#but v2 just stays close and they talk and talk and it has so many wonderful things to say

[muzzleroars]

v2 being able to hold mike even without his helmet on because the rot that now leaks out of him can't hurt it like it does everyone else rrrraaauuughghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

[prancingintheshadows]

Time Dilation

I just feel like talking about it since I've been slowly gathering thoughts on it over time. Why has Weiss' Time Dilation glyph just disappeared after V2 and a brief mention in V3? It's a question that plagues many as it's a fan favorite glyph despite the fact it has only shown up twice. I've been trying to figure it out and I've come up with plausible theories. There's actually quite a lot of points about why Time Dilation is one of the various abilities that were dropped after the show toned down the rule of cool for more consistent abilities (Which is valid. I constantly think about Yang getting blown into the stratosphere during a food fight but gets knocked out after hitting the roof of a train)

I can technically split this into two major points, but each point has more meat I want to dig into. Those two points are:

Super Speed and Buffs

Let's start with one at a time, but knowing the other point will be helpful. Speed first. Time Dilation, in simple terms, is a speed buff. As someone who did a lot of physics in college and for jobs, I could go deeper and talk about the name origin of time dilation and why Speedsters seeing things in slow motion is a lie, but that's not important.

What is important is that Time Dilation applies a speed buff. This is actually a terrible thing to provide a buff too. Why?

Speed is OP

Speed controls a lot in a fight: Rate of attacks, ability to close the distance, ability to run away, evasion, reaction speed (though scientifically speaking a dilation of time would actually worsen this aspect). It's the complete package. Which is a problem when you give it to a character who's semblance is a swiss army knife. There is no situation where Time Dilation is a wrong answer. Not only that, it can often be the best answer. It doesn't conflict with Weiss' other glyphs. We see her use it then use a bunch of standard glyphs. If the answer was use fire dust, now the answer is time dilate then use fire dust. If the answer was summon an Arma Gigas, the answer is now summon then dilate the Arma Gigas. It's not even that speed has no downsides, it's that speed always has an upside.

I know people complain about Weiss focusing too hard on semblance usage and basically being a mage at times, but if you want over centralization, this would be it. At least, in terms of fighting smart and power scaling. There's oddly a reverse problem when it comes to super speed that I only realized during the thinking process of this

Super Speed is bad at Choreography

Now, I hear what you're saying. Those two times Time Dilation were used were great! Yeah, they were. Because they were used smartly. You can only animate super speed so many ways. It's actually very restrictive if you think about it.

Here's the thing about animation. Animation works because your brain can connect the dots between each frame of the animation. Animators who understand that principle can make movements seem extremely fast by cutting out in-betweens. The problem is, there is a limit. This is the problem with Super speed. Super speed wants to be a blur of motions, a flurry of events that happen in the blink of an eye, a character blitzing another at the speed of sound they can hardly react, but you still have to have it be legible to the audience, limiting the ways you can utilize it.

You can slow down time, but then you lose the sense of speed. It retains all the little details and there's little issue in making sense of what's happening, but it lacks the energy of showing it in real time.

Real time super speed has the problem of needing to keep motions simple. No complex combos. You can't pull off a light, medium, heavy into special into super. There's no way you'd be able to parse all that if you go too fast. Try watching any fight at 2 or 3 times speed and you'll see how much of a mess it is. So a lot of speedsters just spam rapid punches and kicks or showing off their speed with needlessly dashing all over the place so it stays visually clean and digestable. Look at Harriet. Instead of barraging Ruby with punches in V7E12, she does a lot of running strikes so that it's clear she's fast, but you don't lose the action in a blur of fists. I've never seen a speedster do a complicated combo before. The Flash's most memorable attacks involve him running really fast before a punch

Well, what if we slow down a little? This is actually how Time Dilation manages its speed. When Blake spams blade beams, notably, the first few blade beams come out one at a time and the camera focuses on individual missiles being cut before Blake really lets loose, because Monty definitely understood that going fast right away would be visual noise without the regular speed blade beams telling you what is actually happening. But that's a workaround, not a solution. In order to truly look fast, Blake has to devolve into a barely visible blur spitting out brightly colored attacks. Weiss' utilization follows similarly, one fully demonstrated thrust followed by several thrusts at faster pace. No actually complicated choreography is shown, just repetition after you've been properly informed about what's going to happen. The characters need to be going a sufficient speed to look like they've sped up, otherwise our brain's auto correct won't clock it correctly

Buffing Complications

Have you been keeping in mind this is a buff? Good. This shouldn't take too long then. What Time Dilation does is both over powered and over centralizing to be put into Weiss' versatile powerset and is too limited in the ways you can animate it to be used too often. Now apply that to the main cast and you can see why it hasn't really returned.

Okay, let's actually dive a bit deeper. If the problem was just super speed, Time Dilation could maybe stay in, as both Ruby and Harriet have speed based semblances (though Ruby's doesn't enhance attacking speed). But there's a problem with it being one of Weiss' Glyphs, as its essentially outshines both her other glyphs and Ruby as well. What's so special about Ruby or Harriet's speed when Weiss can just buff someone else to keep up? Sure, they might still be faster, but it doesn't change the fact that their semblances come off worse when Weiss can easily copy it

The other big problem is the ease of use. There are other semblances that buff: Jaune's Aura Amp buffs semblances, Yang's Burn increases her strength, Nora's lightning absorption can make her really strong. Thing is, these all have limitations that prevent them from being used constantly or right away. Jaune has to be in touch distance, Yang's works best on low aura, Nora needs a specific element. Weiss' doesn't really have a restriction, not when she's constantly carrying around full revolver of dust at least. This leads to the problem of fights essentially having to balance for a buffed main party whenever Weiss is around. Fights in story are mostly about the narrative, but they do try to keep overall strengths and skills in mind. If Weiss constantly had the ability to increase people's speeds, you suddenly have a problem where party's power shoots up drastically and then you'd have to balance the enemies they face to compensate. Harriet is reasonably faster than Ruby, but if Ruby got Time Dilated, what then? Would they be even or would you make Harriet's speed even faster to keep narrative tension in the fight?

Those are probably my big take aways. Time Dilation is too strong, too easily used, and too hard to animate to be around for a long period of time.

But knowing that Time Dilation is just Haste due to Monty's Dead Fantasy does make it make sense why this thing is dumb busted. It's the premier FF spell and is meant for an RPG where characters take turns. Putting it into a series with combat that was already fast paced was always going to be a problem when the series tried smoothing out the strengths of the characters.

[inspotlight]

━━ ♡ the start of something new [ v1 ] (canon adjacent, minor changes)

you wake up one day thinking that you're in a loving relationship. that when you tell him you love him, he'll say it back. when he doesn't, you don't know what to do with yourself. he needs time. you say fine. you go off to camp, find yourself, find a new love, things are looking up. until he wants you back. until he does anything he can to win your heart back. you let him. he's only ever loved you, after all, and you know admitting something like that would be difficult for him without time to think. you saw his parents' relationship implode. you heard the screaming. you saw him cry. so, you let him back in. nothing can stop you now. you're the lead in the school musical, you got the guy, you're living the life.

━━ ♡ drama! drama! drama! [ v2 ] (canon adjacent, minor changes)

you get into a prestigious drama school. great! good for you. all your dreams are coming true. except... you get there, and it's not quite what it seemed. prestigious, yes, but creative? oh, no. there's no creativity going on here, and you hate that. you yearn to be able to improvise, you long to burst into song with your friends. you're miserable here. the one shining light is your boyfriend, who keeps you sane, who keeps you connected to what matters. and, of course, your roommate, who fits so well at this school, but still has time to be your friend. you're going to need it.

━━ ♡ it was all yellow [ v3 ] (canon divergent, major changes)

you moved to los angeles. you have a real shot at your dreams. you're connected to people in the industry you've always wanted to break into, and your boyfriend has just booked a musical in your city. you've never been more excited for your future. he's staying in your guest room, you get to have him close again soon, nothing could be better than this.

━━ ♡ felt like coming home [ v4 ] (canon divergent, major changes)

you moved to los angeles. you thought, this is where dreams come true. for the most part, you were right. but, then, you meet him. he's a charmer. he made you feel special, at least at first. you start dating him, and you realize, no wonder so many girls have broken up with him in the last few years. he's horrible. but, you think, maybe this is what an adult relationship feels like. nothing can ever compare to your high school sweetheart, right? you're freshly eighteen, making your way in your new industry, and recording an album. you're dating the most streamed artist of last year. you should be happy. you're not, though. your ex-boyfriend moved to los angeles, too. you saw him photographed with a notable child star. they're co-stars in the musical he was cast in. but, they look much closer than just being co-stars. you blocked her on social media. blacklist her name. this shouldn't hurt, right? you should be happy for him. he deserves to be happy, and you're proud of his success. but seeing them together hurts. you don't know if it's because your own relationship is terrible and you feel unloved, or if you want your ex-boyfriend back. you think maybe both could be true. so, you start talking to him again. things are going great! you tell him you're happy and that you're proud of him, but you both know the former is a lie. so, you make a plan. you decide you're going to get back together. you just need to figure out how to break up with your boyfriend without he and his uncle, the cfo of your label, ruining your career. but, you do it. and soon enough, you can be happy again.

━━ ♡ by birth you have been blessed [ v5 ] (alternate universe)

you were born into the lap of luxury. you never had to want for anything. as a child, you played in the gardens with your friends, visiting royals from other countries, until it was deemed inappropriate to act like a child any longer. years later, you meet your childhood friend again, but this time, you're being told he's your betrothed, and you're to be married. you'd always wondered what it would be like to be married. you thought you'd have to marry for power, but now, you wonder, could you marry for love?

━━ ♡ twirl girl [ v6 ] (alternate universe)

you're a natural on the ice. you've been skating since you were four in your very first snowplow sam class. when you were twelve, you decided you wanted to be a pairs skater. at fifteen, you fell in love with another skater. at just sixteen, you win gold at the olympics and make history. you celebrate with that skater you'd fallen so hard for. and then he doesn't call. you wonder what you did. you get back home and learn that he'd hooked up with another girl when he got home. you're furious. you've never been so hurt. you start dating someone else — a hockey player. it doesn't work out, but at least you have someone to confide in, right? you're still friends. you're nineteen when your skating partner decides to move to new york and go to college. he's done skating, and you need someone to skate with. that boy that broke your heart is in need of a new skating partner, too. you share a coach and she suggests you enter into a partnership. by this point, you hate him (even though you still love him). you don't have a good reason to say no to skating with him, though, so you set ground rules. and then you trample all over them for a little bit of affection. but, still, you're not very nice to him. or anything else at the rink, for that matter. you've hardened your heart and won't let anyone in. you're an island. you're alone. so very alone. until he starts to break down your walls.

━━ ♡ into the upsidedown [ v7 ] (stranger things verse)

you're the lead in the school musical when everything goes to shit. you thought this was going to be your year, but it isn't. senior year was supposed to be amazing, but now you and your friends are fighting monsters. all you wanted was to be on broadway, not watch people die.

━━ ♡ the chicago love deception [ v8 ] (canon divergent, major changes)

your best friend needs you. his absent mother has a wedding coming up and he needs a date. when he asks you, you jump at the opportunity. the two of you have always acted like a couple. you've always been more than just best friends. so, you help him out. and then your fake date becomes real, sometime during that weekend.

━━ ♡ voted most likely to run away with you [ v9 ] (canon divergent, major changes)

you're head cheerleader. he's a football player. you're the it couple. your cheerleaders call the two of you mom and dad, and you think it's cute. you're engaged to be engaged and you flaunt your promise ring like it's the most expensive of the crown jewels. college is approaching and you have everything you've ever wanted.

━━ ♡ the best wrong number [ v10 ] (canon divergent, major changes)

you went years without talking to your childhood best friend. things happened, you lost contact. then, after summer camp, when you tried to get in contact with a camp friend, you hit the wrong number, and ended up talking to a stranger. it didn't take long before you and your wrong number realized you knew each other. and suddenly, you were reunited with your best friend. but, then, you start having feelings. your boyfriend is away at college now, and his girlfriend helped him through the hardest time in his life. you're attached. you have people you don't want to hurt. but, at the same time, don't you owe it to yourselves to chase your happiness?

━━ ♡ making out on mulholland drive [ v11 ] (alternate universe)

you moved to los angeles to pursue your acting career when you were just fourteen. you've made an album since then. you only went to east high half the year, spending the other half doing your schooling virtually, before officially making the move permanent at eighteen. your boyfriend follows you to los angeles and embarks on his own career. you're plastered on the cover of every trashy tabloid you can think of when you land a movie together, and people start shipping you. you haven't made your relationship public per se, but it's never been kept private, either. so, you mess with the reporters. you make them think you're just really close co-stars. it's fun. you have a good time messing with people.

━━ ♡ mystical and magical [ v12 ] (supernatural verse)

your best friend is missing. you've been going to every little magical hotspot in the country trying to find information about who took him and where he might be. you encounter all sorts of people and you learn a lot about yourself. your powers are fairly simple, but you know how to use them to your advantage.

━━ ♡ i have never ever been happier [ v13 ] (euphoria verse)

you go to east highland high school and all you want is one year where the drama stays in the theatre. is that really so much to ask? you work on lexi's play, but when you realize what it's really about, you almost jump ship. after all, you adore maddy.

━━ ♡ unspecified [ v14 ]

you don't really know what universe you fit into, so you exist here sometimes, where things don't need to be so defined.

━━ ♡ let’s spend forever together [ v15 ] (bachelor verse)

you auditioned for the show to get your name out there. you weren't all that interested in actually finding love. your music career is just starting out and you want to make a name for yourself. and then, you step out of the limo, and you see him. the world stops. you can barely breathe as you introduce yourself to him. you're in love. you had always heard of love at first sight, but never thought you'd experience it. and then he shows up, and he rocks your world. the two of you are connected instantaneously and you know exactly how this ends. you're going to get the final rose and the impressive ring, but really, all you want is him.

━━ ♡ bloodsuckers anonymous [ v16 ] (wednesday verse)

nevermore academy has been your home the entirety of your high school career. you're dating your best friend and things are amazing. you're not involved in any of the issues that happened at school with that addams girl. you stick to your own little clique and enjoy your days as a vampire.

━━ ♡ future egot winner [ v17 ] (canon divergent, major changes)

you live with your best friend in new york city, you're working on broadway, and you're happier than ever. your boyfriend visits often, and you're about to move in with him. things couldn't be going any better. you're excited to see what your future holds. it all feels like a dream.

━━ ♡ like something from fitzgerald or thackery [ v18 ] (gossip girl verse)

you were born into the kind of excess wealth some only see on tv. your moms, a prestigious surgeon and a cutthroat lawyer, have made an excellent life for you in new york city. you spend your weekends at broadway shows, dreaming of the day when you'll be on that stage yourself. during the week, you attend an elite school and try your best to not fall into the petty drama that seems to surround your friends.

━━ ♡ concrete jungle [ v19 ] (canon divergent, major changes)

you're going to juilliard. this is what you've always wanted. you're dating the love of your life and you can't believe you get to be this happy. you explore the city with your love on the weekends and dream about the day you get the call that you're going to be on broadway.

━━ ♡ welcome to nevermore academy [ v20 ] (wednesday verse)

why do i have two wednesday verse tags im gonna leave this here but... why

━━ ♡ bigfoot was just a really dedicated cosplayer [ v21 ] (gravity falls verse)

you moved to gravity falls, oregon, and things. are. weird. you're not really sure what to make of this town, but it's definitely interesting. your moms were always into true crime podcasts, but sometimes they ventured into conspiracy theories, so you think they chose this place on purpose.

━━ ♡ the princess and the skater [ v22 ] (crossover verse)

you're not sure what happened. when you woke up this morning, you thought you'd been kidnapped. you're a princess, it's been threatened before. but, then you hear that voice in your ear, and you know your husband is here, too. except, he's not your husband. not really. you're not in your own world right now. you've swapped bodies with a version of yourself that exists in another universe. this you is unmarried, a figure skater, and living a life you'd never dreamed of. but, your husband is here, technically. that's still him, even if it's not. and you love him. so, you let him show you what this world can be. you let him take care of you. and you genuinely enjoy being in this world while you're here.

━━ ♡ miss independent [ v23 ] (post-canon, divergent)

you moved to los angeles and moved in with your cousin. so far, so fun. you miss your boyfriend, though. he's always been your best friend and the long distance is hard. you want so badly to make this work and you know he's coming to be with you as soon as graduation is over, but the day-to-day is hard. you do your best to involve yourself in theatre and your cousin's love life, but some days, it all gets to be too much for you. you're excited for the opportunities that await you here. you're songwriting, you're recording, things are looking bright for your future. you watch your cousin's friend group's drama unfold mostly as a bystander, only ever jumping in when demi really needs you. you like it this way. the world is your oyster.

[paris-geller-was-straightwashed]

okay but I wanna cry because we see el go through unspeakable trauma this season. her few years on this earth we already knew were bad, but this was tenfold - el being hurt and made to feel helpless by her bullies, scarred from losing one of the closest people in her life, being betrayed by owens & forced back under brenner’s control and loose her freedom and self once again in this new make-shift lab, getting hurt again physically and emotionally by the other experiments, witnessing horrors in hawkins lab, opening herself to someone who is kind to her for the first time in her life only for him to betray her and force her to see unspeakable things and then be the one to kill him. all these horrible, horrible, horrible things and still - 

she chooses love.

every time. every time el chooses goodness. she has had so many opportunities to turn her pain inwards, to become cruel. god knows enough cruelty has been unfairly handed to her. but she doesn’t take that path, no matter how many times it’s handed to her. vecna tries to convince her to join him, and even though she doesn’t want to stay with brenner and stay in the lab, she knows what he’s doing is not the way. she takes one look at the bloodied bodies who didn’t do anything to deserve that - and she stands up to him. owens gives her the chance to walk away from her past, to not have to subject herself to this pain again, but all she needs to hear is that her friends are in trouble and she gives herself to them. she evens cries for what she did to angela (who totally deserved to have her face bashed in but that’s not what we’re talking about right now), never wanting to hurt her that badly.

el, little el who had only been showed a shred of kindness for the first time at 12yrs by three boys who bond themselves to her, gives her last breath to defeat the demogorgan to save them. she walks herself back into the lab and all the trauma it holds to close the gate and she does it. sweet el, who saw that frightened cat on the table and knew what brenner was asking her to do was wrong and refused to kill it.

she is not a monster. she is a hero, every. single. time.

all this pain, all this hurt beat into her - and she remains kind. she has been through the unspeakable and yet she is soft and gentle and good. it’s intrinsic to her. she’s seen firsthand how painful the world can be and yet she chooses kindness every time.

and I just pray that she gets to see that about herself and just how good she is in v2.

[nothingtoseehd]

eah characters as cavetown songs

this was inspired by @/applewhiteapologist's eah characters as taylor swift songs, sooooooo yeah

some characters might not be here because: 1. it's hard to find songs for them (as of right now) 2. i forgot them/i'll do them if i have more time

apple white - devil town v2/green

-i chose devil town v2 because it seemed the most, uh, apple out of all the devil town versions? devil town v1 seems edgy-ish, and devil town v3 seems lower and calmer, i think???? maybe i just chose this because it has those light, floaty chords, i'm not sure, i'm not smart or anything -also i honestly felt like this was hard -i chose devil town because it could represent the future she pictured in her mind when raven didn't sign the book -i don't really know what to explain green, but like, ashlynn and apple in true hearts day??? that's the best way i could explain this song -lyric analysis time: --"i still get a little scared of something new, but I feel a little safer when i'm with you, falling doesn't feel so bad, when I know you've fallen this way too" ---apple is "a little scared of something new" because she's in for an unpredictable future without the storybook of legends ---for the falling part, it's like she's not so sad about being led astray when she's with her friends maybeeeeeee -lyrics for green because i can't explain it but it's just THERE: --"you looked so good in green i hope you’re well and you look so good with him and i’m proud of you still take care of my shirt warm and red i hope you think of me still as your friend i hope you love yourself your body and heart i hope you feel happy that’s all i want that's all i want"

raven queen - devil town v1 (dang it there's no purple text so have plain text)

-i just chose devil town v1 because i think it would work well with her guitar, i actually don't know how guitar works but i'm pretending to know how it works, don't tell anyone i don't know how they work -i think this song could represent her home life and whatnot because she's living with the evil queen -it's lyric analysis time!!: --"you said something dumb again, she's mad, at least that's what they say" (i just used orange so the lyrics wouldn't blend in as much) ---the something dumb thing could be like a 'nice deed' the evil queen doesn't like, and she's mad because of that --"we're all dead in devil town, that's fine, cause nothing's gonna scare us now" ---she's 'dead' after all the nagging and 'be eviL EMBRACE YOUR INNER EVIL' shit and it's now the normal, and it's not going to scare her since it's basically her life now -also slowed devil town can fit her too

madeline hatter - hug all ur friends/talk to me

-she's just so friendly?????? and supportive?????? and oh gosh i need a hug???????? -seriously though, they suit her because she feels so much like a huggy, supportive person and she's friends with everyone sooooooooooooo, hugs for everyone!! except you crystal!! and headmaster grimm!! not forgiving for the time you almost banished maddie!! -the lyrics because i can't explain these songs, it's just that maddie vibe, you know?: --"life’s too short to worry about things that we got wrong, so hug all your friends and let them know, you’re not letting go, i’m not letting go" (hug all ur friends) --"you don't have to be a prodigy to be unique you don't have to know what to say or what to think you don't have to be anybody you can never be that's alright, let it out, talk to me" (talk to me)

briar beauty - pigeon

-i had a very hard time with her but i think this kinda fits -it generates a sleepy vibe? (even though i didn't get this from the sleepyhead album *cough cough*) -okay, so the reason why i chose this for her is because of the chorus, which could kind of tie in with her destiny, with the 100 year coma -have the chorus for reference: --"didn’t give me time to say goodbye in the way that i wanted to, so honey, close your eyes and stay like you’re supposed to do, don’t know how i’m gonna live without, but i’ll stay strong for you"

ca cupid - sweet tooth/for you

-this is already self-explanatory if you listened to the song(s), buT IF YOU HAVEN'T YET, basically it's a song about an unhealthy crush and love and stuff -and you know who she has an unhealthy crush on???? that's right, it's blondie!! /hj (but seriously, in canon it's dexter but uH, i refuse to believe that, they're better off as friends) -lyric examples because like maddie, i can't really explain it but i know the vibe is THERE: --"a sweet tooth for you, i'm wide awake, the sugar went straight to my brain, feel like a kid, i double tap, my chest with my fist, i like you, say it back, say it back"

cerise hood - snail

-snail iS SUCH A GREAT SONG OMG -snail kinda represents her childhood and 'not wanting to be born like this' because of her parents technically breaking destiny (stupid storybook of legends) -lyrics from the song because i kinda don't really need to explain this song more: --"i was just born like this, wish that i could change it" --"i'm hanging out with the foxes and the hounds, and when i fit in i'll break back out"

daring charming - boys will be bugs/lemons (technically cavetown is just a feature but he's still there so yeah)

-it's just about the vibes -and also about the fact that the person in the songs have to uphold some sort of standard (the songs' standards were about masculinity) and i thought it could fit daring because he also has to uphold a standard (being the perfect charming prince) -also in lemons, daring's part is the one where cavetown sings it (if that wasn't obvious) -also ANOTHER LEMONS SIDE NOTE, i'd imagine rosabella singing brye's part, just because -lyrics time: --"don't mess with me, i'm a big boy now and i'm very scary i punch my walls, stay out at night, and i do karate don't message me 'cause i won't reply, i wanna make you cry ain't that how it's supposed to be? though it isn’t me boys will be bugs, right?" (boys will be bugs) --"so i'm gonna take it out on you too proud to show i'm hurting push it on you 'til you're burning" (lemons)

darling charming - 888/trying

-888 is a fun song, very groovy, has peppa pig plasters, 10/10 -main reason i chose 888, it kinda feels gay when you put it under a certain light?????????? -and snail could also fit with darling but i don't want to rob cerise -i was very stuck for a second song for darling because i felt obligated to give the charming siblings two songs because they're that top tier, but i think trying could be a good fit to some extent -could be like 'not great relationship with parents, struggle to fit with their standards ever since she found out she wanted to be a hero or something' -i still do think snail is a better fit for darling but i really really don't want to rob cerise because cerise is amazing -some lyrics: --"i'm workin' things out clouds lookin' strange papercut fingers dancing on the strings if i could see you right now i'd dance just for you when the nightlight goes out" (888) --"please let me know if you change your mind cause inside i'm falling And I need you to pull me out of this decline i realize how hard on you this must seem But trust me when i say it's far, far worse for me" (trying)

dexter charming - telescope/home

-telescope just feels like his vibe???? also because it kinda also have hopeless romantic-ness???? -also i headcanon him to be an astronomy nerd???? so that's fun???? that's my reasoning i guess???? (also, side-note i have just listened to astronomy by conan gray and it fits dexter) -ALSO HOME IS HERE BECAUSE DEXTER IS TRANS YOU CAN'T CHANGE MY MIND -also because it's also his vibe??????? -what time is it????? *clap clap* it's lyrics time!!: --"through the lens, it's dark, single-digit on the clock singing, "yessiree, i sure like-a you a lot" all i need is to get her she'll be happy if you let her" (telescope) --"turn off your porcelain face i can't really think right now and this place has too many colors, enough to drive all of us insane are you dead? sometimes i think i'm dead cause i can feel ghosts and ghouls wrapping my head but i don't wanna fall asleep just yet" (home)

okay the process of this post was just me staring at the lyrics and listening to cavetown a lot, sometimes during online classes but shhhh don't tell anyone (and finding more great songs)

is this post going to flop?? very very likely. do i care? eh, not sure, this was just me trying to put on my big brain hat.

also i realized while reading this post, that i never actually analyzed the majority of the songs' lyrics in this post?? so i'm very sorry

[frutavel]

I picked up minecraft more seriously now as I'm sure you've noticed, and I think I posted about it here but I was documenting my newest adventure with the intent of writing about Tari and Sama trying to survive in minecraft

Well I'm not sure if I'm going to write it after all, but I still have all my notes and I think it's got some comedic potential so I'm posting them here, from when I first spawned in the world up until I stopped keeping track of things about three weeks later :D

I started mixing in Tari and Sama's POVs at some point, but everything noted here are things that for real happened to me while I was playing!

Under the cut because it's A Lot ^^

- Spawned by mushroom trees

- White horses everywhere

- Gather a little bit of meat and wool

- Find and kill some chickens

- Dig a hole in the ground

- Barricade the hole

- Fear.png

- Noises

- Survive the night intact

- Go out early to look for resources

- Find island

- B E E S

- Gather wood and resources

- Go back to the hole, begin talk of building on the island

- Go to the island

- B E E S v2

- Make beds

- Start building house on a lil hill

- Foundation layer done

- Creeper blows up half the hill

- Repair

- Go out get more food and wood

- Finish house

- Creeper blows up again but this time with more damage

- Trouble with skeletons, almost die

- Repair

- Find a cave

- Worry about building this close to cave, start talk of moving away

- Go explore cave to see what's up

- Gather coal and iron

- Find enderman stuck in cave, release enderman, almost die to enderman

- Spread lanterns and torches around house and cave

- Monsters seem to have given up

- Mood has been lightened

- Explore neighborhood

- Find pumpkins and more food

- Happyness ensues

- Make boat, go exploring by boat

- Tari doesn't come back until next morning bc he almost died while exploring by boat

- Come back w news of a village nearby and more food

- Make a furnace

- Make farm

- Tari stays home watching furnace

- Sama handles farm

- Things going good

- Decide to expand house

- Go hunting for wood

- Find more mushrooms

- Get home late at night very scared but everything is okay

- Mushroom soup babey

- Things seem good

- Go to bed, wake up next morning and go check on farm

- Creeper blows up the farm, half the house and almost kills Samaela

- Panic.png

- "Lead the way Taran-Zhu" he said "Let the healing begin"

- Samaela stays unconscious for a couple days while Tari does repairs

- Realizes they built right on top of cave system

- Samaela wakes up eventually

- Start talk about moving somewhere else again but for real this time

- Begin gathering resources

- Begin making planks for the building

- Take bed, take boat, begin looking for another place to build

- Go to oak tree forest, survey area

- Find big clearing of sand by trees

- Fear farming there won't work, move on

- Find big clearing on top of hill a little aways away

- Worry about exposure, scout nearby woods

- Very dark woods

- Like, really fucking dark

- Dark as shit but no caves nearby

- Spoke too soon, found a cave

- Woods are very dense, worry about getting lost after dark

- Clearing on top of hill seems like best option, unsure as to whether they should go farther

- Decide to hop on boat and keep going

- Find sea turtles, immediately forget sea turtles

- See desert biome, remember village, wonder if maybe building next to village is a good idea

- It's a desert so no

- Also kinda scared of the villagers

- Wonder about other biomes, keep going

- Find little swampy like area with lillypads and weeping willows

- Interest piqued , explore further via river

- Looks like a new biome but vibes are a little weird, keep going

- Row in between very tall mountains

- Starts getting dark, river gets too shallow to continue, make camp for the night, sleep with no issues

- Wake up feeling okay, dig a little bit around the riverbed to make room for boat

- Get on boat and continue exploring

- Row row row the boat gently down the stream

- Find another village, hang around village for a bit, move on

- Little spot accross the river from village seems nice

- There's sheep and cows and pigs, and it's close to the village if they need help

- And it must be safe if the villagers settled here

- Take a closer look around area

- Find cave

- Cave entrance is chock full of coal and iron

- Mine away babey

- Actually make it all the way down the bottom

- Cave is not that big and there are no monsters inside

- Get all surface level minerals

- Bags filled with coal go back to the surface

- It's night

- Panic

- Make quick camp at mouth of cave

- Sleep and wake up fine

- Decide to explore more of area

- Find another cave nearby

- This one looks big

- Bags are full no space for new things

- Tari wants to be closer to sea, Sama is torn

- Sama likes being close to the village

- They decide to build a temporary house near village

- Temporary becomes permanent

- Start laying the foundation and prepare to transfer things from the old house to the new

- Spend a fuckton of time building new house

- Really a fuckton

- Run out of dark oak wood, take boat and go back to oak tree and giant mushroom forest

- Very far away

- Chop until axe breaks, load up boat with wood, go back home

- Build build build buld

- For story purposes Tari says he's going to try and go farther to see if he can find more resources, Sama stays behind to build

- House almost done

- Starts setting glass for glass roof

- Finished the glass go to finish roof

- Runs out of wood again

- Sama goes to oak trees alone

- Woods spooky

- Gets wood

- Go home with no problem

- Tari came home aya!

- Finish house together

- Enjoy a nice evening on the roof

- Wake up next morning bc noises

- Enderman got inside

- Fuck

- Try to coax it out

- It gets angry, Tari gets badly injured but they manage to kill it

- Tari's turn to be in bedrest

- Sama tucks him in the glass room and goes downstairs

- Sees creeper creeping by the window

- War flashbacks

- Sneaks outside, gets it to blow up without damaging the house

- Goes to inspect the damage, sees pillagers in distance, chooses to not engage and pray they'll go away

- Tense day

- Pillagers keep lurking but don't do anything

- Go to bed

- Pillagers still there next morning

- Go fight them

- Success

- Go back hoping no more show up

- Decide to begin farm

- Farmwork has begun successfully

- Put out some lights, make some bone meal for the next morning and go to bed

- Wake up next morning, skeleton got inside

- Is killed easily but at the cost of Samaela's mental health

- She put in so much work on this house and doesn't wanna have to leave again

- Deep breaths

- Go outside to check the situation

- No more monsters around thankfully

- Bone meal helps get started on wheat which is nice

- Harvest wheat

- Put a little staircase in front of door

- It serves no real purpose but makes things feel a little better

- Plus it looks pretty

- Needs more minerals

- Go to cave

- Instant regret

- Skeleton and zombie climb out but catch fire as soon as they go in the light

- Okay

- Go in

- Cave has a little waterfall in it

- Lotsa iron and coal

- Creeper blows itself up

- Go in a littke deeper

- Growling and moaning everywhere but no sign of monsters

- Light up the place and start mining

- Find bottom of cave, nowhere near as deep as previously thought

- Calm.png

- Mine away like there's no tomorrow

- Growling intensifies

- Take a brief peek at mouth of cave and see that it's night

- Forgot to bring bed

- No sense going outside now when monsters are up

- Continue mining and hope for the best

- Water from waterfall sounds soothing

- Growling doesn't stop

- Wonder if they can hear her mining below

- Minerals no longer appearing

- Go back to mouth of cave and wait for sunrise

- Go outside, see creeper

- Fuck it kill

- It blows up and hurts her but she finds coal in the crater so it's not that bad

- Drags herself back home with tons of coal just as it starts raining

- Passes out

- Wakes up in bed

- Tari bounced back way faster that she did

- Damn troll regeneration

- He takes over for now

- Handles things inside while it rains

- Smelts some iron, crafts some lanterns

- They're out of wood again

- Also running low on food

- He leaves Sama with as many torches and lanterns as she'll take and goes off to the oak forest

- Gathers as many mushrooms as he can

- Chops wood until his axe breaks

- Suns starts going down, mad boat dash back home

- Makes it just a little after dark

- Deep breaths

- Time to plank the wood and make mushroom soup

- Things quiet down

- Spider gets in next morning

- Kill it with fire

- Discover that the reason mobs keep getting inside is because they forgot to put glass in one of the windows

- Fix that asap

- Deep breaths

- Wheat garden going well, decide to expand farm

- Get cows

- Get chickens

- Get sheep

- House is finished, wheat is growing, farm is working, Sama is healing

- They both go on a long long trek into the woods to pick flowers

- Go home with a fuckton of flowers

- Get wool from their sheep

- Make dye with flowers

- Make wool carpets for stargazing room and everywhere else

- Fill house with lanterns

- Things are good things are great

- Explore nearby caves with no issue

- Decide to make a basement

- They have time and resources to kill

- Begin digging

- Find iron and coal while digging the basement which is very fun

- Basement almost finished after a couple days

- Trader shows up

- Nothing to trade

- Trader hangs out until night

- Survives the monsters and keeps hanging around

- Finish basement

- Put beds in basement and make an exit that leads outside the house

- Sama hangs some chains around because why not

- Put chests and furnaces on basement

- Things going good

I did some other stuff after the basement, but I stopped takin notes at this point. Hope it was an entertaining read :D

[dragynkeep]

For the character ask: Ozpin :3c

send a character & i’ll tell you my.

first impression.

Ah, so he’s the classic Headmaster character. Pretty cool design, like that he’s a lot softer than the blonde woman to Ruby.

impression now.

if anyone even looks at Ozpin wrong, I will stomp them to death with my boots. He is such a driven and emotionally strong character, which you would have to be to even get through ONE of his lifetimes with all the shit he’s seen and experienced. Even after Salem and the Gods and RWBY, he believes deeply in the innate good nature of humanity and was so close to bringing peace before Cinder and her goons came in to ruin it on his bitchy ex wife’s orders.

And he’s not perfect! Ozpin has made so many mistakes and bad choices, and he is not treated as an infalliable man who can do no wrong, but the story has gone way too far in saying he’s wrong and can’t be trusted when others have done worse than him. 

favorite moment.

Him yelling at Jaune to stay back from a fully powered Cinder, and then sending Pyrrha away with him so that they weren’t in the Maiden’s way. Over the three volumes, Ozpin had been shown to be so protective of his students, acknowledging that they were still young and gave them time to just be kids and have fun, while they had it. Now that Cinder is in front of them, with his power and willingness to kill all in her way, Ozpin decided to face her alone and send his students away to find Glynda, Qrow and Ironwood, knowing that he could, and even will, die.

It just speaks volumes about his courage and protective nature to those around him. 

idea for a story.

Uhhh, maybe who Ozpin was when he was younger? Like, before he was chosen to be the next host for the Ozma soul cluster, or even how he first dealt with such a big responsibility. 

We got a little hint at it when he was talking to Oscar in Volume 4, but it’d be neat to delve deeper into that to see just who Ozpin is.

unpopular opinion.

Ozpin had his reasons for not telling Team RWBY about Salem, he never enlisted them personally into the war, they just appeared at his doorstep and decided that since they were there, they were entitled to his secrets. This is especially apparent now in V7, since RWBY and co had lied to Ironwood and his allies without being called out for it without the narrative treating them as in the right and smart for lying.

Also, cause an uncomfortable amount of people still deny it, Ozpin was abused by Salem. He deserves just as much respect in his story that Blake was given with Adam. 

favorite relationship.

With the end of V7, his relationship with Glynda. It might be because she hasn’t been around, but Glynda and Ozpin have shown a level of trust and friendship that isn’t there with Qrow and James, especially since Glynda is the only one who remains 100% loyal to Ozpin and is hinted in her talk with Ironwood in V2 to know some things that the others might not. 

I want Glynda back so that we can have one person on Ozpin’s side, but I’m afraid the writing would just make her turn on Ozpin just like all the others. 

favorite headcanon.

A recent headcanon, but I enjoy the headcanon that Ozpin has a limp and uses his cane to support himself while on his feet. He can walk without it, but it’s easier using the cane than going on without it. 

[toooldforfandom-liveblogs]

RWBY V07E05 - Sparks

Wow, this could be about anything and everything.I saw a thumbnail with Robyn in it so I know she appears, so that's something. I think Sonic Harriet throws sparks when she's powering up, Yang's semblance has sparks too. It could also be about the "spark the fires of revolution" or "the spark that can ignite hope." Considering the current political climate I'm guessing it'll probably be closer to the former than the latter.

Let's do this!

What a blessed way to start the day and the episode. Penny is living her dream considering staying close to her friends was the only reason we heard about why she wanted to stay at Beacon.

This is so wholesome that every day I fear more and more for everyone's lives.

The one thing I don't like about the Maya style is the way they enlarge the eyes anime-style for cuteness points. I'm sure it _could_ work but it just looks weird and somewhat out of place to me. I remember Yang and Weiss cooing over Saphron's child looking more disturbing than cute.

This is the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Yeah, yeah, fights, explosions, grimm, * yawn *, whatever.

Finally, here's the huntsman I want to see. There's no way this "simple" mission doesn't end up with him somehow becoming a hero.

Or perhaps he is already a hero.

A highly wanted hero.

This is amazing. And tragic. He has everything he ever wanted when he had just entered Beacon, and now they are all probably at the bottom of his priority list.

I'm not sure how to interpret this. Winter gets distracted and Weiss feels like she's not doing enough to impress her sister? It kinda fits with their little moment in the OP, but I hope Weiss grows past that this season. It's not exactly a healthy dynamic.

Ooh, one more OP scene.

I feel like my mind is blowing. He does have a ton of aura, what if he could harness it for more than just healing? Is his semblance just "healing" or is it actually aura manipulation (since he's actually just jumpstarting the other person's aura generation)? I already want to see where they go with this. Something like Vine and his arms? Or something more like a larger shield around him?

Note from the future: I had a complete brain fart when I wrote that and forgot that his semblance is “aura amplification” but most of what I wrote still applies. I’m really curious about what can he do with a _lot_ of aura.

I think this tiny line is just enough to make me more interested in Ren than I have been since Volume 4.

There was a hint with him blowing off Nora because he wanted to focus on the mission. Was it just that or does he want to become a better/stronger huntsman for something different than the obvious (which would be to protect people from having the same fate as his parents) to the point of considering everything else as secondary? I remember Nora was speculated to be from Mantle... How does it all fit?

My heart.

And Ruby is the other one who's living her dream, she _always_ wanted to be a Huntress. No doubts, no late night conversations about her future next to a fire, no soul-searching questioning. And it probably helps that while while this montage is happening, she doesn't have to question her decisions or think too deeply about the future.

Aw. I like the progress from getting his mug stolen to giving Marrow one.

oh no

no

no

She's _really_ good at poking insecurities, huh?

I'm speechless. Nora is riding her weapon like a witch.

Here's another example of what I was talking about. In any previous season Ren would have shook his head, smiling at the lovable scamp that is Nora. Now he almost looks sick of her attitude?

Woo! They are talking!

Now talk about death.

Sorry, _this_ is the cutest thing I have ever seen.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS, WRITERS. WHO HURT YOU.

thinking emoji

Nevermind everything I have said about Ironwood. He's evil and deserves everything bad that's probably going to happen to him.

The biggest mood. In real life _and_ for, well, everyone in the show, but especially Ruby.

I'm not sure if it's her sleepy face or something else but Ruby looks really grown up here.

From one ship to the other.

Poor Clover, wasting his efforts complimenting the guy when Qrow has a thousand-feet high shield made of self-hatred.

oh?

oh my god, he's perfect

AAAAAAA FINALLY, ROBYN!

So that grafitti _was_ important.

I was thinking the same thing. Wouldn't she, being a candidate to being elected, need to keep her nose clean?

There goes the possibility of one of the Ace Ops being a traitor for Robyn's group.

Did she fail a dice roll on her semblance check?

Hmm. Only Qrow has used that word so far in the show, once of Ruby and once for Oscar. Probably a coincidence but still.

By showing us how willing Robyn was to attack a military convoy, she either thinks she's going to lose the election (maybe because she thinks it's rigged) or thinks it won't matter for some reason. Why would she risk the possibility of fixing things from the top otherwise?

There are no traitors (yet) in the Ace Ops because she'd know why Amity is so important.

Did she call off the attack because Penny is a powerhouse or because she only thought she could win by ambushing them + a number advantage? Maybe it was all a bluff to get more information.

For having such a short intro scene, Robyn is _really_ interesting.

And she seems to have fewer scruples than Ironwood, making her and the whole conflict even more interesting.

Where's Ruby and Nora with the popcorn!?

Okay, nevermind, I misunderstood Weiss's deal earlier. Go Weiss!

Aw, she likes that Weiss is finally standing up to her a little.

But is that what Weiss really wants? Now that I think about it, we haven't heard anything about that since... I don't know, V2? Beacon changed a lot of things and getting disowned changed even more.

Her main goal was to get her family back, both RBY and Winter, but now with that done, what does she want? Does she still want to clean her family name?

Wow, this is an even more interesting conflict between them.

...yeaaaaaaaah, sure How many episodes before that's proven wrong? Unless Ironwood is really being setup as the total Anti-Ozpin and he really did tell everything to Winter? Naaaah. Since she knows about the relics and the maiden, maybe it'll have something to do with Amity Arena? Orbital weapons, anyone? No?

All the technology in the world and they haven't invented chairs.

She's either been all over the world or she's painting what she's never been able to see. Both are tragic, considering her current state.

Wow. I guess that's one way to make sure the power goes to Winter but wow, that's awful.

...you know what happened to the last person who said that?

On the other hand, maybe the fact that Winter choose of her own volition to become the winter maiden, with all the time in the world, without Ozpin breathing down her neck, is going to make all the difference.

They _really_ nail his awful, awful character.

He's strong-arming the population into voting for him. But doesn't he have Watts fixing the elections for him? Or is it _because_ of Watts that he's doing this? Nothing says riots and unhappiness like having a ton of people suddenly become unemployed.

yyyup.

The montage was okay (with some cute and interesting character moments in between all the fighting) and FNKI's cameo was fun, but everything after that was _gold_.

Poor Ruby, she pairs with Penny, Yang and Weiss this episode but no Blake. Those lines they spoke to each other in the past couple of episodes were too much.

I'm really curious about what's going with Ren. They have been showing him just enough that it has to be more than a coincidence. It really feels like he suddenly gained a focus towards being a huntsman that he didn't have before and that, so far, came from nowhere. But why? Is it Nora related? Is it even going to be explained this season? He's just background enough that the writers could be setting up for next season. The big Yang/Blake drama arc is over so they are introducing Ren's? Uhm.

Jaune being thirsted over is amazing and he deserves it. I want to see what he's going to do with his aura, especially now that Tyrian is back, he expressed a direct interest in him so maybe a fight is coming (since he already had his chance with Cinder for the time being)

Ruby living her dream life is so cute that I'm just waiting to see how it all crashes and burns. Penny's words about having to choose between what she wants and what she needs to do were very on the nose about Ruby's situation. Well, everyone's situation since Winter apparently had to deal with that and _chose_ to make both the same. Have we had anyone who chose the opposite? I guess Raven, making her a pretty good contrast to Winter.

Weiss's future is still in the air but I hope she doesn't abandon reclaiming her family name. Unless Whitley actually ends up becoming a sane human being and Weiss ends up entrusting everything to him to continue being a Huntress?

Clover is being pushed pretty hard as an all-around perfect good guy. So he's either going to die, he's a traitor or had an awful _awful_ past. Because nothing good lasts in Remnant. He did seem genuine when he wished Robyn luck though (even if it's probably kind of his thing).

Robyn was on screen for maybe four minutes and it was enough to make me very intrigued about where this season is going. The way they are setting up the conflict as [grey vs grey] vs black, with multiple interconnected plot threads, is pretty ambitious so I hope they manage to stick the landing.

There's the election, Robyn apparently not caring about the election, Jacques definitely not caring about the election, the villains' plot that requires general discontent, Ruby's secrets, Ironwood's plan, Ironwood's secret secrets, Winter possibly becoming the Winter maiden or dying or both. And then you have the smaller things that may or may not happen, like Ren's thing, Clover's being too good for this earth, _Penny_ being too good for this earth, the way it feels like it's going to be Beacon V2. Neo and Cinder are still missing but we know are on her way.

In comparison V6 was a walk in the park, with a pretty clear goal all the way through. So, yeah, I'm a bit worried about where this is all going. It has a _ton_ of potential though so I can't wait for the next episode. Until next time!

[fringchound-a]

The Black Forest Zone V2.x

god this took longer than expected, helloooo three weeks of compiling

Since the original lore I wrote for it is both ancient and frankly lacking in any real diversity, I figured a rewrite and redevelopment was in order, capitalizing on a lot of things I’ve developed over the last ... however long it’s been since I originally made it. A lot of things will stay the same but be added on to, and a lot of things will be changed or added. All of it will have decent explanations attached. I’m debating on making an historical timeline for it, but that’ll be in another post, I think.

So let’s get started on the tour, shall we! Further details are below the cut, and I’m sure I’ll add to them over time, and a reminder I mixed the lores from all three pieces of media so it doesn’t conform to just one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Black Forest is one of the six known Landings, also known as a Visitation Zone. Like many, it was mutated by the Landing and has become sentient on some level, encompassing all of the infamous Black Forest and some small swatches of land around it in the southwest of Germany. A few small towns have been swallowed by the sea of rapid-growing trees, but nearby cities are widely unaffected.

It is the proverbial ‘Elephant in the Room’ for the government, and they have spared no expense to keep its presence quiet. There is no news coverage about it and it has been taken out of all historical texts and maps published in the country show the area as fertile agricultural flatland instead. People heard talking about it are ‘investigated’, though they are known to disappear regardless of verdict of intent. In a futile attempt to put the Zone out of mind, a twelve-foot tall security wall made of concrete eight feet thick was erected around it, topped with rolls of razorwire and crowned with anti-climbing spikes. As expected, it does little to put the thing out of peoples’ minds, and as a result of its invitation to the illegal class known as stalkers, military presence is thick around the main or noticeable entrances and exits into and out of the Zone.

Due to its inherent personality of Quietly Active and Playful, the Black Forest has become nothing short of one of the more treacherous Zones. After mutation, it grew native trees almost overnight in massive sizes so tightly knit together that barely any sunlight can penetrate the canopy, casting it into an eternal green gloom unaffected by normal seasonal changes. It is a labyrinth of massive trunks and vast roots that change location and orientation at any given moment. A good Forest stalker can still navigate fairly decently, though extreme caution and vigilance is recommended, since there are other dangers the Forest hides than just shifting landscaping.

Originally known for being both the cradle of darker folklore [including the Grimm Brothers’ original tales] and notorious for being haunted, it is safe to say that being changed by the Landing has only made the haunting worse.

Locations of Note

The Fringes are the area around the Zone’s perimeter. They are a thin ribbon starting at the inside of the security wall to the barrier. A majority of them are flatland border-forest, sporting scrubby foliage, short bushes, and small clusters of average-sized trees. The fauna from the fringes is the most normal in the Forest, as fringeanimals are the least physically mutated of anything to come out of the Zone. The only human presence that has staked any claim to this land are bandits, and that is due to the lack of influence from the Forest itself. While stalkers use the fringes as a path between the civilized outer world and the primal inner world, it is the bandits that call the fringes ‘home’. There are no anomalies in this crucial outer ring of the Forest Zone.

The Barrier, also known as The Wooden Highways, is an eerie surreal place that encircles the inner Zone entirely after the fringes have ended. Noticeable against the flatland outer ring, this thin second ring around the Forest is composed almost entirely of truly gargantuan trees that no one remembers how they got there. Known affectionately by native stalkers as the Tree’s Cemetery, it’s surmised that this is where all trees in the Forest go to die, adding their own roots into the complex system that makes up the pathways between the fringes and the Forest Proper. No light from above can filter through, leaving the world in this thin ring in total blackness, and any artificial light is swallowed in the vastness of the space between tree trunks. The roots of these trees are large enough that a group of four or five can stand shoulder-to-shoulder across the widest portions, and high enough off the ground that the world below the roads is shrouded in mystery. This is also the last of the fringes, where the influence of the Forest begins to take hold. All that is known about the ground far below is that it is a breeding place for Fractures, and besides their occasional scurrying and mutterings, there is virtually no sound in the barrier. No other animal or mutant lives in this part of the Zone besides Fractures, and people only use it to pass back and forth. Only one anomaly has ever been encountered in the barrier and it is an imperative tool to use on the Wooden Highways; Flashbangs.

The Forest Proper is the vast tract of land within the encompassing circles around the perimeter. It too is an eerie place, eternally covered in low light due to the tight canopy up above, and where the influence of the Forest is in full effect. The trees in the Proper aren’t nearly as big as those in the barrier, but they are still overly large and alive, and have a habit of moving around at their own whim and wills. Due to the canopy, weather hardly ever penetrates in, the occasional raindrop or snowpile falling through to the forest floor when the cover above becomes too heavy or saturated to block it out. The only places the canopy opens to the sky above is over towns, hamlets, Castles, and the crags. Of the dozens of towns that used to pepper the Forest before the Landing, only three remain at the Zone’s good graces with the Forest backed up on and through them. Their original names have been lost to time, but they are known by the locals as Northtown, Central, and Southtown. Not very creative names, but descriptive and therefore easy to remember. They still exist mostly as trading and market hubs at the behest of the Zoners who live in small villages, or ‘hamlets’, across the span of the Proper. As there is little need for money, a bartering system is set up that is fairly easy to follow for those new to the economic workings of the Zone. The Forest Proper has a surprisingly diverse ecosystem for a Zone. It is home to a large variety of mutated animals and plants, both benign and hostile. Some can be found only in certain areas, while a fair few others migrate around the Zone and can be seen at nearly every corner. Several rivers and creeks run throughout the Proper, funneled through the security wall at various heavily-guarded drainage points. How water flows as it does to get from one side of the wall to the other is a wild mystery, given how the Barrier supposedly slopes down and encompasses the Zone in a bowl. Running water is attractive to many living in the Forest, and most hamlets will take up residence on a river or creek, provided there are no ruins there before. Anomalies here are widespread and plentiful, it’s advised to walk with caution.

The Inner Circle is a thin ring around the Landing Point, where the Central Anomaly formed, somewhere in the western foothills. The trees here are very close together, leaving very few to no gaps between them. It is dark and ‘blue’ in this portion of the Forest, and very quiet. No animals, mutated or not, live here, and all native stalkers tend to avoid it like the plague, if they can. The only people known to frequent this area are the Cult of the Cage, a group of fanatics that have devised a strategy to move without consequence through it. Predator Trees spawn and grow here and while small packs are known to roam the Proper, it is here where their population is highest in number. No anomaly spawns in the Circle, likely due to the proximity to the Central Anomaly, though Shades and Ghosts have been known to spawn just outside its borders.

The Central Anomaly, also known as The Tree Cage, is the place in the Forest where the Landing happened. The trees around the space all lean to one side and bow out at the center, just far enough apart to show a hint of the space between them as a lure to any brave and capable enough to navigate the Inner Circle without incident. However, on entering, the ring of trees closes with all the speed of a flytrap and stays closed for a time before opening back up. Stalkers plenty have disappeared in the Cage and as a result, no one knows what exactly it hides and protects. Rumors are plenty, but the fact is that no one actually knows and it’s very likely that no one will ever know.

The Crags is the adoring name for the mountain range around which the Forest sits. The names of it and its peaks are forgotten with the Zoners, and very few outside the Zone remember them much at all due to media blackout and historical censorship, knowing they exist purely because they tower over much of the landscape and the security wall. Central backs up against them on the western slope, and a few hamlets here and there dot the base on all sides. Trees cease to grow in abundance up the sides, dotting the mountainsides with stubborn copses of uninfluenced trees and brush. Considering the rich diversity of the Proper creeping around the crags, there is a distinct lack of it on them. The only wildlife present are Satyrs and small clusters of songbirds and ravens, and the only anomaly that has been picked up are Vortexes. Castles are frequent along the full range of the crags, though only along the lower slopes and bases, rarely above the halfway point.

Castles

Castles are a very strange phenomena in the Forest. There are ruins scattered across the Zone in various states of decay or preservation, depending on whether or not they had been found and taken care of by historians and archaeologists.

When the Landing happened, Castles became their very own thing. If it had a solid foundation still in place, it gained its own level of sentience and started to act of its own accord and whims. In a sense, they became miniature Zones, functioning within the bigger Forest. Whether or not this was a will of the Forest itself or something that happened spontaneously without influence is still undetermined.

Acting as independent Zones, Castles have their own unique personalities and rules from one to the other, none of which are controlled by the Forest in any way. All influence of the Forest disappears at the borders of a Castle’s defined foundation, whether it be the edge of a yard surrounding them or the walls of the main structure themselves. All animals and anomalies don’t intrude on them either. Even the pathways to a Castle are controlled by them, and if the road and paths are cut off, it’s best to leave it be. A complete path or road leading up to a Castle is the only way to tell if they are friendly. As Castles are their own entities, they also make up their own tests and traps, as any good Zone will do.

A Castle’s Voice is very distinct from the rest of the Forest, and Guides have said it’s really more of a dialect of the Forest’s own Voice. They sound like settling wood and stone at such immense volume that it sounds like it comes from everywhere, with the occasional mutter of both being moved. The latter is likely due to the fact that Castles are constantly building themselves up [or rebuilding, as might well be the case], and the shuffle of stone and wood is their innate ability to move materials by sheer force of will into place. The process is slow-going, but they have all the time in the world to do so.

Castles are tricky creatures, as they do not like to be intruded upon, even if friendly. They all have a condition for those looking to take shelter on or in them, and unfortunately for most, it’s only the Guides who can properly understand what that condition is at any given time. Since they have the ability to hear what the Forest is saying, Castles are hardly different to them. While Guides can technically interact with any friendly Castle, they each have one specifically linked to them that they can talk to and access without having to jump through too many traps or tricks.

There is one ruin, however, that no one is sure of, not even the Guides. An ominous black stone foundation on a rocky spire on the east slope of the crags, it looks like talons gripping the mountain, earning it the name The Dragon. It has cut its bridge off, and deeper diving into the history of the area shows no record of it anywhere, leading Guides to believe the Forest constructed it on its own. One thing they know for certain is that it is very subtly moving, spire and all, up the mountain.

Quirks

The First Rule: Greed Is Punished. Before being changed by the Landing, the Forest was at risk of deforestation. The residual emotion at the time of the Landing was distress and upset, and much of that taints the way the personality developed. She is a plentiful Zone, for better or for worse, but the reminder of being taken from with little return remains. As such, the act of Greed is punished by her, in different varying ways. Usually, the offender ends up dead on the spot, or hopelessly and purposely lost to die of exposure. Even Zoners are not exempted from this rule, and hamlets and towns that have broken it by action are simply swallowed into the deep greenery without so much of a word. Stalkers are held even further in account, as they are only allowed to carry five artifacts at a time in a trip, no more. Language while outside hamlets and towns in the Proper are slotted in with actions as well, and that is where it gets touchy. Asking permission to take something one Needs will resort in her providing for the asker, so long as Thanks is given for it. But even saying that one Wants something without appropriate trade, or simply taking things without asking, will result in punishment.

Second Rule: No Fire. As expected of anything made predominantly of wood, fire in the Barrier and Proper is strictly forbidden. Ignoring this rule doesn’t necessarily bring punishment directly to the breaker, but the resulting flailing of nearby Patrol Trees to put even the smallest flame out can end in them being unintentionally beaten to death. The only exception to this rule is in hamlets and towns under strict supervision, and of course in the influence of Castles. Campfires in the higher reaches of the crags have also resulted in no action.

Third Rule: No Real Names. The Forest’s Playful nature really shines here. Being the origin of many dark and frightening folkloric tales, it takes after the better known stories that giving your real given name to something otherworldly gives it power over you, and most of all, gives it power to hurt you. Tagnames and call-signs used in the Forest are partially due to the military being known to hunt down families of captured stalkers and mostly due to the Forest’s use of real names. The only people immune to this rule are Zoners, but they also understand the Zone on levels better than most other people traversing it and know how to avoid the events triggered by the use of birth names. While no immediate punishment comes from using real names in the influence of the Forest, consequences can come later, either from long-term exposure in the Zone or the closer to the Inner Circle one goes.

Fourth Rule: Stay Silent. Silence is key to survival. Many things in the Forest are attracted to sound, such as Predator Trees, Ritters, and Shades. Towns and hamlets are exempt of this rule and it is safe to be loud while in them. However, it is not in the vast Zone between them. The Forest has been known to waive such rules in the event of asking for necessities that require loud sounds like hunting, but stalkers from other Zones have noted that compared to the constant noise of human life in their native Zones, the Forest is eerily devoid of manmade sound. Natural ambiance is commonplace, however, and sounds like songbirds and animals and the occasional creak of trees in the wind give it some life. The Forest does not directly take any retribution for being loud, mind, but silence has its merits, like sneaking passed sleeping Predator Trees or hearing when blind Ritters come tapping along.

Fifth Rule: No Electronics. Less of a rule written by the Forest itself and more of a rule spoken between stalkers, electronics include any device that draws power continuously, usually from a battery. The radiation that made the Zone does strange and horrible things with electronics and it is not uncommon to find the unfortunate many who don’t heed the warnings twisted in the landscape with their precious devices growing out of them.

Sixth Rule: The Water Ritual. Water is drinkable in the Forest, but only those bodies used in hamlets and towns are safe from this rule. Water in uninhabited space can be dangerous, another rule written in the spirit of faerie tales. Stalkers and Zoners alike pat the surface of still bodies of water and watch the reaction to it. If the ripples act like they are supposed to and the reflection of people, animals, and landscape acts normally, the water is safe to drink or disturb. If it reacts in any way other than naturally [ie Ripples from the opposite shore from the patting, reflections look skewed or move around without reason], it is unsafe. The rule applies even to water that was deemed safe in a prior visit, as the nature of Zone water changes regularly. Not patting the water to see if it’s safe results in everything from being poisoned to being sucked into the water and disappearing. Flowing water, like rivers and creeks, can be deciphered merely watching them, staring at ripples around stones or fallen branches to determine if it’s safe to interact with.

Seventh Rule: No Straight Lines. This seems to be a rule with most Zones, as even foreign stalkers talk about it. No one is quite sure why Visitation Zones are against people walking in straight lines to their destinations. All that is agreed on is that doing so has dire consequences, between people disappearing entirely before reaching their goal or being struck with sudden fatal ailments on the way there. The Forest is known to mimic peoples’ voices to warn arrogant stalkers trying to break this rule before striking them down. It is best to take a roundabout way to get to a destination. Even if you can still see where you are trying to go from different angles, a meandering path to a new arrival point is better than a straight line.

The Voice: All Zones have a Voice, a sound used to show their presence to those in and out of it. The sound of a Voice is said to be enveloping, drowning out everything else around it when it talks. All people and creatures in a Zone can hear the sound of its Voice, and regulars and natives to a Zone can even hear it when away from it. The Forest’s Voice is the sound of creaking groaning wood. Only Zoners and Guides can actually hear the words it’s trying to use, however.

Weather Patterns: Most, if not all, Zones have volatile weather, one of very few things that are actually consistent. Whether it’s the energy of a Zone or the way the land or reality itself warps while in their space, something as simple as a cloudy day can swirl into torrential rains, and a drizzle can turn into cyclones. The Forest has a habit of taking rain and turning it into violent hail and thunderstorms that sweep across most of the western half, very rarely the eastern. The east tends to get blizzards with ice and wind, however, while the west merely gets large amounts of snow.

Zombies: Visitation zombies are a very strange breed. Closer to the classic zombie of legend, they are merely the recently dead within the influence of the Zone who, for whatever reason, come back to life with a single task in mind. Usually, the task is the last thing on their thoughts before death, and they will make their way to a location fresh in their memory while muttering this last bit of agenda. Once there, they will decay as normal before finally dying for good. Fresh zombies tend to have some semblance of language and motor function. After about a week, it all begins to degrade until they can’t speak and their reaction time slows. The military detail around the Forest has a tendency to leave zombies stumbling through the cordons well enough alone after realizing they’re zombies. It’s probably the only thing even they don’t have the will to stop.

Change: There is very little actually consistent in any Zone. Everything is subject to change, even when it seems unchangeable. In the Forest, all inhabitants -be they stalkers or Zoners- have learned that if it looks different, it probably is different. Even things like anomalies, normally regular fixtures, can change purposes without noticeably changing appearances. It’s good to keep such things in mind while traversing the Forest, and all travelers carry rocks with them in place of the usual bolts found in other Zones; since there are no gravity-based anomalies that require weight recorded, rocks are used to test the environment for changes, as well as being easy to replenish without leaving an environmental mark.

People/Factions

Zoners are the people who live in the Zone who were original to it before the Landing. They are a quaint folk who are born into the Zone and mutated by it, and have adopted a pagan lifestyle several centuries old in order to adapt to the lack of modern amenities. They worship the Zone as nothing less than a god, and it seems to work in their favor, as the Zone provides them everything they need from space to materials to workable crops at a fair trade from them. After stubbornly refusing to evacuate after the Landing, the Forest covets them so long as they maintain The First Rule. They share a special bond to their Zone and are the only ones trusted to defend it. In the rare cases of military and government involvement in the Forest, it is Zoners who are first to stand firm against them and push them back out. Although they have unsettling wide smiles and their eyes tend to glow in the dark, Zoners are very friendly toward stalkers, provided they don’t bring ill intent with them and understand the balance of The First Rule. They are a reminder that even people born from the fabric of the Forest are not exempted of the rules, assuming the ruins of arrogant hamlets and swallowed towns fail to instill the same warning.

Stalkers are a fairly universal breed from Zone to Zone. Designated as ‘daredevils’, the ones that go into the Black Forest live up to the moniker. The Forest swallows more and more of them every year, but the allure of such a dangerous temperamental Zone brings more than twice that amount to the door. Native stalkers tend to be more likely to help greenhorns to the Forest out, and veteran stalkers of other Zones pick up on the quirks of the Forest fairly easy enough to survive. It’s not uncommon to see new faces filtering in and out of the Forest, though. As a whole, stalkers are a pretty decent helpful bunch, and the majority of the clan are beloved by Zoners for their ability to bring necessary supplies they can’t ask the Forest for to them. The ones who aren’t decent live in the fringes as bandits.

Guides are a particularly special handful of stalkers who have garnered the Forest’s favor through sacrifice. Sacrifice of everything from time to sanity to their own bodies, Guides are capable of understanding their Zone on a more intimate level than the standard stalker. They are imperative to others’ ability to navigate the twisting ever-changing Forest, as they can feel changes and hear anomalies and the messages beneath the Forest’s Voice. They are also the only individuals capable of speaking to and opening Castles safely, something not even the native Zoners can do. There are two different stages to becoming a Guide. Threshold Guides have given enough to hear the Voice’s message as well as the thrumming pressure of anomalies. Fledged Guides, or simply just Guides, are properly ordained by the Forest into its embrace, usually given a gift/mutations to better serve their Zone. As expected, Guides are not very common. For the sheer volume of the Forest, there are only nine ordained Guides and one Threshold to date.

Bandits are a fixture in almost every Zone nowadays and are generally the same, greedy little opportunists who like to reap the rewards of others. The bandits of the Black Forest have gotten smart about it, bypassing The First Rule of Forest life by staying on the fringes. Since the central influence of the Forest doesn’t reach into the fringes as much, bandits regularly exploit the lack of punishment. To any proficient stalker of the area, they are fairly easy to avoid. Despite their disregard of the coveted First Rule, bandits in the Forest maintain a sense of loyalty and duty to their gangs and above that, the Zone. As the Forest doesn’t fully influence or control the fringes, it’s up to them to keep an eye out for noticeable damage and especially fire. They have been known to stomp out all ties in order to band together with stalkers in the vicinity and work to put out any fires that start. Afterwards, they return to their expected deviancy, but it is surprising to realize even they can be human sometimes.

The Cult of the Cage are a group of fanatics that aren’t seen much outside the Inner Circle. They worship whatever the Tree Cage protects, though it’s unclear if even they know what it is. It probably wouldn’t change their minds or beliefs even if they knew. The exact reasons for their worship are unclear, but it is obviously not out of greed or arrogance, as the Forest would have killed them off if that were the case. They’re known for being undetectable to all but the Forest itself, silent and quick. They don’t carry firearms, but do carry crossbows they’ve managed to silence. Unsurprisingly, they have found a toxin to use on their bolts that, if untreated, can be deadly. While their ballistics are used on the outer edges of the Inner Circle into the Proper, they are also trained in close-range combat for any fighting that might break out in the Inner Circle itself. While they are fanatical, the Cult is not in any way conscripted into protecting the Tree Cage. Individuals can still think on their own away from their brethren and outside shared rituals and prayers, share little in common with each other otherwise. A few of their numbers have been spotted recently wandering the Forest Proper, and given their uncharacteristic politeness, are assumed to be missionaries to their religious cause. The Cult is held in suspicious regards but so long as a member doesn’t start a fight, those who wander from the Inner Circle are generally left alone.

Fauna and Flora

Fauna

Fringeanimals are among the least physically mutated animals in the Forest. They are typically domesticated dogs and feral cats who were born in the fringes, though there are reports of local fauna like foxes and rabbits that also slot into this category. While they are born in the fringes, they are not trapped on the fringes; seeing fringeanimals in the Forest Proper is not uncommon at all, and they make their homes in hamlets and towns, where they are regularly spoiled and treated like one might a common pet. They don’t seem to mind this, at all. Fringeanimals are best known for their friendliness to non-hostile peoples, willing to jump in to defend trapped people or lead them to a safe spot. They are also known for being incredibly intelligent to the point of sapience, and it’s not uncommon to hear them responding in a conversation, capable of picking up on and learning multiple languages at once. While they don’t speak human languages, they still use their own vocalizations and body language to interact. They are also born with a deep-rooted connection to the Forest and can tell when things change or shift, making them invaluable companions to those in and out of the Forest. It’s a common practice for stalkers and Zoners to leave an area if a fingeanimal is trying to warn them away from it.

Livestock has been widely unchanged physically. Only found in hamlets and towns, the familiar shapes of native cow breeds, chickens, pigs, sheep, and the occasional goat are a welcome reprieve from the weirdness of the majority of the Forest’s wildlife. Zoners use them for everything from food to farmwork, and while a few of the animals may accidentally mutate physically in a generation, the only constant mutation they seem to have is the ability to over-produce milk, eggs, and wool. It only works in this way, and slaughtering an animal for food does not yield more meat.

Songbirds don’t look like they have any physical mutations on first glance, small and fluttery as their brethren outside the Zone are. They live primarily in the crags, having moved back into the area after the initial violent changes at the start of the Zone settled, and they are never seen in the Forest Proper. However, they can still be heard down in the Proper, and that is because they have an innate ability to warp and amplify their own soundwaves to be heard for miles. Like all songbirds, they are skittish around larger animals and can be seen fluttering around their mountainous home when disturbed.

Ravens are another bird that moved back into the Zone after fleeing it during the first changes. They have mutated just slightly, gaining another set of eyes and serrated beaks with a disturbingly human-like cackle as a call. Their main population is in the crags, but they have been seen further into the foothills on all sides. They are also non-hostile to people and animals, known for hanging around and begging food from humans when not snuffling around on their own, not unlike standard corvids outside of their Zone.

Owls are perhaps the only documented bird that lives in the Forest Proper as well as in the crags. They don’t look much different than their normal counterparts from the ground, since they live in the branches high above the shifting forest floor, but distance tricks perception. Owls are immense in size, standing at ten feet tall with wingspans that can grow to fifty or more feet. Their mutation gives them the sheer size to capture cherubs, their main prey, and carry them off to be eaten. Despite their gigantism, they seem to be smart enough to dislike the idea of eating or the taste of humans and will generally avoid and observe them from their lofty homes. Even if they are non-hostile, humans and fringeanimals will try to stay well out of their way and hunting parties will abandon cherub herds if owls are present.

Cherubs used to be deer. In some ways, they still maintain the original mannerisms as skittish herbivores that travel in herds. They’ve grown to stand close to nine feet tall at their shoulders, colored various shades of white and off-white with massive iridescent eyes. Their build has changed drastically, with prominent rib structure leading into naturally caved stomachs, long spindly legs, and long slender necks topped with thin pointed heads. Their antlers have changed orientation and make-up, from bone to a weird mushroom-like tuber. It grows along their backbone in shoots and across their shoulders in intricate coral-like fans, the tips displaying multiple colors that fade to white or cream near the base. Every part of a cherub is edible, save for the bones within the body itself, and one cherub can feed a group of six for the better part of a week or two. They are one of two of the only animals the Forest grants permission to hunt, and the only animal it sends to be hunted when a request for Needing food is made, as long as only what is needed is taken and no more. Their name derives from the fact that cherubs are the only known animal in the Forest that is immune to Silver Thread, which can grow across their fans and glitter in light, giving the illusion of wings. Hunters typically avoid those with it growing on them, since Silver Thread can kill anything else in short amounts of time.

Fractals were foxes once. So named for their ability to change outlines and shape in swirling clouds of multi-colored matter, they also pose no threat to humans. They have a tendency to float in the general direction of anomalies and artifacts, occasionally resuming their original forms as small foxes. They don’t seem to have any corporeal form, which lets them float through objects, animals, and people. When they do so, it’s said that they ‘feel like what white static sounds like’.

Bounders live in trees. Their disproportionately large hindquarters are the only things left from their previous rabbit forms, and the actual animal is only about knee-height on an average human at their biggest. Their front legs sport claws on their toes with protowings along the undersides of their arms, and their tails are long with tufts of feathers at the tip. Although they’re relatively harmless herbivores, bounders have been known to cause deep gouges in anything that provokes them. Despite their defense, they are a favorite snack of many of the Forest’s inhabitants.

Satyrs were goats at one point and to some extent, still sort of are. Although their warped squished faces have grown eerily humanoid and their bodies are disturbingly primate-like, they share no genetic background with either. Their eyes are large and have the square pupils that denote them as goats, along with the telltale horns curving back on their heads around the base of their leaf-shaped ears. As expected, they like to headbutt things, provoked or not. Their bodies look remarkably like long-limbed primates of some sort, their arms and legs ending in four-toed feet and hands. They stand at the height of an average human and can walk hunched but upright on their legs, or on all fours without any trouble. They can scale cliffs, unstable rockfaces, and trees without much thought or issue. Which is good, since they live primarily in the crags and bound and swing across the more treacherous terrain higher up to reach their primary food sources. Satyrs are neutral animals, though at times their goaty nature makes it feel like they’re vindictive or doing things solely for their own entertainment. This is not the case, even though stalkers and Zoners have both returned with welts from being headbutt by them.

Fractures are one of two human mutants in the Forest. The lesser of the evils, the first populations of them were turned from Zoners who angered the Forest in its earlier years. Their villages and towns were swallowed and remain as crumbling ruins in the depths of the Zone, and the people were transformed into Fractures. Since then, Fracture nests are fairly common and they are the only living thing to inhabit the Barrier. Fractures walk primarily on all fours, with an elongated curved spine and excruciatingly long limbs. One arm is twice as long as the other, the fingers tipped with large hooked claws. Fractures are relatively skittish and if they see anything from far off that might be a threat to them, they will turn tail and gallop back toward their nests. They will attack if something is too close to them and they will retaliate if attacked first, usually pulling more and more of their brethren hiding in the woodwork around them to help. While they are not much of a threat by themselves, as they are a common nuisance of a mutant, they can easily overwhelm an adversary with numbers. They still retain the ability to speak, but have since lost the ability to intelligently converse. As such, they parrot phrases and words said around them and will repeat them regularly.

Fracture Eaters mutated from German horses that are native to the Black Forest region. As their name suggests, they are the only known predator of Fractures and their presence works to keep the population down. Fracture Eaters are about the size of a small horse and retain much of the original posture and build. From far away, they even look like a horse. Up close, it’s easy to notice the long snakelike tails behind them, as well as the clawed finger-like paws that replaced their hooves. Their mouths open unnaturally wide to the jaw joint, displaying rows upon rows of sharp triangular teeth that point backwards toward their throat, and their eyes have moved more toward the front of their skulls. They even issue a strange roaring noise when the hunt begins. Despite looking like a nightmare and being actively carnivorous, Fracture Eaters are very social animals with packs of their families around them and prefer the comfort of non-hostile parties. They still retain a fondness for human contact and it isn’t uncommon to be nudged by one or several until pets are given, making purring and nickering noises when paid mind. They are still able to be ridden and trainable, and several hamlets host games showing off their prowess with the creatures. Fracture Eaters generally stick to the forested areas around hamlets and towns, keeping a firm eye on the landscaping for their next meal.

Ritters are easily the most terrifying mutant in the Forest to date, as well as being the second human mutant, named after one of the more frightening folktales of the Forest’s dark past. Like Fractures, Ritters are changed after their hamlet is swallowed by the Forest as punishment for breaking The First Rule. Unlike Fractures, Ritters are rare to encounter, but they leave a lasting impression of the Forest’s anger. Ritters tower over all but owls and cherubs, standing upright at eight feet tall. They carry themselves on four spindly legs ending in three long fingers each; one for balance on the inside, two on the outside for gripping and navigation. An elongated skeletal humanoid torso is attached by its hips at the center of its legs. The head is large and sits on a swiveling long neck. There appears to be no face at first glance, a thick flap of skin covering where its eyes should be like a helmet, and hunting and feeding are the only times it opens its mouth, splitting its head from ear to ear and filled with needle teeth. Their arms are long and lanky with long delicate fingers tipped with curved claws, which they use to feel their way around. It’s the only way to tell when one is nearby, as they make a distinct rapid tapping noise against trees and rocks. They are pale in color, sickly green-grey fading to pallor. Their ‘helms’ and the tips of their extremities are a darker grey speckled with dark pine green. Being completely blind, Ritters are easy to avoid by standing perfectly still and waiting for them to pass if expected. As they only travel alone or in groups of two or three maximum, it’s easy to keep track of them. However, noise attracts them and the louder a noise is, the easier it is for them to zero in on the source. When hunting, they let off a shriek and become unexpectedly nightmarishly agile, capable of moving around the terrain with the ease of a spider. It’s harder to escape them head-on, but hiding and keeping perfectly still can cause them to pause and try to relocate their prey. If they can’t pick up its trail again, they cease the chase and continue on their way. Ritters do not wander far from the place they lived as humans. Stalkers and Zoners avoid the ruins of towns and hamlets for this reason. There are still outliers, though, so any proper Forest stalker knows to listen for tapping, no matter where they are.

Flora

Patrol Trees are massive trees that move around in the Forest Proper on their root systems. They don’t appear to have any real aim in how they move, meandering in packs. They aren’t inherently malicious, simply moving around as they will. They pay no mind to what’s in front of them, under them, or behind them, and unintentionally smash their way through animals and people on their way. Hamlets and towns are specifically guarded by the Zone, so that any migrating trees are ushered around habitation on their way through. Patrol Trees also act as guardians for human settlements, anchored around them to cover them when inclement weather comes, as well as beating their massive branches on out-of-control fires. They are also the ones who extinguish fires in the Forest itself in much the same way, pummeling them with little regard to who or what is sitting around it.

Predator Trees are also massive trees that move around the Zone using their root systems. Their intent is more sinister than the Patrol Trees, however, and their ability to hide among other trees makes them extremely dangerous to anyone and anything that lives or peruses the Forest. Predator Trees are considerably more aware of their surroundings and the potential meals in them. They will stop and change course abruptly to go after anything they deem edible, which doesn’t leave out a lot. When caught, they either pull their victims under them using their roots, or simply smash themselves down on top of them until they’ve eaten. They are attracted to loud noises and are ferocious in their pursuits. Unless beaten away by Patrol Trees in charge of guarding settlements, they have no issue entering inhabited spaces for a meal. They are viciously territorial and act in a way like a rogue guardian force of the Forest itself. They have been known to jump straight up and take out low-flying aircraft, prompting an air traffic ban over the Forest for safety. There is very little someone can do when being chased down by a Predator Tree besides run away, though knowing where you are in relation to deterrents is helpful. Using Patrol Trees is a common tactic, since they are nonplussed at being shoved and attacked and will retaliate, as well as climbing up slag piles around the crags, where the roots of the heavy monsters can’t get a good grip. Hiding in Castle courtyards helps too, provided the Castle is friendly and is told what is happening; most Castles will issue a sign they understand and unless the building is intruded on, will give asylum to those escaping the wildlife. Predator Trees originate from the Inner Circle, where they protect the Tree Cage and whatever it holds. It is there the highest number of them can be found, which makes any trek to push to the center extremely difficult, between the trees and the Cult of the Cage. It isn’t uncommon to see a Predator or two wandering the rest of the Forest, looking for an easier meal.

Whipsnaps look like the tree roots that make up much of the Forest’s floor, save for a slightly different pattern that distinguishes them as different. It’s such a subtle shift that makes this act of camouflage dangerous for greenhorns and even seasoned stalkers who don’t pay attention. Whipsnaps do not activate until disturbed, laying nestled into the weave of tree roots. They are easy to avoid if you see them, but if they’re stepped on or nudged, they react by wrapping tightly around whatever’s close and dragging them away. Once thought to be the roots of Predator Trees, it’s now known via plenty of survivors and observations of them that they attach to a bulb partially buried under the roots and ground surface. Proficient Forest stalkers and Zoners will purposely activate a root to drag them to the bulb, which surfaces to feed, in order to stab it, which will kill its network in the area. Given that whipsnaps are fairly common, it’s a losing battle but one necessary for survival.

Moss Pools are exactly as they sound, bottomless pools of moss. They’re fairly large in size and very easy to spot, since not only does the inviting vibrant green of the moss stand out against its surroundings, but tree roots will also grow around it like the sides of a pool. People not paying attention to where they’re going run the risk of falling into one, but they don’t grab or lure or really do anything other than simply exist. Sadly, no one knows where they go or even if they end up anywhere, as no one has been pulled out of one or found after falling into one.

Sleepers are unusual simply on the basis they obviously evolved from kudzu, a non-native plant in Germany, much less the Black Forest. Though the leaves are a bit larger, it looks at first glances exactly like kudzu and even appears to act like it, taking over anything in range at a fairly alarming rate. While the Forest is already actively pruning it on its own and has it relegated to ruins, it has been mutated to be a different threat to anything that breathes. Sleepers smell like mild mint, and has been attributed to the smell of wintergreen more than anything. The stronger the smell, the more damage it does, since the smell comes with a cloud of unseen spores that, when inhaled, releases a sleeping toxin after about five or ten minutes that hits suddenly and heavily and unless removed from the area, permanently. Once the victim is out, sleeper clusters in the area move to cover and consume it in order to fuel its slow assault against the Forest. They’re easy to avoid, either by sight or by smell, and easier to pass through since they don’t have the speed to take down moving entities so long as a filtering mask or respirator are in place.

Corn was an hilarious accident, as well as a good lesson in asking the Forest for something not native to the land. Although it was grown with appropriate tribute, the warped nature of the Zone caused it to gain a quasi-sentience and ability to mobilize itself, wherein it disappeared into the depths of the Forest Proper. While some hamlets and Northtown have growing corn in their farms, these are from seeds brought from outside and given blessing rather than the Forest making them as it normally does crops. Corn is startling to come across, to say the least, rustling around and running aimlessly, but overall, it’s harmless and still edible. Catching and harvesting ripe ears does not seem to hurt the stalks themselves, and they regrow their fruits fairly quickly, making them the perfect gift for any starving stalker in the Proper. 

Anomalies

Flashbangs are the most common and generally useful anomaly in the Forest. They are easy to spot by the faintly glowing orb bobbing in mid-air. They occasionally drift around, but it’s slow and easy to predict some of their paths. They’re fairly easy to trigger, everything from tossing rocks at them to clapping works. Once activated, it’s best to stand a decent distance from them, as they ignite with an intense heat that burns the immediate blast area around them, making a loud bang and growing considerably brighter. Their bright white light is ideal for seeing in dark places and makes them necessary especially in the Barrier, where normal light can’t penetrate, and the bang is loud enough to activate any other flashbangs in the area. They stay lit for about fifteen minutes before dimming to nothing and recharging for five minutes. Only when the glowing sphere returns can they be reactivated.  Flashbangs are the most common anomaly in the Zone known to change, as well, and has a pretty obvious tell on whether or not it’s a flashbang or simply looks like one at a glance. The glow on a standard flashbang has a hint of pale blue to it, while mutated flashbangs are a different shade of blue or a different color or lack a color altogether. The effects differ from mutation to mutation, and the only way to tell what it’s actually doing is to throw a rock at it and activate it from a safe distance.

Quicksands are not so easy to spot. Perfectly circular pools of what looks like bare soil is the tell, and they’re known for sucking in limbs that interact with them with such ferocity, it would take nothing short of amputation on the spot to be free of one. The pressure created on the inside of the tube that makes up a quicksand anomaly can suffocate a victim and potentially crush them. Quicksands are useful in their own way, and all long-term inhabitants of the Zone will use them for trash cans or garbage disposals. Since they’re activated by touch, all it takes is a rock in the middle to set one off and once it’s done sucking the rock down into its sandy depths, the ground solidifies while it recharges for ten minutes.

Vortexes are the resident teleporters. They are distinguishable by the distinctly warped spiral in reality and also one of the rarer anomalies. The outcome is randomized and no two end locations are the same place twice, popping users out either in the Forest or even out of it. While not harmful to stalkers trying to use them to get around easier, they can cause nausea and dizziness for a short time to greenhorn users. They take fifteen minutes to recharge.

Faerie Doors/Circles are a rather infamous Forest exclusive, another throwback to its deep folkloric history. Like in stories, faerie doors and circles teleport the unwitting victim walking through or into them to an alternate parallel existence where they are the only ones inhabiting the space, trapped in endless forest with no other civilization. They are seemingly-unnatural arches made with branches [Doors] or circles of mushrooms, flowers, or misplaced saplings on the ground [Circles] that appear randomly in front of a traveler. Throwing rocks at them does not activate them, as only a human body going through them can, and the disappear when someone walks through them. If not engaged, they disappear and reappear in a different place. They are easy to avoid, simply moving carefully around them and continuing on. Most deaths caused by doors and circles are less the phenomena themselves and more of a different Forest hazard trying to avoid them.

Silver Thread, or Platinum Thread in some regions, is a caustic nearly-invisible fiber that grows in strange places. The dim light catching its fine existence causes it to glint like pale precious metals, thus earning it its name. Despite its delicate appearance, silver thread is deadly to the touch. It has been known to penetrate clothing and safety suits somehow and causes sudden organ failure as well as rapid-growth cancer cells. It’s hard to avoid and due to the inability to handle it, causes stalkers and Zoners to take wide detours. Only cherubs are immune to it, growing it across their spines and fans.

Burnt Fuzz seems to be a fixture in any Zone, clinging to metal and wood alike and slowly eating away at them. Except in this case, when it feeds both Patrol and Predator Trees, what devour it gladly and with extreme prejudice; while it’s a commonly-shared phenomena, the Trees’ diet have made it much more manageable in the Forest. As with all variations of burnt fuzz, it burns to the touch and drapes over anything it can find.

Ghosts, Orbs, or Will’o’Wisps are so-named because of Zoner belief that the balls of floating light are the dead souls of those who were lost to the trees. They have no actual sentience, meandering aimlessly through the Forest Proper and are easy to avoid if spotted first. When interacted with, they envelop their victim in a sense of warmth and comfort, playing good memories or writing pleasant stories to keep them in a stupor until they die of exposure. It’s easy to pull a victim out of one’s influence, and they will regain their senses fairly quickly, depending on how long they were hypnotized. There are rare cases where a rescued victim will seek out and return to the world crafted for them.

Shades are another delve into the Forest’s favorite faerie stories and as such, shades are the most terrifying ‘anomaly’ encountered to date, being almost entirely independent of the Forest outside creation. They only inhabit the fringes and interior of the Inner Circle and are one of many things in the Forest attracted to sound. The rule concerning using call-signs only and disregarding real names were based almost entirely on shades’ existence, as they are a product of the Forest attempting to wheedle names out in order to get into peoples’ heads. Encountering a shade is encountering a figure from the victim’s life, good or bad, demanding their real name. It’s strongly advised to never give in, no matter what sort of tactics it resorts to in order to get what it wants until it gives up and goes away for the time being. There is no other way to activate a shade outside attracting it to you, and there is no cool-down period for this particular anomaly.

Artifacts

Artifacts in a Visitation Zone are essentially refuse left by the visiting aliens after the Landing. All of their uses are as of yet unknown to humans, but they are the reason Visitation Stalkers exist as a whole; collectors pay good money for whole artifacts and the temptation is great. Artifacts in the Forest hardly differ from those Visitation Zones’ hauls anywhere else in the world, save for one. They call it the Screw, on account that it looks like the pointed threaded tip of a construction screw. Sometimes, the grooves between the threads gives off a faint glow, but other than a glorified nightlight, its actual uses are as much a mystery as all the other artifacts pulled out of Visitation Zones. It fetches a fairly high price among scientific communities, but since it’s a common artifact to the region, local collectors won’t pay much for it. It’s better to peddle it to foreign ones.

[nadziejastar]

If BbS V2 really was what you theorized they might have been better off planning it as a series of shorts. A game about filling in the gaps of other games was probably a very hard sell for executives, regardless of how much the overall saga would benefit from it. With shorts it would be perfectly normal to jump around, there wouldn't have to be a flimsy excuse to shoehorn in Disney worlds if they weren't necessary for the story, and it might even be cheaper if 2D animation was acceptable.

— So what will it be?

I can’t say that quite yet, but it will be more “official” than a side story. I actually told the producer this recently, and he said “…what?” It’s the mystery KH. (laugh) Of course, I am also thinking about KH3.

— In an interview in the KH Days Ultimania, you said ‘I’m thinking of a mystery KH that made the producer go “what??”‘. Was that KH3D?

No, it wasn’t. I originally planned to make that after KHBBS, but we ended up making KH3D and the project was stopped. It’s a shame, but we won’t be starting that project again.

I think you are correct. The premise of the game seemed very weird and that’s probably a big reason why it got cancelled. But the story still really needed all the loose ends tied up in some way. FFXV got a short animated series called Brotherhood. I totally think KH3 could have benefited from something like that to fill in all the blanks. And fans would love seeing a 2D animated version of KH. I know I would.

The biggest issue the series had was that it was spread out across so many different handhelds. But the HD collections solved that problem. If the shorts were included in the HD collection, or made freely available, it could have worked really well. It’s no worse than making so much of KH3′s plot tie into Union X, which is less accessible than Brotherhood, for example.

A game about “blank points” was probably just too weird from a gameplay perspective, which I understand. I also agree about the Disney worlds. That also seemed like it might have been an issue. KH games suffer when the Disney worlds aren’t incorporated well. This isn’t an issue in games that feature new worlds like KH1, KH2, KHBBS, or KH3D. Even Days was mostly fine IMO. The worst offenders were CoM and Re:Coded which felt like the Disney worlds were just obligations and their plots were tired rehashes. KHUX Disney worlds were also very strange, too. Even 3D was weird since it used sleeping worlds. Stuff like that is why the series gets lambasted as being too confusing/convoluted.

— What about the missing 0.3?

We thought to tell the story of 0.5 with all three characters, but instead we decided on 0.2 with a focus on Aqua.

Honestly, I can’t even think of how Disney worlds would be incorporated into a lot of the “blank points” story. Nomura said KH0.5 was supposed to feature all of the wayfinder trio. Does that mean they would be playable? I dunno. Aqua was in the Dark Realm. That was a very unconventional world. It had Disney-themed locations, but it’s still not technically a Disney world. Story-wise, it was also unconventional, since she just spent all that time talking to herself until she briefly teamed up with Mickey.

I have no idea what Nomura planned to do with Ventus. Dream world? Or flashbacks to how he met Xehanort? Or he just wasn’t gonna be playable? Then there’s Terra, who was living as apprentice Xehanort and possessed. I don’t see how that functions gameplay-wise, unless it was something weird like you playing as the Lingering Will or something. There was the whole subplot of Namine communicating to the Lingering Will, which was poorly handled.

— Which worlds did Pluto travel when he had that letter?

I can say that he appeared in worlds that do not appear in the game [KH1]…. well, other than the current worlds, there are other worlds that the Heartless erased. The End of the World did not exist at first and is a world that is made up of erased worlds put together. Also, there is that place the door to Kingdom Hearts appears. At first that was another world, so that means that Sora and the others are now residing in that world which returned to what it once was.

— After debugging Traverse Town, the King says to Sora, “That day, your travels began here. Also on that day, I was here too.” Does that mean that the King was in the same place at the same time as Sora adventured into Traverse Town in Kingdom Hearts I?Seems so. What he was actually doing becomes the previously mentioned “blank time period”, but in this title, it’s implying that the two crossed paths in the same place.

Mickey probably would have been playable. In Blank Points, we saw him in the Dark Realm, and his blank period in Traverse Town was something Nomura specifically said he wanted to show. I guess he might have visited Disney worlds with Pluto and we could have played in those? I don’t know if that world that was shown in the end of KH1, the grassy place with the crossroads, was supposed to be important. It sounded like Nomura wanted to explain why Pluto was there with Mickey’s letter, though.

— About the World of Darkness and such, you haven’t gone into detail. Could you possibly talk about some of these things? Does the beach at the beginning and end of KH II have some connection to the World of Darkness?

Presently there are 4 main untold stories to consider: “the period of the King’s absence”, “the period of Riku’s absence”, “Roxas’s time in Organization XIII” and “Xehanort’s past”. In this case, the story of “the period of the King’s absence” is set in the realm of darkness. I am examining a way to tell these 4 stories so I might be able to find a way to tell them soon.

Young Xehanort’s past was another blank period. Him visiting Disney worlds is…possible, I guess. The best candidate for visiting Disney worlds is Riku, though. Nomura said he wanted to cover Riku’s period of absence, which probably includes KH1-2. In KH1, he was a bad guy and in Blank Points, he was shown in Neverland. Monstro is another possibility and that might have been intended to connect to the Monstro subplot in KH3D with Dark Riku. We also saw Riku in Twilight Town watching Roxas and Xion, so his Days period is open. Then there’s his period of absence in KH2, which opens up those worlds. In the novels, we know Riku spent most of his time in KH2 with Namine and Axel, and he also kept an eye on Sora, like during The Land of Dragons and the Beast’s Castle.

I didn’t notify you but you might’ve already heard from Yen Sid-sama. I’ve come to train to become a Keyblade wielder. Until now, I’ve only been waiting for you guys to come back from your journey. Maybe with this I can at least help out a little.

The magician Merlin-sama can use magic that surpasses time. Here, we can forget about the flow of time. Isn’t it great? Lea’s training with me. He apologized to me over and over again. It’s alright, I’d say, but he’d keep on apologizing…

At first I was a bit scared but as we trained together we started talking to each other. I found out Lea also has a best friend he wants to save. I felt like, he’s not a person that I can bring myself to hate…

Sometimes….. He’d stare at my face, so I’d ask him, what’s wrong? “I don’t know, but I feel like it’s something I must recall”, he’d say…

Your journey is a journey that will help many people and the people you’ll meet from now on. I have a feeling these people you meet will also need your help. The journey might be hard but please stay as the cheerful and bright Sora I know. Because your smile, will save many hearts…..

Then there’s Lea and Kairi. I guess we could have played through their training and the world could be based on The Sword in the Stone? I figured that was what the forest area in KH3 was supposed to be, but I dunno. Then they could have flashbacks during their training. I think we were definitely supposed to get more scenes of Lea and Kairi talking to each other, where she learns that he has a best friend he wants to save. It was obviously referring to Isa. KH3D was all about Lea looking for him, and he summoned his Keyblade immediately after learning that Isa was a vessel.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see where that subplot was going. Lea was training to rescue Isa. Roxas being Axel’s “best friend” in KH2 was supposed to be a red herring—a pretty well-written one at that. People just didn’t pick up on it due to Roxas’s popularity bias. I doubt Lea would have told Kairi all the details of him and Isa being human test subjects. Like, she still didn’t understand why he didn’t wanna take off his black coat in KH3. But he’d tell her enough to know that he has a best friend who is a vessel and we’d learn what happened. It would have made their closeness in KH3 a lot more understandable if Kairi knew about his past. In his heart, he could tell that Kairi was Xion, too. And that’s how I’m gonna do it in my fanfic. :)

After KHBBSV2 was cancelled, Lea had no backstory anymore, so I guess we were just supposed to conclude that Lea was referring to Roxas in Kairi’s letter when he said he wanted to save his best friend. Which is just…dumb and insulting to the audience’s intelligence. Lea knew even in 358/2 Days that Roxas looked like Ventus. He said he kept it a secret from Roxas, so he obviously knew for a long time. It sounded like he realized it as soon as he met him, which is why he got so nostalgic for his childhood right after meeting Roxas.

Before he started his training with Kairi, he also knew that Ventus was one of the lost Keyblade wielders they were all looking for. Up until Yen Sid’s tower, Lea thought that Ventus was going to remember him as Axel. That’s how he was going to reunite with “Roxas”. He had no reason to think he needed to rescue “Roxas”, since that was Sora’s job and he was handling that. Of course he was referring to Isa in that letter.

Eh, I dunno. It’s possible we’d get to play as young Lea during his flashbacks in Radiant Garden. During the experiments, maybe he was tasked with Heartless clean-up duty inside the castle. He doesn’t have a Keyblade, though. Just his frisbees. It’d be unusual to have him be playable, but not impossible. If so, that opens up the castle, like the Hollow Bastion areas from KH1. All in all, the gameplay part of BBSV2 seemed pretty strange and the Disney worlds didn’t seem completely necessary, either. I think a series of animated shorts could have worked phenomenally well.

[idolish7rabbitchats]

Kujou Tenn: 24H Photogenic Life Rabbit Chat Part 4

Tsumugi: Kujou-san, good work. Sorry for contacting you so late!

T: How was it staying overnight with everyone? Seems like I can visit later, so I’m thinking of bringing sandwiches.

9: Sandwiches?

T: Nagi-san contacted me about missing salty things because he’d eaten too many sweet things!

9: You made them?

T: It’s a simple ham sandwich though… But to fix your taste buds, I put a little strong mustard in it!

9: Thanks. Ousaka Sougo and Rokuya Nagi were also saying they were giving up on the macarons so this helps.

9: We ate quite a bit but there’s still more. It kind of seems like a sweets house.

T: That sounds like a dream house to me, but please don’t force yourself…!

9: I took lots of polaroids of us eating it. The other two were surprised that I kept eating alone though.

T: Kujou-san likes sweet things huh!

9: It’s unrelated to what I like.

9: I just eat because it’s a job.

T: [Smiling Kinako Stamp]

9: Ousaka Sougo has been looking over here since earlier, did something happen?

T: I think he’s moved by Kujou-san who can eat lots of sweet things! Lol He was happy when I told him there was a lot of mustard in the ham sandwich.

9: Ah, cuz he prefers spicy things huh.

T: If there is anything you need, please let me know!

9: I’m used to staying over for a job, so I have no problem.

*T: What is the most necessary thing for you on a sleepover?

9: I collected my face wash and toothbrush set I always use in a pouch so maybe that.  It’s a pouch Anesagi-san gave me and it’s useful cuz there are lots of and many kinds of pockets.

9: I mean, that I can talk in a Rabbit Chat for this long, I think this model room is pretty comfy. Even though I thought it would be uncomfortable because it’s too fancy.

T: The bedroom and living room had cute coloring too…! The fluffy sofa and bed also had pastel colors and were fashionable.

T: There were countless big macaron cushions and sweet shaped interior things huh!

9: There are. With nice textured ones.

T: The cushions that spoil people right…!

T:... Kujou-san?

9: It’s true.

T: Eh?!

9: They became spoiled.

T: Are they becoming spoiled!?

9: Because those two look sleepy while hugging pillows. Maybe they are relieved cuz the shooting is completely finished.

9: Ah.

9: They fell asleep.

T: It might be because their stomachs are full from eating a lot of sweets.

9: Certainly. Those might be happy sleeping faces. Shall I let them sleep a little?

9: It’s a good opportunity to take their picture too.

T: [Nodding Kinako Stamp]

9: I’m going to take it from close up. If I can take a good picture, I’ll show it to you later.

T: Thank you! I’m looking forward to it!

T: [Spinning Pudding Stamp]

V2:

9: I’m used to staying over for a job, so I have no problem.

T: Are you the type of person who can sleep with a different pillow?

9: There’s no problem. Because I stretch well and take a slow bath even when I’m busy so that I can sleep well.

9: I mean, that I can talk in a Rabbit Chat for this long, I think this model room is pretty comfy. Even though I thought it would be uncomfortable because it’s too fancy.

V3:

9: I’m used to staying over for a job, so I have no problem.

T: What entertainment would you have inside the house?

9: Most of time, I read work data or do my job. Also I drink my favorite brand of tea. It relaxes me.

9: I mean, that I can talk in a Rabbit Chat for this long, I think this model room is pretty comfy. Even though I thought it would be uncomfortable because it’s too fancy.

[usodanee]

Why do you think the History of Hope’s Peak Academy was in Ouma's lab? It's weird how Saihara didn't follow up on this even in the trial

Hey anon, thanks for the question! Let’s dig right in then? Spoilers for V3 below, but since the question is already a spoiler you knew that.

Okay, without keeping this too long, this answer might disappoint you a little since it’s not based on a crazy theory or whatever, but I think it was placed there intentionally, but it didn’t have much to do with Ouma. I’m gonna give you a few theories I think are the most plausible answers. 

First of all, let’s start with Ouma’s lab, which is hidden until the very last chapter. It’s the very last ultimate lab we uncover, minus Amami’s lab, but Amami’s lab would have opened at an earlier point in time if Amami had stayed alive. Ouma’s however was unintentionally uncovered by Kiibo when the entire school was wrecked, and it’s likely to assume that if Kiibo hadn’t started destroying things we would have gotten another treasure from Monokuma to unlock Ouma’s lab as the final area. 

Now as to why Ouma of all people was meant to have their lab revealed after everyone else… there’s no right answer to that. My theory is that it has to do with Ouma’s character and what he was meant to be, as it is very clear that Ouma was always meant to be set up as some kind of villain. With set up I mean, intended by Shirogane and the rest of Danganronpa, which is why Ouma eventually did what he did, as things got more complicated and the group was more and more manipulated by the circumstances presented to them. Ouma, as he acknowledges himself, was going up against forces he had no control over. Nobody was truly able to trust him, and so began to work on his own to stop the mastermind and the killing game, which eventually led to the events of Chapter 4 and 5. However, while I feel like things were intentionally set up to make Ouma a suspicious person (as his personality as a liar was also a set up, and liars are generally hard to trust) what went beyond their planning was that Ouma claimed to be the mastermind in order to stop the real mastermind. It’s a big vague and up to interpretation to what kind of extend personalities and plotlines were set up, but it’s very obvious that Ouma, at some point, went against what Team Danganronpa wanted out of his character, as even the real mastermind, Shirogane, couldn’t see through his trick in Chapter 5. 

So in short, Ouma was meant to be a suspicious person, perhaps even meant to be some sort of fake mastermind, but Shirogane was always meant to be the true mastermind and I do believe that it was also intended for her to reveal the stuff about “everything is fiction” at some point, since it was her main argument to drive everyone into despair in the final trial. What went wrong however was Kiibo blowing the entire place up, since his “inner voice” was cut off, and Ouma and Momota working together to stop the true mastermind in Chapter 5. 

That’s what I assume, so with that in mind I’d like to look at how the game was supposed to go down if none of this would have happened. Let’s say Ouma had survived Chapter 5 because he didn’t try to stop the mastermind, and an entirely different murder took place with an entirely different culprit, motive and victim. Let’s pretend Ouma wasn’t involved in any of these events and Kiibo hadn’t taken damage from Momota’s failed execution.In that case the remaining survivors (now including Ouma) would have likely gotten another item to explore the academy and perhaps found an item to unlock the pathway to Ouma’s lab. 

Let’s say at that point, even if Ouma wasn’t involved in the events of Chapter 5, people were still suspicious of him. And then they found that lab. First of all, it raises questions as to the extend of Ouma’s talent, as obviously the silly wigs and toys and cartoon villain-esque set up would have perhaps given the impression that Ouma wasn’t as evil as he seemed. Perhaps that was meant to be another plottwist? The suspicious guy is actually just a silly little clown boy! But we can’t be sure about it, as even when we discover the lab in the game as it is, it’s not until Saihara checks Ouma’s motive video, we get a 100% confirmation that Ouma’s talent is not what it seems. 

I’m talking a lot, but it boils down to the fact that I think the History of Hope’s Peak Academy was placed in that room at the very beginning, much like Amami’s survivor’s perk video was placed in his lab before the game even started. So let’s talk about Amami for a quick second.

Amami is the survivor of V2 and was allowed to send himself a message he unfortunately never got since he never reached his lab. Monokuma mentions however that since Amami died, his lab has been closed off for everyone so it’s unlikely someone went inside while the game was running. The laptop with the video was placed there with the intention that Amami would eventually watch it, while also letting him know that he himself failed. Amami, before his memories were manipulated at the start of V3, entered another Danganronpa game with the intention to stop Danganronpa. As Amami in the video mentions however, that if he’s able to watch this message, it means he already failed (as the game has been going on already and many people died already) I feel like the video was meant for Amami alone. Giving him the full message and a general idea of who he was and what his intention was before entering the killing game, but placing this message in a place unaccessable until a few killings happened is cruel. It’s like saying “You finally got it, but it’s too late now!” And would have probably gotten to poor Amami. 

Besides, we have to remember what it means for Team Danganronpa, that their survivor from V2 has the intention to stop Danganronpa in general. They wanna keep going with Danganronpa for another 50 seasons and this teenage boy wants to stop them? Of course they’d set it up in a way that the circumstances made it basically impossible for him to succeed. Even if he saw that message, people had already died. Poor Amami man I love that dude. 

Okay, back to Ouma then. So if Amami’s video was placed there intentionally for him to see it if he survives this long, just to let him know his original intention failed, then I can assume that the History of Hope’s Peak Academy was placed intentionally in Ouma’s lab too. Though… I don’t think this book was placed for Ouma in particular, but rather for everyone else besides Ouma. I’m gonna explain.

So, as said, let’s assume Ouma made it through Chapter 5 and his lab opened up normally, however it was intentioned to open up. That means everyone, Ouma, Saihara, and everyone else, has access to it now and can explore it. Unless idk, Ouma was the first one to see it and took the book and hid it somewhere, it’s likely that everyone else got to see it too. Everyone else was already working together at that point too, so if something this suspicious showed up, surely they would have shared it. 

And this is where things get a bit messy because there are multiple possibilities in my opinion.

So all of the flashback lights people got until that point didn’t talk about Hope’s Peak at all. Perhaps for the 53rd game of Danganronpa, they really intentioned the whole weird Gopher Project backstory, but I have my doubts. We see the flashback room in Chapter 6 and get a general idea as to how flashback lights are made. We also get to know that the memories have been made up the entire time, the Gopher Project memories as much as the Hope’s Peak Academy memories. As a quick reminder: They only got the Hope’s Peak Academy memories AS A RESULT of what Ouma did in Chapter 5. Everyone was basically stuck in depression hell because Ouma was revealed to be the “mastermind”, the outside world is dead, etc. The reason they got a new flashback light with Hope’s Peak Academy memories was to motivate the cast and keep going. Basically, because the show must go on. So it makes me wonder if they had gotten that particular flasbhack light without all of these reveals too. Or of they had stuck with the Gopher Project story, as these two clearly don’t mix. We don’t know, but we can assume that Shirogane was desperate for the group to go on after what happened, and that’s why they got the flasbhack light at all. If the contents would have been the same if Ouma hadn’t done what he did? We don’t really know.

We do know however that it’s a possibility either way, as the flashback lights could create basically everything. Whatever kind of memory was convenient at that moment, they could make it. So in the end there’s no real way to tell as to what extend everything was planned and what was improvised because of Ouma’s plan to rebel against the mastermind. As with a lot of things with V3, we just don’t know what’s the truth for sure. 

Another possibility I considered is that there was some sort of way for Shirogane to access Ouma’s lab and put the book there AS A RESPONSE to what happened in Chapter 5. Since you know, it was her flashback light who led everyone to believe Ouma worships Junko Enoshima, and Ouma and Momota both didn’t even know who she was lmao. So if we assume Shirogane only mentioned Hope’s Peak Academy at all out of desperation because everyone was just laying in bed and dying, then perhaps she planted this “evidence” to further present Ouma as a worshipper of Junko Enoshima. 

Lastly, if we put those two ideas together, there’s also the idea that Shirogane planned to mention Hope’s Peak Academy at some point right at the beginning. As I mentioned above, I do believe the whole “Everything is just a story and all of your memories are fake!” was supposed to be the big plottwist in the end. It was always meant to be that way, it’s just that the way that led up to it wasn’t entirely how Shirogane planned. 

So if we assume that, then this was how the game was likely going to be run, according to Shirogane’s plansThe killing game starts, Amami might or might not make it until he can see his own lab and see that he was the survivor of the previous game, everyone keeps getting memories of the Gopher Project, Ouma is set up to be a suspicious person and people start to assume he is the mastermind but he is not, everyone eventually finds Ouma’s lab and the History of Hope’s Peak Academy and perhaps gets a flashback light of it to further “prove” that Ouma is a remnant of despair, the whole Ouma being a remnant of despair being revealed to be a lie by the true mastermind Shirogane and it’s revealed that every memory has been fake and they were part of a show all along.

Something like that. It makes sense in my opinion that the whole plottwist was always meant to be “we’re all in a show” because of Amami’s survivor’s perk and also Kiibo’s entire existence. It also makes them feel very hopeless and powerless but I mean we all know that best boy Saihara didn’t take any of that shit in the end (which also went against Shirogane’s plans, obviously) 

Also, if things really went according to the plan I mentioned above, then Ouma himself would have gotten the flashback light about Hope’s Peak Academy too. We all know that flashback lights are able to change entire personalities, so I do believe Ouma could have ACTUALLY become a remnant of despair if he was hit by that flashback light. And everyone else would have likely believed he’d been a remnant of despair since the beginning, since Ouma was intentionally set up to be at the very least suspicious.

Okay then, long answer short: 

I think it’s possible that the History of Hope’s Peak Academy was placed in Ouma’s lab at the beginning of the game. If that’s the case, I think it was with the possible plottwist in mind that they could make Ouma out to be a remnant of despair, as he himself would have believed so too if he was exposed to a flashback light that made him a Junko worshipper. However we do know the Hope’s Peak Academy memories don’t line up with the Gopher Project story and don’t line up with the History of Hope’s Peak entirely. I think even these “errors” were intended however, to give them a hint to the ACTUAL real plottwist, that ALL memories they’ve been getting were fake. 

So Ouma was meant to be set up as a fake villain, everyone would have been focused on him for a while until it was revealed neither the memories of Hope’s Peak nor the memories of the Gopher Project were real. Shirogane is the real mastermind, not Ouma, and this was all part of a show. 

The other (unlikely imo) possibility is that Shirogane put the book there as a response to Ouma’s actions in Chapter 5 and it was more spontaneously put there than anything else. I believe the other possibility is more likely though. Ouma was meant to be a fake villain, a fake mastermind, and that’s why the memories and the book were placed where they were placed.

I hope this was understandable to some extend lmao this got long and messy but there you all go. 

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 052

Episode: Futari wa Precure Max Heart 03 - “Could this be fate? Porun and Hikari, twin souls!!” Date watched: 07 July 2017 Original air date: 20 February 2005 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/obI9dkR

but then I saw her face

I’m trying to remember if this series picks up once Shiny Luminous debuts but honestly I don’t think it does. Without a driving force like the Prism Stones in FW they just kind of take their time getting to stuff. This episode features more of Hikari wondering who she is, Nagisa and Honoka wondering who she is, Porun starts talking about how he’s going to awaken, all the non-mascot residents of the Garden of Light exposit about finding the Queen and cause trouble for Nagisa, and Seekun escapes again. Also in Dark Mansion, ~evil things~ are going on.

Obviously the boy is the same as Hikari, some kind of reincarnation of the Dark King, but they’re going to drag that revelation out for a long time. However, this is pretty much all we see of him this episode. He rides around on his tricycle and nearly falls down the stairs before Circulas catches him and delivers the above lecture. THE END, NOTHING WAS ACCOMPLISHED. Oh but the house musical theme is a more relaxed version of the Dotsuku Zone theme from FW, it’s nice.

I know subtlety in this show is pretty much nonexistent but I want to laugh at hos this bit of Nagisa’s opening monologue was done. She’s talking about how they need to collect the bits of the queen’s wills and her life and heart and the camera chooses to cut to a shot of Hikari when she says that.

Just in case there was any doubt.

As I alluded to above, Hikari’s role in this episode is to wonder who she is. While she’s in class, the rest of the students remember an elementary school trip to the planetarium and she has no idea what a planetarium or a field trip even are. Later she ponders this while staring at some flowers, bathed in light, and the Queen’s voice reassures her that Hikari knows all of this, that she knows so much more than anybody else, about the past and the future. This reassures Hikari. It’s also revealed that she’s made a few friends, fellow freshmen who recognize Nagisa and Honoka by reputation. They’ll go on to be supporting characters in this show but i think it’s a while before their spotlight.

More like All Stars but you’re close

Porun sneaks along with Nagisa to school because he feels a premonition and wants to awaken. Nagisa is not pleased and tells him to stay in the bag until they get home but he sneaks out while she’s at lacrosse practice and finds his way to Akane’s Tako Cafe, where he runs into Hikari. Cue more stares:

They exchange a few words but Porun runs off when Akane shows back up, and Hikari chases after him. Meanwhile Nagisa and Honoka are looking for the runaway Porun (while Seekun is also out and about, unbeknownst to them) and they find themselves face to face with a Zakenna, so they transform. Little do they know Hikari is nearby hiding and sees them.

This fight is also less impressive than some in the previous show. There’s a part where they perform a flying kick on the Zakenna but they’re moving so slow it feels more like they’re slowly being pulled in, and that’s symbolic of a larger animation problem in this and the last episode, but let me finish the summary first. The duo defeats the Zakenna, recover Porun, and turn home while Hikari tries to make sense of everything she’s just seen with a beautiful shot of her staring into a river.

If I had to assign this episode a numerical rating, I’d probably give it a 6/10. It progresses the story a tiny bit, pushing Hikari and Porun together and makes us wonder about Hikari, Porun, Seekun, and the rest of them, as well as that boy from Darkness. The gags with Elder, Wisdom, Seekun, Mepple, and Porun all being trapped at Nagisa’s place and hiding from her family are getting tiresome quickly. They only serve as comic relief to pad out the episode, unlike more purposeful character developing home life sequences from the last show. Also the animation in this one (and episode 2, I forgot to note) is somewhere in the realm of generally passable but frequently slips into bad. Just look at Hikari’s chicken legs here.

Faces lack detail, the eyes tend to be spaced a tad too far apart, and expressions just look blank. I made some budget observations about the latter half of FWPC but it looks like they tried to stretch all that budget across the entirety of Max Heart, with all new funds going towards the production of two movies (the first of which was originally going to be a FWPC movie but more on that in a week). I know there’s some particularly egregious episodes ahead of me so we’ll just have to see what happens. It’s not all bad, but it’s frequently bad enough at close range and/or for prolonged shots that it’s noticeable. Alright I’ve been saying I would talk about the new opening and ending themes so let’s talk about them! The new op, “DANZEN! Futari wa Precure (Max Heart ver.)” is a remix of the one from FWPC into a more rocky upbeat tune and Mayumi Gojo yells “MAX HEART” a lot. Where the original was a mix of piano and synth with a little trumpet for emphasis, the Max Heart remix is mostly electric guitar and brass with synth, plus a little bass guitar thrown in. The lyrics are the same (except for the added “MAX HEART”s) but it feels like a stronger song. That being said, I think I prefer the original.

The ending theme, “Murimuri!? Ariari!? IN ja nai~” by Mayumi Gojo and Young Fresh is a cute song about how it’s tough to be a schoolgirl, balancing love, studies, sports, a desire to eat lots of sweets (good thing they never met the a la Mode team!) and being Pretty Cure. Okay that one only applies to our protagonists but hey. It’s silly and peppy and as far as I can tell the beat is mostly a synthesizer and a drum machine with a little guitar thrown in. I like to envision that it’s the girls of the Sakura Class singing it together, and there’s one moment in the second version of the ending animation that features Natsuko, Kyoko, Yuriko, Shino, Rina, Honoka, and Nagisa (and later very notable character) sort of dancing along to it briefly in a precursor of the dance endings. But the first version that plays for... I don’t know how many episodes is mostly some still frames featuring various mascots or chibis of the girls in shenanigans with a box somewhere showing clips from the day’s episode. Very low budget. I’ll discuss the V2 when it comes up.

Oh real quick before I end this, here’s a cute picture of Honoka.

Lastly..... Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0. I don’t believe there were any “Arienai”s this episode, sadly.

Next time, an awakening!

[lucius-morningstar]

Reasons I ship Bumblebee/Bumbleby

(Re uploading due to some issues sorry for bugging people.) Please keep in mind that these are my reasons and yes while a lot of them might not make the greatest of sense some might not even appeal to you. A few of these I did get from watching a video or reading a topic but a lot of this I try to explain in the best way I can. Enjoy and if you have any you’d like me to throw in for a future topic please don’t hesitate to ask or message or whatever you want. I ask for no hate please if you disagree that’s fine not everyone has to agree with me but please don’t hate or attack because you don’t ship them. —————- Now before I begin this let me go ahead and explain to you that this will be a long journal. This may or may not take some hits from or towards other ships and I may rant and kinda drift off for a moment but let me do my best. It will start off with an analysis of each character and how compatible they are among the other reasons why they should be together. First things first we are going to look at the lyrics of some of the songs. Ones that stand point out Blake and Yang in a sense and while yes this doesn’t really prove much to the ship being canon but it already points out a few significant points to the characters as a whole. I will not take the Bmblb song into consideration because it was denied to be a song towards that ship. Whether it’s denial to stop fanbases from fighting or genuinely true is for us fans to consider but I will not add it in here as a bit of proof on my end. Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest White is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test Black the beast descends from shadows Yellow beauty burns gold While this is the lyrics to Red Like Roses Part 1 it actually goes into a bit of detail of each character with only just a few words. Of course we’ll be focusing on the third and fourth verse. Black the beast descends from shadows and Yellow beauty burns gold. Thus giving away Blake and Yang. Now we all know who Blake and Yang are suppose to represent within the fairy tail world. Blake is meant to be belle from beauty and the beast while Yang is meant to be goldilocks not a great connection I know but when you dive further into the story itself you see there is far more to Yang then simply beauty just as there is far more to Blake then dark and mysterious though it suits them both just as well. There is also a song on the v1 volume known as Wings. Which if listened to could be directed to Yang talking to Blake. However this is just for speculation it isn’t confirmed either but if you listen to some of the lyrics here it kinda makes you think. However I am more or less taking this bit here from a youtuber known as RarityDash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHLCU9a0KKI (Go to 2:53 if you want to hear his side or listen to the whole video.) A lot of these will come from other people’s perspectives too so keep in mind I will try my best to give credit where credit is due. ———————————— Now with this introduction lets get to know each character personality wise. Looking up Yang’s information on her personality this is what we get, Note it will not be the full personality because it dives into v3 and I’m trying to focus on what we know around v1-v2. And yes I know a moment from v5 is kind of in here but it might help along when I forget. Yang’s voice actor, Barbara Dunkelman, has said that when Yang’s character was described to her, she was described as “the kind of person who would teach someone how to swim by pushing them in the water”. This speaks volumes about how Yang approaches most things in life. She is very straightforward and confident. Yang is also described as being a cheerful, energetic and bright young lady. She is arguably the most flippant, carefree and adventurous member of her team, frequently making sarcastic comments and jokes even in the heat of battle and often taking combat and hostile situations lightly. Yang is very sociable and extroverted, even in unfamiliar situations. Blake considers Yang the personification of the word “strength”. However, Yang’s “brawler” fighting style is evocative of her personality. Her anger, one of her main assets in battle, can lead her to act predictably. —- As it states Yang is more or less a down to earth confident young woman with a cheerful attitude and a straight forward sense of direction. She is also a huge extrovert but like many she has her faults. One of which is her anger that as stated can lead her to act predictably. It causes her to run head on in the face of danger not thinking before acting which we’ve all seen where that leads. But I’ll get more into that later, For now lets focus on our next character. Blake Belladonna. —- Blake is described as being “mellow” by her voice actress, Arryn Zech. She displays a cool, reserved, and serious personality most of the time but does not lack a humorous side usually in the form of dry wit and sarcasm. Blake is a righteous person, respecting other people’s lives regardless of whether they are Faunus. She strongly despises those who judge and discriminate based on racial prejudice. Blake is outspoken, going so far as to indirectly insult the Schnee Dust Company in front of its heiress and defend Faunus of any kind. Blake is shown to be an introvert. Though she reads books to distance herself from the discussion at hand, as the series continues, she is shown to be more facetious and friendly. Blake appears most conversant when discussing the history and plight of her people. As a Faunus, Blake has faced discrimination in the past and wears a bow when around humans in order to be treated for her character and not her species. However, despite having no hate for Humans, she has seen how the real world works and wonders how she can undo so many years of hate and pain. —- As this personality information states Blake is more or less closed off and always hidden. She prefers to keep to herself and likes to keep her past in the past. Because of all the years of pain she’s had to go through both by human and faunus Blake has major trust issues, even with other faunus (Like Velvet or others) Blake comes off as kind of a well as the post says an introvert, Blake has no desire to make friends or get close to anyone she just wants to become stronger and find a better way to figure out her life all while running from her past. She prefers to be by herself and in this is where things start to get a little interesting to me. —- V-1 & V-2 analysts: Blake and Yang’s introduction to one another and their development through v1 and v2. Now to get off upon Blake and Yang’s very first meeting is more or less. Stiff I guess would be the best way to put it. The one character that actually brings the two together is Yang’s younger sister (half sister) Ruby. Wanting to encourage her sister to make more friends Yang tries to converse with Blake as she reads. Yang tries very hard multiple times to get Blake to open up and make conversation, going out of her way to compliment everything about her but it is ultimately shot down just as many times as she tries. After growing frustrated she proceeds to tell Ruby that she’s a lost cause. This is within the first episode of all of them meeting keep in mind these episodes we’re insanely shorten the beginning of it’s run time. Now lets go to the first initiation, where the teammates are meant to find their partners on their own being sent off into the woods one by one and the first person they make contact with is the first person they’re destined to be with for the next four years. We see Yang looking for anyone but is intending to try to find her sister Ruby but instead finds a few rather agitated Ursa who waste little to no time starting a fight with our lovely blonde heroine. Upon fighting the ursa the first one is taken out with little to no problem up until it cuts her hair which Yang ends up going on a rampage and destroying it within seconds. Taking out the second was easy an she was pumped to take out the third only for Blake to come out of nowhere and take it out for her. Yang implies she could have taken him and honestly I think Blake knew that. So here’s where my curiosity gets the better of me lets skip back just a little. Now skip back a little a few seconds back into the video and before Yang finds the ursa you see something shift past the screen. That something if paused at the right time is more or less identified as Blake. Now here’s something that interested me, Yang openly admitted that Blake was a lost cause the very night before, Blake showed little to no interest in talking to Yang and going out of her way to ignore her kind actions as best as she possibly could. Yet Blake is following Yang willingly stalking her until the perfect moment. Blake could have very well picked anyone else but she chose to be Yang’s partner. She witness Yang take on an ursa by herself, witness her anger get the better of her and that alone should have been a red flag to find someone else but she chose to stay and chose to reveal herself to Yang. Chose to be her partner, right off the bat something is off here. Blake was made out to be an introvert who wants as little human interaction as possible or at least as little interaction with people as possible. She didn’t come to beacon to make friends we find that out later on so why choose the second most friendly and outgoing person in the bunch. One who is the complete opposite of her in almost every way where Blake prefers the dark, Yang shines in the light and where Blake prefers to be alone, Yang prefers to be in the crowd. These two are more opposite then you can get and yet somehow they make it work, Blake even smiles a few times at Yang’s rather dorky yet sometimes slightly oblivious behavior. So my question for this is what made her pick Yang over anyone else. She could have chose Weiss, the two would have avoided each other barely became friends or chose Ruby someone who of course wants to be friends but is too shy to really be open and talk about anything other then books which probably would have settled better with Blake. (NOTE: This is more from an idea on how I think Blake’s perspective would be before Team RWBY was even assigned) However she chose someone who actually wants to get to know her and here’s where my reasoning comes into play. ————– Blake was always someone who was judged simply on her looks never one to be approached with a kind nature and her somewhat stiff persona often led others away then towards. Yang however was more then willing to outright introduce herself knowing nothing about Blake but never stopped to try to make her feel like she could be comfortable if that makes sense. Also if we take into account the first thing Yang compliments is Blake’s bow the one thing Blake uses to hide her secret that she feels would change how the people acted around her, as we find out a little later on Blake wants people to like her for who she is not for what she is. Yang right off the bat accepts every part of Blake without even knowing anything about her. Yang while wanting to know about Blake never pushed her into giving away more then she was comfortable with. While Yang is a boisterous character with a somewhat childish personality at times she genuinely shows a great amount of care and respect for the people she meets something Blake probably didn’t come into contact with often. In her eyes out of the choices she had Yang was probably the best choice by far. ————– Now lets go to episode 15 of Volume 1: After a fight with Weiss over a group known as the White Fang, a group of faunus who thrive to make the world better for the faunus but have turned rather dark over the years. Blake accidentally lets it slip that she was not only a member but is also in fact a faunus upon discovering this she wastes no time in leaving for fearing they would not accept her. During their search for Blake, Yang is kinda well not harsh but firm on Weiss for not being more concerned about their teammate. Ruby wanting to know Blake’s side of things while Weiss is quick to judge Yang’s only concern is for Blake’s safety, they’ hear her side of the story when they found her and when they knew she was safe. That was Yang’s first and only concern for the time being was for Blake’s safety. She not only goes out of her way to worry for her saftey but is more inclined to hear her side of the story before jumping to any harsh conclusions like Weiss did, meanwhile Ruby is honestly just trying to be the neutral party wanting to avoid as much conflict between her friends as possible. Eventually she does grow frustrated with Weiss asking if she even cares if they find Blake putting Yang in a more frustrated state of mind but does put that behind her for the sake of Blake being safely found. In Volume 2 episode 1 Blake is staring at her notebook while looking a bit out of it which causes Yang’s once again kind nature to shine on through and ask if Blake’s alright. Again something I’ve noticed with Yang is she tries not to force the situation when Blake doesn’t want to talk but instead of pushing the issue she goes straight to trying to cheer her up. Making her smile and laugh quite a bit in this episode more near the end though I’ll admit it was mostly just a food fight scene so it’s kinda hard to really look into this episode in any other way but comedic. Anyway in the next episode Blake is once again troubled and when she opens up to her friends on what she wants to do. Yang is one of the first to agree stating in a rather odd tone that she says and I quote.“Yes, I love it when you’re feisty.” and Blake even kinda gives a small smile to it enjoying the fact that Yang loves that she’s passionate about something that means so much to her and is enthusiastically wanting to help fight along side her. The tone alone in how Yang says that line however kinda leads you thinking and wondering what Yang really meant and for me it was more of a curiosity as to how often is Blake feisty around Yang that she has to point out how much she loves it. Anyway lets keep going. In volume 2, chapter 4 Blake shows a lot of concern for Yang while she’s fighting against the paladin. Now here’s something that has been also pointed out by RarityDash. Blake was aware of Yang’s semblance, she has seen it in action during the initiation yet still shows a great deal of concern towards Yang when she’s hit. She’s been with Yang long enough to know how her semblance works yet calls out for her like this is the first time she’s seen it. Now comes to the more obvious scenes people have grown to love and that is Chapter 6 of Volume 2, When Blake goes into an all out funk trying to figure out the White Fang’s plans, barely eating, barely sleeping and not stopping to just relax and have fun not only does it worry Ruby but it also worries Yang. While Yang doesn’t show it she makes it clear that whether Blake wants to or not she does intend for Blake to be at the dance one way or another. After a rather amusing way of distracting Blake to follow Yang, she takes her off somewhere alone so they can talk in private. Instead of Yang giving her a hard time or forcing her to relax she opens up to Blake, she bares the pain of losing her mother both her real and her step mom as well as her abandonment issues too. Sharing a part of her that one can only assume she never really shared with Ruby. Her being too young to know any better and Yang being too ashamed of her own mistake at the fact that she had put her and her sister’s life in danger just to get answers. She had opened up a deep wound for herself on how her mother abandoned her for reasons she hadn’t ever got a chance to figure out. She explains to Blake that her selfishness to finding answers should have gotten her and her sister killed, More or less telling Blake that she’s afraid if Blake continues to go down this road it could very well lead her to her death. Blake is-or at least tries to be understand but also gently pushes Yang’s bode aside claiming that she isn’t a child and that show knows better which eventually does anger Yang and in this flares up her semblance. Something else I took notice too that when it comes to Blake, Yang can turn it on and off at any given moment. She expresses a great deal of concern walking up to Blake looking angry before hugging her and telling her that she doesn’t want her to stop she just wants he to slow down for her and for the people she cares about. Her plan was to put her trust out to Blake and hope Blake would trust her judgement enough to give herself a break if only for a night so she could relax and enjoy herself. Yang believed Blake trusted her that much and was willing to give that trust back ten fold just so she’d rest going out of her way to share something that deeply troubled her in hopes Blake would let it go at least for a night. That right there should speak in volumes on how much Yang cares for Blake. Not to mention the scene that happens after their open conversation but this is a scene that really set it for the fans was Yang actually temps Blake by telling her if she shows up, she’ll even save her a dance before winking at her and then walking away. She says and I quote.“And if you feel like coming out tomorrow, I’ll save you a dance.” This scene alone told me Yang was flirting and inviting Blake to join her for a night of fun and no I don’t mean the dirty kind but pretty much asking her to dance with her just came off as a bit more flirty then it should have. This scene didn’t even need to be added but RT threw it in anyway. If there was nothing there or no hopes of anything being there why throw in Yang teasing Blake this way. The talk sure but the flirting was just something they didn’t need to add if they didn’t intend for us to think something like this. Now Blake does go to the dance with Sun but makes it clear her first dance was spoken for which I found odd. Yang said she’d save Blake a dance, never insinuated that he first dance had to be with Yang yet she went out of her way to dance with Yang first and for the rest of the night while Blake’s having fun. Yang just watches, she doesn’t join in, doesn’t dance with anyone else she just kinda watches Blake from a distance. Even when dancing with Sun Blake looks in Yang’s direction if only for a few brief moments before continuing to dance. Now lets go to episode 9 of volume 2. During the teams first mission. Profess-..Doctor Oobleck goes out of his way to ask why Weiss, Blake and Yang want to be huntresses which they give but while their motives are clear they start to slowly question why they’re here, why they really chose it and what their real reasons really we’re. The three do talk it over each expressing their own insecurities on what they’ll do with their career. After hearing Weiss get down from her choices Yang doesn’t fall too far behind, however this kinda changes once Blake admits that she doesn’t know how she’s going to help her people. Yang’s attitude changes right off the bat as she tries to comfort Blake telling her that she’ll figure it out and she’s never one to back down from a challenge. In the second part of this episode (Episode 10 volume 2) Blake is still showing a lot of uncertainty on how she’s going to fix her problems. Claiming all she knows how to do is run which again Yang goes out of her way to make it clear she’ll figure it out. ———————- Now we’re onto v3 and v4 During the fight with Mercury while everyone is clapping Blake is actually the only one out of the team to stand up and clap for Yang (Again this is another part I got from RariDash, a lot will be used from other youtubers and topic post makers but I will be doing my best to add my own into it as well. After the fight with Mercury however and Yang is sentence on lock down Weiss and Ruby show no hesitation in believing Yang when she says Mercury attacked her first even if they din’t see it happen that way. However Blake is hesitate and that alone greatly worries Yang, she fears she is losing Blake’s trust and that hurts her more then anything else, she breaks down into tears almost begging for Blake to believe her. When Blake explains why. claiming “I had someone very dear to me change, It wasn’t in an instant. It was gradual, little choices that began to pile up.He told me not to worry, at first they we’re accidents, then it was self defense. Before long even I began to think he was right. This is all just very familiar..” she finds it hard to believe Yang she goes into detail that she her previous quote on quote partner (Romantic partner at that) had changed so quickly and part of her was afraid to give Yang that trust back in fear she was becoming like Adam. The fact that Blake compares the two of them says a lot on how she felt for Adam says even more about how she could possibly feel for Yang. The fact that Ruby and Weiss saw Yang attack Mercury but we’re still willing to believe her over what they actually saw barely gets any real reaction from Yang because all she wants is Blake’s trust in her. She wants Blake to believe her and the way she says Blake’s name just kinda breaks your heart it doesn’t sound like a friend hurt you no it sounds like someone who is very close broke your heart in a matter of seconds. This alone, the way Yang acts and the pleading in her voice makes Blake second guess herself, telling yang and I quote and is willing to believe Yang even after momentarily witnessing it for herself she is willing to put past what she saw and put her trust in Yang even if she has a slight bit of doubt she is willing to put that aside for the sake of Yang. After explaining her situation Blake then counters with.”But you’re not him, and you’ve never done anything like this before. So I want to trust you. I will trust you but first I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me he attacked you, I need you to promise me you regret having to do what you did.” After Yang confirms that Mercury attacked her first Blake just simply closes her eyes smiles a little and says.”Okay.” She is willing to put her own trust on the line simply because Yang told her so. The fact that she was willing to believe so much after being hurt by someone like Adam again it speaks in volumes on how much trust and care she has for Yang. When the battle for beacon finally does start Blake’s very first action is to call Yang and make sure she’s safe they both continuously make sure the other is okay. Her first concern is Yang and Yang’s first concern is Blake, something I found odd was that she didn’t dial Yang’s number on her scroll she just flipped it open and Yang popped up which brings to question does she have Yang on speed dial lmao sorry sorry anyway back to the topic at hand another scene that comes into play is something that always bugged me and made me wonder why. Upon Blake and Weiss splitting up, Yang doesn’t question where her sister is, her first and only concern is where Blake is. She puts her sister’s safety on Weiss who is very much tired and goes off to find Blake on her own. The fact no one has any idea where Ruby is doesn’t even get to Yang as she dashes off to find Blake. Now here’s something that got to me. Upon Blake and Adam’s fight once Blake is pinned down Adam makes to point out these exact words.“I will make it my mission to destroy everything you love.”  Literally no sooner does he say that does Yang come into view calling out for Blake. Upon seeing Blake’s reaction Adam continues with “Starting with her.” Which given v5’s sudden reveal it is possible that Blake is confirmed to be bi to some extent. Or at least curious. He actually stabs Blake in the gut just to get a reaction out of Yang and the reaction that Yang has when seeing Blake hurt is one that is both terrifying and heart breaking. She screams at Adam to get away from Blake before launching herself straight at him, eyes red filling with tears, hair ablaze and Blake is left witnessing in horror as Yang is easily cut through. Her arm is sliced like fucking butter I kid you not he makes it look too easy and Yang passes out from her aura being completely drained from her as well as probably from the pain in her arm (Or lack there of.) sorry. Adam goes to finish Yang off and despite Blake’s injury she puts herself in front of Yang to try and save her. Now here’s something people have been pointing out. Blake actually managed to make her semblance stronger due to needing to protect Yang. Meaning she not only made a duplicate of herself but quite possibly of Yang as well so she could get away with her. The fact Blake is able to get away holding Yang as well as dealing with her own injury again should speak in volumes. Then we have that heart breaking scene of Blake clutching Yang’s hand saying nothing but sorry over and over again while Yang lays unconscious. Now during V4 a lot of people complained about this but this volume was literally a recovery volume. For people to get over everything that happened at Beacon and to heal from their injuries both mental and otherwise. The ones who had to heal the most we’re Yang and Blake. Blake left in fear Adam would hurt or kill Yang so she went to the one place she assumes Adam wouldn’t think to look back home while Yang has to once again suffer through the fact she was abandoned by the people she trusted most. First she loses her mother, then she loses Summer, then her father goes into his own bout of depression leaving Yang to raise Ruby alone for a little while. Qrow constantly leaves on missions leaving Yang alone with her thoughts. As V5 explained Yang had no one she had to deal with this loneliness by herself. Also while this might not be something really big we can cling too if you to the episode with Yang watching TV she’ll stop and just glance over at a stack of books. Just staring at them for a moment before her father walks in. A lot of people speculate she was either A: Thinking of Blake, B: Thinking of Ruby or C: Just wanting to read. I can go with either first two choices, just figured I’d point that out. While she is dealing with her own personal demons as well as some triggering PTSD. We often go to Blake who is trying to come to terms that because of her Yang got hurt. Her guilt made her run, while it put these thoughts in her head that Yang would be safe if she left. As we delve in deeper Blake does nearly break down in front of her father after he apologizes for worrying about her. If Sun hadn’t come in I am almost willing to bet Blake would have poured her heart out to her father. Not confessing anything just how she felt and how she felt when Yang was hurt how and in v5 as Weiss somewhat put it “Everything she was afraid would happen did happen the second she let those walls down.”  During that time we are introduced to Ilia who had triggered another fear out of Blake when she had hurt Sun. Blake was furious with Sun before she once again poured her heart out. She never asked for them to put their lives on the line for her, she wants them to hate her because she feels like it would be easier to be hated then to be loved, She tells Sun she’s done seeing her friends hurt because of her, admits that every day she thinks about them and listing off each character Yang’s comes out the worst. Weiss and Ruby are equally missed but Yang. Blake comes off as if Yang is someone she misses so terribly that it hurts to even say her name. While yes she does admit that she loves them, all of them. The way she says Yang’s name leads me to believe that when she says “They we’re my friends, I love them like I never thought I could love anybody”. She thinks no- she believes they’d be better off without her that no one can help her and she’s better off doing everything alone, then Sun kinda does something out of character, for someone who has feelings for Blake he actually in my eyes it seems like he willingly admits defeat by saying this. “You think you’re being selfless but you’re not, and yea your chameleon friend got me good. But I’d do it all again if it meant protecting you and I can promise Yang would say the same.” He didn’t have to add Yang into that statement. He could have just kept it at I’d do it all again if it meant protecting you but instead he added Yang to it knowing how much Blake cares for her. Then he goes and adds to it by saying. “ You can make you’re own choices sure, but you don’t get to make ours. When your friends fight for you, it’s because we want too. So stop pushing us out, it hurts more then anything the bad guys could ever do to us.” In my head this is also something that is triggered towards Yang cause once again in V5 we see Yang state that Blake doesn’t have to do it alone and that she needs her as much as Blake needs Yang. ————————- EDIT: I Added a little more I had missed out on. It’s things like these if they’re small or insignificant to you that’s fine. Everyone has their reasoning for why they like something if my reasoning isn’t enough that’s fine. I just wanted to share. Sorry this was long and I’m sorry I didn’t offer pictures. Tumblr and the way it works is still an odd thing for me. But I hope you all enjoy reading it just the same. Also someone suggested I try White Rose next. I just might actually. I know it’s less likely to be canon but that doesn’t mean I won’t try and think of reasons. 

[res-sen-selfshipping]

Jojo Dreamlog #7.5

V1(1st person)     V2(3rd person?)

Second version of Dream #7 because I couldn’t pick how to write this one out. “I” refers to the reader in this one I guess. Classification technicalities are wrong, but whatever lmao

The environment looks like something out of blues clues, but more like a fairytale pop-up book. We’re at my elementary school (my sister and I but we’re elementary age now like just about everyone else there) and it’s a boarding school. This school didn’t look like just a public school though, there was a part that was red velvet walls and high class decoration like an mansion made a couple years before 2000 with a casino-rich-people-dining-hall feel. It’s not just a dining room and it’s also used for classes and testing and conferences.

I’m in a class conference with other students. I’m called on, but I don’t want to be there and I don’t want to comply; I resist. Sensing my resistance, an excuse is made to get the both of us to leave early. I’m grateful for this, but I’m child and all I know are my confusion and tired apathy for being in the school.

The one who got us excused is a younger version of Bruno. The dream has just started but I know that he’s always been nice to me since we’ve been here; I couldn’t tell you why though. I try not to be rude to him while we walk down the hall since I feel grumpy and conflicted on what he’s done. He’s talking to me--mostly small talk--but I give quick and straightforward replies, trying to end the conversation. He’s always smiling around me and I never know why; a puzzle I cannot solve. Doing what he can to be around me, a smile on his face, but I’ve never smiled for him. Never at him, never with him, never because of him.

This place doesn’t bring me the joy; or at the very least, joy as a child would perceive it. I’ve made friends and I stick by my sister; I care about her well-being after all. Time seems to pass while we all stay here, and I slowly begin to open up to others. It’s only done because I wanted to: I wanted to feel close friendship to someone, yet it still all feels superficial to me, that all these friends don’t really matter no matter how much time is spent with them.

Bruno hangs around me more and more. It’s not surprising, but not unwelcomed. I’m used to him now; I see him more than once a day and oddly enough I’m at peace. Is this what it’s like to feel happiness? Not even the real thing, it’s nothing close to joy, but even just a sliver of it? Do others get to feel this way everyday? How nice that must be...

But nothing good lasts as long as you’d hope. What I’ve found is stripped from me as soon as I begin to understand. 

We’re in a classroom, the teacher takes the front as usual. Bruno is going away, we’re told. You’re going away. But why? The class signs a card for him, decorated with scribbles and small phrases of well wishes. We’re all preparing special things for him, gifts and a celebration, because he’s going away soon. In addition to the class card, we all make individual ones: it’s standard and like the others. You’re leaving all of us... He’s preparing to go now, even though he won’t be gone for a couple more days. Why are you leaving? The teacher is smiling and the rest follow suit. Is it a good thing you’re leaving? Have you gotten into a better school? Are you going to a better place to live? No one seems to detect that something could be wrong--that it was wrong that he was leaving. Why would he? He has many friends, was in the good graces of everyone, and the living status was great. So obviously only good things happen to him. Was something wrong with me? Why was I the only one who didn’t like this idea? Where are you leaving to? I don’t know why; I just don’t want him to. 

Everyone goes along with what the teacher says, and when the time came, Bruno graciously received all our gifts. I choose not to give it to him with the others. Everything goes smoothly, everyone followed the status quo, nothing was out of place, and all the other kids laughed and smiled. I’m supposed to be happy, but I’m not.

The in-class celebration is over and everyone is dismissed. A couple of younger kids from another class hang around Bruno as we leave he classroom. We pass by my locker and I give him my gift. A smile lights his face once again; how typical. After taking the time to take in what I wrote, he beams like it’s the best gift he’s ever received. 

“Thank you so much!”

How silly, to be pleased by such as simple and basic card. He reaches behind his back. And- He prepared a card for me as well. Why?!

At first I don’t hear him, I can’t hear him. I can’t look him in the eye and the children with him look at me wide-eyed as if they don’t understand what’s going on but can feel the tension anyway. His voice is solemn when he tells me the truth. His days are numbered. He’s dying and he’s been sick, but not in a way that affected him physically. He tells me that tomorrow- Tomorrow... Tomorrow he will be leaving. There’s nothing that could be done. 

I don’t want him to. I want him to stay and continue the days like always. But I know he can’t and I can’t do anything about it no matter how much I want to. I don’t know what to do with myself. I miss him already even though he’s right in front of me. I’m a child, I want you to stay right where you are and never change. I can’t accept this... It’s shocking and hurts so much I cry in front of him. 

Why do you have to go? How did this happen? Why can’t anything be done about it? He tries to comfort me, but the pain is too much. So I run. I can’t bear the pain of being so near you but being so, so close to losing you as well. I run and stay as far away as I can so the pain can’t hurt me. I avoid Bruno the rest of the day.

The distance helps and I’m becoming more numb; the pain doesn’t hurt me. But it doesn’t stop the thoughts of Bruno from flooding my mind. 

My sister and I are on a walk when I know his final moments are drawing near. What’s going to happen when you’re gone? Do you want me there with you? I don’t want you to feel alone... Everything comes crashing down on me in a painful realization and I know I have to go back. I have to be there for him when he needs me, I have to give back what he gave me. 

I want to see you again before you go. 

I run and everything hurts, but none of it matters. I’ve cared about him from the very beginning without even knowing it and without so much as a thought I know and feel that this love has to be returned. 

I want you to stay and be with me like it was before! Please let me be with you even though I haven’t done you any good. I love you and I can’t bear the thought of losing you. 

I hope and pray I make it in time from the distance I put myself at; and soon, I can see him in the distance. I call out and he turns to look at me. He’s been waiting there for me. I can tell I don’t have long, I’m almost there! Just a couple more feet and-

“Thank you for everything”

 He smiles and disappears.

“I love you!” I call even though I missed him by seconds. I loved everything about him but never gave  back what was given to me and it’s too late now. I can’t do anything, just like I have the entire time, but I know it’s pointless to cry and agonize over what is done. I miss you and it hurts me, but I loved you and you’ll live on with me forever.

[ive-made-a-mystic-mistake]

Can I have an MC with really bad anxiety? Like not social but more like she cant even sit in her bed alone in the dark? You're doing really great so far, keep up the good work!

of course! also thank you!!!

i always get motivated for this one in the middle of an anxiety attack lolololol

TOTALLY NOT LISTENING TO HALLOWEEN MUSIC TO MAINTAIN MOTIVATION 

zen

it was a quiet night 

you had just had the busiest week of a hectic month 

so you got a little clingier with zen

he enjoyed it happy to have some relax time

the phone was ringing in the other room making zen have to leave to grab it

this already made you nervous 

who was calling in the middle of the night

with zen gone you didn’t feel safe

at any gust of wind you jumped 

at any creak in the house you jumped 

any noise sent your anxiety off

you couldn’t stop thinking of what could happen

you were so deep in your thoughts you didn’t notice zen in the kitchen

he suddenly dropped a glass and you couldn’t stop you anxiety

you thought unknown was going to get you again and you started to cry and hyperventilate

you just couldn’t control your thoughts

luckily zen noticed and came over to you and pulled you close

“hey babe I’m here! i just dropped a glass I’m sorry it scared you!”

you just hug him tightly thankful it wasn’t who you thought it was

you just cry for a bit shaking 

he whispers sweet words to you rubbing your back comforting you

he knows about your anxiety as he probably had to help comfort you 

yoosung 

you two were playing a horror game of your own request which was surprising to him

it was mainly to do with the fact you were tired of feeling like a burden

you were doing great albeit your anxiety making you stiff as a board

you were really fighting it

you just cant do getting chased or jump scares

after the first game you are feeling confident even though you are shaking badly 

yoosung was too

he was allowed to pick the game tho

he happens to love the thrill of jumpscares 

its that boost of energy for school lololol 

he pick five nights at freddy’s

you falter

you start playing shaking so much 

with his help you get to the second night 

you try and alternate between him taking over when a jumpscare is near 

and this works till like the 4th night 

when you all get distracted 

theres suddenly a jump scare that makes you scream 

you curl in on yourself shaking and crying mind wandering making it worse

doesn’t help you like to look up the theories and then you get freaked out

you then are thinking about how stupid it is that a game is making you freak out but he doesn’t think so

he grabs his favorite blanket and his hoodie that you love

he rushes to get tea going and he quickly puts on cute animal videos while you are at the compute and has you get up so you can both sit there

you on his lap

this helps distract you and you laugh sniffling at the silly kittens

next thing you know you are asleep on him and he doesnt know what to do 

jaehee

your school has really been taking a toll on you

you never thought how hard it would be to major in theater 

sweats nervously

you have to practice a monologue but you also have all you academic work to do

as you are working on it you check the time and how much is left 

its now 3 in the morning and barely finished and you still have that monologue to practice that’s due tomorrow

you start thinking of the worst and begin to shake crying silently 

jaehee wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for the fact you dropped a glass by accident trying to calm down

that made it worse because now you think thats more work and how it upset jaehee

but she simply cleans up the mess and gives you slippers in case any stray glass got anywhere 

she makes some tea for you to calm down and gets you a blanket and plays some recordings of zen singing because that’s what helps her 

she gives you a hug and a kiss and makes sure you are ok and decides to help you with the work

jumin

you were in the penthouse playing with Elizabeth while he was at work

you were having an amazing time till the power went out

you completely freeze up 

you werent aware that you werent breathing till you needed to breathe again

you were just frozen

you shut your eyes tightly like you were taught when you were younger when scared of the dark 

you didnt have a blanket to hide under and you didnt want to move

you were thinking of all the things that could be lurking in the dark and start rocking crying 

elizabeth worries about yoy and brushes against you meowing and you sit crisscross applesauce so she can sit on your lap

you peat her and she purrs comforting you 

suddenly the door is opened making a loud noise and she runs to greet the familiar face but it just made your anxiety worse

you rock again thinking its someone whos going to kill or kidnapp you for being the heirs wife

“sweetheart? its me jumin? your husband?”

he goes over to her with a flash light and he sits down next to you pulling you into his chest whispering to you to calm you down planting kisses to your temples 

you hug him tightly glad to have him right now

the power comes back on and you don’t want to let go

hes fine with this

707

you were on the computer writing things on tumblr 

when suddenly its hacked 

you cant get all these freaky things of your computer and you are panicking crying

there were quiet a few nsfw things 

some of which hit a few triggers 

you scream for seven 

he had been teaching you computer things but your anxiety wont let you think clearly 

you keep telling yourself that if you were  calmer you can fix it and not need his help

when he comes rushing in you try to explain and he pushes up his glasses telling you hes serious thankfully 

you are still panicking though anxiety running rampant in your head 

you feel bad because he deals with his brothers mental illnesses enough he doesnt have to deal with yours but he honestly doesnt mind 

he shuts down you computer and takes a part out of the computer it self

“well you couldn’t of fixed this it’s well hacked but has been for a while so we need to fix that but that can wait”

he says this knowing you used many unimportant accounts on that computer under his request

hes gets some tea going and wraps you in his jacket taking his headphones off playing relaxing nature sounds he knows helps you from watching your youtube history

and he just hold you close playing with your hair for a while

you are finally calm and he feels like a hero because he got to help you and saeran today 

“im not called god 7 for no reason” 

you smack him and just hug him

unknown

you were sitting on the bed with him and bad memories that cause anxiety hit

you normally try to handle it on your own away from him because he needs more help in you mind

but you just cant stop it 

you and shaking badly trying to get the thoughts to go away 

you hold your head desperate to calm down and rock

at this point he notices and knows whats going on and he pulls you close rocking 

“hey you should tell me you go through it too i can help you like you help me…”

you just hug him and he hums slightly playing with your hair

its the most relaxing sound you’ve heard and you quickly calm down

“so what caused it?”

“i remembered what we went through to both be here where we are now”

he just looks sad and understanding now realizing it scarred you too

later he gets you flowers 

v

you have one dark thought and you jump straight to the thought that you are becoming rika

this of course freaks you out and anxiety comes to say hi and try to spend the night

not today satan

your mind goes through all the ways you could possibly be rika 

you curl up freaking out shaking and crying wanting to stay away from v so he doesnt find out you are “rika v2.o”

its too late 

he rushes to you trying to see if you are ok 

when you tell him you are worried you are gonna become rike he gives you this long talk about how you are nothing like her

hes just sitting next to you and he tells you to talk about your favorite subject to calm down

you choose art and he and you just chat about it for ages till you realize you are calm 

you tell him hes fucking magic 

“no haha i just did research”

you give him a smooch and say no you are fucking magic and he just laughs nodding 

i hope this is ok? its like 4 in the morning and ive been suffering from con depression all day and plus i havent done an imagine in A G E S sorry for that writers block is a bitch