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probably-haven · 3 years ago

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I’ve been thinking about Childe a lot recently- because my friends slander him relentlessly and other than one person who kinda semi-likes him I’m the only one who actually likes his character.... and I know I’ve slandered him a fair amount myself but just-

He was a child.

A child - No ‘e’. No puns. No jokes. Not this time.

He was only fourteen.

His story described him as “frightened and hesitant” prior to his time in the abyss. All he wanted was an adventure of his own. To make an adventurer of himself, the likes of which he had heard so many times in the stories of his father. To be like him. He didn’t even go seeking the abyss or any kind of grave danger or incredible power, he was just a naïve little boy, running away from home with almost nothing in chase of a story of his own.

And yet he was fated to fail, and everything went south almost immediately. Lost in the freezing cold forest environments of Snezhnaya, he was completely alone save for the wild animals on his trail. And by an unlucky roll of the dice - or perhaps because in that moment, his desire and drive to survive, to live, to get back to his family, was so strong that even the abyss itself took notice - the world he knew was stripped away.

Scared and vulnerable with only a shortsword for protection, Ajax was torn from what already would have served to be traumatizing enough for the child, and thrust into something immeasurably worse.

Described as “a bottomless crack in the earth’s surface,” “the endless possibilities of another ancient world,” and “the darkest corners of the universe;” the abyss is not a place that ordinary people are meant to survive. Now I could go on about what the abyss may be or who the swordswoman might be or what might have happened to him, but the point is: it doesn’t matter what happened, his trauma is trauma nonetheless and its not in his control nor is it his fault how his brain decided to process it. Regardless, I think “endless possibilities” within the “darkest corners of the universe” speaks well enough for the severity.

Even without this however, it is important to note that for three months of what logically would have driven anyone to or past the brink, he had one consistent point of relative safety in the form of the swordswoman, a person who while training him for destruction, was also deliberately manipulating into him “the ability to stir up endless havoc.”

Placed in an extremely traumatic situation like this and being manipulated by one he would have been forced to see as an anchor of sorts, simultaneously holding him together and molding him into the twisted version of himself that she wanted him to be; Realistically, Childe is more a victim than anything else.

And he returned - still only a fourteen year old child - to his home.

Now an interesting point: based on the wording of his character story, it seems as though when he came out from the abyss, his new demeanor actually unnervingly reflects his hopes when he ran away, implying that the swordswoman very well could have used his own ambition as a cruel mirror to shape him based off, or used them merely as an additional manipulation tactic. “He acted as if this world revolved around him, and as if battle existed for his sake.” Almost as though he were truly the protagonist in an adventure story of his own, just like his father before- or perhaps that’s what he was made to believe.

Regardless, Childe quickly gained a reputation for havoc, chaos, and violence, as it followed him and he spread it wherever he went, just as he had learnt to do during his time in the abyss, constantly seeking that unpredictability, the thrill of combat.

And this continued until he went too far, and in response to this, the father that he admired so greatly sent Ajax away into the strict military environment of the Fatui. The idea was that the highly strict environment of training for the literal military, would “hone his son’s temper.” Not dampen, or control, or reduce in any way, but “hone” - to sharpen it, to refine and perfect it. And he watched “fully-armed troops getting the stuffing beaten out of them by a mere child.“

He was only a child.

Everything he went through in the abyss and all the changes he went through himself, only to be shipped into military by the family who could no longer handle dealing with the effects of what he experienced...

And he was just a kid.

oh but they honed his temper alright. Not only was he entered in this military training like his father had planned originally, but soon after, the young child was selected and placed within the official ranks of the Fatui themselves under the guise of being a punishment.

Told to work his way up the ranks from the bottom, the Fatui “honed” his temper and penchant for combat towards the purpose of serving the Tsaritsa, encouraging these tendencies that would only continue to grow stronger and more apparent with time as a result of their actions, which was exactly their intent. These, psychologically and neurologically, were the key years for his mental development.

And once again the young Ajax found himself the victim of another’s subtle manipulation. Until he was Ajax no more.

Childe has been under the constant task of further proving himself since enlisting in the Fatui, and once he gained the recognition of the Tsaritsa, the only next possible way of doing that was by comparing his skills to others. And thus far, he has exceed in this time and time again, so with the evidence before him his arrogant confidence in his abilities is by no means unreasonable. Nor is his tendency to express friendship and varied other things through combat, it’s only natural after besting others in battle became his main source of acknowledgement throughout his younger years.

He’s fiercely loyal as well, to the point where - were his sense of loyalty not so shrouded in his delusion of what loyalty is meant to be - it would likely border on codependency. He also doesn’t seem to have the greatest understanding of social cues, as expected with his combat-oriented upbringing, and tends to have an unnerving aura to a lot of the things he says that he doesn’t seem aware of.

His loyalty to the Tsaritsa rings true, and seems to be his highest priority above all others, an ideology that, once again has been drilled into him since the age of 14. However, despite this, he is disliked and avoided even by his fellow harbingers, and often kept out of their true plans in a way that clearly shows what low opinions they have of his abilities in certain areas.

And yet, through it all, he still maintains his own set of values and seeks to make genuine connections which people, which while these efforts may be unsuccessful in most cases, and these values far in between - It still firmly shows the strength of his character which, though in fragments, managed to remain as a part of who he is in spite of his circumstance.

And i get that he’s memeable and slanderable and easy for a lot of people to just hate outright, i really do but sometimes it feels like a lot of people only ever see him at surface value and a lot of people dont even know his story and even fewer still actually consider the implications of that background. He was literally a child soldier - that and even more; “endless possibilities” more.

I have nothing against Childe slander, genuinely - but eventually, when it reaches a certain extent...

It’s not bad, I’m just tired.

#genshin impact #genshin childe #genshin analysis #genshin tartaglia #genshin ajax #genshin lore #please- what else can i tag this- i feel like i should have more tags for this one but idk what

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danganronpedits-archived · 4 years ago

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hello! could i get a yttd, dr, and/or (s)dra(2) matchup, please? I’m pretty easy to get along with, and outgoing, according to my friends. im a very pda heavy person, and i show it whenever possible. Im naturally very charismatic, and i find it easy to get my way, but i often doubt my authenticity because of it. Usually im a very truthful person, but i can lie when it matters. im a very emotional person, but i dont like to stress out my friends with my emotions. (1/2?)

+ yttd/dr/(s)dra(2) anon here again! i care deeply for my friends and i try to help them whenever i can. usually this is more in the way of advice. despite having a fair amount of friends, though, i’m officially an introvert (infj). //thank you and have a good day!!// (2/2)

yeahhhhhh you could totally get a matchup!! you sound suuper sweet!! thank you so super duper much for requesting, your matchup may-or-may-not be under the cut !!!

i’ll warn ya though, the length of this one varies a whoooole lot. my matchup-motivation(matchivation, as i call it) has been at a low lately, super sorry that you’re on the receiving end of that! i’ll get out of my slump soon, proomise !!

-mod tsu (kinsidering icons)

first off, from your turn to die, i match you with...

kazumi mishima!

this section contains spoilers for your turn to die, as well as the island mode spin-off, your time to shine! okay, PLEASE hear me out on this one. i was originally going to put mai here- so this is definitely a jump. however, specifically based on your mbti type, i think mishima is a better fit. let me explain. despite being a little strange, i think that people can find it easy to get along with mishima. he’s very close with nao, of course, and even before the second trial he manages to develop a friendship with gin, and become on good terms with sara, kanna, joe, and somewhat reko. in the island mode, while it may be customary since he’s the protagonist, mishima does also get along rather well with the rest of the cast. plus, he’s typically the one that’s more willing to ask questions about the others in a friendly way, or more willing to be personal with the rest of the cast. it’s clear that he cares very much about other people, and i think that corresponds with your MBTI type. to quote the website’s specific description, INFJ types, “take the actions that they do because they are trying to advance an idea that they truly believe will make the world a better place.” while escaping from an island is a somewhat extreme example, it still applies. i wouldn’t say he’s exactly pda heavy- but kazumi is very actively affectionate for other people. he drinks with keiji, um... and works out with shin? however, it’s clear that in all circumstances, he wants to help and has the best intentions in mind. in terms of you, i’d say he definitely shows affection whenever possible, though maybe not in physical form. in terms of getting his way... i would actually say that he does, too. first off, going back to that charisma you both have, it makes the two of you seem rather reliable. plus, i think both of you know when what you’re asking for is too much, and in general those good intentions seep into what you ask other people for. haha... i could definitely learn something from you guys. he is rather truthful i’d say, especially in how much he cares for others. i think that the two of you would also be rather trusting, not being paranoid or wary unless there’s a good reason to. however, he can lie when it matters. in the beginning, kanna is much more stressed about her sister’s fate than she is later on in the game. kazumi lies for her sake, and tries to help her resolve and morale, by saying that there’s nothing she could have done to save her sister. obviously, kugie passing wasn’t kanna’s fault, but that was one of the only arguments kazumi could have given to her at the time that it wasn’t. that’s definitely a time when i’d say lying matters. maybe you’ve lied to spare someone’s feelings before, too ,,

well... the bad thing about hiding your feelings is that it’s hard to conclude whether mishima is hiding his own. after all... if they’re hidden, we wouldn’t see them so often. however, it’s clear that he thinks more than one might imagine at a glance. he cares deeply for his students beyond a surface level, and it’s clear that he’s attached to other people. he indirectly gives up his life for the sake of nao’s safety, and in the second chapter, his AI only blames himself for the grief his death caused nao. pluss... unless it’s with one of the kiddos(gin, kanna, etc), mishima is more the type to suggest ways to improve yourself, rather than just emotional support n beefing you uup. liiiiike, bring up your time to shine again, mishima’s obviously the one leading everyone to their epic island survival. right. BUT, in his affection events w/ shin specifically, the two of them work out together since shin mentions being really weak. whenever he facez a problem, his first thought is how to beat it into the ground. and maybe you feel similarly!!! with that productive mindset!! if you do... i promise that it’s super duper clear to everyone that you care so much, and they love-love how much you’re able to look out for their well being!!!!!! both of you do that!!! i’m going to explore your MBTI a little more real quick!!! buckle up, readers !!! buuuut before we do, mishima’s totally got a lot of friends. like, full stop, he finds it easy to get close with people on both the island and in the death game. however i think that mishima’s definitely more of an introvert than an extrovert. fiirst off, other than the whole art is the introvert’s ideal activity thing(plus, infj’s are said to be creative + artistic!! double kill!!), he also... gosh. how do i explain it. he more seems to like people than actively seek energy from them the way extroverts do, yaaa know? plus, wiith that advice thing you mentioned, INFJ’s tend to be future-focused people. i think that mishima’s a really goal-focused kind of guy. pluus, the both of you are bit reserved in yourselves(liike what you said about doubting your authenticity), and it totally seems like you value closer and deeper relationshipsz. aalso, the two of you may be a little hard to get to know, and can maybe be too sensitive to things(you mentioned being emotional). lastly, i think the both of you can totally be idealists- and as the 16personalities website says, you’re not “idle dreamers”. i wouldn’t be surprised if the both of you care for other people a whole lot, and try your best to help them and in general make the world better through other people. if that makes sense!

second off, from danganronpa, i match you with...

chisa yukizome!

like before, this part contains spoilers for danganronpa 3, the end of hope’s peak academy! it will have spoilers for future and despair arc, as i haven’t watched hope arc. ...though kaede akamatsu is a close second! honestly, while i did settle on chisa, i think you’re like if kaede and chisa did a funky dance and fused together. you’re still really like chisa though!!! the two of you both seem pretty easy to get along with, and definitely outgoing. however, i think that even with your eccentricities, you don’t really overwhelm people! you may a little here or there by mistake, but you’re sure to reel it in if they tell you about it- at least, that’s my guess. plus, i’d also guess that the two of you have good communication skills. as someone who seems to care deeply about people, both of you would probably make an effort to make sure you’re understood by the other person, and that the other person is understood in return. this also goes along with you seeming good at telling how others are feeling. plus, chisa isn’t someone who’s afraid to get physical with other people. this is shown when she physically picks up nanami in the first episode, and her pulling kyosuke and sakakura to her in an old photograph of the three. plus, while it’s not exactly affectionate... teruteru was on the receiving end of some ropes. she does seem to show this very often, as even when she’s not physically affecting people, chisa is still perfectly willing to get in others’ faces. i’d imagine that when she was younger, she might have been more like ibuki in that she just couldn’t restrain herself from expressing the affection in her body. i’d also agree that chisa’s rather charismatic. she’s able to get all of class 77-B on her side in the span of one day, and gets very close with even fuyuhiko after a few months. all of them miss her dearly when she’s sent off to the reverse course. jumping topics a little, i think that she also finds it easy to get what she wants. starting off with class 77-B, of course her charm let her get close to all of them- but her general determination makes it easy for her to know how she wants to face something. maybe you’re also the type to have ideas and a plan, and then roll with it if something goes wrong! neither of you seem like the type to go off of pure impulse, though- maybe educated intuition, but to make a funny joke, neither of you seem particularly trigger happy. you’re both the type to take a second and think before you make a decision, but you’re not the type to think too hard about most things. at least, that’s what i’m getting.

next up, we come to the reason that i went with chisa instead of kaede. i think that with your more goal-setting and process-based mind, you wouldn’t overthink a lie you’re telling and realise that it has to get done. i could be totally wrong, but if chisa sees it as necessary, she can create various well-meaning schemes. for example, while it’s not really a great one, whenever she’s brainwashed by junko she basically gets the future foundation taken down due to her acting skills. while i think she has a strong sense of right and wrong, i think that if she needed to lie she’d know it’s for the greater good. like mishima, maybe you’ve had to do something like that before- sparing someone else’s feelings, keeping someone away from trouble. so on. chisa is definitely someone i’d call emotional! her students can make her jump from protective, to frustrated, to overjoyed all in the span of a few minutes. these are all things she uses to her advantage, though i think that if she didn’t believe these emotions would be beneficial to communicating, she wouldn’t express them. you might feel the same way. for example, if you were in a situation where someone was acting unjustly, it would be more obvious than a situation where... say, you’re having personal issues that you can’t fix. i think you’d try to keep it to yourself if you didn’t think it would be beneficial. you deserve to vent !! it’s okay anooon ! lastly, i think chisa cares very deeply about those close to her. she gives a lot of advice to people like hajime and chiaki, who have their own struggles. plus, she’s not afraid to give sakakura a piece of her mind when he flies off the handle a little bit. in general, she’s also rather consoling of and friendly with munakata. even koichi, a big part of their relationship is how they encourage each other to do their best. chisa also tried to dispel nagito’s self-demeaning comments, which is... definitely a feat. even if chisa does have a lot of close friends and students who she’s on good terms with, a lot of her deeper thinking and planning happens when she’s alone. plus, even she could get overloaded by trying to overcome too many people. and just for a bit of spice, INTJ’s and chisa both are very idealistic and active about this idealism. plus, they also have strong beliefs and are unwavering on them, enjoy helping others(but need space to recharge), understand the good and bad in the world and want to make it better. i’m keeping them coming, chisa also has the traits of being very sensitive to the needs of others, being very creative, and being focused on the future.

and lastly, from danganronpa another, i match you with...

setsuka chiebukuro!

like the other two, this part contains spoilers of danganronpa another 2. though yoruko kabuya is a close second! to start off, i think setsuka is definitely easy to get along with. she’s very good at holding up a conversation and making other feel welcome, and maybe your presence is similarly welcoming or warm! she’s rather laid back, even in the killing game, so i think that you would definitely be similar to her outside of that dangerous situation. plus, i’d absolutely call her outgoing too! she doesn’t hesitate to talk to other people, and is the main moodmaker of the group. that’s her biggest concern in the killing game, honestly! maybe you’d also be more focused on calming everyone down and uniting other people, in a situation like that. plus, i think she is also pretty pda heavy! she tends to refer to the rest of the cast as kids, taking on a more mature demeanor. she also does a lot of hugging and head pats, and isn’t afraid to get in the water to swim with other people. if i’m right, she physically pulls sora, yoruko, and the others into having a pool and costume party with her. if she doesn’t she’s at least pushy- she knows how to get other people in a good mood and doesn’t hesitate to do so. this is shown with the parties she throws, how she organises everyone to meet at the satsuki land parade, just in general. she tries really hard, and i think you can also have a very active kind of moodmaking ability! she’s very charismatic, and maybe you relate to her more joking and easygoing attitude! from how you talk, it seems like you can make people feel relaxed just by being around you. and honestly i kinda love that? like, toss me some chillness pleeeez i think that she can find it easy to get her way, too. while more stubborn characters like hibiki and nikei she can’t get through to, that’s typically because they refuse to let her. even so, when she directly confronts hibiki’s closed off attitude in chapter 2, she manages to break through her cold facade. even if that’s just a little, she is ultimately the biggest factor in getting hibiki to warm back up to the rest of the group. she is rather truthful, though i think she can doubt herself at times too- i’ll get into that later. she can lie at times, like keeping nikei’s secret of his voice status, though this is like the others where she only lies and hides things when necessary.

next up, setsuka is also rather emotional. she clearly shows concern for all of the group members, and is willing to take on the role of everyone’s big sister for their sake. like, her entire role in the game is making other people happier and more at ease in the killing game. i just... that’s it. she also hides her distress and discomfort, however. whenever everyone’s showed their motive video in chapter 3, setsuka is obviously very upset by it, but she regathers her resolve and encourages everyone to keep going in spite of this. the only person who has the same amount of composure as setsuka puts on is sora, and sora’s motive video did essentially nothing except confuse her. it’s clear that she doesn’t want to stress anyone out, and puts a strong emphasis on the needs of other people. it’s obvious that the two of you care very deeply for your friends, and want to keep them safe. she also tries to help everyone whenever she can, as she tries her best to be helpful during trials, and as we just went over she’s very devoted to being a moodmaker. a lot of the rousing, invigorating speeches and words in the game are given by her, and through her actions she also does well to keep everyone’s morale high. setsuka also has more private conversations with people one-on-one about how they can handle their own worries, hibiki being the prime example. however, like with the other characters, i also wouldn’t call her extrovert. she seems to love people yes, but a lot of her conversations are more meaningful. it doesn’t seem like she talks to others just to talk, but she has clear intent whenever she does so. i think this makes her lean more to the introvert side. and finally, it’s MBTI trait lightning round time! INFJ’s and setsuka are both actively idealistic, want to make the world a better place, very happy to help others, need space to recharge, are sensitive to others’ feelings, focused on goals and the future, holders of strong beliefs, have strong imaginations, and want to get to the heart of issues so that people don’t have problems to fix. also, INFJ’s and setsuka both want to rule the world with kindness and love.

the show concludes...! here’s a word from our sponsors. from yttd, you also remind me strongly of joe tazuna and mai tsurugi, as well as lightly of nao egokoro, and anzu kinashi! from dr, you also remind me very strongly of kaede akamatsu, strongly of mahiru koizumi and ibuki mioda, as well as somewhat of aoi asahina, hiroko hagakure, yuta asahina and sonia nevermind. from dra you also remind me strongly of yoruko kabuya, and somewhat of akane taira, emma magorobi, haruhiko kobashikawa, and satsuki iranami! also, this is just based off of vibes, but you also remind me a little of hibiki otonokoji and shinji kasai.

ehe... i’m sorry, i feel like there are a lot of minor matchups... especially from only three(technically 7, but) games... but i hope this matchup was still helpful..! thank you so much for requesting, once again...

#kin matchup #yttd kin #your turn to die kin #dra kin #danganronpa another kin #danganronpa kin #dr kin #✿ they don't want this kind of ending! / anon #♡ ultimate cosplayer! / request finished #alcohol mention #smoking mention

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mysmedrabbles · 5 years ago

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RFA+Minor Trio Reacting to an MC in the Mafia

requested: y e s

a/n: listen,,,,, im a huge sucker for mafia au’s ,, and perhaps i’ll upload a full story with all of them on Patreon! So stay tuned for that one! Definitely more mafia AU type things coming soon though if you want to see more mysme mafia and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee!

warnings: vanderwoods is really good

-Prohibition-Era Italian Mafia mod Alex

Jumin

- corporate heir of a multi-million won company married to the runaway child- now mafia member? my god what a cliche

-it’d originally been a few weeks before he’d planned to propose when he suddenly realized that he had... never actually met your family? He’d always figured that you’d tell him when you felt comfortable enough, or when you felt like it, but he genuinely wanted to propose, to marry you and make you his, however he felt he needed your fathers approval, something.

-he’s surprisingly calm when you tell him the truth, that you’d run away from home at a young age and upon asking for a job at the local bar, as anything, someone who works in the back and does inventory, trash person, anything, you’d found out that this bar was a front for a mafia organization, who’d promptly adopted you and taken care of you ever since

-you’re not sure what kind of reaction you expected from him, but you receive none, only an understanding nod and a question, same as before, “Can I meet them?”

-the next day you take him down to where you work, a lovely little rustic bar downtown.

-he notices as you visibly relax when you take him into the back, smile spreading on your face as you greet various members cheerfully, a reluctant grin, changing to a threatening frown when they noticed Jumin holding your hand and following you to the back

-you’re not expecting the meeting to go well, pacing around the door, where your boss, is privately speaking to Jumin, hand placed firmly on your grip of your gun, finger threateningly over the safety lock, ready to fire if something bad went down

-so you’re exceedingly surprised when the two come back out on an embrace, chuckling as they greet you. waving the two of you off with a genuinely kind smile, you turn to Jumin, demanding an explanation as you get back into the car.

- “Jumin?????” you gesture wildly, inviting the explanation.

- “Yes dear? - Home, Driver Kim please” he nods in Driver Kims direction.

-He gives no explanation, knowing it’s going to drive you insane, only says, “We’re having dinner with your family next week by the way.”

-corporate mafia family

Jaehee

-her dream, to own her own cafe, with you! her love, her joy, her future wife!

-so she can’t understand you when you’re extremely hesitant to leave your job, what looked like a? boring bartending job?

-she knew there was something you weren't telling her, and she ends up figuring it out herself, putting two and two together, using various news reports about the bar, mixed with information (or lack thereof) of the manager of the place

-she stomps up to you in a cold but angry manner, and thrusts a piece of paper in your hands, a list of collected evidence. “Tell me you’re not part of a gang MC.”

-her voice is scarily cold, but hints of tears that threaten to swallow her whole still manage to reflect through her voice.

-you explain your story, the whole ordeal since you ran away until you found the job, to how they all took care of you, and hey its not like you were the most powerful one, you were moreso like the little sibling of the group, still having skills but never in any direct danger.

-she doesnt speak to you for two days, “contemplating the information” (aka making you feel guilty for hiding this)

-when she sees just how broken down and sad you are as you get into bed, movements sluggish as you flop into the comfort of your shared bed, it finally makes her realize that,, this was something you had chosen as a child and even if she wasn’t okay with it, it wasn’t her choice to make. This was your family and she had to respect that.

-biting on the inside of her lip, she slips next to you, pulling you towards her silently. resting your head on her chest, you look up at her hopefully, “does this mean I’m forgiven?”

-the ghost of a smile graces her face as she closes her eyes, “We’ll see tomorrow. Lets sleep for now y/n.”

-when jaehee meets the crew its a lovely spring night and,, well,,,, basically they end up scared of her and you’ve never been more in love with the woman sitting across from you at the dinner table

Yoosung

-nonononononono his sweet baby angel cant be in the mafia

-the fact that you’re you know,, a part of the mafia doesn’t even register in yoosungs brain, his main concern is that you’ll get hurt, that something will happen to you in the line of duty and you won't come home

-you assure him that you’re mainly the person who talks to the targets beforehand, gathering intel and helping prepare for the missions

-you dont necessarily tell him much about anything or anyone, preferring to keep him in the dark, for his own safety

-of course you’d mentioned Yoosung to Byung-Hee, the mafia boss and your paternal figure, but he’d never thought much of Yoosung; that is until Yoosung bursts into the storage rom of the bar, and with around 15 different guns pointed at him, he threatens Byung-Hee, that if he ever dare let anything happen to you, he’d come in and kill him himself, using his medical knowledge to make his death look like an accident

-Byung-Hee is,, amused. Yoosung is not threatening in the least, but the dedication it took to march into mafia headquarters uninvited and threaten the leader while thirteen different people had their guns trained directly at him,,, shit takes guts

-All he does is nod, extending his hand to shake Yoosungs, who is,, extremely confused. When Yoosung’s hand reached Byung-Hees however,, the boss yanks Yoosung close, whispering in a threatening manner that if h e ever hurt you, he’d kill him in the most painful way possible and no one would ever know

-needless to say as soon as he gets back home, the adrenaline rush fades and runs directly into your confused embrace as he cries, mumbling something about how you’ll always be safe and his promises

Seven

-sjdhfskjdfh bitch you think you’re dangerous? i’m part of the mf mafia

-he never found much about you when he looked you up, only records that existed were report card grades in elementary and middle school, but past that it was as if you’d fallen off the face of the earth; no credit cards, social media accounts, guilty 2 am internet purchases, not even so much as a water and power bill or an address, until you suddenly reappeared three years ago, but it’s still not much

-the two of you drive the rest of the messenger to insanity, and even your FBI agents are sick of see your texts to each other, questions masked in playfulness, both trying to get the truth out of each other. Nothing making sense except to the two of you

-often he’ll poke you awake in the middle of the night, glasses slipping down his nose rapidly as he pesters you with incoherent questions about your past; but all you do is shift, intertwining your legs with his and pushing him back down to the bed, placing your head on his chest as you go back to sleep

-its around six months later post having moved in together when the two of you when you decide enough is enough. the truth had to come out sometime no? the two of you gather all the fast food and snacks you can, and facing each other sitting cross legged on the couch, no interruptions, you take turns firing questions at each other, answering them no matter how hard it might have been

-his reaction to you being in the mafia is at first, concerned. because he knows how mafias operate, and the last thing he would want is for a client to come into his job and for your gang to be the target that needs to be eliminated.

-his next question is what level of illegality do you operate at?

-with your response being an even 5, he presses for more. you explain how you take funds from the rich, expose the businessmen who steal from the company’s funds, bribe and threaten powerful congresspeople to pass better laws to help the poor, the basic steal from the rich, give to the poor type deal

-he listens intently, the story of how you got to this point completely capturing him. he never thinks badly about you; in a way you guys were helping out the world. if he spins it the right way, its almost like the two of you are doing the same job, just different methods

-work buddies! while he hacks and does his work for the agency, you’re right there sitting next to him trying to learn all you can about your next target and making a detailed plan, on constant call with Hyun Ki and Hyun Shik, dubbed the “intelligence twins.” When you’re getting visibly stressed he reaches over, gently squeezing your hand reassuringly as he breaks out the HBC for the both of you to take a short break, and when he gets stressed you do the same.

-finally having a place to rant about work, of course neither of you can ever disclose the targets names, but its still good to get things off of your chest

-honestly the only thing he has trouble believing is that you’re an actual bartender. “yes seven, i actually went to school to get my certificate for this” “why u always lyyyiiinn”

-when he sees something on the news, another politician knocked down from the public eye, a mysterious amount of money donated to the local orphanage, he makes sure to congratulate you, genuinely grinning as he picks you up to kiss you, proud of his s/o

-if you’re chosen to do some first hand intel, go down and charm someone into signing x y or z paper or get them to a secondary location, he uses his own skills to keep an eye on you and make sure nothing bad happens

-when its time to meet the family, he goes in jokes ablaze, making what was supposed to be a refined mafia dinner at an upscale restaurant a comedy center,, and the lack of fear on his behalf frankly amuses the boss. sevens a mess the whole dinner. he observes the similarities between the gang and the RFA, both having the same familial dynamic between each other, a kind of comfort and complete happiness.

-of course as soon as you get married he instantly becomes a part of the family as well

-they hate him. like,,, they love him but also hate him.

-terrible jokes from his part; “hey y/n can you take care of this client for me? here kind of a dick but i’m not allowed to say anything. it'd be great if,,,, something happened to their money”

-he knows you’d never do it to anyone that doesn’t deserve it but its a funny bit that keeps the two of you sane

Zen

- “absolutley not mc”

-he hates your job already, working at a bar in downtown, but the fact that its just a Front for a Mafia gang? that you’re a Part of?

-absolutely not.

-he springs into protective mode instantly, launching himself into a long rant on how he’s going to get you out of there, you dont need to worry because you dont have to be there, no matter what dirt they have on you, what you did in the past, he still loves you and he’s going to help you no matter what it takes

-meanwhile youre sitting there watching him pace around, trying not to burst out laughing

-when you explain to him that they’re quite fair, a robin hood type deal made of people who grew up poor, people who were cheated by the government and were forced into poverty, broke their way through the ranks and were trying to help others that were currently in their situation, taking from the rich, bribing businessmen in high power to put forward better laws for consideration, dropping money on random peoples doorstep, all under the cover of anonymity.

-he sits on this for a while, trying to digest what you’d just said. as much as he hates it, he empathizes with the situations that brought you there, and his opinion of this gang has,, drastically changed

-he’s still wary of your safety, hence you suggest he meet the members himself

-bringing out all the toughness he can muster, he strides in with you at his side, cooly talking to the intelligence twins, Hyun Ki and Hyun Shik. He meets others, Jae-Sang and Byung-Hee, and they accept him into the family surprisingly quickly

-he gets along with everyone,, r e a l l y well

Saeran

-nervous boye

-he doesn’t want you to get hurt, but he understand your reasoning as to why you started in the business of money laundering, understands better than most

-he listens to your story, about the way you ran away and straight into the arms of Byung-Hee, who offered you a job. With no other choice you joined, but eventually warmed up to the idea, and now you love them like family

-of course, he cant help but call you during your lunch break, needing to hear your voice and make sure you’re okay, that you haven't been killed or turned into a murderous member

-a part of him does think its somewhat cool, especially the fact that you willingly got in and can belong to a group like this and not be you know,, abused traumatized and poisoned repeatedly.

-when he finally meets them, he barely musters a word or two, but as time goes on, he gets increasingly comfortable with them. if you trust them, he trusts them.

-he cant go through this cult mafia shit again bro

-it takes a lot of reassurance that the boss is actually fair, and even proving to him that you guys dont do others harm, nor do you forcibly recruit people

-you tell him about how they took you in as a scared and alone high schooler, essentially adopted and raised you, gave you a job, a roof over your head and urged you to do what you want in life

-of course theres the thing that you cant officially leave them, so technically you are trapped there, but they took pity on you, looking at you as a little sibling, and at most they only make you gather intel or have you as the driver

-he’s not the most calm about it, but he understands that they’re your true family, and he tries his best to get along with them, trying to view the members as multiple brothers sisters and or parents instead of,,, dangerous mafia members

-he seems extremely calm and chill whenever you guys all go for dinner, very professional and sleek, but in reality he’s trying not to run into the restroom and escape through the window

Vanderwood

-you started off as his client, the one he were supposed to gather intel on and report back to the boss, find his way to your own boss and kill him

-so when Vanderwood found out that you were also the rfa he felt like the luckiest man in the world

-he pretty much always hangs out in the bar during your shift, trying to overhear any useful information; but damn he never expected you to look,, like that.

-week after week, he finds himself enraptured in your beauty, buying water after water, trying to be smooth as he talks to you

-he convinces himself that the little flutter he gets whenever you smile, when your fingers momentarily touch his as you give him yet Another glass of water no ice,, your focus when you experiment with different drinks, the way you get ridiculously excited when said experimental drink turns out good, immediately giving Vanderwood a glass,,, missions,, weren't supposed to be like this right?

-he pries, asking about your boss, but its the adoration of which you speak of Byung-Hee that breaks him, the gestures you make as you talk about him like family

-he skulks back to base, head running wildly. he knows he can’t let you go, he cant fall in love with a client, however he can't bring himself to bring you or your family harm.

-trying desperately to regain his composure, he spins a story how the original intel he received must have been wrong, because there was no hidden agenda behind the bar. He makes up a lie how he went through the bank statements, hacked the system, did it all, but the bar was 100% clean

-he knows he can never go back, to you, but just protecting you will have to be enough

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almasidaliano · 4 years ago

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Here’s the thing about Religion:

so i'm not religious. i am spiritual. to each's own, whatever you believe in, im simply happy you believe in something.

i grew up christian, i guess. uh baptist, ame, and non denominational. resonated most with non demoninational, even gave sermon when i was 15. and i loved it, truly. church is what threw me for a loop the most in religion, and members of the congregation. it's like hard to want to follow something when followers aren't people you would imagine when you think "Christ-like" you know?

i have always been skeptical about christianity. about religion in general really. so you talk to god and he hears you and he gets back to you with a signal or sign, a blessing or a lesson etc. very seldom people go through these experiences where they have truly heard the voice of God or seen some silohuette or something. its all about faith. and that wasn't the issue. "walk by faith not by sight" right? okay. it was the discrimination. the way people take it upon themselves to condemn others. the amount of sins people commit by simply having a judgemental conversation in a holy building is beyond me. the way the pastors feed off of the congregation. churches should be tax exempt meaning they are getting plenty to sustain their building from the government. why is the congregation dropping money in collection plates?

tides and offerings. paying dues. what about buying food for someone who was hungry? or simply giving some money to someone in need? why is it you go through your week being christ like giving tides and offerings selfishly whole heartedly, just to come to church and twice maybe three times a collection plate goes around while the pastor giving some motivational speech about how he know you got it; knowing you probably don't so to speak.

the most repetitive thing in the bible is not to judge and christians have got to be some of the most judgemental people i have ever known. when it comes to religion so many believers want to passively play god. they want to decide who is worth saving and who is condemned, who is living right, and what they need to be doing with their life. and that is not their job nor their place. you love thy neighbor. it never said unless xyz. no. simply love thy neighbor. it means be kind. love can be passive. it's treating humans like humans and not animals. common decency; which like common sense is less than common.

each religion has like its commandments you know those clear set of rules. i personally never thought these were things that needed to be clarified on the do not do list, however society. when you really break it down though, it is simple. be a good person. don't steal, don't kill. don't commit adultry (being loyal and faithful). etc. there are hundreds of stories in the bible. each open for each individual's interpretation.

if the title of the Creator is God then God is a woman. male and female exist yes i just think there is a little bit left off to the story. if there's a battle of the sexes women are the superior. first, there's father time and mother nature. time is a construct, it does not actually exist. ashes to ashes dust to dust. we all come from the earth.

see how the white man created a male god and sent his male son to save us all. "this is a man's world" (the Devil is a white man. and God is a black woman.) that is true, why? because Earth is the Devil's playground. what is so crazy is that the devil is this symbol of desire and guilty pleasures, rebellion and such and here we have the power to choose. life is about experiences. thinking for yourself doesn't make you a menace, how else do you learn? self knowledge is the best knowledge.

the Nation of Islam, is the prominent black religion. Catholicism and Scientology are the most prominent white religions. Catholicism enables sodomy and pedophilia. Scientology is a tax exempt cult, pretty much controlling the media and lowkey the United States. the Nation partnered with them and have been getting some heat from it, however i think they are trying to take it down. as time has progressed, everyone has gotten smarter. talk about a trojan horse.

Scientology and Catholicism kind of rule the country. all the many branch religions from catholicism just get ranked under that, however those two mainly. Scientology is a full blown brainwashing cult. they are the abusive partner in a domestic violence situation. most religion is. it's like religion or life. religion or family. religion or you know? more division. Scientology is more extreme in the sense that they really have policies and such enforced behind the rules and expectations. However, the same dynamic is kind of true for other religions. people get shunned and become estranged from their families frequently due to religious disagreements. it is truly disheartening because if someone is supposedly lost and you are their loved one, or simply a member of the following, why wouldnt you keep supporting them in the sense of like love companionship an ear to listen. instead, they force people to choose between trusting themselves and trusting their religion.

if your religion makes you question yourself take a look at it. you may be fucking up, you may not. however, blind trust will lead you off a cliff. almost all if not all religions talk about Jesus in one way or the other. there is truth in everything see? the Bible says its blasphemy to read another holy text. i want to find a Bible in the original script before people came with their intentions and made it what they wanted.

let's talk homosexuality for a moment. now i dont know how other religions work, however in christianity, christians love to condemn a homosexual. first thing, WHAT DOES WHO SOMEONE ELSE LOVES HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY OUTSIDER? nothing. nothing at all. it has never been anyone's place to tell someone who they can and cannot love. there are scriptures, however they talk about pedetry and sodomy, rape, and male prostitution. crazy thing, it speaks a lot about males not committing homosexual acts but im pretty sure only comes up once about women and the topic was still men.

here's what i think: like i said god is a woman. so if the stories still hold true, humans were created right? so male and man have prefixes. these are word parts that come before. adding these prefixes creates woman and female. in that, i feel as though women were here first. (probably considering all babies start as females and then whilst developing testes drop or don't.) men cannot carry children, they don't have the nutrients in their bodies, they too have nipples however they don't produce milk. men were created as a tool. like a whole ass donor or carrier. men do not like to be "second in command". they feel like in order to be a man and wear the pants, they must do all the providing while a woman does the nurturing. whereas women are multifaceted and great at multitasking. men are constantly thinking like squirrels trying to get nuts. that's all they are here for lol. women could rule the world.

toats just a random theory: what if eve eating the apple and gaining knowledge was the knowledge of true love. like what if shorty realized she aint love dude they were just made for each other lmao. like men are here for reproduction. and to help when a woman's hand are full. i mean like they are in the garden and shit all happy and shit then shorty eat the apple give it to dude and they like oh no we naked. so they go find bushes and leaves and make some lil clothes or coverings. its the knowledge of good and evil so what if their union was evil lol in the sense of bad. like they get caste out stay together have two sons and one kill the other on some hateful envious shit. men provoke violence and evil. they are so prideful. so its like men love women, because they were made to help repopulate and to some extent protect. that's why men think with their dick heads. maybe that's why homosexuality is a "sin" or they try and press the issue; because of rape and sodomy. also, in effort to keep women unhappy since men were too. like it says man and man shouldn't be together, blatantly. not woman. man. because it was unconsensual, and they are here for reproduction so they kinda wasting product getting off elsewhere if you know get what i am saying. lol its a loose theory just popped in my head. however, it kind of makes sense. this lifetime we learning and experiencing things. at the beginning of the lifetime there was woman and then male was created with the tools needed to procreate. as life progressed, there are now ways for same sex female couples to have children. currently only girls can be born due to the lack of "Y" chromosome, however in due time. it is still presently possible for a child have two birth mothers in the present. that is what life is for, the condension of One Sound Consciousness (basically the big bang except not how they described it.). the condension of the Consciousness means when the Creator decided on this lifetime and created every single thing in it us included in order to experience each and every part of their creation. the Creator knows all, can create all, however has not experienced all; that is what lifetimes are for. the experience. the knowledge gained.

always trust the vibes. energy never lies. your body is a radar. you must protect your peace. meditation is like prayer, except broader. in my opinion you let go of so much weight and you gain so much clarity. do not stop believing. always believe in something. mainly yourself. if nothing else. the things that you eat matter too. there are religions against eating pork, all slaves had was pig parts and pig's food. personally, i think it strengthened our bodies against more diseases and such like made us immune.

religion is simply something to believe in. spirituality is actuality. energy is undeniable. you can feel vibrations. and if you can't open your third eye because you are sleep and we need to be woke. we are superhuman. we have superpowers. for centuries, we have been under a curse of mental slavery. (sound familiar? this is why our ancestors laid down and took it. this is why my melanated friends still laying down and taking it.

having faith supposed to make you stop being afraid to die. so do yall not actually believe in something? because i get (ish) in general not wanting to die if you can help it. however, what part of the life you living is worth living truly? if you sat down and looked at the cards you were dealt, could you honestly say "nah im good, it could be worse ima ride it out." or some shit? would you truly rather live this life than fight for the life you want, the life you deserve and maybe die in the process? so what if they gone kill you anyway?

you know they out to kill us anyway. this is the land of the free and the home of the brave. you gotta be brave to be free. we caged or running the streets. "Ye though I walk throw the valley of the shadow of death i shall fear no evil-" trust yourself and give it to the universe.

We will prevail. We will prevail. We will prevail.

your God already knows your heart, learn yourself and fight like hell for peace, equality, and harmony.

-Almasi

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welpnotagain · 4 years ago

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Graphs CAN be used to literally tell you the exact opposite of what the data is saying

ok so I got more time and I am still upset about this. Because being able to read graphs correctly is so insanely important because graphs can sell you the wildest shit otherwise. I’m gonna show you three example graphs all made with the exact same numbers.

They look wildely different. The second one is so far off from being appropriate its ridiculous. The first ones scale going in steps of 50 is way to unspecific. Number 3 is, depending on what you want to look at, most appropriate. But also note the y-axis doesnt start at 0. while the x-axis does. especially the second one where I DELETED THE X-AXIS and just went into the negative on the y-axis. Scale can be everything. Here examples I didn’t make myself:

Once again the scales on the axis are just what ruin these and make them completely inappropriate. An american example of misleading scales from fox news:

the scale starts at 34 and ends at 42. the difference betwen the two graphs is literally 4,6% but the scale makes it look disasterous. Now charts like these: Whats the problem here?

First of all obviously the percentages dont add up to 100. So the employees were able to choose more than one option which makes this kind of chart inappropriate. They should have chosen a different chart type because a pie chart wont display the data appropriately.

in this one however people were only allowed to choose one so it DOES add up to 100% so a pie chart would have been the appropriate choice to display this information.

There is a german saying: Traue keiner Statistik, die du nicht selbst gefälscht hast, literal translation: do not believe any statistic that you haven't forged yourself, and basic meaning would be: always take statistics with a grain of salt. Sometimes charts mispresent information because of malicious intent, sometimes because the person making the charts doesnt know how to make good charts. It doesnt matter if it is malicious or not. You need to be aware of this when you consume information this way. Graphics are meant to make information more easily accessable but they are also used to make the actual data seem completely different than it actually is. That doesnt mean that graphics changing their scales for their axis or for the info graphics (like the original one) isnt always bad. Sometimes it is literally just needed to look at a new dataset. If the ranges of a dataset changes, like if covid cases rise, its important to change scales so your graph stays actually informational. Its just important that you look at the legend and understand that the scales indeed did change. And absolutely lastly towards the original post, the two graphs were never posted together. They were literally posted as two different posts on the social media sites of the german newscast. So there was litereally a month between both graphs and the posting of both graphs. I actually started counting and I got sick of it but if I didnt miscount there are over 240 posts on their instagram between the two graphs. 240 posts. To me its honestly ridiculous trying to pretend that they in any way shape or form tried to misrepresent the data. If I made a mistake somewhere let me know I will correct it. sources to learn more about this x x x hab leider nur eine Quelle auf deutsch gefunden :( x

German main news website changed the categrories of the colours - so all is dark red

#charts #rambling #charts mispresenting data #misleading graphs #overkill #but I kinda hyperfocussed on this so #I dont mean to say that OP tried to discredit die tagesschau but the way it was posted without any context makes it seem that way #also its important to know how to read graphs so like #if one person reads this and learns from all this Im good

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emperor-lover · 7 years ago

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Playlist :: #1) The Aftermath

- a “listen while you read” oneshot series -

Title: The Aftermath - Fromm feat. NU’EST Minhyun With: Hwang Minhyun Warnings: Angst i guess? and reference to mature content

Trying out a new writing style for this series, hope you enjoy, also warning this is kinda angsty. The first paragraph was inspired by something I read on tumblr yearsss ago but i dont remember the source :( also ive been feeling a bit moody like this recently lmao must be the spring. ENJOY

A friend once told you that the worst way relationships end isn’t when it becomes a bunch of one-sided feelings or from a bad break-up. In fact, it’s not even one of the pair dying. The worst way to end a relationship is when two people that you can’t see without the other, two people that you know were meant for each other, just...grow apart. Two people who were so very, very close just stop talking and become strangers.

You rarely get a day where you have the chance to sit down and recover from the strenuous life of being an idol. 25 years old and already plagued with health issues from years of lack of sleep, stress and dancing pains, it’s not surprising that you’ve become a homebody. You’ve always preferred staying at home, having a quiet night watching a drama or a movie, instead of loud parties fuelled with alcohol and crowds of people you don’t know.

Switching on the TV, you settle down on your couch, wrapping yourself up in your blanket and sipping on your cup of tea. Flipping through the on-screen tv guide, a heading catches your eye and you gingerly press the button, redirecting you to the channel.

-Mnet [Star Zoom In!] Hwang Minhyun-

The first meeting, you were both 15, young and completely full of hopes and dreams. It had been a typical first meeting. Same high school, same group of friends, two idol trainees about to embark into the entertainment industry.

“Y/N, when I debut and win my first number one on a music show, I’m going to ask you to be my girlfriend, and you have to say yes okay?”

“Yah, Hwang Minhyun? What are you talking about??”

“I’m serious okay!!” Minhyun had laughed as he swung his bag over his shoulder, “Catch you later!”

Minhyun had debuted much earlier than you. 2012 and only 16 years old, him and the rest of NU’EST were some of the youngest boys on the stage. You felt a sense of pride seeing your best friend up on stage, performing brilliantly. You couldn’t wait for the day that you might be able to share the stage with him.

Debuting 15th place on Melon with Face, you were amazed by the feedback they were receiving. You were certain that they were beginning to make their mark on the kpop world.

“Y/N! I just met Yoo Jaesuk sunbaenim and he paid for our meal!!”

“You’re kidding, no way!”

“I have a photo to prove it!”

“I’m so jealous! You’re doing so well Minhyun-ah, I’m proud of you!”

“Hang in there Y/N, when you debut, I’m sure you’ll be able to meet him too!”

“I hope so!!”

How naïve it was to think everything would be sunshine and rainbows as soon as one debuted. The hardship only began from here, but both of you hadn’t even realised yet. You recognised this boy shown on the screen, 18 years old, dancing in a fluorescent backless green top, smiling brightly into the camera.

“Wow, the styling for Sleep Talking is no joke.”

“Ah it’s so embarrassing...”

“The song is catchy though! Your live vocals have definitely improved!!”

“Do you reckon we’ll be able to get our first win with it though?”

“I hope you do!”

It must’ve been hard for him. Being so young, having so many dreams that weren’t being fulfilled. You on the other hand had just begun. Preparations for your own debut were nearly finalised and you were excited to share the news with him. Teaser images were being released tomorrow and you were the first one up. The leader.

“Wow Y/N! You’re the leader! That’s amazing! Jonghyunnie says to share some of your tips with him!” Minhyun had laughed his beautiful deep laughter.

“Nooo, tell Jonghyun that he’s the one that needs to give me advice, I don’t think I’m ready for this...”

“Y/N...I believe in you. I believe you can do it.”

You look at your phone and sighed. Tomorrow would be your group’s 7 year anniversary. You had survived the 7 year curse, and you were happy. You felt blessed that the group you’re in is so friendly and talented, and absolutely adored by everyone. You were in a “miracle” group they called it. Multitalented entertainers and soloists, who had pierced not only the music industry but also the acting, variety and global ones by storm. They were some of your best friends, as well as your family. People you couldn’t imagine your life without.

“Congrats on your first win Y/N!! Here’s to many more to come!” Minhyun raised his glass of grapefruit ade up into the air, and you did the same with yours.

Clinking your glasses together, you felt your heart ache. Your heart was aching because Minhyun was well and truly, 100% happy for you. Not a single sign of envy or jealousy, just so much pride and joy for all your achievements.

And 7 years ago, you also could never imagine your life without Minhyun. He was your closest, your dearest, your best friend. Someone you’d known since the beginning of high school, someone who’d you seen blossom through the awkward teen stage (and vice versa), and someone who you shared a bond that was different to anyone you’d ever met.

“Yah, Hwang Minhyun, stop taking selfies on my phone!”

He grinned, pouting his lips at you, “Only if you give me a kiss first!”

“One day I’ll really kiss you and you’ll be sorry!”

You tried to snatch your phone from him, but he held it up out of your reach. He had ignored your protests and continued to snap photos, giggling to himself at all the dumb filters he had been using. Finally something in you snapped, and you reached up grabbing his face with both hands and planting your lips on his.

His hand holding your phone slipped down to grasp the side of your waist, and the other entwined itself in your hair, as he kissed you back. You hadn’t been expecting this response, both of you always joked about physical affection, and loving each other, but you had never realised how much both of you had actually wanted it. His arms tightened round you, as he deepened the kiss, and your own hands reached out to clutch his shirt.

He was way too good at this. And you were enjoying it way too much. ‘Never been in a relationship my arse,’ you thought to yourself as his tongue traced your lower lip before gently slipping into your mouth. Suddenly, remembering your original intent, your hand reached down to pluck your phone out of his hand, and you begrudgingly forced yourself to break away and stepped back triumphantly.

“Got it!”

Blushing and looking absolutely ravished, the two of you stared at each other for a long moment before breaking out into breathless laughter.

You were amazed at how easy it was to keep your relationship hidden. The two of you were always overly careful, always thinking of how volatile your careers were, especially if a scandal were to break out. You’d hang out in each others dorms, and sometimes even risked going to the movie theatre at the coex or a small cafe together. At the time, however, it was more likely that you’d be the one recognised. Minhyun didn’t even need to wear a mask and he could walk round without being mobbed or noticed. That didn’t matter to the two of you though. As long as you could spend time together, you were both happy.

The TV screen darkened and you glanced up in time to see a clip of one of the comeback stages for Goodbye Bye.

“Y/N? The company just told me that we’re going to Japan next week”

You nodded, you had expected this, NU’EST always had lots of activities in Japan so you were used to Minhyun flying back and forth. This didn’t mean you liked not having him near you though.

Hugging him closer to you, you buried your face into his neck, “Will you be back to celebrate your birthday?”

His hand that was patting your hair gently, stilled.

“I’m going to be gone for 10 months.” he whispered softly

This time, you couldn’t stop yourself from tensing up. 10 months without Minhyun by your side. Almost a whole year in another country. You chided yourself as you fought back tears. You of all people should know that your job as an idol meant you’d have to work round each others’ hectic schedules. Taking a deep breath, you stepped back and nodded up at him, eyes shining.

“I understand, steal all of Japan’s heart, like you stole mine, Hwang Minhyun!”

And he kissed you. Over and over and over again, his soft lips pressed sweetly onto yours, your cheek, your neck. You could feel the gentle caress of his fingers on your skin, fingers fumbling over each others clothes, a wordless but passionate exchange full of love and emotion. As he pulled you over onto his bed, you lost yourself in the feelings, drowning in the sensations, trying to remember everything that was Hwang Minhyun.

The TV was a blur as it whizzed through 2016. Overcome and Love Paint had been two of your favourite albums. You knew that the boys were proud of their albums they were producing, but for some reason, the public never seem to appreciate them. Or even know they existed.

Something about Minhyun had changed when he came back from Japan. He was even more driven, even more determined than before. Trying his hand in writing and composing songs. You had listened to them in awe, absolutely amazed by the musicianship that he possessed. Plus you never realised how beautiful he would look with blond hair until you had witnessed it yourself.

“Y/N! We’re nominated for our first win!! Do you remember 5 years ago when I said that when I get my first win, I’ll ask you to be my girlfriend?? I’ll finally be able to do that!”

You grumbled jokingly, “So what have we been for the past 3 years?”

You’ll never forget the pure elation on his face. His eyes sparkling with so much hope.

So it’s understandable that Minhyun was upset when even after three nominations in a row, they still came short as second best.

Even you had difficulty trying to cheer him up.

“9th Place...Pledis...Hwang Minhyun!”

You laughed bitterly at the T.V. screen. The editors at Mnet must’ve had a blast putting this video together. Minhyun’s life is like their perfect fairy tale. It’s one that’s easily exploitable to get them their views. Not many people can claim this kind of reversal in their life.

“Vote for me, Pledis Entertainment trainee Hwang Minhyun.”

He hadn’t told you. None of the boys had.

You had found out through countless news articles crying foul that a 5 year idol group would be appearing on Produce 101 season 2. You felt a bitter taste in your mouth though. No one cared about them before but suddenly everyone thinks they’re oh so famous and guaranteed to steal spots in the final line up.

You didn’t blame the boys for not telling you though, how could you? It’s a drastic step to strip your status as an idol and go and compete against trainees. It would’ve been a battle of pride, a battle against the world and against themselves. What’s worse is that even as 5 year idols, you can’t even guarantee if they’ll do well, because voting has been so unpredictable.

They’re still young, so talented and deserving of praise.

Videos of Minhyun in Wanna One were now playing. The legendary nation’s boy group that had swept the charts immediately upon debut. Emperor Hwang and his honey voice reaching your ears. You ran your gaze up over his sharp jawline, the apples of his cheeks, and finally, to his beautiful eye smile. It should all be familiar to you, you realised, remembering back to the times when you had traced your fingers down the length of his face, trying to engrave all his features into your memory.

You blinked at the screen. This Minhyun...was a stranger to you.

When was the last time you had even talked to Minhyun?

A day before the Produce 101 finale concert, you found yourself at the NU’EST dorm.

“Minhyun-ah, congratulations of getting into the top 11.”

He didn’t say anything but just gazed at you, his eyes taking in all your features. Things were different now, you had seen his tears in the finale. It had been a rollercoaster of emotions and Minhyun was still trying to take it all in. His popularity was still skyrocketing and his career would only further expand from here. You both knew it.

“I get my phone taken off me starting from tomorrow. This will be the last day in a while that I’ll be able to contact you.” He reached for your hand and kissed your palm gently.

“I love you.”

Once upon time, you were able to close your eyes and mentally visualise the details of Minhyun’s face without a thought. Now, everything was a blur of skin and a smudge of black.

You had tried to keep yourself updated with Minhyun’s activities in Wanna One, but it was hard on top of your own busy life. However, you had caught the clip of when he’d talked about how he’d never been in a relationship before on Happy Together, and you felt a unpleasant pang in your chest.

He still hadn’t gotten his phone back after his first win, so you couldn’t even congratulate him properly. You found it funny that it had come to the point where you were much closer with NU’EST-W than Minhyun himself. That’s actually how you found out. That when Minhyun had eventually gotten his phone back, he hadn’t even contacted you.

You felt ashamed that you even thought for a second that he would remember that promise about asking you to be his girlfriend after his first win. What did you expect though, almost over half a year without seeing each other, without speaking to each other, of course he wouldn’t contact you. At least when he was in Japan, you could still message each other almost every day.

Even after Wanna One had disbanded, and NU’EST were back as 5, you contacted JR, Aron, Dongho and Minki much more than Minhyun. The two of you just never seemed to have a chance to talk. Hell, you seemed to be closer friends with Ong Seongwoo and Kang Daniel than you were to Minhyun.

For a single, brief moment, you thought you could remember his infectious laughter, whispering touches, and butterfly kisses but the moment passed and there was nothing. Not even a hint.

You stared back at his smiling face.

Now he was nothing but a stranger.

The clip on TV draws to a close, reminding viewers to not miss Minhyun’s debut stage tomorrow.

You find it ironic that you’re going to be the one interviewing him about his solo debut tomorrow night. Out of all the shows he’s going on, yours is the first. And of all days of the year he’s debuting, it’s on the same date as your own group’s anniversary.

It’s almost as if fate is reaching out to give you both another chance.

Will you take it though? One more sleep and you’ll find out soon enough.

End.

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charlie-artlie · 7 years ago

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hhhhhggrrrmmhhhgggggggg aaaaaaa ok i got on in this white hell box to start slamming rvb s15 but that ep10 was so good!!!!!!! click below to watch me go back and forth on this topic for like 5or10 paragraphs lmao!!!!!!!!!

ok so lemme start with things i like which

1). UHG??? that beach scene!!!!!!! perfect amazing perfection everything ive ever wanted???!!!!????!!!! they held hands im literally crying my hands were over my face the whole time like!!!!!!! AAAAAA so that was great

2). i........ like temple. even tho i got spoiled about him being a villain i still thought the reveal was good and i have such a soft spot for smarmy yandere style “im gonna emotionally torture u :)” villains. it also probably doesnt help that i love and miss church so hes a fun stand in on that front AS WELL AS a stand in as tuckers new evil boyfriend now that felix is a pancake

2.5). unrelated but did we get confirm on felix being dead??? he aint dead til i see a body jussaiyin...

3). i have mixed feelings on church coming back that ill get into but church is maybe my favorite character so ultimately i view that as a plus?

4). i really put this one off cuz i was still reeling over this newest episode but all the potential grif development (and by extension red team development as a whole) that looks like its gonna happen this season has got me bittin the pillow like i kid u not im on the edge of my seat fam

ok but like. now onto the real shit. (THIS GOT SO LONG SHIT)

the one thing that is really REALLY holding me back from fully enjoying this season is wanting to know what the crews fuckin intentions are with this show. like. im gonna go ahead and put my hat on the fuckin table or whatever but season 13 was an ending. it was good fucking ending too (and i know someones gonna go back and pull up receipts of me a year or so ago begging for a continuation season after s13 ended but dont do that pls) and to continue after an ending like that with a time skip like that makes this whole season feel like an epilogue to me? like a clean up? like there were some loose ends were tying up.

like. if theyre serious about this season and about ALL these new characters theyre bringing up then were looking at an arc here. like its gonna have to be to bring this to a proper close after all this extra shit?? they cant comfortably bring this to a close in one season

like what are they planning????whats the point of all this????

i honestly wouldn’t even be so bent out of shape about it all, like it wouldn’t seem like such a stretch but the fact that we’re introduced to this season with dylan, who is also, largely, framed as a main character this season. who is. a new character. :/

like i get the narrative tool of using a reporter to drag your characters out of retirement for “one last job” (again, kinda framing it to be one season which worries me!) but whyyyyyy do we have to go through all this stuff with dylan and jax??????? like W H Y do we have to go through the same relationship development we’ve seen like three times already?????? jax is characteristically indistinguishable from caboose, so like???? weve seen this before!! the cold cynical “i dont need friends im just doing my job” person getting frustrated by having to deal with the idiot heart-of-gold tagalong who refuses to hate them no matter how mean or terrible they are like?? we saw it with church and caboose. we saw it later with wash and caboose. we saw it with church and caboose againnnnnnnn. we even kinda saw it with tucker and palomo!!!!! like whats the point of repeating this scene again and again!!!! we get it cynical mean assholes deserve unconditional love too i guess!!!!

like i just cant really get into it. and i dont even really mind dylan like i like her a lot more than i initially thought i would but i already can pretty much see the direction her character arch is going so im just sorta like shrug. shes gonna push jax until he leaves and then...........only then..........will she learn how much she should have valued his unconditional love.................even if he annoyed her and they didnt get along objectively in any way shape or form. but since he likes her then its her job to reciprocate even if she doesnt get anything out of the relationship at all. also she shot him. but whatever their friendship is beautiful (didnt know i had this much salt over this particular subject lmao whoops)

ok so narratively i only see two reasons to do this and im not crazy about either

1). theyre building up to draw some parallels between dylan and like wash or church or s/t but again i dont see the reasoning like why is this season framed around teacher dylan an important lesson about friendship you brought the show back from the jaws or death to give my a character arc for a new character????

2). this its more significant than it seems (i.e. theyre not who we think they are, i mean, its pretty suspicious we only have jax’s stage name rn) like theyre more significant players than we’ve been led to believe

(((also also im with grif on the whole bringing church back thing lmao. like WE DID THIS ALREADY??? there were a lot of AI why dont we ever go on an epic quest to save any of my other favs like oh idk TEX?????????!!!!!!!!!???????)))

but really tho my real and true problem is that i cant tell why theyre still making episodes. is it because theres still a story here that needs to be told or just because they can. and i know my hangup with this mostly stems from one interview i saw after s13 ended with miles and burnie where burnie pretty much said “yea if i had it my way uh i would end it here but hey it is what it is :/” and that just sorta struck a cord with me. maybe because he was a writer and one of the original people who created it i was sorta uncomfortable with taking the show places he didnt want to take it (and i could be TOTALLY off base with this assessment!!!! like i dont know how burnie really feels about this show rn he could be totally digging the new stuff this is just a personal things thats a hangup in just my own head!!!!)

ok so i think i covered pretty much everything i needed to say about this season so far if you actually read this far thanks if u gave up and skipped to the end then i have one last food for thought:

im gonna be the huge stick in the mud who says it: people are putting way too much faith in a company that is still using donut to make cheap gay jokes by actually thinking grimmons is going to become canon and im sorry that youre going to be disappointed. what we are going to get is a unsatisfying reunion and subsequent make up a la church and tucker in s12 and thats it.

thats not what i want to happen thats what i believe will happen. i am FULLY prepared to eat my own hat if im wrong. you may consider this text post legally binding

#talks #rvb critical #rvb15 critical #rvb15 spoilers #but its not all critical #its like 65% critical #maybe 70%#i just had a lot of shit to get off my chest!!#ichi #tagging u cuz i still need to rant one on one with u about this #BUT IM GOING TO BED NOW CUZ IVE BEEN STARING AT A COMPUTER SCREEN FOR LIKE 12 HOURS AND MY BRAIN FEELS LIKE FIRE #so if any of this is incoherent thats why #night night

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oumakokichi · 8 years ago

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Can you explain something to me? Ive seen people say that in ndrv3 all the things that happened in dr1 and sdr2 were all fictional, is this true? Because ive also seen people say that theres a possibility they did happen so i dont know anymore

I can try to explain, but the short answer is that both aresort of very viable possibilities!

For the most part, the main implication of the game is thatdr1 and sdr2 are entirely fictional in the ndrv3 universe. This doesn’t negatethe impact of dr1 and sdr2, or the importance of the Hope’s Peak arc, of course—itjust means that ndrv3 is a separate story within which the series is consideredfictional and is marketed as such for entertainment.

But it is also true that the game’s epilogue ends off on anote of intentional ambiguity. Tsumugi certainly tells Saihara and the othersurvivors that DR is a fictional franchise, that the killing game show is meantto allow people to enter “the world of Danganronpa” and participate ascharacters in it, and that they’re all little more than fictional charactersengineered specifically for the purpose of taking part in the killing game.

However, she very deliberately maintains a mixture of bothtruth and lies in the Chapter 6 trial, so Saihara does acknowledge that there’sa chance she was lying even about the “it’s all fiction” twist. She goes outcalling herself a “copycat criminal” and saying that even the fact that herkilling game failed at the very last moment was itself true to the original, soit’s possible that she was trying toactually emulate Junko’s killing game in that sense—meaning Junko’s killinggame might have been a real thing that actually took place at some point intime.

The thing with ndrv3 is that it’s supposed to leave many ofits answers in the catbox in the end! The game deals so heavily with the notionof “truth” and “lies,” and ultimately the characters themselves decide in the epiloguethat there is no real “correct” choice between those two things. “Lies,” or fictionin other words, can have a very real, lasting impact on reality. Therefore, ifthe result is the same, then lies can be just as powerful as the truth, and thecharacters acknowledge this.

The answers of the state of the outside world, of whetherthe Hope’s Peak arc was entirely fictional or not, of whether SHSL talent evenexists or what the characters’ backstories were like, are all leftintentionally in a situation somewhat like Schrodinger’s catbox at the end ofthe game. While the lid of the box is closed, infinite possibilities coexist atthe same time. Anything could becorrect, up until the catbox gets opened and the answer comes out (which isentirely possible in some kind of ndrv3 spinoff or sequel in the future).

But until that answer is provided, it’s very fun tospeculate, and to treasure the idea that these “endless possibilities”themselves are perhaps the most fun thing about ndrv3. A recurring theme inndrv3 is the fact that there can only be truth, but that lies contain infinitepotential. So the speculation, the theorizing, and the search for what liesbeyond the truth, are all inherently tied to the game’s themes of trying to getthe player to think and theorize for themselves.

With that said, I do think there are more hints that suggestthe events of the Hope’s Peak arc are fictional within ndrv3 than there are tothe contrary. Or rather, if they did take place in reality, then it was longenough ago that they’ve been sort of fictionalized by society. The idea andnotion of “real impact” coming from “lies” and “fiction” suggests to me muchmore strongly that Danganronpa is a fictional series in-game but that Saiharaand the others are the first to really convince the killing game audience ofthe fact that they themselves are notfictional.

One particular hint which strikes me is the fact thatTsumugi cosplays the dr1 and sdr2 characters at all, but literally cannotcosplay as the ndrv3 characters. It would be easy to speculate that she waslying about not being able to cosplay the ndrv3 cast, except for a few points.The first is that she has a severeallergic reaction whenever she even attempts to cosplay real people. Sheliterally breaks out into hives on the spot, meaning it’s a reaction that’simpossible to fake. The second, of course, is the fact that if she could havecosplayed the ndrv3 cast during the Chapter 6 trial, I’m fairly sure she wouldhave.

There would have been no better “proof” of how “meaningless”they were in their fictional existences than by driving that point home bycosplaying them and being a “perfect imitation” of them. She was trying to breaktheir spirits completely in the last trial, making them no longer want to leavethe school or open up the catbox to ascertain anything for themselves. Shewanted to keep them all within the world of fiction, and so she lied to them onmany obvious fronts by claiming she was responsible for everything about them—every thought, every feeling they ever had,their entire personalities, she claimed all of these things were just part ofher written scenarios.

Being able to cosplay them all right in front of the survivors,or at least being able to cosplay their dead classmates, would have been theperfect bait to traumatize them further and break their will to go on. Sinceshe refrained from doing this, just as she refrained from showing more thanthree auditions videos for the cast, then I think that means she literallycouldn’t. So despite her best efforts to treat the ndrv3 cast as fictional,they clearly were “real people” to her in the sense that she lived with them ona daily basis, interacted with them, and could definitely not cosplay them.

So this leads me to believe that dr1 and sdr2 are prettydefinitively fictional in the ndrv3 universe. It fits thematically with thegame, as well as with Kodaka’s claims early on before the game was evenreleased that it would be stepping away from the Hope’s Peak arc. I do think,however, that there’s still a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that thingslike SHSL talent could very well exist in the ndrv3 universe, and that the DRfranchise as a whole was kind of cooked up to cater to and propagandize thissort of thing.

I’m sorry if the answer is confusing—ndrv3 is a game with alot of room for ambiguity and the “truth” about the ending is that there reallyis no answer currently! But there are lots of hints, clues, and things tospeculate about, so these are just my thoughts on the matter and a few thingsthat I’ve noticed. I hope I could help, anon!

#ndrv3 #drv3 #new danganronpa v3 #dangan ronpa #ndrv3 spoilers //#my meta #okay to reblog #anonymous

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kaialone · 8 years ago

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I’m gonna ramble about Ganon(dorf) for a bit

Proceed if you’re interested (I wrote a lot)

Okay so I don’t even know how to start this, I’ll just go.

(note that I’ll mention the timeline in this, please dont think that I dont know that the timeline could be changed at any moment should nintendo feel ike it, I just like semi-going by currently established canon. Also please note that I got no problem with people who dont feel like following the timeline for any reason, to each their own.)

I kinda really like the fact that Ganondorf is said to be a reincarnation of Demise, because, idk, somehow the idea of powerful demons needing to reincarnate into human form for some reason, and then once they have this form and live that life they start having human feelings and emotions and start struggling with what they want to be and maybe end up becoming good guys, is just somethign I really enjoy.

(If that sounds weirdly specific, Great Demon King Piccolo from Dragonball is one character with that kinda arc that I love.)

And then of course, one of the most interesting things about Ganondorf, imo, is how in the three different timeline branches, you got one incarnation of Ganondorf who turns out very different in each branch.

Something I always like is to just kinda, look at the different “last words” Ganondorf has in each timeline branch, and what they really mean for each of them:

"The wind... it is... blowing."

“I am the Evil King, Ganon...”

“The history of light and shadow will be written in blood!”

(though this gets a bit muddled in the Downfall Timeline, as technically Ganon died in ALttP, but was revived in OoX,´, which I see as his true death for now, but then again we dunno if any Ganons after that where him revived or reborn so *shrug*)

But first we should talk about the guy that “grows up” to be these other three.

I mean, personally I think no matter how you look at it, OoT!Ganondorf did lots of bad stuff, and wasnt a good ruler to the Gerudo (I dont mind different interpretations at all though), but I do think his initial intentions were good like we hear him talk about in WW, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

OoT!Ganondorf doesn’t really end up helping the Gerudo once he actually takes over Hyrule (all the Gerudo are still over in the desert, cept for maybe Iron Knuckles) and its heavily implied all the Gerudo were brainwashed to some extent (The carpenters note that the Gerudo seem nicer, post-Twinrova’s defeat), and Nabooru, who was very respected among the Gerudo, was explicitly against Ganondorf, but then brainwashed into submission.

Like even if you think Twinrova did all that without him knowing, not noticing your parents brainwashing your people doesnt exactly make you a good leader.

Adding to that, if A Link to the Past’s backstory is to be believed (and the timeline is not said to split until Link falls in the final battle) then, Ganondorf entered the hiding place of the Triforce alongside fellow thieves of his, and ended up killing them all so he could have the Triforce for himself.

Buuut before you think I’m just gonna talk about how bad OoT!Ganondorf is, like, I still think he genuinely wanted to help his people (at first) and that everything WW!Ganondorf says does represent his true feelings, and that at some point, he just really wanted to do something good.

I think its interesting to think about why that presumably changed for a while, wether you think its the usual getting mad with power, getting to close to the “dark side” or whatever with all the dark magic going on, or being groomed into this role by Twinrova, or all of that, or something else entirely.

I mean, he definitely did some bad stuff before that too, but in the context of Ganondorf being a reincarnation of Demise, I wonder if it could be possible that either seeing Link and/or Zelda or laying eyes on the Triforce ended up having some effect on him, like awakening some part of Demise within him so to speak, contributing to him losing sight of his initial goals and getting more about power in general.

Notably post timeskip Ganondorf seems to use a lot more monsters/dmemons to do his bidding than before, but this could easily just be the difficulty spike for the player.

Idk if this sounds cheap to people somehow, but I remember a popular theory being that the Triforce of Power turned him evil so, its not that different imo.

Of course, in the final battle we see OoT!Ganondorf become Ganon, presumably for the very first time, but honestly? The transformation itself isn’t that important to me, as it just feels like a visual representation of the downfall Ganondorf had undergone already anyway.

And then, when he is defeated, he infamously curses Link, and ZELDA, and THE SAGES, vowing to kill their descendants once he breaks free from the seal and all...

...which leads into who is everyone’s favorite Ganondorf, and rightfully so, WW!Ganondorf.

Before going into the present day of WW, there is its backstory, which is very interesting to me, cause you just gotta think, how do we go from a guy like OoT!Ganon to WW!Ganon?

At some point after OoT but before WW, Ganondorf’s threat became reality, he broke out of the seal and tried taking over Hyrule once more.

But I cant help but wonder how it mustve felt for him. I picture him for years, decades, centuries maybe, sealed away, picturing his revenge, imagining how great it’ll feel to get free and eradicate the descendants of Link and Zelda, and finally making Hyrule his.

But when he was freed, he likely found a Hyrule that was different from how he remembered it. Notably, there would be no hero, nor descendants of his for him to exact revenge upon. And while we know that a princess seems to have had existed at the time, who knows if she was “a Zelda”, if you wanna call them that.

I just imagine it wouldve felt a lot less satisfying that he imagined, heck, probably wouldve felt more like he was robbed if his chance to take revenge.

And who knows what even happened to the Gerudo by that point? I know lack of them in Wind Waker doesnt mean they are extinct, but for all we know they couldve left hyrule altogether? (Like they seem to have done between OoT and TP, and mightve done post OoT in the Downfall timeline, if you dont think they went extinct)

Overall I could see what Ganondorf mightve pictured/wanted to be his most glorious moment, his long awaited return, mightve just ended up feeling kinda empty.

Not that I think he wouldve done a complete 180 already because of that, but I could see it leaving him in a bit of a shock.

Adding to that, now just as he is about to conquer Hyrule for real, the gods decide to destroy it, essentially. Or at least, thats how Ganondorf felt about the situation, given how he speaks of it in the game. Its like the gods are playing with him, everytime Hyrule is just within his graps, they take it from him.

The flood mustve felt especially terrible for him, cause the way he saw it, it mustve been something like the goddesses saying “we’d rather just end hyrule and kill all its people than have you be its ruler”. What a slap in the face, to put it lightly.

After that, getting sealed away again, and all the stuff I mentioned above, probably gave him time and opportunity to reflect upon his life so far, and the future too.

I dont think that in WW, Ganondorf was just “going through the motions”, and just trying to finish what he started because he had no choice at this point. I do think he still genuinely wanted to try and conquer Hyrule, its just that he has had some time to think about it, a bit more about why he wanted it, and about what he did wrong before, and regretting those mistakes.

Like for example, he really doesnt seem like he wants to harm Link and Zelda anymore, if he can help it. He could be hating them, still furious for what happened during OoT, but he doesnt seem to be.

One of these days I wanna talk about all the contrasts and parallels WW seems to draw to Zelda games that came before it, especially OoT, but for this bit I just wanna mention this one thing.

How in OoT you confront Ganondorf, who smugly plays his leitmotif on the organ, the sound of which growing louder the further you approach his chamber. His back pointed at the entrance which he knows the hero will emerge from. Zelda, encase in a crytal, hangs above him like a trophy, like the hero bait she is to him at this point.

And then in WW, his leitmotif plays in his final dungeon, but actually grow more quiet the closer you get to him. That already makes you feel like, while it invokes OoTs atmoosphere, it actually turns it on its head. And then, when you do cofront him, “Zelda” is instead peacefully sleeping in a bed, (presumably Ganondorfs bed?) with him calmly sitting by her side, watching over her. He doesn’t face Link directly as he enters, but isnt completely turned away from his either.

Of course this scene still has some creepy atmosphere to it, especially when he starts reading her mind, but maaaan, the contrast to OoT (and games that came before it) just GETS ME everytime I just think about it.

Ahhh, I could go on and on like, you all know this stuff, you all thought about him in this game so much, didnt you?

I really hope nintendo will choose to give another Ganondorf this kinda depth, and maybe even just play with the idea of Ganondorf taking on a different role than “final boss” in a Zelda title. I would love that.

Now, let’s turn the clock wayyy back to when Ganon fought Link, and talk about the timeline that occurs when Link is actually killed by him.

To me, this is kinda of the “original” timeline, for various reasons, but I don’t wanna distract from our main man here too long.

In this version of the events, Ganon manages to actually aquire the full Triforce in the final battle of OoT, and causes quite a bit of misery before the Sages finally manage to seal him away in this version, too. But because he is so powerful with the Triforce and all that, it ends up costing a lot more lives to finally get to that point.

Now from that point on, this Ganon seems to just kinda rule the Dark World, a twisted “evil” version of Hyrule of his own creation. And of course most notably, either because of this worlds properties, or his general state of being, this Ganon seemingly always stays in beast form from that point on.

Sadly this one doesnt talk too much (though he is very much capable of doing so), so we dont get much of a grasp on his character.

To me, ALttP!Ganon feels like somewhere in the middle when it comes to Ganons. Despite his bestial appearance, he doesnt seem as blind with power and rage as TP!Ganondorf, maybe cause he doesnt call himself a god or something. But he of course is nowhere near WW!Ganondorf in terms of reasons and having reflecting upon his past.

Either way, it is clear that he is not happy with just ruling his very own personal Hyrule, filled with damned people that have become monsters like him, as in ALttP he does attempt to break his seal and go back to the World of Light

This might just be out of greed, but you could also imagine he might simply be unhappy in this demonic world, or even scared? Given how we see that some inhabitants of this land lose their humanity to such an extent that they’re turning into things like trees, maybe even completely losing their sense of self?

One of the more curious things about ALttP!Ganon is his relationship to Agahnim. No one is entirely sure what they are to one another.

In some of the mangas, Agahnim is portrayed as a human who gets possessed or turned by Ganon in some shape or form, and this portrayal is popular from what I’ve seen.

But in the actual game, Agahnim is described as being Ganon’s alter-ego. The term used in the japanese version is “bunshin”, which can mean a lot of things, including alter-ego or even reincarnation, but in the context of the Zelda franchise, there is another part in the series where it is used. In Phantom Hourglass, Oshus is described as being the “bunshin” of the Ocean King. So, if we assume Agahnim works the same way, his consiusness would have to be exactly Ganon’s, right? Of course that doesn’t mean other interpretations can’t exist, I myself am not even sure what to think.

The usage of the word bunshin does imply that to some extent, Agahnim literally was a part, or offshot of Ganon. So froma certain point of view, we could add his character to Ganons, if we wanted to.

Something that intrigues me though is that in the Downfall Timeline, we never see Ganon in human form again. Could this be related to Agahnim? Maybe not exactly literally but symbolIcally?

Did Ganon split the humanity he had left off of himself, because that was the only part of him that could exit the Dark World before the seal was lifted?

If so, did Agahnim dying have any effect on him? Or did whatever Agahnim was in the end just return to him?

So much to think about here, ahh.

Of cours, ALttP!Ganon then gets killed by Link in their battle. Not sealed away, just flat out killed.

Normally this would probably be the end, but of course OoX happened, in which Twinrova tried to revive him, but didnt quite succeed.

Ganon is revived as a seemingly mindless beast, only actualy talking in his final moments, which is the quote from earlier.

In the japanese version, this quote is written entirely in katakana, which can indicate that its pronounced weirdly somehow, in cases like this likely because he had a hard time forming the words at all.

He also refers to himself as a Demon King in japanese, but that term hadn’t caught on in the english versions of the games yet.

Okay so, as I kinda mentioned above, this Ganon’s story gets a bit muddled from this point on.

Sometime after ALttP, but before ALbW, ALbW’s backstory (which is not ALttP) occurs, during which a hero fights a Ganon, who is then sealed away by him, the princess and the sages, but we dont know if this Ganon is the same, just revived again, or an entirely new incarnation.

But you could argue that it hardly matters, cause he barely does anything in the game, essentially acting as a power boost for Yuga...

However, there is a theory that he might do more than that actually.

So, according to this theory, Yuga actually was completely loyal to Hilda, and its only by fusing with Ganon that he starts wanting to betray, due to Ganons influence. The theory is nice in the sense that it makes Yuga more of an opposite of Ganon than he seems if you take the game at face value, and gives Ganon more to do. Depending on your interpretation, Yuga might just be influenced by Ganon, or they literally fuse into a being that is just as much Ganon as it is Yuga.

But of course that is just a minor theory, and you dont have to like it, naturally.

After that we get HF and AoL!Ganon, who is said to be more of a mindless beast as this point, no trace left of the human he used to be.

A rather sad fate.

Again it is unclear if this is the same Ganon, revived yet again, or maybe (anotehr) reincarnation.

But if its the former, you can only assume that, even if you dont think Agahnim dying had any effect on Ganon, just forcing him to ressurect over and over instead of letting him reincarnate properly, must’ve done quite the number on Ganon.

Somehow thinking about this version of Ganon in particular makes me think about the cursed boars in Princess Mononoke, who where lost to their anger. Especially the moment when the Wolf faces the Old Boar, who we have seen slowly lose his self at this point, and she almost pitifully says “Can’t you even speak anymore?” to him.

It almost feels like Downfall Timeline!Ganon is cursed by fate, in a sense. Not really in-universe either, but out of universe too!

History is already written (the first two games are already out) and thus Ganon has to follow the path that is already set for him, become what he will be in the future (what he is in the first two games), a frightening monster that terrorizes this kingdom of Hyrule for the sake of power, with no humanity in him (him having been human wasnt part of his character at the time the first two games where released)

I wonder if the demons failing to get Links blood in 2 will mark the end of this Ganon? (I hope not)

It was kinda nice to see BotW seemingly do somewhat of a modern take on this kinda idea of Ganon, something that has become little more than destruction of Hyrule in pyhsical form. I could see people place BotW as post- AoL for that reason, even.

And well, rolling back time yet again, we go to the last way OoT!Ganondorf turned out, which is TP!Ganondorf...

....who, compared to the others, actually has a bit more of a complicated “set-up” that kickstarts his character.

When Link gets send back in time at the end of OoT, his Tiforce of Courage breaks apart into the pieces we find in WW, presumably because Link was literally removed from that reality as he possessed it?

Then upon his arrival in the new Child Timeline, Link immediately gets the Triforce of Courage of THAT timeline, presumably cause he is in a state of being where he is meant to have a Triforce Piece of Courage?

Well, regardless of what you believe to be the cause, this is what happens, and as a result, the other two Triforce pieces choose Zelda and Ganondorf to bear them and end up residing in them. Thats how the pieces ended up with the three without the Sacred Realm being entered in this version of the events.

Link ends up warning Zelda and the king of the events that will transpire in the future, and thus Ganondorf loses the trust of the king and is unable to set his plan from OoT into motion.

Its a bit vague, but sometime after that Ganondorf starts a direct attack towards Hyrule, but gets captured and put on trial.

And as you know, as he was about to be executed, the Triforce of Power activated and saved him from death.

Now I am not sure if this is true, but I think up until that point, Ganondorf didn’t even know he had it.

But wether he discovered he had it now, or the moment it fist came to him, one thing I am sure of, he mustve felt so great for it. Cause he has no idea that a time travelling Link caused this to happen, right? From his perspective, the power of the gods just came to him like that because he is that great! And then, he cant even die as a result of this? He is literally immortal? Well, he must be the dang chosen one, right?

No wonder he got all god complex in this one!

Something I´m kinda interested in is how this guy spend years, likely centuries, in the Twillight Realm, and if his form in there is any indication, not exactly in physical form either, I mean isnt it implied he HAD to mae use of Zant like that in order to be able to have a physical form like that?

Ultimately TP!Ganondorf just is a lot like OoT!Ganondorf if you think about it, just kinda taken to a more extreme. He is no longer just human, but has transcended humanity much further than OoT!Ganondorf has, and feels superior to everyone because of it.

He is absolute in his own eyes, he is a god, his eventual victory is certain, his battle with the hero just a formality at this point.

And he sticks to that mindset until the very end, even as he is stabbed and fatally wounded by Link. It only makes sense, he couldnt be stopped by this before, why would it stop him now?

Of course the events that follow are rather vague, and people argue about what it means to this day, but I think it ultimately boils down to Ganondorf biting of more than he can chew, overestimating his own power. Or rather, what he thinks is his own power, cause its not even his.

From the moment he was impaled by the sword of the sage, Ganondorf has been a dead man.

He has only been kept alive afterwards through the power of others, the gods, and Zant as well.

This power was not his, and thus it could just leave him just as quick as it came to him.

The imagine of Zant snapping his neck, to me, either just refers to the fact that with Zant dead, who acted as Ganondorf anchor of sorts, Ganondorf himself dies as well, or it refers to the fact that Ganondorf, who saw himself as a god and superior to everything, was ultimately just as much of a mortal and simple being than the very person who worshipped him as a deity the most.

Yes, you could call Zant the very person that made Ganondorf a god in the first place, in more ways than one, so without him, Ganondorf is a god no more. And he dies just like any mortal would.

Ultimately this Ganondorf story feels like a story of hubris.

Simple, but neat.

(Its interesting like, its almost like, TP!Ganondorf was a human who longed to be a god, and WW!Ganondorf was like a god who longed to be human?)

But, do not think it ends here...

We’ve looked at all the people that OoT!Ganondorf grew up to be, but that isn’t all the Ganons there is, the story of Ganon actually continues further down the Child Timeline.

Yes, this brings us to FSA!Ganon, or as I sometimes like to call him, Ganon II.

I understand that most probably never played this game, and I probably won’t blow your minds if I tell you Ganon doesn’t actually do much in this game but, I still like to think about him.

He’s actually a proper reincarnation of TP!Ganondorf, folowing the latter’s death at the end of TP.

From some dialouge in-game we know a little bit about his past. Like his past life, he was a boy born to the Gerudo people, and was named Ganondorf.

Interestingly, in this game, the Gerdudo dont actually say that every 100 years a male child is born, they that every 100 years a “special” child is born, and of course Ganondorf was that special child. They still mention the “only man” part, but it doesnt come up with the “every 100 years” line.

Notably it also doesnt seem that Ganondorf was supposed to be their king, and it doesnt seem like they ever treated him like a king, they only mention he was supposed to be the protector of the Gerudo people and the desert.

This is just speculation, but perhaps, after what happened to the first Ganondorf, the Gerudo people decided it wasnt a good idea to treat the sole male like a king just because.

The Gerudo in the game tell you that the older Ganndorf became, the more twisted and obsessed with power he became, and eventually he started breaking their laws, too.

When he entered the forbidden pyramid, the Gerudo basically considered him banished from their tribe, but also didnt think he would ever survive in there and presumed him to be dead.

The Gerudo in this game really only talk badly about Ganondorf, which probably makes sense if he really just did bad stuff to them, but its a very stark contrast to OoT where the Gerudo seemed to just let Ganondorf get away with everything, kinda.

Something I wonder about if maybe like, Ganondorf wasn’t exactly treated well by the Gerudo, out of fear of him turning out like the old Ganondorf, or if Ganondorf just turned bad all on his own. Or maybe a mixture of both?

What is sorta interesting is the story of how this one came to be Ganon, which is that within the pyramid, he found a certain Trident, which is implied to have caused him to “awake as Ganon”, so to speak, as he picked it up. This is the inscription found with the Trident:

“Seek...you...the world? Seek you...power? Does your...soul...despise peace and...thirst for... more? Does your soul...cry... for...destruction and... conquest? We...grant you...power to ...ruin...the world. The power of...darkness. Evil...spirit of magic trident. You are...the... King of Darkness.“

The trident feels like it has more out of universe meaning than in-universe (though I do headcanon it to be a reincarnated ghirahim somehow, because I can). The trident being a weapon that franchise-wise is heavily associated with Ganon, and notably Ganon only, as Ganondorf is never really seen wielding a literal trident.

This Ganondorf picks up the trident, and with it the legacy of the interpretations of Ganons that came in the games before this one, so to speak.

I´m sorry for this part being so unstructured, but interestingly, Ganondorf is this game is referred to as “ancient demon reborn”, or something like “instrument of evil reborn” in japanese, hinting that even at the time of the game’s release, this Ganon was probably intended to be the reincarnation of a previous evil, likely a previous Ganon, of course.

What I wonder about is how much this Ganon is aware of that, though. When he grew up, becoming more and more twisted, did he know? Did he know he was the reincarnation of a villain that had previously plagued Hyrule? Did he feel his hatred? Did he know whose it was, or did he consider it his own? Or was it simply his own?

And when he picked up the trident, and transformed into a demon beast, did he understand what this meant? What he was? Did he ever obtain any memories of his past self, even?

Something that hints that this /might/ be the case is Shadow Link.

Now Shadow Link is not actually created by the dark mirror from the evil part of Link’s heart as the english localization suggest. Instead its created from the evil part of Ganon’s heart, using the dark mirror. It is said that through the mirror,the hatred and evil of Ganondorf, throughout time, took on the shape of Link. Likely because the hero is a major subject of Ganondorf’s hatred.

The fact that this happened when FSA!Ganon used the mirror, despite himself never having met Link up until that point, hints that he might, at least subconsiously, harbor the memories of his past incarnations?

But really, as usual there is a lot open to interpretation.

I´m just so intrigued, like in this timeline there is a “second Ganon”, a Ganon that came “after”, someone who had to take on this cruel legacy.

And, with that we have now talked about all the Ganon(dorf)s that have existed in the franchise to this day, not counting stuff like BS Zelda and the CDI-Games.

If you stuck around until this point, thank you so much, you’re too kind!

But also thanks to everyone that just skimmed this or looked it over briefly, I hope this wall of text did something for you.

(Sorry for any typos I... type too fast when I get excited about a topic.)

#legend of zelda #ganon #ganondorf

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anomalagous · 8 years ago

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lc’s ongoing long-ass list of what the fuck, teen wolf, and other sundry E606:Ghosted edition.

scott getting a little tiny bit snarly at the sheriff for not believing~~ in stiles gives me life

this old-ass map not only puts beacon hills on top of a real life place called scotty place which still makes me laugh, but also substantially more north and eastward than i originally estimated.

why the fuck didnt naziwolf just get the fuck outta bh?

why did he choose to stay and teach high school of all things?

california requires an 18 month accreditation course and a certain GPA of teachers who do not have an education degree, i know this from direct experience. its been three months since naziwolf busted out of his bacta tank, so what the fuck

if he forged his credentials, how

when

when did he actually learn all of the post WW2 physics and electromagnetics things he clearly genuinely knows and has a genuine interest in?

did the dread doctors read him bedtime stories from their science journals?

if so, what the fuck

i guess if youre an alpha werewolf you can sleep in the backseat with no seatbelt and its not a big deal if you crash

good job on malia being the driver and not crashing them im proud of her

reading the date of the canaan abduction in the standard american way it was april 8th, 1987, which cant be a coincidence given that’s stiles birthday (albeit pre-stiles)

if canaan has been abandoned for 30 years, who has been cutting these obviously not overgrown lawns and trimming these obviously not overgrown accent shubberies

why isnt that flag beat up or torn in any way?

kudos on giving that convertible the old 80s style california plates but why arent any of the windows on any of the cars busted out? no flat tires? no rust or missing doors?

also that shot of the ‘town’ where there was more substantial damage looked fake as hell and the crosswalk was proceeding at the wrong angle and i cant unsee it.

why is there still power running to these street lamps?

for that matter who has their street lamps scheduled to turn on in the middle of the day?

was that block party banner over the street lettered on both sides? it reads properly no matter what side youre looking at, which seems weird.

why is there blood on the carousel? was that explained? we’ve never seen the ghost riders’ gun draw blood that i can recall

im not even sure we’ve really seen their whips draw blood per se and certainly it wouldn’t have caused that kind of blood stain

also why is the blood still wet and red 30 years later? why wasn’t that newspaper rotted out? either time impacted this town to make it shitty as hell or it didn’t, pick one, you cannot have both. it still rains enough in california to totally disintegrate a newspaper in thirty years.

how the fuck did that carousel function even that tiny bit after 30 years in the elements?

why did melissa have to sneak chris argent around, couldnt he have just declined the operation against medical advice?

also good to see scott got his utter inability to lie from his mom

even if malia isnt wearing 100% stiles’ void-hoodie how could the costume department have thought for a minute we wouldnt have thought that was the void hoodie?

malia having a hallucination of theo in the same episode he comes back in for real seemed both rushed and entirely unnecessary.

in fact these hallucinations seemed wholesale unnecessary and neither scott nor malia deserved that nonsense

were all of these dead leaves already on location or did some poor asshole have to ship them in and then ship them out again

come to think of it, at first i was really excited to see coral/eucalyptus trees as they are actually trees that are in california (as opposed to the type of oak the nemeton is, which is distinctly Not a type of tree in california) but then i realized those are Southern California Trees and if beacon hills (and canaan) are that far north and close to the oregon border, the trees should be way more pines and evergreens and not coral or eucalyptus or ... any deserty tree, really.

seriously were these hallucinations just to show malia can feel sad too?

malia was wearing really subtle gold eyeshadow earlier. now it’s dark shadowing up to her browbone. does being a werecoyote also mean being able to shift your makeup at will? cause thats cool

do little girls seriously still play with baby dolls while hitting their first strides of puberty? im beginning to think i was never actually a little girl.

how much younger than malia was kylie supposed to be? bc she looks like 12 here but malia was like... 10 when the desert wolf murdered her family, right? was SHE the younger sister??

teen wolf shamelessly reusing shots with new filters on them like never before. this ain’t even the fifth time i’ve caught them doing this, this season, and i’ve literally never seen them do it in any of the other seasons.

im not sure anybody told kylie’s actress she wasnt gonna get to make out with shelley

how do werecreatures get piercings? or were her ears pierced first before the change?

why does anyone let liam make any decisions, ever?

i do not get why everyone finds naziwolf so hot

seriously i have a little tree-bush exactly like this right outside my door/garage and that shit is wild and untamed in just a month of no trimming in 30 years it would not have that nice slender shape anymore

also trees being choked to death by kudzu or whatever all these vines are dont look that healthy

is there even kudzu in california??? ive never seen so many vines in all my 10 years of living here.

the first house scott goes in theres like no tv in the living room but there is one chair (with no dining table) all alone in the dining room area, which just looks sad.

oh sorry two chairs set up in what was clearly the worlds most melancholy staring contest.

my dentist used to have that exact sailboat wallpaper trim around the top of his exam rooms.

scotts bullying a door.

have melissa and chris argent actually told the pack about the head-biting yet bc i feel like they should know

i think more people have asked scott if he’s okay in this episode than in the last three seasons, which is sad bc it’s basically just lydia and malia that do it.

that one house has some brutal earthquake damage in its exterior wall.

poseys microexpressions are so woefully underrated, he really is brilliant.

i have more grey hair than jr bourne and that makes me really angry

i like that they’re doing alchemy with druidic compounds/hedgemagic/whatever you want to call it more than i could possibly express.

why is there a porch loveseat on the step up to this one house but that FLAG IS ENTIRELY INTACT?

how convenient that all three of them were looking at that window when lenore decided to fuck with the drapery.

that said scott’s resultant HOLY SHIT?!?? face is amazing

how has lenore been surviving in this town, does she not need water, electric, heat, groceries? where did the lemons for the lemonade come from?

all this wood paneling is the most 70s thing i have ever seen in my life

i appreciate the little cast iron redwood decoration with the ‘m’ on the bottom of it.

everything!! in!! this!! house!! is!! brown!!

that piano as a busted af bass key there.

i feel like i’ve seen that other metal flower/leaf decor before. the new version of the stilinski house, maybe?

lenore has an intimidatingly large smile and i feel like that as an intentional casting choice

how come malia and scott couldnt hear her heartbeat after scott explicitly called out that there were no heartbeats? or for that matter not hear that caleb also didn’t have one? (presumably.)

im not 100% sure but i think malia is holding scott’s hand when they enter the dining room area of lenore’s house, which is adorable so i accept no other reality now.

i honestly feel really bad for lenore.

i would say the fisheye lens is s6′s slo mo but the slo mo didnt go anywhere

i dont know if its supposed to be fancy or artisinal or whatever you called that in the 80s but dont put green shit in your lemonade, green shit does not belong in your lemonade. lemons. sugar. water. it isn’t hard.

malia like chugs a good half of her glass at once, but when she sets it back down it is more full than any of the other glasses. i prefer to think she just faked drinking it to try and gain lenore’s trust than it’s a continuity error from the props department.

when lenore starts using her banshee powers to shake the house, it also magically converts the lemonade into water.

lenore has a pair of decorative ducks on her wall but they appear to be two male mallard ducks, so. gay duck decor.

so when does lydia get to have telekinesis?

i dont think im a very big fan of how angela harvey handles scott.

malia did NOT make a fist like she was really committing to trying to punch out that window.

seriously scotts the alpha he doesnt need lydia to give him permission to do things scott thinks need to be done

that being said scott going into the basement with a creepy kid when youre obviously in some kind of horror movie trope was stupid

the cameras they used for the senior pack team were super blurry anytime anyone moved even the littlest bit, its so annoying.

scott barely being tall enough to reach this tiny-ass basement window is endearing to me

there is no way a vhs tape that wet would run. i remember vhs tapes. they were not sturdy.

i feel like we used to have the same VCR in my parents’ room tho

also what the hell camcorder did they record this on that put it straight on VCR, camcorders in the 80s had weird little small VCR tapes you had to put in a converter. that was just a standard VCR tape.

also why are there jumpcuts in the home video? did somebody cut the original footage and THEN put it on a standard VCR tape? how much fucking work was THAT??

caleb goes from 0 to 100 on the creepy poltergeist scale real quick

well okay maybe from like 40 to 100

banshee duel yessssss

literally why would noshiko do this after she saw what happened with the nogitsune

not that i necessarily think theo is as dangerous as the nogitsune but he is well bad enough

look at this worthless white boy doing this shit against all the advice of the woc around him

why does the sword do this, i thought the power was in kira and not the sword

if the power is in the sword why couldnt noshiko fix her own damn blade

look at this other worthless white boy even more worthless than the first

that looks like melissa is putting like grout on chris’ injury that does not look comfortable

oh look hes screaming imma guess it was not in fact comfortable

gratuitous jr bourne fanservice

awwww theyre holding haaaaands again

how did this kid get on the stairs the last time we saw him he was by the tv, why did scott and malia let him herd him like this

i appreciate malia’s willingness to beat up a kid poltergeist immensely

of the pictures on caleb’s walls, many are pictures of insects. one is a blue crab. one says ‘guten’ on it, which somehow entertains me a lot.

this is the second time this episode has tried to make me scared of carousel horses

the vhs footage loops while no one is attending to it which is not how vhs tapes work

malia is such a treasure

that being said having nearly drowned twice in my childhood this whole drowning-on-dry-land conceit is not super great for me

screencapping this is so gross

i love lydia’s fierce banshee scream face

so the blood was on the carousel before the wild hunt attack, as we see in lydia’s vision. SO WHY IS IT THERE??

THERE ARE KIDS RIDING ON THIS CAROUSEL WHILE SOME OF THE HORSES ARE BLOODY

poor skateboard bro couldnt even take his skateboard like rude wild hunt

i feel like there’s a lot more ghost riders here than there are in beacon hills. maybe the ghost riders just come for particular towns and the ones in bh are actually like... cora isaac and danny.

its amazing how much younger a good foundation can maybe somebody look

did liam SERIOUSLY just tell theo he can kill whoever he wants? did i hear that right? bc that is a TERRIBLE thing to tell theo, who has ALREADY KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE, even if what you meant was ‘dont kill us you need us’.

i cant believe we got this cheap knockoff as an excuse to not have kira and then they didnt even let him have the powers he needed to do the job

otoh watching his ass get blasted back into the tunnels was satisfying

literally nobody cares if youre okay theo you murderous fuck

i wonder how many times scott had someone steadying him telling HIM he has to breathe like hes doing for malia right here

i should really keep a tally of how many times scott does stiles’ lizard tongue thing while stiles is gone

this is gross of me to think while the character is basically drowning but hey now i know what scott looks like with his bottom lip all wet and covered in somewhat translucent stretchy goo--jizz. okay. it looks like jizz.

scott mccall nearly drowns on dry land after a lifetime of severe asthma and the first thing he does after is ask if malia is ok

luckily THIS time she asks if HES okay to but jeez

he looks so shocked and confused to be asked extra jeez

more scolia handholding, this time while fleeing danger

i was literally three in 1987 and i still have more grey hair than lenore who was demonstrably an adult in 1987 I AM VERY ANGRY

that being said i realized why caleb here’s clothing was bothering me so much. nobody had shorts that long in the 80s. everybody wore short as hell shorts in the 80s. it was thighs everywhere.

these stupid motherfuckers taking theo to scott’s HOME and putting him in scott’s SAFE SPACE without even WARNING HIM oh my GOD

those better not also be scott’s CLOTHES

ok but WHY are the wild hunt trapped? did they BRING the northern lights or is the northern lights related to what’s trapping them?

excuse me but WHEN did lydia see anything related to what happens to people after the wild hunt takes them and why didnt we get to see it too?

seriously its like if scott is thinking of stiles then lizard blep

im so mad at liam for bringing theo back and putting him in scotts house i cant even see straight

and i just know that this anger that scott is being allowed will be it

and in a week or two itll be working with theo like nothing ever happened

im honestly shocked he even got this much

he even got undercut there by malias (also justified) rage

cool that the morrigan got a namedrop but i dont trust them with that story eitherrrrr

man let me tell you if this was martin and not scott and somehow he had been murdered and resurrected and was then confronted with his murderer in his pack house that murderer would not fucking leave alive

im still kind of mad that this season brought claudia back to life just to make her so sketch and make me kind of hate her, i didnt want to hate her

oh okay its a different weird leaf decor piece than the other one

oh yeah noah OKAY NOW youre starting to believe BUDDY you have faith issues

#long post for ts #like this is so long #so so so long #just my train of thought tho #no episode of teen wolf is without sin #read at your own risk #this is unfiltered #and idk what tags its gonna end up in #but my biased opinions are Obvious.

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hello-thefatlosshabit-blr · 6 years ago

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“What gets measured gets managed.” Peter Drucker

I am a firm believer in Peter Drucker’s management principle. Anyone that has ever kept a financial spending log or food log knows that they changed their spending or eating behavior when they created a record of the activity. We naturally start making better decisions and identifying patterns in our behavior. Monitoring an activity forces, us to pay more attention to it. We naturally start making better choices because we can’t ignore our bad ones. If we aren’t mindful of our choices, we will unconsciously fall into habitual patterns of behavior. The concept is so simple yet potent, I am amazed at how many people don’t use this principle to improve their personal or professional performance.

I think a simple notepad is a self-improvement powerhouse. It is one of the most powerful self-improvement tools in existence; when it is used to record an activity. Logging an activity creates greater awareness. Awareness is the first step in changing our behavior. When we record an activity, it forces us to become more mindful of our decisions, big and small. Often it is the small, seemingly insignificant decisions that are sabotaging us.

Eating that cookie in the breakroom, losing valuable time by allowing yourself to become distracted, skipping a workout, or staying up late watching TV instead of getting a good night’s sleep. Anyone of these decisions by themselves isn’t devastating, but their accumulative effects are.

Whatever it is you want to improve, your time management, your leadership, your relationships, your business, your eating patterns, your exercise consistency, or your spending, you must track it. Be relentless. Track everything related to the behavior you want to improve. Awareness is the first step toward transformation.

Bad habits are the result of cognitive neglect and mindless actions. The danger of bad habits is that we aren’t really involved in the decision-making process. We encounter the cue, and we begin to execute the routine, our conscious mind essentially goes to sleep until we receive the reward which reinforces the behavior. When we fall prey to bad habits, our mind is essentially operating at the level of the animals. One of our greatest gifts as human beings is our ability to connect what we are doing in the present to the results it will produce in the future. Our ability to value future rewards as much as immediate rewards will determine how much we will accomplish in our lifetime.

Harvard social psychologist Daniel Gilbert says “What’s so curious about human beings is that we can look deeply into the future, foresee disaster, and still do nothing in the present to stop it. The majority of people on this planet are overwhelmed with concerns about their immediate well being.” He says that most of us have a hard time relating to our future self. We treat our future selves like a stranger, so when we are given a choice that will benefit our future self or present self, we have an overwhelming bias to take care of our immediate needs. You might not think this applies to you, in that case, he would tell you, “If you are like most people, then like most people, you don’t know you’re like most people.”

The more we discount future rewards, the more likely we are to act impulsively and develop bad habits; because bad habits always produce immediate gratification, while productive habits rarely do. The reason the “Marshmallow Test” was so predictive of the future behavior of the study’s participants in the decades that followed is that it provided a direct measurement of the child’s ability to delay gratification.

Our ability to value future rewards as much as immediate ones will determine if we are going to invest in our future or squander it with impulsive actions. The future is either purchased by the present or stolen by it. Bad habits are thieves that rob us of our future one day at a time. The only way we can protect our future is by replacing bad habits with good habits. It is simple, but it isn’t easy. It requires diligence and effort. Progress is always intentional.

Our original reward system was based on food. Food wasn’t always available, like it is now, so our dopamine system was wired to seek immediate gratification. When our body senses a drop in blood sugar levels, a potentially life-threatening condition, our dopamine system is activated, and our desire to eat is palpable. This triggering mechanism is why small frequent meals, high in protein and slow digesting carbohydrates can significantly reduce cravings by keeping blood sugar levels stable.

Once our dopamine system is activated, any food could restore our blood sugar levels, but our primitive brain has been conditioned to seek high sugar foods since they will produce the most immediate rise in blood sugar levels. A failure to plan and have healthy snack options available, like an apple, will leave you susceptible to whatever junk food someone brought into the office. Instead of satisfying your craving with a nutritious 60-calorie apple, you end up eating an unhealthy 400-calorie donut, kolache, breakfast burrito, or cookie.

We didn’t begin cultivating crops and planning for the future until our newer prefrontal cortex was developed. It is our prefrontal cortex that is responsible for human beings ability to think of the future in a meaningful way. Before it’s development, any reward that was more than a few minutes away, wasn’t a consideration. As you have learned, our Elephant, which is driven to seek immediate gratification is able to easily overpower the Rider when the Rider has not prepared the Path or is uncertain what direction to lead the Elephant.

The smaller Rider cannot hope to overcome the two-ton Elephant through brute force and willpower, but he can steer the Elephant away from the temptation through preparation. He can shape the Path by removing temptations, when possible, having healthy snacks available always, and using future discounting to his advantage.

Our primitive rewards system treats any reward that is 10-minutes away like a future reward. Instead of our Rider telling our Elephant “No, you cannot have it” which would cause our mind to focus on the reward until our willpower is drained to exhaustion, in a phenomenon clinical psychologist call ironic rebound. Ironic rebound theory explains why our mind tends to focus on any thought we try to push away.

It is much easier and more effective to tell our Elephant, “Ok, you can have it, but you have to wait for 10-minutes.” This technique avoids our mind’s tendency to focus on the reward and cools our desires by making the reward feel like a future reward instead of an immediate one. Chances are in 10-minutes you will no longer feel the impulse.[i] Even if you do, you have still strengthened your willpower by overcoming the immediate temptation. Over time, this technique will significantly reduce the number and severity of your willpower lapses. Remember not to be overly critical of yourself when you give in to temptation because it will lead to stress eating. When we are struggling to overcome a bad habit and beat ourselves up about a willpower failure, our stressed-out mind will seek immediate relief, often from the very behavior, we are trying to curb. It isn’t logical, but it is all too human. Emotions can easily overcome reason.

Awareness prevents us from mindlessly falling into bad habits. The problem with most bad habits is that their negative consequences aren’t immediate. If you took one bite from a cookie and immediately gained 5-pounds, you wouldn’t take another bite. If you took one puff from a cigarette and instantly experienced health problems, you would put it down, but of course, these bad habits only produce immediate pleasure without any immediate consequences. If we aren’t mindful of their long-term cumulative effects, it is easy to convince ourselves it is just one cookie, one cigarette.

The self-deceit is especially insidious because there is a basis of truth and logic to the argument. One isolated indiscretion is negligible, it is what we do habitually that matters, but of course, in this case, the behavior is a bad habit, so it does matter. Gretchen Rubin, calls this excuse “the one-coin loophole.” In Erasmus’s Praise of Folly, the argument of the growing heap is made, “If ten coins are not enough to make a man rich, what if you add one coin? What if you add another? Finally, you will have to say that no one can be rich unless one coin can make him so.” What is implied is that while a single coin cannot make one rich, the accumulation of many coins is the only way to become rich.[ii]

Our actions are like the coins in Erasmus’s essay. One visit to the gym or sticking to our meal plan for a single day is inconsequential to our health, but the habit of going to the gym and controlling our food intake is invaluable. I’ll start logging my food intake tomorrow. It’s Sarah’s birthday, I’ll enjoy a piece of cake and start recording my food again next week. It’s just one workout. A year from now, what I did today won’t matter. It’s only one piece of cake. One beer won’t make a difference. Why work on that report today, when the deadline is three weeks away?

People enjoy using the one-coin excuse so often on themselves, that they will use it on other people. Numerous times people have told me that I could skip my lunch hour workout or eat a cookie in the breakroom. They are correct. I could skip the gym or eat the cookie, but I know that it is the habit of going to the gym and resisting the cookie that is important to my health and happiness. Nothing tastes better than looking lean and feeling strong. When you develop the exercise habit, it becomes a positive addiction. I hate missing a workout. I do skip the gym occasionally to bond with colleagues over lunch, but I usually plan ahead by exercising in the morning. I have noticed that I am always dragging in the afternoon when I miss a workout. Regular exercise is addictive because it makes you feel fantastic; improving your mood, focus, and energy.

Every day we are given the gift of choice. Each day our habits can create the future we want, or rob us of it. The only constant in life is change. Habits determine our direction. We can choose to embrace good habits that move us steadily toward our goals, or bad habits that take us further and further off course. The choice is usually between instant gratification and future accomplishment. When we develop good habits, time is our friend, but when we allow bad habits to persist, time works against us. “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.” Jim Rohn We are who we are and where we are because of our past decisions and habits. If we want to improve our circumstances, we must improve the quality of our decisions and habits.

If you really want to change a behavior track it for at least a week. A month would be even better. As you have already learned, it takes approximately 66-days on average to make a new habit sustainable, not the 21-days that most were taught. Habit formation timelines vary depending on how difficult the behavior is perceived to be by the individual. The more difficult the action, the longer the habit takes to form. Making improvements in any area requires measurement, but you must measure the right metrics.

Many people make the mistake of only measuring their desired outcome when attempting to achieve a goal. The other common mistake is not to set a deadline. Effective leaders set stretch goals for their organization that need to be reached within a specified time frame. A goal needs to have a deadline. A deadline helps create a sense of urgency. Deadlines help establish priorities and prevent procrastination. After setting goals, they look at lead and lag indicators. Lead indicators are daily actions we can take to achieve our long-term goal, measured by lag indicators. For example, generating sales leads might be a lead indicator, while the lag indicator would be an increase in sales revenue. Fat loss lead indicators are your daily caloric intake and total daily protein intake. The lag indicators are your weekly body weight averages and average body fat percentages. If you want to achieve a goal, your progress must be measurable.

“If you want it, measure it. If you can’t measure it, forget it.” Peter Drucker

Everything and anything you want to improve must be measurable. You might think some things can’t be measured, like building employee loyalty, but I would argue it can. If a leader wants to build loyalty in their organization, they could decide that twice a week they are going to visit two employees whose managers say they have been doing a great job and paying them a compliment for their excellent work. She could then inquire as to how they are doing and ask if there are any resources they need, including training, to help them be even more effective. Tracking her consistency would be the lead indicators, and quarterly feedback from culture surveys would be the lag indicator. Loyalty is a two-way street. Showing employees that the leadership values their contribution, and is committed to their professional development is how you earn loyalty.

If you want employees to care about the company, the company leadership has to show they care about the employees. Companies like Kimberly Clark inspire strong employee loyalty by coming up with imaginative ways of avoiding layoffs during times of declining revenue. In one instance, they were able to convince 80 of 100 production workers to change roles so they could avoid laying them off. These employees became marketers that added millions of dollars to the company’s annual sales.[iii] Companies that inspire loyalty from their employees enjoy less employee turnover which leads to a better trained, more productive workforce. I don’t want to stray too far from the topic of getting in shape, I just wanted to demonstrate that almost anything can be measured and that anything that can be measured can be improved.

Whatever you want to change or improve you must find a way to measure your progress. You simply need to find an impactful activity you can do each day, a lead indicator and track your consistency. Next, find a way to measure the impact it is having, the lag indicator. More often than not, these small daily activities will take time to produce results; but if you selected impactful daily activities and executed them consistently, they will produce outstanding results. That is the power of compounding effort. Small efforts repeated can create miracles. “Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.” Ovid

Success is a numbers game. Consistency is the key. If you want to become more consistent at doing something, you must track it. Tracking your consistency will cause you to become more consistent. Simple, but how many people actually keep track of their consistency. When I want to adopt a new behavior like performing 30-minutes of professional reading each day, I track it. I keep a simple scorecard on my desk to register how many times each month I complete the task. I only take a minute each day to score my day based on my goals, but the impact is profound.

I can look at the scorecard and immediately see which behaviors I am doing well at adopting and which ones need improvement. Not tracking your performance is like playing a game without keeping score. I know that some people do this so they can protect their little snowflakes from life’s disappointments as long as possible, but I am not a fan of this codling. Life has winners and losers, and kids need to know how they are performing. Life keeps score. The sooner they learn that, the better. You need to keep score as well. You need to know how you are doing. You need to see if you’re making progress or neglecting to make progress. I use the word neglect intentionally. Being consistent requires diligence. When people say; I would do it if I had more time. I tell them to forget it. There isn’t any more time.

We all get 24-hours each day. When the clock hits midnight that wraps it up. I don’t care who you are, a billionaire or a beggar, we all get 24-hours each day to do what is meaningful to us. Today is your life in miniature. What you consistently do is what makes you who you are. What you do consistently will determine where you will be, 3-months from now, 3-years from now. If you don’t make time to do the things that are necessary to get better, then you just aren’t going to get better.

We make time for our priorities; we make excuses for everything else. You need to know where you are succeeding and where you need to improve. If you want to improve your running, keep track of your performance and set goals to reduce your time covering a fixed distance. Simple, but how many people go running each day without keeping track of their average time covering their route?

If you want a new salesperson to make, 10 sales calls a week, on Friday you should invite him into your office and ask, “So how many calls did you make?” When he begins to provide an explanation, you gently explain that that will not fit in your box. You need a number. That number will tell you everything you need to know. His work ethic, his attitude, his drive, his ambition, and what you can expect from him in the future. If for example, he made twenty calls, you have made an excellent hiring decision, but if he only made three calls, well, you’ll need to have a little talk and see what you can do to motivate him to do better. In most cases, workers will improve their performance because they know it is being tracked by management.

Goals must be measurable so you can gauge your progress toward them. Your progress must be so simple that anyone could look at where you are and determine if you are making progress. Your progress has to be calculable. If you can’t measure your progress toward a goal forget it. Consistency is easy to measure. There are apps available that can help you form new habits. Strides, Streaks, Fabulous, and Toodledo, are just a few of the habit-forming apps available. The Strides app is particularly useful at developing new habits because it allows you to program action triggers. You can schedule multiple reminders for each task, and the app tracks your consistency.

We must master consistency. The one trait every successful person, business, or organization has in common is consistency. A restaurant that is hit or miss with the quality of food it serves will be out of business soon and rightfully so. It isn’t what you occasionally do that matters; it is what you do consistently that will make you better. You are what you repeatedly do. Positive actions, repeated every day produce massive results over time. The smallest, seemingly insignificant actions repeated out of habit will produce profound results when given enough time. That is the positive side of disciplined consistency. The negative is also true. Small seemingly unimportant neglects, over time, create a crisis. One bad decision doesn’t normally cause a Bankruptcies. It is typically the result of many bad decisions repeated for months and years. Divorce is usually the result of months and years of neglect as well. The decision to divorce might be triggered by one event, but it is all the small neglects over time that leads to the dissolution of the marriage. Relationships require effort. Probably the best book on the topic is Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts, which has sold over five million copies. Often the couples in his book were able to transform their relationships by learning their spouses love language and developing the habit of expressing love to their partner a couple of times a week. In a matter of weeks they can refill their spouses “love tank;” not with a single grand gesture, but with small seemingly inconsequential acts of affection consistently repeated. These seemingly small gestures produced remarkable results in marriages that were on the brink of divorce. Small doesn’t remain small when it accumulates.

Snowflakes accumulate to form colossal valley glaciers. As a child, Warren Buffet observed that when you rolled a snowball, it grew. He applied this metaphor to money. He saw a dollar today as being worth $10 in the future due to the compounding effect of interest over time. He used this philosophy to avoid wasteful spending in his youth. His unique perspective on money is one reason he was able to accumulate so much wealth. When every dollar you spend today is seen as ten dollars in the future, you realize the cost of a $4 coffee is really $40. This metaphor is the origin of his Biography’s title, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

Albert Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it… he who doesn’t… pays it.” Darren Hardy, publisher and editorial director of Success magazine, provides a great example of the importance of saving early in life in his excellent book, The Compound Effect. One person begins investing $250 a month, at the age of 23 and does this until the age of 40. Her friend invests the same amount each month but doesn’t begin investing until the age of 40. He continues until the age of 67, which is the average retirement age. If both saw a return of 8% on their investment, she would have accumulated a little over a $1,000,000, while he would have accumulated less than $300,000, because he started late. He would have less than one third her accumulated wealth despite investing for 10 more years than she did and contributing $27,000 more than she did. [iv]

Poor people pay interest, and the wealthy earn it. You can make large sums of money, but if you don’t save or invest any of it, you will never accumulate wealth. Look at all the professional athletes, performers, and lottery winners that end up broke. It was because they didn’t have the discipline to manage their money correctly. It has been said that if you took all the money in the world, divided it up equally among everyone, it would soon end up in the same pockets. Darren Hardy’s mentor Jim Rohn routinely recommended people purchase and read Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason.

Jim said that typically only 10% of the people would purchase the book and read it, despite the book being very inexpensive, and easy to read at one sitting. The book explains in simple terms by way of storytelling how to become wealthy, and yet most people will not bother. He struggled to understand why so few people would invest the small amount of time and money required to learn the fundamentals of accumulating wealth. He explained it this way, what is easy to do is easy not to do. He said the average person will not bother to read the book or apply the information.

Don’t be average. The best way to be successful is to do what unsuccessful people won’t do. If you aren’t financially independent, I also recommend you pick up the book. My 9-year old daughter read it in just a few minutes. I want her to understand how she can become wealthy. I want compound interest and time to work for her. Wealthy people make money work hard for them, while poor people work hard for their money. Successful people adopt good habits that make time work for them, while unsuccessful people develop bad habits that make time work against them. Learn to make time and money work for you.

“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock the stream always wins not through strength but by perseverance.” Buddha

Habits produce results similar to the “flywheel effect” that Jim Collins describes in his best seller, Good to Great. When you begin adopting a new habit, it takes a lot of energy, like putting a massive flywheel that is motionless into motion. When you first push on the huge metal disk horizontally mounted on an axle, it barely moves. The motion is almost imperceptible, but push after push it begins to pick up momentum. Effort, upon effort, the massive disk builds more and more momentum until it is generating huge amounts of energy. Twitter was unsuccessful for its first couple of years, but its creators just kept at it, and eventually it picked-up and then exploded. Success is the result of consistency and grit; small effort, upon small effort. These efforts produce small, unremarkable results, but over time, they accumulate until a breakthrough occurs. Jim Collins describes the success of the Good to Great companies this way in his book, “There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no wrenching revolution. Good to great comes about by a cumulative process—step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel—that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.” [v]

What separates successful people from unsuccessful people is consistency. People that are in excellent physical condition are not a special breed. The only thing that separates them is that they have mastered consistency. Consistency is the game. Being fit has to do with exercising regularly. Being lean has to do with consistently controlling your food intake, so you don’t exceed your energy requirements. You should do both, but you need to understand that you cannot out exercise a bad diet. If you want to get leaner, you must begin eating less food than your body is burning each day. I wish I could tell you that as long as you work out every day for an hour, you can eat all you want, but that would be a lie. I don’t wish to mislead you.

For years I carried an extra 10 pounds of body fat. I exercised consistently, but I didn’t track my eating. It wasn’t until I started tracking my food intake that I lost those last few pounds. My experience is not unique; anyone that has achieved a lean physique did it by monitoring their food intake. I don’t know anyone that got lean through exercise alone.

Exercise helps you get lean and look better. Strength training helps create a harder looking physique so you can avoid that skinny fat look that cardio only exercise programs produce, but it isn’t the primary driver of body composition improvements. Weight loss is always driven by energy balance.

Cardio and strength training both burn calories, but strength training helps you maintain and build muscle while restricting calories, so it is much more effective at creating a better-looking physique. A common mistake I see people making when trying to gain muscle or lose fat is focusing on their exercise program.

Weight gain and weight loss are controlled by calories in vs. calories out. When you want to gain or lose weight, focus primarily on your diet; how many calories and how much protein you consume everyday. When you want to improve performance, focus on setting performance goals and varying the intensity of your workouts so that an intense period of training is followed by an intense period of recovery. Everything matters, but some things matter more than others. You cannot outrun a bad diet. You can train with an all-out effort all the time, or you’ll experience mental and physical burnout and increase your likelihood of injury. Consistency is more important than intensity. “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules.” Anthony Trollope

[i] Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It, Avery; Reprint edition (December 31, 2013)

[ii] Gretchen Rubin, Strategy of Loophole-Spotting #10: the One-Coin Loophole. January 31, 2014.

[iii] Elizabeth M. Fowler, Careers; When Job Security Is Provided, The New York Times, Published: October 10, 1984.

[iv] Darren Hardy, The Compound Effect, Vanguard Press; Csm edition (October 2, 2012).

[v] Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t, HarperBusiness; 1st edition (October 16, 2001).)

“Real transformation requires real honesty. If you want to move forward — get real with yourself. Change will never happen if you lack the ability and courage to see yourself for who you really are. Begin to elevate yourself today. Try to make better decisions. Become a beauty seeker. If you can begin to believe in your own beauty, you can then begin to believe in the beauty of others. The transformation of the world takes place in your heart. Once you reach the summit of your own heart you will see beauty is everywhere.” — Bryant McGill “What gets measured gets managed.” Peter Drucker I am a firm believer in Peter Drucker’s management principle.

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maplesecrets · 6 years ago

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MapleSEA Buy / Sell Tips

Refer to: https://ift.tt/2M7I9rb for a add pot Todding guide. Last edited 8th Aug 2018 Aimed at Singaporean MapleSEA traders. Malaysian traders should adapt the guide for their situation. It's repayment and thanks for the hard work other people put into their community guides I've read over the years. Sorry if it seems too complicated, I'm not so good at writing. Ensuring that the other party does not run away and actually honors the deal is more important than this scam. This is a more complex scam with heavier penalties if you don't know what you're doing. Only online SGD/MYR transactions are affected. Mesos, @cash, paper money (meet up trades) and crypto are not. ===================== For buyers, a warning ===================== If you get scammed by someone and they do not send your item after you've made payment, please do not report them to the police unless you've confirmed that the seller is the real owner of the bank account. You can permanently screw over honest sellers without realizing it, while the real scammer gets away. It does NOT matter what details you provide to the police. Banks will unilaterally close an honest person's account with no warning or evidence to back it up. Most people are too expensive for the bank to deal with if they get reported, so they don't bother with investigations. Enjoy modern commercial banking :) To find out whether the seller is the real owner, you need a copy or screenshot of their bank statement or iBanking page and match it to their ID or FB name. Not something that comes up in a typical trade in the FB groups, so this info is not really accessible to you. This is also the typical ID method for FinTech companies nowadays, and you can see it everywhere in FinTech startups. The penalty for the buyer who falls for this scam is losing the money they sent in the trade, not a big deal, you should have understood the risks and used an escrow (middleman) service. The penalty for sellers can be much worse. =========== For sellers =========== Name of scam: Third-Party scam Also known as: Man-in-the-middle scam on Localbitcoins. I believe it originated there as well. Description: Three parties are involved. The honest Seller (A) The Scammer (B) A Victim (C). Seller (A) is selling items to Scammer (B). Scammer (B) is selling items to Victim (C). Scammer (B) has no intention of releasing items to Victim (C). 1. Victim (C) first contacts Scammer (B) about purchasing an item from them. 2. Scammer (B) then contacts Seller (A) about purchasing a similarly priced item and acquires Seller (A)'s bank information. 3. Scammer (B) forwards this info to the Victim (C), and convinces (C) to pay money into Seller's (A) bank account for the item. 4. Seller (A) releases the item to Scammer (B) after noting funds received. Scammer (B) runs away with a free item. The Victim (C) assumes they are sending funds to the Scammer (B), but is actually sending it to Seller (A). Seller (A) assumes they are receiving funds from Scammer (B), but is actually receiving it from Victim (C). At the end of all of this, Seller (A) gets their money, but is now in possession of stolen funds. Scammer (B) gets a free item, and on top of that their identity is usually completely anonymous. Victim (C) loses their money, and has Seller (A)'s bank info. They might save evidence of the trade and report Seller (A)'s bank info to the police/bank. Seller (A)'s bank account is now compromised. If the Victim (C) does report the case to the bank or police, Seller (A)'s may be forced to withdraw all funds in their bank account, and the account will be forced to close. In addition, Seller (A) will never be able to open another bank account in their country, because banks share info with each other. Banking services that the seller will no longer be able to access include: housing loans, car loans, an account to receive their salary and the ability to invest. Think carefully if you want to take risks trading online at an early age. This scam can happen even if (A) and (C) are trading on different sites. Seller (A) might be trading in a Facebook group, while Victim (C) is trading on Carousell. (B) may be leaving offers on multiple sites waiting for a victim to bite. This scam typically involves non physical items, usually gaming stuff, gift card codes, crypto, etc. It's because there is no need for the scammer to provide a receiving address, and everything is done online. The scammer is able to remain anonymous, and anyone can do it to someone across the world. ================ Prevention guide ================ 2 Methods for online FAST transfers and ATM transfers. Both types of transfers have different ID processes. The goal is to match the name of the sender's bank account to either their ID (Method 2), or their Facebook name (Method 1). You must also understand the exact mechanics of the scam, as well as your local bank mechanics, before you reveal your bank details. You MUST inform the buyer about your ID process before the trade begins, for honesty reasons. This only reduces the chance of scammers doing this to you. It does not prevent your bank account from receiving stolen funds, and scammers can still compromise your bank accounts. ========================================== Method 1 - Recommended for typical players ========================================== Lazy method, can be abused, not safe at all. Non-intrusive. - Online transfers (FAST transfers): No ID required. Once funds are received, check the sender's bank account to make sure it matches their Facebook name, and check their FB account to make sure its old and legit. If you use this method, you can't trade with people who make FB accounts with their Maple IGN. Requires skill to judge accounts. Don't get fooled by comments for recipient. - ATM transfers (requires ATM receipt): No ID required. ATM receipt + FB or WhatApp chat window in the same picture. Receipt + Maple client with their account logged in is also acceptable. Doesn't matter as long as they can prove the sender is the one interacting with you. Proceed to method 2 if their ID verification fails. =========================================================== Method 2 - Recommended for frequent traders and high volume =========================================================== Best method, safer than method 1 but depends on your application. 100% safe if you don't make mistakes. The primary method used on LocalBitcoins. - Online transfers (FAST transfers): Request for the buyer to provide ID with their government issued ID such as their NRIC card, student pass, driving license or passport. This ID must come with a physical note next to it in the same pic stating 'Buying <specified item> from <MSEA FB group> from <Your Name>'. Just the ID is not enough, because the scammer can convince the victim to send their ID. You may ask them to hold up their ID in front of their chat window with you as an alternative to a note (some buyers claim they don't have a pen lol). Only the name on their ID is important. You can allow buyers to censor sensitive info such as their NRIC number or face, but not security features like watermarks. It's much easier to spot fraudulent/photoshopped ID if everything is uncensored, though. I have caught photoshopped ID in the past and the shopped NRIC number saved me. The buyer probably did not understand the reason why we needed ID verification, and made this mistake. The Singapore NRIC pink card also has a very suspicious white line on the NRIC number because of bad design. Check if the card is legit by looking at watermarks and security features. If in doubt, request for a skype/video call/different angle. Once you've verified their ID, ask which bank the buyer is sending from, then release your bank details. Do not release it before they provide their ID; doing so defeats the purpose of this guide. See Other tips - #3 and #6 When you receive funds, check the name of the sender's account and make sure it matches their ID. Don't get fooled by comments for recipient. See Other Tips section for details. Most of the time, you won't want to go through the full ID process due to how intrusive it is. That's the reason why I've listed this method as '100% safe if you dont make mistakes'. How safe this method is depends on you; you can sacrifice convenience for more safety and vice versa. I'll give you an example of a mistake. Let's say the buyer agrees to ID, but their note only says 'Maplestory item'. You might think 'meh, whatever, I don't want to be too difficult', and release your bank details... ...but this is what scammers want you to think, and you just fell for the scam. Maybe the scammer convinced a victim to provide their ID as well, but kept the note vague on purpose. By the way, if you're a buyer reading this, I never recommend sending just your ID. This is because shady sellers can farm ID from buyers for fraudulent activities, or to execute their own 3rd party scams with your ID. The note in the same picture helps somewhat if you position it well, but can be cropped out if you don't. Hence, I recommend using a watermarking tool layered on top of your ID + note, unless you completely trust the seller. Here is an example of an ID I received with watermarks: https://ift.tt/2KEtPBx It's from an ID + note from LBC, from one of my trades, with their ID cropped out. The gray lines are watermarks with the trade number + website, layered on top of the original photo. - ATM transfers (requires ATM receipt): Ask for the buyer to provide 3 things present in the same picture - the ATM receipt, their ID, and a physical note. ======================================= What to do if you get scammed? (Buyers) ======================================= A police report will not recover your money, has little chance of getting justice, and the police report will create more problems for the seller. You can ask for the seller (if you can find them) to send your money back to you if they actually implemented this ID policy and didn't release items to the scammer. Someone who adopts this guide's suggestions will be able to see the name of the sender's bank account and be able to link it back to you, after you send your ID to them for verification. Otherwise, I recommend doing nothing. Sucks to be you but sometimes the best thing you can do is not take any action to not make matters worse. If doing nothing makes you feel uncomfortable, you can link this guide to other people and hope Maplers learn from it. Thanks for your effort :) ======================================== What to do if you get scammed? (Sellers) ======================================== If you see a different name on your statement, do not release the item and start collecting evidence. You may ask for the buyer to provide evidence that they own the account by going through the ID process again. They may have sent from a family member's account. Collecting evidence helps you with potential police investigations. It doesn't help you with the bank closing your account and preventing you from opening new ones with other banks. This is why prevention of this scam is so important. It's a bad idea to send a refund to the buyer if ID verification fails. You're putting your funds at risk and you'll probably just send it to another honest seller, helping the scammer perpetuate the scam. Recommend you set aside the money you received and do not spend it for a few months or years. You may choose to refund the buyer after enough time has passed which is being more honest. If you can identify the victim that got scammed, you can actually give them a refund. Just ask for their ID and match it to the sender's bank account. Maybe search around the FB groups for someone posting your bank account number, or the scammer's name. You will likely not get investigated by the police unless a lot of people start reporting you. It's still better to be safer since the penalty is harsh. ========== Other tips ========== 1. You cannot call banks to find out any of your transaction details. I've tried with all SG banks, including the other party's bank. 2. All ATM transfers do not show the name of the sender. Hence the need for receipt +1 form of ID. 3. Internal transfers between accounts from the same bank do not show the name of the sender. An example is if the buyer sends from their OCBC to your OCBC, or from their UOB to your UOB. Recommend opening at least two separate bank accounts, with two different banks that are not DBS or POSB (see #6). 4. If the buyer is sending from their UOB, request for them to add your account as a payee first. If they transfer with one-time transfer, you will not be able to view the name of the sender. 5. It's not quite clear how OCBC's online banking transaction settlement policies work. For example, if a FAST transfer, which is normally instant, is sent during the weekend, or after 9 PM, it will reflect on your statement as being settled on the next working day. Calling up their customer service reps, as well as the other party's bank did not clarity this. 6. DBS/POSB bank does not allow the sender's name to reflect on your statement for all transactions. Use other banks to match the buyer's name instead. The exception is PayNow, which sends a SMS showing the sender's A/C name. 8. Don't get fooled by recipient comments. Comments for recipient are useless and its only purpose is to make sure you don't get confused by too many transfers (transaction matching). You may request for the buyer to enter something like 'Payment to <Your Name>', for somewhat better security. Still vulnerable to impersonation. 9. The 4 common online low risk methods in Singapore currently are FAST bank transfers, ATM transfers, PayNow and cryptocurrency transfers. Request specifically for these 4 methods which are instant and non-reversible. ᵗʰᵒᵘᵍʰ ᵃᶫᵐᵒˢᵗ ᶰᵒ ᵒᶰᵉ ᵘˢᵉˢ ᶜʳʸᵖᵗᵒ ᵈᵉˢᵖᶦᵗᵉ ᶦᵗ ᵇᵉᶦᶰᵍ ᵗʰᵉ ˢᵃᶠᵉˢᵗ⋅⋅⋅ ᵗʰᶦˢ ᵃᶫˢᵒ ᵃᵖᵖᶫᶦᵉˢ ᵗᵒ ᴬᶫᶦᵖᵃʸ ᵃᶰᵈ ᵂᵉᶜʰᵃᵗ ᵇᵘᵗ ᶫᶦᵗᵉʳᵃᶫᶫʸ ᶰᵒᵇᵒᵈʸ ᵘˢᵉˢ ᵗʰᵉᵐ ᶫᵒᶫ Many other payment types such as Paypal, GIRO, Telegraphic transfers/remittance, MEPS, credit card and cheque either have a high chargeback risk, or are delayed transfers. The transaction may also reverse before the funds settle in some cases (cheques), see below under Cybersecurity - chargeback scam. Also, accepting TT/remittance from overseas may cause charges of $25-$100 to be applied to your bank account about a month after the transaction (agent bank charges). 10. Do not allow the buyer to send from their business account. Business accounts do not show the name of the sender. Ask for more ID if they sent through a business A/C, or dig it up yourself. 11. Beware of buyers who are not from SG/MY but have access to a local bank account somehow. Most scammers are professionals from overseas. 12. Beware of suspicious delays in payment. Buyers who 'aeroplane' make this somewhat harder to judge. Delays may be caused by a scammer communicating with a third party. 13. MAS does not prevent banks from blacklisting and refusing to do business with you without a clear reason. Confirmed this via email with MAS about a seperate issue. This means that the police investigation is irrelevant and separate from the bank's decision to blacklist you. Also, police don't give a fuck. They're all completely clueless when it comes to cybersecurity and scams. Don't bother talking to MAS or the police about this, I've already tried. Applies to traders as well who similarly don't give a fuck. Waste of my effort. 14. Recommend rejecting buyers who are purchasing on behalf of another party, unless they are able to provide the other party's ID with note before the trade begins. Usually a big red flag. 15. Online banking transaction receipt, which is what the buyer gets to see after transferring funds, is also useless. Things like transaction reference numbers cannot be used as ID or evidence, so there is no point copy pasting it for the seller. 16. Don't reveal your mobile number in public. If you do, you can expect lots of spam (loan sharks) and phishing through SMS and Whatsapp. This is also the reason why I prefer Telegram over other communication methods, because people can contact you via username. ============= Cybersecurity ============= There are two other dangerous types of fraud out there that deserves their own guides. The chargeback scam, and phishing. Both will screw you hard if you don't know what you're doing. I'll just include a short section here. They're uncommon in most FB groups. 1. Chargeback scams are when buyers convince you to accept an easily reversible payment method, usually Paypal, cheques or credit card. You lose all funds, and you won't know when it will hit you. In certain countries, ATM transfers are also highly reversible, but not in Singapore. 2. Phishing is when you click on a link that you think links to an official site, but its actually a well disguised fake website meant to steal your info. Don't enter your login info into suspicious websites, and don't click on any links you receive in your email, no matter how legit it seems, unless you're 200 IQ. Modern phishing is much harder to spot at first glance than what you might think, and there are different variants. Typically this is done through email spoofing or a suspicious link. Modern forms of this method include the buyer PMing you through your trading site, but they leave a link to their email, something like 'contact me at [email protected]'. Once you contact their email, they will spam you with links to either reset your account's password (might not be immediately), or send a phishing link where they farm your login ID. They might attempt to hijack your account once they find out what your main email address is. This can be your FB, Asiasoft, email, or Maple accounts. They might check sites like haveibeenpwned.com to see if you've had any data leaks. Another form of this is phone phishing, where the scammers acquire your Whatsapp/phone number, then spam SMS phishing links about your banks. They may claim things like 'Your bank account has been frozen, login to reset your password etc'. Then you log into your bank by clicking the fake link in the SMS and lose your money. Less likely with modern 2FA, though 2FA is vulnerable. Here is one example of a phishing SMS: https://ift.tt/2MikKDy I don't have a Citibank account :) Usually, when phishing occurs, you will see the page 'refresh' once. This is because the phishers want to make you think you've misspelled your password. What really happened is you got redirected to the legit website after the phishers got your info the first time. Quite sneaky. You can look up social engineering (cyber security) to see what people can do with limited info. Since you are trading on Facebook where you may not value your privacy, people can launch an attack specifically targeted at you for months without you realizing it. For example, pretending to be your friend while baiting your personal info over several months. Typically, this info is used for account recovery, also known as account hijacking. 3. A friendly hacker (China) casually said my login ID and password in public chat while I was chatting with him back in 2011-2012, and knew that I had an @key. Shat bricks when he said that. The same one who hijacked mass inactive accounts to take advantage of the free gachapon ticket welcome back gift many years ago, if you remember the gacha broadcast spam. Might be because of a data leak... or something bigger. He was a very nice guy, though. ================================================= For middleman service providers (escrow service): ================================================= Read the guide carefully and ID both the buyer and seller carefully. In addition to the third-party scam, you are also more vulnerable to other troublesome types of scams such as money mules or money laundering. On other platforms like Steam, ML has been going on for a long time. If you provide high volume services on shady P2P websites (>10k a month), Telegram me (below) for links to Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)'s guidelines on AML/KYC/CTF requirements and other lesser known stuff. The concern is with banking regulations impacting you indirectly, some of which are more recent. You can easily get audited or get your accounts closed with no reason given. If you're not vigilant at all, you may find yourself in deep trouble. === END === Credit to bitcoin_singapore for his original guide on Localbitcoins. Goes out of his way to PM new traders about this scam. Link to his guide posted by numoney: https://ift.tt/2MsZ9op I deal with this specific scam on a daily basis. It's very screwed up if you don't know whats happening. Many of my merch friends in different peer-to-peer trading sites have been sniped by this scam, and I've personally had $5k SGD compromised by a scammer from Thailand through multiple trades. You might not take this scam seriously at first, but once it happens to you, its too late to take any action. My accounts on LBC and LE with feedback below, you can ask me to change profile description to prove ownership. https://ift.tt/2OP6joG https://ift.tt/2KEtT4f Fun fact: This guide's V1 version was originally harder to read and not meant for public use, after me and a few sellers got spooked. It was only meant to be spread within our traders' circle and to authorities, in the hopes that they would be aware and take accurate measures to counter it, but nothing of value came out of discussions with authorities. It's dangerous to even release this guide, since more people will start abusing the scam. It's too bad a lazy scammer started preying on kids/young adults, didn't even try to hide the scam by using multiple FB accounts or using multiple sites, and everything is now out in the open. Our current banking system simply isn't suitable for making online payments, unless you deal with major retailers. It was created a long time ago without the Internet in mind, and has made literally no innovations in terms of safety or verifiability. Worthless, uncompetitive and inefficient trash needs to go. If you don't know what to do after reading this guide or think you got scammed, you can contact me with details, I'll try to help. Telegram me @Zeusie to clarify things, give feedback or criticism.

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