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ohworm-writes · 10 months

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I know that, to a lot of people, what I’m about to say is unimportant. But I just wanted to put this out there to the general public of people who follow my content.

I have been writing for years. I have written stories, short and long, since I was in Pre-School, and I’ve kept with that passion since. I love creating complex characters and dynamics, creating worlds and landscapes of my own because- fuck, it’s fun!

And as I’ve grown older, I’ve expanded my work. I’ve done short story commissions once or twice for friends at school because they want to see their own original characters come to life! I created a Tumblr blog (this very one) because I loved seeing the passion people put into writing fan works!

And do you want to know something else really cool? I co-wrote a play for my old highschool. I preformed my own scene on stage with others and I fucking loved it. And after that I decided I wanted to be a screenwriter! Because, holy shit! I genuinely cannot imagine my own work being put onto a big screen, my passion shown to the world!

But now? It’s hard to thing about. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA are on strike, the WGA since May 2nd and SAG-AFTRA since July 14th. They (the WGA) are fighting for wages that they can live on. That is the bare fucking minimum.

I don’t want to come across like I’m oh so unique for stating this, because I sure as hell am not, but- this up and coming generation of individuals who have similar ideas like mine, wanting to put their writing on screen and share their thoughts with the world, have to understand that this is real and this will not stop unless something is done.

I’m not off-put by this and this isn’t going to influence my decision of coming into this field, but it’s a slap to the face. A bucket of ice water dumped over my head. When I grew up, I’d always watch the end credits of films and television shows to, in my little head, thank everyone who worked on the piece.

I always thought that everyone who worked on these became rich because they worked on movies and television. Like- how could they not be paid fair? They worked and worked and worked on these things to make what I was watching real!

And now, wanting to go into that field and seeing so many people- my idols having to fight for basic things, it’s heartbreaking but it also motivates me even more.

As a fan-fiction writer, it’s especially interesting. Do you want to know why I and many others don’t do commissions for writing about fandoms? Because it can be seen as illegal. The works we write about are under certain copyright laws that we have to abide to, whether we are conscious of it or not.

Also? It’s fucking immoral! I can write all of the fan-fiction I want for free, and there’s no problem with that. But, once I start to say, “I’m opening up commissions, so you guys can pay me to write about these characters or fandoms with whatever flavoring you want! I get a profit, you get something I could post for free!” Fair, right?

I won’t ever charge for people to see the things I write because I love writing them! I want everyone to see what I write, whether it’s on a Tumblr blog or on a big screen. That’s the point of it all.

None of these writers, people who write fan-fiction included, want fucking artificial intelligence to write for us- that’s our fucking job! C.AI, ChatGPT and whatever the fuck the others are- just write what you want to see! Ask a writer to write it for you! Pray?! Don’t turn to a fucking machine and say it’s so much better than what people do for fun or, again, a living!

But you have to understand what these people in the WGA are fighting for is the right to be fairly compensated for their work. To have a wage they can live off of and not have a fear looming over them about losing what they’ve worked towards making.

This cannot be too much to ask for, because if it is? Every person, whether you write or consume these kinds of media or not, are doomed.

Pay these writers. Use your platforms for publicizing these types of important issues. Show your support.

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asirensrage · 9 months

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Bestie you can't write as well as you think you can

Also your response to that request was really nasty. They just wanted a fiction and you could have just said yes or no. You didn't need to start lecturing them. Nobody is asking you to write fanfiction. You write it because you want to and people ask for requests because they want to. Nobody can get paid for it so stop acting as if it s a huge problem if some one requests a fiction.

All because they have a blank blog? Maybe they reblogged it to a sideblog but you're so on your',re high horse you dont think of it. Also just generally you can't bring community to a reader by lecturing them. You're just going to make them do the opposite. I don't have problem with blank blogs or people liking my writing because maybe they like it to read later. I don't know what the problem is.

You call yourself a vending machine and be rude to readers because we don't meet your specific needs. Nobody asks you to write. Be grateful people are reading your trash and are actually asking you for fiction because a lot of people don't get an audience as it is.

I think you are deluded because you have an audience and it's quite high and you have a high opinion of your writing that not everyone agrees with but okay. People shouldn't request things from you or read it b cause too many people like on here like you demanding so much from the reader

I just want to read stories that is all. I don't want to waste my time with other stuff. You write. We read. You don't want to write a request say no. It's not hard. Just stop making up all these rules we have to follow.

I love that you come into this calling me “bestie” and straight up insulting me in the same line.

Babes, lbh, I write better than I think I can because like many I stare at my writing and go over it too often that it doesn’t seem new or interesting to me. I still manage to surprise myself with some of the lines I write though.

My response to that request wasn’t nasty or rude. I laid out the facts as I saw them and responded accordingly. As I said in the reply, the choice to have a blank blog is a personal preference, as is mine to decline the request and block blank blogs as I see fit. I didn’t lecture, because if I did, I’d come back with stats to prove my points. In terms of them possibly reblogging it to a sideblog, the fic they mention in the ask has only been reblogged by two other people, both of them long before the asker ever liked the original fic and sent the request.

Just because you don’t have a problem with blank blogs or likes, doesn’t mean that everyone shares that opinion. Fandom is supposed to be a community of people enjoying the same things. In order to create that, there has to be actual communication between people.

You’re right that no one’s asking me to write fanfic. I do it because I enjoy it, but just because we don’t get paid to write it doesn’t mean that it grants permission to people to treat us like an endless source of production without offering anything in return. It’s a two-way street. If people want to only consume and not offer feedback or at the least a reblog, they can go elsewhere. I know you’re young, you probably weren’t around years ago when fandom on here was different. You don’t understand how engagement has dropped and yet demand has increased. Just as you’re not obligated to reblog or comment on people’s works, we’re not obligated to write or even share any of it. Fic writers do this in their own free time and for their own enjoyment. Personally, I think readers should be grateful that we even share what we create.

Which brings me to this hilarious contradiction in your ask. “Be grateful people are reading your trash” and “I just want to read stories that is all.” If my writing was trash, people wouldn’t be reading it nor would I get requests for more. You wouldn’t be here complaining about my “high audience”. Let me make something clear, it’s not a matter of being ungrateful for my readers. I love all of them, especially the people who continue to encourage me. But that does not excuse the behaviour you’re displaying here or that others have shown to other authors. There are no rules. As I said before, it’s a personal preference of mine, but there is a relationship between authors and readers. And as in any relationship, when things are this one-sided, it’s a good time to set boundaries and cut ties if needed.

Finally, “I just want to read stories that is all. I don't want to waste my time with other stuff. You write. We read." You think clicking a button to reblog something is wasting your time? Or commenting on the post, in the reblog or in your tags about if you enjoyed it? It’s the easiest thing to do, especially on mobile when you can just do a fast reblog.

How about this, if you don’t want to waste your time, don’t waste ours. Stop reading fanfic, especially mine, because you sound like a dick.

#stop being a dick #anon #I said what I felt needed to be said #if you complain further I'm deleting the asks #sorry for the rant lol #no i'm not

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dyns33 · 1 year

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This problem about Art and AI scares me and makes me ask myself a lot of questions.

I don't understand how someone can write "a tree" into a search engine, see the image it creates, which may not even look like what they imagined, and proudly say "Wow, I did that !"

And at the same time it is not new. People were already stealing several drawings, to copy them and create a new "original" image. The difference in these shameful thefts was that these people had to draw a bit. Now they only type one sentence.

But there are also 3D printers. Real artists "sculptors" use them, they draw a sketch in the computer, the machine produces what they want, and they expose the result. But is it really their sculpture in the end ?

The script for an Italian film that will soon be released in cinemas was entirely written by an AI. Everyone wonders if the result will be good. And if it's good, is it the first script, or did a human read it and edit it ?

Same for translation. Computers are getting better and better, but there will always be mistakes, lapses, and turns of phrase that they won't think of, because they don't think.

You have to think and have ideas to make Art. Then you have to produce this Art.

This is one of the great debates, in many fields. The idea or the realization, which is more important ?

In science, there are theoreticians and engineers. They must work together to achieve a result, and they win prizes together.

In comics, there is the scriptwriter and the drawer.

In cinema, the director, the screenwriter, the editor, the actors, the lighting technician, the make-up artist, all the people who allow the film to be made, possibly in addition to the work on which the story is based.

There are ghost writers, paid to write for someone, who place an order with some guidance, and publish without saying they got help.

Art is not always made alone, but it is made between humans. It takes time, it is difficult, that's why some works are not finished, others exist in several copies. It's funny, because at one time, we refused to see that Art was so complicated, we only wanted the result. This seems to still be the case today, except there isn't even an artist anymore.

This form of “art” is a theft, and a risk of repetition, cold, without soul, without interest, which risks replacing real Art, or in any case destroying it.

Because why would artists want to continue to fight, to take time, money, health, for a result that will be ignored, criticized or stolen ? Even if it's their passion or their job, they will eventually stop.

And me who loves Art, who reads, goes to the cinema, to the museum, who listens to music, it really scares me, a world without Art, all because some find it funny to have a little glory without make any effort.

Respect Art, respect the artists, and respect yourself first. There is nothing good in using AI generators.

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harrison-abbott · 1 year

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Cristiano & Lionel

I wanted to write a lil thing about a ‘debate’ which I’ve always found bizarre:

Who is better: Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi?

This discussion has baffled me for fifteen years or so, and I find it odd to understand why so many people compare these two soccer athletes. So I thought I’d offer my opinion on it.

Who is the most attractive supermodel on the planet? Bianca Balti or Kate Bock … Hmm. How would you rate something like physical attractiveness? Is this possible? Because isn’t such a thing [finding a person physically pretty] based on subjective interest? You could compare Balti and Bock with, perhaps, the amount of money they earn and the amount of fashion shows they’ve achieved, or similar things. But why would that even matter?

People endlessly compare Cristiano and Lionel objectively. As to how many goals they have, and trophies won. Football icons are powerful people. Because soccer as a sport is the most popular on the planet; because they are famous, wealthy and successful: and lots of the eight billion folks on the globe covet such attributes.

At the same time: many people have zilch interest in soccer. Doesn’t intrigue them; they couldn’t care less. Instead they’re interested in pop stars or movie actors.

So which actor is the ‘best’? Or who is the greatest band in pop history?

Well – if you were to look at the music example objectively, it’d hands-down be The Beatles. But many, many folks say they despise the Beatles: can’t stand them. If you were to judge who is the finest writer it’d be William Shakespeare.

To know Bill Shakespeare personally, you would have to invent a time machine and travel back 400 years and go speak to him in a grimy part of London, where the entire population of the city drank from the same river that they used to dump their sewage in. Bill would not be able to understand what you were saying. Because Old English had a totally different accent to how English is verbally used today. This man would also be about five foot tall.

Furthermore, Shakespeare was deeply unhappy, and you can see this in his sonnets; which is the only autobiographical information we have of him. He was just as vulnerable as any of us are, and had a personal life in tatters. But in the modern age we know almost nothing about a man who changed the English language, and whose quotes and quips we still use in everyday talk, perhaps without realising it. [Football pundits love to use the phrase ‘comedy of errors’ when the defenders get all clumsy in the lead-up to conceding a goal.]

Cristiano Ronaldo was a man who built, paid for and directed a museum for himself. I.e., he made a building/museum and funded it personally, to prove how great he is. Does this sound like a man who feels secure with his own ego?

If you were to go back to the history of the Premier League, and ask fellow footballers/managers who they thought was the best player. Paul Scholes was regularly the number one. Thierry Henry, Zidane and Vieira all said that he was the top player. And they were part of that French clique which won the World Cup, Euros – alongside the famous Arsenal side that were victors in all kinds of ways too.

Paul Scholes wasn’t a star in the glitzy sense of the word. Not goodlooking like David Beckham was; hated that sense of celebrity. But Ferguson [the most successful football manager ever] said he was the best midfielder of his tenure.

My whole point is that there are many contradictions and ironies within fields like sport or artistic achievement, and many clashing opinions which don’t seem to make sense if you look at them in an alternative way.

Do you know the Andrei Tarkovsky films? I looked at a list of fan-voted TOP 100 movies ever, from magazines like Empire and Total Film, and the internet movie site IMDb. Not a single Tarkovsky movie features in any of these lists. Thus we can assume that they are not popular in a mass sense?

There was another poll conducted by the BFI whereby they asked 400 of the top directors internationally what their favourite films were. Two of Tarkovsky’s movies made their top 10. Indicating that Tarkovsky is perhaps a ‘filmmakers’ filmmaker’: in much of the same way that Scholes was a footballers’ footballer.

When people say things like ‘Ronaldo is better than Messi’, is it not the individual who is making a fallacy? By saying person X is superior to person Y, this is essentially negative and minimalistic. The comment is supposed to be provocative and offensive, in order to undermine the abilities of an athlete which the commentator does not have. And most of it is subconscious.

There is no ‘best’ sports athlete. Even if you analyse it objectively, it’s not quite possible to label one man or woman who is the greatest ever. It’s just that people like that idea – of being the most superb, the ultimate gladiator, whatever you wish to call it.

Those who have a larger sense of knowledge in a particular field tend to answer differently to people who have a smaller knack of information. And knowledge is the key to harnessing a threatened ego. They will be less fearful of famous people because they are wiser, and such comparisons between figures are made trivial. In short: they won’t be as judgemental.

When a mind has a spanning resource of information it tends to not think between subjectivity and objectivity as black & white slates; rather looks beyond both of them and focuses on further intellect, because that is boundless and unlimited.

Please can we stop comparing Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi? It’s so tiring, and people have missed the point for such a long time.

Fallacies like status get lost in history and individuals with ‘greatness’ are only as scared as the rest of us. Of course it’s hard to be less afraid of other people. But with learning we can grow a bit, expand, and keep on being informed, rather than judging others.

#writeblr #essay #oberservational writing #sociology #Lionel Messi #cristiano ronaldo #beatles #kate bock #bianca balti #paul scholes #ronaldo nazario #essays

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ohc-and-the-music-tapes-archive · 2 years

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Article about Miss America (later Chocolate USA), The Tampa Tribune, December 2, 1990

transcript:

Julian Koster: an American youth in Tampa

Around the tight circle of child prodigies, there's always a corona of bright older kids, less flashy but more aware.

These are youths who have a smart glare of promising talent, but they're not the sun-strong sluff of Mozartian legend.

They're more accessible, usually better-adjusted, probably more enduring.

Julian Koster is one of these artists.

He's known as the leader of Julian Kosfer's Miss America, an area rock band.

And since our professional theatres these days are lolling around in the shallows of safe, cash-flow productions, it wasn't hard to be wooed into deeper, more meaningful waters by BayLife writer Steve Perez's preview of Koster's Tuesday Loft Theatre show, On stage were:

Koster, 18, guitaris, talker, singer,

Liza Wakeman, 16, violinist, singer,

Roxxy Dylwn, 19, bastist, singer,

Keith Block, 25, percussionist, singer;

Beth Block, 21, clarinettist, and

Damen Block, almost 3, percussionist, singer and sometime-dancer, perhaps the real Mozart of the group — if he starts writing opera, get him an agent immediately.

Koster and missed America

Damen is about 2,5 feet tall, hems his T-shirts to the midcalf and is crowned by blond curls that qualify him as a living Reubens cherub. He wanders the stage during the show, augmenting everyone's musicianship with his own pair of drumsticks.

Despite that roving child, Koster maintains his control of the precedings.

“Hello, you've reached the answering machine of God," says a voice-over, “but I'm not in. In fact, I haven't been in, in quite a while” Koster’s art is out, too — but it's evolving, it seems, as a mosaic.

To minor melodies but churning rhythms — soothed by Wakeman’s classically based fiddling — Koster speaks and sings snatches of perspective. Like confetti, his stuff rains down, a cloud of color that falls apart on you, arriving as pointedly isolated scraps of comment.

In “The Breakfast Song”: “Sometimes I wish I was the best boy in the whole world, ... but I know that's not the truth, so you'll have to forgive me this time.”

In another number “Sometimes I want to swim with you, you don't have to use the telephone, .. is she an aeroplane?”

In a third: “Connie Chung sees her body explode, this only happens when she's alone .. Connie's all right,”

And in his signature piece, he sings to “Miss America”: “I see you for what you are, I know you for what you are ... I love you for what you have to be.”

The cost of being Koster

Koster is generating a performed version of something akin to Mark O'Donnell's fine “Manhattan Zen” pieces in New York's now-defunct 7 Days magazine.

Here's one of O'Donnell's:

“The toddler in the gallery dozes beneath erotic drawings /

“On the TV in the limo, too much static. /

“An empty restaurant: three laughing waitresses.”

By comparison, Koster's presentation is charmingly primitivist. He needs a tyrant

of a stage manager and a patient director.

But his potential is a staged haiku because Koster is a natural minimalist.

He grabs an image and interprets it.

He's best when he's brief.

Bombarded by the data blitz all his life, he now is describing that life in a pure match of form and content. He performs what amounts to musical sound bites.

In conversation, he's articulate and searching. His family moved to Tampa two years ago from Greenwich Village's busy-bizarre Christopher Street. He has seen the work at New York's performance art gallery P.S. 122. He knows “we could, as a bind, play rock 'n' roll and be bookable.” but he's got a drive to create his own expression “I can't even stop daydreaming about it, it's incredible.”

Koster lost $25 performing, at te Loft. About 40 people showed, all new to the group, Koster's regulars couldn't afford the $6 ticket, he says. And though the Loft paid $100 for the performance, the band had to spend $125 to rent the sound system.

Jenni Person and Wendy Leigh of the Loft — now reaping the spoils of a wretched but popular “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom" — should consider giving Koster's Miss America a monthly performance free, including the sound system.

You could do worse than incubate a Koster who, at such an age, is singing a wise man's ironic economy: “I'm afraid I don't have much to say to the world.”

Porter Anderson is the Tribune's theater and dance critic.

#Chocolate USA #Miss America #Julian Koster #Liza Wakeman #Roxy Dylwyn #Keith Block #Beth Block #articles #1990

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randomfandomimagine · 2 years

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I keep seeing people dropping by my mutuals’ asks just to leave hate or be rude and it’s pissing me off so much. I used to think that the lack of feedback was bad enough, but now on top of all there’s this treatment of fic writers?

Just a few reminders for those people that feel so entitled:

Fanfiction writers on Tumblr post for free. We take time out of our days, sometimes working several days in just one fic, to create something that we share here in the hopes that people will enjoy reading them or hopefully even cheer them up on bad days, but we don’t get paid for it. Remember that.

Respect boundaries. We have rules for a reason, and that’s why it’s so important that you read them before requesting and why we insist so much on it. Whether it may be that a writer isn’t comfortable writing x thing or for x character or whatever it is, you need to respect that!

Writers don’t owe anyone anything. The audacity of people being jerks because some writers don’t post every day, or asking them to drop everything and write when we don’t spend every living second working on fanfiction... If you really want something written so bad, why not try writing it yourself? That way you’d see how difficult writing actually is.

We accept requests, not demands. I have personally experienced this myself, and I’ve had to put it in my rules, asking for people to be polite when requesting from me. If you drop a request, just like that, with no ‘please’, ‘thank you’ or even a ‘hello’, we feel like writing machines, and that’s not cool.

Writing is hard. Inspiration comes and goes, and we need to take breaks to avoid burnout. Even if that weren’t the case, we might have stuff going on in our lives that keeps us from writing, or a myriad of different reasons why we don’t post consistently. And you need to respect that too.

I feel like I’m repeating myself now, or echoing what my mutuals have been saying for the longest time, but I just needed to vent for a little, because this situation is making me so angry.

This isn’t directed to anyone in particular, and I know there’s still some lovely people that support fanfic writers and we appreciate them so much. Keep supporting us and being lovely, we need your love now more than ever.

#random #trish talks #support writers #rant

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steveyockey · 3 years

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Honestly I've been thinking. All I want is to go to Andrew Dabb's house and knock on his door and ask him if it was worth it. If him getting his 30% audience score on rotten tomatoes really was worth disappointing so many fans in so many ways. If he's been plotting his last revenge against deancas shippers as soon as he became show runners and knew he would make an end that is so bad and heartbreaking for the fans of the show. I'd ask him if he sincerely feels proud of the work he's put in, his last hurray, his legacy, if he really feels like this was it for the show.

Like Jensen has been saying he doesn't like the ending since 2019 (?) So Dabb has had plenty of time to change things around. But he didn't. So is he really like.... Is this really it?

Not even mad at this point. Just.... sad and tired like is homophobia that important to you man. Is queerbaiting really worth all of this? Idk. It's just sad to think 12 years of this happened and all we have to show for it is whatever the hell they gave us.

If you watched “carry on” and the hour of preamble live, I think you received an amazing class in the power of narrativizing wherein the cast and writers of supernatural tried to convince you, the audience, what the tv show you have spent hundreds of hours watching has really been about this whole time. 15.20 is not so much a finale as a set piece that desperately wants to assert its status as The Final Word on what supernatural is. I agree that dabb is most certainly at fault, but I also think it’s a testament to the lack of belief in their own work shared by much of the writers room as well as the network, coupled with the bizarre demographics of america’s most unifying tv show, that they felt they could only aim so low and yet committed so fiercely to their own undoing. it seems almost silly at points to be upset with the finale because it is frankly such a blatant power grab. they defanged god, symbolically washing their hands of their own narrative missteps, and chose to push past that into? nostalgia? calvinism? circularity? it’s very telling that the thing dean most needs to convey upon his death is how nervous he was to see sam at stanford that first episode. there’s no reflection. there’s no growth. there’s nothing built on that. it’s about the perpetual motion machine of supernatural chugging on even when it no longer has a conductor. it’s about shrinking the narrative all the way back down to its own infancy, not even acknowledging what it became but reestablishing what it set out to be and declaring “this is what it has always been.”

put simply, it’s a lie! “writers lie.” how deeply compelling it is to me that supernatural contains all the antidotes to its own ending. that it told us again and again that the only solution is to write your own story and that it would never do anything on purpose as interesting as anything it did on accident, that its characters shone their brightest when they fought tooth and nail to be who they chose be instead of who they were told to be. of course it remains most mind-boggling, as many people have pointed out, how easy it would have been for them to cash in on that sweet sweet representation, but I am oddly thankful they didn’t because it would never have worked if they actually tried. and now what that means is it was never theirs. it was cas’s and dean’s and it was ours. it is ours. maybe it’s jensen’s and misha’s too, but really and truly it is ours. I hope andrew dabb sleeps well at night knowing every person who creates something out of the deluge of emotions destiel inspired in them since november 5th has about a million times more perception and integrity than his last act. but I mostly don’t care how andrew dabb sleeps since his bills are probably paid and he no longer has any say over anything that happens in the world of supernatural. we do. and to say we have nothing to show for it... well that’s also a lie. just go rewatch tierney’s strawberry blond amv. or scroll through soup’s art of our favorite little gay family. look at sam’s auden edit, or, fuck it, go find out whatever kath is doing half the time. as ephemeral as social media tends to feel, we are literally reclaiming the narrative every day we assert that we know supernatural was about gay love and its power to change the world. always above all else. love.

#every day i get anons and then i give them back things that are not really answers but more just like #extended monologues during which i cry and then immediately leave my computer to pretend to be a normal human person #spn #anon

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notbecauseofvictories · 3 years

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oh I'm interested in the tag novel on how fan spaces becoming more meat spacey benefits the producers!! also happy Halloween! 🖤🧡🖤🧡

It’s not a particularly academic argument---I don’t have sources to back this up, I haven’t done research. I’m also wary of painting a picture of “fandom” as anything more than a lot of weasels in a trenchcoat, because that word means a lot of things to a lot of different people, some of whom hate each other. But as long as everybody understands that this is the ethnographical equivalent of drunkenly throwing darts at a copy of the AJS...sure.

[under a cut because it’s long and baseless, and also I had a lot of thoughts and feelings. Sorry.]

My basic premise is that fandom occupies “fanspace.” Fanspace is not solely online, since fanzines and conventions are fanspace too, but since the 90s it has become increasingly and primarily internet based. While some websites are designated fanspace (e.g., AO3, ff.net, stand-alone fansites) fanspace is not necessarily contiguous with a hosting site (e.g., there is fanspace on tumblr, but tumblr is not a fanspace). Fanspace is really just those urls, message boards, threads, blogs, accounts, etc. designated for fandom and/or where fannish activity takes place.

Its deeply-rooted internet presence has allowed fanspace and what I call “meatspace” to operate on different rules. Meatspace has always informed fan spaces, of course---disclaimers on fic to ward off accusations of copyright infringement, for example, or asking readers to attest that they’re over 13 before reading an R-rated fic. But traditionally, fandom has accepted as norm things that don’t apply to meatspace: fake names and anonymous posts, pictures of someone else’s characters, lengthy self-published stories featuring violence, explicit sex, sometimes even gay people. Fanspace is in many ways an artificial carve out from meatspace, where fewer of its rules apply; fanspace supplements these with its own norms.

The division between fanspace and meatspace is not and has never been a clear, settled line, however. Debates on how much meatspace should inform fan spaces have been raging for as long as I’ve been on the internet, and to be fair to meatspace, it has made good points. (I’m not sure if “don’t be racist,” counts as a meatspace rule given...racism, but fandom frequently reacts to it like a meatspace intrusion so I think it should count.)

However, what used to be intra-fandom conversations have become increasingly more public, for a few reasons:

Part of this is just the natural development of the internet---it’s not like fanspace was ever hidden, but there just weren’t as many people online, and stuff was harder to find in a pre-google, pre-algorithmic promotion world.

Part of it is the changing architecture of fanspace---websites shutting down, Strikethrough, and the tumblr porn ban have all, in their own ways, served to alter fanspace and move towards more and more public-facing sites.

But part of it---and this is the biggest factor, I think---is that over the last two decades, we’ve seen content-producers** increasingly willing to engage with fandom.

On its face, this sounds good! After all, fans like people who make things, people who make things want fans. What could possibly be wrong about both sides recognizing their mutualism?

I think this works when the most interaction you could expect with a creator was showing up a bookstore to ask Tamora Pierce a question, or writing fanmail to Paul Gross. But it falls apart when you consider just how public-facing fanspaces have become, and just how much interest content-producers have taken in cultivating the fannish audience. Content-producers engaging directly with fandom are a thumb on the scales of mutualism, and a heavy one. After all, one side of the relationship is a loosely collected anarchic cult, migrating along a series of websites they mostly don’t control, making do with nothing but ongoing wank and general obsessive tendencies.

The other side has D*sney, Harper Collins, and Comcast.

That thumb on the scale has paid off, more than I think even the content-producers could have anticipated. Fandom is good at loving what it loves and talking loudly about it, but capitalism is way better at doing what it does---turning everything into profit. So now people pay $100 a pop to go to Harry Potter World. Conventions are well-produced extensions of their parent companies, raking in money and providing a blitz of publicity---directly to the source most likely to take your messaging and amplify it. Make a superhero movie and the minute the trailer drops you conjure up thousands of online fans will be your de facto, unpaid publicists---generating interest via fan art, fic, and controversy with minimal corporate effort. Of course fic writers who have established online presence are the darlings of the publishing world---what publisher wouldn’t want a built-in hype machine for a new author?

And, just coincidentally, of course, fanspace and meatspace are drawn closer together, that line further blurred by this new and very, very interested third party.

I’m not saying this is some big conspiracy. No tv exec is out there rubbing their hands together and cackling evilly about how they’re going ruin fandom. But in exchange for meatspace validation and an endless stream of new content, I think fandom has ceded important ground. And I think it’s changing fanspaces, even now:

One of the founding rules of fanspace is that it does not generate money---you risk real copyright infringement that way. (This isn’t to say that money hasn’t been involved in a few massive fandom scandals, but it’s not typical.) Increasingly, however, the grumblings about getting paid for fan art and fic have gotten louder, probably due to meatspace’s general emphasis on the side-hustle, and seeing content-producers churn out more and more fan-like things for a profit.

(It seems unimaginable now, but once upon a time the HP Lexicon was an invaluable resource, a rare unicorn in a pre-wikipedia age. Now, D*sney wouldn’t even think of releasing a tentpole movie without a novelization, a picture dictionary, and a tie-in novel.)

Also, those calls for fan art that “might be featured” by a content-producer are (rightfully) scorned for asking for work pro bono. But the takeaway seems to be “we deserve to be paid for our fan art!” rather than “how dare the content-producer intrude on our fanspace and its activities!”

Fanspaces have never expected or required legal ID, permitting anonymous or pseudonymous activity in order to protect individual privacy. And while there’s still no expectation you link your legal ID with your online/fan ID, the norm has shifted---it’s no longer considered gauche to go by your legal ID, even necessary when turning mutuals and followers into an “audience.” We’re not anonymous fans, engaged in our mutual hobby anymore---some people are doing that, and others are potential content-creators.

I’d argue that even purity wank if an example of this new blurring, classic “don’t like don’t read” arguments taking on new life now that meatspace is so nearby---we wouldn’t want to offend the neighbors!

Even these things benefit the content-producers: the more fan-like stuff they churn out, the less fanspaces will create on their own; the more fanspaces that emphasize linking legal ID to online ID, the less people will be able to engage in fan activities privately; the more meatspace rules assert themselves on fanspaces, the less fanspace we’ll have.

Now, maybe this is just...evolution. As I said before, there is a porous and shifting border between fanspace and meatspace. I remember angry threads about whether m/m fics should be rated higher than a het equivalent; I remember the tagging debates, the incredible resistance to accurately describing what happens in your fic. Maybe in a few years, my longing to return to a more separate fanspace will seem equally as embarrassing, incorrect, and unnecessary.

But right now, it feels more like an erosion---one fandom is about as willing or able to resist as the tide.

** “Content maker” is a term that’s come to mean “anyone who makes something” which is sheer nonsense. There’s a difference between publishers/television producers/movie studios and someone recording a podcast in their bathroom. There’s even a difference between D*sney, a vast undead creative monopoly animated by copyright protections, and someone like James Patterson, who uses a stable of ghostwriters to churn out “his” works. We shouldn’t be scrutinizing all these things them the same way, it’s lazy, and intellectually dishonest.

#long post #long post for ts #........this is a whole honest to god essay what the hell #nonsense. malarky. ridiculousness and speculation.#guys I'm so sorry this is A Lot #(ps is it election terror driven towards sometime I can maybe describe without vomiting and panic attacks? I mean MAYBE)#either way here I am coming up with fun intricate theories as the world burns #transannecarson #celestial emporium of benevolent knowledge

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tony-is-my-daddy · 3 years

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My Forbidden Fruit

I hit a writer's block a few days ago with the multi chapter Starker fic I'm working on and I thought I'd try writing something else to keep myself occupied. I hope you like this.

Basically, Peter is a farm owner's son and Tony works for his dad and they're not supposed to date but oh well... Also, it's not staded in the fic but Peter is twenty years old here.

TW: one love scene, a bit of possessive behaviour but it's mostly just dirty talk. I think that's it but if you think there's anything else, let me know, please!

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He placed down the last crate of corn in the barn, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. His hands hurt at this point from how many heavy crates he'd been carrying around all day, but he couldn't complain, his job paid quite well. Working for a well going farm owner meant good payment but also a huge property where Tony had a load of work to get done every day. He'd been up since six in the morning and the only break he had was his lunch time ever since.

The physically tiring work wouldn't have been bad, but this job wasn't just physically tiring. There was this one boy who kept annoying him and distracting him from his work however he could. That stupid game between them felt more tiring than his whole afternoon of carrying crates around the place. And the worst part was - the boy was extremely pretty and he knew how to use that to his advatage.

He walked around in the tiniest clothes ever that Tony secretly loved, short shorts and tight fitting tops that just drove him absolutely insane. It's hard to focus on your job when he's outside, sunbathing on the grass in nothing but a pair of boxers, or doing his morning yoga on his balcony, or when he's coming back from a dip in the lake, milky skin and messy chestnut curls dripping water that the towel wrapped around his waist barely soaks up.

He was only supposed to stay until the end of the summer, but it was now the middle of September and he was still there. Tony didn't know why he was still at the farm but he wasn't about to ask because getting into a conversation with Peter, the son of the owner of the farm which Tony worked on, was dangerous. Peter had his way with words, all syrupy-sweet and tantalizing. Tony did not need that, he wasn't planning on losing his job because he fucked his boss' son.

But he could never avoid the boy fully when he was on the farm, and today was no exception. Peter was already on his tail as he walked out from the barn and towards the pile of wood that needed to be chopped.

"Hi Tony," the younger boy greeted as he hurried after the man. "My mom told me you had a lot of work to get done today so I thought I'd keep you company."

"I don't need company," Tony replied curtly as he grabbed the axe that laid against the wall of the shed.

They always used makeshift stand made out of a huge woodbark that almost reached up to Tony's hip to chop wood on, it was the easiest route. So Tony grabbed a small piece of wood, set it on top of the big bark and with a hard swing of the heavy axe, he split the wood right into two pieces, the axe stopping as it got stuck in the thick bark.

"Stand back, pretty boy, or you might get hurt," he said with a motion of his hand, signaling to Peter to go away.

"I'm fine." Peter smiled as he sat down on a bench not too far away from Tony. He watched the man work in awe, as if he was doing anything other than swinging an axe back and forth. "You're so strong, Tony. I wish I could do that as well."

"Try doing sports other than yoga and maybe you'll be able to lift the axe," Tony mocked him between two hits. "This isn't some game, Peter. I'm working over here, please don't distract me."

"Oh I'm not distracting you, am I," the younger boy asked faux innocently. "I'm just sitting here-" Yes, in those stupid shorts that put his milky white legs on display. "-and I'm not doing anything-" Just talking to me with that voice. "-just watching you work. Because it looks so fascinating, how strong you are."

"Then why not watch the other workers instead? They're probably just as fascinating as I am."

"No they're not."

"Why not?"

"Because you're way sexier."

There it was, again... Tony hated it when Peter did that, so open about what he wanted and always trying to get it shamelessly. Tony felt like a piece of meat under the intense stare of the younger boy, and he started getting more and more uncomforfable. Who did this boy think he was, saying such things?!

"Peter, I work for your father. Hell, I'm over ten years older than you!"

"That doesn't mean a thing, I like men in their thirties way more than men in their twenties. You're more mature, smart, experienced. I like that."

Tony rolled his eyes and got back to chopping wood, that was his work, after all. He tried his best to ignore the younger boy, but it was hard when he was only a few feet away and he looked fucking edible. Tony found himself glancing at Peter more often than not, making him smile triuphantly, which Tony pretended he did not see. It was harder to do his work with the pair of honey eyes (do not ask how did he know what color Peter's eyes were) constantly on him, his hits becoming less accuare until he wasn't even splitting them in half but into thirds and two-thirds. He shook his head, deciding to take a break. He put the chopped wood into a wheelbarrow and manouvered it into the shed, putting them away into the organized pile that stood next to the wall. The next thing he knew, Peter was there next to him, picking up a piece of wood and putting it down next to the ones Tony placed. Tony adjusted it a little so it sat straight, like the rest, and put three more next to it.

"Hey Tones... would you like to come with me to the lake later today?"

Tony scoffed. "It's Tony. And no, if you haven't realized yet, I have a lot of work to do."

"What else are you gonna do?"

"I have to finish chopping wood, lock the animals up and the boss told me there's a car that needs to be checked as well."

"Yes, my car! It doesn't want to start, I don't know what's wrong with it. Ahh, you're gonna look at my car? That's so nice of you Tony, I really appreciate it. Maybe- maybe you could teach me something? Like, I could watch while you work and you tell me how everything works and-"

"No." Tony finished up putting the wood away and lead the wheelbarrow back outside and put it down close to himself as he started chopping wood again. He managed to cut three before he heard Peter's voice again.

"What do you mean no? Why not?"

Tony sighed. "I was told to take a look at your car and fix it, not to give you a car mechanics one-oh-one. And that's exactly what I'm gonna do, no less, no more. Now if you'd please stop distracting me, I'd greatly appreciate that."

Tony heard a small huff behind himself, then saw the boy pass by him and finally left Tony alone. He heard the slam of a door, Peter probably went back to the farm house. So Tony continued chopping wood in peace, but soon regretted sending Peter away because his job was way less interesting without him around. Maybe he did actually need that company...

The sun was starting to set when Tony finally got to checking Peter's car. He put a portable lamp down next to himself as he opened the hood of the car.

"Tell me where it hurts, babygirl," he mumbled to the machine as he smoothed his hands down the engine. He looked through it and found the battery termials. A loose positive cable, of course. Tony carefully removed the negative cable, so he could tighten the positive without getting shocked. Then, he plugged the negative back in, both of them nice and snug in their place. He closed the hood and sat in the car to check if it would start. He turned the key that was still in the ignition and the engine began rumbling. When he stepped on the gas pedal, the vehicle started. Tony laughed victoriously and turned the car off.

This was probably his fourth time that he sat down during the whole day, so he savoured it. He leaned his head back against the seat and took a deep breath. The car smelled like Peter, the most intoxicating scent ever. Tony didn't often get to be engulfed by that smell, but it was so good, he never wanted to leave that bubble he was in, never ever. He knew that's not how it worked, though, and he sighed as he leaned back forward, ready to open the door, when suddenly the passenger door on the other side of him opened, and a very shirtless Peter Parker got into the car, a towel thrown over his shoulder.

"Let's go," he said.

"What? Where?"

"To the lake. You said you had no time because you had work. But this was your last job and now that you fixed my car, we can go and take a relaxing dip together."

"Peter, no-"

"Peter yes. Now start the car, please, I wanna get there before the sun sets fully. It's so pretty, you have to see it."

Tony shook his head again, but when he looked at the puppy dog eyed boy, he knew he lost the battle. He couldn't say no to that sight, he had to go. So with a sigh, he started the engine again and he put it in reverse to back up to the road. Peter told him exactly what direction to go, since Tony hadn't been to the lake yet, and soon they were in a secluded area, nature surrounding them and the small lake. Peter got out of the car and eagerly ran towards the clear water, Tony following in suit.

Peter dropped his pants, now only clad in a pair of tight boxers that perfectly hugged his round ass, and walked into the water. He let out a little yelp as it touched his skin.

"It's a bit cold," he giggled. "But it's still nice, come on!"

Tony shook his head with a slight smile, but started unbuttoning his flannel anyways. He watched as Peter's eyes followed his movements, the boy basically drooling over Tony's exposed upper body. But Tony couldn't say anything, he was no different. Seeing Peter's lean figure was something he was still not used to, probably never will be used to.

He unbuckled and unbuttoned his jeans as well and let them slide down his legs, stepping out of them and his shoes. Now he was also in only his boxers and while he knew he really should not have done it, Peter was irresistible. So he walked into the cool water as well, pleasant against his overheated skin.

At its deepest point, the water came up to Tony's hip, just covering the hem of his boxers, while it reached up to Peter's waist. The height difference between them was so obvious in that moment. Hell, every difference between them was so obvious, Tony's tanned hands against Peter's pale skin, calloused hands on the boy's silky soft sides while Peter placed his own, smooth hands on Tony's chest. They were so close to each other, they were touching each other. And not only that, but the amount of clothes separating them was minimal. It was so much easier to resist Peter on the farm, where people were around them and Tony knew what was his job. Where there was always at least a foot distance between them and an acceptable amount of clothes on them. But now, no one was there to interrupt them, nothing could've possibly made Tony step away from the beautiful boy. He was getting lost in the moment, lost in the honey colored eyes, the endless amount of freckles littering Peter's gorgeous cheeks and the bridge of his nose, the thick eyelases that fluttered so beautifully, like the wings of a graceful butterfly, the deep pink of those soft looking lips. Tony couldn't help his hand that moved on its own, coming up to touch Peter's bottom lip gently and yes, it was so soft, so delicate.

"Just kiss me already," Peter breathed, his usual teasing tone gone, now he was straight up begging. It made that last bit of resistance melt away, the last brick of the wall that Tony built around the two of them smash into tiny pieces, and their lips pressed together within a heartbeat. It was passionate, rough, months of built up tension poured into it. Tony'd hands began roaming up and down Peter's sides and back before one of them finally rested at the back of his neck, pulling him in, deepening the kiss, and the other one just below his ass as it pulled Peter's leg out of the water to wrap around his waist. The younger boy's arms wrapped around his back as well, hands burying into Tony's sweaty hair.

It was perfect, everything about the kiss was perfect and Tony never wanted to stop. Especially not when Peter's other leg followed the one that Tony was holding and he clung to Tony with his whole body. Only then did Tony notice the tent in the younger one's boxers.

"Tony," he gasped between kisses. "Please, do something, please."

And how can a weak, weak man like Tony resist to something like that? He grapped Peter's plump ass with both hands and started grinding the boy down against himself, the sweet friction on their clothes cocks making both of them moan out loud. The kissing came to an end as their jaws dropped in order to let their sounds flow, but they remained close to each other, basically sharing a breath. Their foreheads leaned against each other, half lidded eyes staring into the other's while they moved in tandem, grinding against one another.

"You're so beautiful," Tony said, his voice gravelly. "Skin so pretty and soft... I wanna mark it all up, make it mine. Make you mine."

"Take me. Take me, I'm yours, always have been yours."

"God, Peter. You're so good, fuck, so hot."

"Want everyone to know that I belong to you, Tony. Want them to see that the hottest man in the fucking world owns me. That I'm yours and no one else's-"

"And I'm yours, too."

They shared a few more lazy kisses between loud moans of the other one's name, both of them nearing their climax rapidly. Peter was the first who came, a harsh bite on his shoulder pushing him over the edge. As he came, he let out a scream louder than the ones he had before, which made Tony lose himself as well and come with Peter's name rolling off his tongue like a prayer.

They still held each other close as they came down from their high and tried to catch their breath. Tony was rocking Peter side to side, making the younger boy sleepy.

"Tony," he whispered.

"Yes, baby?"

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"Of course."

"I love you."

Tony chuckled. "Can I tell you a secret as well?"

"Mhm."

"I've loved you ever since I first laid eyes on you."

#starker #starker fanfic #starker fanfiction #tony x peter #tony stark x peter parker #tony stark/peter parker #farm worker!tony #farm owner's son!peter #au #nff

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matthiasschoenaertsdaily · 3 years

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Matthias Schoenaerts full interview for De Morgen Magazine (original in Flemish, translated into English by @matthiasschoenaertsdaily)

Interview by Els Maes, published on November 28, 2020

Even a global pandemic will not destroy the optimism of actor Matthias Schoenaerts (42). Because he knows from his own experience how much beauty can emerge from the most hopeless situations. "I've had my back against the wall often enough, I'll always find a way out."

A bleak autumn day on a concrete square. There is lukewarm coffee, lukewarm Chimay and rolling tobacco. At dusk we see the silhouettes of fat rats that shoot past our ankles. And yet Matthias Schoenaerts will tell us in a glowing argument that this, here and now, is the very best place to be. That there is so much beauty to discover, he says. Le paradis c'est ici. As long as we want to see it.

"It's strange to say in this unpleasant period, but I've enjoyed the past few months enormously. It's the first time in ten years, since Runskop actually, that I'll be home for a long period of time. This is so beneficial: I am photographing, painting, writing. I can devote time and attention to the very simple things we'd otherwise race past."

"Seriously, look at that," he says, picking a leaf off the ground. "Those colors, that pattern. I can spend hours looking at the pure beauty of the things that surround us."

Above us a pigeon is wreaking havoc between the thinned out foliage. "While you are singing about the wonderful beauty of nature, that animal is going to shit on our heads," I say. "And that too will be a s-p-l-e-n-d-i-d moment," Schoenaerts answers.

Matthias Schoenaerts is Belgium's most successful international film star. But here and now, on a bench in his hometown, he is a technically unemployed actor, an all-round searching artist, but above all: fighter of cynicism. "I refuse to go along with all negativity and fear. The true battle today is cynicism versus courage. And I always choose the latter."

We're on the Oudevaartplaats, the square that everyone knows as the Antwerp Bird Market, and where Schoenaerts' childhood memories are waiting to be picked up. It comes into the conversation just like that: Brando, the cute chow chow that little Matthias got from his mom on this square, when here on the bird market puppies were still sold. "My dogs were my great loves. The home situation was often difficult, and with my dogs I found security. We had three chow chows, those fluffy lion dogs with a blue tongue. Brando was the first, I loved that animal."

"We lived in a small apartment with three dogs, anything but ideal. One day we let them go, to people with a large estate. That was heartbreaking."

There is a beautiful lesson in that, about love and letting go. It would have been selfish to keep your dogs if you could give them a nicer life elsewhere, wouldn't it?

"Absolutely, but I obviously didn't process that departure properly. Brando still appears in my dreams, after all these years. Then he returns home unexpectedly, and am I mad with joy.

"I often dream about my parents too: that reunion is so intensely beautiful and warm. Oh, there you are, finally! Those dreams are true to life, and the awakening is rock-hard."

Is that one of the reasons why you like being here in Antwerp, because here you feel more connected to the people that you loved?

"This is my home, my zero, I can't imagine a place in the world where I would rather live. When my mom was alive, and especially when she got sick, in between filming I tried to be with her as much as possible here in Antwerp. In the meantime I have an apartment here, my first permanent place of my own, but I've hardly been there in recent years. Now I can finally enjoy my home, I find peace, tranquility and inspiration there. I have seen fantastic sunsets on my roof terrace in recent months. So much beauty, and you can just admire it there, every day, for free. As long as you take the time to enjoy it.

"Normally I would have started filming again in April, and left for a hectic ride of at least two years, with projects that would follow each other quickly. I was at my limits, sooner or later I was going to bang my head against the wall. I feel how beneficial it is to slow down for a moment. David Lynch said that: 'Just slow things down and it becomes more beautiful'.

"As an actor you have to work in a big machine, according to a tight schedule. I have now discovered the pleasure of creating things for myself very spontaneously in my own cadence."

Is that work something you ever want to go public with?

"I want to do something with my photography someday, but I'm in no hurry. I'm also writing a film script, I've had an idea for a trilogy for a long time. It's a very personal project, and it takes time for it to crystallize into something very pure and proper. Maybe those films will come within ten years, maybe never.

"The most important thing is to keep busy. You have to look for something, anything, on which you can focus your passion, love and attention. Of course I would like to return to set, and those projects will come back later. But if I can't change anything about a situation, why worry about it?

"From a very young age I learned that there are not many certainties in life, I adapt easily to unexpected circumstances. There is one thing I can't stand, and that is feeling powerless. I never want to be the victim of a situation, I will always think: what can I do myself? Which way can I go? I have often enough stood with my back against the wall, I will always find a way out and take matters into my own hands."

So Schoenaerts decided to use this period to put Zenith - his artist name as a street artist - to hard work. Since the lockdown he has already created nine impressive murals, including one in the courtyard of the Oudenaarde prison, and one at the beginning of this month in the Antwerp Begijnenstraat, on the bare walls that form their furthest horizon for the prisoners. A moving event, he says. Not only by the touching conversations with inmates, and the forty-minute applause with which the prisoners welcomed him. "The mural contains a poem by my father. While I am there painting those beautiful words of my dad on the wall, I suddenly remember that my mom used to give meditation lessons to the prisoners there in the Begijnenstraat. I had completely forgotten about that until I stood there. How beautiful that is. Suddenly I felt my parents very tangible, very close to me."

It's a bit funny: a long time ago you were arrested for graffiti, now they invite you to prison to make a mural.

"I used to tag a lot, but I really don't like the vandalism that sometimes comes with graffiti. Defacing a facade, that's just ridiculous. But trains, bridges, tunnels.... frankly I think that's the max. Soon I'm going to do another oldskool graffiti wall, with some friends, back to the roots. But with permission, yes."

Scary dudes

The problems of the Belgian detention system are well known: outdated infrastructure, overcrowding and a system of pre-trial detention which means that some people are innocently stuck for years. Schoenaerts: "These are human lives that are destroyed by the Belgian state, isn't that scandalous?"

Schoenaerts' engagement started years ago, after meeting Hans Claus, prison director in Oudenaarde, who contacted him when he wanted to organize a screening of Le Fidèle, the film by Michaël R. Roskam starring Schoenaerts. Claus has been fighting for many years for a reform of our detention system, among others with the non-profit organization De Huizen, small-scale centers that are more focused on rehabilitation and reintegration of the detainee. How does Schoenaerts see his role? "Those murals are a kind of lubricant for me, to get attention for this problem. I am not the expert and I am certainly not a politician. This injustice touches me as a human being, and my message is clear: please listen to the people who have been working hard for decades to reform the system from the inside."

In The Mustang, your last feature film to be seen here before the lockdown, you take on the role of a prisoner who learns to tame wild horses and his demons. Has that role changed your vision?

"That rehabilitation program with mustangs really exists, and the chance of recidivism is almost zero percent. I had a conversation in the Begijnenstraat with the minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld, ed.), and he told me that the chance of relapse here is 40 to 50 percent. Isn't that madness?

"That's what fascinates me most of all: what do we do with those detainees while they're stuck? How can we help to break the destructive patterns that put them in prison? Imprisonment is a punishment in itself, but someday we'll send those people back into society, so let's mainly support them in their self-development.

"In preparation for The Mustang, I visited prisons in the U.S., and talked to men who had been detained for 20, 30 years. Heavy guys: Aryan Brotherhood (powerful crime syndicate of neo-Nazis in American prisons, ed.), Mexican gang leaders... real scary dudes. You know what those say to me? That they live in fear every day, but they must not show weakness. Psychological counseling and things like that have their value, but that's often very cerebral. I especially believe in the healing power of art. Imagine that inmates can express all those fucked up emotions through art: I think that there is an enormous potential in this."

I heard you're playing with the idea of giving acting lessons to inmates?

"That's not a concrete plan yet, but I would love it if people from the creative sector would commit themselves to this: musicians, sculptors, dancers. Or writers who help prisoners put their own story into words.

"The cultural sector needs to start sticking its neck out. The sector is lying flat, and that's terrible. But we have to keep moving. We can all do something for the community, without being paid for it. Planting small seeds, doing something good for your fellow man, something beautiful always comes out of it."

Had you been to a prison before The Mustang?

"To visit friends, yes. In Merksplas, Hoogstraten, Hasselt, Dendermonde... We shouldn't talk about that any further. A prison is deep tristesse. Who dares to call that 'a hotel', shame on you."

This summer you painted an impressive mural in Paris in honor of George Floyd, murdered by American officers. And in Ostend last week a new mural was unveiled, with a 'decapitated' Leopold II. Is activism an important part of your street art?

"Graffiti used to be more of a style exercise for me, you want to create things that get noticed within the scene. But gradually I felt like communicating with a wider audience. I like to incorporate a lot of symbolism in my paintings, such as the cracks I photograph all over the world and then magnify them in another place. And the praying hands, a universal image of hope and faith in yourself. Art has the power to speak to our deepest emotions, and that is what binds us to the other. Connectedness, empathy, harmony, solidarity, that's the essence for me."

The corona crisis is one big exercise in empathy and solidarity. Sometimes we seem to lack that.

"I refuse to surrender to cynicism, and I surround myself with positive people who do beautiful things for others. This period would lead us to insights: how do we deal with each other? Do we help each other, or is it every man for himself? A human is such a wonderful creature, but we mess it up so much for ourselves.

"Yeah, I know. Some people who read this will think: this guy is smoking too many joints. (laughs) I don't smoke joints, and I'm not an unworldly idealist. But I will always focus my attention on the good, in spite of everything."

If you always want to see the good in people, are you sometimes disappointed?

"Yes, of course. I'm not a naive brat, I've learned to guard my boundaries. I can't please everyone all the time, and I don't let anyone rush me. I react badly when people put pressure on me because they want things from me. The perception of me that others have of me, I can't control. I don't let myself put out of balance easily anymore."

I saw that on your Instagram Stories you warned about fake profiles on social media, of people pretending to be you. That made you visibly angry.

"Really, that makes me angry. Every day I receive screenshots from people who have been tricked by crooks who approach innocent victims with my name and my pictures. There are stories of fans who have paid thousands of euros because they were promised a meet-and-greet with me. How disgusting is that? One person has transferred 14,000 euros to someone who pretended to be my manager.

"Of course, that raises questions about how gullible some people can be. But I've seen those chat conversations for myself: those criminals are terribly sneaky. They know how to play on the vulnerabilities of their victims in a very cunning way. This is manipulation and swindle of the filthiest kind.

"Really, I get physically unwell when I think about it. How can someone be so mean? If I ever catch these guys, I'm gonna bash their skulls in, I'm not kidding. Sorry."

Or: those crooks get a jail sentence, where you're going to give them acting lessons.

(laughs) "Okay, let it be clear that I think everyone should be punished for their crimes. My commitment to the prison system is not a plea for impunity, and I certainly don't want to romanticize crime.

"But when someone abuses innocent people's trust in such a cunning way, the question is: how did you derail so morally? And above all: how can we initiate a transformation in that person? Surely you can't lock someone up and expect that person to suddenly make better choices years later? First such a person has to take responsibility for his own actions."

Do you have something criminal on your conscience?

"No." (Thinks for a second) "No. Thank God. I couldn't live with that.

"I've probably hurt people in my life, like everybody else. Sometimes we just hurt people because of who we are, or because we can't fulfill what others want from us. But I have never harmed anyone consciously or criminally, no."

As a teenager you sometimes came into contact with the juvenile court, for vandalism. Do you think you could have ended up on the other side of the bars?

"Probably, a life can take strange turns sometimes."

What made you sit here today, and not get on the 'wrong' path?

"Wait... that's a good question. There's the one terrible dramatic event that caused a total turnaround in my life: when my dad went into a coma after a psychosis, and I was told he only had 24 hours left to live.

"I was 21 then, thrown out of school for the umpteenth time. I was doing graffiti and wanted to find my way creatively. But I was messing around, going with friends who... Anyway, there was latent danger, it threatened to go a little bit the wrong way.

"And then I got that phone call: come and say goodbye. Bam. The relationship with my father had been sour for years, we hardly saw each other. Until I stood there at his deathbed in intensive care... I only felt love, a wave of emotions that I had pushed down very deeply. That realization was rock-hard: this was it. My father and I will never get the chance to figure shit out, I thought.

"Long story, the rest is known: after 72 hours my father woke up from a coma against all odds. Like a plant: he could not speak, reacted to nothing or nobody. According to the chief psychiatrist, we had to accept that his condition would never improve. That was without the fighting spirit of my mother and me.

"It's because of that unlikely event that I've changed my whole lifestyle. For eight months, my mother and I went to visit my father every day. We talked to him, but he seemed to look straight through us. For hours we sat with him at the psychiatry department of Stuivenberg, how desperate those first months were also. We continued to fight, taught him to talk, to eat, to walk. A miracle, the doctors called it. Bullshit of course. It was love, dedication and stubbornness. Especially thanks to my mother, the lioness who kept fighting for him. And see how much beauty came out of it. My life then received an entirely different impulse.

"I suddenly think of an anecdote I've never told before. After a while we were allowed to take my father to the cafeteria once in a while, or to the garden. But he was absolutely not allowed to leave the hospital. Fuck it. I hid a bag of clothes for him, secretly dressed him in the toilet and took my father to the city. By bus, because I didn't have a driver's license. I wanted to stimulate his senses, test if any memories would come back. He was fond of Our Lady's Cathedral, so that's where I wanted to take him."

Matthiaske, why am I crying?

He plays it out. The written version here is only a dead script compared to the lived-through performance, right there on that dark square, just around the corner of the Arenbergschouwburg, where Matthias made his stage debut as a 9-year-old boy next to father Julien, as The Little Prince.

Matthias shows how he supported his frail dad, and how they shuffled in small, careful steps towards the cathedral. Dad looking at the ground to be sure not to fall. "I say, 'Dad, look up'. He looks up, and I see the tears rolling down his cheeks. I had never seen my father cry. 'Matthiaske,' he says, 'can you tell me why I'm crying?'

"I had already decided then that I would take my father into my house. Overconfident, yes, at that age, but they have become the most beautiful years of my life. Mom came by every day to help. Suddenly we were a bit of a family again, something we had only been for a short time when I was young."

It was at that time that you decided to become an actor. Why did you decide to become an actor?

"I had always resisted following in my father's footsteps. In my youth I mainly wanted to break away from my father, and seek my own path. I didn't want to have anything to do with him and all those loudmouths around him in the theater world. But most of all I was terrified that compared to the great Julien Schoenaerts I would never be good enough.

"Only now do I understand why I then decided to go to the conservatory. Not to become an actor, but to understand my father. We had so many years together, and now that we had been given a second chance, I wanted to get to know him as well as possible. By acting, maybe I could get closer to him." (pauses)

Sentimental fuss

He banishes the tears. It's one of the many things he has in common with his father, he says: they're both very emotional, but they hate sentimental fuss. "Come on, Matthias: breathe," he commands himself.

"Voilà, see how much beauty can come out of misery. What a chain of beautiful things came out of the fight my mother and I put up in the most hopeless situation. Who knows how differently my life would have turned out?"

"There are so many lessons in that. If we just talked about the rehabilitation of detainees, for example. It takes commitment. Not a workshop of two hours. You have to persevere, even in the event of a setback, with no guarantee of a happy ending. That's why I think it's so important to keep telling that story about my dad. Those are the values I believe in: dedication, stamina, attention, love. You can apply that to everything in life. Love is the fuel."

You often talk about your parents as if you want to keep them alive with your words.

"Because my mom and dad are the people I've loved most. With them I shared the most important moments, built the most beautiful memories. That loss is enormous. Life has been really fucking tough since they've been gone.

"That's what grabs me so much in this period. How many people have died of corona in Belgium?"

According to Google, today, on the day of the interview, the counter stands at almost 14,000 deaths.

"Fourteen thousand! Imagine how many people that has an impact on? How many people have suddenly lost their mother, father, brother, sister, best friend or neighbor? Behind those figures lie tens of thousands of poignant stories, of people who see a loved one torn from their lives. That is a mountain of unresolved grief, and far too little attention is paid to it."

Earlier during our conversation a guy had walked past coughing and maskless. It pissed Schoenaerts off: "And whining about masks or strict measures. Grow some fucking balls. Having to say goodbye to a loved one, that's the worst thing."

"Isn't that what this period teaches us? That our time here is limited? And what really counts in life: sharing moments of beauty with the people you hold most dear. All the rest is wallpaper. Having success, making movies, that's all fun. But the day you lie on your deathbed, you really don't think about the professional successes on your resume. No way."

#matthias schoenaerts #interviews #misc #by us

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steve0discusses · 3 years

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S5 Ep5: Female Friends

So I was up hella late because of Daylight Savings screwing my sleep schedule, and I was on Twitch and one of the people I follow was speedrunning a Yugioh game (I think it was called Forbidden Memories like it was some Romance YA novel) and I was like “that’s a thing?” And I watched about 15 minutes of just complete nonsense. Like this game makes no sense when your scrubbing through 30 minutes of gameplay, but when a whole game takes 45 seconds and they have mechanics using like planets and astrology symbols? What?

What?

Y’all, I’m a little concerned your card game ain’t real. Like this is some ploy by knowing adults and this is some sort of Santa Claus situation where everyone else knows that this game ain’t real, but I’m the last person alive who’s like... “it is real though, right?” Hoping that I haven’t been played all of these years, despite having literally no empirical evidence that it is.

Just saying, I’m on to you, Yugioh.

Thanks dub.

I am pretty convinced (could be wrong) but pretty convinced that Grandpa was probably just normal horny in this scene. Like it just kinda matches what I know about horny grandpa tropes (that and Vivian is really talked up to be this hot stuff although she’s just youknow...some girl who exists.)

He immediately falls over. Like immediately, and I don’t know what’s up with Grandpa’s weird slipped disc, but luckily this is the one thing that Mokuba is prepared to deal with as a park manager.

Or what was his job again, Master of Ceremonies? That was the name of Mokuba’s actual chosen job that a 12-13 yo would choose?

Only Mokuba would have the choice to choose “a literal astronaut” and not choose an astronaut. This kid probably hates space though, with his family’s countless war machines now currently flying through the void.

The amount of times that the Kaibas have had to call a doctor for these guys.

(read more under the cut)

Bro was like “So Hawkins paid Grandpa to pretend to fall down so they could ditch Rebecca’s duel, right?” and youknow...probably. It was a pretty boring duel. They got off scott free.

Rex and Weevil do cartoon antics that actually feel like cartoon antics--which feels so weird for this show. Of course, it also has this Vivian plotline that is a little sus for a children’s show?

OK, show. You keep throwing women at Yugi Muto, and I get it’s a joke because he’s the world’s most undateable boy but there is a line of plausibility that even for a kid’s cartoon show it’s like “eh, probably not.”

Anyway, Vivian has Cho Chang energy of “I’m here for a problematic romantic conflict that never needed to happen and hamfisted diversity and uhhhhhh that’s it! I won’t exist after book 5!”

What a step down from dueling on top of the train, right? Like this whole time you could have just dueled next to it? What? In this show?

The rest of the party show up to the train station, where there’s really no other audience watching. Like where are Rebecca’s adoring fans who were asking for her autograph like 3 episodes back?

Card culture is brutal, y’all.

Vivian is not drawn like a 16 yo, being real. I was pretty surprised that she was under 25 according to a cursory Google search. Course, Joey Wheeler is drawn like a built adult, too, so I think the only convincing teenage child on this show is Pharaoh because at least he’s short. Just ignore how sometimes he’s got muscles on his arms that have no right to be there at the age of 16. (17?)

Then we had like a little Season Zero vibes where everyone just picks on Yugi for a hot minute.

And so Tea’s character development comes full circle as she realizes that this whole time, the Female Friend she needed was already here in the form of that small child who has a crush on her kinda boyfriend.

This was such an episode written by a bunch of dudes.

But at least Rebecca and Tea found something in common, although I really wish it wasn’t Yugi, considering how little on screen development he has with either of them. Where’s the reward for me as the viewer? If I cared about either of this love pentagon at all (well, hexagon...Bakura’s still in there.) there will never be a payout. You very well may be waiting forever for a relationship the writers clearly had never any intention to ever write except to act as a foil for our protagonists instead of like...a relationship.

And the show seems a little inconsistent with the relationship between Rebecca and Tea, too. They hang out a lot as the girls on the sideline, and appear to get along a lot of the time--but then they hate eachother a lot of the time as well because of jealousy? It’s just so weird.

I feel like TV shows in general have a really hard time approaching girl friendships, and speaking as a girl, I wish TV and books recognized more that our female friendships don’t have to be so freakin serious. We just act friendly and that’s freakin it.

That and these girls are going to go right back to hating eachother half the time after this is over because the main problem--Yugi not piping up and telling one of them to back the hell off--has never been addressed and never will be because Yugi is a broken, broken wet blanket.

Back at the base, Seto is also making up his own problems to be upset about in the absence of any apocalypses happening on screen.

Unless that hacker is Noah Kaiba, you’re probably fine. I really haven’t had too much of a reason to feel any fear over Zigfried von Schroeder. And maybe it’s because his character design was pretty complicated so no one wanted to draw it.

This was a ‘who’s on first’ joke but still.

...why do cards have to be like this?

Also, I didn’t see anything about this nonsense in the speedrun I watched the other night so, guys, this game ain’t real.

Anyway, Rebecca won.

We find out a little more of what happens to other duelists. Our Cowboy lost to a Sherlock Holmes boy, and I was very happy that I don’t have to come up with jokes about country music because I have none other than like...Taylor Swift jokes? Does she still count as country? I have no idea what’s going on in the country music scene.

On other side of the park, Yugioh decide to pay another tribute to the creative crotch shot with one of these:

Rex and Weevil are off to fight the big bad, and when you think “OK, we’re gonna get a wacky duel battle with these two balancing on top of eachother,” they kinda whiffed it before they made it to the stage.

And then I kind of whiffed it when I realized that Mokuba and Weevil have never spoken in the same place before and they have the same exact font color so fml.

The fact that Mokuba didn’t realize anything was wrong until they fell and revealed they were two small adults in a trench coat says a lot about most of the competitors in this duel.

It is incredible how both the Battle City Tournament and the Kaiba Corp Tourney (s that it’s name?) are both poorly managed, but in a different way. The Battle City Tourney unfortunately had a bunch of murderers in it. This tournament, no one is killing eachother, but they are still kind of sneaking in through the back door and being chronically late to everything.

(and I just want to point out that after the last match Mokuba oversaw that had Joey nearly miss the appointment, Mokuba decided to set this one in front of a Giant Clock just to get his point across)

So Zigfried has some sort of flying horse card that wiped them out right away, which makes you wonder........

.............why use any other cards?

Kaiba makes these cards, right????

Like he should be the last person who’s surprised????

Anyway, Zigfried top-decked a horse, and the guy who spends about 15 minutes getting ready his big ol blue eyes dragons every match he’s ever played was like “Yo I have GOT to get into speedrunning!”

And yes, the speedrun I was watching did not use Blue Eyes White Dragons. They were using a bunch of other stuff that I tried to look up just now and the art is completely different from what I recall so...unfortunately that means that your game is fake. Pretty sure it’s fake and you have no way to prove to me this is real.

Anyway, that’s it for now, not much to say since we’re still at the beginning of the arc. Next week I guess we’ll find out if Seto ever removes his ass from this chair.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

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crescent-woods · 3 years

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sprint fic/kiss prompt - perfect water

[ finally, the fic writer actually writes a fic! this is sort of a combination fic, i was slumped on the next kiss prompt combo and this challenge topic ended up with lukanette in the water! so i’m calling it both hehe. as usual, this fic was written in three 15-minute sprints and about a day of editing/minor additions! ]

kiss #5: place - in the water; reason: admiration

sprint fic prompt: bike ride

ao3 // sprint not-fic (drawing)

Marinette had been in the US for almost a month by the time she had finished her commission. After two weeks, Luka had joined her for a makeshift vacation in her spare time. To celebrate the completion of her largest commission to date, Luka had planned a surprise trip so she could relax before they returned home (and inevitably picked up 5 more commissions to replace the one she had finished).

He was waiting for her outside her client’s building with a bag slung over the shoulder not holding his guitar, another bag for her in his hand. Marinette practically ran into his arms (careful of Claire in her case) squealing with excitement.

“So, I take it he was more than happy?” Luka laughed as he helped her climb onto his bike and placed their bags in the basket.

“You saw how much he paid! I can’t believe it, Luka! Do you know what I could do with this much money? ‘Cause I have no idea!” Her eyes are the brightest thing Luka has ever seen and her arms were waving around as she listed off the possibilities. “I could buy so much Andre’s, or a new sewing machine! Fabric! Or ribbons! Or,” Marinette gasped, “that guitar you were looking at!”

Luka hummed, knowing full well that Marinette wouldn’t be able to not buy something for the people she loved.

“I bet Alya could use a new camera after her last one broke, or I could buy some fabric and make new dolls for Manon? Kagami’s anniversary is coming up soon and I need to get started on her gift so I could just use this to buy the materials for that… but I don’t know what I want to do yet! Luka, what would you want for your 3-year anniversary gift?” She paused to take a breath. “Wait, I guess you’re not the best person to ask because you don’t really know what kinds of gifts the owner of a major technology company would want. And where are we going, anyways?”

“It’s a surprise, ‘Bug. You deserve a break from all your work and that’s what I plan on doing,” Luka grabbed her waist behind him as he set off. “And please, please hold on to me this time so we don’t have a repeat of last month, darling.”

Marinette mumbled something into his shoulder that sounded vaguely similar to ‘that was one time, you jerk’ but wrapped her arms around him.

They pedaled around for a while, weaving through streets Marinette was slightly familiar with as the route to her rented flat, before he altogether passed everything she was familiar with. Marinette popped up from where she was resting against him. “Wait, you still haven’t told me where we’re going! We already passed the hotel and that restaurant you wanted to try.”

“I promise you, you’ll love it. It’s exactly what you need to relax after being stuck up in your workshop, babe,” Luka replied. “It’ll feel exactly like home,” he added as he noticed the tang of salt in the air.

“Can I guess?”

“If you want.”

“Picnic?” No. “Bakery?” No. “Is it outside?” Yeah. “Theme park?” No. “Pool?” Closer. “River?” Closer. “The beach?” More water. “Oh no, don’t say snorkeling!” Marinette hid her face in his back.

“It’s definitely not snorkeling. Or scuba diving, for that matter. But it does involve the open water.”

“Are we… going on a boat?” A nod. “Oh! Okay! Why didn’t you just say that?” Marinette relaxed.

“Because you’re forgetting the surprise part then.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” she smiled. “As long as you’re not making me drive it!”

Luka smiled. “That wouldn’t be very relaxing now, would it, ‘Bug?” Luka took a glimpse behind him. Marinette smiled back at him, looking just as relaxed as he hoped this small trip would make her.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Luka stopped the bike. “Well, here we are, sweets.”

He helped Marinette off the bike, before grabbing their bags from the basket, and led her to the small boat. Marinette stood at the side, watching her boyfriend in his natural element as he prepped the boat and set them out for whatever destination he had in mind.

In another comfortable silence, Luka steered the boat to a nice, clear area of water, and Marinette let her mind wander as she stared out at the beauty around her. The water was so blue, and the sky too, all the kids playing on the beach. She could see little fish in the water and in the distance there were dolphins flying out of the water. Suddenly the Couffaine house-boat lifestyle made so much more sense.

“So, what do you think? Is this a good break?” Luka snapped her out of her reflection. He was standing at the edge of the boat in his swimsuit, holding hers out as well. She smiled and nodded. “You can change up here,” he smirked, “or you can go in the cabin, ‘Bug.”

Marinette huffed at his comment, before snatching the suit from his hands and going to change. When she came back out, Luka was already in the water, lounging serenely as if he were perfectly at peace.

He popped up and swam closer to the boat, shouting, “Jump in babe, the water’s perfect.”

She sat on the edge of the boat and slid in slowly, not trusting Luka’s definition of perfect. When she resurfaced from the truly perfect water, Luka grabbed her waist and pulled her to float upright with him.

Marinette sighed and kicked her feet. “Yeah, I think you're right,” she giggled. “The water definitely is perfect.”

“I could think of one thing to make it better,” Luka murmured as he pulled her closer to him.

Their kiss was comfortable, a practiced thing that left Marinette feeling cozy in his arms when they pulled away.

As she was about to kiss him again, that devilish smirk crossed his face and Marinette found herself underwater, Luka’s hand on the top of her head.

#lbsc sprint fic challenge #sprint fics #lukanette #lukanette fanfic #marinette dupain cheng #luka couffaine #miraculous ladybug #miraculousladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfic #peachy fics #pro lukamari

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themurphyzone · 3 years

Note

3, 4, 13, 26, 27, & 34!

Thanks for the ask @plutonis! I’m sorry this is gonna be long cause I’m gonna rant about a WIP concept that may not ever come to fruition.

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

I honestly don’t know. I think it’s just easier for my work to be noticed in a small fandom than a larger one.

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

I borrowed a lot from skimmingsurfaces and SylviaW1991. I was inspired to write my first PatB story last year from their works.

Pluto listens to me scream about torturing mice, plus her works are always great if you like that bittersweet/downright tragic vibe.

@deez-art for kickstarting the PatB Disney AU trend.

Big shout out to everyone in Air Mice Nyoom for the mutual support!

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

My first posted fic was for Phineas and Ferb way back in 8th grade, but I did fill up quite a few notebooks with Pokemon stories. My writing has improved a lot over the years, mostly because I never attempted to post my Phineas and Ferb/Sonic Underground crossover on the net. I was in middle school and we were all dumb at that age XD

That one still haunts me...I think I still have it somewhere in a notebook.

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

Can’t say. Everybody in this fandom is so nice and I love hearing what people love about my stories.

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

From the ending of Eurydice:

"Just say narf, just say narf.

We're alright, we're okay, so let's say narf.

You and I will have tomorrow nights again.

No matter what happens, I'm always your friend…"

I’m proud of my happy ending okay they needed it.

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

I have a WIP concept for a 101 Mice based off 101 Dalmatians, which would’ve involved a number of OCs (yes, including a group of OC Brinky kids.), but it might not get anywhere tbh. Mostly because I don’t really deal in OCs unless they’re minor characters.

The concept: The villain would’ve been an OC named Malicia de Vil, who’s a niece to the original Cruella. Basically she’s an eccentric rich woman who became interested in breeding mice to create fur trimmings for accessories and dresses (since the story takes place in southern California, an entire fur coat would be impractical), and ACME Labs took the generous funding they were given by her to create Project Gloss, which would’ve raised hundreds of baby mice to adulthood until their fur was ready for collection.

To accomplish this, the gene splicer from the failed Project BRAIN would be reconfigured to splice genes that favor long, lush fur, and sentience was just a throwaway side effect this time around. However, the mice subjected to this experiment were much younger than the ones used in Project BRAIN, and many didn’t survive.

Brain is in the middle of his usual plans of world domination when someone brings in 2 survivors of Project Gloss just after the gene splicing. They’re left in a different cage across the room and are squeaking from hunger and cold. Pinky is immediately drawn to the babies since he’s got a bad case of Empty Nest Syndrome since Romy left home, and so does Brain but it’s not like he’ll admit it. Brain warns about getting attached, but nope these are Pinky’s babies now, so Brain unlocks the cages for his friend so he can go care for the babies.

Still trying to salvage the plan, Brain goes into the gene splicer room to obtain a few spare parts for his machine...then he hears a tiny, weak squeak, and discovers a small, barely alive, gene-spliced mouse baby. Brain tries to steel himself against it and tries to gather what he needs first then retrieve the baby immediately afterward, but the squeaking suddenly stops and Brain panics, immediately dropping the plan in favor of warming up and reviving the baby. Thankfully, she survives.

Pinky is confused when Brain shows him the 3rd baby, but he quickly accepts her along with the other two. Brain is highly emotional at this point and just plops against Pinky, and he finds that Pinky has already named the two babies he was taking care of Colby Jack and Pepper Jack.

Pinky asks what Brain named the baby he’d brought in, and Brain tells Pinky he can name her if he wants, but Pinky says it’s only fair if they get to name 2 kids each, and Brain’s only named Romy so far.

So Brain concedes and after some deliberation, settles for calling the infant Amygdala (nicknamed Amy for everyday use), after the portion of the brain that controls memories and emotions. Pinky accepts the name and they sleep the rest of the night.

Brain researches the details of Project Gloss soon after the babies’ adoption and realizes that their new charges will be raised only for their fur and will be killed for it once they’re grown. So the mouse family stow away with a young intern couple who are essentially this AU’s versions of Roger and Anita so the babies can be protected. The interns, while they don’t speak mouse, care deeply enough to allow the mice to hide in a purse so they can be smuggled out of the lab and into their home. A hidden camera catches them at this though, and Malicia de Vil is highly displeased and orders the interns’ positions terminated, though neither of them are particularly upset about this.

3 months later, Colby, Pepper, and Amy are thriving, and their big bro Romy even drops in for a visit every now and then, much to Pinky and yes, even Brain’s delight. While Pinky loves his family, he also craves a date night with Brain, and they go out to dinner. Romy is having a movie night with Bunny at their own place. The babies are tucked in and asleep, and the interns are just cuddling on the couch.

Then somebody breaks in, non-fatally injures the human couple, and steals the mouse kiddos. Halfway through their dinner, Pinky is overcome by panic and thinks something is terribly wrong. Brain tries to reassure him the kids are just asleep, but Pinky won’t listen and rushes out the door in the direction of home, so fast that Brain can’t keep up. Brain stays behind to get the half-eaten meals boxed up and paid for, annoyed with Pinky for breaking the date night.

By the time Brain gets back, Pinky is a complete mess, the humans are just calling 911 to report a break-in and injuries, and the kids are nowhere to be found.

Eventually Brain finds a lead that points to the de Vil mansion, and the two set out to rescue their kids. They also recruit Romy and Pharfignewton’s help in the journey.

This took way too long to type lol XD

#pinky and the brain #thanks for reading my rant #i know it's long #ask meme

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kayejwrotes · 4 years

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This is a cry for help from Italy

Hello everyone. This is a cry for help from Italy. In the past few days, we've had a devastating increase in deaths due to COVID-19. We've reached the point where we have no more places to bury our deceased and we have to move them around different cemeteries around Italy in order to find space for everyone. It means moving people where their loved ones cannot mourn them since we cannot travel from town to town. It means also cremating them without the consent of their families because there's no place to bury them all, often regardless of their will. There are no funerals, no last salutations, no cries, nor consolation. Yesterday in Bergamo people watched from their home windows as the military convoys brought their dead loved ones away without being able to say them goodbye for the last time. This breaks my heart. The military it's patrolling around the streets to make sure no one gets out of their homes. We are in dire need of doctors, nurses, individual protection devices for them and machinery and beds for the hospital. You've seen us singing the past few days from the balconies to give strength to each other, but there's no sound outside now. Now Italy it's just under the thumb of this invisible enemy and we can not foresee when we'll be able to defeat it. We are resisting, but we fear the moment we won't be able to resist anymore.

I've never asked donations for anyone nor for myself without giving back something. Right now, I'm asking any of you who can help to make a donation to these two associations. This is for the Italian Red Cross: https://www.cri.it/home (there's a "Emergenza Coronavirus" fund on the right, if you go clicking "DONA ORA". You can choose between a fixed or free amount of the donation.) This is for the Protezione Civile (you'd probably need a card, I don't think you can do a PayPal donation for this one): Banca Intesa Sanpaolo Spa Filiale di Via del Corso, 226 - Roma To: Pres. Cons. Min. Dip. Prot. Civ. IBAN: IT84 Z030 6905 0201 0000 0066 387 (of you are from Italy) BIC: BCITITMM (if you are outside Italy)

They are doing an amazing job these days and are working tirelessly to provide whatever materials and support hospitals around our country need. I'm not redirecting you to any hospital fund or whatever, because this is a national emergency, not a local one. This is the fund with which we'll pay doctors, nurses, devices and machines. This is the fund that will help all those who are home, unable to work and be paid because since last night all productive industries in Italy had to stop. Italy is stopping in order to defeat the enemy. We have long weeks, if not months, of resistance in front of us, with no way to know when we'll be able to get out of this. We are strong people, we will do anything in our power to stop this enemy. But if you can spare even 1€ of yours to help us, it would be 1€ more to buy facemasks, gloves, and more things to protect our fighters in the hospital. We can't have them succumb to this virus. Please, however little donation it's welcome. Even reblogging this will help a little.

Thank you all for the kind words and thoughts I received during these days. They made me feel how much love there’s in this world even from miles apart and oceans dividing us! Ps: under the cut I put a more direct way with which you can help me and my family facing this emergency. So if you’d like to, check under the cut for my ko-fi and commission fees.

On another, more personal note, as you know, I’m a writer. Right now, both my parents cannot go to work and they won’t receive any salary from their job this month. My salary is the only one supporting a family of four and we have groceries, house, energy and water bills to pay, without taking into account any meds we might need. If you want to help support me and my family, you can donate a coffee here at my ko-fi account: https://ko-fi.com/kayejwrotes, in exchange you can choose to receive one of my short unpublished story I’ve 5 of them all in the Haikyuu!! fandom. (Contact me by DM here or on Twitter if you are interested in those!)

If you want a short story for your oc’s, a fanfic for your favourite characters, this is the right time to consider commissioning me! I love writing fluff, urban fantasy and lots of soft, everyday scenes. You can read most of my works here . You’ll receive a pdf or epub file, or both, (that’s your choice!) with the story you requested for. These are my commission’s fees:

€ 5 - 500 words short story with a complete scene of your character/s

€ 8 - 1000 words short story with a complete scene of your character/s

€ 12 - 1200 words complete short story with your character/s of choice

€ 15 - 1500 words complete story with your character/s of choice.

Each story will have a well defined setting (of course in-depth description will vary according to the type of commission you choose), detailed description of your characters and scene of your choice.

Things I’m not comfortable writing:

- violence - gore - death - non-con - sex

Anything else is up for discussion. If you are interested in helping me this way it would be very much appreciated, given the difficult moment. I’ll keep 7 slots open and will update this post whenever I run out of slots! Even reblogging this could help!

#covid-19 #covid19 #Italy #italian red cross #civil protection #donations #please reblog this #or donate if you can #kofi #My writing #writing commission

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