#a power but also a weakness because it relies on perfect control and avoidance (of palladium. of triggers)

[wallbeatjournal]

ngl this s5e7 scene reworked my brain chemistry and fully convinced me for a time that eric jackson was a #fightclubcore manifestation of archie's repressed anger and trauma and i still think about it a lot. istg it's a good reading. istg it has legs. istg it works GREAT in the character arc/subtext no question but it also works NEARLY in the literal text to the point that it's magical to me, plus/minus a couple of interactions with real people that can't fully be worked around

i mean s5 had the nerve to move on from this and have eric continue to visibly struggle and suffer under the weight of his rage and grief while (outwardly) functional/coping archie only begins addressing his own ptsd by first witnessing one of eric's ptsd breakdowns and fighting to get ERIC some ptsd support

and then they reveal that archie DOES have trauma manifestation hallucinations haunting him

and then after archie experienced catharsis eric just..."moves away" offscreen alongside all the other war ghosts

it's near-perfect i'm saying. eric could just be archie i'm saying

[kurokeip]

Dominant Blade and Fist is a perfect event to me but i understand how it can feel confusing and regressive(?) if you haven't kept up with the Akatsuki stories, and it probably would've benefited from a chapter where Souma and Keito do the stuff they talk about in the end.

A really, unfortunately common sentiment is that Souma and Kuro are being held back/used by Keito, and that Keito becoming involved is a negative, because he can get overprotective and controlling, but it's never been as simple as that. Never trust the enstars unreliable narrator, especially Kuro Kiryu, in this particular story.

The thing about Kuro Kiryu, is that he... Self-harms in a way. When he feels hopeless and depressed, he digs a deeper hole to die in. He becomes sacrificial, resentful and pessimistic.

The vibes are so rancid that they replicate the ones that the audience in Kanatas execution.

Kuro is absolutely right when he monologues about his dependency on Keito. It's true that to an extent, they've still been letting Keito do the heavy lifting in terms of unit proposals.

However, the one time he tries to help out, his outfits end up becoming the critical weakness.

He's not good enough, Akatsuki isn't good enough. This is like. Factual. They cannot compete with full on traditional performers, and traditional idols. They're starting at the bottom.

Unfortunately, this is a lot for Kuro, who gets stuck in his own head, to bear. He immediately sticks himself in an extreme line of thinking. That his dependence on Keito is a complete weakness and flaw,

And once again, while this is true to an extent, it isn't to the extremes that Kuro is seeing it.

And well, He avoids Keito because Keito would tell him as much. (Unfortunately, Hasumi is right again lol. You can't take on the burdens of the world on your own, Kiryu!)

Instead, Kuro turns to Souma, another person that Keito 'protects'. He asks Souma, isn't it unfair that Hasumi does all the thinking?

And... Souma is inclined to agree! I mean, he's being left out of the unit conflict and proposals.

However, one thing about Souma

He LOVES akatsuki. He loves when all three of them perform, side by side. And he recognizes, when Kuro relays his plan, that Kuro is self-destructing.

I mean, if it wasn't obvious that Kuro's plan is a form of self-deprecating it should be via the references to the Ryuuousen, and the fact that it's centered on making a power grab, regressing to their old platform at Yumenosaki.

He's going to villainize himself, take all the blame, so that Akatsuki can regain their 'power'. And they'll do it WITHOUT Keito, to protect Keito, to prove themselves.

But... Souma can't let that happen. Because it would mean the end of the Akatsuki he loves.

So he fights to protect Akatsuki, for three whole days, he does nothing but dodge and take hits, not even fighting back, until Kuro is exhausted.

When he wins, he brings Keito back into the picture. And they still go through with Kuro's plan, but they do it together, with the goal of trying new things, using Yumenosaki as grounds for experiments, having fun.

And at the end of it, Kuro is able to come to terms with the fact that he's not 'perfect', and that he's going to make mistakes. But he won't stop fighting and let himself fall. He'll be reborn through his struggles.

And he wants Keito and Souma right there with him. To watch him grow into someone he can be proud of.

Because at the end of the day, they're barely adults. And it's not fair to expect them to be the Best. They have to become okay with the process of learning their ABCs.

And MOST IMPORTANTLY. That they're there for eachother, to rely on, to work together with. With Keito's help, they were able to rework the plan into something that allowed them more freedom than they agency ever granted. And Keito also held back and let them take charge.

Akatsuki is a three person unit! It's always been! It's a three person unit of three people that have shouldered so much responsibility, have had to mature so fast,

Learning their ABCs all over again, with eachother :) akatsuki iroha uta

[pond-of-koifish]

Being the strongest is Gojo’s biggest weakness

Let me explain (manga spoilers ahead) |

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Gojo's way of strategies prioritizes maximum efficiency.  Sure at times he can hold back and won't go all out, mainly dto be an ass. When put in a tough opponent like Sukuna He has no reason to hold back the fact he was the strongest. Due to this very fact. Not once has he seen his strategies for maximum efficiency be countered. No matter how many times someone see Hollow purple, they would never be able to counter it. Sure they can avoid dying to it, but they can't counter the technique itself in any way. Combine with the fact Gojo has limitless and is even capable of healing his technique out of a burnt out state. It provides Sukuna with the knowledge that with each move Gojo makes, it with the highest amount of power to make the fight as efficient as possible. Less time fighting Sukuna means more time dealing with aftermath and kenjaku. But for that very reason of not holding back, or keeping any other trump card other then just being powerful. Is what ultimately allows Sukuna to fine tune Mahoraga to be Gojo's perfect counter. In the end Gojo's down fall from being the strongest, is the fact he is the strongest. That is not to say Gojo doesn't learn from his mistake. He does. He learns time and time again how to adjust his strategy to keep fighting Sukuna. But, how can one learn from a mistake they never made before. Especially when that mistake is an outlier among everything that has kept him alive and fighting throughout. To hold back on Sukuna would be a ridiculous notion. But not holding back allows Sukuna to fine tune Mahoraga. Truthfully the only mistake Gojo made was not factoring in the possibility of Sukuna actively adjusting Mahoraga as they fought. He was well aware how much of a threat Mahoraga posed to his technique given both history and his awareness of its ability to adjust. He was even aware of the oddity in Sukuna not using Mahoraga at this stage in the battle. But he couldn't have been aware of something he didn't even know was a possibility in the first place. Furthermore, it's been stated (or at least implied) that Mahoraga is the hardest of the 10 shadows to control, being something that was never tamed. Which by proxy also makes it something that one would only have a limited understanding on it's capabilities. However, given Megumi seems to have been the first which was likely sped along with the influence of Sukuna. Out of everyone in the world. Sukuna is the only one who understand how to best utilize it. Frankly when it comes to the battle of two people who are arguably at equal strength. Knowledge becomes the deciding factor. Given how long Sukuna has lived, he very much has the advantage. Sure Gojo's intellect and understanding of curse technique can be argued to be superior. It is based on the knowledge of the world around him. If there was something the world doesn't know, then he wouldn't know. Because he is the strongest, he's doesn't need to rely on others to help him fight. Because he is the strongest, he doesn't need to rely on curse tools but he will if needed. But for the sole reason of being the strongest, He has no one to rely on. Getou was the only one who ever could share that title and even that ended up changing.

Being the strongest, also means being alone.Something that I find Akutami has place emphasis on throughout Gojo’s character. And ironically enough, it is what deprives Gojo of the trump cards a 10 shadow user would have. But why would the strongest need trump cards? they are the strongest after all.

[evakuality]

Matteo - Episode three

Social Media - There’s so much of it this week!  At the time, I only followed a couple of accounts and then only saw the rest when it was posted to the tag.  I think I’m grateful for that.  This is absolutely overwhelming, the sheer volume of things the characters were putting out.  But it’s also really nice that we get all this normal teenage life stuff.  It really does allow an immersive ‘this is real people doing real stuff’ feeling to everything.  Particularly people like Kiki and Sam who have little to do with the plot.  It keeps them real and alive through a season where they were a bit more sidelined (and I love that Matteo and David’s little trip later on keeps them alive in a way that doesn’t overpower Amira’s season - this is a really clever way for the producers to keep fan favourites active without having to shoehorn them into places where they don’t belong).  I am also a bit concerned about some of this though - how on earth did the boys not get in trouble for filming the dancing girls and posting it to social media?  At most schools I know that would have resulted in some serious discipline action.  However, the most fascinating thing about the social media is the party at the end of the episode.  Sara didn’t start posting much on her stuff until much later in the evening (the reason this post is so late is because I was waiting to watch through all the social media before I worked with it - and there was so much for so long that I was able to notice the patterns in it in a way I didn’t at the time) and then Leonie took over and it was interesting what she chose to show and how non-perfect it all was compared to what Sara was trying to do before she got really incapacitated.  I know it’s not technically part of this episode but the text string between the two of them the next day where Sara panics over how Matteo might take seeing her in such a sloppy drunken state is very telling.  She really really wants to put on a show to make sure he’s not turned off by her not being ‘perfect’ - again, this is all very subtly done but there’s a really strong push to show how much of what is put onto social media isn’t a real and true depiction of who we really are.  And of course that’s most important for Matteo himself.  He’s still very actively putting on a front and it’s only partly to try to cover for the fact that he’s interested in boys not girls.  He’s really not happy or at ease with pretty much any aspect of himself, but he’s also not really willing to show it to anyone.  Except David.  Which we’ll see as we go through the clips.

Clip one - Matteo’s shelf in the fridge is so sad!  Someone (a parent maybe?) should really be making sure he has food and is looking after himself.  We touched a bit last episode on food and nurturing and what we see here is Matteo very much not nurturing himself.  Even more so than Sara, he has no care for his own wellbeing.  Also he’s relying heavily on other people (Hans in this case) to do the heavy lifting for him.  It’s also a major contrast to the playful, if disgusting, sandwich he made with David.  Here it’s really just about putting something in to his body and there’s no thought for anything other than basic survival.  Which is, tbh, a good metaphor for Matteo’s approach to his life at this time.  The chat with Mia again veers close to things that are difficult for Matteo - he’s wearing David’s beanie, trying to get that bit of closeness to him, but then Mia starts asking awkward questions about why the kitchen was so terrible and what Matteo was up to and it’s all a bit tough.  Matteo tries again to deflect and lie to cover his tracks.  Which... is he ever going to learn?  This lying is forever getting him in hot water when he’s caught out.  Jonas even calls him out on it, basically saying ‘if you’re going to use me as an excuse then give me a heads up first’ showing that he has Matteo’s back, but is incapable of helping him if he won’t help himself.  At this point, of course, Matteo has closed off because there’s a lot he finds too hard to talk about but Jonas is already giving those hints that he’d be there for Matteo if only Matteo would let him be.  But at least Mia’s pushing serves one purpose - Matteo makes contact with David again and they manage to connect and get over the little hitch that David’s ditching caused.  Both are still hiding bits of themselves from each other (David more so obviously), but both are quite happy to make these connections and are comfortable with each other.  That David responds is so nice; it sets up the dynamic so different to the original and Matteo is much more secure in David’s friendship than Isak was with Even at this point just because of this.  Then of course Matteo does the gay test, and it’s clear he already knows but he’s just sort of trying to work through some things.  It leads to some of the things he says later that are quite unfortunate (both to the boys about the dance teacher in this episode and to Hans later about the ways to be gay), but I think there’s a genuine desire to figure out what gay might look like rather than any truly homophobic stuff.  societal expectations and stereotypes and our own internal biases mess with us big time!!

Clip two - There’s not a lot of difference with the dancing girls clip, but it’s nice to see David again and the interactions between him and Matteo are a lot more natural than with Isak and Even.  I guess because these two are in the same year, it’s much easier to pass off knowing each other and so Matteo really is a lot more casual than Isak ever was.  The tone of the ‘why does he have to be so gay’ is different here too - Matteo’s much more low key and subdued when he’s called out on ‘why do we insult gays’ and he’s apologising fairly quickly.  It really is much more obvious that he’s trying to work out what ‘gay’ is than trying to distance himself from the idea of being gay.  He has a lot of issues and a lot of stuff to work through but it’s entrenched in an entirely different way to the og even though the words are almost exactly the same.  The power of acting and body language!!  Of course, this makes sense for both characters too - Isak and Matteo have different experiences and different lives and so they each act in a way that makes sense for them.  I’m super impressed that the same conversation can look so different - both actors are very very good.

Clip three - This scene with Matteo and Sara works much better for me than the one with Isak and Emma.  But perhaps that’s because Sara is allowed to be much more of a rounded character rather than a plot device.  We can say all we like (and Leonie is so clearly right there with us) that Sara needs to wake up and see how badly Matteo is treating her, but the way this is developing makes it clear why she thinks and acts the way she does and we can have a lot of sympathy for her even while rolling our eyes at how obviously this is not working out.  This right here is the moment where Matteo really should have said ‘yeah sorry, this isn’t working for me’ but he chooses not to because he still wants that security of having ‘someone’ if the thing with David turns out the way he expects it to (eg, David and Leonie being a thing).  He wants the ability to hide and say ‘see, there was nothing there, I have a girlfriend so I’m not at all upset that David has one too’ and it’s shitty behaviour and it’s totally unfair to Sara, but at this point Matteo can’t see beyond his own needs.  Sara is very clearly not happy with the situation and she rightly feels sidelined and unappreciated but she is still willing to accept his word when she puts those words into his mouth.  She’s still invested in this fantasy in her head and she is carefully scripting it so that it goes the way she wants it to.  Like last week when she was talking over Matteo to avoid hearing anything he’s saying, here she’s literally telling him what to say to get the outcome she wants.  Leonie has quite obviously got a better handle on the situation, but Sara doesn’t want to hear it.  Sara, again bless her, is very open about what she wants and needs from a relationship and how she’s feeling.  She refuses to take Matteo’s very half-hearted attempt at sweet talking her at face value and demands some accountability.  But it’s the very nature of those demands that sets her doom.  She tells him what she needs and he gives it to her - only it’s a very pale and weak imitation of what she would really like.  He uses her communication skills to play her.

Clip four - I loathe how no-one takes Matteo’s wants and needs into account, pretty much ever.  He’s in such a rut of being used to just going with the flow that even when he tries to assert his own wants people straight up ignore him.  It’s sad that he allows Kiki etc to basically commandeer his home for their party but it’s very much in keeping with how everything else is going.  Last week, Kiki was super irritated because she had a picture of how things were going to go (they would have their event and Matteo would host it) and she couldn’t deal with things not being under her control.  I suspect that if Sara hadn’t been with them and hadn’t done the speaking for Matteo, he would have been bullied into doing what she wanted then too.  He clearly doesn't want to do this , but at least he uses it as a way to get closer to David.  ‘Well, this party idea sucks, but maybe I can get this guy I like there’ and so he goes right up to him and invites him.  While he’s quite checked out of significant parts of his life, when Matteo really wants something he’s not scared of going after it.  Of course, as we see in later events, this gets him in trouble at times.  But for right now it’s nice to see him taking some small control of his life.  This is only possible, of course, because he was able to connect with David fairly quickly after he left last week.  The fact that they are able to do this is testament to how easily they do understand each other and even while its awkward, this relationship doesn’t have the underlying tensions that the one with Sara does.  It’s awkward in a positive way.

Clip five - there’s lots going on in this one.  The studying and how little interest and engagement Matteo has with it.  The consequent stalking of David on Sara’s account, the flow over into looking for David’s favourite movie, and of course Hans and his intrusion into Matteo’s quiet space again and then his attempt at using grindr.  It’s a slow, fairly quiet clip and yet Matteo ends up doing a lot in it.  It shows again, I think, just how much he values his time by himself and how much it works for him to be allowed to do things at his own pace.  I’ve said before I really enjoy seeing the characters in their own environments being chill and just hanging with themselves.  It shows us a lot of how they are.  In this case, Matteo moves very quickly from the boredom of the studying to things he has more interest in.  Like David.  He’s restless and disengaged, using all of his tricks to try to distract himself (playing with plants etc) and then very quickly giving up on what he should do.  I like that we get these sorts of smaller, lower key indications of how much David means to him as well.  It’s not big grandiose expressions of interest, but he watches the movie because David likes it.  He can’t even let himself stare at the picture for too long because it feels like a huge admission (he literally breaks eye contact with it and looks away the way he often does with David himself).  It’s in these unguarded moments in his own space that we really see Matteo and he’s a mess, but he’s a mess who really does want connection and to find meaning with someone.  

Clip six - We all love this one, right?  It’s such a nice moment with David and their almost-kissing is very intense.  But there’s a lot going on before that that I also want to look at.  First, the way the boys call Matteo a ‘player’?????? how???? That’s his girlfriend?????  He is playing her and stringing her along when he shouldn’t, but he’s not playing the field which is generally what we mean when we say this sort of thing.  He has one girl and that one girl has made it pretty clear that he is hers.  In many ways Matteo would be better off if he was playing the field - then there’s no expectations and he gets a rep as a ladies man.  But this works better for him - he can sort of fall into it and follow along with it without having to put any effort in at all.  She literally speaks for him, even.  I have always found it fascinating how much Matteo keeps to himself in this clip.  He hugs the walls like they’re his home and Sara is out there in the middle and there’s such a disconnect between the way they’re both acting.  How would Matteo have coped with the expectations Sara outlines about sex had she not got so blind drunk she had to be taken home?  It seems like it would have led to something very awkward and maybe she’d have finally got the picture.

Laura's little visit to see Matteo is cute too.  Obviously she knows that David is interested and so she checks him out.  It’s a shame it’s interrupted by Hans who then monopolises Matteo, but she was quite deliberate in finding him and speaking with him and I love the sibling support.  David’s shirt he chooses to appeal to Matteo is hilarious too.  The thought process (and the discussions with Laura at home beforehand) must have been brilliant.  ‘I always wear black and am mysterious and aloof and cool, but to attract this boy I will wear a white shirt with a stupid picture on it’ - that it does attract Matteo just shows how attuned David is to his future boyfriend.  Maybe he’s stalking the instagrams too - the Matteo Monday and Florenzi Friday do suggest that this is something that might appeal to Matteo.  

Hans and Andi bother me too.  In much the same way that I dislike that Sara assumes that Matteo not wanting sex with her means he’s gay (like?  It’s okay not to want sex!!  It doesn’t say anything about your sexuality), I don’t like that Hans has talked about Matteo to Andi and allows him to be so forward and aggressively sexual with someone who is very obviously not willing to be out.  I know Hans is trying to be there for Matteo and to encourage him to accept himself (I think it’s pretty clear that he knows or thinks Matteo likes guys).  But this is a party with all of Matteo���s friends.  What did they think would happen?  Why did they think he’d react in any way other than the one he does?  Hans looks confused when Matteo pushes away and leaves, but why?  This behaviour is entirely consistent with everything we know of his character. That it ends in an actual panic attack makes it all much more sad and difficult to watch.  Honestly, outing people when they’re not ready is not cool and Hans should know this.

The panic attack itself is so well done.  There’s no dialogue and yet we can see very obviously how Matteo is feeling and just how ‘normal’ this is to him.  He has a set of behaviours that he follows to try to take the edge off.  He throws things (this is his go-to when he’s stressed and he does it a LOT), he tries weed and he finally tries music and sitting by himself, cuddling a cushion for comfort.  I know a million people have discussed this at length, but I don’t think we can speak about this clip without at least touching on it.  Everything about it is done so well and it all combines to allow Matteo’s feelings to shine through.  I love that it’s allowed to happen at a party and that we see very clearly how these things can be overwhelming for characters.  I won’t go on anymore, but it’s just great and the acting is so perfect.  I genuinely think this small part of this clip is probably my favourite acting out of everything in this show.

And then of course we have the stuff after everyone else has left.  Again, a million people have discussed this in a million ways, but I love how this scene again shows how easily they get each other, how good they are at communicating with each other and how quickly they get on the same page.  Matteo has no trouble at all saying what he thinks and pressing for information.  This parallels Sara in some ways - she is like this with Matteo, making her wants and needs clear and putting herself on the line.  Again, this is all very good set up for later on when Matteo finally finds himself in her position and realises just how much his behaviour hurt her because he’s living her side.  However, unlike Matteo, David is quite clear and honest back.  And that’s why they can so quickly move into a potential kiss.  As with Matteo and Sara, there are close ups as they lean into each other, but somehow it feels like there’s more space for them to breathe here.  The camera allows them both to be in the frame naturally, whether Sara is often invading into Matteo’s shots.  Here, they’re both on board and both want it.  I like that Matteo gets a moment to be open and himself after his experience with Andi.  It must take a lot of courage to do this after he was so badly affected earlier.  Testament to David’s calming presence which reassures rather than pushes, and how honest they are with each other - there’s no way David could miss how relieved Matteo is when he finds out that Laura is David’s sister not his girlfriend.  They’re both very brave here - David for telling Matteo he looks good and Matteo for trying to take that next step even after his panic attack.   And I think that’s a nice place to leave this.  Because that’s already such a lot and this has all already been said before.  

[yan-twst]

please take care of yourself! if it's not too much trouble, can i please request yandere riddle, ruggie, azul, and epel with a darling who confessed to them before they could even think of kidnapping/murder/etc? thank you very much!

warnings: general yandere themes,mentions of blood, mentions of death, non consensual drug use

riddle rosehearts

he’s taken off guard, at first. riddle is one to plan out everything, to make sure he has a guideline and follow it- his sudden obsession is no different

perhaps it’s early enough he can still tell himself his emotions were simply a crush, simply the kind of romance others speak of; after all, his darling just waltzed into his arms before his heart could provide thoughts of keeping them to himself, before he could grow jealous of anyone who spoke to them

and yet, instead of the newfound relationship putting a halt onto his tendencies, it does little but speed them up

his plan might have changed, but it will have the same outcome. the way riddle loves is controlling and possessive, by nature; having his darling so available and already close to him just fuels the fire

already being in a relationship just makes his heart grow all that much twisted. as his darling’s boyfriend, he feels entitled to their obedience, to their attention

after all, riddle craves control. he’s been controlled all his life, carefully regulated to be someone his mother wanted him to be; it’s only natural he fights to have absolute control now that he’s free, and this absolute control is just intoxicating when it comes to his darling

perhaps the fact they began to date him before he could develop his true colors makes it even harder for them to accept the relationship is rotten. after all, it began so sweetly- it’s hard to accept the way riddle’s behaviour morphs slowly, the way he forces them to follow his rules, how he tries to monopolize their time; after all, that’s just... that’s just him being him, right...?

it’s so difficult for his darling. they’re in too deep- riddle feels entitled to their everything: after all, it was them who asked for his love, right? as much as he’s tyrannical, he’s also desperate for the affection his own mother never gave him. 

he thirsts for power, affection, and reaffirmations; the way he drank up praise and smiled when his darling followed the silly heartslabyul rules at the start of the relationship slowly degrades into his demands to receive affection met by harsh punishment if denied, degrades into him placing so many rules it’s almost impossible for his darling to go a day without being yelled at for their “disobedience” no matter how hard they try

azul ashengrotto

one would think that being confessed to first would soothe azul. his insecurities are his achilles’ heel, after all; growing desperate at the thought of not being enough for his darling, putting on his usual act to impress them. but if they come to him first, even before he can start forging plans to rope them in, then- it should be fine, right?

but it’s not. it’s not fine, and his darling might realize so once it’s too late to escape the octopus’ grasp.

azul is greedy by nature. he wants more money, more contracts, more power over students, more notoriety. it’s not just enough to be dating his darling, not after a  while

it’s so easy to fall back onto bad habits for him, questioning if he’s truly enough, if they’re just with him out of pity; soon enough it only takes him spotting his partner smiling to someone else for him to convince himself they’re cheating on him because he’s not enough, for him to assume any moment they aren’t with him they’re actively trying to get away from him

and it’s just painful for his darling, really. it’s not as if they didn’t know azul had a softer, insecure side- but it’s exhausting to deal with him. emotionally draining. to reassure him every time, to have to prove they’re loyal, to prove their love... it’s almost just easier to spend every moment with azul to avoid him making assumptions

and it’s not like they have much of a choice either. if a relationship is 50/50, then azul thinks his darling’s half should be to not worry him and stay by his side at all times, something he’s eager to bring up. after all, refusing him is just begging for him to either get angry or fall off one of his many insecurity spirals; and both scenarios usually end up with his darling getting dragged away by the twins to “fix” azul

a relationship that started off fine is now just toxic. azul is desperately codependent and controlling, and this isn’t even as bad as he can get; really, his darling gets a front-row seat to see how he’s slowly enveloped in his obsession with them

it’s not hard for azul’s darling to fall out of love, not like this. the azul they knew at the start, the one they fell in love with is mostly gone by the time the three month anniversary rolls around- them trying to break up with the merman is almost a given, and yet that’s probably the straw that breaks the camel’s back and just makes azul fully succumb to his obsession

kidnapping, blackmailing, contracts, killing, violence; azul brings in the big guns once his darling tries to leave. he sees it as his insecurities and fears having been ‘correct all along’- he has to take control, has to make things work by force if it has to be so; after all, it’s clear his darling won’t stay anymore, so... he’ll just have to keep them by force, won’t he?

ruggie bucchi

ruggie might often appear quite relaxed and friendly, but he doesn’t hold himself too high. he sees himself as a slum cat, a no-good opportunist with not too many redeeming features, so when his crush confesses to him just a few days after he himself realized he had a crush is almost mind boggling

perhaps it’s that what keeps the “honeymoon” stage of the relationship alive for so long. the sheer disbelief and joy that he’s getting his way, that life is aligning itself for him to have something nice without having had to work for it

but the honeymoon stage isn’t eternal, don’t you know? everything that goes up must go down- in some relationships that might mean one loses interest, or grows bored, but in ruggie’s case it’s differnet.

he grows paranoid, grows selfish. his darling is finally his. he finally has something that’s entirely his own- no hand me downs, no stealing, no pity gifts; his darling was the one to come to him, they’re his, and they’re not for anyone else 

“something of his own” is perhaps a good way to just see all the ways ruggie’s brain is fucked up on this; his darling is something he owns, more of a belonging than a person. oh, don’t get him wrong- he loves them, he thrives off the attention (he needs it, almost, desperately begging for it) they give him- but in the end of the day, they’re his so they should do as he says, right?

he’s grown up knowing to hide and protect valuables, that everyone else is out to steal other’s precious gems; he comes from a dog-eat-dog world, and that sort of thinking poisons his heart. he can’t stand people even glancing at his darling, spending time with them; his heart says they’re trying to steal them, why wouldn’t they? isn’t his darling just the most precious thing? but they’re HIS precious thing- and it’s his duty to make sure nobody takes them away, right?

it’s so easy to get rid of people with his unique magic. it’s so easy to clean up any mess, with how used he is to cleaning. it’s so easy to hide remains in the vast sands that extend in the distance of the savanaclaw dorm

and it’s so easy to show his darling his work, to make them aware of how hard he works for them- of course, this is nothing short of using fear to control them, but hey, if it works, it works, doesn’t it?

after all, his darling is just that much more willing to stay nice and put in his room while he’s out if the memory of ruggie’s bloodstained clothes is engraved in their mind, and it’s so much easy for ruggie to get the attention he craves so badly if his darling is still processing the news of their close friends’ bodies not being found

epel felmier 

epel is not a complete stranger to being approached with a confession- although tragically, more than once it’s been some idiot student who somehow mistook him for a girl, only leading to bitterness and anger. so of course, when he’s finally confessed to by someone he likes- confessed to by someone who knows him, who is close to him- he’s over the moon

of course he’d worried about his crush not liking him due to his appearance; after all, he doesn’t like how fragile and lithe he is, so it’s hard to imagine others liking it (despite how annoying vil can be about how his form or whatever is perfect)

even though he knows his lover fully supports his endeavors to grow stronger, he knows that they’re weak to him. not in the way someone relies on a strong person, but because they love him- they’ll say yes to anything he says if he bats his eyelashes and speaks sweetly

and at first he doesn’t care. he won’t swoop that low- if his darling doesn’t want to do something he wants, fine. but then he starts craving for things he shouldn’t; he feels clingy and possessive, not wanting to see his darling smiling and laughing with others, not wanting them to wander alone- and suddenly he’s not above using his charm to make them give in

the fact epel wasn’t even aware how dark his desires could go just goes to show how unprepared his own darling could be. after all, at first it seems like innocent things; spending more time with him, not hanging out with students that are too flirty. it’s normal, it’s just small sacrifices needed for a working relationship

but isn’t it curious how all the sacrifices come from his darling’s part...? after all, it’s them who have to cut off contact with certain friends epel deems “too touchy”, it’s them who have to wait for epel to escort them between classes, it’s them who have to spend their free time and days off in epel’s room- but it’s so hard to call epel out. he’s so innocent and adorable; surely they’re just approaching things from the wrong angle, surely the relationship doesn’t have that big of a power imbalance, right...?

he’s a bit scared of himself, in all honesty. surely, not all relationships can be like this- surely, not all love can feel like this, can it...? he’s never been in love before, but he’s quite sure not everyone feels murderous urges to get rid of anyone who even looks at their partner, that not everyone gets as much satisfaction from seeing their partner cry as they do from a kiss from them. it’s not normal, but it’s his way of love- so surely he can’t be wrong for just giving into whatever his heart says, can he?

but epel isn’t fully in control until he brings in fear. love and affection are what he wants, yes- but those can only get him so far. he isn’t fully in control until his darling understands he’s the one in charge, he isn’t fully in charge until his darling is woozy off potions slipped in their food by him- potions that make them sleepy, giggly and obedient, that let him easily shove them into his room and perhaps attach a chain to their ankle, with them just hazily giggling about the situation instead of screaming, not able to comprehend the situation they’re in- the fear can settle in once the potion fades, after all

[trainsinanime]

Season 4, Kwamis and Trust

Let’s do like the show does and put Chat Noir aside for a second. With that I think the themes of season 4 so far (after Optigami was released) are very clear: It’s about Marinette growing up into her own version of the guardian, expanding on her leader role, and the bigger message of how trust isn’t easy but ultimately worth it. And this is expressed most directly through the Kwamis.

With the Kwamis, Marinette goes against established precedent both in terms of the lore, and in terms of what the show has shown us before. Established precedent is that Kwamis can’t be let out, and they can’t use powers on their own. They can’t be trusted with the responsibility. Master Fu said (or implied) so, Su Han said so, even the Kwamis say so. And Marinette kind of ignores all of them. Marinette lets the Kwamis out (to their delight), and she lets them use their powers without a holder. She’s a bit hesitant about it, but by Optigami, it’s a well established part of her strategic toolkit. She even gave them their own phone. Now we don’t have time to unpack whether she bought it or stole it from somewhere, but that shows she is placing a lot of trust in them.

Of course, when the Kwamis do stuff on their own, accidents happen every single time. The Eiffel tower gets destroyed, or displaced, or bouncy, or… honestly I want to see what Pollen, Mullo or Wayzz would do with it. So far these things haven’t had an impact on the actual plot of any episode, but Marinette makes it clear that she considers it a problem. So the show is not at all saying that placing this trust is completely without issues.

On the other hand, it works to Marinette’s advantage. That’s why she’s allowed herself to rely on the Kwamis to begin with, and in many episodes, she wouldn’t have had any other solution. The trust pays off; it is worth the (very real) cost.

This directly mirrors what Marinette is doing with Alya. She trusted her, and it has caused problems - as of Optigami, potentially a lot of problems. But it has also given her new freedoms and new abilities, like the anti-akuma charms. Trust, teamwork and breaking rules has made Marinette stronger, but it hasn’t been easy.

In both cases, the trust has been earned in some part through intentions and long-running relationships rather than individual actions. Marinette trusts the Kwamis because she knows they mean well, even though she is completely aware that they are not good at controlling their powers and avoiding disasters. In Gang of Secrets, Marinette trusted Lady Wifi not because she was acting trustworthy at that point, but because she has known Alya for a long time. That trust paid off, and paved the way for the Alyanette reveal. And when she gave her the miraculous permanently, it was again based on Alya’s overall performance, while being fully aware that Alya sometimes makes mistakes - just like the Kwamis, or Marinette herself for that matter.

This is a general thing with Miraculous Ladybug: The show acknowledges mistakes, but in the long term, it judges people on intentions more than actions. When Marinette causes the circumstances that lead to an akumatisation (as always, I want to stress that only Hawkmoth actually causes akumas), her failure is rarely one of intention; she generally means well. Her mistakes tends to be about execution, or not having thought enough about how her actions may affect someone. Exceptions apply, of course, especially when Adrien is involved, but they are just that: Exceptions. Usually she wants to help someone and does a not-quite-perfect job of it, and usually, she reaches her goal in the end, because her original intention was absolutely solid. Now, in season 4, Marinette is extending that same set of values to the Kwamis and Alya.

We have also seen the counterpoint to this theme of trust in the first few episodes: In Truth and Gang of Secrets, Marinette thought she couldn’t trust anyone; not Luka, not Alya, not Chat Noir and not even really the Kwamis. She was more busy trying to wrangle them than treating them as partners. All of that made her and the people around her miserable. It led to a break-up and made things much easier for Shadow Moth. By learning to trust people, even if it is against the rules, she was able to turn this around.

Let’s bring this back to our favourite kitty. Right now you will find a lot, and I mean a lot of meta that talks about how Marinette is leaving Chat Noir by the wayside, and how that means he’ll be very sad and this will lead to a big conflict later. And that may indeed be true. But I don’t think it’s what the season will be about (meaning I think this conflict will at most be a two-parter). If we take the show at face value, what we’ve seen about the season so far has been Marinette learning that trusting people is risky but worth it, and that rules to the contrary may need to be rethought.

The big payoff for this character arc of hers of this could be her just asking people for their phone when she needs it.

That, or the more exciting possibility: How about breaking the oldest rule, and trusting her closest and yet most distant friend completely? It’s risky but worth it. Is this season really headed for a reveal? I have no idea, but it seems like a logical progression for what Marinette is currently going through. Maybe with a bit of conflict on the way, sure, but that conflict isn’t the point. The trust is.

As for Chat Noir being sidelined? Honestly, parts of that may just be a time issue. Optigami was a busy episode with a lot of plot points, and it focused heavily on developing Marinette first, and Alya second. Something has to give, I guess. I think the episode did more hinting at a Djwifi crisis (which could be a blueprint for Ladynoir, by the way) than anything else. The show generally isn’t that subtle, and if this was supposed to be a setup for a huge Ladynoir conflict or Chat Noir depression spiral, then it was an incredibly weak one.

I know this goes against the grain of everything the fandom (including me) has been saying up to this point, yes. But also consider that we don’t know how Chat Noir-centric the unreleased episodes will be. I’m still guessing Marinette will be the more important character throughout the season, because that is how the show has literally always worked. But this is the first season where we got an episode that was focused strictly on Adrien, with Lies. And with episodes like „Gabriel Agreste“ coming up or Nino’s remarks in Guiltrip, I think that probably wasn’t the last Adrien-centric episode yet either. He’s got some stuff to figure out for himself as well before a reveal, or for that matter a big Ladynoir fight, would really make much sense.

At some point, I think it’s more interesting to look at the show that’s actually there instead of the show that isn’t, which is right now the Chat Noir focused one. We don’t actually know enough to do more than guess there, while the main story keeps on telling us how Marinette grows into her role as not just fighter but team leader, and what values she develops throughout that. The Kwamis are a crucial part of that process.

(This is mostly an expanded version of what I wrote yesterday.)

[blueninjadino]

HOAN Report Log 3

Whoops I made this all the way back in March but I only posted it in the discord server so I’m more than a little late but here it is, a speculative biology report on the zombie Vrul disease in @starr-fall-knight-rise​ ‘s HASO stories.  

Greetings Admiral Vir,

While this paper would have been more valuable during your eradication campaign, it is better late than never. Most of the data we were able to collect on the Vrul disease was from observations, as any individual merely suspected of infection are terminated immediately by the Vrul council and it would be reckless and unethical to deliberately infect organisms. There have been more reported cases of infected individuals, however the council eliminates these individuals and shares nothing on these cases with us. Hopefully more information on this pathogen can be collected in the future, but I am glad that any information was shared with us at all.

Head Researcher,

Dr. A. H. Torrada

The Vrul Zombie Disease

Recently a disease that infects Vrul and resembles the zombie viruses in human media has been rediscovered. The disease appears to have been prevalent in the past until approximately 4,000 years ago. While the pathogen does exert neurological control over its Vrul hosts, which have been named sporebound, like imaginary zombie viruses, this disease is a fungus.

The fungus enters the body through the respiratory system, with the airborne spores being inhaled into the lungs and infiltrating the body from there. The exact process in which the disease goes from entering the lungs to manipulating the host is unknown, but it theorized that the fungus enters the circulatory system to travel to the central nervous system where it will reside. The fungus has a remarkably short incubation period, as noticeable symptoms develop only a few hours after exposure. After 2-3 hours the eyes lose function and become clouded and white. At this time the host also exhibits altered behavior, which consist of an apparent loss of cognition and fear and acute aggression. With vision eliminated, the sporebound navigate and target susceptible Vrul through vibrations. However, sporebound lack the ability to discern between organisms, and will attack anything that produces organisms indiscriminately. The sporebound are not aggressive towards each other but have no regard for others’ well-being, as they will clamber over one another with no hesitation. It was proposed that the infected identify one another through shortwave radio, but this is unlikely since the infected are unable to identify susceptible Vrul through radio waves. It is most likely that the fungus is capable of recognizing its kin through some unknown mechanism. 12 hours after exposure, yellow pustules form on the Vrul’s skin. The pustules are filled with infectious spores that disperse into clouds once the pustules are broken. The spores are acidic and can be neutralized into a harmless substance with water. The spores are also heavy and can last for no more than 24 hours under perfect conditions, which explains why the fungus relies on manipulated hosts for transmission rather than other modes such as wind.

Under unknown conditions, infected Vrul will bury themselves in clusters of about 7 individuals. Trees surround the buried clusters of sporebound, however the area directly above the Vrul remains clear of organic matter. This lack of organic material is peculiar since the soil is fertile and the light gap creates perfect conditions for secondary succession to occur. Upon further inspection, it has been revealed that when buried the fungus acts similar to the mycelium networks in Earth forests. The fungus produces light orange hyphae that extends outwards from their host. The connection between the hyphae and the host’s body is weak in order to easily break off when the infectious host emerges from the soil. The mycelium above the host is acidic and prevents plants from establishing. While the mycelium that extends horizontally from the hosts forms a mutualistic relationship with the trees that surround the cluster, with the fungi and trees exchanging needed nutrients. Additional nutrients are obtained through the degradation of the host’s organs that are unnecessary for transmission, including the eyes and reproductive organs. Once the mycelium network and the pustules are grown, the fungus becomes dormant and only expends resources for maintenance. The sporebound emerge after sensing vibrations, and once leaving the ground they immediately seek out susceptible Vrul.

Local wildlife avoid areas that contain buried individuals, and many large species have migrated to the poles of the planet. Animals with lighter gaits that produce minimal vibrations remain near the equator where the Vrul are found, but are still wary near burial sites. This behavior likely developed to avoid attacks from the indiscriminate and aggressive infected Vrul. While plant species are immune to the disease, it is unknown if animal species are susceptible.

Humans report the sporebound as having a stench of rot, however this odor is not produced through decomposition. The stench is comprised of dimethyl trisulfide, methanethiol, and putrescine. Dimethyl trisulfide and methanethiol are found in plant and Vrul tissues and are released due to the fungus-induced redistribution of resources and the bursting of pustules. Putrescine is produced by the breakdown of amino acids as unnecessary organs of disintegrated for their resources. Only a small amount of putrescine is released, but the chemical has a low odor threshold and is easily detected by humans. The released odors may be advantageous to the fungus as it may ward away wildlife and thus prevent costs associated with pursuing non-Vrul organisms. In addition, Vrul lack olfactory organs so the odor would not alert the target species.

There is little data on the impacts of the fungus on different classes of Vrul since deltas are the common of the Vrul hosts, currently any infected Vrul that emerge are eliminated, and it would not be ethical or wise to study the fungus through infecting Vrul. However, all of the Vrul classes known by the Galactic Alliance (GA) were observed during a mass extermination effort led by Admiral Adam Vir and Doctor Krill. Deltas are most commonly infected, although it may not necessarily be because they are the most susceptible. Delta’s are the strongest of the Vrul classes, and as such they make ideal vectors for the fungus. However, with their strength they are also capable of burrowing, so their high frequency may result from their ability to burrow and preserve themselves for thousands of years. While not as common nor powerful, infected omegas have the potential to be extremely contagious. Omegas possess non-functional, partially developed helium sacs that, when infected, develop into what functions as a large pustule. The pustule sac is more durable than the normal pustules, and as such does not burst randomly. Instead, the sac ruptures into a large cloud of spores when the host is exposed to a large amount of vibrations. Betas and alphas are physically identical and only differ in their intelligence, and this identicality is represented by their infected states. Even when infected their helium sacs remain functional, and infected individuals use their helium sacs more than their legs for transportation. However, infected Vrul float higher than uninfected Vrul do, and can sustain suspension up to 20 feet in the air.

It is predicted that the infected alphas and betas float like this to better spread spores. However, there is a trade-off between speed and floating as infected alphas and betas are significantly slower than their delta and omega counterparts. Cities on the Vrul homeworld are surrounded by walls that are 40 feet tall and 20 feet thick with no doors. It has been speculated that the walls were constructed to prevent epidemics of the fungus since sporebound can only float 20 feet and the spores can disperse upwards 10 feet in the air under the best conditions. However the Vrul council has requested that the Human Organisation of Alien Sciences (HOAN) refrains from studying or hypothesizing about the Vrul’s past, and we at HOAN will comply.

[tekka-dan]

I posted 5,494 times in 2021

56 posts created (1%)

5438 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 97.1 posts.

I added 464 tags in 2021

#lmfao - 238 posts

#very important - 65 posts

#favorite - 46 posts

#personal - 30 posts

#naruto related - 18 posts

#lmfao what the fuck - 18 posts

#me - 17 posts

#my face - 12 posts

#anonymous - 12 posts

#answered - 8 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#just walked around for 14 years of my life thinking we had a literal country to ourselves not realizing we are also part of the 7 continents

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Sasuke and Nagatto have more connection and paraells to one another then the forced one between Nagato and Naruto.

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Sasuke and Nagato both lost everything that meant anything to them. Both of them know exactly what it’s like to be victims and also powerless, both of them understand being betrayed by those you once loved and both of them understand that the world needs a cleansing/rebirth.

Naruto and Nagato have nothing in common except their connection to Jiraiya and that’s a reach because their connection to him differs in every way. Jiraiya training Naruto was not the same as Jiraiya training the orphan.

I have no idea why Naruto compares himself to Nagato or why he preaches that he knows what he’s going through or gives the false hope he can fix the past / anything in the future.

19 notes • Posted 2021-06-28 14:31:36 GMT

#4

gotta rant again sorry

I’m genuinely baffled why I don’t see many / enough people talking about Coyote Starrk from Bleach the way he deserves to be appreciated

one of my favorite things about him as a character was his reluctance to actually fight anyone, the way he went out of his way to avoid combat with anyone, despite being the most powerful arrancar.

on top of that, Starrk’s inability to deal with being alone but his unfortunate powers killed off everyone around him. When I first read his character, I thought how silly was it for someone like Starrk, who can kill off anyone in his mere presence, be afraid to be alone? It dawned on me (years later) that his loneliness wasn’t a choice, it was a curse. Starrk wanted family, friends, people he could relate to. Yet every time he longed to be close to those he envies, they would die. It became apparent to Starrk that someone starving for company was cursed to be alone.

Starrk’s philosophy / outlook on life and others was interesting. Something Starrk says repeatedly is that he “envies those who are weak (-er than him) because they can always find others to be around.” for a long time I interpreted this meaning that those who are weak rely on others who are strong, and I appreciated his outlook of praising people who are weak while everyone else praises those who are strong/can hold their own. Until I realized my interpretation wasn’t entirely correct. Starrk admires that weaker people attract one another, they protect each other, each of them plays a role in their own affiliations / cliques. Starrk does not have this nor does he understand it. What’s interesting about Starrk as a character though is his ability takes after a pack of vicious wolves. Wolves are inherently independent / asocial creatures however they’re also devoted to their packs and families. Starrk having an ability to summon / control a pack of wolves only reflects how desperately he wishes to be apart of something more.

On top of that, his main companion that he grows fond of over time is literally a part of himself that has its own manifestion and conscious personality.

22 notes • Posted 2021-06-07 16:22:31 GMT

#3

What do you think of Orga Itsuka from Gundam IBO ? ( If you are familiar with the series)

This was the perfect question and I’m shocked that I even got it.

Orga Itsuka is among my favorite anime characters of all time.

Starting with the friendship - brotherly bond he shares with Mikazuki, he genuinely has a soft and kind heart and looks out for everyone on his entire crew.

He’s such a gentle, soft and well toned person all around. He is a mere teenager having to orchestrate how to infiltrate different factions and ships just so he can prove his people (his family) are not just human debris but - human. They deserve to live, to thrive, to reproduce and to love.

I can’t say much without spoiling for those who haven’t seen it but I also love how he shows traits where he really doesn’t know what to do, he really doesn’t have an answer, he’s breaking and falling apart at the seams and it’s one word or sentence from Mika that puts him back on his feet. He comes back stronger than before and he puts aside his personal feelings and puts his family and others well beings first.

It’s not easy writing a character like Orga because he has moments where he shows how genuinely human he is and how it coincides with his brilliant schemes as well.

I love him so much, I can’t even formulate the amount of words I want to use to say how much I love this character to death.

In fact that entire show is the reason why my gamer tag is Tekkedan. Iron Flower. The flower that will never die. Represents ALL of them so genuinely and sweetly.

Thanks for asking me this and giving me the chance to talk about him.

23 notes • Posted 2021-07-12 20:43:00 GMT

#2

Do you think Sasori had the potential to a Major Villain akin to Orochimaru, if had not joined the Akatsuki. I mean he was major antagonist ( somewhat), but I mean to say do you think Sasori had the potential to be a main villain contender ?

This is an interesting and great question, anonymous.

Does Saosori have the potential to be a major villian?

Short answer: No and that’s primarily why his character falls flat in some ways.

So here’s the long answer as to why he isn’t:

Sasori doesn’t have what the other villians share: the will to live.

Pein was reasurrected, Orichimaru was immortal, Madara was also resurrected, Kaguya lives through chakra. Saosori though? He kills people and uses them as puppets, rendering them useful until they aren’t. Saosori doesn’t value life, he doesn’t even value his own. He quit literally represents the empty shell that he creates of himself.

To have the potential to be a villian that surpasses judgement and defeat, Sasori should possess the will to want to live, to not be defeated - to survive. The only thing he has is the will to hide, shield himself and run away though. Every puppet he uses / crafted represents this.

Mom and dad puppets:

Created to protect him, make him feel the ever lasting love they were not able to give him after death. He created them to make his family feel whole again.

Hiruko:

See the full post

24 notes • Posted 2021-01-25 16:58:38 GMT

#1

I wanted to give a humble shout out because for several years these people deserve it.

@leportraitducadavre thank you for everything, especially your kind words. When we first met I was a novice to the Naruto fandom and you helped me feel comfortable and through so many battles we fought together. Those were the times and I honestly miss them, people have somewhat become more competent lately lol. I love you dearly and thank you for sticking by my side outside of the anime community. I do honestly plan to visit argentina some day, I’ve got my passport and 9 years for it left so I’ll be coming before then! Also your metas and anonymous responses lately are top tier and I enjoy reading them when I have the chance. Your analysis skills have always been superior but you’re knocking me off my feet lately, so awesome job.

@cognitivecapricorn you’re a lovely gem and always a pleasure to speak with. Thank you for creating a safe, non judgemental space on discord and for being the person who helped me venture into the Naruto fandom and helped me take off and supported all my works and metas. I enjoy reading yours and thank you for reading mine too. You also gave me a comfort and safe space from hypocrites during the early days of the fandom so I truly appreciate that. Thank you also for listening during those horrible times I went through a couple years back..I’ll never forget your words of advice or insight. I love you dearly, always!

@dollfacedbunny you are an incredible person and I love you absolute crap out of you so much! you were the person I needed and had during such a terrible year for me, thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such a comforting and stellar person. I remember the year that was difficult for you too and I only wished you were closer so I could comfort you the same way. I love you dearly and always. And your obsession with Hawks is really cute xD

and these lot are from the beginning (I’m talking 2016 and 2017 era)

There are many, many more people @mira-winterlight @keepitc00lfam @neonacidtrip @swordrose-g @goatville @viana-dascolli @lordsky4ever @thatoddgurl @teenagetreepatrol @sailxngg @blvk-orbit @remsion @brighteyed-littlered @yamchaz @blakearkosbts @gee-taku @galaghiel and I can’t begin to explain my gratitude to you all, so thank you.

I wrote this because despite what I go through in real life, you all have remained constants and I love you all for that. You celebrate my victories and successes..I feel so much support and warmth from y’all daily that even as years pass it never changes. All of your are wonderful people and if you don’t hear it every day then y’all should.

I love all of you. Please Stay Golden.

(I’m not going anywhere this is just an appreciation post)

27 notes • Posted 2021-06-14 13:59:10 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[shinydelirium]

MLQC Season 2 Chapter 15 (Kiro’s Chapter) Part 3 [Land of Map Country] Translation [CN]

I’ve mentioned before in an earlier post about how s2ch15 is the BEST Kiro chapter I have ever read so far in MLQC. This part 3 is the start of it all.

Thanks again for helping @link4eva��

 ***Once again DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED!!!*** 

Enjoy~

For the previous translation of Chapter 15: Part 1, Part 2.

[Land of Map Country]

The footsteps behind me suddenly sped up as if they were close. I stepped forward without hesitation and quickly jumped into the tram.

The tram closed its doors at the same time and started to move.

I looked out the window behind me with lingering fears but saw no one.

Kiro: Don’t worry, he can’t catch up to you. This is a superhero’s car.

Kiro seemed to read my thoughts and comforted me in a relaxed voice.

I steadied my breathing, looked around the car, and found that the monitor on the roof was lit with red dots, so I turned off the map and waved to it.

MC: Thanks for all the help, superhero!

Kiro: Eh? Wasn’t that already obvious?

He deliberately dragged out his words to show disappointment which made me instantly laugh.

Kiro: I thought you would make a long list about how you really feel right now.

MC: True emotions can be said face-to-face.

Hearing my words, Kiro was silent. After a long time, he laughs and replies to me in a low voice.

Kiro: I’ll remember what you said.

Kiro: I have controlled the route of this tram and it will bring you safely to my side.

Kiro: Next, Miss Chips will have a good rest in the car and she will arrive at her destination soon.

“Soon”…

I was taken aback for a moment and felt a somewhat uneasy.

Do I really want to see Kiro? Why did he hide during this time?

I glanced out of the window and the fog blurred the boundary between heaven and earth, looking chaotic and at a loss.

To this day, I still don’t know why Kiro suddenly put on the “Helios” mask, but I am quite sure what must have happened.

He is like a Rubik’s cube, its colors shuffled with different secrets scattered on each side. ***Sidenote: What an absolutely perfect analogy to describe Kiro!***

No matter how hard I try, I can’t put together a complete Kiro.

He seemed to have carried many secrets and heavy responsibilities from the beginning.

I know that everyone has secrets and they don’t want to show them to others.

He didn’t want to tell them, so I didn’t ask.

Because of an adult’s self-righteous maturity and tacit understanding. Because he is afraid of touching the corners he does not want to touched….

Because I am afraid of being hated.

And in this way, it seems that the distance between us is gradually drawn further.

I took a deep breath and decided to abandon those inexplicable adult principles and looked at the surveillance with a sincere expression.

Even if he will be hated, I have to hold on tightly to his hand.

MC: Kiro, I miss you very much.

MC: Although I don’t know why you left suddenly, but now that you found me, I’m really happy.

MC: In fact, I have been looking for you all this time and I have been looking forward to seeing you.

MC: No matter what happens to you or what you become, I don’t care.

MC: To me, a healthy Kiro is the most important thing.

There was silence over the collar. After a long time, there was small, low voice.

Kiro: MC, I….I miss you too.***Sidenote: WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! TAT***

Kiro: I have also been looking forward to meeting you at that time. You may not believe it but I missed you much more than you can imagine.

His voice is very soft, but I can hear it very clearly.

During this time, the tram came to a halt slowly and I found that it stopped at the door of a department store near the city center.

Kiro: MC, go to the underground parking lot.

His voice was muffled and a little nostalgic.

Kiro: You can just follow the No.2 safe passage and go down. The signal in the underground parking lot isn’t good…..I’ll have to cut off the communication for now.

MC: Okay, I’ll go in right away.

Kiro:…Mm. Miss Chips, goodbye.

Kiro: Also, to “see” you again, I am very happy.

As soon as his voice fell, the collar was completely silent. My heart felt a little strange but I quickened my pace nonetheless.

Maybe he listened to what I said just now.

Thinking of this, I started running, wanting to see him even sooner.

Running out of the safe passage, I saw a figure standing at the door.

MC: Kiro!

I ran and leaped forward. The figure paused, then slowly turned around, revealing a sharp profile—

At the moment I met his eyes, my footsteps became slower and slower, and I finally stopped in the open space a few meters away from him, unable to smile.

MC:….Helios.

Helios looked straight at me. The indifference between his brows and eyes made my heart feel weak.

Why is this happening?

He clearly said just now, “I’m looking forward to meeting you.” Is it a temporary remorse? Or can he only face me in this way?

I couldn’t hold his cold gaze and lowered my head in a daze.

That invisible line seemed to have shown up again, between me and him.

No wonder his tone was so helpless and low just now. No wonder he never mentioned meeting with me.

He still remained in the circle of the map and refused to come to me.

Helios looked at me, concealing the complex emotions in his eyes and his mouth became a sharp thin line.

Helios: From the look on your face, you really don’t want to see me.***Sidenote: DAMN!!! TALK ABOUT A COMPLETE 180 JUST LIKE THAT!!!***

I took a deep breath, smiled and raised my head.

MC: How could that be! I think it’s a coincidence, Helios, meeting you here like this.

No matter what kind of him, he is him. If Kiro only wants to face me in this way, then I will do so with sincerity.

He turned and strode towards the depths of the parking lot but something seemed to flash in his eyes.

I ran to keep up and walked to his side.

He didn’t wear a collar, so he should be a “human” card. I deliberately kept my distance from him to avoid accidentally touching him.

MC: Helios, where are we going?

Helios: It’s “I”, not “we”.

MC:…..

I frowned but since he didn’t flat-out refuse me, I just assumed he accepted that I would act with him.

Soon we walked into a fire control room.

Helios stopped in front of an unremarkable wooden door in the room. He took a key from the door frame and opened the wooden door.

Behind it seems to be a utility room. The space isn’t large.

MC: What are we…”you” doing here?

Helios: Last time you said that you want to investigate the hunter game and the lighthouse. Are there any results?

MC:…..

MC: Helios, the conversation should be about you and me, not selectively ignoring each other’s problems.

Helios: Let me ask again, what is the relationship between the hunter games and the lighthouse?

I calmed down my emotions and explained my conjecture about their relationship based on the overall situation.

He listened without saying a word and squinted when he heard that the hunter game might be related to opening the lighthouse.

Helios: According to you, the hunter game relies on powerful Evol energy fluctuations to open the lighthouse.

MC: Yes.

Helios: How did you open the lighthouse last time?

MC:….. After being pricked, there was a “click” and I fell.

He frowned and looked at me with a confused look.

Helios: Describe all the events that occurred at that time.

Helios: Start from when you squatted by the stone slab.

MC: Were you close by?

My eyes lit up and looked at Helios. Hearing my question, he instantly stopped.

Helios: Don’t ask boring questions, just say it.

MC:….I just squatted there, carefully looked at the slab for a while, then reached out and touched it.

MC: It’s like it was alive and then I found a cut on the palm of my hand and my feet lit up.

MC: Then I felt the ground under my feet moving along with the sound of gears turning and I fell.

MC: And then, I met you.

He raised his eyebrows, showing a familiar expression of disdain.

Helios: Blindly feeling your way around without knowing what’s hidden, how foolish.

MC: It was just a matter of trial and error.

***Sidenote: Had to look these above quotes up online cuz Google Translate wasn’t making any sense and found out it was an idiom. Basically, Helios thought it wasn’t wise for MC to just reach out and touch things without knowing what would happen afterwards. I hope I interpreted it right***

He ignored me, turned around and took out a sealed test tube container.

Helios: Reach out your hand.

I do not know why he said this.

He took out the knife he carried close to his body and quickly cut my finger with a sharp movement. I didn’t even feel any pain.

Helios: Drip the blood in by yourself.

MC: …..

Although I was very confused, I obediently dripped the blood from my finger into the glass test tube according to his instructions.

Worried that it wasn’t enough, I squeezed my finger a little bit harder.

Helios: What are you doing?

He snatched the test tube, furrowed his eyebrows and stared at me.

MC: What? Didn’t you say to drip blood into it?

Helios: …..

Maybe it was my very calm attitude that made him speechless, but his mouth was slightly open and he didn’t say anything.

In the end, he just lowered his head and opened the paper bag in his hand, took out the iodine and band-aids from it, and threw them to me.

MC: You forgot again. No matter what you say or do, I trust you.

There was a momentary pause in his fingertips, trembling slightly. He didn’t speak but he knew what I was talking about.

Whether you are Kiro or Helios, yes, it’s all the same to me.

My heart will always trust you unconditionally.

Helios watched in silence as I bandaged my finger, took out a small knife, turned the hilt and handed it to me.

Helios: Keep this with you.

I looked at the heavy knife which made me feel somewhat distant but familiar.

A long time ago, I also received this knife.

Many things are like a circle. I thought I had walked for a long time, but I found that I had come to a certain corner where I had left.

MC: Is this kind of self-defense alone really enough?

Helios: No need to repay me.

I quickly took the knife and saw him turning around to leave the room and I hurriedly followed after him for a few steps.

He stopped, making me pause mid-step, then he put his hand on the doorknob, horizontally in front of me.

Helios: Stay in here, I put enough aerosol in it.

MC: If you’re going to solve the hunter game, I can help you.

Helios: I said no need.

Helios: I will end this game in my own way.

He didn’t give me time to speak and took a big step back, closing the door of the utility room with a “bang”.

“Click--”

The door was locked.

-End of Part 3-

Continue to Part 4 

[blackwoolncrown]

The defining feature of conversation is the expectation of a response. It would just be a monologue without one. In person, or on the phone, those responses come astoundingly quickly: After one person has spoken, the other replies in an average of just 200 milliseconds.

In recent decades, written communication has caught up—or at least come as close as it’s likely to get to mimicking the speed of regular conversation (until they implant thought-to-text microchips in our brains). It takes more than 200 milliseconds to compose a text, but it’s not called “instant” messaging for nothing: There is an understanding that any message you send can be replied to more or less immediately.

But there is also an understanding that you don’t have to reply to any message you receive immediately. As much as these communication tools are designed to be instant, they are also easily ignored. And ignore them we do. Texts go unanswered for hours or days, emails sit in inboxes for so long that “Sorry for the delayed response” has gone from earnest apology to punchline.

People don’t need fancy technology to ignore each other, of course: It takes just as little effort to avoid responding to a letter, or a voicemail, or not to answer the door when the Girl Scouts come knocking. As Naomi Baron, a linguist at American University who studies language and technology, puts it, “We’ve dissed people in lots of formats before.” But what’s different now, she says, is that “media that are in principle asynchronous increasingly function as if they are synchronous.”

The result is the sense that everyone could get back to you immediately, if they wanted to—and the anxiety that follows when they don’t. But the paradox of this age of communication is that this anxiety is the price of convenience. People are happy to make the trade to gain the ability to respond whenever they feel like it.

While you may know, rationally, that there are plenty of good reasons for someone not to respond to a text or an email—they’re busy, they haven’t seen the message yet, they’re thinking about what they want to say—it doesn’t always feel that way in a society where everyone seems to be on their smartphone all the time. A Pew survey found that 90 percent of cellphone owners “frequently” carry their phone with them, and 76 percent say they turn their phone off “rarely�� or “never.” In one small 2015 study, young adults checked their phones an average of 85 times a day. Combine that with the increasing social acceptability of using your smartphone when you’re with other people, and it’s reasonable to expect that it probably doesn’t take that long for a recipient to see any given message.

“You create for people an environment where they feel as though they could be responded to instantaneously, and then people don’t do that. And that just has anxiety all over it,” says Sherry Turkle, the director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It’s anxiety-inducing because written communication is now designed to mimic conversation—but only when it comes to timing. It allows for a fast back-and-forth dialogue, but without any of the additional context of body language, facial expression, and intonation. It’s harder, for example, to tell that someone found your word choice off-putting, and thus to correct it in real-time, or try to explain yourself better. When someone’s in front of you, “you do get to see the shadow of your words across someone else’s face,” Turkle says.

In last month’s viral New Yorker short story “Cat Person,” a young woman embarks on a failed romantic relationship with a man she meets at the movie theater where she works. They only go on one date in the story; they get to know each other primarily over text. When the affair ends messily, it reveals not only how the bubble of romantic expectations can be popped by reality’s needle, but also how weak digital communication is as a scaffolding on which to build an understanding of another person.

In an interview, the story’s author, Kristen Roupenian, said the piece was inspired by “the strange and flimsy evidence we use to judge the contextless people we meet outside our existing social networks, whether online or off.” Indeed, even for the people we already know, we increasingly rely on contextless forms of communication. This puts an unusually large burden on the words themselves (and maybe some emojis) to convey what is meant. And each message, and each pause in between messages, takes on outsize importance.

“Text messages become marks on rocks to be analyzed and sweated over,” Turkle says.

It’s not always easy to figure out what someone meant to convey by using a certain emoji, or by waiting three days to text you back. Different people have different ideas about how long it’s appropriate to wait to respond. As Deborah Tannen, a linguist at Georgetown University, wrote in The Atlantic, the signals that are sent by how people communicate online—the “metamessages” that accompany the literal messages—can easily be misinterpreted:

Human beings are always in the business of making meaning and interpreting meaning. Because there are options to choose from when sending a message, like which platform to use and how to use it, we see meaning in the choice that was made. But because the technologies, and the conventions for using them, are so new and are changing so fast, even close friends and relatives have differing ideas about how they should be used. And because metamessages are implied rather than stated, they can be misinterpreted or missed entirely.

This metamessage opacity spawns thousands of other text messages a year, as people enlist their friends to help interpret exactly what their romantic interest meant by a certain turn of phrase, or whether a week-long radio silence means they’re being ghosted. (The New Yorker parodied this collaborative textual analysis in a video in which a group of women gather, war-room style, to answer the question “Was It a Date?”)

Features intended to add clarity—like read receipts or the little bubble with the ellipses in iMessage that tells you when someone is typing (which is apparently called the “typing awareness indicator”)—often just cause more anxiety, by offering definitive evidence for when someone is ignoring you or started to reply only to put it off longer.

* * *

But just because people know how stressful it can be to wait for a reply to what they thought would be an instant message doesn’t mean they won’t ignore others’ messages in turn.

Sometimes people don’t respond as a way of deliberately signaling they’re annoyed, or that they don’t want to continue a relationship. Turkle says sometimes taking a long time to write back is a way of establishing dominance in a relationship, by making yourself look simply too busy and important to reply.

But oftentimes, people are just trying to manage the quantity of messages and notifications they receive. In 2015, the average American was receiving 88 business emails per day, according to the market research firm Radicati, but only sending 34 business emails per day. Because—who has the time to respond to 88 emails a day? Maybe someone isn’t responding because they’ve realized the interruption of a notification negatively affects their productivity, so they’re ignoring their phone to get some work done.

I find myself ignoring or procrastinating even important messages, and ones I want and intend to respond to. I had to create a bright red “Needs Response” email label to battle my own “delayed response” problem. I regularly read texts, think “I’ll respond to that later,” and then completely forget about it.  Working memory—the brain’s mental to-do list—can only hold so much at once, and when notifications get crammed in with shopping lists and work tasks, sometimes it springs a leak.

“A lot of the time what’s happening is people have five conversations going on, and they just can’t really be intimate and present with five different people,” Turkle says. “So they kind of do a triage, they prioritize, they forget. Your brain is not a perfect instrument for processing texts. But it will be interpreted as though it really was a conversation, and so you can hurt people.”

* * *

Still, even though instant written communication can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, people prefer it. Americans spend more time texting than talking on the phone, and texting is the most frequent form of communication for Americans under 50.

While texting is popular worldwide, Baron, of American University, thinks that a strong preference for communication that can be easily ignored is a particularly American attitude. “Americans have far fewer manners in general in their communication than a lot of other societies,” she says. “The second issue is a real feeling of empowerment. I think we have become a version of power freaks, not just control freaks.”

In a survey Baron conducted in 2007 and 2008 of students in several countries including the United States, the things that people said they liked most about their phones were often related to control. One American woman said her favorite thing was “Constant communication when I want it (can also shut it off when I don’t).”

“What I have seen in this country, and I don’t know if it’s a national trait, is people wait until they think they have the perfect thing to say, as though relationships can be managed by writing the perfect thing,” Turkle says. “And I think that is something we pay a very high cost for.”

In Baron’s survey, people also mentioned feeling controlled by their phones—bemoaning how dependent they were on the devices, and how the constant connectivity made them feel obligated to respond.

But texts and emails don’t create as big of an obligation as phone calls, or a face-to-face conversation. When young adults are interviewed about why they don’t like making phone calls, they cite a distaste for how “invasive” they are, and a reluctance to place that burden on someone else. Written instant messages create a smokescreen of plausible deniability if someone doesn’t feel like responding, which can be relieving for the hider, and frustrating for the seeker.

More than anything, what the age of instant communication has enabled is the ability to deal with conversation on our own terms. We can respond right away, we can put it off for two days, or never get around to it at all. We can manage several different conversations at once. “Sorry, I was out with friends,” we might say, as an excuse for not texting someone back. Or, “Sorry, I just need to text this person back real quick,” we might say while out with friends.

As these things become normal, it creates an environment where we are only comfortable asking for slivers of people’s distracted time, lest they ever obligate us to give them our full and undivided attention.

[bipabrena]

Change x and x Request (HisoIllu fic)

A fic where Hisoka is left comatose after battling the Phantom Troupe in the Black Whale. He’s beyond saving and there’s no Nen contract to save him a second time, all that’s keeping him alive is a constant aura supply from Illumi. Thinking of ways to save him, Illumi’s mind goes to her. For the first time, he sees Nanika as someone, not something. But he knows she and Killua have no reason to want to help him. He can only hope they will.

Read the whole thing here.

X

Illumi’s needlemen had set up a small but solid hospital room in the building. Not too many people lived in it, and it was in a strategic location. Several doctors from the most prestigious hospitals in the city came and went.

But, regardless of how many came or how hard they worked, they all arrived to the same conclusion: Hisoka was beyond saving.

Every day that passed, the comatose Hisoka withered away further.

It was then Illumi accessed the Hunters’ Tavern and found several doctors with Nen-based abilities. He brought them all forth within the course of a week, but all they could do was prolong the inevitable.

He was meticulous and careful to hide his tracks and hire them under names and details that’d make his true identity untraceable.

Illumi was not worried about his concurrent actions having consequences.

The talented doctors had given up, insisted they couldn’t save Hisoka, but Illumi wouldn’t have that. He’d stuck his needles in them and forced them to continue working, until they died of overexertion, just like all his needlemen did.

In the end, all he accomplished was the raking of bodies.

He disposed of them all, until his only choice was to share his Nen with Hisoka’s comatose body.

It was the one way to prolong the inevitable.

The only solution didn’t come to him until all alternatives had been explored.

It took him five days to gather enough Intel, with the limited tools he had, to find Killua’s phone number.

Naturally so, Killua had changed it along with all his details to completely sever ties with his family. It’s what made him hard to find, but Illumi didn’t give up, not even with his limited tools.

From all the Zoldycks, he’d always been the best at tailing and figuring out the way people clicked—how they worked, how they thought. Ironically so, considering his total lack of social skills outside of assassination.

He would’ve had better success if he’d just gone home, but he couldn’t afford it.

If he left this room, if he relocated or stopped sharing his aura with Hisoka, he’d die within minutes.

He impassively stared at his unconscious, withering frame. He approached him.

He sighed so quietly it was nearly imperceptible, and stopped by his bedside. He nonchalantly looked at Hisoka.

The burns, the cuts, the wounds.

While the Troupe split up to find him, what Hisoka truly wanted was to have them all in one room.

His resurrection had succeeded, but it’d left him wounded. His hand, his nose, his foot. They were superficial. He’d received an aura boost, but he was still handicapped. The replacements were solid enough, at least. For a while.

He was sure he wouldn’t be able to take on all the Spiders, and even if he did, he’d die soon after.

It was either receiving medical attention at once, healing, then wait for his chance to find them all again in the uncertain future, or fight them at once by not missing the chance of them being together in the Black Whale.

Hisoka prioritised his wounded pride.

And so, with his own strength and boosted Nen, his mental state heightened to its utmost limits, and unknowingly created a condition.

Even though he was slowly dying, he was adamant about surviving long enough to kill the Phantom Troupe, and to leave Chrollo for last. His senses, his physical abilities and speed stretched beyond their peak.

His resolve is what made his Nen exceedingly strong. But it also created a limitation: his full potential and beyond would be unleashed only with the Troupe. And he could only do it once.

And, if he overdid it, he may not come back from it.

He was lucky he’d hired Illumi.

However, the pretence of joining the Troupe to kill him was only that: a pretence. The real reason he’d hired him was so he could take Kalluto away so he wouldn’t get caught in the fight.

What Hisoka hadn’t counted on was Illumi risking his life to fight alongside him.

It’d stunned and worried Hisoka. Despite being a terrifying monster, it was still instinctive for him to worry about Illumi’s safety. But the look on Chrollo’s face when Illumi unexpectedly appeared, and sent Shizuku’s and Bonolenov’s heads flying, had turned him on so much he popped a boner on the spot.

It had been done so cleanly not a drop of blood was on Illumi’s three inch claws, and the other Troupe members could only stare in shock.

Seeing Illumi fight at full power was something Hisoka never thought he would witness, but he did—and he creamed his pants once, perhaps twice, from the sight alone.

Illumi had gotten injured, but it was nothing he couldn’t heal with his needles until he received real medical assistance.

The fight had been strenuous. It destroyed a large part of the Black Whale, but not enough to completely sink it. It was still functional, but there was damage, and amongst it collateral.

With Bonolenov and Shizuku down, the match-ups had been the following:

Hisoka vs Machi, Feitan and Chrollo.

Illumi vs Franklin, Nobunaga and Phinks.

In theory, it wasn’t good that Illumi had been stuck with two Enhancers, but considering his usual fighting style, it required distance to be created, and so it gave the Enhancers, Nobunaga and Phinks, few chances to land hits on him.

Illumi was more of a hit-and-run when fighting Enhancers. An appropriate style.

Because Franklin was an Emitter and his ability was more gravitated towards crowd control, such as the auction, he couldn’t freely use his ability. Illumi was too fast, and he could risk injuring some of the Troupe members. And so, he was forced to instead rely on direct hand-to-hand combat, which Illumi was far more proficient at.

At one point, Chrollo was forced to abandon Hisoka to aid those three with Illumi. He’d proven to be stronger than they’d anticipated.

Because he was an assassin, they’d greatly underestimated his duel abilities.

Illumi had a spectacular dominion of Ko, Ken, Gyo and Ryu. These abilities were usually perfected by Enhancers, since they did not require Hatsus, but it still stood that other Nen categories could perfect these techniques as well—the matter was that they often preferred to rely on their powers.

Illumi didn’t.

Not even Hisoka knew that.

Illumi was capable of using his category to the fullest, but he was also a level six at Enhancement, which put him on par with Franklin, the Emitter, and Phinks and Nobunaga, the Enhancers.

Nobunaga was very skilled in battle, but was not as physically strong as expected of an Enhancer. He was relatively weak, as even Machi exceeded him in physical strength. And so, Illumi far outshined him in this field. Phinks, on the other hand, was physically stronger than Illumi by a large margin, but he wasn’t a proficient hand-to-hand combatant. Though tremendously strong, he was above all a brawler, while Illumi had solid techniques.

This realisation made Hisoka moan mid-battle in sheer delight. Illumi truly was full of surprises.

When Chrollo joined, however, the problems started.

The range of abilities he had was insane.

But that was completely okay. Because Illumi had counted on this. Expertly, he and Hisoka switched places multiple times, and had alternated targets, so Illumi faced Machi and Feitan, too.

Their teamwork was splendid, natural. It flowed beautifully.

Hisoka had never had more fun in his life.

He completely forgot about his pride and revenge, and instead allowed himself to just feel, to revel on the moment of fighting such monsters alongside a more lethal monster. Illumi, the one person he’d always dreamed of fighting, and had been eager to see fight with his full strength.

At one point, Illumi managed to sever Machi’s left arm. As soon as he aimed for her heart, Feitan thought fast and Illumi barely avoided his Ko powered sword.

When Illumi lured them into the position he wanted, he screamed it.

“Do it now, Kallu!”

It’d brought all of their attentions for a split second.

Two rooms away, it’s when Kalluto had opened the gate, and three hundred needlemen filled the room in the blink of an eye.

In that split second of confusion, Illumi bolted to Hisoka and grabbed him.

Thinking fast, Hisoka stuck Bungee Gum to the ceiling to repel both himself and Illumi into the second floor.

“It’s fitting, don’t you think?” is what Illumi had told Hisoka when the stunned redhead stared down at the needlemen swarm the Troupe members.

At that moment, never had Hisoka wanted to fuck Illumi so savagely in his life.

For him to bring hundreds of needlemen to swarm Chrollo and his Spiders, the same way Chrollo’s puppets had done Hisoka, was so poetic and fitting that Hisoka could only laugh.

He’d made a joke here and there on just how many needles Illumi had brought.

And that’s when things changed.

When a light slowly rose to the ceiling, Hisoka and Illumi could only watch in confusion. They were only brought back by Kalluto, who screamed through the Zoldyck transmitter.

He’d been that day on the Meteor City raid. He knew of Feitan’s Pain Packer.

He’d desperately screamed at Illumi to get out of there as he hastily explained what that powerful light was, what it would turn into once it expanded.

Illumi had a final trick up his sleeve with his needlemen, but before he could verbalise it to Hisoka to ease him, he’d been wrapped in Bungee Gum and thrown out of the room. Before he could stand up to rush in again, the gate had been shut, with what he could only assume was Bungee Gum.

That’s when the explosion happened.

The needlemen served as cushions for the immense heat, and so Feitan took advantage of this. One of Chrollo’s ability’s also shielded them, but what they didn’t count on was the imbued explosives on two hundred of the three hundred needlemen that were swarming them and cutting their oxygen supply.

By the time Rising Sun deactivated, the only survivors had been Chrollo, Machi and Phinks. And they were mortally wounded.

When Illumi managed to tear down the door, he was worried.

He did it with ease, unlike his previous attempts. That meant it wasn’t being held together by Bungee Gum anymore.

Illumi could only hope for the worst.

He’d gone to—

A strong rumble in his stomach distracted him from his reminiscing. Illumi’s mind went blank as he momentarily forgot about the events in the Black Whale, and he recalled he hadn’t eaten in five days.

Not like he could anyway. Leaving this room meant Hisoka would die.

He sighed softly.

It was a strange feeling. Expending so much of his aura, transferring it to someone else was an uncomfortable, somewhat burning feeling. It felt much like when a doctor drew blood from their patient—that little burning feeling, except that multiplied manifold times, and he felt it all over his body.

He grabbed his phone.

Read the rest here.

[sebastianshaw]

@starbucks-redcups Here is the “Toad in Tabletop Games I Like” post you requested! Also tagging @toadlingscentral and @brotherhoodofm and @awkward-snake-girl because Toad... @acaprioglino, you still like Toad? Okay, so I said I would pick a vampire clan or a werewolf/other wereanimal breed, or a DnD race class...but for Toad I am doing ALL of them because I immediately knew which I think he’d be for each. For a vampire, he is absolutely a Nosferatu. In the “Vampire: The Masquerade” setting, each clan of vampires has a curse, a weakness. For the Brujah, they enter Frenzy (a state of uncontrollable bloodthirsty rage) twice as easily as other clans. For the Lasombra, they do not appear in mirrors or photography, a fitting punishment for their pride, and more of a problem than it used to be in this modern age of cameras everywhere. For the Toreador, their same of beauty that makes them artists can also hypnotize them, making them stand still staring enraptured at whatever has captured their aesthetic appreciation...a big problem if the sun comes up or someone is attacking them. And Nosferatu....the poor Nosferatu are all so hideously deformed that they cannot ever mingle with humans, they must remain hidden so as to preserve the Masquerade (the system that keeps humans from knowing vampires exist and walk among them)  No matter what a Nosferatu looked like before their Embrace (becoming a vampire) they become horrible in death, often unrecognizable as their former selves. Many look like Count Orlok in the movie that bears their clan name, but many others have a more “individual” appearence---all of them, however, are too hideous to ever pass as human, and even the other clans look at them with revulsion (especially the beauty-obsessed Toreador) So, like Toad, they’re outcasts for their appearance, both from humanity and often looked down on by other vampires, just like Toad is rejected both by humans and often by other mutants. Yet, just as Toad has been a valuable underling to Magneto, so too are the Nosferatu very valuable to other vampires. The fact that they have had to learn how to stay hidden has made them masters at going undetected (having the power of Obfuscate helps---it can make you invisible or ignored!) and have become spymasters and intel-gatherers without peer! When you need info, you go to the Nosferatu, and they always have it---for a price.  Toad isn’t really an information-peddler at all in canon, but he is very tech-savvy, and that’s where I think he works as a Nos. In the digital age, Nosferatu have kept up very well with using computers and the internet, and some have become truly extraordinary hackers. Toad’s more of a machinery/inventor guy, but I could see Nos!Toad taking the Internet spymaster route instead. I could also see him using his inventing talents to make modern solutions to vampire problems---helping preserve the Masquerade, dealing with hunters, etc---and earning his value to other vampires that way. Nosferatus also have the power of Animalism, letting them control critters. A lot of them seem to prefer rats, but Toad can sometimes control or communicate with amphibians in canon depending who is writing, so I imagine Nos!Toad has a bunch of little frog and toad buddies that act as his eyes, ears, and living security systems.  Finally, Nosferatu are super strong, posessing the power of Potence, and while Toad’s never been a real brawler, his kicks can definitely kill a man! Toad’s werewolf tribe would be a Bone Gnawer. Bone Gnawers are the “mutts” of werewolf society, the outcasts, the poor, the downtrodden, the ill-bred. Their human forms are often homeless bums or filthy runaways, their wolf forms look more like scrawny junkyard dogs, and other tribes look down on them, especially the aristocratic Silver Fangs. They get no respect and have to earn every scrap they get, but they’re innovative and clever since they have to rely on what little they have, and they’re tough as nails despite not being as big and strong as the other tribes. They’re tragic figures, but also smart, scrappy underdogs, just like Toad.  Toad would also be a metis. See, a peculiarity of the wereanimals in “Werewolf: The Apocalpyse” is that they can’t mate with each other, they must mate with humans or animals in order to reproduce. If two werewolves mate, their offpsring will be sterile and deformed, and this is called a metis. As a note, the term “metis” is also unfortunately the name of a real-world Indigenuous Canadian ethnic group, and while I hope there is no connection (the werewolves use a lot of their own unique language that was invented for the game---crinos, ahroun, theurge, etc.---) this game company (White Wolf) has done shitty racist things before, so like...it’s a possibility. But like, regardless of what the NAME for such a creature is, that’s what Toad would be.  Anyway, MOST werewolf tribes shun the metis, and it’s against their laws for Garou (werewolves) to mate with each other for the exact reason that it produces metis. A metis has to earn their place normally, and a lot of them spend their whole lives trying to do that. But the Bone Gnawers are different. They not only embrace their own metis, but they will adopt the metis from other tribes as their own, not blaming them for the sins of their parents or being what they are. But other tribes will still be nasty towards them. So, Toad has a place among his own people, but will still face persecution from others, which I think fits. Many metis and Bone Gnawers both often become angry and bitter because they’re fighting for the same righteous cause as other Garou (just as the Brotherhood wants to protect mutantkind, the werewolves want to protect Gaia) but get treated like dogshit, which I think also fits Toad. They keep fighting the good fight, but they’re often snarky and distrustful of others because they always expect to get kicked once they’re not useful. For a werebeast, I think he’d be a Ratkin. The Ratkin are wererats, and they’re my FAVES. Not just because I love rats, but because they’re honestly SO MUCH FUN. It’s kind of hard for me to describe if you’re not familiar with the setting, but in a world where a lot of the other creatures are all very formal and serious, the Ratkin are like...honestly, I could read their entire breedbook with Toad’s voice from the X-Men Evo cartoon and it would sound PERFECT; one of the rats in it talks about how a Stargazer tribe werewolf tried to impress him with a haiku about cherry blossosm, so the Ratkin recited half a limerick then hit the wolf on the nose with a stick and ran away. I love it, I love them.  Like the Bone Gnawers (the only werewolf tribe they get along with) they’re scrappers and survivors who live on the fringes of society, using their brains to fight for a good cause even if they’re not as big and tough as others, and even if those others don’t appreciate them.  There are different “Aspects” of Ratkin, basically different castes, and Toad would ABSOLUTELY be an engineer. Engineers use their shocking intelligence to salvage and devise ingenious devices from rubble and garbage to fight against the Wyrm and its servants (the Wyrm is like...the big bad evil spirit that all the wereanimals are fighting to save Gaia from, basically) Metis are a thing with wererats too, but the rats treat them equal, unlike werewolves. I would still have Toad be one, though, to keep his odd appearance; his rat form would probably be hairless, poor guy, and he’d probably have an unpleasant smell. As a note, Ratkin HATE humans, but the Ratkin metis will often have sympathy for humans who are downtrodden and outcast by other humans (which can make their fellow rats sneer at them)  Finally, for DnD, his class would be either a Rogue or an Artificer. A Rogue is one of the original classic DnD classes, they’re sneaky cunning thief-types who live by their wits and rely on skills and stealth and cunning and trickery instead of brute force. They pick locks and pick pockets, and I think they’d be a great fit for X-men Evolution Toad specifically. They can be very acrobatic, and are great at avoiding danger, which also fits for Toad’s leaping abilities and how he can be cowardly ( speaking of that, the Ratkin, while ultimately willing to die for Gaia if they must, would definitely always prefer to live another day if they can, rather than die a noble death if they don’t have to) So you could totally go with Toad as a Rogue, someone who has been cast out by society and thus has become a thief and a scoundrel to survive. But the Artificer, a new class, works even better when you consider Toad’s mechanical genius. Artificers, like the Ratkin Engineers, merge science with the supernatural. They’re inventors extraordinaire who unlock the magic in everyday objects, and channel arcane power with tools and tinkering! For his race, either a Grung or a Kobold. The Grung are little frog-people. They’re agile, they’re amphibious, they jump really good, and their skin secretes a substance that is harmless to them but poisonous to other creatures. By using a small amount of this poison, they can mentally enslave other creatures, and depending on the writer (Toad’s powers fluctuate around a lot due to his unstable genetic structure, as I’m sure you know)  Toad can also secrete chemicals from his tongue and fingertips that allow him to influence, manipulate, and control the minds of others to a limited extent, so there’s that similarity. Different colored grungs have different castes/roles in their society, and I think Toad would be a green or blue.  Green grungs are the tribe's warriors, hunters, and laborers, and blue grungs work as artisans and in other domestic roles. Green because, even though he’s not the bravest, he is often used as a grunt or canon fodder in fights by the Brotherhood, and blue because “artisan” could also cover being an inventor. Kobolds are little lizard-people who often serve dragons as the dragon’s minions (and Toad is usually in the minion role) and are noted for their skill at building traps and preparing ambushes, which I think Toad’s engineering skills would make him good at, plus I think he’d far prefer trapping an enemy than having to fight them. Like Toad, Kobolds are often dismissed as cowardly, foolish, and weak by others, but actually they’re clever and can be quite aggressive, as is the case with Toad too.  I hope you enjoyed this and that at least some of it was accurate/fitting!

[no-worshiped-roads]

Alright next part of mutant au

Zuke has finally arrived to eve’s district and boy does the conversation go south fast

Eve is just... so angry

She makes it clear she thinks zuke abandoned her and zuke has no idea what shes talking about

Most of this fight is dodging and talking/arguing

Thing is zuke and eve had been running away ftom horrible humans that kept them prisoner, at one point they wind up seperated

While running zuke fell down a cliff and the humans presumed him dead, he survived obviously but eve was recaptured while he was out

Some mutants from vinyl city found him and brought him back to be healed

By the time he woke again 3 days had passed and he had no idea where he was

He also found the humans were long gone with nadia from his rescuers

It took another week to heal and he’s got back problems from it

At some point, about 2 weeks later tatiana rescues nadia from the humans

She had been outside of the city making sure they were far away cause they had been close to discovering them when she found them with nadia

After rescuing her and taking her back to the city she gave her time to heal

It took nadia a long time to trust anyone again because to her, it seemed zuke abandoned her and saved himself

Especially when years passed before they had contact again (nadia learned he was in the city but zuke didnt know till after mays kidnapping given that she went by eve)

Zuke actually has to start fighting back which doesnt help especially with a particularly hard blow is landed on her head

It isnt till after eve retreats into her own dimension that theyre able to talk things out, somewhat. Eve at least understands he didn’t abandon her but she seemed really disoriented

Zuke asked her where may was and she seemed to be even more confused when he heard may shout

He left her dimension in a hurry to try and find may, since she was defeated, her other dimensions should have disappeared and dumped their contents back into reality

Unfortunately by the time he gets to where he heard may theres nothing. Just some scorch marks leading out the door

Kliff calls and tells him he needs to go and face the head of nsr, tatiana, in order to get may back and stop all of this

It later occurs to zuke as hes heading to face tatiana that kliff called him and knew what happened

Without zuke telling him

Tatiana

During the talk with eve tatiana had shown up. It didnt take her long to track down where may was held. After a bit of a scuffle, cause may did not go down without a fight, she was able to winnand knock may unconcious.

Thing is while may is strong she has poor control. And tatiana is stronger. I mean fire and time powers so. Yeah.

May wakes up in a chair at nsr tower on the upper floor. Before her with their back turned is tatiana.

“Awake i see.”

May finds she cant move desite not being tied down or anything.

“Dont bother. I used my time abilities to freeze your body in place. You will wait here for our meeting.”

“M-meeting?” May cant help but to feel nervous.

“You dont think i run this on my own do you? I have an individual at my side that needs to meet our newest members of nsr. And help to prepare them.”

“Im not gonna to join nsr! Zuke will bust me out of here and-“

“I plan on him coming. He’s a perfect addition as well. Since you two seem to make a good team, i’ll likely put him in your district.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“To protect others.”

“No? Why are forcing them into this, taking them away if they dont want to? Why-“

“Enough. Your friend has arrived.”

Zuke manages to get up to the tower, finding that these fights are a lot harder without may. He sees may in the chair and goes to rescue her only to be stopped by tatiana. The two fight eachother, with zuke barely being able to avoid losing. Zuke gets knocked down but before tatiana can freeze him too may attacks from behind.

Zuke managed to fight her long enough that she was letting her power on may slip till may could move again. The two fight her side by side till they win. With a very disoriented tatiana on tge fround they realized that all the artists seemed confused and lost after their defeat. As they wonder that out loud, a voice interrupts them.

Kliff

Kliff shows up at the end of the fight congratulating them for helping form a new nsr. And joining it as their newest members.

Theyre understandbly confused when this happens, but dumbfounded when kliff reveals who they really are

Theyre the real head as nsr as they revealed, and kliff has been controlling everyone by force

kliff is a psychic genius, but his powers arent strong enough to control so many prople, much less ones as strong as the nsr artists

So he made chips that went in heads to amplify their powers, mainly his mind control powers, and when he hot a hold of sayus team he was able to make them upgrade the chips, but had no need to use em yet

However the chips had been wearing off, and he no way to get the update into them cause they had weakened do much he was shut out unless the artists were severly weakened

Kliff tricked b2j into fighting nsr to weaken them so the chips could be reprogrammed to be stronger, while simultaneously getting the two out of hiding so they can be controlled as well

Zuke is still confused but mayday stiffens remembering the injury she woke up to in eve’s realm

“Seems one off you figured it out”

“Wh-may?”

Mayday

He activate the chips and while its a bit useless on tatiana given how weak she is, it works well on mayday

Zuke is frozen st first seeing mayday gets into a fighting stance at him and is blown off his feet when she attacks

Zuke mainly dodges and tries to talk to her as she attacks mercilessly

Zuke is reluctant having to fight her but when nothing he says snaps her out of it, he realizes he has no choice

The fight isnt easy as mays powers out match his easy in power

However he has one advantage over her

Control

May is strong, but has poor control over her powers

So he uses that against her to make her powers backfire on her till he manages to win

She collapses to the ground and doesnt move and this freaks zuke out till he finds her pulse

Kliff part 2

Now zuke is beyond pissed, with may out cold by his feet

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Kliff (k): see you will be a perfect canidate. Tatiana was right, you two make a good team.

“Why are you even doing this?!”

K: “why? WHY?! HUMANS! THAT’S WHY!”

K: humans are vile disgusting creatures that hunt torture and kill us for sport or entertainment or some bullshit holier than thou attitude, pretending they were some kind of savior for humanity!

K: I am going to build up the strongest mutants and unify them, to protect the weaker who cant fight back. And any human that dares to stumble across here? The artists will KILL them.

“Wtf kind of logic is that?! Youve taken away their will and are trying to make them into killing machines!”

K: hah. It doesnt matter if you understand, you just need to obey.

“You know for someone who hates humans so much, you sure sound like some ive met before.”

This pisses kliff off and the fight starts though its not much of one

Like i said kliff is a weak pyschic relies on controlling stronger mutants in order to get what he wants

So he’s easily beaten

So Kliff activates something on the satellite, it was meant to send out a beam over the city to control everyone all at once

But it wasnt ready and kliff causes it to short circuit and fall

Zuke panics cause hes the only one at ready to stop it but then tatiana and may start coming around, cause when the satellite went out of commission so did the signal that Kliff was using to amplify his powers and control over them

It mostly happens like it does with thr original game in stopping the satellite including kliff getting smacked, but with more confusion because Tatiana doesn’t really know who they are since she’s been under control for so long

They stop the satelite and kliff keeps trying to fix it so he can regain control before eventually slinking off

The end kind of has them all talking and figuring out what’s happened and where to go from there

They keep nsr around but allow others being controlled to go free once their chips are removed and actually make it a place of protection, rather than the oppresive fear it had been before

And there is a lot of aftermath stories if you all have questions about them

[sepublic]

Here's a new one! So may I ask what your take would be if Kipo were to meet any of the 3 amphibia girls? I mean Kipo, Anne, and Sasha all got Fruncles. But this is mostly an excuse to talk more about Kipo! We need more discourse!

           Well dang, that’s something I never considered! Although it’s worth noting that Grime is a TOAD Uncle, not a Frog Uncle… And this distinction apparently means a lot to the people of Amphibia, given how they have an entire caste system revolving around this difference in species!

           Getting into Kipo herself, and how she’d react to Amphibia in general… She’d take to it naturally, obviously! She’s already met Talking Frogs… She already eats Cave Moss Lasagna and bugs and worms back home in the burrow! And as terrifyingly dangerous as Amphibia is, it’s probably not THAT different from the surface… Knowing Kipo, she might not even notice a difference if she were to be suddenly teleported from Earth to Amphibia! Her first assumption would likely be that she’s on another continent, or somewhere else in the United States, but that’s about it!

           And, this fact segways into Kipo meeting Anne… I think one of the important things to consider is that Kipo has no shame! She isn’t necessarily insecure… She had a VERY loving and supportive father, who encouraged Kipo’s interests in science and astronomy and so forth! Her friends Dahlia and Asher were good people, and really, it seems there was no reason or cause for any kind of ‘bullying’ that would lead Kipo to suppress who she is! Well, besides the whole thing about being Half-Mute, but that didn’t come up until VERY recently in Kipo’s life, and so far, the people she’s met have been supportive! Sans Wolf, but that barely lasted and she’s a child dealing with legitimate PTSD, so it’s understandable!

           I think Kipo would simultaneously be much more ‘wild’ for Anne as a friend, someone who’s a lot more upfront and wears her heart on her sleeve… But she’d also vouch for Anne’s confidence as a person! She might hear about how Anne was afraid of fully expressing herself back home, and… Kipo wouldn’t really get the anxiety because it seems culture in the Human Burrows has progressed past that sort of thing. She DOES live in the future, after all. But like Mulholland-Song taught her, you may as well live it on your sleeve who you are, and embrace that! Besides, Anne’s reasons for not ‘fitting in’ are definitely a lot tamer than Kipo’s… Not that Kipo would ever compare, of course!

           Kipo is a VERY supportive and encouraging person, she’s going to tell Anne to be who she is and not care! And as for Anne’s situation with Sasha, well… More on that later- But for now, Kipo and Anne would get along just fine! Kipo’s more openly-feral attitude would help Anne embrace the cultures and norms of Amphibia, more quickly than she already did back in Season 1… In general, they’d be enthusiastic sisters with one another! Kipo would be an AMAZING outlet for Anne’s growth, and the two of them would get into whacky hijinx… Sometimes Kipo reins in Anne, sometimes it’s the other way around!

           Then, we have Marcy! As I’ve already said before, Kipo is a nerd and proud and embracing of it… It’s going to be like Luz and Marcy! Kipo is going to be the PERFECT friend for Marcy, the two of them would stay up all night discussing science and whatnot! They’d be talking about their hyperfixations to one another, Marcy listening intently and fascinated by Kipo’s discussions of what Lio taught her, and Kipo is just so INTERESTED in Marcy’s talk of videogames and RPGs, she’s never gotten to play those sorts of things as a kid! And Marcy’s eyes twinkle and brighten up, as she invites Kipo…!

           It’s going to be amazing. They’re nerds and 100% neurodivergent. Marcy will have had past reservations about being a nerd, about being definitely autistic… And Kipo’s going to say, who cares?! Lio and the Burrow community were always supportive of that sort of thing, she’d get Marcy to proudly indulge in being neurodivergent, in being a nerd! Kipo would be fascinating to Mar-Mar and vice-versa, because they’re people who can ramble on about science for hours and understand each other, they’ve even got plenty to teach one another! Kipo’s going to be SO fascinated in Amphibia’s culture, how it differs from those of the Mod Frogs as a more expansive civilization with a proper past… Marcy will happily answer, and Mutes! OH Marcy is going to be having the time of her LIFE studying Mutes, freaking out over them, inevitably stimming and asking questions at a thousand miles per hour as Kipo happily answers each one and keeps up without blinking an eye!

           Kipo and Marcy are nerds, they’d indulge in one another’s passions and interests, and there’d be a certain special understanding between them, a unique one… At least, more unique than most relationships with other people already are! There’s going to be a connection… Kipo’s going to introduce Marcy to Lio, HE’s going to encourage and indulge in Marcy’s hyperfixations! Kipo’s going to spend all day working with Marcy on her Creatures and Caverns campaigns, playing videogames… Discussing the history behind the tech, the little ways the programming comes together! It’s going to be great.

           Like Anne, Kipo’s also going to be someone who helps Marcy keep her head and mind open… Kipo’s very much a more socially-oriented, people person. Marcy’s going to admit that she has difficulty talking with anyone else that isn’t Kipo, Sasha, or Anne… And Kipo’s going to say that’s okay, that it’s understandable if eye contact isn’t a thing for her! The way I see it, if Marcy doesn’t have a name for a lot of her autistic habits and stims, Kipo certainly does and she’s going to make Marcy EMBRACE that part of her identity, instead of feeling shame! She’ll tell Marcy Wu that it’s okay that she doesn’t readily, instantly make friends with everyone else, the way Kipo or Anne do…

           Kipo is more than ready to introduce Marcy to her other friends, and she’s going to give her pointers on how stand tall and be confident! And as for Marcy’s loneliness… Like I said, Kipo’s going to encourage Marcy to make other friends. I think Wolf, Benson, and everyone else will get along just FINE with Marcy… And speaking of which, I think Marcy is someone who would be incredibly fascinated in Kipo’s Half-Mute nature, and ALSO be supportive of it! If Kipo ever feels down and like a freak, Marcy tells her that she’s the coolest person in existence… And that’s without being Half-Mute, being partially Mega Jaguar just cinches the deal! She’s going to nerd out on Kipo’s Jaguar paws, help her figure out how to control herself…

           In general, Kipo will be a GREAT person for Marcy! She’s going to teach her to be more open about who she is, to unapologetically embrace that… Tell her it’s okay to not be the most readily-sociable person! These two will be utter nerds who get to nerd out with one another to the fullest extent, everyone else is going to groan when they start ranting at several miles-per-hour about the latest hyperfixation or science subject, and that won’t stop these two!

           As for Kipo and Sasha… Well. Kipo doesn’t have the MOST experience with these sorts of toxic, manipulative friends… The closest she has is her brother Scarlemagne, but he was a bit more up-front and wearing it on his sleeve about his intentions. He certainly wasn’t trying to trick Kipo, and throughout their interactions, there was this sense of Kipo having the emotional power over Hugo… And then of course, we find out she had the logistical power as well, thanks to Mulholland!

           Sasha is definitely much more of a confident person than Scarlemagne. A lot of the time, she doesn’t even consider or self-reflect if people will hang around her or not… While Scarlemagne is VERY fussy about if he can trust people and this manifests almost literally in his pheromones’ ability to control others and have them be completely honest; Sasha takes people for granted! She doesn’t realize she’s lost them until it’s too late… And unlike Scarlemagne, she won’t default to violence and bloodshed! At least, so far… Not to compare trauma, but Scarlemagne has definitely been through worse and has a lot more reason to be aggressive, amidst him having enabled this behavior through his attempted take-over of Las Vistas! Sasha is ALSO someone who is planning to conquer Amphibia alongside Grime…

           But the thing about her is that she HAS Grime- She can trust him, and vice-versa! They didn’t expect one another to be close friends and allies, but they’d die for one another without hesitation! Sasha’s ultimately a MUCH more confident person than Scarlemagne, and that can lead to her being less paranoid and self-reflecting because she isn’t constantly checking herself. Not to mention, while Scarlemagne is someone who is used to rely on brute force first, as someone who was always in a position of weakness beforehand…

           Sasha has ALWAYS been in a position of power and privilege. She’s never really had to worry about being on the lower-end of a power imbalance. As a result, she’s someone who’s very much used to using honey instead of vinegar, she’d rather avoid conflict and assume the best of others, that if somebody made a mistake- It was just that, a mistake!They didn’t REALLY mean to defy Sasha, they have her best interests at heart inherently! She’s much more willing to forgive and forget, but inevitably, she’ll also have a line that’s going to be crossed somewhere…

           Scarlemagne and Sasha are definitely fascinating characters. They’re not very easily open to others in the emotional sense… Sasha puts up the façade of this, but in the end, she doesn’t really connect much with her ‘cronies’ and ‘minions’. She has a VERY select friend-group of people she’s truly open with… But even THEN, there’s a certain distance between Sasha, and Anne and Marcy! And especially with Toadcatcher as of late, Sasha is someone who’s going to hide her feelings behind blunt, brute force… She’s someone who’s feeling her friends slipping away, and she’s probably going to become more like Scarlemagne, and default to obsessive control not just of others, but Amphibia itself, just to feel safe!

           …So when it comes to Kipo and Sasha interacting, this is definitely going to be an interesting one. Kipo’s going to recognize a lot of familiar story-beats, here and there… But she’s also going to see Sasha as someone who still has a lot more confidence and manipulation than her brother. Sasha is someone who could likely get to Kipo more easily than most, come across as way more trust-worthy… Without really meaning to or considering this with malice, Sasha is someone who could try to assert control over Kipo.

           But the thing about Kipo is- She’s a healthy person! She’s had postivie friendships before, she KNOWS what a healthy relationship is like… So while she may initially allow for some of Sasha’s ‘eccentricities’ at first, it’s going to become obvious to her that Sasha is toxic, and manipulative. Kipo is someone who will readily stand up to Sasha and defy her, call her out… And Sasha is going to VERY surprised. Depending at what point in her development that Sasha meets Kipo… I can see her taking a moment to self-reflect. Or, maybe she feels that precious threshold being crossed, and tries to lay down her authority…

           And alas, Kipo isn’t having it! Kipo’s going to be open, blunt, and honest in her own way, that this isn’t how friends should act, and that even IF Anne and Marcy are Sasha’s best friends and vice-versa, there’s still a lot of room to improve! And Sasha’s going to be shocked and taken aback, she’s going to brush off Kipo… And I think inevitably, she’s going to cut ties with Kipo and go off and do her own thing. There’s no need to make herself more uncomfortable by arguing with Kipo, Sasha prefers to avoid conflict! And Kipo, well…

           I think Kipo would let Sasha go, at first. But she’d also consider how Anne and Marcy are doing, and how THEY need help. Respecting boundaries is important and all… But sometimes, people need help. Sasha might see Kipo being kind to Anne and Marcy as a threat, and force her friends to choose between her and Kipo… There’s going to be a LOT of discourse. But in the end, Sasha is going to listen when she sees her friends turn to Kipo’s ‘side’… And if this is pre-Amphibia, ideally this is an environment where she can at least feel safe in reconsidering her actions, and opening up.

           Speaking of environments, I think Kipo would also take a while… But she’d get Sasha to appreciate and be more open-minded towards the Surface, as well as Amphibia! Sasha might be surprised by Kipo’s Half-Jaguar nature, but amidst everything else… She’s just going to take it in stride, as much as she already does. She dismisses the Frogs as ‘just slimy frogs’, yet Sasha clearly interacts with the Toads and treats them as actual people, with all of the little quirks and eccentricities that come with navigating social relationships! And her bond with Grime, well…

           …It’s obvious that Sasha KNOWS that non-humans are still people. She’ll most just bring it up whenever she’s trying to convince someone like Anne to get back to her side, to choose between her loyal, childhood friend, VS some strangers who are also gross and slimy frogs! But in the end, I doubt Sasha has any particular prejudice against non-humans. There IS a bit of an issue with seeing Amphibia as a place to ‘take over’ and ‘have fun’ in the beginning… But as of Toadcatcher, I think Sasha has somewhat matured in recognizing Amphibia fully as a functioning place and society, and not some adventure RPG to play around in like Marcy would. It’s a place with stakes and consequences.

           So, Sasha will be taken aback by Kipo’s half-jaguar nature, but ultimately, I think she’ll express more intrigue and interest than anything else. She’ll definitely ask a lot of questions, though be less concerned with the scientific know-how, and more how Kipo’s abilities could help the two of them… But Kipo is to strong-willed and confident, and knows better. She’s not going to fall for any of Sasha’s bad ideas.

           Really, Kipo is going to take ONE look at Sasha… And Anne and Marcy, as post-Toadcatcher, and she’s going to immediately tell that these girls are unhappy. That they have concerns, but also they clearly miss one another and want to be back together. Kipo is VERY much a problem-solver, as most scientists are by nature… So she’s going to ask a simple yet obvious question, of why can’tthey be friends again? There’s clearly a past to work with, a desire to get back together… So what, REALLY, is the problem?

           Kipo’s not going to take any of Sasha’s excuses. She’s going to get right to the heart of the problem, while Anne and Marcy admit more quickly that she has a point, and take her side in reaching out… And Sasha Waybright, she is NOT going to respond well, at least not initially! There’s a reason why she’s associated with Brawn while Jock Anne is Heart, and nerdy Marcy is Mind… Sasha is someone who’d rather punch her way through her emotions, close them off, and close her eyes as she shuts her ears and starts singing literally anything to drown out the noise. She’s going to drown herself in literally anything else before she gets to the heart of the problem…

           But in the end, this is Kipo we’re talking about here! Sasha did well against Yunnan with Grime’s help, but ultimately Kipo is someone who could very easily overwhelm her in a fight. She CAN turn into a Mega Jaguar after all, although this is an ability she has to wield with tact and precise care… Regardless, it’s basically going to be that meme of someone running down a hallway while a T-posing phantom chases after them, except it’s Kipo who’s after Sasha and she’s telling her to confront her fears and insecurities and actually open up for once! And Sasha’s going to be shutting her eyes and ears and insisting she can’t hear Kipo, not at all!

           Kipo isn’t dumb, but at the same time, she’s got a LOT of overwhelming positivity that’s inevitably going to get through Sasha’s barriers. The thing about Sasha is that I think she IS considering reconnecting with Anne and Marcy, but on her own terms… She’s going to inevitably cave in. Sasha isn’t Scarlemagne, who is much more insecure for a reason. Sasha will have Grime as someone she can fall back on, and with her past friendship with Anne and Marcy, and the idea that SHE hurt them, not the other way around (which again relates to what I said about Sasha being on the upper-end of the power imbalance), not to mention she never killed anyone…

           She’s going to begrudgingly accept Kipo’s advice, or at least humor ONE request to meet with Anne and Marcy and talk things out. It’s going to be hard and embarrassing, and Sasha will be digging her heels into the dirt the whole way through. But Kipo will be ELATED, she’s going to praise Sasha for taking this important, momentous step! Kipo is a girl with a lot of patience, if she can get to Scarlemagne’s heart and change him to some degree, even if he DOES mess up in the end… Keep in mind, Scarlemagne’s final scene had him more intrigued about Kipo’s willingness to sacrifice herself for her friends. She obviously changed him…

           Sasha isn’t as scared as Scarlemagne, that makes her a lot less dangerous and more reasonable. She’ll hesitate on saying sorry because she didn’t do anything wrong, but Kipo’s gonna give her a stink-eye. And when Kipo is DELIGHTED to see Sasha finally say sorry for once, she’s going to smother her in a hug… And then it’s a carrot-and-stick approach for Sasha, where the stick is Kipo being disapproving and unhappy, and the carrot is Kipo being happy, supportive, and offering friendship and love! Sasha is NOT immune to this girl.

          If anything, I can see Sasha developing a soft-spot for Kipo, like she does Grime… Especially since they’re both friends who don’t have to worry about a power imbalance between them, who won’t hesitate to call the other out, and help them reflect on their actions! Sasha will trust Kipo as someone who can rein her in, as someone who is on equal standing and can’t be as manipulated or hurt… I can only imagine how GRIME will react to all of this! But hey, Kipo got to Jamack. Jamack’s technically a Frog, but. I imagine a Jamack and Grime interaction would be interesting, especially with the background context of both knowing Kipo as a person- Especially if Kipo helped Sasha become happier!

           Otherwise, I can see Sasha trying to be closed-off whenever she’s caught up in Kipo’s antics. Trying to be too cool for school, but Anne, Marcy, and Kipo aren’t having it! And on another note, I feel like Kipo would try introducing Wolf to Sasha… Or at the very least, bring up her experience with Wolf; She knows how to deal with someone who is afraid of losing the people they have and going a bit too far to keep them, so Kipo will be able to navigate Sasha’s issues this way. Perhaps Wolf and Sasha could form a friendship, but maybe not; Sasha is a bit prissy compared to Wolf’s more blunt attitude and lifestyle. But then again, Sasha is also learning to be quite the brawler herself…

           Either way, Wolf is someone who Sasha will REALLY have to learn to be emotionally-open around, if she ever wants to be Wolf’s friend! It’ll be intriguing, to say the least. Maybe the two could connect on hiding from their emotions through being tough and ruthless, while also having that shared soft-spot for Kipo! Maybe they never QUITE get along, but Wolf and Sasha at least bond over a mutually-shared goal of making Kipo happy, and they’re fine with maintaining their relationship on this sort of professional ground.

           It’s definitely going to be a LOT of fun… Not to mention, Marcy whole-heartedly going along with Kipo, following in her footsteps, thinking of her as the coolest person to exist! Anne is having a bit more trouble keeping up, but her and Kipo bond over being much more sociable people, and quickly form a lot of in-jokes between them! Kipo and Marcy will get into hijinks and shenanigans, especially with Marcy working to catalogue and record data on Kipo herself and her Mega-Jaguar capabilities… Anne is going to freak out and go Mom-mode, telling them not to get into trouble; And Sasha will stand to the side, too-cool-for-school as she mutters something about those girls getting themselves killed, but really, she’s enjoying it too!

[writerbuddha]

6+1 roles of Padmé in the AOTC you might not noticed – Character analysis

In Attack of the Clones, Padmé’s most prominent role is to be the woman who loved Darth Vader (analysis of the love story will be coming soon!); however, this is not all what she stands for in the second episode of the Skywalker Saga.

Number 1. – She is the Anti-Emperor

As the plot begins, Padmé is no longer the queen of Naboo, instead, she is the senator of Naboo. While many is confused why does the significant shift in her character, George Lucas used her to portray the perfect political leader. Padmé Amidala was the beloved queen of Naboo, and as Anakin points out, she was so popular among her people they even tried to change the constitution to keep her in power. However, she refused – even when she could undermine the democratic system of her planet, she chose to put her crown down when her terms ended, and she was relieved, as she had no attachment to the power. However, she still serving her people as the second most important politician of Naboo, replacing Palpatine.

In Phantom Menace, she woke up from her slumber of passivity and she is trying to wake her fellow senators up, to save the Galactic Republic. In fact, it’s clear she is the only one in the Senate who is in Palpatine’s way, since she has the same power as Palpatine, not given by office but by her ability to lead the senators. This is why Palpatine was so eager to remove her from the capital.

Padmé’s role as a senator also mirrors Princess Leia’s status in the Original Trilogy, yet its essentially different. In the Empire Strikes Back, Leia was still addressed as a Princess, however, this is nothing but a gesture. The Alderaan – her world, her people, her kingdom – was destroyed. While she was robbed from her crown, Padmé turned it over to her successor.

Number 2. - Preserver of Democracy

In the movie when Anakin and Padmé are enjoying each other’s company on Naboo, they are discussing the ideal political system. Padmé’s anti-Emperor role is more prominent here and remains in the Revenge of the Sith, too.

Anakin belives the Galaxy should be ruled by him, his fatal flaw is that he thinks he can do things better than anyone and he would ensure the rule of justice and peace by force. Padmé is different: she believes the democratic system, what can ensure that people are doing what is the best for everyone because their intentions are honest, rather than because they are forced to do so. Anakin’s version of the victory of good is an illusion, because greed and selfishness are forced into hiding. He offers this version to Padmé in Revenge of the Sith, saying: “ We can make things the way we want them to be!” Padmé rejects this: her version offers a real victory, because it is takes more time and requires more sacrifices but one day it is able abolish greed and selfishness.

Number 3. – The second Qui-Gon Jinn

In Attack of the Clones, as they are preparing to leave for Naboo, Anakin declares his belief about he is way better than Obi-Wan, but this is not just about being stronger in the Force. He constantly challenges the decisions of both the Jedi Council and Obi-Wan, believing he knows better than them, clearly mirroring Qui-Gon’s rebellious behavior toward the Council: he wants to protect Padmé, but not just guarding her life, he wants to catch the one who is trying to kill her. Listen what he says about Obi-Wan. “He is wise as Master Yoda, he is as powerful as Master Windu”, then: “I am ahead of him”. So, he indirectly states he is wiser and more powerful than Yoda and Windu, too, and he is a better Jedi.

This changes after he butchered the sand people – he realizes, he is not the hero he believed himself to be. So, this time, when Windu orders him to stay right where he is, and protect Padmé, and do not go to Geonosis to save Obi-Wan, for the first time of his life, he wants to do as he was told to. This time, Padmé is the one who step up and say, they must save Obi-Wan, regardless what the Council said, and leads Anakin back to his old self, encouraging him to rely on his own opinion. Her actions were selfless and heroic, yet unwise, but it was the right thing to do - she serves as the antithesis of Anakin’s behavior, since she is not willing to follow orders what are contradicting with her moral code, she never fool herself into thinking she knows better than anyone. It’s important to point out Padmé is not responsible for Anakin’s fall – she generates situations in which Anakin must chose, but it’s only depended on him what he reads into Padmé’s behavior.

Number 4. - Next stop: War!

In the Attack of the Clones as Padmé and Anakin are trying to survive on the conveyor belt of the droid factory. This is the only part of the Prequel Trilogy, including Revenge of the Sith when Padmé is lost and don’t know what to do – and the metaphor is painfully obvious.

She fell into a world what prepares tools of bloodshed, and all she can do is trying to avoid being crushed on the path what drags her toward war, beyond her control. When she reaches the end of the conveyor belt, she is captured, and taken to the place where the first battle of the Clone Wars will erupt. This is the allegory of Palpatine’s trap for everything she represents.

Number 5. – “I am a senator”

At the fireplace scene, Padmé refuses to give in to her feelings, saying, Anakin is a Jedi, and “I am a senator”. By this, she doesn’t mean their position is so different. On the contrary, she reminds Anakin they both swore to put other’s interests and needs before their own, to live for others.

Anakin is about to become a Jedi Knight, and Padmé represents her whole world. Their relationship would break their commitment for others, since Anakin swore not to form attachments and Padmé feels if she does something for herself it would distract her from her duties. She is the one who remains faithful to her oath until the very end, not giving up her principles, making her the one who was able to keep balance between love and duty.

Number 6. – She would be the perfect Separatist, but she is a loyalist

The Separatist movement was established because of the Naboo crisis, since the incident revealed the weakness of the Galactic Republic. And Padmé is one of the individuals in the Galaxy, whose place should be on Dooku’s side. But despite the Republic let her down, she chose to save it. The difference between her and the separatists senators is while they all recognized the crisis of the Republic the separatist chose to serve their own interests – and their own planet’s interests – and gave up on the alliance, Padmé remained loyal the union, and fighting for its soul, for herself and for trillions of others.Her willingness to fight for the Republic is one of the traits why she is dangerous to Palpatine and why is the ideal politician in Star Wars.

+1 - she is a Nexu

In the Arena of Geonosis, all the three main characters are forced to face with three beasts: a Reek, a Nexu and an Acklay. Each beasts represents their fighting styles like in Saolin Kung-Fu: the Reek is driven by blind anger and uses raw strenght to attack, the Acklay is using logic and the Nexu is creative, persistent, brave, suprising and deadly.

[eventidespirits]

Adam Allistair Freemont

Aliases: Edwin Lockhart, William Silva, Francis LaRue, Everett Brighton, James Fenwick

Apparent Age: "29"

Birthday: August 11th, 1897

Death Day: December 19th, 1926

Species: Vampire (Siren Bloodline)/Bloodbound Spirit

Gender: Cis Man

Pronouns: he/him

Sexuality: Primarily Heterosexual

Occupation: Photographer

Residence: Santa Marta, California; Morgan Kendrick's Psychic Realm

Universe: Primarily original lore but also Vampire the Masquerade where he's a Camarilla Toreador who defected to the Sabbat.

Appearance:

Height: 6'0

Build: Tall and lanky with angular shoulders and long limbs. He has a trim, lightly muscled physique with long delicate fingers and soft hands.

Eye Color: Luminous Yellow/Gold with slitted cat-like pupils and a darker, amber band around the edges.

Hair Color/Texture: Black, 1b hair texture. Just long enough for the ends to brush against his shoulders. Partially brushed back and parted to the right but a significant amount of his hair ends up falling into his face.

Face: Angular with a square jaw and high cheekbones. He has a mostly straight nose with a slight convex curve to the bridge. He has deep set eyes with heavy lids and dark circles and usually looks somewhat sleepy but in a strangely sensual way. Defined lips that are usually curved into a sadistic little smirk. He's quite attractive but in a way that feels vaguely dangerous or even predatory.

Distinguishing Characteristics: Adam has bright golden eyes with slitted cat-like pupils. He also has a rather large, jagged scar on his back, located between his shoulder blades. I'd include his *other* distinguishing characteristic but that's kinda NSFW ;)

Posture/Body Language: Confident, even arrogant, chin up, shoulders back but not in a way that looks particularly stiff. His body language is generally relaxed and easy, bringing to mind a big cat at rest -- there's always something about the way he moves that implies a predatory nature laying beneath his cool, collected surface. Adam walks with clear purpose and long, smooth strides and always knows how to make an entrance.

Voice: Soft and smooth with a deep timbre and confident inflection. Adam's voice is somewhat like poisoned honey or arsenic laced velvet -- smooth and sweet but with something slightly off.

Clothing Style: Adam prefers dark colors -- burgundy, blood red, black, charcoal, rich deep browns and the ocassional pop of gold or cream or a white dress shirt. He wears primarily expensive, tailored button downs made from things like silk, velvet or very high thread count cotton with the sleeves rolled up and the top three (or four) buttons undone. Sometimes with brocade, floral or striped patterns. If it's cooler out, he'll wear a black blazer or something similar. When it comes to pants, it's almost entirely black or charcoal tailored pants or pitch black jeans. He usually wears very few accessories -- a nice watch, a belt, a silver and garnet ring and a pendant on a thin silver or gold chain. Generally wearing pointed toe oxfords or other dress shoes. When it comes to outerwear, Adam generally prefers things like wool coats and the ocassional leather jacket (always real leather, too) (to get a better idea, check out his [Pinterest Board]

Skills

Social: Manipulation, Lying, Gaslighting, Flirting, Proper Etiquette, Public Speaking, Blame Shifting, Negging, Seduction

Physical: knife combat, some hand to hand combat, basic combat training (circa 1914), long range firearms/sniping, Ballroom Dancing, Fencing, Horseback riding, the carnal arts

Talents: Photography, Drawing, Poetry, Lying, Being an Asshole, Manipulation, Painting, Seduction, Sex

Knowledges: Fluent in French & Italian, Masters in Psychology (circa 1926), Photo Development (wet plate, autochrome, modern methods), some basic knowledge of financial law and property law

Hobbies: Photography, writing, breaking pretty girls, avoiding his deep-seated psychological issues, general hedonism

Special: Emotional Influence, Telepathy, Emotional Transference, Enhanced Stamina, Enhanced Strength, "Immortality", Enhanced Senses (esp sight), minor regeneration, sweet blood, emotional radar/supernatural empathy, hypnosis/mind control

Psyche

Strengths: Charismatic, quick-thinking, clever, good at understanding the thought processes of others, empathetic, deeply romantic, treats service workers well, dedicated, generally calm, high emotional intelligence, has critical thinking skills, polite*, can be incredibly sweet, adaptable, pays a lot of attention to his partners in bed, passionate, artistic, creative, protective

Weaknesses: selfish, self-absorbed, arrogant, manipulative, almost completley lacks compassion, disdain for basically everyone around him, dishonest, has a horrible temper, needs constant attention and praise, has a massive inferiority/superiority complex, overconfident, easily susceptible to flattery, deep-seated intimacy issues, can't stand being wrong, terrified of vulnerability, paranoid, detached from his own emotions/denies his own humanity, callous, sadistic, can be incredibly rude, actually a bit of a coward, condescending, possessive, jealous and generally kind of a dick.

Fears: genuine intimacy, abandonment/loneliness,true death, being buried alive

Goals: To finally create the perfect art piece (i.e., break someone in just the right way -- he's not even sure what this MEANS, he's just sure he'll "know" when he finally does it), to just enjoy his immortality.

Personality: On the surface, Adam seems likable enough -- at least, at first. He's incredibly charming and thoughtful, often anticipating people's wants before they're even able to articulate them, witty, intelligent and seemingly very polite...

But beneath that surface lurks a spoiled rich kid who learned early on in life that having money, being good looking and charming meant he could get away with almost anything. Adam is self-absorbed and arrogant and almost everything he does is a carefully crafted performance intended to get people on his side and manipulate them into doing what he wants.

Beneath even that, which he desperately tries to ignore, is a little boy who was spoiled by his mother and entirely ignored by his (largely absent) father -- a young man who was traumatized by being forced to fight in WWI and who is full of deep-seated fears and insecurities.

To make up for this, Adam is often sadistic towards the people around him -- but in that way where it's difficult to tell that he's actually being cruel until one looks back at the conversation.

He has difficulty genuinely connecting to others because of those insecurities and instead uses his powers as a Siren to make the people around him love and adore him-- no matter how badly he treats them.

Life

Best Memory: Being gifted his first camera, meeting his Maker.

Worst Memory: Somewhere between when he almost died during WWI and his actual death...

Biggest Achievement: Getting his Masters

Prized Possession: Silver and Garnet ring gifted to him by his Maker, his first camera, his black 2020 Ferrari Portofino (with the red leather interior), (he also has an engraved custom sniper rifle but a friend picked the model and shit for me and I cannot remember what it is for the life of me)

Favorite Color: Red, Gold

Favorite Food:

-Mortal Food: Partial to anything rich and flavorful, prefers food that's not pointlessly ostentatious (nothing coated in gold leaf, that's absurd), dry red wines, Italian Cream Cake, Eggs Benedict, Crepes Suzette

-Blood: Blood taken in the heat of the throes of passion from someone that's truly and deeply in love with and obsessed with him...

Favorite Scents: Blood, Gasoline, Cloves, Cinnamon, Resin, YSL Nuit, roses, vanilla, rain, the sharp smell of a cloudless winter night

Favorite Songs: Winter, 1st Movement - Vivaldi, Raindrops - Chopin, La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf

Can't Leave Home Without: At least one knife somewhere on his person.

Birthplace: San Francisco, California

Childhood: Adam is the only child out of six in his family to survive to adulthood with four older siblings who had either in infancy, had been stillborn or died of tuberculosis when Adam was still too young to remember them. He had one younger sibling, a sister named Mary who was killed in an accident at the age of 6 when Adam was 8 years old. His parents were already a little bit older by the time he was born and his father was the owner of an incredibly lucrative railroad line and had profited greatly from the Gold Rush as well as owning multiple properties in San Francisco and neighboring Santa Marta...

Due to the loss of her other children, Adam's mother doted on him -- giving into his every whim, supplying him with the best education she could and basically just spoiling the ever loving fuck out of him. His father, on the other hand, was always busy with work and when he was home, had nothing but criticism for Adam who desperately tried to gain his approval to no avail.

Adolescence: Adam developed a passion for photography as a teenager and discovered that being good-looking, clever and rich meant he could get away with A LOT more than most people and also meant that he rarely heard "no" and accepted it as an answer even less often (though he rarely resorted to force to get his way, relying instead on bribery, flattery, blackmail and implied threats). All of this gave him quite an interest in psychology and he intended to become a clinical psychologist. During his adolescence, Adam would have a great many girlfriends and despite being a selfish and manipulative little shit, was actually not the world's worst boyfriend and no hint of the violent temper and genuine sadism he'd develop after being Changed.

Adulthood: Adam's education would be interrupted by the outbreak of WWI,which if asked he will describe as "incredibly distasteful and personally inconvenient." He was a skilled marksman and sniper but was otherwise unremarkable -- much to his father's disdain. After nearly dying in one of the trenches of France after taking a grievous bayonet wound in the last few months of the war, Adam would be sent back from the frontlines and would shortly begin work on continuing his education...

However -- despite the fact that he would complete all seven years necessary to get his degree, Adam's interest in becoming an actual psychologist wouldn't ever come to fruition. In 1925, he would meet Amelia Madeleine Smith -- an unbelievably beautiful and charming socialite from Santa Marta who would see Adam's potential as a source of money and influence for the Nightingale Court of Northern California. She would spend the next year carefully grooming him to become her protege -- manipulating him much in the same way he would later manipulate the women he dates as a vampire -- using emotional transference, mind control and mundane manipulation to cause him to fall madly in love with her... In December of 1925, Amelia would finally perform the ritual of transformation on him and bring Adam over into the world of the Supernatural.

Unfortunately for Adam, his Change would take nearly two weeks to complete -- two weeks spent in absolute agony beyond anything he'd experienced before. Amelia, believing the most important first step for a newly born vampire is to break their bonds to humanity would kidnap his mother during this change and leave her for him to kill upon waking. Adam would remain with Amelia (who used her bond as Adam's maker to control most of his actions and her abilities as a Siren to continue to influence his emotions) until 1980 when she was killed by a member of the Bram Park Wolf Pack in Santa Marta, leaving Adam behind. During this period, Adam would end up being "taken in" by a bonded pair of Stryza -- Camille Belikova and Lucy DeSantos and would act as their primary draw for new playthings.

Recent: Adam met Morgan Kendrick at the Velvet Box goth club in Santa Marta when Morgan was twenty two years old and would sweep her off her feet, intending to make her into his "masterpiece"... Three years into this relationship, Adam would finally Change Morgan, which would break the initial control he had over her and result in her, in a fit of rage, completely draining him and through a magical fluke, causing his spirit to become bonded/fused with her blood...

Recently, Adam's presence has disappeared from Morgan's psyche due to the machinations of Miss Belikova and her wife -- though it appears that the two of them are still inextricably linked in a way beyond the usual bond between Maker and Fledgling.

Relationships

Family: Lawrence Freemont (Father; Deceased), Anne Freemont (Mother; Deceased), Mary Freemont (Sister; Deceased)

Lovers: Amelia Smith (Maker; Deceased), Morgan Kendrick (Fledgling, Ex, Soulbond), Many other unnamed girls.

Friends: Camille Belikova, Lucille DeSantos, Jonathan Andreason

Enemies: Morgan Kendrick, the Bram Park Wolfpack

Acquaintances: Miranda Cortez (Queen of the Nightingale Court of Santa Marta)

Income: Moderately Wealthy

Vehicles: 2020 Ferrari Portofino

Residences: Penthouse Apartment in Vista Rosa, a small Victorian row house in Val Del Mar and a 1br/1ba apartment in Park Verde (all located in Santa Marta)