honeymoon period, the abuse started again. (Keep in mind, I wasn’t in contact with Nael or anyone else for most of these, so I’m not as familiar about what happened and when.)

The first sign of trouble started on April 16th, not even two full weeks after I had been "defeated". Once again, it was over RP drama, where Paradox became upset at his two lovers Nael and Kieran for shipping with anyone besides him [Initial Ship Drama: 6], even though he usually continues multishipping on his blog with certain people when he pleases. [With Blue: 2] He complained about this endlessly. [Random Paradox Screen]

He continuously gaslit Kieran for about a week, cycling between saying he was going to leave forever [Initial Ship Drama: 9], telling the Kieran to take care of Nael [Initial Ship Drama: 10, 27], giving conflicting directions [Initial Ship Drama: 22, 38], putting himself down so Kieran would feel compelled to console him [Initial Ship Drama: 30, 41, 58], and asking them not to try to pursue romance with him [Initial Ship Drama: 12, 13, 32, 63], only to flip around and say that the idea of romancing them makes him feel “happy”, so he will [Initial Ship Drama: 45, 46], then become upset when either one of them indicated they might need space to either think or just live life like normal. [Initial Ship Drama: 53] Really, the entire thing has to be seen to be believed. [Initial Ship Drama: Full]

Eventually, Paradox’s behavior got so bad that once again, Blue expressed dissatisfaction with his behavior [With Blue: 4], but apparently it wasn’t enough to dissuade her from luring Nael into yet another trap to be yelled at barely a month later on May 17th. [May 17th: Full]

Confusingly, the reason behind this collective thrashing was that Nael actually overcorrected too much and tried to do more stuff with Paradox, only to be called clingy and possessive when they did. Then, when Paradox told Nael he didn’t want to RP with them anymore, Nael tried to respect his decision and not get involved with group RPs that Paradox was involved with so there would be no pressure either way. This was then held up as an example as to why they were “isolating” themselves from the group. Paradox showed the screencaps to others in the group with very little context to get them riled up and angry at Nael so that they’d be on board to yell at them, again showing his willingness to twist someone’s words to make them a convenient villain, no matter what they do to try to appease him.

Then on May 24th, there was the supposed “death” of the alter “Abel”, (who has since returned yet again). [Paradox: 2] The source of all this drama was that Blue simply mentioned a ship that she was continuing with Nael during a period of time Paradox wasn’t at all receptive to the idea of them interacting. Blue freely admitted to being the source of this conflict in private [With Blue: 21], but had no problem letting Nael take the brunt of the abuse. Once again, she is complicit for enabling actions she knows are wrong and hurtful, judging by the way she expresses concern about them, as long as she’s not the one in the eye of the storm.

Following this conflict, Nael started having serious second thoughts. After getting yelled at yet again about something they didn’t even cause, they had to go to the hospital for a near suicide attempt due to all the stress of being repeatedly attacked by someone they thought they could trust.

After they got out again, they were pulled into a smaller group chat with the newly formed “Paradox” alter as well as Jay, where it was demanded he answer for the wrongful death of an alter that has since returned. Multiple times, Paradox held up the incident from September, (which was over 9 months prior!) as to why Nael was to blame for Blue’s actions this time. [Paradox: 8, 10] Paradox even told Nael, someone who had been in the hospital just a few short hours ago [Paradox: 5], that their “suicide held no meaning to him”. [Paradox: 32] All of this despite the fact that they had talked about the very same ship on May 6th! [Proof Abel Knew: 10 total]

This was also supposed to serve as yet another “My heart is telling me not to get in a relationship with you” conversation -- a breakup convo, and one their third lover, Kieran, hadn’t even initially been invited to. [Paradox: 59] It was mostly just Paradox yelling at Nael with Jay usually only chiming in to agree with or heap praise on Paradox. [Paradox: 67] Several times, Paradox made confusing reversals, at one point musing “another alter might come and love you again” [Paradox: 49] to going back to insisting they could never be together again [Paradox: 70], then accusing Nael of saying they don’t love him [Paradox: 45, 46]. You might remember this erratic pattern from his conversation with Kieran back in April. This is gaslighting in its purest and ugliest form.

Clearly after this, Nael was rattled and eventually decided to leave. Instead of making any sort of formal goodbye, they just decided to delete their old Discord and make a clean break so there was no way they could be dragged into another group chat and yelled at. The group quickly fell into chaos once again. Paradox quickly began pumping out venting vague posts on his personal and RP blogs, sometimes pitying himself over the way Nael had apparently treated him [Single: Singles], and sometimes outright wishing death on them. [Paradox die: Single] Before long, he cracked and started sending desperate messages to Nael directly despite Nael obviously not wanting to talk. [Paradox Desperation: Singles] And when that didn’t work, of course Blue was deployed to try to persuade them to come back. [Last Convo w/ Blue: 22 pages] Luckily Dave warned them beforehand. [Thanks, Dave!: Single]

To try to convince others in the group that Nael was the bad guy and needed to be stopped, Paradox began feeding lies to his followers about bad stuff Nael was apparently doing. Paradox told Dave that Nael had been badmouthing him behind his back. But when Dave went to confront Nael about their behavior, Nael provided proof that was in fact Blue saying bad things about Dave. That’s when Dave decided to leave, too.

More chaos happened within the group. Soon after, Kieran the supposed third in their relationship got tired of Paradox constantly saying how Nael was “the only person he could ever love” as well as the constant torrent of irrational behavior and abuse. [Paradox Flipping Out: Single] So he left, as well. Aside from many, many more aggressive venting and vague posts, nothing much new has happened as far as group dynamics.

So far Paradox has been mostly fixated on Nael’s absence, but without the contributions of everyone who left, this callout wouldn’t be possible, and they should all be commended for their efforts and their courage for coming to me to apologize personally for their part in the abuse I and others have suffered.

As terrible as Paradox’s behavior has been in this retelling of events, mostly centered around Nael’s situation, it’s really only scratching the surface of how toxic this group is. There are many smaller details and other people he’s hurt that couldn’t fit in this brief recap, so here are a few more things you should know about that will hopefully keep you from this toxic group of friends.

First I’ll talk about the accounts of people who used to be in the group and go into detail about all the people who are still backing Paradox up despite everything he’s done.

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PARTIES INVOLVED

- Other victims -

Kieran:

While Nael took the lion’s share of the abuse from Paradox, it’s important to remember that he was involved with two different people and treated them both badly. Paradox is an outstanding example of what NOT to do when in a polyamorous relationship.

While there was a brief month long period where everything seemed fine after they started dating on October 23rd, Paradox began heavily playing favorites towards Nael, a pattern that only seemed to get worse over time. Kieran was subjected to long periods of neglect from his lover with Paradox only seeming to remember he existed when he was trying to use Kieran against Nael. Even Blue and Jay noticed this when the relationship was just starting out and rightfully called it out, though only in the safety of a private chat. [For Me: 13, 15, 16]

Several times during their relationship, when Nael would mess up or try to leave, Paradox would say that Nael was “the only person he could love” (he even wrote a diary about it!) [Copy of Journal: 2 pages] and break things off with Kieran as well. Most of the time without even telling him. However whenever he was trying to condemn Nael about something, he would hold up Kieran to say “What you’re doing is hurting US”, often without Kieran’s consent.

Of course, Kieran was still subjected to the same amount of lies, gaslighting, emotional blackmail, and mental instability from Paradox that Nael had to endure, but the fact is that he was also basically used as a weapon against someone he cared about by someone who was supposed to care about them both EQUALLY.

Ruby:

Ruby is someone who’s been fighting a personal battle with Paradox for years, starting with a dispute that happened, of course, because of an argument about a fictional character. For the past year and a half as of writing this (the harassment started Nov 2017, it is currently July 2019), Paradox has been stalking her blogs and harassing her over this perceived slight. He lied about her to all her friends in an attempt to alienate her from the public, and we have a confession from Nael that says not only was Paradox guilty of sending tons of anon hate towards Ruby even after they had each other blocked, he would send other people (Nael included) to send anon hate after her.

I briefly intervened during this dispute on Nael’s behalf in November 2018 because during that time we were both lead to believe that Ruby was targeting both Paradox and Nael. This is despite the fact that the post Paradox was upset about wasn’t even about him and she barely even knew Nael even existed. Thanks to my help, I was able to negotiate a brief ceasefire that lasted a few months up until Nael’s separation from Paradox in March.

The stalking and harassment started up again as soon as I had been branded an enemy, and eventually it got so bad that Ruby was the first (but not the only) one to announce she is going to try to press charges against everyone still remaining in the group. Although we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and she’s done and said things that were unintentionally hurtful, she has been very receptive to feedback and has made great pains to change for the better. I support Ruby wholeheartedly in her endeavors to make the ones abusing her pay for what they’ve done. If you want to know a little more about her conflict with Paradox from her perspective, visit her page. [Ruby’s page of Receipts: Full]

- Part of Paradox’s group -

Blue:

Out of all the people on this list, Blue is the most disappointing aspect of all this, seeing as I considered her my friend even before Nael came along. We’d been friends for more than a year by the time the March Madness started, meeting somewhere around February 2018. She was the one who introduced me to Nael in the first place, and Nael was so close to her they called each other their long lost siblings.

Unfortunately for all of us, Blue can’t stand up to a bully who insults and abuses her friends, even if she knows what he’s doing is wrong. We have multiple screenshots showing instances where she admits that Paradox is in the wrong or being annoying or excessively guilt tripping others based on trivial matters. However, whenever she’s personally on the hook for getting targeted by the ones she calls her “friends”, she quickly falls into line.

The second Paradox asks her to jump, she asks “How high?” She’s been willingly used as bait to rope Nael back into situations she knows and has even admitted are super unhealthy for them, all because she’s too afraid of being the next one everyone turns on. The only time she shows any semblance of “courage” is when she’s backed up by the rest of the hivemind. She’s too afraid to speak for herself, often parroting what others have already written in a desperate attempt to show external strength and total fealty for her master.

I have to wonder what exactly it is that keeps bringing Blue back to him, even though we have an entire folder showing times where she has come to her own conclusions that Paradox is unhealthy to be around [With Blue: 24 total] and has a penchant for blaming her whenever his relationship with his two lovers ever took a downwards turn. [Paradox blaming Blue: Singles] It’s not my place to speculate, but it’s safe to say that with all the times she’s personally let me, Nael, and others in our group down, there’s no way in hell we’re giving her another chance. She has made her choice to stay with someone she knew to be an abuser and emotional manipulator -- someone who hurt her and her friends -- and she will have to live with that decision.

Bird:

Ruby’s situation with Bird is very much like my situation with Blue, made all the worse by the fact that they were actually dating at the time. Bird purposefully sold Ruby out to Paradox while claiming they weren’t in contact, all the while she was feeding all of Ruby’s words and private thoughts to him. This is a common theme with this group and why you can’t be friends with just one of them if you don’t want to be involved with the cult as a whole.

Eventually she was found out and hasn’t really bothered to hide the fact that she’s on Paradox’s team ever since. We also have screenshots of her calling Nael a brat and useless during conflicts Paradox started, like the shipping drama in September. [Misc Bird Folder: 9 total] [Ruby and Bird’s Breakup: 16 total]

Jay:

Now we get to the biggest sycophant of the entire group, Jay. She’s been the one by his side the longest -- for a whopping 4 years -- and one of his most ardent supporters and biggest enablers. While I didn’t know much about her at first, seeing as she was largely absent from what I affectionately call the “six-person beat down”, she’s an invaluable member of Paradox’s cult and basically functions as his right arm and messenger.

If you have a problem with Paradox and want to talk things over with him, he’ll usually insist upon bringing Jay as an “impartial judge”. Not surprisingly, she usually just ends up agreeing with whatever he says and pushing his narrative, all the while insisting she’s being unbiased. She will lie for him, rope cult members attempting to leave back with excuses for his inexcusable behavior, and always swallows whatever lie he has to say wholeheartedly. If he needs a message from Abel passed on to someone trying to persuade them to come back, she’ll deliver it gladly. But if you need her to send a message to him, she’ll curtly tell you not to have her “fight your battles.”

She tried to send an entire drop box of “evidence” to Dave attempting to prove Nael was manipulative and evidence of the alter “Hebel's” existence. In it, Paradox (or rather, his alter Hebel) admitted to trying to spur Nael to kill themselves so that “Hebel” could apparently take over and get Kieran all to himself. [Potential Manslaughter: Singles] All of this was sent as proof that NAEL was the bad guy BY Jay, which is truly mind boggling and shows how far gone she is with regards to him.

There is a woman in prison the very moment that I’m writing this for spurring her suicidal boyfriend to take his own life [Article], and yet Jay thinks this behavior is okay? And before anyone tries to say that Hebel is “technically” to blame for attempting to push Nael to suicide, this argument hasn’t worked in the courtroom since the 1970s! [Article] IF PARADOX’S ALTER IS A DANGER TO NAEL AND CAN’T BE CONTROLLED, PARADOX HIMSELF IS ALSO DANGEROUS. PERIOD.

This isn’t even mentioning the multiple times she’s seen Paradox himself or his other various "good" alters (everyone in the group has seen, in fact) tell Nael outright that he “wishes [they] would die” [Abel Vent: Single] and that their suicide “holds no meaning to him” [Paradox: 32]. Jay was supposed to be “mediating” the very conversation where Paradox -- not “Hebel” or anyone else -- said that to Nael! And she said NOTHING. Her silence is complicity and she should take the blame for being such an ardent supporter of his abusive behavior.

Amazingly, there’s even MORE awful things that this group (particularly, but not exclusively Paradox) that I didn’t have any space to discuss in the callout itself, but they can’t go unmentioned. I know this is already super long, so I’ll try to run through them all as quickly as possible, and then we can get to the large wealth of screenshots we have linked at the end, where everything is in context for you to browse at your convenience.

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OTHER OCCURENCES

Transphobia: Paradox is a terf, and there’s not much else to say. [For Me: 2] Ironically he said this in a group chat with one of the only two people who identify as trans in their group, his then-boyfriend Kieran. Here’s him heavily fetishizing a failed attempted Corrin muse that he described as intersex, too. [FE Abel Problems: 5 pages] (In parenthesis is a user attempting to check their work. He makes a bit of an error concerning outrealms and dragon gates and whatnot, but please forgive him for those small errors considering how much he had on his hands.)

Abuse victim blaming: Paradox would often tell his two lovers, who are survivors of various types of abuse, ranging from mental, physical, and even sexual, how it’s their fault for letting their past traumas affect them. [Victim Blaming: Singles] Please note that these screenshots were taken in May, nearly a month before they separated from him fully, so they would have no reason to lie to each other about the things he said or needlessly malign his character before they left.

Promoting infighting: Paradox enjoyed watching his underlings tear each other apart for his amusement or to influence their behavior by saying their actions affected “everyone” despite him using false pretenses to get them to fight in the first place. He lied to Dave about Nael comparing him to a user that he wasn’t fond of when it was really Paradox and Blue that had done it. He also lied to Kieran and the entire group to get them all to yell at Nael in a group chat about Nael trying to isolate themselves from everyone when it was really done to please Paradox.

Ableism: Nael is unwell and has brain conditions they don’t feel comfortable with sharing. Instead of being understanding and supportive of them occasionally not understanding things or forgetting things, Paradox would immediately use it as a weapon against them. When “Paradox” first surfaced, Nael claimed that it wasn’t fair to them that the “Abel” alter yelled at them for forgetting about their ship with Blue. Paradox immediately countered that he Nael would no longer be allowed to use the excuse that they forgot things to AVOID being yelled at for minor things. [Paradox: 21, 22] He would constantly do things like this while they were together.

Copying and stealing OCs: Besides stalking the people that left and that he’s grown to hate, Paradox also has a peculiar habit of copying their activities on his blog with the few remaining people in his circle. For example, back in March when Nael’s Grima muse began interacting with a Reyson rper I introduced them to, Paradox made Kieran pick up his abandoned Reyson muse so that he could ship him with his Robin. (This hasn’t been linked to protect the identity of the second Reyson.) Worse still, Paradox has even outright stolen characters and backstories from those that leave. Here Kieran tries to ask Jay to tell Paradox to stop using some of his stolen OCs and she questions why it “would matter” to Kieran before promptly telling him to basically take a hike and blocking him. [Jay: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Racism: This group seems to relish in their own ignorance when it comes to matters of race. Here are screenshots Dave took where he discussed Paradox saying that Japanese people are white. [No, seriously: Singles] (Please note the dates -- it was back in December, so he has no reason to lie.) Here’s Nael recounting a time Paradox told them that, because they were partially North African, they had to distance themselves from people of their race because other people would only see them as a terrorist. (No caps of that since it was in a call, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.) Here’s Blue telling me, a black fan, that unintentional racism in a game I enjoyed but was put off by “didn’t matter” and that there was no need for me to “get so salty about it”. [Scout vs Blue: 19, 20] While I don’t think they’re going to any Klan meetings over the weekend, it’s still a bit concerning and something POC muns should be aware of because they can be startlingly insensitive at times.

Pedophilia: Probably the hardest one to talk about for me personally, but definitely one of the most serious. While I must stress that we haven’t noticed any sort of untoward behavior with underaged USERS thus far, Paradox shows an almost unhealthy fascination with underage MUSES that might be off putting to some people and may spell danger. This actually isn’t the first callout someone has made about his behavior. In 2018 while he went by the name “Vic” and was in the Pokemon fandom, he wrote a disturbing post where a 14 year old girl was killed by a literal penis monster that was saying “penetrate” as it ran her through the middle.

Though the mun was fine with their muse dying, the obvious sexual connotations of the post left them feeling uneasy. When they went to approach him about this, instead of apologizing, he got defensive and said that because it was fictional, it didn’t matter. Later he made a bizarre case arguing that because the girl was 14 and thus had presumably experienced puberty, it couldn’t TECHNICALLY be considered pedophilia. [WTF: Single] Which, while correct on only the most technical of terms, flies in the face of all reason. Here’s the full PSA about him back then [Paradox PSA], and screenshots he was booted out of for his terrible behavior. [Paradox Booted: Singles] (His then-lover initially tried to defend him, but his abusive behavior eventually drove them away as well, so care was taken to keep them anonymous.)

Most disturbing of all, though, is a smut drabble that he made this year concerning one of his newer muses, Momo. On his blog, he describes Momo as someone who is “physically” 18 but “actually” seven due to the circumstances of his creation. That would be fine, except he will often portray Momo as also being mentally seven years old even though he continues to write him lewdly. In the smut drabble, he even goes a step further and constantly refers to him as a “child” and constantly fixates on his underdeveloped genitals.

DUE TO THE HIGHLY GRAPHIC AND POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING NATURE OF THIS DRABBLE, DO NO CLICK UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED. It’s honestly not for the faint of the heart and makes me queasy from the first sentence, but there’s no other way to describe the severity of his awful nature unless you experience it for yourself. [To Endure a Fiend’s Heat: full 6 page drabble]

While some would say it’s okay to experience triggering material in a safe environment to potentially help ease the pain of past trauma, Paradox has already shown himself to be unreliable when it comes to respecting the mental health and safety of others, and though we don’t have any screenshots of this, Nael has recounted several times where Paradox said he was sexually excited by RPing his childlike muses having sex with the adult muses of others in the cult. Here's him once again emphasizing the child like element with one and then drawing them in a suggestive "pin up" pose immediately after. [Vector: Singles]

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Finally we are at our end. Once again, my purpose behind this callout is not to shame anyone with a particular mental illness or unique set of challenges. Paradox is dangerous to any community he’s in because of his view of other people as simple playthings that he can use and throw away as he pleases. He treats life as an RP, living people as muses, and his apparent mental illnesses as an excuse to do away with any sort of accountability for his actions, and it is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE. Please protect yourself and others by reblogging this -- I feel as though Nael is very lucky to have escaped this situation with his life. Informing others might save another’s.

Complete, unedited list of references, roughly in the order of mention:

(Please note that anything labeled “Single(s)” will not have an entry here, as those are the only screenshots we have about them. We got better about capping things as time went on.)

[Scout and Nael Convo: 13 total] When Nael decided to get back together with Paradox the first time in September 2018, I let them know my concerns, but told them I respected their decision, no matter if I agreed with it or not. Looking back, parts of this conversation feel almost prophetic.

[Didn’t Feel Like…: 9 total] One of Kieran’s first conversations with Paradox. Watch closely how he characterizes the incident in September. He also mentions that his trauma and BPD makes him a sexual fiend, which… idk how others in the community would feel about that.

[For me: 16 total] A loose collection of screenshots Kieran took that shows quite a few odd moments during his time in the cult. That includes Paradox being a terf, Paradox insisting that Kieran to stay with Nael if they broke up (which is something he criticized Nael for suggesting in the March break up, even though Nael only said it once), and Jay and Blue expressing concern for Kieran when Paradox was starting to neglect him back in January. PLEASE MIND THE DATES! They vary page to page sometimes!

[Before/After Suicide: 88 total] A few screenshots showing the tumultuous times immediately before and after the Paradox suicide attempt in March 2019. Afterwards, Nael breaks up with both Paradox and Kieran in no uncertain terms due to the trauma he faced.

[Abel Suicide: 33 total] Paradox’s infamous suicide attempt.

[Nael: 34 total] Nael and Kieran talk as Paradox’s suicide attempt is in progress, and Nael tells Kieran to get the police. Sensitive information blotted out for obvious reasons.

[Scout vs Blue: 25 total] A collection of the conflicts I’ve dealt with in regards to Blue since the incident in March. Also includes her racial insensitivity and back when she agreed with me and Nael before Paradox lied to her.

[Initial Ship Drama: 93 total] Kieran endures like 5 days of nonstop gaslighting from Paradox. At the end (Around page 88) he manipulates Kieran into sparking a confrontation with Nael, telling him to “be assertive” about fixing a problem Paradox caused with his erratic behavior.

[Proof Abel Knew: 10 total] On May 6th, Nael discussed with Paradox or one of his alters about the ship that triggered the May 24th meltdown. Paradox also says that having any ships, including ones that he doesn’t even have to see is unacceptable simply because they exist. He then blames Nael for something Blue brought up. Again. While asking Nael not to blame him for something Blue has done.

[With Blue: 24 total] Kieran talks with Blue about the aforementioned shipping drama, and she immediately expresses frustration and anger with Paradox blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Later she also expresses annoyance with the May 24th incident of the alter “Abel” “dying” due to even more ship drama.

[May 17th: 13 total] Once again, Paradox whips his followers up into a frenzy over Nael, who’s really just trying to do what they were told and prioritize their lover. When they’re told the amount of attention Paradox literally asked for is stifling, they back off, only to be yelled at for it once again. It’s not shown here, but Blue once again acted as a lure to bring Nael into a public flogging.

[Paradox: 72 total] Nael is blamed for the “death” of an alter that has since returned because the alter “wasn’t around” for something they discussed on the 6th of May. This is the introduction to the “Paradox” alter, that I’m assuming now has assumed a fronting role. I don’t really care if that situation has changed since I started writing this.

[Jay: 12 total] Just some screens of Jay kind of being a jerk (mostly in the first set). She won’t tell Paradox to stop stealing someone else’s OCs and stop improperly using Nael’s last name, which is considered legitimate identity theft in France, where he lives! Mind the dates.

[Last Convo w/ Blue: 22 pages] Blue reprises her role as the bait to try to drag Nael back, but they’ve wised up to her game by now. It’s not going to ever work again.

[Jay’s “Evidence” Folder: 122 total] All of the things Jay sent to Dave in order to convince him that Nael was the bad guy. None of it accomplishes that goal. In it there’s a lot of doting between Nael’s alter “Naoya” and Paradox’s alter “Abel”, before Paradox showed the exact same abusive behavior and drove Naoya away as well. Then Paradox’s alter “Hebel” tries to explain his existence. He also admits to attempted manslaughter. So. (Please note: some of these are out of order, and we’re very sorry about this, but it’s not our doing, sorry!)

[Ruby and Bird’s Breakup: 16 total] Ruby tried to get Bird to intervene on her behalf to get Paradox to stop harassing her after she tried making an apology post. Bird totally flaked out, probably due to her dual loyalties to Paradox himself. This spurred a messy breakup between them both.

[Misc Bird Folder: 9 total] Some more random stuff showing Bird and Ruby’s relationship, including her take on Paradox and Nael’s September breakup, where she calls him a “brat”. The entire time during these screenshots, Bird was secretly feeding information to Paradox against Ruby’s will, breaking her trust when she found out. She even told Paradox, Ruby’s abuser, about the new blog Ruby made in order to escape him. That’s why she’s on this callout.

[Discord Server Chat with Blue: 23 pages] The complete chat about the Fire Emblem Heroes event that left me feeling upset about the handling of race in Book 2. While the rest in the server try to be respectful or change the subject, Blue insisted on devaluing my feelings and saying I was accusing her of racism, which was, of course, untrue at the time. Currently, I’m not feeling so generous. (Note: My apologies to fans of Heroes’ Nifl -- I say some strongly worded things here which may be unflattering, but I felt it was important to get the entire conversation down.)

BONUS: [Paradox Guilt Tripping on his birthday: 16 total] In case you needed more evidence of Paradox’s gaslighting behavior, here is him guilt tripping them because Nael, who is not a native English speaker, didn’t understand one video he sent. If this is all it takes to trigger a breakdown, he is probably not ready for a relationship.

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clairen45 · 5 years

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i heard that the throne room scene in TLJ was a metaphor for sex ? Is there a meta about it ? Why does this fight conveys this idea ? Luv your blog by the way :)

There was @skysilencer’s awesome meta but unfortunately this seems to have been taken down. I think she went AWOL and her metas, this one in particular, is not anywhere I can find it. If anyone had a copy, maybe? Such a crying shame because she did an amazing job. Anyways, to enlighten you, dear anon, this is how you can sum it up, and honestly, if you haven’t seen it so far, you won’t be able to watch that scene anymore without fanning yourself…

This will certainly cover some of what @skysilencer has said, but I will put my “spin” (wink) on some of the material. @raven-maiden I think you are also the one who did something on Rey’s virginal fear at the end of the scene but I can’t find it anywhere, please, please, rec your work! Or if I am wrong, please, other meta writers, rec your own takes on this scene!

First, always keep in mind, that this scene is about

empowerment

giving the other what he/she needs

trust

release

freeing yourself/ letting yourself be free

intimacy in the midst of utter chaos

Which works on many levels, but as a sex metaphor, most absolutely.

We start with this little private conversation, which works as foreplay, in the elevator, as they reestablish their connection when physically standing next to each other, alone, for the first time since the duel on Takodana. It is important to note, that, every time, Rey is the one making a move. As established since TFA: she is the one determining the relationship and where it is going every time. Here, in the elevator, she gets into his space: his space on the Supremacy, but also his personal space as she approaches him and eyes him up and down. Even though she is manacled, she is still very much an agent. Even more so, that the girl, as has been pointed out many times, really prepped up for her big date: mascara, lipstick, new clothes and new hairstyle, with her hair let down. The manacles have many possible meanings that are mutually not exclusive:

on a symbolic level, they remind us that she threw herself at his mercy. She put all her trust into him by shipping herself to him right into the lion’s den.

on a more specifically sexual level, they also represent Rey’s own fears and limitations when it comes to her sexuality. She is still confused and upset by it, as the whole experience on Ahch-To is about (yep, it is not just about Jedi training, you guys. I did something about that on my Crait meta, see here). The manacles are an omen of what will happen at the end of the scene. Even though Rey is tempted (girl got a makeover and is clearly attracted by the dude), she is not so sure she is ready for the whole experience. Rey is not as free as she thinks she is. She still has to deal with her own limiting beliefs and fears (another one shows up on Crait via the boulder scene). So at this particular point in the story, some of the shackles are really more in her mind than anything else.

it’s the lazy good girl gets too close to bad guy transcription. Looks like more than she wanted to bargain for. Blame it on 50 shades being mainstream…

Plus, let’s not overlook the practicality that RJ had to deal with. If he had left his two space babies in the elevator utterly free to themselves, what would have happened, may I ask you, what would have happened? Rey would have been all over the guy, touching him, his hair, his face, and how could we have coped? And how would they have been able to maintain the suspense? The sexual tension? The “will they/won’t they”? Nope, Rey had to be physically restrained to avoid touching Kylo. Period. That’s my final take.

Also not so subtle close up:

There is a lot to say about the hand fest that RJ gave us in that movie. Convenient close up of their hands in front of their private parts, with Kylo holding a saber in clearview. Yes, I know that it is lazy to compare a phallic object to well, a phallus. But the way they “play” with the phallic quality in this scene merely says it all. The way he crosses his hands show that he is hiding something, but at the same time, his stance gives away an impression of calm and confidence. As we know from the novelizations, he has already made up his mind about what he is prepared to do for this girl. And when we see his face, again, calm, resolute confidence. She is stressed and anguished, as she should be given her situation. Her hands are not totally open (her thumbs are inside, kind of protecting herself), she is resisting somewhat, which also gives away the end of the scene.

Ok, so back to the very unsubltle use of our phallic symbol. I must stress out how GENTLE Kylo is and how solely invested in her he is the entire process. He doesn’t let out much about his emotions except when Rey is concerned, which is quite a feat from someone who has been portrayed as explosively explicit about his feelings since TFA. The only moments when he flinches are when Rey gets tortured by Snoke and you can tell how repulsive this is to him, and when Rey gets wounded by a Praetorian guard. Otherwise, he is again, cool and collected. So, the saber… What a hoot! Rey calls to herself Kylo’s saber and the boy doesn’t flinch. He lets it happen. Well, that sword looks mighty fine in her hands.

The same saber that was so explicitely used in TFA as, well, an “extension” of Kylo, and that totally freaked her out on Takodana:

A saber which comes with a particular design of big red vein showing up on the hilt. It doesn’t take that much of a filthy mind to make you wonder about this specific add-on and what they had in mind when they came up with it. Sometimes a saber is a saber, but, there are also times when a saber is clearly NOT JUST a saber.

It gets better… In the Junior novelization, when Rey reaches towards Kylo’s saber, the writer uses this interesting choice of words “It unfastened from his belt and sprang into her hand, its fiery blade igniting”. Unfasten belt, something springing into someone’s hands, ignite…. Boy… do I need say more. But then, the saber goes back to his owner who puts it to use in a very interesting way…

She is on her knees, with a deliberate close up which is so obvious that it should be censored. The saber boner comes up so intently towards her face, while the fingers are doing something, well, stop me from talking about the fingers. And if you think this is, well, just a coincidence, oh no. They knew. Look at this outtake from behind the scenes where Daisy Ridley can’t help but laugh at the goofiness of it all. In my mind it goes: “So, are you sure about that one RJ? I am on my knees and Adam just shoves his saber in my face??? Ok!”

What you have to appreciate is the wonderful intimacy of the moment. Because they never take their eyes off of each other one moment. And RJ just creates this moment for just the two of them as the camera doesn’t show the Praetorian guards at all and Snoke even closes his eyes on what is going on. And there is the panting, her calling his name… the anticipation… This is their moment. And then, well, the rest is epic. The thigh grabbing. The burning down of the red veil around them (much like a symbolic hymen being broken open), it is a sweaty, chaotic moment, full of grunts, pants, and cries, where they each get caught up in the fear of losing themselves. But he always looks out for the girl, ensuring that she is ok. And she finishes first, what a gentleman, finding her own release before turning towards him, calling his name, and letting him find his own release. With the ultimate puff of white at the end. Enough said. Go get a shower! We all need one.

#reylo fandm #reylo meta #reylo fam #reylo #star wars the last jedi #the last jedi throne room scene #sex in star wars #star wars symbolism #sometimes a saber is NOT a saber

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crimsonbluemoon · 5 years

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We can ask about Libahunt 2.0?? I thought it was on the hush hush! This is so exciting! So when Libahunt 2.0 gets published (because you're too awesome to not be published) are you going to delete the BBS fanfic version? You mentioned that you're going to limit the swears and innuendos in 2.0, so does that mean Not Tyler is getting heavily censored? Will Samantha be called Sammy to match Scotty? Will Not Brian's title still be "Terroriser"? I feel like Terroriser matches his darker past.

More 2.0 questions, sorry! Will Samatha's experiment number still be 407? Will Not Luke keep the missing eye and southern drawl? Will Not Smiity still have white hair and blue/red eyes? Will Not Del still have piercing blue eyes? Are you gonna leave in any references to the original fanfic, besides the basic plot? Will Not Del have the same red markings that, I'm guessing, are based on the Jason mask? Are you gonna take out the bat so you don't have a repeat of Minibat?

Crim you're going to be the new Rick Riordan and I'm so excited for it!!!

Holy crap I just scrolled down on your dash and realized I missed a crap ton of asks! I'm living all of the 2.0 stuff I'm finding! I can't wait for it to be published so I can own a physical copy of one of, if not the, greatest fanfics ever written! Crim I'm so excited for you!!!!!

(Sorry for spamming you with asks!! >.

Okay so there’s a loooot to answer here so I will try to do it all! ^.^

Yes, it’s gonna be deleted off Tumblr. But I’ll give y’all like a week’s notice so you can save it to your computer or something ^.^

haha yeah, Theodore/Teddy (Tyler)

Sam or Sammy will be Scotty’s nickname, yes

Belle’s (Brian) name from the past will be “The Ravager”

Hmmm I haven’t thought about the number yet. I might just to pay homage but I don’t know yet. I don’t wanna keep too much in there.

Leon (Luke) will still not have his eye. That’s important to the story. And maybe, there’s no reason not to have the southern accent.

I think Samus (Smiity) has silver eyes instead of the red/blue, but he’s got white hair still I believe since he’s an elf.

Jonathan will still have his blue eyes and markings. They’re not really something I have to change cause people who weren’t in the BBS fandom wouldn’t really notice or pick up on.

The bat is gonna stay because nobody but this crazy fandom would ship Chloe (Mini) with a bat!!! >.

Haha I don’t know if I’ll get that big...but if I could be like R.R I’d be so blessed.

Again not the best fanfic ever written but it’s an honor for you to say that.

I don’t know if this style of book is something they’ll like? Haha but I wouldn’t know really what they’d say.

Hope I answered it all!

#Thank you for all the asks #it was fun answering stuff!#^.^#Crimson ramblez #<3 #1sunnydaze0

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calleo-bricriu · 5 years

Text

Finally finished that awful book.

Go back and look at the rest of it if you want to make yourself hate the fact that anyone is able to publish their terrible, talentless fiction writing.

All right, Chapter 27, extra fun doing this with my parents here.

The faces dad's been making are kind of worth it though; mum just sort of looks up from what she's doing now and again, shakes her head--at the story, not me--and goes back to it.

I'm finishing this horrorshow of a book off tonight so I never have to look at it again unless it's to shove it at someone who hasn't read it but deserves to.

So, we're away from the, "I copied this straight from a newspaper article, look it up!" chapter (which, if you recall, I did look up, and it doesn't exist, he made it up) and on to Obera asking Leigh out of the blue if he'll ever regret having married her.

His answer is less a yes or no and more, "Did I do something to make you mad?"

Her response is even more inexplicable; she tells him he hasn't then adds on, "But you know how a divorced woman is treated by the world."

Not--strictly the right set of priorities here but, all right.

She mentions something about "the money" and I'm not sure if that means we're just skipping the entire part where Mizpra got power of attorney from her addled mother and Leigh--I don't know, physically fought her over or if we're still getting to that and the author forgot and this bit was meant to be closer to the end of the actual story.

Given all of the man's other writing, I think he just forgot.

"You were a child, Obera, when I first met you." Yikes.

And she found that somehow a really romantic way to start things because, "she clung closer to him, and her little body vibrated with thrilling emotions." Is it not possible for this guy to not write like a creep you'd find in the bushes outside a kid's bedroom window?

Obera has a bit of sense at some point and suggest maybe trying to mess with Mizpra, who has already proven herself to be pretty unstable or at least willing to murder a child, might not be the best idea but Leigh is the genius of the story and ignores her.

Sorry, I mean explains why he's right and she's just a silly little girl-woman.

Anyway, Leigh's plan is to have Mizpra shipped off to a mental institution; tells Obera she wouldn't understand that because she wouldn't understand the "diabolical nature of her (Mizpra's) insane passions" and neither would the courts.

So far, we haven't seen much of those though, apart from her getting off on stabbing her sleeping husband with a hat pin and trying to murder a toddler via sending diphtheria tainted toys; the first thing isn't that abnormal, there are whole scenes around--not with hat pins, though, with sharp, single use piercing needles.

The second one is probably a crime, however and I'm still not entirely sure why nobody had her arrested for it since they knew exactly who sent it and how it was tainted.

Whatever.

He then offers to take her to Hawaii, which is where she's from, being a Tahitian princess, after all.

Again, her reaction is described as very child-like. Ew.

He then mentions he heard Mops crying, she says he was because he didn't want to wear shoes, then threw the shoes at her--fairly typical behaviour for a four year old kid but Leigh the Genius Doctor starts telling her that means they need to watch his mental health because he's showing signs of "uncontrolled impulses" and might end up neurotic and insane and probably an alcoholic and a criminal.

Man, he's four.

That's just how four year olds act sometimes.

Even I know that.

They go off for a few pages discussing "training" their four year old and it's all kind of terrible and advocates stopping just short of what you could get arrested for in terms of beating them.

(( Stuff inside gets into--not graphic, but still BDSM which is the ‘shocking’ and ‘perverted’ parts of The Perverts, more casual racism common for the time, and the most disappointing ending to a book I’ve read in ages.))

That somehow goes in to him saying he thinks the states should regulate marriage by law so the "unfit" can't get married; unfit meaning criminals, mental illness, tuberculosis, and "the physically weak and diseased" as well as "the insane".

Then he spins off into how shameful it is the crime rate in the United States is increasing at a "fearful rate".

Obera cuts in saying she think shaving laws regulating marriage sounded terrible to her until her Genius Husband Leigh explained why she was a wrong, silly woman, trying to have thoughts of her own.

That all gets interrupted by a letter from Rev. Bald who brings up some comment he made on the "matter of modern flagellation from a psychologic point of view" on the train, he found a bunch of books on the topic, he's pretty sure you can blame Catholics for it, and that's what makes them insane. Catholics, I mean.

Next is a newspaper article about Mizpra's school for "little half-breeds and Indian girls" which doesn't sound suspicious or weird at all--I mean, in fairness, for the time it was written that was pretty normal language, it just didn't age well at all.

So that article makes Leigh mad, her sister being apparently successful because that's half the problem with Mizpra: She does things women shouldn't be doing, like, not having children, getting an education, not caring if she looks fashionable, not wearing corsets, doing her own legal and financial work--you know, like the horrid witch she is or something.

I mean, honestly by this point in the story I'd team up with Mizpra so one of us could hold Leigh down while the other one just kicked him in the ribs until the noise stopped, he's that insufferable and obnoxiously wrong about everything.

Where was I?

Don't care, the last ten pages were Leigh whining about Catholics.

Chapter 28.

This one starts with a letter, "Los Angeles, -----, 189--" What? Los Angeles is in California, and why are you censoring the year?

Whatever.

It's a letter from Dr. Bell to open this time.

Bunch of stuff about The Spanish, most of it not flattering and about how they make great servants.

Everyone likes Mizpra there, so that's gonig ot make things more difficult.

Lots of paragraphs about how well liked Mizpra is.

No men allowed in the all girls' school, which is framed to be a bad thing but seems pretty reasonable to me.

There's also a little old lady called Penitente that will kill on sight if you're trespassing. She sounds fun.

And, for no reason whatsoever and with no proof, Dr. Bell concludes the whole school is a front for a sex dungeon of Mizpra's that she operates under the guise of "religious ceremony".

I mean obviously, that's where the author is going with it but he really should have spent some time laying down clues that that might be what's happening instead of having no mention or even hint of it then having one main character just randomly know that's what's happening.

So, Leigh decides, this evening, he's going to go and confront Mizpra. I mean, he did some waxing philosophical for a few pages until getting to that point but it was just him thining out loud about how amazing he is; great businessman, great doctor, great author, all around god tier person--we get it, Dr. Howard, Leigh is literally your power fantasy character.

They head off to try and bust Mizpra in the middle of some kind of weird--I don't know what, "active criminal act" prove her insane, or something. And even if they find her in the place doing what everyone thinks she does: Being a decent, regular person, they'll all be fucked because then they'll look like trespassing, stalker weirdos--which is kind of what they are anyway.

They decide it'd be best to "pounce upon her in the height of oe of her deliriums" which, I think, means they want to bust her mid-orgy in the church basement. Fair enough, I guess; that's probably not the best place to have those anyway.

15 pages of explaining the plan where nothing is actually explained beyond describing the building's exterior.

10 more pages complaining about Catholics, particularly Spanish Catholics.

GET BACK TO THE MAIN PLOT. This is pointless filler.

Leigh eventually calls this all an "errand of mercy" like--just--no. It's not. You've been harassing Mizpra for about ten years in story time here, going out of your way to make fun of her looks, her life choices, her career, her education, her clothes, etc...she's not the bad guy here, Leigh.

Also, you named your kid Mops. Why would you do that to a child?

Chapter 24.

Two pages describing irrelvant scenery.

Look, even Tolkein would read this guy's book and tell him he's too long winded with unnecessary description.

Oh of course it's storming, why wouldn't it be storming? Convenient weather to bust the Bad Character.

So Leigh, being the genius at everything he is (including tracking now) hears a false owl call and knows someone is waiting for them.

Oh, it's the poor "Indian boy" from a few chapters back. "Indian boy here. Bad night, climb. Good night corral bad he squaw." I got nothing here--author didn't even bother giving that character a name.

"Indian boy" leads them to the building because he doesn't like Mizpra, I think. I'm pretty sure she's the "bad squaw". Or the "bad he squaw" except I'm not sure what a "he squaw" is.

Leigh, of course, has to describe the kid in a creepy way: "Leigh looked at the sweet-voiced lad who stood under the partial roof. His long black hair shining from the rain drops which trickled from it, fell on his bronze, bare shoulders." Leigh, please calm down.

And finally, after the third time in a couple hundred pages this kid appears, someone addresses him by name, which is Luis, which is definitely not his real name and likely one assigned to him by the church. Still, it's a step above calling him "Indian boy", I guess.

They plan a bit more and sit around smoking while waiting for the right time to go in and get by that Penitente woman who will shoot on sight.

Back to discussing the building layout and occasionally giving Luis many other slightly derogatory nicknames like "brave little Indian boy" and "our little black-haired friend".

He has a sister (re)named Angelia in the school, which is why he's helping them. One of the most reasonable people with a proper reason to want to break in.

He also calls the lady that will shoot on site "old hag squaw".

Chapter 25, finally after two chapters of pointless, repetitive planning, they're going to break into the damn place and of course now it's storming rather a lot.

SO! They get in and all three are immediately horrified by the first glimpse of the chapel. Red is, evidently, a colour they don't like.

Walls and ceiling blood-red, carpet of "funereal" black--just say black, and spell funeral correctly.

Big chandelier with candles that wer elit in a way that made the walls look as though they were on fire. Big ebony cross with a wax woman pawing at it--the sort of thing you see in religious art now and again, and under the chandelier there was pink and white silk for more lighting effects.

Onyx pedestal, golden crucifix, black and gold latticed confessional areas, gold curtains,"many signs of Mizpra's mania" on the walls: Haircloths, wreaths and belts of thorns, steel hooks, rods of iron, leather whips, knotted rope whips, iron and steel instruments of torture that are never described beyond that, a brilliantly coloured and painted altar that was "poisoned, destroyed by the lecherous and realistic painting which hung over it".

The painting is by, "the carnal and lewd Father Gerard", whoever that is.

This honestly sounds like a pretty cool looking room; if I'm meant to be shocked or horrified it's had the opposite effect. Mizpra has an eye for design.

"[...] the whole ch amber swam before his eyes as one flaming pornographic panorama" and that was enough that Leigh was just, "Nope, I've had enough of this, we're leaving," while everyone else went with--I mean they tried to be nice about it but the underlying tone is, "This was YOUR idea, asshole, you're not backing out now."

Noise is heard from the library, that gets drown out by the actual bells of the place going off with the time. Midnight, of course. It's always midnight for these types of scenes.

Nun comes in, they all sort of hide, Nun does regular Nun things and Leigh mutters something about death being marked on her face despite the fact that she's doing nothing out of the ordinary for a Nun but, she's thin, so he thinks she's gross.

Okay, finally something else is happening. Mizpra shows up, the Nun from before--I mean, Leigh, this is just someone's private life you're intruding on here but anyway, this is definitely a BDSM scene with religious overtones and nobody involved is objecting (and definitely didn't consdent to have these three fucking weirdos watch them).

I know this is meant to be shocking but, again, this is not an uncommon thing; Mizpra is being written as a pretty run of the mill Dominatrix, she's not forcing the other girl to do anything she does't want to do, and what's happening is clearly a planned out, scripted scene.

Apart from the three weirdos watching from the shadows.

More descriptions of Mizpra being "manly", of course, and suddenly the Peeping Tom Party decides to burst in and break up the scene.

"Sister, you are not well."

She was fine until you interrupted her, Leigh.

He very politely asks her to accompany him to the asylum which is not really a reasonable thing to ask someone, especially if you already think they're out of their mind and don't realise it.

Her respose was "vulgar voicing with which the vilest curses were mingled". Not an entirely unfair response to, "Please allow me to have you locked up in an insane asylum, thank you."

Luis very neatly bashes the head of the guard lady in with a crucifix, so that wraps up that loose thread but also seems to have angered Mizpra.

You know, because they broke in and murdered someone.

She flips it around and says she lured them all there and now they've all been caught murdering some old lady.

She makes fun of Bald for awhile, so he rushes her and tries to strangle her, and she doesn't appear to care in the slightest. She pulls him out to the cliff edge balcony, pulls a rope that apparently makes the balcony fold down for some reason, and they both fall off of the cliff.

And that's...it.

"A brilliant flash of lightning shot out from the heavens, and the white face of Mizpra, defiant as ever, was lighted up as she and Bald turned over in the emptiness of the abyss----THE END."

#books #antique books #hp rp #fiction #mizpra was definitely not the bad person here

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velkynkarma · 6 years

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Hello VelkynKarma :) I am really inspired by your incredible work and would like to ask if you have any advice about creating an AO3 account? I have been an anon for ages on the site and finally want to start publishing my fics. What are the pros and cons of the site from an actual users perspective (the terms & conditions & privacy policy are very long winded & confusing & the controversy is also weird) sorry if this is too much to ask, no worries if you don't want to reply :)

Hey anon! I don’t mind answering based on my own experiences. For me I think the hardest part of AO3 was just adjusting to the interface? It has a bit of a weird learning curve with its tags system compared to something like fanfiction.net, which sorts by character and genre. However, once you get used to it, it’s a lot easier to filter for things like ships or specific topics you want. And if you’ve been anon for a while, you’ve probably figured most of that part out already, so I’d say the hardest part for you is already over. Pros for me as a writer: Better organization with tags, series are a thing that exist and make it easier to organize groups of fics, cleaner interface, you can store drafts to format them ahead of time and then one-click post, has some nice options for gift fics or collaborations, imagery can be embedded for big bangs and writing/art collaboration. Cons for me as a writer: Copy/paste post interface is terrible (I have to reformat everything whenever I post), no PM feature, if you want to comment or respond to your readers it will add to your comment count and be public, the site is buggy sometimes and can freeze up postingI would suggest signing up for an account now, since if I recall it can take a bit to actually get it. And if you’re not quite comfortable publishing as soon as you get it, that’s fine! I had my account for a couple years before I started posting to it. I used it primarily for watching and commenting on fics, and that’s fine too. As a writer I appreciate all of my anon comments, but I do enjoy seeing familiar icons and names returning for things they like, or being able to respond to comments where they bring up interesting points.Most AO3 guides or posts on tumblr will talk about the beauty of AO3 being due to its open-ended policy: you can write literally anything, even darker or “problematic” content. As long as you tag for it fairly (either by specifying potentially triggering themes, or using the ‘author chooses not to warn’ option, which will tell a reader to be careful), it’s fair game. I’ve never really encountered this personally as most of the time when people champion this feature, they’re talking about sexual or ship content, which I don’t read or write. But if that’s your kind of thing, that’s a plus. Just be conscientious about tagging for content that commonly makes people uncomfortable so they have fair warning to back away if they need to, and try to listen to readers if they suggest tagging for content that you may have missed by accident.This is where the controversy you’d mentioned comes into play too: there are others who argue this shouldn’t be permitted and that content should be censored if it’s “problematic,” with the belief that it can be extremely harmful to viewers (in particular, younger viewers). And this has actually happened in internet history, with “purges” going across old fic platforms like fanfiction.net or livejournal to censor content. This is why a lot of people flock to AO3, which swears it will not be censoring content provided it is properly tagged for (so for example, if there is no warning or tag for sexual assault, and then a sexual assault scene happens, this could still get removed). The counter-argument to censorship is generally that other media (books, films, games) don’t even give you the courtesy of a tag or warning before throwing this kind of “problematic” content at you, and that if you have a problem with it in fic, you should not be reading that fic. There is also the case that these fics are just that: fiction, and that problems or conflicts are essential to a story. You can make your own judgement on how you feel on all of that. If you don’t like it, it’s entirely possible to enjoy AO3 without getting embroiled in the controversy, especially if you don’t even write the kind of content that’s frequently fought over. Advice that I DON’T see that often for AO3? Check where your fandom is. AO3 is becoming a more popular platform, but some fandoms still don’t really gravitate to it. When I was writing for Young Justice, I posted the exact same fic on both fanfiction.net and AO3 at the exact same time, and by a landslide fanfiction.net had more of a response. By contrast, I posted my early Voltron works on both fanfiction.net and AO3, and fanfiction.net got barely any response, but the fics did exceptionally well on AO3. Some fandoms are probably on other platforms entirely, like tumblr. If you’re looking to get feedback or comments, I suggest experimenting with this when you first start. Where you post can make a big difference, and sometimes AO3 isn’t the best answer. Last but not least, as a purely platonic gen writer, I beg you to learn the definition of ‘gen’ and ‘ship’ properly if you aren’t familiar with it yet. Please, please, please, please, don’t tag things as ‘gen’ on AO3 if there’s ships involved, and please don’t write “[character] & [character]” if it’s a ship. Gen is for platonic interaction, and if you’re indicating a ship, it’s “[character]/[character],” while the “&” indicates two characters interacting in a non-shippy way. I hope this helps anon! :)

#velkynkarma answers #ao3 #Anonymous

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kensingtonbooks · 5 years

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The History Behind PENNY FOR YOUR SECRETS

From author Anna Lee Huber.

While researching my books I always stumble across some fascinating—and sometimes bizarre—historical facts. Here are just a few of these snippets of history that found their way into the plot of PENNY FOR YOUR SECRETS.

1. The disappearance of the crew of the Zebrina is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the First World War. The ship was a flat-bottomed schooner used to haul coal from southwest England across the dangerous waters of the English Channel, which were patrolled by German U-boats, to the shores of France. In the autumn of 1917, she was found beached at a place called Rozel Point two days after she was supposed to have reached the port of Saint-Brieuc. The Zebrina was undamaged except for some tangled sails, and nothing seemed amiss, except for the fact her entire crew was missing. The most common explanation has been that the crew must have been taken captive by the crew of U-boat. Except there was no evidence of a struggle—the table was even set for dinner—and the captain’s logbook was not taken, as was the customary practice. So what happened to the crew?

2. One of the major inciting incidents of the story, and several of the characters involved, were inspired by an anecdote about the 9th Duke of Marlborough and his second wife, Gladys Deacon. Marlborough had first been wed to the American heiress, Consuelo Vanderbilt. The marriage was notoriously unhappy, and after they divorced, Marlborough wed his mistress, Gladys Deacon. Unfortunately, their wedded bliss also soured, though Marlborough’s subsequent conversion to Roman Catholicism made divorce impossible. At one dinner party, Gladys is alleged to have produced a revolver and set it on the table beside her. When one of the startled guests asked, “Duchess, what are you doing to do with that?” She replied, “Oh! I don’t know. I might just shoot Marlborough.”

3. All soldiers sending letters home from the front understood that their mail would be read and possibly censored, often by their own commanding officers. This was supposed to ensure that no information about the troops’ exact location, movements, situation, or intentions leaked out to the enemy or threatened the country’s morale. However, if for whatever reason, a soldier did not wish their officer to read their letters, they could send a message home using a special green honor envelope. In doing so, a soldier was supposed to give his solemn word that nothing of a sensitive nature was contained within. But of course, the government still had these letters checked by postal censors before forwarding them on to their intended recipients.

4. London was abuzz with night-clubs in the late teens and twenties. Some of these catered only to the wealthy and elite, like the glamorous Embassy Club—with its violet and jade-green décor, walls ranged with looking glasses, and high-subscription fees. While others flouted the strict liquor licensing laws, serving libations late into the night to the music of its American jazz bands. These clubs also often featured exhibitions of ballroom and novelty dances, some performed by duos who quickly made a name for themselves, including the famed Moss and Fontana.

5. But liquor wasn’t the only drug being served at these nightclubs. In truth, London had an opium and cocaine problem, even among the elite. Though cocaine fell out of favor, thanks to the infamous death of Billie Carleton, a rising star in theater, it was still attainable, and opium in all its various forms was still widely regarded as restorative. Members of society sometimes hosted opium parties where everyone would change into their pajamas and lie around on pillows while a member of the party, or even more fashionable—a Chinese herbalist, administered the drug.

Grab a copy of PENNY FOR YOUR SECRETS today→ https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/book.aspx/37996

#anna lee huber #author takeover #author guest blog #writing inspiration #historical facts #historical mystery

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chronotrek · 7 years

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749. [VOY] Author, Author

SCORE:

(4/5 stars)

Voyager has managed to establish a stable live feed with the Alpha Quadrant. By bouncing the signal off a singularity, they have 11 minutes a day of solid uplink with which to talk to home. A lottery system is drawn up to give everyone a 3-minute phone call, and the Doctor gets first position, which is fortuitous for him as he's got a publisher to talk to. He's writing a holonovel called Photons Be Free about the struggles of an EMH aboard a Federation starship lost in the Delta Quadrant, and the publishing firm of Broht and Forrester (who distribute the Dixon Hill holonovels) is very keen on what he's written.

The publisher wants to sell it right away, but the Doctor has a few revisions he wants to get in before it's ready for primetime. Tom offers to give it a fresh pair of eyes, and is disturbed by what he finds. The story is set on an ersatz Voyager, all characters looking like Voyager crew but with slightly modified names. The Doctor is forced to treat the ship's pilot with a minor concussion over a man who will die if not operated on within five minutes. The captain kills the more injured man to end the Doctor's triage objections. Disturbed by what he sees, Tom invites the other crew to see it for themselves to prove he's not just sore about being shown up by another holonovelist.

Janeway calls a meeting with the senior staff and the Doctor and they all express their concerns over the story. He insists it's a work of fiction and is not about Voyager or the crew, but that he used the setting because writers write what they know. He acknowledges that he's afforded a lot of freedom on the ship, but his thoughts are for other holographic lifeforms and the oppression they face, such as his fellow EMH Mark 1s who have been repurposed as miners on dilithium asteroids. He insists that the characters are not based on the crew, that he merely used their appearances as templates, but Janeway's concern extends beyond just hurt feelings. She worries that if this gets published as-is, people in the Alpha Quadrant will think this is what Voyager and its crew is like. The Doctor refuses to censor himself for their feelings, and leaves the meeting incensed.

He returns to his program to work on revisions, only to find Paris has rewritten the program to be about a beleaguered medical assistant's struggles with an egomaniacal EMH. It's an over-the-top parody in which the lecherous EMH is shown drugging and taking sexual advantage of "Two of Three." The Doctor angrily confronts Paris about it, but Tom just retorts with all the same arguments: it's not about you, it's entirely fictional. The Doctor points to clear similarities that Paris exaggerated and mocked, to which he catches the Doctor by making him realize that his Lieutenant Marseilles in Photons Be Free is very much the same kind of parody.

Neelix visits the Doctor and says he actually quite enjoyed the story, found it compelling, and suggests that he simply retool it so that it doesn't resemble Voyager and its crew so closely. The Doctor finds that a reasonable compromise and tells his publisher that the final draft is going to take some time because of the significant rewrites and redesigns going into it. However, it's revealed that the publisher has already distributed the draft copy he submitted when Admiral Paris receives a copy from Barclay and contacts Janeway, very concerned about its optics.

The publisher claims that because the Doctor is a hologram, he is not considered a person in the Federation and therefore has no rights as an artist to his work. Realizing this is becoming a civil rights issue, a hearing is convened, taking up 3 days of transmissions for arguments and rulings. The publisher points out that a replicator can make him a cup, but the cup does not belong to the replicator. Tuvok, serving as the Doctor's advocate, uses character testimony from crewmates and examples of the Doctor's attempts to improve himself and even violate his original programming. The arbitrator isn't ready to establish major judicial precedent in the case and doesn't recognize the Doctor as a legal person, but he does see fit to recognize him as an artist with all rights to his work intact and orders an immediate recall of all copies of Photons Be Free distributed so far.

Interspersed throughout the episode has different crewmembers talking to family back home. Harry is able to call his parents (trading his 130th spot with Tom's so he can talk to his mother before her birthday) but the transmission is cut short by a solar flare right as his mom is about to embarrass him by writing a letter to Janeway demanding he get a promotion. B'Elanna gets a letter from her dad asking to speak with her, saying he knows he can't undo the last 20 years of him abandoning her but knowing that she's alive makes him want to try to make amends and she agrees to write him. As Seven operates the connection she sees the impact and the value of connecting with family members, and on Harry's suggestion, she calls her aunt who is able to tell her stories of her childhood, how she misbehaved when her aunt babysat her, and her love of fresh strawberries, a taste Seven notes she still has.

A postscript four months later goes to a dilithium mine staffed with EMH mark 1s. They've apparently gotten hold of a copy of Photons Be Free and are passing it around.

NITPICKS

With this episode so heavily focused on rights, you'd think that the crew would point out that the Doctor would need to obtain their likeness rights to have this holonovel published as is. Even if nothing else, I would think the Doctor could have conceded at the outset to changing the base matrix of the characters so they don't resemble the crew.

While granted, the Doctor is being an arrogant ass when comparing his literary merits with Tom's, he's hardly in a position to call Broht and Forrester high-brow publishers when they publish Dixon Hill novels. It's the pulpiest of pulp.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Janeway: Your emitter isn't a ball and chain. It liberates you. Doctor: It doesn't always feel that way.

Two: It hurts when I do this. Holo!Doctor: Well then, don't do it.

EMH1: Time for your diagnostic. Report to the holo-lab. EMH2: I know the routine. EMH1: And, while you're there, do yourself a favor. Ask the operator to run program forty seven beta. EMH2: Why? What is it? EMH1: It's called Photons Be Free. It's quite provocative.

#star trek #voyager #voy #chronotrek #chronological #review #author author #the doctor #holographic rights #reginald barclay #dwight schultz

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theinvinciblenoob · 5 years

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It was the best of years, it was the worst of years, it was the wokest of years, it was the most problematic of years, it was the year of AI, it was the year of scooters, it was the year of Big Tech triumph, it was the year of Big Tech scandals, it was the year of Musk’s disgrace, it was the year of Tesla’s redemption, it was the year of shitcoin justice, it was definitely not the year of AR or VR, it was the dumbest timeline, it was the spring of stanning, it was the winter of wtf.

It was, in short, a year tailor-made for The Jons, an annual award celebrating tech’s more dubious achievers, named, in an awe-inspiring fit of humility, after myself. So let’s get to it! With very little further ado, I give you: the third annual Jon Awards for Dubious Technical Achievement!

(The Jons 2015) (The Jons 2016) (The Jons 2017)

THE FEET AND LEGS AND TORSO OF CLAY AWARD FOR SUDDEN REGRESSION TO THE MEAN

To Elon Musk, who in the past year went from (in many eyes) “messiah who could do no wrong” to “man who has paid a $20 million fine and stepped down as chairman in order to settle with the SEC regarding allegations of tweeted fraud; been sued for very publicly accusing a stranger of pedophilia with no evidence; feuded with Azealia Banks; been roundly criticized for the conditions in Tesla’s factories; and been pilloried (though also, and to my mind more accurately, tentatively praised) for his new Boring Tunnel.” Don’t have heroes, kids.

THE BUT ON THE OTHER HAND THERE ARE ALL THOSE SHINY NEW ELECTRIC CARS AWARD FOR ATTEMPTED DOOMSAYING

Surprisingly, despite the previous award, this one goes to the herds of bears who spent much of the year claiming that Tesla’s imminent doom and bankruptcy would become obvious and indisputable any day now. The roars of the bears seem to have grown much quieter of late, probably because the Model 3’s production rate has rocketed from 1,000 per week at the start of the year to 1,000 per day of late. No mean feat on the part of Tesla employees.

THE YES BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS THE RUSSIANS KNOW IT’S DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR BAD OPSEC

To Donald Trump, who apparently continues to use an insecure iPhone which the Chinese and Russians listen in on. The good news? Officials have “confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.” Put less diplomatically, the President of the United States doesn’t pay enough attention to briefings to have any important secrets to share. Nothing to worry about there! Trump responded by tweeting a denial, saying he only had a “seldom used government cell phone” … from the iOS Twitter app.

THE YOU MUST ADMIT I WAS AT LEAST RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING BEING DIFFERENT NOW AWARD FOR BUBBLY BITCOIN PREDICTIONS

It’s too easy and obvious to give this award to John McAfee, who I suspect of actually angling for a Jon year after year. And as a believer that cryptocurrencies have long-term importance, I’m not going to award anyone for their less-outlandish-than-McAfee medium-term beliefs. So this award goes to Bitcoin uberbull Tom Lee, who claimed Bitcoin would end the year at $15,000 … in the second half of November. There’s a point you almost have to admire; the point at which hype becomes delusion.

THE SURE BUT IT’S A MORE CONNECTED KIND OF MISERY, EXPLOITATION, AND DISINFORMATION AWARD FOR DESTROYING THE GLOBAL VILLAGE IN ORDER TO SAVE IT

Not to Mark Zuckerberg, actually, whose company has, in its zeal for connecting the world, and its belief that this is always and automatically a good thing, amplified genocide, provided a platform for manipulation and disinformation which may have helped tip the Brexit referendum, and 2016 presidential election (both of which were admittedly so close that there were probably dozens of aspects which “helped tip” them) and is increasingly widely viewed as a significant net negative for the world thanks to its business model of incentivizing “engagement” above all else. He’d be a worthy recipient, but this goes to Sheryl Sandberg, for epitomizing Facebook leadership’s thin-skinned tunnel vision wherein they automatically suspect anyone who criticizes Facebook of having a bad-faith ulterior motive, when she “asked Facebook’s communications staff to research George Soros’s financial interests in the wake of his high-profile attacks on tech companies.”

THE PICK A HORSE ANY HORSE BUT LOOK JUST ONE HORSE AWARD FOR OXYMORONISM IN THE FACE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

To everyone — especially journalists and media executives — who thinks that the big social-media companies are too powerful and that tech companies should exercise more control over the dissemination of public speech, and/or to everyone who says that the big social-media companies shouldn’t ever censor while being perfectly aware that they are already exercising control over the dissemination of public speech via their timeline algorithms. There are many, many copies of this particular award to go around.

(Note that there are at least two intellectually consistent approaches here: one is to be explicitly supportive of social media companies moderating speech; another is to favor non-algorithmic, non-amplifying, non-optimized-for-engagement, strict-chronological feeds)

THE COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE SPECTACULARLY OUT-OF-TOUCH COVEN OF CLUELESS OLD WHITE MEN AWARD FOR REMINDING US THAT SOMETIMES THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE

To the members of the United States Congress, both houses, for making Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai seem cuddly, friendly, wise, warm, human, plugged-in, and in-touch with the common man and woman, by comparison with their unbelievably clueless question. Who can forget “Senator, we sell ads,” and/or “Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company”?

THE STREET FINDS ITS OWN DISUSES FOR THINGS AWARD FOR BOOTLEG URBAN RENEWAL

To Lime, Bird, and the other scooter companies whose products have spent the year being thrown by the dozen into Lake Merritt in the heart of Oakland, presumably with the collective intent of turning that empty water into reclaimed land, just as downtown San Francisco is built on the carcasses of sailing ships from the 49er gold rush.

THE OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ TRONC TRONC TRONC AWARD FOR FINALLY GETTING THAT THE JOKE WAS ON THEM

To Tribune Publishing, until recently known as Tronc, for reminding us of their unbelievably terrible name when they finally — finally! — decided to abandon it in favor of something not risible. A small silver second-place award goes to Oath, the owner of TechCrunch, for thereby rising to the top of the “Worst Media Company Name” rankings.

THE SOMETIMES NOTHING IS A REAL COOL HAND AWARD FOR DOING NOTHING BECAUSE NOTHING WAS NECESSARY

To Twitter, who, when noted far-right wacko Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter’s NYC building after she was permanently banned by them for hate speech, responded by — brilliantly — doing nothing at all. They did not ask the police to remove her. They did not press charges. They ignored her completely. And Loomer went from “she will not remove the handcuffs until CEO Jack Dorsey reinstates her account” to “After several hours of complaining about the cold, Loomer eventually requested to be removed from the door.”

THE COME ON NOW DON’T BE EVIL WAS A LONG TIME AGO AWARD FOR REDEFINING GOOGLEY

To Google, obviously, for being forced to come to terms with what sure looks from the outside like a culture of pervasive sexual harassment by a massive employee walkout in the same year its plans for a new censorship-friendly China search engine leaked. Look not for the trigram in thy brother’s eye, etc.

THE CENTRAL CASTING MAD SCIENTIST AWARD FOR BRINGING US THE DYSTOPIA WE DESERVE

To He Jiankui, the self-funded doctor who apparently brought us the world’s first two human babies genetically edited via CRISPR, without letting anything like an ethics review board, a well-considered benefit/risk ratio, the pre-existence of well-established less-dangerous ways to achieve the allegedly desired result, or anything else stand in his way. But then, if he had, that wouldn’t really have captured the 2018zeitgeist, would it?

THE WHAT ARE THE NEW RUULES AWARD FOR MAKING NICOTINE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS AGAIN

To Juul, which has made a ridiculous boatload of money and more importantly made a lot of people seem very silly as they moral-panic about vaping as if it is the same as smoking, and others seem just as silly as they moral-panic about that moral panic as if vaping has been guaranteed on stone tablets to have no deleterious side effects at all. Where is the nuanced middle? Ah, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s 2018, no one cares about the nuanced middle any more. Bring on the outrage!

THE LISTEN UP YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPER I WAS THE CEO OF A CYBERSECURITY FIRM AND THE PRESIDENT’S CYBERSECURITY ADVISOR I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW AWARD FOR NOT ACTUALLY KNOWING ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT HOW TO CYBER THE CYBER. CYBER!

To Rudy Giuliani, who really was the CEO of a cybersecurity firm (Cyber!) and really was the president’s cybersecurity advisor (Cyber! Cyber!) and yet, as shown by his bewildering yet hilarious accusations that one of his tweets was sabotaged by Twitter, does not actually understand the Internet at all. Or, we may presume, the cyber. Cyber!

THE LOOK WE’RE ONLY A $30B COMPANY HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL THESE LITTLE DETAILS AWARD FOR FORCING PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH OTHERS NEARBY

To Ericsson, who accidentally disabled phone service for hours for tens of millions of people around the globe because it failed to renew a (presumably TLS) software certificate used by its switching services ahead of its expiry. You can get those for free and automatically these days, btw. Never mind the cyber (Cyber!) attackers; it’s malingering incompetence that will get us all in the end. Speaking of which …

THE WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE IMAGINED THAT SUCH A THING WOULD HAPPEN OR IF IT DID THAT WE WOULD RESPOND TO IT IN ALL THE WORST POSSIBLE WAYS AWARD FOR A REPERTOIRE OF PANICKED FLAILING INEPTITUDE WORTHY OF ARTHUR DENT

To the authorities at Gatwick university, who first shut down one of the busiest airports in Europe for almost a day and a half during the pre-Christmas rush because there were reports of drones seen over its runways; then said they couldn’t possibly shoot down those drones for fear the stray bullets might harm someone; then conceded the possibility that there were no drones at all (though it seems like there probably were); then arrested a couple who turned out to be completely innocent; then reopened the airport with no resolution but that of the installation of an expensive new anti-drone system and the discovery of a single, untraced, damaged drone. This dithering paralysis raises many terrifying questions. I have two in particular. One: the people in charge of Gatwick — again, one of Europe’s biggest and busiest airports — never done any threat modelling / scenario analysis / contingency planning at all? And two: how many minutes-rather-than-hours would this shutdown have lasted if it had happened at a major airport in, say, Texas, before the bullet-ridden carcasses of the drones in question were dragged off the runway? I guess we’ll never know. But it gives me a certain dubious pleasure to bequeath to Gatwick, an airport I have known and disliked for many years, this year’s Jon of Jons.

Congratulations, of a sort, to all the winners of the Jons! All recipients shall receive a bobblehead of myself made up as a Blue Man, as per the image on this post, which will doubtless become coveted and increasingly valuable collectibles. (And needless to say sometime next year they will become redeemable for JonCoin.) And, of course, all winners shall be remembered by posterity forevermore.

1Bobbleheads shall only be distributed if and when available and convenient. The eventual existence of said bobbleheads is not guaranteed or indeed even particularly likely. Not valid on days named after Norse or Roman gods. All rights reserved, especially those rights about which we have reservations.

via TechCrunch

#IFTTT #TechCrunch

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williamsjoan · 5 years

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It’s the Jons 2018!