#tl: pilot

[devinwolfi]

TOHEEB JIMOH as SAM OBISANYA Ted Lasso S01E01 – Pilot

[kivaember]

Do you think Walter ever recieved augmentation surgery? Also, given how he sees it as part of the "carnival of horrors" his father created, do you think that he would've been against Michigan getting it?

(It's never directly stated, but I'd assume Michigan is augmented because he ranks directly behind Freud in the arena, so it would kind of make Freud less of an anomaly for being so good despite never recieving the surgery.)

okay i went on a long ramble by accident so cut it is!

In APV, Walter and Michigan are baseline humans! In fact, Michigan briefly considered getting augmentations when the "safer" Gen Seven augmentations came out after ironing out all the fatal flaws in the previous two generations, but Walter went on an anti-augmentation screed so intense that Michigan was just like "whoa fuck okay fine I won't get them."

(Later, Michigan was genuinely grateful Walter talked him out of it, because he realised that the augmentations didn't really give much benefits to a pilot's capability. Yeah, it gave them faster reflexes and better synergy with their AC, but that didn't trump good old experience and skill, which Michigan has in bucketloads. He found a lot of vindictive delight in trashing Arquebus pilots who had the most "modern" augmentations when he remained as a baseline human).

but as for a serious answer/ramble: AC6 is pretty upfront with who has augmentations in their arena profiles, so really it's just up to personal headcanons for those where it's not explicitly said (Michigan, Flatwell, etc). But usually I assume that if the arena profile doesn't say anything about augmentations, I consider them a baseline human... unless they're Flatwell and I augmented him for plot reasons in apv dhdshdf

like, it's my personal hc that late Gen augmentations are overhyped, likely due to aggressive corporate marketing to conceal how the late Gens are inferior to the Coral-augmentations. The hint to this was with Swinburne's arena profile, where it stated that the Gen Sevens didn't give the "usual" drawbacks to its user... but also gave negligible benefits ("This granted him enhanced aptitude as a pilot without the usual complications—but with no obvious indication of either efficacy or potential side effects, Swinburne's fears and doubts turned into an overpowering paranoia.") - and also V.VIII Pater's low ranking in the Arena.

Pater's a Gen Ten, the most modern augmentation that's commonly practiced by AC6 time, and Pater is... a painfully average pilot amongst the other named characters. He's sits at 16/C, where Chatty, Carla and Honest Brute rank higher than him, and they're not career mercenaries. In fact, quite a lot of augmented humans rank low in the arena comparatively to other pilots who don't have augmentations - Thumb Dolmayan doesn't have them, even, he's just a Doser who gained enlightenment by huffing so much Coral he accidentally made Contact, and he's 4/A.

tl;dr Freud is probably a notable figure for being a baseline human in the Vespers, because Walter introduced the Vespers as Arquebus's "in-house augmented human AC squad". The fact that V.I is a baseline human probably throws people for a loop, since the group is commonly known as a group of augmented humans - no doubt to showcase Arquebus's augmentations.

The corporations probably do a lot of barking about how augmentations make the AC pilot, because it's a marketing thing. But when you step outside of the neat lines of corporate warfare, it becomes more apparent that augmentations mean nothing if you don't have the experience or skill to back it up. A Gen Ten pilot used to conducting harassing operations against poorly armed union workers would find themselves floundering against n independent mercenary who's a baseline human that's cut their teeth against various opponents across the galaxy.

Oh hm this turned into a pretty big ramble but... this topic interests me, tbh! It's fun to think that the corporations make a big thing about their super special augmented humans, but it turns out that unless you put in the effort to properly train them or give them experience, they don't measure up against an ex-Doser running around in a souped up BASHO. The fact that people commonly think that augmented humans are superior pilots is because it's a shortcut to a boost in capability, and because the corporations are aggressive in their marketing and publishing successful results to ensure there's a demand for it.

anyway i hope all that rambling made sense sdhffh im very sleepy right now...

[dinosizedmintz]

started playing ovenbreak again *does the saddest whip and nae nae you've ever seen*

[caffinateddragon-blog]

Hi hi hi!!! Sorry to bother but I have a silly question:

I've seen some people rant about which mecha bot is stronger and from what I've seen many say Grendizer or Getter..curious to know your take on it? dndnnsn

My mind says Getter Robo but Grendizer as shown in MazinSaga is a goddess? (Haven't read it yet unfortunately 💔)

i have Also not read mazinsaga yet (mostly because i haven't got to it yet skjsdhf) but hmmm

it's hard to tell because there's many getter robos, but the original cat is, well. we saw its upper limit for sure and musashi paid the price

getter g is definitely up there and would stand a good fighting chance. i'd say it's skewed in grendizer's favor since getters are sorta glass cannons but in more of a 60/40 skew depending on environment and such

the TRICKY part is when you get to shin getter/getter dragon territory. what do you do when creatures of steel and pneumatic muscles can eat anything around themselves to repair

[thelassoway]

Ted Lasso S01E01 Pilot || Ted Lasso S02E12 Inverting the Pyramid of Success Salty

[helluvapurf]

idk if you're still doing the ship bingo thing, but what do you think of the blitz x m&m poly pairing (any combo)?

Another kinda neutral-ranked ship in my books... though ngl, sometimes I find myself a bit intrigued by their lil canon nudges at times lol :p

Like, its clear that Blitz always found Moxxie & Millie to be "hotties", and likes to hype up their "relationship goals" whenever he can (albeit, rather clingily-), so I mean... I wouldn't be too surprised if he actually had some sort of "legit" feelings outside of all the horny jokes? :o

Though, the thought of this actually leading to anything "significant"-wise in-canon... ehhh, not very likely imo given M&M's happily married status (+Blitz's other canon flings/relationship woes), buuuut maybe in an AU it could potentially work? .3.

[gummycore]

OH MY GOD THEY FOUND THE 110 LOMBARD STREET PILOT?! I.... I WROTE THE LOST MEDIA WIKI ARTICLE FOR THAT..............

[krystal-kade]

What happened to Alastor being scary

The biggest thing I noticed in Hazbin Hotel that Alastor is not scary. He used to be mysterious, creepy, and intimidating. We didn't know what he was thinking. We didn't know how he was feeling. He was such a great character because we knew he was insanely powerful, but he didn't act like it. But now that the show has come out, he's not scary or intimidating. He's just an edgelord.

Pilot Alastor wouldn't make this. Here he's goofy, but in a bad way. Where's the mysterious Alastor? This guy's just like "HAHAHAH I'M SO EVIL >:)" but he just seems stupid?

He also says all these corny lines, like "This is your sign not to mess with the radio demon," (it was something like that) "I'm about to end your fucking life," and "Adam. First man, next to die." He sounds like he's a 12 year old role-playing a creepypasta. These aren't intimidating, he just sounds dumb, edgy, and cringy

ALSO he seriously needs to STOP saying FUCK. It wasn't popular slang in the early 1900's, so he probably would never say it, but it also doesn't fit his persona. A really unique part of him is that he doesn't swear much and he's always smiling. He shouldn't say "ornery old bitch" and he shouldn't say 'fuck you." They just don't fit him. If he wanted what he said to have impact, he would have said something like "she's such a bitter old woman, bless her soul." or when Lucifer says the hotel's name isn't very clever, he should've said "your highness, intelligence is in constant pursuit of you, but it seems you have always been faster" because subtle insults he thinks everyone else is too stupid to understand seems more like his style.

I'll excuse him saying fuck once or twice. Maybe when he breaks his staff, and once more in season two? But he says it too much to have impact.

TL;DR, Alastor's not scary because he's not mysterious. He's just an angry edgelord

[cavegirlpoems]

Violet Core Approaches

So. My close friend and collaborator Sarah Carapace has been working on Violet Core - a ttrpg about dykey mecha pilots in space - for the past few years, and that work is approaching its fruition. It's about to get kickstarted pretty soon, and I got a preview copy of the game ahead of that. So, preview/review I shall.

Disclaimers: I'm close friends with Sarah, was involved in some of the early playtests, and might end up doing a stretch goal for the game. So, I am of course wildly biased in Sarah's favour. Still, even if I wasn't, I figure this'd be my jam.

TL,DR: This game is really really good, back the kickstarter. For more details, read on.

The Basics:

Violet Core is set in the Nemesis System, an alternate scifi version of the solar system. The game follows the lives of spacers cut off from their home planet, Cerulea, as they face an oncoming disaster as escalating waves of comet-storms hit the system and everything starts to come apart.

Our characters are mech pilots for one of three factions of spacers - The Reach, The Homebound, and The Cosmic Embrace - each with their own perspective on what to do about the looming disaster. It's generally agreed that they need to escape, but where to and how is a source of conflict.

All three factions and their approaches have their merits. Although the Reach are positioned as more heirarchical and organised than the other two, all three are clearly scrappy tenacious punk-ish survivors who've been rejected and exiled to space by the dickhead bourgoisie of their home planet, Cerulea.

Luckily, you get to pilot X-10s, giant personalised mechs powered by a mysterious psycho-active (psychic?) crysteline core. This lets you get up to all the various activities you just pictured when I said that.

Tonally, it's Sarah Carapace through-and-through. Everything is purple and blocky, with CRT monitors and snaking cables and spray-paint. Riot Grrl mashed up with retro scifi mashed up with cosmic weirdness.

On The Humble D4

The game uses the oddity of dice - the humble D4 - as its main dice, with D8s scattered in here and there. It's a choice I really like, giving the game a feel that's a little angular and off-centre. It's a simple choice, but it does a lot to set it apart. I can't sum this up better than Sarah does, so I'll just quote her:

d4s are the most cursed of all dice.

They are awkward to roll.

They are pointy and can/will stab you.

Femininity is pointy, painful and powerful and so are these odd little polyhedrons.

Also, There is no standardised style for d4s. When you roll them, the result is the number displayed upright, either on the top or bottom. It varies from die to die.

Which I think gives you a good sense of the tone of the whole game, y'know?

The game cares about dice as physical objects deeply. Players can use the emotional connections between their characters to donate bonus dice to another character's rolls: the game suggests that when you do, you should pass her your physical dice, and use the motion of how you do it (including potentially how your hand touches hers as you hand them over) as a way of expressing the connections between characters, which is a fucking genius bit of design.

Anyway. Who do you play as?

Some sort of dykey space-gal x-10 pilot. To define who you are, you pick three things: the faction you belong to, your pilot type, and the X-10 you pilot. I'll go over each in quick succession.

Your faction determines your political alliance and likely goals, and the culture you grew up in, and each faction has access to a different set of X-10s. You pick between:

The Reach: the most organised and strict faction, and the oldest. Strict, heirarchical, and high-tech. You play here if you want to have a good The Man to chafe against, or to be that The Man for somebody else. The Reach are working on engineering humanity to be able to survive the coming disaster and thrive in space, and building a vast engine - the Overlock - to enable this.

The Homebound: the most rough-and-ready faction. A large population of working-class gals, and with too few resources to go around. They're working on repairing a giant machine, The Sling, to transport their people to another star system and flee the coming disaster. Unfortunately, The Sling and The Overlock are both adaptations of the same machine...

The Cosmic Embrace: the weirdo faction. The smallest, most mystic, and overall hippy-est. Short on space, people, and resources, but not on idealism and enthusiasm. They're poking the weird shit of the setting, and getting results. A little culty. In the playtest I was in, I played Cosmic Embrace, obviously.

Notably, you can have PCs all be in the same faction, or be split between them. If split, there's lines of conflict, but also room for alliances and subterfuge. PCs can, and might well, switch faction in play.

As well as your faction, you pick your pilot type. There's three broad types of pilots you can be:

Genebuilt, artificially created super-pilots with custom genetics to make them good in space. Divided into two rough types; the Violet Kind (for if you were a successful project, and inhereted mysterious abilities) or the Rat Bitch (for if you... weren't, and mostly just inhereted emotional issues). There's some interesting space to play with the idea of nature vs nurture here, or with the pressure of expectation.

Baseliners, aka normal humans who haven't been genetically engineered or tinkered with. Again, divided into two types; the Shining Star (for if you're keeping up with the best through sheer talent and training) and the Baseline Breaker (for if you're a normal person getting by with determination and adaptability.

And then, lastly, the Returned. People who died - or nearly died - and were brought back. The character creation section only mentions one sort of Rebuilt - the Returned, who have been remade by the power of humans science - but hints that other sorts might exist. And indeed they do, tied to the mysteries of the setting.

I ended up playing a Rat Bitch, who'd seen her best buddy get horribly fucked up in a training exercise and gone awol. It was great fun.

Lastly, your X-10. Each faction has three models of X-10, divided by function: Warriors to be brutal front-line fighters, Rogues to be mobile scout-types, and Witches that do weird shit and fight at range. Out of these, each faction has its own version of each of these archetypes. Some X-10 models are pretty common and mass-produced (like the Ogress, the Reach's warrior-frame), and some are rare or even unique (like the Hag, the homebound's rare and experimental Witch type that can fuck with time and space).

Each X-10 has its own Violet Core, the psychoactive crystal that's at the heart of the mech and gives the game it's name. Thoughts from the violet core filter through to the pilot, and visa versa. If you pilot a Hag for long, you'll start thinking Haggish thoughts, and your own emotions will start to seep into the core. It can get real strange real fast.

Each type of X-10 feels and plays extremely differently, in a way I personally found made your choice of frame a reflection of your pilot's personality. My pilot ended up in a Mermaid - the Cosmic Embrace's version of a Witch frame - that had the ability to shift space around it (her?), and 'swim' out of the normal world into sub-space. Which brings me to...

The Spaces & The Mysteries

As well as the material, mundane world - what Violet Core terms 'top-space' - there are two other spaces that exist.

Sub-space is a serene, empty (is it?) realm that lies below top-space. You can dive into sub-space in the right X-10s, and explore. Time and space are wierd and fluid here. If you dive deeply, you find... things. If you dive too deep, you might not come back the same, or at all. There are mysteries down there. Remember I mentioned there are other types of Returned you might become? Yeah. Remember those Violet Cores that power your X-10s? They're made from something called 'the fingers' found deep down in sub-space. Who's fingers? You see where I'm going with this.

There's also The Violet Realm. This is the psycho-sphere, the realm of dreams and emotions and mystical experiences. The violet core of your X-10 links you to the Violet Realm. You can meditate to experience it, to commune with what's within...

This is a setting with mysteries. There are things to explore, forces and powers beneath the surface. I won't elaborate. Partly because I don't want to spoil the discovery for you, and partly because I don't want to read it all and spoil myself before I can play this again. What I will say is that the bits I did read ahead on give you a lot to explore, and are explained in a way that make how they tie into the wider setting and plot. It's all coming together into something impressive.

Personally, as a player of rpgs (larp and ttrpg) I really enjoy settings which present you with mysteries and mysticism, which let you explore the underlying nature of this universe in ways that are at times rational and at times intuitive or mystical. It's an itch few other ttrpgs have scratched for me. Lacuna and Orpheus were, until now, games that achieved what I wanted; now I get to add a third game to the list in Violet Core.

In case it wasn't clear, this is high praise. This is extremely high praise.

Mechanics

I'm going to assume you're already sold. If you aren't, let me make a statement:

I'm mad I didn't think of these game mechanics.

The core engine is pools of d4s, in a way I believe is drawn from forged in the dark. However, unlike FitD, I really like how VC handles its rolls. Particularly - as I mentioned above - the way players can pull on the connections between PCs to offer each other dice, and the way this affects the game.

The core is pretty simple but has nuance. There are PbtA-style moves - things like Negotiate, or Hurt, or Shield - that trigger when you do a particular thing. You roll, and get a codified result based on the result. When you roll, you get a number of dice depending on how you're going about it. In person, you use your talents; things like Making Out and Using Your Head. In your X-10, you use the X-10's talents, things like Synchronising and Drawing Near. An example: You're piloting a Mermaid, and you see your friend (piloting an Ogress) is about to be struck by spiraling comet shards. To save her, you dive across to pull her out of top-space and into sub-space with you, dipping out of the material world to avoid the hazard. Since pulling somebody into Sub-space with your X-10 is Draw Near, you roll as many d4s as your Draw Near pool, and count how many hits you get. Since you're trying to protect somebody, you take that result and look at the Shield move to see what happens.

It's a simple core that's then built on with more detail, giving it a lot of room for nuance and expression.

Further, there's a neat little system for tracking the emotional connections between PCs and how they escalate over time. As they escalate, you pick statements to describe how you feel, pinning down the nature of the relationship, that will get deeper and more intense the further in you get. And the further in you get, the more potent it is when you hand another player your dice to assist her PC.

In play its such a neat, deep, evocative system that it made me really mad I didn't think of it myself. It's basically perfect.

Sorties, in which our cosmic purple space robots punch each other

Up front. Although your in giant space-mechs with giant space-weapons, combat isn't meant to be lethal and horrid. It's intense, and gritty, and emotional raw, but in the way that a bloody-knuckled fist-fight is, not in the way that a shootout is.

Fights aren't war. They're personal.

There's a lot of dancing metaphors in how the fights are described. You might be sparring or actually seriously going after each other, but either way, a fight is an interplay between two characters at their most intense. That thing where a fight scene serves the same purpose as a musical number? Yeah, that.

So. Each fight between X-10s is a Sortie. A sortie is divided into a series of steps, and at each step you pick an option for how you're fighting;

Lead, to be agressive

Sway, to be fluid and fucky

Follow, to be evasive

Sway hits follow, Follow hits lead, Lead hits sway. Its a rock-paper-scissors cycle. (If you get two Leads, both hit, and if you get two follows or sways, both miss.)

When you hit, you can trigger one of the moves as a result. It can get ugly and painful. It could concievably get vulnerable and emotional.

Critically, you have a limited pool of lead/sway/follow actions (depending on your X-10), that get used up as you use them in steps. IE: if you're piloting a Witch, you can use Sway twice and Lead & Follow once. So, you can count what you're opponent's used up, and predict their moves based on what they've got left. In really long sorties, once you've only got one option left to you, it resets.

A sortie is a sort of dance as you maneuver for the advantageous position, use that to fuck with your oponent, and get your fists bruised.

Damage to your X-10 can bleed through to you. Contact between two X-10s can bleed through to their pilots. Things can get strange, particularly when there's Witch X-10s involved.

I'm gonna quote the book again here:

Not all pilots fight to win. Some pilots fight to hurt.

The Gay Bits

As you might have realised by now, it's a really fucking sapphic game. Not as a focus, but in the way where all our PCs are assumed to be some sort of dykey queer type because that's just the kinda tone we're going for.

To misquote Sarah's fellow aussie: "This is my book motherfucker, they'll walk be lesbians if I tell them to".

Pulling It All Together

Tonally, it's a fucking slam dunk. The world bleeds with a very specific atmosphere, a sort of dykey grungey weirdness that draws on old late-80s to early-90s mecha anime, and Heaven Will Be Mine, and weird scifi.

The writing has a really strong voice. Sarah doesn't write like a typical clinical dispassionate ttrpg text, she writes like Sarah. There's little witicisms, emotional bits, slang. It reads like somebody passionately explaining how to play in person.

There's a lot of snippets of in-character text - chat logs, reports, records, recordings - that give you a sense of the sort of people in this world.

The art is all fucking gorgeous. Mostly Sarah art, with some guest spots.

It is extremely purple, so purple its even in the name.

In conclusion:

Listen I am wildly biased because I've been friends with Sarah for yonks, but even if I wasn't I'd be incredibly enthusiastic about this game because:

a) it seems to have been carefully fine-tuned to hit my tastes.

b) it's really fucking good. Really fucking good.

It's an idiosyncratic personal work that also has a huge cosmic scope to it. It fucks around with the medium of dice-based ttrpgs in interesting ways. It's gorgeously written. It's got a setting that makes me want to dive in and explore it.

You should go back the kickstarter when it goes live, and tell your friends about it, and I am not kidding. If this game isn't a wild success there is something wrong with indie ttrpgs. The kickstarter is here, I believe it's due to go live in a couple of days.

If any bloggers are interested in getting a preview copy of their own, hit me up and I can hit up Sarah and we can sort things out.

[multiversxwhore]

DO I HAVE ANY TWENTY ONE PILOTS FANS ON MY TL ITS TIME TO WAKE TF UP! WE’RE BACK TO RED, BACK TO THE TRENCHES, WE’RE GOING BACK TO DEMA!!!

[emelinstriker]

{Eternal Servants AU} Wukong & Macaque ♡ Obedience

Art drawn by me + the OC is mine... Also the mentioned OCs and the AU itself.

My LMK AU's first ever fic, lezgooo- :D

This one's mainly just showing off the relationship between the monkeys as well as the Reader. The AU actually does feature some input from that one OC group of mine, even if they mostly operate in the background. Some of them do occasionally show up. It wouldn't be one of my universes if they had no input since they're all connected by this group of individuals... A good example would be CM from Castle's Pet, if any of my ancient old Quotev/Wattpad Undertale X Reader fans are reading this.

[TL;DR] Just your monkeys being wholesome while murdering another demon.

♡ ~ Fluff ~ ♡

Seated on your throne, you sighed as you waited for your purple champion's return. You sent out Macaque to retrieve an ancient artifact a demon stole from your palace's storage. Usually it wouldn't take him long to hunt someone down. After all, he was used to tracking down any that would oppose you and would bring them to justice. However, something must've happened since he obviously wasn't back yet. This was highly unusual for either one of your champions.

'Did he get into an accident?', you thought to yourself, now getting worried.

Your blue champion seemed to notice your sudden change in mood. He didn't even need to feel it through your eternal bond, he could just tell by looking at your concerned expression. He leaned down a bit as he obediently stood next to your throne, looking at you with his void black eyes. "Master, is something bothering you?"

You turned your head a bit to look at him. "It's just... Where's Macaque?"

"Unfortunately, I'm not sure whether or not he's still occupied with the thief." He responded flatly with little to no emotion. You hummed in thought for a moment before you turned to face him again.

"Wukong, I want you to check up on your brother... Help him if he needs help, but at least just make sure he's not hurt or anything." You said firmly. The monkey in blue moved in front of you and bowed.

"As you wish, Master."

And with that, he summoned his somersault cloud and hopped onto it before swiftly flying off into the direction of where his sworn brother left to hunt down the thief.

Across the land, a giant smoke monster could be seen fighting a giant demon in green and black. It seemed like a tough battle as the demon the monster was fighting was very aggressive and wild in its attacks. When suddenly, a blunt hit to the back of the green and black demon slammed the demon in green and black face-first into the ground of the clearing they were fighting in. Its body created a giant crater. It was still alive, but just barely as it laid there motionless. It seemed like the battle already weakened it and the blow to the back was too much for it to handle.

The simian piloting the giant smoke monster panted a bit from exhaustion as he smiled darkly at the fallen demon. But then he turned towards the direction of his ginger-furred brother, who was standing on his cloud with crossed arms, and huffed. "Thanks, but I could've taken him down on my own. It just would've taken a bit."

"Master told me to make sure you weren't hurt." Wukong stated as-a-matter-of-factly.

Macaque's smile turned from maniac to apologetic as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, with his giant smoke avatar mirroring his motion. "Oh man, did I take too long again? I didn't mean to make them worry... I just kinda got caught up with stopping the thief. He used the artifact he stole and it turned him into a feral titan." He added as the giant smoke monster gestured towards the other demon on the ground. That's when the monkey on the cloud quickly zoomed down towards the unconscious demon's body. It took him a few seconds, but he quickly spotted the artifact hanging from the titan's satchel. After he took it away from the giant demon, the demon's body seemingly shrunk back to its original size, still unconscious in the ginormous crater. The simian carefully held onto the artifact, as to not accidentally trigger its power, before his cloud flew back to his sworn brother. After Macaque saw the other demon's now normal-sized body, his smoke monster avatar disappeared around him as he stretched with his feet now touching the ground again.

He grinned at the ginger-furred monkey, seeing him hold the artifact the thief stole. "Guess now we also know what thing does... Did Master say anything about wanting us to kill the guy, or to place him in the punishment wing?"

Wukong shook his head in response, his face still not holding any emotion. Macaque sighed. "Well, damn... But I guess we might as well end him now than risk having him try to steal again, right?" He chuckled as he slowly walked towards the unconscious demon's body. The dark-furred monkey gave the demon a wicked grin, not expecting a response as he summoned his shadow staff. "Nothing personal, dude. Just making sure our beloved Master is forever safe and comfortable! Any who are at risk of opposing them in any way must be eliminated..."

And with that, he smashed his staff's thorny end down onto the demon's head, ending his life with one last strike. Wukong just gave the corpse a bored look before he uncrossed his arms. "Do you need a ride back?" The Monkey King asked, referring to Macaque's exhaustion after battle. He could just help the other monkey relax and calm down with his somersault cloud, after all.

However, Macaque just waved his hand dismissively as he took a deep breath. "Nah, but thanks. I'm a bit tired, but not enough to stop me from using my powers. Do you want a ride back though?" He grinned before he summoned a shadow portal on the ground next to himself. Wukong's mouth just faintly twitches upwards for a split second, but it was enough to make his the dark-furred simian chuckle in repsonse. "C'mooon, bud~ We both know my method's faster! Just hop in already!" If Wukong's eyes weren't like a fully black void, his playful eyeroll would've been very much noticeable. He hopped off his cloud, letting it disappear as he approached the portal, straight up jumping into it. Macaque soon followed after, closing the portal once he went through.

On the other side, you anxiously waited on your throne. While you didn't think any of your regular servants would harm you, you still felt a bit uncomfortable without at least one of your champions around. After all, a human ruling over an army of demons wasn't exactly a common thing demons respected. Only those who were already your servants in other lives would respect you fully... probably. And you had no recollection of any of your previous lives.

Your anxiety faded however once your two blue and purple champions emerged from a shadow portal in front of your throne. The sworn brothers didn't hesitate and kneeled upon seeing you.

"Apologies for the wait and for worrying you, Master. The thief ended up using the artifact and I ended up having to fight him to stop him." Macaque says, somewhat sounding ashamed of himself. He didn't like it whenever he didn't meet his Master's expectations. Even if something was out of his control.

You smiled softly as you leaned back. "It's fine, Mac-Mac. It was inevitable if that guy refused to face justice... I'm just glad you're alright and came back to me alive and well." The simian's frown turned into a bright smile as his tail swayed happily behind him. If you used that nickname for him, then he must've done everything right!

Afterwards, you smiled at your blue champion. "Thanks for finding him and taking him home again, Wu-Wu. Great job." You praised him. Now his tail was also swaying more happily. He nodded his head and grunted quietly in acknowledgement. Despite him not talking quite as much as his brother, and usually not showing emotions, you knew he was just as happy and content as your purple champion. His gentle tail sways were enough to understand.

The ginger-furred monkey then pulled out the artifact from underneath his cloaked side, still kneeling as he stared at you expectantly. "Shall I return this to the storage? The Archivist wanted to check on the items later today."

You scratched your head in thought for a moment as you hummed. "Guess that would be the best idea... If the Archivist shows up, then it's best if we have all the items that we borrowed... I don't wanna deal with his colleagues again, to be honest." You admitted, physically cringing a bit at the memory of your last encounter with the group the Archivist was involved in. They weren't happy when an eternal branding iron you used on your servants was stolen. Especially the Judge...

Wukong, knowing what you meant, nodded again as he stood up and bowed his head. "Of course, Master." Then he turned and walked away towards the palace's storage. Meanwhile, Macaque continued to smile brightly at you.

"Do you have another task for me to complete as well, Master?" He asked, eager to follow your every command like an obedient puppy. You hummed in thought again, but before you could respond, you heard the familiar voice of a certain mysterious figure in a black cloak and a fox-like mask...

"They do not. I have a task for you instead, Six-Eared Macaque."

The cloaked entity with the fox mask revealed himself as he walked out from behind your throne... When did he get here? Then again, he was one of the Archivist's colleagues, so you didn't question much anymore due to all they were able to do... You raised a suspicious eyebrow at the masked entity as you spoke. "...What task?" Those cloaked beings weren't to be trusted with how they operated. And while the Oracle usually spoke of the truth and was one of the more gentle-sounding members, you could never be sure whether or not there was malice behind anything their group did.

He responded in a blank tone, as if it were obvious. "The task involves going to the Underworld and retrieving the Scroll of Memory." Macaque visibly flinched slightly as one of his ears twitched at the mention of the Underworld, yet he avoided eye contact and remained quiet. The masked entity continued. "It's not the scroll itself that you might be interested in, but rather the curse that is bound to the scroll. That curse would be an extremely great addition to your palace's security." The entity added.

You grimaced a bit in thought, looking at him with uncertainty as you propped up your head on your hand. "Mhm... Are you sure this is worth it? Macaque isn't exactly fond of the Underworld, and I don't wanna make any of my servants, especially my champions, uncomfortable... Maybe Wukong could-" "NO!" Your purple champion suddenly cut you off as he looked at you, his void black eyes were wide open in panic, practically begging you to hear him out. He coughed awkwardly before bowing his head in a bit of shame and embarrassment for cutting you off.

"M-My apologies for interrupting you, Master... But I'd like to take on this mission myself, if I may." He said firmly, determination clear on his face as he tried to avoid this uncomfortable feeling of having to return to the Underworld. But he really wanted to prove himself worthy as one of your champions. He outwardly expressed his love and devotion towards you so much more than his sworn brother, and yet Wukong usually ended up getting more missions than him despite that.

You gave him a concerned look. "Are you sure? I know you don't like the Underworld after... Well, you know..."

He nodded his head without hesitation. "Yes, Master. Please let me retrieve that scroll for you."

After another short moment of uncertainty, you sighed in defeat. You stood up and moved towards your purple champion, petting his fluffy head. "Alright, fine... But if anything makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, I want you to just come back... Okay? I don't want you to get hurt, Mac-Mac. I'd rather have you here with me without that scroll than have the scroll without you." You said softly as you kissed his forehead. The dark-furred monkey blushed as his breath hitched at your touch and words.

That was all the motivation he needed.

His bright smile returned as he joyfully saluted. "Yes, Master! I'll make you proud!" You chuckled at his sudden eagerness. Almost immediately, a shadow portal opened up beneath the simian as he dropped into it, vanishing. Upon the closing of the portal, you raised an eyebrow at the Oracle.

"...Is this scroll really necessary?" You asked quietly, to which the entity silently nodded. You sighed as you pinched the bridge of your nose.

"It's not just for your safety, Your Majesty. It's also required to garner enough attention for the future paths to be connected to the present path." He responded flatly, which confused you. But again, you didn't question his words due to his occupation. And soon enough, Wukong returned from the storage. The monkey in blue walked up to you and bowed, as if to say he had finished his task.

You petted him as well, also kissing his forehead with a little smile. "Good job, Wu-Wu." And just like his sworn brother, his tail started to sway in a happy daze as he blushed despite his still expressionless face. He clearly also loved it when you called him by that nickname. The Oracle, upon seeing the Monkey King return and being showered in affection, quickly bid you farewell for now as he still seemed to be busy with other matters. Meanwhile, you continued to pet the ginger-furred monkey, waiting for his brother again. You even decided to continue petting him while your were seated on your throne.

However, at some point while petting your blue champion, a thought crossed your mind...

"Wu-Wu... If your brother isn't back within the next three hours, I want you to go look for him in the Underworld... And help him out if need be." Wukong's eyes were closed as he leaned into your gentle, addictive touch, while his tail swayed slowly behind him. He simply nodded without opening his eyes.

"Understood, Master."

[ Masterlist ]

[omgthatdress]

A little transparency

So, several months ago, I made some posts asking for donations so I could get a business license for a cemetery preservation non-profit.

Due to stuff outside of my control (tl;dr I was working with someone who ended up becoming genuinely the worst person I've ever met.) that idea is no longer going forward. All the drama went down MONTHS ago so this isn't an impulsive decision. I've been thinking about it.

There are several things I can do at this point.

I can give the money back (if you want your money back, message me)

I can donate to another cemetery non-profit (Andrew Lumish AKA the Good Cemeterian, who cleans old headstones for free and is actually a decent person)

I can use the money for other things I'm trying to advance in my life (specifically: screenplay competitions for a TV pilot I wrote)

Or I can fuck it all and buy myself some nice Bakelite jewelry.

I want you guys who gave me your hard-earned money to be the ones to decide.

If you're involved in any volunteer work or community activism, do yourself a favor and learn what a communal narcissist is & how to identify one. I have no regrets with my experience and I'm incredibly proud of what I was able to accomplish, I just wish the person I partnered with was a completely different person.

Tryin' not to be a scammer on Tumblr the scam website!

[demi-god77]

Saw byler doubt on my tl and I won't have it, so I'm here to try and ease your doubts @lucystark12

(English isn't my first language and I'm currently running on zero hours of sleep. This might be a bit incoherent)

BYLER AND CHARACTER ARCS

First of all, you have to think of this in context to El's character arc as well!

Her arc has always been centered around found family and her own sense of self (the things she lacked for most of her life while she was in the lab, especially since her entire identity was reduced to a number.)

Romantic love (ending the show in a relationship with Mike) would not be beneficial for her arc, as it is not something she lacked prior, she didn't even know what a boyfriend IS when she escaped from the lab. It also sets her back on her path of self discovery (+ she is shown to learn the most about herself when she and Mike are apart).

In an arc about found family, self discovery and independence, forcing her into a relationship that actively separates her from said found family and creates conflict (with Hopper and with the rest of their group), that also doesn't let her figure out who she is, what her interests are and overall stuns her self discovery and independence, would make zero sense. It would not be a progression for her character at all. Especially for someone that has been controlled by others (and men specifically) her entire life.

~~~

About Will now, if his arc was actually about moving on, there was absolutely no reason to make him in love with Mike. All of their conflicts COULD be purely platonic, if their purpose was to signify that he needs to move on/grow up. But they weren't. There would be no reason to make him in love with Mike, he arguably wouldn't even have to be gay for this arc. And yet, his sexuality is mentioned even prior to s1, in the pilot script -clearly important for his character. Him moving on from those feelings would not be beneficial for his arc either, especially since he has already tried to. He has tried to hide from the world, he has tried to repress his feelings and it didn't work out. They even straight up told us he's not able to move on ("[I] need you and [I] always will")

Furthermore, he already believes that his feelings will not be reciprocated, that he needs to let go and that he will never experience a romantic relationship, will never find love. To have him be right does not make for a good story. It sets his storyline back to square one. Him coming into his own and confronting his trauma is definitely a part of his arc, no doubt about that. Moving on from his feelings however, giving up on a love he never let himself believe he could have in the first place, is not.

~~~~

Lastly, Mike himself. I honestly don't really think he has that much of a communication issue. His communication skills are of course not great, they are pretty bad yes, and he obviously struggles with verbally explaining his feelings, but he shows his love through actions and not words. That's something that has been shown since s1 and that's always been how he communicates his emotions. Through actions.

But even so, he has been shown to productively communicate using his OWN words and his OWN feelings before, the shed scene in s2 being a prime example of that (arguably the bedroom scene in S4 as well). His parents' main issue with their relationship is not that they don't communicate imo, it's that they never really loved eachother (and that also ties in to Nancy and her relationship with Steve).

Another thing:

Mike needs to be needed, that's when he feels useful, that's when he feels loved. El is coming into her own, becoming independent, realizing she doesn't need to depend on others, on him. But Will in his monologue confessed that he always will need him, something that will never change.

Moreover, if his arc was truly about learning to communicate effectively, I don't think they would put such emphasis on his insecurities, thinking of himself as inferior and trying to conform. (Also, forcing a confession, especially one based on someone else's feelings would be a horrible writing choice in an arc about self expression.)

Mike actively tries to push aside his nerdy interests and the things he enjoys (who he is) while in the relationship, in order to appear cooler, mature, normal. Pretend he's not himself. THAT is something he gets from his parents. And THAT is not something attributed to bad communication skills, but forced conformity.

And after all, forced conformity is killing the kids.

[mixelation]

i've finished reading xiran jay zhao's iron widow! here is my review so far (contains spoilers, including the "twist" at the end). my tl;dr is that it starts as a fun revenge story but both the quality of the narrative and the writing itself decline over the course of the novel. you might like it if you want a power fantasy where the main character is unapologetically violent and selfish, and you don't mind cardboard characterization or shallow worldbuilding. if you want a nuanced take on how misogyny functions in a society, a book about strong female characters (as opposed to a singular, capital Strong Female Character), or you find descriptions of anime-style action scenes cringey, you this book may not be for you.

on to the full review ->

iron widow is a scifi-fantasy YA book set in alternate timeline china, where humanity battles invading alien "hunduns" using gundam-esque giant robots called "chrysalises." a lot of the worldbuilding draws on the aesthetic and certain social norms of ~old timesy~ china (iirc zhao has stated they pulled inspiration from lots of time periods, but my familiarity with both historical china and chinese historical fantasy is very low, so i am absolutely not the person to label anything beside "the past"). so you have people checking tablets and riding around in hovercraft and using modern slang, but a lot of Aesthetic elements are more traditional, and society is deeply, deeply sexist in a way that.... feels old-fashioned (wording chosen to set the Mood apart from how modern misogyny tends to work). for example, the main character has bound feet but also uses phrases like "railed on."

chrysalises, the giant robots, work by the pilot channeling qi. for whatever reason that's not really well explained, they require a copilot to boost their control/power over the chrysalis. think "drifting" in pacific rim, except here when pilots are not compatible with their copilot (this seems to rely largely on "qi levels" and pilots don't seem to have control over it), the "weaker" copilot can become overwhelmed and die. in this setting, the main pilot is always male the copilot always female, with the copilot usually dying. this part of the premise as it is described on the back of the book confused me as a setting for a ~feminist~ story, because why would men always win in a wild mind-meld, battle-of-wills situation? however, the main character slowly figures out that it's not that men are inherently stronger pilots-- it's that women are always paired with a male pilot the military has tested to be stronger (based on qi levels), and then later one of the plot twists is that the chrysalises are designed to weaken the female copilot. this is because, in the way sexism works in this society, "families wouldn't send their sons to be pilots if they knew they could be killed by some girl." (not an exact quote, but what one character gives as the explanation)

weaker female copilots are called "concubines" and teenaged girls are frequently sold to the military to be concubines. if the concubine survives, she's dubbed a "balanced match" for the male pilot and they become quasi-married. more on this later.

this leads us to wu zetian, a "frontier peasant" who offers herself up to be a "concubine" (co-pilot). we learn that zetian's older sister was sold off by their family to be a concubine, but was murdered by her assigned pilot. like, regular murdered, not killed by a psychic link the way most concubines are. so zetian, having a shit home life, and under pressure to sell herself as well, decides she will enlist and then murder her sister's killer.

now, i had a lot of fun with the beginning of this story. but in order to get into this book, you have to accept upfront that zetian is very firmly the main character, and she is always right and ridiculously strong, clever, and resilient just because. she runs her mouth even at the risk of violence, and is usually meant to be right about whatever she's saying. she rejects her role in society just because, and she decides she doesn't care if her whole family is punished or even killed for her actions because they're terrible to her, and the reader isn't really expected to criticize this. despite having no formal education, she always knows what she needs to know to logic her way through things successfully, and she can strategize and debate on par with people whose literal jobs it is to do these things.

for the first ~25% of the book, this is fun. zetian has decided fuck the system, fuck her family, and fuck her own life-- if they're going to kill her, she's bringing her sister's murderer down with her. she doesn't care about having to endure demeaning tests or people insisting on putting her through painful make-up routines. this is a girl who just has murder on her mind, and it's pretty entertaining.

then, she's shoved into the co-pilot seat of a chrysalis with the man who killed her sister as the main pilot, and through some messy mind-scape battling, she kills him. she takes control of the chrysalis and wins the battle. and then..... the book sort of stops having a real plot, and everything slows down.

see, in the first chunk where we're reading a vengeful murder plot, everything is centered around this one goal. zetian's extreme personality makes sense because we're reading about someone who's actively thrown her life away for revenge. we're on board with it and we wan to see how she manages it. this premise allows for an unhinged protagonist making unhinged decisions.

so what happens next, if she accomplished her goal a quarter of the way in? the military decides to pair her with a character called li shimin, who is the current top pilot. he's the top pilot in that pilots are given scores (their battles are televised and they're treated as a celebrities) and also he has the highest qi level. he's also a convicted murderer and was recruited off death row. sounds fun, right? wrong. shimin is a cardboard cut out of a man. he barely speaks. the only thing he really does is drink and fight people. he gets into physical fights with little provocation. the narration makes a big point of really driving home how big and intimidating he is.... and also how he's an ethnic minority. i cannot comment on if this was meant to reflect any real world group or how they're treated, but overall shimin's characterization make me slightly uncomfortable AND he's just not very interesting. later we find out he's an ex-scholar who murdered his whole family after walking in on his brother raping someone (yeah, i..... idk), and he used to write poems. i think this was meant to make him seem more fleshed out, but the character writing needs a lot of work, so "ex-scholar and poet" is a very informed trait.

if you've followed the buzz on this book, you'll know one of its "draws" is that the end game ship is polyamorous. so, zetian has a second love interest. his name is yizhi and he's the fifth son of the richest man in the country, and he made friends with zetian before the start of the novel. the way they met and bonded doesn't super make sense, but i'm willing to buy into it. yizhi has been infused with SLIGHTLY more personality. he signs up to work for the military as a strategist, which is how he gets to hang out with zetian and shimin. his contribution to the plot is mostly just that he has money to throw at problems. oh, and he can give their chrysalis a boost of qi for extra power and starts hanging out with them in their cockpit during battles. why others don't also do this, and why pilots need to parasite a copilot instead of just having other people around for extra qi, is never explained. zetian has a line where she says something like "don't you know a triangle is the strongest shape?" so i kind of dig what i think zhao was going for (that they balance each other better than just two of them would), but it's not really a realized theme.

okay, so if zetian killed who she wanted to kill, then what's the rest of the book about? good question! it's a little unclear. zetian survives copiloting with shimin and they're declared a balanced match. then the buddies of the pilot zetian killed try to kill her. then the military tries to kill her AND shimin by sending them into battles when they're too tired. then zetian asks yizhi's rich dad to help them with their PR so the government will stop trying to kill them. then they decide to "take back" a province the hunduns took over years ago. then zetian realizes the chrysalises are rigged against female pilots and they go and kidnap and torture a guy to make him confess to how it's done. then they go to take back the province and zetian finds the cryopreserved body of an ancient emperor and his dragon chrysalis. oh, did i not mention him? yeah he's some legend that gets brought up a couple times and then suddenly he's there at the end. but he doesn't do anything. he just agrees with everything zetian wants to do, for some reason, and what she spontaneously decides to do with her new giant robot is go take over the government. she kills multiple people. then the book ends with them finding out they're on the hundun's native planet. okay???

the last 75% just reads like a bunch of things happening because why not. this by itself isn't necessarily bad, but the events are not well connected nor do events get set up in a way where you understand why they occur in the order they occur. zetian stays angry and determined, but her actual overall goal evaporates and instead it just feels like every few chapters she just decides on a new thing she wants. one could argue her overall goal is "claiming agency" or "survival," but they narrative doesn't really carry either of these themes through. for example, in the first quarter of the book, zetian repeated emphasizes she's ready and willing to through her life away if she can get her revenge, and i believed that. but after she miraculously survives.... that willingness to throw her life away vanishes, but not in a "character has undergone development" way. it's just not there anymore.

the writing isn't amazing in the first quarter, but i thought it was fine. it steadily declines over the course of the book, making it feel like a rough draft where zhao was losing steam. instead of getting to see characters interact and play off each other, we just read descriptions of events and conversations. this is nitpicky, but one thing that was starting to drive me crazy through out the book is that the narration frequently would be like "oh, earlier so-and-so showed me this" and then it would be something that could have EASILY just been included at the beginning of the scene and would have also been INTERESTING to see.

the world has a lot of elements going on, but there is a huge problem with telling and not showing, so even with lots of details, the worldbuilding feels shallow. for example, despite zetian saying defeating hunduns has to be a priority, i don't know what happens if hunduns successfully invade an area. we're never shown a ransacked village or hunduns killing anyone but unnamed pilots. the narrative spends a lot of time talking about different element qi and the advantages and disadvantages of each element, but this never actually becomes plot relevant. the pilots are paraded out to the public as fancy celebrities and zetian and shimin have photoshoots for PR, but this also never really becomes plot relevant besides being well-liked being something zetian decides would be a good idea for a few chapters. we don't even know what zetian's relationship with her sister is like, even though she decides to die seeking revenge for her.

i want to expand on that last part a bit. zetian states repeatedly that she wants to help save other girls from becoming concubines, and yet no stakes are attached to this. shimin accidentally killed a concubine he was in love with before the start of the book, so we get some flashbacks of her, but otherwise we never see the impact (or lack of impact) of these young girls' deaths. like, that character really only exists as a tragic backstory for shimin. there's no sympathetic concubine character that dies to drive home the point (although there IS a mean concubine character that presumably died and zetian never thinks of again); there's no meeting a family that misses their daughter; there's no dramatically prying open a cockpit to free a concubine. there are two other female pilots who are balanced matches, and one is a bitch to zetian and the nice one backstabs and attempts to kill her later. zetian never sympathizes with another girl or woman for more than a few lines, including her own sister, so it is unclear why saving girls is so important to her. there's a brief moment where the "nice" female pilot points out to zetian that living in poverty and being terrified of hunduns attacks likely contributed to the various types of misogynistic abuse going on in her family and that providing more support for them would help them.... and zetian sympathizes with her mother for maybe a paragraph.... and then at the end of the book she decides to murder her family. Uh. Okay? Oh, and when the "nice" pilot betrays her, she says it was because the military had her kids and was threatening them. zetian decides to literally crush her to death. Feminism, I guess.

when i read through reviews of this book, the negative ones largely complained about zetian as a character. i always take reviews complaining the main female character is a bitch with a grain of salt, because often they're just bullshit and also i like horrible women. i liked zetian alright for the first two thirds of them book, although she starts to come off as weirdly arrogant at some point. (she starts to refer to herself as one of the most powerful women in the world due to her qi level, even though this does not help her physically, politically, or socially, and she has very little actual agency until just revives a frozen emperor at the end and goes off the rails.) however, this time i think the complaints are merited. you ever read a dark harry fic? or a "naruto gets chased by villagers, becomes powerful and murders them all" type fic? it's like that but if those types of writers were 5% more aware of social issues. zetian is self-righteous about wanting to change the pilot system, but her actions do not indicate she actually gives a shit about anyone but her and her boyfriends. so in the end it seems like even though she's preaching about saving girls, she's actually going, "me! what about me! how dare you do these bad things to ME!" which like. obviously it's fine to be angry about wrongs done to you, but it comes off like she's less upset about systemic problems and more upset the systemic problems happened to HER. there's a lack of nuance and character work that would make or explore this difference.

hmm, what else. i don't really have specific compliments or complaints about the romance aspect, other than the inter-character relationships aren't really built up well. there's definitely effort put into the zetian-yizhi and zetian-shimin relationships, it's just that.... neither of the boys have a ton of personality....? also there's a few oddly placed asides about zetian not feeling ashamed of having two lovers, which feel more liek they're there to justify it to the reader than zetian's actual internal monologue. it's okay, zetian. i did not for a second think you were a shamed of a single thing you've done.

The top review on amazon says, "Wow… this is everything you could want from a science fiction novel." Iron Widow is sci-fi the way Star Wars or Pacific Rim are sci-fi: it's fantasy with robots. Except there's no loving descriptions of engines revving or switches being flipped. There's not even cool little alien dudes; I don't even know what a hundun looks like.

[aeoki]

Number Eight - Prologue

Characters: Rinne, HiMERU, Kohaku & Niki Location: Inside helicopter Season: Winter Writer: Akira

TL Note:

Rinne makes an error with the idiom; the original idiom is about filial piety (a virtue of exhibiting love and respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors) and not brotherhood.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ< One day at the beginning of March. Up in the air. >

Rinne: Hey, Niki. There’s something I wanna tell ya since it’s gonna be the end.

We might seriously be in danger.

Niki: Huh? What’s wrong? Why’re you saying that all of a sudden?

…You said “the end”, but this is our ride there. Don’t you mean “the beginning”?

Rinne: No, no. What I’m tryin’ to say is that this situation is weird.

Come on, think about it. They blindfolded us and then shoved us into a bus, a plane and then a helicopter.

This doesn’t sound like a simple overseas shoot at all.

Maybe we unknowingly offended our CosPro boss, so we’re getting buried out in the middle of nowhere. 

Geez, if I knew this was gonna happen, I should’ve said goodbye to my cute lil’ brother. You know what they say: You realise it’s too late by the time you wanna be a good older brother[⁎]!

Niki: How can the entertainment industry be so heartless…? They’re way too cruel! Does this mean we’re not needed anymore!?

I wish they prepared a final meal for us at least. I don’t wanna die on an empty stomach~!

Kohaku: You two are overreactin’. We’re just headin’ to our next shoot.

We simply received an offer to appear in a variety show that’s similar to “The Minotaur’s Labyrinth”, since it seems it was unexpectedly popular, and people enjoyed seein’ us do ridiculous things.

I bet they’re schemin’ because they wanna make us do somethin’ similar…

Rinne: Woah~ Looks like we’ve got a little bee who can’t read the room!

The super entertaining Rinne-kun was just trying to put on a good show~ I did all that to trick Niki and now my hard work’s gone down the drain.

Niki: What? All that pessimistic stuff you said earlier was a lie!?

I can’t believe you tricked me! If you’re gonna make fun of people like that, then you’re just gonna die a worthless death, you hear!

HiMERU: Amagi, Shiina, Oukawa. Can you three be quiet for a moment?

I’d like to rest while I can. If this is going to be a repeat of “The Minotaur’s Labyrinth”, then it’s surely going to be another stamina test.

We should preserve our energy as much as we can while we’re on the move. That’s the secret to working successfully.

Kohaku: HiMERU-han, you’re adaptin’ to the situation right away.

HiMERU: But, of course. HiMERU would like to resolve everything in a smart and resourceful manner.

Had I not been kidnapped by Amagi, I would have loved to be away, doing my own solo work.

Rinne: Things don’t work out like that in the real world, ya know ♪ We’re in the same unit – and that means we’ll ride and die together ♪

Niki: You really bring bad luck wherever you go, Rinne-kun.

Anyway, I’m glad we’re not gonna die.

Come to think of it, they checked our passports when we got on the plane here. I’ll be fine as long as I get to eat a bunch of local specialties~♪

Kohaku: All you have on your mind is food, huh, Niki-han.

I’d like to rest once we land, but…

Hmm?

Niki: What’s wrong, Kohaku-chan? Did you spot a delicious-looking animal or something?

Kohaku: No. Look over there.

There’s some sort of big banner on the ground.

Niki: “COME HERE”...? What does that mean?

HiMERU: Hmm. Apparently, the pilot says that it's supposed to be “used as a landing pad”.

Rinne: “Used as a landing pad”...? Sounds like something for parachuting.

So that means the real stuff is coming up, right? Alright, we’ve done a lotta different stuff, but parachuting will be a first!

I accept the challenge, so follow me, you guys ♪

Niki: Ah, wait a minute, Rinne-kun! Don’t start putting the parachuting equipment on!

I’m not mentally ready to jump off just yet!

Rinne: Details come later!

Come on, the instructor’s tellin’ us to hurry up too!

Niki: What? Those people weren’t here to film us, but they’re here to help us with the parachute!?

Rinne: I can flyyyy…☆

Niki: Rinne-kun! He just jumped off without listening to what I had to say!

His arrogance knows no bounds. Should we talk to the pilot and ask them to drop us off somewhere closer?

Kohaku: Ko ko ko. This is my first time parachuting as well ♪

It’ll be a valuable experience. If we can’t say no, then all that’s left is to give it a go and jump ♪

Niki: Not you too, Kohaku-chan!?

HiMERU: Stop looking so surprised, Shiina. You should put on your parachuting equipment.

It seems we don’t have a choice yet again. I think it would be wise to do what the show wants us to do instead of prolonging the conversation.

Niki: What? You’re gonna jump off too, HiMERU-kun?

I don’t wanna use my calories to do something like parachuting… Oh, geez. I guess I don’t have a choice, huh~

Okay. I just have to do it, don’t I!?

In exchange, they better let me have a taste of the delicious local specialties here!

I can flyyyy…!

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤNext Chapter →

[thelassoway]

I revisited the first 16 minutes of the pilot episode yesterday and guess who came up with a new idea/theory.....