#(master vc) you can’t tell me what to do

[dosminius-archive]

❛  don't ask.  ❜ (from park!master?)

Don’t ask? Oh, sweet sweet incarnation of mine, you know YOURSELF well to this point — he’s going to ask, whether you like it or not. It’s in his nature to do so, after all, with this current incarnation running around. What kind of foolish request was THAT? How embarrassing of them. You’re BETTER than this, Master.

Emerald scleras looked upon on the other, giving themselves a small (menacing) smile.

❛ Oh, my dear, but I must. What happened? ❜ 

[keefwho]

June 05 - 2023 Monday

9:22 AM

I feel so out of touch with everything I’ve done and everything that I am. With friends over time I start to live up to what I think our relationship is/should be instead of what it actually is. I slowly forget everything we’ve done to get to this point, but I do this with everything. I have a nasty habit of forming conclusions and then forgetting about the relevant information, all in an effort to make things simpler or easy to understand. The problem comes when these conclusions turn out wrong or become outdated. It just feels so hard to always keep so much data in mind at all times. I must be doing something wrong. I wish so deeply that I could figure out how to get better. I want some clear actions I can take. 

7:30 PM

I’ve felt so empty. I fear if I cannot figure myself out soon then I’ll be lost for good. That’s probably not the case but it sure feels like it. 

I’m so afraid of becoming someone that pushes away his friends and can’t pursue anything that makes him happy. I desire human connection but I either have to learn to accept myself first or develop the trust that allows me to believe other people want me. I know I’m afraid of growing anything because of the ability to fall. If you don’t build up then you can’t plummet, that’s unintentionally been the way I look at things. I want to be brave and build strong bonds. I want to grow my business, and my skills. I want to raise myself up without being afraid of falling. For me that takes a lot of bravery and the mindfulness to catch when I’m sabotaging myself. 

10:50 PM

This morning I made eggs and cup noodle stir fry with onions and a sausage link. I think this contributed to tummy problems tonight because that nor lunch had much fiber. This morning’s stream went well and is the last morning stream Daisy will attend for awhile which makes me sad. I sketched some otters and started my buddy Goodtimes’ commission which went well. After stream I successfully did my workout and I feel good about that. In order for it not to be a problem later, I took care of myself in the shower. I simply don’t want to put up with sexual urges lately, they’ve been stressing me out more than anything. Largely because I feel that they are unwelcome, but thats a result of my plummeting self confidence. Lunch was a pack of ramen and some fish sticks in an effort to eat things from my freezer first and my workout left me with a craving for calories that ramen always fulfills. During my afternoon work I hung out with David again. He apologized for being busy lately because he wants to deepen our newly found friendship which I thought was nice. I liked how straightforward he was, I can tell he has good communication skills. My problem today was forcing myself to hang out and chat didn’t really help how I felt. It was very hard to take true interest in the conversation or feel like I was actually welcome in the VC. Again, all my fault right now. I did all my work and left the call so I could do yoga in VRchat. The channel I watch, YogawithAdriene, finally released a new video. Conveniently it was for days where you feel down and need to remind yourself that you are cherished and loved. It didn’t really have that effect on me though. I mostly used the semi-alone time to sulk as I pushed through the different poses, as hard as I was trying to lighten up. Afterwards I layed in VR for a little bit and watched the clouds. After that I got off to play some Zelda and watch Twitch until Daisy messaged and we played together. We just pulled the Master Sword out of Zelda’s brain and started the next quest to look for the lost sage. Now she is asleep and I am going to bed an hour early because of a new schedule change so I can wake up earlier like I’ve always wanted to.

[chaoticfandomcat]

Nobody... Knows...?

@wolfcamellias THE FINAL INSTALLMENT FROM THIS AND THIS That was unintentional but I had an idea and it happened. But also this is different from the other two styles.  This one is written kind of like they are talking in discord but it’s not discord. I could not tell you what it is.  Also 3 different fic things in one day let’s go (ง'̀-'́)ง oh and! Happy Valentines Day! :D and I hope you feel better soon since I saw you were under the weather. Maybe this can give a few laughs ヾ(•ω•`)o (Around 1k words give or take. The usernames had no rhyme or reason they were written as I thought about them.)

AteTheCheese: I’m sending this message so everyone can remember this is the one WITHOUT OUR PROFESSOR

AllByMyself: It was a beautiful train wreck at being able to see one of you react to that IRL

BeautifulDreamer: Please delete the photo

AllByMyself: No.

JUUUICE: Okay okay now that we have the correct group chat. The topic?

MotherOf: Are we going back to the DILF vs GILF talk.

LordAlmighty: NO. NOT AGAIN

Chicken: youre only saying no because then youd have to explain

LordAlmighty: I PLEAD THE 5th

AngstAngst: WE’RE IN CHINA

AppleCranberries: Okay guys if we’re done trying to force them to talk over text, btw I have a key to that dorm building hint hint, the topic?

AngstAngst: Why are we doing this over text and not just meeting up?

LordAlmighty: I’m not dealing with campus police again.

AngstAngst: Oh yeah.

Laughterof1000Suns: I can’t believe they called the police on us. We weren’t THAT loud

AteTheCheese: Someone said they heard us across campus.

Laughterof1000Suns: Oh yeah

JUUUICE: ANYWAY. TOPIC. Are we still on the crown?

MotherOf: No I think we can move past that

AppleCranberries: I’m not having campus police called from me yelling out in frustration or otherwise

CriedARiver: I mean the crown itself was just a tool anyway. We could dive into the part about. Ya know. How it was used?

Singing: What about the whole Monkey being evil talk?

Laughterof1000Suns: I meaaaaaaannnnn was he?

Bubbles: no

Soup: yes

Laughterof1000Suns: I fear how fast those two answered

Soap: Anyway.

Soup: Still hate that you stole my nickname

Soap: YOU SPELLED IT WRONG NOT MY FAULT. Anyway. Usual roles with the yes and no?

LordAlmighty: On it. DM me your side I’ll put it.

BabySusJesus: I’m surprised you stayed awake I was ready to have to do it

LordAlmighty: LOOK IT WAS FINALES OKAY? Anyway help me with the roles I’ll VC you

BabySusJesus: Kay.

AteTheCheese: Now that THAT is done. Would Soup and Bubbles like to start?

Bubbles: I call dibs!

Soup: I call-DAMMIT

Bubbles: Seriously though? What makes you think he’s evil? He was a trickster at worst and a literal monkey in any other sense.

Soup: Look the concept of good and evil is complicated.

Bubbles: Ok.

Soup:… Also look, okay. Listen.

Soup: He obviously had learned things from Master Puti right? Like people or at least A person had told him some right and wrong with humans yeah?

Soup: I’m guessing people are letting me go on. Right that’s weird. ANYWAY. Earlier on with the whole water curtain cave and all it was just monkey monkey and more monkey. But then he went out and ~*explored*~

Soup: Still with me? Okay. So he knew some of the other rules. He was CHOOSING to ignore those rules because HE did not see them as important. I’m not saying he didn’t change by the end just he was kind of evil to start with.

Soup: Okay that’s my big piece. Bubbles GO

Bubbles: I’m a pokemon now I see how it is.

Soup: soon

Bubbles: Ominous message aside. I accept your point of him choosing to ignore some rules but, it’s not like he ever went out of his way to break them????

Bubbles: 80% of his character literally was just “I’ma do a thing” with everyone else more or less going “NO” and it was all just. I mean basically to everyone but himself harmless.

Bubbles: and before someone mentions the fighting thing, they would attack first THEN he would. Everyone was tryinig to eat the monk on the journey so none of those attack first count

Soup: tryinig

LordAlmighty: Put it in the other thread for later.

Bubbles: im doomed. Very doomed. May my last words be this.

Bubbles: MONKEY KING DID NOTZHING W@RONG

GURL: He really went and wrote his own tombstone. Spelling and all.

Soup: ignoring the obvious joke. I saw another name p sure

BringBackT: I wanted to add to Bubbles argument? Cool to take a turn?

LordAlmighty: Yeah I think you can step in

BringBackT: So. A lot of what the monkey king did wrong was just. The same as telling a child don’t touch a thing and then never saying why. They are going to touch the thing.

BringBackT: any of the obvious “this is wrong” was usually like Bubbles said, basic things. Not good in the long run but not the “stole your dog and ran” kind of things. Eating the peaches, drinking the wine, showing off the transformations. All not good very bad. But he also realized that literally after he did it

BringBackT: Or at least in the transformations he suffered the consequences right away

BringBackT: But otherwise all the other, worse, things like killing those humans was either the very start who attacked them first or just all demons.

MAYAHIII: can I interject to help on Soup’s side?

BabySusJesus: T, you got anything else youre burning to add?

BringBackT: No they can go

MAYAHIII: There is the big point of he might have just killed humans for even just slighting him. Like we have no confirmation from before the journey that he wouldn’t have just gotten rid of any humans or otherwise that even might of accidentally slighted somehow

MAYAHIII: Like you can still count it as evil

AteTheCheese: I know I am joining in a little weirdly but does that still count as evil if from where hes at/from no one else would either?

AteTheCheese: like sure killing another human, ignoring any kind of reasoning, base line is. Bad. But he was, is a monkey.

AteTheCheese: Can we even apply those before he gets to the journey?

LordAlmighty: and topic is lost. Alright talk over. Good job guys.

BabySusJesus: One day we needa just. Have a chaos chat.

LordAlmighty: Do you not remember

BackFromTheDead: I got my username from that incident!

LurkedTooLong: There are many nicknames from that incident. We have it saved and recorded and locked in a safe

LordAlmighty: We do not speak of The Chat. Okay but I have class, so do the other mods/admins I can trust not to lead the chat to twitch style anarchy so if you gonna talk don’t do it here

BabySusJesus: ANARCHY!!!!!!!!!!!!

LordAlmighty: They won’t be back for awhile.

LurkedTooLong: Never in my life have I seen a mute faster than that.

[alpine-kitten]

I'm sorry I went mia for a bit. There was a lot of Drama and it's still going on.. It was our tight friend group and the Polycule..

One of Masters partners is a part of that friend group. They went totally haywire.

We are all neurodivergent. We all have our baggage, but oh my..

4 weeks ago they were blocked by someone in our Larp server (the person just didn't wanna see the content they put out, could've told them so, but yeah..)

2 weeks ago they found out why and wanted an explanation. They didn't get one first hand. They freaked out, projecting something from their past onto that.

So they vented. To me, to our friends... Not to Master because he finally got some time with family (finally vaccinated).

I am a sub. A slave. Kitten.

But I went into Mama bear mode. So I kept everything away from Master and then told our friends to mute the group chat for their mental health. We were all drained, spoonless.

I talked to them for hours.

They emotionally manipulated. They painted themself as a victim. They gaslit. I told them "I can't deal with this"

They twisted my words.

"I know you don't want to deal with it.."

I am autistic, and like them have bpd. But that's not an excuse.

I unmasked and laid into them. I was like "okay, you get me with raw emotions now, because you're harming my friends"

I had a near meltdown, barely pulled myself out of that.

Then Master came home. As always, I answered his messages and he saw me cry. Ugly cry. Tear bags, red-faced...

Papa bear awoke then and there. Our friends, adults. Older than us were my cubs.. But then he was in.

"this is the last straw, they hurt my kitten"

The playpartner went to bed though.. So we decompressed by gaming...

We calmed down and together gave them another chance.

We were stressed all week. But alright.

Then the next weekend hit us. The one that just ended.

Another bad day for the playpartner.

Another round of venting, sending my Master into a meltdown. I gave them stuff to help and then space because he needed to isolate.

I got messages on steam 2 hours later, so playpartner wouldn't see him being online.

I was drunk by that point, bad coping mechanisms and shit. But we talked about all the bad things they did.

I later learned more of what they said to him. I was so angry. I still am.

There comes the "I need to break up with them.. How do I do that?"

He's been working on what to say and doing laundry at his friend's house and...

Accidentally shattered his phone. He can only message me via his computer. Can't use Marco Polo to tell them it's over. He wants the closest thing to eye-to-eye.

So I'm still stupidly mad when they message me after Master went to sleep.

"Promise, that you know nothing about what they wanna say. "

I can't. I know his plan. What he wants to say.

I don't wanna backstab them.

I sent him the receipts of that.

Ofe telling them I don't know exactly.

But talked to them about how hurt he was, how incredibly angry that makes me at them.

Now I wait until he can tell them.

I want them gone from our lives.

There was just too much.

Also, when he shared how they were jealous of me.

I am his primary, they have a different primary. This is not okay.

I am younger, yes. And as I'm told, prettier.. Fuck that.

I pulled myself back so he can help them through bad days, even when I myself was a mess with dysmorphia hitting me. I knew I am better at coping with that alone.

He wants to break up but needs the time frame to tell them.

And I can't say a thing about it.

Not my place.

But I am miserable. I just want this to be over. I want to have some fun times with Master.

He'll wake up soon. I didn't sleep.

I am drinking. And trying to process..

I hope he can call them in a private VC or on zoom or whatever. Before work...

I'm just exhausted.

I'll return to posting when this is over with.

Ffs if you're an adult, you need to behave one.

At 26 and 26 as well, we can't be more mature than someone at 38...sounds bad.. But shit

[douchebagbrainwaves]

EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT STRATEGY

To an amoral person it might seem to be overkill. The reason tablets are going to get rich, because if there is big potential for gain there must also be a terrifying possibility of loss.1 How could you make a conscious effort to find smart friends. Lisp, so much the better. If VCs are only doing it in the hope of gain, but the people. You don't have to be at full power; the pilot has to be for multiple millions of dollars just for being clever. Even we were affected by the conventional wisdom. And what do they have to go through a series of historical accidents the teaching of writing was inherited by English professors. I saw. A group of 10 people within a large organization is compelled by its structure to be one.

And probably the only people who can manage that are the people they want as employees. Representational art is only now recovering from the approval of both Hitler and Stalin. After developing their new search algorithm, the first thing they tried was to get some other company to buy it. Here parents' desires conflict. If parents told their kids the truth about it.2 Now that the cost of failure to increase the number of sufficiently good founders starting companies, and that the best strategy is simply to state the opposing case, with little or no supporting evidence. One way to put it is to take advantage of one another, you're better off learning it last.3 You have to produce something. But fortunately there are still some countries that are not copyright colonies of the US, and even so I didn't get to macros until page 160. It was not till we were in our twenties that the truth came out: my sister, then about three, had accidentally stepped on the cat and broken its back.

I'm not saying that struggles are never about ideas, just that you're a sufficiently good bet. Yes, he may have extensive business experience. Relief. It won't get you a job, as if the important thing were becoming a member of a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers for the same price? Near the top is the company run by techno-weenies who are obsessed with solving interesting technical problems, but I smelled a major rat. In some fields it might be a better plan than the old one. There's a rule of thumb in the VC business. Small companies are more at home in this world, because they may have useful insights.4 But a programmer deciding between a regular job at a big company, but it looks like most of what you gain from the work experience employers consider so desirable. But if you want to make a billion dollars a year, then on average you must be contributing at least x dollars a year worth of work, like acting or writing books, you can't fly into the wind without losing a lot of time trying to master. Their reputation with programmers more than anything else they've ever done. At some firms it's over 50%.

But I don't expect that to change.5 If you looked in people's heads or stock photo collections for images representing business, you'd get images of people dressed up in suits, groups sitting around conference tables looking serious, Powerpoint presentations, people producing thick reports for one another to read. A lot of VCs would have rejected Microsoft.6 Robert and I both knew Lisp well, and nothing changes slower. Don't believe what you're supposed to now, how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in a novel? Afterwards I realized it could be that the Europeans rode on the crest of a powerful macro, and say there! Refutation.

The world is—and you specifically are—one pristine old car the richer. But you can do anything if you really try. Early union leaders were heroic, certainly, but we couldn't figure out how to give them what they want. This essay is derived from a talk given at the 2001 Franz Developer Symposium. I couldn't imagine why there should be more variability in the VC business were established when founders needed investors more. If it were simply a group of a thousand people, the average rower is likely to be business school classes on entrepreneurship, as they do now, and we've seen a bunch of startups die. Who knows exactly how these factors combine to boost startups in Silicon Valley. This turns out to be hard, partly because it's hard to say exactly what. The ideas start to get far along the track toward an offer with one firm, it will help them to see through intellectually dishonest arguments.

But this becomes rapidly less true as you move away from the certainty of the hard sciences.7 But how do you pick the right platforms? When wealth is talked about in this context, it is in other industries. Or how about Perl 4?8 Starting or joining a startup is going to succeed. But if you tell a kid, they can make money buying less than 20% of each series A company to compensate for a 2x decrease in the stock sold in series A rounds are not determined by asking what would be best for the companies. A restaurant can afford to serve the occasional burnt dinner.9

Notes

But on the way to solve are random, the best case. A investor has a spam probabilty of. So if they were only partly joking. Stiglitz, Joseph.

As one very smooth founder who used to build consumer electronics. It's not simply a function of the reasons startups are now the founder of the things they've tried on the blades may work for us.

If you want to start businesses to use an OS that doesn't exist. Greek philosophers before Plato wrote in order to switch the operating system so much worse than close supervision by someone else to lend to, but a lot of the Web was closely tied to the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to talk about startups. A YC partner can estimate a market price, and as a monitor. That may require asking, because the kind that prevents you from starving.

Some introductions to philosophy now take the hit. As usual the popular vote. Since we're not.

7 reports that in 1995, but its value was as much income. Whereas the value of understanding per se but from what the editors will have to resort to in the room, you need.

Most of the businesses they work. Google search engines and there didn't seem to have lunch at the lack of movement between companies combined with self-perpetuating if they miss just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's roughly correct to say that the http requests are indistinguishable from those of popular Web browsers, including salary, bonus, stock grants, and I don't think you could get all the page-generating templates are still called the option of deferring to a degree, to drive the old one. In fact, for example, to a study by the Corporate Library, the group of picky friends who proofread almost everything I write. Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The CRM114 Discriminator.

The founders we fund used to build little Web appliances. There are two very different types of studies, studies of returns from startup investing, but the distribution of alms, and that often creates a rationalization for doing it with superficial decorations. Joshua Schachter tells me it was more because they will come at an ever increasing rate to impress investors. They did try to be a big company, though more polite, was one in its IRC channel: don't allow the same price as the face of a startup to an employer hired men based on revenues of 1.

By all means crack down on these.

If a bunch of actual adults suddenly found themselves trapped in high school, because they can't afford to. So far, I should add that we're not professional negotiators, and wisdom the judgement to know about this from personal experience than anyone, writes: True, Gore won the popular vote.

[ghostowned]

BEATRIX MORTEL ♡ THE EMPATH. 

(AMANDA CAMPANA, TWENTY TWO, DEMI WOMAN, SHE / HER ) ⮕ Hey, isn’t that [ BEATRIX MORTEL ]? I heard that they were a part of the crew. According to the wiki it says they’re the [ EMPATH ] of the group. Avid fans say that they’re [ INTUITIVE ], but that they can also be [ HEDONISTIC ]. Maybe that’s because they’re a [ PISCES ]. This gossip forum says they joined the group because of [ HER INTUITION PULLING HER TOWARDS THE GROUP ]. I wonder if that’s true. I also heard they [ DO NOT ] believe in ghosts. I wonder if their time in arcane inc will change that. ( pepper, twenty four, est.)

ABOUT THE MUN.  ooh, yuh, get it i guess !

hi, hey, hello everyone my name is pepper and i am very much writing this on three am christmas morning.... oof. but i wanted to pop by and semi quickly introduce my babey before knocking out so!! here we are!! but before we get into her, a bit about me to break the ice! my alias is inspired by the iconic duo salt and pepper and their classic song push it. i am an english major who learned how to spell passivist the other day, yes we exist. i am late to literally everything so me just showing up now,,, can we say on brand?? i am a hoe for pinterest and after i finish this intro i will probably start on bex’s pinterest board! i have never played the sims, rip, i am a hoe for pretty much all reality shows (my faves are bachelor, love island, and the cheesy netflix ones atm) and i am actually a huge scaredy cat! the last horror movie i watched was ready or not which i actually realy enjoyed but i have maybe watched? ten horror movies in my entire twenty four years of life. wild, i know. oh and i use she / her pronouns for anyone wondering! okay, now that that’s out the way, 

BIO.  being intuitive is just like... i don’t like this and no i will not elaborate

bex is actually a new muse and since she’s new to the group i still want her to have a bit of an air of mystery about her so i will not be elaborating too, too much on her backstory but 

actually a twin! i’d like to put in a wanted connection for her twin at some point because i think it’d be fun if they were both involved in the group but yeah, bex is half of a set. if you are interested in the connection hmu < 3

her and her sibling didn’t want for much at all growing up. their parents were pretty well off and so it wasn’t as if they were struggling. the worst thing about their childhood was that they often moved from city to city to support her father’s job. her dad was an author of supernatural and horror books and so he tended to go wherever the inspiration struck. so bex basically grew up in creepy houses and such! whenever her dad solved the mystery of one place nd finished his novel they would move. 

around the time that bex was six they lived in a very specific house. and when they moved from it bex found herself with this power. she is able to feel what people are feeling when she touches them or feel what someone else was feeling when she touches something that they’ve touched. think theo crain from hill house basically. it wasn’t something she was born with though, and since bex was already a pretty cheerful child with a pretty active imagination her mother tried to talk her out of the whole thing. 

bex’s mother was a child psychologist and it was with her help that bex learned that anything she thought she was feeling or seeing was just in her imagination. she was just really empathetic. and sometimes she found herself with imaginary friends. and maybe sometimes she had strange dreams, but this was all very normal. 

bex didn’t really have any choice but to believe her mom as a child. so for years she just ??? went with her powers unchecked, over stimulated and confused and scared. she didn’t deal with it well. and her parents didn’t understand. 

her dad found it fascinating though. wrote a whole book about her. it quickly became a best seller, and bex, his inspiration, pretty quickly became a bit of a celebrity in the horror novelist community. even bex, who absolutely loved attention, hated the whole thing. but she was too young for anyone to listen to her. 

suffice to say, the moment that bex turned eighteen she dipped. specifically she left to go to university. she studied up and got a bachelors degree in architecture. she is planning to get her masters next because she’s really passionate about her field, but well she stumbled into arcane first. 

it was completely by accident honestly. one day she was just living her life as normally as her life tended to get. and the next moment she saw one of their videos. and it was like everything clicked into place at once. she tried to ignore it, she really did, but it wasn’t long until she was seeing them everywhere. until she found herself drawing the arcane inc logo absently in the margins of her notes, or dreaming about the group at night, or mumbling lines of their show to herself when she was meant to be distractedly humming. it was weird, like really weird, and again bex would have brushed it off as nothing, but i imagine that at some point she actually saw them irl. maybe they reached out to her due to one of her father’s novels and bex likely having lived in that house before, or maybe she stumbled upon them completely coincidentally, but bex might not believe in ghosts but she sure believes in the universe. and who is she to say no to what the universe so obviously wants? details tbd sdkjsd

so here she is! having a good time in her gap year between uni and grad school. i’d say she’s been here since?? june of this year and she’s still going strong. she is still a bit skeptical about some things but she’s having a good time anyways. 

HEADCANNONS.  are my prophetic visions a joke to you

is she a mix of all the characters in hill house,,, maybe so 

for someone so smart bex is also dumb. she still thinks that for the most part she’s really empathetic, like yeah she can touch something and tell you how the last person who touched that thing felt but * bex vc * is it really that big of a deal? i mean it’s basically a party trick dkldsklds honestly bex’s mother just really got into her head a child, but she is prety sensitive to things like touch. tends to get cold really easily in places with spiritual energy so catch her wrapped up like nothing else (tends to always have her sweater over her hands in those places). the type to stick to you like glue and touch you like crazy when you’re in a good mood and keep a good distance away from you when you’re in a bad one. she’s pretty good at comforting and cheering people up, but she will not touch you when you are in a bad mood for the most part cause she doesn’t want those vibes?? gets super caught up in other people’s emotions sometimes, and her own and they all tend to blend together. like if you have a crush on someone and you’re in your feels about it and bex touches you she’s like damn do i have a crush on them? do i have a crush on you? are we about to KISS right now? and she will kiss you then tbh she’s big dumb sometimes smh. this is how she gets herself into trouble. 

in love with love and falls in love often and deeply. like she feeds off her partners emotions a lot too so bex is an a plus girlfriend tbh. things never work out though as bex’s partners usually think things are too intense or bex like feels the slightest inkling that they might want to break up with her and dumps them before they can get the chance, rip 

inspired by this tiktok tbh!

bex is also a diver and has been since she was young, and this is inspired by this tiktok

bisexual!

very fun and easy to get along with honestly. almost always has good vibes. if bex is sad she will simply find someone in a good mood and cling to them for a bit. very hot and cold tbh, like she does not explain why she avoided you a bit for a few days and suddenly wants to hold your hands like rip to the crew sdkjsdk

will respond to any nickname! i put trixie on the app but bex, trixie, bee, beck, trick, bea, and any other nickname will be accepted. bex loves nicknames cause they make her feel closer to people so if your muse wants to give her a nickname,,,, please do 🥺

will do anything to make herself feel good. all feelings are overwhelming for her, especially when she has to take other people’s feelings into account too so she tends to try and enjoy herself at all costs and she is a big fan of the little things. sleeping in, sex, dr*gs, drinking, like blowing bubbles, food, anything that is fun and makes you feel good, bex is into and will do over anything serious any day. 

an extrovert. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS. i can’t talk right now, i’m doing hot girl shit. * summons a malevolent demon *

an ex on bad terms, her twin, an fwb, an ewb, a close friend in the group, someone she has a crush on maybe or vice versa, someone who’s good vibes bex is constantly seeking out, someone who hates her omg, a smoking buddy, someone she formed an instant bond with, a sibling like relationship, a childhood friend she’s reunited with, a fan of her father’s novels, a confidante, someone who makes her feel safe when things get to be a bit too much for her, someone she regularly cheers up, someone bex hates? 

[olivcrfm]

hello! this is my stupid naive child with a heart of gold oliver !  i’m very excited to about him, so pls give me all of your affection & plots 🥺  i wrote like a whole novel under the cut because i had this man for like a year now, so please bare with me

chicago’s very own oliver park-davies has been spotted on madison avenue driving a maroon jeep wrangler , welcome ! your resemblance to charles melton is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty fourth birthday bash . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re withdrawn, but being empathetic might help you . i think being a cancer explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be lazy mornings in bed, getting the job done at the last minute, & a soft voice  . ( i stole the test answers for my college finals to impress my parents ) & ( cis male & he/him) + ( hailey , 19 , she/her, cst)

— “ basics ! ’ 〉

full name. oliver park-davies.

nicknames. oli, ollie, park, davies obviously lmao.

age. twenty-four.

date of birth. june 26.

occupation. singer/songwriter.

sexual orientation. bisexual.

birthplace. new york.

zodiac. cancer.

spoken languages. fluent in too many languages thank you.

— “ backstory! ’ 〉

oliver park-davies was born in chicago to two extremely loving parents, and his seven other siblings of which he was the oldest, they were this gigantic loving family, and everybody wanted to be like them

okay well when i say loving i mean that’s how they appeared on the outside, his family was very broken, his parents constantly on the edge of divorce, him and his siblings didn’t get along at all, and in the park-davies house there was always something to argue about

the park-davies were billionaires, this was due to their extremely successful business endeavors, and knew when and where to invest their money they had enough money to buy whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, they never looked at the price tag, to quote ariana grande, “they want it, they got it.” their business headquarters is in texas! and oliver’s parents constantly just left him n his siblings in chicago while they went to texas

but he spent his summers their and it’s basically home away from home

his parents often tried to basically bribe their kids to love them because they were honestly the worst, they often emotionally abused their children, and neglected them, and the only time that their parents did want anything to do with them is when they needed to make a public appearance

was very much the rich kid that raised by nannies and butlers rather than his actual parents, and in a weird way he sorta became this surrogate parent for his siblings, he was the one they looked up to and came to for advice that sorta thing

oliver,,,just needed something anything to take his mind of it, so immediately he threw himself into studying and books, and to quote matilda, “the books gave him a comforting message...you are not alone.”

his parents ended up figuring out that their son was smart, like hella smart, by 10 he’d mastered latin, and by 11 he was already reading at college level

bUT despite being able to graduate college by 12 at the rate he was going he wanted as normal of a childhood as possible, and so he continued with his regular grade level, and tried his best to be ‘normal’

honestly his love of books got to the point that his room essentially turned into a small library of it’s own, it got to the point where his parents reluctantly gave him his own room to house all of his books

books weren’t the only thing that oliver found his passion for, when he enrolled in his school’s choir, he realized his love for singing

he wanted to share his music with people without having the recognition, so he uploaded a lot of his music to soundcloud under an alias ( vc: conan gray / cavetown i can’t decide yet lmao rip )

he gained a massive following, that not even he expected, which would seem like a great thing if he wasn’t expected by his parents to take on the family business

one day his parents sat him down and he saw it a good a time as ever to tell his parents about the success he hoped to gain from singing, his parents cut him off immediately and told him that his father was suffering from cancer

due to his revelation his parents ostracized him more than they did before, and slowly but surely he began to be iced out, no longer showing up in appearances, and just avoiding any press altogether

as his father got increasingly more sick, oliver began to realize the mistake that he made, and on his death bed oliver promised his father that he would do as both of his parents wished and take over the family business

oliver had the scores to get to any school that he wanted and decided on business school at columbia, where his father was an alumni, the agreement that he had with his mother was that once he graduated he’d begin shadowing his mother to learn to run the company

the school and the city itself was immediately overwhelming to my boy who came from not so humble beginnings in his small town, and he was unsure of where he belonged in this huge school

until!!!!! he found friends!!!! and they made him feel accepted!!! and it was great!!!!

once his friends heard his voice and of his dreams they encouraged him to join the university’s men’s choir, and was prompted by the director to join the university’s theatre department, where he appeared in a overwhelming majority of the school’s plays and musicals

he was discovered one night at this open mic thing he went to and it was great! he was signed to a record deal with a label! and my bby’s dreams were finally coming true!!!

lmao but the one condition that he did have for his label was that he had to graduate school first, and it was accepted

he graduated early! because of course he did only because he stole the test answers because his grades were sorta declining and finals were coming up sooo

his mom was expecting him to come back to texas and maintain the family business, but he pulled a whole uno reverse card, and ended up disappearing from whatever world it is that him mom lived in

he became pretty successful in the music industry, coming from this cool indie artist that only about a few hundred people knew about to this seemingly overnight sensation

my bb is still v e r y unused to the attention, mostly because his parents never gave it to him and he was like, adoration???? attention??? care??? what’s that

has recently started a band! consisting of people he met a columbia, so him, a guy friend, and olivia dkfsjdkj guy friend remains unnamed because it’s a wc

— “ personality / headcanons ! ’ 〉

is a huge dork that just loves to make people smile and when he sees people genuinely happy his heart melts a little bit inside

is very much the shoulder to cry on for people, and even if he doesn’t know you he’ll sit and listen to your whole life story and just try to cheer you up because that’s just in his nature?

has started his acting career! first it was just cute small little cameos in movies and tv shows, but now it’s turned into him getting his own show!!! he couldn’t be more excited tbh

remember how i said that he’d sit and listen to a stranger cry? if he shows even the slightest bit of emotion that isn’t happiness he starts malfunctioning and just trying to make the people around him happy

he’s honestly probably said, “alright i have to go back to being funny again.” to himself so many times before??? he’s so broken on the inside but has just put up so many barriers

despite the many walls he has to protect himself from other people, he’s just the nicest purest soul, he treats everyone like his family, and just has the insatiable need to be liked dkkfkdkd, pls be fragile with my boy thanks

ollie is left-handed

loves singing show tunes and has gone to too many shows on broadway????

has a special room for playbills because he likes getting them signed and they’re very important to him

hates talking about his family and will probably cry if you make him bring them up lmao

he’s such a himbo ... just kind , beefy , and stupid

he often just dumbs himself down, not because he thinks he’s better than other or something weird like that, buuuut he feels like people will judge him and make fun of him like others did when he was younger

— “ wanted plots ! ’ 〉

some potential wc i’m terrible at thinking of these so please don’t feel limited by this list!

best friends!!!!

roommates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! think this, this, this, this

guys he can hang out with sdksdflfkj idk a close knit group i’m thinking of ross, chandler, and joey or smth he’d be joey obvi

romantic plots can fuck me up any day of the week

i’m a slut for a good exes plot

unrequited crush, it can be that he has feelings for someone way out of his league, or someone has a crush on him and he’s just oblivious 

someone who broke his heart n inspired his music

band members!!!! would’ve had to attended columbia 

someone who he’s a good influence on

bad influence, he’s too good corrupt him do it cowards

former / current hookups 

ex friends 

straight up enemies

smth like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen

[billdenbrough]

so, a while ago, @audraphillipps tagged this post with a tag saying that bichie were on ron/harry levels, and like... i have literally not stopped thinking about it since? i was talking to @neibolttrio when nat’s reblog popped up on my dash and i went completely feral (ara can confirm, and also was right there with me) bc there’s just like. so much there!!

i know i said in the neville/eddie ask that i tend to think mapping characters onto each other is reductive, and i stand by that (there’s a difference between loose parallels and trying to make them fit neatly, you know? and sometimes equating the characters isn’t the most effective way to express that), and it’s not even what nat was saying, but like. there are parallels

just to get the basics down: bill/harry, richie/ron

(which is interesting bc @benverlesbians and i were having a discussion (well, in tags) where i posited stan as logos and eddie as pathos, and bc jem is galaxy brain, she carried it home to position richie as ethos, and i stand by our choices, but for the golden trio, i’d put harry as ethos and ron as pathos and hermione as logos (like i think there’s other combinations that fit too, but i think this fits best for me), which is interesting. not bc i think the parallels need to map perfectly, but it’s just really fucking fascinating to me how people can shift in different contexts, like new dynamics lead to new positionings... [siken vc: what can you know about a person? they shift in the light. you can’t light up all sides at once] anyway tangent over)

like on the most basic of levels, bill leads his friendship group, and richie is his Loyal Best Friend who follows him everywhere, even places he doesn’t want to go (ron LITERALLY invokes the idea of following. “follow the spiders,” he says, twelve and terrified and going anyway, because harry’s going, because hermione’s hurt and needs them, because hagrid’s been accused, because ron loves his friends)

i think something we don’t talk about super often (at least recently, i don’t want to presume about earlier content i missed) is how anger plays its part in bill’s story, in terms of the degree to which it motivates his quest to kill It. like at one point in the book he even frames it as “using his friends, risking their lives — to settle the score for his dead brother”, which i think is indicative of the anger/desire for revenge that drives it (and that’s not all that motivates him, but it’s definitely a major component)—-that sense of revenge isn’t present as much in the films, mostly because bill is desperate to try hold onto the idea that georgie is still alive (haha, harry after sirius goes through the veil, anyone?), but it’s still there, i think, mostly in the moments bill charges off (even when all his friends are shouting at him to wait or not go) bc he’s so determined that It won’t get away, not this fucking time. and that’s something true of harry too, the way his anger can consume him. we see it throughout the whole series, but order of the phoenix is the most relevant part rn, with how enraged he is after sirius’ death. how gasping and jagged and burning with fury he is. he tries to hurt bellatrix, wants to hurt her in ways we’ve never seen from him, and it’s desperate furious grief leading him to chase her from the room with the veil. and there’s a line, a little later, that always hits me in the chest: when harry is shouting I DON’T CARE and destroying dumbledore’s office, the reply is “you care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it”. which honestly is just generally applicable to the losers, given how much heart they have and how much trauma they endure, but i look at baby book bill, with his revenge-seeking, and i look at jaeden’s bill, with his trembling voice but resolute expression as he gives the “walking into this house is easier than walking into my own” speech, and this quote hits me in the chest

(wrt the bill quote abt risking their lives: it’s important, i think, bc it’s incredibly cognisant of what he’s asking, which is illuminating. but ig to balance it against some things losers say, so that it’s... like he leads them there, absolutely, but they all follow him, and that’s important too. they do choose to, and their choice matters, it’s not just on him. anyway something eddie says, while looking at bill (and it’s not like. in the context of dying for bill’s quest, but it’s got the love and hero worship mention that suggests it applies to more than just the moment), “some stuff has to be done even if there is a risk. that’s the first important thing i ever found out i didn’t find out from my mother”. also, when the werewolf has bill, he’s shouting for richie to go, to get out, and richie stays and tries to save him instead. and i think both their choices there matter)

richie, as much as he Jokes, is one of the more pragmatic and resourceful losers, and really fucking smart, and so often underestimated. (hello, master strategist ron weasley. hello, prefect who literally nobody expected. hello, insecurity) like... we all know how richie is brainy, but also, like. when he’s not clouded by his own fears, he sees things with clarity so sharp it could cut you. (“It’s a monster,” Richie said flatly. “Some kind of monster. Some kind of monster right here in Derry. And it’s killing kids.”) there’s a line, bill says it when talking abt richie and eddie in fights, and it’s about how richie simply can’t keep his mouth shut, like he has to insult bowers, even when he’s got his hands on him. which is actually pretty harry energy, but ron’s the closest thing amongst any of the hp characters to a trashmouth, ron’s the one who doesn’t hesitate to be rude on behalf of his friends (harry tends to be worked up when he says these things; ron’s just naturally got that energy. “light reading? that’s light reading?” is the same energy as “can only virgins see this? is that why i’m not seeing this shit?” don’t @ me), ron’s the one who drags harry for filth when he’s being an idiot. ron follows harry, even when he’s mad about it. and boy oh boy. richie is ambitious, richie is always practicing his Voices because he wants them to be worth a damn one day, richie is constantly trying. and ron’s erised is based in simply wanting to stand out in a family full of people he thinks are more interesting or valued than him, amongst best friends who are more incredible, which is a different motivation, sure, but look at his dreams. look at how high he rises when he lets himself want it. richie’s always doing Voices because it’s easier to Pretend to be someone else than be himself, and ron is constantly scrabbling for purchase in a world where he thinks he’ll never be worthy

(there’s room for discussion about how ron’s fears are primarily creature based—spiders, werewolves, the grim; how sirius hurt him, even unintentionally, how he was betrayed by peter, how his father was attacked by a snake, how his brother was attacked by a werewolf—and how richie has his famous werewolf, but that’s more abstract of an analysis than i’m doing here, i’m just thinking about the parallels, so this is more throwing a thought out.)

and, boy oh boy. my favourite part of this. i mean, we get ron and harry always together (consider: neibolt house (in the book, when bill and richie go there; in the film, when they’re confronting the doors, separated from eddie) as their chamber of secrets), them being best friends, ron having harry’s back even against his own family (ron angrily tearing up percy’s letter and calling him a git, esp after harry doesn’t know how to react in a way that doesn’t show how much it upsets him, has my entire fucking heart), harry having ron as “what [he’ll] sorely miss”... but. but but but. we also have the goblet of fire fight. even more crucially, we have the blow up in deathly hallows. they fight, they fight, and it’s bad. harry and bill you could compare a little with their focus, ig, but the crucial part is ron and richie. ron throws harry’s parents in his face when he’s terrified for his family (and under the influence of a horcrux); richie says georgie’s dead and for the first time all film, doesn’t take it back, not when eddie’s gone and stanley’s terrified and ben’s leaking blood and richie doesn’t want to die, doesn’t want his friends to die. it’s best friends fighting viciously, with something too sharp to hold—-it’s words that cut like knives, fists in the middle of the street and leaving when they’ve always followed you.

but. it’s also coming back. when harry needs him, ron is there. they haven’t had a chance to talk about anything, but ron is saving him. when bev goes missing, when bill goes to richie, even though thing are still fractured, still angry, richie comes back. richie follows. even when they haven’t talked about anything as far as we can tell, even when there’s no resolution to their fight, richie’s the one who stands up and makes the choice that mobilises the losers, the one who tells bill everything bad that’s happened from following him but follows him yet again, doesn’t leave him behind, stays and saves him. it’s about the coming back, the saving, the i’d follow you anywhere of it all. like god but georgie/bill is the dynamic that informs chapter one & richie/bill is the dynamic that drives it // lily/harry is the dynamic that informs the hp series but ron/harry is the one that bookends it—-the first person he ever chooses, who ever chooses him in return, and he’s right there at the end, when all is well. billrichie ronharry best friend RIGHTS

not really part of this but other things that make me scream: bill and richie on silver when richie’s catatonic/harry and ron when ron’s out of it bc of the brains (and also, now that i think abt it, injured from sirius’ bite). ron clinging to harry’s side in the forbidden forest w aragog/“i’m stickin’ with you, big bill”. ron imitating harry’s parseltongue to get to the chamber of secrets, taking hermione down the path they took/richie remembering confronting the doors with bill, trying to take eddie down the path they took.

[jjoelswatch]

I HAVE SEEN THE WAR OF THE STARS

This was a very different Star Wars movie in the best ways possible. Whether you loved it or hated it, this movie would not have been possible without SW:TLJ, full stop. Personally, I liked this movie a lot. SW:ROTS is my favorite just because it’s a) the movie that got me to like Star Wars and b) Anakin, so nothing really compares to that for me but. I think I can largely attribute what I did like about this movie to how much it reminded me of story arcs in Clone Wars or Rebels (namely Mortis, Malachor, and the World Between Worlds), with the little caveats/side quests and side characters and the focus on arcane Force powers.

What I liked:

Kylo Ren and Rey being collective badasses on two opposite spectrums of the Force. You really get the sense that as things continue to become unbalanced, the more and more their powers grow. This movie is truly a love letter to fans of both Rey and Kylo Ren, because they both have largely satisfying developments (in their powers and their character growth). I’ve never hated Kylo Ren like a lot of people do. I like his character, I think he’s - at least - cool. This movie really showcased how formidable he was right off the bat-- from Title Scroll to opening scene. And if this movie showed how powerful he was, it REALLY doubled down on how strong Rey is. More on this throughout this ramble post.

Holy Sith lore, Batman.

Rey’s training sequence was everything Luke’s training sequence in SW:TESB should have been (limited ofc by film techniques of its time); I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know a lot of people are complaining about it, since she adamantly chose not to walk the path of a Jedi, but I liked that Leia got to be her Jedi Master.

Even though it was in the trailer, Rey flipping over the Kylo’s ship and slicing the wing off with her lightsaber was rad af.

Also followed by another rad af moment of her Force pulling the ship, like damn girl.

My face when Rey used Sith lightning was one of genuine shock like holy shit. This is also when I knew the “Force bloodline” twist ahead of time. It allowed me to become (mostly) okay with it. But damn, even Kylo Ren is like “...fuck”.

AUDIBLE SIGH OF RELIEF THAT CHEWIE DIDN’T DIE. Actual personification of that one bear vine.

Former spice-runner Poe is...sexy. What a concept.

Kijimi planet sequence was really cool. It also hammered home the entire space nazi motif in a very in-your-face way, which I appreciated because I feel like people try to rationalize the Empire and First Order as not being that, when that’s literally what they are. It also introduced Zorii Bliss, who I really enjoyed.

I really liked the style of the Force bond/Force Dyad moments in this movie. We got a good handful of them in TLJ and they were cool (and confirmed to not just be Snoke causing them with that movie’s end scene), but these were better. Just the way the scenes transition and the tangible objects being transferred between them.

Her parentage reveal, the mirror of the “join me” scene from TLJ [chef’s kiss] *

General Hux being the spy really reminded me of Alexsandr Kallus being Fulcrum in SW:Rebels, except Kallus was hotter and had less petty reasons for betraying the Empire.

The space horse...tusk...creatures. I love them.

Rey and Kylo Ren’s fight on the Death Star wreckage. Finally, at long last, we get to see some prequels level Jedi flips and jumps. FINALLY!

Leia’s last sacrifice c’:

Rey striking down Kylo Ren, healing him, telling him that she had wanted to take his hand when he offered, but she’d wanted to take Ben’s hand. So perfect.

Ben and Han’s mirrored scene from the bridge scene in TFA with Kylo and Han, line for line, with the right choice made this time. Just the combined effort of his father’s memory and his mother’s sacrifice having him throw his lightsaber into the ocean, killing Kylo Ren and becoming Ben Solo once more. So emotionally satisfying. **

Also: “Dad...” “I know.” very nice callback to TESB.

Force Ghost!Luke c’: catching that lightsaber as Rey goes to throw it into the flames; nice resolution to Luke’s arc from TLJ.

LUKE AND LEIA TRAINING SCENE FLASHBACK!!

Kylo Ren’s redemption/turn to the light was something that I thought I would hate, but I actually thought it was the one consistent character arc in the sequel films. I actually enjoyed it a lot, like everything about him turning to the light was handled well and you can track its path through the entire sequel trilogy. Don’t @ me.

Ben doing the classic Han Solo No Look Shot-- with Lando’s blaster (how did he get that?)

Ben absolutely butchering the Knights of Ren wearing the space equivalent of a sweater and jeans. Just the epitome of chaotic Skywalker/Solo energy. Iconic.

Enjoyed Ben’s little shrug of “finally” when Rey used their Force bond to transfer him one of the lightsabers to use. Was sitting there watching him fight like, get this man a lightsaber.

Also, regarding that moment, just the pause within their Force bond, actually, truly seeing each other.

All the voices of the Jedi. Chills. I heard Luke, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Windu, Kanan, Anakin. Ahsoka. ***

Rey’s sacrifice. Ben’s sacrifice. For a moment, I thought they were going to kill both of them and Palpatine (which I would have hated and appreciated at once; zero it out, bring balance to the Force via a flatline), or leave Rey dead and Ben alive to be haunted by his own deeds and demons. It was a surprise that Ben could use Force healing in the way Rey displayed earlier in the film, but a good one. Thanos vc: a soul for a soul.

“Ben” c’: such a bittersweet moment of acknowledgement and redemption tbh. ****

Rey burying Luke (Anakin’s) and Leia’s sabers on Tatooine c’: *****

Rey’s yellow lightsaber made from her staff. I wonder if it’s double-bladed (I bet it is).

I had a feeling one way or another that by the end of the movie Rey would be taking the Skywalker name for herself. I’m sure this made a lot of people angry. I’m not one of them.

What I didn’t like:

Not much tbh!

The Reylo kiss I guess, since it felt shoehorned in since they were both enemies 12 hours prior (if that). It would have felt more natural if it had just been a brief embrace or (as a friend suggested) a forehead touch. I’m totally okay with Rey and Ben having this strong connection through the Force, but no matter where you stand on the idea of those characters being romantically involved, you have to admit that they just weren’t there yet to have that kiss. ******

Conflicted that the Skywalker bloodline is gone. Like, trust me, I know the point - or one of the major ones - of this film is that blood doesn’t dictate choices/blood isn’t important, but like...I really love the Skywalkers, okay?

Palpatine being alive in this pretty much invalidates Anakin’s journey in the first six episodes, which sucks because in this house we love and appreciate Anakin Skywalker. You get a sense that Palpatine’s return was definitely never the end goal for this trilogy. It doesn’t feel planned because it’s never explained how he’s back, how he survived. We’re left to assume that it’s Sith power sustaining him. We never find out how Palpatine (who’s basically a zombie, I mean, look at him) managed to create a massive fleet of Star Destroyers capable of destroying planets. That’s just how it is, deal with it.

Asterisks/Questions Unanswered/Misc.:

* Still can’t believe Rey Palpatine fan theories DID THAT. Press F to pay respects to my Rey Kenobi theories (which would have made more sense with a Force bond but WHATEVER).

** This is where I would have wanted Anakin’s Force Ghost moment to be, especially since Kylo Ren idolized the ideal of Vader for so long, I felt it would have been a nice touch to have Anakin step in here, while across the galaxy Rey is being reached out to by Luke. Ultimately though, I think Han worked best.

*** Look, I know Ahsoka’s voice was in the past Jedi/Force Ghost moment, but like...my girl ain’t dead. Togruta live for over 200+ years, plus she was resurrected with the power of The Daughter. She just Force Skyped in to give Rey an inspirational line. Also Ahsoka is...not a Jedi, so ? interesting.

On that note, the above scene also reminds me 100% of Ezra’s moment in The World Between Worlds.

**** Really wish redemption didn’t always have to mean death, but I also understand that just like in ROTJ with Vader, there was a slim-to-none chance of a future for Ben after doing everything he’d done. But I also think death is...an easy out, when you don’t want to think about how a character can continue to atone for their deeds. I would have liked to see Ben live.

***** As for burying Luke and Leia’s sabers in the sands of Tatooine, Luke never associated himself with Anakin’s saber, so she buried Anakin’s saber in a place he hated and associated with so much pain and loss.

****** Reylo has never really been a ship I sailed, though I’ve never expressly hated it (there are certainly far more uncomfortable scenes with Anakin and Padma in AOTC than there have been between Rey and Kylo Ren in the sequel films), but if one of them is going to die, don’t have them kiss. If you’re going to have them kiss, let them live.

Finn never really did get to tell Rey what he wanted to tell her, huh? I joke. I think it’s obvious by the final act of the movie that he wanted to tell her that he could feel the Force, that he’s Force sensitive. This was hinted at in TFA during several beats (especially when he fights Kylo Ren-- anyone can use a lightsaber, but it’s kinda curious that he could hold his own for a bit).

This movie radiates a bi energy in ways I can’t describe. All the stuff with Poe being real concerned about what Finn wanted to tell Rey when he thought they were going to die? Poe and Zorii? Finn and Jannah? Poe and Rey? Really can’t believe they cut away before Finn and Poe kissed in the end celebration scene.

Ben Solo > Kylo Ren

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1303

Monday, March 2, 2020

 This is a public service announcement. You will be ticketed for parking on the street during a parking ban even though the snow has already been cleared from the roads. We got a ticket parked in front of our house last week because we couldn't get into our driveway after the grader left a big snow bank at the end of it. I hope to spare anyone from being dinged with what I think is an unfair fine.

 Amazing Spider-Man: Daily Bugle #2 - Mat Johnson (writer) Mack Chater (art pages 1-12) Francesco Mobili (art pages 13-20) Dono Sanchez-Almara, Protobunker & Peter Pantazis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I can't read the rest of this 5-issue mini. The art really bothered me this issue. It was hard to tell what was going on the first few pages and then seeing Peter Parker in civvies looking almost exactly like the bad guy confused me further. There are interesting mysteries about Spidey's webbing and a Wilson Fisk involvement with an explosion, but this story probably won't matter in the grand scheme of things, so I don't think I'll miss anything if I bail out here.

 Punisher Soviet #4 - Garth Ennis (writer) Jacen Burrows (pencils) Guillermo Ortego (inks) Nolan Woodard (colours) Rob Steen (letters). Frank and Valery go after Konstantin by kidnapping his trophy wife. She's amenable to divorce by Punisher. Thank Garth for improving my mood.

 Basketful of Heads #5 - Joe Hill (writer) Leomacs (art) Riccardo La Bella (additional pencils) Dave Stewart (colours) Deron Bennett (letters). Everything leading up to this issue has been circumstantial. Now the villain tells the complete story. I'm rooting for June to survive this mess.

 Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #3 - James Tynion IV (writer) Steve Epting & Javier Fernandez (art) Nick Filardi (colours) Travis Lanham (letters). Heh, it's the Joker who helps Lex beat the Batman Who Laughs. It looks like next issue's pulse pounding conclusion will be Lex and his super villains versus the Batman Who Laughs and his infected super heroes. It's been a while since the Main Man has been in a comic that I've read.

 Avengers #31 - Jason Aaron (writer) Gerardo Zaffino, Geraldo Borges, Szymon Kudranski, Oscar Bazaldua, Robert Gill & Mattia De Iulis (art) Rachelle Rosenberg & Mattia De Iulis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I haven't seen Tony Stark in a while so I assumed he was dead. Nope. He was zapped a million years into the past by the master manipulator Mephisto. The devil tries to get Tony's soul. This is a wonderful full issue of Iron Man and if Jason wrote an Iron Man book, I'd read it.

 Amethyst #1 - Amy Reeder (story & art) Gabriela Downie (letters). I remember reading the original Amethyst book when it hit the racks in 1983 with the Ernie Colon art. It was fun and weird with a plucky heroine. This new Wonder Comics book has the appeal of having art by Amy Reeder who wowed me with her work on Madame Xanadu and Rocket Girl. Here she is writing as well and the art and story is tight and concise. This is a nice substitute for the dearly departed Naomi book.

 Avengers of the Wastelands #2 - Ed Brisson (writer) Jonas Scharf (art) Neeraj Menon (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). It's the origin of Captain America of the Wastelands. His name is Grant. I think this is a great way to change tried and true Marvel characters to make them fresh and new. Having them fight an evil Doctor Doom is nice and simple. Four Avengers may become five but they have to contend with a super villain first.

 Suicide Squad #3 - Tom Taylor (writer) Bruno Redondo (art) Adriano Lucas (colours) Wes Abbott (letters). The new Squad's first mission under Lok's leadership does not go according to plan. Neither are these super villains what they seem. This is why I read Tom Taylor books. Forget about any new Crises and DCeased and pick up this most excellent comic book for some straight up action and skulduggery.

 Kill Lock #3 - Livio Ramondelli (story & art) Tom B. Long (letters). I get why the calligraphy font is used in the Wraith's word balloons but man, is it hard to read. This issue explains why The Kid is innocent and shouldn't be branded. The four droids find the one who can lead them to the Kill Lock's off switch but she betrays them. This universe of sentient robots is pretty cool.

 Jessica Jones: Blind Spot #4 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Mattia De Iulis (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Each issue has started off with Jessica held captive by the bad guy. The end of this issue reveals who that is and how she was killed and resurrected. I am looking forward to the conclusion to see how she defeats the villain.

 Batman Superman #7 - Joshua Williamson (writer) Nick Derington (art) Dave McCaig (colours) John J. Hill (letters). A new story starts here. Part 1 of "The Kandor Compromise" pits the World's Finest duo against Ra's Al Ghul and General Zod. One of the bad guys is working with the good guys. I got bored of the fight between Superman and Rogol Zaar so what happened to the city of Kandor was a surprise to me. I'm interested to see the final fate of the shrunken city.

 Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey and Emma Frost #1 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Russell Dauterman (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This mostly wordless $4.99 US one-shot will be a quick read but I read it twice just to soak in the beautiful art. The story starts with the discovery Storm's body and ends with a problem after Ororo is resurrected. This leads into a story where Jean, Emma, Logan and Scott will have to save Storm again.

 Leviathan Dawn #1- Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Alex Maleev (art) Josh Reed (letters). Leviathan succeeded in shutting down every spy agency and the leader has been revealed to be an ex-spy named Mark Shaw. The good guys are still trying to fight back but they're going to need help. Time for Kingsley Jacobs to start up Check Mate again. I like the players he's gathered. I'm looking forward to watching this game unfold.

 Finger Guns #1 - Justin Richards (writer) Val Halvorson (art) Rebecca Nalty (colours) Taylor Esposito (letters). And now for something completely different. This new urban fantasy introduces two teenagers with a weird power. Wes discovers that when he shoots people with his left hand he can make them angry. Sadie can calm people down when she uses her right finger gun. They meet by accident at the mall and try to get a handle on their newfound powers. It's a cool concept and I wonder where these kids are going to end up.

 Fantastic Four: Grimm Noir #1 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Ron Garney (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This one's all about Ben's bad dreams. I thought the bad guy was Nightmare but it's another one of those mystical villains that generally mess with Doctor Strange. I expected some sort of Mickey Spillane type story but there's no murder, just a pretty dame needing rescue. It's a nice character study of the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing.

 Detective Comics #1020 - Peter J. Tomasi (writer) Brad Walker (pencils) Andrew Hennessy (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Two-Face is back and he's more bipolar than ever. This is what I like to see, an old villain presented in a slightly new way. We still have the scarred coin dictating how Harvey acts but there's a new twist with a cult of fanatics and the Church of the Two Strikes. I love how the first page hints at the return of the Court of Owls too.

 Falcon & Winter Soldier #1 - Derek Landy (writer) Federico Vicentini (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This 5-issue team-up starts off with a heavily armed and armoured hit squad attacking Bucky Barnes in his home. The Winter Soldier emerges unscathed and hops his motorcycle to find out who sent the killers. Meanwhile Sam Wilson is searching for a missing vet. The two meet at a government agency office where all the staff are dead. Wanting to know who's doing all the killing has got me interested in reading the rest but when a preppy killer shows up and kicks both of the heroes asses I decided to put this mini on my "must read" list. The kid's name is the Natural. Picture a blonde Damian Wayne in a pair of Chuck Taylors.

 The Amazing Spider-Man #40 - Nick Spencer (writer) Iban Coello & Ze Carlos (art) Brian Reber & Peter Pantazis (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). The fight between Spider-Man and Chance had to do with a bet that Chance could get one of Spidey's web shooters. What bothered me was how easily that was done and Spider-Man's lack of urgency to get it back. There's a couple of foreshadowing scenes that will keep me reading however. One involves the Clairvoyant device and the other is who Norah Winters is working with.

 X-Men #7 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Leinil Francis Yu (art) Sunny Gho (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This issue is dedicated to a new Mutant Ritual called the Crucible. It's a lot shorter than calling it the Arena of Death and Rebirth. It shows how mutants who have lost their powers can get them back. But first we have to endure a deep philosophical discussion between Cyclops and Nightcrawler. It's a real snoozer if you're an action fan.

 Action Comics #1020 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) John Romita Jr. (pencils) Klaus Janson (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). I wish they would stop with the deceiving covers. It looks like Superman is trying to come between Lex Luthor and Leviathan but what actually happens inside is Superman fighting Lex and the Legion of Doom. If it weren't for Young Justice helping out I would have found this issue boring.

 X-Men/Fantastic Four #2 - Chip Zdarsky (writer) Terry Dodson (pencils) Rachel Dodson, Karl Story & Ransom Getty (inks) Laura Martin (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). There's a lot of heroes accusing heroes of shenanigans concerning the disappearance of Franklin and Valeria. They are actually guests of Doctor Doom. Victor wants to reverse what Reed did to his son and I want to know why. With the X-Men converging on Doom Island, good old Doc Doom is prepared for an attack.

 X-Force #8 - Benjamin Percy (writer) Bazaldua (art) Guru-eFX (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Why did Oscar Bazaldua stop using his first name in the credits? Domino and Colossus attack the flesh factory making assassins using Neena's DNA. The organisation funding the flesh factory has a mysterious benefactor and I'm hanging around to find out who that is. I wish they would change either Sage or Jubilee's costume. I keep getting them confused.

[tenjima-a]

     Maou vc: *chuckles in mixed signals*

     Sometimes I wonder if I’m pushing Maou’s soulless but vaguely threatening and also oddly seductive manner of talking too much, but then I review their myroom lines for the 100th time and-

Maou’s bond 5:

“I am the Demon King Nobunaga, who’s been reborn by transcending the Heaven of Pleasure and became the enemy of gods and Buddha and all living beings. And so, just what kind of person are you? I am not asking for your name, I’m talking about your innermost nature. No, directly inquiring is unneeded. Your existence really amuses me and angers me. That’s surely how humans are. Fufu, so be it, live as you please and die as you wish. This Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, Oda Nobunaga will be watching.”

The thing about Maou is that I’m not entirely sure if they’re foreshadowing the Master’s inevitable fate and telling you that they’re just going to stand there as they watch you fail and fall to your doom out of pure amusement... or if this is their way of confessing their ‘affection’ for their vassal and telling them that they intend to spend the rest of their vassal’s mortal life watching over them... Maybe it’s both? It’s probably both... yeah...

Maou’s dialogue 3:

“Servant and Master, huh. Normally, something like employing me would be the height of disrespect and insolence. I would decapitate you immediately, but if you weren't around, it would be impossible for me to materialize, so it can not be helped. ...What was that thing called? ...Aah, that's right, it was "win-win". Win-win. Uhahahahahahaha, win-win.

Gotta love how calmly Maou makes these casual reminders that they could kill you if you do anything that displeases them so better not get too familiar with them. They’re not even angry or annoyed, they just state it as a fact. ( Ominous... ) Also, it’s so ?????? how amused and entertained they become as soon as they realize that they can’t kill the Master just because they feel like it??? or because it’s a ‘win-win’ situation for the two of them, but honestly how can anyone win-win with Maou? That’s bullshit. Master vc: *chuckles nervously while Avenger, aka the hollow existence, suddenly starts laughing and saying ‘win-win’ showing more emotion in that precise moment than ever before.*

Also, I already reblogged the voice lines, but... I don’t know??? There’s something so very odd about the way they say things??? Like it’s terrifying but in a hot way??? How do you do it, Maou?

Maou’s birthday wishes:

“So it is the day you were born. Hmm, I feel like tea utensils wouldn't cut it after all we've been through. That's right, I know, just tell me what you wish for. Uhahahahaha, there is no need to hesitate, while there's nothing I wouldn't plunder, I'm also willing to give you anything you wish for.” 

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT!!! STOP!! PLAYING!!! GAMES!!! MAOU!! WHY YOU GOTTA BE LIKE THAT!!!

[forthegrail]

Shirou!Percival Interlude

Lingering wills: The choice to become a Hero of Justice

Text Log.

Mashu: Mmmmm Master vc: Mash what’s wrong?

Mashu: I don’t know, but I’ve been having strange feelings all day, as if I feel like crying but don’t know why.  I’ve tried everything to make it go away, I thought it might’ve just been a chemical imbalance but it seems I was wrong.

Shirou: I’m afraid that’s because of me, hello Master. Mashu, I’m afraid I’ve come with a urgent matter that needs to be resolved. It seems my saint graph has been rejecting my existence. Percival has stopped sharing his existence with me. I can’t even hear his voice anymore.

Mashu: Rejecting your existence? I’ve never heard of such a phenomenon before, has something happened to Percival? This morning when he brought be breakfast in bed with fresh squeeze juice and the latest copy of Sh***** J*** he seemed his usual self to me.

Master: Percival brings you breakfast every morning?               Did we really need to censor Sh***** J***?

Shirou: I had the same thought but when I spoke to him he said that nothing was wrong, but he did give me some advice.

n  Flashback

Percival: You can’t feel the me that you fused with anymore….mmm today is nothing important so you haven’t forgotten a birthday, and you’ve been a good boy as far my stalking has showed me…

Shirou: Perci get serious! This is very important without the ability to trace my weapons I’m not going to be able to be of assistance to Master or Mashu!

Percival: I am serious, I know myself better than anyone and the only thing that would make him outright try and end your shared existence would be because he’s upset at you directly. Otherwise you’d just be upset and take your aggression out passive aggressively like me.

Shirou: So what should I do?

Percival: Confront him, I’m a reasonable guy…..Well when it comes to the people I care about most I’m reasonable and seeing as I lent you my body, my memories, and entrusted the hero of justice title and the sword Galahad gave me I can’t help but think he trusts you even more then he would me.

Shirou: But how?! He won’t speak to me, I can’t hear his voice or hear his heart beat with mine. It’s like he’s not even with me anymore!

Percival: Maybe he’s not, maybe he’s hiding in the one place where you two can speak to each other. A world where reality’s fabrications are designed for the specific needs of fulfilling dreams and miracles can take place. Whatever happens I know you can do it, Kiritsugu and I always had faith in you. Whatever happens remember that you saved both of us from the darkness in our hearts…my little brother.

Shirou: ….I see thank you Perci.

n  Flashback end

Master: So you’re gonna use your noble phantasm to confront Percival               What connection does this have to Mashu’s pains?  

Shirou: That’s the idea; my best guess is as for why Mashu is hurting so much must be because of the bond between most of our servants. Perci  loved Galahad that much is clear from the memories I’ve seen of them. So much so even this resonation is possible in a world of miracles.  

Mashu: Percival…It seems Galahad must be very upset if the pain is this severe.

Shirou: I’m sorry for dragging you into a family dispute like this, but will you come with me to confront this problem?

Master: Of course, I’m happy to help.               I can’t have my favorite Kohai hurting without doing anything to help.  

Mashu: F…favorite? There is no need to apologize in a way you’re family to us here too.

Shirou: Mashu, Master…Thank you for this! Alright Servant Percival deploying noble phantasm, I am the bone of my sword.

Steel is my body and fire is my blood.

I have created over a thousand blades.

Unaware of Despair,

Nor aware of Loneliness.

Withstood sacrifice to create weapons, remembering the love of another.

I have no regrets. I am his legacy!

A hero is born, Unlimited Dream works!

-          In a instance Master, Mashu are enveloped in a soft light appearing in the endless fields of Camelot. A pleasant field with a castle off in the distance that can never be reached. Standing in the center of the grass is a familiar figure. Percival stood back straightened hands on his sword the exact same pose Both Chaldea Percival and Shirou made when summoned.

Shirou:….

Mashu:….Percival…

Master: ….              Percival?

Percival: Hello Master of Chaldea that is currently in contract with Shirou Emiya, Galahads vessel it’s also good to see you, I’d ask if you were happy to see me but I already overheard everything. You shouldn’t had brought them here Shirou. They have no business butting in our family affairs.

Shirou: Galahad is worried about you, Mashu is worried about you, I’M worried about you! Why have you severed our bond? I’m being the Hero of Justice you always wanted me to be so why are you trying to separate us!?

Percival:….

Mashu: Percival, you have to tell us what’s going on, why are you suddenly rebelling against senpai? Why are you suddenly against Shirou?

Percival: ….I really am a monster aren’t I?

Master: …..               What do you mean?

Percival: You were such a young boy, you had no one…and Kiritsugu and I took you in. We gave you a home, hope, family. But it costed you so much, we forced fed you hopes and dreams that you never wanted. I forced you into taking a title and name that were never meant for you, in my selfish act of extending your life you are now here chained down by a contract forced to fight for a world that isn’t ours. I forced my love on you and all these new memories and emotions confiding you into a nightmare that you can never escape. I love you too much to let this continue further, I’m going to kill you Shirou.

Shirou:!? Mashu!? Master: Kill Shirou?!               You can’t be serious!

Percival: I’m very serious, in this world of dreams any miracles can happen. That is the reality that we have created for ourselves. A beautiful dream that shall go on forever endlessly fighting as a Hero of Justice until our spirit breaks and you become something similar to the red archer, or even that alter that carries the same name in time. I refuse to throw this fate onto my little brother, so I’m going to do the one thing a big brother can when watching his little sibling suffer with no escape other than death. I’m going to save you. Then when this dream ends, and when I am alone again I will destroy this version of my saint graph to the very core burning it in flame so that this existence can ever be summoned again. Forgive me; hate me in your final moments. Master of Chaldea in this world my power is beyond then what you can imagine. This is my dream! This is the world where my nightmares manifest I do not wish to kill you, but I will not let you stop this. I’ll simply disarm you and beat you into submission so that you cannot interfere.

Shirou:….Percival…

Mashu: Master Servant Percival’s power is steadily rising! Preparing to engage combat! Waiting for your orders.

Master:  There is no way we will let you hurt our friend!              Mashu, protect this beautiful dream!

Mashu: Understood Master!

-          Combat happens, Servant Percival is defeated-

Percival: Ugh…-heavy breathing-

Shirou& Mashu: AHHHH

Percival:….(Galahad…is stopping my ambition…that selfish fool…)

Mashu: Lord Camelot! Shirou: Trace On! Excalibur Gallatin!  

-Percival ‘s armor is cut through shattering as his body starts to give away becoming translucent-

Percival: Ahh…it seems you’ve regained your power completely Shirou, I’m glad. I knew I didn’t stand a chance once I saw that spark in your eyes. But still…

Shirou: Perc—Big brother Percival, what happens now? Are you going to permanently disappear?

Percival: Sadly I cannot, our souls are connect but the balance has shifted, your soul is dominating mine, all the power I had held back in order to summon myself has been drained from me. All that will happen is that I will return to simply being your guide. A soft voice that whispers reminders of how proud I am of you.

Mashu: Percival, I felt so upset fighting you. I didn’t want to hurt you and yet I was angry that you would step this far selfishly. Shirou is our friend, he has his own right to decide if he wanted to stay here with us or end his own life. He might be your little brother but that doesn’t mean you decide if he lives or dies. Everything has a right to live and to die.

Master: Everyone has the right to decide               If they want to live or to die.

Percival: ......Well spoken…from the heart. Maybe that’s why I was enjoying our fight so much, Mashu you really are Galahads legacy just as Shirou’s mine. You’ve taken his strength and ambitions and made them your own beautiful dream. I can’t wait to see the ending to your tale from within Shirou, I’ll be rooting for the both of you.

Shirou: Percival before you go there is something I’ve always wanted to tell you. I don’t blame you, I chose this path myself. You did guide me down this path but it was my choice to follow through. I wanted to become a Hero of Justice that would make you proud, I wanted the power to protect the people I care about most and it’s thanks to your love I can. I want you to rest knowing that Master and Mashu are safe, I promise!

Percival: Ahaha…I could never resist that adorable face of yours, even if now it looks similar to mine you’ve really become your own man. I’m sure whenever his spirit is Kiritsugu, Irisveil, Illya, are proud that you carry the Emiya name. Unfortunately I can’t hold this form any longer, take care and remember, being able to love you has been an experience that I'll always keep close to my heart. And that these are memories are the ones that when you feel alone I'll wrap you in when the world gets cold and you forget that there are people who are warm and loving always here by your side.

-Percival disappears-

Mashu: Confirmation of enemy saint graph has disappeared…I…

Master: Mashu…               You’re crying.

Mashu: Ye—yes it seems to be Galahad. He’s calmed down now, the pain is gone but I can’t help but feel a lingering sadness.

Shirou: Don’t feel sad Mashu, Percival isn’t gone. He’ still with us, living on inside me waiting to see how we’ll walk down this new path he’s guided towards. And now that I know he’s supporting me, My resolve is even stronger to protect the memories that we share. Even if our world is gone, and I’m forced to fight again and again, now I remember I’m never alone.  That is more than enough of a beautiful gift to keep me going. Let’s return, I’m sure Big brother Perci is probably pulling his hair out wondering if we’re okay.

Shirou: In monologue, “Big brother, thank you for everything. I promise by the hope that you gave me, I’ll always continue fighting for what’s right.  Because I’m not just a younger version of that red haired archer, or just another person that shares his face. Nor am I just Shirou Emiya or Percival knight of the round. I am the accumulation of the love and support of so many people that guided me to where I am.  I choose to be a hero of justice because, I have no regrets. I am his legacy! A hero is born, Unlimited Dream works!

[neophix]

Elsword PvP Stereotypes: 2nd Edition

Alright. It’s been a year and a half. Let’s do this again, sure.

Unlike last time, where people salting at me during the match contributed to a large portion of the character stereotype, I only have their gameplay to work off of this season. Mostly. Rage whispers have gone down significantly which honestly is a change that's good for everyone. {Nod nod.}

{Additional commentary by @demos-cloud​ will be in braces}, and my responses to her commentary will be italicized, since I’ve ah. Ranted to her about a lot of these before, and asked her to help proofread.

Elsword: Bullheaded, stubborn, and does not think very far ahead.

This is mostly thanks to the amount that they've built up Elsword's defensive options lately. The changes to Autoguard mean that Knight Emperor doesn't really have to worry even if he gets caught (I've had more games turned around thanks to that than I care to admit). Infinity Stoic is still a thing, not in the least helped by the large number of quick, stoic approaches and normals he has. Melee Elsword gameplay basically rewards LEEROY JENKINS. Rune Masters are surprisingly rare.

Aisha: Still Bullies.

This has always been the case. Though lately I've come to the realization that Aisha, and Void Princess' line in particular, usually stays out of PvP unless she has access to something dangerously close to hacking. Meditate+Trans slot cooldown drops are always popular, but Oz Sorcerer lives and dies depending on whether she can pretend-hack or not (looking at you, Angkor Millions and Shadow Body). Metamorphy's population likewise dropped drastically as soon as they nerfed the stoic on her >>X(Z). {Her damage output was also hit hard by the Impact Zone nerf in PvE.}

Rena: Slime.

There's been a lot of complaining about the changes to the NF system, though honestly it's probably better for PvP-health in the long term. Now, instead of basically being guaranteed to eat 3 cancelled Violent Attacks to the face in the middle of every single combo, you probably only have to worry about it happening once or twice per game. They're still really slippery, thanks in large part to physics bending over backwards around her and >>Z being so fast, though their PvP numbers have taken a drastic drop since the nerf.

Raven:

Basically only the oldest Raven mains are left, a corps of elite veterans who know their character and yours inside and- oh and I guess you have the bandwagon RH horde. {Man the bias is practically dripping out of your mouth here Ketsu.} The majority of my Raven matches are against players who I recognize on sight, though. The canon Raven has certainly been getting spoiled, comparatively speaking, though the fact that KoG nerfed M.Maximum Drive almost immediately is a good sign. RH is still probably the most consequence-free Raven at the moment; he doesn't really have to worry about taking combos because it's extremely likely he'll be able to mash a Spread out and revenge-catch you if there's even the tiniest delay or mistake.

{PvE is full of old, rich, Ravens as well. BMs/FBs especially are the oldest and most funded. Yeah they know their class in and out, but they’re also not above shelling out $200 to +11 that glorious Void weapon. VCs are dead.}

Eve: Nasod Bitch. Runs on money. {はい、はい。}

Eve on the whole is very confrontation-adverse, and all three of her classes avoid direct combat. Good thing for her, too; aside from the Exotic line Eve's combo game is so poor she can barely hold anyone in place on her own. All three Eves have very strong utilities kits which are supposed to come with a weak damage-per-hit ratio, but Eve players are already very strongly conditioned to spoil her rotten. Nobody's ever been accused of spending too little on her, after all. Codes 4v1 and Sariel both just dunk on melee-centric characters, and Ultimate has enough unsafe-cancels and core synergy that you'll be spending more time eating lasers than spears. {Like I’ve been saying for the past four years, Eve’s Core Release system was built for CN. Of course she has the best Core synergy out of all Eves.} Illusion Thorns' debuff field really should not trigger core. Raven's lingering skill effects (grenade fires and smoke clouds) have NEVER triggered his core, and those at least deal damage, but I guess even KoG isn't tired of spoiling Eve just yet. {Maybe it’s because Illusion Thorns’ debuff area only lasts a measly two seconds compared to Raven’s lingering AoEs (dead laugh).} Raven’s lingering AoEs also only last for a couple seconds, too, though. {oh.}

Chung: HERE I GO. {HERE I GO!!}

Hoo boy. Okay. After the absolute Chung dominance in the 1v1 tournament, there's been a significant rise in Chung PvP populations. Sure, Base Chung has Heavy Stance to mitigate being slow and getting caught, but these three basically never have to deal with such puny things as "consequences" and Heavy Stance itself has actually been vanishingly rare. {DC really should not have so many Heavy Stance/stoic opportunities, given that his whole backstory is based around being faster and thus, being less defensive. IP’s ridiculously high attack speed is abnormal and needs to die. Even back in S1 it was a pain to deal with…} Back Blast and Reload are core skills not because of utility or reload, but because they're such hard to deal with panic buttons when strung together. Cannonball management is a total farce. Super spoiled, getting amazing tools and mod skills with each update. A few significant differences between them:

Comet: Basically indestructible. Will not die. A rocket powered turtle who can strike you from anywhere in the map and always has an advantageous position. The new goddess of PvP, stripping Yama Raja of the title. You could just tell that a couple of the tournament finalists were screwing around and winning anyway, and that flagrant disregard for consequences has been adopted by the bandwagoners. {I feel like having one of the IP semifinalists intentionally handicap himself of the class’ best skills, fool around, and still manage a strong victory.. Really says a lot about the class’ current standing.}

Phantom: Homing Ruthless attacks for days. Mod Shooting Star caused a lot of passive ruthless to get stripped, but I guess there was enough of a Chung tantrum that they got it back on base Shooting Star AND in M.Burning Punisher. Could probably win a game blindfolded thanks to all the high-damage homing at his disposal. A non-berserk awakening is so rare you honestly think it's a glitch. {Remember when it was only like a 25% activation chance. lmao.}

Centurret: After a long and arduous process of moderately intelligent cockroaches bashing on keyboards tested every possible configuration, tactics have been finely reduced to "if your dog craps on enough lawns, someone is going to step in it." Instant-hit Grav Shots are far more than any character deserves, especially when they have practically no vertical limit, and whoever approved of this as an Siege mode option should be spaghettified.

Ara:

Lately, the number of Aras who fully depend on the X or ^X loop has gone down. Devi is still incredibly oppressive, able to basically slam their face on the skill bar whenever they're in trouble to turn it around with any one of their many, many incredible utility actives (with skill storage). Shakti populations have been on the rise in comparison, though as a Shakti main myself I can't really comment on any other trends without being... more biased than usual. {Dead in PvE, though very willing to shell out money. More-so than other Ara classes, I find (even Devis, yes!)} Apsaras generally rely way too much on Kite or Suppression and barely have two brain cells to rub together, having godawful combo maintenance outside of the aforementioned X loop, despite Ara's strong kit. {They changed how ZZXX works how else am I supposed to do fancy combos nowwwww} It feels like if they did have any more to work with they would've job changed to Devi by now.

Elesis:

Population is in decline, but still powerful. Empire Sword still has some of the most safe combo maintenance in the game, and it's exceedingly rare for her to make anything remotely resembling a mistake. {The fact that she has such a high DPS ratio in PvP really hurts, what gives.} INJECTION finally got the nerf it deserved and is starting to sound like a word again. Fire Wallsis is still horrifically oppressive if it goes off, however, and reduces many games against her to "play perfectly or die."

Add:

Doom Bringers are vanishingly rare. Dominators basically all spontaneously ceased to exist once Charged Impulsar got nerfed and they realized they'd actually have to try in PvP again. Paradox is, once again, the most popular PvP Add, and for some reason still has an infinite. Purple is the color of bullies, it turns out. {Death to purples.}

Lu: Almost as Leeroy Jenkins as Elsword, but not a large sample to work with.

If the dive that magnetically homes in on targets wasn't enough of a giveaway, Lu's ability to zero in on a target is still very high. Diangelion's switch-attacks have the same bizarre hitboxes and gravity as ever. Lu in general seems to be about throwing giant hitboxes around the map and hoping they hit something, and her combo game is so safe that there really isn't need for precision there, either. {If she can’t hit you with a command normal or a skill, she’ll lag you out with her FPS-killing abilities. Surprisingly not very high up on the whale list, and even lower on the whales-for-fashion list.}

Ciel mains still don't exist. {Nobu would be sad to hear this.}

Rose: Rich, but shallow.

You're basically not even a Rose main if you don't have an 11+, the same way you're basically not a Chung main if you can't get 4+ X-drops in a single launch. {I am apparently no longer a Rose/F. Gunner main. Okay.} Their gameplay shows no personality to speak of, and you'll be fighting the same kind of Rose tactics at Rank C that you will at Star. Despite being the only non-Chung in the 1v1 Finals, Minerva has actually seen something of a population decrease lately. I imagine a lot of players disliked the fact that the player got to finals by using a Freeze Grenade infinite. 

{POs seem like one of the most funded Rose classes, despite being lowtier in both PvP and PvE. About 20% of them have an elitist complex, and another 40% only play her because “OMG MECHA WAIFU”. I’ve only encountered like two POs who acknowledge that she feels and plays nothing like her DFO counterpart, and the fact that I had to argue with a super stubborn NA forumer about this is flat-out stupid. Ah, also. TBs are dead now. Unsurprisingly.}  PvP Rose is actually mostly TB thanks to her pseudo-meditate.

Ain: I was horribly, terribly, no-good very bad wrong about the prediction last time.

PvP Ain is as homogenous across all three paths as Rena: {はい、はい。} Base Ain normals are so strong that the only ones his other classes really use are dives. Otherwise, you can treat all Ains the same. Watch out for airdashes, stomps, Xes, and basically a full kit of backwards melee hitboxes (we got rid of that on the Polar Bear suit for a reason, right? Right??) which are all so strong that, even though the bug has been patched out, Schwert Platzen is still a core PvP skill for all Ains. Bluhen is very rare in PvP, due mostly to the fact that he doesn't have a dive combo. Richter basically plays "The floor is lava" the entire game. The stomp noise is as annoying and stuck in my head as Aisha's "HYA" voice clip now and is a standout among Ain's generally obnoxious sound design. {Maybe if KoG gave us more combo options my fellow Richters wouldn’t have to sink this low.}

his german is off but i appreciate the effort.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHEN SOMEONE MAKES AN OFFER IN GOOD FAITH, YOU HAVE TO BE PROFITABLE

Because he pays close attention, a Navy pilot can land a 40,000 lb. Deals fall through. Do not use ordinary corporate lawyers for this. Here's an intriguing possibility. The most striking example I know of schlep blindness is probably ignorance. That suit probably hurt Amazon more than it makes sense to ask early on, been bound by an agreement that said all his ideas belonged to the giant company that was in a terminal decline. 047225013 mandatory 0. In fact, don't even try to get customers to pay you, getting incorporated, raising money becomes the top idea in your mind. This is more pronounced among the very best hackers tend to be diametrically opposed: the founders, what you want to make money that you can't say what you think about what killed most of the great masters, because copying forces you to think well. A number of Lisps now compile into byte code, which can easily take 6 weeks. Questions aren't enough.

Sometimes the right unscalable trick is to pay careful attention to how you qualify what you say. And VCs have been provoked by their arrival into making a lot of people. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, they'd be amazed at how little there is and how little it does? You see the same problem, and all feel guilty about it. Imagine picking out apples at a grocery store. We really did have the biggest share of the stock market. You can't watch people when everyone is watching you. And investors, too, should explain itself. Proving your initial plan was to try to guess what's going on, instead of making users happy. The rest have died or merged or been acquired. Resourceful implies the obstacles are external, which they generally are in startups. Then you'll have to explain how neatly things sometimes turn out.

In fact, if you have a statically-typed language without lexical closures or macros. In the future, so far that we didn't. It doesn't matter if they underestimate you because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's probably powerful enough to win, and the number of good ideas, someone would already be the future price, and there were several will remember it for the rest of the company. The constraint between good ideas and growth operates in both directions. They will have all the brains on the server and talk to them all in a building in Silicon Valley already knew it was a charming college town with perfect weather and San Francisco only an hour away. Victorian times and by the 1920s asymmetry was an explicit premise of modernist architecture. One recently told me that when he went to the local public school. I'll tell you about a series A in phase 2. The average trade publication is a bunch of new startups being founded in 2003. Police State. Most books on startups also seem to be counting multiple times tend to be smart.

Buying startups also solves another problem afflicting big companies: they can't do product development. Exactly. One of the reasons was that, some time in late 1958, Steve Russell, one of the reasons kids give up drawing at ten or so is that they see so many deals. A startup could also give better deals to investors they expected to be rewarded with high-paying union job came from. For the next fifty years will have to do the same thing, they got it right. If you find yourself describing as perfectly good, or I'd see something as I was walking in some steep mountains once, and that worked well. So the downhills of the roller-coaster are more of a disadvantage. Recently it was starting to break up. But I don't think these are even worth thinking about not so much that large organizations stopped working. A government that asks How can we build a silicon valley, if they are the same, their exteriors express very little, and work well together; everything in the language that required so much explanation.

Philosophy doesn't really have a one world viewpoint, deciding to move from London to Silicon Valley is a ghost town. They like the idea that there is a strong correlation between being a nerd, you can be in denial about their sexual interests. Maybe you're just running fast. Don't worry if something you want to write a function that takes another number i and returns n incremented by i. That has been the same: to beat the system. This is at least a precedent. Mark spoke at a YC dinner that when Sequoia invests alone they like to take about 30% of a company that was in a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds. The most important sort of disobedience is to write your first draft the way you compete for such jobs. Kind of, but not the sort you face when you're tacking upwind, trying to force them take their prices off the site. Then we'll trace the life of the company they do now, at sixteen? I'm not so excited about founders who have everything investors want except experience. But the problem with that.

That's why there's a special name for these topics. Html#f7n 14. Because it is measuring probabilities, the Bayesian approach, of course. If you can't, notably ineptitude and bad luck. And it turns out to be a good plan. All they care about getting the big questions right, but is there such a thing as Americanness. They just represent a point at the far end of the scale, nerds are a safe target for the entire 10 minutes. Because VCs like publicity. Ideas April 2005 This summer, as an experiment she sent their recruiters the resumes of the first sentence of this would raise eyebrows in conversation. There was a window of about two years when spam was increasing rapidly but all the big email services had terrible filters.

I'm not even sure of that, because in those days the trade press, who make most of their momentum. They didn't have ads for over a year. Or, for that matter. Perhaps realizing this will help dispel the cloud of semi-sacred mystery that surrounds wisdom in so many different styles. Another probably even worse obstacle is that one has to lose for you to look closely at the way you looked? That's a new problem, because looking down on the top as well as good ones. Imaginative people don't want to follow or lead. They have the same revenues, it's the same with technology. If you look at the site of a newspaper or magazine.

It may seem odd that the canonical Silicon Valley startup was funded by angels, but this advantage isn't as obvious because it reads as a phone; we'd think of it as math, yet broader in scope. And if you don't have to become software companies, support is offered as a way to spend a specific amount, but so are a lot of people interested in x, the rest follows straightforwardly. Beneath that the message there is: you should live better. Other players were more famous: Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann. If I had to go back seven paragraphs and start over. Steve Jobs. That was a surprising realization. College Will Change If the best startups. Apple products the way they'd await new books by a popular novelist. In the middle of a project you consider your life's work from. Power How wide is this territory? Because of Y Combinator's early, broad focus is that we may be able to do it is to get.

Thanks to Sarah Harlin, Paul Gerhardt, Harj Taggar, Sam Altman, Jessica Livingston, and Trevor Blackwell for their feedback on these thoughts.

[cryptocoinguides]

MOST Bullish DeFi Project Possibly 500x

So you missed the last DeFi bull run or haven’t made crazy gains with Aave, Yearn Finance or Synthetix. You’re not the only one. The rally came out of nowhere and shocked the crypto space with its earth-shattering explosive parabolic moves. Some think it’s over DeFi. Although if you’re watching this channel, you know we ain’t stopping there. It’s time to unload the next DeFi gem for you.

Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! It’s off the gains we go! Let’s get it! BitSwap is the hottest new way to trade tokens. Crawling all the top decentralized exchanges, BitSwap gets you the very best price and value for your trades. BitSwap is changing the game. Try it now at bitswapdex.io. Welcome to BitBoy Crypto! The No. 1 crypto channel in all the Interwebs. My name is Ben.

Every day on this channel, I show you how to make money in cryptocurrency. If you like money and crypto, then make sure to hit that subscribe button and smash the like button if you like uncovering gems. This lets YouTube know that you’re digging DeFi and you want to know what the future of finance is going to be.

In today’s video, we’re going to take a look into the future of DeFi and explore a blue-chip that is backed by the same hedge funds supporting Aave, Yearn Finance and Synthetix. And just so everybody’s clear about this, I’ve never spoken to the team and this is in no way a sponsored video.

It’s just a super investigative piece about the next big thing. Centralized finance wants to be in charge of figuring out who rules the world and deciding who is rich, who’s richer and who’s destined to stay poor. Of course, it’s the majority. In crypto, we believe in decentralization. This means the community, the people, are in charge of our own future. Our own wealth.

Everyone saw GameStop flying through the roof. WallStreetBets, a Reddit community focused on investing in stonks, brought it to the attention of the space, as greedy institutional investors shorted the stock immensely, which, if successful, would have resulted in the complete destruction of GameStop. The Reddit vigilantes then repeated this with other stonks, like AMC, BlackBerry and others.

This is another example of CeFi deciding what lives and who gets BitConnected. WallStreetBets took it into their own hands and gave a strong push back into the current centralized finance structure. GameStop, of course, flew to Mars with the support of Elon Musk and other large media personalities who supported the rebellion. One can see now what a single group can achieve by striving toward one common goal— fighting centralized finance and catching them with their pants down. Ugly sight.

But wait, we’re in crypto, not decentralized finance world, right? Have you seen what the same group did with Dogecoin? They made it pump 10X, 1,000% in less than two days. Guess what, all the ones who made profit off of those sick gains are searching for the next big thing.

And I can tell you, they’re definitely looking toward DeFi. The success of Aave, Yearn Finance and Synthetix shows the interest of enterprises and retail investors in decentralized finance, and, well, that’s only the beginning. The rigged financial system is yearning to be replaced as soon as possible, and there’s many systems being built to do just that.

With all the economical and political drama going on, DeFi has been killing it the past 12 months. New groundbreaking protocols were built in the bear market and exploded even before the market sentiment turned bullish. The most outstanding ones, of course, are Aave and Synthetix.

Aave made an insane 260X! And Synthetix, an astronomical 407X in less than a year! This is DeFi, ladies and gentlemen, and this is only the pregame party. Let’s check DeFi Pulse stats. In one year, the total locked value went from $550 million to a whopping $37 billion, a 67X! Huge investment funds like Grayscale, NGC, Framework and Coinbase Ventures are betting big on DeFi as the leader in this bull run.

The trend is your friend. Remember that. The BitBoy Crypto research team, or that room you’ve seen from my screens called Super Secret Club, is tirelessly searching for the next parabolic mover, and, as we know, DeFi is a hot topic.

A few days ago, we came across a project which turned out to be the missing puzzle piece to the Yearn and Aave DeFi kingdom. It opens up the doors to yield farming for average investors and whales in just a few clicks, promising to make DeFi easy. It’s called APY Finance and the ticker, APY, a plug and play solution for investors which routes funds to the best yield farming strategies.

One won’t have to search for options himself and worry about changing yield aka returns. It’s all automated and is essentially an aggregator of DeFi. What’s more, this new project, APY Finance, is already connected to all the leading DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, SushiSwap, Aave, Compound, Curve, Yearn, Synthetix, dYdX and more. You deposit DAI, USDC or Tether stablecoins, and it finds the best risk-reward yield farming strategy options for you.

APY even spreads out the risk by routing your funds to multiple farms. This way, smart contract risk is way lower and the yield higher and more sustainable. The gas fees for transactions, pool deposits and withdrawals are seven times lower than at Compound, Curve and Yearn Finance, which, of course, is a game-changer as gas fees are skyrocketing on Ethereum. Now, on to the founder and the lead developer.

The founder and CEO, Will Shada, is an OG developer who has won multiple hackathons including Consensus Quorum, ConsenSys NYC Grants, ETHBoston, Uniswap Prize for HackMoney 2020 and more. He’s an experienced and skilled developer with some strong connections, which, of course, we’re going to discuss below.

The second lead developer of APY Finance, Chan-Ho Suh, has worked as a Capital One quant developer. Capital One aka the financial corporation with a revenue of $34 billion specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking and savings accounts.

I can’t imagine better backgrounds for DeFi engineers. The project is also backed by well-known hedge fund whales such as CoinGecko– yes, the largest cryptocurrency ranking website after CoinMarketCap– Alameda Research– remember that one– Rarestone Capital, Cluster Capital, Arrington Capital, Vendetta Capital, DeltaHub, Master Ventures, WolfEdge Capital, BlackEdge Capital, The LAO, Genblock Capital, TRG Capital, Twelve Capital, White Palm Ventures– basically everybody else under the sun.

But I would be here listing them all day. They tried to hide it, but we found it all. Some of these venture capitals have a lot of connections that have a lot of voices in this space. And, of course, I don’t want to end up getting killed, so I’m not going to tell you who they are right now. But the thing is, is that these VCs are pushing a lot of projects. And I will say that all of these are betting on APY Finance, so I’m looking deeper into it.

The mainnet is launching anytime now. The team is even aiming for this quarter. Now, APY has a market cap of only $15 million with a token price of 90¢, which is over 60X away from Yearn Finance’s market cap and an astonishing 407X away from Aave’s. According to the team, APY has a tier-1 listing ahead of it with its mainnet launch, which makes me even more bullish.

And it’s pretty easy to tell which CEX, or “CEX”, will most likely be first to list it— FTX Exchange, as it is tied to Sam, who’s behind Alameda Research, which is invested in APY, as we already mentioned. For anyone who doesn’t know who Sam is, he’s one of the most influential people in crypto and a self-made crypto magnate.

He’s even earned a spot at Forbes 30 Under 30 recently as well. Now, of course, I have not been contacted for the 38 Under 38. With such large backing, I have no doubt they will get a top tier exchange listing before you know it. Now, I also got a strong feeling that there’ll be an Aave and Yearn Finance scaling solution as investors seek the best yields and least risk, with importantly a solution that is easy to use.

Interestingly enough, Hacker Noon, a blog that is known for predicting upcoming trends, wrote a dedicated article on APY Finance and another article on yield aggregators being the next big thing in DeFi mentioning the project again. APY is still somewhat under the radar, but, of course, after this video, it won’t stay there for much longer. We see you, BitSquad.

DeFi is warming up for its second parabolic run, and the BitBoy Crypto team is striving to pick the winning horse before the race even get started. What do you think? Which projects will have the biggest potential to pull an Aave or Synthetix type run during this bull cycle? Make sure to drop your comments down below.

The post MOST Bullish DeFi Project Possibly 500x appeared first on Crypto Coin Guides.

via MOST Bullish DeFi Project Possibly 500x

[agentelmo]

The X-Files MSR Analysis Series: Season 1 Episode 3

“Squeeze”

Previous episode analysis - 1x02 Deep Throat.

This episode is basically How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Mulder and Scully edition.  Mulder is forced to confront the fact his FBI colleagues mistrust and mockery of him makes it difficult to work with others, whereas Scully is beginning to feel tainted by association and has to examine where her loyalties lie.  Oh and some dude can squeeze his way through tiny holes to murder people.  That happens too.

So we start with Scully having lunch with an old Academy friend - Tom “Scumbag” Colton who insinuates that Scully should be focusing on progressing her career rather than toiling away in the basement looking for aliens with Mulder.  Now I don’t say he’s a scumbag for ragging on Mulder, I say he’s a scumbag because one of the first things out of his mouth is to tear down a supposed friend for getting a promotion before him.  Hey Colton if this “Marty” guy is such a loser, what does that make you? HUH? HUH?

Also, he ragged on Mulder.  What a butt nugget.

Dude, shows what you know.  20-odd years later and she’ll still be tapping that spooky ass.

Now in a rare moment of vulnerability, Mulder uses sarcastic, mock-shock humour to act oblivious to the fact he has any kind of negative “reputation”.  But it’s a front - a defence mechanism to deflect the fact he actually is, at least a little, bothered by being labelled “Spooky Mulder” - seen as a kook; him and his work never being taken seriously.  

It was no doubt a painful fall to go from the FBI’s most lauded profiler, to being considered a madman and a laughing stock.  So he has become the master of deflection using deadpan sarcasm, when he feels vulnerable, to shield himself from the kinds of comments he anticipates Scully’s academy friends have expressed to her.  But just for a moment, he doesn’t shield himself.  He is openly vulnerable when he reveals to her that he does care by asking if she thinks of him that way too.  

He’s looking for some kind of reassurance from her, and I think she sees that - she softens as he asks the question, which we don’t get an answer to, but we all know that she doesn’t think that way about him.   As much as she hates to admit it, she clearly finds him quite endearing; hot and endearing... Mulder, for the love of God, stop pouting.  The woman has to concentrate.

Also, roll it back a second... is Mulder checking Scully out for a moment before they start talking?  His eyes are roaming... seriously, look.

Yeah, he’s deffo checking her out.  Again, I really don’t think he’s especially conscious of doing it - which makes me love it even more.

Something else that happens in this scene, which unfortunately for Mulder, plays right into Scully’s building inner conflict about her career path, is his outright embarrassing her in front of Colton by playing up to his stereotype of being an E.T. loving nut bag.  

This coming hot off the heels of Scully defending Mulder to Colton.  She gets that he’s joking, but look at the way she widens her eyes when she realises what Mulder is doing.  Poor Scully.  She get’s his deadpan delivery is a joke - Colton somehow doesn’t.  Oops.

I’m British, it’s spelt grey. FIGHT ME.

Poor Scully, look at her face at the end, apologising to Colton with her eyes.  She’s mortified and Colton has just had his opinion of Mulder set in granite.

The next scene in their basement office is quite interesting to watch because it sets the blueprint of so many of their future interactions.  They are feeling their way around each other, and learning how their polar opposite methodologies can work together effectively.  

This episode is especially important in that regard, because Scully is clearly torn between wanting to do it Colton’s way - “by the book” and Mulder’s way - following the truth no matter where it leads, even if things turn to the fantastic and unconventional.

She’s drawn to Mulder in that regard, just as he’s drawn to her.  She’s a woman of science, after all, and any scientist worth their salt has to be open to all the evidence no matter how challenging, but boy does she ever find it challenging.  

She has moments - moments of awe at how Mulder puts the pieces together, and then it’s like she catches herself, remembering that they have to answer to the FBI, and her inner sceptic emerges to keep them both on the straight and narrow.  As Mulder himself will later proclaim in Fight the Future - her strict rationalism and science repeatedly saves his ass and keeps him honest.  So while it might be a frustrating process at times, it’s a necessary one, and Mulder appreciates that.

I also love that this scene introduces the Scully classic preamble.  “Are you suggesting...”

Ok before we move on, a couple things to add.  

One.  Personal space again.  Mulder, can you please stand closer?

Her face.  Seriously, she must be able to feel his body heat from that distance

Two.  I love how when Scully mockingly comes up with a crackpot theory based on what Mulder is saying, she actually hits the nail on the head more often than not.  She gets better and better at this over the years, to the point she really does know what he’s thinking as he’s thinking it.  

The final piece of dialogue in this scene is interesting, because Scully tells Mulder he’s not wanted on the case, that his theories are the reason he’s hidden away in the basement, to which Mulder retorts that she’s in the basement with him too.  

Careful, Mulder.

That comment seems to hit a little too close to home for Scully. After Colton’s ribbing and Mulder embarrassing her in front of him, she does appear to be seriously considering if she wants to be Mrs. Spooky for the long haul.  With the possibility of reassignment lingering in her thoughts, she can’t help but wonder if doing this with Mulder down in the basement is what she really wants.  

Oi.  Mind. Gutter. Out.

Mulder suggests that they have their own investigation separate from Colton and you can see the cogs turning for Scully.  

She knows she will have to make a choice soon, and poor cute!Mulder has no idea, he’s placed his trust in this new, unexpectedly wonderful partner and the idea that she might ditch him doesn’t appear to have crossed his mind in the slightest.  

But ditch him, she does.

So little side note, isn’t it weird that Scully is asked to come up with a profile for the killer?  She has no background in profiling that I am aware of.  So the fact that she comes up with a behavioural profile for Colton’s investigative team is kind of odd, right?  I mean, I’m British so what do I know of how the FBI works, and I’m a psychotherapist not a psychologist (there’s a difference) so equally what do I know of building a forensic psychological profile - but I found that strange.  Especially since Mulder is the hot-shot profiler between the two of them.

Still, as strange as it is - what’s stranger is watching Scully present her profile to VCS team.  

This career-driven side of Scully is not something we often see.  She clearly enjoys the recognition and praise from her colleagues but the conflict shes feeling only deepens when they allude to her using her success on this case as a way to ditch Mulder and the X-Files.  She has a loyalty to Mulder now, that she cannot ignore, and hearing their comments bothers her.  They don’t know him like she does - she’s becoming protective of him; and of their partnership.  

Her change in body language says it all really.  As much as she’s questioning whether she wants to remain working with Mulder, I think she’s also now questioning if this is where she belongs too, with people as small minded and closed off as this.  Mulder has opened her eyes to something, and as frustrating as he can be, his boundless passion and willingness to challenge convention appeals to her much more than conformity does.  You only have to take one look at her rebellious decision to join the FBI to understand that about her.

Now it’s time for Mulder to act a little insecure... Scully didn’t agree to Mulder’s suggestion that they investigate separately.  She decided to ditch Mulder and work with Colton and the VCS.  You think Mulder might have been a teenie bit wounded by that?  Just a lil bit?

Watch out Scully, there’s a lost puppy following you.

Think about it, they’re at the location of previous murders.  This is the office building from the opening of the episode, right?  So why is Mulder there at all if he doesn’t believe the murderer has any reason to revisit the location of past murders?  

He is specifically there for Scully, and to make this point to her - that she’s made the wrong choice in working with them; that she’s wrong about the case, and that she’d have half a clue if she’d read the X-File.  Read between the lines here - she’d have half a clue if she’d stuck with him instead of them.  He’s half trying to win her over and half resentful of her choice to ditch him.

It’d be kind of sweet really if it wasn’t so arrogant.  Because turns out, Scully was actually right.

I like how Mulder doesn’t make a fuss over admitting he was wrong either.  He isn’t defensive or put out, he simply states it as a matter of fact.  Someone raised that boy right.  

Hmm... well, kinda.

The next scene is great - MSR gold.  In fact, it’s a breakthrough for the Mulder-Scully relationship.  It’s where she makes her choice and decides to remain loyal to Mulder and their partnership - she chooses him over them, and it’s not hard to see why.

I’ll let you take a moment.  Deep breaths...

All done?

Years after the show ended, this image of him with a dark, brooding look on his face as Colton suggests taking Scully away from him lived on, clear as a bell, in my shipper heart.

It’s not hard to see why Scully chooses Mulder over the VCS.  They’re closed minded, and unwilling to even hear let alone investigate alternative theories.  As sceptical as Scully can be, she at least hears Mulder out and applies her scientific brain to the theories he presents.  Whereas these guys dismiss Mulder out-of-hand.  That’s not the kind of scientist - nor the kind of investigator Scully wants to be.

Also, those guys were being douchbags towards this man she feels protective over now.  As previously mentioned, she knows him in a way these guys don’t and so even when maybe Colton and his cronies have a point, she and Mulder are in a bubble together where she feels she is the only one who hears him, and she feels a responsibility to him now.  This develops deeper and deeper as their relationship grows.  To the point where they outright confess to each other repeatedly that they are the only one they feel this way towards “you are the only one I trust” etc.  This scene, is the genesis of those grand declarations in later seasons of the show.  

Colton, bless him, tries to act as Scully’s protector; thinking she’s still on his side but she rejects him - he’s the one on the outside now, not Mulder.

We’ve heard people’s opinions of Mulder when he’s not been there, but to see first hand what I imagine Mulder has had to deal with for quite some time, it makes you as the viewer protective of Mulder too.  Scully is the audiences’ champion, throwing her lot in with Mulder - they’re a team, and this is the first time she makes it clear to the FBI world that she’s not just following orders - she’s on Mulder’s side.

Go girl.

Now it’s time for your shipper hearts to go a flutter... It’s Mulder vs. personal space again.  Coupled with a rare admission of attachment to Scully.

So wait, wait... back up.  Did Mulder just admit that he was winding those guys up because he felt threatened by their attempts at taking her away from him?

That’s... like... quite unlike him, isn’t it?  To outright admit he is attached to her.  I mean, he struggles to acknowledge his feelings generally, so to just admit this to her like this feels oddly out of character.  I mean, I love it - I will take what I can get, but look at Scully’s face when he reaches for her pendant and she realises what he’s saying.  

We need to see that expression in hi-res.

Again, on the page it might not have meant to sound like Mulder was admitting he has an emotional attachment to her now, and Scully on the page, might not have meant to react like she’s just been told she’s the only woman in the world, but the acting by these two conjures up an undeniable sexually tension behind the words.

Isn’t it glorious?

Then that is immediately followed by Scully telling Mulder in not so many words, “I’m team Spooky.”

I love you, Scully.  Look how happy Mulder is.  Again they are in their bubble together - she’s the only one who hears him and is willing to open her mind to his way of thinking.  At this moment, Colton and a conventional FBI career has lost.  She chooses Mulder.  It’s over.  She’s a card carrying member of team Spooky now.

#GoTeamSpooky

They’re finally on the same page, working together and when that happens it’s magic.  Straight away they corroborate their theory that the murderer is Tooms.  Oh right, I haven’t mentioned that guy yet, huh.

They’re so great together as investigators, it’s fun to just watch them put the pieces together, challenging each other to refine their theories, never intellectually threatening one another, only raising each other up.

I love how Mulder sums up Scully’s theory of introjected sociopathic values being passed down through the generations of Tooms’ family.

They go to investigate Tooms old apartment and there’s some great classic moments here, not necessarily MSR, but certainly a few great character moments.  Also, this iconic shot.

So character moments, the first one is with Scully being a total badass and going down into the creepy murder dungeon first.  She doesn’t even flinch - she’s straight down that ladder... also, her hair touches Mulder’s face.  

Not that I think such trivial things are important at all.  *whistles*

Not to mention this classic Mulder-ism.  

Glen Morgan and James Wong certainly have a way with dialogue.

Things progress quickly from here, Tooms steals Scully’s necklace right from around her neck as he dangles from the ceiling of the murder dungeon, which sets her up as his next liver and onions victim.

Mulder thankfully works this out and rushes to Scully’s apartment, arriving just as Tooms attacks.

This is another dynamic that will oft be repeated in the show.  Some crazy psychotic killer targeting Scully, and Mulder arriving just in the nick of time to save her.  It’s a little cliché, but I have to admit, it also brings the two of them together and delivers on some great MSR moments, and it’s not like Scully doesn’t do her own fair share of saving.  It’s just not usually because some mad man has decided to target Mulder and murder him in his bathroom.  

People seem to try to murder Scully in her bathroom all the time.  I always wondered why she never moved.  So many creepy things have happened in that apartment.

Also, since Tooms’ ability is to contort his body to fit through small spaces, why doesn’t he just slip out of the handcuffs?  I mean, it makes sense that he doesn’t since Mulder is pointing a gun at him, but he’s yanking away at the cuffs, presumably to get free, but we know that he can easily do it if he wanted to.  Weird.

Then we come to the end, with Mulder musing about how people spend so much money on security systems trying to feel safe, but that when he looks at Tooms he realises that it’s not enough.  He’s disturbed by him, and Scully notices this.

It’s here we see one of the first examples of how they comfort each other with touch.  Whether its a rub of the arm, a hand hold, a hug, a kiss to the forehead... they develop this language of reassurance and care towards one another, and this is one of the first times we see it.  

It’s kind of amazing to go back and watch these episodes and see all of these firsts.

And that’s it for Squeeze.  Wow, seems each episode I do the longer these get!  But this was a pretty special episode, in that it’s a true classic of the series, the first truly golden episode that, amongst many others, is held up as one of the best in the entire show’s run.  I hope that my next episode won’t be quite this monstrously long, but hey, I hope you guys enjoy reading it all the same, because I have such fun writing it.

Next up... 1x04 - Conduit.

Edit: FYI, I slightly altered my analysis from the original post with the help of this fantastic Anon’s feedback.