#and someone will find a way to misinterpret it or prove you wrong on something

[altermay]

The tiktok will be like “what does a dog say when it just got out of a difficult situation? ‘That was ruff!’” And then the comment section will be like “errmmm..? Dogs cant talk????”

[evilbihan]

I'm not going to acknowledge that person by name because I have no wish to interact further with her, nor to have others find her and give her any attention. But with Noob Saibot being brought back, I remembered this rancid take they had, quote: "Bi-Han is a man who has time and time again become Noob Saibot, a man whose endings have shown the Netherrealm is where he wanted to be" which is wild af to say.

Because Bi-Han doesn't just 'become" Noob, he is literally made into Noob. Quan Chi resurrected him as a wraith that turned him into Noob Saibot and now Titan Havik tortures him and uses some insane magic even Liu Kang doesn't know, to turn him into Noob. It's not like some magical girl transformation. We're talking awful evil stuff being done to Bi-Han against his will, to warp him into this being known as Noob Saobot, who is stripped of his humanity and almost everything that made Bi-Han who he was.

And Bi-Han never wanted to end up in the Neatherrealm. In the previous timelines he literally had no choice. He was forced into the role of assassin. He was molded into one practically from birth. In Mythologies when he goes into the Neatherrealm he's informed that his soul is already tainted with evil, which is why he can exist there. That's not because he simply woke up one day and decided to kill some Gods for shits and gigs. He had to do what he was ordered to do or be a traitor to the clan and marked for death anyway. It was a lose lose situation. If anything this shows that Bi-Han was never where he wanted to be. His strings were always being pulled by someone else. History is repeating itself now. And leaks even say that Liu Kang doesn't fault him for his desires, but only the ways he goes about achieving his ends. Which further proves Bi-Han doesn't have some nefarious plots in mind with the deliberate intention of landing himself in the Neatherrealm.

She said she doesn't hate Bi-Han, but then this reads as a deep missunderstanding of his character. And at that point, if you can misinterpret his character to that degree, you probably don't like him much either.

Another day, another take so stupid it makes me want to never interact with anything MK related ever again.

Oh, who am I kidding? The trailer already achieved that.

Needless to say, you're 100% correct and this person, whoever they are, is obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed. People who think Bi-Han wanted any of this are either being ignorant on purpose and want to misunderstand his character because they hate him or they're so blatantly stupid they don't understand the very simple fact that Bi-Han being turned into Noob Saibot always happened against his will in every damn timeline.

Does it look like Bi-Han tied himself to that damn wheel we see in the trailer? Does this person have the attention span of a goldfish and just missed the part where he looks terrified out of his mind when those drills/needles approach him?

For goodness' sake, I didn't want to talk about the trailer because watching it made me want to gauge my own eyeballs out. I never felt this sick looking at something in my life (that's coming from someone who plays horror and fighting games on the regular) and yet here we are and I'm talking about it regardless now. I hate it here.

But anyway, you're right. What more can I say? Anyone with even an ounce of common sense would know that. Anyone who has ever played any of the Mortal Kombat games should know that Bi-Han was forcefully turned into Noob Saibot. He was never evil. He was always a neutral character and he's still a neutral character in the New Era.

What more confirmation do you need outside of Liu Kang himself admitting that there's nothing wrong with Bi-Han's ambitions, only with his methods of achieving them? Ashrah says Bi-Han can be redeemed, Bi-Han said only people who don't understand him would mistake him for evil, the Lin Kuei all stand behind Bi-Han and support him... He isn't evil and he never was.

He literally saves Liu Kang's entire stupid trainwreck of a timeline single-handedly in this DLC and people still have the audacity to say he's evil?

I wish he was.

I wish Bi-Han would just sit back and watch Havik destroy Liu Kang's timeline along with all the pitiful hypocrites in it. I wish he'd let all of the fandom's pathetic favorites get torn to shreds and laugh.

But he won't. Because Bi-Han is a good and honorable man deep down.

Disagree and be wrong. It's as simple as that.

PS: Wasn't MK:Mythologies Sub-Zero all about Bi-Han trying to avoid ending up in the Netherrealm? He reacted with shock and concern to being told his soul is tainted with evil by Raiden and he was trying to turn his life around. There's even an ending in one of the older games where he kills Shang Tsung and leaves the Lin Kuei with the prize money from the tournament. Bi-Han never wanted to end up in the Netherrealm. Claiming anything else would be ignoring canon lore.

[thejudeduarte]

If you're open to questions I wanted to ask something. I'm currently reading TQON and there are some scenes (as well as a few in TWK) where is implied that Cardan has other relations while being with Jude? How that makes him different than Locke? Or I'm misunderstanding something...

Thanks for the ask!! My inbox is always open so feel free to ask away <3. Sorry this took a while, I've been busy lately and never had the time to type it all late (also sorry if I start ranting lol)

These are all the quotes/moments from both twk and tqon where it mentioned this topic and I assume this is where you got slightly confused;

I think the important thing we've all got to understand here is that Jude is an extremely unreliable narrator when it comes to Cardan and romance. She only ever really sees what her brain makes her see, so for example, when Cardan never returned to bed that one night in tqon, her mind almost immediately went to him taking up other lovers when she was gone but that's not necessarily the case. She's trying to convince herself that he hates her and she hates him too but she's entirely wrong. I don't believe he was taking up lovers, I think she only said that as it was the only reason she could think of. Jude also finds Cardan very attractive and beautiful so perhaps she's also misinterpreting these things and she believes that a lot of people would desire to be with him because of his looks and his past behaviours during and pre tcp because of the reputation he built up for himself.

This is one of the reasons that I think the fandom desperately needs tcp rewritten in Cardans' pov as there are so many things that would be explained better were it through his eyes. I'm not dissing Hollys' writing AT ALL. It's just the way that Jude is and she almost cannot fathom the thought of him wanting her in any way so her mind almost always jumps to these false conclusions.

Additionally, you may have noticed that she always describes his hair as messy and as if he's woken up from someone else's bed. Again, he could have just woken up from his own bed that's why his hair is messy but she's making up all these excuses to also try and bury down her own growing feelings for him that she's desperately trying not to feel.

Please can someone else add to this I'm sure that they could explain it far better than I could but this is just my own personal view on this topic. Whereas Locke did take up other relations when he was with Taryn, Cardan has made it clear that he never thought love was a game unlike Locke who did and who revelled in creating his so-called stories. This is also proved as Cardan took his and Nicasias' relationship very seriously when he was with her.

[neilgill]

Wish Defense I: The 'Complaints'

“Be to her virtues very kind, Be to her faults a little blind.” ― Matthew Prior

Disney's Wish was actually great and I'm here to defend it.

I'd like to start by negating most of, if not all, the 'complaints' this film's been getting. Please join me as I do this in 12 brief points:

Asha is a great protagonist. She is not just 'quirky' or one-dimensional: she's caring, strong, beautifully flawed, and doesn't solve every problem on her own; the movie makes a point of every one of these. I never saw her as a clone of someone like Mirabel or Anna. And she does have a character arc: she matures and learns to work hard for what she believes in. She learns that doing the right thing is difficult, but it's necessary. All this makes for a beautifully put-together character that gets through challenges and comes out stronger. Why aren't people talking about how great that is?

Magnifico is a great villain. He's an amalgam of familiar villains like Maleficent, Ursula, and Gaston, done in ways that seem fresh and unique. I've seen a lot of people say his motivation seems to change every few minutes or so, but I disagree. Him using his traumatic past is his excuse for his bad behaviour: that's what narcissists do. Just look at Mother Gothel and all her gaslighting. He was always a self-absorbed jerk who wants everyone under his heel, and whose darkness just got revealed more and more. And his 'villain shtick' is a cool and terrifying one: stripping people of their hopes and dreams to make them docile subjects who depend on him. He takes away their agency, essentially their souls and who they are as people. That is the bad thing he's been doing from Day 1, it's what makes him a villain: the film tells us that. How can people defend him? It's like people defending Gaston all over again. He's a great villain in that he goes against the values the story holds dear, challenges the protagonist in personal ways, is wonderful to hate, and is rightfully depicted as in the wrong for doing bad things. He's the selfish one, not Asha as the 'critics' are claiming. Why aren't people talking about that?

Star is a great secondary character. He is intentionally supposed to be a character that harkens back to those like Jiminy Cricket or Timothy Q. Mouse (I have a very personal connection with Dumbo, so this was important to me). People are REALLY misinterpreting that concept art of them: Star and Asha were never supposed to have a romance because Human Star would look like her grandfather. And 'Starboy' would just be a copy of Peter Pan or Genie, which people would definitely slam, thus I'm glad they changed him. See point 11 for more on Star and why his current form is the one they went with. People just care about having a Jack Frost clone (if they did go that route, they'd probably be slammed for copying Dreamworks, knowing 'critics'). The idea of a mute, magical sidekick, something that we haven't seen since Tinker Bell, is a pretty fun one that feels new and cool. And it's important to note that he never grants anyone's wish: he just helps out, letting Asha and others know that they themselves have to make it come true. Why aren't people talking about that?

I was really worried Valentino was going to be little more than a gag, but he wasn't. He helps out here and there, especially when aiding the Teens in freeing the wishes, proving his importance to the narrative. Plus I did find him pretty funny.

The Teens do stand on their own. I went into the movie knowing they were going to be new versions of the 7 Dwarfs, but each of them felt like their own unique person to me, especially Dahlia and Simon.

The animation is gorgeous: you have to watch it in HD or 4k, which people are doing for other films like Spider-Verse or Nimona, just not this one. It is far from 'lazy' or 'Disney Junior level': it harkens back to art styles Walt Disney himself loved. I can't believe they managed to replicate the feel of classic Disney backgrounds, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, so perfectly with modern technology. It looks like a painting, or a tapestry. Disney movies are still beautiful. Why aren't people talking about that?

The music is great: I've caught myself singing every song at least thrice. Each song brings something to the table. 'This is the Thanks I Get' fits Magnifico's character, and is something in the same vein as Gaston's song; you cannot tell me that one rent line is worse than 'nobody spits like Gaston'. I still get chills listening to 'This Wish' and its reprise. I don't know how people online are starting to think it's a bad song, but now others are just jumping on the bandwagon. You can see Asha's love and struggles within the song, and it even has the melody of 'Part of Your World'; how can you hate that? I've seen so many people personally connect with that song, myself included... Why aren't people talking about that?

'At All Costs' was never a love song between Asha and Star: Julia Michaels just wanted a love song (find that Variety article), and now it can be used for all kinds of love. I actually did tear up watching that sequence for the first time, seeing Asha hold her grandfather's wish dearly in her arms. I've seen people say it reminds them of what a parent would sing to their child, like 'You'll Be in My Heart', and I think that's just so wonderful and heartfelt. Why aren't people talking about that?

I don't have the actual post, but I'd like to bring attention back to what an artist on the film said: every 'Easter Egg' is meaningfully placed, a tribute to what has inspired generations. Not one of them felt shoehorned in to me. This movie is a tribute, a love letter, a celebration of what people have loved for 100 years. Why aren't people talking about that?

Magnifico's defeat is far from silly. It makes sense given the rules the world of the film runs on: the fact that 'we are made of stars' is a good Chekov's gun that carries a lot of meaningful importance. Each of us is special, each of us has magic, and each of us has hope. And this is where evil dies and good endures: Magnifico cannot comprehend that anyone but himself is worth anything, thus why he cannot quell this and it is the reason for this downfall. He, the villain, loses because he lacks the virtues the heroes possess. Why aren't people talking about that?

The story of this film is special: as confirmed by the staff, the film is an allegory for Walt Disney's life, and the story of Disney overall. Asha is Walt Disney, Star is Mickey Mouse: a magical force of creativity and inspiration that lights up a dark time. Because of the special nature of this, even though I'm a die-hard Disney fan, I'm fine with there not being any romance in this film (even though I'd like it back someday). This was intentionally made as a simple film à la Snow White, which was meant to be a happy, hope-giving film for people back in the 1930s. Just like this film is supposed to be now. One last time: why aren't people talking about that?

This is the first of a few posts I'll make defending this movie, so for other Wish fans out there, please stick around. I don't care if I get dragged for this: I'd rather stick up for my beliefs and defend myself my way than let online bullies like Schaffrillas, Aldone, or Astor Rhymemaster stop me from loving something I really enjoyed. I really hope this movie gets the Atlantis treatment and becomes a beloved cult classic down the line. Until next time.

[allwormdiet]

Buzz 7.1

Oh boy, some calm, thank goodness, I hope there's no storm that might interrupt this somehow

Oh, Taylor. You've gotta find a better way to score physical intimacy with people than this, you are not going to get what you're looking for

I was already a bit reserved about whether I thought these two would work out and that was before reading the rest of this arc, so...

Does Lisa know that this is going to end the way it does? I can't imagine she would, she wants her team happy and the way things are about to go between these two is not going to be super happy. Maybe she's reading Brian wrong, if what he said is true about not being so good with girls, and her power is misinterpreting the data

Taylor, you both fucked that up last night, don't pin it all on Danny. You could have told him and given him the opportunity to prove you wrong, to give you something better than the worst-case scenario, but you overruled that and left your home out of. Pride? Shame? C'mon girl.

Fucking finally we get the Alec backstory

Fucking creepy power, though I guess the real creep factor is that he's willing to use it and has used it to make a fucking slave army out of brainwashed women

On the one hand, I get pressing Alec for information, because all of a sudden that's something that the rest of them may have to worry about, but I'm not sure threatening him into talking is the way...

I think that's the youngest age we have for a trigger event so far. And it was deliberately induced by Alec's father. Utterly horrifying.

So... Alec doesn't seem to think he has any kind of moral core, and I'm not sure that's true? Lisa is still the only one out of the group who carries a gun, and Taylor is out here with a knife that she's used to take eyes and toes at this point; Alec's got a comparatively nonlethal loadout, so even if he doesn't feel bad about killing, he doesn't put himself in a situation where it's easy to do.

Taylor, hon, I don't think it's on you to judge him, much as you would love to

Like. Was Alec even treated as a person before he got his power? Was he treated as a person after that? None of the adults in his life ever made an effort to raise him, because they were either his monster father or his father's brainwashed slaves who only cared about him, so any "parenting" would've come from older siblings probably about as fucked as him.

You know what? I'm laying it out here now. The fact that Alec is lazy, selfish, and kind of an asshole, who's not great at reading people and prioritizes personal pleasure over most other things? Actually no joke a huge mark in his favor, because that's who he's figured out how to be after spending 12-13 years of his 15-16 years of life in Hell (which, as I've long suspected, is contained within Montreal) and then three years on the run as a career criminal. The worst thing that I can say about him is that he acts like a shitty teenager, and people act like shitty teenagers while coming from normal homes. Congratulations, Alec, you will be getting a trophy for good behavior (given the circumstances) delivered in the mail

This is sweet. Even with this unpleasant surprise, Brian is still reluctant to act like they'd leave Alec to deal with Heartbreaker alone

This is the most obvious downside of the arrangement, setting aside the matter of "can we trust Coil" (hahahaha)

Rachel, fucking bless you for being the voice of reason here

Yes! Bonding time with Rachel! Friendship rank up with Rachel! Upgrade your Social Link with Rachel in order to strength Personas of the Chariot Arcana!

Actually has someone made a read of the Worm cast as Persona S.Links because I feel like you could make some interesting choices there, obviously Taylor fulfills the Fool/Wild Card role

This is smart as fuck actually. She's basically cutting Brian off before he can interject as the head of the team and establishing her own stance within the hierarchy

An explicit bargain, made with rules for Taylor to follow and consequences if Taylor breaks those rules, all slanted in Rachel's favor.

One day you're gonna call her Rachel in your own head, Taylor, and I can't wait for that

Current Thoughts

Main thing with this chapter is that we've gotten all but one Undersider backstory filled in with Alec's ties to Heartbreaker laid out. Lisa's the last holdout, and I suspect she'll remain mum on the subject as long as she can get away with it

I'm still of the position that Alec reads a lot more shallow on the surface than he actually is, but all we have to go off of is what he says and what he does, with the trick that it's filtered through Taylor's own fairly biased perspective (she thinks he's a coldblooded murderer because his father ordered him to kill an enemy gang member, and that's certainly a read of the situation but she's just as likely jumping to conclusions). He's also taken care to not do much when he can help it, save for the Bakuda fight where he worked his ass off keeping them all alive. It's a waiting game to get to the meat of his character, I suspect, same as basically every other Undersider except Rachel.

Speaking of which, really enjoy the next chapters with Rachel. By far the Undersider I'd spend the most time with. We'd hang out with dogs and not talk to each other for hours, it'd be great.

Anyway, after a brief little scare with my entire account getting temporarily dropped from existence, I'm going to start using the alt I made @wormstreetsback as a backup for this one, on the off chance something goes horribly awry again. It's just going to be reblogs of my own stuff so don't follow it yet, unless you're fine with doubled posts.

[j4y-lvr]

SIGNAL143?! … kang taehyun

SYNOPSIS. Headstrong CEO, kang taehyun leads his business venture into the world of dating with his dandy service, 'signal143', and in need of a skilled and driven secretary comes the bright-eyed secretary, passionate to support those finding new love. while the two clash in various ways, bound to each other in pursuit of new beginnings. what were taehyun to do if this metal tough ceo were to match with his new secretary by his dear, handcrafted application?

PAIRING. ceo!taehyun x secretary!fem!reader ft. txt, yunjin from lesserafim and sunwoo from theboyz

GENRE. crack, fluff, pinch of nonexistent angst

WARNINGS. profanity, !!not proofread!!

WORD COUNT. 5.2k

NOTE. no i didn't spend more than a month on this shhhhhh😦 my txtblr debut has arrived i'm pretty proud of the beginning and the attempts at humour🤥 i'm so sawry,, the end was a bit rushed bc i realised my absence from here was far too long so i scurried😤

"what if you matched with someone in the company using the application," yunjin jokes, hitting your arm in the same spot for the nth time, a scowl crossing your face as you turned to her, running down an earful of curses before she sighed and pouted, getting you to suspend your fit.

"why would you even say that," you drop, averting your focus away from the girl and to your watch striking midnight. You usher yunjin to stay the night under one condition that she clean up after herself as you left early for work at signal143.

Signal143 worked to assist others in search of their passionate lover, one true pair, and lifelong soulmate. A company whose product aligned with your best interests as you grew with a single mother who tirelessly slogged to make ends meet.

You'd made her proud, earning a corporate job as none other than the secretary of the booming service. The application checked off all and more of what you could think of, seeing it as a reliable piece and something trustworthy.

You prep your materials for the following day, slide into bed and shut your eyes with a huff. Dreamland didn't seem all too far when yunjins protruding query probed your mind to run a hundred kilometers per hour with varying scenarios that fueled your active thoughts.

Shaking your head, you set to not think about and take things that came your way with no worry as such. Let's be real, the possibility of you matching with someone from your company was less than 5%.

It's not like your luck would cash with that, would it?

Maybe, you should've recalculated the percentage because the probability dinged at first sight of your boss. "signal match 143!" echoed through the hallways of cool toned glass finished walls, goosebumps arising on your skin.

You visibly panic as your boss, taehyun, watches you with curious eyes. "good to know you use the application," mumbled the tall man, clad in a suit, a musing smile tugging on his pink, soft lips.

Observing your orbs dart from him to your phone, you contemplated checking who within the company you had unanimously paired with, "please, have a look," your boss encouraged while your sweat-ridden palms fished your phone from your pocket.

"i'd say you take them on a date and give it a try, and if possible give your personal feedback on your usage of the app,"i don't think dating in a workplace setting is appropriate though," you comment, swiping up and onto the app, the customary ring filling the rather opinionated hallway.

"why not? are you, perhaps, doubting the service?" kang taehyun raised, expected from his nickname, strongheaded-sajjangnim. The lines on his forehead proved his dedication but you felt wronged with the misinterpretation.

You'd be in trouble if you harbored opposing thoughts and didn't get along with this co-worker in specific, being your boss and the ceo, afterall.

"quite bold of you to assume, sir" you pause, fending hurt and continue reading the username you paired with mentally and then verbally, however, it came out sounding like a question, "user terry kang?"

A fellow worker gasped and panned their head towards kang taehyun, whose expression looked lost and if he were in a pickle, per se. "why?" you ask, perturbed by the shocked faces.

"summon that demon child beomgyu to my office right now. and you, follow me," spoke the tall, doe-eyed man, profusely furrowing those eyebrows deeper and deeper downward. What pissed you off was his rude choice of words, respect should be given to those who expect respect.

Maybe it comes with power? You shove the train of thought and sprint to catch up to the ceo, who was almost stomping his way there. Cute of him, you note.

With whoever beomgyu was, sat present in the well maintained office while the tense atmosphere picked at your nerves, making your exterior decay from the anxiety. You remained unaware of what happened nor what was going down.

Whipping out his phone, taehyun beckons beomgyu over, "what is this?" he retorted, calmly, unlike his brows meeting the depths of hell fire with the amount he scowled. Beomgyu jumped on sight and squealed, applauding the ceo, "isn't that great?!"

"no, you dumbass- i mean, you idiot, what have you programmed it to do," he halts, giving you a look and whispers in a hush manner, causing the man next to him to slowly pan his head towards you like those haunted emotional support dolls from horror movies the possessed hauled around.

"HER?"

A whack to the back of his head sent beomgyu wailing, "THIS IS VIOLENCE—" he exclaimed, getting cut off by what seemed like his close friend that boss, taehyun, "do you want to risk your pay," he stooped octaves lower with the question, a menacing look shining in his eyes, gazing up and into your orbs, almost daringly.

You weren't slow (for once), you put the pieces together and informed yourself in manner, tactfully planning your next move. Mirroring the menacing look, mockingly, one could say. You stride forward, your hardened footwear clacking against the marbled touched floor, "are still up for the date, ceo terry kang?"

Taehyun straightens his back, amused with your words, beomgyu giggling, "you still think its a malfunction, sir" he states, mockingly, gapping for air and continuing, "she seems like your match if you ask me." — The frown that settled on his face as he pondered over the simple incident left you in a fit of your little laughter, evident of your chuckling. "well, let's get to it, shall we?" taehyun set, turning to you with a charming grin that exuded other intentions than sweet. 

"hm?" you replied, asking what out of the number of things he could be implying. "work. today's your first day, isn't it, miss secretary,"

Oh this man is vile, cutting to the boring part already but without much of a fight, you had points to prove and marks to make even though one might say take it easy the first day. Not only was your hopeful relationship with your boss kindling but your chances of recognition in the hierarchy.

"i want these papers briefed by noon," you opened your mouth to quiz if he required anything else but he dove straight in, "oh and a cup of coffee will do, thank you very much." You inadvertently complied, handing the warm cup over to him with an unfazed expression, work was work and there's no denying it. 

"not your ideal picture of a first date, hm" taehyun commented, cautious watching the way your front turned from calm to exasperation, "first date, sir?" you grumble, enunciating the sir a bit pressed off your tongue. A dry laugh leaves his parted mouth, "you seem like the type to never been on a date,"

You clench the papers assigned to you in hand and muster a marvelling smile, firming your stance. Taehyuns eyes flicker from the tight grip on the papers to your menacing eyes, then to your coral stained lips parting with calculated breaths, "glad to see we agree in something, sir."

The satisfaction you felt as his face morphed to offence had you seeing stars of your own. He clicked in his tongue in distaste, "it's going to be a long while working with each other, i see,"

"i agree. i'll take my leave, i've paperwork to get behind," You conclude, giving his deep brown orbs one lasting gaze. 

A complementary grin accompanied your impactful greet to your boss. He was just as hard headed as the rumours state, the beauty the gods themselves sculpted but it was too bad you'd have a sour taste at his retorts in opinion and opposition. 

Though, the only things you both could settle on were being lonely asses and vision for the venture that inevitably matched and brought your two lonesome vessels together. — Weeks passed and your differences only became apparent to those around. DUring a small party taehyun decided to host for app ranking 4th on charts, the ice cream stand had many flavours to offer on such short notice, including your favourite, mint choco. 

This, however, seemed to bother him, as he stood beside you, picking up his custom cherry flavoured ice cream. The gasp that left him as you chose mint choco let a lasting impression on you, “it tastes like toothpaste. how could you possibly—”

“sir, you have a cup of cherry flavoured ice cream in hand, is that not a tad too plain?” “i like to keep things simple,”

And the other he spotted you at your desk munching away at the original style pocky, he inhaled that very irking gasp that made your head turn faster than lighting, “don’t even—”

“HOW COULD YOU CHOSE THE ORIGINAL,THE MOST BASIC, THE INFAMOUS POCKY!?” “that’s quite rich coming from someone who likes to keep it simple,”

you sneer, your bold statement followed by gasps from the myriad of employees seated at their desk out your office as taehyun bit at his tongue, retreating to his den.

This left you with your current situation, “sir, i finished reviewing and marking these documents but are you sure the conversion will follow through smoothly?”

“why the doubt, miss,” “yn would be fine, though this is a workplace setting, we have other premises to imply”

A nod prompted you to continue, “conversion from a service-based business to a hybrid business is quite the challenge given our potential partner expertising in green tea that supposedly promotes weight loss, tying us with non body positive image,”

“as much as you have a point, we’re running short on funds with the hefty loan process being dragged out and our service update has been pending for a month now. Either way, other companies are flocking to strike a deal,”

“but sir, can't we start with another product first? I feel like beginning with green tea will attract negative views,” you paused, thinking of seizing the opportunity to plug in a personal situation here, “if you want to promote the service we'll have to start fanservice."

"what." "don't act like you don't know about all the teenage girls you've bagged for being their prince,"

"and you're suggesting that I hold a fansign?! do i look like an idol to you?” "yeah, you do so make use of that handsome face, terry"

He flashed you an insane glance, sighing, “too late, they're here for the meeting,” taehyun announced, foot to heel and strode down his office, off to the door where he greeted them with a warm smile, “shall we?”

However, one of the men who stood much closer to taehyuns office than the rest frowned, sending a glare your way that had your stomach turning, “i don’t think it’ll work out though,” — The scowl present on taehyun’s face as he exited the conference room had you shitting yourself as he shot knives down towards you, glaring at you and motioning to his office merely with his recent fuelled orbs.

QUivering inside out, you step shortly after him, gulping down the massive lump in your throat, the carpeted monotonous grey flooring garnering your interest than the man that rubbed his temple hastily.

“guess one of them overheard our little banter, miss,”

Your void of a reply sent him approaching you with heavy footsteps, harshly tugging down the knot of tie, the furrow deepening beyond observed capability. All till the curve of your back hit the hard wood table, your hands scraping to the table.

“w-what do you mean,” you muster despite the frantic panic you were waging inside, his arms once limp by his side came to front you as he cracked his knuckles, his neck craning to the side to do the same. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t intimidated by his demeanour.

“oh, i don’t know, from where the conversion took a head down non body positivity image and how starting with a different product first would be better?”

The chills that ran down your spine as he repeated your previous words had you spinning a hurl of your own. Though you still stood by your words, you could’ve just blown the deal off with it as well. 

That depends, however, since you weren’t informed whether the deal was called off in the first place. You held no blame as of yet. You straightened your back and lifted your gaze to his, taking a step forward, a formidable gap present.

“well, did we strike a deal?” you attempted to sound as aloof as possible, hoping for an affirmation from taehyun. He smiled, a stark contrast between his furrow and grin.

He bent down to match your height, his hand cupping your cheek with a caress which you would have fend off but couldn’t given your arising crisis, “how cute,” he uttered and paused, the smile dripping off along his lips pressing to a line, “but, no,”

And just with that you had turned into granite staring down the eyes of a striking sculpture known as kang taehyun. “Leave,” and you did, taking to the door with such haste you hadn’t seen yeonjun, the assistant secretary ahead, crashing into the man with a thump. 

“are you okay?” quizzed yeonjun, watching you with curious orbs as to your hastened exit and your shaken exterior, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost, you should take a break,” he commented further, chuckling.

Taehyun observed the ordeal, opting to sit in his seat and front his desktop instead, having twice the amount of work to get another company onboard. It would be an understatement to say he resented you right now.

You bid a rushed goodbye and fled the scene out the building, restocking on fresh air and a clear mind on how to apologize, though an apology wouldn’t do much. — Silence was scarier on the man than you could imagine though he wasn't one for many words, the stiffness present in the air as you'd discretely set your work by his table while he bore his eyes into the desktop screen, his hand gripping the edge of any paper within reach.

After the fall through, he lacked words for you particularly, conveying messages through the assistant manager, yeonjun who said he despised the ordeal and further urged you to make amends. But that didn't sound as easy as said. 

That left you in this picture, panning open his office door a few hours past work hours as you had a report on user engagement to finish and the reasons for it's margin of customers dropping. The dimmed lights and the glare of the desktops display blaring through the jet atmosphere led your orbs to the slumped figure, his fingers resting in his hair as he laid on his crossed arms.

Your boss had fallen asleep.

You set your print on his table and moved a few others to the side, stacking them up as well. Should you wake him up or let him be? Either way his posture would surely cause spinal ache, so it'd be better to wake him.

Right? His secretary that totally blew the company a huge deal and an inclined decrease in expected funds would unsuspectingly awake him up when he retreated to slumber from exhaustion over the same deal with no clear advance?

Oh well, you weren't fired yet.

"sir," you uttered, your palm reaching for his shoulder, giving it a light shake. Taehyun lifted his head, hair messily parted, cocking his head to the side as he took in your stance in front of him.

"what's the time?" he stated, sitting up straight and off his arms, glancing at you lazily.

"11pm, sir," you replied albeit the chill that sprang down your spine as he spoke octaves lower and for the first time in around two weeks.

"why are you still at work, go home yn,"

"i thought i'd finish the report on user engagement—"

A sigh parted from his chapped lips, "i know you said you had no experience but c'mon you should really go out and meet new people," he mumbled, his hand rubbing the back of his neck, reaching for his lower drawer and pulling out his car keys.

"but sir, why would I go out and meet other people when you're my match," you responded, watching his face controt from surprise to guilt and back to his blank expression.

"i'll give you a ride home," he dismissed, loosening his tie and to his feet, waiting for you by his door to lock it up. — You took him up on the request and found yourself in the passenger's seat, sitting next to an oddly silent taehyun. "address?"

"why,"

"how do I drop you home, huh," he deadpanned and you promptly recited your address and he took to the wheel.

The blanket of stillness was anything but pleasant as his lack of response earlier ate you alive bone by bone. Feeling the tense air and the rather long way home, taehyun quipped a quick glance toward you, "whats your view in soulmates,"

"not exactly, life's not a fairytale like they narrate, per se," "why the negative tone?" he questioned further.

"my parents split not long ago, stating they 'fell out of love,' and i was heading back and forth between france and germany to meet them simultaneously, to not let either be unhappy. then i decided i was through and packed to south korea and applied for the job."

"that's one situation," "you?"

"i'd be oversharing," "it's fine, sir"

"call me taehyun, please," "right, taehyun, continue."

"realistically, no. like you said, life is no fairytale," "how is that oversharing,"

"it's sensitive info considering i run a head service to find your true love, yn, don't be conventionally controversial in this car," "mhm" you dragged, barely managing Ato mask your scoff.

The thick atmosphere was cut through the line of his ringtone, receiving the call at the red light and pulling over, "yes," he calmly spoke followed by the very violent,"WHAT?! NO!" 

You missed a smile despite the information you gathered ere, watching as he bickered with someone in the other line, the exasperated expression a fit for his adorable face. He hung up and pursed his lips turning to you with his jaw open slightly.

"will you go out with me," he paused— "WHAT?!" "no let me finish—"

"WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME OUT AFTER SAYING I WAS BEING CONVENTIONALLY CONTROVERSIAL AND TREATING ME LIKE SHI—" you halted, reading his amused mask and remembering he's the reason you get paid on a monthly basis, "you were saying, sir– taehyun,"

He liked the way his name rolled off your tongue and he'd convince himself in denial that it ended there but he'd bury for as long as possible. "I never said anything about denying soulmates, nope not a peep," he clarified, continuing to matter at hand, "there's an event this Friday night, would you be interested in joining me?"

Okay this reaction of yours bypassed the intense masking and your jaw hung open as you measly meagred, "why me," sounding shaky and your voice cracking at the lather and your parched throat. 

He searched for something by his door and handed you a bottle of water, looking at you straight in the eyes, giving you the most gorgeous,rich smile you'd ever seen, "because, you're my match, yn,"

To say you choked on your spit was an understatement. The chuckle that left him and he told you to look up and let your throat settle before drinking the water he handed you. — Friday came with you waking up queasy and all jittery, still pondering over what to wear, mentally noting to ask taehyun what he was going to wear. That Tuesday he gave you a ride home and unintentionally made you a walking mess of emotions in front of him, causing little to no changes at work.

To your disappoint— for the better, you grit and smile at your coworkers, holding small conversations and exchanging words of notice. Then came your summary to Taehyun and casually strolled in and recited the following with which meeting at what time, handing him the clipboard you gripper to briefly.

"wait, is the timing marked wrong for this meeting,"

"let me see," you mumbled and made your way by his chair, placing a hand on his table to lean over. "yeah, no it's," you paused, gripping your lower lip into the chambers of your once parted mouth.

Taehyun took that with the nod of his head, his orbs drifting to yours trained in the clipboard, a face strands of hair unintendedly covering your face and your lip held captive. The scent of your lavender perfume invading his nostrils, the trance cut short with your response, "actually, taehyun, hold on a second," you complete, your eyebrows furrowing deeper as your lip frees itself.

"taehyun?" he quired, picking at his raised brow, questioning you. You scoff and roll your eyes, "pick one, sir" you reply sarcastically, emphasising the sir at the end though you began to wonder how his name just rolled off. "and keep the date tentative, i'll check in again, either way it's not till next friday, sir,"

"taehyun," he corrected with small grin, his hand hovering to your cheek and giving it a light tap watching the way you managed to push his fingertips off and stare somewhat discreetly at his now focused face, albeit the close proximity of you two as you'd yet to stand straight l.

Beomgyu, uninvitedly barged through shouting for taehyun in a whiny tone, catching you in your little stare. Beomgyu advanced with a sprint and landed beside taehyun, who looked unbothered as the two and three others were friends from middle school.

He gave taehyun a bombastic side eye and sent a very obvious thumbs up to you, motioning to your boss who watched with a quirky smile, almost teasing you without words. You huff and retreat from his den, leaving the best friends turned coworkers to their fun. — "time to clock," uttered a voice from behind as you stilled slumped on your desk, lazily working on yet another report on the total gross margin and remaining fund. "hm?" you whiz not paying mind to them till a hand lands on your shoulder that sent you panning toward taehyun.

Your mouth parted with an 'O' springing to your soles, a few minutes left to actually clock out, "we'll have to stop by nearby to pick up clothes," he conveyed, watching casually pack up and shut off the system, some shooting your nasty looks for stealing their fantasy husband away.

Ignoring the onlookers you follow behind him, waving beomgyu bye as he excitedly cheered you on from his quarters with taehyun sighing at his antics.

The car ride to the venue was nothing noteworthy after you dazzled in an outfit that fit with your personal preference a bit too much, not revealing much and topped snow white charm with the flowy frill checks on your mental list. 

His silence left you to look out the window of the passenger seat as taehyun handled the wheel, focusing on the road ahead. 

“why’d you join signal143,” taehyun abruptly spoke amidst the stillness, gaining your lost focus, “cupid was my favourite childhood story,” you replied nonchalantly, eyes drifting to the seemingly fast paced surroundings, avoiding his curious orbs that lasted a second.

“maybe it's because i craved for something or someone to be my stability in my then feeble life and cupid would happen help me achieve that when my parents were out and about with their love life in shambles,”

“so from personal experience,” “yes, i guess you could say that. what inspired you to upbring the venture?”

“the 5 of us, high school friends, happened to think of the idea as a joke to make our pitiful lonely asses feel better, and the rest is history. it sounds insignificant, i know,” “everyone has their callings,”

With that the conversation fell flat and you remained in your thoughts of the past, “we’re almost there,”

“hm,” you responded, lacking any real reply to him, your thoughts having shifted from the past to the recent past, when you matched with your boss at work to which he simply ignored much to your distaste.

“sir,” “don’t,”

“we have to talk, i can’t play dumb anymore it's agitating,” “about what, exactly,” he asked, pulling into a stop at the venue, hand reaching to unbuckle his belt and panning to front you, perceiving the irked expression written all over.

“we matched with your application and literally refuse to address it,” you rush, in an exclamatory tone, breathing heavily with furrowed brows. His poker face remained while his gaze dropped to his wristwatch, “is that all, we’re getting late.”

Tears clouded your vision as he stepped and walked over to the passengers seat and clicked the door open, and extended his arm to you. You grimaced at his palm,"is that really you had to say," you let out slowly, attempting to blink back your threatening tears.

He initiative held your hand and pulled you up, your footing unstable as you fell forward and onto him, beside you for support. The fabric of his dress shirt scrunched up in your clenched fists. A hand travelled to your cheek and tilted towards the adoring eyes of the man that'd somewhat broke your alluding vision of true love.

"don't ruin the makeup by crying over nothing," he paused, mustering the courage to utter his next few words carefully, the knot in his throat tightening to release the word out his grip, "love," he added shakely, the latter coming out jna whisper but to be heard in the reverbs of your ear.

The gaso that overwhelmed had shock written all over you and with expectancy you listened as he remained agape. "why do you think I went as far as to bring you here as my date, yn,"

So he wasn't playing you, nor was he breaking your perception of true love but giving it a shot.

Now the thought slapped a small but hopeful grin on your front and you gazed into his beautiful sparkling eyes while he rushed to address even further, "doesn't mean I'm not angry at you for blowing the deal off," he muttered, trying to sneer at you and scoffing with little to no real meaning.

You burst into hearty laughter at his shy acts, striding into the venue, clutching his much larger hand in yours, "we have a party to attend, taehyun," you pressed, jolly filling you full as you skipped and partially hopped your way to the entrance hand in hand with the last person you expected to.

Life was fickle yet fun and full of surprises.

Taehyun spoke words of boredom to others attending as you put on a pretty smile and joined in occasionally and eventually zoned out, taking that as a chance to slip away from him and to the refreshments served.

You unsuspectingly stood among the masses, sipping on the non alcoholic drink, your eyes naturally drewp towards taehyun, resting them in him as he charmed many with his words, some infatuated with his looks and that darn cute smile he flashed.

"yn?"

You turned to your right, perceiving the man you'd swore to never see after years, "sunwoo?"

The old feelings of youth overjoyed your sober mind and the thundering clouds brought with your foresought tears and sentiments to do with him.

"you? here?"

"..." you dwelled in your daze, knocked out of it with no response to him after a long delay, he waved a hand in front of you, successful garnering your attention as an unfamiliar yet comforting hand rested on your waist and clung you to them.

"oh sunwoo! great crowd, great people, great host, of course,"

"...taehyun!" he greeted, examining his hand attached to your waist, the close proximity of the two and plastered a grin.

"how's the brand launch going?"

"the usual rookie stuff, you'd know better,"

Small talk continued and you watched motionless, your nerve ridden self picking at your nails, only glancing at either of the two rarely. As their tiresome chatter drew to a close you mustered the will to smile faintly st sunwoo and turn towards your date, Kang taehyun and flash a genuine beaming grin at him, ushering about something that crossed your mind.

Sunwoo noted the look and how you didn't turn back to see if he was looking at you for longer like you once had, the day it rained from the skies and from your very own eyes.

Dragging him out the venue you huffed and puffed in relaxation, opting to lean to the wall behind as relief filled you, "you know him?" taehyun queried, the slight amount of irritation sending massive signals your way as he raised a brow.

"i gave the same expression to any of the other guests you chatted with," you replied, to milk a further reaction from him.

"the way you stared at him looked different, like that of a sour grape.

"so you've been observing the way I gaze at people when you were supposed to pay your mind to the conversation?"

"well—"

Another dramatic gasp parted from your mouth, "so you have, and yes, he's my ex." "and not that i mind," you interjected, falling into him as you chuckled while he wrapped his own arms around you voluntarily. "you're not so annoying, i guess" he commented, faking a daddy eye roll your way.

"you're still annoying," "HEY—" "love live laugh beomgyu and his programming skills," you completed sending him furious as he whined to you about his sole position in the mess.

Love exists in many forms and this one was all thanks to signal143(and the honourable, almighty intellect beomgyu along your fortune telling star stellar friend huh yunjin).

[goemon-fan]

I lament what Part 1 could have been, and I especially am upset about how fast Goemon's introductory arc was.

Imagine you were making a character who is a "villain" who has been raised and lived their whole life in an abusive environment, who struggles to define their own humanity due to having been reduced to someone else's property, who isn't even a full-blown adult and, depending on the canon, is only 17/18 yet is being forced to kill people to prove their life has value to someone else, but after being shown their worth by someone positive in their life for once they reclaim their identity as an individual, make the bold decision to leave their abusive environment and even kill their abuser, and find themselves among their first real family of people who inherently love them for who they are.

But, you have to do all of this in two episodes.

Also, despite being in a better environment in the present this character has obviously not had time to fully overcome their trauma, but you'll have plenty of time and episodes to tackle their process of healing and see them work on their negative defense mechanisms and thought patterns, right?

Wrong, your show is cancelled after 23 episodes. Also, your show is being rebooted with a different team of writers, and they've decided to age up your young-adult character and make him a grown man yet make him regress into his bad habits developed from his childhood trauma because they think it's totally him, all without the added context of him coming from an abusive environment where he was beaten, talked down to, neglected emotionally, and dehumanized in his day to day life (in fact, his backstory is rewritten entirely). Also, the majority of the fandom now either hates him or fundamentally misinterprets him because this reboot version of him is now the most popular and is considered to be the most accurate version of his character. Also, you know that thing you were trying to do in your show about... I think it was "individuality" or "identity" or "allowing yourself humanity with wants and needs" or something? Well, the new writers thought it'd be better if his character was boiled down to Silly Samurai Adventures™, which is way better because the joke is that he's a samurai and therefore doesn't try anything new and is also a jerk

[tobiasdrake]

Going to unpack this mystery. Hopefully it will start to make more sense as we move deeper into the Labyrinth.

Oh cool, Vivia's spiritual awareness allows him to retain his knowledge within the Labyrinth. That means he probably will remember our conversation. He'll know exactly what happened when somebody dies.

Awkward.

If we see weird spirit phantoms of Fubuki and Vivia, we'll know Yakou did it. The phantoms always take the form of people who are obstructing the truth of the case. If our fellow Master Detectives are in here, then they're hiding something about Yakou.

Yomi, I fully expect to see here. His determination to close the case with little regard for accuracy is definitely obstructing.

Okay, our first question is....

Blank. Our first question is blank. There is no question.

Y'know what? Sure. Given what a gigantic WTF this case has been thus far, that makes sense.

That fits, actually. Most cases, we go in and begin looking for answers. But much of this case has been spent wandering in the dark trying to figure out what the questions even are. Before we could find what we don't know, we had to figure out what we don't know.

It naturally follows that before we begin to answer questions, we must first decide what questions to even answer.

This is where we're starting? It's a good place to start. The Most Locked-est Room Ever presents a great deal of question marks to be unwrapped.

It's either Jawline or Yakou. We shouldn't settle on an answer just because it feels right.

Amaterasu insider who was selling company secrets with Huesca either hired Jawline or is Jawline. We don't even know for certain that Fink the Slaughter Artist ever set foot on the premises. The details don't quite match his M.O.

There's some doubt. I think the Fink Knife we found with Yakou was bloodless. But I'm not 100% on that one. We don't have a picture of it in our Solution Keys, so I may have misinterpreted that detail.

Okay, I know Kodaka likes to reference various pieces of popular anime and video games, but that is shamelessly Sephiroth. Not even subtle about it.

So, first challenge of the Labyrinth: Did Yuma kill Dr. Huesca?

Uh. No.

Somebody was in the lab. There is no question about that. The killer knocked Ama Pal over, leaving a shoeprint on its head, so they could get out without being spotted by Ama-Pal's camera.

They then ???. I thought before that they concealed themselves behind the heavy security door. But now I think they sprinted all the way down the hall and threw themselves into an airlock decontamination vent. You can't use it to travel but you can use it to hide.

They remained in there while Yomi and his crew entered the lab. Then, once the coast was clear, snuck out and ran into....

Either they were Jawline and they ran into Yakou or they were Yakou and they ran into Jawline.

Bingo. I thought it seemed like an awfully long jog to make without being seen, but Ama-Pal is so slow that I suppose it would be possible.

That explains how they got out, but not in.

The biggest unsolved question mark is being asked outright. Okay. I do not know the answer, but none of these seem right either. How. Ever.

Okay. So.

"Deactivated security by cutting power." Nope. That's impossible. Inner lab is on its own power grid. The blackout wouldn't have done that.

"Invited in by Doctor." What, to die? Huesca was paranoid that someone was out to get him, specifically someone shady. Absolutely not. Plus, the security log says he never deactivated the system in 90 days.

"Never entered in the first place." That. Seems. What? We just proved he was in the lab.

This is an impossible choice. But I'm going to go with "Never entered". It feels the least wrong. If that makes sense.

I have no idea where Yuma is going with this. Unless we're splitting hairs between Jawline and Yakou, and this is an elaborate way of saying Yakou did it. I dunno.

That is not what Yuma's saying.

...that better not be what Yuma's saying. Walk with me to this pier. The doctor killed himself. Then he kicked over Ama-Pal. Then he hid in the decontamination chamber. A perfect solution!

Oh, is that what we're doing? Not picking the answer that's right but proving why each of the available options is wrong? That makes way more sense.

...or did I simply make bad choices?

No, I do not know why Zeus is flashing us. I can't think about that right now.

Super hard to do that to yourself.

But even harder to posthumously assault the next person who comes through that door.

So that leaves us with "Deactivated security by cutting power" which is wrong and "Invited in by doctor" which is wrong.

Let's try the Deactivated Security door.

No, he did not. Separate power grid. Lab's security system was unaffected by the blackout.

There was a blackout. Jawline was down in the electrical room setting that up. He killed the main power, forcing the system to rely on backup power for a while. But to what end, we have no idea, because it didn't help anyone access the inner lab.

By process of elimination, this means Huesca must have invited the killer into the lab! Except a) he wouldn't, b) he didn't, and c) what?

Not without killing the security measures via the shutoff switch, he wouldn't.

The security measures that haven't been killed in 90 days. If Huesca invited someone in, they would have been gassed, electrocuted, and died. Though Huesca wanted to see that happen so maybe he would, just for funsies.

BZZAT All three answers are as wrong as they appeared to be! Nothing is possible! Of what we have here, anyway.

We have no idea how the killer entered. But we have a highly comprehensive understanding of how they didn't. Too bad we're playing prosecution, not defense.

What do we have this time? It's not the blackout. It's not the shutoff switch. And it's not a suicide. The killer got in somehow.

He had no way to disable security, which only fuels my theory that he didn't. He got gassed and now he's dying. In a room full of his colleagues, while Halara tries to give him CPR.

What. How. What. That's not a thing you can do. Spectral Projection doesn't allow you to touch, be heard, or possess bodies.

Also, if the killer (which in this case would be Vivia) could somehow enter via Spectral Projection, why wouldn't they leave the same way?

...well, not necessarily true that it would be Vivia. Yakou might be able to project too, given that weird moment where he talked to us. This still feels... weird, though. It violates the established rules of Spectral Projection. It wouldn't be possible.

Right. The reason this seemed entirely out-of-left-field IMPOSSIBLE is because it's incredibly super-impossible. This was a crack theory and I have no idea why the Labyrinth chucked it at us.

Also, Huesca clearly saw his assailant in the room with him. Ama-Pal felt the assailant exit. There was nothing ghosty about this.

The problem is that we're trying to figure out how the killer beat the traps. But he didn't. He's dying from them as we speak.

...at least in theory. I still don't know how Yakou or Jawline would have made it past the panel room.

It has to be Yakou. The true answer isn't manifesting because, subconsciously, Yuma doesn't want to think about it. He doesn't want to follow that thread to where it leads.

Whoever walked through the gas chamber would be dying right now.

Only someone with access to Fubuki can beat the panel room. She was with us when the murder happened. But maybe she helped Yakou crack it beforehand, then hung around and waited for us to create an alibi.

...but that still doesn't work, because Yakou went the opposite direction from the inner lab when we split up. He had no way to pass by us. That's the fatal flaw in the Yakou Did It theory, which we still haven't answered.

It makes more sense than not that Yakou killed Huesca but it doesn't seem possible.

And then, only using Fubuki's rewind ability. The panel room fries Ama-Pal if it steps on the wrong panel so it's hardly better than going in person.

But Robot Researcher only had one functioning Ama-Pal, and that's the one we used. Whoever used Ama-Pal would need to have learned the trick in adv--

Wait a second. Tick tick tick oh. Robot Researcher can't be Jawline, but he could be Jawline's client. If he's Huesca's co-conspirator then that might explain his intense vitriol.

The reason all of the Ama-Pals aren't functioning could be that Robot Researcher used them to brute-force the panel room passcode. Then passed that information along to Jawline when putting out the hit.

Our one functioning Ama-Pal is simply the one that finally found the right combination.

[yurissweettooth]

Tired of every single day seeing 29583995 posts about how you are supposed to engage in fandom and how everyone who engages differently is wrong and bad and not allowed to do this and that.

Literally do not understand why people are so pressed about what other people are doing for fun.

Do I find the way people interpret/misinterpret some characters to be annoying and baffling at times? Yes! I think everyone does. But that doesn't mean the person who is over there having a fun time not hurting anyone is at fault for it. You can block them and move on and say nothing.

This was inspired by a screenshot of someone saying something to the tune of "normalize mischaracterizing your comfort characters. I dont care whether or not they would canonically do something." And someone retweeted (to a seemingly large audience) telling them that they must not actually like the character. Which feels pretty mean-spirited to an innocuous post about how someone chooses to engage with something that comforts them.

And I honestly think the original person had a point. Normalizing it does not mean YOU have to do it or YOU have to like people's interpretations, it means that people will be allowed to engage in harmless fun without everyone getting up and arms and making assumptions about them or QRTing their post to thousands of people calling them a fake fan.

Everyone has a different idea of what fun and comfort is and for some people that's making wacky AUs or exaggerating traits and playing dollhouse and for others that meticulously researching and nailing down every canon detail in their works. Some people like tiktok and incorrect quote edits and some like meta and deepdives into and it's all okay and fine!

Someone doesn't HAVE to make an OC. If they want their quick fix of comfort and catharsis by just tacking traits on to a pre-made character that they don't have to expend extra energy on then who cares?

Also lots of neurodivergent people (like myself) and kids get caught in the crossfire as well, but really I think EVERYONE should have the right to do what they want. This feels like another extension if cringe culture which should be dead an buried by now.

And I say all this as a person who PREFERS to engage in fandom in a canon-compliant, lore-friendly way and yet has also been the victim of this.

I have had bad/mean fandom experiences over presenting evidenced, well-sourced, and canon compliant material that just happens to contradict popular fanon. I have also received backlash for putting a character through 10+ years of canon-compliant, well researched, and carefully constructed character development which led them to do things differently in the future than they did in canon.

But I don't always feel like giving a 20+ paragraph disclaimer on every single doodle, edit, or short fic to prove to you exactly how they got here and why it's canon compliant (although I unfortunately DO tend to do this to avoid repeats of past hate :/) because it really shouldn't matter. Blocking me outright or blocking my tags should suffice.

I will never understand this mentality of "Only I do things correctly, everyone else is wrong and bad and ruining everything and I have to shame people doing harmless things so everyone sees how right I am" and I feel like I've been seeing it more and more every day lately and it's frustrating. This is a big part of why I left twitter but it's getting popular here too now.

This is honestly a big part of why I don't post the majority of my fanart and fics anymore. I no longer post meta or silly edits, I no longer reach out to people to discuss ideas, I rarely share my thoughts on any characters publicly, etc.

I live a very stressful life and I engage in fandom to relax and have fun but that has been very difficult for me due to people who always feel the need to be hateful over innocuous things. I feel more and more like I need to walk on eggshells so I do not accidentally incite another ✨️incident✨️ because I dared to post a silly headcanon or edit. And that sort of hate and "umm, actually..." response STILL happens to me, even in recent days because god forbid I post an AU I enjoyed and wished to share with people who might also enjoy it!! It's so frustrating.

And this, of course, is NOT referring to people who try to force/shame others into their interpretations (regardless of if they are compliant or not). This is also NOT about bigoted material. Turning characters into harmful stereotypes (making a black woman who is not sassy sassy, for example), using them to spread hateful messages, and erasing their identities/whitewashed their designs. That is a separate issue. But someone making a character you like say something they wouldn't say in canon? Making them act a little silly? Ignoring parts of canon to make an idea they have work? It's not hurting anyone!!!

[atomicsuperrobot]

It’s time for more unpopular opinions with Neg! Gonna fire this off into the main tag, too; just like last time, I’m also gonna turn off notifications after a bit if it starts to get to be too much (seriously I’m still getting notes for the last one; thank god for XKit Rewritten).

Anyhoosier, a surprising amount of people hate Wes. ... Well. Not surprising that they hate him, but more surprising as in their reason why: one of the more popular original concepts surrounding Wes, was that he was a general conspiracy theorist, rather than just simply out to get Danny specifically for any given reason. In fact, one of the original ideas, iirc, was that he more often than not came to the almost correct conclusions- but for all of the wrong reasons, or with some of the details not actually lining up. It was these errors that, in spite of hitting the nail on the head more than once, caused people to never believe him, bc while he was technically right, his “evidence” and reasoning was complete bullshit.

Now personally, I find this idea a lot funnier than what you usually see today. (Tho, I feel that way about a lot of popular headcanons that were birthed many years ago- like blob ghosts, for example; tho that one’s a bit more of a personal thing, since I was actually around for the inception of the idea in the first place, and even took a small part in it- but that’s another story for another day, if I even feel like it.) It’s more general, a lot less serious- mostly just a one-off joke, before people started getting really attached to him. But people started to take issue with this concept, for some reason, and retained this irritation into his current popular iterations, in spite of them being somewhat different than this early concept. For some reason, this related to Valerie, and her character arc.

You see, for some reason, people seemed to think that Wes took something away from Valerie- they would cite that she was canonically a conspiracy theorist, who tracked ghosts down and things like that. While the latter bit certainly is true, the former is... well, it’s a misunderstanding. Valerie isn’t interested in cryptids in general; she’s hunting ghosts, specifically. She might look into cryptid sightings, but only so far as to determine whether it’s a ghostly “threat” or not- in Amity and surrounding areas, it usually is some manner of ghost; whether or not it’s actually an active threat is usually irrelevant to Valerie’s prejudice.

The difference that I am trying to point out is that Valerie isn’t looking into unknown possibilities, but very well known and documented threats, that she takes it upon herself to hunt down. The idea behind Wes, be it the old or the modern iteration, is that, no matter what specifically he’s focused on, he isn’t trying to eliminate or contain it, but rather prove it’s existence in the first place. He wants to expose something as the truth; he doesn’t know anything for sure like Valerie does, and he isn’t trying to cause harm like Valerie is, regardless of the ultimate potential consequences of correctly exposing someone or something for once (whether or not he actually cares about causing indirect harm in his goals, depends on the individual interpretation of his character).

Teal Deer of this situation is: fundamentally and in practice, Valerie’s and most common portrayal’s of Wes’ goals and activities are wildly different. It’s a little bit of a disservice to Valerie to misinterpret her actions like this, too, imo; she’s not some curious researcher, but an educated hunter, who wouldn’t waste time on something that wasn’t even proven to exist- unless she had reason to believe for certain that it was a ghost. Wes, meanwhile, was only ever just some guy, with a fringe interest/hobby. It feels kind of silly to even compare them at all, especially Wes’ root iteration as a joke character, which is where nearly all of the more recent takes even come from, whether they know it or not.

[crplpunkklavier]

ok i'm not going to make this one rebloggable, i'm not looking to have a discussion or start beef with anyone, especially not on a holiday. i just grow another stomach ulcer every time people on here get psychology so, so wrong. and i need to get this out or i'll explode.

that original original post is so annoying. why are you guys out there trying to one-up and gotcha your therapists. "why do all adults need therapy then?" they dont. they dont!!!! not all adults need therapy. what the fuck are you talking about.

the next one is also annoying. implying that any kid that "seems resilient" is simply repressing trauma to resurface later is so harmful?? what are you doing. some children are resilient!! it doesn't mean they'll never have problems, or never need therapy, or that they aren't still repressing something. even if a child seems resilient, yes of course it should still receive help. but acting like there is no resilience in children is going to just make people misinterpret actual resilient children and offer the wrong help. you'll end up digging for issues where there are none. assuming that every well-adjusted child is just repressing trauma and every adult needs therapy is a pointless doom mindset that helps nobody.

that FUCKING addition. first of all, that person sure seems to reblog from a lot of terfs. secondly, id love to see their sources. because, yes! there HAVE been a lot of studies on child resilience! and yes, if children receive social support after traumatic incidents, they come out more resilient than if they dont. thats.... not all though? what are you talking about, "ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS a result of the support they receive"?? its. its not. science doesnt work with "always," first of all. no serious study is going to claim that child resilience is "always" a result of support. we cant prove "always." nobody can. secondly, that is a GROSS SIMPLIFICATION of a VERY COMPLEX phenomenon, resilience. we still dont fully understand it. we have spent decades researching it, and we still dont think weve uncovered all factors that lead to child resilience. it is in fact still baffling to science just how resilient children can be, so i also honestly dont see why people are harping on a therapist for saying kids are resilient!! a big majority of them are!! and a big majority of children in fact receive social support!! most studies indicate that social support is in fact an important factor for resilience, but never the only one. if your parents dont support you, someone else might, or if your parents do support you, you still might grow up in the worst shithole in the world, and then sometimes you might come out resilient, sometimes you wont, and we dont know why. genetics could play a role. probably in some way they do, but we dont know how big a role it is. what im saying is, resilience can be the result of support kids receive, AMONG OTHER THINGS. i also dont understand what the fuck that person thinks they mean by "true resilience." resilience that isnt just ~hidden trauma~ i guess which apparently ~all adults~ have anyway.

ok. rant almost over. shit like this just gets me, because i know a lot of you are struggling, and i dont want you to get the wrong ideas about what did or didnt happen to you. some of you may have wonderful parents and youre still struggling and you dont feel resilient, and that doesnt necessarily mean that your parents did something horribly wrong. it may mean that something in your genes isnt working in your favor, or that every environmental factor was working against you and your parents.

or, an alternative that i personally find worse because i myself have struggled with it a lot: you may have horrible parents who didnt support you and you may still feel resilient. and if someone comes along and tells you that you can only be ~truly resilient~ if you had the social support, youll start wondering..... are you misremembering? were people supporting you, and youre being a monster by painting them as bad? are you maybe not resilient at all? are you really fucked up and are going to need therapy because all adults do?

you might. you might not. answers to these things are too complex for tumblr posts, and i certainly wouldnt trust people whose blogs are 50% terf reblogs and who claim that science has "proven" anything or that things are "always" a certain way. nothing ever is.

its shabbat and rosh hashanah so im going to only do the bare minimum here but since i was talking about sources earlier, i will say that if you'd like further reading on just how complex and undecided the research on resilience has been, i would point you, for example (there are so many sources), toward masten's papers "competence and resilience in development" (2006) and "resilience in developing systems" (2007), and sameroff & rosenblum's "psychosocial constraints on the development of resilience" (2006). peace and good night.

[rangedreign]

ohhh my favourite part of ask games, (harmless) petty fandom drama. i know these are a lot so ofc feel free to pick and choose but im nosy and love gossip so if you feel like it *eyes emoji*:

1 2 (just for the drama lol) 6 (feel free to ignore i understand u completely but i live for drama lol) 7 (MORE) 8 12 (<3) 16 (*eyes emoji*) 21 22 (for some final positivity)

1 - the character everyone gets wrong cedric the sorcerer. he deserves respect as a person, and the royal family was wrong to deny him that, but he does little to earn respect as royal sorcerer. 'oh he has such a good and relatable arc' whup tee doo his grand finale was... *checks notes* doing his job correctly. the one he's been training for his whole life. color me unimpressed by a character that should have either left that job YEARS ago or put a little effort into anticipating what he'd be asked to do and practicing instead of trying to prove his worth through stunts and domination.

2 - a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom can't do it lol, everyone's a verse in my mind

6 - which ship fans are the most annoying? shoutout to the time i went through the snape/lily tag and couldn't scroll 3 posts without a james/lily shipper trying to pull moral rank. however i think 75% of the hp fandom has ship rabies.

7 - what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them? eh, none, i don't let fandom influence my interpretations of characters that way. cedric is closest but the fandom misinterpretation is just an additional annoyance, rather than a driving force

8 - common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about 'cedric and sofia have a good relationship'. shipping or not, they're completely one-sided. what does cedric provide sofia with? he doesn't even listen to her particularly well.

12 - the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them to no one's surprise, my first pick here is wormwood from sofia the first. he was created as a joke, ha ha the pet is smarter than the human master, but then the show makes you judge him by human moral standards as the foil to cedric's 'deserving of second chances'. the show itself asks you to view a character that cannot leave servitude as human, and wants you to believe that his station is right. it's so deeply unfair. i care him. i respect him. i want to see him take the power of humanity for himself, abuse it, naturally, because that's all humans have ever done to him, then grow into a complete person when he realizes he cares despite it all. knowing that, i feel like mentioning areelu should come as no surprise. doing great evil in response to evil that was done to you? that's so up my alley. up my pussy even. making her bond with daeran of all people is such a great idea, someone who cannot forgive her, but must move on and work with her regardless. it seems like most people write her off as too evil to live, but she's still a super genius. there's a lot to be gained by befriending her. the gold dragon ""redemption"" happens so absurdly fast though. 'oh shit guess this is pretty fucked up, so glad you're a piss-colored lizard bc that's the only way i'd ever listen to you' wrath's writing in general has a bit of a quantity over quality issue. a lacking-logic issue. no way my azata would sacrifice herself just cuz without knowing what areelu will do once she's gone.

16 - you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc) - hero-type main characters in general. idk exactly what it is but i find most of them very dull, and often irritating. a lack of desires beyond duty? can't often be described as freaks? they just never have any footholds for interesting ideas to me. - gold aasimar cum. if you want something golden to come out of daeran's dick, you can just make him piss XD also does that imply his hair is naturally white? - daeran x chill/lawful/'boring' kcs - i can tell that on some level he wants the stability from people like that, but i can't see him actually bonding with them. esp not towards the start of the game. - truly, utterly pathetic meow meows. like, listen, i love shoving a character into a Situation and watching them flounder around, but they've gotta be proficient at something!

21 - part of canon you think is overhyped for just about everything: the worldbuilding. i think people get impressed by the mere existence of worldbuilding, rather than the quality of it. pf surprised me when i looked deeper into stuff and found it gave me the same 'this is a hot mess and i have to make shit up for it to make sense' feeling as stf. i expected better from a massive ttrpg but ok. for wrath, also the characters and the music. the characters rely on one-note personalities with maybe a ~hint~ of spice, with one extremely notable exception of daeran. the degree to which he beats out every other character in complexity is stunning, really. the music is... just fine? it's not amazing, it does exactly what you'd expect a track for that purpose to do. I think most of the tracks have muddy orchestration, too much focus on harmony/vibes and not enough on rhythm and melody. the one track i really love is 'a drink before the battle', it has a great flow and dynamics and i wish it played more often.

22 - your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores the villains/antagonists, best part of literally any media ever

[mysteriouslyjellyfish]

warning: long post meant mostly to document some thoughts I have thunk

I don’t usually read the new york times but someone sent me this really interesting article that looks at the many perspectives, possible holes, and continuing questions in the research into supposed fungal networks that trees might use to communicate: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/07/science/trees-fungi-talking.html (sry for linking to a paywalled article, I’m sure someone on tumblr knows a way around it)

and while the debate itself is interesting, I agree with the quote in the last line (which says that even without the ‘wood wide web’ narrative “the forest is still a very mysterious and wonderful place”) i.e. I’m not personally invested in one side or another I just like forests. what I actually took away is that I think this article and the whole situation is such a good example of how science is Done By Humans.

and that, I think, is something that both (a) liberal elitey people who put I Believe In Science signs in their yard (which is such a misguided thing to say bc science is a process not a dogma) and (b) more new age-y people who hate on science for being too rigid and sterile could stand to remember.

like, some things that happen in the world of research:

- people write papers with well-done research and critically thought-out results and they will even (hopefully) include thoughts on the limitations of their experiments in the Discussion section, but maybe someone only reads the flashier, easier-to-digest Conclusion section, and in that section the scientists wrap things up with suggestions of what the research might imply

- and it’s my understanding that sometimes they are motivated to write and talk about these suggestions because that is how they get press (on their institution’s website, alumni newsletters, possibly in the media), often bc the real conclusions of “we’re not sure what the answer is yet but here are some numbers we got and we’ll have more answers for you in 5 years” are not good clickbait and don’t fit well into the 24-hr news cycle. and press is good for the school (and for funding?). also, these suggestions can also lead to new questions and thus new experiments. which is cool and good.

- but other people might read these suggestions quickly or without much critical thinking and come away with the idea that these suggestions are facts

- and those “facts” might become a popular narrative

- plus many other possible routes by which a finding gets misinterpreted and spread though the world, even by science journalists who might have more expertise than the general public. bc it’s just not possible to staff every science writing position with someone who has both a PhD in their beat and who can write in normal-person-speak. science writing/journalism is also Done By Humans.

- in the future, that paper might get cited in other papers for various results that they really did find, but without the caveats and limitations the researchers originally mentioned and thus we can lose important questions and research directions and lose track of Things We Still Don’t Know.

- and generally, People Make Mistakes and We’re All Human and even scientists get sleep deprived or caught up in their ideas and even scientists have bias and what hopefully happens later is that another researcher somewhere goes Hang On, I’m Not Sure This Is Right, Let’s Test It Again, which is what’s happening in the Trees-and-Fungi world, and to me that is science. Curiosity, the ability to admit an idea might be wrong, and the drive to keep looking for answers. my high school bio teacher once told us that science can never “prove” anything; it can only support ideas, and I think that is true and important and not talked about enough.

I’m definitely not saying the way we currently do research is perfect, or that erroneous narratives are totally excusable. not by a long shot. Just that this kind of story is a good reminder for people who, in trying to be Good Liberals, immediately decide to believe, without question, every new scientific finding. and it’s a good reminder for people who dislike science because they think it’s all absolutes and lacks creative debate or questioning. I also worry about the people who, on the other hand, trust nothing that scientists come up with because they have heard so many of these stories about scientists being wrong, and instead make up their own answers. I don’t think that’s a good way to go about making decisions and picking your beliefs either. I get that it’s hard for a lot of people to sit with skepticism and be fine with it; to not have a firm answer to store in their mind, but I think it would be nicer if we all practiced the I’ll Go With This For Now But I Could Be Wrong thing a little more.

tl;dr the process is imperfect and always will be, because we are imperfect. and I think if we understand that, we will get even better at doing it.

[jiminrings]

hi OHMDHHD STEM KOO is the cutest and sulky stem!koo!!! r u kiddinggg. So What if jungkook sees yoongi eating off of y/n's lunchboxes and his mind just goes...

stem koo sees someone else eating from his lunchbox(s) and freaks out 🥺🥺! senior oc is like o_o! thank u for writing

cold senior!y/n x stem major!koo masterlist :D

stem koo’s so mad that he might pop a vein

“do i even wanna know what happened to you last night?”

yoongi grimaces at you first thing in the morning, his grogginess proving no hindrance in being annoying himself

you’ve woke up with no hangover at all because you didn’t go back to the party to get your fill, the fresh experience still a little new

“jungkook asked me if i could walk him home and i did.”

:O

you did wHAT now

sure, yoongi knows that no matter how ruthless you could be, you’d still go the extra mile if someone asked you to

but for jUNGKOOK?!?!

as in jungkook, the junior you have (maybe had at this point) a crush on, and have been making lunchboxes for a duration of two weeks?

also jungkook, the same guy who was a colossal asshole and have been more or less giving away the lunches you’ve secretly been making him??

THAT jungkook????

“y/n what do you have to say for yourself?” he gasps audibly, trying to shove at you but not without almost poking his eyes from pointing out the crusties

alright you expected this

you kinda deserve this

“buT he was like, two seconds away from a breakdown so i felt compelled to take care of him.” 

that bit’s actually true and kook was about to cry in the middle of a party right then and there

he would’ve also rubbed his eyes raw to the point that he’d forget he made the stupid decision of wearing his eye contacts!!!

“yeah, yeah, i understand that part!!!” yoongi admits and he commends you in all honesty, “but what if he misinterprets that?”

oh

you stop in your tracks at making a hangover bagel, attention clearly more piqued this time

“but there’s nothing to misinterpet..?”

LMAOOOO

ok maybe that’s where you’re wrong

yoongi scoffs at the question marks floating above your hand, scoffing even more when you still don’t get it

“no offense, but have you ever seen jungkook? he looks like the type to get attached too quickly. to the delivery guy. to a stain on the wall. to a laminated copy of his class schedule. he’d be a puppy sniffing at your heels in no time, y/n.”

>:(

“no he wouldn’t.”

......

uhhhhh

you, in fact, should probably listen to yoongi more

it’s monday and for the entirety of your day up until lunch, you’ve been getting stares at the back of your head!!!

you can’t see who but you kNOW that someone just keeps looking at you

you want to stare back to creep them off but you just!! can’t!! tell!! who!!

it’s frankly getting annoying and it’s making the hairs at the back of your neck stand up

“you’re the bEST!! you made me lunch and i didn’t have to beg??” yoongi exclaims when you slide a lunchbox towards him, hugging you by force when he sees that it’s his favorite rolls inside

lol cute

if only you didn’t view yoongi completely platonically and in a very repulsive way, he would’ve been your boyfriend by now

“yesterday. you didn’t beg yesterday and you only had to beg twenty times in the days before that,” you chuckle as he squeezes you, having to tug at his hair as soon as the hug started getting too long

man that is fREEING

you wipe off the imaginary crumbs he’s given you, scratching at the back of your neck when you furrow your brows in annoyance

“hey yoongi, is there someone behind me? jesus, someone’s been staring at the back of my head all day and it’s literally burning me.”

he’s been glancing up the whole time, cheeks full from the rice and it’s only when you call him out loud that he sTOPS chewing, head tilting automatically

yoongi actually starts chewing faster and that makes you THINK he has something to say, making you feel pressured nonetheless that you jostle him to get him to chew faster

jeez why’s he choking now

you offer your water bottle to him that he takes a longer than necessary sip from, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, only to nonchalantly gesture to the back of you

“you mean jungkook?”

huh

alright WHO now

listen

you have nEVER seen jungkook like this

BUT NEITHER HAS JUNGKOOK EVER SEEN YOU LIKE THIS

NOR YOONGI

NOR EVERYTHING LIKE THIS!!!

he woke up extra early and all because he was beyond motivated

and he even stayed up last night to search up crafts!!! 

origami box crafts to house your eyedrops that he was gonna return to you!!!

but tHEN he realized that the paper would quickly be ruined regardless if he puts them in his pocket or backpack

and so jungkook mADE a little drawstring pouch instead

but then it started looking a little too plain and a little too perfect that you’d probably think he got it from the store and that he didn’t make it himself!!!

SO NATURALLY

jungkook had to design it somehow and learn how to stitch on a heart!!!!

but what if that was a little too romantic for eyedrops?? :///

alright fINE

he stitched on an outline of a carebear holding the heart

bUT WHAT IF you’d think it was just a ratty hand-me down or something???

jungkook stitched on your initials on the carebear

..... hold on

is he even sure that those are your initials

fuck it

jungkook has an origami box, a carebear heart initial drawstring pouch and a plain ol’ ziplock baggie in his backpack just in case

he devised a strategic plan on how to drop in the item at the last minute when he decides which approach to take after he finds you

a-after..... he finds....... you

is that..

is that his fucking LUNCHBOX????

THAT’S HIS LUNCHBOX???????

jungkook could literally see red

his yearly check-ups are all up to date but holy fuck absolutely NO ONE said that his blood pressure is capable of rising up like this

all he has is tunnel vision for his pastel blue lunchbox and the unfortunate blonde guy attached to it

he has NEVER walked this fast with so much purpose

he doesn’t even realize that people are going out of his path because sheesh they’ve also nEVER seen jeon jungkook from stem ever look this determined nor furious

he’s clenching his jaw so hard that he might not have to get his wisdom teeth taken out

“that’s my lunchbox.”

jungkook seethes from his teeth and the vein at the side of his neck is making the same appearance as his flared nostrils

he’s seeing red to the point that he doesn’t even realize that he’s seething at his senior, and even min yoongi at that

he’s seeing red and his blue lunchbox at the same time that he doesn’t even realize that you’re sitting rIGHT next to where he’s stood while he stares yoongi down

no one knows how to react actually

you’re too frozen, yoongi’s too appalled, and jungkook’s too angry

oh my fucking god

wAIT

it’s actually dawning on you that you’re about to get found out in front of jungkook and almost half of the entire university a-and-

“you think you’re the only one with the same blue lunchbox in the world?” yoongi recuperates from his shock and saves you as soon as he realizes the gravity of the situation when your eyes are wide and emotional instead of being narrowed and blank, “you’re not that special. think again, kid.”

yeah his tone might’ve been patronizing

but gOD yoongi is beyond offended

yeah jungkook might be a lil pissy bitch but he IS eating from “his” lunchbox or whatever

but never in a million years did he think that the kid would have some balls on him to approach him like that

fyi yoongi would nEVER come to his senior like that!!!! he wouldn’t even have the gall to come up and approach seokjin like that just some years ago!!!!!

jungkook balls his fists at that and he comes down off of the situation a little, but it never gets quite diffused

“maybe i’m not.”

his gaze lightened on yoongi but it’s still as hard as it’s skeptical, walking away wordlessly but not without sending you a soft gaze quickly

“but i know that sticking my nose to where it should belong is my specialty.”

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Imagine Azula having a crush on you and not noticing it until Ty lee and Mai point it out to her.

Azula’s POV

“There she is, little miss i’m special because i’m not from the capital” Azula quipped as you entered the training yard and Ty lee looked up fleetingly but Mai didn’t even bother, she knew exactly who Azula was talking about. Azula was always referring to you. “She thinks she’s so special in those fire nation colonial clothes, so unique and different to the typical fire nation clothing, you can just tell she thinks she looks good in them” Azula snapped not taking her eyes off you. “I think she does look good in them” Ty lee piped up and Azula rolled her eyes “you would”. The teacher called the class to start warming up and everyone began jogging around the yard. Ty lee ran beside Azula (Mai opted out of running by feigning an untied shoelace) and it wasn’t long before Azula started commenting on what you were doing again. “Look at y/n trying so hard to run at the front...come on we have to speed up and beat her”. Ty lee frowned “it’s only a warm-up Azula”. “A warm-up we’re losing” Azula retorted “fine if you’re too lazy i’ll catch her on my own” and sped to the front of the line. Mai, having been caught tying her shoelace for 5 minutes appeared beside Ty lee suddenly “i see Azula’s preoccupied again”. Ty lee nodded “she wanted to beat y/n”. “I don’t know why she’s so jealous of her” Mai frowned “y/n’s a good bender but everyone knows Azula’s the number one bender in the academy and y/n doesn’t even seem to want to challenge her”. “I know” Ty lee nodded “I think Azula’s just paranoid, she seems to always be thinking about y/n, always wondering where she is or what she’s doing”. Mai frowned ”she does?”. Ty lee nodded “yeah she was asking me yesterday if I knew where y/n went after training and then earlier today in class she was talking about what she imagines y/n does in her spare time, she had her pegged as a painter cus she has dainty hands”. Mai’s frown grew “Azula said all that?”. Ty lee nodded “yep, she knows a lot about y/n”.  Mai paused “Azula is pretty receptive to y/n but maybe it’s not necessarily in a jealous angry way”. Ty lee frowned and Mai stopped running “what if our friend Azula is actually interested in y/n?”. Ty lee raised an eyebrow “Mai she hates y/n have you not listened to a word she’s said?” “She says she hates her but think about it! She’s always staring at her, commenting on how good she is or how good her clothes look, she’s curious about what she does and what she likes...we know Azula isn’t too good with emotions, what if she told herself what she feels is intense dislike when it’s the opposite?”. Ty lee frowned “you do make a good point, love and hate are pretty similar emotions and for someone who’s not good at recognising her own feelings....”. “...she could’ve misinterpreted them as hate when in reality Azula actually...” Mai started when a voice cut her off. “Azula what?”. Azula appeared out of breath “did you two really stand here talking the whole time? I creamed y/n in the race! It was hilarious, we were neck and neck and then at the last turn i overtook her! Her surprised envious expression was delicious! I always want her looking at me like that”. Ty lee and Mai exchanged a look and Azula frowned “what?.

1 week later

“What do you think y/n’s going to wear?” Azula asked and Ty lee shot Mai a look. Mai and Ty lee had agreed after a week of observing Azula that she did indeed like you and they should help their misguided friend recognise that. They kept putting it off but had agreed earlier in the day the next time Azula mentioned you unprompted they’d say something and she just did. There was a ball tomorrow night and Azula had numerous gowns in her room and they were all looking through them. But Azula was the only one wondering what you’d wear while looking for outfits. Ty Lee wandered closer to Mai “say something” she hissed and Mai frowned “why do I have to do it?”. “Because I came up with the idea of saying something so you have to be the one to do it”. “What are you two whispering about?” Azula called and both girls tensed “nothing”. Azula narrowed her eyes at them but carried on looking at dresses. Ty lee sighed knowing Mai could be more stubborn than her and sidled closer to Azula. “So Azula...what made you think of y/n just now?”. Azula shrugged “she loves fancy stuff like this judging from her outfit choices, did you know she never wears her hair the same way two days in a row”. “No i didn’t...i’m surprised you did” Ty lee said and held her breath. Azula paused “what does that mean?”. “Just you seem to pay a lot of attention to her, more than anyone else”. “Well yes, you have to keep an eye on potential problems to ensure they stay potential and not actual problems”. Ty lee nodded “uh-huh....and looking at what y/n wears covers that?”. Azula turned around “what are you trying to say Ty lee? Subtlety isn’t your finest quality so just spit it out”. “Well i just meant...have you considered that...maybe you...”. “You like y/n” Mai said loudly and everyone froze. “I what?” Azula asked turning to Mai. Mai didn’t look away and stared at Azula directly in the eye “I said you like y/n. That’s why you’re obsessed over every little thing she does and thinks about her so much! That’s why you say mean things about her and put her down, you’re like the little boy in the schoolyard pulling the girl’s pigtails because he likes her, you like y/n but you don’t know how to feel about that so you lash out at her but that doesn’t change the fact you like her”. Silence settled and Ty lee flinched at how tense the atmosphere was. Azula was glaring at Mai fiercely but Mai wouldn’t look away or back down. Eventually Azula scoffed and turned away “as always your judgement is flawed Mai” and carried on looking at dresses. Ty lee looked at Mai in surprise and they both frowned lost at what to do next. “If I did like her I wouldn’t be afraid to show it either” Azula commented bitterly “the very idea is ridiculous”.

The next day

Azula waited at the top of the stairs outside the party tugging at the dress she’d chosen. It wasn’t right, she didn’t like it and she felt agitated in it. Truth be told though everything had agitated her since the conversation with her friends yesterday. How dare Mai and Ty lee act like she didn’t know her own feelings, sure she wasn’t the most in touch with her emotional side but she’d know if she liked you! Wouldn’t she?

The lights changed and Azula knew that was the cue for the royal family’s entrance into the ball. She exited from her door and down the staircase a fake smile on her face until she came to stand beside Ozai, Zuko on his other side. A united strong family. Ozai made some speech and Azula was listening, until she caught Ty lee whispering to you in the crowd. Azula was furious, Ty lee knew how she felt about you, how much she hated you! Why would she be befriending you at her father’s party! Azula glared but it was too dark for Ty lee to notice or she ignored it and carried on whispering in your ear making you smile. Azula was itching to get away so she could rip Ty lee away from you the second she could.

However Ty lee seemed to sense that. When Azula was free to mingle Ty lee had vanished from your side but you were still there. Right in her eye line, it was almost impossible for her not to look at you. Azula took in what you were wearing and of course, as she predicted, you looked amazing. You dress just the right deep shade of red, just modest enough to be fitting for a royal party but also flattering enough one couldn’t help staring. Your hair again looked as perfect as it always did and Azula considered what Mai and Ty lee had said as she watched you. Azula tore her eyes away from you a light blush on her cheeks and dismissed the thoughts. She glanced around the room for something to distract her but found her eyes drawn to you yet again. You weren’t with anyone either and seemed to be watching the party contently. Azula wondered who you’d come to this with as you surely had a date and she was soon lost in trying to figure out who it could be. Azula watched you deep in thought before catching herself and cursed herself for staring at you again. “Idiot” Azula cried seizing a glass off a nearby tray, making the waiter flinch and almost drop the rest of his drinks. “Azula?” someone asked and Azula realised Mai had finally found her. “What’s wrong?” Mai asked catching on to Azula’s obvious anger and Azula glared. “Like you don’t know! You and Ty lee planted the idea in my head and it’s growing like a weed!”. Mai frowned “about y/n?”. “Well who else!” Azula snapped “you’ve made me doubt myself, now I can’t stop looking at her and noticing things about her!”. “Like what?”. “Well how nice and shiny her hair is, how radiant and clear her skin is, how toned her exposed arms are in that dress, how bright and soft her lips look! You’ve rotted my brain and I can’t stop it!”. “Azula calm down” Mai said sternly “there’s nothing wrong with you or your brain!”. “Then why can’t i stop thinking about y/n” Azula cried and Mai rolled her eye “because you like her idiot!”. Azula was so lost in thought she didn’t even react to Mai calling her an idiot. “I do....?” she frowned “this is not good, crushes are for weak people like you and Zuko”. “Ouch, but I insulted you so I’ll take that”. “You what?” Azula asked narrowing her eyes and Mai moved on quickly “nothing! So you admit you like y/n? That’s great”. “Why is it great?”. “Because now we can do something about it”. “Ow good there’s a cure?” Azula asked and Mai nodded “yes, you go ask her out”. Azula’s eyes almost popped out of her head “WHAT! I can’t do that!”. Mai rolled her eyes “yes you can, don’t be such a coward”. Azula glared “I am not a coward Mai”. “Then prove it! Y/n’s over there, go ask her out now”. Azula squared up to Mai “fine i will!”. “Great” Mai cried and Azula barged past her before heading off to find you. It was only on her way to you Azula realised what she’d sworn to do and immediately regretted it. To make things worse Ty lee had appeared by your side again and spotted Azula. “Azula” Ty lee called happily and you turned and fixed your eyes on her. Azula felt chilled, trapped in your gaze. She wanted to run and hide but how could she when Ty lee had made it so obvious? Azula cursed Ty lee and was ready for a quick greeting and escape when Azula hesitated. She’d fought armies and men twice her age and yet this was terrifying her? No! She was Azula, fire bending master and the smartest person in the whole academy...maybe the whole fire nation! She was not going to let this intimidate her. Azula reached you and looked you both confidently in the eye “Ty lee, y/n” she said matter of factly. You looked from Ty lee to her and nodded “Hi Azula”. “Hello” Azula replied and then searched for something else to say, silence settled and Ty lee jumped in “it’s a great party isn’t it Azula?”. “I suppose” she nodded. “I’m enjoying it” you agreed “but I bet you’ve been to so many by now they’re all terribly repetitive” you smiled and Azula was shocked at your receptiveness. “That is correct” she nodded “honestly I think all social events are a waste of time...” she started when she noticed Ty lee signalling her to stop talking but you didn’t seem put off by her anti-social comment. You laughed and smiled “i have to partially agree with you on that one, do you know how much firebending practice I could’ve gotten in during the time this party has taken?”. Azula smiled approvingly, she was growing fonder of you by the second. “Do you practice often y/n?” Ty lee asked and you nodded “i try to get some time in every day but it’s hard, the academy gym is always so crowded”. “You should use the private one” Azula commented and you and Ty lee froze. “I can’t afford that” you said looking down and Azula tilted her head confused, money was so irrelevant to her she forgot it was an issue for others. She supposed the fees may be too much for some people to pay and fixed her eyes on your expression. “Well if you enter with me nobody will dare make you pay” Azula replied and you looked up at her confused. “If i entered with you?”. Azula nodded “I could take you some time if you wanted...i train every day too”. Your eyes widened and their brilliant brown blinded Azula for a few seconds so she almost didn’t catch your reply. “When am i free?” she asked her cheeks warming “well how about tomorrow?”. “It’s a date” you smirked before something caught your eye “sorry my mother’s waving me over, I have to go but this was really fun, I don’t know why we haven’t spoken before” you said generally but directed it to Azula. Azula’s blush grew and she nodded “yes I do not know why either, we will have to fix that”. You grinned and looked at Azula in a way that made her heartbeat fast. “I look forward to it” you replied and Azula blushed looking down. “Well goodnight” you smiled and walked away. Azula watched you walk away and only just remembered to breathe “what did i....did that really happen?”. Ty lee grinned “yes it did! You officially have a date with y/n and you flirted too”. “I did?”. “Admittedly it was anti-social and power plays but yes you flirted Azula! Well done!”. Azula smiled softly ”I have a date with y/n!”. Now all she had to do was not mess it up...  

____

I could so imagine Azula being a gym girl and having gym dates, like she’s a buff girl with a lack of free time so she has to combine the two. Plus what would impress a date more than Azula out benching every man in that gym???

[ruby-whistler]

There are three types of misinterpretation of c!Dream in my opinion; and by that I mean anyone's take ever, whether it's a c!Dream anti or a c!Dream apologist or a c!Dream enthusiast. That's right, I'm making an essay about how in my mind everyone is wrong. This is how I lead debates please don't unfollow me-

1. misunderstanding or overdramatizing evidence

c!Dream apologists; g-guys. I'm not saying he isn't traumatized, but look. I really used to believe he was just everyone's victim and hurt and mentally unstable, and I'm not saying he isn't at all, but I changed my mind because I feel like the evidence doesn't,, point that way at all. Your emotions are valid, but your takes are very removed from what the rest of the fandom thinks because you take little hints and try to make them into some big angsty point within canon.

The evidence we have proves he is more ruthless than anything; even the content creator says that. He doesn't say why he does progressively more ruthless things, and he does say it's for his ideals and out of good intentions, but he doesn't say anything about him being hurt into doing it.

I'm not saying he isn't hurt. But making analysis of an entire character based on something that is barely supported by canon isn't the way I roll and I feel like it's one of the reason why people assume all c!Dream apologist are going to woobify the character,, because some of them really do that.

I don't mind portraying him as hurt by what's happened in canon, because that is a completely safe conclusion, but jumping to the victim side of the scale seems a little bit like painting a completely different picture than what actual canon says. (Note: talking about pre-Pandora c!Dream here.)

There is tragedy in someone being driven by the environment, circumstances and themselves deeper and deeper into corruption, but it feels like by only considering that the entire character is limited to one side of the argument.

I like to also see the side of him that will hurt people because he thinks he has to, because he wants to succeed above all, the side that will ruthlessly murder and manipulate and be calculative and clever and even self-destructive about it because he believes that'll get him towards his ultimately selfless goal.

That's my morally complex bastard.

A lot of people seem to be mistaking or ignoring that for the sake of saying he is just... hurt and that that is an explanation of his actions, and even though they don't use it as an excuse, it feels a little cheap.

And here we come to the core of the problem: an emotional vs. rational explanation for the character's actions.

Because the thing is, with enough evidence, you will see that nearly (we'll get to that in a bit) everything he does can be explained rationally. Everything is connected, everything is the most logical and efficient and merciless route straight from point A to point B, because c!Dream is fascinatingly smart when you look deeper into it.

He knows what he's doing. He knows his actions are awful, and he doesn't care - not because he would be some evil person, but because his mindsets cause him to justify such things, and mindsets are more complicated than feelings.

There is a lot to explore in that direction of the character, but that is material for another essay.

In short, people seem to enjoy removing all of his agency in favor of explaining his actions emotionally rather than from a rational standpoint which results in inaccurate analysis.

Do I think it is completely understandable he attacked L'Manberg?

Absolutely.

Do I think c!Wilbur painted him as a villain to benefit his own power?

Yes.

Do I think he utilized the villain persona as an intimidation tactic and often went overkill with no regard for anything but accomplishing his goals and that he slowly became more and more willing to do bad things of his own accord because he became determined and distrusting of the world to the point of committing horrible actions?

100%.

Analysing that part of the character is the most interesting part, when you consider it - and an important one as well.

2. ignoring evidence

c!Dream antis; please. Stop saying he doesn't care or explaining his actions with obsession or assigning him personality traits or motives that he literally doesn't have in order to demonize him I beg of you.

It's so many basic and easily debunkable assumptions that can be explained with what we actually know of his motives. People will ignore both canon and the authors' words to paint him as some monster with no nuance, which he is not.

We only know so much about him, but people will ignore and deny even the little bit we have for the sake of making him the literal personification of evil and erasing the fact that he is a complex and human character. Just accept he can be accurately analysed beyond hate and let people do it if you don't want to do so yourself.

3. assuming the evidence we have is everything you need to determine a final approach and that nothing outside of the presented evidence exists when certain details prove otherwise

c!Dream enthusiasts; this was the only and biggest problem I've had since being introduced to much more rational interpretations of the character - which is emotions, and one of the biggest reasons why c!Dream gets dehumanized in the first place; the fact that we have little to no showcase or explanation of them in canon.

You see, c!Dream is a reserved character. He likes withholding his plans, withholding his feelings and information from the world.

However, since all we can really get out of watching his actions alone is the rational side (and that is deliberate by both the writer and the character, narratively and personality-wise) people slowly begin to assume there is no emotional side to his actions at all.

Which I find,, untrue. Between the people who erase the rational side of the character and those who erase the emotional side, there is little middle ground, but I don't really find either of them right either.

Because neither would be an accurate representation; just because he doesn't actively showcase his feelings doesn't mean he doesn't have them, and the few inconsistencies that are too small a detail for us to put everything together show that he does have an inner emotional world beyond what we see.

The character does work beyond what we know, and expecting that everything can be explained purely by rationality because that's all we see of him seems a little bit jumping the gun.

It leads to a less person-like view of a character who in reality simply doesn't like showing people the way he feels, and I don't really find that fair to him. It is best to accept there are things we can't say for sure, or to say an emotional interpretation can also be valid at times.

It is both important not to deny him agency and not to deny him the ability to be genuinely hurt by others or changed by his environment.

Both of these can coexist, especially in

the correct interpretation

Ok this is a joke.

I have literally no idea. I'm just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks - he confuses me beyond belief. The only person who knows about both the emotional and rational side of the character enough to have their interpretation unquestioned is cc!Dream - but when we do try to find answers, it is important for us as well that we do not ignore any aspects or possible aspects of the character, because that is the only way to get useful results out of our analysis.

Sorry this was crit of basically every take about the character I have ever seen but I needed to get my thoughts out.