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ayamturd · 4 years ago

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bisexual│mcyt hc

warnings: small mentions of hate, fluff

prompt: (requested 1 & 2) “Hello uh I saw one of your posts about the dream smp reacting to you coming out so I was wondering if you haven't already done it can you do dream smp reacting to you coming out as bisexual?”

“Hello yamturd so I was wondering if maybe you could do tubbo, Tommy and Ranboo reacting to reader coming out as bisexual or lesbian if you haven't already done it :)”

pairings: irl platonic! dream, ranboo, tommy and tubbo ; c!technoblade

a/n: if i offend or misinterpret anything in this hc, please feel free to message and correct me otherwise. i will always try to correct or delete this post if asked so <33

sending my love to all those who identify as bisexual <33

wc: (1.5k) - m.list

dream -

considering his prideful personality sometimes, you probably wanted to play with his ego and drop subtle hints

not anything too obvious, but enough to make him kick himself when he realizes

though it was admittedly difficult since he plays into the dnf ship so much that he thinks you’re also joking more than half the time

imagine you two were in a voice call one evening and randomly discussing the recent fanon and what would be funny to turn into canon (to mess with the fandom)

you’ve been recently shipped with two other content creators, both of opposing female and male gender, separately and together

“Honestly, I wouldn’t mind hitting that.” “Which one?” “Both.”

He’d laugh, but you didn’t.

“Wait, you’re serious? You actually identify as…?” “Bisexual. Yeah, I’m pretty sure anyway.” “Y/n, that’s amazing.”

takes pride in the fact that you trust him, but would feign being upset that you messed with him for as long as you did

be jokingly offended if he found out someone knew before him

“Wait…” “Yes?” “You told Bad??” “Yeah, he was one of the first.” “W— Why??”

It was your turn to laugh while he gawked in disbelief.

“It’s Bad! Of course I told him.” “… Fair enough.”

hate is a given, and he’ll always be there to support and defend you

he’ll always ask your permission before taking any action, however, because he respects you too much and knows you can fight your own battles

dream is someone will show relentless support, whether that be through words or moral support, he’ll always be there for you

c!technoblade -

i honestly feel like you never officially came out to techno

as you began to recognize yourself as bisexual, you slowly expressed yourself around him more openly to the point where he unconsciously knew

it’d probably would have hit him in the most random moment after months of assuming he knew

imagine you’re in the midst of battle when techno paused entirely with wide eyes

“Y/n!” “What!?” “Are you gay??”

you would tease him when discussing your love life in one-sided conversations with him; him basically choosing to ignore you when you talk to him

“Honestly, Techno, how could you not want to hit that?” “Please, just stop.”

(i’ve written this before but will stand by this that) he truly doesn’t care for your sexuality

you’re a friend, someone he trusts and relies on, he doesn’t need to consider who you’re attracted to since he sees you for your skills and friendship

the only, and only time he is mindful of your sexuality depends on others unnecessary comments about it

the smp is a known judgement free land, but there will always be someone with ignorant opinions that he is always quick to shut down (or kill)

nothing much can be said besides the fact that you’ll always be y/n to him: a loyal friend and someone he would fight the world for

ranboo -

oh sweet ranboo, dear ranboo

considering how openly supportive and kind he naturally is, you didn’t question the idea of telling him

i’d like to imagine that unlike most where you planned or waited to tell, the moment you knew, he would know soon after

imagine you called him before he began his lore stream to hype him up

you both were talking about more mundane things to calm his nerves as people joined when you brought it up

“Oh actually, before you start, I wanted to tell you something.” “Sure, what is it?” “Well, I— I’m Bisexual.” “…You’re tELLING ME THIS WHEN I’M ABOUT TO START MY STREAM??” “Y/n! I’m so happy for you, that’s amazing!”

he’s incredibly patient concerning how you wanted others to know or when you were ready to be completely out

similar to c!techno with the same beliefs you’re still y/n, and nothing has changed besides you coming out as yourself

he’s your go to when days are rough, because he knows how to help you understand you’re still loved as the same y/n and nothing less

“Hey, hey, listen to me. I love you, y/n. We all do, and you’ll never be alone when things get rough, alright?” (love /p)

knows how to silently deal with hate in his chat unless it becomes evident enough to address it (doesn’t want to bring attention to meaningless words until it becomes serious)

ranboo’s your rock and makes show that he’ll never believe anything other than that you deserve love

tommyinnit -

as someone who took pride in defending the LGBTQ+ community, you had no hesitation when coming out to tommy

if any, your reluctance would come from accepting yourself to the point to be open with other people

it’s not as if he didn’t accept you, he could never imagine doing so in the slightest, but he probably wouldn’t know what to say initially

imagine you both were in the midst of playing bedwars together in a recording for a video

he had been busy gathering emeralds while you remained at the base, and the comforting silence gave you the confidence to blindly address it

“Hey Tommy?” “What, y/n? I’m in the middle of something right now.” “Oh, um, I’m pretty sure I’m bisexual.” “…” “…Tommy?” “…” “T— Tommy?”

it’d be dead quiet for a few seconds before you heard the noise of him rustling in realization

“Wait wait wait, you’re serious? You’re bisexual?” “Haha yeah, yeah, I am.” “WHA—!”

he was happy for you, to say the least

tommy loves to joke, and one he loved to make would be your attraction to both genders

you like women? pog!

you like men? a shame, honestly

if you were publicly out, his favorite bit would be to include you in his obnoxious swooning

imagine he was streaming while talking about his love for women

“Boys, honestly, the ladies just can’t resist me.”

The ding of discord notified you entering the call, the sound of your laughter immediately coming through.

“I agree, Tommy, I definitely agree.” “Y/n! You are attracted to women, and I am also attracted to women. You can agree women are amazing, yes?” “I can, Tommy. Women are indeed amazing.” “Good lad!” “Tommy, you do realize I’m not only attracted to w—” “Shush, we don’t speak of that.”

he showed his support by normalizing your sexuality, his acceptance quick and easily integrated into your lives

(this is getting long but—) tommy was well aware he lacked some knowledge when being in the LGBTQ+ community, but openly voiced his ignorance as a sign of awareness itself

he was always quick to correct either himself or others, he refused to accept slander of any type in his streams

would probably try to keep it light heartedly, but scold nonetheless

tommy was your figurative cheerleader, always there to include and uplift you, whether that be through the smallest gestures or loudest cheers

tubbo -

poor tubbo

since he wasn’t the most careful with secrets, you probably withheld telling him till you were ready for most to know

this isn’t to deter anything of not trusting him, he’s still supportive and loving tubbo that wouldn’t dare do anything purposeful against you

if anything, you might have forgotten that he didn’t know when you were casually taking about it within a group

imagine you and Ranboo were trying to get him to sleep one early morning but gave up

you started talking about personal stuff and the topic of your love life came up, specifically the attraction to someone of the same gender

“I don’t know, Ranboo, I mean, I think I like them but at the same time I’m not sure.” “That’s fai—” “Wait, y/n. You’re gay??” “Bisexual, actually.” “WaAA—”

his very sleep deprived state was extremely happy and emotional for you

he’s like the little duckling with a knife, like he loves you completely but will try to hurt anyone that offends you

like tommy, he has no personal knowledge when being in the LGBTQ+ community but will solely learn for your sake

whether you’re younger or not, tubbo never fails to remind you that he looks up to you

he gives his all and won’t hesitate to provide in any way he can if needed

“You matter,” he’ll always say, “you’re important and no one else’s opinion matter.”

is proud to be your friend and expresses his platonic love in full, for you’re you and are so brave to be yourself despite all

choosing not to tag my usual taglist just cause its a headcanon with a specific request <33 (huge ty to @basilly and @inniterhq though for the advice/motivation to finish this)

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ordinaryschmuck · 3 years ago

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Why Samurai Jack is a Fan-Frickin’-Tastic Character

Salutations, random people on the internet who certainly won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

And today, I’d like to introduce you to somebody:

This is Samurai Jack, from the popular Cartoon Network series Samurai Jack. Jack is a rare case. Where most shows would have a cast of main, secondary, and recurring characters of varying sizes, Samurai Jack is a series that mostly follows its titular character on his own. Sure, occasionally, you'll see the Scottsman or Aku making an appearance once in a while. But for ninety-five percent of the series, it's entirely focused on Jack and whatever oddball bounty hunter he's forced to deal with for the next twenty-two minutes. This type of decision can be risky because without quality writing, strictly following the same character week after week could get boring real quick. Thankfully, Samurai Jack is a series that's packed to the brim with incredible writing and direction, making Jack himself a fan-frickin'-tastic character.

How is that possible? Well, let me count the ways.

1. He’s the right type of overpowered

Jack knows almost every fighting style in the world and uses that knowledge to survive every bounty hunter, demon, and/or robot he faces every episode. On paper, this type of character could seem unbelievable given that he's just a mortal man, and even monotonous to know he always wins. But that's the thing: Even though Jack manages to almost always win every fight he's in, it's quickly explained why in the very first episode. Through a montage, we see Jack learning every fighting style from several teachers, each of them helping him prepare for the ultimate battle against Aku, an unspeakable evil. Through the simple act of showing us a few scenes of Jack learning a new skill, it's easy to understand why he's a difficult opponent to beat and easy to believe when he introduces another fighting style we haven't seen him use yet. Plus, while Jack's fighting is formidable, that doesn't make him--

WRONG SHOW! But it's true.

Despite winning every episode, it is never an easy feat. Nearly every battle results in Jack getting beat up and torn apart (Or, his clothes do, anyway). When this happens, it makes the victory feel earned rather than easily given. Take his fight against the beetles in episode three, for example. All of his traps go off without a hitch, and he makes it out while standing upon a pile of his vanquished foes. However, during the fight, his armor got stripped away entirely, and he's now scratched up and covered in robot oil:

That image alone proves that even though he’s winning, it doesn’t come easy for him. That remains a staple throughout most of the series, throwing in a few instances when he temporarily loses only to make his eventual victory all the sweeter. He may be overpowered, but at least it's still entertaining to watch regardless.

2. He adapts quickly

A bit of background information to those who haven't the show (probably should have done this in the beginning, but live and learn, I guess): Jack is an ancient samurai that gets magically teleported to a future where his mortal nemesis rules the world. Now, Jack is forced into an environment vastly different from his own, and in turn, he's forced to deal with a lot of stuff he doesn't know. Most writers would take advantage of this type of predicament to make a ton of fish-out-of-water jokes as a way to poke fun at the idea of a samurai being in a futuristic "utopia" (Or, at least, in Aku's eyes, it's a utopia). Thankfully, the writers avoid that cliche. In fact, if my memory serves me right, there's only one fish-out-of-water joke in the entire series. Which I'm more than grateful for because having a character getting thrown off and confused by the world around him would have gotten old fast. But it's not just being in a future world that Jack quickly gets used to. It's also being in situations he's unfamiliar with. Whether it's learning to fit in with dance-crazed zombies or being turned into a chicken (yes, that happens), it doesn't take too long for Jack to figure out a way to get through his current crisis. It proves that even though Jack is a strong warrior in battle, he's also a strategic one who can't be so easily outsmarted.

3. He plays off of everyone he encounters

Jack, in almost every sense of the word, is a straight man. Most of his humor comes from interacting with the bombastic temperaments of others due to his own behavior being so stoic and calm. The series accomplishes this feat by having the future world filled with colorful personalities, making almost every character the best comedic partner for Jack. Primarily through Aku and the Scottsman, who, as I mentioned before, are the only characters that make regular appearances. These are characters with personalities that clash with Jack's, what with Aku being bombastic and chaotic and the Scottsman being loud and crash. Every time Jack interacts with either of them, comedy almost always follows. A good thing too because while Jack can have his own humorous moments, it's better to pair a straight man with someone insane if you want the laughs to come frequently.

4. He’s still a ton of fun himself!

That being said, Jack is still a riot when he gets to be. By and large, I'd say he has a dry sense of humor, often shining through when he interacts with someone carrying the chaos for the both of them. But, occasionally, there are moments when Jack lets his goofy side out, and it's always funny. They're rare, but that in itself is why they work. Because since Jack always acts so serious in this series, seeing him suddenly break that character results in a laugh because it's something we wouldn't expect from him. If he always acted like this, it wouldn't hit as hard as it would only just be his usual sense of humor. So seeing him smile like an idiot as he's waiting "for the magic to begin" causes me to bust a gut laughing each time.

5. He lives despite tragedy

But not everything is all fun and games for our protagonist.

Jack has one goal in this series: Get back to the past and stop the future of Aku from happening. Several episodes make it clear how strenuous a task this could be, showing Jack briefly losing hope that he'll even complete it. Hell, a good chunk of the final season is him practically given up. He still fights to stop Aku's minions from wreaking havoc, but you can see that the light has left his eyes, and he is more than willing for it to end. But, despite how hard things get and how tragic his life can be, there is always a spark of hope that reminds him what he's fighting for and gives him a second wind to finish it. Even when he's at his lowest point, when everything is seemingly hopeless, Jack will always get back up to defeat Aku, no matter what timeline they're in. It is truly noble and shows just how much of a hero Jack is. In fact--

6. He’s the definition of what a hero should be

At least, to me, he is.

What do I mean? Well, I always believe that a hero is a person who would do everything they can to do the right thing, refusing to let innocent people suffer no matter what the cost. Jack proves it in every episode, frequently the ones where he's inevitably screwed over by his own selflessness. He could easily finish his quest and finally get back to the past, but because it could mean that someone innocent would be badly affected by it, Jack always doubles back to save them. The best example is in the second episode of season two. Jack gets ahold of a fairy that he heard can grant him any wish that he wants, but it's trapped in this ball of energy and will never get out. Jack can just wish to go back to the past and stop Aku once and for all. He only needs to make one simple wish. And what does he wish for? The fairy's freedom.

Because that's who Jack is. He's not the guy who would bargain for the life of another, even if his quest is more important. You can argue all you want that if saving something as inconsequential as the fairy's life is pointless due to tragedies like it being preventable if Jack successfully goes back in time. But that doesn't matter to him. A life is a life, and Jack is not the person to trade it. He's a hero and a damn good one at that.

There are many reasons why Samurai Jack is a fantastic character, but the one above, and the others I've just listed, prove how he is a fan-frickin'-tastic character.

(Sidenote: Does it bother anyone else that, despite five full seasons, we've never known what his real name is? No? Just me? Ok.)

#what i thought about #fan-frickin-tastic characters #samurai jack

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chalkrevelations · 4 years ago

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And finally, here we are, Episode 36 of Word of Honor, and I have some FEELINGS. Let me show you them.

There also will be Episode 37 here, btw, because I’m not gonna do a separate reaction for a three-minute episode, no matter how grateful I am that we got it.

(Spoilers, so if that’s not what you want right now, scroll on by and come back after you’ve watched it. Them.)

Let’s get to the meat of the episode right away: THE HAIRPIN. And Wen Kexing knowing Zhou Zishu would have it, because he’d definitely take it with him if he was going on a suicide mission! Y’all. I really have to yell about this for a minute: That’s how secure WKX has become in his knowledge of what he means to ZZS! After all that time angsting and hiding the truth of his identity and worrying that he’s not worthy of ZZS and that he’d be rejected if ZZS knew the truth about him! But now, WKX has finally reached a point where he understands and knows (zhiji, the one I know) he’s so important to ZZS that ZZS would never ever go off to die without taking his most precious possession, the hairpin that his husband gave him! I can’t. My heart. This is like a declaration, after all that time saying they were zhiji, that WKX finally is able to truly see ZZS as that, to know him in his bones, and all of this is also delivered in the middle of WKX in a strop, irritably chastising his husband as an evil brat for running away from home to get himself killed, with Gong Jun’s little >:( face in full effect, and I am so filled with love for this show and this couple at this point that I have to pause Youtube just so I can roll around on the sofa, clutching at my chest and scaring the cats with my inarticulate noises. This is so good, y’all. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Also, now you know how it feels, WKX, you asshole. Which I suppose is why you even confess that it will would be more painful for the one who survives when if the other dies. And you were prepared to do that to him a second time? I cannot believe you, you asshole. You get to sleep on the ice couch for a month.

And then there’s some Six Cultivation Power mind-melding and what looks to be an INCREDIBLY STUPID and HEARTBREAKING ending that would leave us Burying One of Our Gays, so it’s a good thing Episode 37 (all three minutes of it) exists. It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, here, show. Some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues, including the spottiness of human recall, the possibility (based on the fact they’re still on the mountain in Ep 37) that Chengling never actually saw either of them again to get the full story, and the way Gao Xiaolian basically calls bs on the whole thing. But this is still a gossamer-thin thread on which to hang Ep 37. Ep 37 basically functions as reassurance because of the mere fact of its existence, because they’re clearly both alive, right there in front of your face, regardless of the other fact that it doesn’t actually make any sense, based on Ep 36. It ultimately doesn’t matter if there is no Step 2, because Step 3: Profit! is … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen. No matter how vaguely unsatisfying the lack of Step 2 may be.

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot - queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly just enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands. (I mean, barring anything else, they’re a couple in the original source material, so checkmate, censorship.) So, are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening at the end of Ep 36 - what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling - isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told - by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level - is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? Is Ep 37 canon? Does it matter, when “what is canon” is already so slippery on this show, where you can apparently lip-read something that’s different than what you’re hearing, and it functions as canon because of the mere fact of its existence, because it’s clearly … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen.

Anyway, just some thoughts on all that, which I guess is my own fanwankery work to join up the end of Ep 36 with Ep 37, which was, of course, delightful. No matter how much I might bemoan the lack of Step 2, I had a stupid, dopey grin on my face all the way through Ep 37 and might have even teared up a tiny bit at the very end. You can’t prove anything. Lemme tell you, though, it’s a good idea to have 37 on hand when you run into the brick wall of the end of 36, because while WKX’s willingness to sacrifice himself for love is theoretically great, it is not something I actually want to see come to fruition, given the pall it would cast over the entire joyous experience that the ZZS/WKX relationship is throughout the rest of the show. Sure, there’s always fic, but there’s a heaviness that hangs over the Bury Your Gays trope, and it’s retroactively ruined shows for me before. So THANK YOU, to those of you who hooked me up so I could immediately move on to Ep 37.

What else? Other things:

OK, so, first, I have to get this out of the way: Did we actually already see all of those “flashbacks” we get in the first part of the ep, during the conversation between Zhou Zishu and Jing Beiyuan, when all the political stuff is supposed to be finally falling together to give us the big picture? I would have to go back and scrummage through those eps to be sure, and I’m not going to spend time doing that (yet) when I still need to do some keysmashing about Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing OH MY GOD, but I do feel like some of this was new information, not just stuff that I’d glossed over because it didn’t seem important at the time? If so, not on, show. I will be keeping an eye out for that on re-watch. I am, however, perfectly willing to accept – if it turns out to be true – that you utterly distracted me with the failboats-in-love storyline, to the detriment of my focus on, you know, plot or whatever. It’s happened before. (It’s one of the reasons I need to go back and watch The Untamed again, at some point.)

OMG FAKE KEY! And as ZZS points out, this has been foreshadowed for us from early on, with WKX’s fake Glazed Armors plot. :bangs table with fist: YES. This show is going to reward re-watching SO MUCH.

Duan Pengju, oh my god, this asshole. The look on his face when the Armory didn’t open was so gratifying. Also, ha. I wondered when ZZS was finally going to be done with his shit. In fact, so much gratification in this whole scene. Xie Wang’s face when he realizes WKX double-crossed him – what, did you think you were the only tricksy one in that little alliance, Xie’er? And, holy shit – I cannot believe that Xie’er actually words this as WKX failing him, taking us back around to this theme one more time again. I would maybe feel a little worse for you if you hadn’t been a hairsbreadth away from killing him before ZZS stopped you in the last ep, Xie’er. Also if you hadn’t helped get A-Xiang killed. So I think the fail in this relationship is going both ways. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get the time WKX had to start untangling yourself from the ways your abuser has fucked you up and over.

It once again becomes blindingly clear why ZZS has been my ride-or-die during this whole thing: Under the grumpy, irritable, day-drinking yet somehow eminently practical exterior, he’s actually an idealistic do-gooder who just wants to make the world a better place for people and sacrifice himself for great justice. Never let it be said that I don’t have a type. Also, I mean. Zhang Zhehan’s FACE. Let’s don’t discount the power of that.

Final word: Don’t miss Ep 37. All three minutes of it. They are perhaps the most important three minutes of the entire show.

(I mean, not FINAL final word. I expect to be going back for a re-watch and posting more things, particularly on eps from before I started typing up 1000K-word reactions this first time around.)

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #zhang chengling #ye baiyi?#sure why not #ye baiyi #xie wang #duan pengju #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

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fatesdeepdive · 4 years ago

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Entry 8: Rinkah’s Burning Loins

My Castle

After fully dedicating ourselves to Hoshido, the game finally really begins. We’re given access to a customizable castle in the Astral Plane where our army waits between battles. We can talk to our units, giving them minor stat boosts or new weapons. Right off the bat, we have a farm and spring to give us resources, rooms for Corrin and Lilith, and a Hall of Records.

In Lilith’s spring, we can feed her to make her level up. Different foods affect her stats in different ways. Note that, although Lilith now has stats, she isn’t usable in battle. Other players can invade our Castle through spotpass, which I’ll discuss in a later entry, and Lilith is only usable in those battles.

Lilith

Lilith is a weird squirrel dragon thing that floats around clutching a random ball. She used to be our stable girl and is now our pet. I think she has a crush on Corrin. Her design is unique and cute, I like it. Gameplay wise, she can only use a modified Physic staff. I don’t dislike her personality, but she feels like a throwaway character added at the last minute. She raises a ton of questions that I doubt will ever be answered.

In the Hall of Records, we can see descriptions of all the units we’ll ever recruit, rewatch cutscenes, read unreadable poems, and play around with a relationship tester. The relationship tester is randomized, by the way, which kinda makes it pointless. That said, it told me that Corrin expects betrayal from Rinkah, while Rinkah’s loins are set afire by Corrin. This is now canon, I have decided.

In Corrin’s room, we can change their hairstyle and invite an ally over to chill. I chose Kaze. He complimented Corrin’s piano skills, which she apparently has, then stared at us, blushing, while thanking us for saving him from Garon.

So, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. In the Japanese version you get to rub units while in close up mode. Like Pokemon Amie except...with people. This was removed in the English version. A lot of Fire Emblem fans were pissed, crying about censorship because Nintendo of America had the gall to remove the minigame where you rub Camila’s tiddies while she moans. And I’m going to say a hot take right now: they made the right call. That stuff was weird and indulgent. It was the living embodiment of the fanservice focussed design that plagues modern Fire Emblem games. Good riddance.

Inviting allies to Corrin’s cool sex treehouse boosts our support levels. I suppose it's time I mentioned that. In Fire Emblem games, units form bonds from fighting next to each other, unlocking short conversations that flesh them out as characters. Units also fight together better when they have high supports. Now, here’s the fun thing about supports:

There are more than 600 supports in this game. Not support conversations, support lines, each of which is made up of three or four conversations. And, because God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished, I’m going to read all of them.

Admittedly, I’m not going to unlock all of them. S-Rank conversations result in marriages and each unit only gets one. It’d take a few dozen playthroughs to get all of Corrin’s S-Rank conversations and I don’t hate myself that much, so I’m reading the transcripts from the wiki. I think I’m going to do four supports per Entry; that’ll leave me with a few extra by the time we reach the end, but I’ll just do a support grab bag entry or something.

Before we do supports, let’s finish up improving the castle. I built a weapon shop and a statue of Corrin that boosts her max speed. We are limited on the number of buildings we can build, but that isn’t a big deal yet because the only other option was to build a stave shop.

Support: Corrin/Rinkah

C: Corrin attempts to discuss battle tactics with Rinkah, but Rinkah blows her off and tells her to stop trying to be friends. Rinkah does acknowledge that Corrin’s authority and that Corrin saved her life, but tells the princess leave her alone.

B: Corrin pesters Rinkah until she explains why she’s so aloof. Rinkah explains that, the Flame Tribe keeps a great flame burning in the center of the village to honor the God of Fire. In the past, outsiders have extinguished the fire. One such instance was followed by a volcanic eruption that decimated the tribe. As a rule, the people of the Flame Tribe are wary of outsiders. Rinkah also explains that she’s working for Hoshido because her father commanded her to, much to her chagrin.

A: Rinkah explains that she would have preferred to die an honorable warrior’s death than be captured and resents Corrin for sparing her. Corrin says that she’s glad Rinkah is still alive, because it means Rinkah and her can be friends. Corrin also says that, despite the chaos of war, she believes in fate and its ability to bring people together. Corrin encourages Rinkah to use this opportunity to learn more about the outside world and bring that knowledge home with her. Rinkah begrudgingly agrees.

This is how the conversation will end on my playthrough, but if Corrin has a penis, you can get an S-Rank proposal conversation. I’ll be listing all of these off along with the normal conversations.

S: Rinkah comes to Corrin, blushing, and tells him that he has been a constant reminder of her shame and regret over being captured. But, over time, these feelings were replaced with love. Love that she hated, because Corrin is an outsider. Corrin says that he’s loved Rinkah since the day they met and only told her to be friendly to other people as an excuse to spend time with her. Rinkah states that, from now on, she will remember her capture as the happiest day of her life and the two get married.

Review: I really like this support line. It expands Rinkah’s backstory and culture, ties it into Corrin’s own isolation and belief in fate, and deals with the tumultuous meeting they had in Chapter 2. The confession comes out of nowhere, admittedly, but I do like Rinkah grappling with her mixed feelings of hate and love. Solid support.

Support: Corrin/Jakob

C: Corrin comes to Jakob to ask for a favor. Jakob interrupts her by humorously listing off the things he would do for Corrin. Things like slay dragons for her, which is actually kinda offensive now that I think about it. Corrin begs Jakob to allow her to be independent and Jakob refuses. Corrin explains that she’s his boss and he tells her that servitude is his reason for living. Jakob explains that, when he started working for Corrin, he was incompetent, and her kindness towards him made him indebted to her. The two compromise on the agreement that Jakob will teach Corrin how to make tea. After Corrin leaves, Jakob mumbles to himself that things might get apocalyptic.

B: Corrin repeatedly tries and fails to make a decent cup of tea. Both of them get some funny lines in, with Corrin telling Jakob that she can’t hear him because she’s ignoring him and Jakob saying that, saying that they’ll run out of leaves before Corrin makes decent tea. They meaning the nation in this case. Corrin eventually makes a passable cup, after Jakob secretly adds in sugar.

A: Jakob admits to Corrin that he messed with her tea and she laughs it off, admitting that she knew all along. She apologizes for being stubborn and accepts that she still needs Jakob’s help sometimes. Jakob says that he falls apart without Corrin. Corrin says that the two of them are alike in that way and Jakob literally faints from joy.

S: Jakob is acting more distant than normal. When Corrin asks him about this, he admits that he’s fallen for her and resigns from his duties as butler, because it is improper for him to have feelings for his mistress. Corrin begs him to say because she needs him and admits that she loves him too. The two of them get embarrassed and Corrin fires Jakob, giving him the new job of husband.

Review: This was a hilarious support that really made me appreciate Jakob’s snarky yet loyal personality. He is the perfect butler. The conflict of Corrin wanting to be independent and Jakob wanting to take care of her is a good dynamic that made me appreciate the relationship between these two characters. I do like them more as a platonic couple than a romantic one, but Jakob quitting his job because falling in love with Corrin is improper is a nice character moment.

Support: Corrin/Kaze

C: A villager gives Kaze a bunch of radishes because he’s super hot. And I mean, he is. Kaze apparently doesn’t realize that he’s hot until Corrin explains it to him. Kaze mentions that he dislikes the attention because he isn’t a good person before running off.

B: Corrin asks Kaze to follow her around so she can figure out what’s bothering him. Kaze says no, so Corrin annoys him until he agrees to hang out with him. Then he runs away again.

A: Kaze admits to Corrin that it was his fault that Garon kidnapped her, because when he was a child, he noticed the Nohrian soldiers that killed Sumeragi were in the city but said nothing about it. I don’t know how that makes Corrin’s kidnapping his fault, you’d expect there to be soldiers guarding a king. And the fact that Kaze was there means that there were also Hoshido soldiers, which means there was no reason to be suspicious of the Nohrians. Also, Kaze was a teenager at the oldest, so he should probably get some leeway. Whatever. Kaze apologizes to Corrin and Corrin, in turn, apologizes for making him live with guilt for fifteen years. Corrin also points out that Kaze led her home, meaning that they’re even now. Kaze compares Corrin to Mikoto because of her kindness and pledges to serve Corrin as her loyal retainer.

S: Corrin and Kaze joke around about Corrin’s kidnapping. It’s cute. Corrin mentions that, now that she’s spent so much time offscreen with Kaze, she likes him even more. Kaze blurts out that he loves Corrin, despite being her bodyguard, and the two propose.

Review: I found this chain a bit lacking, to be honest. The first two conversations were filler and the origin for Kaze’s guilt complex is kinda dumb. Kaze’s relationship with Corrin defines him as a character. He is so guilt ridden over her kidnapping that he would betray his country and his family to protect her. Later parts of the game hinge on this relationship. But, three of their four conversations are dull. I do like Kaze’s guilt complex as a concept, and think becoming Corrin’s retainer alongside Jakob and/or Felicia and a way to repent, but it isn’t enough to save this support line.

Support: Kaze/Rinkah

C: Kaze gets a bunch of candy for being hot and shares it with Rinkah, who secretly loves candy.

B: Kaze continues to give Rinkah candy.

A: Kaze continues to give Rinkah candy.

S: Kaze reveals that he’s been giving Rinkah candy because he’s in love with her.

Review: This one was a big let down. The fact that Kaze and Rinkah are introduced together made me think it would be about their capture, but no. It’s just Kaze giving Rinkah candy for four conversations straight. And it’s cute fluff, but it’s nothing more than that. There is something interesting below the surface with Rinkah hiding her love of candy to protect her image, but it’s never really explored.

So, off to a mixed start with the support conversations.

Birthright Chapter 7: A Vow Upheld

Team Corrin heads to a Hoshidan fort where Sakura is tending to wounded soldiers. We are introduced to Sakura’s retainers, Subaki and Hana. Suddenly, the fort is attacked by Nohrian forces. Corrin and Azura point out the ridiculousness of them attacking immediately after they arrived. Sakura freaks out because the fort is being used as a hospital and has no military value. So apparently Nohr is now being evil just to be evil.

Subaki and Hana agree to help Corrin defend the fort and argue over who’s more important to Sakura, much to her annoyance. Subaki and Hana give me a good opportunity to discuss a few interesting things about classes in this game. First off, unlike in most Fire Emblem games, classes are NOT gender-specific, as demonstrated by Subaki being the first male Pegasus Knight in the series. Secondly, the classic Fire Emblem classes were divided between the two nations. Nohr got Mercenaries, Hoshido got Myrmidons. Nohr got Wyvern Riders, Hoshido got Pegasus Knights. Etc. I really like this, it gives the two countries different feels in combat both aesthetically and mechanically. Finally, a lot of Hoshidan classes were renamed to be more Eastern, shown by Hana being a Samurai instead of a Myrmidon, or by Sakura being a Shrine Maiden instead of a Cleric.

Subaki

Subaki is a Sky Knight, this game’s equivalent of a Pegasus Knight. He can fly over terrain and has good speed and resistance, but is decimated by arrows. His personal skill buffs his hit and avoid when he has full health. Design wise, I like how ridiculously smug he looks. Personality wise, he seems over-competitive yet fiercely loyal to Sakura.

Hana

Hana is a Samurai with high speed and skill. Her personal skill damaged nearby enemies when she scores a kill. Her design is fine, if a little bland. Personality wise, she seems over-competitive yet fiercely loyal to Sakura.

Starting with this chapter, we have a prep menu, where we can choose which units to use and rearrange them on the map. We can bring our whole team in with us, so it’s a little pointless, but it's nice. Worth noting that you can have units start in pair up via this menu, unlike in Awakening where you had to pair them up after the battle started.

At the start of the battle, the chapter’s boss, a Cavalier named Silas, shouts out to Corrin that he’s her childhood best friend. She does not remember him even slightly. Okie dokie.

This map is decent. It’s a bit short, but it features a lot of good bottlenecks. The Dragon Veins can be used to open heal tiles, which is a bit pointless because you have two healers. When Silas and Corrin fight, he reiterates that they used to be friends. Corrin says that she can’t remember her past. And that confuses me, because I was under the impression that she got amnesia when she was taken to Nohr, which would have been before she met Silas. Unless he’s lying.

After the battle, Corrin refuses to kill Silas. She interrogates him about why he was so hesitant to attack them and he explains that, when they were children, he helped Corrin sneak out of the walls to have a picnic. The guards tried to execute Silas for this, but Corrin stopped them, because apparently guards listen to small children. Because of this, Silas feels he owes a debt to Corrin.

Question. Why was this random child allowed to play with the super secret hostage princess? Whatever.

Corrin eventually recovers a vague memory of Silas and asks him to join the gang. She explains that Garon is crazy and evil and that’s enough to make him swap sides. Silas is now officially the most sane character in the game. I mean, he should have probably realized this stuff before being sent to destroy a hospital for shits and giggles, but still.

Also, Silas mentions that Corrin’s favorite food is surf and turf. Perhaps this symbolizes how Corrin is stuck between both kingdoms? Or maybe it’s a random throwaway line. You be the judge!

At the end of the chapter, Saizo and a new character named Orochi show up, wounded, and report that Takumi and Ryoma have gone missing. Uh oh.

Team Corrin decide to help search for the missing princes. Sakura decides to come along, despite Corrin and Kaze’s objections. Silas also decides to come along and Saizo points out that he totally could be a spy or traitor. He’s a dick, but he is infinitely smarter than Kaze.

#fire emblem fates #fire emblem birthright #fe14 #fire emblem #hoshido #nohr #corrin fe #kaze fe #corrin x kaze #corrin x rinkah #rinkah fe #rinkah x kaze #silas fe #jakob fe #corrin x jakob #hana fe #subaki fe

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curedeity · 4 years ago

Text

Gasher's Dilemma

Summary: Madoka and her struggle to be happy as support. (I described this to a friend as: I decided to write a fic on the intersection between beyblade, sports, and feminism. My friend laughed so hard they may have died, and I can’t blame them.)

Madoka thinks she used to like battling. Maybe she didn’t love it, but she certainly didn’t hate clashing beys in the arena with someone else. Watching sparks fly had never failed to bring wonder into her childish heart.

And Madoka thinks she used to hate battling.

Madoka had never been very good at battling, if she had to rank herself, she’d say she was middling. She’d known how to put a decent strategy together, and she knew the basics of beybattles, but she was always just off.

She lost a lot.

She remembers once a kid--- she can’t even remember if she knew him--- kicking her bey out of the ring after a loss. He told her to quit battling because she was obviously never going to be any good at it, she didn’t have the stuff for beybattles.

Madoka thinks she cried that day.

Madoka loved her bey, Mad Gasher. She hadn’t made it from scratch, but with the help of her parents. She’d worked on most of its modifications alone, and loved watching her improvements spring to life in the arena.

She still didn’t win much.

The training centers had begun to feel oppressive, it always felt like everyone was watching at her, waiting to laugh at her failure. She felt heavy everytime she entered, like chains were weighing her down.

Madoka decided one day it was best to just focus on her mechanical skills.

She’d nearly forgotten about her old interest in beybattles after a while. Mechanics was just really fulfilling for her. She loved helping out all the bladers that would come to her store, and loved it even more when a little boy had returned and thanked her.

It wasn’t until she met Hikaru that she began to think back on those days she’d used to battle.

Hikaru was a great friend. Madoka hadn’t gotten to know her that well prior to Battle Bladers, but as Hikaru took on a job at the WBBA, Madoka started to see her more and more. They met up for lunch at least once a week, and Hikaru would stop by the shop when she got off early in the evenings and join Madoka, and whoever else was hanging around, for dinner.

Madoka hadn’t had another female friend for years. Most of the bladers who came into her shop were boys, most of the mechanics she met at the WBBA were boys. Everyone she really got a chance to interact in her domain was a boy.

She shouldn’t mind it--- really! It’s not like she disliked her friends, Gingka and Kenta were both great and she loved talking with them. Gingka had so much energy, and Kenta was always eager to learn!

So why had she nearly cried when she got home after her first lunch with Hikaru? Why did Madoka love talking to Hikaru so much, and feel so at ease around her?

Madoka felt terrible--- shouldn’t she appreciate Kenta and Gingka this much?

Madoka felt amazing, and she set up to meet Hikaru again and again.

It was during one of these lunches that Hikaru began to complain about the environment around competitive beyblading.

“It’s a dick club Madoka, honestly,” Hikaru complained, and Madoka almost snorted out the milk she was drinking, Hikaru sighed and laid her chin in her hand, a sparkle of laughter in her eyes. “They were always like you can’t be that good of a blader, you’re just a tiny little girl, girls don’t have any muscle mass. God did it feel amazing to finally get good enough to start kicking their asses.”

“Beyblade is, statistically, overrun by male competitors.” Madoka didn’t need a stats chart to tell her that, she’d been to tournaments, Hikaru had been the only female competitor she’d seen at many of them.

“Mhm, it was rare for me to meet another female opponent. It was disheartening, I would always get shit for being a girl, and there was no one there to support me. Makes sense given the harsh atmosphere, I can’t blame them for not wanting to stay,” Hikaru sighed, and Madoka found herself shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

“It does seem like not the best environment for any girl to feel safe in,” Madoka added in, but her heart was only half in it. What was this pressure she was feeling on herself?

“I remember this one little girl running up to me one day and saying she wanted to be as good a blader as me. I felt really good then, like I had inspired someone. But now, I just…” Hikaru trailed off.

“Feel what?” Madoka prodded, and hated herself for it. She didn’t even want this conversation to continue.

“I feel like I’ve betrayed all those little girls that looked up to me, like I’ve proven all those assholes who talked shit about me right. Look at me, I can’t… I can’t battle anymore.”

Madoka left the cafe that day feeling worse than normal, rather than better.

Madoka was enraptured by Mei Mei. The girl was very powerful and kind, and always seemed happy to see Madoka. Madoka wished they weren’t on different teams, that the tension of who would win didn’t exist, she would’ve loved to get to know the other girl better.

And Madoka was never one to not act on her wishes.

They didn’t leave China immediately after the first round, they still had another two days left. So Madoka set the boys up with some food, a training plan, and yelled a quick goodbye before she set off for Beylin Temple.

Mei Mei welcomed her with open arms and a cup of tea. She was invited into what she believed was Mei Mei’s room, and they sat together as Madoka asked about Wang Hu Zhong.

Apparently they were planning to win the wild card tournament, which was the only path they could take now other than quitting the tournament. Madoka found herself listening entranced as Mei Mei talked about all the new strategies she was coming up with, and the training regimens they would be going through.

“I can’t believe how dedicated you all are, you’re just the sub Mei Mei and yet your training regimen sounds so much harsher than what even Gingka is doing. It's no wonder Wang Hu Zhong is so good if you all hold yourselves to those standards,” Madoka praised the young woman.

“It’s no big deal, we’ve always been this hard-working! It takes constant practice to become the best and live up to everyone’s expectations,” Mei Mei flexed her impressive muscles.

“It seems like all of you have really put the time and effort in to improve,” Madoka nodded.

“We have,” Mei Mei smiled, but Madoka could detect a twinge of sourness in it. A note of discontent. A glint of sadness.

“I wish my team had that amount of dedication, they all love beyblade but can’t seem to focus on any of the training I give them, and their egos always make them clash,” Madoka sighed.

“Your team probably didn’t need to dedicate themselves that much,” Mei Mei mumbled, balling her fists, and Madoka found herself immediately going on the defensive.

“Listen my team may look disorganized but all of them have worked hard to get where they are-” Madoka began, determined not to let anyone minimize the accomplishments of her friends.

“Sorry, wait, that’s not what I meant, honest!” Mei Mei waved her hands in surrender, and Madoka felt herself immediately backing down. Why had she gotten so defensive, Mei Mei was a friend and had only been nice to her. “Most of my team didn’t have to be as dedicated as me either.”

Madoka frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

Mei Mei shifted, but with a look up at Madoka she seemed to calm down, and Madoka found herself giving the other woman a reassuring smile. “It’s, well, you see, it’s pretty obvious I’m the only female trainee in all of Beylin Temple.”

Madoka thought back, and found she couldn’t think of an example to prove Mei Mei wrong. Mei Mei was the only girl she’d seen in this giant temple.

The thought made Madoka want to cry.

“I’ve always had to work really hard to earn my place here. Every time I mess up, it feels like they’ll just kick me out. I have to be perfect to stay, because it feels like I’ve already messed up just for being a girl, so if I mess up again I’ll just be out. No one else has to worry about that, Da Xiang and Chi Yun have never had to feel that way. They don’t even seem to notice I’m the only girl here.” Mei Mei looked close to tears, and Madoka scooted closer so she could rub circles on her back.

“I thought--- I thought I was finally good enough. That I’d finally earned my place here for good. I worked so hard, I practice most nights, and I’m the best at almost any training exercise. I might not be very smart, but I never give up. I thought maybe I’d finally be good enough, but then Chao Xin had to show up and beat me like it was easy. Like, no matter what I did, I still couldn’t measure up to just some random boy.”

Madoka found herself giving Mei Mei both her own and Hiakru’s phone numbers before they left the next day.

Russia sure was a trip for the team. After days on the train, bored out of her mind, Madoka thought that was how the rest of the trip would be. Of course, Masamune had to then go missing, and Madoka had to stay up every night communicating with the WBBA and trying to find him.

Her eyes burned with tiredness, and she wanted to fall asleep for days.

But there were only 2 days remaining in Russia, and she still had so much she wanted to discuss and learn from the Russian team. As much as Madoka was involved with beyblade, her side had always been more mechanical and scientific. She knew she could learn a lot from a team that straddled both her side and the side of her team.

She emailed Aleksei ahead of time, asking if she could come over to talk. He responded nearly immediately with the address of where Lavushka was staying, and Madoka made her way over.

It was a nice enough conversation, once Madoka got Aleksei to stop apologizing. They had a really good system, and Madoka found her head spinning with the amount of scientific knowledge they buried her in.

She got tips on her training plans, and ways to create new moves in regards to the mechanical properties of each bey. They all had unique perspectives on it, and Madoka found herself hanging off every rare word from Nowaguma. His insight on how to create more powerful attacks would be really helpful.

Lera offered to walk her back to the hotel where she was staying when night began to fall. Madoka couldn’t help but feel grateful, she hadn’t been looking forward to being alone in the dark. Her parents had always told her to never be caught outside after the sun set, and Madoka kept that advice buried deep within her instincts.

Madoka hadn’t gotten along with Lera that well when they first met, most likely because Lera had been trying to trick them, but Madoka still felt bad about that.

She also felt bad about disliking how loud the girl was, especially when 3 out of the 4 members of the team she had were even louder boys.

Lera was incredibly intelligent. She talked about rocket physics in such a colloquial manner that even the boys might’ve even been able to understand her. Madoka knew from experience how hard it was to explain stuff simply for other people without as much expertise in the field to understand, and Lera seemed to do it naturally.

“So you think that by changing the bey’s weight like that it would almost get rid of friction?” Madoka wondered.

“Yeah! That’s what I’m going to be testing out first when we reach the labs. I have most of my prior research already completed, and it’s a good topic for my thesis. I might need Aleksei or Nowaguma to agree to test it out for me…” Lera trailed off at the end.

“Do you need them to test it so you can take the data?’ Madoka asked, but knew that wasn’t the answer. She could take her own data perfectly well while in a battle, even though she hadn’t done so in a while.

“Nah, it’s just that to test it out I’d want to try it against a variety of opponents, which means going to a local bey club,” Lera screwed up her face in mockery.

“You don’t like the clubs?” That was fairly obvious, but the question was more serving as a why.

“They’re completely filled with boys, and none of them will take me seriously when I ask them to battle. And if I win they get mad and call it a fluke. It’s like none of them can just take a loss from someone without a dick,” Lera complained. Despite the jokey tone of her voice, Madoka could still hear the undercurrent of anger beneath it. Anger at how society dared to treat her.

Madoka thinks she felt that anger too.

“That does seem to be one of the few similarities in the countries I’ve visited so far. Boys being scared if they even are slightly shown up by a girl that they’ll suddenly lose all their masculinity and never crawl out of the deep pit of despair,” Madoka added in, and found herself remembering the boys who used to mock her when she was a child.

They were always boys. The clubs were always full of boys, and there was no space for her there, no room for her to mess up, because she was already an outsider.

But Madoka had messed up, so much.

“It’s not like I got anything to prove to them though, they can die angry, I mean, look at me! I’m on the Russian team!” Lera did a little twirl and Madoka found herself giggling at the girl’s overdramatics. “I’m never going to be able to do anything to make those boys respect me, or make them happy with me, so why should I try? I know who I am, I’m a scientist, and I’m fucking great at it.”

When they arrived at Madoka’s apartment, she accepted a quick hug from Lera. Maybe from that hug Lera could pass some of the willpower she had to Madoka, because Madoka could use it.

She ordered some flowers for Hikaru that night, and added a little note to them. There are people you will never live up to the expectations of, and people who will accept you just the way you are, because living up to the standards is impossible, you can only live by your own.

Madoka wasn’t very good at writing notes, but from the two hour long call she and Hikaru had the next day, Madoka thinks Hikaru understood.

Madoka had a lot of time to think on the flights they were constantly taking. Even with all the work she was taking on, it couldn’t take up all the time.

Had she given up on battling not because she disliked it, but because the environment was so unwelcoming? Had she let a ton of sexists bully her out of it? Was it her fault? No, of course it wasn’t, so why did she still feel like a failure.

Madoka wanted to love mechanics, wanted to love being support, but how could she when it just seemed to prove what everyone said right? Why did all this have to be so complicated, she just wanted to live her life however she wanted!

And why did it feel like there’d never be a right choice?

Because no matter what she did, the words Lera told her and she told Hikaru were correct. There was no way to live up to their expectations.

Why was that so hard to deal with though?

Wild Fang didn’t have any women on its team. Madoka tried not to feel personally about it, but she couldn’t help but remember when she had watched matches as a little girl, and asked her parents why there weren’t any girls playing.

She wondered if there were little girls at home watching this match and seeing that there was no space for them here.

Madoka didn’t want to be thankful for the injuries her team suffered, but at least they took her mind off this. At least they gave her something else to think about than how much of a failure she might look to other girls watching from home.

Mei Mei texted her at 1 in the morning after her loss saying that she was glad that if she had to lose it was to another woman. At least then one of them could move on.

The match between Excalibur was stressful, and Madoka felt ready to shatter at any moment. Tsubasa had lost control again, and Gingka had battled looking almost as battered as he did in his last match against Kyoya.

Yet they all pulled through the challenge, they all rose to meet it, and came out victorious.

And Madoka had never been able to rise enough to pass the challenge of sexism.

Madoka hoped that Excalibur won the chance to battle Galaxy again, she hoped that Sophie was able to stand on the winners podium, if only to show young women that they could.

If only to show Madoka that she could.

It was afternoon in the hotel they were staying at. Madoka was making a quick lunch for the team. Yu had joined her in the kitchen this time, and Madoka took to teaching him some basics about chopping vegetables and using the stove. She didn’t expect a kid as young as him to be able to do complicated cooking, but she had learned after Kenta that it was worth it to give these children some basics otherwise they’d just live off fast food whenever they were journeying alone.

Tsubasa, Gingka and Masamune were all watching matches on the TV. It was a junior tournament, with some beginners getting their first taste of a proper tournament scene.

Madoka wasn’t paying that much attention to it, but she found herself suddenly doing so at a comment from Masamune.

“Kinda weird that there are no girls in this tournament, huh?” Masamune mentioned as he munched on some popcorn.

Gingka nodded in agreement. “There aren’t many girls at tournaments I suppose, I’ve never really noticed before.”

“I wonder why that is? Maybe not as many like beyblade, or are as good at it, or as competitive. They just aren’t into it I suppose.” Masamune said that so… so… casually! Like he just couldn’t understand why there wouldn’t be any girls in a tournament. Like it was just fun food for thought for him.

Like he just hadn’t suggested that girls didn’t enter tournaments because they just weren’t as good as the boys, like there was something wrong with them.

Madoka couldn’t hear if anyone agreed with him, or if anyone argued. Maybe that was for the best. She was out the door within a second.

Madoka walked, and walked, and she was going nowhere. Was this always how it was? No matter how much she improved, she’d always be stuck right here in her square of being a failure. And why was she a failure when she just wanted to be herself!

She wished she could make it so Mei Mei would never cry again feeling like there was too much pressure on her to be perfect or she’d be kicked out. She wished she could make it so Lera felt safe doing her research rather than only being able to rely on Aleksei and Nowaguma because she couldn’t ask anyone else for help without it being seen as her being unable to carry her own weight. She wished she could make it so Hikaru didn’t feel guilty about having to retire from battling so she could mentally recover.

She wished she could make it so that she felt ok just living as she was.

Madoka didn’t know where she was, but that had been normal for the past few months. Madoka had been travelling so much, not only externally but internally. She felt disconnected from everything she’d thought she was.

She was drifting.

She just needed a safe harbor to dock at, one that could tell her it was ok, one that would tell her she was enough.

That’s when she spotted Excalibur exiting one of the shops. Excalibur, which had Sophie as one of its members.

She was walking over to them before she’d had time to think, before she’d had time to be rational. Sophie was just so regal every time they met. The woman seemed completely confident in her own abilities and skills. She was almost radiant in the comfortability she exuded.

“Oh, hello Madoka,” Wales greeted as she neared them, and the entire team turned to lock their eyes on her. She found herself shriveling a bit inside from their intense glares, of course they wouldn’t be that friendly to her, they were still enemies in the tournament.

But…

Madoka wasn’t a fucking coward, and she wasn’t one to back down once she’d started something. “I was wondering if I could talk to you, Sophie?” She hoped her voice came out loud, confident, like the woman she wanted to talk to, but her voice just sounded small and broken.

“Listen, we’re enemies, we don’t have time to-” Konzern began to lecture her, and Madoka found herself ignoring him. She didn’t actually care what he thought.

“How are you able to be so confident, and, and just keep battling despite the fact you're the only girl there? How do you deal with it and look so unbothered, because it’s obvious to me already that Europe is just the same as everywhere else, so how are you able to keep going?” Was Madoka making sense? Madoka thinks her thoughts had stopped being coherent a long time ago. She stopped understanding things, stopped understanding herself.

A warm hand was laid on her shoulder, and she looked up to see Sophie smiling down at her. It was a soft smile, full of understanding. It was like all the other girls Madoka had met on the way here, the mutual experience they all shared with one another. “There’s a park just a few blocks from here, why don’t we go there so we can talk somewhere less busy?”

The park was quiet, and mostly empty. There were a few joggers running on the paths winding through it, and Madoka could hear the faint laughter of children, but for the most part, she and Sophie were alone.

Sophie led her to a bench and handed Madoka a handkerchief. Madoka couldn’t even argue the gesture, she felt like she might start crying at any moment.

“So then, do you want to tell me about it?” Sophie asked, and Madoka looked into the eyes of this near stranger and found that she trusted her to understand the flurry of emotions that had been building inside of Madoka for weeks, so she let it all out.

She doubted what she was saying made any sense to Sophie, but more and more words just came pouring out. The way she was realizing that her bullying as a child had been influenced by sexism. Her love for mechanics but her guilt at not being more proactive. The things Masamune had said. Her want to be a role model for other girls, but how could she be a role model when she was always in the background?

Madoka told Sophie everything, and Sophie sat and listened, and when she was done, after asking for permission, Sophie reached over and hugged her.

The handkerchief was soaked by the end.

“I think we all feel that way sometimes, as if by not being everything and more that we’re letting someone down. That we’re letting other little girls like we used to be. That’s who we’re trying to live up to the expectations for, that imaginary little girl. But in the end, all we can be is ourselves. That’s how I make it through each battle, each loss, each remark thrown at me. I think that just by being me I’ll inspire someone, because if I wasn’t myself I’d just be lying to all those young girls. I think I can be a role model just the way I am, and maybe one day they’ll be even better role models than me, and more and more girls will be able to flourish in beyblade. I don’t know what the future holds, but in the end all I can be is myself, and hope it’s enough for those girls. Because it’s also the only way I can ever be happy.” Sophie answered Madoka’s questions from so long ago, and Madoka finally felt ready to take those words to heart.

“It’s just, hard, not to try to take any responsibility about the institutions running society. Because I am a part of society, so shouldn’t I work to change and revolutionize it? But you’re right that if I were someone I’m not, I’d just be unhappy,” Madoka sighed.

“I think all women are inspiring just the way they are, doing things that make them happy. I just wish society didn’t make us doubt it, and push us away from what we want.”

All the girls Madoka had met were very inspiring. Hikaru with her determination to continue making others happy. Mei Mei with her pure love for battling and her crazy training. Lera’s incredible scientific genius and confidence in her abilities.

Madoka didn’t want to change a single one of them, they should all get to be happy the way they were.

And Madoka didn’t want to change herself, she wanted to be happy being her.

It was society that had to move over and make way for her.

Sophie ordered a car to help get Madoka back to her hotel. Somehow, Madoka had wandered halfway around the city, and it was starting to get late.

Sophie gave Madoka her number before she went inside, and Madoka found herself smiling as she added another woman to her ever-growing list of friends.

She hesitated a bit before the door to their shared room. She had left her team suddenly, they must be worried about her. But she couldn’t bring herself to regret her decision, not when she had managed to talk to Sophie.

She entered the room quietly, but that still didn’t stop everyone from noticing her entrance. Tsubasa was on the phone with--- that sounded like Hikaru? Gingka and Masamune seemed to be arguing over a map, and Yu had been pacing until he spotted Madoka.

“Madoka! You’re back!” Yu cried as he launched himself into Madoka’s arms. She stumbled backwards as she caught him, bracing herself against the doorway. Madoka may have been small for her age, but carrying around mechanical parts everywhere had made her rather bulky, and she held Yu easily.

“Madoka!” Gingka and Masamune cried at once, coming to hover around her. Tsubasa followed at a more leisurely pace, but Madoka could still see relief flooding his eyes.

“I’m sorry I worried you all?” Madoka managed to get out. They were all so close to her, and looking at her with such a range of emotions. How was she supposed to explain what had happened? And what had happened here?

“We’re just glad you’re back,” Tsubasa said softly, giving her a tiny smile. Madoka returned it gratefully, and put down Yu, who had finally stopped clinging to her.

“Where did you go?” Yu demanded, crossing his arms.

Madoka floundered for a second, but Hikaru on the phone came to her aid. “I’m sure Madoka is tired right now, she can explain what happened whenever she wants to.”

Madoka thanked her and then returned to her room. She needed time to center herself, to figure out how much to tell her team.

After ten minutes a knock sounded at her door, and Madoka figured her time was up and she would have to tell everyone. With a sigh, she pushed herself up her bed, and let them enter. To her surprise though, only Masamune was standing outside the door, holding a tray loaded with food.

“Gingka made the food, the rest of the team is eating around the table right now, but Tsubasa said you might want to be alone. Well--- he also said that I might need to talk to you alone to apologize,” Masamune laughed awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his head, and Madoka led him over to sit on the side of her bed.

“I don’t really understand what happened, but Tsubasa explained to me a bit why my comments were wrong and might’ve hurt you. I really didn’t mean to do that, honestly! I might not understand but you’re a really cool friend Madoka and I wouldn’t do anything on purpose to hurt you,” Masamune apologized.

Madoka… knew all that, deep in her heart. She knew her friends were nice people that would understand and listen to her. They didn’t understand because they’d never had to think about it, not because they were purposefully cruel.

It was nice to be proven that with an apology though.

“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me Masamune,” Madoka began, giving him a kind smile. But she also needed him to understand where he was wrong, because it had hurt. “I just want to tell you why you were wrong.”

“And I’ll listen,” he promised.

So Madoka explained to him how he was blaming women for not being able to handle a hostile environment, and how discouraging and harmful it was to be surrounded by men all the time. She told him about her own experiences, and how his comments had made her feel like she wasn’t doing enough by just being herself.

Masamune wasn’t as good a listener as Sophie, he interrupted a lot, and didn’t seem to understand everything Madoka was saying. But he stayed there and tried, and apologized again when the conversation was over.

Madoka would know her words had made an impact on him just a few months later when she saw him cheer on a little girl in Dungeon Gym. He seemed perfectly focused on making sure she received the support to succeed. He was honestly going a bit overboard… and Madoka loved it.

After the conversation with Masamune, she didn’t really see anyone else for the rest of the night. The next morning, Tsubasa nodded a good morning to her as she started making breakfast, and asked if she was ok. Gingka also apologized to her and asked if she wanted to talk about anything. Yu gave her another quick hug before moving on.

Hikaru called later that night, and stayed up to chat with Madoka as she worked on maintenance for all the beys. The conversation was very relaxed, the silent understanding still existing between them.

“I think I want to try battling again, just for fun, not in competitions,” Madoka mused aloud.

“Well, you got a wide array of friends who’d be eager to be your opponent. And maybe… I’ll battle you someday,” Hikaru responded.

“I’d be honored if that day ever came,” Madoka smiled at the phone, and hoped Hikaru could hear it.

Madoka stayed in contact with all the women she had met, and put them in contact with another too. Lera and Hikaru seemed to have bonded about complaining about their bosses, and Mei Mei and Sophie were constantly passing battling tips.

Madoka loved being a girl. It was like a warm blanket that fit comfortably over her shoulders, like a happy dance in an apartment with low playing music. It just felt right, it felt serene, it felt like who she was.

And she loved working at her shop. She loved helping bladers find the perfect combination of parts and improve their strategies. She loved watching them test out her modifications in the small stadiums they had, and the way occasionally they’d thank her when they left.

And she loved it when a young girl entered her shop asking for repairs to her bey, and Madoka fixed it up, offered some advice, and watched the same girl return again and again, with more girls following her each time as they took the world by storm. She was enough, just being herself, and so were those girls.

#beyblade #beyblade metal fight #beyblade metal fusion #madoka amano #fanfiction #fanfic #gasher's dilemma #girls! i wrote the girls!#anyway here is my promised feminist piece about beyblade i hope you enjoy #i would reccomend reading it on ao3 if you can #i had a lot of fun and emotions while writing this and its very melodramatic #takes place during season 2 #i hope you enjoy

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chidoroki · 4 years ago

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Head empty, pre-TPN season 2 thoughts only.

Normally I don’t even bother with hiding spoilers but since the new season is so close I’ll put everything below a cut (if tumblr cooperates) because I do want anime-onlys to enjoy the season with as little knowledge to what madness is about to happen as possible. This is just a bunch of notes that filled my head over the past couple days.. weeks? A long time.. and if I didn’t write them all down somewhere I wouldn’t stop thinking about them.. so if you understand this whole mess, then kudos to you.

So, here’s your post-season 1/ch37+ spoiler warning.

Demon language:

With Mujika and Sonju making their grand first appearances, I hope actually implement the demon language this time?

The only word spoken in the language in season 1 was the demon god’s name, which was just changed to “Him” (sub) or “The One” (dub), so ignoring it there was fine.

Granted, our demon friends don’t say much in their language during the upcoming arc, aside from this moment in ch48, but I can see the anime passing it off as a mere whisper between the two of them just so they don’t have to worry about it.

I don’t recall any of the GP poachers using the language though.. right? Pretty sure they don’t..

Anyways, all I’m saying is that they better figure something out by the Ayshe shows up way later in future seasons.

Episode count? 24?

Short answer: I don’t think so? Did once, but stuff happened. Anyways..

Season 1 ended in March 2019, which is also when we learned we were getting a second season and once we found later on that S2 was originally going to air in October 2020, I immediately thought we were getting about 24 eps.

I thought with all that time between seasons, 24 eps would be reasonable and that S2 would end at ch101. S1 managed to adapt 37 chapters, so 64 chapters in a season twice as long sound decent enough, right?

By the time we reach ch101, it would give us the demon forest, shelter B06-32, Goldy Pond and the short trip to Cuvitidala. (all of which would make this long wait for s2 sooo worth it btw.)

By this point we learn a bunch about the outside world, Norman being alive, what happened to Phil, and the demon bastard himself.

I bring up ch101 as a stopping point because it’s the last chapter before the two year time skip and.. I honestly can’t see them doing a time skip mid-season?

I mean, they could if they wanted to, I guess? Having everyone age up suddenly between episodes via a montage, a quick summary or even flashbacks of what we missed.. but maybe at the start of a season? Not in the middle.

Right now we know anime original scenes are going to be included into season 2 so I’m kinda hoping that once we do eventually reach the time skip we learn more about the search Emma’s group went on for T7W/golden water/temples.

I counted. If S2 does indeed get this many episodes, ep23 (or 22, if there’s a break in between somewhere or whatever) will land on my birthday and you can bet I’ll be beyond happy

HOWEVER! all the hope I once had about a 24ep season vanished due to the clusterfuck that was 2020. Thanks to the worldwide pandemic, many anime were put on hold and pushed back several months, with TPN airing this month rather than the original October date.

It was a bummer hearing about the delay at first but I never complained about it. I much rather have the studios prioritize their employee’s health over production.

Even if S2 did reach ch101, or even Goldy Pond, they would need to find a ton of new voice actors, and with how the world is working now.. eh, I have some doubts.

Cloverworks also has two other series airing this month aside from TPN so needless to say they’ll be a bit busy, especially if employees are still working from home, social distancing, or however they’re managing to produce these anime.

So, episode count.. 12?

The main reason I have a hard time grasping the idea of another 12ep season at all is because.. I don’t know where it’ll be a decent place for it to stop?

S1 ending at ch37 with the kids escaping? Perfect. You can’t question that decision. But now? When a whole bunch of craziness is about happen? How do you choose another perfect moment to end a season with?

No matter how many anime original scenes they have planned for the demon forest, I believe we’ll at least reach B06-32, which will get us to ch52.

Could they go farther? Sure. Perhaps ending at ch59-60? It would leave us off with Emma & Ray leaving the comfort of the shelter to follow Yuugo into yet another demon infested forest, much like how S1 left off, as the escapees left their once safe, comfortable life into the unknown world.

Or end at ch64? After Emma gets snatched by the poachers? It could work. It would certainly leave everyone wanting more, especially us manga readers because goddamn the GP arc would be SO close!

Perhaps ch74 after seeing Norman alive? Just so it’s not a big darn secret anymore to those who are going into this season blind? (how do people manage to stay anime only? i’m not trying to make anyone feel bad.. i’m just impressed? i caught up to the manga right after s1 because i didn’t have the self control to wait!)

Ending on that chapter would be so bittersweet to me.. because you know what appears in ch75 and it’s literally one of the only things I care about.

S2 preview trailers already teased some of the demon forest scenes I’m most excited about, so the only things left that will truly excite me are Yuugo and that darn outfit. (seriously, whenever we do get to see emma in her gp outfit for the first time, someone better scream at me so i can die from happiness.)

Okay, and all the GP kids too.. especially their trio!

Could they fit the Goldy Pond arc into a 12 episode season along with every other event that came before it? I.. seriously hope not?

Compared to s1, which was very dialogue heavy, GP is about as action packed as we’re gonna get in the near future, and those scenes are going to fly by once they get put into motion.

Quick example (because it was recent and i can’t think of something else atm): the Overhaul arc from My Hero Academia. Off the top my head it was about 40 total ch? That arc took up half of the show’s S4, which was a total 25 eps.

So with the GP ending at ch96, it’ll give us about 20-30 chapters (depending on where you personally see the start of this arc I guess? once yuugo leads the duo through the forest, when emma gets snatched or when the battle actually starts)

If GP were to happen in s2 where there’s 12 episodes.. literally everything would be so fast paced and I don’t want them to rush anything or leave stuff out?

Other options?

It’s very wishful thinking and I would be getting my hopes up for nothing, because I know it won’t happen, but I could possibly see them fitting GP arc if S2 was made up of 18eps?

6 eps for the demon forest, 6 for Goldy pPond, the remaining 6 to accommodate B06-32, Cuvitidala and any other anime original scenes as they wish.

Although fitting about 64 chapters into 12-18 episodes sounds a bit much.. but not really? I seriously have no idea at this point how much story we’re going to cover this season.

Could I perhaps place all my hopes towards a second cour later this year? Like for the summer.. or would I be expecting too much?

This all could’ve been avoided if they just tell us! Seriously, I’ve been thinking about episode count since last year.. and now you have to deal with this mindless chatter of mine.

I’d honestly be okay with another 12ep season though. We waited this long that I’ll just be excited to see all the children again.

Anime-only scenes:

Those 3 days the children spent learning from our demon friends? Yes please! Did you know Emma not only learned how to use a bow and arrow but a freakin’ harpoon as well? Like.. hello?? I must see this!

Perhaps they’ll even adopt some of the extra pages from some of the chapters, like they did in S1 with the flashback of Norman being sick in ep10.

I know this will be such a high hope, but I remember in ch177 how Emma claims that after they escaped, they all remembered how kind Isabella really was, so if they decide to adapt the extras from ch41-42 & ch45, I’ll cry.

And these pages? Cloverworks, please..

I’m literally begging here..

Especially these two! Even though I still doubt we’ll reach Goldy Pond if we get 12eps.. but in the future! Please!

Other random nonsense:

I may or may not get emotional upon seeing Isabella at the very start when she goes to confront Grandma Sarah. If her hair is kept down as it was at the end of S1 then I’ll give the anime staff my sincere thanks.

We only heard 15 seconds of “Identity” and yet it has been living in my head rent free ever since that trailer dropped. I need to hear the full song sooo damn badly, y’all have no idea.

Here’s hoping they don’t cut out the inner monologues again. At this moment I don’t remember any specific ones from the demon forest I want to see but I’m sure they’re present.

I’m ready to die at every cute Chris moment they give us.. and this entire scene where the kids scold Ray.

Literally every scene with Emma & Ray. They’re my top 2 favorites from this series okay? Of course I’m going to fangirl over them. (they already showed the hug in one of the trailers and i damn near cried)

If we see him, (which i’m sure we will, but i still have tiny some doubts) I hope they give Yuugo a fantastic voice actor.

Also, his nicknames for everyone!! Literally everything about that man I’m hyped for.

Again, very doubtful we’ll get GP in a 12ep season, but whenever that arc decides to grace us with its presence, “63194” better play on full blast when ch92-93 gets animated.

Speaking of music, while I’m completely excited to hear the new OST that Obata has in store for us (thank god he’s doing this season again btw!), I hope we hear some of those unused tracks from the first season, specifically “Their Own Thoughts.”

Every time Emma mentions their future, their goals or how her family will always be together, I’ll cry. (thanks demon god and your stupid reward)

Yes I’ll be doing those reaction posts (if you follow me i’m sure you’ve seen them by now) after every new episode as I do with other series I watch.. once I survive the usual long day at work, avoiding anything TPN related so I can watch in peace and quiet when I finally get home.. damn it, im already so anxious, help.

#the promised neverland #chidoroki used chatter

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mcrmadness · 4 years ago

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I’m just wondering about ADHD again and how the doctors here say that there’s no need for testing me for ADHD because I had “no signs of ADHD in my childhood”. Well, I was born in 1991. The whole terminology and the knowledge over ADHD was different back then.

I was talking about this with my mom a couple of days ago and she said that I had troubles with homework - not that I would have not understood them, I just had such a hard time focusing on them. She said that she constantly had to remind me that I need to focus on the homework and not draw doodles or do other stuff. She sais she asked even from the school how deal with a child who cannot focus on their homework and from school they just said “Make sure the table is completely empty so there is no distractions.” but my mom told them “Do you really think that helps? All they need is a piece or paper and a pencil.” and those were the tools I had - my school books and pencil. I didn’t need distractions on the table in order to get distracted from homework.

She then also said that back then no one even talked about ADHD. It was still known as MBD aka Minimal Brain Dysfunction Syndrome and since I was not “stupid” and definitely did not show signs of learning/developmental disabilities - in fact I was learning faster than other kids - there was no need to worry about this syndrome. (Nowadays it’s apparently removed from the Finnish list but can still be used as an umbrella term for things like ADHD etc.)

I was trying to google this term now, to understand when was the term replaced by “ADHD”. I only found that this was done in the US already in the late 80s but I could not find anything about Finland, but I know for sure that what comes to things like mental disorders and neurodiversity, Finland has always been running late when compared to e.g. the US... I could only find some sort of Finnish ontology and thesaurus website and it says that the article about MBD was created in 1986, but the article about ADHD only in 2000. That would mean I was 9 years old (and my social anxiety and selective mutism were starting to really grow), and ADHD was still considered very much the “disorder of hyperactive boys”. This website does not even know the term ADD so I have no clue when did they start using it for the first time (in Finland). I just know that my sister got the diagnose along with an Asperger’s Syndrome somewhere in the mid 2000s. Now I’m starting to feel like I want to go find some old books about psychiatry just to see when did they start talking about ADHD and ADD in Finland and how did they describe it as BEFORE they discovered it exists also in girls (and since I’m afab, I most likely have the inattentive version), because this is just driving me so crazy.

I just... I don’t know. I just feel stupid because why is it me who needs to read about the history of psychiatry? Shouldn’t it be the psychiatrists doing so? But I do wonder what would he say if I went to him and really said that “no wonder they never suspected AD(H)D in me as a child when the term literally did not exists in Finland yet”. I just feel like I need to start writing down something like a book about my experiences. Collect EVERYTHING I can find that I have written over the past 15 years in the internet and copypaste them into a file and print this out to him. My brain just empties itself when I’m supposed to talk to a doctor but then I just face these things in everydaylife 24/7. And he just wants to give me antidepressants for anxiety. Okay, he did offer me occupational therapy too but I am afraid that it will just... kill my creativity again. I mean, look at my “timetable” for one week if we think I’d have a random person visit me once a week, let’s say e.g. on Tuesdays:

Monday: Nothing - the resting day after weekend aka no way I’m gonna get anything done. Know that there will be occupational therapy next day - don’t get anything done because mentally trying to prepare yourself for that. Tuesday: Hypothetical occupational therapy. Not possible to get anything done beforehand. Afterwards you’re so tired and the day is done so just sit around the flat and feel like going crazy from bored but be unable to do anything because TIRED. Wednesday: Nothing - the resting day after the therapy. The next day is a grocery store day. Start mentally preparing for that. Can’t do shit because of that. Thursday: Grocery store day. Can’t do shit before or after. Before because can’t start anything in case unable to stop in time - and when having to force a hyperfocus to stop when it’s not stopped on its own, it makes me so irritable and absent minded because can’t think of anything else but that one thing I was hyperfocusing on. Friday: Nothing - rest day after grocery store day. Mentally prepare for the weekend on which I usually always visit my parents on both days. They live in the same city, just less than 2km away but I still can’t start anything before that really, and I come back home so late I won’t be able to do much. Weekend: Visit parents on both days.

And then repeat. So when am I gonna draw? Edit videos? Write? I always do the creative things at night because PEACE and because my brain just works better at nighttime - ALWAYS has. I even found a diary entry I had written when I was 13 or 14 and I had been fighting with my parents because I always did my homework so late and my dad didn’t understand that, and I was then screaming in my diary that they just don’t understand that I am not ABLE to do my homework earlier than in the evening/at night, it’s just not possible to do them right after school.

Already now as I have about 3-4 free days in a week, sometimes even 5, I feel like I need more free time from my free time. I’m constantly thinking about how I want to do this and that, like I want to draw, write, edit videos, write... they are on the top of my mind 24/7 but still it takes weeks or months to get anything started. I just wrote about this yesterday that I feel like I have two moods: either too little time AND energy or too much time but a plenty of energy. There’s no in between. Now I am lucky to have too much time for myself but it also means I have all the time in my hands so I can always procrastinate and do everything the next day because I have time. Which means I won’t do shit, because I have no deadlines, and I start doing those things only when everything lines up perfectly. It’s never a decision to take my sketchbook and start drawing. It’s more of an impulse - I just feel like now it’s the day for drawing and suddenly find myself holding the papers and pencils in my hand.

Same happens with chores, chores just never make me feel good unlike doing one of these fun things. Oh and chores are also something that will make it hard to do the fun things because I kinda... don’t let myself start doing the fun things if I have the not-so-fun things undone. Which means again procrastinating and postponing something like dishes for days. I am not sure where have I got this mentality. Because like... wouldn’t it be a lot smarter to let myself to draw instead when I KNOW I can’t start doing the dishes, instead of punishing myself with “no washing dishes, so no drawing either”? Because as a punishment it does nothing. It does not motivate me with the dishes. They will be there for days or weeks anyway and they will be done only when I get that impulse to finally do them. Or, usually it’s not an impulse even. It’s just me needing food and in order to get food, I need to cook and in order to cook, I need clean pots and pans and in order to get those, well, I need to do the dishes.

I think this mentality partially comes from my school time. I aways knew how to prioritise my homework so that I get them done the most efficiently I could. Which meant that I always made the less-interesting homework first and the homework from subjects I liked, the last. I did this because when I started with the stuff I had harder time focusing on, it made it easier to focus on the interesting stuff. If I had started with the interesting stuff, I’d have had a lot less concentration and energy left for the less interesting homework and the chances of understanding a word of what I read would have been very minimal.

I still pretty much use this with everything I do - work first, fun later. I guess for neurotypicals this is not a big deal and probably something they all do, but my brain really wants to do the fun first and the work never. (By work for myself I mean things like chores etc. When I was actually working, it actually went: work first, fun never - because I was so tired after work I could not do anything that involved brains.) If I start with the fun, I literally will never do the work part. So I have to have the work first, even when it means I will procrastinate with EVERYTHING else too. But that is the only way to get it done at least at some point. It’s just that I feel like my life is nothing but work. I always have to shower, do the dishes, clean the kitchen table or start cooking. (Let alone the rest of the stuff like cleaning the HOME.) It’s a neverending worksite. I barely have time for fun because I don’t let myself to do that because the work is not done yet. But it just... never ends.

I think the reason why I hate chores is because no matter how many times I do them, I still always have to do them again soon. I shower, but I need to shower again in a few days. So it feels like it’s a waste of energy and time! Why to shower now when I have to do that after a couple of days anyway??? I do the dishes but there they will be again in a few days as I keep eating from them! Washing a plate after every use is also not an option - then “it’s just one plate” so it’s easy to put it in the sink because it’s not a big deal to wash it with other plates after a couple of days. Until it’s been 2 weeks and there’s again the rest of my plates in there and I hate my life again because I never remember how much washing the dishes also makes my back hurt but I need clean utensils because food.

But when I create something or play a video game, there is always a finish line and once you get past that, you don’t need to start over UNLESS you want to! When I draw something and it’s finished, it will stay like that! It’s not going anywhere, it won’t fade, I don’t need to draw it ever again if I don’t want to! So it’s not waste of my time, it’s something that will last almost forever. And I love the dopamine rush I get when I look at a finished product, but I don’t have the dopamine rush when I look at my cabinet with clean plates because I know they won’t stay like that forever. They won’t stay like that even for a few days. And that literally kills my motivation with every chore I need to do.

#mcrmadness' deep thoughts #adhd #adhd inattentive #long post

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myhauntedsalem · 4 years ago

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10 Terrifying True Ouija Board Stories

1. Ask Zander

Oh Lord. I was about twelve when a friend and I were playing Ask Zandar (a board game with an electronic wizard that makes sounds and talks) when the batteries died. I tried to find replacements but with no luck.

So my amazing friend says “hey that Ouija board could be fun! Let us play and become possessed by demonic entities for all time”…or something along those lines.

We’re going along and asking questions, pushing the little eye around and having a grand old time. Until I say “if something is there, prove yourself”. THE MOTHERFUCKING NO BATTERY ASK ZANDAR WIZARD SAYS “Dun dun dun, you win!”. I flipped that board, tossed it in the trash, and absolutely refuse to have one in my house again.

2. Obviously Possessed

We were goofing off in a neighbor’s house playing with the Ouija board, and we asked a “demon” to talk to us (shut up, I know.) Five minutes into our “conversation”, the girl next to me vomited then fell off her stool and bashed her head on the counter. We called her mom and she took her to the doctor. She came to school the next day (with a huge knot and bruise on her head) and said the doctor said he didn’t know what caused it but she was fine, although she said she still felt a little funny. It was most likely unrelated, but I haven’t touched a Ouija board since, nor have I hung out with that girl since she is obviously possessed by a demon.

3. Night Time Visitor

The night we played, something came through and was calling me horrible names – I thought it was my friend doing it so I made my younger brother try it with me and it was most def not her, my brother was 7 and didn’t know about those words or how to spell them. I asked it to do something to prove it was real and nothing happened… fast forward to next morning, we were all sitting in the family room, watching TV when our fireplace (which we were not using), literally exploded into flames. We were all freaked out and swore we’d never use the Ouija again but, it didn’t matter, the door was opened.

After that, I had many episodes of sleep paralysis, things in my room would move on their own, something would come in my room and sit on my bed while I slept, I could feel it and see the depression in the bed.

4. The Gun Shot

Yeah. Went to this house that burned down with a whole family inside with 2 of my friends at 1 am. It was a still night, no wind or anything. We were in my truck doing the Ouija and it started to get mean, so we stopped, then it sounded like someone shot a large gun outside the truck window, and it felt like a huge gust of wind blew over us because the truck rocked, and then we all started freaking out. I tried to start the truck, and it wouldn’t go.

Then, we did it again at a friend’s house, one of the 2 people there with me the first time, and we were in the basement. Shit started getting weird again so we went to turn the lights on, and they wouldn’t turn on, and the basement door locked. None of us ever did it again.

I don’t even believe in that kind of stuff, but it was really creepy.

5. KILL!

I’ll never forget. I was 13 and my three friends and I wanted to try the Ouija board. It was the middle of the day, so we went into my friend’s walk-in closet where it was dark and we brought flashlights. We were just playing around. Eventually this “spirit” named Michael came on and we starting talking to it. Of course each of us starts joking that someone is making it move. But the more we started talking to Michael, the more it was apparent that none of us were pushing the navigator around. It was really creepy, but fascinating, too. One of my friends asked the spirit where it was in the present moment. It started to spell C-L-O-S when one friend hit the navigator off the board, started freaking out and screamed, “Closet! He was spelling closet!!” We were spooked, but in a fun way. The friend who freaked out wanted to stop, but we insisted that we keep on talking to Michael as we at least had to say goodbye and close out the session. We got the navigator back on the board and said we were sorry for interrupting him. He was not happy. He said to not do it again. Then for some stupid reason I asked Michael what was he going to do in the closet with us. It started to spell K-I-L and then the same friend threw the navigator off the board again and started screaming, “KILL! He’s going to kill us!!” and ran out of the closet. We all got really freaked out and ran out too. We didn’t close out the session so there was an argument between those of us who felt we needed to go back in and say goodbye so Michael would be sent away, and those of us who refused to ever touch the Ouija board again. We ended up not going back in and I had nightmares about Michael following me around and wanting me dead.

6. Look In The Shower

In seventh grade, my friends and I went over to “Mary’s” house intent on playing with her mom’s Ouija board that night. None of us had played with one before. Mary’s mom was an extremely spiritual person who believed in energies, witchcraft, stuff like that. Before we used the board, Mary warned us that her mom would be really pissed if she found out that we were playing with it because Ouija boards can attract bad spirits into the home. With full knowledge of this, we decided to proceed anyway. This Ouija board was not like the average Ouija board you had ever seen. Along with the usual characteristics (the alphabet, “yes”, “no”, “goodbye”), there was an entire array of symbols and signs that were all arranged in a circle. This was some seriously intricate stuff.

We started just goofing around and “communicating” with random spirits here and there until we finally met one that had us in tears the entire sleepless night. First, we asked the spirit if it was a man or a woman, to which he replied “M-A-N”. Then we asked how he was killed: “M-U-R-D-E-R”. That freaked us out only a little bit but we were mostly excited. All of a sudden, before we even asked another question, the glass goes to the eyeball symbol, then spells out “I-N”, and goes to the water symbol. We didn’t have a clue what that meant. It wasn’t too scary until the spirit spelled out “S-H-O-W-E-R” and my best friend realized that the spirit was trying to get us to look into the shower.

We froze.

I’ve never been so scared in my entire life, especially sitting directly in front of the bathroom with the shower curtain all the way closed, faced in my direction. We all screamed and promised on our friendships that we had not moved it ourselves (very important promise). I felt like I was being watched and my friends thought so too. It was only 4 of us and I believe with all my heart that none of them had moved it because we were all too nervous to do anything.

I’ll never use a Ouija board again because of how crazy and intense that night was. I understand that people say Ouija boards are controlled by your subconscious but f**k that. I know I felt something in that room with us. I know it was dangerous.

7. Get The Boy!

My friend had mentioned that she had one, so I asked her to pull the board out so I could check it out. At first she said no, but then agreed to do it as long as she didn’t have to participate. After she had the board set up I asked “Is there anyone in here”…. Nothing. So, being a dumb teenager I said “If anything is in here and not talking, you’re a coward”. The board was put away after that.

Fast forward about a week later and have me sleeping upstairs on my couch. I wake up on a stereotypical “Stormy Night”. Thunder and lightning, wind and rain..the works. I look around to see why I woke up and couldn’t see a thing, and decide to try and fall back asleep. After laying there for about 30s I hear from downstairs “Get the boy” in a very raspy, wispy voice. I open my eyes and listen… Nothing. Start to go back to sleep…”GET THE BOY”, it was MUCH louder this time. Then my downstairs door SLAMS shut. I freak the F*ck out because nobody slept down there and we had no drafts.

Nothing really happened after that… I learned my lesson.

8. Are You For Real?

A lady I worked with brought one in to play around with one day. We messed with it and didn’t really think it was doing anything weird or moving on its own. So my coworker goes to lunch and leaves me all alone at the store. I didn’t have any customers so I went to the back where the board was. I put just my index finger on it very lightly and said, “are you for real?” That thing moved straight up to yes on its own! I ran out of the back room freaking out. Never touched one since.

9. Answers

A few friends and I mucked around with ouija boards a lot as teenagers. It had always been harmless fun. One night we were “speaking” with a young boy called Niall who had told us he had been murdered by his father. We “spoke” with him for a while and then got bored of the conversation, “left”, and eventually tried again. We started to speak with someone we assumed was an elderly lady, when actually it turned out it was Niall again. Someone must have asked “what do you want?” because the ouija pointer spelt out “Satisfy my requests” and then continuously spelt “answers” over and over again until we freaked out and just abandoned everything: the board, the house, the street.

I have never touched a Ouija board since. Early last year, a few of us got together again (having all gone our separate ways since high school) and we brought that night up – and everyone swore again that they hadn’t moved anything on purpose that night. Of course, someone could still be lying, or we could have inadvertently been moving the pointer without realizing, but just remembering the force of the pointer moving so rapidly – and what it spelt out – freaked me out enough not to want to mess with it again… just in case.

10. The Eagle

One of my best experiences involved talking with a spirit of air, which happened back when I believed only in the mental aspect of magic, and thought that the ‘spirits’ I was talking to were were just parts of my psyche. To test this I asked the spirit to show some kind of sign of its existence, which I did not expect to manifest. When I asked this a huge eagle (birds being part of an air spirit’s domain) landed right outside my window, stared at me, like, really stared into my eyes, looked down at the board and flew away. Maybe it was coincidence, but I closed down the communication, did a Rose Cross Banishing ritual and noped the fuck away from magic for a while. Good Times.

#10 Terrifying True Ouija Board Stories #shared stories #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits

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imastrangebean · 4 years ago

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taz things ive been meaning to write down

ok so The Adventure Zone is a blessing to this world as are the McElroys in general

idk where i was going with that theyre just great

ANYWAYS

something that always lowkey bothered me about balance was the slight inconsistencies that arose from the fact that the story wasnt completely fleshed out until like halfway through crystal kingdom

dont get me wrong i love every little detail about taz but my brain always has to read too much into things and so ive overanalyzed a lot of the things from the beginning and i figured id share it

spoilers btw

1. Merle has gaps in his memory where he’ll accidentally remember things the Voidfish took away from him at random moments in time.

This is something I saw on another post, and now I cant unsee it

There are several moments where Clint has made some sort of goof that alludes to something that ends up happening later on. Of course, mechanically, this couldn’t have actually been planned, but I doubt any of these were. It’s just a nice little coincidence to tie up the story.

For example, when Merle asks to talk while they’re walking in (I believe it was) Wave Echo Cave, he phrases it in a way to make it sound like they’ve known each other for a while when they’d supposedly just met. (”I just feel like we’ve grown apart.”) Another time, in Crystal Kingdom, when Noelle was explaining what Liches were, Clint joked and said something along the lines of “Well I have some close friends that are liches.” (Lup and Barry) He is also the one to step in when Taako almost succumbs to the Gaia Sash, and he asserts his dominance in an unconventional but successful manner.

2. The reason THB can handle the relics is because they helped create them.

This one is pretty straightforward, but I don’t know if they actually said it in the podcast.

3. Lucretia talked about the Umbra-Staff.

Going back and relistening to the podcast caused me to realize a couple of things. This is where I’m talking about the inconsistencies; the first two were just random headcanons I thought I’d jot down.

When Taako brings the Umbra-Staff to the Bureau of Balance headquarters, Lucretia tells him to bring it to Leon who finds the Umbra-Staff in his book. There was only ever one Umbra-Staff made, as was revealed in The Stolen Century, since Lup only needed one. The Umbra-Staff was also an original creation, so there would be no reason for there to be copies of it unless one of the seven birds tried to replicate it, and Lup is probably the only one who would be able to match it exactly. As a result, it can be assumed that Leon’s book was somehow factually incorrect. It says in his book that the Umbra-Staff is one of many, not one of a kind; not to mention the fact that it was in his book at all. The seven birds kept a low profile on Faerun before Lucretia and Fisher turned everything upside down, so there’s no logical reason as to why anyone but the seven of them would know about the Umbra-Staff. That would mean that one of them wrote Leon’s book, and, considering where it ended up and its off-putting misinformation, it was almost definitely Lucretia. She likely put the Umbra-Staff in his book as a way to honor Lup or in hopes that she would return, identifiable by her unconventional wand, but she probably pretended there were multiple in an attempt to keep suspicions from arising as to where this one-of-a-kind object no one has heard about came from.

4. Lucretia was teaching Davenport how to talk.

As we all know, Davenport lost the ability to say anything but his name after Fisher erased his memories. This means that he didn’t learn how to talk until sometime after joining the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. He did, however, learn how to speak before the century-long mission; this is shown when he talks in front of the crowd at the assembly-type event that was arranged to celebrate the beginning of the mission. Even so, Lucretia erased the IPRE and, subsequentially, Davenport’s ability to communicate.

She probably didn’t realize that would happen, as he probably learned to speak before meeting her, and she probably felt guilty. That would explain why she kept him so close to her side, so she could protect and nurture him. He’d acted as somewhat a fatherly figure in the group, (though he was still their friend, and he did some reckless stuff; don’t get me wrong) and Lucretia would’ve felt the need to repay him. She would’ve had to start teaching him to speak sometime between the original erasure of everyone’s memories and the arrival of THB. The reason I say this is because, while Davenport is known for only ever saying his name, he starts out saying more than just that. It doesn’t last long, but he does communicate in concise sentences for his first few interactions with THB. The only way that would be possible would be if he were being coached by someone, and that someone would’ve had to be Lucretia. Lucretia likely stopped once she saw Taako, Magnus, and Merle, as she probably decided to then focus her efforts solely on channeling the relics and the light of creation into the shielding spell.

Another interesting thing I’ve seen about that is something that I personally accept as a headcanon:

Magnus, upon gaining the knowledge that Davenport can only say his name, decides to prank Davenport by scaring him and saying “Magnus!” to mimic Davenport in a sense. However, when he does, Davenport reflexively jumps and responds with “Dammit, Magnus, stop doing that!” They then both get confused, and Davenport immediately goes back to being unable to talk.

anyways thats a lot of typing im probably gonna lay down now

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nessamaurice · 5 years ago

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Simple Ch. 1 (Loki x F!Reader)

Masterlist

Summary: Tony and the Avengers are in desperate need of something like a “babysitter” to have an eye on Loki and teach him “how to human”. He decided to stay on Midgard over the dungeons of Asgard as punishment for his deeds in New York. That’s where you swoop in. A simple receptionist at the Avengers compound. You have to share an apartment in the compound with Loki and damn, he’s a really tough nut. With your open and kind character it seems that you are slowly cracking his shell. But suddenly things are getting twists that will change your life and your relationships there irreversibly.

Story rating: M

Chapter trigger warnings: n/a

Words: 1984

"We need someone totally random." Tony broke the silence in the room. Every gaze was on him now. "Not someone with any special training, crazy gifts or hyper specialized knowledge."

"Why?" Steve simply asked.

"Your brother", Tony said turning to Thor and pointing at him, "has an enormous ego. If he has to stay here, we got to get him... let's say humbled. He will stay here in the compound. He is even willing to cooperate, so I guess we won't need shackles. At least not all the time. We just need someone reliable staying in the same room with him. Like, a babysitter. Someone simple, responsible from the neighbourhood who you would trust to look after your children because you know she'll just tuck them into bed asap and spend a nice evening watching Netflix or reading books while eating chips."

"You think it should be a woman?" Natasha mentioned.

"Did I say she? Ah yes, I did. Probably because when I think of next-door-babysitters I automatically think of girls. Women. Sorry." Tony immediately corrected himself as he noticed the raised eyebrow of Natasha.

"Couldn't it be that he would try to... I don't know... something like to trick a woman to do what he wants? Is he... um..." Bruce struggled to speak his mind.

"You mean like a seducer to women?" Thor assumed, followed by an amused little laugh. "No do not worry about that matter. I have known him my whole life and playing such games with women was never in his interest, even if it would have been useful to his plans. And I would say a woman would be best, he mostly behaves more controlled and civilized towards women in charge than to men."

"Alrighty then!" Tony clapped his hands to end this meeting that almost seemed like it would never end. With everybody feeling relieved to have come to a solution, the tension in the room ebbed away.

"Barton", Tony addressed to the agent in the corner of the room, "We need someone trustworthy. A woman. Someone staying away from drama. A at least somehow balanced one. And she will have to move to the compound for quite a while, so sort out every woman having responsibilities at home or such. The best would be someone who already works for me, check all our employees first, maybe we are lucky."

Clint simply nodded and left the room, but not without grabbing a big mug of coffee on the leave. Everyone headed to the door, but Thor caught Tony by grabbing his arm and stopping him. He waited a second until all the other Avengers were gone.

"Thank you, Stark. It is very generous and honorable of you and of Midgard to offer my errant brother a second chance after all what he did to your realm. There is clearly good in him. Buried under mischief and lies but somewhere it is. Maybe a simple person is all he needs to learn that 'simple' is nothing bad. It is hard for him to deal with his banishment from his home but it was his own choice and he preferred this over the dungeons of our palace. It took him quite a while to make this decision."

"Yeah. It's okay. No one likes to have a pissed-off brother being kept in the basement." Tony said, patting Thor on the shoulder while leaving the room.

***

With one hand you fumbled for your alarm clock to put in on snooze while hiding under the blanket. Sleep drunk you tried to get your brain working as a little wave of panic shot through you. Turning over to your clock you silently cursed into your pillow and pushed yourself up. You already wanted to get up 10 minutes ago but pressed snooze once too often. Again. You speeded up your morning routine a little to catch the lost minutes you sacrificed to Morpheus.

"This day's gonna be crap." You mumbled to yourself while entering the compound and shuffling over to the reception.

"Sweets, turn your bitch face off, you're at work."

The voice of your coworker Jackie (but you'd rather address her as your best friend than coworker) ripped you out of your thoughts.

"Hey Babe. Sorry." You gave her your poorest apology smile.

"Pressed snooze too often again, huh?" She tried to hold back a broad smile while you walked around the giant reception desk, heavy eye-rolling.

"Shut up. Tea's ready?"

"Do we know us since yesterday?" She pouty answered, handing you your favorite mug. You snatched it almost too energetically from her hand, inhaling the steam rising from it and closing your eyes.

"Aw, yeah. Much better." You put it on the desk and went to the back to hang your coat. Walking by you caught your own glance in the mirror, stopped and returned to it to check your appearance. You fixed some loose strands of hair and spotted your septum piercing. Cursing at yourself that you forgot to take it out once again you turned it up into your nose to hide it. If you'd take it out right now you would just lose it, like the other 4 piercings before. Pulling on the collar of your shirt and fiddling on your chocker necklace you quickly checked yourself over again and stepped outside to the reception desk. You were so lucky that you and your colleagues came to the glorious arrangement that you were in charge of the visit-reservation-referring-emails and wouldn't have to answer phone calls. Every time you heard the melodic ringing it sent a little jolt through your guts but were relieved the same moment, knowing that it was not your task to answer it. You never knew why phone calls put you in such a state but you didn't really bother to find out. You went to sit down on your office chair, totally focused on your steaming mug that stood there longing for your cold hands to get warmed up by its heat but stopped mid-motion and turned your head to the left. Your eyes wandered the spacious entrance hall. Since there were still 10 minutes before the Avengers compound opened up to visitors, press and business the only light was the natural dim dawn falling in through the huge window front. You almost jumped a little as the lighting was turned on, as always on time.

"Everything alright, Sweet Pea?" Your friend appeared from behind you, making you jump a little again.

"What? Oh yeah. Sorry. I thought there was something. Getting a little paranoid after a week of holiday at home." You laughed at her. As you finally sat down you couldn't resist to look over your shoulder again and search the enormous hall. It wasn't helpful that you had that feeling of being watched since almost 3 weeks now. At first you didn't take it very serious. Your workplace was permanently full of people and CCTV. But the feeling deep down in your stomach grew bigger each day. In the end you were so happy to eventually have a week all on your own. You spent it most of the time at home, doing all the things you wanted to do for a long time. You took some art classes in portraying persons, read 2 books, listened to music constantly, ordered too much stuff from Amazon because you had so much time browsing stuff you didn't need, even could get yourself to take some walks in the nearby park and enjoy the autumn colours. But, much to your dismay, that feeling of being followed by something or someone didn't cease. You spoke to your therapist at your monthly meeting about this last week. She said not to take it too serious but that you'll come back to that point next month.

You softly shook your head to get rid of the thoughts and put your bag on the floor beneath your desk with a loud thud. Jackie turned her head and looked at you, then at your bag.

"What the hell is in there? Thor's hammer?"

You tried to bat her hand away as she grabbed your bag and opened it. Her gaze rose in played shock to meet your eyes. She pulled a giant book out of it without interrupting her steady look at you. You couldn't help but blush, roll your eyes and laugh.

"Oh. My. God. Didn't they have a bigger book than this? Why are you dragging this monster with you to work?" She looked at the title and stuttered a little while reading it out loud, a little too loud since your other colleagues turned their heads, poorly hiding their smiles.

"Antiquitates Iudaicae" She looked at you again, one brow raised. "Seriously?"

You couldn't hold back your snort at that look on her face. Hectically you nabbed your stuff from her hands. "Shut up bitch, that's for my lunch break."

Unfortunately that explanation didn't help much to stop her amusement because now she helplessly had to cover her mouth while she laughed into her hands.

"Damn girl, you crazy."

"I know. You love that."

"Of course I do. Borrow me that book when you're through. And if I lost my sight by that time, you can read it to me when your granny glasses will be strong enough."

Smiling you turned to your computer and turned it on. It was about time, your small interruption cost you precious minutes to start your working routine before the doors opened to all the amazed visitors, screaming school groups and snoopy press people.

While waiting for your computer to come to live (which took quite longer than you'd expect when working for a technology genius), Jackie slapped your shoulder.

"Oh I totally forgot to fill you in on the latest gossip. When you were on holiday, a cute guy from accounting sat down next to me during lunch and asked where you are."

"Whaaaat? You're kidding."

"Nah-ah! He said he wanted to say hi to you after he saw you several times in the cafeteria and thought you would show up just a little later. He feared you may have just chucked your job after two more days without seeing you. I tell you, he has the bluest eyes I've ever seen. If I were unwed, I'd totally be jealous. I promised not to tell you. Ha ha. As if I would not tell you."

"Aw come on. Now I will never be able to relax during lunch time again." You batted her arm with the back of your hand.

"Oh Sweets, you're much too old to be nervous around men."

"Uhm, you know who you talking to, right?"

Her only answer was just a vicious smile as she turned to the already ringing phone.

The morning went on as usual. Tons of emails, greeting visitors and groups, handing forms over the counter, smiling, tea drinking.

Your stomach began to rumble just as your break was due. You checked yourself in the mirror again, this time a bit more precisely. As usual, you weren't too pleased with what you saw. Catching that thought, you very silently said to yourself "But I love myself anyway" just as your therapist taught you. You hoped that one day you'd eventually believe your own words, but somehow they helped you relax a bit, though. You stretched your back, grabbed your stuff and headed to the cafeteria. As you saw its entrance, you felt blood rushing to your cheeks and cursed yourself for blushing so easily. But before you could step through the door, someone stopped you by softly grabbing your arm.

You turned around to say something but no sound left your open mouth as you looked up into the face of Clint Barton.

"Miss Y/N, I'm sorry to stop you from getting your lunch, but Mr. Stark would like to speak to you."

#loki #loki x reader #loki x female reader #fanfiction #loki fiction #marvel fan fiction #marvel #slow burn #loki slow burn #fanfic simple

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rigelmejo · 4 years ago

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random notes about drawbacks/positives of mia:

My biggest incompatibility with the massive immersion approach (and in general a lot of good modern study methods) is I hate flashcards. It’s not that I dislike them as a concept - I am just super bad at concentrating on them. I am NOT good at doing the following: focusing on small bits of information, studying for short periods but Regularly, Reviewing Regularly, and sometimes I just genuinely can’t retain small concentrated reading sentences to the point it takes me 10 MINUTES a flashcard in order to understand/study it. As you can imagine, that last part is NOT efficient, and ends up making flashcards even slower for me as a study method then they’re ever meant to be. I can’t control when I’m unable to figure out/concentrate on small bits of information, so some months flashcards work as intended for me (I can review 10-20 in 10 minutes), but other months suddenly 10 flashcards takes me an hour. So I am not good at sticking to flashcards consistently - once the hard months hit, I don’t keep up with reviews, because they suddenly take way more time then they ‘should.’ However, when I can focus I try to make up the difference - and do 20-100 cards a day while I have the ability to do flashcards at a regular pace. On the upside, I’m proof you can do the SRS flashcard reviews, in a very chaotic way, and still get benefits. How I’ve done flashcards: cram 300-1000 in a couple weeks to a month, including whatever reviews I need. 2nd month - review if I can still focus, and do a few new cards (like 5-15 a day at most). By the time I can’t focus, most words are relatively-known and I only would need to review them once a week or every few weeks - if I COULD focus on reviews. However, I only actually review once a month or less at this point - and I’ll only review 20ish cards usually in that rare instance, unless I have a good day. I will not usually review the majority of those cards until my next burst of can-focus-on-flashcards usually in 2-3 more months. I have done all my flashcards THIS INCONSISTENTLY, and I’ve still retained a lot of what I studied. What I think helps: immersing in other content when you can’t do flashcards, so that you’re often still being exposed to words you studied (so they’re easier to not forget even though you stopped doing flashcards). So yeah... inconsistent flashcards, and some immersion exposure, and I was able to keep some of the gains SRS flashcards generally provide people. I can’t do flashcards consistently, and I usually have to do them in big-chunks then abandon them, but they do help me boost up how much I know when I DO use them.

More regarding my incompatibility with mia. The big thing is: I’m just not a flashcard person, not a consistent person. I have to vary what I’m doing regularly, or I burn out/struggle to focus. When I was in school, I would do the following to study: take notes/focus intently when being taught, then read the textbook/materials if I needed more help. Before tests, or to ‘review’ I would reread my notes from beginning to end of what I needed to remember. This would refresh my memory. If I still forgot/did not understand anything, I’d pinpoint that info in the book/ask my teacher/go online etc and try to just focus most of my ‘harder’ studying on those parts I was struggling with. Usually just taking notes/focusing, then reviewing everything in bulk right before I needed it (so maybe once every few weeks), was enough. When I couldn’t take notes, I would instead skim through book chapter summaries, and rewatch lecture videos if there was a digital copy - focusing most on the videos when info I forgot/sounded like key information was mentioned. Basically - notes, summaries, short cheat sheets, were all my friends. For tests like math and physics, I would read my notes AND make mini-sheets of all key formulas and how to do them/what I needed for them (usually I already had a sheet I just kept adding to over time/rereading). I could not use flashcards back then - I couldn’t focus, not consistently, not the way they’re meant to be used. It took me too long to even make them to warrant them being useful to me (I take SO long to make flashcards, its also a focus issues - also why when I do SRS flashcards I usually just grab some premade deck cause it keeps me MOVING and actually STUDYING instead of getting frozen in a task).

This has always been my go-to study method. When I started chinese, this is how I learned 400 characters/basic words. I bought a reference book with mnemonics, and would make myself read through it (as if it were notes I took). Occasionally I’d flip through old pages again, just to see if I still recognized old stuff, but mostly I just kept moving forward. So like - flip back every couple weeks to skim old pages, but read forward every day. I got through half the book before I burned out (because... reference books with their short entries of information? a lot like flashcards in structure, except thankfully I don’t regularly review afterwards like I would with flashcards). It still took me 10-20 minutes for 10 entries in the book, but unlike flashcards it was a one-time task. When I got done, I had learned them pretty well - and I didn’t do anything to review them. They were just reviewed with immersion naturally, and eventually when I started studying common words these characters came up again (so if I forgot any, I relearned them easier then). This approach is roughly how I learned all words not in my premade-flashcard decks. I’ll read a chinese book - just start reading through it, looking up words I want to learn. I don’t review them, I don’t look them up again. Sometimes, maybe once a month, I’ll reread an old chapter to see what progress I’ve made - and then lookup unknown words then, as review since I didn’t remember them the first time. It sucks in a way... that SRS flashcard style study methods just.... do not work consistently for me. They are still beneficial, because in short month bursts I can quickly learn 500-1000 things with SRS (which is faster than some classes introduce words). But overall I have to rely on other study methods. Which for me feel inconsistent in progress since I can’t measure it as easy lol! Even with no SRS, doing ‘bursts’ of this read-intensively note-like materials, then very occasionally skim old material again, does seem to work out okay for me. Back when I learned to read french, I did no flashcards. I looked up a common words list (and used my class vocabulary lists). I read through them once. Before tests (if for class), or every few weeks, I re-read/skimmed the word lists. By 3-4 months I learned the first 500 words. Then, since french has a lot of ‘similar’ sort of words, I just sort of dived into reading and then picked up words mostly that way - just checking a word list every month or so to review known words and make sure I didn’t have some big gap of missing vocabulary.

So I guess: for me the biggest positive in mia is the suggestion to immerse often, frequently, and with a variety of materials. So that you practice different skills, learn a variety of things - and so you can move to something you like, if you get bored/unable to focus on one specific type of material. With mia you can read novels for a month, then get sick of reading and just watch shows/listen to podcasts when you walk, then if you’re burnt out from that you can just browse social media and check out fanfics/manhua/friends posts in the language for a few days or weeks before picking up longer materials again. The point is just to find ways to immerse, and do it. Simple advice. SUPER simple advice. But incredibly useful - every single time I add more immersion, I notice a boost in my comprehension. I notice actual improvement over time. I can’t pinpoint ‘why’ it happens, so unfortunately I’m not sure which complementary study methods or ways of immersing are helping me precisely with improvement in which skills. But I can tell that I am improving. I would 100% agree that immersing more is worth trying, at any language learning stage, as much as you want to. I immersed in the first months in both french and chinese, and I did much better than with japanese (where I did not immerse for 2 years and so my level stayed A1 beginner for like 2 years...). My French last time it was tested was around B1, which is fine since I just wanted to read and guess where my skills are closer to A2 and dragging it down? (Yes. Yes of course its speaking ability, of course). My chinese as far as I can pinpoint it is around HSK 4, as far as material I can easily read/listen to, as far as the practice tests I can take online. (Which, again, I’d self evaluate and say my comprehension is at HSK 4 or higher - I definitely can rely on good ability to guess meanings with hanzi and my comfort following grammar easily to boost comprehension a bit higher, but my speaking/writing is lower and I definitely only feel totally comfortable discussing topics that are manageable at HSK 3 - and my production grammar-wise is understandable but SO full of ‘this is the wrong way, use this instead’ which I’m working on...). So like... I got much farther in a year with each language I immersed in - even with the limited immersion I do actually do! So more immersion - better. While I’m on the topic of immersion: if you like reading, read often and early. I am better off for telling myself “its not hard to read” and just diving in the deep end. Was it hard? ahahaha yes. ;w; But, I realize if I’d put off reading until say HSK 4 or HSK 5 knowledge in chinese, reading would be EVEN HARDER because I’d be so much worse at quickly reading through grammar/gathering context clues. Reading is a mix of actual reading skill, and vocab. I built up a lot of the actual reading skill by starting to try to read super early. So now my main struggle is generally just lack of vocabulary - and since I understand all surrounding grammar very well, its easier for me to roughly-guess at unknown words function and still follow the gist of what’s going on. Reading early also means, for words and hanzi I DO already know, I learned to recognize the many contexts/phrases they show up in and the various words they combine into earlier. So again, when I’m looking at a new text the hardest words are new vocab made of ALL unknown hanzi - if I know one hanzi in the word, it’s something I can often approximately guess the meaning of especially when I understand the entire rest of the sentence. If a new word is spelled with all known hanzi, I can look it up once or twice and generally remember it very fast - since its connected to what I already know. If I had waited to read until I’d learned more vocab, I would have less of a reading skill foundation to rely on right now. And based on what I’ve read of at least some people’s experiences on chinese-forums.com, many readers will go through a STEEP uncomfortable period when starting to read chinese. Something vocab does not totally mitigate. I think it just takes many hours, of the reading skills getting less and less hard, and then eventually things get more comfortable. There is also the issue of ‘comprehensible’ reading material - depending on your tolerance for ambiguity, chinese can be painfully incomprehensible for a long time. Generally people feel comfortable once they comprehend 98% of a material. But in chinese, even once you learn thousands of vocab, depending on your reading skills and abilities to ‘guess from context clues’, you will not be at 98% yet. Even if you can guess from context clues, that isn’t solid comprehension its still ambiguously understood material. So to get used to reading chinese as a learner, you have to start getting used to how it feels to read stuff only 80% comprehensible. Only 90% comprehensible. And if you get good and learn a lot of vocab and grammar and understand it better when you see it - 95%. Which is still not the range of ‘comfort’ yet. The quicker you learn to not be stressed by the ambiguity, the less painful reading becomes. And the more tolerable it is, the more you can read, and the quicker you can learn more, and the quicker you’ll REACH 95% to 98% comprehensibility. But if its so painful you refuse to keep reading, to keep using reading to push comprehensibility up... it is going to be a long way until you hit 98%... Graded readers are great, and give you stepping stones to transition this experience. Graded readers are MADE to be 98% comprehensible at different learning levels, so they will FEEL comfortable. And if they do feel uncomfortable (because you don’t have high enough comprehension), then they will at least drag your comprehension up - and still be more tolerable than the alternative of even LESS comprehensible native speaker chinese language materials. Basically though... find a way to force yourself through the harder ‘intolerable’ early parts. It happens whether you know 500 words or 2000. So you’ll have to do it eventually. I get demotivated if I’ve ‘studied a lot and still understand nothing’ so my foolish self dived off the deep end at 500 words, then at 1000, then at 1500, then at 2000. Cause I kept trying to read, being frustrated at its difficulty and stopping after a few weeks, then trying again once I’d learned more! But wow did that early trying pay off. Now that I DO know more words, if nothing else the comparison of how NICE it feels to read now in comparison to in the past, motivates me a ton. If I just started reading recently, and all I knew was it felt ‘this hard’ then I might want to give up. But like... when I started, and knew 500 words, my graded readers were PAINFUL. Genuinely intimidating. Once I pushed through one? They felt easy as pie, and graded readers at that vocab-level felt so easy they got boring. Now I find graded HSK 4 material and usually read through it super fast or don’t even bother. So I can 1. read more comfortably. And 2. because I’ve BUILT up a higher tolerance to ‘ambiguity discomfort’ I can allow myself to read harder materials if I do want to - because I can still TELL it feels easier than it used to.

Finally, about MIA the study method as a concept. So... either because the site is long and people don’t like to finish reading, or maybe the writer is not good at summaries - but people often get confused about how to do it. Particular detail questions about how to do ‘this specific suggested activity’ make sense. But there’s a lot of people who ask “do I just turn on the language shows, and?? How do I learn?” Which, fair enough. So, as I understand it, here’s a summary: You want to learn a language. Find yourself a grammar guide - a free website, a book, whatever. Read the summary/guide, or skim it, whatever gives you a ‘preview’ of the language’s structure and what you’ll be getting used to over time. You will use this guide to reference later in the future, whenever grammar in stuff you see confuses you. You can use multiple guides later to reference. Right now, just zoom through a guide and get a general sense of the language you’re abut to learn. You can also wait to do this step until later, whenever you want. The sooner you do it, the sooner grammar will be less mysterious to you. Find yourself a pronunciation guide. Go through it, you don’t have to be a perfectionist about ANYTHING you do before or after this. Just go through, listen to it all, try to notice how its different from your own language. Notice if there’s any major differences like tones, sounds or patterns your own language doesn’t have. You don’t need to memorize, you’re just becoming aware that these aspects exists and are different. Again, this is to get you used to the language you’re about to dive into. This should probably be done early on. Look up some info about the writing system, if it is different from your own language’s. You will probably find some explanation introductory articles for beginners. If there’s any explanations about how it works, or why it’s like it is, read through it. This will help you understand the system better. You don’t need to memorize - although you may want to save a couple hundred common words, or a copy of all the letters, or a copy of a couple hundred common characters, or a copy of the radicals that combine to make characters. Read over this copied info a few times every once in a while, as you’ll see these things a TON once you start immersing. You find yourself a premade deck of SRS flashcards (use Memrise app, Anki program/website, some alternative) of common words in that language - ideally in sentences, but single-words work if that’s all you can find. Ideally with audio - but again, whatever you can find. You may also find an SRS deck of characters (like Heisig Remember the Kanji)/writing system specific info, if you want, to go through that deck early on to help you more with recognizing the writing system as you encounter it. Whatever decks you get, you will study those for 10-30 minutes a day. You can start doing this from day 1. (Or be like me and be inconsistent about it - just try to keep progressing forward and learning new material, even if you don’t always study. For me it was better always to move onto new stuff, instead of review, if I only had time to do one out of the two things.) Find yourself stuff to immerse with - shows, stories, audios, comics, social media, whatever. You will try to immerse every day, and try to immerse as much as you enjoy. Do this from day 1. When immersing: use either the language you are studying’s subtitles or else none at all. When watching/listening - look up words as desired, mainly though focus on context and trying to understand as much of the gist of what’s going on as you can. Over time you will pick things up. For reading - look up words as desired, and in the beginning you may look up a TON of words because you need to look up at least enough to follow the Bare Minimum Gist of What The Main Plot is. You NEED to understand at least basic context, with whatever your immersion material is, in order to learn new words from context. So: you might start with reading simple graded readers. You might use shows/books/audio of things you’ve already experienced in english, so the context is clearer to you. You might read summaries in english ahead of time. If you need more context in order to use immersion to learn any new things - then go ahead and give yourself more context. Immersion will feel difficult at first, the joy is watching you start to just ‘naturally’ pick up more. Audio immersion - for some of this, you do not need to attempt to ‘understand the gist of the plot’, you can just use it to attempt to pick out all the specific words in the language, the language’s rhythm, and get used to the language. If you’re only using an audio to learn the sounds of a language, you can probably use it as ‘background sound’ while doing other daily things, since it won’t require as constant focus as it would if you were trying to catch every single word you knew as you listened. There you go. You’re all set. Do this for a year and see where your progress is at. Quit doing this if you aren’t seeing some improvements, since if that’s the case a different study method may be better for you. Don’t do this method if you don’t like it - whatever gets you to study, is the right methods for you. No point doing something that doesn’t work for you. Eventually, as you make progress, you will decide on goals and notice mistakes/shortcomings in your skills. When that happens, add additional study materials/tasks as needed to focus specifically on those things as desired. For example - if you notice your pronunciation sucks, you may start using audio-focused flashcards, or go through a pronunciation guide again more carefully-thoroughly this time. Or - you realize your writing is bad, so you go through a grammar guide again and do the exercises, and get language partners and write to them regularly so that you get corrections. Eventually, you finish a common word flashcard deck - find a new deck, or make one, with new words you want to learn or need to based on your goals. The massive immersion approach is a basic plan of immerse-while-paying-attention+study new words/review words regularly, it doesn’t include every single thing you might do or want to do.

Anyway, mm. tldr: massive immersion approach suggests doing immersion of all kinds, from day 1. I couldn’t agree more, every time I add more immersion when studying a language it helps so significantly and over time. however, mia also has half of it’s study method based on SRS flashcards - if you are not a flashcard person like me, my alternative study ‘method’ above works. It’s not perfect, its probably not as effective. But it works if you can’t focus on SRS flashcards reliably. Finally, I summarize mia a little.

#rant #study method #mia #mass immersion approach

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semi-anonyme · 4 years ago

Text

November 3, 2020

12:05pm

I woke up at 7:00am today and I knew a few things: 1.) I would buy a Vitamix and begin to make smoothies every day 2.) I would stop holding onto the past 3.) It would be my last entry on this tumblr

Today, it is Election Day. I am very much hoping Joe Biden will win, not just for my sanity but for everyone’s sanity, for a little hope in humanity’s fight against the allure of anti-intellectualism, scapegoating, its growing tolerance of hate.

I remember the last election day, or rather, the evening. We all thought Hillary would win uneventfully. I remember my colleague dipping out of work early to go to the Javits Center to celebrate her victory. I remember watching in disbelief from my basement computer, walking upstairs with my eyes wide and jaw dropped. “Are you watching the news right now Mike?” “Yeah, Trump is in the lead. It looks like he’s about to win Pennsylvania (or was it Michigan? Or Wisconsin?)” I walked to bed in disgust, woke up in disgust, confirmed my disgust.

There was not one conversation I heard on the train or in the street that day that didn’t involve Trump. That night, I drank alone at Three Diamond Door. I still remember the buff black dude sitting in the corner downing Bell’s Two Hearted IPAs.

Anyway, election day 2020. I’m going out to vote in about 2 hours. I got today off. Thanks, progressive companies.

I’ve had a lot of internal discussions with myself on here, published them as blog posts. I have timestamps to remember them by, I’m glad. In the past ~8 months since the pandemic began, I’ve gone back to a lot of my entries -- oh, this is what it was like in the beginning in March. Oh yes, May, I was indeed watching a lot of K-Dramas, it was getting hotter. Ahhh yes, I did learn a lot about not having the city as my crutch.

Just in general, on this blog, on the countless loose leaf papers in my journal, I’ve had these battles about meaning. This blog pre-dates seeing Jody my therapist, who I’ve been seeing faithfully for over 1.5 years now.

I could go on. The point I’m making rn in this last entry is this -- all that stuff is in the past, it was important, I internalized it. Now it’s time to move on. I’m glad this exists, these 450 entries exist, they exist with a purpose. But now? I know who I am, what I want to be.

I have no dilemma of engineering vs artistry. Now that I’ve been away from loud bars, I have no FOMO about the nightlife. It’s kinda just time to start from scratch, this knowledge.

I just created a new tumblr, domo-knows. I’ll likely have a companion YouTube channel in the future. Anyway, a few and somewhat ambiguous bullets for myself since, you know, this blog was always just for me.

ON THINGS I’M LEAVING BEHIND ACTIONS 1. Random drinking. Today, I’m going to buy an Other Half Finback IPAs, pop them open around 8pm and start watching election results. I’ve gone into detail before about drinking, but just to sum it up, drinking alcohol is the one thing I can say captures how complex and funny it is being a human -- how we use it socially, justify it, cling onto it, how it becomes tangled up in our highest achievements and our most shameful insecurities. I’ve consumed alcohol for these various reasons in my life:

a.) I was avoiding doing something difficult b.) I didn’t want to be alone in my room, and preferred the loud chatter of conversations and music at a cramped bar c.) I did not trust my social abilities sober, so I drank alcohol because I’ve never known anyone who has not liked me when I’ve had a couple (when I’m shit-faced, another story) d.) To hook up with a girl e.) I was bored f.) I was about to do something boring and wanted to make it more exciting g.) Because it was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a beer on a patio h.) Because it was a cold and dreary day, perfect to brood over a Manhattan i.) I was lonely j.) My life was going too well, I wasn’t used to that, and I needed something to question k.) My life was going poorly, and I needed something to cheer me up for the evening l.) I needed to make a decision, so I drank alcohol and wrote in my journal and came to a good decision that I stuck with m.) I needed to make a decision, so I drank alcohol until I no longer cared, and the decision was punted off until the next day n.) I I needed to make a decision, I thought a drink or two would jigger my thought process, but I ended up getting distracted by something my drunk self was interested in, and the decision was punted off until the next day I’d come up with more but they’re all just variations of that and who wants to read more of that? 2. Eating sugary sweets, justifying it by saying I have “an addiction” I actually never cared for sweets until high school. Most birthday cake I had was gross, my parents bought Chips Ahoy or Oreos which tbh aren’t all that great, and I was never exposed to really good pastries until I was in college. In high school, I dropped a buncha weight entirely too quickly and I ended up with a fats and sweets “addiction” that I’ve “had ever since”. This is a common thing.

I’ve held it close to me mentally -- my “sweets addiction”. I didn’t question it, it was something I just had, something to hang onto for the rest of my life because I fucked up when I was younger.

But as I’ve gotten older, I understand that these things -- addictions -- serve purposes. They keep us comfortable in what we deem to be true of ourselves. They (poorly) provide temporary breaks from incessant mental gymnastics/fatigue. Anyway, blah blah, big sweeping declarations, blah blah, I’ve done that all before. But when I woke up today, I knew I would get a Vitamix like I’ve been talking about for years, and I made a decision to stop holding onto this. I always eat 2 meals a day with a wild west assortment of things in between, cake and cookies and granola bars and Halloween candy. Now, 2 meals and a protein smoothie/juice.

Let them muscles grow bb. Feel good about my body, treat it like the fucking temple it is.

3. Dicking around on the internet I enjoy reddit. I enjoy wikipedia. I also end up on these sites when I’m avoiding other major responsibilities and uncomfortable feelings. I know what I want: it involves a lot of deep practice. I could read about programming all day and I’d be fascinated -- you know, the history of Silicon Valley, Introduction to the Rust Programming language, new JavaScript frameworks, discussions on HackerNews about The Best Way to Build Something. But nothing beats getting your hands dirty. Nothing beats poring over source code, running into strange errors, resolving them, moving on, over and over ad nauseam until lo-and-behold, you are an expert.

I can read about music, listen to raps over and over, but nothing beats analyzing a verse over and over and actually hearing the syllables landing on, falling behind the beat.

I’m here to structure my day. I know what I want. Expertise, pride, and know-how. A differentiated skillset so I can collaborate with other differentiated skillsets. Good taste, a feeling of belonging. All that shit, all I ever wanted but didn’t know until recently. THOUGHT PATTERNS 1. FOMO What is it with being a human -- a Man, especially (sorry is that sexist, but also, not sorry) -- that makes us believe that everyone has everything we have and more? That we are the base model without power windows, and everyone else is an upgrade? I love going on walks in New York City. I love riding the trains in New York City. But while some of this love is healthy spectatorship, much of what I’ve engaged in is unhealthy envy.

I’m done with that though. I know what I like. And I know I have a dope life. And I know that I’m a good person to know, that people may have different qualities than me but I also have different qualities from them. I’m cool with my small close-knit friends. 2. INDECISION I kinda expanded on this above. I know what I want, and all questioning I’ve done (especially recently) has been my effort to save myself from doing the work, save myself from having to declare what I am. 3. ENGAGING IN FEELINGS OF BEING LATE I am 31 years old. This is something I know to be true: there is a 13-year old who can program circles around me. There is a kid who can play a rendition of Misty on piano so soulful that it’ll bring a tear to my eye. There is nothing, technically (as in, technical expertise), that I can do that can’t be done by anyone else. But I do believe in my taste and I do believe in my life experiences. And I do believe that whatever I create can only be mine, have my signature, and I think that whatever I create in this world that I’m proud of is going to be good. That’s a fact, and I’m going into the future with that as a fact.

Farewell, semi-anonyme Anyway, I was going to write more but I wanna get going, more to do. I’ve got some work to do, some voting to do, some writing to do, some planning to do.

I love you all. See you on the other side.

#self #text post #semi anonyme goals #farewell

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