#granted this has been a series of not great distracting tactics to get my mind off the Horrors (i.e. through the mass consumption of

[thebirdandhersong]

I remember talking to a friend last week and saying that if I'm reading obsessively it either means I'm extremely happy or extremely in need of help. alas goodreads my good pal you have GOT to be kidding me

[cowperviolet]

For Gods and Gold - mega excerpt

'No one will disturb us here', Mathilde vander Welde says, shutting the door of the library behind her. Her sister’s distraction tactic worked perfectly.

‘‘I hope so, juvrow vander Welde’, Jochem Meier, who came in with her, comments. ‘Otherwise they’ll accuse you of both forfeiting your virtue here with me and of being heartless enough to discuss business on the day of you father’s funeral’.

As often, it’s impossible to say whether his remark is meant as a joke or a serious warning. Mathilde decides in favor of a warning whose absurdity she may laugh about, but whose crux she better heed.

‘This is most like to be the last moment when we can discuss matters in any privacy to speak of’, she says, the terra cotta panels of red and white bright under her feet. ‘As soon as tomorrow’s sun is up, every minute of my life is going to be devoured by my new well-wishers’.

That, and the walls of her house are going to grow many curious ears. She doesn’t spell it out because he understands it, and understands that she does. This is one of the reasons she values his counsel so: his quiet quickness of mind, otherwise veiled of necessity in the presence of those whose fortunes are bigger and lineages purer.

‘What was it you wished to discuss, juvrow vander Welde?’ Jochem Meier asks patiently. His attire, despite the occasion, reflects the same studious understatement as his tone: the black tunic of a minor merchant, the unadorned fingers, the high collar at his neck.

‘I wished to discuss the project of Shashtre, and its future’.

‘It was my understanding that the project is completed. The Armizi dynasty has gained their throne back, thanks to your esteemed father’s generous loan. The only thing left to do seems to be to wring a reduction in tariffs or a monopoly on pepper from Alessandro Armizi before the festive incense clouds his mind too much’.

‘I propose a different strategy, and I need to know if you are going to support it’.

‘I am a man with a stained family name and three wool workshops, juvrow vander Welde. I cannot imagine my support, humble as it is, would matter to you much’, he says drily.

Mathilde sighs inwardly – so, he has probably guessed what it is she thought up. Still, the only way she has now is to soldier on.

‘Father has already made us kingmakers. To use it for a pepper monopoly would be like using Ilerdian silk to wipe these floors. This a chance of a century. I am not going to pass it up’.

‘A chance to do what?’

‘To gain Alessandro Armizi’s trust enough to become, in essence, his own treasurers, the shapers of his kingdom. His court is young. He needs trusted people around him, even if some of them are going to be foreigners. No one on Ilerdian peninsula would be shocked at the notion of a foreigner in such a role, in truth – some states there even choose men from other principalities on purpose, to have someone free from the local factions’.

‘Men from other principalities on the same peninsula; from the states that are heirs to the same broken empire. Not those they perceive to be Northern barbarians’.

Mathilde kneels unceremoniously by a reading seat and narrows her eyes, making out the letters on the book list; ah, the candlelight here is so much dimmer…

Jochem Meier is looking at her almost suspiciously, as if from the pile of heavy, chained tomes she could spring upon him a curse.

She cannot even blame him. Her father had been a known, well-studied figure to him – to everyone - for decades; she, his heiress, is a yet-untested thing, wild as quicksilver.

‘There is so much more at stake’, she whispers, opening a leather volume, wishing her fingertips could become light feathers, unable to harm the treasure beneath. ‘If I succeed – if we succeed – who is to say what we cannot achieve? We could reach Alessandro’s uncle the Great Mowbed, help him manage his affairs. Bankers to the Holy Throne. It doesn’t sound too bad, does it?’ Mathilde smiles radiantly, the way she knows she is prone to when she gets overexcited.

‘The Great Mowbed, the Priest of Priests, His Truthfulness’, Jochem Meier muses, stepping closer to Mathilde and looking over her shoulder. ‘So many hallowed titles, but such a precarious position in the world. I suppose few would question his spiritual authority, but when it comes to the worldly leadership…’

‘He is the master of the capital of the former empire. That doesn’t seem to be the kind of worldly leadership to complain about’. Mathilde opens a page at random - she doesn’t have to seek out a particular illustration; every miniature is exquisite – two armies fight on the field of pale blue snow. One side is stiff in long, luminous chain-mail, the other’s armour is covered by flowing robes of porphyry.

‘Just look at it’, she whispers. ‘Isn’t it worth its weight in gold? It was a stroke of luck that my grandfather managed to find it. This was a part of the series of manuscripts commissioned for the last emperor in Janab – can you imagine? They were stolen, lost, dispersed throughout the peninsula during the wars afterwards. And this one surfaced in Esfan just when grandfather was there bargaining for a saffron consignment – we didn’t have a permanent company there yet. We’ve got the second and the fifth tome here, too, but they are of a later production’.

‘If you are trying to seduce me into supporting your enterprise by dazzling me with the glories of Ilerdian land, I’m afraid it isn’t working, juvrow vander Welde’.

Ah, but Mathilde can hear his voice growing softer.

I am not stupid, she thinks. I know that Janab is long since hollowed out, a place of magnificent ruins. I know that there had been princes holding Great Mowbeds hostage, and even more young dynasties tumbling down. But I want to take this risk. I cannot stop, cannot slink back to the cozy fireside. It is simply not my nature.

‘Think about the recent assassination attempt’, Meier murmurs just above her ear. ‘Can you imagine if it succeeded? With the Armizi Great Mowbed dead, his nephew in Shashtre won’t reign for a day’.

‘But it didn’t succeed. Besides, I thought your version was that the Great Mowbed simply cooked up this story because he wanted to cull the dastwars from the oldest families’.

'My version was that he merely used the situation to cull the mighty old guard in the Circle of Dastwars. It was too big a great stroke of luck, that all five conspirators belonged to it. I never said the actual knives in the dark weren’t genuine’.

The armies are meeting in battle – a graceful, orderly battle of a miniature. Even as the horseman in bright chain-mail slashes across the thighs of a porphyry-clad enemy, one’s attention is drawn more to the fluid lines than to the flowing blood.

‘I have not just called you here to receive your blessing’, Mathilde says, trying her best to keep the exhaustion and the nerves out of her voice. ‘I called you here because I want to entrust a lion’s share of this enterprise to you’. She turns around to face him and whispers: ‘I want you to go to Shashtre as the ambassador of the Republic of Gronsveld’.

This time, Meier does not reply. Finally, he is listening, looking down at her intently.

‘I want you to go’, Mathilde continues, ‘and to represent our interest and the Armizi court as well as the Republic’s. But, most of all, I want you to look out for any dangers to his rule or his life, and inform us about it’.

‘Or deal with them on site, should the situation allow, I take it’.

‘There is no one else, even among people who were loyal to my father, whom I could have trusted to be capable enough to manage it’.

There is also no one else who could be seduced by such a blatant promise of social climbing. The men and women who gathered in her father’s parlour to drink hippocras and discuss the price of fustian have long since climbed the ladder of power – indeed, their great-grandparents did – and would be likely to view such an offer as a dangerous distraction rather than an honour.

Jochem Meier is a different story.

Mathilde continues to smile. She is supposedly asking it of him as favour, not offering it as a gift - she doesn’t want to be seen as someone who secures people’s acquiescence with bribery, least of all by herself.

‘It’s a dangerous favour to ask’, he murmurs, his eyes keen.

Very well.

‘I promise to cover the costs of your embassy if the Chancery would fail to do so’.

‘Which it inevitably will. There only remains a minor question on whether the Council will vote to grant me the embassy’.

She had secured his help. Mathilde lets out a cautious breath.

‘This year’s Council is full of father’s old allies’.

‘They all have their own interests, Mathilde’.

A flush lights up her cheeks.

‘I wonder’, Mathilde says as levelly and lightly as she can, ‘if you used to call my father Walter’.

‘Forgive me, juvrow vander Welde’. A small, servile smile – the smile he could always put on like a cloak – is back on his lips. ‘Doubtless the mourning has addled my brain. That, and the rapture over the honour you’ve promised me’.

Promised. Not given.

Mathilde silently chastises herself for the outburst. The last thing she needs now is alienating her allies. But his slip of a tongue felt like he clutched her already broken arm. So many people, friends and enemies alike, are circling around her now, pillorying her with their stares, whispering about her uncommon youth – at twenty-one, they have all been dutifully gathering experience in the far-flung branches of their families’ banks and firms, not standing at the helm. One thing they are all sure about – some with pity, some with glee, but sure nonetheless – is that she is an easy prey, a lamb to the slaughter. Something much, much lesser than her father.

Her father. For the first time in the evening, the pain of loss clutching at her throat is threatening to overwhelm her and spill over into tears. Her father could have died a hundred times from a conspirator's blade, a rival's poison. But what toppled him was a simple kidney stone.

The surgery went splendidly; the physician priests were, as ever, proud of their ancient expertise. Their prowess made sure the process was quick; their draught eased the patient's suffering. But they had no power over the fevers that could follow, bringing swelling and delirium and deadly, morbid heat.

In death, he had been garbed as ostentatiously as he had rarely been in life, his shoulders swathed in a cape of cloth of gold embroidered with horses. The same animals were engraved on his brooches; the ends were bent - no living man will unclasp or wear them again. One cannot be too careful when seeking Aetrele's goodwill. In life, he prayed to her to ease the passage of his ships over the stormy waters. In death, her fabled horses should aid his final journey, carry him to the pale shores swiftly and soundly.

Mathilde bites her nails into her palms. She’ll weep later, with her sister for company. Right now, she must be her usual self – bright and hunt-ready.

‘Your father used to complain that men in his employ only bother to use double-entry bookkeeping if he is there to threaten them with a metaphorical stick’, Jochem Meier notes. ‘His allies on the Council are only different insomuch that they wear better cloaks’.

‘What are you suggesting?’ Mathilde can guess what he is getting at, but wants to hear it from his lips nonetheless.

‘There is going to be an out-of-time election for meester vander Welde’s vacated place on this year’s Council. I am suggesting that it would be a good use of your time to make sure you are elected to it’.

‘I am too young. They don’t welcome anyone below the age of twenty-five at least on the Council’.

‘They would have no choice if your name is to be drawn from the leather purses. The rule of the chance is the rule of gods, and the rule of gods is sacred’.

Mathilde is not a pure ewe of spring to be ignorant of the grease that kept the Republic’s wheels running. She knows how his father made sure the Council was stacked with his sympathizers this year, and she knows how much it costs to make the keepers of the purses add a certain name thrice, or even read aloud a different name than that on the piece of paper they’ve drawn. Desperate circumstances needed desperate measures.

Still, there is that, and then there is brazenly violating the law and hoping that whatever aura of sanctity still clung to the proceedings would help.

‘I don’t want to start my leadership like this’, Mathilde says. The cold of the onsetting winter is drawing in from the great library windows, and pricking her skin into goosebumps.

‘It’s better than starting it with a defeat’, Jochem Meier responds pragmatically.

Few candles are burning here, and the friezes running along the walls are shrouded in murk. They are depicting the labours and the joys of every season – a simple, understandable topic, requiring no reading and no fine eye to enjoy. They have been commissioned by her grandfather in the days when this room was a bedchamber, not a library; the figures are stylized as dolls of clay, and their colours are cheap hues of the earth.

Behind Mathilde’s back, the first tome of the Song of Emperors in breathing with gold.

This is what her father wanted when involving himself in these great campaigns down in the Ilerdian south, she knows; more than money, more than lucrative contracts. He wanted to bring back home the beauty and the knowledge of the empire that had been great when his homeland was still slumbering in savagery.

Desperate circumstances, Mathilde decides, sometimes need desperate measures indeed.

[power-of-ages-writeblr]

11/11/11 Tag (22/11/11? Tag?)

Another one of these! This time, I was tagged TWICE by the wonderful @sassypandacandy (go read her books,, i love them). I’ve gotta answer the questions, come up with my OWN questions, and then tag 11 people to answer, only I’m not going to tag eleven people because I still don’t think I quite KNOW eleven people yet. Also, because I got tagged twice with two different sets of questions, I’m going to answer both sets in one post, and then just come up with eleven questions of my own, because it takes me yonks to come up with questions and I’m lazy. Eso si que es, y’know?

What’s the first thing you remember writing?

A four-page story about a Diplodocus when I was… definitely before I was ten years old. Maybe like five or six. I was very proud of it.

What’s the last thing you wrote purely for yourself?

Actually, I pretty much always write for myself, so the last thing that I wrote/started to write… ooh-er. That’d be the Warrior Cats fanfiction I’ve been working on. :P

Are you a WIP playlist person or a WIP aesthetics person?

Playlist, probably. I tend not to make playlists specifically for WIPs – instead, I’ll assign songs and soundtracks to specific characters and scenes – but I’m still better at throwing together playlists then making aesthetics LMAO

What’s a book you wish you’d written?

Uuuuh… maybe it’s just because I’m young (barely an adult), but I don’t have anything where it’s like “ah I wish I’d used that idea” or “wish I’d written this book”. I still have a lot of writing ahead of me, hopefully, so all my ideas I hope to actually get out some day. (Assuming that’s,,, what the question is asking me)

What’s your favourite book adaptation?

Ironic because it doesn’t follow the books that closely, but I love the How To Train Your Dragon films very much.

Which of your characters would you like to have a conversation with? What would you like to talk about?

The downside to Pandemonium’s Bane being filled with eccentric personalities and cooky characters means that there’s actually few of them I’d LIKE to have a conversation with, because most would be too dickish or too annoying for my tastes xDD That being said, I think me and Plue are on very similar wavelengths, and we have a lot in common (such as both of us wanting to write), so I wouldn’t mind chatting with her for a bit if I had to.

Which of your WIP worlds would you most like to live in?

The Power of Ages stories are mostly set in one universe (the Nimbus System) so I guess I’d have to go with that one by default. There’s Neil’s dimension, I guess, but it’s destroyed, so…

Have you ever written anything inspired purely by a song? If so, what song was it?

I haven’t written anything inspired just by a single song, but I HAVE got certain scenes or character backstories based off of songs, or even the concepts they’re based around. I have a whole battle between brothers planned out to the soundtrack that plays when Shifu fights Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda, and listening to the Iron Man soundtracks helped me with both the conception of a new character and her placement in my roster (and yes, she does invent things and fly around, although there are also some major differences)

Have you ever written poetry? Do you still? Why or why not?

I… haven’t written poetry. And the reason for that is… I mean, I guess it doesn’t really jibe with me? Granted I haven’t considered it heavily, but it was always my least favourite aspect of learning English at school, and I just never fell in love with it the same way I fell in love with writing conventional narratives.

Who would direct an adaptation of your writing?

I ain’t big on directors, so IDEK. I guess in terms of the rewrite of Maelstrom (my current main WIP) I’d pick Sam Raimi, who proved with his Spider-Man films that he can blend fun superhero narratives with slightly darker elements pretty well.

How do you motivate yourself when you don’t feel like writing?

Mainly by having multiple projects to work on! That way, if I ain’t feeling what I’m working on, I can switch over to another one, and bingo bango, I can keep writing. (Hypothetically. Sometimes it ain’t that simple, obviously.) I also use music, and I also take advantage of being in situations where it’s like, I’d rather write then do the alternative. Do you know how much writing I got done in lessons? So much. :P

What scenes are the worst to write?

The ones that I haven’t planned out – sometimes I have very specific ideas for how I want scenes to happen, and I’m excited to get to them, but other times they’re just obligatory because there’s certain information I have to convey. That makes it a challenge to write it in a compelling way, because why should the reader care if I don’t?

What can you say is a thing you love most about your writing?

I’d say I like the dialogue/character interplay/narrative description-y sort of stuff. I think I’m good at giving everything levity, and keeping it breezy and entertaining even if I myself find the writing process to be a bit of a slog. Plus, it’s funny to read back over, and it’s also funny to watch my discord quote a line and then keysmash at it. :P

What is writing advice that you take to heart?

It’s from Aaron Sorkin’s writing masterclass – the idea that a story is defined by the main character’s INTENTION, the OBSTACLE facing them, and the TACTICS they use to overcome it.

How do you keep yourself from quitting writing together?

Honestly, it’s not like I have to try that hard! By this point I’m desperate to tell these stories that I have in mind, so I have a sort of innate compulsion to write because I wanna get it all out there. I’ll get back to you if that compulsion runs out, but for now, I see myself writing long into the future.

What is the strangest thing you’ve searched up on the internet for writing purposes?

Probably the capabilities of medieval-era people to recognise nuclear technology. (And for the record, the answer is “pretty low”.)

Not a question, but shoutout a writeblr (or multiple) that you think needs to hear that they are awesome and doing a great job (by the way everyone, you all are awesome and doing a great job. Keep it up.)

Well obviously I’m gonna shout out the person who tagged me in the first place – Kels. I await the final(?) book in the DOOT series with great anticipation.

Your OCs are trapped on a deserted island, what would they be doing?

I WANNA say they’d try and work as a team, but, uh. It may not go so well. Dante and Plue would probably be the most practical. Gaia would be good at grunt work but not focus on the task at hand, Rose would be functionally useless but good at moral support, Jacen would try to organise things but Gaia would just push him in the sea for jokes… I reckon they’d escape eventually, I suppose, but it wouldn’t exactly be a clean-cut affair, you know? xD

What is your biggest inspiration for your WIPs?

I actually have various inspirations – I think collectively my biggest inspiration is the MCU, in that it’s a bunch of interconnected stories set in the same universe about different characters and also there are superpowers. xDD

A habit you have when it comes to writing?

Not doing it (thank you writer’s block)

A fact about your world and/or characters?

I have debated killing of MANY of my characters, but have only actually come to concrete decisions one way or the other with a few.

If your WIP/s got turned into a movie or series, what would be the quote on the promotional poster or trailer?

Oh, I’m gonna do this for ALL the WIPs, this seems fun!

Of Encounters and Trysts – Two Hearts, One Soul (or something equally cheesy)

Hit and Run – Even the indomitable aren’t invincible

Maelstrom – Destiny Begins

The Destroyer of Worlds – One Case, One Team, One Superpower

Survivor – It’s every man for themselves

Savants – Not so different

Omnia Vincit Amor – Good things come to those who get traumatised

Cometh the Hour – Six thousand years from home

  Alright, now it’s (finally!) time for my eleven questiones:

1 – Does music help you write, or does it just distract you?

2 – What’s your favourite writing tool? A laptop? Notepad and pens? Quills and inkpot?

3 – Do you have to physically go to places to get a feel for them and feel as though you can set writing in them?

4 – What got you into writeblr?

5 – How well can your OCs dance, do you think?

6 – Do you have a favourite writing snack? If so, what is it?

7 – Bionicle. Thoughts?

8 – Is there a specific piece of media (movie, show, book, w/e) that you could say has been more of an inspiration to you than anything else?

9 – What’s the best soundtrack you know for getting pumped and hyped up?

10 – If you could only write one genre for the rest of your writing career, what would you go with?

11 – What’s your favourite music-based meme? (Examples include “LET’S GO”, “CREEPER/AWW MAN” and “We Are Number One But ___”)

 Tagging… @thelimeonade, and @dawnuchiha!

[toonstarterz]

BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #143

So in keeping with the recent trend of bringing back older characters, Watamote goes for a throwback and puts the OG trio into the spotlight. With Kii-chan, we got to experience how Tomoko managed to rekindle a previously strained relationship (somewhat). Will the Tomoko-Yuu-Komiyama team finally become a true circle? Or is it destined to exist as an awkwardly shaped, but cohesive oval? 

Chapter 143: Because I’m Not Popular, The Three Of Us Will Study Together

As always, Komi’s looking damn fine with her patented punk/goth style. Those open-shouldered skull shirt, slick choker, asymmetrical skirt, and striped leggings all come together to make her look like a total rockstar. It’s delightfully contrasted by the fact that’s she’s a pervert with a baseball obsession, but being fashion-conscious does help to round out her..unsavory side.

But, Yuu, sweetheart, as much as a skater dress looks good on you, you could do without the spikes. Granted, I’m hardly an authority on fashion, and in some circles, I’m sure it looks great. But it’s doesn’t seem as...flashy as she usually presents herself. Perhaps it’s because she’s with Tomoko and Komiyama that she doesn’t feel the pressure to be overtly stylish, and is more comfortable with something more subdued.

Man, the throwbacks just keep on comin’. What’s next, are they going to find Tomoko’s Yandere Boys Verbal Abuse CD hiding in her room?   

Friendly reminder that Tomoko is, was, and will always be a piece of shit.

That said, Tomoko isn’t the type to be mean just for the heck of it. Her usual targets like Komiyama and Yoshida are only targeted because it’s been made apparent that they can handle it. With Komi-something, Tomoko knows that she’s not utterly irredeemable, which is why she takes any opportunity she can to milk Komi’s indecency. Because otherwise, she’ll be the bitch, and that’s a line even Tomoko won’t cross.

This chapter should be titled, “-the four of us will study.”

Speaking of which, Yuu and Komiyama have never seen Tomoko’s big plushie before, right? They probably think that it’s evident of Tomoko’s hidden cute side but if they ever found out about all the questionable things Tomoko does to the poor thing, that idea is sure to be shattered.

I suppose I should address the elephant in the room and ask what the hell is it with Yuu and her incessant sweating? Not even down her face or anything, but it flies off her body. Could this be her unique way of expressing hidden anxiety? That’s a scary possibility, to be sure.

No, there’s supposed to be beer cans everywhere with inebriated kids playing footsie under the table that quickly escalated into necking and–oh, wait, this is reality. My bad.

Ah, so these are the friends that Yuu-chan often brings up but we’ve never really seen before. They certainly look like a lively bunch, though that’s really all one can say from a single panel. Granted, if Yuu's school does have relatively inferior academics, then I imagine there’s a bit more goofing off going on here than actual studying.

Same here. That’s the reason yours truly goes off to work at the local cafe rather work at home. Too many distractions and external stimuli at your abode, and no one to hold you accountable for slacking off.

Not entirely sure if this is a joke lost in translation, but apparently Komiyama is humming a ditty about the Chiba Lotte Marines, namely infielder Nakamura Shougo. That’s actually kinda cute.

Got nothin’ to say. Itou just looks adorable here. 

This, however, is decidedly NOT cute.

As the series’ resident purevert, Komiyama’s crush on Tomoki has always fluctuated between two extremes: innocent, schoolgirl affection and disturbingly fetishistic lust, and this line about, um...licking Tomoki’s eye circles falls way into the latter. For the record, I’m generally nonjudgmental about one’s unharmful sexual preferences–to each their own, you know–but given Komiyama’s history, I’m genuinely concerned for Tomoki’s wellbeing should the girl ever get her paws on him. 

Itou is canonically the strongest character in the whole series. Those powers of perception were gained through unfathomable amounts of mental destruction. 

Self-awareness? What self-awareness?

Is this going to be running gag now–Yuu innocently “complimenting” Komiyama with a between-the-lines insult?

I dig it.

Some may call it slacking, I call it strategic half-assery.

Ah, so Tomoko is officially aiming for a liberal arts school. For a girl who used to have zero prospects after high school, it’s uplifting to see Tomoko with an actual long-term goal in mind. It really is the only thing she’s reasonably passionate about, and the “starving artist” lifestyle actually fits pretty well with Tomoko’s approach to the world, so good for her.

Poor Yuu is never going to make it in the “real world”, is she?

Checking out the play-by-play when you’re supposed to be studying? Sometimes I forget that Komiyama actually has a cute side.

You know, given all the times when Tomoko and Komiyama are shitting at each other, these little bits of politeness between them are much more poignant. Sure, they’re being conscientious about it since Yuu’s there, but I can see this happening even if she wasn’t. See, Tomoko and Komiyama tend to mirror each other–insults are reciprocated with insults, and friendliness is reciprocated with friendliness. Even when they swing far on one side, something always pulls them back into equilibrium.

This would’ve been a good spot to put a gag here, with Komi expecting a strikeout only to explode with joy in front of her friends when the Lotte’s make an unexpected comeback. Instead, Nico Tanigawa goes for realism, validating the more pessimistic side of Komiyama. As for why they chose this route, I actually believe its to set up a little arc for Komi. As of now, baseball and Tomoko are her saving graces, and neither is looking good right now. Ultimately, this could lead to Komi facing the reality that dreams don’t always come true, and learning to accept that.

Yuu was definitely fishing for an answer to Nemo and Katou, and the fact that Tomoko doesn’t tell her right away is actually a good sign. Back in the old days, Tomoko would jump at the chance to “brag” about Yuu, her then-only friend because she was so insecure about their friendship falling apart. Since then, she’s made a number of meaningful friends, so that need to brag is long gone. 

I love seeing characters describe other characters they’ve barely interacted with. Komi does see Nemo as a girl in the “sorta-in-crowd” so it makes sense that she would see her as “flashy”.

Says the girl who also dresses super fashionably.

Shocked, but not resentful. It’s uplighting to see Komiyama take Tomoko’s relative popularity in stride, and it’s a feeling that’s been there since the Kyoto Field Trip Arc. Despite having very few friends herself, she’s never thought poorly of Tomoko when the girl gained more friendships. If anything, it made Komiyama see her in a slightly better light now that she knows Tomoko isn’t completely irredeemable. 

I could almost swear that Komi is doing that on purpose.

Cuties.

Everybody’s Golf is that PS4 game, correct? Good taste, this girl.

Shit, Tomoko, at least take her out to dinner first.

But it actually makes sense for why Tomoko brings it up like that. She knows that she’s at that stage in her relationship with Yuu that she just can’t casually molest her anymore (not that she should have been doing that in the first place, but still). Tomoko, the perv that she is, still has those shitty desires, but she’s more tactical about it. Like a politician. 

Lol! Tomoko is such a jokester!

...right?

This harks back to those times when Tomoko fantasized about being an arms dealer/mercenary. Naturally, that’s a far cry from wanting to be a golfer, which is much more grounded in reality. Even Tomoko’s reasons about the payload and being a woman carries merit. Sure, it’s ultimately a fleeting interest, but at least her dreams aren’t so...how should I say, destructive anymore.

Even deeper into the realm of reality is her interest in being an esports streamer. Being a millennial, it’s a perfectly understandable desire that fits into Tomoko’s work ethic and personality. Sure, her last experience as a streamer was an utter failure, but now she’s got a good grasp on what it really takes to be one. My guess about Komiyama doubts stem from her thinking that female streamers become popular largely on their sex appeal, which Tomoko evidently does not have by most accounts. 

Tomokitis (noun) – a rare disease characterized by an irrational lust for little brothers with baggy eyes named Tomoki. Prolonged exposure to Tomoki will worsen the lust to the point where mere proximity will trigger it. Those afflicted are forever hopeless.

As freaky as Komiyama is, I’m more impressed that her thirst for Tomoki overrides any disgust she may have at the possibility of being related to Tomoko. Well, Tomoki is basically a drug for her at this point, and junkies have accepted far worse to gain their fix.

Sploosh.

In the rare possibility that the universe decides to hook up Tomoki and Komiyama, Tomoko is going to make one hell of a cockblocker. 

Shoot, even the cat gets a return appearance. Nico Tanigawa are really putting out all the stops lately with the nostalgia, ain’t they? 

If memory serves, there isn’t a scene in the manga that shows Yuu being particularly interested in cats, so this was actually pulled straight from the anime. You know, that scene in the last episode where Yuu chases down a mentally broken Tomoko only to suddenly stop and pet a kitty? If they're willing to reference anime-original moments like that, then Nico Tanigawa must have fond memories of their anime adaptation.  

Is Yuu taking about the dog or Yoshida? :p 

Okay, so the dog. Wonder how she’d take to being compared to a pig?

First Pineapple-chan, and now Yuu-chan. It seems pretty mandatory that anybody outside of the loop would think that Yoshida was bullying Tomoko. Of course, once you realize that Tomoko has done things that would get her on the front page of a #MeeToo article, all bets are off.

Has Tomoko ever been this upfront about how she harasses Yuu? It was always my assumption that this was an unspoken reoccurrence between the two of them. At least the physical stuff anyway, as Tomoko is known for making “jokes” about getting Yuu knocked up. The poor girl really is too sweet for her own good.

While Yuu may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, that doesn’t mean she’s clueless about the sexual world (she supposedly lost her virginity after all). I’m sure she’s aware that most people wouldn’t tolerate Tomoko “accidental” groping, hence why she questions how someone could not bully her for that. 

It’s pretty ironic how even though Yoshida is probably the most transparent character in the series, Tomoko still can’t figure out if she’s friends with her. That might be Tomoko’s fault somewhat as she’s the type who needs things spelled out to her, and given that Yoshida is more of an “actions speak louder than words” girl, you can see the barrier there. At some point, one of them’s going to have to take that first step and say it to the other’s face if this friendship is going to go places.  

Poor Yuu. The first friend of the series is the last friend to see Tomoko’s growth.

This has been a headcanon of mine since the very beginning of the series, but I’ve always felt that Yuu Naruse had this inner sadness to her. That underneath her beautiful looks and kind personality was a girl who suffers more than she lets on. Remember, Yuu’s personality is fundamentally the same as it was in middle school, despite all the outwardly changes she made in high school. What Tomoko once called a “debut” could have actually been a survival tactic. Yuu never likes to be a bother, and her way of hiding her emotions isn’t always healthy, whether it’s holding back tears about a terrible beach, or making her friends sing for an hour at karaoke. And heaven forbid her breakup with her ex-boyfriend was uglier than she let on. Worse yet, Yuu knows her weaknesses, which only makes her self-deprecating moments hurt even more.

Perhaps I’m talking out of my ass, but hey, Yuu deserves an overcomplicated character analysis just like all the others.  

And as always, Yuu, the angel she is, always puts Tomoko before herself...

I find it admirable that Komiyama is so secure about her social life. Her tiny circle of friends and lack of some Tomoki lovin’ have never truly brought her down, and she can even make fun of herself for it. It’s much different from Tomoko’s rampant self-consciousness of the earlier days, Some may argue it’s a lack of shame as opposed to self-confidence, but Komi is clearly making the best out of it.

Hikari, eh? Other than reminding me of a certain Pokêmon character, I wonder if that’s a joke about how Itou “lights up” when she unleashes her powers of observation.

...

...

...

So, um...fujoshi anyone?

The prices one pays to be a friend to Kotomi Komiyama. 

All in all, this was a fairly easygoing chapter, as most chapters with the OG trio are. With the emotional rollercoaster that Golden Week had provided us, it’s nice to wind down a bit and reflect on the past. That’s not to say that this is a “recap” chapter by any means. Simply that this self-reflection exists to guide our heroines into the next stage of their young lives. It may be as simple as making a new friend over a perverted Skype call, but if there’s only one thing this series has taught us, it’s that the simple things are just the start of something greater.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE NEW VENTURE CAPITAL SQUEEZE

Distraction seeks you out. And yet all those people have to be the next generation. They're helpful in doing deals and arranging introductions, and some trains of thought just peter out.1 Then they heard a rival VC firm was also interested. We also see signs of a separation between founders and investors tend to take these for granted.2 I think the main reason to prefer a series A round, the partner whose deal it is takes a seat on the startup's board. A lot of the money in VC funds comes from their endowments.3 They didn't know.4 You should only write about things you've thought about a lot, will probably surprise most readers. Maybe they'll listen to one of the best things about working for a startup is grim and hard than have founders go into it expecting it to be? It's like telling the truth. I worry about the power Apple could have with this force behind them.

If parents will let undergraduates study. The reason tablets are going to get replaced. One of the differences between big companies and startups is that you have to seem confident, and you think Oh my God, they know. Outside writers tend to supply editorials of the defend-a-position variety, which make a beeline toward a rousing and foreordained conclusion. Even people who had nothing to gain went out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the end.5 Civil liberties make countries rich. You can tell they won't make investments for their fund that they might be willing to make themselves as angels.

At the moment, even the smartest students leave school thinking they have to deal with this phenomenon. And meetings are the main mechanism for taking up the slack. This amounts to asking what I got wrong, things that seem like bragging, flames, digressions, stretches of awkward prose, and unnecessary words.6 Imagine if we were visited by aliens. As companies grow they invariably get more such checks, either in response to disasters they've suffered, or probably more often by hiring people from bigger companies who bring with them customs for protecting against new types of disasters. Some days I'd wake up, get a million hits an hour on your servers. Writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them. Google turned out to be. I went to work for them. This is an instance of a very important meta-trend, one that Y Combinator itself has been based on from the beginning. The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school were even connected to what I was doing exactly the same thing. Another thing blogging and open source software is more reliable precisely because it's open source; anyone can find mistakes.

In fact they were more law schools. One founder said this should be your approach to all programming, not just startups, and I choose the next topic with that in mind. When you're trying to do in the 90s. Most don't try to sound impressive; don't hesitate to change the idea. Revealingly, the same term was used for both products and information: there were distribution channels, and TV and radio channels. On the Internet, SMTP email, HTTP the web, and they pay it to the employee in the hope that the programmer he'll hire is Bill Gates—kind of backward, as the name implies, is dynamic: you don't know what the laws are and don't have time to find out. Like steroids, these sudden huge investments can do more harm than good.7 Richard Feynman used to amuse himself by breaking into safes at Los Alamos. The kind of people who could afford to go were VCs and people from big companies.8 So maybe it would be a pain to fund with grants and donations. You can't expect employers to have some kind of paternal obligation that isn't there in transactions between equals.

An essay is something you write in school is that a real essay, there's always a chance you'll hit a dead end. In this case the exploding termsheet was not or not only a tactic to pressure the startup. Most companies that VCs invest in would never have made it that far if angels hadn't invested first. This isn't just amusing; it would be a pain to fund with grants and donations. It seems probable that investors have till now on average been overcontrolling their portfolio companies. The method of ensuring quality is also the essence of what scholars did then, it became clear that the Internet is an open platform. I think a society in which people can do and say what they want when they want it, and c they invest at a point where the stream is broader. Surely that's mere prudence? And in the startup world.

The US has never been so poor as some countries are now.9 Unfortunately the only industry they care enough about so far is not very long. Whatever help investors give a startup tends to be underestimated. When I realized this when I started writing the essay, and even blogging in some cases, are so important, why do you need to make technology, and all the other people will move. But search traffic is worth more. That's different from the way things felt in 2001.10 0 mean anything more than the valuation of our entire company. But they're wrong. I bet they got a good deal on it. They can usually only summon up the activation energy to start a startup by just writing code. It did serve some purposes: reading a foreign language was difficult, and thus taught discipline, or at least, a thesis was a position one took and the dissertation was the argument by which one defended it.

Notes

Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The French Laundry in Napa Valley. Experienced investors know about this trick merely forces you to take over the course of the founders chose?

If a man has good corn or wood, or it would take Abelson and Sussman's quote a step later in the biggest company of all tend to say because most of his professors did in salary. Articles of this essay began by talking about art, they did it. They may play some behind the scenes role in IPOs, which you are.

This essay was written before Firefox. A related trick is to let yourself feel it mid-sentence, but he refused because a there was near zero crossover.

Wave is a meaningful idea for human audiences. That can be done at a critical period. If this is the kind of people are magnified by the PR firm.

It would have a connection with Aristotle, but Javascript now works. The problem in high school textbooks.

On the other direction.

Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the cachet that term had. The word boss is derived from Delicious/popular.

And you can talk about humans being meant or designed to live inexpensively as their companies took off? Everything is a down round, that you never know with bottlenecks, I'm not saying that's all prep schools is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors treat them differently. I'm speaking here of IT startups; in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Oxford University Press, 1983.

Not only do they learn that nobody wants what they said, and are paid a flat rate regardless of how to achieve wisdom is that the investments that generate the highest price paid for a block or so you could beat the death spiral by buying politicians. In practice sufficiently expert doesn't require one to be a problem that I know what they built, they mean that's how they choose between great people to endure hardships, but most neighborhoods successfully resisted them.

I don't think it's confusion or lack of movement between companies was as a company grew at 1% a week for 19 years, but they hate hypertension. It's conceivable that intellectual centers like Cambridge will one day have an edge over Silicon Valley like the increase in economic inequality start to shift the military leftward. What you're looking for initially is not to stuff them with comments. A great programmer is infinitely more valuable, and there was a bad idea the way to answer the question is to say, ending up on the summer of 1914 as if they'd like it that the meaning of distribution.