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cheri-translates · 4 years ago

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[CN] Victor’s Reunite Date (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date (and Season 2) which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

It’s vital to understand what’s going on in Season 2 so you wouldn’t get confused in this date. Do read this post before proceeding :)

Parallel World Dates Collection: Gavin // Kiro // Shaw

The date begins with MC standing outside LFG

She recalls her father telling her about their company receiving an investment from a four-year-old company which he believes will become a worthy partner in the future

Of course, that company is LFG

Back at the present, she muses that LFG isn’t as grand as the LFG in her memory. And that if everything remains the same as in the original timeline, she would meet Victor after four years

She recalls the “warning”: “Your unintentional actions may lead to irretrievable consequences.”

When she looks up with a bitter smile, she sees Victor across the street

I lower my head, countless emotions flooding into my heart - happiness and sadness... until a foreign voice enters my mind.

??: Miss MC, nice to meet you. There is a message from the “past” here. CEO Victor, you may begin.

MC: ?!

Victor: Dummy, what are you hesitating about?

Victor’s voice rings in my head clearly. I freeze in place.

“Message from the past?”

What is this... why can I hear Victor’s voice?

The Victor on the opposite side of the road doesn’t notice my existence at all, and exits my field of vision. I press a hand to my forehead, thinking what happened earlier was a mere hallucination.

But his voice appears in my mind once again, as clear as day.

Victor: Didn’t you say you were going to find the old me? Do you regret meeting me now?

MC: How could I regret it!

Victor: You dare to regret it?

As if we’re having a conversation, I speak aloud, my voice overlapping with his.

The faraway soft laughter gradually disappears from my mind. As though an invisible hand is pushing me from behind, I break into a run.

If the future doesn’t replay itself perfectly while the world moves forward slowly, is there be a possibility that we wouldn’t meet again?

With this thought, my heart clenches. Just greeting him shouldn’t be an issue...

If I simply watch him leave...

If I don’t get a future where I can meet him again...

I wouldn’t be able to accept it.

MC: Victor! Victor!! Wait!!!!

I call his name loudly, failing to notice that the traffic light has turned red.

A harsh whistle resounds behind me.

I turn my head and see a taxi coming towards me, and instinctively want to leap to the side to avoid the impact.

The expected fall doesn’t arrive, and the world suddenly turns quiet.

I’ve fallen into a warm embrace.

In slight disbelief, I take in everything in front of me. Rain drops remain still in the air. He carries me away from the impending car.

That cold yet reassuring breath makes the whole world turn a little fuzzy. I blink hard and clench my teeth, not wanting him to see my tears.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

I hear the stalled hands of time in my world start moving once again.

It turns out that my time only stops for him, and only starts again because of him.

I seem to have returned to a very, very long time ago. Perhaps this is an unintentional prank from the heavens, but it also feels like a gift from it.

Victor: Evolver?

MC: ?

Victor: You still don’t know?

MC: ...I do.

Victor: ...

MC: T-thank you for saving me.

Victor: You should watch yourself. Someone can’t come to your rescue every time.

He puts me down at the shoulder of the road, but doesn’t leave.

Victor: Why did you call me just now?

MC: I thought you’d first ask how I know your name...

Victor: That isn’t important.

He’s really the same as always.

MC: I... I just wanted to see you. You’ve invested in my company - the film company you recently invested in. Do you remember...

Victor: And then?

He cuts off my explanation coldly, crossing his arms in front of his chest, waiting for me to continue.

MC: ...there’s nothing else. I just wanted to see what sort of a person you are.

Victor: Have you seen enough?

After saying this, he turns around to leave, uninterested in my response.

MC: W-wait!

He furrows his eyebrows slightly, but stops in his steps.

Although I called him without hesitation, I have no idea what to say.

I would never regret meeting Victor. Yet, I’m not content with having such a superficial meeting with him.

This time, I want to take more initiative to stand by his side.

Meeting his sharp gaze, I straighten my back and look at him resolutely.

MC: My name is MC, and I’m the future producer of the film company you have invested in. I’ll definitely improve the film company, and all the programs will become more and more outstanding. You will not have the chance to take back your investment. And you will not be disappointed.

I say every word and sentence to Victor. The rain has stopped, and light reflects off his eyes, which have widened slightly.

In the next moment, a large falling leaf is blown by the spring breeze, sticking to the side of my face.

MC: ...

Victor: [soft laughter]

Victor’s eyes crinkle and the corners of his lips lift. Victor suppresses a smile, then faces me again.

Victor: For now, being able to stay alive is your biggest challenge.

While Victor is speaking, another large leaf seems to respond, slapping onto his face.

Victor: ...

I’m unable to suppress my laughter. A few stray tears follow along with my smile.

Victor knits his brows, and I reach out with a trembling hand, prepared to pluck the leaf from his face.

At this moment, a strange figure emerges from behind Victor and touches his arm.

Victor: !

MC: !!

Instinctively, I rush forward to grab onto the mystery person’s sleeve, wanting to protect Victor.

In the next second, the both of us find ourselves in a bar. The person in front of the bar counter freezes for a moment, furrowing his brows exaggeratedly.

Man: Big bro, what’s with this “buy one get one free”?

MC looks around her surroundings and discovers she’s in a bar called “Mondlicht”, which sounds familiar to her - she saw this name once in her father’s records on Black Swan

The man dismisses the mysterious figure coldly, leaving the three of them in the bar

The man offers to have MC teleported back to where she came from, but Victor says: “You’re not worthy to be trusted.”, and tells the man to cut to the chase.

Man: CEO Victor, there’s no need to be anxious. There’s a man who wants to see you, but he isn’t in this bar right now. As for the reason why... CEO Victor should know it clearly. So, before meeting him, that man has requested that I invite you here - to see if you’re someone worth meeting. To put it simply... this is just a small test.

While all this is happening, MC wonders what connections Victor has with Black Swan

Victor: I didn’t know of such foolish tests. Are you all too bored, or do I look very free?

Victor... he doesn’t seem surprised to be here.

Victor pulls MC to him

Victor: Sorry. Stay by my side. You’ll be fine.

MC tells Victor to be careful and warns him that Black Swan could be behind this. Victor pauses, but quickly recovers and resumes his conversation with the man

The man takes out a deck of poker cards:

Man: As part of the test, is CEO Victor interested in playing a game?

Victor: No.

The scene turns incredibly awkward.

Victor swirls the wine glass in his hand, bringing it to his mouth and pursing his lips. He doesn’t care for how the man would react.

Arrogant and proud.

Man: You’re making things difficult for me. This is just a simple game.

Victor: Even if I’m uninterested, you wouldn’t let us go. You’ve got too much nonsense.

Man: ...

The man smiles, handing out the cards resignedly. After dealing the cards, he suddenly thinks of something, and balls one hand into a fist and taps it against the other palm.

Man: Since it’s a game, we’ll need a bargaining chip. If CEO Victor wins, that person will naturally give you what you want. If you lose... you’ll have to leave your life here.

The air becomes incredibly quiet. I look at the man in shock. His eyes are crinkled, as though he just brought up a trivial matter.

Man: Lady, you don’t need to be so nervous. It wouldn’t be fun if you’re too nervous. Why don’t we liven up the atmosphere?

The man retrieves a set of darts, and Victor lets MC throw it

She refuses, but decides to do it after Victor and the man assure her that the dart game has nothing to do with the actual poker game

With Victor’s guidance, she hits the bull’s eye

Victor and the man finally start the poker game

MC has no idea what’s happening

I have no idea what’s happening too since I don’t play poker, but I hope the translation makes sense:

Both men flip over the cards in their hands. In Victor’s hand is a straight flush.

Man: CEO Victor, it’s not good to cheat.

With a wave of his hand, a few men clothed in black suddenly appear, pointing cold muzzles towards Victor.

Victor supports his head arrogantly, eyes filled with disdain. His cold fingertips tap the poker cards.

Victor: Look carefully. This isn’t the club flush you deliberately swapped over.

The man freezes, then leans over to look. Seeing the black spades card, he suddenly bursts into laughter, clapping excitedly.

Man: As expected of CEO Victor.

Victor: Your techniques were too clumsy. Including these toys.

The man isn’t angry. With a wave of his hand, the men clothed in black disappear.

In the end, he finally sets aside his cynical expression. Placing his right hand behind his back, he gives a humble bow.

Man: I should be arranging another meeting for you and that man soon.

While the man speaks, the guy who brought us to the bar appears.

They return to the roadside

MC: Victor, since this is the first time we met, why did you let me shoot the dart earlier?

Victor: ...LFG is only a medium-sized enterprise. What reason do you have for running over and speaking so confidently?

I’m left frozen to the spot at his question. I turn my eyes to the end of the road, taking a deep breath.

MC: Because I know that in the future, LFG will expand by a thousand times, and will become unbeatable in the market. It will have the ability to influence countless people. And you will become the driver of this force, so...

I speak my mind, and slowly lower my head as I continue with my words.

In front of me, I see Victor’s many faces - angry, frowning, smiling...

At the end, when I look up again, they form the face in front of me - somewhat young, and not yet humble.

So, I want to be remembered by you, and I want to become someone who’s most unique to you.

I leave this sentence out, but I say it silently in my heart.

There is a certain depth in his pupils. The spring breeze is gentle, as though something is slowly sprouting.

Victor: You have so much faith in it?

MC: It’s not just faith. You’ll definitely do it.

The corners of his lips turn up slowly. He places a hand into his pocket. In that moment, it seems as though all the brilliant lights in the world are in his eyes.

Victor: Since you have the wild ambition of not losing future LFG’s investment, I’ll have to see what you’re made of. I’ll remember your words. I look forward to your performance.

A few days later, Victor walks into a dark building.

??: Welcome to Black Swan.

Eight months later.

I heard that Black Swan recently had a major change. A high-ranking cadre and a portion of the members left. The Board of Directors has also seen a reorganisation.

After many years, I’m now at the Black Swan building.

At this point, everything in the future has not occurred. The me of right now has not officially become a member of Black Swan.

The empty meeting room is silent. Someone seems to be seated behind a barrier at the end of the meeting room.

MC: Sorry to bother you...

Just as I prepare to leave, an unknown device starts up quietly. The long table shrinks and becomes a normal desk. The barrier pulls open slowly.

MC: V-Victor?!

Clearly, in contrast to my shock, Victor is not at all surprised by my appearance.

Victor: You haven’t shown me any positive evidence regarding your words before.

Victor: Don’t forget what you said.

Victor: Don't make me regret choosing you.

🌹 MOMENTS 🌹

Victor’s Post: Being able to draw a Straight Flush has nothing to do with hard work.

MC: Unlucky me is destined to never draw a Straight Flush...

Victor: You can play mahjong.

Victor’s Post: Being able to draw a Straight Flush has nothing to do with hard work.

MC: I agree. After four years of fruitless hard work, I hope everyone won’t fall into this fiery pit.

Victor: Told you so.

Victor’s Post: Being able to draw a Straight Flush has nothing to do with hard work.

MC: Is there really no relation? Maybe there’ll be an improvement after five years?

Victor: You’ll still be this way after ten years.

Phone call: here

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers #mlqc victor

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alovesongshewrote · 4 years ago

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Almost A Thousand Years - 1100 | Hisirdoux Casperan

Plot: You’ve known Hisirdoux Casperan for almost a thousand years. You’ve hated him for almost a thousand years. And for almost a thousand years, you’ve been cursed to feel each others pain. But somewhere in that time, things changed. [Hisirdoux Casperan x Mostly Gender Neutral but Probably Female Presenting Based on How Historical Men Treat Them!Reader]

Word Count: 2,494

Warnings: Enemies to lovers, so general hatred, reader starts out as a Gumm-Gumm spy, angst, death, pain, and later torture, but i don’t think there’s any swearing

A/N: So, this has been my brain baby for a while. As of current, I’m working on the eighth chapter, so there’s definitely more to come. I’ve worked really hard on it, and I’m super proud of myself for sticking with it (my attention span is real short, so this is a miracle.) Thank you so much for reading, you don’t know how much it means to me. Also thank you to @mydouxie for asking for this super politely, you’re awesome and also the reason I’m putting it out tonight. Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the fic.

Back | Next

“Douxie? Doux, come on, you’d better wake up right now. Wake up. Wake up! Douxie, don’t do this, please,” You begged, leaning over the body of your closest friend, and former worst enemy.

“Oh god,” you choked, “No, no, no, no, please… please don’t leave me,” There was silence, And then you began to sob.

The voices of your friends rung out around you, but you were too tired to decipher what they said and too numb to care.

This couldn’t be happening. It just wasn’t possible. Hisirdoux Casperan had been in your life for almost as long as you could remember. There were times when he had been your life. There was no way he was just gone. But he was. And it was killing you on the inside. You’d been through a lot in the past nine-hundred-and-nineteen years. You’d lost friends, suffered wars, witnessed pandemics, and been tortured. You’d stayed strong through all of it, but this? Seeing your best friend, dead on the ground? This broke you.

There was once a time, long ago, when you would have celebrated. Centuries in the past, when you were young and naive, and so absolutely stupid. It was the beginning for you, and for him, and for this fic.

So, you tuned out your mourning friends and Archie’s sorrowful yowls, and you let yourself melt back into the past.

It was sometime in the twelfth century.

King Arthur was on the throne, ruling his kingdom with an iron fist and a hatred for all magical beings.

And you were a witch.

This led to a childhood of abandonment issues, poverty, and self-hate. You, and everyone around you, thought you a freak; a monster. There is no need to say that you had a rather nasty upbringing. You’d experienced some of the worst things humanity had to offer, so the obvious next step was to turn against the humans and join the force set to destroy them.

When you were eight years old, you pledged allegiance to Gunmar, offering your services as a witch, and a spy.

Life with the Gumm-Gumms wasn’t much better than life on the streets, but at the very least you received some basic training where your magic was concerned. The more you practiced, the stronger you became, the better asset you were, the less likely your death was. It was simple enough. The knowledge that your strength was the only thing keeping you from dying a horrible death was a fantastic motivator, and it really helped you rise through the ranks of the Gumm-Gumm forces.

Maybe a little too far.

Eleven years after you’d joined Gunmar, he summoned you to the arena. You were in a panic, not knowing what he wanted, you just assumed that he wanted to kill you and you were absolutely going to die.

Upon entering the arena, however, you were not brutally murdered, which came as a bit of a shock to you. You had no time to process this, however, when the king troll spoke your name, calling you to the center of the arena. You walked to the middle of the gigantic stone room, kneeling on the cold floor before your master.

“You’ve done well for our kind (L/N),” he bellowed, “You’ve proven your loyalty time and time again,”

You could feel the eyes of hundreds of Gumm-Gumms focusing in on you. It wasn’t pleasant. Maybe you’d die after all.

Gunmar rose from his throne, “You support the cause. You know King Aurthur has wrongfully banished us from our homelands, imprisoned and executed our kind without reason,”

You stood up straighter as the troll began to circle you, “Yes my lord,”

“Then you will have no problem with this task,”

“Anything you ask, my lord, it will be done,”

The troll made a sound that could have been a laugh. You weren’t sure, you were pretty busy trying not to do anything that could get you killed. Eleven years of allegiance were pretty good insurance, but there was no guarantee with the likes of Gunmar.

“You will act as our spy. Go to the king’s wizard, demand he take you in as an apprentice. There are whispers, rumors that the wretched magician is building a weapon that could destroy me,” there was that laugh again, “You will find out everything you can about this weapon and report back to me,”

“Yes, my lord,”

“Do not fail me (L/N). If you do not succeed, you already know your fate,”

You gulped, bowing to the king as he dismissed you. Your mission was effective immediately, you packed up your (very) few belongings and headed through the woods to the kingdom of Camelot, preparing yourself to destroy it from the inside.

It didn’t take too much to get into the palace. You were actually quite surprised at how little effort it took to convince Merlin to take you in as an apprentice. Getting him to trust you was a different matter.

And getting the other apprentice to trust you was a different matter on top of the first matter.

Merlin was cold to you, but you’d gathered that it was just his personality, but the other apprentice? He was quirky and kind to everyone else, but he treated you as if he already knew you were a Gumm-Gumm spy trying to steal vital information from his master. His familiar acted much the same.

Maybe it was something about how you behaved? You were used to the militaristic style of the Gumm-Gumms and Gunmar, who could kill you anytime he wanted if you messed up.

You had no idea if that was the issue, or if this guy just had something against witches. What you did know, was that whatever his problem was, it was keeping you from getting any actual work done.

If you didn’t report anything to Gunmar soon, he’d probably kill you, so you decided that you needed to get this apprentice out of the way. You weren’t going to kill him, that would be too obvious. You were just going to go up to him and calmly ask what his problem was.

This did not go down well.

By the end of that interaction, you and Hisirdoux Casperan were both screaming at each other, his familiar, Archie, had scratched your shoulder, and no less than three bookshelves had been knocked over.

Your relationship did not improve from there.

You fought with the boy wizard almost daily, with similar amounts of destruction. It didn’t matter what it was whether it be his stupid man-bun, the colour you wore that day, his lute-playing, your fidgeting, or something even more trivial than that. The two of you would always find some way to yell at each other because of it.

And it was really starting to piss Merlin off.

On the bright side, it was a decent way to let off steam. The stress of being a spy was a lot to take, and yelling at someone really helped. The catharsis really helped your work ethic. You even managed to find out a little bit about Merlin’s weapon; an amulet of some kind.

Gunmar was pleased with your report.

With the exception of the constant fighting between you and Casperan, things were going pretty decently. You finally had a place to experiment with your magic and use it for a purpose other than warfare, Gunmar was satisfied and showed no signs of killing you, and the king’s sister, Morgana, had really taken you under her wing.

And then she fell off a cliff and died.

Things took a downward turn after that.

You’d returned to Camelot, everyone mourning the sister of the king when Casperan approached you.

“You have something to do with this,”

You panicked for a moment before you realized he had no way of knowing that you did indeed have something to do with this, “I don’t know what you mean,”

“You have something to do with this,” his tone was angrier, more accusatory. At his side, his familiar looked very concerned, “I don’t know what you did, but you are the reason Morgana is dead!”

“How dare you!” you cried. You knew that you were kind of the reason that the sorceress was dead. And you felt guilty about it. You hadn’t let yourself feel guilt in years. You hadn’t let yourself feel anything but fear in years. You were having a very hard time adjusting to the pit in your chest. Casperan was not helping.

“I dare because you can’t be real! You have to be a traitor, or a spy or something!”

“Oh really? How do you figure?”

“Douxie, stop,” Archie hissed. Neither of you listened.

“Nobody with your skillset strolls up to the palace and asks to be an apprentice, you’re strong enough to be a master wizard, but you still came here, and stole everyone’s focus, and then you did,” he struggled to figure out your exact motive was, “Something! Now Morgana is dead, and it’s your fault,”

If you weren’t actually a spy, you’d probably be offended. You’d also point out how he had next to no evidence of this. However, you were very much a spy, and you weren’t in the headspace to argue properly. Instead of taking down his argument bit by bit, you just went for what you thought would hurt the most.

“So you’re accusing me of murder because you’re jealous?” you scoffed, “Grow up! It isn’t my fault that I’m better at magic than you!”

It wasn’t your fault, the fear of instant death did that.

“Better at magic, eh? Well, let’s test that theory!” Casperan moved a hand to his wrist where his magic bracelet of magic sat. It glowed blue for a moment, showing spinning runes twisting into the form of a spell.

Then the blue light came at you.

You were more than a little shocked. The two of you would fight, yes, but it never got physical or magical. Your back collided with the wall, dragging the breath from your lungs and making you cough.

Archie hissed, once again trying to get the both of you to calm down. It still didn’t work.

Casperan looked way too smug for someone who had only landed a hit with the element of surprise. You scowled at him, reaching for your own cuff. He wanted a fight? You’d give him one.

Your magic shot itself at the wizard, suspending him high in the air before dropping him harshly.

This continued for a time, absolutely destroying the room you were in. The two of you probably would’ve fought for the rest of time had Merlin not barged in.

“What is the meaning of this!” He exclaimed, stopping both you and Casperan mid-spell.

“They started it!” you and your fellow apprentice pointed your fingers at each other.

“I don’t care who started it. I’ve had enough of your constant bickering! You have both taken this too far, and don’t-”

“But master!”

“But master me. Your fighting is disrupting the order of Camelot. I cannot allow this to continue a moment longer!”

Oh no. What did that mean exactly? Was he going to cast you back out onto the street? Kill you? Maybe that was for the best. If you were removed from the palace, Gunmar would kill you in ways Merlin had never dreamed of.

Maybe death by Merlin was the best outcome here.

So, you didn’t flinch when the master wizard raised his hands and spoke an incantation, painting the room in a green glow.

But you didn’t die.

Instead, a beam of light wove itself around your wrist, then around the wrist of the other apprentice. The beam glowed brighter, tying itself into knots before it, and the green glow of the room faded away.

“Master, what-”

“What did you do?” you stared down at your wrist, shaking slightly. You felt like you were going to be sick.

“An ancient binding spell. You will now feel every bit of each other’s pain. That should stop your pointless squabbling,”

“What!? For how long!?” you cried out, grabbing your wrist and backing away from both wizards.

“Forever. Now if you’ll excuse me,”

You didn’t even notice Merlin leave the room. You just focused on the patch of skin where the magic had encircled you, binding you to Casperan and sealing your fate.

There was no way Gunmar would let you live if he knew about this. You were compromised, it was as simple as that. If the troll king found out that you were bound to Merlin’s apprentice? And that said apprentice was already suspicious of you, and would absolutely use this connection to find out why you were really here? You were going to die so painfully.

And suddenly you couldn’t breathe. Your whole body shook slightly. Your ribs hurt, your throat felt like it was closing, you had to go. You didn’t even realize Casperan was talking, whether to you or his familiar, it didn’t matter. You just turned tail and ran from the room.

And you didn’t stop.

Merlin searched for you.

He wasn’t the only one.

A small search party of knights, plus Merlin, scoured the land looking for you, trying to find where you’d run to.

It was Italy. You’d gone to Italy. And you planned to go further, running as far and fast as you were able.

Needless to say, they didn’t find you.

The only reason they knew you were alive was Hisirdoux. He wasn’t in immense pain, or in a vegetative state, or dead, so you had to be okay, wherever you were. The thought was comforting, not only to Merlin, who considered you his responsibility but to Hisirdoux, who felt a little guilty.

A little guilty in this context means extremely guilty.

He felt responsible for your disappearance. He had wrongfully accused you, and you’d been punished for it. He felt a little bit guilty every time he tripped or otherwise hurt himself.

The search continued until the battle of Killahead, where Gunmar revealed your spy status, demanding your head on a pike and accusing you of betraying him. Hisirdoux stopped feeling so bad after that.

Instead, he was angry. He’d been right, and no one had believed him. You’d broken into his life, stolen the hearts of everyone he cared about, and none of them listened when he brought up how suspicious you were. He was full of resentment, not only for you but for himself. He should have tried harder to reveal you as a spy. He should have done something, anything, but he did nothing.

These thoughts tortured him on the inside, one day leading him to punch a wall, scaring the daylights out of Archie. The apprentice ignored the questions from his familiar, electing to stare down at his bruising hand and wondering if you felt that.

And even more than a thousand miles away, you did.

#hisirdoux x reader #douxie x reader #hisirdoux casperan x reader #douxie imagine #almost a thousand years #enemies to lovers #tales of arcadia #toa #toa wizards #toa douxie #spying #angst #magic #it's finally here #this is only the beginning #aaty

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unsaidjulie · 4 years ago

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jatp as a fairytale

okay so this was entirely inspired by this post. i talked a bit in the tags of my reblog and @metaorigin asked me to expand on my thoughts, so, here it is:

why julie and the phantoms should be looked at as a fairy tale rather than your regular kids/young adult concept

let’s first discuss the differences between the two concepts. fairy tales are most kids’ first introduction to stories – think cinderella, snow white and the seven dwarves, beauty and the beast, as the universal ones. these stories serve to teach kids the abstract concepts of bad and good.

let’s do this on the example of tangled, or rapunzel. there’s a clear villain aka bad guy (stepmother), a clear good guy 1 (rapunzel), and a clear problem (stepmother doesn’t let her out of the tower). there’s also the clear good guy 2, aka the saviour (flynn/eugene). the fairy tale gets a little bit more complex in tangled rather than the disney version, but the premise is the same, and the ending is the same: against all odds, rapunzel is reunited with her family, has eugene by her side, and the villain—mother gothel—is clearly defeated.

it’s simple. it’s showing that good defeats evil; that there is always hope, even when things seem bleak. tangled even follows the traditional narrative style where there is a twist, or low point where we are scared for the heroes (rapunzel going back to mother gothel) but it still doesn’t last. we are scared, but we have hope.

the payoff for this is happiness with the outcome. it’s the best possible outcome, but it isn’t unrealistic – the bad guys are defeated, put behind bars/fallen out of the tower, and the heroes are safe. we have the feeling that nothing bad could happen to them, because they are happy. it gives the little kids hope. it teaches them a lesson that there is evil, but there is good that can defeat it.

that’s a fairy tale. kids and young adult storylines, especially in the last few decades, take this and twist it. darken it. make it more like real life.

for this example, let’s take harry potter, because everybody knows harry potter. once again, there’s a clear good guy (harry), bad guy (voldemort), and a clear problem (voldemort wants to kill harry so harry has to defeat him). the premise is simple enough. however, this is where things get complicated – this is not all harry potter is.

there are characters like snape, dumbledore, malfoy, to name a few – characters who aren’t clearly good or bad, because good or bad isn’t black and white the way fairy tale show us. in real life, these two are intertwined, and it can sometimes be difficult to say which is which. people die in the end, good people, because even when good wins, it doesn’t win 100%. it teaches the viewer than you can’t have everything – that everything good comes with a bad. the concept of the ying and the yang, almost. there has to be a balance.

stories about real life tend to be bittersweet, because real life is bittersweet. we don’t defeat the dragon and get the girl, we don’t escape our tower without feeling the repercussions of our isolation for the rest of our lives. the good doesn’t come without the bad.

and now that we know the basic difference between the two concepts, let’s apply this to julie and the phantoms. (under the cut because this is getting a little long)

jatp is a tv show originally targeted at young kids, which is one big important thing that sometimes gets overlooked in posts theorising/discussing the show. most of the viewers, especially on tumblr (aka the ones who analyse the show the most) aren’t kids. some of us don’t even usually watch kids’ shows, so we’re coming from backgrounds of ya, of where things aren’t black and white, where bad things happen to good people because that’s how it works in the real world.

if that’s the approach to julie and the phantoms, there is no way the boys become real. there is no way that something like this—something so inherently good—happens. even if it does, then it comes with a hefty toll. there has to be payback. there has to be a balance.

it’s still a wholesome, family show, so the expectation could be that the boys cross over, find happiness that way. it’s nice enough, but it’s sad for julie – it’s her losing even more people she loves. jatp is about julie’s grief, to an extent, and it’s a vital part to julie – her grieving her mother and learning how to live with the hole in her heart. it’s only natural to show that grief doesn’t need to be the end of things, that you can grieve in a healthy way where it doesn’t put a pause on the things you love, right?

no. i mean, yes, but no.

it’s a story they’re doing with julie’s mother. julie getting over grief is julie getting over her mother’s death, and we’re already being shown how much she has improved on dealing with that. this is the lesson that everything bad comes to an end, that you can move on even if your heart has been broken. life goes on. you heal. things get better.

isn’t that a fairy tale lesson? that the good outweighs the bad, defeats it, until everything is well again?

if we’re taking the concept of rapunzel, julie would actually be eugene – the hero saving the good guys (luke, alex, reggie) from the bad guy (caleb). this has already, to an extent, happened – with nothing other than the power of love. whether it was their love for music, their love for one another, it was love. it was devotion.

good defeated the bad.

there’s also willie, who may not have saved the boys by giving them the hug of love, but he risked his own life and freedom to rectify what he’d done (which was an accident, by the way, because all he’s ever wanted was to help and caleb failed him. caleb made him a traitor. but willie fixed it, even if it wasn’t necessarily his fault. i’ll say it was love, too, for alex, aside from just the pure goodness of his heart.)

we don’t know what happened with willie at the end of the first season, but we assume it can’t have been good. there’s the balance, but is it really? we know willie will be fine. we know that the boys will be fine. we know that we can rely on the story to take us to a good place, to make us feel good, to give us an escape into the world where being good actually pays off and we can trust the world.

i don’t know about you, but i don’t find myself trusting other fictional worlds like this. i always expect that it will hurt me in one way or another, that i will lose someone i love, that someone i love will get hurt and things won’t be the same. i don’t expect this from jatp. i expect happiness, and nothing short of it.

this trust is the trust kids have in fairy tales. before you’re exposed to the fact that real life doesn’t work like that, it’s comforting to think that good will defeat the bad and things will be okay. it’s comforting.

jatp is comforting. it doesn’t throw reality at you. it gives you an escape, just like fairy tales did. it convinces you that good defeats the bad.

fairy tales are meant to show you that if you’re good, you’re going to get a happy ending. that everything can be defeated, even death (snow white? goldilocks?) – they’re teaching kids that things are going to be okay – to have hope – to not give up when things get tough, because they’re going to beat it.

this is why the boys crossing over isn’t a good message for kids. it shows that even if you do everything in your power, it won’t be enough to keep someone. the boys will never get their chance at normal lives, at fixing things they didn’t have time to. that they will always have died young, with no real future. even if they’re playing with julie, it’s still limited, it’s still not the real thing.

they’re still dead. they still don’t have a future. the reality is still there, and if they cross over, they will never have that little thing that means everything.

it’s not right. it feels like they deserve more. it feels like alex deserves having a future with willie, luke deserves having a future with julie, and reggie deserves to be able to communicate with ray, have the positive father figure he’s always wanted (because you can’t tell me this isn’t reggie’s story.) they deserve more than just leaving things without a chance to live.

a story that talks about how bittersweet life is won’t give this. a fairy tale will. and it will teach that everything and everyone is important, that being loving and caring and kind is enough in the world. that there’s hope. that even if things get tough, that everybody gets what they deserve and nothing less. that life is fair.

netflix is a kids show. the story of julie and the phantoms is being told to kids. it’s showing kids what life is like, and it’s teaching kids that life isn’t all that bad. it gives hope more than a show that deals with actual reality does – and this is exactly why jatp has become a comfort show so quickly for so many people.

and especially, brown girls. black girls. gay guys. jatp has got the representation and it would let these kids show that it’s okay to be what they are. that they have a future. that they deserve love just as much as the next person. that they can get their happy ending. that everything is going to be okay.

tlrd; jatp is better seen as a fairy tale because it gives hope not just to young kids but to everybody, and that’s more important than teaching the lesson that life isn’t black and white.

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #jatp meta #julie molina #luke patterson #jukebox #willex #alex mercer #reggie peters #d.tag #i did not just spend an hour doing this #nice to know my degree is coming to use somehow #if there are any mistakes/repetitions i'm sorry #i don't proofread my uni essays let alone tumblr posts #if anybody wants to discuss things like these with me feel free to do so!!#i love discussing and analysing things #i'm doing english and film and creative writing #analysing is literally the only thing i know

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grailfinders · 4 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #72: Fergus mac Roich

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the only man who can fuck more people in a single night than the electoral college, Fergus mac Roich! Fergalicious is a big man with big muscles and an even bigger... sword, so this build will make you the life of the party and the death of your enemies.

Check out the breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Race and Background

Fergus is a Human, netting him +1 to all stats. As a Knight of the Red Branch, he gets proficiency in History and Persuasion as well.

Stats

Make sure your Constitution is high, Fergus is very, very, well known for his stamina. Second is your Charisma; you’re fun at parties, as well as... other locations. Your Strength also needs to be pretty good, those abs aren’t just for show. Your Dexterity isn’t bad, but you’re more the kind of guy to tank hits than avoid them. I wish your Wisdom could be higher, but we can’t be good at everything. Finally, dump Intelligence. You thought Brynhildr and Kiyohime were good dates. No. That might also be wisdom, now that I think about it.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: First level fighters get a Fighting Style. Caladbolg is a pretty great sword, so let’s call it a Great-sword. This means you’ll want Great Weapon Fighting to go along with it. This lets you reroll 1s and 2s on weapon damage with two-handed weapons. You also gain a Second Wind, letting you regain HP on a bonus action equal to 1d10+your fighter level once per short rest. Fergus is famous for being able to go all night, so this will help.

You also get proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves, as well as Athletics and Insight. To give people reliable unclely advice, you have to know what kind of problems they’re having at a glance.

One last note, we’re not going with barbarian this build, so make sure you grab some armor. Fergus’ higher ascensions use bits and pieces of metal armor, so that might count as medium armor, as long as your ignore how it doesn’t protect any vital organs.

2. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you tack on an extra action to your turn once per short rest. You’re a busy man, you’ve got to know how to multitask.

3. Fighter 3: Third level fighters get their Martial Archetype. If you couldn’t tell by us dumping intelligence, we’re not going Eldritch Knight three times in a row. Instead, you become a Champion, gaining an Improved Critical to deal critical damage on rolls of 19 as well as 20.

4. Fighter 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Strength. You’re pretty beefy.

5. Fighter 5: At this level you get an Extra Attack, giving you an extra attack. Fighter skills are pretty much what they say on the tin.

6. Fighter 6: Use your next ASI to become a War Caster, granting you advantage on concentration saves, the ability to cast spells with somatic components while holding weapons, and cast spells as attacks of opportunity. That might not make sense yet, but we’re getting there.

7. Fighter 7: Seventh level Champions are Remarkable Athletes, adding half your proficiency modifier to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution checks you’re not proficient in. It’s like Jack of All Trades, but only for physical checks. Also, you get to add your strength modifier to the length of your long jumps.

8. Bard 1: Fergus is the man Tiktok bards wish they could be. He married an elemental, has Queen Medb as a casual hookup, and if neither of them are available he needs 7 side-side-chicks to sleep at night. Fergus might not play music, but he’s very proficient with his instrument. Also he’s just a really cool dude who inspires those around him a bit.

When you become a bard, you gain Spells that are cast with your Charisma. You also gain some Bardic Inspiration that you can give to another creature as a bonus action, letting them add a d6 to one attack roll, skill check, or save. You have 2 per long rest right now, and you’ll get a third at the next ASI.

You also gain proficiency in one skill of your choice. Traditionally, Performance is for music and such, but gladiators also get proficiency, so I choose to believe they mean performance in every sense of the word.

For your spells, Blade Ward will make you a bit tougher to damage, and Light will help you turn your boring normal sword into an amazing rainbow sword. They never specify it has to be a specific color, so have fun with it. Most of your charisma is natural, but it doesn’t hurt to have Charm Person on standby. Heroism will help turn you or one of your friends into a true legendary hero. Finally, the real reason we’re here to blast apart the scenery with Earth Tremor and Thunderwave.

9. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades. It’s like Remarkable Athlete, but for every kind of ability check. This means you have half proficiency in all mental skills, and pseudo-proficiency in all physical skills. You also gain a Song of Rest. You break out the drinks on short rests, adding 1d6 to any healing done during one.

For your spell, Longstrider is always a good way to enhance your movement. Since we’re not going barbarian, you might as well steal the cool stuff from the class.

10. Bard 3: Third level bards graduate from their College. The college of Valor will inspire your party even more with Combat Inspiration, letting them add their inspiration to damage rolls and their AC when attacked.

You also gain some Expertise, doubling your proficiency in Athletics and Performance. If it’s not one, it’s probably the other.

For your spell, chew the scenery even harder with Shatter, breaking apart constructs and nonmagical items in its range.

11. Bard 4: Pick up another ASI to round up your Dexterity and Charisma for stronger spells and a higher AC.

For spells, grab Friends to save your spell slots and Enhance Ability to turn yourself into even more of a skill monkey than you already were, giving advantage on one kind of ability check for up to an hour. If you choose constitution, the target also gains some temporary HP, if you choose strength, their carrying capacity doubles, and if you choose Dexterity they don’t take falling damage from heights of less than 20′.

12. Fighter 8: Pick up yet another ASI for more Strength for even harder hits.

13. Fighter 9: You become Indomitable, letting you reroll a failed save once per long rest. Given how low your Intelligence and Wisdom are, you’ll need it.

14. Fighter 10: Tenth level champions get an Additional Fighting Style. Defense gives you +1 AC. It’s simple, but effective. Like most of the back half of being a fighter.

15. Fighter 11: Congratulations on gaining another Extra Attack. Now you can attack three times with an action, for up to 6 times in a turn with your Action Surge.

16. Fighter 12: Use your next ASI to enhance your Constitution even further.

17. Fighter 13: You gain another use of Indomitable per long rest, making you even more... indomitable.

18. Fighter 14: Use yet another ASI to maximize your Strength. Unless you rolled really well, in which case, good for you.

19. Fighter 15: Fifteenth level champions have a Superior Critical, dealing critical damage on any roll better than or equal to a natural 18. If your drill is going to pierce the heavens, it’s got to be really sharp.

20. Fighter 16: Use your last ASI at your final level to become Tough, gaining an extra 40 HP for your trouble.

Pros:

It’s safe to say you’re pretty skilled, with at least half proficiency in every skill and full proficiency in all strength and dexterity skills. It’s just a shame that most skills are mental.

You’re also pretty Tough, with an amount of HP typically seen in barbarians and the ability to give yourself resistance, you can be really hard to kill when you want to be.

Not every fight is about dealing damage, and those bard levels can really help expand your tactics. Break up the ground to slow down enemies, or shatter the villain’s McGuffin before they can use it. Sure, it’s unorthodox, but it works.

Cons:

You have some magical damage, but not on your sword. Since magic isn’t your forte, you’ll likely run out of slots when fighting things that resist nonmagical damage.

You also have a very small amount of Inspiration, and it’s not that powerful. The boost is always appreciated, but with only three dice to hand out between long rests, you’ll be spread thin quickly.

With your low intelligence and wisdom, you’ll have a rough time with some of the more common spell saves.

Next up: Christmas is coming early

#Fate grand order #fgo #d&d 5e #fergus mac roich #Fate and Phantasms

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crusherthedoctor · 4 years ago

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Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 15: DR. EGGMAN

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a mini-series of mine, in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, it’s finally time for him. The bad doctor himself. Gather round ladies and gentleman, for the spotlight is on the arch-villain that shines above them all... Dr. Eggman.

The Gist: It's the dawn of the 90's. A little company called SEGA had an ephiphany. They wanted to make a video game juggernaut that could rival the quality and iconic appeal of the then-unmatched Super Mario Bros, and their current star, Alex Kidd, just wasn't doing it in the way that they hoped. They promptly set about starting anew, as a worldwide phenomenon wasn't going to make itself.

So a gentleman named Naoto Ohshima created a selection of design concepts for this brand new mascot. One of these concepts was President Roosevelt in his pajamas.

Seen here with his catgirl body pillow.

The response to this character was “This is good, but we think kids would prefer kicking the shit out of him”, and so he was given an antagonistic role instead. In the meantime, after juggling the rest of their ideas, they eventually settled on a rabbit hedgehog named Sonic for their main protagonist, knowing his Mickey Mouse-like aesthetic would help endear him to the audience, and the franchise as a whole would have an easier time gaining a DeviantART fanbase later on down the line.

Initially, the character of today's review was but a mere lackey among many, seemingly little more than one of numerous minions working for Sonic's originally intended main villain, the Nonspecific Goblin. He was also dressed as a bee for some reason.

Which is the least weirdest thing in this image.

At some point however, they all got together and decided that actually, the guy with the moustache was the only one worth shit, and so he was upgraded to the role of main villain himself. With a spiffy new attire of red and black, he was given the bold title of Dr. Eggman, because with a shape like that, what else are you gonna call him?

“Funny you should say that”, laughed SEGA of America, as they rebelled like an angsty teen and named him Dr. Ivo Robotnik instead. While this name does make equal sense for the character, as he is indeed a hard worker who also happens to like robots, the reason for this name's existence seems to have been mainly because they thought Eggman was too out there of a name for an egg-like man. Whatever the case, this would confuse a lot of fans for years, and remains a point of divisiveness to this day... Unless you're like me and your first game in the series was Advance 2, in which the manual clears it up right away, and you accept the idea of a character having two names and immediately carry on with your life.

He would have aimed it perfectly if it weren't for the Sonic Heroes Parrot distracting him.

And that was that, really. It didn't take long for them to come up with his characterization, which was that of a cackling fiend with an ego to end all egos. This guy was the Narcissist Alpha, more king than actual kings, no strings attached. Other villains would build statues of themselves, but only Robotnik would deface Ancient Egyptian monuments to improve them with his face. Other villains would think “Nah, refacing all four in Rushmore would look silly”, but only the Eggman, the Eggmyth, the Egglegend, would go “Well fuck you, I'm doing it anyway.” Then he'd do it anyway, and proceed to address to the entire world that he did in fact do it anyway.

It also didn't take long for them to develop his primary schtick. With the dynamic of Sonic VS Eggman, you had a classic rivalry between nature and technology. Interestingly enough however, this turned out to be executed more tactfully than your typical Amish-abiding examples in similar media. Never was technology itself regarded as a corruptive influence that you should never utilise no matter what. Rather, it was only as good or as evil as the person using it, with it just so happening that the villain loved machinery only slightly less than he loved himself, and it was countered by Sonic’s best friend being a techno wiz in his own right anyway. Anyhow, with his machinery, the doctor would make a name for himself among video game baddies by confronting his enemy as the boss of nearly every zone in each game, rather than hide away until the endgame.

And all without a driver's licence.

In his soon-to-be-30 years of activity, he has largely remained the same since his inception. Other characters have been introduced, other villains have came and went, but Eggman has remained THE villain of the franchise, and he's remained a vital part of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe... with a slight redesign along the way.

The only ad I don't want to skip.

The Design: Eggman's design may be more simplistic than the likes of Bowser and Ganondorf, and he may not look as openly threatening at first glance, but it's still a very iconic look no matter what look it is. His original appearance was devised so that kids could have an easy time drawing him, which only makes me feel worse about not being able to do it as a grown adult without it looking like a Sexy Legs Kirby.

Still, it's a classic for a reason. With his to-the-point colour scheme, contrasting heavily with Sonic's blue, and his capelet collar resembling walrus tusks, it was an instant winner and made everyone goo goo for g'joob.

The Emeralds he’s juggling are a metaphor for the divided fan community.

And when it was time to give the cast an update for Sonic's first real 3D adventure (or at least the first one that didn't get axed for being a magic eye seizure), Eggman got a respectable change of his own. He was taller, his getup was militaristic, and his body was more legitimately egg-shaped rather than basketball-shaped. He also gained a pair of goggles that he never uses, except in scenes where he puts them on and then never uses them.

“How do my chicken legs not collapse under the might of my gluttonous mass? Find out in an unrelated tie-in novel that you have to pay additional money for.”

There was also that one redesign from 2006, but...

Be it Classic or Modern, I've always loved his design. Before he even says a word or does anything, you know from his appearance that he's a bit of a clownish sort. But he also has a subtle creepy vibe going on, with the way his glasses often obscure his eyes, and how this only makes the pearly-white, unnecessarily wide grin on his face that much more empty and unsettling. This little bit of eeriness hiding among his cartoonish physique reflects the full extent of his character pretty accurately, as we’ll delve into soon enough.

If nothing else, it's more effective than him having no eyes at all.

GRRRRRRRR FUCK YOU BUNNIES THAT I CAN'T SEE

The Personality: If you've seen my villain reviews, then you'll have gathered that Sonic's rogues aren't known for having much in the way of personality. There are exceptions, but they are indeed the exceptions. More often than not though, whether it's an alien conquerer, an ancient monster, or Dan Green the Recolour, they can be summed up thusly: They're evil, they want to destroy the world, and the heroes stop them because they're evil and want to destroy the world. If they're feeling particularly daring, they might go for a second colour.

Luckily, as if to counter all these cardboard drawings, the central adversary of the franchise makes up for these voids of personality by actually having one. And what a personality it is.

The writers of SatAM looked at this and thought “No, this won't do, there's no character to work with here.”

He really is brimming with comedic charm. Every moment that he's present...

Every moment that he shows off...

Every moment that he basks in his own glory...

Every moment that he unveils a new wicked scheme...

Every moment that he puts his enemies to the test...

Every moment that he challenges the world...

Every moment that he laughs at the world...

Every moment that he lives, nay, every moment that he breathes...

Yes, the man has plenty of humor, and it's part of what makes him so enjoyable and memorable. However, if you think being a clown is all there is to him, then prepare to have your expectations subverted initial assumptions taken in a unexpected direction, because although he puts the goof in goofy, he ALSO puts the “oh...?” in “oh shit”.

For you see, Eggman is by all means the epitome of Laughably Evil, but do not, under any circumstance, take him at face value and write him off as a joke. He is anything but.

For starters, he can swing a planet.

There is a rule of thumb that I personally go by with Eggman’s characterization, one that I believe is an immediate make or break factor in regards to whether or not you understand what makes this villain work. Eggman - when you put all his secondary traits aside - is made up of two prominent halves. There’s the egocentric meme machine that bounces up and down like a kid with his N64 and laughs like Santa... and there’s the monster buried within that remains completely and utterly unrepentant for everything he’s responsible for. This is very important. Despite the character’s simplicity at his core, many writers have failed to grasp this, official writers included, and I for the life of me cannot understand why this is such a recurring problem. Eggman is funny, AND Eggman is evil. Both are equal. When you take away one or the other, you may have a funny character, or you may have an evil character, but you don’t have Eggman. Simple as.

Armchair intellectuals may argue that Eggman’s deeds aren’t that evil, since he tends to be merely callous rather than actively trying to hurt or kill people. Those people are probably the types on TV Tropes who weigh a villain’s evilness and effectiveness purely through the surface-level scale of their goals rather than what they actually do to achieve them. While it is true that Eggman tends to be more apathetic about the aftermath of his actions, that doesn’t - and shouldn’t - negate how dangerous he is. It shouldn’t negate what he’s capable of. It shouldn’t negate how far he’s willing to go. And it shouldn’t negate the consequences and casualties that can and do result from his many schemes.

Seriously, think about this for a second. If you confronted Eggman about his current plan to... I dunno, make a water park in Africa or some shit, and you informed him that there has been unexpected mass suffering as a result of this, how do you think he would truly feel about that? What do you think he would actually say to that?

Spoiler: No fucks.

If anything, that he “merely” doesn’t care either way as long as he gets what he wants is more uniquely horrific and deplorable than if he were a generic baddie who committed his evulz specifically for evulz’s own sake and nothing more. At least you’re inadvertently acknowledging that other people’s lives have value when you act one-dimensionally gleeful over ending them, but when your immediate response to the side-effect of a million potential deaths and environmental disasters is “Oh well, fuck ‘em, Eggmanland time baybeeee”, that’s a new level of cruelty.

Besides, even in the Genesis era, he was carpet bombing Angel Island...

“Good thing I have this shield. Sucks to be this forest!”

And he’s only gotten worse since then, indulging in such acts as going full suicide bomber with a missile, after his initial plot to destroy and rebuild Station Square through the means of Chaos and the Egg Carrier didn’t work out...

But don’t worry, he kept it lighthearted by making it look like a penis.

Making one of Sonic’s friends go insane with power against their will, forcing the Blue Blur to put them down personally...

It’s ironic, cause he’s metal. Or do I have to awkwardly explain the joke two more times before I’m a proper YouTuber?

Capturing thousands of innocent aliens, and forcefully converting them into mindless beasts...

I’m pretty sure I saw Alfred Molina conduct this experiment one time.

He even removed the heroes’ collective IQs so that he could shoehorn a cliffhanger on an already terrible game.

Thanks, cunt.

And honestly? When it comes to Sonic and chums at least, Eggman does let out a more openly sadistic side now and then. Need I mention that time when the doctor forced Sonic and two random buddies to make their way through a trap-infested island of his own creation? Not for the sake of nabbing Chaos Emeralds or anything of the sort mind you, he just wanted the blue motor mouth to suffer.

Images you can hear.

To make matters even worse, as befitting of his manchild tendencies, he’s ridiculously petty. How petty? Petty enough to abduct a little girl’s mother for no other reason than because Cheese completely trivialized his forces the girl was friends with Sonic and helped participate in the latest kicking of his own ass.

He only picked Vanilla because there was no Strawberry.

But at least his captives can admire the sheer variety that their captor has to offer. One of the greatest things about the doctor's style is that anything goes. With all due respect to Bowser, he tends to stick with his fiery castles (although he has been branching out recently), and plenty of other villains in gaming tend to be similarly stuck in their ways when it comes to tastes. Eggman, on the other hand, will create all sorts of fortresses and reside anywhere on the planet and beyond. It can be in the sky, in space, somewhere hot, somewhere cold, under the sea, in a circus... and every now and then, he might combine some of them together and thensome. So long as it's even vaguely mechanical in some way, his ground rules have already been ticked off.

Hang on a minute...

You know what else Eggman is? Relentless.

Persistence is a quality that most villains by their very nature share, lest they cease to be an effective antagonist. But once again, Rrrrrrrobotnik maxes out more than any other, and will often go to insane lengths to keep the current plan going, or if not that, then to spite Sonic.

Exhibit A: Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in which the grand finale consists of the madman throwing a gravity-shifting contraption your way, busting out a Kaiju-sized robo, escaping with the Master Emerald after his defeat, continuing to escape even after the Death Egg has been thoroughly destroyed, getting chased through the asteroid fields in space by Super Sonic, and only finally going down when the escape craft and the piloted mech controlling the escape craft are down. And all of this came after a grand adventure where, among other things, he destroyed an entire level just to kill you.

There are immortal omnipotents that put up less of a challenge.

“Looks like it’s time for Plan... *checks paper*... F.”

His relentlessness also reveals another side of the doctor that is simultaneously admirable and terrifying: He bows to no one. No one. Doesn’t matter who it is. Doesn’t matter how powerful they are. Doesn’t matter how much the odds are stacked against him. If another villain were to demand that he cower before them, the scientist would laugh and show through physical demonstration that this is not the way the egg rolls. Unless he’s absolutely unable to do so, he will give it his all every time, and even if he can’t, he’ll use his crafty mind to find some other way to get around the issue. You can beat him in battle, you can foil his plans, but you absolutely cannot break his resolve.

“Dad said it’s my turn to play with the Ruby. I know this, because I’m your dad.”

What about his relationship with those who actually serve him? Specifically, his own robots? Well for the most part, he treats them like absolute crap, what with verbally abusing them at every corner and being all too willing to go full Vader on them the moment they mess up. He IS capable of expressing fondness and giving praise to his more successful creations, like with Metal Sonic and Gamma, but even then, it’s a roundabout way of praising himself, since he’s the one who made them what they are. So basically, you’re only valuable to him if you make him look good.

Gaming in the Clinton Years in a nutshell.

And as for Sonic? Yeah, like with any legendary and long-lasting hero/villain dynamic, it’s obvious that Eggman has some degree of begrudging respect for his opponent. But if you think this respect would dissuade him from actually going through with his ambitions of rulership...

As the hedgehog’s apparent demise in Sonic Adventure 2 proves, as well as his defeat at the hands of Infinite and the subsequent six months of brutal conquest in Sonic Forces, Eggman is dead serious about his goals. If you think he’d get bored after conquering the world, he would simply expand his resources and have a crack at conquering the rest of the universe. When he says he hates that hedgehog, I’m inclined to believe that he means it, and although he may enjoy his “games” with Sonic to an extent, I also can’t see him wanting to remain stuck on square one forever.

If this were Sonic X, he’d just grieve.

By the way, the scene above? Undeniable proof that for all the doctor’s boasting, he’s not actually lying or exaggerating when he prides himself on his brilliance. Because when you get past his goofy exterior, when you look beyond the occasional, relatively minor mistake (*glares at IDW*), you’ll see that... yes. He IS brilliant. And not just in the science department either, although his countless robots and strongholds over the years are no doubt a testament to his credentials there. While he may prefer to go in big and bold, he can also be shrewd with his strategies when he wants to be.

Sonic’s aforementioned near-death experience, for example, was the result of Eggman turning the heroes’ own cunning plan on its head by being one step ahead of them. And in Sonic Unleashed, he lured his enemy into a trap, culminating with him cancelling out Super Sonic.

“...and pay the price for your Werehog gameplay...”

And after all those years of struggling, he finally got a giant monster under his complete control. “But he had help!”, you say? Yeah, from himself.

Did Flynn sleep through all this...?

Much like his inner nature as an evil bastard, Eggman's effectiveness is likewise commonly underestimated by writers. Yes, he occasionally makes mistakes. Yes, he occasionally overlooks details. Yes, he occasionally lacks foresight. But he is NOT stupid. A hero is only as good as their villain after all, and if Eggman is portrayed as a bumbling fool, then how can Sonic be a truly great hero? Eggman is humorous, sinister, and when the chips are down, competent.

...Did I mention that he's also a master Olympian?

The Execution: There's no surprises here. You knew from the moment you saw this review that my stance wasn't going to be anything less than 100% fanboy adoration. In that respect, this section almost feels redundant, because there's only so many ways I can say “Dr. Eggman is the fucking shit and I'm eternally grateful to Mr. Ohshima for bringing this absolute masterpiece into our world” without it getting repetitive. So to cap this review off, I'm going to very briefly compare his portrayals in other media, and explain why they tend to not be as good as the original SEGA Eggman.

“Cause they’re not balanced, right?” you ask. “Cause they veer too far in a particular direction? You're so predictable,” you add. To that I say:

1. Yeah, basically.

2. ...S-Shut up...

3. While the conclusion may be obvious, it's nonetheless important because as I mentioned previously, despite how straightforward this villain is, writers seem absolutely intent on not getting the point. There are loads of villains out there who share Eggman's talent of mixing hilarity and evil together with a bow of competence on top. Two of those villains are among the most famous supervillains of all time, in fact. You might have heard of them.

Joker can do it just fine. Green Goblin can do it just fine. And plenty of others can do it just fine. So why is it such an issue with Eggman? What is it about a round body and a long moustache that gets people to think “No, this guy is absolutely incapable of being comedic and threatening at the same time, no question, end of.” Is it because he’s a more cartoony franchise? Well, that can't be the case, because even Mario has a couple of beloved examples. Fawful, anyone? How about Dimentio? Cackletta? King Boo? K. Rool? Hell, you could even count Bowser himself depending on the portrayal.

Anyway, the point is, writers tend to miss the mark for one reason or another. With Sonic X for example, he wasn't too bad in the beginning, but as the show went on, he became exactly the toothless non-villain that many people misjudge him as. We all know that scene where he berates Black Narcissus for harming their captives (not for pragmatic reasons mind you, he genuinely took issue with the act on moral grounds, even though his own hands weren’t exactly clean either), but even before that point, he was doing such things as healing an injured Sonic without an ulterior motive, not taking any opportunity whatsoever to start conquering Sonic's world because he was pining for Sonic's attention, and being the Jiminy Cricket to Chris Thorndyke's Pinocchio. Why they thought the goddamn villain should be the moral conscience of this show remains an unanswered question, but at least it no longer influences how he's portrayed in the games.

Then you have the IDW comic, which is a similar tale of starting off decent and then careening wildly into the abyss, but for different reasons. Initially, he was built up to be in-line with his competent, foresight-packed self from Forces, with his inevitable return being met with dread, and a delightfully devilish scheme to match when he finally did so. But somewhere along the way, Ian Flynn thought that Eggman coming back from his amnesiac period and returning stronger than ever with a new minion and a deadly virus wasn't enough to up the stakes... so they decided to “up the stakes” by turning both the doctor and his new minion into massive imbeciles so as to justify their plot getting hijacked by the Deadly Six, a move so predictable yet infuriating that it got even me to turn against the Six. And the reason the Six got invited in-universe is because Starline decided he didn’t like being unique and devolved into Snively 2.0 behind Eggman’s back. All this from the alleged “best writer” for the series...

Yeah, same.

And then you have the Boom version, which shares basically the same issues as Sonic X but in a more mundane fashion. It's easier to dismiss because it's a comedy-centric show and his redesign makes it easier to separate him from mainline Eggman, and I'll gladly admit that he does have a lot of genuinely funny lines that redeem him a little bit. But yeah, too much of not being a true villain for my tastes.

Now this isn't to say that there haven't been portrayals in other media that are up there with the original. The versions that I consider better off than the ones above include...

- The OVA Eggman is pretty faithful all things considered, aside from his romantic feelings for Sara, which feels slightly off since the idea of Eggman loving anyone other than himself is incredibly unrealistic at best. But it doesn't actually soften or undermine his deviousness, so I'm willing to let it slide for an alternate take. Especially since he gave us the best Metal Sonic out there.

- AoStH is far from a perfect show, but there's a reason why even its detractors tend to treat its version of Robotnik like a national treasure. Admittedly most of that is because of the legendary Long John Baldry and the endless memes associated with this incarnation, but despite hailing from a comedy-focused show like Boom Eggman, this Robotnik still had a lot of legitimately dangerous moments, more than you'd think.

- And of course, Jim Carrey's Robotnik in the Sonic movie is just... *chef's kiss*

So obvious aesop though it may be, but you see what the more effective portrayals have in common, I assume?

Granted, this also isn't to say that SEGA Eggman himself has had a perfect track record. The decade's worth of upstagings and backstabbings by other villains should be enough of a counterpoint to that claim, and I've also made it clear now and then that I take issue with certain games regarding what they do with the doc, no matter how revered they may be by other fans. Sonic Adventure 2, for instance. I praised the fake emerald scene, and I do sincerely believe that he has a number of other badass moments in that game, but because Shadow was playing him like a fool the whole time, I can't help but have a bitter taste in my mouth when I look at the bigger picture.

So close to greatness, yet so far...

So in that case, which game do I think has Eggman's best showing overall? That's not in any way an easy question, but lack of dialogue aside, I'm gonna go with Sonic 3 & Knuckles again, as the classic journey through the sights of Angel Island plays out in a way that highlights just how determined, ruthless, and underhanded he is with carrying out his mission to revive the Death Egg by any means necessary. Other games do win out in other areas - SA1 for how bastardly he is, Forces for how cunning he is, Colours for his hilarious announcements, CD for using the scenery to show the effects of his actions, Mania for not letting the other villain walk all over him - but for the purest essence of the doctor at his cartoony yet competent best, I'd say S3&K is a reasonable bet.

And when it comes to all his many traits, which one do I find the most special one of all? Well again, far from easy to answer, but I think the coolest aspect about him is also one of the most overlooked. Robotnik, despite whatever superhuman qualities he may occasionally unveil, is for all intents and purposes a regular guy with a big brain. This might make him appear unimpressive when compared to your average Final Fantasy villain and the like, but if anything, it paints him in a more flattering light than expected, because he doesn't even need to be on their level to still be on the radar. It's easy to be a big bad threat when you're an ancient demon or an almighty god-like being, and you only have to wave a hand to cause armageddon. But when you're just Some Guy™ going up against superpowered opponents, meaning you have to earn your threat level the hard way, and you prove to be a challenge every step of the way regardless, because you're just THAT much of a genius... that's fucking awesome, no other way to put it.

And you know what else is awesome? You may not like Eggman, and you don’t have to like him, but like it or not, he is directly and indirectly responsible for a vast majority of the coolest and most loved moments and aspects of this franchise.

The opening to Unleashed? Eggman set up the scene.

Shadow running around and continuing to be part of the franchise? Eggman released him.

Blaze getting involved with Sonic’s world and continuing to be part of the franchise? Eggman’s half-responsible for that.

Metal Sonic? Eggman made him.

Egg Dragoon? Eggman.

Big Arm? Eggman.

Monkey Dude? Eggman.

That text is missing a blue checkmark.

This review is probably longer than the echidna family tree in Archie at this point, so I better finish it off. If it wasn't obvious from all the paragraphs I've belted out in this post, I'm very passionate about Eggman and the way he’s portrayed. Ever since I got into the Sonic franchise in 2003, I immediately took a liking to the doctor, and to this day, he remains not only my favourite Sonic villain, my favourite Sonic character, but also my favourite character period. Some may find it a weird or lame choice compared to other, “better” characters, but that's the way it is, and I ain't about to change it. I am very unlikely to ever stop enjoying the hell out of this villain, and even if he got irreversibly ruined in some way, I'd still continue to love what he was before that point.

Because yeah, he's not the deepest character ever, but... who cares? Is it not enough that we find something that appeals to us? When I got into Sonic, I was introduced to fantastic games, a likable cast, high quality soundtracks, beautiful worlds, numerous friends on this very site, and of course, the lovely treasure that is my partner. I may not have been with this franchise during the 90's, but it's given me just as much fun, nostalgia, and happiness as those who were. Despite the flawed titles, despite the fandom conundrums, I still love this series.

And I still love this absolute prick.

Crusher Gives Dr. Eggman a: TWO Thumbs Up!

#Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite?#Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog #Dr. Ivo Robotnik

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silver-wield · 4 years ago

Note

I dont understand why aerith only abused cloud and not the other characters, whats her motive? have you ever been abused or at least know someone who was? can you also tell me more about aerith’s character? she’s the one i know the least so i would appreciate the enlightenment

Following on from this

Did I say Aerith was abusive or that her actions were? Because Aerith's not an abusive character, but she does things that harm others because of certain reasons. Also, some of my earlier comments about chapter 8 and Aerith's behaviour are before I learned more about her pov motivation, so it's only taken from Cloud's pov. Which I have no regrets about. I prefer Cloud over Aerith.

Cloud just got the brunt of things because he spent longer with her. The way Aerith assumes she knows everyone and that her way is best does harm others because it shows she doesn't respect their opinions or value them as individuals who behave differently to how she expects. She doesn't really know everyone, she just thinks she does because she knows info she shouldn't. But, vague information from the lifestream or wherever she got it doesn't form a complete picture. It also doesn't replace actual relationship development. She's trying to run before she can crawl.

From Aerith's pov, she's doing good. She's not intentionally abusive to people. She's poorly socialised, bossy and been treated as special since she was a child. She's got no frame of reference in how to have healthy relationships with people. She had no friends as a kid and none later. Kyrie was a bad influence on her and not a true friend. She's never had a true friend and only Zack loved her besides her moms. Her dad died when she was a baby, so she doesn't remember him. She's basically a spoiled child expecting to get what she wants and then can't accept the truth when it doesn't match her expectations.

From the others povs she's withholding vital information, treating them like they can't do things without her input and acting like she's the leader, despite just meeting everyone. Since what she's asking them to help with is saving the planet and Avalanche are self proclaimed protectors, and Cloud and Tifa are Sephiroth's enemies they won't refuse. Red agrees because his race are more attuned to the planet anyway. It's part of who he is to help protect it.

It's a matter of emotional maturity. Tifa has the most of the younger characters and currently, Aerith wavers between her OG immaturity and her meta knowledge which gives her unearned wisdom, but she doesn't know how to apply that wisdom, so just comes off bossy.

Cloud doesn't know how to deal with conflict except to beat it senseless and doesn't know how to deal with women, except to be a passive dummy when most of them manhandle him. He also doesn't want anything to do with any woman romantically except Tifa, which is why he's always touching her and flirting.

Cloud knows that Tifa reacts badly when people she cares about are in danger, so he's trying to keep her calm. Since Aerith interrupts immediately after this we don't know what the conclusion of this would be if Cloud was allowed to continue speaking. Most likely, he'd suggest getting back to sector 7, too, because he already agreed with her they need to go when he woke her up before the Abzu battle. Tifa respects Cloud's opinion and military background, so that's why she's asking his advice.

By jumping in and alarming Tifa, Aerith has actually caused harm because it's put her in an anxious state, which we see escalating throughout the sewers.

Cloud kept Tifa calm and focused. Aerith has done the opposite. Because she thinks she knows best.

Having put Tifa in a more anxious state than she was earlier, Aerith now withholds information, which breaks trust between them.

This harms Tifa. She now has to worry about Aerith's true motives as well as sector 7. Tifa avoids confronting her suspicions because she's non-confrontational by nature. And Aerith could be innocent and Tifa's imagining everything.

It's not a healthy state of mind Aerith's encouraged.

Aerith has observed how Tifa is with Cloud and deliberately baits her, which causes harm to Tifa.

Aerith's motives aren't the focus here and I've explained from her pov she's helping, but from Tifa's pov, this girl she just met is trying to take the guy she's liked since she was 13.

The look on Aerith's face is playful, but Tifa's isn't. She looks unhappy. With Aerith. She thought they were becoming friends and then Aerith does this.

And as I said, it's worth noting this is different to the JP scene where Tifa is just worried and Aerith's teasing her to try and improve her mood. So, this scene was deliberately played up to highlight a negative behaviour from Aerith and provoke Tifa.

Aerith never explains why Barret can't do things. She just orders everyone around and expects them to listen, but she doesn't listen to them.

Even when asked, she doesn't say anything, and this is harming the entire party. Just because we know the plot doesn't make what she's doing okay. She knows about Sephiroth and doesn't warn anyone beforehand. So, later when Cloud and Tifa see him in the drum, they're not prepared.

This adds to everyone's suspicion about Aerith.

Suspicious Aerith

Suspicious Aerith 2

See, the thing is, if someone is suspicious then you can't trust them. And trust is a big factor in relationships. By making herself untrustworthy by lying and acting in a suspicious way, Aerith isn't fulfilling one of the basic cornerstones of a good relationship.

Four cornerstones of a strong relationship: Tifa

Four cornerstones of a strong relationship: Cloud

Respect

Aerith shows she doesn't respect Tifa's opinion about Cloud and dismisses her valid concerns. She redirects to ask about her instead, which Tifa brushes off. The girls don't have a lot of conversation in the drum, which shows they're not that close or that Tifa doesn't trust her enough to chat after the sewers. Tifa has chosen to remain focused.

From Aerith's pov, ignoring Cloud shows she's not interested in him, but Tifa is and is worried and wanted reassurance, which Aerith didn't provide.

Honesty

During their first interaction, Aerith lies to Cloud several times, and keeps lying throughout the game, either by omission or outright lying.

Aerith lies about knowing the Turks, while knowing how dangerous they are.

A person who lies isn't someone who can be trusted. This is why Cloud and Tifa are suspicious of Aerith, even up to the end battle where Sephiroth speaks from behind Aerith and Cloud gives her a suspicious look. Because Aerith's own behaviour combines with Sephiroth's motives. If Aerith hadn't made herself suspicious then Sephiroth wouldn't be as effective here.

Trust

Cloud shakes his head here. He knows Aerith doesn't trust them because she keeps lying. See how things connect? Aerith lies, it makes her untrustworthy and affects people's relationships with her in a negative way.

Cloud agrees to go fetch Aerith because he knows what Shinra are like, isn't an asshole, feels obligated and Elmyra literally orders him to "bring her back to me" after he gets permission to go. Which is why it's listed as operation: save Aerith in the story summary.

Friendship

And as for friendship, well both Barret and Tifa call Aerith "our friend" but Cloud says "a friend" to mayor Domino and then later when he says "our friend" to the guy outside the battle sim, all of them are framed. But, when he said "a friend" to mayor Domino only Cloud was framed. This suggests that to Cloud Aerith isn't a friend.

So, Aerith fails to satisfy the basic cornerstones of a good relationship with others. That's not saying she's a bad person or has bad motives, but currently she's not in good standing.

As for her behaviour in sector 5 with Cloud, from her pov, her actions weren't bad either.

The protagonist Cloud, who played the hero like Zack, is the unforgettable protagonist of FFVII. The beginning of the story, he seems cool, but in reality he is not good with communication and feels less than he is. “I wanted to be in SOLIDER, but I couldn’t.” Because he wanted to hide himself (because of Zack's death and the Nibelheim incident), the Jenova cells that were planted in him in Nibelheim formed a personality that were based on Zack’s memories. In CC, Cloud was weak but he was influenced by Zack. In the beginning of the story, Cloud takes on the title of “Zack”. Aerith was shocked when she meets Cloud due to him mirroring Zack in behavior.

That's a rough translation, but the fact is Aerith saw Zack in Cloud from their first meeting and that's why she chased after him in chapter 2. This is the CC ultimania, BTW, and it's getting a reprint, so the info in it is canon to Remake because the devs advised players to read more compilation materials. This is one of them.

Her motives aren't bad, but we can't only see things from her pov. Other people matter too. Cloud wasn't happy with her throughout chapter 8 because of her behaviour. Her motives don't factor into his feelings because she never reveals why she's doing it. Even if she did explain, it doesn't excuse her ignoring how Cloud feels.

Because Aerith is using Cloud as a prop for Zack it does harm her relationship with him and others. In the chapter 9 Corneo's dungeon conversation we can see Tifa notices Cloud isn't happy with Aerith suggesting they stay and get info out of Corneo. His reaction colors her opinion of Aerith later when he wakes her in the sewers. That's why she asks how he knows her because he doesn't seem to be acting like they're friends as Aerith claimed.

And Aerith isn't treating Cloud like he's Cloud through a lot of chapter 8 and 9 and only pulls back when they meet up with Tifa.

So much zerith

And by deluding herself, Aerith gets to be with Zack again, which she alludes to in her resolution when she says she's grateful to Cloud and he made her more happy than he knows. Because she got to pretend she spent one more day with Zack. But, then she shatters her own delusion by telling Cloud that any potential feelings he might have in the future are fake. Because Cloud's persona is fake. He's not Zack.

In the OG, Aerith's GS date alludes to Cloud's fake persona too, but she says she wants to meet the real him. She doesn't say that here. She ignores Cloud again, and by doing so answers his question in that he doesn't get a say because she's not listening to him. Because she doesn't care.

And when the party reaches her in chapter 16, it's even more clear that Aerith has set aside her delusions in favour of building better relationships with the other characters. She's more invested in Red, Tifa and Barret than she is Cloud.

However, it's an uphill struggle with Tifa because of the previous behaviour she exhibited.

See how things circle back? Aerith made herself suspicious, Tifa loses trust in her and that affects their relationship later so that Tifa is less likely to confide in her. She's being Tifa Lockhart. And we know Tifa can open up with those she really trusts because she does with Cloud. Because they have a strong set of cornerstones to their relationship.

So, from Aerith's pov, it's not abuse because she has some very good reasons for treating Cloud and others the way she does. She's aware of some future events and knows about Sephiroth and she also deluded herself into thinking Cloud was Zack.

But, because they don't know her motives it does actually harm the relationships between her and them. Even Red seems to mistrust her because he knows some of what she was up to with the whispers, as stated during the opening of chapter 17 where he explains the whispers purpose and looks right at Aerith when he mentions people tampering with fate.

But, this is what character development is for. Aerith needs to grow as a person and not just in power. So, I expect a lot of her more childish traits like being overly bossy and not having any listening skills will be addressed in future parts.

#final fantasy 7 remake #ff7r #ffviir #final fantasy 7r #final fantasy viir #Character analysis #Aerith Gainsborough

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thesaltyoncologist · 5 years ago

Photo

Oh man. Just beware that I have some embarrassingly strong opinions on medical notes. I was (and still am) one obsessive motherfucker when it concerns patients under my care... probably, at times, at the expense of my mental health. So...

We’ll start with your general hospital H&P

As a medical student, however your attending wanted your note written was always the correct answer. That applies to a lesser degree during residency. You’ll generally figure out the people who have strong opinions because, without fail, they will tell you. In those situations, again, the correct answer is whatever your attending says is correct is correct.

The biggest tip I can give is to develop a mental template for everything. I wrote every H&P during residency in a very specific format. It had a couple of advantages: (1) I never left something important out, and (2) it sped up my ability to churn out H&Ps. Now that template had slight variations depending on which service I was on because, as you probably already have realized, different things are important to different subspecialties. In the beginning, it may be near impossible to put together a mental template just because you’re still learning to differentiate the signal from the noise. Everyone is. I will say that my notes now, as an April first year fellow, are much better and more succinct than my notes were as a July first year fellow. That is perfectly ok to adapt things as you learn more and more. So my basic template for a hospital admission was this:

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HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS

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A minimalistic one-liner that should tell you, in broad strokes, what you need to know to start formulating a differential diagnosis.

Mr. Smith is a 58 YOM with PMHx significant for [only RELEVANT co-morbidities] who presented by ambulance to the ED for shortness of breath of three days duration.

Next, this is where you break out your mnemonic of choice to describe the patient’s chief complaint. Was onset acute vs slowly progressive? What was his baseline respiratory status and how does it compare to now? Is it continuous or does it only happen when he’s moving? Does he have any pertinent associated symptoms? What makes his sob better or worse? Has this happened to him before? Pertinent negatives to rule out other possible causes of the patient’s chief complaints.

Patient reports his shortness of breath started two days ago and has slowly worsened. At baseline, he is able to ambulate without limitation but is now having difficultly walking more than from room-to-room in his home. While he initially only had symptoms with exertion, he now has symptoms at rest. Sitting in an upright position improves his shortness of breath and lying flat worsens his symptoms. He endorses worsening orthopnea, PND, and lower extremity edema. No fevers, chills, localized symptoms of infection, or sick contacts. No associated cough. No chest pain or anginal equivalents. No personal or family history of blood clots. Reports he was hospitalized two years ago for similar symptoms that required IV diuretics.

Next, I went into the objectives obtained in the ED. What were the patient’s vitals on presentation? What pertinent abnormalities were noted on labs? Imaging? If there were any consults, what was recommended? What treatment was provided in the ED?

In the ED, patient was afebrile, normotensive, but tachycardic to the 120s and initially satting 85% on room air. He was placed on 4L supplemental O2 with improvement. Labs were significant for acute on chronic elevated creatinine, a minimally elevated troponin, and severely elevated BNP. EKG showed sinus tachycardia. CXR showed bilateral pulmonary edema. Cardiology was consulted in the ED and felt his elevated troponin was due to demand ischemia rather than true ACS. Patient received 80 mg IV lasix and was admitted to the gen med service for further care.

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ASSESSMENT

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Now a few lines that succinctly presents the case, from beginning to planned end. My goal was always to present a quick overview of the patient’s treatment course.

Mr. Smith is a 58 YOM with NSTEMI s/p DES to the LAD and HFrEF 2/2 ischemic cardiomyopathy who presented to the ED with shortness of breath with a new oxygen requirement and was found to have a HFrEF exacerbation. Treatment course was complicated by a brief transfer to the step-down unit for BIPAP support following admission. He has since been treated with aggressive IV diuresis with improved respiratory status and was transferred back to the floor. He is now maintaining appropriate oxygen saturations on room air. Plan for discharge in 2-3 days following conversion to PO lasix.

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PLAN

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These are pretty straightforward. I usually presented off of this part of my note and included things that helped me keep track of my patient’s pertinent history and recent results. For this guy, that would mean knowing this guy’s last EF by echo and when his PCI was performed.

#Acute hypoxic respiratory failure 2/2 HFrEF exacerbation.

-Presented to ED with shortness of breath and new O2 requirement

-Hx of NSTEMI s/p DES to the LAD in Oct 2018

-Baseline EKG with sinus tachycardia. No change compared to prior.

-Last echo in Jan 2019 with EF = 30%; echo 4/8/20 showed EF 15% and WMA of the left apex

-Dry weight 70 kg; patient currently above dry weight at 78 kg

PLAN

-Lasix 40 mg IV; goal net negative 1L

-Follow-up on BID BMP; replete lytes as needed

-Arrange outpatient visit with heart failure clinic

If anyone is interested, especially the new ‘terns or med studs, I can do some additional posts on note writing tips. Outpatient notes are also definitely a completely different ballgame and thus approach.

#medblr #pgy-dinosaur #COVID19-Fest 2020 #medical school #internal medicine #residency #internal medicine is the BEST medicine

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paramathmaguru · 4 years ago

Text

Spirituality - Definition - The True Inner Meaning

Spirituality is one word which places a human being on the highest pedestal of life. It is area of Spirituality traveling on which one reaches the last leg of cosmic life nay the kind of human being himself! The objective of Spirituality is acquiring salvation (moksha in Hinduism)! From the beginning of the initial indication as an amoeba to the last symptom (the 8.4 millionth indication) ... the goal of every life remains the very same. The stage of life as a human being announces that the life has come full circle. It is only as a human being that can get informed (reach the phase of Nirvikalpa samadhi) as well as attain salvation (moksha in Hinduism). Reaching the stage of knowledge is the last action in the field of Spirituality. Spirituality is living life as it was meant to be ... not as we may have preferred or wanted living it. Living a life of selection is not the forte of all humans. Those on the course of pure Spirituality ... real candidates of Spirituality are occasionally able to colonialism by establishing absolute control over it. It is a certain reality that only the true candidates of Spirituality become the masters of their destiny. Purposefully or unwittingly lots of people that have a materialistic objective in life traveling the course of Spirituality and come to be effective in life. It was not an occurring by chance ... all was the result of a law which can not err. These highly well-known individuals unknowingly step the path of pure Spirituality as well as attained the goal of their life. Spirituality in various other terms suggests that before we ask God the Almighty for product treasures to be presented upon us ... we need to compensate by providing something equivalent or much more back to the neighborhood. This is the course embarked on by most successful entrepreneurs. In terms of Spirituality we are not expected to get anything unless we assure to do something in return ... in the system of God there is justice all throughout. As we desire ... so shall be the equivalent karma we would certainly be required to carry out. Mere incorrect assurances bring us nothing. It was the strong suit of JRD Tata that he constantly enjoyed his nation and the compatriot. The advantage of the society was leading in his mind constantly. The prime reason that the Tata Empire is known as the structure contractor of India! Tata name itself is representative of developing a technological Empire for the advantage of entire nation. This is what Spirituality is all about. JRD Tata was a trustee par excellence. According to him whatever belonged to God as well as he was just a trustee performing the determines of God. In his life time he never built a house for himself. His love for the product treasures of life did not appear to exist in all. His every endeavor was aimed at boosting the lifestyle of human life and the country in its entirety. What a worthy persona JRD Tata was ... a true karma yogi indeed! He did not live Spirituality instead Spirituality resided in him. He was an ideal example of how a true spiritual hunter should live his life. JRD might have never ever confessed that he lived a spiritual life however unknowingly he practiced Spirituality every moment of his life. JRD Tata complied with the determines of Bhagwad Gita throughout his life unconsciously. Apart from being a real karma yogi ... he also excelled in educating the core values to the society. He was among the rarest kinds that have ever emphasized environment as product riches and also comforts in life never ever attracted him come whatever may. JRD Tata excelled in human worths to the degree that also most established people on the path of pure Spirituality get overshadowed by his accomplishments. Spirituality is not only looking for the domain name of God yet also in day-to-day matters of life every human being demands to exercise Spirituality. The popular stating, "whatever we want others to do unto us ... we ought to do unto them" develops the core mentors of Spirituality. It is not merely a claiming. It needs to be exercised in reality as was taught as well as advocated by Napoleon hillside in his well-known publications "think and grow rich", "master key to treasures" as well as the well-known "regulation of success in sixteen lessons". These three Scriptures publications by Napoleon hill ... "Believe and also grow abundant", "opener to treasures" and the well-known "law of success in sixteen lessons" create the core of Spirituality. There is no argument regarding that. At every phase Napoleon hillside has actually forecasted that prior to we can anticipate anything from God we require to provide something back to the area. He was also a true practitioner of Spirituality from heart. Spirituality definitely aids one take control of fate. As we proceed on the path of pure Spirituality we often tend to develop a favorable method in the direction of life. Reeling at all times under a positive mindset of mind ... One has the ability to make improvements those vital aspects of life which are an absolute should if one needs to come to be the master of his own destiny. Spirituality makes a perfect guy out of a negative thinker. In the field of Spirituality there is no place for any negative thinking. One that has actually repaired a goal in life as well as constantly indulges in positive oriented thinking can not be a loser in life. It can never take place! Spirituality drinks the complying with virtues in a person: Spirituality makes you feel constantly that there is something higher than the mere presence as a person. Spirituality spells out that God exists within every living being as our spirit (the atman within). It is God within us which overviews us on the best course whenever we tend to fail. Spirituality instills in every human being a sensation of positive ness all throughout. Drifting on the positive psychological plane brings one closer to our objective of life. It is Spirituality as well as spirituality alone which prompts as well as overviews one in the right instructions whenever we feel cheated by the senses dominating upon us. To be able ahead out of the clutches of the 5 detects is what Spirituality is everything about. If we desire to understand God truly then we require to adhere to the course of pure Spirituality. It is just as a real spiritual candidate shall we understand God one-day. It is a Spirituality which shortens the path and makes the entire world look like a family. In the spiritual domain name there is no area for various religions, dogmas or creeds. Our wanton needs disappear ... the minute Spirituality takes complete control over us! Spirituality absolutely is the significance of life. Nevertheless materialistic we possibly on the earthly airplane ... there shall come a day when Spirituality would entirely wipe us clean of all the contaminations within us. Without Spirituality the life or a human being resembles a rudderless boat going round and also round in the unfathomable sea of life. It is Spirituality which teaches every human being the real worth of life ... being spiritual is not being religious alone ... Spirituality teaches us the core values of life ... the real essence people! It is only through Spirituality that God is able to guide the humanity towards its destined goal. As several human beings ... as various spiritual paths! Right from day one when we are birthed and until the dying breath ... it is Spirituality which keeps our heart pumping throughout. It is Spirituality which gets rid of all doubts that our spirit (the atman within the body) is the actual master as well as our body is yet to degeneration and pass away. Spirituality clears all uncertainties connected to the concept of God. Whenever in doubt ... the wise comply with the determines of the spiritual masters of the era! Every spiritual being merges his identification with the Supreme Being (the Almighty God). Spirituality validates that life has to go on ... it is a trip to be finished in several phases (8.4 million symptoms as a matter of fact). It is Spirituality which validates that the life of a human of 70 to 80 years is however a flow in the total life a span of our soul (the atman within). The total life expectancy of the spirit being an optimum of 96.4 million earthly years! Spirituality has no partnership whatsoever with religious beliefs. Adhering to a religion suggests adhering to the dictates of a successful spiritual master ... one that has actually already covered the trip and also has actually come to be efficient in directing the humanity to its logical end.

SPIRITUALITY Faith is implied for living a solitary span of earthly life. However Spirituality overviews every living being to its sensible end in the incessant planetary trip taken on by the spirit (our atman within). It is Spirituality alone which gets rid of the anxiety of fatality from those that have actually launched the peak of spiritual life. Spirituality offers you a commanding setting in life. One can benefit over 23 hours each day having actually obtained outright control over rest. This is not only feasible but can be observed by enjoying the upper rung of spiritual masters. The presence of Spirituality in our lives can not be done away with for it creates the internal core of our manifested physical life. Behind every success lies the core of Spirituality which guides one inherently all throughout the planetary trip. In technique ... when I began looking for God at an early age of 13 years ... I was so confused regarding life that I believed it was just the spiritual masters who shall guide me on the ideal course. I was so incorrect. It was at the age of 37 that I was available in call with God one-to-one basis. It was the pinnacle of my spiritual search. My life had come cycle. This was to be my last indication. I had reached the end of cosmic life. The difference between Spirituality and also religion were currently definitely clear to me. Having actually been able to traverse the path as a real seeker of Spirituality and reach completion objective has been an actually enjoyable experience. Whatever I attempt to convey to the community is based upon true personal experience of life. Being my last vacation on Environment I have yet to give the pearls of Spirituality I have actually learned prior to I leave the temporal framework. Spirituality is not to be practiced simply in theory. Spirituality is not consisted of in the spiritual textbooks alone. We all at once require to practice pure Spirituality as well as try getting to completion of the planetary life. Attaining salvation in today life would be something every human being would certainly desire.

#paramathma #SPIRITUALITY

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comicgeekscomicgeek · 4 years ago

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Their Hero Academia – Chapter 58: An Exam Cometh!

Presenting the next raw and unedited chapter of my on-going, next-gen, My Hero Academia fic, Their Hero Academia!

Earlier chapters can be found here

There was a somewhat somber mood in the classroom as 1-A settled in Tuesday morning. The funeral yesterday had been the cap to a long week that stretched back to the Nomu attacks and had been a roller coaster for many of them ever since. But things looked to Isamu like they were finally getting back to normal. The class was back together again and even if they weren’t all up to their usual selves, they were getting there. Even Shinso had been in a slightly cheerier mood last night, joining him and Midoriya for a few rounds of Smash Fighters 3000 in Midoriya’s room.

The room fell into a hushed silence as Aizawa entered. They knew by this point not to screw around once he was there. Well, most of them did. He was pretty sure Mineta and Sero hadn’t gotten the same message as everybody else.

Aizawa stood at his podium for a moment before speaking. “Only three seconds to quiet down. An improvement.” His eyes swept the room and his face relaxed a fraction of a centimeter. “I know your Internship experiences were harrowing, but I’ve also had the opportunity to review the feedback your mentors provided, and you all acquitted yourselves well, even in the face of some concerns over discipline.” There was a glance reserved for Mineta and Sero again at that.

“However, that does not change the fact that your final exams will be in two weeks. Your subject exams will be the Monday through Thursday of that week, with the practical Heroics exam on Friday.”

That wasn’t a surprise, really. The dates for final exams had been in the syllabus on the first day of class. But that seemed like both yesterday and a lifetime ago. There was the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun”, but had the term really been fun? It seemed like much of it had been long moments of calm split by absolute and total panic.

Then again, in the time since that first day, he’d made friends, won the Sports Festival, interned with Deku, seen a monster, gotten a girlfriend…

Yeah, okay, there was some fun there.

Up in the front row, he saw Izumi raise her hand. Once Aizwa gave her permission to speak, she asked, “Will you be telling us any details of the exam, Sensei?” she asked.

A good question, and Isamu sat up a little straighter in his seat to listen. Regular final exams would be difficult enough—they weren’t kidding when they said U.A. was academically rigorous!—but he couldn’t imagine what the Heroics exam would be like.

And then something happened that sent a chill up Isamu’s spine. Aizawa… smiled. It wasn’t a normal person’s smile, but a rictus grin, and it looked deeply unsettling on his face. It was the smile of someone about to deliver a devastating smackdown onto a foe and take utter delight in doing it. A shrill scream split the air. It was Sero.

“Dude,” Sato said, “what was that?”

“He’s smiling!” Sero wailed. “We’re doomed! Dooooomed!”

“I’m too young to die!” Kaminari wailed.

“I’m too hot to die!” Mineta shrieked, joining in the wailing.

Even Midoriya, in the front row, seemed afraid. “Oh no, oh no, oh no, not good!”

Isamu felt his own heartbeat quicken, but he took a look to the opposite end of the row to decide what was the most appropriate reaction. Kirishima-Bakugo looked deadly serious, as opposed to her usual pissed off. And even she seemed slightly ill at ease at the prospects hidden behind that smile.

“Funny you should ask, Todoroki,” Aizawa said. “You all did an impressive job working together during the Sports Festival. I don’t know which one of you came up with it, but it was impressive tactical thinking. And since you all like working together, the teachers decided to change up some of the conditions of the Heroics exam.”

There was a mad glint in their teacher’s eyes now. “Either you all pass… or no one does.”

***

That night, Class 1-A gathered in the Common Room. As usual, Isamu sat on one of the couches with Shinso, Izumi, and Sora Iida. Midoriya and Tokoyami were at the front of their room, with a whiteboard. One of the other couches was occupied by Sero, Sato, Ojiro, and Tensei Iida. A third couch was occupied by Aoyama, Koda, Shoji, with Aoyama looking rather small compared to his two classmates. Mineta and Kaminari had pulled up chairs, while Kirishima-Bakugo stood behind the couch Isamu and the others were on, together with the class, but apart as always.

Most of them were chatting away, while Midoriya and Tokoyami, the Class Representatives (Yeah, that was definitely not a job he wanted.) tried to get everyone’s attention, unsuccessfully. “Hey!” Shinso shouted, putting just a little something into his voice to make it echo and pierce the noise. “Toshi and Asuka are trying to talk!”

That got everyone to quiet down.

“Sorry Mom and Dad,” Sero said. That got a laugh out of several people, until Kirishima-Bakugo moved to behind him and gave him a smack upside the head.

“Thank you, Shota,” Asuka said. Frog-Shadow was out again, sitting on her shoulder. “So we’ve got two things to discuss. The first is the formation of study groups for the subject area final exams. Math, Science, Literature, History, Science, and English.”

“We’re hoping to have someone who’s doing well in each class lead some study sessions or make themselves available to answer questions,” Midoriya said.

“We’re all going to die,” Ojiro wailed.

“Kimmie, it’s not that bad,” Sato tried to reassure her.

“This is just going to tank my grades, Kenta!”

“They couldn’t be any worse than mine, Kimmie,” Sero said, grinning.

She punched him in the arm. “That’s not something to be proud of, Takuma!”

“Hey, leave him alone,” Kaminari said. “He’s the only person who’s grades are worse than mine!”

“See,” Sero said, “when it comes to being the worse, I’m the best!”

Both of the Iida twins thrust their hands into the air. “We volunteer for science and math!” Sora Iida said.

Midoriya flushed a little at that. “Ah, actually, Sora, I was thinking maybe not you? Not that you aren’t smart! But, ah, you’re both a lot smarter than most of us. I don’t know if you could dumb it down?”

The hands went down. “That is… acceptable,” Sora said.

“We would not wish to hinder anyone’s progress,” Tensei agreed. “And we do have additional Support Class projects to complete.”

Reluctantly, Isamu put his hand up. “I can probably handle science,” he said. “It was mostly physics this term. I’m good at that.” He had to be, thanks to his Quirk. Knowing how much force to apply and where it was going to send him flying and how much he needed to break at a certain speed was vital.

“Excellent, thank you,” Tokoyami said. She handed her marker to Frog-Shadow, who looked at it curiously. “If you’d write that down?”

“Why me?”

“Because you asked to be more involved,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, right!” Frog-Shadow bubbled, before flying off to write his name down.

Mineta stuck a hand in the air. “I can take English,” she said. “Vocab and translations, anyway. Grammar’s still a little weird.”

“I guess that works,” Midoriya said, though he didn’t look like he believed it. “Just… be on your best behavior, okay?”

“When am I not?”

“If that’s your best behavior, Horse-Girl, I’d hate to see you worst,” Kirishima-Bakugo growled.

“Allow me to provide what Mineta cannot,” Aoyama said. He looked pretty smug about it. Of course, everyone knew that he and Mineta didn’t get along. He was probably relishing an opportunity to show her up in something. “I am reasonably trilingual, after all, n'est-ce pas?”

“And I can take History,” Izumi volunteered.

“Great!” Midoriya said. “Now we’re getting somewhere…”

***

Eventually, they came back around to the subject of the Heroics final exam. Midoriya cleared his throat and looked a little red from embarrassment. “So, this is probably my fault, guys. The whole Sports Festival thing was my plan. Sorry I got us into this mess….”

“Oh, bullshit,” Kirishima-Bakugo said, causing all eyes to fall on her and Isamu to jump. “Maybe you threw some gas on the fire, Toshi, but you have to know Aizawa was planning something like this. Him and his “logical ruses.’” She crossed her arms and nodded, as if that explained everything.

“She does have a point, Toshi,” Izumi said.

“She does?” Midoriya asked, surprised. Then he looked over at Kirishima-Bakugo, who was glaring at him. “She does!”

“You couldn’t have known,” Isamu said. “And it was a good plan. I don’t know if I’d have won if you hadn’t gotten us that far.” If he’d had to race and fight at the same time, without Mineta watching his back (making innuendos the whole way), he doubted he would have done half as well.

But it wasn’t surprising that Midoriya thought it was his fault. The guy always seemed to fall into a pattern of trying to take care of all of them, which meant he was just as likely to try and shoulder all the blame.

“None of us blame you, Toshi,” Tokoyami insisted.

“Besides,” Isamu offered, “I talked to Kana over in 1-B…”

He was interrupted by Ojiro. “Did you hear that? He’s using her first name now! Squeeee! They’re getting closer!”

Okay, he was going to pretend he didn’t hear that. He really didn’t need to end up the topic of conversation on her web show. “As I was saying, I was talking to Kana and she says Super-Ball told 1-B the same thing. Only not as scary as Aizawa was. They’re pass or fail as a group too. She said Super-Ball said it was about building up their teamwork skills.”

“My friend, Mizuno, from 1-C said much the same thing,” Koda said. “Battle-Fist also emphasized the need for better teamwork.”

“Looks like you sparked a revolution, Midoriya,” Sero said, only to be silenced by a smack from Ojiro.

“Okay,” Midoriya said, nodding, taking a couple breaths to steady himself. “So sounds like it was something they were going to do anyway. Not my fault. Good. Then if the Heroics exam is going to be a pass/fail for everyone, we’re going to need a plan.”

“How are we going to do that?” Shoji asked. “We don’t know what form the exam will take.”

Midoriya nodded again, now in his element when a plan was required. “We don’t,” he agreed. “But we do know, whatever it is, it’s going to require us to work together and it’s going to be bigger than anything we’ve had tossed at us before now. That’s the only reasonable extrapolation of the pass/fail condition.”

“So that means,” he went on, “we need to train like we’ve never trained before. Until anybody here can work with anybody else.

“Right now,” Toshi finished, “it doesn’t matter who your best friend is.” He looked over at Sero, Ojiro, and Sato. “It doesn’t matter who you don’t get along with.” This look was given to Aoyama and Mineta. “Or how mad everyone might make you.” A look went out to Kirishima-Bakugo.

“Right now, we’re all in this together. We’re Class 1-A and we need to come together.”

Shinso let out a cheer and a clap. Even Isamu had to admit, he felt pretty inspired.

“Fancy speech, Toshi,” Kirishima-Bakugo said. “But you got a real plan to back it up?”

Midoriya looked a bit deflated at that. “Not entirely,” he admitted. “But Asuka and I were going to discuss some likely scenarios. If you want to help, you’re more than welcome.”

“Damn straight, I will. I’m not letting any of you pull me down with you. We’re gonna pass even if I have to kick your asses every inch of the way.”

Midoriya’s confidence returned. Even Isamu knew this was just her way. “Well, you heard her, people. We’re going to pass!”

Somehow, this became a rallying cry.

“We’re going to pass! PLUS UTLRA!”

***

Izumi’s room always reminded Chihiro of the fact that while she was extremely well off, Izumi’s family was so rich it practically made the word useless. There was a four poster bed, an ornate oak desk, wood paneling added to all the walls… even the desk lamp looked like it cost way more than things like that should. “Don’t touch anything,” she warned Mika.

Mika shot her a dirty look. “I’m not a child, Chi.”

“You’re not always graceful, Mika. Like a bull in a china shop.”

“That’s hurtful. And possibly racist”

Chihiro facepalmed at that. “I’d like to apologize for her in advance,” she said.

“Please, do not worry about it,” Izumi said, standing as they entered. “May I offer you tea and sweets?” She indicated the tea tray and plate she had already laid out.

After she and Mika had accepted Izumi’s offering, all three took seats. “So what’s up?” Chihiro asked. Izumi asking to talk to her was one thing; they were good friends. But other than when she was around, Mika and Izumi didn’t usually have too much to do with one another.

“I need your help,”

Okay, add that to the list of things she never thought she’d hear. “I’m guessing not with homework or anything?” Chihiro said. “Because that’s definitely not me.” Izumi was way towards the front of the class anyway. So was Mika, for that matter. She belatedly realized she was the dumbest person in the room. On the other hand, she might still win the medal for most common sense.

“Not homework,” Izumi assured her. “The matter is more personal.”

“Is this about a guy? Or a girl?” Mika asked. “Because I was ninety-nine percent sure you didn’t go for that.”

Startled at her friend’s abruptness, Chihiro smacked her upside the head with one of her Cords. “Don’t be crude.”

Izumi, fortunately, took it all in stride. “You are correct that I do not “go for that.’”

Huh. Chihiro had always known that Izumi hadn’t displayed much interest in anyone, but given that her other best friend was interested in everyone, she’d figured it was just less interest, not none. How had she been that clueless?

“So what do you need?” Chihiro asked.

Izumi closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath. When she opened them, she looked as serious as Chihiro had ever seen her. “I need to find my grandfather.”

“What happened?” Mika asked. “Was there a big tax scandal? Is Grandpa Yaoyorozu hiding out from the feds in the tropics?”

“No,” Izumi said. “Not him. My grandfather on my father’s side.”

“Endeavor?” Chihiro asked. “Why?” A thought occurred to her, something that had come up during her Internship with Aunt Momo. “Wait, does this have anything to do with Plague?”

Next to her, Mika had pulled out her phone, but right now, her friend’s rudeness wasn’t her biggest concern.

Izumi’s eyes went wide. “How do you know that name?”

“Daddy called Aunt Momo. Said you’d found out about somebody with that name.”

Izumi took another moment to collect her thoughts. "What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room."

"Izumi, you're scaring me." Her friend was never this intense. Whatever it was, this all had to be deadly serious.

Izumi locked eyes with her. "Promise me, Chihiro."

Chihiro was worried now, but kept eye contact. "Okay. I promise."

"Do you remember when I was sick?"

That did very little to narrow it down. Izumi had had plenty of health issues over the years. Chihiro had visited her in the hospital countless times. "You're going to need to specify, Izumi. You've been sick a lot."

"The time I was very sick. The time that really started it all."

Oh yeah. That one. Chihiro looked at the floor. "I remember."

Izumi sighed. "During my internship, Uncle Denki let it slip that there was possibly something more... complicated behind it."

Daddy was in on whatever this was? "Complicated? How?"

"Complicated, as it was the implied that it was a villain, this “Plague,” who got me sick."

“Okay,” Chihiro said, her head spinning as she tried to make sense of it. Nervously, she tapped the ends of her Cords together. “Okay, did you talk to your parents about this?”

Izumi shook her head. "I did not. After the Nomu attacks, Mother and Father...they wanted to pull me from the school. I exhausted myself. Again."

Of course they did. She knew it was ongoing drama with Izumi and her parents.

Before she could speak, Izumi held up her hand. "I managed to talk them down. For now. Part of me suspects that at the next big incident, the next time I falter, they'll try again. That's why I didn't ask them. I couldn't. I didn't want to bring up the pain they went through again."

Izumi pointed to a plush rabbit on her bed, one which looked fairly new. “I am certain he visited me in the hospital. Things are… becoming complicated.”

Izumi inhaled deeply before continuing. "I've been thinking a lot since then. I've been remembering things. Things I thought I forgot. I want to find out what happened to me, but I can't go to my parents. I can't go to anyone, not your father, not Uncle Deku, no one, because they'll go to my parents. I know I can count on you to keep my secrets, both of you.

“I cannot burden Katsumi with this. She has enough to carry right now without carrying me as well. You don't have to help if you don't want to get in trouble-"

“Found him,” Mika said, looking up from her phone.

“…How the hell did you do that?” Chihiro asked. It could not possibly have been that easy.

“Daddy never changes his login ID or password for anything,” Mika said. “I just used one of the databases available to Heroes to look up an address. It’s not even that far.”

Chihiro just stared. “Every time I think I’ve got you figured out…”

Izumi looked equally startled, worried, and pleased. “Thank you, Mineta,” she said, quietly.

Mika shrugged. “Hey, what’re friends for?”

***

Normally, Toshi did his morning jog with Katsumi, sometimes joined by Kana Tetsutetsu. He’d also occasionally convinced Haimawari to join them, though that was fairly rare. But this morning, he was alone. Katsumi had begged off for wanting to focus on weight training instead and Tetsutetsu was apparently busy with some emergency in her dorm, according to her text.

Which was fine. He could be alone with his thoughts. Like the thought that he didn’t have idea one what they were getting into with the exam and it would definitely be his fault if they all failed, bringing shame upon the Midoriya name and leading to Sora dumping him and Katsumi killing him.

Well. That had escalated quickly.

“Mi… Midoriya!” The sound of his name drew him out of his panic. It came with labored breathing and he came to a stop, turning and seeing Shiro Monoma, dressed in workout clothes, running up behind him. Monoma’s not out of shape, but it’s a wiry build, more suited to agility and gymnastics, than Toshi’s more muscular one.

“What’s up, Monoma?” he asked. Monoma hadn’t done anything antagonistic yet, which was a good sign. In fact, Toshi couldn’t remember seeing him at all during the past week, or even hearing him, which was even stranger. He didn’t have the same extreme dislike for the other boy that Katsumi did, but he would hardly say they were on friendly terms, even though they were neighbors. Honestly, he mostly did his best to ignore Monoma’s jabs at the class.

“I need to talk to you about the exam,” Monoma said.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do any more than you do,” Toshi told him. “I can make a few educated guesses though, based on our Heroics classes and all though. Happy to talk, if you want.”

He stole a glance at his watch. “Can we run though? I want to get this in before classes and my heart rate’s already dropping.”

Monoma looked rather pained by the prospect, but nodded. “Okay.”

Since he wasn’t completely unfeeling, Toshi did tone his run down to something slightly less than his usual, letting Monoma keep up. “So like I said, I don’t really know, but I can guess. Got to be something large scale, if they’re going to be able to score all of us on it. And that means something with a lot of different moving parts. Probably Villains to fight, people to rescue, maybe something to find like a bomb…”

Monoma was, to his credit, keeping up with Toshi, though he looked like he was pushing himself a bit to do it. “That’s… good thinking…,” he said, between breaths. “But not what I wanted to ask about.”

“Then what?” Toshi asked.

“I need to know,” Monoma said, with such seriousness that it took Toshi aback for a moment. “how you got… everyone to work… together.”

Toshi took pity on him and slowed down a little more. “Everyone. Teamwork from the get go. How do you get them to follow you like that? How did you get all those different personalities to work together like that?”

Shiro’s voice turned bitter. “I try and I try to make everyone better. I want them to succeed, I really do. But no one listens to me. I can’t… Hardly any of my class made it through the final round. And I got lucky as it was. I’m worried about them and the final exam.”

“Them?” Toshi asked. His phrasing there was odd. “Them,” he’d said. Not “us”.

Monoma frowned. “I had hoped to keep this a secret. Almost no one knows about this. But I’m leaving once this term is over. I’m not cut out for this. But with how the exam is going to work… I can’t cost them their futures just because mine’s going to be something else.”

Toshi couldn’t keep the surprise off his face, but fortunately, Monoma wasn’t looking at him to see it. “You’re…” he began. He actually came to a stop. Running was a good way to lose himself, and he needed all his wits now.

“I am,” Monoma said, finishing the thought for him. He bent half off, breathing hard. He righted himself after a few breaths. “Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

Now Toshi frowned, but he nodded. “Not my place to do that. But I think it’s a mistake.”

Monoma shook his head. “It’s not. But what about my class? And what about the exam?” There was a moment of silence, and then, “Please. I can’t let failure be my entire legacy here.”

If he lived long enough to become the new Number One Hero, Toshi never would have thought he’d have heard Monoma talk like this. Usually, the blond boy was full of bravado and confidence, always trying to prove his class’s superiority over 1-A. And to be fair, 1-A contained the children of a large number of highly ranked Heroes, something that few of Class 1-B could claim. None of their parents were low ranked, but there was a certain degree of disparity there. And a much larger portion of Class 1-B had no Hero parents at all.

“Okay, the first thing you have to remember,” Toshi told him, “is that we’re almost all childhood friends. Some of us more than others and in some different combinations… but we grew up together. Our parents are close and they passed that onto us. Trust’s easy that way.”

Given that his parent’s Class A had gone through hell together over three years in a way that their contemporary Class B hadn’t, it was easy to see where stronger bonds might have been forged.

Monoma nodded. “My father’s class drifted more during the years. Kana is the only one I was anything close to growing up, along with Mika and Akaya.”

“The other big thing is… Look. My dad’s the Number One Hero. I wanted to do the best I could, but the Sports Festival was never about winning for me.” And sure, he’d managed to share third place with Kocho. He was proud of his accomplishments, and he’d gone in intending to give it his all, but it hadn’t been his main goal. Toshi would have been just as happy not to have placed, if it meant other of his friends did.

“So I went in it from the start doing it for them. And they knew that, so they went along with it. It wasn’t even about beating your class or anybody else in the race; I just wanted to make sure everybody had the best chance they could. Somebody like Ojiro or Sato would have had a real hard time doing that in the obstacle course. So I asked everybody to take a step back now so that they could all have something later.”

It hadn’t quite been as easy as he made it sound. Convincing Aoyama had been one of the most difficult parts, but the promise of future glories had eventually been enough.

Monoma looked as though he’d been punched. “…Shit.” His expression devolved further, becoming truly miserable. “During the Sports Festival, I was so concerned with… things turning out a certain way, I pushed for flare and making a splash. And not all of them even made it past the Obstacle Course. Maybe I really do drag them down. Maybe she was right.”

Toshi frowned. This was turning pretty dark on him. And he wasn’t sure who “she” was. “Look,” he said. “You want what’s best for them. That’s admirable. But if you go so hard on trying to show somebody up, then that’s all you’re going to see. That’s what Endeavor did for a long time, and you know what happened to him.”

Monoma sighed, then nodded. “Then I am more certain than ever I’ve made the right choice. But at least I know what I can do for them to help everyone else pass. Thank you, Midoriya.”

As Monoma left, Toshi wasn’t certain at all that he’d said the right things there. It certainly didn’t seem like a victory.

***

In the teacher’s lounge, Aizawa looked over the finalized draft of the Heroics practical exam. Talking All Might into it had been difficult, but worth it. He’d staked his job and reputation on it, but he believed the results would be worth it.

His students, all the students, were talented. But even with recent events, what they needed was a stark dose of reality to push them further along their paths.

He looked at the profiles spread out in front of him. The people he’d found would be just the ones to do it.

#my hero academia #their hero academia #izumi todoroki #mika (tha)#toshi midoriya #shiro monoma #chihiro kaminari #fan fic #fan fiction #isamu haimawari #my writing

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dreadwhoop · 4 years ago

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Reviewing the All Elite Wrestling personnel (Part 1)

Part 0 - https://dreadwhoop.tumblr.com/post/631091725056835584/reviewing-the-all-elite-wrestling-personnel-part

Wrestlers to Push

I know - but aren't they already the tag champions how could they get any better? FTR are so good I made an entire catagory which effectively dismantles the tag division because it's clear nobody can, should, or will be capable, of beating these two anytime between now and in 2021. Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood are essentially one pick because these two will never go singles and should never be booked as such. Let their reign be long and AEW as a whole will prosper. Also try to book them as heels but not to resort to heel tactics to win every match because sometimes being dominant makes the belts worth far more.

One of the most impactful and natural talkers in his short time in AEW - everything he says has bite. He's also unique. He's going to fight dirty but he's also hard to dislike - there are just so many layers of complexity to the Mad King and the best is how people will immediately disregard him until he does something and then can't look away - this is the guy who will get new fans into the product. He's a throwback, a trendsetter, and an easy prospect all in one.

The reliable hand of AEW by far - the guy's been a mainstay throughout the year and, critically, not ex-WWE. Deserves his due. This recommendation could of gone to so many people throughout the year - Jungle Boy, Sammy Guevara, Penta El Zero M, Rey Fenix, but for one reason or another they all fail the test because of being injury-prone or getting into issues or just not ready. Stop his 50-50 booking and give him vital wins over big names.

Again I know - this guy is mega-pushed? I want to clarify something. Never de-push MJF - he's a prodigy who is already great and is going to get greater as he's cultivated. The guy doesn't need to be a star because he makes stars out of everyone he's been interacting with and yet even when elevated MJF continues to surpass them without much effort. Put him with FTR and you're going to have a reason to get rid of every other faction fast.

One of the unluckiest/luckiest men in AEW - his career has remained dorment post-Feb but pre-Feb was ace. Pac will tear up NJPW if given the chance to migrate over upon finding out his place in AEW is not as a top guy - you're easily looking at a guy who can be everything in AEW like a Prince Devitt or a AJ Styles or a Will Ospreay. When he returns you push this guy to the moon - I hope his look is even more goblinesque and PAC becomes the surprise 4th member to MJF and FTR.

Sometimes you need a good storyteller and you need people who are as good talking as they are wrestling. A complete package and a rising star who is also relatively new in AEW. Highly adaptable and versatile, AEW could pretty much give him anything and he'll turn it into gold - the Midas mouth of Ricky Starks is another way to get people into the company fast. I don't see him winning titles but I see him beating every non-title individual between now and next September. I feel like Taz should let Starks promote himself and be entertaining on his terms instead of over-promoting him. Pace his push and he'll gradually gain greatness.

Speaking of great talkers look who improved the most since the beginning of AEW. Only soured by her feud with Big Swole, Britt Baker is the embodiment of taking comedy heel to serious heights - her matches with Hikaru Shida are indications of just why she is tough and enduring as much as her behaviour is endearing. I could include her in the faction with FTR, MJF, and PAC as DMD. She just needs to improve a little and add a few moves in and she's AEW Women's World Champion bound.

Untapped potential - incredibly cool and has a story waiting to be told based on her association with the resident losers of AEW - make her somehow win by their (accidental) interference. Also please showcase her cosplay and more awoken side of being a bigger nerd than the two she manages - Leva is someone who heals all the wrongs of watching TV and her presence is always welcome. Everyone loves Leva Bates. You love her. I love her. What a woman. Heroic. Shapeshifter.

By contrast, her untapped potential is less about the entertaining side of pro wrestling and more the sports athleticism of pro wrestling - Serena Deeb is the most deserving woman in wrestling right now - of all the new signings or fresh faces there's someone who is genuinely eye-catching without having to be all about sex appeal or the gimmick. In other words I find her to be a future champion in the making and will make everyone she wrestles better off in defeat.

Ah see not everyone is an active wrestler to recommend! Taz is a fantastic personality, commentator, manager, and just about the jack-of-all-trades man you need him to be to support a product as big as AEW. I couldn't believe how well he gels with Tony Schiavone, JR, Excalibur, Jericho, Ricky Starks, Brian Cage, Darby Allin, Jake Roberts, Eddie Kingston, etc...it goes on and on and on. A hard working man - he's adapted and evolved from an underdog to a true legend.

#AEW #all elite wrestling #Personal Opinion

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shatteredglassanimated · 5 years ago

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Shattered Glass Animated Season 1 Episode 3 - Transform and Rise Up!, Part 3

The Decepticons get to know their new allies a little more, but introductions are cut short when they discover they were not the only Cybertronians who crashed on earth and Overlord Sumdac is far from done with the Resistance...

“Failures! The whole lot of them!” Sumdac snarled, hauling his wrench at the wall next to the unfazed secretary-bot who had just reported to him. That was perhaps the only downside to having a non-human assistant, Sumdac thought. Machines might be more reliable, but they also lacked the satisfying utter fear in their eyes. They would not flinch, no matter how much his wrath flared up and that irked him. Everything he owned ought to fear him. Oh well. At least the robots were obedient. Not like that resistance-scum that had yet again managed to elude him. How they’d managed to somehow completely destroy that techno-organic abomination that some of his finest scientists had failed to contain or control was completely beside him. He’d been so sure that had them this time! So sure he had retreated to his laboratory for two days and had ordered the secretary-bot not to disturb him until his return. Clearly they’d had help. Perhaps even from the inside? Now here was something to consider. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The high-tech weaponry, advanced enough to rival his toughest police-drones. The way his camera-bots seemed to mysteriously malfunction whenever a fight ensued between the resistance fighters and his own forces. Sumdac stroked his chin in thought. Yes, it seemed like the only logical conclusion. But who? It had to be someone high up, a human, obviously, intelligent enough to counter-engineer Sumdac-drones. Perhaps-

The comm on his desk sprang to life, interrupting his thought process. Sumdac growled and brought his fist down on the answer button, activating the small monitor. Seeing just who it was that had called him did nothing to improve his mood. A sturdy blond man with a much too eager look in his eye and a shiny badge pinned to his shirt. “What is it, Captain Fanzone?” Sumdac asked, in a tone that would have made a snow storm feel warm. “I am quite busy.” “Good morning, Overlord Sumdac,” Fanzone chattered giddily, either ignoring or not noticing his employers foul mood. “Me and the crew did a bit of clean-up in downtown, y’know, bringing back the drones that got shattered before the scavengers got to ‘em. We found a camera-bot and retrieved it’s footage - which is crispy clean, by the way. You couldn’t find a human making pictures like that in that situation! This is why I love machines-” “What did the footage show?” Sumdac interrupted, before Fanzone was able to descend into one of his unbearable gushing fits. He’d appreciated the man’s complete and utter loyalty and devotion to all things technological back when he’d hired him as his chief of police, but after soon thirty years of listening to his endless drivel, Sumdac wondered if perhaps he should have gone through with making his personal police force a hundred percent non-organic. At least robots had an off-switch. “Right, right! Well, I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t just seen it myself, to be honest I still don’t believe it. It’s amazin’, it’s groundbreakin’, it’s-” “Just send me the footage,” Sumdac groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. He felt a headache coming up. “Right away, sir!” A file popped up on his computer and Sumdac send the data over to the flat-screen facing his desk. As much as Fanzone liked to overstate, he had been right about the quality of the material the camera-bot had carried. The picture was sharp as could be. And what it showed raised Sumdac’s interest. Four gigantic robots, apparently able to transform into flying vehicles at will battled with his monster, each displaying a different set of skill and powers. The footage cut off when one of the beasts’ tentacles grabbed and crushed it in mid-air, but Sumdac had seen enough. He’d been right after all. The resistance had had help. Help from above. No wonder they had disabled his cameras. If he’d discovered their little secret earlier...although ‘little’ was perhaps not an apt descriptor for it. A sense of nostalgia overcame him as he thought back to that fateful evening fifty years ago. At that time he’d thought of his find as a once in a life-time occurrence. He wasn’t particularly angry to be proven wrong, though. Without knowing it, the resistance had possibly handed him just what he needed to sniff them out. He turned to switch on his computer, went through some files until he found what he was searching for, then contacted Fanzone again. “I am about to send you a probe of an energy signature. Do not attempt to find out what it belongs to, it is extremely rare and way over your head. You will feed it to a regiment of your police drones. And then you will dispatch them and let them search.” “So we’ve got a lead, sir?” Fanzone asked. Sumdac smirked. “Indeed we have. Tell the drones they have orders to take any robots they find and bring them to me, undamaged. And if they find any humans accompanying them, they are authorized to use lethal force.” ______________________________________________________________ A lean, great figure, raised it’s hand away from it’s head and left it’s hiding place outside the Terrordrome’s main tower to drop down onto and automated aircraft and onto the street. Transforming into a standard motorcycle and racing towards Downtown. ______________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, in an old abandoned factory on the outskirts of Detroit, the resistance in question were up to face another day. It had been a rather quiet two days since the incident and they’d gotten to know each other a little better. Currently, Amicable Archer had settled himself on Blitzwing’s shoulder and was rather enthusiastically explaining all the things that placed a bow above a regular plasma gun. The Decepticon listened and nodded politely after every second word or so, although he couldn’t for the spark of him understand what this conversation was actually about. But it was still fascinating to listen to a being that was so small and so vulnerable compared to him and his fellow ‘Cons, yet still threw himself into battle against opponents so much bigger and more lethal than himself to protect other humans. Lugnut and Cyrus were sitting side by side on an old assembly line, watching their respective partner and wishing desperately for them to break off and return. Neither of them knew how to talk to each other. Cyrus had mostly gotten over his discomfort after he realized the Decepticons were in no way associated with Sumdac, but they still unnerved him to a certain degree. So much so that he had forbidden Penny to interact with them until further notice. And although she had sulked quite a bit about his decision, she’d ultimately agreed to stay hidden in her room in their side of the factory, much to his relief. Lugnut felt much the same about the humans. He was by no means an organo-phobe, it was more that he’d never had the faintest idea what he was supposed to do with them. Most of the organic life he’d encountered in his life-cycle hadn’t really been intelligent enough to communicate in a way that he could understand and with how squishy and fragile organics were he’d always felt a mere touch with his giant metal claws was enough to make them wither away and/or break. True, this Cyrus looked a lot more put-together than his smaller companion, but still just as soft. The uncomfortable silence between them stretched out with every second, only highlighted by Archers’ and Blitzwing’s light-hearted chattering. Eventually, Cyrus gave an awkward cough and turned to Lugnut. “Umm, so. This ‘Cybertron’...is it...far away from earth?” “Very. Though without a proper star map, I will be unable to tell you the exact distance.” “Ah. And, err...where did you guys say you came from again?” “New Kaon. It is the main capital of our colonies, a safe haven from the Autobots and their tyranny.” “Huh. Kinda like our factory’s a hideout from Overlord Sour-puss out there?” “...You could say that. Although New Kaon is much superior in size.” “I mean, if it’s supposed to host a whole bunch of you guys, I’d imagine it’d have to be.” Cyrus lifted one corner of his mouth in an uneasy smirk. Lugnut made a noise that could have been a laugh, but Cyrus couldn’t be entirely sure. The behemoths’ face wasn’t exactly what you’d call expressive. He came to the conclusion that, if Lugnut hadn’t been at least a bit amused by his comment, he’d have moved away by now and decided to leave it at that. The two of them continued to sit together in silence, though there was an air of comfort to it now. At the same time, Megatron and Blackarachnia were standing in the repair room. The techno-organic was checking the monitors showing Starscream’s vital signs. He was still in stand-by, his condition having neither worsened nor bettered since her last check-up a few megacycles ago. Blackarachnia wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She supposed she should be glad he wasn’t going off-line at least. Megatrons was silent beside her, his optics firmly set on his second-in-command. She didn’t have the spark to tell him to leave and to be quite honest, there was no real need for her to do so either. It wasn’t like he was peeking over her shoulder non-stop. When Megatron hadn’t spend time getting to know their new human friends better, he had been in their makeshift med-bay, not saying or doing anything, just waiting for Starscream to wake up. Every time she came in, he would just mutely make room for her. The only time he had asked if she could tell him anything about his condition had been when he had entered the med-bay the morning after she had operated on Starscream to get his arm fixed on her behest. “We’ll just have to wait,” Blackarachnia had told him, trying hard to avoid his gaze by stubbornly busying herself with patching up his mangled servo. And that had been that. She finished her check on the monitor showing Starscream’s sparkbeats and ex-vented a little, turning to face Megatron. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but some time we have to discuss our next move. Particularly how we’re going to contact New Kaon.” She looked him right in the optics. “If what the humans say is to be believed, our crash-landing happened 50 of their years ago. And if my translations are correct, that means-” “We have been missing for 50 stellar cycles,” Megatron finished her sentence. There was fatigue in his voice. “I know. And you are right. Our main objective as of now should be to get in contact with our people. They need to know we haven’t perished. And that our expedition has been successful.” He ex-vented heavily, throwing one last look at Starscream and then turning towards the door. “Perhaps the humans can be of help. Their technology may not be as advanced as ours, but it has proven useful once already. If not communication, maybe we will at least be able to send a message.” Blackarachnia nodded, following him outside. When they entered the main hall they found themselves confronted by a very eager Blitzwing and not much less eager Amicable Archer standing on his shoulder. “Amicable Archer has just offered me to accompany him on one of his ‘patrols,” Blitzwing said, a wide smile on his face plate. “I feel that would help me learn more about the locals and their situation. With your permission, I would take him up on that offer.” Amicable Archer nodded. “Indeed! Methinks the metal knight would make a fine companion against Sumdac’s forces of evil.” Blackarachnia threw a cautious glance at Megatron. She knew he was usually more than capable of handling sudden requests, but it was safe to say the last few solar-cycles hadn’t really gone well for him. To her surprise, Megatron gave Blitzwing a soft smile with no trace of irritability or fatigue in it. “A good idea, Blitzwing. But do make sure to stay in contact. If this Sumdac is really as dangerous as our new friends say, he might well have something unpleasant waiting for us.” Blitzwing beamed. “I will! We will be back in about 2 megacycles.” “I doeth not know what that meaneth, but our watchful march should take no less than two hours,” Archer chimed in, putting his hands on his hips and striking a confident pose. __________________________________________________________ The two took off, Blitzwing transforming into jet mode in order to be less conspicuous. As Cyrus had told them in a rather bitter tone, drones flying their routes above Downtown wasn’t really anything special to the citizens and since everyone would be too busy keeping their head down and avoiding directly looking at whatever Sumdac aircraft was currently hovering over them, no one would notice that the jet was, in fact carrying someone. During their flight, Archer would occasionally point out places in which the resistance had fought (and won, as he never got tired to proudly proclaim) particularly tough battles against Sumdac’s forces. Ironically, the overlord’s stubborn refusal to use humans as well as robots in his newly instated police had made things a lot easier on the rebellion when it came to armed conflict. Since they weren’t in any danger of seriously harming some poor innocent sap who was forced to attack them they didn’t have to hold back and could use their bestowed weapons and abilities to their hearts’ content. As long as they made sure the civilians were evacuated first, of course. “After all, ‘tis our noble creed to protect the good people of Downtown from harm, not causeth them harm,” Archer said, crossing his arms and smiling proudly. “Funny,” Blitzwing mused. “We Decepticons have a similar ‘creed’, as you would say. We are programmed to respect and protect life at all costs. Before we came here, that usually meant the AllSpark. But you humans are life as well, which means we must protect you, too.” He paused for a second, before continuing: “Your little planet is so strange to me. You humans are so much smaller and so much more fragile than us and life has dealt you a heavy hand. Yet you just keep going and fighting the force that oppresses you, risking your life every time. It’s admirable, really.” “Oh, thou dost flatter, sir knight,” Archer chuckled, scratching the back of his head. “We doeth our best, but alas ‘tis not nearly enough to fully tame Overlord Sumdac’s forces, sadly. There art times I doth wish-” Archer suddenly interrupted himself and leaned forward to get a better look at the city passing below them. “Do I seeth smoke there?” A grey column rose in the distance before them, accompanied by a warm orange glow. “You humans have rather curious traditions,” Blitzwing said, chuckling nervously. Archer’s eyes widened. “Those arenst any traditions, friend! I knoweth these old factories, they have been shut down long ago when the tyrant Sumdac retreated the assembly of his armies into his fortress. Some of it’s old machinery musteth malfunctioned!” “But if I understand correctly, those buildings have long since been vacated. Why is it an issue if they get destroyed?” Blitzwing asked confused. “The fire couldeth take over to the city! Sumdac cares naught for the people who live here, so he will not send pawns to extinguish it in time if ever. We needeth to act!” Archer said, already fumbling for a particular arrow in his quiver. “Understood. Hang on tight, Archer.” Blitzwing turned towards the burning factory and put his thrusters to full power. Archer yelped as the sudden increase in velocity pressed him back into his seat. The two of them arrived and touched down a few meters away from the factory, Blitzwing transforming back into robot-mode as soon as the surrounding buildings hid them from sight. “Thankfully, our noble benefactor hast prepared me for this kind of calamity,” Archer beamed. He raised his hand to pull down a gas mask from a hidden pocket in his hat. The two took off into the fire. Blitzwing lowered his cannons, shooting ice beams into the highest fire walls. Ice crystals solidified in the spots the beams hit, suffocating the fire nigh instantly. Archer aimed arrows at the flames at his partner’s blind side, the tips of the projectiles releasing fire extinguishing foam upon exploding. In less than half an hour the fire was mostly under control, though Archer insisted on checking for any smaller flames they might have missed. They went deeper into the empty building, Archer lighting the way with yet another arrow. The ash and grime on the walls seemed to swallow the light as it hit them. The slowly melting ice created a steady background dripping. After the crackling and roaring of flames only a short time prior this place now seemed entirely too quiet. Archer had never liked places that were too quiet. It reminded him of... Cutting the memory off before it could fully form, Archer cleared his throat and stopped to turn to Blitzwing. “Well, it seemeth our work here is done. Shall we-” A quiet noise coming from the darkness interrupted him. It was a quiet, high-pitched sob, echoing from the high walls in an eerie manner. Blitzwing frowned. “It sounds like someone’s vocalizer is malfunctioning. Quite badly, in fact.” “We calleth that ‘crying’,” Archer said, slowly following the noise. “‘Tis a sign of distress and sadness among us humans. Though our youngest ones also often useth it to obtain things they doeth desire.” Not sure he entirely understood, Blitzwing followed the human. The light of the glowing arrow came upon a small human boy, curled up in the middle of the factory’s hall. His head was buried in his hands and he didn’t seem to have noticed them yet. Archer smiled warmly and approached the boy, extending a hand towards him. “Now what is a young one like you doing in a dismal place such as this? Didst thou get lost?” Blitzwing narrowed his optics. Something seemed off about this small organic. Archer had told him that humans were very susceptible to smoke and heat, to the point where it was impossible for them to function in an environment that had both aplenty. How had this little one be able to survive in here this long? And then the boy raised his head. It was only for a split-second and an organic eye wouldn’t have been able to catch it, but for a Cybertronians advanced optic it was visible enough. A flicker, like on a faulty monitor. Blitzwing’s optics widened. He jumped forward, servos closing around Archer’s body, just before an ear-shattering explosion blasted out the factory’s windows. ___________________________________________________________ Cyrus hated waiting. Especially if he had to wait alone. Sitting down and smelling the roses had never been his thing, not since Overlord Sumdac’s machines had overrun the city. Not that there had been many roses to smell after that. Aaron and Blitzwing had been gone for far too long for his liking now. And judging by the uneasy way Lugnut shifted beside him, he wasn’t the only one to think so. “Cyrus, was it not?” The voice startled him out of his thoughts and he jumped, looking upwards to meet Megatron’s worried blue....eyes? Lights? He wasn’t sure what they called it. It took him awhile to process what had been said to him. “Er, yeah. Yeah, that’s me.” “I do not mean to offend, but your human companion and Blitzwing have been gone for quite a while now. This patrol of yours, how long does it usually take?” Cyrus frowned. “Not that long actually. And seeing as they were doing it from a bird’s eye view it should’ve taken even less time today.” “I see,” Megatron answered. He seemed about as unsettled by this answer as Cyrus was. “Hey, um...you said you can stay in contact with each other, right?” Cyrus asked. Megatron nodded. “Maybe you should, y’know...contact him? Blitzwing? Just to be safe, I mean.” A penetrative beeping noise sprang up from Cyrus’ belt, making hism jump for the second time. “Sounds like somebody needs a check-up,” Blackarachnia pointed out. Cyrus looked down at the source of the noise, a small round device with a sleek white surface, his frown deepening. “No, that’s a distress signal. Archer, me and Pe- everyone else in the resistance has one of these communicators. We use it to call out to each other when we’re in a pinch.” He took the deice of the belt and tapped a button. “You okay, Archer? We’re all kind of starting to worry over here.” “As you should,” a metallic sounding voice responded. Megatron, Blackarachnia and Lugnut tensed up at hearing it, Blackarachnia even hissing slightly. “I must say, I never would have thought organics capable of constructing such a neat little communication device. It is remarkable primitive, but for your kind even that can be considered impressive.” Cyrus’ hand tightened around the communicator. “Who are you? What did you do with Archer?” “Nothing. Yet. And as for who I am...I am sure your new ‘allies’ can tell you more about that. We have met once before, after all,” the voice responded. Cyrus felt like he could hear the smug grin of its’ owner. He grit his teeth. “What do you want?” “First of all, I want to make sure that this is heard by the rest of the Decepticon-scum. Are they present?” “We are all here, Autobot,” Megatron answered, spitting out the word ‘Autobot’ like an insult. “I assume Blitzwing is with you as well?” “And you’d assume right,” the voice chuckled. “He is a bit worse for wear, but he’ll live...probably. Since you already deduced who I am, I will skip the introductions and get straight to the point. I know you are in possession of the AllSpark. And if you want your comrade and your precious little organic pet back, you will give it to me.” Megatron glared at the communicator in Cyrus’ hand. “We will need time to think about your offer. Give us a megacycle to debate.” “Stalling won’t help you, Decepticon-scum,” the voice spat. “But if you insist on wasting your friends’ time, you shall have your megacycle. And when it has passed, I expect to see you at these coordinates, with the AllSpark.” A light in the device flickered and it went out. Cyrus pressed another button on the surface, hurrying over to a control panel attached to a monitor and connecting the communicator with it. The screen flared to life, showing a map of Downtown with a small red dot flaring up to mark a specific spot. “I know that place,” Cyrus said, leaning forward. “It’s one of the abandoned factories on the other side of the city.” He turned back to the Decepticons, face hard. “If we hurry, we can make it there in under half an hour. We have to leave, now.” “Cyrus, it is not that simple,” Megatron said calmly. “We cannot rush into this without thinking. If this Autobot gets the AllSpark into his servos, this entire planet will be at risk.” “You’re not seriously suggesting that we’re refusing, are you?” Blackarachnia asked incredulously. “He’s got Blitzwing! And who knows what he’ll do to that human!” “Yeah, what she said!” Cyrus spoke up. “I’m not leaving Aaron with some crazy alien murder machine! I thought you Decepticons were the good guys and now you’re actually considering letting two hostages get who knows what done to them?” “You are both far too emotional.” Lugnut had stood up from his place on the assembly line and was now glaring at both Cyrus and Blackarachnia. “For once, I agree with Megatron. Handing the AllSpark over to the Autobot Empire is certain death. Two lives are not worth the prize of billions.” “So that’s it?” Blackarachnia asked, narrowing her optics at him. “We just let Blitzwing and the human die?” “We all must make sacrifices for the greater good,” Lugnut said gravely. “Do you think this is easy for me, Blackarachnia?” “I don’t know,” she hissed. “Isn’t it?” “Enough, both of you,” Megatron cut her off. “This is no time to argue amongst ourselves. Lugnut, I agree that the AllSpark must be kept from the wrong servos at all costs.” The big Decepticon straightened himself and opened his mouth to say something, but Megatron wasn’t finished. “However, I also share Blackarachnia’s feelings on the matter. We have already almost lost a fellow Decepticon yesterday. I do not wish to experience that again. Neither should an innocent human become victim of our wars.” Megatron turned and walked over to Cyrus, kneeling down in front of him. “Cyrus. You have stated that you know the place the Autobot has chosen for the exchange. Do you know it well enough to show one of us the ways around and inside it?” Cyrus nodded. “Yes, I think so. Aaron and I used to scout out these buildings regularly, in case we needed another hideout.” “Good,” Megatron said. “Then I would ask you to help us to prepare a nasty little surprise for our Autobot-friend. Though I must warn you, it won’t be without risk.” “Eh, what else is new?” Cyrus answered, giving a grin. “If it’ll knock that kidnapper down a few pegs, count me in!” Megatron smirked. “Oh, I should hope that it does. Here is what I need you to do...” ______________________________________________________________ Hothead rebooted to a a voice frantically calling Blitzwing’s name. In his processor he identified it as belonging to the organic who called himself Amicable Archer and whom Blitzwing had, apparently successfully, tried to protect from a booby trapped hologram. He groaned in annoyance, forcing the rest of his systems to reboot so he could access the situation and more importantly get Archer to stop yelling at him. His optical sensors reactivated slowly and he lifted his helm to see Archer standing on his chest, only a few centimeters away from his face-plate. Hothead quickly scanned the human’s body for any damage. Aside from a few tears in his costume and some grime on his face, Archer seemed unharmed. “Will you stop yelling at me, human?” Hothead snapped, still only half rebooted vocalizer making his voice sound hoarse. “My audials are functioning quite nicely.” Archer blinked in confusion and took a few steps backwards, but then shook his head as if recovering from some kind of stupor. “My apologies, friend. Thou seemeth to be rendered unconscious from that explosion and with the way the ghastly shadow knight treated thou, I wasnth sure you wouldeth make it.” He paused for a moment, as if uncertain about what to say next. “I couldeth not stop noticing that thine visage seemeth to have changed, along with thine manner of speech and demeanor. Artst thou truly not hurt?” Hothead ex-vented slightly. “No, I am alright. It is a long story. I am not the Blitzwing you know.. Let us leave it at that for now.” Suddenly remembering Archer’s earlier words, he frowned. “Who did you mean by ghastly knight? What-?” He tried to sit up and found that he couldn’t move his arms. A hastly look downward, revealed that someone had wound a thick metal cable tightly around his upper body, pinning his arms to his sides and keeping his cannons from lowering. Archer looked at him miserably. “I tried to stop him, but he tooketh my weapons and threatened to hurt thee.” “Not that he would have been able to stop me even with them. But I wanted to stay on the safe side. You never know with organics.” Hothead and Archer turned their head towards the source of the voice. A slender-looking Autobot with white armor-plating and a red triangular visor covering both of his optics was leaning on against the opposite wall with his servos crossed, giving a smug smirk. “I see you’ve finally decided to join us.” Hothead growled, trying to break his bonds. “You! I remember you, you cowardish, puny Autobot! Release me at once!” The Autobot chuckled. “So you can slag me like you almost did last time? I think not. And I’d advise you to behave.” He lowered his helm, so his line of sight now aligned with Archer. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to the organic, would you?” “Touch him and you’ll burn, Autobot!” Hothead snarled. “Always so barbaric. You Decepticon-scum really are just mindless war machines,” the Autobot ex-vented in mock disappointment. “The only thing your kind is good for is destruction. Yet here you are, pretending like you’re actually capable of protecting anything.” Hothead flinched and grit his denta, lowering his helm. “Thou art wrong!” Both Hothead and the Autobot turned to look at Archer in surprise, who had lifted himself up to his full height and was now glaring at the Autobot. “Mine companion mayeth possess fearsome battle prowess, but that doeseth not make him less of a knight! He didst protect me from thy nefarious trap after all, didst he not?” For a moment, neither of the two Cybertronians said a word. Then the Autobot laughed. “You’ve certainly trained him well! If he was a little bigger he’d probably be easier to take seriously too, don’t you think?” Before Hothead could answer, the Autobot raised his helm as if listening for something, then put a digit to his auidal and smirked. “I’d love to stay and chat, but it looks like your friends just arrived with my AllSpark.” He walked out of the room, pressing a button on the other side of the entrance. A metal door slowly closed on cue. The Autobot grinned at them before it closed fully. “Don’t go anywhere.” _______________________________________________________ Megatron and Blackarachnia made their way into the burnt out building, carrying the AllSpark between them. Blackarachnia grimaced at the heavy smoke-smell in the air. It wasn’t bad enough to have a negative impact on her organic half but still strong enough to make her a bit uncomfortable. “Are you alright, Blackarachnia?” Megatron asked, giving her a worried look. “I can carry the AllSpark by myself, if you feel unwell.” Blackarachnia shook her helm. “I’m good. We should focus on getting Blitzwing and Archer back.” They stopped in the center of the hall, carefully lowering their cargo to the ground. “I see you’ve used your time well.” Blackarachnia and Megatron whirled around, taking defensive positions. Behind them stood an Autobot, servos crossed and an extremely smug expression on his face plate. Blackarachnia’s optics widened. “I know him! He was one of the ‘bots who boarded the ‘Nemesis’.” The Autobot laughed. “So you remember me? I’m flattered.” “I remember you getting your sorry soulanoid kicked by us,” Blackarachnia sneered. “Figures a spineless wimp like you would result to taking hostages.” The Autobot gave a derisive huff and put a hand on his hip, looking both of them over. “The name is Prowl. Though after this is over I won’t stay here long enough to get more acquainted.” His visor set itself on the AllSpark. “Leave it here and retreat.” “I think not, Autobot,” Megatron said coolly, stepping forward and drawing his sword. “Let us see the hostages first.” Prowl gave him an irritated look. “You will see them once I have the AllSpark. Now step away.” Instead of answering, Megatron gestured Blackarachnia to step aside, raising his sword over the AllSpark. “I do not like to repeat myself, Prowl. Release the hostages or I will destroy the AllSpark.” Prowl stiffened. “You wouldn’t dare.” “Wouldn’t I?” Megatron responded coldly, returning Prowl’s glare with steady optics. The Autobot hesitated, standing in place. Time seemed to stand still as the three Cybertronians stood off against each other, trying to figure out the enemy’s next move. _________________________________________________________ “Are you certain this is the right place?” Lugnut asked, optic trained on the wall in front of him. Cyrus was currently feeling said wall with both of his hands, teeth grit in frustration. “Give me a break, I haven’t been here in weeks! Ah, there we go.” He peeled off a part of the wall, revealing a hidden panel and pressed one of the buttons. Cyrus stepped back and watched nervously as the seemingly solid steel folded in on itself to form an entrance about Lugnut’s size. “Gotta be honest with you, I had no idea if this old delivery gate even still worked. We found it some time during our second or third visit here and noted it as a possible emergency exit, if we ever decided to camp here. Guess I’m glad we didn’t now.” They entered the building together, treading carefully. After a while, Lugnut suddenly grabbed Cyrus carefully with his claw, making him yelp in surprise and placed him on his shoulder. “It is dark in here. I do not wish to step on you by accident,”he stated, when Cyrus gave him a confused look. “Er..thanks.” Cyrus stood up and balanced himself on the side of Lugnut’s helm. “Though maybe give a little warning next time.” Lugnut nodded. “Understood.” They made their way through the halls, Lugnut’s searchlights showing them the way. “Pick anything up yet?” Cyrus asked, stretching to look ahead into the darkness. “A faint Decepticon-signal, but it is dampened. Blitzwing must be damaged to some capacity.” Lugnut’s optic shrunk, an expression Cyrus had learned to identify as his version of a scowl. “The Autobot-filth will regret this.” “I hear ya,” Cyrus growled. “Still got a bone to pick with that guy for kidnapping Aaron.” Lugnut and Cyrus followed the signal until they came to a locked heavy metal door, not unlike the hidden one Cyrus had used to get them in. “The signal is clearest here,” Lugnut said, eyeing the door up and down. “They must be close.” “Great! Put me down, so I can-” Before Cyrus had the chance to finish his sentence, Lugnut retracted his right arm and rammed it into the door full-force. A loud crash, amplified by the echo of the empty hallway rung through the air. ______________________________________________________________ As soon as the sound reached the hall, Prowl whirled around. “What the-?” Blackarachnia lunged for him before he could run - only for her servos to close around nothing as the hologram of Prowl disappeared into thin air. She caught herself, cursing. “Slag! Of course he’d use that trick again.” “That was a mistake, Decepticon,” Prowl’s voice came from the shadows around them, impossible to pin down. “Your friends will not appreciate this.” Blackarachnia and Megatron positioned themselves back to back, searching the darkness for some hint of their opponent. “He has us pinned,” Megatron said through grit denta. “If we move he will either attack or flee without us even seeing him.” “Yeah, he- wait, seeing?” Blackarachnia’s optics widened. “That’s it! How was he able to react us in exactly the right way, if he was never really here? He has to have been close by. It was the same on the ‘Nemesis’! He attacked Lugnut right after his hologram was destroyed, as if he was just a few steps away.” She turned her helm to Megatron. “Fire your cannon about a few mechanometers to the right!” Megatron raised his free arm and fired at the spot she had pointed out. A startled yell came from the area the shot had hit and a heavy ‘clunk!’ filled the hall. The Decepticons turned, Megatron aiming his searchlight towards the sound. Prowl lay on the floor, glaring up at them and holding his left servo. It was almost entirely shot off, only a fracture of a base skeleton and a few sparking cables remaining. “You’ll regret this,” he growled, pushing himself to his pedes and taking a shaky step towards them. Before either of the three could do anything further, the door behind him was blown open, shrouding the room in smoke. When it cleared again, Lugnut stepped into the room, Cyrus and Archer riding on his right shoulder, while he supported a limping Hothead on his left. “Where is that Autobot-filth?” Hothead shouted, trying and failing to push himself away from Lugnut and stand on his own servos. “I will incinerate him! Let me go!” “Thou art barely able to stand, friend,” Archer chuckled. “Perhaps thy vengeance can waiteth until a time thou art well again?” “Listen to the human, Hothead,” Lugnut said. Hothead growled, but he stopped struggling. “Hey guys,” Cyrus called to Blackarachnia and Megatron. “Where is that Autobot?” Megatron looked around, frowning. “It appears he has gotten away.” “And he didn’t exactly leave us with good wishes,” Blackarachnia added grimly. “We should go after him.” Megatron thought for a moment, then shook his helm. “We should get Blitzwing and the AllSpark to safety first. The Autobot was hurt. He will not come far.” After gathering up the AllSpark and Blackarachnia doing a quick patching up of Hothead’s wounds, the group took off in vehicle mode, Cyrus and Blackarachnia riding on Lugnut, while Archer remained with Hothead. When they arrived back at the resistance’s base, they were greeted by a bust-in entrance. Rubble from the door was strewn about and destroyed Sumdac-drones littered the area. “What the spark happened here?” Blackarachnia exclaimed. “Oh nothing to worry about really,” a familiar voice answered her. Megatron perked up upon hearing it, hope and joy filling his optics. Could it be-? It was. Starscream stepped out from the base’s entrance, smiling. “It is good to see you all again. Though we did have everything under control.” He turned his helm and raised his hand to give a (very gentle and disproportionate) high-five to a small girl with short pink hair who had made herself comfortable on his shoulder plate. “Hi Cyrus, hi Aaron,” she beamed, waving a wand-like object with a glowing tip at the two other humans. “I made a new friend!” _________________________________________________________ Prowl dragged himself through the empty narrow side streets, flinching every time his ripped off arm emitted a spark. This solar cycle had not gone at all like he imagined. As if waking up on this primitive planet wasn’t bad enough, that disgusting techno-organic had actually managed to see through his technique and now he would have to spend precious time to find a repair shop. At least things couldn’t possibly get any worse. A metallic noise sounded to his right and he turned his helm. A large assembly of drones, a sinister-looking ‘S’ engraved on their torsos stood there. “Energy signature match,” they chanted in unison. “Retrieve subject. Return to base. Retrieve subject. Return to base. Retrieve-”

#shattered glass animated #sga #shattered glass #episode 3 #transformers animated fan-write

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andymull · 5 years ago

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AEW Revolution 2020 - Preview & Predictions

Jon Moxley vs Chris Jericho (c) - AEW Championship Match

Will the first ever AEW champions reign finally end tonight? Or will Le Champion retain?

A feud that’s developed really well over time as they've been waiting for this PPV to really hit it big, from the group to the eye patch nearly everything has hit it out the park.

For me I see a new champion crowned in Mox, but what follows for Jericho? Im not sure if we really know the answer yet to that question, in that I dont think he’ll want to be around weekly and would rather leave for afew months do some gigs then return later. Maybe stay around for a big rematch but then look to take a break, but then what becomes of the Inner Circle without its charismatic leader? It really could slow their progress without their leader around.

As for Moxley as champion who steps up as his first challenger? Do they get around Cody not being able to go for the title after his MJF feud? Maybe Lance Archer goes instantly into the title scene with his debut and carries on the brawls he had with Moxley in NJPW? After that it looks alittle bleak to be honest, Omega is in his tag team with Page, Pac has been beaten this week by Kenny and one win over Orange Cassidy tonight may not be enough to propel him into the slot. And the other person in the top rankings is MJF who will HAVE to beat Cody to take that spot, I thought that match was fairly dead on as to Cody winning but maybe that’s more open, more on that later....

Mox takes the win and the title - MOXLEY

Cody vs MJF

The blood feud reaches its peak tonight after all of the steps required were crossed by Cody, but can he get that vital win over MJF or will a further step find itself in Cody’s way (its Arn!).

This has been the best feud that AEW has put on so far, Cody has positioned his-self so well in staying away from the title scene immediately to see how that settles down before getting involved and instead focused on making this feud the best it can be without needed a belt be the focus.

Initially I saw this a clear win for Cody while making MJF a deadly threat at the same time, I then switched to being in the mindset of someone turning on Cody to help MJF win (Arn its you!), then ive gone back to Cody winning again lately in his heroes journey. Its just that the prospect of Arn turning on Cody would be great, Arn has convinced Cody to go through all of the requirements MJF made no matter how tough or degrading but now imagine if Arn screws Cody tonight and it was all for nothing!! All done to embarrass Cody, to show MJF as the mastermind paying off Arn, to move MJF to the world title scene knowing Cody cant follow him.

Honestly lets flip a coin and stick with it.............Cody.......there we have it! Cody wins and moves to a respectful feud with Moxley for the title, while MJF retains his heat by feuding and beating Darby Allin - CODY

The Young Bucks vs Kenny Omega & Adam Page (c) - AEW Tag Team Championship Match

Should be a really fun match with guys comfortable with each other, I expect this to develop differently to how its being built in that I see Kenny getting no joy to begin by being friends with the Bucks then will take Pages approach to really not caring who they are just wanting to beat them.

We really need Omega in the world title scene and to be honest this tag team story is just going to hold him away for longer, we’ll have the tag reign then then titles loss then him and age feuding when they split, that’s going to be afew months still. Dont get me wrong it will provide some great moments and matches, and the most important thing here being them getting Page built to a much higher level.

The Bucks really need the titles soon I just feel they want to get Jericho’s long reign finished first before doing another one, give it another month and I feel they pull the trigger on the title change just not tonight - OMEGA/PAGE

Dustin Rhodes vs Jake Hager

Finally we get to Hager being able to have a match, his MMA contract has seemingly been pretty restrictive for him with them not fancying him losing weekly on tv and become a weaker fighter for them to use on MMA shows.

This has been ok so far, worked the injury angle with Dustin and afew brawls, I really dont think this should go too long and should be fairly easy to predict in Dustin getting a great reaction but ultimately losing to Hager - HAGER

Darby Allin vs Sammy Guevara

Another well built feud here doing better than the previous match and needing to do so as well, with both guys being less known by the general public its been tough to have them work together and both get over. The inclusion of Sammy into the Inner Circle was vital as without that I dont think this would work just yet. The development of Darby has been good both in getting over his style as well as his character which does still need work but is definitely going in the right direction.

In terms of the winner I think it has to be Sammy, and I feel that due to my thinking that Jericho may take alittle time off and see Sammy as being a winner tonight and trying to step up and take the Jericho spot if he’s away - GUEVARA

Kris Statlander vs Nyla Rose (c) - AEW Women’s Championship Match

The recently crowned champion in Rose defends her title in a match that was delayed recently against Kris, this should develop into more of a bruising match than the title has seen in recent months with Riho as champion.

I really dont see the need to change this title anytime soon so expect them to have Kris get some good highlights in with her moves and character but ultimately Nyla will retain her crown - ROSE

Pac vs Orange Cassidy

And we have Orange’s first singles match in the company and his big opportunity, and it really is big as he has gotten over the gimmick so far and has the fans behind him but the next big step is carry that over into actual matches and not just spots.

Pac meanwhile just needs the win, nothing else, just the win.

Will be interesting and eye opening - PAC

SCU vs The Dark Order - Pre Show Match

Match wise we’ve probably seen this already once or twice, with the big news being how they move along the angle of Chris Daniels and the Dark Order leadership.

I doubt we get a final answer tonight with this only being on the pre show so I imagine everyone's thinking up ideas of a clever way to tease something but finally not get there just yet. I guess at the Dark Order getting the win with failed help from Daniels leading to SCU thinking he failed to help on purpose - DARK ORDER

Should be a fun show, hopefully the matches dont go too long like they did pre Dynamite, but will provide some great action.

Hopefully over the next few months we get the likes of Lance Archer, Luke Harper and maybe Matt Hardy added to the show, then the challenge will be to get them into the mix in a vital way to improve the brand further.

Bye for now

Andy

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commentaryvorg · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 2.2

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as chapter 2 began, Kaito took Kaede’s wish to heart and started constantly looking out for Shuichi, Maki found her lab and became consumed by the fear of people learning her secret, Shuichi tempted fate by noticing way too many details about the pool, the casino’s slot machines joined in with the narrative’s attempt to imply Kaito is expendable, and Kaito encouraged everyone to keep being brave and proactive, except for Kokichi who is still being a coward.

And now, time for more Kaito. I mean free time.

Shuichi: “There’s still some time left today… I need to think of a plan!”

It’s a little odd how Shuichi often thinks something along these lines before starting a free time segment, and then just goes on to hang out with someone and talk about nothing that has anything to do with plans or escaping.

And by “someone”, I mean Kaito, of course! They’re not officially friends quite yet, but Kaito’s still been good enough to Shuichi at the end of last chapter and the beginning of this one that it seems reasonable that Shuichi would feel most inclined to hang out with him already.

But first, a little bit of asking around the others. Most people’s minds are on the Ultimate Hunt, trying in vain to figure out what the hell it is.

At some point in between when he left the dorms in the morning and now, someone changed the icon over Shuichi’s door to one of him without his hat on. Monokuma did, I guess?

You can also go around and examine things that have to do with the previous case for some bonus inner monologue, by which I mean you can take Shuichi on a huge guilt trip about not having noticed and stopped Kaede.

Examining the moving bookcase in the library…

Shuichi: (Rantaro noticed the trick to this bookcase. Just like me… The only difference between me and him… is that I had someone I could trust. I wonder what I would’ve done… if Kaede hadn’t been there…)

This is a nice little observation that’s also brought up during chapter 6’s trial! I imagine that if he hadn’t had Kaede, Shuichi would have just done nothing, not having the confidence to follow his deductions through.

Miu: “What the fuck is up with that Flashback Light? You can’t just mess with someone’s memory using light…”

Except apparently, in this universe, you totally can. Clearly they didn’t give the Ultimate Inventor memories of that particular technology in case she figured out what was really up with the Flashback Lights.

Gonta: “Not even trying to survive… That even possible? Cuz everybody got someone who would feel sad to lose you…”

Gonta is one of the handful of people who are thinking about what Ryoma said instead. He’s so pure, not even being able to consider the idea of not having anyone who cares about you. Also it’s very him to be thinking of the idea of a reason to live not as having someone who makes you happy, but as the fact that your existence makes someone else happy and so you don’t want to make them sad by dying on them.

Kaito: “You seen Kokichi anywhere? I saw him a while ago and tried to tell him something, but he got away again.”

Meanwhile, Kaito is still focused on Kokichi’s words about not co-operating and trying to make an attempt to get through to him.

(Doesn’t your Monopad’s map magically tell you where everyone is at any given moment, Kaito? No? Does Shuichi just have a special Protagonist Perk Monopad?)

Shuichi: (Kaito and I spent some time looking for Kokichi.)

…and apparently totally failed at finding him. But that’s par for the course with Kokichi’s hide-and-seek skills.

I gave him the Hand Grips, which improve strength for punching.

Kaito: “Are you giving this to me? Haha, you know me so well!”

…I mean, you did punch Shuichi last night and threaten to punch Kokichi this morning, so. Not that hard to figure out.

Kaito: “You got something to tell me? Don’t hold back! I’ll listen!”

It is so very Kaito to assume that Shuichi would come to him for the purpose of unloading his problems onto him and immediately try and make the conversation about that. It’s a little bit forward of him to think Shuichi would be ready to do that already. All Shuichi actually wants to talk about for now is what it’s like to be an astronaut trainee.

Kaito: “No problem! My training’s a piece of cake!”

Shuichi: (Kaito was grinning at me, but then his expression turned serious.)

Kaito: “Well, to be honest, it’s about as intense as intense can get.”

I like how Kaito starts out pretending that his training’s no big deal before admitting the truth. He knows and is willing to admit that it’s really very challenging, but that’s not the first impression he wants to put in people’s heads. It seems he’d rather people have this image of him as the heroic Luminary of the Stars who can do everything effortlessly.

Kaito: “Alright! Pop quiz! What’s the most important thing an astronaut needs?”

I am very amused by the fact that one of the possible answers to this question is “a healthy body”. Yeah, to be an astronaut, you need to, I don’t know… not be dying from a mysterious illness? That sounds like a good start.

Kaito: “And that thing is… Communication! The most important thing for an astronaut is teamwork. The universe is a frontier that the people of the world challenge together. And since we need to work together, communication is vital!”

This explains so much about Kaito’s character. He was written to be someone who is such a perfect candidate to become an astronaut that the space program accepted him even though he’s too young and cheated his way into the exam. So he needed to be given the exact qualities that an astronaut needs – not necessarily in terms of specific skills, which he can learn during his training, but in terms of the kind of person he is and the potential he has even before being accepted. Of course he would have to be someone who is really good at communication and co-operating with others and values those things so much!

Kaito: “They check that in the recruitment exam.”

Exactly – all the other more specific skills you need, they can teach you during training. But communication is so important that you have to be talented at it already to even get in at all.

Kaito: “Of course, I can speak Japanese, English and Russian all fluently!”

The localisation worded this line in such a way to not have him mention which of those three languages he’s speaking right now, because it would sound awkward for him to mention that he’s speaking Japanese… in English.

Shuichi: (He can speak multiple languages, is well-learned, and has what it takes to be an astronaut. …I’ve been underestimating him. Kaito is incredible!)

Damn right he is! And it’s interesting that, despite there being a number of actual concrete reasons why Kaito is a pretty awesome person that he’s just been chatting to Shuichi about, Kaito never mentions those things when he’s talking himself up as the Luminary of the Stars and trying to get people to be inspired by him. There’s no sense during this conversation that Kaito is actively trying to get Shuichi to look up to him by telling him about all the skills he’s learning in his training; he’s just stating the facts like it’s no big deal.

Kaito: “I wanna get back to training! The universe is getting away from me! The world needs this Luminary of the Stars to shine even brighter!”

…Well, until this line, at least. Even so, this seems separate – he’s not saying that he’s the Luminary of the Stars because of all of those things. This is something he wants people to think that he just is.

This is probably because Kaito believes he’s more inspirational to others this way than if he frequently talked about all the proper reasons why he’s talented. If he talked about those all the time, then other people might get discouraged, thinking they’ll never be able to do all the things Kaito can do and so they’ll never be able to be as talented as him. But if Kaito just presents himself as this general idealised hero who is The Coolest Ever for no specifically-defined reason, then that’s a much easier thing for any given person to want to aspire to be a little bit more like in a way that suits them. Most people aren’t going to be able to become an astronaut like Kaito is, but everyone can become a bit more of a hero in their own way.

(Kaito is so good.)

Shuichi: (…I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m not so sure about that.)

Really, Shuichi? Because I think that Kaito still needs to be a bit more luminary in order to fully inspire you and give you the strength to carry on Kaede’s wish and end the killing game. He’s made a start, but he hasn’t done enough yet.

(Did you know? The word “luminary” means “someone who inspires or influences others”, but also “an object that emits light, especially the sun or moon”. Kaito’s self-proclaimed title is perfect for him.)

Kokichi: “Everyone’s got it all wrong! I only act like a bad guy so you guys don’t get too soft, y’know?”

See, this is at least what Kokichi likes to think he’s doing – deliberately playing devil’s advocate to foster more open suspicion because he’s convinced that’s better than people pretending to trust each other. In reality, all he’s doing is decreasing the chances of everyone working together and managing to escape and survive and not have more killings happen – in other words, what he’s really doing is actually being a bad guy, if still less of one than Monokuma.

Tsumugi: “I just remembered… The phone game I was playing is having a collab with an anime I like… and I’m missing it…”

Well I guess those are just the kinds of sacrifices you make when you decide to take a few weeks out to force a bunch of people to kill each other, aren’t they.

Meanwhile, Kaito is now hanging out just outside the door to Ryoma’s lab.

Kaito: “Damn it, Ryoma… The famous Ultimate Tennis Pro…”

Seems like he’s still hung up on Ryoma’s behaviour, too.

Kaito: “O-Oh, it’s nothing… Instead of talking about that, it’s a better use of our time to think of ways to escape.”

But he doesn’t like being hung up on it, and he certainly doesn’t want to show it in front of Shuichi. There’s no point in moping around when you could be doing something to make a difference!

Kaito: “Alright! Today I’m gonna tell you about me!”

That’s what you ended up doing last time too, Kaito, but sure. At least this time he seems to have realised that Shuichi came to hang out for the sake of learning more about Kaito and not for the sake of talking about his own issues.

Kaito: “You wanna know, right? Why I feel so strongly about the universe!?”

Shuichi: “Ah…”

Kaito: “Good! I thought so!”

Shuichi: (I haven’t even answered yet!)

This might not have been quite what Shuichi wanted to hear about, though. I love how Shuichi’s so awkward and passive that he just ends up getting utterly swept along by Kaito’s ridiculousness.

It’s also interesting to note that when it’s Kaito making the choice of what things about himself he wants to tell Shuichi about, and not Shuichi asking to hear about a certain thing, Kaito doesn’t choose to talk more about his astronaut training and actual genuine talents. Instead we get… this ridiculousness that’s about to happen here.

Shuichi: (So not only are you going to force me to listen, it’s a long story…)

I also think this is a pretty good indication that this event should be happening this early in the story. Shuichi seems mildly annoyed here, whereas I feel like if this happened after the training session in which they properly become friends, Shuichi wouldn’t mind so much at being subjected to this.

Kaito: “When I was a kid, I’d go to my gramps’ place to play sometimes…”

Keep this in mind for a bit later when I’ll talk about Kaito’s grandparents. The fact that he calls it his “gramps’ place” and says he’d only go there “sometimes” implies that when he was younger (I’m picturing him as being about six or seven in this story), he wasn’t permanently living with them.

Kaito: “After I found that map, I made a decision and set out… I went to the nearest pawn shop and sold the map for some cash!”

Shuichi: “You sold it!?”

Kaito: “There’s no way I, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, would ever follow a map to adventure! A life free from maps, finding my own adventures… that’s the life for me!”

Even though this is all just a silly game he played when he was a kid, that’s still such a Kaito thing to do. Of course he’d want to carve his own path and be unique, rather than do the same things everyone else would do!

Kaito: “But the sea still called me, so I bought a boat and went on a voyage.”

Can we talk about tiny Kaito pretending to be a pirate and how adorable that must have been. (Apart from the fact that it never actually happened, shush.)

Kaito: “Soon after becoming a captain, I met my destined rival!”

Shuichi: “Your rival?”

Kaito: “Yeah! The boss of the Great Pirates!”

I wonder if this “rival” he talks about was an actual friend of his who joined in his games or if he was also imaginary.

Shuichi: (…So what happened to outer space!?)

Shuichi is so bewildered I love it.

Kaito: “We clashed on the field of battle many times, to the point we became friends…”

I also like that Kaito clearly adheres to the idea that competition fosters friendship, whether this rival was real or not.

Kaito: “But during our final battle to see who would conquer the seas… I could’ve won, but I’m not the kind of guy to be satisfied with just the sea. No! I’m not the kind of guy to be satisfied with just the world!”

Of course you’re not, Kaito. That’s why space.

Kaito: “That’s why I couldn’t finish him off with a final punch… He got mad at me for holding back. We haven’t met since that day…”

…If this rival was a real person and not just someone he made up, this is apparently Kaito talking about the time he fell out with his at-the-time best friend. Which means it probably happened absolutely nothing like how he describes it here and he doesn’t like to think about how it really went. Getting mad at your friend for holding back sounds like the kind of thing Kaito would do – holding back your full strength isn’t being true to yourself! – but not something many other people would, especially not when they’re like six years old or so. So that part’s definitely something Kaito made up just because it made sense to him.

Shuichi: (I’ll just keep listening…)

Kaito: “Hey… it’s written all over your face…”

Shuichi: “Huh? What is?”

Kaito: “You’re not taking this seriously, are you!? If it’s boring, just say so! Pretending to listen is super unmanly!”

As much as I feel a little bad choosing the option that makes Shuichi show obvious disinterest, I had to, because here’s another example of Kaito talking about manliness. And again, it’s about being true to yourself – be open and honest about how you really feel about things, rather than trying to pretend you feel differently!

Shuichi: “Ah, no! I’m not bored or anything! It’s really interesting, Kaito!”

…To be fair, I don’t think Shuichi actually is bored, precisely – just exasperated at how obviously made up it is. At the very least, Kaito’s story isn’t boring to listen to.

Regardless, Kaito decides to leave it there for now and continue the story next time.

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate part of the summary of this event on the report card, which was apparently written by Shuichi based on the use of first person:

“It went on and on. I have no idea where he is going with this.”

I’m not sure he does either, Shuichi. Kaito is such a ridiculous dork and I love him.

Shuichi: “I wonder… how it was for Kaede…” (I’m sure she had plenty of reasons to live… That’s the kind of girl she was. But I—)

Shuichi is still being plagued by awful intrusive thoughts about Kaede’s death. To be fair, Kaede’s main reason to live seemed to be to make other people smile, which also ended up being the reason she died.

Monokuma: “Oh, but Spike Chunsoft games are fine. They’re specially made to improve your focus.”

Do Spike Chunsoft even make games any more, Monokuma? I thought Danganronpa had been a live-action “real fiction” thing for a while now. Then again, there was that Ultra Despair Girls 2 poster, so maybe the games they still make now are just spinoffs.

Monokuma: “Back by popular demand, it’s time for the motive video!”

Hah, popular demand indeed. They probably did an audience vote on which of the classic motives they wanted to see again.

This photo of Kaito with his grandparents is cute. They’re so proud of their grandson! …It’s a shame it’s completely faked and the “grandparents” are presumably just actors who don’t actually give a damn about him.

But from Kaito’s point of view, they’re real, so let’s talk about the fact that his grandparents are the most important people in his life. That one line I brought up from his most recent FTE implied that at least when he was a kid, he didn’t live with his grandparents. So it’s not just a case of his parents having died when he was too young to remember and he was always raised by his grandparents. Something happened with his parents at some point while he was growing up.

There seem to be two trains of thought among the people who like Kaito enough to have thought about this: that Kaito’s parents died, or that Kaito’s parents are assholes. I’m personally on the “Kaito’s parents died” train. That part back at the end of trial 1 where he gives advice to Shuichi on how to deal with Kaede’s death, where I mentioned that it sounded kind of like he was speaking from personal experience? Yeah, this would be that experience. It ties these two dangling unexplained subtleties together nicely. Kaito probably lost his parents while he was growing up – not while he was so young that it would have left a permanent, noticeable scar on his psyche, and also not so recently that the wound is still raw, but long enough ago for him to have developed a healthy, positive way of dealing with grief that he’s then able to try to pass on to Shuichi after that trial. It might even have influenced his more general optimism and go-getter attitude, since he’d know first-hand that life is short and so you should live it to the fullest and not waste a second of it.

I’ve seen quite a few people on the “Kaito’s parents are assholes” train instead, and their reason for it is usually something to do with the idea that all of Kaito talking himself up to be such an awesome person is actually because he’s desperate for the validation that he never got from his own parents. But that just doesn’t quite fit for me. Don’t get me wrong; I love characters like that whose outward confidence is just a façade born of a desperate need for acknowledgement. But that’s the thing: there are so many characters like that from other works of fiction that I like and enjoy and have spent a lot of time thinking about that I feel I’m pretty good at spotting that nuance, that subtle need for validation beneath the surface – and I don’t get that sense from Kaito right now at all. Perhaps part of the reason I feel this way is because of what I mentioned earlier in his first FTE, about how he never brings up any of the concrete reasons why he’s talented, which would be the first thing you’d think he’d do if he was secretly desperate for everyone’s validation. It really feels to me like Kaito’s confidence is completely genuine.

Not that I don’t also enjoy reading people’s headcanons about how Kaito’s parents being assholes would affect him, mind you, but I just don’t personally think it quite matches up with canon.

I also really like how, even though the deal with his parents is never explicitly revealed because of course Kaito wouldn’t want to talk about it regardless of which version is true, this is still a thing anyway. It wouldn’t be hard to remove it entirely – the writers could easily have gone with the most obvious option of having Kaito’s most important people be his parents instead, meaning nothing bad happened with them. But they did it this way, even though we never learn for sure what’s up with his parents – because the out-universe writers had an idea in their heads for what the deal was, and they didn’t need to explicitly explain it for it to still be a thing that’s true about Kaito that would have subtly influenced the way he acts, even if it’s only a little. Subtle character writing is great. Writers knowing more about their characters than they ever outwardly mention in the story is great. Kaito is such a great character.

Monokuma: “Thanks to his exceptional talent, this young man is already an astronaut trainee! Wow!”

I love the audible air quotes as Monokuma says “exceptional talent”. (Screw you, Monokuma, we just established how genuinely talented Kaito is in one of his FTEs yesterday.)

Kaito’s Grandfather: “No matter what happens, you must live. You must *never* give up.”

Kaito’s Grandmother: “Please… live on. For our sakes, too.”

Monokuma: “Their only wish… is for Kaito to live.”

This particular wish is very interesting. Consider the fact that Kaito’s grandparents aren’t real and don’t have any actual feelings about him and are just saying whatever the in-universe writers think would be most likely to make Kaito murder someone to escape. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a very good motive for that! If they wished for him to fulfil his dream of going to space, or even just to see them again, that’d be something that would actually require him to escape in order to do. But just living? The safest way to guarantee that in this killing game is to keep your head down and not murder anyone, while trying to avoid becoming a victim too. Sure, you’d be stuck inside this academy for the foreseeable future, but at least you’d be alive. Murdering someone to escape is significantly less likely to achieve your survival because of the incredibly high chance you’ll be found out and executed.

Except for the fact that Kaito is the one person among these students who has a deadly virus. If he just keeps his head down and stays here and doesn’t try to escape, he will not live. The only way for Kaito to live is if he can get medical treatment before his illness kills him, and to do that, he needs to escape and get to a hospital, in theory sacrificing everyone else here for the sake of his own survival. This message from his grandparents is trying to make Kaito feel more inclined to do that, once he realises what’s wrong with him. (Not that it’d ever work. Kaito selfishly putting his own survival before everyone else’s, even if it’s the only way to fulfil his grandparents’ wish? Ha ha, nope, not ever.)

…On the other hand, this could instead be a reference to the backstory with the Gofer Project and how Kaito’s grandparents would presumably know that everyone left on Earth is super doomed but at least Kaito will get to live. Apparently they were unaware that their grandson also has the virus and is equally doomed. That said, if this were the case, then you’d think everyone else’s motive video would also have the subject’s loved ones saying something similar, wishing for them to live on since they’re the only ones who can. The only other motive video we see that is an actual motive (aka not Ryoma’s) and isn’t explicitly connected to the end-of-the-world plot (aka not Kirumi’s) is Kokichi’s, and there’s nothing in there about his goons wishing for him to live on and spread mischief across the new world or anything like that. So it still seems more likely to me that the motive videos’ creators were thinking primarily about whatever would make someone most likely to commit murder, and only tying it into the overarching backstory if it happened to fit.

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[Next post]

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #chapter 2 #daily life #free time events #commentary

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hirohamadugh · 5 years ago

Text

THE ENHANCED

Part 1 | Part 2! | Part 3 | Visual of Issac

Suddenly, everything was happening at once. The capsule doors slid open to reveal Issac to the world, and to reveal the world to Issac. His eyes flew open as he urgently gasped his first breaths, ripped out of his peaceful stasis and thrust into being. Chris and Liv caught Issac’s body as he stumbled out of the chamber in a gangly and uncoordinated way, well-versed in the symptoms of sudden life before.

“Breathe,” Liv coerced, as the boy was still sucking in air frantically and posed himself the risk of hyperventilation. He’d only been alive for less than a minute, and it had already been so overwhelming that he passed out. She tore her gaze away from her newest creature, making eye contact with Chris to obtain his attention. “Lower him to the ground. Let the overstimulation pass before we try to teach him anything.”

The two gently dropped Issac’s body until he laid flat on his back, breaths finally starting to teeter into the heavy-but-unthreatening phase. He may have been a newborn, but Issac was no infant: all subjects of the Living Immunity Vectors program were born as fully formed young adults.

“Help me dress him,” the blonde woman ordered, tossing a pair of gray joggers to her assistant as she wrestled the boy into a perfectly color-matched crewneck with the Sycorax double-stranded helix logo embossed on the chest. Kneeling beside him on the ground now, Liv began checking over his physical attributes to see if anything had gone obviously wrong in the altered genetic coding, but was pleased to find no anomalies. Chris was silent once he’d finished his part as well, staring at the boy whose eyes dazedly opened and began to search every little aspect of the room. Looking between the two men, it was clear they were related somehow, but not to any great length. They had the same physical build, hair texture, and facial structure, but that seemed to be where the similarities stopped. Chris’s complexion was much fairer than Issac’s, Issac’s eye color was brown vs. Chris’s hazel, the older boy’s hair was blonder and shorter… The list went on and on, and the more Chris stared, the more differences he noticed.

“Issac,” Liv spoke, very eager to see if her latest trials proved a success or not. “Can you understand me?”

The tanned boy just stared blankly back at her as she spoke, a lack of concentration obvious as his attention easily sidetracked to the control panels quietly beeping and flashing as always. “Issac!”

When he failed once again to respond, Liv rolled her eyes, annoyed that her hope had been squashed. “Whatever,” she huffed, very rapidly losing interest now that he was just another in vitro case study, no better than her last improvement. “Chris, carry him to his room with Hailey and prep the first coordinated movement lesson for in an hour. I want Elliot keeping an eye on him to ensure he doesn’t enter a state of panic, and to let me know if there’s any sort of worry whatsoever.”

“Wait, what do you mean my room with me?”

Both Liv and Chris froze, as the boy who was born less than five minutes ago just asked a fully functional and correct syntax sentence in a language he was never taught. Their gazes bore deep into Issac’s soul, as he propped himself up into a sitting position. “What??” He asked, knitting his eyebrows down in confusion on why they were looking at him as if he were a ghost.

“Hailey,” Chris said, making the connection.

“Yes??”

“Of course he would respond to Hailey!! It worked!” The blonde woman hugged her assistant out of glee, while Issac pushed himself off the ground and up into a standing position.

“Is there something I’m missing here, Ms. Amara?”

Liv was near tears, and turned to place her hands on Issac’s shoulders in an almost loving way. “You’re not Hailey,” she breathed out quietly, which was met with a face of extreme confusion from the newborn. “You’re Issac. You’ll understand soon enough.” The tender moment over, she turned to her assistant: “Make sure his acclimatization finds him well, will you? Get him caught up on everything she’s learned since upload so they can be taught together. I want his baseline vitals recorded tonight as well. I’m going to go record this in his file.”

Chris took the other male’s forearm and began to redirect him towards the living quarters. Somewhere deep inside himself, Issac knew where he was going, but he couldn’t quite visualize it completely. “What does she mean, I’m Issac?”

The blonde man smiled sympathetically, stealing a glance over as he continued to walk. “You probably don’t have complete access to all your memories yet. Hailey,” Issac’s head instinctively popped up at the girl’s name, still failing to dissociate her from himself, “She’s the one who was born before you. She’s a couple months old now. She’s learned how to walk, how to talk, how to behave in general, some basic biology concepts…” Chris trailed off, before stopping and putting his hand on Issac’s shoulder. “It’s taken her all this time just to learn that, you know? Despite the fact we all learn incredibly fast for humans, it still takes a long while.” He touched his own temple, a small gesture for any normal-grown adult, but incredibly advanced of a social nuance for someone who’s less than 2 years old like himself. “She allowed us to extract, replicate, and upload her consciousness into you so we didn’t have to waste all that time and energy teaching you the basics.” Chris turned and began his brisk pace once more, leading the other boy around a bend as he continued to explain. “Maybe you’ll get them all, maybe you won’t, but the fact you’re talking and walking and understanding… That’s all really promising.”

Issac stared at his hands as he listened to the older boy, fixated on the minor details. While what Chris was explaining sounded ridiculous, he did have a sense of Déjà vu while the assistant had been describing it. In addition, his fingers were thicker than he remembered them being, plus his body was more boxy in general; this would add up if Chris was telling the truth, and he really was a new person in a new body. “So my memories… aren’t mine?”

“Not exactly. But from here on out they are!” Chris smiled oh-so-cheerily as he dexterously input his biometrics on the reader that disabled the semi-transparent gate into what would become Issac’s new home. Inside he saw a girl sitting on her bed, she was wearing the exact same outfit as he and reading from a tablet. Issac instantly recognized her. That’s me. I mean Hailey. I guess not me.

As soon as the cell was disabled, the girl’s attention immediately fixated on the two men, and she smiled slightly. Jumping down from her bed, Hailey tossed the tech haphazardly onto it and walked right up to her new roommate, as everyone but Chris lived in pairs. “So, you’re Issac,” she stated matter-of-factly, tilting her head slightly in examination of the new boy’s facial features.

“So I’ve been told,” he replied, having a minor out-of-body experience due to seeing what he thought was himself standing and talking right in front of him. “Thought I was you, but I’m not.”

Hailey cracked a small laugh, and her smile instinctively made him show one in return. “So I see the uploading-thing worked! Very exciting…” She pursed her lips, kicking one foot lightly before refocusing on Chris. “And… Very sorry for all those involved that there will now be two of me!”

The blonde boy chuckled, and Issac didn’t fully understand why, but nevertheless he felt the need to do the same as if he got the joke. “Should make it easy to get along,” Chris mentioned, before crossing the room to the other, neatly made bed that lay opposite of Hailey’s. “Issac, this is your bed, your wardrobe is,”

“Over there,” Issac interrupted, pointing to the sliding door that conjoined he and Hailey’s closets, which were both unsurprisingly filled with more grey outfits like the ones they wore. “I’m remembering,” he stated bluntly, walking to the back of the room where the restricted-access CPU and medical recording instruments were set up. “Ms. Amara said she needed my vitals, right? Are you taking them, or is…” Issac pinched the bridge of his nose, tongue peeking out from the corner of his mouth as he desperately tried to grasp at a taunting memory of Hailey’s morning check-ins for the name of the man who performed them.

“Elliot?” Hailey offered, pleased to see he was already remembering details from her life.

“Yes!” Issac exclaimed, to which Chris nodded.

“I’ll go get him to take your baseline stats. Be right back.” The blonde man walked out of the room, and thanks to the floor sensors detecting his biosignature leaving, the honeycomb-esque field was secured once more, keeping the two subjects where they were supposed to be.

“How are you feeling?” Hailey broke the silence between them, walking over to where Issac was inspecting the sphygmomanometer cuff. “I can remember it was… Scary, when I was born. Not knowing where or what anything is. Just seeing Ms. Amara and Chris staring down at me, like I was a circus monkey and they wanted me to do a trick or something.”

“It was very strange to see things you’ve never seen before… Yet remember them.” Issac turned to look at her, noticing she must’ve been pretty buff to look so strong despite all their loose clothing.

“I know,” she confessed, shoving her hands in her pockets due to not knowing what to do with them. “I was one of the failed attempts to do this to. They tried with Gabriel, the guy born before me, tried uploading him to me, but I only ever got small bits and pieces, so it was hard with a sense of both familiarity and newness to get adjusted.” She averted her gaze for a moment, feigning to check if the older boys had returned. “Chris was the first one of us ever, although sorry if I’m just repeating what you already recall. I wonder what it was like for him.” She refocused on the new boy, pressing her lips together slightly in thought. “He was never really like the rest of us, though. He’s always been allowed upstairs.”

“And what’s upstairs?” Issac asked, genetic predisposition to curiosity and answering questions making themselves prominent.

“The world,” Hailey replied, a small and almost sad smile across her face. “If we work hard enough and prove ourselves like he has, we can start actually working for Sycorax up there too.” She fiddled with her umber colored braid to avoid overthinking the possibilities, knowing very well she was way ahead of herself in thinking about those kinds of things. “It’s a biology place, though, so we need to get really good at that first before anything happens. Do you remember anything I’ve learned about biology?”

“I know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”

Hailey let out a breathy laugh, shaking her head just a bit at his first jumped-to fact. “You’ll do fine, I’m sure of it. I’m glad you were at least able to be the protégé that I was not!”

“Not to sound rude, since I’ve had probably a whole 35 minutes of socialization practice-so bear with me, but why do you care?” Issac mirrored the pose she had taken earlier, with his hands in his own pockets now. “Why do you want me to succeed? Why me?”

The girl looked away, afraid to open up Pandora’s box of voids she was trying to fill. “You… After they asked me about possibly doing the upload, I peeked into your ongoing file and cross-compared it to my own. You and I share 72.18% of our DNA.” Hailey looked at him now, and he could see the sense of hope and longing in her eyes. “Look,” she said, bending over to the restricted database beside them and shutting off the monitor, leaving just a reflective black screen staring back at them. “Do you see how much we look alike?”

Leaning over to peer into the haphazard mirror as well, Issac saw it. He and Hailey had the same exact eyes, the same hair color, the same complexion, it was almost uncanny. He had a slightly more robust stature, she had a teensy bit thinner eyebrows, but besides minor details the two looked like they were copied and pasted onto each other. “The closest relatedness of anyone else of the enhanced is Elliot and Faye, and even that is only about 54%. The rest of us range from mid 20s to early 40s.” She placed her hand atop his on the back of the chair, her dark eyes piercing him with a sense of utter care and a bit sense of self as well. “Issac, I care because… well, you’re the closest thing to a brother I will ever have. And there’s nothing more important to me than my family.”

#Sycorax AU #the enhanced #city of monsters #bh6 oc #issac #oc issac #big hero 6 the series #liv amara #chrissistant #sycorax #big hero 6 #bh6 the series #big hero 6 the series s2 #bh6 chris #big hero 6 the series spoilers #bh6 the series spoilers

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stroni-bomb · 6 years ago

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Siren!Taeil: Eye of the Beholder {1}

CHAPTER ONE // NEXT

❃ Taeil didn’t know which was worse: being a male in a family of purely female sirens or being a rare phenomenon in a group of��‘normals’. He never had it easy growing up and going against everything which makes a siren didn’t make it any easier. He would always be thankful for that fateful day when Angel!Taeyong saved him. However when a certain individual puts all of N City on their toes as they’re a risk to another citizen’s life, why can’t Taeil feel nothing except sympathy towards her instead of the hatred the other’s hold? ❃

؂۵‗✩⑈

"Taeil," Taeyong gently shook the older brother and gave him a warm smile as his tired eyelids fluttered open. "You can go to bed now. Y/N's asleep, I've got everything under control."

He quickly checked on your sleeping figure in the infirmary bed. He didn't know how long he was out but he was certain that you were awake the last time he saw you. Slowly he stood up, giving a small thanks to Taeyong before leaving the infirmary room. He wouldn't go to bed, he didn't need to, all he did need was some fresh air and thinking time.

Quietly, avoiding waking up any of the other residents, he made his way through the dimly lit corridors until finding the back door. Sliding it open carefully he tiptoed out, allowing the cool midnight breeze to blow on his face. It was a quick walk to the lake. Well it was more of a stream really.

As he reached the water's edge he finally sat down with the grass underneath him, occasionally the wind would move the grass in such a way that it'd dance in between his fingers, lightly tickling him. He had an urge to shift into his siren form but decided against it, knowing the younger boys they're probably spying on him right now from their bedroom windows.

He brought his head down to the grass and lay there, silently. The grass moulded underneath him, leaving his temporary mark into the land. He could hear the lake gently lapping against the bed, running further and further upstream. There was probably a river somewhere nearby, acting out as a branch into the wide and vast ocean.

Ocean. That word alone reminded him of...home. Could he really call it a home though?

It always surprised him how he even managed to survive. No one had realised he was different until he was six, when sirens get their human form. His once loving family turned on him just like that. Why? He was a young boy, not a girl.

He had loved where he lived. The small, grassy cove reached out onto the beach. The grass had a different feel to the one that grew at N City, it was more...rough. Pretty much summed up his whole childhood. At first it'd start with the girls his age, pushing and shoving. As soon as Taeil retaliated though that's when the older sirens began to torture him.

They left scars but they were easy to hide with clothes, he couldn't say the same for his siren form. That's why he refuses unless necessary, he doesn't need his friends to see him like that.

"Taeil hyung!" A young voice yelled out, his feet flattening the grass beneath each stride. This was someone who didn't care if he woke others. Donghyuck. "What are you doing out here?"

Taeil quickly wiped a stray tear and lifted himself up from the ground. Donghyuck bounded into him, wrapping his arms around his elder brother. He awkwardly returned the affection, he himself wasn't much of a skinship person.

"It's cold out here," Hyuck shivered as he pulled away. Taeil noticed he was barefoot and only wearing shorts with a thin, white shirt.

There was a moment of silence between the two. A chilling breeze blew passed them both, pinching their revealed skin. Hyuck quickly brought his hands to his upper arms and rubbed in a sad attempt to warm himself up.

"You didn't need to come out," Taeil eventually smiled and brought an arm around Hyuck's shoulders. "I was just getting some air before going to bed but let's get inside now. You're right, it's freezing."

Maneuvering back into the mansion Hyuck looked up in awe at Taeil. He didn't say anything, he knew Taeil wouldn't talk about this stuff with him but he had so much hurt in his eyes, so much pain, yet kept it inside and kept being his jokey self. Much like himself. He admired Taeil for that.

After walking Hyuck back up to his room which he shared with Jaemin and Renjun Taeil finally collapsed into his bed. He had to resist the urge not to run back to your infirmary room and go to bed in the chair again, just so he could be there for her when she woke up. Maybe he was being too attentive though so he decided against it, he didn't want to give others the wrong idea.

Settling down under his duvet and forcing his past memories out of his mind Taeil was finally able to sleep. Before he was completely gone a small smile sketched onto his features as a quick image of you fluttered through his mind. You were sleeping, safe and sound in the infirmary two floors below him, a smile which mirrored his own blessing your delicate features.

؂۵‗✩⑈

"TAEIL GET UP WE NEED YOU!" A series of knocks hammered at his door as various voices yelled his name. As of yet he was in no real hurry to get up, usually when this happened -and it tended to happen a lot in a house with the devil himself in it- there ended up being no real threat but instead a cream pie waiting to smack him in the face.

"TAEIL IT'S Y/N!"

Now he was up. If his fate did end up being a cream pie then he can bet that whoever the pranker was would soon become the prankee.

Dashing into your infirmary room with a sense of urgency he immediately went to your side. You were out cold, pale and seemingly unresponsive.

Taeil's eyes scanned the faces which accompanied him in the room: Taeyong, Doyoung, Jaehyun and ... Mingcheng. Quickly doing a body scan of the latter he released a sigh of relief- she was carrying no weapons and she didn't seem triumphant. Always a good sign.

"Taeyong what happened? How did her vitals drop so drastically you told me she was doing fine!" Taeil questioned, he knew he should have never left your side, screw the attentive nonsense he would've been there for you when you needed him most.

"Her heart and breathing rate dropped after another... episode. We've put her on oxygen but we aren't medics Taeil, this type of healing is beyond my powers. I heal bones. Not curses," Taeyong said sternly, not appreciating Taeil's seemingly ungrateful tone.

He took note of the oxygen mask and evaluated your chest movements, not quite how he'd like it but assumed it was an improvement.

Suddenly a pang of realisation hit him, how he had forgotten the most important piece of information he didn't know. "Episode? Is Nev okay, what happened?"

"About time grandpa. She's fine, shaken up but fine. Your little friend here tried to kill her she's lucky she-"

"She tried to kill her Taeyong? But I thought she was bed ridden," it was more of a observation than a question, although he failed to observe the very obvious glares which Mingcheng was shooting through him.

"Did he just interrupt me?" She hissed to her mate, Jaehyun, evidently pissed off.

"He's on edge babe-" "He'll be on the edge of my foo-"

"Jaehyun. Mingcheng. Please go check on Nev and Leon, shoot I should really check on Leon...Taeil, could you give me a second? Come on you two," Taeil just nodded, not watching the three of them leave and not giving Doyoung much of his attention either. His full focus was on you, this wasn't the secure figure he pictured last night, no this was the exact opposite.

There was a gentle silence which occasionally was interrupted by the sound of the heart monitor. Every time a sharp 'beep' pierced through the air Taeil would look up and check your heart rate, noting down if there was an improvement or not every time mainly for his own sanity. He was so absorbed in...You, that he forgot about Doyoung who was sat on the chair opposite the bed, checking out his older brother's behaviour and gentleness regarding you.

"Why do you like her so much?" He suddenly questioned, cocking on eyebrow in a way which Taeil couldn't stand, as if Doyoung had just figured out his entire life story by watching him for five minutes.

"I have no clue what you're on about," Taeil dismissed by shaking his head. "Who's Leon?"

"Just some Lion girl who's been stabbed or shot can't remember the exact details, brought some half wolf dude with her or something too. Now answer my question." Doyoung leaned back in his chair now, his long legs outstretched across the floor.

"You should really pay attention to the people Taeyong saves. Maybe then people will like you?" Taeil sniped back, mimicking his younger brother's actions as he leant back in his chair. Debating whether to stretch out his legs too he decided against it, he was much smaller than Doyoung and didn't need to prove it.

"What's the point? They looked like a total mad show anyway. I don't waste my breath on obviously crazy people."

"Yet you ended up living with sixteen of them, now more if you count the mates. You should loosen up, you're stressed," Taeil smiled as Doyoung chuckled to himself. He had got him there, the residents at N CITY were far from sane.

"I should say the same for you hyung, you should let us in and not push us away when we ask you stuff," now Doyoung had evened out the score. Taeil couldn't think of a reply and the sharp 'beep' of your machine left him unable to think straight anyway as he quickly noted down the results.

"I'm gonna check on Lion Girl and Wolf Boy, call us if anything happens okay?"

Taeil just nodded in response, "see you wizard boy," he smirked as the door clicked behind Doyoung as he left him by himself with you by his side.

He liked the thought of that, you standing by his side, just the thought of you standing without needing support made him happy.

He wanted you to be happy but this was just the sympathy talking... right?

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That's chapter one guys 🤪 hoped you enjoyed and give my boy Taeil some love 💝 -Stroni-

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