#things lagging will 100% be the death of me

[fallenrain40]

when you try to art but then you realize you gotta do like 5 things that AREN'T actual drawing just to be able to finish your piece and you're like.... yeah no.

[burlowbeanie]

Locked Tomb Timeline, as far as I can tell

This is a long one, and a bit of a mess. I'll be making other posts about the fun date coincidences and my speculations about their implications, but I figured I should give some of the actual evidence in one solid chonky post so I can link to it and don't need to repeat myself later on.

(BD = before death of the earth; AR = after resurrection; BM = before millennium, AM = after millennium)

Unspecified Pre-Death of the earth: Foundation of Canaan house/the facility that Jod et al used for the cryogenic experiments. Establishment of Kuiper installation, Uranus platform, Mars installation w/ room for 5 million, the Lucifer Telescope, and fusion batteries (Ntn 14, Ntn 74, Ntn 189)

----------------------------------

Now! Some pre-resurrection numbers!

Before 2 BD: C-- sides with the crew (Ntn 13)

1 BD: Governments shift away from the cyrogenics plan (Ntn 13)

0 BD: Jod destroys the world

------------------------------------

Now, the most unclear section of the timeline: the resurrection and its immediate aftermath.

Augustine, from Htn 176: “Alfred and I were there early enough to found the Koniortos Court on the Fifth, but Lyctors like Cyth wouldn’t be born for years and years, and she spent her whole life suffering Seventh House woo-woo theories regarding the value of hereditary cancer … whereas Mercy is the oldest lag except for me, and she was out hammering at the Eighth House before the paint was even dry on the Resurrection.”

The resurrection occurs a few weeks after the death of the earth (Ntn 396). Then things get a bit hazy. We know the approximate order of the resurrections of the original ten disciples, but not how far apart they were staggered - was it minutes? Months? Years?

Similarly, Cyrus/Val and Anastasia/Samael are implied to have showed up before Cytherea/Loveday, when Cytherea was almost 30 years old. Both cavaliers have last names associated with their house, which suggests that either the third and ninth were established enough to at least have a small population by the time that they went to Canaan House, or that they took those names/were given those names later on.

Cytherea-as-Dulcinea says that she "dreamed of being a 9th nun" at age 13, and it's unclear if she's speaking as herself or as Dulcinea or how much she was lying as either persona (Gtn 104). Thus, we don't know if the ninth house was established by the time she went to Canaan House, though it seems like the sort of hint that both Cytherea and Muir would have had a fun time dropping.

Thus, while it is possible/seems probably many/most of the houses were established by the time that any of the newer disciples showed up, especially Cytherea, that is unconfirmed. However, it took until at least 30 years after the resurrection, probably more, for all 16 of the disciples to gather.

A rough order of events during this time, some of which may overlap:

Original disciples resurrected

New disciples arrive

Lyctors ascend; Anastasia fails

Alecto is put in the tomb and Cassiopeia dies

The lyctors and Jod flee to the Mithraeum, leaving the system

Particular questions that remain and would help clarify things:

Were Anastasia, Samael, Cyrus, Valancy, and Loveday born or resurrected? It seems like Cytherea was likely born.

When did Anastasia have a child and found the tombkeeper line?

When did Pyrrha (or G1deon!Pyrrha) paint a nursury? Was it the same time she visited Anastasia "before she got settled" (Ntn 85)? Was Anastasia's child the birth she assisted at (Ntn 121)?

When was the ninth founded? When was the prison installation founded? Was there anything on the ninth before Anastasia was told to prepare for Alecto's imprisonment? Samael seems to have been born or resurrected after the ninth was founded, unless he was given his name later?

-------------------

After resurrection: Actual Numbers. Once we get like 100-200 years out from the resurrection, things start to get clearer. Not clear, but clearer.

100 AR: God names himself Gaius (Htn 521). Is this when Cytherea ascends, since she is given credit for the "naming oneself after one's cavalier" thing? Or was that some God bullshit?

200 AR: Alecto put in tomb (Htn 478)

4000 AR: source gram comes from sixth house to BOE (Htn 529)

5000 AR: BOE comes to the attention of jod and the lyctors; they may have existed beforehand but been unable to find the houses/be found (Htn 154). Augustine begins questioning the purpose of the empire (Htn 483).

Moving into the thousand years before the events of the series:

9000 AR/ 1000 BM: Matthias Nonius lives (Gtn 53)

750-700 BM: New Rho contract drawn up (Ntn 206)

519ish BM: beginning planning of dios apate major (Htn 474)

300 BM: Cyth gets angry (Gtn 402). Last contact between second and first houses (Gtn 456).

100 BM: Jod leaves the Mithraeum (Htn 81).

80 BM: Jod joins the Erebos (Htn 81)

40-39 BM: G1deon starts to really annoy Augustine, who speaking in 1 AM states: “He has caused me more pain over these last scant forty years than I dare to admit" (Htn 268). I think Wake makes the most sense as an explanation for this, though it's off by about five years.

34 BM: Wake reinvigorates BOE (Htn 154). Ortus born? That’s a fun coincidence that means nothing.

30 BM: Mercy thinks Jod should have returned to the Mithraeum then (Htn 81).

25-24 BM: BOE finds out about resurrection beasts (Htn 275) because Wake talks to G1deon (Ntn 155)

21 BM: G1 begins his (final) pursuit of wake (Htn 469)

Sometime after 300 BM, most likely 20 BM, Cytherea teaches BOE about steles and obelisks (Ntn 155)

20 BM approximately, presumably, could be earlier: Augustine and Mercy talk to BOE. BOE gets accurate fleet schematics for the first time in a hundred years and eventually the location of the mithraeum, though those were probably earlier with Cytherea and two decades later with Cytherea!Wake respectively (Ntn 155)

19 BM: Isaac’s dad killed by terrorists on [redacted], presumably BOE (Gtn 459). Mercy and Augustine are “talking” (Htn 87); Dios apate major. Mercy sees Cytherea for the last time and Cytherea laughs so much she insults Mercy (Htn 120), which is an understandable response given that Mercy may have described the dios apate major plan and/or requested her involvement. Mercy sees Sarpedon as a young soldier (about 20 years PM; close enough and matches up with dios apate) (Htn 81).

19–18 BM: Wake dies (Htn 88). Gideon born. Creche massacre.

17 BM: Harrow born.

14 BM Gideon’s first escape attempt (Gtn 24)

13 BM: Gideon is not a necromancer confirmed (Gtn 24)

10 BM: Augustine sees Cytherea for the last time (Htn 120). Wake’s bones get put on rotation (Htn 476).

9-8 BM: Harrow is suicidal. Harrow opens the tomb. Harrow hears/sees the body. Onset of psychosis. Unclear in what order (Htn 49, 247).

7 BM: (Harrow is still suicidal but sees the body?). Harrow and Gideon fight (Htn 477). Gideon sees Harrow opening the tomb. Her parents kill themselves. Gideon gets nightmares about being in the tomb (Gtn 202).

5 BM: Harrow starts puppeting (?girl wtf?? What was going on in the intervening two years???) (Gtn 348). Last ninth house chaplains and adepts are lost in action (Htn 81).

2 BM: Gideon enters Drearburgh for the last time

1 BM: Number 7 estimated five years from the Mithraeum (Htn 125).

0 BM, with rough approximates:

Month 1-3: prepping for Canaan house

Month 4: Canaan house

Month 5: harrow throws up; Camilla nonverbal

Canaan house recovery missions from the emperor and BOE — what the fuck. Who got there first. How and why did they miss the other people. Seems like BOE got there, intentionally left H and I but took G’s body??????????

Month 6: Harrow and Ianthe arrive on the Mithraeum

Month 8: Harrow kills her 13th planet with Mercy. It’s desert and triple-sunned. Wake makes posthumous contact with BOE (Ntn 155).

Month 9-10: When Judith says she begins writing her report; she’s with BOE on a wooded double(potentially triple?)-sunned planet. At one point several weeks (or months?) later Mercy shows up. According to Judith, that is. Judith honey I might need to recuse your testimony for somehow being more of an unreliable narrator than the lobotomized traumatized psychotic unmedicated half-dead triple-haunted 201-souled Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Then I could bump this back to month 8 which would make more sense.

Month 10: Harrow catches G1d!Pyrrah with Cytherea!Wake

Between Month 10 and Month 12: Harrow turns 18. Harrow discovers G1d can drain thanergy. Harrow makes soup. Harrow makes Ianthe’s arm. Dios apate minor.

Month 12: Harrow finds Cam and Pal on a wooded planet and sees Judith. Judith tries to warn Harrow about Mercy’s involvement.

Mercy ditches her for unspecified business. I suspect this is when she meets with We Suffer? Was this when she heals Judith?

1 AM

Month 2: death of the emperor. Quick undeath of the emperor. Nona born(?)

Month 5: Station Red-As-Blood abandoned (Ntn 152). The demons show up on Antioch (Ntn 448).

Month (6?): Nona gets a job (Ntn 41).

Month 7: nona gets shot, cam/pal fusion reveal (Ntn 105 through the end of the chapter)

Month 8: events of Ntn

[sorcerous-caress]

Imaginary Human and elf conversation I have in my head the past few day :

Elf : I’m finally 100 yo! I can’t wait to start picking up some study and hopefully start venture outside my home in the next 50 years!

Human : That’s neat. I left home when I was late teen to find job by that time I’m quite a competent wizard since I started immediately after I can read. I got accidentally captured by drows, lived in Menzoberranzan for a year or two. I escaped after poisoned Matron mother to death. Then I returned to surface, helped a random village from being wiped out by goblins and orcs. Dating one high elf, who I already divorced, and had two half-elves children. Oh and I probably changed nationalities two times by the time I’m 25. I don’t think I accomplished much as a 25 humans :(

Elf : Y O U W H A T

— RED Anon

Dudee that's what I'm saying! Elves are too coddled fr.

Humans start their education at 6 years old, sometimes younger if you count kindergarten, then finish it at 18.

And the second you hit 18, all the questions start pouring in like

"When are you getting a job?" // "When will you ge married?"

"Who will you vote for?" // "So, did you find a place to move out to?"

And don't let me get started on the weird 20's span where half your friends are married with kids and the other half are in the club.

And that's just the basic of human life, there is still their adventurer class studies or training.

Sure, elves consider their 18-year-old youngs technically adults, but that's just an excuse to allow them to drink and go wild with each other. But in their own circles, they still treat them as kids who don't know better and should wait for their 100th birthday to mature.

Also, the inherited human feelings of shame and incompetence, a tendency towards addiction.Like you're not doing enough, and you're lagging behind.

That is a real thing.

It's called the hedonic set point. Each human has it a certain point in a scale of "happiness" or the emotions responsible for it in general, the feel good hormones your brain releases on average.

If something happens that makes you feel good, your emotional state goes above the set point, if you feel bad, your emotional state goes below the setpoint.

But eventually, you will always return to the starting emotional state, your hedonic set point.

And we don't determine where it's set, nor do all humans have it equally set. Which means some people will always have a worse emotional state by default, with no faults of their own, no matter what they achieved.

Addictions are an easy source of happiness hormones, rewards hormones etc. It can be food, sugar, gambling, gaming, or even more extreme addictions. That's why human resistances to addictions varies widely

Which is what honestly drives some people to always seek more, to achieve more or climb higher.

( i removed a previous written part here after editing this post months later because I couldn't find sources to support the theory, it was the part about the hedonic set point being the caused by evolution and natural selection, that sad humans are more likely to survive)

It's also an existence crisis in It's own, isn't it? The feeling like everything cool has already been done before and you will never stand out from the billions of the humans on earth. The feeling that your life is meaningless and the world wouldn't change if you had stopped existence.

So you take art, like writing, hello there :), or music or climbing or anything that will leave your fingerprints behind. Leave an essence of yourself behind that says I was here. I am a human being and i effceted people and things, I Existed and I Mattered.

All of this is the human experience. To be human.

The constant race between each and every one of us, the constant need to shift and change and improve upon ourselves and our own society. Each generation is vastly different than the last and sometimes condems all their ancestors' rules.

By the time an elf matures, a whole generation of humans came snd reshaped society before bidding their goodbyes. All races will have to readjust to the most recent human culture that frequently changes.

If anything, one could argue that long-lived races hinder human progress. The only thing constant in humans is change and expansions. But for elves they rather take a small space and join the natural progress while humans seek to destroy and flee the the cycle of nature.

[madwickedawesome]

my mischa bachinski headcanons but they start off silly and end up really serious and the tonal shift catches u completely off guard but its ok bc anything for him

(sidenote u have to pretend he and noel were Close Friends/dating before death for a few of these but thats ok becau[tangent])

he for sure cries SO HARD at movies like its unreal. as soon as any movie gets even remotely sad, hes clutching onto the nearest person and holding back tears while his whole face scrunches from him trying to hold back his sobs {inspired by me watching puss in boots 2. that movie would also DESTROY him}

says shit like "that was so sick......" after passionate makeout sessions (to the immediate disgust of noel gruber) mischa (hair and collar disheveled) : that was so rad :D noel, appalled: What The Fuck Did You Just Say To Me

that being said mischas love language is physical touch!! he could not stand his time away from talia where he couldn't hold or kiss her and he loves to be Right next to noel and do his own thing {this is primarily derived from how much he caresses the face of talia's projection, him hugging noel for comfort, his relief when noel leaned against him, etc.!!!!!}

LOVES pickup lines. he looks them up on his phone all the time. he tries to personalize them between noel and talia not just through language but thru their interests and he has never failed to fluster either thru them (despite their TERRIBLE quality). its kind of a shock that he managed to fluster them tho, with how much be always messes up their wording out of nervousness (any comeback will leave him forgetting what he was going to say and immediately lagging)

HE LOVES GARFIELD thats it

got a little overzealous with his makeshift tattoo machine and now has some of the WORST tattoos ever. "oh i like elephants ill do elephant next!" headass

had to teach himself how to use chopsticks in case he ever "desperately needed to use them." he ends up holding them in the most fucked up way imaginable. it is a WONDER he can pick up food without breaking his fingers with that form honestly

cried with excitement when he hit 100 subs on his yt raps . like omg he finally felt accepted and felt like he had made a huge name for himself w this huge achievement and when he hit 1k he FREAKED OUT and made a thank you rap (such a dork)

experienced severe culture shock upon entering canadian catholic school; he went to an insanely strict russian orthodox academy back in ukraine. noel offered to skip together to go get food and mischa was like ??Huh? Are you insane (hc courtesy of sight)

the realization that he could do basically anything without being completely fucked over contributed to his title as a troublemaker; he acted out and had fun to the resentment of the headmaster (which only made him angrier and led him to acting out further and further, trapped in a cycle) (hc also courtesy of sight)

his mother taught him how to cook so many ukrainian foods before she sent him away to canada in order to prepare him for his life; every time he cooked for himself he had to hold back his emotions because all he could think of was his life with his mom and how much better things were without his new life in canada

that being said, whenever his "parents" kick him out or he just can't stand being in the same area as them, his first call is noel (to the worry and concern of noel and the absolute delight of noels mother)(she LOVES him). noel calms him down with hugs and indulges him with poetry to ground mischa

in ukraine, he struggled to realize more about his sense of self, sexuality, needs, etc. because of social stigmas; it took him a new life in canada and a long time to accept the side of him that loved boys and he still struggled to handle the weight of it by the time of his death

mischa believed in god as a child-- not so much anymore . as a kid he was terrified of sinning and always wondered about the assertion that "everything happens for a reason," always wondering what he was repenting for as his mother got sicker and his father remained absent. by the time he moved to canada and experienced the falseness of a canadian catholic school, he figured that not even the cruelest of entities would put him through what was happening. he could no longer find comfort or curiosity in the belief of a god, only disgust and a sense of selfishness.

monday, september 14 was going to be a good day. a day off from school, a day to just have fun and let loose at a fairground. noel wanted a stuffed toy really badly, mischa did everything in his power to get it for him. mischa did everything to indulge him, even kissing him at the top of the ferris wheel; it made noel happy so it made mischa happy. he had no internet, so he promised to text talia when he got back to his house. as the cyclone reached the apex of its loop, and mischa heard a sound, all he could do was pray to a god he no longer loved and prepare to meet him thats all i got for now thanx for reading love u!!!!!!!!!!

[spookiest-little-guy]

004/100

I really wanted to like this film! The premise sounded really cool and the reviews on shudder were mostly positive. But this film was just not that good.

I liked the story! I liked the idea of a person being possessed by a demon who kills people that upset them. I wished we got to see the demon, even if it was just a shadow on a wall. There are 3 very good death scenes that have great special effects, I wish there were more of that in this movie. These are pretty much all the things I liked.

The acting ranged from okay to cringey, especially towards the end of the film. While I do like the story, I felt it lagged in some places. Having more characters would have really helped. The worse part of this film for me was the ending! It was so incredibly anticlimactic. The entire time the film is building towards a showdown between the demon and the girl and then nothing. It was such a let down. 

Overall, not the worst I've seen but not good either.

[muninnhuginn]

Top 3 Mob Psycho 100 arcs and why?

Firstly, I apologise in advance because I think this has got a real wordcount now. I tried so hard not to tangent, okay. I failed.

Okay, so most of these are closer to the end of the manga/anime and this could be recency bias in action, but tbh I think what it basically is is that the earlier arcs set up the characters such that by the time you reach these arcs that you as the audience have the investment to really get them?

Confession/???% arc

Separation arc

Divine Tree arc

Reasoning (and tangents) below the cut:

Confession arc

So this arc brings closure for pretty much every character. the only one I feel a bit iffy about in terms of that is Shou and I have seen some possible explanations as for why he says he won't use his powers anymore as a good thing but I can't help but feel that his arc is basically lagging behind everyone else? it's not a dealbreaker and he's clearly in a better place as of the epilogue but that's the only one that feels weird to me. I was also a bit wary about Dimple's return but have since swung myself around to accepting it rather than just "letting it pass"

Anyway,

teru part - all the callbacks to his intro arc, the mirroring but the roles are reversed.

touichiro - finally gets that 'redemption = death' would be an escape route for him rather than him actually owning up responsibility and living with his mistakes. him deciding to 'run away' saves both him and shou and leaves it open for them. both touichiro and shou are basically learning the lessons mob learnt on a delayed timetable

ritsu - there are definitely more intelligent things I could say here but the part of his confrontation I liked the most was how he recognised ???% as mob and accurately pinned down a load of what mob himself was going through before mob himself did

mob internal !!!. yeah !!! is all I got here. it's my favourite part of the entire arc bar maybe the reigen-mob parts so I really struggle to put words to it

reigen - mob. resolves both of their arcs in one shot and brings to light the parallels that honestly had not been shown the limelight previously?

The brief answer here is: closure for character arcs and bringing subtext to the text. I will say the anime dropped the ball a bit on the latter though with them deliberately missing some lines that made intentions clearer (Ritsu's plan to get himself hurt to snap Mob out of it; ???% calling out Mob disowning his powers so he didn't have to take responsibility for them; Ritsu realising that Mob didn't harm him at all). Still, the majority of it got through even if only by implication so I'm still happy with it, just overall prefer the manga for this arc.

(That said, I do like how several of the anime choices in the first episode of this arc (pre-truck-kun) deliberately call back to shots from the very first arc of the series to show how Mob has grown. He can actually receive a football now, run without immediately collapsing, when he goes to people it's to ask them for advice not because they need something from him)

Separation arc

-First thing, up until this point we actually have no idea of Reigen's life outside of Spirits and Such. This arc lets us peek behind the curtain and what we see there is grim. It also lays down groundwork for confession arc re: Reigen's 'hidden' side.

- okay so the thing is, Reigen doesn't need mob for psychic powers necessarily. in this arc, he's doing great as a 'psychic' up until the live show and Reigen successfully figures out that the 'victim' is faking it. by all accords just has to follow the script and get home free, but because he previously humiliated Jodo it was all a setup. I really didn't appreciate this until a recent rewatch, but the way in which Reigen is tricked would still work even if Reigen were a true psychic. either way, he knew the 'victim' was faking and acted as expected on a supposedly scripted tv show. Reigen also got by fine before Mob came along and could probably just avoid taking on clients who may actually be haunted. My point is, in terms of powers? that may have been the reason why he first 'hired' Mob, but that's not the full reason he keeps him around now.

- Anyway, Reigen is just miserable the entire time he's away from Mob this arc, both before and after the fame trip. Even the fame trip parts where he's ostensibly doing great read as almost... manic? In how he's trying to prove just how well he's doing. There are also the Mogami references with the bugs when Reigen hits rock bottom which just really emphasise how Reigen could easily have gone down another path

- And! this all happens over his birthday. which, yikes, but also it means when we see his next birthday in the epilogue and he's surrounded by people trying not to cry it's just that much sweeter

- also I've mainly zoned in on the reigen aspects of this ep, but the thing that kick starts the arc after reigen is way too harsh is mob setting his foot down. there's no way he would have done that in s1, but because he's grown over the course of the series (and as I saw another post point out recently, as he's just come from mogamiland where he was constantly belittled by others) he decides to walk away. and honestly, that was the healthiest thing for both of them at that point? this arc does come to a really good conclusion imo but first it shows the toxicity in the mob-reigen relationship and starts the process of mending some of it. mob's answer when reigen asks him if he knows (he's not a real psychic) is sweet, but ultimately a sidestep from answering fully. so whilst on first watch you may think it's all resolved, some of the threads laid down here return in confession arc.

- it may not seem it from what I've written above, but reigen does genuinely hurt mob. if you had to assign who of mob and reigen were the most toxic element in their dynamic it would be reigen hands down. mob's main flaw in terms of their relationship comes down to being too passive (and him breaking out of this is literally what triggers this arc) and his refusal to confront reigen's lies head on. meanwhile reigen full on claims mob doesn't have friends and lowkey encourages mob to keep him as his priority when mob considers branching out (the entire thing about him saying mob shouldn't join any clubs especially. it could be argued there was some genuine concern in there mob was being taken advantage of by the telepathy club but the reason reigen considers that so fast is because that's what he himself is doing). reigen keeps insisting that mob will return to him because he hasn't got anyone else. like, if that happens in a real life friendship/relationship, it would be a huge red flag, you know?

- Reigen absolutely lashes out like this and tries to cling to Mob as his lifeline as a defence mechanism. it's not spelt out until waaay down the line, but reigen does believe he is inherently unlovable if he shares his full self. and until the very last arc, if asked to choose between pushing someone away or letting them in properly and truly, I sincerely believe he would choose the former. and yet, he does absolutely want to have that connection as this arc shows. he's just too scared to be the one to reach out. It doesn't excuse his actions in any way but added to everything else (estranged family, closest he has to ‘friends’ are bar acquaintances) it paints the picture of a lonely, lonely man.

Divine Tree arc

- it's about faith as a concept but largely divorced from any specific real life religion. cults! return to teru's entire pedestally thing. another image of mob as an image of god! so fun thematically.

- I really really liked how the anime adapted the horror aspects of this arc. There was one specific episode that was directed so differently from anything in the other episodes and it was so so unsettling. I loved it.

- my favourite part is where dimple is trying to do his villain monologue and it becomes more and more apparent that he's actually just doing this to try and cling onto some purpose. he hasn't wanted to really "rule the world" or anything like that for some time, but if he faces that then what reason has he left to exist? And it may be okay for humans to just trundle along with no purpose but a spirit with no reason to exist? a spirit with no reason to exist cannot exist.

- which is why confession arc when it's revealed that mob's faith in dimple kept him around it works. the one person dimple didn't try to overpower to worship him is the one person who actually believed in him? in confession arc itself I kinda give the return a pass because I don't like it when sacrifices get retrospectively cheapened, but with the context of the whole of divine tree it... actually works? (and there are some more reasons why it has to be both dimple and reigen to reach mob but that's a tangent here)

[wondereads]

Weekly Reading Update (10/23/23)

Take this woefully late update while I get the current one written and sorted out!

Reviews and thoughts under the cut

Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare (8/10)

I do think this book is better than Angel, I just think I was too lenient on that one because of the nostalgia (I've now adjusted its rating to 7/10). I really like that the conflict in this book is split between Tessa, who is focused on Mortmain and the main plot, and Will, who has his whole curse thing going on and is a good window into the emotional conflicts. It makes this book feel much more...filled than Angel which lags in many places. Concerning the emotional aspects, while I love both Will and Jem and am well aware of how the series ends, it feels to me like Clare heavily favors Will. Will gets a very complicated backstory, a lot of plot dedicated just to him, and while Jem arguably has just as pressing of an issue, he's just so placid about it. He can be soft-spoken and kind and still have a desire to live.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (10/10)

This is a reread and it still astounds me how this book manages to fit an incredible magic system, an engaging plot, and some of my favorite characters ever into less than 200 pages. The concept of this book is such a unique one, and it allows for these very complex and unusual characters whose circumstances have made them very difficult to understand. Even though not every character is likable, McGuire does an outstanding job of portraying how their situations have made them this way (except Angela fuck you Angela). Despite it technically being set in the real world, and the characters contribute to this, the whole story has a dreamy, otherworldly quality to it, as if Eleanor West's home was its own pocket dimension. And, of course, I love how much queer rep there is in this book and just general willingness to portray non-romantic or atypical romantic relationships as the most important in a character's life. Now that I've reread this one, I'll finally be continuing the series.

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon (CR, 38%)

I swear I'm enjoying this book, it's just so intimidating and I really haven't had time to really sit with a book recently. In the small bit that I've read, I like that Glorian is starting to change a little. Compared to Dumai and Tunuva in particular, she's been rather static, but I can see her starting to find her place.

Lodestar by Shannon Messenger (CR, 36%)

These books stress me out so much. Part of me is well aware that these are middle grade and we have yet to permanently 'remove' a major character, be that through betrayal, major injury, or death. (I consider a major character to be Sophie, her friends, her family, and a couple of the major adults.) However, considering the tone of the books keeps getting darker and darker, it's only a matter of time, and there's a great opportunity for it right about now. Still, any fear I have is overcome by my desire to consume fandom content for this series, so onward I push.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (CR, 10%)

I'm not that far into this one, but I am definitely curious. Namely, how the hell is everything in this book going to be fit into less than 100 pages. This book promises a lot, and so far it's reading like the opening to a much longer space opera-style sci fi novel. We'll see!

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher (CR, 1%)

I've only just barely started this one but I've got to hurry it up since I'm supposed to review it soon. It's been a while since I read a romance that's just a romance, so I hope I enjoy it!

[girl-with-bones]

I love the fact that even the people the system is supposedly for - the academics, the ultra-studious, the researchers - also suffer in the end.

I was at one point the highest attaining student in my entire high school. I took 12 GCSEs (you only technically need about 4 most people take 8 or 9), and by the end, learned almost every subject basically cover-to-cover, so much so that I had many a lesson where I just did my own thing because they had nothing left to teach me.

I learned a lot from that. Yes the content of the courses, but moreso life-lessons.

1 - The system is 'designed' for nobody. Those who lag behind, fall behind, are left behind. Those who push ahead, are literally stopped from doing so.

Don't believe me? Here's an example:

I've always been interested in maths. I love complicated mathematical concepts. I love the beauty that emerges from such simple rules. So it follows that I spent basically my entire school career waiting for the curriculum to catch up with what I found exciting. I remember being thrilled at the end of primary school that we were "finally" doing a bit of algebra.

But yet again, by year 11, at the tail end of the GCSE course, I was done. I mean this with full honesty when I say I could get full marks on GCSE maths papers in my fucking sleep. I did it. I finished the course. There was genuinely nothing more to do.

So my teacher let me study higher level stuff. At that time I was planning to do A-level maths so I started working my way through that. Differentials, integrals, complex trigonometry, interesting stuff to my little school brain.

One day the head of maths, accompanied by some sort of important school governor person, walks in and sees me doing differentiation. Flash forward a week, banned. I was banned from STUDYING. MATHS. IN A MATHS CLASS. I was required to do GCSE level work, even though there wasn't any left.

Thankfully, my teacher was like 'wtf no' and sneakily gave me more interesting stuff to do, but that taught me something. The system is genuinely not built to handle exceptional students. It's not built to push people, to challenge them where they are LITERALLY ASKING TO BE CHALLENGED. Nope, it's all standardised. Your passions? Standardised. Your hopes? Not according to data in a spreadsheet. Your life? Don't even think about it.

And that's not me being hyperbolic or edgy. I was not living.

2 - making school your life is fucking. Dreadful.

But it's all I'd ever known. I was always a goodie-two-shoes-teachers-pet-whatever (and kind of still am ngl). But that attitude did such serious damage to me in the long run. It drove me away from others my age, away from socialising, away from dumb fun. I was a serious person who took everything seriously 100% of the time. And so, those were my friends too. The people who's entire life was based on huge ambitions, and numbers on a page at the end of an exam season.

You wanna know how many times I hung out with my high-school friends, outside of school? You wanna take a guess?

0. Zero times. I basically only had a social life at all after one of my not-school friends forced me to download snapchat lmao

Sometimes I feel like I barely had a teenage-hood. I was so strict, so laser-focused that I maybe lost sight of what the fuck I was doing it all for in the first place?

3 - You will work yourself to death for numbers on a page. It will not feel good at the end.

I don't even think I need to explain this one.

Our exam season was split into two halves, with a week's break in the middle. It's supposed to be a break. It's also supposed to be a chance to study, revise, and get ready for the last, grueling weeks of exams.

Given the fact that 'break' and 'study' are kiiind of contradictory, you can probably guess that I actually did neither of those. I just crashed. Fell into a slump and crashed.

And yeah, sure, I picked myself up by my bootstraps and got right back to work at the end of that week. But I don't really consider the stress of failure beating the stress of exhaustion as a huge win if I'm honest.

So, where does that leave us?

Right now, tired. Tired as fuck. I look back on a decade-long life of schooling and education and I don't know who I really am or wanna be.

I bought into the system so hard. I threw myself in and literally came out on top. And I don't even know if it was worth it lmao.

To be fair, there are other things at play. Probably an anxiety disorder, depressive tendencies, and being a young trans girl in an "all-boys" high school is not exactly a recipe for a healthy young person lol

But I can't help but think if it had just been a little less strict, a little less enabling of all those fears and anxieties, a little less focused on achievement over experience, I might have a little bit of better relationshio with myself.

But, oh well. What's a girl to do but build a life for herself. I'll get there. One day at a time. And when I look back on myself as I am today, hopefully, I'll be proud as fuck of the girl who worked her ass off for herself.

A Twitter Thread from David Bowles:

[Text transcript at the end of the screenshots]

I'll let you in on a secret. I have a doctorate in education, but the field’s basically just a 100 years old. We don’t really know what we’re doing. Our scholarly understanding of how learning happens is like astronomy 2000 years ago.

Most classroom practice is astrology.

Before the late 19th century, no human society had ever attempted to formally educate the entire populace. It was either aristocracy, meritocracy, or a blend. And always male.

We’re still smack-dab in the middle of the largest experiment on children ever done.

Most teachers perpetuate the “banking” model (Freire) used on them by their teachers, who likewise inherited it from theirs, etc.

Thus the elite “Lyceum” style of instruction continues even though it’s ineffectual with most kids.

What’s worse, the key strategies we’ve discovered, driven by cognitive science & child psychology, are quite regularly dismissed by pencil-pushing, test-driven administrators. Much like Trump ignores science, the majority of principals & superintendents I’ve known flout research.

Some definitions:

Banking model --> kids are like piggy banks: empty till you fill them with knowledge that you're the expert in.

Lyceum --> originally Aristotle's school, where the sons of land-owning citizens learned through lectures and research.

Things we (scholars) DO know:

-Homework doesn't really help, especially younger kids.

-Students don't learn a thing from testing. Most teachers don't either (it's supposed to help them tweak instruction, but that rarely happens).

-Spending too much time on weak subjects HURTS.

Do you want kids to learn? Here's something we've discovered: kids learn things that matter to them, either because the knowledge and skills are "cool," or because .... they give the kids tools to liberate themselves and their communities.

Maintaining the status quo? Nope.

Kids are acutely aware of injustice and by nature rebellious against the systems of authority that keep autonomy away from them.

If you're perpetuating those systems, teachers, you've already freaking lost.

They won't be learning much from you. Except what not to become. Sure, you can wear them down. That's what happened to most of you, isn't it? You saw the hideous flaw in the world and wanted to heal it. But year after numbing year, they made you learn their dogma by rote.

And now many of you are breaking the souls of children, too.

For what?

It's all smoke and mirrors. All the carefully crafted objectives, units and exams.

WE. DON'T. KNOW. HOW. PEOPLE. LEARN.

We barely understand the physical mechanisms behind MEMORY. But we DO know kids aren't empty piggy banks. They are BRIMMING with thought.

The last and most disgusting reality? The thing I hear in classroom after freaking classroom?

Education is all about capitalism.

"You need to learn these skills to get a good job." To be a good laborer. To help the wealthy generate more wealth, while you get scraps.

THAT is why modern education is a failure.

Its basic premise is monstrous.

"Why should I learn to read, Dr. Bowles?"

Because reading is magical. It makes life worth living. And being able to read, you can decode the strategies of your oppressors & stop them w/ their own words.

[fizzingwizard]

Was curious how many of the Sims 4 bugs on this list I've encountered… it's a lot

Part One because I guess this is too many bugs even for tumblr hahaha

Jumpy Animations/Sims teleport - since a long time ago but worse now Routing/Sit down issue on several interactions - love to watch my sims wander around like ants looking for somewhere to sit with a chair right in front of them. especially love when I tell me sim to go play a game at the card table in the same room, and instead they go outside, walk around the entire house, come back in and then sit at the table. guess they just felt like a walk first lol Music from other modes Plays During Live Mode - yup and usually overlapping. fix with restart but it often happens in CAS where you lose all your stuff if you quit… Lag for menu to show up when clicking on objects - especially the fridge/oven!!!! Sims keep moving after paused Sims do DU homework under laptops - not just DU tho I get this for anything that can be done at a table, including eating, and sometimes it's not even a portable laptop but a computer Sim won't accept queued commands/ Sims don't do actions - this was supposedly "console" but as a non-console player I know it happens to the rest of us too. also to most of us Lots with manipulated terrain look realistic/strange in world view - idk if this is a bug, i think probably that's just how it appears. but it is weird Fishing Identification for active Sim with no fishing skill - I think this one has been around since base game. Sims 4 really wants everyone to love fishing. I'll be like. mourning the death of Sim Grandpa. And all of a sudden 6-year-old Sim Grandson will "identify the Perch!" Multiple daily calls for sim to switch careers - CONSTANTLY. EVEN WITH PHONE ON SILENT MODE! Excessive use of Cross Stitch Basket - yep. I get it the worst with cross stitch, but I find it annoying that other hobbies which cost money like knitting and painting are autonomous as well. Either there should be a "practice" object which is the default and is free or this stuff shouldn't be autonomous. Food too tbh… I have tried playing rags to riches before, and one reason I gave up was just this - it was so hard to keep control of finances because sims have no concept of saving pennies lol Railings Clipping Through Walls - hate this so ugly Multi-story columns misaligned Foundation becomes see-through Sim Gets Fear of the Dark After Being Cured - all the fears and wants sucked. they're boring, curing then is boring, they have little impact except just ruining your sims day, and YEAH, they come back after being cured!! best to turn it off just like neighborhood stories Constantly dirty surroundings moodlet from Pressure Cooker and Kettle - I'm not 100% sure I've got this one, I will check the next time I play. However I've had multiple issues with these objects: sims constantly cooking with them when their queue is empty, and constant fires originating with them. Lately my sims was complaining her kitchen was dirty but I could not find anything dirty. She's a Neat sim, but even after having her clean everything, and then going into build mode and moving stuff to look for plates that might have gotten stuck under objects and are hard to see, the room still registered as dirty. I'm thinking it was the pressure cooker or kettle, or maybe even pizza oven which she also has Upgraded beds give two contradictory moodlets - yup spend hours upgrading your bed and the sims like "what a bad sleep!" Sims on home lot don't take care of needs when active sims away - yeah two sims in my house recently almost starved bc of this NPCs take food ordered by active Sim - yup! again ruining my rages to riches haha No evolve option (ready to evolve) - yes and yes I've checked that the plants are in season. Also having major issues with other gardening things especially on community lots Very High Household Bills While On Vacation Campfire causes too many fires - really frustrating for me bc I use the campfire a lot. I absolutely love camping gameplay but between constant fires and thunderstorms where you're 100% guaranteed to get electrocuted (9_9) it really sucks

[videostak]

love that haircut 100 album cause like while a lot of new wave has funk and jazz lil sprinklings on it i love how they just revel in it like i love how lemon firebrigade is literally just a instrumental aside from the lil sung part its soooo goood and especially perfect listening to on LP on my nice sound system ^_^ like glad that i experience the album first on LP b4 picking up a CD i kinda feel awakened to llistening to music on LP now. like just getting real comfy w. it ^_^ also in the morning i was so pissed off just stressed wasnt able to get any sleep really cause of dendy peeing and my room smelling awful and then right after that my dads dog lucas threw up and i cleaned it up and let him out but was just exhausted but after that i relaxed and listened to reach out by burt bacharach and then listened to goldfinger score by john barry and played spartan x while listening to it it worked so well since like spy music and martial arts go well together especially with the games obvious game of death influence so that was fun. also since that game is great. buut it was suuuper relaxing putting burt bacharach on and resting my eyes and falling asleep to it :> gonna rly gonna try to get more records in the future and just have a lot of my fav albums on record and maybe even look for like expensive stuff thats my fav like b2 unit and 70s miles davis and stuff liiiike that. tho also i think from now on im gonna try to listen to everything i buy for the store b4 taking it in. im too lazy at listening to music digitally like on spotify or on yt like i just lag so im gonna try to listen to all the records b4 one to check that they dont skip and two to just get more knowledgee :) abt the world beyond just names n stuff. and three also its good to not just take them immediately after cause lots of time the boss doesnt have cash in his register when i go since its like right after they open so its better for me to wait more towards the middle of the day or second half :) saturdays haul was reallly really gooood and im excited to see how it goes from here on out. especially saturdays where im gonna go to two back to back. regretting i didnt listen to some of those albums i got previously buuut from now ill try to do that and like if things continue for the foreseeable future ill probably run into the same albums i found previously so like ill be able to hear them eventually. this job is rly dope i hope it doesnt end and things get better both for me and the store. cause like ya the pay obv isnt consistent and based on how muhc work i put in which is a nice challenge but obv with its disadvantages so like im hoping i continue to find great stuff and eventually it goes to where i can work in the store again and do both. its fun going w/ my uncle and my grandma but i also hope i can drive there alone i nthe future so idont feel too reliant on ppl and also so that i can go at my own pace n stuff. rn i can definitely drive to and from the one i go to thursdays but the saturdays one are tricky and ill have to look up more on google maps. tho yesterday was soooo goood like i found so much great stuff and felt real proud about my finds ^_^

[junpeijackflash]

Welp, I Guess I’ll Talk About My Maximum Ride Rewrite Now

I promised I’d post about my rewrite soon, totally not expecting to do it for at least a few weeks. Then I opened up my doc after like a month and wrote two chapters in two days.

So, now equipped with a stronger drive to write (at least for now) I’ll share some details on my rewrite project. I’ll be putting this under a cut because holy fuck I did not expect to write this much:

The full title for the series is going to be Fly On, Maximum Ride. The individual book rewrites are going to be from song lyrics (or song titles? haven’t decided). Incidentally, the “Fly On” part of the title also comes from song lyrics.

Why, you may ask, am I doing the cliché AO3 “song lyrics as the title” thing? Because music ended up having a larger impact on this series than intended. What started out as me listing each flock members’ favorite bands and songs somehow wove so deeply into them that I cannot remove it.

(I’m aware kisses4butterflies on AO3 also has a music thing going in their rewrite. I came up with my version independently, and I do think it’s cool we had similar ideas)

Now to what people actually care about: the story and characters 👀

First off: Jeb never died/faked his death. He is still living with the flock as we speak, leaving the house every so often to get groceries or supplies for the flock. Sometimes he’s gone for a few days, sometimes weeks, sometimes a bit longer. But he’s still a part of the flock’s life. He trains them, teaches them, makes sure they’re healthy, rewards them when they do good, etc.

Ari sadly does not exist. I could’ve tried to come up with something for him, but I removed him from the plot so early on there’s no way to squeeze him back in. Maybe he could’ve been living with the flock as a normal human kid, but I feel like that would’ve just made him Gazzy Without Wings so :/

The house is…different. I don’t want to say much on that now, but just know the flock isn’t waking up with the sun or going on daily flights around the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. They go outside to train and occasionally play, but only when Jeb lets them.

Max, Fang, and Nudge are probably the only real physical fighters of the bunch. Iggy’s extremely good at assembling traps and weapons he can use, but he doesn’t have the same training as his siblings. Gazzy is training to be a good fighter, and training with Iggy on building things (he’s much more eager about the bombs than Iggy is), but he’s still a kid and he’s still learning. Angel is a six year old, and she’s also slightly lagging behind on her motor skills, so safe to say she is not good in a fight.

The flock still looks somewhat human-like, but not enough that they pass 100%. Their wings are massive, for one, and they can’t just fold them up into their backs. They need bulky jackets and pants to squish their wings inside if they want to hide them. They also have feathers along the backs of their arms and legs. Their pectoral muscles are larger and they have broader shoulders, all to help support the wings. They have smaller and rounder bird eyes with raptor vision, and they’ve got hollow bones and air sacs just like birds do.

In terms of what birds the flock’s wings are based on: Max = golden eagle, Fang = peregrine falcon, Iggy = osprey, Nudge = american kestrel, Gazzy = red tailed hawk, Angel = ferruginous hawk. Their eyes also match the birds they’re based on.

Everyone in the flock has pretty noticeable scars. Max has a large one on her cheek. Fang has several long ones across his chest. Iggy’s eyes are basically a scar on their own. Nudge has scars on her hands that flare up in pain. Both Max and Gazzy have scars around their neck in the same places. Angel doesn’t have scars yet, but she’s going to get some soon.

The kids fully believe they’re freaks of nature who cannot live outside of their home or else they’ll be hunted down or taken back to The School.

The flock all consider themselves siblings. This does in fact mean no Max-Fang romance. Honestly I wouldn’t know what to do with it even if they weren’t siblings. I have 1 (one) planned romance in book 2, and it doesn’t involve either of them.

There’s not de facto leader, since Jeb is still there. Max, Fang, and Iggy all take up different roles when he’s gone to help around the house.

Max and Fang do have a really close bond, though. They were cage neighbors at The School for as long as they can remember, and they developed a very close friendship, always looking out for one another, always ready to do anything to save each other. Even now, four years after leaving The School, they’re constantly there for each other, helping deal with trauma the only ways they know how.

Of course, when Max and Fang aren’t physically or mentally able to help, Iggy’s there to be the emotional support for his siblings. He’s one of the oldest kids, so he’s treated as such, James. Admittedly, there is A Lot to Iggy that won’t get unpacked until after book 1. But he’s still very blind. Still very skilled. Still very gay.

Nudge, being one of the younger three, got to have a slightly happier childhood, free to play with dolls and be a kid. She still struggles with nightmares and flashbacks, but not to the degree that her older siblings do. Now that she’s getting older, she has to train more, something she hates. Just like in canon, she really just wants to be a normal girl. She’s scared of people, but also fascinated by them and wishing she could live like they do.

Gazzy barely remembers anything from The School. It definitely had an impact on him, but the few memories he has are implicit childhood ones that are more sensory than anything. He’s the most innocent of the kids, but he’s also very aware of his siblings’ struggles and tries to help when he can. He’s willing to fight, despite his total lack of experience.

Angel, unfortunately, absorbed plenty of bad memories as a baby, when she couldn’t control her powers very well and overheard everyone’s nightmares. She’s aware of what happened at The School, but she tries not to bring it up because it makes her siblings sad. She still has nightmares about it, still remembers things she shouldn’t. However, memories don’t quite compare to experiencing the real thing... 

Gazzy and Angel are indeed biologically related instead of just found family. I’ve put a bit of emphasis on that being different. Not in a way that invalidates found family, don’t worry. It’s just that I personally believe if you already have a found family dynamic and are now including blood siblings, there should be some significance to it, because otherwise why do they need to be related if everyone is already family? Basically: Gazzy and Angel are very very close. They love each other, they play together, they barely ever argue or fight. They’re babies, and I will protect them (I say as I put them through several back-to-back traumatic events)

Speaking of biological families…uh, most of the flock doesn’t have any. Max isn’t Jeb and Dr. Martinez’ kid, the flock doesn’t go on a hunt for their parents that goes nowhere. In this world, a good chunk of the test subjects made through donor eggs and sperm that’s been genetically altered in advance and raised in artificial wombs. Yeah, sure, they’ve got donor parents out there somewhere, but it’s not top priority for most of the flock. They’ve got guardians looking out for them, and when they don’t they’re just fighting on their own.

Despite not being related to Dr. Martinez, Max is still Latina. I didn’t change any of the races - Fang is Asian, Nudge is black, Iggy and Gazzy and Angel are white - except for adding some clarification on Fang, since Asian is a very broad term (he’s got DNA from Southeast Asia and East Asia, more specifically The Philippines and South Korea). Again, stuff that will be more relevant after book 1.

Some kids are donated by real people, though, usually altered in very, very early stages of development and monitored heavily until they’re born. Families sign a waiver promising a nice paycheck to cover all medical expenses, and a disclaimer of possible permanent damage to the body or death. There is one member of the flock who was donated to The School this way. I’m not telling who yet.

Ohhh boy the Erasers. I have so much to say about Erasers, but I’ll have to keep it short. 

When I started this rewrite, I had the question: “Why do we never see newly made Erasers? They can’t just start out as full-grown adults.” So, in this rewrite, we have child Erasers, which the flock refers to as “dogs”. They age quickly, so they do look like full grown adults when they’re three or four, however it doesn’t last long, since rapid aging doesn’t exactly stop. They live for roughly seven years max, but most of them outlive their fighting use before that. 

Full-grown Erasers are stronger, tougher, and are experts at following orders since it’s all they know. Dogs, on the other hand, are wild and violent. They’ll tear into anything they get their hands on and they’re harder to control, since they’re still learning. Itex utilizes them both.

Also of note on Erasers: they’re officially just Lupine hybrids, and the Eraser nickname was made up by the various children at The School, because they only ever came to the cage room to take away the unfortunate kids who didn’t live long enough, or the kids who were too sick to keep on living, effectively “erasing” them.

The School is a nickname that Gazzy came up with after they left. He still didn’t really understand the bad place they came from and how it was affecting his siblings, but kids on TV always talked about school like it was the worst thing in the world, so he figured that must be where they came from. He used it a lot, and it stuck with the rest of the flock too. 

Did I mention there’s more mutant kids? Because there’s more mutant kids. A LOT of mutant kids. 296 of them at The School alone, with over half of those being Erasers/dogs. They have to make a lot, since you never know which ones will succeed, which ones will be used for non mutation-related testing, and which ones will fail.

Where do they get the money for so many research babies? The flock doesn’t know any of this, but Itex is massive. Governments are willing to pay outrageous prices to fill their military with Erasers, and the research Itex provides from studying their mutants have cured diseases and provided better medical treatment for ordinary people around the world. The human experimentation is an open secret (though granted most people don’t know the entire process). Most of them can’t do much, however. Itex is very, very old, and it’s far too powerful for your average Joe to stop on their own.

Also there’s no “save the world” plotline. There’s some saving the world in there eventually (not now, but eventually), but it’s not a predestined thing that Jeb tells Max. Max wasn’t created to save the world. She and her siblings were created for something else...

...Anyways, that’s about all I have time for right now. I might post more details later, but feel free to hit me with a DM or an ask if you have any thoughts. Currently the rewrite is sitting at 23 chapters, which means I’m juuust over halfway done with the first draft lol. I don’t know when it’ll be out. I work on and off and I’m not super consistent. But hopefully I’ll have something done within the next twenty years. :P

[rendevousz]

little hacker

avengers x fem!teen!reader

characters: brief clint barton, tony stark, steve rogers, natasha romanoff, peter parker

summary: you hacked into tony's systems and he, along with the team, track you down.

warnings: mentions of death and a car crash, hacking written by someone who has no idea how it works

word count: 3241

note: hi um this is my first oneshot on tumblr i hope you like it!!

you were 14 when you first met the avengers. your family had gotten into a tragic car accident and you were the only one who made it out alive, leaving you in excessive guilt and burden; guilt because you were the only one granted a second chance at life and burden because you had to live your life, barely scraping by as you were dropped the responsibility of taking care of your sick grandmother.

at 11, where all that the kids your age had to worry about was whether their pocket money was enough to get themselves an after-school snack, you worried whether or not the money left to your name was enough to survive.

at 11, where girls worried about their changing bodies and asked their mothers about it, you had to figure it all out yourself and with the help of your trusty laptop, the only gadget you had, one that your dad had gifted to you after you had gotten 100s for all your tests at age 8. he thought you were his little prodigy and figured a laptop would treat you well. you took care of it well because while you didn't want to spend the last of your money left, —that was specifically set aside for your grandmother's hospital bills— you wanted to hold on to the laptop for as long as you could, as a reminder of your loving father, as well as the memories the item held, after you've watched movies with pretty much all of your passed family members on that laptop at different points in your life. that was why whenever the thing lagged due to how much you've been using it, you almost always figure out how to fix it until it was good as new.

at 12, while your classmates had their parents to protect them when they were out at night, you feared for your life whenever you were out past dark. which led you to learning self defence from youtube videos. you learned them pretty quickly and with your sharp-wittedness, you no longer feared to be out at night. you even had the honours of trying out your skills when some men thought they could get you just because you were smaller than them.

at 12, where kids your age were having fun, enjoying their childhood, you had no choice but to be mature and think for the good of yourself and your sick grandmother. you were forced to grow up and you were probably more mature and intelligent than the rest of your classmates combined.

and at 13, you realised that money wasn't going to grow on trees and the money you were left with wasn't going to last forever. it had to last until you were old enough to work. but with your grandmother's condition getting worse and worse, you were forced to drop out of school. you were upset because you loved it. you loved knowledge. but family came first and the only thing that your knowledge increased on was on computers.

which led to you being able to hack into tony stark's bank account at only 14. you had no other choice than to steal money and who better to steal it from than a guy whose pocket change could probably last you another five years or so? you knew who tony stark was, the whole world knows who he is. and you thought that maybe he would be too preoccupied with his alter ego saving the whole world, along with his group of earth's mightiest heroes that he wouldn't notice the tiny bit of money you'd stolen from him.

of course the billionaire had been alerted immediately by his AI when you'd accessed into his systems. "security breach?" he exclaimed, immediately dropping the tool he was tinkering his suit with in his lab.

he spent about 3 minutes, that was how long you took touring around in his systems, observing what you did in it. he watched as you did nothing about the highly confidential information he had and instead, stole....5 grand from his bank account? that was barely a scratch to his account. what was going on?

he had requested FRIDAY to track down the hacker, mainly because he was perplexed that someone had hacked into his well protected system just to steal a tiny bit of money but it seems that even FRIDAY couldn't track down where it came from.

he told the team and it was then that everyone worried how dangerous the hacker could possibly be.

"who steals just 5 grand after hacking into a billionaire's bank account?" clint frowned after tony had explained the whole situation. "i mean, if i managed to hack into your systems, i'd do way more than just steal a couple bucks."

"exactly. and who knows? they might just be waiting for the right moment to install dangerous malware into the system and until we find the culprit, they're roaming somewhere out there with all our confidential information right at the tip of their fingers. if they decide to use it against us..." tony trailed off, for once having a worried expression on his otherwise nonchalant face. he's never been this clueless about what to do with any sort of technical issues concerning the avengers or himself.

you on the other hand, after getting complacent that you weren't caught, kept doing so for the next couple months or so. you had no ill intentions, just trying to scrape by. the whole situation puzzled tony. he didn't care how much you've taken from him in total now, you were right; it was merely pocket change to him. but you were still considered a threat since you had free access to his systems and he didn't even know who you were or where you were.

that was until you made a tiny mistake, one that if tony wasn't spending every waking moment trying to track you down he wouldn't have noticed. and though it was a small mistake, it certainly was going to change how things ran from then on.

that afternoon, after having just gotten back from visiting your grandmother at the hospital, you were planning to get more money from the billionaire's bank account at the comfort of your own home. god, hospital bills were expensive. once you had had a little snack, you settled down on the couch and opened your laptop. but being the quick-witted person you were, before the screen in front of you lit up, you saw movement from behind you.

your heart raced. you could handle fighting people but those usually happened in alleys at nighttime. this was in your home, your safe place. you made sure to lock the doors and there weren't fire escapes outside your windows so how did the intruder get in?

you could tell they were trying to be inconspicuous to get to you and so you let them. you let the person think that they were going to get you without a fight but when they were right behind you, you swiftly turned your body around and jumped over the couch. the masked intruder let out a surprised yelp and the two of you fought for a bit. before you knew it, you had them pinned under you in just ten seconds.

"wha– how– what?" it sounded like a boy. you looked down at him and noticed his red and blue spandex suit. you frowned. wasn't this the friendly neighbourhood spiderman guy or something? why was a superhero breaking into your home?

he was coughing from your knee pressing down onto his chest and you lifted it slightly, enough for him to breathe but not enough to escape. he seemed grateful though because he muttered a seemingly embarrassed 'thanks'.

"get off the kid or i'll blast you off of him myself."

you look up and saw the iron man repulsor aimed right at you, and obviously iron man himself was standing right there in the middle of your small apartment. behind him stood a redhead, who you knew as the black widow, aiming a pistol at you, and a man with a shield, captain america. the spiderboy must've come in through the window and unlocked the door for them.

when you made eye contact with steve, he frowned in confusion. you looked way too young to be the culprit they had expected. he muttered a quiet 'wait, what?' before tony stark revealed himself, his iron man faceplate opening.

"um...kid? where are your parents? or guardian? we need to see them because there's been some highly illegal activity coming from this address." the man in the suit spoke. you stayed still, knee still pressing against the boy under you, frowning at the adults in the room. they noticed your apprehensiveness and slowly lowered their weapons. "we're not here to hurt you, you can release the boy now," steve told you gently.

you usually weren't one to trust easily but since these people were known superheroes, you reluctantly stood up, still anxious of the possibilities of what they could do to you. the spiderboy got up too and dusted his back, before going to stand next to steve. you were confused as to why these heroes were breaking in your home until you remembered what you had been up to for the past weeks. how could you forget when that was the only reason you were still surviving?

your eyes widened with fear when they met tony's soft ones. he looked at you with such care and worry that you were reminded of your late dad. the man in front of you wasn't the arrogant man you've watched on youtube. you felt bad for stealing from him now. you used to think that he deserved it, despite how little you took compared to how much he had. the man knelt down before you so he didn't appear so big in front of you, seeing your frightened expression. little did he know you were frightened for a totally different reason.

"anyone else living here, kid? because i tracked down this address and someone has been stealing money from me. i might need to have a little talk with them." he explained, looking around the house. you fiddled with the hem of your shirt nervously, scared of what would come once you came clean about your actions. you were scared you were going to be taken in for juvenile crime but you were also scared of the consequences of lying straight to their faces. so you took a deep breath before deciding to just tell the truth.

"t–that would be me, sir." you admitted in a small voice, avoiding eye contact with the billionaire you had been stealing from. a few shocked looks from the team and an incredulous 'what?' from tony had you biting the inside of your cheeks in fear.

"i'm truly sorry about that, sir. i..." you trailed off, debating whether or not to justify your actions because you thought that he might not even want to listen to it. "i had to pay off my grandmother's hospital bills because she is very sick. my family died a few years ago in a car crash and i was the only one who made it. i was left some money to my name but having to survive on that along with paying off nana's bills, it was bound to run out. i...i thought that since you were a billionaire, stealing a few thousands wouldn't matter to you...i'm so sorry, sir. i– i'll start working to pay you back.." you stuttered out, holding your hands together so it would minimise the shaking.

tony's mouth opened and closed, like fish out of water, not knowing what to say to you. he stood up and you were on the verge of breaking down right then and there, feeling as small as you did before he knelt before you. "p–please don't report me, sir. i– i don't know what would happen to my nana if you do.. i swear to you that i didn't mess with your other files. i only accessed the system for your bank account and that was it. i have no ill intentions, please don't report me.." you were now the one kneeling down in front of him, begging.

the team were flabbergasted at the scene unfolding before them and tony was quick to get you off your knees, which scared you even more because the death grip of his metal hands on your forearms had your mind running wild at the millions of possibilities of what he would do to you. was he going to kill you and leave you somewhere that people were never going to find your body? or was he going to dispose of you and use his power to remove you permanently from the system so no one came looking for you? he had the power to ruin your life and you feared that.

snapping you out of your mental breakdown, he spoke softly. "hey, it's okay." and that was when you realised the 'death grip' he had on your forearms had only been your paranoia getting the best of you. he was barely even touching you. your teary eyes looked up at his soft, brown ones in fear.

then he smiled at you.

"it's okay. i understand the reason why you did what you did. you're a good kid, your nana is so lucky to have you. what's your name?" he knelt down before you once again, knowing that him standing tall in his iron man suit terrified you. "y/n." you responded timidly.

"how old are you, y/n?" this time, it was steve who asked. you had forgotten that there were other people in the room, too consumed by your fear for your life a few moments ago. "i'm fourteen, mr america, sir." you whispered out, the sight of captain america in person intimidating you until you saw a kind smile on his face.

"you're pretty young to be doing what you've been doing, y/n. are you aware that you're the first person to be able to hack into my heavily protected, supposedly impenetrable network? many have tried to do so and failed, and they were really smart people too. have you been doing this for a while?" tony asked.

"um...my father gifted me this laptop when i was 8 because i did exceptionally well in school. he believed i was a child prodigy and let me have a laptop since he knew my studies wouldn't be affected by the distraction of entertainment. i used to only hack into games to cheat my way up the ranks but only recently i tried something else since i had nothing better to do and i've been out of school for a while now. i knew you were a billionaire so i tried just for the heck of it and surprised myself when i got in on the first try. and then i saw your bank account details and i really needed money so i stole some... again, i'm so sorry about that." you apologised, looking down at your feet.

he couldn't believe it. you were just messing around and you managed to get into his system? you, a mere fourteen year old who was out of school, managed to single handedly do what geniuses around the world had failed to do?

he was initially just going to have a talk with the hacker, and in case they were dangerous and had backup, he brought his own. but bringing steve, natasha and peter proved to be unnecessary when the culprit turned out to be you.

"where did you learn those moves?" natasha stepped closer towards you. you looked up at the redhead, noticing the glare she had on you when she aimed her pistols at you was replaced with curiosity.

you fiddled with the hem of your shirt even more, embarrassed to tell her that you learned to fight from a couple of youtube videos when she had gotten years of actual training. you were pathetic compared to her. "i, um, i learned them from some youtube videos."

her eyebrows raised in surprise at the revelation. you hadn't gotten professional training yet you moved like you had. peter had superhuman strength, agility and endurance yet you took him down in under ten seconds. sure it may have been a disadvantage to peter because he was caught off guard but he should've been able to take you down still.

now was tony going to let the chance of a lifetime slip by? no, of course he was immediately thinking of recruiting you. your dad had been right about you being a prodigy. you adapted to new skills quickly and you were perfect for recruitment.

"hey kid, wanna be an avenger?"

your eyes widened and your jaw dropped in shock. steve immediately turned to him, an incredulous look on his face as he glared dangerously at the billionaire. "stark, you wanna think about this for a minute?"

"thank about what, cap? you saw what she did to the spiderling. and she successfully hacked into my system on her first try and we took weeks to trace her. romanoff back me up here," he saw how impressed natasha was by you and he knew the redhead wasn't going to disagree. "stark's right, steve. she's only fourteen and she's capable of so much already. we need someone like her."

"exactly! she's only fourteen! this life is dangerous for her!" steve argued. peter then tapped his shoulder to get his attention. "hey, mr rogers, i'm a sixteen-year-old avenger and she took me down easily. not gonna lie, it hurt my pride, also my back when you flipped me over your shoulder," he turned to you but you didn't say anything because you couldn't see his facial expression. "but i think she's going to be okay, sir."

steve sighed before turning to you, the defeated expression on his face softening when you looked up at him with your doe eyes and a small smile. you didn't answer to tony just yet since it seemed that steve had a say in it as well but you were dying to say yes. not only were you not going to be reported for your crimes but to be recruited by iron man himself to be an avenger? who could say no to that? not you, at least, since you had nothing better to do with your life at the moment.

"well, what do you say, kid?"

your smile grew and you nodded happily. the team couldn't help but crack a smile at how happy you looked for the first time since they've encountered you.

"well, you should go pack your important stuff so we can go back to the tower. you're going to be moving in if you're an official member of the avengers." tony told you and you nodded, walking towards your room to start packing while the team sat on the couch to wait for you.

"wait, what's going to happen to my nana?" you turned back towards them, worry etched onto you face. "don't worry about it, kid. you can give me the details later and i'll settle it. she'll be in good hands." he assured. "okay." you mumbled in response.

you were actually going to be an avenger. "awesome.." you grinned to yourself as you packed.

[haik-choo]

waking up next to the karasuno second & third years

request: the waking up next to the first years hcs was the purest most adorable thing i’ve ever read 🥺🥺🥺could u do one with the second or third years too?

a/n: thank you so much for loving the first one i did! i’m sorry i haven’t been as active, i go in and out of a creative mindset and this quarantine isn’t really pushing me to stay creative. i just sleep most of the time LOL. here it is! :)

[WAKING UP NEXT TO THE KARASUNO SECOND AND THIRD YEARS] 

-nishinoya, tanaka, daichi, sugawara, asahi

nishinoya yuu.

waking up next to nishinoya yuu isn’t filled with excitement or him jumping off the walls, like you might expect it to be. i feel like the first ten minutesof waking up for him are really slow, like he’s just barely opening his eyes and looking at the ceiling.

for some reason i really feel like he wakes up before you. he goes to bed at like two am, but wakes up at eight am to practice or go on a little jog. 

but every time he wakes up, the first thing he looks at is you. your peaceful state, your slow-rising chest, the little breaths leaving your slightly parted lips. noya is a really emotional person, and I can bet you real money that he gets real giddy seeing you next to him.

you don’t usually sleep in his arms because he’s a wild sleeper and probably starfishes, so when he wakes up his limbs are sprawled out, some on you, some hanging off the bed. and he just barely turns his head at there you are in your morning glory. 

his heart literally swells five sizes bigger. he’ll shift over to be next to you and move your hair out of your face or just mess with the hair at the top of your head, basking in the love you cause him to feel.

after a few minutes of doing that, he’ll let out a big ol’ sigh and wrap his arms around you, squeezing tight to wake you up.

“mmm,,,,noya, what are you doing,,,” “i’m just feeling grateful :)” 

and you look up at him, and there’s a feeling of security that fills you. he may not be the biggest or strongest, but the light in his eyes and the warmth in his arms that he wraps around you make you feel safe. 

not to mention that his hair is down and sticking out everywhere. it’s a cute picture that only you’ll ever see

you return his gesture and wrap your arms around him, thinking about different ways to make him stay in bed instead of going out for a jog.

basically; the morning is filled with hugs and soft smiles, knowing looks and arms that evoke the feeling of being safe and being loved. his hair is wild, and his hands are tugging at your own strands. 

tanaka ryuunosuke.

you two almost always wake up in the same position, his arms spread out, your head resting on one of them, one of his legs propped up like a tent and the other flat on the bed, you curled up against his side. since he’s a touch-starved individual, he finds any excuse for you two to be as close as possible every second of every day. 

you both actually wake up a few minutes apart, whoever wakes up first is a coin toss. and when you wake up first, you get to see his face void of the tension is usually has, his mouth is a little open with small snores coming out, his fingers twitching every few seconds

tanaka’s body reacts before he does, so even if you try to get up, his arms just holds onto you and keep you attached to his side. he swears he doesn’t do it on purpose, and that his body just needs you :’) 

on days when he wakes up before you he stays as still as stone. no joke, he’s so afraid of waking you up and experiencing your wrath that he just. freezes

but as he’s frozen, he takes the time to just stare. no smile on his face, he just stares, drinking in your sleeping form. he occasionally takes a change and slowly turns, stretching out his arm for his phone on the side table. when he can reach it, you can bet he has 200+ new photos of your sleeping and he makes them his screen savers

the second he sees your stir awake lightly, he pounces on you an covers your face in little kithes and saves your lips for last. sometimes he’ll wait until you open your eyes and look at him, pouting like “where’s my real kisses :(” before he gives you a big boy smooch

you giggle and caress his chest with your hand, happy that he wakes you up like a queen everyday. trust me, he’s happy he gets to be the guy whose face you see first thing in the morning

he usually scrolls through his phone for like an hour before getting out of bed, and you just sit there and watch tik toks with him. you two my wake up at roughly the same time, but you get out of bed before him to make some morning smoothies (he totally asks for a protein shake AGAGA) 

basically; your mornings get started at the same time, and he loves to make sure you’re up by pelting you with kisses that you love. you scroll through tik tok while being smushed next to his chest before you get up to make breakfast. 

daichi sawamura.

not gonna lie, when he wakes up he spend like a minute or two in bed at MOST, he hates just staying in bed because he feels like he could so much more productive than lie around and do nothing. you, on the other hand, wouldn’t mind staying in bed for the entire day. 

so here’s the way it usually goes: he wakes up a minute before his alarm (7:00am) and just quickly sighs before reaching over you and turning it off so it doesn’t wake you up. then he kisses your forehead (his breath smells bad, so he’s not going to kiss your lips) before getting up and washing up. he gets ready to go on a jog, and he kisses your shoulder before he sets out on his journey.

but every once in a while, there’s something wonderful that happens. he doesn’t feel like working out. he wakes up at the same time, but he just doesn’t feel like doing anything. on those days, he completely indulges in your warmth.

he doesn’t care if he wakes you up and hoists you up so you’re completely laying on his body. of course you wake up, but you already know what’s going to happen, so you just softly groan. “so you don’t feel like getting up and decide to wake me up? really?” “yes, really” “...you’re lucky i love you” “im the luckiest man alive” 

you two actually talk during mornings like those, you love pressing an ear against his chest and hearing the vibrations his voice causes. it’s like calming background noise to you. 

“are,,,you even listening. we’ve got a lot to do today” “i’ve been ignoring everything after you said ‘getting up’“ “...of course you have”

you haveto convince him to stay even longer in bed, because he really hates staying in bed, like he just wants to make “eggs or fucking toast or an OMLETTE PLEASE I JUST WANT TO DO SOMETHING”

in order to persuade him to stay for a little longer, you usually just kiss him. normally he hates morning breath, but when it’s you kissing him so tenderly he can make an exception or two

ngl it usually leads to making out or morning sex, like i said he needs to do SOMETHING 

basically; you wake up like a married couple. normally he gets up right away, but every once in a while he;ll decide to spend some extra time with the love of his life, and that time is usually spent kissing and...doing other things ;) 

sugawara koushi.

instead of you waking up in his arms, he wakes up in your arms. like his face is pressed against your chest and your arms is haphazardly resting over his shoulder. his arms are undoubtedly around your waist, his lags entangled with yours

every morning, without fail, he wakes up first and somehow slip out of your position and into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth before making two cups of coffee and coming back into the bedroom, setting them on the nightstand, and crawling back into bed with you

usually he sits up in bed and moves you to rest your head in his lap so he can reach over to sip at his drink. his hands comb through your hair and he trifles through his emails just incase some parent messages him about something

sometimes he’ll stop scrolling at look down at you, feeling happy and 100% sure that he has the greatest life; first he wakes up in your arms, spends time with you, spends time with kids, and them spends more time with you 

the school he teaches at starts at like twelve pm, so he likes to take his time waking up so he’s as happy as possible. and spending a lot of time with you is key to that.

can only wait for so long before he pokes your side until you wake up. the entire time he’s like “please wake up” “i’ve got work in like four hours! let’s do something!” “i’ll make breakfast if you give me sufficient payment ;)” 

literally the second you wake up he props you up and you look drunk as hell when you first wake up but he still thinks you’re beautiful <3 cute rat 

he rests your head on his shoulder and kisses you until you’re fully awake, you don’t always kiss back but that’s because you’re not fully there  and you’re just,,, “is there a bird pecking at me? what the hell - oh, it’s koushi” 

“can’t you wake me up like a normal person?” “no, i like kissing you awake. isn’t that cute? :)” “not when you kiss like a bird.” “so you have,,,,chosen death?”

when he’s feeling extra happy he has no issue putting you on his lap, facing him. he wraps your arms around him before doing the same to you and burying his face in your neck and humming a soft tune. he’s just such a calming presence that sometimes you fall back asleep in his lap :’)

basically; it’s a cute and happy morning as he rests you on his lap and peppers your lips with kisses to wake you up. playful banter is included, and so it coffee breath.  

asahi azumane.

he would love to wake up to you pressed to his side, but he gets hot really easily, so he cant hold you to sleep. he totally hugs a small pillow to sleep and you can old press up against his back, which he doesn’t mind. 

he’s the type to wake up at ten am naturally, and every morning he yawns and stretches out his arms, rolling back a little before yelping at the feeling of you getting quietly crushed beneath him

when he realizes that it’s just you, his heart beat stabilizes and he turns over, flipping the sheets off of him to he doesn’t overheat, and grabs you hands, lacing his fingers through with yours

you’ve been dating for a while, so he’s completely comfortable doing skinship with you. he’s not embarrassed at how much he loves you. he likes to gently caress your face with his hands, his thumbs brushing over your cheekbones and sometimes across your bottom lip

no lie, waking up with asahi is the softest thing ever. he gives you one single kiss on your cheek, letting it linger for a few seconds before pulling away to see your eyes cracked open

by this time he’s lightly hovering over you, and he just lets out a slightly bashful smiles and leans down, his forehead pressing against yours

you think that you must’ve saved a cat orphanage in your past life in order to get he delicious treat of waking up with asahi’s face in front of yours everyday 

“good morning to you, too, azumane” “morning :)” “did you have that weird dream again?” “the one where hinata grows to be eight foot three and dunks me in a basketball hoop and leaves me up there and becomes the ace?” “yeah” “yes. yes i did.thanks for reminding me.” 

sometimes asks for extra cuddles before getting up to take a shower, and when you say yes he just :):):) and envelops you in his warm embrace and rubs his beard goatee thing on your forehead as you grovel in pain because it’s in that in-between phase where it’s scratchy and long 

sometimesasksyoutoshowertogetherbutyouusuallyhavetodecipheritbecausehe’sallblushyandit’ssocuteyoucoulddie

honestly struggles to get up in the morning because he really loves just laying and existing with you, his mind not focused or worried about anything but the way your chest rises slightly out of sync with his, and sometimes he imagines your chest heaving beneath his,,,,but hat’s astory for antoher time

basically; waking up with him is like a fairy tale. his gently lips and even gentler arms wake you up like a queen, and he makes sure that you feel the same way he does. sometimes there’s extra cuddles, sometimes there’s some showering together. 

[yueqingyuan]

The Cancipin Agenda

I promised and now I deliver! Welcome to my 2k word Cancipin pitch, adapted from discord rant form for perusal by the general public.

Links to the raws, translations, audio drama, and more can be found here. I would suggest reviewing the content warnings before reading this novel, as it covers many heavy themes.

Notes and general disclaimers:

Spoilers: I tried to keep things vague but assume a low-lever spoiler warning for this whole pitch, I try to mark anything that gets more specific.

Terminology: I read the raws and have only seen snippets of the English translations on people’s livereads, so the terms I use may not match them 100%.

I think Cancipin is an objectively well-constructed and highly impressive novel, but I am also very biased because priest checked off All my tastes with this one, take that how you will.

Just a personal pet peeve but it deals me 50 psychic damage every time I see CCP and have to disambiguate if people are talking about the priest novel or the Chinese government so I request that people abbreviate the title as C2P if possible!! plz

OKAY NOW LET’S BEGIN

General premise

Cancipin is a sci-fi novel set many millenia in the future, in a society where all 8 inhabited galaxies[1] are united under a central governing body, with only the 'interstellar pirates' in the outer regions refusing this authority. Residents of the first 7 galaxies live in a (supposed) utopia, supported by a system called the Garden of Eden that allows humans to interface directly with technology and get all their needs taken care of 24/7. However, the 8th galaxy was recovered from interstellar pirates much later and lags far behind in technology, and the locals and any people in the other galaxies with a condition that prevents them from interfacing with Eden basically get dumped there to rot. (Gotta love that dystopian class inequality!)

[1] They're probably actually solar systems but the Chinese term 星系 is ambiguous and galaxies sounds better I guess, don't worry about it too much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Setting

Minor spoiler warning since a lot of this info is only revealed later on in the novel, but not really a plot spoiler.

Cancipin is set neither in an era where humanity is at the peak of its technological development nor is it fully post-apocalyptic. Instead, several thousand years ago, there was an age of exploration when humanity built out a transportation network to settle greater parts of the universe and achieved breakthroughs in genetic technology to make all humans live to a life expectancy of 300, but later on, a regime of tyranny took over and a lot (though not all) of this progress was lost.

It describes a world where humanity makes active choices to step back from certain technology that is deemed to be too dangerous - further genome editing is banned despite the successes in extending life spans, and because the tyrannical regime used advanced AI technology to stay in control, there are strict rules that AI must not be allowed to operate independently and cannot resemble humans too closely. It's very interesting to think about what balance a society should reach between allowing research that improves people’s lives and staying away from projects that are too risky to continue. In usual priest fashion, the novel is not about the technology itself so many of these details simply operate in the background, but it paints a thoughtful picture about where humanity might find itself millenia in the future.

Plot premise

Lin Jingheng is a former admiral of the interstellar union. Though he was disillusioned with the union since years ago when his adoptive father Lu Xin was framed and hunted down by powerful people within the system, he continued to fight to defend the union and put on appearances as he secretly planned a revolt. 5 years ago, he put the first part of his plan into action by faking his death and escaping to the 8th galaxy - partly because it would be easier to avoid detection in a place with no Eden, and partly to look for Lu Xin's long-lost child, who disappeared after his pregnant wife was shot down while attempting to flee.

Through a series of coincidences, the first person he meets there is Lu Bixing, the son of the top weapons dealer in the 8th galaxy who ran away from home to follow his dreams of exploring the 8 galaxies and building a school. Lin Jingheng set a genetic lock on the escape capsule he fled in to only open for Lu Xin's child, but as Lu Bixing is the sort of mad scientist to find a mysterious capsule floating in space and go "i'm gonna HACK it" and not just leave well enough alone, he was never able to confirm whether he had the right person.

So, both of them end up settling down on the nearby planet Beijing Beta as Lin Jingheng bides his time taking over the local gang/shadow government of the planet and Lu Bixing is happy to have found a sugar daddy generous sponsor to fund his school. 

But all of their plans are shattered when the interstellar pirates invade and war breaks out, and the rest of the novel follows the journey of this whole world through turbulent times as they try to find a new order in the ruins of the old.

Major themes of the novel involve faith, the resilience of humanity, and the cyclic nature of history. It tells the story of a broken world putting itself back together, and the importance of standing back up even knowing you’ll fall again.

Characters and relationship dynamic/development

Both of the main characters are shaped by their past. Lin Jingheng and his twin sister Lin Jingshu grew up in a cold, lifeless home with only each other to lean on, only to be separated at a young age when their father died. Lin Jingheng was lucky to be taken in by Lu Xin, one of the few people of the Interstellar Union who truly believed in its Declaration of Freedom, and the admiral who disobeyed orders to recover the Eighth galaxy from the interstellar pirates over a century ago. Though Lin Jingheng would lose this adoptive family too early and get pushed into acting the role of the cold, ruthless, power-hungry bastard by the vortex of First galaxy politics, he never truly gives up on his adoptive father’s influence and his sense of duty towards all the people of the Interstellar Union. And, for all that he acts like a huge bastard to everyone else, he remains a secret romantic and incredibly soft towards the people he cares about.

Lu Bixing, meanwhile, grew up in the Eighth galaxy, witnessing how the Union had abandoned them first-hand. Though he is open-minded, extroverted, and strives to understand people with values unlike his own, his loyalties remain primarily to the Eighth galaxy. Even though he ran away from home, his father, a weapons dealer who goes by Monoeyed Hawk, is one of the most important people in his life (and even if he ends up stuck in the middle of a lot of fights between his ‘sugar daddy’ and his ‘real daddy’). More details about Lu Bixing’s youth get into spoiler territory, but I will note that I consider the 信徒/’Patron’ physical-only extra 100% required reading after the main story. In short, though Lu Bixing gives an initial impression as the sunny, optimistic, maybe even a bit childish type, the optimistic exterior is a side of him that he actively chooses to show to the world. He is more than capable of stepping up and taking responsibility when necessary, and as he says himself, being good-natured doesn’t mean not having a backbone.

In summary~ we have ~ sunny charming extroverted (mad) scientist/school headmaster who gives excellent motivational speeches x stoic cynical serious (but actually a huge mensao) ex-general whose favorite hobby is insulting people with increasingly creative roasts.

As for the development of their relationship, Cancipin is a prime example of what I love about priest’s nianxia[2] novels. Specifically, the way she sketches how two people can go from an uneven relationship between protector and protected, and evolve to become true equals by the end. Even though their romantic relationship begins before the halfway point, their early relationship definitely involved Lin Jingheng treating Lu Bixing as someone to one-sidedly protect and spoil, and Lu Bixing goes through a truly stunning character arc to become someone Lin Jingheng can trust and rely on by the end.

Against the background of a world thrown into turmoil, priest shows us the story of two seemingly different people who undergo and resolve their own crises of faith, find that they are not so different in the end, and choose to fight for a better world hand in hand.

[2] I don’t want to mislead people who specifically enjoy age gap dynamics, so please note that despite the 16-year age gap, that aspect is NOT really prevalent in their relationship, and is also not very remarkable in a setting where people stay young until age 200. The age gap is definitely much less of a factor than it is in Shapolang, Your Distance, etc.

On a lighter note, due to Lin Jingheng’s reputation as a Right Cold Bastard, their relationship is apparently so hilariously baffling to outsiders that priest wrote four whole different scenes of side characters finding out they’re together, and it’s 500% hilarious each time.

NOTE: The following section is going to get more spoilery, and I will allude to some events from both Cancipin and Shapolang more directly! Skip down to the side characters section if you want to avoid spoilers!

Connections to Shapolang and priest’s writing journey

I would highly recommend reading Cancipin sometime after reading Shapolang. The two novels share a number of similarities from a high-level perspective, and knowing what priest disliked about her earlier work, it was interesting to note aspects of Cancipin that appeared to be her making up for some of those regrets and learning from past mistakes to craft a more solid narrative.

She complained that SPL didn’t have sufficient tension because Chang Geng was too OP, but made sure to be absolutely ruthless in Cancipin and make sure fate is never on their side. Most things that could go wrong do go wrong, and she absolutely took the “let’s break this boi like a glowstick and see what happens” approach with Lu Bixing’s growth arc by tearing away his support system and making him step up to take responsibility. In addition, while Changgu could definitely have ended up at odds over their conflicting loyalties and simply didn’t because they got lucky, Lin Jingheng and Lu Bixing have to confront this conflict head-on and actively choose how to compromise on their priorities.

However, being forced to walk this more difficult path means that every single success in Cancipin feels incredibly well-earned because they had to fight for what they want and take initiative to reconcile their differences. Their relationship feels all the stronger for all they had to work for it, and I love them so so much.

Side characters

As usual, priest included quite the interesting and expansive cast of side characters. I won’t go into too much detail as I’ve gone on for quite long already and many details are spoilers, but we have:

Zhanlu, Lin Jingheng’s AI assistant, v cute v babie (I find all the AIs in this novel soooo interesting from an AI alignment perspective but I digress)

Lin Jingshu, Lin Jingheng’s equally hot and scary twin sister, wonder what she’s up to?

Monoeyed Hawk, Lu Bixing’s real daddy, BEST DANMEI DAD 500%, keeps getting in catfights with Lin Jingheng trying to keep him away from his darling son

Admiral Woolf and Professor Harden, older characters who watched the growth of the Union since its founding

Lu Bixing’s students, all cute kids who get a lot of character growth themselves

Elizabeth Turan and Lin Jingheng’s other ex-subordinates, Lin’s circus, pretty much all of them are in love with him (relatable)

And many more!

Action writing

I'm not usually one to gush over action scenes but they deserve a mention because the space battle scenes in this novel are Just. So. Good. In usual priest fashion she didn't spend too much time giving them a bunch of fancy gadgets, so the battle scenes aren’t too hard to follow, but she uses a certain set of basic maneuvers to build up the most fascinating strategy battles and it’s absolutely mesmerizing to follow.

Sometimes I do get tired when there's a lot of plot at once but that was absolutely not the case in this novel, I just absolutely couldn't put it down because the plot, action, and relationship arcs were all just so enthralling.

Anyways, that’s all I’ll say for now, but read Cancipin!! I definitely consider it one of priest’s masterpieces, you won’t regret it!! lulin yyds thanks for your time

[yakumtsaki]

Welcome, dear readers, to part 1 of the finale to the BackupKingdom2 saga! We’re in our final ambition now, let’s check how Liz’s post-divorce-bloodbath is going..

Oh yes, excellent. Our path to death-achievement-glory has been paved with so many executions that wherever I look I see npcs crying..

..comforting each other..

..and in Agnes' case, coming straight to Liz to.. ask for mercy for the populace I guess?? Bruh. I can't believe we even brought down AGNES, truly this is the saddest kingdom on earth. Amazing job, Liz, you've definitely earned your place in the tyrant hall of fame!

Now a lesser player would be like "oh, maybe we should chill a little on the insane tyrant thing, finish the Pirate/Noble arc cause we've been dragging this war out so the pirates/guildsmen would keep spawning and it should have ended like 20 quests ago" and true, we could just end it, we ran a very effective operation around here, shoutout to MVPs Donius and Bellinda and their 'seductive' legendary traits:

They bedded them and Liz beheaded them, the power of teamwork! So one could say that we should consider raising kingdom morale now because everyone is so depressed but I think, if anything, now is the time to ramp it up and go for some of the other morally questionable achievements! Like Machiavelli said, you should commit all your atrocities at once! What do you think, Liz? Ready to get atrocious?

-OH FUCK YEA, I’M ENRAGED, I DROPPED MY FIDDLE IN THE PIT AND NOW I HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE SERVANT TO GET ME A NEW ONE!! WHY DOES EVERYTHING ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME >:(

Aw I’m sorry Liz, but I’m sure you the upcoming suffering of your subjects will cheer you up!

-Ok motherfuckers, by order of the Crown aka ME -you hear that Rae?? ME, NOT YOU. God I want to execute you so bad, fucking ingrate, do you remember what rags you were wearing when I hired you??  

Let’s get this back on track, Liz.

-Right, so by order of the Crown, Magus Olivia and Spymaster Spainot are given COMPLETE LEGAL IMMUNITY to do whatever the fuck they want in the interest of earning achievements, so don’t you people come crying to me cause I don’t give one tiny chinchilla crap about your health and livelihoods. If you need me for something actually important, I'll be at the gates, executing anyone who doesn't like my fiddle playing.

-Oh man, this folksy peasant hat isn’t protecting my ears enough.

-THOUGHT I WOULDN’T HEAR YOUR LITTLE MURMUR, DID YOU  -YOUR MAJESTY NO I ONLY MEANT MY EARS WERE COLD -WELL ALL OF YOUR BODY’S ABOUT TO BE COLD NOW! CONSTABLE, THROW THIS PEASANT IN THE PIT

-Death marker? I hardly know 'er!

So the Constable npc has this little Billy Elliot subplot going, I'm pretty sure he has the 'drunkard' fatal flaw because he was always at the tavern so I had Bellinda try to hire him to perform in one of her plays just to see what would happen and it actually worked, and now he moonlights as an actor! It's cute but it also takes forever for him to come arrest people.

-THEY LOVE ME ❤️😁 -CONSTABLE WHATSYOURNAME, COME OVER HERE AND DO YOUR FUCKING JOB OR YOU'RE NEXT FOR THE PIT

-No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, when someone dies😢

In the background you can see that Bellinda just got a pregnancy bump, it’s her lovechild with Donius, I for real can’t keep these two apart. Anyway, the time has come..

..to unleash Magus Olivia onto the populace.

-You know what, I'd rather not, this book is finally getting good and I'm sick of cursing peasants, it doesn't even drop their mood that much..

Oh no, Olivia my beloved, we're not cursing them, we're going for the 'Well Done' achievement!

-NO WAY.

WAY.

-Won't I be executed??

You have immunity! You can do whatever you want!! And, AND, once you complete it, because I know it's tiring, I'll give you a magic skeletal parrot as a gift!! Edward got all the materials for it while treasure-hunting, you'd think I'd let him keep it but that's not the kind of shop I'm running here.

-This is my face of pure, childlike happiness!

Good lord, it’s terrifying, please don’t look at me like that.

-Alright, time to roll down my sleeves so they look more sinister and do this thing.

You can do it, Olivia!

-Of course I can, save your reassurance for the flops that need it.

-I.. cast.. INFERNO!

...

-What?

I mean really, those are the words, "I cast inferno"? Can't you say something with more evil magical flair?

-Not when I have to cast it 80 fucking times I can't.

-IT BURNS, IT BURNSSSSS

Oh how the tables have turned, usually it's the witch that gets burned, huhu! Did you hear that, Olivia? Did you like my joke??

-Oh, it's beautiful!

Well it wasn't one of my best-

-Not you, you needy moron, the sight of burning flesh! I can't wait to do this 79 more times!

Alright, so everyone in the tavern has been turned into a chicken nugget, time to get some rest and check in with Spainot!

-Amazing news, Rodolfo, I just got royal permission to unlawfully lock up and interrogate whoever I want for the achievements!!!

-Darling, no offense, but aren't you a bit too shit at your job for that? -WHAT????

-FUCK YOU RODOLFO YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS OF MY SUCCESS -I WISH I WAS JEALOUS OF YOUR SUCCESS, THEN YOU'D BE SUCCESSFUL AND I WOULDN'T BE MARRIED TO A BROKE LOSER

-And then he says the only reason he hasn't dumped me is he doesn't wanna be a rando npc while Batshit Liz is on an execution spree, can you believe this bullshit? How can anyone be so hurtful??

-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NO NO PLEASE DON'T HAVE THIS CHINCHILLA MAUL ME I'LL GIVE YOU WHATEVER YOU WANT

-How about you give me some marital advice, are you even listening?! Ugh.

That's right, while Olivia is inferno-ing the peasants, I've sicced Spainot on the nobility, specifically all those foreign diplomats that are always hanging in the reception hall, lagging up the place. We're going for the 100 interrogations achievement and we’ve installed a nice spiky torture chair right in the middle of the hall to save time! Now this is how we keep every stratum of society terrified enough to not realize that the person in charge is.. uh.. well you know:

-DANCE TO MY FIDDLE, PIRATE, DANCE!

-I AM!!!!!

-DANCE MORE ENTHUSIASTICALLY. ALL THE WAY TO THE PIT

After a couple days and several locations I feel we’re pretty close to 80 infernos!

I’d say we’ve burned a good 50-60% of the population at this point, everywhere I look I see singed townies-

-so we take this little barbecue to the palace because we’ve ran out of peasants and it’s time to start burning the foreign dignitaries. And it’s a good thing we do, because Olivia meets Nyrexis the Dragon!!!! 

Nyrexis is the human form of the dragon from a hilar quest where there’s a dragon in the kingdom and you can either befriend it or slay it, I had Bellinda befriend it:

So if you complete the befriend route of the quest, the human form of the dragon appears in town and is in love with whoever did the quest, in this case Bellinda. I am of course not about to waste Dragonfu on Bellinda’s basic ass, plus I feel Olivia is kind of a dragon with all the people she’s been burning so they have a lot in common! 

We dazzle Dragonfu with a coin trick! True magic at work.

-OMG IT WAS BEHIND MY EAR THE WHOLE TIME -I KNOW!

Good God, all of Olivia’s ‘happy’ expressions are terrifying, just don’t smile ever again, you’re too evil for it, you’re gonna scare the dragon away!

Or not!!!!

 AWWWWW 🐲❤️🔮

You know what, fuck it, let’s lock it down, when it’s right it’s right!

-Burn stuff with me forever?? -I WILL!!!!

-We are gathered here today, under threat of fiery death, to join two unholy abominations in holy matrimony. Yes, the irony is not lost on me. 

AW CONGRATS GUYS <3333 The wizard tower is so small and family un-friendly and Olivia is so unmaternal but come on, like I’m not gonna have her reproduce with a fucking dragon.

Back to Spainot, we’ve hit a slight bump, mainly that this Snordwich lord is proving fucking impossible to torture. 

-Um.. Are you enjoying this??? -Sure am, bad boy, but why don’t we take this somewhere more private already?

Wtf, stop sexually harassing the innocent person who’s torturing you! Does no one around here have any sense of humanity anymore??

-Come on, Spainot, throw some flesh-eating rodents at him! -I’M BUILDING UP TO IT, RAE, GAWD. No one likes a back-seat torturer!

-HA, who’s the loser now, Rodolfo? Rodolfo?? RODOLFO

Ya Spai I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure he left while you were interrogating, I haven’t seen him in like 3 days.

-WHAT. So Olivia completes one achievement and gets a dragon wife and a magic skeletal bird and I complete three and get dumped?!

Well what do you want from me, I don’t make the rules!

-YES YOU DO

Can we move on, please? And Olivia had a very rough go of it-

-she got burned in some rando quest and looked positively karma-stricken after, inferno-ing left and right while sporting this look! She deserves a magic bird!

Congrats on your success and 4 kids, Olivia! 

-I love this skeleton bird more than I thought it possible to ever love something.

-Gee, thanks mom. 

We had leftover bones so here, Spainot, you get a magic bird too.

-A bone parrot is little comfort when you’ve lost the only bone that matters! Why Rodolfo, whyyyyy!!!!!!!!!

Oh I don’t know, probably because you challenged him to duels 3 times a day?

-No, that can’t be it.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you look like a man who has nothing to live for?

-Yea, I certainly don’t.

So you wouldn’t mind like, jumping into the pit multiple times so you can get the parts we need for the hardest achievement in game aka Legendary Doomsword?

-Rodolfo had one of those too, it was legendary and now that it’s gone I’m doomed!!!

Ok ya ENOUGH metaphors about Rodolfo’s absent penis, although they really are writing themselves. We’ll get him back! If you survive all the pit jumping that is. Join us next time for part 2: Legendary Doomsword!

[ahtsumu]

Hm. Take your favorite boys, what do you think they're insecure about?

i wrote for oikawa, atsumu, ushijima, kuroo, and tendou! sorry for the length i just love them so much lol

OIKAWA TOORU: 

not being good enough. this one’s clear as day and everyone knows it but i think there’s another layer to this. i think it’s two-fold. so first of all, he’s insecure about the limits to his skill compared to the monster generation, which is his own problem. but then he’s also insecure about people surpassing him in skill. so not only is the insecurity about something internal, but it’s also affected by external factors. and then you see how his self-hatred (self-hatred may be strong but that’s what the essence of insecurity is, right?) spills over to the way he treats/views others, turning him into this bitter, calculating guy who would work himself dead just prove that he is good enough.

his volatility. listen, for someone as smart as oikawa, he definitely knows it’s not normal to be utterly consumed by the need to even be just a sliver of a bit better than his opponents. and it makes him act in questionable, erratic ways. underneath that calm, put-together facade is a tsunami of ugly emotions that oikawa is highly aware of. i think he’s afraid this side to him will hurt others and makes him a burden, hence his overdone, saccharine, charmer persona. it keeps people at a distance–– emotionally. i think he’s definitely a sweet guy on the inside and genuinely kind to people he doesn’t view as competition (and he actually really appreciates his fans), but because of how he’s scared of exposing his scary side, he overdoes the flamboyant airheadedness. by doing so, he weeds out the people he doesn’t think would stay with him through thick-and-thin anyway.

i like to think that post-timeskip oikawa has dealt with these demons and found a way to just be satisfied. maybe he just needed to expand his horizons. maybe he found a team that was already really good and he, with his setting style, made them great–– better than seijoh could ever have been. olympic gold-medal worthy. he deserves it.

MIYA ATSUMU: 

firstly, i don’t think atsumu’s insecurities are as crippling as oikawa’s. if we factor in his personality based on his volleyball playing style, he’s not the type to overthink or scheme or calculate like oikawa, so i also headcanon him to be less “in his head” and more “in the moment”. this means his insecurities play a smaller role in shaping his personality and are less visible in the manga/anime.

he’s rough around the edges. his speech is coarse (the accent, the slang, the insults) and he fights with osamu in public and he definitely doesn’t shy away from provoking people he barely knows. i bet atsumu sometimes wonders if other people look down upon him because of that. like they might feel like he’s too wild. but i don’t think he dwells on this because he’s also a very confident guy and proud of where he comes from. it’s just a passing thought that sometimes puts a damper on his mood for a bit, and then he’s back to normal.

he’s unlikeable. atsumu has a strong personality–– goofball, airhead, loud, brutally honest, cocky... and he was abandoned by his middle school teammates and classmates for being “an arrogant jerk”. and judging by his behaviour in high school, his middle school years shaped him into a “so what if they hate me?” kinda guy–– meaning, he doesn’t care what random people think of him. what he does care about, though, is if these traits of his impact the way his friends view him or feel because of him. he didn’t grow up with many friends and he probably knows what loneliness feels like. i think he’d hate to feel it again, so he’s a lot more careful about his negative traits around friends. the people who matter.

vulnerability. atsumu’s been shown denying the fact that he was crying even though he was touched by kita’s kindness. that, and how he’s got this huge (and i think purposely overdone) overconfident/brash persona kind of builds a wall of strength around him. in reality, he’s a softie. atsumu’s definitely afraid of people coming into his life and then just leaving because, again, his personality’s an acquired taste and he’s been abandoned before. in his eyes, his softer side is his weaker side because he’s more susceptible to getting hurt.

USHIJIMA WAKATOSHI:

letting people down. ushijima lives to be reliable. he wants to be, like his dad described, the ace that makes everyone think “if i toss to him, he’ll definitely score”. he shoulders on so much responsibility and it’s because he needs prove that he is the guy people can depend on. and a lot of it has to do with making his dad–– whom he rarely ever sees–– proud, but a lot of it also has to do with the genuine desire to be strong for others. so to be the exact opposite, to show or maybe even suggest that he isn’t as sturdy as he is (which he definitely has done before, probably with all the team’s losses), i think that’s the one thing that gets him most insecure. or i guess you could say this is his greatest fear: to no longer be reliable.

honestly, i think ushijima is one of the least bothered people in haikyuu, which is why i can only confidently headcanon one insecurity. he’s got amazing tunnel vision and he doesn’t let himself get carried away by emotion. that being said, he has emotions. he’s just able to compartmentalise and focus on what’s important: getting better. if he loses, he doesn’t wallow in self-pity–– he does 100 serves. ushijima turns his insecurities/flaws into strength.

i’d suggest maybe his family situation as a possible soft spot, but by the way he openly answered tendou’s questions it’s clear that he’s not exactly torn up over his parents’ divorce. i think he’d be insecure about getting into a relationship, though. it involves a lot of vulnerability and dedication/time, the latter of which he’s not sure he can take from volleyball. i genuinely believe he never dated in high school because he was way too focused on going to nationals for that. so that lack of experience would also make him just a little uncomfortable about dating as an adult, i think. but he’s also not the type to dwell on these things. he’d probably just go for it. he’s a straight-forward, logical, clear-minded guy.

KUROO TETSUROU: 

his baggage. based on the canon information about his parents being divorced and him not seeing his sister, and then the fanon stuff about him growing up listening to them fight endlessly… there’s a lot of trauma that comes with a dysfunctional family that undoubtedly made him into the self-preserving and cunning captain he is today. he has to be able to figure people out and protect himself in order to survive, but that also means he’s a lot more guarded than most. he’s that guy who gets along with everyone but he wouldn’t call most of them his friends. kuroo likes to keep people at arm’s length to protect them and himself from getting hurt. there’s just too much trauma for another person to deal with, unless they really show him that they won’t just leave him high and dry. even after he’s let them in, i don’t think kuroo would talk much about it.

not knowing what romantic love is supposed to be like. and by love, i mean the act of loving–– not the emotion. i find that with kids who’ve grown up in dysfunctional families or are children of divorce, they’re either extremely hesitant to enter relationships or they impulsively dive into them. i think kuroo’s the former. he’s very intelligent and patient, so i can definitely see him being scared to get involved with other people for their sake. after all, he knows that what he’s experienced in reality about love is not correct–– but at the same time, that’s all he knows. he just doesn’t know what a relationship is supposed to look like. is it a lot of independence? or are you supposed to be attached at the hip? how do you get that comfortable around someone? i think this lack of knowledge makes him insecure about getting into relationships.

TENDOU SATORI:

his appearance. we also all know tendou has had the most trauma being bullied and “overcame” the bullying by embracing the demon persona (just on the court!!), but i highly doubt he’d want to be loved for that off the court. the way he treats his friends shows that he’s a very loving, soft, and playful guy. and he’s more resignedly accepted the fact that everyone’s first impression of him will always be the sadistic, scary-looking demon, but i’m sure it affects the way he interacts with people he believes to be conventionally attractive. like maybe he feels just a little undeserving/unsuitable to be around them.

going over the line. tendou is a really sensitive guy with high emotional intelligence–– partially because of how he’s been forced to learn to read people to figure out their intentions, and partially because he never wants to hurt the people he loves. for example, tendou apologised when he kept badgering ushijima about his father and realised it could be a sensitive subject. but i also feel like because he’s such a rowdy, high-energy guy, sometimes his teasing and mischief can go a little far. maybe it’s a text that reads too rudely, followed by a lag on the receiver’s side. and maybe that’s when the overthinking kicks in. like, “that was really mean, satori. that was too far. you should apologise. what if they were really hurt by that? what if they don’t like you anymore?”

being overlooked. tendou pretty much only exists in relation to ushijima and even though he loves ushijima to death i’m sure sometimes he just feels a little down about the fact that he lives in his shadow. he’s always “ushijima’s friend” or “the middle blocker on ushijima’s team” and he’s rarely recognised for his own existence. i think he’s also accepted this, as shown by when he told ushijima to tell all the future reporters that they were friends. tendou had already accepted how ushijima was destined for attention, no matter how in-your-face he himself was. what i love is how furudate kinda inverts this trope by making tendou the famous guest of a show and talking about ushijima instead. it doesn’t change how much he loves ushijima or how much he’ll continue singing his best friend’s praises, but i think some part of him will always wonder if a new person is only taking interest in him because of his connection to ushijima.