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emchovy · 1 year

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WHAT I READ IN JAN/FEB/MAR 2023:

This wasn't originally meant to include March but I procrastinated so long that it can! Anyway, here we go!

LIGHT NOVELS/NOVELS:

The Case Files of Jeweler Richard by Vol. 2

I like these light novels, but I don't have a ton to say. Would recommend if you're REAL into jewelry, or you like descriptions of pretty boys.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Sins of Commission by Susan Wright

This ended up being a really enjoyable book! I read it mostly because I wanted info about one random minor character, (Jono Endar - star of a single TNG episode) and I heard he was mentioned in this one. He was, there was a touch of lore for him, loved all of that, but I ended up really loving the plot of this book, as well. It's a very tense story about the Enterprise going to assist a planet with an environmental crisis, which all gets worse when aliens who have an uncomfortable control over emotions come to stay on the Enterprise. It's a great book, with really good characterization of Riker and Beverly. Also at one point Geordi is pissed at Data and Data calls this experience "exhilarating". Hoo-boy.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Q Continuum by Greg Cox

I enjoyed this one as well. Set post-finale, this is a trio of novels (I read it all in an omnibus) about a foe from Q's past returning to plague the universe once again. The Picard/Q relationship here really shines, but I think Beverly gets a lot of great character moments too.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - A Stitch in Time by Andrew Robinson

Not to hardcore flex on anyone, but I've got a physical copy of this one. Thank you to my brother who got it for me.

Anyway, Andrew Robinson's famed chronicle of Garak's life, told in his own words. I think I'm gonna need more time to digest this one properly, but I really enjoyed it. (Also, Garak's slams on Dukat were funny. I clapped when the Cardassian with the super long neck was introduced.)

MANGA/COMICS:

Killing Me by Akiyama, Vol. 1

A fun vampire yuri comedy. A vampire hunter finds herself entangled with a vampire that goes to school with her, unable to kill her, no matter how hard she tries. Short 'n sweet. I don't think I'm going to pick up volume 2, but volume 1 ends on a nice note, so that's fine.

Phantom of the Idol by Hijiki Isoflavone, Vol. 4

Another volume of my favorite current comedy manga! POTI consistently manages to bring in great new elements and evolve relationships in interesting ways. Huge recommend.

On or Off by A1

This is a Korean webtoon, adapted to print form. A manager of a company that's creating an app for a much larger company ends up sexually and then romantically involved with the Large Company's CEO. A cute story, good art, and notable for BL, features lots of women, which always makes me super happy.

Ordinary Crush by Hyouta Fujiyama, Vol. 1

A BL anthology. It kinda sucks, as a lot of the old JUNE manga kinda does. I don't know why I keep buying these.

Oshi no Ko by Aka Akasaka

The story of a gynecologist who ends up doctoring to his favorite idol during her pregnancy. This story, however, goes so off the fucking rails I can't even describe it. Don't look this one up, just read it. It's insane.

Requiem of the Rose King by Aya Kanno

A weird manga, a historical fiction about the Real War of the Roses that Really Took Place. I enjoyed this manga, the art was beautiful, but perhaps the most interesting element was learning that the author was the creator of one of my roommate's favorite shoujo manga, Otomen. Cool!

Sotus by Bittersweet

A BL about a Thai university which features hazing as a major part of it's culture. This was a little uninspired, so we'll see if I read more.

Tokyo Alien by NAOE, Vol. 2

Pretty generic shonen sci-fi action, but I'm gonna keep reading! It's got enough there to keep me hooked.

Witch Hat Atelier by Kamone Shirahama, Vol. 4

Another volume of Witch Hat Atelier! This story is always fantastic, and I really enjoyed the character development in this one.

NOVELS/LIGHT NOVELS:

The Case Files of Jeweler Richard by Vol. 2

I like these light novels, but I don't have a ton to say. Would recommend if you're REAL into jewelry, or you like descriptions of pretty boys.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Sins of Commission by Susan Wright

Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Q Continuum by Greg Cox

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - A Stitch in Time by Andrew Robinson

Not to hardcore flex on anyone, but I've got a physical copy of this one. Thank you to my brother who got it for me.

Anyway, Andrew Robinson's famed chronicle of Garak's life, told in his own words. I think I'm gonna need more time to digest this one properly, but I really enjoyed it, if only for Garak's slams on Dukat.

Anyway, that's the wrap-up for these three months! Feels really good to get that all accomplished! I still wonder if I should change up the review format somewhat, or maybe just start doing actual "what I read this month" vids on YouTube or something, but for now this is good.

#em noise #em reads

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bitchesgetriches · 3 years

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To get this one out early to all your followers who I'm sure will eventually be asking: NFTs are essentially a scam. They're the digital equivalent of the creator of parks and rec scribbling you an autograph saying "Piggy owns parks and rec now, love, Mike" on the back of a napkin and jotting his phone number down on the bottom of it in case anyone wanted to ring and confirm that he did actually sign this autograph.

It's *technically* not actually a scam because deep in the small print it does usually specify that your NFT grants you zero rights zero ownership and is absolutely meaningless despite the marketing claims, and in theory the NFT in itself *could* have some sort of collectors' value (like an autograph could) but the marketing around them is VERY scammy making all kinds of ownership promises and rights implications that they really can't deliver on. It's also got a whole 'nother level that the whole scam essentially exists to suck real fungible money into the eretheum system, which as a previous poster has already pointed out is also a proof-of-work-based environmental disaster. NFTs are essentially a barely legal cash fleece to prop up the crypto bubble.

So buyer beware people, if you wouldn't pay that for an autograph from whoever it is, don't pay it for their NFT.

I suppose we should also cover "What is an NFT" shouldn't we?

An NFT is a Non-Fungible Token. What does that mean you might ask? Well fungible means it's practically exchangeable for anything else like it in the same class. The best idea of this is money. A ten dollar note is fungible. If I have my ten dollar note, or I swap it for a different ten dollars with you, or I swap two of them for a twenty, I don't fundamentally care. Ten dollars is ten dollars.

Non-Fungible is like an autograph. If I have an autograph from Joe Biden, it's not immediately and self-evidently equivalent to an autograph from Barack Obama. Sure, you might *decide* to make the trade, it might be worth it to you, but they're not inherently interchangeable. If you woke up one morning and someone had swapped out your Joe autograph for a DJT one, or your mom borrowed your Joe and promised she'd replace with a Ford one later, you'd be well within your rights to be pissed in a way that you just wouldn't be with a simple ten bucks.

An NFT takes this idea and makes it ~digital~. It's built on the same idea as crypto currency but they've made each one unique. Like putting different people's autographs on a ten dollar bill, I suppose - now your Joe Biden $10 IS different to your mom's Barack one (very ELI5 don't @me).

What they claim to do is provide digital "ownership" of art, or music, etc. As we all know, digital artwork can be copied and pasted to your heart's content, and no one can really own an original. Copyright law can come into play, but who *owns* the original. NFTs (claim to) attempt to solve that. When an original is created, the artist creates an NFT that says "X person owns this artwork" and sells it. This person now has a cryptographically secure little badge saying "I own this artwork", that they can prove no matter how many people copy and paste it. The idea being that everyone can see the Mona Lisa, or copy and paste a print of it, but only one person gets to OWN the Mona Lisa, right? Even owning the artwork doesn't necessarily give you copyright over it - that's normal, so NFTs just work the same. You get to own it and be the only person in the world who can prove they do. Seductive marketing. Cool, right?

Wrong.

Firstly - you do not "own" this artwork. Like, not even slightly. Hell, the artwork itself isn't actually contained within the NFT. It's usually just a link to another website that is contained within the NFT. Something like "the person who can correctly prove possession of this token owns the artwork at www dot artwork dot com". Well, can you imagine if the Mona Lisa did the same?? You'd never stand for that, would you? Can you imagine if you spent $1bn on buying the Mona Lisa and then looked at the fine print and it actually said that you own the painting that stands at the middle of the Denon Alley in the Louvre? Sure, that's the Mona Lisa NOW, but there's no guarantee it'll be the Mona Lisa next week.

Secondly. You do not actually own the art in any meaningful sense. The terms and conditions confirm this. You do not gain the copyright. You do not get the right to have it taken down. You do not get the right to exclusive use of the photo. You don't get the right to destroy it. You literally only own this digital token that says you own it. To take it back to the Mona Lisa example, it would be like getting a piece of paper saying you own the painting at the middle of the Denon Alley in the Louvre, but we're gonna keep hold of it: you're not allowed to move it, touch it, tamper with it, copy it, take photos of it, sell merchandise of it, stop anyone else from looking at it, or do any of the things that one usually associates with "owning" a painting. In fact, all you get is a piece of paper saying it's yours, and you can ring us up anytime to check we really did give you that paper. That's it.

What's the point? You don't actually own the painting in any meaningful way. It's like those "name a star" gifts. It may well be "official", but in practical terms it's worth diddly fuck all. You'd be pretty annoyed if someone told you you'd bought the Mona Lisa and that's all you got.

Thirdly (and finally)

There is literally NO benefit to 'owning' it for you. To go back again to the Mona Lisa, the example the sellers use to justify the "but anyone can copy it" is that anyone can own a print of the Mona Lisa, but only one person can own the original. You're the original owner of this digital artwork.

Except... The Mona Lisa is unique. Digital artwork isn't. The original and copies of digital artwork are - ironically - completely fungible. If I copy-paste the original file, they're both "originals". Neither has any more claim to be original than the other. And remember, there's no "original" actually stored in the token, just a link to something that shows another copy. The Mona Lisa is unique, different, there's only one copy. He only put his paints on one piece of canvas. Prints aren't the same. But a digital artwork? By the time it's finished being drawn and copied over to the website, it's a completely different set of electrons on a completely different server. It's already not an "original". It's a completely, utterly, identical copy. Which I can then download. And copy a thousand times. And they're all still perfect copies and indistinguishable from the original. If I swapped one of them out for another on the website my link points to, there's literally no technical or practical way to tell.

After all that. NFTs DO have some uses. They are ways to support the artist. They are ways to give money back. They are ways to make people feel special (like autographs). You may ask why would you buy a digital print from the K&P Etsy store if you think all digital art is the same. Why would you pay to download an ebook when you could pirate an identical copy for free. This is what they will come back to me with. And there's many - good - reasons to do so! There's many good reasons to buy digital art. And you should! Support your local artists! But this can be, and is already, all achieved without paying over the odds to falsely claim I actually own some sort of permanent original. It can certainly be done without all the crypto-hyped middle men taking their cuts. And it can be done in a way that doesn't prop up the horrible eco-disaster bubble that is a proof of work Blockchain.

The technology isn't a scam. The technology has real world uses and benefits. But the entire marketing ecosystem around it is a scam.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Now this is the kind of “better know a scam” content for which I come to the internet. Thank you so much for this primer on NFTs!

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alltooreid · 3 years

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All Too Well

Spencer must go to him and Y/N’s once shared apartment to clean out his things and leave her life forever. While there he can’t help but look back on his actions, the ones that made him lose the love of his life forever

A/N: Hi!! This is my first fanfic ever published on here and I’m excited to share it with you all! It’s inspired by one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs All Too Well, but although I utilized some of the lyrical genius and imagery from it, the story is not the same as the story in the song. This is a very angsty fic, and there is not a happy ending. Although there are some cute fluffy elements, including a Reid’s purple scarf origin story, I would in no way call this happy. Additionally, because of a reason you may later realize, the content warnings are very vague. If anything even slightly mentioned in them may affect you, I advise you to maybe stay clear. On a lighter note, if anyone wants to request anything, whether it’s another song inspired fic or a general plot line you would like to see please do so!! Also sorry this is kinda short, I’m still learning but I’m really proud of this one :))

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem Reader

Type: Very Angsty, Not a Happy Ending, (Y/N and Spencer do not end up together)

Word Count: 2.4k

Content Warnings(try to ignore if you would prefer to stay surprised): slight cursing, discussions of death and gore, discussion of car crash

Things to Know: Italics and bold are flashback moments :) let me know what you think!

“But you keep my old scarf from that very first week 'Cause it reminds you of innocence And it smells like me You can't get rid of it 'Cause you remember it all too well”

Spencer was packing up his things, finally getting the chance to clear out and move from the apartment he and Y/N once shared. Their relationship was rocky and unconventional but he loved her all the same. Even though he left her broken-hearted and destroyed his most cherished relationship. Even though Y/N’s parents now hated him because of what he did to her. Even though hope of repairing what they once had was long gone and there was nothing else he could do about it. Even though he had torn up the masterpiece they once had together. He still loved her so much.

But the magic was gone and so was she.

Now Spencer was left with memories, and since the apartment they lived in was hers instead of his, filed entirely under hers and her parents name. In his excessive knowledge and wisdom, Spencer Reid struggled to understand how the kitchen where Y/N told him she loved him for the first time as he lit the candle on the collapsing confetti cake he had attempted to bake for her birthday was in no way legally tied to him.

“Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to Y/N! Happy birthday to you!” Spencer sang as he lit the single pink birthday candle he found after rummaging through his desk drawers for longer than he cared to admit. He knew it was in there somewhere, but at the same time there was a whole lot in there.

As he looked at her face, eyes welling up with tears as she took in the sad, homemade excuse for a birthday party Spencer had thrown together after they got back from a case hours before, he couldn’t help but feel he should have done more. He wanted to take her to New York, where they would’ve enjoyed fine dining and one of those incredibly detailed floral frosting cakes he knew Y/N was infatuated with.

However, the case in Oregon ran long. They had only returned to their apartment 2 hours ago, hours past their 7pm dinner reservations. Although Y/N tried to hide her disappointment, you don’t need to be a profiler to know that someone wants to celebrate their own birthday. So although they had agreed to go to bed and play everything by ear tomorrow, the young genius had, what he would still argue to be, his most brilliant idea when he saw Y/N asleep once he got out of the shower.

It was still her birthday.

And Spencer had just under 2 hours to throw you a party.

So sure, Y/N deserved more than a cake that was definitely not cool enough to frost, but was frosted anyway due to time constraints. And she definitely deserved more than present hastily wrapped in his printed out articles and newspaper clippings. Spencer wished that he had time to go buy new candles, instead of lighting a green sparkly number 7 because it was all he could find.

But it was almost midnight, and that meant he only had 18 minutes before it wasn’t Y/N’s birthday anymore.

So instead of dwelling on it, he headed to their bedroom, shook her awake and watched her roll over to face him. He watched the smile overtake her face as she said the stupid party hat he was wearing, made out of a pom pom and a wedding invitation.

“Hey birthday girl,” he said softly, “you do realize you’re sleeping through your party right?”

She looked so happy that night, even as she saw the way too messy kitchen and her birthday cake that was melting by the second. She laughed as Spencer fumbled with the lighter.

And as he finished singing her eyes started releasing tears.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, I wish we could’ve done more for the first birthday we get to spend together. “

“No, no, no” she said as she wiped her tears away, “It’s not that at all.”

She smiled and looked up at him “I just love you so goddamn much Spencer.”

Although at one point, all Spencer knew was logic and logically Y/N had never ever known him when she filed her paperwork, the genius still struggled to grasp the concept. That even before the ending of it all, you had no legal, definite connection to her at all.

How was nothing about this place, his?

All that he knew was that he had today to pack all his shit and leave. All he knew is that Y/N’s father had made it very clear none of their family wanted to see him again.

He wished he could talk to Y/N about it. However all of his calls went to voicemail immediately.

Logically, Spencer knew why, he had completely fucked up.

But still, he called every single day, as there was nothing his heart wished for more than to speak to Y/N again. To apologize, to beg for forgiveness he knew he didn’t deserve.

As the cold air from the open windows blew into the apartment, Spencer couldn’t help but feel he was leaving his home behind. Everything left of her was going to be here, and he wouldn’t get to experience any part of the life you and him had once shared together anymore.

But then he saw it.

The royal purple scarf Y/N bought the day of their first date.

“You like this color right?” she asked as they stopped by a booth at the street festival she had taken him to. Spencer was too distracted as he watched the other couples on dates, as they walked hand and hand down the streets. He sometimes wished he could forget things like the number of germs and bacteria that lived on her hands. He at least wished he could forget long enough to gather enough courage to hold Y/N’s hand as they walked down the sidewalk.

“Hmm?” he said, looking back at her, then the scarf she was now wearing. “Oh, yeah! I love that color, it um- looks great on you.”

She smiled, then turned to the weird old guy running the stand. “How much for the scarf?” she asked.

He looked at her, then looked at Spencer, “depends which one of you is paying.”

Before Spencer could say anything, let alone pull out his wallet, Y/N already had hers out.

“Well, for a pretty lady like you, it’s 2 dollars,” the man said.

She handed him five and turned to Spencer. “You hear that? I’m so pretty I get 80% off! Wonder what you would’ve paid huh pretty boy? He would probably owe you money.” The man handed her her change and whispered something Spence couldn’t quite catch.

“Gross,” Y/N said as they exited the booth, “he wrote his number on my change.”

Spencer chuckled, “Did you really just buy that scarf because I like the color of it?”

She smiled, “Don’t get so cocky now Einstein, I like purple too you know? And maybe if you’re lucky I’ll let you borrow it.”

At that moment Spencer felt just okay enough to wrap his arm around Y/N’s, and she felt just right enough to wrap the new scarf around them both.

The one she left next to her front door, after making the last minute decision to leave it at home the night of their final outing.

No one would notice if he….. Right?

Sure maybe Y/N would but what would she do about it? Hunt him down just to get a scarf she paid less than five dollars for? Definitely not.

He wrapped it around his neck and closed his eyes, even days later he could perfectly picture Y/N singing in his car, fascinated by the autumn leaves falling around her. He felt the wind in his hair, but instead of the cold, dreary air from the open apartment window, he swore he could remember the warm air from that October night.

“Spencer I know you hate it but please, please, please. I’m so tired.”

“Sweetheart you’re not tired, you’re drunk. Of course I have to drive you home.”

“Oh, whatever.”

A phone call broke him away from his memories, it was Hotch. Spencer was angry, how effortlessly cruel of him to call him during such an emotional time. Hotch knew how much Spencer loved Y/N, the whole team did.

So he didn’t pick up.

Instead he walked over to the coffee table they used to put their feet on when they binged watched Doctor Who together. Letting the ringtone play out in the background, Spencer picked up an old photo album Y/N’s parents must have brought out. Of course he remembered it, it was the same one they flipped through when he met Y/N’s parents for the first time. He didn’t realize she had brought it home with her.

His eyes welled up with tears as he flipped through the old school pictures, remembering how embarrassed Y/N was of her big glasses. He saw her old athlete pictures from when she used to play tee ball, and flipped through more pictures until he reached the end of your softball career, in college.

He remembered how hard Y/N blushed when she showed him her childhood bedroom. Her twin sized bed was full of stuffed animals and her walls covered in boy band posters.

“You know what Spencer? I don’t want to hear it. I loved and still love the BackStreet Boys and I am not ashamed of that.”

He laughed, “You know, before we started dating I always thought you were so cool and unattainable. I imagined that you had always been this chic, beautifully brilliant badass. It’s oddly comforting to know that you wore tortoiseshell glasses and had a fruitless infatuation with Nick Carter.”

She gasped, before tossing her tabby cat stuffed toy at him, “You’re about to get it!”

Once again he was called out of the memory by his phone.

And once again he let it ring.

Spencer went into their shared bedroom, most of his things were already put into boxes for him. Honestly he was surprised that they hadn’t been set on fire or thrown away after what he did.

Soon it was time for him to take his things down to his car.

Except it wasn’t even his car. It was Morgan’s.

“Spencer, you are the most gorgeous man I have ever seen in my entire life. I am infatuated with you, I want us to spend the rest of our lives together.”

“You sure that isn’t the alcohol talking Y/N”

“Look at me Spencer, no, no really look at me.”

He couldn’t imagine ever using his old car again after what had happened in it.

“You are my future.”

Not that he could use it again.

“You are my everything.”

It was pretty much destroyed, after that accident on that little town street.

“I want nothing more in my life, than for you to be in it.”

When he was so enamored by Y/N, so in love that he couldn’t take his eyes off her, that he ran a red light.

And the truck waiting to go didn’t stop either.

“SPENCER! SPENCER CAN YOU HEAR ME? I NEED YOU TO CALL 911!” she screamed, her voice filled with agony, her limbs mangled in a sea of crushed mental and snapped backwards by the emergency airbag she didn’t realize she was resting her feet on.

Spencer had already called 911. That was the sickest thing about it. Spencer was, physically, perfectly fine. Spencer would get to leave the hospital after just a few days. Spencer could’ve probably gotten out of the car if he tried to. But he stayed, he stayed with Y/N, as she wasn’t fine. As Spencer looked down on her broken body, and tried desperately to find just one piece of skin that wasn’t coated in blood, her blood, that is when he realized. That not only could Y/N not walk out of the hospital with him, but she probably wouldn’t even make it there.

So he sobbed, he struggled to breathe, not because of the ways Y/N did, but because he had caused all the reasons she couldn’t.

“Hey, Spencer, look at me.”

So he did, and he reached for her hands and held them so tightly, and wanted one last time to feel her squeeze back. And she did, just ever so softly.

“Spencer, I meant everything I said to you. I want you to spend the rest of my life with me. Please.”

“I love you so much Y/N”

“I love you too.”

Spencer was drawn away from his memories once again as he got another phone call.

But it wasn’t Hotch this time. It was Mr. Y/L/N, so he answered it. He owed him that.

“Are you out of her house yet? You’ve had hours. I want you gone Spencer.”

Spencer sighed, “I’m leaving now sir, I’m just putting the last of my things in the trunk and then I’ll be gone.”

“Good, I never want to see you again Spencer, you hear me?” Mr. Y/L/N said. “And you better not have anything of hers either. All that stuff in your car better belong to you and you only. If Y/N paid for even a dime of it it better still be in that house.”

Spencer looked down at this scarf he was wearing, the one that still smelled like her perfume. The one that he couldn’t bring himself to take off because he reminded him of so much innocence and beauty.

“Yes sir, I didn’t take anything.”

“Good. And Spencer do me a favor.”

“Anything sir.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Mr. Y/L/N said, and then hung up. Spencer sighed, he expected that and fully deserved it.

How else should a father react when you kill his daughter?

“'Cause there we are again when I loved you so Back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well”

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid taylor swift #spencer reid angst #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds reid #reid x reader #reid fanfic

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writings-of-bored-gal · 3 years

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New Jersey Dog Sanctuary

Summary: Meet cute! Bucky is told he needs to get a dog and so goes with Sam to the shelter where he meets someone he wasn’t expecting. (It’s not overly romantic, mostly just wholesome Bucky but if I write a part 2 things will heat up a little!)

Words: 1704

Author’s Note: Hi guys! I’m so sorry I’ve been MIA for so long, but hopefully this will be the beginning of me posting more regularly again! I’ve actually really missed writing fanfic but I’ve been taking the time to work on some original bits too so maybe they’ll make their appearance on here some time in the future. For now, enjoy some soft Bucky fluff and make sure to keep sending me any requests (particularly Marvel stuff because I am riding a WandaVision marvel high at the moment!) Sending all the love- Abby x

Masterlist

_________

“C’mon Sam you know that this is more hassle than we need right now.” Bucky sighed. The sign above them read ‘New Jersey Dog Sanctuary’ in large green letters, punctuated with a paw print on either side. The glass door opened up to a lobby lined with sofas covered in dog hair. On one sat a kid, clutching a small scruffy terrier to his chest like his life depended on it. Bucky shook his head.

“Look, Buck the therapist said you needed a dog, so we’re getting you a dog,” Sam gave him a sharp look, staring at him. Bucky met his gaze. A staring contest. He knew the stakes without having to say a word. If he won, he wouldn’t have to go in, but if he blinked he’d be stuck with some dog he’d be forced to take with him on missions, getting in the way and making him trip up. Sam’s eyes did not move, but his hands clapped, making Bucky flinch, and worse, blink.

“Cheater.”

“That’s just another word for winner, Barnes,” Sam winked, gesturing to the door. “After you.”

The sound of barking and the smell of fur hit the moment they walked into the place. There was a girl sitting behind the counter, her hair pulled back but strands still falling on her face as she frantically answered the phone and tried to pull something up on her laptop. She smiled at Sam and Bucky and held up a finger, pleading with her eyes.

“What do you think of that one?” Sam said, pulling Bucky’s attention and pointing to a spaniel in the corner on a pink leash. Bucky shook his head and pulled a face. “Okay, something bigger?” Bucky sighed again, and nodded. “What about that one?” Sam pointed to a dalmatian who was jumping up at one of the workers. One he looked past the dog, Bucky realised that the girl was kinda pretty, smiling at the dog and letting it lick her face affectionately, half-laughing at something one of her co-workers had said to her.

When Bucky once again shook his head, Sam gave up. The receptionist gave a cough behind them.

“Did y’all make an appointment?” She asked, her fingers poised and ready to type.

“It’ll be under Barnes,” Sam answered for Bucky. “We’re looking for a big dog and I looked on the website and-”

“Alright,” the receptionist interrupted, “if you take a seat on the couch over that way I’ll have someone be over with you soon.”

“You looked on the website?” Bucky asked as they turned away and made their way over to the couch. “Is this dog for you or for me?”

Sam punched his good arm and Bucky rolled his eyes, scanning the couch to find a surface not covered with hair to sit on, unsuccessfully. The whole thing was covered with different coloured fur, creating a strange montage of white, black and brown shades on the bright green of the couch. Sam slumped down in the chair and Bucky took his chance to take a glance back at where the girl with the Dalmatian had been a minute earlier, but she was gone.

“Hi there!” Bucky turned to see her standing there. The Dalmatian was gone from her side, but she was still brushing her front to try and rid herself of the lingering fur. She smiled brightly, her eyes crinkling as she looked between Bucky and Sam. “Take a seat. My name is Y/N and I’ll be helping you out with finding a dog here today.” She took a seat and pulled a notepad onto her lap. Bucky sat down, feeling Sam’s smug eyes on him but desperately trying to ignore him.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. I’m Sam and we’re here to look for a dog for grandpa Buck over here.” Sam smirked as Bucky shot him a death glare. She turned her attention to Bucky, kindness in her eyes as she looked him up and down.

“I’m guessing a big dog, right?” She asked.

“I guess, yeah,” Bucky said, folding his arms over his chest. “And not too young, we don’t really have time to train it properly.”

“Okay no problem,” she nodded, jotting some notes down, “any other preferences?”

“It’s a therapy dog,” Sam said, “so-”

“Sam!”

“No it’s okay,” the girl said, stopping the argument before it could begin, “we actually don’t have any licensed dogs here on site but if it’s just for companionship and comfort then there shouldn’t be any issues.”

Bucky nodded solemnly. It had been a kick in the teeth when the therapist Sam had forced him to go to had told him that he would need an animal. He’d survived for so long on his own, it felt almost strange to even be with Sam so often. Having to rely on an animal felt like he was losing independence. When he’d told his therapist that she had tried to convince him that having a dog would actually help with his independence, but he wasn’t buying it.

“Okay,” the girl said, interrupting Bucky’s train of thought, “I’m gonna go and take this list and see if there’s anyone who I think would be a good match for you.” She hesitated for a second, clearly wanting to say something more before deciding against it and turning to go back to her office.

There was a beat of silence after she left before Sam pounced.

“She’s...nice.”

“I guess.”

“You like her.” Sam said, unable to stop himself. “She’s cute Barnes, give her your number.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so,” he shook his head. She was too normal, too sweet. He was screwed in the head and she wouldn’t be able to handle it. It was pointless. It was dumb. She probably wasn’t interested.

“She thought you were cute too, y’know.” Sam sighed, picking up a brochure and beginning to browse, one eye remaining on Bucky as he raised his eyebrow, considering before shaking his head.

The girl rounded the corner once again, a file in hand and a nervous smile playing on her lips. Bucky tried to match her smile, feign some excitement for her sake at least, but it came out more like a grimace and he decided it best just not to make eye contact and let Sam do the talking.

“Alright, I have a dog that might be good for you,” she started gently, “he’s a two year old Husky named Loki and he’s honestly such a sweetheart.”

“Loki?” Bucky asked, his brows furrowing.

“I know, I know, but you can rename him in time and he’s not at all mischievous.” She handed over the file to Bucky. The photo of Loki, all grey and white fur, stared up at him with icy blue eyes. It was a nice looking dog. His previous owners had moved to Europe and couldn’t take him with them so they’d bought him into the shelter just a couple of weeks before.

He could feel her watching him, leaning forward and trying to hide the way she was nervously picking at her fingers as he examined the sheet. Sam’s eyes were on him too, but he didn’t care much what he thought.

“Okay,” he huffed, noting the glint in her eyes as she leaned in towards him, “let’s meet him and see what the deal is.”

She suppressed a squeal and told Bucky and Sam to head down the path towards the meeting area, a closed off space behind the park-like yard that had toys and treats already waiting for them. They stood and waited, the crisp fall sunshine keeping them from getting too cold.

She knocked before leading Loki into meet them. The dog locked eyes with Bucky, almost pulling her over as he tried to go and meet him.

“He likes people!” She chuckled, closing the door and letting him off the leash so he could bound over.

Immediately, the dog nuzzled his head into Bucky’s lap, nudging his head under his metal arm to be pet. Bucky obliged, feeling the dog’s soft fur run through his fingers, privately annoyed at how he knew straight away that his therapist had been right. He looked over to Sam who nodded approvingly, before meeting her eyes. They shone with unshed tears as she smiled at the pair of them.

“I’ll go out and let you guys get acquainted-”

“No!” Bucky interrupted her, “I mean, he’s obviously comfortable with you here so you really don’t need to. And, y’know,” he cleared his throat, “I, uh… I’m more comfortable with you sticking around for a little bit.”

A slow grin spread over her face as she joined Bucky and Loki on the floor. Sam stood back, sneakily taking a photo on his phone which he threatened to send to Fury. A long forgotten feeling washed over him. It wasn’t quite happiness, but there was a kind of joy in it, in knowing that there was going to be someone there who needed him that wasn’t an annoying bird-man. Contentment. He was content in this moment, this small world. A pretty girl smiling at him, a dog on his lap. The life he could have had if he hadn’t been drafted.

“So… what do you think?” She asked him. Loki was lying at his feet, a ball between his paws. She sat beside him, close enough that he could smell the faint traces of her perfume.

“You said he’d be okay to come on a mission, right?” Bucky asked.

“I’d avoid anything with too many loud noises… but if he was kept somewhere safe he’d be okay to travel.” She shrugged. She leaned forward to put Loki’s leash back on, but her hand brushed his and Bucky felt a shower of goosebumps cover his skin. He turned away, feeling his face flush, only to see Sam’s smug face.

ASK HER OUT he mouthed. Bucky shook his head. IF YOU DON’T I WILL. Bucky glared at him before turning back to her.

“If you wanna talk, by the way,” she pulled out Loki’s file and scribbled something down, “here’s my number.” She didn’t meet his gaze, but smiled a little, her fingers messing with Loki’s fur. “Y’know, about dog stuff.”

“I’ll call you,” Bucky replied a little too quickly, “about… dog stuff.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Sam nudged him. She blushed a little and nodded, handing Loki’s leash over to Bucky, letting his hand linger before leading them back.

Bucky looked up at the sky over the dog park, feeling hope fill his chest for the first time in a long time.

#Bucky Barnes #bucky x reader #james bucky barnes #bucky imagines #bucky #marvel #marvel imagines #Winter Soldier #tfatws #imagines #Avengers #avengers imagines #avengers x reader #fan fiction #fanfiction #fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic

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jackalgirl · 3 years

Text

Archive.org (the Brouhaha, recapped)

There’s been a post going around about archive.org, and a suit against it by four large publishers. And there’s a lot -- I mean a lot -- of hyperbole going on about it.

I had a very constructive conversation here with @helenisfair (I had in fact bought into some of that hyperbole) and wanted to recap what I learned so far (I have more research to do). Be warned: it is very long.

Claim #1: the Internet Archive scans copyrighted books and makes them available to everyone, which is illegal and robs publishers of revenue, and if the publishers are robbed of revenue, so are the authors. Ergo, the Internet Archives is pirating authors’ works.

This claim plays on what it means to “make available,” and is strongly implying that this means unlimited digital copies of a physical book available for anyone to download and possess, always and forever. It would be like me buying a book, then making 10 photocopies of it, and giving those photocopies to my friends (or worse, selling them).

This is not really true (but in the case of the lawsuit, it is kinda true, see below).

The Internet Archive claims to function like a library. What this means is that, like a library, it buys or acquires (e.g., by donation) books. It does scan them and make them available online, and this does include books that are under copyright. Now here’s the part I don’t know yet: I don’t know if the Archive has a brick-and-mortar location where you can go and check out physical books. I am operating under the pretense (for the moment until I know for sure) that it does not. Therefore (again, I presume), it is not possible for the physical copy of a book and its digital copy to be loaned out at the same time.

Once the Archive has this scanned copy, it lends that copy out to readers using something called “Controlled Digital Lending”. For example: if you have an IA account, you can “check out” the scanned copy into your account’s loan list for one or 14 days. You can then read this book online, via web-enabled reading. You can return it at any time, or, once your lending time is up, the file is released from your loan list and is now available for someone else to check out.

It is also possible, if you have the proper Adobe application, to download an encrypted ePub or ereader version of the book. This allows people manipulate the display more appropriately for their needs. I think that the function of this Adobe software is the same thing as the web-reader: after the loan time, it removes the file from your device and (presumably) notifies the IA that the book is free to check out again. (I say “think” and “presumably” because I have not yet researched how the actual mechanics of this software work.)

The function of this is to ensure that extra copies of the book are not generated: one digital copy per physical book in the possession of the Archive (unless the book is no longer under copyright, that is), available to one person at a time. So, under the “lending libraries should be allowed” presumption: no revenue is being lost, no author is losing money.

Claim #2: The Internet Archive is doing exactly what libraries do with their eBooks!

Well, no. As I understand it, libraries license the digital copies of books from the publishers. So they do pay. What they get for paying is a number of digital copies that they can lend out that way -- entirely separate from any physical copies in their collection.

Claim #3: The Internet Archive made unlimited copies of millions of books under copyright available, and that’s why they’re being sued.

Well, actually the lawsuit only alleges 127 specific titles, to the “millions of books!” statement is an example of that hyperbole I mentioned earlier. But if you’re a fan of writers being compensated for their work (which I am), it’s not the quantity of books being “stolen” that is an issue. It’s the fact that unauthorized copies were available which could have, if they had been authorized, generated income for the original authors (or their estates).

And note my earlier statement about the idea of “copy”. It was not unlimited copies, as in “files I can download to my computer and have forever”. It was “multiple people potentially accessing the same digital copy of a physical book.”

So what actually did happen?

Well, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many libraries were closed -- or otherwise inaccessible to people with health limitations and/or concerns. People were trapped at home, with no access to libraries. So what the Internet Archive did was remove the 1:1 lending limitation for books in their library, calling it the “National Emergency Library” (it’s still not 100% clear to me whether this was all of the books in their holdings, or just some of them). This meant that for every physical copy of a book, there could theoretically be an unlimited number of digital copies checked out at one time (again, though, no one would get to keep their copy).

Apparently, the Archive had an “opt-out” option, wherein a publisher could notify the Archive that they didn’t want a book included in the “National Emergency Library” offering. I don’t know if the publishers could say “nothing from us”, or whether they’d have to fill out the “opt-out” form or whatever for each individual title.

Personally, and this is just me here, I do not particularly like “opt-out” options. If I’m going to take something from you, or collect something from you, or otherwise benefit from you, I think it is fundamentally shady for me to just start doing it and saying “but you can always opt out if you jump through these hoops”. I think the Archive would have been better served by sending notification to the publishers that they were going to do this thing for the benefit of people during this emergency, and ask them to opt-in, and not "unlocked” the affected books under copyright until they had done so.

Anyway, the publishers (Hachette, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Wiley, for the record) filed suit against the Archive for copyright infringement, at which point the Archive stopped the “National Emergency Library”. As of this writing, the Internet Archive is back to what it was: 1:1 lending of the digital copy of a physical book in its possession (I think).

Claim #3: The Internet Archive did nothing wrong -- all of this is covered under “Fair Use”

That’s what IA is claiming in its response to the lawsuit. However, this may not be a very strong argument. The Mass Law Blog provides an analysis of this argument and concludes that the claim fails to meet most of the required prongs, or elements, of Fair Use doctrine (again many thanks to @helenisfair, who provided the link to this article).

Claim #4: By suing the Internet Archive, these publishers are trying to bring an end to the lending of books!

This is a claim made indirectly -- by refutation -- on the IA’s blog: “Copyright Expert on Publishers Lawsuit: 'The idea that lending a book is illegal is just wrong'”. Well, I can imagine a world in which publishers would, indeed, prefer to be paid for every time the contents of a book entered a reader’s brain. However, it’s my understanding this lawsuit is much more narrow -- it’s about unauthorized copies, which (if correct) would make this claim is a strawman.

Claim #5: This lawsuit will utterly destroy the Archive, and thus remove a lot of material from being available, including its archive of US political shenanigans (particularly from 2016-2020), which if lost, will impact people’s ability to fact-check said shenanigans.

This may very well be true, and it’s a concern. There is a lot of material there that would benefit future historians (or any current people who are interested in fact-checking and primary research), and to lose it would be a tremendous loss (though it would absolutely benefit certain persons’ ability to continue to create “alternate truth”).

End conclusion: I personally think that, if multiple people had access to the same digital scan of a copyrighted book during the National Emergency Library period that yes, the IA did infringe on the copyright, and they absolutely should be held accountable. I do not feel that the ends (helping out people during the pandemic) justified the means (essentially stealing from publishers and, by extension, the authors). I feel all of this could have been avoided via an opt-in system. I am also perturbed and annoyed by the hyperbole being utilized by the Internet Archive itself -- it has the feeling of handwaving, slippery-slope, and catastrophic-thinking arguments, to distract people from the issue at hand: did the Internet Archive make unauthorized copies of books available to its users?

I hope that the Archive can settle with the publishers for any actual copyright infringements that occurred, if they occurred. I think we’ll have to wait for discovery to find out how many of the 127 titles were checked out by more than one person at a time during the “National Emergency Library”, but even one infringement could be pretty hefty (see the Mass Law Blog article for penalties).

I personally feel that the Archive is incredibly useful, especially because it gives me the ability to access some very old manuscripts, and also books that -- while still in copyright -- still haven’t been digitized by their publishers. For example: “The Architect of Sleep”, by Stephen R. Boyett, is an absolutely excellent book about a guy who falls through some kind of multi-words rift and ends up in a Florida in which the dominant, sentient form of life is a bunch of really large, upright-walking, sign-language-using raccoons. This sounds like an absolutely ridiculous premise, but dear reader, the book is fantastic and well worth the read. It is also out of print, not available as an eBook, and is contained within the collection of the Internet Archive, so if I have intrigued you but you don’t want to pay for a used copy, you can go check it out online.

Likewise, I’d really like it if the ability to access the Wayback Machine, and also to fact check shenanigans, were as readily available in the future as they are now. In short, I would hate to lose the Internet Archive, and will continue to support them (provisionally; I sure hope they don’t try to pull another “opt-out” stunt in the future). If you’d like to do so as well, there’s a donate button on their main website at archive.org.

#internet archive #controlled digital lending #lawsuit

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not-close-to-straight · 4 years

Text

Sugar, Sugar (Final)

Ho ho holy long break between chapters but we are back and ready to wrap this plotless thing up!

MASTERLIST HERE

Enjoy! ***************

The door at Sweet Peach Bakery swished open, the bell tinkling merrily and Tony checked on the cooking lemon curd before calling, “Be right there! Two seconds!”

“No rush, I’m sure you’re making something delicious.”

Tony went very still, gripped at the counter top until his fingers went white and then forced his voice to professional when he greeted, “Oh hello. Natasha, isn’t it? I remember you from the other day at Bucky and Steve’s.”

“Mmm.” Natasha pursed her lips and looked the little baker over. “I’m sure you do. Have you spoken to either of our favorite beefcakes?”

“No.” Tony grabbed a lemon and zested the hell out of it, taking his aggravation out on the citrus rather than the redhead. “But you know that already, or you wouldn’t be here. And you aren’t the sort of person to bow to pressure, so you aren’t here because they made you come which means you are here for the sole reason of buying cupcakes, so in that case--”

He took a deep breath and sent her a smile. “What can I get for you? The special today is raspberry lemon strudel.”

“Wow. You are at least ten times more observant than that ruffled apron would lend me to believe.” Natasha leaned over the counter and studied him curiously, and Tony’s dark eyes flashed in brief annoyance before he replied, “And you are every bit the bitch that particular hairstyle makes you out to be. Do you want cupcakes or not?”

Natasha’s pretty mouth fell right open and Tony went back to aggressively zesting. “I came here to apologize.”

“Well you’re terrible at it, so start over.”

“Fair enough. I’ll start over.” the redhead inhaled, exhaled then said, “I won’t apologize for telling Steve and Bucky about your past. Those two are some of my favorite people in the entire world, my closest friends and since I know they are halfway past stupid in love with you, I’m not about to let a perfect stranger lie to them, are we clear?”

“This is your apology?” Tony slammed the stripped lemon into the juicer and forced it through. “Great job.”

“I would break a strangers heart and face a dozen different times before letting one of my friends be hurt in any way, shape or form.” Natasha said calmly. “And I won’t apologize for that. But I will apologize for how I did it. I should have come to you privately and tried to understand who you were--”

“-- and I would have offered you a cupcake and told you to fuck off because you and I are perfect strangers.” Tony interrupted, and Natasha smiled the littlest bit. “So instead you brought it up in front of a room full of strangers, decided to throw it in my face with a few key words that brought back two years worth of really shitty memories. Do you know what I’ve done the last three days? Eat low fat ice cream. That’s how upset I was.”

“Low fat ice cream sounds incredibly depressing and I’m sorry for it.” Natasha agreed. “But unfortunately when it comes to broaching uncomfortable topics, my skills lie with sussing out terrible people not dealing with less than malicious bakers who just don’t trust anyone enough to open up yet.”

“Your skills?” Tony scooped up a bit of lemon curd and tasted it, then slanted a sideways look at Natasha and offered her a bite as well. “What is it exactly that you do?”

“Data collection.” Natasha answered evasively. “This is the best lemon...thing... I’ve ever tasted.”

“Of course it is.” Tony took the spoon back. “And by data collection you mean you’re a spook. My Auntie Peggy says the same thing when people ask. That’s why you were able to find so much information on me even though all the records are over in Italia and not much more than out of print tabloids that don’t bother keeping published records.”

“Whatever you want to believe.” she nodded. “And I won’t ask what happened or for further clarification cos to be quite honest, I don’t care. All I care about is whether or not you’re going to break Bucky and Steve’s heart.”

“It’s more likely that they will break my heart.” Tony said tightly, and dumped a pile of lemon zest into his mixing bowl. “You might not want further clarification but you read enough to know I was hopelessly in love and absolutely idiotic with how I dealt with the break up. Isabella and Ranieri were fine afterwards. Clearly I was not.”

“Were you ever going to tell Steve and Buck?”

“I had no intention of taking this past a hookup, so I can honestly say no, I didn’t plan on ever telling them.” A block of cream cheese and butter joined the lemon zest in the bowl. “And at this point, I never plan on talking to them again so--”

“Don’t be dumb.” Natasha peered into the bowl curiously. “Steve and Bucky have been practically feral these last few days waiting to talk to you. I know you told them to give you some space right after I ripped the proverbial band aid off, and trust me. I’ve seen an agitated Bronco or two in my day but I’ve never seen him or Big and Blond this agitated. Call them.”

“Nope. Don’t think I will.” Tony turned the mixer on and moved to his other table to line a cupcake pan. “I’ve been feeling like maybe things were getting too commitment-y and this is as good a chance as any to just cut the ties and move on.”

“...wait, are you serious?” she blinked at the baker a few times. “Are you serious? You’d walk away from those two just because it’s feeling like a relationship? Why?!”

“I’m sorry, did you not see the file of my mistakes?” Tony plunked a scoop of crumbly crust into the bottom of each paper and flattened it out. “The last thing I need to do is get involved with another couple! Falling in love once was bad enough, here I am halfway through doing it a second time and I’m not looking forward to getting my heart smeared across the front pages of another half a dozen tabloids. Leave it alone.”

“Tony--”

“Remember how you said we were perfect strangers?” Tony interrupted. “Well perfect strangers don’t offer unsolicited advice. Would you like a cupcake or not? Take one and get out.”

“Fine.” Natasha stuffed a few dollars in the tip jar, then a few more towards the cash register. “Thank you. Should I tell the boys anything?”

“Nope.”

“Alright then.”

Natasha left the shop as quietly as she’d entered, then immediately reached for her phone.

From Natasha: Your favorite baker is at least halfway in love with both your dumb asses and is terrified of getting hurt again. Don’t screw this up.

From Natasha: Also, he’s got lemon cupcakes today and I think I gained seven pounds just eating the frosting. Literally amazing. Marry him.

From Steve: How did you figure out he’s half in love with us?

From Bucky: WTF you went and got cupcakes with out us? Bring me a one.

From Steve: Focusing on the wrong thing, Buck.

From Bucky: Sure am. Tasha I’m surprised he didn’t try to kill you. What the hell were you doing visiting the bakery?

From Natasha: Data Collecting.

From Bucky: Riiiiiight. So. Half in love, huh?

From Natasha: And Terrified

From Steve: We’re on it.

***************

“Welcome to Sweet Peach, I’ll be right with--” Tony slowed to a stop when he saw who was waiting in the lobby. “--you? Hi. What are you guys doing here?”

“Heya Tony.” Steve’s smile was easy and soft and way to charming for how much it twisted at Tony’s heart. “How are you?”

“Still wondering why you’re here.” Tony was too frazzled to even be polite, folding his arms and then unfolding them, playing with his apron and then smoothing it back down. “What are you doing here?”

“Came by to get some sweet treats.” Bucky eyed the lemon cupcakes greedily. “And you know, some of that sweet peach you’re hiding in those leggings over there.”

“Bucky!” Steve hissed. “Tony, what Bucky means is--”

“--nah, I stand by what I said.” Bucky vaulted over the counter and came up close to Tony, wrapping both arms around the baker’s little waist and hauling him in for a long kiss. “Missed you these last few days, you doin’ okay?”

“I’m--I’m--I’m--” Tony’s hair was hilariously rumpled post kiss, eyes wide and maybe even a little scared. “I’m fine. But what are you doing?”

“I dunno what Bucky is doing, but our original plan was to come over and ask you out on a date.” Steve gave up on using words and pushed Bucky away so he could swoop a kiss onto Tony’s lips too. “Missed you, sweetheart. How are you feeling?”

“Very confused.” Tony touched his mouth where it tingled after Steve’s kiss. “You’re here to ask me on a date?”

“Well yeah.” Bucky dug his finger into a glob of frosting and mm-hmm’d in interest. “We’ve done the three months of hooking up, we’ve learned a bunch about each other and broken the ice and various surfaces while nekkid. Next step is a first date, right?”

“What Bucky means is--”

“-- would’ya stop tryna correct what I say?” Bucky kicked out at Steve in frustration. “I mean what I say, damn it!”

“What Bucky means is--” Steve dodged the next kick. “-- is that we want to make us official and we’re here to ask if you want to do the same. You want to date us for real, honey? Put a label on all this and maybe just move right on into all sortsa other good things?”

“Eh, I would’a said it better.” Bucky kept eating the frosting. “Babydoll what is this, lemon and lavender?”

“And vanilla.” Tony corrected. “But wait, you-- after you read what happened in Italy? You still want to date me?”

“We read what happened.” Steve swallowed and shared a quick look with Bucky. “You fell in love and got into a serious relationship, they changed their mind and broke up with you, you reacted about as well as anyone would in that situation.”

“Came stateside t’get away from it all.” Bucky finished. “Opened the best little bakery ever and managed to get two hunky beef-cake types to be all sorts of in love with your peach.”

“BUCKY!”

“And the rest of you!” the big brunette was quick to add. “In love with your sweet peach and the rest of you!”

“You guys are--” Tony audibly gulped. “You guys are in love with me?”

“But we aren’t saying anything like that until you’re ready.” Steve held up both hands peacefully. “We’re gonna start at square one. We’re friends, we’ve already done all the ‘get to know you’ stuff, now’s the time when we ask you out on a first date to see if a relationship would work.”

“You guys are in love with me.” The baker whispered. “Really?”

“Don’t matter if we are or not.” Bucky shook his head. “What matters is whether or not you’re gonna let us take you out for some winin’ and dinin’ and peaching this weekend.”

“...what about Italy?” Tony asked slowly. “Aren’t you going to ask me why they dumped me? Why I spiraled out of control?”

“The most we care about Italy is whether or not you’ll scream various Italian things the next time we get you in bed.” Steve grinned, and Bucky added, “And whether or not you’re really okay after it, or if you need s’more time. That’s it.”

“Oh.” Tony plucked at the ruffled on his apron anxiously. “Just like that? You aren’t going to ask a bunch of questions or think I’m unstable or-- or whatever?”

“M’gonna ask a bunch of questions about how much of this frosting I can eat before throwing up, and how much it would cost to hire you as a full time sweetie pie so you just feed it to me all day.” Bucky felt around for a ladle and dug it into the frosting bowl. “Stevie makes good money, he can afford to pay you for me.”

“Thanks for that.” Steve scowled at his boyfriend. “Tony, you tell us you aren’t willing to take a chance on us as a couple and we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing. Or you don’t want to do that either, that’s okay. We’ll figure it out. All that stuff Tasha showed us-- we don’t care, alright? Life can mess us up and sometimes we move on, sometimes we don’t. We aren’t upset or-- or even curious, really.”

“You aren’t curious?” Tony asked doubtfully. “At all?”

“Sugar, the last thing I wanna know is how bad someone else hurt ya.” Bucky said around a mouthful of lavender and lemon. “All we wanna know is how we can fix it and make sure you never look that sad again.”

Finally Tony gave them a tiny, tiny smile. “Really?”

“C’mere.” Steve brought Tony back in for a sweet, sweet kiss, brushing his knuckles just lightly over Tony’s cheek and tangling his other hand in the apron strings so Tony wouldn’t pull away too soon. “Tony. All that sort of stuff about Italy and whether or not we’re gonna work out in a relationship-- that isn’t first date stuff. That’s like, fifteenth date stuff we talk about when we hand over a spare key to the apartment and we start planning vacations. We don’t have to talk about anything yet.”

“Plus, we ain’t that good at talking anyway.” Bucky chimed in. “So we could first-through-fifteenth date it up and then talk about it when you feel better and when you believe us when we say it don’t matter.”

“I think I’d like that.” Tony finally admitted and both Bucky and Steve lit up with excitement. “I think I could handle a--a first date. With the two of you.”

“Sounds like the best first date of my life.” Steve grinned and Bucky whooped, pumping his fist in the air.

“When-- um when do you want to go?” Suddenly shy, and far too adorable, Tony bit at his lip and peeked up at them through his lashes. “On our date, I mean. When should we go?”

“Should be a proper date, so let’s schedule for Friday night.” Steve said promptly. “We’ll make reservations someplace nice, pick you up here at the shop or at your place if you prefer that. Drinks first, then dinner. We can go for a walk through the park around the fountain afterwards and share a sweet but chaste kiss before saying goodnight.”

“Sweet but chaste?” Tony’s dark eyes twinkled with laughter at the same time Bucky repeated scandalized, “Sweet but chaste?!”

“Should be a proper date.” the blond repeated. “But uh-- there’s no sayin’ what could happen on a second or third date, huh?”

“Huh?” Bucky waggled his eyebrows at Tony. “Right? No sayin’ what could happen!”

“I guess not.” Tony’s cheeks were flushed bright with excitement and maybe even relief. “You guys are sure, though. Really?”

“Really really, sweet thing.” Bucky finally put the frosting down and motioned Tony back for a quick kiss and then a long hug. “You and us-- we’re just fine.”

“Thank you.” the little baker melted into Bucky’s arms, finally let the stress of the last several days just wash away. “Oh my god, thank you.”

“We got time to figure it out.” Steve came over and hugged them both up close. “It’s just a first date, nothing more complicated than dinner and drinks and a goodnight kiss. You wanna talk, we can talk. Otherwise we’ll just do what we always do and uh-- maybe yell at Tasha a little bit for making you so upset.”

“She was just looking out for you guys.” Tony’s words were muffled in Bucky’s shoulder. “I’d contemplate murder for anyone I thought was messing with Pepper or Rhodey, maybe I should be glad all she did was data collect.”

“Yeah, we’ve really got to figure out exactly what she does.” Bucky whispered and Steve just laughed a little and squeezed them tighter and the three settled in to enjoy the quiet, the moment, together.

But then--

“Wait, if the first date is going to end in a chaste kiss, does that mean I have to wait till date three for sex?” Tony wrinkled up his nose in complaint. “Because that doesn’t seem very fun.”

“Damn Stevie, he’s right.” Bucky’s eyes went comically wide. “That doesn’t seem fun at all! I feel like there’s somethin’ we could do about that.”

“Bucky.” Steve tried to sigh, but Tony interrupted, “No, I think the Bronco has a point! I have two perfectly good couches--ACK!”

Tony shrieked when he was suddenly, unceremoniously beef-cake less, both Steve and Bucky all but bolting for the back room and pulling at their clothes as they went and calling for him to hurry up.

“Okay!” Tony burst out laughing when Bucky’s shirt ended up flung over the industrial size dough mixer. “Okay, just give me two seconds to get all this put away!”

He hurried around the kitchen wrapping up the untouched frosting and cooled cake, then tossed his apron away, turned some music on and sashayed back towards his office singing softly, “Honey, ahhh sugar sugar! You are my candy boy! And you got me wanting youuuuu---!”

**************

***************

“What, so those two dorks just showed up and said they wanted to take Tony on a first date after three months of juicin’ the hell outta that peach?” Clint was shoveling bacon into his mouth at a truly alarming rate, and Sam smacked him upside the head before snatching the plate back. “Ow! Damn it!”

“Yeah, apparently, they decided on a real traditional first date complete with chaste kiss and Tony went for it.” Sam ignored Clint’s grabby fingers and passed the plate to Valkyrie. “It must’ve went well cos they texted me about skipping group breakfast. Something about lavender and lemon frosting and Bucky not being willing to put it down.... I dunno. Sounds like kinky baker sex to me.”

“I’m just glad my data collecting didn’t ruin anything.” Natasha sipped at her coffee and cut her eyes towards Bucky and Steve’s bedroom door. “I do feel bad he was so upset but...”

“...but not enough to keep it a secret from your best friends.” Val finished. “No one blames you, Tash. Specially not since it worked out.”

“Must’a really worked out if they aren’t out here yelling at us for breaking in and eating their breakfast food.” Clint finally got the bacon back. “Think they spent the night at Tony’s?”

“They said a chaste--”

“Yeah, when was the last time you saw anything chaste about the Bronco and Steve?” Sam cut in. “No way. My guess is they spent the night at Tony’s cos they would definitely be out here shouting at us for taking the bacon and making a mess in their--”

“EDWARD ANTHONY CARBONELL STARK!” The front door to the apartment burst open and everyone in the kitchen ducked and screamed-- or rather, everyone except for Natasha who whipped a knife out of nowhere and then just as quickly tucked it away when she saw who had come in.

“TONY!” The Colonel James Rhodes didn’t even look at the group as he stomped past headed for the bedroom. “YOU PUT YOUR GODDAMN PANTS ON AND COME OUT HERE AND TELL ME WHY YOU BUTT DIALED ME DURING YOUR HOOK UP LAST NIGHT?!”

“Good morning.” Next through the door was Pepper, tall and beautiful and apparently wildly amused by the whole scene. “Nice to meet you all. I’m assuming Tony is in the bedroom with Steve and Bucky?”

“Uhhh---” Valkyrie’s jaw about hit the ground. “I um--”

“I TOLD YOU LAST TIME THIS HAPPENED THAT IF I HAD TO LISTEN TO YOUR NASTY ASS DURING A HOOK UP ONE MORE TIME---”!

“Rhodey!” Tony was shrieking with laughter, Bucky and Steve shrieking with fear when the Colonel kicked in the bedroom door. “Rhodey, I’m sorry! You are my top contact in my phone, I can’t help the butt dials!”

“YOU WILL HELP THE BUTT DIALS OR SO HELP ME GOD--!”

“So.” Pepper snagged a piece of bacon off the plate. “How is your morning going?”

“Eh. Better than theirs.” Natasha decided, and everyone went right back to eating.

“Honey Honey, how you thrill me.” Clint sang as he poured syrup on his waffle. “Uh huh, honey honey!”

“No singing Clint.” Sam warned, and Clint protested, “Tony sings!”

“If you had a butt like Tony, we’d let you sing.” Natasha countered and Clint gasped, “I am hurt and offended.”

“You are neither of those things, and your butt is fantastic.” Valkyrie informed him. “But lets leave the singing to the sweet peach, huh?”

“Fine.” Clint grumbled. “As long as my butt is as good as Tony’s.”

“Aw. Sure it is, honey. Sure it is.”

****************

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE FIC!

****************

@thanossucks @atomicfandombomb @thebuckybrigade @fanfic-up-to-my-tits @starknakedsluts @basiad @everything-is-applepie @kimstark @tulipsnbigcats @in-umbra-gratia @local1dreamer @igotsuckedintothevoid @ahufflepuffnannywriter

@ships-galore @ceealaina @izziebladez @cwar1864 @hausoffro @lookuplaughing @tonystarkisanangel @multishippinglife @girlnic @iam93percentstardust @water-colouredmemories @paranormalmoonlight5 @igotloki @moosette05 @wayward-student-philosopher @kaz-brekkers-gloves @atomicfandombomb

#ncts fics #stuckony #tony stark #steve rogers #bucky barnes

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tlbodine · 4 years

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How to Love Revision

A lot of you lovely folks are doing Nanowrimo right now.

Which means that, in a few weeks, you will have a steaming pile of pages. A rough draft. A word-baby, if you will. And you might, at some point, want to turn that messy jumble into a real book, perhaps something to send to a publisher or publish yourself or just share with people.

I see a lot of writing advice about finishing first drafts -- and a whole lot of it is in the vein of “Just write it! Fix it in post! Finished is better than perfect!” which is great advice for pushing through, but does tend to leave future-you -- the editor you-- with problems.

Lucky for you, I happen to love editing (really! it’s my favorite part!) so I am here to give you some advice on how to turn those pages into a proper story without ripping all of your hair out or screaming into the void (but if you need to scream, it’s OK, I won’t judge you.)

First Off: Credit Where It’s Due

My current revision process draws heavily from Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Revision technique: https://hollylisle.com/one-pass-manuscript-revision-from-first-draft-to-last-in-one-cycle/

Her writing guides are golden, and I heartily recommend reading them all, starting with that one up there.

I don’t do one-pass revisions, but her ethos really helped me. Before I found her advice, I would get caught in the endless revise/rewrite cycle. I was going through 9+ drafts of every story and it kept morphing into something new and sprouting new problems, hydra-style, every time I tried to redo it. So nothing was ever finished, nothing was ever satisfying, and I hated it.

So I found a better way! And it freed me! I’ve written six books since then, four of them published (one Wattpad-exclusive) and I learned to look forward to the second draft.

So how does this magic work? Let me show you!

Step One: Put the Damn Thing Away

Editing requires intellectual and emotional distance. So finish your story, and set it aside for a while. Stop thinking about it. Actively put it out of your mind. Work on something else for a while. Read a book. Catch up on all the TV you missed. Whatever. The point is -- you don’t want to come back to revise your story until you can look at it with fresh eyes.

How long this will take depends on you, of course. It’s a very personal thing. It could be weeks. It could be months. For me, a good guideline is to wait until I can no longer quote whole passages from memory.

Now then. Let’s do some triage.

Before you can start editing, you need to know your goals. If you’re a planner, this might be easy because you have an outline you can compare against. If you’re a discovery writer like me, well, this is the time to figure out what exactly it is that you discovered. Grab a notebook (or a notepad file, if you’re a digital native) and follow this process:

Write a one-sentence elevator pitch that roughly encapsulates the concept of the story. It doesn’t have to be pretty -- you’re not showing this to anyone but yourself -- but it does have to be honest. My one-sentence pitch for River of Souls was “Self-aware zombies struggle for equal rights, but the medication they rely on to retain their humanity doesn’t work as advertised.” My pitch for The Hound was “Lesbian thrift shop owners invite the devil into their home after buying a cursed taxidermied dog.”

Write down your theme(s). In the draft, themes might take the form of questions. In this draft, you’ll want some answers. What do you want the reader to feel when they’re done? What is the message you’re trying to tell? When I wrote Nezumi’s Children, I knew it was a story about religion -- “What should we put our faith into?” In the end, I decided the answer was, “We should put our faith in each other.” That dictated the ending. (I also wanted to be careful not to inadvertently support abandoning your pets -- so I couldn’t let the rats be happily feral at the end. A happy ending for them meant being owned and cared for).

Write a 250-word synopsis of the story. Again, it doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to introduce the characters, the world, and the general shape of the story arc -- the inciting incident, the escalating stakes, and how the character changed at the end.

You may find that you struggle with this part, and that is totally find (and honestly to be expected). You may discover, for example, that your character doesn’t actually change, or that there isn’t a core conflict. That’s okay! That’s what you’re here to fix! I have absolutely, definitely written a book and then discovered 80,000 words later that it didn’t have a plot. It’s OK though, because you’ll fix that problem in the next step.

If you do indeed have a plot and escalating stakes and characters who go through developmental arcs, you’re ahead of the game. Now you’ve got the skeleton of an elevator pitch and the makings of a query letter (or a jacket blurb).

Next: Map Out Everything

When I was in elementary school, I had to start writing my first essays. I was supposed to make an outline, then write the paper to follow the outline. I wasn’t very good at doing it that way, so instead I would write the paper, then hastily draw up the outline to match what I said. Oops. Nothing has changed, honestly.

With your trusty notebook (or blank text document), compile the following:

Write out a list of scenes. Just a couple words describing the events of what happens. Now - are all of those scenes necessary? Are any redundant? Do you need to add foreshadowing or establish something earlier in the story to make sense of it? Are the scenes in the wrong order? Does every scene do some work to advance the plot, deepen the character, flesh out the world? Does the ending resonate with the theme? Re-write the scene list in the correct order, with scenes added or removed as necessary to tell the proper story. Now your scene list is a handy dandy roadmap/outline for your revision!

List out all of the characters in the story. Write down their role in the story. Does every major character have a goal? Do motivations make sense? Does each one change in some way during the story? Are all of your walk-on roles necessary? Are there characters who don’t really do much, and could you combine them?

Fixing plot holes on your scene list is a lot easier than fixing them in the manuscript itself. Keep tweaking your scenes until the story feels like it works. Make sure there’s a logical flow between events -- cause and effect, escalating stakes. Consult structure guides like the Hero’s Journey or the Three-Act Structure if you need some help with your plot.

Here’s a part that’s really important so it’s going in all caps: THE SCENE LIST IS FINAL. Make all the adjustments you need to the plot while you do the scene list, but do not -- DO NOT -- deviate from the story once you move on to the next step. You don’t stop modifying your scene list until you’re happy with the story, and once you’re happy, THAT is the story you’re writing. Get new ideas for things that can happen? Great, save ‘em for the next book.

Now Roll Your Sleeves Up And Get Dirty

Some people like to print their manuscript off and do edits in pen, but I don’t have reliable printer access most of the time and hate wasting paper. So instead, I pull up the rough draft and adjust it so it takes up one half of my monitor. Then I pull up a fresh, empty file and put that on the other half of the screen.

Now, using my scene list as a guide, I pull up the rough draft and rewrite it, scene by scene. Yes, that means re-typing every word. You’ll find that when you do this, you’ll fix a lot of language mistakes without even realizing it. I’m an under-writer, so my drafts usually double in length during this process because I spend more time lingering on sensory details, adding scenes, teasing out character dynamics, etc. etc. etc. Just let yourself go, get immersed into the scene. If you forget what you were doing, just refer back to your outline and original draft to get back on track.

I find this process works best if you can do it quickly. Try not to let the story get cold. Ideally, work on this every single day, or even set aside a long weekend to just hammer it all out.

Finally: Make a Second Pass

Now that you’ve got a second draft under your belt, it’s time to celebrate! Set the book aside. If you have beta readers or an editor, now is the time to send this to them. Hang out for a bit. Figure out who you’re querying, if you’re doing that. Find a kick-ass cover, if you’re self-publishing. Build yourself a Lego mansion. Whatever. Just sit on your draft for a little bit.

Now that a couple weeks have passed, it’s time to make a final pass. Gather all of the feedback you’ve gotten from beta readers and editors and decide what advice you should take and what you can ignore. Here’s a guideline: If someone says something and you think, “oh, yeah! that’s exactly it!” then you take the suggestion. If they say something and you think “uh, well, no, that’s not really the story I was trying to write....” or something similar, you can ignore the feedback. Good feedback will always feel true in the “duh, why didn’t I think of that” way.

Open up your new draft and, starting at page one, just read the damn thing. Make adjustments to the writing as necessary:

Correct any misspellings and typos you come across.

Eliminate weak words and phrases and replace them with stronger ones.

Add some variation to sentence structure if you notice that it’s become repetitive.

Eliminate redundancy. Fix your metaphors. Fix your symbolism. Keep your poetic language on-theme. In The Hound, I replaced a ton of random metaphors with dog imagery. It’s subtle, but it lends thematic cohesion.

Some people use things like Grammarly or Hemmingway App to help with this. I’ve never used them, so I can’t speak to their effectiveness. But if you find that they help, awesome! Use them!

Here’s a really important point: This step can ONLY come AFTER the rewriting stage. There is no point at all in tweaking sentences and fixing up the language in a story that has no plot. Fix your structural issues FIRST, and be sure they are AIR TIGHT, before you start dicking around with the words. Ok? Ok. (Someone go back in time 15 years and tell this to young me please)

And now...you are done!

Spend some time tweaking your elevator pitch and query letter at this point, if necessary. But no matter what, you do not go back into this document and change ANYTHING unless an editor tells you to. The book is DONE. Maybe give it a final proofread before you self-publish it (but honestly, you’re better off hiring someone to do it at that point, you’re going to be too zorched to notice the typos you missed) but otherwise don’t touch it. Don’t think about it. Write the next book.

And that’s it! That’s my mostly painless revision process!

Obviously every person is different, your mileage may vary, etc. But I hope this serves as a helpful jumping off point. I am more than happy to answer any questions or provide clarification on things -- just drop me a line :)

#writing advice #writing tips #editing #writeblr #long post

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ryo-maybe · 5 years

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A classic tale of youmu vs reisen (Do them all VS,Or and +)

It’s easy, like putting two and two together. Addition inherently implies a plus, a gain. Two plus two equals four. Reisen plus Youmu equals peace of mind.

It’s the rupture point, when the loyal bonds of servanthood are eroded by the stress of living like a guinea pig or a glorified Roomba/lawnmower/tubby custard machine. Lots of ironic emphasis on ‘glorified’. The moment when cheeks reach the Peak Inflatation Point and explode with a loud and clear ‘MOOOU’, propelling two minds with many a difference together in shared purpose - to stop having to deal with this Weapons Grade BS. So naturally, by the magic of Contrived Implied Backstories, we end up with Reisen and Youmu sharing some manner of living space. I don’t know. A shack, though not necessarily the kind nestled between a paltry ram and a pitiable le (it’s not the time for that). Real estate in Gensokyo is kind of a crapshoot, but living it up with the big shots builds your character as much as your finances, so we’ll have these two enjoy their newfound freedom right here, in this snug little corner of nondescript green situated anywhere you want it to be, long as it’s a good distance away from any ghostly gardens or medical clinics.

Make no mistake though, there’s no smoochy business going on here. None, natch. We’re deep in Gals Being Pals country here. Keep in mind that, going by the statistical average of the relationships enjoyed by your typical Gensokyoite, two people sharing a living and going by more than a day without at least a thinly veiled threat or a scathing insult caked in viciously humorous powder would equal a couple in the real world who spend roughly 1,4% of their shared time not banging. Youmu walking in on Reisen reading the latest piece of printed tengu trash and muttering a tired “G’morning” before sitting down to feast on phantom oatmeal is about as romantic as it gets - in terms of real life, this would correspond to waking up your significant other by ravenously fellating whichever appendage is most eligible for said verb.

So everything’s peachy for a while, yeah? No suspicious capsules to ingurgitate, being able to subsist with the contents of one tiny fridge rather than by leasing a whole subsection of Cocytus to store all manners of meat products. A quaint, enjoyable lull of a life.

Until that happens.

“Gone... it’s all gone. All of it.”

Gone, like the fleeting peace of days long past. Gone, like all traces of blood and its spiritual equivalent from a face and a round blob that ends up transcending the boundaries of chromatic pigmentation to showcase a new, paler shade of white where its visage would be, if it had one to express how aghast the sight in front of it feels. Roughly four hundred hours of painstaking labor, all gone like tears in the rain.

It takes Youmu an eternity contained within three seconds flat to recover from the shock of discovering that the entirety of her Disgaea save file has disappeared, devoured by the babystep beginnings of a new one taking its place with a paltry thirty minutes to its name. Barely enough to clear the first of too many tutorials. It’s not even one of the updated re-releases, because back in Gensokyo, an original copy of the PS2 classic version is rarer not by virtue of how old and expensive it is to buy one on eBay, but of how damned new it is. We got like six and a half more games of that. Does anyone still even remember who Etna is? There must be loads of Disgaea copies sitting in a landfill in the Scarlet Devil Mansion’s backyard. I bet Flandre’s 100%’d at least half of them by now. I think I lost myself in the speculative sauce for a moment here, but what I’m getting at here is that Reisen would be too busy rolling her tobacco cigarette (she’s been trying to quit, and doing pretty well, considering this is only the third one this morning) to notice the X prompt floating above her floppy and suspiciously fake-looking ears. By the time a couple of silhouettes have entered her line of sight, it would be almost too late to avoid getting her windpipe constrained by inappropriate use of a ghostly tail. Almost, if remnants of her military training hadn’t kicked in fast enough to combat roll her body away out of trouble. You would think to find her surprised about her predicament, and yet her eyes shine with a sinister glow of fierce understanding. Her fingers clasp not at empty air, but the grip of her stupid rabbit-shaped gun-megaphone-thingie.

“Took you long enough to notice, miscreant.”

“You did it. And you did it with purpose. Tell me why and I’ll cut you down.“

“Did you mean ‘or you’ll cut me down’?”

“I know what I said. What I don’t think I know anymore is you.”

“But you do. Those are the very same words I was thinking that Friday night, when you revealed yourself for the wretched scum you are.”

“Ah. So that’s it then. You blame me for your own weaknesses.“

“I’m not hearing this from a Mai main.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have mained Mai if you had learned to do more than spam Noel’s D.”

“YOU. You would accuse me of D-spamming? You, who know nothing other than to keep using and routinely failing to use Hakumen’s counters?”

GASP. That’s it, the moment when the last blade is drawn, grasped by an iron fist to determine the king among fighters, whether they come out of it dead or alive. Extreme beach volleyball.

“Shut up and stop DPing on wakeup!“

“Only if you’ll learn to block! AAAA!”

“AAAAAAA!”

““AAAAAA!““

So see, Ace, I do not ship Reisen and Youmu romantically, or at all. Because when all is said and done, when words are made obsolete in the realm of action, what matters is only one thing - a single moment when all is decided, the edge upon which fate sits in precarious balance, and only one hand shall tip it in its favor.

But since I like Reisen better and she’s bringing a gun to a swordfight, I guess she’s gonna win this one lòl

#frommetrunui

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eleanor-writes-stuff · 5 years

Text

a language that i never knew existed before - Day 23

Here’s a modern AU paranormal investigators piece for anyone who might’ve been (or still is) a The Black Tapes Podcast fan, because it'll always hold a special place in my heart.

Only two ficlets left! Coming up tomorrow: the last canon-verse ficlet for this collection. See you guys then!

25 Days of Reylo Also available on AO3

THE RADDUS PODCAST NETWORK IS PROUD TO PRESENT: A TALE ABOUT GHOSTS, LOSS, AND ALL THE OTHER THINGS THAT HAUNT US.

A long, long time ago, in a desert wasteland far away, a young orphan stumbled upon a set of case files chronicling the world’s most intriguing paranormal phenomena. Even more intriguing was the fact that they were all signed by one Sir Benjamin Kenobi, the celebrated historian who mysteriously disappeared from the public eye in his later years and was never heard from again.

Twelve years have passed, and that young orphan is now RPN’s very own Rey Durand. Join one of the nation’s most promising investigative journalists as she partners up with noted paranormal skeptic Dr. Kylo Ren to get to the bottom of THE KENOBI FILES.

S02E11: The Mother

A seemingly typical trip to Naboo takes an unexpected turn when Rey finds out that Dr. Ren is connected to the case in a very personal way.

Genre: non-fiction; paranormal; supernatural; true crime; history; romance

“Good morning, Dr. Grumpy!” Rey chirps as Kylo folds his tall frame into her tiny car with a grimace. He opens his mouth to let loose a teasing reply, then takes one look at the recorder on her dashboard and reconsiders his words.

“Are you ever going to stop calling me that?” Kylo asks with a sigh for the audience’s benefit as he leans over the console to press a silent kiss to her temple.

“Are you ever going to stop being grumpy?” Rey retorts with a smile that’s far too soft for her tone as she pulls away from the curb of Kylo’s apartment building. They drive in comfortable silence until Rey gets on the highway, at which point she informs him that today’s case file is in the backseat.

“Just fill me in on the basics,” Kylo instructs her without missing a beat, ignoring the file as usual. He hasn’t bothered with them since halfway through their first season, claiming that anything more than just the facts will prevent him from approaching their cases as objectively as possible.

“Well, as I told you yesterday, we’ve got a long drive ahead of us. Four hours, to be precise, because today’s case is all the way in Naboo. Have you ever been?” Rey asks, sparing Kylo a quick glance.

“Once or twice,” he shrugs as Rey motions for him to open the glove box and retrieve a few pages’ worth of printed tweets. The papers crinkle as Kylo smooths them out, muffling his groan of realization. “Rey…”

She flashes him a bright grin. “Oh come on, it’s tradition! Time for another round of how many tweets can we make Dr. Ren read before he loses it!” she announces to their listeners. “You ready?”

“I never am,” Kylo mutters, utterly resigned to his fate.

“That’s the spirit. Now go!”

Rey can feel his glare on her, but she keeps her eyes on the road and resolutely ignores him until he starts reading. “@MrsDrRen–” and here Kylo clears his throat uncomfortably, takes a moment before he gets back to it with a hint of wariness in his voice. “@MrsDrRen tweeted: Look, it’s not like I need a picture of Kylo Ren to know that he’s hot… AF?” he asks, turning to Rey questioningly.

“As fuck,” she clarifies, and has to bite back a laugh at the way Kylo ducks his head and rubs at the back of his neck even at the tamest of the bunch. She can’t wait to see him react to the others. “Go on, what else did MrsDrRen write?”

“It’s not like I need a picture of Kylo Ren to know that he’s hot AF,” he repeats, “but I’d appreciate one anyway @ReyDurand @CoruscantU. How can she even be sure?” Kylo asks with an adorable little furrow between his brows. “All she has to go by is my voice and your generic descriptions.”

“Oh, trust me,” Rey smirks, “the voice is enough. And my descriptions aren’t generic, thank you very much. It’s not my fault that you actually have hair straight out of a Pantene commercial. Next one,” she orders before they can get sidetracked.

“This is from @KenobiFiles… 5Evah?” He waits for a nod from Rey before going on. “@KenobiFiles5Evah tweeted: Honestly, if Rey wants Kylo to lose it, all she has to do is lean over and suck– Oh.”

She can’t help but burst into laughter then, sneaking a glance at her scandalized boyfriend. “How would that even… that is very reckless,” he finally says, scowling at the paper before he balls it up and tosses it into the backseat. “Is this from another one of those people who think that you and I…?” Kylo asks, and his voice carries the exact same hint of confusion and disapproval as always, as if things haven’t completely changed since they first discovered that they’d gained a few shippers along with their viewers. He really is a better actor than anyone gives him credit for, especially her production team.

“Yup!” she says brightly, pretending to be as unaffected by the idea as always. “Okay, last one. If you read this one in its entirety, you win.”

“And what do I get if I win?” As far as their audience can discern, it’s an entirely innocent-sounding question. But the pointed way Kylo slowly drags his eyes up her body makes her wish they didn’t have a four-hour drive followed by a night in a haunted house ahead of them. Maybe she should’ve stayed over last night after all.

Rey shrugs the moment off. “I’ll buy you one of those sugary Starbucks monstrosities you like so much.”

“That’s slander and you know it,” he huffs, but there’s no way their dedicated listeners won’t pick up on the fact that he didn’t reject the offer. Rey can already picture them cooing over the fact that serious, grumpy Kylo Ren has a sugar tooth.

“All right, last one,” Kylo announces with a sigh. “@Carla666 tweeted: Dr. Ren could shit all over my beliefs and insult me to my face and I’d still ask him to… to…”

“To?” Rey goads, knowing he won’t back down.

“To fist me,” he forces out in a strangled whisper, and Rey laughs until there are tears in her eyes and she has to pull over.

Kylo’s sleeping when they finally arrive in Lake Country, and Rey wishes she could wake him up without the recorder on; he’s always so dazed and sweet after a nap. But she likes to think their show is pretty damn authentic, and that means capturing genuine first reactions whenever she can.

“Dr. Ren,” she whispers, wrapping a hand around his arm. “Dr. Ren, we’re here.”

He’s always been a light sleeper; something to do with a childhood incident, which Rey understands all too well. “Hmm? Where… Oh, we’re…”

She’s in the midst of watching him with a soft smile on her face, a flood of affection washing over her at the way he rubs his eyes, when Kylo suddenly tenses.

“Rey,” he says evenly, turning to her with the kind of blank look he gives her interns when he’s this close to snapping at them. It’s a look she’s never been on the receiving end of, and it’s just as unsettling as the unlucky interns claimed. “Rey, why are we here?”

“Um, the case?” she reminds him with a frown. “I told you it’s in Naboo, remember?”

“You said it’s in Lake Country. This is not Lake Country.”

“Yes, it is,” Rey insists, pointing out the big, fancy sign they drove past just minutes ago, while he was still dozing. “Kylo, what’s wro–”

“I don’t know what the hell they’re calling this area these days, but that–” he points up at the house ahead of them, the one they’re supposed to spend the night in, “is Varykino Manor, and this whole area is Varykino.”

Rey twists around and reaches into the backseat for the file. “Yeah, the house is still called Varykino, but that’s the only original structure left. The rest of it was turned into a luxury development years ago, almost a decade now. Wait,” she comes to a realization as she hands him the file. “You know this place?”

Kylo is silent for a beat, a struggle playing out on his face while she watches.

Finally, he turns to her as he opens the file. “This is my grandmother’s house,” he whispers, and when he turns to the file he squeezes his eyes shut as if he’s in physical pain.

“And that,” he points at the grainy photo attached to the first page, the specter circled in red marker, “is my grandmother.”

Miraculously, Kylo doesn’t call the investigation off.

“I’m sick and tired of this bullshit,” he growls after recounting the numerous alleged sightings of his grandmother over the years, the hushed rumors and unkind whispers about his family. “I’m going to prove once and for all that my grandmother isn’t a ghost because ghosts aren’t real.”

And with that, he slams the car door behind him and hikes up to the house with both their bags.

Rey scrambles to get the recorder and lock the car, and catches up to him in front of the grand, imposing double doors. This place certainly has all the makings of a haunted house, but it’s so beautiful that she can’t bring herself to be scared of it – of any of it, really. The house isn’t abandoned or in disrepair, just rarely inhabited. Locals have reported seeing lights on when they know for a fact no one’s around, but unlike most of their cases, there are no horror stories here, nothing even remotely malicious. There’s just the lights, and then the rare sighting of a woman – Kylo’s grandmother – on the balcony, looking out at the lake as if she’s waiting for something. The handful of eye witnesses who claim to have seen her report that upon making eye contact, she simply gave them a sad smile as she faded away, leaving them shaken by melancholy more than fear.

“Keys?”

“Oh, right,” Rey mumbles as Kylo pulls her away from her wandering thoughts, and reaches into the pockets of her coat to dig around for the keys.

“I’m assuming you got this from my mother?” he asks, taking the jumble of keys from her and easily identifying the two needed for the front door. God, this really is his grandmother’s house. And– mother. She’s spoken to Kylo’s mother.

“Oh my god, everything makes so much sense now,” she realizes out loud. “I kept asking myself why the hell a senator would let us investigate her mother’s house for some random paranormal investigation podcast, but this isn’t just a random podcast, it’s her son’s podcast.”

Kylo turns back to frown at her. “No, it’s not. It’s your podcast. I’m just the party pooper, remember?”

Rey rolls her eyes and takes his hand as they walk past the threshold. “You’re not just the party pooper. You’re our overqualified, stubborn ghost-mythbuster.”

His lips quirk at that, and it almost feels like they’re just walking into one of their homes after a long day, especially when Kylo casually drops his bag to the ground and kicks off his shoes.

“You’re… comfortable here,” Rey says, taking in her surroundings. Pictures don’t do this place justice; Kylo has mentioned once or twice that his estranged family comes from money, but she’d never imagined something on this scale.

“Used to come here as a kid,” Kylo reveals with a shrug, and leads her into the living room. It’s funny, the fact that she’s learned more about his past in the last ten minutes than she has in the last ten months. “And I ain’t afraid of no ghosts,” he adds over his shoulder, and Rey laughs at the reference.

“Can’t be afraid of what you haven’t seen yet,” she retorts as they go around turning on lights and exploring the first floor.

“Can’t be afraid of what doesn’t exist,” he amends, a familiar back and forth between them at this point. Rey’s pretty sure Finn once showed her a fan-made compilation of all the times they’ve had this exchange.

“We’ll see,” Rey hums, and leaves it at that.

To his credit, Kylo doesn’t really rub it in her face when the night passes without incident.

“I’m just saying,” he shrugs as they pack up their belongings, having spent the night in the room he’d claimed as his back when he was a child, “if her spirit really is here, don’t you think she would’ve revealed herself to either me or my mother by now? Her family?”

“But you’re not the reason she’s here,” Rey reminds him, holding up the file. It contains more personal information than most of the others, but Rey has to believe that Sir Kenobi didn’t just pull a tragic love story out of thin air.

“If she’s waiting for him, she’s going to be stuck here for a very, very long time,” Kylo mutters darkly as he zips up his bag. “Ready to go?”

“I guess,” she sighs reluctantly, casting her eyes out the window one last time. The balcony is somewhere above them, but even a trip there last night hadn’t yielded anything. Time to call it, then. At least they’ll have plenty of material for the episode thanks to Kylo’s revelation. “My stuff’s already downstairs,” Rey adds for the audience’s sake as she slings her bag over one shoulder.

Kylo smirks at her. “Good. Let’s go, then.”

They make one last round of the house, checking that all the doors are shut and lights are off. A caretaker comes by once every two weeks, according to Leia, but other than that the house has been empty for years. It seems like such a waste, a sentiment she’d expressed to Kylo late last night, when they – she – finally gave up for the night.

You know, my grandparents were married here, he’d informed her. Maybe someday…

And they’d left it at that.

Now, she watches as Kylo locks up behind them and finds herself smiling at him.

“What?” he asks, giving her a smile of his own.

“Nothing,” Rey shrugs, already planning to leave this part on the cutting room floor. “Just thinking about someday.”

He takes her hand, brings it to his lips. “Sounds like a good idea,” Kylo murmurs, and Rey leans in for a quick kiss before they head back down to her car.

“So,” he asks as they get into the car, easily slipping back into his Dr. Ren persona. “Now will you admit that ghosts aren’t real?”

“I’ll admit that I haven’t captured evidence of one yet,” Rey sniffs, “but that doesn’t mean anything. The ancient Greeks couldn’t fully prove that the Earth is round, but that didn’t make them wrong.”

“That’s not… Rey, that’s not even the same–” He gives up with a sign, pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “One day, you’ll see.”

“One day you’ll see,” she parrots back at him with a grin as she begins to back out of the driveway. “Really, Kylo, if something can’t be proven either way then shouldn’t you keep an open mind about it? Isn’t that just good, impartial science? How can you be so sure–”

A sudden death grip around her wrist shuts her up, and Rey steps on the brake as she turns to Kylo. “What is it?” she asks, slightly worried at the look on his face but not enough to bite back a teasing comment. “You look like you’ve just seen a–”

“Rey,” he whispers without turning to look at her. He raises his free hand to point at something, and Rey notes with growing concern that he’s shaking. “Rey, look.”

She follows his hand, looks out over the lake and up, up, up at–

“Oh.”

There, on the balcony, is his grandmother.

And they watch on as a man who can only be her husband materializes behind her, pulls her into his arms and swings her around in unmistakable, infectious joy.

When she turns back to Kylo and Rey, the smile on her face is anything but sad.

Gods above and below, what have I done?

This is 2700 words. That's nearly three ficlets. THREE. Someone send help, because clearly I need an intervention or something.

I'm beginning to think I should've saved this idea for a proper one-shot or maybe even a three-parter, but oh well. Here it is. I hope you liked it. Thanks for reading as always, and please don't hesitate to like/reblog/comment!

#reylo #reyben #kylo ren/rey #rey/kylo ren #rey/ben solo #star wars #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #ficlet: language that i never knew #my fics

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californiapoppyshop · 3 years

Text

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artdjgblog · 4 years

Photo

Innerview: Carmen (Editor) / HOW Magazine

April 2008

Image: Gummi Bears (Disney, 1985-1991)

Note: Email Q&A

Question:

My interest is piqued a bit about the year you took off–why you did that, how you spent it, how it affected you, what you learned, etc.

Answer:

At the end of the past several years, I’ve been starting each new twelve month set with a list of what I learned in the previous. Items from this past year (2006) include: Things DJG Realized in 2007 -I found out that LOL in an email does not mean “Lots Of Love”. -I still get weird when I see LOL in an email even though I know what it means. -I realized I officially dislike the use of emoticons in emails sent to me. -I learned that internet “Phishing” does not involve jam bands and hippies. -I found out how to copy and paste pictures into myspace blogs. -I like to read about stuff on www.wikipedia.org. -I think that body spray is kinda cool. -I don’t think it’s cool to keep my mouth open when spraying Old Spice. -I am thankful for blow dryers with longer locks in winter. -I still love “Gummi Bears”, but it’s still not as cool as when i was eleven. -I love Chick Peas. -I don’t love Chick Pee. -I found out how I like my steak. -I don’t like pants pleats. -I can go on a diet and lose weight. -I like the way Chinese food smells in colder weather. -I feel that New York City is a very comfortable place because nobody stares. -I don’t like New Jersey (or turnpikes). -I can swim in the ocean and it is fantastic fun. -I found out the hard way that salt water really is salty. -I can wear flip-flops. -I don’t like the sound of flip-flops. -I like Branson. -I still don’t like to do laundry. -I learned what the clothing pattern “Hounds Tooth” looks like. -I can’t help but think of the ’84 Olympics logo when I see the pattern. -I don’t have to say “Yes” to everything. -I lose faith in my fellow man three days out of seven. -I am not a perfect person though either. -I get more and more irritated and more easily the older I get. -I have stopped sympathizing for those who know how to make terrible decisions. -I am trying to enjoy the little things in life…even if it’s a bad meal. -I have the same brain functions I had when I was five, just more polluted now. -I can’t stay up late like I used to and function properly. -I realized that sleep is an important ingredient to a healthy life. -I can get up at 5:00 am every day and enjoy it greatly. -I am a morning person when it comes to ME, alone and with a handful of hours. -I love to watch old movies in the early morning with a blanket and a kitty or two. -I am a “Glass Half-Empty” kind of guy. -I can never do, make or learn enough. -I study better and actually enjoy it now that my college loan is almost paid for. -I am starting to dress like my Dad and I like that. -I learned that Shadow meows quite frantically when ready to leave the basement. -I really warmed up to Alfred Hitchcok, Werner Herzog and David Lynch movies. -I can really relate to the movie “Punch-Drunk Love” and it is my favorite movie. -I love cashews. -I even like pecans. -I love squash. -I really like to hunt deer. -I enjoy writing. -I am no lecturer. -I get worn out easier now and realize when I need a break. -I feel more comfortable when I get to church late and leave early. -I can relate to the hit TV show “Friends” now (that I’m older) and actually enjoy it. -I like the original “Star Trek” series. -I like the television show “Angel”. -I love to start my Sundays with “CBS Sunday Morning”. -I am glad I no longer buy comic books regularly because I would be broke. -I still can’t get enough books, movies and music…so it all evens out the wallet. -I have stopped apologizing for my personal preferences in pop-culture. -I am getting more used to the idea of the MP3 and the digital music world. -I don’t really enjoy a live concert setting anymore in the majority of circumstances. -I learned to read and match the (+) and (-) signs on battery operated gadgets. -I love the feeling of coming home to my house, wife and kitties. -I still don’t know how to say properly for example, “Two pair, or two pairs of socks”. -I still have bad English and grammar…regardless of age, location and knowledge. -I have learned if it works, change it (especially in concern of my own work). -I learned that I am not a real graphic designer in standard weights and measures. Several important items stand out on this list that pertains to my year of slowing down the design machines and refueling… -I get worn out easier now and realize when I need a break-I can get up at 5:00 am every day and enjoy it greatly. -I have learned if it works, change it (especially in concern of my own work) -I don’t have to say “Yes” to everything -I learned that I am not a real graphic designer in standard weights and measures -I can never do, make or learn enough I ended 2006, my most fruitful in productivity and success, with extreme exhaustion and a head polluted with design takeover. And the near-death of my Grandfather frazzled me as well. Some would find a “head polluted with design takeover” as a good thing, and maybe when you’re naive to it…maybe? A realization of this can out-weigh on the full scale of the daily spectrum though. Also, a string of a few strung-out disappointing projects and disappointed clients pointed all arrows at the fact that DJG was starting to show some burnout and bitter. This scared me. Though, it was even scarier to just up and stop what I’ve started and worked so hard to build. Ultimately, my goal has always been to do the things that I’m doing full-time, and stopping all of a sudden would turn back the clock a bit on that. I just had to realize that what I had built was there all along and will always be, and only on the right kinds of full tanks of fuel. True, I’m a relatively young man, but in my early-early days of mining this strange, loopy-lop design odyssey, I never thought of burnout ever being an option on the design iron man meter. When you start to tackle anything, you’ll do most anything to make it happen. I had fire (and have had it for many years), even if it was threatened to be snuffed out by a couple of day jobs on top of it…i had a torch. I once swore that I wouldn’t stop until my skull was spilled (and I still believe this in some light). But, now it’s getting a little bit harder to perform with age settling in and being married…and trying to be more responsible. You know, life stuff? A major factor on most anybody’s tool belt is TIME. I just didn’t have a way to manage it properly anymore, even though I felt I had more than I used to. Add this to being a little annoyed and frustrated with the shaping of the design world and I didn’t feel too well about myself and what I was doing anymore. Back to my string of disappointing projects and clients…I know I can’t please everybody, but I do my best and give my all. Even though I make maybe twenty or thirty or forty bucks on average pop, I give everything I’ve got for something even so throw-away as a concert poster. I’ve somehow landed a comfortable position within the realms of the things I make, that I somehow have gotten a nice little pile of press, and I haven’t had much bad press at all (at least from all that gets passed down to me). And it’s not that I need press, but, it’s nice to share this stuff when I can, and again, ultimately I want to do this full-time and it’s hard to get there without press! Bad press and critiques are appreciated and needed for the most part, but there is a level of maturity and knowledge that must come with that from both parts. And I was on the receiving end of a couple that were pretty brutal and uncalled for, considering that I was getting paid twenty bucks or less. And being that I am extremely critical on myself, and at the same time really enjoy my little works, it can be hard to heal some sliced fingertips. People are taking themselves way to seriously too (though, haven’t they always?). It’s like they threw all their toys away right when the clock marked thirteen, along with any pinch of heart they once had…discarding and disguising all that miracle grow that helped them grow. The stress of cramming the work in-between the day job and life stuff and having to deal with people on top of that was beginning to roll me over. Situations like this should tell a person rather quickly which guns they need to stick with. Mine have always been constant cannons, so it was almost too late before it registered completely with me. And I must say this now, I’ve had some incredible clients and a few bad apples are just part of the crippled ladders in the design orchard. But, still they just hit at the right-wrong time for me. I pretty much can make whatever the heck I want and when I want and I pretty much have complete parental rights to my work. Though, that is getting increasingly harder with the land of computers and everybody thinking they are a graphic designer because they can change the decorations on their blog and have the ability to pass a digital file labeled “NOT FOR PRINTER” to the printer anyway without my consent (this is rare anyway as I don’t do a lot of professional print projects). That’s all fine and dandy and just the shape of things in a whole different story of communication all together. But, the idea of the graphic designer just doesn’t get much respect these days. Maybe it’s always been like this? I don’t know. I could just tell that in my little area this was true OR, I was just getting old and bitter. Also, with this web 2.0 world, or whatever the heck version it’s on now, my main work, the ageless poster piece, is starting to show it’s age as everybody gets their information from myspace and other blogs. I’m guilty just the same as I’m more of a comfortably spoiled house cat than anyone. So, really, I feel that most design work I see around has become more for decoration or afterthought (similar to the bulk of moviemaking). Though, isn’t all design decoration in some way? My primary area of work has been in the independent music industry. It’s a path that I happened to fall into and found a connection with. And after many lack-of-heart feelings coming home from well-oiled design studio meat market visits in design school, I wanted my own thing or a quick exit. I wanted what was coming out of my system, to be of my own system, as I’m very protective of my work like a mother bird. I wanted something that gave somebody a “something” and in-turn something that gave me back something inside…and all of that gushy stuff. The music scene in general hasn’t been in my heart like it once had when I started this. Maybe because I barely have enough time to slide down for design that it’s easy for me to neglect the music side? I still love music and devour it daily. Though, my first involvement was more one-on-one with bands and I was always going and going, which gets harder as I grow older. I really enjoy being at home now and ever since early childhood, I’ve enjoyed locking myself up or out, and making things. I don’t go to many concerts anymore because I tire easily, most live music settings push my buttons rather quickly, and I am not in a position to network like I once was. And thank the good lord of Full House that I don’t live in poverty anymore with about ten musician roommates. It was fun for the first few months and I consider those days very crucial and special to my development, in a strange way. Though, I consider all days very crucial to my development…in a strange way. It can be mighty discouraging when some musicians I work for tell me that they don’t see the point in trying to achieve an artistic endeavor on the side of a full-time day job. This is the biggest kick to the pants. The same person who shucked the day job responsibility and overall, ability to pay the rent and his graphic designer has told me this. It made me feel like a fool and worthless. Due to my situations and relationships (it’s certainly not my charisma or good-bad looks) I’ve never had to promote my design work at all (well, except for competitions and magazines which cost more money than what I make in a year). Getting the work has never been an issue for me. I’ve never had to promote myself or throw myself on inbox door stoops before now. People, projects and inquiries have somehow come to me. Though, an obvious global positioning has thrown a wrench in this and I don’t get out much. However, even when I used to get out, I didn’t work myself around by any means. I’ve always believed in the work speaking for itself and I’ve always believed that early success can lead to early exits. I’ve felt that I’ve needed to earn my design stripes on my painting shirt, like a Dalmation dog earns its spots. I’m now finally at the still sheepish point where I’m learning the values of shameless self-promotion and taking all that I’ve built and have been sitting on to work smarter, not harder. Though, I still plan to work my hardest. It’s hard though because whatever small amount of time I have, I try to make something new with that, as opposed to rubbing knee-caps. And I really don’t care to go to my own art openings or other shows because I’d rather be home creating or studying instead of looking at old news. I get a little strange at art shows. Sometimes I end up being disappointed all together. A like-minded friend, Chad T. Johnston (a writer) and I, have been working non-stop of late because approaching 3.0, we both feel that we have a lot more to say in this short life and we hope to whip our day job blues in order to work smarter, not harder and fill up the spit cans with what we’ve got to say. Through our conversations I’ve realized that I have said a lot in this small amount of time with design so far. And my lot is not full yet by any means. I’m still young. I took a good look at the past 6 years and realized that I’ve fulfilled most every goal that I had marked in my opening day cement. Though, I think that if I were to die today that I would day satisfied in certain lights, but not within my own personal paper trail I hope to leave imprinted on the Earth. I have much more work to do here. I suppose though I haven’t done too bad compared to other brackets. And some days it’s all just out of my hands. But, I don’t believe in sitting on them. Before 2006 hit, I used to think I could spin these design wheels fast and forever. I was wrong. Early last year I just didn’t care anymore for popping the bubbles on the asphalt. I’ve always been very much in tune with what I put to paper, but I also felt like the work was definitely headed in the direction of, more for me instead of for my clients. I enjoy making things for people greatly and the great relationships I’m able to share with my clients, beyond a poster, logo or CD design (heck, I get invited to birthday parties and everything). But, it can become dangerous for a designer when the work starts to take over and becomes more important than the cause…when the designer becomes the cause. Of course, why do the work at all if you don’t like it? I love what I do and it’s medicine for me in strange ways. And it means a lot to me when people stop to take a thought or a giggle home with them because of something I’ve bent my back over in the basement. It still baffles me that I have a small following of eyes attracted to my silly things and that people say there is “something” to the something I’m saying. Though, this can become dangerous when crossing personal paths upstairs. And I don’t know of anybody in this life who doesn’t have tugs of war of whatever sort they might be kicking out their insides. It’s a hard wrestle when you know you have the potential to be sitting on a bit more golden colored eggs than the average man-child in his basement, but not know how to get them to hatch and/or how not to suffocate them. And sometimes you want to settle for bronze because then so many people won’t see you standing there. Every semester for the past five years the handfuls of professionals and mostly students, randomly contacting me has swelled. This means so much to me that these little things that are trickling out are flying about and popping bubbles with their beaks to make new bubbles for thought and inspiration. At the same instance it gets me crazed because I have to keep this up, even when I don’t feel like it on some days. So, my portfolio has gained a lot of weight, but do I make any money? That answer is NO…and I knew that one coming in, so no surprises there. I’m in my seventh year of this game (in a professional manner) working full-time day jobs on top of my passions. Some past pavements even found me with a part-time job on top of the day-time job and then saving the nights and weekends for design (and a girlfriend too). So, the issue is not about a lack of work ethic, passion or drive, nor is it a lack of ideas or imagination. I’ve don’t believe in having a lack for any of that. And designers that do have an issue in those areas need to possibly reconsider what they’re doing. But, with me it’s been more the issue of a fire being lit. Interesting enough, it takes fire to keep it lit and to burnout with. It’s just a healthy balance that you’ve got to keep tending to. So, I realized that whether I made things for myself or for others, I would pretty much even it out as I don’t make any money and I’m still making and doing the things that I love and enjoy and need to be doing. So, there is nothing to lose there in some fashion. This is something I have learned…balance. Last year I still had a few loose ends and commitments to fulfill. But, after learning to finally say “NO” to a few new projects coming in (which is very hard for me), I started to just do things completely for myself, for me and the basement and my wife and the kitties to only see. I didn’t stop producing, I just took it a different direction. I’m also in the process of spitting out some writings and special little projects with a few others that will be trickling around one of these days. I suppose I’ve always felt more in kin with old folk artists or the older generation(s) of designers/illustrators than younger graphic designers in my approach and ethic. I’m not really sure, and I’m not a fan of labels other than a “maker of things”. I just wish to make the things that need to come out of me and share them with others if need be. Back to TIME…without having time to fully spend with the development for some of my more important design children, and with the lacking ability to muster through multiple all-nighters like I once did, I needed to find a healthier balance. I’ve learned that a lack of sleep will catch up with you eventually. So, I switched roles and started getting to bed early and up early. My day job doesn’t need me until 9:00am, so that gave me a solid four hours (I walk four blocks to work, so no travel time), minus thirty or forty minutes of dish washing, eating breakfast and getting ready. For the first four or five months I did nothing but read books for the first hour in the morning and the rest of the time I tinkered with little things here and there or filled up on movies. I also took back my time at the day job by not eating lunch with the rest of the office. Instead, I changed up my lunch time all together and started eating at 3:00 or 3:30 in the afternoon. Even this little shift in scheduling helps build self-control and strength. AND, i was tackling a diet and being that I like to be alone, it helped me to find some peace in the work place and to keep filling up the uncovered wagon w/sideboards at the all I can eat pop-culture buffet by way of books. It’s always been filling up. If I’m not doing anything, I have to be doing something. There is just not enough time in the day for everything I wish to devour. But, I try my best. It’s hard at first, but, after a week or so I looked forward to waking up at 5:00am. As I would hit the pillow, I couldn’t wait to get up for myself. In the past I had always hated going to sleep because it meant that I had to get right up and get to work for somebody else. I would roll off the couch in my janitorial outfit on a few hours of sleep and immediately walk out the door. Getting up for myself was like a new life for me, up with my own crickets. There is something almost dream-like about being awake in the early morning hours before most everybody else is crawling out of the sheets. It’s that time of day when the possibility of the prayers getting to the last of the line first, is a greater than. I’ve always thought that even though I can be too entertained when I’m alone and with my work, I’m still not completely alone in my scribbles in the big picture. I guess it’s my way of worship to a much bigger palette? There is almost a “last man standing” position of feeling, in a sense(s) to getting up in the early a.m. for me as well. It’s not too unlike an old “Twilight Zone” episode. It’s easy for me to day dream of being the only person left, just sitting in my basement making things because it’s so easy for me to spend a lot of time alone and I enjoy it. Though, then I get to the food issue. I don’t want to eat my cats or wonderful Millie. So, I would need a vast supply of well-kept hot dogs or something? Perhaps my farm boy roots are digging into me of late as well with getting up and into my fields early. I guess I’m a young whipper-snapper. I think that if I ever manned a fully-staffed studio, I would have it start really early and we’d crank out stuff like mad. My dirt feels fresher in the mornings without the junk clouds of the day following me. When I’m at my day job all I want to do is go home and make stuff. And I’ve been blessed with the jobs that I have had, as some have found me sweeping parking lots and literally digging thru junk clouds and bringing stuff home to create with. And…they’ve been pretty good jobs! Heck, at one of my janitorial positions, I had some free time on a few occasions to make posters. I’ve worked in data entry work the past two years and of late have been playing the spoiled meat in a cubicle sandwich. It’s a great job, but many days I can’t focus because I feel stuck and the fact that I’m too self-involved and can’t sit too still in my own mind or concentrate can boil quick. It can be triumphant, yet very troubling to carry this. My after school special isn’t reserved for a certain slot of time. I’m always on the inside jungle gym. Though, after an eight hour day of chasing another man’s dream, it can be hard to have the muster sometimes to come home and want to do much for me…especially the older I get. This happened just the other day as I couldn’t sit still at work for the pile I could be creating at home. I finally got home and I was so dog gone tired and defeated. Many days of this can ruin a man, but it’s got to be worth fighting for and in some odd cases can be fuel. And it’s alarming to see the time stack up and be filed away when you’re working for somebody else. It’s easy to put the personal goals and cares on another branch and just wish the weeks away fast. So, getting up early and wittling out a chunk of time on my tree, was a very crucial foundation to a much healthier life and helped dust the frame(s) for me. Another thing that I wanted to do was make overall life changes and diet. Working non-stop, not sleeping and not eating well starts to speak pretty quick and I wanted to whip this before it got serious later in life. Now, I’m not guaranteed the next paragraph, but I want to make this one I’m in right now lead up to it in whatever formal best manner that I know best. Though, shortly after taking grooming classes at age eleven in 4-H, I stopped tucking in my shirt and combing my hair. So, here I am. It’s taken me many months (heck, 29 years) of wrestling and hair tugging of who am I and what the heck am I doing. And I think that I don’t think I can turn it off. What is the conclusion? Well, I am not finished by any means. I always plan to be making my best work as I see myself a work in progress, though I see myself as my only competition too. I’m always cracking my whips. I am at my best when I am alone and making things and it can turn to bad as well. It’s just a matter of a healthier balance of everything else to where I don’t dive too far into DJG. Though, maybe if I just work hard enough I can get a special spot out by the back dumpster up there next to the much-bigger, name-tagged cubicles in design heaven? Who knows? I do know that I am just a man first thing. Second, I am a man who happens to make things. I believe I borrowed that from another man who made things once, but I can’t find whose fingernails it belongs to. Or, perhaps I need to stop thinking and just get to making? -djg

#innerviews

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daniellethamasa · 4 years

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Hey all, Dani here.

Wow, we are almost halfway through the year. It honestly feels like this year has been both incredibly fast and agonizingly slow. And 2020 just continues to be a dumpster fire, definitely more here in the US than in the rest of the world, but I think we can all agree that all around 2020 has not been the greatest year. Though it definitely has been one for the history books. I wonder what teachers and students will say about this time in 30-50-100 years.

Anyway, because yesterday was Calendar Girls post day and my standard Manga Monday, I held off on my monthly wrap-up until today, but I figured you all wouldn’t mind. It makes my post schedule funny, because tomorrow will be my weekly wrap-up post. But that’s okay. I do have a couple books to talk about there that aren’t talked about much today.

As usual with my monthly wrap-up, let’s start off by checking in on my overall goals for the year.

Reading: I read 26 books in the month of May, which is pretty darn solid, though 6 of them were re-reads, 1 was a graphic novel, 1 was a manga, and 6 were novella-length. That takes me up to 127 books read in 2020 so far, which is great. Actually it means that I need to adjust my reading goal for the year because I had that set at 125 books, and clearly I’m not going to stop reading now just because I hit that goal.

Blogging: I had to slow down on the blogging in the month of May, no longer putting together posts each and every day. Originally it was so I could have a little more time to dedicate to my writing, but now it’s also been because so much else is happening and if I want to have any free time to spend relaxing with Damian, I can’t blog 7-10 times a week. I do kind of miss having all those posts, but if I figure out a better life and work schedule then maybe I can try it again.

Writing: I actually did write some in May. I put everything I wrote before on my novel in a different file and then pulled the usable bits out and rewrote a lot of the first three chapters, so now they are actually quite a bit better. I think I’m around 10,000 words into the book. Then a whole lot of things happened at once: change in work hours and position, accepting a job with Colorworld Books, and well, everything going on in the world. So I’m still trying to write, but it slowed down quite a bit again. Still, 10,000 words is better than none, and hopefully that number will increase in June. Even if I only make it up to like 20,000, it would still be progress.

Conventions: Gen Con was recently canceled, which I was honestly expecting because it’s a huge convention. Damian and I are currently trying to figure out a vacation plan since we already have those days off from work and it is also my birthday weekend then. And we’re still hoping that Cincinnati Comic Expo in September will still be good to go. My friends at Colorworld Books have actually started doing Colorworld LIVE convention style events just about every week, sometimes two a week. They gather up three or four awesome voice actors, hold a livestream panel, then a VIP panel for anyone who buys some signed merch, and of course you can get shirts, metal art prints, and more with characters these actors have portrayed. It’s pretty cool.

All right, I guess it’s time to run through what I read in May. As always, if I have a review posted, I will include the link to that post.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire – 5 stars

Animorphs #1: The Invasion by K.A. Applegate – 3.5 stars/5 stars (actual/nostalgia rating)

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson – 5 stars

The Ranger of Marzanna by Jon Skovron – 5 stars

Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett – 4.5 stars

City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers – 4 stars

Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden – 4 stars

Mythica: A Quest for Heroes by Kevin L Nielsen – 3.5 stars

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – 5 stars

A Whole New World by Liz Braswell – 4 stars

Colorworld by Rachel E Kelly – 5 stars

Roses In Amber by C.E. Murphy – 4 stars

Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan – 4.5 stars

The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner – 4 stars

Lumaworld by Rachel E Kelly and narrated by Todd Haberkorn, Cherami Leigh, Brittney Karbowski, David Wald, and Chiemeri Osemele – 5 stars

Shadoworld by Rachel E. Kelly – 5 stars

Warriors & Weapons by Jim Zub with Stacy King and Andrew Wheeler – 4 stars

Monsters & Creatures by Jim Zub with Stacy King and Andrew Wheeler – 4 stars

Dungeons & Tombs by Jim Zub with Stacy King and Andrew Wheeler – 4 stars

Wizards & Spells by Jim Zub with Stacy King and Andrew Wheeler – 4 stars

All Systems Red by Martha Wells – 5 stars

The Armored Saint by Myke Cole – 4 stars

Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert – 4.5 stars

Edens Zero Volume 1 by Hiro Mashima – 4.5 stars

Girls Save the World in This One by Ash Parsons – 4 stars

Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh – 4 stars

Next is the book haul portion of today’s post…which will sadly not include the OwlCrate unboxing. Packaging and shipping have slowed down a bit due to social distancing and proper safety and health precautions, so my package just shipped a couple days ago. If I get it before my Weekly Wrap-Up post, then I’ll include it there.

So I had a book delivery of books I bought from Barnes & Noble at the beginning of the month, which was cool, but then I got a surprise delivery from Wednesday Books. I had entered a couple giveaways from the Y’allStayHomeCon, not really expecting to win anything because a lot of people entered, and sure enough, I managed to score a couple of Spring 2021 ARCs. I’m super excited about them, but will probably wait until at least this fall before I pick them up.

Then The Book Loft of German Village opened again by appointment, and of course I had to get an appointment. Damian and I wore our masks because they required masks while inside, and there was a hand sanitizer station as soon as you walk in the door. I was able to walk around the 32 room bookstore for an hour or so and just be surrounded by books, and it was just the best feeling. Likewise, this past weekend the local-ish Barnes & Noble finally opened back up, so we had to go, and I finally replaced my old dead NOOK, so I don’t have to read e-books on my phone anymore. That’s nice.

Finally, I guess it’s time to talk about my June TBR. Originally I was going to solely focus my reading plans on the fact that June is GLBT Book Month, as hosted by the American Library Association. But, with everything going on in the US right now, I wanted to do more than that. So I have some of my TBR dedicated to LGBTQIAP+ books, and some of my TBR dedicated to POC authors. Honestly, I don’t think I will be able to read all of these books; I’m still pretty overwhelmed with my work and life schedule right now, but I’m going to try.

Damian and I actually have a three day cabin getaway booked in a few weeks, and we won’t have any phone signal, though the cabin does have Wi-Fi. So I’m actually hoping to be able to do quite a bit of reading while we’re there, as well as spend some time soaking in the hot tub.

Anyway, I do believe that is all from me for today, but I will be back soon with more bookish content.

May Wrap-Up and June TBR Hey all, Dani here. Wow, we are almost halfway through the year. It honestly feels like this year has been both incredibly fast and agonizingly slow.

#ARC #Books!#Conventions #Diverse Reads #Gen Con #GLBT Book Month #Graphic Novel #Manga #Reading #Reading Challenge #Review

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ssississpssk · 7 years

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Sissy Spacek Rip Helicopter, H 58 4xCS + 7-inch Release Date: July 25, 2017

Helicopter is very relieved to announce this box set, which has taken about nine years and many anxiety attacks to come together.

In April 2008, Sissy Spacek embarked on a west coast tour. We didn’t really have much material at that time, so we played mostly a weird collage of electronics and tape. At some of the shows we played songs intermingled, but mostly it was exploratory and experimental.

When the tour was finished the recordings were meant to become this box set: 4 cassettes and a 7-inch with inserts. This endeavor was faced with many obstacles, and after only a couple of years, I was so frustrated that I decided to just edit the material into a simpler album, Rip, which came out on Gilgongo in December 2011. I never quite gave up on the box set version, but the universe, through endless blunders, just kept telling me it wasn’t the time for it.

Some of the catastrophes along the way:

I bought 400 tapes and had them sent to my friend’s house in Los Angeles, only to realize that I would then have to re-send them to Greh, who was dubbing them in Detroit.

I pressed 100 copies of the 7-inch at Bill Smith, along with a few other records. Putting out records when you’re on the road/couch surfing is pretty much impossible. You don’t have any space to deal with anything and the anxiety of trying to assemble and ship and organize hundreds of copies of multiple records is enough to drive anyone insane.

I ordered 100 reel boxes and had them sent to Los Angeles. On another tour I drove them up to Portland to have my friend Cody Brant hand-draw each cover.

The tapes were then shipped to me in New York, where I was staying at the time. This was around 2009 or 2010. I thought for some reason I could get the release going from there, despite having basically no resources at my disposal.

I asked Cody to ship the boxes to me in New York, which he did. I think I had suggested sending them media mail, which he confirmed with the post office was ok. They arrived with $100 postage due, so after conferring with the NY post office, I had them returned to sender thinking they would be sent back to the Portland post office that OK’d it and they would be understanding. No such luck.

When leaving NY, I had to then ship the tapes back to Los Angeles again, 400 tapes’ fourth trip through the mail.

A couple years later I was in Los Angeles, looking through my storage space, tearing the entire thing apart, looking for the 7-inches, thinking maybe I’d try to get this project going again. No luck. I asked everyone I could think of if I had anything stashed or left at their house, specifically a box of 100 unpackaged 7-inches. No. Somehow I managed to lose the entire pressing. (To this day never found.)

The boxes stayed in Cody’s basement for many years, developing a bit of mold, cobwebs, and age by the time I picked them up. Later most fell into even worse condition while in storage (again) and most ended up unsuitable to be used at all and I had to buy more.

A bit of luck later, I was on the phone with Bill Smith looking for some pressing plates, and they told me they had H 58 on the shelf. I immediately knew that these were the plates for the Rip 7-inch and after a moment of astonishment, asked them to press another hundred.

After driving all the pieces across country yet again, they finally were all in one accessible place. I looked for the files of the originals, but it they seem to be completely lost. I asked Greh if he still had them. No luck. I listened to the tapes and figured out what was what and then labeled them all. I got the rest of the material printed and assembled the boxes and finally got everything finished.

The recordings in this set differ greatly from the Rip CD. These recordings were essentially the source for that album, but here the material is presented more as concrète events with less intervention. Since the original files are lost, it’s doubtful there will be any digital or second edition of this version, aside from the Rip album.

Here’s the story of the Vancouver BC show that was the description for the Rip CD when it came out:

We played this show in Vancouver BC that was definitely in my top three. Sissy Spacek caravanned up there with Yellow Swans and arrived late afternoon right between the venue and Gabe’s girlfriend’s house. It was probably about two blocks in between. We hung out there for a little while and I had needed to pee for a really long time, so I took a few steps over to this alley and took a piss and then reconvened with everybody hanging out and waiting for the promoter and Gabe’s girlfriend to arrive. After a couple minutes we noticed these two women in the alley checking us out. After a skeptical, then dismissive look, they squatted directly in my piss and started smoking crack.

Previous to this, we thought everything in Canada had been hilarious. The accents at the border, the 70′s strut of the “walk” light, road signs … pretty much everything. This was something different. I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a long time, and I’m not used to seeing stuff like this in broad daylight off what seemed to be a main drag.

Eventually we hung out a bit at the house and then headed over to the venue once the promoter showed up. I parked and he warned we should take everything out of the car. “Everything.” Don’t leave a single insignificant thing in view or it will definitely get broken into. We unloaded into a white room, kind of cold and dank. The walls and ceiling were literally dripping. It reeked of beer. “Oh, we had a party here last night, we just hosed it down.” “With beer?” I asked as a joke, but not really. He explained it used to be a fish factory and that they had shows there and bands practiced there. They never had any problems with cops because of the neighborhood.

“How many bands are playing?” “Six, I think.” “What time does the show start?” “Probably around midnight.”

We left back for the house to check out their half pipe and hear stories about the view from their second story window. Just walking back and forth a few times between the house and the venue, we saw a lot of stuff — weird stuff. Zombies milling about, prostitutes hanging around, people with bad things or no thing to do. I can’t say how we looked, but I can say that I did not see anyone that looked like they had a normal agenda.

Around 11pm we headed back over. I set up the record table and checked to make sure everything was ok. In the back storage room there was a tower of around 50 cases of beer. Jesse and I were baffled by everything at this point. We decided we should just take a walk up and down the street and see what was about. Just crossing the road had shown us quite a bit. Corydon refused our invitation to join us in no uncertain terms.

We head out to the street. I had noticed this big rig parked on the corner all day. It was just the front cab of a big semi truck. It was the kind that was elongated and probably had a small apartment behind the seats. As we passed it, being night time now, I looked back over my shoulder through the windshield as we walked by and saw a white, doughy, mid-50′s man, standing completely naked, staring back at me from behind/between the seats. We made solid eye contact. I turned immediately and told Jesse, “Don’t look back” as I slowly turned my head around to look again, only this time the light was now off and I could only imagine he was now standing there still looking at me, completely naked, now in darkness. We passed two more crumbling prostitutes who were barely able to stand before we managed to get to the corner. We took a right and noted the street name, Hastings, and walked about six blocks up the street.

Passed 11 pm, things looked much uglier than during the day. Everyone was some kind of walking dead, zombie, prostitute, unconscious and sprawled out, people literally in the gutter, everything looked like absolute bad news. There were many notable sights. We saw a convenience store whose neon sign read, “Open 23 Hours”. We saw drug addicts freaking out, prostitutes getting into cars, people shaking, yelling, etc. Jesse looks fucked up, so I think that’s why, between the two of us, a guy chose his spit for me (but missed). Suddenly we realized we were now far from the venue. Pretty far. We should turn around. We crossed at the intersection at Gore Street and came back on the other side. Unscathed except for an empty box of Goobers thrown at me (again the victim!)

As we stroll up to the venue, probably around 11:30 or so at this point, we have to wade through people to get to the door. Miraculously it is completely packed. $5 to get in, $5 per beer. The promoter explains that underage kids know this is a place they can drink no problem, so they always do well. We play a set alternating between grindcore and full-on noise. People were rowdy during both. Six bands is never something you want to hear, but somehow it went fine, crowded until it ended around 6 am and turned into a sloppy sock hop. All the beer was gone.

The next day Jesse was sick enough to go to the hospital and bow out of the rest of the tour.

***

Recorded up and down the West Coast by Jesse Jackson, Corydon Ronnau, and John Wiese and featuring appearances by Yellow Swans, Peter Kolovos (Open City), and Paul Costuros (Death Sentence: Panda!).

Numbered edition of 100.

http://helicopter-la.com http://helicopter-la.com http://helicopter-la.com

#sissy spacek #noise

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brynnaverse · 7 years

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Reporting My Stolen Plate <<Rant>>

I bought a car back in October and finally got my first PA plate. The dealership put on one of those stupid “Buy cars from us!” license plate frames on it. I hated it, but I didn’t do anything about it, mostly because I’m lazy and when I went to my car it was to go places, not to fiddle with plate decoration. After driving through Canada I realized how much I really hated that license plate frame and made a decision to take it off at some point this week. It was on my list of things to do today. I had my multi-tool ready and I was going to make the switch when I finished with work this afternoon. I was going through my trunk when I noticed... the license plate frame was gone! I was a little confused, “maybe my room mate took it off for me? He’s super sweet and heard me complain about it on the trip.” But then I noticed something weirder! It was a New Jersey plate on my car! I had a weird flashback as my car ran through the options, “did I steal someone elses car?” “Is this really my car?” “Did I always have a New Jersey plate, but I just didn’t recognize that because of the stupid frame?” These were all silly conclusions. Someone came in the night and replaced my plate with another one, now deemed, Fake-Plate. This has thrown off my entire day! I googled “What to do if my plate was stolen” and I was shown many forums and blogs of people giving steps to do in other states and people preaching the greatness of locking plate frames, nothing that could help me directly solve my problem. I realized that I needed to report it to the police, but I couldn't believe this was a 911 matter. People are dying out there and getting in car accidents. My car is fine, I’m fine, I just have a Fake-Plate. I found a few numbers to the police districts near me and each time I called the operator said that the number was disconnected. So I found the number 311 which was supposed to get me in touch with non-emergency police in my area.

A girl with a thick accent answered the phone, I couldn’t understand her name. I told her who I was and the situation. and she intermediately barked back, “well we can’t do anything about that!” “Okay, so wh-” “You have to report your missin plate to PENNdot.” “I read that bu-” “Yeah and they gunna tell you to report it stolen to the police.” “That’s wha-” “Yeah! we can’t help you Ima jus fowad you to PENNdot.” She forwarded me to PENNdot.

PENNdot answered me with an automated menu. I just wanted to talk to someone, I wanted to know what I was supposed to do. After waiting for a representative and getting put on hold for 10 min, the machine hung up on me. I dug around online for the phone number and called back. I went through the automated menu this time, maybe if I went through the menu I could get ahold of someone useful. I was wrong. The menu told me that I needed the form that I had already found on the internet and that they could fax it to me! It didn’t say anything about what to do with a stolen plate. I hung up then called the number back. I waited for a representative. This time the soothing automated voice said that everyone was busy at the moment and they should get to me in 10 minutes. “That isn’t too long,” I said to myself, “I’ll wait, it’ll be fine.” I waited for 27 minutes before a nice woman answered, the phone was breaking up, I didn’t catch her name. She listened to me and said that she could forward me to the correct department, but that she personally couldn’t help me. I was happy to finally be put in the right direction and thanked her for being so helpful. I try to be nice to customer service people, I understand that sometimes the internet lies and they’re not the individual that can help me, patience is integral to this level of Zen. But at this point these phone calls and internet searches have taken an hour and a half out of my work day. I get paid hourly, this really isn’t a feasible option. I assumed that since I was being transferred within the company that the person I was being transferred to would answer pretty immediately. But I was wrong. I stayed on hold for another 40 min. In this time: I downloaded the form I needed to mail to a department over 3 hours away, checked my email, and filled out reviews for activities I’ve recently done. FINALLY a woman named Renee answered. Renee had the voice of a 30-year old fat white woman who didn’t want to talk to anyone. The way she phrased things made her sound like she thought she was smarter than she was and expected everyone to be smarter than they were.

I explained the situation and asked, “What am I supposed to do?”

Her response, “I can’t help you with any of this, you need to file a report with the local police.” “I tried that, none of those numbers worked and when I called 311 they forwarded me to you.” “Well I can’t help you.” “Could you point me in the right direction?” “Call your local police department. Once they get a report they forward the information to us and that’s how it gets handled.” “Could you take down the information to have on hand so it’s recorded that I’m trying to solve this?” “No, you need to file a report with your local police.” “Okay, fine,” I was getting frustrated at this point, I had been on hold for an hour and this was the most she could give me, “Do I call the local police department near my work, where my car currently is? or the department near my house where the car is registered?” “I don’t know where you are, whoever is local.” “Local to what?” “You could always just google it, do you currently have access to the internet.” “Yes, but I tried that and they told me to call you!” “Well they were wrong, you need to file a report with your local police department.” “Local to my current location? or local to my house?” “Google it” “I’ve been on hold for at least 40 minutes and you can’t even get me a number for who to call?” --Renee hung up on me--

Trying to keep calm, I dug around on google for another police department, one that I hadn’t tried to call before. A sergeant answered. She sounded nice and knowledgeable even though I don’t remember her name. I explained the situation to her. She told me that I needed to hang up and call 911 and that I could file a report there.

-.-

I called 911. I explained the situation. The officer said took down my information and said that someone would call me back soon to file a report.

15 min later.

Officer Rodriguez, a straight forward woman, called me. Every couple of seconds a loud beep rang over the line. Her voice was breaking up, but I was on a headset with a mic so I wasn’t too concerned. She asked for my license plate number. I gave it to her and then spelled it out with the military phonetic alphabet. She ran a search and said that the car wasn’t in their system. I said the plate number back to her and told her that I bought the car last October. She read back what she thought I said and said that the plate wasn’t in her system. I told her that she must not be getting the number correct and I called the letters back to her phonetically. After this back and forth we realized that she had been replacing the “F” (Foxtrot) with “S” (Sierra but she called it Sam) and I was annoyed that this little circus girl knew the phonetic alphabet, but her, an officer of the law, didn’t. She said she had a hard time hearing me. I mentioned the Beep. She said the Beep was her phone and that I needed to calm down. I was calm? I had also specifically stepped out of the room to be in a quieter space for her to take my information.

She gave me a report number and I asked what I needed to do next. She said that I needed to get in touch with PENNdot. -.-

I filed a report online with PENNdot and got the documentation printed that I needed to mail to them.

Officer Rodriguez called me back 10 min later. She forgot to ask for my name and Birthdate.

I have lost faith in the competence of the police and PENNdot. It’s Tuesday. Why are people this frustrated and rude? I feel like this circumstance shouldn’t be this complicated.

FOR REFERENCE: If your license plate gets stolen or replaced with a fake plate. PENNSYLVANIA

1. find you original plate number & information.

2. call 911 and calmly explain the situation. An officer will call you back and file a report over the phone.

3. go online and find the MV-44 form. Print it, fill it out, and mail it to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Bureau of Motor Vehicles Harrisburg, PA 17104-2516

4. Wait for your new plate and registration to come in the mail.

#rant #police #stolenplate #licenseplate #drama #rude #PA #Pennsylvania

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