#fun fact they were watermarked so i removed them

[uwuttaker]

jodie whittaker photographed by joseph sinclair (2023)

#jodie whittaker #fun fact they were watermarked so i removed them #BY HAND #and you can tell its not perfect #but i don't really trust using those sites that do it so #still a vast improvement on what we originally had of these

[betafibiiiiiivviiixiiixxixxxiv]

Alright, this whole thing with Honey Impact is a clusterfuck, so I’m gonna make a rant (written with the help of friends) about it breaking every leg Honey Impact seems to think they can stand on. Buckle on in kids, because this is gonna be a long one.

Disclaimer: I am not a legal expert, but you do not have to be a legal expert to do some basic fucking research, which Honey Impact has clearly not done despite saying that they have.

First, it should be known that months ago Mihoyo released a statement asking people to stop supporting leaks and that they would be increasing efforts to deal with illegal disclosures of their unreleased content. This has been a long time coming, and honestly with the recent actions of leakers and/or dataminers, I think it’s deserved.

https://twitter.com/GenshinImpact/status/1372142018621706240

Second, unlike what many people seem to think, it is not unfair of Mihoyo to shut down Honey Impact’s site. It is within their rights. Honey Impact is sharing and profiting from content that does not belong to them. That is the bottom line of this. They do not own that content and they do not have the permission, nor the right, to share it.

Furthermore, Mihoyo did not go behind Honey Impact’s back to shut down their website. For example, if a streamer or youtube video infringes copyright, the company/corporation/individual/whatever entity holding that copyright would go to the highest power to tell the streamer or person who uploaded that youtube video that they’re infringing on that copyright, which would be Twitch and Youtube respectively. In this case, the highest power was the host domain hosting Honey Impact’s website.

https://twitter.com/HoneyDodogama/status/1436309421932548098?s=20

https://genshin.honeyhunterworld.com/2021/09/10/mhy-is-trying-to-take-us-down/?lang=EN

Heading on to the points from the 9/11 update Honey Impact shared on their website and on their discord blatantly trying to paint Mihoyo as the bad guy and claiming that what they’re doing is in fact not illegal and pretty much digging a bigger hole for themselves:

Here is where they claim they did some legal work to try and keep their website afloat. Honestly, it seems more like they were trying to find a way to keep doing their illegal work for profit.

1)    In their first point, they claim that the Terms of Service (ToS) is not a contract. That is incorrect. It is a contract. You may not have signed with your name in blood, but you agreed to it when you checked the little box(es) to access the game because a digital signature is still your signature. If you agreed to the ToS and you violate it, you can be held accountable for doing so. What kind of legal work are you doing that you don’t even know this?

2)     In this point they say that Mihoyo provides a software that requires Kernel level of access to your PC. First of all, you have to grant Mihoyo/Genshin this permission. It is like when an app on your phone asks you for permission to access your photos, your microphone, your camera, etc. Second, the Kernel level of access to your PC isn’t to steal and sell your information, install a virus, etc., but to enforce anti-cheat measures which is common in other games.

Furthermore, it has been adjusted to be as minimally invasive as possible and if they violated any rules or laws regarding invasion of privacy or if they made it so that your computer turned into a bitcoin farm, the Google Play Store and the Apple Store and other platforms would have removed Genshin Impact from their platform. (And Mihoyo would’ve gotten into a whole lot of trouble.) What kind of developer are you that you don’t even know this?

On top of their misleading accusations, they use cookie based ads on their own site. Aka the things that save and keep track of your emails, passwords, browser history, etc, and they sell it to the highest bidder without informing you of who or what it's for or giving you a single share of the profits they're making off the private information you have stored on your device(s) while accessing their site. So who is actually being invasive?

3)     Honey Impact does give credit where credit is due with the watermarks, but they host ads on the website and they run a Patreon asking people to support them in developing their website. Which is very hypocritical of them since they themselves said that they make 10kUSD+ a month and stated that they don’t want people in their discord server to donate to them. They also beg for donations in their streams.

They are not only illegally distributing someone else’s content, they are also profiting from it. This violates the fair use clause of copyright law.

This is like people taking artists’ work and selling them behind their back. Even if the artist is making bank compared to whatever you are making, it is still theft of intellectual property. You are pretty much reposting art that the artist has said not to repost. You are a thief. What kind of content creator are you that you don’t even know this?

4)     Unlike what Honey Impact has said, everything that is under the Genshin Impact banner, be it released content or unreleased is covered under the trademark that Mihoyo owns. As the owners of that trademark, they want Honey Impact to stop using their website to illegally share unreleased content that they illegally acquired.

Honey Impact also refers to their website as a fansite. But fansites generally aren’t for profit/have ad revenue, as profiting off of someone else's content goes directly against Fair Use, which they seem to think they are somehow entitled to if they scream about it loud enough… 

Just look at the Genshin Impact fandom wiki. There is a reason why they do not allow leaked/datamined/unreleased content on their page. (Because it is illegal!!!!!!!) Also, since Honey Impact was using Fandom, the host domain of the Genshin Impact fanwiki, as an example of an entity making money off of official content: first, Fandom hosts a lot more fanwikis than just the Genshin Impact fanwiki (which, btw, has no for-profit ads), which culminates in a lot more overall traffic compared to Honey Impact’s site of stolen goods. Which means Fandom needs more money.

https://twitter.com/HoneyDodogama/status/1436990491942342662?s=20

Second, again, the Genshin fanwiki DOES NOT POST UNRELEASED/LEAKED/DATAMINED CONTENT ON THEIR PAGES. BECAUSE DOING SO IS ILLEGAL. I don't know why Honey Impact thinks the fanwiki has that kind of content on its pages, but it doesn't.

Moreover, about not being subject to the NDA; it does not matter that Honey Impact, or anyone else on their team, did not sign an NDA. The crux of the matter is that the stuff they’re sharing doesn’t fucking belong to them. It is still theft of intellectual property.

Furthermore, this is not a grey area in law. Any company/corporation/individual/entitiy with a copyright has the right to tell other people to stop using their content protected by that copyright if they so choose. There has been precedent for this. D*sney is one such example as is Anne Rice.

As for other content creators that aren’t dataminers and/or leakers, they have been sanctioned by Mihoyo to release the content they have been releasing. Don't drag down other content creators such as streamers, artists, fanmerch creators, etc as they comply with a very much public list of conditions that Mihoyo has published to allow them to LEGALLY profit. They make fun of Mihoyo’s legal department not even being able to make a clear paragraph in English, yet Honey Impact’s English isn’t perfect either. So what if Mihoyo can’t spell? Honey Impact apparently can’t even read.

5)     What they are asking Honey Impact to do with their website is to follow the law. It is not some fraud company politics, it. Is. The. Fucking. Law. The reason they don’t want Honey Impact to have backups is because they’re not supposed to fucking have it in the first place. Furthermore, company politics has to do with what goes on inside the company, not what the company does to people/entities outside of it.

Ultimately, the stuff related to unreleased content of Genshin Impact Honey Impact has been posting on their website DOES NOT BELONG TO THEM. It’s bad enough that they were posting it without permission, it’s even worse that they were getting money for it.

Not to mention, with the way they have been acting, if you’ve been sympathetic and/or defending them, they really don’t deserve it. They added a pretty nasty disclaimer on their new website (which has since been deleted), which, by the way, can get them sued for libel, so that’s another charge on them, and also really shows how petty and childish they’re acting.

Moving on to how they claim they’re back, which at this rate won’t be for long, they say they’ve moved to an Amsterdam based server and that that server is non-DMCA compliant.

So Ionos, their former host server for their website, is, in Honey's words, "DMCA compliant" only in the sense that they take responsibility for the content posted on their platform(s) and domain(s). All that means is that Mihoyo has to go through the DMCA process with the company to officiate the start of the paperwork.

Moving to an Amsterdam server that claims to be "not DMCA compliant" doesn't mean they can't get struck by DMCA. It just means that the company disclaims any and all legal obligations regarding the content posted and it will be solely the content creator's responsibility. So all that means is that they'll get their DMCA even faster now because Mihoyo will not be legally obligated to send the paperwork to the hosting company before sending it to them.

By the way, DMCA laws are INTERNATIONAL. Just because you moved servers from the US to Amsterdam does not mean you suddenly do not have to follow DMCA laws. Also, Mihoyo does have a local EU branch to deal with such things in Europe.

#genshin impact #honey impact #rant

[tetrakys]

I haven’t commented what is going on with the guides and I feel like I should. 

First of all, the problem of people taking content from tumblr and posting it on other platforms is old, you probably remember Lilyr95 pretending to play the game and spreading fake news. Personally I think that when it comes to illustrations and screenshots the art belongs only to Beemoov, so I never bothered to watermark these things. However I’ve seen time and time again other people add their own watermark to things taken directly from my own blog.

To have proof of this we added Lance’s face to Ivan’s bad ending illustration, because to this day I’m still the only person in the fandom who has managed to get bad endings voluntarily I knew that my illustration would end up on all Moonlight Lovers pages, and that’s exactly what happened. Then, even better, the instagram page Ivaniel removed our watermark from the illu and put their own, demanding to be credited by anyone who would use the illustration. 

That page was closed but the admin is the same as cdm_ml_juegos who has consistently taken our content and reposted it. I want to be fair and say that they add credit in the comments, same thing the page otome_updates does, but what is the point of adding credits in the comments when they cover our watermark from screenshots (like what they did immediately after Crown posted her screenshots of Ivan’s new good ending) or add their own watermark to our guides? And why... because they used google translate on them? We make our own spanish translations, @neilada-d6-meghah is one of the testers and makes sure to respect the language of the game so that people won’t make mistakes while playing, as it has happened with these other bad translations circulating, this whole situation is pretty disrespectful. These two pages have now agreed to stop doing this and post guides correctly. Fingers crossed.

We know that there several other accounts stealing our guides and all our content, we don’t know all of them, so if you do please let us know. Another one we are aware of is the website Escola de El, I spoke to the admin months ago asking them to stop making their own translations of our guides and publish the ones we make, with our own format. They not only refused but also blocked me and made a whole slanderous post about how I am only looking for fame(?)... simply because I want rightful credit for the group hard work. The whole brazillian fandom must think we are all psychos after what they wrote. To these days they are still using our guides but have also completely stopped crediting us, they credit some wiki pages that also use our guides. That website has ads, how do I know they are not making money out of our guides? It’s an absurd situation.

Also, please wiki pages (Brazil, Spanish, Polish etc), the rule stands for everyone, add the guides on our format to your websites. It’s not a whim, we update these guides, I received DMs from people who lost illus because they were still using Vladimir’s answers from November 2019. Also there were fake guides circulating up until recently. Please repost only in our format with link to either tumblr or facebook.

This whole situation is even worse if we add the fact that Beemoov has increased their release pace like crazy, every week at least one chapter comes out, often enough two. Last week we had 3 Raphael chapters + a terrible bug, it took us hours and hours of work to make the guides, we basically did nothing else in our free time up until sunday. To make an example, it took me around 5 or 6 hours per chapter only to go through all our gameplays and make notes. And the other testers replayed lots of times, more than I did. The moment we posted the guides, minutes later could be found everywhere, in other formats and with barely visible credits at best, or with other people credits at worst.

Honestly, we are burned out and disheartened. We even wanted to make Eldarya guides but if this is the situation I highly doubt it. We will keep playing just for fun among ourselves, if the situation improves and the instagram pages, the wikis, the websites and other socials stop the blatant stealing we will probably make guides again, but until then we are back to playing just for us.

#personal #about the guides

[incarnateirony]

hypnotist anon again- okay cool I’m already on that server lol. also even just small clips would be fun because as we saw today you’re not the only one with stuff to share 😈

Yeah no I’m really not and that’s kinda the point

for all the noise a certain very small set of fans made around me -- fans with very large followings -- claiming I was being clandestine with my shit or some shit?

there was a reason. I wanted to know people knew how to handle their content without implicating their sources. How to remove condemning watermarks, only release parts at a time that wouldn’t hurt sources, etc.

The people that condemned these basic responsibilities, claimed it cultish, now have their copies floating all over the internet all because of a few basic posts of things that still followed these guidelines. But those people? Sought attention. Wanted people to cow to them in debate rooms. Asked people to DM them for it. Wanted that direct line that kept people attached. Didn’t care about how people handled the content after them really, gave no cues of discretion. Used it to shit down the necks of people in giant servers until the admins blew up on them.

Now that crops were posted, people feel free to start posting the things given to them. I can’t wait until earlier (or, frankly, later) leaks are posted. Because the sources that confided in those sloppy people with no ethics? Who literally dragge dme for HAVING leak ethics? It’s not me they’re gonna be mad at. It’s gonna be them. 

There’s leaks all season long available. And I mean from 15.01 to 15.20. And I’m not saying that as a thing to BEG ME FOR LEAKS. As always: I’m not gonna give you shit if you ask me. It’s for the fact that the people that have handed these things out, and then turned around and snapped at someone else for having them--from completely different sources, for the most part, though I admit I filed a few pieces of theirs--are now catching up to the reality: why I ran my things the way I ran them, rather than sloppy correspondences like they did. The same things they got MAD and called “cult behavior” because people trusted people other than THEM as their almighty source (irony?????? especially since I didn’t hand out SHIT? and they were the one that wanted people to come to THEM?) -- the same LACK of discretion -- is what may get people in trouble, which was the entire logic in why I run my shit the way I do.

So like. This entire blowout is an entire manifestation of a bunch of big name fans creating their own villain--not me, but more the content they no longer can shut down in public view but may cost them their very Beloved Sources--and an actual prime exhibit on why I repeat, many times, you can’t expect any information to come from me.

It was a simple reaction to “WELL WHY ARE YOU BEING SO SECRETIVE THEN” “Oh you want me to post it publicly then?” “OH WAIT NOT LIKE THAT SHIT-- OH SHIT-- FUCK FUCK FUCK--”

So I don’t want ANYONE to follow me expecting me to drop leaks, this was just me dropping some into the unnecessary drama whirlwind.

[beedalee]

Magical Girl Adoptables - INDIGO on DeviantART

🌠Adopts Terms of Service 🌠What Are Adoptables? 🌠

🌠  RULES/INFO:

- Terminology: OPEN = available | #/# = number of designs left on sheet | HOLD = 24/48 hour hold is active | PENDING = invoice sent | SOLD = adopted - First come, first serve! I will hold for 24 hours- My Paypal Invoices will expire after 24 hours after they are sent! - I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason! Please be polite when inquiring about buying a design. - You may buy the design as a gift for someone else, but you must tell me who the giftee is! Contact me via note if it's a surprise! - After payment is received, you will get the FULL SIZE, un-watermarked, transparent version of the design you purchased! Please do not upload the full size anywhere to prevent theft, and do not remove my signature from the design for any reason! Please read my ToS and Adoptables journal linked above for more information. - Lace border credit: here!

🌠  PAYMENT:

- I accept paypal, debit/credit (no paypal account required), or DA points equal to the cash value! - If you pay by e-check/directly via bank account, I will send the full res after the payment clears! Please leave sufficient funds in your bank for it to clear properly like a one would with a regular check. Read my ToS for more info! - You receive the full size un-watermarked transparent version of the design after payment has been received! Thank you!!

Please click the read-more for information, order form, and availability status; OR go to the deviantart link above! If you want to buy one via tumblr, please private message me, do not use asks or they may get lost!  💓  If you have a question please don't hesitate to ask!!! I'll do my best to help you out!

(Edit: Linked to wrong adopt sheet oops!)

🌠 Temporary Limit: 1 DESIGN PER PERSON! Limit expires September 7th at 3:00pm MST 🌠

Gifting limit is 1 gift per buyer, and only if the giftee hasn't already purchased one on this sheet themselves! Example: Buyer 1 may purchase 'adopt A' for themselves and purchase 'adopt C' as a gift for Person 2 ONLY IF Person 2 has not bought or already been gifted one themselves. Giftees cannot buy a 2nd one during this limitation if they have been gifted one already! This post will be updated and watchers notified when this limit is over, thank you for understanding! 💓

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🌌🌃 47.00 USD EACH! ALL HOMED, TYSM! 🌃🌌

Each comes with little character blurbs, but you don't have to keep them! Feel free to change their powers/theme color/gender id/personality to your liking. Also, feel free to shift their color theme as well! These are just fun prompts for me.

🌠 ROW 1:

 Astral Idol: SOLD!

- She's a stunner, she's a star- with a voice that dazzles the whole cosmos! Being an intergalactic superstar has a lot of responsibilities, but saving the entire galaxy was not supposed to be one of them...

Guiding Star: SOLD!

- A meek girl  and trained nurse that spends most of her time caring for her strict but aging parents. She longs for romance, friendship, and a feeling of happiness. As the Guiding Star, she's tasked with carrying starlight safely to its destination, and her magic cloak lets her become one with the night- untouchable to the creatures that lurk there wanting to consume the magic light she protects.

Night Hunt: SOLD! 

- A serious person with little time for pleasantry or humor, and a highly sought-after mercenary renowned for their deadly skills.  While they have no interest in monetary gain, they will take on high-risk jobs for rare or unusual treasures, as they are seeking something invaluable... and once they set their sights on something or someone, there is nothing that can stop them.

🌠 ROW 2:

Time Jumper: SOLD! -A precocious little schoolgirl with big opinions and bigger impulses- but don't let her age fool you, she's sharp as a whip and clever as a hare- and with her pocket watch and time magic, she's always a little bit both here and there! ;)

Crystalline: SOLD!

- A trendsetter and respectable business lady aspiring to make her mark in the fashion industry. She carries herself with an air of grace and poise that can make her seem a little otherworldly and mesmerizing. She loves collecting glass sculptures and crystals.

Planetarium's Keeper: SOLD!

- A knowledgeable young man that maintains a prestigious planetarium, he is friendly but mysterious, as if he's watching something other than planetary activity. Though he's pacifistic, if something otherworldly were to threaten the order of the cosmos he wouldn't hesitate to become a formidable opponent- it is his job, after all.

🌠 ROW 3:

Stormbringer: SOLD!

- A reserved security guard who got caught up with a bunch of vagabonds opening a rift to another world, getting pulled in herself. To blend in, she adopts the role of the paladin Stormbringer- using her knowledge and newly discovered electricity magic to protect the other misplaced humans.

Sapphire Sword: SOLD!

- An overworked and underpaid waitress by day, an avid DnD player in her off time. It's all fun and games until she buys a trinket for her costume that miiiight in fact be the real deal, and ends up drawing monsters to her workplace in search of it...

Mistress of the Deep: SOLD!

- She's a force of nature, with looks that could kill and a master at sharp tongued comebacks to anyone that looks at her funny- but she's kind and motherly to her friends, if not sassy and a little over the top. Hell have no wrath like a woman who can summon entire tsunamis!

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🌠 ORDERING:

You MUST include the order form in your comment or note, or you may miss out on the adoptable! Please use it. If you're on mobile, you may just type it out instead of copying it if it's easier. Here's a breakdown of each entry:

do you agree to my ToS?: by writing "yes", you agree to the terms and conditions listed in it, so be sure to read it!

payment method: paypal, DA points, bank or debit, credit card, etc!

email: either your paypal email or an active email i can send the paypal invoice to. If a family member or friend is paying on your behalf, you must state that here.

design name: name of the design you're buying, which is listed on the design sheet!

is it a gift? optional, you don't have to include this section if it's just for you! if you want the recipient of this gift private, please note me your order form instead!

🌠  ORDER FORM:

do you agree to my ToS?: payment method: email: design name: is it a gift:

#adoptables #adopts #magical girls #mahou shoujo #magical girl #designs for sale #beedalee art

[koi-has-joy]

You steal pictures from google images and repost them on your blog for what reason? please justify this, honestly. Why republish it? You’re taking attention away from the original creator? It’s easy to reverse-image search and reblog from the original creator instead of being a gross person and reposting without permission, without even trying to look for the artist and giving credit where it’s due. Artists shouldn’t have to seek YOU out and say GIVE CREDIT, no matter what your following size is

Wow, okay.

So for the record: I crop my photos WITH the watermarks as much as possible. If it isn't there or if it IS cut off it was not my fault. Like I said most of my images are off google and google isnt exactly known for having the best quality in pictures. Also, if I found them on google... they were there, for everyone to see and screenshot and literally anything else.

I don't know why you're after me for it but go off I guess.

"Why republish?" Well because I liked the photo and figured other people would as well. I never once claimed any of it as mine nor did I ever imply it.

Fun fact!! You can't reverse image search on mobile! At least not on mine? If you know a way I'd love to see it.

I never said any artist had to seek me out. But if they did and weren't comfortable with their art being displayed I would gladly remove it if they asked. I simply don't have the time to ravage through the internet for a specific artist for one piece of fanart.

You mentioned an art account^ I don't know who that is but if I do have any of their art I would go tag it... except I can't. Because my posts are flagged and I'm unable to edit them.

I do not post other people's art in efforts to get likes and reblogs. I post them because I enjoy looking at them OR I post them with MY fic that I wrote. The only posts I have with fanart that aren't paired with something of my own are the 'shinso's happy birthday' and a post with what I refer to the different boys as. I will delete them if that would satiate you?

Waiting patiently for your response anon :), koi♡

#late nights with koi #koi loves asks #anon ask

[fragilevixenfic]

Caught in the Rain

For the secret Santa exchange I wrote a lovely little one shot for  wilhelmscreamf/Bob79519

Tagging the always lovely @monikafilefan @karinanic @country3living @reasonandfaithinharmony @agntstarbuck223 @invisigoth-1013 @msraddicted

Summary: A dark, rainy night leads Mulder and Scully to a hole in the wall bar where glasses of Scotch and unresolved tension is re-visited.

Is it real?  We're always the same  We're almost undone now  I was caught in the rain, wastin' my time on the ground.  Waiting the call of what would you say and can you come over?  I was caught in the rain, wastin' my time on the ground.

It was you

Who could get me high with whatever you say

You’re telling me something real

What we do doesn’t matter now

Whatever it takes for you to stay with me

-Revis

 11:00 PM, Sunday Night, June 28th 1998

Nearby the exterior of The Tune Inn

331 (and a half) Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC

                 Am I cursed?

              Scully’s brain was addled, confused as she carefully avoided the dips in the cement, her heels slapping against the heavily saturated grade underneath of her feet, disrupting the direction of the splashes with every step she took. It wasn’t enough that she had to glance down as she blindly pushed the wet strands of hair out of her face and did her best to hold her heavily saturated jacket shut as a gust of wind harshly left its mark across her skin, leaving behind streaks of not-so-waterproof mascara and watermarks in the finish of her lipstick. She caught her reflection in a window of a closed clothing shop and didn’t recognize the woman looking back—disheveled, a wreck, bordering on an emotionally unstable mess that was hanging by a thread. She had been walking for a while and the ache along her calf muscles provided the healthy reminder that her choice of footwear had been lazy, at best. The length of this contemplative walk wasn’t planned for and her attire was the icing on the cake of “why did I just do this?” as she held onto the edge of a newspaper stand while stretching out her legs.

               Lack of a plan had carried her off the beaten path, down a set of streets that she hadn’t explored before, and the fluttering in her belly of the jumbled thoughts simply added to the algorithm of what had been another fucked up month that she’d rather forget. At least she thought she did.

              It was quiet, almost desolate, along the typically busy and bustling section of Pennsylvania Avenue that Scully had wandered into just blocks away from the Capitol Building. She turned her head and looked at the quaint row of old buildings, some of which still had their neon “open” lights on and burning bright in the window, each beckoning her in a different way, each carrying a different message that had her contemplating whether to take a risk or turn the other direction. As she continued down the wet, rain soaked sidewalk, her full attention to her right hand side on the quiet little dive with the squeaky door, beyond the awning of the busy “Hawk ‘n’ Dove” bar that nearly overshadowed it. She wiped the streaks of black mascara from beneath her eyes as she approached,  the relief hitting her before she even knew what to expect from inside.

              It wasn’t the definition of ideal as she pulled the door open and felt the resistance against it, followed by the warmth behind but the reward finally came from smelling of hops, liquor, and bar fare as she stood and stared at the antler chandelier hanging from the ceiling at the end of the bar while dripping on the welcome mat.

              “Oooh, shit, love, what in the hell made you go wandering out in this downpour from hell?” The voice wasn’t a welcomed melody or a sonnet against her ears as it came from behind the bar, but it was masculine, gritty, and a little amused beneath the almost baritone vocal tone.

              Scully blinked rapidly and made eye contact with him, slowly wringing her hair out as she approached the bar near the corner, her back to the window, sliding onto a stool. “Entirely too much thinking for my own good and it led to more walking than should be legally allowed by any human in these shoes.”

              “Rough night?” He was awfully cute but not at all her type behind those grayish-blue eyes and overly coiffed hair with the perfectly maintained facial hair to match as he reached for a couple of napkins, offering them to her, a single eyebrow raised. “Boyfriend troubles? Husband? Girlfriend? Both?”

              Scully rolled her eyes and roughly wiped away the mess of makeup and raindrops along her cheeks, smiling far bigger than she intended on as she glanced at his nametag, returning the same elevated eyebrow as she crossed her legs. “None of the above…Todd.”

              “Well, alright, then you definitely need a drink, wouldn’t you say, love? So, what’ll it be?” Todd had a bright smile as he tossed his towel over his shoulder and gripped the edge of the bar, momentarily glancing back at the expanse of the space to keep an eye on the remainder of people in the space. “Or were you planning on just sitting there looking overdressed, soaked to the bone, and tense without a drink in front of you?”

              “Well, what do you typically recommend to someone who can’t seem to shut off their brain for more than three seconds, who is stuck in a perpetual loop thinking about how close they came to destroying a perfectly good friendship with someone?” Scully already had her mind on what nearly happened in the hallway outside of Mulder’s apartment as the heat flushed her cheeks in three seconds flat.

              “Drink enough of just about anything and you’ll stop thinking about a lot of things but it sounds like, for your masochistic situation…Scotch on the rocks,” Todd was definitely brazen and a little out there as he emphasized the word ‘masochistic’ while pulling a bottle of Glenlivet off of the top shelf, momentarily turning his back on Scully.

              Scully audibly scoffed at him, almost horrified at the idea but intrigued at it at the same time, as Todd poured her the drink over ice, the tone of her voice taking a pitchy journey as she found herself pouring it out, figuratively. “I know what that means and I don’t think it falls into the wildly accepted definition…I have been consumed by thoughts that I can’t escape, I’m beating myself up over it, and I truly don’t know which way is up or down, none of which is pleasant, by the way, and I wouldn’t be so willing to tell a perfect stranger under ordinary circumstances but here I am, doing just that.”

              “Uh huh…masochist,” Todd chuckled and pushed the rocks glass in front of her, the Amber liquid dancing in front of her as he propped up his chin with his palm, smirking at Scully as she avoided making eye contact with him. “So what’s your name, masochist?”

              Scully had the glass between her fingers, the aroma of oak, vanilla, honey, nutmeg flooded her senses with a hint of fruit beneath, almost lulling her into a false sense of security over how much she could safely drink before losing control of her tongue, or worse. She took a solitary sip and let the heavier citrus and apple caress with the burn of the alcohol that followed as she swallowed. The choice, while presumptive, was likely the right one despite the fact that her brain immediately went right back to that fucking hallway—knowing how close she came to swiping a blur in the perfectly constructed line between herself and Mulder. She had known for so long how much she had wanted to run, either straight to the comfort of his arms or for the elevator, neither of which provided much vision of sanity for a conclusion after the fact, in any case.

              This was one way to keep from experiencing failure and the bitterest sting of rejection, she supposed.

              “It’s Dana, Dana Scully,” Scully knew her cheeks must’ve been lit up like a Christmas tree as the glass made a tap against the bar top, her eyes focused on the rippling around the cubes of ice as they rolled around in the Amber liquid. “It dawned on me that I haven’t drank anything beyond a glass of wine in a long time. I don’t know what will come tumbling out of my mouth so I apologize in advance for anything unnecessary.”

              “Well, Dana, I’m cheaper than a therapist, I don’t judge anything that might slip out and I hear so here much that it’s difficult to retain it,” Todd put the bottle of Glenlivet back, his laughter evident as he turned around and braced against the drawer.

              Somehow, she knew that the idea was close to the truth but it had her heart beating up into her throat at the mere idea of anyone stumbling onto a Freudian slip while mildly intoxicated. Carefully guarding her thoughts about Mulder had kept her safe for so long and that safety net no longer felt so securely beneath her, nor did it seem as though it would hold her if she were to fall. It was that “you’ve gotten yourself into this situation, now deal with it” realization as Scully held her breath, forcing a smile at the curious bartender across from her. Scully was precariously dangling on the edge of something palpable, raw, and the ignition switch was between her fingers and tasted awfully good.

              Scully straightened her back and slid the sleeves of her outer jacket down, removing the saturated material before tossing it across the stool beside her. “Oh, I’m sure you hear some interesting details about people’s private lives that you’d love to erase permanently from your memory banks.”

              “Boy, would I?” Todd nodded, sipping a diet soda from a plastic cup just below the lip of the bar top, making a slightly sour face as he renewed eye contact with Scully. “There are things that happen here that make a man shudder—but it’s all in good fun, for the most part.”

              “My woes are boring, run of the mill, and highly average, likely bordering on plaintive,” Scully took another sip, the burn a little more intense than the first as she felt it coursing through her chest before she let the glass come back down to the lacquer bar top. “I am transfixed on realizing that I am stuck, each day of my life, looking at the one thing that I didn’t know how badly I wanted and I have no idea if it’s mutually felt or if I lost that chance already by being austere.”

              “Your definition of boring and mine are vastly different, Dana,” Todd looked at the half empty glass in front of Scully and instinctively reached for the bottle, topping it off without being asked. “Sounds like you need to tell the guy you’re obviously talking about how you feel or forget about it? Either way, let it out or let it go?”

              Scully bit down on her bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth as she thought about how close they had been and how quickly it slipped away. “Forgetting the effect a person with that kind of passion, fire, and intensity has on you is a little easier said than actually done…I’ve come to notice.”

              “Now I’m intrigued and you have to spill the details about this guy,” Todd didn’t put the bottle away, he simply set it to the side and leaned against his elbow, a grin on his lips as he continued, almost too enthusiastically. “Is he tall? Dark? Mysterious? Is he delicious? Don’t spare any tidbits, Dana, lay it on me.”

              The belly laugh that left Scully’s lips was louder than expected as she nearly spilled her drink on the front of her blouse after another healthy swallow of it, delicately balancing it in her hand. “Oh my God, you’re absolutely terrible! Has anyone ever told you that?”

              “Guilty as charged but I’m not giving up, so out with it,” Todd’s effervescent energy radiated off of him and Scully felt comfortable with him in spite of herself as she poked an ice cube with the tip of her index finger.

              “I can’t believe I’m even telling you this ,” Scully leaned forward and put her elbows on the edge of the bar, covering her face for a moment as she gathered the thoughts, revealing an even more flushed face as caution abandoned. “Have you ever felt like you were mere milliseconds from leaping off a ledge, throwing the last remnants of a strictly professional relationship into the wind, exposing every bit of your vulnerability to that person, but something happened and it all came crashing down into pieces like broken glass?”

              “I can’t say that I’ve experienced something quite that intense,” Todd was watching her grappling with emotions as she took another nip of the drink.

              Scully inhaled a deep breath and let it out like she was relieved to let it go, let anyone hear it. “I was so ready to walk away and he pulled me back in like he really wanted me there, then it was over before I even could fully blink. Everything went back to the way it was and we’ve been acting like nothing happened but…I’m still standing in that fucking hallway with a breath on my lips that no one finished, and I don’t even know if he actually wanted me to be there or just needed me to stay, to make everything like it was.”

              Todd’s stance changed as he lifted his head and turned toward neon in the front window, the expression on his face changing from concern to a light smile as the cold breeze caught Scully across the back with the closing of the front door. “Well, hi there, you look like you’ve just walked through a rinse cycle—come in, get dry, we don’t bite.”

              The walls of the hole in the wall bar kept the deluge of precipitation outside at bay until the door opened and closed, ushering in another body that had the gooseflesh forming across Scully’s back in an instant. The silence was deafening as the water logged footsteps squished along the flooring before she finally looked up from the finger induced swirling vortex in the middle of her glass. Her core shook as she lifted her head and saw the unmistakable hazel eyes burning from five feet away, his clothes dripping, hair flat against his skin from the onslaught of the cloudburst that he had clearly been out in for quite a while. Scully swallowed hard against the urge to vomit as she felt the stare on her like a tractor beam despite the distance he was imposing on her as he purposely took a seat kitty corner from her at the bar, his lips pressed together almost pensively. He had put distance between them, but kept enough closeness that each curve, each little flinch of his skin was noticeable and evident to Scully. The look made her ache in about thirty different ways and all of which conflicted with each other as she reached for the glass, desperate to break the eye contact.

              “I didn’t know if anyone would be open at this time of night,” Mulder’s voice nearly leveled Scully as he settled onto the bar stool, averting his eyes away from her to Todd’s general direction, forcing a flat, cordial smile.

              She recognized that phony grin from a mile away and knew she was in for it as the undertones of his voice reeked of exasperation and thin patience.

              “Gotta keep an eye out for the lost individual even on a Sunday to get a drink or three,” Todd glanced at Scully, immediately taking note over the increased tension she was oozing before fully making eye contact with Mulder. “On that topic…what can I get for you while you dry off?”

              “Scotch on the rocks?” Mulder was eyeing the bottle of tequila but there was anger half playing with his emotional stability as he could see Scully’s hands shaking in his peripheral. “Isn’t the early summer rain supposed to at least be warm or did DC skip out on that memo?”

              “I’ve noticed that some of these storms are chillier late at night with a heavy wind to go along with it…seems like that’s what we’ve got on our hands tonight,” Todd slid the glass of Glenlivet in front of Mulder, gave him a subtle nod and turned toward Scully with the bottle in his hand, instinctively topping off the glass despite the fact she barely needed it. “You’ve got more than enough in that glass to continue that story so do go on…Tell me more about the guy, does he know anything?”

              Scully was like the deer in the headlights as the subject of her discussion was sitting just a few feet away from her, looking like he was seconds from downing his drink, flipping her off, and walking out as his jaw began to flinch. “Keep pouring Scotch in my glass and the only information coming out of my mouth will be different pitches of laughter—I told you that I don’t drink.”

              Todd wasn’t fully paying attention to Scully’s discomfort as he looked to the left and squinted for a long moment, a look of shock following immediately thereafter. “Son of a…Dana, hold that thought, I need to go tell Mister Davis that my booths are not for whatever he’s doing with his date. Gross.”

              Scully sighed softly in relief as Todd ran to the other end of the building, the instant berating of his customer in the darkest corner of the bar, tucked away in a booth that was barely visible from the front. Mulder cleared his throat as he took a tentative drink of the Scotch, not hiding that he was stealing a glance at her as she turned the barstool until her back was aimed at the wall, her left elbow against the bar lip. The song on the jukebox was distinctly by Radiohead, the lyric “What the hell am I doing here?” hitting Mulder directly in the gut. It was just loud enough that it did a lovely job of drowning out the bitching session from Todd in the back as the awkward silence continued in front of the bay window. She was afraid but not for the same reasons that Mulder was inferring from her body language as he finally allowed his eyes to lift away from the cup between his thumbs.

              “How long are you going to pretend like I’m not here?” Mulder’s tone was less than pleased as he blinked slowly, soaking in every little move she made as she brought the glass down from her mouth.

              Scully raised an eyebrow at him and felt the bravery burning beneath the remnants of the alcohol in her throat, both hands folded in her lap after setting the glass down. “That depends on how long you plan on sitting over there while I’m over here…”

              “I figured you needed the extra distance since my mere presence put a damper on one hell of a flirtation session that you were having with the bartender, Scully,” Mulder’s jealousy was radiating off of him like sweat as he took another healthy drink of the Scotch and fidgeted on his barstool.

              Scully bit down on the tip of her tongue and felt her heart thudding against her breast bone, anxious to get out as she white knuckled the edge of the bar. “How long were you standing there listening, Mulder?”

              Mulder was half hiding behind the glass of Scotch, his eyes glued to the top of the lacquer bar top, knowing that the frustration was mounting. “Just long enough to know that our strictly professional relationship is in pieces and you’re still stuck, standing in my fucking hallway? Is that what you want me to say, Scully? That I heard you opening up to a complete stranger about how you really feel about me?”

              His intensity was equally frightening and thrilling as Scully nearly dropped the rocks glass, accidentally splattering some of the contents on her fingers as she gathered it haphazardly in an attempt to keep it upright. “Mulder…that’s not what I…look, would you just come sit by me and make this a little less awkward for me, please?”

              “I don’t think you want me sitting next to you right now, I am liable to say something loud and make everything far worse than it already is,” Mulder was white knuckling the edge of the bar, his eyes barely lifting until they met hers.

              Scully stared down at her lap for a moment, feeling that pang of guilt and sadness meandering through her chest as she inhaled a sharp breath. “I’m not asking you to not be angry or change your mind; I just want you next to me.”

              Mulder gripped the glass as he rose from the swiveling stool, his lips pressed together while he took careful steps in her direction, staring her down as though she were a deer at the end of his crosshairs. Scully wiped her fingers on a nearby place napkin and kept the burning gaze locked on him, the heat rising in her chest as she held her breath for longer than she should have while he made the curve of the bar and stood directly in front of her. It must’ve been humorous for anyone that might’ve been witnessing the hunter stalking the hunted but the only feeling that Scully felt ravaging her body was conflict—to run or jump him right there on the bar. The choice, while undeniably ridiculous, was his.

              Mulder put his drink onto the bar just inches from Scully’s, gathered her jacket across his arm before she had a chance to reach for it, and re-established a comfortable seated position on the stool next to hers, swiveled in her direction. “Now that I’m here—are you going to explain to me what I walked in on or are you going to push your luck into thinking I’m going to forget about it entirely?”

              Scully tossed the remainder of her glass of Scotch back with the presence of Mulder’s half tense, half frustrated energy sitting directly next to her and him casually holding her jacket wasn’t making it any better as she turned her entire body toward the end of the bar. “Todd, if you’ve got that little situation under control…I think I’m going to need a little assistance if you’re not terribly busy?”

              “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, I don’t want to see this, Scully,” Mulder was not in the mood for Scully’s flirting directly in front of him as he started to stand up again, not bothering to hide the pure disgust as it poured out of him.

              Scully grasped his wrist and bit down on her lip, locking him in that same gaze that had him so captivated in his hallway, before the world came crashing down, before fate’s cruel hand ripped the rug out from under them. He would never admit it to her but she made him go weak in the knees as he settled back down and glanced down at her fingers still gathered across his skin, her middle and index in the crease along his thumb. She was pulling a “you first” and the stalemate was resulting in Mulder’s dry throat and clammy hands as his eyes imagined his lips all over those rosy cheeks. Mulder cleared his throat as his ears went hot while he felt Scully’s warmth creeping in along with the vibration of her trembling that she could no longer hide. They had unleashed a little chaos between them as Mulder followed Scully’s lead and finished his drink just as Todd was walking back toward their end of the bar.

              “Musical chairs? I love that game!” Todd had one of those coy smiles that Mulder would’ve liked to wipe right off of his face but the quivering digits still squeezing his hand had him quiet as the bartender’s mouth opened. “Sorry that took entirely too long to explain to one of my very loyal regulars why a public sex act in a bar is still a crime in spite of it only carrying a misdemeanor charge. Clearly, you two need another round?”

              Scully cloistered a laugh as she nodded, pushing her glass forward with her left index, the effects of the previous drink already evident as she felt her head swimming just enough to lack a filter. “There’s friendly and then there’s, just take it home, no one needs to see that, right?”

              “Oh, he’s harmless—but I don’t need to sanitize a booth because he doesn’t want to pay for the hotel room,” Todd poured their drinks and added a fresh cube or two of ice to both before sliding them onto clean napkins, glancing outside at the sidewalk for a moment. “Not looking good outside for the two of you…that rain hasn’t let up since you sat down.”

              Both turned to look and sighed in unison, realizing that leaving wouldn’t be the easiest of options with the sidewalk looking more like a creek by the minute. Scully chuckled far louder than she had wanted to as she looked back toward Todd, sipping the Scotch to avoid the immediate questioning from both of them as it came out of nowhere. Mulder gave her a sideways glance and leaned against his hand, rotating his barstool a little to stare her down a little better. His facial expression softened as he found her already stealing a glance at him from the side of her rocks glass, the smirk almost immediate as he watched her clearly swallow wrong and nearly choke in the process.

              “What’s got you all giggly, Dana?” Todd furrowed his eyebrows at her and smiled wide as he started to address more clean glassware on the edge of the bar.

              Mulder raised an eyebrow at her, the sly grin on the edges of his lips as he lifted his glass to take a swallow of his own drink, emphasizing that he actually knows her in front of Todd. “Yeah, Scully, what has you so giggly?”

              Scully knew that Todd was instantly confused and rightfully so as she felt Mulder’s knee pushing against hers, coaxing another reflexive giggle in spite of the resistance she was attempting to put up. “Irony…so much irony.”

              “So I know why lil miss giggles is here but what made you get yourself soaked to the gills and come out here…I didn’t catch your name, by the way,” Todd rolled his eyes a little at them as he looked directly at Mulder’s half disheveled face, his semi-damp hair a little messy as he ran a couple fingers through.

              “Oh, sorry, it’s Fox Mulder…but I go by Mulder, please don’t use the first name, only my mother uses it,” Mulder fondled the top of the glass, redirecting his ice around in the middle of his Scotch. “I found myself sitting on my couch thinking about everything that wasn’t right in front of me that I really wanted to be there and had to clear my head before I said or did something stupid.”

              “Well, what exactly is your definition of stupid, Mulder?” Scully couldn’t help herself as she was watching the hemline of her skirt do a dance against the side of Mulder’s knee as he continued to intentionally rub it against her.

              There was an air of strategy in the comment but the words played against Mulder’s psyche like a well-placed, knowing, hidden grope in the middle of a crowded room that left him breathless. Their third party had grown increasingly confused and intrigued by the seemingly instantaneous chemistry, clueless to the reality that they had been discussing one another in vague, yet captivating detail. Scully wasn’t a game player but she had him trapped via a Fool’s Mate maneuver and he knew it as his eyes followed the glass as she drew it up to her mouth, tasting the Amber liquid with her eyes closed this time. It was driving him insane that he didn’t know what she was after with any of this other than his reaction.

              “That’s a trap question if I’ve ever heard one, Scully,” Mulder didn’t like being tested but he could tell she was doing it as she placed her half emptied glass on the bar top as he averted his line of sight toward Todd. “Doesn’t it sound like a trap to you, Todd?”

              “Most questions asked by the fairer sex are traps, Mulder and judging by the look on her face, yes, it’s a trap,” Todd was regretting that imposed rule about not drinking on the job as his eyes bounced between the two of them. “Why do I get the feeling that I shouldn’t be leaving the two of you unsupervised again? Something going on here that I should know about because bartenders are suckers for the juicy bits…?”

              Scully was feeling the discomfort of a two against one as she tilted her head and contemplated the liquid courage in her hand but thought against it as she felt the tipsiness swirling in her belly. “Oh no, you can’t go agreeing with each other. How is that fair?”

              “Hey Todd, we need another round down here,” the larger booth near the back had become a little louder as the group of people had run dry on their alcohol.

              “Damn…Be right there!” Todd snatched up the necessary tequila and beer chasers, along with a stack of shot glasses before meandering toward the end of the bar. “Behave yourselves till I get back, okay?”

              Mulder waited until Todd was barely out of earshot to go back on the defensive as he eyed Scully’s drink, the irritation evident as her eyes averted toward her glass. “Maybe I need to just go since it’s more than a little apparent that you are tipsy and it’s less than strictly professional to be around each other while under the influence of alcohol.”

              Scully felt her stomach drop as he was already halfway to his feet, rummaging through his pockets for cash to pay for his drink as she finally dug deep for the words, her voice shaking with every syllable. “Do you ever think about that night like I do or am I really alone in all of this, Mulder? Am I killing myself for nothing?”

              “I walked in on you baring your soul to a perfect stranger in a bar looking more comfortable than I can fully describe and now you want me to open up to you when you couldn’t even grant me the same courtesy? Jesus Christ, Scully,” Mulder wanted to throttle her as he took a healthy drink of what was left of his Scotch, feeling the burn immediately after swallowing, still holding her jacket across his left arm as he stood above her.

              “I deserve that,” Scully stood, kept her eyes glued on his, pulled the small wad of cash from his hand and pushed it into his front pocket, coaxing a less than expected audible gasp from him in the process, her voice soft and melodic as she looked up at him. “Now, could you please just sit down and let me try? I didn’t know how to tell you how I feel but now that you know, talk to me.”

              “I think you’re just trying to win an argument with what you just did, Scully,” Mulder slowly let the air out of his mouth and felt the heat rising in his cheeks, through his ears, down his neck, as he looked at her. “It’s working.”

              They both sat back down and Scully took a sip of her Scotch, a sly smile creeping across her lips from behind the rim of her glass. “If putting the tips of my fingers in your pocket is all it takes to win an argument with you, I’d be interested to see what would happen if had been the entire hand.”

              “Flirting with Todd, flirting with me, is this is what happens when you get drunk, Scully?” Mulder knew her better than that but the words still slipped out as he turned his barstool toward her while she leaned against the back wall again.

              Scully shook her head and slid forward, almost to the point that her backside was on the edge of the stool, her knees comfortably sliding between Mulder’s. “I don’t know if you’re entirely qualified to know when I’m flirting or not but I’m not flirting with the bartender.”

              “Are you entirely sure about that?” Mulder swallowed hard as Scully re-crossed her legs, purposely bumping against both of his inner thighs with every move he made. “Don’t go pulling a Sharon Stone on me, Scully, I don’t know if I can handle it right now.”

              There was something playful hidden in Scully’s voice as she bit down on her bottom lip and nearly finished off the Scotch in her glass. “I’m pretty sure Sharon Stone wasn’t wearing any panties in Basic Instinct, Mulder.”

              “That’s kind of a risky assumption considering I don’t actually know of a time I’ve witnessed you drinking anything other than wine,” Mulder’s fingers were rickety against the rim of his glass, the Scotch nearly going topside as he utilized it to calm the sudden rise in anxiety.

              “Not that you’re in any rush to find out if I’m lying or not, though, right, Mulder?” Scully’s voice dropped an octave as she egged him on, clearly daring him to make a move or shut his mouth, as she pushed an ice cube past her lips, the childishness on full display.

              Mulder did a double take at the woman that he had spent the past five years stealing the most abrupt of touches and glances, completely taken by surprise over the pass she had just made at him. She had him backed into a corner but not defenseless as he could hear the ice cube rattling around inside of her mouth like a rather large dinner mint. Her right knee was unusually high after crossing both legs and positioning them between his, almost too closely as he could feel the heat radiating off of her through his inseam via her shin as he made any movement, in any direction. Scully hadn’t made any attempt to slide away from him as she used her side and elbow to comfortably brace against the bar, her smirk still lingering as Mulder pressed both of his lips together before swiveling her barstool until she had to hold on with both hands to keep from sliding directly off.

              “I’m pretty certain that a maximum sentence for lewd or dissolute conduct in public is ninety days in jail and a tiny little three hundred dollar fine but guys like me don’t exactly do incredibly well in behind bars since most of the time the badge gets found out pretty fast,” Mulder’s hands slid carefully to the hem of Scully’s skirt, where his fingers wasted little time in sliding under the first two inches, pushing the material up until a run in her panty hose was visible above her knee. “Scully, you have a run in your hose.”

              “There is? I hadn’t noticed…” Scully glanced at the finger length run in her nude nylons, her pristinely white skin peeking out through the shreds as she bit down on her lip and blushed as she held onto her bar stool, pulling it under her a little better. “Maybe you should check to see how far up it goes, for scientific purposes?”

              “Are you two for real right now? I leave you alone for literally five minutes and you’re already getting fucking handsy on a pair of bar stools after I just got through having that little discussion about my regular customer getting all illegal in a booth?” Todd’s voice brought them both back to the reality that they were sitting in the bar, erasing the line between them without a second’s hesitation.

              “Actually, you just put a massive damper on five solid years of percolating…way to go, Todd,” Mulder gave Scully’s thigh a fairly firm squeeze and made eye contact with her as he heard her inhale rather sharply. “On second thought.”

              “Wait…five years? You’ve been talking about each other all night, haven’t you?” Todd rolled his eyes as Scully put her hand over the top of Mulder’s hand, preventing him from drifting further up her skirt. “I feel like I’ve just facilitated way too much sexual energy without even realizing it.”

              “I don’t know about a damper, Mulder, more like a tiny, little pause?” Scully had a lot more on her mind than the alcohol still running through her veins as she winked at him and tapped the top of his hand. “It’s not that late…yet.”

              “Here I am, thinking I have two broken individuals who needed to forget about their problems but were, in reality, airing their feelings in front of the other person, half anonymously,” Todd rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock, exhaling loudly. “I feel like I need a fucking shot before shift ends out of the mind fucking you two just delivered. I hate exercising and my brain definitely hates aerobics.”

              Mulder couldn’t help but be a little amused over the reaction from Todd as he furrowed his brow at him. “You wanted all of the juicy details and you got exactly that…just not how you imagined it, which is the problem, I’m sure. Didn’t he ask for that, Scully?”

              “Yes, he absolutely did and said not to spare any tidbits to boot,” Scully was growing comfortable with the hand against her thigh but she would’ve been lying if asked if it were enough as she glanced at Mulder’s waiting, now palpable bottom lip that was staring at her. “He was an absolute hound for information…now he seems to be regretting such a request.”

              “I think I’m going to violate my own rule and I’m going to have a shot, do you want a shot? I think we should have a shot and toast to this cluster fuck of a night in which we discover that this mother fucker right here slings drinks to two flirty little assholes who want to give him an aneurysm,” Todd started rambling, mainly teasing them as he poured three shots of tequila without hearing an actual acceptance of his offer. “These ones are on me since I brought it on myself. To aneurysm causing third person chitter chatter.”

              Scully’s eyes widened as she picked up the small, gold rimmed shot glass, the smell hitting her nostrils from nearly a foot away, instantly making her entire face pucker. “To all of that whining and getting caught in the rain on a Sunday night to catch more than one person a little unaware.”

              Mulder contemplated the shot glass perched between his fingers and gazed at the woman across from him, her eyes managing to captivate him even more than they already had been for the past five years. “To finishing so much unfinished business so we’re no longer aimlessly trapped in that hallway.”

              Scully’s facial features softened as Mulder pushed his shot glass against hers, but neither made a move toward their mouths to take even a sip. “I haven’t even gotten there yet and I’m already on fire.”

              Mulder knew the quote she was referencing as he set his shot down, pulled the still full shot glass from her fingertips and placed it next to his own on the lacquer bar top. Mulder’s words hadn’t fully been illuminated toward her in regard to everything that he felt for her but his actions spoke volumes as he guided her fingers within the palm of his hand while his free hand gave a tug to the edge of her barstool, eclipsing the space between them. Scully wouldn’t have dreamed of turning away, not even for a second, as the air between them disappeared and the moment that had eluded them before came without anything to stop them this time. Like a dance, their palms slid apart and into the sphere of the other as lightning did strike when their lips finally met, fitting together as though they’d practiced this, rehearsed it, imagined it into life. Neither one of them gave a damn about an audience as eyes fluttered shut and Mulder gathered Scully closer to him, reveling in the closeness that had evaded them for far too long. They had imagined this moment, in repetition, for days and nothing could’ve quite prepared them for it as Mulder’s hand tilted Scully’s head back to fully drink her in, in spite of the mutual taste of Scotch on their tongues. The intoxicant was no longer what they had been drinking as eyes closed and hands slid through hair, desperate to hold onto one another for as long as fate would allow.

              “Ok…no second base shit or I’ll throw you both out,” Todd tossed back his shot with an almost surrendered tone with a hint of satisfaction underneath and coaxed resistive laughter from both of them as they forced the incredibly vocal, open mouthed kiss to come to a screeching halt.

              Scully groaned, keeping both eyes closed as she held onto Mulder’s collar, her bottom lip brushing against his just lightly as she started to speak. “I don’t even think you understand just how high those flames are and you only tossed a half full bucket on them expecting to put a stop to something.”

              “I don’t have nearly this much trouble with the twenty-one year old, amped up college students that come in here to cut loose,” Todd picked up their shots and nudged their shoulders. “Five years or no five years…you’re not horny teenagers.”

              “Certainly not a teenager, anyway,” Scully had one of those knowing smiles on her face as she matched Mulder’s drink for drink shot on shot of the tequila, the sour expression momentarily returning as she swallowed. “Now I remember why I don’t drink.”

              “Scully I better take you home before you go and get us both in more trouble than we’re already in,” Mulder was feeling his alcohol but it was clear that her Scotch consumption was a little more potent than his own as her fingers lingered against the front of his shirt, pulling him closer.

              “Mmmm…therein lies a question, mine or yours?” Scully pulled her jacket on and pulled a couple of favorable bills from her pocket while Todd scooted off to the side to call them a cab.

              “Do you really care which one, Scully?” Mulder had cash in his hand as he discarded it next to hers, before leaning in to get a soft, quick peck on the lips from Scully as they both stood up, his thumb lingering under her chin.

              “Not even a little bit,” Scully held that stance, stretched up on her toes and tugged on the center of his bottom lip with her teeth while her hands slid around his waist.

              Mulder groaned, closed his eyes briefly and slid his arm around Scully’s shoulders, enveloping her in an embrace before glancing toward Todd. “Is that cab on the way?”

              Todd nodded, gave Mulder one of those little smirks and put the empty shot glasses into the bin with the rest of the empty glassware. “You’re welcome, you two…maybe you’ll show up here again on another rainy night?”

              They didn’t need to answer the question as it was an unspoken understanding between two parties that were aware of the role that this little space had played in unraveling the broken, needing to be repaired pieces of their very mishandled hearts. The smiles were exchanged, hands shook with care, and the door pushed open, exposing them to the elements that brought them to the bar to begin with. It wasn’t the same as they went out into the rain, the downpour as heavy as it had been earlier but without the bitter reminder that had plagued them earlier. It carried fluidity in spite of the cold chill that the wind inspired as they neared the edge of the curb, waiting for the cab to come. The previously “handle with care” and “avoid at all cost” neon light that had been permanently affixed to Mulder and Scully was now gone, exposed as the self-imposed, invisible restraints were eliminated between them and they could look at one another knowing exactly how long, and hard, they had weathered the storm—within arm’s length of each other and no longer had to go without.

              “Next time pick up a phone and call me,” Scully was on the tips of her toes again, the palm of her hand against his cheek as the rain already had them soaked all over again, creating beautiful, shimmering lines down their skin along the curves of their smiles.

              Mulder leaned in close, rubbing her neck with his thumbs, closing the gap between them. “Next time isn’t needed, I’ll be right where I want to be…right there with you.”

              There was no going back as Mulder drew Scully’s lips to his, tilting into another kiss that took the breath away from her in a heartbeat and set off a flash of fireworks in both of their eyes before fluttering closed. Mulder’s hand tangled through Scully’s hair as it glided along the back of her neck, the warmth of his skin triggering a chain reaction of goosebumps down the expanse of her back, underneath her damp layers of clothes. The shudder reverberated against him and instigated a low, guttural groan as he held her tighter, craving more of her…needing more of her. Scully couldn’t help herself as the moan ricocheted into his mouth while her hands desperately held onto his midsection until her hands were laced together at the middle of his back, the urgency building. Their hearts, thudding in unison against one another, were set ablaze from within and reflected like gold of each droplet of rain that touched each inch of skin, multiplied by two. They had spent so long as soft light, flickering from the dark, and now were the embers, deep-burning and unquenchable in the sweetest of embrace as tongues slid past teeth, arms wrapped carefully along muscle, speeding toward the inevitable as the distant glow of headlights illuminated what had been so carefully hidden…until now.

For the curious, this bar totally exists and was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives at one point…I have not gotten to go there but I did a lot of research (photos and the like) to get the feel for the layout of this quaint little dive. It has been around since 1947 so if you’re in that area, check it out.

References Made

“Caught in the Rain” by Revis (Song)

“Creep” by Radiohead (Lyric direct mention “What the hell am I doing here?”)

Basic Instinct (Sharon Stone)

Unknown quote – “She was told to expect fireworks, but his lips set her whole heart on fire.”

#MSR #msr fanfic #shipping #fanfiction is life #fanfic #The X Files #Mulder and Scully #Romance #Post Fight the Future

[lev-splatoon]

The significance of the Octarian jingle

Alright, we’re heading into some deeply speculative waters here, so bear with me for a bit. We were recently discussing theories in @lesbian-octoling‘s discord server when someone brought up the reoccurring jingle that pops up several times in Octo Valley and Octo Canyon, asking if there was any potential significance to it. As much as I love to read into things looking for deeper meanings, I initially brushed it off as just a fun thing the devs kept returning to as an easter egg.

But then an idea struck me. I remembered the concept of 0451.

If you’re unfamiliar with 0451, Errant Signal has a very good video detailing its history and significance here, but I’ll give you the lowdown: 0451 is a bit of a recurring motif within a certain subset of video games, starting out as a key code for the first locked door in System Shock that, in itself, was just an easter egg as it was the code for a door at the developers office. The number sequence has since come to be repeated and referenced in many games, some which were developed by the former members of the System Shock team, some which were games trying to build on the ideas first presented in those games, and some which just referenced the code because they thought it was something cool and meaningful.

So what does any of that have to do with this jingle? Well, I think it might be that the jingle represents something similar for the Octarians. I did say this was going to be deeply theoretical, didn't I?

I think it might just be that the jingle is Octavio's creative watermark of sorts. A little self-reference he plants into his songs like a flag that over time has become co-opted by his underlings as a symbol of his influence and his power

And that last part might just be a little bit more sinister than it seems at first. Let's break down the jingle's appearances bit by bit. To start with, I think the least interesting cases of the jingle are in the Hero Mode songs Eight Legged Advance and Octo Eight Step. These songs are not made by Octavio himself, but by his direct underlings, Turqouise October. The members of the band might, just like some developers did with 0451, reference this jingle just as a nod to someone who influenced them greatly, but since the Octarians have been explicitly stated in an interview to use music to give out orders to their soldiers, the presence of the jingle becomes a reminder of Octavio's power over his troops

After that comes the jingle in probably its most prominent form: The two variants of Zapfish Get! This is an odd case, since in this situation the jingle is something that is celebratory for us, Octavio's enemy, but it could be that the presence of the jingle marks the idea that we are taking away Octavio's power. its meaning is subverted, a reclamation of both a literal and symbolic kind

After that comes I Am Octavio and Bomb Rush Blush (feat. Callie), the themes of the dastardly DJ himself, and this is the part where I think my idea holds the most water. The presence of the jingle is self-explanatory, in fact, it could theoretically be its origin. I Am Octavio is a statement and a threat, a proclamation of power and the promise to wield it, so naturally he'd feature the jingle in his own theme song.

The jingle being in Bomb Rush Blush, however, is probably its most cruel application to date, because that song belongs to Callie. If the jingle is a musical flag, it is being used in this situation as a banner of conquest. By remixing Bomb Rush Blush and placing his own watermark in it, Octavio is metaphorically claiming Callie's work as his own. Brainwashing the artist herself wasn't enough, he had to put her art under his control as well. It's very telling that Callie is the one 'featured' in this version of Bomb Rush Blush.

Finally, let's talk about the jingle as it appears in Marina's Ebb & Flow demo. In this scenario, the jingle was put into the song by Marina herself, something she probably did without thinking too much about it, just a short familiar tune that fit well with the cadence of the song. But in this case, the jingle represents control, Octavio's control over Marina. Even though she's escaped the Octarian military, Marina is still metaphorically chained by her former leader's influence.

But the Ebb & Flow demo is just that, a demo. A test, a first pass, inherently incomplete. The song could not be completed without Pearl's help, and together the two of them made a song that shot them into stardom. A song that, in its finished form, no longer features the Octarian jingle. Marina could not free herself from the mental burden of her past without Pearl, and she could not find herself as an artist until she did. The jingle's removal is both a literal and metaphorical freedom cry.

Well, that was a whole lot of words on something that probably doesn't mean a lot. But that's fine, honestly, To me, the value of speculation lies more in the speculation itself than the prospect of being right. Writing this was fun, and I hope it was fun to read! Until next time: Don't get cooked, stay Off the Hook!

#splatoon #dj octavio #marina #theorycrafting

[makistar2018]

How to succeed in business by being a Taylor Swift fan

Fandom can be an expensive hobby, but there are also ways to get paid for your time and affection.

By Kaitlyn Tiffany Nov 7, 2018

Taylor Swift’s very popular snake jewelry. Big Machine Records

Twenty-two-year-old financial analyst Zainub Amir moved to New York City from Albany last June, around the time that her Taylor Swift news account @SimplySFans celebrated its seventh birthday on Twitter.

The account has 124,000 followers as of this writing, but when Amir started it at the end of eighth grade, there was almost no demand for it. She was alone on Twitter as a Swiftie, she says, with “maybe 30 other fans.” It’s that early adoption of the platform that she credits with her success, and with her permanent place at the top of the Swift fan account hierarchy — it’s too late for anyone else to get this big.

Now Amir has a full-time job and responsibilities to her employer. Also: responsibilities to the 124,000 people who depend on her for news, as well as the management and tour sponsors and brand partners for the biggest pop star in the world, which regularly ask her for help promoting awards shows, limited-edition Keds, and Swift’s every move.

“It’s hard,” Amir tells me, sitting on a corner sofa in her Midtown office building, after most of the lights have gone down but the granola bar wrappers and Lipton tea bags have yet to be scooped from the floor. “The thing is it’s, like, the same thing as texting someone while you’re at work; you just have to be really fast. The whole point of an update account is getting the news first.”

“EVERYTHING COMES DOWN TO SOMETIMES THE SECOND OR MINUTE YOU POST”

To help, Amir has push notifications set up from fan accounts on Tumblr and Twitter, for Swift’s friends and management and publicity team, and, obviously, for Swift herself, who has made a tentative return to social media in recent months after conspicuously vanishingand deleting thousands of posts last August.

“As soon as she posts, I make sure I put it on Twitter. You just have to be quick about it. After a while, it becomes second nature,” Amir says. She does not use Google Alerts, which are too slow. “Everything comes down to sometimes the second or minute you post.”’

That’s because Amir isn’t alone on Twitter talking about Taylor Swift anymore. There are dozens of update accounts, plenty of fans who are willing to take on the job of fandom as a second full-time position. And Swift is far from the only celebrity who draws this kind of cottage media industry around her.

Last summer, I spoke to 19-year-old Yucatán resident Armin Lizama, who runs one of the biggest Lorde fan accounts on Twitter and regularly helps professional music journalism outlets fact-check fan rumors and news items.

Last spring, Harry Styles fans organized to teach each other how to download VPNs and fake US streams of his first solo single “Sign of the Times,” hoping to game the Billboard charts. One account, @StylesPromoTeam, put out a public application to join them, which was longer than a traditional job application and required applicants to state whether they’d be able to dedicate up to 20 hours per week to the cause. This is just how modern fandom operates.

Most of these fans are not doing it to be compensated, but there is compensation to be found nonetheless — like any account with substantial followings, they can charge for sponsored posts and retweets; like any influencer a brand wants to woo, they can expect gifts and trips and special treatment; like any ambitious young person situated in an economy that celebrates optimizing every moment of your life, they can try to use hundreds of hours of self-managed, largely unpaid “fun” labor as a line item on a résumé.

“I don’t really care about how much money I make with it,” Amir says.

Nevertheless, she’ll readily call her account a business.

And as with any business, there are challenges. One is copyright: “Any time a video goes over 30 seconds and it has music or media, anything from Taylor or any of her sponsors, it usually gets picked up by copyright,” Amir explains. “Same thing with photos that photographers are taking, even if it’s Taylor’s own photographers with Getty Images.” They’ll get flagged and removed, and it only takes six or seven violations to get an account suspended, which is a challenge for accounts updating three or four times a day while an artist is on tour, or dozens of times a night when they’re performing and talking and raking in trophies at an awards show.

“Screen record has become my friend. Mainly when it’s YouTube or DirecTV Now, but I have to be careful, which is why I’ve resorted more to retweeting from the source,” she says. She tries not to push it, usually taking clips of around 10 seconds and asking permission whenever she can.

“You want to grow your reach as much as you can, but is it worth getting that copyright notice at the same time?”

All this is why Amir, like many of the other proprietors of major news accounts, has a separate account just for media, which she’ll retweet into her main account’s feed, giving up maximum engagement on her main page in favor of preserving it.

She’s had to learn how to streamline the process, trying to provide a good product without running herself off the road. “There are all these paparazzi pages you can go on and get the image itself, and then you have to delete the watermark,” she explains. “But it’s not worth [the effort] really, because someone’s just going to post it two seconds faster than you.” She’ll ask permission to repost GIFs and videos from fans at tour shows, but only if she’s sure they’re sharing something Swift hasn’t done before. She’ll engage in trending topics only if she has something to add, an image and a great quote, or a video clip short enough to not get pulled. “Otherwise, I’m better off retweeting from the actual source, even though I’m going to lose engagement.”

She had to figure all this out on her own, since other pages are competitors, jockeying for the same audience and the same engagement.

Swift is counting on her, for real. In 2012, before there were very many other major fan accounts, and before Swift’s team really used or understood Twitter, they asked Amir to be the official promotional account of the Red tour.

When Swift joined her favorite social media platform, Tumblr, in 2014, the account was run by her management and only followed five accounts — all update accounts, and one of them Amir’s. “I posted something about the fall, apple picking or something, and I had no idea anybody was reading it,” Amir recalls. “Taylor reblogged it and it was her first reblog of Tumblr, and she ended up adding this whole paragraph about how she loves the fall. So every fall, late August, September, I get so many notifications because people start reblogging that again and again and again. It’s a ritual.”

Being early to two platforms guaranteed that both Swift and her team would be aware of Amir, which means they regularly come back to her — to include her in special fan activities and to do promotion work. (She’s spent time with Swift in person three times in the past six years.)

“FOR ME, IT’S COMMUNITY FIRST; I DON’T REALLY THINK ABOUT THE MONEY.”

Amir says Swift’s management has a list of popular and reliable update accounts that it gives out to her sponsors and brands regularly dole out exclusive content or giveaway items to her and her update account competitors. Dick Clark Productions, for one, will fly fan account operators to awards shows to post updates live, as well as provide them with a stipend to support a vacation day in Los Angeles afterward.

“Either I get compensated through money or through free items,” Amir says. “Or it’s things like free tickets or perks or just being on the inside or being able to go to a release party. Sometimes it’s not directly money-related, but when it is, it’s per post or how many engagements it gets. That’s why stats or using Twitter analytics is so important — so you can say what your worth is. I’ve had it be $300 for retweeting someone before, because it’s a lot of followers and it’s huge engagement. I think the lowest I’ve done is $50.”

“It’s like another job, basically,” she says. But “it isn’t as stable as people think it is with a fan account like this. For me, it’s community first; I don’t really think about the money.”

Madame Tussauds’ Taylor Swift figure, revealed in 2014. Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images

It’s not all profit. “I bought the [last] album five times without really meaning to,” Amir says when I ask about how much fans typically spend to put their affection into practice.

Swift combated the ongoing industry-wide decline of album sales by selling two versions of a limited-edition magazine to go with Reputation last fall, each going for $20 exclusively at Target and each coming with another copy of the album. Buying extra copies of her album also helped fans improve their place in line in Ticketmaster’s controversial Verified Fan program, which sorted fans into a queue to buy presale tickets to her stadium tour.

“EVERY TIME SHE LETS YOU INTO HER LIFE, IT’S A NEW MARKETING SCHEME, BECAUSE IT’S A NEW PART OF HER LIFE THAT YOU DON’T KNOW”

“You want the magazine because you want to see into Taylor’s life; she had to have two different volumes for some reason,” Amir says. “You want the album for the code to put in your Verified Fan thing; that’s your first incentive. And your second is that you want to read these poems that Taylor never released to the world, or pictures that have never before been seen during her two-year [social media] blackout.” The Reputation merch was “trendier” and more expensive than previous Taylor merch, but “as a fan, you tell yourself that you’re just going to compromise and buy it, and you do it without thinking.”

She says she doesn’t want to criticize anyone, but she noticed that Verified Fan tickets were more expensive than regular sale tickets, and says she paid $160 (plus TicketMaster fees) for a decent seat, electing not to spend the nearly $800 it would cost to be in what Swift called “the Snake Pit” at the front of the stage.

“Every time she lets you into her life, it’s a new marketing scheme, because it’s a new part of her life that you don’t know,” Amir says. But again, none of this is criticism. Why shouldn’t a pop star also be a savvy business manager? Why wouldn’t intimacy with her be commodified? These are not contradictions, Amir argues. It’s also not a contradiction that she loves Taylor Swift and benefits financially from loving Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift with Australian fans in 2012. Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Because it involves people, business is almost always personal, but when it involves heroes, it’s even more so.

Amir is Muslim, and she says that made it difficult for her to watch Swift’s quiet refusal to engage with a swirling national debate about basic human rights in the wake of the 2016 election. “I really wanted her to say something, because she does say stuff at her concerts, or to you personally, and she’ll like things on Tumblr.” It’s not as if she didn’t know Swift was on her side. Still, “she never said stuff out there, outside the community, where it makes a difference.”

Swift’s longtime silence on political issues — which ended with an October Instagram postendorsing Democratic candidates for several key midterm election races in her home state of Tennessee, seemingly spurring a massive increase in voter registration in the state — was always in tension with her near-constant willingness to speak up on her own behalf. She has been more publicly involved in her business interests than any artist at her level, championing the 2016 battle against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which she argued gave YouTube a free pass on copyright infringement, and sitting at the center of the debate about Spotify (and music streaming payment practices in general) for years.

That’s a chapter she closed (somewhat awkwardly) during the lead-up to the release of Reputation last year, but she is still known for her litigious spirit, which she demonstrates by trademarking the names of her cats, attempting to copyright phrases like “look what you made me do,” and sending cease-and-desist letters to Etsy sellers who put her lyrics on homemade apparel.

In each of these cases, Swift isn’t really doing anything other artists wouldn’t (or don’t) do — but because she’s built a reputation as a ruthless capitalist, further news items that fit that narrative are easy to package. Each time she adds a brand to her portfolio — be it American Express or New York City — it looks cynical.

Amir doesn’t see it that way. Swift “reinvents herself just like companies innovate products, and that’s what keeps things exciting,” she says, swirling Swift’s musical evolution and personal brand metamorphosis and business strategy into one blanket compliment. She would understand, as an aspiring businesswoman who worked at a bank all through college, graduated early, moved to New York after interning at PR firms, was briefly the social media manager for a folk-pop duo, and is now looking for a way to blend financial analysis with the marketing skills she’s been honing since middle school.

“Taylor’s been a huge part of my life and the [fandom] community’s been a huge part of my life,” Amir says. “But you mature after a while; you get older. You can’t take days off work to be at an awards show.”

Vox

#taylor swift #fan account #vox #2018.11.07

[fieryrondo]

my top 25 favorite programs from the 2017-2018 season

So. We survived Olympic season. (Or did we?)

A few lessons gleaned from the past ten months: 

the season is indeed long

momentum is fleeting

in the wake of disaster there will always be skaters who shine (thank god)

eating pineapples and writing prayer fic is extremely therapeutic

Olympics hype really is all that

being an fs fan is equal parts suffering and reward, though often times it seems more of the former and less of the latter.

See below for twenty five of my favorite programs from what has been a most tumultuous season, roughly in order of enjoyment. There is no rhyme or reason to this list as it is purely subjective based on my taste, which is already questionable to begin with. To avoid cluttering the top spots with skaters I absolutely stan and would gladly die for, I have limited myself to one skater per program.

Re: performances from Olympics. It was notoriously difficult to find footage for many of these skates. Thanks ISU I’ve done my best to link to broadcast footage whenever possible but have resorted to a few fancam links for some of these performances. Please do not manipulate fancam footage without permission from the uploader; I’ve been guilty of reblogging gif-sets made from fancam footage (which 99% of the time have the watermark removed and are clearly uploaded without consent and credit to the fancam creator) and am now trying to be careful with what I reblog.

Without further ado, here are my top picks:

25. Jimmy Ma’s SP, Propaganda/Turn Down for What, 2018 US National Championships

A guilty pleasure but something this fun can’t be bad right? This is the kind of skating program I’d show to friends and family in real life who dismiss figure skating as a dated sport characterized by heavily used classical warhorse music almost everyone recognizes but can’t actually name.

24. Ross Miner’s FS, Queen Medley, 2018 US National Championships

While Nathan skated a very technically strong program at US Nationals, the free skate of the night for me went to Ross Miner, who roused the crowd into a roar when he had the skate of his career and made a convincing bid for the Olympic team. Fun and electric, this program sparkled with energy from start to finish.

23. Moa Iwano’s SP, Asturias, 2017 JGP Austria

I generally don’t pay much attention to the junior skaters (so much skating, so little time!), but this talented lady from Kobe caught my eye during the JGP series. There were quite a few tangos this season but this one was by far the best one (that’s right, the best tango this season came from a 13-year-old). While her jump technique is not the best, Moa has an impressive sense of musicality beyond most skaters her age. I’ll definitely be following her more closely in the seasons to come.

22. Keegan Messing’s FS, Chaplin Medley, 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics

Thanks to a certain Spanish skater, I’ve developed a soft spot for Chaplin programs and while Keegan didn’t manage to skate this program clean, I really enjoyed it. It’s cheeky, charming, charismatic and full of fun choreographic details that bring the program to life. With an exodus of Canadian men retiring this season, Keegan will be among the oldest. He really hit his stride this season; here’s hoping he snags his first Canadian title next season!

21. Patrick Chan’s FS, Hallelujah, 2017 Skate Canada

Enjoyed...is not quite the right word to describe my feelings when I saw this particular skate via live stream. Shocked to pieces was more like it, and perhaps an overwhelming sadness to see him struggle so much. This skate would set the tone for the rest of Patrick’s final competitive season--a mentally, physically and emotionally taxing end to a competitive career most skaters can only dream of having. While this skate was a technical disaster--he skated a total of only two clean triples--it is nonetheless beautiful in the way a withering flower is; a remnant of elegance, an echo of years of skill, a lament for what could have been.

20. Yuna Shiraiwa’s FS, Pictures at an Exhibition, 2017 Internationaux de France

I had a hard time with this one because I adore both of Yuna’s programs this season, set to two very interesting pieces of music. Her FS, “Pictures at an Exhibition” won by a slim margin mostly because I love Mussorgsky and “Pictures at an Exhibition” is one of my favorite suites of all time--I also realize now that it’s really really difficult music to skate to because of the million tempo changes, key changes and the fact that half of the movements are very slow and not at all suited to skating. It’s a highly ambitious program for a 15-year-old and choreographically there are a couple of abrupt music changes that break up the flow (it’s mostly variations of the Promenade theme with a few other movements spliced in) but I really appreciated the challenge she took with a riskier but interesting piece of music. Looking forward to more exciting programs next season!

19. Nathan Chen’s FS, Mao’s Last Dancer, 2017 US International Classic

Super early in the season when skater after skater hopped onboard the recycling train like there was no tomorrow, I was ecstatic to hear Nathan bring forth two brand new programs. While Nemesis proved to be an instant hit, I was drawn to the free, an intriguing blend of Chinese music and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (avant-garde eargasm!!!). Mao’s Last Dancer had the potential to become a truly memorable and complete program. While the strategy to strip down the choreography in favor of hitting the technical elements later in the season was a practical choice, alas the performance I enjoyed the most happened to be its debut. 

18. Cheng Peng/Yang Jin’s SP, Assassin’s Tango, 2017 Finlandia Trophy

What a rough season they’ve had :/ But I loved their short program, which they only managed to skate clean internationally exactly once this season. For some reason, after Finlandia, this short never really clicked for them (missing the cutoff for the free at Olympics was tragic) and they ended up returning to their tried and tested short from last season for their post-Olympics redemption in Milan. It’s a cute and fun program and they skated it best here.

17. Vanessa James/Morgan Cipres’ FS, The Sound of Silence, 2018 World Championships

After a strong start to the season led to a lackluster 4th place finish at Europeans, James/Cipres scrapped their initial free program to return to a program they were much more comfortable with, a strategic move that paid off when they rebounded at the Olympics and at Worlds with season’s bests and a shiny Worlds medal :) While it is not a technically perfect performance (see their 2017 World Team Trophy for a clean skate), there’s a lot of power and passion in it.

16. Carolina Kostner’s SP, Ne me quitte pas, 2018 World Championships

Simply divine! I have nothing else to add except that this was a breathtakingly exquisite performance, and I’m glad Carolina was able to perform this program to perfection in front of her home crowd.

15. Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani’s FD, Paradise, 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics

I admit I wasn’t immediately sold on the Shibutanis’ final program to their self-proclaimed “Trilogy”. “Fix You” was an amazing program, the best program of their career so far, and as with all sequels, it was tough to imagine “Paradise” could be better. But somehow things started to pull together once they made a few tweaks midway through the season and they pulled off a magical performance in Pyeongchang. Technically brilliant but also brimming with emotion, a performance absolutely worthy of Olympic bronze.

14. Elizabet Tursynbaeva’s FS, The Prayer, 2017 Internationaux de France

I fell in love with Elizabet last season (particularly her free skate to “Princess Mononoke”) and was very excited to see what programs should would do next. And she did not disappoint. Besides having the only acceptable Carmen this season, I also loved her free skate to Celine Dion’s “The Prayer”- it’s light and lyrical, a good fit for her. She still rushes through the choreography and some of her spins look really weird to me but she has made enormous strides in her presentation despite being hampered with a serious hip injury midway through the season. She’s lovely to watch, so floaty and quick over the ice.

13. Adam Rippon’s FS, Birds, 2017 NHK Trophy

What can I say? I loved this program last season and seeing it again this season was even more spectacular. The attentiveness to the music, the choreographic touches with bird movements, the meditative atmosphere. It’s just a very beautiful program. Adam has such a vibrant personality that obviously shines in his more “showy” programs, but I think I enjoy seeing his softer, lyrical programs best. 

12. Wenjing Sui/Cong Han’s FS, Turandot, 2017 NHK Trophy

As a fairly new fan, I don’t have the same level of distaste for warhorses as veteran fans do (I imagine this will change once I have more years of figure skating watching under my belt). It’s not as poignant or as memorable as “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” from last season, but I admit I still very much enjoyed this skate, if only because Sui/Han were the ones skating it. Did I wish they had picked something a little more interesting? Yes, but they’re Sui/Han. They can make anything look good.

11. Kana Muramoto/Chris Reed’s FD, The Last Emperor/Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, 2018 World Championships

Kana is the best thing that has ever happened to Japanese ice dance (Chris, you’re cool too.) I’m so weak for this genre of music and ever since I discovered a certain tiny queen skated to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, I’ve been waiting to hear it again. I’m a sucker for nature imagery and you really get the sensation of the passage of time and the movement of the seasons. Watching this is like taking a breath of spring air.

10. Boyang Jin’s SP, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2018 Four Continents Championships

Meh movie, great music. My favorite Boyang program to date, it was really exciting to see him attempt something more serious, a heftier program that would expand the emotional range of his skating. His short program was brilliant at Olympics, but I enjoyed Four Continents a little more because it was such a comeback after an injury-filled first half of the season. Out of the new generation of rising quadsters, he’s made the most improvement and I have no doubt he’ll continue to grow over the next quad. Onwards and upwards, Boyang!

9. Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue’s FD, Across the Sky/Caught Out in the Rain, 2018 US National Championships

My favorite free dance of the season! You can always count on Hubbell/Donohue to do something a little offbeat. Blues is a bit of an unusual choice of music for a free dance (which tend to be either lyrical or warhorsey drama) but it fits them like a glove. After building some good momentum earlier this season, a few fatal errors in the free including an invalidated choreographic sequence left them trailing in 4th, just shy of the podium at the Olympics. They rebounded to claim their first Worlds medal a month later, which was a special moment to witness but I felt their Nationals performance was the most passionately skated.

8. Tatsuki Machida’s EX, Swan Lake: Siegfried and His Destiny, 2017 Carnival on Ice

Go big or go home. The time and technical requirements of amateur competition are clearly too restrictive for Tatsuki’s genius :) Why cram the greatest hits of Swan Lake into a paltry two-minute program when you can really do it justice by skating to it for almost eight minutes instead? Tatsuki spares no expense for his epic-length programs. Every moment is meticulously thought out and is as extra af. We’re treated to almost a minute of dramatic music and a skater-less spotlight before Tatsuki appears. The star of Swan Lake is typically the swan (or the black swan) but no, that’s too conventional; let’s make Siegfried the guy everyone’s talking about instead. Drama hands! Floofy hair action! Seven straight seconds of twizzles in time with the tempo change! Dramatique feather posing because why not. Did that twenty seconds of absolute silence between movements make you uncomfortable? Good, because it’s all eyes on me! Skating so gorgeous you wouldn’t even notice there are only two jumps (both amazingly timed to the music), this is a visual and aural feast for the eyes. It’s a Swan Lake to outclass all other Swan Lakes that have been, that are, and that will be.

7. Akiko Suzuki’s EX, O, 2018 The Legends

[inserts crying emoji] A regret I have is not becoming a fan when Akiko was still skating competitively. I love this program soso much and seeing it brought back again was a real treat. The choreographic sequence still sends shivers down my spine <333

6. Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir’s FD, Moulin Rouge, 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics

Scintillating. Flawless. The pinnacle of ice dance. It’s the kind of performance that just sears into your mind for a long, long time. Though they didn’t get perfect marks here, it’s as perfect a skate you’ll find.

5. Wakaba Higuchi’s FS, Skyfall, 2018 World Championships

Such a cool and sleek program. I like the blue dress more than this one but this was easily the free skate of the ladies in Milan for me. A passionate and powerful skate, it was really nice to see Wakaba come back strong after a disappointing Nationals finish and hit it at Worlds. Reigning World Silver Medalist! (now please give her the PCS she deserves)

4. Aliona Savchenko/Bruno Massot’s FS, La terre vue du ciel, 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics

Wow. Just wow. I went in as a Sui/Han fan but wow, this free skate is gorgeous and sweeps me away every time I watch it. And they performed it to perfection at GPF, Olympics, and Worlds. The choreography is amazing and unique, and apparently full of little touches to previous programs (like the star catching moment from “The Lighthouse”, their free program last season). Dominant, majestic, and absolutely exhilarating to watch. I can watch this again and again and never tire of it.

3. Satoko Miyahara’s FS, Madame Butterfly, 2017-18 Japanese National Championships

While her short program is more loved (as it should be, it is an amazing work of art, Lori really outdid herself, you should go watch it ^^), I think I enjoyed her free skate more simply because it’s given her so many Moments this season. Coming back from a slew of injuries, including a serious hip injury from last season, it was highly questionable if she would even be able to make it to the Olympics at all. But Satoko silenced all doubters again and again, at Skate America and then at Japanese Nationals, where she gave the free skate of her career with an emotive and stunning performance that carried her to her Olympic dream on butterfly wings ^^. Triumphant, mesmeric, spectacular-it is a Madame Butterfly that rewrites the tragic ending into one of hope, a story that is entirely Satoko’s.

2. Javier Fernandez’s FS, Man of La Mancha, 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics

(password to video link: man of la mancha)

A skater from a small federation, from a country where figure skating barely exists, Javier has written history again and again. And what a journey it has been! From finishing 35th at his first Worlds appearance in 2007, Javier would go on to qualify for his first Olympics in Vancouver and become the first Spanish skater to win Europeans, to win Worlds, and ultimately, to win an Olympic medal. It feels appropriate that “Man of La Mancha”, an unapologetically Spanish program that perfectly captures the essence of Javier’s career--”to dream the impossible dream”--is to be the program to stake his Olympic dream on, And his Olympic dream truly seemed almost impossible in the months leading up to Pyeongchang. An uncharacteristically disastrous free at the Cup of China disqualified him from making the Grand Prix Final for the first time since 2013. And while his Chaplin short clicked for him (also excellent, highly recommended), he struggled with the free all season long. Unabashedly romantic, with just the right amount of earnest cheese (the best kind) and aged whimsy, “Man of La Mancha” is my favorite Javier free skate and I’m so glad he was able to skate it to its fullest potential at the competition that mattered most.

1. Yuzuru Hanyu’s FS, Seimei, 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics

What makes a skate great? Legendary? Memorable? It’s easy to jump to the pristine “Seimei” in Barcelona, the ethereal cleanliness of “Hope & Legacy” in Helsinki, or even the world-record breaking (again) “Ballade No.1″ in Montreal. While all of these skates are indeed great, legendary, and certainly memorable, I find my thoughts turning instead to a young seventeen-year-old Romeo in Nice, unleashing his battle cry after a dramatic fall as he fought through a sprained ankle to win his first Worlds medal. Clean performances are definitely great, but great skates don’t need to be clean. At the end of the day, what makes a skate great is in the struggles overcome, hardships endured, fears mastered, doubts silenced; in spite of it all, to manage to find joy and fulfillment in not only what you have accomplished but also in the thorny path that has led you there. It’s not as perfect as Barcelona, but the Seimei in Pyeongchang offers a different kind of magnificence, a triumph in more ways than one.

#season: 2017 2018 #figure skating #yuzuru hanyu #javier fernández #satoko miyahara #savchenko/massot #wakaba higuchi #virtue/moir #akiko suzuki #tatsuki machida #hubbell/donohue #boyang jin #muramoto/reed #sui/han #adam rippon #elizabet tursynbaeva #shibutani/shibutani #carolina kostner #james/cipres #peng/jin #nathan chen #yuna shiraiwa #patrick chan #keegan messing #moa iwano #ross miner #jimmy ma #it was really really hard to stick to narrow it down to 25 #originally the list was closer to 40 #textpost

[everythingkpopuniverse]

A.C.E Member Spotlight #3

Birth Name: Park Junhee

Stage Name: Jun

Position: Leader, Lead Vocalist, Lead Dancer

Birthday: June 2, 1994 (age 23)

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Height: 175 cm (5'9")

Weight: 58 kg (128 lbs)

Blood Type: O

Birth Place: Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, South Korea

Nationality: Korean

Status: Active

Favorite Color: Blue and red

Fun Facts: After watching Rain’s “Rainism” in middle school, he was inspired to be a singer and began to train with VIXX under Jellyfish Entertainment when he was 18. He didn’t train there long. Afterwards, he trained under CJ Entertainment for three years and met Donghun and Wow. He participated as a dancer in 1Million Dance Studio and he can be seen in some videos and can be seen in Lia Kim’s Sing Choreography 2 alongside Wow. He performed in the musical “Peste” alongside Boyfriend’s Jeongmin. He has two older sisters. He had another sister but she, unfortunately, passed away. He participated in “I Can See Your Voice” Season 4, Episode 7 and is known to be the Suncheon Kangta voice. He has a cameo appearance in “I Need Romance 3″ He makes a small appearance in the Kdrama “Persevere, Goo Hae Ra” as a member of a kpop group called “Impact.” He likes soccer, Attack on Titan (his favorite anime), and cooking He can play the guitar  He participated in KBS survival show, “The Unit”, alongside member Chan ranking 21st before the final episode. He was known to be a great leader, cute, and affectionate.  He loves strawberry yogurt ( besides chicken but then again all of them love chicken - seriously they all love chicken [ chicken is destiny - Kim Byeongkwan ] ) He is known as the Disney Prince ( the ultimate truth because he’s literally a prince in real life ) He sings “Black and Blue” on their new album, “Wonderland” with member Wow. He used to host Arirang’s Idol Class alongside Wow and Chan.

Admin’s Opinions aka “Are They My Bias and Overall Thoughts?”: There’s so much to say about Junhee. First off, this boy is literally the definition of scary duality but he knows what he’s doing ( he’s very aware of how to attack you and make your heart race ). He goes from cute ( anyone see the Vlive of him saying “No! No! No!” when they were talking about not using his phone - fucking precious ) to the rudest human being on this planet ( watch him flirt with the camera at any moment, watch him dance to Gashina, watch him in “Take Me Higher”, watch him on “The Unit” - there’s a lot of instances I’m telling you ).  His smile is so pretty and he’s literally a Disney prince. He’s good at everything he does whether it be singing, dancing, or leading his team. I love his leadership and how hardworking he is ( he trained for seven years and went through many instances where he almost debuted only to have it fall short ). He’s also a really good actor too and I can’t wait for the day where he goes into dramas because he deserves such an opportunity. He’s dedicated, kind, and overall a good person. Protect him at all costs ( especially from Donghun’s savageness - just kidding they love each other ).

Question of the Day: What’s your favorite thing about Jun and is he your bias? Disclaimer: Please do not remove the watermark off my edit. Thank you. Information sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

#ace creations #creations {mc edits} #ace #ace jun #a.c.e #a.c.e jun #a.c.e junhee #ace junhee #a.c.e park junhee #ace park junhee #park junhee #jun #junhee #boy group #underrated boy group #boy group 2017 #kpop #korean pop music #kpop blog #floating through the universe {queue}

[sweet-childhood-dreams]

Post-Blackout

The blackout is coming to an end today...and I have a few things to share. What it showed me- and realizing how bad the reposting issue has become.

During these two weeks I’ve witnessed a few cases:

-I’ve seen my art been being reposted without permission, mostly with ‘credit to the artist™’ or nothing at all on insta/vk/etc.

-I’ve seen my newer drawings with my new watermark being cropped from the picture with the same careless credit

-Someone even attempted to blur the whole thing and leaving a weird stain where the watermark should be (saved it before reporting just in case)

-Also youtubers have been monetizing my work without my knowledge. In some cases, they assumed that when I gave them permission to dub one of my comics, that it extended to having permission to upload other works of mine. An assumption that was completely wrong. So not only was I not informed that they were using more of my work, but they monetized it and gained money from my work. I no longer allow dubbing on my comic anymore because of it.

-Recently, I asked another youtuber to remove a dub they did long ago on one of my comics, and while they eventually removed it from their channel, it didn’t stop them from giving permission to other youtubers to repost MY ART. And while it was their dub, the foundation of that work was my art. No one can give others permission to use my art other than me. However just 4 days after that video was removed, it was reposted onto another channel and monetized. All this I had to find out from people telling me.

-And even worse—yes, it can get worse—yesterday I found out that one of the drawings I made for Adrienette month was being sold on phone cases on Aliexpress.

I never thought *this* will happen to me. Why would someone…do that? Why would someone make money out of our hard work while we create for fun to a fandom we love on our free time?

To be honest, after seeing this—I wanted to quit drawing for the fandom.

But I won’t.

As much as it hurts, the fact that there are people who don’t give a damn about the artist’s wishes and care more about their fat pocket—it won’t mean anything to them. For them I’m *just* another artist--it won’t hurt them losing another one.

I draw ml because I love the characters and the fandom. It makes me happy to see that I can make someone’s day a little better because of my drawings. I made friends through this fandom that became part of my everyday life and to be honest, they boosted my confidence. ML revived my dream again to study animation, it made me want to draw more and brought back the will to learn and improve. I have so many good things to say about the show, the people I encounter- you really changed my life, and I love you all!

And I don’t want this to end because of some nasty people who care more about their following count or the money they can make from a stolen illustration or a silly comic.

I’m just going to continue arting but not share everything…and make the watermark bigger.

So for other artists out there, I just want to share this information. This is just a drop of the ocean of what I have experienced in my short time of posting fanart online. As exciting as it is to have people dubbing your work or asking for permission to share your art on other platforms.

HAVE CAUTION!

Ask questions, ask for links to their pages, look at how they conduct themselves online, check to see if they monetize videos (you can use apps like the heartbeat app to do this as some youtubers like to not share this information), give proper credit/link to your original posts, etc. Some people are looking to use you and use your art for fame, for money, for whatever, and its abuse. It abuses your copyright and hard work. This is something I do because I love art, I love the show, and I want to share that love with others. It is NOT something I create for others to take advantage of or steal...or sell, or to stick an advert on in order to make money.

----

Thank you @powerdragonmoon and the squad group for helping out with writing <3

#ml #miraculous ladybug #miraculousblackout #art theft #lisa chirps #venting #i may be not great with words but it needed to be said #mydrawings

[golden-plumeria]

As far as feedback goes, I don't agree with the recent trend of not giving full size artwork to people. Some of the more recent batches of coadles are positively tiny and the art seems pretty low quality (resolution), it is scandalous to expect people to pay hundreds of dollars to not provide the full size artwork out of laziness. I don't care about the "you pay for the rights to use the species" reasoning because its an excuse not an explanation, people care about this species but feel cheated.

Answered by Tay and Maho

Tay - While i can understand your’s and other’s frustration. You have to understand that many adoptables out there that go over $1000 and sometimes even over $2000 are never given a separate image with them but many people find no issue with it or feel cheated. This may only be an issue with Maho because Maho put in the extra effort from the onset to give refs complimentary to her designs but was taken advantage of. So while other artists never started out giving refs, their members never feel cheated because they never had that opportunity to begin with. Maho did, so when she no longer gives them it was Maho who was at fault. It is done out of protection of her art, and to keep other users from using the full sized refs to scam others. Some people do have the idea that a full size art = ownership and someone who can come to own one or find the posted full size can sell to multiple people using the art as proof of ownership and scamming others (Happened in other communities already and becoming a trend). Rather than referring to the masterlist, and is very unsafe. One CS artist was being bullied into refunding those who were scammed because they thought the full refs meant the person could sell it to them but never checked the actual owner’s list to verify. The full sized ref = ownership idea is was probably the worst thing to put as the standard in the community in the first place and in the community in general and has been causing lots of issues with many CS creators. To avoid the same issues it was also implemented with our species to remove full sized refs. It’s the “Someone ruined it for everyone else” sort of deal and we apologize for that. If every member was perfect and respectful of the art this would have never happened. Another thing is Maho and her admins do not always receive more than 200$ for the adopts they make let alone 100$ at most. She does not believe in charging any more than 200$ autobid for her species because she still tries to maintain fairness and allows others that can’t even go over 25$ a chance to gain one of her species for free through hard work and fun events. 

We have a master list that proves the ownership of who ever buys a certain design. Ive talked to many people of the community and most of them do not feel cheated over the recent events of not receiving files. In fact the majority understand why it happened, but as for you feeling cheated the most i can do is apologize for it and that no harm was meant by it. Also please know that as we are currently aware of only Maho is not giving out files to her adopts but the other admin still might with theirs. Just a bit of info, sorry for rambling ^^; Tried to get out as much info i knew to help out. Maho - I am willing to give out transparent files (Without BG, full size if the small batch ones since I post them at 50% size) if asked only. But it would be in my free time and not part of the design’s cost. It would be me doing it for free since the money I get from the design usually doesn’t even cover the cost of making it alone and time spent adding it to the master list, hours working to polish etc. Majority of my designs sell for less than 50 dollars and it takes me hours to do one design. From our perspective we feel that no one should say “I feel cheated” if they pay less than the work itself and expect even more for free. We don’t show how long it takes to design these so we know that outside our admin circle people don’t see all the background work we put into all this, especially if they do not run a species themself and realize that 99% of work (Admin, modding, item designing, programing, html, masterlist updating, rule making, tweeking and working to improve) all go unpaid. So I understand the frustration, but I don’t ever “Set stuff in stone” and I always am able to bend a bit for people who are willing to work with me and be patient. But the art is just complimentary (Me doing it for a good member) not owed to the designs anymore. I like using BGless refs myself from other species I own so I definitely understand and sometime in the future may find a way to post my designs in an appealing way that has no bg and is easy to crop if in a batch but still keeps some sort of small watermark.  And the tiny designs you speak of, mostly sell for 25 to 30 dollars a piece and are kept small to encourage people to make the price fair for those who cannot afford the larger sized more polished ones. So they can still get one of the species but more affordable. Think of it like fabric at a store, you get discounts if you get scraps or edge of fabric pieces. And give people who cannot afford the highest tier fabric cuts a chance to get fabric. I KNOW how it feels to be priced out of species and if I can make simple, easier and smaller designs to give less financially able people a chance at it I will give them that chance like I’d like from other species. And these designs can be drawn full size and much better at a later date to with YCHs, and rebase commissions by Myself or my admin. No one should feel stuck with tiny art when there are lots of ways to get them drawn, or even draw them yourself the size you’d like if you can. There are lots of options and I hope that our ramblings have helped in some way. People should understand both sides to this and that we are trying our best, and our best may not be the best for everyone. We do not force anyone to buy our designs, or force them to stay in the community and if refs is a deal breaker there are lots of species from really nice people who do give refs. But they may be pricier or harder to get into.Last note - Those who work for practically free when everything is calculated together and continue to work as hard as they can to create a community despite the cost/hours disparity I wouldn’t consider lazy. Lazy is not running a CS group in the first place and not having to work with strangers and avoid conflicts since you don’t get them by not doing anything.

#Ask #FAQ

[shattered-glass-shattered-mind]

8] I have been squicked/triggered (somewhere in between) a grand total of three (3) times today Jesus fucking God

Rape tw under the cut

The first time was the very nasty surprise of finding out Professor Achilles Milo is NOT, in fact, one of Mama’s OCs (meaning I wouldn’t see or read him unless I chose to) but is instead a canon character to the DC franchise. As soon as she said in the stream that he’d be appearing in the episode I just got this sick sense of dread and oh my God he looks even creepier than I thought he would Jesus fucking Christ. I had to wrap myself in my blanket like halfway through the episode because I felt chilly and gross and I could barely look at the screen whenever he appeared.

Then she sent links in the Skype chat to his wiki page and something else I don’t remember (with these even creepier thumbnail images oh Lord) so that I could learn more about him and I was just like AAAAAHAHAHAHA NO PLEASE and she was like SERIOUSLY I DIDN’T MAKE HIM UP and then I was like YEAH NO I UNDERSTAND THAT GET IT AWAY FROM ME

She removed the links after realising I was uncomfortable and she’s gonna warn me in future streams before he shows up and that’s very nice of her but I am still quite the confusion because this isn’t the first time it’s happened

The first time was when she, upon my request, sent an excerpt from her fanfic of her OC Reaper confiding in another character that Milo had raped her and gotten her pregnant. I knew about that, even without reading it, from what I’d seen of Reaper’s kid and read in her profile and what Mama had said in previous conversations. Logically I should’ve been prepared for that excerpt--Hell, logically, I should’ve been fine with it (after all, I suffered no lasting damage from The Great Fuck Shit™ of ‘05, right? Right?), not just prepared. But after reading it I felt sick and I started sweating and meanwhile I’m goin’ like what the FUCK IS THIS @ my body y u do dis

So that festered for like a week and a half (was it really that long??? it felt like so much shorter, I’m just going by what the timestamps tell me) before I asked Mama to tell me which chapters of her fanfics touch down on what Milo did to Reaper (she agreed of course because she is Mama and looks after her symbolic children) but apparently that didn’t help (or at least not enough) because the very next day I woke up to Muse telling me she’s decided Locah is going to get raped by their ex-boyfriend Prince and miscarry GiGi and Cam’s first kid. I tried to argue against it like ‘No, you’re copying Reaper, people know you know each other, they’re gonna notice the similarity and call you out on it, Prince is kinda weirded out by the fact Locah is intersex anyways, it’s not our place to do this because we barely even remember what happened and aren’t “““““scarred”““““ by it and that’s what we’ve already transferred to Artemis anyways, if you’re taking this from Barron’s creepitude then you’re blowing it way out of proportion, this didn’t happen to us so we shouldn’t be writing it’.

She yelled at me. Muse hardly ever gets angry at me so that’s saying something. She was like ‘REALLY??? THIS EXACT THING??? Do you know how many authors write about shit like this when nothing even remotely similar happened to them or even somebody they knew personally?! At least you have that ahead of them!

‘Artemis??? NEW RULE APPARENTLY: Writers limited to one (1) rape victim and/or miscarriage per family, sorry everyone!

‘And as for that “blowing it out of proportion” bullshit--that’s what I DO!!! I take your feelings and experiences and I amplify them, I take them apart, I combine them with other elements, I reuse them! I’ve been doing this since we were five years old, is this suddenly a new fucking concept to you?!

‘He’s weirded out by--motherfucker. Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power, control, and FEAR. Now I don’t know about you but to me that sounds right up the alley of the controlling, abusive, stalker-y YELLOW LANTERN. He doesn’t do it because he’s horny, he does it because he wants to destroy them. He wants to punish Locah for defying him. He wants to make them hurt, fuck them up, scar them permanently in every possible way--and oh boy am I going to have a lot of fun making up the physical ones.

‘And lastly, we aren’t copying Reaper. She isn’t the only character to be written in that situation and she won’t be the last either. Besides, the motivation behind Milo’s attack on Reaper and the history between them is different than that of Prince and Locah anyways. There are similarities, yes, and we will acknowledge them when the time comes, but this is different.

‘Do you really think I’m just doing this for story spice and shock value?!! Do you really think I would ever do that, especially considering how angry you get at others for it??? This WILL present character development for Locah. You need to let me do this, I’m GOING to do this, and I’d love to see anybody try and stop me!’

Only louder. When I told her ‘Okay, but they’re not getting pregnant from it too,’ I got a derisive snort and an aggressive ‘Yeah. We’ll see,’ in response. And really, I suppose I knew this was going to happen eventually; the thought of Prince attacking Locah in that way fleetingly occurred to me multiple times but I kept shoving it away. I guess Muse finally got tired of it. 

I think she’s right; after I drew a vent piece of the aftermaths of Locah’s rape I felt better. I’d put it here if I could but then you would know who I am and where to find me since my watermark has my dA handle plus anybody following this blog (or that may follow it in the future) who knows me from elsewhere would recognise Locah immediately. But then again anybody following this blog who knows me wouldn’t need to think too hard to decode the aliases I’ve used throughout this blog for myself, my friends, and our characters and figure out who I am that way.

Okay I forgot where this was going and I didn’t mean for it to go in this direction but apparently it did

Oh yeah the other two times were me coming across a md/lb blog (like ew) and a dd post (also ew)

Anyways that was my day, I hope all yours were better

#original #text post #rape tw #read more #under the cut #the engineer speaks #the engineer shrieks #well actually it was the muse #but still #the engineer's children #the daemon

[driftingbutstillbeating-blog]

plz ignore this thanks

   CONTENTS

      ADVERT

  EDITOR’S NOTE

      Welcome to the first issue of FANGZINE, a collection of short stories, silly articles and general tripe, with some serious social commentary thrown in from time to time as well.

    2016, by all accounts, was not a good year. Countless celebrity icons kicked the bucket, an unelected uber-bitch seized power in Westminster, the high watermark point of the post-war neoliberal consensus was realised with Brexit, and the bloke from The Chase was the highest selling recording artist in Britain. Oh yeah… Donald Trump happened, too.

    So, with all these horrors behind us, can we take comfort in the fact that this is a new year, a fresh start for the world and for ourselves? Well, no. There’s nothing remarkable about it being 2017, it’s just an arbitrary rotation of the world around the sun. Bad shit’s still going to happen, isn’t it? Come on now, really- don’t kid yourself.

    With that in mind, see this zine in a way as a distraction from the terrible events that this year will no doubt spew forth. This is a celebration of the creative, comedic and trivial side of life, so please, read on at your leisure and enjoy!

  2016 OBITUARY PAGE

  TOM INVESTIGATES

        CAPS-LOCK ON: A NEW HAT

 The first of a dark trilogy, heartbreakingly based on true events and personal experience, by Stephen Spiers

Weeks and weeks ago, in a galaxy far, far up north, a troubled young soul was drinking his way through Leeds on a warm summer’s evening. Little did he know that he was about to be consumed by a vicious addiction from which few, if any, have been known to emerge from. Read on and take heed, for the events in the following tale could happen to anyone…

 “Whose cap is this?”

“Dunno mate, someone must’ve left it.”

‘Jackpot’ I thought to myself as I stumbled from inside one of the many nameless pubs on the Otley Run’s agenda into the balmy late summer Leeds air.

“Ere, they’re all over here, you can ask.”- Jack was gesturing towards a low wall where the rest of our troupe were sitting, having a smoke.

A hat is a wonderful thing on a night out. I’d never really liked wearing hats, even at a young age, but after 5 pints and a couple of ‘fat trebbies’, such an accessory can provide one with endless fun. Drunken girls’ attentions can be caught, hilarious Jay-Z impressions can be made, and if nothing else, a little warmth can be provided at 4 in the morning when you’re sobered up and shivering, waiting for that taxi that should have arrived 20 fucking minutes ago. These were the kind of thoughts that were running through my mind as I shouted back over my shoulder:

“Fuck ‘em, I wanna wear it”

With that, I placed the plain black hat on my head and strode purposefully towards the next pub. It’d just be a laugh for one night, I thought. If only I knew of the descent into a world of addiction and self-loathing upon which I had just embarked.

The very next morning I was frantically scrambling around my room, packing my bags for a trip to Budapest with some friends, and generally regretting my decision to go out the night before. With my head pounding, and all of about 3 hours of alcohol-induced sleep under my belt, my newly acquired piece of headgear was the furthest thing from my mind. However, after several minutes of rooting through various items of my wardrobe looking for this and that, I found myself face to face (brim) with their newest addition: the little black baseball cap. There it sat, peering up at me from underneath a pile of unwashed clothing. ‘Go on, pack it’- I heard an unfamiliar voice in my head- ‘You’re going on Holiday, everyone wears hats on holiday’. Why was I persuading myself to take this hat? I didn’t even like wearing caps, and never had, plus I looked like a twat in it anyway. My head was round enough already without removing my poorly-styled quiff from the equation. ‘You’ll probably not even wear it’. I don’t know where it came from, but an unfathomable urge to pack it suddenly came over me. I grabbed it, shoved it in my bag and set off to the railway station.

12 hours, 3 trips to Ryanair’s customer service desk and a flat tyre later, we were dropping our bags off in our tiny Budapest apartment and getting ready to hit the bevs to kick off the holiday. Just as I was slipping on my trusty denim jacket, I heard the voice again- ‘Wear the hat. Go on, just once, just to see what it’s like’. I span round and sure enough there it was, barely visible, lurking in the murky depths of my holdall. And then it was gone. I stood for a moment, confused. Had I actually packed it? Or had I just imagined the whole thing? Then I re-focused. There were more important matters at hand. I could solve this mystery later, during time that couldn’t be better spent drinking copious amounts of beer. Invigorated by the promise of alcohol, I marched from the kitchen into the hallway where the others were waiting, wallet in hand.

No sooner had I stepped into the hall however, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the wall and my heart sank. I turned and stared in dismay at myself staring right back at me with an equally horrified expression. There was no wild imagination at work here, and no magical disappearing hat either. I was wearing it. And not only was I wearing it, I was wearing it backwards. I looked like a cross between one of those chavs I’d seen walking around Bradford in their matching tracksuit tops and bottoms, gobbing on the pavement as they went; and one of those hipster roadmen you can find populating the streets of Leeds, trying their best to look cool by wearing decidedly uncool clothing. I had become everything that I hate in this world. But that was just the thing. I didn’t hate it. I fucking loved it.

Make sure you grab the next issue of FANGZINE to find out what happens next to our unfortunate, newly becapp’d friend!

      HOLLY PIECE

After having volunteered at the Ipswich Night Shelter during the winter of 2015, and spending a night sleeping rough on the streets of Norwich in 2016 to raise money for the St. Martin’s Housing Trust, Holly Free offers an insight into the plight of the homeless in Britain today, and voices her concern over the apparent lack of empathy the general public shows towards them.

As I walk through the streets of Norwich at 1am, I glance to those not at immediate eye level. There seems to be some form of confrontation between a homeless individual and a Tesco security guard. I walk over, and the man appears to be on Spice, known as the most popular legal high that became illegal in May 2016. The security guard is visibly angry, and I am immediately shocked by his threatening stance towards the man who is barely able to stand, talk or function like a human being. The individual is not being aggressive, however the guard is using unnecessarily strong language towards him. The guard, in a dire need to justify his actions, turns to me – “He’s like this every fucking week. I’m sick of it.” Unable to bite my tongue, I respond hastily with “well, that quite clearly shows he needs help, don’t you think?” I want to educate this man and make him question what he knows about this individual’s life, and how he has ended up in this situation…  But I receive a response in the form of a patronising laugh and a filthy look, and my own rage silences me.

Everyone around me is mute, and all I can hear is my thoughts rage. An anxious episode? Silently raging at the stigma and ignorance surrounded by poverty and drug addiction? The sudden realisation of throwing away money on alcohol that I will most likely vomit later? All I do know is that the shame I feel is becoming unbearable, and I tuck my money into the pocket of the man who is now physically inept on the floor with three other homeless individuals. For the rest of the night, I feel consumed by worry for the man and his friends, unable to refocus my thoughts on having a night out. “Poor privileged me” I say to myself.

After volunteering at the Ipswich Night Shelter in winter 2015, I witnessed the harsh reality of homelessness, and I cannot sugar-coat it for the sake of those it may upset whom have a roof over their head, food in the cupboard and a general sense of stability. With the high probability of an individual without a home having mentally ill health, distressing family circumstances, or are trying to cope with a bereavement and addiction, it is so much more than just being a nameless face on the ground. It is not knowing when your next meal will be, or if you will ever have a home again. It is the fear of being judged, of ‘faking it’ or being labelled as that ‘helpless heroin addict’ and nothing more. It is being a statistic, not a human being. It is selling The Big Issue and being told to ‘get a real job’ by passers-by. Sometimes, it is going to sleep praying you will not wake up and being disappointed when you do. It is watching some of your friends die. It is crippling stomach cramps after weeks without a substantial meal, it is fatigue, and in worst cases, it is death.

I watch people crowding around sale areas of shops like vultures to roadkill, and most likely due to my own illnesses, my tunnel vision only enables me to see the negative. Money being spent on luxuries that we don’t really need, or actually want. I’m no angel myself – when pay day comes I act like the richest person alive, and then I realise the shit I have bought wasn’t needed at all. I’m not trying to deny people of their fun or own personal enjoyment, but there are times when all I want is for society as a whole to take a step back and look at the somewhat useless things we invest in.

When observing people making snide remarks whilst walking past someone who is quite clearly wasting away, mentally and physically, I wonder if deep down, it bothers them as much as it bothers me. Entering a dissociative state, I question whether anyone out there wants to genuinely help, or if it really is every man for themselves. “You have to cut yourself off from it” “You’ve done all you can” “Focus on yourself” “You’re too kind” Am I? Or is it not basic humanity to care for those in need and help where help is necessary? Maybe my immaturity and mental illnesses warp my idea of compassion… But I don’t want to walk on by, and I certainly don’t want to “draw the line somewhere”. The word compassion, to me, seems to have lost its true meaning, since now it is used to describe random once in a while acts of kindness. Don’t get me wrong, a little kindness is better than none at all, but surely in this increasingly poverty stricken society what we need is a continuity of care if this epidemic is ever to get better.

This doesn’t mean giving your money away to every homeless person you see. It doesn’t mean buying food for every homeless person you see. It can be as simple as a five minute chat, human contact being one of the biggest luxuries for someone without a home or a family to talk to. You never really consider what that contact can do for someone who has been alienated from the rest of society. You might just be saving a life.

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[everythingkpopuniverse]

Be.A Member Spotlight #3

Birth Name: Kim Jaeoh

Stage Name: Milly

Position: Main Rapper, Vocal

Birthday: September 22, 1992 (age 25)

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Height: 177 cm (5′10″)

Weight: 62 (136 lbs)

Blood Type: ~

Birth Place: Seoul, South Korea

Nationality: Korean

Status: Active

Favorite Color: ~

Fun Facts: His former stage name under “K-Much” was G.Low He previously lived in Pennsylvania before moving to Korea and joining Chrome Entertainment

Admin’s Opinions aka “Are They My Bias and Overall Thoughts?”: MY BIAS!!!! I love Jaeoh so much, you don’t even understand. Since I’ve known Be.A  when they were still called K-Much I’ve been with them for quite a while and Jaeoh has always been the one who caught my eye. He fulfills my bias needs plus my biaswrecker qualifications. He can rap, sing, and dance. He’s so cute whenever he gets scared and he gets scared easily. He’s the total package and between him and Yeongkyun I can’t breathe whenever I actually have a chance to watch Be.A

Question of the Day: What’s your favorite thing about Milly and is he your bias? Disclaimer: Please do not remove the watermark off my edit. Thank you. Information sources: (x) (x)

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