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thanksjro · 10 months ago

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More Than Meets the Eye #52 — The DJD Once Again Prove to Be an HR Nightmare

Ratchet and Drift, looking fresh as hell in their matching paint jobs, stand on the cliff they made their cool entrance on last issue, as they snipe at each other over whether or not Drift personally knows the DJD. Considering how Tarn and Friends had a space-cocaine induced freakout over seeing Drift on the quantum duplicate Lost Light, they may want to talk a little quieter, especially with the face Helex is making.

You better watch out, Ratchet— this man's going to do Sakamoto-got-all-the-way-to-pencils shit to you!

The Pet takes the opportunity presented by our recently returned newlyweds being too busy flirting to pay attention to the fight at hand, leaping to chew on Ratchet's head. Luckily, Ten is an ally, even when he’s been beat to shit, and punches the shitty little Pomeranian into the air. Kaon, card-carrying freak and dog dad, takes this abject display of animal abuse about as well as he can.

Ratchet, having his gun eaten by the mouth pervert, is beginning to worry that he, his rich boytoy, and a mostly out of commission Ten might be sliiiiiiiiightly outnumbered against a dozen Decepticons, two of whom belong to the Super Murder Death Squad. Drift, after a bit of needling, heelies a dude’s face off, jumps into the air, does a bunch of sick flips, blocks a laser with a sword in such a way that it looks like he got shot in the dick, and then lands, like, 70 feet away to scoop up the Pet and threaten to chop its head off if Helex doesn’t stop trying to vore his boyfriend.

Kaon, #1 dog dad, orders everyone to fall back. Helex, who has Ratchet like 70% inside his smelting chamber by this point, can’t believe that Kaon’s ruining the fun. Helex releases Ratchet, letting him crowd onto Drama Point with Drift and most of Ten, as the Decepticons circle them. Drift, unfortunately, didn’t think past doing sweet flips to show off after his sabbatical from the comic run, and they’re back in the same situation they arrived to, but now one of them is holding a crusty little dog.

Then a platform descends from the sky, and we see what Ravage has been up to.

Grand theft auto!

Yes, it turns out that this cat can drive, and well enough to get the boys up and out of danger, though Ten’s size means that the lovebirds have to dangle off of his remaining arm. Drift still hasn’t put down the Pet. Sure hope that thing’s been socialized to cats.

Oh, who am I kidding? Kaon wouldn’t have bothered.

Speaking of Kaon, he looks like he’s about to cry, because someone’s kidnapped his princess baby angel, and Helex doesn’t even CARE, the heartless bastard, as he orders the other Decepticons to fire on the shuttle. They, of course, hit it, as there’s at least ten of these guys firing, and they’re all decently tall. The shuttle begins to lose altitude, and Ravage, who does not have traditional hands and is currently using his tail to man the control stick, attempts to crash as close to the “fortress” as possible.

Meanwhile, over at Megatron’s plinth, we get back to that whole thing where he surrendered himself to Tarn. Tarn, feeling an excuse to monologue coming on, says that he’s well aware of Megatron’s new schtick, and he’s not a huge fan of it. Megatron clarifies that he wishes to give himself up so that the rest of the Lost Light crew stranded on this planet might live, because this is his fault to begin with. Tarn agrees, reminding him that he paid for Tarn’s plastic surgery. Megatron states that he only brought Tarn to his side to hurt “someone”.

Three guesses who Megatron could have possibly hurting by bringing Tarn over to the Decepticons, and the first two don’t count.

Megatron thinks that by bumming around space on a borderline vacation, he’s returned to who he used to be (maybe he got his teaching license, who knows) and that the war was a waste of time. Tarn gets kind of intense here, because if Megatron wasted his life, what does that make Tarn? Tarn, who has decorated his home with nothing but Decepticon symbols? Tarn, who has had corpses nailed to his wall for the last couple million years? Tarn, who wears a fuckoff stupid mask every single day of his life, even while eating and trying to kill himself with space meth cut with time travel and gas station dick pills? Also, what about all the other guys who died trying to realize Megatron's ideals? What about the little guys, the cogs that made the machine run? What about Steve from accounting, whose husband left him, because he was too busy trying to balance the budget on Megatron's body remodels and Optimus Prime punching bags that also doubled as body pillows to come home? What about Steve, huh?

Megatron basically regrets everything he’s ever done, not that Tarn cares. Megatron then reveals that whole thing where Rewind tried to retroactively kill him as an infant, and how he sort of wished it had worked.

Tarn starts beating the shit out of Megatron before the guy can start going on about how his parents are Brainstorm and Whirl, though Tarn promises that this is just a healthy dose of tough love, as surely the wimp before him isn’t actually who Megatron is. Megatron doesn’t fight back, instead just staring sadly at the Autobot badge Tarn slapped off of him. This is really starting to piss Tarn off, as he was really hoping to beat some of the fire back into his former mentor and idol. This is when he starts trying to choke Megatron, even though their species doesn’t breathe. Still, I’m sure Tarn’s stiletto nails hurt something fierce.

Megatron then recalls his conversation with Velocity, and states that if the fool’s energon DID alter his personality, it was probably for the best, and he wouldn’t want to go back. Tarn, who has based his entire selfhood on the thing that Megatron threw away to live out his probation on a cruise ship, takes this statement with all the tact and level-headedness we’ve come to know him for.

Tarn is just one more double fusion cannon blast to the chest away from smiting Megatron utterly, and he’s fully committed to doing so. However, he gets distracted by the sound of Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back” coming from across the field.

WHO LET THIS MOTHERFUCKER OUT OF HELL

Anyway, it looks like Ravage can, in fact, drive pretty well, as the shuttle did crash pretty close to the “fortress”. Swerve, who still really wants to make up for his shitty boss behaviors and also accidentally dragging Ten into a microcosm of hell, lets Ten know that they saw his floor graffiti, and that it might actually work. Magnus, who still has his arm off, does his best to not kick Swerve across the room as he scurries underfoot, as he drags Ten inside the building.

Skids intercepts Ratchet to welcome him back, and also ask how the hell he knew to come to Necroworld. Apparently he and Drift had received a call from the handy dandy phone that he had given First Aid, who First Aid had then regifted to Velocity, just in case some bullshit happened. Velocity’s introduction to Ratchet is rough, as she manages to call him grumpy, old, and stubborn as a mule in the span of about fifteen seconds. Ratchet is mostly concerned with the fact that the Lost Light replaced him so soon after his return. Nobody tell him about Velocity’s track record with the medical exams, he might just shoot off into space to beat First Aid to a pulp for leaving her by herself.

Over in what might be a closet, Rodimus runs across Drift sitting in the dark and sharpening one of his swords. Drift seems to have used his exile to remember that he does, in fact, have some semblance of self-respect, as he doesn’t immediately forgive Rodimus for throwing him off the ship that he paid for, only to have given himself up as the real culprit behind the Overlordening, like, a week later, thus negating Drift’s sacrifice, and then never coming to find him, despite the fact that they’re supposedly friends, and, again, the ship is in Drift’s name, as was the crew’s allowance money. How the Lost Light has survived financially without Drift is unknown.

Rodimus knows that he sucks and is the worst, but he was really worried that Drift wouldn’t like him anymore, so he’d sort of been kicking the issue of “finding my ex-TIC to tell him he got publicly humiliated for nothing” down the road, to the point where Ratchet had gotten sick of it and went to solve the problem himself.

Of course, the meta reason for Drift not being found was so that Shane McCarthy could have his OC back, as well as Ratchet, for the miniseries Transformers: Drift— Empire of Stone, well known for being sort of silly and introducing the phrase “be shoosh” to Drift’s lexicon. In it, Ratchet found Drift traipsing around the edge of the galaxy being a neutral (in terms of war) hero to organic species affected by Decepticon aggressions, before crashing on a planet where Drift, back when he was “Deadlock”, had found a mystical stone army, one that Gigatron (a dude who totally isn’t anime Megatron) wanted to harness the power of, so that the Decepticons might claim victory over their enemies. Hellbat, Gigatron’s second in command, had gone mad doing nothing but killing over millions of years, and had been modifying the stone army in secret to do his bidding so he could "kill everything". Then the stone army woke up, Hellbat died, Gigatron died, and Ratchet went to take Drift to get detailed, because he looked like he'd been ridden hard and put away wet.

Also, if you think about it, having two former high-ranking Decepticons turning to the Autobot side being on the Lost Light’s high command might have been too many redundancies to make Megatron’s arc stand out. Perhaps, had Megatron not been added to MTMTE’s roster so late in the game, Rodimus WOULD have gone looking for Drift, finding him just in time for the DJD to catch wind that they hadn’t actually super nightmare death murdered Deadlock after all.

Drift, who can’t say no to Rodimus's puppydog face, lets Rodimus sit with him on the floor, as he apologizes for the fact that by coming here, Drift and Ratchet have unwittingly signed up for Tarn’s Political Theory and Dismemberment Slam Poetry Night, but he mega-promises that they’ll come up with something together to get through this. Drift appreciates the sentiment, but knows that Rodimus is just saying this to make him feel better.

Back at the worst fan club meetup in the galaxy, Tarn elbows Overlord in the throat and tells him to fuck off. Overlord tells him that he knows Tarn never finished his degree and only acts like an academic for the aesthetic. Tarn transforms to shoot him while reminding Overlord that at least Megatron’s spoken to him in the last few thousand years. The two duke it out with their tank modes, Overlord KRUMPing all over Tarn, before the theatre kid kicks him off and questions why exactly Overlord is even alive, given that he chainsawed his head off last year. No word on if he’s bothered to ask this same question about 75% of the people he’s here to super murder.

Overlord simply states that someone found him floating out in space and fixed him up, because it turns out that they both wanted to go after Megatron and kill his ass dead, because Overlord is sort of sick of not getting the attention he so obviously deserves. When Tarn, ever the opportunist, attempts to make a team up deal, Overlord tells him to shut up.

And then they realize they lost the old man they were fighting over.

Great work, fellas.

Over with the Autobots (and Cyclonus), Rewind’s outside, looking at that memorial to the disappeared and trying to figure out why the Necrobot laid out the names in the way that he did. He’s currently near the top, where you can see most of Roller’s name, someone whose name ends in “gator”, and Dreamwave Production’s smoldering corpse, which makes me wonder if Alex Milne ever did get all the money he was owed from his work with them. Rewind, who last dealt with the DJD not even a year ago, is trying really, really hard to not think about how many needles they’re going to jam into Chromedome’s eyes this go around.

Of course, Nautica, who has come out to find Rewind, doesn’t give a shit about Rewind’s PTSD. She wants relationship advice! She’d ask Chromedome, but apparently he’s taking a nap, still worn out from stabbing Tailgate in the brain after he rainbow-exploded all over the ship. Which happened months ago.

You know, at the rate he’s been going, Chromedome probably wouldn’t have lived too far past sunset anyhow.

Anyway, Nautica wants to know if, on Cybertron, you have to be besties before you can get hitched, because that’s how it works on some of the other colonies. She specifies that this ISN'T how it works on Caminus, which is good, given how problematic that would be, considering you need to be best friends with someone by the time you're five weeks old, and there's no telling if they're cool with platonic polyamory. Rewind informs her that it’s either one or the other on Cybertron, no double-dipping, and god help you if it’s a situationship. Nautica is asking this because she’s realized that she can’t waffle about on committing anymore, seeing as she’s probably going to die in the next hour or so, and she’d rather use that time to enter a queer-platonic partnership than get her face fixed.

Back at the Peaceful Tyranny, Tarn has, in fact, managed to bring Overlord to reason, much to Deathsaurus’s confusion and derision, if his squiggle face is anything to go by. Overlord, smug as fuck, informs Deathsaurus that in exchange for his compliance, Tarn has agreed to let him personally murder Megatron while everyone watches, because surely Tarn couldn’t actually kill his idealogical idol, because he’s a pussy. Tarn is being very brave about this, only letting the spot blacking on his linework show on his face, as his fists shake with rage.

Then Kaon shows up, begging they pull back their forces until the Pet has been returned, and the spot blacking gets a little heavier.

Tarn, who has had a very long day of tactical meetings, phone calls, facing his fallen idol, having a very unsatisfying beatdown with said idol, and dealing with known freak Overlord, handles Kaon’s inability to be a big boy about misplacing his shitty little dog with all of the tact and decorum we’ve come to know him for— he gives Kaon a big, beefy hug, acknowledges just how much Kaon loves that shitty little dog, and then makes sure that Kaon never has to worry about a thing ever again.

That’s a series wrap on Kaon! Let’s give him a hand, folks!

Tarn, who has had just about enough of Overlord in the last half hour, smashes Kaon’s head onto Overlord’s tits, covering him in viscera, as he demands he be treated with respect, because this is HIS house, where HE’S paying the bills and calling the shots, so help him god. Nickel is very displeased that Tarn’s killed one of the Twinksome Twosome. No word on how Deathsaurus feels about this, considering that a big reason he’s working with Tarn is because he refused to kill the rest of the DJD when demanded to do so, thus showing his dedication to his men. Also no word on how the rest of the DJD are going to handle Tarn decapitating their weed man.

Tarn tells everyone to pony up, as they’re about to go over and handle all the silly little bastards hiding out in the Necrobot’s “fortress”.

Speaking of which, it looks like Megatron made it home, despite Tarn blowing his tits clean off with that cannon blast. Rodimus and Ratchet carry him inside, as Magnus is probably too busy not getting his arm put back on to help, and Megatron is using the last of his energy to hold the Autobot badge Tarn slapped off his chest earlier.

Sure hope Ratchet didn’t forget to tell Drift about his old boss being co-captain of the ship, or else this is going to be a very nasty surprise for both of them— we've already seen that Drift loves to freak out and kill sick people.

#transformers #maccadam #mtmte #issue 52 #overthinking about robots #incoming analysis #hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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If Donald Trump’s first days in the White House, in 2017, were about shock and awe—his haunting “American carnage” speech, the Muslim ban—the 2025 version, at least initially, felt more dutiful, a bit weirder, but ultimately not quite as scary. Trump 45 talked about a “new vision” to “govern our land” and promised his voters “you will never be ignored again.” Trump 47 seemed bored for the first half of his inaugural speech, then rambled on about Panama, Mars, and “the electric-vehicle mandate.” The flurry of executive orders that followed might have made for good headlines because they touched on culture-war topics such as trans rights and D.E.I., but outside of a few notable exceptions—withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and curbing renewable-energy programs—Trump’s first round of legislation mostly seemed like repurposed archival footage from his campaign, chopped up and stretched out into a new, thin form. The Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. Denali is once again Mount McKinley, because we’re not cancelling dead white men anymore, especially not for some tribe. D.E.I. is over at federal agencies and in the military. Now please go fight among yourselves about all this culture-war stuff while we deregulate everything.

This period of unhinged, but perhaps not so consequential, Trump theatre lasted until Monday, when his Office of Management and Budget released a memo freezing all federal spending “that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” We still don’t know the extent of the order, its legality, or who, exactly, it will affect, but the brazenness of the move suggests that Trump intends to run the country as a petty despot who values fealty to him over allegiance to the country. (The White House later rescinded the order, while also saying that the spending review remains in “full force and effect.” A judge has paused its implementation until February 3rd.)

Given the potential seriousness of Trump’s freeze, I think it’s good practice, especially after the recurring freakouts between 2016 and 2020, to point out when Trump mostly seems to be doing something for purely symbolic reasons and when he’s actually trying to get something done. The first Trump Administration and the constant stream of stories that ended in Russiagate ultimately desensitized much of the public to the actual bad things he was doing, disoriented the audience’s priorities, and might have even led to a quiet backlash or at least a sense of disbelief that Trump could actually be that bad. The renaming of bodies of water and mountains, for example, is easy enough to cast aside as Trumpian bluster, but what about the handful of executive orders Trump signed regarding D.E.I. which included the end of all such programs in the military and the federal government as well as the repeal of a 1965 executive order that prohibited federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, gender, and national origin? It’s still unclear how many employees will lose their jobs—the executive order calls for a list of everyone who might work in some D.E.I.-related endeavor and a review, which could either mean that everyone who has said a word about racial or gender equality or diversity will be out of work, or it could just mean that after a few high-profile firings of D.E.I. officers this list never really gets made, the review never happens, and everyone moves on to the next dimension of the culture war.

When the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions two years ago, the outrage from liberals and Democratic elected officials was relatively muted. There are many possible explanations for this, most notably that perhaps the people who were the maddest about the decision didn’t have the same platforms as the people who either shrugged or cheered it on. But over all it seemed like much of the public agreed with Sandra Day O’Connor who, in an earlier ruling on affirmative action in 2003, famously said that affirmative action should not really be necessary in twenty-five years. The clock, it seemed, had run out. Similarly, I suspect most Americans won’t miss D.E.I., which has become another digital training you have to finish before you get your first paycheck and a way for management to control what their workers say. (I doubt they’ll cheer on its end, either, largely because I don’t think most Americans really care one way or another. A recent poll by YouGov, in fact, found around half of Americans had a somewhat or very favorable opinion of D.E.I. programs, and less than thirty per cent said that they had a very unfavorable opinion.) This isn’t really the fault of the employees who work in these programs. I’m sure most of them envisioned something a bit more radical or at least useful when they signed up, but, if you’re a college graduate with a humanities degree and want to make a salary while still vaguely doing something that deals with reducing racism in America, D.E.I. is one of the few possible career paths. The problem, at a grand scale, is that D.E.I.’s malleability and its ability to survive in pretty much every setting, whether it’s a nearby public school or the C.I.A., means that it has to be generic and ultimately inoffensive, which means that, in the end, D.E.I. didn’t really satisfy anyone.

What it did was provide a safety valve (I am speaking about D.E.I. in the past tense because I do think it will quickly be expunged from the private sector as well) for institutions that were dealing with racial and social-justice problems. If you had a protest on campus over any issue having to do with “diverse students” who wanted “equity,” that now became the provenance of D.E.I. officers who, if they were doing their job correctly, would defuse the situation and find some solution—oftentimes involving a task force—that made the picket line go away. A couple years ago, a D.E.I. officer at Stanford Law School went viral after she supported students who were shutting down a conservative guest speaker. I recall watching the video and feeling both a bit annoyed at yet another instance of pointless and ultimately counterproductive “resistance” and also a bit sad because it was clear that the officer didn’t understand the point of her job. She wasn’t hired to actually join the protest against the conservative speaker. Her job was to intervene, give the students a “space” to vent, and, ultimately, find a solution that didn’t end with Stanford Law going viral for an instance of campus cancel culture.

There’s also the argument that the growth of D.E.I. offices, especially after the George Floyd protests, led to an aggressive and potentially illegal push to hire racial minorities throughout corporate America and academia, which, in turn, led to an overextension and corruption of the original goal of enforcing fair hiring practices to insure that people of all kinds would not be discriminated against. But this narrative also fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of D.E.I. within large institutions. What happened in many workplaces across the country after 2020 was that the people in charge were either genuinely moved by the Floyd protests or they were scared. Both the inspired and the terrified built out a D.E.I. infrastructure in their workplaces. These new employees would be given titles like chief diversity officer or C.D.O., which made it seem like it was part of the C-suite, and would be given a spot at every table, but much like at Stanford Law, their job was simply to absorb and handle any race stuff that happened. D.E.I. didn’t hire itself at Meta. It was embraced by the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who gleefully ended his company’s program earlier this month, signalling to the White House and investors that the days of wokeness at Meta were over. This was the final purpose of D.E.I. programs in corporate America—when the political winds changed this past November, D.E.I. became the convenient fall guy; the best way to signal that you never wanted to do all that woke stuff in the first place was to fire your D.E.I. staff and blame them for forcing you down the wrong path.

Trump, I believe, is doing something similar at a grand scale. He is taking a relatively powerless program, vilifying it, and using its dissolution as proof that he has single-handedly ended the woke era. The clearest example came on Thursday when he outrageously blamed “diversity” for the tragic airline crash in Washington. When his O.M.B. gambit turned into a legal and political disaster this past week, Trump’s Administration retreated to a familiar, safe space. The funding freeze, they said, was only for the parts of the federal government directly affected by Trump’s earlier executive orders, the most prominent being D.E.I. He and his Administration are wielding the word “diversity” both as a slur and an excuse for everything that goes wrong in this country.

I suppose it’s possible that the elimination of D.E.I. might take away what was a dead-end solution and recommit people to more fruitful forms of protest and dissent, but politics rarely follows such a linear and satisfying script. I also do not think the end of D.E.I. will derail the desires of employers and their workers to have diverse workforces, nor do I think Trump will pay much attention to any of this down the line. On Wednesday, Tom Malinowski, a former congressman and diplomat, pointed out that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency had just bragged about ending “DEI scholarships for Burma.” The scholarships in question are through U.S.A.I.D. and granted to young people who are fighting against the dictatorship in Burma, which, as Malinowski noted, has long been a priority in Washington for Democrats and Republicans, including the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. “It looks like these geniuses are just going through grant awards and killing anything that uses words like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion,’ even though in countries where ethnic and religious minorities are murdered and persecuted, these have long been American goals,” Malinowski speculated.

One can imagine Musk and his staff hitting Control+F on a database of grants for the word “equity,” cancelling any search returns without reading what they’re actually for, and then screenshotting the paperwork to post on Twitter. But this snickering for clout doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a great deal of alarm. These first two weeks of Trump’s Presidency have made it clear that his main priority, at least for now, is controlling federal funding and using it to enrich his allies and to harm his political enemies. In California, he told Gavin Newsom that he would make aid for cleaning up the devastating fires in Los Angeles conditional, in part, on the development of a voter-I.D. program. This past Friday, seventeen inspectors general were fired, which effectively removed independent oversight at a multitude of federal agencies. On Monday, the Department of Justice fired around a dozen employees who had worked with Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned to prosecute Trump, saying that they could no longer be trusted. Trump’s endgame has started to reveal itself and it will not be coming through the tired culture war we have all been fighting for the past decade but rather through the bureaucracy. Whatever rises to enforce or resist it will not sit nicely in a corporate or academic office, nor will it be neatly summarized through words like “woke” or “anti-woke,” or the endless campus wars. The next four years, instead, will be filled with true extremism on both the left and the right that will make supposedly out-of-control D.E.I. feel like a quaint company retreat in comparison.

So, yes, the war on D.E.I. is almost certainly a catchall scapegoat meant to distract from Trump’s larger plans to gut the federal government, but I also can’t imagine it will hold the public’s attention, just as a similar focus on racial politics in academia and élite corporations did not work for Ron DeSantis during his failed run for President. The American public elected Donald Trump, but between social-justice warriors, “woke,” and D.E.I., the right has now been fighting the same tired culture war for more than a decade, and it has largely lost the capacity to outrage anyone outside of a small set of terminally online, mostly conservative activists. Trump is going to need a better distraction, but one thing we know about him is that he stubbornly sticks to a theme. He might not be able to credibly blame diversity for everything from plane crashes to children’s reading scores, but I imagine he will try.

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teenytinyjimin · 11 months ago

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je ne sais pas (j. hoseok)

dans mon esprit tout divague, (in my mind everything goes wild)

je me perds dans tes yeux (i lose myself in your eyes)

je me noie dans la vague de ton regard amoureux (i drown myself in the wave of your loving gaze)

je ne veux que ton âme divaguant sur ma peau (i only want your soul going wild on my skin)

summary: in which two strangers spend an unforgettable day together without actually getting to verbally understand each other.

pairing: hoseok x reader

word count: 2.8k

tags: fluff, language barrier, idol!hoseok, quebecois!reader, strangers to lovers, im bad at this tagging stuff

warnings: none, just enjoy some sweet hoseok fluff <3

author’s note: im really excited about this one yall 😭 i love the idea of language barrier romance because just think about it... u love someone so much that talking to them doesn't matter as much as the memories u create with them.. god ok ill stop speaking please please enjoy!

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

The province of Quebec is often quite peaceful for about 85% of the year, with the exceptions typically being one of two things. First, there's always the typical influx of tourists that happens during peak times of the year like summer, Christmas, things like that. However the second exception is typically related to whatever artist is in Montreal for the Canadian leg of their world tour. It wasn't uncommon for there to be a little bit of buzz around the famous singer in question, however no one seemed to go harder than kpop fans when their group or soloist of choice was coming for a show or two.

You weren't really a fan of kpop in the way that many of your friends were. Sure, you've listened to some songs before, but you never felt the desire to get invested in any of the artists or the lore that came with them. It would be nice to hear your friends babble on about a new song that was released or a new tour that was announced, however you were absolutely not expecting the absolute freakout that was to come when BTS announced that they'd be doing a show in Montreal.

"Can you believe it?" One friend asked you with excitement. Yes, you could. They were famous. Of course they were going to come to Canada for a world tour. It's not that you weren't excited for your friends, who called themselves 'Army', but you just weren't as invested so it didn't mean as much to you. It also didn't help that a lot of their discussions with fellow fans and the things they'd post relating to BTS on their social media profiles were in English.

The majority of Quebecois people were able to communicate in English as well as their native language of French, but for some reason your family lived under a rock and you didn't learn anything beyond basic greetings and conversations in English. You felt rather left out because it felt like you were behind your friends and everyone else around you, however as you grew older you tended to not let it bother you that much. Since French is a prominent language in Quebec, you weren't bothered about language barriers and knew you could get around and live life normally without worry.

Since your friends were much deeper down the Bangtan rabbit hole, they were able to secure floor tickets to their Montreal show and were extremely busy completely overthinking the event and what they wanted to wear. It was now the day before the show and they were last-minute panicking, roaming the stores of downtown Montreal to put together outfits that were both cute and appropriate for the vibe of the concert.

Given that they were rather busy with this, you decided that this would be a weekend to yourself where you could peacefully do whatever you wanted. The quaint cafe you work at full-time decided to close for the weekend given the occasion (apparently the owner was also an Army), so it was a perfect opportunity for you to go down to the local park and do some reading on a bench.

And that's exactly what you did. You found yourself parked on the lawn of Mount Royal Park, right next to the lake. You brought some light reading with you, a small romance novel that involved the typical coffee shop trope, prepared to do some reading but also some people watching in between. It was absolutely perfect, and you couldn't have asked for a better way to spend the weekend. As you peacefully read your cliche novel, cup of iced coffee from a local coffee shop in-hand, you thought the day couldn't get any better. Until it did.

"Hey, excuse me, can you help me?" You looked up from your book to see a boy standing a short distance away from you. He had the warmest smile on his face and his eyes were bright with cheer. You tilted your head slightly, not too sure what he was asking. After a minute of silence, his smile dropped slightly.

"Uh... E-English?" He asked. It was clear that he was struggling with his words as well, even though you didn't speak the language. You shook your head, a slight frown on your face. "Français?" You ask in response, to which he mirrors you and shakes his head in return. The boy looks down for a second, clearly stumped as to what to do at this point. Part of you thought that he was about to walk away, however his feet didn't move from where he was standing.

After a second, he looked back up, his sweet smile once again appearing on his face. With his phone in hand, he pointed at it, then pointed at himself, then pointed at you. Was he asking for your number? Raising an eyebrow, you started to shake your head, however you watched as his smile dropped again and he shook his head rapidly. "No! No!" He said frantically, before mimicking the act of taking a photo, making a little 'click click' noise. He wanted a photo!

Finally understanding what he was saying, you grin and nod, causing him to squeal in delight. He approached you briefly to hand you his phone before backing up toward the lake a little more. You start to turn his phone landscape before he shakes his head and lets out a little yelp, indicating that he wanted the photo to be in portrait mode. You giggle at his antics as he attempts to pose in the way he wants, admiring his efforts to not only have a good photo but also to communicate with you.

Once it seems like he's ready for you to take the photo, you begin clicking the photo button and watch as he begins to move a little bit to hit different styles of poses. And wow, this man was incredible at modeling. You watched in wonder as he effortlessly moved his body in all kinds of directions, going from casual to silly to cute and back to casual. He was absolutely gorgeous, there was no denying that. A ten in a world of fives.

After a couple minutes, he stops posing and giddily bounces back over to you. When he takes his phone back to look at all the photos, he makes a couple of 'woaaahhhh' noises, clearly impressed with your photography skills. You turn away as a blush creeps to your cheeks, flattered that he's happy with the photos. When you look back you watch him slightly bow to you in thanks before pointing to himself. "Hoseok," He says, making sure to enunciate each part of his name in the correct way so that you know how to say it.

You smile and nod, offering your name back to him, to which his smile grows into one of the most beautiful smiles you have ever seen. If it weren't for your impeccable self-control, you probably would have fainted the very first time he smiled at you, given how absolutely charming he was. However, this most recent smile made you a little weak on your feet. You were able to tough it out and stay strong, but God, he was just stunning.

You go to sit back down on your spot in the grass, but before you get the chance to you feel a gentle hand grasp your wrist. Face hot with shyness, you peer back over to him and notice his smile has dropped. You watch as he points toward the exit of the park and into the main city, and gives you a 'come on' motion, indicating that he wanted you to come with him. If this would have happened a few minutes ago when he first approached you, you might not have taken the offer. But now that you've gotten to somewhat know this breathtaking stranger, it was an offer you couldn't turn down. Grabbing your book and iced coffee from off the ground, you decide to follow him out of the park.

As you step back onto the streets of Montreal, walking with this random man, you watch as he turns to you and thinks for a second. You can tell he was trying to figure out how to communicate his next thought, so you remain silent and patient. After a second, he points at his eyes, and then gives this huge gesture with his arms, almost like he's expressing something blowing up. Letting out a soft giggle, you tilt your head slightly, resulting in a laugh coming from his own mouth. His laugh was so loud, sweet, and full of joy, and it was like pure honey dripping from his tongue. He retries his previous charades, now acting like he is looking at something with his hand above both of his eyes. He then goes 'woahh!!' and gives an amazed look, and you realize that he's asking to see some of the highlights of the city. With a soft nod, you take his hand, watching a soft blush creep to his cheeks as you pull him along the street and show him everything he needs to see in your beautiful city.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

After spending hours with Hoseok, showing him about everything in Montreal and taking a picture of him with it, you found yourselves once again back in the park where you first met. It was a rather chaotic day, pulling the boy around and watching his face light up at absolutely everything, but what seemed to be weirder was the fact that multiple times during your tour you guys received a few looks and even whispers. Every time that it happened, Hoseok would indicate to you that he wanted to move on and go to the next spot while also pulling up the light scarf that he had around his neck to cover his mouth and nose. You thought that it was rather bizarre but dismissed it as people being disrespectful since he was a rather loud and excited tourist.

Now, though, it was just you and him, sitting in the grass in front of the lake as you ate a late lunch/early dinner. He asked you to go with him to a local store where he went around and picked out a bunch of ready-made food as well as a bottle of champagne, paying for it all and implying that he wanted to eat it with you back at the park. Considering this stranger was doing more than anyone had ever done for you in the last twenty-something years of your life, you were beyond flattered and at this point you were hardcore swooning for him.

You half expected your meal to be quiet and consist of you guys looking at the lake, looking at each other, and silently eating your meal. But this was Hoseok, the man you had learned was anything but quiet. Even though he couldn't speak your language and you couldn't speak his, he was telling you all kinds of stories through the power of charades and sound effects. For most of the time, he had you in tears, laughing at his impeccable sense of humor and all-around silliness. But he also provided you with moments of peace so you could eat without choking, which was rather respectful of him, you thought.

After a while of fun storytelling, you two fell silent. You gazed over at the lake, watching as the sun made the water shimmer, and let out a sigh. When you looked back over to Hoseok, you caught him staring at you, causing a blush to creep to your cheeks. Raising an eyebrow, you nudged him as a way to ask 'what are you looking at?'. Shaking his head, he hesitantly stretched out his arm to wrap it around your waist. Just by looking at him you could tell he was internally freaking out, his eyes wide with nervousness. You smiled softly and inched your way closer to him, accepting his embrace as you rested your head on his shoulder.

There was something about this man that was so much different from anyone else that you had ever met. His charisma, his kindness, his energy – all of it was so attractive. It was the fact that he wasn't just a pretty face, he was a pretty human. You could tell he was raised right with a heart of gold and you felt beyond lucky to have ever met him in the first place. For him to have asked you of all the people in Montreal to take a picture of him made you feel extremely lucky, because had he not approached you, the two of you would have never met.

He pulled back a little bit to prompt you to remove your head and look at him. You watched as he pointed at himself, then cleared his throat before singing a little bit of a song. His singing voice was as sweet as can be, and you were about to just sit there and admire him, until you realized that the song he was singing was familiar. You didn't quite know what the name of the song was, and he wasn't singing it in quite the right tone, but you knew it was by BTS. The kpop group that was currently in Montreal and about to perform the following day.

Your mouth gaped open as you realized what was happening. You didn't even realize that you had been spending the entire day with a member of BTS. The people looking and whispering throughout were probably people who recognized him, not people who were judging him. And he was hiding his face because he didn't want to be recognized. He just wanted to spend the day with a beautiful girl and feel like a normal human being. You didn't blame him for not telling you sooner, though. It's not like you're a diehard fan of his group, but you probably wouldn't have looked at him the same way had he told you immediately.

After processing what was happening, you closed your mouth and smiled, giving him a vigorous nod. Once he gave you a smile in return, you went back to resting your head on his shoulder and grabbing your glass of champagne to hold. You wanted to show him that it was cool, everything was fine, and things weren't going to change. You liked him as Hoseok, the boy he introduced himself as when he eagerly asked you for a picture earlier. Not the kpop idol that stands in front of thousands on a stage and performs for them.

As time continued to pass and the sun got to a point where the day started to become sunset, you two sat in blissful silence while enjoying one another's presence. After a while Hoseok once again nudged you, causing you to look up at him. You watched as he once again admired your face, a blush creeping to your cheeks as you became shy from the eye contact. Just as you were about to look away he reached his hand over to brush a strand of hair behind your ear, and then rested that hand against your cheek.

At this point there was no need for charades because all you needed to do was look into his eyes and he told you absolutely everything you needed to know. He dipped his head down slightly as you both pulled each other in for a kiss, his sweet lips meeting yours in absolute harmony. Your stomach did about five thousand backflips as adrenaline coursed through your veins and your brain went fuzzy. Whether you wanted to admit it or not, this was a moment that you were waiting for practically all day. Little did you know, however, this was a moment that he had been anticipating even before he spoke to you for the first time. It all started when he saw you from a distance and his heart almost beat out of his chest because he was so enamored by your beauty.

As you both pulled away from the kiss, you watched as his mouth curled into the sweetest heart smile and he leaned in once again to peck the tip of your nose. You knew that today was going to be absolutely perfect, but your new romance made it about ten times better than perfect if that was even possible.

It's safe to say that the next day you were at barricade at the biggest concert of the year in Montreal, courtesy of BTS' resident rapper and dancer, J-Hope. Or, as you knew him, your smiley Hoseok.

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smilestrawbunny · 8 months ago

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Bunny, do you plan on releasing any of the old unused sprites from earlier versions of Berrywitched: The Harvest back when it was in the previous art style? Along with any other content regarding the now cancelled Fairytale Freakout? It'd be nice to see what didn't get used.

Oh yeah! I can definitely do that. I’ll probably release the old harvest stuff as bonus content in an art book maybe or such… Fairytale Freak Out Stuff I already shared all the cgs I made, but I’m happy to share any more sprites of the characters if anyone wants them!

#ask #berrywitched #berrywitched the harvest #little red memories

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loiswasadevil · 1 year ago

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My life isn't satire. If you think I'm a Fake Family Guy kin Like those around me then you need to think harder because you would be wrong. I wake up and sometimes I make breakfast and I watch Family guy Until i shift (To Spooner street, in Family Guy) And when i come back I watch My favorite Show You guessed it Family Guy Until i go to sleep Or I just shift again. I am the master of this show and I long to be the master of my mind. Family Guy is more than Cartoons and a story It's a different universe and I won't interact with anyone trying to discredit my beliefs. Since i was maybe 2 years Old I have had hazy memories of my life as Lois Griffin That confused and disturbed me, And then as I grew up these memories started to align with my life. When I started watching Family Guy When it released I began to notice something that nobody else noticed, And i confided in my older brother and he believed me; About her Devil's Heart. Lois Griffin was given a Devils Heart from the Hatred of her Family. I have tried to lock away this Devils Heart but It comes out with a Catalyst, Which is most commonly The antics of Peter, and most recently anonymous people on this site. You can notice it in Lois too, Like in the famous Christmas Freakout in Season 3 Episode 16, You can pinpoint the moment the catalyst unlocks her Devils Heart It's easy to see it. The Devils Heart caused by our Parallel trauma in both Universes still exists but I try to lock it deeper every day and gain control of it and its power. If you think I am doing this to be funny or to get a ruse out of people then reflect on yourself and Watch Family Guy and you will understand everything. If you don't believe in reality shifting and universes You are ignorant because there is proof of these things. If you don't believe in Kin and Kin memories then you are ignorant because There are millions with Kin memories all over But I am one of the Only Lois Kins with fully canon memories. If you don't Believe in a Devil's Heart then Watch Family Guy. The numbers of People who see her Devils Heart are growing it's becoming indisputable. I understand it can be hard to notice and I may be naive because I am blessed with a greater understanding of Family Guy than most in this Universe so I think it is easy to see my Devils Heart but the others have given me faith.

#family guy #kin #lois griffin kin

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cepheusgalaxy · 2 months ago

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Whump community. Pls watch HxH. The Killua child soldier assassin backstory. The Kurapika mental illness revenge arc. The Gon freakout arc. Chimera ants. It's a pretty lightmooded anime. But theres some whump. And its good. Its so good. HxH propaganda. HxH. Hunter x Hunter. They r even releasing more in the manga now. Its colorful i promise. Its good. Hxh

(You can also not watch it. Tho.)

#hxh #whumpblr #its my favorite anime of all times along w ass class #also #i suggest the 2011 version #which adapts more further from the manga #bc the 1999 version stops at the yorkshin arc #but the 1999 version has a bonus scene that us very cool for the understanding of the events later on the show so #if you watch the first episode of 1999 hxh. and then the rest of the eps of the 2011 version #which also is the most popular #and not for nothing #the colors and music are very endearing #this post had almost no purpose besides me just. i like hxh

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extraordinaryhistories · 9 months ago

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#1 – 'We Are What You Say' (A Sun Came, 1998)

The candles are lit. The incense is burning. The choir is in the stalls. The text is on the pulpit, open halfway. The pews are full. The acolytes are hushed. The organ is playing a low E. The bishop is there. His hand is raised. The amber light flickers over his green Michigan t-shirt. He is ready to begin.

---

For those lucky – or foolish – enough to have discovered a copy of A Sun Came in 2000, ‘We Are What You Say’ must have been multiple things all at once. Impressive. Ambitious. Carefully written. Spellbinding, even. But yet also – and this is just undeniable, and Sufjan would probably tell you this himself – the product of standing on the shoulders of giants. ‘We Are What You Say’ has the homespun woodwinds of Celtic folk, the meshing guitars of Nick Drake, the hushed voice of Elliott Smith, the storminess of Fairport Convention, and the ending percussive freakout of early Pink Floyd. It was far from unprecedented. What does make Sufjan unique from the very first song he ever released, however, is that only he would dare bring these influences together at all, let alone convincingly do so. He would develop his own inimitable style very soon; he is not quite there on track one, and that is perfectly fine. ‘We Are What You Say’ is a stunning mélange of Sufjan Stevens’ influences – and arguably the single crowning achievement of A Sun Came. A high bar to clear, that is not. But clear it he does.

And this is all being rather unfair. ‘We Are What You Say’ does carry with it one of the most distinctive Sufjan hallmarks, something that he would develop further across the rest of his career: a radical simplicity. The song is in E minor, and the only chords used (prior to the wild outro, which introduces a seventh and a sixth, elevating the tension slightly) are the first, third and the fifth. Rise, rise, resolve, repeat. Underneath all the trappings of the arrangement, ‘We Are What You Say’ has about as simple of a foundation as one could possibly expect. Much the same with the melodies, dancing around simple scale degrees and resolving neatly on the E (only the double-tracked harmonies, and some of the woodwind lines, provide a degree of uncertainty.) He may be no more than five minutes and twenty-one seconds into his recording career, but there is already an effortless sense of confidence here, of trust in the essentials.

What else do we learn about Sufjan on ‘We Are What You Say’? If anything, we don’t learn so much as we are misled. This song is mysterious, languid, obscure, intimidating. Sufjan is many things, but he is rarely those things. You do not listen to ‘We Are What You Say’ so much as you stumble into it; it is the otherworldly juncture between service and séance, held in a misty church of unclear denomination with a choir dressed in pagan masks. It is a song with weight and heft, with double-tracked vocals and a small orchestra of caterwauling instruments making the constant evocation of the title – its unnamed ‘we’ – feel genuinely mighty. So much of Sufjan’s catalogue finds solace in a delicate, melancholic solitude: not so with ‘We Are What You Say’. We are many, and we have a sermon, and we have a song.

More fitting is the notion that Sufjan’s very first song ever released would directly invoke religion lyrically. It is not just the music itself that sounds cultish – there are mentions of tabernacle choirs and of bishops, of Bibles and of spirits. But this is a distinctly Gothic approach to Christianity, if it is indeed directly referring to any specific faith. The Christianity of ‘We Are What You Say’ is violent, cruel even. The narrator-cum-Sufjan calls his own bishops ‘easy’, ‘wrong’; the faith’s ‘word is a guard and the guard is a cleave’, in an especially well-written line. Sufjan will of course go on to present his religion from the perspective of the Devil’s advocate plenty more times in his career, but nowhere on Seven Swans or on Illinois is God so brutal.

Facing this, and with the benefit of twenty-four years of hindsight, we might be tempted to do one of two things. We might be tempted to dismiss these words altogether as lacking much real meaning, merely the free-associative poetry of an edgy twenty-something fresh out of a liberal arts college (which Sufjan very much was.) Or we might be tempted to interpret this song as a sharp rebuke to religion, whether in the abstract or regarding a specific sect (the latter seems to be a popular interpretation; one Genius user offers a very interesting reading of ‘We Are What You Say’ that suggests the song is a pointed attack against Mormonism.)

I don’t put too much stock into either view. I fear, specifically, that people are far too quick to confuse honesty with assault. ‘We Are What You Say’ seems to be a just-the-facts account of Sufjan’s faith, in all its gory, violent truth. The Lord is a god of vengeance and of tremendous fury; his acolytes are fallible, sinful beings who are susceptible to temptation. They can be wrong. The spirit is not. The spirit will guide its followers towards providence. ‘We Are What You Say’ is boldly about the violence of religion, non-believers be damned. The title is not an empty declaration – it is a warning.

You can certainly hear violence in the music. You can certainly hear it in the outro, a full-bore, top-volume race to the finish line, tin whistles wailing and oboes stuttering out notes, drum circles beating away, the guitar (ever the anchor) strummed with tremendous ferocity. It is one of the rare times that Sufjan shoots for a big, post-rock-esque wall of sound climax, and is certainly the most effective example this side of ‘All Delighted People’; a genuinely roaring, cathartic moment, full of that sort of Abrahamic rage that Sufjan is so fascinated with. And it doesn’t entirely end, either. The outro is so loaded with kinetic energy that when most of the instruments finally cut out, a few still sputter along, eyes bloodshot and crazed, until the song hard-cuts into ‘A Winner Needs a Wand’, which is in many ways this song’s complement.

Sufjan would soon achieve better, of course. But at this very early stage in his artistic development, ‘We Are What You Say’ is his best. All his ambition, his confidence, and his prodigal sense of melody is proudly on display here. Worth a listen if you don’t know it, worth another if you do.

#sufjan stevens #sufjan #music #storms #religious fury #the beauty of being utterly subsumed

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silv3rswirls · 2 years ago

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You have a rough time with work

♡Seokjin♡

Honestly, Jin has half a mind to go down there and scold your boss himself. He's over your shoulder as you pick at the food he put aside for you, explaining in great detail how he thinks you need to put your foot down and stop doing a job meant for two+ people. “They’re not paying you to do other people’s jobs, they shouldn’t keep pushing their work on you, etc.” He understands that it can be hard to say no, and whatever you decide to do about work, he’ll support you.

♡Yoongi♡

He hates to see you drag yourself to bed after getting home every night. Dead tired with heavy eyes and a beatdown demeanor. He lays with you on those dark evenings, brushing fingers through your hair, quietly talking as you drift in and out of sleep against him. It makes him sad that you seem to push yourself far beyond what you should. He suggests you begin to take steps to view your work with a healthier mindset and take more time to care for yourself. He’s no stranger to overworking, so he wants to ensure you don’t fall too deep into it.

♡Hoseok♡

He tries to hush your frantic tears as you realize your hectic work schedule has caused you to miss yet another award celebration for him. Having already missed his album’s release party, and so many little moments after, you seem more upset than he does. He wears the disappointment well, not wanting to make you feel bad. He does wish you would set firmer boundaries with work. Why should you be denied time off, reasonable hours, etc. while everyone else seems to get what they want? He hugs you and tells you there's always next time, hopefully, you don’t miss out again.

♡Namjoon♡

You had messaged him in advance about how horrible your shift had been. You break down all over again when you get home and start telling him about a customer's freakout towards you. All the yelling and name-calling over a little inconvenience, that really wasn’t even your fault. He apologizes that it happens, letting you vent all you want and brushing away your tears, and assuring you not to worry over things out of your control.

♡Jimin♡

You left work early with tears of disbelief and anger that a customer had had the audacity to throw a fit and throw their drink on you. He’s ready with a fresh comfy set of pajamas and a bubble bath. Honestly, just as shocked as you were over the ordeal. He helps you wash the sticky out of your hair, massages your shoulders, and just good TLC after a rough day.

♡Taehyung♡

Huffs in annoyance when you tell him that your request for time off was denied yet again. When was the last time you actually got your desired time off? They never gave you a break, even on your days off you were trapped on your phone and worrying about how things were going there. He’s one to take your phone away and demand you take a mental break, they really don’t have any right to pester you all day.

♡Jungkook♡

Hates when you mention that coworker. He’s weird, tries to push more work on you, blames anything he can on you, etc, etc etc. Jungkook’s never met him, but he loathes him as much as you. He tells you not to let him bother you, to stick your nose up and show him up. After all, your effort and quality of work are better. You vent and talk harmless trash about him together.

#bts reaction #bts x reader #bts imagine #kin seokjin #jin #min yoongi #suga #jung hoseok #jhope #kim namjoon #namjoon #rm #park jimin #jimin #kim taehyung #v #jeon jungkook #jungkook

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myladyofmercy · 8 months ago

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MID YEAR BOOK FREAKOUT TAG

thank you for tagging me @lazybug16 🥰

this is perfect because I've been reading so fucking much this year 😅

1. Best book you've read so far in 2024

the great believers by rebecca makkai

2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2024

the first to die at the end by adam silvera

3. New release you haven't read yet but want to

the temple of fortuna by elodie harper

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year

the pairing by casey mcquiston

5. Biggest disappointment

the little friend by donna tartt

6. Biggest surprise

lies we sing to the sea by sarah underwood

7. Favourite new author (debut or new to you)

natalie heynes & jennifer saint

8. Newest fictional crush

henry from maybe in another life by taylor jenkins reid

9. Newest favourite character

orion & valentino from the first to die at the end, kya from where the crawdads sing, yale from the great believers

10. Book that made you cry

the first to die at the end by adam silvera, the great believers by rebecca makkai

11. Book that made you happy

malibu rising by taylor jenkins reid

12. Favourite book to film adaptation that you've seen this year

where the crawdads sing & normal people (tv show but still)

13. Most beautiful book you've bought so far this year (or received)

in like the cover or the story? cover -> lies we sing to the sea by sarah underwood, story -> malibu rising by taylor jenkins reid

14. What books do you need to read by the end of the year

the wolf den trilogy by elodie harper, the pairing by casey mcquiston, graveyard shift by m.l. rio, gentlest of wild things by sarah underwood

15. How many new books have you read so far

tagging (without pressure as always) @cantputitintowords @tessabennet @scrapsofinspiration @tooindecisivetopickaurl @its-tea-time-darling @newtness532 @faintedloves @theladyofpaintedstars @hergrandplan

#tag game #books #book tag

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8bitsupervillain · 6 months ago

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Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 6 Tsumihoroboshi pt. 22

I am very undecided if I should call what’s about to unfold here a retcon. Apologies for another massive screenshot dump.

See, the reason I’m hesitant about calling this a retcon is because it’s portraying these events from the view of this timeline’s Keiichi being able to think about things rationally. This Keiichi is able to remember these events from Onikakushi and think about them from the rational angle of Mion and Rena were probably on the up and up, but that doesn’t really hold water with the way it was portrayed in Onikakushi. After all Keiichi did find a needle in the ohagi, Mion did have a syringe (probably H173) that she was going to inject Keiichi with. Hell even with the part where Mion is crying because of Keiichi accusing her of murder she did very swiftly start to rant about how she should have killed Ooishi long before he started Keiichi on his path of paranoia.

Clearly this span of screenshots and exposition is meant to try to mesh Onikakushi more cleanly with the larger plot that has come about as of Tsumihoroboshi. So it has to try to explain away Keiichi’s paranoia with his onset of Hinamizawa Syndrome, but really I think you could just as easily explain it as Keiichi remembering events from other timelines that did happen the way they did. I don’t doubt that Keiichi had Hinamizawa Syndrome back when everything went to hell in Onikakushi, but this sudden turn of trying to explain that Keiichi doubting his friends and becoming excessively paranoid just rubs me the wrong way.

Except he didn’t! Up until this very moment he had no recollection of any of this happening! Even at the time when he did homerun derby his way through Rena and Mion’s skulls he very definitely didn’t act like they deserved it! He never outright expressed regret at the deed of murdering them, but he never explicitly blamed them for their deaths either. Keiichi acted like they were used by the grander conspiracy to get at him.

Keiichi’s freakout worsens as he is overcome with guilt over having killed Rena and Mion five chapters ago. This makes Satoko and Mion thoroughly confused because as far as they’re aware Keiichi might as well be having this meltdown over a bad dream. Rika however approaches Keiichi to confirm that Keiichi is aware of his sin of having killed Mion and Rena five chapters and four years ago. Keiichi confirms that he is acutely aware, and that he didn’t even realize it when he clawed out his own throat at the end of Onikakushi and only just realized it now during the later half of Tsumihoroboshi. It never really goes into detail about her rebirth process, only that Rika prefers to have some time to come to grips with what happened “recently” but I can’t help but wonder if this is similar to how it works for her. But really I suppose that’s more a question for Minagoroshi than anything.

This… is a very ironic screenshot given what happens later on in Minagoroshi.

Rika then goes on to make Keiichi remember what it was like when he gave in to paranoia and eventually killing Rena and Mion. She rationalizes that because he went through this he could save Rena. Probably.

Now, I don’t know about Ryukish07’s writing process, and I don’t know if Wikipedia should be believed about the release dates between chapters. But given the short amount of time between Tsumihoroboshi and Minagoroshi I can’t help but assume that the pair of these were probably written together for the most part. Four months doesn’t seem like nearly enough time to have completely forgotten the characterization for who is probably your most important character in the franchise. But it is just wild to me how Rika seems to do a complete 180 in terms of characterization from Tsumihoroboshi to Minagoroshi. I guess maybe you could handwave it away as she doesn’t remember this particular conversation due to dying shortly after this chapter ends? Even though that doesn’t make a bit of sense considering she mentions things that happened right at the end of the chapter in the next one.

Anyway, thus now burdened with the memory of killing Mion and Rena in a past life Keiichi apologizes to Mion for it, and vows to be there to protect her in the future if she needs protection. A flustered Mion accepts this.

#higurashi #higurashi when they cry #higurashi no naku koro ni #higurashi playthrough

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