#sorry about the tangent idk if i even addressed what you said

[alexa-fika]

If your requests are open, how would you feel about child reader being found by Garp, Helmeppo, and Koby?

(Maybe their crew thought they were on the ship and accidentally forgot them on an island or something idk, I just want grandpa Garp with his new grandbaby)

New Apprentice (Koby, Helmeppo x gn!Child!reader x Garp)

A/N YA’LL I COOKED HERE, highkey worried that they are ooc here but other than that I LIKE, proud of how this one turn out, let me know what you think of it. Big brother Koby and Helmeppo 🥹, guys am I the only one picturing that being one of the most wholesome things?

Reader here is replaced by Dokucha which stands for reader in japanese

Dividers by @/saradika

“Koby, are you even listening?!”

“Haha, I am Helmeppo”

“Seriously, you have got to start….

Koby let out a nervous laugh as Helmeppo began going on a tangent, scolding him as he focused on the path ahead of him, paying little attention to his partner’s rambles, only giving out the occasional quip here and there to keep him appeased, which did, until he spotted something in the path that got his attention.

He frowned, kneeling down to look at the object, catching the attention of Helmeppo, who watched over his shoulder.

“Huh, is that a stuffed toy?” He asked, looking at the dirt-covered wolf as Koby picked it up, wincing at the red splashes matting its fur

“Yeah…has blood on it.”

“Maybe it’s from someone who left it long ago, maybe from a kid who tripped?” The blond suggested

“No, it’s way too much to be from a scrape, and look,” he said, pointing at the path.

Helmeppo frowned as he spotted the small tracks that cut through the path leading out into the small forest that surrounded it. 

“It rained earlier today, so these had to happen recently, and the blood is fresh, too,” he muttered.

“Let’s go,” The pinkenette announced, following the direction of the tracts, letting himself be guided by the disturbed soil, broken branches, and the occasional drops of red that colored the ground.

“Hey do you thi- Hey! What the hell, Koby?”

“Wha-? What’s wrong Helmeppo-san?”

“Don’t give me that you just chucked a stone at me!”

“What are you talking about Helmeppo-san?” Koby asked, confused as he stood up from his kneeling position as he looked at the tracks

“If it wasn’t you, then wh-OW.”

“I -I will hurt you, s-so go away!” A small voice cried, chucking a rock at the marine

Koby let out a hiss, rubbing his head and turning to the voice, easily finding the culprit standing in one of the tree’s lower branches, a small child holding a handful of stones in their hands.

“Hey, how about we put those down?”

“No!” They cried, throwing yet more rocks at both of them

They squeaked as Helmeppo pulled out his swords and easily cut through the stones set his way. What most caught them off guard, however, was Koby’s sudden disappearance. They stared at the spot he had stood at confused, looking around to see where the man had went with no success.

The child released a surprised gasp as they soon found out the man had appeared beside them on the branch.

Koby enveloped the child in a tight but gentle embrace and jumped off the tree; before he had a chance to address the kid, he found himself stepping back, a shocked look on his face as the child pulled a small knife, trying to stab him.

He frowned, watching as the kid took the opportunity to run behind the tree.

“Koby, wait,” Helmeppo called, putting his arm on his partner’s shoulder to prevent him from pursuing the child.

“Helmeppo-san? We should get the knife from them; they could hurt themselves or hurt someone.”

“I think we should try a different way, look,” he said, gesturing to the crying child peeking out of the tree.

“They aren’t trying to hurt someone; I think they are just scared.”

“Ah, I’m sorry! I don’t want to hurt you; I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” Koby cried, taking in the child’s state, letting another cry as the kid ducked behind the tree when he reached out to them.

“Ah, I must have scared you, right? I didn’t mean it; I really am sorry for that,” he apologized, a nervous smile on his face as he sat down. Helmeppo followed suit and sat next to him.

Dokucha popped their head out again, watching as the men sat cross-legged, ways away from the tree.

“Umm, we found this earlier,” Koby tried, showing them the wolf plush.

“Ah! Mr.Okami!” they exclaimed, stepping away from the tree and trying to reach for the stuffed toy, only to realize their actions and quickly step back.

“It’s okay; you can have it back if you’d like; how about we trade?” Helmeppo suggested, pointing to the knife

They seemed to think about it, glancing at the knife in their arms and Helmeppo’s awaiting hand to the stuffed toy Koby was offering to them. Finally, as they slowly made their way to them, they placed the knife on Helmeppo’s hand. The former gave them a small smile as they then walked in front of Koby and grabbed the stuffed toy, hugging the toy tightly as they sat in front of them.

“H-hey, you’re bleeding!” Koby exclaimed, apologizing when they flinched at his tone

Koby glanced at Helmeppo, wondering how they should approach the situation.

“Hey, how about another trade? Your wolf looks like he needs a wash, right?” Helmeppo asks, glancing at their plush

Koby catches on quickly and looks at them with a smile.

“How about we wash him for you, and you let us look at your wound?”

“Y-you’ll keep him safe?”

“The safest,” Koby reassures with a smile.

“Okay”

“Hey, Mister Koby?”

“Yeah?”

“How..umm…how did you disappear before?” They question, looking away as he glanced up at them from his bandaging work

“Disappear?”

“Yeah, when I umm, when I threw a stone at you, you disappeared.”

“Oh, that? It’s a fighting technique; I didn’t disappear; I just moved really fast. It’s called Soru,” he explained with a grin, his attention back on the bandages being applied.

“I uh- I think it was really awesome.”

“Haha, It was nothing; many marines can do it; Helmeppo can do It too,” he brushed off.

“You’re being too modest, Koby,” Helmeppo sighed from his place at the sink, trying to wash the grime and blood off the stuffed toy.

“It’s going to have to soak for a while to make him all clean,” he called, drying his hands off and walking closer to the pair. Seeing the look on the child’s face, he pulled something from his pocket and handed it to them.

“Here, you can take care of our Den-den Mushi for now.”

“It looks different,” they muttered.

“What do you mean?” Koby asked as he clipped the bandage and stepped back

“It looked different in the ship; it was black and white.”

Koby and Helmeppo pause, glancing at each other at the kid’s comment

“Ship?” questioned Helmeppo

“Y-Yeah”

“What did you do at the ship?”

“T-they made me clean the ship, but sometimes they would make me fight o-others or test things for them.”

Those words were all the pair needed to grasp where the child might have come from and what their job at the ship could have been.

“Is that how you got that?” Helmeppo said, pointing to their now bandaged wound

They shook their head at that but made no move to explain themselves.

“Could you tell us about it?” Koby prompted

Once again, they received all but a shake of their head.

“Why?” questioned the blond marine, a frown on his face

“I don’t w-want them to hurt me.”

“They won’t,” Koby answered with a grin.

“We’ll protect you,” Helmeppo confirmed with a slight smile.

“Pinky promise?” they asked, holding out their pinkies.

The two let out a small laugh but nodded and interlocked their fingers with theirs, their pinkies enveloping the child’s much smaller ones.

After sealing the promise, Dokucha proceeded to tell them what had occurred. It seemed like the man who they worked under was dark and twisted, enjoying the creation of painful and deadly viruses and, even more, testing it on the child, letting them reach the verge of death before finally giving them the antidote.

Despite this treatment, it was this same man’s love for pitting his subordinates against each other in a deathmatch that caused them their current wound. As they had refused to hurt the other subordinates, they had found themselves being punished for insubordination by the man.

Koby and Helmeppo listened intently to the child’s story, horrified at the treatment they had endured, and drove the two to tears and sniffles as they embraced them and repeated their promise.

Dokucha’s lip trembled as they sat on Koby’s lap, Helmeppo sitting next to them, an older man sitting in front of them listening as his subordinates filled him on what had happened and why they had returned with a child.

“Wahahaha! Another one?!” he laughed, his booming laugh echoing around the small office

“What about you, you little brat? Do you want to be a marine? Or do you want to be a pirate and have me beat that out of you?”

“Uh, Vice-Admiral Garp, I don’t thin-

“Eek! I- umm- ah-

“Spit it out!”

“Umm, I- I’m not very good at fighting, and I don’t like it either, but I want to be with Koby and Helmeppo!” They exclaimed, apologizing and returning to their timid state once they had realized their outburst

“Wahahaha! That’s a good answer, you squirt. I think I’m going to like you! In that case, you will train under them.”

“T-Train?! Vice-Admiral Garp, I don’t think we are ready to train someone.”

“Don’t worry, Koby! You and Helmeppo will turn them into a fine marine!” He exclaimed with a booming laugh

"How about it, kid?!”

“…” They stayed quiet, unaware of the sudden shift of attention, quiet with a strained smile on their trembling face, eyes blown wide at the interaction

“Uh, Dokucha?” Helmeppo asked, leaning closer to the kid, trying to get their attention

“He was asking you,” he explained

“Yes!”

Koby let out a laugh at their rushed answer as he, too, leaned toward them

“He asked if you would like to train with us, to be a marine.”

“I can be with Koby and Helmeppo?”

“Yes, you would stay with us.”

“I - I really would like that,” they answered bashfully

“Good, I‘ll come by from time to time to check on you and give you some private lessons,” he grinned, smashing his fist against his open palm

“No!!” They screamed as they hightailed it out of the office

“Ah, wait, Dokucha, come back!”

okay I really struggled with the Garp part and the timeskip leading up to him, so do let me know if you liked it. I really struggled him adding him so hopefully it checked the box of Garp and Grandbaby interaction 😂

Taglist:

@imaginarydreams

@amethystviolin

@h0n3y-l3m0n05

[freaky-flawless]

i have no idea why they made clawdeen the main character when most aspects of her movie personality could’ve been attributed to frankie?? that way even the romantic plot line with deuce would kinda make sense…

My theories as to why Clawdeen was made the main character are that:

Mattel recognized that she is a fan favorite character and wanted to capitalize on that and

Both Frankie and Draculaura had their turns being the main character, and they figured it was Clawdeen's turn

The 2016 reboot did the same thing with Draculaura, where she kinda took on Frankie's personality, and Frankie kinda became the new Ghoulia, albeit in a very preppy way. And the fact that they're doing it with Clawdeen just shows that Frankie maybe should have stayed the main character. Then they could have addressed/corrected the things that the fandom didn't like about them, such as their tendency to hop from boy to boy. (Tbh there are a lot of things I think they could have done with Frankie to make them a more interesting character, but that's not relevant)

Anyway, I think its sets this weird precedent that kid show protagonists all have to have the same bland personality. There are plenty of shows they could have taken inspiration from to keep Clawdeen's personality as is, while still making her an endearing character. True Jackson and Penny Proud come to mind immediately.

In terms of the romance, I have no idea what Mattel's intentions are. At this point I think they just wanted to really rile up the fanbase, which they accomplished, so kudos to them.

[wehatejulietsimms]

A/N: i'm gonna respond to this in sections bc it's quite long so bare with me.

Howdy y’all, 🤠 again. Yes, I didn’t in fact die. I’m sorry though that I kept getting sidetracked and couldn’t submit this until now, my boss decided to keep dumping her work into my lap. So I just wanna preface this by stating that I’m going to try and say what I want to as coherent as possible, but I have pretty severe ADHD so I’m not always as easy to understand as I think I am in my head, and I often go off on tangents, over explain things and circle back to topics randomly without realizing. Im basically going to go over their relationship over the years as I said previously (I’m not gonna go into detail about every single scandal and shitty thing Juliet did over the years, because we’d be here all year. so I figure I won’t cover them here, but rather let people ask specific questions if they want to. Remember, I was present for pretty much everything so feel free to ask.😊), but I’m also going to do kind of a mini deep dive into Andy’s behavior and actions (because although the snakes will hit you with every excuse in the book, and tell you that you’re looking too far into things and that it doesn’t matter, it does. The way a person acts in general and towards people around them is very relevant when talking about someone’s health, happiness, and well-being.) To start off, let’s take it all the way back to the time before Juliet’s reign of terror, when Andy and Scout were still together. In all honesty from what I saw of them together (and I saw pretty much everything they posted, I’m only a year younger than Andy, and I was quite into him when he was on MySpace and such, and I always watched anything with him and Scout together because they were fucking adorable lol) they had a really healthy relationship. Not once did I get weird vibes from them. The way Andy acted toward and with Scout, you could tell they really loved each other and were happy together. They had nothing to prove. It just was normal. (For any of you who are younger, or didn’t come into the picture until Andy was already post-scout and would like to see some videos of them together, you could generally search on YouTube for it, but also there’s a specific channel on there called like bring the milk tea or something that has videos of old Andy blogs and also Andy and scout on stickam and such. Worth a look if you’re curious) They weren’t constantly all over each other like possessive pack dogs *ahem Juliet ahem* and whenever Andy mentioned scout he didn’t need to shower her in compliments. They both seemed very secure in both themselves and the relationship. Super cute. Initially when they broke up it seemed quite odd. I didn’t really expect it. It got even weirder when he states that he and Juliet are together. It didn’t feel like they fit together at all (and no I’m not talking about from a fame or success perspective. At least not yet lol) As I’ve said I got bad vibes from Juliet right from the get go. Andy already seemed to be acting not like himself. (Also snakeys have argued that it’s just that he’s more mature now and that’s why he acts nervous and constantly looks Ike he wants to die. 🙄 maturity doesn’t mean losing your fucking personality and being unhappy most of the time. Jesus Christ.) it seemed like they got possessive of each other and constantly needed to show people how in love they were. Pictures, videos, and fucking public love paragraphs to show they are, in fact, in a super real relationship and they love each other. It also felt like Andy’s family was in on this whole weird charade.They (Chris honestly) started to defend her degenerate behavior and attack anyone who had even a whisper of negative things to say about her or their relationship. It was like watching a group of awkward, pretty mediocre actors put on a play about them being together. (I’ve hit the text limit now, but there will be more that I will write just after I submit this one though, fear not haha. N, you can either post this now or wait until I submit the rest, it’s up to you.) 1 / ? -🤠

A/N: i was here for a lot of it as well so i do remember some of this. although i did join the fandom shortly after him and juliet got together (i joined like around the time she was on the voice) i literally remember hoping that him and scout would get back together bc juliet just rubbed me the wrong way and i didn't know why at the time. & side note i actually do recommend people go look at old videos of andy and scout they were really adorable. there is this one video of them singing (i think a carrie underwood song lol) in the car and it's really cute. but yeah just bc he's older doesn't mean his whole entire personality changes. you can be any age and act however you want. i could even use jenna marbles & julien solomita (a youtube couple) as an example, they've been together for i think like 8 or 9 years and are about the same age as A&J (julien being around andy's age & jenna around juliet's age) & although they can have mature adult conversations and all of that, they still act like idiots and joke around together. neither of them look uncomfortable or are afraid of saying certain things like andy is around juliet. so andy aging doesn't mean shit in regards to his personality doing a 180.

🤠okay, so part two here we go. (Also I apologize if I get the chronological order of anything I talk about incorrect, I’m a bit scattered sometimes and the next ask I make will be the one where I talk about the domestic abuse and I tend to get quite heated, which only makes my brain function worse lol) so the point at which Andy was trying to get fans to go vote for/ support Juliet when she was on the voice seemed really fishy. I’m all for supporting the work of the people you love, but it’s kinda strange how hard Andy was pushing this at the time. Too hard in my opinion. I’m obviously aware that it was helpful in the end and he more or less got what he was asking for. But it was like he absolutely needed people to vote for her. As if he would get in trouble if they didn’t. So around 2012 or 2013 it felt like things really went down the shitter from there and just got progressively worse. (I never knew why for the longest time, but after they revealed that Vegas wedding that happened in about that time frame, it made a lot of sense.) Andy’s behavior began to change towards his fans. There are a lot of accounts of this happening from fans themselves and a lot of people said that 1. It was worse with Juliet around, and 2. a lot of the time it would happen towards females especially. ( I think more towards the “pretty” fans but don’t count me on that, I don’t know for sure.) This was completely night and day. Especially coming from the same man who used to always defend his fans and once stated something along the lines of he would never have a crazy or awkward fan story because he loves and is grateful for all of his fans and he won’t get upset if they’re just really excited. I would understand if these fans crossed the line in some way (like the later incident of fans finding his address and harassing them, which is unacceptable no matter who the people are) but from most if not all of the fan stories I’ve heard, they didn’t. They were being respectful and didn’t do anything to warrant this happening to them besides showing up. Which brings me to my next point, a lot of these negative experiences were caused by Juliet. Either she was the one being mean to people, she was causing Andy to be mean to people on her behalf, or her presence was upsetting Andy to the point that he was angry and started being rude and irritable. What scares me the most are the accounts of Andy having a whole Jekyll and Hyde thing, depending on weather or not Juliet was present. Happy when he’s free of her and miserable when he isn’t. In videos of him where Juliet is behind the camera he always seems nervous and strange. Like he’s afraid to mess up. That’s fucking alarming to say the least. You would think that the last thing one would want to do if another person brings them this much anger, stress, and anxiety, the LAST thing they would want to do is fucking marry them. Right? He literally started barely smiling at one point and really doesn’t anymore. I mean for Christ’s sake look at his wedding photos. What’s suppose to be one of the happiest moments of your life and to quote another anon with a different ask, he looks like he’s being dragged to the gallows. (And I get really fucking Angry honestly when snakeys tries to pass it off as “oh he’s awkward he doesn’t know how to smile” or “omg he’s being dramatic for the aesthetics” in some pictures, yes. But why the fuck would you look like that in pictures with the “love of your life” who you now regularly write cringy paragraphs publicly professing your love and complete adoration for? Andy knows how to smile genuinely. Ffs he used to. He smiled genuinely when he was a kid, he smiled genuinely with scout, and he smiled genuinely when Juliet wasn’t around. He doesn’t smile when she is there, and if he does, it is pretty much always visibly fake.) So I may backtrack a little later, but right now I want to talk about the fact that Juliet IS an abuser. More specifically, the plane incident. (Word limit. TBC.) 2 / ? -🤠

A/N: yes. 100%. when it comes to the wedding photos i will never understand people (specifically snakeys) writing off his behavior as him "just being dramatic for the aesthetics". is that something he would do in photoshoots? yeah. is it something he may do on stage? sure. something he would do in an interview? maybe. but candid shots of him on one of the "happiest days of his life"? wtf no. & idk why people think that.

🤠 Just before I start, again, with the pictures, I really don’t think that Andy is enough of a self absorbed egotistical dick that he would actually sit there and put on the whole “miserable tough guy” act in every fucking photo he takes. Ah yes, the infamous plane incident. So straight up, Juliet exposed herself as an abuser, and brought out every bullshit excuse in the book (and made Andy go along with them) to try to cover it up. 1. She was drunk. Honestly this is total bullshit. I say this same thing when people defend cheating or any other degenerate behavior with the excuse of intoxication and I will say it now. Being drunk does not make you a different fucking person. It does not change the thoughts in your head. What it does do is impair your ability to make decisions and judgement skills in general. It’s the same reason why people drive drunk. It’s routine. Its what they would normally do. And because they’re drunk, they can’t see any reason why they shouldn’t do that. Juliet gets drunk, she and Andy fight, she wants to hit him, and because she’s drunk she doesn’t think that she shouldn’t fucking put her hands on him. 2. She hit him in “self defense” and he broke her ribs.(There’s several points I have debunking this) first of all let’s get this out of the way, no one on that plane (including the very real witness who just so happened to be an adult film actress (I think?) who you so love to discount because of it) saw him strike her or even touch her at any time. Two, you are in fucking airplane seats sitting right the fuck next to each other with an armrest in between. It would be pretty fucking hard to break your ribs unless they were made of actual glass, or Andy’s real name is Bruce fucking banner. Bones are surprisingly strong and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it’d be damn near impossible for him to do that to you, which brings me to three, if he had broken your ribs you would not be fucking standing up, thrashing around, whining like a little bitch, and oh by the way, continuing to abuse your husband for the second time on that flight. Four, you had a miscarriage. (When I was trying to conceive with my husband it was very difficult. I had two miscarriages before I finally had my son. I’m fully aware of how devastating having one is.) which is why if you are not lying (which I fully believe that Juliet would stoop that low just to get sympathy, especially with this big of a scandal. But I don’t actually have proof of this so I will say that it is just speculation on my part) I don’t fucking care. I am not unsympathetic to her if this did actually happen as I said, however, You do not get to make any excuse for putting your hands on another person out of anger. Ever. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what kind of stress you are under, I don’t care if you are inebriated in any way and I sure as hell don’t care what the fuck you have between your legs. You do not hurt anyone. Point blank period. Five. You are a woman, you can’t hurt him. This one, actually enrages me. We all know your crusty ass pulled this one out (and threw around trump supporters a few times for good measure) because you know damn well how society and the media views and deals with abusive women. Women can abuse. Women who are shorter or weaker than their target can abuse. The fact that there are people who either don’t know that or don’t agree with that is absolutely baffling. Six. The same (I believe) porn actress. Literally saw you beating your own face with the restraints you had to be put in (which by the way flight attendants only ever use restraints as an absolute last resort when someone becomes a danger to the others on board, so she had to be acting absolutely deranged) to give yourself a bloody nose to claim Andy hit you. Then you proceed to act like a child and tell Andy to call your fucking dad. (Which kinda proves that whole Scientology thing honestly) what in the hell. I stg as long as I am breathing I will never let this go. This is actual fucking domestic abuse. (Word limit TBC.) 3 / ? -🤠

A/N: yeah her hitting him "bc she was drunk" was never a good excuse not only for the reasons you mentioned but, also bc let's be real at no point are you ever going to get served enough alcohol on a plane to make you that drunk i don't care what anyone says. also when it comes to the excuse of him "breaking her ribs" does she forget that andy actually did break his ribs a while ago? i think she even visited him when he was recovering so she should know what kind of pain he was in. & if he actually broke her ribs, there's no way she would have even been able to stand bc i know andy sure wasn't able to. he said it was one of the most painful things he's experienced. (i don't think i need to comment on the rest of this. it would just be redundant. you hit the nail on the head with that.)

🤠 I don’t care if it happened just that one time ore more likely is an everyday occurrence. Abuse is abuse and should never be tolerated. Kind of getting away from the plane thing. Andy always seems, as it’s been said on here before, afraid to mess up. Like he might mess up, and make her mad. A common behavioral pattern in abuse victims. He also at this point and for a decent amount of time before, doesn’t seem like he loves her anymore. Like he keeps up appearances and pretends, but it’s like it’s a job he’s forced to do. He’s tired and burnt out but was probably manipulated into staying and juliet is probably clinging for dear life. Also I don’t know if I’m the only one who thinks this, but I swear, the veganism and sobering up was just a cover up, most likely formed by either Juliet herself or her fucked up family, after the plane incident to hide their tracks and regain some public favor (because you know, if you advocate for animal rights then you can’t abuse your husband 🙃) Andy never gave a shit before though. Even though it was unhealthy he loved to drink and smoke and was very outspoken about that. And he used to never give a fuck about eating meat or consuming animal products like leather. I mean they’re still selling leather goods ffs. I would get having minor fuck ups because you don’t know any better, but it’s fucking leather. And now Andy is unhealthy and miserable as ever, but the culprit is malnourishment and Juliet rather than cigs, alcohol, and Juliet. My final thoughts: I do definitely believe in the Scientology theory, but if not that than I definitely believe that Andy was and is being manipulated for his fame. On several occasions it really looked like they broke up, including the time when they did, and then said it was a joke. It really doesn’t feel normal. Also, Juliet doesn’t really care about Andy that much. She never wears her wedding ring, she sells all their shit, including sentimental items, and now that she’s gained more popularity from being with him, suddenly doesn’t want to put him in her bio or write him the same creepy ass paragraphs or anything. It’s fucked up how shes so keen to say she did it all herself when really she’s been riding dick for fame since before she even met Andy. It also always kinda seemed to me that Amy was kind of uncomfortable around Juliet. We all know that Chris loves to kiss her ass night and day (most likely to do with the Scientology thing “if” it’s true), but Juliet and Amy always seemed to have a weird relationship like it was tense and forced. Also I just want to mention the time that Juliet talked about screaming at the woman over what I believe was a game night and brushed it off as being competitive and no one gave damn. Fucked up. To finish off this already way too long little series, I think Andy is a very vulnerable insecure person who got manipulated by several people (not just Juliet) some of whom he probably really trusted, and they helped to get him in Juliet’s (equally if not more insecure) hands so she could hurt him as she pleases. I truly hope that even now both he, and his parents (even though Chris really grinds my gears) can get out of this whole shit show, relatively unscathed. I know this is probably pretty unlikely, but hope springs eternal I guess. As I said feel free to ask any questions you may have and I will try to answer them best I can. Thank you for reading. 4 / 4 -🤠

A/N: yet again you hit the nail on the head with this part so i don't need to comment too much. other than the fact that i do agree that juliet and amy's relationship does seem weird.

[hemo--goblins]

[1/6] Same anon as before. I wanted to clarify the intent behind my question, and to apologize for upsetting you and being hurtful. I've been told by other fans that headcanoning villains as neurodivergent is inherently discriminatory because it feeds into a history of media where marginalized groups are otherized as violent, dangerous, and unsafe, despite neurodivergent people statistically being victims of violence, not the perpetrators. It’s something that I agree with to an extent, as I have

First of all, I really appreciate your respectful approach! Yeah, I kind of went off on a tangent because that specific topic is one that’s just been bothering me for a really long time and it felt like a good time to address my thoughts on the matter, sorry if it got a little off topic.

I agree that having ND-coded characters consistently portrayed as villains can be tiring and harmful, but I still enjoy seeing myself in characters regardless, and tend to gravitate towards villains anyways. It’s a similar issue to what I have with the “queer villain” trope. Because I am gay and love villains, and tend to love characters like that, but I still recognize that it’s pretty shitty to have your best queer representation constantly being evil people.

But regardless of how much it feeds into tropes, the evidence is there and to say he isn’t neurodivergent at all somehow feels like even more of a disservice, but I understand where you’re coming from in terms of it not being explicitly stated and therefore technically being “coded”.

And idk, it just came across that way mostly because it goes against all of the violent tendencies we’ve seem him exhibit in the show. He has never been gentle or patient with teenagers, and I don’t think he would have any more patience with younger kids. And so the only way I see people coming to a different conclusion would be interpreting his eccentric behavior as being able to relate better with kids? He just doesn’t have the patience for it, and I think that if he were in charge of raising a kid, they’d either end up dead or pretty severely traumatized/brainwashed.

He doesn’t have the sort of tendency towards empathy and compassion that is important for handling children, and while I think it’s possible for him to understand how kids should be treated, he doesn’t really have any reason to extend that sort of effort, especially not when treating them poorly would likely be both easier and more entertaining for him. It’s not like he’s going to just kill a kid the instant one is in the room with him, but I don’t think he would have any hangups about it if they tested him. It just seems weird to me that people would think he would have the morals to make an exception for or “draw the line at” small children, and so the only conclusion I could come to as to why anyone would think that was seeing him as childish himself.

I don’t think all neurodivergent people have violent impulses, but I do think my own stem from my ADHD [but it could also be explained by other stuff, like I said I have some things I’m still not super sure on and ADHD and anxiety are the only things I’m officially diagnosed for so that’s all I can be certain about], and I think that Tyrian definitely has violent impulses as well, because.... he acts on them. Apologies if it came off like I was saying all ND people are violent or something, that wasn’t my intent, I was just trying to relate my personal experience to something I think Tyrian also has.

It’s absolutely possible for ND people to be great with kids! And I don’t think Tyrian’s neurodivergence is the sole reason he would not be good with kids. It has a lot more to do with how maladjusted he is, and his personality in general. The only reason I drew attention to his neurodivergence specifically in that answer was because of the aforementioned connection a lot of people make between ND traits and childlike behavior, and I wanted to address that.

[mavspeed]

What are your thoughts on Indian actors (and I am talking more about Indian British and Indian Americans) having to most likely have to learn how to do an Indian accent so they can get work e.g. Dev Patel or Sacha Dhawan were probably most likely required to learn how to do an Indian accent in terms of their roles e.g. Outsourced (Sacha Dwahan) - I don't know too much about his filmography but that one is where he uses the Indian accent or Slumdog millionaire and The Best Exotic Marigold 1/?

Hotel. I've just noticed that there is perhaps an expectation for people of colour to have a specific accent that might be part of that ethnicity. Like on one hand it is racist e.g. Aziz Anisari refuses to do an Indian accent due to this, but on the other hand if we look at Constance Wu's accent in FOB, it's done because her character is from Taiwan, therefore she would have a non-American accent. Which is why I like Crazy Rich Asians so much because all, if not most of the characters do not 2/?

have the stereotypical or 'heavy accent', they speak in an almost clear but also received pronounciation (it's the closest way I can describe it e.g. Nick Young's mother has an almost like articulate accent and sounds 'educated' - excuse the vocabulary, I'm trying to ecplain this the best I can). Which tbh, correct me if I'm wrong, but from experience countries such as Hong Kong and more so in India there are people who don't have what people think the Indian or Hong Kong accent, even though 3/?

They're from those countries. I've met Indian people who've grown up in India, but their accents are rather neutral. I think it just depends on socio-economic status as well, considering perhaps how well a person can speak maybe determines how well their educated (this is also talking about native English speakers). But I do not want to go on a tangent about that, but more about how it is racist to see how Hollywood often for roles where the character may be Indian but there is no 4/?

evidence to suggest that he is actually from a non-English speaking country or they just put that in because he happens to be a person of colour e.g. Ravi Patel playing a telephone operator in Transformers, which Aziz Anisari rejected because he felt it fed into the stereotype of a call centre employee with an accent. Which is I think, maybe I'm wrong but the film Sorry to Bother you plays with because it talks abouthow black people often put a 'white voice' on to sound more approachable 5/?

as the 'black voice' is considered 'unapproachable' (racism). I just want to make sense of this, as it's something I've noticed with Hollywood or western media. 6/6

i will address this but first of all what you said about crazy rich asians- look, here’s the thing. as a singaporean myself can i just say that that movie is highly inaccurate because i’ve lived with fellow chinese/indian/muslim singaporeans all my LIFE and we ALL. HAVE. SINGAPOREAN ACCENTS. even if you go off to study in the uk YOU WILL COME BACK WITH A SINGAPOREAN ACCENT. i love henry golding and gemma chan to bits god knows i do but they should have done what michelle yeoh did and attempted a singaporean accent because even with elitist pricks who studied from elitist schools like acs or ri or whatever the fuck we STILL HAVE ACCENTS. michelle yeoh did a singaporean accent and its the closest, most accurate approximation of it in the entire cast. awkwafina’s character is bullshit because i have NOT met a single singaporean who has consistently maintained a blaccent. of course racist singaporeans do a blaccent and thats because they’re racist and antiblack to an alarming degree. but if you’re chinese, indian, malay, eurasian, chindian you WILL have the singaporean accent. its inescapable. 

here’s my opinion on this- its not racist, not at all, because we all have accents. everyone from every single part of the world has an accent. if you think people can speak WITHOUT an accent, that’s because you have been brainwashed into thinking the neutralised american accent is the norm. nothing is the norm. you talk like how people around you talk like. if you audition for an indian role, of course people will xpect you to have an indian accent. if you audition for an american role, people will expect you to have an accent from that bit of america- new york or california or texas. sorry but aziz ansari refusing to do an indian accent is bullshit (and ties into a deeper discussion about indian celebrities in the indian diaspora being shameful about their brown heritage because you see this shit, again and again and again with mindy kahling and kumail nanjiani and aziz ansari like hasan minhaj is the ONLY indian celeb other than dev i’ve seen actually hype up and appreciate his skin colour and race in a really self celebratory manner), because there is nothing shameful about the indian accent. its a beautiful thing and for some reason, indians outside of india think its something derogatory or to be made fun of just because its different than what they’re used to. is it racist for white directors to assume people of a certain ethnicity automatically have that accent? yeah it is, because a little thing called a diaspora exists. but you have to realise that everyone has an accent. there’s no such thing as a status quo accent because if you think there is, congrats because not to go all anti-west but you’ve been brainwashed by the west!

idk which part of the world you’re from but as an indian singaporean who has also been to literally every single country within asia except for korea and pakistan i can tell you firsthand that no, we do have heavy accents. people from hong kong have heavy accents too. so do people from china. but its not something weird its just a Thing because lets be real, white people have heavy accents too. half the time i need subtitles for richard madden interviews to parse out what he’s saying. so tldr, nah its honestly not an issue. not for me, anyway. and crazy rich asians is a shit fucking movie do not support it 

[neshabeingchildish]

League of Extraordinary Geniuses || Chapter 2

Not gonna lie, this chapter is dialogue heavy and a little rushed. Something was going on with my device where I couldn’t quite get the formatting correct and I grew impatient because this is currently the only thing I’m getting feedback on from people other than Lil’ Dynamite and so I wanted to push it out anyway, regardless of errors. I’ll probably go back and change those later. Patience isn’t my ministry. So, whatever. Thanks. Enjoy and sorry. All the platitudes you require, I give. Tagging @kiddangers @just-a-j-reallly and @sunbeameyes (Please lemme know if you wanna be taken off while you do all the stuff you’ve got going on). TW: for alcohol drinking. Idk. Sometimes, that bothers people, even if nobody’s drunk or abusing it.

I Didn’t Say Overthrow the Government

Charlotte gave the twins hugs and kisses before sending them off with their caregiver. It was just something about having access to these children that she couldn’t see them as experiments or projects, even if that was in essence what they were. And the caregiver would definitely have to shapeshift into her at times in order to calm them down, because they were extremely attached to their “mother.” 

Charlotte had a work program for bionics and supers that didn’t want to be heroes. She felt like it was unfair to presume or worse, force people into positions where they had to risk themselves for the rest of the world. She knew that her previous boss had that type of childhood and he never grew up past that of a superpowered 8 year old, then he simply continued to repeat that cycle by inducting underage sidekicks and even opening a school to keep that process going. 

She knew that Chase might have wanted to be something else had he not been raised and forced to be a protector. He mentioned, in passing, as though it was completely ridiculous, that when he was younger, he wanted to be an astronaut/lawyer. He laughed at his expense, until Charlotte wondered, “Why didn’t you do it?” He stared at her as though the question was ludicrous, so she had to tack on, “I have the credentials to be quite a few things that some might laugh at, and you definitely are more than qualified to be an astronaut lawyer, if that’s what you want.” He gave a little chuckle and moved on with the subject.

That was actually the thing that compelled her towards a new project. She loved new projects, because even though it kept her busy, it opened up her brain for new opportunities to touch the world in an impactful way. She went live on her page the next day and asked supers and bionics, “If you could do ANYTHING ELSE in the world, right now, what would it be? I know that some of you have certain abilities that have made it to where you have focused in on using that gift to help the world, but… What if you had the means and the opportunity to do something else? What would you do?” She read all of the comments and in the same conversation made a decision, “You know what… I feel very moved by a lot of these testimonies. So, this is what I’m going to do…” She created an email address and shared it with the viewers and posted it to her website, “I am going to have everyone who is interested in transitioning from an imposed future that revolves around your ability to a career or even just a hobby that you would love to get into to email me so that I can try to figure out how to make a some of these things happen.”

The number of “I STAN!” comments she received were nothing in comparison to the amount of mail that she got. She had a guy named Bob that she heard went to the academy on Bionic Island who had super strength, but was very gentle and hated having to fight. That was exactly the type of person she was trying to seek out. She had Chase introduce her to this guy… he was sweet, but by God, he was not bright. Sort of reminded her of her best friend, Jasper, in that regard. And it hit her! Jasper! “Hey, Jasp… I’ve got this bionic guy named Bob. He doesn’t want to have to be out on missions. He doesn’t like fighting. He’s very nice, but not that smart and he really doesn’t have a lot of skills beyond mission training and superstrength.”

“We ABSOLUTELY could use someone with super strength around here. I can teach him some maintenance stuff to help out around the lair and the shelter while he finds himself and figures out what he wants to do. Henry’s been enrolling in adult classes at the Vision Institute. Bob could maybe do that?” Jasper said.

“Yes, I’m definitely getting him in touch with an advisor, but I was more like checking to see if you had an empty room to put the guy up in and also if you could maybe mentor him a little along the way, since you have a lot in common?” Charlotte said. Jasper gave her ideas that she was already in the process of setting up, but a support system would be a huge part in these transitions. A lot of people who went to the Vision Institute went for the reason it was created - to figure out exactly what they wanted to do with their life now that their brains were fully formed and they were adults who realized that they had spent all of their lives going in directions that they were pulled in, instead of where their minds led them.

NOW, she had to try to get a more nuanced system in place for those bionics and supers who suffered the same existential crisis, but with the added pressure that they HAD to do whatever direction they were pulled in because, “the world depended on them.” Know who else the world depended on? Caretakers and caregivers, and Charlotte found a perfect shape shifting one who just wanted to be able to look after kids and stuff. She was bionic, so she definitely had been trained and conditioned to fight and protect, but now she was able to play with a couple of adorable babies who turned into adorable puppies AND, she would be able to help them hone their shifting, whenever they were ready for it! Charlotte loved that for her. She loved that Bob might be able to live out his dreams. She loved that she put things in motion to help people be happier and more successful and safe. 

The twins were gone to the cottage, which was where they generally stayed, since the castle was fairly new and Charlotte wasn’t even there a lot of the time. With having the guys there, it would be easier anyway. 

She came back inside to Max coming from his guest quarters and almost immediately asking, “Do bionics have twin powers?” She froze and folded her arms, thinking. She didn’t know and he didn’t either, so they both rushed to her desk to work on figuring out if they could figure that out.

.

Chase surfaced later, and found the two of them walking around one in one of Charlotte's famous theory rooms, which was a room with the walls covered in notes and models hanging from the ceiling, and spots where it was clear that experiments were done. It was sort of like if a lab didn’t have everything that was needed to do the work, but had everything that was needed to get to the work. Chase had seen the one that she had in her Dystopia home and the one in the Defender Dome, but this one was bigger, but less used. She and Max went to hover above a model with little figures of people and the scene of what looked like Centium City. “Good afternoon. I made a late start. I think that something is wrong with the guest capsule,” Chase said.

“Do you feel rested and like you’ve had the best sleep ever?” Charlotte wondered.

“As a matter of fact, yes!” 

“Then, how could there be something wrong with it?” She asked, rhetorically, not turning her attention away from the model.

Max asked, “Hey, Bionic Boy, do bionic twins have the ability to tap into twin powers?”

Charlotte gasped and said, “I didn’t even THINK about just asking Chase, and we went through that whole thing earlier only to come out as inconclusive.”

“What are twin powers?” Chase asked. Now, Charlotte and Max looked up from the current tangent/theories that they were mulling through to stare at Chase. He smiled awkwardly. “You know what, I’ll just look it up,” he said and touched his finger to the side of his face. “Okay… um.. No, I don’t think so. It would most likely have to be programmed into the coding for their chips. Kind of like my override, but like… something mutual that becomes something else.”

“The mystery kinda dies with that, doesn’t it?” Max asked Charlotte, disappointed. “Well, at any rate… Definitely gonna work on twin powers for the Swagger Twins,’ Max said, into his phone, recording.

Charlotte added in a smol voice, “They is good boys and they deserve!” Max looked at her, absolutely smitten and smiled. 

Chase watched with some judgment. He knew that Charlotte frequently switched up for who she needed to be, whenever she needed to be it. The Charlotte that she was with her best friends, the professional in a business meeting, the one that had to deal with Mr. Davenport, and so on. This one was new to him, and if he didn’t know any better… he’d say that this one was into Max. There was obviously some type of inside joke there with the strange voice and the grammatically incorrect phrasing, but the smile that Max gave her made him… irritable. “Are we doing some work today? Anything that I can latch on to?”

“Oh! Yes… We were actually just having a discussion about roleplaying, chess, and boardgames,” Charlotte counted off on her fingers. “We’ve been determining - out of the bionics worlds and the supers worlds, which heroes would be which characters or pieces.”

“We keep on switching and changing between chess and DND, because neither of us is making a list. Making a list might cut into the creative juices and this is all for fun…” Max added on. Chase knew all about chess and Dungeons and Dragons, though that was because Mr. Davenport had casually mentioned it one day and of course, it only took him a few moments to research and memorize it all, but he still hadn’t had the chance to ever play it. Charlotte and Max were talking about this current train of thought, until Chase projected a hologram for them, with a chess board and a diagram that he was creating in progress, split screen with the chess board as he explained, and went through all of the bionic people he knew from the database, where they would be on a chess board and why. 

He blinked it away when he was done and offered, “I’m not as hip to DND, but I have some ideas…” 

“Um, no… Let’s discuss whatever that set up was!” Max said, practically cheering. “You can do cool shit like that, and you… just don’t? You could be fanboy famous with that gift!” Chase blushed a little and Charlotte smiled at this and at Max’s enthusiasm for that display. “You honestly should take that online.”

“But, it doesn’t fit the Chase Davenport brand that Mr. Davenport approved,” Chase said, coming closer into the room.

“Who is Mr. Davenport?” Max asked, looking between the two of them, then gasped and asked, “Wait, is that what you call your Dad? Uncle? Dude?” Max started laughing and shook his head, “You’re ONLY supposed to do that when you’re a corny dude at a fancy meeting and you say the cliche phrase, “Mr. Davenport is my father.” 

“Well… that’s what we call him,” Chase said, annoyed, again. Max backed off and went back to their current mind game…

.

There was definitely still tension, and Max and Chase were being cordial, but it was clear that they still weren’t sold on one another, so Charlotte decided that maybe after a good day of mental stimulation, a few small experiments, a nice meal and some fine drinks, she could talk to them about the future. 

So, after all of that, they retired to the lounge, and she poured wine, lit candles and played easy listening music overlayed on nature sounds. Chase smiled, comfortably and announced, “This is a very satisfying lounge.” Honestly, she was setting it more for him than for Max, so that was good feedback for her.

“I was thinking about something,” she said and picked up her wine glass. “I was thinking about a couple of years ago whenever I started trying to open doors for people who didn’t want to be reduced to their bionics or superpowers. People who just wanted to be people and enjoy their lives whether or not they could fly or breathe underwater… I couldn’t help but to think about it today and the fact that neither of you ever really said anything about wanting to do something else besides be heroes.”

Max narrowed his eyes suspiciously and took a drink of wine. “Gross. I’m raiding your liquor cabinet,” he said, put down his wine and telekinetically collected a few bottles of brown liquor and three shot glasses to himself. 

“Well, I can’t speak for Max, but there really isn’t another option for me,” Chase smelled the wine and took a sip. It was good. How could Max not enjoy it? It was a very excellent year and a perfect aroma…

“But, there ARE though. Today alone, you proved that you could, if you wanted to, create an online presence for fandoms - which don’t give me that look could be extremely successful! - make exciting and fun games, excel in theoretical physics, improve mission suits and super suits, recreate the Internet with better accessibility and less monopolizing, if you wanted to, and like.. Several other things, and that was just today!” She insisted.

Max took a shot of whiskey and poured another, “You want one?” He asked Chase, knowing that whatever Charlotte was about to say, this uptight Chase dude was gonna feel some type of way about it.

“I’ve never had it before…” Chase said, a little leery. Max floated over the shot glass and Chase received it, smelled it and winced. To Charlotte, he said, “Yeah, I enjoyed doing all of that stuff in the theory room, but in real life, I have commitments and obligations…”

“That The Dom forced upon you,” she mentioned, taking a sip of her wine.

“That! That’s what I know that dude as.” He snickered under his breath and mumbled, “Mr. Davenport.”

Chase threw him a short glare, took a sip of the whiskey and groaned, then dropped the shot glass, but Max caught it and floated it back up. “That’s disgusting! Get it away from me! People DRINK this? On purpose??”

“You’re supposed to shoot it, Dude. Like this,” Max demonstrated, blew out a deep breath and nodded, “Then, give it a moment, and it runs through you and feels warm and good.”

“It feels like poison,” Chase said, grabbing the floating shot glass. But, Charlotte had it in her home and Max had just had two, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as the initial taste. He shot it like Max did and slammed the shot glass down, breathing hard and shaking his head, “I’ve decided that I am not a whiskey man.” 

“Fair enough,” Max said, smirking. 

Chase used his own molecular kinesis to put the shot glass away, then told Charlotte, “I thought that you had accepted that I’ve accepted that this is what I’m doing with my life…” 

She furrowed her eyebrows and wondered, “Why did you think that? Chase, you were my motivation to start liberating supers and bionic people from destinies written out for them, so I don’t accept you accepting that, unless you’re accepting it because it’s what you want and not what you believe you should be doing!”

“What’s wrong with keeping a purpose that you’ve already been given?” Chase asked her, looking at her extremely hard and starting to kinda feel what Max was talking about, with the whiskey.

“Nothing… Unless… The person that gave it to you wasn’t qualified to create it for you. Davenport is a genius. We can’t take that away from him. But, he’s not a god and he isn’t infallible. His purpose for you makes A LOT of sense and helps a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean that it’s perfect or shouldn’t be challenged.”

“No, but me trying to do something just to be happy whenever what I do now actually saves lives… I mean… You’re a utilitarian, Charlotte. Does that seem like a better world to you? One where I’m creating games or… Or… being an Internet personality or whatever?”

“She didn’t say that you couldn’t still save the world, Man. I think she’s more like, thinking about the fact that you spend all of you life and make all of your decisions within those confines that Davenport put on you and nothing else. You could have been enjoying things like you did today, instead you’re like… such a Davensnore when you come out of the mission suit. You can save the world and still be your own human,” Max said. Then chuckled again and repeated, “Davensnore. Put it on the books, Folks. That’s his name now.”

“That’s not his name!” Charlotte said, but chuckling at little. “But, he’s right about everything else. IF you accept that what you want is to be a bionic savior and do that, then of course, I support that. But, you seemed so lighthearted and fulfilled today, exercising your smarts for fun and also coming up with very great ideas too, and maybe you’re meant to be a different kind of hero. I feel like I’m a hero and I definitely rarely hit a battlefield personally.” 

“You DO! But… You’re not like me,” Chase said.

“What’s THAT supposed to mean?” Max asked, sitting up straight 

“Just that she was able to grow up with the mentality that you can be what you want to be and do what you want to do and everyone will support it and motivate you, instead of put you in a box.”

“I WHAT?” Charlotte asked, putting her glass down.

“Now, you’re in trouble,” Max said, with a smile.

Chase’s eyes were wide with apprehension of whatever Charlotte was going to say next, but instead of saying anything, she just stared at him, in disappointment. God. That HAD to be worse than whatever he thought she was going to say. She looked so betrayed and let down and he wished that she would just tell him where he messed up at so that he could bring about a solution. Instead, she simply stared at him and thought her explosion inside of her mind...

“I know that you grew up in a basement, so normally, I’d let you slide on that, but you have learned too much history, have read too many books, and have an entire two black female humans in your immediate family and one male counterpart, as well. You have to know on some type of level that that statement you just made is NOT true at all and even now, today, with the things that both of us have accomplished in our own ways, IF you had accomplished the things that I have accomplished, do you know how much more well received and adored that you would be? Have you SEEN some of the criticisms against me and compared and contrasted it with what you get? Have you done the same with the compliments? I’m in your corner, Dude. Don’t… downplay my stuff because you don’t like what I’m saying. If that’s how it’s gonna be, forget that I asked you to venture into this with me.” 

“Well,” she said after five full minutes, Chase noted almost right on the dot. He had upset her SO MUCH, that she just “took a five” and used it to stare at him in upset. It kinda made him miserable. He NEEDED her to say something to him about it. Even now, she didn’t. She picked her wine glass up, shot the rest and pointed at Max, “The scotch, please.”

“Coming right up,” he said, telekinetically pouring the shot and sent it to her. "By the way, what's this venture you and me are doin'? You still hadn't said." 

Chase was quiet, mulling over the things that were unsaid  while the other two talked.

Charlotte was a little flustered, but brightened up as soon as Max asked her about her idea. "I want to find and collect people like us, those who can and could change the world if only they didn't have significant barriers to doing so.  I want to find and gather as many of us as I can, help to guide them in the right direction and with all of our combined intelligence, hard work and determination, we can undo our current, flawed system and rebuild a new and improved one that will benefit everybody."

"You… want to overthrow the government?" Chase tried to clarify.

"I want the government to be changed into something that makes sense and is run by smart and capable representatives, and works for the people in it."Chase looked really bothered and so she explained, "For far too long, the system has been slanted.. it was created by men who were all in the same type of station, with the same interests and they made a system that has been benefiting them and almost exclusively them for so long that it is DEBATABLE for anyone else to have a fair shake. I think, if we really want to change the world and save some lives, we've gotta change the foundation. Just like with Dystopia, but like… farther and wider."

”You had me at “overthrow the government.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You… did. You just used way too many words when you said it.”“Well, I meant enhance life for the people.”

Chase interjected, unsure if she knew what she was suggesting here, “You CAN’T without overthrowing the government!!”

“That sounds like the government’s problem,” Max said, taking his last shot of the night. (He knew his limit).

Charlotte now got up to sit next to Chase and look right at him, the most serious and concerned look on her face that he had ever seen before and he knew that this meant a lot to her and that she needed it to mean something to him too. Something good. He wasn’t FEELING that this could actually lead to something good, but he WANTED to feel what she seemed to want him to feel as she spoke, “Don’t you hate the fact that this country, this WORLD is constantly at war, people are always going without, someone is always oppressed, and almost everybody doesn’t have what they need not just to be happy, but to survive? And who is to blame for it? It shouldn’t be us, but it usually is. Scientists need to find a way. Doctors still haven’t found a cure, etc, so on and so forth. When people like us work beside or even worse BENEATH clueless ingrates who see us as their smart… equipment. And you two understand this more than my previous team. The world does read you a certain way, but also, when they know what you are, they let their biases slip in. They don’t trust bionic humans any more than they do androids. And supers? Not if they don’t know every single solitary fact about that individual and still, they keep them at bay. I don’t feel like I should have to speak about or make a list of my struggles with this place. It. Has. To. Change. We have to try to change it. We’re qualified to and if that isn’t being a hero and saving the world, I guess I just don’t know what is. I don’t want the future to be as oppressive as the present. The world isn’t in God’s hands. It’s in the hands of the smart and the brave.”

Chase nodded his head, “I... have to think about it. I mean.. How would it work? Are you just compiling a genius database and visiting them like some type of secret society and just inducting them and giving them this speech, or...?”

“Pretty much just like that, Sir,” she said, with a little shrug of her shoulders.”But, do think about it.” She stood up and Max stood up as well. “See you tomorrow,” she said. “I’m going to go unwind.” Max stretched and grabbed the bottles from the table to move to sit closer to Chase, who looked confused as to why Max was moving next to him. Charlotte went through the corridor that passed through her courtyard to go inward to her quarters. 

“Sure you don’t want anymore?” Max asked. 

Chase furrowed his eyebrows and wondered, “You said that I was in trouble... What is it that you know that I don’t about what I said?”

Max scoffed out a little laugh and shook his head, “Have you never read one book about racial injustice or the lingering effects of chattel slavery in America?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with - Ohhhhhhhhhhh.”

“You basically just told one of the most historically subjugated and mistreated persons in the nation that she had more privilege than you and the unspoken presumption, that her privilege was why she wanted to take this on.”

“Do you think she’s mad at me for it?”

“I think you hurt her feelings,” Max said. “A genuine apology goes a long way, though.”

“I’ll talk too her tomorrow.” They were quiet for a while, then Chase wondered, “Are you really on board with this? You’re answer is undoubtedly yes, to this idea of hers?”

“Yeah. Not like she asked me to rip out my own heart and throw it at a politician. She’s talking about moving silently to help fix things that a lot of powerful people are often loud and wrong about and STILL gain support. Whatever side of history Charlotte is ever on, I’ll always know its the right side.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But, you’ve gotta do what makes Chase Davensbore happy.”

“I thought it was Davensnore?” Chase said.

Max shrugged his shoulders. “It’s both, Bionic Boy. You’re super bland.”

“Your ego is unwavering.”

“I talk like this ‘cause I can back it up,” Max said. 

“I can too, and I don’t act like this!” 

Max furrowed his eyebrows and wondered, “You don’t know Beyonce song references when you hear them?” He suddenly sat upright and looked right at Chase, like he had something very urgent that just happened. Chase sat up, equally as urgently, in reflex alone, only to have Max ask, “You do know who Beyonce is, right?”

Chase sank back into the seat and sighed, “Ugh. Of course I do... I just don’t know her catalog that well...”

“Just as shameful. I’m going to bed. You’d better apologize to Charlotte.”

“Of course, I will!” Chase snapped and whenever Max was gone, he got up and went to find her. Things were easier to communicate between them without “her other friend,” around. He was convinced that there never would have been any weird miscommunication without Max there, but it didn’t matter now. He was big enough to admit when he was wrong, and even if he wasn’t, in his mind... Charlotte was worth putting himself aside for a moment. Was she worth taking on the world, though? The status quo? He found her on the terrace, wind blowing through her curls. Her silhouette doing nothing more than watching the moon shine down on her and still looking like music. Is she worth it?  Yes. Yes, she is.

[makeste]

on AFO and his intentions regarding his “heir”

I was going to do another big post responding to comments and asks and such, but then I ended up getting sidetracked by the very first pair of comments. so for now it’s just this. sorry ;;

@addermoray I think we do agree on a lot of stuff regarding AFO, but I think the main difference is that all of my AFO speculation hinges on the idea that he is eventually going to recover his full strength. Tomura is and has always been his pawn whom he planned on using to fuck with All Might. but an actual successor? idk, I could be completely wrong about this, but despite what he says, I just can’t see AFO voluntarily just giving up and passing on the torch for real.

first of all I don’t buy his diminished-quality-of-life argument. the dude is functionally immortal and has been around for like 200 years. he’s not going to call it quits after only six. not when he knows better than anyone the infinite variety of quirks out there, and that in all likelihood he can eventually find one capable of healing him. (and in fact, Ujiko will likely be getting his hands on the quirk-be-gone bullets shortly, so it probably won’t be long before he discovers what we already know about Eri’s quirk and its potential to restore AFO to full power.) and for that matter, not when he was still capable of fighting All Might at that level in Kamino. he’s clearly a far cry from done just yet, no matter what he says.

second, he’s also far too arrogant and self-serving to bequeath his legacy to anyone else. he views the world as being his for the taking. why would he give that up and let some dumb kid have all the fun instead? but what would be fun would be thoroughly warping and twisting that kid into his tool, and then unleashing him on an unsuspecting world for a while. that would be a lot of fun. but as a temporary thing, not as the new status quo. there is an inherent ‘this is bigger than I am’ type of wisdom in passing something down from yourself to someone else. an understanding that it continues beyond you. and I just can’t see someone like AFO being able to grasp that. it literally runs counter to his very name. one, not two. not him and Tomura. just him. he is, thematically, the complete antithesis of All Might and the other users of One for All. everything he does is ultimately for him and him alone. in the end it’s always for himself.

so I think the whole Tomura thing is just another example of that. Tomura is his little wind-up killing puppet. he gave him his own name not to pass on his legacy, but to label Tomura as his. so that in the end he can lay claim to all the havoc Tomura wreaks. I think we agree on that part. but I just think that once the dust settles and All Might is dead, he intends to step back in and get back to ruling the world from the shadows.

-- which, incidentally, is another reason I don’t think he’s serious about Tomura succeeding him; he knows Tomura well enough to realize that his damaged psyche will incline him more in the direction of simply destroying the world rather than taking it over. and AFO spent two whole centuries accumulating power and “restoring order” to the world. would he really just surrender all of that and let some brat destroy it all on a whim? that doesn’t seem to jive with the guy we saw in chapter 193 at all. I very much got the impression that that guy liked the world. because it was his. his own vast curated collection of quirks and loyal followers. all for him.

so yeah, my read on it is that he’s planning a comeback. I think it lines up with what we’ve seen of his personality, and it makes thematic sense as well -- more than ever after this latest arc, I can’t see Tomura being the final villain. it has to be All for One. he’s the Emperor Palpatine, whereas Tomura has always been more of a Kylo Ren.

anyway I kind of did the whole tangent thing yet again, so let me try to address a few last points real quick. regarding what AFO was hoping for when he got locked up: I think it’s important to remember that regardless of how comfortable he seems with his situation, prison wasn’t ever AFO’s plan A. he’s very good at adapting, and I think he’s made arrangements for Tomura’s “training” to continue even while he’s behind bars (again, gotta have those contingencies), but what happened at Kamino was unexpected. originally he intended to be there to keep an eye on all of this. the fact that he isn’t opens the door to other things also not going quite as planned. you’re probably right, I think, about AFO intending for Tomura to go through this training and character development process to some degree. he’d probably be delighted to hear that Tomura destroyed the hands and no longer appears to need them in order to sustain his anger. but at the same time I think there are things in play that AFO is not aware of and not anticipating. the influence of the rest of the League being one of those factors.

and I also think he’s underestimating how much of a wild card Tomura might be now that he finally has his memories back. the hope is that he goes through this leveling up process and in the end becomes stronger and focuses up and finally becomes dangerous enough to be a real threat to All Might and the rest. but the tradeoff is that when you purposely foster an agent of chaos, if you do your job right, eventually said agent will become impossible for even you to control. in other words, Tomura has agency now that he lacked before. and AFO -- who has already screwed himself over with his own arrogance in the past more than once -- might have just done so again without realizing it.

lastly, as for whether or not he actually planned what happened to Tenko, that’s the million dollar question. right now it seems like it could go either way. but as I’ve said, the whole thing just played out a little too perfectly from AFO’s perspective for me to believe he didn’t have a hand in it. he may have lucked out with some things, like Kotaro’s whole being-terrible thing, but he might also have helped fan those flames in subtle ways. and if nothing else, he probably had contingency plans if this didn’t pan out.

but as it happens, it played out even better than he expected. and at the end of the day it probably wasn’t too hard to predict that if he suddenly gave an abused kid a quirk that instantly destroyed anything and anyone he touched, it was bound to end in tragedy. that’s really the most sinister thing about the whole plan, in hindsight. how shockingly simple it all was. he probably thinks it was very elegant. masterpiece, indeed.

[marimopeace]

You say that Shigure's love of Akito from that dream wasn't unfounded and out of nowhere but if that's the case why was he the only one to be affected by it in that way compared to the other boys? Even in chapter 111 he wishes he could have dreamed of Tohru, implying that that dream could've been about anyone and he would have fallen for them? I don't know, it doesn't really seem like he loves Akito for herself you know?

hi anon and thanks for the ask!

(idk if you happen to be the same anon who originally asked for my take on shigure but since you mentioned the manga i’ll assume you’re ok with spoilers!)

um so my attention span is terrible so i’m just going to break down your ask really fast, i see one direct question and two points.

1. why was shigure the only one to fall in love with akito compared to hatori and ayame?

2. the counterpoint that shigure said he wished he could have dreamed of tohru instead

3. the main point which is that shigure doesn’t seem to truly love akito

so as for the dream...

it wasn’t the dream itself that made shigure fall in love with akito. the dream itself was a sign that the emperor had reincarnated once more in the form of akito in her mother’s womb and at the time, the older sohmas (shigure, hatori, and ayame), were the only ones around to respond to the call. the dream they had reinforced their zodiac spirit’s promised loyalty to her and inspired the bond that originally existed between the animals and the emperor (or god, i’m just used to thinking of it as “emperor” since that’s the original mythology). this resonated with the young boys, and overwhelmed them to the point where they all cried (and we know that the same rush of emotions applies to all other sohmas upon seeing the emperor for the first time). 

shigure described those feelings as a sort of sweet affection. now we’ve all felt that sort of way at some point haven’t we? maybe not as poetically as shigure put it, but that sort of soothing fulfillment when you’re with someone you care about, whether that’s a friend who makes you endlessly laugh or someone you trust whenever you need to vent. the translation of this feeling differs depending on the individual and their circumstances.

that applies to how the dream affected the mabudachi trio too.

this trio of kids (they were like 6 years old?) all got hit with the same dose of longing and adoration, but it resounded with them differently. hatori and ayame saw that affection to be familial, and took on brotherly roles as akito grew up. adult hatori probably felt even stronger brotherly affection since he was the one to look after akito’s health and mental well-being in her older years alongside shigure--remember how he never really lashed out at akito for what happened with kana? it reminds me kind of the dynamic between a spoiled younger sibling and a weary older brother who doesn’t want to cause trouble, but i digress (i tend to tangent a lot, sorry!)

that’s just how the dream affected those two though, as we see in the series that different sohmas have different views of akito.

so for little shigure, he also thought those emotions were something beautiful, and as time passed, he felt something more, beyond the attachment that hatori and ayame felt. he ended up falling in love with akito, hard and true, and this went on for years--to the point where his oldest friends figured that he would do whatever he could to see his end goal happen (make akito his). 

and as for why the dream couldn’t have been about anyone...

i think the first part of the answer addresses this a bit too, but it wasn’t the dream that caused him to fall in love with akito. sorry if my other furuba ask didn’t make that clear--the dream was the catalyst for their relationship in general (as zodiac and emperor), but the emotions inspired from the dream are what motivated a young shigure to make akito “his”.

also i could be so off on this since i read the manga a while ago but i vaguely remember the chapter you mentioned and i interpreted shigure’s meaning differently? i thought him wishing that it was tohru he dreamed of instead was him saying “i wish it could have been a person like you” rather than tohru explicitly. that is, that he wishes he could have fallen for. i don’t think he literally meant “dreamed about”, but that someone like her had been in his dream in the first place. i think that in that moment shigure was taking a step back from his obsession and he was seeing his unpleasant dynamic for what it was and he was having a “hmmm what if i had fallen in love with a person who was kind and giving and could fill the hole in my warped heart because i’m the kind of person who needs that” moment. (notice i didn’t use the words unhealthy or toxic which are my go-to for the akito/shigure relationship--shigure has probably definitely realized over the years that his pattern of hate and manipulation with akito isn’t great but i highly doubt he would ever admit that they would be that bad for each other bc the man is obsessed)

tl;dr: rather than that scene implying that shigure could have dreamed about whoever and he would have fallen head-over-heels like he did with akito, i think the meaning of that interaction was to show a small hint of regret over where his life turned. it was a human moment for him, for the scheming manipulative dog to step back and ponder “what if”. it was also a way to show how tohru was changing the sohma’s views on themselves. shigure has always been accepting of the gritty road ahead, believing that a trash person like him (not my opinion i’m just saying he doesn’t think he’s good either) deserves a stained fate since he’s willing to do whatever underhanded thing to get what he wants. tohru’s kindness makes him wonder what it would be like to have someone as wholesome as that to soothe the darker parts of him.

i feel like i addressed your second point throughout this response but i fully understand where you were coming from. 

ultimately shigure does love akito fully, all her faults and flaws aside.

that DEFINITELY doesn’t mean this love is perfect though. 

// more thoughts under the fold but since i addressed all your immediate questions + if you want to be free from my godforsaken rambling then feel free to scroll past this post lol //

shigure’s love isn’t unfound. we the readers were given a clear backstory on what initially inspired his feelings and we are shown the extent of his love throughout the series as he embarks on his quest to destroy the curse in order to obtain akito.

your point that shigure doesn’t seem to love akito for herself is totally valid in my opinion and i agree because the way their relationship is portrayed in the manga makes it hard to see what he loves about akito other than her, if that makes sense.

we’re continually reminded that shigure loves akito an incredible amount. an obsessive amount. a toxic, overwhelming, and suffocating amount.

and good lord other than shigure saying that he loves akito (which he did say several times) i cannot name a logical reason for his love. and yes love isn’t logical but i’m referring to concrete points about her that make him want to smother her in his devotion so much. this is one of the things that i didn’t like about the manga in retrospect once i let the plot sit with me for a bit. i disagree with some opinions that shigure and akito were a forced couple because i feel like their story have a lot of potential (i have a huge soft spot for redemption character arcs) but their love just felt so flawed and twisted.

there are lots of lopsided relationships in shoujo manga in general but idk for me it was hard to take in all the emotional hits (kureno and ren oy vey) they flung at each other and then not see resolution. :/

i’m going to shut up since this is def beyond what you asked but basically shigure does love shigure for herself but only on the mangaka’s word/face value from what we are shown with him going “i love akito”. there wasn’t enough character development/plot reveal to reinforce his love for her. we can understand why he fell in love with her in the first place but we’re never given context besides that, the story just explains how they’ve been dancing around each other for years (not in an unrequited love way but in a hostile way).

*deep breath* oh god it felt good to write that out but if my long mess of thoughts confused you anon always feel free to send in another ask!

[digiauthorenergize]

This is a stress rant post. There are a myriad of sister updates that I’m sure people don’t care about but it’s fun gossip so I’ll put them under the cut. The sister updates will be followed by and interspersed with a bunch of personal ramblings that I was going to put in the tags but instead I decided to put all the positive stuff in the tags because no one should need to dig through this negative post to find the positive stuff going on. 

Do people trigger warning their rant posts outside of the tags? Is that a thing? I’m going to do it. TWs for my sister and her husband continuing to be garbage and Anxiety and like, old psudo-anorexia habits I had but idk it’s fine. 

So she had her baby! yay! he’s cute and good and healthy and it’s been a few months (like 4?).  We had a bonding moment a few hours before she gave birth, her husband (he’s still a huge ass more on that later) was asleep on the couch and I was sitting with her on her bed watching some absolutely garbage show and she said she was sorry. And it was genuine and soft and the stuff of hurt/comfort fics cause she was like ‘I shouldn’t have yelled at you and I shouldn’t have moved out like that. You were right and I’m sorry.’ and I just rubbed her head a little and said something that essentially meant ‘I’m still working through it, but we’re cool’.  And I thought for real we were good! That like, we were going to start having a normal relationship again and stuff! And then everything got exposed. 

First she had to get over her ppd (which is a very good thing but also allowed all the exposure that’s following all this) with required a lot of help and support from our mom who’s too good for her honestly. Literally our mom is too good for her. It’s so frustrating because on the one hand she needs the help and I get that, she’s always needed the help and all the attention and I get it. I do. but it doesn’t change any of the bs she’s been and continues to put our mom through. Mom’s paying for everything for the baby: diapers, formula (she’s not breast feeding for reasons that are further down and it makes me want to scream), clothing, all of it. She was coming over every day mom was off work for a while. She still comes over a lot, but it’s not just cause she likes the help. My mom is doing everything she can for my sister and called me last nigh saying she feels like a failure as a parent and it’s not fair because mom did a great job with the two of us honestly and just cause my sister can’t make a good decision to save her soul shouldn’t be a reflection on my mom. I’m functional (mom said she thinks I’m smarter than she is and that’s something my ego does not need to hear right now cause lemme tell you what I know I’m being judgy from this pedestal atop of which I sit). I look at all my options and make decisions carefully. I watch my funds like a hawk because I’m a grown ass adult and I don’t want to have to ask my parents for help (I’ve managed not to use any of my severance package from getting laid off in April <<did I ever mention that here? I got laid off in April so I stepped up at my second job so I wouldn’t be without healthcare and stuff. Also also internalizing that ‘I’m the good daughter’ mantra is NOT GOOD STOP IT.>>  and a huge part of that is my fiance being able to handle the utilities so I can focus on my own bills (my part of the rent, groceries, phone/car/etc). Just cause one of us is a hot mess doesn’t mean she did anything wrong as a parent! She did a great job! Or we’d both be messes! But I super digress. 

((Mom and I also had a talk about whether or not she should report the whole situation detailed below this line to CPS, and my opinion was ‘technically you should be talking to a professional about this not your daughter, but yes’ and she said she was going to talk to one of the social workers at work about it so))

My sister’s husband is using opioids. again. He hasn’t done any of the parole stuff he was supposed to do after he got caught with them the first time (re: my other long ass personal posts cause I don’t know how to keep rant shit and fandom shit away from each other) and he had 3 years to do them, so his FEDERAL DRUG POSSESSION CHARGE is going to go on his RECORD. **insert all of the frustrate at the stupidity of it all facepalms here like, i can’t even** Apparently they haven’t paid their rent in months and so they got an eviction notice over the long weekend, they’re like over 10k in credit card debt (and it’s all in her name I’m sure cause she had good credit before she married this dumbass), and APPARENTLY last winter they were so far behind on their electric bill after heating their apartment with the OVEN because their heater was broken (and they couldn’t tell their landlord because they were already behind on their rent) the company made them pay the bill in CASH. like. what the fuck??? We found all this out from his mom (who’s very nice but also very nosy) over the last holiday weekend where my mom took the baby for a few nights so that my sister could go see some fireworks (and you know, have some fun) but ended up keeping him for a week and his mom had had the baby for the week before the holiday. like! what! and apparently she’s been smoking weed again which is why she wasn’t breastfeeding which, good, but also like. Logically I get it: she’s depressed? she smokes weed. We have a family history of addictive tendencies but whatever I get it, it’s her thing and whatever. but also!!! what!!! the hell!!! 

oof. 

And then on top of all that, I’ve been trying to Logic my way through my anxiety like I usually do but it’s just...not working this time. My usual method is to take whatever the feeling I’m feeling is, identify it, acknowledge it, figure out exactly where the root of that feeling in this situation is and deal with that. But half of this is wading through my sisters bs and there are only so many times you can say “you’re feeling this way in part because you feel like you’re morally/intellectually superior to your sister in a way that’s not great (tm) (but the data supports this response and then it’s off on a tangent)” and “through past experiences you’ve chosen not to address your emotional response, instead focusing on finding solutions and therefore are under equipped to deal with all these feelings (tm) and as you continue to try to suppress them so you can put on a retail face and ‘function’, they keep coming out as barely controlled bursts of chaotic energy that you usually channel into writing projects but as the bursts grow more unpredictable you’re anxiety is popping up to remind you of the unhealthy coping mechanisms we developed last time this happened but those don’t actually work the way you thought they did”. And then my anxiety comes in and says “yeah they do” and god if only they did work the way I tricked myself into thinking they did cause I could go back to only drinking my calories and eating a real meal once a day if that (for like family dinner or whatever) and with the way my schedule currently is I could and it would be so easy to just starve my anxiety again for like 10-12lbs but that’s when you start being able to really see my ribs and that’s not great fam and I’m not going to go down that road again we’re riding it out this time damn it. 

I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve made 2 new music playlists. One I use to calm down when my anxiety spikes, it’s got low-fi remixes and different grounding techniques and is super chill. The other is literally ‘ok, so you wanna have this anxiety attack? We’re Gonna Go??’ and it’s all stressful music. I’ve gotten to the point where I can crest and regroup in 12 minutes, and if I time the playlist correctly I can do the whole thing in the shower while I’m getting ready for the day so when I’m done I just have to get dressed and go. Which is also not great but whatever fucking works I guess?

Also big ass unrelated side note: I’ve come to the realization that I’m Ace, but not sex-repulsed, which was a thing I had to tell my fiance and he kinda gets it? But not really? Cause that’s really important to him and his sense of self-worth which is a whole other thing we’ll probably end up in couples therapy for, but we’re both willing to do that so. 

As soon as everything else settles down we’ll get to that. Which is what I’ve been telling myself about my emotions for years. As soon as this settles down I’ll try therapy again. As soon as I have health insurance that will actually make it affordable. As soon as I get settled. As soon as I have time (and then I over book myself). As soon as as soon as as soon as. 

I’m so annoyed with myself. But it’ll be fine.  Sunshine comes after some rain and you need some rain to grow.  

[commentaryvorg]

(This isn’t the moment Kokichi falls into despair. This is the moment he figures out that everything is fiction.) I think this is a bit of hindsight bias. I mean, just because Kokichi figures out something is a lie doesn't mean that it's purely for entertainment. That wasn't the case for dr1, after all? It absolutely was apocalyptic as hell out there, and Tsumugi could easily be lying about it being a "set" as well as peoples talents being fake (case in point Miu, no way in hell was hers fake)

Also about Hope's Peak like, even Shuichi doubts that it's fiction in the end? I doubt Kokichi would ever come to that conclusion when he had the book in his lab, and for a special reason? And yeah, people may have enjoyed the game and screwed with them, but that doesn't mean it's just about the outside world or whatever but the organization responsible for arranging this (TDR) since they're really corrupt and sadistic. Idk, I feel like there's a lot more to this judging from the evidence

Sorry if this is flooding you I'm just really bothered because you said it's 'the only thing that makes sense' and I'm like nooooo, no no no no it's not?? There's more worth looking at especially around Kokichi, it's super vague about him even in the end 

(If this is the same anon as before, thank you for being more polite about it this time! I am quite happy to have a legitimate discussion about this.)

Okay, so, of course, this whole commentary is running under the assumption that everything is fiction because that's my interpretation of the story. The awkward thing about that for people who aren't necessarily ready to buy that interpretation is that most of the parts where I get to actually discuss why that's my interpretation happen towards the end of the story. Until then, I'm just kind of casually assuming it's the case without getting much chance to back it up, at least if I don't want to go off on massive tangents unrelated to what's actually going on. I'll be talking a lot more about this in chapter 6 (and a little bit in chapter 5) when we reach the parts where the narrative starts actively focusing on all of this. Hopefully then it'll become clearer why I think what I do. (Hopefully. I’m not quite so far ahead in writing this that I’ve reached chapter 6 yet, so I don't know exactly what I'm going to say when I get there, but.)

I acknowledge that my interpretation isn't the only possible one and that there are some holes in it. I talked about a few of these during the prologue and also briefly mentioned the talent thing when we saw Angie's waxworks. But the thing is, I'm pretty sure there isn't any single interpretation which has absolutely no holes in it. I've certainly never seen one which doesn't make me go "okay, but what about this, though". Not even mine, admittedly, yes.

I choose to go with my interpretation for two reasons, the first being that, in my opinion, it has the most supporting evidence and the fewest holes. (And most of the holes it does have can be put down to the fact that the out-universe writers probably couldn't do much about them if this was the story they wanted to tell. For example, the pregame characters being kidnapped and then so slow on the uptake about being in Danganronpa is awkward, but the alternative, assuming this is the truth of the story that the out-universe writers are trying to tell, is either that they make it very clear what's going on and spoil the entire plot twist for the out-universe audience before the story's even begun, or we don't get to see the pregame characters in the prologue at all and therefore have no potential proof that there even was a "pregame", which would make it seem even more likely that Tsumugi was lying about that.)

But my second and probably more important reason I go with this interpretation is simply because I like the story best this way. I love metanarratives, and I find it absolutely fascinating to think about and discuss the ways that this being treated as a story within the story affects how things go. If this wasn't something that I could genuinely believe is the truth of the story, I wouldn't like Danganronpa V3 anywhere near as much as a narrative and wouldn't have as much fun talking about it to the point that I might not even be doing this commentary.

Obviously not everyone's going to feel the way that I do, and that's fine. But I think it's perfectly valid for me to use "this is what I want to believe" as a reason to believe it when that's an actual message that the story promotes. The narrative towards the end makes a point of the idea that sometimes you can never be sure what's a lie and what's the truth. That's almost certainly why Kokichi as a character is as ambiguously presented as he is (as much as I keep expressing my frustration at the lack of a concrete backstory explaining why Kokichi is the way he is, I do understand that the writers did it for this purpose, even if the result is that it makes me less able to like him), and why the plot itself is so ambiguous and there are multiple interpretations that are plausible. The player is basically invited to choose whichever interpretation they want to, so that's what I'm doing.

I gave you this general speech instead of addressing some of your specific points since I'm going to be talking about most of those points in more detail later when they come up in the main commentary (and I'd be happy to discuss them further through asks if you still want to once we get there). I will talk a bit about Kokichi here, though, since I won't be doing so later - because I'm honestly a little confused as to why you appear to be so sure that Kokichi is the key to figuring out the whole truth of the story. It seems apparent to me that the reason things are so vague and ambiguous about him even at the end is simply because the narrative purpose of his character is to be an embodiment of that theme about lies and truth, like I just discussed, not because the real truth about him would somehow give any answers about anything important. Kokichi is just as in the dark as any other character except for Tsumugi, and anything he might figure out is nothing but a guess. I admit that when I said "the only thing that makes sense" re Kokichi's view on the outside world, I was running under my assumption that everything is fiction, and, yes, him having hypothetically guessed that doesn't prove anything about what's really out there. That entire point of mine was less about using Kokichi to back up my interpretation of the real truth of the situation, and more about using my assumption of the real truth of the situation to back up Kokichi's state of mind. I still stand by my observation that the comments Kokichi makes in that scene do seem to be hinting that he thinks everything is not only a lie but specifically fiction, though, regardless of whether or not he's right about it.

I'm also not sure what Hope's Peak has to do with Kokichi, since Kokichi never learns about it at all. He never sees inside his own lab, so he never gets to read that book. Even if Hope's Peak was real, his memories of it would have been just as wiped as everyone else's, and he never gets exposed to that one Flashback Light.

[cs-discourse]

here we go

https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179953845684/uuuuwuu-every1-whos-concerned-abt-biased-judging

ok this attitude has been pissing me off long enough that it's time for one of my Big Ole Posts (tm) about how shitty this is! thanks. 

uuuuwuu every1 whos concerned abt biased judging in comps is just soooow entitled !!!1 i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11 bc artists Never weigh in on other artist's comps, so obviously thes ppl just want fwee merc designs !!!1!!1 also my last braincell just died pleas h

so here's the og post in question for quick reference

i honestly have no idea why people keep bringing up this idea of bias in judging competitions because, while i do think there is a type of bias that certainly exists, i think a lot of so-called "bias" that people have is ... not whatsoever like what people think it is lol. artists are people and there's always going to be SOME kind of bias no matter what you do, because it's literally fuckin impossible to NOT be biased. by that i mean:

your taste in plots/types of characters/medias influence your judging

quality of writing or art can influence your judging

the person who's applying for the adopt you may have previous judgement about

even if you say you aren't biased, you STILL have preferences and tastes in things that you prefer more than others, which in of itself is a kind of bias

people who know you (friends for example) will naturally know what your taste is. 

a competition is judged based on what form the artist thinks is best, right? 

NEWSFLASH EVERYONE'S IDEA OF "WHAT'S BEST" IS DIFFERENT FROM PERSON TO PERSON ..... "BEST" is literally the most subjective thing there is, and while i agree that there are certain aspects of art and writing that you can use as objective measurements of tangible skill, it's... still subjective. what people think is "best" will vary from person to person because we all have different tastes. so, essentially, this boils down to the idea that the winner of an adopt competition will ALWAYS be the form the artist liked best, because that is what the artist perceives as best. so like. when people appear biased in adopt competitions towards friends or certain circles, it's probably because they're literally friends because they have similar tastes in things, and therefore the form the artist likes best is naturally going to be from someone who shares similar tastes. 

so whenever i hear about """bias""" in competitions i just kind of roll my eyes tbqh because it's usually followed by complaints of "BUT I PUT IN SO MUCH EFFORT" or "I WROTE SO MUCH MORE THAN THE WINNER" uhhhh. if adopt contests were won by effort alone it wouldn't be a contest, it'd be an endurance test lol. literally just "who has the most time to waste writing out 60000k words of absolute meaningless fluff"... because, i hate to break it to you, but ANYONE can write 5000 words of mindless drivel that has literally no substance to it. 

now in caps for emphasis. takes a deep breath

THERE IS NO SKILL NEEDED TO BLOAT YOUR WORD COUNT. 

YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HOW TO WRITE WELL TO WRITE 5000 WORDS.

YOU JUST NEED TO KNOW HOW TO TYPE AND PUT SENTENCES TOGETHER.

quality > quantity, always. like, i'm sorry you put in so many hours of effort but, those people who win with MUCH smaller wordcounts... did they not work to get as good as they did with writing? you put in 5 hours into one tryout. but others, take me for example: i have been writing for over 10 bloody years. i've worked hard to improve my writing, so you can't tell me i "didn't put in as much effort" as you because i did. i put in YEARS of work to get better so doing simple things would take me LESS time now. inb4 IT'S UNFAIR! dude, the literal definition of a contest is for the best to win. it wouldn't be a contest if it wasn't like that lol. it'd just be charity. what you should be doing instead of complaining about it is ASKING FOR CRIT and WORKING TO IMPROVE like a good sport? i get that it's discouraging but you should be prepared to lose when you join a contest. it's valid to be upset about but the moment you say you deserve it more than others JUST because of your effort, then i have a problem. 

and you know, there's gonna be times where i think a comp winner is objectively less skilled than other tryouts. honestly i just kind of shrug that off on account of different taste lol. sometimes that's just how it be, bc of those predetermined biases i mentioned before, and maybe a judge and i are just in completely stages of life so what i call quality might not appeal to the judge. that's also fine. anyway this really got off on a tangent but i'm leaving it in bc i think it needs saying. back to the og post

 > i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11

wtf didn't i address this in a different post

here let me link it for you

https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179841459154/post179838988303-the-difference-is-that-you-have

which was replying to this: https://cs-discourse.tumblr.com/post/179838988303/179837734509-idk-anon-i-kinda-agree-with-the

i said it once but i'll say it again: artist entries aren't main adopts lol. people don't work for artist entries. all you fucking do is post on one like "can i have this pls" .. there is... no effort put into that lol. main adopts you WORK for. it's a CONTEST. claiming an artist entry is NOT a contest. if a bunch of little nasty gremlins come running up to me like a hungry horde trying to be the first one to claim my design, i think giving friends first pick is COMPLETELY FINE, BECAUSE WHAT DID ANYONE ELSE DO TO "DESERVE" THAT DESIGN? nothing. you did. nothing. you're literally coming here with this attitude that NOT GIVING THINGS AWAY TO STRANGERS FOR FREE SOMEHOW EQUALS BIAS? i literally do not understand your logic whatsoever. like. i'm trying really fucking hard. at least with main adopts the "payment" is the effort you put in trying to answer the artist's prompt. i know i sound super dumb repeating myself but i don't know how much simpler i can make this concept tbh

and this is EXACTLY why i say ya'll are fucking entitled because merc and any of the kal artists could be making REAL $$$$ selling their own designs and adoptables and art and NOT deal with all the bs ya'll throw at them. they're literally here because the ENJOY MAKING ((( FREE ))) CONTENT for you, and they're not obligated to do this. they can stop whenever they want. if you had to pay per hour for the length of time collectively worked by ANY species artist staff, the lot of you would be fucking broke. i'm actually constantly shocked that species artists work like, 8 hours or more on some of these gorgeous designs just to give them away for free in a contest. 

so, yeah, as someone who hasn't spent my entire life on CS (i've only been here for a year and a half), ya'll seem pretty fucking entitled to me lol. the world outside CS rarely gives out such gorgeous designs in write-to-adopt contests so i'm honestly baffled at the amount of bloody entitlement i see

>bc artists Never weigh in on other artist's comps, so obviously thes ppl just want fwee merc designs !!!1!!1 

this part i don't actually understand what you mean. do you mean they... help judge other comps? or like, enter them? i don't get what you mean by "weigh in" but listen, lol. just because something DOES happen doesn't mean it gives you a good reason to assume the worst. i mean... of course it happens. it's statistically impossible for skewed contests and bias to NOT happen, because there's always going to be cases of it happening. but like, what proof do you have that merc will be biased lol? like, real proof? because your main point i've basically debunked and don't believe in at all. do better than "i cant bewieve ppl wouldnt want some1 whos literally explicitly stating at this point that they trust their friends more to "demonstrate dedication to the character" they assign to a design to b an influence in judging comps !!!!!11" because this doesn't make any sense to me for the reasons i already listed above lmao. if artist entries were supposed to be contests they'd be contests. what the hell makes you important enough to get first dibs on a stranger's work. ARTIST ENTRIES AREN'T EVEN MADE TO BE GIVEN AWAY, THEY'RE MADE AS ARTIST ENTRIES.... LIKE.... JESUS i struggle to understand ya'll

anyway im done here, if you wanna actually talk and debate this hmu on discord at lysander#9229 bc if you actually talk to me instead of spew this hot mess on the blog i might actually listen to you and change my mind and be nice about it instead of being a condescending bitch. 

wait one more thing

>also my last braincell just died pleas h

yea clearly

p.s., why do you ppl keep going to the blog to give critique on merc's designs when on literally every other design merc makes there's this:

https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3950980

here i even linked it for you. idk why it's so hard for yall to give constructive crit like decent human beings

[freckliedan]

Hi! I noticed you have they/them as your pronouns and I was just curious (because same) how I should, when it’s safe - of course- and respectful to do so, correct people when they use the wrong pronouns and also tell new people about how to address me? It’s genuinely not something awful when I’m called she/her but when I’m close enough to people, i try to bring it up. Except my issue is I can hardly manage to correct someone when they mispronounce my actual name (accidentally)..ahh. I’m shy :(

hi! i’m sorry it took me so long to answer this ask b

i don’t actually have the most experience with correcting people when they use she/her for me; the only place where i exclusively use they pronouns is here, with my closest friends, and in definitively lgbtq+ spaces? but at this point All of my closest friends use either they/them, they/she, or he/him pronouns (side note: he/him wlw i would fight and die for you), so i have a bit of practice correcting pronouns for other people? 

that’s maybe the easiest way i can think of to correct pronouns-to have a person or two you’re closer with at school or work or in your family (depending on which contexts are applicable and which are safe for you!) support you by reminding other people of the right pronouns? me, my gf, and our best friend miles all work together, and miles exclusively uses they/them; they also has anxiety, so once they were ready to be out at work, we just started using they pronouns for them all the time, even in conversations with other folks. bc they weren’t always easily able to correct people! something we would do a lot is repeat back things people said that misgendered them, but with the right pronouns? so if someone said “yeah, is a really hard worker” i might say “yeah, they are” back? it’s sometimes a lot easier standing up for other people than yourself, at least in my experience.

that kinda pre-supposes you having trusted people who are good about pronouns, though! so. i think another good way to get people used to pronouns besides he and she is to use a friend as an example, if you have other friends who use they/them pronouns? like if the friend is okay with it you can discuss them or mention stories including them, and use they/them pronouns the whole time, or even be like “oh yeah, my friend so and so uses they/them pronouns bc they’re . that can kind of get people more used to they/them pronouns and give you a chance to feel out if a situation is fully safe to be out in? and you can start training people to do better with respecting your friend’s pronouns, first. (if you don’t have any other friends who use they/them feel free to send me a message sometime, b,or if that’s too scary you can just call me ur friend/use me as an example as a blogger or something!). it’s a bit easier to segway into “i also use they/them pronouns” if someone already has a frame of reference for what that means! 

another good thing that can push through awkwardness is to just be aggressively normal about things? like it’s maybe even a thing you could practice while alone or with a friend you’re already out to. but like being like “hi, i’m , my pronouns are they/them!” having a friend or friends that you’re out to helps with that kind of normalization, because you can have your friends introduce themselves with pronouns, too, if it’s an option. it can work in conversation if someone misgenders you, too- like if you’re there and someone says she or her or girl or woman in reference to you, just be like “i use they,not she” or them not her (i also love unit as a replacement for boy or girl and person works as a replacement for woman or man) in a casual normal way and if they start being all apologisey and focusing it on how baaaaAaAaAd they feel being like “you don’t have to draw attention to it by apologizing, just try to do better!” i know none of that is easy to do, at ALL, but if you’e able to practice it might help?

since starting work at my practicum, I’ve discovered that in a lot of nonprofits and more progressive business settings, people have started including their pronouns in email signatures, even cis folks, to try normalizing introducing introductions that include pronouns? idk if that’s applicable to you though!

something that helped me start to be braver when i was younger - and hear me out on this! - was pretending to be not myself? like, i did a lot of theater when i was younger, that’s part of where i got the idea for like.. “acting” in situations that weren’t necessarily theater? but i also did so with a fandom spin. like, i had to get blood drawn in my senior year and it super is not a thing i like at all? and at the time i was a huge s*pernatural fan, so was like “be brave like the w*nchesters be brave like the w*nchesters you can do this” and it actually helped. sometimes when i’m trying to get past the aggressive salespeople at the mall kiosks (they’ve gotten me before i bought a lotion) i try walking like the winter soldier from marvel movies and putting off “don’t fuck with me” vibes. i was starting to get anxious during the SATs writing section and was like “it’s okay be like hermione” and like.. i don’t necessarily do that with specific characters anymore in such a strong way? 

but i do still sometimes let myself lean into different versions of myself where i focus on a different trait or different version of who i am and let that be how the world sees me? at my practicum i work with a group of young lgbtq+ folks and i’m not gonna lie, i was super fucking anxious on my first day! but i leaned into my stage-manager-self and letting myself perform being confident and capable and sure of myself in a no-nonsense kind of way? stage-manager-energy for me also has slightly different body language-i stand different, i carry something to take notes on sometimes. props help sdjfklsjd. but that let me have a false confidence when first meeting these kids, and it eventually turned into real confidence? and i wasn’t being fake about who i am in a way that would eventually come back to bite me, bc it was just a stretch of the truth not a disney channel original movie disaster lie?

or like, sometimes when im feeling dysphoric or anxious about the way i choose for the world to see me i’ll wear more black than i usually do and do my best to live my truth and take comfort in the fact that dan would be proud of me. hm. i’m getting on a bit of a tangent here but it’s something that’s helped me be more confident a lot over the years? being good to myself because i know it’s what a character or person i’m a fan of or know in real life and love very much would want for me?

also something that helps for me for having hard conversations with close friends is like.. sometimes having them by text even if we’re in the same room? typing can be so much easier than talking. a format for saying that could be saying “hey, i started to use they/them pronouns online and i actually am a lot more comfortable with that than she/her, could you start using they/them for me in ? 

oh also i’m fairly certain there’s probably nonbinary youtubers out there who might have better advice than me about this specific subject? my gf actually watches a lot more youtube than me - i only watch dnp, but they watch a ton of different folks including ash hardell? and from what ive seen ash might have some kind of video more helpful than my big ol ramble.

i hope some or all of this helped? it’s a tough thing that i’m still really learning to navigate for myself instead of just as a support to friends, so i’m not sure how much of this is anything at all, but i hope that something in here was worthwhile and if you ever wanna come back and chat again, on anon or off, i’d be happy to listen to you

[izzyovercoffee]

so i really don't know much about mandos, but i agree w your ideas on surrender. to me, (some) mandos were similar to like. citizen soldiers? as in they fought to protect their family and clan and way of life. and if the absolute best way to do that was to surrender, then why shouldn't they? there's no point in throwing away your life. 'dying's easy, living's the hard part'

The thing is, mandalorian fandom likes to present this … idk, idea? Vision? That “All Mandalorians” are warriors, always, all the time, and generally … no society has really developed for longevity if 100% of the population were soldiers all the time. So, yes, you’re absolutely right: there were many citizen soldiers. I basically agree with everything you said, tbh, and like … here’s why. It’s gonna take me a while to get to the point so I’m sorry in advance.

Like, the thing is, if we look at societies in our history on this planet, many of the cultures and vast empires that did comprise of mobile armies also comprised of a large population of noncombatants. People, as a rule, cannot survive on only knowing war. It’s just not realistic.

We also have canon and Legends showing us the same thing: a large portion of mandalorian society are non-combatants. They’re civilians, general citizens. They have day jobs, they have specialties, they have crafts. There’s children that go to school daily, there’s children that are home-schooled, and so on and so forth. There’s farmers, and smiths, and doctors (and politicians, and lawyers) and etc etc etc

“Dying’s easy, living’s the hard part,” is exactly right. And, tbh, the fact that mandalorians have a specific word (not a phrase, an actual word) for ‘throwing your life away foolishly, not brave’ points to an emphasis in cultural thought. Individual words don’t develop to be part of a vocabulary unless a word is necessary and needed to represent a specific thought or idea.

Societies cannot survive on military, alone, and to be honest … there’s this weird conceptualization of the word “surrender” that has been twisted to mean something it isn’t. And it’s turned into this horrible thing of never-do-it, in order to puff up how tough and strong someone is, individually.

“Never surrender” is an incredibly individualistic idea that, for the most part, is not supported by a culture that is borne out of a clan and culture first society. It makes sense in a society that worships individuality, because the individual’s freedom and personal actions are seen as holy, and responsibility and culpability to others is seen as chains to hold one down and restrict self expression — even for the self destruction that comes with never surrender.

But in a society that is developed from a clan first, culture first, family first perspective … “Never surrender” doesn’t have a positive context. Individualistic attitudes and behaviors are not positive when they’re put before the welfare of the family. Mandalorians core tenets focus and emphasize clan, family, people, first. There is no positive meaning to convey in an individualistic sentiment, because the individual is putting their pride first, and forgoing their responsibility to their family, their clan, and the people who depend on them.

And, I think, that extreme difference in basic cultural understandings, is the main underlying issue in what does it mean to surrender and how should it be treated in mandalorian culture. Western society, specifically, is incredibly individualistic, and that affects perception and understanding of “basic givens” (what we perceive as human nature, what we’re taught to be morally righteous, what is selfishness and how it’s punished/rewarded, etc) and interpretation of fiction — in this case mandalorians, who are based off of community-focused societies, textually, but are often written in the hands of people who are incapable of finding some kind of middle ground or nuance between individualist vs community. 

Sabine Wren, as an example, is actually a fantastic representation of what it means to be mandalorian. She, essentially, embodies her culture totally — and yet she also freely expresses her individual self. These things don’t always have to be diametrically opposed, but they often are.

Anyway, that was kind of a dramatic tangent lmao sorry. Actually, to touch on another point: I’m sure someone is going to read “they would surrender” and argue that it goes against one of the core tenets of mandalorians (answering the call to battle), but I would actually argue against that thought.

Mandalorians, in general, are actually welcome to disagree with a Mand’alor if they disagree or feel that that leader is not worthy. That’s an actual thing! Mand’alore have to actually work to earn respect, and the implication is simple: if that person then did something incredibly foolish or threatening, the people following them can outright stop following them on the spot. As Mand’alor, the leader’s responsibility is to the people, first and foremost. Where the people are required to fight for Mand’alor, they only have to fight for a Mand’alor they recognize. That recognition can, and is encouraged, to be revoked at any time if they don’t prove their worth in holding that title.

Sometimes, if surrendering is the wise choice, and the Mand’alor refuses to pursue it, then the citizen can, in fact, revoke recognition of Mand’alor. Individually, it could be seen as a betrayal, granted — but that action is generally not one taken individually. We’ve already seen it happen in The Clone Wars, too, so it’s not something that is just theory — though in this context it’s a refusal to surrender to a false Mand’alor. Still, the basic machinations apply: disavow a proclaimed Mand’alor to fight for mandalorian continued survival. 

And like, on first glance? Mandalorians absolutely are the “Proud Warrior Race.” But dig even a little deeper, and that superficial description fails to address all the intricacies of the people — and how survival has become integral to a shared cultural identity, because of past actions, because of a refusal to surrender.

[deveharrington]

I think David's family vacation was about damage control for his image. His tour isn't even sold out and they aren't big venues. It sure wouldn't hurt to be seen with Tea. At least he had some quality time with his kids instead of always being with someone that can't spell potatoes.

Disclaimer: all theories ahead.

1. I really really can’t imagine him doing something on that level just for publicity, or purposefully doing something that his kids don’t like/makes them uncomfortable/breaches their privacy, at least not for this purpose (PR? for the “tour”s ticket sales??) that hasn’t really been addressed in other ways that would be much more straightforward. Also, actually, I feel that there still seems to exist a separation between the identities of Family!Dave and Rockstar!Dave, I feel he is just that type to become different people for different audiences. 

Despite his current shit, I still think he wouldn’t do THAT. 

2. As for “quality time”… D has said things in the past about that, hasn’t he? But he’s also pretty much eaten every single word he ever said, hasn’t he? :l 

3. He is in a dreamworld: Also, he seems to believe that he is a “celebrity” who is above PR somehow ?? Lmao you never know with this dude. ????!!!?!!?! 

He is in a dreamworld 2: I’m saying he thinks he can live several separate lives and reap the benefits of all of them with no consequences :-)

He seems to not give a shit what people think, and I think this is a good characteristic, but David takes it too far. He has shown that he is flippant about the opinions of people WHO ACTUALLY MATTER is what I mean. Example: his children…

He is in a dreamworld 3: I could even believe that his kids don’t actually tell him how they truly feel about his current shit and David just believes that they’re being “supportive” (if he can fall for Scammer Brad Davidson’s lies, he can fall for anything…). Or if they are honest, and I hope they actually are, David also once said that he doesn’t ask for his kid’s opinions, and I really fucking hate that he said that but maybe I am just taking that statement out of context by bringing it up for this argument or maybe he was being sarcastic no fucking clue but anyways it is something to consider. Because even if it were sarcastic, I saw that as a red flag. I just see it as crude, flippant, meant to be “funny” but not funny at all - a typical “???” statement that comes out of his mouth and eventually leads to a sour truth somewhere down the line. And I’ve already asserted (but its just my opinion) that he actually does tell the truth when he jokes or uses sarcasm. Sorry for this tangent but what I mean…

… is that, hasn’t he demonstrated already that he can live different lives (evidence: just like he can get up on that stage and transform into… that… uhm creature(strike) persona that can flail around as it does)? 

How would pics of his kids cringing at paps help his image?

Also, I don’t see any posing, just awareness of the cameras. 

Under the cut: I don’t see any other effort being made to address the low ticket sales, and discussing how David seems to actually be doing the opposite of progressing creatively by…. wasting time on a new distraction: a “documentary”… and why does the guy need a documentary???? …Another gimmicky souvenir (DVD) for Scammer Brad to “sell”/shill??? lmao…..

thx anon, as for the “potatos” thing…. yeah :l………………………………….. :)

I don’t see any other effort being made to address the low ticket sales, example: no heightened promo since the initial announcement. And if there were, I would expect it to be music related. Why not take this time to make a music video, or put music on the radio, collaborate, or even just keep posting on social media where it would be easiest to just post whatever….??? I also think that people mostly separate his family role from his nonsensical-bullshit-“rockstar”-ego-audience-energy-siphoning-creature role and so far it looks like David is doing the same. It seemed like he always kept those two things separate (?? well he sings about Tea + his kids idk maybe the songwriting, his one contribution, comes from him but the rest….). 

How would pics of his kids cringing at paps motivate people to buy a ticket to his “concert”??? lmao.

And here’s the thing.. I actually suspect (and this is just my own perspective) that he might not actually be aware of any issues in terms of the “touring”!!! OR: if he has any questions (I don’t think he does lmao but if he did…), Scammer Brad just smoothes it out with bullshit, empty promises, new distractions/“projects” so as not to lose David’s faith. I think it would be in Scammer Brad’s best interests to do everything to assure him that its all smooth sailing, its just also hilarious that Scammer Brad literally can’t do a single thing in a professional or logical manner… including hiring actual professionals for specific tasks…….. LMAO wtffff…..

The theory in Point #3 just comes from an interesting parallel of David just being like “yah, somewhere down the line I believe BFD will be made someday somewhere a place for usssssss lalalala”. 

Going off of the point #3, in terms of distractions and new gimmicks: evidence: This “music” documentary… like… Don’t get me started on the idea of “music” documentary like… dude… why do you need a documentary?? LMAO. We know why you are doing this and the truth ain’t pretty!! This is a new level of “David’s mere presence is the gift alone”. But yeah Idk maybe they need to spin some gimmicky new merch (right beside the vinyls) or try to squeeze out more ways to commodify this “touring”. If it is just a documentary just for the sake of one then I still must laugh because… how many times has David said that he’s not a musician/singer/performer and thats fine but he’s also never demonstrated that he’s even wanted to improve, choreograph, or change what he does/how he expresses himself. What I mean is that, fair enough, what he does is fine and it is his right, but I’m talking about the dearth of any creative, artistic, innovative, even just progressive aspect to all of this that you know, would typically be the focus of any documentary on an actual artist (like, he writes the lyrics but doesn’t create the melodies/engineer the sound… I know that those processes can be separate but shouldn’t the actual documentary then be about his songwriting process and not about how much David is soooooo ~loved~ across the globe??? Like, I’m sorry to say it this way but I don’t see much else to the performative/“touring” aspect of all of this that would warrant a documentary… he’s never even made a music video… his music hasn’t even hit the radio…. its not like he’s created a stage persona?? wait, has he???? lmao…. come on, Dave.) 

To try to say it quickly lmao: (just my perspective) David clearly has no purpose even to his lyrics other than to sing about himself. He has no integrity behind anything he does. The point of a documentary would be to look behind the mask, the curtain but there is LITERALLY NOTHING THERE. AHHAHAAHAH they’re selling us nothing… and the sad thing is is that there is evidence that that has been done in the past!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But there IS a documentary warranted on how his very talented young band members create their music and persevere through David’s onstage performances without falling asleep. They are genuine artists and genuinely talented so here’s hoping that shining star David can allow them some precious seconds of face time on the documentary and I’m not talking about time spent talking about and aggrandizing David lmao….

But actually, this “documentary” move makes a lot of sense in terms of David’s history of you know… FLIP FLOPPING on his own words and being defiant of the labels others place on him/ he feels he is being subjected to while at the same time trying to squeeeeeeeze out as much as he can from those labels/the attention of others.

To conclude, It seems that David wants to separate family life from his work and thats good. To David’s credit, maybe I actually don’t see him as buying into his own “celebrity” “status” (at times..)… that is, until he sees an opportunity to use that “status” to get something he wants/needs to feed his ego (he acts like he might die if his ego ain’t nourished), but that is technically his right since he technically “earned” that “status” (its just my perspective, and my perspective includes the argument that he switches the goalposts a lot and doesn’t hold consistent to any sense of morals or character so… things can go both ways for him). Though I feel like he mainly owes that “status” to being at the right place at the right time, and he definitely owes his “status”/“success” to Gillian as well :-) I’m gonna end this response on THAT note lmao. 

[secretlyviola]

Aqours 2nd Live Tour Saitama Delayed Viewing in Review

Idk if I'll have much to say on this, but the topic is Love Live so I'm sure I'll be writing more than I think. On that note, this still may be really disorganized & I'll go back & forth about my feelings, but I'll try to go into the order of events this weekend. 

 As a review, I spent Saturday in Fairfax & Sunday in NYC. Main reasoning for doing 2 screenings was to study dances and BOY HOWDY I’M HYPE. I just REALLY want Aqours to release a K-pop style dance practice video once just because Daydream Warrior was THAT GOOD, but it probably won't happen and that makes me disappointed. *sigh* Maybe one day. Favorite part of the live overall had to be that and Cycloning Thrilling One Way just because the level of hype for those songs was unbelievable. Aikyan & Shuka stole the show with "Jimo Ai". 

I could really tell that the seiyuu themselves have grown a lot. Just from the MCs they just seemed to carry themselves a little more confidently and have really started to come out of their shells more. I don't think the word "rookie" really describes them as a group anymore and that was cool to see after having seen 1st live and it just... I don't want to say it felt right, but... it was satisfying... just knowing how much Aqours has been through, they're still only on the up & up. 

I also actually got really emotional during the All Stars promotional video at the NYC viewing. As the video went on, I realized that I was sitting in that same theater a little over two years ago. I was met with the same euphoric feeling that people are passionate about this series and love these girls like I do before we all watched the movie for Generation 1, and I just got so overcome with emotion with how far the series has come that we are even able to have events like this overseas. It makes me very glad that I give this series support and only makes me want to push forward. More J-pop & Anisong in America. 

Other events I took part in were the after party on the lawn outside at the Fairfax location and various restaurant trips which included celebrating Eli's birthday a week early. μnite performed at that after party and while there were some mishaps, it was a reasonable success. I ended up having to do the vault jump in KimiKoko and managed to execute it SUCCESSFULLY despite having some mistakes with the timing & setup. That was the number one thing I was worried about lol but I hoped it looked cool! 

Both delayed viewings were followed by a massive amount of Korean & Japanese barbecue. Like I ate myself into a coma on both days, especially Sunday oh my god I thought I was gonna die haha. Notably on Sunday, when I ordered ramen on top of yakiniku and stuffed myself silly because I didn't realize the bowl was so big jeez. Overall though, really good experience. 

Now unfortunately, there were some bad things that came out of this weekend and that I just want to address. And yes, I am discussing the whole "yakkai" thing that people are going on about. I really hope that I can speak briefly about this and move on but it may end up not being the case. 

I just want to get a few things straight on my stances here: 

 People have different stances on where being yakkai is acceptable for them. (Usually abbreviates to “Time, Place, Occasion”)

I personally don't believe doing it at any kind of official sanctioned events is appropriate, but I know that's not true for everyone. 

Yakkai ≠ anti-fan (they wouldn't buy out almost half the tickets in the theaters or bother going to more than one showing if they were anti-Love Live) 

Most people who were yakkai at these viewings would never actually do that in front of the seiyuu. In fact, you probably sat next to one of them at Anisong World Matsuri this year and didn't even realize it. 

So it isn't the issue of them not knowing how to respect the performers, it's just that they also know that the delayed live viewing is a pre-recorded video, and therefore, cannot really upset said performers. 

I'm going to just leave it at this: I'm sorry if you feel like your experience was ruined, but this is honestly a really trivial matter in my eyes compared to the recording and taking pictures of the lives and then posting them online, which could actually make us lose our privilege to have these viewings in the first place. (On the subject, by the way, I had to stop way too many more people from doing this time around.) I also understand being annoyed, but to be so upset that you threaten physically harming someone over these types of things is taking it way too far in my honest opinion. 

My advice is this: People being Yakkai isn't going to take away North American viewings, unless people have either visibly, or by monetary reputation, damaged the theaters the viewings were held in, which didn't happen. If it's really going to cause that much damage, an official outlet will make a statement about it before we’re set to lose the events. Recording and taking picture of the lives, which violates copyright--which the Japanese entertainment industry takes VERY seriously by the way--will get the North American Viewings taken away. Save your breath for that. And for the love of God, you don't need to threaten people with physical violence over anything in any fandom; that will literally do nothing but make things worse.

Physical fandom violence is never in any way okay. I don't care what justifications you have for that.

Now honestly, I really hate going off on that kind of tangent, but it just really ate away at me and something I really felt the need to just lay out there because it’s just been frustrating me lately. I want to make it clear that I really did enjoy this weekend in good company, but witch hunts, hurting people and the like will get us nowhere as a community. I just really hope the younger Love Live fans come to learn that.

[comicteaparty]

September 7th, 2017 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on September 7th, 2017, from 5PM - 7PM PDT.  The chat focused on Shades of Men by Jrej.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

Good day everyone~! This week’s Comic Tea Party is now officially beginning. Today we are discussing Shades of Men by Jrej~! (https://tapas.io/series/ShadesOfMen-Pages) For those new to CTP, discussions about the comic are freeform, so please feel free to bring up whatever you wish. However, every 30 minutes I will be dropping in a discussion question to help those who would like a prompt. These questions are totally OPTIONAL to answer so pay them no mind if you wish~! Remember, constructive criticism is allowed, but the primary focus here is to have fun and appreciate the amazing comics that the community makes~! Each chat a top comment will be picked and featured on an ad for this chat, so let’s have a great discussion~! With that said, let us begin with this first question~!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

for me i think my favorite scene is more a series of scenes where they first meet david and try to teach him the ropes of being on the streets. especially when they hit the moment where they cant get shelter for the night so actually have to sleep on the streets. the contrast really impacted me quite a lot

i also liked how it showed some of the warmer side to lev and ricky since they took it in a rather positive stride. i know if i had been in david's shoes, i wouldve been really hit with a brick of reality in that moment

mathtans

Bit late, as per typical for me. Favorite scene... possibly where Lev sees that fax? It throws everything into a bit of a new light, which I usually find interesting, new perspectives and all.

Though I gather the author hadn't expected it to be that big of a deal from glancing at the comments.

RebelVampire

really? i didnt look at the comments and now im curious

mathtans

Yeah, the ropes thing was well portrayed too. I think the way the artwork is done kind of helps with showing the difficulties, somehow... gritty? Words fail me.

Now I'm double checking... oh, the author said they hadn't thought it would be a key moment of the story when starting, but it is.

I only read on tapas this time, not the author's personal site.

I know Tenor read too, I saw a comment near the end. ^.^

RebelVampire

thats okay i read it on tapas too. i just read via the link i was given unless theres situations like with tangled river where there was that page that didnt load.

idk if id say the artwork was gritty personally speaking cause of seen grittier. but i do think the artwork fits really well and has a dark and bleak quality to it

mathtans

Fair enough. I found myself with less free time this week too. ^.^ Made it to the end though.

RebelVampire

to express the bleak quality of life

mathtans

Yeah, gritty's the wrong word... eugh... like... sombre? Maybe it's the colour choices.

RebelVampire

sombre might be a good way to put it

i do think its the color choices cause something about the pallette makes the world feel....kind of mute

mathtans

Mute's a real good word, considering Lev. ^^

The other thing about that reward for David thing, it actually misdirected me a bit. I thought they guys would be trying to track him down, to get the reward money for him to save Ricky. Instead they did the hotel heist.

Lev's got character, gotta give him that, he hasn't said anything about it yet.

RebelVampire

oh that wouldve been an interesting prospect. i honestly did not consider that. i was waiting for something a bit more cliche. like david showing back up of his own freewill like "im sorry lev i was mad lets save ricky dramatic tears "

mathtans

I was wondering a little about that, but considering what the guy had just experienced, I felt like they'd have to stumble on David. Rather than him seeking them out. And possibly getting a gun in his face again.

I would not like that, but then, I'm really not a fan of guns.

Which makes me kind of torn about the comic, because on the one hand, guns are not tools to solve problems, but on the other hand, the homeless guys are kind of responsible in using them and I liked the acknowledgement about conserving ammo.(edited)

RebelVampire

yeah honestly i kind of appreciated david left and didnt comeback. cause i felt that was a bit more true to life. since its not like ricky and lev are bffs with him just for showing him the ropes. theyre more like helpful strangers. and if you meet strangers who get you beat up, probably best not to hang with those people

mathtans

The other kind of true to life thing was how not everybody was immediately on board with Lev and his plans. Some thought things were going too far -- and even before the casino some thought that. I liked that perspective.

I also suspected they'd have at least one casualty, to keep things realistic. Expectations met there.

RebelVampire

i felt really sad for the guy who died. but on the otherhand it was well-deserved in the sense the hobos were in way over their heads. like that went beyond too far XD the fact any of them survived is a miracle(edited)

mathtans

Yeah... I feel like Lev was once in the military though? Or guerrilla warfare? Like, I wonder if his apparent dementia (seeing people as lions) is related to previous experiences.

He knows things, is what I'm getting at. But he got tired of explaining things to people. Maybe.

Now I wonder how he ended up in Paris.

RebelVampire

i feel like Lev had at least used a gun before. it didnt feel like it was his first rodeo. but then again using a gun isnt rocket science persay if in an emergency situation. not to say theyd be mega skilled in those situations and would understand good gun safety. just guns are still pretty easy to use, so idk how much to assume of Lev's skills.

Tenor

I'M LATE AND ON MOBILE BUT I'M HERE???

mathtans

Yay Tenor!

RebelVampire

welcome Tenor

all are welcome

mathtans

Yeah... maybe it was also the whole "we don't leave anybody behind". I dunno. Just a vibe.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 2. One of the main characters of the comic, Lev, is a very mysterious person. He doesn’t speak much, and nobody seems to know his background story that well. What do you think happened in Lev’s life that made him the person he is? Why do you think Lev lives on the streets? Why would he not speak to anybody for so many years? What inspires his loyalty towards Ricky that he’d go to such extreme lengths to help him?

mathtans

You segued that beautifully

RebelVampire

Tenor

And for question 1: my favorite scene has got to be the rescue scenes, mostly as they are poorly constructed and entirely chaotic - which perfectly fits a band of misfits trying to do things they have never done. It takes away from the cliche of heroes always suceed/are lucky/seem to know what they are doing despite doing it a first time and I really liked that

mathtans

Tenor - You mean like when they saved each other from the gun runners, or when they charged in to save Ricky, or generally...?

RebelVampire

yeah i really enjoy that a lot of the rescue scenes have this vibe of like them saying "i saw someone on tv do it like this yolo"

Tenor

2: my bets is either involved, or blames himself, for the loss of someone. He does seem to show hallucinations and strikes me like he suffers from quite a bit of PTSD.

Specifically the hotel scene

Just "well" lmao

mathtans

As to Lev... darned if I know. I feel like he's got that kind of military vibe (maybe it's a PTSD thing I'm sensing, yeah), and a desire to help people who look a certain way (David) or who are good to him (Ricky). Maybe he'll spill to the person he's sitting with on the bench.

In the most recent update, I mean.

Tenor

I'm betting hell spill after he catches david, persobally

Use yourself as a living example for why shut isn't all roses

mathtans

Like, Lev was all "no problem just get me something like a weapon and I'll pull a spiderman". That comes with training, not watching cartoons.

Tenor

Right.

mathtans

Tenor: Good point. Might be a while before David comes back into it though... looking like they'll have to track him down to clear Lev's name.

RebelVampire

i always wondered if lev was in trouble for not paying those hospital bills.

mathtans

Huh. I didn't even think about that. What is the French medical care system like?

(I've actually been there, but not to a hospital, fortunately. Which reminds me, nice depiction of Paris.)

Tenor

And to address on an earlier point: guns can be harder to use correctly than you'd think. He'd have to have known how to turn off safety on all those weapons, how to put ammo in them, how to reliably aim, some of those weapons depending on make and model you need to KNOW. (Look up the wrist breaker lmao). So I'd say at least an occupation around them, yes.

mathtans

Yeah, it's not like the homeless guys can ask Siri.

Tenor

Bc strength of the knock back can duck you up, dislocated shoulders, etc

Fff

mathtans

thinks A bit of a tangent, but have we seen female characters?

Tenor

Slowly making my way to a pc

I think a few headshots

RebelVampire

but side characters. nobody major i think cause i mean, the comic is called shades of men

so i think its pretty clear what its focus is XD

mathtans

Yeah, good point about the title. Guess I was wondering about females and the military suddenly. There's that new character in the latest update though too.

Tenor

TBF men could imply humanity as well.

RebelVampire

true. that could be a double underlying meaning. like a story focusing on men but also about the condition of humanity as a whole

mathtans

Lev being in the hospital means he must be in a database now?

(Sorry I'm all over the place.)

Tenor

It's ok xD

mathtans

I think some of the humanity thing comes across with how the characters are generally treated too.

RebelVampire

see this is a thing im really curious about. how did the hospital know his name? like is he carrying a form of ID on him?(edited)

cause i dont get the sense he wound up at the hospital of his own accord

Tenor

He was also unconcious at time of 'registration'.

So yeah, he has to have been known if not carrying an ID.

mathtans

No, someone brought him in... I think we saw them in the background as Lev was sneaking out. I guess I assumed he did have some sort of ID. He grabbed his clothes while escaping.

But yeah, three months later and no one's followed up on that.

Goes a bit to the theme of homeless people being treated as "invisible".

RebelVampire

well to be fair its not like they have endless resources to find him. the police clearly cant even find him if they have to broadcast about his being a kidnapping suspect

mathtans

Except the newscasters mentioned Lev. Does he have a police record?

There is that. And he's good at hiding.

What with not making much noise.

Tenor

I figured he might have been seen in the images of David from the ...catacombs?

And there was assumption based on that, since David looked pretty beaten then.

(But they still got his name, so, yeah, maybe still a record)

mathtans

I wonder if Lev has family?? Ricky mentioned family. Maybe Lev's family died, and that's why he's so traumatized and wanted to help David.

Well, when Lev, David and Ricky were doing their singing, people had camera phones. I figured the association came from that.

RebelVampire

oh yeah thats def how he became a suspect. its a mystery how they put a name to a face tho. he could have a record. but its also not like being homeless makes you disappear out of the systems. systems will still show you exist if you know the name or number.

so hard to say

i do think lev's family must of died

thats usually something that tears one apart and puts them on the street

mathtans

Also, not sure if it's a tiny plot hole, but after making a whole deal to David about not sitting in someone else's reserved spot... they go and play somewhere that's off limits. Without kind of giving him the heads up about the running.

Maybe Lev is a version of David back from the future. (Just because we haven't had any theories that are real crazy yet.)

RebelVampire

ah then theres the answer. Lev/David from the future is devastated by the loss of the cat

as a cat lover, nothing better happen to that cat O_O

i will be so sad

mathtans

Hah. Could David's parents be dead though, I wonder?

Like, we don't know who he was actually living with. Some guy who's forgetful about keys, and a cat.

Equally possible I'm forgetting something obvious.

RebelVampire

i feel like they showed david's parents in the broadcast

mathtans

Did they say it was his parents? Or maybe he's adopted?

RebelVampire

hmmm or maybe not

mathtans

Also, why'd the change the locks on the house if they wanted him to come home??

Or was David lying about it being the right key?

RebelVampire

well if they suspected kidnapping thatd be reason to change them

cause they couldve thought someone broke into the house

Tenor

I think it was his dad in the broadcast

mathtans

I suppose that's true. But wouldn't they have an alarm system too after that? Well, maybe not.

I'll buy it; I don't remember the broadcast so well.

Shady David is shady.

Tenor

He could also be from an incredible abusive home.

mathtans

Oh, that's very true.

Tenor

So he ran away but of course to say THAT implies they did something wrong so they're saying he was kidnapped.

RebelVampire

hmmm but maybe not. i cant see anything in the broadcast. i might be thinking of a different scene.

well to be fair now that im relooking at first he was just missing

and i think they changed it to kidnapping

Tenor

Yeah the flyer was missing.

It changed to kidnapping after David 'left" Lev's life.

mathtans

Oh, that's interesting. Scandal!

Tenor

(Which was after the more recent updates)

RebelVampire

but the fact he ran away doesnt necessarily mean his parents did anything wrong. some teens are really dumb and run away for stupid reasons.

his parents were stifling his career of being a rockstar

mathtans

Most don't stick it out as long as David though, I feel. But maybe not.

David's real upset that his guitar's smashed now then.

RebelVampire

most dont but david could be in that minority that are just that stubborn. but to be fair im saying not necessarily

his parents could also be shit ppl mathtans

Yeah, not enough info to call either way yet, really.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. In the beginning Ricky, Lev, and the other hobos meet David, a young boy who finds himself homeless. David claims this is due to the fact he got kicked out of his house. However, it is later revealed through his missing posters that David most likely ran away. Why do you think David would choose living on the streets over living with his family? Do you think David will be able to learn to live on the streets or will he find himself in deep trouble down the line?

ah look how convenient

mathtans

Actually, that would be a bit of a twist, if David WAS actually kidnapped now. After trying to do it alone. Maybe someone sent a ransom note and everything. (Unsigned, so people think it was Lev.)

Tenor

One hand I want to say maybe abuse? On the other I think it probably was more likely a fight with his parents. He seemed nearing adulthood, he might have wanted to run off to a more bohemian (sp?) lifestyle they didn't approve of and he dipped.

RebelVampire

yeah i personally lean towards a fight than abuse. just that his parents wanted something for his life he didnt and he wanted to be free and all that.

i have been curious who the heck david went off with

like david baby no, did you get involved with a gang

is it a secret cat cult

and you are caring for their god

mathtans

There is a whole underground. But maybe he found honest work somehow?

(Speaking of underground, kudos to the writer for the research on Paris casinos that I noticed in passing. Due diligence for seeing that they're privately owned.)

Kristin

Hi? Is the chat still happening?

RebelVampire

yes it is~!

Kristin

sweet

Sorry I'm late

mathtans

We all have our own time zones.

RebelVampire

no problem thank you for coming

Tenor

Hi~!

And it's ok Kristin I was late too. xD

RebelVampire

@math i honestly doubt he found honest work. he does not seem to be in the state of someone who found honest work. more like someone who just finally adjusted to living on the streets

Tenor

He might have found a good support group for what he's kinda wanting to do.

RebelVampire

yes a good support group who drive suspicious white vans

mathtans

Yeah, you are probably right on that. (I'm usually more of a cynic... but I also tend to devils advocate a lot, and there's a bit of a cynical vibe so maybe I'm just going counter to that here... hoping for the best.)

Suspicious white vans filled with guns? I feel like there's still gonna be repercussions from them stealing all those things.

RebelVampire

yeah there has to be. gangs usually dont like their stuff getting stolen

let alone finding out their stuff got stolen by a bunch of hobos

but to be fair they gotta get repercussions for shooting up a casino

cause i doubt no civilians got hurt

Tenor

I didn't see the guns fff-

mathtans

The casino started shooting first though. Well, kinda... Lev was a faster draw.

Tenor

Oh wait we tlakin earlier?

mathtans

I may be all over the place again.

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

I'm finally home I hope I'm noto too late

I have to quickly say I really enjoy the dreary feel I am getting from the comic, it's very atmospheric

Tenor

Nope yer good JOIN US. :D

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

Paired up with some Silent Hill music I been reading it with that music as background

Specially Silent Hill 2 music

Tenor

...

Oh. My. God.

That is brilliant I should reread with that :|

RebelVampire

you do that Tenor. i think ill sit that out. comic sad enough without making it spooky. XD

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

I'm super slow but I really like the stoic main character he looks like he has seen some shit in his life

It's not the spookiness, it's more like the atomshpere

Like not the chase scenes but defintely the town music

mathtans

Oooh, I hadn't even thought about Silent Hill, goodness. Though again, the Paris feel works for me.

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

I also like listening to some ummmm

What do they call the sounds of people in the streets?

mathtans

I used "sombre". ^.^

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

Atomshpere sounds

mathtans

Background noise...?

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

Like I like listening to the sound of people talking and moving in a crowded area while reading it and then it clicks me to the location

Yeah I guess

RebelVampire

on a not music note, i do give the creator credit. i really get the vibe from lev in his expressions that hes experienced some shit in life, regardless of what it is

Tenor

Oh yes, def.

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

Yes I also love the location, I don't see a lot of comics in other locations

mathtans

Agreed.

Tenor

And I like the story does pretty well with a nearly-silent protagonist. That can be pretty hard to show and move stories forward with.

mathtans

Also, for that whole bit where Lev wasn't speaking, still really good at conveying it.

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

It's like how I am working very hard to make a comic based in Hong Kong because the buildings are amazing

Also yes, Lev has the face of "I seen shit, don't fuck with me" pardon my language XD

Tenor

/omg so offended. /jkjk

mathtans

Purple lions will do that to you.

Tenor

(My mobile was censoring my cussing so it's ok Lmao)

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

Also I haven't read all of it, but I headcannon this is all an artistic dream or vision as a person is looking at a picture in a museum, remembering the past or something

crack theories away

mathtans

There's also some good development with secondary characters. I'm (as always) abysmal with names, but eyepatch guy, I've liked him.

RebelVampire

lol omg. really its just david sitting in a museum thinking the "what if i was homeless" scenario. then he goes home after he realizes it sucks.

Kristin

The art evolution is really interesting. Looking back at the beginning the art was a lot gritier. The new art feels softer and more optomistic somehow.

mathtans

David is staring at a picture of Lev... then he realizes, it's a mirror!

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

Ohh I need to read more to see the art change :3

mathtans

I'm not always great at noticing art shifts. I don't binge so much as read bits through the week.

RebelVampire

im torn between thinking the art change was on purpose to express more optimism or if it was just something that happened cause of art improvement.

cause its definitely improved which is interesting to see for sure

mathtans

Why not both?

Tenor

I do feel it's a bit of both. You can see the growth in the artist through the pages for sure at least.

RebelVampire

but then again maybe its the calm before the storm

showing life moves on before it pours again

mathtans

I wonder if they'll have to break back into David's house to track him down.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 4. The comic deals with a lot of themes and issues in regards to survival, redemption, and homelessness. Was there anything that struck you as particularly poignant in regards to this? What do you think about the hobos extreme lengths to survive? Do you think any of them will manage to get off the streets or do they seemed doomed to it? Will they find redemption from their pasts?

maybe they go to david's house to explain lev didnt kidnap david. and then things escalate and suddenly lev is holding them hostage

mathtans

I could kinda see that happening. O.o

There was Lev's collapse, and waking up in the hospital. That was actually an interesting one, because on the one hand, he wasn't left to die in the street, someone helped him... but then Lev didn't even seem to have wanted the help. Like, not wanting to accept charity, even at the expense of his life.

RebelVampire

to be fair tho, i wouldve been none too pleased in his situation. greatful for being alive, sure. but mad i could potentially get situated with an enormous hospital bill

cause even if they have a better healthcare system there, when youre homeless you dont exactly have any money to give in the first place

mathtans

Yeah... I guess I'm kind of spoiled, what with having work benefits and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, I don't think about costs. Unless I'm reading about the US.

It's nice that the homeless guys get together, and even have a system like what Lev used to recruit for Ricky. Solidarity and all. They can redeem each other, in a way.

RebelVampire

maybe. idk about redeeming cause in the same vein they could enable each other to remain in their unredeemed states through encouraging vegetative behaviors

as someone who lives in the US i think about costs all the time

mathtans

Yeah, that's a good point. Though some people didn't necessarily agree too.

I wonder in retrospect what they did with the guns? Sold them? That feels like a bad plan.

RebelVampire

maybe they just kept them. or just dumped them somewhere. i feel like some would just want to throw them away. try to forget all that happened.

mathtans

Yeah.

RebelVampire

cause selling guns just sounds like a recipe for getting into jail

mathtans

Any fave secondary characters? I like the eyepatch guy, as I said... who can apparently see, I didn't expect that little tidbit. (It's nice to have some levity in there at times.)

RebelVampire

that would be my fave secondary character too just for the surprise my eyepatch is fake thing. i really enjoyed the moment in general cause everything was otherwise so serious, so it was good to have something a smidgen light-hearted

mathtans

He helped save them at the hotel too. Nice guy.

Wish I was better with names. (Angus? That feels not quite right.)

Tenor

4: They show Lev's friend is making steps to get clean and hopefully get off the streets. Out of those two he'd def be one to get out. But it's also more complicated than that because if France's homeless situation is any like ours it's not as simple as 'work hard' to get out. Sometimes without the right guidance, resource, will to be helped, or even with all of this you just can't get out. It's a mixed bag, really. Example if this were situated in america Lev, if he was indeed military, would probably be a Vet by the sounds of it and the homeless Vets in our nation is absolutely horrific due to the sheer amount of how the system is out to screw our soldiers.

RebelVampire

yeah i dont think their redemption is solely in their hands for sure. cause even if theyre willing, society is against them from the start. granted i think them being willing is also a big factor too. cause a lot of them do feel like they gave up at this point, which 100% ensures theyll probably not get out. its a sad situation

Tenor

(Also France has a universal health care that's apparently rated one of the best in the world so maybe he won't get sattled with a bill? /yay google)

mathtans

Well, and Ricky's issues with gambling were alluded to... but it doesn't seem like that's a thing he does any more. So that maybe helps him get off the street too?

Feather, Duke of Comedic Timing

Hmm I don't know much about the later part of the story but I like how it seems like all the homeless people have a comunity within each other?

mathtans

Yeah, agreed on that, Feather. They honour their own fave spots and have bbqs and stuff. Nice.

RebelVampire

so with ten mins left, i want to say i didnt realize that the person who sat down with Lev in the latest update was the same person in the bg from the hospital

mathtans

Wait, really? I didn't pick up on that either.

RebelVampire

https://tapas.io/episode/231368

https://tapas.io/episode/819900

unless the clothes are an extreme coincidence XD

mathtans

I'll be darned. I wouldn't buy coincidence, no. But I imagine many people would have forgotten (if I can forget over the 3 days between when I read those, people will forget over 3 months or whatever). So... they know each other. That's all I can think.

Tenor

Considering they're really looking at Lev? Nah I think they recognize 'em.

RebelVampire

maybe theyre the person who helped him to the hospital or something somehow.

mathtans

Well, yeah, but it makes me wonder if maybe that wasn't the first time? Guardian angel in real life sort of thing?

Tenor

could be. Could be someone who knows 'em. Could be a potential major character later.

LOTS OF POTENTIALS

RebelVampire

it was david's sister all along come to ask Lev where the heck david is and why hes getting into white vans

Tenor

Hnn Can't wait to see where it go tho. :D I'm def really eager on seeing where things go with David (because if he's a runaway for being just essentially an unhappy brat I'm gunna shriek because that is a nightmare on a parent /one of my fears, my child is stubborn lmao)

LOL

TBF I did think a relative but only because the blond/light hair OTL

No real backing just a 'huh that'd be funny' xD

RebelVampire

nah that was the only reason i thought of it too

i mean chances are slim but not impossible

mathtans

Maybe she's the reason Lev stopped talking years ago.

He said something he regretted to her and decided not to speak again.

RebelVampire

if davids a runaway for being a brat im just gonna shake my head sadly. cause in a few years hes gonna realize he fucked up so hard.

mathtans

Maybe David reminds Lev of the mystery woman, that's why he wanted to help David.

I dunno. Good catch there though.

Spotting the similarity I mean.

RebelVampire

i only found it during the chat cause i was looking at the hospital scene

RebelVampire

and was like "wait a sec ive seen you before"

Unfortunately, the scheduled Comic Tea Party is now complete~! Thank you everyone so much for joining this week’s chat~! That being said, if you would like to continue discussing the comic, we encourage you to do so~! We want to give a big thank you to Jrej, as well, for volunteering Shades of Men for our reading queue. If you liked the comic, please be sure to support Jrej’s efforts. If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions about CTP, please feel free to PM me, or e-mail me at RebelVampire@startfaire.com.

With that said, next week’s Comic Tea Party will focus on Nine Twilights by Andrea Rosales, Anne Mortensen-Agnew, and Chris Hansbrough. Please use this week to read as much of the comic as you would like. Hope to see you next Thursday (September 14th) from 5PM to 7PM PDT~! Until then~! Comic: http://www.ninetwilights.com/