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secretgamergirl · 2 years

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The Entire Plot of Final Fantasy 14, with all the expansions, and some serious analysis of how good it actually is. (Part 9 - Endwalker)

Last time, we had a lot of fun in a raid chain where our adopted daughter had some nice dates with her forgetful new girlfriend and helped us fight her sleaker, sometimes hornier reimaginings of old boss fights. Oh and we also spent a ton of time setting things up for this expansion, just clearing the traditional problems of political infighting, racism, and a seemingly endless cycle of responding to violence with religious zealotry and kidnappings. And this annoying turbo-dweeb Fandaniel doing poorly explained overpowered derivative crap.

Now before I get started, I feel I should just lay it out there a super strong theme of this whole expansion is suicidal thoughts, and I’m not planning to really dwell on it, but personally I found there’s a lot of stuff in here where just quickly and sort of lightly bringing up a particular flavor thereof got me into some real bad memories, so be ready for even briefer mentions I guess. The other two major thematic elements we have going on here are worshipful love letters from the whole staff to takeout food, and what has to be an intentional pattern of setting up exciting tension and then just completely defusing it. Plus the pacing’s kinda shot from trying to squeeze two expansions worth of plot into one. If only there were an in-game vista that summed this up...

Let’s see if I can get all this into a halfway reasonable word count. First order of business, we’re headed to Nerd Town, AKA Old Sharlayan, in hopes of working out why a bunch of eggheads aren’t willing to help the guy publicly announcing his plan to kill everyone in the world, or barring that, at least get access to their pretty impressive library. Nerd Town kinda sucks. Super bureaucratic. First thing when you show up you have to get processed and get your green card. Plan is everyone’s an assistant working for Krile who’s still very much a member of a respected research group, they aren’t terribly amused by the ridiculous things you can state when they ask for your name and occupation. Also while things look very Mediterranean it is firmly and repeatedly established that this place has just the worst, blandest food in the world. Oh and on the boat ride over you get a vision of a human-shaped Hydaelyn showing up to confirm that yeah, she and Zodiark are just summoned god like all the others, nothing special, and also she’s been weakening as more and more shard-worlds get reabsorbed via apocalypses and strengthening Zodiark... which doesn’t especially make sense since the whole reason she exists was to punch him hard enough to break things up in the first place. Maybe she got the drop or something.

Anyway, you get stonewalled by stubborn nerds like immediately, and have two leads to follow up on, so you split up and get a choice which to do first. Thancred Urianger and Estinein are going to test an experimental teleporter that doesn’t require you to personally unlock the destination crystal first to get to Thavnair, with its capital Radz-at-Han, which is just India, straight up. Everyone else is going to stick around here and try to sneak into Labrynthos, a whole underground archive/nature preserve/site for top secret experiments by researchers who aren’t beholden to the normal high council of nerds. This mostly involves helping a bunny boy carry crates and a brief foray with Y’shtola testing out the toad spell on you and the twins. You don’t really make a ton of progress. Krile gets kinda spacey, ends up briefly possessed by Hydaelyn to tell you this one mood ring flower they have growing down there is gonna be the key to everything and you should keep one on you, and then you’re all arrested by the science police for snooping around a high security research black site and put on trial. Mostly your party uses the trial to call these dumb jerk nerds out for being dumb jerk nerds, point out you totally are just legitimately working on your own research project, and G’raha points out some historical records marking when they shifted from just being a bunch of nerds learning cool stuff to improve society to a bunch of nerds totally restructuring their society to be isolationist weirdos archiving all the world’s knowledge in their creepy underground bunker.

It’s pretty clear that an archaeological team some years back found something. Like say a god who brainwashed everyone into fanatics or something, and they end up admitting to having this all-important “great work” where everyone has to submit to partial memory wiping and magical compulsion not to speak about it to preserve the important secret, and we are just absolutely setting things up where the nerd high council and who or whatever they’re serving as the real villains of this expansion. But like I said we are all about setting up big things and completely deflating them. Eventually it’ll turn out the thing they’re working on is actually totally benign, nobody’s evil, and they’re just a bunch of arbitrarily obstructionist bureaucrats who suck but are on your side. One member of their high council is enough of a reasonable person to have your back though so you don’t get expelled or anything. You’re still not allowed in the top secret lab though so it’s all kind of a wash.

So, experimental teleport to India because I guess they got sick of having so many expansion locations you reach by hopping a boat from Limsa or just taking an airship or something. Everyone’s super dizzy and nautious from the trip and staggering around, and has the terrible realization that Estinein is wandering around on his own in a big outdoor market desperate for tourist money. You’ve gotta get everyone a nice lassi to settle their stomach and stop that idiot before he blows all his money on kitschy knickknacks! Before you catch up he does manage to blow a couple thousand on a hair band to give himself a nice ponytail. I still don’t like how he looks without his helmet though.

The local population is all au ra and big elephant people.The elephant people have big Tribe Quest vibes, and you do eventually help some out in this sort of ridiculous setup where a bunch of delinquent elephant people using hippo-pulled chariots to drag race get into hot water for being a public menace, and turn over a new leaf opening a delivery service. Mostly it’s delivering takeout, but there’s also quests where you go around throwing Gulal at people, one where you are clearly conducting a drug deal (the second time this comes up at that, Heavensward has you helping cool bug pals harvest marijuana and sell joints to the other locals), and there’s one really unfortunate one where you’re asked to put on a ridiculous mascot elephant head and shout at some random person that you’re his god because people are sick of him praying constantly. All of this is actually post-Endwalker though, because we just arbitrarily gate all the tribe quests back there this expansion. What we’re actually here for now is helping some other elephant people who are actually doing very serious government-approved reseach on these big evil towers. Presumably since the first “tribe” unlocked are full citizens of a friendly nation, when these first went live they quietly went through the whole UI replacing “Beast Tribe” with just “Tribe.” Interesting that this didn’t happen earlier with the dwarves getting drunk and building tanks or something.

Anyway, their leader Nidhana, who’s just a real nice friendly nerd hanging out any time you’re in the area, has been working on these special “warding scales” that should in theory make anyone carrying one immune to godly mind alteration, not only letting random NPC military forces approach these towers safely, but also let the other Scions or any other noteworthy friends canonically tag along for future boss fights and so on. And they do in fact work perfectly. But oh no! There’s this weird creepy little kid showing up to deliver a fresh load of the secret ingredient they need. A huge pile of scales clearly ripped away from the belly of a dragon! Estinein, who’s come a long way on this sort of thing, is way sympathetic to dragons now (probably helps that he straight up turned into one for a bit) and confronts him, but again, we aren’t paying tension off. The Satrap who rules the country and his entire family line before them have just always had this big cool dragon friend Vrtra and he’s happy to help with stuff like this. Anyway, Nidhana decides to test one of these scales personally and heads off to the local tower, which people are locally calling the Tower of Zot, and while it does work, the second the door opens she gets hauled inside with huge chains, her scale gets lost, and she’s stuck in one of those torture walls.

We also get some attempt to retroactively make Fandaniel a character by establishing that before he was made into, let’s be honest, a fake Ascian, he was Amon, yeah like the optional FF3 boss who’s also in this, who we’re retconning into a clone of this guy, a horribly evil Allagan mad scientist who’s personally responsible for any sort of humanoid monsters walking around. Minotaurs, snake gals, nerdy bird people, all him just messing around. Also big into cloning. Hence everyone in the Crystal Tower raid. I don’t care, he’s still just the absolute worst and shallowest character.

You head off to give the Satrap a good news bad news report, and not long into the conversation Estinein gets annoyed and demands we pull back the big Wizard of Oz curtain and just directly talk to the secret ruler of the nation. Oh no! The Satrap and his whole family line are just political puppets and this country has actually been run by Vrtra the huge dragon and heretofore unmentioned additional child of Midgardsormr all along! Which... is fine actually. With the notable exception of Nidhogg every named dragon, especially the elder wyrm siblings here, has just been the absolute chillest nicest most understanding person, and Vrtra is no exception.Super nice even! And the creepy kid is just one of Vrtra’s eyes stuck into a totally indistinguishable from a normal au ra child android the local alchemists whipped up. Seems like the fact they can do that should be more of a big deal but it just never comes up elsewhere. Anyway you still need to keep this a secret from the general populace, because if they found out this cool friendly dragon who’s been known to be a trusted ally to the whole nation since it was first founded is actually the ruler, uh... everyone would be totally fine with that actually. I’m getting a little out of order but the next time you’re in the area the fake Satrap dies and Vrtra has to personally step up and for real not one single person has a problem with this, and really why should they? There’s a similar bit incidentally late in the last expansion where G’raha finally goes public with how the fabled Warrior of Darkness restoring the night sky is actually the protagonist, and this confused crowd of onlookers is just like, “yeah, obviously? This mysterious old friend of yours from where you’re originally from shows up, you’re ecstatic, and every time they take a trip somewhere we hear about the local Lightwarden being killed and the sky being fixed. This isn’t hard to piece together.”

So OK, big Tower of Zot rescue time. We just need to make a quick hop back to Nerd Town to merge these split progression options and catch everyone up. We’ve had too much lavish fan service for 5 and 6 so far, so now it’s really FF4′s turn to get some love. Inside the Tower of Zot we fight the three Magus Sisters, as the local gods being summoned by torturing elephant people in the walls. Who’d you expect them to worship in India, Shiva? Rama? No no no those were a historical white lady and a big beardo worshipped by plant-faeries. Clearly in India they worship that boss trio with the delta attack. Keep it straight. We even have Dr. Lugae and Barnabus for a sub-boss on the way! Oh and there’s a bit teased at the end about a severed hand in the core of the tower that feels like we’re setting up some sort of Golbez thing, but no.

What it actually is is that they kinda used the emperor’s corpse as a summoning base for the whole get people to worship Garlemald itself (have I actually ever mentioned that’s the official name of the Empire? I feel like I just keep saying “the Empire” since it’s just easier). It also makes for a convenient weakpoint for Estinien to jump up and stab, causing the whole tower to poof. Fortunately G’raha’s around and he knows float. Also fortunately Alisae’s around and she whips her hog out to start deprogramming tortured nerds, starting with Nidhana who notices the mood ring flower and talks about this obscure scientific study where not literally everything in the world is just aether related technobabble. There’s a secondary natural force/subatomic thing she calls Akasha and everyone else calls Dynamis later (and I think came up in the Sri Lakshmi fight as orbs of “vril” you need to grab before the big dance number). It’s basically impossible to measure so it’s an obscure thing, but yeah, mood ring flower. Anyway everyone heads back to Nerd Town as those scale talismans get distributed to your allies, which again at this point basically means like... 80% of the world give or take. And then you get woken up in the middle of the night because your friends are all sick of terrible Sharlayan food and decided to surprise you with takeout. Look at this cutscene. Watch G’raha make sweet passionate love to this enormous cheeseburger.

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The next order of business involves taking an airship and heading into the heart of the empire. Not because we’re back to the invasion though. At this point the empire is just straight up dead. All it really took was you proving they weren’t invincible in Stormblood and the extra unrest of the emperor himself being killed by his back from the dead deeply messed up son, and they just completely self-destructed on their own. This might actually be my favorite plot point in the entirety of FF14. They have this empire very clearly modeled after the nazis, and basically as soon as they lose their morale and momentum in a big way, they immediately collapse into infighting and tear themselves to pieces. As always happens in the real world. I’m less keen on how this, like so many other things, has nazi scientists actually making ridiculous cool stuff though. In reality nazi scientists have never actually existed, just a bunch of absolute suckers so hopped up on their stupid BS that they ask other people to do wacky comic book science for them and convince themselves the results are amazing. Here though, yeah, we get a ruined imperial capital crawling with death robots, demons called forth from hell, and freaky mutant monsters just crawling through the streets while a few desperate stragglers are huddled around space heaters starving to death by the time you show up, on what is explicitly a pure good will mission to help struggling refugees of their terrible civil war.

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It’s really visually striking, but kind of weird that the Imperial capital is (or really was) just straight up a major 20th century city with all the implied infrastructure. It’s not as shocking as the whole Evangelion thing from the dumbest side quest, but again, people use maps that are half cloud-cover and build stone fortresses guarded by archers all around here. There’s a bit of fighting against what’s left of their military forces when you show up, but you come in with a big huge international coalition that includes Sadu and I guess other people but for real Sadu has the rocks fall everyone dies spell so on the rare occasion you’re teamed up with her for a big plot fight she’s a win button you just stall to help. Resistance crushed, you head out with the twins to try and find some survivors to give supplies and good will to. After a while you find one group, they’re super paranoid and terrified, threaten you, and when your back is turned one of them just grabs her sick little sister and books it into a snowfield, because she’s so hopped up on imperial propaganda about you being dangerous savages they’d rather take their chances running into a snow storm with no supplies, and they absolutely freeze to death before you find them again.

The other major pocket of survivors you find are under the watch of what’s left of one of two surviving military units, holed up in a subway tunnel. You really try your best to just give them the supplies they need to live, but they insist on taking you hostage, putting shock collars on the twins, and forcing you to run around the ruined city to scrape up what little fantasy gasoline (ceruleum) you can syphon out of dead robots and the heater in a no longer functioning muck filled park fountain, and then their commander still kinda just decides the best plan is to attack your refugee aid party and seize everything, since reinforcements are totally coming from the only other surviving legion as soon as they get their radios working, honest. Speaking of, rather than embracing traditional linkpearl technology, the empire has straight up AM radios, and in what really is one of the sloppiest handwaves I’ve seen, turns out the reason there’s any survivors at all is that they were all clustered around their radios listening to news reports and the crackly vocal version of the Imperial theme currently playing on a loop. Anyway you’re about to go “OK screw humoring these idiots” and deal with that when you suddenly black out and we get one of these scenes where I really have to show before I tell so you know I’m not just writing weird slash fiction here.

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We hereby have to wave the right to make any future “at least buy a girl dinner first” jokes regarding Zenos’ whole kill-bang-die confusion. But yeah, this is the point in the plot of FF14 where the wormy little terrible new villain sucks your soul out of your body and sticks it in the body of some random imperial goon, so that you can have a nice dinner date with Zenos, and then he puts on your body, complete with whatever ridiculous gear you have on to go cause trouble and lure you into another date-fight. When I actually did this, tallest most musclebound possible orc gal in this outfit here, which made the whole thing extra kinky on his end.

Of course first you have to get to him in what’s actually kind of one of the most interesting set pieces gameplay wise. You’re still in this borrowed body, which is pretty low level, a fixed class, and has no natural regeneration of any kind, not access to your inventory, and you are just plopped kind of dead center in the middle of these horrible ruins and half to stealth/fight/scrounge your way out with no clear goal markers and a time limit. It’s actually fairly challenging and by the end you’re caught in an explosion so you’re literally crawling home to warn your friends that hey, that’s not you, it’s an undead murderous kinkster stealing your body for his elavorate sex fantasy, but you recover enough to tackle him at the last moment and then also the timer on all this and you’re restored.

So, I am just really conflicted. I maintain that bringing Zenos back from the dead was an absolutely terrible idea. He worked really well as a villain whose motivations take a bit to come into focus and eventually kinda make your skin crawl, the whole thing caps off with a truly excellent death scene that robs you of a nice celebratory vibe for your big victory, the resurrection is some really sloppy writing, especially given how the whole point is he was officially done with life, and they pretty clearly don’t know what to do with him while he’s back. He is literally just sitting there in the background bored out of his mind and actively ignoring the annoying main villain we actually have and his efforts to get him in on the evil scheming. AND YET, every interaction you have with him in this expansion is just such an entertaining scene and gives another fun glimpse into his really... unique frame of mind.

Anyway, that big attack fails, and the leader behind it finally gets word on the radio from his buddy’s unit that... they’ve actually surrendered and his like dozen surviving soldiers are kind of all that’s left of the big evil empire. Hearing this, he decides to go ahead and become the one good nazi we have in this whole thing. Yes that is a euphemism. Yes it does involve him putting down the mic on his radio, picking up a gun, and leaving a nice stain on the imperial flag he has in his little subway car makeshift office. I’m not going to post a screenshot, but seriously, 10/10, no notes. The whole Garlemald chapter of this expansion is great. Love seeing nazis literally being too stupid and racist to live. What little population is left then finally accepts defeat and lets you provide them with the free food, water, heat, and emergency shelter they need to survive. It’s finally time to head into that big menacing Imperial monster palace, AKA the Towel of Babel, find the bit of it that qualifies as a god, and kill it. Specifically what’s left of the old Emperor in the form of a rare FF10 tribute.

Then Fandaniel just kinda grabs Zenos gives a pathetic little speech and uses a big teleporter to flee to the moon. Which is... a bit abrupt but you follow. And uh... the moon sucks, actually? Like we have all this buildup and foreshadowing like it’s going to be this big enemy base and we’re going to do the whole Lunar Subterrane thing but no. Grey dust, annoying to navigate map, clear signs of cut content. You meet a palette swap of Emet-Selch’s recreated pre-fall Ascian ghosts who is... not some sort of phantom but a minion of Hydaelyn’s here to act as prison warden for what’s left of Zodiark, trapped inside the moon like it’s a giant prison (much like the other moon was for Bahamut). There’s this whole business with a ring of gargantuan swords scattered around to act as seals, one of which Fandaniel just destroyed because the whole bit with the towers was powering up a big death star laser to smash these, and you have to go around and pacify the ghosts of sacrifices made to summon Zodiark back in the day to power up the rest, with this helpful golden furred elegant moon dog ferrying you around as needed. Parthway through this though the whole thing gets cut short via Fandaniel’s BS sloppy writing powers, all the remaining towers get smashed, Zodiark is revived, do not pass go, go directly to big epic boss battle against basically Satan, and Fandaniel himself, believing everyone is now going to die, jumps into the big sort of chasm down to the center of the moon unleashing horrible magic energies to kill himself.That’s the end of that. Thank goodness villains always stay dead in this, right?

Anyway you kill Zodiark. Not even all that hard of a boss. But uh... oh right, you kind of weren’t supposed to do that, were you. He was kinda load-bearing. Summoned to avert an apocalypse and all. Which turns out was an ongoing thing not a one-time deal. As your friends catch up, you’re getting informed that The Final Days are now resuming, big ominous meteor showers, death of everyone in the world shortly. And as later exposition confirms, not just this version of this world. All those splintered off versions like the one we JUST saved from an apocalypse last expansion are doomed too. All because you, the main character here, have this legitimate self control issue where you just can’t not kill any god you see on the spot. But the chill moon dog, Argos, then leads you to a giant door to this massive high tech underground city with uh...

They’re called lopporits. They’re based on Namingway from FF4. The look like the sort of little figurines your great grandmother might collect, and they are here because the entire moon doubles as an emergency escape system to load the whole population of the world onto in the event that some idiot comes along, kills Zodiark, and dooms everyone. They’re also so distractingly adorable your whole party just kinda goes slack-jawed, forgets everything they were doing, and the plot just stops dead in its tracks while you spend kind of a weirdly long time just humoring them and trying to give positive feedback to all the amenities they start showing off. They’ve got all your food needs covered with, and this is the official quest item name, obscenely long carrots, described in detail as being particularly girthy. They’ve build everything to perfect human scale... based on an assumption that the average person is still like 30 feet tall like they were back in Ascian times, similarly all just assuming your whole party is a bunch of unsupervised children sent up in the first wave of evacuations. They have to improvise on clothing when it turns out universal dumb black robes are out of fashion, and have some really interesting ideas.

Once again we tease the idea that they actually have super sinister motives and are trying to trap you here with constant distractions, but then no, turns out they’re just really horrified because they’re pretty good at reading people and can clearly see that none of you are actually impressed with any of their stuff. Except Urianger. Urianger loves cute little weirdos and dressing eccentrically. This leads to a big speech to cheer them up, talking about how their self-chosen names all convey their strength of character. Like Mappingway, wanting to chart out all the unexplored secrets of the world, and Livingway just wanting to keep life going for everyone. And then turns out one is named Puddingway, but, you know, everyone likes pudding? And I guess I have to link the comic don’t I.

Anyway, checking back in on things on things down on the planet, which only NOW are we formally establishing is called Aetherys, ending years of confusion where people thought the whole world was either called Hydaelyn or Eorzea. Side note a checked and “Eorzea” is officially the term for the westernmost continent, Aldenard, if and only if you are also counting in the nearby islands. But yeah things are going bad. Especially over in Thavnair, AKA India, where the sky is stock on apocalyptic red with constant meteor showers, and seemingly at random people are turning into rad palette swaps of the freakiest looking monsters we already had models lying around for, which we’re arbitrarily calling blasphemies. There’s reports of this happening in other places too, and a lot of people seem to turn into these things just from the pure terror of seeing them. Y’shtola’s weird vision deal also reveals that rather than similar stuff where someone’s soul/aether gets tainted with some element or other, here it’s just literally rotting and crumbling away to nothing so when these monsters die and leave a sickly black splash on the floor, that’s it, do not go to afterlife, do not pass go, you are done. Sucks for them. Especially since unlike the whole becoming a sin eater deal we are so painfully cribbing from with this, it seems totally arbitrary who it happens to and why.

Anyway they kinda dance around this and kind of offer up extreme fear or hate as alternate causes but by the end of the expansion it’s abundantly clear that you turn into a monster from suicidal ideation... which makes a lot of the panicking crowds popping in the ensuing panic scenes feel really clumsy, writing wise. Also there’s this whole bit where a guy’s worried about his wife and new born baby in the chaos, gets chased by a monster and injured, turns into one himself, tries to kill his wife, she panics and jumps off a high ledge with her baby and dies on impact with the water, forcing you to dive in after to rescue this now orphan baby and hand them off to someone. Here’s the thing though, this doesn’t happen in some instanced thing. This is just your standard, on the overworld, here’s someone giving you your current active quest, here’s where you go to do the next step chain. So you could totally like, wander off with this baby at the bottom of the well, go do sidequests, maybe some that mention “days later” in them, before rescuing this baby. Or do the rescue, but not the hand-off, and just have this inventory baby for a good long while It’s paced excitingly enough this only stuck me after, but it amuses me that it’s technically possible.

This is where the fake Satrap dies, and eventually where we set up our fresh set of Role quests. Each of the five basic combat class types has a lead about a big blasphemy in a different part of the world to look into... and none of these really go anywhere interesting. Healer is probably the most interesting, since it involves checking in on Fordola who is having a very hard time keeping it together and not turning into one of these. The rest are just kinda whatever. Gosetsu shows up again briefly to call out a charlatan medium in the ranged attacker one. Offensive magic has the one that hurts my suspension of disbelief because you deal with the ONE blasphemy in Ishgard and like... it’s Ishgard. The whole place should be a crater right away. As is though yeah there’s like... five people suicidal enough in the rest of the world combined to become blasphemies, and then like half the population of Thavnair. Hell a little later you go back to Garlemald and have to deal with a bunch more of this, but it’s because Thavnairian refugees are coming through on the way to somewhere less terrifying as the red sky spreads to the area and a bunch of them lose it at the thought of nowhere being safe. These people are just kind of this game’s punching bag. My best guess between that and the way there’s no real connection on the map, which is also a bit less filled with interesting details than most, is a lot more was planned for the region but there were cuts and/or delays and the focus of all this ended up there just to flesh things out, but still.

Oh yeah and while dealing with the attack in the Imperial ruins, Zenos shows up randomly to take a big blasphemy down with his cool new scythe... and complain about how bored he is and ask if you can pretty please fight him to the death again soon as soon as you stop getting distracted by this whole thing. He was also pretty polite about this on the moon, but Alisaie wasn’t there to call him out. Another really fun scene here.

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I love how he gets called out for being a weird hedonistic kinkster here, and I love how he responds to Jullus the one Imperial soldier who grew a clue before successfully getting himself killed, barely, with this “wait would you seriously be OK with me destroying the whole country here if I was doing it for some kind of good reason? That is seriously messed up dude, get help.” And then that eye roll at the end.

So turns out the big secret of the Nerd Council is they found the actual embodied true form of Hydaelyn in a cave and she broke down all the details on Zodiark being a load-bearing boss someone would probably eventually kill, and they should really coordinate with these moon rabbits on a plan to evacuate the whole world just in case. And like, OK, but A- they’re really terrible at this. Didn’t even communicate the physical needs of people or population estimates. B- this is really the sort of thing where being less coy and explaining things to the protagonist in particular would maybe help avoid the whole problem because who else do you even have to worry about accidentally killing a god in the heat of the moment? Maybe Estinien? Tell him too. Oh and C- the nihilistic weirdo wanting to end all life and largely doing so by covering the world in mind-control towers kinda seems like a barrier to getting everyone out safely. Same with the deadly biochemical weapons from earlier. Point is the twins’ dad really sucks. Their mom is cool though. She helps Alphinaud switch classes to Sage, the healer that gets a set of flying laser cannons. Also it eventually turns out she’s quietly been THE source of funding for the Scions forever through anonymous donations. Who’s gonna tell these kids their parents are probably getting a divorce?

Getting things back on track, your only real lead is the cryptic hint about the flower. It doesn’t go much of anywhere, except a name for it that dates back to Ascian times. So with all the rest very dead, you go check in with Elidibus who’s not technically dead, just, you know, soul trapped in the crystal tower. Which is also essentially a giant database of Allagan science notes. Turns out while he’s been in there he’s mellowed out a lot and is willing to rework things and send your soul back in time to get info from before anything of note on the whole millennia long timeline happened. Specifically to a research facility called Elpis where people used to send the dangerous monster designs they came up with because they’re bored weirdos with world shaping powers to test and make sure they’re viable and would fit in an ecologic niche somewhere. Problem is you come through all ghostly and also I wasn’t kidding about the 30 foot giants. Fortunately someone eventually notices the weird tiny ghost and convinces his boyfriend to shove some aether into you so you’re solid and properly sized.

If it isn’t our old friend from a few thousand years from now Emet-Selch and his boyfriend we’re at least on good terms with some kinda recreated imaginary semi-ghost version of Hythlodaeus. They looked real dorky back forever ago. Anyway they assume from the matching color of your soul that you’re the familiar of their friend Azem, which, sure, technically distant future reincarnation of slightly more than 50% of said but close enough. So they let you hang out on this business trip. They’re here to offer the position of Fandaniel to this guy here whose real name is Hermes since the previous one just retired, and he’s all mopey about it because when people retire they kill themselves so they can get reincarnated. Except for the previous Azem, she just figured she’d keep hanging out. It’s totally a voluntary thing, not an enforced Logan’s Run sort of thing but there’s still a weird social stigma if you don’t do it so like, hey, Emet-Selch, I feel like you were overselling this place. Everyone’s a workaholic nerd who off themselves when they’re out of ideas for new research grants, and things are looking decidedly more ancient Greece and less extra art deco New York than previously suggested.

Turns out this Hermes kid is really depressed and fixated on death in general. Which is kinda weird when everyone is officially immortal. He’s particularly bummed about how it’s literally his job to snap his fingers and reduce terrible terrible monsters that would like end all life if allowed to exist in the world to their component elements, and fair enough. Maybe work on getting people to stop making horrible ravenous death beasts in the first place though? Anyway he’s proud of himself for making this weird little psychic bird girl who much like these mood ring flowers is also super empathic and gets all sad and mopey with him whenever he gets sad and mopey, which is a lot. In fact, he made a whole bunch. They’re psychically networked, and all called Meteion. Like meteor. Because he’s sending them all out to explore space and try to find some kind of meaning of life thing out. Also they’re based on this Dynamis stuff. Apparently 60% of the mass of the universe is made up of Dynamis. It’s just kinda weaker than Aether so nobody cares, but he’s pretty sure he’ll be able to untap its potential and activate it all like, as he says, a river breaking free of a dam. You can totally see where all of this is going here, right? It’s exactly as blunt as I’m making it sound.

Anyway you hang out a while dealing with this depressed kid and his weird bird girl, and eventually she gets an update that hey, the rest of her sisters have finished that task Hermes sent them out on forever ago after making them apparently some time ago and never formally submitting the design or the plan he had for him to any of his superiors. Specifically the plan was to take his super empathic socially needy bird girls, have them all fly through the supernaturally soul crushing void of space, find whatever aliens might exist and ask them what to him is the ultimate question, apparently some variation on “if everybody just dies in the end what’s even the point of going on living!?” and like... hey, I get it. Someone explained heat death to me when I was like 12. I had a similar breakdown about it. But as Emet-Selch starts tearing into him about as the report comes in, it is really just a terrible idea for all sorts of reasons to try and establish first contact with alien races by having a bunch of depressed bird girls show up and start trauma dumping on them out of the blue.

The results are pretty grim too. They just start going through planet by planet with these little stories about finding formerly inhabited planets where literally everyone is dead, and researching all the various ways this happened. These people had a apocalyptic war. These people got all spiritually enlightened, ended all suffering, and got too bored to keep going. These people had a godlike ruler who got in a bad mood and killed everyone, and hey, talking to us made him suicidal and he killed himself on the spot. This also happened when we contacted this planet where two factions were in this tense cold war setup... Everyone including Meteion really wants to cut the feed on this depressing stuff but Hermes insists on hearing the whole thing and goes off with her to do so.

In the middle of all this though, that aforementioned retired Azem shows up. Her name’s Venat. She’s more on to your weird deal than these others, mostly because she notices you have magic wards on you that seem to have been put there by her, plus she’s visibly that human form of Hydaelyn you got a quick vision of, so, yeah. Pre-deity Hydaelyn here. And she’s nice enough. Eventually the others kinda work out that you two have some weird secret thing going and you end up explaining the deal to the others and Emet-Selch basically responds with, “hey, screw you? Assuming you’re not just making all this up, you’re telling me I just become an absolute melodramatic flouncing asshole in the future, and I refuse to believe that. Like especially the part about me recreating the whole city and everyone in it to mope in? There is no way I would ever become such an over the top drama queen” and like, he keeps going for a WHILE with this. It’s great.

So you all go to confront him about the whole thing, and he arranges the showdown to be at this uh... big computer clock thing on hand that can do time warp things and also erase people’s memories and give them new ones. Seems like a bad thing to have around! Very easily abused! He totally supports his depressed bird daughters in the conclusion they draw that all life in the universe should be eliminated so there’s nobody left to be sad and die, so he’s going to wipe everyone’s memories and just play dumb about the pending bird-girl driven psychic suicidal apocalypse. Your past pals play some head games and Emet-Selch in particular pulls a big switcheroo so you and Venat get teleported out at the last minute. She goes on to become Hydaelin eventually and avoids technically having a villain turn by way of doing the whole Shiva style transformation, there’s precedent, but let’s be real she still kinda sucks and turned the worst Scion into a hand puppet for a bit in there. Anyway, now you know why the world’s ending. A depressed bird girl out in space somewhere. Oh and it’s not like the Fandaniel you know and hate has the memories of this Hermes loser, just his soul, the memories of the main reason Allagan was awful, and the body of the genocidal viceroy’s somehow even worse villain. Just a turducken of guys who really suck.

Back in the present you go find Hydaelyn in the magical god flesh to compare notes on your big stable time loop here, and she’s polite enough to challenge you to a fight to make sure you’re prepared to face some horribly depressed bird girl. And really goes all out so you “tragically” have to kill her. And definitely don’t feel super smug and relieved that in the end you really did get to go and kill literally every god anyone ever summoned. That you know of anyway.

You talk all the nerds in Nerd Town into letting you borrow their secret evacuation spaceship if you can find nerds able to increase the engines’ efficiency because as is, even the moon evacuation plan would take too long. That bits easy because you know a ton of nerds and a ton of people willing to drag over chunks of Dalamud, the whole Bahamut prison moon which are all over the place and make good scrap for this. Then the only problem is loading in enough Aether as fuel to get to the far edge of the universe. If only there was a really good way to condense a whole massive pile of crystals into something nice and compact. Say the size of a boss fight. Oh right summoning gods! The lopporits, who totally ended up coming down with Urianger to get firsthand knowledge of day to day planet life to build better stuff for people and also just dig it, just so happen to know an alternate summon ritual that bypasses all the greedy syphoning of all the world’s aether and mind controlling everyone in the area. That’s... absurdly convenient. So you get a bunch of reformed priests to resummon every god up through Stormblood with the safety on, and just... load them into the fuel tank of this spaceship you kinda low key stole from some terrible nerds. Actually at the very last minute Cid shows up to “help” and honestly the work is all done literally all the guy does is add a coat of paint with his logo on it, and insist on naming the thing. Kind of a dick move, Cid. So he kinda steals it from them and you steal it from him.

So... I feel like I’m due to break text up with something and the end of the universe, AKA Ultima Thule, or as I like to call it, Space Hell, is super visually interesting but it photographs terribly so have this but honestly this dorky power ballad is NOT playing when you show up here. Nor are silly mounts until you’re done with the plot, like every area basically.

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Space hell is built out of the random chunks of various dead worlds Meteion found just kinda brought together into a depressing collage. Technically some of these still have inhabitants, kind of. One is the dragon homeworld, and as we know dragons don’t really die properly, so, they’re all dead, but still hanging out being super depressed about the intense pollution not letting them have kids who aren’t monster freaks. We’ve got people who became beings of pure thought and then got depressed about heat death, and then realized they need to have bodies again to kill themselves, we’ve got the race of horrible death robots who destroyed dragon planet, and honestly a hell of a lot of other planets. Backstory is they were really wimpy and paranoid about being killed by space horrors, so they built death robots and also went full cyborg and transfered their minds into death robot bodies and upgraded those further and built Omega and kinda got real carried away on the proactive defense and realized they kind of had killed like half the life in the universe and could totally take the other half in a fight even all at once. So then they had a big existential crisis because what were they doing before going to war again?

So again, this is after the credits roll and you come back here in the patches, but after you finish this whole existential threat to the universe thing you come back here with a now retired lopporit and they’re still all what do we even do now, so you just toss it out there that one of the other worldlets was this like coffee shop from a planet where the bird girls couldn’t even work out how everyone died it looks like they just got raptured or whatever, so why don’t the death robots just like, move in and open a nice little cafe. Make coffee and soup and stuff for all the other last survivors of civilizations. And they go for it and it’s probably my favorite of all the tribe quests.

But we’re not here to help death robots research soup recipes YET. We’re here to recreate the original first season Sailor Moon finale. Marching across a horrible field of total desolation where all of our friends make big heroic sacrifices one by one so we can continue. And honestly the framing is weird because basically it’s a chain of finding a nihilistic alien representative, hear why they think life’s not worth living, someone steps up with a counter argument, they sort of explode and form a bridge to the next area. It’s all about the emotional arguments because this is all made of Dynamis, so everything operates on pure vibes. These are vibe-ranium bridges if you will. Anyway what I initially thought was going on here is you land in like pure depression land and people keep vanishing because they talk themselves into better head spaces and are ejected. I feel like that’d make way more sense, but no, all your friends are in fact explaining reasons to go on living then promptly dying.

Eventually you run out of friends as you hit the cafe here, and can only advance by talking to the depressed bird girl herself about all your personal trauma and stuff and how you get past it, which creates a very long stairwell to the surface of the dead sun she’s keeping everyone’s souls in so they can’t reincarnate, and THAT’S when the power ballad in that earlier clip kicks in, as you walk up to have a boss fight. And you know, it’s a pretty good JRPG final boss fight. Big weird woman, lots of wings jutting out all over, really over the top throwing planets at you attacks. The classic stuff. And then halfway through the fight freaking Zenos just literally comes crashing through the 4th wall and goes “hey, this who you’re fighting? She doesn’t actually seem tough, you want to hurry it up? I stopped by the bar you scions hang out at and someone said you were here, so I turned myself into a dragon again so we can finally have that proper rematch as soon as you’re done here. Do you need help or anything to finish up faster?”

Tumblr’s not letting me add any more movies but NO REALLY THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS it’s hilarious. And here’s the comic version.

I have a line I really want to go out on here, so, again, here’s my Patreon. I hope I’ve entertained and educated you with all this over the course of the month. And here’s what I have to say on what post-game currently exists for this. Also here is the actual proper 10th part of this whole project I later wrote after the Endwalker patch cycle finally finished.

The ghost of Emet-Selch and his boyfriend show up for a last minute sappy pep talk, and to remind you that while it might seem like we’ve literally wrapped up every single loose end, there’s some islands you’ve never been to. A whole southern continent to explore. The rest of those dimensional shards. You never got around to fighting The Twelve. So yeah title cards and NPCs and E-S narrating this expansion have been saying the whole time this is the end of the story, but we’re not DONE done. So you beat this bird girl down, the dead sun hatches and blue sun yolk drips out restoring life to the universe, your friends all get to come back, you activate their emergency teleporters and chuck yours so you can go in for the finishing blow, and then well, here you are. Just alone at the edge of the universe in a big empty space behind a random diner. Zenos just finally got the message and came and did something good to help you out, and he’s really giving you those puppy dog eyes. So after a set of dialog choices for exactly how you want to begrudgingly admit you honestly do also enjoy a really over the top boss fight, you begrudgingly agree to have a big duel with him, you know, just this once, fully aware he gets off on these, and it honestly goes on for a really long time, including a bit where he flat out kills you and teaches you the boss encounter trick to just pulling out a second health bar through sheer force of will, and the whole thing ends with you just tossing your weapon aside and running up to give him a big ol’ punch right between those weird never quite focused eyes of his while he has this blissed out grin.

So the conclusion, for now, of the whole long epic story of Final Fantasy 14 which I have explained to you this month is, I swear before this whole mountain of dead gods, that you make sure none of your friends are looking and give Zenos a pity handjob in the back lot behind a diner in the middle of nowhere.

#mic drop #final fantasy 14 #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #there's flying and humanoid sharks in elpis and hythlodaeus says they're big now and I know I know plenty of furry artists don't tell me...

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kuwdora · 2 years

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part 4: do it for the process - a naked vid draft: What (Yennefer of Vengerberg)

Part 1: introduction and verse 1 Part 2: verse 3 Part 3: verse 1 and chorus 1 again Hello, it's WIP Wednesday! This is part 4 of my "naked vid draft" aka where I share snippets of my vid in progress and write some commentary about it. I made this vid over the weekend. It was the perfect project to sink into for some escapism and help reboot my brain from the Longest Week (Two Months) ever. I have any number of WIPs I could have jumped into but like most creatives, I started a new one because the others weren't going to scratch the itch the same way. Although sometimes I think about vid projects like writing. Some vids are more like drabbles--short and sweet, in and out in a minute or less (sometimes 30 seconds or less, so short!!). Some vids are more like ficlets--like this Yen vid--less than 3 minutes long. Other vids can be like actual novellas or novels--vids that are longer than 4 minutes (or 10 minutes! whole album vids!). I knew that making this Yen vid was going to be great for me right now because I could focus on season 2 Yen only. That's 8 episodes. Only a few scenes per episode. Easy to narrow things down and quickly drop the scenes on my timeline without needing to do much pre-work (thinking/storyboarding, technical work of labeling all my clips from multiple seasons or shows/films). I already had 25% of Yen from season 2 already clipped from my previous Yen/Jaskier vid so it was easy to jump in and get to work putting things on my timeline. I also like to think about the process of making vids with other creativity-related metaphors. Sometimes I'm basically working on a coloring page and shading things in with my own colors (like this Yen vid). Other times I am fiddling with a rubiks cube where it's a puzzle and I'm actively working to put it together and sometimes peel the stickers off and put them where I want. And then there are the times I'm making a ship in a bottle--sometimes even designing the ship before getting all the pieces together. Lots and lots of work. But anyway. For a weekend vid project for my brain to soak in?? This Yen vid has been great. I'm on VERSE 2 AND CHORUS 2!! The last blank spaces of my timeline. This actually turned out to be my most favorite section because it features Yen being a BAMF without her magic and resilient and angry and I love that about her. Let's jump in! verse 2 - 0:37 - 1:35

[Verse 2: Eve] This bitch, sick spit, clips toxic Oh shit, that's it Tired of my voice? Plug ya ears Outrageous by choice? Love the stares Knew my time would come, was prepared Comeback second to none, still she here What, whatever though, cats incredible Watch me jaw-drop, y'all stuck like vegetables Take my shine? That's my lifeline Sit back and watch me chart climb, bitch, now it's all mine I ain't givin' up or lettin' up, advice? Step it up Slow down, cause your mistakes is catchin' up Fan's a fan and you scramblin', I'm sittin' pretty Ain't nothing left but me standing and you ain't wit me Sob stories all you left wit cause it's over Some say I'm mad, naw, I'm just a little colder [Chorus 2: Truth Hurts] You know what this is, got the crowd like WHAT! Ain't a bitch alive that can take my WHAT! This time when I come, it's gone be like WHAT! It ain't hard to tell you just been done

My export cuts off the beginning a little but I loved coming in hard with the execution scene and Yen giving everyone the middle finger with that axe. I love Yen's face when she's rolling her eyes at Vilgefortz and annoyed-defiant with Istredd. But of course this has my favoritest lyric/clip with Cahir's face on "Oh shit" when he turns out to not die on the chopping block, ahahah. Hope other people enjoy this part as much as I do. It was really fun to play back and forth with the sewers and Yen and Rience, and managing to get Jaskier's ridiculous face on some key lyrics that made me incredibly happy. Like, honestly. I know I'm feeling good when my brain is doing the cat "brrrrrrpt!" when I hit playback on 30 seconds of my vid. The background music in this track has such great vibes and I love finding the shots of Yen being so physically present and protective. Having to find other ways of getting shit done without her magic. My other favorite part in this section is pairing Yen kicking the guy in the balls with the way she flexes her fingers when she's instinctively trying to do magic (which is from the scene when she was trying to help the small elven child l being separated from their family). I also hope at this point of the second chorus that viewers enjoy seeing what clips are falling on the "what" lyrics. FIRE IN THE FACE-- what. Defiant and fucking badass as hell. I love Yen so much. I also want to say that I love the lyric "Some say I'm mad, naw, I'm just a little colder" because my vidder brain IMMEDIATELY hears and sees, "Yen dumped all her fire magic at Sodden and she's now empty of all her chaos." That is season 2 in a nutshell. It just all comes together in my brain when I hear a song and I'm so deeply invested in a character. This section also ends with bringing a little more Voleth Meir into the mix here as the vid will start in verse 3 with more Ciri. But I'm very happy with how this has been coming together.

The timeline is FULL. I repeat the timeline is FULL! But it's not done! There's the finessing, nitpicky part that I still have to get through, which I'll elaborate on upon in my next post.

Part 5: transitions! Chorus 1 to verse 2 - refining the timing

#viddingdora #naked vid draft #fanvid #fanvids #the witcher #the witcher neflix #yennefer #my vids #my witcher vids #the vidding process #work in progress #wip wednesday

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citygoldmedia25 · 2 years

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What’s The Tea about Doja Cat Weight Loss?

The American Rapper and Singer who is widely popular because of her unique discography, she rose to fame with her single Mooo! In 2018. The song got viral on social media as a meme but it helped Doja cat to get the attention of everyone and now she is one of the most talented and famous singers aka rapper. Since she is popular, she started to work on her vocals and personality and here we will talk about Doja cat weight loss journey.

Her fans love her wholesome personality and music, she surprised them at her live performance, and it started to trend on Twitter and Instagram. While working on her music, she began to work on her body too as she had body dysmorphia and it made her really insecure.

Her song “Juicy” perfectly describes her feelings. During her teen years, like any person she too started to feel changes in her body both internally and externally. She thought her body didn't look good with any kind of dress she used to wear. Now that she is mature enough to know herself and her problems. She finds joy in little things and eating a good meal while working on her body. She admits about still feeling insecure because of body dysmorphia since she is a celebrity and the media constantly captures her body movement from every angle.

What was the process of Doja cat weight loss?

Doja cat aka Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamine opted for a natural and healthy way of reducing her weight and achieving an attractive figure.

Media even tried to put false allegations on the process of Doja cat weight loss, there were many rumours about her going for surgery and extreme diet while reducing the consumption of basic meals. She faced criticism from haters but every rumour proved to be false.

On May 24, 2021 Doja cat tweeted : “I lost some weight and there’s absolutely nothing y'all can do about it.” With this she put an end to the discussion.

Diet meal of Doja cat

Doja cat lost around 20 pounds in a short time and it was not easy.

She started with eating plant based meals and high protein intake which included the following :

Spinach Green veggies Salmon fish Egg wraps Beef Chicken steak Seaweed chips Fruit and vegetable juice Low carbs weight loss keto diet Tuna Kale Quinoa Plentiful of water Her customized diet consisted of Two eggs and spinach tortilla with caramalized onions pepper jack cheese and hot sauce, then she would roll everything in seaweed chip. Workout routine of Doja cat She started to work on her body under the guidance of her personal gym trainer. She started with Cardio and weight training exercises to strengthen her muscles. Cardio helped her in burning a lot of calories. Running, cycling and dancing was her everyday routine. Deadlifts Squats She used kettlebells as a full body exercise for flexibility, fat burning and endurance. Jump squats helped her in athletic activity and dancing at her live shows.

Body shaming on Social Media

Doja cat was body shamed on social media, whenever she would upload photos or videos on her media handle or paparazzi would post her pics on their platforms. Her haters would criticize her in every way possible. She was body shamed both times before and after taking control of her body fitness.

Her journey was truly inspirational, she worked hard for it and still received a backlash from haters and media. Despite all the struggle, she continued to make her health progress and music.

#doja cat weight loss

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maranello · 3 years

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… but Ferrari was better today? Charles was battling a Red Bull… *the* Red Bull? And I was watching the times and there were moments that Charles was faster than Max. And Carlos with the old engine was really holding his own. Yeah they both had slow stops. But a lot of teams had slow stops. Checo had a slow stop. DR had a slow stop. Could be the temps as well. Part of me felt it was (thermodynamics and metallurgy thing - and before people criticize me for saying this, because I go through this a lot, I hold degrees in both Physics and Engineering). I remember races before when conditions were too hot or cold, there were a lot of pitstop issues. I think they were great today but the weather was a huge factor… and that was down to Charles. Cuz Carlos def made the right call, telling the team even before the rain really started pouring.

I’m just a bit confused about why people think Ferrari suck so much this season. They were bad last season, yes. But they improved so much this year. I’ve been watching since 1996-1997 (I’m old) and I think this is soooo much better than some of the seasons I’ve watched. I don’t know if people expect them to go from stupid to winners in one year. Cuz engineering wise, that’s a hard ask. Not impossible, but a hard ask.

Sorry, its just that I have been a Ferrari fan my entire life, and chose to my studies in the hopes I do get to work in an F1 team. And in the slim chance I do (lol not happening. Got my degrees anyway,) its like I feel I won’t ever be able to make the fans happy and it sucks and it makes me so demotivated to try. I understand the passion of the tifosi, since I am one myself, but I also understand how frustrating it is for the team to get results like this and think that “wow… ok promising, we can do this. Step in the right direction!” then somehow, fans are still disappointed.

To be clear, I’m not having a go at anyone. I’m really trying to understand.

Oh, not at all, this is interesting for me to read!

I was mostly speaking from emotions, really. I don't think Ferrari sucks that much this season (esp compared to the last one!) and I actually have a lot of faith in the team taking small steps in the right direction! But sometimes, be it bad luck or even small misjudgments, I think we tifosi take it especially hard in the moment because of that same amount of passion and pure emotion it is to be/watch a race as tifosi. Rationally speaking, our team wasn't the only one who made slow pit stops or the wrong calls, and there are definitely positives to take away from how Carlos' side of the garage bounced back as well as Charles' amazing pace throughout the race (and how he was managing the tyres too imo!) We even got a podium, which is a great result for the team!

Emotionally speaking however, I am gutted for the team as a whole that Charles was doing so well and had the position to do so much better but have nothing to show for it in the end. And it has felt like luck just really hasn't been on his side this whole season even though he has been driving really consistently and getting better all the time. And it's hard to see other people label Ferrari as clowns or some bs for making mistakes like making the wrong call/having miscommunication with Charles on changing to inters and the pit stops because it's so perpetuated and tired. I just desperately want Ferrari to be good on all fronts as soon as possible because I know next year is important and I know everyone on the team has been working really hard, and I just want everyone else to be able to see it and appreciate it. Basically, I think public opinion outside of tifosi or even with tifosi have not been very kind to Ferrari for a long, long time. The expectation to be on top, the force that the team has to make you believe it will win- that comes with the cost of making it difficult emotionally when it's not there yet or when it has failed to deliver on that promise for nearing 15 years now :')

but I do genuinely believe that we are working in the right direction. things like strategy, however, is just harder for like an average fan to understand how to improve on THAT front in particular, and that's been one of Ferrari's Achilles heels in our past championship contentions since well. 2007. and if we’re not fixing that now, and everyone has a feeling that the 2022 regulations can be a good opportunity for us.........

Also for Charles in particular, his season has been some epic highs, underrated consistent driving that goes unsung, and devastating lows. largely A Series of Unfortunate Events lately. and to lose a good result today within just the last laps only to end up all the way down in P15 with nothing to show for..........that hurts

#maranello.ask #anon #idk if this makes sense #but yeah #tifosi i think....#we just take it very personally #which is what makes Ferrari special #but also painful too #because I want Ferrari to be perfect #and it's hard to be happy when idt the team would also be not happy with this result #aka nothing to show for the progress and hard work everyone put in #discussion & analysis #ferrari debrief room

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aspoonofsugar · 3 years

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Jaune: Zero to Hero

Pyrrha: It's not about why; it's about knowing. Understanding dark and light helps us manifest our Aura. Everyone has some of both.

Knowledge, Creation and Destruction all lead up to Aura. This is just another way to say that they lead up to individuality, which is something Grimms lack:

Pyrrha: They are creatures of Grimm, the manifestation of anonymity.

Individuality is conveyed through Choice. This is why Choice is the most important and final gift. It is symbolic of self-actualization, which is what our characters are pursuing in their coming of age story.

Jaune’s personal arc comments the group’s collective journey and marks each stage very clearly.

In which way does it happen? And what do these stages mean for Jaune’s growth as an individual?

THE IGNORANT WARRIOR

Pyrrha: Jaune, do you... know what Aura is?

Jaune: Psch! Of course I do! Do you know what Aura is?

Jaune is introduced as inexperienced and ignorant. He lacks combat experience and knows nothing about key concepts like Aura, Landing Strategy or Semblances.

His journey starts because Pyrrha shares her knowledge with him:

She awakens his aura, his very soul and later on trains him, so she helps his body get stronger:

In other words, Pyrrha is the one who puts Jaune on the right path to become a true “hero” and a “warrior”.

This is Jaune’s objective since the beginning, but he initially pursues it in the wrong way:

Jaune: I don't want help! I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero!

He is fixated on an idea of hero which is outdated and has its root in toxic masculinity:

Jaune: Cause this is always what I've wanted to be! My father, my grandfather, and his father before him were all warriors! They were all heroes! I wanted to be one, too. I was just never good enough.

This is why symbolically Jaune wants to be like his male ancestors. He wants to grow into “a real man”:

Cardin: Let's see how much of a man you really are...

And this is conveyed also through his Weapon:

Jaune: It's a hand-me-down. My great-great-grandfather used it to fight in the war.

Jaune did not forge his own Weapon, but he inherited it. Crocea Mors initially represents the legacy he wants to live up to. However, this legacy, instead of driving him, slows him down because he can’t grow until he remains in his ancestors’ shadow. Jaune needs to develop his own individuality instead.

In order to do so, he needs to grow not only as a figther, but as a person too.

As a matter of fact, Jaune’s ignorance is not only limited to the world he has stepped into, but also to the people around him:

Jaune: That's easy for you to say. You've probably got guys clamoring over each other just to ask you out.

Pyrrha: You'd be surprised.

He is so self-focused that he does not notice others’ feelings and hurts them unintentionally.

However, Pyrrha teaches him once again:

Pyrrha:Tell her exactly what you said. No ridiculous schemes, no pick-up lines. Just... be honest.

It is thanks to her that Jaune manages to become a better man:

He is even able to call Neptune out the way Pyrrha did with him:

Jaune: Then just go talk to her. No pickup lines, no suave moves, just be yourself. I've heard that's the way to go.

And as a result, even Jaune’s relationship with Weiss gets better:

Weiss: You said you were embarrassed at first. What made you come talk to me?

Neptune: You're looking at him. You got some good friends looking out for ya.

Because the girl realizes Jaune is not only after her money or her romantic attention:

Weiss: All my life, boys have only cared about the perks of my last name.

But wants to genuinely be a good friend to her.

In short, Jaune starts the story as immature both as a fighter and as a person to the point that he is considered unfit and annoying by other characters:

Glynda: I don't care what his transcripts say. That Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat.

However, thanks to Pyrrha, he is given the chance to mature.

Not only that, but while other characters see a weakness and a nuisance in Jaune’s ignorance and inexperience, Pyrrha sees it as a possibility:

Weiss: Jaune, is it? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?

Jaune: Not in the slightest, snow angel.

Weiss: This is Pyrrha.

It is specifically because Jaune is new to Pyrrha’s world that he is free from bias:

Pyrrha: That's what I like about you. When we met, you didn't even know my name. You treated me just like anyone else. And thanks to you, I've made friendships that will last a lifetime. I guess, you're the kind of guy I wish I was here with. Someone who just saw me for me.

This is why Pyrrha feels she can forge a genuine bond with Jaune. What is more, the girl has faith in his potential:

Pyrrha: It's all right. I used my Aura to unlock yours, but the energy that protects you now is your own. You have a lot of it.

She sees in him what others do not and helps him develop both as a man and as a warrior.

This is well highlighted by the metal motif the two characters share.

As @hamliet explains here Rwby has several characters linked to the seven metals of alchemy.

The goal of alchemy is to create gold thanks to a process of refiniment that purifies the metal and has it go through several transformations.

The seven metals are nothing, but a scale that goes from the heaviest and most raw metal (lead) to the most purified (gold) passing through the others (tin, iron, copper, mercury, silver).

For a story, it simply means that a character goes through a process of change that leads to self-actualization.

In Rwby this idea is conveyed through specific characters embodying a metal (Ironwood, Penny, Mercury) or even thanks to metal motifs commenting a specific part of a character arc.

For example, Yang is associated with gold:

I am the golden one Who burns just like the sun

But Adam takes her arm away and has her regress in the scale of metals to iron. This regression is not simply physical, but psychological as well:

However, Yang re-affirms herself and moves forward. The first step of this process is to symbolically make her new arm “gold” again:

When it comes to Jaune, I think that he may be the character associated with lead aka the “prima materia” that needs to be molded into gold. Even if this is not true, metal is at least definately still a motif in his arc, as it is in Pyrrha’s. This is why both characters wear metal armors, differently from others.

Pyrrha is already close to her self-actualization and she reaches it in the climax of the Vale arc, where she completes her (tragic) arc and dies a Maiden.

This is why her armor is gold, while Jaune’s is white and gray. Pyrrha is at the top of the metal scale and close to the end of her journey, while Jaune is respectively at the very bottom and at the very beginning.

He is the embodyment of the prima materia that has potential for greatness, but only if he is rightly guided and if he himself works hard.

Pyrrha takes over herself the duty to help Jaune mold himself.

This is underlined also by Pyrrha’s semblance:

Pyrrha: Well, Ruby has her speed, you have your glyphs. My Semblance is polarity.

Pyrrha can control and bend metals and she shows her power for the first time when she helps Jaune against the Ursa, so that he can overcome his self-issues.

So, Jaune starts the story as the lead and is going through a path of self-refinement which will lead him to become gold, so more similar to Pyrrha herself.

Pyrrha offers him the basic knowledge to start this journey, but unluckily leaves him too soon and now Jaune has to move forward on his own.

THE CREATIVE AVENGER

Pyrrha: I want you to know that I'm just happy to be a part of your life. I'll always be here for you, Jaune.

Even after Pyrrha’s death, this stays true:

Blacksmith: That was some fine metal you brought me. Accents the white nicely. Where'd you get it from?

Pyrrha has become a part of Jaune.

This is a recurring motif in Rwby:

Penny: I won’t be gone, I’ll be part of you.

It is the idea that grieving is a process that leads to acceptance, but also to integration with a lost one. It is a way to have the deceased keep on living through the survivors.

In Jaune and Pyrrha’s case, this is conveyed through Pyrrha’s metal being used to enrich Jaune’s Weapon.

As stated by Ruby:

Ruby: Just weapons? They're an extension of ourselves! They're a part of us! Oh, they're so cool.

Weapons are symbolic of the self, just like Semblances.

What is more, Weapons and Semblances are also a declination of the dychotomy of body and soul, presented by the series.

Weapons are wielded by bodies, while Semblances are a materialization of the soul.

In other words, Pyrrha’s gold becoming a part of Jaune’s Weapon is symbolic of Jaune’s first step in a painful process that will lead him to overcome his partner’s death and to inherit Pyrrha’s legacy.

Jaune must keep on learning from Pyrrha and become more like her. As noted by @hamliet, this is symbolized also by Jaune’s design aquiring more golden details as he goes on in his journey:

Jaune: Guess I was going to grow out of it eventually.

Ren: A sign of progress.

Jaune: Progress.

That said, grieving is not easy and Jaune must struggle with much pain and negative feelings.

This is why the changes he makes to Crocea Mors are finalized to increase its attack power:

It is because Jaune feels anger over Pyrrha’s death and wants revenge.

In the Battle of Haven he gives in to his fury and tries to kill Cinder. He is trying to superficially imitate Pyrrha’s sacrifice:

Jaune: If I die buying them time, then it's worth it. They're the ones that matter.

However, he is not doing it out of bravery or necessity, but out of recklessness and self-hate. This is why his actions lead to this:

Once again, Jaune risks to lose another loved one:

Jaune: No, no, no, no, not again! Weiss, c'mon, please!!

However, this time he is able to save Weiss thanks to his Semblance:

Jaune: My Semblance?

Nora: How else do you think you're healing her, dummy?

Jaune gives up on using his Weapon to fight and chooses to use his Semblance to cure. He chooses soul over body and Creation over Destruction.

At the same time, Jaune’s activation of his Semblance is meaningful on two levels:

Jaune: No. I don't think I'm healing her. Our Aura heals our bodies. It feels... it feels more like I'm using my Aura to amplify hers!

Nora: Wait, aren't you worried about running out?

Jaune: Pyrrha once told me I've got a lot of it. I still believe her.

First of all, Jaune’s Semblance is rooted in the idea that people heal themselves. His power is not to cure others, but to amplify others’ auras, so that they can become stronger and can heal. It is about bringing out the best in others. It is a power fit for a leader, but also an ability symbolic of Jaune’s own process of healing. He can heal himself through helping others to heal.

Secondly, Jaune’s Semblance is in itself a nod to Pyrrha. Pyrrha used her own aura to awake his and Aura Amp is simply an evolution of this idea. It is not about activating others’ auras, but it is a power that lets Jaune share his. It also makes good use of something Pyrrha noticed immediately aka Jaune’s huge quantity of aura.

In other words, Jaune ends up acting like Pyrrha in the Battle of Haven, but not because he fights Cinder, but because he shares his gift with others, just like Pyrrha did with hers.

Pyrrha is a part of Jaune both in body (Crocea Mors) and soul (Aura Amp), but Jaune must still truly understand what this means.

He makes progress in Lost:

Red-Haired Woman: She understood that she had a responsibility... to try. I don't think she would regret her choice, because a Huntress would understand that there really wasn't a choice to make. And a Huntress is what she always wanted to be.

This is the essence of Pyrrha’s sacrifice. Jaune comes to understand it and chooses to make a similar choice together with his team:

Jaune: I think... I think she knew she wasn't going to win. That she might not come out alive. But... she also knew she was the only one that could try.

Ren: So she did.

Nora: Maybe we should too.

Jaune: Yeah, we should.

In this way, it will be as if Pyrrha were fighting together with them:

Nora: Pyrrha may not be by our side anymore, but we can fight like she is.

Jaune: And in a way... she will be.

Jaune tries to overcome his anger and his sadness for Pyrrha’s death in order to keep fighting like she did.

So, once again he chooses this:

Ruby: I wanted to protect my friends.

Maria: Precisely! It is the desire to preserve life which fuels the light inside you. And to make no mistake, it is light. Preservation is an extension of creation, or, at the very least, an enemy of destruction. The Creatures of Grimm were made by the God of Darkness, but your light comes from his brother.

He chooses to protect life and this is the essence of Creation.

Once he confirms this choice, he is free to explore Creation’s potential and he does so in the land of Creation itself, Atlas.

He strengthens his shield instead of his sword:

And he trains his Semblance:

Oscar: Nice, your recovery is getting faster.

This all leads him to become stronger psychologically:

Ren: Him on the other hand... There's no fear at all. I can see it, he believes we're going to get this done.

That said, Jaune starts meeting limits to his new found strength rooted in Creation:

Jaune: Ah, sorry. No matter how much I boost you, they won’t go away.

Jaune: Did... I stop the virus?

Penny: No. It’s still there.

Jaune’s way to move forward is to heal himself through healing others. Still, what to do when this is not possible?

THE DESTRUCTIVE HEALER

Penny: No… there’s not enough time to heal me…

Penny: But there is something you can do…

What happens in Atlas is an inversion of Haven.

Penny pushes Jaune’s Semblance away and touches Crocea Mors.

Jaune is asked to give up on healing her and to speed up her death instead. He is asked to choose his Weapon (body) over his Semblance (soul) and Destruction over Creation.

This marks the characters entering the Destruction phase:

Leaving Creation (Penny) behind.

For Jaune, this means that his own self image that he has worked so much to build and to make his own:

And that has been enriched in Anima thanks to Pyrrha...is shattered:

At the same time, he is once again put in a similar spot as Pyrrha:

They both become unwilling agents of Penny’s death because of Cinder (and Emerald and Mercury in the first case):

Pyrrha: Ruby, I... I'm so sorry.

Ruby: Me too. But it wasn't your fault.

Jaune: She's right. Whoever was on that microphone... they're the ones that did this. And we have to make sure they don't take anyone else.

So Jaune’s journey to integrate with Pyrrha, to understand her and her struggle continues.

What now?

It is too soon to say because we have yet to properly start our journey through Destruction and what it is about.

That said, there are two things that are worth highlighting. The first is a motif Rwby is following, while the second is a general theme found in many stories.

1) As @hamliet has stated in many metas and as I have written here, Rwby is an alchemical story. Alchemical stories are usually marked by three important deaths. Each death is symbolically linked to a color. They are usually black, white and red. However, sometimes there can be yellow instead of the white or the red. This is the case here, where a resonant death is the yellow death aka Penny’s.

It is a death that happens while the characters are surrounded by yellow:

And it happens through a weapon called “Yellow Death” (Crocea Mors’s meaning). So, it is really not subtle. Penny’s death is meant to mark an important passage for our protagonists, just like Pyrrha’s one (the black death).

2) It is common in stories that deal with healers to explore the concept of death as well.

The basic idea is that a healer is a person meant to cure. That said, they will meet people impossible to cure and that will die on their watch. This is an unescapable truth a true healer must live with.

Let’s highlight this theme is found in works very different for genre and culture.

Let’s have two examples.

Scrubs aka an American comedy about doctors deals with this theme multiple times. In many episodes the characters must simply accept they can’t save a life, but must still not lose hope and keep on living themselves.

Yosano from the manga BSD says so:

Her backstory explores the link bewteen life and death further since it is shown that a power that cures fatal wounds can be used to cheapen life itself:

It is too soon to say if Rwby will explore a similar theme, but the fact that Jaune, (the healer) is the one that has to speed up Penny’s death might be a very powerful and poignant choice. This is true especially because Rwby does not refuse Destruction (and so does not refuse death), but presents it as a principle equal to Creation (so as a part of life).

THE CHOOSING HERO

Jaune’s arc is about living Pyrrha’s death over and over again with different scenarios and outcomes. This happens so that in the end he can finally overcome it.

So far, it has happened three times and each time has been in the climax of an important battle.

The Battle of Beacon has him witness powerlessly to Pyrrha’s death (lack of knowledge and passivity).

The Battle of Haven has him saving Weiss (creation).

The Battle of Atlas has him killing Penny (destruction).

What is more, every time Jaune becomes more proactive and conscious of what he is doing.

In Beacon he has no idea of what is happening. He works with little information and things happen to him without him being able to do anything.

In Haven his actions lead to Weiss being in danger, but he manages to save her. That said, he does not do it consciously. He unlocks his Semblance because of emotional stress. It is an unconscious choice and not a conscious one.

In Atlas he makes a specific conscious choice, but it is a choice that is forced on him because of external circumstances. It is also a choice that is meant to challenge and temporally break him.

In other words, he is slowly and painfully approaching Choice aka self-actualization. Right now, he has to face the consequences of Penny’s death, but this will probably lead him to finally enter the Choice stage and to complete his arc by becoming a “hero” aka gold (probably).

At the same time, this final choice will also be about healing and overcoming grief. It will be the final integration with Pyrrha and him being able to honor her legacy.

After all, we have been told from the beginning what Pyrrha’s fate would have been. We’ve just failed to notice:

Pyrrha: For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee.

June and Pyrrha’s bond is eternal and she is meant to be the key character in Jaune’s arc. It is only through confronting and finally overcoming her loss that Jaune can finally self actualize and become the person Pyrrha has always known he could be. Pyrrha will symbolically be with him in this struggle. Her memory will protect and inspire him.

#rwby #rwby meta #jaune arc #arkos #rwby arkos #pyrrha nikos #tw: penny's death #jaune x pyrrha #my meta

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saevus-brutalis · 3 years

Photo

2021 Summary of Art aka watch me re-design my only fucking oc 😌 9834623 times

despite the year 2021 being shit, i am still grateful for the progress that i have made and i’m looking forward to the future, bettering myself and my technique

thanks everyone for the love and support and i’ll see you in the next one folks

happy new year chooms!

(some additional personal emo shit below the cut)

before January of 2021 i have never attempted to draw a human ever, despite being a digital artist since like 2015. all my attempts at drawing human anatomy correctly or even keeping good proportions were met with failure, thus encouraging me to just give up. countless scribbled out sketches (both on paper and digital) and never really having a great design for a human oc made me feel discouraged to try again, to keep going. so for the past 6 years i did nothing but beat myself up for not being able to draw people, for not being skilled or creative enough.

but after seeing people post drawings and designs of their ocs/Vs from cyberpunk 2077 in late December 2020/January 2021 i said to myself you know... fuck it, just do it.

it all started with me just deadass putting a sheet of paper up to my screen and tracing the in-game screenshot of my V. did i though it looked good as hell at the time? hell yeah. do i think so now? not exactly. but i kept fucking going, eventually stopped tracing shit on paper from my screen and using reference photos instead, trying and trying and trying.

the beginnings - as you can see - were not easy. i still remember being so damn proud of my first ever full-body drawing of my V back in February. i was so excited i even showed it to my friend, now i can’t look at it, but seeing it and comparing it to my latest work? shows me just how huge of a progress i made during those 11 months - not even a full year.

not only did i go through a change, but also my oc/V/child (i mean look at this bitchass). can’t believe that playing one damn game could lead me to where i am now. not only did i once again found my passion for digital art, but also found some great friends along the way (thanks to this dumbass pictured in almost every picture above)

still got a lot to learn, there’s gonna be a lot of practicing and failing, but that’s alright.

to those that are in the place where i was in January and February - don’t be fooled by the examples above, i am showing you my best (in my opinion) drawings. you don’t see the countless unfinished files or ugly sketches that are sitting on my hard drive, never to be finished, re-drawn, never to see the light of day (or the Internet).

don’t give up, you’ll get there.

thanks again, sending good vibes your way.

#definitely didn't cry whilst writing this #saevus-brutalis art #saevus brutalis art

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hazelcephalopod · 3 years

Text

The Great Hunt Ch 7-8

Basically, everyone is having a bad time. And people are assholes! Also so many emotions about so much lore.

Disclaimer: this is my first read thru but I’ve watched all of the show thus far and been spoiled on some book things. So… I’m going to lean into that. Enjoy figuring out what I know, and what I think I know, and what I just don’t. Also s/x I add commentary when I edit.

Spoilers for the first and second book and all of season 1 under the cut. Potential spoilers for later books -idk if they’re light spoilers or not.

Ch 7: Blood Calls Blood

The wot symbol

POV Moiraine

So mat once again has received the treatment and needs the cure

Months? That’s not a good prognosis.

He is having shit luck tbh

A magic virus of sorts then

Or they simply have different priorities

See? She’s working the problem too just a different approach

Yes send the dumbass to fix his problem

Monologue via grossly written poetry -and the poetry is good, the ink was vile

We got- Daughter of the Night, likely Lanfear, looking for servants and to continue the battle for the Shadow. A male channeler, who will sacrifice friends, and has a choice between death (sorta), and everlasting life -light and shadow. Maybe Rand?

I have no idea. “Luc came to the Mountains of Dhoom. / Isam waited in the high passes. / The hunt is now begun. The Shadows hounds now course, and kill. / One did live, and one did die, but both are. / The Time if Change has come.” -Tgh. Maybe the end of the age?

Well that’s a weird thing to remember. Really? Some ancient gossip is what survived and not like her real name or power? Just ‘[Lanfear] and LTT used to you know…’ k.

… well I’m surprised and elated so much of this poem/maybe prophecy is being explained

So Luc is basically the disappeared prince of Andor. Tigraines brother.

Isam is Lan’s cousin? Something like that?

Ok well so. Luc went to the Mnts of Dhoom and that’s were he disappeared. Isam probably also near there. One of them is dead, the other is not.

The boat people have arrived. And apparently have been awaited by some

More old tongue- Do Miere A’vron: Watchers Over the Waves. Those who wait for the armies of Hawkwing’s sons to return

Artur Hawkwing aka Hammer of the Light

Some of the Aes Sedai for sure know Moiriane and Siuan are still friendly. Like. Come now

… they just don’t care

Sea Folk refuse to cross the Aryth ocean. But clearly have. They say “…the Islands of the Dead lie on the other side.” & “lands under the Shadow, beyond the setting sun, beyond the Aryth Ocean, where the Armies of Night reign” ok. Well there’s a place where the Dark One has taken over everything other directly or indirectly then. To the west across the ocean. Done. Solved

Well maybe they found a lot that was hard to deal with and prevented their return. Or their ships sank but many of the forces survived. Boats are hard to build.

Almoth was a fucking kingdom? And they might have had a branch of Avendesora (have I been spelling that wrong? Is fine)

Black for the earth isn’t one I’ve heard before

Of course they do. These people really like trees. Which I approve greatly of

I was right! Time of change= end of age

Great Lord is either the Dragon or the Dark One. Or kinda both.

Verin is being nothing but helpful rn. Don’t be mad you don’t like the options. But at least you have the sense to send her away before you start being an ass

Lol. Verin put that together well. ‘So wanna tell me what you’re plotting? Seems cool.’

“No one has ever recorded the progression in a man who wields the Power. When does the madness come, exactly, and how does it take him?

How quickly does it grow? Can he still function with his body rotting around him? For how long?“ -Verin having noticed that Moiriane and Siuan are plottting together and also that one of the boys can probably channel. Also… describing the taint which just seems much worse the more that is revealed about it. That’s just fucking awful sounding. Rotting? The fuck is that about?

… she’s also correctly guessed he’s the Dragon Reborn. So uh, don’t discount the Brown Ajah huh? Surprise /s

… I guess they could stab her with a knife. They just cannot use the power to like actually hurt her.

G’job Verin!

… also like is said pretty sure other sisters know they just don’t care

POV change! Perrin!

He cares!

… plz no

Also Leane saying she should have chosen Green but I just can’t write all that out. Sry

Let people visit their sick friends? What?

Hey stop fucking lying so much everyone.

Consent!

No she’s being rude

POV change! Rand

Oh insomnia I know it well

Oh you woolheaded children

Oh not a fan of that personality type. Might be a me issue

K. I think she was flirting with you. Which. K

Yes! Confiding in your friends!

Uhg. I want him to tell Perrin but he shouldn’t do it in the city! Ahh! No!

Oh well you’re nightmare is finally here. The Amyrlin has called for him

“You should have done that last night.” -Lan to Rand when he protests about about going to the Amyrlin b/c he was leaving. Yup

Well he got a silk shirt out of it. Focusing on the positives.

“Tangled, long-thorned briars climbed each red sleeve in a thick, gold-embroidered line, and ran around each cuff.” -the coat Lan suggests to Rand to see the Amyrlin

Not going there. That rage isn’t worth it

That would be great tho

“The Wheel weaves us all into the Pattern as it wills You have less freedom about it than most, but by the Light, you can still face it on your feet.” -Lan to Rand

Uhg eye contact.

“Lan kept a running flow of instructions while Rand shrugged into the red coat and buckled on his sword.” -Tgh. Ok weirdly this, specifically latter part, I really want to see on a screen more than anything else so far

Ritual greetings! They are intricate. /I am not sure that works entirely here but I could not resist/

“… can fly to the moon like Lenn.” -Lan. What now?

Oh he’s proud is his son! “…[Lan] produced a long length of wide, fringed golden cord and tied it around Rand’s left arm in a complicated knot. On the knot he fastened a red-enameled pin, an eagle with its wings spread.” He had it made for him! He loves him.

“Caldazar. The Red Eagle of Menetheren.”

“With a cold knot in the pit of his belly, Rand followed the Warder into the hall.”

Ch 8: The Dragon Reborn

The Dragon’s Fang

POV Rand

Yup. The dread

Ingtar!

“‘Tai’shar Malkier! Tai’shar Manetheren!’ True blood of Malkier. True blood of Manetheren.” -Kajin -no i don’t remember who that is- upon seeing Lan and Rand

No. You could not. Kiddo… buddy…

Don’t like that. Excellent description tho

“Better you don’t let any Greens see this one, or one of them will bond him before he can breathe.” -Leane upon seeing Rand. And then… k

… I’m just gonna leave it. Its fine. Ish

“The world grows stranger every day. I suppose the blacksmith will wear a crown and speak in High Chant.” -Leane alluding to Perrin.

Poor kid

…sure. Sure he is. At least it’s trying to be comforting.

“Three Aes Sedai. How many does it take to gentle a man? They sent a dozen or more after Logain. Would Moiraine do that to me?” -(Rand) thinking to himself. Not having a good time

Oh Gaidin = Warder. Neat

Wait. Siuan has a Warder? Alric. Cool

Wait what? I’d also like to know. Apparently, according to Moiraine and her unknown sources, Tam left the Two Rivers when he was young. Joined the army of Illian. Served in several wars, Whitecloak War, two with Tear, and the Aiel War. He became a blademaster and 2nd Capt of the Companions. Married a woman from Caemlyn. And the rest is history.

You are.

Yes! Protect you stuff!

Verin thank you for doing that over there

Oh. Well that’s two choices being offered at least. Usually, it’s none.

Choice a) stay in Fal Dara b) Go with Ingtar, Mat, and probably Perrin to hunt down the horn, the dagger, and the Darkfriend.

… I mean when has Rand ever been able to abandon Mat?

I really believe at his heart Rand is indeed a man of action. As in no thoughts just do. Like yes he thinks much and is an anxious mess but also, truly he just does choices

Get ready for a long quote (Editors note get ready for a series of long quotes. So much lore! So many character-ing)

“Well, that’s wise of you. And foolish, too. Some can be taught to channel; most cannot. A few, though, have the seed in them at birth. Sooner or later, they wield the One Power wether they want to or not… You can’t help it. And you had better *learn* to channel, learn to control it, or you will not live long enough to go mad. The One Power kills those who cannot control its flow.” -Siuan on Rand’s assertion that he can but will not channel again

Good question sry the answer sucks.

Verin I’m not sure that’s the point but id love to get into how that changes the metaphor. I love her. Plz do not take Autistic Granny Sedai for at least a long time -I’m not here to debate that btw, I’m autistic, I’m taking this

(Editors note- those quotes really start up here)

“The Amyrlin Seat looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘Because you are the Dragon Reborn.’” -tgh

Tam really good parent tbh

… he did tell him that in a fever dream right? Thom?

“…tell him a story. A *true* story…” -Siuan.

Lore drop! (It’s here!)

“Nearly twenty years ago the Aiel crossed the Spine of the World, the Dragonwall… and fought all the way to Tar Valon… The final battle, the last that counted, was fought outside the Shining Walls, in the shadow of Dragonmount. In three days and three nights of fighting, the Aiel…turned back, for they had done what they came to do, which was kill King Laman of Cairhien, for his sin against the Tree. It is then my story begins. And yours.” Cont. “I was one of the Accepted then, as was [Siuan]. We were soon to be raised to sisterhood and that night we stood attendance on the then Amyrlin. [only] Her Keeper of the Chronicles, Gitara Moroso, was there.” Cont. “The Karaethon Cycle, the Prophecies of the Dragon, says the Dragons will be reborn on the slopes of Dragonmount, where he died during the Breaking of the World. Gitara Sedai had the foretelling sometimes.” & a morning of -or near after- the battle with the Aiel “…[Gitara] trembling, her face as if she had looked into the Pit of Doom at Shayol Ghul, and she cried out, ‘He is born again! I feel him! The Dragon takes his first breath on the slope of Dragonmount! He is coming! He is coming! Light help us! Light help the world! He lies in the snow and cries like the thunder! He burns like the sun!’ And she fell forward into my arms, dead.” & “And so we knew the Dragon was Reborn. The Amyrlin swore us to secrecy, we two, for she knew not all the sisters would see the Rebirth as it must be seen. She set us searching… we found a story, that one man had found an infant on the mountain… we searched, finding other clues, poring over Prophecies. ‘He will be of the ancient blood, and raised by the old blood.’.. Did you think the Trollocs came after you just because you are ta’veren? You are the Dragon Reborn.” -Moiraine to Rand.

Meanwhile! “*They came over the Dragonwall like a flood. All the way to the Shining Walls.* Rand waited for the memories to fade but it was Tam’s voice he heard…” & (Moiriane described the battle outside the city more) “*Battles are always hot, even in the snow. Had to get away from the stink of death.* Tam’s delirious voice clawed at the empty calm inside Rand.” & “*Slope of the mountain. Heard a baby cry. Gave birth there alone, before she died. Cold blue with the cold.* Rand tried to force Tam’s voice away. The void grew smaller. ‘A fever-dream,’ he gasped. *I couldn’t leave a child.* ‘I was born in the Two Rivers.’ *Always knew you wanted children Kari… Yes, lass. Rand is a good name. ‘I—am—Rand—al’Thor!’ His legs trembled.” & “Rand’s knees gave way… The void was gone, the stillness shattered.” -Rand’s thoughts and rxn to this story.

K but again maybe… not the answer he needs right now? ‘You’re a tool with a purpose and that’s good actually! Why are you crying?’ This kid is having a breakdown ladies! Act like humans! I know you can!

Blank is better than revulsion. It’s the bare minimum but I give them that

“‘I will not be used,’ he told them. There was a long silence as he turned and left.” -(Rand) Tgh

POV change!

“The silence stretched on in the room after Rand left…”

A) probably shouldn’t be comfortable with that no. B) some version of it yea. C) true; good but it’s unavoidable at this point.

“The silence returned.” -Tgh

POV change! Nynaeve

Huh. Nynaeve is probably having trouble listening to the wind. But also feels like a storm is and isn’t coming. That Is indeed weird

He would be

Not what he said

Well… I mean, he just gave you his king ring. And swore to always come when called. So that’s big.

Gotta say he has a way with words. Mashiara? Beloved of heart and soul?

Like… these fools just fell hard and fast. One side just thinks he’s not enough. (Editors note he may have just proposed)

Yea I honestly don’t think she’s any good at giving words of encouragement

“If your own use of the Power is not schooled, you will never be able to use it against me.” -Moiraine to Nynaeve. That’s a goading if Ive ever seen one

I mean respect. Moiriane plays but she does not play

Nynaeve did fall for the goading. What’re you gonna do?

POV change! Egwene

More morningstars. In Egwenes room and now on her dress

Nice that she was gifted all these clothes. Gifted. What a thought!

Hun, you likely won’t be home for a while

Nynaeve has loversknots on her dress.

Ah a step towards acceptance Nynaeve. On a long, long road

Maybe just go get his friend and stop playing ridiculous games? Ffs

You invited him in with the sword Egwene! And then Trollocs attacked so…

… I know she’s just trying to fit in. And these people have their rights too but still

Well that was all a bit sad.

Next!

Nice to see Egwene. Glad she’s ok.

Rand isn’t. Or Nynaeve.

#series of many thoughts on twot #< block or filter to stop seeing these posts #Tgh #tgh spoilers #the great hunt #the wheel of time #wheel of time #wot #wot book spoilers #twot book spoilers #twot book

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missredherring · 4 years

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Villainous - Part One

Marcus Moreno x (F)Reader

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: character death

Summary: Nothing good had come of the Ogima infiltration, so why would working with their leftover alien tech go any better? Sucked into an alternative universe you’re faced with a man who looked exactly like the partner you had kissed goodbye that morning. His touch is impersonal and rough as your wrists are restrained and the look in his eyes is anything but tender.

A/N: Everyone likes a villain, right? I’m going to try to balance WCBH’s kid logic with actual logic (aka trying not to think too hard). Bear with me. I’m thinking this will be in 3-4 parts.

The alarm went off and your hand jerked up out of the covers, feeling around on the clock for the right button to turn it off. You clicked the bedside lamp on next, filling half the room with soft light that wouldn’t blind you if you had opened your eyes yet. Groaning, you stretched and buried your face in the pillow.

“Ok. Ok, ok, ok.” You said. Were you bargaining with some higher power or just trying to motivate yourself to get up? Some days it was hard to tell.

A deep exhale came from the other side of the bed and you followed the inhale to its owner. Marcus had thrown an arm over his eyes, but he moved it to hold you against him when you traded the mattress for his body, tucking your head into his neck.

“Morning.” He said. His voice was deeper and raspy from sleep. Reflexively you kissed his Adam’s apple and mumbled your reply. “Big day?”

“Not especially, but you never know.” You said. A tempting idea drifted through your mind as your breathing evened out, sleep already seducing you back into its embrace. Honestly this particular idea often came when you were in Marcus’ arms in the mornings. “I could call out.”

“You could, but I actually have plans today and if you call out then I get called in.”

“Well that would ruin any plans I was making.” You leaned up on your elbows to see his face. “I remember though. A Moreno afternoon.”

“We’re running new training drills with Mom. It’ll be fun. Probably.”

“Just make sure you stretch before you start, old man.”

Marcus grinned and grabbed your waist, his fingers going for the ticklish spots there. “Get out of bed before I show you what this old man can do.”

Giggling, you twisted away from him and slipped out of bed. The sound of Marcus grunting as he got out of bed followed you into the bathroom.

“I’ll make breakfast.” He called out.

You sighed happily as you started getting ready for the day. He really was the best.

***

So far your prediction for the day had held true. No alarms calling for the Heroics had gone off and all you had on your schedule were meetings and updates on projects. Another glamorous day as co-director.

This was the last meeting before lunch and it was a struggle to stay focused. It didn’t help that this project hadn’t made much progress in the last month. The lab you were in was filled with Ogima technology that had been left behind by the aliens. Every time they found some new program or piece of tech you really couldn’t tell if they left things behind on purpose, or just didn’t care. Did they not have some kind of non-interference directive? Or had the children in charge not thought that far ahead.

Taking a deep breath you looked at the your tablet, forcing yourself to read the report you’d been glazing over. This particular Ogima project was trying to improve the space travel technology they were currently working on. Surely aliens who came from space would have good tech for traveling through it, right? Unfortunately the scientists studying the alien artifacts hadn’t been able to understand much more than “engine makes the ship go.”

A hum filled the lab and you noticed the lab tech next to you poking at the engine part that was hooked up to a truly impressive amount of wires and cables. He looked familiar but you couldn’t put your finger on his name.

The project manager was in the middle of trying to convince you not to end the project, saying how he was sure there were discoveries right at their fingertips- they were running regular tests on it, all detailed in the file- when he abruptly stopped. The hum grew and with a bright flash of light the room exploded.

***

Your ears were ringing and your whole body ached. What had happened? You tried to think, to take stock of your situation, but your mind felt muddled and the thoughts slipped away. Breathing hard, you laid your hands flat on the ground, using the cold surface to ground yourself.

One step at a time. Your body hurt, but there wasn’t a focused point of pain. Nothing stabbing or burning when you breathed, flexed your muscles, or moved your limbs. Your head didn’t feel as bad as you pushed each breath in and out. Carefully, you opened your eyes and blinked hard when you saw double.

Rubble and random office ephemera - was that a chair?- were scattered around you. A hand grabbed yours and you nearly jumped out of your skin.

“M-ma’am. Are you ok? Where are we?” It was the lab tech. The one who liked to poke alien things.

Movement in front of you stopped you from answering him, especially when you made out Marcus’ form even with your blurry vision. You’d know him anywhere. Relief bubbled up in your chest and it flushed adrenaline through your system. It would be ok. Marcus was here.

On unsteady legs you got up and closed the distance between you two. Only feet from him you stumbled and ended up falling into him, arms coming up to wrap around his neck.

“Marcus.” You sighed into the rough fabric of his tact vest, a greeting and recognition rolled into one.

“Ma’am, I don’t--” The lab tech was cut off by a thick snap. A heavy thud and a bark of laughter followed it.

“Usually I’m the one women are throwing themselves at, Moreno.” You recognized Miracle Guy’s voice and turned around.

The lab tech was on the floor at his feet, his head lying at a gross angle, his neck obviously broken. Luke Jones, your mind supplied, finally able to recall the name in his personnel file. The blood drained from your face and you felt sick. Had Miracle Guy lost his mind? You’d never seen him use his powers against someone like this. The procedure was to detain, and attack in self defense. Marcus was always strict about that. Marcus…

Before you could turn back to him, hands grabbed your wrists and twisted your arms, forcing your body around. A kick to the back of your legs had you on the ground and cold metal restraints clicked into place, your arms at a painful angle in Marcus’ grip. Maybe you had a concussion. There was still a tinny ringing in your ears, but the concrete bit into your knees and your shoulders ached from how he bent your arms back. His hand shifted and one came to turn your head towards him.

You were eyelevel with his waist, your gaze going straight to his oversized belt buckle, the only color in his outfit. Sweat prickled along your hairline and a shiver of unease shot down your spine. There was a stylized purple ‘V’ on the buckle. His fingers tightened on your jaw and you met his eyes. There was a scar on his face. It went through his left eyebrow and stopped halfway down his cheek. He hadn’t had it this morning when he’d kissed you goodbye, but it was fully healed and aged.

“Who are you and how did you get into the Villainous Headquarters?”

#Marcus Moreno x Reader #Marcus Moreno #Miracle Guy #We Can Be Heroes #self insert #reader insert #Villain AU

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tepkunset · 4 years

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@avatarfandompolice is a blog that likes to misuse progressive language in attempt to make ignorant, racist posts sound more intelligent than they are. While most of their blog consists of arguing about ‘zutara,’ (which I recently learned is a ship name for Zuko and Katara from an anon), there is also a large number of posts and reblogs under the premise of being “hot takes” on how unfair it is to address racism in fandom and in media.

Avatarfandompolice is very sensitive about people pointing out that Avatar: The Last Airbender is not, in fact, flawless. That a show made by two white men featuring Asian and Indigenous characters and influences is fully capable of getting things wrong. That their western colonial views are influences all on their own, and it shows. Rather than listen to fans of colour point out things like these posts for example: [Link] [Link] [Link], avatarfandompolice has decided that such things must simply be fake, and has made multiple posts complaining it. This is not just regular ignorance, this is wilful ignorance. The dismissal of critique simply because they cannot fathom not everyone being able to handle the amount of issues they are freely educating others on, or people holding the ability to like something overall while also pointing out where it could be better.

It is my firm belief that you should never absorb media with an uncritical eye. If this was the case, if people just accepted everything given to them, then we would never see any progress. We need to be able to look back at something and say here’s what we did right, and here’s what we need to do better with.

The argument that A:TLA was made in 2012 and therefore should not be analyzed with a modern understanding of the world is downright hilarious, too. As if we aren’t taught to write literature analysis on books and plays that are centuries old in school. In particular regards to the whole cop thing... if anyone reading this seriously thinks that hate and fear of the police is just a 2020 trend, you can meet me in the pit. I was four years old when I learned how terrifying cops are. If your experiences differ, let me tell you that does not make them universal. And as for all the 20-somethings talking about it today, well, gentle reminder that as said by avatarfandompolice right here, the show aired in 2012. Little 10-year-old kids don’t have social media, (at least I hope they don’t,) and unless they grew up experiencing first-hand police terror, probably were not aware of it at that age. I do not know why avatarfandompolice insults people's ability to grow and learn. I can only guess it’s jealously from their lack of ability to do so.

Now let’s address their defences of whitewashing, which is easily the most backwards reaching I’ve seen on this issue in a while. Primarily their defence relies on four repetitive “points” —

Fake minuscule percentages to downplay the high prevalence and extremity of whitewashing in the fandom

Deflecting the addressing of whitewashing with rapid-fire fake scenarios and claims of “reverse racism” / “blackwashing”

Claiming whitewashing isn’t real because people only care about it with Katara

Claiming that calling out whitewashing in fandom is wrong because it hurts artists

I have only so much as dipped my toes into the A:TLA fandom, and even I have seen a lot of whitewashed fan art. If you do an image search for fan art, I guarantee within the first couple rows of results, there will be in the absolute least, a few examples. The idea of these artworks not substantially lightening skin is also just plain inaccurate. Just from a quick Google search, this is literally the first result for ‘Avatar The Last Airbender Katara fan art’:

Avatarfandompolice is also hyper-focused on the lightening of skin, and seems to be under the impression that this is the only component of whitewashing. I come to this conclusion because when someone pointed out the equal prevalence of depicting these characters of colour with Western European features instead of their actual eyes, noses, etc., they rip a giant turd out of their ass and scrawl the words “but stereotyping” over it. No, not all Asian peoples and Indigenous peoples look the same. The original poster made no such claim of this at all. Avatarfandompolice jumped to this conclusion all on their own... (which really says a lot in itself). It is entirely unrelated to the point. The point being the erasure of how these characters look, in favour of giving them whiter features. And guess what? This does hurt. But I’ll get to that below.

The lack of understanding of whitewashing is on full display when avatarfandompolice talks about “blackwashing”; the idea that colouring characters with darker skin is just like whitewashing. Firstly, there is no such thing as “blackwashing.” “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is re-imagined as a racial minority, whereas when racial minorities are re-imagined as white people, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where the statistics of representation were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people. As for specifically depicting characters like Sokka and Katara with darker skin than what they have in the show, the same applies, (so long as it’s not racebending them as we really shouldn’t be taking representation away from each other, and the artist avatarfandompolice ridicules above has done no such thing,) because colourism also exists within nonwhite communities as well.

As for the fake questions about cosplaying, the answer is really simple: Cosplay however you want, but don’t make pretending to be a different race part of your cosplay. If you want to cosplay Katara, you can do it without painting your skin darker, aka brownface. If you want to cosplay Zuko, you can do it without editing yourself to look East Asian, aka digital yellowface. The racist history behind this is an internet search away, but I suppose that is too difficult for avatarfandompolice to do.

Avatarfandompolice has made multiple claims that people must not really care about whitewashing if they only call it out for Katara. It is laughable at best, and sad at worst, that this is the conclusion they come to, and not the fact that unfortunately Katara just happens to be subjected to more whitewashing than other characters. I assume this is from a mix of her popularity as well as being a WOC and not MOC. This is not to say that whitewashing does not exist with male characters—not in the slightest. Half the images on this “10 fan art pictures of Sokka that are just the best” list from CBR are whitewashed. Only that across fandoms, whitewashing is more prevalent in female characters, by my observations at least.

Finally—and this one pisses me off the most—avatarfandompolice claims that whitewashing is no big deal, but calling out whitewashing is too harmful to justify. How fucking dare you put the feelings of artists who can’t handle critique of their work (that they publicly share) over fans of colour, who are constantly subjected to seeing our identities and looks not being worth respecting. As if it doesn’t imprint on your mind from a very young age how only villains ever have your facial features, because they’re ugly and I guess that means you’re ugly. As if there is something wrong with you. As if respecting you is regarded as extra effort, and not just common courtesy.

Whitewashing is a form of colourism, which is a form of racism. It is the favouritism, unconscious or not, of white features and the erasure of visible characters of colour. It is not fandom drama. It is not being too lazy to focus on “real issues” because it is part of a real issue. It is yet another part of why fandom spaces are so uninviting to POC. We live in a society that favours lighter skin. Corporations make fortunes from selling products to bleach your skin, products to contour your features away or go as far as surgery, all to meet beauty standards set by and influenced by white colonizers. That does not exist in A:TLA, and that’s called refreshing escapism. But it’s hard to escape that when the fandom constantly reminds you otherwise. It is a perfect example of how the classic “just let people enjoy things” complaint is nothing but disguised racism, because it’s only ever said regarding white fans’ enjoyment, at the expense of fans of colour.

None of the characters in A:TLA are white. Redesigning them and recolouring them as if they are, be it out of accident or intent is wrong. If you get called out for it, apologize, learn from the experience and do better going forward. You’ll also improve your art this way.

Beyond excusing whitewashing, avatarfandompolice has overt racist posts as well. A Black fan said they like to headcanon Katara as being partially Black; “I swear Katara was a sister. Im convinced there ain't no way she didn't have some black in her.” Avatarfandompolice jumps in saying “She's literally an Inuit but ok” as if being an Inuk person means Katara can’t possibly also be Black. The OP never claimed Katara was not Indigenous, simply that they also saw her as Black. Black Indigenous peoples exist. Black Inuk peoples exist. It is overtly anti-Black to say otherwise. But what even is the point of talking to avatarfandompolice about that? You know, you would think in trying to put such a front up of caring about the Inuit, they would do the most basic learning of the proper grammatical use of Inuit and Inuk. (As is the case with a great many Indigenous Nations, Inuit is both the Nation and plural. Inuk is singular. “An Inuit” / “Inuits” as avatarfandompolice has used just makes their dressed-up racism all the more pathetic. It’s similar to as if you said “Chinas” instead of “Chinese”.)

But all this is nothing, nothing compared to the worst post I had the displeasure of seeing. In a single post, avatarfandompolice manages to squeeze in insult against low income people, Mexican people, Jewish people, and Black people in a mockery of financial help posts. Absolutely disgusting, childish behaviour from a place of privilege. As someone who has had no option but to make such a post before, more than once, let me fucking tell you that the embarrassment and desperation when in that situation is unparalleled. It is not done lightly. It is done when you are at the last resort of having nothing but hope that the combined generosity of others will be enough to save you and your family. And what adds a whole other level to the odiousness of avatarfandompolice’s post is that they specifically targeting low income minorities to boot. Because we’re all poor beggars, right?

All in all, for someone who prides themselves in calling others ignorant, avatarfandompolice has to be one of the most obtuse fandom blogs I have ever scrolled through. They are as vile as they are pathetic, and my sincere sympathy for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to interact with them. It has been a while since I so strongly recommend blocking someone.

#avatarfandompolice #atla #atla fandom #racism #whitewashing #long post #fit for a queue

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fanfic-me-up · 4 years

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okay so i kinda got carried away with this one??? i just really love this idea and how freaking fluffy it is! so thank you for submitting it @peachy-yabbay! 😊 also lowkey im sorta falling in love with kaminari?? like he’s so fun to write and i had a smile the entire time. anyway i rlly hope you enjoy!

Feel free to request more here. I write fics, drabbles, and headcanons 💖

Also, I have a yoga fic already posted with bakugou x fem!reader so if this doesn’t satisfy your need of bakugou being a flexible pretzel and failing you can read more here 😂

Bakugou Katsuki

THE STRUGGLE IS REAL

like Bakugou prides himself on going to the gym everyday, but he focuses on strength training and muscle building

the art of flexibility takes time, effort, and perseverance

he gets super frustrated when he can't get the splits in 2.5 seconds

“Careful or you might pull something.”

he ignores you ofc bc for some reason he thinks he’s gonna get the splits if he just - forces himself???

“seriously, Bakugou, don’t push so much-”

“Shut up I know what I’m - OW SHIT FUCKING HELL”

poor bby is on the ground cradling his thigh bc he pulled his hamstring

And lemme tell you THAT SHIT HURTS 😭

he’s literally screaming bloody murder

-like he’s faced a lot of pain from hero training but pulling your hamstring is just so. much. worse???

you grab an icyhot pack (aka you grab Todoroki lol) but Bakugou’s just like “hell no fuck off half n half”

“Must be bad. I heard you crying from downstairs-”

“I SAID FUCK OFF” Todoroki shrugs and leaves.

you roll your eyes at Bakugou’s stubbornness and grab some muscle balm instead

“Tch. I can do it myself” but you ignore him and rub the balm on his thigh, he doesn’t fight it

after that whole fiasco he finally listens to your warnings when you tell him that's enough

he’s in the splits in a little over a month!

“Oh my god, Bakugou, you’re doing it!”

“Tch. I know.”

you don’t miss the small smile on his face

he goes up to you later and shoves something in your hands

“Um. What’s this?”

“A movie ticket” you stare at it blankly, he rolls his eyes

“I’m taking you to the movies tonight, dumbass.”

“Like a date?” you stare up with hopeful eyes

“The fuck? No! As payment.”

you blink, clearly confused

“You know… for helping me with my stretches.”

Oh.

you blush in embarrassment at the misunderstanding

“I’ll meet you out front at 7. Don’t be late.” he walks off, but before he reaches the corner he stops-

“Ugh fine! It’s a date! Happy!?”

you erupt in the biggest smile

he wants to be the only one to make you smile like that from now on

Todoroki Shouto

Todoroki is impressed with how flexible you are, and you’re quite surprised when he asks you to help him

the most aloof - and handsome - guy in your class you’ve barely spoken TWO words to has come to you for help??? is this a dream? someone pinch you 👀

but there you are, the next day in his dorm, gently pushing his hips down

Todoroki’s working on his warrior/scorpion pose (ya’ll there's so many names for this pose jfc the one where you’re standing on one leg, back arched, and you’re holding the other leg above your head)

he’s sweating and breathing heavily, and when you go to steady him, you actually burn your hand on his bicep.

“Ouch!”

“Are you okay?”

he’s hovering over you the next second, you show him your hand, a blister already forming

“Damn it. I still have trouble controlling my left side,” he looks away from you, clenching his fists, “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” you blow cool air on the wound to stop the tingling, “all better,” you smile up at him

“Here, let me,” he pulls his shirt up to reveal his stomach and places your hand on the right side. You sigh in relief as your hand is instantly cooled.

Uh oh.

you realize where your hand is currently pressed against 😳

you’re so tempted to trace along the hard contours of his abs

“Y/N? You’re burning up.” he touches your cheek, your heart doing somersaults at the closeness

“Oh-kay, that’s enough for today!” you squeak, running away from a thoroughly confused Todoroki

Todoroki shows excellent progress in just a couple weeks. He says it’s because he has a great teacher, but you know it's his work ethic and how he listens to your advice and applies it flawlessly.

He’s even gotten better at controlling his left side since he’s constantly relaxing his muscles to get deeper in the stretch.

it happens during warm-ups before training

Class 1-A goes into some stretches when you see Todoroki go into a perfect scorpion. His back perfectly arched and his leg reaching above his head.

“Oh my god, Todoroki, you’re doing it!” you clap your hands in excitement

“Am I?”

...is this boy for real? lol

“YES” you laugh at his stoic expression

“I see.” He softly comments before going into another stretch.

your shoulders deflate, disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” he cracks a small smile and your breath is taken away by the simple gesture. It’s rare to see him with such a soft expression, and the fact that you’re the reason for it sends your heart aflutter.

AND bc he’s totally oblivious to your current state, he goes up to you and whispers, “you’re an amazing teacher, Y/N”

“It was n-nothing re-really it was a-all you!” you laugh awkwardly, unable to meet his eyes.

“How can I thank you?”

“It-it’s really n-not necessary!”

“Hmm…” he walks away deep in thought and you’re just standing there like the stuttering mess you are bc how dare he walk away like nothing!?

Mina’s got your back tho bc frankly it's quite sad how awkward you are and how oblivious Todoroki is that she NEEDS to become the captain of this ship stat

She “casually” suggests to Todoroki that he should take you out to eat as a thank you for helping him.

and when he walks you to your door that night he says, “I hope you enjoyed our date”

“D-date?” cue the butterflies in your stomach

“Was it not a date?” You’re pinned by his intense gaze, but you manage to squeak out a “yes!” in your confused daze. He chuckles at your nervousness

“Have a good night, Y/N.” he kisses your cheek

and when you give Mina the details of your date there’s a bunch of squealing from her end and you’re just like 😳 the entire night

Kaminari Denki

“Woah, Y/N, you’re really flexible. Can you put your foot over your head?”

You show him and he’s totally amazed. “Cool! Can you teach me? I wanna put BOTH legs over my head!”

first day of stretching with Kaminari is… def a day you remember

“Ow ow! Y/N, don’t break me!”

“Denki, I’m not even touching you!”

He looks up where your hands are on your hips

“oh... heh” he gives you a sheepish smile

You roll your eyes. How you’re gonna get this boy flexible enough to put his foot over his head is beyond you, but you’re happy it’s going to take a while - it means more time spent with your crush

You spend an hour with Kaminari each day to perfect his stretching routine (It should only take about 20 minutes, but the boy’s got the attention span of a newborn puppy)

“Woah check out that cloud, Y/N.” Kaminari looks in awe at the sky. You sigh, not again

“Denki, we’re not done, get back in the stretch”

“Look Y/N,” he points, “doesn’t it look exactly like baby yoda?” He lies down on the grass to gaze at the clouds

“Oh my god, Denki, I’m gonna kill - oh wow…” you gaze up in awe at the cloud, “baby yoda…”

You and Kaminari spend the rest of the hour cloud gazing

After literal MONTHS of getting on Kaminari’s ass he can FINALLY put his legs over his head.

He calls out to you during a training exercise, “Y/N LOOK I DID IT!”

“NOT ONE BUT TWO!” he points at both of his legs with a huge smile

You feel a rush of happiness because even after how frustrated you were with him at times, you would do it a million times over if it meant getting to see such a pure smile.

“Congrats!” you say, “Now, stand up so I can give you a hug!”

“Um…” he sheepishly looks up at you, “I’m kinda... stuck?”

You roll your eyes affectionately, “the things I do for you.”

You’re about to help Kaminari when Bakugou shoves him backwards giving everyone in class a clear view of his ass in the air 😂

“Hah, dumbass.”

Kaminari waddles helplessly side to side

“Y/N?” he squeaks, “a little help here?”

Later that week he tells you he found a yoga class for both of you to take and you’re surprised. He still wants to spend time with you?

But then he says, “Are you crazy? Why wouldn’t I wanna spend time with the coolest person I know?”

You choke on your tea, in disbelief at his words - that was a huge compliment and you know Kaminari is a very open person so you just brush it off with an “Oh stop it…”

“No I’m serious, Y/N, you’re awesome. Like super awesome,” he gives an awkward laugh while rubbing the back of his neck

“I’ve been thinking… maybe after yoga, we can, i don't know... hit up the arcade or something? Or it doesn’t have to be the arcade, it could be anything really!”

You’ve never seen Kaminari this flustered before. He’s the type to brush off his mistakes with a laugh, always moving on to the next moment.

“No, the arcade sounds fun!”

You reassure him and the confident light in his eyes returns

“Oh and Denki?”

“Yeah?”

“Prepare to get rekt in mario kart”

This starts a whole ass play fight about who’s gonna get dunked on when racing down rainbow road

#bakugou x reader #todoroki x reader #kaminari x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #kaminari denki x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha #mha #bnha headcanon #katsuki bakugou x reader #shouto todoroki x reader #denki kaminari x reader #bnha fluff #fanfic-me-up #fanfic-me-up request

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nearly-theyre · 5 years

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kamishin fic recs!!!!!

for my kamishin gc on twitter - go give these amazing authors some love!

“paging dr. oblivious” (G) by dreamtowns

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18770095

Warnings: none

Hitoshi, slowly, delicately, puts his fork down and squints. Denki regrets maintaining eye contact, but, also, he doesn’t because damn, Hitoshi has pretty eyes – and focus, Denki, focus! “I’m sorry,” Hitoshi starts, quietly, almost threateningly, and tilts his head. “Would you like to repeat that? People think we’re what?”

“Pining,” Denki bursts out, almost too loud in the hospital gardens, and then he hunches forward and continues much more quietly, but no less heatedly: “They think we’re,” he swallows and finishes, almost lamely, “pining.”

Hitoshi says nothing. Waits.

“They have a betting pool,” Denki practically wails.

(or: the entire hospital staff has a betting pool on when Denki, resident trauma specialist, and Hitoshi, the neuropsychologist, will start dating.

The punchline is that they are married.)

“don’t think twice” (G) by dreamtowns

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18723295

Warnings: none

What does it take to break the internet?

A slip of the tongue, apparently.

“caught in my own web” (T) by anxioussailorsoldier

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19037812

Warnings: none

Shinsou needs some help after getting caught up in his capture weapon. Kaminari enters from stage left.

“Pickup Lines for the Soul” (T) by MustardSoup

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925678

Warnings: none

Denki is twelve when he is flicking through the TV channels and lands on an old RomCom movie about soulmate marks – specifically the same type that he has.

“I can’t believe I’ve had to walk around with a cheap pickup line written on my ankle my entire life because of you!” The leading lady yells at the leading man as he stares at her in awe.

Denki laughs.

“Oh no.” His mother says, watching him.

“Oh no, indeed.” His sister repeats quietly.

“amusing observations” (G) by fromthemoon

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19423105

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

“Cats. Hm. Yeah.” Kirishima watches as Denki turns around and continues humming along to the song. He glances over to Shinsou and back at Denki. He’ll have to test if it’s really the cats the boy comes back for, or if it’s something other than that.

Something tells him it’s not the cats.

for shinkami week 2019

“Sleepy Nightlight” (T) by PinkGreens

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15869280/chapters/369709

Warnings: none

Hitoshi loses his nightlight, but finds another.

“Systems of Confession” (NR) by soybean-fics (mischuis)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15995414

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

"You're totally asking me out on a date." Kaminari grinned, and Shinsou felt his face heat up.

"Do you want to go or not?"

"Yeah, yeah. On our date."

------

Shinsou takes Kaminari out on a totally-not-a-date at the aquarium. Somehow, he can't stare at the fish when he can watch his adorable blond definitely not-crush being unfairly adorable at everything.

“Your Name In Paper” (G) by xemrox (Roquel)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18355292

Warnings: none

There are two people in this world who orbit at the opposite ends of Denki's spectrum of love and he never thought he would have them sitting at the same table at the same time.

“How Many Cats Is Too Many?” (T) by TheSpaceAceTM

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19418521

Warnings: none

Hitoshi and Denki live together, and progressively get more and more additions to the family.

ShinKami Week 2019!

“Start Digging” (T) by IiIia

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16050866

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

Kaminari and Shinsou are now dating and it is time for the customary Bakusquad Shovel Talks. Shinsou’s not worried.

“Not-So Surprise Party” (G) by MintIceTea

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19442827

Warnings: none

Hitoshi loves his boyfriend, even if he’s terrible at keeping secrets.

But then again, so is Hitoshi’s family.

[Erasermic Week '19, Day 9: Celebrate]

“party favour” (T) by pixiegold

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16166816

Warnings: none

Another soulmate AU where the first words they say to you are etched onto your skin.

Shinsou isn't particularly thrilled by the idea.

“Not Broken, but a Little Bent” (NR) by FriendlessAnimeLover

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19748674

Warnings: none

Kaminari Denki ends up leaving the hero course after a certain incident takes place. He instead joins the general studies students, where an unlikely ally reaches out to him, not leaving him alone when everyone else is. His overwhelming guilt and sadness is slowly tamed by general studies student Shinsou. But, even if Denki can find a new path in general studies with Shinsou, he can't help but think of those he left behind.

Bakugo and Kirishima are devastated by the loss of Kaminari. Bakugo's furious that Kaminari left, and Kirishima's...well...broken by the loss of his best friend. How can they call themselves heroes when they couldn't help their friend when he was at his lowest point?

Aizawa has a plan. Before Kaminari left, he struck a deal with him. Four weeks. If after four weeks Kaminari wants to come back, Aizawa will welcome him back. If he wants to stay, then he can never return to the hero course again. Aizawa's confident in his knowledge about his students, and he understands that what Kaminari needs is time. He has certain forces in play behind his actions...after all, it can't be a coincidence that Kaminari just happened to end up in the same class as Hitoshi.

“Thus With a Kiss, I die” (T) by DomineeringScarves

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15993539/chapters/37314002

Warnings: none

Kaminari finds himself head over heels for the newest addition to their class, Shinsou Hitoshi. Normally the flirty blonde would just present himself with open arms but there's a major problem with his infatuation. There's unspoken rules in 1-A and Kaminari is part of the Bakusquad...whereas Shinsou is a part of the Dekusquad. The two can't be together. It's just not possible. There's no way Bakugou would ever allow one of his extras to date Deku's friend.

There's only one thing left to do, give up and move on. Too bad Kaminari can't seem to escape Shinsou.

Aka the fic where Kaminari is Romeo and Shinsou is Juliet and they have to secretly date so their squads don't fall into an all out war.

“No More Fragments” (M) by Ischemia

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057748/chapters/37489790

Warnings: none

Shinsou Hitoshi has finally gotten his wish and is now officially a part of Class 1-A. It was everything he'd wanted, but all of these obstacles keep finding him.

Sometimes this means a cute blonde boy he doesn't know how to talk to and other times it means possibly losing the trust of the class he so badly wants to be a part of.

Cue awkward dates, Shinsou having the best dads in the world, and learning what friendship means.

“Eventuality” (T) by KikaTouka

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15895002/chapters/37042446

Warnings: none

Shinsou learns more than just hero lessons after being transferred to 1-A.

“As You Wish” (T) by All_My_Characters_Are_Dead

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16301087

Warnings: none

“Be sure to wake Sleeping Beauty with a kiss,” Kirishima said with a knowing grin. Hitoshi considered stabbing the captain, but that would just get him on Commander Bakugou’s bad side, and it would only break his blade because it was Kirishima and Hitoshi was pretty sure no normal weapon could hurt him.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Hitoshi said, pointedly adjusting the position of the blades concealed at his wrists while holding Kirishima’s gaze. “You know I would never do such a thing.”

“Kaminari’s Declassified Coming Out Survival Guide” (T) by MustardSoup

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17204222/chapters/40453802

Warnings: none

Local disaster bi, Kaminari Denki, is yanked right out of the questioning stage of his life and now has to navigate the process of coming out.

He decides to do it step-by-step, with each step taking more courage than the last.

And if coming out equates to slaying the dragon, then perhaps by the end of this he'll get the guy, too.

“Kiss Me Through The Screen” (M) by Ischemia

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17289734/chapters/40664117

Warnings: none

Shinsou remembers when he first saw the ad for Ch4rgeb0lt’s services. He was just messing around online when a pop-up appeared with his smiling face, one eye winking and the other brightly flashing with happiness.

“Lonely? Tired of coming home to an empty apartment? Can’t find anyone to listen to your problems? Say no more! For the low cost of $10 per stream, you can have all the company and love you ever wanted. Get a best friend for the best price!”

His first reaction was, “what kind of depressing loser needs to buy a boyfriend?” before he looked around at his empty home and realized he might be that depressing loser.

“My Best Mistake” (T) by SammyD

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17374055

Warnings: Major Character Death

Shinsou takes a secret to his grave

“How to save a life” (T) by anxioussailorsoldier

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17379239

Warnings: none

Shinsou doesn't expect to find Kaminari on the roof of UA.

“Follow You (Like Morning Follows Night)” (T) by Anonymouspotato

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994013

Warnings: none

When Shinsou finally found Kaminari, he was on the roof of the dorms, leaning against the railing. He almost didn’t want to interrupt him. But he had a job to do.

~~~~~~~~~~

Based on the song ‘Like Morning Follows Night’ from the RWBY soundtrack, but you don’t need to know anything about that show or that song to read

“geyser.” (G) by fuckendeavor666

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934377

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

shinsou hitoshi has had a hard life. though, now, he is not as alone as he once was.

“If I’m The Thunder You’re The Lightning” (NR) by Taintedazure

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21212525

Warnings: none, creator chose not to use archive warnings

Kaminari has always been a chill kind of guy. Always taking it in stride and acting a little weird to make his friends laugh. His entire world gets turned upside down when he finds out who his soulmate is.

“Thus With You, I Smile” (T) by Kawayls

https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546096

Warnings: none

A bunch of ShinKami centered One Shots, that are set up in the same universe. Each one can be read as an individual work, though I order them chronologically.

“Nightmares” (NR) by Elux

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16801231

Warnings: none

Shinsou Hitoshi wake up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare.

“BakuSquad Initiation” (G) by PoorUnfortunateSoul

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21652948

Warnings: none

Shinsou is initiated into the Bakusquad, per Kaminari's request.

[Now with fanart!]

__________

Shinsou Week 2019 - Day 6 - Blanket Forts

“You Seem Familiar” (G) by PoorUnfortunateSoul

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21673501

Warnings: none

“You have an affinity for Black Magic?” he asks, sounding unbelieving.

“Yeah!” Denki says, and it feels so surreal to argue for it, instead of promising that he doesn’t. “When I was younger I figured out that Black Magic just sort of feels, I dunno, alive? To me? I guess? I don’t really know how else to explain it, it’s a little electrifying almost. I dunno. But, when you look at me, I get the same feeling? So that’s why I thought you had an affinity for it, I’m sorry if I-”

“I do,” Shinsou cuts him off. “I’ve known since I was six. I just - can’t feel it on you, like you do me.”

Denki feels himself deflate immediately. Is this one of those unrequited soulmate things? It’d be just his luck, honestly.

_________

Shinsou Bowl Week Day 7: AU

“It Sucks, Really” (G) by Kawayls

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20465996

Warnings: none

Kaminari can't sleep at nights because of stomach aches and burdening thoughts. Shinsou is a worried boyfriend. Both are dorks in love and have no idea what are they supposed to do with the rising problem.

“Holy Shi- YoUrE gAy??” (NR) by seizethosegays

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21780742

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnins

Holiday, fight, blood, Eri, hair clips, aizawa

“Fragile Lightning” (G) by Treesha

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21863329

Warnings: none

With Denki's quirk causing rapid deterioration of his memories, Hitoshi struggles with finding a way to help him.

“baby let me ride your wave” (NR) by beelue

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893185

Warnings: none

Kaminari Denki's days are filled with summer sun, laughing with his friends, and occasionally saving lives. He knew he was Bisexual- He had since he rescued a (smoking hot) guy from drowning and two seconds later asked for his number.

But he truly realized he was a disaster after seeing Shinsou Hitoshi for the first time.

title - wave by blanks

“Blamed” (T) by coldandhotsoba

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644668

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence

This was not how the day was supposed to end. They were supposed to end the day like they do most nights. Kaminari clutching onto him like a koala as he slept, wrapped in the millions of tacky blankets Kaminari had bought. Warm and safe in their bed. It was not supposed to end with both of them tied up in some cold metal room.

“Love Is A Strange Potion Ingredient” (NR) by soybean-fics (mischuis)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16609040

Warnings: none

Shinsou Hitoshi is a local potion brewer. Kaminari Denki is a witch.

And, in Shinsou's opinion, a witch with a really cute smile. Wait. Is this a crush? Fuck.

Alternatively: The One Where Shinsou Falls Head Over Heels For The Witch Who Visits His Brewery Every Day.

“The Best-Laid Plans of Shinsou Hitoshi” (T) by aces_low

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19052008

Warnings: none

Kaminari has a habit of ruining Shinsou's plans.

“Lighting Scars” (T) by Present-Mics-scream (write_your_way_out)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17720768

Warnings: none

It's hard to be confident in your abilities when you're surrounded by people with incredible quirks. Shinsou Hitoshi would know better than anyone. Sure, he was admitted to the hero course in his second year, but being admitted to the hero course, and keeping up with the rest of the class are two different things.

Lucky for him, Kaminari is there to prove that the flashiest quirks come with the largest drawbacks.

“Mysterious as the dark side of the moon” (T) by beetime

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15968039

Warnings: none

“I wasn’t attacking you then,” he responded, cracking his neck from side to side like he always did when they restarted. Aizawa moved his feet back into stance. “I noticed this time when you gave me that look you do when I do something wrong.”

Aizawa blinked. He knew exactly the angle the kid was playing at, but it didn’t stop him from being the least bit curious. He narrowed his eyes, “What look?”

Shinsou shrugged but there was an edge to his mouth that Aizawa had come to recognize as a smirk, “Eh. Already forgot it. Guess I’ll tell you next time,” he matched Aizawa’s stance, “though there won’t be one.”

✦

aizawa continues training shinsou

“Fear Is Just Your Mind Being A Bitch” (NR) by MinzeySparkleIsPerfect8

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19965337

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings, none

Fear is something that your mind makes up. You get scared thanks to your brain. Phobias can easily be overcome.

But what can you do when a phobia gets the best of you and brings you down?

“Sleeping Guitarist” (G) by Momjeansdeku

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19950076

Warnings: none

Needless to say, Kaminari never thought he’d find love at a Sleeping Guitarist concert.

He’s glad he did.

AU where Shinsou Hitoshi is a fucking rockstar.

“One Day, Maybe…” (T) by eelora

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874689

Warnings: none

… he'll finally propose.

[Or, how Shinsou spends three months documenting his proposal.]

“Obliviously in Like” (T) by BadonKaDank

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20562731/chapters/48812711

Warnings: none

Alternate title:

5 times the Kaminari and Shinsou were oblivious to their feelings for one another and 1 time they weren’t because communication is a thing that for some reason they didn’t try all the other times before???

OR (take your pick)

5 Times Azaiwa and Mic told the boys to COMMUNICATE their feelings and 1 time they actually did!!

“Protect You” (G) by IcyHotHeart

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20185825

Warnings: none

Denki has a nightmare, but luckily, his boyfriend is more than happy to calm him down.

“Debunked Nightmare” (G) by MinzeySparkleIsPerfect8

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20909432

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings, none

After waking up at 3:27 from a horrible nightmare, Denki is unable to sleep and searches the dorms to find if his friends and boyfriend were safe.

Thankfully, Aizawa steps in and makes sure that Denki is able to feel more comfortable before bringing Hitoshi to help more than he can.

“1,000 watt smiles” (T) by All_time_low3st

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22195747

Warnings: none

A prompt I forgot to actually post (oops)

For prompt: kamishin- an unexpected twisted ankle leads to one being piggybacked to Recovery Girl’s office across campus. Everyone takes photos of the event because (1) it’s cute as hell (“they look just like a shoujo couple!”) and (2) “damn I didn’t know denki could lift bro!” (Basically, all the blushes ensure)

“Brain Damage” (T) by Kawayls

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325559/chapters/48190303

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

This is supposed to be the best day ever, or so Shinsou is trying to do. It isn't his fault that villains never rest; it also isn't his fault that electricity is a dangerous game and that karma is a bitch.

“More Than Alone” (G) by Ischemia

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22061683

Warnings: none

Kaminari is determined to make sure Shinsou has a fun New Years, despite his desire to be by himself.

They both win.

“Nobody Plans A Murder Out Loud” (NR) by HeyItsHoot

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20530805

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings, none

Shinsou isn't jealous, what are you even talking about? No, Jirou, he is not. How dare you.

“Electric Connection” (G) by Onlymostydead

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22012375

Warnings: none

Kaminari's quirk has always had... Weird side affects. Like his ADHD. And his constant energy.

And his insomnia, which wouldn't leave him be right now, when he really needed to just get some sleep.

But, thankfully, he has good friends.

“Mistlet-Oh?” (G) by AbithaLynDrankonclaw

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21759316

Warnings: none

"I think we're in a stable enough place to adopt one, if you'd like."

Hitoshi's heart stops.

Denki brightens and leans down to kiss his forehead.

"Merry Christmas, 'Toshi.”

(aka it’s christmas so Denki lets Hitoshi adopt a cat and accidentally makes him cry)

“‘Studying’” (T) by emmyrox22

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21744931

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

Shinsou and Kaminari have been “studying” together for a while (but not for school). Shinsou gets stopped by his dads on the way to another “study” session and mistakes are made

“electrify my heart” (T) by hypocentres

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21727036

Warnings: none

Shinsou, who has monochromatic vision, doesn’t need to see the color yellow to know it’s his favorite.

“Of Telephone Calls and Teacher’s Pets” (G) by BigDangoFamily

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906928

Warnings: none

“You know I love you, dude, right?”

It takes a few seconds for Kaminari’s words to pierce the sleep-thick veil surrounding Shinsou’s brain. When Shinsou finally does register what Kaminari is saying, he feels an immediate desire to hang up and go back to sleep. As it is, he can already sense a headache starting to form. Biting back a groan, Shinsou rubs his bleary eyes in an effort to keep them open.

“What did you do this time,” Shinsou replies, his voice lacking any sort of inflection.

OR: Shinsou answers Kaminari's phone call and immediately regrets it.

“I don’t care if the world knows (what my secrets are)” (G) by greatcloudninja

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21888871

Warnings: none

The first time Hitoshi came to the mortal world, he was amazed by how bright it was.

Hizashi, the god of new life, always left for part of the year; only occasionally popping back down to the underworld to visit with Hitoshi and his husband, Shouta, god of the dead. Every year, Hitoshi asked if he could go to the mortal world with his papa, and every year Hizashi told him, “Maybe when you’re a little older.”

Finally, after twenty years of asking, Hizashi replied, “I think you’re big enough.”

Or, godling Hitoshi visits the mortal world, falls in love with a human musician, and learns that sometimes, people really are what they appear to be on the surface.

“An Insomniac’s Dilemma” (G) by Toboe1087

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21957589

Warnings: none

Shinsou never thought that he'd find his soulmate. After all, how was an insomniac supposed to find their partner when their only hints come to them through dreams?

“maybe planning dates isn’t your calling, bro” (G) by meiishu

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22440232

Warnings: none

Kaminari presses his lips into a thin line. “Sero, you’re missing the bigger issue here.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sero leans forward a bit. “What’s up, bro?”

“So I asked him out to dinner and he said yes but he gave me this weird look when I told him where I was taking him.”

or: kaminari the chaotic dumbass asks the hot vampire from his intro to wolf culture class out on a date to olive garden.

“Irrationality and Comfort” (G) by MinzeySparklesIsPerfect8

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392550

Warnings: none

After settling into 1-A, people don't seem to notice how Eri suddenly began growing fearful of the boy with a certain lightning bolt in his hair.

But the said boy does notice.

Eri grows afraid of Denki Kaminari out of fear of that one Shie Hassaikai member.

“Much To Learn” (G) by Rusty_schreech

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16003151

Warnings: none

Kaminari Denki and Shinsou Hitoshi need some advice from their favorite teachers.

Inspired by all the "Erasermic 2.0" talk surrounding Shinkami!

“welcome to the world little one.” (NR) by baby345

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22326472

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

The day Denki water breaks his at his parents-in-law's home with only eri and Yamada. Shinsou is at work with his dad and it’s 3:00 in the morning.

“What the fuck?” Denki slurred. he tries to get up only for him to feel a pop and a trickle of liquid flow down tanned legs.

“Oh shit.”

“Heart, lead me home.” (NR) by baby345

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22308586

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

It was over for Hitoshi before he even knew he was a goner for the blonde. Now they were married and living the stuff of fairytales. Hitoshi’s biggest fear has always been that he was unloveable, that he would never know true and pure love because of his quirk. But as he looked around his childhood home at the pictures of his loved ones, his and Eri’s adoption pictures, at his and his parent’s Wedding pictures, his graduation photos and the birth of his son, he found that love surrounded him in every aspect of his life.

“To See Without My Eyes” (G) by corbeod

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20298883

Warnings: none

Oh, oh woe-oh-woah is me

The first time that you touched me

Oh, will wonders ever cease?

Blessed be the mystery of love

Five times Denki falls in love with the future and one time he falls in love with the present.

“Purple Butterflies and Bursting Sparks.” (G) by daisiesandstars

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22741180

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

3 times Shinsou fantasied what it would be like to be in those situations Kaminari's friends so easily get to experience. + 1 time he doesn't.

“the good side” (G) by junichirou

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16787428

Warnings: none

"Please teach me how to kiss!"

Hitoshi has heard so many bizarre comments come out from Kaminari's mouth, has heard him spout out bullshit and jokes that even him cannot comprehend. He has heard Kaminari say things that his brain is incapable to process, but this one is the one that causes Hitoshi's mind to blank out. He expected anything, but never this.

So it's not really his fault when his vocabulary seems to disappear and the only proper words he can let out is "What the fuck?"

“A Cold Polish” (G) by pinkskadan

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17714039

Warnings: none

Shinsou has never had his nails painted. Kaminari offers to be his first.

“Mind Defibrillator” (T) by DinoGraveyard

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19470070/chapters/46345510

Warnings: none

For reasons Kaminari Denki couldn't understand, people enjoyed watching him die repeatedly and shit talk NPCs as they owned him. What started as a joke evolved into a surprisingly lucrative career as the game streamer Chargebolt. By some miracle, he was one of the most followed gaming channels on the internet.

He knew that streaming an indie queer game by the unknown developer Shinsou Hitoshi would be a change of pace for his channel. He didn't expect to start re-thinking certain aspects of himself as well.

“angel” (G) by flightlesscrow

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17832134

Warnings: none

Shinsou fights with class 1-A's Team 1 in the joint training exercise between classes 1-A and 1-B, and meets an angel in the process.

“Come to Bed” (NR) by Dadzawa

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18368678

Warnings: none

Kaminari can’t sleep, even though he’s fucking exhausted. Good thing Shinsou knows the best way to get him to unwind.

“For You Even Chocolate” (G) by xemrox (Roquel)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18396866

Warnings: none

When Hitoshi Shinsou receives chocolates on White Day, Denki panics.

“in a cafe i watched it begin again” (T) by freofreak

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21142094

Warnings: none

Omega Kaminari Denki runs a coffee shop with his Pack. He’s the only single one however, and feels as if his biological clock is running out and his insecurities don’t make anything easier. It’s just his luck when he meets a tired, overworking Alpha during a night shift.

“shinsou hitoshi: emotional disaster” (T) by bittermacchiato

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21712336

Warnings: none

Follow the adventures of Shinsou Hitoshi (emotional disaster) pining his way through Kaminari Denki's heart!

ps: they're in love

pss: neither of them know that

“Totally romantic style” (T) by emmyrox22

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22528351

Warnings: creator chose not to use archive warnings

Shinsou and Kaminari have formed a nightly routine of sorts. All it takes is one unscheduled mental breakdown for the truth to come out.

“Anyways, I’m stalling. Um… I like you dude. Like, for real. Totally romantic style.”

#kamishin #shinkami #fic recs #fanfiction #kaminari denki #shinsou hitoshi #bnha

688 notes · View notes

maxparkhurst · 4 years

Note

How did you create your characters? What was your process?

TMI Tuesday: How did you create your characters? What was your process?

// <offers out a chair> You’re going to want to sit for this. It’s going to be a LONG story. For those who’re looking for a short answer: I’m actually in the middle of creating these two. Edits and tweaks are always being made to make them appear real and true. And it’s thanks to everyone on here and in-game that they’ve progressed so much.

Now for the long version.

Evolving as an Author:

Maxinora and Augustine Parkhurst are a culmination of ideas inspired by a myriad of things. The process of creating them isn’t linear. It has a lot of pit falls, unexpected twists and turns, and a ton of hills. To understand how we got the current versions of these two, we need to go back a couple years ago.

It’s the summer of 2012. In efforts to get me off of his account, my Dad gifted me my own. This was when I made my first ever serious roleplay character- a hunter named Evelon Holmwood. Well, at the time I spelled it like Evavllyn but...Yeah. We’re going to gloss over that fact. Now, Eve was my pride and joy for the last several years. I played this character nonstop, refusing to play or write about anyone else. In retrospect, I used this character more as therapy than anything of creative merit.

Eve’s story was basic at best. But I got better with story-telling the older I got. Unfortunately, her story got so convoluted that I had hard time salvaging anything from it. Now, you’re probably asking: How does this relate to Max? Fear not. I’m getting there. It was around this existential crisis that a mutual friend of my boyfriend and I convinced us to leave WoW and hop on SWTOR. My boyfriend was more than eager to make the switch but I was skeptical. Leaving WoW meant leaving Eve. And was I ready for that?

He assured me I was and helped me make a character on SWTOR. This was the first iteration of Max. A bounty hunter from Nar’Shadda named Maxinora Fenrik. My intentions was to make her a lowkey copy of Eve. At this time, I wasn’t very confident in my writing abilities and liked to stay in my lane. But, the more I roleplayed this character the more she took on a life of her own. She evolved past Eve and exceeded my expectations. Playing a new character bolstered my confidence and while I no longer play SWTOR -due to OOC reasons- I still have fond memories with this character. I enjoyed this character so much that I reused several components of her design when making Max. Some which include her name and being blind in one eye.

I flipped between the MMOs when Legion dropped. Expenses started to pile up and between the two subscriptions I didn’t have the time to play both. In the end, WoW won my affection and I made a Blood Elf because I had friends on Horde Side. Rorien Hawkthorne was her name. A drunk artist and master assassin. She’d be the second iteration of Max. She had an older sister complex, an affinity for being melancholy, and it was my first experience with playing a character who could kept secrets- or tried to at least. Another new character under the belt and I was feeling a little more confident in my story telling abilities. I’d probably would’ve kept playing that character if not for OOC drama happening in a guild I was in. The fallout had me jump back to the Alliance where I indulged in creature comforts. It was back to Eve.

Tumblr made an entrance in my life around then as I ventured forth with a refreshed look on my hunter. I salvaged what I could and made a half-decent story. A lot of her misadventures are still posted up on her blog @evelonholmwood On the side I made the third iteration of Max. A fire mage and blacksmith combo by the name of Rowan Celwick with her younger brother Thomas Celwick. They were just two orphaned kids trying to make a life in Stormwind. Rowan was an arcane drop-out and blacksmith wannabe and Thomas...Was...Well? Thomas? A glorified side-piece? A way to garner pity for Rowan. I didn’t place a lot of emphasis on them or their characters. My main focus was Eve. But these two would be the underlying foundation of Max and Auggie’s characters.

I eventually took a hiatus from WoW and focused on more personal writing. The details are boring so I’ll gloss over it by saying that creating a character completely from scratch was the final push in the right direction for me. Fast forward several months to a year aaaaaand BOOM! Pandemic.

Writing is an escape for me. It’s one of my best coping mechanisms during trying times. And when nothing else works, I over indulge in some Warcraft. So, I resubbed. There was hesitance when re-entering the RP scene. I didn’t leave Eve’s story off on an convenient note. For lack of better phrasing, I wrote myself into a hole I couldn’t get out of. So, with the help of my boyfriend, I decided it was time to give Eve her happy ending and shelf her for good.

Which put me in a dilemma! Who was I going to RP? Well, you remember the Celwicks? They became my newest project.

The Creative Process:

I knew the Celwick story was weak and read much like a middle-school fanfiction. Revising was a must. But there were integral pieces to their story which I enjoyed:

Familial Sacrifice

Juxtaposing concepts

Intertwined Fates

These were themes I could work with and evolve. Keeping these in mind, I started to deconstruct the Celwick story line. They were no longer Gilnean but Kul’tiran. This prompted a name change from Celwick to Parkhurst. And I won’t lie, I like the sound of Parkhurst better than Celwick. Thomas became Augustine and Rowan became Maxinora (Mainly because I actually HAD the name Maxinora and not Rowan). The little changes got me hyped for the characters.

Next, I started to trim away the unnecessary details that bogged down the narrative. Things that either didn’t fit or made the timeline too convoluted were replaced. Pyromancy was a great example. The age I wanted Max to be wouldn’t yield to her understanding of Pyromancy. At least, not to the level I WANTED it to be. SO, I turned it into lament’s magic. Alchemy. (I also always wanted to play an alchemist since watching FMA)

A girl with two professions seemed excessive as well. I had to look at why I wanted her to be both an Alchemist and a Blacksmith. The answer was simple. I just liked the juxtaposition of an intelligent woman being rough and tumble. Which made me ask: Was Blacksmithing necessary to achieve that imagine? The answer was no. To pay respect to her previous iteration, I made their parents blacksmiths. It also let me keep themes of fire in her concept. The change in profession brought on a change in her appearance. I made her a little more slender to fit with the alchemist appeal.

Max’s aesthetic was brought on by my previous characters. Rorien inspired more internal facets of Max while Fenrik inspired outward appearances. Max’s auburn was strictly a decision made on the fact that I had one too many character’s with black hair. There wasn’t any other reason for it.

Designing Max was easy. The real challenge was with Augustine. Up until that point, all I had to go on for his character was Tommy Celwick and...Well. There wasn’t a lot there. He wasn’t much more than a poorly used trope and I considered doing away with him all together. But I realized that I REALLY liked the trope and I liked what he did for Max’s character. So, I buckled down and made myself think through all the reasons why Thomas Celwick -AKA Augustine Parkhust- needed to exist.

I decided that I needed him in order to present themes in Max’s story. He was the foil to her character. Cynic older sister? Meet optimistic brother. He also appealed to not only the three themes listed above, but also the newest one I wanted to explore: two sides of the same coin. Max and Augustine are simultaneously the same, having similar traumas, and yet different. If for nothing else, Augustine could help propel Max in the right direction. Be her moral compass, you know? With a bit of half-assing here and there, I managed to get a decent character out of Augustine. Took the cliche nerdy brother idea, physical design and all, and ran with it. Shortly after I made their Tumblr account. In no way did I expect this BOY to take on a life of his own. Like, Auggie knocked on my brain’s door and was like, “Yeah. No. I’m not a side character. Give me my own story...”

Which will bring me into my final point!

The Characters Write Their Own Story:

I’ve never been able to sit down and plan a story. My mind doesn’t work in such a structured fashion. It wanders and explores. When I’m creating, I’m watching. Watching the scenes play out before my eyes as these characters take what I’ve given them and grow into something almost independent of me. The basic pieces of Max and Auggie’s back story, along with character design, were purposeful. Yes. But everything that came after was THEM.

It’s cliche, I know, but I can’t describe this experience any other way. These two grew outside of my influence and now dominate a space in my brain. They talk, work, and interact without me. I mean...Not REALLY. But...It feels like that. It feels I’m watching through a keyhole and just recording what I see as their story plays out.

I guess a better analogy is me being the director. I’m watching the movie in the stands as two actors improv. On good days, I’m in control and rework scenes until I’m satisfied with the results. Try this. Move here. Say this. On bad days, I don’t see anything. My actors went home. The lights are off. Show’s cancelled for the day. These days make me sad...But they’re worth it because on the BEST days...The best days Max and Auggie run the whole show, and I am watching through the keyhole as their story unfolds little by little.

It’s truly magical.

The last part of their creation was the voice. Character voice, for me, is like building muscle. You need to work out. Start small and work your way up in weight. Every little piece I wrote made their voices stronger; and that’s including asks and threads. Interacting with other characters helped to flesh them out as people. And while it was hard and intimidating at first, it’s started to become easier.

Wrap-Up

My method is messy and untrained. I don’t claim to have any secrets. My knowledge of writing is mediocre at best. But I’m having fun. And that’s were the real magic of any character comes in. Fun. Because if you aren’t writing about something that sparks your soul- either with love, happiness, hatred, etc- then it’s nothing more than a forced, hollow husk. Writing is meant to evoke emotion. At least in mind. And want to express complex emotions and share them. In a perfect world? My characters -any of my characters- resonates with someone. They become the escape someone needed. That’s the ultimate goal.

It’s thanks to all of you that Max and Auggie have come this far. It’s from their interactions with others that they’ve managed to evolve into something incredible- especially Augustine. He just kept shining brighter and brighter until I felt obligated to make him an in-game character. So, you all are just as much a part in the creative process as me. Thank you!

And a special thanks to my boyfriend for always being a sound board for my rambling ass <3

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK, ANON! Sorry I posted an essay...<3

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coldflasher · 3 years

Note

For the meta writing asks: 1, 4,11 please!

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Well with it being me I have approx 938382 WIPs haha, so i'll TRY to give a brief outline haha (*note, this did NOT end up being brief at all, a thousand apologies.)

- Hades/Persephone ColdWestAllen fic. Len is Hades, Barry is Persephone, Iris is kiiiinda Demeter in that she represents home and family etc etc. Basically, Barry needs Len's help and makes a deal that he'll spend six months out of the year with Len in the criminal underworld (see what I did there?), paying off his debt, and then the other six months with Team Flash. It's gonna be ColdWestAllen endgame but there's a LOT of angst and mess before they get there >:) Progress on this one is steady, but it's gonna be LONG, I'm estimating at least 250k when all's said and done. As for what I love about it - basically everything? This one is my baby and I love her, mostly cos I've never written coldwestallen before and they're an absolute delight, but also cos it's so angsty and complex! Len and Iris' dynamic is probably my absolute fave part though

- Body Swap Fic - Been working on this one today! Len and Barry are enemies with benefits. They swap bodies during a run-in with a meta and neither particularly wants their friends and family to find out about their, ahem, arrangement, so they agree to just... pretend to be each other until they can figure out how to switch back. Predictably, chaos ensues (Len is a terrible CSI, Barry is an even worse crime boss, it's a whole thing.) I'm not very far into this one, only a few chapters, but I'm obsessed with it :D What I love about this one is that (if I do say so myself) it's really funny. I'm leaning hard into the puns and ridiculousness and it's a real comedy of errors so I'm having a blast!

- Michael Snart Fic - This is a continuation of my super long fic, Aftermath, which was basically a rewrite of s1 but Barry and Len were dating the whole time. This fic is basically my combined rewrite of s5 (which I loved) and 6a (which i did not.) Aka Barry and Len's adopted kid shows up from the future, inadvertently triggers Crisis (which is totally different to how it panned out in the show) and they all have to handle the fallout. This one has kind of stalled - I have every intention of going back to it, I have maybe 20k-ish written, but no progress for a while now. My fave thing about it is probably Len having meltdowns bc he thinks he's a crappy dad but he's actually a surprisingly good one (aside from the fact that he sent a teenager back in time to stop Crisis by himself but we'll just ignore that haha)

- The Vegas Fic. Barry and Len get whammied by a meta and fall in love and immediately become convinced that running off to get married in Vegas is the Best Idea Ever, and Team Flash and the Rogues have to chase them across the country to try and catch them before they tie the knot. When I tell you I've been working on this on and off (mostly off though 😅) since 2017... I wrote the first draft in summer 2017 when i was Very Depressed, so it was BAD. I rewrote maybe 90% of it during first lockdown and that draft was Pretty Good, Actually, but then I... put it aside again and I haven't worked on it since. I just need to pull my finger out cos it's so close to done at this point it's just ridiculous. What do I love about it? Well, the sheer ridiculousness of it, mostly. The ridiculous PDA between Barry and Len. The way the love spell wears off at the worst POSSIBLE moment. The Vegas hijinks. It's just great, honestly

- Len/Savitar One Shot. This one's an AU, kinda like if Doomworld Len and Savitar wound up together. Everyone thinks Savitar is just Len's boy toy and he's the weak link in the Rogues, so they kidnap him to use against Len and discover they have made a terrible mistake... this one's mostly drafted, it's a short one so shouldn't take too long if I really put my mind to it, just needs finishing up.

There's probably more if I were to wrack my brains but I think that's quite enough to be going on with 😂

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

Okay, bear in mind that this is unedited and needs cleaning up, but I like it so far! The prose is ~fancy~ haha. I feel like sometimes in my writing you can really see the influence of my degree and it's always nice to see that I got some use out of my 9k a year lmao. This one's from Hades/Persephone!

The change in him was immediate, the sudden stillness. Frozen like one of Len’s icicles. The chill in him only intensified, his unease ramping higher like the music in a horror movie reaching a new crescendo, the scrape of bow against violin string as intense and wrong as bone scraping together. For a moment they were still as a photograph. Then Len realised that Barry wasn’t still at all. He had begun to tremble, not the usual overflow of energy translating into static, but a full-body shiver like an animal trapped in a predator’s view. His expression hunted, not so much the animal caught in the trap but the animal after hours of captivity, with the metal teeth of the trap sunk into skin like a vice, like his skin was the tree growing around a foreign object.

“Run,” Barry croaked.

Len glanced sharply at him. He’d seen Barry happy, angry, upset, in pain, frustrated, even anxious - but he’d never seen him scared. Not this terror. It was the kind of fear that lived in you, a primal thing, like the fear of monsters under the bed. Something lurking in the dark with nowhere to run.

11. What do you envy in other writers?

I mean, everything. This fandom - and other writers in general - are scary talented. But mostly I think I envy anyone who has the ability to focus on one thing at once cos my brain NEVER takes a break. I'm always having new ideas and I want to write ALL OF THEM and consequently nothing ever gets finished.

Thank you :D

Ask me a question about my fics/writing? :D

#long post for ts #tldr #this one's a big boi #my fics #i could talk about my fics all day tbh #shame i can't say the same thing about writing them shsgdggds

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northsouth12 · 4 years

Text

How to actually do goals according to science

Every year I kind of sort of commit to some ~New Year’s Resolutions~ and every year I kind of sort of make progress on them. This year I was diagnosed with depression and that led to me doing a bunch of research on how brains work and working with a therapist (bless them) to learn how to be kinder to myself.

In 2021 I’m setting goals again, but also approaching my goal setting with a different, more compassionate, and more informed mindset. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of setting myself up for success and I wanted to put it out there a) because I learned public sharing helps with goal achievement and b) in case this information/plan could help anyone else. So if you are also tired of making aspirational lists of all the stuff you’re going to do with nothing to show for it, come on over!

PEOPLE WHO KNOW MORE THAN ME

For quick and easy learning, I recommend the following podcasts/websites, from where I have drawn most of this information:

(1). VOLITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY with Dr Joseph R Ferrari, Ologies podcast ( 1:05:56, transcript and notes on website). A podcast interview explaining what procrastination is and what we can do about it. Also be nice to yourself.

(2). FEAROLOGY with Mary Poffenroth, Ologies podcast (1:13:49, transcript and notes on website). A podcast interview explaining how stress is equivalent to fear and how to interrupt our body’s stress response to regain our health and sanity.

(3). “Golden Rules of Goal Setting” on MindTools.com. A website covering most of the actually scientifically backed goal setting advice without a lot of life coach BS.

(4). My therapist. Credit where credit is due, they are a godsend. I highly recommend these conductors of light.

BASICS OF GOAL ACHIEVEMENT

For people who hate reading, here are the spark notes. There’s more information and tips in the long version, but I understand that some people put together IKEA furniture without looking at the directions.

Use the SMART method to write goals:

Specific - well defined and clear how to accomplish

Measurable - precise definition of success

Attainable - doable but still challenging

Relevant - aligned with personal values

Time-bound - must have a deadline

Put goals in writing. Use “I will” rather than “I want to” and frame statements positively.

Write down why specifically you want to achieve each goal.

Make an action plan breaking goals into individual steps. Break tasks into smaller and smaller chunks until you get to a place you can make progress. No judgement, just move the bar until you can move forward.

Schedule regular check-ins to evaluate your progress.

Post goals and progress publicly.

Incentivize achievement.

Surround yourself with doers rather than (fellow) procrastinators.

ABOUT SUCCESS AND FAILURE

If you can achieve 80% of your goal, that is success. In fact, happiness peaks at 85% success and 15% failure. People feel happier failing a bit because then their goal feels challenging and worthwhile.

YOU WILL FAIL. It will happen. It is okay. Focus instead on how you will react and grow from your failure.

“Stress” and “fear” are effectively the same thing. Recognize and own your fear; don’t be ashamed of it. It is a natural response. Also, recognizing your stress as a fear response helps you determine the root cause, and then address it, or even use it as a growth opportunity. Successful people freely use the word “fear”.

For many procrastinators, their fear of failure also includes a fear of success. You are afraid to do the work because you are afraid of not being good enough. These people (me) are practicing “social esteem protection” - thinking that if I don’t finish a task, I can attribute it to a lack of effort rather than a lack of ability because it’s a “time management” issue. It’s not. Time management is a myth, and the end result is that you are letting down the same people you want so badly to like you.

Procrastination is a learned behavior, which means that you can unlearn it. The best way is through CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) to reprogram your thinking for people who have a persistent issue with procrastination.

Forgive yourself for your failures the way you would forgive other people.

HOW TO SET GOALS STEP-BY-STEP

Sorry this section is long, but it turns out a lot of the keys to success in achieving goals starts with actually writing them properly. Who knew?

Set a deadline. The traditional New Year’s Resolution is supposed to last through the end of the year, but I’ve found that is too long a span. I end up procrastinating because “there’s so much time left” until there’s not and then “it’s too late to start now”..... So now I’m setting my goals seasonally: four sets of three months. My deadline for winter goals is March 21st, the Spring Equinox. As part of my public accounting, I have told everyone this, including a bunch of internet strangers.

Also key for us procrastinators is setting a start date. I gave myself a week to write my goals and make my action plan. I have to keep track of my progress starting Monday.

Determine your priorities and set limits. You cannot do everything, no matter how much you want to (procrastinator, remember?). Looking for layout inspiration on Pinterest I came across so many bujo people with 8 million goals on their page layout. That’s not happening. Remember that your goals are meant to create positive change and a sense of accomplishment, NOT cause more anxiety. So make limits. How do we do this?

Make a big list of aspirations first. You can do this by identifying your personal values and generating ways to emphasize those more in your life. You can make a list of everything that you’re afraid of (aka causes you stress) and then think about ways to address or confront those fears. For example if getting a bunch of work emails into your personal inbox every weekend ruins your Saturday, aspire to set some work/personal life boundaries! Or maybe you have something you’ve always wanted to do, like learn a language or set time aside for a hobby. Put it on the list.

Now you have to edit the list. You can keep it to refer back to for the next round of goals, but choose out the top priorities for the next three months. To help you do this, refer back to your personal values, or just ask yourself “why do I want to do this?” If the answer is because someone else thinks you should, nix it. This is for you and only you. I originally chose 8 priorities, and then cut it again to 6 aspirations total - keep the plan simple and manageable to set yourself up for success. Remember, 85% success is what we’re aiming for. I also tried to choose a mix of difficulty levels of the individual aspirations (exercising = freaking hard; keeping a gratitude log = pretty easy) so that I might get some early wins and momentum.

I also recommend that at least one priority is just something you know will make you happy. We all need to set aside time and energy for ourselves, and to stop feeling ashamed about doing stuff that makes us happy. What the actual f**k. Choose one thing you love -- reading, baking, petting animals, being outside -- and make it an official goal to do it more often. NO JUDGMENT.

Okay, now to format your priorities into achievable goals. You are going to take each one of those aspirations and put it into an “I will” statement with a quantifiable definition of success. For example, my aspiration to “sleep more” became “I will follow a bedtime routine for 21 days straight.” You want to make sure your statement is framed positively (rather than “I will not eat junk food”, try “I will eat healthier snacks”). Also think again about making your goal challenging but achievable. I did not write “I will sleep 6 hours a night” because I can’t control that. I chose 21 days straight as my success measure because I anticipate I’ll fall off the horse a few times before I get a successful streak, and three weeks would be good progress for me. Another thing you can do is use ranges like “I will pick up 1 - 5 items in my room each day.” This is a bit of a mind game where the low end of the range is easily achievable so you have no excuse not to do it. Often once you get started, you might find that you have energy for 5 items after all.

Now that you have your goalposts set up, write down those “whys” you thought about when you were choosing them. Recording why you want to do this specifically is helpful for your motivation as time passes and further clarifies your goal.

As we’ve learned, accountability helps! For each of your goals, write down how you will share your progress. I’ve asked different people to check in with me about my sleep and exercise routines. I’m reporting about my ongoing issues with procrastinating on my schoolwork to my therapist each week. For my goal to read more books, I’m posting a picture of each book I finish on my Instagram. And for my goals to keep a gratitude log and consume news in a healthier way, I’ve decided I can hold myself accountable. In addition, I’m using my journal to keep track of my progress towards all six goals.

Set a reward for each goal. This could be anything from a pack of your favorite chocolates for completing an easy goal to giving yourself permission to buy that sweater you’ve really wanted for achieving a super challenging goal. I am also trying out having bonus rewards such as a small reward for an 11-day streak on my sleep goal to give me a push of momentum. For my hardest/most important goal I also decided to do a “stretch goal” like with Kickstarter where I get a reward for overachieving. So maybe I went a little reward crazy, but we’ll see how it goes!

Finally, for each goal write down the actions you’ll need to take to achieve it. For me this is stuff like “draft a bedtime routine and share it” and under that, I plan to research by “listen to somnology podcasts” and “read sleep solution book”.

HOW TO MAKE PROGRESS

Whew, you made it through writing the goals and now you are set up for success! Here’s a few more tips to keep things moving.

Now that you’ve got your goals all set up, share them with the world! (Or at least the people you’ve decided to help keep you accountable). Sharing goals and progress publicly is proven to increase our likelihood to achieve them.

If you’re a journaler, make a nice goals layout and a tracker for your progress. I did not find good examples for achieving goals in a scientific way when I looked for inspiration on Pinterest. If there is a journaler out there who read all the way to the end of this post and made a nice layout, please share your artistry. My “layout” is just a list. :/

Surround yourself with doers. If you have trouble motivating yourself (me), ask a friend to pair up with you. I am doing a remote master’s degree. It is not going well. However, setting up a regular Zoom “work date” with a friend who is currently working from home has forced me to sit down and look at my schoolwork on a regular basis.

Schedule regular check ins to evaluate your progress and write them down! I have a combination of check-ins with my “accountants” as well as a plan to review my goal progress every Sunday when I plan my week. This is written on my to-do list on each Sunday to make sure I do it.

Go forth and conquer! And remember, failure is a fact of life and does not make you a bad person. It just means you are learning more about how to set your goals for next time!

#goals #2021 goals #new years resolutions #goal setting #goal achievement #science

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drunklander · 5 years

Text

Drunj!Der Yells About Outlander

Thoughts on Ep. 505

ADSOOO!!! AND CLAIRE!!! AND ADSOOOOO!!!

My floofer was not amused when I woke her up to show her the cat on the teevee. Bqhatevwr, boo boo, you’re stuck with me. #TeamSocialDistancing

Oh, I guess the voice overs are back in a big way. Super...

And also like, this whole running bit about God and stuff would work so much better if they’d included Jamie and Claire’s faith a bit more throughout the show. *cough Jamie’s prayer cough*

Do we have to pour one out for science!jizz? This is the book bit where the science!jizz happened, but maybe they’ll do it later? Probs not. Le sigh.

Marsali being all excited with Claire and Claire being all fuck yeah I found it gives me the warm fuzzies. I LOVE THE TWO OF THEM A LOT OK.

This montage makes me dizzy. Not a fan, tbh.

Oh hey, the old Hancock building! With a park that looks nothing like Boston, haha. But I appreciate the effort lol, my main office is like a block from the old Hancock building. Not that I’ll be seeing it any time soon. Living that work from home life until the plague times are over.

But for real, social distance. No joke. Stay the fuck home.

I love 60s Claire if only because damn girl, look at dem legsss.

Hi, I’m Der and I’m very shallow sometimes.

But Claire has objectively great legs.

Omfg, Roger, stop being a butthurt whiner. You suck at being a soldier. You know you suck at being a soldier. And instead of being like yeah, let me learn and get better, you just bitch about it.

Sam is gonna kick his horse in the head at some point. Why the fuck does he dismount like that. It’s literally bugged me since season one.

So they’re pardoning everyone. Probs not Murtz though. Cool that instead of doing a continuous ramp up to the inevitable confrontation, they’re going the book route of lol, jk, all this was kind of a waste of time for now...

Really, Knox, you did something excessive? Cool way to say murdered a dude.

Ok well if Knox is getting the Ardsmuir roll, then he’s def gonna die, right?

Jamie’s 100% gonna intentionally miss Murtz’s face.

Boom, called it.

I do not like spiders. Please move this VO along, Claire.

I’m fucking glad we finally get Doctor!Claire. We should have gotten more Doctor!Claire in season three. Jamie got to have all aspects of his 20 years examined but fucking Claire’s side was literally just about Fred and how shitty he is.

Fuck you, season three. Fuck yeah, Doctor!Claire!

“It’s my married name.” Lulz. And not the married name she wants...

GRAHAM SAYS THE THING JAMIE SAID WHEN CLAIRE WAS STITCHING HIM UP IN SEASON ONE AND I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT IT OK.

Graham makes me miss when the show was in Scotland like whoa. I miss the Squad. There are so many characters now that are like kind of always around but they’re not part of the Squad. And the main Squad is always separated. So like there’s barely any big group adventures anymore where we actually give a shit about everyone involved.

I JUST WANT THE FOLKS I CARE ABOUT TO HANG OUT MORE, OK!

Needle!jizz 2.0 is gonna be the closest we get to science!jizz, isn’t it. Whomps.

Can the show please just be a period procedural with Claire and Marsali being badass doctors? Thx.

Because for real though, Marsali being like “scalpel” is my favorite thing ever.

I feel you, Jemmy, I’d cry if I were stuck hanging out with Roger too.

I DO NOT LIKE SPIDERS, CLAIRE.

“My lass is more concerned wi’ words and deeds.” Which is why it baffles me that she’s still with you, bro, because your words and deeds fucking suck.

How Bonnet doesn’t accidentally swallow the diamond is beyond me.

Ok so if your wife was violently raped and you know she’s had some PTSD about it, because you’ve seen the drawings and stuff, you should maybe act completely the opposite way from how Roger is acting.

“And you kept it? A gift...from Bonnet.” Yes, you giant fuckwit, your traumatized wife went to hang with her rapist for shits and giggles and accepted a present because she really wants a memento to remember him by. They’re on such good terms and all. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! HOW IS HE SUCH A DOUCHECANOE?!

You do not get to judge or question how someone processes their trauma you raging asshat.

He is such a fucking Fred.

Do I think what Bree did was smart? Or a good decision? Hard no. But it’s what she thought she needed to do to move forward with her life. And so she can do whatever the fuck she wants. Yeah, words have consequences and it was a stupid move, but Roger needs to step all the fucking way off.

“You’ve never said as much to me.” “I didn’t think I needed to.” I HATE ROGER SO MUCH. I HATE HIM WITH THE PASSION OF A THOUSAND FIERY SUNS. HOW DO THE WRITERS NOT REALIZE THAT THEY’RE MAKING THE CHARACTER WHO’S SUPPOSED TO BE THE SECOND ROMANTIC MALE LEAD AN IRREDEEMABLE PIECE OF SHIT. OH WAIT BECAUSE THEY HAVE LOTS OF PRACTICE FROM FRED 1.0 THAT FRED 2.0 IS JUST A NATURAL PROGRESSION.

Lol at this “Boston” priest sounding vaguely southern. Is he one of the pedos the archdioceses just kept shuffling around?

(I’m not a fan of organized religion and being forced to grow up Catholic sucked a lot for me. I did some therapy about it.)

Ok so is Claire’s knife on her belt the hand job antler knife? I mean, Jamie doesn’t give it to her until Echo, but I’m gonna pretend like it’s the hand job antler knife. Also, some witches use a white handled knife called a boline to cut herbs and stuff so it’s fitting that Claire constantly-being-witchy-to-her-own-detriment Beauchamp has a white handled knife for collecting herbs.

“Yeah, Frank and I... no, we had a very complicated marriage.” Well that’s one way to put it. *keeps rage bottled up on the inside*

“Frank and I, we still managed to make it work, for Bree’s sake.” Except it didn’t fucking work. He was terrible to you. You basically put up with 20 years of emotional abuse for the sake of your kid and then he used her as a weapon against you. Because he is garbage. Much like Roger.

Claire is always the bigger person. She was with Fred and now with Roger. Like, I’m still pissed that she never got to let out her side of things. She just keeps framing it through rose colored glasses, never speaking ill of Fred when he didn’t do that for her.

WE DO NOT DESERVE CLAIRE BEAUCHAMP AND NEITHER DO MOST OF THE MEN ON THIS SHOW.

Fergus deserves milady.

They’re really going hard with the Roger, Bree and Jemmy have to go back stuff. Are they gonna bump them going back up to the season finale this year? They bring it up basically every fucking episode. I’d be down with moving that along tbh. Except then we’d have to have just the two of them as their own story line and I hate that part from the books.

“We are but humble servants to the law.” Really, Javert Knox. Would you say your duty’s to the law?

“Those who follow the path of the righteous shall have their reward.” Yes, bible and shit, but also a veRY FAMOUS LINE FROM A VERY FAMOUS SONG FROM A VERY FAMOUS MUSICAL.

“Scotland, eh? I never stopped missing it.” HARD SAME, GRAHAM. HARD SAME.

Pledged their oaths to the militia. Not the governor. Miiiinor detail, haha.

“It is a relief, to finally put down the sword and pistol and pick up the axe and shovel.” So, Jamie, you’re saying you’re gonna walk behind the plough-share, you will put away the sword?

Oh hey, it’s Joe! Another person we should have spent more time with in season three.

“Something about Graham Menzies...” Maybe the fact that he could easily have been part of the OG Squad?

I MISS THE OG SQUAD.

“Principally that men like Fitzgibbons never change.” Really, Knox, men like [him] can never change? A man, such as [him]?

“OUR DUTY IS TO THE LAW. WE WILL SEE JUSTICE DONE.” OK BUT THEY’RE LIKE LITERALLY TRYING TO SHOEHORN IN ALL THE LES MIS LYRICS THEY CAN LIKE THE TIME I DID THAT WITH I’M ON A BOAT IN THAT ONE RECAP...

“What kind of deceitful devil wears the guise of honor and talks of justice and mercy?” Valjean Fraser, at last we see each other plain...

“Believe of me what you will,” there’s a duty that he’s sworn to do. Protect his Murtz.

“As god is my witness, I will do what must be done.” You never shall yield? ‘Til you come face to face?

“Damned if I’ll be in league with a traitor.” Would you rather live in the debt of a thief?

“But I will not stand by and watch my kin hunted like a dog.” Like a dog on the run, Jamie?

Called it! Broski needed to die. You’re not gonna make sure the letters are burned all the way, Jamie? Like didn’t that dude who brought in the letters see you there? This seems like it’s gonna backfire *rull* quick.

Also, speaking of dead bodies, is Rando McWhatshisface still in the basement?

Is Adso Gavroche in this scenario?

Jamie Fraser, murder to kitten snuggles in 0.3 seconds.

IF YOU HURT ONE HAIR ON MY LITTLE BEBE’S HEAD, I WILL END YOU, JAMIE.

Slash finally, I thought this episode was turning into Waiting for Gadsot...

(I made myself chuckle a little too hard at that one, tbh.)

“I found him in an alley, couldn’t leave him behind.” AKA how Jamie Fraser adopts all of his children, haha.

“How would you feel about taking a trip to London with me? Your father wanted to bring you there before he died.” You mean, when he threatened to steal your kid from you? It fucking speaks so highly of Claire that she won’t ruin Bree’s impression of Fred. Even though Bree knows by now that he was a terrible person.

“Thank you for my gift.” YOUR GIFT LOVES YOU TOO, CLAIRE!

(And I’m still a sucker for the Claire calling Jamie “soldier” bit.)

#*#outlander starz #outlander 5x05 #drunj!der yells about outlander #and yes i am still using bqhatevwr #seven year old memes from politicians who elizabeth warren crushed are my fave

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