#an improvement: half of them have surnames

[push-tet]

@hellodahliah special for you 🥰 and for ppl who want to understand the lore of my Verona

kind of an addendum to the last post

bruh im sorry that this post came out so long!!

The Counts origin: The Counts, like the Сapps, were once an aristocracy. But after losing the election to Macbeth's ancestor, the Counts' ancestors ceased to consider themselves aristocrats. Leaving the path of palitics the Counts chose the path of jurisprudence. The Counts were able to maintain their power and influence over Veronaville by pulling the strings of law and justice

Escalus-Prince - Knowledge\Pisces- 5\3\9\1\7

Yeah, he's got a double name but everyone just calls him Escalus or Escal

He's too empathic for a job in the judiciary

He met his ex-wife at uni, he thought it was the real love but in fact she was using him to improve her position at uni so that she would not be expelled (he did all her academic work for her). When the truth came out, he didn't make a scene and just asked her to leave

After the death of Ledia Macbeth (the mayor at the time), he continues her work trying to reconcile the old generation of feuding clans

Escalus couldn't spend much time with his son. That's why they have a strained relationship with him

Escalus realizes he's spoiled Paris. While he has time, he tries to carefully correct this mistake so that he knows Paris will be a worthy successor to the family business

Gregorio - Romance\Taurus - 4\7\3\8\3

He is the first adopted son of the Summerdreams. When he grew up, he changed his last name

He was in love with a servant girl at the Сapp House (at the time of the game, the deceased Angelica Nurse)

He's a master of bad flirting

Before he became the Counts' butler, he tried his hand at stand-up

Gregorio still doesn't know how to react to Paris' words - You're like a big brother to me

After the fire at the old Count manor, he developed hydrophobia

Paris - Family\Leo - 5\8\3\4\5

Paris was born and spent half his childhood in Champs Les Sims. But his parents were going on a long expedition, so they returned to Veronaville and left their son in the care of Escalus. They promised to send him a card or letter once a month, but he hadn't received one in over three years (they're alive)

Paris was chubby in chilhood

Paris got interested in drawing after watching - Little Miss Wendalyn (fun fact - it's also Romeo's fav cartoon) At the moment, the biggest fan of his doodles is Merc

Paris is a little self-centered and makes himself a pretty good-looking guy. But even so, he always says - There's beauty in everyone. Someone just didn't think to wash their face today

Paris has been friends with Julliette since childhood but her liaison with Romeo annoys him. Paris just can't turn a blind eye to Romeo's shameful reputation. Not because he's jealous nonono

Paris and Romeo don't openly show their dislike for each other and pretend they are good bros. Paris calls him Gnomeo

The Zhung origin:

The fairies of the Zhung Clan are famous tea masters and their outdated views on life. The men of the clan are outstanding healers and the women of the clan are supposed to be creative but devote themselves to looking after the family. But no member of the family is allowed to leave the homeland without special permission from the elders. Failure to follow the rules is punishable by condemnation and condemnation within the family

Yingtai - Virgo\Family 8\3\5\3\6

After her daughter left the family, Yingtai devoted herself to a career in music. She is fluent in playing all musical instruments and has often performed at the opera

As a young girl, Yangtai disobeyed her family and went to university abroad dressed as a man

Yingtai's husband openly despised her family. He despised them so much that he refused to use his wife's surname after marriage

Yingtai hasn't spoken another language for a long time, so when she arrives in Veronaville she starts to communicate with everyone in her native language as a habit

Yingtai remains devoted to her husband even after his death

Yintai knows all types and kinds of teas by heart. So she's literally like: Fuck your zodiac signs. What's your favorite tea?; Her favorite - Longjing tea

please someone ask me about Yingtai and her husband's relationship they are my Roman Empire

Madam - Aries\Pleasure 5\6\6\4\4

i found an old post about her bruh

Madam change her name and took her second husband's surname so she and her daughter wouldn't be part of the Zhung

Madam hates everything to do with her father. Unlike her mother, Madame is convinced that he is not dead but simply ran away

Madame works as a fashion photographer but also successfully designs her own custom-made clothes. Some of her clients include - Marissa Cleveland, Armand DeBateau, Mercutio Monty, Klara Vonderstein, Goneril and Kent Capp, Bella Goth, Cordial sisters

Madame doesn't hate men, she just doesn't like it when men try to control women

After the "death" of her father, Yingtai fell into a deep depression and stopped paying attention to her daughter, because of this Madame became unmanageable and often deliberately got into trouble

After leaving home, Madame still has a habit of asking after the welcome - "Would you like some tea?" Her favorite - Pu Erh with basil-cherry

Helana - Scorpio\Fortune 7\4\7\4\3

When Helena was studying martial arts in Shang Simla. (btw the homeland of Madam and Yingati) She overworked herself so much that she now has to dye her hair blond to cover up a bunch of gray hairs

Helena the union of an ordinary sim and a fairy. A half-breed. She does not have access to such fnctions as - long life and magic. But in she excels in physical activities of ordinary sims

Fact: Helena was able to reeducate Paris to do his job properly

For Helna, Hermia is dead. So when she's asked to stop ignoring Hermia's existence, she says - I'm not crazy enough to talk to a ghost

Helena seems to be a cold person, but if you talk to her for a while, you will find out that in addition to white arts, she bakes cookies/buns to drink tea with (if Paris doesn't eat all the sweets in one go); Her favorite - green tea with peach

The Snout also have a dog named Peek

He was a present for Madam from father-in-law. i don't know how to describe him, i'll just show it

he's also supposed to be a Spitz

fact: the only three characters here are not Shakespearean references

hmmm, should i put Madam-Helena and Escalus-Paris templates for download?

[mlembug]

is poland a good place to be trans?

in australia, it seems pretty good for now.

In general, no. I am handling pretty well mostly because I went through most of the bullshit already, I live in a fairly liberal city, and I work in IT, but I have no vision for the future if I get burned out. I estimate like 90-95% of Polish trans girls have it worse than me.

In terms of recent events, we got rid of PiS recently so there is some win in terms of politics, so at least the most egregious corruption is out, but the other party has been promising improvements for LGBT folk a few times in the past and never did them, the only difference is that the leftists form a coalition with them and another party. Too bad the leftists have the least seats in Sejm out of the three parties, but it's still okay, in that the situation doesn't get worse over the next 4 years than it already is. The worrying part is that there are a few people trying to form the spearhead of the anti-trans movement here, but they're yet a minor drop in comparison to the problems Catholic church and regular right-wingers cause for marginalized people.

The following is a breakdown of how living in Poland while trans is like.

(A quick rundown on "cost of living": Minimal salary: 3221.98zł post taxes; Median salary (estimated): 4692zł post taxes. Renting a room: around 1000zł (plus utilities). Renting a flat: 2000zł and up. Loaf of bread: 2.50-5zł. Apples (1kg): 3-5zł. A beer (0.5l) in a supermarket: 4zł. A beer (0.5l) in a bar: 15zł. A large pizza (40cm): 40-50zł. A new video game or any Nintendo game: 250zł.)

Gender marker change: You sue your own parents for this. This process is significantly less annoying than it was 10 years ago in that the number of documents included is like half as much as it was back then and also you don't have to sue your adult children anymore if you have them, but it still implies outing yourself to your parents and them seeing your medical documentation you're sending as evidence (oh god why). The less the parents meddle the better for you. Your hope is that them putting in time, money and effort to meddle is not worth it, and honestly, even regular garden variety transphobic parents don't do much beside denying during a testimony. Otherwise prepare for years-long legal battle that will exhaust both of you. A judge can also decide to appoint an "expert" to judge the medical documentation, and make it more annoying. Very vague optimistic estimate (no external "expert", which honestly is not a given and cases with no external expert started happening recently) of procuring the documentation (psychiatrist opinion, sexologist opinion, lawsuit costs, that fucking stupid MMPI-2 test) puts it at around 3000zł. No same-sex marriage in Poland means that if you're married you have to divorce before attempting gender marker change process. Changing your gender marker means also your national identity number changes because gender is encoded in one of the digits.

The good part is that you don't have to get sterilized as part of gender marker changed, and no surgeries are required. The bad part is that you can't get sterilized without a gender marker change. Either do it outside of Poland or sue your parents. Also, HRT is required for gender marker change.

Name change without gender marker change: Significantly limited due to vast majority of Polish names being heavily gendered, and you can't assign yourself a name considered feminine. Without gender marker change your best bet is non-Polish names and names that are ambiguously gendered. Some surnames are gendered so if you have one you will likely want to change it to a non-gendered one. You likely also have to provide justification and hope for a friendly clerk.

Double mastectomy: With gender marker changed you can get it for free, though whether it's good enough I have no idea. Otherwise 10000-20000zł.

Hysterectomy: Can't get one without gender marker change. With gender marker changed it's funded by public healthcare.

Vaginoplasty: Can't get one without gender marker change. Out of pocket. 50000-60000zł.

Laser hair depilation: Out of pocket. 300zł per session.

Access to HRT: Wild wild west, no regulations means doctors have their own criteria on what exactly do you need to get HRT. One endocrinologist will write a prescription when you ask for it, on the first visit, another will gatekeep you forever. Obviously do your research. A visit to the endocrinologist will cost 200-300zł.

Fem-HRT:

Estrofem (estradiol pills) 28 pills x 2mg costs 16.23zł. Public healthcare lowers that to 4.87zł. Androcur (cyproterone acetate) 50 pills x 50mg costs 91,69 zł. Public healthcare lowers that to 27.51zł. Divigel (estradiol gel) 28 packs x 1mg costs 41.25zł. Public healthcare lowers that to 24.88zł. No injections, all Polish trans girls go to Czech Republic for these, where Neofollin (estradiol valerate) 5 vials x 5mg costs 115.37 CZK, twice as much as when I bought them in November 2022.

Masc-HRT:

Omnadren 250 (testosterone injection, more specifically, testosterone propionate (30 mg) + testosterone phenylpropionate (60 mg) + testosterone isocaproate (60 mg) + testosterone caproate (100 mg)) 5 vials cost 88.14 zł. Testosteronum Prolongatum (testerone injection, more specifically, testosterone enanthate (100mg)) 5 vials costs 91zł. Nebido (testosterone injection, more specifically testosterone undecylenate (1000mg)) 1 vial costs 520zł.

Access to blockers: Also wild wild west, but I know nothing about how it is because I know no one who is on them. Probably sucks.

Society: more liberal in the west Poland and more conservative in the east Poland (the so called "Poland A and Poland B split")

Systemic discrimination: If you're a trans man after gender marker change and for whatever reason you birthed a baby, you're in legal limbo because you can't be written as neither as father nor mother on birth certificate. The one case I know of ended up resolved by giving up the child for adoption. Bottom line is that pretty much everything sucks aside from HRT access in case you're an adult, which is actually quite decent in comparison.

[brownsplodge]

They Howl at Night (10/?)

Huh i wonder what splodge has been doing- *BAM WRITES A NEW CHAPTER OF A FIC I KIND OF DROPPED 2 YEARS AGO AND PROBABLY LITERALLY NOBODY WAS WAITING FOR* (ao3 link uwu)

(I hope my writing has improved lmfao but I'm doing this for funsies so I guess it doesn't matter)

Alcor sat cross legged in the small room and picked at a very sticky sticker that had made its way into the collar of his shirt and attached itself to his neck. 

He had to find the source of these evil stickers and eliminate them, there was no way they were not demonic in some way.

He was drawing a portrait of one of his nightmare sheep on the floor with a piece of chalk he’d found in his sock.

He felt a little bored, and he didn’t have the usual flow of random information to keep him occupied for some reason. Not that he wasn’t grateful to finally have some peace and quiet, but he was always a little on edge when his powers weren’t torturing him as they usually did, and they were being strangely nice to him lately. 

He heard something in the hall, and looked up to see that girl from the supermarket with her face pressed against the clear plastic wall of the room where it led into the corridors.

Alcor froze, not sure what to do. Why did he not know she worked here? Shouldn’t he have received that information? He didn’t want to scare the Mizar or immediately break Lucy-Ann’s trust by going full brother mode. 

What did humans do to greet each other again? 

Alcor slowly raised a hand, and slowly bent each finger crunchily to prove he had joints and gain her trust. 

The girl looked at him with a mild look of disgust, but not the scared kind, just the ‘nobody waves like that’ kind of way. Nailed it.

The girl bent down to one of the air holes that were drilled into the plastic wall in case the vents stopped working. 

“Hello! Um… Mister…” She removed her mouth from the air hole to check the sign next to his room. 

“Pines. We literally have the same surname, how did I forget it?” She mumbled to herself, before clamping her mouth against the air hole to make sure he could hear her (there was an anti soundproof sigil on the plastic, and it was completely unnecessary).

“Hello mister Pines! Do you happen to know about the guy who was in this room before you?” 

Alcor stared at her for a second, instinctively waiting for the answer to pop into his head (he had not bothered to read the more boring documents, and had been relying on just knowing important information if asked). 

But the answer never came, and the second he stared at her became half a minute of eye contact. 

His powers were fucking him over all along after all. 

He looked slightly to the side, the amount of eye contact feeling uncomfortable even to an immortal being above human awkwardness(lies), and tried to ‘dig out’ the answer. 

He wasn’t sure what went on in a normal human brain anymore, not having had one for several hundred, maybe over a thousand years, (He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t counting the seconds of his life like he usually did, and he hadn’t even noticed until that moment,) but he was sure if it was possible for him to get one again, he was probably close. He couldn’t find anything in his mind that he didn't already know, and he even couldn’t find all the stuff he knew already.

“I don’t know.” (This was a sentence he hadn’t said completely honestly in years.)

He kept picking at the sticker on his neck.

“Oh.”

"Sorry."

“No, it’s alright! I just thought all that eye contact might’ve meant something.”

Alcor shook his head. 

He finally manages to stick one of his long and very nicely painted fingernails under the sticker and peeled it off. Now his fingers were sticky. Great. 

“And you’re sure you don’t know anything about him? His name is Xander? Xander McKindley?”

Alcor finally heard something quietly answering the question in his head, and he automatically started reciting it.

“Xander McKindley. 61. 3 living relatives, excluding people whose last shared ancestors with him were more than two hundred years ago. Until last week he went missing. Instead of it getting reported, someone working within the official werewolf safety program deleted all his files, and most people who had known Xander were told he moved.”

He was quite proud of himself.

The girl staring at him looked at him with her mouth wide open.

“What? Who? How come you didn’t know who I was talking about earlier?”

This time, the answer didn't come to him again. Alcor looked down and tried to remove the sticker's melting glue from his hands.

“I don’t know.”

He earned a frustrated groan in response, and the girl turned back to where she’d walked into the hall from and walked away rapidly.

[cuprohastes]

Things to Come

It is the year 2024: Amazon wants to have wholly owned company towns to persuade poor people to enter into indentured servitude. There is an election between an old guy who's quietly doing a generally good job, and a very loud serial rapist conman who's being taken to court for his many crimes including treason. Somehow there is still a debate as to who will win.

It is the year 2030: There are now four Amazon towns powered off grid by Tesla batteries. There is no news in or out. People are starting to notice this. Jeff Bezos and Elon musk are having a public fight over who owns Mars. Bezos brought up Twitter and Elon's announced X-Mart a direct competitor to Amazon. The Cybertruck's been recalled again, this time after the 50th person was cooked alive by the burning battery pack, which also locked all the doors.

It is 2040: Elon's died on Mars ina. 8ft cabin from every cancer known to man and three that are getting named after him. Apparently he declared that radiation shielding wasn't needed because Mars is too far from the sun for radiation to reach it. Jeff Bezos freeze dried corpse is still circling hte earth as of two years ago. The world watches with glee as Amazon is torn to shreds by ten thousand parties all of whom are laying claim to the 3 trillion dollars held by the company. Nobody is trying to take over Space-X or Teslas due to the historic 1.4 trillion dollars in fines and debt they collectively owe. Mark Zuckerberg is replacing all his organic parts with life support machines to keep his brain alive until a perfect way to upload himself to the metaverse is available. The metaverse is still shit and has only 1008 concurrent users.

Is tis 2042: Donald Trump has choked to death in his cell. The rumour is it was corpophilia: This will persist even after a FOIA reveals it was a cold two day old Big Mac smuggled in to him. The world rejoices. There is still a 24/7 video feed of Elon musk slowly mummifying in the remains of X-Mars. Questions regarding the rest of the colonists are answered when a Marsbot finally accesses the dome and finds that Elon turned off the oxygen after the twenty three women in the first wave of colonists refused to breed with him. There were twenty eight colonists and four of them had received vasectomies two months before liftoff. They had to take an axe to the thing Zuckerberg because it wouldn't stop screaming. In the UK, all politicians from the last 30 years have been placed in Wadsworth prison and are tried and guillotined daily. The Scottish won't stop laughing. The Irish have been drunk of their tits for the last six months. The Welsh have banned speaking English. This is not going well but they get much respect for taking a stand.

2050: Republicans are now legal to be hunted for food if you have a bow hunting license. Guns are finally restricted. Republicans state that this will result in a civil war. Gun crime and school shootings are down 1000%. The most popular book in the US is "Eating the Rich" a combination how-to on bow hunting, butchering and serving human flesh. The rest of the world is watching this with interest. The Russian federation is taking special notes. This year 80 clones of Vladimir Putin are euthanised in their tubes and eaten.

2055: There is no civil war and surprisingly few instances of Kuru. Texas has built a wall around the entire state to keep "the left" out. All jokes about marrying your cousin are now attributed to Texas, now known as the Lone Surname State. They have still managed not to secede.

2060: Gender is abolished, not through decree but by common agreement of the third generation brought up by Millenials, Gen Z and Gen Blue: The Green Generation. Cities are walkable. It is considered weird if you cannot walk to the shops in bare feet safely for at least half a year. Air quality has improved, winters are returning. Urban deer keep grasses down and provide local meat. Men and women wear dresses, biological sex can now be changed trivially with around 60 months of treatment. Marriage is now merely a fun tradition and churches all pay tax after the 2056 ruling that if they cannot provide evidence for their god that they have no more claim to universal truth than a social club. World hunger is solved by levying back taxes on jsut three megachurches. Summers are brutal but can be managed by passive cooling, and thermal gradient power generators for cooling.

2070: Everyone has UBI. Work is 4 hours a day, 4 days a week for most people. Many people have two or three jobs, not for money, but because they have diverse interests. Most companies are profit sharing or Co-operatives. The biggest global trauma is the English wearing socks with sandals. Global temperatures have dropped. The kids are kind and bemused by their aging relatives. Texas is still Republican and angrily making memes about "This is the future the left want" that are still really cool and fun looking suggestions. The southen US has replaced it's statues with Dolly Parton, who's revered as a saint. 40% of men have great tits. The President of the USA is catgirl. Things are going to be OK. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day the last Boomer died and everyone's going to get their grill out. Life's good: We're going to to be OK.

[lilimonarch]

Doctor Hanahaki - The Memories that Never Return [17]

Doctor Hanahaki Prequel: Whumptober spinoff!

Whumptober day 17: Touch aversion, "Leave me alone," and Lyric Prompt.

~

You're the lump in my throat, the knot in my chest

"Hey! Keiji, right? You're new!"

Akaashi turned his head and his very annoyed facial expression to face the kid, still getting used to the fact his first name was thrown around by just about anyone. He wasn't Akaashi Keiji, here- he was Keiji Akaashi. It appeared Americans were very different than what he was used to back home.

No, that wasn't his home anymore. He had no attachment to Japan, just the language and customs. America was the land of opportunity, this was his home.

"Look, I don't want to-" he stopped to think, how to get the words across. His English was good, not perfect and getting better, but he occasionally couldn't find the words. "Leave me alone," he knew it sounded meaner than what he wanted it to, but it was what he could remember at the time. "Sorry, I don't know how to say. English isn't my first language," he eventually sighed and turned away.

"Do you speak Japanese?"

Akaashi brightened a bit, turning around and nodding. Was his accent that thick? He thought it was fine, his mother said it was good, though maybe she wasn't the best person to ask. "That's fine!" The kid switched into Japanese instantly, his words spoken almost perfectly. "I'm Kenzo Ojiro! Most people call me Ken, but I can get the switch from surnames can be odd. Ojiro works too!"

"Oh, alright," Akaashi nodded, feeling much more at ease. "Yeah, it can be a bit much. Your Japanese is great."

"I'm half Japanese, my older brother is actually playing in a professional volleyball league in Japan!" Kenzo grinned. "Can we be friends?"

"Yo! Ken, you adopt one of the new kids?"

Akaashi rolled his eyes, Kenzo immediately waving them over as a few other kids started to surround them, but the other male seeming quite protective over Akaashi. It was nice, extroverts to fill the conversation for him, it almost felt familiar. "I did! His name is Akaashi, and he's super cool. Let's give him a warm welcome!"

Kenzo laid a hand on Akaashi's shoulder, Akaashi shaking his head and pulling away. He's not sure why, but the touch felt familiar, the touch felt terrifying. As if, it was a part his mind had locked away, where comforting touch was the bits of horror. "Please don't touch me."

"Oh, right. Sorry, Akaashi." Kenzo nodded and quickly removed his hand. Another word was never said.

Akaashi liked Kenzo Ojiro, it reminded him of a home he denied having any ties with. This group he had been adopted into had taken him in as if he had been in America for all his life, playing volleyball on the beaches in the summertime and looking out onto the city skylines. He had even met Ken's older brother, Aran Ojiro or Alan as people called him in English; Akaashi preferred Aran.

Aran once asked him if he knew a Bokuto Koutarou. Akaashi shook his head and that was the end of it.

He had grown rather close with Kenzo, he was one of his best friends. Despite Kenzo being so extroverted and social, he was quiet, fidgety, anxious when they were alone. Akaashi felt special, knowing Kenzo was important to him. Akaashi explained his end with love, his amnesia, his lack of any feelings or remorse, but appreciation for Kenzo's kindness one night on the rooftops of the city. Despite Akaashi's major improvement in English, the two still conversed in Japanese when they were alone. "No love? Like, no crushes?"

"It's not even bad, it's better this way. I can focus on my school work," Akaashi said instantly, and if he were more aware, he would catch the flush on Kenzo's face fade away as his glance darted from Akaashi to the skyline, pulling his hand back. "I'm thankful, I don't need love," Akaashi stared at the stars. "It sounds like bad logic, but I mean it. What about you? Is love that crucial?"

Kenzo chuckled a bit. "Yeah..." his voice trailed off. "It's the world to me."

~

"Are you okay?"

The early morning sun shone as Bokuto turned his head from where he leaned against the railing. One of his first major volleyball events as a member of the MSBY Jackals, a league to seed for an upcoming tournament . He turned his head to see one of the opposing teams hitters from a team they were supposed to face today. He had talked with the player before, he was just a year older than Bokuto. Aran Ojiro. "Yeah, I'm good. Just thinking about your brother and Akaashi. From what you said, they seem close."

"It sucks what happened, but you can't keep dwelling on the past," Aran slapped Bokuto on the back, the way friendly rivals did, the way future teammates did to get their peers back in the game. "It hurts, but you have to get over him at some point. The future is bright for you, it'll work out," they stared at the sky, cloudless and bright.

"You have a game tomorrow?" Bokuto looked up, his hands fidgeting.

"I don't."

"Want to come by my room tonight?" Bokuto gave a small smile, sly and sad, but hopeful and lustful. "Only if you're chill with it."

"How far you want to go?"

"Nothing too far, I have a game tomorrow. I can't afford to be tired and sore," Bokuto chuckled, though there was an undertone of sadness in his voice, a lump in his throat, a knot in his chest. "Just some kisses, maybe some alcohol with it."

Aran shook his head like the responsible player he was, but not at the request, just at Bokuto's scheming. "Sure, friends."

"You're a good friend, Ojiro. You should've signed with the jackals."

[zahri-melitor]

I picked up Mera Tidebreaker to read and this is going to be fascinating, as I know the various Atlantean characters largely by osmosis and crossover appearances, so my starting set of knowledge is very small. Things I currently know (or believe) that are associated with them:

Mera is married to Arthur! She is queen of Atlantis.

Mera and Arthur have had at least one kid. The kid is dead. At least one of them was also named Arthur.

I believe that Garth is not Arthur’s biological kid. I think he comes from one of the other undersea kingdoms and got adopted? Or fostered?

Atlantis has a lot of magic. Also odd technology adapted to undersea purposes.

Arthur was raised by a lighthouse keeper on land when he was young.  I dunno exactly why this happened, but my brain assumes it was for standard selkie/lost heir plot reasons.

The lighthouse keeper might also have been called Arthur. I am pretty certain his surname is Curry, because every other Atlantean character does not appear to have a surname, and Aquaman got his from somewhere.

There are a lot of dead babies in the family. Life expectancy being a kid of Arthur or Garth is very very low. Like, ‘congratulations you have a toddler not a baby’ level of low.

Their big villain is Black Manta, who has killed at least one of these babies.

Lagoon Boy is related in...some manner? I think he’s just another inhabitant of Atlantis.

Sub Diego used to exist! Part of San Diego sank into the ocean during an earthquake and the inhabitants ended up able to breathe under water for REASONS I am uncertain on. Atlantis helped them out. I believe this fact is no longer in continuity.

Arthur had a hook for a hand for a while because a villain cut it off? And then that got retconned? Look I don’t read much Justice League, but that’s at least clear from art appearances.

Cerdian just got resurrected/appeared from another timeline over in Flash 800. This is a Big Deal.

Anyway I expect to enjoy the Mera book despite my extreme lack of context for any of the goings on. It will probably improve it in some ways being from the independent YA line. Please laugh at my terrible set of Atlantean facts, at least half of which revolve around missing DC children.

[krishgupt]

Ash Betrayed (Part - 17)

It had been 2 years since Ash had discovered the truth about his heritage. In these 2 years, Ash had done rigorous training under David to improve his Aura Prowess! A Combination of Meditation, physically exercise and reading the Aura Scriptures called Vedens, which contain in them the stories of Gods. In these two years, he had no only proven David wrong, but even surpassed the expectations of Ilene and Delia. Within 6 Months, Ash was able to understand his Pokémons’ words. Within a year, he was able to use Aura to strengthen his Physical Abilities to unhuman level. Just like his father, Ash was fast enough to beat even the fastest Pokémons in race.

Within 1 and a half year, Ash was able to manifest stable Aura Projections. Ash not only trained himself, but also his Pokémons. He had called back all of his Pokémons (Except Tauroses who were in Ketchum’s farm under Delia care), including the ones who have left him (No Legendary or UB for the time being). Many of them are now fully evolved (Those which have specially refused to evolve will not evolve, other writers may violate their consent, but I will not)

And now, after two years, at the age of 17, Ash was dueling with Multiple Aura Users, with his previous incarnation (Sir Aaron) Staff in his hand, dressed in proper Aura User Attire, he was defeating people left and right in the ‘Aura Duel’ in a building resembling a Roman Stadium (Obviously no killing).

An Aura Duel is a duel in which an Aura User and his three Aura Pokémons fight multiple Aura Users (and their Aura Pokémons) to prove to the entire Aura Society that they are worth of some title. Right Now, Ash was dueling for the Title of ‘Aura Guardian of Kanto’, one of the 12 most prestigious positions in the entire Aura Foundation (This whole thing is being done in secret. Just for y’all information). The 12 Positions and their current holders are

1) Aura Foundation President – Tobias of Sinnoh

2) Aura Captain of Rota – David Adamson of Rota

3) Aura Guardian of Kanto – Vacant (The former Guardian died, why do you think Ash is trying to claim the position)

4) Aura Guardian of Johto – Morty of Ecruteak City

5) Aura Guardian of Hoeen – Wallace of Sootoplis City

6) Aura Guardian of Sinnoh – Prince Riley Irving

7) Aura Guardian of Kitakami – Champion Carmine of Mossui Town

8) Aura Guardian of Unova – Natural Harmonia Gropius

9) Aura Guardian of Kalos – Gurkinn of Shalour City

10) Aura Guardian of Alola – Princess Acerola

11) Aura Guardian of Galar – Bea of Stow-on-Side

12) Aura Guardian of Paldea – Professor Tyme of Montenevera Town

(Note: So Aura Guardian of Rota is separate position which is held by the Queen {or King} of Rota but in all meetings of the Foundation, she is represented by the Aura Captain of Rota, so that title is really just on paper. It is also a title which is not recognized by Rotan Monarchy, thus Ilene will never be addressed with the title ‘Aura Guardian of Rota)

(Note – Please suggest Surnames for these people)

Of the 12 positions, the Positions of Aura Guardians are of equal status and power, with each Aura Guardian having power to deal with Aura Users native to their regions. Aura Captain and President and High power position with Aura President being Above the Aura Captain, according to the Foundation’s constitution. Aura President is elected by Aura Users around the world and thus have power to establish laws regarding their various issues related to the Foundation and Aura Users’ life. Aura Captain is the Military head of the Foundation, having the power to mobilize Aura Users with (In matters of emergencies, without) Aura Guardians’ Permission.

Obviously, the outer world thinks the titles of ‘Aura Guardians’ and ‘Aura President’ merely define who are the regional heads and CEO of the foundation. For the Outer World, ‘Aura Captain’ was merely a symbolic position which, according to precedent, usually exchange hand amongst royalty, a symbol of an old era.

Sadly, the Outer world could never be told the truth, for its own sake, for its own stability.

Sadly, the Outer world could not witness the Great Duel in which Ash Ketchum, Along side his three Aura Pokémons, Mega Evolved Lucario, Ash Greninja and Pikachu.

There are types of Aura Pokémons, they are

1) Animae Pokémons :- They are the type of Aura Pokémons with whom their exist a Soul to Soul relationship. They are bound to be together in every reincarnation. Eg here will be Ash’s and Sir Aaron’s Lucario (s), David’s Glaceon and Ilene’s Mr Rime.

2) Per Cor Pokémons :- They are the type of Aura Pokémons with whom their exist a type of Master-Servant Relationship in which ab Aura User takes interest in a particular Pokémon. Their need not be any prior birth connection but it tends to happens most of time, especially if the Per Cor Pokémon is a legendary. The Pokémon loyally serves his master and the master’s Aura makes him extremely power, sometime temporary change the Pokémon’s physical form even. Eg here will be Ash’s Greninja, Tobias’ Darkrai and Riley’s Absol.

3) Per Vitam Pokémons :- They are the type of Aura Pokémons with whom your connection happens through the natural course of your life. MANY a times, Per Vitam Pokémons become more closer to their masters then Animae Pokémons. Best example is Ash’s Pikachu.

With one final strike, Ash defeated the final opponent. With that, Ash and his three Aura Pokémons had proven, in front of a large number Aura Users of Rota, the Aura Guardians, Aura Captain David, Aura President Tobias, Queen Ilene, the Commander-In-Chiefs of the three armed forces of Rota and the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Rota, that he was worthy of becoming the Next Aura Guardian of Kanto. Sat next to Ilene was Ash’s extremely proud mother, Delia Ketchum.

“Honourable Aura Users of Rota! The Great Aura Guardians and Aura Captain! Righteous Aura President Tobias! Her Majesty Queen of Rota Ilene! Her Loyal Commander-In-Chiefs and the Great Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Rota!” Ash said as he raised his staff as Pikachu climbs his shoulder. Lucario and Greninja, transforming back into their normal forms, stand next to Ash, grinning about their victory.

“And my dear mother,” Ash said humbly as Delia whipped off her tears, smiling happily.

“By winning this duel, I have proven that I am capable of carrying forward the Legacy of the First Aura Guardian of Kanto, Commander-In-Chief Cyril Surge! And my Great Successor, late Hershel Lawrence!!!” Ash said as Ilene got up from her Throne, proud of her brother.

“Yes Prince Ash of Rota, you have proven yourself by defeating 1000 Aura Users continuously, now, Aura President Tobias give the final decision,” Ilene said as she sat on her Throne and Tobias stood up.

“According to customs created long ago by The first Aura User, Later Master Auren, winning Aura Duels means the person has proven their capacities and thus I declare that Prince-” Before Tobias could complete the sentence, David interrupted.

“I challenge Prince Ash Ketchum of Rota!!!!” David said as he stood up from his seat, pulling out his Sabre. Shocking everyone present.

“Aura Captain of Rota! Sir David Adamson of the Adamite Clan!!!! What are you saying!!!!!” Ilene asked, nearly forgetting the Royal protocol inherited anger.

“Your Highest Majesty, it is the right of every Aura User to challenge another Aura User to a Duel as well the right to enter into an existing Aura Duel, and right now, I am exercising both of those rights,” David said as Jump from the VIP sitting zone and landed in the Battlefield. He snapped his fingers and three Pokémons came out his belt, these were Glaceon (Animae), Machamp (Per Cor) and Steelix (Per Vitam).

“But Sir-” Before Ash could complete his sentence, Ash raised his hand, symbolically ordering his ward to pick up his weapon. Ash Sighed as he tightened his grip on his staff. Lucario and Greninja transformed into their Mega and Ash Greninja forms.

“You know the rules and procedures when two Aura Users take part in an individual ‘Aura Duel’, ready,” David said.

“I! Ash Ketchum/David Adamson! With my Animae Aura Pokémon Lucario/Frost (Daivd's Glaceon), my Per Cor Aura Pokémon Greninja/Baku (David’ Machamp) and my Per Vitam Aura Pokémon Pikachu/Orion (David’s Steelix)! Am ready for this Aura Duel!!” Ash and David said together as all six strike at each other.

Note: There is no switching, a Pokémon of one category has to fight the same category Pokémon. And obviously, the Aura Users are supposed to fight each other.

“//This is some royal BS!!!!!//” Pikachu said as he dodged Orion’s (He is mega Evolved) attacks.

“Language!” Ash said as he block David’s strike with his staff.

“What the hell is he doing!!!!” Ilene said as she hit the armrest of her Throne.

“I am sure he has noble intentions Ilene, Red was David’s Aura Master before his-” Delia paused to whip her tears

“I have complete confidence in his judgement,” Delia said as Ilene Sighed, unable to debate her Aunt.

“This is so unprecedented, isn’t it Granpa,” Korrina, who was sitting next to Gurkinn, said.

“It very much is, I don’t remember any instances of an Aura Master challenging his own pupil,” Gurkinn said as Bea nodded.

“I am aware of Ash’s capabilities, I am sure he will be Victorious,” Bea said.

“But wouldn’t David’s defeat mean Ash will become the next Aura Captain?” Morty asked.

“That is correct,” Riley answered.

“This is not a question on Ash’s capabilities but, if he won, will he be able to handle the pressure of the position?” Tobias said

“I am sure he will,” Riley defended.

“You sure you are not saying that just because he is your family,” Carmine asked

“No champion Carmine, I am saying purely based on Ash’s talents,” Riley said.

“I can’t agree less with Riley in this matter, the boy is brilliant,” Wallace added.

While the high ups were talking, Ash and David were fighting. Ash was playing defensively while David was on the aggressive.

“I don’t get what is the meaning behind this!” Ash said as block another one Swing of David’s Sabre.

“Consider this your final test Prince!” David said as he swing his Sabre at him.

While this was going on, Baku, which had taken the form of a 6 armed beast, was continuously throwing rocks at Ash’s Greninja, who was dodging each one of them.

“//What happened Greninja? Scared of me?//” Balu said as the continued his assault of rocks.

“//One mistake Baku! Your one, single, unmindful Mistake will be your end!!!!//” Greninja said as he used his tongue to catch one of the rocks and throw it back at Baku, who was barely able to dodge.

“//Good one Gren!!!//” Pikachu said as he dodged Orion’s continuous tall slap.

“//Focus on your battle or you will become flatter than a stunfisk//” Lucario said as he and Frost circle each other.

“//Says the ones who are just circling around each other//” Baku said as he threw rocks at Greninja.

“//Don’t misinterpret this Baku!//” Orion said as it continued it’s assault with it’s tall.

While all this was going on, Ash started getting more and more aggressive in his attacks. With on swift move of his staff, Ash hit David hand, disarming him of his Sabre.

“It is over for you sir!” Ash said as he pointed his staff to David, who just smirked and snapped his fingers, which was a signal for Frost to attack Lucario. Frost used ice beam on Lucario, breaking their circle. The sudden commotion attracted Ash’s attention for a moment, which was enough for David to jump behind Ash, grabbing his Sabre along the way, and slashing Ash on the back!

“ARCEUS!!!!!!!” Ash cried in Pain before getting retaking his stance.

“//You @#%@₹//” Lucario said as he went full feral, continuously attacking Frost with Aura spheres, which she was dodging gracefully.

“//That’s all you got big boy?//” Frost said with smirk.

“Lucario!!!” Ash said as he block David’s Spear.

“Lucario, Greninja and Pikachu!!! Clear your mind and focus on your opponents!!!! I want your mind blank” Ash continued as he block another hit.

Ash the three heard that, they looked at each other, sighing for closing their eyes and breathing in and out just for a moment before restarting their action.

“//Hey Orion! Can catch me underground!//” Pikachu said as he dug deep down. Orion had a ‘Is he serious ‘ face as he also went down, but the moment Orion went down, Pikachu came out and stood on his tail.

“//Hey Frost! Where the hell is this Greninja! Also trying tell Orion that his prey is outside//” Baku said as he turned his head, trying to spot Greninja which had turned invisible.

“//Currently in a tight spot Baku!” Frost said as she barely dodged Lucario’s bone rush.

“//This is no good, he continued close distance combat, I will not get the distance require for any Aura move or ice beam//” Frost thought to herself as she dodged.

Suddenly, the ground shook as Orion came out of the ground, jumping on Pikachu, his entire body above the ground. Seeing this, Pikachu just smirked.

“//Neither rocky-Groundy Outer shell nor firmly on the ground, in short, nothing to protect you from my thunderbolt!!!//” Pikachu said with a smirk as his eyes turned yellow and with all his force, he used Thunderbolt on the two crystals of Orion.

“//SON OF A BI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!//” Orion shouted in deep pain before falling on the ground, turning into his normal form.

“Orion the Steelix is down!” Tobias announced as the public cried in Ash’s support.

Note: So everyone knows Mega Steelix has Crystals coming out of it. So My logic is that Steelix’s outer shell is ground like and thus can’t conduct electricity, underneath it is its Steel body. Since both Crystals and Metal are conductors of Electricity, I have come to the conclusion strong thunderbolt should do the treat with Orion.

“//What the hell!!!//” Frost shouted, her eyes leaving Lucario for merely a moment, but that one moment was more than enough for Lucario. The moment Frost eyes came back to Lucario, it was too late. She saw Lucario about to hit her with an Aura Powered Bone Rush.

“Oh shi-//” Frost said before flying across the battlefield.

“Frost the Glaceon is down!” Tobias announced.

“The Prince’s Pokemons have talent,” The Commander-In-Chief of Royal Rotan Army, Moltke Henryson said.

“The Prince himself is not part bad,” The Commander-In-Chief of Royal Rotan Navy, Robert Michealson said.

“I am sure one day he will make a great Aura Captain,” The Commander-In-Chief of Royal Rotan Air Force, Baren Jaidenson, said.

“//Shit shit shit!//” Baku said as he looked around, clearly scared of what is about to happen. Suddenly, He felt something wrap around his foot.

“//Oh shit//” Baku said as he knew what it was, it was Greninja’s tongue. Before he could do anything, Greninja became visible and threw him upwards at the sky, before jumping even higher.

“//THE #%^@//” Baku said as he is tossed upwards. Greninja, after making reasonable vertical distance between himself and Baku, pulled out the biggest Water shuriken he has ever made and threw it on Baku.

“//Well I am dead now!//” Baku said before the water Shuriken hit him, making in crash land on the field.

“BAKU!” David shouted as he took his eyes off Ash just for a moment (Like Animae Pokemon, Like Master)

“Baku the Machamp is out!” Tobias announced as he crowd went wild.

“Shit,” David said as he realized what was about to happen, He immediately turned only to have Ash hit him on his face by the staff, making him disarmed. David, already in a weaken state, closed his eyes. Soon, a blue Aura surrounded it.

“Get ready Prince!!!!” David shouted as an Glaceon shaped Aura entity came out of him, running towards Ash (Just imagine Power Rangers Jungle Fury). Ash, seeing the Glaceon shaped Aura, closed his eyes as a Navy Blue Aura surrounded him. Ash opened his eyes, which had turned navy blue for moment and shouted.

“Our Great Aura Spirit which I had inherited from my ancestors! I call upon you to aid me as you did to my ancestors!!” Ash shouted as a shapeless Aura Entity came out of Ash. With one strike, the shapeless Aura Entity de-manifested the Glaceon shaped Entity before returning back to Ash. David too felt the force of the strike, making him fall. David tried to crawl towards his sword but the moment he was about to grab it, Ash put his foot on David’s hand.

“Shit!” David shouted in pain.

“Give up sir,” Ash said in a cold tone.

“…��……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Fine,” David said with a sigh.

“David has been defeated!” Tobias announced as the public went wild.

“My hand!” David said as Ash gave him a helping hand to get up.

“You finally did it Ash, you have beaten me,” David said with a smirk.

“That is the first time you are calling me by my name,” Ash said as David grabbed Ash’s hand and raised it.

“All hail Aura Captain of Rota, Prince Ash Ketchum!” David shouted with a smile as everyone followed.

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“YOU DID BRILLIANT!!!!!” Ilene said as she tightly hugged Ash.

“Thank you, Ilene…………………… But O2!!!!” Ash said as Ilene broke the hug.

“I am sorry I got overexcited,” Ilene said as Ash took a sigh just for a minute before getting tightly hugged by Delia.

“Ash! I am so proud of you!!!!” Delia said as she hugged him tightly.

“MOM O2!!!!!!!” Delia said as she broke the hug.

“Sorry,” Delia said as she broke the hug. While this was going on, David came from the behind.

“Here to give your resignation David?” Ilene said with a sad smile.

“Yes your majesty!” David said with a smile as he handed his paper to her.

“You sure about this?” Ash asked.

“You won fair and square, my duty is over,” David as he bowed to Delia.

“I have kept the seat of your Husband warm mam, for your son to take is back,” David said.

“I am grateful for you to teach Ash,” Delia said with a small Bow.

“Only trying to replay the debt I hold to Master Red,” David said. Ash was about to say something but he was suddenly surrounded by the Military Chiefs and their Subordinates.

“Well they are not leaving for a while,” Ilene said.

“I would have preferred if they had let me bandaged his wound.

“I apologize for that wound Princess Delia,” David said with a bow.

“It was an Aura David, I understand,” Delia said with a smile.

“You sure you want to leave National Servies all together?” Ilene asked.

“Yes, your Majesty, I want to work for my village now, I am sure Mother Rota is more than satisfied with my work,” David said as he looked at Ash talking to the Commanders.

“History tells us that whenever a member of the Ark Dynasty takes the throne of Aura Captain, a great Period of Peace has been followed,” David said as he looked at Ilene.

“I am sure you are happy about the fact that an Annoying thorn is leaving your side and a strong willed, Loyal warrior is taking his place,” David with a smile. Hearing this, Ilene immediately held his hands, making him tomato red.

“Don’t say that! We had our differences but you have always been a valuable asset to Rota and Aura Users!!!” Ilene said before realizing that she was holding David hands. This realization made her tomato as she let go of his hands.

“S-S-S-S-Sorry, I got carried away,” Ilene said, trying to hide her blush through her hairs.

“I-I-I-I-I-I-It is fine your majesty,” David said, using his hat to cover his blush.

“Oh stop it you two,” Delia said with a smile.

“W-W-W—W-W-What do you mean Aunty!” Ilene said, blushing crazy hard.

“Acting like you don’t know it Ilene,” Delia said with a mischievous smile.

“I-I-I-I-I-I will……….. I will have my leave!” David said. Delia tried to stopped him but he got away.

“You know, I always had a feeling that you two might be destined, and it seems I was right,” Delia said with a smirk.

“I-I-It is not like that,” Ilene said, blushing hard.

“Really?” Delia asked, partly knowing the answer.

“Ok I will meet you all afterwards, thank you!” Ash said as the commanders and their subordinates finally left him.

“Finally I free- Where is sir?” Ash asked.

“Oh he left, he had……………… let’s just say his ‘realization’, for lack of a better term,” Delia said as Ilene blushed.

“I see- Ouch!” Ash said as he rubbed his wounded.

“Come on Ash! I will put medicine on your wound!” Delia said as she grabbed her son’s hand.

“Aunty! You should rest! I will put medicine on his wound!” Ilene said as she grabbed Ash’s other hand.

“Ilene, that will not be necessary!” Delia said as she pulled Ash towards herself.

“No Aunty! It is not out of necessary but out of desire to take care of my baby brother!” Ilene said as she pulled Ash towards herself.

“Guys! You are hurting me!” Ash tried to stop the two but to no avail.

“I am his mother and thus I have a fundamental right and duty to take care of him!” Delia said as she pulled Ash towards herself.

“And I am his sister and this I too have a fundamental right and duty to take care of him!” Ilene said as she pulled Ash towards herself.

“And I have a fundamental right of not becoming a tug-of-war rope!!!!” Ash said but his cried was ignored.

At a distance, Pikachu, Greninja and Lucario were just witnessing the entire scene, trying to not laugh

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“Ouch!” Ash cried in pain as Delia continued to put medicine on Ash’s wound.

“Just a little more, dear,” Delia said.

Ilene had to back down from the tug-of-war for Ash after her ministers (forcefully) took her away for state duties.

“Hey Mom, so I was using my Aura vision to look at the commanders and their subordinates-” Before Ash could complete his statement, Delia interrupted him.

“Ash, just because you have mastered Aura Vision, that doesn’t mean you should always use it! Your dad used to always use it and that is why he never had many friends, also, isn’t it too taxing on your body?” Delia said with concern.

“I was just making sure they had the best intentions for Rota or not, most did, but there was the occupational nutcase who wanted to kill his boss to take his place, anyways, I was looking at them with Aura Vision, and then I saw David and Ilene, both of their Auras were Pink, which I think represents their romantic love for each other or something,” Ash said nonchalantly, shocking Delia.

“Y—Y-Y-Y-You can’t say things like that this nonchalantly!” Delia said, a little embarrassed.

“I still don’t understand exactly what love is! I thought when Ilene gave me ‘The Talk’, I will understand it, but instead I got scarred for life,” Ash said as Delia sighed.

“*Sigh* Ash……………… I think I need to tell you, Ilene has told you about how babies are made right?” Delia asked.

“And I am still in trauma because of it,” Ash answered.

“Good, I just need to tell you the cutesy emotional stuff! So Ash!” Delia said as she held Ash’s hands.

“Basically! Romantic Love is the love you can feel for some who is not your family! They might or might not be your friends! Heck! There is a chance you were supposed to hate each other but end up in love! That is what happened to me!” Delia said as she went on saying a of of thing in flowery language.

“Mom, you are saying a lot of things which are going over my head! You know what! Just tell me how to identify if I am in love with someone, and I will figure out the rest,” Ash said with a sigh.

“*Smirks* Ok, the easiest way to identify if you are in love with someone is that you always want to be with them, even in your dreams!” Delia said before putting bandage on the wound.

“Think about what I said, Aura Captain Ash Ketchum!” Delia said with a smirk as she left.

“You understood what she said?” Ash asked Pikachu who was chilling on the be.

“//Nope!//” Pikachu said.

“Same here,” Ash said.

“//I still not dense, unlike you,//” Pikachu said.

“Hey!” Ash said.

“Regardless, let’s go to bed,” Ash said as he turned off the lights and went to bed.

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It was bright sunny day! It was Pallet Town, where Ash, an older was culturing the field with his pokemons, suddenly, he felt a warm hand on his shoulder, he turned to see an older Dawn, in a farmer outfit. She kissed Ash on the cheek, both of them saying ‘I love you’ to each other before Dawn took over the tracker for Ash. He then went to the kitchen, where he found an older Serena, who was wearing a nice housewife cook outfit. His body moved on his own as he lifted her by the waist and kissed her on the cheek. Serena just laughs, both saying to each other ‘I love you’. After Ash put her down, Serena giving him a cup of tea and pointed him upwards via her eyes. Ash body again moved on his own as he moved upward to the Ketchum Residence Library, where an older Lillie was doing some research. His body, out of his conscious control, moved to Lillie, putting the tea on the table and kissing Lillie on the forehead. Lillie, who seem to tired, just smiled before both of them said to each other ‘I love you.’ After this, he went to the main hall of the Ketchum residence, where he found a photo of the three girls in bride dress. At the end, he says to himself ‘I love them!’

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Ash woke up from the dream the moment he heard the words ‘I love them’, his face was red as a tomato and his heart was beating so fast, he felt he might get a heart attack.

“W-W-W—W-W-W-W—What was that!” Ash shouted to himself. It was so loud that even Pikachu woke up.

“//WHAT HAPPENED! //” Pikachu shouted as he got up and took attacking position.

“//What happened Ash?//” Pikachu asked after finding out nothing was out of place.

“………………………………. Nothing, forget it,” Ash said, his cheek tomato red.

“//You are blushing//” Pikachu said.

“No, I am not!” Ash shouted as Ilene and Delia entered the room.

“Are you ok Ash?” Ilene asked, followed by Delia touching his forehead.

“His temperature seem fine,” Delia said.

“But his cheeks are so red!” Ilene pointed out.

“I am fine mom, Ilene!” Ash said as he got up.

“//I think he had a bad nightmare//” Pikachu told Ilene.

“Pikachu is saying maybe Ash had a bad nightmare,” Ilene informed

“I am fine!” Ash protested against talking about the situation any further.

“No, I know my son and this is not nightmare!” Delia said as she thought for a minute before smirking.

“Did you dream about your future Lover!” Delia said as Ash face went terminally red!

“IT IS NOT LIKE THAT!!!!!” Ash shouted, blush iron red.

“It seems like that,” Ilene said, joining Delia.

“UMMMM!!!!!!!!! Come on Pikachu! Let’s get fresh!” Ash said as he grabbed the yellow furball and left.

“//Hey! At least tell me who did you saw?//” Pikachu said with a smirk

“Just it smart @ss!” Ash said as he left, leaving a Delia and Ilene, laughing.

“Oh Arceus…………………………. Umm,” Ilene said as she stopped Laughing.

“Everything fine?” Delia asked.

“It just……………………. Now his three year long captaincy training will start, one year completely with the army and then two years in isolation………………. I am worried for him,” Ilene said with a sigh.

“Don’t be! He is the son of Aura Captain Red Ketchum, Prince of Rota! I am sure he it up to the challenge!” Delia said with a proud smile.

Finally! Background over! Now I can start with the bloody betrayal arc……………………. Kind of

Previous: Ash Betrayed (Part - 16) – @krishgupt on Tumblr

Next: Ash Betrayed (Part - 18) – @krishgupt on Tumblr

[mxtxfanatic]

Jiang Cheng is never directly depicted onscreen hunting down demonic cultivators because he is not, in fact, hunting down demonic cultivators. Lan Jingyi is actually the one who posits that Jiang Cheng hunts down cultivators who attempt to mimic Wei Wuxian's cultivation:

Only upon seeing that Hanguang Jun had no intention of punishing him did [Lan Jingyi] dare to continue muttering. “It’s all the Yiling Laozu’s fault for stirring up trouble. So many people are copying him instead of learning cultivation properly. Not to mention, Chief Jiang suspects everything that moves. If he tries to catch everyone, when will he ever be done?

—Chapt. 11: Elegance I, fanyiyi

But Jiang Cheng, himself—along with countless other characters—verify that his goal is actually to hunt down a potentially resurrected Wei Wuxian:

After Lan Jingyi’s shout, Jiang Cheng, a man who cherished reputation and prestige as much as life, was able to act no longer. But if this man wasn’t Wei Wuxian, who could he be? Who else had the ability to summon Wen Ning?!

...

Only moments before, Jiang Cheng had been so certain this person was Wei Wuxian that all the blood in his body had gone cold and then boiled over in rage. But now, his Zidian told him loudly and clearly that he wasn’t. Zidian couldn’t possibly lie to him, and even less could it make an error. The Clan Chief rapidly calmed himself, and silently thought: It isn’t as though I can’t deal with this. Worst comes to worst, I’ll find some excuse to bring him back to Yunmeng, and then use every method I can to beat the truth out. There’s no need to worry about failing to get anything from him. He can hardly keep everything hidden. It’s not as though I haven’t done this type of thing before. Once he had made up his mind, he made a hand signal. His disciples understood and started to surround Wei Wuxian.

—Chapt: 10: Pride V, fanyiyi

He also harasses anyone with the Wen surname despite the QishanWen Clan already being wiped out:

The owner, “No, no. It was his misfortune. The person’s surname was Wen, and that Sect Leader Jiang’s archenemy happened to have the surname of Wen as well. He’s hating on everyone in this world whose surname is Wen. Whenever he sees one, he’d grind his teeth in hatred, wanting to skin them alive. How could he give a single friendly look to...”

—Chapt. 92: Longing, exr

But even though he never tortures other cultivators onscreen, he does torture Wei Wuxian onscreen:

Jiang Cheng’s answering smile was brimming with fury. “Fine. Then let’s see which of us truly hasn’t shown an ounce of improvement.” He sat motionless by the table and let out a shout. The spirit dog immediately stood up. Wei Wuxian’s entire body had already become covered in a layer of cold sweat from sharing a room with the animal. He eyed the dog, who was more than half a man’s height, with fangs protruding from its mouth. His ears filled with the dog’s low growl, and every part of him, from his toes to the top of his head, went numb. His memory of his period of childhood homelessness was blurry, but if he remembered anything, it was the panicked terror of being chased down the street, and the unbearable agony of sharp teeth and claws digging into his flesh. The fear ran deep in his heart, buried inside like thick roots in soil—no matter how much he tried, he could not soothe or overcome it. Suddenly, Jiang Cheng looked at him askance. “Who are you shouting for?” All the parts of Wei Wuxian’s soul were in complete and utter disarray. He couldn't recall whether he had called out anyone's name at all, and only after Jiang Cheng called off the dog was he able to force his spirit to settle back down inside its mortal shell. Momentarily dazed, he jerked his head violently away.

—Chapt. 24: Malice II, fanyiyi

So yeah you're right: gotta stop listening to secondhand accounts from the juniors and start paying attention to the things Jiang Cheng says, thinks, and does himself.

Jiang Cheng is never directly depicted onscreen hunting down and torturing any demonic cultivators. All descriptions of him doing so are rumors and/or secondhand accounts.

[no-reply95]

Collective Identity Series: John Lennon

When I think about the Beatles, it's interesting to pick out themes that run through the band and beyond. In this particular case, I think John’s need for a collective identity is a recurring theme throughout his life. How each of the Beatles interacted with the collective identity of the group is pretty fascinating, this first exploration will focus on John but I'd also love to make similar posts for the other Beatles at some point in the future as well!

Analysis is under the following cut:

1. Union of Names

“As our relationship came to resemble that of siamese twins, John renamed us "Shennon and Lotton". This, I'm sure you'll agree, constituted a definitive improvement from "Winnie and Snowball"; it also (though I could not know at the time) pointed a number of incipient traits of John's character.

For one thing, he could never, even then, leave a word alone. His spoonerisms of "Shotton" and "Lennon" foreshadowed his lifelong habit of linking his name to the people he felt closest to (the Lennon-McCartney collaboration and favoring "John Ono Lennon" over the detested "Winston"). Though I have yet to encounter a personality as strong and individualistic as John's, he always had to have a partner. He never could abide the thought of getting stuck on his limb all by himself.”

The Beatles, Lennon and Me, Pete Shotton, 1983

The above quote from Pete Shotton is illustrative of a pattern that John would repeat over and over in his life. From his earliest childhood friendship with Pete, all the way through to the romantic and artistic collaboration he had with Paul Yoko, one of John's means of connection, with the most important people in his life, was through the union of their names. Initially with Pete, John renamed them "Shennon and Lotton", a combination of their two surnames, then in 1962, John would enter into a 50:50 songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney, that would either be Lennon-McCartney or McCartney-Lennon (henceforth Lennon-McCartney from 1963), then finally, once John and Yoko went public with their relationship in 1968, they would market themselves as 'JohnandYoko', John would later change his name from John Winston Lennon, to John Ono Lennon, to match Yoko's married surname, and would react negatively when he perceived other people disregarding his new identity, as can be seen below from the letter John drafted to Linda McCartney:

"P.S. about addressing you letter just to me - STILL!!!"

John Lennon, Draft letter to Linda McCartney, circa 1971

Even in addressing a letter just to John and acknowledging that John, and John alone, was the intended recipient of the letter, was something that John couldn't let go unaddressed. Perhaps once he had merged his identity with Yoko, once this wasn't acknowledged by the people in their life, he felt a part of him wasn't being acknowledged? It's hard to say but, what is clear is that, John also established a collective identity with other important people in his life, namely the Beatles.

2. Shared Experience

"If John came by a packet of sweets - hardly an everyday occurrence, as he, like myself was kept on a strict allowance - he'd automatically share them around with all who happened to be present. Four lads and twelve sweets would invariably work out to three each."

The Beatles, Lennon and Me, Pete Shotton, 1983

"The five-man Beatles contained a core four, and within this a switched-on trio with their own particular brand of peer pressure. John and George wanted Paul to feel what they were experiencing, to share the new knowledge, to be all-in-this-together. For Pete, coercion to take pills was light and half-hearted, for Paul it was heavy and persistent; John needled him and called him a cissy. 'That was the attitude that prevailed,' Paul says."

Mark Lewisohn, Tune In, 2013

"Although Starr remembered visitors bringing LSD to the LA house, Harrison said the Beatles themselves had carried it from New York. 'John and I had decided that Paul and Ringo had to have acid, because we couldn't relate to them any more. Not just on the one level - we couldn't relate to them on any level, because acid had changed us so much. It was such a mammoth experience that it was unexplainable, because you could spend the rest of your life trying to explain what it made you feel and think. It was all too important to John and me."

Riding So High: The Beatles and Drugs, Joe Goodden, 2017

Throughout John's life there was a desire to get new experiences and, preferably, for those experiences to be shared with those closest to him. Pete provides anecdotes of John sharing his sweets equally amongst his friends at an early age. In the late 40s and early 50s, even though the Second World War was over, it should be remembered that rationing continued in Britain well into the 50s so the fact that young John was willing to share such a precious commodity as sweets says a lot about his generosity and also about his desire for his friends to also share in the rare pleasure of the experience with him. As John got older his desire for his friends to share in his experiences matured, rather than sweets, it was now drugs. In Tune In, Lewisohn outlines John and George persisting in getting Paul to take "prellies" with them so they could "be-all-in-this-together" and a few years later, when the drug of choice is now LSD, John and George again wanted Paul and Ringo to join them as they "couldn't relate to them any more". Clearly it was crucial to John that all the Beatles were on the same wavelength when it came to their drug experiences, when the Beatles famously took marijuana for the first time in 1964, not only were they all together but Brian and Mal were also around to share in the experience with them. John appears to have wanted them to progress from alcohol, to prellies, to marijuana, to LSD all together, to the point that when Paul held out "John needled him and called him a cissy". As important a factor drugs were in the Beatles story, drugs weren't the only thing John wanted to share with the other Beatles.

3. Beatle Community

‘We said the three of us could just go off somewhere, not with your buddies.’

‘But it’s nice to have your mates around.’

‘That really offends me. He does think it’s not enough just to go with his family.’

He smiled at her. She shook her head at him.

‘They seem to need you less than you need them,’ she said.”

Hunter Davies, The Beatles Authorised Biography, 1968

The above quote, in my opinion, is one of the most intriguing in Beatles history, not because it tells us about how or why the group broke up but, because it sheds light on how important the band was to John, the man who was supposedly looking for a way out as early as 1966 and "giggled" as he finally asked for a divorce in 1969. The passage above is taken from a casual conversation between John and Cynthia Lennon that Hunter Davies observed in 1967. It's clear how bonded John is to the rest of the Beatles as, when pressed to commit to a holiday just with Cyn and Julian, John states that "it's nice to have your mates around" to which Cyn ultimately responds that "they seem to need you less than you need them". Cyn goes on to accurately state that George and Pattie had managed to go on holiday alone and we know that Paul and Jane frequently went on holidays alone too but John appears to get the most pleasure from being around the other Beatles. John's connection to the other Beatles transcended connection in the physical realm, their connection also extended into telepathy.

4. Telepathy and Mental Connection

“We never really communicated with other people. Now that we don’t meet strangers at all, there is no need for any communication. We understand each other. It doesn’t matter about the rest.

‘Now and again, even though we feel each other, we do have a talking communication session, when we have to say things out loud, or otherwise we forget what we know we’ve decided amongst ourselves.”

Hunter Davies, The Beatles Authorised Biography

JOHN: Hey! Did you dream about me last night?

PAUL: [long pause] I can’t remember.

JOHN: Very strong dream. We both dreamt about it. It was amazing! Different dreams, you know, but I thought you must’ve been there. [inaudible] I was touching you. [inaudible]

The Get Back Sessions, 1969, via amoralto

"I don’t know how the others took it, it’s no good asking me . . . it’s like asking me how you took it. I don’t know. I’m in me own head, I can’t be in anybody else’s. I don’t know really what George, Paul or Ringo think anymore."

John Lennon, Rolling Stone interview with Jann Wenner, 1970

Tracing the strength of the mental connection between the Beatles, unsurprisingly, traces the strength of the relationships in the band, particularly from John's perspective. In 1967, with the end of touring in very recent memory, John's belief in the telepathy within the band is strong, to the point that "there is no need for any communication" between them and, in the rare instances that they do communicate out loud, it's only to reinforce "what we know we’ve decided amongst ourselves". In early 1969, in the immediate aftermath of the most strained Beatle recording sessions to date for the recording of "The White Album" and post the introduction of Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman into the inner sanctum of the band, John is still trying to reach out to Paul by asking him to confirm, not only that he dreamt about him, but that he was an active participant in John's dream as John "thought you must've been there" and far from a hazy dream that slips away the moment you awake, it was a "very strong dream". It's telling that, despite the later recollections of this time as one where the Beatles were falling apart, at the time itself, irrespective of how damaged their relationship was, John still felt connected enough to Paul to believe that he was sharing in his dreams, as they had done in the early years of their friendship, however, this time, Paul either didn't, or wasn't willing to confirm that was the case.

Post the public announcement of the break up, John would give an interview to Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone at the end of 1970. Although John was reeling from primal scream therapy, was lashing out at everyone not named Yoko Ono and would later go on to discredit a lot of what he said in this interview, I don't think everything John said can be discounted or overlooked. Interestingly, almost as an aside, John states that he doesn't "know really what George, Paul or Ringo think anymore". If John had said he didn't know what the other Beatles thought at that point in time, that would be as expected, but it's notable that John adds that he doesn't know what the others think anymore suggesting that there was a point where he did know what the others thought, or at least their level of connection was akin to something telepathic or mental in nature, illustrating how embedded John was to their collective shared identity.

5. From Friend to Foe: Destructive Symbiosis with Paul

We all went through a depression after Maharishi and Brian died; it wasn’t really to do with Maharishi, it was just that period. I was really going through the “What’s it all about?” type thing – this songwriting is nothing, it’s pointless, and I’m no good, I’m not talented, and I’m shitty, and I couldn’t do anything but be a Beatle. What am I going to do about it? It lasted nearly two years and I was still in it during Pepper. I know Paul wasn’t at the time; he was feeling full of confidence, and I was going through murder during those periods. I was just about coming out of it around Maharishi, even though Brian had died – that knocked us back again. Well, it knocked me back.

John Lennon, interview with Barry Miles, September, 1969

"I expected… just a little more, you know. I mean, because if Paul and I are sort of disagreeing, and I feel weak, I think he must feel strong, you know. That’s in an argument. Uh, not that we’ve had much physical argument, you know – more a mental, like when we’re talking— But you would expect the opposition. So called. So I was just surprised, you know. And, uh, I was glad too. [laughs; hesitating] I thought, yeah, I – you know. I suddenly re– got it all in perspective, you know."

John Lennon, Rolling Stone interview, 1970

As illustrated in the prior section, as the Beatles story unfolded, the seemingly unassailable mental connection deteriorated to the point that, by 1970, John no longer believed it existed. Similarly, John's connection to Paul also seemed to change in nature from the late 1960s onwards. Where once John and Paul shared in each others dreams as they strove and reached their shared goal of being the "Goffin and King" of England, now John and Paul's success was inversely related where, if Paul was "full of confidence" John was "going through murder" and, in John's mind, "if Paul and I are sort of disagreeing, and I feel weak, I think he must feel strong". This change in the dynamic between John and Paul, I think, goes some way to explaining the way their relationship unfolded in the early and late 1970s. In the early 1970s, John was publicly critical of Paul's albums, his choice in the Eastmans, his marriage, his personality, everything about Paul was fair game and he was more than willing to encourage the underground press to follow suit, perhaps part of that was John recognising the threat that Paul posed to him, so if he was going to step out into the scary world of a solo career, surely it would make sense to strengthen himself - therefore, if John needs to be strong, in this dynamic, Paul had to be weak. Then again, in 1976 Paul is on top of the world with the success of Wing's tour, his family life is seemingly blissful, he's never been richer and has been vindicated in his choice of the Eastmans, whereas John is (according to some sources) at the start of a writing block that wouldn't fully lift until 1980, again if Paul is now at the apex of his strength, is it shocking that John perceives this as being linked to his situation at the time and responds by dispelling Paul from the Dakota?

While the Lennon-McCartney identity that had sustained John for the majority of the 1960s was legally gone by the mid-1970s, John had already established a new, and what would ultimately become his final, collective identity.

6. Exchange of the Beatle Collective Identity for the creation of "JohnandYoko"

“I mean, I wasn’t in love last year, but I was communicating quite well with people. Not as well, or maybe not as powerfully. ��Cause now there’s two of us, doing that, brrmmm, whatever it is. Sending out a vibration or whatever. But before it was me and... or me and George, alright, or whatever it was; we weren’t in love, but. You know. There’s enough in you to shove it out. It is just that bit. If you – if somebody comes in a room and he’s uptight and that, he can make the whole room uptight.”

John Lennon, interview with Maurice Hindus, 1969

"I was really losing interest in just doing the Beatles’ bit – and I think we all were – but Paul did a good job in holding us together for a few years while we were sort of undecided about what to do, you know. And I found out what to do, and it didn’t really have to be with the Beatles. It could have been, if they wanted… But uh, it got that I couldn’t wait for them to make up their minds about peace or whatever. About committing themselves. It’s the same as the songs. So I’ve gone ahead – and I’d have liked them to have come along."

John Lennon, interview with Ritchie Yorke, 1969

TRYNKA: When The Beatles split, did you feel relief?

YOKO: No. I always thought, “John won’t be doing this thing with The Beatles and eventually I can do my work too.” That was my plan. But suddenly he’s saying, “I burned my bridge with them, so now it’s you, okay?” I thought, “My God, he was getting the thrill of working with three very strong individuals, and now I have to take all that brunt.” He did put it that way; he was “riding on the boat called Paul, and now I’m going to ride on a boat called Yoko.”

Yoko Ono, interview with Paul Trynka for MOJO, 2003

I don't believe in Beatles

I just believe in me

Yoko and me

And that's reality

John Lennon, God, Plastic Ono Band, 1970

As Pete Shotton outlined, it appears that John always did need some sort of partner. Initially John's partner was Pete, then it was Paul and finally, it was Yoko. It seems that by 1968, due to a myriad of factors both known and unknown, John no longer felt secure in his partnership with Paul so he made the move to Yoko. Now John no longer felt alone because now there was "two of us" and whatever he experienced in the past with Paul George ("But before it was me and... or me and George") didn't match up to what he was now experiencing with Yoko because, with the Beatles, from John's perspective they "weren’t in love", presumably the love that was lacking with the Beatles he found in abundance within "JohnandYoko". It's interesting though that, despite the power and supremacy of John and Yoko's partnership, even after his divorce announcement in September 1969, John was still somewhat invested in his connection to the Beatles as, even in the excitement and freshness of the partnership with Yoko, John still would "have liked them to have come along". Again, as we've seen, once the break up of the band was publicly announced, John's belief in his connection to the Beatles seemingly disappeared and was replaced with his creative and romantic partnership with Yoko. As Yoko would remember decades later, John would summarise this transition succinctly as describing himself as “riding on the boat called Paul, and now I’m going to ride on a boat called Yoko.”

Both John and Yoko underwent primal scream therapy together under the tutelage of Arthur Janov. As John later described in interviews and relayed on his Plastic Ono Band album, through primal scream therapy John had learnt to cast out the idols that he had hung to throughout his life: his parents, God, Elvis Presley and ultimately, the biggest idol of all, the Beatles. If Janov was proposing that John put all his faith, not in false idols, but only in himself, this was something John would take a tentative step towards, before relying on the security of a collective identity, this time with Yoko:

I just believe in me

Yoko and me

These two lines, in a way, represent part of the opportunity that was lost to John when he died. In 1970 he wasn't ready to just put his faith in himself, in 1973-74, during his "Lost Weekend" with May Pang, John ultimately made the decision to go back to the safety of the Dakota and Yoko, rather than the relative unknown of a new life with May where he could be his own person, maybe post 1980, as John rebuilt his career, he could have gotten to a place where he could believe in just himself.

Ultimately, I believe that all the Beatles bought into their collective identity but John did most of all. His utter belief in their connection during their active years contrasts harshly with the disillusion he displays towards it, especially in the early 1970s. John's belief in the collective identity didn't occur in a vacuum, particularly in the Beatle days, so I'd love to do follow up posts on the other Beatles to see how they reconciled their own sense of self with the more consuming Beatles identity and how the loss of that connection impacted them in the years, and in some cases decades, after the band broke up.

[lythandraal]

DM tips #6

Catagorize your NPCs. My preferred set is (npc, monster, dmpc, quest point) but when making an NPC, only make enough relative to it's story presence.

Using my list, an npc is a character who exists for 1 story purpose. So this is Kasc. She's a lizardfolk who owns the town smithy. She has soot covered scales and a ragged apron. Her right arm has large burn scars on it.

That's it, no story, enough description to feel like a person, and a use (shopkeep). Does she have a surname? Only if someone asks. Why the burns? I'll make something up in the moment. Tall or short? Stocky or lithe? Hair? I won't think of these things until someone asks, and it allows an easy access to improv a character design. If you don't sweat the details, you can make quick desicions in the moment without "ruining" your original vision for the character.

If your players fall in love (figuratively) with the character, you'll naturally fill out and flesh out more and more as time goes by. And if your players rob them blind and skip town, then you didn't spend 40 minutes pouring heart and soul into a backstory that just got bypassed.

A monster is an npc with a reason to be where they are, a stat block, an action block, and 1 key interactive expectation (antagonist, sight to be seen, benevolent, exposition point etc).

dmpc are fully fleshed leveled characters, normally fufilling the role of a guest character, or a story arc protagonist (or villain)

Lastly, the quest point. These are deities, campaign villain, campaign benefactors, these are the concrete pillar characters in the world for your players, they do need to be fully ironed out with motives and quirks and flaws.

Find whatever system helps you best, but a good line of thought is "put in half as many minutes to make a character as you expect them to exist in the world". It will save you many hours as the sessions fly by.

One unwritten npc, the instant npc, the "anyone at the bar I can chat to?" The "I catch the arm of a passer by." For these, have a list of names behind your dm screen and have a quick reference list of personalities. Put one and two together and fly by the seat of your pants.

[sneedlier]

Melvinborg X Teacher!Reader (PT. 2)

"Maybe I do like them.."

(AN:This is the second part of MB x Teacher!Reader.I've decided to be an all-mighty Melvinborg writer as I've noticed people don't write for him as much anymore on Tumblr.Plus, most of my xreaders will be gender-neutral reader as I want all genders to enjoy my writes.Anyway,quick summary.After the reader leaves Melvinborg's office,MB obviously knows he likes the reader.But as it's their first interactions he wants to know them better.When reader is in their classroom and a teacher-tron bust into their class,it takes them to MB's office instead of trapping them with the rest of the teachers in the lounge room.MB and reader have a nice conversation and kinda bond.I don't know if I all of a sudden switched the reader's personality when they pass out,It would be nice if you guys recommend some changes or improvements I could make.Lmao there might be a part three but idk.

[Stuff:MB's POV is in red]

!TW:MILD SWEARING + MILD SEX REFERENCE!

You walked to the school's car park to your car,holding your car keys in your palm.You unlock your car door, opened it and flopped into the drivers seat.You closed the car door,started up the car engine and drove off to your home.You were pretty confused,when did Jerome Horwitz have a new principal?You were sure Krupp was the principal for a second,but in a blink of an eye it was a random half cyborg man.You will hopefully know more tomorrow at work.

You opened your classroom door,looking at your desk and it was..clean?You swore you left it in a messy state.You shrugged and walked to you desk seat ready to sit down,until you saw a piece of paper.You picked up the sheet and scanned over it's writing.It read:

"Dear Geography teacher,

I've written this note to inform you that I will like you to meet me during 9:00am in my office,when the students have their first class of the day.I recommend not questioning this request.

I hope to see you soon-Mr.Sneedly.

You quirked your eyebrow,confused that the principal would want to see you but also about the fact the principal has the surname of one of your students.You were also confused on why your boss would want you to go to his office during lesson times,you should be teaching the children during this time period.All of a sudden,you heard foot-steps outside in the hallway.

You didn't recognize the footsteps to be normal,like they were sorta ..inhuman.It's difficult to explain.Your thoughts were interrupted by your classroom door being kicked down,like legit unhinged.

You faced the..thing that knocked down the door.It was a robot.It had a humanoid shape and light grey skin.Wait,do robots have skin?You looked at it's eyes,well what you think were eyes.They were bright red and there eye-brows were a thin sheet of metal stuck on top of it's eyes.On top of it's head was a light bulb that shone a light purple.You looked into it's eyes,It raised it's arm as if it was going to shoot me.It's voice was very..inhuman,it's like the voice you would here at a train station when it's announcing what train will be next to arrive.

"Follow me,please do not resist."

It's voice was so..unnatural,it terrified you.You came back to your current situation,realizing you were being threatened by a robot.You backed up and ducked behind your desk chair,hoping it can help you.

"No,Just..get out..."You spoke quietly,trying not to get killed by a random robot that barged into you classroom.The robot became silent,dead silent.

"..I apologize but you made this difficult."

You looked up from your chair.What was it going to do?Before you could process anything,the robot threw the chair across the room.You shrieked and backed up closer to the wall as the robot got closer.It shot out a net out of it's..hand thing,trapping you and leaving you unable to move.The robot began to drag you out of your classroom.You were breathing heavily and silently panicking and eventually the panic and anxiety began making you exhausted.Before you loss your consciousness,you remember being carried by the robot.

You blinked a couple of times,lifting your head up in the chair you were placed in.The room was recognizable.Infact,you were here yesterday.It was the principle's office,and you were sat in the principle's chair.You shot up from your seat,why the hell would that robot bring you here or did someone take you here?Stuck in your thoughts,you didn't notice the figure in the shadowy corner of the room.

"Are you alright?I saw you passed out with the robot I made,so I took you here."The voice said from the corner.It seemed to be familiar,as if it was like from some kid in your class but just deeper.You looked to where you assumed where the voice came from and saw it.It was the principle.You sat up straight and stood up from the seat.You coughed pretty awkwardly and answered.

"A-ah yeah,I'm..not sure where the robot came fro-"You stopped in the middle of your sentence.Did he just say he made the robots? "Did you make the robots?"You asked,pretty pissed at the fact you were scared and terrified of his creation but honestly it wouldn't surprise you if it was his creation,he was half robot anyway and seemed to be smart enough to create one.The man smiled smugly and raised his head in triumph.

"Yes,one of my magnificent inventions.I have to say,I think I did a wonderful job."he said smugly,with a stupid (but sexy) smile on his face.

Unlike the man you were talking to,you were annoyed.This man had the audacity to smile and show-off about a invention he made that stressed,scared and terrified you.

"Well I think your creation could have been improved."You said,with obvious annoyance.

The principal lifted his head down and frowned,obviously disappointed.He obviously wanted you to explain why,so you decided to speak.

"I just think that a robot shouldn't try to kidnap or kill someone,you know?"You said as kindly as you could,but your annoyance and anger obviously came through.

The principle frowned..sadly?He seemed to be upset,or offended but you couldn't tell.

"I'm..sorry you feel that was about them."He said pretty upset,his smug expression wiped clean off his face.

You felt sorry for him,so you decided to forgive him.He did seem to actually mean it.

"It's alright"You said and smiled.As you looked back at him,his face seemed to flare up a light crimson red.

You decided that you were here long enough,you began to walk to the door.Just as you were about to twist the door-handle you felt a metallic but comforting hand stopped you from turning the handle.You turned your head around and saw the principle in his chair as his robotic arm has extended and has his hand placed on top of yours.You immediately are flustered and startled by the contact.

"You can stay,you know?"The principle says,shyly.You smile and begin to walk back to his desk and stand in front of his desk.

"Thank you,Sir."You say in a cheerful manner.

"Just call me Melvinborg..?"He says,wanting you to reply back.

"[REDACTED],[REDACTED] [REDACTED]."You reply back.Melvinborg smiles gently and gestures you to stand beside him.You walk behind the desk,not too lose or too far from Melvinborg.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, [REDACTED]."The man began."Say,do you have any interests?"

You perk up at this question and smile,it's not everyday someone asks you what your passionate about.

"You mean anything?"You ask,hoping he's not fooling you or anything.

Melvinborg chuckles and smiles at you.

"Anything."

You smile and began rambling on and on about one of your favourite topics not knowing that the half-cyborg man was looking at you,admiring your smile,eyes,personality, everything.

I watched as they rambled on and on about some random topic,but I wasn't paying attention as I was just looking at them.I didn't understand these feelings I felt,why I felt so flustered and shy around them.It intrigued me,that's the only reason why I made one of my robot drag them to my office.Well,I honestly didn't mean for them to get hurt.I remember my heart sinking to my stomach as I saw them in the robots arms,passed out from panic and exhaustion.My feelings in that moment in time,made me feel as if I did have fond feelings for them.

I turn my eyes to the window,look as I saw two birds flutter near a nest.I look back to the geography teacher and think to myself.I mutter a few words,low and quiet enough for them to not hear me.

"Maybe I do like them.."

(OMG I'VE ACTUALLY FINISHED IT.I apologise for the delay,I was busy due to some personal problems but I'm alright!Anyway,I hope you guys enjoy this part 2.I might make a part 3 but don't know cause I might start a different series or something.)

[goshikitsutomusmommy]

“Incorrect Quotes with Haikyuu Boys„

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10

Synopsis : Different Quotes From Brooklyn-Nine-Nine (and F.R.I.E.N.D.S) as Haikyuu Characters

Genre : Comedy , slight romance

Paring(s) : Osamu x reader , Atsumu x reader , Shirabu x reader , slight Iwaizumi x reader , slight Kyoutani x reader

Word Count : 0.83k

Warning(s) : She/her pronouns used , slight mention of suicidal joke , timeskip spoilers

Masterlist Link : Here

Osamu : *About to leave*.

[Name] : Aren’t you forgetting something?

Osamu : *Kisses forehead and heads out*.

[Name] : No! Pay the bill!

Part 1/4

Suna : [Name] hasn’t taken her eyes off her phone in two hours. First to make her look up wins the pot.

Aran : I’m in. A bet which improves someone’s manners? Double score!

Atsumu : Too bad, guys, a got this in the bag. A used to distract ‘er from ‘er phone all the time when we were smoochin’ buds.

Suna : Ugh, ew.

Aran : Yeah...

Part 2/4

*Atsumu tries walking seductively towards manager*

Atsumu : Hey, girl.

[Name] : *Throws nearby binder at his crotch*.

Atsumu : *Groaning*, Catch ya later...

Part 3/4

Suna : Mid morning dance party! *Turns on disco music on speaker*.

*Manager dancing to the music without looking up from her phone*

Suna : She’s dancing even better than normal.

Part 4/4

Aran : Oh god, did ya hear that George W. Bush died?

[Name] : *Still not looking up*, Who dat?

*Manager feeling down*

Semi : You’re a good manager. Do not beat yourself up about that.

[Name] : I’m not a good manager. I’m an amazing manager. And I’ll never forgive myself.

Shirabu : I didn’t understand why people care so much about their dumb love interests till I got a dumb girlfriend myself. I’ve only been with [Name] for a day and a half, but if anything happened to her, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.

*Karasuno mentoring elementary students for the day*

Part 1/3

[Name], to two young girls : Okay, you two are obviously the alphas. You’re dating the blond kid and you like Filipino Bieber but you’re worried he’s still into Little-Miss-Side-Braid-Janky-Purse. Haha! I know so much. Hi, I’m [Name]. Hey~!

Part 2/3

Daichi : Great. So can you take over with the kids for a bit?

Asahi : Of course! I’m amazing with kids!

*Daichi leaves momentarily*

Asahi : *Nervous laughter*, I’m terrible with kids. I don’t know the lingo. You have to do this!

[Name] : I can’t, Hina is in the bathroom right now freaking out because Yui made out with Akira even though she knows Mei’s into him. Unless you want the Spring Dance to be a total drama fest, I have to be there for her.

Part 3/3

Daichi : Oh, uh, [Name], Akito-Sensei said you had a real impact on those kids. Apparently, you were just named Spring Dance Princess somehow...?

[Name] : Mhmm, what am I always telling you guys? I’m royalty.

[Name] : Apparently, he’s very into bird watching, so talking to a woman should blow his mind. And talking to this *Gestures to self*, woman, it could kill him.

Yachi : *Taking notes*.

*Meeting Seijoh for the first time as their manager*

[Name] : Hi. [Surname] [Name], the human form of the 100 emoji.

*Iwaizumi having a hand wrestle with Kyotani*

[Name] : Guys, take off your shirts! It’s restricting your body movements.

*Kageyama and Hinata in the boys bathroom trying to be discreet about a secret*

Kageyama : No one can know about this, understood?

Hinata : Understood.

[Name] : Understood.

*Kageyama and Hinata visibly alarmed*

[Name] : *Entering their stall*, What? I hang out in the men’s bathroom all the time. The acoustics are amazing~.

{Exceeded limited pics, pretend for me😁}

*Aged up*

*At [Name]’s apartment*

Part 1/2

Semi : Then you distract her a Barbie doll.

Shirabu : *Deep in thought*.

[Name] : Or... You could just, you know... *Pushes Shirabu aggressively onto already broken fridge*.

[Name] : *Mouth gaping dramatically*.

Shirabu : What the hell are you doing?!

[Name] : Wh... What the hell am I doing? What the hell are you doing?! You just broke my fridge!

Shirabu : What?! How do you know if—... *Deep breathe* How do you know if it’s even broken?

[Name] : Oh, you think I don’t know what breaks my fridge? Excuse me! *Opens fridge door*, Well, what do you know? Broken! That’ll be ¥45 thousand.

Semi : [Name], I saw you push him.

[Name] : Semi, remember what I told you when our fridge broke? I still haven’t gotten the check for your half yet.

Shirabu : Do not give her any money.

[Name] : I’m talking to you, you broke my fridge!

Part 2/2

[Name] : You owe me ¥45 thousand.

Goshiki : Okay, sure!

[Name] : Really?!

Goshiki : Yeah, yeah. Oh, wait! Technically, you owe me ¥70 thousand for sending happy thoughts on your last ten auditions.

[Name] : *Silence*, ... Call it even?

Goshiki : Okay!

{Pretend this is a header too <33}

*Timeskip*

*[Name] walks in Sugawara’s elementary classroom*

[Name] : Suga, can I talk to you? It’s urgent.

Sugawara : Yeah, sure...

[Name] : Okay, Daichi and Asahi are running a little late today for our hangout.

Sugawara : But, what’s wrong with them?

[Name] : Nothing, why?

Sugawara : [Name], you said it was urgent.

[Name] : Oh, yeah, it is. I’m going to the movies and it starts in, like, five minutes.

Sugawara : Do you realize I have a classroom full of students?

[Name] : Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so rude! *Turns to talk to the students*, Does anyone want to come to the movies?

{Again, pretend this is a header plsss}

Author’s Note : I just made the masterlist and it took me a while to figure out how to link it to my bio🤕🤕 if you wanna check out my work, here is the link

[carmensbroom]

I've once again had 6 hours to process everything I saw in season 4 so I'm just gonna say my thoughts on it (hold onto your fedoras again folks)

first off, WE FOUND OUT GRAY'S LAST NAME?? I was so shocked and happy at the same time I love how everyone asked for player's real name and we ended up with gray's surname for some reason shsjsj. NOBODY ASKED FOR THAT BUT THEY DELIVERED ANYWAY

ALSO GRAHAM IS AN ORPHAN?? my precious boy *throws mommy's boy headcanon out the window*

the second episode really had me shipping carmivy they're so cute we got a girl's trip and I'm all for it

I think I may now be a dash haber stan but let's not make a big thing of it

also ivy eating the chocolate in the middle of a mission deserves an honorable mention because of her cute little tongue (I'm weird okay djsjsjs)

zack trying to bond with shadowsan and him having none of it was delightful

that fucking robot god damn bellum really thought of everything didn't she every time I thought it was gone it made a come back I literally said out loud "carmen is so fucked"

I SWEAR TO GOD EVERY TIME GRAY TALKED ABOUT CARMEN I KEPT THINKING HE WAS GONNA SAY "BECAUSE I LOVE HER" IN WHICH CASE I WOULD HAVE DIED AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY

yall have no idea how relieved I was when I found out that photo of julia was her and her (presumably) mother and NOT a boyfriend sjsjsjs

catch me making a headcanon that julia has a single mom because her father disowned her for coming out as gay based on that picture alone 😭

I'M SORRY BUT THE AMOUNT OF FLIRTING BETWEEN CARMEN AND JULES?? PLEASE THEY'RE SECRET GIRLFRIENDS JUST ADMIT YOU CENSORED THEM AND GO

OKAY BUT WHEN THEY WERE IN JULIA'S OFFICE AND CARMEN SAID "WAY TO FOLLOW YOUR HEART JULES" AND SHE WAS LIKE "YOU REMEMBERED" I LOST IT WHAT DID CARMEN REMEMBER JULES?? DID THEY HAVE A CONVERSATION OFF SCREEN? MAYBE I'M JUST A BIG HUGE LESBIAN BUT THAT'S A BIT GAY LADIES

carmen getting all worried when julia wasn't answering her phone was the blessed gay content I signed up for PLEASE THEY CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER SO MUCH

never thought I'd say this but I loved devineaux this season he was funny, he improved his treatment towards julia (I don't recall him officially apologising I must have missed something djsjsjs)

the only thing I didn't like was it kinda seemed like they were trying to hint that chase and jules were into each other and I didn't really vibe with that

all that shit with dr bellum and the crown for cleo really had me thinking cleobellum was gonna be canon what a clown I am (seriously tho the way she lost it when the crown got stolen GIVE IT BACK IT BELONGS TO HER WIFE)

look all I'm saying is: tigress new outfit in the egypt episode was hot

HER FACE AT THE END AFTER SHE GOT TRAPPED WITH ALL THOSE BUGS

I wish julia and gray could have met there's so much friendship potential there 😭

is player... is he a bit 💅 I SEE THAT PRIDE STICKER ON YOUR LAPTOP YOUNG MAN YOU'RE NOT SUBTLE

ngl I nearly teared up when player finally met carmen in person

I'M SORRY BUT JULIA'S BLUSH IN EPISODE 7 PLEASE SHE'S SO SMITTEN WITH CARMEN IT'S BRILLIANT

EVIL CARMEN WAS REALLY SOMETHING ELSE I WAS SO SCARED SHE'D BE STUCK LIKE THAT FOREVER

I mentioned this in another post but when julia was like "don't you remember me? I'm your girlfriend friend, jules" I NEARLY FUCKING CRIED THEY WERE GETTING KINDA CLOSE AND THEN CARMEN GOT MIND WIPED

JULIA TOPS JULIA TOPS I SAID IT ALL ALONG AND IT'S TRUE SHE REALLY PINNED VILE CARMEN THAT'S TOP BEHAVIOR (also this now makes carmen a bottom I don't make the rules)

kinda shocked that paper star was hardly here I don't stan her so it didn't bother me much but still it was just strange they didn't use her this season

when shadowsan whipped out the last doll and carmen had all those flashbacks to when she was at vile I nearly started crying AGAIN

I LEGIT THOUGHT CARMEN HAD KILLED GRAY DJSJSJS AN ELECTRICIAN GETTING ELECTROCUTED THAT'S SOME IRONY RIGHT THERE

gray really confused me towards the end he kept switching sides every five minutes for the whole season I wasn't sure whether to trust him half the time dhshsjs

THE LOOK ON CARMEN'S FACE WHEN SHE THOUGHT SHE'D KILLED GRAY WAS SO HEARTBREAKING AND THEN SHE STARTED CRYING OH MY GOD I'M SORRY BABY

the way she's always been against hurting people/taking lives and then she ended up hurting all the people she loves (she nearly killed zack for god sake) really hit me hard

gray's ending was... kinda weird I understood the parallel of him not wanting to complicate carmen's life like she said about him in season 2 but it was still kinda strange that they didn't have one more conversation or get any closure

I'm obviously kinda upset that carulia wasn't canon they had so much potential imo and the show isn't about romance anyway BUT I'm happy with the content we got and THEY FLIRTED SO MUCH THEY'RE CANON IN MY HEART

THE TEAM RED GROUP HUG KILLED ME IT WAS SO CUTE

kinda annoyed that carmen just straight up left zack and ivy she really just left a note and said YEET

ivy's voice crack when she read the note got me all choked up

ngl I'm still not entirely sure how it ended I had to rewatch it a few times to understand what they were trying to imply sjsjsj

would have loved to know carmen's given name but at the same time she's literally THE carmen sandiego that's who she is, it would be silly to go by a name that she doesn't connect with just because her parents gave her it

her mom being a regular citizen was kinda bittersweet I mean a plot twist would have been good but at the same time it would make the story even more complicated

*dreams of a spinoff movie where we get better closure on everything*

ACME IVY ACME IVY I'M NOT AN IVY STAN BUT DAMN IF I AIN'T SIMPING FOR ACME IVY

I know carmen didn't want revenge but I feel like chief got let off with killing her father way too quickly if I'm honest sjsjsj

JULIA BEING IN CHARGE OF FINDING CARMEN'S MOM OH MY GOSH

I feel so bad for laughing when julia got knocked out the way the cloth fell on her head sent me but when the pole hit her head I was like "OKAY I TAKE IT BACK THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE"

was not expecting julia to physically fight anyone I mean she's always been so calm and collected and then this season she was like fuck it might as well hit a few people before we finish forever

wishing carmen and jules could have hugged or had a scene together where they talked about stockholm but I won't complain it wouldn't have really made sense anyway considering they were cool with each other at the university

so glad the trailer was misleading about the coach brunt situation I really didn't want her to get a last minute redemption

another honorable mention: cleo snapping at julia "DON'T YOU DARE IMPLY THAT I AM COMMON" sent me djdjs she was just stood there like "I am but a humble history lesbian leave me be"

I think that's everything I'll probably add to it later if I think of anything or I might make a part 2 djsjsjs (I've been writing this for almost an hour now 😭)

overall I enjoyed it from start to finish. I haven't really cried about it ending yet I'm still processing everything but I'll probably have a little sob when it finally hits me djsjsjs

CARULIA NATION WE BASICALLY WON NOW EXCUSE ME WHILE I REWATCH ALL THEIR SCENES TOGETHER AND MAKE IT MY ENTIRE PERSONALITY

[adara-of-the-flame]

"Haiku. There." Yumika placed the tiles up against Dumpling's 'H'. "Something I'd much rather be doing right now." The kitsune wondered if she could get a message to Beetleglum in the castle a literal realm away...

Ol' Hickory sniffed through his nose. "Oh, don't be like that." Scrabble is a beloved pasttime for me and Sir Dids here."

-----------------------------------

"So, his surname was, 'Swattle' was it?" Selva Roja's disembodied hand tapped an invisible chin. "I guess Primavero is an improvement.

"And, forgive me if I'm wrong, but...if I remember correctly, Hoggle didn't so much resign as you handed that seat of Seasonal Monarchy right over to him. Very generous, I'd say..." Oh, she was eating this up. Look at that tiny little Goblin King, acting so suave. It was adorable! If the Summer Queen wasn't certain it would upset certain other members of her company, she'd be very tempted to keep Jareth as a pet. He was certainly entertaining enough. And, being easy on the eyes didn't hurt, either.

Well, politics are politics. Even a fae knows where not to cross the line.

"You must have loved your little Groundskeeper so dearly to want to check up on him so badly...." Her voice dripped with fresh, Summer honey...

-----------------------------------------------

What a sight the half-Urru was. All that hair, all that tule, all those sequins just...splayed across the sand. Like a shiny, 3-D Picasso painting.

If she wasn't so attached to that dress, she would've sung something a bit more practical up by now.

Mars looked up at Hoggle, her very human, lovely eyes visible for once through a part in her bangs. "Well, to be fair, they were going to keep you if I didn't do something. ...I think." She sat up, sand spilling from ears that seemed more floppy and canine than one might think.

"Alright." She gestured to the unchanging vastness of sand around them. "How do you know how to get back?"

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the stench of this terrible blog…bleck!”

[ckret2]

Alright let’s talk GVK spoilers!!!

My reactions as best I can remember them!

- love how Kong is humanized from the very first scene, like every time he shows up he’s humanized so much more than other titans are. If that was at the expense of other titans being made likable I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, but like, Godzilla is made pretty lovable over the course of Monsterverse, Mothra is too, and all the titans featured for long are given recognizable emotions that let us see them as more intelligent and feeling than “just” animals; so all of them are made understandable/likable/sympathetic. But of them all, Kong is the only one really humanized. Which makes sense, because like, big monkey! Basically our distant cousin!

- And they kept playing, like, normal songs for him, which cracked me up.

- I really appreciated how you could SEE the titans in this movie. After all the weather effects to hide the titans in KOTM, there was such a clear difference in this one from the very start. Kong in the daylight! Godzilla makes his first attack at night, and even then you can see him much more clearly than you can for most of KOTM! Nice!

- after the Iwi were portrayed as silent stoic witnesses in Skull Island, I really appreciated that they took an Iwi character, made her a main character, and gave her dialogue and a real role to play in the story while also keeping her deaf/mute. I think that was a good way to improve on the way that the Iwi got got sidelined in the last movie while still maintaining the worldbuilding!

- I didn’t appreciate so much that, y’know, they murdered the rest of her people off-screen in order to do it. Couldn’t they have gone “her parents died so she got adopted by a Monarch agent that was close to her family, but like, the rest of her tribe is fine”? Or at the very least “their island got fucked up so they had to be evacuated but like they’re settling in somewhere else”? “They’re living under this island dome with Kong and they know what’s up and Monarch’s keeping them in the loop and they decided they’re chill with their new dome home, but this one girl likes to go on adventures with Monarch”? Something? Did we have to kill them all off? Y’all make up an entire fictional indigenous culture and then murder them off-screen when you don’t need them? Just let them live.

- a few minutes in I was like “hold on, we’ve got two characters that speak sign language, we’ve got a giant gorilla, gorillas learn sign language, is there any reason they can’t teach Kong?” and then later I was like “OOOOOH!!” Humans and titans learning how to communicate with each other has been one of my favorite themes to explore in Monsterverse fanfic so I was absolutely tickled to see it getting explored in canon, too.

- That said I think it’s hilarious that the girl managed to teach Kong to sign without, like... anybody seeing. Kong’s hands are above the tree line and there are cameras everywhere, how did NOBODY with Monarch see him signing.

- Bernie’s weaponized being an annoying coworker to such a degree it can only be called an art, and I really appreciated it.

- Godzilla’s extra chonky in this movie and I dig it. Roomie noted he was extra crocodilian and I dig that too.

- “There’s been no confirmed titan sightings in three years” I don’t buy that for a minute. They’re BIG. Rodan NESTS IN VOLCANOES. They found a MOTHRA EGG. Humans have A SCARILY WELL-FUNDED ORGANIZATION DEDICATED SOLELY TO FOLLOWING TITANS AROUND. Like, most of the lore in GVK that I don’t personally like, I can be like “eh... I can tweak it just a little bit with headcanons to make it work for me...” but NO confirmed titan sightings? You expect me to believe ALL of them moved underground when we’d previously seen them all prefer to live above ground? You expect me to believe that now that they’re all AWAKE, they learned how to HIDE?? Uh-uh. And at the end of KOTM there was stuff in the credits about using titan droppings as biofuel, obviously they’re still walking around up top! Can’t take that from me. Nope.

- Who the FUCK is Ren Serizawa and how is he related to Ishiro Serizawa? IS he related? Maybe they just dropped the surname as another “yeah this is a Godzilla movie for Godzilla fans” easter egg but I have a hard time believing that he can’t be somehow related to the other character with the Very Important Last Name who was so important in the last two Godzilla movies. If he is related I’m sure it’s been explained in a tie-in comic or the novelization or something, I’ll look it up later.

- I had to look up how much weight huge battleships can carry while writing a KOTM fic where Ghidorah hitches a ride on one, and y’all, I had to pull weird gravity-negating magic to get him to ride on that boat. Godzilla and Kong woulda sunk that boat like a rock. All I could think during that scene is “this wouldn’t work and I know that because I DID THE RESEARCH and I wasn’t even getting PAID.” I’ll choose to believe that Monarch gets special heavy duty ships designed to carry titans but nobody mentioned it because it wasn’t relevant to Kong’s journey.

- The bit where they could see where Godzilla was swimming because he’d got half a ship hooked to him that was bobbing around on the surface, didn’t Jaws do something like that with a buoy? It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jaws. Anyway good reference.

- Insert “they’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke

- I LOVED the part where they shut down all the ships to get Godzilla to leave. Both because, one, it’s a spectacular callback to KOTM’s “turn off all the guns so he knows we’re not a threat” that makes it seem like now that’s just what Monarch knows what to do to get G to chill out, and two... we know that Godzilla backs off either when he’s killed his enemy or when his enemy has yielded to him. At the end of KOTM—and the end of GVK—the act of yielding is presented as very ceremonial and uniform across species: everyone lowers anything they’ve got that could be dangerous (claws, fangs, beaks, axes) and bows to show Godzilla they’re not gonna fight. Battleships, obviously, can’t bow, but even without being inducted into whatever secret titan cultural intricacies might be going on, humans have figured out their own way to “bow” to Godzilla: cut all the power, so their ships can’t move and can’t use weapons. I know the movie presented it as “playing dead,” but c’mon, if Godzilla could hear MechaG power up from halfway around the planet then he could hear that Kong’s heart was still beating, and he’s been around enough boats to know humans can turn them off and on when they want. The humans bowed to Godzilla. He accepted that they yielded and left.

- Mark Russell looked like such a dad in this movie, like he’s retired 100% from being a rugged action hero and now he’s just Pure Dad. I like him better when he’s a dad, it’s a good development for him. He got like 3 lines and I’m like “I appreciate this character development.”

- Despite all my qualms about how conspiracy theories and extremist groups are handled in Monsterverse (and WHICH conspiracy theories they decide to reference), I really love Madison and Bernie’s dynamic. The adult man who’s the excitable wide-eyed believer in every BS conspiracy you can possibly imagine; and then the serious, severe Teenage Girl On A Mission who’s hypercompetent because she was raised for five years by a friggin doomsday cult militia; and despite having wildly different personalities they’re just, in total agreement about everything. Handled just a BIT differently (like, leaving out the more gross IRL conspiracies) they would be a wildly fun comedic duo—especially with Josh the Only Sane Man coming along as the hapless sidekick. And they all play off of each other so well! Both in a comedic sense, and in more serious moments—when Bernie talked about his wife, there was a real moment of empathy between him and Madison with very little said. I’d watch an entire movie just about the three of them. I’d watch a TV show.

- On the one hand I wasn’t too much of a fan of KOTM’s “all titans... are inherently In Tune With Nature... nature has a Balance, because that’s a Real Thing and not an anthropocentric concept to describe how we like nature to act, and they automatically restore it... because they’re like, some kinda borderline divinities or something... we should probably be worshipping them...” thing; but, now that it was totally absent in GVK, I sorta miss it. Like I feel like there needs to be a balance, a few humans who are like “i lowkey worship these dudes?” and a few others who are like “they’re cool but like, that’s a lil extreme” and that neither side be presented as Right in how they regard titans’ relationship with nature.

- “All titans come from THE HOLLOW EARTH” nah I don’t buy that it’s silly. Basically, what I object to is the idea that all titans have some sort of intrinsic similarity (they all come from the same hitherto-unknown location; they all are part of the same pack that has the same alpha; they all are fueled/fed by the same energy source; etc) rather than letting them be SEPARATE species whose only unifying traits are “they’re all big enough to fuck everything up everywhere they go” and “they’re big enough that the typically-insurmountable barriers between different biomes (mountain ranges, valleys, long distances with terrible weather) aren’t insurmountable for them, so even if they’re specialized in different environments they still all have to deal with each other pretty often.” I’ll make some exceptions for convergent evolution (i.e., claiming multiple titans developed similar traits that are relatively easy to spontaneously evolve and a prerequisite for a creature to survive at such a large size). But I can’t buy “this big gorilla has more biologically in common with this big crocodile-iguana than he does with, say, gorillas,” or most of the other “all these titans have THIS IN COMMON” claims that Monsterverse makes, including “everyone’s from hollow earth.” So I’m tossing that out the window and substituting my own headcanons. Some might’ve evolved there but some evolved on the surface. Maybe a majority of them like ducking in and out of the hollow earth like some kind of titan shortcut system. Kong’s species, I can buy, IS native to hollow earth, considering that they built a whole-ass society down there with tools and architecture.

- I’m SO curious about the little underground Kong home, the Godzilla motif in the floor, and the axe that appeared to be made with a Godzilla scute. What’s the story there??? We know Godzilla’s species and Kong’s species are ancient rivals. Is it because Kong’s species hunted Godzilla’s to steal their scutes to make weapons, seeing them as a valuable resource the way, like, early humans considered woolly mammoths a valuable resource—thus making that Godzilla on the floor equivalent to cave art of mammoths made by people who hunted them—until the Godzillas got pissed and started fighting back en masse? Or were Godzillas and Kongs already enemies when Kongs decided to start making weapons out of their corpses? Did they use to be allies, fighting together, with Godzillas voluntarily offering shed scutes and/or bones of their deceased members to Kongs, and that place used to be a shared home until they started fighting?

- What about that power source, is it something that was already there that both Kongs and Godzillas started to deliberately harvest for technology/atomic breath? Or did Godzillas automatically channel that stuff and Kongs exploited/borrowed/traded with Godzillas to utilize it too? Or is the power from Godzillas who collaboratively poured a bunch of power into the place thus that Kongs were able to use it too? I doubt Godzilla’s species CREATED all that weird energy but the question remains of whether, like, they channel it FROM underground, or naturally produce the same thing in their own bodies, or what.

- Godzilla using his atomic breath to dig a hole STRAIGHT TO KONG just to KICK HIS ASS is hilarious. How lucky that Hong Kong just HAPPENS to be straight over Kong’s house! Were all the tunnels to the hollow earth made by pissed off Godzillas who wanted to kick monkey ass??

- I loved the aesthetic of the battle scene in Hong Kong, with the brightly colored neon building outlines, VERY cool look. The choreography of the battle scene was great too, especially

- we literally broke into applause when Kong shoved the axe handle in Godzilla’s mouth. Love it, perfect callback, that was the ONE thing from the original King Kong Vs Godzilla I was hoping to see referenced and there it was.

- You could really see a difference in how Kong and Godzilla fought—Kong doing a better job at using tools and the environment, Godzilla fighting more like a reptile. They seemed to emphasize Godzilla’s more animalistic behaviors in this movie to accomplish that contrast—he was down on all fours and moving like a crocodile more often, he was clawing at Kong’s chest—but even though it seemed a bit different of a combat technique it also didn’t seem out of place compared to how he fought in prior movies. And we’ve already seen that if Godzilla’s involved in a fight and one of the combatants knows how to use the environment, it’s typically not gonna be Godzilla. (See: Ghidorah using the reflection in a building’s windows to see what’s behind him, and recognizing a nearby power source and biting it to juice himself up.)

- So many of Godzilla’s enemies seem to have specialized in negating his atomic breath in order to combat him! The MUTOs directly suppress his ability to use it—and it makes sense that that’s an inborn ability they have, since they evolved to use Godzilla’s species as prey. Kong has a weapon that both acts as a shield to absorb the breath and turn it back against Godzilla’s species—they didn’t evolve to counter Godzilla, but they developed tools once a rivalry happened. Ghidorah’s the exception—which makes sense, since he came from space—but even at that we see him using tactics specifically to take into account Godzilla’s most powerful weapon (such as keeping one head on lookout for when he starts glowing so that they know when they need to dodge).

- LOVED the reveal that MechaG was based off of Ghidorah’s brain, it has vibes of both the Kiryu Saga and the way that Heisei MechaG is based off of Mecha-King Ghidorah. Not the most surprising plot twist, since we’d theorized that they might use San to make MechaG, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were gonna go with it until they finally did. Even when I was going “huh, the mecha pilot’s chamber looks weirdly organic” I didn’t make the connection to WHY until the reveal, lol.

- “Ghidorah’s necks are so long that the heads have to communicate with each other telepathically” that’s COMPLETELY WILD but I love it, it follows very well from their prior portrayal as telepathic empaths in Heisei, it lines up with their emphasis on electricity (because BRAINWAVES AND ELECTRICITY, hey ho movie monster pseudo science!), and it very much compliments my own private headcanon that they’ve got some psychic/mind control abilities.

- The movie ended with both “Godzilla won, technically” but also “since they teamed up as equals, the ending doesn’t FEEL like ‘Godzilla wins, Kong loses’ but rather ‘they both won against a common foe’” and since I’m on both Team Godzilla and Team They Should Be Friends, I’m happy with this outcome. Plus since the last time they fought, the Japanese movie company graciously let the American monster win, so it’s only polite that the American movie company graciously let the Japanese monster win.

- There were just a few too many humans in this movie. I was intrigued by Ren but we didn’t get much out of him, but like I guess somebody had to be in the pilot’s seat other than the Apex CEO. Didn’t care for the author of the hollow earth book, I feel like his role was superfluous. Didn’t need the Apex CEO’s daughter there at all, coulda done without her. How about this, combine all three roles. Instead of having a whole-ass author who knows about the hollow earth, just casually reference that Rick from KOTM wrote a book about it since he was the expert, and (since he wasn’t in this movie) say that he tragically died going to explore the hollow earth himself, and that way we’ve got the book with the “titans are from there” theory AND an excuse to share the “humans die when they go underground” info. Now, have Ren be working for Apex as a pilot for Mechagodzilla, but have him be MechaG’s pilot because he’s also a good pilot in general, and can fly those HEAV things. Have Apex send him to Monarch to be like “hey, you guys trust me right, since I’m Ishiro Serizawa’s relative? We at Apex have heard all about your failed hollow earth expedition, and due to Ishiro I’ve got some past ties to Monarch so I’ve got high clearance with y’all, so I could bring over this useful Apex tech that’d let you go underground and use what I know about hollow earth from my past time at Monarch to help guide things.” Once they’ve got the little chunk of energy stuff and go topside, he hustles it straight to Apex and straps into his seat to run MechaG. Bam, you’ve combined “person who knows enough about hollow earth to help the expedition,” “person who represents Apex’s interests and gets the energy,” and “person who pilots MechaG” into one character, in a way that takes three flat/underdeveloped characters and turns them into a single interesting character with a lot going on and some intriguing ties to the rest of the cast.

I think that’s everything?? Hoo.

[shihalyfie]

Daisuke and Ken’s dynamic, and what Ken does for Daisuke in return

Everyone in the main 02 cast can be said to be a little surface-deceptive in some way, and so, even with Daisuke and Ken as the relationship at the forefront of 02′s story, there’s still more going on behind it than first glance would initially make you suspect. It’s all too easy to just take the surface reading and decide that Daisuke is some kind of saint whom Ken is singularly dependent on for his happiness (which would really be quite the unhealthy relationship), or, worse, shove them into the stereotypical BL tropes just because they’re the two at the front, even though the story practically went out of its way to depict them as unusual characters who don’t fit into those kinds of boxes as easily.

Even though it wasn’t stated outright in words, Ken did a lot for Daisuke in return, and there’s a lot of layers to their relationship to each other both in the series and in going forward after it.

What Daisuke does for Ken

That Daisuke and Ken have very “complementary” personalities goes without saying, but this applies to both their surface demeanors and what lies beneath them. Daisuke has an abrasive surface demeanor and a tendency to get defensive, but isn’t actually very assertive at all; on the other hand, Ken is more polite and ostensibly “soft”, but is significantly more assertive than Daisuke is. This also means that, while it would of course be foolhardy to pretend that Ken could easily shrug off all of his trauma, it’s also conversely reductive to shove the two of them into boxes where Ken is a constant crybaby angsting over everything bad that’s happened to him while Daisuke’s the only ray of sunshine who can get him out of it. A lot of Ken’s strength in the series is self-supplied; he of course does end up needing the others’ support at times, but extreme readings like this really don’t give the kid enough credit for how good he is at gritting his teeth and pushing on without anyone prompting him.

The initial problem, however, is that Ken is too assertive about the wrong things at first. Like, say, in 02 episode 26, when he assertively says that he’s going to...recklessly chuck himself into an exploding reactor! For the third quarter of the series, Ken deliberately tries to keep his distance from others, and is very clear and open about his reasons why: in his mind, it’s his responsibility, and the others shouldn’t have to be involved. He doesn’t want their friendship, he doesn’t even think he deserves their friendship, and here’s Daisuke going “okay, yeah, but that’s stupid, shut up and let us help you.”

Adventure and 02 have a strong thread of driving it home that “doing things on sheer principle eventually becomes pointless when it gets in the way of being practical” -- and Daisuke, being a simple-minded and “straightforward” person who doesn’t overthink things, is basically there to keep Ken’s focus back on the proper picture. Because yeah, Ken can attempt to do things like frame things in terms of whether he “deserves” all of this, or “whose responsibility” this all is -- but the fact of the matter is that Daisuke and his friends want to do something and help instead of being sitting ducks about it, Ken’s practically not going to be able to do this alone, and, well, that’s the base of their first Jogress in 02 episode 26! Ken says outright that his goal is to do something to help, but then decides that “helping” should involve suicidally chucking himself into an exploding reactor, and Daisuke, hearing out Ken’s troubles, reminds him that him dying there won’t actually help the way Ken wants to help, because it won’t leave him alive to do all of the other things he wants to do and will hurt his family even more just when he was starting to repair things with them -- and as much as this extremely suicidal plan might temporarily spare the others from dying in an explosion, Daisuke would have to live with the guilt of letting Ken go off to die like that, so it won’t make him happy either.

So in other words, while Ken’s trying to sort out his complicated feelings of guilt, shame, and sense of responsibility, Daisuke’s there to keep his head on straight and remind him when he’s about to run himself in mental circles. Ken would have easily spent the rest of the series trying to make up for what he did even without Daisuke’s help, because he’s such a strong believer in “the right thing to do”, but his way of going on about it would have involved him staying in isolation out of a perceived sense of responsibility, endangering himself out of a sense of self-sacrifice, drowning himself in self-blame and feelings of regret, and, eventually, not addressing the very gaping hole in his life that he very much needs emotional support from others right now.

One thing particularly interesting about the Japanese version of 02 is that, for nearly the entirety of the second half of the series, Ken only refers to Daisuke as “Motomiya”, which is surprising given the fact that he employs given-name basis with the others quite quickly. Ken eventually does commit to “Daisuke” after the series in almost all post-02 material, and this image fits the two so well that pretty much every doujinshi artist has caught onto it despite it not being there all that much in the actual series, but it really took him a while; what gives? (Daisuke himself committed to “Ken” from surname basis “Ichijouji” starting in 02 episode 39.) Well, the important distinction is that Ken dropped the honorific with him from very early on -- meaning that he did want to approach Daisuke with a little bit of casual bluntness in a way beyond the distant respect he treated the others with, but at the time, going straight to buddy-buddy on given name with no honorific at all would have been a bit too much for him, and it comes off as him almost deliberately giving off a sense of distance. Why?

Ken didn’t have too much of an opinion on each individual kid in the group until 02 episode 8, when he developed a particular hatred for Daisuke for “ruining his pride” and decided to emotionally torture him a bit. Then, come 02 episode 25, this same kid approached him with no sense of grudge whatsoever, and presents him with a completely different way of seeing things: “whatever you did in the past, you’re clearly trying to help now, which means we’re now on the same side, so we should work together.” It’s pragmatic; it’s extremely pragmatic, and it’s not like Daisuke was working off of blind optimism and trust as much as he observed, very practically, that Ken was clearly trying to do better now and that therefore they should work together and make use of it. This kind of thought pattern is completely alien to Ken’s “I deserve/don’t deserve this” mentality at this point of this series, and by all standards of his own logic Daisuke should be one of the people who hates him the most, and yet -- nope!

By the time of their Jogress, Ken of course understands that Daisuke’s trying very hard to communicate with him, and thus they develop a sort of rapport -- but they’re not quite friends yet at the level of truly being “comfortable” with each other, because most of the second half of the series involved circumstances where Daisuke was helping Ken through a very emotionally hard time. It’s only at the point of the Christmas party in 02 episode 38 when Ken can really think about having these kids as real friends in terms of socializing and not just people who are willing to work with him in his penance journey. It’s enough that Ken’s able to admit that he wants the help of Daisuke in 02 episode 44, when beforehand he’d been trying to keep everyone out of what he’d perceived as his business. And, as Ken’s slowly more exposed to Daisuke’s way of life and its influence on the rest of the group around him, he comes to understand that maybe having a “close friend who can support him” isn’t that bad after all, since it’s not like these friends are just being “open-minded” towards him; they really are there to support him and his actual feelings and welfare, not just “cutting him slack” because he’s helping.

And so, with that, once the crisis is resolved and all is said and done, Ken finally truly accepts Daisuke as his friend and moves him up to given-name basis (no honorific!). This is most prominently shown in Diablomon Strikes Back, where their interactions are now removed from the question of Ken’s former actions and his emotional problems, and it turns out, they’re still good friends in the sense that friends are. As in, people who laugh together, hang out together, converse with each other casually; even if they are working together on the same thing for the duration of the movie, it’s not such an emotionally tense situation that you could chalk their interactions up to sheer necessity. With Daisuke’s help, Ken was able to move on from all of his past hangups, and the two of them became able to enjoy the moment of “now” like normal children.

What Ken does for Daisuke

Daisuke may be simple-minded enough to not have deep-seated concerns that eat at him every day, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was a bit socially maladjusted during the early parts of the series. Namely, being really insecure and prone to getting defensive whenever he felt he was being made fun of. Those kinds of things were what was most likely to get Daisuke to “lash out” at others, because he slips into his worst bouts of these whenever he’s lacking in validation.

Daisuke was, undoubtedly, improving over the course of the series, with him slowly starting to become more assertive by the time of 02 episode 20. It’s incorrect to say that Ken was the only person who could truly help him with this; 02 is a series about a group dynamic after all (even if the Jogress pairs are the most instrumental in helping each other), and it would be a pretty unhealthy relationship if one person were so dependent on another to even remotely function. But starting in 02 episode 22, when the crisis is momentarily resolved and everyone’s not sure what to do, Daisuke’s feeling of being third wheeled by Takeru and Hikari shoots up right at the moment everyone’s feeling a bit lacking in purpose. Two episodes later, Miyako immediately stages an intervention to help keep his mind off of things, and she’s arguably even the most comfortable with him at this point in time.

It’s not that Daisuke isn’t improving, nor that his friends aren’t trying to help, but, well...emotionally sensitive as Miyako can be, she’s also a bit all over the place herself and sometimes needs restraining; Hikari may be assertive, but she’s pretty obviously apprehensive about shutting Daisuke down too bluntly, and Takeru being so hard to read and evasive about everything means that Daisuke can’t really tell what he’s thinking or understand his intentions; Iori is younger and is restraining himself, so he still won’t cross certain lines with Daisuke. So as you can see, they’re all doing their best, and they’re not doing a terrible job of it either; hell, the rest of the series involves them maturing into people who can better interact with and support each other, so their own relationships with Daisuke are likely to improve even well after the series ends. It’s just that, especially at this point in the series, there’s definitely room for an extra person to fill a certain niche that’s got a gaping void here, begging for someone who’s assertive and put-together enough to regularly keep Daisuke in check, yet also willing to be properly straightforward with him to the extent that he doesn’t have to feel insecure about their intentions. Hmm, who could that be?

Although “the priority of reaching out to Ken” eventually becomes enough of a distraction that it certainly takes Daisuke’s mind off potentially feeling insecure, as we start to see more “casual” interactions between Daisuke and Ken, we see that Ken actually fills in a lot of the gaps that had been so sorely missing in this group dynamic for a while. Forward-thinking as he is, Daisuke’s simple-minded way of going at things has its drawbacks in that he’s not very smart or good at thinking, but Ken is the opposite, being intellectually analytical and much more thoughtful overall, and since Daisuke is the kind of person who defers to others when they’re better than him at something, Ken being right next to him means that he can give him a hand in making important decisions he can’t by himself. This is especially so in Diablomon Strikes Back, when Ken’s role is largely keeping an eye on Daisuke and making sure he’s not a loose cannon -- something he’s very capable of doing -- but also simply being there as a springboard whom Daisuke can comfortably approach and talk to, since Ken is such a mild-mannered, straightforward person who won’t set off his overly defensive tendencies as easily.

That doesn’t mean that Ken is completely above teasing him, of course -- a lot of post-02 material in fact makes sure you understand that he’s not just some soft-hearted saint and can be quite the snarker when he wants, since his increased comfort level with Daisuke means he’s now able to poke at him here and there, even doing something as mean as dumping all of the Christmas shopping on him (the character songs and other related in-character material lie in questionably canonical territory, but that kind of punchline is not unreasonable to imagine given their respective personalities). But, overall, he sets the right tone for Daisuke to have a friend he’s able to be around regularly and receive support from, and to fill in that niche of his casual interactions so that Daisuke can have some more solid grounding in his life.

It’s also a testament to how much Ken himself had changed in terms of becoming the kind of person who could handle Daisuke like this. When the two of them first “met” in 02 episode 8, while Ken was still fully under the influence of the Dark Seed, even if we were to put the part about him being the Kaiser aside, this sort of person would never be able to become a good friend to Daisuke. This episode had Daisuke put him on a pedestal -- someone he’ll never be able to be as good as, whom he looks up to as an “idol”, much like the way Daisuke has a tendency to instinctively put himself down in uplifting others. Thus, it was a negative relationship for both of them; Ken being put on a pedestal that ultimately made him uncomfortable, and Daisuke contributing to putting him there in the first place, and taking it extra personally when that pedestal was shattered. But then, Daisuke himself (and, ultimately, the rest of the group) became able to treat Ken like the “normal person” he wanted to be, with no pedestals, simply considering him as a friend with his own feelings and needs; as a result, being this sort of “normal person” making friends through his true personality and desire to support others meant paved the way for him becoming the one person who was best equipped to deal with the very difficult-to-handle Daisuke.

Incidentally, in terms of Kizuna: considering how 02 was such a series about everyone becoming people who could fundamentally interact and communicate better with others, it stands to reason that everyone’s relationships with each other would uniformly improve even after the events of 02, and you can see better interactions between everyone that go beyond just the Jogress pairs. Ken’s clearly able to interact with more of the people in the group in a much more casual manner than he did in 02 itself, and it’s made an important point in the drama CD that Daisuke took everyone’s incidental advice to heart, not just Ken’s. However, advertising material still prominently features the two as a pair, and although part of this is of course due to marketing, Ken is also the one who gets the final words in extracting his “promise” from Daisuke in the drama CD; the official website also calls special attention to him being the one to accompany Daisuke on his ramen outings, even though the one depicted in the drama CD and movie was planned to involve everyone in the group. There are multiple indications that Daisuke himself has learned to become somewhat less defensive and prone to insecurity compared to himself in 02, and it seems that this was accomplished via Ken still actively putting himself in a role of checking on him and making sure he feels properly supported in all of this.