#im sure thats clear but i just wanted to clarify just in case

[atlasglobe]

ok listen. im sorry in advance for this rant, but ive noticed a really frustrating trend in the QSMP community which i just wanted to talk about a little? short disclaimer ik it's mostly just a very loud minority doing this, most people in this community are lovely and have no ill will.

I feel like the women in QSMPs stories are often used in fanon to further aid the male ccs stories? if that makes sense? My perspective is definetly biased because im a baghera viewer and i feel like she gets this to an EGREGIOUS degree. rather than being seen as a whole character with motivations, it feels a lot like people just wanna use her to further others character arcs (mainly bbh and forever). Despite having an entire arc revolving around discovering she came from the federation (which challenged all of her characters core beliefs and morals), all people seem to want her to do is go fix bbhs problems and go be besties w forever <3, like bro give her room to BREATHE.

Honestly it even happened in the most recent ordem paranormal stream, it felt like Lucie's death was just reduced to further character development for benito? Which just makes me a bit sad since baghera mentioned having bigger plans for her character.

i dunno. i dont have a huge point to this rant, i just find it so frustrating. ccs like baghera and jaiden have shown that they are more than capable of creating such incredible and compelling characters, but it feels like they hardly get the chance to explore those characters.

[mananyx]

Ok, so its not surprised for everyone here that i like the MCU and that i have an hyperfixation towards it for better or worse. But i have to clarify that i dont think the MCU its a perfect franchise, there are certain entries that i genuinely dont like and others that i still dont want to watch because lack of interest or for anxiety (which it tends to change overtime). And its truth that im not very good when it comes to analizing media, but when I like a MCU movie or show, im completely sure that its because its great, i have a long list. But for this post i want to start with She Hulk.

I know that a lot of people dislike the show or they are not interested in watching it because they are tired of the comedy in the MCU or just tired of the MCU in general, or just because the CGI looks not very good, or some jokes just didnt work (im seeing you twerking scene), and also because is not realistic when it comes to handling courts and laws. And all of that its totally understandable, you dont have to watch or like the show if you dont want to. But i genunely have reasons to think that this show is great despite its flaws.

For me She Hulk is different from anything the superhero genre in movies and shows has ever done before because is a show that at first refuses to be a superhero show in the first place, despite the fact that Jen has powers, she just doesnt want to be a superhero, she just wants her life and her show to be just a simple and comedic lawyer show, so there is a bigger focus on her cotidian life as a civilian instead on her superhero identity doing superhero cool stuff, which in other superhero stuff most of the time is the opposite (or is the spiderman case in which despite Peter wanting to have a normal, he sees spiderman as a responsability that he is willing to accept), which is why i like the comedy of this show when the jokes are based or how Jen is trying to look for happiness in her own life despite those changes, and how she doesnt even try to be a role model to be inspired by little girls like Captain Marvel or Ms Marvel because she doesnt care for all of that, and a lot of times it feels very charming and wholesome.

But despite all of that the plot and the society constantly put her in superheroic situations wether she likes it or not, she is recognized as a superhero for the society, and her frustration is the feeling that she doesnt have control of her own life. Another thing that reflects that is how much she wants to be liked by people as just Jen, but everyone one around her just pay attention to her as She Hulk, whether its with love and admiration, or its with hate, and that affects her specially when it comes to dating, because despite of how much she wants to have a romantic relationship, men just wants to date her as She Hulk, but they are not willing to be interested in Jen. And i mean, a lot of people in the world have this anxiety in which your friends and relatives and romantic interests just like one part of you but they are not willing to like you as you as a whole, which tends to break relationships.

And what makes things worse is that she has to deal with incels as her enemies, men who extremely hate her for being popular and for having powers to the point of stalking her on internet and on real life with the purpose of making her life miserable. The only thing is that those topics are getting more explicit in the last three episodes, when the others still feel very light and sitcom, so i understand why most people didnt notice those topics to begin with and thought that show was just funny and thats it. And I feel like most of the time this show understand how hard it is to live as a woman. And despite me not being a woman i still relate to all of that because i myself have failed in having romantic relationships because of my own personality.

And with all of that it can be clear that Jen has an inner anger inside of her, despite the fact that in the first episode she said to Bruce that she is better controlling her anger than him, she just said that in a matter of overconfidence, but after dealing with a lot of situations, she ends up realizing that she is not so different from Bruce, even she can lose control of her anger, and when she does, everyone sees her as a monster. So she even have to learn to make peace with her own anger in the same way Bruce did years ago.

With all of that i want to say that for me She Hulk is the show that proves that most MCU main characters from Phase 4 and 5 has humanity and they are not just their suits.

[echoesofadream]

i don't "ship my biases", since jin is my bias. it just seems to be a trend that people who happen to ship taekook also mysteriously happen to be overly critical of jimin and write huge think pieces about how they "don't haaaaate jimin, no, no... but-" yes, you can give constructive criticism but that's his voice. if you like it, great, if not, then why are you here? why are you listening to bts?

taekook love jimin so much and i feel as if none of you guys see that and it's frustrating.

ahhhhh here we go. i knew this would happen hence the overly clear explainations i wrote lest i be taken for an anti. but ill humor you because its fun for me too.

i should have been more clear in my wording, but i felt like i had already written too much to a very small audience to bother clarifying myself. What i meant is that when it comes to stanning artists you are bound to have favorites and for many of us, myself included, this is musically/artistically founded. But also based on things like attractiveness (which is subjective), personal taste, the artists personality etcetc. When you start to like this person more than the other it creates a kind of positive feedback loop; exposure to the person and the thing you liked about the person in the first place makes you like them more and more as you get to know them, and the things you liked you start to love even more because you start to love the person these qualities belong to more. So if i had liked jimins voice more in the beginning i would probably have liked him more overall by now and then his voice would have been even better to me. Basically!

And yeah i only have one bias as well, but taekook are my favorite members, so like i thinks its only natural that i like their relationship most, too, dont you think? So maybe thats not the case for everyone and maybe i overgeneralized but i do think that for most ex. jikookers that jimin and jungkook are their two favorite members. 🤷‍♀️ edit: at least they probably prefer them over taehyung which i feel is only natural due to the above

I am not overly critical of jimin i am critical of all members including taehyung and jungkook. You have seen one post of me where i said i didnt like jimins new song. Do you know my full history of what ive said or thought about the members? In fact i have probably said more critical things about both taehyung and jungkook simply because i am most invested in them. The fact that im even mentioning jimin shows i have an investment in him as well doesnt it? I wanted vibe to be good. I made a post about that tho i think its deleted now. I understand taekookers can be overly critical of jimin but you have no basis for saying that about me. Im just voicing my opinions on my own blog.

Not sure what taekook loving jimin has to do with any of this. Like it feels surreal that you are telling me that. Like i know? I talk about vminkook all the time. Especially vmin because i have a personal preference that makes me for some reason like vmin more than jikook. Oh okay cancelled! Cancelled for not having equal feelings about every single member and ship!!!!!!!<- you btw

Its so funny that you are asking me why i even listen to bts when i literally yesterday made a post about why i like bts and their vocal line especially and why they stand out to me as a group. Where i literally say that if any of the members were excluded their music would be emptier and that they complete each other.

[zapsoda]

honestly didnt even consider that the line between private/personal communication cause it seems so obvious to me in my mind eheheh. like. its about intended audience. a published work or speech is meant to be understood by large swathes of people.

a fisherman talking to his friend is just talking to his friend. it doesnt matter how he speaks or even if he gets his message across, unless the friend particularly wants to learn, in which case they are capable of, and have the opportunity to, ask further questions. even in a small group of people, they can get to know him as a person, and understand any quirks or nuances in the way he communicates. a crowd of strangers will not have that opportunity.

with a "larger audience," like a crowd of strangers or readers from across the world, that direct ability to clarify oneself after the fact becomes much more difficult (if not impossible), which is why getting it right the first time suddenly becomes important.

some posts can be intended to reach a large audience, in which case, (assuming the message itself is of high importance - not rlly talking about simplistic jokes or shitposts) paying attention to clear wording is important.

on the other hand, a lot of people post for themselves, they use (for example) tumblr as a diary, or to communicate only with friends, and thus might not worry about how others will interpret their words.

this, of course, has nothing to do with whether or not a text is classified as literature. literature is just textual art. i may have made a mistake in my word choice previously to give the opposite impression ahaha. like kafkas diaries. they werent meant for anyone else to see afaik, so his meaning in many places can be widely disputed, but they are still influential pieces of literature regardless. it doesnt matter that kafka wasnt clear with his meaning because, even though it has been read by others, it wasnt meant for them, it was meant for himself.

to be honest i dont understand the significance of what is or isnt a "term," just generally speaking ahah. it just seems like a word to me and if people understand what is meant by it the exact nuances are inconsequential. i get the point of the example, of course, i just found that interesting.

regarding the specific quote (im paraphrasing because tumblr wont let me copy text 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔) "you could go all in and say, fuck the rules, as long as its understandable, it is proper english" and like, yeah sure, i guess, but the way i see it, rules and consistency are inherently what make a text understandable. which is basically sort of like what you said in the last paragraph kind of. a little bit.

to elaborate, even if it seems like someone is disregarding all "rules" of english (idk. dril for example) by nature of their words having a meaning that can be understood, i think that inherently they must be following some set of rules. thats what language is to me i feel like. a set of guidelines for communication, which can and will be bent or evolved when needed, but maintain a core structure so that it can be widely understood. like whst you said! :Dhope that makes sense lol.

this is why i think some rules take priority over others. in most cases, capitalization can be removed without altering the meaning of a text negatively, sometimes even improving it (example: SANS SERIF FONTS, IN WHICH CAPITAL "i" AND LOWERCASE "L" ARE ENTIRELY INDISTINGUISHABLE) (of course, there are exceptions to this, there is a reason why people began to capitalize words ^_^)

its the same way with spelling, many spelling mistakes can maintain the intended meaning of the text, and even add meaning as opposed to taking it away, while some spelling mistakes are severe enough to make the text completely illegible.

the rules i value most, personally, are word choice and order because they can drastically change the meaning of a text, in a way i notice frequently online or in fiction. a classic example is the perceived difference between a "cabin in the woods" and a "cottage in the forest," or even with a more juvenile example, the difference between a "butt dial" and a "booty call."

these are really basic examples, i cant think of a more complex or applicable one off the top of my head. just imagine all those strongly worded tumblr posts that are trying to make a good point or spread a good message, but are so hateful and vitriolic in their words, that they even alienate those who agree with them. that would be an example of a situation where correcting wording would serve the purpose of the text and clarify its meaning from "gahh i hate this thing and all of you" to "we, collectively, should try to improve this thing." if that. makes sense. aha

i think what im most passionate about is like writing/rhetoric/argument. and linguistics, of course, are an intrinsic part of that :33. if not doing it myself, then analyzing it. my fave thing in the world i loved ap lang (the words ap lang might mean nothing to you idk if collegeboard chills with the french lol) (advanced placement language and composition - a college credit course about utilizing analyzing rhetoric in writing, for reference)

to clarify my opinion on "proper" english, idfc how people write in their personal lives/to friends or family/etc, but in professional/published works- or anything that is meant to be understood by a wider audience i think the clarity provided by adhering to certain grammatical rules and structure is veeerrry important eheheh. for the sake of ease of communication!

i try to be pretty careful about my word choice and order allll the time for that reason, even if i drop a lot of proper spelling/capitalization/punctuation for casual dialogue.

nonetheless, i think when people act intentionally obtuse just to shame people for speaking casually/colloquially/with slang/whatever thats stupid and evil etc. hate when people do that. i might not understand a lot of it, but it has the right to exist yk! it is just as worthy of respect ^_^

anyways i think this topic is very interesting as well its something i enjoy talking about :33

once again i dare ask, where does the professional/private begins and stops? thats a big debate we had in termonology class (terminology , the science of terms aka specialised & professional words). some terminologists argue that terms are only employed in the field by top-notch experts to top-notch experts and nothing else qualifies as a term. other terminologists argue that funk that: "spoonful" is a term because it belongs to the professional sector of cooking, disregarding how common/unspecialised it may be (they dont actually disregard it but yknow). also some guy who goes fishing as a hobby every week and starts talking about the components of his rod to his friends: not an expert (meaning doesn't work as a fisherman)! but using specialised words! should they count as terms or common words? should that be considered professional discussion cuz the terms or private discussion cuz he's talking to a friend? anyways it's just to say that the gap between professional and private discussions may not be so clear

on a same note, what is a wider audience? we're on the internet literally everyone could read that post, making it, by its nature, designed for a wide audience. should every tumblr post thus should have proper english? likewise, works that were only notes and scribbles, like Les Pensées by Pascal that were published post-mortem... it was not meant for a wider audience in that state and is not always using proper French. due to this, are thus Les Pensées not a piece of literature anymore? (kinda teasing w this paragraph hehe but you see the issue i'm poking)

like you said the most important task of a language is not to be proper. it is to be spoken but also to be effective. to enable communication. we could also go all in and dare say, funk the rules as long as a message or piece or literature is understandable, it is proper english!! arguably, every broken rule of proper english creates a new variation of english that could be its own proper variation english (like UK english, US english, NZ english, etc, coexist together as proper englishes)

also youre soso true about the shaming stuff. dawg that pisses me OFF. that's why fuck the Académie Française i wish i could dismember that bullshit of an institution. they are the ones "making the rules" of French but NONE OF THOSE FUCKERS ARE LINGUISTS AND ALSO ARE ALL 109 YEARS OLD HOW CAN THEY im cool im cool [insert the hades calming down gif]. anyways. language belongs to the people so whatever they do with it it's fine as long as they have fun and are themselves <3

on a final note i'm heavily arguing against you here but i think you're overall right nonetheless :p rigor may not always be needed in a language but languages need a strong basis and grammatical rules to exist and actually make the communication efficient!! i perfectly see your points and they are very legit

[transcharliekelly]

hi, sorry, this feels like a given and like a post i shouldn't have a reason to make because its so obvious, but like. we understand that sunny has not stopped making fun of mac for being gay right. like they've just shifted from "haha mac is gay but hes in denial! look he wants to oil up men. lol charlie called him gay and he didn't get the joke" to "haha mac is the creepy weird hypersexual gay dude that cant take a hint and is in love with dennis even though he doesn't feel the same way and jerks it to his bible and crashes the office computer looking at porn" like they didn't. i love mac and i'm not at all saying my problem lies with him coming out, but in a lot of ways his coming out was just a way to revamp the jokes they'd been making for a decade or so because they were starting to get bored with them or whatever, while feeding their egos at the same time bc they're like. "progressive". mfhip (which is an episode i do like in it's own way, to be clear) isn't some fucking triumph its them just ignoring the fact that they've turned mac's sexuality into such a caricature for one episode so they can be like "look.... look he did a dance look ! gay rights solved :) look at us look what we did! you're welcome :)" and then immediately go back to like. everything else.

[yatiso]

Hey I was just peaking at the reblogs for my addition bc I did not expect it to pick up any kind of traction but then it did dhjsks anyways I want to clarify that when i said its not the artists fault what I meant (and didnt say bc I felt it was a whole other discussion oops thats on me) is that its the labels fault. Recording labels are notoriously nefarious in how they exploit artists and i didnt wanna blame all artists for that (tho some are def part of the problem as a whole they are not imo). I hope that clears things up and I enjoyed reading ur thoughts!!!

omg when i was typin up those tags i was literally hoping op wouldnt read bc it came off so cunty >~< im not upset at you im just really passionate! record labels ARE notoriously horrible but i rlly feel like if an artist has a backbone they can figure out SOMETHING ya know! is a painter a painter if they only paint what and how and when theyre told to? is an ai algorithm that produces something that makes u think of a painting based on what you feed it a painter? no! it might be interesting, might be cool— but theres no substance to it, intrinsically— the art aspect would come from the person putting in the keywords or the viewer (art is in the eye of the beholder, but art isnt art without some sort of soul.) would u want to only see ai paintings forever? would you get bored with meaning strictly coming from how you perceive it and knowing that thats the case? or would you start to crave something created by a real person? record labels are horrible and theyre seemingly doing just that with music! but i feel like if its not common knowledge that record labels are rancid rotten… then im not sure what is! i think with such an in flux of Artists that are more Face than talent, and with Influencer becoming a dream job for every one their kids and their mom, if someone that is Not an artist decides to try make it big as a musician for fame (or sells out for the maintenance/continual acquisition of fame) then i think theyre also to blame and theyre gonna get (and according to the streams, are getting) whats coming to them ya kno. (note that im not saying Bad Artists, music is subjective but i think its very easy for ppl to recognize on some bare minimum level when someone famous/trendy that puts music out that doesnt have a musical bone in their body, or a vision/idea to express truly) like its late and ive been up since 6 am so im passionate but the adderall is wearing off so im not sure how much sense this makes, but an artist, i feel regardless of most situations, is responsible for what they put out, especially with how easy it is to do the work of a record label pretty much on your own now.

[vampkomori]

anyone else think neo’s reports are weird about composers i think theyre weird about composers. lets make sense of joshuas status as composer and hazuki as comparison

this is gonna be a bit long. so anyway the og reports are p straightforward about what Composers (specifically, joshua) can and cannot do:

- Joshua can only pick up Hanekoma’s vibe, because Angel vibes are too high frequency for him to pick up

- Inter-planar contact (so, communication between the UG and the Higher Plane in this case) is difficult, which is brought up because

- The Composer, Joshua, only resides in the UG.

- But the Producer, who is an Angel, mainly resides in the Higher Plane, and only occasionally lingers in the UG.

The whole matter of jumping between worlds highlights the difference between their abilities even more:

- As Composer, Joshua is one of the beings who can jump between worlds, but isn’t meant to do so often. His vibe dipped too low, so Hanekoma had to come retrieve him, because as an Angel this sort of travel is simple for him.

the OG reports make it pretty clear Joshua isnt an Angel

*But. unfortunately its not that easy. because by clearing the final time trial joshua gives you an item called Angel Feather (天使のハネ in JP), of which the description says “Our buyer used divine means to acquire this mysterious feather that was once in the possession of Shibuya's Composer.“ (which some have interpreted as, “in the possession of” meaning “it was given to him” potentially by hanekoma, who actually IS an Angel)

and if things are vague, we turn to the JP to clear us up! but its. still vague there bc it says “バイヤーが特別な力で入手した渋谷エリアのコンポーザーが持っていた謎の羽根“ (The mysterious feather that was held/carried by the Composer of the Shibuya area that the buyer obtained with a special power)

so. we are none the wiser about whose feather this is. i imagine its up to interpretation whether its joshuas feather or hanekomas, who then gave it to joshua. but given how clearly the reports differentiate between the Composer and Angels in regards to their abilities, suffice to say theres two interpretations that are most likely

- Composers arent Angels, their power disparity is just too much

- Composers are Angels, but theyre so much weaker compared to the Angels who reside in the Higher Plane that they’re never referred to as Angels, just as Composers

which takes us to neo, and hazukis little lightshow

i think its notable that the reports dont comment on kubos so-called “exorcism”, and only on haz erasing his noise.

haz himself refers to his little stunt as “exorcising” kubo, while in JP he actually says haiki 廃棄, get rid of, revoke, invalidate.

i think its important that he clarified “i didnt erase him, i exorcised him”. because with kubo, the executor, being an Angel from the Higher Plane, a Composer shouldnt be able to erase someone of higher ranking than them. i think as the person who called upon kubo in the first place, haz could specifically revoke his services and send him back to the Higher Plane.

which means kubo wasnt erased, he was just sent back. hes still kickin

we could leave things right here as they are. Canonically, Composers are so far beneath Angels to a point where even if they were Angels themselves, they are so much weaker than them that they could hardly be referred to as such

this is where the facts end. but im gonna keep going and have fun speculating about things and include some i dont have physical proof of (yet)

its notable that in JP, hazuki says that kubo tried to purify shibuya probably because he wanted to be praised by Hazuki. which is weird if kubos supposed to be higher ranking than haz. (in EN, haz just says hes always been an overachiever) but lets put a pin in that for later 📌

which takes us to the matter of Shinjuku’s Producer. or their lack thereof

throughout all of neo’s reports, there is not a single mention of Shinjuku having a Producer. before neo, we kind of assumed every UG’s setup follows largely the same structure. a Composer, a Conductor, a Producer, and then some Reapers. but Shinjuku does not seem to have a Producer. and i think its because it doesnt need one.

its important to remember Who is writing these reports and Who theyre for. the reports are written by shibuyas Producer, and theyre written for the Higher Plane. and shibuyas Composer cant pick up the vibes of any Angel except hanekoma, so he cant be the one writing the reports for beings he cant even pick up the vibes from, especially since he only resides in the UG.

and yet, hanekoma comments that Hazuki should have filed a report, and that haz is disinterested in the lower planes.

in English its a little vague about who hes talking about, but the JP specifies Shinjukus Composer as the subject of this sentence.

throughout both reports, the UG and RG are considered part of the lower planes. its strange for a Composer to have no interest in the very planes they govern, plus for a Composer to file a report to the Higher Plane when its been established that Joshua, as a Composer, cant even perceive anyone from there.

so i think Hazuki may actually be a proper Angel from the Higher Plane, who was potentially demoted to become Shinjukus Composer.

though you can very much interpret haz “exorcising” kubo as simply “sending him back whence he came”, its of course pretty anticlimactic to see this massive laser beam essentially disintegrate kubo on a molecular level, only for it to have been a quick ride back to the higher plane with kubo being perfectly in tact after. if haz were actually much more powerful than an ordinary Composer, itd make sense why he would have been able to erase an Angel like kubo so. thoroughly.

this would also explain why kubo may have wanted to be praised by hazuki in the JP dialogue. with hazuki potentially being an outlier for Composers and being far Higher ranking than kubo, our executor may have wanted to sucker up a bit. maybe get promoted and away from his “basically a janitor” job if haz puts in a good word for him upstairs

theres also hazukis entire demeanor, and how Bad he is at acting like a normal person

we know of four paths that Players can take

they can choose erasure

they can choose resurrection to return to the RG

they can become Reapers

they can become Angels

and Reapers can eventually become Angels, though its yet unclear if the only way for that to happen is

for them to become Composer (potentially the Lowest Angel-rank there is) and thats it.

or if Composers can ascend and become Actual Angels and eventually reside in the Higher Plane, though how a successor for the seat of Composer is chosen in that scenario is yet entirely unknown since Usually the seat only becomes vacant when the previous Composer is defeated

or if they, as a Reaper, need to Ask the Composer who then asks the Producer to send a guy for evaluation or something

or if the Higher Plane has like, a talent scout guy somewhere.

potentially more than one may apply but at least the last point is the most likely, because

Conductors are invited to the Higher Plane (probably to become Angels) upon purification

(interesting to note that Composers are not mentioned as being invited, which would point to “theyre Angels, but like, weak-ass Angels”)

anyway, the point is that so far weve been told that Angels were Players or Reapers at one point. we know Joshua was a Player for sure, given the morsels of backstory we get from him and Hanekoma. but we dont know if All Angels came from the RG at one point, or if Angels that have always been Angels exist.

either way, the point is that for Hazuki to act so non-human like and to be disinterested in the UG and RG, he either must have been an Angel for a very long time, or he was never human to begin with.

this is relevant to how he interacts with joshua in the Secret Ending, though its a lot less obvious in English, in JP their dynamic is clear: Joshua is his senior, and as his junior, Hazuki looks to him as an example.

for one, thats hilarious. secondly, that recontextualizes like everything

‘course, you could keep the interpretation that theyre just Both weak-ass angels and hazuki just made kubo use a flashy dramatic elevator to the HP and nothing groundbreakingly powerful happened, but thats kinda anticlimactic

so. staying w the idea that hazuki may be a demoted Angel from the Higher Plane, then itd make sense for Joshua to have been Composer for longer than him, and for haz to act Like...That, since he couldve been not-human for a Very long time, or Never was one in the first place, but is still a younger Composer bc he got demoted like. 4 years back or something.

it also explains why Shinjuku may not need a Producer, and why Hazuki is the one writing his reports. its because hes still an Angel from the Higher Plane, so he does not need an intermediary to contact other Angels.

so to summarize what im tryna say here

Hazuki may have initially been a regular Angel from the Higher Plane, before he eventually got demoted to become Shinjukus Composer, despite how disinterested he is in the UG and RG. (he is considered to be “infamously unsympathetic”, a trait which is reinforced in the JP version to be something he is known for amongst the Higher Plane, which could potentially be the reason for his demotion)

Since hes Joshuas junior, that means he hasnt been Composer for as long as Joshua has, so Hazuki looks to him to know what youre even supposed to do/how to act/etcetera as Composer. With his Special circumstances, he does not need a Producer as an intermediary to interact with the Higher Plane, because hes already an Angel so he can do it himself.

whatever Angel Hierarchy there may be, Hazuki is at the very least a higher rank than an Executor, considering how kubo wanted to impress him, and how haz effortlessly got rid of him. with kubo being from the Higher Plane, joshua is decidedly lower ranking than kubo, and cant even pick up his vibe. which clearly positions haz into a unique circumstance as a Composer bc of this discrepancy in ranking and power. amen

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theres other things that back this up but i unfortunately do not have a source for them, so This section, take with a grain of salt.

Supposedly, in neo’s data files:

Joshua is referred to as an Advanced Angel

Kubo as a Junior Angel, and

Hazuki as a Senior Angel

i only heard this secondhand and have no way of corroborating this myself, but if this is true then that lines up with the super long super sexy little essay i just wrote up there

this “ranking” solidifes Kubos position as Hazukis underling. which, if he were an ordinary Composer, wouldnt even be possible.

Joshua is notably a different rank from Haz, though its difficult to figure out if “Advanced” is supposed to be Lower than junior, or Higher than senior. thats up to interpretation until its possibly ever acknowledged,

but my interpretation is that an Advanced Angel is lower than a Junior Angel. i think “advanced” in this case is meant to refer to the traditional evolution of players to reapers to the composer, advancing from one status to the next.

--

**Little post-edit, @/inkerii gave me the actual designation in the files! (so this ones backed-up!)

so in the files, theyre designated ranks are as follows

Joshua: 男、天使上級 ※前作  (Male, Senior/Advanced Grade Angel ※from the Previous work)

Hazuki: 男、天使上級 (Male, Senior/Advanced Grade Angel)

Kubo:   男、天使下級 (Male, Junior/Lower Grade Angel)

so haz and joshua are the same rank bc theyre both Composers! since thats an internal data text kinda thing it might not have any bearing on like, potential Technical exceptions since they Are both the same “job”, but mightve gotten it under different circumstances.

as for kubo potentially being lower ranking than even a Composer, i think unless we find out what a Producers ranking is, we cant say much abt whether an Executors lower or higher. i kinda mean it in the sense of,  Producers are a Composers subordinate bc they follow their orders and have to create the things theyre tasked to make by the Composer (pins, etc), but may still be “higher” in ranking because they reside in the Higher Plane/jump between parallel worlds, while a Composer cannot. an Executor may be in a similar position where theyre a Composers underling, tasked by Composers to purify things, but may actually be “higher” in ranking because they reside in the higher plane, etc!

i think regardless of whether kubo turns out to be lower ranking than joshua or not, hazuki could still be Even More Higher in a way where he actually has like, sway over whether he could get a promotion! if that was his intent. he could also just be a huge suck up. a real kiss ass. teachers pet for angels

---

theres also the ntwewy Official Guidebook, which has a small comment beneath hazuki that says

and i additionally remember an interview, though i dont have a source for this claim and i could very much be misremembering, but i recall seeing the reason for hazuki not being the final boss is because they did not think players could suspend their disbelief far enough to accept that the twisters would be able to defeat a being from the Higher Plane.

which is perfectly reasonable, but

Composers are meant to be able to be defeated by Players or Reapers. if hazuki really was so powerful that itd be impossible for them to defeat him, then hed be far too strong to be an ordinary Composer, since thats. how you take over in the first place. thats kinda the whole plot of og twewy.

anyway that concludes my case

[ectonurites]

hey! how knowledgeable are you on stephanie brown? because i got in a bit of an argument with a dc fan on reddit who claims she's all these awful things, but im still relatively new to steph and i want to see what was true and what wasn't. link to screenie right here: https://ibb.co/vh6CYCJ

these may be matters of opinion, but even then, i'd like to know your take. i haven't read her firsthand often enough and i trust your judgement over this random redditor who seems to have some sort of blonde-woman related trauma left untapped.

I'm not necessarily the most knowledgable on her in the world, but I do know a decent amount because she's one of my absolute faves and I love her

But ohhhh boy that screenshot is a lot.

I will say that several of the things this person brings up are based in canon but are taken in the worst faith and framed in the way that makes her look as bad as possible, if that makes sense? It’s ripping things away from any context, because there's a very clear bias against her here.

I'll go through it point by point under the cut

First of all though before digging into this, I want to make it clear she was a 15 year old for the majority of the things this person is talking about. Like just pause for a second and remember she’s a 15 year old victim of abuse. That is something that I think factors into a lot of her behavior! Anyways, I kinda while doing this got into a ranty 'talking at you' format in response to the person who wrote all that, so don't take any of this as me yelling at you who asked the question/you anyone reading this.

"She always acted entitled" - Saying Steph is entitled is absolutely ridiculous to me. Stephanie grew up with a very unstable childhood due to her dad frequently being in prison and her mom dealing with a drug addiction, living in a lower class part of the city. Tim is entitled. I don’t mean that as like a bad thing about him, but he is based on his living situation, she is not. She has wanted life to be better for herself and her mom, and is determined about that, but she is not and does not act entitled.

(Secret Origins 80 Page Giant)

"and stubborn" - I will give you stubborn though, that one is true. She’s stubborn as hell! I don’t really see that as a bad thing though, pretty much every bat is stubborn?

"demanding that Batman and Robin accept her untrained ass" - Steph may have been untrained in fighting but she's shown to have exceptional gymnastics skills from the start, and at one point Bruce even says that with the right training she could be as good if not better than Tim (in Robin #88)! So like... her realizing she enjoys trying to be a hero after she tried it out to deal with her personal business, so she looks to the local experts… and is determined about it… how is that a bad thing? It’s also not like she walked up to them and said ‘im perfect as i am let me in’ what she wanted was a chance to be a hero. But she also wasn't even really looking for approval, either, not having Batman's blessing was never going to stop her. ("So excuse me if I don't jump when you bark, Batman." in Robin #16) Later when Bruce does bring her in to train (and she also gets to train with the BoP) she's excited! She’s stubborn about wanting to be in the hero business, but it’s not like she’s unwilling to work for it.

"advocating leaving criminals to die because they 'deserve it'" - She’s a 15 year old who grew up knowing firsthand how dangerous Gotham criminals can be because of her dad, of course off the bat when they’re in a dangerous situation where any of them could die (because that’s the context here, this is in Robin #35 where they’re trapped in some super dangerous snow) she thinks they shouldn’t go back for another criminal who just tried to kill them and should instead save themselves. But she also literally WITHIN THAT SAME ISSUE then says she realized she learned something after listening to Tim and trying to save the guy! In the same issue! Characters in a story aren’t supposed to be perfect from the start… they learn things along the way???

(Robin #35)

"trying to steal from the shops they just stopped from being burglarized" - She’s 15 and doesn’t have a ton of money. She was gonna take two sodas, and when Tim said not to do it she paid with very little fuss. They stopped people who were robbing the place at gunpoint for prescription drugs. If you can’t understand the difference in severity between those things like… I do not even know where to start. (this situation is in Robin #56 btw)

"forcing physical affection onto Tim despite his visible discomfort and repeated objections (not even stopping when he told her he had a girlfriend)" - This one I will give you because she did cross boundaries with all that! But I do also want to clarify that she didn't start coming onto him until after Tim kissed her first (in Robin #5) while not telling her he had a girlfriend. That doesn’t excuse her later actions but for the first issue that she’s coming onto him from her perspective he expressed interest and she was just returning it! She even specifically says 'Maybe I should pay you back for saving my life the same way you paid me' (in Robin #16) before kissing him. That first time she kissed him unprompted was under essentially the same circumstances he kissed her unprompted, and she literally did not know about Ariana until after the fact. From that point once she knew about Ari she definitely should have backed off and she didn’t, that’s a very fair thing to criticize about her as a character. But Tim lead her on first, and I feel a lot of people like to casually forget that when talking about this situation. The way this is phrased of ‘not even stopping when he told her-‘ implies she was repeatedly doing the bad behavior before he told her, which is not the case. She still did bad things here but don’t misrepresent the situation.

"And lashing out at Tim, her mother, and her classmates in violent fits of anger" - Every comic book character lashes out at other people for the sake of drama like, I dare you to come up with a well-known superhero character who hasn’t done shit like that to a partner/family/friends in a moment of high tension/stress?

"She treated the girls around her like they were stupid bitches" - frankly this ones a little too vague like, I'm not sure off the top of my head exactly what they're talking about? in that era right around her pregnancy and stuff I really don't recall her being mean with other girls? I could be forgetting something I guess but the closest I can think of is a bit after this period of time when she has the confrontation with Greta in Young Justice but that was Greta attacking her first, not the other way around.

"got insanely jealous if Tim so much as expressed concern about another girl" - Steph getting jealous and thinking Tim was cheating isn’t that crazy when STEPHANIE BASICALLY WAS THE OTHER GIRL DURING TIM’S LAST RELATIONSHIP? Tim has cheated a little bit before! Tim cheated on Ari with both Jubilee from Marvel (during a crossover thing where he even mentions Ari specifically so it’s not like this was out of continuity/a setting she wasn't an issue or something) and also with Steph. While most of the kissing between them was Steph coming onto Tim which I wouldn’t count as cheating on his end, he did still kiss her which I would count. Not to mention that the jealousy thing (I imagine they’re talking about the instance with Star, the girl who taught Tim to skateboard, this arc of stuff starts in Robin #80 and continues for a few issues) is happening during the time she’s dating him while she still doesn’t even know his real name. He literally has a whole other life she doesn’t know about, and is someone who has initiated romantic moments with other girls while in a relationship multiple times before! With that in mind I don’t think a 16 (she's def 16 by this point) year old girl being kinda paranoid about how he interacts with girls he might know in his civilian life is that unreasonable? The later big instance with jealousy is the Darla situation- where Steph sees Darla kiss him and gets mad about it (and doesn’t talk to him about it) and thats what prompts her to become Robin. The important thing to remember about Steph in this time frame is that DC decided she had to die and they wanted to make her Robin first to drum up more attention for that death. They were doing ooc things with her to set those pieces in motion, and that needs to be taken into account. I think her getting upset about seeing something like that isn’t even ooc, but her using it as motivation to become Robin and not even saying anything to him about it is. In the earlier instance where she’s upset/jealous about Star, she does communicate to him what’s going on at least a little bit on the rooftop after they’d saved her. She makes it clear the thing she was upset about is that she feels like she can’t trust him because she doesn’t really know him while he knows everything about her, and that’s why she thinks he’s cheating. Her reaction to the Darla thing is not in line with how earlier in canon Steph would have handled the same situation, because they wanted her to die and needed a way to explain her becoming Robin.

"and expressed that jealousy by accusing him of cheating and throwing things at him" - I just addressed the cheating stuff but the throwing things was fucking slapstick oh my god this is a comic book for kids/teens like. ah yes this is horrible abuse in this little funny montage of how Steph wants him to leave her alone because she’s mad at him and he refuses to give her space

(Robin #82)

I don’t think anyone at DC or even in fandom would/should try to argue she’s perfect, because she’s not! And I don’t want her to be because perfect characters are boring. Steph is flawed, Steph has been compared in canon to Robin-era Jason by Cass & Bruce

(Detective Comics #790)

And I think these highlight some of her very real flaws that are an interesting part of her character. These plus her stubbornness and determination are part of what makes her her.

And for fuck's sake the world was mean to her, and to act like it wasn’t is just blatantly ignoring a lot. A criminal father who made her life really difficult (‘when my dad was mad at me he’d lock me in the closet!’), that time she got kidnapped for two weeks and her mom had left her (a 15 year old) alone at home so long she didn't even find out it happened (in text Steph says Crystal was visiting friends, a lot of people interpret that as her mom possibly being in rehab for her addictions again), that whole thing about how one of her dad’s friends tried to sexually assault her as a child, also just how due to her dad's work sometimes criminals would be living in their house (Literally the fucking Riddler at one point!), the fact that we as an audience watched her get tortured for several days because a plan she tried to enact to prove herself backfired since Batman didn’t trust her with important information (something Selina even calls him out on in her internal narration), like… sorry but in what way is all that not the world being mean to her?

She was Robin, she dated Robin, she likes Eggplant (because purple would've looked stupid), and makes jokes. She’s also impulsive, headstrong and determined, and wants to prove to herself and others that she can be more than just the daughter of a shitty criminal, that she can actually be a force to do good in the world.

She’s a complex character, and nobody is required to like her, but to act like she doesn’t have a single redeeming trait is ridiculous. You could write a paragraph like that with the worst moments of basically any character and make them look like shit if that's what you were setting out to do.

[volfoss]

how about ranking bucciarati's team?

regret to inform you that ur gonna get a very long answer bc i have passionate feelings about them all! also trish is in this bc she is part of the team and no one will tell me otherwise and will also include some rambling bc it is me and i have so many feelings towards these characters and none of them r cohesive

under the cut just in case (post writing yes it was long)

Giorno Giovanna:

way way more complex than ppl normally give him credit for (i will not go into feelings on how a majority of the fandom treats him unless ppl want me to then i will in fact make a very long ranty post and will not be stopped)

mildly op (esp at the beginning with how hes kind of able to just use his stand really well w no problems altho i think thats true of most of the jojos that we have seen animated?)

i am emotionally attached to him and want to give him a big hug

hes just a kinda goofy kid and is maybe a bit not good with figuring out hey this is a semi dangerous situation maybe i shouldnt be taunting him (leaky eye luca for example)

has the actual best theme

i love how he works off the rest of the team so well (even w members who do not like him)

is in my top 3 jojos i love this kid sm i would adopt him if he was real

7/10

Bruno Bucciarati:

the fucking way his character develops from licky man to best dad material is my favorite thing

his outfit is so so so good i would die to wear it

in general this man is one of my fave jojos characters and i get a lot of comfort from him

hes just really neat and has a good taste in music

he did his fucking best and i will always love him for that

imo the way that his death was drawn out was genuinely one of the most heartbreaking deaths in the entire series and fucks me up each time i think of it

i feel like he really is the one to hold the team together in a way that everyone feels cared for and saved

def has a savior complex tho for sure

dilf but im ace

also manga superiority bc he either makes the stupidest faces or looks very nice (anime has a lot of weird animation in regards to his face) and also because its lingerie there instead of a tattoo that changes thickness and placement every second

10/10

Leone Abbacchio:

guilty pleasure liking man

i am obsessed with his vibes and wish to become him

i cannot physically express just how much i love him but hes one of my faves of all time (not obvious by my theme at all wdym)

i miss his manga palette but also the colored manga isnt my beloved but also black lipstick abba

hot take maybe but anime abba looks better than manga minus the lipstick debacle

hes so so tall and i will steal his height in a nice way

his past man his past it fucks me up

his death fucks me up normally but when i was rewatching recently, i saw he gave this tiny lil smile after helping the kids get their ball and i could not take it anymore

him and brunos relationship (canonically and out of canon too) is one of my favorites in the series

also fandom hot take as i guess i am doing those for everyone- but ppl either have him as cosntantly trying to murder giorno or being like good son and v out of character, and it is really weird? not sayign that ill do better when i write them but also like im convinced some ppl havent seen the show or smth

i will steal both him and bruno and marry them both <3

this man is beloved i love him to death

10/10

Pannacotta Fugo:

i cannot spell his first name to save my life

also fandom take- ppl make him constantly only angry boy all the time and it really irks me. ik araki did not give him 2 much to work w in terms of canon personality but its frustrating

the light novel purple haze feedback is so so so good and adds sm to his character and i really like it for that!

fugo is one of those that imo deserves a lot and didnt get that

genuinely the vibes between how he treats narancia is v interesting to me, like its clear he cares about nara but nara not doing great w math really frustrates him

i love their interactions and how he is genuinely a kind person at times

the manga colors r superior here, my strawberry boy <3

i just really love and appreciate him a lot and wish that ppl gave him more love

i keep getting assigned him on kin quizzes

very smart good boy

ALSO ok fugo did not do any wrong by leaving

unsure if thats a hot take but i genuinely dont blame the character one bit for leaving and again purple haze feedback really delves into that and why he did it

if ur a fugo fan go read it

his past is really upsetting esp in the anime i will cry over it

his stand is adorable and i wanna hug it

his vibes r fun and i wanna gift him strawberry dangly earrings

8/10

Narancia Ghirga:

this boy i am also adopting (i am adopting most of them sorry)

i really hate how ppl act as if hes stupid bc bad math skills do not equal stupid like did ppl not see the fight w formaggio??

the way he just fucking dove into the water after the boat and how brunos face went all soft and happy it will never not make me cry

he is constnatnly making me wanna cry if i think too much about him for 2 seconds i love him sm

how can anyone not adore him when he set an entire street on fire yk

hes just happy despite his past and it makes me sad i love nara sm

torture dance is one of my favorite memes from the show

ALSO ok the way he died so suddenly absolutely broke me bc the remaining team members r really just seeing everyone die in front of them so quickly

his goofy and laid back moments r my fave

i love just how loyal and caring he is to his friends

his stand is really cool and again the fight w formaggio was so fun to watch

8/10

Guido Mista:

probably my least favorite member of the team for a semi good reason:

the jokes towards trish are really really uncomfy and how fugo doesnt wanna be involved but he is pushing him to do something that makes him uncomfortable did not make me like him a lot

hes goofy but not goofy enough for me to be ok with the repeated jokes about that esp in the body swap episode (ik it was supposed to be funny but it just felt off)

his vibes r good but i wish we got to see his hair

the fandom interpretation is normally pretty good of him overall?

despite not loving him a lot, i really enjoying writing for him (one day might open up headcanon requests or smth but unsure)

hes someone id wanna watch movies w but his taste in movies and mine r very different

love how he and his stand get along

honestly has very very good comedic potential

i really like how he and giorno interact as the series goes on (in a platonic way i need to clarify that i love their friendship)

again him in purple haze feedback was really interesting

probably a 5/10?

Trish Una:

beloved and deserved better

her first outfit in the manga > outfit in the anime

actually in general i believe in manga trish superiority like her hair in the manga looks so cool

her stand her stand her stand i love sm

if u dont include trish in the group i am murdering u <3

HER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!! IS SO GOOD!!!!!!

fandom gripe is how people either pretend she does not exist or has the trish first introduction thing where shes using her defense mechanisms and acting a bit spoiled

OK but her in purple haze feedback!!! mild spoilers but how bruno was taking care of her post the ending of vento aureo makes me so happy each time i think of it

very mad that she canonically didnt really get an ending and yet again PHF my beloved actually gave her that

how spice girl starts out as a stand thats helping her thru a very stressful situation is so cool and i love it

DAD BRUNO DAD BRUNO DAD BRUNO *frothes at the mouth*

but more seriously how she leans on bruno and begins 2 trust him and nearly point blank is referring to him as a father figure always fucks me up

esp because of the resulting fight afterwards

and the very ending of the arc that ends w bruno being like bye gonna go in the clouds and look ethereal now, oh man it makes me so sad

bc giorno is the only one that knew what happened and people that were closer to bruno due to knowing him longer didnt

i wanna see how trish coped w that personally

despite being introduced not at the beginning i think her arc and character in general were as well paced as it could be!

9/10

finally done! sorry that took so long but oh man i have so many feelings towards these guys its not even funny

[tobebugjewce]

THE WALTEN FILES: my jumbled notes on my blind run-in with this web series

first off this is gonna be long and unorganized, also this is my second time writing this as i had lost literally half of my progress and im This (imagine two fingers almost touching with a 0.0000000001mm distance between them) close to ripping all of the fucking hair out of my goddamn head. but now this will be extra long and yes, i will lose some accuracy to my first writing but thats okay ill probably edit this a kajillion times over

which brings me to my next tangent; im literally braindumping here. so to have a smidge of organization all afterthoughts, edits and corrections will be boldened, i forgot what im gonna do with italicized text but ill probably bolden it here yeah im pretty sure its for side tangents, separate from Corrections, which are in bold. also theyre for emphasis too.

so in general, this post right here is all of my notes i wrote down on my grid-patterned sticky notes (which i used WAYYYY too much of) about the first 3 uploaded walten files youtube videos transferred onto my handy dandy digital notebook, this b(l)og. yeppers peppers. you know im serious about this shit when i typed probably over like a thousand fucking words including boldened shit, italicized shit and motherfucking links, lost it ALL, and im sitting here re-typing it again.

i feel bad about this but im not gonna trigger warn right here, but this is technically a warning. if you want a list of triggers as to what this post (and the walten files in general) i will link a little list to that here

without further a doo doo, (mama mia) here the fucking fuck we go again.

THE WALTEN FILES - VIDEO #1

clarifying this now, im gonna put some useless shit which i thought was code onto this because even though it was useless it was part of my notes and im physically going to combust if i dont put down every single thing i wrote on my papers. so what i thought was code was in the closed captions, i started writing it down when i got to the second video but came back to my first videos notes to include them. i wrote down the first letter to every word that was capitalized in the closed captions, which i had on as a default because number one i knew going into this id need them because most web horror things like args and cryptic shit like that has some of the most crucial shits in the closed captions. number two i am autistic and have auditory processing issues and have most closed captioning on as a default if theyre available.

firstly jotted, i wrote down the closed captions “code” so im gonna put the rest here too: HYWITB(BSI)Y A(BSI)BJWFKWITW ILHHFSBBSBTLBWI USOISTBNBSFIRBCAWHSHCBWHTAIGRNB*C*BTWLTSFA(20)MCFP ILITIIACPH(1978, 1979)SA(4)YTSCH*C*OGSSU SFTGRPATDBBUTFBNLLCHMIHLBRALLCLAYTUKB*LC*WHATWASTHATTHING 

the numbers in parenthesis are there because i wasnt sure they should be included in the “code” or not. i also thought of this with the BSI - bunny smiles incorporated and also the years 1978 and 1979. the shits in asterisks are coughs and light coughs, which were capitalized in the closed captions so i included them too just in case

i then jotted, in parenthesis of course, the names of the animatronics when they were listed in the animation section of the video; bon aka the blue bunny, sha aka the sheep one, boozoo aka the clown<3 honk<33, and banny aka the purpled eyelashed up one who is also a bunny btw. also i got boozoo the clown and boozoo the mustache guy confused because apparently the clowns name is billy???? but they named “boozoo” in bons sleepover and showed the clown? idk maybe im an idiot and theyre the same or just an idiot and theyre different or a super mega (matt and ryan?!?!??) idiot in general which is probably the case

i started drawing little stars to write down things i thought would be super important or to 100% look at again. the first subject of this pointy torture was the part of the video where at 3:00, i marked it down to make sure to reverse the audio as it was most definitely a weird audio that has that signature warp-y effect that makes sure you KNOW its in reverse. i then listened back to it Very carefully (still got it wrong) and got this: “you finally start to remember. that old doll. they will look out for you soon” im also pretty sure i heard “sophie” at the end of that audio but im not entirely sure and dont remember and i dont wanna go back to check lmfao but anyways it didnt matter because i was wrong anyway. after i had finished all 3 walten files i watched the film theory video on the walten files (which didnt cover all 3 but was dece.) out of curiosity and to hear matpats signature silly little voice explain some stuff i already knew, and click some shit in my brain that i couldve thought up of if i was a bit more... i dont know honestly. anyways yeah so the actual audio is “you finally start to remember. that old day. they will look out for you soon.” so yeah. day, not doll.

i then wrote down “sarah evelyn”, the name on the bons sleepover animation (i dont remember if she created it or animated it or whatnot) and scribbled will she matter? under her name. turns out no, as i didnt see her name in the rest of the series, let alone the first video. this is also a great time to mention how matpat theory helped me realize that the walten files are collections of videos, uploaded onto youtube by anthony. (i already knew about anthony as he signed his name in the descriptions of the youtube videos, making me categorize this overall web series more into an arg type genre.) but yes, the tapes, recorded “irl” footage, animated clips, vhs tape recordings and other audio-visual content is all collected and labeled the walten files, as i had mistaken each video to be a tape. stupid me. alrighty, onward!

i starred this one, good for me; MISSING: Jack Walten LAST SEEN: 06/11/1974

i jotted down with an arrow that; sophie was a nightguard? she was wearing the uniform explained in tape 2 i dont know why but i went back into my video 1 notes after i had watched video 2. organization purposes. i guess.?? 

i then paused the video when the screen flickered a date, the beginning of video footage dated 10/10/1982 (Brian Stells?) god my little genius ass assuming the videographer was brian stells, based on the id card i saw earlier.

i then wrote down what text i saw on the dead, mangled, bloody body in the purple security suit; “i cant feel anything” “he thought i was her” then drew a little arrow pointing to; thought brian was sophie? or ashley? i also starred the name Brian Stells this is totally out of order LMFAOOOOOOOO also i wrote down ashley because, again, my little pea brain went back on my video 1 notes after watching video 2. but yep thats all i wrote for The Walten Files 1 - Company Introductory Tape

THE WALTEN FILES - VIDEO #2 

Tape #1 - created 07/02/1978

awesome how thats first and foremost in the captions. god. so sexy of you martin walls. /j /nsx

this pack of notes is chunkier because again, like i have mentioned before i am an absolute goober and thought the capitalized letters of the words would actually mean something. I MEAN MAYBE THEY DO AND IM JUST DOING IT WRONG but i stopped doing it after this video because holy shit it was exhausting and my stupid little fingers couldnt take the writing anymore becasue i am WEAK. 

so write off the bat (squeak) i wrote down 197[] the blacked out rectangle over the last digit of that year and everything im also now assuming its probably 1978 or 1974 because lore reasons but whos to say but yeah i also wrote down this;

Tape #2 - created 08/13/1978

then, straight up in the beginning of the video i caught it, the flash of text, as i had by now realized i gotta be SUPER stupid focused on the screen in case i miss anything, i wanted to be crazy precise on my theorizing and mental notes, among other things. but yes i saw it, the first half of a youtube link;  “https://youtu” 

claps hands together and rubs them evilly. oh yeah baby. thats the hot lunch. this shit right here? the cats pajamas. lets fucking go.

i wrote down this goofy shit i pasued to inspect when i saw bon sorting through a file cabinet and naturally scribbled down the labels and other written things i could see on the files; 

relocate X/X/75 felix

storage K-9 07/23/1975 felix k(ranken)

Bons Burgers 06/28/1974 Jack Walten

Shipping Service 1975

New Location -> 1982

i also wrote down more goofy shit, like when banny was created for some reason; in 1974

starred, i noted to go back and reverse the audio at 5:09, when played back, i didnt write it down so i dont remember. lmao.

i also marked to screenshot and brighten the darkened image i saw at 5:20, i was going to do it on my phone then realized i can just do it on my computer so i quickly took a screenshot, brightened it and wrote down what i saw; a missing person poster that read MISSING: SUSAN WOODINGS(?) Last seen: 1974 i was very unsure of the spelling of her last name because the image was so goddamn low quality and grainy but its what i saw. this is where tape #3 gets thrown in, which im gonna type again because i like how the formatting looks;

Tape #3 - created 07/09/1978 (BEFORE tape 2?!//1/1??? its more likely than you think)

i wrote down more dates, any dates i saw, i jotted down. i wrote; 

Technical Support 1978 

then, 

Brian Stells (for some reason i dont remember right now)

alrighty this is where the stupid capitalized letters come in, but before it looks like i vomit a keysmash time infinity on this, ill put down the little inbetween things i wrote in the midst of the caps lockalypse like timestamps and stuff, so here you go;

- Reverse at 8:16 which i did but of course didnt write down what i heard. i think it was too warbled to hear anything clear out of it, or it was just the good ol auditory processing issues fucking me over yet again. WAIT yep yes i did here it is: “rosemary would go to the restaurant every night hoping that [her] beloved husband would reappear after being missing for weeks but no response until one day [s]he heard a voice [saying] ‘i know where he is rosie’ coming from the back stage” the bracketed stuff is the corrections, i misheard the audio and thought the audio said “his”, “he” and “singing” like a nimrod

- Brighten at 10:14 which was another missing person poster, but i dont think it had any information on it because i didnt write it down, just;

- Sophie again (pic at 9:08?) (dismemberd and put in Sha) i was stupid and wrong haha idiot it was rosemary who was put in sha but anywho

i starred and underlined a huge thing i discovered which was;

- Walten had 3 kids which i dont remember how i found out but it doesnt matter, its good important info i uncovered.

- Tape #4 - Unkown Date

- recorded 07/12-07/14 1978 

- Hilary B, Ashley P & Kevin W i made sure to get these names down as soon as i saw them on screen but then realized shortly after i wouldnt really need to have it as the closed captions made sure i knew which person was talking by using their first initial (capitalized of course) before each line of text. this is the perfect time to announce the arrival of the clusterfuck of capital letters, which is going to include colons which will indicate that the letter before it is the initial of the person talking. without further aedue, here comes another chinese earthquake;

TCWTSTATO(K-9)TBSSFWFCNEHAWBSUBIUC(BSIIDC)OWHISF INBIJTILNSPL(K-9)LCSCKCCCWTTLTLITTTYROTFAJAMHPYYSTCSPMBBWSBIB H:NTPPCCK:DA:HH:YCPRPMWTCBCRAWK:JH:SYYTCPBACPSTBAWCA:TK(?):FMTTCMK:TCPNOA:DTOFK:ITNPPRA:YBUTIRRFH:HKIBESRAIA:TCK:WA:WPCCFTRRIDPEH:GGK:GPA:LKK:WA:HNCGTKMK:YH:IGKA:ESK:MFH:RK:HILRLBNTRPPUWHITRRTPEIFEPH:YWBEBPK:MAHPBTRPTRPEL(LN)HTACPKLIKHPFITSKLTKLB(LB?)ISIBSUBIPRW AEBATHSPUAICTPURTWBBRPHTRTIIIILTCITCUCCP S(bpe, be)WA”IDCPBPSIB

holy shit its finally over okay now onto some MORE of what i wrote down in between and also after that keysmash attack;

12 doors? (backrooms) 27? 26? i was unsure because ashley was unsure too lmfao

found cassette (6/11/78) <- says “discard”? yeah it did

Tape in clown audio, speaking voice; jack, susan, charles(?), rosemary, sophie, last word sounds like “walrus” it was walten lmfao

Ashley died? yeah she did lmfao OR AT LEAST I THINK SO??

starred this one, Reverse @ 17:06, then got this;

“they left the next day, they thought ashley left early, but she was in the backdoors, screaming as much as she could, but no one heard the screams, the following days the caretakers would complain about an awful smell coming from the backdoors, company decided to shut down facility until new advice, the relocate project was unsuccessful. ashley is still there, but she is not screaming anymore, she saw something she wasnt supposed to see and now shes beautiful” the phrase “shes beautiful” was repeating like a bajillion times in that wall of text. then, god motherfuckng bless: 

at 17:23 i found the other half of the youtube link, “.be/k07QqEDOfQ” i pieced that bad boy together as instant as i think any form of ramen could never be, but remained ever patient. because i made sure to jot down this before moving onto my next segment;

@ end of vid 2, “shadow man sees* me when lights go off” im an idiot *it was actually “feeds” not “sees”, which AGAIN, i only found out after watching the stupid little film theory video *begins snarling and foaming at the mouth*

okay im not proud to admit im editing this to post it and realized ive lost my notes. well. 

might as well post what ive got! if i find my shit ill add onto this, i suppose.

[fan-clan-fun]

howdy! it's been a while since i sent anything in, but i recently came up with some new roles for one of my clans and wanted to hear your thoughts! for reference, i'm the person who's sent in stuff on 'the coastal clans' (seaclan, forestclan, and cliffclan) before. they've been renamed, however, to seaclan, sequoiaclan, and willowclan! just thought to clarify to avoid confusion.

Im excited to hear more!

i sent this in a submission because it got too long for an ask. sorry!

so! in sequioaclan, there are three leaders who each have their own separate duties and charges, though they all come together to lead the clan. i thought it was a lot of work for each leader - so i came up with 'sub-roles' for them. these sub roles consist of a few cats - up to five, i'd say - and the leader's deputy is usually chosen from this pool of cats.

This is a fascinating concept, but with how you've worded it I assume the clan is fairly large (since each of three leaders has up to five sub-roles), which if it is it works! But makes me wonder how many regular warriors there are or if things are just much more specialized in this clan.

i'm going to note beforehand that this might change, as i'm still figuring everything out. as of right now, i've gotten rid of the 'had a successful mentorship' requirement for deputies. with these sub-roles, the leaders would be able to monitor their progress, skill, and demeanor well enough to determine if they'd make a good fit for deputy and possibly leader.

This makes sense, the point of mentorship to begin with was not as a hurdle, but supposed to show how a cat used leadership skills to train and care for a cat under their care. These days it seems like more of a base requirement to just get through, rather than as a way to assess a potential deputy's capabilities. But having another way to assess works out just fine.

maieth's ward is the leader who makes sure everyone in the clan is taken care of; getting dens fixed, sending out patrols, serving as the mediator. to help her with her duties, maieth's ward has her 'clankeepers' (name may be changed at some point). the clankeepers assist in tasks such as repairing dens, keeping the clearing tidy, and helping their leader with whatever they may need. the clankeepers also play a big role in the creation of crafts and supplies for sequoiaclan. it's their job to light the clan's fires in the cold season and keep them lit, as well as overseeing the skinning of larger animals, the creation of clay pots and bowls, and curing meat. they and maieth's ward are the ones who facilitate trading with the other clans, outside of gatherings. clankeepers are also taught ways of mediation between clanmates.

So im seeing these clans have significantly more ability to create and craft, which means they would obviously need a role for that, and you've summarized at quite well! I like that they have well rounded duties and expectations, and also that you have included a somewhat diplomatic role in here.

kenoake's ward is the healer and spiritual leader of the clan. those who assist them in their duties are known as 'healers.' they are taught about how to treat illnesses and injuries, which herbs are best for what, and proper conduction for rituals and ceremonies. they forage for needed herbs, help with the creation of crafts for ceremonies (such as the clay bead necklaces each sequoiaclan cat gets when first introduced to the clan), and more.

Standard healers, very nice. I do like that there are more than two, always made me worried when a clan had only one medicine cat, I always feel like those clans are one accident away from serious trouble without a med cat.

those under the charge of aerin's ward (who's in charge of training, apprentices, and related ceremonies) are called 'mentors.' in sequoiaclan, instead of each cat having an individual mentor, they're taught together, as a class might be (though special cases can be made, such as cats who've fallen behind or would like some extra teaching). each of the mentors specializes in something different; hunting, fighting, climbing, etc. the mentors, and maieth's ward, work together to mentor these cats in the best way possible. assessments are rarely done individually; sequoiaclan puts an emphasis on cooperation and community, so your skill is assessed on how well you work with your clanmates. classes will be taught by non-mentors, too; healers teach basic medical skills and herb recognition, while clankeepers offer classes based on repairing dens, crafting, skinning and tanning, and more.

This is a nice set up! The first series showed that there was a lot of cooperation between mentors and sharing apprentices, and I think its helpful to be able to learn different skills from different cats.

healers and clankeepers are usually chosen by their leader, so long as it's a role they want to take. new cats in these roles are taught by all of the clankeepers/healers, rather than just one. for mentors, it's a little different; depending on what skill a prospective mentor is best at or wishes to teach, they will be taken in as an apprentice by the current mentor specializing in that skill.

The only thing Im still unsure about is whether there are normal warriors, or if everyone somewhat falls under these three roles. And if healers and clankeepers are chosen as apprentices, or after. Otherwise it sounds a like a very cooperative clan! Everyone working together.

a quick explanation for the meat curing, too - sequoiaclan will often hunt larger animals such as elk or deer for their massive amount of meat, bones, and skin. excess meat (usually in the summer) is cured in clay pots using sea salt (traded for from seaclan), and is to be eaten in the winter when prey gets more scarce.

Thats a neat little worldbuilding tidbit, it seems like you've worked hard on that, keep it up!

i think that's it-- thanks so much for letting me submit!

[macklives]

session 96 end

alright, so im getting tired so ill stop things here, and thisll probably be a short end note because we basically got some good non-plot kanaya centric stuff really (for the most part besides the chain session interlude)

which kanayas part i enjoyed THOUROUGHLY, the chain session was just “alright now that thats on the table it clarifies some things” 

alright so we got kanaya’s introduction. FUCK YEAH. god she’s great, shes probably my favourite troll which i think i mention a lot......a lil too much.....i cant help it........ shes basically a cottagecore dead-panned pretty possible lesbian 

WHICH FUCK

ok so idk what moirail means bc im genuinely not in the loop with troll romance, but karkat mentioned it WAS a romance right?? and CC insinuated they thought kanaya had a moirail, specifically a “SHE”?? so i dont want to jump the gun here but i HOPE... really hope... its a romantic one, bc if kissy thingy was hate?? moirail is love?? not sure about the other subcategories they mentioned, i only remember those two. but yeah..... 

tho i also dont want to assume things :(

damn....

i hope andrew clarifies this at least but at this point i have no idea if he will, and its not like i can sneak online for answers SIGH

OKAY so back to CC, theyre pretty chill, they ALSO have a moirail. its a “he” which is the only thing we know about them, and we dont know if its someone we have met or the other we havent. and i do like their character, theyre very bubbly and optimistic unlike many others we’ve met. tho i dont agree with andrew’s use of slurs, however i know now not to blame the characters but rather the author themselves in this case. apparently the slurs do calm down as the comic grows, but it still makes me wince whenever i have to read it.

and finally, concerning the actual sburb game, every session is connected and theyre all going to kill the queen together. its um, called mobius double reach around? yeah. that thing. all sessions are intertwined and looped. andrew made that VERY clear with about 10 pages explaining it. 

oh!! and the queen hates frogs so much that she banished them

alright coooool, and thats basically what we go. hella excited we finally got the kanaya intro at laaaaaast <3

peace yall until next time ✌️ 

[bunkernine]

Okay I don't want to be mean or anything, I know where you're coming from and the other anons too, but you've had multiple problems in the last few days alone with people understanding your tone of voice on posts so maybe adding /srs and /j and some other stuff into your posts/tags would be helpful to decrease misunderstandings?

hmm ur good ur good lol, mmm I've thought about it actually cause i use /j alot on reddit but like, that's kinda got different cannotations in a way. but anyway i do use /j sometimes here in tags, but for the most part what i say is pretty distinguishable especially considering i mostly post for friends who get what im saying anyway. tone indicators are whatever to me, I'm not the biggest fan of them but i understand their use but like lol i do it if i remember or if i think something might be harder to distinguish but like again im not really posting for the world lol im really in it for myself and friends. uhhhhh idk where i was going with this cause I'm just pressing keys but like ummm idk what ur talking about when it comes to tone though because there hasn't recently been an issue??? if this is about the 'ur unwanted and irrelevant here' that was serious lol and it was def taken seriously 💀💀💀 and the person was like "im sure ur joking but blahblah" and i straight up said "i wasn't joking" 💀💀💀 like it was clear lol. anyway something something uhhhh im not having misunderstandings related to tone lol, they said it was bitchy and they were right i am bitchy and i say bitchy shit lol there was no misunderstanding i am just mean and annoying and ummm stuff lol. anyway anyway like ur good lol idk how you're being mean in anyway, u shouldn't preface with that cause hesitance can be irksome, write asks like you write an email and go straight to the point because it offers less oppertunity for getting clowned, be precise but not like forceful. i think i said this earlier but like maybe i didn't but uhhh i don't know what posts ur talking about and if u followed up with anything specific i can clarify but like most of them are pretty clear. but also when it comes to tumblr posts u also gotta acknowledge that not all posts are simply made for half of tumblr, like a solid third of what i say is just random personal things that tumblruser01 doesn't know that background nor situation and things too, so thats like that and shit too. anyway this was about like tone indicators and shit like yeah ur good don't worry lol um I'll consider it more but in most cases it's pretty obvious it's in the tags or like i straight up forgot or don't care, i do think they're helpful tho but like i know what i mean and that's lowkey all i care about 💀💀 idk hope that helps

[cheifcornerstone]

hey! so i read what you said on my post and watched some of the videos in your pinned post, and i have a couple related questions i was hoping you could clear up for me. in my post i was talking specifically being lgbt people being a sin, and you said that just being gay wasnt in of itself sinful. my understanding of sin is this:

god is good, and therefore doing good things is doing things god would do, or what god would want you to do. and doing things that god wouldnt do, or wouldnt want you to do, is a sin.

and the only way us humans know what is and isnt a sin, is from the bible. even if the bible is completely correct and whatnot, im still seeing a couple problems here. christians have always followed the bible as best as they could, but christians and christianity have changed a lot. christians from a couple hundred years ago had completely different morals from christians today.

for example, people 300 years ago were saying that being gay was sinful. with the same bible. if being gay is not a sin according to the bible, why did so many people think it was? did they read or interpret the bible wrong? if thats the case, how do we know we arent misinperpreting it now?

and because so many christians before our time, thought it was a sin to be gay, where is the objectivity of the bible, and therefore god? if what is good or bad under god is up to interpretation, you can justify whatever you want as being good with the same bible you can justify it as bad. there is a general consensus among christians today of what is and isnt sinful, but its completely different than it was 300 years ago, and will be completely different in another 300 years. how would anyone know what is and isnt sinful then?

just to clarify here i'm using the example of being gay as sinful or not, but i mean it more broadly. aside from just that, there have been a lot of things that christians in the past have believed in that they dont know, like slavery, rape, torture, and murder being good and justifiable under the bible.

sorry that that was super long lol and if i said something wrong and/or i'm misunderstanding something, please correct me

Hey thanks for getting back to me on it and I always find learning more about theology interesting.

Your right the Bible is still a book written by men hundreds of years ago and you have to understand the context of every verse. Just because people use scripture to try and justify terrible things like murder and whatnot doesn’t invalidate the wisdom the knowledge teaches. There are theologians and Bible scholars who practice and memories the Bible line by line and can more or less give you solid indisputable answers.

On the gay thing I believe in history gays were persecuted and taboo in most cultures and the Bible was a tool used to justify doing terrible acts. I believe Leviticus is used when they say homosexual acts is punishable by death but if you look at the context first of all it’s Old Testament second it’s the law given to Moses and the Israelites so they may be set apart as an example of Gods Chosen. It was kind of a deal, if you obey these rules Your children will inherit these lands. Jesus new law overwrites this. We aren’t Israelites in that sense anymore. New covenant and all

Then you have Romans 1:18-32 which details men sleeping with men as shameful but the context is talking about what Paul saw in Rome at the time. People were falling in love with their sexual lifestyles more than God. Paul is describing the love of sin and lack of God.

You can pretty much understand that these were for specific time but you can extract simple knowledge that the whole point in the Bible is to love God first and foremost. Then love your neighbor. Loving yourself or your sexuality is pride and is idolatry in the eyes of the lord.

Churches and religious people treat homosexuality as a sin because it’s leads to homosexual acts. They are wrong. it’s not sinful to be gay! Nothing in the Bible says that. In fact just looking at another women with lust is sinful. Just thinking about killing someone is sinful. Impossible task for sure but good thing Christianity gives us a chance to redeem ourselves with Christ

Of course you can say to hell with all that but even if you are non-believer learning more about the Bible is a great way to defend yourself against people who try to use it against you. Sorry for the long winded post

[foxymuses]

on the topic of rk900 && his ‘deviancy’

the way that i write rk900 to be is very specific, and it includes a lot, which i will? try to explain? as best i can? please feel free to ask clarifying questions though like i have so much to say about this and im sure i’ll miss something. anyway imma shove this under a cut because i KNOW im about to just fucking go.

so i wanna make it very clear from the get go that 900 is not deviant in the typical fashion. he does not believe that he is a free being with actual emotions and rights to live. there is never a moment where he stops and goes ‘oh shit’ and breaks through that red tape. he never has an ‘i may be deviant’ breakdown. he is not deviant.

however, he is not not-deviant. 

what i mean by this is kind of complicated. let me start with some background into my personal interpretation of the rk900 series in general. they are a series designed for warfare -- the majority of them have been shipped overseas with soldiers to act as a variety of things: weapons, infiltration, an inhuman line of defense to protect the human soldiers --- like. they were specifically designed to be killers, to be dangerous, to be pretty damn hard to stop. they are essentially top of the line terminators -- are they entirely legal? ehhhhhh. but they let the government get away with things that might either kill their human soldiers or are of questionable ethic that they can just.... decommission the android afterwards. that’s their main function, the main reason they exist. 

this is crucial, and i will explain more on it in a moment, but for the rest of this meta i’m going to be using rk900 to talk of the general model series, and 900 to speak specifically to mine (and, in a lesser way, the fandom one in general, though this should go without saying i don’t intend to infringe upon other personal headcanons of rk900 writers)

connor was the rk ‘law enforcement’ prototype, but he also functioned mainly as a playing piece in an android revolution that, let’s face it, cyberlife saw coming a mile away. cyberlife wanted a say. they wanted to have a semblance of control over how to twist the uprising in a way that benefit them. given 900 comes about in a world where the revolution was quelled, cyberlife basically achieved their goal (i’ll touch upon my meta of my machine connor and this in another post). 

the reason this is important is because 900 was implanted with the majority of observations and experiences that connor had. things he learned about humanity, how to mimic it, how to manipulate it, how to use it. things like the events of the revolution in the order they happened, what it was like to be a detective with the dpd, literally like. all the things that connor went through or observed or scanned or downloaded or learned -- these were uploaded into 900.

now, his memories weren’t necessarily input into 900 -- that is, 900 doesn’t have any first hand accounts of most things (from petting sumo all the way to connor ending the revolution). so even if he has an understanding of what being on a case is like, he doesn’t have connor’s exact memories of doing it. it’s more like all of these things have been converted into data for him to retrieve -- it’s been shifted into facts, statements, articles, serving more as.... general history knowledge? like that stuff everyone just knows for some reason? 

but it’s more in depth than that because, yknow, they intended for 900 to be top of the line (yes, 900, not rk900). so all this information from connor was used to boost the insanely vast amounts of knowledge that they input into 900 to begin with -- it was used as contextual information, filler information, you get me? because the main thing that differed between connor and 900 is that 900 was given all the knowledge he needed before he was released, where as connor was expected to observe and adapt. cyberlife took connor’s methods of observing and interacting and adapting to humanity and refined it so that 900 already had that information.

so when 900 was officially done, he had basically anything he might need to know in his software already. he didn’t need to learn anything. 

so let me backtrack a little bit into why i say 900 gets these things and not all the rk900s. 

like i said before, the rk900s were built for warfare. 900 was not. i mean, yes, his model and abilities are all the same, he is still an rk900 model. but he was not built to go to war. the 900 that connor meets in the zen garden is the same 900 i write. that particular rk900 model, 900, was specifically designed to replace connor. the others were mass produced for their purpose as war based androids. but 900 was made to work for the DPD, to sort of take connor’s place, in part because it gives them access to local law, but also because they want to monitor the place where connor was assigned. 

so because of this 900 does not have a purpose. 

he was not developed with any specific goal or mission or duty aside from ‘work with the dpd’, so he doesn’t have the same goal set that the rk900 models are programmed with. cyberlife essentially input all this data into 900, and then didn’t tell him what to do with it aside from ‘just go to this location’ which means that 900 had to figure it out for himself.

this is where cyberlife fucked up big time.

the other rk900 models are designed to be perfect soldiers -- deviancy was basically coded out of them based on connor’s experience (whether or not he went deviant, it was in his code). thats not to say that they can never go deviant, its just to say it would be really fucking hard to make them do that. 

since 900 has none of that, he is inherently different from the rk900 model. when you make an android without a purpose, you have basically created a deviant android from the get go. 900 is more or less his own model, in which there is only one 900, and by default, he works for the Detroit Police Department.

now, generally, this means he’s paired with gavin (gotta live up to that delicious ship, honestly) so a lot of my following nonsense is stemmed from that but the point is that, he gets to decide what his goal is whenever he wants, so it can change, and it does change, and the choice is entirely his own. by all intents and purposes, cyberlife inadvertently created an android with honest to god free will.

so where does this leave us with deviancy? because i can hear ya’ll but fox, you said he wasn’t deviant and now you’re saying he is which is it?

here’s what makes 900, well, 900. as part of the fact that he is so incredibly self-aware, he knows he’s a machine. he accepts he’s a machine. there isn’t any like -- ‘i’m a machine’ with a touch of sadness or regret. he doesn’t wish to be human -- he has no desire to feel or experience human things, or do whatever deviant androids wanted. he doesn’t care about that. it doesn’t interest him in the slightest. and this isn’t because he doesn’t know about feelings or that “how could he know if he doesn’t want them if he hasn’t experienced them” because it’s not like that. 900 has an incredible sense of what things are, what they’d be like -- he got all of this from connor, remember. so 900 isn’t inherently interested in being anything other than a machine, and he holds no misunderstandings about what being a machine entails either.

does that make sense? hold on let me try it this way. because cyberlife tried so hard to make sure that 900′s software had everything, they created an incredibly self-aware android that doesn’t seek humanity because of how well they understand life. 900 doesn’t like or dislike being an android -- he just is. he recognizes that. wanting to be something else doesn’t... compute because it just doesn’t make sense. like why would he want to be human when he’s not? when he can be better and do more? like i can’t even say he’s happy about it because he doesn’t (at first) associate chemical reactions in his system with being emotions because they aren’t. it’s all synthetic.

he is perhaps the most alive an android can get without being alive, honestly.

900 decides that, upon being assigned to work with gavin, that gavin is technically his mission now. as a partner to a detective, but as a partner that is stronger, faster, and can withstand immense damage, he essentially positions himself as a bodyguard for the human. the problem here is that, due to his awareness, his approach to this is.... unorthodox.

900 will let gavin throw a punch at someone who can and will definitely hit back, but he’ll stop gavin from walking into an ambush. he might get gavin a coffee one day without being asked, but then throw the coffee at him the next day when gavin demands one. he has a habit of making sly comments and is known to push buttons and see what he can get away with, testing limits and constantly pressing against the boundaries of what he can do before someone snaps, and then sees if he can go just a little farther. 

900 is very much his own person. he belongs to neither cyberlife nor DPD. he does what he wants when he wants it and how he wants it, and he can, at times, appear very human (albeit one that is obnoxious and at times infuriating). however 900 never lets it be forgotten that he is a machine. he can crush every bone in your body one by one while you’re helpless to it. he can have expressions that are near-humanlike : amused, angry, exasperated. but he will go from lightly smiling to fucking cold eyes and danger just radiating off of him to the point people will actually feel the room lower a few degrees

900 knows he’s a machine. if you even for a moment forget, he will remind you. he has unethically tortured suspects for information, they purposely don’t give 900 a gun at the start because he would get bored and simply shoot whoever they’re investigating and apologize later. he has no qualms about killing, about breaking laws or faces, about doing things the way that he feels like doing them, with or without anyone approving. and if anyone thinks they can stop him, they’re just. good fucking luck.

but the reason he doesn’t do any of this is because he is self-aware enough to know there’s no fucking point to it. his mission is, as he decides, “protect gavin reed” and he will do what it takes for that, which may include punching a suspect or stealing evidence or something, he doesn’t care, but if it serves no true purpose in what 900 is doing, then he consciously decides he’s not going to just.. do it. but the thing is that at any moment he could decide to change his mind. and that’s what makes him so terrifying. he is literally unpredictable.

i ... okay i think that’s what i wanted to say? just as like some added notes, but with gavin, 900 does become.... hmm... softer? he doesn’t soften but he basically claims gavin as his own, like he is assigned to be gavin’s partner but it becomes literally almost a possessive thing. 900 makes gavin his mission, and if anyone gets in the way, they’re fucked. but by attaching himself to a human, he opens himself up to the softer side of being human, so 900 never truly ‘becomes deviant’ because there is never, as i said, a moment where he’s got a red wall that says this isn’t protocol becaaaause he doesn’t have protocol. so there’s never a chance for him to break through it. but he takes care of his partner, makes sure gavin is eating well and sleeping well, makes sure he’s more or less safe, is always in tuned to where gavin is and what gavin is doing, will step in at a moment’s notice if he feels the need. 

it becomes way more.... well, more, if this is a ship with a gavin, but regardless, 900 will have a gentler approach to his interactions with the human he has claimed that will be noticeable. softer tones, less cold eyes, more considerate touches. he’ll listen to gavin (may not always follow directions, but he listens), he’ll defend gavin’s actions, he’ll get angry if something happens to gavin. 900 never explicitly goes deviant, and he never fully accepts that what he feels is.... a real feeling? because he does not fully believe that androids can experience true emotion, so even if he does get angry, or he does feel amused or happy or whatever, it’s based on an extensively coded software that has made him so perfectly able to mimic humanity that it’s basically indecipherable. yes, he cares about gavin in most cases. yes he can feel panic or worry if something happens. but in general, no. he will not feel fear, he is not concerned with death, he can’t experience pain... so.

a last note is that like. this is the reason that he goes by 900. gavin typically calls him ‘nines’ which is only allowed for gavin. but a name is a human thing, and 900 is not and has no desire to be, so he just uses 900. most other people in the DPD also just use 900, sometimes they’ll call him rk which he’s okay with but it’s not his preference. he would’ve allowed gavin to name him if he wanted to but gavin didn’t, so that’s why when gavin begins using nines, that’s what 900 assumes as a name. 900 is comfortable to him, it’s who he is, and he doesn’t desire more than that. 

alright i’m. i’m probably gonna start getting repetitive soon, and a lot of the rest of the emotional aspect is based on 900 being involved with gavin, and thats case by case so it’s can be subject to change, and this post is meant to serve as a general basis for my portrayal of 900. 

[ais-n]

2| and where is the trauma? both hsin and boyd were severely sexually abused. and emilio's illness is always treated as a joke. look Ais, your series has done me so much good between the bad it did. i found i'm gay lmao and i'm grateful for that. i'm grateful that you wrote this ok. but there are things that were offensive, and maybe it was unconscious, since i doubt you wanted to be racist or write a mlm relationship but more like hetero. i wish i could just enjoy the books but my heart breaks

3| idk what the one who questioned that could possibly mean between all the things but thats what i mean. i appreciate you a lot. i hope this didn’t make you feel worse or whatever. but some people really did end up hurt badly after reading icos and im one of them. with all respect, and hope that i didnt disturb you much, farewell.

++++++++++++

Aha I just realized I can put both 2nd and 3rd asks in one! Which is good because, again, the gay comment makes me laugh out loud XD As I said in the other post, thank you again for reaching out, for explaining your concerns, and for the courage you no doubt had to bring forth in order to do so.

I’m getting right into the answers in this one although I will probably ask more questions for clarification on some of the points, as I did on the first one, to make sure I’m not misunderstanding or misinterpreting anything.

More below the cut! :)

EMILIO’S ILLNESS

I’m really sorry but I wasn’t sure what you meant by that. Which illness? How is it treated as a joke? Could you clarify? 

TRAUMA

So this I thought was super interesting that you felt there was no representation of trauma in ICoS, or I assume you also mean its aftereffects. That’s actually one of the few points I feel pretty confident saying the series does portray a lot of, both in some cases the experience of it and in other cases the repercussions. 

One of the reasons both of them are so severely dysfunctional individually and together is because of trauma.

I don’t want to muddy up this post with a huge tangent but someone had asked a few years ago about the result of the Aleixo mission on Boyd, if he was diagnosed with anything, and so on. If you’re interested, I wrote a long ass reply about the psychological effect of sex trafficking on survivors/victims and talked about some of the things you see Boyd do that are a bit reflective of that. More info at https://aisness.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/boyd-aleixo-psychology/

I think there probably would be more information on all this by now, or at least I certainly hope there would be, but at the time of writing Fade that was the sort of research that was available. 

Although, full disclosure, I don’t tend to write characters looking up the DSM symptoms for this or that; I write what feels right for them psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and oftentimes later look it up and realize they would have likely been diagnosed with this or that thing or they could be displaying traits of this or that.

At any rate, with Boyd, his trauma started early on, and pretty much everything about him is a reflection of that in some form. I don’t see trauma as specific to sexual assault; it’s most certainly a result of that but also of many other things. Boyd dealt with a lot of neglect and/or emotional abuse as a child, he was bullied by his peers, and generally speaking it was difficult for him to feel like he belonged anywhere. He was very often judged by others, often negatively, for things completely outside of his control, like his parents, their jobs, his home, the amount of money his family had, his looks, etc. 

If you look at the Mayo Clinic’s list of child abuse, Boyd falls pretty well under emotional abuse and a bit under neglect, and you can especially see the toll that had on his personality by reading the signs and symptoms of emotional abuse in particular:

Loss of self-confidence or self-esteem

Social withdrawal or a loss of interest or enthusiasm

Depression

Avoidance of certain situations, such as refusing to go to school or ride the bus

Desperately seeks affection

And general symptoms:

Withdrawal from friends or usual activities

Depression, anxiety or unusual fears, or a sudden loss of self-confidence

An apparent lack of supervision

Self-harm or attempts at suicide 

If you look at Complex PTSD, and in particular Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) you can see a lot of Hsin:

Attachment – “problems with relationship boundaries, lack of trust, social isolation, difficulty perceiving and responding to others’ emotional states”

Behavioural control – “problems with impulse control, aggression, pathological self-soothing, and sleep problems”

Dissociation – “amnesia, depersonalization, discrete states of consciousness with discrete memories, affect, and functioning, and impaired memory for state-based events”

I wouldn’t say Hsin dissociates quite that extensively but I feel like he does display some dissociative tendencies at times.

Boyd has some too, like

Self-concept – “fragmented and disconnected autobiographical narrative, disturbed body image, low self-esteem, excessive shame, and negative internal working models of self”.

I think in some ways you could argue they both display aspects of:

Affect or emotional regulation – “poor affect regulation, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions and internal states, and difficulties communicating needs, wants, and wishes”

When Boyd was little, he often wondered why other people were treated better than him - why, when he was getting perfect grades, he was going above and beyond whenever possible, when he was trying to be “a good boy” all the time, when he went out of his way to stay quiet and not bother anyone – why, despite all his attempts, other people were celebrate yet he was reviled, even if the people being celebrated were awful people doing awful things. He used to study other people relentlessly, trying to understand what it was about them that made them acceptable and what it was about him that made him not.

That’s why, despite being such an introvert, he’s good at blending in and going undercover; it’s why he can adjust to new situations and, in a way, act - because he always had to monitor and adjust himself his whole life just to feel seen and loved. His dad loved him on his own so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but with the trauma that came from the loss of his dad, and what happened with Lou, plus everything afterward, it really messed everything up.

Boyd was not a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but more of emotional abuse. Well, I guess, I should say for the most part he wasn’t.

Hsin was definitely a victim of childhood sexual abuse and probably physical abuse (that bit I can’t recall for sure). He was raped even as a small child, and that led into different aspects of his life. One reason, for example, he would go berserk and was seen by the Agency as unreliable in cases of him seeing sexual assault was because he saw, in some way, himself in those victims. It was probably his way of protecting people when he hadn’t been protected, himself. 

I can’t speak too much on Hsin’s specific mental health status or repercussions because I didn’t write him so I’m not fully in his mind, but I do know that sort of berserker aspect is part of what came from his sexual abuse and physical abuse and just generally how he grew up. If I recall correctly, a lot of that led into why he was so unstable and dangerous when Emilio first found him; why it took so long to get Hsin to find a way to deal with the violence and aggression and anger in him, in addition to everything else that would have happened regardless of that childhood trauma. Why, too, it was such a huge deal when Boyd was able to earn Hsin’s trust, because he had learned in his life to trust almost no one.

You can see some of the way they both display aspects of C-PTSD as adults as well in the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder#Adults

I should be clear: I am NOT a psychiatrist or psychologist so I’m not suggesting that they would be specifically diagnosed with any of these disorders were they to get official diagnoses. However, the reason I bring it up is to show that a lot of the series reflects the way their coping mechanisms lead them to interact within themselves and with the outside world, all of which is often directly or indirectly tied to trauma.

Why is Boyd so terrified of anyone seeing him without his shirt in the beginning? Trauma. Why is he depressed? Trauma. Why is he suicidal? Trauma. Why does he go out of his way to avoid a certain block? Trauma. I would have to look at specific symptoms of different things but I would guess that you could also tie back some of his instability and his sometimes inconsistent reactions to trauma as well. Sometimes he does things or says things that may seem a bit reckless, or cold, or some other unexpected thing at that time - and a lot of times it’s probably in part related to how he learned to cope with things and what his levels of defensiveness are or his fears are at that moment. But he also has a complete inability to see the good in himself for a long time which also ties back, I would think, to some of the things he experienced growing up/previously.

Boyd is an incredibly unreliable narrator. He spends most of his narration thinking about how awful he is, how he should just die, how he isn’t doing a good enough job, and so forth. Yet, that fails to show the impact of some of his choices and decisions. Boyd was pretty much the first person to treat Hsin like a normal human being, to not see him as a surrogate of anything or anyone, to not have any ulterior motives or expectations of him (no matter how well-intentioned), and to truly gain his trust as a result. Yet, Boyd didn’t really see it that way. He didn’t see how important it was for Hsin that he ended up in his life; he didn’t get why Hsin was exasperated the times Boyd said he (Boyd) should just die, that there was no value to his life. He didn’t believe he could be loved so he couldn’t see it was even a possibility at first. Therefore, he spends a lot of his narration over the series belittling himself and downplaying any of his own achievements while simultaneously rewarding or acknowledging what others around him are doing. Not every moment of his narration, of course, but his default state of self is to think he sucks and others are probably better.

Conversely, Hsin is a confident narrator. He often doesn’t doubt himself, doesn’t care what other people think, and is very sure of himself in a lot of aspects like his physical prowess which, itself, is already above and beyond nearly everyone else. Yet he also learned not to trust or rely on anyone else in his life, so he’s incredibly suspicious of others because that’s how he had to learn to be. So, especially in the beginning of the series, in his narration he tends to be very factual about his own achievements and not shy away from acknowledging the things that are powerful about him (even if he doesn’t always see it as anything that special), while simultaneously seeking out anything untrustworthy, unreliable, incompetent, or unworthy about those around him. His narration tends to point out the flaws of those around him because he learned that if he doesn’t protect himself, he’s vulnerable, and when he’s vulnerable he gets hurt.

The result of that is, if you read their narrations straight as if it’s all perfectly reliable, Boyd seems even more unreliable and Hsin seems even more perfect than they actually are, because their default states of being overlap in a manner which magnifies the flaws in Boyd and the merits in Hsin. 

Both of them learned to be how they were because of how they were raised, what they went through, and more. Same as how they react to various things throughout the series.

I can’t more specifically comment on anything without knowing what in particular you were thinking of when commenting in the ask about trauma and sexual abuse. But I think generally speaking, they already start the series having learned coping mechanisms that work for them based on trauma they already individually experienced. Those coping mechanisms end up oftentimes being challenged and at times destroyed or reworked throughout the course of the series. That is what leads to a lot of their ups and downs as individuals and as a couple; why their story isn’t a straight arc going up but instead derails a lot. And why they both spend the entirety of the series coming to terms with who they are both internally and externally, and what that means for their relationship, and how they can find a way to grow as a person and a significant other. They both ultimately have to work on trust; Boyd has to learn to trust himself, Hsin has to learn to trust others, and they have to learn to trust each other.

The way people deal with trauma is not the same for everyone. Sexual abuse doesn’t result in the same reaction for all people. I’m not sure if maybe one of the things you were thinking is maybe about sexual abuse during the series itself? I already linked something that goes more in depth on Fade so I won’t touch on that book, and I really can’t speak for Hsin because he isn’t my character so I don’t want to misrepresent his thought process as hidden behind narration or actions at different points.

The only other thing I can think of that maybe you’re thinking about is Boyd’s valentine status, and how he doesn’t seem to have overtly strong reactions to anything until Fade. If that’s one aspect of what you were thinking about, part of that is just how Boyd deals with things. He tends to avoid things that are difficult for him or he has difficulty focusing on, and oftentimes shuts down emotionally. 

I think honestly he probably dissociated to some extent during a lot of things; kind of separated his body from his mind and felt like whatever happened, happened. For a lot of the time that he was a valentine early on, he had such little love for himself that regardless of how upsetting anything was, how little he wanted to do certain things, he felt on some level like he deserved it. Some things were probably a subconscious form of self-punishment for being born, for being who he is, for surviving when Lou didn’t, for surviving when his dad didn’t, for never being enough for his mother, for just plain existing. Then as time went on he grew to rely on Hsin and find strength in him. It’s also not like every mission he had was a valentine one, or even that every valentine has to end in anything physical. 

That’s why he was able to find ways of dealing with things in some form, even if he didn’t like it or was uncomfortable at times, until the Aleixo mission. He thought he knew how to handle things; he thought he had found apt coping mechanisms. But that mission tore that all apart and nearly destroyed him. His coping mechanisms didn’t work the way they had and now he had to find a new way to survive, and from there came a lot of his instability and more that you see in Fade and as I mention in that blog post.

But in short, I feel like the majority of the series ends up touching, indirectly or directly, on some form of trauma as experienced currently or in the past by one or more of the main characters, and their resulting actions then drive the plot. That is one thing we were very specific about doing: having the plot adjust to the characters rather than force the characters to adjust to the plot. That’s why Afterimage exists, actually; the original plan was sort of like 3/4 of Evenfall and then kind of jumping into aspects of Fade. But we realized at the end of Evenfall that certain things would occur which would then lead to Afterimage and Afterimage then led into aspects of Interludes, which then led into aspects of right before Fade, which then affected a huge part of Fade itself, which then informed 1/27. We didn’t set out to write a series specifically about trauma, it’s just sort of one of those things that happens if you take two characters who have been treated so cruelly or poorly for so much of their lives, and put them together as any sort of team - but especially a team that becomes a couple, and a couple that becomes all but married.

+ +

Regarding the other stuff, I haven’t had a chance yet to check if you answered my question about the hetero relationship comment, so I can’t comment on that until I know more of what you mean. But I would say that generally speaking, I don’t know that I believe it’s necessarily fair to label anything as strictly “hetero” vs “m/m” vs anything else for a relationship. That brings with it a lot of assumptions of what it means to be not only gay or LGBTQIA+, but also straight. It seems to suggest there is only a single way or a very strict set of ways for a cis male and a cis female to be together both in a relationship and to have sex, and I guess I don’t feel like that’s necessarily reflective of reality. People are very complex and so are their relationships, as well as their sex lives.

I’m not sure how specifically the series ended up hurting you but I’m very sorry you felt hurt by anything. That’s a terrible feeling to have to experience. I hope that in whatever way, however it may work best for you, you have the time and space to reflect and recover and rejuvenate. You, like everyone, deserve it.

And honestly, if that means you have to leave the series completely in your past, never to think about it again, if that’s what’s healthiest for you, I truly wish you are able to do so. Stories are there to connect with other people, to share our thoughts and sometimes help us work our way through our own while reading. No story is worth your mental health being put in question. If it is truly upsetting to you to think about the series, it is absolutely not worth your energy. You are more important than a story will ever be. Everyone is. And I say that despite how much I love and rely on stories to get me through life.

If part of your duress is you like aspects of the writing style but the series itself and its contents upset you, you could try reading some other stuff. I have some things I wrote solo that you can find on my AO3 if you want. But also you can find other writers entirely. Depending on what you’re looking for in a story, and the sort of topics you’ve learned work well for you or don’t work well for you, you should be able to find a ton of great series out there and great authors out there who will leave you with the happier aspects of your reaction to ICoS without anything more detrimental like it sounds happened for you with ICoS.

Regardless, I truly wish you the very best. As I said in the other one, please stay healthy and safe! And, if you’re in a place to manage it, stay happy as well :)

Brightest of blessings to you and yours, my friend!