#I probably oversaturated it but whatever
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Goofy fairy painting on the wall
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“I am capable of remembering basic canon information about characters,” I hiss shakily, my hands gripping white-knuckled onto the bathroom mirror as I stare into the reflection of my sunken, bloodshot eyes. “My memory may be bad sometimes, but it isn’t that bad,” I insist. “I can trust myself to remember things like a major character’s primary motivation without having to look it up every five seconds.” My glasses are askew and smudged. My hair is disheveled and dirty. I have not eaten in twenty-nine hours, the past three of which I have spent in this exact position. “I am a competent author!” I shout at myself, starting to weep as I collapse onto the floor and curl up in a ball, struggling to remember whether Leif Bugfables really does use ice magic or if my brain just decided to make that up, then rewrite all of my memories to match it.
#this is exaggerated for comedy's sake#but. yeah. poor memory and paranoia aren't a good combination#on the positive side constantly going back to reexamine canon while i'm writing a fic to make sure it's accurate#probably does help stop me from succumbing to fanon oversaturation regardless of what i'm writing for#jordan screams fruitlessly at the laptop screen#vent#i guess?#i don't really care if people find this funny and want to reblog it though it's whatever
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i've watched too many good things this week
#feeling oversaturated like i probably need to write or do something creative rather than just soaking stuff up#experiencing too many feelings from movies/shows/etc#i'm probably going to rewatch ikiru tomorrow though so whatever lol#if it weren't 11.30 i would probably just watch it now but its over two hours#and i need to go to bed
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.2
I know, I know. It took 2 months to write the second drabble from the poll but...this is not even a drabble anymore. Instead, it's more of a collection of scenes mostly because if I do write how Orion found and began managing the band it would be an entire chapter.
I will say that I condensed this due to that, but if I ever do write the whole thing it might look a *little* different. I had to cut corners and shorten scenes for the sake of length. Still, hope you like it! (This is 4, 363 words btw. what is wrong with me) I should probably find a more efficient way to share such long works but whatevs.
As always, ignore any mistakes or typos or wordy sentences or sentences that probably make no sense upon reading it a second time. I don't edit drabbles and I always just publish the first drafts. haha.
“…Love me and hate me, I don’t mind as long as you take me—”
A low grumble rises in Orion’s throat when the song pauses, the car falling into an unfamiliar silence just as it slows in front of a red light. His large hands tighten their grip on the wheel, and his eyes glide to his co-worker, Marty, just as he’s pulling his hand away from the PAUSE button on the console.
“Is there a reason you’re touching my stuff?” Orion asks, his voice carrying its usual calm that holds a level of ice that has even his superiors shuddering when they think he’s not looking.
Marty licks his lips, his face twisting into its usual expression of guilt. Orion softens his face for his friend’s sake.
Orion Quinn knows the impact he has on people. The rumors that plague him have reached his ears on multiple occasions; he’s a shell of what he once was, never having gotten over the one who got away. He’s detached, the merciless worker that the boss goes to when he’s in need of someone who can do the firing.
He’s the one people are afraid of crossing or talking casually to in fear of letting something slip. People fear him more than they fear the execs.
It wasn’t always like this, sure. Once, Orion used to smile freely, used to talk openly and wear vulnerability like a favorite coat. But then the divorce happened and sides were taken. Suddenly, the armor he didn’t know he had was reinforced, dented and bruised from a battle he didn’t expect to fight, but reinforced nonetheless.
Never date your co-workers.
“The song is terrible, man.” Marty sighs, running a hand through his oily brown hair when he plops back in the seat. The same seat he pushed back at a 120-degree angle. Admittedly, it makes Orion’s nerves flare up. He says nothing; he has enough self-awareness to know that complaining about his seat is a bit too much, even for him. “I was doing both our ears a favor.”
The light changes and Orion absently drums his fingers on the wheel as he drives on ahead, eyes gliding outside to soak in the densely populated street underneath the rising sun. “Yeah.” The word comes out in a resigned breath. “I was hoping it’d get better.”
“We were on the bridge,” Marty throws back. “The only way it could get better is if it ended.” Orion’s lip twitches and of course, Marty can’t let it go. ”Oh! That was an almost-smile.” He leans forward to poke Orion’s rib.
Orion lets out a laugh before his face quickly drops.
Marty grins, plopping his elbow on the ledge of the car door. “All I’m saying is you’ve been listening to demos nonstop this whole month. Not once have I seen you even mildly excited for any of them.”
Orion grits his teeth. “I haven’t had anything substantial to show the team in ages. Our last artist pulled out on signing with us last minute. Our established artists aren’t selling as well anymore. The industry is getting oversaturated—“
“—and we need to be ahead of the curve. Yadda, yadda.” Marty rolls his eyes. “Do you ever just relax? Damn. That stick up your ass is ten-feet lon—“
Marty chokes on his words when Orion’s eyes cut to his. “Say anything else and I’m kicking you out of my car.”
Marty pouts but relents anyway, choosing to change the subject. “What about dating?”
Orion keeps his eyes on the road but quirks a brow. “What about it?”
“You know…” Marty starts, gesticulating vaguely as he searches for the right words. “Maybe putting yourself out there could help you relax. Or even inspire you—“
“No.”
“What? Okay, but—"
“Not interested.”
“You didn’t even know what I was going to sa—“
“Don’t have to.”
Marty huffs and says nothing for a long moment. Neither of them rush to fill the silence; normal for Orion but unusual for his infinitely more talkative friend. It’s only when he pulls into Carolina Records’ parking lot that Marty speaks again and Orion realizes his silence was really just contemplation.
“I know the divorce was difficult,” he starts, delicate, “but—“
Orion’s jaw clenches.
“— that doesn’t mean you should give up.”
Orion sits there a moment, fingers clenching into fists. “It’s not giving up if I never tried in the first place.” He swings open the door and steps out, the car door slamming with a hint of finality.
. . .
Carolina Records boasts a twenty-floor skyscraper made up of floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sleek, dark marble floor. Orion has been here since he graduated college; going from a measly intern to an A&R representative responsible for finding two of the most promising artists in the company.
That was a year ago. Since then, the well of new talent has dried up and Orion doesn’t know what to do.
Of course, he was offered higher positions, all of which he quickly denied. Orion always had a knack for numbers and trends, discovering what new genre is going to come to the forefront, seeing what kind of music the general public is listening to. Music: he understands it better than people. His understanding is almost clinical: while people listen to it for enjoyment, Orion seeks the patterns, the feelings that every beat and scale and vocal run they invoke. He takes it apart and puts it together like a surgeon does a patient. It just makes sense to him.
He could do so much more, he knows that, but none of that interests him.
The music—that’s what he likes.
Discovering new talent is what excites him. Which is why this odd dry spell has him walking with gritted teeth and tension between his shoulders-blades. He has to do something.
“Mr. Quinn.”
Orion nods at a woman who passes by the hallway, ignoring the way Marty does a whole spin when he tracks her retreating frame down the hall.
Another one. This time a man from the marketing department. “Good Morning, Mr. Quinn.”
“Morning.”
Marty scoffs when the man continues walking, not sparing him a glance.
“Am I chopped liver or something?” Marty complains.
“Mr. Quinn, hey!”
“Hi.” Orion nods his head once and presses the elevator button. When his eyes land on a frowning Marty he says, “You’re just not sociable.”
“Huh?!” Marty then lets out an embarrassingly high-pitched sputter of a laugh. “And you are?”
Orion frowns. “Yes.”
Another laugh. “You’re smart, dude, you know it’s more because of that”— he gestures vaguely at him—“than your social skills.”
The elevator doors open with a cheerful bell and they step inside. “What?”
“You know.” Marty shrugs. “Your face. You look like you should be on a billboard advertising overpriced cologne with your shirt unbuttoned and your hand in your hair talking about your luxurious life or something.”
“That’s…specific.”
Marty shrugs. “I read a lot of GQ.”
Orion wrinkles his nose when they spin to face the doors. “While it is true I would be considered objectively handsome by societal standards—“
“Oh, fuck off.”
“—I don’t think that’s the case.” This time Orion lets out a small smile. “Or maybe it is?” He quirks a brow at his co-worker. “Should I send a gift basket to my parents? A ‘thank-you-for-the-superior-DNA gift?’”
Marty shakes his head. “You know, when you do try to be funny you still sound like an asshole.”
Orion hums, the joke tickling him enough for him to let out his first smile of the day.
The elevator doors sing their arrival and they bid farewell once they part to go to their respective offices. Orion strides to his corner office where another one of his co-workers, Kass, is standing with a box in her hands.
“This week’s demos.” Orion is just putting his arms out when she plops the boxes on them. “You should really stop requesting unsolicited demos. It’s such an outdated way of doing things.”
Orion ignores her and unlocks his office door, turning the knob and pushing it open with his hip. His office is barren but spacious, with high windows overlooking the city. Marty told him once that people would kill to have his office, but really it’s just like any other space. What’s an office without a productive person to work in it? Orion hasn’t done anything of meaning in weeks.
Sighing, he drops the box on the table unceremoniously, picking up the first CD on the top of the pile. GROUNDED IN REALITY reads the title, and it’s so apt that he almost chucks the CD in the trash on that very fact alone. Still, he’s nothing if not fair. Another sigh escapes him and he gets to listening.
. . .
Helpless.
That’s how he feels.
After hours of listening, the music has long since blurred together in a portrait of uninspired melodies and generic, radio-friendly lyrics. Nothing stood out, nothing made him want to dig into the song in search for more, nothing made him feel.
Is it me? Am I the problem?
Jaw clenched, Orion fishes out his phone, the usual flinch coming to him when he sees the background. He forgot to change it, and it’s always an (unwanted) surprise whenever he sees a picture of them together.
One year ago. The beach. Happy.
Shaking his head, he sends a quick text to his mother telling her that he’ll have to raincheck on their dinner. He still has half a box of songs left. Looks like he’ll be staying late.
“Yo, Orion!” A knock. “Let’s go! I want to driiink.”
Or not.
Marty strides in without waiting for an invitation, a grin on his face. “Tab is on me.”
“Do you ever work?” Orion asks, eyes half-lidded in equal parts annoyance and indifference.
His friend frowns. “This is work.”
“I don’t think getting drunk is in the job description.” Orion looks down, absently clicking on the button of his mouse in an effort to busy his hands.
“Wah, wah. Don’t be a fucking party pooper.”
“Too late.”
Marty shoots him a look. “A few artists are playing tonight. Call this recruitment.” He uses spirit fingers. “Maybe you’ll even loosen up for once.” When Orion looks at him, a brow raised, Marty drops his hands. “Yes, I do my job sometimes. Don’t look so surprised.”
“It’s not that,” Orion starts. He doesn’t immediately continue. Instead, they simply stare at each other. Marty wiggles his brows as Orion narrows his gaze. “When you say the tab is on you—“
Marty whips out a black card. “Company card, baby!”
Orion palms his face with a long groan as Marty begins to moonwalk across Orion’s office. “I was perfectly fine staying inside.” Even though he says this, a moment later he stands and grabs his trenchcoat from the back of the chair. “And you’re driving.”
“What!” Marty stomps his foot as he follows him out. “Nooooo.”
. . .
The bar sits in a livelier part of the city, a part that Orion doesn’t often find himself in. It’s less about the scene and more about the memories associated with every damn corner of this place. Orion can pluck a memory from his mind like a petal from a rose garden: the diner they went to and fought for fifteen minutes over who would get to pay the bill, the park they spent their lunches at.
The shop where he bought the ring.
“This place is golden,” Marty says, breaking Orion out of the string of memories he wishes he could erase forever, “it’s like a real gritty, underground hole-in-the-wall vibe.”
“Sounds like fun,” comes out of Orion in a dour tone that has Marty rolling his eyes.
They stride through the neon glow of the brick hall until it opens up to a dimly lit bar. The space is humble; the sparse crowd is compensated by the energy of the performers on the stage.
“Stacy, do you remember when I mowed your lawn…?”
“Is the band really covering Fountains of Wayne?” Orion says through gritted teeth.
Marty bites his lower lip, his obvious attempt to stifle laughter only making Orion’s faux horror flare even more. “Maybe.” Marty spins around, shimmying his shoulder. “You don’t agree that Stacy’s Mom Has Got It Going on?” Marty then realizes something and laughs. “You know, I dated a Stacy once. Weirdly enough, her mom wasn’t that bad looking—“
Orion sighs and quickly moves to the bar. “I need a drink.”
Whatever hope Orion had of finding new talent is gone in the face of the line-up. It quickly becomes obvious that the performers are composed of people who aren’t taking the ‘gig’ seriously or patrons that are half-drunk and stumbling on the small stage.
Worse that the place is pathetically empty; it’s only them two and three other stragglers eating stale fries and bobbing their heads to the music, more out of obligatory politeness than anything else. Orion is suddenly regretting taking Marty up on his offer.
Orion drinks his lager through periodic gulps, his desire to forget this night growing with every person that performs. The memories of this area coupled with his lack of work lately make him dizzy. He wants to escape. Quit. Scream. All of it.
“Get me another,” Orion says, much to Marty’s delight.
More and more people perform until Orion has lost any focus on the stage. Instead, he entertains himself by watching the game on the TV, having long given up on finding any new promising talent in a place like this.
“Next up we have”—the bartender stops, her eyes narrowing as she tries to read something off an index card—“er, [band]. Yeah. Give them a round of applause.”
With how few people are in attendance, the applause is less applause and more awkward clapping that quickly dies after two.
The people on stage are younger. Immediately, Orion notices that they’re equipped with actual instruments instead of relying on the karaoke machine in the corner. A decisive point in their favor, he decides.
“You said this was a gig…” He hears one of them say to what appears to be the lead singer. The boy wears a red hat, as well as an assortment of chains on his neck. Three other band members set up their instruments, trying not to look too disappointed by the turnout. Still, even with the lager creating a slight fog in his head, Orion knows that look. The moment when hope dies, burning like a napkin to a flame.
“No,” the lead singer says pointedly as they adjust their mic, “I said this was a favor.” In that moment, the singer nods their head at the bartender, who shoots them an appreciative thumbs-up. “A paid favor.”
The boy shakes his head but snorts. “I guess.”
Once they’re set up, the singer looks ahead, gazing at the bar. Their eyes briefly settle on Orion as they gaze at the few faces in the room. “Hey!” they say, chirpy. “We’re [band]. Thanks for coming out!”
A chorus of muttering replies.
Marty taps on the bar. “Wanna head out?”
Orion, unable to look away, shakes his head. “No. I want to see this.”
The next few minutes feel like a dream. Orion is in a daze as the song plays, the beats piercing through him. The voice sends goosebumps up his arms, the instruments weave together in a perfect harmony that has Orion’s heart racing. When the song ends, it’s too soon. He wants it to keep going. He doesn’t want it to end.
He wants more.
“Thanks!” The singer says to a smattering of slightly enthusiastic applause. This is the most energy everyone has had all night. They turn, grab their things, and disappear through the curtain. Orion bursts up….
…spilling his drink on the table.
“Oh!” the bartender squeaks as Marty hisses.
“Aw, fuck.” Orion curses, and then flinches. “Sorry. Uh….sorry.” He doesn’t know what his apology is for. Dropping the drink, cussing, or speeding away before he could help clean it up in order to catch the band backstage?
“Hey!” Marty calls. “Where are you going?”
Orion ignores him. He has a one-track mind right now, one focused on finding the band that just made him feel like he hit the jackpot. This. This is what he’s been looking for.
The door swings open, and the band stop mid-conversation to look at Orion, who busted through the door without so much as a plan or script in place. Instead, he simply stands there.
“Uh.” One girl, flaunting bright blue hair, says. “Yeah?”
Orion reveals his card, feeling a bit like a robot. He moves on automatic, working through the many thoughts in his head to utter the rest of his words. “Do you have a manager?”
. . .
“You want to manage us?”
The din of the coffee shop sings with the sound of plates and aimless chatter. It’s been two days since he heard them perform back at the bar, and Orion has been running through his pitch the way one does before an interview. He’s never been this…nervous? Uncertain? In his life.
“Yes,” is Orion’s only response. He sits on one side of the table while the band sits on the other; an invisible wall between them. He can see it, their apprehension. He is not one of them.
Not yet, at least.
“Wait.” The boy Orion learned is named Rowan leans forward, fingers on the table. “How do we know this isn’t a scam?”
“I’m not asking for money. All I ask is for you to show up to play for my boss. That’s it.” Auditions are a lost art. Nowadays artists are recruited through viral internet songs and connections. Two things that always exhausted Orion. It hasn’t been just about the music in a long time.
Their eyes widen. They all exchange looks, equal parts excited and wary.
“Why?” [MC], who he learned is the sole singer of the band, asks.
Because you made me feel something. Because listening to you is the first time I felt human in a long time.
He imagines himself waving off those words like mist. “Because you’re the first band that has caught my attention. And it’s not easy to catch my attention.”
The band member named Iris snorts.
“I’m not trying to be arrogant,” he says blandly, leaning back in his chair to fold his arms over his chest. “It’s the truth.”
“Where do you work?” Another member, Devyn, asks.
“Carolina Records.”
Multiple pairs of eyes widen.
“Holy shit.” Jazzy laughs. “The Carolina Records?”
Orion nods, used to this kind of reaction. Starry-eyed artists are pretty much the same when it comes to Carolina. “Yes.” He leans forward, his heart racing. “Just one audition. That’s all I ask.”
He watches as they all exchange looks; a silent language only they share. After an agonizing moment, [MC] turns to him and nods. “When?”
. . . .
Orion has been pacing for the last half hour.
He stands outside Carolina’s humble theater space, chewing on his nails as he waits for his boss, Jacob Hill, and a smattering of other executives and shareholders that will be the final word in whether Orion can work with [band]. He hasn’t asked for something this big in so long that Jacob Hill immediately said yes, more out of excitement and surprise than anything else. Orion did produce two of their most profitable artists in the company.
The elevator doors open and Orion stops in place, head whipping up to see them walking through the hall in a wave of black suits and greased hair. Orion brushes down his shirt, trying to dampen his nerves. Jesus. Nerves? Get a grip, Orion.
He doesn’t know how to stand as he waits for them to approach. Hands in pockets? Arms crossed? Orion is so indecisive he just resorts to standing straight, arms at his sides.
“Mr. Hill.” Orion shakes his hand, clearing his throat. He makes his polite greetings to the rest of the team and says, “Thank you for making time for me.”
“Always, Orion.” Jacob slaps a large hand on his back. “You’re one of my best. You should ask me for favors more.”
Orion lets out a small, slightly nervous laugh. “Ah, you know. I like to—“
“—do things on your own,” Jacob finishes, a soft smile on his face. “I get it.”
He slowly looks up, meeting Jacob’s eyes. In them he can see the familiar pity he’s gotten since the divorce.
It’s Orion’s fault, really. If he didn’t isolate himself and turn into what he is now, people wouldn’t look at him and assume he’s broken inside.
Would they be wrong in their assumption, though? Am I broken inside?
“Shall we?” another executive says, and Orion bobs his head in a nod, pushing away the image of Jacob’s face.
Inside is a small theater, the stage just big enough for one artist. The seats are plush leather, the lights dim but blue. Jacob always likes the spectacle, and he catered this space to feel like a real performance for possible signees. Orion decides against sitting, too nervous to do anything but stand in the back, giving them the signal he taught them in his pep talk before they came.
[MC] nods. “Um. Hi. We’re [band]. I’m [MC] and this is Iris, Rowan, Devyn, and Jazzy. And um…this is [song].”
Orion flinches at the lackluster introduction. Doesn’t matter, he thinks, unfamiliarly optimistic, the music will do the talking.
And it does.
But not in the way he thought.
All throughout the song, Orion peeks at Jacob and his team. He wants to celebrate when he sees them bobbing their heads, wants to curse when they get on their phones. Orion has never worried this much in his whole career. He’s never wanted something so bad.
He’s never allowed himself to want. Not after the divorce.
He didn’t think he was deserving of getting what he wanted.
The song ends, and Orion lets out a breath. There’s muffled chatter between the men, and on stage the band crowd together, hopping in place as they let out their remaining nerves.
Jacob stands, the rest following. Orion speeds ahead, wanting to see the thoughts on his face. Instead, Jacob simply regards him with thin lips.
“They were…good,” Jacob whispers, putting a hand on Orion’s shoulder and guiding him out of the room and to the empty hall, “but I think we’re going to go in another direction.”
Orion’s positivity leaks out of him like an open faucet. “What.”
Jacob inhales through his nose. “Look, the singer is talented. They all are. I understand why you like them but…” He shakes his head. “I don’t think the guys see it. And plus,” he shrugs, “they don’t have what we’re looking for.”
Orion’s brows furrow. His stomach drops in itself and his mouth dries. “They have another song. They could play it—“
“Orion.” Jacob gives him that pitying expression again. Fucking hell. He wants to smack that expression off his face. “I know you’ve been…off, since the divorce. You haven’t been on top of your game, and I’ve been giving you your space. It’s not easy, especially since you worked together—“
“I’m fine,” he says tightly.
“—but you can’t…fixate on something to get over it. You need to do it the healthy way. The old Orion would’ve brought me someone with pizzazz. With that unique Orion touch, you know?” Jacob pulls him close. Orion is reduced to a scolded child, unable to do anything but listen. “This isn’t the Orion I know. You usually bring me diamonds.”
“I—“ Orion swallows. “I’m trying.” And it’s the most honest thing he’s said in ages. He’s trying. And it’s not working. He’s been trying the day he signed that fucking divorce paper and signed the only life he’s known away.
“I know you are,” Jacob says, squeezing his shoulder. “Sometimes we miss, and that’s alright.”
The rest of the group filter out and both Jacob and Orion step back, trying to hide any sign of their tense conversation. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Orion nods slowly, the lump in his throat growing as he feels multiple eyes on him. His jaw is clenched, his eyes are downturned. He can hardly look at his boss.
He stands there, frozen, forced to listen to their careless chatter as they walk down the hall. The moment they stepped out of those doors, they forgot about the band. The same band that made him feel something, the first time since his divorce. The same band he can’t get out of his head. The same band that proved he is not broken. He can still feel.
And they don’t even fucking care.
“I quit,” Orion says, the words coming out of him before he could even think. Jacob and Co turn around, twin expressions of shock on their faces. Orion looks up, straightening, trying to look even an inch of the Old Him.
“What?” Jacob blurts.
“I quit.” Orion swallows. “I’ll formally hand in my resignation tomorrow.” He bows, trying to muster up the little respect and professionalism he has in him. “I’m sorry.”
“Orion—“
He spins around, walking back inside.
The band is still on stage, this time all packed up and ready to go. When the door closes, they all look up, their hopeful and wide eyes on Orion as he walks down to the stage.
He stops in front of it. He puts two palms on the stage, looking at the members of the band he will take to the top. He promised it to himself…two minutes ago.
“I’m going to ask again,” Orion says through his teeth, his heart racing with the adrenaline of his quitting. What the fuck is he doing? And why does it feel so good? “Do you still need a manager?”
When he looks up, the band stares at him in silence.
He witnesses [MC] look behind him at the door, where Jacob and his team left. As if realizing something, they look back down. “Yeah. You okay with another artist in your roster?”
“Yes.” Orion nods. He’s okay with it.
Because all he needs is one.
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Tumblr, in my estimation, cannot be a place that is profitable, because the aims of the userbase can be described somewhere between fuck around and fuck off. No one comes here for anything other than shitposting. Companies don't try to find your tumblr, to my knowledge, so it's the last safe place on the internet to just say stupid shit and learn from it, instead of becoming unemployable.
Tumblr would be a really good buy for like, Archive.org. Someone who doesn't have to worry about 'profit', they just have to keep the lights on. Do moderation by roundtable, when someone submits a support request, like "I'm being harassed", the proof they provide is sent to ten random active bloggers(unrelated to any involved parties), and their decision is actionable. Provide the tools for self determination, instead of a black box that doesn't seem to be working for anyone. It's cheaper, and fairer to the community in general. I dunno, it's probably not perfect, but it's better than 'just doing nothing until the person who keep complaining gives us a reason to ban them, that makes the problem go away'. Honestly, Matt whatever should just donate tumblr to them, call it a charitable donation, claim it on his taxes. It's a sinking ship every minute you're trying to extract value from it. It's real current value is almost certainly hovering around "the change in people's couches of like 20 households".
Tumblr has a place on the internet, an important place, but it'll never be a need that is profitable. And Tumblr's history and reputation kind of prevent it from ever being changed into something different that would be as profitable as whoever currently owns it would want. I suppose you could burn it all to the ground, wipe the servers and start a twitter clone. But it'll just be one more on a field that's so oversaturated it's not worth trying. I'm not sure why people keep buying tumblr, it's a fantastic creative community, but it's products can't be sold, and the userbase is poor and has little to no interest in paying for 'upgrades'. So you could sell everything to AI scrapers, or data miners, but you'll lose the entire userbase and no one's gonna come in to fill the gaps left. It's a quick and messy death.
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what draws you to homosexual relationships in fiction as opposed to heterosexual ones? I noticed I prefer them as well but I don’t really know why. Or maybe it’s just in the media I like the homosexual relationships are written to be much more compelling, I don’t know. This isn’t hate against het relationships btw I support all sexualities
Probably a million different reasons honestly. Off the top of my head, some of my personal reasons:
-- I'm bi but more interested in gay relationships in my personal life, so my fictional interests reflect my irl interests.
-- Removes misogyny as a factor both within the romantic dynamic and, if m/m, the depiction.
-- Relatedly, I hate how 99% of hetero relationships in media have a built in lowkey unacknowledged d/s vibe due to that misogyny. Woman passive man active, woman pursued man pursues, woman weak man strong, woman soft man hard, woman fucked man fuck, woman object man subject, woman prize man winner, woman small man big, woman puts in work and money to make herself attractive man gets to live at his default state, woman desirable for looks man desirable for personality/money/skill, woman financially dependent on man, etc etc etc. Turns me off.
-- Like at least when that's the dynamic in m/m or f/f it's deliberately someone's kink and a gender norm is being subverted by one of the characters.
-- Gay relationships being more equal is something I've seen cited a lot, rightly or not, but it isn't one of my reasons lol, I like unequal relationships in fiction. That said, gender not being a factor in that inequality is definitely a draw for me.
-- Subtext is more engaging than most textual romances, and gay relationships are more likely to be subtext while het is more likely to be textual.
-- Gay sex (m/m and f/f) turns me on, straight sex rarely does.
-- Specific to m/m, but men in fiction are more likely to have compelling, complicated, deep relationships with each other than they are with women.
-- I enjoy gender nonconformity which is much more plentiful in gay ships and fiction than straight media.
-- Heterosexuality is oversaturated in media and I'm exhausted and irritated by its ubiquitousness.
-- As someone who grew up in the 90s, the existence of casually gay popular media still blows my mind lol, the shine has not come even close to wearing off. Heterosexual media just can't compete with that.
Anyway yeah, those are a few of my reasons, and maybe they align with some of yours as well.
Ultimately though I don't think it matters and it shouldn't be something you feel the need to justify imo. Enjoy whatever you enjoy for whatever reason, or no reason at all. But if you enjoy soul searching, then maybe this list is a decent starting point.
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Meet the Mods
Hello hello, I'm Mod Voli and I should really be dealing with finals right now but I have free will dammit let me look at and giggle at hornyposts!!!!!
I'm one of the new mods and have so far had an absolutely wonderful time being dealt significant psychic damage by the inbox and I would not have it any other way <3 You can probably recognize a post of mine if it's a screenshot that's just a liiiittle bit oversaturated (the ReShade heart wants what it wants what can I say) or has a very stupidly stretched out photo of Gale (you'll see what I mean soon :)
On any given day you can probably find me frothing at the mouth over pretty fantasy elves or whatever problematic fictional man has overtaken my brain at that moment. Or women. usually women.
Current bg3 faves are Gortash, Jaheira, Orin, Astarion, Shadowheart, jesus there's too many. Shaking my fist like an old man yelling at cloud at every submission I've seen dunking on the handsome young man with a quick easy smile. I'll get you (lie)
Proud and humbled to be of service to all you thirsty motherfuckers, keep it coming or else🫡🫡
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I get asks like these a lot asking for my opinion about other webtoons outside of LO and Let's Play and ima be honest with y'all, if I haven't talked about it on this blog already, I probably don't read it. It's not for any lack of wanting to read comics, but it's sort of the nature of the beast - once you start making the medium you consume, you wind up with a lot less time to actually consume it. I don't keep up on nearly as many webtoons/webcomics as I used to, and it's partially because 1.) I'm too busy making them, 2.) the current oversaturation of the market means I'm not gonna really be compelled to try and read things unless it's something I'm really interested in, and 3.) I have ADHD so I already have a hard time starting new stories as it is, I often prefer just keeping up on comfort series that I know I like even if there are only a few of them LOL I know that means I'm likely missing out on a lot of great stories out there, but I can only keep up on so much stuff :')
Most of the comics I read nowadays aren't even on the WT app, it's stuff like Tale of Two Lovers, Alfie, Tamberlane, and Awkward Zombie. And whatever I DO read that's on the app, it's stuff that's being made by friends or stuff that fits a special interest that I've been following for a while. So webcomics like Time and Time Again, City of Blank, SHE MAKES HUNGRY, Growing Up Gerudo, Loving Reaper, and Zelda's Lullaby.
I'm frankly a bit old school so a lot of the stuff I read tends to be stuff that has its own independent site OR completely outside of the realm of webtoons and more into traditional publishing like manga.
That said, I do try to stay up to date on webtoons and newer series as much as I can as it's good for me to stay updated on what's going on in the industry and it means I'm exposing myself to new ideas and techniques, but I struggle with just picking up a webtoon and bingeing it for 10-20 episodes to see if I like it. So many of them now tend to just be the same thing with slightly different coats of paint. And I'm definitely not gonna pick up a webtoon just because people want my opinion of it, sorry but that's just not how this works LMAO Especially if it's a webtoon that people are expecting me to be critical of because it's written poorly, like why would I subject myself to reading something that I know right off the bat probably isn't gonna be enjoyable? Sure, if it's something REALLY bad I'll check them out to see what people are going off about or so I can form my own opinion, but I also don't want to be regularly subjecting myself to garbage that pisses me off when I could be reading stuff that brings me joy, I spend enough time being pissed off at LO and Let's Play as it is. I know, that's likely wild coming from me of all people, but I do like to enjoy things LOL It's not like I went into comics like LO and Let's Play hating them right off the bat, I actually used to really like those comics, until they either fell off or I spent more time reflecting on them and I realized how poorly written and drawn they were.
So no, sorry, but I don't have an opinion about webtoons like Unordinary or I Love Yoo or whatever have you and I can't guarantee I'll ever get around to reading them. If I do have an opinion about a webtoon, believe me, I'll post about them unprovoked, you won't need to ask me for them LMAO
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What is ur favorite font
Authentic Sans. I use it in almost all of my work as the body and the header.
But rn ive been more into to hand written type and i think cool fonts are oversaturated asf. I used to be really into finding super cool fonts for titles and headers but then a friend of mine and I were talking about how annoying it is that the general public has access to adobe and can just use whatever quirky pinterest squishy maximal font they want as the logo for their hair salon or coffee shop. It just always looks bad. We were better off when people had to choose between helvetica, hobo, cooper or georgia for their business signage.
The best alternative to using “cool fonts” is hand drawing your type. Hand draw all of your headers and titles. Hand paint all of your signs. Even hand write your restaurant menus. I have terrible hand writing and I feel like its because I use my computer and phone for everything. Hand writing is the next lost art probably.
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Some unsorted (initial, I guess) retrospective thoughts on The Magician Who Loved a Fake.
First of all, Magician revisits a lot of themes and plot elements from Ashiyama’s two older doujins, Imaginative Power of Meiji ✕✕ (Reimu’s youth and struggle with her role) and especially Koushin Night (Marisa’s relationship with her dad, and even the part where she makes medicine for him). The final battle in Magician happening on the night of Koushin is a very blatant callback there. They don’t fit into the same continuity or anything, but I highly recommend reading them after Magician if you hadn’t read them before. They’re good.
===================
I loved (heh) how the meaning of the title kept getting expanded on. Is the “fake” that Marisa loves magic itself? Her dream? Her lifestyle? Herself? Reimu? Her image of Reimu? And whatever it is, will she still love it by the end? In the end, the answer was “yes” to all of those. If you’re gonna told me you took it for granted that Reimu was a candidate for the position of “fake” too, well, good for you I guess. But for me, that dawning realization was one of my favorite moments in reading this series.
Similarly, I enjoyed how at least my own impression of what the plot was “about” shifted over time. Of course, on a surface level, there’s the Magician Incident, but it’s never really sold as a huge deal in and of itself: it’s probably pretty clear from the start that it’s a lead-in to something more important. By Chapter 2, you’re led to think that the main conflict might be about Marisa becoming or threatening to become a youkai magician. “Reimu deals with Marisa becoming a youkai” is one of the most iconic and well-established plots in the Touhou fandom, with a lot of different takes, but possibly a risk of oversaturation as a result - at least as someone who’s translated a lot of them. I can’t help but wonder if that was a conscious reason that it ended up being teased and then subverted here.
Even as the story mainly focuses on them dealing with the Magician Incident, which starts developing new twists, the threat of a more important personal conflict looms in the background where Marisa has pushed it. In Chapter 9, the crisis of Marisa becoming a magician is suddenly and completely replaced by her personal crisis over not being one anymore. Reimu acts seemingly aloof about it at first, but by Chapter 11, Marisa has kind of settled into the new status quo while the story suddenly becomes about Reimu’s crisis over it – more or less the polar opposite of the conflict foreshadowed since Chapter 2, and of the usual trope. I think part of the reason Marisa settles into the village life is that Reimu is still there. When she disappears, Marisa misses Reimu first and foremost, and magic as the proxy that allows her to be with Reimu (as she admits out loud in Chapter 12).
Gensokyo of Humans did something slightly similar, with how the acute problem of Akyuu’s memory loss and impending death - while still serious - gave way to her much deeper misgivings about her lot in life. Although, in GoH’s case these problems were closely intertwined and mostly ran side-by-side rather than replacing one another as a twist, so it’s not the exact same or anything.
Even though Ashiyama’s on Twitter joking “Fooled you! This was a ReiMari manga from the start!” I think you can’t in all honesty call that a last-minute twist or rug pull or anything, as some people have taken it almost in bad faith. While it was arguably up in the air until Ch. 11 or so whether Reimu and Marisa’s relationship would be at the center of the story or not, I think by then it became well-established as the actual point of conflict (though as I explained above, it was there from the start).
In a related manner, from the very first cover page and announcement, the story is presented as an action-packed adventure manga. I don’t know how much of this was just marketing, but by SCoOW standards, it wasn’t wrong: at first, every chapter features at least one major combat scene. Thus the end of Chapter 8 is felt even on a meta level as the action comes to an end with a crunch and disappears from the story entirely. Marisa and Reimu’s grief over the loss of her magic is made a lot more real by the fact that much like Marisa’s life, the manga’s whole genre takes a shift (arguably towards something more normal for Ashiyama). Of course, Magician was never trying to present itself as an exaggeratedly happy-go-lucky shounen that would make this come across as an attempt at shock-value genre deconstruction or anything; but the complete disappearance of action from the manga reflects its disappearance from Marisa’s life in a way that wouldn’t come across if we’d never been shown that action to begin with. Of course, it’s still understandable to be annoyed by that if you preferred the action.
Personally, I absolutely liked the action scenes too, but they were maybe a little detached, and this shift made it easier to become invested in the emotional core of the story. (Of course, it also happened at the same time that the story became more emotional in general, so it’s hard to separate correlation and causation there.) And naturally, the final battle was great, both in its presentation and what it represented for Marisa as a character at that point. The way she’s forced to fight now - yet fights, and wins nonetheless - provides a big contrast for how she fought early in the series, when she was the second most powerful human in Gensokyo.
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Speaking of the “final” battle, let’s address what to me feels like something of an elephant in the room: similar to GoH, Magician has kind of a two-climax structure, where the story hits its first peak a bit earlier but then still needs to carry that energy forward to a second peak. Objectively that space between peaks is only like one chapter here, but it ends up feeling a lot longer. I was surprised but glad to see the inquisitor and witch’s story brought back and tied into the current one, but in retrospect, the pacing does suffer because of the page space dedicated to it then and there, when the story should be riding every bit of momentum from the final battle to the emotionally more significant ReiMari reunion.
While giving every bit of benefit of the doubt regarding the realities of working on a monthly manga, the squeezed pacing of the final chapter is the clearest criticism I have for this series. While it maybe says everything it needs to say - much of it being Marisa and Reimu telling each other what they have already told the audience, which is important - emotionally, it doesn’t work as well as it could, and kinda leaves the reader to expand on it in their own head. Having to digest an ending isn’t a bad thing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true it lacked some oomph.
In GoH’s case, the emotional resolution came first and then had a relatively smooth falling-action slide into the practical resolution. Here it kinda felt like the other way around, and didn’t work out as well. This model/theory I keep talking about might well be flawed and overly based on comparisons to GoH, though.
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Marisa’s stay at her father’s includes multiple other characters speaking with authority about how it’s a good thing, basically trying to decide her life for her the way her father used to. However, Byakuren and Kourin are both only projecting their own attitudes onto her and acting sanctimonious about it without really understanding either her background or her present situation. Byakuren of course is an outsider in general, and her armchair psychology and talk of filial piety come across as rather out of touch, but even Kourin, who ought to know Marisa pretty well and in many ways does, has his head too far up his behind to see Marisa’s lifestyle as anything but an imitation of himself, caused by his influence. He takes it upon himself to “fix” it by forcing her back home, and even decides that he must disappear from Marisa’s life entirely or she’ll follow him back to the wrong path again like the child she is. Even above that infantilizing attitude, him deciding to abandon Marisa for good would probably have hurt her more than anything else he’d done, possibly a far worse abandonment than that by her father.
Kourin does throw in valid and I’m sure honest concerns about things like Marisa hurting herself (she was indeed acting irrational and self-destructive - though her literal suicide attempt only came after his and Reimu’s abandonment), but it’s hard to see his other behavior as grounded in anything but personal bias. Whether or not this is intentional and without drawing too strict connections between different doujins, his behavior here and in Imaginative Power of Meiji ✕✕ makes it look like he has a streak of putting Reimu and Marisa in bad situations just to satisfy his own self-righteous moral of the story, even though he’s always been the closest, most trusted adult for both of them.
I’m generally not the type to demand that characters get their “comeuppance”, but man, Byakuren at least admitted (in her mind) that she was manipulating Marisa. Even though I find this Kourin really interesting as a character, I couldn’t help but want some kinda acknowledgment - be it by himself or by someone else - that he was kind of a prick. I wish his and Marisa’s reunion had been shown rather than happen between scenes, at least.
===================
All in all, Ashiyama delivers. I really liked the manga from beginning to end, and can only really say I’m disappointed in the ending’s pacing. The story was emotional, emotionally satisfying, and interesting in ways I didn’t even get into here, like the different magicians who got to show up or the huge damn themes of passionate work for its own sake, feelings of academic inadequacy, and legacy beyond death - something the series had in common with GoH, really. Dunno if I really ever bring it up, but I’m actually a historian, so these themes in Ashiyama’s works really appeal to me. The actual “witch hunt” stuff felt iffy historically speaking, but I liked the way it was used in the story, and also how the magicians of Gensokyo were kind of tied into the outside world - or the Outside World as it is in Touhou, anyway. I kept thinking to myself, yeah, in the Touhouverse, why wouldn’t medieval inquisitors be going more after witches and using witchcraft themselves in order to do so? Especially once it was established that yeah, even though magicians exist in this world, they’re more than capable of avoiding the hunts, and the actual victims were still mostly just regular people.
Ashiyama (and his assistant or maybe assistants, who especially did a lot of the backgrounds) did great work with the visuals, and speaking as a translator, Ashiyama also has some of my very favorite dialogue to work with for some reason.
I dunno. This has been just kind of a ramble.
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I can't imagine Ghost making a whole lot of media references in conversation, not because he's never been exposed to it, but because he sees it as largely irrelevant and also just straight up does not give a fuck. When it comes, it's very few and far between.
That said, I imagine his knowledge of media from childhood is a little fucked up and rather telling. There were times when Simon and Tommy were just shoved in front of the telly when their parents didn't have the time or wherewithal to deal with them, some kids' channel haphazardly thrown on to keep them occupied for a while.
When his father wanted to watch the TV, however, he'd just put on whatever the hell he wanted and damn whether it was child-appropriate or not. Simon and his brother probably had a lot of nightmares from scary shows and movies his dad watched while they were in the room, or even egged them on to watch with him in his inebriated stupor, like they were his buddies. Tommy was better at pretending to enjoy it than Simon. Media from the late 80s and early 90s oversaturated with violence and sex.
Maybe that's another reason Ghost doesn't bring it up. Too many concerned teachers at school and bruised ribs for being such a goddamn loudmouthed pansy. Simon learned not to talk about television and movies with his peers.
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How do you fight the urge to make pandering and trendy content that's all too oversaturated on the youtub platform and keep on doing the same timeless and wholesome content that you're known for?
The urge doesn't exist at all so the fight is really easy and one sided.
The reality is... I don't particularly try to 'grow' and to 'get money' or whatever. Like those are things you genuinely have to do if you want the robots running youtube to notice you, but I started early and that got me a bit of a more organic boost and.. I dunno. Like yeah, I will probably never grow more than I have now, but I make things for a very specific niche of people, and I'm aware of that.
I feel unbelievably lucky and grateful that I'm in a position where I can just actually 'do what I want' and not have to chase trends and algorithms. I'm so lucky for my patreon for that :O
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"Hey. I got something for Spyke. A lil prezzy. Sicne I heard he liked meat andall."
*holds out a massive, raw, dripping chunk of bright-red steak, supported from underneath with both hands like a large heavy box. Its place of origin within the cow (or whatever the Splatoon equivalent of cattle is) is dubious, but probably passable as human-tier (or Urchin-tier) food if cooked, assuming it's even beef. Whatever it is, it's fresh, the kind of oversaturated red typically relegated to edgy Undertale OCs clashing against the soft, milky white of a thick outer ring of fat. A cross-section of bone sits firmly in the middle, a shallow divot of pinkish marrow visible within the larger, skateboard wheel sized circle of white. The thing resembles a live-action Flintstones prop, or the kind of cartoonishly exaggerated steak drawn by someone prompted to doodle the word "meat" in 30 seconds.*
"I found this thing and thuoght he might like it. Please give it to him!! <3"
*eyes the nearby table, a small and flimsy ordeal constructed from cheaply-veneered chipboard. Sloppily painted with translucent woodstain in a warmish mud brown, rubbery brushstrokes visible and edges left streaky and bare, the thing looks absolutely pathetic, almost pitiable. The entire table is pocked and marred with dents, scratches and cigarette burns, the legs held in by bulky Allen screws, one of them being propped up with several stacked chunks of torn cardboard. It looks wobbly, the kind of thing you wouldn't place a coffee on, and it better befits a suburban curb or a pondscum-choked roadside ditch than the room we stand in. Not worth repairing, not even worth burning due to the chemicals in the stain. Just a cumbersome piece of trash that would only be employed by the truly desperate, its one purpose better served by a stack of sturdy boxes.*
"I'll just set it down over there, okey? Thanksies!!"
*without waiting for a reply, I begin approaching the sorry excuse for a table, shuffling along straight-kneed like a penguin, my back and arms tensed and straining, yet just barely managing to support the weight of the printer sized hunk of meat, weighing similarly to a portly toddler, the kind usually seen holding a melty soft-serve in a Costco parking lot (or perhaps a MakoMart). My posture resembles a parody of a Buckingham Palace guard, but I maintain a strained, pressed-lips white person smile as I scooch over to the wobbly wooden affair, face red and jaw clenched but determined to not look like a wimp.*
*SCHLAP!!*
*in a swift and gleeful motion, relieved of my meaty burden, I drop the steak straight down upon the table, removing my hands from underneath it and allowing gravity to do the rest. Unsurprisingly, about a second after the slab of flesh makes contact with wood, slamming down upon a tabletop barely large enough to contain it, the table snaps in half, sharply bowing inwards as the top breaks clean in two, then being smashed flat again as it hits the floor, the legs shooting off with corners still attached. The table has been crushed. Bits and splinters of wood lay strewn about like a beaver just finished filming a mukbang, the blast radius of wooden confetti spanning about a metre. The steak, far more durable than the table, sits fully intact upon the now-legless tabletop halves, a dappling of reddish juices and milky fat droplets upon the floor the only indicator that a fall has even occured. After a momentary flinch, hands reflexively held up in the Thriller pose, I quickly take a breath, regain composure and turn to face you once more, my cheerful grin returning in an instant as if a mental light switch was flicked back on.*
"Oops! Sorry!~"
*After a few awkward moments of silence, I skitter away excitedly with a tumblrina giggle-squee combo, leaving you alone with the floor-steak and the splintery aftermath of a slasher film written by a pine tree, no trace of my presence remaining in the room but the mess, the smell of a dingy Claire's, and a distant ruckus of barking dogs (or whatever the Splatoon equivalent of a dog is) stirred up by the ear-piercing Krakatoa of roughly 45 lbs of raw meat slamming into a hardwood floor like an apocalyptic meteor.*
oh my fucinkg GOD.
this is the 2nd 'fanfic' i got in my askbox this week. when are you guys gonna start uploading to ao3?
#anon have you considered taking. creative writing classes because jesus christ this is so. visual#the 2ndone is something im drawing something for actually you'll have to wait#this is really really funny but also its 8am and seeing this as soon as i woke nearly fucking killed me#long post#teeth answers
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thirty two for the 911 asks? 👀
032. persistent fandom complaint that needs to be retired
oh man i’ve got plenty. and actually unpopular ones! why not share it while traveling transatlantically before i pass out?
for one, the lawsuit arc may not make sense in reality but who the fuck cares, it’s an actively good character narrative for the start of s3. a lot of people who complain about it are mainly just letting their opinions be impacted by all the terrible racist abusive!eddie and buck!whump fics that oversaturated the fandom for a while. if you separate fandom misinterpretation from what actually happens in canon, it’s genuinely interesting and nuanced character driven conflict.
similarly: the buckley’s are not as bad as fandom makes them out to be. sorry canon decided to make them less awful than fandom assumed they’d be but unfortunately you can’t make them be abusive. like, are they probably bad parents? yeah. are they evil incarnate? no.
buck didn’t join the SEALs and never would have been good at it so let’s all move on.
kristen is not a terrible showrunner, she did a lot of the same things tim did, a lot of people in the fandom just need to deal with their own internalized misogyny.
speaking of, the fandom is weirdly obsessed with the actor’s personal lives and honestly a lot of people would be happier if they just blocked the actors and their significant others rather than meticulously posting every inane conspiracy theory that pops in their head after an actor shares an IG story or whatever.
also: the actors are not communicating in code through their social media. what are some people TALKING about.
last: the red blue theory is dumb as fuck to apply to a first responder show where so much of the costumes/prop dressing/lighting is red and blue bc of the inherent colors attached to emergency response in general.
ok that was a lot. if i pissed you off, no i didn’t, i simply annoyed you. just block or blacklist me and move on with your saturday night
911 ask game
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expanding on the shipping thing, especially since i made that shipping tagging request recently, like. i don't have an issue with shipping, whatever that... even really means, because to be honest i don't even fully know what people use it to mean. like seriously, when someone says they're a 'shipper' i literally do not understand what exactly they're referring to, because there are so many ways you can 'ship' something.
romantic relationships between characters can be interesting and incredibly so. artihunter, as an example from rain world, has a lot of interesting directions you can take narratively, irrespective of whether you take it in a romantic direction or in a platonic direction or a familial direction or what have you. the tragedy of loving someone you know you're going to lose; having to confront the idea that despite all your flaws, someone still loves you for who you are; mourning and grieving and ultimately moving on with someone who just Gets It at your side; etc etc etc, artihunter can be so interesting, and it's nice to see when artists tap into that. and the same can be said about a lot of other ships probably, rain world or otherwise.
and this isn't to say that shipping—romantic, platonic, whatever, but let's be real we're mostly talking romantic here—that isn't narratively weighty, ie stuff that's just 'these two characters are invested in each other lives and there's nothing more to it,' that's not Bad. that's not boring. sometimes that too can have narrative weight, and i like it. like, i'm not opposed to shipping, if that's how it comes off sometimes. i just like stories, ones that explore concepts and themes, regardless of what the medium may be. if it's told from the perspective of characters who are romantically invested in each other, sure, cool. i am okay with that. just in general, shipping doesn't have to have. like. story, or narrative significance or whatever to be 'good.'
i just. i don't fucking care for a lot of it. it's not interesting to Me. before i started mass blocking ship tags i would see a lot of art that was kind of just the same thing over and over again, like character A doing some classic romantic thing with character B and it's. that's it. it's not new and there's no story and the point of it is that these two characters are romantically interested in each other and i don't. care. i really, really don't. some people enjoy it! it's really interesting to other people! and that's fine! i can't say i haven't occasionally looked at ship art and smiled at the characters being cute. it was made with care and passion and it shows.
my problem with ship content in general is the oversaturation of ship content in fandom. i can't say how much there is since i have so many tags blocked, but i'd be willing to bet that it's at least 50% of all content made for a particular piece of media. which... is disheartening, you know. especially as an aromantic person. i have to sift through so fucking much shit that doesn't interest me and has no relevance to me to find something that's actually interesting. to an extent it makes me kind of bitter because it feels like most people just run to make romantic headcanons of the characters for the sake of shipping, and then devote their time into doing just that. that's probably a gross exaggeration of how a lot of people are, but at times that's really how it feels. there's so much fandom content, so much community content, that just... is not relevant to me at all. it gets alienating.
i don't really have a point to make with this post, a lot of this is just me rambling because i'm up way too late, but. i dunno. just thoughts. i don't actually mind shipping. i just wish more of the ship content i could see has more. story weight to it i guess. because then i actually have something to be invested in.
it makes me sad having all these tags blocked, honestly. i miss out on so much art. which is part of the problem. do you get it?
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Small Hints
previous /// Wildefire Masterlist /// next
•°•°•
Gathering allies had proven exceedingly difficult.
Sarah was having a hard time scoping out anyone she could trust not to turn on them, and the few people that she knew hated Corp more than they loved money didn't seem inclined to stick their necks out.
So instead of sending winks and nudges to potential allies, she turned to what had proven to be a wellspring of information: Neath bars. All she had to do was buy a drink and sit and listen. The patrons who had real secrets spoke low enough that they thought they'd go unheard. If Sarah wasn't there to pick up their whispers, they probably would've.
She learned a lot of what she could call fun facts. Who was being sent to kill who and why, who'd been recently redlined or arrested. A few times her ears had pricked up at Cinder's name, but there were never any rumors of his death or capture, only vague comings and goings. She supposed she should consider it good news.
Everything Sarah overheard was decent, but nothing that would help her cause.
Until a name started popping up here and there.
Big Brother.
From what she gathered, Big Brother was some kind of informant for hire. His powers let him see all over the city and beyond. He knew whatever he wanted to know.
And Sarah knew she needed to find him.
She didn't need an army if she had information. With the right intel, the right help, she could dismantle Corp with a few choice words.
All the listening in the world couldn't seem to tell her where she could find him, but it gave her a direction, a target to seek out.
…Even if she didn't know his real name, or what he looked like. The guy was nothing if not careful. But with her sensing abilities and Hugo's help she thought she stood a chance.
“Big Brother..?” Hugo's tone was dubious when she told him the new plan. He was hunched over a laptop as Sarah leaned into the doorway of his room, dark skin cast in the blue glow of the screen, making him look almost ethereal.
“I'm telling you, this is what we need,” she insisted. “If his powers are as good as I'm hearing they are, we can find a way to hit Corp where it hurts.”
Hugo cast a glance over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “You do realize any search will be oversaturated with conspiracy theorists and media references, right? Even on the dark side?”
She sighed. “I'm aware. That's probably why he chose it as an alias.”
“Oh yeah, that's the reason. Not because he's 'always watching' or anything.” Hugo had turned back around, but she could hear the eye roll in his voice.
“Okay, so it's both.” She adjusted her glasses, pushing them higher on the bridge of her nose. “Just give it a shot, okay?”
“Okay… no promises though. The guy sounds like he doesn't want to be found.” Hugo's hands hovered over the keyboard, and the laptop's screen began to flicker, then flashed rapidly, the images on it shifting and changing as Hugo's powers set to work.
“But he also uses his powers to make money, so he wants to be found by the right people.”
“And where would the right people look?”
Sarah let out an exasperated sigh. “I don't kn—”
“Shit, nevermind, I think I have something.”
She perked up, striding to his side, where the screen had gone still. “Already?”
“It's not much, but…”
It didn't look like it. A poorly formatted forum post with a url that was just a string of numbers and symbols. “Is that… an address?”
“Of a coffee shop, but it's a starting point.”
Sarah grinned down at him. “You really are a genius, huh?”
“Careful, or I'll forget to be humble.”
“Is there anything else on the site?”
The screen flickered again. “Nothing relevant… maybe Bas? I can't tell if it's a name or an acronym.”
“Well, it's something. Thanks, you're the best—”
“Wait.” Hugo was frowning at something on the screen. “Shit… I hope you find him soon.”
She was not a fan of the way he said that. “Why?”
“This post… it's not information for clients. Or an invitation to meet up.” He turned around, his eyes serious. “It's a hit.”
•°•°•
@whumpacabra @enteredin2eternity @kixngiggles @whumpsday @kiichu @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @shywhumpauthor @distinctlywhumpthing , @bloodinkandashes , @fleur-alise , @whumpy-daydreams , @whumpwillow , @honeycollectswhump
#bite sized as promised#otherwise it would get kinda long for this part lol#wildefire#no cws?? wow#for once#(its because lex isn't here lol)
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