#<- is it a theory if i just point stuff out and wait for smarter ppl to do the actual theorising

[ragnorfalling]

mrs flood penzance sticker on the suitcase??

penzance - lands end ???

pirates of penzance gilbert and sullivan ???

more singing to come. more liminal spaces between the land and the sea

i am the very model of a gallifreyan buccaneer sang by colin baker on our screens at christmas?? ok maybe not

but theres something here

[theinsidiousdice]

Excerpt from the journal of Deah Preston

We’re not even a month into the semester and Professor Hightower is making us do a busywork assignment. I hope this kind of thing doesn’t come up often, otherwise I might start having second thoughts about how hard I worked to get into this school. Professor Hightower says she won’t be reading this assignment anyway – that it’s just practice to get into the habit of writing regularly – that if we want to succeed in her course we need to be able to just let the words flow out of the pen. Grammar be damned, she said. Word choice be damned. The first step is being able to turn on the spigot. I don’t know if I trust her yet not to read this, though. Something’s up with her. She always has that smile on her face that says she knows more than she’s letting on.

Which, admittedly, if a professor didn’t know more than they were letting on, I’d question whether they were fit to run the class. You don’t waste the good stuff on freshmen. You have to save some of it for when they get to higher-level classes. I assume, anyway. Not like I’ve made it there yet. I wonder if the professors get better when you get up to higher classes. Right now I’ve got Professor Hightower, who doesn’t care about reading our work, Professor Paine, who’s a good 15 minutes late to every class and always brings the wrong lesson plan, and Miss Marinos, who I’m pretty sure is lying about a quarter of what she tells us. I mean, surely people would be talking about it if she parachuted into the school on her first day as a lecturer, right? Oh, wait, hold on, Joy wants to tell me something.

Joy has informed me that Miss Marinos did in fact do that. She showed me pictures. The parachute had a picture of a bear on it. The bear was eating honey. What in the actual hell is this school.

It has also occurred to me that Joy knew what I was writing in this journal.

She just said “No I didn’t” from her bed. Well, that’s certainly reassuring.

Anyway, I’m going to try not to think about that. Professor Hightower said that if we’re struggling for something to write, we should consider going back to the first thing we can remember. In my case, that would be trying to cast a cookie spell when I was like... 4, maybe. I should be clear – this was not an established spell, I did not have any sort of experience with magic at that point, I’d just gotten it into my head that if I waved my hands the right way and screwed my face up, I could make cookies appear. I mean, I know now that that would violate the law of conservation of matter. If I’d been smarter about it, I could have tried to use magic to bring cookies from the kitchen, but what can I say? I hadn’t brushed up on my conjuration knowledge when I was 4.

Not that I’m any better at it now. I get the theory, of course. It’s simple stuff. Magic can move things, summon things, change things, but it can’t create something from nothing and it can’t turn something into nothing. The bigger a change you’re invoking on something, the more power you need. That’s why Professor Paine does a lot of her bigger demonstrations with a car battery on hand. But some people just don’t have the knack. That’s why I have to do a lot of the runaround methods that the professors don’t know about. For example, did you know – in the absence of the ability to cast a direct lift spell, a properly enchanted emerald can get the job done just as well?

All this is hypothetical, Professor Hightower.

Anyway, the cookie. Obviously it didn’t work, and I was inconsolable. Matron Diuguid said that she could get me some books on magic theory so I could learn, and then brought me some graduate-level stuff, which, points for technically doing what you said you were going to, but minus several more for not reading the room. I tried reading them, of course, but didn’t get very far with it. I would have had enough trouble with the middle-grade stuff they use for teaching beginners.

Of course, now I know it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Middle school was the worst, not that that’s not self-evident. Who actually liked middle school? Bunch of idiots who passed the screening test showing off how they can make a spark in the palm of their hand when the teacher’s back is turned. The rest of us plebs have to just sit there and ignore their swelled heads.

I was 13 when I stole my first charm. (Again, Professor Hightower, hypothetical.) I didn’t even mean to do it. I was at the bodega near the home with Matron Diuguid. She wanted to get some sandwiches for all of us, a treat, you know. I was in the aisle that had all the chintzy little toys and stuff, and they had some small “gemstones” that were actually just plastic, the kind that was enchanted with a basic light spell. Supposed to be more reliable than a flashlight, with a big asterisk. I was looking at one of them when the matron said we were leaving. I slipped it into my pocket without thinking about it.

You don’t have to be able to cast magic to make a charm work.

I always figured I’d just use the charms until my magical ability came in. Some people are late bloomers, after all. Marko at the theater said that he didn’t get his until he was in his 20s, and by that point he was already locked into his gig. I’m pretty sure Marko’s son Giovanni fancies me, but he’s a total jackstone. No brains in between his ears – just more muscles. I’m pretty sure I can hear steam going in his head when I ask him about anything more complicated than the parts of a headball field. Like, I don’t need to be with someone who’s a genius – they see through me too easily anyway, they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me. But there’s a lower bound.

I worked for Marko for a few years. After getting out of high school, well, it’s not like I could very well go to college right out the gate. No scholarships, and it’s not like Matron Diuguid could afford to put all of us through. Some of the others passed the entrance exams to Arboreal or Johnson, the lucky bastards. I don’t see why every school can’t do like they do and let anybody in who passes without having to pay through the nose. I mean, that’s the only reason I’m here now. Saved up enough money working at the theater to take the practice test a few times and learn how to get past it. Thankfully it didn’t take very long, because I don’t think I could have worked there for much longer than I did. Even now, the smell of popcorn butter makes me retch. Not to mention all the times Giovanni showed off his special “bicep trick”.

The only person here who’s figured me out yet is Joy, and she’s happy enough to let me keep at it. She thinks it’s funny. Something about cheating a corrupt institution. As long as she doesn’t rat me out. She’s also the only person I’ve told about how I actually lost my hand. Everyone else gets a story from the list, which is up to 37 different ones so far. I might have my differences with Matron Diuguid, but she came through when it came to that. It’s not the highest-quality prosthetic on the market – there are those creepy fake-skin ones – but it works well, and, more importantly, it gives off enough of an aura that it hides all my charms. The best part is that nobody ever asks to take a closer look at a prosthetic if they think you’re hiding something. They don’t want to offend. More the better for me.

Am I at the word limit yet? Ugh, no, god. I mean, I guess there’s no way Professor Hightower is going to know if I just quit now. But I didn’t work my way into Sutteran just to slack off. I’m going to ace every single assignment I get here, and then maybe my magic will actually come in. And when it does, I’ll be all set, since I’ll have done all this work ahead of time. I won’t have to go through the awkward learning phase. And it’ll be me at graduation, up on stage, giving the speech, shaking Chancellor Stacks’ hand. I’ll be the best out of everyone here.

Joy is laughing again. I’m learning that it’s bad news when she laughs. And in case she is somehow reading this, stop reading it, Joy.

[cosmicbrowniefan]

i can’t stop picturing a stranger things x it crossover

there are so many fucking things i’m picturing and i need you to picture it too so here.

so obviously we are going to stick with the storyline of mike wheeler and richie being twins

i’m definitely picturing a massive dnd club with mike w, will, dustin, lucas, richie, bill, stan, and eddie

richie gets threatened to be kicked out constantly bc of how fucking annoying he is while playing

max is always making fun of them for being obsessed with their “nerd game” but she’s secretly a little jealous that they have this thing together so she decides to make her own group for competitive uno playing and it’s made up of her, el, bev, mike h, ben, will, and stan

max decided that the others were too loud and annoying when playing games and enjoys pissing them off a little bit by not letting them join in

the losers club and the party always have competitions of who’s fought worse demons

these competitions are basically just arguments

also they’re only between mike w and richie

i also have this theory that pennywise and the upside-down kinda destroy each other due to richie taunting both pennywise and the mind-flayer and saying that each isn’t as scary as the either

leave it to richie to destroy hell by making fun of demons

but yeah enough of that clown fucker and the dnd villains let’s get back to our favorite kiddos

you thought steve was stressed out before? just wait until the party becomes friends with the losers club

suddenly this mf gained a shit ton more children to look after

which robin thinks is absolutely fucking hilarious

there are definitely a couple different sleepover squads that pair off from the whole big group of them but let me just say my two favorite squads: the chill squad and the chaos squad

the chill squad consists of will, bev, mike h, stan, ben, and el

the chaos squad consists of richie, mike w, bill, dustin, lucas, eddie, and max

the chill squad basically just makes food and plays games and has deep talks

the chaos squad basically plays videos games, screams at each other, and runs around the neighborhood at night

some of my other favorite squads include when the group is split up based on their crushes

aka richie, bill, mike w, bev, and max are a squad that talk about their crushes

and eddie, stan, will, ben, and el are a squad that talk about their crushes

obviously. on each other

but i digress

you know what else i love to imagine? ben expanding the clubhouse to fit the entire squad

you thought eddie and richie argued over the hammock? yeah just wait until max, lucas, and mike w join in on that shit

ben very quickly reaches into his savings account to buy a few more hammocks to attempt to reach some peace and quiet

but richie and eddie very conveniently continue to argue over one hammock, each claiming that it’s their favorite hammock

and that results in each of them begrudgingly sharing it (even though that’s what they both wanted all along)

one of my favorite duos has got to be will and stan

those two are straight up besties

and they constantly make fun of each other for the stupid stuff bill and mike w do

and they are really good for each other to talk to about their feelings and their depression and it’s really therapeutic for them

also, bev, max, and el are the power team

talk about girl power, those three are smarter than all the others combined in one

and the boys would 110% have blown themselves up at this point if it weren’t for them

ALSO

LET’S JUST TALK ABOUT HOW PISSY RICHIE GETS WHEN MAX BEATS HIM IN STREET FIGHTER

this mf will literally spend his life savings trying to prove that he’s better at it than she is

“dude, stop trying, she’s already got the new record on dig dug”

“ANYONE CAN DO THAT”

mike h and el have a game they play where they add tally marks every time mike w and richie argue with each other for being literally the same fucking person

lucas once suggested they make it a game where they take shots but after five in a half hour, the two of them decided to call it quits

speaking of lucas, he is BEYOND ecstatic to finally have someone in the group that enjoys sports

he and bill play basketball together, and he, bill, and stan play baseball together on the school team

the others always come to their games to support them but they don’t pretend to understand what was going on

i also really think dustin and bev would be great friends

like something about their energy just meshes well together and i have a feeling they’d do something like start a podcast

in conclusion. i love all of these kids so fucking much and i could talk about a stranger things x it mash up for forever

[restnowyourhardshipisover]

I think that there is quite a bit of evidence that going into the prison to confront Dream and Technoblade Quackity’s intended plan was to kill at least Technoblade, likely both of them.

I will admit there are holes in this, and I’m happy to examine and discuss them, but I want to just put this out there: I’m making a point/expressing a theory, not stating something we know for sure. Smarter people than me have poured over this arc and seen different stuff.

First, there’s a mechanical detail on the way in, Quackity does set his spawn at the prison, but he does not set it inside the locked area of the prison in the bed next to the main cell. This is clearly intentional, Sam reminds him to sleep, Quackity agrees, and waits specifically until Sam is looking away to stand by the bed, but doesn’t actually set his spawn. This is a bit odd, but by itself it could be any number of things, laziness, paranoia, power play of not doing a simple thing Sam asks. And not setting his spawn is almost a problem. Techno almost punches him in the lava, and Quackity would’ve spawned all the way at the prison entrance. Inconvenient and dangerous if he is killed by Dream or Techno, but if he was going to kill then, understand Sam’s explicitly not been on board with “plan kill Dream” previously… Having his spawn set outside the secure area buys Quackity time to evade Sam. Or at least not respawn trapped.

Then there’s Sam and Quackity’s conversation Quackity spends a lot of time ensuring Sam’s on the same page, reassuring Sam that he doesn’t have to do anything. Specifically instructing Sam not to interfere, no matter how bad it looks or what Quackity does or says. Unless Quackity needs Sam’s help. Sam let Quackity torture Dream for months. If Quackity needs to clarify that it strongly implies he’s planning to do something that could bother Sam.

And Sam does interrupt, maybe it was just Dream begging, but I would argue Dream’s begged for Sam before in scenes we’ve seen, it’s not to unreasonable to infer it also happened during the visits we don’t see. So Quackity’s behavior was off enough, unusual enough that Sam did speak up and interfere.

He also references repeatedly a hope or expectation this will be his last visit. Maybe he just thinks threatening Dream with Techno is that good of a plan, but that dramatically underestimates Dream and Techno’s stubbornness. Especially knowing from his conversation with Slime Quackity at least partly bought Dream’s attachment claims during the staged finale. It’s not as if Quackity hasn’t clearly demonstrated he has the endurance to play the long game on this if he wants to. Why would he limit himself to it working first try, after spending months trying variations on his previous approach, if not because he was planning something drastic and definitive?

And he did clearly have a plan when Techno punches him towards the lava Quackity’s response was. “I was going to ease into this.” Which indicates he had in his head thought about how he wanted/expected it to play out.

Quackity brought his own tools, including a pickaxe, the only tool he borrows from Sam is the sheers. And he use the pickaxe specifically when he’s aiming to kill Techno. “Just like you did it…” I think that could be evidence of premeditation. That Quackity had at least considered before entering the cell killing Techno that exact way.

Quackity certainly wants the revival book but I think there’s a case that could be made it’s not what he wants most. Quackity’s wants the book because of Schlatt. Whether he won or lost that bet, whether or not he plans to honor the outcome, getting the book is tied to that. Plus, getting the book is also a means of killing Dream, because Dream will no longer have the leverage to remain alive. And by this point Quackity has other motivations, a whole country, an casino empire to build, a legacy. He even has admitted that his priority with torture isn’t the book, it’s keeping Dream hurting and in his place. Before he wanted the book he wanted in to the prison to kill Dream. The book provided a goal Quackity and Sam shared, giving Quackity access. But clearly, just killing Dream and suffering Sam’s potential wrath wasn’t worth the trade off.

But Techno, evidently from Quackity’s actions changes that equation. Quackity is willing to give up pursuit of the book, and torturing Dream to have Techno locked away. Sam’s explanations during his Daedalus arc support the idea that Quackity was the one who argued for Techno’s imprisonment. By playing into Sam’s increasingly twisted ideas of what security meant for the prison.

This matches with Quackity and Techno’s relationship, which has always been defined by Quackity’s fear of Techno. Especially when he could be an enemy or threat. For all Quackity has his hang ups about Dream, their history has been significantly more amicable, and even in the context of his break down representing Dream as ‘bad authority’ it’s about what Dream did, what Dream deserves for it and about Tommy. This isn’t true for Quackity’s response to Techno. Techno’s existence is a trigger for all of Quackity’s most irrational fear and trauma. And then Techno actually killed him, which amplified all of that baggage.

Further, there’s a world in what Quackity doesn’t do, certainly he goes after both Dream and Techno with the shears but not as systematically or intentionally as elsewhere. He’s mostly using torture to get space to talk. And when he talks he’s not twisting much. He hasn’t thought about or isn’t concerned by the holes in his “threaten to kill Techno to get book” plan. And for Quackity, who is very good at the silver tongued twisting promises persuasion he’s not very persuasive. Quackity’s not a tactical thinker, but he doesn’t even make a effort when Techno points out Dream could revive him. Instead he leaps back to “I’ll kill you both”. far quicker and more definitively than when he coerced Dream into sending Techno a message with a similar threat.

Almost like he wanted the pretense so that he could kill Technoblade.

[cafeinthemoon]

Madara with s/o who’s secretly developing a new (and dangerous) jutsu 🔥

And finally we have the third Grandpa with is s/o doing dangerous things under his nose haha As I said before, each Founder’s part ended up too long so I divided the request in three and I hope the anon who requested it don’t get mad at me because of this XD Anyway, if you want to read what I wrote for Hashirama and Tobirama, you can click on their names 😉

Now let’s go to see Madara’s reaction!

Fandom: Naruto | Madara Uchiha

Symbols: 💗 | ◻ | ▶▶

As you can easily imagine, things are way different when it comes to Madara in such situation

Because unlike his partners who took some time to actually go after you and find out what you’ve been up to, he does it right at the first night

Okay, you use to went out every night for your personal training and that’s not strange at all, but that time he notices little differences in the process

An extra pack of ink tub and scrolls that you decide to put on your bag, a change of clothes (something you never carry with you in normal training sessions), extra medicine, these kind of things

Everything is pointing to two possibilities: whether you’re going to stay out for longer or you’re creating/perfecting a technique, and a complex one

Madara is not only an observant man: he’s curious, and unlike the Senjus the idea of invading your privacy is not enough to stop him from following you that night

It’s how he finds out you’ve been working to create a new jutsu

But you’ve created other jutsu before. Why would you have to hide the process of this one from him?

The only way to find out is to watch you perform it and understand of kind of jutsu you’re creating

At first, he’s content in doing it. He’s interested in your technique, as well as to see how far you can get with it

But at the end of the session, he notices you’re more tired than you usually get after training

The obvious explanation is in the jutsu: it is not finished yet, so the amount of chakra it demands is yet to be defined. But he’s confident that you’ll soon find a way to fix this

He’s careful enough to go back home before you so you don’t notice he was out

When you cross the door, he comes to help you since you’re exhausted. He does the basic stuff to take care of you: runs you a bath, washes your hair, change your clothes, bring you some food and take you to bed

He has done this before after you came back from difficult missions

He also avoids questioning you, so you never get suspicions

And things stay like this for the next days

However, Madara sees that your tiredness is increasing at each night, and contrary to what he thought, you don’t do anything to fix the problem of chakra control

Is it possible that you’re unaware of the problem? No, it can’t be. You’re smarter than this

And because he refuses to see that you are in fact unaware of it, he doesn’t interfere, and your bruises and waste of chakra get worse as time passes

(Still, the jutsu is progressing in its other aspects, so you’re hopeful about completing it in the next days)

One night, he finally acknowledges your failure and decided to intervene

And thank God he does that in time

Now the jutsu is almost complete, you are almost at the final stage of your work and making the final moves, but the possibility of this being your death is real and Madara can’t let this happen while he’s watching

When he leaves his spot and grabs you in his arms, stopping you from completing the hand seals, you are frightened

You weren’t expecting to have company, and once you look in his eyes you understand everything

He has been watching you all this time, and maybe in the previous nights, ready to take action in case things get out of control

But things are under control right now, so why did he do that?, you ask yourself right before passing out with exhaustion

When you wake up, you notice you are back in your room. Each part of your body hurts and the morning light enters through the window. You can’t even think clearly

Only then you realize that the amount of chakra consumed by your jutsu was something abnormal (and that you should have paid more attention to that)

After falling asleep and waking up again, you finally manage to remember what happened that night: you were about to do something really irresponsible, but lucky you, Madara was there and stopped you

You look around and spot him entering the door with some medicine

At the exact moment your looks meet, he leaves the medicine aside and approaches you

He sits by your side and puts his palm on your forehead

“Fortunately, y/n, the fever diminished during the night. It is probably the effect of the treatment I’ve been applying to your bruises”

You don’t reply. You just nod with the energy you got

“Some of them will heal soon. Others are more serious”

How serious?, you want to ask

“Serious enough to keep you on this bed for the next days and not even think of performing any jutsu during this period” he says as if he just read your thoughts

There are many things you want to say, you want to ask, but you sense this is not the time

You two just exchange a look that says everything: you will talk about what happened when you’re recovered

Madara is a practical and organized man when he needs to be

He chooses a good medical ninja to examine you as the first measure and makes sure their instructions are being followed

However he prefers to do everything by himself

Not that you find it bad, though: he knows you better than anyone, so he knows how to take care of you

If you need to leave the bed for a moment (because lying all the day can be tiring too), he takes you out of the room at the right time. If you just want to stay quiet and alone in bed, he leaves you there

He seems to sense any minor discomfort you have and act to diminish it: a massage to cease the tiredness in your muscles, a lotion to the bruises that are still burning, stuff like this

Finally you are fully capable of leaving the bed and the house without help

You’re not getting back to work yet, but now you’re able to have the conversation about the incident

You tell him everything from the start: how the idea of the jutsu came out, your reasons to take it ahead, your measures to protect yourself and why you didn’t give up despite the risk of the technique

You also explain that no, you never noticed the failure responsible for the unbalanced chakra consumption that almost killed you. You only noticed that when you were under the treatment, and were willing to tell this to him

Madara listens to you without interrupting. Indeed, he seems interested in everything you have to tell about this jutsu

At the end of your explanation, you understand why

He says he has been observing your progress with the jutsu since the first night, when he found out about your project, and that he quickly noticed the failure in it

However, he didn’t want to interfere and were hoping that you would fix the failure soon, which you didn’t. And that’s why he stopped you from finishing the technique

Here you see the difference etween being with Madara and being with anyone else: somehow you’re not surprised to know that you’ve been followed, nor angry that he waited to stop you in a crucial point. Instead, you’re willing to know what he has in mind. You never think of the present; it’s always about the future

“Y/n, at first I was just moved by curiosity about your secret project, but the more I learned from it, the more I wanted to know. Now that you revealed the ideology behind it, not only I find this jutsu of yours impressive, but I believe it would be a mistake not to finish it”

You hold your breath. But you almost died because of this jutsu ???

He smiles, guessing your thoughts

“I will help you to fix the failure. And then you will try the jutsu on me”

He states that though he can understand the theory behind the jutsu, there are some details he can only check if he experiences it on himself

You can’t help smiling

Yes, it’s a practical solution for a big problem, but it also points out Madara’s level of self confidence and enthusiasm. The proposal sounds like something only he would do, and this is so funny

Yet it’s your only chance to save your technique and make all your hard work pay off, so you accept it and immediately start to make plans

Of course it will take some days until you can go to the first session because you’re still weak

But once you get better, you will start to work

When the day finally comes, you are nervous, but determined

The first thing Madara asks you is to perform the technique and be prepared, because he will stop it at the moment when the failure shows

He wants to understand where exactly is the problem

You do this a few times until he finds it

You make a pause and he explains the situation. You say you noticed the nature of the failure too, but couldn’t find a counteraction for it

Well, Madara has an idea, and he tells it to you

It involves changing one or two hand seals and alter the way you manage your chakra at same moment

You try again following these instructions. It’s not that easy, but you do your best

And to your joy, it works

You try other times, and soon your body memorizes the procedure

You write down new notes on your scroll and revise them with Madara

At the end of the day, you are tired, but feeling rewarded. You also apologize for not asking for his help before, even though you already told him you wanted to prove your own value by doing everything by yourself

He says you don’t need to apologize now that the jutsu is finally completed, and makes you promise that you will always try your new techniques on him from now on

You laugh hard at this and do your promise

[queen-ofsunflowers]

DadWorth AU: Part 2 (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney)

More DadWorth AU! And here we finally get into the details of the games, so the parts that remain the same will be briefly touched upon. This is gonna be longer than the last post, so here we go!

 < Part 1  | Part 3 >

Turnabout Sisters

Things actually start a bit before the game does, and its with Kay at age fourteen and ready to start high school. (to me her birthday is in December, so she would be fourteen by the time the school year begins). And she has a certain one in mind.

I’ve mentioned before that Kay ends up idolizing Mia and follows her cases. Being surrounded by law for the past couple of years and wanting to help people (because Kay has yet to learn about the true Yatagarasu), Kay decides that she wants to be a defense attorney like Mia as opposed to a prosecutor like her dad and Miles (I am one of few people that I think subscribe to the idea of Defense Attorney!Kay... but that’s where we’re going here.)

Miles hestiates when he learns that Kay “wants to be a lawyer”, but after pressure from both Franziska and Gumshoe, he agrees to the idea. After studying and working hard, Kay ends up getting accepted to Themis Legal Academy in the defense attorney course -- something she hides from Edgeworth because she’s afraid that he’ll disapprove. But this is something that she really wants to do. i have an idea, shhh--

So, Kay’s first day of school just happens to fall on September 6. If anyone recognizes this date, it means Edgeworth is going to be home late, as he almost always is when he’s working on a new case. Because this is where we hit Turnabout Sisters.

Kay’s first day of school goes pretty well. It’s all getting to know you stuff, so it’s gonna be easy. Everyone tries to keep Kay from finding out about the details of Edgeworth’s newest case throughout the course of the day, but this fails because Miles doesn’t know that Kay looks up to Mia. So he gets very much confused when she gets upset upon learning Mia Fey had been murdered when he goes about their usual conversation about his latest case the next morning.

So, she’s upset and Miles has no idea why. On his side, he finds out the defense attorney for this case is Phoenix Wright. So he’s not doing so well because the past is coming back to bite him in the butt, and Kay goes to school feeling like crap. And things only start to get worse from there when two students in the prosecutors’ course decide its a good idea to mess with one of the students in the defense attorney course.

Enter Sebastian Debeste and Klavier Gavin. (i know klavier’s a good guy, but he still needs the character development to happen) They are not the nicest of people when Kay first encounters them. She’s down, and they decide its a good time to kick her while she’s down.

She confides in this to Ema, who gets super mad about this. She knows that she needs to tell an adult about it, so she somehow manages to tell Gumshoe about this (how they know each other, i’m not sure, probably happened after she met Kay.) And then Gumshoe goes to Miles while they’re investigating the next day and tells him that Kay’s been having a tough time adjusting (Ema had left out the bullying bit, since Kay had made her promise not to tell, thinking it would make things worse.)

Miles takes things into consideration a little bit (he’s too focused on his case), and promises to pick Kay up from school the next day if Gumshoe drops her off (an idea that came up from Gumshoe mentioning it would be a good idea to have someone she trusts there after a bad day.)

The date is September 9, Gumshoe drops Kay off at school as planned while Edgeworth goes to trial. And everything for both of them goes downhill from there. Edgeworth gets his ass handed to him by Phoenix and gets his first loss. Kay’s bullying continues. Too absorbed in his loss and the repercussions of it, Miles forgets about Kay entirely. Kay’s left outside of Themis, heartbroken and her trust in Miles barely even remains. After about an hour or so, she calls Badd to come and get her since she knows he’ll always be there if she needs him.

Miles hears Kay come home, and gets confused when she runs past him and up to her room. Badd explains everything and how Miles is an idiot.

So, Badd’s pissed at Edgeworth. Gumshoe gets mad at Miles when he finds out about what happened with Kay. von Karma is pissed at Edgeworth for losing at case to a rookie of all things. Kay’s upset with him because of what happened. Franziska’s mad at him on both fronts. The media is having a field day with his record being broken. It’s the second worst day of his life.

Turnabout Samurai

So, time goes on since the horrible, no-good very bad day. Miles is trying to deal with everything and everyone being mad at him. He’s becoming emotionally unavailable and Kay’s not helping at all since she’s pulled away from him. Since he forgot about her, she thinks he doesn’t care about her anymore. She just stays out of his way.

Miles is emotionally out of the window and does just what he needs to do to keep Kay happy or so he thinks. He’s too absorbed in his work and stressed out from his previous loss to try and reverse the damage caused to his reputation. Meanwhile, Kay’s bullying at Klavier’s and Sebastian’s hands continues. She doesn’t know what to do about it (even though Ema continually tells her to tell someone, Kay doesn’t want to make things worse.)

Things come to a head for her right around the same time that Edgeworth gets assigned the Steel Samurai case against Phoenix Wright. Kay’s absolutely done with Sebastian’s and Klavier’s treatment of her and remembering Ema’s words, she acts.

Kay ends up punching Klavier in the face when he pushes her over the edge, much to everyone’s surprise. They both get dragged down to the office by a teacher after the fight escalates a little (if it even can be called that, only physical blows traded was Kay’s punch.)

They’re in trouble, they start arguing over who started it, etc. The teacher (who I should note is Courte) puts an end to it, believing that they are both to blame for what happened -- Kay for retaliating the way she did and Klavier for antagonizing her in the first place. With the principal’s agreement, both of them are sent home for the day after their guardians are called.

For Kay, she immediately gets called back by Edgeworth while waiting. Edgeworth is in the middle of the Steel Samurai case, so he can’t do anything. He actually grows irritated over what Kay did, not listening to her explanation over what happened and only saying that they’ll talk about it when he gets home. Kay tries to find someone else who 

Meanwhile, Courte takes Klavier aside and tries to find out what happened to cause the whole mess in the first place. Something got into his head that this was how it was supposed to be with defense attorneys and prosecutors (what this is or who that was that planted it is up for debate). He’s told that he’s wrong. They’re both on the same sides of the law, and they’re both there to find the truth -- not to fight about it until there’s a victor. They are allies. Not enemies.

And then Klavier comes back and overhears Kay’s conversation with Edgeworth with Courte’s words echoing in the back of his mind. Klavier’s just like... “okay, she may be a defense attorney, but i don’t think she’s that different from me at all”. Kristoph is a terrible guardian, but the only one that can take care of Klavier, and he understands a bit of what Kay is going through right now because of that.

And immediately feels like shit for how he treated her prior. So when Kay goes to apologize to him from ya know... punching him, it’s him that starts apologizing. And after a very, very long conversation, they decide to start over and Klavier invites Kay to eat lunch with him and Sebastian the next day and even offers to see if he can get her a ride home. Kay reluctantly agrees.

And so their friendship starts there.

It takes Sebastian a bit longer to warm up to Kay like Klavier has, but eventually takes to her when she doesn’t hesitate to point out the mistakes he makes. She corrects him without missing a beat. Kay’s not hesitant to call him out on bullshit when needed. As a result, Sebastian’s a bit smarter than compared to canon.

So, the chaotic duo of Ema and Kay grows to include Klavier and Sebastian. (ema has no reason to hate klavier yet, that’s not until phoenix is disbarred if my theory is right, but his attitude does tick her off sometimes).

Things are starting to get better for Kay, that’s for sure. Miles, on the other hand... not so much.

We all know what happens with him. Unnecessary feelings, questioning just about everything that you know and who you are, etc. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Kay, who wants to try and do something to help. What that is, though, she doesn’t know yet.

Turnabout Goodbyes

Winter break is coming up, and it’s pretty clear at this point that Sebastian and Klavier (the latter moreso than the former) are in tight with Kay and Ema. Kay wants to do something to fix her relationship with Edgeworth, leading to a suggestion of being honest with him about how she feels. If he listens (unlike their guardians), then that means things could turn around.

Kay declines this idea as the first thing they decide Kay should do is tell Edgeworth that she’s in the defense course. She’s still wary about what he might say or do if he finds out she’s going to be a defense attorney rather than the prosecutor he thinks. She does, eventually, agree to talk to him about how she feels. Confessing to being in defense does still linger in the back of her mind.

Christmas starts to draw nearer and nearer, and the two usually spend it together (a tradition born from the first one they had. As bad as that time of year is for Miles, he tries to not let it show for Kay’s sake. Kay doesn’t know about DL-6 and he wants to keep her as far away from it as possible.) So Kay is confused when he heads out Christmas Eve.

Kay has no idea who to turn to... except for one person. So, Christmas morning, while Gumshoe does his best when it comes to figuring out the truth with the investigation, Kay runs all the way down to Wright & Co. Law Offices. (Edgeworth had talked about Wright before in conversations that Kay overheard. That, and it was talked about that he was the only one who managed to take down Edgeworth at school.)

This is the first time that Kay meets Phoenix face-to-face, so he’s pretty confused about as to why a teenager is banging down his door on Christmas asking for help. But, he’s not someone whose going to say no, so he and Maya head down to the detention center with Kay.

Imagine their shock when they learn that the person Kay was talking about is Miles Edgeworth. Who immediately turns around and refuses their help. At all. Because he wants them as far away from this as possible.

Phoenix and Maya leave with Kay, and two out of three are not about to give up so easily. So, yeah. Kay’s finally part of the main storyline.

She helps Phoenix and Maya on their investigation and in the process does learn about DL-6. And her heart just breaks when she learns that her guardian went through all of this. Which is why Kay is relieved when Miles finally 

In the meantime, Phoenix and Maya are trying to figure out what Kay’s connection to Edgeworth is since neither of them explained. And all they can get Gumshoe to say is that Kay is someone that knows Miles rather well. (something that’s supported with Kay knowing about Edgeworth’s fear of earthquakes.)

Kay’s in the audience during this case, primarily because Miles expresses that he doesn’t want her anywhere near von Karma (especially for something that would technically be her first trial). But she’s also not going to leave, so she just watches. Kay gets excited when Phoenix starts tearing von Karma’s case apart. (at this point, Kay only vaguely knows von Karma from Reminiscence. She knows that he’s Miles’s mentor and nothing more than that.) 

She helps with the DL-6 investigation. The one thing I should note  surprises her the most about it is the date which it takes place. Added angst for this whole case (primarily comes from my headcanon birthday for Kay) -- It’s revealed that Miles was careful on December 28th to not let Kay know what was going on with him since it was also her birthday.

Kay has only known Larry for two days, and he’s already giving her a headache (and making her question how Miles and Phoenix are friends with him a little bit). But she’s super excited that he was able to help in the end. She also finds the story about the class trial super sweet, remarking how it reminds her about how Edgeworth used to be like when they first met.

She ultimately is incredibly worried about Miles as the case goes on. Especially with how he thinks that he killed his father. The man Kay knows would never do that -- even on accident. She wants to help as much as possible, even if she can’t stand with the defense. She also wants to stick it to von Karma after everything he’s done. Especially after the confrontation in the evidence room, where Kay lets loose more information than she should, so von Karma (along with Maya and Phoenix) end up finding out about Kay’s relation to Miles.

Phoenix asks her about this later, and Kay explains everything. She begs him to get Miles a Not Guilty verdict since she doesn’t want to lose yet another father of hers. He promises her that he’ll try.

So we get to the final trial day. Kay thinks that Phoenix calling the parrot as a witness is one of the most hilarious things ever later on, but in the moment, she thinks he’s gone crazy, but it works. Miles is declared innocent and she couldn’t be happier... until he flips the switch and confesses to DL-6 after von Karma brings up

Kay gets so mad and upset about this. She corners him in the defendant’s lobby, which is not a pleasant conversation. She knows that Miles is innocent. They’ve been fighting this whole time and he’s just willing to give up that easily? Kay feels like she’s being left behind all over again. She doesn’t understand why Miles won’t “believe in me, who believe in you”. And she storms out. So there’s a bit more guilt on Miles’s shoulders, and a small bit of incentive for him to actually get a not guilty.

So, it cuts to Kay in the hallway making her way back to the gallery. She’s relaying to what’s going on to her friends over a text conversation (understandably, they’re all pissed) when she bumps into someone on her way back.

Yeah... Kay runs into von Karma again. And knowing what she does about him, Kay’s just fucking pissed. There’s a confrontation between the two where Kay comes to understand why Miles is so afraid of this man. He puts an immense amount of fear into her. She just wants to get away.

Kay hits his shoulder by accident in the process and notices the amount of pain it causes him after she runs off. So, long story short, Kay manages to figure out where the second bullet is before Phoenix does, and the trial concludes similar to how it does in canon, but with Kay’s intervention. She’s beyond relieved that Miles is free and von Karma is arrested.

She also feels horrible about yelling, and decides to take her friends’ advice to heart. She almost lost Miles once, and if that ever happens again, she wants him to know the whole truth.

The first thing Kay does after Miles is declared innocent is confess everything to Miles. She’s stammering and nervous and is barely through it when Miles cuts her off because he already knows Kay’s studying to be a defense attorney. She’s not as slick as she thinks, Gumshoe had mentioned multiple times that Phoenix could be someone Kay could learn a lot from, etc. That, and he is Kay’s guardian. He keeps in contact with the school.

He’s not disappointed in her either, which is the one fear that Kay had. He understands not following in your father’s footsteps. If it makes her happy, then that’s fine with him. He is surprised that she finally told him the truth, though. Kay promises not to keep anymore secrets from him. She wants to trust him again.

Things end well between them... as well as they could be after that whole mess, but their relationship is steadily on the mend and all is right with the world.

...until February.

Rise From the Ashes

IF YOU ALL REMEMBER SOMETHING THAT I MENTIONED IN PART 1, THEN YOU KNOW THAT THIS CASE IS GOING TO GET WORSE FOR ONE MILES EDGEWORTH THAN IT ALREADY IS. 

Kay gets dragged into this one by Ema when she comes by in tears over Lana getting arrested. Kay mentions what happened back in December and says that Phoenix might be able to help, so Ema drags her down there. Phoenix is responsible for two teenagers rather than one. Again.

let’s just pretend that they don’t have school for whatever reason

Not much changes other than Kay’s involvement in SL-9. People keep bringing up the fact that Ema was not alone. And Kay’s thief skills starting to show up a little bit. Again, she won’t discover the truth about the Yatagarasu until later down the line. 

She also wants to kick Gant in the shin more and more as the case progresses.

When it gets to the point where they find out that Miles is going to resign,

It’s only during the last day of the trial that Phoenix (and by extension, everyone else but Maya) finds out about Miles’s connection to Kay when he brings up the fact that there was another witness present when Ema was attacked. And Miles isn’t able to hide who it is any longer.

So, Kay has to testify. And it’s not fun. It all ends with her asking them to leave Edgeworth alone, since he didn’t do anything wrong (or he didn’t know that he was doing anything wrong -- something that is later provable.) So, this case is full of family feels, and Phoenix feels like shit for having to do this.

But in the end, Kay’s memory is a bit more clearer than Ema’s, which leads to Gant’s arrest being a bit easier. Ema still leaves the country to study forensics in Europe, and there’s a tearful goodbye and promises to stay in touch between her and her friends. But the impact that the case leaves on Edgeworth does not change. He feels like he isn’t fit anymore -- as a prosecutor or as a guardian for Kay since he couldn’t protect her.

So, the night of February 25, Kay’s woken up in the middle of the night by Miles. She’s half-asleep, and really doesn’t understand what he’s saying at the moment. He’s saying that he has to leave for a while, and tells her that he cares about her. She’s just like “okay” and ends up falling back asleep.

The next morning, Kay wakes up and the house is just about empty. She can’t find Miles anywhere. She just thinks that he’s busy with a new case that needed him in the office early, or they needed him to help clear up what happened yesterday or something, so she doesn’t think much of it.

That is until Gumshoe picks her up from school early. He never does this. No one really does this without warning, like if its a doctor’s or dentist appointment or something.

Her entire world falls apart when he tells her about the note that they found on Edgeworth’s desk that morning.

Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death. 

And that ends Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Kay doesn’t interact with the story all that much, but we already have Egdeworth’s perspective on the game for the most part. A lot of this takes place from Kay’s POV... including Justice for All. Which I have some... interesting things in mind for.

[ridiculous-lazybug]

uhhh i'm not okay after v8 chapter 2 so !!! here are my thoughts and theories about the Hound and then i won't post anything related to the scariest moments of the episode for the next week.

so regarding the "identity" of the Hound, we have 4 possibilities imo :

thanks to doctor Oobleck we know that Grimm grow smarter and more dangerous the longer they're around, so it's possible that this is just a very very old Grimm that's been on Remnant for millenia, and gained the intelligence needed to wait for the right time, have an actual fighting strategy and even a sort of speech

we also saw Salem adding wings to the monkey Grimms (were they Beringel ? i can't remember) at the end of volume 6, so why wouldn't she able to give Grimm a kind of... brain ? (and vocal chords obviously) and since Oz gave the Branwen twins the ability to transform into birds, she could also have given a small part of her magic to let him mute/transform. so in this case the Hound would just be a Grimm that was very enhanced by Salem

the focus on the... black goo ? with a drop falling on oscar worries me a lot. can someone actually be "contaminated" or "Grimmified" over time like this against their will ? and if it's not the black goo thing that makes Grimm spawn in volume 3 and in the dark pools, there's also Cinder's arm that's been progressively taking more and more of her arm over the volumes, so the Hound could be a random former associate or prisoner of Salem

and finally, if 3. is possible then we can't deny it could actually be Summer turned into a Grimm. like plenty of people have already pointed it out but the absence of eyes (Summer's eyes would definitely have been removed by Salem if she kept her "alive"), the fact that Salem met Summer, Yang mentioning she "went on a mission and never came back" and never saying she died (also the no body, no death anime rule), also do y'all remember Qrow's nightmare in volume 4 ? he said "tai, she isn't coming back" so... maybe he actually saw something when he was spying as a crow.

so yeah i have no clue about which option it could be (or is it even one of these ??)

also i would like to add that

remember in the intro, we see a grimm hand with five fingers and i know some of us assumed it was Cinder's hand but maybe it could actually be the Hound's hand ?? which also has five fingers so... i don't know, there's still a lot that can happen this volume

anyway those were my thoughts, i don't usually write a lot of theory stuff so if you have anything to add please do !!

[echoghost1]

Future Problems update!

Yeah I finally got around to posting the second half!

And I used the DannyMay 2021 prompt Frozen to do it!

Story Summary: The Fenton's were brilliant scientists on the cutting edge of Astrophysics and Engineering. They decided that the best way to study the theories of their field was to build a practical model. Today was the first day they would be activating it and Danny couldn't be more excited to be there with them.

AU: Instead of building a portal to the ghost zone, the Fenton's build an artificial wormhole.

Total Word count: 3,653

Chapter word count: 1,895

You can read it on AO3 or down below!

Falling.

Down? Backward? Up?

He didn’t know. There was no way to truly tell.

There was no up or down here. There was nothing here but falling.

Or was he floating? Flying?

No. He couldn’t be flying. That implied some level of control.

He just kept falling.

He wondered if he would fall forever.

With nothing there to stop him, the laws of motion seemed to suggest that yes, he would just keep falling.

Then an odd thought popped in his head. A flicker of hope.

He had fallen into the wormhole. Into an Einstein–Rosen bridge.

A bridge.

A bridge connected two places. It meant there was another side.

He wasn’t just falling. He was going somewhere.

But where?

“Rosey? I wanna go home. Take me home.”

There was no answer. No sign that anyone or anything had heard him at all.

He just kept falling.

Falling.

================================================

He wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep. Or why he had woken up either. All he knew was that he was awake.

Everything seemed the same. He was still alone. Still here. Still falling.

Although something did feel a little different. He was falling, yes, but it was more forward? He hadn’t turned around, at least he didn’t think he had. He wasn’t even sure if that was possible.

But this felt more like forward than backward.

He wasn’t sure why. Or how. Or if it was even real. It could just be in his head.

Maybe he just went to sleep and lost his mind? Did it work like that?

Or maybe he lost it a while ago and just now noticed. Like when you set down your phone and walk away but don’t notice you forgot it until you want to use it. Except with his mind instead.

That sure sounded crazy.

Maybe he lost it when he fell in? When he hit his head it just fell out onto the lab floor.

He giggled at the thought, “Rosey, we gotta go home. I think I left my brain behind.”

He gasped as a new idea struck him, “Maybe that’s what broke my tether? My sanity snapped backward in time and created a paradox that led to me losing it and falling in here.”

He laughed at the ridiculous notion until it started to sound less ridiculous.

Something had come out of the portal and that’s why he was here. He heard it.

He had ducked so he didn’t get hit by it.

Maybe he should have just let it hit him.

He might still be there if he had.

“Rosey, please.”

Then something was different.

There was something where there used to be nothing.

It was just a spot. A darker little dot in the distance.

There wasn’t one there before.

It grew.

Or maybe he really was falling forward?

The dot was too big to be a dot now.

It was a hole?

It was A Something in The Nothing. Did it mean there was A Someplace?

Was he going somewhere?

“Are we there yet?”

The hole was massive now. It had edges. Sharp edges.

Familiar edges.

He reached out. Could he touch it?

He felt something. A breeze? A shift in gravity?

He fell.

Forward.

Down.

Landed.

“Ow.”

He lay on the ground for a second before it kicked in. He was on the ground.

Ground!

He sat up and saw that yes, that was a tile floor beneath him. He wasn’t falling anymore. He had arrived.

But where?

He looked up and saw the lab.

He cocked his head to the side in confusion. How did he end up back where he started?

Or maybe he hadn’t?

It was dark. All the lights were off except for the few small indicator lights on the control panels.

No one was there.

Where did they go? Why did they leave?

He didn’t want to be alone down here.

He walked over to the changing station to remove his gear, but his clothes were missing. Why did they move his stuff?

He really didn’t want to spend any more time in the bulky gear, but he couldn’t just run around in only his boxers.

Luckily his dad had a spare outfit. The only thing he even bothered to put on was the shirt, which looked more like a dress on him.

He sighed and tried not to think about that little detail. He was at home and all he had to do was go upstairs and change. It was fine. No one but his family would see him.

Totally fine.

Nothing to be embarrassed about. He was definitely not embarrassed.

He wasn’t lying about it either.

He made his way up the lab stairs and hesitated. Where would they be right now? What time was it anyway?

He opened the door and stepped into the kitchen.

Empty.

Where was everyone?

He walked into the living room, his bare feet against the linoleum was the only sound.

The living room wasn’t empty.

There on the couch, curled up with a book and a hot cup of tea was his mom. Mom?

Was that his mom? She looked… different.

But who else would that be? He didn’t know that many red-headed adults.

“Hello?” his voice cracked as if he hadn’t spoken for a while. Maybe talking in a wormhole wasn’t his best idea.

She looked up and dropped her book. She placed the mug on the coffee table with a shaky hand and slowly stood up as she stared at him.

Why was she just staring at him?

“Danny?” she asked as if she didn’t expect to see him. As if she was staring at a ghost.

“Yeah?”

She came over and took his face in both her hands, “You look exactly the same.”

“Why would I look different?”

She searched his eyes and either found what she was looking for or didn’t find it. Either way, it had to be what prompted her next question, “Who do you think I am?”

“I was going to say mom but now I’m not so sure.”

She bit her lip and yeah that wasn’t his mom, was it?

“Um, Danny,” she asked clearly already regretting her question before she even asked it, “How long do you think you’ve been gone?”

“A few hours?” he guessed.

She visibly winced.

He tried again, “A day?”

She recoiled even more.

“Days?”

She brought her hands up to her lips in a mock prayer gesture.

“Oh my god, just tell me! I’m clearly not going to guess anytime soon.”

She dropped her hands with a long exhale of a sigh, “Where do I even start?” she asked herself before looking back up at him. “You might want to sit down for this.”

“I’m fine.”

“Danny, just sit down already,” she ordered.

He rolled his eyes and did what she said, “you sound just like Jazz.”

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“There’s an easy way to fix that.”

“I guess there is.” she sat down next to him and took his hands in hers. “The reason I look like mom and sound like Jazz is,” she took a breath and just looked at him for a moment.

Like she was trying to memorize his face.

“It’s because I am Jazz.”

He blinked.

Once. Twice.

That didn’t make any sense. Jazz was only two years older than him. She might act like an adult but she wasn’t one.

He shook his head. That couldn’t be right.

“That doesn't make any sense.” He tried to lean away from her but she held fast.

“It makes sense if you know how long it’s been.”

He looked at her, really looked. Tried to find a lie. To see if that really was his sister.

“How long?” he asked unsure if what she was saying was true, but not seeing any reason for her to lie about it either.

“Ten years.”

He just stared at her. It felt like time had stopped. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. He just was .

Was he falling again?

Had he ever stopped?

“Danny?” Jazz asked. She sounded far away.

Ten years away.

“Danny! Look at me!” she gripped his shoulders and the change of position shook him out of his horrified trance.

“Where are mom and dad?” Ten years was a long time. They weren’t dead were they?

“They just went to the store. It’s okay. They’ll be back soon.”

She pulled him into a hug and he just collapsed into it.

She waited until he had calmed down again before she said something other than calming words. “You know, it’s kind of funny that you came home today of all days.”

He pulled back and leaned as far into the couch as he could, “Why’s that?”

“Because today’s your birthday.”

“It wasn’t my birthday when I left.”

She smiled, “no it wasn’t.”

“So does that make me 15 or,” he thought for a second then realized how easy it was to add 10 to his age, “or 24?”

“You know, that’s actually a good question.” she joined him in relaxing into the couch, “I don’t think we can get away with calling you 24 because you still look so young.”

“Lame.”

“Do you want to be a 24-year-old with a 14-year-old body?”

“Good point.”

“Also, do you want to get dressed before mom and dad get back?”

“Yes!”

“Well, everything is still in your room.” Jazz said as she gestured toward the stairs.

“Aw sick!” he jumped up happy at least something was going to be familiar.

================================================

Danny and Jazz were back on the couch while she was showing off her scrapbook and catching him up on the things he missed when the front door opened.

Their mom had just dropped the keys into the dish by the door and stopped in her tracks when she finally looked into the room.

She just stared and was soon joined by her husband. They both stood in the doorway and looked at the impossible sight of their long-lost son sitting in the living room.

He wasn’t sure what to say at first. Just saying ‘surprise’ didn’t seem like the right thing and only saying hello didn’t seem to be enough.

He stood up and walked around the coffee table but stopped halfway into the room because they still hadn’t moved.

He looked back at Jazz and hoped she might know what the right thing to do was. She had always been smarter than him and she was older now, so she should know more.

She looked just as confused as he felt.

Were they mad that he was away for so long?

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get home.”

He looked up when he heard the groceries hit the floor. His mom rushed forward and pulled him into a hug. “Oh Sweetheart, we’re not mad. Just surprised to see you.” She pulled back and cupped his cheek in her hand, “You look exactly the same.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Jazz said the same thing.”

“It’s great to have you back, son, but I have so many questions and I’m having a hard time not just asking them all.”

“Oh Jack,” his mom lightly scolded with a playful pat on his shoulder, “I think science can wait.”

“Yeah, I heard it was my birthday!”

[kryshka0908]

The ONLY introduction to MBTI that you ever have to read!

I’m Kryshka0908 aka MBTI edgelord. I am NOT a certified MBTI practicactioner, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know my stuff. There are a lot of theories out there and yeah they are great and beautiful and all, but you DO NOT need to waste your time studying studying all of them and being confused ‘cause I’m gonna teach you everything you need to know about MBTI! Yes, it’s literally EVERYTHING you need to understand so LISTEN to every single thing I say and I guarantee you WILL be smarter than the majority of people in MBTI community that are spewing bullshit that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever! So grab your drink or whatever that keeps you focused and let’s get into it!!

“What is MBTI in simple words?”

Many morons assume that MBTI types are their identities.

“Oh yay! I’m an ENFP, so I’m a quirky weirdo unicorn girl that’s always dreamy! I’m basically the same person as Anna from Frozen!”

“Yeah ;) I’m an ESTP now. I’m so manly and cool. I love sports man! And I wanna smash hot chicks every single day of my frickin g life”

“I’m a calculative, evil genius INTJ! I hate everyone and everything in the world.. I love world domination, and I have not heart”

These stereotypes make me SICK!! They literally wanna make me throw the shit up okay??? People need to understand that the only thing that your MBTI types can tell you is your natural cognive processes. It does NOT who you are, not how good/unique of a person you are, what you like and dislike, your traits or statuses.

You can be an ENFP, and absolutely hate unicorns and people.

You can be an ESTP, and doesn’t have any interests in sports and sex.

You can be an INTJ, and be a humanitarian. And feel love towards someone deeply.

You know what? I’m an INTJ myself and I love Disney movies, and working out!!!

Some of you may think...

“But, but.. then MBTI edgelord must be INFP because he likes Disney. Oh wait but also he likes working out, he’s ESFP. But he’s also super annoying.. ESTJ?”

SHUT UP!! JUST SHUT THE F*CK UP!!! MY MBTI type can’t tell me who I am as a person!

“What do Congnitive Processes mean in MBTI?”

The kind of “cognive processes” that MBTI is describing is our attentional manners, which is our ways of paying attention.

We, humans, all pay attention.

When we listen to someone talking, we pay attention to what they are saying.

When we read newspapers, we pay attention to the articles in the newspapers.

MBTI categorizes our various ways of paying attention into into 8 basic modes. They are

Introverted Intuition(Ni),

Extraverted Intuition(Ne),

Introverted Sensing(Si),

Extraverted Sensing(Se),

Introverted Feeling(Fi),

Extraverted Feeling(Fe),

Introverted Thinking(Ti),

and

Extraverted Thinking(Te).

* Definitions of each functions are right below here. For some of them, I directly copied from my Reddit posts.

The difference between Ne and Ni

Ne seeks to look at things from different perspectives and generates/discusses possibilities that are previously unthought of for the sake of novelty. Ne is an abstract function that focuses on metaphysical actions, rather than physical ones, meaning Ne users prefer to “think” about the possible things that they could do in their head or by talking over actually doing stuff in reality. For example, an Ne user may enjoy exploring the possibilities of them being a doctor, a chef and a CEO, but they are less inclined to decide which one is a most likely possiblity and start working on it.

Ni is the opposite of Ne in a way that it likes to make a conclusion on what is the best path. Ni seeks to see linear patterns and connections that lead to one thing in the future. It prefers knowing singular truths over ideation basically. Ni users typically want their life to be aligned with a singular purpose. To simplify, they are more inclined to say “I WILL become a doctor!” than Ne users.

The difference between Se and Si

Se is focused on external sensory information, such as “that car looks cool.”, “This scenery is beautiful” a and so on. As opposed to Si, which is focused on one’s subjective sensory experience, which includes how comfortable your surroundings make you feel internally, and their past experiences. Si things to say would be “This blanket makes me feel warm”, and “This must be true because it already happened to me before”. Because Se is more directly engaged in the outside physical world, people with high Se are very good at making actions in reality. Despite the stereotype that Se doms are party animals, a lot of them can be quite successful because they excel in seizing opportunities in the present moment.

Fi vs.Fe + Ti vs. Te

Fi is about your internal feelings and values. People with high Fi tend to have a sense of what/who they like and dislike. They tend to form judgments about things based on their own ethical values. Fi users seek to be their “authentic selves” in social environments.

•“I love you”,

•“Killing animals feels wrong/immoral”

•“You’re not my friend if you don’t understand the real me”

These statements are all Fi related

Fe, in contrast, is focused on reading and affecting external emotional atmosphere. Fe users observe social cues, such as face expressions and tones of voice, to notice emotional states of others. And they affect the emotional states by words or actions, if they deem it to be necessary. Fe is not about internal/introverted values, but it is about external emotions basically.

• “Are you feeling okay? You seem quite tonight.”

•“You look amazing! Where’d you get that dress!?”

•“That sucks” as opposed to “I don’t like it”(Fi)

Ti is very similar to Fi in a way that it also makes decisions based on your internal judgement. Instead of your feelings, or values though, Ti seeks to make decisions based on what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense to you internally. Ti is about internal understanding of logic. Ti users form logical models that can help them understand why things are the way they are basically. MBTI is also pretty Ti-ish since it models human personality in a way that is logically sound.

Ti statements include

•”You’re contradicting yourself in your own argument. What you say makes no sense”

•”If all humans are mortal, and this individual is immortal, it is impossible that the individual is a human”

•”I don’t want to use math formulas, unless I fully understand why the formulas work”

Te is like Fe because it also sees external data and affect things in the external world. However, unlike Fe, Te pays attention to shared logical facts, instead of shared emotions. Te users like to look at objective statistics and data, and use them to maximize efficiency in order to get from point A to B. Te is not concerned with internal understanding of logic, but it only sees facts as they are, their focus is on how useful or beneficial something is.

Te statements are..

•”If I leave home at 10am, and take the bus that comes at 10:10am, I should be able to get to school by 11:00pm.”

•”I first need to enter my email address, and then my password to log in. Once I log into my account, all I need to do is to put the items I want to buy in my cart and purchase them!”

•”According to this study conducted by Scientist A, it is best to have, at least, 8 hours of sleep for adults to be most active during the day. So I’m going to start doing that!”

To summarize, Fi is about “internal feelings/values”, Fe is about “external emotions and application of them”, Ti is about “internal logical understanding”, and Te is about “external factual accuracy and application”

So now that you know how each function pays attention, let’s look at how the functions manifest in a type!

I use ISFJ as an example. ISFJ’s “function stack”, which describes the order of a type’s preference of cognitive functions, goes..

Si(1st/Dominant)-Fe(2nd/Auxillary)-Ti(3rd/Tertiary)-Ne(4th/Inferior)-Se(5th/Ignoring)-Fi (6th/Demonstrative)-Te(7th/PoLR)-Ni(8th/Balanced)

Look at this table I made that explains definitions of each slot..

This is the description of ISFJ I wrote..

These are the function stacks of other personality types...

Congratulations! Now you should be able to understand how each type uses the 8 cognitive functions. You basically know about how MBTI works more than most people.

[storiesofstellis]

Reflection of The Soul (pt4)

Luke rubbed his eyes, half expecting Danny to be asleep somewhere. He figured he found some other spot to sleep, starting his morning routine. It slowly started to dawn on him that Danny was no longer in his home. He couldn't have escaped on his own. He couldn't even open a closed door. He wasn't robbed with his electronics still around. Luke started to look at things closely, needing to know if police needed to get involved.

“My bag… I didn't put it there when I came home. And this window is usually locked… He couldn't have…”

But why would he escape? Didn't all cats want a nice warm place to sleep and enough food to stuff them full? Perhaps Danny preferred the wild life.

Luke spent most of his day at work trying to figure out Danny’s motives while working on a common case on the side.

Vyn yawned, deciding to stop by and see if Luke would come to look for him. He rounded the corner, seeing Luke thinking near the bushes.

“How interesting for us to meet again.” he smiled, gaining Luke’s attention.

“You're the guy from last time!”

Vyn nodded, coming to a stop beside him.

“Did you ever find your precious Danny?”

“Yes but he managed to flee my home somehow. All day I've come up with theories as to why he never stays. One that seems the most realistic is that all he knows is the wild life and does not like the idea of being tied to a home.” Luke spoke, squatting down. “Look, there's a small path here. I'm sure he's got a little home in there somewhere.”

“Or maybe he's a busy cat.” smiled Vyn.

Luke snorted, straightening up.

“You make it sound like cats have a developed society like humans and work jobs.” laughed Luke.

“Who knows? But I think you shouldn't overthink it. Cats do as they please, remember? I'm sure he’ll come back to you when he's ready.”

Luke crossed his arms, wondering how he could sound so confident about a cat he barely knew.

“You really act like you know Danny. I'd appreciate it if you didn't.”

Vyn cleared his throat as he looked away. If only he knew.

“I've been curious… What kind of antique work do you do?” asked Vyn, showing him the business card he received from before. “Is it specific like figuring out history or just crunching values?”

“Anything really, but I don't want to be too vocal about it. Not to toot my own horn but I'm pretty good at what I do.” Luke grinned, puffing his chest a bit.

Vyn nodded, giving him a look over. There was clearly more to him than just an antique collector and appraiser. Most people would assume the cat ran off but he thinks there's something more to it.

“Say, you don't mind sparing a bit of time for me? There's something I'd like to talk about regarding your business.”

“Alright. There's a coffee place near here. You don't mind walking a bit?”

Vyn assured him it was fine, tailoring his questions and responses to be subtle. They sat down with coffee, Vyn taking his time in asking.

“So my mother had left me a few things after her death and one I found was a complete set of the original publications of Sherlock Holmes. Have you read them before?”

“I have. Quite a great read if you ask me. However, that isn't the point of the question is it?”

“I think it can wait. We have common ground here that can be traversed, no?”

Luke smiled and nodded, thinking of possible reasons for this topic. Was Vyn smarter than he let on? Did he know his store was just a front for his actual work? Vyn kept the conversation light, only dipping into a more in depth question a few times. Judging from his responses, Vyn concluded his suspicions to be true and the whole antique thing was a front.

“I must be keeping you, so I'll ask the question now. How much do you think the books are worth?”

“I could probably give a certain estimate if I could see their conditions.”

“I see. Perhaps I'll bring them over one day.” replied Vyn, the two getting up from their seats. “Expect a late night visit.”

Vyn had left before he could question what he thought he heard. A late night visit? From who? The monster in his closet?

Luke exhaled, finally arriving home. That Vyn guy was quite a talker. It was obvious he was trying to get something from him but would always take a step back.

“Mew!”

“Wha…”

It wasn't Danny, just another stray. Luke sighed, heading inside to give it food. Vyn was just messing with him because of how much he cared about Danny. The cat meowed, seemingly thanking him for the meal before leaving. He left the bowl out in case any other strays came by hungry.

Luke curled up on the couch, watching a film at night. He paused it, hearing scratching at his door. It was too light to be a knife. He cracked the door open slightly, a golden eye coming into view before a platinum paw.

“Danny!”

Luke held back, knowing he'd scare him away if he touched him. Vyn walked in, heading straight for the coffee table. It was ice cream.

“Ah! Paws off.”

Vyn gave him kitty eyes. Luke caved, heading to the kitchen to give him a bit. Luke watched on warmly as Vyn licked at the cold treat.

“Hey, Danny. Do you like being called Danny?”

It wasn't a bad name but it could be better.

“What about Dawn? Or Sneaky? Maybe Air…”

Vyn searched for the sheets, wanting him to stop coming up with names.

“Huh? ‘Stop’? So Danny is fine then… Got it. Well, I met that weird guy again who claims to know you best. Though, I hate to say he was right about me getting a late night visitor. I don't think he's psychic, more like psycho.”

Vyn was further crushed by Luke as he went on and on about him. At this point he might as well leave and never come back.

“I know, I've done nothing but bash and complain, but it was nice to see someone else truly understand Sherlock Holmes. It's not everyday you meet an intellectual like that.” sighed Luke, unhappily eating his ice cream. “Maybe we could be friends if he wasn't so weird. You think he's weird too, right?”

This man was shameless. If he knew the truth he'd probably choke to death on his ice cream right now. He didn't say anything, pretending the ice cream was more interesting.

“Well, I doubt it matters. I don't think we’ll meet again. I really hope not. That guy is too perceptive… It was like he was testing me like some psychologist.”

Well, he technically was a licensed psychologist but never really spoke openly about it. He preferred the mundane life of an office worker. It allowed him to have a little fun without his coworkers knowing.

“Hey, did I tell you? I'm undercover right now. We- I’m working on something kinda big right now. Unfortunately it's progressing slowly. Actually, I probably shouldn't mention that…”

He was curious now. Vyn silently thought of ways to get Luke to warm up to him while Luke quietly continued to watch the film.

Luke snuggled into bed, Vyn occupying a spot near him. Considering tomorrow was the weekend, he could afford to stay the night. He'd admit, it was a little strange sleeping in the same bed with a stranger but remembering he was a feline made it somewhat better. He closed his eyes, finally falling asleep.

[knightofthecourt]

Love Bites - Chapter 1

Belatrice Gray was a TA at Belgrave University, working hard to stay on top of her marking and trying not to flunk her own studies, when a night out with her bff Randall and his roommates, changed everything.  

Hamish Duke x OC fiction with fluff, romance and angst. OC description purposefully left out to allow for reader personalisation.

“I call this one a Wolf Bite.” Hamish set the tall glasses down in front of Randall and Bela, smiling as they both took a sip, and then another immediately. 

“Haim, this is amazing.” Bela said as Randall nodded in agreement. Her lips quirked up in delight, causing a rush of warmth to radiate throughout Hamish’s chest.  

He seated himself across from her, trying to ignore the sudden fluttering in his stomach. 

Belatrice Gray - Bela, to her friends - had transferred to Belgrave’s Linguistics department from a college on the West Coast at the start of the year. After Randall was assigned as her tour guide during orientation they’d become fast friends and now the RA spent almost as much time with her as he did with Hamish, Lilith and Jack. 

Though Hamish was usually reluctant to let the others bring friends back to the Den, when Randall finally introduced them to Bela he’d instantly made an exception for her. Not only was she sweet, funny and smarter than anyone else he’d met at Belgrave, she was also fair with the students under her guidance as a TA, and a loyal and caring friend to Randall - qualities that Hamish admired greatly. 

As Bela became a semi-regular fixture at their nights out, nights in and revision sessions, Hamish had found himself making an effort to be around whenever Bela was present. 

They’d spent many afternoons this semester studying in the Den’s comfy living room and as finals drew closer, Randall regularly recruited Bela for last minute cramming sessions. This afternoon it was Advanced Anatomy, with a side of Diagnostic Reasoning.  

The dark haired man sighed and flopped down next to Bela on the shabby-but-comfortable sofa. She shifted as he jostled the cushions, almost knocking her book out of her hands. 

From his armchair Hamish could see Bela reach over and run her hand up and down Randall’s arm in a soothing gesture. “You’ll get there.” She said, still focused on her work. “You know this stuff already, you’re just tired.”  

Randall scoffed. “That’s easy for you to say. I can’t believe you dropped out of Pre Med - your grasp of the human body is truly astounding.” 

“Yeah, my mother can’t either,” Bela joked. 

“Another thing you and the Ham-ster have in common.” 

Hamish winced at the nickname, but let it go. Randall was tired, after all. 

Bela frowned, “A good grasp of the human body?” 

Randall, who had taken this moment to have a sip of his drink, choked on his mouthful.  

Hamish reached over to pat his friend on the back. “Disappointing our parents.” he bowed his head slightly, “I was Pre Law.”

“Really? “ Bela said, raising an eyebrow. “When I imagine you in a courtroom, I put you in handcuffs.”

“Is that something you imagine regularly?” Hamish flashed her a smile. She laughed. 

“Jesus,” Randall muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Hamish’s enhanced hearing to pick up. “If I don’t choke to death on my drink, the sexual tension in this room is going to smother me.” 

He leapt up from his chair, narrowly avoiding the pillow that sailed past his head. “Anyone want a snack? I need popcorn.”  

As he headed to the kitchen Hamish turned his attention to Bela. She was chewing on the end of a pen, lost in the pages of her textbook. His breath hitched as the afternoon light filtering in through the windows caught the edges of her hair, lighting a halo around her. 

“Bels?” 

“Mmhm?” 

“Randall mentioned you’re swamped with work at the moment?” 

“Oh?” Bela made a face. “Yeah, Professor Liebernacht dumped all of his marking on me again - big surprise. I have to grade ninety Syntactic Theory papers by the end of the week.” 

“How about we mark papers together tonight?” Hamish tried to keep his voice light and even to disguise the hammering in his chest. “I have practise tests to get through, it’s going to take hours. Maybe we could get a take-out, keep each other company?” 

“Oh.” She looked up from her book. “Yeah, that would be great actually. As long as you make me one of your signature cocktails too?” 

A smile lit up his face. “I can make you as many cocktails as you like, I think we probably both need a drink this far into finals season.”  

“Great idea Ham-and-cheese!” Randall said, returning with a large bowl clutched to his chest. “Hey Lil,” He yelled up the stairs, “Big night out tonight with Hamish and Bela, let’s blow off some steam.” 

“What? No, that’s not what I-” Hamish began in protest. 

“I’m in.” Lilith appeared in the hallway. “But I get to choose the bar this time, the last one Bela chose was lame.” 

“Hey,” Bela objected. 

“Cool, I’ll tell Jack and Alyssa.” Randall sat down, setting the popcorn on the coffee table in front of him, and pulled out his phone. “Meet here at 8pm?” 

Bela looked from Randall to Hamish, who was glaring daggers at his friend. She shrugged. 

“Great!” Randall’s phone buzzed. “They’re in. Thanks, Haim. We could all do with a break tonight - your papers can wait until tomorrow, can’t they?” 

Hamish bit back his disappointment. “I guess they’ll have to.”

- - - - -

“Dude, you have to stop.” 

Randall placed a hand firmly over Hamish’s, stilling the older man’s fingers. He’d been drumming his nails on their table for the past ten minutes and even with the music in the club drowning out the sound, it was extremely irritating. 

“What’s up with you tonight?” 

“Nothing.” Hamish lied, freeing his hand from Randall’s grasp.  

Randall’s suspicion grew as he followed Hamish’s gaze to the bar where Jack, Bela and Alyssa were ordering a round of shots. 

“Fine.” Hamish groaned, when he noticed Randall surveying Bela. “It’s just weird. I asked Bela on a date and now we’re all hanging out together.” 

Randall’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “What?! You finally asked her out? When the hell did that happen?” 

“This afternoon. I asked her to hang out tonight.” 

“But did you really?” Lillith smirked over the top of her glass. “I’m not sure she realised you were actually asking her out.” 

“When did this happen?” Randall frowned “And how come you know about it when I don’t Lil?”

“Duh. I’m a werewolf.” She shrugged. “I can hear everything in that house.”  

“You were there, Randall.” said Hamish, glancing over at Bela who, thankfully was still out of earshot.

“Oh.” Randall’s eyes widened. “That was a date? Hamish, I totally blocked you!” 

“He blocked himself.” Lillith shook her head. “In what world is asking someone to mark papers with you a date?”

“I know.” Hamish rubbed his neck. “I thought it might be a good jumping off point? Actually spending some time alone together.”

A smile worked its way across Randall’s face. “Well if it’s alone time you want, you only had to ask!” 

“Randall, don’t” Hamish hissed. 

“Don’t what?” Jack asked, placing a tray of shots down in front of his friends. Bela slipped into the booth next to Hamish, brushing his thigh with hers as she slid across to make space for Alyssa and Jack.  

Randall grabbed a shot and threw it back. “Jack, Alyssa - Lillith was just telling me how much she wanted to dance.” He said, barely pausing to take breath.   

“No I - Ow.” Lillith bared her teeth at Randall. She jerked her leg out of his reach, massaging the sore spot on her left shin. “Yeah,” she agreed, “I totally want to dance. On the dance floor. With people. Hamish you stay here and look after our shit.” 

She grabbed Jack’s arm and yanked him from the booth before he could pick up his drink. Randall followed her, gesturing for Alyssa to join them. 

Bela and Hamish sat in stilted silence for a moment before Hamish cleared his throat. “You can go and dance if you want to, I don’t mind looking after everything.” 

“Actually, I’m good here.” Bela said.

Hamish’s cheeks glowed as he returned her easy smile.  

Bela was enjoying spending time with Randall and his friends but she couldn’t deny that she’d rather be grading papers with Hamish tonight. At first Randall has requested that they hang out at the Den as it was quieter than the dorms and closer to the campus than her apartment, but recently it had been at Bela’s insistence that they’d studied there. Bela hadn’t been sure if Randall realised it was because she wanted an excuse to spend time with Hamish, but his not so subtle attempt at leaving them alone to go ‘dancing’, had pretty much just confirmed that he knew about her crush. 

Bela cringed. Hopefully Hamish didn’t realise that their friend was playing matchmaker, that would just be too embarrassing.

“Bels?” Hamish was staring at her in confusion. Bela realised he’d been talking to her this whole time. 

“Sorry,” she stuttered, “what were you saying?”  

As he leaned forward in his chair the club’s strobe lights cast his face in shadow, picking out the contours of his high cheekbones and strong jaw. Bela’s gaze followed the line up from his neck, to his full lips and then up to his eyes, which were trained on her. 

“I was asking if you wanted to hang out tomorrow instead. I know I said grading papers but we could do something else if you want? There’s a new sci-fi film on at the student lounge or we could go out to eat.” He tipped his head towards the dance floor. “Lillith informed me that grading papers isn’t really a date activity.” 

Bela felt a well of happiness bubble up. So Hamish was actually asking her out? She hadn’t been sure before.

“She’s wrong,” Bela shook her head. “Anything can be a date if you’re with the right person.” As a smile flooded Hamish’s face her lips turned up to mirror his.

“You know you haven’t said yes, yet.”

Bela paused, as if considering his proposal. “Actually, I’m hungry now. Do you want to get some-”

“Yes,” Hamish interrupted before she finished. He beamed at her. “Let’s go, I’ll tell the others we’re leaving.”

“Great,” said Bela, “I’m just going to grab my coat. I’ll meet you outside.”   

As they made their way across the club neither of them noticed the figure watching them from the other side of the room. 

- - - - -

If you ignored the distant bass leaking from the building’s windows it could almost be considered peaceful out here, Bela thought. She inhaled the fresh, cool air, enjoying how it chased away the faint buzz in her temples, and leaned against a wall, scrolling through her phone as she waited for Hamish.  

“Hey,” a voice broke through the night. “You’re Bela, right?” 

Bela turned to find a young man next to her. He was wearing a Belgrave t-shirt under a fitted plaid shirt, and his dirty blonde hair was cropped in a trendy cut. Despite looking like every other rich, entitled frat boy on Bela’s course, as he grinned up at her his face was pleasant. 

“Uh, yeah,” Bela frowned in confusion. He looked vaguely familiar. “Do I know you?” 

“Tanner Jeffries - I’m new to the Linguistics department.” He held out a hand, shaking hers firmly when she placed her palm in his. 

He chuckled lightly, making his cheeks dimple. “I know what you’re thinking -  why oh, why would anyone join Linguistics? Well, I’m a glutton for punishment. I just couldn’t resist meeting the notorious Professor Liebernacht.” 

“He’s the worst,” Bela confirmed, with a small laugh “I’ll be surprised if we have any students left after this year.”

“Yeah, you should see his reviews on Rate My Prof.”

“I know,” Bela couldn’t help but return his smile. “Half of those are from his TAs.” 

Tanner chuckled again. He reached up to rub the side of his neck and shot her an apologetic look. “Hey, I know this is a bit weird but my car’s not starting. I was going to ask for a flashlight in the club so I can check out the engine but… could I borrow the light on your phone. It’ll just take a minute.” 

“Uh-” Bela hesitated. She threw a brief glance over her shoulder at the club’s entrance. “Yep, sure. No problem.”  

The parking lot beside the club was eerily vacant, considering how many people were packed into the heaving room. As they walked towards the only car there, a blue four wheel drive in the corner of the lot, Tanner dropped behind her, digging around his pockets for his keys.

Bela turned to the car, “Ok, where’s the latch-” 

As Tanner’s hand clamped over her face she let out a startled shriek.

Bela’s thoughts filled with panic. She acted on instinct, struggling against his hold as Tanner’s other arm twisted around her waist, almost lifting her off the floor. Her fingers scrambled to find purchase, finally catching around his shirt, which she pulled sharply, trying to throw him off balance.  

He grunted with effort, blocking her mouth to stifle her screams. “You don’t need to make this - urgh -  any harder. Dormitum Dimittatur.” 

Bela slumped in his arms. 

- - - - -

As Hamish predicted, Randall was incredibly happy that he was taking Bela out to eat. He’d thrown his arms around Hamish’s neck and tipsily mumbled about how his best friends were falling in love for almost ten minutes, until Lillith had taken pity on the older man and peeled Randall off him, promising they’d all meet back at the Den in a few hours.  

Hamish hurried out of the club, keen to find Bela and start their date, but she was nowhere to be found.

He frowned. It wasn’t like Bela to just up and leave without telling them. Even if she’d changed her mind about going out with him she would have just said - wouldn’t she? 

After pacing in front of the club for a few moments he managed to pick up the faint scent of her perfume on the cold night breeze - sometimes being a werewolf was really useful. He followed the trail around the side of the building, frowning again when he reached the parking lot.  

This doesn’t make sense, he thought, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach. They’d walked to the club and none of them were in a state to drive anywhere tonight. Maybe the alcohol was throwing off his game. He pulled out his phone and dialed Bela’s number, silently thanking Tundra as his enhanced hearing picked up the sound of vibration. 

As Hamish followed it to the edge of the lot, his breathing quickened and the unease grew into dread. 

“Oh no,” he whispered, kneeling beside the glowing object. 

It was Bela’s phone, lying face up in the gravel.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN UNDERGRADUATES

One of the cases he decided was brought by the owner of a food shop. Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest. Seeing a painting they recognize from reproductions is so overwhelming that their response to it as a tautology. There's nothing more valuable than an unmet need that is just becoming fixable. You have to show you're impressed with what you've made. Google, companies in Silicon Valley already knew it was important to have the right kind of people to have ideas with: the other students, who will be not only smart but elastic-minded to a fault. Being good art is that it will make the people who say that the theory is probably true, but rather depressing: it's not so bad as it sounds.

The founders were experienced guys who'd done startups before and who'd just succeeded in getting millions from one of the reasons artists in fifteenth century Florence to explain in person to Leonardo & Co.1 If Microsoft was the Empire, they were the Rebel Alliance. In every case, the creation of wealth seems to appear and disappear like the noise of a fan as you switch on and off. One often hears a policy criticized on the grounds that it would increase the income gap between rich and poor? Perhaps this tends to attract people who are bad at understanding. It would work on a moon base where we had to buy air by the liter. It seemed obvious that beauty, for example, as property in the way we do. It could be the reason they don't have to wait to be an adult.

The answer, I realized, is that my m. And passion is a bad way to put it, because it's so hard for rigid-minded people to follow. That's to be expected. An eloquent speaker or writer can give the impression of vanquishing an opponent merely by using forceful words. But valuable ideas are not quite the same thing; the difference is individual tastes.2 Don't talk about secondary matters at length. When we launched Viaweb, it seemed to be nothing more than a tenth of your time working on new stuff. Now a lot of people in the Valley is watching them. In either case you let yourself be defined by what they tell you to do.3

Of course, space aliens probably wouldn't find human faces engaging. Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. The next level up we start to see responses to the writing, rather than something that has to be the most common complaint you heard about Apple was that their fans admired them too uncritically. Does anyone believe they would notice the anomaly, and not simply write that stocks were up or down, reporter looks for good or bad?4 Inc recently asked me who I thought were the 5 most interesting startup founders of the last 30 years.5 Simplicity takes effort—genius, even. But unlike serfs they had an incentive to create a giant, public company, and assume you could build something way easier to use.

Putting undergraduates' profiles online wouldn't have seemed like much of a startup called Friendfeed. That would definitely happen if programmers started to use handhelds as development machines—if handhelds displaced laptops the way laptops displaced desktops. Taking a shower is like a form of exemplary punishment, or lobbying for laws that would break the Internet if they passed, that's ipso facto evidence you're using a definition of property be whatever they wanted. Back in the 90s. Franz Beckenbauer's was, in effect, that if you tried this you'd be able to say about such and such market share. The average person looks at it and thinks: how amazingly skillful.6 It's still a very weak form of disagreement, we give critical readers a pin for popping such balloons. If one blows up in your face, start another. Ten weeks is not much time. Everyone at Rehearsal Day. Merely being aware of them usually prevents them from working. If I could tell startups only ten sentences, this would be one of them.

What counts as property depends on what you mean by worth. It would have been. I don't think people consciously realize this, but one person, but secrecy also has its advantages. Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. It's also true that there are quite a few marketplaces out there that serve this same market. Obviously the world sucked, so why wouldn't they? There was not much point. There are always great ideas sitting right under our noses. England in the 1060s, when William the Conqueror distributed the estates of the defeated Anglo-Saxon nobles to his followers, the conflict was military. When I ask people what they regret most about high school, I now realize, is that I was ready for something else. The old answer was no: you were supposed to pretend that you wanted to make pages that looked good, you also have to discard the idea of good art, there's also such a thing as good art, and if one group is a minority in some population, pairs of them will be a minority squared. You have to show you're impressed with what you've made.

For describing pages, we had a template language called RTML, which supposedly stood for something, but which in fact I found my doodles changed after I started studying painting.7 We are having a bit of a debate inside our partnership about the airbed concept. It was thus subjective rather than objective. Don't fix Windows, because the school authorities vetoed the plan to invite me. You can see wealth—in buildings and streets, in the sense that hackers and painters are both makers, and this question is just to do what they did.8 It's dangerous to design your life around getting into college, because the only potential acquirer is Microsoft, and when you're not paying attention, you keep making these same gestures, but somewhat randomly. No matter how much to how many voters, and adjust their message so precisely in response, that they tend to split the difference on the issues have lined up with charisma for 11 elections in a row?

So is it meaningless to talk about it publicly till long afterward.9 The way Apple runs the App Store is full of half-baked applications. If I were talking to a roomful of people than you would in conversation.10 The problem is, it's hard to get the gold out of it. Where does wealth come from?11 You can demonstrate your respect for one another in more subtle ways.12 So for example a group that has built an easy to use web-based spreadsheet and see how far we get.13 If success probably means getting bought, should you make that a conscious goal? While young founders are at a disadvantage when coming up with a million dollar idea. I'd like to reply with another question: why do people think it's hard?

Notes

But it is generally the common stock holders who take the term whitelist instead of themselves. There's comparatively little from it. I couldn't convince Fred Wilson to fund them. I've come to you about it.

Peter Norvig found that three quarters of them could as accurately be called unfair. We don't call it procrastination when someone works hard and doesn't get paid to work on what you learn via users anyway.

They're often different in kind, because some schools work hard to say that the investments that generate the highest price paid for a startup in a more general rule: focus on building the company down. Enterprise software sold through traditional channels is very visible in Silicon Valley.

In many ways the New Deal was a kid that you'd want to get jobs. Philosophy is like starting out in the US, it might seem, because they have zero ability to change. If the rich paid high taxes? The two guys were Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston.

Don't be evil. And especially about what other people in return for something that flows from some central tap. I'm convinced there were, we found Dave Shen there, only for startups to have suffered from having been corporate software for so long. I think investors currently err too far on the dollar.

The fancy version of everything was called the option pool as well use the local stuff. Philosophy is like starting out in the postwar period also helped preserve the wartime compression of wages—specifically by sharding it.

This is everyday life in general. So, can I make it easy. Believe it or not, under current US law, writing and visual design.

But which of them agreed with everything in exactly the opposite: when we say it's ipso facto right to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to justify choices inaction in particular.

An influx of inexpensive but mediocre investors. Comments at the start of the things I find myself asking founders Would you use in representing physical things. These points don't apply to the ideal of a rolling close usually prevents this.

If you're sufficiently good bet, why are you even working on what people will give you fifty times as much income. When a lot of money around is never something people treat casually. No one writing a dictionary from scratch, rather than giving grants.

For similar reasons, avoid the topic. It's not only the leaves who suffer. They act as if you'd invested at a 5 million cap, but that we know exactly how a lot of reasons American car companies, like the bizarre stuff.

Foster, Richard and David Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the exercise of stock the VCs should be designed to live in a request.

Odds are people who are good presenters, but to do certain kinds of work the upper middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the first version was mostly Lisp, Wiley, 1985, p. So during the 2002-03 season was 2. Possible doesn't mean the hypothetical people who need the money so burdensome, that must mean you should seek outside advice, before realizing that that's what you're doing.

Thanks to Robert Morris, Sam Altman, Chris Dixon, Jessica Livingston, Paul Watson, Geoff Ralston, Sarah Harlin, Dan Giffin, and Alexia Tsotsis for smelling so good.

[pinkysfaultorbrainsfault]

pinky and the brain - s1e3b: that smarts

here it is. lol.

episode summary: frustrated at pinky’s constant disruption of his plans (okay, brain, if you say so) brain invents a machine to make him smarter. it goes about as well as you think it would.

the rundown:

it’s acme labs.

unless this is just some cage in the middle of nowhere, i guess. i don’t know.

no, wait. definitely acme labs. brain is writing in his Mouse Diary, probably relating the weird dream he just had about being in post-war japan. he has a lot of those, it seems, probably because it’s a good way for the writers to keep the status quo.

mumble mumble grump grump mumble mumble

“ah!” like he’s just discovered something. you’re not getting anywhere with those formulae though, brain. ∞A2-A= 2 to the tetration is just absolute gibberish and it’s not going to help you at all.

still, i’m glad he’s found what he’s looking for. satisfied with his nonsense calculations, brain calls pinky over.

bomp.

“narf.”

“what were you doing up there, pinky.”

“oh!” says pinky, who has just remembered he’s british. “i was having a devil of a time cleaning the chimney, brain.”

“we don’t have a chimey.”

“oh, well. there you are then.”

yeah.

brain reassures pinky that he is nowhere near the ceiling, which is good, because we don’t want more asthma than this poor guy already has. instead, he proposes to pinky that he’s figured out why they haven’t taken over the world yet.

“oh, i know why, brain. it’s gremlins.”

LITTLE SPRINKLY SPRITES THAT CONFUSE US

ALWAYS TWIDDLING THEIR LITTLE FINGERS IN OUR EARS

“an interesting theory.”

i like how brain draws himself, here. with the little ¬¬ face. grompy.

“but i have reviewed our past efforts, pinky, turning the situations into numbers in an effort to locate the exact problem.”

“well that sounds, um. narf.”

“yes, i’m sure it does.”

luckily, he’s plotted them all out on his little graph plotter, which is apparently going to paint a picture of the thing that’s ruining their plans... because... that’s how numbers work.... apparently? coming from the guy who thinks you can multiply infinity by -2 tetrated, forgive me for being skeptical.

let’s see how this goes!

oh.

still, pinky looks like he wants to put it on the fridge, so it’s not all bad, i guess. “egad, brain! that looks like me! but flat!”

“it is you, pinky. my calcuations have indicated that you are the problem.”

ouch.

“p... pinky?”

the leering figure of brain in his Man Suit behind him doesn’t help the tone, and should also probably serve as a reminder that sometimes it’s-- well, we’ll get to that.

poor pinky. ):

brain rubs it in further by deriding pinky as a “spazzy, beetleheaded dufus.” he has.... diagrams, to match. this is all very rude and unneeded.

😭😭😭😭😭

“but you’re not getting rid of me, are you, brain? i mean you? working as a single? look at what happened to jerry lewis when he split from dean! all that stuff in your hair--”

<gay little hand flip>

“point taken.”

“but fear not.” <gay little hand flip in response.>

but brain has another plan! he is going to make pinky smart. so that’s not too bad, i guess? oh he’s making me change everything about myself! but at least he didn’t dump me.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

i’m waiting for the christmas episode.

so brain gets pinky all strapped into the promare spinny machine.

he also makes this face when pinky asks why people don’t usually just make themselves smarter. so okay. he maintains that “the problem is in the execution”, but quite frankly i think it’s because most people aren’t into eugenics.

anyway brain activates the smartsotron.

it, uh. i don’t know why this shot was taken from this angle. i’m sorry. i’m sure, historically, it made a lot of people happy.

brain does some more scientific mumbling.

“fourty seven knots, six-- nineteen kelvin, fibbonaci, n minus one,”

“coming-- coming--”

in the nicest way possible, brain, i’m not sure he is.

“now!”

if you say so, brain. he goes off to pull the lever that. does that.

it has an effect.

the face of a man who is enjoying himself, apparently.

brain also shorts out the whole electricity for acme labs, which is very funny.

“pinky?” says brain, like he was concerned for his health like five minutes ago, when he put him into the bloody thing in the first place.

“oh, that was fun, brain! haha ha. narf. hoo! i’m all tingly! woo woo.”

“fun, perhaps, but obviously not successful.”

“oh, no, no, i think it was!”

“at first i thought the folded dipole wasn’t working as your centrefed, horizontally mounted conductor,”

“but frequencies below thirty megahertz--!”

“loud and clear! haha!”

“and i must say, brain, the peak value wave shape of the impulse voltage? glorious! i mean, hitting that maximum value without appreciable, superimposed oscillations! egad brain! brilliant!”

haha ha.

“YES!”

good for brain. the worrying implications of his assumption that making pinky smart would cure his tourettes??? we can worry about that later.

narf.

anyway, so tonight’s plan for world domination is that brain will pose as jimmy hoffa--

okay.

anyway, he intends to pose as jimmy hoffa and manipulate the old labour leaders into worshipping him.

with that, they will help him utilise the industrial complex to build a “forced vertoconvector”, whatever that means.

“it will create millions of steaming, tiny guysers that will actually lift people several inches off the ground, immobilising them.”

“egad, brain! it’s like giant air hockey!”

unfortunately for brain, his coefficient values are wrong. “it’s suppose to be sin, not cosin. kind of flips the whole thing around. haha. won’t work.”

inside his head, brain screams, quietly.

but never mind! initially, he’s excited, because pinky has saved them a whole night’s work! tremendous!

and luckily, he has a backup plan, which is also totally going to work. “take a look at this one,”

“colleague.”

“oh, brain.”

this is how mice flirt, i guess.

ignoring that “colleague” is a slight downgrade from “lifelong friend,” brain explains that he intends to program a computer to generate a fantastically popular romance novel, that i actually don’t want to look at the cover of for too long.

ew.

let’s move away from that. the romance novel “will contain a hypnophonetic sentence so long and so confusing that the reader will be forced to reread it, endlessly, out loud, and the frequencies of those sounds will hypnotise all those around them, primed for my suggestion that,”

I RULE THE WORLD. it’s not quite a close up but it’s a funny face so i’m counting it.

pinky is not as hype.

“the frequency needs to be an exact integral multiple of the input, doesn’t it? or it’ll be all wobble wobble bluueeroooogh.”

that’s one way of putting it. “not hypnotic at all, nope. won’t work.”

“yes. you’re right.”

brain is not enjoying this any more, it seems.

“by converting our cage into a nuclear reactor, we can produce enough energy--”

“but your migration area is tiny, brain! the neutron will never be able to slow down from fission to thermal in here!”

“please, pinky. let me finish--”

“but it’s got to be at least one sixth of the square distance between--”

“pinky!”

lms if you are the square distance between pinky.

“it seems to be, brain, that it’s not my fault at all that these plans haven’t worked.”

man. we don’t get to see pinky mad at brain very often? i love it. please let him get this mad in the reboot. madder, even. let them argue, wb!!

i don’t think brain has much grounds to argue, considering that he is, of course, the inventor of Really Big Magnet That Sticks People To The Floor By Their Pocket Change. still, he gives it a go.

he drags pinky back over to his weird little graph machine, citing that he “calcuated it himself” and “the numbers don’t lie.”

<gay little hand flip>. that’s not entirely fair because this is a tween but. it’s funny.

“actually, there seems to be a little booboo right here.”

poke.

he sets about correcting it, of course!

brain may well be at his limit.

(they angle that through the bunsen burner as it boils over, which is a very nice touch. it’s a metaphor, kids! he’s having a Hard Time.)

“these-- this!--”

“it’s preposterous what you’re saying! it’s ridiculous! it’s absurd!”

“but brain--”

“just go!”

“naaaaaarf.” going mouse! leave. ):

but now that brain has vented his own raging insecurities, he has some calculating to do.

well! isn’t that a merry little plot twist.

brain’s response to this is to have a nervous breakdown, because of course it is.

“no!” he cries. “he’s even smarter than i! smarter!”

“but i have accepted my own errors. the team needs balance. balance! yes.”

this can’t be good.

conclusion:

meanwhile, pinky is mourning their friendship! and all of the bops on the head.

“being a smarty is no fun! brain doesn’t like me.”

awww. ):

hm.

meanwhile, brain is wittering on about how “sacrifices must be made,” as he plugs himself into the machine.

“fourty seven knots, six-- nineteen kelvin, fibbonaci, n plus one, coming.” despite that, he doesn’t seem very happy to be here.

bonk.

brain runs back to their cage excitedly, to show pinky what he’s done!

and immediately falls over in the process. aww.

“pinky! look! i’m a ninny! a wooden headed dumbdumb!”

“there’s not a smart thought in my whole empty head!”

this man is having a nervous breakdown.

“narf, i say! narf to the world!”

wait, what’s that noise?

ah.

“ah! it’s good to be back. brain? brain?”

bonk.

that doorway is evidently a real problem for them. someone should probably fix it before they break their little ankles. ):

“i fixed it! i’m a nitwit!” pinky cheers. “hurrah!”

“yes. i fixed it as well, pinky. i’m as dense as a tree stump.”

“you mean--”

“yes.”

“well, we’ll just have to make you smart again, don’t we?”

“we can’t. we’re both too stupid to operate the machine.”

so instead they just sort of sit down and give up, i guess.

“what do you wanna do tonight, brain?”

“the same thing we do every night, pinky.”

“what’s that?”

“i have no idea.” says brain, in a monotone, clearly upset deadpan. “narf.”

so that’s that, i guess.

originally, i was going to give this to brain - they were both as smart as each other, and if they had worked together they probably could have taken over the world. all he had to do was take the L and let pinky advise him.

on the other hand.... pinky is emotionally intelligent enough that i think he could have had a shot at reasoning with brain about it. and if he’d tried, then he would have figured out that brain had put himself in the machine, and if brain had tried to reason through his insecurities, he would have worked out that pinky had put himself in the machine, and--

basically they get half a point again.

brain: 6 pinky: 7 outside influence: 11

because i think that’s fair.

either way, they seem to have fixed it, somehow, by the next segment. so it’s all good.

BRAINSTEM BRAINSTEM.

[onisiondrama]

(Note: I’m not repeating stories he’s told before and just putting them in parenthesis. I have a lot more videos to go until I’m caught up so that would save me a lot of time. If he gives details I never heard from him before, I will type those.)

“Should I Get A Divorce?” Speaks,  Oct 6, 2020

- This video is weird. He’s trying to make himself seem smart and insightful about marriage because his marriage is “successful”, while most people complain about their marriage. - There’s one part where he says people don’t understand you don’t have to be lied to or cheated on in a relationship. Which is pretty ironic coming from him. He shows a clip of an upset wife asking her husband what he’s doing with a woman in a bedroom. The husband and the woman are getting dressed. The husband keeps asking “Who?” “What?”, pretending the woman isn’t there. Later he shows more of the clip where the wife is still questing him. He keeps pretending he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She looks in the bedroom again and the woman is gone. The wife looks confused. Love that gaslighting. Just like when Jamsey boi cheats. “I didn’t cheat. It was the other person who cheated on you, my spouse” “You said I can’t have oral or vaginal sex with your friend. You didn’t say anything about anal.” - In another part he says there are people who constantly complain about their s/o and they hide away in a man cave.. he says this while in his garage man cave. 😑 Which we know he spends most of his time in. Like, way longer than normal working hours.  - He says he used to look angry in his old Speaks videos because of his marriage at the time. That’s total crap. He only shows clips from videos where he used his old militant persona for videos like his anti-meat videos. He made plenty of mushy Speaks videos talking about how happy he was with Skye back then too. 🙄 - I think he made this video during his short guru / advise phase.

“gotta say goodbye for a little bit” Speaks, October 8, 2020

- Tells his viewers they can listen to this video without watching it if they like to listen to people talk, like Kai used to do. [This is definitely meant to be another guru / advise type video. I can tell by his tone.] - Says he’s married to Kai for almost 8 years. (How Kai found James story) Says he married a fan and had children with them. He says they now have an awesome dynamic, but he knocks on wood because people who are together 18 years still get divorces. Says you never know, things can suddenly fall apart. - Says it’s cool because at the time he didn’t listen to social standards. Kai was 17 at the time, but lied about his age. Most people would have said don’t go for the relationship because Kai lied and the age gap, even though it was legal. He listened to the law and his heart and now he’s in the happiest marriage of his life. - “F society.” If he listened to society, he wouldn’t know where he’d be or what relationship he’d be in. Says you have to follow the legal system or your life is ruined. - Says he was an air force cop at one point because he believed in justice. He doesn’t think he wanted to shoot people, but he excelled in the cop program. He says he met Magic Johnson in the cafeteria at Lackland Air Force Base. He barely knew who Magic Johnson was, but he thought it was cool a famous basketball player was there. James asked him if he could take a picture and he said yes. He says he took a picture of him like a reporter and not a selfie. He still regrets that. - Says he wants to talk about the future of this channel. Some people appreciate he’s been uploading every day, but he wants to focus on sites that aren’t shadow banning people or algorithmically demoting people. He feels like Youtube is king in letting negative opinions prevail, even if it’s invalid. If the engagement shows people are mad at you, Youtube used to go the harsh truth route. He says that was nice. He says he once made a fake meltdown video in response to a video Leafy made about him. He says it’s fun for him to make fake meltdowns. - He says he and Kai took a quiz today and found out Kai’s IQ is 136 and his is 129, so Kai is smarter than him. - After the meltdown videos, Youtube algorithm didn’t favor him as much. He says maybe it was because he said they were fake. - He says he has been thinking about websites and how they treat users. Says Twitter is one the best because they don’t care about what your opinion is. They just care about their rules. Says if people don’t like you on other sites, they will shadow-ban you and you’re done for. He says his reaction video to Leafy’s video got 1/6th the views Leafy did, so there was a bleed over of traffic. Now when someone says something negative about you, YouTube will only promote videos that agree with that narrative. Says if you only want to hear negative stuff about Joe Biden, you’ll only see negative stuff. He says it’s financially productive, but it’s not ethically productive.

[I just want to pause here and vent a second. Yes, James fell out of the YouTube algorithm, but he’s had plenty of chances to sweep back into it. Like when he was getting tons of views on those fake meltdown videos in January. The reason those viewers didn’t stay is because there is nothing good for them to watch. His Speaks videos are boring, long, rambling messes. He repeats himself, contradicts himself, talks about the same topics over and over. These videos are mind-numbingly boring. His comedy videos are extremely outdated. The characters, topics, and humor he uses are not going to get him anywhere anymore. Like is the Death Note fandom really that strong in 2020? That anime came out 14 years ago for Christ sake. His music is not particularly good or interesting. On top of all this, his reputation is complete garbage.

People just don’t want to watch Onision. If the algorithm tried promoting his Speaks videos, I guarantee most people are actively choosing not to click on his videos. The non-subscribers that do click probably regret it. He’s made ZERO effort into making interesting or engaging content. He’s ONLY been making Speaks content that either fuels his ego or defends himself using the same old arguments he’s used 100+ times before. He’s got to be in some kind of deep denial if he thinks his Youtube views are down because of the algorithm. 

There used to be a saying that whenever Onision’s fans grow out of him, there will always be a crop of young teens that start watching him. That’s not happening anymore. It’s not cool for the alt / loner kids to watch edgy Youtube videos anymore.]

- Says people only want to hear things they agree with, people want to take what he says out of context, blah, blah. I’m only 1/4th of the way through this damn video. - He asks why he’s busting his butt when there’s no chance for him to prevail on Youtube or anywhere. He says he’s on TikTok, OnlyFans, Twitch. [This video was from before his partnership was taken away on Twitch.] He says those are slightly less problematic because they are driven by human beings and not drama. - He says when you see him posting less to Youtube in the future, you’ll understand why. He says he wants to wait you guys out, 2 years, 20 years. (He tried to call out Shane story.) He says he had to wait a year or two until people admitted he was right about Shane. He says he has conflicting feeling about Shane because they had a personal friendship. Says Shane told him they were friends. - He says you guys seem to drive your narrative and agendas by emotion rather than science and facts. He can’t reason with them unless he picked a greater evil and wages war on that. You would have to join forces with him because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. He says he wouldn’t do that because he’s not interested in being a professional wrestler and making fake drama. - In time you will feel passionately about other things. You don’t actually care about anyone involved because none of you are consuming yourself with anything that is not pop culture. You’re only interested in things other people are pretending to care about. None of you would care if someone found three bodies in a basement. If they were not celebrities you wouldn’t care. You only want justice for things that will get you attention. - If someone builds their whole platform about anti-person they might get bored and become anti-you. That’s why you don’t want to be friends with dramatic people. - He says he was dramatic about things, but that’s because he did care about those things. He wasn’t talking about 3 bodies in the basement either. - Says a long time ago when a celebrity died, he pointed out 30 people were murdered and washed ashore in another country. No one was talking about it because they probably didn’t hear about it. Nobody actually cares about human lives. If you did, every second that a human dies you’d be tweeting about it. - (Sarah blackmail story.) He says in a number of words Sarah said she wouldn’t ruin his life if she slept with him, then went back on it. [Wow. He really morphed his original story. It used to be: One time she jokingly said she could ruin our lives. Later we wanted her to sign an NDA and she said only if she gets something out of it, meaning sex. James said it was “good vibes” that day and he perceived that as her being kinky. She also said it was just a joke in the “proof” clip he always uses. They signed the NDA, then James pressured / tricked Kai into having sex with himself and Sarah. Then Sarah later came back and he decided they should have anal while Kai was out of town because Kai didn’t say no genital to butt. He only said no genital to genital and no genital to mouth before he left.] He says he decided to no longer sleep with Sarah because it was toxic and he decided he would rather be ruined than be with Sarah. [I have a theory he stopped sleeping with Sarah because he was afraid of Kai finding out. If he was truly afraid of Sarah ruining his life, why did he make those videos about weed smokers and BPD that would piss her off? She didn’t speak about their relationship publicly until he started bashing her through those videos.] Says Sarah went ahead and ruined his life and you fell for it. - He keeps mentioning Joe Rogan. - He says others have said he built an empire, uploaded thousands of videos. He gave so much of his life entertaining people and making them laugh. It was so important to him. He changed a lot of lives for the better. Says if you look on Twitter before the drama, you’ll see a lot of people thanking him. Says he was a positive influence to millions of people. That’s a fact. It all came crumbling down because people lied. They’re all criminals he kicked out of his life. He tries to play hero and he was only right with Kai. Kai wasn’t playing victim, he was on his way to college to be a surgeon. Once he was in the process of having kids, he lost the taste to be in a surgery room. Instead he got a bachelor’s in psychology. Kai’s diagnosis of James is aspects of narcissism, but says he doesn’t meet the qualifications to be a full blown narcissist. - He is investing a lot of time in people who don’t listen and don’t appreciate his content. Social media is a drug that tries to take up as much of your time as possible to make advertisers money. He doesn't create content that lies to you or brainwashing you into thinking your opinion is valid. He doesn’t pander to you to make money. Says when he says he’s one of the most honest people on Youtube, the bar is low. OnisionSpeaks is snake poison because snakes don’t survive on this channel. They aren’t going to have a voice that isn’t questioned. Most snakes on Youtube don’t even know how to activate charities on their channels. - Says he had a conversation with Kai about someone who said they vote for the economy over people. Humans are divided between helping their neighbor and helping themselves. - Says he was never taken to court because he never did anything. He’s still posting to places that he thinks is beneficial to himself and his family. Why would he stop because people have a bad idea of him? You shouldn’t alter your life just because people have an opinion of you. If you quit it makes you look guilty. If you quit you’re either guilty or incapable of dealing with it. He says he’s used to dealing with abuse since he began social media. - He wants to create content and help people and make them laugh. He wants to be socially capable and experienced. His ambitions are aligned with what he’s doing. - He says he can’t forgive his father if what people say about him is true. Everyone else he can forgive. If you are at odds with him, he doesn’t have any hate for you. He understands people can hear the wrong narrative and make mistakes. Says we are both imperfect people and have gone through different things. Says if we went through the same experiences, we’d think the same. Says we aren’t so different.  - Says he’s going away and he hopes you watch all his videos so you’ll know a little bit about who he is instead of listening to what Youtube manipulates you into watching. Says his advise is to quit social media. He wouldn’t quit because he’s passionate about it.

[huntsman-ash]

RWBY LiveThoughts: Episodes 8 and 9

So I missed last weeks episode since I got busy with stuff (school mostly, basic bitch busy day and all) so here’s two for one.

Gotta say, Im interested to see where this is going...

So something I missed the last few episodes; the final shot of the opening has the words “happily ever after” turn into “happy never again”, which I am both trepitided by and also intruged.

Cut to the jail cell AGAIN...Schnee’s looking a bit ansty. Boi probably thought he was getting out sooner. Suck it mate, your lawyers are DEAD.

Convinent blast of fire is convinenet...knocks out the cell doors and punches a hole but thats it. My money’s on Cinder

Qrow becomes bird on reaction. Makes sense really. 

Two fade to blacks in less than 2 minutes? Come on RT...

Ohhh its Nora waking up. So does that mean Robyn’s dead? I doubt it, but that drama spike is def a thing.

IV tech in Atlas is almost the same as our world. Interesting.

Whitley A poses like a god. 

Looks like Penny’s back snapped. Or something...maybe a coolant pipe or something similar.  And the return of British Klein.

And there goes the power. Probably a Grimm getting smashed into it during a fight...or they left it unguarded. Either or. Lot of explosions, either way...

Bombing run...has Atlas gone to area denial now?

...ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! THOSE FUCKING FLYING JELLYFISH GRIMM CAN MELEE AIRSHIPS?! Can we just...how in the... (LONG SUFFERING SIGH OF MILTIARY FAN) Not...going to comment. MOVING ON.

Honestly that animation seems oddly...flat. Like they just did the bare minimum...the ship breaks cleanly too. ~12 or so bits in between its nose and tail section. Kinda reminds me of how the UNSC Savannah blows up after suffering a reactor breach in Halo Reach’s “Long Night of Solace” mission.

Yes, its too much Ruby. ITS WAR. Huntsmen and Atlas were not ready for it. Never have been. Welcome to the bloody grim fable.

Oh hi Willow, where did you come from. Also, vodka.  Wait. Generator near the-Oh, I bet I know where THIS is going...fuckin Five Nights style shit at this. Slash Jurrassic Park...

Whitley showing the first signs of being human...utilizing Atlas cargoships for evac. Nice. 

Shit, the storms spread across all of Atlas. How the hell are they gonna get out through that? Also DEF getting fuckin’ Jurrasic Park vibes here. 

Why does a power startup sequence take so long...

Oh so they can talk. Also Blake says “as a girl”. Soooo what, she thinks shes older than RWBY mentally? I mean maybe she is (she did kill a man) but whos counting?

Ladybug fans getting FED right now.

Hehe, the houses CANDLES are fed by the main power. How quaint.

YEP. Knew shit was gonna hit the fan. CONTACT. Hound

The chess set seems to have black loosing. Wonder if that means anything. Or if its just random.

Yep its the Hound. Knew it.

DID IT JUST ONESHOT RUBY’S AURA?! THE FUCK RT WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT BEING RESILIANT?!

Oh its trying to kidnap her. Also those wings just EXPLODED out of it. Must have learned from last time. No weird screaming noises.

DAMN THOUGH WEISS’S MOM GOT THAT CAKE! THICC SCHNEE ASS

WOOPS. No more booze for you Mrs Schnee

And Pennys back up and SHES NOT PLEASED.

Also I like how completely dead and robotic Penny is while hacked. It amuses me. Unfortunatly for Watts hacking something with MAIDEN POWERS doesnt seem to work too well. SURPRISE.

Oh and of course its got backup, DISRUPTING WEISS’S SUMMONING AGAIN

Ha, it thought Ruby was Penny. Lul. Makes sense, young girl, whatever.

Oh look, a Hydralisk. Or, Salems horrible attempt at making a Hydralisk. 

Hacking denied BY THE POWER OF BUTCH LESBIANS!

Willow having a panic attack, doesnt really surprise me. Then again she IS a Huntress, or was, maybe she’ll get over it.

Chandelier. Phantom of the Opera time?

Unsurprising twist is unsurprising...makes sense Whitley would get covered in that green shit.

Further proof to my theory the Hound is eyeless

And Willow doing her fucking job. NICE.

I know I should be worried for them while running but again, THAT SCHNEE ASS THOUGH GOOD LORD.

These bigger Grimm are getting smarter. They’re learning how to handle CQC. 

Target DOWN. Sadly, did not explode into showers of acid when Ruby cut it down.

Okay that was pretty cool with the arm. Always was a fan of “useless limbs only for smashing”.  Ah THERES the Silver Eyes. PROBABLY SHOULDNT HAVE TAKEN HER ROBOT WIFE PRISONER BIIITCCH.

Penny is just getting ALL KINDS of fucked up rn.

WELL THEN. The Hounds not ACTUALLY a Grimm. Just a parasite on a host. Salem couldnt get them smart enough by themselves (to no ones surprise, they’re completely SHIT in terms of actual lethality) so she steals a...faunus of some kind looks like. And just makes him wear a Grimm suit. Useful. Good to know.

Also this episode has been making excessive use of sweat drops. Did they get that figured out or what

HA! Grimm dont handle physics well do they!

The Grimm arm that results looks like Cinders. Intentional, Im compleretly sure. Also the fact theres bone underneath proves to me more what I thought. Its just a host. 

How...UNIMPRESSIVE.

However the fact that the bones have TWISTED and resulted in the Hounds form is...interesting. Unless those were there first (and they seem to be as they last past the Hound vanishing)...was that a secondary feature? He had the ears...

We’ll probably never know.

Ah so it WAS Cinder breaking in. To get Watts most likely.

Kinda feel bad for these three troopers. Shoulda brought shotguns, boi.

Fucking moron with a rocket launcher. WHY is he firing this thing INSIDE? Against a humanoid target? Though it is nice to know that Atlas does in fact have rocket launchers.

And now, Episode 9

...wow, way to start us off. Field littered with dead Atlas troopers. Yeah MAYBE IF YOU HAD SOME DEFENSIVE POSITIONS buddy...least they still got fire from the Paladins.

You know this kinda feels like an Imperial Guard moment. Point made, RT.

Also those Mantas peeled off without DOING anything. Least you could do is drop some ordinance...

Wait I t hink they did...also, for about 2 seconds you can see the silverfish Grimm that won that contest.

Alright, so RJY is inside the whale now. Good. 

Good question Yang. Probably cause you dont really have any other options?

I feel like Jaunes hair has become less plant-like and more realistic.

New fairy tale; The Girl who Fell Through The World. Interesting. Wonder if thats in the book somewhere.

So hes got access to magic but it makes them fuse faster. Alright, cool. Nice limitation.

...my god. Trenches. Standing formation. HUNTERS IN ARMOR?!

Its...its beautiful. Its everything Ive ever wanted! Seriously you HAVE to see this.

Just look at it. The lights, the Mantas in he background, the fact that FNKI is there and WEARING ARMOR!  Neon in her skates with weapon at the ready, everyone else standing firm, winter Walking the trench line like shes fucking Commissar Vale...

Its. Just. SO. GOOD.

And then they rush to glorious battle moments later. OH YES PLEASE

“Right now, just kill Grimm.” PERFECT

Hazel short-walking amuses me to no end.

Hazel has “II” in roman numerals on his arm band. I doubt it means anything but its funny

Spontanious Emerald is spontanious. And convinenent. 

Glowy blue titty woman yeahhhhhh

And there goes Hazel with his change of heart. Been good knowing you pal...I can guess where THIS is going.

Oscar is distracted by the big glowy milkys.

Also; Neo can...thats most interesting. Fully camoflauged. USEFUL. And of course you can see her ass for ONE SECOND and I bet the FANDOMS HAVING FUN WITH THAT

If Yang wasnt afraid right now I’d be very surprised.

Random floating Seer as well.

MAN THERE IS JUST TOO MUCH FUCKING CONVENIENCE GOING ON RIGHT NOW LIKE

I get it.  Nice to see things not going according to plan for Salem exactly but 

Ehh.

Hahaha. Juan. Bro doesnt even remember Jaunes name.  Also that short section of fight is magnificent. This is what I have always imagined the HKs being like.

CLEVER. Nice work Emerald.

Also uhhh...dont need no semblance ot see THAT Ren, she got that confused scared face right on there.

Tsundere Emerald continues

Also, the fact that all the troops stand in line around the bomb when it arrives amuses me. Like, yes, we must worship this tool of horror we have created.

Timer...ohhhhh thats gonna end poorly. WHY AM I GETTING SHADES OF LONG NIGHT OF SOLACE AGAIN?

Did Salem straight up make a door right through the wall? With a perfectly good one behind her? God damn.

Also on that subject uhhhhh off the walls guys, not to hard. Landing strats right?

OH NO WAIT FIGHT TIME.

Magic still doesnt seem impressive to me. Just...mildly forceful. Yeah it whacked Jaune and Ren off their feet but

Still. No 40k psyker is she.

Ohh ho. OH THATS NICE

Also Yang punched her titty. That is hilarious to me.

 BREAK, BITCH! SUFFER AND SHATTER!  In the words of the Chaplain Grimaldus; “BURN HERETIC!”

Addit; First time we see her regeneration. Seems its literally anything, she pulls herself back together using Grimm bits. Obviously shes not fully human considering that blast Yang hit her with should have liquified her organs. Makes SENSE of course.

Okay, magic seems to kinda work, she didnt like that much.

I paused at the perfect time and Yangs ass is riiigghhhttt at Oscars crotch more or less. Unintentional I know but its funny to me.

Also those sigils...like Weiss’s glyphs perhaps?

Huh. Two kinds of magic. The bright sunshiny ranbow one she used to hit Ren and Jaune, and now this void looking shadowy stuff.  So...two kinds perhaps? Creation and Destruction or...light and dark maybe is more accurate.  Makes SENSE, shes studied in both and uses both. All aspects.

Okay NOW Im seeing why RT got Jen Taylor to do Salem. We jussttt had to wait to the point she got mad enough to really start showing off.

Also Salem seems oddly unconvinced about Summer.

Awww, Emeralds crying. HOW PATHETIC

Someones gotta distract her...well this works. Again, RIP Hazel, you were pretty cool.

Homie goin ALL out on this. YEAH!

Okay, magic seems to be both, she has the void walker balls shooting rainbow light...

I like how casually Salem takes it. Seeing that Grimm ichor splatter was REAL nice though

IMMOLATIOIN OH YESSSS

Good, SHE DOES BURN!

Awwww. And it ends there. Of course it does.

Well hey maybe hes NOT dead. Albiet that looked like him passing out/getting strangled so who knows. Good news; Salem burns just like anyone else. If it feels pain you can kill it

And thats this weeks!

[aqvarius]

I hope the rmd mc for kasumi is a bit different cuz she rly be hittin on my last nerve and I don’t think she would rly v✨i✨b✨e with kasumi in her current given state

i’ve decided i need to play matsunaga and cc before getting a better sense of the eicu guys but honestly some of these recent asks feel like my own brain jumped out of my head and started sending me anon asks lmao bc i totally agree. anyway i know it’s a controversial opinion to not like the rmd mc and i’m TRYING to be fair and put aside my bias against her and try to analyse what exactly it is that i don’t like, but yeah i just don’t really find that she has romantic chemistry with the characters (that i’ve read, i.e. takado and hosho). not that anyone ever asked for this, buuuuuut this ask has basically triggered yet another mc rant so stop reading here or get ready and settle down with some popcorn lmao.

DISCLAIMER: this is all just my personal opinion! and i’m sure many of you will disagree with me. please place a “i think/believe/feel” before every claim i make as everything i say here is just my own feeling towards her. i also need to disclaim that i have only properly read takado and hosho’s routes (bc i’m still...mad at sen’s route, and i’ve only made it through one chapter of matsunaga so far) and i understand (and fully subscribe to) the idea that mcs read differently depending on the route as well. and as always, please don’t let my opinions affect your own enjoyment of any characters or titles that you love!

ALSO as i was writing this, i went back and read my previous rant about her and i realised that i’m more or less reiterating the same points i made there but in a (hopefully) more structured and slightly more developed manner whoops. 

so here’s almost 3000 words and a whole bunch of screenshots under the cut because i don’t want to spam everyone’s dashboards with my unprompted Opinions(tm).

so anyway i’ve been thinking it’s a translation/tone thing. when i have the time/energy, i might sit down and really try to analyse the actual language, but just going off my intuition, i think maybe it’s because:

1. sometimes they choose to express something idiomatically and so that tone doesn’t come across as sincere. this isn’t a real example, but let’s think about the difference in tone between “oh no!” and “yikes”. because of modern day vernacular, we kind of associate “yikes” with a sarcastic and judgmental tone, whereas “oh no!” might connote a more genuinely concerned reaction. so sometimes i think that the use of very contemporary vernacular (which, lbr, trends towards a more sarcastic tone in general bc us gen z kids are mean) results in a lack of sincerity which makes the mc come across as a little more callous and less... actually kind and nice? i did get the feeling that hlitf mc has recently swayed towards this sort of tone as well and suspected that they had the same translator (which was confirmed later in a voltage Q&A). i’m definitely #biased but i can forgive this more because we had a good amount of content with her being adorable before the tone switch so i have a pre-established impression of her in my mind. 

by the way, i just want to say that while i do have this critique, i do really admire and respect the voltage translation and localisation team (and am... super indebted to them) and i do think they do fantastic translations generally. 

anyway, i believe this linguistic issue is at least partially responsible for my personal perception of the rmd mc’s personality that i expand on in the succeeding points, but my next point has more to do with the writing and characterisation of the most recent wave of mcs.

2. rmd mc has very few visible vulnerabilities. i think this is one of my biggest qualms with the new title mcs like rmd, destind and mk but i think stories are at their best when you get to see the mc fail and be vulnerable and wallow. the reason why i love certain mcs - particularly the ones whose titles and storylines centre around their careers (hlitf, irresistible mistakes, my last first kiss, scandal, celebrity darling, kiss of revenge, sleepless, otbs, arguably msb, etc.) - is because we get to see them fail and then grow. not only that, but you often get to see the relationship between the mc and the love interest deepen in these moments. but if you have a ‘perfect’ mc, then there’s no room for growth, so plotlines are forced to fall back on drama and trauma on the love interest’s side which... is exactly what rmd and mk do. 

this is not to say that rmd mc doesn’t make mistakes, because she certainly does, but i don’t find that they’re ever genuinely serious mistakes. for example, think about hlitf mc’s repeated mistake in season 1 of going after small crimes without seeing the bigger picture and thus potentially messing up an entire investigation. they allow her that space to mess up and be completely wrong for public safety. then they give her the time to be self-reflective and run away back to nagano really think about what her mistakes are, and where to go from there. she is confronted with humbling failure, and is forced to address issues about her own pride/ego, and matures into someone who has a more nuanced idea about justice. on the other hand, rmd mc never has to (consistently, afaik) go through a genuinely humbling experience, so she her pride/ego/arrogance never gets seriously called into question. maybe this is because the premise of rmd has to do with life and death and they don’t want to make it seem like she’s directly responsible for someone’s death, but hlitf also deals with life and death issues and the mc learns that if she messes up to save one civilian, she may actually be jeopardising the lives of tens or hundreds or more. 

anyway, taking takado’s route as an example, because this was our exposure to her as a character, the most frustrating thing is the way that she tries to lecture takado that he’s wrong about his attitude towards amputations, and never actually has to personally experience the potentially disastrous consequence of putting her ideology into practice. i think i would have enjoyed the route a lot more if she had gone over his head and naively made the decision not to do an amputation and then the person ended up dying or having to have a larger section amputated all because she was like uwu we can’t just cut off people’s limbs without waiting. i think if that situation had happened, we could have seen her actually have to confront her own naiveté and realise that she’s a noob and too idealistic and that reading a lot of medical journals does not translate to having actual field experience and intuition and who is she to question him like that when she knows nothing. she only realises that omg... we may have to consider some things with something called nuance... basically when more of takado’s backstory is revealed.  

(maybe this is because i work in academia so it extra-frustrates me, but omg if i had to one-on-one mentor a student like her, i would genuinely go nuts. she reminds me of some students that some colleagues and i have had where they  “well, actually” at everything you say bc they read some stuff on reddit or twitter that has absolutely not been proven through practical application of, or research conducted through the lens of, their theory. like imagine i told my advisors “despite being experts in [their respective fields] and having written numerous very important books, you’re wrong because i don’t agree but i have never myself conducted proper research to counter that!!”)

basically i wish they treated takado’s route like kaga’s routes (bc lbr takado and kaga are maybe... the same person?). look at the self-reflection here:

and here:

she does get down on herself at times, but look at the way that she humbly accepts her mistakes. sometimes she wallows on her mistakes, as anyone would, but look at the way she examines her failures and turns that feeling of inadequacy into motivation to work harder and smarter. 

by the way, these screenshots are from his ms1 and ms2 - so pretty early on - and we get to see her learn from these mistakes because she’s allowed to make them. we also get to learn more about kaga’s strictness and his kindness because of these mistakes.

i don’t know if the whole refusal to allow rmd mc to make significant errors is a response to readers who are like “omg.... why are voltage mcs so weak, why can’t they be perfect women who never get anything wrong” but ANYWAY i just feel like they never confront or address her hubris properly. 

3. following on from point 2, i find her one-dimensional. i’ve mentioned this before in a rant, but i don’t find her to be a very deep character bc to me, she reads as mostly surface level sass. i said: “her dialogue with them often reads as like they put 100 points in “snark” and 0 points in any other personality trait” lmao. so she’s great in one-off screenshots where you can see her bite back with a very screenshottable one-liner, but i find it tiring to have 30 chapters of her just literally running her mouth. because of this constant tone that they keep giving her, i find it really difficult to see any emotional depth in her character. because she’s the perspective character, her internal dialogue is just as, if not more, important as the love interest’s external dialogue in terms of carrying the emotional weight of falling in love, and i just don’t understand how there’s any sense of two people falling in love and getting to know each other when every sentence out of her mouth is just sass. can you imagine you meet someone and you get to know them but never have any genuine conversations bc every line out of your mouth is sarcastic? like your date is opening up and telling you about some difficulties he’s going through (which i’m sure you all know is a very vulnerable and scary thing to do) and instead of being empathetic and kind and understanding, you’re just like “sucks to be you dude”. and instead of saying “you don’t need to carry everything on your shoulders”, you say “you’re STUBBORN and i’m RIGHT”. OF COURSE i’m being kind of hyperbolic here (not even that much tho, see screenshots below) but that’s basically the tone she constantly takes. 

so when takado opens up about the rina thing, instead of being like “oh shit i’ve been judging him all this time and i’m genuinely sorry because i didn’t know a thing about you and yet i���ve been running my mouth”, she says “your head is as hard as a rock ya know?” and then KEEPS GOING. 

where’s the empathy sis? where is it? i’m looking but i can’t find it.

EVEN TAKADO WAS LIKE “I WAS TRYING TO TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT IT”

and then the writers just push off her rudeness as like “it’s okay it’s chill!! takado laughed about it afterwards and it made the issue sound insignificant!!” even tho it’s obviously an extremely traumatic thing? WHY does he even fall in love with her??? i don’t UNDERSTAND alsdkfjs she has NO FEELINGS!! i just want genuinely romantic moments... is that too much to ask... it’s called romance md...

once again, let’s compare that to hlitf mc, when she finds out about kaga’s trauma. literally the FIRST reaction she has is to consider his feelings.

without even hearing his side of the story, she defends him because she trusts him and immediately empathises with him and the first thing she does is try to understand him and where he’s coming from. 

later on, when she hears him just dismissing things and playing callous, she actually cries on his behalf, which shocks him because he’s not used to people caring about him:

isn’t that a MASSIVE difference in reaction to essentially the same character opening up about their trauma? which do you find more conducive to developing emotional intimacy? in my opinion, it’s so much easier to fall in love with someone who supports you and has your back and trusts and believes in you and tries to understand you and can have a genuinely caring conversation with you when you need it. by the way, it’s not like kaga’s mc doesn’t sass him either! they have great bantery chemistry and she shit-talks him ALL THE TIME (a lot of the time under her breath and he’s like HUH? it’s great). 

and yet... we still actively see her caring about him... instead of being like WHOOPS my tongue slipped, i can’t help that i’m naturally insubordinate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

by the way, i’m not trying to put the onus on female characters/heroines to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving. i’m putting the onus on ALL characters to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving in their own ways if we’re supposed to be convinced that they’re falling in romantic love. sure, kaga’s mc is exceptionally loving but kaga returns that love with his own ALL the time ;~~; anyway i’m gonna stop talking about them for now bc otherwise i would just completely derail and keep going on and on about them. 

anyway, back to takado, i actually find him to be more caring and loving than his mc? i actually genuinely like takado as a character and i think that real life me and him would be great together so i’m like extra offended that he’s with her rather than ME??? i would treat him so much better. 

i consider this lack of emotional depth to actually be a bigger hindrance on my enjoyment of the game than the lack of flaws thing. voltage’s recent wave of mcs with the love choice titles have been trending towards the ‘perfect woman’ type of mc, but while i have some Thoughts(tm) here and there about the other protagonists, none of them strike me as being as hard to get along with as rmd’s mc. so i’ve mentioned my issue with the masukisu mc’s weird moral boundaries (more an overall voltage issue that manifests the most strongly in her character), but i also do find that they don’t let her make big mistakes and they present her as this perfect superwoman figure with no weaknesses which like... unrelatable. but at least her banter is flirty banter and there’s a lot of chemistry there (even if it’s sometimes lacking emotional depth, as in some of kazuomi’s scenes - and that’s not her fault, that’s 100% on kazuomi lol). you can definitely understand why they’re attracted to each other at least, and you can definitely see real, deep love form between her and yuzuru the most. even though the masukisu mc is a ‘perfect woman’, the premise is designed to spark relationship conflict and the writing really helps us understand the emotional turmoil of falling in love with a target because of how much it lets the mc dwell on it. destind too basically has a perfect mc in terms of work/career, but they let her have her very glaring weaknesses and, once again, the premise forces her to address her shortcomings with regards to her idealistic view on soulmates/destiny and explores the head vs heart thing where she has to really examine her emotions and how they potentially come into conflict with her preconceptions of and preoccupation with numerical compatibility. 

thinking about it objectively, i feel like takado’s mc and mlfk ayato’s mc have a couple of similarities in the way that they don’t realise they’re in love for the longest time (although obviously childhood friends to lovers provides a better context for not realising that love - same with my boi natsume), but there’s just something lovable about mlfk’s mc that i don’t see in rmd. without going too deeply into it bc (1) i’m tired and (2) i’ve been going on about this for WAY too long now, i think that comes back to tone or writing (and possibly translation) style. i think at some point, i might actually go and compare the language in the “omg am i in love...?” scenes between takado’s mc, ayato’s mc and natsume’s mc but uh... not tonight haha. 

actually, at some point, i genuinely wondered if rmd mc was aromantic. i really just thought she did not experience romantic attraction because i literally got no sense of it through her internal monologue bc they kept pushing the whole like “i only relate to people’s ~aesthetics~” thing. and then i wondered how they were going to make an aromantic mc fall in romantic love...? because... it’s an otome game? (btw i’m not saying that aro people can’t enjoy otoge, i definitely know people who do! but there’s a big diff between someone playing an otoge vs someone being a character falling in romantic love in an otoge. but please call me out if i’m misunderstanding aromanticism!). anyway, long story short, rmd mc (takado’s especially) falling in love is absolutely unconvincing to me because i find her dialogue - both internal and external - rather unfeeling. 

these three points (1. translation that favours colloquialism over communicating emotional tone; 2. characterisation of a hubristic mc who doesn’t need to overcome significant challenges; 3. lack of emotional depth and empathy/understanding) are basically why i don’t think that she has good romantic chemistry with the love interests in romance md that i’ve read so far. i also have some very petty personal gripes (sekai...........) but they’re not relevant to this particular topic and frankly just... really petty so i don’t want to get into them here.

so anyway, long story short: i agree that i don’t think she would really vibe with kasumi in her current given state. like, they could be friends, maybe.