#i definitely need to eat what if after that i speedrun Deciding not to have agoraphobia and go to dollar tree or something

[aropride]

i am so Bored .

[akilahia]

Okay so far I’ve played Ted’s section 4 times, and I’d probably say that it is the easiest to complete out of all 5. I don’t want this to sound biased or anything since I’m a Ted fan and all. I just feel like there are very few mistakes that you can make and the size of the section makes it a lot easier to go through compared to some other characters.

Some things that can ruin Ted’s drama are,

- Forgetting/not knowing how to shut the door so the wolves don’t eat him.

- Summoning Surgat before trying to open the maid’s door earlier on. This makes it so the only option is to trade Ellen’s soul, but even if you do you can’t progress further in the story because you need to see inside that room(This only happened because I was rushing through my fouth replay.)

- Trapping the devil first, then showing Ellen the mirror 😭.

- Not memorizing the spell and turning into a frog.

Obviously there are still bad choices that you can make for him, but I think those four are the only things that halted his story for me. Despite these few things I think his story is easily one of the fastest to play through.

Now the hardest section is definitely hard to say for different reasons. In theory Benny’s should be one of the easier ones, but depending on the movement of the Elder, it can take significantly longer. I haven’t played Nimdok’s again since my first playthrough so I don’t remember how long it took or how hard it was, just that it was very easy to lock yourself out of being able to continue if you mess up with the eyes.

So I’d say it’s between Ellen and Gorrister. Both of their sections require you to walk around and backtrack a LOT. Gorrister’s is a bit more annoying to walk through, in my opinion, because there are a lot of different levels and doors and routes to go through. Whereas Ellen’s is big, but you follow one path back and forth for pretty much the whole story.

The hardest part for Ellen, is for me to remember to exhaust all possible options before continuing, such as

- Try picking up the yellow cloth again

- Talk to Anubis again after trying the key code, if you don’t and just go straight to reprogramming then you won’t have the dialogue option to discover the real code(Accidentally messed up here and turned my speedrun into a slowrun)

- Remember to interact with everything once you get out of the elevator before going to get the speaker, otherwise she obviously won’t take it because she doesn’t know what to use it for.

- When entering the secret passage you have to make such you are choosing the right interactive option otherwise she won’t enter

So I’d say Ellen’s can be difficult if you don’t follow the order of events properly. If you do though then it’s pretty straightforward.

Gorrister however is extremely tedious to work through, even if every step is taken correctly. There is so much back and forth, which wouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t have to actually move around so much to do it. I’d say the challenging stuff I’ve noticed in the two playthroughs I’ve done for him are

- Making the rope from the bedsheet

- Specifically choosing to take the heart rather than use rope or anything

- Using the knife to get the rope back

- Taking the key from the engine room, I always forget

- Stalling the engine before trying to let the gas out to land the zeppelin, and only stab two!

- Get the gun from under the pillow.

- Take magnifying glass from urinal

- Pour the whiskey again after Harry answers three things

- Have the rope to tie Edna, don’t forget the key.

-Burry Glynis but make sure you click shovel and not dessert.

- GIVE THE JACKYL A BEEF HEART, then Gorrister will have his heart for the finale section.

I feel like compared to Ellen, messing up most of this stuff won’t soft lock you from progressing, however it will be annoying to fix because you’ll have to walk back and forth multiple times. I think the landing of the Zeppelin can be very tricky though, even for a repeat player. So I still really can’t decide if I think Ellen or Gorrister’s section is more difficult.

[henry-and-the-seven-lords]

Hi 🧸-anon here.

Something that would be kinda funny would be like, staying up really late on a weekend hanging with Levi (probably binging some anime or playing games in his room) and then you just look at the clock and go,

“Damn, it’s 6 am already”

And like, you look at each other, nod and go directly back to what you were doing before looking at the clock. Later it’d be even funnier when all of the others would bare witness to neither of you looking alive, while simultaneously jumping between that “I’m so tired I seem more awake than anyone” and “It’s taking all my willpower to stay awake and not fall asleep at 1 pm”

Idk just some fun 3 am thoughts

Catch you later 👋

I love this because I am definitely the second one and all my friends say it is really funny to watch me try to stay awake.

Brothers Masterlist | Dateables Masterlist

Here's how I imagine it.

They are both sitting there playing some long co-op game (it takes two, mario, etc.) They started late thinking it'll be easy, and we are REAL gamers so we can speed run it without ever playing it before.

It wasn't a speedrun. MC looks up from taking a swig of their energy drink and sees the clock. It reads 6:00 AM.

"Hey Levi."

"What?"

"It's 6:00 AM"

Now he looks at the clock. They both stare at it until it changes to 6:01. Before looking at each other and then looking back to the TV.

"I need your help for this part." The time completely disregarded. I mean, they have to at least be halfway done, right? (Wrong) They finish the game at like 3:00 PM with high fives.

Now they both decide to venture out for "Breakfast" and this is when the residents of the House of Lamentations bare witness to the sleep deprived duo.

Levi would be the I'm more awake than everyone type of sleep deprived. He is able to cope somewhat well. He looks pretty normal, except he is putting orange juice in his cereal. Wait, now he put the cereal box in the fridge. Why is he using a fork? Maybe he isn't alright.

MC on the other hand, I think would be the one using all their willpower to stay awake. They stumble around the kitchen making their bowl of cereal. They actually put in the right ingredients (not without dropping some of it and making a mess of course) all before plopping at the table and falling asleep face first in the bowl.

Here are the brother's reactions to

Sleep Deprived MC (and Levi)

💙 Lucifer -

He is mad that Levi would keep MC locked up in his room like that! And on a school night!

Because of that MC missed all their classes and it reflects poorly on him.

He does think it is kinda cute how they stumble around...

"Please be careful where you are pouring MC"

He tips the milk back before they get it everywhere.

He also makes sure to put everything that Levi moved, back in its proper place and clean up their mess.

💛 Mammon -

He is very worried.

He keeps pulling MC in different directions because they keep trying to run into the counters!

"Oi, Watch where your going!"

Definitely records Levi's triumphant look as he tries to eat cereal with a fork and asks "why is my spoon broken?"

Mammon is also the one to pull MC's face out of the cereal and lean their head back against the chair. Can't have them drowning.

🧡 Leviathan -

Records MC running into every counter and laughs everytime they say "ouch" (which is everytime they hit something)

Thinks he is so awake and smart.

Until he tastes how disgusting cereal and orange juice is and wonders when the milk went bad.

MC laughs a little before face planting into their cereal.

He laughs at them before doing the same.

💚 Satan -

Definitely smirks and watch the two putz around for awhile.

Doesn't help Levi at all, just let's him put things in wrong places and eat terrible cereal.

Satan at least hands MC the right ingredients.

"No, that's a plate. Here is a bowl, love."

Makes sure they don't make a huge mess (but doesn't clean up any messes they do make, just to piss off Lucifer)

💖 Asmodeus -

Would think MC is just so adorable when sleepy.

"MC! You need to keep up with your beauty rest otherwise you will get wrinkles. I know just how to fix this. You need a self care day."

He watches them start the cereal and then eventually guides a sleepy MC to lay on his bed. (And No, he did not clean up or put away anything)

They then fall asleep and he would do a whole self care routine on their face while they sleep (like the tiktoks where the girlfriends do it to their boyfriends) it would have cleansers, those rollers to tighten skin, face masks, the works.

Definitely doesn't care about Levi or the well being of his skin.

❤ Beelzebub -

This poor boy doesn't want you to get hurt.

Tells MC to sit at the table while he makes them cereal. (Proceeds to make them a Beel sized bowl)

MC's head starts to lull forward but he catches them and feeds a sleepy MC to make sure they get their sustenance.

He then eats the rest of their bowl and Levi's (because he just left it after tasting it)

After the snack he carries MC to his room and proceeds to cuddle them while they nap.

💜 Belphegor -

He definitely just sleepily watches.

Laughs at how stupid Levi is being, before yawning and realizing that now is the perfect time to bond with MC.

Gently guides MC away from the milk they just pulled out, grabs a few small snacks and heads up to his bed.

He would offer them food, but by the time he pulls back the blankets they just crawl in and pass out.

Now he can get all the snuggles he wants with no interruptions!

[harumiyabedo]

how genshin impact characters would react to the traveler making matching bracelets ^ - ^

heya! this is my first time making stories for genshin so i’m sorry if some of them are ooc and ahjdhahs my english is terrible so i hope u don’t mind and enjoy <3 [ also if there are some mistakes feel free to comment!! ] repost!!

ganyu, hu tao, venti, albedo

ganyu

first of all let me just.. she’s very sweet. we all know how she overworks herself :(

traveler would collect qingxin flower just for the sake of qilin matching bracelets

paimon would also nag about how tiring it is to climb up these mountains to get them

the traveler would pretty much make the bracelets whenever she’s busy or far away from them

of course, SHE WILL MORE LIKELY FEEL SUS ABOUT THE TRAVELER..ok jk uhm yes i think she would be confused on why you’re staying away from her

PLS I CANT EVEN IMAGINE HOW SWEET SHE WOULD ASK THE TRAVELER “traveler, i don’t know how to say this but i’ve been meaning to talk to you, did i do something wrong?”

traveler would panik because of how they worried her on hiding something from her

“ah no! don’t worry ganyu we just had to collect some materials” paimon would help you out to reassure her that she did nothing wrong

“oh i thought i did something wrong, do you want me to help you out? since i’m on a break” she would hesitantly ask you

of course, you didn’t want her to feel sad and invited her to join you go watch the view near the mountains in mt. tianheng

while waiting for the sun to set itself you decided it’s time for her to know

“ganyu!! we want to show you something!” paimon’s loud voice echoes to her ears

paimon covers her eyes, trying her best to cover her sight, as you attach her bracelet in her wrists

“okay! i hope you like this~” paimon says

i could imagine some litol smol tears she’s holding, she never received these kinds of gifts from someone so it would be special

“i- didn’t expect you to make this for me traveler, it looks pretty.” smiling through her happy eyes “and yummy” out of nowhere she says that

you would laugh at how cute she’s stopping herself from eating the flowers, since it’s a ‘special’ gift from you.

hu tao

HELLO?! to one of the most energetic person we’ve known! hu tao hehe

actually it’s very tricky to make secret gifts for her!! since she would probably follow you and paimon withouth you knowing

so..you definitely hide from her very very far away after collecting some silk flowers, hoping ningguang doesn’t mind

after collecting some of the flowers both you and paimon travel again to mondstadt near windrise

“do you think she wouldn’t follow us here?” paimon asks curiously as she piles out the flowers you both collected

you shake your head reassuring paimon they wouldn’t know

it took a few hours for you to finish it nice and neatly and of course you needed some rest since it’s almost night time

the next day you and paimon would traveler back again in liyue to find hu tao

“HU TAOO!! WHERE ARE YOU” paimon screaming again loudly, her words echoing through wuwang hill

since she would probably stay there mostly, to bury or even scare some people

it would probably take you both a few minutes to find her just sitting near the cliff watching the view

“HU TAO!! THERE YOU ARE!” paimon calls out her name

“hehehe.. what brings you here traveler!” she asks curiously

actually at this point i know she would act confused but she definitely know about the activity you did with paimon

approaching her with a small gift box for her, with a neatly tied ribbon made out of vines to make it more nature ish? i guess

she would open it immediately and look at it for a few seconds before she realizes its a flower bracelet

wearing it immediately and showing out her wrist to let you know it looks good on her!

of course she doesn’t want you to be sad because she already knows about it and shows you how happy she is with the bracelet

you both would sit down together and wait for the sun to set with her ghost scaring the shit out of paimon

venti

another person we all love! collecting cecilia’s would be a little hard since venti would be performing their harp again with the winds

but not to worry! i can definitely assure they would be staying in windrise

let me just tell you how cecilias also look vv pretty.. just imagine how the wind breeze would flow through your hairs while collecting cecilias

“traveler! paimon! i didn’t expect you both to be in here~” venti calls out your attention

paimon: panik traveler: visible panik

“OH! we were just staying here for some wind” paimon says

“hmm i see, well you wouldn’t mind if i accompany you?”

you both nod without even hesitating

WELL THAT DIDNT WORK OUT BUT! you don’t give up and continue collecting them for a few days

connecting both stems of the flower itself, and the outcome a pretty cecilia bracelet!

now the problem is looking for venti

it would be confusing because they would be in windrise, stormterror’s lair and starsnatch cliff

so you decide to go to windrise and surprisingly there they are, using the harp performing again to the winds

“venti!! we have something to show you!” paimon excitedly calls out their name to inform them

“oya? what is it! come on come on i’m thrilled to know” they say

you tie the bracelet on their wrist showing them you have matching bracelets

“traveler.. this looks pretty!!” touching the petals

“but it could be nice if we tried making apple bracelets!”

well i’m expecting them to say that so 😋

in return they would perform some songs to help you all relax under the tree, watching the leaves dancing softly

paimon would also talk about how funny it is to make the flowers

“you could’ve told me so! i would just act like i don’t know anything” venti would make a joke out of it

it all ends up watching the skies together raising your arms to see the bracelets

in which you and paimon would doze off.

albedo

HELLO IM A SIMP FOR HIM HEHE but anywho, he has the same flower as venti but don’t worry it won’t be that difficult to collect since he would be staying in dragonspine again doing some experiments

“albedo! we’re gonna head out for a bit to get some food” you wave and bid goodbye to get some “food” but it’s actually the flowers

albedo would smile at the view and decide to take a rest and sketch out something

while sketching out, you and paimon still collecting the flowers would make them near the cliffs so that it wouldn’t be hard to make them

albedo sketches both you and paimon with klee bombing👹 the fishes and he would laugh at the picture he imagined

sir. i love u, ANYWAYS MOVING ON

on your way back to the lab is F R E E Z I NG so don’t worry you’ll definitely speedrun your way to the lab

panting your breaths and finally arriving at the lab

“paimon! traveler! i see that you both have arrived.. why are you both panting so hard.” he would suspiciously ask you both

“well if you didn’t have your lab here in a freezing mountain” angy paimon

“haha i’m sorry, come on i’ll help you out” and YOU DEFINITELY WOULD LOVE TO ACCEPT IT BCS WHY NOT 😍

settling yourself near the fire and wearing the coats tightly because of how cold it is

“where’s the food?” out of nowhere he asks

oh no.

panik again yes ofc we love that

“well we kinda uhh.. ATE IT AND FORGOT TO BUY SOME FOR YOU haha..” paimon jokes

albedo’s mind rn: hmm sus

you couldn’t take it anymore and show him the bracelets you made

“hEY! I THOUGH WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SURP-“ covering paimons mouth

smiling through the embarrassment, but that’s ok bcs he would gladly accept it and wear it himself

“this looks pretty traveler, when did you make it” he asks while investigating it the petals and stems curious on how you tied it perfectly

and you tell him how all of it went out

“well i didn’t know you would be so good at this, i’m gonna keep this and wear it while i’m here in the lab” he smiles and pats your head

SIR PLS DJNSDJBSH HEHE

he would also show you his sketch while waiting for you both.

“well we kinda uhh.. ATE IT AND FORGOT TO BUY SOME FOR YOU haha..” paimon jokes

albedo’s mind rn: hmm sus

you couldn’t take it anymore and show him the bracelets you made

“hEY! I THOUGH WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SURP-“ covering paimons mouth

smiling through the embarrassment, but that’s ok bcs he would gladly accept it and wear it himself

“this looks pretty traveler, when did you make it” he asks while investigating it the petals and stems curious on how you tied it perfectly

and you tell him how all of it went out

“well i didn’t know you would be so good at this, i’m gonna keep this and wear it while i’m here in the lab” he smiles and pats your head

SIR PLS DJNSDJBSH HEHE

he would also show you his sketch while waiting for you both.

hello!! thank you for reaching here in the end! i don’t know if i did good or no but hopefully i did some ok i guess, i think most of them are ooc but thank you for reading <3

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 1

Hello and welcome everyone to the first post on this watch-along commentary of the first season of Magia Record! Whether you are just now watching it for the first time, or are re-watching in preparation for the second season, or have only played the game and are curious about the anime (in which case I'd be surprised you even exist) I hope you can have some fun reading these ramblings as I try to put my thoughts into words  (actually turned more into narrating the show) throughout all 12 13 episodes.

Before we can get to it, though, I have a few warnings to give:

1 - As much as I'd love to be able to memory swipe so I can watch this fresh all over again, such an ability is sadly still beyond my grasp. In other words, this isn't my first time watching (or second, for that matter; more like the sixth… or seventh…). That being the case I can't claim that these are my first impressions and it's very likely this commentary will be somewhat biased by my previous knowledge. However, I can guarantee one thing: I will do my best to keep this spoiler-free, so you don't have to worry if this is your first time watching.

(I will, however, be assuming that you have watched the OG series and Rebellion, so beware of that).

2 - Please don't come into this expecting it to be Madoka 2

Also no, this is not a continuation of the OG, it’s an alternate universe spin-off.

This one's for first-time viewers.

Well, ok, this sounds like vague tweeting and I'm kind of whining here, but I have seen a number of peeps on the internet saying that Magia Record is bad only for their argument to boil down to "because it isn't OG Madoka!"

Yeah it isn't. I'm pretty sure there's "Side Story" written somewhere in the title too.

Leaving aside the matter of nostalgia glasses and whether the original series was that much of a masterpiece or not (it's been over five years since I last watched it, so I can't say anything either way.) it seems kind of weird to me that someone would bash a spinoff on the grounds of how close it is to the original. Because here's the thing: to me, the whole point of spinoffs is taking an already existing scenario and putting a spin on it to make something new. That's exactly what makes them fun!

MagiReco didn't need to be a Madoka clone or to try hard and beat the original. That would probably have made it bad, actually. What it did need to do was to create an interesting story using the world set up by the OG Madoka and the other spinoffs, and that, in my opinion, it did, so I hope people can give it a chance and judge it on its own merits rather than only compared to the original. I'm not saying you can't hate it, either, I myself have my own problems with it, it's just that I want to see more reasonable reasons than "it's not the OG so it's bad".

3 - As you can probably already tell from these warnings, these posts are bound to get looong, so I'd recommend setting aside a fair amount of time and getting real comfy if you're gonna read it all. I also don't mind if you just skip ahead and only read the interesting parts, I'm not the internet police.

3.5 - I don't want to use it as an excuse, but I think I should make it clear that English is not my native language, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes and awkward/stilted text. It's hard to tell by myself, so feel free to correct me if you find something.

SO, with that out of the way let’s get down to what’s really important:

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record Episode 1

Whew, now that’s a mouthful.

You know, in my mind I always thought a “side story” was something that happened alongside a “main story”, like another POV, so I’m not sure that’s the most appropriate title, but who am I to judge?

So here we go, we’re off with some beautiful futuristic scenery already, that’s the Madoka series I know.

As the classic Sis Puella Magi plays in the background, two unseen narrators tell us the tale of the so called “magical girls” as we are shown the reality of being one, meeting our first witch for this series.

Risking your life to save a cat doesn’t seem like the smartest of things. Rather, witches eat cats? That’s mean.

No, you really, really don’t. This narration definitely seems made to make everyone who saw the original say this, particularly with how silly are the wishes these girls suggest. 

And hey, look, even this girl who supposedly had her wish granted doesn’t seem very happy.

Hang in there, this is only the first episode.

Man, this scenery really is pretty though.

After an exciting fight with a witch in the train, our girl here silently goes home to find

Whatever the heck this is.

So, our girl here seems to be having strange visions whenever she enters her room, that is very very suspiciously cut exactly in half. Protagonist, you sure have an unique sense of interior decoration.

She goes on with her day, makes two lunchboxes and… oh, it seems she’s all alone.

Is this something you should be telling your own daughter?

Long story short, Iroha’s parents are abroad right now (as is suspiciously the case with many a anime protagonist parents). I actually love the parallel this scene draws with OG Madoka: whereas Madoka’s parents seem responsible and Madoka even looks up to her mom and they’re a happy united family, Iroha comes off as being the responsible one in her family and her parents are gone from the get-go. This way, the lonely atmosphere of the previous scene also starts making sense.

So, it seems like there’s something Iroha wants to do here, and that’s why she decided to stay behind.

Perhaps. Did you wish to save a black cat?

Wow, this teacher is speaking fast. Calm down lady, we’re not here to speedrun the content, geez. Though I guess we should be happy she’s at least giving a proper class, unlike a certain other teacher…

Oh great, it's this guy.

Ok, Iroha doesn’t remember what she wished for and Kyuubei doesn’t know either, although he knows she used her wish for the sake of someone. Kyuubei theorizes that the reason she doesn’t remember might be that not remembering was part of her wish, but Iroha doesn’t think she’d wish for that. I don’t think you’d ever think to wish for something like that until you had to wish for something like that though.

She’s got a fair point. After all, wishing in this universe is basica— the heck is going on in the background there?! O-kaaay…

Iroha was having a weird think-spot mental conversation with Kyuubei there, and missed speedrun teacher’s lecture entirely. Being meguca is suffering.

We get some school motto propaganda, and now we’re on the roof. Oh? Where did all the friendship stuff from the propaganda go? Seems like Iroha’s not following the school spirit. Unless she considers the white weasel a friend, so that’s why she gave him her extra… wait, Kyuubei can EAT? I thought he was some alien machine-like being. H-Huh...

Classmate A: Tamaki-san, maji tenshi!

She’s probably just shy. According to her classmates, Iroha used to be busy doing something or the other, but no one can remember what that is.

Cute. 

But maybe don’t do that somewhere someone could easily walk in on you, Iroha.

Iroha gets a call by the girl from the combat scene from before, whose name is Kuroe. I couldn’t tell from their conversation if they’ve known each other for a while or if they just met each other for the first time in the fight before.

On the train, although she’s the one who called her over, Kuroe remains silent. Iroha, clearly uncomfortable, tries her best to make conversation. Poor Iroha, I know the feeling.

We learn from her that the number of witches around has been decreasing. She comments that being unable to get Grief Seeds is troubling, but it’s better than having witches causing trouble. Poor girl has no way to know just how much of a bad news it is running out of Grief Seeds.

What’s with pink-haired girls and lacking self-esteem? Iroha, are you sure you didn’t wish to save a black and forget that you did? You did save a white one just before.

Kuroe finally decides to talk, and she tells us this:

If you go to Kamihama, you’ll be saved. To anyone that saw the OG, the first thought that comes to mind is that they’ll be saved from their destiny of turning into witches, but it seems Kuroe doesn’t know the truth yet. She just doesn’t want to fight witches anymore. I think.

The train lights up, and…

...this is extremely unsettling considering the truth about witches and the conversation they’re having right now. There’s a lot of this, but this just hits different having watched the original.

Iroha’s not inclined to believe what Kuroe’s saying. Of course, despite not remembering her wish, she’s the type that’s happy with fighting witches if she can save someone, and Kuroe’s not being very convincing either. The whole thing is apparently a rumor spread by some girls who saw a dream that told them that.

Except that Kuroe actually had the dream too.

Like most magical girls, Kuroe made a short-sighted wish, and regrets it. She now wants to be saved, so she’s going to Kamihama.

...or she was, but before that, they’ll have to defeat the witch they let escape the other day, ‘cos she’s back for more.

I actually have so many questions about this scene. Weren’t Labyrinths pocket dimensions? How come this one’s moving in physical space? We know witches themselves move and their Labyrinth goes with that, but I thought it was more, like, the entrance to the Labyrinth moves. Then how come witches can escape if magical girls get carried with their Labyrinth when they move…? Just... just... what?

The answer to all of that is probably “magic”.

Like that, Express Witch Labyrinth crashes right into what seems to be a train station. Labyrinths don’t have brakes, confirmed.

Brutal.

Looks like it’s not only magical girls who have territorial disputes going on. Although it’s nice that they won’t have to fight two witches at the same time, this is not exactly a relief when you consider these two were already struggling with the previous one, and this one just ripped it apart like crab.

As expected, Iroha’s arrows do no damage at all. When all seems lost…

A wild singing mini Kyuubei appears! Is this a shiny?

The singing Kyuubei distracts the witch and jumps towards Iroha, who uses her pro white cat catching skills to grab it, and… something happens. Whatever this Kyuubei did, Iroha’s having some flashbacks now. Sadly, the middle of a battle isn’t the best time to be having a BSOD and, despite Kuroe’s attempts to snap her out of it, they’re sitting ducks right now, a black and a white one.

Thankfully for them, though, they’re not alone in this barrier. This mystery blue haired girl spams flying spears and makes short work of the witch Iroha’s arrows didn’t even scratch earlier. She’s clearly at a whole ‘nother level.

Also, chibi Kyuubei’s gone. Totally not suspicious. Nope. Not at all.

So, from this OP miss get-the-heck-out-of-my-territory, who didn’t even bother saying her name, we learn that not only there is no salvation in Kamihama, there are more, stronger witches, and there are currently no Kyuubei. She gives them the Grief Seeds from the two witches before, and passes on a warning to them. Not the friendliest of magical girls. Though if you consider what happens when you run out of Grief Seeds, one could understand why it’d be undesirable having too many magical girls in the same place.

With this, Iroha and Kuroe take the train back to their town and things are totally awkward again.

Welp, seems like Kuroe doesn’t want to chat anymore, so we’ll have a dream sequence instead.

Forgive my lack of words, but this scene doesn’t need them. This is just… you couldn’t ask for a better representation of what being a magical girl wishing for salvation is like. Everyone has their own reasons, but in the end, having known despair, these girls are desperately clinging to this last hope called Kamihama. It’s almost a pilgrimage.

“Let’s go to Kamihama. We’ll be saved there”

And in the midst of all that is the mysterious girl from Iroha’s dreams.

(the track here, Paradero de Memoria, is also great btw)

Now, with various wishes written all over in the background, we get Kyuubei’s spiel about magical girls. I think this is word-by-word the same from the original too.

We now get to finally know what our protagonist’s wish was.

So Iroha wished to cure her younger sister’s illness, but the sister in question is now nowhere to be found. Worse: everything related to her is gone. Even Iroha, who made a wish for her sake, didn’t remember her existence until now. Oh man, that’s no normal disappearance. What happened? Guess that’s what Iroha will have to find out now.

With that, we conclude the first episode of Magia Record(’s s1)!

This is a really strong first episode in my opinion. It decently introduces our protagonist, sets up the mysteries we will be dealing with from here on and also manages to trace connections with the original, while using the viewer’s previous knowledge to give a whole different impression to some scenes. You wouldn’t be like “hell no” at the rumor there at the start if you didn’t know the truth about magical girls, and I doubt that final scene would hit that hard either. It’s just really good at this and it’ll continue doing that from now on. I love it.

Speaking of the final scene, me having watched the original over five years ago might also be part of it but that is really my favorite scene in Madoka overall. I just really really love that scene. (Seriously, I’ve watched this scene so many times I know it by heart now. Help.)

Alas, I lied, the episode’s not over yet, we still have our classic anime first episode ending-opening to watch. So let’s listen, to Gomakashi:

This logo’s real pretty.

So yeah, pretty standard anime opening. If you pay attention, there are some references to Connect too, what with the selfcest and whatnot. Although I managed to mistake this when I first watched, this one’s actually sung by the trio TrySail rather than ClariS. That’s the VAs for Iroha, Asakura Momo; Yachiyo (the get-out-of-my-territory girl), Amamiya Sora and Natsukawa Shiina, whose character we’ve yet to meet. TrySail has a lot of cool songs, so do check them out if you haven’t already. (free ad)

This time, in fact, the episode is over! Whew, I did say this was going to be long, but not even I thought it’d be this long. By the time this is posted I should have a backlog of these, so my plan is to post one everyday until we are done. I hope you had fun reading this here rant and I’ll be looking forward to meeting you guys again tomorrow, same place, maybe same hour, so we can go on and watch episode 2 together!

(P.S.: I am considering doing a series of posts at a later date comparing the anime to the game, but we’ll see. The first few chapters are fine, but the game is stupidly long, so I feel it’d take a lot of motivation and stamina I’m not sure I have at the moment. There’s also the possibility watching the first arc again would bring back my yt copy-apocalipse grief back and that’d suck, definitely don’t wanna go through that again.)

[etirabys]

Rec: meditation

I started meditating with the app Headspace in 2017, and started using the app Waking Up this past month at the same time I started meditating a lot more. Part I of this post is a comparison of the two apps, meant to justify why I think someone getting into meditation should start with Headspace. If you are not interested in meditation but enjoy thinking about the human mind, the description in Part I of what Waking Up teaches may still be interesting.

Part II describes my motivation for meditating and what I think other people can get out of it, Part III gives specific recommendations for meditation.

Part I. Headspace vs Waking Up

Note before I go on: Headspace and Waking Up are both paid apps. Headspace is $13/month. Waking Up is $100/year, but many redditors in threads I read about Waking Up before buying it assure me that the team really wants people to meditate and will give it to you for free if you produce a good reason, like “I cannot afford this but I find meditation helpful”.

I think I’m getting about five times more out of Waking Up because I started with Headspace. Some things that I think are very useful before starting Waking Up that Headspace teaches better:

Being sufficiently good at staying at your breath that you can by default stay with your breath for 3 cycles before you get distracted

Being sufficiently good at noticing when you're distracted that distractions are normally <=1m

Either finding body scan (moving your attention down the body, tuning into signals from different subsections) easy/intuitive to begin with, or being familiar enough that you just 'know what to do' when prompted

Headspace teaches you these in a more accessible way. Waking Up asks you to perform new mental motions in almost every session of the introductory sequence, and I think it’s hard to get something out of this if you’re busy struggling on the basics listed above.

Headspace has a 30-session introductory course, where each session is 10m. Even if you never do another Headspace pack, I recommend this. I also endorse speedrunning it by doing it 2/day and finishing in 2 weeks.

Each Headspace course (1 course = 10-sessions with a theme like ‘Anxiety’, ‘Mindful eating’, ‘Pain management’) has 1~3 of the following techniques associated with it:

Body scan (moving your attention from your head to your toes – practicing letting sensory data fill up your mind)

Noting (basically installing the TAP of noticing when you have a thought, emotion, or sensation that is not the thing you intend to focus on, and bringing your attention back to the object of focus, using the breath)

Reflection (Emptying your mind a bit first, then asking yourself a specific question, or rather letting the question sit in your head, letting potential answers come and go)

Focused attention (focusing on one thing, noting when something that is not that rises to your mind, watching the thought run its course, which it generally will much faster if you're watching it rather than running it, and then going back)

Resting awareness (think and feel ~normally without an object of focus, but have a watcher process that's looking at thoughts and feelings interleaved with the process that's actually having those thoughts and feelings)

I don't think Headspace is very good at articulating and teaching the last two techniques. Waking Up teaches those two better, and those are the interesting ones.

Waking Up's schtick, as interpreted by me, is that it asks you to

Model your mind as a projector screen (or mirror, or ‘space’) on which things are appearing,

Notice how much of what's on that screen appears there without your input (like bodily sensations or sounds),

Notice an increasing set of things as 'things that appear there without your input',

Notice the 'you' that is the watcher-entity / consciousness that is separate from everything on the projector screen, because the watcher is not producing mental phenomena

And once you have this model and a visceral sense of using this model to move your mind the same way you use the model of a car to drive a car, you can do things you couldn't do before when your model was "my mind is me, making choices and doing things", e.g. having greater control over how you react to a thought or emotion.

My current view is that focused attention is the practice you do to familiarize your mind with using the "the mind is a screen and watcher" model instead of the "the mind is me" model, and resting awareness is just the thing your mind will do a lot with normal life once it is used to using the model. Like constrained exercises in physical therapy vs normal walking.

Waking Up also teaches you to

5. Notice that the watcher does not really exist – that every mental effort to ‘locate’ the watcher will fail.

because part of what WU tries to teach you is to let go of the notion of the self, completely step out of the “my mind is me” model. The creator thinks that letting go of this is a fundamental component of the mental transformation the practice of meditation is for. I am personally not very interested in this and am electing to ignore this / not actively learn it.

Part II. What for?

My original motivation to meditate came from failing to meditate the first time I tried it, being aghast that it was so hard to do something as simple as focus on the breath for even one minute, linking it to my general lack of mental discipline, and deciding meditation was an obvious way to try to fix.

I have not seen tangible improvement in mental discipline. But after a month of meditation 20m/day on average, I’ve seen tangible improvement in emotional control and what I’m going to call a-freedom-to-choose-the-self.

I have several instances per day where I’m feeling frustrated or anxious or guilty, switch into observer mode, and kind of watch the observer process take up more and more CPU until the original process isn’t running at all.

I sometimes recognize when I’m lost in a thought or feeling that centers around a desire to control or set the course of the future – whether that’s on the scale of hours (will I get enough work done today) or years (am I going to get divorced in the next decade) – and immediately translate it to the present: will I do some work in the next minute, am I paying enough attention to my partner’s existence and needs today. You don’t need meditation to do this, exactly, but it really helps to have a visceral feeling of your entire life being composed of slices of ‘the present’, that the present is sort of the only thing you can control and be responsible for. And have that visceral feeling, it helps to have a lot of practice tuning into the present, which meditating trains you to do.

What I’m labeling freedom-to-choose-the-self is the feeling of (1) having a thought that’s pretty tightly anchored to you – e.g. a sense of judgment about something you’re consistently judgmental of people (including yourself) for, investment in maintaining your status in your workplace or gaming forum that you’ve been part of for years, (2) switching over to the mind-as-screen-and-watcher model and regarding the thought/feeling the same way you’d regard traffic noise that’s happened to arise outside your house, (3) thinking “do I want this thing attached to me? Is it good for me? Do I like it?”, and (4) if you don’t, letting it go with the same gentle indifference you’d let go of the traffic noise. Crucially, you’re not rejecting the underlying drive that generated the thought, or severing it from the self – you’re just choosing not to make that particular thought an “I-thought”. Your future self may very well have a similar thought and choose to claim it as an “I-thought”, and that’s your future self’s prerogative.

Please note that I am still impulsive, undisciplined, full of stupid feelings, struggling with my job, and that I had a ridiculous fight with my partner just this week that was 90% my fault. I am merely happier and more in control of myself as I do all this.

Part III. Where do I start?

Here’s an extremely prescriptive schedule. I have designed it for someone exactly like me.

Get Headspace for a month.

Do 10 minutes every day for a week. (Headspace says the first week is free, which might mean that you can cancel in the first 7 days and pay nothing.)

If you don’t hate it, kick it up to 10m twice a day for the rest of the month. The introductory 30 sessions teach Body scan and Noting, you should definitely do those. After that you can do whatever you want – Headspace’s courses are very similar to each other, despite the names. I liked Acceptance (Body scan, Reflection), Transforming Anger (Focused attention, Body scan), and Managing Anxiety (Body scan, Noting). If you want to try a Headspace course that teaches Resting Awareness you might want to try Pain Management (BS, FA, RA).

After the month is up you should have meditated for about 9h, which I think is a pretty good start.

If you’re still interested at this point, quit your Headspace subscription and get Waking Up, either by paying or asking politely.

Waking Up’s intro sequence made of 10m sessions. Do one a day, and follow it up immediately with 5~10m of unstructured meditation where you just set a timer and either meditate on the breath or continue practicing what the day’s WU session told you to do. The sessions are kind of dense, so do repeat or revert sessions as needed.

Do ramp up. Doing 40m every other day was the frequency at which I started seeing interesting mental shifts after several weeks. (40 consecutive minutes, but not continuous practice – I don’t have enough discipline/attention for that. I do 10m of a Waking Up session, and then 10m each of focusing on sound, breath, and body scan.)

?? (time passes? other things?)

You are a different person? Maybe chiller and nicer and more productive? We do not know.

[ziracona]

I am both kind of glad she didn't like. Spiral into thoughts or more realization of what exactly she's done to these people. But also not, because I love angst. So. Questions. Will she ever meet the other survivors? What will their interactions be like? Who do you think she gets along with most? Will she meet any other killers? (probs introduced by other survivors??) And also. A painful one but. Does the entity realize she's lying? Do you think you'll continue this story in anyway?

Haha, I feel that. Adiris certainly will hit that horror realization more completely than she did during her breakdown in the archives room. I think because of her realizations of both what she’s done and just how much danger she and they and everybody upstairs depending on her is in suddenly because of the truth, happening at the same, she had a whole lot of fear and anger in play (I was used and hurt and manipulated and lied to and made to suffer, whatever you[Not Nergal/Entity] are, you have been doing horrible stuff to innocent people for no good reason, my people have also been manipulated and lied to and forced to suffer, oh Gods what happens to us if he knows I know? What can I do to save my people and myself and these foreigners? Can I do anything?) and I think the immediacy of the parts of that she had to act on hit so hard it was her core focus, but next time she either is in a trial and has to method act through hunting down people she now knows are not murderers and infidels, or the first time she’s in a safer and more calm setting with the survivors and one of them mentions something, that will all uhhh, it’ll hit home. I’m sure. God, this poor woman.

Okay! For the questions.

“Will she ever meet the other survivors?”

Yes. Definitely, and all of them.

“What will those interactions be like?”

It’s hard to say since I haven’t written that yet, but probably exceedingly awkward. I think there’s a lot of inherent fear from them towards her, and like, how would you feel talking with someone you used to murder a lot because you thought they were the enemy? Nnnmnnnnn probably not great! TuT which is how she gon be feeling. I think she is very aware she’s coming from a place of power, and is also still super used to thinking of herself as a priestess/holy/kind of removed, so she’ll try to approach it like that. Reassuring, and thoughtful/careful to not be scary or threatening, but also in control and a little aloof. And probably after a little time with the survivors, who will all go from “Scary. D:” to “A curiosity but in a good way. Weird. Neat. Still kinda spooky.” to “I like her : )” and thinking of her the way they would any normal human (the normal version of the fkn speedrun Quentin & Dwight went through), she’ll have to adjust to being treated like a normal person, and the way 21st century humans act when they’re being casual and friendly—which honestly, not too different from being friendly throughout history, but sadly either way not something this girl is used to. I think it’ll be weird and she’ll be nervous to try shifting identities from one of the only two things she’s ever known how to be, and into normal human and friend, but that it’ll also be really welcome. Because she has literally never gotten to have a family or a normal life or a friend or any single goddamn healthy or even decent relationship with another living human being. And like, god, humans need that. On a DNA level—We die in isolation. And she hasn’t been “isolated,” but she’s been mostly isolated her whole life, and she sure as hell has never ever gotten to belong or have any kind of certainty or permanence in her relationship, even her spiritual ones. She needs that. She just needs someone to look at her, go: “There’s a human being right there, and I see who she is, and I think she’s very worthwhile. I would like to keep her in my life.” God, she needs that so, so badly. I don’t think she knows it, but she really, really, desperately does.

And she deserves it, too. None of the abandonments or alienations or failures in her life are things she did wrong. But when that kind of thing keeps happening to a person, it sure as hell makes them feel like it. So, haha, sorry, got carried away (the name of my memoir probably >.>). But I think she’d be awkward, and confused, and then nervous, because she’d be invited into something she has literally never had, doesn’t know how to do right, but also desperately wants without fully understanding, which is a terrifying combination to work with socially. But then deeply impacted and happy and moved. Also afraid—I mean, girl smiled without doing it on purpose one time and flipped out emotionally with no idea why, because every time she has felt attachment or sought belonging or thought she had it her whole life, she’s been routinely betrayed and abandoned. She’s a lot more than once burned. But after the initial fear, she would be a mixture of happy and very awkward, and then eventually hopefully just exceedingly happy and also proud of herself and confident. I listened to I’m Still Here from Treasure Planet a lot while writing Adiris. Like, a lot.

“Who do you think she gets along with most?”

Hmmm, well, Dwight and Quentin I think will always be special to her after the day in the temple. Claudette is a sweetie who will definitely try to help alleviate sickness symptoms and be maybe the single least afraid to touch her of all the survivors, and that can’t help but be meaningful. Meg & she have a lot of complimentary similar personality traits, Jeff is super kind & also a great artist so he’ll probably be group interpreter & she’ll be around him a lot, and since Tapp is 2 and 0 so far on drawing bullet barrel in friend luck Russian roulette and keeps befriending women with absentee fathers, I can only assume that means she will end up close with Tapp as well. It’s too funny for him not to be 3 & 0. The world itself demands it. Beyond that, I’d have to write interactions and see how they fall. 👈👈😎 (Also a large part of how she feels about Meg & maybe also Ace, possibly Nea too, maybe even Feng, will come down to how she feels about being flirted with shamelessly. F in the chat for my poor confused ancient Mesopotamian. 😔)

“Will she meet any other killers?”

Yes, definitely. And it will be very interesting to me to see that.

“Does the Entity’s realize she’s lying?”

No. It absolutely does not. Queen method acted hard enough to give herself trauma—the first person experience thoughts and narrative are what she lived, and luckily the Entity is an emotion sponge, not a mind reader. It may or may not have been aware Quentin & Dwight were in the room (legit just depends on if it decided to/thought to look, which I don’t know, because I didn’t need to to write the scene & it be like that sometimes, but regardless of if it did, the outcome is basically unchanged. Either it didn’t look because Adiris clearly wasn’t lying, from its POV, as she felt nothing but what she exhibited outwardly as well. Or it did look for them, saw they were under there, and thought nothing of it because it lined up with her story. She said they ran off. Wouldn’t be weird for them to go to the Archives to try to steal information, or hide, or even just get lost. And it had no reason to expose them if it did see, because if it had dragged them out, it would have had to do something Adiris would understand to them, and it’s really just easier to give itself time to figure out in what way to do its “Nergal the God” aftermath, than to do it right in the room on the spot. TLDR: No, it has no clue. She method acted the fuck out of that situation, and there was nothing weird to sense, so it didn’t. Queen out-bullshitted the Entity.

“Will you continue the story in any way?”

Harder question. Probably? Likely? Maybe? Hard to say. I would love to, but I also have four, five other stories right now? Ever since I made a dumb Fate joke about having four multipath AUs, my brain has been trying to convince me to adapt New Dawn Fades, From the Earth of No Return, and some fourth, as yet unchosen story, into full length monsters. But I might die. Like, y’all, ILM is a hunk of book. If I recall correctly from back when I saw my word count, got nervous, and looked stuff up, if I published a physical single volume copy of ILM, it would become the longest single volume book ever published in a physical single book form. Which I both kinda want to do now just for the knowledge of it, but also!!! That’s SO much, like, I don’t even know how that happened. Like I am immensely proud, but also kinda like wtf? Did I drug me?? And also mostly just because rip @ me that the longest work I have written is a fic I /can’t/ ever publish or include in a resume or reel or anything. :’-](Also, @ the speed readers who did ILM in under two weeks, HOW? And please teach me your absolutely terrifying powers). I don’t plan, even if I do full length stuff again, to make another ILM length one or something. But even then, full length is big! (Also I live in fear of saying this to myself, trying to write, and becoming:

Like u have no idea rip lol.) It takes a whole bunch of time to do books, and like, I do fic books because I love it! Like SO much. It has and does bring me great joy. But, it can get a liiiittle daunting too. It eats up most of my free time to all my free time, if I get super into it.

So yes, I would really like to adapt it further. I have the barest of bones for an outline, I even have two possible endings already envisioned and several major events more fleshed out! : D But if I do write more long-form full novels for DbD, even in more manageable sizes than their forebearer, I’d try to do them in the order I began. Which means Signifying Nothing—the prequel to ILM about Philip’s time with Vigo, Alex, & Benedict (which is a will do, not if), then New Dawn Fades (the ongoing fic I have on AO3 centered around Joey & Quentin’s relationship), then From the Earth of No Return. Which for the record, my soul very much wants to adapt. Every time I hear Brave Shine now, I see cool TV show opens for it in my head. TuT But I guess the best I can say is, “We’ll see”? Since fics aren’t like my paying job or smth, it depends largely on my personal & work life & how much time I have to devote to for-passion writing. So, I guess the short answer is I’d love to, and I hope to, I’d even say I think I intend to sometime, but I’m not completely certain I’ll be able.

[foundnet]

Yesterday I had plans with my friends to see Alex G, but unfortunately tickets sold out before we had a chance to purchase. In the attempt to make a shitty situation ok we had decided to go get dinner and a drink instead. Now it’s important to mention that the two I was with had dated quite some time ago, but for some (understandable) reason there still seemed to be a sort of awkwardness that still exists. I never thought that that’d cause any problems but holy shit was I wrong. P had gotten fired that day so I felt like it was my job to cheer him up considering I had nothing else planned. Since M was gonna go to the show as well she kind of brought herself along, which to me wasn’t a big deal. I mentioned to P that M was coming along which didn’t seem to bother him too much. We left the record store we were loitering at and drove over to campus to pick M up. She wasn’t ready, so after about 10 minutes of being parked we walked around and waited for a response. I half expected her just to bail on us right then and there. She didn’t. We quick decide to head back down southside and grab Vietnamese food. We were shocked to find out the restaurant we wanted to eat at was closing, but after a quick check of my phone I had realized it was 8:45pm. There was a pizza place across the street that was open so we headed in. It was an uneventful dinner where I tried to make conversation between the two polar forces. Ya know, even between my friends, I only have so much social energy to spend. One beer and some really good pizza later we hop back in the car and drive to a place back next to campus. There’s not much to expect from a Tuesday night, so we head to the place we accidentally found each other the previous Saturday. It’s not too busy. I head straight to the counter and P gets me a gin and tonic. M grabs bourbon. We sit down and have trivial conversations. P is clearly not in the mood. His mood swings come from nowhere and the tension is incredibly obvious. As he gets more withdrawn I wonder if there’s anything I can do (there isn’t). We all get more drinks and talk about more dumb shit. I think I am having a good time. For me, hanging out with the same group of cynics has gotten to be tiring- so M’s presence is a breath of fresh air. I think I’m the only one who’s feel this way. P goes out for a smoke, with M and I following. We talk about a time we did shrooms. I don’t know if M is enjoying this conversation or not but P is excited. I never know if my experiences are juvenile or not, so I don’t like telling them. Nonetheless we continue. At some point I think we all go grab another drink and head right back inside. The conversation here turns personal. M talks about her siblings. I talk about something. A lot of times I wonder if my words are a waste of breath (they are). Whatever- it bothers me, but until I have something of value to contribute to anything then I shouldn’t complain. P is done- I am mentally drained- M is somewhere that I couldn’t gauge. It’s time to leave, but P didn’t wanna go straight to the car and instead suggested that we talk a walk around the block. I hope that he meant that literally (he didn’t). Well beyond any liberal definition of a block, we are smack in the middle of campus. P finds a statue of some dead, rich donor and flicks him off. M climbs up a lift of sort. They talk about their own personal dealings with each other and I sit back and keep to myself. This goes on for way too long in my mind. I feel very bad for M, and in all honestly I could’ve seen this coming, as much as I didn’t expect it. I wouldn’t have subjected her to the drunken rambles of a depressed ex-boyfriend. Now I know. The conversation ends and I try my best to be the mediator for something that I never should’ve been apart of, for something that never should’ve happened. We get back to the car and drive M home. After she leave, P just loses it. After stopping the man from nearly crying, he then goes into a rant that lasts for the entirety of our ride home, plus the 15 or maybe 20 minutes I spent parked in front of his house waiting for him to finish. He doesn’t think I understand feelings of depression since I straight up lie about my mental illness. He goes on about how he wants to talk to B. I just feel like someone who’s a constant backup. Maybe I should stop hanging out with these people. I’m sure it’d be good for me. I don’t know if I’d miss them. They wouldn’t miss me- I am someone who just exists. Existentialist thought aside I hear the man out and offer earnest advice that falls on deaf ears. He invites me inside when the personal dump ends. I can’t help someone who doesn’t wanna help himself. There’s only so much I can do. At the same time, I want to help a friend in need. He says he needs somewhere to stay at during the following day and I offer my place. He’s grateful. It’s not a big deal on my end so whatever. It just requires me to get up at a decent time. I drive home and all I want is a beer and a cig when I get back. Neither of those things are had. I get home and watch a DSIII speedrun to fall asleep. My left phone is on. In the morning I get a message from P saying that he’s gonna be here around 12. The time is 10:40. The morning was a blur, but I remember having breakfast, taking a shower, and cleaning my room up. I don’t really care too much. He gets here and continues to lay it on me. It pisses me off when he complains and rants, then apologizes for it. No “sorry” is gonna get me my time back bruv, so at least have some confidence it what you say. Or maybe give me a heads up beforehand. The 5 hours he’s here isn’t anything interesting. I appreciate the company in all honesty. I don’t know if I’ve learned anything from this last day. I think I’ve alienated M permanently, and P will never get the help he needs, and I will stumble along blurred lines until my path disappears.