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sanchoyo · 3 years ago

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danny phantom season 2, ep 12-16 thoughts! these episodes, in comparison to the first 10 or so, felt way more laid back and low-stakes, which I appreciate sometimes. I didn't appreciate how lazy jack's halfa design was in masters of time, it made me so annoyed I redesigned it. 👎🏻 u_u

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-'picking a fight with me and my upgraded form!' 'you upgraded to a mullet?' DANNNNY. YOU CANT SAY THAT TO TECHNUS. YOUVE HAD A MULLET TWICE NOW ('fun' split danny, and evil future danny BOTH HAD THEM). I HAVE THE RECEIPTS.

-danny seeing technus hurting valerie and yelling I AM GOING TO BREAK YOU IN HALF. SAMEEEE <3

-axion labs is now a part of vladco. FUCK YOU VLAD. hes not even really IN this episode, but just thought I'd throw out a nice fuck you anyway.

-'capable of blasting a single person into space in (2) minutes!' tucker. that would kill someone. i mean yeah they might get to space, but theres NO WAY THEY WOULDNT CATCH FIRE, OR THEIR ORGANS WOULDNT LIQUIFY BECAUSE OF THE STRAIN. THEY'D PROBABLY PASS OUT BEFORE THEN, BUT. ...no, okay, I get why vlad bought this company. this is RIGHT up his alley.

-danny KNOWS VAL DIDNT DO THIS, THAT SOMEONE STOLE THE SUIT. AND SPENDING ALL NIGHT CHATTING WITH HER. <3 and val is a 9TH DEGREE BLACKBELT?? danny's mom is, too!! omg and she hunts ghosts, his parents would love her. and her fav fruit is kumquat bc its a funny word. im so with danny val is amazing. I love her and I Do Not Want To Hear It From Sam.

-I knew danny wanted to be an astronaut, but the bowling tidbit is like. yes give me more useless info abt these characters, I love tiny details that make them feel more human, and im glad hes got hobbies aside from ghost stuff, we dont really see a lot of that!!! (I mean, we knew 'fun' danny from when he split himself in half liked bowling, so obv it makes sense he LIKES it, but hes very GOOD at it. so proud of him, bowling king) val calling him neil armstrong and them teasing each other. LOVE THAT.

-technus you are my favorite grandpa for setting this up. SAM WHY ARE YOU BEING SO CREEPY BE HAPPY FOR YOUR FRIEND!!! STOP SPYING ON THEM!!! who actually cares if technus did 'set them up' together, theyre having fun and enjoy each others company!!! 'you think the universe wants you two to be together?' 'i dunno, but maybe /I/ do!' EXACTLY DANNY!!! SOO TRUE.

-and valerie being happy sam said she wants to try and be happy for them and make room at the lunch table for them. and hugging sam over it. VAL NEEDS MORE FRIENDS.

-VAL GOING AFTER TECHNUS IN HER SUIT WITH (1) MILK, AND (1) TREE BRANCH AND KEYS!!!. I LOVE YOUUUU BEST GIRL. her new suit kicks ass

-dannys like 'HEY IM AN ASTRONAUT :D' AW. ...HES IN SPACE... the fact he's actually intending to give her the ring. with SAMS NAME ON IT?? IM CRINGING DANNY NO. YOU CANT DO THAT...thank god he didnt. thank god valerie cut it off and said they can just stay friends for now. tbh, they both have a lot on their plates!! they obv both still like each other...it can be a future thing!! when she knows about phantom! youre 14 theres no need to rush. I just want her to have friends and be happy :(

-...danny struggles to do (1) pull up. SAME. but all the ghost fighting in phantom form REALLY doesnt carry over at ALL? that sucks

-sam being as fit as she is, is not just a goth. shes a goth jock.

-honey I Shrank Our Kid, One of his Enemies, and his Bully: the episode

-dash's crush on phantom is So Obvious. fitness buddies :) watching them interact always makes me laugh. also, phantom, with PANTS. 'how many costume changes you gonna go through, what is this, vegas??' DASSH DJKSFHASKDF

-MADDIE GOING AFTER THE MOUSE WITH A BROOM, WHAT THE FUCK. AAAH. JUST BUY SOME KIND OF MOUSE TRAP.

-danny likes lime and vinegar chips. which sound very good.

-'our boy finally has the physical prowess of a 60 year old president!' ...poor danny LMAO

-'what's wrong with beauty pageants' oh tucker you sweet naïve child. what ISNT wrong with them. who approved this for a high school?? (I mean, yes. unfortunately child pageants exist, but...) also danny and tucker once again treating the pretty girls like objects. I need to meet the grown man who wrote this, I just want to talk...

-prince aragon's dragon form reminds me of maleficent (color scheme wise) which is always a bonus. considering the episode is called beauty marked, I feel like the sleeping beauty references are deliberate

-sam with the fake fangs. once again her accessories never miss. hate the 'not like other girls, girls who get sucked into this kind of thing are all shallow and all want to be carbon copies' bs tho.

-sam trying to be the Worst Bride, being rude as shit. DORA IS GOING TO GET KILLED. DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE SHE SAID THE PRINCE WILL HAVE HER HEAD IF YOU ARENT THE IDEAL BRIDE. YOU /KNOW/ DANNY WILL COME SAVE YOU. JUST ACT CHILL UNTIL THEN. even if you were doing fine to get him to take off the crown, consider maybe not letting his poor sister get punished also?? sure, she could also take off the crown and has dragon powers, but did you know that for sure?? dora didnt even really realize it until you guys talked!! (or at least, she was scared to stand up to him. you had no guarantee she would...) but. good for dora. ANOTHER friendly ghost to add to the List :)

-tucker is so under appreciated in his time. if he was doing a tech-based campaign today he'd have a better shot. people in 2004 had NO IDEA how much tech would be a part of our day-to-day lives...altho. tbh if you're going to be running for student council president, maybe you should..focus on things to actually improve the school? since he's going for a tech angle, he could say like, he would be running fundraisers for the schools computers to be upgraded, etc? we've already SEEN he can be good at money-making entrepreneur type stuff!!

-oh my god wait. this episode is JUST YUGIOH?????! A REBORN PHAROH USING A TEENAGER AS A VESSEL?? YESSSSSS

-tucker using his new minion to feed him grapes and carry him. AND LOCUSTS ONTO THE BULLIES. I love how when he's possessed, he gains winged eyeliner.

-this episode is giving me big 'plankton makes everyone in bikini bottom his slaves and build monuments of him from the spongebob movie' vibes. and the pharaoh has a traitor who works for him? VERY big yugioh vibes. aknadin confirmed

-I like that danny is still completely exhausted after using ghostly wail. (still patiently waiting on him to get duplication)

-LOVE the fenton's 80s outfits. I get hes 14 and embarrassed by everything they do because theyre his parents, but. cmon, this is one objectively cool thing theyve done. love 80s fashion.

-...was vlad just standing on that streetlight waiting for danny to come out? how'd he know they'd be coming out the back? how long has he been up there???

-oh, wait, his ecto-acne has flareups? that SUCKS. danny was...well I dont want to say he was LUCKY HE HALF-DIED, but he was lucky his was pretty instant (I'm assuming that had to do with the power/scale of the portals being different?) I remember in the ep we met him, vlad made a point of saying he was stuck in a hospital for a long time, so. that really actually sucks and I feel bad. not that it excuses anything he's done...but like. it does suck.

-vlad being so sure danny wouldnt help him he made it somehow contagious to his friends to make sure he'd get help? danny is a nice boy, he wouldve helped if it was anyone else. the only reason he wouldn't have is because of the shit vlad did to him, on purpose. vlad 100% dug his own grave by being the biggest asshole, so it is very hard to feel bad for him.

-clockwork is back!!! and making danny learn lessons The Hard Way. Uhhh, okay. I kind of get Danny’s logic, that time traveling this far back would prevent vlad from becoming a halfa also, ergo no arch nemesis or ectoacne to worry about. But the fact that was basically the first solution Danny came up with to solve this problem is actually so funny. It’s so extreme

-APPRICIATION FOR THESE 80S LESBIAN BG CHARACTERS.

-vlad telling maddie in the lab (in the 80s) he has something he's wanted to tell her 'for a long time'...how long have they known each other? I assumed they met in college, since jack always calls vlad his college buddy/roommate, so jack and vlad for sure met in college, but did vlad know maddie longer? thats surprising if so. Tho we don’t know what year of college they’re in so they could mean they met as freshmen and a few years have past…speaking of maddie shes crushing the 80s look.

-vlad blames jack, but. maybe dont stick your face 2 inches from the portal??! THIS FEELS LIKE LAB SAFETY BASICS. IF SOMETHING HAS POTENTIAL TO BE DANGEROUS, DONT GET NEAR IT. WITH YOUR FACE UNPROTECTED IN ANY WAY. (altho jack didnt really give a Big Warning besides screaming BONZAI. so. also that, but cmon.) also, they need gloves, goggles, and to pull all of their hair back tbh. but fuck lab safety, I guess!

-cryyyyinnng at how lazy they were with jack's ghost form design, its just plasmius' design on jack!!! you couldve given him his own design!!

-there. I did that in about 10 minutes and its somehow less lazy than what made it into the show. embarrassing! better yet, I think the episode would've been better if maddie would've gotten the ectoacne. or maybe its just me, wanting to see her design! anyway. I'm sure people have already done redesigns of them both as halfas. I have to go look after I finish this watch through. Also mildly frustrated jacks resentment and bitterness is basically also a copy paste of vlads backstory. They’re different characters, I really don’t think jack would stew in bitterness and jealousy the same way vlad would!! I also don’t think he’d give up after one time of trying to hunt ghosts and getting laughed at. Our canon timeline says different…I dunno, I get it was for laughs, but I’m annoyed because the POTENTIAL this plot has…

-did vlad really wear a stupid cheese hat to his wedding. ok actually that kinda rules. and the cheese door knocker. the dairy-only buffet table. vlad still got rich, just on being the New Dairy King. (Assuming that means he owns a lot of dairy businesses?) ok! this actually is great. hope maddie isn't lactose intolerant!

-'no matter how hard I tried, I could never get rid of my ghost half, the half I knew Maddie could never accept' ohh, ouch, what a horrible thing to say to her HALF GHOST SON. 'YOUR MOM WILL NEVER ACCEPT YOU' BASICALLY.

-maddie strapping danny to the table with a lazer pointed at him in a secret lab she keeps from vlad that she makes a point of saying is sound proof so he can scream all he wants...CHRIST. DANNYS POOR PYSCHE.

-also, not to feel bad for alternate vlad (because, he did lie to maddie saying jack blames her and never wants to see her again...) but. being married to a woman 20+ years and she immediately goes back to jack? if she didnt love vlad and feels like she had to hide shit from him, and says she wasted her best years with him, WHY MARRY HIM. it feels like leading him on!!! cannot believe im feeling bad for vlad, but. this alternate timeline vlad is significantly Less Horrible than Our Vlad. did she not think she'd get funding for her ghost stuff? (which, fair assumption since they're considered 'ghost fanatics/nuts in canon...but...) why did she think jack or vlad would be her ONLY OPTIONS? be like your sister. be single. Actually, this au could’ve been really interesting if after the accident, vlad lied to her and said jack never wanted to see her again, but she stays single. Imagine how much that would bug vlad… like, in her mind, it was never a competition it was jack or no one type situation…

-danny being like 'leave him ALONE' this jack is a HOMEWRECKER, DANNY. let them go to court and settle this at the least. ...or just throw vlad into the portal. (100% human, defenseless vlad) CHRIST, MADDIE THATS BRUTAL. THATS MURDER.

-danny seeing his mom immediately accepting him and his dad being half ghosts in this universe, if I was him this would be a great sign that his universe's maddie would also.

-*maddie voice* "clockwork will help!" *2 seconds later, with clockwork* "I will Not Help." TOUGH LOVE KING. YES LET DANNY SEE THE SODA HIMSELF AND DEVOLP BETTER OBSERVATION SKILLS.

-when clockwork ""reset time to the way it was"" just before danny "meddled"" ...did he really erase a whole alternate timeline? ...damn. because maddie and danny both called it an alternate timeline by name, it splitting when the college incident went different, so it wouldnt have really mattered if he reset it, right. like because danny's timeline is on a different stream? why didnt clockwork just. show danny a replay and not Reset That Timeline. wh...I wonder how many people that Erased From Existence. Anyway! once again stating clockwork is casually terrifying!

#danny phantom #dp thoughts #sanchoyorambles

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sideofmango · 4 years ago

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“That Time We Got Stuck in a Cave”

Pairings: Aged Up! Astronaut Bakugou x Aged up! Fem! Astronaut Reader Pronouns: she/her Warnings: slight violence (a small crash happens but it is mentioned briefly), minor injury referenced (but not in detail), cursing

Three Things Before You Start Reading:

There’s no adult/suggestive content in this post, I aged them up because it seemed kinda weird to have 15/16 year old children traveling alone throughout space. I made them early 20s in this.

Also, the reader is half alien and half human, so basically (y/n) looks human with sharp teeth and white eyes (it’s part of the quirk basically).

Thanks to Marie (@dailydoseofscenarios) for creating this event and involving me! Can’t wait for the next one <3

If you are interested in seeing more work from this event, you can click here.

The girl huffed, tossing the wrench on the floor beside her before standing up and wiping her dirty hands onto her dark blue and white coveralls, the sleeves tied around her waist and a white tank top tucked into the pants. “Stupid fucking pod.” She grumbled, kicking the giant hunk of shining metal with the toe of her industrial boot.

“Try not to damage it more, (y/n).” Kaminari teased with a laugh, holding out his hand with a bag of candy in it. The girl nodded in thanks before taking some of the candy in her freshly cleaned hand. “What’s the issue? The circuit board still acting up?” The electric blonde took a seat near the tools the girl had laying around, looking at the pod and the exposed circuit board on of the machine.

“I don’t get why it’s not working?! The updates on the others weren’t this fucking hard!” The girl threw her hands up exasperatedly, glaring at the inanimate object.

“Did you try your lazers? It’s just for the inside panel right? Or is it the doors again?” Kirishima appeared, his red eyes looking over the mess from where he stood in the doorway to the vehicle bay.

“I forgot about that! Kiri, you’re a genius!” (y/n) smiled widely revealing her sharp teeth, throwing a set of protective eye goggles at Kirishima and Kaminari, the blonde slipping his on before going back to eating his candy.

Kirishima walked over to where the blonde sat, outstretching his hand as Denki poured some of the candy into his hand before they both watched the girl slip a pair of heat resistant gloves onto her hands as she looked at the broken door, her white eyes glowing as a matching white laser shot from her eyes, hitting the door.

“Is it working?” Kirishima called out as the girl paused her lasers, going closer to the door to see if it was working they way she wanted it to.

“Yeah, I think so!” (Y/n) called back. “Kiri can you come help me hold this up?” Kirishima nodded, getting up and lifting the heavy door to its correct position. He held it there for a moment as the hot metal cooled, the hinges no longer glowing orange as he released his hold on it. “Thanks Kiri! That’s perfect.”

“No problem.” The redhead smiled, pushing up the sleeves of his dark navy coveralls.

“Come on electric boy, you’re up.” (Y/n) waved over Denki as he begrudgingly sat his candy bag down, walking over to the pod’s newly placed circuit board.

“Don’t touch my candy Kirishima!” Denki narrowed his eyes at the boy, who paused, eyes wide at being caught eating from the bag. Denki pointed his pointer finger at the circuit board, a small bolt of electricity hitting the board as the pod whirled to life.

“Did it work? Is it fixed?” The boys asked, looking curiously at the girl who stood with a small proud smile on her face.

“I’ll have to take it out for a test run, but it should be fine now.” She answered with a definitive nod. “Can you tell Ka-Bakugou that I’ll be taking it for a test flight?”

“First name basis huh?” Kaminari elbowed the girl, his eyebrows wiggling up and down as the smirk grew on his face.

“Fuck off and go tell him!” The average height girl laughed, ruffling Denki’s hair before pushing him towards the door.

“Ok...Captain Fucker.” Kirishima teased before the boys ran down the hall laughing loudly as the girl rolled her eyes pointing her middle fingers in the direction they ran off in.

“Alright, let’s see how this thing runs.” (y/n) mumbles to herself as she gears up, placing the airtight helmet on her head before clicking it into place as she stepped into the airlock. “Alright Sero, you can open Gate 3D.” She said into the comm system, as she turned the pod on and warmed up the engine.

“Copy that.” Sero responded, clicking the button from his control panel as the large door opened into the vast blackness that was open space. “So, I heard...you and the Captain, huh?” Sero asked after a moment of silence as the girl rolled her eyes with a groan.

“I’m gonna kill those two.” The girl laughed as she pressed a few button on the control panel of the pod, glancing over the readings on the screen all of them lighting up green. “Alright Sero, I’m disconnecting the tether now.”

“Copy that. Tether disconnected. What are your readings?”

“Everything’s at 100% and fully operational.” (y/n) replies with a smile, proud of her handiwork. A moment passed before the readings began flashing red, before the pod went dark the control panel no longer lighting up as the girl could only watch as the ship drifted from the main ship and towards the large purple planet nearby, the small pod getting brought down by the planet’s gravitational pull.

“Sero?” (y/n) called into the comms, but got no response. “Sero can you hear me?” The girl switched the channels, stopping on the personal channel she had with their captain.

“Shit!” (y/n) yelled as the pod spun, dropping to the surface before skidding to a stop, the girl’s head hitting against the side of the chair making a small crack in her helmet. “Fuck.” She mumbled to herself after sitting still for a moment, gathering her bearings before she had to exit the pod to survey the damage.

“Can...hear?” Her comms began cutting out, but she had gotten a response and that was all that mattered.

“Bakugou?!” (y/n) called into the comms again, releasing the button to see if she was going to get another response. The silence was deafening as her hope began to dwindle. She was stuck on a deserted exo-planet without a working comm system or a working craft, not to mention whatever else lived on the planet. “Fuck!” (y/n) got out of the beaten up pod, her white eyes growing teary as she saw the level of damage. “There’s no way it’s flyable and I don’t think I have enough tools to repair it.”

(y/n) looked to the lavender sky, a group of dark purple clouds gathering as aa lightening bolt crackled from the clouds. A shining black craft caught her attention as it landed on the other side of a valley, the girl standing on a small hill to see the door open and the black and orange suit that belonged to Bakugou Katsuki.

“Katsuki? Can you hear me? Is this goddamn piece of shit comm working?” (y/n) said angrily as she watched his small figure across the ravine.

“I can hear you Shitty Girl.” Bakugou said with a small laugh. “Are you hurt?”

“No just the piece of shit pod. I wrote 10 fucking complaints to the UAIGSS and Commander Nezu and I haven’t gotten one response! NOT ONE! I knew those things were defective!”

“You can rant later, Shitty Girl. We’ve gotta find somewhere to wait out this storm. I don’t like the look of those clouds.” Bakugou cut the girl off, warily looking towards the horizon before grabbing two large packs from the pod before looking for a way to get to her.

“Alright. I can see a covered landing over there. It might even be a cave.” (y/n) said pointing in the other direction as her eyes glanced over the barren and deserted landscape. A thin layer of fog covered the ground in the horizon, making it hard to see the terrain.

A group of fire destroyed trees sat in the barren and cracked lavender soil, sharp rock structures sticking up in strange ways around them. The sound of thunder caught the pair’s attention as Bakugou handed the girl the large pack she had failed to take when she had originally went out.

“Thanks.” (y/n) smiled. “Let’s go, I guess.” She let out a sigh as they decided on a way to get to the cave (y/n) had spotted earlier.

“The atmosphere of this stupid planet is negatively charged so it blew out your engine...mine’s shot too. I told Mina and Kirishima to wait until it passes to land the ship.”

“Wouldn’t the ship be fucked then?” (y/n) wondered, the pair sitting down in the cave opening as the clouds blocked out the sun and loud claps of thunder echoed. Rain poured from the sky in sheets as the wind picked up slightly, the burned and hollow trees shaking in the wind like paper.

“No. I had Hatsume upgrade the engines so they should be fine.” Bakugou shrugged. “How’s your oxygen filter?”

“It’s fine. You?”

“Good.” He mumbled back. A moment of silence passed before he let out a breath, leaning back against the rock wall of the cave. “You don’t think there’s any crazy animals around here, right?”

“Not sure. My ship wasn’t able to do a full scan of the planet before it was fried.” (y/n) mumbled.

“I didn’t run a scan, I was distracted.” Bakugou rolled his eyes, upset with himself.

“Distracted?” (y/n) repeated. “Was it because you were thinking about little old me?” (y/n) teased as the explosive blonde’s cheeks flushed lightly, a scoff leaving his lips.

“Shut up.” He responded defensively, though that was enough of an answer to tell the girl she was right.

“Kiri, Kami, and Sero found out...it’s only a matter of time before Mina does too...” (y/n) laughed lightly, her eyes looking out at the rain, a soft smile on her face.

“So basically, a short amount of time before the whole UAIGSS knows?” Bakugou scoffed as he put his arm around the girl a laugh bubbling from his lips before he let out a sigh.

“You don’t think we’ll get in trouble do you? It’s technically a breach of the rules for members to be engaged in a romantic relationship.”

“Fuck that...people do it all the time.” Bakugou thought for a minute. “Todoroki and Shitty Deku...”

“Are gonna keep calling him that? Didn’t you start that in flight school?” She cut him off a gleam in her eyes as she looked over his face.

“Even before that.” He admitted sheepishly. “Anyways, Commander Aizawa and Commander Yamada...” Bakugou rattled off as the girl’s eyes widened.

“Present Mic and Aizawa?! They finally got together?”

“Present Mic?”

“Yeah, that’s what they call him.” The girl shrugged. “How’d you hear about all of this stuff anyway?”

“Captain’s quarters at the UAIGSS...shit gets wild.” Bakugou shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe you’ll be able to go next time...I heard that Nezu’s been thinking about promoting you to Co-Captain...of course you’d be my co-captain.”

“Oh of course.” (y/n) said back sarcastically as they both laughed, Bakugou nudging his girlfriend’s arm with his own.

Their laughing died down when the faint sound of a hiss caused a chill to run up their spines and their eyes to widen as they looked between each other and behind them.

“What the fuck was that?” (y/n) screeched trying to keep her voice quiet as they both hopped up and Bakugou got into fighting stance beside her.

“Do you really want that question answered?!” Bakugou fired back.

Tags:

#katsukisblackteddy #the colosseum goes back to the future #the colosseum server event #astronaut bakugou #bakugou x reader #mha x reader #bnha x reader #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction #boku no hero au #my hero academia au #not edited that much so pls bear with me lol #the colosseum: back to the future

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etraytin · 4 years ago

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Quarantine, Day 132

July 21

So I got as far as writing the date on this journal entry when I got a text in the group chat that one of my TNR friends was bringing in a five week old kitten that was sick. The recovery room he got taken to didn't have supplies for a sick baby, so I packed my kitten emergency kit and headed down there just before 10pm. I took a snuggle safe (microwave heating disk), a heating pad, a stuffed toy cat for fake mama purposes, and some high quality kitten food. I also took along chicken baby food in case he didn't want to eat, as well as formula and a syringe with a miracle nipple in case he was younger than we thought. And if things were really rough, I took my lactated ringers solution, a butterfly needle and a syringe to deliver sub-q fluids. So prepared! I was very sad that Starbucks was not open, but that is probably better for me anyway.

When I get called out at night for Red Cross or kitten rescue stuff, I usually have a drive ahead of me. We live in a little town bracketed by many larger cities, so I'm almost always called out to one of those. As soon as I get in the car and set my GPS, I plug my phone into the sound system (old school, yeah?) and blast the soundtrack to Come From Away. Nothing chases away the sleepiness and gets the blood pumping like that opening track, and the subject matter is so on point. More for Red Cross stuff, honestly, but at this point my body basically has a Pavlovian wakeup response so it's all good. It's the second song that really gets me going though, I think because of all characters in musical theater, it's Beulah Davis who embodies the me that I would like most to be. And because it reminds me of why I joined the Red Cross in the first place, during Hurricane Harvey.

"Crystal I saw on the news that they're looking for blankets and bedding And maybe some food. Do you know what they need and how much? I need something to do, cause I can't watch the news anymore! Can I help, is there something? I need to do something to keep me from thinking Of all of those scenes on the tube, I need something to do Cause I can't watch the news, no I can’t watch the news anymore!"

I think there just comes a certain point when something bad is happening that you do make the decision that you absolutely have to do something to help. That impulse got me self-deploying to a Red Cross shelter for Hurricane Irma when I was so new I didn't even have a vest yet (another volunteer gave me his spare) and it was the impulse that had my new colleagues working through days and nights to handle two massive back-to-back hurricanes a third of the country apart. I listened to this soundtrack back then, too, and it's always stuck in my mind. Going to the next town to help a sick kitten is perhaps less elevated a calling, but it's still trying to save a life.

Anyway, I blasted my music all the way to the recovery room, and got a look at the kitten. He's just a scrawny scrap of a thing, all bones and fluff and goopy eyes, but he had some energy and was drinking and eating, so that was great. I realized I forgot my damn flea comb when I was packing everything but the kitchen sink, so they'll have to comb him out tomorrow. Poor bitty definitely has fleas, but is not in shape for a bath and too little for medicine. He's going to the vet tomorrow morning. For the night we cozied up his cage with a warm snuggle safe in a soft case and a snuggly fake mama cat. I left all the stuff I brought at the recovery room, just in case, since I'm going to be gone all next week and we are suddenly up to our eyeballs in kittens of all ages. At least they'll have access to formula and a miracle nipple if they need it!

As I was driving home, I was treated to an absolutely spectacular show of heat lightning that lasted nearly half an hour with flashes just a few seconds apart. I much prefer that to the rain they were predicting, though at least now I don't have to worry about kittens in a storm drain. And because I did not get the coffee I was jonesing for, I do have some hope of sleeping tonight.

Okay, now for the stuff I was actually going to talk about today, which thankfully wasn't too much. I started the morning early with another stakeout for Mamacat, once again unsuccessful. I just do not think she is hanging around the drain anymore! I waited for an hour and a half and saw not hide nor hair. I'll keep dropping off food for a few more days, just to be sure. The auction I've been following ended today, and as usual there were a flurry of last minute bids that drove a lot of the stuff I bid on out of my price range. That's okay, most of it wasn't stuff I actually needed, and it's good that these people who had to close their business are getting something back from their inventory and equipment. I did get some good deals though, especially on big baking pans and loaf pans. It's time to learn to make Italian bread, yay!

The kiddo got his room cleaned today with help from his dad, so it is all ready for his new bookshelf to come tomorrow. He also got his electronic privileges back, so he spent most of the day alternating between Minecraft and Prodigy. Two digit multiplication is still hard, but he's hell on wheels for patterning and pretty good at factors so he didn't get too overall frustrated. He and his dad also watched Flight of the Navigator at dinnertime, one of my husband's favorite movies from when he was a kid. I really need to find a copy of SpaceCamp, my favorite childhood movie. I have a feeling it does not hold up at all, but it is soaked in enough nostalgia that I'm sure I'll still like it. I hadn't even thought about it for ages until Kelly Preston died last week, and then I was sad. It was just such a fun movie for a kid who loved space but was too afraid of heights to ever be an astronaut. Maybe I'll see if I can find it streaming anywhere tomorrow.

#quarantine #volunteering #kitten #feral kittens #come from away

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shihalyfie · 4 years ago

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The 02 epilogue and “realism”

While the following thoughts have been something I’ve been thinking about for a very long time, the official Kizuna Twitter posted some interesting tweets this morning about the 02 epilogue that made me feel very much like I wanted to talk about this in detail today, so I’ve written this up. Considering how historically controversial the 02 epilogue is (or having an opinion on the 02 epilogue at all, really), I’m probably standing on thin ice by even talking about it, but I’ll do my best.

I think there’s no way getting around the fact that the 02 epilogue was really sudden for pretty much everyone -- it pretty much jumps at you without warning at the end of episode 50, a sudden 25-year timeskip when we had just gotten out of Oikawa’s death (and a very chaotic finale in general). But there is another quirk about the epilogue, which is that a lot of what seems “illogical” out of it...is most certainly illogical to someone approaching it as a kid thinking in terms of media tropes, but gains a very different nuance when you become an adult and have a certain degree of life experience under your belt.

(Note: This post does not discuss Kizuna, despite being inspired by something from it, so no fear of spoilers.)

Before we begin for real, I just want to get it out of the way that I’m not trying to “defend” the epilogue in the sense of implying that people are unreasonable for being blindsided. Like I said, it was sudden, and it was a giant timeskip where a ton of incredibly massive changes happened, leaving the audience likely to be disoriented wondering what on earth happened in the middle there to lead up to that. On top of that, although the rest of this meta is basically dedicated to “analyzing the meaning behind the epilogue writing choices from the production perspective”, I will be very honest in that, yes, I do think that, regardless of good intent, it may not have been the best decision to go ahead and make these decisions in this degree of lack of thought as to how the audience (especially one that was expected to be largely comprised of children) would take it -- creativity is a two-way street, after all, and communicating with your audience and understanding how your work will come off is very important.

Still, nevertheless, I’m writing this meta because I think, well...now that we’re all adults, and now that we’ve gotten a plethora of development information over the past twenty years, especially in the light of Kizuna, it’s worth doing an analysis about why these kinds of writing choices were made, because even to this day you get a lot of people who feel completely blindsided about it.

Everyone’s careers

Actually, the reason I decided to make this post was that I was inspired a bit by this morning’s post from the Kizuna Twitter discussing why, despite being a lead-up to the 02 epilogue, some of the cast in Kizuna seems to be in careers or aspirations that are slightly off from the careers we saw them in during the actual epilogue. (Most notably, Sora still working in ikebana instead of fashion design, Mimi being into online shopping instead of her future cooking show, etc.) The official statement was that Seki Hiromi (producer for the original Adventure and 02) personally stepped in and warned them that, in real life, a lot of people will end up changing their career aspirations at this age, and that it wouldn’t hit close to home if everyone had it exactly figured out by this point.

Kizuna is a movie about the Sad Millennial Adult Experience, so of course it is very important that it be relatable to adults in the modern era. But, in all honesty, this principle applies to 02′s epilogue itself as well. Back when the epilogue first aired -- and for the last twenty years, really -- you got a lot of comments like “why didn’t Taichi become a professional soccer player? why didn’t Yamato go into music?” and such. The thing is, though...well, this is a personal anecdote, but I first got into Digimon when I was a preteen, and, having already had an experience where my childhood interests had changed completely, I actually severely disliked seeing people say that because it felt too straightforward. Even that early, that kind of thing felt unrelatable.

Kizuna as a movie, right now, would be impossible to make in the form it is now if it hadn’t been for the 02 epilogue setting that kind of precedent -- because of the idea of your childhood hobbies not feeling as appealing as they used to be and being very lost about what to do now, feeling that everyone lied to you about that whole “having things figured out by adulthood” thing, and maybe you’ll never really figure it out. But even taking out the fact that the 02 epilogue most likely wasn’t written with the idea they’d need to make an adult-relatable movie 20 real-life years later, I think it’s easy to glean that this philosophy was behind the 02 epilogue as well. Especially since, well...Adventure and 02 themselves were both famous for this kind of writing, for depicting the lives of children in surprisingly realistic and close-to-home ways that avoided generic anime tropes.

Actually, Kakudou said it straight-out:

There were a lot of anime normally made with the idea that a given rule must occur, but I decided to do them while having doubts about whether or not it was a good idea to take on such given rules without any detail. Even if we went on with these given rules, I tried to take appropriate steps in showing why such things had occurred through step-by-step arrangements and reasoning. That is why I tried to add a little bit of realness each time to the characters, despite the restrictions that they are from anime.

So yes, that actually was the point -- no using anime tropes unless they felt they could feasibly happen with these characters. Daisuke is commented on as having “the most anime-like” and idealistic personality, but as I commented in my earlier 02 meta, he still doesn’t quite hit all of the check marks on the shounen hero archetype. So after going for a whole series on the line of going into a grounded take on human mentalities and thought processes...it probably would be inappropriate to suddenly shift into an extremely idealized fictional trope-ish depiction of everyone just going into a more exaggerated version of their childhood hobbies.

Again, that doesn’t mean that some of these don’t come off as really sudden -- the most infamous being Yamato becoming an astronaut. This was eventually revealed in 2003 and several times later to be a holdover from the original beta concept for a third Adventure series, so in that light it makes a little more sense -- Yamato probably would be the most passionate about keeping up the fight as a Chosen -- but nevertheless, it’s ambiguous whether that actually still holds (especially since the actual, uh, “third series” was...a bit different), and since we live in a world where that hypothetical Digimon in Space series never happened, it still blindsides the viewer.

On the other hand, though, both the tri. stage play and the official Kizuna profiles only took less than a paragraph to explain the disparity of why Yamato isn’t doing music anymore: he wanted to keep it in the range of hobbies. Which, incidentally, is an extremely common thing for many who experiment with creative work in their youth -- many realize that if they make it into their job, they’ll actually start hating it. Conversely, while I haven’t talked to a lot of astronauts myself, I really do sometimes wonder how many of them actually knew they were going to get into it from childhood.

So that’s the thing. We have no idea what happened, we’re left with very little recourse as to bridging the gap (at least, until Kizuna came 20 years later and helped us out a bit), and that’s why it feels implausible to many -- especially for a kid in the audience who may not have had that experience of having their hobbies change or feel less appealing. In the end, like I said, I’m not sure that going about it this way was the best decision when the very target audience was likely to be confused about this, and since, after all, fiction does have to have some acceptable breaks from reality for the sake of being a followable story. But at the very least, it is very much in line with Adventure and 02′s philosophy towards writing and its characters -- that things would be the case based on what would be these characters’ likely trajectory as actual people, and not as what you might expect “because it’s fiction” or “because they’re this kind of character”.

That everyone has a Digimon partner

I have a very distinct memory of, as a preteen, going around the Internet and seeing a fansite where someone made their “better version” of the epilogue, where their favorite ships got married instead and everyone got the careers they thought they should have, but one major thing that stuck out was that it had the now-adult kids still keep the existence of Digimon a secret, and that it’s kind of a “secret club” that they still have. In general, one of the biggest arguments against the “everyone has a Digimon partner” thing is that this, allegedly, diminishes how “special” the Chosen are when they’re not the super-amazing sole people in the world to have a partner.

When you’re a kid, being the “Chosen One” sounds romantic. You’re a special selected hero with fated abilities to save the world. In the context of Adventure and 02, however, this would actually be very contradictory to the constant reminders given by both series that magical powers selecting you out of nowhere means absolutely nothing if you’re not the one with personal will and volition to do the right thing with what you’re given. In fact, I’d say it’s actually the opposite of what all of those people have said -- if you did something amazing because of fate or because some higher power said you should, it says a lot less about you than if you were given abilities and choices and actively made an attempt to do something good and change the world, by your own volition.

But the other very important thing about the epilogue is that people keep seeing this development of Digimon proliferating all over the world like it was completely out-of-nowhere, to the point I’ve even seen conspiracy theories that the epilogue was a last-minute decision. This is especially funny because the epilogue was one of the first things decided in the entire series -- “the entire series” in this case being not 02, but Adventure -- before they’d even finalized the characterizations for everyone! The 02 epilogue was, infamously, intended to be Adventure’s ending, before 02 was greenlighted and they postponed the plan there resulting in 02 ultimately taking the fall for it.

Because it was a new television series, without an original novel or manga to use as its reference, we had to cut back on the aspect of explaining the character to each voice actor, something that we would usually do under normal circumstances. We only described their basic personality during auditions because it was likely that those personalities would change drastically in the future depending on the plot’s developments. We did not omit the explanations because there were too many characters. I swear.

But in exchange, we began post-recording by saying just this: “This story is one that’s being reminisced on by one of the children in the group who becomes a novelist 28 years later. The narrator here is that child as an adult.” Those who watched the last episode of the continuation series “Digimon Adventure 02” would know that this was Takeru, but back then, that information was kept secret. At the time of the show, it was planned that the last episode of “Digimon Adventure” would end with ‘where are the characters now’ 28 years later. However, in mid-run, production for its sequel “02” was decided and its story contents were established to be juxtaposed to the previous show, so we carried over the 28 years later scene to the sequel series instead.

(From the afterword from Adventure novel #3, from director Kakudou Hiroyuki.)

25 years after 02. 28 years after Adventure. We calculated that very precisely. In 1999, there was Taichi’s group of eight, and there were also eight other people who didn’t appear in Adventure. Before that there were only eight total, and before that only four, and before that only two, and at the beginning, only one. If they were to double every year, then it would be 28 years until everyone in the world would be able to live alongside a Digimon. Threaded through both Adventure and 02 is a story about humanity’s evolution. For everyone to have their own Digimon partner is the final step of evolution. Because there’s not much left for our actual bodies to change in terms of evolution, it is a story about how the hidden parts of our souls use the powers of digital technology to manifest in the real world, resulting in humanity’s evolution.

Statement from Kakudou Hiroyuki, from the Digimon Series Memorial Book.)

About Digimon 10: The initial trigger for humanity receiving partner Digimon was the Hikarigaoka incident in 1996, but at the time the Internet network was not ready and it was too early for anything to happen. The following years resulted in two and then four people getting involved, and after that it doubled every year (twice, because digital and binary). About Digimon 11: Twenty years later, in the world depicted in the final episode of 02, all human beings have received a partner Digimon. This is the ultimate result of Digimon Adventure’s story of evolution.

Statement from Kakudou Hiroyuki, originating from Twitter and later moved to his blog.)

While the 02 epilogue taking place in the year it did sounds like it’s because they just wanted to add an arbitrary neat number of “25 years later” to 02′s finale, in actuality, the original goal was not for that 25 years but to specifically hit the year of 2028 (not 2027, actually), where, calculating the number of humans that could be partnered to a Digimon based on the global population, everyone would have a partner by exactly 2028. The “doubling every year” principle was only brought up in actual anime-centric canon in a drama CD, and even then it was in a context of speculation instead of being stated as hard fact, but it should be noted that even Kizuna is compliant with this principle, since To Sora states directly that the number of Chosen Children as of 2010 is over 30,000, which is the approximate correct amount you should be expecting by 2010 under this principle. (So yes, really, despite ostensibly not being compliant with his original concept, presumably thanks to the nail added by partnership dissolution and how that ties into his theory of Digimon being part of the soul, Kizuna actually goes out of its way to otherwise be compliant with even the more obscure parts of his lore.)

But the really interesting thing that this epilogue concept brings out is that “the adventure of the Tokyo Chosen Children” actually had nothing to do with the proliferation of Chosen Children around the world whatsoever. From the very beginning, even since the original conception of Adventure, the proliferation of Digimon was something that was going to happen whether anyone liked it or not.

In fact, let’s look at what Koushirou actually says in the aforementioned drama CD:

Yes. I’ve figured it out… The meaning behind the term “Chosen Child.” The number of “Chosen Children” has been growing at a steady rate. Having a partner Digimon isn’t really that special. Being a “Chosen Child” means… to cease the hostilities that break out and inconvenience the Digital World. In order to do so, that child gains a partner Digimon faster than another. In other words, we are children chosen to fight. That’s what it means, isn’t it? ... Oh, is that so? That’s surprising. I didn’t expect that not even you would know what countries the Chosen Children come from when they go to the Digital World… It’s Qinglongmon that’s helping you, is it, Gennai-san? Do the other Holy Beasts who have revived not know either? The Digital World is still so full of mysteries. I’ll do my best to look for them over here.

I think a lot of people tend to have misconceptions about the nature of a Chosen Child, and those who picked them, because the way everyone became “chosen ones” is actually very different from how most media usually would play the trope. In particular:

Homeostasis, the Agents, and the Holy Beasts are explicitly not gods nor omniscient. Homeostasis admits their own lack of abilities in Adventure episode 45, and there’s a recurring undercurrent of the “I don’t know” coming from them and the Agents not actually being because they’re deliberately cryptic, but because they really don’t know. In fact, the Digital World itself is depicted as being about as confused about this whole human contact thing as the human world is.

Note that Koushirou makes a distinction between “being a Chosen Child” and “having a Digimon partner”. If you’re deemed someone who might be able to do something important in this very early time when the Digital World is still trying to figure all of this stuff out, in a world where humans overall still don’t understand Digimon very well, you get first dibs because you’re someone who can be a valuable pioneer. In other words, just because everyone else will eventually get a partner doesn’t mean your contributions aren’t still historical, valuable, and important.

The Digital World was mentioned in Adventure episode 19 as being approximately as big in scale as the real-world Earth itself. That means the Digital World is huge. Of course, its time and space doesn’t exactly match up with the real world’s, as demonstrated multiple times in 02 when the kids abuse it to circumvent travel distance, but nevertheless, there is presumably a lot of the Digital World that neither the Adventure nor the 02 kids have seen in their lives. When they meet Qinglongmon in 02 episode 37, he introduces himself as being in charge of the Eastern side -- and we never meet the others. In effect, there’s probably a huge area of the Digital World that needs protecting that even twelve kids from Tokyo can’t cover by themselves. And that answers the question of what the international Chosen Children are there for -- what do you think they’re doing with those Digivices, twiddling their thumbs? The Tokyo Chosen’s adventures were the ones we were blessed with being able to bear witness to, but that absolutely does not exclude the idea that there were other kids going through their own tales of growth and adventure -- especially since, as I said, Homeostasis and the others protecting the Digital World are not omniscient, and there are a lot of known factors beyond their control.

On that note, you might notice that, by the doubling-every-year principle and by running a math calculation, in 1999, there were eight other Chosen Children besides Taichi’s group. This also tracks with the fact that Adventure episode 53 revealed that there were other Chosen Children prior to Taichi et al. who performed an incomplete seal on Apocalymon, ones that even Gennai wasn’t aware of (remember how I said that the Agents aren’t actually omniscient?). While the fact that such an ostensibly huge fact was dropped so casually is jarring for the viewer, in retrospect, the fact that this was dropped so casually was indicative of the idea of how...not very much of a big deal this was supposed to be. Taichi and his friends may have been instrumental in the selection process for Chosen Children back in 1995, but they weren’t the only ones who witnessed the Hikarigaoka incident nor to have contact with Digimon, and they weren’t even the first to save the Digital World, nor will they be the last. But the journey of personal growth they took was still important to themselves -- just because they weren’t the only ones who took it didn’t change the fact that such an important thing happened, nor that we got the benefit of being able to meet and resonate with these kids.

In fact, the Hikarigaoka incident wasn’t even the first point of contact with the Digital World. 02 episode 33 hinted very heavily that what humans have perceived as youkai and other spirits were actually Digital World contact, just not something actually noticeable until digital technology started connecting the worlds. Episode 47 revealed that Oikawa Yukio and Hida Hiroki had made contact sometime in the 80s via video games -- even though they weren’t Chosen Children themselves at the time. In short, the concept of the Digital World and its contact with the human one is something that spans throughout history, of which the Tokyo Chosen Children are only part of in very recent years.

And finally, one of the most important parts: the idea that the Digimon would stay a secret to the world for very long is inherently infeasible. The 1999 “Digimon in the sky” incident was international. It made international news. Everyone in Tokyo has clear memories of the “Odaiba fog” incident, and, as revealed in 02 episode 14, even a boy from America, Michael, has clear memory of seeing a Gorimon. Reporters like Ishida Hiroaki didn’t hesitate to get in on the scene and try to cover what was going on, and 02 episode 38 revealed that Takaishi Natsuko was doing intensive enough press coverage on the Digimon incidents that Oikawa actually sought her out for information on it. They’re probably not the only reporters around the world doing the same. One episode later, Gennai revealed that the government/military and scientific worlds had actually caught onto the existence of Digimon and did make active attempts to research it -- but, fearing that the world wasn’t quite ready to do that without exploiting Digimon for evil purposes, Gennai and the other Agents wiped out any data records so that they couldn’t do organized research or swap notes. But just wiping out data doesn’t wipe out the public memory, and, especially when the number of Chosen Children is proliferating, and with all of the Digimon-related disasters that happened around the world in 02 episodes 40-42, at some point the world is going to start becoming very aware of what’s going on with this whole thing.

And finally, about that thing where a lot of people claim that a world where everyone has a Digimon partner must be some kind of dystopia: I think this camp severely underestimates how adaptable the world is.

This is something that might not be as resonant to those who were very young at the time they aired, but Adventure and 02 were written in what was a very shocking and scary world for adults that were living at the time. The rate at which the world changed and adapted to digital technology in the late 80s and all of the 90s was ridiculous, and in some ways even terrifying. Many tech people have pointed out how much it feels like the entire structure of the world has changed in light of technological developments, AI, and the Internet in only the last few decades compared to centuries before. International policy has changed, daily life has changed, business structures have changed, in time much less than 25 years. Hell, I’m writing this post smack in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic; I think anyone reading this right now at this time can attest to how terrifyingly quickly the world changed itself in only a few months in response to such a thing.

Compared to that, a whole 25 years of slow burn where the Digimon partner rate at least had the decency to double every year and give people a chance to acclimate and make public policy seems practically luxurious. On top of that, while there will certainly be more people like the Kaiser out there abusing their power, Digimon evolution at least happens to be tied to human emotions (unlike many other weapons out there), and there is some stifling factor in less-than-pleasant people being a bit less likely to have the same access to overwhelming power as those who are more selfless and virtuous. That kind of limiter is something I wish modern technology could have sometimes.

So what is the Tokyo Chosen Children’s place in this narrative? At the forefront of such incredibly massive incoming changes were children who were living in a completely different world than that familiar to even people who were born five to ten years earlier -- much like the real children born in the world of technology in the late 90s. The Tokyo Chosen Children were some of the earliest pioneers in this regard, being the ones who had to figure out logistics and Digimon and the Digital World and what it meant to be a partner in a world that hadn’t figured any of this out yet, and arguably wasn’t ready yet.

Yet they did, and they saved both worlds with no precedent nor support on what to do. This, I think, is a massively more meaningful accomplishment than the idea that they were exclusively selected by some higher power.

On romance and marriage

I feel like this topic is one I’m setting myself up to end up with my head on a pike by daring to breach it -- there is pretty much no way I can cover this without setting myself up for some risk of this -- but I do want to talk about it. I really don’t want to make this post into a pro- or anti-shipping discourse post, so you’ll have to forgive me as I try to be about as diplomatic about this as I possibly can. For all it’s worth, I’m a firm believer in shipping and shipping headcanons being an integral part of the fan’s experience (heck, anyone who knows me knows that I often talk about my own ships more than I really should), and so, as I said before, I’m writing this largely from the perspective of elucidating “the most likely reason it was written this way”, and not “should it have been written this way” nor “how I think people should feel in spite of this”.

In any case, I’m going to start off this section by a statement from a friend that left a particular impression on me. I’d introduced them to Digimon recently, with both of us as adults, and one thing they commented was that the idea of shipping any of the characters felt a little too odd, because they were all elementary school kids. They, of course, understood quite naturally that I had been shipping some of these kids since I was their age (and that my current round of shipping usually was more about whether they’d get together later than whether they would during the time of the series), so it wasn’t an accusation of me being creepy or anything -- it’s just that, as an adult coming into this for the first time without a lot of preconceived attachments, it felt too weird for them to ship children at that young of an age, and it was something that made me think a lot about it.

As I said, shipping is often an integral part of the fan’s experience, even for those who don’t do “fandom” -- romance is such a huge priority that it permeates all of our media, and how it’s handled is often one of the first things deeply scrutinized. Part of the reason the 02 epilogue is so controversial is that it went pretty much against the face of the most popular ships in the fanbase, and the two that did go forward (Yamato/Sora and Ken/Miyako) weren’t ones that people would conventionally expect given what you’d generally look for when it comes to fictional relationship development.

But that’s kind of the issue here: remember when I pointed out earlier that Adventure and 02 were trying to stay away from anime tropes unless they found it to be particularly relevant to the characters’ arcs? In actuality, the way that people generally expect romance and romance tropes to happen in a series -- especially a not-particularly-romance-centric series like this one -- isn’t how romance generally works, and especially not for kids at the age we saw them in Adventure and 02. It doesn’t seem like coincidence that the first hard show of romance we get (Sora asking Yamato out during Christmas) is when the relevant characters were 14, which is around the earliest age you can imagine two kids actually taking a relationship seriously and having some depth of what they’re getting into. As if to drive this in further, Daisuke’s crush on Hikari is portrayed as a sign of him acting shallow and not having a good sense of priorities at the moment; the whole 02 main cast, as of 02, is probably still too young to entertain anything serious for at least a few more years.

If you look at actual couples, as romantic as “childhood friends to lovers” is as a trope, it’s actually not very common in real life, especially for “childhood” being defined as 8-12. There might be a slightly higher chance when it comes to the Tokyo Chosen Children, considering they’d gone through some shared experiences others might not understand, but even that gets slightly mitigated by the fact that more and more people around the world are becoming Chosen themselves. So while it can happen, and while it’s probably somewhat more likely for this group in particular, it’s not as likely as the average shipper would probably want it to be. Even those who support the canon ships don’t really favor the idea of them being in a continuous relationship all the way up to adulthood -- my personal experience as someone closely following Ken/Miyako fanfiction and comics in both the West and in Japan indicates a common thread of it being treated as a mutual pining ship until several years later, and the Yamato/Sora fans I’ve personally talked to have a very high rate of feeling that the two of them have experienced at least one breakup before getting back together. Or, in short, even people who like those ships have a hard time imagining a unbroken, continuous relationship all the way from elementary/middle school to adulthood, because of how much that generally doesn’t happen.

I promise I am not writing this as a treatise against the ship itself, I swear I’m just using this because it’s the best example I can pull out at the moment, but I’ll put it this way: I think the clearest example of this is Takeru and Hikari, the only pairing that has the unfortunate distinction of being explicitly confirmed as not being married (by Seki Hiromi in V-Jump), whereas everyone outside the scope of Yamato/Sora and Ken/Miyako is still technically in “believe whatever you want” territory. Takeru/Hikari is, depending on which scale of ranking you use, a ship that consistently ranks as one of the three most popular Digimon ships globally, and them not getting together is cited as one of the most common things disliked about the epilogue. But despite its overwhelming popularity to the point you’d think it’d be easy to cater to such a humongous fanbase by pairing them together -- and so few people would dispute it, really! -- not only were they not made an item, but they were explicitly confirmed as not being one.

Why?

Takeru and Hikari probably feel “baited” to anyone who’s looking at this from a romantic trope perspective. They’re constantly in each other’s company to the point where it almost feels like they like hanging out with each other more than they do others. Takeru is shown as having a particular investment in Hikari’s welfare in 02 episodes like 7, 13, and 31. They’re constantly associated with each other in promotional materials, too. But when you look at them in terms of their actual relationship as children...well, I’ll put it this way with another personal anecdote: I actually had multiple platonic friends like that back when I was their age in elementary and later middle school, and, uh...well, people did actually ask if we were in love with each other, and it genuinely, no-strings-attached, annoyed the hell out of me, because we weren’t, and I hated being pigeonholed into that.

In real life, platonic relationships happen a lot with kids in that age group, and it’s not actually all that surprising that 02 would have wanted to portray a healthy one without any strings attached -- the same way the series also portrayed other unconventional situations with kids, such as Iori being a nine-year-old who hangs out with kids much older than him (there are most certainly kids who can attest to being in that position!). I mentioned in my earlier 02 characterization meta that both Takeru and Hikari are actually rather inscrutable (especially in the first half of the series), and in fact, episode 13, usually quoted as a Takeru/Hikari episode, is actually centered around Takeru having difficulty reaching out to Hikari because, despite the fact he was closest to her at that point in time, she still was too closed-in to open up about anything. They almost never talk about what they actually think about each other, other than obviously having an investment in each other’s welfare and enjoying each other’s company, but, again -- this isn’t unusual for platonic friends at this age. And the fact that this is the one ship where there was actual official word putting a foot down and saying, no, this did not end up in marriage...everyone interprets this like it’s some kind of callous move made to make people miserable for no good reason, but I would say that, given the writing philosophy applied to the kids in nearly every other respect, the intent was likely to make a statement that this kind of relationship can exist without it ending up in inevitable marriage somewhere down the line.

We’re inclined to see “two people being emotionally close means a higher chance of being a couple” because this is how romance has been portrayed in media for as long as any of us have been consuming media, but in actuality, relationships are very multifaceted and complicated, and there are many ways to be “emotionally close” to someone in ways that don’t overlap with being “romantically attracted” to someone. This is especially once you start becoming an adult and end up needing to navigate the web of who’s a friend and whom you might have a crush on, and in actuality the person you start flirting with because you think they’re attractive might have been someone you just met last week, or at least someone you don’t know very emotionally intimately (which is why crushes can be intimidating, even in adulthood). This is also what I think fuels the disparity between why Taichi/Sora gained such a huge following and what actually happened with them, because many, many fans will testify that they felt baited by the ship, but if you look in the actual series in terms of what counts as “romantic attraction” and not just emotional closeness, there’s...not a lot; they happened to know each other before the events of the series (but so did Koushirou!), Taichi had a bit of a mental breakdown about saving her (because he’s not someone who abandons important friends), and in Our War Game! they had a bit of a spat with traces of tsundere (which, ultimately, are circumstantial and don’t necessarily indicate they actually have serious mutual feelings for each other). Official word implies that Yamato and Sora were planned since rather early in the series, and it doesn’t seem like coincidence that “pairing up the main hero and heroine” (Taichi and Sora) was given as an example of an avoided trope in an official booklet, so it lends further support to the idea that “not following typical romance tropes and expectations” was a significant priority.

Again, this isn’t me saying anything about those who ship it or those who have been able to figure out ways in which the relationship could work in some very wonderful headcanons I’ve had the benefit of reading over the past decades, nor those who are having a marvelous time with fanfic and headcanon and comics and being a bit more willing to indulge outside the scope of the series’s canon. (Nor the multitude of very good headcanons and meta I’ve seen about the possibility of Takeru/Hikari at least trying out dating somewhere along the line, even if it doesn’t end up anywhere permanent.) Nor does that mean I think that this was the best way for the writers to go about it -- as I’ve said in this meta already, there is an inherent fallacy of not paying enough attention to how writing will be taken and interpreted by people with certain reasonable expectations cultivated from years of media consumption, and especially by kids who aren’t going to pick up that nuance or don’t have the appropriate relationship life experience. Regardless of intent, there’s still a lot that can be criticized about its handling; in many ways, it could be considered a bit cruel that the series had things known to be considered romantic subtext in most other series that may not have been actually intended this way. But, nevertheless, I do feel very strongly that there’s a high likelihood that this is what they were at least going for, even if it didn’t come off that way to most of the audience.

Extrapolating this concept further, it’s also interesting to see how Adventure and 02 treat romance as a relatively insubstantial thing in the grand scope of things. I said earlier that it’s quite understandable that romance and shipping have become the main obsession for media -- and it’s probably been that way for as long as human civilization has even existed -- but when you really think about it, Adventure/02 treat romance as “a thing that is a big part of your life, but not the sole controlling factor”. Again, note how Daisuke’s precocious crush on Hikari manifests when he’s at his most shallow, and even after Yamato and Sora start dating in episode 38, we really don’t hear a lot about it -- granted, neither were in the lead protagonist cast by that point in the series, but whenever they do appear thereafter, it’s almost always about their work helping out as Chosen than it is about their relationship, which is presumably a private thing going on in the background. It’s a part of their lives, but it’s not the only thing going on with them. Of course, shounen anime with casts of these ages don’t tend to breach the topic of romance much at all, but it’s interesting how it touches on the topic and then leaves it in the background -- again, something probably frustrating and a bit too cavalier for those inclined to see shipping and romance as life or death, but from a real-life perspective, makes sense in the realm of friends’ relationships largely not being your business, even if it is significant.

(Ken and Miyako are a trickier matter because their pairing was allegedly based on their voice actors’ friendship, but considering that it has been cited multiple times across multiple Digimon series production notes that character outlines were often subject to change even mid-series based on impressions of the voice actors’ performance -- it happened in Tamers too, and it’s not even unusual for original anime in general -- it’s still ambiguous as to when in production this decision was made, and, considering the flip between Miyako having jealous pettiness over him in episode 3 to fantasizing over him and considering him exactly her type in 8, I would not be surprised if the decision were made somewhere in between there, especially since the fact the epilogue would eventually happen was already established in production over a year prior. Unlike with Yamato and Sora, we don’t get to see the two of them at a reasonable age to start doing anything serious within the scope of 02, which led to the unfortunate result of the reveal of them getting married in the epilogue being a very startling and sudden jump for many.)

In any case, I’m going to close this with yet another disclaimer -- I know I’m repeating myself too many times at this point, but I really, really want to make it clear that I am not, in any way, trying to imply that I don’t understand why people would be blindsided by the epilogue in any of the above ways (careers, the status of Digimon partnerships, shipping) because, as I said, I do think there is some merit to the philosophy that maybe they should have paid a bit more attention to how people -- especially kids -- would actually see the events rather than the writing philosophy behind why it should be written this way. (And, to be honest, I think I might have this complaint behind not just the epilogue, but both Adventure and 02 as a whole, for a multitude of different reasons.) Moreover, there are a million other cans of worms that could be feasibly discussed regarding the epilogue that I’ve only barely scratched the surface of here, because there are so many different topics to unpack when it comes to it, and I could go on forever (and further increase my risk of ending up with my head on a pike...). And of course there’s the wider issue of how to handle timeskip epilogues in general (they don’t really tend to be very popular, do they), so, really, there’s only so much I can cover in one post before dragging this on for too long. But in the end, even after writing all this, I understand that there are a lot of people who still won’t like it or don’t want to accept it, and that’s fine; it’s not my place to try and convince people to.

But, nevertheless, the reason why I made this post -- and what I hope the take-home can be -- is that, no, I don’t think this was made as a random off-their-rocker decision with the intent to make everyone miserable, nor some kind of fever dream that the writing staff must have pulled out while drunk, nor whatever accusations I’ve seen levied about it as a weird spontaneous idea (and the fact it really did come out very suddenly at people), but that -- regardless of how it landed -- there was some idea behind why it played out, and why, even 20 real-life years later, principles like “not everyone’s going to stick with the same career even in adulthood” continue to hold.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #shihameta

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varusai · 4 years ago

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☯ ♒ ♦ ■ - Haxus

♥ ☆ - Sendak and Shiro

♡ ൠ - Lotor

I was just :DDD when I saw this I’m always wondering if ppl even do these anymore lol

long so under the cut

Lotor:

♡ - romantic headcanon: Lotor has never been in a relationship before (before that little manipulation thing he had with Allura that is, though I hesitate to call that a relationship just bc of the nature of it). When he was younger and still living at home there were certainly offers but he always turned them down bc he was afraid those people and their clans were just using him as an avenue to get close to Zarkon and the royal family (and ofc he was right).

The only reason he knew how a relationship needed to work at all/how he needed to behave with Allura is because of all of his work studying ancient altean society. He’s read a lot of their literature (that still exists) both fiction and non-fiction so he knew what to say and how to act to be considered charming and romantic to get and keep Allura’s attention.

ൠ - random headcanon: Lotor gets along much better with aliens as opposed to other galra. The only people he’s ever considered real friends have been either fully or partially alien, and really the only galra he’s ever been able to have genuine conversations with and not be defensive or uncomfortable around as an adult are Dayak (mainly because he was so young when he met her and just got used to the way she is, nothing she does surprises him or feels particularly threatening), and weirdly enough, Haxus (since Haxus grew up outside of the empire and around a lot of aliens and it shows. and Lotor knows very well Haxus doesn’t like Zarkon or any of the members of his court and would kill them if given half the chance, so they can bond over that and Lotor can talk about shit that pisses him off freely without worrying he's gonna get ratted on).

Sendak:

♥ - family headcanon: Sendak is adopted! By Zarkon back when he was a normal person and like...functional. He ran away from his bio family really young and Hax took care of him for a while, then he was officially adopted and raised in the royal family since about the age of 13. And since galra don’t really distinguish between adopted and biological children technically he’s the royal family's heir to the throne who would represent them at the kral zera, not Lotor since Lotor, while a biological child, is younger, and also isn't a full-blooded galra, which matters to a lot of people.

☆ - happy headcanon: Sendak actually likes and is very good with kids! He doesn’t and won’t have any of his own because 1) Haxus is very adamant that he doesn’t want any under any circumstances, and 2) He knows he’s far too busy to be a good parent, and he’s not willing to step away from his duties for that long to focus on children. But he is very involved with his clan and does set aside a good amount of time to be home and help with things (since typical galra families raise children communally). All of the kids in his family love him and he’s considered the fun clan elder.

Shiro:

♥ - family headcanon: Shiro was deffff an only child and had a lot of attention. Like parents, grandparents, everything. That’s why he's so well adjusted. He had a very good childhood despite being pretty sickly with his mystery illness while they were getting it under control. He’s also def the oldest of all the cousins, he has that kind of energy.

Unfortunately, he’s also probably the kid in the family that all the other ones get compared to, with him being so academically successful and an astronaut in his early twenties. It’s a lot to live up to so I'm sure some of his cousins would be salty if he wasn’t so personable.

☆- happy headcanon: Not all of Shiro’s missing year after getting alien abducted was horrible! The first and last parts def were but there was a good 6 month period in the middle where he was well taken care of and pretty comfortable as Haxus ended up sponsoring him (fic pending here I'm trying to write it lol but busy and tired😭)

Haxus:

☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon: Haxus likes material shit and could probably be considered a shopaholic if anyone were to develop the bravery/audacity to say that to him lol. He also likes to read. Anything he can get his hands on.

He dislikes large groups of people, especially other galra (tho this is heavily related to the social circle he’s stuck in, he’s much more sociable when he’s around ppl he likes). He also dislikes planets. He grew up and has basically lived the majority of his life in space so being on a planet is weird for him. He considers it gross because of all the insects and parasites and whatnot and he always goes straight to decontamination when he reboards his ship lol.

♒ - cooking/food headcanon: Haxus can’t actually cook, like really at all. Just the absolute bare minimum that even a kid could do, but beyond that he’s hopeless. If he applied himself he’d probably be decent at it, but tbh he just doesn't have the self-control or patience. Very much suffers from ‘will eat all the ingredients individually before they can be used’ disorder, plus Sendak primarily does all of the cooking, that's his main ‘creative’ hobby, and he’s very particular about his spaces. Haxus is messy af so he’s not allowed in Sendak’s kitchen to practice, so he just never learned and at this point doesn’t care to.

♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon: Hax is a high-energy workaholic who really likes to be doing something stimulating at all times, and he’s done everything in his power to blend his hobbies into his job so he rarely has to do anything he outright hates or that he finds boring. His Lt. job is basically just so he and Sendak can live together he rarely actually does any of the command or organizational tasks associated with his rank unless Sendak /really/ needs him to do something violent, since the two of them have majorly different ways of doing things and Sendak is a control freak. His main job is leading/organizing academic research and development for the empire that’s outside of the scope of what Haggar and her order work on (which is basically just...quintessence). This is also something he’d do as a hobby even if he wasn't being paid so he’s very happy with that.

■ - bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon: Haxus is kinda strange when it comes to his personal living spaces like he has a mega eidetic memory so his method of organization comes down to basically ‘i remember exactly where i put it’, which...ofc isn't a real system, so other ppl see him as messy/prone to major clutter. Any place he has to himself ends up like this inevitably. The only reason his quarters aren’t like this is because he and Sendak share and *Sendak* is organized to the point of being anal about it, so he puts everything away.

Fortunately, Hax does make up for this by being very very sanitarily clean. There’s a lot of stuff but it’s clean to the point you could eat off of any surface no problem.

#sendak #shiro #haxus #lotor #galra #voltron #hcs #ask games #kyfebs

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duckyaltalt · 4 years ago

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「herman tommeraas & cis male」⇾ mercer, ducky, the junior radcliffe student’s records show that he is a pisces and 21 years old. he is studying business, living in gorham and can be tenderhearted, nimble, compliant & taciturn. when i see him i am reminded of fear hidden behind a stoic stare, bleeding from your nose and from your gums, and the night sky with all its stars, with all its mystery and unknown . ⇽「james & 21 & est & they/them.」

hi :D this is the last of my OG characters ... the next two will b sexy n new bt they wont arrive fr a while bc i <3 need 2 hv a steady pace <3 anyways hes. rly sad so. good luck charlie <3 okay bye :D

TW CHILD ABUSE / DOMESTIC ABUSE / ABUSE, VIOLENCE, INJURY, TRAUMA, MENTAL ILLNESS, DRUGS / DRUG ABUSE / ADDICTION , GANGS.

aesthetic.

bruises; from beneath your eyes to the edge of your jaw, aligned against your stomach and the sides of your waist and the groves of your knuckles. bleeding noses and bleeding gums, spat out teeth, tattoos scarred from improper treatment, a facial scar; jagged and old, now, from above your eye to beneath your lip. worn hoodies and scuffed sneakers, sunglasses inside. the night sky, and it’s many stars, and how brightly they shone during the 2019 blackout, and wanting to be up there, with them. knowing constellations by heart. wishing to be the face on the moon. beer bottles and secret exchanges. dark alleys. fear, through the very core of your heart. fear, hidden behind a stoic stare.

basic info.

full name: donovan mercer

nickname(s): ducky but i’m 95% sure he hates the nickname it’s just. Stuck with him.

b.o.d. - march 15th, pisces :)

label(s): the allegiant, the despondent, the grifter, the malleable, the vacant, etc.

height: 5′11″

hometown: hell’s kitchen, new york

sexuality: bisexual bt make it closeted.

stats

inspired by: lip gallagher (shameless), freddie mcclair (skins), frankenstein’s monster (frankenstein), fez (euphoria) … that’s it i don’t know any other characters KJNSGLDNVLSDJNFDS

biography.

born in hell’s kitchen to vinny mercer and a mother who ran out of the hospital as fast as she could, as soon as she was able. she’d gone so quick that she’d never given ducky a middle name - just donovan. the younger brother of mercy (shoutout 2 bri)

his father’s the right-hand man of a well known mob boss named lars amaretto, and so, you can imagine the kind of environment ducky (& mercy) grew up in. weapon & drug dealings, interrogations, violence around every corner. a brutal way of living, no place to raise two children.

you can correctly assume that they grew up in a heavily abusive environment, and can imagine the sort of things the two have gone through. ducky was, maybe, the least favorite of their father’s -

- for numerous reasons, and one being that ducky’d always been a sensitive kid. kinder than his brother, and far kinder than his father - kindness is weakness, and ducky was filled with it. too much so, with big brown eyes and a smile that should’ve been able to melt ice. should’ve - but didn’t. and never did, either.

he cried often, and was punished often for it until he learned to stop crying - at least in front of their father, and mercy too, at some point. only in the comfort of his room, with doors locked and blinds drawn closed.

he dreamed, too, dreamt often. he’d been obsessed with outer space since childhood, as long as he could remember. school had once shown man landing on the moon, and ducky wanted that. wanted to be that, wanted to be there, up with the stars, discovering the unthinkable.

but it was discouraged, heavily so - projects destroyed by an angry fist only to be reconstructed to the best of ducky’s ability, with mercy’s help, all throughout the night. he’d saved up for a telescope when he was thirteen, but it’d been destroyed almost immediately when discovered. not a day went by that their father didn’t tell ducky that he was, first and foremost, stupid - and would always be.

to the point where he stopped trying, simply. his grades fluctuated frequently, and it’s a surprise that he hadn’t dropped out of high school altogether.

anyways … at the age of fifteen, he’d have enough. he was sick of the abuse, the pain - the crying behind closed doors, the sneaking around, the constant feeling of needing to escape, impending doom, anxiety attacks in the shower and in school bathrooms and at the back of the bus where nobody sat besides him because he was - that boy, the son of that man, the brother of that brute. he’d been a teenager and he’d already been an outcast by all means - an outcast in his family, no matter how hard he tried to appease vinny, and an outsider everywhere else.

the plan took months of preparation, paper ripped out from the back of his school notebook and stuffed beneath his mattress, details of his escape from a checklist of essential items to makeshift maps of bus routes to different cities.

all for nothing, the moment vinny discovered it, the edge of a map sticking out after a rushed morning.

it’d been the same day he’d gotten the nickname - ducky - the way the wound wrapped below his mouth, and the way it’d begun to heal - puckered, at first, like a duck’s bill. a better name than eyepatch, at the very least. the scar’d run from the arch of his left brow, across his eye, down his cheek, and below his lip, the entire left side of his face a bloody mess afterwards. his eye sustained injury, and not allowed to see a doctor about it, it never healed properly. corneal scarring, impairing his left eye. astronaut dreams destroyed, but not in a matter of seconds. in the matter of an hour, maybe more - and that’d been much, much worse.

he stopped trying to run away after that. tried to be more like their father, more like mercy - more brutish, less feeling. spoke less, and less. spoke hardly at all, unless spoken to first.

still didn’t matter. still lived his days in fear, still knew it’d never change. nothing would ever change.

graduated high school and had been on-and-off attending community college since then. he’d miss days at a time, flunk an entire semester’s worth of classes - gpa dropped further and further. wanted to try, but life got in the way. always got in the way.

hadn’t intended on transferring to radcliffe, but their father’d been missing for a few months then, leaving ducky to handle the drugs side of their business in hell’s kitchen - and mercy’d disappeared, too, leaving their branch in lovell completely open. in a split decision - an opportunity, and opening - something he couldn’t miss, or he’d maybe never get the opportunity again, ducky bullshitted a scholarship essay (plagiarism, tsk) and transferred to pick up where mercy’d left.

this wasn’t very well thought out, because that meant there were no mercers in new york - and lars amaretto? not a very understanding man. more of a brute than their father was, by far. to keep a story short - ducky is missing a tooth (molar, luckily, this time) and is … more rough’d up than he’d like to be, for sure. but mercy’s back, now, and he’s still at lovell, at radcliffe.

and that’s enough.

UPDATE: heehaw. mercy is gone & ducky’s still here. feeling a bit lost - dealt with a lot of shit this summer, new wounds and old wounds and just. a lot. started an underground fight club on campus for some extra cash, reasons unknown. being blackmailed by someone named rocky - someone who knows ducky is skimming cash. god. i don’t know ... danger danger danger danger. nightmare-ville. wrapped up in more walls than ever.

personality.

he’s actually very? intimidating? when you first meet him. mercy’s younger brother, with a criminal’s record almost as long as his - a scarred face and a mean resting face. it takes at least five minutes of conversation beyond small talk before it starts to weigh on your mind that maybe, he’s not as bad as he seems.

and - well, he isn’t. but he’s guarded - so guarded. more-so than mercy, because mercy’s quicker to anger, quicker to react, and ducky tries so hard to drown out the noise. but he’s not a robot, and his facial expressions can give him away in a second.

he’s seen what happened when mercy had a glimpse of something good in his life (though, it wasn’t actually good at all - mercy had someone, at least. at the very least) - and how quickly it’d all fallen, and so ducky puts a barrier between him and others. distant, as much as he can be.

it hurts, because ducky isn’t by any means antisocial. he doesn’t hate people - he wants to be normal, wants to have friends and a girlfriend - or maybe even a boyfriend, god - but he’s so afraid. ducky is, by nature, a very scared person. terrified to his very core. he knows there is always eyes on him, and mercy too, and he knows that nothing is worth getting someone else hurt.

you know him as mercy’s little brother, and he’s quiet you know that - but his name is ducky, and you think - he’s not too bad. and he knows this, knows the doubts. knows that it’ll get back to mercy, eventually, that his brother is nothing more but a pussy. so he fights more than he’d like to, against the guilt that buries itself deep within his chest with every thrown fist. he throws up, afterwards, in the garbage can outside. too much to drink, he says, rare grin - because grins are convincing, and grins with bleeding gums are intimidating. he learned that from his brother.

violence makes him sick to his very stomach. he can’t watch horror films, or even action films, without feeling queasy. there’s been more times than he can count where he’d thrown up after a fight, or after an interrogation, usually in private but in the occasional presence of mercy.

they fight, a lot, sometimes - ducky’s too soft, too weak, and it’s bad and it’s terrible and ducky knows that mercy’s afraid. for him, of their father, and his wraith. ducky knows that if mercy isn’t hard on him now, their father will be harder - and his hits will be, too. still. there’s resentment, small but there, like the flame of a match. he doesn’t know what’ll happen when there’s nothing more to burn, but he doesn’t want to find out. he’s afraid to find out.

he’s still in love with the moon and the stars, and the planet’s - and their moons, too. its subdued, now, though. a silent passion - one that is often not watered, left for rot. he sneaks into engineering lectures, occasionally, or physics - or anything that isn’t business, because he hates his major, but he knows it’s the only chance he’s got to stay at radcliffe. and that’s to follow his brother, to follow his father. a business degree treats you well, teaches you skills you’ll need to know for this type of work.

commits small acts of kindness when nobody looks. doors held open, the meals of elderly folk eating alone suddenly paid. picks up litter besides trash bins, and always cooks extra than what he needs, only to leave it in the gorham community fridge with no name, something for somebody who may need it. it’s these small things that make him feel, just the slightest, better about himself.

because god - there are layers and layers of self-loathing, the result of years of abuse. it’s a labyrinth, and he’d never speak of it - but he can’t stand his own reflection. doesn’t keep photos of his family, only a few sparingly of mercy. his room is messy, but still oddly barren. nothing on the walls except for a poster or two, sheets a standard navy blue and a row of empty liquor bottles on his windowsill.

a liar, sad to say. has little experience with. ehem. intimacy, and the bodies of others, but lies often and says that he does. mostly to his brother, but word travels quick - and he’s not nearly as much as a fuckboy as is rumored, having only been with a handful of girls, if even that. it’s better this way - if people know that he throws others away like they’re nothing. sex is uncomfortable for him, he always feels gross afterwards. wrong, sometimes.

he ghosts often, too, if he does get to talking with anybody. the moment ducky feels a spark, something pulling at his poor heart, he ghosts. he develops feelings too easily, too often than he’d like. has left many friendships without explanation, because of this. you know the priest in fleabag season 2? the scene where he comes to fleabag’s house? yeah. tht’s ducky!

has maybe half the amount of clients that mercy does, but he’s working on it. it’s his first semester at radcliffe.

pretends he doesn’t care as much as he does. pretends a lot, like there’s nothing soft to him. but a trained eye can see clearly through this. even so - even if you can see that there’s more to ducky than violence and drug deals - you’d still have to break through a dozen walls.

in the rare occasion you get him talking - i mean, talking a lot - he’ll talk about space. ramble off a dozen useless facts about dwarf stars and black holes and all of jupiter’s moons. about a video game he likes, about nothing and everything at all. but as soon as he begins, he stops - embarrassed. apologizes, shuts his mouth, disappears to wherever. anywhere but there.

uuuhhh. god. okay so ducky’s got an addiction to xanax. it’s numbing and it’s better than feeling, and he’d rather this than that and it’s. a Thing. we won’t go further into it. besides that - he does smoke weed, does try out some of their products to make sure it’s not … fucked, for their clients, but otherwise fucking hates drugs. social drinker, but still doesn’t like it a lot. hates beer but drinks it often.

overall just … he’s a soft boy, with a big heart - bigger than anybody else in his family, that’s for sure, but his exterior is far different than that, and it’s hard to tell.

purposely loses fights so that he doesn’t have to severely hurt someone. because sometimes he just - he was raised in a violent environment, and sometimes he snaps. sometimes ducky just fucking snaps. and his vision goes red, and he can’t control himself - because need to survive kicks in, and violence is all he knows. if someone pushes ducky - pushes him enough, he breaks. he fights back. it’s all he knows. it’s all he knows. it’s all he knows, and that’s not an excuse - and he knows this, and god, he’s so tired. he is so. tired.

wanted connections.

clients… first n foremost. he needs people to deal to. i don’t think he handles the Hard Shit like mercy does, but like coke and mdma? works for him.

f…riend..s?… like it’s so hard for ducky to be sincere with people but if you don’t mind like … an emotionally distant man who doesn’t even hit 6′ then maybe? he’s your guy? maybe you can break him down a little? chip away at his cold shoulder?

a close…r friend… maybe not like. the best of friends. but at least one normal friend whose world does not revolve around fucking drugs and violence would be nice for ducky. someone he can be a little soft with, as a treat.

hook-ups… not many, because ducky doesn’t really enjoy sex too much but y’know. that’s just how it is. he do be having needs, tho. KDSJGSHDKLFSE god.

fisticuffs!… someone he got into a fistfight with. multiple people he’s gotten into fights with. he’s probably lost them (on purpose) but - mayhaps, some of them, he did not?

gorham roommate… god… i don’t know what these two cld get up to but! maybe give him a sexuality panic but who knows.

unrequited feelings… there’s probably a few of these. whether people are drawn to his fucking ~mysterious~ demeanor (he just has fucking anxiety, man) or mayhaps. mayhaps he has the feelings.

flirtations… he’s never been in a relationship so i can’t really include exes, but he can flirt with people i’d like to think … when he’s drunk. :-)

ghostees… everybody he’s ever fucking ghosted because he’s stupid and is afraid of both friendship and relationships and romance and platonic? feelings of warmth? so sometimes he panics and ghosts people forever. :) spite!

new yorkians… who are familiar with his family or the business they have there

enemies… god. i’m sure he has a lot of these even without attempting to make them. just like, by association, you know? sometimes ducky hates people because mercy does. sometimes he hates people because mercy likes them. JKSDGDSJGFSNLKF

i won’t lie i’m very tired and am having a Troubled Time coming up with connections please. bare with me.

annoyances… i don’t know if ducky can get annoyed very easily but? thorns in his side? something lighthearted? alternately, something Not lighthearted and then ducky :/ goes rogue JKDNGDSNLFK

idk something soft… literally anything soft. please :) give me something soft and cute :) and peaceful and not stressful :)

something ANGSTY and AWFUL… literally. i don’t know. duality of man.

ok i have been awake fr too long i’m going to bed goodnight.

#ruhqintro #child abuse tw #domestic violence tw #abuse tw #violence tw #injury tw #drugs tw #trauma tw #addiction tw #drug abuse tw #gangs tw

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altduckyfm · 5 years ago

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『HERMAN TOMMERAAS ❙ CIS MALE』 ⟿ looks like DONOVAN “DUCKY” MERCER is here for HIS SOPHOMORE year as a BUSINESS student. HE is 21 years old & known to be TENDERHEARTED, NIMBLE, COMPLIANT & TACITURN. They’re living in GORHAM, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ JAMES. 21. EST. SHE/THEY.

HBDKJFNGDHLFNDJSLK god. this took so long n fr that i am. so sry. bt here is mercy’s wittle baby brother, ducky !!! remember to LIKE this if you’d like to plot !!! i’ve probably forgotten some things in this intro bt alas. i am just human. i am so tired. goodnight IJEBKSGHSOUFNE

TW CHILD ABUSE / DOMESTIC ABUSE / ABUSE, VIOLENCE, INJURY, TRAUMA, MENTAL ILLNESS, DRUGS / DRUG ABUSE / ADDICTION , GANGS.

aesthetic.

basic info.

full name: donovan mercer

nickname(s): ducky but i’m 95% sure he hates the nickname it’s just. Stuck with him.

b.o.d. - march 15th, pisces :) (he’s actually 20 right now not 21)

label(s): the allegiant, the despondent, the grifter, the malleable, the vacant, etc.

height: 5′11″

hometown: hell’s kitchen, new york

sexuality: bisexual bt make it closeted.

stats

inspired by: lip gallagher (shameless), freddie mcclair (skins), frankenstein’s monster (frankenstein), fez (euphoria) ... that’s it i don’t know any other characters KJNSGLDNVLSDJNFDS

biography.

you can correctly assume that they grew up in a heavily abusive environment, and can imagine the sort of things the two have gone through. ducky was, maybe, the least favorite of their father’s -

to the point where he stopped trying, simply. his grades fluctuated frequently, and it’s a surprise that he hadn’t dropped out of high school altogether.

anyways ... at the age of fifteen, he’d have enough. he was sick of the abuse, the pain - the crying behind closed doors, the sneaking around, the constant feeling of needing to escape, impending doom, anxiety attacks in the shower and in school bathrooms and at the back of the bus where nobody sat besides him because he was - that boy, the son of that man, the brother of that brute. he’d been a teenager and he’d already been an outcast by all means - an outcast in his family, no matter how hard he tried to appease vinny, and an outsider everywhere else.

all for nothing, the moment vinny discovered it, the edge of a map sticking out after a rushed morning.

he stopped trying to run away after that. tried to be more like their father, more like mercy - more brutish, less feeling. spoke less, and less. spoke hardly at all, unless spoken to first.

still didn’t matter. still lived his days in fear, still knew it’d never change. nothing would ever change.

this wasn’t very well thought out, because that meant there were no mercers in new york - and lars amaretto? not a very understanding man. more of a brute than their father was, by far. to keep a story short - ducky is missing a tooth (molar, luckily, this time) and is ... more rough’d up than he’d like to be, for sure. but mercy’s back, now, and he’s still at lovell, at radcliffe.

and that’s enough.

personality.

has maybe half the amount of clients that mercy does, but he’s working on it. it’s his first semester at radcliffe.

uuuhhh. god. okay so ducky’s got an addiction to xanax. it’s numbing and it’s better than feeling, and he’d rather this than that and it’s. a Thing. we won’t go further into it. besides that - he does smoke weed, does try out some of their products to make sure it’s not ... fucked, for their clients, but otherwise fucking hates drugs. social drinker, but still doesn’t like it a lot. hates beer but drinks it often.

overall just ... he’s a soft boy, with a big heart - bigger than anybody else in his family, that’s for sure, but his exterior is far different than that, and it’s hard to tell.

wanted connections.

clients... first n foremost. he needs people to deal to. i don’t think he handles the Hard Shit like mercy does, but like coke and mdma? works for him.

f...riend..s?... like it’s so hard for ducky to be sincere with people but if you don’t mind like ... an emotionally distant man who doesn’t even hit 6′ then maybe? he’s your guy? maybe you can break him down a little? chip away at his cold shoulder?

a close...r friend... maybe not like. the best of friends. but at least one normal friend whose world does not revolve around fucking drugs and violence would be nice for ducky. someone he can be a little soft with, as a treat.

hook-ups... not many, because ducky doesn’t really enjoy sex too much but y’know. that’s just how it is. he do be having needs, tho. KDSJGSHDKLFSE god.

fisticuffs!... someone he got into a fistfight with. multiple people he’s gotten into fights with. he’s probably lost them (on purpose) but - mayhaps, some of them, he did not?

gorham roommate... god... i don’t know what these two cld get up to but! maybe give him a sexuality panic but who knows.

unrequited feelings... there’s probably a few of these. whether people are drawn to his fucking ~mysterious~ demeanor (he just has fucking anxiety, man) or mayhaps. mayhaps he has the feelings.

flirtations... he’s never been in a relationship so i can’t really include exes, but he can flirt with people i’d like to think ... when he’s drunk. :-)

ghostees... everybody he’s ever fucking ghosted because he’s stupid and is afraid of both friendship and relationships and romance and platonic? feelings of warmth? so sometimes he panics and ghosts people forever. :) spite!

new yorkians... who are familiar with his family or the business they have there

enemies... god. i’m sure he has a lot of these even without attempting to make them. just like, by association, you know? sometimes ducky hates people because mercy does. sometimes he hates people because mercy likes them. JKSDGDSJGFSNLKF

i won’t lie i’m very tired and am having a Troubled Time coming up with connections please. bare with me.

annoyances... i don’t know if ducky can get annoyed very easily but? thorns in his side? something lighthearted? alternately, something Not lighthearted and then ducky :/ goes rogue JKDNGDSNLFK

idk something soft... literally anything soft. please :) give me something soft and cute :) and peaceful and not stressful :)

something ANGSTY and AWFUL... literally. i don’t know. duality of man.

ok i have been awake fr too long i’m going to bed goodnight.

#radintro #child abuse tw #abuse tw #domestic abuse tw #violence tw #injury tw #trauma tw #drug abuse tw #drugs tw #addiction tw #gangs tw #ok. i think this is all.

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mgrgfan · 4 years ago

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Past of the future, future of the past...

Chapter 5. Soarin' over the space...

A small speck plunged through the atmosphere of Earth, burning pretty bright yellow. Dozens of radars and telescopes were tracking it. It's really ironic, but the Sky High Pokemon, who was supposed to rule the skies and above, was now helplessly falling to the ground, mercilessly dragged by gravity and burned by atmospheric ram pressure. All Draconids, who were now watching TV, could not believe their eyes. The Dragon Lord, the great Rayquaza… got destroyed by the titanic machine, constructed by sorisians. The machine, which was crammed full of nuclear weapons, capable of obliterating cities, should they start flying to Earth. In fact, the same thing could be said for most of other TV watchers… bar sorisians. For them, what little re-entry of the serpentine dragon they've seen, marked a beginning of a new age - an age of open skies, when people can turn their gazes towards the stars and not be afraid, that someone territorial and feral will stop their journey before it even starts. While the rest of the world was either shocked, horrified or furious, Soris was celebrating the first victory of their first space warship. Now the other regions will know, that the Empire is not something to be tampered with! ---- On the Grey Sea, a decent fleet, consisting exclusively of nuclear-powered ships, was underway, towing a giant floating unusually-looking rocket in the middle of the formation. Several ships with "buzzers" - arcanotechnological devices, designed to drive off the Pokemon before the launch - and depth charge launchers, a tanker with kerosene, an electrolyzer-equipped ship for creating liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on site, four deep space communication ships, several frigates with anti-air weapons and a single launch control ship - all of those machines were preparing for something great. A personal tiltjet of the Emperor, which was speeding to the landing pad of the launch control ship, only confirmed this further. A long distance from it, a research plane from Kanto was flying, trying to get a decent picture of what the heck was even happening. If the reports of astronauts from a nearly year ago were to be believed, imperials claimed, that their Moon mission was launched by the similar rocket 3000 years ago… but how? And what was their reason for this launch, not even ten hours after the launch of their space warship? And what was the payload of this giant rocket? ---- Young Draconid could not believe, what she was seeing. She once saw the Lord Rayquaza with her own eyes - a long, majestic serpentine dragon of incredible power. What lied before her… wasn't like it. This one was thoroughly burned, up to the point when the originally green skin wasn't recognizable, some of the mug-fins were completely destroyed, eye sockets were empty and scorched, the horny ridges of mouth were chipped, one of the fangs was missing… The strange crackling sound interrupted her thoughts and, less than a second after, someone rudely yanked her away and started to mercilessly drag her. "What the Reverse World?" "The less we spend time near the corpse, the better," the assailant replied, revealing himself to be Damien. "The Geiger counter is going crazy near it, as you've heard. When we are back at the Meteor Village, we'll need to throw away our clothes, shave all the hair on our bodies and wash ourselves thoroughly, lest the radiation poisoning get much worse." "Radiation poisoning?" "Valencia works on the nuclear power project, she knows a lot about it and lended me a Geiger counter. Let's go faster, since the sooner we decontaminate ourselves - the better." ---- "Fueling of the Water Dragon is now finished. The rocket is ready to be set into launch position," said one of the launch control officers. "Fill the cap's ballast tanks and set the rocket into launch position," gave an order the Emperor, who was just delighted to see one of his creations being ready to go flight pretty soon. "Executing, Your Majesty." Giant rocket started to slowly sink and, after several hours, stabilized itself half-submerged and vertical. "The rocket is now in the launch position, Your Majesty. Buzzers working good, no Bedolangs or other Pokemon for several kilometers, all systems good." "Excellent. Resume the launch countdown." "Aye-aye." ---- "Much better," said Damien, who has just finished thoroughly washing himself with soap, having already shaved everywhere he was able to. To his left, Helian sat, also washed and completely shaved. "Now can you tell me, what is the meaning of all this?" asked them Renza, who was clearly not happy. "We've seen Rayquaza's corpse. It's so radioactive, the Geiger counter near it goes crazy and, apparently, the corpse itself glows in the dark slightly." "... Wait, what did you just say? Rayquaza's… corpse?" "Yes. As much as it's shocking to us all, apparently, sorisian nuclear weaponry was able to kill the Dragon Lord. And no, you better don't go there, since, as I've already said, it's radioactive as heck. I think we've got a small radiation poisoning by merely standing near it. Good thing wind was blowing away from us too..." "Damien, Renza, I don't feel so we…" started Helian, then fell to her knees and started vomiting. "Uh-oh," murmured the shaved Draconid, carefully helping her to get back up. "Well, it's been six hours already, so, it shouldn't be so bad. Does your head ache?" "Barely, but… yes," Helian said, trying to not throw up again. "Well, Renza, now you see, what the radiation poisoning is. Bury the bag with our old clothing somewhere and get us a new ones. Oh, and also - call the Elder!" "Will do," replied the scared Renza, sprinting out of the building. "Don't worry, Helian, the worst part will be over in less than a 24 hours and all of it will be over in a month or so," murmured Damien, trying to calm the girl down. ---- "... Ignition sequence start, four, three, ballast detached, all engines are running! Liftoff! We have a liftoff! Fifty-four minutes past the hour, liftoff on the Water Dragon!" As those words were being said, the rocket, which was calmly floating in the sea, shuddered, the water around it started to rise from the giant bubble of exhaust gases, but the rocket was already lifting off and setting the course for beyond the sky, propelled by titanic aerospike engine in the aft and four smaller assist engines on top of the first stage. "Never gets old," the Emperor said with a nearly childish glee on his face. "Ah, I remember, how hard it was to fit an aerospike in there… At least it works and is pretty cheap to manufacture and use, as well as recoverable." "The combustion instability for the big bell was even bigger of a bastard to get rid of, though," noted one of the engineers, who worked on this project. "No wonder we've ditched it after a single launch and placed an aerospike engine instead." "Yeah. Arcanics for stabilizing combustion in engine of this grade aren't cheap and aerospike is just better overall." "Not for non-atmo conditions, though." "Of course." ---- "Zemlino has just reported launch of the Water Dragon, crammed full with cargo," happily reported the comm operator. "A hundred-something of drive nukes, a few tons of liquid hydrogen, two retro-missiles and, what's really important - repair supplies!" "Cool!" whistled the engineer. "It's pretty much a miracle, that we not just survived yesterday, not just achieved victory, but also made it with no serious damage to the ship." "Yeah, but this very un-lucky Hyper Beam, which passed right between the second-stage shock absorbers, was… unnerving," the pilot replied. "Even though they are armored, if the shock absorbers got damaged and stuck - we would've been left with no primary propulsion and, as you can guess, majorly screwed." "To speak truthfully, you are the real hero of yesterday battle," noted the weapons operator. "I don't know, how you've managed to do it, but to take the most powerful attacks on the well-armored pusher plate or, at least, make them just scratch the hull's surface - it's more than something. If not for it, our ship would've got a few "unplanned ventilation ducts" - maybe, even through the drive bomb magazines or reactor!" "Me? How about you? After all, it's you, who was constantly scoring the hits on this dragon and not letting it get a metaphorical breath!" retorted the pilot. "Gah, I was just deciding targeting and launch priorities for the offensive weapons, while the fire control system did all the aiming and shooting!" "Comrades, let me just say, that we were all heroes yesterday," interrupted them the captain, who was trying to prevent discussion from getting out of hand. "We all did our part in taking out the tyrant of the sky, so, no need to get hesitant about your achievements. By the way, it's time for us to go rest and allow second shift to take the stations." "Aye-aye, comrade captain!" ---- Deep under the Lumiose City, inside the War Room, quite a few people sat. "So, basically, now we have a giant militarized spaceship above our heads," one of them said. If his badge was to be believed, he was the current Secretary-General of the Pokemon Nation. "As scientists from Unova told me, it uses nuclear explosions for propulsion and for weaponry." "Nuclear explosions? Isn't that just a theory?" said a woman from Kanto. "As you can see, not anymore," unovan president replied, slightly irritated from having to state something so obvious. "By the way, Mr. President, I must note again, that cancelling the Castelia Project was a very, very big mistake," one of the nuclear scientists decided to put a word. "Castelia Project? You mean, weaponizing Forces of Nature and using them against us during this war was not enough?!" the Hoenn delegate responded with a great fury in voice. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" the Secretary-General decided to take a measure before the actual battle could've ensued. Even if no one had a Pokemon here, all-out physical pummeling was still not entirely out of the question. "Anyway, I will stand on that cancelling the Castelia Project was a great mistake," scientist resumed his talk. "Since, apparently, Soris Empire had no moral or other restrictions in performing their own version of it, which resulted in what we see today - they've got nuclear explosives of many kinds, while we've never ever performed a single test, making the nuclear explosions pure theory until the recent events! We have absolutely nothing, that can even scratch their ship! And it is loaded to brim with nukes, probably, ready to turn entire regions into scorched wastelands! Even the Rayquaza itself fell before this horrible weaponry - by the way, we still have no idea, where should we dispose of this corpse, which is so radioactive, it glows in the dark..." "Loaded to brim? Are you so sure about that? It's entirely possible, that they've exhausted their armament during the fight - there were quite a lot of explosions!" "Not anymore," said a director of the Mossdeep Space Center, getting off the phone. "Just a few minutes ago, a superheavy rocket was launched from the sea. Of course, it's not the same kind of monster, but still something. For what it looks like, it's a cargo mission, designed to resupply their space warship. I'm sure, that there'll be a lot of nukes to replenish the storages." "Arceus damn it," representative from Sinnoh mumbled, grabbing his head. "Can you contact the rulers of the Soris Empire?" "The Emperor is now onboard one of the ships in the fleet, which launched this superheavy rocket. The Empress… we are trying to contact her, but she is not available right now and representative refuses to give any comments." "And those damn journalists are on it again…" stated grimly the Kanto's representative, looking at the TV screen. ---- "Workpods deployed, set to meet the cargo carrier," reported Pyotr Petrov, who was working as an engineer in the second shift. On the outside, one of the lander bays opened, allowing two small, mostly-cylindrical crafts with several manipulators and chemfuel engines, to detach from the space warship and enter the interception course to meet the "Hauler" superheavy cargo spacecraft and ensure, that it safely arrives to the "Red Explorer" for resupplying the massive nuclear pulse-propelled vessel with drive bombs, hydrogen, spare parts and like this. Right now, the pods were working in the automated mode, even though each of them was able to house a single human operator, should the situation require it. As Pyotr looked on the flying pods through the secondary cameras, he thought, that, probably, Pokemon Nation would have used a Reuniclus or something for operation like this. He still could not understand, how did it come, that they were in so close with Pokemon. Of course, cosmonauts of the Nation were using some kind of spherical containment devices, as the crew of the Space Lab 2 reported, and scientists of Soris Empire were going just crazy about them, but… how did it come, that they've relied on Pokemon so much? ---- "Zhorik, how long do we have to wait?" asked the captain in slightly irritated voice. Right now, the entirety of this shift of bridge crew gathered in the mess hall in the outermost level of the habitation centrifuge, which was pretty cozy, with a big display on the wall, several stands with books and magazines (mostly the "Human Will Conquer Space Soon!" and "Human Conquers Space!", because someone in the ground crew had a strange sense of humor), a few tables with comfortable chairs and a galley with mini-bar. "Not much… Here!" happily exclaimed the engineer, who has just managed to reconfigure one of the backup comm antennas into a TV signal receiver and jury-rig a decryption program for the broadcast standards of Pokemon Nation, before running the decrypted signal to the display. "Let us try to tune to one of their channels…" A few minutes of fiddling with settings later, they were greeted by some kind of a news broadcast about their recent battle with, how the hoennians called it, Sky High Pokemon. None of the cosmonauts knew the general language of Pokemon Nation well (though no one from Soris did as for now, even the linguists - the language barrier is not an easy thing to overcome!), but they could get a basic outline. "Taras Grigorievich, do they really think, that we sleep and dream of nuking their cities to ashes?" asked the perplexed sensors operator. "Apparently, yes. Just like we are afraid of them using their Pokemon - especially Ghosts and Psychics - to wage a war on us. Teleport raids, guerrilla warfare and so on… In short, this'll be really bloody, should it happen. I don't know, if the people of Soris would be able to win." "And they are afraid of us razing their cities from orbit, where nothing of their origin can reach our ship without getting intercepted. Makes sense… and parity - if they try to attack Soris, we blow their homes up with nukes and vice versa." ---- "Drive bomb magazines reloaded, RCS tanks full of propellant, retro-missiles loaded into silos, damaged armor plates replaced. I must say, our ship is now almost as good as new", reported engineer Petrov, looking at screens. He was very happy, that there were no heavily-damaged parts, which would've required more repair than removing a damaged armored plate and slapping a fresh one in place, as well as the fact, that most plates were designed to be easily interchangeable. After the trainwreck of a repairability the Project 21A Space Ferry was, no one wanted to go through the same nightmare, except for Pokemon Nation with their Space Shuttle (though even this was debatable). "Wonderful," replied the current commander of the ship. "Incoming transmission!" said the comm officer. "Patching through." Author's notes: "Human Will Conquer Space Soon!" (10.05.400 AFE - 18.05.425 AFE) and "Human Conquers Space!" (18.06.425 AFE and ongoing) - monthly magazines in Soris Empire, which are mostly centered around the Imperial Space Program, but also host some comics and stories. Even though, originally, they weren't selling well, they've managed to rack up a really decent fanbase over time, especially after the Sergiy Vyugenko started to write his stories for those journals. AFE - After Foundation of the Empire. Water Dragon rocket is based on the real Sea Dragon, except with aerospike engine in the first stage (second version of Water Dragon). Bedolang - the Pack Hunting Pokemon, very dangerous aquatic predator, native to Soris. During the Shift, for the reasons yet unknown, most of the Bedolang population got time-shifted as well, while the rest slowly died out from inbreeding. At the current day, the shifted population is sufficient to safely breed and starts to become a sea hazard to rival Gyarados again (in fact, before the Shift, packs of Bedolangs were known to hunt and kill Gyarados without much problems). However, due to the actions of Soris Empire, they prefer to avoid the ships.

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forestwater87 · 6 years ago

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Odd question. If you were doing a wing fic (shorthand: everyone has some kind of wings on their back; up to you if they're always out or if they can be banished and summoned at will) for Camp Camp, what kind of wings would the cast have?

Oooh I love wing fics! Hmmm, let’s see . . .

David’s would be a little small for his age/size, and he’d probably be kind of embarrassed about that. He can still fly just fine with them -- which he’d say, defensively, if anyone pointed them out -- and they’re very fluffy, white, with little speckles of green flecked throughout.

Now I know most wing fics stick with feathered wings, but it did occur to me that some sort of insectlike wings -- all delicate-looking and iridescent like the surface of a bubble -- would also suit him very well. They’d be a bit more natural and forest-y, but would still have that element of embarrassment and shyness (he was probably called “fairy” a lot growing up, and it’d be a sore spot for him).

That being said, the idea of David having massive wings was suggested by @ciphernetics, and I must admit that the idea of him either wrapping them around people to protect or comfort them is super cute. Also in a protective moment he could like fwoosh, out they come to shield the campers and it’d be badass. It’s not my preferred hc for him, but there are some lovely ways to play with it.

Gwen’s would be . . . serviceable. Dull, easily overlooked, probably some shade of gray or that kind of dun mousy brown that looks greyish in the right light, bigger than David’s but neither unusually large or small, not especially fluffy but not kind of molted the way some sick people’s are . . . they’re just sort of there. (She was probably nicknamed Pigeon by a lot of people, both as an affectionate term and a derogatory one. And like pigeons’ wings, there are little patches of color among her wings that are hard to see unless you’re looking for them it’s a metaphor get it? aren’t I clever ohoho)

Campbell’s are humongous. The biggest wings ever. He is a mountain of a man, with massive pure-white wings. Some people are convinced he genetically modified them somehow, and they do have this uncanny radioactive glow in the dark but don’t worry about that, it’s perfectly natural and not at all suspicious!

The fun thing about this is that they can get increasingly bedraggled as Season 3 progresses, until they’re drooping and muddy.

Quartermaster has bat wings. I don’t give a fuck if literally every other character has angel wings, QM’s are bats and that’s just the way it has to be.

I like the idea of the campers having small wings that can fit under their clothes, because they haven’t really grown in yet. I imagine maybe Nurf might be an exception, since he seems to be either older or just bigger than the other campers, but for the most part those kiddos look just like their normal selves. That being said, a few ideas of what they might look like grown up:

Max -- black, maybe a little big for his age, like a crow or raven’s wings. When he gets annoyed they puff up and slip out of his hoodie, and it’s a pain to put them back in which annoys him even more and gets them more puffy and hard to stuff back . . . it’s a constant struggle. Pity the poor kid.

Neil -- I’m torn between going with his hair color and giving him some hawklike brown-and-white wings, which I think would look nice with his coloring, and just going hog-wild and giving him wings like a bluebird because of his eyes. I think the latter would be too showy and embarrass him, but there’s something kinda cute about that too. His wings would be like his dad: impossible to ignore and much louder and more obnoxious (in his POV) than they need to be.

Nikki -- big and flecked with golden-orange. Of all the characters I think hers would have the most modifications, because as a kid/young adult she wasn’t careful with them and got them all torn up -- maybe to the point where she can’t even fly with them. But she has Neil and he’s a smart cookie, so I like to think of her wings having a vaguely-steampunk element of mechanisms and patches keeping them together.

Harrison -- white or a very light gray, like a dove’s. He paints the tips gold when he’s older as part of his illusionist costume.

Nerris -- I’m just thinking pure eastern bluebird, orange at the base and then exploding into brilliant blue. I think she’d love how flashy they are.

Ered -- Somehow I want her to have dragon wings. I have no idea why, or how, but I think it’d be extremely cool, and Ered is nothing if not cool. Especially if they’re really rare, almost unheard of, and she’s put a lot of work into transforming herself from the tomboyish freak with the demon wings and gay dads into something to be envious of. Besides, it’s easier to do sick stunts without having to worry about your feathers getting caught on stuff.

Nurf -- All right, I wanna get emo for a moment and say that his wings have been hacked either partly or entirely off by the time he’s an adult. We know he’s been abused in canon, and I think that people like that would go for the easiest target to hurt you, and that target is probably the delicate feathered things sticking out of your back. Bonus points if they’re somehow kind of girly, which coincides with his more sensitive nature and how he initially wanted to do ballet as a kid (especially since I don’t think that was well-received by his family). So, like . . . what remains are very fluffy and sweet-looking, maybe pink or pale yellow and orange or something, but they’re either little stubs he covers up all the time or they’ve got big chunks missing out of them but who’s gonna point that out to the huge guy with a pissed-off expression?

Preston -- Rainbow, like the most extravagant bird of paradise. Does he paint them himself, or are they as natural as he claims?

Dolph -- Probably something very average and serviceable, in the brown/gray/white family, but they’re always speckled with paint because he’s not very careful with them and especially the long feathers at the bottom trail along the ground while he’s painting, or get stuck to his art if he turns around too suddenly.

Space Kid -- I’m thinking of a duck, for some reason. Partly because they’re aquatic and I just connect the ocean and space for some reason, partly because they’re very ordinary and that’s kind of how SK rolls, and partly because ducks can just flap for insane distances without getting tired (thank you Animorphs!). Space Kid is like that, I think -- very diligent, keeps his head down and gets things done, not very bright but he works so hard it makes up for a lot, and that’s why he’s going to be an astronaut someday. Mallards have those pretty green feathers, too, and I think those would look nice with Space Kid’s eyes.

Jasper -- Peacock. Obviously. He is the most garishly-dressed person in the show and his wings would match. Not that you’ll ever know, because he never gets to grow up and have real wings :(

So those are the mains! As for some of the less-important characters, I don’t really have too many interesting ideas, but a few throwaway ones:

The Flower Scouts all have pink wings, either feathers or bug/fairy ones. I think maybe Tabii has a chunk missing from one of hers, from a fight or something, and the other girls made a patch so no one can tell and she can fly properly. Erin’s might be just slightly different colors -- one with an orangey tint, one with a blue.

A fun thing about bug wings is they could buzz when the girls are angry. So Sasha’s are basically always going, poor thing.

The Woodscouts probably have their wings bound, clipped, and constantly ready for combat flying. I’m thinking, like, the military-haircut version of wings.

Daniel’s . . . I mean, I don’t care about Daniel because he’s trash, but I do love the idea that they’re not naturally white and he dyes them. It’s my favorite Daniel hc and I need it to appear in every AU.

So that about covers it!

EXCEPT

Then I was talking with Ciphernetics about wing AUs, and I mentioned that in some wing fics (namely the awesome one by setepenre-set, though there are probably others) the wings’ size are based on how loved someone is. Which led to the below cuteness. Warning: shameless Gwenvid and Makkiel ahead, along with me insisting that Cameron Campbell isn’t the worst person in the entire world because I’m love him

Ciphernetics: Max’s wings growing during camp!Max voice: who the FUCK is loving me I specifically requested the opposite of thisDavid: You can even fit them in your hoodie anymore awwwwMax, struggling to pull it on over his wings: the hell I can't

Forestwater:(what if they come in the color of the person who loves you's hair)(so at first it's just this line of red that he knows is fucking David, goddamnit and then all of a sudden start sprouting these mint green and brown ones and my ship takes off)

Ciphernetics: Max, disgusted, throwing an auburn feather at David: get LOSTMax, looking over his shoulder in the mirror at the brown ones gathering at the tips and the mint ones scattered chaotically throughout: huh

Forestwater:Oh no what about when Nikki and Neil's start getting flecked with black, small and easily tugged out like they're ashamed of being there

Ciphernetics: The small really curly little feathery down that like to hide under other feathers(Gwen's had auburn in her wings since almost the first summer but lately it's started to overpower the rest of the colours. Not completely, it's just... Noticeable how much of it is the same colour now.)(She knew David loved people quickly and easily, it's just suddenly a lot more)(or she just wasn't paying attention)

Forestwater:What on earth would David's reaction be to suddenly finding some of Gwen's?I like the idea of her feathers being two-toned

Ciphernetics: I'd love if he's had a very small, slowly growing patch since they met (just a handful more each summer) but some event happens and suddenly there's a lotOh absolutely two tonedHey how about some angst;David's been waiting his whole life for Campbell's hair colourToday at 9:32 AMHe'd never say it but Campbell makes so many throwaway jokes about David being the son he never wanted but it rings a little hollow when there's not when one little brown/grey feather

Forestwater:until the end of season 3 when there's like . . . twoLISTEN I NEED MY TRASH GRANDPA

So that’s just a little bit of extra silliness for added angst/romance/fluff.

Hope this answer isn’t too long, but I was having fun.

#campcamp #camp camp roosterteeth #cc david #cc gwen #cc campbell #cc max #cc nikki #cc neil #cc ered #cc nurf #i'm not doing all the campers i don't have the strength #those are the ones with the most 'backstory' anyway #gwenvid #makkiel #wings au #ask forest #libraryadia

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taesthetes · 7 years ago

Text

messier 81.

jungkook is an annoying know-it-all, and who cares if galaxies aren’t really pink?

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader genre: fluff type: childhood friends to lovers au word count: 2,582 words warnings: none author’s note: i’m finally on summer break, and this is the longer version of this drabble. also, astrophysics is cool, and i’m sad i had to take engr physics instead, but anyway, the article in particular that i used for research is this one.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

When you were four years old, you absolutely adored scribbling out pictures of galaxies using your beloved pink crayon. Dozens upon dozens of drawings you made, including the ones your mother proudly stuck on the gray refrigerator in the kitchen, depicted various illustrations of the sky and the stars in cotton candy pink.

You were gifted one of those glorious packs of ninety-six crayons by your favorite aunt, but regardless, you only cared about the crayon labeled “Pink.” Red was too bright and reminded you of when you tumbled across the uneven pavement, droplets of carmine appearing on your skinned knees. Blue was too ordinary. After all, you saw it above your head daily. Green was much too common as well— as common as the grass at the park and the tufts of weeds growing between the cracks on the sidewalk. Yellow was the garish color of the scary bus that the big kids rode everyday to a different school than yours. And, orange was the color of your most hated vegetable. Purple was nice, but it was no pink in your eyes.

Pink was superior.

But a little boy with big doe eyes and a bunny nose thought otherwise.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

When you were five years old, you found out annoyance came in the form of a child your age named Jungkook. It was another day of Kindergarten, which meant another day your tablemate would smugly rub it in your face that the sky and the galaxy were not pink, but were, in fact, blue. And sure enough, the very same conversation began as soon as you picked up an empty sheet of white construction paper and pulled out your beloved pink stub of a crayon.

“Galaxies aren’t pink,” Jungkook repeated, wrinkling his nose, as he watched you scribbled out swirls across the blank page. “They’re supposed to be blue or black. Or they’re red or white. Maybe purple. But not pink.”

“Mind your own beeswax.” You stuck your nose in the air and make a “humph” sort of noise towards him, pulling your drawing closer to you and angling yourself away from the boy. “You make galaxies sound like a bruise. Pink is prettier.”

Pink was the color of sticky bubblegum, of the roses in your backyard that your father planted, of your mother’s lipstick that you often snuck away with and smeared across your lips unevenly. Pink was your favorite.

Jungkook laughed, pulling out a blue crayon. “Blue is better. Pink is gross.”

You scowled at him, dropping your own coloring stick. “You take that back. Pink is not gross. Cotton candy is pink, and everyone loves cotton candy.”

“I get blue cotton candy.” Jungkook shrugged, resuming his coloring. “Why would you pick pink cotton candy? Only dummies like pink cotton candy.”

“Well, only weenies pick blue cotton candy,” you growled, glaring at the boy next to you, before you raised your voice a little too loudly. “So you’re a weenie, Jungkook.”

“_______! We use our inside voices when we’re in the classroom, and we do not call our friends weenies.” Miss Lang rushed over to your table, and Jungkook grinned at you before turning to your teacher, pouting and widening his eyes. She rested her hand on his shoulder, standing behind him. “Please apologize to your friend, _______.”

“He is not my friend. And he called me a dummy.” You crossed your arms over your chest, glowering.

Miss Lang sighed. “Jungkook, we do not call people mean names. Apologize to _______, too.”

Turning to face you, Jungkook hung his head in contrition, but he peeked up at you, a glimmer of mischief and mockery in his eyes, and your blood boiled but you remained still as he said, “I’m sorry for calling you a dummy.”

Your teacher looked at you expectantly, so you mumbled out, “I’m sorry for calling you a weenie...”

Jungkook stuck his tongue out and mouthed “dummy” at you. And before you could stop yourself—

“... Even if you are a weenie.”

“_______!”

Needless to say, when your teacher informed your parents of your name calling, your mother was not pleased. Your father, on the other hand, laughed so hard he cried. Regardless, your mother got on the phone immediately with Jungkook’s mother, and they both agreed to schedule a playdate between their children next week.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

You were happily playing with your paints, smearing the cool liquid across the paper on top of several layers of newspaper. You had on one of your dad’s old shirts to keep you from getting dirty with other newspapers covering the floor underneath your chair and the kitchen table. You were so immersed with your art that you did not notice the doorbell ringing.

A few minutes later, your mother was clearing her throat, and you turned to look at her. Jungkook was standing next to her, bouncing on the balls of his feet, as he waved at you, lips pulled into a smirk. You narrowed your eyes before returning to your painting with a toss of your hair.

“_______.” Your mother’s voice had a warning tone in it, and you looked towards her again. “Aren’t you going to say hi to your classmate and invite him to paint with you?”

“Hi, Jungkook. Wanna paint?” You unwillingly held out one of your paintbrushes.

“Sure!” He ran over and plopped himself into the chair next to yours, snatching the brush from your hand and taking an empty sheet of paper. He reached out for the green tube of paint when—

“Wait!” He stopped, turning to look at you curiously. You eyed his khaki shorts and t-shirt with a rocket emblazoned on it warily before picking up the extra smock next to you. “Put this on, so you don’t get dirty.”

“Thanks!” He beamed at you, eyes forming mini moon crescents, and you quickly looked away, focusing your gaze on your unfinished art. You begrudgingly reached out for the blue paint tube next to you and placed it next to Jungkook’s paper quietly. Your mother did teach you to share after all. He grabbed it immediately with another loud “thanks” before busily working on his painting.

The two of you worked on your paintings in silence, too engrossed in creating your own respective masterpieces. You carefully swirled your paintbrush, dipped in pink paint, across your paper, unaware of Jungkook pulling something out of his pocket and rolling it towards you across the table surface. He hurriedly turned back to his art before the object hit your elbow.

Startled, you looked over to see a brand new pink crayon resting innocently against your arm. You glanced over at the boy next to you, but he refused to look your way. However, the tips of his ears were sporting your favorite color as were his cheeks. Your lips curled into a smile as you dropped your paintbrush and picked up the crayon.

“Thank you, Jungkook.”

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

When you were seven years old, you and Jungkook liked playing pretend, more specifically pretending to be astronauts. Galaxies were still your favorite, and Jungkook promised he would take you into outer space one day to prove that the galaxy was really blue or white, not pink.

You were in Jungkook’s backyard, helping him lug an empty refrigerator box onto the grass. The two of you got to work immediately, pulling at the cardboard flaps and taping them messily with loads of scotch tape to form the top point of the rocket. Jungkook’s father had already cut out two rectangular holes in one side of the box for your and Jungkook’s “seats” in the makeshift rocket. Jungkook taped the leftover cardboard on the rear end of the box to form flaps as you began to paint the rocket.

Jungkook plopped down on the grass, starting to paint the other side of the rocket. “What are you painting?”

You stared at the mess of colors in front of you before replying, “The planets. I’m working on Venus. What about you?”

“Stars and galaxies. Blue galaxies.” He grinned at you, and you rolled your eyes before resuming to paint your side of the rocket.

“Y’know, one day, we’re gonna go into outer space for real, and I’ll show you that there’s no such thing as pink galaxies,” he continued, and you huffed out in annoyance.

“Whatever you say, Jungkook.”

When Jungkook ran inside to get some lemonade, you stood up, crossing over to his side to see what he painted. A smile peeked out on your face when you saw the carefully painted clusters of stars and galaxies.

And in the very top corner, hidden among other galactic paintings, there was a tiny, pink galaxy.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

When you were twelve years old, you and Jungkook overheard your mothers talking in the kitchen. Hidden from their view, the two of you eavesdropped, crouching against the wall.

“When do you think they’ll start dating?” You heard your mother’s voice, and you and Jungkook looked at each other in confusion. Who’s going to be dating?

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll figure out their feelings in the next year or so. Jungkook gets so excited when she calls to hang out, although he won’t admit it,” his mother laughed, and suddenly, you felt your face getting hot before you looked at Jungkook, who had already turned red.

Flustered, he brushed past you, exclaiming loudly to your parents much to their surprise.

“I’ll date her when galaxies are pink.”

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

When you were seventeen years old, the two of you decided to take an astrophysics class for your last period, and Jungkook, true to his nature, did not fail to rub it in your face that galaxies weren’t pink on the first day before the class even started.

“Maybe you can ask the teacher about pink galaxies,” Jungkook snickered from his seat next to yours. You glared at him briefly before answering, “You know what? I will.”

The teacher arrived soon after, introducing himself and going over the syllabus and other basics. Then, clearing his throat, he asked, “So do any of you have any questions? We have a bit of free time since there’s only five minutes left of class.”

Immediately, your hand shot into the air, and the teacher nodded in your direction. After giving Jungkook a pointed look, you inquired, “Do pink galaxies exist?”

Jungkook suppressed a laugh behind his hand, but the teacher beamed at you, nodding his head enthusiastically.

“Oh, yes! Pink stars may not exist, but some galaxies do appear to be pink. You see, it’s not just stars, but also gas, that can make light in space. In places where stars are newly formed, large quantities of ultraviolet light are being produced. That light then causes atoms to ionize by kicking electrons off their nuclei. Naturally, those abandoned electrons have to find other nuclei to attach to and form neutral atoms, which forces them to go through their energy levels. And what is the most common element in the universe?”

“Hydrogen,” you supplied, and the teacher smiled, nodding in approval at your answer.

“Right. Hydrogen is formed the most by these leftover electrons, and it also has the strongest visible light-emitting transition. By mixing this red emission line—also known as the Balmer alpha line—with the white light from stars, pink is formed in galaxies, such as the Messier 81.”

The teacher dismissed the class soon after, and you quickly packed up your bag as you shot a smug smile towards Jungkook. “So, have anything to say?”

“Yeah, are you doing anything after school now?”

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. “No, why?”

“Because we’re going on a date.”

“What?“ You almost dropped your bag along with your heart, and Jungkook scooped up your bag, slinging it over his shoulder with his own backpack, before his sudden ten seconds of confidence disappeared.

“Well, I said I’d date you when galaxies were pink, didn’t I?” He smiled shyly at you, bunny teeth peeking out in the slightest, as your face warmed up, still speechless. He bit his bottom lip nervously. “I—I mean, only if you want to go on a date. I made this really awkward— But, I liked you for three years now, maybe even longer, but not as in just a best friend way, but I like-like you—oh god, that sounded like I was five—but as in I want to hold your hand and kiss you and do all those corny couple things we make fun of, and I couldn’t think of how to confess and—!”

“Jungkook.” You placed your hands on his cheeks tenderly, effectively stopping his rambles as he stared at you, wide eyed. Your cheeks flushed even redder, but you continued, “Relax. It’s okay. I like you, too. And not in just a best friend way, but I like-like you, too. As in I want to hold your hand and kiss you and do all those corny couple things we make fun of.”

“Thank god,” Jungkook breathed out, and you laughed, hugging him close to you as he embraced you back just as tightly. You stayed like that for a few moments before he spoke up again.

“Honestly, I’m surprised you never tried googling ‘do pink galaxies exist” already. I mean, only dummies take this long, right?”

You snorted at that, “Well, if I’m a dummy, then you’re a weenie.”

“I still can’t believe you called me that in Kindergarten. That’s like a five year old’s version of calling someone a dick.”

“Well, I still stand by what my five year old self called you.”

“Then, you’re still a dummy.”

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

When you are twenty-two years old, you move into a small apartment with Jungkook. Fresh out of university, you finally have your diploma and he has his degree in studio arts (He had abandoned his dream of becoming an astronaut long ago after he learned that he wouldn’t be able to visit Mars and interview aliens). Before entering your new shared home, he makes you wear a blindfold. Holding tightly onto his hands, you let him tug you gently inside, slightly stumbling, as you enter the small space.

Once pulling you towards what you assume is the center of the room, Jungkook lets go of your hands. “You can take it off now.”

Hurriedly, you untie the cloth around your eyes, letting it flutter to the ground in awe, before laughing in disbelief. “Oh my god.”

“Do you like it?” he asks, rubbing his arm sheepishly. “I thought it’d make our apartment feel more like home, more like us, and—”

You cut him off mid-sentence, throwing your arms around his neck. He catches you, a grin stretching across his face so widely, as you hug him tightly, burying your face in his neck. “I love it. I love it so much. And, I love you so much.”

Laughing, Jungkook tightens his embrace, pulling you even closer to him as he presses a kiss on your forehead. “I love you, too.”

Above your heads, Jungkook has painted the galaxies on the ceiling.

And they are pink.

#KKreationsNet #btswriters #networkbangtan #bts scenarios #jungkook scenarios #bts fluff #jungkook #bts #bts scenario #bts imagines #bts fanfic #bts fic #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fluff #jungkook scenario #bts one shot #jungkook one shot #bts fanfiction #jungkook x reader

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drumpfwatch · 6 years ago

Text

State of the Union 2019 Commentary

It’s been a week and some change. Let’s talk State of the Union.

First off, I’d like to make a comment on the overall speech theme. Trump spoke of unity and everyone coming together, but that very morning he went to yell at how obstructionist and obnoxious the Democrats were being for not giving him his baby bottle wall. This man, who speaks of himself as the best deal maker in the world, and bragged he’d be able to get everyone to get together and make friends, sort out their differences, when he has done nothing but make demand after demand and concede no ground.

A compromise, Mr. Trump, is two people coming together and agreeing on something they’re both willing to do while conceding parts of what they want. It’s called a surrender if someone gives you everything they want while getting nothing. Dummkopf.

So with that, let’s begin at the beginning. I warn you right now I don’t want to go over every single point he made, but I’ll cover as many of them as I can and comment as needed. There are other commentaries out there, some as soon as the day after, and those are more than cool to have hanging around. I’m sure between all of those you can come up with a total summary of what he said, based on every single word. With that, let’s begin.

As per his theme, he started the speech by calling for unity and cooperation. All well and good for anyone else. We should avoid revenge politics - which is fucking rich coming from him, but whatever. Specifically, he calls congress to concern themselves “with the agenda of the American people” but…

Well, we’ll get to that.

He thanks some WW2 vets and then talks about how he’s interested in “America First.” People have on more than one occasion pointed out that given his actions, he seems to mean “America Only” when he says that, and that should be a premise that is upsetting to everyone but I have no doubt there is a large portion of the population of the American population who are more than happy to ignore the rest of the world. They already do, after all.

He then introduces Buzz Aldrin, saying that we’ll be going to space on American rockets again. And he’s actually, sadly, right there. Back in 2011, the Space Shuttle program was retired, and we’ve been relying on the Russian Soyuz capsule to get us into the space ever since. The successor to the Space Shuttle Program, the Space Launch System, has been slow coming for numerous reasons. It is, however, finally going to be ready to go in 2019 and will perform its first mission in 2020 - sending a craft to Mars. They wanted a rocket that could get a crew to Mars eventually, and the Senate…

Well, let’s just say congress stuck it’s fingers into the Space Launch System so much that it has been derisively called the Senate Launch System, and a lot of astronauts and NASA Engineers are concerned that it is basically a horrible, efficient money sink. Still, as an avid space fanatic, I’m glad we’re making efforts, at least. Though I’d point out that those efforts have been in motion long before he ever got there to direct them. This is, after all, the man that believed we could go to Mars before his first term was out.

He next goes on to talk about the economy, claiming that our middle class is bigger and more prosperous than ever before. This is untrue. While it seems to be complicated, the general consensus is that while the Middle Class has been stable in size, they tend to have less and less, especially in comparison to the upper class. That is where the real problem is, as well. The absolutely ridiculous wealth disparity. Though I get the feeling that removing taxes from private jets is totally gonna help with that. She says, sarcasm frothing in her mouth in a mixture of rage and bitterness.

He then claimed responsibility for the parts of the economic boom that have been happening. First of all, the economy is...not exactly booming. But there are good things happening in it. It’s sort of a whirlygig of insanity, if I’m honest. Now, you’ll hear me say this again a few other times, but I am not all that educated when it comes to economics. Economics is a chaos system and I much prefer stable ones with easy to predict results. Is a thing right or wrong, is this method an effective way of accomplishing the intended goal. Things like that.

That said, I do know a few things, and one of them is that a lot of people who do know a thing or two about economics point out that this economic boom began in 2016, which means it's entirely possible that this is a result of Obama’s policies were responsible, we don’t really know. Maybe Trump did have something to do with it, but it’s often not accurate to blame the problems or successes of an economy on a single thing. So this claim gets a big ol’ stamp of “UNVERIFIABLE” from me.

I can say that wages are not rising, or at least as much as he thinks. The Federal Minimum Wage was not changed since 2009, and lost about 9.6% of its purchasing power because of inflation. While some states have made major strides towards livable minimum wages have been made in places like New York and California, I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that if you removed the massive amount of wealth that people like Jeff Bezos make, you’d find that they are stagnant, or even lowering.

There’s a thought for a math rant sometime.

Anyway, he then praises the 5 million people who got off of food stamps. First of all, the number is 3.5 million. Second of all, it’s a bit more complicated than that. To summarize, while the decrease in unemployment is helping, there’s another little niggling thing. There was a provision in the law that basically said you could turn off some of the safety nets if employment rates rose, and a lot of states decided not to pay for those benefits. I won’t argue whether or not that was a right or wrong decision, but I will say you don’t get to wave around the number of people who are off a program as a victory when the reason they’re off it isn’t because they don’t need it, but because they were kicked off it.

We’re the hottest economy in the world, he says! And he’s wrong. I mentioned before that we’re in a weird sort of “Good Things, Bad Things” phase, but I don’t think I need to tell anyone that the stock market has been all over the place, falling and rising considerably at random. Meanwhile, S&P has downgraded America’s credit score. I think we’ve got a problem, and I know we’re not the hottest economy.

He then goes onto say that the unemployment rate for people of color is the lowest it’s ever been. And shockingly, he’s right on this one. Sort of. The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the rate of unemployment for hispanic people and black people actually went down, and was at one point the lowest it’s ever been. Asian unemployment has sorta been all over the place. What makes it strange, however, is that each of these groups had a random and sudden spike since November/December of last year, while for whites it’s been pretty stagnant. Last hired, first fired, I guess.

He also talks about the same with disabled people and that is blatantly untrue. While it seems the number of people who qualify for disability also is going up, they’re not getting employed any faster.

I should also mention that even if we could point to one specific thing as responsible for these changes, I doubt it would be the fault of the man who himself wouldn’t house or hire black people.

He also celebrated getting rid of the estate tax. Which yes, he did. That is not necessarily a good thing. He acts like it applies to small businesses and farmers, but it doesn’t. One person said on the matter “If you don’t feel comfortable calling what you own an estate, then you probably aren’t affected by the estate tax.” You and your guilded crotch spawn and protected up to 10 million dollars. Only after that is your wealthy taxed on death, and only to prevent the the existence of a permanent landed gentry. The only people benefiting from the end of the estate tax are literal millionaires, who can afford to give some of that dosh to the community.

He then talks about Obamacare, and how he get rid of the Individual Mandate. He claims this was the most unpopular part of the law, and he’s right, but analysts point out that it’s more complicated then Thing Bad So Get Rid Of. Without the Individual Mandate to get people motivated to apply for coverage, a lot of people simply won’t get insured. Further, the whole point was that forcing the younger people to pay for insurance when they’re less likely to need it helped to add money to the pool that could be used to help cover the people with pre-existing conditions or complications. That said, it’s also a good thing not having people pay for coverage they can’t afford, so...it’s complicated.

Trump then bragged about cutting the most regulations of any President ever, and I won’t deny that he has. I will, however, point out that this is a horrible thing that should concern and frighten all of you. While some of those regulations may seem arbitrary, literally every one of them was written in the blood of some innocent person who died so a corporation could make an extra buck. We’ve already seen an increase in food poisoning and infections and the increase in food recalls since 2013 has been kind of horrifying. Trump has been eagerly cutting regulations to “Pre-1960s” levels. You know, before we had seatbelts. It’s very harmful to cut those regulations, and it needs to stop.

He then says that America has corporations coming back in record numbers. On this, he is also not wrong. The Jobs report was very good, and we should all be happy about that. That said, whether or not he is the one to thank for that is a bit more complicated, as usual. It turns out that some of these gears were set into motion when Obama was in office. Some of them are just the effects of a slow recovery process since the 2009 Recession. That said, they did take a sharp rise in 2017. So yay for him, I guess.

Except, again, if deregulation is how you’re doing this, then you’re doing it wrong. We should not be sacrificing the blood of American people so that a few already stupid wealthy people can get even more stupid wealthy. The reward is not worth the cost.

He then goes on about how we’re the number one producer of oil in the world. This claim is untrue. There has, however, been a boom in oil and natural gas production due to things like the invention of fracking and loosening of regulations that goes all the way back to the Bush Era. The rate is increasing such that by sometime into the 2020s, we will be the greatest producer of oil and natural gas, at least privately. Considering those materials are murdering our planet this is also not good news, but since Global Warming is, of course, a conspiracy cooked up by the Chinese to steal American Jobs, that doesn’t matter. We are also not a net exporter of energy, by the way, but are on are way to becoming one.

Then things get...weird. Everyone starts chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” in this really low and creepy tone that I was frankly a bit creeped out by. It was like these people thought they were at a football game and not a session of Congress. Then again, this is my first time really sitting down and paying attention to the State of the Union, so this may be normal. I just didn’t like it.

What should, however, terrify everyone is his next babbling remark. He spends five minutes or so going on a rant about how “If there is going to be peace in legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.” Which, frankly, reminded me of a mafia frontman. “Lovely country you got here, shame if somethin’ were to happen to it. You noisy folks stink’ yah nose into my bosses business makes it real hard for him to keep wild guys like Big Jim ova deya under control. I can’t promise you won’t upset him wid all this.”

Sorry, trumby. You don’t get to talk about the need to stop our adversaries when you may well have been put in office by one.

Ughk, I hate using that word. Adversaries. It makes it sound like we have a boat load of enemies, when in reality we have like, 3 or 4, and otherwise a series of complex political relationships. Like we can’t work together with those people for a better future if we all just calmed the fuck down.

Like they’re not people.

Whatever. There are more important things to worry about.

Like how he goes on to mock the democrats for not approving his nominations. Even though a whole boatload of them are sketchy as fuck, should have never even been approved at all, or were just never filled by Trump in the first place.

Also can I just say that it’s fucking rich hearing aa man like Trump complain about not getting a nominee approved after what his party pulled with the Supreme Court? We call that hypocrisy.

He then goes on to talk about making life easier for prisoners and punishing people who abuse our veterans. Now, I could point out that prison reform was actually Barack Obama’s whole big thing and he passed a lot of laws in that regard, and Trump has not, and Former President Obama also passed VA reform in 2014 that allowed for people who mistreated veterans to be harshly punished. That said, Trump has been making further strides on those initiatives, and in fact his most approved and liked legislation is the First Step Act. These are the sorts of policies that really can make life better for people, and it’s nice to see everyone getting behind them. Ofcoursewecouldfurtherthesegreatstridesbyclosingdownforprofitprisons, andotherthingsthatimcertaindontappealtoarepublicanmindset, but that’s for another day. What I’m saying here is that as much as I don’t like it, I have to admit Trump has done a good. I don’t care who past them, how they developed, they were good things that happened. Yay! Good job Trump, you get a big shiny gold star.

We then move on to the Racist section of the speech. He starts by talking about the Migrant Caravan and I am shocked at how wrong and full of hatred this man is. He claims these refugees are an “onslaught” of illegal aliens when they’re all coming to America to seek asylum. You know, something that’s completely and totally legal. But no, this is an INVADING FORCE of ILLEGAL ALIENS that need to be stopped with 3,750 more Soldiers with GUNS. They managed to make it all the way to the American border with only one small kerfuffle with the Mexican border police, before arriving at the American border not to see Lady Liberty’s open arms welcoming the hopeless and downtrodden, the weary and poor, but instead heavily armed and barricaded troops who would then go on to use tear gas on them. Is that the America we want to show to the world?

Now, to his credit, Trump admits that Immigrants enrich our society - which is entirely true. Yes, there’s a bit of stress on lower-wage jobs when they first arrive, but that’s minimal in comparison to the benefits. Not that saying that to someone who got laid off and replaced with a migrant is no consolation, I fully understand, but there are ways to help these problems. Also, side note, if he believes immigrants are so awesome and enriching to our society, then he would be more than happy to have them enter the country. But the immigration system here is a convoluted mess of insanity that takes forever to get anything done and then occasionally does nothing, and Trump has just been making it worse. Just a thought.

Now I wrote an entire post about the wall, so I won’t go into it too much here. But the wall is an expensive, stupid, and ineffective idea. Drugs aren’t coming through skirmishers who are dodging around the border, they’re coming through ports of entry. The San Diego wall he was talking about isn’t nearly as effective as he pretends, and it didn’t really start working until the entry port in that area was spruced up. Smuggler still break through it all the time, as well, to the point where an area of it is called “Smuggler’s Gulch.” It also has trapped migrants into paying more to cross to the bad guys, taking riskier and more lethal routes, and actually trapping “illegal” migrants in who may want to leave. Most of the time, men would come up, do some work for cash, then go home once they felt they had enough, but now they’re coming, staying, and bringing their families.

Trump also points out that there were people in that room who voted for the wall, but I reckon the immense amount of insanity that came from that previous attempt are why a lot of people don’t want to do it again. Trump says that “No issue better illustrates the divide between America's working class and America's political class” but in truth, 60% of Americans are strongly opposed to the wall. The wall is a lost, stupid cause, and Trump needs to give it up before he hurts himself with his flailing about it.

OH, and just as one last cherry on the cake, it won’t stop sex trafficking either. Most traffickers bring there people in through on legal Visas, which they are then forced to overstay as those visas are held from them. In fact, over 80 anti-trafficking organizations got together to say that Trump's comments on the matter were actually harmful to efforts to stop this stuff.

He then goes on to tell the story of the Maddison family. I honestly don’t remember what it specifically was, because they are just a prop to garner sympathy for his position, and I’d actually be fine with that if the idiot didn’t use it to spread a lie. This family lost ones they love to MS13 members. That’s horrible and tragic and very sad, and I feel for them and wish it hadn’t happened. But acting like this is how every “illegal immigrant” operates is just a flat out lie. While the actual numbers are hard to tell, we know enough to say that if you strip away the illegal crime of coming here when not allowed, “illegal” immigrants commit 16% less crimes then the native-born population. Most of them are just people who want to escape an insane life and live the American Dream. But, see, they’re hispanic, so they can’t. You have to be white to be an American.

So with all of that said, let’s jump ahead to a cute moment where he talks about women taking 53% of the open jobs. Again, not his fault but go off I guess.

He then goes on to celebrate the women in Congress, of which there are more than ever before. Hurrah! I appreciate that little wink and nod, and in fact Donny, you get a gold star for this one too because this one is your fault.

By proxy.

Pretty much every one of those women ran for office because they hated you, your policies, and your stupid ugly face. They’re not there because they like you, they’re there because they want to stop you. So I think I’mma just take that shiny gold star away.

Next, he bounces back to talking about the economy, because Trump can’t focus on a single thing. Again, I won’t say much on this because economics is not my speciality, but people who DO know a thing or two about economics are pretty much in agreement that tariffs are a tool, and not a very good one. The analogy I like to use goes something like this. Imagine tariffs as a double edged knife you’re going to use to stab someone you don’t like. You’re already dealing with a weapon that’s not the safest, but guess what? This one also doesn't have a hilt, or a guard, or a pommel or anything. It’s literally just a long, serrated sheet of iron with a point on one end. So whenever you hit the other guy, you’re cutting yourself too. You can’t not.

Tariffs need to be used with the precision of a scalpel, and only if they’re determined to be the right tool for the job. And that’s without accounting for the unintended consequences like how rich people can probably find a way to avoid tariffs so they hurt the poorer people more, or you know, starting a trade war because the other people can just pass tariffs on you too?! And if any of you think this gigantic flatulating, tiny-handed orange with a racist stick coming out of its ass is capable of “precision” then I have a bridge I’d very much like to sell you.

He also goes on to talk about NAFTA again, and I’m gonna have to plead ignorance on this one. I don’t know if NAFTA is or is not a good deal, or if UMCA is a better one. I don’t know enough about economics and I don’t know enough about the laws themselves. I’m at least grateful the idiot didn’t cancel NAFTA before enstating UMCA, and those people who are smarter than me I keep talking about say that Mexico and Canada may not be in a mood to negotiate a new trade deal. So who knows. I’m not going to say much else on the matter.

So then we move on to infrastructure brieful. Trump talks about how it’s crumbling and needs repair, and he’s not wrong. The infrastructure report card for the US is, frankly, abysmal. But this begins a trend on a couple of topics.

He goes on to eagerly talk about how we need to improve health care, and lower drug prices! That we’re going to get rid of HIV in 10 years! That Childhood Cancer is going to be eradicated! Everyone gets paid family leave! All this wonderful pie-in-the-sky stuff that is super cool to hear him talk about, and I’d be totally behind him….

If he were actually doing anything on these matters. Trump talks a big game on these things, but hasn’t made any moves. Whenever he starts to, his business buddies step in and explain why they’re going to lose money and he stops.

So! He then moves on to talk about the legislation in New York that protects women’s rights to get an abortion anytime and how horrible it is that they’re murdering babies.

I think the response the white-clade congress women gave was the best.

I think the look on Angela Ocasio-Cortez’s face is the best, but the look on Angelia Ocasio-Cortez’s face and I think that’s Kathleen Rice giving the stink eye.

I don’t want to get into a debate about abortion, because that really is the best way to get everyone everywhere ever to hate you. I will say this, however. The law more or less only applies to pregnancies that would kill the mother or if the baby is already dead, and it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t.

Do you honestly think a person is going to go throw eight months of the most harrowing and obnoxious process the human body is capable of performing and then just suddenly decide “You know what? I don’t want this baby anymore.” If you’re that far along you either wanted the baby and were willing to suffer for it, or you never wanted the baby and were prevented from getting an abortion when it would’ve been kinder. The law isn’t about murdering babies, it's about letting women have control over themselves and their bodies. Acting like it’s some horrible evil that happened just makes you look dumb.

We then go onto nonsense about military bravado. Trump yammered about how he forced our allies to pay their fair share in NATO - which is honestly a kettle of fish I want to talk about in its own post, but suffice it to say it’s interesting everything he stresses and hates NATO for makes matters easier for Putin.

The real thing I want to talk about is the nuclear treaty he eventually meanders into like a toddler into a wall. Look, I’m not going to pretend that I understand the intricate diplomatics of nuclear negotiations, but even I know that YOU DO NOT ARBITRARILY CANCEL A TREATY THAT PREVENTS NUKES FROM BEING BUILT. You want an arms race?! This is how you get an arms race!

So what if Russia is “flaunting it” and ignoring it? I do not give one single solitary flying fuck. You negotiate a treaty that makes them suffer consequences - or better yet, stop not making them suffer the consequences they’re supposed to when they pull that shit - and you do it while the other treaty is still active. The last thing we need right now is a nuclear war and I don’t want to fucking hear that you’re taking Russia out of a treaty that at least somewhat contained them.

This man is going to get us all killed, I swear to Athena.

He then starts saying that “oh, the world would be in Nuclear war with South Korea if it weren’t for him, and he’s just wrong. I mean I know the nature of reality is such that there’s no real way to measure the tiny micro changes in the fabric of events that could lead to a given result, but I can say for damn sure that North Korea became more aggressive after Trump took office, and that their nuclear problem is largely for deterrent purposes because they are afraid of. Not that anyone should have nuclear weapons. Point is, this claim is bullshit, and I don’t need to source anything because it’s fantastical.

Next up is Venezuela, and his whole...spat against socialism. First of all, socialism is not responsible for the collapse of Venezuela because it wasn’t socialist. Those close to Maduro call his state a narco mafia government under the guise of socialism. It’s complicated - like everything else here is - but it can basically be summarized that instead of gathering material in the government and using it to support the people, it gave all that to big companies and then just kept taking and taking. Because that’s what unregulated big companies do. There was no market.

That said, even if Venezuela had been socialist in the truest sense, that doesn’t mean that socialist policies couldn’t work or shouldn’t be used. When applied properly (with a mix of capitalism, in my opinion), you can create a prosperous country that takes care of everyone by skimming off the top of those who have much and giving to those who have little. We’ve seen it work in different circumstances before, and even an entire country that made it work up until Stalin decided to take it over and twist its efficacy into bullshit.

He then talks a bit about Israel and Palestine, which is another basket of snakes I refuse to open other then to say that treating it as casually as he does is stupid. Israel and weird creepy end times Christians are the only people who actually don’t want a two-state solution. Sooo yeah.

Next, he speaks on how he’s done with the war against ISIS and that the troops are coming home, but fails to give a time frame and talks about not fighting an endless war - something I’d be more willing to believe if he wasn’t spewing money into the military like a sick man on laxatives does into the toilet. But whatever, I’m all for both of those things, so if he does them I’ll compliment him accordingly and apologize for not believing him.

The last thing I really want to talk about is how he brags about getting out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. That was actually working just fine and had finally squeezed Iran into cooperating and now they don’t have to while still giving them breathing room for their civilian population. But that is a complicated matter, that, again, is more difficult to ascertain than “Thing Good” or “Thing Bad.”

From there, the rest of the speech is just chest beating and bravado. Emotional appeals about how great America is and how free we are and blah blaah blaaah. I actually don’t have a problem with this - the swelling call to action at the end of the speech is a very effective tool and it’s not like I haven’t used emotional manipulation myself, even in this very article. But the point is that it’s not factual - it’s not meant to be criticized as a series of claims or even critiqued at all. It’s bravado, pure and simple. Trump is good at it, and he did a good job with it here.

Before I conclude though, I just want to quickly comment on one thing. Him derailing antisemitism is hilarious. You’re like 4 years too late on that bro.

Anyway, conclusions.

Most of the problems with this speech can be summed up with “It’s not that simple, idiot.” The world is a complicated place and Trump tried to simplify it. His ignorance to fully explain the complexities - or, as the case may be, even bother to understand them - has led him to misinform people live on TV. I’m not going to spend time talking about whether it was deliberate or not, I have long since given up and trying to determine where Trump’s evil ends and his stupid begins.

I will say that I give him one or two points for doing the things right, but given how much else was disgusting and, frankly, hateful, it’s very much “even a broken clock is right twice a day” type thing. Trump’s state of the Union was a cavalcade of lies and misjudgements, interspaced with bravado and unnecessary calls to his god. This is a secular nation, people. I should not hear about God no less than 4 times in the most important speech the country makes.

Hopefully he’ll be out of office soon.

#TheDrumpfWatch #Wednesday Essays #by Phoenix

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lore-a-lie · 6 years ago

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Chapter 3, Act 5: Shooting Stars

Daily Life- Free Time

Kaito was confident in his decision as he and Ryoma left the others to handle their own business. He was one of the few who figured he knew what Gonta might have been doing by taking Kiyo and Kokichi aside. “Keep your friends close and your enemy closer” as the saying goes. Kokichi spots a liar like no other, so if anyone would be manipulating Gonta, it’d be him and not Kiyo.

Not sure how I feel about anybody trying to trick Gonta into doing something, but everyone’d be safe at least. Plus if they knock Kiyo out or somethin’ Kokichi could share whatever’s spinning around in that screwy head of his. He’s not dangerous, but makin’ plans without letting any of us know what he’s trying to do can be, for him and us. And if he doesn’t trust Gonta of all people that kid has some serious issues.

And speaking of serious issues...

He risked a quick glance down at his friend again, but Ryoma was already looking at him and cocked an eyebrow in exasperation. Prolly makes sense, whether he’s meant to or not Kaito knows he’s been looking at Ryoma a lot while training this time. It’s not like he could help it, he’s just worried about the guy and moving his body like this just naturally makes him think a lot. ( As hard as it is to do that now.)

“If you want to say something to me, just spit it out already. It’s not like you to keep your mouth shut. Half worried you’ve stopped breathing up there, bud.”

“Ha ha, very funny. Haven’t left the atmosphere yet. But I was just thinking...”

“I’m so proud of you.”

“HEY! Seriously, I was messing at the arcade and the prizes got me thinking. Wouldn’t playing a match be better exercise than basic training?” Kaito offered, keeping his tone as carefree as he could as he kept an eye on the former pro. (As big of a mistake this might be, I gotta get him involved with something new.)

Ryoma stopped dead in his tracks as he glared at the astronaut, but Kaito saw more frustration and guilt than actual anger on his face. “What do you think you’re playing at? I told you that’s all in the past.”

“It doesn’t have to be though! And it’s nothing serious, just a simple match between us men! Unless you’d want to wait a bit, so Kaede can watch. Sure you don’t want to show off to her a little?”

“What’d be the point of that? Don’t be stupid.”

“Nope, not possible! The “point” would just be to have some fun. Live a little, make sure you have no regrets while we’re in here, that sorta thing.”

“If you’re worried about what I said about Kiyo then fine, but hearing you say this stuff worries me too. You sure you’re okay? You’ve been off for a while now, and that little rebellion you offered isn’t helping.”

“Then let's have a match about it!” Kaito suggested with his normal shit-eating grin. “If you win I’ll answer any questions you want, and if I win you’ll knock it off with that suicidal defeatist crap, deal?”

“Well now that you actually bet on it you know you’ve practically lost, right?”

“Then what do you have to lose?! It’s not like time in this “school” matters much until the motive shows up, so why not play instead of train tonight?”

“... Fine. One match. After you finish playing babysitter to Twisted Sister. Isn’t it about time to swap?”

“Gaaah, don’t remind me! Sure you don’t want to trade?!”

“Not a chance, she’d be one thing but Tenko and Angie are another. Not like I’d be much good at playing chaperone in the sim anyway.”

“Fuuuck. Kiyo I can deal with, but she just gives me the absolute creeps. You better show up, you got me? I’ll need something to look forward to after that bullshit. So this is a promise between men!”

“What does that even mean? It’s not like we’ve drank on it or anything. But fine, whatever you say.”

“And don’t forget to invite Kaede! I definitely want her to see me wipe the floor with you to break that “cool” image of yours already.” Kaito called as he headed off, tossing a present to Ryoma on the way.

He didn’t bother looking back to see Ryoma’s expression as he stared at the tube of tennis balls, but he distinctly heard the muttered “Stop with the teasing already” directed at him. Something about it was more disheartened than usual though. (Guess that’s one more thing I’ll need to ask him about! I mean it’s not like he’s tried telling her, right? And she’s bounced back from Shuichi pretty good hasn’t she?)

When he got to the computer room Kibo was just ending his “shift” and removing his headset before double checking the connections for Kiyo, Tenko, Angie, and Gonta. Which alone raised a red flag.

“Hey Kibo, Gonta’s not pulling triple shifts again is he?”

“Nope, just planning on a double. He just switched with Tsumugi, and expressed an interest in sticking around for Kokichi’s shift too. It shouldn’t be too hard on him, but I understand your concern.”

“Okay. Guy’ll just be spending a lot of time with Kokichi and Kiyo today, whatever makes him happy. But try not to let him stay cooped up in there for too much longer than that okay?”

“Not to worry, I’ve already talked to him about possible physical or mental health concerns. If I wasn’t so worried about bugs getting into my vents or anything I’d offer to spend more time with him and his bugs. Maybe he should start releasing them outside, so we could try “bug hunting” as a group activity?”

“Oh shit, I haven’t done that since I was a little kid! I betcha we have honey and stuff in the kitchen too, they’re great for bug traps. We could definitely try doing that sometime!”

“Great! I’ve never actually done that before, so it’ll be a first for me. And the extra space should be safer for both my systems and his smaller insects than staying in his lab would be.” (Yeah, if Kibo got a literal bug that could really mess him up. But I’m sure I’d be able to manage fixing it somehow, I don’t want him missing out on account of his body. I’m sure Gonta’ll understand if some bugs get hurt by accident.)

His hookup didn’t have any issues either, as he felt the moment his consciousness left his aching body without succumbing to the peace of sleep. Honestly, he didn’t realize how much he hurt all the time until he had this chance to be without it. It had just been part of his daily life for too long, despite his medications and painkillers. (I definitely see what Pap-pap meant when he’d complain about his arthritis. Really does change how you see and do things, whether you know it or not. Pain’s just a new white noise you ignore.)

Rather than waste time or heartache wondering if he’d ever see him or G’amma again Kaito focused his mental energy on finding where the three scariest girls he knew would be. Kiyo normally stuck to the buildings, and they’d been trying to keep him and his… “sister”, separated for the most part in here.

Which definitely has nothing to do with ropes or anything that considering would induce vomiting.

So he decided to test his luck outside! They were all outdoorsy people, weren’t they? Exactly. From that point, all he should need to do is follow the sound of giggling or other high pitched noises. Or maybe thomps if Tenko wanted to try her Neo-Aikido with someone who had a built-in bullet time.

I mean, that’s what I’d do, even if I couldn’t film any of it. It’d look awesome and it works against the power of gravity, which is even more awesome! But I’d never flip a girl, even if they wouldn’t get hurt. That’s just not right. And I’m not a girl, so this doesn’t really matter. Could ask Tenko about it though.

It turned out the three of them were just in the “woods” behind the buildings, so they were easy to catch up with. Obviously that thing was the one least pleased to see him, but Angie happily greeted him with a hug and even Tenko gave him a smile and a wave before prying the artist off of him. Angie clung to her as they walked away, chanting something in her native tongue as she and Tenko returned to the stumps they’d been sitting on despite the new awkward weight.

At least with this monster around, if the mental symptoms of his illness started messing him up he could mask it as fear again. Best of all that might be true enough to get by Kokichi without making the kid worry if it came up later. (It’s hard not to feel guilty when you know he sees every little lie as a possible danger.)

His job here was also easy enough. These girls could handle themselves physically just fine if this whatever-it-is tried to hurt them. Keeping their heads straight if “she” tried twisting them around was another story. Tenko was pretty gullible and naive where girls are concerned, and that bias was hard to break, while Angie could just as easily be as much a danger with that as this phantom menace was. (HA! Knew I still had a knack for the Sci-Fi puns! Pffft, “Menace”. Thanks Tenko, that makes it even better. I need to remember that one. Don’t want to waste it right now, Ryoma and Kaede are going to love it!)

“Hey you, get that creepy grin off your face! I bet you’re thinking of something pervy right now, aren’t you?! Creep. Leave it to a man to ruin the pure innocent beauty of female friendship.”

“Hold on there, I’m not! I was just thinking about something okay, I haven’t even heard a word you said!”

“Oh. Then good, keep it that way! Just because you need to be here doesn’t give you the right to eavesdrop.”

“... Orrrr we could let him join the conversation, couldn’t we Tenko? The more the merrier~”

“I agree with Miss Chabashira, I don’t want to risk you two lovely little angels being forced to sit through any more pointless arguments. After Idabashi did us the great kindness of switching with Miss Shirogane I was hoping to have one day of control without conflict.” It said, causing Angie to stick her tongue out mockingly in retaliation while Tenko got all giddy over being called a “lovely little angel”.

“Ouch. Jeez, no need to sugarcoat anything on my account. Guess I’ll just… stay over here I guess?”

“Good! Nice to see some people know when to respect boundaries after all.”

So to keep Tenko happy Kaito stayed off to the side, but still made sure to listen best he could. Which could have been better, since there was only so much BS he could take listening to at a time from Kiyo’s not-so-inner demon and the more standard girl talk felt wrong to focus on too closely.

Still, it should be enough to keep either Angie or that thing from doing too much damage. It helped how often they’d act to cancel each other out when one of them tried talking Tenko into something. Shame they also fully talked Tenko out of his anti-Exisal plan, but that could be for the best.

He was the only one running out of time. If anyone else died in his rush to escape he’d never forgive himself. (But it’s not like making them watch me die or have a trial over me would be any better.)

Maybe I can tweak the plan so I could take down that monster solo? I mean at least dying like that wouldn't cause problems for anyone else if things didn't pan out. Might not hurt as much in the long run either- I shouldn't think like that, we're supposed to escape together! I can't betray Kaede like this. What sort of man sabotages a kind promise like her's anyway? Heck, we haven't even had her piano lessons yet. There's too much left for me to do, I can't just let myself die now!

I'll just need to come up with something else. Something better and something fast. I'm not gonna die here, and neither is anyone else if I can help it. Not Ryoma, not Kiyo, nobody! Even if that thing that's supposedly back from the dead makes that a lot harder now. Can't get rid of it without hurting him, right? Both physically and emotionally...

Kaito's train of thought only brought his attention back to the matter at hand. The threat trying to wiggle its way into their group as if it was one of them. Whatever it was it was dangerous. That's why he was here after all. He clenched his fist in frustration as he focused back on the girls and the ghoul with them.

“- Honestly, if you think he talks like an old man now, you should have seen him when he was little. I can’t remember how long it took me to get him to stop calling himself “queer” when he meant... “different” or something.” (Hope I haven’t missed anything super important. But this could be.)

“PFFFT. Oh dear, oh dear. Guess he wasn’t really wrong, was he?” Angie said, smothering a giggle.

“Well no, but still! He was NINE, I couldn’t just let him keep talking like that around his peers.”

“You mean friends?” Tenko dryly offered, with hints of her own snickers.

“If he had those then yes, them too.” The words came from its mouth, sweet as cyanide. “Honestly this whole “making friends for me” has been a big misunderstanding. But I can’t TELL him that, because… Well, I don’t know what he’d do. This isn’t like teaching him not everything has to be written in cursive.”

“... Murdering people has been a “misunderstanding?!” Tenko nearly screeched in shock, before checking around to see if that had caught Kaito’s attention. Which she didn’t see, because he knew better than to show that he could already hear them just fine. (Even if it’s listening to this throw “her baby brother” under the bus to make itself look less suspicious. God I hope Angie and Tenko aren’t really buying this crap.)

“I was dying! I told him to “make friends for me”, as in “in my place” or “to make me happy”, because I never had a real chance to have any! Why wouldn’t I, when I was the only person I really knew he had? How was I supposed to know it’d turn into… THIS?”

“Uh-huh. Suuure~” (Good, Angie knows how full of shit this is too. So that leaves Tenko in danger.)

“It was going pretty well too, until that girl he met on one of his travels had an accident when hiking with him. You’ve seen how he gets when he starts panicking, when he started blaming himself I had to do something! So I… told him I’d be taking care of her now, that we’d be best friends, anything to calm him. In hindsight that wasn’t the best of plans, but it was all I could think to do at the time.” (Bull-fuckin’-shit.)

“Hmmm~ Like all you could think to do at the time when you weren’t dead was sexually abuse him?”

“That was completely different! Besides, it sure doesn’t sound like you have any right to judge us.”

“Miss Shinguji has a point. I mean some of your stories raise red flags too, especially with S-E-”

“Whaaaat? Angie’s people aren’t anywhere near this bad! Tenko’s so mean to me…”

“I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Are not!”

Kaito forgot how many times that back and forth went on for before It intervened. But when it did it said something about how close the two were before the three girls started exchanging hushed words.

When he tried to see what was going on he couldn’t make out much. Tenko was red as a beet, covering her face, while Angie had gotten up and draped herself over her friend and rocked her side to side. The fuckin’ flirt, because that’s what always got Tenko looking like that, was apparently teasing the girl over something making weird scissor and crossing gestures with its fingers.

Whatever it was, Angie nodded and knocked their heads together, making Tenko shyly peek out from between her fingers. Angie’s head-nuzzling just caused Tenko to close the gaps again and childishly start kicking her legs from her weird semi-fetal position on her tree stump. (I hope friendships between men are just as confusing to them as watching this pair of gal pals interact is to me.)

As if the world feared some may miss the hint little hearts started bubbling above Tenko’s head too, which gave her a reprieve from Angie’s cuddles as the artist began trying to either catch or shoo away the cutesy animations. The monster’s attempt to “test” if a blown kiss would have the same effect was definitely a case of the latter, pushing Tenko out of the way before chasing after it like a small animal.

As it looked like the abomination’s antics were annoying Angie to her limit and was only using this as an excuse to check in with him, Kaito quickly resumed his earlier position. Which, in his bid to “act natural”, was to try and weave a nearby bush’s branches together. (She’s an artist so maybe she’ll buy it!)

“Oh Hi-oh~ What’s the Kaito been up to?”

“Ohayō to you too I guess. Not much, just… Balancing guard duty with not pissing off Tenko? The usual.”

“Okie-doke. Did Kaito hear Kore’s excuses?” (Okay, she’s just making sure she’s not the only one aware.)

“Trying to make Kiyo out to be the only bad guy you mean? Yeah, and I’ll bet you it’s full of shit.”

“Well, no use betting if they’ll both be on the same thing! Except for Tenko. She won’t believe me...”

“Should you really be leaving those two alone then?” Kaito asked, looking behind her to see Tenko listening and nodding to whatever the threat was saying very intently.

“Not really! But it seemed like a good chance to make sure Angie and Atua aren’t the only ones looking out for her! Not that Angie doubts Atua’s protection, He just thought you’d be a good back-up back-up.”

“Well gee, thanks. I’m a more reliable guy than that you know!”

“... Hmm, Atua says no." Angie shook her head, before clasping her hands in joy to try and give Kaito a different sort of encouragement. "But He praises you for your “wicked positive vibes”! This is why He chose you after all.”

“Well Kaito says yes, and that’s no way to talk to a guy when asking for help!” He snapped back, trying to fight for whatever pride he could keep.

“He knows, He knows. He’s just grumpy because He hasn’t had enough blood sacrifices lately. So on His behalf Angie thanks you!” She chimed before giving him one of her trademark hugs. (Boy it’s weird being at eye level with such a tiny chick.)

“Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you go make sure those two are behaving or something, okay?” Kaito told her after returning the hug and giving her head a good ol’ “good luck” head rub for good measure. She playfully swatted his hands away before skipping back, sticking her tongue out at him as she went.

Not too much else of note happened after that. Tenko made no indication she was aware of Kaito doing his job better than she wanted him to, Angie didn’t sound like she was pushing any agendas, and the monster stayed civil rather than try to shift blame anymore.

The game’s world had no day or night cycles, so Kaito only knew his shift was over when Kokichi showed up. Which was made easier by the fact the boy would not let you ignore the “changing of the guard” as he put it. (Small blessings: Kibo did not give him access to any trumpets or tubas. Hopefully never will.)

He also wasn’t alone, as Gonta and Kiyo were in tow when he found Kaito and the girls.

Seeing Kiyo was enough for Angie and Tenko to get ready to go, though the living lie still went through the motions of cheerfully greeting and clinging to “her brother” as if nothing happened. The boy even gratefully accepted it with even more enthusiasm, not at all suspecting she was trying to screw him over. (Then again why would he? Poor kid. This is too many levels of fucked up. But someone needs to know.)

As Angie and Tenko headed off to the mansion, Kaito beckoned Gonta aside to make sure he understood the dangers here. Can never be too careful, even with Kokichi hanging around. And with the siblings keeping each other’s attention this was his best chance to keep him up to date.

“Hey big guy, you still doing okay? Heard you’re pulling a double today. If you want Kibo could still probably get someone to switch with you.”

“Yup, Gonta good! Kokichi thought it be good idea to hang out for longer and give Kiyo time with Sister Kiyo. So everyone be happy!” (... I mean he’s technically not wrong. He’s way too nice for this bullshit.)

“Good. Really good. Just don’t get too comfortable with how “happy” the two are together, okay?”

“Uhhh, If Kaito saying Gonta need to be vigilant chaperone he no need worry! No un-gentlemanly things will happen, Gonta promise!” (OH GOD NO ACK FUCK GODDAMMIT SHIT I DIDN’T MEAN IT THAT WAY!)

“Not what I meant! I mean good, but… Gah, sorry I made you think of that.” Kaito said, but he was speaking more for himself as he scratched at his neck. So he tried to change the topic to one far more wholesome and help ease Gonta’s concerns about his intelligence. “But hey, nice vocab work there buddy! You been practicing?”

“Thank you! Kiyo and Kokichi been helping a lot with new words.” (... Not the first two I’d trust with this.)

“Good on ya then, keep it up! But still be careful around them okay? And watch out for Kiyo’s “Sister”. She’s been telling Tenko and Angie a bunch of lies lately, so I don’t want her messing with you too.”

“Well fuckin’ duh. What the heck baldy, you going senile on us? Like Gonta’d ever fall for anything she says.” Kokichi snickered as he popped out from behind Gonta. “I mean seriously, it’s not even like he’ll be the one watching her. That’s my job! And she suuucks at this, it’s almost sad. At least Kiyo knows not to try.”

“Hey, who you calling bald?! Seriously, I’m like the LEAST bald guy here!”

“Oh yeah, ‘cause gluing some hair to your chin instantly means you have more of it than our two walking wig shops. C’mon, why else would you be geling it up to look that ridiculous?”

“Excuse you, just because you haven’t hit puberty yet doesn’t mean the rest of us haven’t. This is completely natural thank you very much! I know you’re just jealous of my style, no need to hide it.”

“Right! If Kokichi like Kaito’s hair he can say so. Just like if Kaito getting bald spot he no need to comb hair over it. Friends don’t judge!” (NOT YOU TOO GONTA!)

“I am not! There’s nothing to judge!”

“Oh really? That’s a change of pace, isn’t it?” A feminine voice came from behind Kaito, who immediately regretted his choice of words. He could practically feel that sick smug smile It had as It glared at his head.

“Indeed, that would be nice to hear.” Kiyo wistfully agreed. And with the moment of distraction gone that was Kaito’s cue to get the hell away from them head back.

“Wha- Well, whatever! Have fun on your double date, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Kaito teased as he gave Kiyo a pat on the shoulder and Kokichi a shove, earning him an eye-roll and the pest gagging himself respectively. Then he made his escape before he could suffer any consequences or embarrassment.

“Okay, we won’t, Gonta promise!” Gonta called as he waved gleefully back, much to Kokichi’s sputtering and the Thing’s jeers about Kaito’s normal behaviors.

A quick look at his Monopad after getting out of the simulation showed it was nearly nighttime as Kaede and Ryoma were already in the Tennis Pro’s lab so he rushed down as fast as he could. There couldn’t be a better chance to play a match, and with how things had been going Kaito couldn’t know if he’d have the chance again. (Even if this means interrupting a “moment” here. I mean, he probably won’t mind!)

It didn’t take long for him to catch up with them, and since his friend wasn’t a human tomato it looked like he had pretty good timing too. He tried to ignore the twinge of irritation he felt, writing it off as a holdover of his frustrations about how closed off the guy could be, as he got their attention.

“Hey~ Look who already beat me here. And you brought our audience, good of ya to not chicken out!”

“Ryoma, what did you rope me into?” Kaede asked, giving the guy a suspicious side glance.

“Somethin’ stupid,” Ryoma answered, but nevertheless nudged her in the direction of the nearest spotter’s seat. (Aww man, I forgot his lab had two of them. Wish there was someone else here to watch.)

Kaito shook the thought from his head before it could distract him from the moment at hand. With as much pep as he could muster he spelled things out for her. “You’re gonna be our ref!”

“You’re having a match already?! You could have given me some warning at least, I would have brought my pants if you did.” She grumbled and only then Kaito and Ryoma realized a potential problem here.

The spotter’s seat was obviously set higher than the top of the net. Since they basically ended training, she wasn’t dressed for exercise. And with how short her skirt was… (OH CRAP. Please don’t notice, please don’t notice, please don’t notice! I swear I won’t look! But hey if Ryoma does I’ll still cover for him.)

“So I just have to speak up if the ball lands outside the court?” Kaede asked, oblivious to the two flushed faces behind her as she reached the latter up to it. After both breathed a sigh of relief (not that her being seated would fix the problem per say) Kaito and Ryoma silently agreed and faced away from her. Just to be safe while she was climbing and all, even if this angle should have been okay until the top.

“Hello~ Earth to space cadets, I can’t be a referee if you guys don’t tell me how!”

“Uh, Yeah! If it bounces on the line you just need to make the call for if it’s legal or not! That sort of thing. Don’t worry about it too much, just go with your instincts!” Kaito nervously answered, and saw that the universe had deemed his stint in the sim punishment enough. With the way Kaede was seated his worries about things that must not be seen were unfounded! At least until she needed to get down.

“It’s really just so you can have a comfortable view for me wiping the floor with him,” Ryoma added.

With a laugh Kaito figured they were ready. “Can it and just serve a ball or something!”

To say Ryoma utterly decimated him was an understatement. There wasn’t a shred of mercy in that man’s eyes the few times Kaito had managed to see them before it was over. And that wasn't including any of the times Kaito purposely avoided the ball for fear of his safety. Surely he had shamed the Momota name for decades to come, and not even the depths of outer space would ever allow him to escape it.

“You can stop groveling on the floor you know. Jeez, why’s every guy here such a drama queen?”

Clearly Kaede had about as much mercy as Ryoma had. It was a dark day for humanity.

“Just leave him be. He’s prolly looking for what’s left of his ego down there. You can go on ahead.” Ryoma told her, heartless traitor that he was. (AND YOU WON’T EVEN OFFER TO WALK HER BACK?! THIS IS NO WAY TO TREAT YOUR WINGMAN DUDE! No, I don’t care that he never actually took me up on that offer.)

Ryoma only raised an eyebrow when he noticed Kaito’s glower after she left. “I did warn you this would happen.”

“That’s not it, why’d you pass up on an opportunity like that again, man?! It was all set up for you.” Kaito complained, brushing his pants as he got to his feet. But he knew it wouldn’t keep Ryoma from asking his real question for long. A deal was a deal.

“I told you already, I’m not gonna pursue anything. So what’s really been going on with you?”

For a moment he was tempted to tell him everything. About his illness at least. Then, if worse came to worse, someone would be able to tell the others what happened. Maybe help soften the blow. Help explain why Kaito kept preferring to blame people who felt betrayed for their pain rather than the selfish assholes who broke their trust in the first place. But he couldn’t. As much as Kaito wanted to, he didn’t want to burden anyone else more, and he couldn’t find anything to say in place of the truth.

“It’s because of Maki, isn’t it?” Ryoma asked, encouraging Kaito to take a seat beside him on the floor.

With lack of a better answer, Kaito gave a non-committal shrug as he joined his friend, even though he had to tilt his head at a kinda awkward angle to look down at Ryoma like this.

Seeing as Kaito still didn’t have anything to say, Ryoma tried a different approach. “I ever tell you the story of how I got my cat?” He asked, knowing Kaito would shake his head no. With a wistful smile, he began.

“My girl from America got it for me. Sprung that sweet ol’ grey puffball on me on what I thought was just a normal date. “They said it was blue, so you both match!” she said. Easily one of the happiest moments of my life.” Ryoma scoffed for a moment. “‘Course it didn’t help that she picked the place, an aquarium, so anything would have been uphill from there. Can’t stand fish, but she adored ‘em. Especially sharks.”

Kaito gave a sympathetic chuckle. “Talk about whiplash then, huh?”

“Definitely. I was just lucky the poor little powderpuff was as spooked by those monsters as I was. Shortest trip we ever spent there.” He turned to face Kaito. “You know why I’m able to talk about this sort of stuff now?”

“Let me guess “Because I know she’s in a better place” or something sappy,” Kaito joked, and Ryoma didn’t seem the least bit impressed by it or his attempt to imitate the other’s deep voice for it. (As if we’d have any assurances like that with a girl like Maki anyway. Fuck.)

“Because I took the time to face what happened to her. Tell me, have you grieved for her yet or are you just trying to push and distract yourself from how you feel?”

“Come on, do you think she’d really like a guy crying over her? Totally uncool, a man shouldn’t do that.”

“Screw that garbage. The tough macho types are pretty uncool too, you know." Ryoma said with a look on his face that left little room for arguing or excuses. "You don’t need to cry to grieve for somebody if you physically can’t. I just want to know if you’ve done anything to help yourself.”

“You’re one to talk, it’s not like you’ve done much yourself from the looks of things-”

“I was the one that found her, Kaito. Don’t think for a second I was able to just immediately go and get you or anyone else. How could I? We both thought she was just running late that morning despite agreeing to meet up. I thought I’d be asking Kiyo if he saw her anywhere in case he spent an all-nighter, not… that.”

Kaito’d be lying if he said his throat wasn’t closing up at the memory, and he couldn’t imagine how much that must have hurt. But the benefit of that was he couldn’t say anything to lie about it in the first place. Ryoma must have seen his eyes begin to water some as he seemed more at ease than before.

“The trial’s one thing, but we’ve never talked about it after. Ignoring the pain won’t help here, I know. I tried, and instead it festered and look where that got me.” The Ultimate Prisoner continued to take the burden of speaking off Kaito for a bit longer. “It’s okay to vent. I’m here for you, we all are. We get it.”

“B-but…” Kaito didn’t want to think about how his voice cracked up before he tried again. “She didn’t get the chance to do it.” He wanted to ignore the burning tear-tracks he felt on his face as he spoke. “She hadn’t overcome her true enemy yet. And it looked like she was getting so close.”

“Monokuma? We weren’t that close-”

“Not that!” Kaito snapped, but it only made what he wanted to explain harder to say as he struggled to get enough air in him. “The same one you’re fighting. It looked like she was finally opening up a little.”

God, I hope he understands. They’ve always been their own worst enemies, trying to push everyone away. Thinking they aren’t good enough to have anyone close to them. Despite those morons were just making that harder for them, Maki still made good strides there. She accepted my invitation to the casino, she dragged Kaede into our training nights, she was doing so well and then she- She tried, and Kirumi still- “FUCK!”

Ryoma put a hand on his back, too short to reach his shoulder, as Kaito just screamed and punched the floor in front of him hard enough to hurt. “Yeah. Yeah, she was.”

For the longest time that was all there was to coherently say. Kaito didn’t know how late it was when he calmed back down to head to bed, but Ryoma stayed with him the whole time. A rock to rely on. But when the emotional waves receded, for now at least, Kaito was never more grateful to have him as a sidekick.

And for once that title almost feels right. ‘Cause who am I kidding? I know who’s the real hero here.

If I was we’d be fucked. When I go it’d leave too much of a hole behind me, like the aftermath of a supernova. I’m just the mentor here, and you don’t call their students “sidekicks”.

Still, to support me like this should also mean Ryoma should be okay if I go. And if he isn’t then he can see if Kokichi’s willing to share Kaede some. Thank goodness for her. Real shining star that one.

Worst come to worst I know these people are in good hands.

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