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lookingforhappy · 4 months ago

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TUA Inconsistencies, Plotholes and Goofs

before u read, pls know that i adore this show and wouldn't be critiquing it this harshly if i wasn't utterly obsessed with it.

I don't think that all of these need fixes or explanations since they function as fun little plot devices etc but I think it's important to note that they do break the story a little. although there are some that really do need fixes.

this comes from a place of interest, analysis, and frustration but not hate.

(also apologies to all the gifmakers who i have indirectly @'d in this post)

here's a list of all the problems i could remember in tua:

The Commission is too OP

(this one I saw posited by another blog but I can't remember who first brought it up? so credit to whoever said this first i think)

The Commission is shown to be capable of:

time travel

time freezing

body cloning & consciousness transplanting (essentially, their workers can live forever because they can build new bodies and transfer their minds as soon as they start to get old/ill)

paradox-proofing

timeline monitoring/spying (the Infinite Switchboard)

if the Commission has had the ISB all along + infinite time + unaging employees, then they have been able to watch every second of history, and every second of every alternate history ever (Lila watches the timeline Five rewound/erased).

If they can see every second of every possible history, then even if they're the most inefficiant organisation ever, they're able to know everything before it/they even exist.

which makes more or less every plot point impossible:

Five would not have been able to return to 2019 without being spotted and hunted down by people who know exactly what he looks like (13yro not 58 yro), exactly where he is (also making the tracker in his arm, and in the sweet wrapper, redundant), and exactly when he's vulnerable eg. when he sleeps, is injured or drunk.

The Handler would not have been able to hide in 1963 and plot against the Commission without being spotted by the Commission and killed/fired. Same thing goes for stealing and hiding multiple Briefcases.

The 1963 Apocalypse would not have been allowed to happen as the Commsission would have had Viktor killed long before it happened.

The Kugelblitz wouldn't have happened because the Commission would have seen it decades or centuries in advance and prevented it (this should be top priority because this is what kills them!).

Herb and Dot's Goals for the Commission

In s1 the Commission wants a very specific timeline to take place (aka the apocalypse) with no deviations, and are willing to do anything and everything to make it so.

Herb and Dot seem more than happy to go along with this, and even believe that the Commission is correct for doing this.

Dot in particular is the Case Manager for the apocalypse, meaning she is the one who spotted Five when he arrived as a 13yro and left him there to die/live a life of pain and isolation. She also was chiefly responsible for ensuring the deaths of 7 billion people including all the Hargreeves' for "the greater good".

Dot is actually seen snitching on Five to The Handler, was implied to be working with The Handler to prevent Five from stopping the apocalypse, and is the one to alert security/sound the alarm when Five starts fighting The Handler.

So it's pretty weird that in s2 and 3 Herb and Dot are suddenly fine with the apocalypse not happening. It's one thing to change management, and another to completely uproot the entire mission statement/ethos of the Commission. The Commission, from the moment Herb and Dot gain control, has no goal or purpose. because they gave up that purpose when they agreed to let the Hargreeves go to an apocalypse free 2019.

This is also weird as Five is completely fine and trusting of them at the end of s2, when all they've done so far to him is prove that they cannot be trusted and will do anything to cause the apocalypse, as well as having left him to suffer alone in an apocalypse for 45 years as well as force him to join the Commission and become a murderer (or else die alone).

The Two Fives + The Briefcase

old!Five doesn't take his Briefcase to 2019 in the original timeline.

So why don't Five and Luther wait until old!Five has left for 2019 to pick his Briefcase up off the ground, where it's entirely unguarded and completely abandoned, and avoid the Paradox Psychosis altogether.

old!Five wasn't in the timeline or remotely near enough to Five to cause Paradox Psychosis when Five originally came up with this plan.

The Grandfather Paradox + Similar Goofs

TUA Time Travel operates on branching/alternate timelines, like Loki, not on a loop/predestined, like HP, and not on one single malleable timeline, like Back to the Future. ergo The Grandfather Paradox cannot exist within the show.

As soon as Five averts the 2019 apocalypse, his existence would trigger a paradox as without the apocalypse he never got trapped and has no reason/knowledge to return to 2019 to prevent it.

Same thing for S2, the only reason the nukes aren't dropped in S2 is bc Five saw it happen and time travelled back to prevent it, but as soon as that apocalypse is prevented, the nukes are never dropped, and so he never sees the apocalypse happen and therefore cannot know to prevent it.

In fact, the very first episode of S2 as a whole should cause the Grandfather Paradox, by the shows own laws: as by causing a nuclear apocalypse, their mothers were never born/did not survive long enough to birth them -> so they cannot be alive -> they cannot time travel -> cannot cause an apocalypse in 1960s -> the mothers were born -> and around and around and around.

A similar goof happens in S2, as Five helps his older self return to 2019 without de-aging himself. Five is concerned that he will cease to exist if his other self doesn't travel to 2019, but his older self does travel back. But as a 58 year old man. However, Five himself doesn't turn into a 58 year old man as he should have if this was a singular malleable timeline. Hence, he needn't have worried as they created a separate branching timeline rather than edit their own timeline.

so essentially, they're creating entirely new alternate timelines and nothing they do changes their own experiences, lives, memories or bodies.

It doesn't matter that their mothers were killed before they were born in the sparrow timeline, because they're not from this branch and therefore still have mothers in their original timeline. which is proven to not affect their current selves.

Which... breaks the entire plot of S3.

(S3 may have also caused another paradox as the reset causes Five to regain his arm, and lose the tattoo, possibly meaning he doesn't found the Commission, meaning essentially none of the series can even start as Five cannot leave the apocalypse without the Commission).

Polk Salad Annie

Five travels to 1982, Wisconsin, to kill the Commission Board. yet he has no Briefcase, cannot time travel on his own, and is shown to meet The Handler separately rather than be picked up by her for transport.

(If Lila took him, then surely he would have attempted to steal the Briefcase from her rather than go through with the plan.)

furthermore, 1982 should be inaccessable. or at least, it should be a nuclear wasteland.

At this point, the events culminating in the prevention of the apocalypse haven't started: The Handler is not in control of the Commission, so Lila can't kidnap Diego to work for them, so he can't find the ISB and discover Viktor is the cause of the apocalypse, so Klaus doesn't know to take Ben to the FBI building, so the apocalypse can't be prevented. Five's action in 1982 is what sets that in motion (The Handler seizes control of the Commission), but 1982 doesn't exist in this timeline, so how does that work?

Five and the Commission don't seem to know how to Timeline hop, only how to create new timelines, and how to move backwards and forwards on their current timeline.

The only way to make 1982 accessable is to remove Viktor from the timeline or prevent the FBI from capturing him. Which they didn't. So how can Five get there.

The 7 Bells

Reginald's reasoning for adopting the superkids is to send them to Oblivion to use it to reset the Universe. He needs himself and a minimum of 7 superkids to do this, any less and Oblivion won't activate, and without him there to program it, nothing changes.

In the Original Timeline, his plan is foiled in 2002 when he looses Five, and he doesn't try to rectify it. Then again in 2006 when he looses Ben, and yet again doesn't rectify it.

He screws himself over even worse by killing himself in 2019, as now he cannot even go to Oblivion to program it. Klaus could theoretically summon or be possessed by Reginald, but once again, Reginald only has 5 out of 7, and with Klaus indisposed by summoning Reginald, he only has 4 available to power Oblivion.

Even stranger, he could have adopted spares for if situations like Five and Ben happen, in the form of the Sparrows, but he chose not to.

its also a strange choice to build the academy(s) as public superheroes, as he chose to send his only 7 children into life threatening situations repeatedly, which nearly killed Luther, probably nearly killed sparrow Ben, and did kill umbrella Ben.

He also admits that he purposefully stunted the Umbrella's powers, which contradicts his Oblivion plan, where they need to fight 3 near-immortal Guardians. it also contradicts his words to Klaus in s1 - that he's disappointed because Klaus never reached his true potential. Which, if he killed himself with the plan to have Klaus summon him to reprogram Oblivion, he would need Klaus at full power to be able to do that at all.

The Sparrows also don't seem to have this issue, they have great control of their powers, Ben especially. so why bother stunting one lot of kids, but not the other.

Smaller Goofs

-Luther being normal not monkey in 2015 (1x03) when he had his accident in 2012 (1x04) is a big goof up

-klaus not reanimating in the original apocalypse with five remains unexplained

-in s1 the commission is set in 1955 (1x06), in s3 it's set in 1953 (3x07) and this remains unexplained

-klaus was kidnapped in just a towel but Hazel and Cha-Cha have his jacket for some reason

-all of the Founder Five plotline bc there is no given reasoning for why Five would willingly go against all of his morals and create the organisation that caused him pain (both emotional and physical) and got his family killed.

-if Luther was on the moon for a purpose, why not have him running useful tests to make sure Abigail's pod remains functioning? or acting as a sentry to make sure no one sends an exploration mission to the moon/behind the moon? why just have him send samples, that reginald never even opens, every day for 4 years? and how could sparrow reginald know what umbrella reginald planned for Luther? they're different people.

-edit: 12/07/24 the newspaper Five finds in the apocalypse is dated as 1st April, but when he finds the same newspaper at the end of season 1, it's still March 31st and Diego says that newspaper was sold that morning.

#tua #the umbrella academy #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #reginald hargreeves

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rulanarinrush · 3 months ago

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a few more drdt ch2 thoughts, since i decided to not be lazy for once and rewatch the series for realsies. a follow up to this post.

My thoughts are below the cut. this isn't a definitive theory or anything, just rambling. I'd like to apologize for two things in the original post.

1 I misremembered Levi's family and forgot that he had a father. Sorry for spreading misinfo.

2. My wording in the original post makes it sound like it's completely obvious that a mechanism was used to kill Arei. It could be anything. Sorry if that post sounds brash or conceited.

As always, if there's something completely wrong, you can let me know.

You don't need to read the original post for this post, but I do want to restate some of my thoughts in it in a more concise way.

I think anyone could have taken the grippy tape used for the murder. (this is the part where rose fails the pullups of the recap video). I don't think it disappearing when Ace knocks Eden down is necessarily indicative that Eden or Ace had to take the tape, when it could have simply been knocked to the side, or Eden could have unsuspectingly given the tape to someone. Plus Levi didn't immediately go back to his room as far we can tell from Teruko's perspective, and there's a good chance that anyone in the rooms(but smart enough not to poke their heads out) overheard everything and could have investigated later in the night.

I don't know what's going on with Ace taking the resistance band or Nico (likely) using Hu's wire in their attempted murder of Ace. I imagine that will be elaborated on later.

I think all the motives that I guessed in the original post are still the same. So like Min <--> Xander, Veronika <--> Hu, Levi <--> Arei, David -> Teruko. I think that based on foreshadowing, Veronika and Hu have each other's. (And, assuming either one was telling the truth, they don't have their own based on MonoTV's soft confirmation that he(?) didn't give any of the secrets out correctly. However in the original post I kind of(definitely) messed up by misremembering Levi's family. But I still think that the survivor's guilt secret has to be Xander's because Levi describes his disownment specifically as a good thing, and that he and his family were bad influences on each other. It's not necessarily logically inconsistent for him to both feel immense guilt over their deaths if they died and feel like being disowned was a good thing at the same time, but it feels incongruous with his line at the beginning of the chapter of simply doing "nothing" to grieve. This is also what makes me think that MonoTV intentionally messed up giving out the secrets, because if Xander and Min are dead, why wouldn't you just reveal their secrets as they are? Of course, it could add to the intrigue as it were since the "reveal" technically happens 4 days later, but it still feels strange. (And I think the survivor's guilt secret can't be Min's because she would have no reason to feel pressured to continue being the Ultimate Student if that were the case)

I think the reason Charles specifically refutes the time of death during the cliffhanger is because the note is a fake piece of evidence. Yes, there's only one garbage can on the floor but like... it's paper. You can fold that in your pocket or stick it in your underwear. Or just eat the note. I go into more detail on it in the original post, but basically I don't think it was possible for the killer to have actually known all the information in the note just from eavesdropping. Arei overhears a bit of Arturo's secret, and then intervenes. I think she would have noticed someone eavesdropping or walking past her based on the design of the first floor. The killer could have overheard everything after she intervened, and simply made the conclusion that eden had arturo's secret as he stormed off, and I know that arturo is a character that tunnel visions pretty hard on only the things he cares about, but it feels weird for him to have not noticed someone on his way out. I don't think arei and eden were talking loud enough for someone to have overheard in the cafeteria. and also, the part about a younger sister committing suicide is extremely specific (specifically, "responsible for"). I would not have been able to pull that out of my ass on a whim. I think the murder occurred in a spontaneous confrontation after the david and arei talk, and that's how the killer learned this information. (kind of like dr1 ch2) Supposedly, ASSUMING Ace's account of David and Arei's talk is at least a little accurate, Arei already let it slip that Arturo threatened Eden. I personally don't think it's a super stretch to guess that maybe she let a bit more slip out by accident with someone else. (Also Ace could have saved a bunch of screentime in ep10 if he wasn't so petty lol....). Another thing I want to note is that he says their convo took place at 7:30, the same time as the note. Maybe he's just bullshitting, but I could see this being Charles' "aha" way of leading into all the weird contradictions in this case if the note was actually used. Additionally, the note just feels... off to anyone that knows Eden. It reeks of manipulativeness in the subtext in a way that I think killer Eden would not use. Also, what do you mean "someone else" in the note? (The note is at 58 seconds of ep10) If someone else besides Arturo specifically found out that secret like... who fucking cares? No one really has an incentive to go Eden hunting on Arturo's behalf. This makes me think Arei let it slip that it was a "he" like Eden did, and what the secret is, but not specifically whose secret Eden received. Like an opposite oopsie of her conversation with David.

I still believe some sort of mechanism was used to increase the amount of force used to snap Arei's neck via the gallows, but once again, sorry for making it sound like it's "obvious". I don't know how this mechanism would work, just that it's probably related to the jugs of (likely) fish water.

So now that that's out of the way, here's some of my new thoughts:

The ball of clothes that Charles finds is interesting to me, since the killer used something starch-like to glue that clothes together into a bowling ball like shape, the killer probably didn't have the time to take it apart and just hid it in the dress up room. Anyway, I think the ball of clothes was probably used to get the rope onto the support rafters/beams(?) to elevate either the jugs or Arei(likely the jugs) to a greater height. Either that or it's to extend the rope so that when the rope unravels via the carousel at a very high speed, more force is applied to Arei's neck when she drops. Basically, I think the killer tied the rope to the ball, then threw the ball up towards the ceiling to loop the rope around the beam(? just gonna call it that...) and one time accidentally used too much force while throwing it, damaging the ceiling light. I don't think this is totally unreasonable since while it looks like a bowling ball, clothing is definitely less dense than an actual 13 pounder. Did I pull this outta my ass considering that's a pretty high throw? Yeah. But like, if Levi did it...

I don't remember where I saw something damaged in like this kinda straight line that implies a rope was tied, maybe I hallucinated that so I will not talk about it. (I think i legit just hallucinated an entire clue where paint came off...) But while I don't have any guesses as to what the scuff marks on the ground could be (it could have been a confrontation, but I do think that Arei was probably knocked out in the relaxation room for no other reason than a hunch.) I'm guessing that the reason it looks wonky is bc the killer wanted to cover up a footprint. Hu specifically mentions her heels leave marks, and while hoisting things up, the killer might have dug their heels in to pull the rope. And footprints can tell a lot, especially since everyone supposedly has the same outfit.(beyond just. shoe size.)

wishing myself a very go back in time and tell myself to pay more attention in mechanics class.

anyway. last thing. in episode 2, monotv specifically mentions the ground of the playground is made of the same ground as the turf. So if Arei were pushed to the ground, her body would have bruises but not scratches. This makes sense with Arturo's autopsy. But more importantly, he mentions that the stuff sticks to you, especially when wet. Since the jugs were likely filled with fish water, it's possible the killer stepped in a puddle and got some of the stuff on their shoes. Either that, or the killer took off their shoes because they were well prepared, and it stuck to their socks. or their grippers. don't think too hard about the last one. But anyway, I'm sure the killer learned from Min's jacket hiccup, and if so, that would make Levi extra suspicious since he says he went to do laundry around the time.

I think that's everything I want to say this time. Sorry that this is again so long for something that's just my thoughts and not a good theory. And probably not right. I still think that Levi, Hu, or Ace is the most likely culprit here, with Levi in the lead. Thematically, I don't think it makes sense for Arturo to be the killer since the chapter is about the appearance of being a good person(glitters), since he hasn't really shown an interest in that. Eden doesn't make since(to me) bc of what I said in the original post in that the note is so sloppily discarded. Whit is an absolute wildcard guess pick and while it's possible to create mechanism that breaks a neck while you turn around and aren't a witness to anything, discarding the evidence while walking backwards is a crazy. guess that's just a skill issue for me. Sure there could be an accomplice but I don't think so because I said so. See? No discussion (I'm kidding)

As a joke, I also just want to know. Does anyone know if David ate anything between his talk with Arei and the investigation? I think that realistically he took a sandwich or smth from the kitchen before going to the relaxation room, or ate after talking with Arei, but it would be really funny if Judas showed his "true" colors because he was actually just really hungry without dinner or breakfast. I mean I would also turn into the joker if I went that long without food, so I get it.

Also can someone who knows more about playgrounds explain to me why the fans on the ceiling of the playground spin clockwise instead of counterclockwise. Search engines aren't giving me an answer.

Lastly if dev somehow happens to see this, there isn't a tumblr announcement so I can't really thank you on an account but thanks for working so hard on the rest of chapter 2. I hope your health has improved and your break is restful. And of course, thanks to the staff too.

Here. For making it to the end(sprites belong to drdt dev, and I do not claim the original meme as my own)

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #drdt ch2 speculation #arei nageishi #david chiem #levi fontana #eden tobisa

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gloriousburden · 2 months ago

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I agree with your take on Mobius so much! People treat him like a cinnamon roll. Which he isn't. He is a horrible person but no one wants to acknowledge that. Sylvie is terrible too, but at least people acknowledge her flaws which is something I guess. Oh, and I had watched season 2 of Loki series, and Mobius was so ooc in the first episode. Like, he randomly went from torturing and manipulating and gaslighting Loki to suddenly risking his life for Loki. It made me wanna throw up. I have never seen such a random 180° turn. Extremely ooc. And Lokius shippers eat that shit up. Like, I don't know whether you have watched Season 2 or not, but there's a scene where Mobius volunteers to do something extremely risky to save Loki. And yeah, I don't believe that crap at all. Tomorrow they might suddenly show Thanos risking his life for Loki too. I think season 2 episode 1 should have came with an OOC warning attached lol.

Have a great day! ❤️

Unfortunately, I have watched all of the series. I may talk about Lokius shippers a lot, but Sylki shippers (though there’s only like… two of them nowadays) have the same issue that Lokius shippers have. They only acknowledge the flaws of the character from the opposite ship, and not the flaws of the character they ship with Loki. Sylvie fans hate Mobius, Mobius fans hate Sylvie. There’s issues with both characters! Are you kidding me?

YES EXACTLY. He was very OOC… I guess he got some kind of “redemption”/“change of heart” or some shit behind the scenes. Why do you suddenly love Loki so much? Of course the shippers eat it up. They’d eat literal garbage if it was orange color coded with grey hair, and green color coded with black hair or played by Tom/Owen.

Nothing towards either actors BTW hope it doesn’t come off as that. I mean this towards the fans, not the actors!

It’s just… these aren’t even the same characters anymore. That’s not even Loki! And Mobius, though I have no love for him, isn’t even himself anymore. The writing is so fucking inconsistent not only with Loki, but with EVERYONE.

Yep. I do know what you’re talking about. Why so lovey dovey and knight in shining armor all of a sudden? Why would he suddenly risk his life for someone he threw into a time loop to get physically assaulted without a second thought? Oh why cause they hugged so it’s okay now? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Look, if Mobius had apologized or even acknowledged his previous behaviors, then I wouldn’t be so freaked out by the way the fandom treats him or the OOC-ness (because obviously they’re gonna let shit slide for a mediocre ship) But… NONE OF THAT HAPPENED! Think I spoke about this in one of my last posts but so many Loki “fans” TRULY believe Loki needs to be humbled. That’s why they don’t bat an eye at the abuse coming from Mobius. As well as them being eager to excuse absolutely anything in order to not ship the “straight” ship.

It’s getting really weird. Some of them want Lokius to be canon just because “Ooh gay ship” and not because they really believe Loki and Mobius go along well together and they’re opposites attract and one’s a god one’s a human and so on. Whatever tropes you can throw in there.

And Lokius fans pretending to be so much more morally superior/holier than thou for being against Sylki because of the selfcest shit… YOU EXCUSE MOBIUS VERBALLY DEMEANING LOKI AND HAVING HIM BE PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED… HOW IS THAT BETTER?! This is like the pot calling the kettle black. Like I’ve said before, If Mobius was female.. People would hate his guts! And the amount of people shipping Lokius would be so, so much lower. And they’d actually see the flaws of the show.

Hope this does not sound like me trying to defend Sylki/Sylvie in anyway, Both are HORRIBLE, bottom of the barrel, and garbage ships. Sylvie’s writing/actions are not excused just because she’s female. It’s just Lokius shippers are more prevalent, therefore more annoying to me. And for some reason, Lokius shippers tend to be a lot more immature. I think because they’re usually younger than Sylki shippers.

I understand people want representation, but there are so many ships that have been done better. You don’t need to grasp for straws just because you only now learned that Loki is bisexual!

THE THANOS POINT LOLLLLLLL EXACTLY. That cracked me up, I won’t lie. I wouldn’t be surprised if that became a thing. They’re just so desperate to ship anyone and everyone! Can we think critically about these characters/movies/series for one moment?

Thank you! You too ❤️

#thanks for the ask!#ask #asks #anon ask #my answers #anti loki series #anti mobius #anti sylvie #anti lokius #anti sylki #loki 💭#loki #loki mcu

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fancifulplaguerat · 2 years ago

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This post inspired me to write about why I love Daniil choosing the Termite Ending for its significance in Daniil’s arc and because I love him so very much and want to talk about him more

Though Daniil’s ending is the Save the Polyhedron one, I noticed that when discussing the Polyhedron prior to Daniil actually getting in there himself, the dialogue options are almost always A) I love the polyhedron so much my favorite building ever or B) it’s an affront to god and terrible. And this contrast remains even after he visits the tower; on Day 11 the player can choose to support or oppose the Polyhedron. When talking to Andrey, Daniil can tell him that he's ruined the town, and that it “needs to be rooted away immediately! And I will do it” when Andrey asks that Daniil leave the tower intact. Likewise, when Victor asks Daniil to preserve the tower, Daniil can say “Impossible. I really regret to tell you this, but the Polyhedron is the true cause of the outbreak.” Neither Clara nor Artemy really have this option in their routes, where they can so strongly oppose their presumed ending, so the Termite Ending seems like it could be consistent with Daniil’s characterization. I say this because though you obviously *can* choose whoever’s end you want with enough shmowders and panacea, I feel it’s quite inconsistent for Artemy to choose the Bachelor ending/Clara to choose either of their endings, etc. Daniil is the only character who I feel has a path of logic (ha ha ha) towards another character’s ending, that being the Haruspex’.

Another thing I want to note is how Daniil regards the Polyhedron, because across routes the game tells us that Daniil doesn’t actually understand the it. This first came to my attention in Clara’s route, because Aglaya tells her that, and Peter says the same. At first I felt so badly for Daniil because he loves that godless gravityless tower so much, but when I went back to the Bachelor Route, Daniil full-on just tells people that they’re being ridiculous as late as Day 9 when they tell him about the Polyhedron’s function. On Day 8 when Capella tells him about it, Daniil straight up says “you’re laughing at me” twice in a row to her. When Victor describes the Polyhedron on Day 9, Daniil’s dialogue options are “That’s blasphemy” or “That sounds naïve to me. But clearly you don't literally mean what you're saying.” And when Victor continues the options are “I didn’t meant to offend you with my disbelief” or “Qui ignorabat, ingorabitur...” (Who was ignorant will be ignorant). This man Does Not Get It and he doesn’t even seem to want to get it because he’s so Rational. Even that “I didn’t mean to offend you” still feels like Daniil hasn’t changed his mind, he's just trying to apologize for inadvertent rudeness.

Granted, Daniil has a change of heart once he gets to actually visit the Polyhedron; he’s more willing to believe it since he’s seen it. But even then, he still writes that surely there’s a rational explanation for it all, even though people are telling him just. No. This thing is fucked up and weird and you have to accept that. And finally on Day 12 Clara says to Daniil, “You want to keep the Polyhedron out of respect for the kindred genius who has calculated the mechanics of a miracle trap—a contraption able to capture what should not be captured!” And to put it simply I think the existence of the miraculous is vital to Daniil, because it proves his impossible “defeat death” goal can be accomplished. So, one interpretation here is that Daniil wants to preserve the Polyhedron mostly as a testament to the abilities of human creation/mind over matter. I honestly think the Polyhedron is more symbolic to Daniil than anything else, I mean he even says “It is not a mere a building, but a symbol,” so I think the importance for Daniil is saving the Polyhedron is again proof of possibility despite preconceived notions about what is and isn’t possible.

AND HERE IS WHERE I SCREAM. The post I linked mentions this line from Clara’s secret ending: “A tempted destroyer. He could have accomplished a feat of moral heroism. The strongest, the most straightforward, he was too strongly tempted by vengeance and destruction for his not going through with it to be anything less than... miracle, or something close to one.”

And okay all right here’s the deal. I’m obsessed with that part about “too strongly tempted by vengeance” because I’m pretty sure that’s primarily referencing his anger towards Aglaya. That is, regardless of how you played Daniil previously, part of his reasoning to save the Polyhedron is because Aglaya wants to destroy it, and Daniil believes that Aglaya double-crossed and lied to him (which I imagine hurts him a lot given his adherence to the truth and consequent rather trusting nature). The line reminds me of this exchange:

Bachelor: It doesn’t matter—she has deceived and betrayed me. She treated me like a pawn, and I won't ever forgive her for that.

Haruspex: You brought this on yourself. Don't try to get even with Aglaya. If you want to destroy the town and save the Tower only to get to her—and push her towards her demise... that would be unbecoming of you, oynon. It is you who will turn into a spiteful puppeteer driven by his thirst for revenge...

And indeed this can get through to him (side note I find it a little funny that Artemy says it’s ‘unbecoming,’ like Daniil is being scolded ahgjkgkj). I.e. one factor in Daniil’s decision was that he was angry and wanted revenge/vengeance on Aglaya. He’s certainly susceptible to acting on anger; in Clara’s route especially he’s absolutely murderous with anger over Simon’s death (he calms down more quickly in Artemy’s, but Daniil is at his most helpful little house cat then). Thus I see Daniil’s decision as not just about what to do about the plague, but whether he can accomplish his “moral heroism” by resisting the impulse to lash out at Aglaya. And all this goes to these lines which are my most favorite in all the games and make me. Inconsolable:

Fine. Let the Town remain. Let the broken circles come whole, let the interrupted processes resume. The wisdom of life is superior to that of people, so life should be allowed to proceed in its due course.

The Utopia is doomed. Feeble men should not be tempted with miracles. There is no point to forcibly preserve something whose very idea is destroyed by any kind of coercion. The Tower, the reason and the outset of the calamity, will be demolished.

I. I will never do justice how this rots my brain utterly and completely but it’s. This moment where Daniil faces reality and has to accept that miracles are impossible, that his goal is impossible. I personally like Daniil having to come to terms with death, because I enjoy the downfall of characters who try so hard to fight against the confines of being human but are, in the end, forced to confront that that’s all they are. Plus, I notice the Town is sometimes described as Daniil’s grave; I mean just the “it’s not even a trap, it’s a grave” and lines like “That is why your Bachelor is here: to meet his death—” so the Termite ending feels like delicious closure to this, that in destroying the Polyhedron and so confronting the impossibility of his goals Daniil “dies.” And I think Daniil “dying” fits even more because Aglaya tells him that Thanatica has been destroyed, and presuming that she’s telling the truth (which I do), Daniil is forced to face a turning point in his life regardless of whether he saves the Town or Polyhedron. Everything has to change for him, so his destroying the Polyhedron feels like a hopeful first step towards him moving forward.

#pathologic #daniil dankovsky #patho.txt

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princessofmerchants · 8 months ago

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Hey ! first of all: I recently discovered you blog & totally fell in love with it🥺, especially after my "Nessian Hangover".

I know this might be a bit off-topic from your usual content, but there's something about Cassian's relationship with Mor that really irks me...and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

His actions, like pulling away from Nesta's hand in ACOWAR, left me feeling frustrated and sympathetic towards Nesta. And then there's that whole thing in Wings and Embers where he's all secretive about Nesta with Mor and doesn't wanna tell her about Nesta, which gave off major mixed signals?? I mean, describing Mor as something between a lover and a friend, while also being like family? That was so confusing, how can she be all three to him? it just felt so ... inappropriate and I felt so bad for Nesta bc obviously she deserves someone who has only eyes for her.

But then in SF he says all romantic feelings turned into familial bonds after the incident so what was that about then in WaE and pulling his hand away in ACOWAR?

Also in WaE it sounded like he primarily slept with Mor out of jealouy but in SF it does seem like he did had romantic feelings towards her ? :/ ...

And when he thought in SF about how hauntingly beautiful Mor is and how it takes his breath away and that she is lovely and perfect .... it just drove me mad tbh because this sounded very romantic coded to me which made me feel so bad for Nesta.

it has been all so confusing and inconsistent to me and also just frustrating how he talked so poetic about a woman he slept with (or did he also call Nesta also hauntingly beautiful or lovely or perfect and I'm not remembering it?), or how he didn't wanted to show Mor that he has feelings for Nesta?? :/ - so I just wondered what you thought about all of that, in hopes to calm me down or clarify bc it really almost ruined him for me (maybe I was misinterpreting stuff?).

hope that's not a weird question bc of how spesific it is haha

BTW I love your love for Nesta bc same🖤.

I love this ask, Anon, and how detailed and specific it is. It is a question after my own heart! My response is long so it's after the break.

Thank you for saying you love my love for Nesta - that means the world to me. What I especially like about your ask is, it is about canon Nesta, who is the Nesta I most treasure, and by extension about canon Nessian. I sometimes feel like a lone voice in the drafty moors of Tumblr with my deep and abiding love for canon Nessian, so the fact that this ask lets me talk about them in canon makes me happy!

I have given this a lot of thought since receiving your question, and I'm not sure how satisfying parts of my answer will be, so my apologies in advance for the fact that I am not actually going to offer an explanation for how and why all the details you listed can co-exist in a single, utterly comprehensive whole for the Cassian-Mor relationship when Cass is unquestioningly Nesta's by the end of ACOSF.

Instead, here's why the lack of things utterly lining up for these three doesn't bother me in the long run, and only slightly bothered me during the pre-ACOSF / post-ACOFAS era.

It is clear to me as a reader that SJM pivoted in a significant way between ACOMAF and ACOWAR when it comes to Mor.

I came across a post recently that explains exactly my thoughts on this. The post focuses on the current ship war but the evidence in it describes how during ACOMAF it was clear Moriel (Mor and Azriel) was likely to be endgame, but then SJM shifted Mor's arc to where she was more attracted to women, which meant needing to retcon a lot (and unfortunately a lot of Mor's charm and nuance was collateral damage that I am still hoping SJM repairs).

I think Cassian in ACOMAF needs to be read in the context of a planned future love triangle of sorts between Azriel-Mor-Cassian, into which I do think SJM planned to throw Nesta as a big bomb that beautifully blows up Cass's corner of the triangle. But the parts in "Wings and Embers" where Cass says to the reader he is worried about what Mor will think about his fixation on this human woman, I think were meant to preserve some kind of angsty triangle for the next book, which SJM (thankfully) jettisoned. I hate love triangles so I honestly would not have been a fan if that had been where SJM landed.

Now, in ACOWAR and ACOFAS, I think the Mor stuff with Cassian gets a bit more confusing, so I agree with you there. Cassian doesn't know for sure Nesta is his mate until she screams for him during the Battle of Hybern at the end of ACOWAR, so the stuff before that - e.g., him removing his hand from hers - I read in a few ways. I think being buffer to Mor with Azriel all those years messed with his head a lot, and in a way, Mor finally coming to terms with her sexuality is a really solid catalyst for her beginning to distance herself from the triangle dynamic she was a part of for 500 years, which I think was more healthy for everyone involved.

But remember, Nesta is still proud and surly in ACOWAR, not in any inherently bad way but in a way that probably didn't signal to Cassian she was particularly interested in him, even as he was drawn to her like a magnet and couldn't keep away because part of him loves her claws so much. Cass rightly protects his own heart when he has the foresight to do so in ACOWAR and ACOFAS. I always knew they would work their shit out eventually, but during the messy process of doing so I don't begrudge him a little distance when Nesta, in her trauma response to what was happening to her and around her, sometimes lashed out at the strongest individual in her vicinity who she knew could take it like a boulder weathers the storm - that person was always Cassian for her.

When I first read ACOSF, I absolutely assumed going in that Mor was going to be catty about Nessian finally starting to get together. When she wasn't, it was jarring to me. But once I finished my first reading of ACOSF, I came to a striking conclusion about Mor, ACOSF, and SJM:

The story SJM needed to tell in ACOSF would not have been aided or forwarded by Mor intervening in the Nessian dynamic in a catty way, or being a foil to anything about Nesta in that story's arc.

In other words, SJM could have written a version of Nesta and Cassian's book that included Mor challenging Nesta's right to be with Cassian, but that was unequivocally NOT the book SJM wanted or needed to write (hopefully my double negative landed correctly here, lol).

So, SJM pivoted, and sent Mor to Vallahan, so SJM could write the story she needed to write. As a writerly choice, I adore everything about it - Nesta didn't need to be fighting with another woman over rights to her mate, she needed women friendships that were pure and gloriously blank slates upon which and with whom to write and tell her and their collective story - so SJM introduced Emerie and Gwyn. SJM even brought in Mor later to teach Nesta the waltzes, and their brief exchange in which Nesta called her Morrigan and Mor invited her to call her Mor, and Nesta accepted the invitation to do so, is another breathtakingly vulnerable moment for Nesta that fills my heart right up. To this end, the promise that Mor will begin to train with the Valkyries in the next book has me so excited.

Now, there are two lines in ACOSF I still want to comment on (then I'll reign in this very long post, lol). First, I agree that Cassian's observation in his pov of how breathtakingly beautiful Mor is at the cafe toward the start of the book can come off romantic coded, though for him at this point I don't think it is. But whether it is or not, we need to remember he and Nesta still have a whole book's worth of stuff to work through with their romantic relationship.

I suspect SJM included that moment in part to set up some stakes for the Nessian arc - that, although Cassian hasn't had sex since he met Nesta, he is still a man who is drawn to admiring a beautiful woman inside and out. If Nesta had already won his exclusive attention in this regard before any of their arc began in that book, what would be the point of the book? (By the end, I do think Cassian only has eyes for Nesta, and it is absolutely because they claim each other - I don't think in the long run he would have been able to settle for less, and nor should he have.)

And, since Nessian aren't in a relationship at that point in the cafe at the beginning of the book, I'm not mad at him for admiring Mor's beauty per say. I think if Nesta invited it then, he would admire hers a lot more, and with a much more deep seated attraction. ACOSF is about them both letting their inner barriers down to allow the other to love them, so that kind of attraction still needs to be earned between them at that point in their story. His observation about Mor's beauty is in a different category entirely from where Cassian eventually lands with Nesta, so there is nothing threatening about it for me.

The other line that feels weird to me most times I read it, is when Mor baldly tells Nesta early in ACOSF that she would have sent Nesta to live in the Court of Nightmares. The only explanation I have for this moment and exchange is that for SJM it was more in service of Nesta's arc, and less about making sense coming from Mor. What I mean here is, at that moment Nesta feels wretched and all things terrible about herself, and it's a feature of that kind of disordered thinking that others around you either seem to echo what you're thinking about yourself, or sometimes do echo it in reality, if through a trauma response you've hurt those around you (*she says from personal experience*), or if through their own trauma response those around you respond in kind (as I think may have been happening with Mor in this scene).

Do I love that Mor says something so cruel to Nesta in that moment early in Nesta's healing journey? No, I do not. Do I see why it helps to heavily charge these early scenes for Nesta as she truly hits rock bottom regarding her feelings about herself? Yes, I do.

Which leads me to how I'll conclude this. I hope SJM intentionally develops Mor's story so she isn't just a device in the story arcs of others. For better or worse, some kind of reckoning between her and Az needs to happen, likely in the next book, for either to truly move on. But I hope Mor gets the attention a character like her deserves in future books.

I am A-OK with her mostly-absence from ACOSF because I don't think she would have been a productive part of Nesta's healing arc, and at the end of the day that is the heart and soul of ACOSF for me - Nesta healing.

The reason ACOSF-Nessian has my whole heart is because, it's so clear to me the ways Cassian supports Nesta's healing and is the catalyst for a lot of her growth into a person who loves herself and sees herself as worthy and deserving of love and happiness.

If he was a bit of a hot mess in the period between first meeting Nesta and getting to finally be with her as accepted mates, I don't begrudge him that.

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dream-meister-translations · 1 year ago

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PERSONA 5 : THE PHANTOM X

PERSONA 5 : THE PHANTOM X BETA - PART 2

NOTE :These translations are done using the Chinese version of the game, we apologize for any inconsistencies that may come with an official English release.

━

WONDER : (The hallway is blocked by these girls...They haven't even noticed I'm trying to get through...)

TALL FEMALE : Ah, what the heck? It's uploaded again!

ALERT FEMALE : Looks like this time its for real...

SLENDER FEMALE : It seems someone has posted about it on the website. Wonder if this will be another Phantom case.

WONDER : (And...I'm completely unnoticed...)

ALERT FEMALE : You guys wanna grab something to eat on the way back?

TALL FEMALE : Whatever you guys wanna do.

SLENDER FEMALE : It sounds like a plan to me.

WONDER : (Sheesh...Are they gonna talk all day? Should I say something...?)

WONDER : Excuse me...

WONDER : (They're still just talking over me...I don't even care anymore...I'll just do nothing and wait...They have to stop eventually...)

A girl with long dark hair approaches the group.

LONG HAIRED FEMALE : If you want to partake in idle chit-chat, you should relocate to the cafeteria.

The girls all run away as if they are frightened by her.

LONG HAIRED FEMALE : Don't run in the hallway!

ALERT FEMALE : That was Tanemura-senpai!

RIKO TANEMURA : Goodbye.

The girl, now known as Tanemura, gives Wonder one final cold glare before turning on heels and walking away. Leaving him scratching his head awkwardly.

As Wonder checks his phone, a strange owl is perched upon the lockers looking down on him.

STRANGE OWL : Hm...Could this really be the guy? He doesn't look like anyone special...

Wonder hears something and turns to look, causing the strange owl to fly away. He doesn't think anything of it and leaves the locker area.

LIGHT-HEARTED MALE : Did you see that weird video that went viral yesterday?

ANXIOUS MALE : Oh, I saw it alright...It's so scary...

LIGHT-HEARTED MALE : It was some kind of Phantom certification countdown...I don't really get it.

ANXIOUS MALE : I didn't brush my teeth when I left the house this morning. Do you think I could be certified a Phantom?

The tram pulls up to the station, doors opening. A man rushes on board, knocking over a young woman in the process. She is now on the ground in front of the yellow line. Wonder witnesses the whole thing.

WONDER : (She's wearing headphones and not paying any attention...)

STATION ANNOUNCEMENT : The tram is preparing for departure. Please stand behind the yellow line until after the bell rings.

WONDER : (Should I bring it up with the man or go help the woman...? I can't just stand by and watch this happen...)

WONDER : Help the woman.

He approaches the scene, however he hesitates.

WONDER : (For some reason I can't find the energy to do anything about it...I don't even really care anymore...)

The doors to the tram close in the woman's face.

HEADPHONE-WEARING WOMAN : Ah, rats. What terrible luck.

WONDER : (I guess I have to wait for the next tram...)

She walks away and Wonder stands with his hands in his pockets waiting for the next tram to arrive. The strange owl is revealed to be watching from afar.

STRANGE OWL : Even with his desires "stolen", this human almost managed to alter his own fate...Perhaps he is the fellow who made the "choice" after all...?

Wonder boards the next tram when it arrives. Taking a seat and pulling out his phone. Arai is seated opposite of him, with her phone out as well.

His eyes widen as he spots a mysterious App on his phone. He deletes it. Suddenly the strange owl begins speaking, perched on the bench across from him.

STRANGE OWL : As was the agreement, I've arrived.

Wonder glances around the tram, before looking back to his phone to see that the App has re-downloaded itself.

STRANGE OWL : I'll give you a piece of advice. Not being able to see something clearly and not having the ABILITY to see it in the first place, are two very different things. I have some hope you might be the former of the two.

MALE VOICE : Is that thing safe!?

FEMALE VOICE : It looks dangerous!

A male with blue hair, a baseball cap, and a medical mask over his mouth is seen rushing across the tram on his bike. He knocks over a girl in the process and doesn't seem to care at all. His backpack says "Cyler Eats."

When he spots Wonder, he turns his bike on him and starts speeding in his direction with all he has. Wonder raises his hands to cover his face, and in the process opens the mysterious App on his phone on accident.

Wonder slowly opens his eyes to see his own lap.

WONDER : (What the...? I was on the tram...Then someone tried to rush me with his bike and...)

STRANGE FIGURE : You chose a good time to use that App. On closer inspection, you've got a lotta class!

WONDER : What ARE you!?

STRANGE FIGURE : I suppose this is a natural reaction for a human to have when facing an "unknown entity." You truly are a "curious" one, aren't you?

STRANGE FIGURE : You truly are worthy of a visit from me. You can call me Ruferu. I already know YOUR name. You're Wonder, right?

WONDER : Yes.

The tram comes to a screeching halt.

RUFERU : Dang it! Seems we've been discovered! Let's go find a better place to talk. Come on, follow me. I'll be your guide on this mission to get back what was "stolen" from you.

WONDER : "Stolen?"

RUFERU : That's right! Though you might not realize it yet, something very important has been "stolen" from you. Anyway, now's not the time. Our location has been compromised...Our top priority is leaving this place at once!

RUFERU : I will guide you to the exit. If you don't wanna die, you better follow me closely!

WONDER : (How bizarre...It seems I don't have much of a choice...)

Wonder follows Ruferu through the tunnels until they are approached by black shadows from behind.

RUFERU : It seems they don't intend to let us leave easily. For these guys, we are a rare and delicious prey that they haven't had a bite of in a long time.

WONDER : What the heck is going on?

RUFERU : We call those shadows...They are out for our blood!

The shadows attack. Ruferu fights back, but they manage to crowd around Wonder. He trips and falls face first in the dirt. One of the shadows hits him in the face, before lifting him up by the neck and squeezing tight. Cutting off oxygen from his lungs.

When slammed against the wall, Wonder falls through it into a deep abyss of water. Voices ring out in his head as he plummets to the bottom and begins to drown.

"Not being able to see something clearly and not having the ABILITY to see it in the first place, are two very different things."

"Though you might not realize it yet, something very important has been "stolen" from you."

"This is an underwater tunnel in the sea of your mind."

"Lack of desire" can often times lead to giving up on life...Please remember these words, for I wish to see you again in the future."

VOICE : What path shall you tread? To embrace the story's end here, is but a choice of thine...To forsake thyself, to willingly yield, to be a "stolen" wretch...Is this truly the way...?

Wonder is at the bottom of the sea, wrapped in seaweed and being held beneath the surface.

WONDER : Don't be ridiculous!!

His eyes snap wide, and he breaks free, screaming at the top of his lungs. Swimming desperately for the surface.

He snaps back to reality and pushes the shadow off of him with more force than humanly possible. Sending the shadow flying. A mask appears on his face and the voice speaks to him as he attempts to rip it off.

VOICE : Now that you've made your choice. Say farewell to your "Detached" existence! Don't be afraid to seize the power within you. Even if you face criticism from others, so long as you can see it, reach out and grasp it. Hahaha! Let us finally welcome "Today!"

He rips off the mask and is engulfed in flames that rise up around him and form the shape of a Persona. His clothing changes in an instant.

JANOSIK : My name is Janosik, the one who leads those consumed by the wildest of desires! From this moment forward, the threads of fate have tightly bound us together.

The shadows screech and morph, preparing to attack. And Janosik points his blade at them,

JANOSIK : Come now, sign the contract! I am thou...

WONDER : Thou art I...!!

A fight with the shadows begins.

RUFERU : This change in your appearance means we're deciding to fight instead of run, doesn't it?

WONDER : Fight...?

RUFERU : They're coming to kill us for real. If you don't wanna die, then use that weapon in your hand and cut down the enemy!!

#persona 5 #p5x #persona 5 phantom x #p5x translation #persona 5 phantom x translation #persona 5 x #persona 5 x translation #p5px #p5px translation #p5xpart2

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mars-and-the-theoi · 1 year ago

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Day 8 of Deity Devotion Challenge: ⚡️Zeus⚡️

Question- What’s the most valuable lesson your deity has taught you? That it’s okay to be human. Sounds silly, I know, but hear me out. In case y’all don’t know I’m disabled and I’m also no stranger to struggling with my mental health. This makes a consist worship schedule/habit not feasible for me. And I used to beat myself up about that so much (and honestly I still do sometimes). Because I would feel so bad about my inconsistency. Like I would go months w/o doing anything religion related sometimes like I wouldn’t even do altar cleanings for a long time sometimes. And I would try for consistency, and I could keep it up for a bit, but it usually never lasted more than a month at a time.

And it all kind of came to a head last year where my guilt about it was at its worst. Early 2022 had been hellish I mean truly I became super sick, needed surgery, had to take care of a family member after they’d had surgery, had a mental breakdown and ended up hospitalized, and had covid all within the first few months of 2022. So obviously worship and all that very much fell to the side and while I felt bad about that there wasn’t much else I could do. And finally, come June I was able to finally get back into it after not doing anything since January. And I felt horrible. I remember crying as I cleaned his altar and just apologizing cause I felt like I’d neglected Him in a way and I prayed to him and gave him an offering and that was that.

Then that night I had a dream with Him and I’m not going to go into all the mushy details but He was just like ‘it’s okay. I’m not mad at you about this. Like it’s been a rough few months for you and it’s okay that you prioritized yourself and it’s okay that you were in circumstances where worship just wasn’t a priority. It’s okay. I get it. We all get it. We know things come up that make worshiping hard. We do. It’s okay’ and I just felt so much better. Because They do. They all get it.

And I share this story knowing that this is something a lot of people struggle with but rest assured that they’re much more familiar with us than we tend to give them credit for. Shit happens. Life can get chaotic. Life gets busy, stressful, tiring. We get sick. Get hurt. Have to move unexpectedly. We have exams. Work overtime. Work weird hours. Have people to take care of. So on and so forth. But these things aren’t new. These have been traits of humanity since the dawn of time. The Gods have been around for a very long time too. So they get it, they know, and they aren’t mad.

#hellenic polytheism #helpol #hellenic pagan #hellenic pantheon #zeus deity #zeus worship #zeus devotee #deity devotion challenge #such a personal story but I think it’s an important one to tell

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nobodysdaydreams · 1 year ago

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I STARTED SEASON 3 OF WOLF359 AND GUESS WHAT FOLKS? YOUR SI-5 FAVS ARE HERE, AND I DON’T LIKE THEM CUTTER’S ERRAND BOYS HAVE GOT TO GO (or my reaction to Episodes 29-31 and Mini Episode 4 of Wolf359).

Sorry for the delay, but I did warn you my schedule would be very inconsistent. Thank you everyone for your patience.

Tagging the mutuals who got me invested in this, and if you want to be tagged or untagged from these posts, lmk, or you can follow my blog or simply follow the tag "#bods wolf359 reactions". Anyone who has followed me for a while knows my updates are inconsistent, so I apologize in advance for that and for any spelling/grammar mistakes in my posts.

@sophieswundergarten @oflightningandstars @acollectionofcuriousreblogs @herawell @commsroom

Episode 29: Pan-Pan

Minkowski doing the intro because Doug is gone 🥺

Our boy has been gone for 100 days?!?!?

If the others knew about WHAT? Minkowski? Hera?

Ngl, the arguing and bickering subplot is getting a little old. I understand tensions are high due to the Doug situation, but where is the main plot?

Over one hundred critical failures and y’all are still fighting?

“It should be habitable” “But not comfortable”.

I love how Hera and the crew will do things to try help each other feel comfortable even though Hera can’t feel human sensations and the humans can’t feel AI sensations.

Are they gonna have to cuddle for warmth? Snuggle time! 🥰🧸

“Distress calls? Who is gonna pick up?” Why the characters I saw my mutuals posting about before I blocked the wolf359 tags, of course! I can only assume that why they’ve been so excited for me to start season 3.

Hilbert. CUTTER IS NOT GONNA HELP YOU.

No, don’t go to a corner. You guys need to snuggle and feel better.

“Why do I have to go?” Hilbert you tried to kill everyone. So yeah. It does have to be you. It should always be you.

Lovelace that’s too far, Cutter probably put some malware in her.

“Whose fault is it?” CUTTER’S WHO DO YOU THINK.

Oh my gosh this is going WAY too far.

All the bad stuff you did was out of desperation or impaired thinking due to the stress of space, which is, again, BECAUSE OF CUTTER! So stop blaming each other.

Minkowski… oh she misses Doug. 💔

…cracks? The end of operational life? We can’t fix it?

Um. No. Not this hopelessness. I need them strong enough to punch Cutter in the face.

Call command? No. Don’t do that. I don’t trust them. Bad idea. BAD IDEA. The only idea, unfortunately, but that doesn’t make it good.

Episode 30: Mayday

Um. What’s with the weird noises?

DOUG! HE LIVES!

…I say as if there aren’t two seasons left with him as the main character.

Oh no that was a rewind. This is a flashback. So maybe Doug doesn’t live.

Yikes that scream. Me too Doug me too.

Minkowski’s voice in his head 🥺

Haha… mocking him about not reading the manual Cutter worships.

And she put it in there just for him. 💕

Reliant Robin? Interesting name. I like it.

“Ignorance makes death inevitable” well put our heroes sure are ignorant of a lot no thanks to Cutter & co.

It’s okay Eiffel. I like your action plans.

“That’s dead boy talk” 😂

“Find someone else” …interesting. There are others…

…I wonder what they’re like.

I’d hate being frozen like that. Yeah. This is gonna be rough Doug…

I love how he keeps renaming the ship.

Oh gosh. It’s killing him. Poor Doug. Oh dear. Oh Doug.

“USS Peace of Crap”

Oh he lost his hair? Well. At least he matches Hilbert now. Maybe they can bond over that if they ever see each other again.

“Please respond” Doug sounded so broken.

Oh but now there’s whistling 🎶🎶🎶

He doesn’t have nails?

6,000 years? “How do you know there will even be anything there?”

“Nevermind”. Oh that was dark. Doug have you been freezing yourself incorrectly?

What about Hera’s voice? Or the voices of that family he won’t talk about? 👀

You tried Doug. You tried your best. Wait, “never get to talk to who?”

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOODNIGHT DOUG. RAGE!

USS Horrible Unending Nightmare, what a name.

YES HERA.

DOUG THEY WANT TO HELP! Yes! Or maybe no… depends on who it is…

How does he know who he is?

“We’re here to take you home” why do I not fully trust you random man?

Episode 31: Sécurité

Urania? Who is this? 👀

“They’re there”. YES THEY ARE.

JACOBI! Before I blocked the tags, I remember seeing your name. A few other names too in fact.

Well, well, well my friends. I’ve paused the episode to announce that the moment is finally here. You see I wanted to go into this spoiler free, so I dutifully blocked the Wolf359 tags on tumblr. But before I blocked the Wolf359 tags, I saw a lot of angsty Wolf359 fan art from my mutuals heavily implying that the Hephaestus crew gets betrayed by someone they come across. Now I’m going to assume that this is true, maybe I’m off base, maybe I’m not, please don’t confirm or deny anything. But working off this assumption, incorrect or otherwise, is very exciting because I just remember the art, nothing about names or context other than what I stated previously, which means it’s time to play everyone’s favorite game show:

✨Who Is Gonna Betray Everyone? ✨

Welcome to the show ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be checking in later to review our options, but for now let’s see what we got. In one corner we got Jacobi. I recall my mutuals posting about him, but were they doing it affectionately or with anger… ooo… that detail escapes me. And as always we have the “Bods… no one is gonna betray anyone except Cutter and maybe Hilbert again. They’re the bad guys. You already know this. I don’t know what fan art you thought you saw but literally what are you talking about?” And if that is the case then… uh… just ignore this sorry guys.

Ohhhh… never mind! Option 3 has arrived: Wareen Kepler. Works for Goddard Futuristics which already puts him high on the traitor suspect list. But of course Kepler and Jacobi could be working together, come to think of it, I think I might have seen a ship tag of them before blocking the general Wolf359 tag. Is it because they’re a canon couple? Good space buddies? Or a pair of sneaky Judases united by the atrocities they’ve committed? Only time will tell.

SI-5? Okay I have FOR SURE seen that mentioned before.

Kepler knows Hilbert? Oh yeah… yeah Kepler is moving right up that suspect list. Red flags out the wazoo.

Okay Kepler. Respecting Hera’s name. That’s nice, but the red flags are still waving. What do you want to know about Hilbert’s work?

DOUG IS BACK!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳

“Maybe the fact that we brought Doug back is proof we don’t mean you any harm”

EXACTLY WHAT A TRAITOROUS SNAKE WOULD SAY. 🐍

Besides, Cutter still wants to know about the aliens. He’ll keep them alive. For now. But what happens when they run out their use?

They have alcohol on board? Quite a luxury. And the rescue mission is very… nice of Cutter. Creepily and very suspiciously nice. I wouldn’t drink anything he offers you.

Another one? That sounds ominous. And I don’t like that Hera can’t see inside. If this guys are making Hilbert of all people suspicious, clearly things about to go South.

SI-5 agents? Black operations work? Top men? Kepler… the most dangerous man you’ll ever met? Don’t like that.

Don’t like you either scary lady. Oh. She was addressing Hera. I like that, but Dr. Maxwell? So far we haven’t had good luck with science people working for Cutter. And if she’s an AI specialist, she could very well be Cutter’s version of Garrison (@ my TMBS mutuals). Looks like detective Bods has sniffed out another suspect.

Well. She seems very helpful. Suspiciously helpful. And… my AirPods are out of juice.

Thank goodness AirPods charge quickly. Now let’s see… Maxwell is an AI specialist. Oh Hera sounded a bit nervous when she realized Maxwell developed AI. Makes you wonder how AI developers treat their creations. And yeah, why would command send you?

“Who said anything about a rescue mission”?

I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT. IT’S ALL THREE OF THEM ISN’T IT AND I’VE BUSTED THOSE LYING LIARS I’VE CRACKED THE CASE WIDE OPEN.

I knew it. They aren’t leaving.

“Your boss is an insane psychopath” THANK YOU DOUG. TELL THE TRUTH.

THEY DID KNOW DOUG. OF COURSE THEY KNEW. THEY’RE PART OF IT. THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN PART OF IT. THEY ARE EVIL. THEY VALUE PROGRESS AND THEIR OWN AMBITIONS MORE THAN HUMAN LIFE. THAT FALLS SQUARELY INTO THE “EVIL” CATEGORY.

“You’re whisky” Guess what Kepler? Guess what Jacobi? What happens when you’re whisky? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE EGGS THAT NEED TO BE CRACKED TO MAKE AN OMLETE?

Maxwell did that to Hera? Oh I might just hate her the most. She needs to keep her hands off of the AI. I know people like her, I recall seeing her name in posts, people have usernames with her in it, but look, right now, I really can’t stand SI-5. Cutter’s little errand boys have got to go.

I love how Hilbert is just back with them now 😂

Yeah, I don’t think knocking them out will work. Never thought I’d say this but Hilbert has a point. Wait, personal interest? I don’t want Cutter taking a personal interest in anything. And I don’t just mean anything involving the mission or space or AI, I mean literally anything. He can’t even take a personal interest in knitting or bowling or historical trivia. He doesn’t deserve hobbies.

Kepler was the one who lied about Lovelace. Well, well, well. Seems like someone has a motivate to kill. 👀

Oh no. They really got to Hera. But if you want to be subtle maybe DON’T change her language like that.

“you won’t see them coming” sure I will Hilbert I saw that fan art. I think they shoot one of you? Maybe I’m remembering it wrong. Well. At least a common enemy is bring the team together. Cheers for that at least. Mini Episode 4: Meanwhile

Mini Episode Time! 🥳

Who is talking? Why…why does that sound like female Cutter? Oh it’s Rachel. Wasn’t that the girl Cutter threatened to throw out a window? I feel less bad for her now.

Cutter please get past the BS.

“The Black Archives” well that doesn’t sound ominous at all. “Things that aren’t supposed to come back, they shouldn’t have a paper trail. They could get us into legal trouble”.

Oh I certainly hope they do Rachel. I hope you get your butts dragged to court: you, Cutter, Jacobi, Kepler, and Maxwell. I hope they throw you in cells without toothpaste and feed you nothing but the frozen mush you gave your astronauts. I hope, just like poor Doug, they force feed you enough cigarettes to get you addicted and then take them away to prevent your from dying faster, but still make you to feel the cravings Doug felt. And if you’re wondering why Hilbert isn’t on my jail list, his recent actions have struck a comical and benevolent chord in my soul. I sentence him to a lifetime of community service that involves surrendering his free will to his creation: the blessed eternal.

What does Blessie think about all this? No one has mentioned him. SI-5 either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care. But Blessie is a very capable plant. A good ally to have in a time like this.

Omega contingency? “Last resort”. I don’t like that.

“something big is coming” Indeed it is Cutter, and I hope it involves your death. Pretty please it would make my Christmas.

Thanks for reading friends. Sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoyed!

#bods wolf359 reactions #wolf 359 #wolf 395 #w359 #renee minkowski #isabel lovelace #alexander hilbert #hera wolf 359 #doug eiffel #daniel jacobi #warren kepler #alana maxwell #wolf359 reaction #wolf359 season 3 #w359 reactions #wolf359 reactions

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incensuous · 1 month ago

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SPOILERS FOR Hogwarts Legacy

Hi! I’m the anon from a while back who talked about Seb/Anne from Hogwarts Legacy a while back! So more about them, they have a sad but open-ended ending. Anne is sick and possibly dying (the writings a little inconsistent here though) and Seb is very desperate to cure using unethical means that Anne and their best friend Ominis are very uncomfortable w/ but he crosses boundaries several times (esp Ominis’). MC is player-created and can choose to be on board or not. It all culminates until he ends up killing their uncle (granted while he’s an ass, I don’t think he was bad enough to deserve death) w/ dark magic. And it traumatizes Anne so much she ends up leaving town. Though she leaves a note saying she doesn’t know if she can forgive him, she still loves him. The most heartwarming/heartbreaking part here for me as a shipper is that you (MC) can choose weather or not to turn Seb in but no matter what you choose, Anne loses her nerve to fully commit to him facing consequences. There’s ofc, the choice to not turn him in, but then even when MC convinces everyone turn him in, she still ends up lying to the townsfolk regarding what happened to their uncle and always leaves that note. They’re my otp for this game even if they’re not a popular ship and Anne gets little screen time. I feel there’s just SO much potential here. Plus ofc spite bc Seb and Ominis are fandom crushes and while its not a lot, I feel like the slander she gets is clearly due to the crime of being a girl that the fandom crushes care about (simply bc I don’t see how any of her fuckups are any worse than Seb’s) and honestly it just makes me love her and the ship more lmao.

I hc that they had weird Folgers vibes before and ofc after the curse that nobody noticed bc 1) they were young enough when they left for Hogwarts that it still looked innocent and 2) Ominis is cockblocking just being there lmao. I also hc that she does eventually forgive him on the basis that she doesn’t know what she would have done if the roles were reversed (not on the basis that Seb was right bc I love him but I’m sick of the fandom making excuses for him) and they’re able to have a happy relationship before her life ends.

I’ll leave it off here bc this got so long! Sorry about that! I just have a lot of feels for these two!

----

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for telling me more about them!!! I feel like I looked before and I couldn’t find a lot of information, so I’m so grateful when people tell me all the juicy details us shipcest folk need to know 👏🏻

That all sounds SO promising, the way Seb is willing to do anything to save Anne, even crossing dangerous boundaries, willing to take on that burden for her sake. It’s really heartbreaking they couldn’t have truly reconciled and equally disappointing Anne herself doesn’t seem to have a lot of screen time. AND she doesn’t even get cured? T_T Oh, the fate of being a prop for someone’s character development, and to even be hated by the fandom for no good reason.

I DO love hearing that in every outcome, Anne can never turn him in, that despite everything that happened, her love for him trumps her ‘morality’ (I say that in quotes only because I don’t have a better term for what I mean). It reminds me of the way the Tanizaki siblings in Bungou Stray Dogs are--when Junichi, who’s on the ‘good guy side’, fully admits his love for Naomi is above ‘good or bad’ and that he’d have no hesitation over killing someone, even an innocent person, to protect her. Both Seb and Anne (to a lighter extent) love each other more than anyone else, that they’d do morally questionable things for each other’s sake.

And omg, NEVER apologize for writing a long post, I LOVE reading details about a good ship!! I’m very honored to receive a long entry like this, they sound amazing! I actually bought HL a while ago and sadly haven’t played it yet (is it hard lol?) but wow this gives me something to really look forward to. I’d love to hear more if you ever have the time and desire to tell us more :D

#submission #sebanne #shipcest #seb x anne #replies #tw: spoiler

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llycaons · 5 months ago

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scattered thoughts

paul 🥺

armand's tale sounds plausible ig but what is the truth!!!!

jacob anderson EMMY!!!!!

gay blade gay blade gay blade

burn bitch!!!!

"It's because we started speaking English" 😭

the sexy background jazz...😍

ik he's not in a good place but this louis is soooo conpetent and cool omg

kurapika is filled with an indescribable emptiness indeed...

armand's defense is subtly blaming loyis himself for his own betrayal. not 'I didn't love you enough' but 'you won't love me as long as them' insane

armand doesn't even feel bad. he's just playing the part. asking for forgiveness rather than permission. does he care about anything...

YOU LOOK SMALL

lestat self-reflecting????

akasha mention 👀

holy shit he's staying with armand to get back at LESTAT 😭😭😭 louis do not torment yourself for such a sake!!!!

chaining himself to a lying man he resents for eternity for THAT...

'there's nothing else' - over half an hour is left of the episode louis!!!

also, his life with armand being described as NOTHING. lestat and claudia were stories to tell, daniel was a story to tell. but once they were gone there was nothing to tell!!

uh daniel picking up plot holes!!!!!

TIME HEALS, DANIEL???? TIME HEALS????? HES A DJ????

sam. lestat. the inconsistencies of sam's presence. MENTION IT ALL

damn thought he was gonna mention armand's powers too

SECOND SCRIPT?????

HE WROTE IT

HE WROTE THE FUCKING SCRIPT!!!!

of course he did!!!

HOLY SHIT IT WAS LESTAT??

obviously it's not like I'm a loustat proponent but my hand is clapped over my mouth. ARMAND WOULD HAVE KILLED HIM

'he wantes me to suffer' oh so this is all about you

'you're over this' BITCH YOU DON'T GET TO TELL HIM THAT. his sister was murdered abd he was tortured for days...

what does raglan have to gain from this?

YESS YES!!!! LOUIS!!!!

this is just like when skyler left walt 🥰

back in new orleans 🥺🥺🥺 the accent...

his home...

black amex 🤑

the misconstruing of their history...

poor goth vampire...

lestat eating rats now huh...

his collarbones...so rakish!

companion enough for himself now....I'm so happy for him

LESTAT SAYING SIRI LMAO

he's weirdly humble, lestat

still old-fashioned. but the fact that he never interfered w armand and louis's relationship. that's growth

ig it's hard to know what's the exact truth, but louis fresh from his interview is apologizing for what he did to lestat, and I believe he means it. I believe he feels he wronged him

thanking him for the gift...his LIFE 😭

fuck this is so emotional. the difference between lestat's teaeful, genuine concern and fear vs. armand's contempt and cold blame. damn he really sucked. lestat was never a good liar

he can't stop thinking abt her either!! and he KILLED her so yeah but MAN I'm about to cry!!!

LIKE A CHILD LOOKiNG TO HER FATHER 😭 he killed her but still...

what a hug...

who gives a fuck about this tv program

he's so rude which is kind of fun but bragging about how many copies he's sold is so tacky. bro we know you got money. how's your relationship with your kids

WHATTTT

I thought the glasses were weird. fuck

it's good louis has a friend 🥰

aw his home has color now

and the art! I don't know what it means but it's colorful and passionate!

PAULLL 😭😭😭😭 that's paul!!!

and claudia's dress 🥺 the people he really loved

his ssshhsshing hehe

he's got some of that bravado back, thay swagger.

honestly kind of a corny last line...

overall very satisfying and weirdly hopeful! MUCH moreso than I had expected!!!

#iwtv lb #iwtv spoilers

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howthesleeplesswander · 8 months ago

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Every time Rhys dared to think Hey, wow, okay, I might finally be getting the hang of things! the universe threw something else at him that knocked him on his ass like it was hellbent on making him the butt of as many jokes as possible. There was no other explanation for how he'd ended up sitting across from the last surviving body double of Handsome Jack: aka the absolute mother of all ridiculous, uncomfortable situations.

Finally thought you could catch a breather after dealing with Maliwan? Nope! Time for the cherry on top!

And yeah, duh, obviously Rhys knew that Timothy wasn't Jack. But wow was it hard to remind his stupid brain of that when he looked and sounded exactly the same.

At least the tablet in front of him spared him from attempting eye contact. It had been propped towards him against the edge of the table since he'd sat down, definitely because he was engrossed in something very important and not because he'd spent the last five minutes of stilted conversation clicking back and forth between the same two programs while trying to get a freaking grip.

Thank God Timothy wasn't wearing anything resembling holographic blue or Rhys would've had a heart attack from catching a glimpse in his peripheral.

"I mean—yeah? That pretty much sums it up. What more of a reason do you need, right?" Rhys forced a laugh and hated how hollow it sounded in the tense air. "Amiright? Aha...yeah...y-you get it." Ugh, it'd be more merciful if the ground opened up and swallowed him whole.

But before anything dramatic could save him, there the universe went again, and man—how was that fair? This was already weird beyond all measure, yet all it took was the tiniest inconsistency to sucker punch him with how ridiculous that was.

Technically Rhys had never known the real Jack, but Nakayama's AI had felt real. It was impossible to not get to know someone who was a constant presence in your head. By the end, Rhys had learned more about Jack than he'd ever dreamed...like why the entire galaxy beyond his blind Hyperion followers hated him.

Reason #1 (of approximately 971398): Jack would never have apologized for anything.

Which was why those five little letters of "sorry" from Tim's lips sent the CEO reeling in a different way as his brain screamed Wrong! This is wrong!! Jack's voice had never known remorse, but this person who was the spitting image right down to every stupidly attractive detail wasn't Jack, so what the hell was wrong with him?!

"No, no no—you're fine," he managed after a mental slap in the face. "It's...it's not you, trust me." In more ways than one...yeesh. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but I definitely don't want you to blow up. Atlas prosthetics are second-to-none, but we haven't figured out how to replace a missing face, so, uh...Definitely don't chance it."

Finally, he forced his gaze up from the screen. An attempted smile felt stiff on his face, creeping into a self-directed grimace...which only grew more pronounced at the realization of how it would look from the outside.

"Look," Rhys breathed heavily, his free hand burrowing into the crook of his neck, "I'm not gonna pretend it's not weird, 'cause yeah, it...it really is—" he half-coughed, half-groaned at himself mid-sentence, "b-but again! That's...that's not anything to do with you, so really: don't worry about it, okay?"

He could only hope that the reassurance worked better for Timothy than it did for himself. "We'll add the whole 'face bomb' thing to the list, though. But first thing's first." Eager for a distraction, Rhys nodded at the bandaged stump so casually stretched between them. "Mind if I take a look?"

@howthesleeplesswander || plotted starter for rhysie cup! (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

“So, uh . . . Yeah, like—? What made you decide to rebuild Atlas and not, uhm . . . I mean, you were a Hyperion guy for awhile, weren’t you?” And you’re making small talk, aren’t you, Timmy Boy? Attempting. Important distinction. We’re attempting, kiddos. Call yourself a friggin’ actor . . . God.

Look, Timothy had been in his fair share of awkward situations. He’d been the cause of about 90 percent of those situations, which was pretty freakin’ funny when you thought about it: Handsome Jack being “awkward” . . . But, well, something here was awkwarder than usual. Like some higher power had taken that dial and turned it all the way to one end and forced these two poor souls to figure their shit out while said higher power kicked back, made himself a bowl of popcorn—hey! Maybe even ordered an entire pizza . . .

Ugh. Tim didn’t want to think about pizza for the next year at least. Scratch that.

He fidgeted. He’d been doing a lot of that since the Vault Hunters left him here on Promethea. You know, kind of like he was some stray cat they found digging through the nearest dumpster who should have just been ignored, but they weren’t heartless enough to leave him and figured You know what? Let’s toss this pathetic pile of matted fur onto some other asshole’s lap and wash our hands, be done with it. Even in their company, Timothy had felt the tension in the air between him and Atlas’s CEO (who was incredibly attractive for a guy who probably just sat behind his desk and cackled maniacally at the expense of others, by the way—? Why didn’t the damn VHs feel the need to warn him?). Now that the two of them were alone . . . ? Tim wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both. Internally.

Externally, stumbling his way through a semi-normal conversation with probably the first semi-normal dude he’d met in what felt like centuries was the way to go.

“Stickin’ it to ‘The Man,’ or whatever?” Tim prodded after a pause. (“The Man” here very obviously meaning the jackhole everyone knew and the sane people hated at this point; Timothy didn’t need to spell that one out.) “God, sorry, I— I-I get it.”

Want to know the weird thing about losing a hand? It still somehow felt like it was there. Imagine the scenario: some disheveled, absolutely trashed representation of what was maybe a man at some point lifting his pathetic little stub of an arm to subconsciously futz with those damned latches on this stupid friggin’ mask only to realize . . . Well. Play it cool. (Which, by the way, meant doing that universal thing everyone did where he just flexed that arm in what was meant to look like a convincing stretch.)

Tim didn’t meet Rhys’s gaze. Funnily, he was pretty sure neither of them were doing great in the “eye contact” department (among about two dozen other departments). With a shake of his head, all he offered was “Listen, I’d . . . I-I’d remove the mask right here and now—might make all this weirdness, like, one degree less weird, but uh . . . hah.” Now the laugh was external, but not at all humored. “Really not convinced something won’t still explode if I try, so . . . Yeah. Sorry about the reawakened horrific trauma, I bet. I promise that's totally unintentional. If I was the real Jack, ya know, it'd be . . . it'd be intentional. But I'm not. So.”

#jackdup #《⭒✩⭒ || interaction: company man (rhys) 》#《⭒✩⭒ || bond: I can make your hands clap (jackdup) 》#《⭒✩⭒ || verse: BL3 (rhys) 》#《⭒✩⭒ || iconless thread 》#asdfjslkd nO /I/ APOLOGIZE FOR HOW LONG /THIS/ IS #there was too much awkwardness 8'D it couldn't be held back #these two are both masters of blab both internally and externally 😂 idk what we expected #plz don't worry about matching length bby! ❤️#BUT AHHHH TYSM AGAIN FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL STARTER 😭#we were both so excited to respond to it!! ;w;/#I am immediately both thriving and dying from their awkwardness together X'D #gdi VHs for leaving them to navigate this on their own #WHAT MADE YOU THINK EITHER OF THEM WERE EQUIPPED FOR THIS #FUCKIN VAULT HUNTERS 😂#but HEY they're both TRYING and we're very proud of them for that! ;3; THEY'VE GOT THIS #it'll be worth all the awkwardness in the end 🥺🙏💖

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veliseraptor · 3 years ago

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Apologize if this is a weird question but how do you come up with cool summary for your fic? I’m a bit struggling with it. I have my plot, my story, my scenes written but can’t come up with a summary that isn’t plain or boring. I don’t want to put something like “character A notices character B is having a bad day, so character A cheers character B up by running them a nice bath” like… that’s telling what the story is about and it’s not “catchy” because I as a reader tends to not read anything with a summary that doesn’t grab my curiosity or a summary that just straight up spoils the fic itself.

You always have cool summary for you fic, so I thought maybe I could use a little advice, if it wasn’t too much of a bother. Thank you in advance.

oh, god. well, first of all I'm deeply flattered that you think I have cool summaries because I feel like my summaries are either (a) boring (b) uninformative or (c) overly flippant and tonally inconsistent with the work itself, so I'm glad they don't read that way! which...perhaps is a lesson in itself. you may think your summary sounds plain and boring but you also know the fic you're summarizing inside and out and are hyperanalyzing your choices in ways that a reader may not be.

beyond that...some of it I think is just practice. I've now been writing fic summaries for...15 years? and reading them for most of that time, as well. as with most skills, the more you do something the more you pick up about what you like/don't like from other people, what works for you yourself (which may or may not be the same as what you like to see). I know this is a frustrating answer, but it's honestly I'm pretty sure the way that I have "learned" to summarize.

the other thing is to...okay, I feel like I'm going to struggle to express this in anything approaching a coherent manner, but what a summary needs to do is sort of...zero in on what the point of the fic is. What is the center of the work? So, for instance, with the basic description you gave in the ask, I might look at that and go "so this is about character B having a rough time and character A taking care of them" and then go "okay, how do I express that in a way that's a little, for lack of a better word, jazzier?

so what I might go with could be something like:

"Character B is having a rough day, but character A is looking out for them."

and honestly for a really simple oneshot I might leave it at that. Sometimes you don't need to overcomplicate it! Sometimes a simple summary that just conveys the main thrust of the fic, and adding tags to clarify details, can be plenty.

if you're doing something more complicated - then I tend to look at something else in addition to the "point of the fic" that I mentioned above, which is the sort of...skeleton of the work? what it is about, at its most basic. so, for instance, for if living can be this (the main fic), I have:

When Song Lan confronts Xue Yang in Yi City, Xue Yang makes him an offer he can't refuse: Song Lan moves in. Xiao Xingchen stays ignorant (and happy). Nobody has to die. Three in a coffin house becomes four. This is, it turns out, not an easy adjustment to make. Xue Yang discovers that Song Lan moving in means living with Song Lan. Xiao Xingchen's reunion with his dear friend isn't going as smoothly as he'd hoped. Song Lan realizes that Xiao Xingchen has built a life without him in it. A-Qing is pretty sure everyone here has lost their minds. But they're going to make this work. Or die trying.

so you’ll notice that in this case I actually laid out a fair amount of the premise of the fic up front: the set-up and even some of the character dynamics, to give an indication of the kind of story I’m telling and what it’s about. But I’m not including any specifics, or information about what exactly is going to happen - I’m just - well, summarizing, in very general terms.

or honestly, if none of this is working for you/making any sense: you can always just pull a quote that feels compelling and like it provides some kind of hook, and lean into the tags to give more information.

(...honestly I feel a little like I do lean on the tags a fair amount to provide more information than I give in the summary, and one of the reasons I do that is that I as a reader often pay more attention to the tags than the summary - I will often read a fic with a relatively bland summary if it has promising tags.)

I have no idea if any of this is helpful. I do know there's a post out there somewhere that had, like, a formula/build a summary structure that was sort of fill in the blanks that might be more helpful than this rambling response, but I'm struggling to find it. If anyone has it at the tip of their fingertips and wants to link for anon?

#conversating #anonymous #advice column apparently

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therabine · 4 years ago

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In case you were wondering why wordbuilding for Ravka feels so random

After going down the rabbit hole in my search for answers I've stumbled across this conversation on goodreads dated back to the November of 2013, where Leigh Bardugo replied to some reasonable criticism about her 'cultural inspiration"- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1533856-has-bardugo-talked-about-the-russian-inconsistencies This conversation is quite long and miss Leigh gave about three replies to various questions from people that were deeply bothered by the very surface level research she did on the Russian cilture. Here are the major highlights, plus the other things I've found while goodling: 1) As far as I've understood - neither she nor her publishers expected the first book to blow up like this. So even though there was obvoiusy a lack of proper research and some mistakes variying from minor to insulting, now that she's an esteemed author Leigh claims all of it to be deliberate choices adding that "deliberate choices aren't necessarily good ones". She also tries to lift the responsibility off her shoulders, mentioning that her work "was reviewed not just by my editor, but by copy editors, proofreaders, multiple foreign editors, and foreign copy editors". Not a single word about actual Russian-speaking person/expert reviweing the text or helping her out with creating the Ravkan language though. The only person she's ever credited as the one who helped her out with creating Ravkan is Erdene Ukhaasai from Mongolia that she's been friends on Facebook at the time (source on this one - https://ageofsteam.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/genre-friction-what-is-tsarpunk-by-leigh-bardugo/ ). The Facebook page under this name currently doesn't exist and the only results that Google shows on this person are the mentions that Leigh Bardugo gave in her interview, so unfortunately I couldn't reach out for clarification on this topic. Still, it's highly unlikey that someone with zero publications under their name would be a proffesional linguist and therefore qualified for such a task. 2) Within your secondary world, unless you are writing satire, things should make internal sense. That world could not arize independently of its context. The problem with the Bardugo's Ravka is that it's based on Russian Empire alone, yet she claims that "it's only Russian inspired" without acknowledging that most people that are not familiar with the culture will take it in as authentic. She takes the words and objects out of the context, misgenders names and last names and creates new 'russian-sounding" words without understanding how the grammar works. Which is a shame, given how flexible Russian language is - the possibility for the word-building is endless and with the right guidance she truly could make some unique and meaningful terms specifically for the Ravka. Also on the alcoholic kvas issue - Leigh proudly claims this as a solution to be a vodka "substitute", because vodka would be too on the nose and too common (more on the matter here -https://www.leighbardugo.com/grishaverse/the-archives/tongue-twister/). What didn't cross her mind is that instead of turning a non-alcoholic drink into strong booze for "wordbuilding" it would be much better to use less known drinks whic do contain alcohol - braga, samogon, nalivka - just to name a few.

3) To elaborate on some of the specific issues with names and last names: Leigh doesn't seem to understand how gendered surnames work in Russian. That's why we get stuff like Alina Starkov (when it's supposed to be Starkova, because she's a woman) and Alexander Morozova (Morozov would be a correct form) etc. This system is never consistent - Mal Oretsev gets to have a male surname, but so does Genya Safin and Zoya Nazyalensky has a weird non-gendered kind of in between last name (very much in fashion of Natasha Romanoff, who would be called Natalia Romanova in Russian). Also must mention Ana Kuya - poor woman's name literally sounds like "why the f*ck" in Russian, that's about just as bad as naming your Asian character Whata Phuck. Again - none of this nonsense would happen if someone bothered to find a Russian-speaking person to read the text. Other Russian words she tries to throw in seem to be the result of a bad Google Translate, rather than a conscious choice: for example the word otkazats'ya that she uses to describe non-grishas is actually a verb that translates as "to refuse". The noun with the meaning of "the refused one" would be otkaznik or otkazniki for a plural form. Same with sobachka ("small dog") - the context from the book suggests this nickname to be an insulting one, so the word we're really looking for would be shchenok ("puppy") or shavka ("mongrel", "cur"). The list of those examples, honestly, goes on and on.

4) Leigh does mention that she "can acknowledge that the choices I made in building the language and culture of Ravka came from a place of insularity and a type of privilege". However she's more keen to talk about how she has "certainly encountered critics, but I've also had Russian fans"...Which to me sounds about just as bad as stating "I do have *insert a minority racial group* friends and they say that me doing *insert a dubious act* is fine". The problem is that Russian culture has been demonized and overlooked for so long that most people (myself included) tend to praise content creators for including even the most sterytypical "insprations". Just because some people are willing to excuse her voluntary ignorance, doesn't mean that it's okay.

5) No books on Russian culture that she's mentioned as part of the resarch were written by Russian authors. And while reading the SaB it becomes crystal clear that that the major 'cultural inspiration' Leigh got was not from those books, but from the monstrosity that is her tsapunk pinterest board - https://www.pinterest.ru/lbardugo/tsarpunk-inspiration/ . About 80% of the stuff there doesn't even relate to Russian culture and the rest is a mash of modern knockoffs.

To summorize it: Leigh very much knew about the concerns surrounding her "Russian-inspired" Ravka which were respectfully brought to her consideration by her Russian speaking fans back in 2012-2013. She said "I've taken it to heart and it's something that I've tried to be conscious of as I move forward in the series and my other work", apologized and then she did nothing to do better. She marketed Shadow and Bone as "Tsarpunk", fetishisizing Russian culture and using it as a unique setting to uplift a generic "light vs. dark" fantasy plot supported by the bland narrative of the Chosen One. There was an effort and will to make a change for the better, not a single letter has been changed for us. When I think about, I can't really remember anything that would ring as a thoughtful and clever element adapted into the story from Russian culture. If everything is always altered or twisted, if there is nothing true or authentic then should you really call it Russian-inspired? Should you really make profit off it and call this aesthetic tsarpunk?

Leigh Bardugo could have fixed the most jarring problems with the material while doing the adaptation from book to screen, but she chose not to. There was no effort made to include more people of slavic descent as a major part of production team or as background actors. Almost nothing of the production design or clothing was inspired by Russian culture. To elaborate: I'm not even mad. I'm just deeply sad and hurt by the indifference.

Some might argue that this book series was not written for Russians, that it was written for the western audience. But don't they deserve respectfully researched and authentic stories too?

#leigh berdugo #shadow and bone #sab #six of crows #grishaverse #alina starkov #bookblr #tsarpunk #mal oretsev #genya safin #zoya nazyalensky

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rsgguk · 4 years ago

Text

true love, almost always — jjk

↳ aka — 'cause baby you're perfect for me

summary: y/n didn't know much about her soulmate. She knows that he's artistic from the little doodles that appears on her arm. She knows he's athletic from the scrapes that appears on her knees. She also knows that he has pain in the ass friends from the random dick drawings that appears on her forehead

genre: romance, angst, comedy, fluff

word count: 5.8 k

pairings:

Jungkook + reader | soulmates

warnings: so let me tell you, this is probably gonna be a bit inconsistent, I had written most of this during the middle of the night when I had a severe case of the feels. Now this isn't my usual style of writing, most things are in passive form because I'm trying to focus more on how they feel. I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back to this writing style but I had fun generally not worrying on the dialogue.

Y/n didn't know much about her soulmate. In a system where everything marked on your soulmates skin crosses on yours, she knows from the seemingly many doodles that appears on the plan of her hand that he is an artistic person. She knows from the way her knees would appear scraped at times meant that he was either athletic or desperately clumsy. She knows that by the scar that daunted on her cheek that he got in a ’fight’ with his brother. She also knows from the random dick drawings that appear on her forehead that he has the most chaotic of friends.

Jungkook would like to say he knew a lot about his soulmate. He knows by the way tiny little hearts would appear near his doodles that she wasn't the most artsy person in the world, but she could draw a damn to near perfect heart. He knows by the way that small little freckles would gloss over his skin that she was an outgoing person. He knows by the way that shallow cuts would appear on his arms and fingers that she had an asshole cat. He also knows that by the way tiny reminders would appear on his palm that she had a knack for forgetting things (he also knows that her handwriting might be the cutest thing he'd ever seen, but he may be a little biased).

They're sober to the fact that the other exist by the time they're 11. Jungkook was bored in class and started drawing little clouds, trees, the sun with shades on, the whole package on his arm. And then on the expanse of his palm would appear in large curvy letters, 'can you draw a cat?'.

He thinks back to the day and guesses that he didn't really understand the extremity of the situation back then. Everyone had a soulmate, but it was the first time he'd actually 'talked' to his.

He didn't gasp or scream or shed a tear, only complying with her request and drawing a cute little cat next the tree trunk. He'd think he was hallucinating about the request until he watched as a ribbon was drawn and coloured in the middle of the cat's head.

The next week, he would have a fight with his brother that had ended in him getting a cut on his cheek. He doesn’t worry about it, only locking himself in his room and sulking in his sheets. It’s when a few words appeared on his palm that he finally sat up with a smile on his lips. She would write down if he was okay because a cut had appeared on her cheek.

‘I’m sorry’ he’d write.

‘it’s okay my daddy said I look cool’ she would reply, and his cheeks would flush because his mom had always said that a woman’s face was her pride. Jungkook had never understood it back then, because if he could be covered in dirt after a fun game of soccer, and still be called adorable, why should it matter what a girl’s face looked like?

She’d ask what happened and Jungkook would bite down an embarrassed whine. ’My brother said I played with the computer too much so I threw a pen at him’.

‘did you win?’ She’d ask a second later.

’No it hit the floor and bounced to my face’.

‘and then he laughed at me’

‘your brother sounds stupid’

‘he is stupid’

They didn't talk more than that, they were still young and the whole soulmates thing hadn't made sense yet. Jungkook still drew his doodles on his arm and she'd add little details (mostly hearts) around them, a tiny reminder that she was there.

It was barely considered a means of communication but it had morphed into a sense of comfort for Jungkook. He draws the little doodles, sometimes it was of a cat (He would never admit it but he'd learn how to draw a cat because he knew she liked cats). And each time without fail, she'd draw a tiny ribbon on its head.

And then Jungkook entered high-school and he met his friends. His stupid, chaotic, love them to death friends and his soul mate was still there, drawing little heart across his skin. The boys say its cheesy (as cheesy as it is to the fact that she's literally his soul mate) but he really hadn't given a shit.

He'd considered himself a romantic throughout the years, although he's gotten not a single bit of experience, he cries at the ending of titanic every single time and his ideal way of proposal is during the sunset walking across the shoreline of the beach, nightlights littered in the scenery and him on one knee, asking to marry his one and only soulmate.

He tries his best to keep up a mature kind of facade for his soul mate. Afterall, that was what they were into right? Older and more mature men. Sure, they'd like bad boys too, but honestly Jungkook bruises like a peach. His act of maturity consists of drawing thing with 'deeper meaning'. And yes, maybe a cat surfing on the beach tides has a deeper meaning, you never know.

His act is ruined when one day, he falls asleep during lunch after a long night of overwatch (in which he dominated by the way) and wakes up to Taehyung snickering beside him, looking at him with the largest shit eating grin he’d ever seen. Jungkook would shake his head and roll his eyes, dismissing whatever it was that he did.

Later during class, everyone kept giving him weird looks, and his teacher even laughed at the sight of him. It wasn’t until multiple frowney faces appeared on his arm that he really realized that something was wrong. His heart skipped a beat when he answered back with question marks written along her doodles.

‘there’s a dick drawing on my forehead :(’ she’d rely with the same curvy letters he’d gotten used to. And then there was a sound that had left his mouth. A mix between an angry scream and a surprised gasp with a little bit of an embarrassed groan. He’d then realize he was still in the middle of class and that every one of his classmates were staring at him.

His teacher would give him some sort of look between annoyed and amused, and finally asks ’so you finally realized huh?’. Jungkook would splutter on his words and immediately turn towards Jimin and Taehyung. It was barely a second before Jimin had shook his head and pointed at Taehyung. He would finally lift his hand off his mouth and bursts out laughing for a minute or two before outright choking, tears in his eyes.

That day, Jungkook along with Taehyung and (for some reason) Jimin would be sent to the discipline teacher. Jungkook wouldn’t give a shit about being sent to devil’s incarnate, only silently punching Taehyung’s shoulder and cussing it out at him for making him look like a fool to his soulmate.

When he’s home (after a lecture from his mom, a pat on the back from his dad and a high five from his brother), he locks himself in his bedroom and takes a pen from his bag, writing apologies all over his arm. She’d reply a minute later, saying it was okay.

His fingers would then drum along his arm, his leg jumping up and down, trying to figure out what else to say to her. He’d get up the courage and ask her what was her name. She’d respond with y/n and he’d have a smile riding up his lips, saying her name again and again, realizing that he loved how it felt to say her name.

Then the two of them would keep talking to each other, Jungkook constantly rolling up his sleeve to make some room for more words. They would spend the whole night getting to know each other and filling up a whole decade of silence. When they had run out of room to write, she would go on and ask for his number so they could text instead, and Jungkook would get up to his feet, jumping up and down on his heels. He wouldn’t waste a second to write down his number on the little space he had left.

The next day, he had woken up with an especially good mood. An extra jump on each of his step, a large grin on his face as if he hadn’t gotten into trouble for having a dick drawn on his forehead just the day before. Taehyung would expect a more than pissed of Jungkook, maybe a little bit of pettiness in the mix, but Jungkook shows nothing but adoration for him, even going as far as to buy him the apple juice he knows he loves from the convenience store nearby.

Texting her falls so easily in his routine. One second, he’s hesitant to text her, afraid to show her just how much of a dumbass he could be, another second, he’s called her the fifth time in a day because he swears a baby just gave him a nasty look. They connect quickly. She finds out the reason she suddenly gets eye bags after a full night’s sleep with because her idiot soulmate had spent the whole night screaming at wario for cheating at Mario kart.

Taehyung says it’s sickening to see just how lovey dovey Jungkook was (Jimin says it’s nice to see him so in love, but they both knew he secretly hated it too). The way his eyes light up at the sight of her name appearing on his screen.

He gets in trouble more nowadays though, teachers having caught him talking to his soulmate on his arm, and the most embarrassing time they read out his not-so-failed attempts of flirting off his arm to the whole class. Let’s just say he’d gotten teased for the life of him when it reached his brother’s ears (though he supposes his brother isn’t any better when he would literally be a make shift carpet if his soulmate asked for it). The Jeon boys treat their women like proper queens and won’t settle for anything less.

The first time they video call, Jungkook has fixed his hair for the hundredths time, a comfortable (and new that he bought just for this occasion) sweatshirt hung loosely on his shoulders. She’d asked if it was okay if they could do a video call the day before and Jungkook being as whipped as he was, of course agreed with her, only regretting not to be the one who asked first.

He’s so tense that when his phone starts ringing, he nearly chucks it off to the wall. He forces himself to calm down before setting it up on the table and pressing the green button after taking a deep breath. He looks at the screen and watches as her face appears. His heart almost bursts, because he’s thought of this moment a million times. He’d expect her to be something like a glowing figure, that she’d resemble a star and that her voice would sound like a serenading angel.

She’s nothing like he’d expect. She’s not glowing like an angel. Her camera has bad lighting and he could see a few strands of her hair sticking out. When she says hello, it isn’t like an angel, her voice isn’t smooth, a little raspy. But she still manages to surpass all his expectations, and he realizes she’s so much better than he’d ever imagined. His heart beats faster and faster because she’s only said one word, and Jungkook is already falling for her. She’s not perfect, but she’s perfect for him.

It’s going well, very well. There’s a way that she makes him feel, a way that just brightens up his day, and when they have their video calls and she laughs at one of those lame jokes that he’d gotten from one of his friends, her voice just soothes him, lets him relax into his seat and just watch as her eyes crinkle in joy.

It starts to become a routine, the video calls are weekly but the texting is daily. Whenever he’s nervous about an upcoming exam, he calls her and just listens to her talk about her day, lets her voice fill his ear and calm his nerves. And then she would get off track and asks why is it that he had called her and he’d brush it off, he called to hear her voice, but he won’t say that because it’s too cheesy and he has a reputation to keep.

It’s during one of his classes that he feels it, a gut wrenching feeling deep in his stomach that has him groaning. It’s a different type of pain, nothing like nausea or a muscle cramp, because he’d always considered himself as a person with a great pain tolerance, but at that moment, he had just felt like curling in a ball and crying. Jimin and Taehyung would take him to the clinic immediately, and he’d just have tears rolling down his cheeks, and he’s sniffling and making these weird choking sounds when he tries to smother down his sobs.

He stays there for a while, the curtains draped closed with Jimin and Taehyung just rubbing his back soothingly. He tries to calm down, but every so and then, a sob bubbles up to his chest and a new wave of tear roll down his cheeks. It stays like that for an hour and the pain in his stomach travels up to his chest. His right arm starts to ache and dizziness starts to seep in his head. He falls asleep in the clinic bed, his whimpers slowing down and his eyes drooping heavily.

When he’s back at home, he doesn’t try to talk to his parents. They’d come visit now and then, giving a few hugs and pats on the back. His brother would come by when Jungkook had calmed down a bit, ruffling his hair and saying ‘it’s going to be okay’. But that’s the thing, there isn’t an ‘it’ to be okay. For all he knew, ‘it’ was all okay, everything was going okay in class, but then there was this rush of emotion that came over him and he’d just double over in pain. There was this burning sensation in his gut, something that hadn’t been building but more of an eruption. And then it would slowly cascade to his chest, and then he’d start crying and crying, choking on his sobs.

He’s in his sheets, listening to the sounds of pans clanging from the downstairs kitchen. His mom was cooking dinner, but he doubted that he’d go down to have some himself. The sound of the washing machine clashing against itself. That old thing was always just waiting to give out. The sound of the TV running from the living room. There was always some sort of game his dad would be watching, cheering on for teams he’d never even heard of. These are all sounds he’d never realized he’d taken comfort into. Such meaningless things that were just always there, a consistency that had always reassured him in some way.

He’d just lays there, listening to his own heartbeat. For the first time in hours, he feels relaxed and his breath relax into a steady pace. His eyes almost drift to sleep, because It's been a long day and Jungkook feels exhausted, but then there’s this loud blaring noise that breaks the silence. He knows what it is, someone had gone up and called him again. It would be the sixth call he’d get from his friends.

Only it turns out that it wasn’t his friends, it wasn’t Jimin, nor Taehyung or even Yoongi. It was her, and it terrified him because he’d always smile at the sight of her name, but there was this raw and intense feeling that had him wanting to decline the call. It terrified him because she’s his soulmate and supposedly the ’love of his life’ but he had wanted nothing more than to hang up the call. And it just stays like that, him wallowing in the fact as his phone had stopped ringing, and then a few seconds pass and her name appears again. His arm would suddenly feel heavy at the weight of the phone in his hand. Slowly, he would finally tap on the green button.

Her voice hits him like a wave. Jungkook doesn’t even have the chance to say anything when her voice starts filling his ears. Her voice is raspy and broken, there’s sniffling and whimpering as she rushes through her words. ’I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ she whispers in uneven breathes, and he would have stopped her, to comfort her and ask her why she was crying and that ’it’ was going to be okay. But then there is this sudden realization that hits him that ’it’ wasn’t going to be okay, and he probably wasn’t going to be okay. So, he just sits there as new tears roll down his cheeks.

When she finally speaks, everything just dawns on him. He felt like he was dying because his soulmate had kissed someone, he felt like dying because his soulmate had kissed someone that wasn’t him, he felt like dying because his soulmate’s first kiss wasn’t him, and will never be him. And then all of her other words just go straight through his other ear. He doesn’t hear it when she says that she didn’t want it, or when she says that she didn’t know it was going to happen until it happened, or when she says that she also felt the pain, the suffocating and unrelenting pain, that she also felt like she was dying.

He hears it when she says she loves him.

Jungkook has always one for cheesy romances and tear-jerking speeches. He imagines their first exchanges of ‘I love you’ to be at night, with a sea of stars sunken in the night sky because that was where they would have their first kiss. She would have his jacket that was a little too big for her on her shoulders because the night was breezy and his mom raised him to be a gentle man. Her hands would be in his because she always has cold hands and he always has warm hands.

He would talk about the ‘old times’ like when he had drawn those little cats for her or when he’d waken up to many frowney faces along his arm because his friends yet again drew dicks on his forehead (he should really get some proper sleep). And then he’d try to coax a few tears out of her and end it off with ’I love you’, and because this was Jungkook’s imagination of how things would go, she would also say I love you, and they’d kiss in the night sky.

Jungkook then realizes that nothing he’d imagined will ever go as planned, that they will never have a first kiss, because she’d already had hers with some random asshole, and that they’d never have their first ‘I love you’, because she had already said it through the phone while they were both out of breath and sobbing every drop of tear from their bodies.

He doesn’t realize it, but when he’d finally gotten out of his phase, the call had already ended and his cheeks had become tear stained and his sobs had calmed down to weak whimpers. He realizes that he’d just hung up on her after she’d said she loved him, and he just panics, because she’s going to think he doesn't love her and he should immediately call her and tell her that he loves her, because he does, he loves her like he’d never loved anyone before.

He’d started talking to her in his sophomore years and he was now a senior, and she'd been there in every step of the way. But he just doesn't, he doesn’t tell her he loves her, he doesn’t call her, because he doesn’t trust himself if he does. And she doesn’t call back either.

There are a few times when Jungkook forgets that y/n is his soulmate. He doesn’t know what he’d expect when he doesn’t talk to her in a week. It starts off small. He catches himself dozing off, looking into the distance and zoning out. His friends would ask him if he was okay and he’d reply with ’I’m fine’, even though he knew he wasn't, and that he knew they wouldn’t believe him anyway, because who the hell would be fine yet walk into the classroom with puffy and bloodshot eyes.

And then when class goes on like normal, he’s moving his leg up and down, fingers drumming along the desk, because he swears class had never been this long before. He realizes later that class had always gone on so fast because y/n was always there for him to talk to. He looks back at it as if it had happened years ago, as if he hadn’t talked to her in decades.

The truth is that they haven’t talked in no less than three days, yet he’s been missing her as if he’d gone days without a limb. A piece of him feels missing, torn apart from him and left out to dry. It’s a weird feeling, a suffocating feeling that has him yearning for her, that has him filling his mind with nothing but her. He supposes that was the thing with soulmates, when they were together, it had felt like he was he was over the moon, as if nothing could ever go wrong in his life, but when they were apart, it felt like he was missing a part of himself.

She would nag at him whenever he was bombarding her with doodles on his arm, waiting for her attention so she could drag him from his boredom of class. She’d say ‘you have class’ and he’d say ’I also have a soulmate, and I’d rather pay attention to her’. His friends would tease for it, for flirting and dancing around with her as if it was a game of push and pull, as if she wasn’t his soulmate.

That’s the thing that terrifies him, because as far as he had ever known, having a soulmate was the best feeling in the world. It’s all rainbows and roses, because it had meant that there will always be that one person that just gets you, that just loves you unconditionally for all your flaws and perfections, all your quirks and mishaps. That one person that will always be there for every step of the way. He yearns that, the comfort of knowing there was someone the universe had picked just for him, the missing piece to his puzzle.

And then he meets her, and he realizes just how perfect she is for him.

And then the whole fiasco happens and he realizes just how much it would hurt if he didn’t get his happy ending, because he knows it wasn’t uncommon for soulmates not to work out, usually from the intensity of their emotions for each other.

Having a soulmate had also meant other things. It meant that when you were together, you’d feel the happiest you’d ever be, but if you weren’t, you’d dread every second of your life. You’d feel pain, you’d feel nauseous, you’d feel your body start to crumble. Having a soulmate was almost like a drug, something so addicting that your body starts to dysfunction when you go a day without.

Jungkook still feels it sometimes, when he’s managed to get her out of his mind. There was this sudden jolt of pain that shoot up his chest, causing him to lose focus. And then all he can think about is her, her, her. He wonders if she feels it too, if she misses him too, if she thinks of him too. He realizes how stupid he is, because his phone is right there in front him, and he could end all of this with just one button.

Truth is he’d stopped mulling over the whole kiss thing a while ago, and that he should’ve called her a long time ago, but he was scared, scared of his own emotions, scared of how much he loved her, scared that this whole thing is going to destroy to him.

He wants to talk about this with someone, to anyone, but then it dawns on him that the only person he really wants to talk to about this was his soulmate, and that she was the only person he should be talking to about this. So, he picks up his phone and presses on the name he’d been missing for what felt like decades now.

She answers after no less than a few seconds. She speaks after a second’s hesitation, and her voice is filled with the sort of hope, as if she has done something wrong. Jungkook cuts her off when she starts on her little ramble (a habit he’d learn she had over the years) and apologizes, two words that hits her as hard as a brick. ‘I’m sorry’ he’d say again, and again and again. He says it until he can hear her start crying on the other end of the call. He knows she’s crying in a way that she’s trying to hide it from him, but he’d still hear her weak sniffles and whimpers.

It breaks his heart because he knows he never should’ve hung up on her that day, that he should’ve said that it was never her fault that ‘it’ happened, that he never thought of ‘it’ as her fault, that he was sorry ‘it’ had to happened in the first place

There’s a lot of things he realizes that he should have told her, so he doesn’t give her the time to say anything before he gets everything off his chest. He tells her everything. He tells her that he had never been upset with her, that he was upset with what happened to her. He tells her that he’s scared, no— terrified of how strong his feeling are for her, that the pain he felt that day was never what he’d ever experienced before. He tells her how much he had missed her during his period of stupidity when he decided not to talk to her, that he’d thought of her every second of the day.

And she just swallows in everything he tells her, listening to every word he says without a single interruption. And then they talk, talk, and talk until they shed more tears, because they’d never realized it, but they had always needed this. It’s a bit like clearing the air, speaking up about every and any hesitations they’d have.

They talk until their voices go dry and their eyes droop heavily. It isn’t until then that Jungkook realizes he hadn’t had a good night’s rest in days. Sleeping had always come easy to him, but during the past few days, he would lay down in his bed and just had this queasy and tense feeling.

When they’re nearing the end of the conversation, he knows there’s this one thing he hadn’t said yet, and he knows she’d been waiting for it too, those three simple words that had meant everything to them. He wants to say it, but there’s this one nerve in his stomach that causes his throat to close up when he tries to.

She finally ends the call after hours and hours of talking about their feeling and what they’d miss. Jungkook would again take out his pen, and write the words he’d meant to say in the palm of his hand. I love you.

Jimin shares a look with Taehyung when Jungkook comes to class the next day (he’s always late and it’s definitely not because of his poor excuse of a sleeping schedule), and the next thing he knows, they’re just screaming and hollering before running towards him. Jungkook swears he’s never felt more scared than he was at that moment, with the sight of his two best friends sprinting as if they were about to run them over like the untimely death of Mufasa.

And then they just hug him, stuff him with pats on the back and intense noogies. Jungkook just stands there, accepting it with the most confused expression ever. They go on about how glad they are that he got over whatever it was that had set him in such a sour and glum mood the past week and it puzzles him because he doesn’t remember being that much of a debbie downer.

They prove him otherwise by listing all the reasons he was such a pain to hang out with, because he’d somehow turned into a dictionary of depressing jokes and emo quotes. They end up finishing each other’s sentences, locking eyes when they say the same words and giving each other a bunch of high fives (Jungkook sometimes feels sorry for whoever their soulmates are, because the two of them are so in sync that they were already each other’s soulmate).

They’re interrupted when the teacher finally enters the class and tells everyone (specifically the two of them) to take a seat. They turn to Jungkook one final time and give him a pat in the back because they’re genuinely happy that the kid had no longer seemed so miserable.

Jungkook hadn’t thought hearing ‘I love you’ would change much for him. He’d heard it a dozen times from his parents (never from his brother, but let’s be honest, that’s to be expected) an amount more than you’d expect from Jimin and Taehyung (although Taehyung would say it more to annoy him and it works every single time), three times from Namjoon (which makes him grin more than it should) and once from Yoongi (now that one he wears like a golden medal).

Hearing it from his soulmate hits him in a totally different way. The conversation they had led them to get more comfortable in their relationships, this time acknowledging each other in a more romantic way. The way she says ‘I love you’ during insignificant moments like during a goodnight text or his after his daily ramble on how his friends are a pain in the ass sends him in a sort of high. It makes him giggle and flush and swoon all in the same time. It makes him feel things in a way he never knew he could.

Jungkook would learn that he shouldn’t plan things out as much as he used to, lets himself enjoy the moment for a while. Takes one step at a time, and this time he’s not as terrified to his wits anymore. It turns out when he's not worrying about all of his 'plans', time happens to move so fast.

When he finally sees her, she's got her back turned towards him, she hasn't noticed yet.

Jungkook takes a moment to take it all in. Sparks don’t fly, his hands don’t sweat and his breathing doesn’t pace. There is no nausea or nervousness that bubbles up in his stomach. When he sees her, his heart starts beating faster, but it beats in a way that you see something familiar after a long time, there is this sort of comfortable feeling. There’s a moment of complete peacefulness and serenity when he sees her. He’d never felt more at home.

When she sees him, her knees almost buckle, because he’s there. The boy, the dumbass, her soulmate that she’d been talking to for years now is finally there, and he’s waiting for her, looking for her. Her eyes almost well up in tears and she hates it because she swore to herself, she’d done cried enough times in their relationship, she doesn’t need to add another one to it.

She cries anyways, and she guesses she doesn’t hate it that much after all. Jungkook had managed to overturn all her expectations of their relationship that she’s not surprised that he pulls this either. She’s always known that her forgetfulness would bite her in the ass one day and she guesses she can’t be mad when this happens.

‘4:30 java time café pick up’ and right below on her palm is his handwriting, the handwriting she’s grown to adore and look forward to all these years, is written ’I found you’.

#bts fanfic #bts imagines #jungkook #jungkook imagine #jungkook fluff #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook angst #bts fanfiction #bts fic #jungkook fic #jungkook imagines #soulmate #soulmate au

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missnight0wl · 3 years ago

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Since the topic of Ismelda came up and no one ever talks about her 🙈😅 I feel like JC doesn't know what to do with her (?). Like they didn't know what to do with Tulip so she appeared less and less, only like a cameo, there was the Cook Off but that tlsq came and went, and she was the least memorable character in there.

But Ismelda is weird cause they seem like they want to include her but don't know how? They can't decide whether she's getting nicer or is still the same old Ismelda. If she's over Barnaby or not. If she's Merula's friend or not.

One of the SQ that most gives me this feeling is The Quibbler - that no one talks about it ever, but I loved that tlsq - in which we see her doing something half understandable (a werewolf in school is dangerous and Dumbledore is an idiot), half unacceptable (especially because it's Chiara we're talking about).

But the thing is, we see her hanging out with a different pair of kids every scene like little henchmen, which is already unlike her, but also several of them were Gryffindors, and it's so OoC.

And I also didn't entirely understand her purpose here. Was it for the money? The pleasure of screwing over Dumbledore? Screwing over the werewolf? It was a really bad thing she almost did and I don't get how JC wants us to view her, because then we get her really friendly in other tlsqs of the same year, which returns with my theory of they're confused about what to do with her.

(Sorry this is stupidly long).

No worries about it being long! In return, you’re getting a pretty long answer. Apologies in advance because I’m gonna be very critical about “The Quibbler” TLSQ as it’s one of my least favourite quests, and I believe that Ismelda is not even its biggest problem.

But first things first. It’s probably just my nit-picking, but I still want to talk about it. I wouldn’t really compare the situations between Tulip and Ismelda. I believe that the main reason why Tulip was moved to the side is her strong connection to the main story. It was revealed by Matt London that her wand is a hand-me-down from her grandmother who attended Mahoutokoro, her parents work at the Ministry (where R might have bigger or smaller influence), there was the whole thing with her friendship with Merula, and Matt London just seemed to be fond of her in general. The problem is that Jam City got lost with their main story at some point. I believe that some of the elements I mentioned about Tulip might still be important, but I think that the problem is not necessarily that Jam City doesn’t know what to do with Tulip – they don’t know what to do with the main story. And Tulip suffers because of that.

I mean, look at Tulip in Y4. She had her whole investigation on Rakepick and the Cursed Vault which led her from House-Elves to Hogsmeade. Then, it was just dropped like a hot potato. Sure, there might be an in-game explanation for that: she was silenced by Rakepick. I mean, there’s no way Patricia didn’t learn about her investigation, and if she was discovering things faster than MC was supposed to, then Rakepick might’ve done something with it. It’s more likely, though, that JC started getting confused with the main story. Too bad that all notes they have on Tulip when it comes to future plans are about that. Anyway, the end result is kind of the same: that they don’t know what to do with Tulip. But as I said, I’m nit-picking.

Now, the situation with Ismelda is very different, in my opinion, because I don’t think she has much direct connection to the main story at all. What I mean by that is that she’s not really interested in the Cursed Vaults, for example. I believe that she joined Merula mainly because she wanted to belong. I don’t know, she just never really showed that she might care about the treasure or even the search itself. Because of that, the writers could work on her just as a character: someone who’s not exactly MC’s friend, but also is not as antagonistic as Merula. And that’s good! But ultimately, I suppose that Ismelda became a victim of the major change in the writing team by the end of Y5.

I talked about it a bit in my analysis on how MC was supposed to use Crucio on Rakepick, perhaps you recall. Either way, I strongly believe that there was some big change around that time. It even can be seen in our recent discussion about Rowan and Barnaby: how the writers seemingly don’t remember that Rowan tutored Barnaby for years etc. And I suppose it’s just the same with Ismelda. Notice how at the beginning of Y6, MC doesn’t remember at all that Ismelda is not that bad. We also totally abandoned the conflict between Ismelda and Merula. It’s not exactly that they grew apart because in Y6Ch13, there’s a scene where we learn that Ismelda still spies for Merula, for example. On the other hand, Merula hangs out with Ben suspiciously often – and Ismelda seemingly doesn’t have any reaction to that. Their relationship is still weird like that in Y7, actually. But what happened with Ismelda’s jealousy from Y5?

Now, the thing with her crush on Barnaby actually seems pretty realistic to me personally. I mean, as someone who used to have a big crush on their friend, I have to say – it’s not that easy to simply say: “Oh, I’m over with that!”, but also you want to be over with that, so it just ends up being very confusing. Of course, it could be as well the case of inconsistent writing, too, but that one thing doesn’t bother me much.

Moving to “The Quibbler” TLSQ, though… I don’t want to sound dismissive or anything, but I honestly don’t think there’s any point in trying to understand Ismelda’s motivation there or what the writers wanted us to think – and that’s simply because I doubt that its creator put much thought into it at all, to begin with. And the most problematic part of it is actually Chiara.

First of all, Chiara was super OoC in this quest. We know from the main story that she likes Divination very much, she’s very serious about it, she even believes Trelawney is a real Seer. There are even parts in Divination classes where she enjoys reading The Quibbler. But here, she suddenly laughs at the magazine? Why? Her strong scepticism makes absolutely no sense! Sure, you could argue that this story change her perspective on Divination and all of that, but the problem is that there’s no such conclusion in this quest. At any point, Chiara didn’t say: “Perhaps I shouldn’t make fun of The Quibbler after all” or anything like that. So, I’m sorry, but I just can’t accept this explanation.

Secondly, Chiara wanted to win money for the ingredients for Wolfsbane Potion, right? And we even had this scene:

But then, as soon as Chiara gets money, she’s all happy that she’ll be able to get ingredients in time. So… Chiara needed only money to get ingredients? So, the quest basically implies that DUMBLEDORE DIDN’T WANT TO GIVE CHIARA MONEY FOR INGREDIENTS? I mean, if Chiara needed only money to be sure that she’ll make it in time, what exactly was stopping Dumbledore from getting the ingredients from the same source?

I’m sorry, but it’s so bullshit. You can say a lot about Dumbledore, but he wouldn’t refuse to give Chiara money in a situation like that. You also can’t tell me that he didn’t have money. And even if you want to believe that Albus would be a scumbag like that, we saw in the “Lone Wolf” TLSQ that Snape cares about Chiara a lot, so he would give her money. Hell, Snape would buy the ingredients himself, brew the Potion and deliver it to Chiara.

The way I see it, someone really wanted to put Chiara in this quest for some reason, but they knew it doesn’t exactly make sense – so they needed a scapegoat. Sadly, Ismelda was the easiest to turn into a bad guy of the story. Honestly, I don’t think that the writer of this quest was thinking anything about how we’re gonna view Ismelda. They just needed to distract the players. I hate to say it, but it’s kind of an equivalent of Merula’s sad backstory. Just in this case, it was rather: “Let’s not care about writing a logical side quest. Let’s make everyone worried about precious cinnamon roll Chiara instead”.

I’m sorry if these statements sound a bit too strong, but I’m really annoyed thinking about how many people were hating on Ismelda after this quest while I didn’t see much on how little sense this story made in general. And truth be told, this whole situation kind of made me dislike Chiara…

Overall, I hope that “The Quibbler” TLSQ was an exception when it comes to Ismelda’s character. I assume that her role will still be somewhere between [MC’s friend] and [Merula]. I mean, I believe that that’s how she is usually (“The Quibbler” TLSQ aside). That being said, I also expect that Jam City is not gonna remember all of the past stories, so I suppose that Ismelda will never be truly consistent.

I have no idea if I addressed your concerns properly. I hope I did. If not, as always, feel free to ask for clarification.

#long post #hogwarts mystery #hphm #ismelda murk #chiara lobosca #the quibbler tlsq #tulip karasu #jam city #ask #indigobackfire

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