#that i cant stop thinking about it. if i remember what it's called i'll add it to the list

[sforzesco]

Can you recommend your favourite sword-and-sandal movies?

if Steve Reeves was in it, I probably watched it and had a good time. everyone's got legs for days in those movies, and I think the costuming choices are fun!

more specifically tho: The Avenger/La leggenda di Enea (The Legend of Aeneas) and Hercules/Le Fatiche di Ercole (The Labours of Hercules)

searching 'peplum' films on youtube should give you like, so many of these films

that aside, I'd recommend looking up Steve Reeve/other popular sword and sandal actors' acting credits and checking out whatever sounds most fun. they've got everything. You like biblical antiquity? They got biblical antiquity! You want the Trojan War? They got the Trojan War! just. be sure uhhhhhhhhh to watch them some of them with a critical eye.

special mentions to Ben Hur (1959) and Cleopatra (1963), which are actually epics, but I'm throwing them in here because they're so heavily fictionalized in their visuals that it's sword and sandal adjacent to me.

[sunny-ssunset]

Tweek x reader coworkers au?? Maybe college age as well?? (Also tysm you for all of your content:))

Y/n's coffee catastrophe!

Tweek Tweak x GN! Coworker!College Au! Reader

Divider by some random website on google 😭

Masterlist!

Y/n's first day on the job! I mean how could it possibly go wrong?

♡Thank you so much!!!! My works are usually aged up to any age over 18 and you can imagine whatever makes you comfortable (except highschool au, and they are 18 year old seniors anyways) I'll try to incorporate college into it lol. I've tried writing this in a different perspective than i usually do, Idk if it will work but please let me know, If you imagined something a bit different let me know and i can write something else lol

First day on the job!!! My first proper job!! I hope i'm good, i mean i cant remember the last time i made a coffee. Actually i dont think i have ever made a coffee. Wait come to think of it why did they hire me? Maybe Its because all i have to do is make coffee, how hard can that be pfft-

"Are you the new kid? We could use you over here. Tweek show them what to do." Said a tall brunette dude, he must be the manager i guess??? or maybe that blonde guy is the manager? or his he too youn- "H-Hey! New guy!" Oh shit the twitchy blonde guy called me over, He must be tweek!

"Hiiii!!!! I'm Y/n" I think I sounded a bit to enthusiastic ew... "GAH!! U-Uhm- I'm tweek" He avoids eye contact alot. "Do you h-have experience working in a place like this before???" Oh shit. Maybe he is the manager? Is this my interview or- "Y-Y/n?"

"Oh god sorry!! I havent had my morning coffee!!" Pun intended. "Not in a work environment but i loveee coffee and I make it everyyy morning so i guess???" That was a lie. I hate coffee. "I-I like coffee too" AWWW his smile was so cute when he said that!!!!

"Uhm so you grab a cup, t-take it to this machine here and then press these buttons" He demonstrates, i mean how hard can it be right?

SPOILER ALERT!!! ITS SO HARD!!!! THESE PEOPLE WANT SO MUCH FROM ME I'M JUST A SIMPLE SOUL TRYING TO EARN SOME CASH TO PAY OFF MY COLLEGE TUITION!!! WHY DID TWEEK LEAVE WHAT AM I MEANT TO DOO!!!! AHHH SINCE WHEN DID THE QUE GET SO BIG!!!

"Hello? I ordered a flat white ages ago???" AHHH WHAT EVEN IS A FLAT WHITE. THESE CUSTOMERS ARE SO DEMANDING!! I NEED TO FIND LIKE A LIST OR SOMETHING THAT TELLS ME WHAT THESE COFFEE COMBINATIONS ARE!!!

"Y-Y/n? Gah-! Your worse than me when I first started! Scrambling around like that!" Tweek chuckled, It's sweet he's trying to make light of the situation, WAIT! I think he has gotten a bit more confident with me!!!

"Tweek help what is a flat white!!!"

"So you g-get a shot of espresso and froff some milk, add them together and it makes a flat white" WAIT TWEEKS STOPPED STUTTERING AS MUCH AROUND ME YAY!!

The rest of the day Tweek helped me bring down the que. I think he feels a bit guilty for leaving me. Also I think he has realised I dont know anything about coffee! At least he didnt snitch! And I guess making coffee isnt actually that hard once you get the hang of it!!!

"Hey tweek, Thank you for helping me today, I think i underestimated the job a little bit!!" I giggled. "I-its okay I mean trust me, I have seen worse" He laughs back, awww he's blushing!! You know what i might aswell shoot my shot! "Hey tweek, wanna go grab a coffee sometime?" "GAHH- TOO MUCH!!!" He scribbled something down on a left over recipt, handing it to me as he ran off. WAIT HE LEFT ME HIS NUMBER WOO!!!

I guess i'll send him the details later haha!!

Dividers by @k1ssyoursister

[poppyseedmuffiin]

poppys amazing guide to free money for in app purchases (not clickbait)

long post ahead, sorry in advance. now idk if anyone else has talked about this at all, at least in the sky community. but with the amount of IAPs in sky (and seeing periodic posts of people offering services like commissions in exchange for season passes or exclusive IAP cosmetics) i feel like i just cant sit on this knowledge any longer if people turn out to not know about it. maybe almost everyone is aware of it and/or already using it or doesnt care and im a silly goose, but if this can save even just one person some money, or allow them to buy something they couldn't have afforded otherwise, then i'll be happy lol. it's certainly helped me and i'd like to share the love.

getting to the point: if you are on android/use google play (sorry everyone else idk if apple/the app store or other platforms have something similar, might be worth looking into or idk maybe this same app is on there too), then you can use this app called Google Opinion Rewards to get free google play credit.

this is going to feel like a cheesy fake youtube sponsorship or something but For Real this app gives you basically free money in response to answering surveys. i downloaded it a few years ago after one guy mentioned it in a video in passing, and as of now i have gotten from it almost $150 of google play credit.

“poppy, this sounds super sus”, you might be thinking, shaking your head. “answering surveys?? isnt this a scam to collect your personal data??” and fair enough! yeah probably the data is being sold (though on the page they claim to not share it with 3rd parties), im not super internet wise or savvy but idk it seems like everything is selling your data nowadays. and to get the most amount of surveys you can, you have to have certain things turned on in your google account.

it might ask you about a place you've been recently, or if you've been looking up something lately, or if you remember watching a certain video on youtube, or whatever. sometimes it's very accurate and specific with the targeted surveys, and sometimes it's totally fucking random. to me its not any creepier than getting an ad for like. wendys after only talking about it out loud with my phone within earshot, and most of them are pretty innocuous anyway, at least in my opinion. idk. u dont have to use this. im just putting it out there for those who might want to give it a whirl.

Before i go into the nitty gritty rambly details (on the google doc below), here’s the reassurance: this is real. Yes, the reward for each survey is less than a dollar, but it adds up. Sometimes there are a whole bunch at once and that can bring in a good haul. Since downloading the app, i’ve answered 730 surveys, and from that earned $142.11 (as of writing this right now) in total rewards/credit.

That’s not nothing! I’ve been able to buy sky IAPs with nothing but credit that i’ve earned from answering these surveys. The longest of these surveys literally take a max of like 20 seconds, and u can go right to them from the notification on your phone. It takes 0 effort essentially and for me it is worth it to see that receipt for $0 in my inbox. I have a compulsive spending habit and use it rly often so in my case mostly it just acts as a discount, subtracting from the price however much is in my balance, but still! That’s better than paying full price! Free money is free money! You can also choose whether or not to use it when making a purchase, and stop answering questions and giving them the data at any time. You can choose what to share with them really easily from the settings in the app, so if you want to turn off just location or something, you can just go to “survey eligibility”, select what you want to change, and manage it as you like. The only thing you have to have is your age, since it won’t send surveys to users with no age on their account. And you can use the credit on other apps too, since it’s google play credit! I just mostly use it for buying sky IAPs. you can save up to buy a season pass! 

If you’re like me (maybe not. Im kind of pathetic. Someone pls validate me), you’ve tried whatever you can to not pay for microtransactions. Yeah there’s stuff like mistplay and those annoying ass “tasks for coins” esque things within an app that have you sign up for online magazines or download other apps and get to level 3 of PigFarmVille or whatever to earn credit or money, but those never got me anywhere and this is the most effective, legitimate thing i’ve ever used for this purpose. It takes time and patience, but before you know it you’ll have $5 kicking around in your balance and you can buy the cute oreo headband or pair of shoes or whatever tgc has in the shop this time. It legitimately feels like i’m cheating, sometimes, or that it’s too good to be true, but i’ve used this for three years now and it’s never let me down. And no i’m not sponsored, just a broke bitch that stumbled across this. They should give me something for this free promotion tho lmaoo

below I have both the sharing link to download the app if anyone wants to and a link to a google doc with my personal tips for this app on it since this post is way too long already and i dont want to waste more of peoples time, but anyway thanks for reading if you did, and if you try it out and it ends up helping lmk! c: and also maybe reblog to spread around if you think others would find this helpful. I almost never do posts like this especially bc im very unsure of myself and tend to think im wrong but sometimes i get stuff right and this feels like something i got right. Hope it helps you too. 

Get paid for answering short surveys. Download Google Opinion Rewards now: https://googleopinionrewards.page.link/share

[theygotbitchesinmedia]

ask dump

i have a couple dozen unanswered asks on this blog, most of which i believe are media recommendations, so i'm going to go through those now in a batch!

if you haven't seen it already We Are Lady Parts would be a fantastic recommendation for this blog. I started it last week and really love it. It's about a struggling punk Muslim girls band who recruit the extremely anxious, goody-two-shoes Amina to be their lead guitarist. It balance its moments of drama really well with the comedy and all of the women in the band get to be deeply weird in different and endlessly charming ways. My favorite is Amina because of her very relatable habit to have elaborate silly daydreams about anything and everything. Good show with some really good women!

I've heard good things about this one! Adding it to the list

I can't remember if you take recs for things in progress or not but the webtoon Katlaya Rising is currently the high point of my week, the art style POPS and it is jam-packed with girls and girls who love girls

I will always read things in progress 👍 I honestly in some ways prefer getting into stuff before it's finished. Like an animal with one of those food bowls that stops you from eating too fast. Added to the list.

Please read Villain Initialization!!!! The female characters are really good!!!!!!!!!

Looking at the cover and description for this one it seems like most of the female cast is gonna be side characters. i'll add it to the list but itll probably be reallllly back burner unless someone wants to go to bat hard for it and sway me

if youre taking recommendations bittersweet con panna is a cute yuri manhwa and hacks is an insane tvshow about millenial comedy writer who got cancelled on twitter and a beautiful old standup comic about to lose her vegas residency.

added both! never heard of bittersweet con panna but my sister has been going really hard for hacks and i feel like i owe it to her to watch that sooner rather than later because of all the media im always trying to force onto her

"Kevin Can F*** Himself" on AMC is fantastic and has some really interesting female protags, I recommend. Might be a similar vibe to On Becoming a God in Central Florida actually!

Already on the list!

i'd like to second the rec for no home, probably one of the greatest webtoons of all time

one moth ago anon i can safely say you were correct about this it is certainly one of the greatest webtoons of all time. i do think its not really About women but i get why you all wanted me to read it enough to push it

@whatasmoothgardener Reccing a short manga I've been reading recently called Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live. Its a manga about twin girls who run a small real estate company in Tokyo from the POV of their clients. It has a unique art style, its female character focused, and it teaches you about the different places in Tokyo. However its kinda episodic.

I don't mind episodic at all. Cool to see female manga protags who arent stick thin! added to the list

@phoenixfangs i got into a webtoon the other day called nevermore and considered recommending it to u, but i second guessed myself like oh what if its not worth recommending and its stupid actually, BUT i had a dream last night that u were talking about it so i think i have to at least put it on ur radar, if it isnt already xD what happens if u take edgar allen poe stories and make it about lesbians? u get the webtoon nevermore ❤️ theres an actual Plot to it too im not trying to sell it based on tropes, i just cant describe it better than the actual synopsis/description on webtoon, so id say its worth a glance!

At first glance i'm not sure how to my personal tastes this owuld be but i feel like i have maybe been unfairly biased against popular webtoons in that front. added to the list !

@counttwinkula listen i know your "media to get around to" list is forever long but i reread the haunting of hill house (the book) for my podcast and eleanor and theodora just. won't stop touching each other. some of the most classic toxic yuri imo. also the 1963 film adaptation (the haunting) is so good

ill always appreciate a horror recommendation from one of my learned Horror Mutuals. added both!

if it changes anything, you can find the main stories of arknights and limbus company here and here respectively without downloading the game: [retcons dot github dot io slash limbus-storylogs] [akgcc dot github dot io slashcc slash story dot html hashtag main] (sorry it wont let me send links) i totally understand if u think its too much trouble, but i do think both games have very good female characters

I'm sorry... i just cant go down this road.... it's a path i'm not willing ot walk. if i was going to read the stories for a gacha game i wasn't playing i would just go read shoujo kageki revue starlight re:LIVE. which i havent been able to make myself do. so its just not gonna end up happening

have you heard of tangle tower… it’s a relatively short murder mystery click and point game about two families & their secrets. the art is gorgeous + the game is fully voiced, and the protagonist + his assistant have a dynamic that reminds me of the classic ace attorney ‘lawyer + weird girl’ duos. the majority of the cast are women, and the game features some of the Girls Of All Time. highly recommend, esp since you’re an ace attorney fan

Added to the list!

if you’re trying to flesh out the book section, i’d like to recommend three parts dead by max gladstone! admittedly it’s been a hot second since I’ve read it so i can’t speak on the quality of the writing itself, but the plot and the worldbuilding had some interesting stuff. the novel follows tara, a necromancer in a world where doing magic is more akin to being a lawyer, who’s hired to resurrect a god. the book is the first in a series, and the books that follow have some other interesting female protagonists + canonical queer women if you enjoy it o7

Sounds neat! Added to the list

ok i still have some more from back in fucking April that i didnt manage to get to. but im getting distracted now

[thetobiroppofan]

one piece rant #1: the gay evil pronoun

im nervous to start this off cause what if some random incel comes in saying "erm snort actually this is wrong" like go kiss my ass basement dweller I am a 15 year old trans boy do not fw me yu dcikhead :(

anyways I wanna talk abt doflamingo today

Doflamingo's honestly a great villain, in my opinion. This is WAYY different than like.. a great person. He serves as a good driving force for the plot and I think he like is honestly kinda well-written. I mean, the guy's morals and stuff are downright despicable as expected of a villain. I don't know how to add gifs I forogt

ok so I figured it out woohoo anyways

Starting off, his backstory is honestly fuckin' sad as hell understandably, I mean obviously he's still a dickhead I mean like one of the first panels of him going down there was "where are the slaves lets buy some"

little ugly fuck........... anyways

Quick explanation for anyone reading who a. doesn't know his backstory or b. just wants to read; Doflamingo's family was originally celestial dragons (a whole society 'above' the rest of civilization, generally they're hated by the public but their word goes above anyone elses, even the Marines at times, so people have to keep their shit together) but his father decided to move down to the real world as regular nobles.

yeah so that was a bad idea.

his family was borderline fuckin JUMPED over their former status as world nobles, and were forced into poverty, his mom died, and yada yada he shot and killed his own dad and joined the pirate life. I'm just rereading one piece again after a 2 month break, on alabasta, so details might be off do NOT take my word for granted chat

but like you get the gist, former noble goes down to civilization, is tortured, gets inducted into the pirate life, etc

the reason he was inducted was through trebol, since he saw young doffy and went "yeah that kids got potential" and not in the drake way

Trebol's the guy on the left, the uglier one

yeah so basically over the course of dressrosa (The arc where doflamingos the main villain), we learn more tidbits about his actions like how he took the head of his father back up to the home of the world nobles and asked to rejoin the celestial dragons (he was obviously rejected) and ykw I forgot to mention: doflamingo has a BROTHER. his name is Rosinante, and he's a great guy but he ends up working for doflamingo (spoiler alert: he's not actually there to be a good brother he is a spy) but over the course of the backstory, Doflamingo's newest member, a young Trafalgar d. water law

yeah he's lowk ugly as a kid but it doesn't change much when he grows up

side note: I love how ugly some op kids are like its just funny anyways this isn't abt law that's a whole other rant

anyways so law joins the donquixote pirates (Doflamingo named it after his last name, donquixote) and I'll talk more abt law's stuff later in another rant along with Rosinante (doflamingos brother) however all you need to know ATM in this rant is 1. Rosinante and Law leave to find a cure for laws disease+rosi discovered law has 'The Will of D.' (I'll need to explain that later wont I) 2. Rosinante already ate a devil fruit and if u weren't aware already u cant eat two dfs or else you DIE

happy father son bonding moment

oh btw

During their time out, Rosinante and Law get a call from doflamingo telling them to come back so Rosinante can eat this devil fruit doffy planned to steal called the ope-ope no mi (remember what I told u sister.) so he can cure law

yeah so

since rosinantes a marine he stops that, and hides law in a chest after forcefeeding him the devil fruit and skipskip andddd oh no

OH FUCK!!!!!!!!! ROSINANTE DIED.

oh btw you see the unshaded bright white chest RIGHT behind him

you'll never guess who's hiding there.

tragedy strikes.

but this ain't abt two tragic found family LOSERS (i don't mean this I love them both guys please I have a law Funko and plush I'm a mother) this is abt evil incarnate right here in a bright pink feathery coat and fuckass glasses

anywyas law goes on the run finds his crew this ain't abt him we're focusing back on doffy

so like skipping allat stuff we are now in the time when doflamingo says "fuck it" and decides oh yeah lets take over

an entire kingdom

thats what normal pirates do anyways.

So using his devil fruit the Ito Ito No Mi (which allows him to manipulate strings, allowing him to be like spiderman and also be a puppeteer which btw that reflects his char so much like gyattdamn!) he demands a beri sum of like 10 billion for this king to have his nation left alone before he like takes over him, puppeteering him to slaughter his own people before coming to the rescue yadadyadyaydyaydyaydaydysyay8dy8

so yeah

he takes over dressrosa, actingg as a 'hero' and he and his crew rule over the kingdom now

I don't think I've talked abt sugar yet but she can turn people into toys and form contracts, and that's what she basicallyy did with people who either a. doflamingo didn't like or b. spoke out against the pink feathered fuck

thats part 1 for now mainly just a backstory dump

i am insane

thanks for reading chat this has been a Quinn tm rant

[grapecaseschoices]

So, the ask to go on about the found family comic with lion girlie: I Became the Male Lead’s Adopted Daughter, or official translation, The Male Lead’s Litttle Lion Daughter

The male lead is the usual stone cold man, who felt something seeing his best friend with his children, but when he tries to adopt one in pursuit of similar... Peace? Warmth? All kids are scared of him, except this girl who might very well come from his bloodline.

There's a lot of fluff and laughs and weird, though I'm hinting at some angst elements in the screenshots I'm sharing.

23454343 roflmao. why is it always this shit. ive found this random child who happens to look just like me! there a story that had that similar bit but idr what it was called, i stopped reading it. i stopped reading it, i cant remember why. i think the kid took me out.

aww that third and last picture. i'll certainly give it a try! thanks for the recommendation. im curating a list at this point, so ima add it. currently reading villainess in love (well im currently reading quite a few stuff, but outside of by manta/webtoon typicals, im reading that)

[spectrum-core]

The Council™️ (the like 3 people who care about liwei, dong hwan and serrated duo nearly as much as i do) have requested that I add a few other details to this post or i will fail liweiology this year, theres no much more and what is here has less bases than the first post but i think its important too.

Again, universe terminology heavy and includes some few impuritas spoilers on dong hwan's part.

So, let's start with liwei again as i can actually hold onto how he speaks in the game for this part.

Specifically, the singular line in which he mentions yujin. Remember my long rant about honorifics, titles and calling people by first name in speech and how his tendency to call people by first name or simple titles with no honorifics comes across (to me, at least) as an attempt to treat people as equals, at least when talking to his subordinates?

But then we see him using this almost comically long title for yujin. To contrast, stephan, which is a much more informal guy, still calls her something among the lines of "director yujin from the shi association" (im on mobile so i cant take a screenshot of the exact quote) which is still kinda long but at least addresses her by name and, you know, tells us who she is, something which is kinda important since let's be real the main narrative importance of full stop, other than meeting argalia, is introducing us to the shi association.

There's a lot that can be said about stephan and we can also assume that he uses a longer title than just her first name alone so we know who this yujin person is, but the point of this post is liwei, if anyone wants a stephan analysis i may make it later so I'll make this short, while stephan is generally informal in his speech he also tends to lenghten his expressions, either by using more words (though it's also worth noting that he never picks fancy complicated words or flowery speech, fitting in my theme if the full stops being lower class) or by just, stretching out vowels in his pronunciation, so all things considered him using a longer title comes off as odd but not noticeably out of character.

Contrast to liwei, who despite not being the sort of guy to speak in 3 word sentences at most, he isnt the talkative type either, keeping his sentences short and concise and getting straight to the point, combining that with his speech focusing in the use of first names (or titles that are often used almost interchangeably with first names), for him to adress someone whose name he knows as "the director of shi association's section 2" comes off as incredibly weird.

Even more so when you realize how yujin's direct subordinates address her, both when talking directly to her and when refering to her in the third person.

From valentin's keypage.

Valentin's entrance lines, can't crop the sc much more here so the second line is what counts.

Tenma's entrance line.

Tenma's victory line.

Tenma's reaction to yujin's death, again, what matters most is her second line here.

So, they do either call her "director", "our director", or "director yujin", this is also something consistent in how they address her. While all of these titles (even the one where her title is used in the same way one would use an honorific) are very explicit in depicting yujin as their superior, they still imply some sort of... them being close to her idk how to word that shit, this is to say: yujin isn't the type to start a shitstorm because someone didn't call her and overly pompous title, and while we don't know the extent to which her and liwei know each other, we know they've met personally at least once, so liwei is likely aware id this.

So the contrast in how liwei addresses yujin, compared to both how everyone else addresses her and how liwei addresses everyone else... to me, it feels like a deliberate choice to distance himself from her, someone who according to how i see this situation is not his direct superior.

This is a rather minor detail but I think its important as it provides more insight on his views in the only high graded not color fixer he's interacted with.

With that out of the way let's talk again about dong hwan, shall we?

Alright, so i put a lot of emphasis on him compensating for something while never elaborating on what that could be, the reason is... i do have a theory but it's an entirely baseless one, feel free to not read this stuff unless you want to read my baseless rambles.

In the first place, theres a common saying here in driver circles, which pretty much translates to "the bigger someone's car is, the smaller their dick is", while this is quite literally about cars (and sometimes aggressive driving styles in which case the first half of the expression is changed), it is relevant to a common stereotype in my (latin american, very not asian) culture, which is that if you see someone who acts a bit too prideful, specially if they're aggressively trying to make a point of how "superior" they are, they are most likely to be compensating for something that makes them feel inferior or simply that they find embarrassing.

So for me, when I see a guy whose combat style is "big damage go brr" and who shows up to combat dressed... well... like this.

(AN: i need this man carnally)

My first thought is "ok there must be SOMETHING this guy is insecure about".

Now, remember what i said about red eyes in project moon? Generally, when a character has red eyes, that's something that can mean one of three potential things:

They are really fucking strong, im not saying "above average" or "pretty good but not amazing", i mean characters who stand out because of their raw strenght, examples of this would be vergilius with a color title to back him up and ryoshu who... well, as a sinner she isn't exceptionally strong BUT its heavily implied that she had to become weaker when joining limbus company, and if her ego room window and promo art depicting the five fingers are to be trusted she wouldnt be on par with "just your average grade 1 fixer"

They are very ambitious and influential, look at dias and carmen, neither of them is known for being a good combatant but both of them have been key characters in the events taking place of the universe, with carmen starting the seed of light project and dias starting the smoke war

But then, when you look at dong hwan... yeah hes strong, hes a grade 1 after all, but many other grade 1s from sotc tier 1 have attacks that hit even harder than his, maybe because you have a whole team swarming you with attacks, but even then he's just Not exceptional for a grade 1.

And, as a gen reception character, he's not someone influential either, so that leaves us at our third option.

They are a bloodfiend, this point is mentioned in distortion detective when the elder bloodfiend moses meets warns her about how the leader of the other fixers staying at her hotel already had already developed the signature red eyes of a bloodfiend, its also worth noting that dd takes place at the same time as library of ruina and that in the novel its implied that theres some sort of stigma against bloodfiends, it would be logical for someone who is one to be wary about the fact and wanting to compensate for it

Also, i mean, considering who dong hwan is friends with and...

Well, theres some cruel irony here that i find amusing.

So, to conclude this, i like the idea of both lw and dh feeling the need to overcompensate their perceived flaws by acting as ideal fixers, with various degrees of success, but they can be somewhat more honest once theyre with each other.

hi if you don’t mind me asking I’d love to hear more about serrated duo parallels?

Alright, just to make sure we are on the same page because I'm not sure if many people know who am I even talking about when I say serrated duo, I mean this pair of goofballs who I love very much.

Fuckass essay about them and how this thing even came to be (which is not what you asked for but it's still important I think) under the cut, as a warning though this is EXTREMELY long, i'm also writing it assuming the readers have played ruina to completion, have at least glanced at the ruina artbook once and are decently familiarized with the pjm universe and its terminology.

"But Spec", you may (and reasonably so) say, "these guys show up in different story tiers, one is a glorified ranged attack tutorial with a minor lore exposition attached to him and the other doesn't even have anything going on due to being a general reception, what the hell".

So let's get into this, more meticulously organized than some essays I've submitted for my uni classes because I care that much about these guys (don't be like me and do your uni projects, please).

Table of contents:

How the fuck did this even come to be 1.1. Me yapping about character dessign

Liwei as a character 2.1. The surface 2.2. Emotional internal nature 2.3. Resentment

Dong Hwan as a character (sorry can't separate him into many categories bc there's NOTHING THERE man i'm absolutely grasping for straws here i KNOW it, but please bear with me)

Summarizing parallels

If you don't feel like sitting through my attempts to contextualize how this ship came to be and me desperately grasping for straws, feel free to skip all the way down to part 4

1.- How the fuck did this even come to be

Honestly the whole thing started as a sleep deprivation shitpost I rolled with because yeah i like these two guys a lot (if you read that one post talking among other things about why I like liwei so much in the first place, the short reply also applies to dong hwan and... Yeag, the only thing that's better than one hot guy is two hot guys and so on).

There was also an interesting aspect about this because maybe it's just me but based of liwei's dialogue lines and keypage text he suggests not trusting, or even liking/admiring/looking up to, high graded fixers (despite feeling that he's supposed to). With an emphasis put into colors because, I mean, he fucking died because he met one at the wrong moment, but I feel it's a general thing he feels for grade 2s and above.

With this in mind, putting him to interact with a grade 1 is... at the very least it has the potential to put them into a funny mutual vitriol kind of dynamic with lw constantly thinking "what's the deal with this guy? does he expect me to praise him just for having a high grade? well, tough luck, i'm no bootlicker" and dh constantly thinking "what's wrong with this man? is he unable to recognize greatness even if it punched him in the face...? should i punch him in the face?", but it becomes far more interesting when you try to imagine (and, with dong hwan being an absolute background character we can only assume things of from extremely vague hints, pretty much all we can do about him is imagining) what made them both special enough for each of them to think "wait, hold on, i actually like this guy" of the other.

After the initial shitpost stage was over, we (the guy who came up with serrated duo while sleep deprived and me) started talking about why we liked both characters and we essentially concluded that, at least dessign wise, they are the same type of guy (ofc I also added a couple of characters I like and who fit the criteria to my post but this post isn't about them).

1.1.- Me yapping about character dessign

On top of that, if you pay attention specifically to liwei and dong hwan in there, you can notice that there's a pretty neat balance of common and contrasting themes in their dessigns, almost in a two sides of the same coin way, so here's a non exhaustive list:

both characters have a primarily monochrome/dark aesthetic going on, with their eyes being the primary colored element that stands out in their dessigns (yeah, you could say that dh has brown hair too but it's a dark shade of brown that doesn't catch the eye nearly as much as the bright-yet-deep shade of red of his eyes)

on top of that, liwei's eyes are blue while dong hwan's are red (i thought they were reddish brown at first but that's just an effect of the transparency, if you separate the sprite in it's different parts, you'll notice his eyes are actually red), which happens to link with a certain trope about two-sides-of-the-same-coin pairs... (will elaborate on this later trust me).

despite the previously mentioned similar monochrome aesthetic, there's a clear contrast between their styles and how they wear their clothes, with liwei having a much more "only informal if it's more practical that way" type of look, with a focus on practicality over trying to stand out too much (for the most part at least, he was dessigned with the idea of a cool guy in mind after all), while dong hwan is essentially wearing a business suit in the most fucked up way possible (really, what the fuck dong hwan), which of course makes his dessign incredibly memorable. To further elaborate on this (and to add details that don't really follow this formal until unpractical/informal AND unpractical pattern): -Liwei's clothes stay in similar shades of grey and black giving him a more uniform look, while dong hwan uses more contrasting shades in his clothing (despite wearing primarily black clothes, that light grey shirt absolutely stands out, and by extension he does) -Liwei wears long boots, while dong hwan wears regular shoes -Liwei wears a long coat, while dong hwan wears a short jacket -Liwei has a fully buttoned dress shirt with a tie, dong hwan wears his shirt unbuttoned, in an universe where clothes are basically like armor this is essentially him saying that he's confident that his opponents won't be able to hit him in the chest, or that even if they did he wouldn't get too hurt from it, and it's a dessign detail that absolutely stands out in an universe where most characters only show skin in their head, neck and hands at most, as we know since its stated in multiple keypages and cutscenes, if a character shows more skin than the absolutely bare minimum, then that means that A. they are inmensely strong, and B. they are even more confident in their capacities, with this being a tactic to intimidate potential enemies for many factions -Liwei wears fingerless gloves while dong hwan wears regular gloves, while at first glance this detail seems to subvert the pattern, let's be real here... have you tried to hold any object and using it properly with gloves? unless you're wearing latex gloves or something made of very thin fabric that shit's absurdly hard, of course i assume there's weird city tech involved in dh's gloves but at least that's my own personal impression of that particular contrast)

and going back to common but not really details: both characters have something noteworthy in their ears (this is most likely just a result of the characters being visible as chibis in game so the best way to give them memorable dessigns is by slapping somewhat unique stuff in their faces and heads BUT IM GRASPING FOR STRAWS HERE OK) with liwei's earpiece (which serves a practical function) and dong hwan's earrings (which look cool as hell, going in line with both characters' general priorities)

similarly, both have something in their opposite eyes, with liwei partially covering his right eye with his hair and dong hwan having the scar going through his left eye.

the right-left motif is actually very relevant in their dessigns. You see, most character sprites in ruina switch the hand in which they're holding their weapons for certain frames (or at least, this is not uncommon to see), either for rule of cool, clearer silhouettes or whatever reasons. However, in every frame in which liwei is visibly holding his knife, he holds it with his left hand (and when he uses his pistol he holds it with both hands), suggesting that he may be left handed. On the other hand (see what I did there?), dong hwan consistently holds his knife with his right hand, in every. single. frame. of his sprite, suggesting that he's right handed instead.

And of course, both of them have elements in their opposite legs too, with liwei having these two stupid fucking belts (affectionate) in his right leg while dong hwan has... whatever the fuck that thing is, in his left leg.

Of course I'm not here saying that they were given contrasting dessigns on purpose, but all these details end up making both of them looking really cool when put together, specially with how their dessigns emphatize their personal preferences and priorities, something I will elaborate upon in each character's section later.

2.- Liwei as a character

Liwei is one of my favorite pjm characters as a whole, yes i like him more than ayin, yes i like him more than angela, yes i like him more than carmen, yes i like him more than dante, yes i like him more than your favorite sephirah/patron librarian/sinner, no im not saying i think any of these characters is bad or poorly written and in fact i think pjm has made an amazing job with protagonists so far catching my interest even with characters i thought i wouldn't vibe with at all, but i have a thing for unremarkable background guys.

As you may have guessed, this means that i have a lot, and i mean A LOT to say about him.

This also means that I have a very specific interpretation of him, this interpretation, while clearly taking bases from what we can see of him in game, is entirely fanmade and i'm not trying to claim this is what anyone intended to convey with him, but it's what makes sense for me.

This interpretation also strays away from some other fan characterizations I've seen of him. So if you think he's actually, at his core, a serious, formal, emotionally detached and unbearably professional, even outside work hours, guy who's deeply dedicated to the honorable task of murder and who is in good terms with the shi association or holds them in high regard? sorry, but for me he's nothing like that.

2.1- The surface

"But Spec", you may say again, "he does act emotionally detached during his cutscene, he even says that people die all the time! are you sure you are actually reading this character right?"

Of course I'm not, I'm just saying that I'm reading him in a way that makes enough sense to me, but I do have reasons to believe that the serious and emotionally detached attitude is an akward mixture of a facade he puts up to be taken seriously by others and an incredibly unhealthy coping mechanism, so let's start by analyzing his artbook profile...

Wait a minute, is that..?

Ok, I'll see myself out and continue writing the actual character analysis this is what people are here for.

Anyway, going back to the character profile, you may be inclined to see it and assume "well, that actually just proves that he's a serious and formal dude" at first, until you realize that artbook profiles, due to their in-universe explaination being that they were compilled by roland and angela from the information they could take out of the guests' books, are most likely to be about what the guests perceive themselves as/would say to describe themselves rather than what they actually are when looked at from an outsider's perspective. Further proof of the artbook profiles being subjective comes from how the profiles change almost erratically for distortions and ego users, with people in the middle of both states simply not knowing how to describe themselves, the fact that we lack any information about the agents of the head as they were never booked, or how characters such as tomerry have...

This, which I mean, it's very clear that's just tomerry talking about themselves.

Now, liwei's personality traits, or at least what he'd use to describe himself, are "Meticulous, Efficient, and Sharp". We know that he has to be efficient at the very least, considering the nature of his job and guns in universe, the same thing goes for meticulous, we can assume he wants to do things the right away so that he gets paid, sharp as a personality descriptor can take multiple meanings and frankly i don't know which was the original korean word used to describe him so i can't tell which is the right one but most of them seem pretty accurate, at least when looking at him from a surface perspective.

To be honest, I don't think any of the traits mentioned there is precisely wrong, I simply don't think that they are the main or core ones, but they are the traits liwei tries to show, at least.

Another interesting detail is that all full stop fixer artbook profiles have food related items for the likes and and dislikes sections, except for stephan disliking dangerous jobs.

Not particularly noteworthy for this category in particular but still tangentially linked to a point that I believe is also a core characteristic of all three full stop fixers and that is key to understand all three of them, their dynamics and the choices they make during their reception: they are Poor As Shit, because guns and bullets are expensive of course, we also get to see this in stephan's obssesive fixation in money (come on nobody actually checks their bank account as a hobby... right, guys?), and of course this ties in with wanting to be seen as someone serious and professional people will trust with their money AND with the idea of them having the need to maximize efficiency to... well... you... you know... not end up even worse than they actually are.

2.2- Emotional internal nature

Alright, and here we dwell into the actually spicy part of the essay, at least for liwei's character: the moments in which the mask of a professional and emotionally detached guy cracks and he shows his more emotional, and mostly caring, side. This is focused in the way in which he treats stephan and tamaki (compared with how several other faction leaders treat their underlings).

While I should probably need to read all the dialogue in the game to make sure this is a particularly notorious detail, something that inmediately caught my attention is... the fact that liwei never uses a single honorific when refering to other people, neither he's bothered by stephan's more informal speech and the fact that he doesn't refer to him by any honorific or title either (sure, you could say this is because they were in a life or death situation but also y'know, it says something about you that the people below you don't feel the need to use formalities when talking to you), the only person he calls by title instead of first name is... well, the blue reverb, whose real name we can assume he didn't know, with also him being someone perfectly capable of killing not only him but the guys standing beside him as well, you'd want to be as respectful as possible when talking to a guy like that and trying to negotiate.

(even then he doesnt use any sort of honorific towards him, at least in the english translation of the text, he simply refers to him by title)

He neither uses any title or honorific when talking to angela, despite keeping a formal/respectful attitude, i honestly believe that he is genuinely formal and respectful but... you know, that's not the beginning and end of who he is.

Of course, this isn't a major point, but I think it's worth mentioning considering how important honorifics can be to establish the speaker's relationship with the people a message is directed to, they can be used to distance oneself from others. So in a way it could be seen as him putting himself at an "equal" position relative to stephan and tamaki, as opposed to trying to assert that he's their superior (at least in the context of the mission they were working in, since his title is merely fixer, not operator, president, director or anything implying some form of leadership on his end).

Another extremely important detail is his inmediate first reaction once argalia shows up and ruins their plan is... not coming up with a plan b, not trying to fight him in any way, not doing anything about trying to save what little money they can, he quite literally tells stephan "forget about money, we need to survive now".

His initial reaction is directly just yelling at his team to run away, and this stays consistent once he:

Notices that stephan and tamaki are beginning to argue over the future of their mission and how much money they lost.

Realizes that they can't outrun argalia as long as they're wielding their heavy (and again, extremely expensive) equipment. This says a lot as it shows that he cares enough for the people under his care to let the office go bankrupt if it means they can live.

Needless to say, stephan and tamaki refuse to do so and while he clearly isn't precisely happy about the inevitable confrontation with argalia, he doesn't argue about this, he does understand their concern about money, he's not like the other authority figures who will ignore their underlings' concerns at best and ditch them once they outlive their usefulness at worst (at least, that's what i imagine he thinks as he makes these choices).

Not to mention, once they are in a, if only slightly, safer situation in the library, his inmediate response is trying to comfort stephan and tamaki, things dont look good but theyre at least alive, for now.

And there's this line which... doesn't seem to fit at first glance with the idea of him wanting his office to survive at all costs... right?

That is until you realize that he says that line during yet another argument between stephan and tamaki, as an attempt to get them both to calm down, this could also fit in with him trying to keep or restore the cynical, stoic and serious act, but then again we get to see his more emotional and sincere side once he:

Gets killed, quite literally saying that he didn't want to die yet, at least to me this line alone is enough to pretty much confirm that he didn't really mean it when saying that trying to delay their deaths was pointless, but if you need more, he also acts against that same line when he...

Sees his allies die, and inmediately starts freaking out.

Wins the reception, in which case his inmediate first concern is, again, not money, lost ammunition or anything, but rather if stephan and tamaki are okay and if they will be safe once they return.

I don't think that line was him fully lying though, it does say something about him that makes enough sense to me and fits with the rest of the characterization: that his cynism runs much, much deeper than stephan's.

Tl;dr he is extremely caring and emotional deep inside, and even though he tries to suppress that side of himself it always finds a way to show itself, I feel like in other contexts this makes him prone to emotional outbursts and generally make him an unpleasant person to be around... save for people who are already familiar with his personality quirks and the fact that he is Like That.

2.3- Resentment

Of course, this dissonance between the person he tries to pretend to be to fit in/keep his job and the person he actually is made him grow a pretty strong disliking of... well, everything he considers related to the fact that he has to act like that to get enough money to feed the people in his office.

I also feel like he feels genuine guilt over the fact that his job is essentially just glorified murder, I have no base for this other than the more detached way in which he refers to the church of gears, it almost feels like hes forcing himself to not care because its them or him and his office, and that he has genuine self-hating tendencies because of it (which he also uses his stoic act to hide, he doesn't want to worry his office and become a burden to them, after all), in a way he may be trying to overcompensate by being nice to his office to feel like there's people he can help/protect.

But this hatred towards himself also manifests in the form of hatred towards anything he can blame over him being the way he is and working the job he has.

As I said before, I don't think liwei likes colors, or most high grade fixers for that matter, you may also extend this to figures of authority, influential organizations or even the city's society as a whole (and honestly? i do personally, i don't think he's actually capable of forming any particularly healthy bond with people outside his office because of this, and even then saying that the relationships he has with his office are healthy is... generous to put it softly, this is not to say that he secretly hates the other people in the office, but rather that he fears that they may secretly hate him, because he's the highest graded member of the office, he hates people sitting above him so it only makes sense that people below him hate him for being above them, right?), and of course I'm not saying this because I'm projecting or because I think it's cool and edgy and sad but I actually have bases for this from what I can see in the game.

The first example of him not trusting high grade fixers AND influential organizations being one of the very first things he says when being introduced: that having an important person, from an important organization, belonging to an important section of said organization, approach him and give him a request was shady as fuck.

And he turned out to be right, as Yujin was planning for him and his office to get sent to the library and die there so she could read their books and find some passage saying shit like "well we were found by the blue fucking reverb and our only choice was to come here and die even though we were royally fucked either way life sucks see you all in hell my final message 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕" so she could use that on her favor.

In this topic too, I'm personally firmly opposed to the idea of full-stop office being affiliated to the shi association and this is the hill i'm willing to die on, but I digress.

We see this same resentment on an even deeper level in his keypage where he talks about colors (and we can assume this view extends to other high graded fixers, and to a lesser extent to the hana association), he doesn't sound like he wants to become a color, he doesn't sound like he even likes the concept of colors being a thing that exists in the first place.

The most important lines from these fragments to me being the following:

"A color is the dream [...] of all fixers who wish for freedom.", freedom is a VERY relevant concept in project moon and ruina makes a very clear point about how nobody is free in the city, roland says it, most plot relevant guests say it, some patron librarians say it too... a huge part of the story is how angela comes to terms to the fact that turning human wont grant her freedom and how she ultimately becomes free by embracing her nature as a machine (so free indeed that the head decides to kick her and the entire library out of the city, not only shes a machine that acts like a human, which is already a major city wide taboo, she made a choice that no human in the city should ever make). Essentially, liwei seems to see colors (and im assuming that by extension high graded fixers) as the ultimate example of an impossible aspirational class (think of these "self made" enterpreurs who received extremely generous financial support from their rich parents to start massive companies as the closest irl equivalent, except that obviously not the same, i will elaborate more on this later).

"They put forward the colors as great and successful people that other fixers will look up to. They dream of earning wealth and fame, and to be free like them one day." Why would he be talking in third person here if he too admired colors, or wanted to be like them, or thought that were free in any way? Also that separation between money and fame (something that colors objectively do have since they can afford exclusive high tech weapons and armor) with freedom (something that is debatable, but liwei seems to assume colors don't have) feels too much like a deliberate choice to further push towards that point of him seeing colors as not only an impossible goal to achieve for the average fixer but also that the ideal of a color as someone who is free is something impossible to achieve even if one were to become a color.

"Colors are assigned by the 'Hana Association'. [...] The title of a color is forcibly given to fixers who qualify essentially. Can a fixer be truly happy with freedom that was forcefully handed to them?" This particular fragment, specially the last sentence, is absolutely key for Liwei's characterization, and the final and most important part of him saying "wait, no, colors aren't free, because nobody is" to me. It is also worth noting that this fragment can be read in multiple ways, all of them are important and accurate for his characterization.

He thinks that the responsability and risks that come with being handed the title of a color are far greater than the prestige that comes with the title, can you really say that someone who cant afford to decline requests due to being contacted by the most important organizations in the city, whose closest friends or family WILL be regularly targetted by rivals either to extort them for money or just try to attack them to the point in which most high graded fixers abandon any personal attachment to others, who will have to see the horrible things that happen in the city in an almost day-to-day basis and will likely have to do even worse things in the name of corporate interests is free? Can you really call it freedom if you can't refuse it? Essentially he is saying "actually every single aspect of being a color is terrible and to make matters worse that life is forced on them after they go through extreme miseries in the hopes for a better life but all they get is more of the same if not even worse, they aren't free and shouldn't be refered to as such."

He thinks that in order to become a color (or any highly graded fixer, really), you must essentially lose yourself, which is to say abandoning all friendships or familiar bonds, only keeping shallow interactions with people, desensitizing themselves to whatever horrifying shit they may have to see, abandon all sense of morality as they never know what their next request will be and "im sorry but i dont do xyz, it does against my personal morals" isnt an argument that will work in a place like the city, this also fits into the whole "actually having a much more chaotic emotional side he's trying his absolute hardest to supress but failing" theme mentioned in point 2.2., someone who is so deeply emotional and whose actions are ultimately defined by what is the most likely to keep the people around him alive is obviously not going to like the idea of keeping his distance to them, or to dispose of people with lower grades than him because they were supposed to be expendables anyway.

I don't remember the exact quote and i dont feel like looking for it but in one of gebura's cutscene she claims that all power in the city only serves to strike those below but never up. You have to climb to get stronger and then you'll only be able to assert dominance (through violence) over people weaker than you are, and she grew to dislike this, as she wanted to protect others but was never able to do so because of how the city was dessigned.

Of course, liwei reached the same conclusion but he took the much simpler but much more unhealthy approach of assuming "well, if things are like that, then that must mean that everyone in a position of power (over me) must be responsible for this".

Of course this also comes with the side effect of him being as caring for the rest of the office as he can because he doesn't want to be like other figures of authority as i mentioned in point 2.2, but thats not to mean that things are all fine in the office, i feel like there are several moments in which he internally curses his position of authority but not quite (bc i don't think he's actually The Big Guy In Charge of the office, really), most obviously the aforementioned moment in which he yells at tamaki and stephan to drop their guns so they can run away and live when they clearly dont want to, i feel like at moments like that he feels like they only do things because he tells them to and they "can't argue" (except that they do, fortunately for him the enviroment in the office is healthy enough for the rest of full stops to not abuse this fact, but the "what if"s are absolutely eating him from the inside). As ironic as it sounds his earnest desire to not be Like The Others is the same thing stopping him from being the perfect and efficient leader he wishes to be, and he probably isn't sure of which thing he values more than the other (it's staying true to his own morals and keeping the people under him safe).

However, there's a key detail here that's worth noting: liwei has a tendency to treat everyone else as equals, sure he is formal and respectful when doing so (pressumably even when talking to people he'd rather never interact with if we assume his conversation with argalia was actually how he is and not him just walking on eggshells to not get killed) but he doesn't bother trying to make a clear distinction of who is above and below him, no matter what their title and rank may be, and for people who are used to being looked up to by everyone else this will be seen this as him insulting them in some way, it may come from a sincere desire of him to come off as insulting while not breaking any (major) social convention in an act of malicious compliance or just the type of person he is, that's up to you to determine.

"But how the hell does any of this relate to dong hwan?" we'll get there right now.

3.- Dong Hwan as a character

This is kinda... the hardest point to talk about, because sure I can yap all I want about him but... it's hard to without going "Source: I made it up" too much.

So, looking at his combat sprites you may notice one thing: he is unbelievably hot for real what the hell he has an incredibly smug aura, most people who care about him to some extent i've seen tend to depict him as a very prideful person, and honestly i dont think differently either.

HOWEVER, i feel like despite this he's still a levelheaded guy who can aknowledge his own flaws. On top of that, i think he's a pretty charismatic guy and he's capable of noticing other people's strenghts, and he'll let people know about their own strenghts too.

Also, to contrast with his smug and cheerful exterior, his combat lines depict him as someone very serious when at work, he doesn't even react emotionally to getting killed.

His first "on kill" line is also particularly interesting, as it shows that he prefers to work on his own (unlike everyone's favorite monochrome moody boy), which makes sense considering that he comes alone to the library when you fight him, he may belong to a one-man office (which is the closest a fixer can do to be fully independent, as far as we are aware).

His keypage story also fits this more serious and analytical personality but not much of it is particularly noteworthy from a character analysis perspective, it doesn't say much that you couldn't notice from his combat lines anyway.

Another important factor to me and to contrast him to liwei is... okay, this may be the fact that he's a solo fight and he is, pressumably, an independent fixer, so he's not titled as a member of a particular organization, instead his title (for him, his reception, his keypage and his book) is "dong hwan, the grade 1 fixer", which i mean, again, is most likely just so we dont fight this guy with zero context on who he is and what hes even doing in the library in his own is he stupid? but i like to imagine that the in universe explaination is that he has tied his perception of himself and his own self worth to his grade, to the point in which using both his name and grade is what comes naturally to him when introducing himself, since books are essentially physical manifestations of the soul, then it just makes sense then that his book will give both his name and grade the same importance. This may come from a need to compensate for something else and i actually like to imagine that's the case because it adds yet another layer of parallels with liwei (source: trust me).

Another point is... remember that I mentioned how food was a very consistent thing in the full stops' likes and dislikes sections in the artbook? this point is also not relevant but dong hwan is frequently assumed to be the owner of that pub that shows up at that short side story about roland and angelica which i never watched because i Literally Can Not Care about angelica sorry, but, hey, it's a cute detail, i think he should cook for the full stops.

I feel like there's something to be said about dh's red eyes because in pjm when a character has red eyes you know that means one thing: they will be a big deal, but dong hwan, other than looking incredibly fucking cool and carrying me through the snow queen suppression (FUCK THE SNOW QUEEN ALL MY HOMIES HATE SNOW QUEEN) and star of the city tier 1 (thank you dong hwan i love you dong hwan)… he is rather unremarkable on the grand scheme of things, he's a general reception so you don't even need to defeat him to beat the game, and he only serves to give us some insight on who the fuck was the vermillion cross, and even then he does a terrible job at explaining who he was other than "well, he was a guy i guess" and honestly, the relevance of both liwei and dong hwan is ALSO an important factor in these parallels, as with one being the guy who introduces the concept of colors and the other being the guy who introduces one particular color fixer by casually mentioning being friends with him, both feel like characters who would be much more narratively important in any other story, but here they... aren't.

4.- Summarizing Parallels

Aka the part you may want to skip to if you don't care about me analyzing characters with little background info about them.

So, basically a list of personality (and background, i guess) traits they have in common and how they're different:

Both characters are putting some sort of facade, with liwei trying to act serious and stoic so he's taken seriously while dong hwan... i dont think he even knows what the facade he's putting even is, he's been putting an act for so long that his mask became his true self

In both characters' cases, the first impression they give isn't really the kind of person they truly are (in lw's case this is a deliberate choice and in dh's case i assume that's just the type of person he is), HOWEVER, while liwei acts serious and analytical (and to some extent he is), his true self is far more emotional and prone to form deep bonds with people, while dong hwan has a more passionate, smug and cheerful external attitude but he's much more serious and levelheaded deep down

Both characters have different, conflicting views about their grades, however these differences ultimately lead to both of them being able to treat each other as equals, or as close to that as possible in the city, i feel like liwei can see dong hwan as someone of worth so to speak for reasons unrelated to his grade, while dong hwan does see liwei as a good person (well, good is a subjective term specially in a place like the city) and far better at teamwork than most people in the city, in a way both value something in the other that the other never stopped to consider "hey this is actually a good thing i have"

Both characters are (pressumably?) trying to compensate over something, with liwei putting his professional and formal act to compensate for his sentimental self while dong hwan puts a strong emphasis on his high grade for... who knows, really, i just like this parallel being there because i think it adds a lot

Both have problems forming relationships, with liwei being a generally unpleasant person but being capable of forming deep, meaningful relationships with the people capable of seeing through it, while dong hwan is a charismatic guy liked by almost everyone he's met, but whose relationships tend to be shallow

Not really a personality thing but both characters have a thing for being remarkably unremarkable guys, dong hwan is obviously forgotten by most ruina playes because he's a general reception and the biggest impression liwei leaves in most players is "OH SHIT HE HAS A GUN", even though both are pretty intentionally dessigned with the intention of making them look cool however ive very rarely come across full stop or liwei fans (by which i mean people who like them particularly instead of "actually the entire pjm cast is cool and that includes them) and dong hwan fans are.... yeah, i think ive met like, 4 of them at most (thanks guys i owe you my life)

Something about their combat styles including their passives, liwei's only visible passive is called Concentration and gives him extra strenght for the first turn of a fight, after which he relies in the fact that his attacks weaken the enemy, so he comes off as the sort of guy who prefers to keep his distance and figure out the opponent's weak spot(s) (something he canonically is good at doing) to keep an upper hand at combat, however despite this he's still lacking in both strenght and technique, being only a grade 4 (which i mean let's be real the grades go from 9 to 1 and i feel like a majority of fixers are in the lower grades so he's still pretty much above average but he isnt doing all the cool shit you see the stronger characters do, because that's not the kind of character he is). On the other hand dong hwan's passives have much more cooler sounding names (Fervor, Carver of Scars, Toughness...), all of them focused on either inflicting bleed (status ailment that gradually makes the opponent lose hp)/buffing him against enemies with bleed or buffing him as he gains emotion levels, and his focus is just inflicting bleed like crazy, as well as delivering harder blows against people with bleed, prioritizing raw damage over strategy (but likely being able to figure out an opponent's weaknesses as well, brute strenght alone are most likely not enough to get you far in a world where the powerful people are INSANELY strong bc physical enhancements are commonplace)

I feel like in a way both admire each other, liwei admires dong hwan's capacity to keep a cool head at all times when at work and not letting his feelings have too much weight over his desicions, but dong hwan admires how honest liwei is about himself as well as his capacity to work in a team taking in consideration what will be best for the team as a whole even if it's perjudicial for him in particular.

In Conclusion

Your honor, two of them

[meili-sheep]

Another comedy of errors! Aka can you tell misunderstandings is one of my favorite Ao3 tags??

(This is just og trio of the bullies i couldnt figure out how to add in shenhe LOL)

---

Jean: you know what Lisa, Amber? Diluc’s been really happy recently and im just so happy for him! Hes on relatively good terms with Kaeya again, ive heard his recent foray into the rest of the alcohol market is going swimmingly though i still prefer his wines, and hes found a special someone of his own! Im just really happy that hes got a hold of his life now :))

Amber: yeah, yeah! A cold apple beer after a hot day is such a perfect way to cool down! I still remember being handed an ice cold bottle of beer by Master Diluc’s boyfriend after he cooled it down with his hydro vision. It was so cool, literally and figuratively!

Lisa: boyfriend? No, no that cant be right-- i saw him with a girl from Liyue. Its a bit of an insult to call her a girl actually just from the aura she exhumes! When i saw the two walking around Mond, i couldnt tell whether or not it was Master Diluc or that lady who was showing the other around!

Jean: yes, i... did see her with a Liyuean woman who was chatting him up at the bar. Usually he just politely ignores or tells them off but he was actually bantering with her! Even if some of her comments were a little more... suggestive

Amber: b-but then-- who's that Inazuman guy I saw him with?! I know that they're definitely not just friends or some business associates-- they were holding hands! With INTERTWINED FINGERS--

Jean: w-well, maybe Diluc isn't too well versed in more casual social etiquette? But... archons, i heard that lady say something about thread and webs and ropes and Diluc just turned as red as his hair--

Lisa: my, my... aren't these some... interesting developments. Hrm, i suppose i can keep an eye on that Inazuman man you just mentioned earlier Amber, I did see a new pretty face in the library recently. Pale blue hair, bright eyes, a beauty mark below their lip?

Amber: yeah, thats the guy! And i did see someone with some more Liyue styled clothes walking around the forests near Springvale, maybe that's Diluc’s... other... friend

Jean: i certainly dont want to pry into his love life like this but-- oh archons, these are concerning circumstances. I dont want to be a gossip either but...?

Lisa: we'll tell you everything dear, now what were you saying about Diluc turning his winery into more of a general brewery?

---

Rosaria: hey-- hey Kaeya, your face is so long you're gonna look like your own cavalry

Venti: oh no, don't mind him Miss Rose! Its just that Master Diluc over there finally has a love life!

Kaeya: and i dONT WANNA HEAR ABOUT IT BUT I NEED TO HEAR ABOUT IT SO I CAN STOP WHOEVER IS TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIM--

Venti: oh come onnnnn Sir Kaeya! Not everyone wants Diluc for just his money and good looks!

Kaeya: not everyone implies that there are still a sELECT FEW PEOPLE WHO WANT MY BROTHER FOR HIS MONEY AND GOOD LOOKS--

Rosaria: oh get that stick out your ass Kaeya-- honestly im happy that Diluc’s finally getting a stick up his ass if you know what im saying. He looked like he needed it and from the looks of it... id say he really did need it. I don't think I've ever seen his lips quirked up like that for more than 5 minutes.

Kaeya: oh my god please don't talk about the romantic sex life Diluc shouldnt have

Venti: ooooo and here walks in the lucky guy!

Rosaria: (whistles) no wonder Master Diluc’s a little less of a grouch than he usually is-- this guy is packin in all the right places! You think theyre into threesomes?

Kaeya: oh my gOD PLEASE DONT TALK ABOUT DOING THE DO WITH MY BROTHER AND HIS BOYFRIEND--

Venti: oh, it looks like hes just here to pick up an order of... Inazuman dango milk? Now I understand why Master Diluc likes this guy. And off he goes, to not drink wine... oh, I don't think I'll ever understand the kind of people who don't appreciate the beauties of wine

Rosaria: i take everything back, this man is disgusting--

Kaeya: ...okay, maybe im a little more okay with Diluc dating him but i still dont want them together-- oh hey its Amber and some lady, yo Amber over here!

Amber: (chokes on her drink at Ayato about to leave and Yelan about to order) oh uh, e-excuse me Miss Yelan, I didn't realize my work colleagues were also here! Im just gonna go say hi ahahaaaaaa

Amber: oh my god oh my god oh my god-- you guys--

Kaeya: yes Diluc is dating i HATE IT I KNOW--

Amber: no, worse. I think... i think Diluc is cHEATING--

Kaeya: (spits out his drink) wait wHAT--

Rosaria: oH THIS IS SPICYYYYYY

Venti: oh my god, i-- i-- hOW--

Kaeya: all this time i thought my brother would be taken advantage of... bUT HES THE ONE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THEM-- I DONT KNOW WHETHER TO BE PROUD OR DISAPPOINTED--

Amber: oh my gosh let me tell you everything that me, jean, and lisa found out--

Rosaria: oh my god we thought he was dating that Ayato guy--

Amber: yeah right?! But apparently Jean and Lisa saw Miss Yelan and Master Diluc together multiple times (whispering) she was even making those jokes and DILUC DIDNT PUSH HER AWAY--

Kaeya: wh-what-- i-- i dont approve of him dating and i dont approve whatever tHIS IS-- we need to stage an intervention.

Venti: agreed. Though i may not agree with Mr Ayatos drink of choice, noone deserves this kind of treatment!

Amber: (sighing) and Miss Yelan is such a nice lady too, even if she is a little strange... i cant let Diluc hurt her feelings anymore...

---

Diluc: guys, everyone thinks that im dating both of you and that im also cheating on both of you... with both of you.

Yelan, choking a fatui: i know its fUCKING HILARIOUS AHAHAHA

Diluc, punching a fatui in the face: yeah but (sighs) theyre planning an "intervention" and i-- im gonna need you guy's help if were even gonna tRY to explain what the fuck our entire deal is

Ayato, chilling atop a pile of dead(?) Fatui bodies: (snaps fingers) i have an idea-- polycule.

Yelan, stabbing a man with an arrow: polycule?

Ayato, kicking one of the writhing bodies in the pile: polycule.

Yelan, tying up the most important officers: (shrugging) aight, polycule.

Diluc, setting the camp on fire: welp, polycule it is i guess. You guys want barbeque? They got Snezhnayan sausages and cheese

Ayato: i brought the bbq sticks and sauces!

Yelan: hELL YEAH-- you gotta give it to them, even if they want world domination, they make some really good food

Everyone, while the kidnapped fatui cry: agreed.

---

Kaeya, with everyone who "knows": Diluc, I love you, I love you so much but can you please explain to me why you are-- whaaaaaat are you doing.

Diluc in the bully cuddle pile: uhhhh, spending time with my fri-- partners? Is... is something wrong? Wait no-- why am i asking, all of the knights are here-- is stormterror acting up? Crap, let me get my claymore--

Jean, thinking that this is definitely not a cuddle pile: oh, no no Master Diluc-- we'll just leave you three to your uh-- business

Diluc, getting up from the cuddle pile: no, no it must be highly urgent if everyones here-- i can afford time away from my-- loves if it means Mondstat is safe

Jean: no no its no worry at all i just--

Amber: wE THOUGHT YOU WERE CHEATING ON YOUR PARTNER SO WE STAGED AN INTERVENTION--

Ayato, absolutely reveling in this chaos: now why would our dearest Lucs ever do that? Whatever brought you all to this conclusion??

Yelan, fake betrayed: (gasp) Amber! Is that why you toured and followed me around Mondstat?! I was merely looking for some scenic views to show Ayato and Diluc later!

Amber: mISS YELAN WE WERE JUST CONCERNED ABOUT YOU--

Ayato, internally cackling: then-- does that mean that you, Miss Lisa, only entertained my desires to learn about my loves homeland because you pitied the love that Lucs and I shared?! Miss Lisa how could you?!

Lisa: i sincerely apologize, we merely misunderstood at the time

Diluc, conflicted on whether or not hes amused or exasperated: i am extremely disappointed that you would all think that i am that kind of man. Rumors are just baseless things, why would you ever believe them-- i expected better from you all. Especially you Kaeya, youre my brother-- i would never do that kind of thing

Kaeya, guilt and shame incarnate: im so sorry Diluc, i just got worried and i couldnt think straight-- will you ever forgive us?

Diluc: of course, now if you'd excuse me i have a cuddle pile to get into

Venti: i only wish you happiness in the rest of your days, Miss Yelan, Sir Ayato. Love is a strange and wonderful thing and i hope you cherish it for years to come

Rosaria: tbh i was just here for drama, did not disappoint

Kaeya, under his breath: no kaeya, you cant commit a double murder right now-- theres too many witnesses and complications but aRCHONS diluc looks so happy with them but dAMMIT NO HE CANT DATE--

Diluc, when the three of them are finally alone: i hate that i decided to go with your plan. And that it worked.

Yelan: hey at least it gives us more excuses to cuddle pile

Diluc: true. And what do you have to say for yourself Ayato?

Ayato: i cant wait to fuck with everyones brains with our new relationship status!! :DD

Diluc: nO--

Honestly, this works out so well. And not only do the knights learn to keep out of Diluc's business, but Diluc's marriage proposals have slowed way way down, and so despite Ayato's new hobby, it works out super duper well for him. And now he can get the affection for Yelan and Ayato and doesn't have to worry about it looking weird.

[chelleztjs18]

Hello you mrs. dramatic butt older head sneezy lefty eyebag 😅

Sheeeeeeesh I feel attacked now too! Is this because I said you a meany head for not spoiling things 🤣

I woke up with a runny nose. I think I'm getting another cold but I hope not. So today I'm just taking it easy and gonna watch some shows I need to catch up on.

How about you? How is your day so far?

Does that mean that next year, you guys will get a plastic tree instead??

Hahahaha when you said you look shiny, I imagined the Mr. Clean commercial where his bald head sparkles. 🤣🤣

You're corny 🙄🤣 just kidding. Speaking of pasta, maybe that's what happened to Yelena.. she was so upsetti for not finding Natasha, so she had spaghetti. Then.. it grew into an addiction and she pasta way...🤔

Okay okay, songs that remind me of summer.. like I said, thinking of summer, it brings me back to working or bbqing.. oh even camping. So let's see..and since I can't add them as a link, I'll just list them:

1. We Can't Stop by Miley Cyrus

2. 23 by Miley Cyrus

3. Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus

That's a lame list ahahaha but it's because when I used to work at Wendy's, I had this coworker who would always come in and sing Miley Cyrus songs. So when were just cleaning in the back, we would play the songs and sing along to it 😅

I don't think we really talked about genre of music before. But I'm the same way.. although I can tolerate those screaming rock metal genres.

Hahaha oh boy, so you don't know how to flirt and are oblivious to people flirting with you? So that applies to online too? Or just in person?

But I shouldn't make fun, apparently I am the same way. Well, I don't know when people are flirting with me until it's too late. I'm usually shy at first, so I don't flirt much. But once I am comfortable around someone I like, I flirt with them.

Okay, so let's say 3 songs from when you were a teenager.

Then next question is 3 songs that you would play on repeat when you are sad/angry.

-CuriousGeorge

Hello hello righty eyebag!

Wait, u call me older head? Am i older than u? I remember u r in ur 30s too but who is older? U or me? I'm 35. U dont have to say the number ,u can just says who is older.🤭😆

Haha well, i can be meany head or sweet n nice head. U choose 😅🤣

U wanna know some spoilers of The Monsters Within? Okay.

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JUST KIDDING!got u!! No spoilers policy..😅🤣🤣

Oh no! I hope u r not catching a cold. It will be suck if u got sick on christmas while u r working.

No, i dont think we will have plastic tree. This is actually thr first time i hv allergies on the pine tree. I googled it may takes sometimes for allergies to christmas tree to develop. So we'll see next year how it is. Also i forgot to answer ur question. Yes, my husband n i lived together first for like 2 years. 😊

My day is okay. Busy. Been cleaning the house so we will come home to a clean house.

Omg, im not bald. How dare u! 🤣🤣 i meant my hair is thin but im not bald.lol.

Oh dear lord, u n ur puns. 🤣🤣 pasta-way, thats corny pun.🤣 i literally had to put down my phone n hold my forehead n shake my head after i read that pharagraph about yelena.😅

Oh okay.no wonder ur 3 songs of summer are all miley cyrus. 😅 i was like dang girl r u a fan of her or something? 😅

Yeahi dont know how to flirt. Im an awkward shy person. N i didnt know if i flirt. Few days ago, H kinda comment that i kinda flirt on the asks after she read my asks conversation. I was like "really? Did i? I didnt know" 😅 so i guess my obliviousness applies on online too. Lol.

Ah i see, yeah im like u too. I may not talk much but if i got comfortable or the other person talk enough n fun, i can talk a lot more or even wont shut up. N flirt with out realizing it, obviously.🤣

Hmm songs that reminds my teenager era probably all songs from backstreet boys, nsync, britney spears. 😅

Songs that i wil repeat when im angry is this whole album:

Songs that i repeat whn im sad, i cant pick it. I will just randomly search sad playlist on spotify. 😅 or sometimes listen to classical opera songs.

What about u?

Also have u ever think that some songs r sexy / hv a sexy vibe?

Next questions?

Cheerio!

[twelvedaysinaugust]

Thank you for answering my ask about the leaked phone call! The timeline of Louis and Harry falling out/breaking up around 2018 makes a lot of sense in terms of when that phone call was made. I have heard some accounts about Louis allegedly being seen at HSLOT 2018 at Harry’s shows. After that tour I noticed a certain shift with how Harry looked/his attitude. I also do agree that louis has done questionable actions when it comes to dispelling rumors about larrry. Although, I don’t think it can compare to how Harry has handled it. I have seen a journalist point out in the article that Harry’s lack of effort has not been fair to Louis. The other questionable things he has done include euphoria, Eroda, the milkshake tweet (probably more). Anyway, that phone call could have possibly been a bitter and petty way to “get back” at Harry by saying that none of it was real. When the Harry’s tour finished he was a producer on that Ben Winston/Full Stop show about him living in Ben’s basement which pretty much erased him and Louis living together (which was iconic and they told almost everybody that they were roommates back in the early years). There was an interview later on where Louis answered with the whole “chicken stuffed with mozzarella” and it sorted felt like he was “shading” Harry at the time kind of like he was implying that he cant change the past or the history they both had together. Idk he seems like he would definitely a petty person that would find smart ways to spite someone.

I remember receiving this ask while I was standing in the pit Saturday night. I'm sorry it took me almost a week to answer.

I really appreciated your question about the phone call because it's one of the many, many things that I can't get a clear read on. In short, I completely agree with everything you said above. I will add that, in addition to "being petty" and "getting back" at Harry, I think it's possible that Louis set up the phone call with the UA to let off some steam and indicate that it was (or, about to be) really, truly over.

I feel like my longer thoughts are going to anger some people, but I'll share them anyway. It's my blog and I want to be truthful about my experiences and observations in this fandom.

I have a very hard time nailing down a "Larry timeline," especially after 2013-ish. I do not think Harry and Louis are currently a couple, and I've changed a lot of the opinions I once had. I no longer think all the "stunts" were actually stunts, nor do I think Larry was a fairytale relationship. But I still believe there was something there. From 2017 to 2018, I find Larry especially confusing. However, I do think Louis attended some of Harry's shows in 2018 - I'm almost certain he was at Santiago and Madison Square Garden. And watching Harry's demeanor and performance at the second MSG show in particular (covering “Still the One” with Kacey Musgraves, slowing down during Louis’ verse in “If I Could Fly,” just his expression when he looked up at the VIP box)... I was like, "Damn... the spark is still there after all these years?" It made my heart go pitter-patter. But then I was very confused because what does that mean for Larry, especially since Harry was with Camille at the time and I find it especially difficult to write off that relationship as a stunt? A lot of people (Larries and non-Larries) claim Louis was at the show. However, there are also a lot of stories about Louis calling it quits shortly after. So, I think MSG Night 2 might have been a last-ditch romantic gesture from Harry. But what that means for the time prior - it's hard to say. In short, I don't think Larry was one long, continuous, monogamous relationship. Especially toward the end, I think it was very on-and-off. And to be honest, there have been things post-2018 that I've side-eyed a little. The Umbro shirt, especially. Even when Louis made a trip to LA that perfectly lined up with Harry's shows at the Forum in November I was a little like, "hmm." But even the biggest and most committed Larries will admit that Harry and Louis are rarely in the same place at the same time. I don't see how that's a relationship.

I think the way both Harry and Louis engage with the fandom that was borne out of Larry is inconsistent and confusing. I do think Harry Larry-baits. But I don't think money is his only motivation to do so. I think he's hurt and upset about the way things ended. The Euphoria episode, in particular, I view as Harry feeling hurt, scorned, and "getting back" at an ex.

But Louis' relationship with Larries (i.e. the vast majority of his fanbase) is even more of a mystery to me. Since the beginning, he seemed sincerely bothered by the speculation, unlike Harry. Louis took the brunt of the denials. Louis set up a phone call with a UA to complain about "crazy Larrie fans." At the same time, he does interact with it - I'm 100% certain of this after attending two shows in person. And the "Princess Park" lyric and cover of "7" only emboldened Larries further. (I know we all have different opinions on this, but I don't think I'll ever be convinced that these decisions were an "oversight" on Louis' part. He had to know what he was doing. He had to.) For both Harry and Louis, I think the so-called Larry-baiting might be a response to a shared history and experience. In that sense, I hesitate to say that it's completely disingenuous or “wrong.” At the same time, I don’t appreciate them misleading fans (especially queer fans who relate to Larry) if Larry isn’t - or never was - real. I also think there are broader implications for Eleanor, Freddie, etc. But that’s a different conversation.

Whatever Larry was, I think it greatly affected Harry and Louis emotionally. I know that a lot of people leave the fandom after they un-Larrie or conclude that Harry and Louis have likely broken up. Regardless of Harry and Louis’ current relationship (or lack thereof), I think Larry continues to be very relevant to their respective fanbases - Louis’ especially. For that reason, I don’t think I’ll be able to view Larry as “irrelevant” or “a thing of the past” anytime soon.

[entities-of-posts]

hi! this is the anon who was having the pier dreams. thank you for your input on my last statement. i wanted to add a little more context for you, since i was hoping maybe itd help us figure out what happened. i've been sort of concerned about it for a while. if you don't have anything further to add or are too busy, it's fine to ignore this.

i think i should have been more apprehensive about going into the water at the time considering past experience, especially since the girl explicitly mentioned the pier when she told me about her bag. maybe it was a different pier, haha.. really, though, nothing about her really put me off or seemed suspicious -- i wouldn't call it a comforting presence either, though. it was like meeting any other person. she was barely there, really. i can't even remember what she looked like, or what her voice sounded like. i remember it was a white backpack that i fished out -- it was floating on the surface of the water, as if there had been nothing in it, but it was surprisingly heavy when i picked it up. once i got back to the shore, i woke up, but i had the sense that i had gotten it back to her and i felt pretty good about it. it was only a good while later that i'd even made the connection, after the dreams stopped. i cant think of anything notable that was happening at that time in real life, but i had a really rough time with my mental health the following year. i think that had to do with coming out as trans and losing a lot of my friends. sometimes shitty things happen apart from otherworldly embodiments of fear. nowadays i do fine for myself. havent felt a draw to any particular entity. i like being human, so i dont think i'll take the plunge anytime soon -- maybe feeding the eye like this counts as allegiance somehow, but i don't know, i just... need to know what it meant. something about it still bothers me. good luck with your backlog, archivist.

Ah, this one is really quite late by now, but it is a supplemental to this one. Hm… pardon the pun, but we are attempting to wade through quite murky waters. I’m afraid trying to look too hard at this will cause my eyes to start playing tricks on me; not the kind of the Spiral, but the extrapolations that can make those touched be the Watcher seem to approach the gift of prophecy.

So extrapolate I will, but be aware that it is what I’m doing. This might be a good glimpse of the process, if anyone is interested.

The waters were at first murky, then clear. Either they were truly cleansed, or they were made to appear so.

Let’s start with the first option. It could have many subsequent branches, but there’s only one that I believe worth considering, at least at this stage. The murk in the water could be a residue of the Buried, or the Dark, tainting the domain of the Vast you were in. Following the assumptions previously made, I believe that obscuring filth was filtered somehow, and concentrated within that heavy backpack - remember, this is a dream, so we are speaking in metaphors here, symbols dreamed up by your mind to interpret the inhuman events you unwittingly participated in as piece rather than player. Now, while the intrusion had been restrained, it was still in the “water”, which is to say the Vast. Somehow the process of fully extracting is needed a smaller, less powerful, but more precise tool: a human mind. Think of the difference between trying to pull out a splinter with your fingers, versus with the help of small pincers. For this reason you were used, and as reward freed; but who did you do this favor for? Here we branch: either it was for the Vast itself, seeking to be rid of the intrusion, or it was for the power responsible for it (Dark or Buried, most likely) wanting to acquire this missing piece of itself. Here it is rather hard to say, but the fact that the girl was standing on the shore, and ostensibly the owner of the “backpack” and its contents, makes me lean towards the latter option.

Now, if the waters had merely been made to appear clear, so as to make you more inclined to wade into them, this would point not to contamination but theft. The Vast had taken something that another Fear wanted back, or it had something that another wanted to take. Both options, while different, still point to the same possible culprits: those capable of such an illusion. Our suspects are then the Web, the Stranger, and the Spiral. The latter is rather less intricately conniving, I would say, but is still an option. Most of what I’ve said above still stands - dream logic, a human subconscious as a precise tool. If I had to guess, I would say the Web, only because such intricate weaving is her style; but you were only used, not fed on in the process, which might actually indicate that it wasn’t her at all.

I can hardly look further; those conjectures are house of cards already. As that what was actually happening, without the allegorical language, this might be an even more abstract discussion, and this is long enough already.

Though I suppose, if anyone does want to hear it…

[scruffyssketchbook]

I've been really inactive lately, so I'll try to get this posted.

I noticed something that might classify as a plot hole. The PC system add-on that allows pokemon to get injured.

For starters, we never get an explanation for why this add-on was added in the first place. Supposedly, Vay was loopy from his "karp krakers", and put the add-on into the PC without thinking.

Also, we never get an explanation as to how this add-on works. Or, more accurately, how the PC works. Does the PC normally prevent the eevees from feeling pain and being injured at all? For example, even if Blizz tried his hardest, punching someone would be like punching a brick wall for an average person. Or, does the PC simply heal any major injuries the eevees take on? Or is it somewhere in between?

I know that, from the perspective that this is a comic that needs drama, having the add-on allows characters to hurt each other. (See Jed and Shane.) But, from an in comic perspective, this makes no sense.

Secondly, even if we did have a good explanation for how the add-on came to be, why didn't the trainer just get rid of it. And I don't want the explanation that she's stupid. She is 16, she knows how to work a computer. Even if she didn't, she could force Vay to do it, or get Bede (The person who runs the PC system in Sinho) to do it. I also don't want the explanation that she is negligent. She is, but she took the time to look into it after Harmony got hurt. I doubt she would just turn around and do nothing after learning about the add-on.

I may be missing context here, as there is one comic page that I can't access, the page 100 variation on patreon. Maybe there's an explanation in there, but I wouldn't know.

Thirdly, even if we ignore the trainer, what about Dusk? We already know that he has tried to get Blizz to work with him in stopping Icedrop and Greenpaw from fighting. Not to beat around the bush, Greenpaw does bully Icedrop, they just do it in a more covert, mental, and emotional way than Icedrop bullies Greenpaw.

However, Blizz refuses to help, partially because both Dusk and Blizz are petty. If Dusk genuinely wants to stop Icedrop, why not just get rid of the add-on? We know Dusk can manipulate electronics, so why not just delete the add-on, either from within the PC, or sneakily from outside it? Furthermore, Dusk is not stupid. He knows that Vay added the add-on, or at least could figure that out. He and Vay are also in good relations, so why doesn't he, or hasn't he, asked Vay to get rid of the add-on?

The explanation of "Dusk is just a jerk" does not work. Dusk can be a jerk, but everything he does he does for a reason. Most of him being a jerk comes from him being egotistical, narcissistic, and thinking he knows what's best for everyone even when he doesn't.

The only explanation that works is that he doesn't get rid of the add-on due to the fact it would put Daisy and the other hospital vees out of a job.

Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that pokemon other than eevee exist in the trainer's PC. We even get to see one of the other boxes. My point here is that the other pokemon would notice something wrong eventually. Best case senario, they notice due to realizing they can feel pain. Worst, they notice due to a major injury not being healed by the PC.

Those pokemon would want to know what happened. Amusing they either are told the truth or find out on their own, why wouldn't they ask Vay to take off the add-on. If Dusk (since he is the only one I can think of who would try to spin a story) told them a lie, then would every pokemon in the entire PC believe him. Charm and smooth words can only go so far.

___________________________________________________

I have two extra questions I thought up while writing this.

Bonus question 1: How did the trainer know that Harmony was injured? Did vay tell her? She check the pokemon's health in the PC often (both stat, and convential health)?

Bonus 2: If we know pokemon can learn to read and write, then why have none of the pokemon other than Vay tried to communicate with their trainer. What is the point of using Vay as a translator, when the pokemon could just write to the trianer? Do they just want to hide how much they know?

On top of that, if pokemon can learn to use computers, what's stooping them from just using text to speech, completely circumventing Vay all together.

bonus 3: Do the pokemon age in the PC? We know Eve is around two years old, so is she physically still a newborn, or has she physically grown?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summary/tl;dr

q1: What are the specifics of how the damage allowing add-on was put into the PC?

q2: How does this add-on, and the PC system's healing ability, work?

q3: Why didn't their trainer take the add-on off the PC?

q4: Why didn't Dusk take the add-on off the PC?

q5: Why didn't any of the other pokemon in the PC take off the add-on?

bq1: How did the trainer know that Harmony was injured?

bq2: Why don't we ever see pokemon that know how to write communicate with the trainer?

bq3: Do the pokemon physically age in the PC?

Author chan: Over here asking the important questions! Alright! I can explain!

The mod basically prevents pokemon from healing without outside means like things that can heal a pokemon, Potions, full heals, antidotes, etc etc. This is why it's called the Damage keeper mod.

Normally in the PC, pokemon can feel pain, but they will quickly heal overtime, but with the mod, it just stops this function all together. Usually in the world, it's used with the "No heal on Entrance" mod for trainers who participate in Nuzlocke challenges.

Vay inputted the Damage keeper mod into the PC for one reason, and one reason only. No, he wasn't loopy, He knew what he was doing, and added it on purpose. It was a pretty selfish decision all in all, but I can't say the reason why. It's vaguely hinted to tho. Yes! It makes no sense to have a mod like that inputted in universe. Literally no other character would ever put in this mod into the if given the chance! But, Vay put it in for a specific purpose. Said purpose was actually shown in "Battle scars". Now. Why would Vay do this? Why would he input a mod that makes all pokemon to keep the damage they receive in the box?

Well. He simply only thinks of himself. He didn't think or care about the effect the mod would have on the other pokemon in the PC, just how he could use it to do what he wanted to do. And yes. Vay is a jerk. He's my least favorite main for a reason, you know.

Next up!

As said in comic 200c, Mods are very hard to take off. Why? Well. We are dealing with actual creatures. One wrong move and hundreds of them will get corrupted and essentially die. This isn't like Minecraft, despite me comparing the PC to a minecraft server for explaining how it works to others. Since this mod affects the pokemon directly, its harder to remove because it’s just a big risk for the pokemon. This is also why Dusk cant just remove it. It is too big of a risk to all the pokemon in the PC, which there are over 1000 of at this point. Healing items and free hospitals are a temporary fix.

Also! Blizz does try to help with the bullying, as seen with comic #302, where he states "It's a misunderstanding" followed by text covered by Bolt talking/ignoring him saying "I saw a greenpaw eevee being bullied by Mike and Tike and-" Which, we see on page #298 Tike was the eevee he was punishing.

Lastly! Why don't the other pokemon notice. Well, The few who have been in a PC before do, but most of the pokemon were wild pokemon before they appeared in the PC, so they don’t know how a normal PC feels like. And ofc, how would a pokemon know who to ask about why the PC works the way it does? Mods are common in the world, cause trainers like to give PC pokemon things to do while rotting away. This is actually going to be talked about with Eevui, the new Eevee the trainer obtained via wondertrading. He was in a normal PC before he was traded, so he'd notice the difference, and will comment on it. Funny thing, I have a comic about him trying to describe the PC to pokemon who never been in one before before he goes in the trainer's pc, and it looks completely different from OUR PC box.

Bonus Questions!!

Harmony was brought out of the PC, to the pokemon center, and a nurse Joy informed her that her pokemon was badly injured.

Bro, you so right. I realized this last year and was like "omg" until I remembered that- Pokemon language is different from human language. Ofc, there are pokemon who can read human language in the world, but pokemon and human stuff are different. And in the PC, things are translated into pokemon if not already in pokemon. This does mean pokemon can write to the trainer and it can get translated, but Vay is just an easier method of translation, especially for pokemon who have a harder time reading, writing, and typing (also there are different pokemon languages as well so oof) then like. Not every pokemon knows how to read and write. It’s a privlage usually given only to few captive pokemon. Wild pokemon learning how to read/write in their own language is VERY RARE, especially due to the lack of materials. And the only civilized boxes in the PC are box 1, 2, and 3, so only pokemon living in those boxes have a reason to learn how to read, and resources to learn.

Pokemon are born the height that they stay at all their life, unless they evolve. (Or are Nego. The little weirdo) This is to mimic how it is in pokemon games. So, no. Pokemon don't physically grow. They DO mentally age however. Pokemon tend to age mentally at different rates, so for example, a newborn who is immediately thrusted into situations not meant for a baby (ie, breeding, battling, contests) will mentally age faster than someone (like Eve) Who has stayed in the PC all their life. Nego and Eve are about the same age (Nego being 6 months older) Yet, Nego acts like an infant while Eve does not. This is because Nego ages physically and mentally like a human, while Eve ages quicker mentally, like pokemon do. This also tends to mean that when a pokemon is born doesn't matter much, as they can mentally be ahead or behind.

I hope these answered your questions!! I like talking about SSEC world building! (Its just that I never have the chance to talk about it in detail QuQ)

[sweetescapeartist]

MY DBS MANGA CHAPTER 72 REVIEW... 😒

Hey there... Here comes the review.

Imma start like this and use language some ppl may find offensive. Goku, Vegeta, & Granolah are retarded. Now that that's out of the way, time to dissect this "Dragon Ball Super coloring book."

Goku & Vegeta land on the planet & its peaceful. How are they not immediately suspicious? They see that the planet isn't in danger & no death. Its obvious they need to ask a question to figure out what lies they've been told.

I was gonna say its dumb for Granolah to be able to supress his ki because it seems only Earthling have that kind of spiritual understanding. But Namekians have that spiritual understanding too so maybe Monaito taught Granolah how to suppress his ki.

I lost interest in the Heeters' past. You can only tease me so long until I stop caring. At least mention something like Freeza almost killed Gas on planet Cereal so now that's why Gas keeps trying to get stronger. There's so little info about "important" stuff that's supposed to be important. Give readers a tease, hint, a different hint, some valuable info, then another hint, then a reaveal (or something similar!) Instead its tease, hint, tease, tease, hint, tease...

In all honesty, the chapter didn't even need that page with Gas & Elec. When Maki said Gas & Elec are coming, that was all we needed to know. Then we anticipate their arrival in the next chapter. Showing them is a waste of time & they add no real purpose to the chapter. That was just a waste of ink.

Also I'm bored of Gas now. He only looks interesting but does nothing. 👎

Granolah shoots at Goku & Vegeta. Base Goku closes his eyes to use UI (UI Omen?) while Vegeta goes SS. Base Goku dodges easier than Vegeta. Goku is leagues beyond Vegeta.

A better way to have Goku & Vegeta encounter Granolah would be for him to snipe at them right when they get off the ship. Granolah wanted to kill them so bad so why wait for them?

Somehow they go towards Granolah but he's too fast for them & they lose him. They can't sense him firing ki for some reason. Idk why Goku didn't use Instant Transmission when Granolah shot ki at them?

I don't get why Goku closes his eyes either. Its as if Goku can't use UI now unless his eyes are closed but that wasn't the case before. Eyes were opend when using UI Omen & Mastered UI. Toyo could have conveyed that better but instead he's making Goku close his eyes like how Roshi covered his eyes when fighting those prisoner women because their beauty distracted him. Is Goku distracted by Granolah's beauty or something?

Wait a sec... I gotta backtrack real quick. Goku used the Ultra Instinct technique in his base & didn't go into Ultra Instinct Omen? But thats him using it in base right? Oh boy... This is about to get dumb...

Ultra Idiot Goku & Super Stupid Vegeta are surprised that the guy having the title of "strongest in the universe" is capable of moving faster than them when they aren't at full power. Such genius writing.

Goku gets shot in the neck... & it knocks him out... Ok. But later Granolah comments on how Goku's body moves on it's own before Goku can even process an attacks. Not to mention Goku & Whis have said the same thing. Goku should be untouchable at this point, but for some reason he is not.

So, Vegeta takes a senzu bean from his "training bra" and gives it to Goku. For some reason they decided to only take 2 senzu when knowing they would fight a guy possibly stronger than them. Stupid monkeys.🐒 (I'm starting to sound like Freeza now)

How did unconscious Goku eat a senzu? Yaoi fans would had loved it if Vegeta chewed the senzu up for Goku and fed it to him. Sorry, it just reminded me of Trunks spitting senzu mush into Mai's mouth since she was unconscious.

Then we have this dialogue from "sensei" Vegeta, The Ultra Instinct Expert...

"You rely on Ultra Instinct too much! If you haven't perfected it yet, then dodge using your mind!" - Vegeta

"Yeah, you're right..." - Goku

"WTF Toyotaro!" - DB Meta

... I'm unsure who is the stupid one in this situation. Is it Goku or Vegeta? It could be Vegeta because UI is the ultimate technique that allows you to move without thinking. But Vegeta says that because Goku hasn't perfected Ultra Inst-...

...

...

Sorry, I had to restart my brain...

Didn't... didn't Goku master Ultra Instinct? Silver hair? Silver eyes? MASTERED/PERFECTED ULTRA INSTINCT? Before that, Goku perfected Ultra Instinct Omen & could go in it at will... So, Goku is listening to Vegeta tell him he hasn't mastered UI? But both know that Goku did master UI? What does Vegeta know? Vegeta can't even use UI.

I almost stopped reading the rest of the colouring book when I got to that dialogue.

Also, Granolah wants to kill Saiyans, so why is he holding back and not hitting them with deadly attacks. He only needs one alive anyways. He said so himself.

At least there was a good pose Goku was in. The art looked nice there.

Now here's another place I almost quit reading. Granolah apparently has all the abilities of Goku & Vegeta. Hack writing. Sounds like a Moro, 7-3, & Cell copy cat. Toyo just cant leave the Cell saga alone.

Granolah is bumping his gums & rattling his tongue (old slang for "talking a lot") but when Vegeta asks if Granolah holds a grudge against Saiyans, Granolah suddenly says that's enough talking. He responded to them 3 times & spoke like 5 sentences to them. If you're gonna chat then chat. If you hate Saiyans then don't say anything to them & try to kill them. Dummy.

Granolah uses Hakai. But aparently he's not using Hakai or Instant Transmission. Its just "similar." Sure. Confirms that he has been using something similar to UI in previous chapters too.

Granolah says they're stronger than expected because they escaped into the air. Escape doesn't equal strenght. Mai escaped Goku Black, doesn't mean she's extremely strong.

But seriously, Vegeta saying he's gonna prove his training is better than Goku is stupid. He wants to prove he is better than Goku yet he tells Goku to fight first (that's beta). It's as if he isn't confident & wants Goku to wear Granolah out first, so he can come in and look impressive. Kinda like in RoF after Freeza was tired from fighting Goku & Vegeta wasn't tired at all & he easily beat Freeza up. Looked cool, but actually wasn't too impressive.

Granolah saying that he's gonna shoot them if they don't fight him is ridiculous. Why is he showing mercy to the tribe that didn't show his ppl mercy? Why give chances to the ppl you wanted revenge on for years? Realistically he would just start blasting at them.

Unecessary dialogue from Vegeta talking to himself about how he needs to learn who Granolah is. Show don't tell Toyo.

Why is Granolah waiting for the Oozaru form? Maybe he wants to kill them in that form? What about revenge? Just kill them.

Goku screamed to power up from SS to SSG. That's possibly dumb, but I gotta let at least 1 thing slide this chapter.

Why did Granolah let them power up? So unlike what we've been shown what Granolah is like. Why would he want to give "murderers" of his entire race a fair chance to fight him?

Next, Goku doesn't try to explain he isn't savage like other Saiyans when Granolah accuses his kind of being so. Instead Goku just agrees & says "Oh... Yeah." I guess he really just wants to fight. I can't tell if this is OOC or just magnifying a Saiyan flaw of Goku just to push the story along. Idk. I'm losing brain cells reading this chapter.

Granolah's fighting stance is cool. Hey, look. I said a nice thing. (But why is he doing close combat when being a sniper us his specialty?)

So, Goku uses UI in SSG form... Bruh, is Ultra Instinct a technique, a state of mind, or a transformation? I'll tell you what it is. ULTRA INSTINCT IS A PLOT DEVICE! It does whatever Toyotaro decides at the moment. So freaking inconsistent... 😓😒

Ultra Instinct becomes more accurate when in conjunction with a SS form?! How tho? I thought it was just a goldy technique that needed a clear mind and control or whatever. Or is UI a transformation like Toyo stated many times in previous chapters, while also calling UI a technique? How can mixing a godly "technique" with a SS form enhance it better than Goku simply using UI Omen? It doesnt! Vegeta, you can just shut up! Every time you talk about UI, you've been wrong! It should be illegal impersonating an UI Expert.

Goku is using the Ultra Instinct technique in base form against Granolah.

UI Omen is Goku using the Ultra Instinct technique in base form.

Goku uses Ultra Instinct technique in the Super Saiyan God transformation.

Mastered UI is Goku mastering the technique or maybe using the technique as a transformation? (Toyo is confusing.)

So why isn't Goku going into UI Omen when using UI in base? Why does Vegeta say "Ultra Instinct... becomes more accurate when used in conjunction with a Super Saiyan form"? Does that mean Mastered UI is a Saiyan form in conjunction with the Ultra Instinct technique? So, there's an unknown silver haired Saiyan transformation that Goku was utilizing in conjunction with Ultra Instinct? I guess this confirms that "Super Saiyan Blanco" is real y'all.

I suppose that if UI in base isn't the same as UI Omen, then by that logic, there is also an unknown "Super Saiyan Noir" form we haven't seen yet.

I'm done with Ultra Instinct in the manga. Toytaro doesn't know if UI is a technique or a transformation. I could explain it better than him, but I'm not tye one writing official material. Why should I make sense of his bad writing when he will change things later? HE should explain it clearly to US. He is extremely inconsistent with his explanations and will change them when he feels like it.

I dont care what Geekdom101 says about UI being both technique & transformation, because Ultra Instinct IS NOT a transformation nor a technique anymore. ULTRA INSTINCT IS JUST A PLOT DEVICE. 😑

[You can skip this little section. I'm talking about inconsistencies from the Moro arc]

I remember when I talked about how Moro's life draining powers were retconned multiple times.

Moro can absorb life energy from a planet while he is in outer space, then he is nerfed to only being able to take life energy by directly touching you, later Vegeta says they need to get off the ground because now Moro (who is stronger and fused with the planet) can only steal your life enrgy while making contact with you. He could absorb life energy from entire planets from space, but has to make contact with somebody once he got stronger?

Let's not forget it's said Moro drains life energy, but can't drain 17 & 18 because they say they don't have life energy. I guess that means Krillin had a daughter with a dead woman? No. Multiple times, 17 & 18 contributed to the Genki Dama (a collection of life energy). Goku gathers energy from trees, animals, ppl, everything living. This means 17 & 18 do have life energy because they are living beings. But the energy they fight with is unlimited artificial energy.

So if 17 & 18 can give life energy to Goku for a Genki Dama, then Moro should be able to take their life energy just like anyone else. What he can't take is their energy they use for battle because itsunlimited & artificial. Toyotaro does not understand this important detail nor does he understand many other details about these iconic character. So why is the the writer if he is getting so much wrong? Why is he not soley the artist?

Goku uses UI in SSG form to dodge a barrage of attacks from Granolah that are aimed at the planet. They must be weak attacks because the explosions are tiny. Is Granolah really trying to kill them?

Goku using UI in SSG but somehow gets caught off gaurd. Did UI just get nerfed so that Vegeta can look like he is on the same level as Goku in a later chapter? I think it did...

Granolah took Goku down a second time... Wow Goku, you kinda suck. In DBS CH 65 on page 11, after Moro broke his arm on UI Goku's chest, Whis said "When Ultra Instinct is honed to this extent, the body will automatically grow sturdier as necessary." Why is Goku holding back against the strongest in the universe? Oh yeah, that's right... UI is getting nerfed.

Vegeta, what do you mean "How is he learning Kakarot's weaknesses so quickly?" Everybody has similar vital spots in DB. Thats not learning, thats just knowing. Are you just a dummy, Vegeta? Do you not know where vital spots are?

Granolah can tell Goku's body is moving before his brain tells him to react. Granolah the UI "expert" can see all with his eye. You know who else can see with their eye? Tien. Speaking of Tien, I wanna go back to Earth now. What's Piccolo doing? I bet everyone on Earth is chilling or at work. Is it bad I'd rather watch Gohan at a conference than watch Goku, Vegeta, & Granolah be dummies? I'd rather watch Chi-Chi cooking with vegetables instead of watching vegetable puns fight a cereal pun. I'm sorry, the dialogue is just so bad...

How does Granolah's right eye being able to observe blood flow & muscle movements let you know where to strike? Dude, vital spots are where your organs are, & pressure points, & your head area, & you arteries, & so on. Ya ain't gotta observe blood flow to know that. Granolah just making stuff up now to sound cool. News flash, you failed. If he was sniping and able to track them based on blood flow and muscle movement, then that would had been smarter writing.

Granolah: "This right eye of mine is the sharpest in all the universe. It sees all."

Your eye sees all Granolah? Can you see past the Heeters feeding you bullcrap too?

Yo, where did Granolah's barely existing personality go? He wss once driven by revenge, and now the opportunity for revenge is right here in front of him & he's acting like he doesn't want it. If revenge is his only noticeable personality trait, what happens when you take it away? You get bland and dry Granolah.

So then Veget- hold on! Thats it! Granolah's name pun is granola because he is meant to be a bland character! I get it now! So all his moves must be cereal puns!

I never realized how genius this character is!

Detective Vegeta: "A tribe driven to extinction, known for their evolved right eyes... This is starting to sound familiar..." 🕵

Tien?! Oh wait... he said right, not 3rd eye. Jiren?! Oh wait, that's both his eyes... Jaco!? That's both eyes too... I give up.

Granolah's eye can tell that Goku is not using his full power, yet he can't tell he is being fooled by the Heeters. I think he needs new glasses or at least clean the revenge smear off of his monocle.

Granolah casually chats with a Saiyan who is one of the ppl he wants to kill. He would be better if he barely talked and just acted. Granolah should be like Iron Man in "Captain America: Civil War." Not trying to talk, just trying to kill because he is angry and wants revenge.

Goku: "Granolah, we don't work for Freeza & the two of us didn't attack your planet."

Granolah: "I dont care... Your people killed my family."

Boom! Gimme an award!

Back to the chapter 72 colouring book...

Granolah: "Hurry and get on with it. I have no duty to wait for your sake."

Yet you've been waiting all this time for them to arrive, fight them, chat with them, & even waiting for him to transform right now. You got time. You got 3 yrs to waste. You can chat for 10 minutes or so.

Granolah tells Goku that he doesn't have time to wait, then says "It's no skin off my nose to kill you where you stand." Then he waits for Goku to transform... Just kill Goku and be done with it already. Its not like Vegeta can win if Goku can't.

Granolah: "I dont have time for talk."

Goku: "Ok lets fight!"

Granolah: "Ok but, let me tell you about what my eye can do. I'm really proud of it. Mind if I talk a bit? So I sacrificed my life to defeat Freeza, the guy you're working for."

Goku: "What? You don't like Freeza? You're not a bad guy?"

Granolah: "Shut up Saiyan! You'll pay! Fight me!"

Granolah doesn't want to talk about Freeza all of the sudden when Goku implies they both have been tricked. Granolah becomes stupid just so the fight continues. There's a better way to keep them fighting. SHUT UP, GRANOLAH! If he talked less then convoluted stuff like this wouldn't happen.

Granolah yells "Take this!" He powers up instead of doing an attack... Why yell "take this" then power up if you aren't gonna attack right away? You even knocked Goku out of SSG, so now is the perfect time to finish him.

Blah blah blah, Goku goes SSB and they fight, blah blah blah.

Hey look! In my last review I said something about the planet should shake or be in danger from the battle. Looks like Toyo made the planet shake from the battle. Good job. I like this detail. Will it matter later on? Probably not.

Also, ya notice how god ki and god transformations are limited in this chapter? It seem they got too powerful for there to be any stakes. So we see Vegeta in base & SS. Then we see Goku in base, SS, SSG, base, & SSB so that false tension can build. Its smart but the dialogue doesn't compliment this smart tactic.

Aparently Vegeta doesn't care about the fight. Detective mode activate! (🕵) Vegeta standing in that Oozaru footprint looks like he's in Jurassic Park lol. But why did Detective Vegeta have to touch the footprint? He could had just looked at everything when he was high up and had a bird's eye view. Did Detective Vegeta taste the soil & gain knowledge by tasting the past?

Detective Vegeta: "I think I know who he is."

The Heeters said his name is Granolah, dummy. Shouldn't you say "I think I know what happened here." or something like that? Gimmie your detective hat, your trench coat, your bubble pipe, & you magnifying glass! You give detectives a bad name! I'll give this to somebody more deserving, like Jaco, Videl, Krillin, or Hit.

Did ya notice that Vegeta didn't get hit once but Goku who is using UI gets hit multiple times? Vegeta tells Goku to think instead of use UI? Oh yeah, this chapter was to pander to Vegeta fans. Toyo is poorly trying to convey he is equal or above Goku somehow. Like Vegeta mastered his training but Goku hasn't despite having mastered UI as a transformation thingy.

In conclusion, I was right. Freeza still hasn't been seen yet. Show a pic of him in somebody's thought bubble at the very least. This is all happening because if his influence y'all. Still no visual of Freeza yet... Whateva.

This chapter was wack. Too much unintelligent & unreasonable & unrealistic & unnecessary dialogue, plot went nowhere, Goku is being handicapped so the fight can continue, everyone are stupid idiots, Vegeta is being built up to lose his battle or get lucky & win. No image of Freeza still... This was just a very, very boring chapter.

I expect the next chapter to be boring too. Probably won't see Freeza either.

Prediction

Goku got knocked down twice by Granolah, Vegeta decided to fight second, Granolah said he doesn't need to keep Goku alive, & Vegeta told Goku he should stop relying on UI... Sounds like UI is getting nerfed & Goku is gonna need to be saved by Vegeta so that Vegeta can show off his Hakai training in comparison to UI.

[faythelyse]

Joji x Reader {female reader} Apocalyptic Setting <Part One>

The sound of your closest friends baby jolts you awake. You had fallen asleep sitting up in a chair near the window. You stand and stretch for a moment before walking into the kitchen. Jessica meets you at the doorway to the kitchen.

"We're officially out of food." She bounces her daughter on her knee.

"Alright, I'll grab Ashlee and we can hit that up this place we noticed coming back from our last haul. It looked like a department store or something. I have an extra cheese stick in my bag if Jade is hungry."

Jessica knods and sighs. You knew saving that cheese stick was a good call. After grabbing the snack for Jade you head to the garage where Ashlee was working on the truck we scored a few months ago. Ashlee notices you enter and slams her hand on the top. "We still need some gas for this bad boy!"

"No time like the present to go look for some?!" You add expecting a negative response.

Ashlees face turned sour. "We're out of food."

"Yep. You going."

"Well of course, but we just went on a trip 3 days ago. Those rations were supposed to last a week. Jess eats like a fucking pig." Ashlee starts throwing her gloves off onto the desk and prepares a bag for the emergency food trip we are underprepared for in all honesty.

"How much ammo do we have left?"

Ashlee sighs heavily "We were low last trip. We might have 5 or 6 shells left for the shotgun."

"And the handgun?" You interject.

"Fifteen." Ashlee finishes packing up leaving the shotgun for me to take. "I'm gonna take a smoke break. Meet me out front when your ready to roll." She puts the cigarette in her mouth and walks out.

Grabbing the gun you quickly head for your room to gather the essentials. Outside Ashlee was taking the last drag off her cigarette before flicking it to the road. I stare at the bikes in front of us wishing we had gas for the truck. "Jesus christ I hate these bikes, I'm wore out by the time we get to wherever we're going." Ashlee smiles. "Soon Y/N" Ashlee closes her eyes and daydreams for a moment. Imagining life with a car again.

About halfway there we stop and scout a bit. Make sure no one is out and about before we pull closer into this town.

Right on the edge of town we leave our bikes locked to a tree behind a small abandoned house. It was a soft pink color. It somewhat stood out making it easier to remember where we left our things. We chat quietly while making our way to a large department store.

The store was huge. The sign had fallen partially. A corner of the building was also caving in. Jessica, never going out on many supply trips didn't always realize the danger she put Ashlee and I in on a somewhat regular basis. Although we have become better at it over time.

As we arrived at the doors we became silent. Searching for any possible noises or animals that could get us in worse trouble than we were already putting ourselves in. Instead of going in through the front we found a side door that appeared quieter to open. Upon entering we were stunned to see lots of stuff still on the shelves. Why had this store not been hit so badly by looters. Shocked by the nostalgia and childlike joy we let our gaurd down. We casually walked down aisles and shared past memories that seemed insignificant then. We would give anything to be able to visit a store normally again. Buy a new dress to wear for date night or some shit.

"Holy shit, they have mother fucking WINE!!!"

Ashlee was almost in tears, and I couldn't contain my smile. We packed as many as we could. We still needed room for actual food.

Just then we both heard a single gunshot so we dropped immediately to the floor as quickly as possible. Readying our guns we slowly get up and sneak closer to the back of the store where the gun had fired. There is a hallway that leads back to the bathrooms and what I assume might be the head office or the workers lounge area. We see a shadow at first emerging from the hallway. We aim thinking it could be one of the infected, but it was just a man. He pulled out a walkie telling someone on the other end he's fine. Ashlee and I are frozen for a minute. We hadn't seen people in a long time. Hell it's even been awhile since we've seen an infected. They have been sparce lately. Probably just spreading out more. Although we weren't a very populated area anyway. Ashlee whispers "What do we do, ignore them?" I shrug not knowing myself. It would be risky to assume they are friendly. And if they were to rob us we would be left with nothing. Another man runs up, he has a large backpack on. Ashlee and I locked eyes for a moment. We had the same idea to potentially rob this man. I shake my head. "Maybe they will trade?" I whisper.

Ashlee shakes her head in disbelief that they would consider trading. We had not glanced back at the men for a minute, when we turned back to check on them they were gone. I turn back and shrug, if they were gone then we had no further issue. Ashlee and I nod knowing we should get a move on and wrap this up before we get spotted. While crouching we slowly walk around the nearest aisle where we are met face to face with the two men we had just spotted. Both shocked we all immediately stand, but none of us draw a weapon. After a solid 30 seconds of no speaking just staring I speak up

" We really just need to grab some food, we won't be any trouble." It was then that I noticed one of them was injured.

"You're hurt?" I said softly. Ashlee also softened her expression when she noticed the wound. Ashlee broke her silence as well, "Y/N is a healer of sorts, maybe we can help."

Ashlee and I are both suckers for wanting to help. The man with big sad brown eyes looked at me with some hope.

"Can you really hel-ehp" he stopped abruptly and grabbed the wound on his side that started to soak through his thick green coat. I couldn't tell the severity of it, I didn't want him to die though, so in the moment I just decided to say yes. His friend went alongside him to help support him. "My name is Ben" He proceeded to shake Ashlees hand and then my own. "This is George, nice to meet you. We were here looking for medical supplies, if you could help us out we would pay you back some how. Whatever you need, I promise. We'll work it off."

"I'm not a real doctor or anything man. I just started learning this stuff since the world went to shit. I've practiced on dogs, and cats, a few humans. Nothing too crazy. I've become pretty decent at sew up jobs. I just promise to do my best to help. If something goes wrong I just cant have you blaming me."

Ben smiled "Listen, its not like im going to find some heart surgeon out here. Anything you can do to help is better than whatever I could come up with."

Ashlee walks up to the other side of George and throws his arm over her neck. "I'll help walk him to the bikes."

I nod and quickly grab everything i can that is edible, even found a few seed packets. Elena will be stoked to add these to her garden.

We biked back to our little community that cosisted of 2 houses that have been conjoined by fencing in the two. Its somewhat protected by being hidden in the many trees that surround our community.

Jessica was sitting smoking outside. As she saw us pull up with two strangers she looked worried. I held up my hand to show her everything was okay and waved. We brought George in and laid him in a spare room we had set up for me to work on anyone who had been hurt. There was no bed, only a futon mattress had been laid on the floor.

"Set him down gently." Ben whispered.

Ashlee had a worried expression, I could tell she was worried about the blood loss. He appeared paler than before. I sat down and started preparing my equipment as fast as possible and urged Ashlee to grab some other things I needed.

As I neared being finished with sterilizing the needle I told everyone to leave the room. I can never concentrate while people watch. I had assumed George was knocked out when I reached down to start removing his jacket he grabbed my wrist.

"This is going to fucking hurt isn't it." He breathed. I nodded. I had nothing to numb him. Then I remembered the extra wine Ashlee and I had discovered. We had grabbed six bottles. I pulled out a bottle and handed it to George. He glanced it over.

"For the pain?"

"For the pain." I said as took it back from him to open it. After opening I asked if he would like a cup.

"Bottles fine, lets get this over with." He started to shrug off his jacket exposing the large gash on his side. Hopefully he hadn't punctured an organ or something I couldn't fix.

He took 3 large drinks and motioned for me to come to him. I started cleaning the wound to the best of my ability with what we had. It was time to start sewing. Sewing still makes me nervous.

I was ready to pierce skin when he interrupted.

"Do you have anything to bite on?"

I took the belt that was around my waist wrapped it up and handed it to him. He bit down and nodded to show he was ready.

I started and his eyes rolled back into his head, I kept going. I wanted this to be over as fast as possible. He started making a few small shrieks here and there but he was toughing it out rather well I thought.

As I was getting to the last few stitches his hand found my leg and grabbed it tightly. I felt horrible for causing him so much pain.

I started to just mumble I'm sorry over and over again until I had finally finished. His head fell back onto the pillow in exhaustion and agony. I leaned up and pressed my hand to his forehead and face and apologized some more. Trying to gauge how well he was actually doing. I stopped myself and realized I needed to finish by covering it with a bandage. I grabbed clean cloth from the cabinet and bandaged him. I look at him for a moment. I should grab his friend and let him know I've finished. He probably wants to wait with him until he wakes up. As I struggle to stand back up George's hand grabs mine and squeezes. I squeeze back giving him reasurrence, and leave to confront everyone.

Ben steps up to me immediately as i exit the room.

"What's the damage, is he cool? Are we good?"

I could tell he was nervous about the answer.

"I'm not sure yet honestly, he's all stiched up. He's also still alive and lucid which is a good sign. It's going to take a long time to heal. Maybe a month or two. It also needs to stay clean and free of infection. I recommend staying here until he's fully healed. Ben seemed pleased with my answers "Can I go see him now?" I nodded and he rushed in.

Ashlee pulled me to the side. "You reccomend they stay for two months?"

"Yes, that was my recommendation. He was hurt prerty bad, he shouldn't be moving at all for atleast 3 weeks. I think we should just chill. As long as he heals well, we could use their help."

Ashlee crosses her arms. "This is risky, but Im with you. It's nice to have new faces around."

"I agree" I smile, feeling slightly better that I may have saved someone's life.

[just-my-fandom]

Lost then Found (Emily Prentiss x Wife! Reader)

Request; Can you write your favorite episode from Criminal Minds? It can be any pairing I just love your writing :)

Add on; Emily Prentiss was supposedly dead, leaving her wife, the reader, and their sperm donated daughter behind. Hotch has important news for the BAU, Emily is not dead, kept secret to save her. Emily comes to the BAU office as a surprise, but Reader isnt happy to see Emily after leaving her to be miserable. There is a fluffy ending, so, enjoy

____________________________________________

"Get anywhere with Doyle?"

You sink down into your rolling chair next to JJ, clasping a stack of papers in front of you and laying them down neatly,

"Goyle doesnt think Gerace has the guts to take him on," Derek answers, eyes looking up at Garcia clicking buttons on a remote,

"But thats definitely Gerace on the tape," Garcua sighs, waving her arms around, "His scar matches his description,"

Hotch steps in, your lips tugging upwards in a small smile, "Welcome back,"

Hotch nods his head once, leaning against the large table and flickering his eyes around, "Thanks. Everyone take a seat,"

"Why?" Derek asks, nothingless sitting down next to Rossi, "What's going on? Everything alright?"

"Seven months ago I made a decision that affected this team," Hotch crosses his arms, eyes glancing at you before looking straight ahead, "As you all know, Emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle,"

He pauses when he catches you inhaling deeply, leaning farther into your seat and averting your gaze to pick at the paper clip in your hand,

"But the doctors were able to stablize her," Your eyes look over to Hotch, his gaze firm on you, "And she was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda,"

Derek looks over at Rossi, who quickly looks at you and notices you dropping the paper clip,

"Her identity was need-to-know," Hotch continues, "And she stayed there until she was well enough to travel. She was reassigned to Paris where she was given several identities,"

"She's alive?" Garcia gasps, her watering eyes looking to you

You clench your jaw, eyes falling shut, before you push yourself away from the table, exiting the office with quick steps,

"Wait," Derek calls, Hotch putting out a hand,

"We figured she would be the one to take it the hardest. Its best to leave her be until shes ready to talk again. If anyone has any issues they should be directed towards me,"

"Any issues?" Derek growls, Garcia looking at him with a panic, "Yeah I have issues. You lied to Y/N, saying that her wife was dead and left her with a child to raise on her own, they were a perfect family!"

"I think that anger is directed towards me," Derek turns his head, eyes landing a familiar black haired woman, "Where is she?"

"Do you really think she'd want to talk to you?" Derek turns his body so he is facing Emily, eyes burning, "You lied to her, all of us,"

"I'll explain, I promise," Emily exhales, setting down her bag and looking at Hotch, "But please, I need to see her,"

"She just left," Hotch answers firmly, Emily nodding and stepping back, exiting the office,

Garcia sharply looks at Hotch, standing up when almost immediately a shout from a BAU member echoes from the outside of the office,

Spencer follows Garcia out to the desks in the main area, in time to you crossing your arms and staring at Emily, your eyes watering and releasing some tears,

"Was I ever going to know?" You raise a shoulder, sniffling and wiping your cheek, "I had to tell (Daughter/Name), that her mother was dead. Dead! Shes two years old Emily, she shouldnt have to be told that, only for us to find out it was a lie!"

"I know your mad," Emily whispers, her own eyes shimmering, "And you have every, every right to be, I'm so sorry, Y/N,"

"Are you?" You scoff, dropping your head to hide more tears that continued to fall, "Youve been gone for seven God damn months, Emily. You missed (D/N)s first steps, you missed her saying Mommy for the first time!"

"I didnt mean for it to happen," Emily pleas, not stopping the one tear that slipped down her jaw, "You dont know how many times I wanted to call you, to come home to be with you and our baby again,"

"Why didnt you?" You whisper, swallowing thickly, "We could have figured this out together. Emily, I was miserable. We've fought so much to get where we were. The wedding was cancelled, twice, because of a case we both had to do. We couldnt find the right sperm donor and it took us a year to find one. Then we find out the sperm donor was a murderer and came after me and our baby. Emily, you cant just leave me like that,"

"I just wanted to protect you," Emily says calmly, your body falling weak from the yelling and tears,

"Baby," Emily exhales, and you allow her to move closer, arms pulling you against her, "Im so sorry," Her lips rest at your temple, eyes shutting tightly,

You press your ear to her chest, eyes falling shut as she draws her thumb over your cheek,

"Please forgive me," Emily pulls back slightly, hands resting at your face carefully, "I don't want this to be in the way of our marriage, of (D/N),"

"You get to tell her the truth when shes old enough to understand," You mumble, Emily breaking into a weak smile before leaning down, her lips meeting yours,

Your fingers curl at her shirt, Emily pulling back far enough to rest her forehead on yours, Garcia clapping and walking down the stairs to jog up to you, "Please tell me you're coming to the dinner tonight at Rossis with that sweet child of yours,"

"I might need to get settled in at home first," Emily raises an eyebrow, Hotch clearing his throat,

"You two go home," He demands, "We'll handle this case. Catch up,"

. . .

"Did you keep it on?"

Emily looks up from her spot at the dresser, looking at you through the mirror as she clipped on her earrings,

"Keep what on?"

You place the last pin in your hair, walking up to her in your flats and sweater dress, "The ring,"

"Of course," Emily murmurs, sticking out her ring hand, "What about you? If I had been dead you shouldve taken it off, no?"

"I didnt have the guts," You sigh, taking her hand and fiddling with her fingers, "I also had an allergic reaction on my hand so it swelled and the ring was stuck,"

Emily snorts, bringing your hand to your lips and kissing the back, looking over at a wail,

"I didnt forget about you, mini Prentiss," Emily leans over the crib in the corner of the large roon, lifting the toddler up and propping (D/N) on her hip,

Emily presses a kiss to (D/N)s cheek, tucking hair behind her ear and smiling at you,

"Shoot, its nearly seven," You glance down at your phone, "We should get going,"

. . .

"Well dont you three look amazing," Derek extends his arms out and lifts (D/N) from Emilys arms, smiling at you and Emily,

"Thank you," You laugh, "Feels good for everything to go back to normal,"

"Finally! You're here!" Garcia runs up, opening and closing her hands to becon your daughter from Derek, "Hi there!" She gasps, the toddler blinking at the blonde, "Remember me? I'm your aunty Garcia,"

Garcia looks at you, squinting her eyes, "Im stealing your kid," She backs up, Emily grinning before shouting at her,

"Please dont give her wine!"

You elbow Emilys side, as she laughs, linking your arm with hers and following Derek to the kitchen, where JJ, Spencer, Hotch and Rossi all greet with cheers

You put your free hand on Emilys arm, leaning into her side, her arm sliding to your waist and tucking you against her, resting her lips on your forehead and clanking her wine glass with yours,

[shiro-0197]

Hiiii, Cookie :) I wanted to give you a fast reply since I'm online and free now, so yeah (BUT DONT WORRY, YOU CAN SEND ME YOUR RESPONSE TOMORROW!)

It was a pretty stressful day indeed. A lot happened :// but thankfully it's all resolved :') how was your day, did anything interesting happen?

AHH these days I do try to make tea for myself every morning, so I hope that's something, tho I don't usually eat. But I really will start.

I really hope so!! My teacher told us we might have a mock debate when school starts, and I really cannot wait >.< 사랑해, 시로... (That's “I love you, Shiro” in Korean)

of course. It would be my honour to cheer you up if you were ever feeling down 💖💖💖✨✨

that's a really good idea!! My favourite go-to snack are actually cookies and milk... I'm like Kageyama (tho personality-wise, I'm oikawa. I think. Wby?), I just really love milk, and cookies go along well with it so yeah 😣😣✨ I see! Yeah, your love for cheese is the most adorable thing ever, I love cheese too, tho probably not as much as you 😝 but I mean oop cheese and milk are both dairy soooo—

I'd also like to ask you, favourite animal? Mine's cats and snakes (which are a pretty odd pair tbh) but cats are just SO CUTE and I love them, and snakes are just SO COOL, and I also love them 😭😳💖

thank you for reminding me, cookie :> I'll certainly remember not to overwork myself. And a books event?? That actually sounds so cool please tell me about it. Was it like a book fair, or a book review thing?? I'm glad you don't mind me talking about it. yeah... My club is pretty important to me, since my members voted me as president in January, and I really don't wanna let them down...

You're really precious to me, Shiro, and I really really love you, so much. It's okay if you can't express it, because honestly, I can't either, and "I love you" doesn't seem to be enough, but I really appreciate you :) gonna sleep soon, hope you're sleeping too <3

—Ari

Hey hey!! I was actually having a hard time falling asleep, thankfully its holidays tomorrow (it's the Independence Day for us, hehe) so I can sleep in~

I'm really glad its resolved now, I'm really proud of you for doing all that work <33 nothing really interesting happened to me, except I had called up my friend and we decided to make a fan-haikyuu team because we're weebs like that xD

That's really nice to hear, tbh I cant function without a cup of tea or coffee in the morning... literally, I have a terrible headache if I dont have breakfast -u-

Ohhh that sounds so fun!! Good luck if it does happen:D 愛します、ありちゃん~！！

Ohhh!!! Cookies and milk are wonderful, too!! Sadly I dont get to have those +cereal a lot since we buy small cartons of milk (probably the size of one's palm) and we only use it for tea😩 personality-wise I'm a mix between Tsukki and Yamaguchi, with a hint of Kuroo and Oikawa here and there XD tbh sometimes I dont understand my personality, and it was pretty hard to take the MBTI test, hehe

Ahhh imglad you find it adorable lmaooo, I try to add cheese EVERYWHERE so that's why I love making quiches, cuz that's like the easiest way to sneak a lot of cheese into something XD mom doesn't really like it when i use a lot of cheese, probs because it's kind of expensive, so I get that. Still, even that doesnt stop me from devouring a whole block of cheese in 3 seconds, you know?

My favorite animal... probably birds, frogs and toads. I really dont know why. Mom got a parrot for my birthday when I turned 13, and I loved it so much it turned into an addiction😭 then I was getting frog pictures in my insta feed and started interacting with them, which lead to more frog pics and more love for them to grow:D But, to be honest, I like all the animals. They're all so cute, majestic and yet funny, somehow?? And theres so many different kinds and species and they're all so beautiful~

You better do, or I'll break into your house and babysit you<3

It was like, a reading event, where we count pages we read throughout the week, and the one to read the most wins a prize. Sadly, you cant choose the book you want to read as they chose those and created an app with those books only:( then we had an exam, to ensure we actually read those and didnt just add 20 pages in a day. It was pretty fun to watch my classmates ask each other for the answers, because they did indeed add 20 pages in a day without reading the books. Amateurs🤪

I really feel what you mean, when people choose you it's like ... a huge relief and a gigantic amount of pressure at the same time. Please remember that not everything has to turn out perfect, so dont give yourself a burnout because of that or something!! Take care♡♡♡

And, before we go to sleep, I just wanna say that if you were an element, you’d be Francium, because you’re the most attractive😝

Good night!! I love you a lot❤❤❤❤ I hope you sleep well<33