#these are the exact same people who have no trouble suspending disbelief even for the most fantastical and ridiculous media

[cto10121]

There was no bigger shipper of R&J than Shakespeare himself and deep down these people know it. They just hate that he did and want to gaslight people who don’t know any better.

I think the reason why bad romeo and juliet takes are so infuriating to me because its people who refuse to meet the story on its own terms who claim that they are right actually, that shakespeare actually intended for them to be cynical and to never suspend their disbelief for even a split second. they can't admit they just don't like or understand the play, and they would rather gaslight you into believing that they are actually doing what shakeapeare would have wanted.

[titaniumelemental]

Convincing people that no one could possibly actually be into them and that the most they can hope for is grudging tolerance of their presence is (a) always false and (b) actively sabotaging their ability to form new connections in an emotionally healthy way. Approaching anything with the attitude that probably no one likes you or wants to be around you does make it less likely for people to be interested, because hanging out with or dating you isn’t presented as something they would actually enjoy.

Now I realize that “confidence is sexy” is supremely unhelpful as advice, and “fake it till you make it” is easier said than done, but there is something here I’ve been able to act upon. Situation where someone appears to maybe be interested, but part of my brain is trying to convince me that they must not really be interested and I’d be bothering them by talking to them... I learned to try to suspend disbelief and act from the assumption that the person does like me and see what happens.

There’ve been times I’ve really liked someone and found myself falling into the mindset that I’d be asking them to do me a favor by hanging out with me, and instead consciously reframed it as an offer to spend time with me. Acting under the assumption that spending time with me is a thing they could like and be glad for a chance to do it. I managed to convince myself that time doing stuff with me could be desirable, and found that sometimes it worked!

And notice I’m being ambiguous about whether this is friendship or dating/play, because it’s the same phenomenon. If you view yourself as fundamentally undesirable, it both feels really really bad, and makes it harder for others to see what’s good about being around you. “Fake it till you make it” isn’t a foolproof solution to this, but it can be a useful tool, while “Of course no one’s interested in you and you’re acting shitty and entitled for even hoping someone might be interested in you,” is the exact opposite of helpful.

Sometimes the argument is that a specific group (e.g. women) could never be interested in you sexually, maybe the argument is that if you’ve had trouble finding friends and/or dates so far then it must be an inherent thing wrong with you, or maybe the argument is that obviously no one wants the specific gross kink stuff you like. These arguments are incorrect, and you have no obligation to take what these people say seriously. This falls under “don’t take life advice from people who hate you.”

[cloudbeom]

Ghost stories | Huening Kai

Pairing: Huening Kai x reader; Choi Beomgyu x reader (platonic); Choi Yeonjun x reader (platonic); Choi Soobin x reader (platonic); Kang Taehyun x reader (platonic)

Warnings: none

Genre: fluffiest fluff to fluff

Words: 2.5k+

Summary: late-night sneaking with your three best friends in school ending with just two best friends left. And a sweet cliche

A/n: I was inspired to make this from this video of hyuka, tae, and beommie exploring the runaway set and saying its haunted bcs babies. and also MY FIRST TXT FIC!!!! uwu

There were almost 800 students; probably more who attended your school who you could’ve befriended with. But nooo, you had to befriend the five guys who for some reason always had trouble following them. Like murphy’s law.

“Please,” Yeonjun pouts, laying on Soobin’s bed in his dorm room. Being surrounded by his five other friends and Soobin in the kitchen making soup for the older. When no one said anything, Yeonjun grabs the person closest to him, which was, unfortunately, Beomgyu, and begs, “Please Beomgyu? Do it for hyung? Yeah? Please?” 

“Hyung we’ll be expelled if we’re caught. School grounds strictly close after 10pm. Not even club members are allowed to go there for meetings after the time limit.” Beomgyu said, “And plus, you're sick. We can't let you go out if we’re going to be carrying you around five minutes later.”

“Hyung is perfectly fine,” Yeonjun says and sneezed at the exact same time after he says it. Earning a half-hearted scoff from Taehyun.

“You’re not fine, hyung. Don’t be so stubborn and just get well, then you can apologize formally to your art teacher yourself,” he says, sounding like he’s scolding the older.

“But- but my pride!” Yeonjun says dramatically, moving his arm to his forehead as he sighs, “What would they think when they hear that popular senior Choi Yeonjun is apologizing for something he does wrong?”

“That you're humble?” Huening Kai says under his breath, and you can’t help but giggle a little at that.

“Come on, (Y/n), back hyung up here!” Yeonjun says, and you can't help but sigh at how miserable he looks.

“Alright, we’ll do it,” you say, and Yeonjun immediately brightens at that.

“Really? For real? Oh (Y/n) do you know hyung loves you so much?” Yeonjun says, throwing his arms up to cheer, but only ending in a coughing fit.

“I mean, I love (Y/n) too and support you and all,” Beomgyu turns to you, his expression saying all it needed, “But are you out of your mind!?”

“Yah don’t change her mind!” Yeonjun says desperately, “Hyung will get you ice cream when I’m better, okay (Y/n)? Just make sure you do it without getting caught!”

Kai grabs your shoulder and leans down to whisper into your ear, “No offense, but are you crazy?”

You turned around to face the four, “Aish, come on guys let’s just do it for Yeonjun. You know he’ll never shut up if his reputation gets ruined. And if his art teacher sees what he had turned in as his piece, he’ll get suspended, or worse, expelled.” You say, pleading them to help, “Come on it’s our hyung here.”

“Yeah do it for hyung!” Yeonjun says, seemingly eavesdropping, and Taehyun rolls his eyes at him.

“Fine, I’m in. But only because I know if you get your ass expelled you're not going to cook for us anymore.” Taehyun says, then walks out of the room. 

“Yay! hyung will treat you all to ice cream if you succeed, I promise!” Yeonjun says, coughing a little at the end.

“Just get some rest for now, hyung. We’ll take care of it.” Beomgyu says, defeated as he walks to the door, opening it for Soobin to walk in with a full tray of food just for the older.

“Did Yeonjun convince you?” Soobin asked, and Kai shakes his head.

“He convinced (Y/n), we’re just going to she doesn’t get her ass in trouble,” He says casually, and Beomgyu nods at what Kai says, walking out. You stare at them in disbelief.

“I can't believe them,” you mutter under your breath, and Soobin chuckles.

“Good luck sneaking into school,”

“Are you not coming with us?” You ask, and Soobin shakes his head.

“Someone needs to take care of the drama queen,” Soobin says, whispering the last part, and on cue, Yeonjun whines.

“Binnie, hyung wanna eat,” Yeonjun says from the bed, making grabby hands to the younger boy. Soobin sighs.

“Good luck with that,” You say, implying Yeonjun. Soobin smiles, dimples and all, in return and walks past you, heading to the bed and you joined the trio.

Huening Kai, Beomgyu and Taehyun were in Tae’s room, you walked in and saw he had laid various flashlights and a tool kit on the floor and on his bed was various keys, each labeled accordingly. 

“Wh.. what are all these? Where did you get the keys, Taehyun?” You asked in disbelief, to which Tae replies with a simple wink.

“Magic,” He says

“No doubt its from all his pranking,” Beomgyu mutters to himself, sighing in fake disappointment. Guess there was a reason why Taehyun was dubbed as the school’s prankster by everyone.

“Yah, gear up. We’re not going to attract attention so take these flashlights.” Taehyun says, throwing the smaller one to you, “Does anyone here have a good memory of how the school looks like?”

“Oh, I can do that!” Kai says, Taehyun handing him the bigger flashlight. Kai did have most of his classes spread out across campus, it was no surprise he knew every nook and cranny of the school.

“Here wear this,” Taehyun throws you his black hoodie, and you catch it easily.

“For what?” You asked, but complied because everything Taehyun owns was a hoodie and all his hoodies were comfortable as fuck.

“If you think pajamas with very bright yellow ducks on them will be easy to sneak in, there’s something seriously wrong with you.” 

You look down at your pajamas and sure enough, they were covered in yellow ducks, but you scoffed, “I’d have you know the ducks protect me from demons when I sleep.”

 “And by a demon, you mean Yeonjun hyung?” Kai says, interrupting your sibling bickering toying with his flashlight.

“Yeah, demons and him,” You say, chuckling as you played with the sleeves of Taehyun’s hoodie, “Oh and don’t think we don’t know that you’ve probably already done this before.” 

Taehyun only smiled sheepishly

.

“Wait this hoodie doesn’t belong to you,” You suddenly said, right when the four of you had broken in and were walking in the very, very dark and empty halls of the school. Making all three boys jump when your voice echoed, Beomgyu shushing you by clamping a hand on your mouth.

“Do you know that if you were in a horror movie, you’d die first?!” he whisper-shouted, and you tried to pry him off.

“I was just surprised, sorry!” You giggled a little, Kai shakes his head with a small smile.

“Drop it guys. We’re nearing the art room, no one will hear us if they were right outside here anyways,” he says, opening the door to the art room and shining his flashlight to the art displayed there, “What the- God that scared me,” Kai laughs a little.

“What is it?” You asked him, walking towards where he was as Taehyun and Beomgyu lags behind.

“Isn’t this fitting?” Kai shines the flashlight towards an art piece that looked like it was covered in blood, arms reaching towards the middle of the frame, “Scary.”

“Hey, isn't this your favorite candy, Beomgyu?” Taehyun asked, looking at a mannequin that was dressed in what seemed like candy wrappers made to look like an outfit, Beomgyu gasps dramatically, “It is! Oh my God... did they eat all of these candies just to make this? I didn’t know such cruel people existed,” Beomgyu says dramatically, pouting at the end. Taehyun claps the older’s back.

“Come on guys, let’s focus first,” You said, turning to the trio, “Let’s go and search for Yeonjun hyung’s art piece,” 

“Someone should keep watch,” Taehyun says, “You know, just in case,”

“I’ll do it,” you volunteer.

“I’ll go with you,” Kai chirps beside you, “Can’t have you alone out there,” He adds, motioning the flashlight to the empty hallways.

“Then it's settled, give us fifteen minutes,” Beomgyu says, Taehyun already diving into the shelves to search for wherever the art teacher had placed their Hyung’s work before she reviews it the next morning. Beomgyu pushes the two of you outside, “Just shout ‘Soobin’ if you hear someone coming,”

“Why him?” Kai asked, turning around and Beomgyu just shrugs.

“Just do it!” He says, then walks back to the art room.

Silence passes through the thick air once you and Huening Kai were left alone.

“I feel bad for Soobin hyung now,” You chuckle, trying to ease the awkward tension in the air. Leaning against the wall of the opposite room of the art room.

“For Soobin hyung? I feel bad for us,” Kai replies, and it made the both of you laugh.

Just then, the door you were leaning on creaks. You both jump at the loud sound, stilling until the door opens wide.

“Crap, I didn’t know that door opens,” You say, still staring at the door.

“It’s the old Chem lab, they don’t use it anymore,” Huening Kai says from behind you, walking forth, “Wanna check it out with me?”

You glance at the art room before turning back to Kai with a grin, “Let’s be quick,”

You crept behind the older male slowly, at first peeking inside the room. It smelled of chemicals and it was filled with boxes and cobwebs, apparatuses that were broken or we’re not transferred to the new rooms still sat in the workbenches and there were still writings on the chalkboard.

Just as Huening Kai was about to comment about the place, you both hear the door to the lab slam shut, the both of you jumping at the sound, frightened.

“What the-” Kai says, whipping around and running to the door, trying to open it, “Fuck, Beomgyu?! Taehyun?!” he says desperately, shining his flashlight towards the door which had, unfortunately, reflected the light, not projecting it outside.

“Does it not open?” You asked, trying to remain calm as you ran over to the door and try to open it yourself, hoping the door had shut because of the wind, “Taehyun this isn’t fucking funny!” You cry, hoping it was your stupid roommate who had did this as a prank for not keeping watch.

“Shit shit shit-” you panicked, all murder scenes from every horror episode coming into your mind at once, rattling the door by the knob and knocking on it several times, “It’s- It’s jammed,” you chocked, starting to hyperventilate. You were not going to have a break down now.

“Hey, hey calm down, (Y/n),” Huening Kai walks towards you, easing you with his hands, “Don’t panic, just breathe with me, okay? They’ll notice that we’re not there and come get us,” He says, pulling you to him, knowing how scared you were in situations like this.

“We’re locked in the oldest room in the furthest part of the building- we’re not fucking okay!” You shake in his arms that Kai had circled you in.

“Beomgyu and Taehyun are next doors, they’ll get us,” he says, and you notice his voice was shaky too. That's when you realized that he’s probably trying to contain his fear aswell. He was also afraid.

You crouch down, and since Kai was hugging you to him, he was pulled down with you. You both sat in the dark laboratory in silence. The air was still, and there was only a single window by the door that served no help due to the fact that it reflected the flashlight beam back. Not that the window would’ve been much help anyway.

“We’ll... we’ll be alright.. right?” you asked, and that made Huening Kai chuckle a little.

“I hope,” he says, “Is your flashlight dead?”

You look down into your hands- you had almost forgotten that you had a flashlight! You turned the switch on and, thank god, it opened. Providing you with a little more ray of light.

“It works!” You exclaim, lifting it up, and hitting Kai in the process.

“Ouch- fuck-” he cursed, covering his jaw which you had hit with the flashlight, and you covered your mouth.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, I-” You walked towards him, reaching to rub the spot you had accidentally hit, and he raised his hands to tell you it was okay, but had shone the bigger flashlight he was holding right into your iris.

Now it was your turn to hiss, your palms coming to cover your eyes that had filled with tears, responding to his beam of light that suddenly blinded you for a moment.

“A-Are you okay?” the older male walks to you, still rubbing his jaw, and you giggled a little at the karma that you got, “Why are you laughing?” Kai asked, but his tone a little less worried now because of you giggling.

“I deserved that,” You said, now a little calmer than before, walking towards his voice and immediately cupping his face, brushing your thumb over his jaw where you had hit him, “Does it hurt?”

“I’m-” Huening Kai stutters, looking down at your concerned face, all your attention completely towards him, and he releases a soft sigh, seemingly not realizing what the words came out of his mouth next, “I’m... I’m so in love with you,”

Well, that wasn’t what you expected.

He must’ve thought you hadn’t heard him because his face started heating up in your hands, and he clears his throat, “(Y/n)?”

“Y-Yes?” You asked, “Sorry?”

Huening Kai looks awkwardly at you for a brief moment, then shakes his head.

“N-Nevermind,” He says, standing up and holding out a hand for you, “Are you okay?”

You took his hand and he pulled you up. You had heard what he said, and you really didn’t want him to regret what he had revealed because quite honestly;

You had loved him too.

“N-No, Hueningie, I’m- well actually it’s- it’s fine,” You rambled, and the older tilts his head.

“What is, (Y/n)nie?”

Explaining with your hands didn’t work, so, stressfully, you had cupped both of his cheeks in your hands, and pulled him down.

His lips were on yours in a matter of seconds.

Sure, it was a little cliche, to be kissing with your crush and simultaneously the person who had confessed to you not five minutes ago, but it was a sweet cliche. One where he had smiled into the kiss, and instead of pulling away in shock, he had wrapped his arms around the small of your waist, and one of your hands had made way into his hair. Where your lips were moving in sync as unspoken love revealed.

And where two certain best friends were giggling from outside.

“So cute,” Beomgyu giggles when he snaps a picture quietly, two of his best friends finally getting together after the frustration of you both not realizing you loved each other, “Yeonjun hyung owes me a week of free lunch!”

“You had a bet with Yeonjun hyung?” Taehyun asked the younger to which he responds with an enthusiastic nod, and the other sighs, turning back to the scene in the laboratory.

“Let’s get then out of there before someone comes,” Taehyun says, walking over to the door with his key, Yeonjun’s art piece, and a small victory smirk, “Or worse, if they start making out,” he continues, to which Beomgyu responded with a look of pure disgust.

[billyhardgrove]

(2) The Girl in Ridgewell - b.h

A/N: ok so I kind of abandoned this story after I posted the first part, or more I kind of abandoned writing altogether, but I’m getting back into it and remembered how much I liked this idea. So here’s part 2 xx 

THE GIRL IN RIDGEWELL | masterlist

Pairing: Billy & Reader

Word Count: 1.4k approx.

Warning: Swearing

Summary: Hawkins becomes unbearable and Billy wants out, but a couple towns over he stumbles upon a timid girl and all she wants is a can of coke.

[ PREVIOUS PART ] || [ NEXT PART ]

-

“So what happened to your face?” Y/N asked curiously, the lack of noise – besides the low volume of heavy rock music from the radio – strangling her a little.

“Fight.” Billy answered brusquely. Y/N’s eyes widened at how blunt he was. Perhaps that’s something she should get used to with this guy. She mentally shook her head; she wouldn’t need to be ‘getting used’ to this guy because he was only giving her a lift. She wouldn’t ever see him again after this small favour, she told herself.

“Oh…” Y/N trailed off, not really knowing what else to say. She’d be lying if she said alarm bells weren’t going off in her head. Why in the world would she just get into a car with a stranger? And by the looks of it this stranger could be a psychopath. She was starting to regret her careless impulsive decision to get in Billy’s car, but it was too late now.

Glancing over to the girl, Billy chuckled lowly. It amused him at how innocent she appeared. He assumed she had never really been around a bad influence before and that was perhaps why she made herself so small around him. After all, it really only took a glance from a stranger to figure out that Billy Hargrove was bad news, and not someone you would want your parents to know about.

But truth was, he was right. Y/N tended to keep away from people who were trouble. She was always the one to follow the rules, was nice to everyone and always put people before herself. But people who were trouble, people like Billy, she avoided. Maybe it was the way she had been brought up, or maybe trouble just made her uncomfortable, whatever the reason, she suddenly fell silent.

Billy figured Y/N was the type of girl who would be attracted to the nerds, the good guys, the polite guys. She seemed to be the opposite of every girl at his school, the ones who would fall to their knees (literally) for the ‘bad boys’, for him. He figured she probably had perfect grades, a perfect nuclear family, with caring parents and would never miss curfew. But that was all based on his assumption, a hefty hypocrisy unknowingly filtering through his thoughts as to make an assumption about someone else’s life without knowing them. And he would soon come to find that all his thoughts were completely inaccurate - bar the very last one but with good reason she held to follow that rule – making him out to be a bit of an ass.

Billy decided to pipe up. “Haven’t you?”

“Huh?” Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, her eyes flickering over to Billy for a split second. She was so on edge in his presence that she wasn’t really paying attention to what Billy was addressing.

“Got in a fight?”

Looking down at her hands, Y/N shook her head no. Why did Billy make her feel ashamed about not getting into a fight before? Any decent human would probably be proud about the fact that they’d never got into a fight, yet for some reason, sitting next to Billy, she was embarrassed to admit she hadn’t. Maybe she was intimidated. Maybe she thought that he would make fun of her and Lord knew she had had enough of that. She’d had enough of everything.

“You’ve never got in a fight?” Billy scoffed in disbelief. Part of him couldn’t believe her. God, he’d been in enough fights for a hundred people so perhaps, since he’d been in so many, he forgot that some people just didn’t share the same… temper as him. “Not even in school?”

“Especially not in school.” She replied. God, her school was strict. If anyone were to so much as push another person, never mind fight, then they’d probably be suspended for a week at least.

“Have you ever stolen something?”

“No.”

“Not even a candy bar?”

“No, Billy.”

Billy paused for a moment, his gaze held to the girl in the passenger seat, almost as though he was fascinated by her. Of course, he knew of girls at school – Nancy Wheeler for one – that seemed similar to Y/N, a goody-two-shoes essentially, but he never really bothered with them and so for the most part they weren’t a part of his wild life. And yet here he had what seemed like that exact girl sitting in his car.

“What about detention? You’re bound to have been in detention before.” Billy tried again, honestly in denial that someone could be so…opposite to him.

Again Y/N shook her head, no.

“You’ve never had a fucking detention? Jesus Christ that’s bullshit. Everyone’s been in detention before.” He called her out, but she shook her head.

“Not me.”

“Jeesh, you really are little miss perfect then, aren’t you?” He almost sneered, part of him slightly irritated at how good she was. He really didn’t fuck with people like that.

“I’m not. I just… I don’t know. I just like to stick to the rules and that way life is just easier.” Y/N shrugged, her voice quiet in response as she kept timid around Billy.

He spoke bluntly. “Easier’s boring.”

“Easier’s safe.” Y/N tried to argue.

Nodding his head in agreement, Billy reiterated “Exactly - boring.”

The girl didn’t reply, giving up and figuring she wouldn’t win against a guy like Billy. He had his reasons for breaking the rules just like she had hers for sticking to them; they just thought differently and that was fine.

Noticing that she had fallen quiet again, Billy didn’t want the drive to be in complete silence and so he spoke up again.

“What were you doing walking along the road in the middle of the night anyway?”

“Getting fresh air.” It was her turn to be blunt now as her voice fell monotonous, letting Billy know that that was a lie but to not pry any more.

Putting his hands up in mock surrender at her snappy words, Y/N rolled her eyes in annoyance towards the boy and the car fell to silence once more. Billy didn’t bother trying to chat to the girl anymore, instead turning the Van Halen song playing on the car radio louder.

Some more time passed, Billy smoking through at least four cigarettes before another word was brought up.

“Where am I leaving you?” He spoke gruffly, part of him in annoyance. To him, it turned out all he really was going to get out of offering a lift to the girl was her shitty company; not even a blowjob was on the table. He was almost sure if he were to bring up the suggestion of her sucking him off that Y/N would run away screaming at the mere mention of it; it was obvious to him that she was a virgin. Again, all these assumptions would soon reveal just how much of an ass he was being.

“Oh, uh…” Y/N trailed off. In all honesty, she didn’t know. Billy probably thought he was just going to drop her off at her house or something, but Lord knew Y/N wasn’t going to go home tonight; not after what happened earlier.

Glancing out the window, she noticed the small town they were just passing through, known as Ridgewell, and spontaneously pointed to the little corner shop just ahead. “Just up there is fine.”

She was a good forty minutes away from where she lived, but she had been in this town a few times before, so it was somewhat familiar. She didn’t mind being dropped off here if it meant she could get out of the awkward space of Billy’s car.

Pulling over just outside the shop, Billy didn’t bother looking at the girl as she undid her seatbelt. Y/N turned to face him, noticing his standoffish body language. Letting out an uneasy sigh, she quietly muttered; “well, thanks for the lift…I guess.”

Still Billy said nothing, still bummed of what a waste of his time he felt this all was. In the time it took to drive this strange girl to the middle of nowhere, he could’ve been in a bar somewhere, getting drunk and actually be guaranteed a hand job at the very least from some ridiculously wasted girl.

Noting that she wouldn’t get a response out of the blonde boy, she collected her things before finally climbing out of his car. As soon as the door was shut, Billy had revved the engine and accelerated away.

“Asshole,” Y/N mumbled under her breath, part of her not believing just how rude that boy was. But at least she wouldn’t have to deal with him ever again.

Yet, little did she know of what the night would hold, causing the angry boy and timid girl to cross paths once more.

-

NEXT PART

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[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Rebel Rebel”

Written by: Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: John Martinez, Andy Cung

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

With a rebel yell, I cried "no, no, no"!

Right from the beginning of this episode, I can tell that it was probably not a good idea to air this episode after Hustlecup. For one, it's another episode featuring the Professor in a not-so-great role. For two, while it starts in a science convention, this episode doesn’t start in the previous episode's Science-Palooza. Instead, it's just "Science Con", a name that will sadly hint at the amount of creativity this episode will have. I know that there's no continuity, but I would rather not be reminded of that.

The Professor, who can make anti-aging potions, growth rays, time-stopping hats, and time machines that only seem to affect people's clothing and personality, is about to show something amazing! He plays it up, with triumphant music playing in the background, which can only mean that it is not that impressive.

It turns out to be a data processing machine from his home lab, meant to record data from the Professor's many experiments in his home lab. The redundancy isn't entirely mine, he really emphasizes that he has a home lab. Home lab!

Nobody is impressed, not even Dr. Wendy Q. Dallen from Home, Sweet Homesick. Maybe they're just reusing the same character design since they don't clarify if it's her or not, but I'd like to think this was their attempt to make her episode's quality rub off on this one. Needless to say, it did not work.

Professor Utonium: What good is being a scientist if you can't talk science with other scientists?

Well, that's one reason to give up science and become a bumbling Sitcom Dad instead. However, it turns out a few scientists did happen to take interest in the Professor's amazing new invention, though they weren't nearly as interested in the data processing part.

Right from the bass-heavy music, one can guess that these guys are part of the Wrong Crowd(TM). That wing-haired guy even says that they're the "bad boys of science". They may as well be wearing big T-shirts saying "Hey Everyone, I'm The Bad Guy!". Knowing the Professor's Sitcom Dad-level obliviousness, I probably could suspend my disbelief for that.

Professor Utonium introduces himself to these fine upstanding young gentlemen, and these guys introduce themselves by singing their name in the style of a barbershop quartet. Sure, why not? It's funny because there's four of them. Who cares if it really doesn't fit their character and it's just completely random?

At least this fake TV show intro seems more fitting for them. They're Joe, Moe, Elbow, and Hieronymus Bass, known collectively as the Beaker Boys. The most interesting thing about this is that this scene has a narrator saying their names...and it happens to be Tom Kenny doing a slightly deeper version of his Narrator voice. Maybe this is his new job. Sadly, he does not get to stay, but he does clarify the Beaker Boys' motto:

Narrator: Real science ends in explosions!

This is emphasized by each Beaker Boy causing an explosion, whether it be via bombs, explosive chemicals, or throwing clipboards into metal vats. This is a huge contrast to the Professor, who just wanted to do actual science rather than just cause explosions all the time, but that doesn't stop him from wowing at all of this.

To be fair to the Sitcom Dad Professor, while their name is pretty close to those villains from that other show I cover, they do seem to give him more respect than any of the other scientists. They're impressed that the Professor wants to talk about real science, and, most importantly, he has a lab in his house! They want to see that lab, and ask the Professor if they could see it. The Professor has to ponder about it for a little bit.

And by a little bit, I mean not at all, as he immediately joins them on their chrome Segways. Get it, because they're nerds, but they're nerds that are bad to the bone. They even come with a biker-esque theme song.

Road hogs, rubber side down!

Hot chrome shining all over down!

I got the fever!

Eh, it's no "You're Riding That Hog".

The Beaker Boys show up at the Powerpuff home, doing the same barbershop quartet song. Blossom is the first to be skeptical about the Professor's new friends, and Elbow blowing their couch up with a chemical isn't exactly helping that suspicion. The Professor nervously laughs through all of this, mostly because they're probably his only friends that aren't family. The only other one I could think of turns into a giant spider monster.

You probably already guessed this stock plot: someone joins the wrong crowd, the wrong crowd turns on that someone, and that someone has to save himself from all the trouble they caused. The only twist is that it's the adult that has to learn his lesson from his own children. Blossom raises a concern about having these guys crash their house, and she is apparently not alone.

Blossom: All they do is blow stuff up!

Buttercup: Which is good for me as a friend, but I got to agree with Blossom here.

Why? Yes, it's perfectly logical for Buttercup to not trust someone who blows up people's couches for no reason, but logic never stopped Buttercup before. Bubbles doesn't even get a line here. The Professor pays his children's warnings with no mind, because, as their father, he knows how to make responsible decisions. Yeah, you tell yourself that, Sitcom.

Immediately after saying that, he gets peer pressured into blowing up Albert Einstein's mailbox. The Professor is clearly uncomfortable about this, but goes through with it anyway. After a collection of scenes where the Professor explodes various experiments while the Boys cheer him on kegger-party style, the Professor seemingly earns the Beaker Boys' respect.

The Beaker Boys do ask him for one thing: he needs to make a monster. The Professor almost looks like he's going to put his foot down and forget about this whole thing, but they decide to give him an offer he can't refuse...

...an official Beaker Boys jacket, custom made just for him! Despite clearly not agreeing with any of their methods of science, he's absolutely ecstatic for this jacket. It's like that special ribbon from Fashion Forward that the Professor told Blossom not to wear due to this episode's exact lesson, except it's the Professor that has to learn it here. There's one thing when Buttercup suddenly forgets lessons she's learned, but this is a case where the character who taught the moral in a previous episode now has to learn the moral in this much later one!

Anyway, we get a montage of him mixing chemicals together to create this monster. This all ends with him finishing the job "Beaker Boys style", causing a huge explosion. This shows that he is full-on with the Beaker Boys, something he will immediately regret when something bad happens. He seems to learn this lesson like a child.

The explosion destroys his lab, as this unstoppable monster made out of whatever he was concocting is formed, and it immediately starts to attack Townsville. The Professor did not foresee this at all. Sure, he does say "what have I done" after seeing his house get destroyed by the giant-eyed tentacle beast, but what did he think was going to happen? Anything for that jacket, I guess.

The Powerpuff Girls show up, and the father figure has to explain to his children how he and the boys were just messing around. The Powerpuff Girls don’t have time for their bumbling father, though, and instantly leave right before the Beaker Boys show up.

The Professor accuses the Beaker Boys of telling him to make a monster to destroy his girls. Wow, even he kind of knows their track record with giant monsters, regular-sized monsters, or even regular-sized crayons. However, they say their real intention was to distract the girls with a giant monster, and, gasp, steal his home lab! Labs don't come cheap, so when they destroy labs, they just steal someone else's. The lab was destroyed, but that doesn't seem to cross their minds.

This is the straw that breaks the camel's back. It was fine when they forced him to blow up mailboxes and blow up his own house. But how dare they steal his lab! It's implied that he would be okay with this if he was able to keep that jacket, but, of course, they don't let him have it. I wouldn't want a jacket with the name of a group of thieves on it, but that's good ol' Sitcom Dad for you.

Going right with the Beagle Bo, er, Beaker Boys' plan, the Powerpuff Girls show up to fight this giant eye monster. It doesn't work out too well, though I appreciate that they use several ways to fight it other than the usual "fly towards the monster and get punched out" strategy. Buttercup tries to poke the monster in the eye, but it keeps blinking. Bubbles participates in a Dragon Ball Z-style beam tug-of-war, but she loses.

They do add in a minor hope spot, which is more than some episodes: Blossom manages to blind it with a truck full of sand, and the monster forgets to close its eyes this time. As the monster gets knocked down, Blossom begins to make a one-liner. Of course, it wouldn't be too convenient for the Professor learning anything if this was actually successful, as the monster wakes up and covers the entire screen with its giant red eye.

After the Professor sees the big explosion from the resulting huge eye laser, he realizes the girls are not doing very well against the monster. I was worried that this would just remind him that he forgot the lighter fluid, but it's good to know at least he's getting better with that. He knows the only way he could solve this is if he went back to the lab again. Oh no, he can't go back to the lab again. He messed up.

However, he suddenly realized he didn't always have a lab, because he used to learn chemistry just from science kits as a kid! We get a flashback to a time before the home lab guy got his home lab, showing him playing with a Chemistry Chelsea set. Well, thanks for proving it, I guess. At least we know the crew are familiar with his kid design from Get Back Jojo. That episode does give a far different reason for him making the Puffs than the reboot's "I was jealous of this woman scientist who made the perfect little boy" explanation, but I'd rather not think about that.

With the inspiration from his past, he decides to do some...

Professor: ...real science!

It's not an off-model reaction shot, but it still feels out of place. I mean, he's not being evil here.

We get yet another montage of him making a new monster, using that Chemistry Chelsea set he hid under his bed. This time, he's making it in his kitchen. I do like how he uses a "#1 Dad" mug at one point, showing that he's not making this monster because he wants to appeal to the wrong crowd, but because he wants to save his children from far-more-certain-than-what-it-should-be doom.

It still makes an explosion, which the Professor claims is just unavoidable. It's here that I realize that the Powerpuff Girls came out of an explosion caused by mixing a concoction, too. Maybe that eye monster is the fifth Powerpuff Girl! It would explain why it has eye lasers.

If that's the case, meet the sixth Powerpuff Girl: Spongebob NoPants NoEyes NoEars NoNose And It Must Scream, or "Spongey" for short. It does make sense that this monster is a sponge, since this monster was made in the kitchen, though I don't recall if a sponge actually made it into the concoction at any point.

Unlike the last monster, Spongey follows the Professor's orders to save his girls instead of causing even more trouble. Eh, I'll accept it; he was made with the intention of saving his girls, after all.

Well, good news, the Powerpuff Girls did manage to survive the big explosion, but the battle is still just as one-sided as ever. Blossom devises a plan: combine all of their eye lasers into one giant one!

And even that wasn't enough to prevent the inevitable Monster Laser, Girls Down, Womp Womp. Blossom can not help but make this comment.

Blossom: Ugh, I told the Professor this is what happens when you hang out with the wrong crowd!

As subtle as a giant eye about to eye laser three girls into sugar, spice and everything nice. Before that could happen, they hear some yelling from another monster.

It turns out to be Spongey, suddenly appearing in the sky with its mouth wide open. The eye monster just stands here, staring at Spongey's gaping maw. Wow, that eye monster really is the fifth Powerpuff Girl! Another explosion happens for no reason whatsoever, and...

...they combine into one creature that makes him look even more like Spongebob, even giving him buckteeth, a giggle, and the lack of any need to destroy cities. The Powerpuff Girls didn't even have to defeat the monster; in fact, this is another episode where the ultra powerful girls are essentially damsels in distress. This episode hides it better, and it is a little more justified, but it's still the case.

One message that is not at all subtle is that Sitcom Dad learned his sitcom lesson: he doesn't need a gang to make him happy, because his real gang is right here! It sadly makes sense that he doesn't use the word "family" here. The Puffs ask the Professor about what he's going to do now that his lab was stolen by the Beaker Boys.

But he tells them not to worry, because one of his friends is going to take care of that. The Beaker Boys's first recording on their somehow completely reconstructed new set is interrupted by Spongey, in their only real comeuppance. Yeah, forget the Powerpuff Girls, just send that thing to fight battles. Seems to have a better track record, at least.

Does the title fit?

Why is it called Rebel Rebel? Sitcom Dad is definitely rebelling against being the good dorky father figure he was in the original, and he's being a rebel here, but I don't think that's what they were going for.

How does it stack up?

It's a sitcom plot, a generic sitcom plot, and a Sitcom Dad plot all rolled into one. The fight scene is not terrible, it's not a bad lesson, but this reboot has done the "peer pressure" lesson far better than this. Rebel Rebel, Mediocre Mediocre.

Next Saturday, I'm not sure if it's an episode title or an admission from the higher-ups. In the meantime...I’m going to catch up on DuckTales.

← Hustlecup ☆ Our Brand Is Chaos →

[murasaki-murasame]

Danganronpa V3 Liveblog Part 11 [Chapter 3 - Trial]

I probably should have left this for tomorrow but oh well, here we are.

Thoughts under the cut.

First of all, I basically failed this trial at least three times because I kept running out of health, but APPARENTLY the ‘retry’ option just takes you back to the start of the section you were stuck on and gives you most of your health back. That sure would have been nice to know back in chapter two. I could have avoided replaying half of that case’s trial if I knew that. I thought that the retry option reset the entire trial, especially since I’m pretty sure the ‘prepare and retry’ option takes you back to the start of it. At least, it takes you back to the screen you’re at right before the trial starts. Maybe I was wrong, since in chapter two I just backed out and reloaded my save instead of making sure whether or not I really was being reset to the start of the trial, but still. Oh well. It’s not a major complaint.

Anyway, that aside, this sure was a trial. I don’t know if it’s because I decided to do it at 1am again instead of just waiting until tomorrow, but in terms of logic difficult, this was probably the hardest trial thus far. I’m not kidding when I said that I ran out of health several times, even with the skill that gives me the max amount of health.

The weird part about it is that I was more or less spoiled on this chapter in advance. Or, well . . . it’s not that I knew Kiyo was this chapter’s culprit, but I knew that he was going to be a culprit at some point, since before I even played the game, youtube decided to recommend me one of those ‘all murders and execution’ videos that had his face on the thumbnail. Well, I guess it was his sister’s face, but you get what I mean. Same difference. So I knew that he was going to be a killer eventually, I just didn’t know when. I had to awkwardly keep it a secret this whole time just in case anyone was reading these posts without having played the entire game.

Just to get it out in the open, there’s one other character who I know dies at some point [not sure if they’re a victim or a killer for sure, though], and I think I may have gotten more or less spoiled by what was labeled as a ‘spoiler-free review’ of the game, but I’ll keep quiet about that one until it comes up. I’ll continue to dance around those two spoilers I’m aware of in these posts, but I’m pretty sure that those are the only two spoilers I’ve read in reference to deaths in this game. Every other death should hopefully be a surprise to me.

But back onto my main point, I knew that Kiyo was going to be a culprit eventually, and it was a major reason why I suspected him immediately [though he was pretty suspicious anyway], but somehow this entire trial was still genuinely difficult for me to get through. I ran into so many points where I was completely unsure what the answer was, or what the game expected from me. And since I didn’t know which exact chapter Kiyo was a culprit in, I had the lingering doubt in my mind that maybe he wasn’t the killer yet. This is why I also got thrown off by the possibility of there being two killers involved, since it kinda partially invalidated by spoiler, or at least it seemed to at the time. I guess in the end there wasn’t a second killer, and my initial instincts were right, but this trial really put me through the motions of doubting those instincts to the very end.

It may have been because I held back on thinking too hard about the mechanics of the case since I didn’t want to work it all out in advance, especially since I probably knew who the killer was, but basically every aspect of the actual mechanics of how these murders happened was a real surprise to me.

I guess my main issue was that since Kiyo was so immediately obvious in every way, with the katana being from his room and the seance being his idea, and him being one of the first suspects pointed at, I just kinda assumed that he was being set up as an innocent scapegoat. So basically I got stuck in a loop of metagame-y logic, yet again, and it made me spend the entire time agonizing over whether or not my instincts were right. The game sure picked the perfect time to deviate from the pattern of the true culprit only being suspected in the second half of the trial. I got so used to that set-up that I started immediately ignoring any character who gets suspected early in the trial. But it makes sense that at least one chapter would involve a killer who’s obvious enough to be guessed at the start.

It also lead to me inaccurately doubting Kaito for a second time, but at least this time I was never super confident in suspecting him, since absolutely nothing in this entire case directly pointed at him, aside from him being kinda shady and reclusive lately. So I don’t feel TOO bad about suspecting him a bit.

Even though it’s always sad to feel like this sort of thing got spoiled in advance, I’m happy that Kiyo was the culprit. Now I don’t have that spoiler hanging over my head for the rest of the game. I would have been horrible if he ended up, say, being the chapter five killer, in which case there would have been no doubt about him being the killer then, since chances are there won’t be any murder mystery cases after chapter five. So it’s better that it happened when there was still a chance of my instincts being incorrect. Which worked out for the best, since in spite of me being sort of spoiled about it, this chapter ended up being incredibly difficult for me because of that possibility of being wrong.

Of course there’s still that one aforementioned spoiler that may or may not be pretty directly spelling out one of the final killers, buuuut let’s not talk about that one for now.

I really did get put through the motions of genuinely suspecting a wide variety of people, especially in the context of if there had been two separate killers. I suspected Keebo until they spelled out why his flashlight wouldn’t have worked, which was a concept that I hadn’t really considered, I even suspected Miu for a fair bit, I almost got caught up in the idea that Tenko killed herself, which made me wonder if maybe she’d killed Angie, and I even seriously wondered whether or not Himiko really was the one to kill Tenko, though I feel pretty bad about that one now. And obviously I always suspected Kaito in the back of my mind. Kiyo just felt way too obvious for most of the trial.

I’m not really sure how I didn’t guess the whole trick with the identical rooms, and the purpose of the missing support beam. I think that if I’d given myself more time to think about it, I maybe would have figured it out, but I didn’t.

I still feel a bit . . . iffy about the seesaw trick, since I find it hard to believe that Kiyo wouldn’t have, for example, tripped over and messed up the magic circle, or broken the floorboard. And unless my memory is wrong of how it was laid out, it’s surprising that having the entire floorboard move didn’t displace any of the salt. So that part of it still feels weird to me, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief on that one. The crimes can’t all be perfect. And at least to balance it out, I’m totally on board with the logic behind everything surrounding Angie’s death. That was all surprisingly easy. I dunno how I didn’t figure out the really simple way Kiyo set up the sword to push the lock. Maybe it just seemed too . . . simple? I dunno.

So the actual mechanics of how the case worked were a bit of a surprise to me, and that lead to the logic part of the trial being really difficult. It’s hard to remember all of it, but a lot of the different sections gave me a lot of trouble. For example, both of the hangman’s gambit games were weirdly difficult [at least the seesaw effect one was], I fucked up twice on the psyche taxi part, the rebuttal showdown parts were all kinda difficult in general, and I lost once at the scrum debate part. Though really, from what I remember, the most difficult part was when you have to lie about Tenko’s final moments. The idea of lying in trials is still so . . . weird to me, I basically never even consider it. I tried literally every single possible usage of every truth bullet they gave me, and lost all my health once, before realizing that the game expected me to lie, after I’d done every other option available to me. I kinda thought I was going nuts. But it worked out in the end, I guess.

Also I still suck so much at the Argument Armament, even with two skills dedicated to making it easier. Rhythm games are my worst enemy. Oh, and on the subject of skills, I also managed to squeeze in the one about making truth bullets faster, since I managed to get enough levels right before heading into the trial. That was good.

Oh, and before I forget, Keebo’s image recording function felt a little bit asspull-y, but oh well, it’s not a huge deal. And also I’m not even gonna comment on the reason why Miu designed it for him.

Before I talk about Kiyo, I just wanna say that I’m happy Himiko’s getting some actual development out of this. That’s good. Hopefully she doesn’t get killed off immediately after this. I’m starting to like her.

Anyway, onto the whole elephant in the room known as Kiyo. I was definitely expecting to get a killer soon who would be unanimously ‘evil’ in motive, to balance out the more sympathetic first two killers, but man was I not expecting how nuts he ended up being. His whole motive reminds me a fair bit of Tsumiki’s from DR2. It also helps that they were both the chapter three killers of their respective games.

I still kinda dislike it when murderers in games like this are ‘just crazy’, but I guess I can’t expect all of them to be sympathetic.

It was still a surprise to hear that he had no real desire to leave, and mostly just wanted to kill. That certainly was disturbing.

And on that note, jesus christ I wasn’t expecting this game to get into incest territory, and Kiyo’s delusional murder spree. Wow. I did not see that one coming at all. I don’t even know what to say about it. They really did everything in their power to make him unsympathetic and evil, huh?

In terms of that little post-credits scene of sort, I really hope that isn’t blatant foreshadowing for Kaito becoming a killer in a desperate attempt to escape from the school before he dies from whatever illness he seems to have. I was suspicious of his illness this entire time, since it obviously wasn’t just him being spooked out by ghost stories. It’d be lame if they signaled the idea of him being a killer so far in advance though, and in such a blunt way. We’ll see, I guess. Maybe it’s intentional on the game’s part, that it’s so obvious. If he does end up being a killer, maybe it’s not meant to be a surprise. Who knows.

In general, I have no real idea what to expect from here. Technically we still have nearly half of the game to go, which is weird to consider. And then there’s bonus stuff. I think I’ll probably continue liveblogging through all of whatever bonus post-game stuff we get. Depending on how it goes, I’ll try and avoid using any spoiler-y post titles.

Overall, this was a really bizarre chapter. I kinda sorta knew who it was in advance, and their motive [plus a few details of the crimes] felt a little weak, but at the same time this was undeniably the most difficult trial in terms of how much I fucked it up. It’s a weird situation. I’m not sure how to feel about it.