#back on my bs of giving a group one little design thing they all have bc its my fave thing to do

[applestruda]

little group design thing i wanna do for them

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

the power of the doctor

  c+p my livetweets

 first note: no one but maybe Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis has gotten the cybermen quite right... sure it's fun to have villains boasting, but cybermen (or ~cybermasters) are scary bc they're not supposed to do That (that being any emotion at all)

do appreciate the continuity of bringing back the ~hybrids~ (tm)... .

still holding out hope that there will be fallout/consequences to the last universe reset / Armageddon and the doctor's "solution" there (1% of hope)

can't tell if Too Dark Scene or Crappy Bandwith  T_TACE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HIDE YOUR WIFE HIDE YOUR PROFESSORS

SHE'S HEEEEEREMOUTH-ON-LEGS-WALLABY-QUEEN SHUT UP NO ONE TLAK TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

im gonna go ahead and say this makes canon one of my favorite short eu stories  - https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Girls%27_Night_In_(short_story)

"it's only been 3 decades for me" rip all the timelord-ace lore lol (in this continuity at least)dan slow down crazy it's only been 10 minutes

lmao i died @ the house still not being there xD

for future analysis: message about the comforts of modernity / technology doing away with regional cultures / identities?

i love my contact-lensed hypnotic trash son

yaz: is yours, isn't it? (...) yours from another time? me, immediately, without breathing: VALEYARD?????? RANI!!!?!?!?! 

i love this nonesense:

u know what would go great with that new UNIT building.. . .. a UNIT. . .. spin off

“are you ready for this?” “no! ””me neither!” me neither!!!!!!!

graphic design is my passion

im screaming chibnall is actually Getting It Right TOT

i love how this is proving the widely held fandom wisdom(tm) that 13 would not get away with her bs if she had been traveling with tegan and / or donna lol

one day it WILL be the valeyard / the rani and then You Will All See

and that was the day 23.342.340.923 university collage professor thoschei AUs were born and then launched into space 

im enjoying this a lot but i do have to give the critique that the emotional grounding of 13's and yaz's arcs feels very thin (as individuals and as a pair) and hasn't been the focus 20 minutes in, better hurry up @ show

I waited 2 years for this omg ot3 dynamicsssss   

HE'S IN T H E S T A I R S I REPEAT. HE'S IN **THE** STAIRS!!!!

gotta love a petty in-character reference

"oh, and ace! or should I say dorothy?" (...) "last time I saw you, you were half-cat" epic burns all around in this sunday night

the cameraperson doing those close af angles in the thasmin bit... i see you cameraperson

waiting for a twist because we've done the One Good Dalek thing like 3 times in new who asdfg 

i think Dhawan's master is forever gonna be my favorite master by far. the guys simply had no bad scenes ever. 

ooo, i liked this moment 

CHIBNALL: RECONCILE A L L  THE MYTHOLOGY!!!!!!

the master in the doctor’s body... i have read that fic

fear you got beaten to the punch there, m8 

fear you got beaten to the punch there, m8

me walking to the local convention w/ my first cosplay

chibnall: can i copy your homework? rtd: yes but change it a little

but,,, my spin off....,,, ):

the noise i just made omg

(screaming this was in the results when i went to re-check the meme's text sdlkjfdlksjf)

chibnall: can i copy your homework? moffat: yes but change it a little

we started the era with a funeral, and ended with support group for grief. bookend storytelling!

(though lol not to brag mates but the 10-era crew has probably have cycled thru a dozen whatsapp - facebook - zoom calls and discord groups by the time this is happening)

CHIBNALL IM GOING TO LET YOU FINISH BUT- 

OK overall takes...

im gonna need time to digest lol yes, lots of very clever things, cool lore, and thematic bookends (esp, re: the fam, unit, cycles, optimism, and the master), some Right choices for classic characters BUT a lot of wasted potential for the current ones (thasmin, 13, yaz, honestly even dan! what a flimsy goodbye...).

i also think this finale fits well  the rest of the era, a lot of excellent set ups for fic writers + fandom to elevate, esp in regards to character stuff and new interpretations of old themes (regeneration as identity, emigration metaphors, companion grief, etc). im always gonna be thankful for this lesson in the 13th era: art is what the interpreter of the art brings to it. a lot of people didn’t bring a lot to this era (for valid reasons, sometimes just for misogyny/racist ones)  so they didn’t get a lot, but those who worked their way thru the subtle stuff and even “added-in” stuff, got a great, if imperfect work w/ a lot of nuances, and def things never before done in dw (one of the major wins: making the doctor mysterious again, and making them a refugee / vulnerable rather than “president of the universe” he’d come to be in 10 season of new who). stray points (things i wasnt as satisfied with) 1- im not sure thirteen learned a lot? i think the reason the master's final point in his arc hit and landed so well, while thirteen's didn't as much (for me) is that it all kind of circled around with not really a "lesson" being learned.  we really pulled back the layers of the master's narcissism and obsession with the doctor, and followed it all the way through its origins in jealousy and self-hatred. meanwhile the doctor's optimist, happy-go-lucky facade-that-falls that the fandom did such excellent meta about... never quite hit it in the end with the show. EVEN when the setup was so clearly there SO MANY TIMES: giving yaz a gun, comitting triple genocide on the daleks/cybermen/sontarans, the tim shaw of it all... etc. 2- related to the point of 13 not growing: in the end she and yaz didn't commit to anything (quite the opposite, they stuck to the denial from the warriors ep, which i thought would be Turned Around here...), the special instead of calling out the older doctors, validated them for abandoning the companions (when tbh i think the True Thing, even if it hurt, would be for 13 to have outright said to ace and tegan [and yaz, even!] "im sorry, i wish i could have given you what you needed, but i couldnt. and probably never will") Let me stress it tho: i did really like the yaz/13, 5/tegan, ace/7 resolutions in isolation, they got those dynamics Right in a lot of ways (the 7/ace thing about the Cost you pay for “doing the right thing” , the doctor/tegan being like That but rlly only bc they care sm about each other (aaa) thing, and even with the yaz/doctor thing i can see the logic of them always being so positive + supportive, of doing all they can to “stay together”) but looking at it as a whole, in the context of "doctor who as one long running story", this felt a bit like a regression for the doctor, and by extension for ace, tegan and yaz. 3- i think there was also just not enough time to let the story breath. or rather, there WAS time but also a lot of nonsense taking that time (like the dalek trairo or the whole train thing i was SO EXCITED thinking it would be a kid from the doctor’s mysterious origins but nope, it was just a diversion to get to Squiggles.... even vinder whom i rlly enjoyed ... idk i have to question how Necessary it was to have a whole thing about him breaking his ship then repairing his ship... etc. ) . the scene at  the veeery end where 13 and yaz eat ice cream was like the first time chibnall slowed the peace *enough* to let the emotions land (and also the only moment i actually started crying asdfg).there were so many more companion / doctor companion interactions to be had, but bc of all the Stuff (tm) there wasn't time to rlly exploit (not having the companions in Somber Silence around the doctor, waiting for her to wake up for days, was almost a writting crime of negligence). but then again, that's been chibnall the whole way through lol he ain't no Aguinaldo Silva and that's fine. "understated emotions" is just not my thing.

[purpleyellow]

The audacity

Seventeen 14th member

Hayun’s masterlist

“Seventeen won’t take bs when it comes to Hayun”

Requested by: two (2) anons    

cw: offensive language

a/n: Feel free to share your thoughts with me. Requests are open! 💙

(to my brazilians around, this gif is svt’s version of ninguem solta a mão de ninguem)

The arrival of dancers made the practice room even more crowded and noisy than usual. It was one of the few times Seventeen worked with an outside dance team, and they happened to have a lot of new faces around, who needed time to figure out the staging and how things were working so far.

After they ran through the choreography a couple of times, the choreographer called in a break, allowing the huge group to instantly clear the middle space and separate themselves into small circles of conversations.

Seungcheol, Jeonghan, and Joshua instantly met each other and began chatting about dinner plans and whatnot. Slowly approaching Jun and Wonwoo, the oldest filled them in on what they're deciding until he starts searching for someone.

“So, we could order it on the next break and have someone grab it for us. Anyway, did anyone see Hayun?”

“Making friends, as usual,” Wonwoo comments, pointing at the other corner of the room where the girl was surrounded by four dancers.

“Hayun-ah” The leader waves her over and waits as she jogs to his side “We're talking about dinner, what do you think about-”

“Oh, those guys were talking about this new restaurant that opened downtown, I was thinking of tagging along with them” She points back at the group and watches as her members nod “But I can cancel, of course”

“No, go ahead. It's just a meal” Joshua goes to wave her off when Seungkwan approaches them with crossed arms.

“Yeah. Just a meal. Until she's suddenly ditching us during the holidays and moving out with her new friends” The boy pouts, turning his face away from the group. Hayun reaches up to ruffle his hair before landing a soft slap.

“Says the dude who is friends with half of the entertainment industry” Ignoring his eye roll, she turns back to the rest of their little huddle “Well, if nobody else will feel betrayed”

“I was kidding” Seungkwan whines and Scoups pushes her away from them “Stop being dramatic and go do your mingling”

Going back to the group of dancers, Hayun resumes chatting with them for a couple of minutes before the break is over.

After more hours of running over every tiny detail for the stage, the rehearsal finally ends and the scattering of people begins. Hayun takes a couple of minutes talking about minor adjustments with the members and just checking up on them before searching for the four friends she had made that evening.

“Hey, how do you guys plan on heading there?” She asks, taking a sip from her water bottle and missing the glances between the two boys and two girls.

“Actually, we might have to do it another day,” The girl closest to her says and flips a hair strand off of Hayun's shoulder. “We got pretty tired from this last session”

“And work tomorrow it's going to start pretty early, you know. It's best to let this go for today,” The boy nods to her before pulling out his phone from his pocket and slightly turning away from the idol.

“Yeah, I get it. That's okay, we'll reschedule it then” Hayun smiles and gives them a thumbs up “I'll head to the dorms, then. Have a good rest, and tomorrow we'll talk more”.

Sending her some quick waves and small smiles, the four dancers waited for Hayun to turn around before sharing an annoyed look and sighing.

The practice room slowly grows empty, only leaving Wonwoo and Vernon who lost an incredible game of rock, paper, scissors, and had to stay behind to clean up everything. Finally turning off the lights, the two boys head out into the hallway and spot a group of four people standing by the entrance.

“Aren't those the people Hayun was talking to earlier,” Vernon asks quietly before a voice from the group reaches them.

“Why is this damn cab taking so long? We should have let that airhead tag along”.

“Agreed. She would have talked our ears off, but at least we would have made it to the club already”.

Sharing a look, the two idols stop walking and listen closely to understand if the dancers are talking about what the boys think they're talking about.

“That was so stupid. Why would you invite her in the first place? She's so annoying”.

“I mean, having an idol considering you a friend would be fun, right? Especially with the Christmas season coming up. Can you imagine the gifts she would buy us?”

“Yeah, dude. We wouldn't even need to worry about paying for stuff anymore. Just have Hayun tag along anywhere and, boom, no more tabs to pay.”

“But also, no more functioning eardrums”

“No, you have a point. She seems like she'd give us her credit card password on the third time we hung out. Not to mention, looking at her position in contrast with ours. You don't even have to befriend her, but be on her good side, and she'll make sure to give us more gigs within Pledis”.

Standing frozen, Wonwoo and Vernon listened to everything they were saying and shared looks of disbelief. Having enough of it, the oldest cleared his throat and slung his bag, making it hit his own back with enough force to make a thumping sound.

“Let's go, Vernon,” He ignored the four people standing before them with wide eyes and resumed walking. Once shoulder to shoulder with one of the dancers, Wonwoo stopped again and said while looking ahead, “Next time, be careful of whom you're talking about”.

Vernon, on the other hand, made eye contact with each dancer before raising one eyebrow and following the oldest. After closing the car door, he groaned annoyed, “Can you believe they had… ”

“… the fucking audacity” Jeonghan places his cup on the table, face showcasing utter disgust after Wonwoo told him what they had listened before leaving the Pledis building.

“Show me who those people are again tomorrow. I'll make sure they never step inside our practice room, ever again,” Hoshi points out.

“Is there a way of not having them tomorrow? I'm afraid Scoups Hyung might commit murder” Dokyeom brought attention to the leader standing on the corner of the kitchen.

Looking like he was plotting an illegal act, Seungcheol scoffs and pushed himself away from the cabinets. “The bare minimum you would expect from someone is that they can be professional. I swear, those people are getting an earful for talking about Hayun within a billion-meter ratio from where I work”.

“It's best to let it rest until tomorrow's performance is done. After we'll probably never see them again, so there's not much point causing any visible disturbance.” Laying a hand on the leader's arm, Woozi tried to make some sort of sense, but all it did was cause Scoups to roll his eyes.

“We can't just act like nothing happened”

“We also can't change anything about the choreography until then” Hoshi butts in and takes a breath trying not to jump in the 'let's hunt them down' train.

“They already know Wonwoo and Vernon heard them trash-talking her, so I'm not letting them have it easy tomorrow.” Jeonghan rolls his eyes and pointed to both Woozi and Hoshi, “I'm speaking my mind the first moment I see those sons of bitches, you're free to wait until the show's over”.

“About that, I don't think we should tell Hayun what happened” Joshua, who had been quiet the entire time, speaks, drawing attention to him. “Not until, as you said, the show is over, and we won't see them again. You know that she's probably going to get disappointed about it”.

“And you expect her to not go running to meet her new 'friends' once we arrive at the venue?” Wonwoo raises an eyebrow, but Mingyu shakes his head and backs the older up.

“We just have to keep her entertained around us. Fill in Dino, Seungkwan, and Myungho later, and have them help with making sure the group doesn't run into her”.

Raising his hand, Vernon casually mumbles “Maybe don't tell Seungkwan, he won't be able to hide his feelings about the whole thing”

“Myungho won't either” Jun comments and the room falls silent at the sound of the remaining members chatting and approaching the kitchen.

“Wow, you make a meeting and forget to call in the main characters” Hayun laughs walking through the room and opening the fridge for a beer “So, when's the food arriving?”

~

Hayun is sitting on the makeup chair, casually watching Scoups and Jeonghan whispering to each other from the mirror's reflection, when a hand lands on her shoulder and another holds out a smoothie for her.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Joshua sits on the chair next to her while Mingyu punctures the drink's lid with a straw.

Without taking her eyes off the mirror, she nods with her head to it. “Those two are up to something”

“Scoups and Jeonghan Hyung? Nah, they're always like that. Sharing secrets and stuff,” Mingyu giggles, shoving the straw inside her mouth and shifting to stand in front of the mirror. “Cute nail polish, when did you have time to get it done?”

“Oh, these are acrylics. This lady was just putting them on” Hayun falls into his trap and began analyzing the design with some occasional comments from the boys.

Peace has seemingly set inside the dressing room, yet it doesn't last long until Dino's loud “Uh?” caught the attention of the members, who turned to see what he and Vernon were doing.

Trying to shut the youngest up, Vernon makes it very obvious to the guys that he had just filled Dino in with the “frenemies” situation. Most of them try to brush it off and not bring more attention to it. Seungkwan, however, approaches them by, very loudly, asking what's up.

“What are you talking about?” He boringly fixes up his outfit. Vernon can feel the burning eyes of Jeonghan on his skull as he tries to deviate the conversation to another topic.

“Did you go see catering already? I heard they had a coffee machine”.

“Wait. Does he not know what happened?” Dino fails to read the room properly and instigates the older boy.

“What happened? Why is everyone sharing secrets all of a sudden? Is the thing you're discussing why Scoups Hyung seems ready to jump someone”.

The timing of events can't be worse, as the makeup artist taps Hayun's shoulder to let her know they were done. Within seconds, the girl gets up and turns to where the three youngest were standing.

“What's with the gossiping? Did Vernon lose his airpods again?” She brushes away from Joshua as he tried to hold her in place and waves off Mingyu when, in a panic, he suggests they should check out the pigeons outside.

“What? No! I mean, yeah! How unfortunate, isn't it?” Vernon jumps around his answers and tries looking for anyone willing to help him out.

“Just tell her about it” Approaching them from the door, Jeonghan, now without the leader's company, shrugs his shoulders, making Hayun raise an eyebrow.

“Jeonghan, at least wait until the day is over,” Joshua speaks through his teeth and the boy rolls his eyes.

“Well, she already knows something is up, and to be fair I don't know what good hiding this will bring. At least, if she feels like doing something about it, she'll have the chance right now”.

“Do something about it? Hadn't we agreed that the best is to wait until the performance is over and just never see them again?”

“What even are you talking about?” Hayun shuts them both up and Jeonghan and Joshua turned to her with annoyed expressions, “Don't even look at me like that. You're the ones mentioning me as if I'm not in the room”.

Placing a hand on her shoulder, Joshua tilts his head a little and speaks softly, “Trust me for a moment here, it's best if you brush it aside. Until later at least, and then we can settle it as you wish”.

“Wha- Just spill it out for fucks sake. I'm going to combust if you don't tell me right now whatever this all means,” Hayun puffs, punching his shoulder. Just as Joshua opens his mouth to say the same thing again, Jeonghan beats him and shoves himself in front of the girl.

“Do you recall those dancers you were planning to go out with yesterday? Yeah, well, turns out they're all little shits who were trash-talking you, and just overall talking crap, yesterday”

“Jeonghan” Joshua repressed the older who does nothing but wave him off.

“Doesn't matter what they said because you're nothing of it, and-” Adverting his eyes for a second, Jeonghan stares to the side, where half of Scoups' body is waving for him through the door. “And, and, you're amazing and all of that. So now go rest your awesome self while I go teach those punks a lesson”.

Zooming past her, Jeonghan runs to the door, where the leader is already back outside. Hoshi, Jun, Woozi, and DK, scream for him before also going out of the door. A very lost, Seungkwan, simultaneously tries to get Vernon to tell him what exactly the dancer said before while shouting for the older to wait for him to also speak his mind.

“I didn't want you to know about this before the performance, but-”

“Whatever, let's make sure nobody dies today” Hayun rolls her eyes and turns around, Wonwoo running from where he was watching everything and holding her by the shoulder.

“Do you want us to go fix that up? It's okay to give them the cold shoulder or just go off if you want to” Nodding, she keeps silent and walks out, bringing the rest of the guys behind her.

The8, who also had just found out about the situation, whispers to Vernon, “Can you believe they had the audacity?”

“I know, right?” The youngest whisper-yelled at him as they made it to the hallway and assessed the situation.

“The next time you even think about opening your mouth to talk about her-” Scoups had his finger pointing at the tallest dancer -who ironically had a few centimeters on him-, while the rest of the members stood next to him nodding and calmly listening to what the leader was saying.

“Oppa, just drop it,” Hayun shouts, walking past them and holding his shoulder.

Annoyingly, Scoups rolled his eyes and turned to her, “What do you mean, drop it?” Thinking for a second, he blinked and turned even more bothered, “Who even told you about this?”

The leader looked around until he found Mingyu, offending the tall guy who made an X in front of his body.

“Doesn't matter who told me. Let's just not lose time doing this” Brushing past him, Hayun now faced the dancers “Look, I'll teach you something right now, so grab it or drop it okay? I don't give a shit that you don't like me, or whatever, but at least be professional because all this situation did was teach me that none of you care about your careers. It's pretty clear by the angry puppy beside me that you just lost any chance of growing inside our brand, so keep this as a lesson and respect the artists you're working with. Also, once we're on stage put on a smile, so my fans won't be able to sense your shit”

“It should be pretty clear by what she said but you definitely don't have a chance to work with any Pledis artist again” Hoshi came from the end of the hallway alongside their manager and choreographer. The latter nodded and added.

“For the sake of the performance, you should all go back to your dressing rooms. You all said whatever was on your mind, so try to refocus during the last few minutes you have”.

“I didn't get to say what was on my mind” While the group was dispersing, DK mumbles on the side and Jun snorts.

“You had a chance, but all you did was stare at them and scowl until Scoups Hyung took the lead”

“I don't care about who said and who didn't say what they wanted” Hayun rolled her eyes, turning to the boys as they arrived in the room. Clasping her hands together, she brings them to her face and smiles, “You all care about me”.

“The fact you still doubted about it after years hurts me” Dokyeom held his chest and frowned, the girl laughs and goes to hug him.

“Group hug?” Seungkwan says uncertainly and Hoshi nods, dragging Woozi with him, “Group hug!”

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Let’s talk: RUN Episode 131

by Admin 1

I know I’ve probably said this about literally every episode but this one was so fun! Admin 2 and I were honestly laughing almost the entire time while also trying our best to follow along their “debates” and just taking in all the chaos. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Quick recap: in this episode we’re at the pool that belongs to the same hotel at which they had lunch at the end of the previous episode and the objective is twofold--not get wet and win a debate. That’s basically it, it’s like the mint chocolate debate episode but even more hilarious and with the addition of wet Bangtan.

Something I truly love is how it took vmin exactly 57 seconds (which includes the 18 second long intro) to find some kind of ‘reason’ to hold/shake hands behind JKs back. Because of course they did.

After the whole “mess” that ensued after the Titanic preview picture was posted yesterday, I can basically just say one thing--there was literally no need whatsoever to get all anxious and uncertain about the picture, or anything the shippers made out of it. As always the best course of action, which is the one I usually apply, is waiting until we get the full thing so we have context for what we’re shown in the picture/teaser/scene. It’s like that scene at the end of one of the ITS episodes where Jimin goes to JK to tell him about a supposed leak in his room which was taken way out of context and proportions until we got the next episode a week later and the actual events were completely different from anything and everything that was theorized. 

So, what’s the lesson? Wait until we get the full thing, dear fellow vminnies, that way we can avoid making each other anxious and unsure.

Anyway, let’s get into it by starting with the ‘warm-up’ which consisted of one-on-one “battles” where the members stood on these floating foamy mats being held by two staff members and having to make each other fall into the water by playing the hand pushing game. 

Yoongi VS Jimin -- I like how the two shortest members went against each other, which I’d assume might’ve had something to do with Yoongi’s shoulder and how chances of Jimin hurting him due to his height/size/weight were the smallest as opposed to Namjoon or even Hoseok. Maybe I’m imagining/overthinking things but it seemed like Jimin was a little hesitant/careful in how he approached the game and in the way he touched Yoongi, which honestly is very thoughtful and cute of him if that’s true, considering his shoulder and all. In the end Yoongi, after they basically goofed around more than actually tried to push each other, offers a deal of just doing it once properly, ending in both of them falling in the water since Yoongi leans forward, hugs Jimin and drags him down with him.

Tae VS Hobi -- These two might’ve been the quickest, given how Hobi said he’s scared at least three times and Tae basically use a moment to ‘attack’ where Hobi was distracted by the fact that a moment prior he thought Tae almost would’ve hit him in the face with his forehead on accident. That lucky did not happen, but Hobi did end up in the water and Tae remained on the float and completely dry.

Namjoon VS Seokjin -- Now these two, how can I put my thoughts/feelings into cohesive words and sentences instead of just a long key smash? They were hilarious, and their round definitely took the longest out of all of them, both trying to make the other fall yet simultaneously seeming like they weren’t trying all that hard since neither wanted to land in the water? After all before the game started Seokjin did complain how the RUN crew told him they wouldn’t have to get into the water. And yet, in the end, after a visible moment of contemplation, Namjoon hugs Seokjin (who hugs him back) and they fall into the water together (when I tell you how much I love them, wow).

JK VS Jimin --Here’s where we get the Titanic moment while JK and Jimin stand on the float and are being pulled to the middle of the pool, the members immediately jumping in with Hobi going “Jack, come back” in a breathy voice while Yoongi (?) sings the melody of My Heart Will Go On and everyone is laughing. It was an absolutely hilarious and cute moment. What made me laugh the most during the whole thing were the Jimin heads used to hide whatever, which I as a joke called the “Victoria’s Secret Fantasy Bra (Head Edition)” while talking to Admin 2. During the game itself Jimin and JK are hilarious, slapping each other’s chests and trying different tricks to make the other fall, showing how amazing their core strength and balance is, but eventually Jimin shoves JKs chest and JK falls into the water, winning the game since Jimin “cheated” and thus lost.

Seokjin VS Tae -- Interesting to note is how Jimin remained in the water and close by while these two were playing. Seokjin and Tae though somehow seemed the most chaotic out of all of them, despite Seokjin offering that they should just do it in one go...which didn’t work out. They leaned into each other twice while laughing before starting to “wrestle” until Tae put his arms around Seokjin’s waist and basically threw him into the water while subsequently being pulled after him and falling in as well. Sometimes I think we forget how strong Tae is (though after his BE_log earlier today I doubt we’ll forget that again any time soon).

Once “warm-up” was done, the members were split into two groups of three while one person, the MC, sat in the middle in a glass box (though missing the front glass panel). The rules were established and we basically figured out that there are water canons in front of the seated members and a bigger one releasing water onto the member sitting in the middle. They got words and things they were not allowed to do/say since otherwise they would get splashed.

Safe to say they all fairly quickly looked even more like very wet puppies. I mean look at Yoongi and his cute curly poodle hair, adorable!

The debate portion itself was about “crunchy or soft cereal”, “eggs of peas on jjajangmyeon” and “firm or soft peaches” and truly more chaotic shouting than actually debating. The team members and the “MC” changed for each round, which lasted 11 minutes each. Who debated what was chosen by the crew (or the MC). My highlights for the cereal debate (besides Seokjin cutely complaining how he prefers his cereal soggy and Namjoon equally cutely telling him to just pretend he likes it crunchy) were Yoongi (who was team soggy cereal) and his argument that since Kendrick Lamar eats soggy cereal, that’s basically the winning argument, Namjoon arguing that since “cereal” and “crunchy” both start with a c that’s the only right answer, and Tae arguing that if you eat chocolate cereal it’ll melt and you’ll additionally get chocolate milk so obviously soggy cereal is better. The jjajangmyeon portion had discussions about prices, as well as Hobi (team peas) arguing he doesn’t like seeing animals in pain (which was quickly countered by JK saying he’d just eaten pork before the episode) and Tae generally being appalled by having to argue in favor of peas since he doesn’t like them yet used the argument that his dad likes them so if you argue against them...well. 

And finally the peaches debate had Tae and his galaxy brain using their Chilsung Cider ads as argument and how the peaches in it were firm since they bounced and thus they are better, which JK tried to counter by pointing out that those were just CGI to which Tae basically said he’s insulting their beautiful ads, how dare. I also love how Jimin, who was on Tae’s team, went along with whatever nonsense argument Tae came up with as though it was the most logical one in the world. Just lovely soulmate things, we love to see it. Speaking of nonsensical arguments, you have to give points to Namjoon for his ability to sound like he’s making perfectly sensible and logical arguments while doing, well, the exact opposite. Or Yoongi who just bs-ed his way through the entire thing while acting totally serious about it.

Can we please have a quick look at the following screenshot:

And now, can we please talk about how everyone is nicely sitting in their designated place with space between them...and then there’s vmin who are like magnets because “Space who? We don’t know her”. 

Admin 2 asked me to add their comment/thought about how it looks juuuuust a little as though vmin may or may not have been holding hands below the table, which, I mean, we’ll never know but, at this point (especially after the BE unit unboxing video) I wouldn’t even be surprised if it were true.

At one point when Seokjin became the MC the water kept on coming and coming and the members were desperate to figure out what was the thing they were doing that caused it. Jimin thought it could be the caps that some of them wore, so without hesitation or question, he took off Tae’s cap (bless Jimin for giving us another view at wet hair Tae, truly) and then, I swear, it looks like he wanted to ruffle Tae’s hair yet just a second before making contact he stops himself and instead turns his hand in like a “I’m presenting some kind of argument” way. Adorable.

A final note goes out to the fact that they are wearing white button downs which, I mean, makes perfect sense I guess? And also how the crew gave them bathrobes so they’d stay warm, I’d assume, yet very quickly those were drenched as well thanks to the water canons so it basically defeated the purpose completely. And yet, despite all the water etc they all look fantastic.

Overall it’s a hilarious episode that’ll give your stomach muscles and lungs an amazing workout. Bangtan were their chaotic, loud, and mischievous selves and honestly, I can’t wait to see what else they’ll debate in the next episode.

[kpop-stan23-writes]

new money mingi

mingi's back 🥰🥰🥰 you can read seonghwa’s part here and san’s part here

group: ateez member: mingi feat hongjoong and jongho with seonghwa, yunho, yeosang, and wooyoung genre: fluff 🥰 word count: 1.5k warnings: none pairing: mingi x gn!reader

note: i have no idea what goes on during a photoshoot and i have no idea what exactly a photographer does 🤷🏻‍♀️

also is this even rich boi au? or just fashion mingi au?

the type of new money maker who doesn't change a bit

he's just like i have this money but i don't know what to do with it so i guess i'll just leave it in my bank account

childhood friend yunho urges him to invest it

(and then prevents mischievous wooyoung from talking mingi in investing it all on a nonsense app that everyone knows is going to flop)

(yeosang almost manages to trick mingi into signing a fake contract that would sign over like a quarter of any future earnings to him)

(but seonghwa swoops in and scolds yeosang while explaining to mingi why you don't just sign whatever your friend tells you to)

(yeosang totally doesn't just shrug and say "at least i didn't ask for half)

earns his money through fashion

bs-s his way through school not because he's a terrible student but because he much prefers the practical side of things versus the theoretical

befriends double major theory sunbae hongjoong

collaborates during finals and earns high marks and praises

when hongjoong graduates he goes into music instead of fashion

but is always there to lend an ear or an eye when mingi is working on a project

whether for school or for himself

helps mingi generate buzz by wearing his designs to the studio

which piques the interest of the musicians and singers hongjoong works with

starts off in a small studio space creating custom designs for hongjoong and his friends

but as more and more people take notice of mingi's work, his studio and business grow

eventually is able to expand into marketable clothing

which is how he meets you

you're a photographer who has worked with hongjoong before and agrees to do a photoshoot at a discount

you arrive at the studio early to set up

mingi is already there with hongjoong, who took the day off to help

hongjoong introduces you to mingi, who is tall and lanky and looks like he could be a model himself with his proportions

but he has a sweet smile and a child-like innocence that makes you want to protect him from the every-man-for-himself world he's about to dive into

you have an aura about you that puts mingi to ease immediately

he's sat in on photoshoots before, where the models and the deisngers and the photographer don't see eye to eye and it takes hours just to get one good set up because no one can agree on a vision

but you take the time to look at all the clothes and listen to what mingi has in mind

once the models arrive it's go go go

you pose the models and make suggestions on hair and makeup but you always get mingi's approval before you start snapping away on your camera

it's the quickest, most painless photoshoot mingi or hongjoong have ever witnessed

you're the last one to leave besides the two men and you give them your card again and tell them to contact you if they're ever in need of your services

as mingi's brand grows, so does his need for photoshoots

he holds onto your card and you become the only photographer he'll work with

not in a snobby, demanding way

just in that he loves your work and your work ethic and maybe he loves you a little too

you become an even bigger success as people take note of the amazing shoots and their equally amazing photographer

soon you're working nearly nonstop, and it becomes increasingly harder to book you

the first time you're unavailable for a photoshoot for mingi, he pouts about it for the longest time

hongjoong refers him to another photographer that he assures his taller friend is just as hard-working and dedicated as you

and mingi has to agree that yes, this new photographer is good

but they're not you

at first mingi tells himself he misses your work, your dedication to your craft, the effort you put into making every photoshoot your best shoot ever

but as you miss more and more of his shoots, the more he realizes he just plain misses you

your upbeat but calm energy

the cute way you furrow your brow when you're thinking

the fierce look of determination you get when you're on the verge of capturing something magical on your precious camera

the satisfied expression when you get the shot that only lasts a moment because you have more perfection to capture

your exhausted but sweet smile as you say goodbye at the end of a long but satisfying day of work, when you remind him he has your number if he ever needs your services

hongjoong is in the back shaking his head because you're clearly hinting at something more but mingi is just too oblivious to notice

finally, after months and months of being booked solid, there's a hole in your schedule

when mingi hears about this from a friend of a friend of a friend, he nearly rushes his next line, hoping he can catch you while he still can

hongjoong walks in on mingi running around his workshop like a chicken with his head cut off and demands to know what all the fuss is about

his voice half muffled because he's buried under a pile of silk, mingi yells that he needs to make sure his next line is ready asap so that you can do the photoshoot

hongjoong rolls his eyes and shouts back that you're taking a two month break because you had been run to the ground with the constant back to back shoots

mingi reappears from the mountain of silk and just says "you couldn't have told me that sooner?"

"how did i know you'd try to rush your next line?"

anyway mingi takes the two months to make sure everything is perfect before the next launch and you take the two months to catch your breath and search for someone to help you

you hire jongho, a young, fresh-outta-college photography major who has admired your work since before you got famous

he's just as dedicated and hardworking as you, and you're satisfied that he understands the importance of the care you take in every shoot you do

when mingi is ready for his next clothing launch, he thanks whatever higher power there might be that you're available

(he doesn't find out until years later that hongjoong made certain mingi was your first client after your break)

(he only pouts about it for like a day)

mingi is definitely only mildly disappointed when it's not you who steps through the door but this buff kid who hauls in all the equipment with like just his pinky

mingi definitely doesn't nearly knock over jongho as he's setting up the camera when you walk in the door

(he also completely misses the deadpan stare jongho gives him and the muttering under his breath - something about how he could bench press like ten of these walking bean stalks)

you introduce mingi to your new assistant/apprentice jongho who mingi is definitely not even slightly scared of because wow his hands look like they could crush watermelons - effortlessly

the photoshoot runs smoothly, though jongho is very tempted to flick mingi very solidly in the forehead because why can't this tall bean stalk stop staring at my boss like a creep

as everything gets packed at the end of the long but successful shoot, jongho definitely does not purposefully trip mingi so that he crashes into you

mingi turns bright red and after apologizing over and over he glares at the young photographer who just smiles and shrugs innocently

you laugh it off and assure mingi you're fine and joke that it's a good thing you didn't have a camera in your hands otherwise you would definitely be sending him the bill

"or you know maybe i would find other ways for you to pay me back" you continue while looking mingi square in the eyes

his eyes go wide and his mouth falls open in shock and you laugh gently at his absolutely astonished expression

jongho can be heard snickering in the background but mingi doesn't care because did you just--are you saying--sorry what now

you smile at him and remind him that he has your number if he's ever in need of your services before waving and heading after jongho

the next time mingi calls you and asks when you're available you tell him that you're just finishing up a shoot and can be ready in a hour if that works for him

spoiler it totally works for him

[meltwonu]

can I just tell yall the bs that happened on my little hiatus skdjfhsjk

like first of all, im sorry I didn't update the masterlists sooner 😭, it all ties in once I tell y’all the way I was disrespected like, 

literally I got in trouble with my boss for something I didn’t even do which was the first thing and like/???? normally when we get new clients we typically ask them a lot more questions bc obv we’re feeling them out and sometimes they don’t know what they want and I was handed a project from a new client who was kind of really impatient and ended up kinda giving the “yea yea w/e just let me know when its done” type shit so I finished the project BC IT NEEDED TO BE FINISHED IN A DAY and left it with my manager bc I was ‘off’ the next day so she would have to pass the project back to the client, it was a really quick one so I didn’t think much of it. well when I spoke to my manager the next time I saw her, she was like, yea that client asked for notes on their project and why certain things were left out and kept in(bc we asked for a basic idea of what they wanted, etc, they were really flexible in the consultation so??? admittedly I didn’t think it’d be an issue???) and I was like??? she never asked for notes?? OR FEEDBACK?? just threw it at us and wanted it finished, to my knowledge??? and my manager kinda seemed like she didn’t believe me for a second but also was kinda lookin at me like ‘idt Hina would lie about this’ but I still got chewed out and that was annoying as shit cuz I never get in trouble at work 😭😭😭

AND THEN THE WORST OF IT, my friend commissioned me kind of around the time I was finishing up MMS2 and I told her, “hey I'm rly busy I dont mind taking on this small project for you but you need to give me all the info up front bc I'm busy and once I get the chance to work on it, I know our schedules won’t match up(she does not work) so I need to be able to work on it without having to consult you every 4 seconds(she also goes to bed at 6pm and wakes up at like 1am to stay up all night)” and she wanted me to design some birthday cup sleeves for an idol group, no I will not say who and also I used an alias lol, and I've done cup sleeves before and they're quick so I was anticipating being able to finish in just a hour or two, so I was like, ya its technically a commission but I won't ask to be paid, just think of it as a friend favour since it’s quick. um, anyway, never work for free regardless of who it is. and if you work for free or write fic for free or make content for free, don’t ever let anyone make you feel bad about it if it’s not perfect. because my friend was like, ‘omg yea I understand ur super busy with work rn and it doesn’t have to be perfect I really appreciate you doing this for me!’ so I was like ok, let me put it to the side until after I finish my work(which was me just wrapping up MMS2 but shhh) and that two week break after, I finally had the time so I sat down and did them to the mockups she made and like I had anticipated, it only had taken about a hour and a half and i’d even made alt versions if she didn’t like the ones I'd done, just in case she didn’t like the layouts. and I sent them to her and I was like, I finished up, here's all the files, etc etc, it used the same fonts and colour palettes she asked for, same placement she asked for, etc. and she was like, “um I need you to change everything about these.” so to tldr the next FEW DAYS THAT FOLLOWED she literally had me changing everything about the cup sleeves, down to the text and placement and etc etc and I just kept thinking like??? a few days ago she said they didn’t have to be perfect, she just wanted them to be in the same style as her mockups because I was already working on them for free WHILE I WAS WORKING ON /WORK/ and now she was treating me like she was one of my work clients except I wasn’t getting /paid/ for this. 

so eventually it got to the point where I was just like, ‘hey, I get you want these to look good for your cup sleeve event but I feel like you really blindsided me by saying that you just wanted simple cup sleeves and didn’t care about it(because she knew I had the programs to make them and she doesn't) and even gave me mockups to follow, which I did, and when you realized I could make them better than your mockups, now you want completely different, more complicated ones and this project that I quoted would take me a few hours AT MOST is now taking multiple days bc when I finally talk to you on what needs to be changed, you literally leave to go to sleep without saying anything to me and you want it done by tomorrow now when you know I work 9-5 and don’t have time to be waiting on you′ 

and she got SO. UPSET. and didn't even apologize for completely taking advantage of me and my generosity and I was like, “yknow I dont mind doing small projects for you when you’re transparent with me bc I AT LEAST know what I'm getting into but this was really unfair and next time I'm going to have to ask to be paid by the hour because this is now literally how my clients are? and they pay me for my time.” and she was like ‘oh haha I probably won't ask again bc I just wanted to make cup sleeves this one time’ even tho I know she only said that bc she does NOT want to pay me for any work 😕 oh also not to mention she didn't want me to put my watermark on anything and didn’t want to give me credit for any of it and wanted me to put her username on it like she was the one who made it 😃 

she spent the next few days after that completely kissing my ass lol trying to be overly nice to me so I would forget but now when friends ask to commission me, I literally have a form and that’s really disappointing to me tbh. ☠️

[lovelivingmydreams]

A story by heroes and villains

Roman Castile: Passion and duty

Roman finds that his different passions seem to get in each other's way for now. But one day, he will find a balance.

“Ugh! I am done!” Roman exclaimed relieved, barely hearing the hissed warning from the librarian. Homework had been draining. Sure they’d had fun. Especially when it came to teasing Virgil about his pronunciation when they worked on Spanish.

Still Roman was ready to do literally anything else.

“Give me a sec, I have to finish this thing for English,” Virgil muttered absentmindedly. Roman knew that Virgil had rewritten that particular assignment two times already.

“Want me to read it trough for you?” Roman offered. Maybe hearing someone say that it was good would be enough to stop him from second guessing himself again.

“You don’t…”  Virgil started, somehow looking guilty.

“We’re here to help each other Virgil. If I didn’t want to help you I wouldn’t offer. I thrive on being of help to my friends. It’s no trouble,” he assured him. Virgil offered him a small smile and a nod in response. “Alright. You can read it when I’m done,” he allowed.

Roman took peace with that and opened his notebook to start doodling.

He had a few ideas for some more shirt designs. He’d enjoyed making his ‘coming out’ shirt. Then there was the Halloween party and every other social event this year has to offer where he had to slay. Junior year was a year to be noticed. Nothing wrong with putting down some ideas in advance. He just might come across the perfect outfit.

“Seems I’m not the only one who can draw up some clothes,” Virgil noted and Roman nearly fell of his chair when he jumped at his sudden proximity.

“Will you stop that!?” A thing about Virgil Roman had learned over the last week. He always seemed to pop up out of nowhere. One minute he’s gushing over the latest Disney trailer with André and suddenly Virgil stands next to him giving his two cents. It was terrifying.

“Not a chance,” Virgil chuckled as he picked up Roman’s sketches.

“This looks good though… You ever thought of becoming a fashion designer?”

Roman’s eyes widened. Making amazing outfits for a living? He could make a whole ‘wear your pride’ line and… Oh… Oh…!

“You are a genius!” Roman exclaimed. He’d had no idea what he wanted to do with his future, aside from hero work, but now the idea was brought up he wanted nothing else. Fashion designer, superhero, actor, maybe also Mr. Castile-Anker. That was a future he could look forward to!

Virgil chuckled. “It’s the least I can do. I sent in the designs like you said… I’m kind of excited.”

Roman beamed at him. “I’m sure next time you see DreamPrince on the news he’ll be wearing your design.” He was. He’d been shown some alternative designs by Manifestor and found Virgil’s drawing among them and immediately declared that that was the one.

As he’d told Roman, he’d changed a few things. He’d shown him on Wednesday to get his stamp of approval. Roman had gushed unapologetically, because he knew he’d have to tone it back a bit in front of the team.

Which had been hard.

Tonight he’d be taking it for a test run and he’d make sure to be seen by people and cameras.

“We’ll see,” Virgil smiled as he pushed his laptop with his assignment towards Roman.

Roman read it, dropping the subject without problem.

Virgil was easy to be friends with and he’d quickly learned to read his moods.

During lunch Virgil usually sat himself a little bit away from the group when he felt the need to just focus on his music and sketch a little before heading back to class. He was sarcastic, witty and could dish it out about as well as he could take it.

He was also very guarded emotionally, which Roman could understand, but whenever they were just the two  of them, Virgil opened up some more. He’d learned about Virgil’s soon to be stepdad and the admittedly adorable meet cute he’d been a part of.

He knew that Virgil’s dad had found them a new home and they’d moved in just that week.

He learned that Virgil was mature and his dad’s only wingman which they both agreed was super awkward but also hilarious.

Roman had joked that Virgil might end up being his father’s best man. But apparently there was a family friend ‘uncle Thomas’ who might get that position.

Virgil had gone out with another girl that week. Anna, who’d had English with him last year or something. Virgil had listened patiently, but relatively unaffected to her asking him out and arranged another semi-date at the music store for the next evening. Luckily nothing came from it again. Roman asked him why he kept saying yes to people he barely knew. Virgil explained that he had missed out on enough chances to befriend others. So the way he saw it he’d at the very least get a friend out of it. Roman kind of took comfort in that. It didn’t sound like Virgil was trying to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend right now. Just trying to socialize. Roman had reminded Virgil to watch his boundaries though. He wouldn’t want him to push himself out of fear he’d be missing out.

One more thing he learned about Virgil: he was overly critical of himself.

“Well, I think you can hand this in with confidence Virge,” Roman concluded as he returned Virgil’s laptop to him.

“So… I recall something about pizza? I’m starving!” he grinned.

Virgil chuckled and lead the way. Soon they were sat at a table with their orders and they were talking about everything and nothing. It was great. And Roman was so close to asking Virgil out but…

“So… Um… There’s this… Shoot wait a minute,” Roman got up and picked up his phone.

“Si mama…?” he asked curiously after seeing the caller ID.

“Darling. I know you are out with your friend. But I wanted you to know we’re headed to the university now,” his mother informed him. The university… Wait. “Que?” Roman looked at his watch incredulously. He was going to be late. Unless he left right now that is.

“Perdona! I’ll be there soon.” He hung up and dug through his wallet for some money.

“So sorry Virge! Time got away from us I’m afraid. I swear I intended to give you that ride… Can you call your dad… You know what? Just use the change to take the bus or something alright? My treat! I’ll call you later!” he promised as he tossed down a few bills that should more than cover the tab and the tip before rushing away.

How was it so late already?

He sprinted around a few corners and found a spot to get changed. BS had explained about the sciency stuff behind his costume change, but all Roman really cared about was that he basically had a magical boy transformation. Sure he could sit there and let the tech do its thing, but it was much more fun to make up a cool transformation sequence.

First, hair. He retrieved a lip balm like object and applied the substance to his hairline. He tucked the balm away and with one smooth movement of his hand he styled and recolored his hair. Instead of parted in the middle with regal waves it was flicked to the back, save for a single rebellious strand dangling down his forehead. Instead of a deep ash brown it was warm chestnut in color.

Then he took a tini metallic bead from a ring on his finger and tapped it against his temple, before he swiped his hand in front of his eyes as his mask placed itself securely on his face, changing his eye color in the process. He tapped his wrists together in front of his chest and brought them down with force, feeling his blazer and shirt get replaced by the skintight suit. He tapped his right heal against his left before taking another power position and finishing his costume change.

How cool was his life?!

He created a platform to lift himself to the roof and sprinted towards the university. The GTH was in it’s basement. As he made his way there he started to think over asking Virgil out again.

Maybe, now wasn’t the time. Virgil was clearly still upset about the whole Janus thing. He didn’t say it but Roman could tell. And he didn’t want Virgil to think for even a second that Roman’s crush was anything less than genuine, he had noticed that Virgil still had trouble believing their friendship was real at times. Not to mention that starting a relationship with someone while he was still figuring out how to balance out superhero and civilian life was clearly a bad idea. He couldn’t even ask him out without being interrupted by his other life.

So, he'd wait until he had his life in order and he was sure Virgil was ready. There was definitely some kind of connection between them. And Roman was willing to wait until the time was right…

He knew he was being a coward, but his friendship with Virgil was so fragile.

He entered the basement campus with little hassle and dropped of his bag in his personal locker, making sure to lock it. If anyone with ill intent got in here they could easily find out his identity with it's contents and Roman didn’t want his name out like that. Not yet at least.

He hurried to the training hall, threw open the doors and slid inside.

“Your prince has returned!” he exclaimed, doing a pretty good job at pretending he hadn't just sprinted the whole way there.

“Has he now?” BS asked, apparently in a bad mood today.

“Oh come now big S, the boy is just excited for his present! I would be too if I got a new costume made for me by a secret admirer,” Sweets offered with a calming hand on BS' shoulder. Sweets was an empath. He could share his emotions and those of others, perfect match for someone who wants or needs to keep his calm.

But what sweets said made Roman rather flustered. “I don't think DreamPrince has had enough appearances to already gain such attentions. Whoever did this just couldn't stand to look at this any longer.” Roman gestured to his current costume.

“Speaking of which…” he held out his hand bouncing on his feet in excitement. He was supposed to meet the chief of police today and he wanted to look presentable.

Manifestor chuckled from his spot on the desk. “Give the boy his stuff. He's been looking forward to this day for the past four years.”

BS sighed and handed Roman a small box, which the young hero snatched up before rushing to the dressing room.

He turned his suit off and took off the containment units. He opened the box and switched the old units for the new ones. The bracelets were more comfortable and adjusted to his skin tone, the metal bead was replaced with two skin colored stickers he applied to his temples.

“Let’s do this,” Roman smirked excitedly.

“To adventure!” he called out as he crossed his arms and tapped at his temples while simultaneously clicking his wrists together. At the same time he tapped his right toe behind his left heel and brought his ankles together. He struck a power pose, facing the full length mirror and grinned excitedly. Virgil had added an insignia on his cape and golden trimming in the final design. There'd been a few options for his emblem and Roman had chosen the shield with a castle by the sea with the sun shining down on him. He looked quite dashing.

He left the dressing room and handed the box back to BS with an elegant gesture.

BS wasn't amused. Sweets and Manifestor on the other found it hilarious.

“So? What do you think?” Roman asked as he turned around to show off the end result.

A loud ‘bing' announced a message from his family watching from the observation room.

“Gaaaaaaay!” Roman rolled his eyes good naturedly. Remus was a fan.

“Stay away from Planes!” the next one read. Roman chuckled. He had asked Virgil about the cape, considering he’d expected someone as cautious as him to heed Edna Mode's advice.

Apparently Virgil had intended the Cape to be an addition for official events. So ‘Prince’ would look good on camera. He'd also pointed out that it would look badass for the prince to un-claps his Cape before a fight. He'd had a point and Roman actually loved it.

“You look very handsome darling.”

“Thanks mom!” Roman called out.

Then two beeps came from a device on BS wrist. He looked down and relaxed, tapping away at a holographic screen, turning up the intensity of his shadow. “The chief is here,” he announced.

Roman raised an eyebrow, that was not what BS had been so tense about. Something in his private life maybe? If that was the case he'd never find out.

Roman had no time to worry about that though. The door opened and in walked the police chief. A small but commanding African American woman. It was something in the way she walked that made Roman want to stand at attention. And so he did. He wasn't the only one.

“DreamPrince, at your service ma’am,” Roman introduced himself respectfully.

“So you are what all the fuss is about?” she asked as she looked Roman up and down.

Chief Davies pursed her lips before nodding to herself. “I’ve read your file, you’re quite the prodigy aren’t you?” she asked.

Roman chuckled a little awkwardly. “I’ve just been training from a young age, that’s all.” Most gifted didn’t realize their talent until they were well in their teens.

“Good answer. I have no time to stroke an adolescent ego. We’ve got work to do.”

Chief Davies turned to Manifestor. “You got the files I sent?”

Manifestor nodded hurriedly. “Yes. I had no time to review them though.”

“I’ll walk you through it,” she announced dismissively. The leader of Roman’s training team nodded and tapped at something on his wrist. The screen that had shown the messages from Roman’s family earlier was now filled with mugshots.

The men looked dangerous. Roman shifted nervously. “You… you want my help apprehending these men?” he asked, trying not to show how frightening it seemed.

“God No!” Roman hid his relieve. “These men are all in jail already, with iron clad cases keeping them there for a long time. You think I’m going to send some rookie after hardcore criminals? No offense, but you are still a baby,” Roman blushed at that and focused back on the pictures.

Wait a minute. “I know that guy! Remember at the end of my first week? I spotted some tugs bothering that kid and tossed a rock at them?”

“And by some miracle you weren’t found when said tugs came looking for you,” BS added through gritted teeth. Still upset at Roman's initial recklessness.

“I wasn’t the only one they were looking for,” Roman insisted. He’d been so sure he hadn’t been alone that night. But BS claimed the would have known if anyone else had been there.

He never went after the tugs after they left the alley. BS insisting he was done with back alleys for the night.

And now those guys were apparently behind bars?

“Next slide please!” Davies called out.

A picture of a ziplock bag with pictures, a USB stick and a note of cut out letters that said ‘your turn’.

“For almost a year now we’ve been getting mysterious packages like this. Pictures, audio and video recordings. Every last one had one of these men incriminating themselves. It’s like whoever delivers these stands right next to them, but never gets caught taking pictures or carrying a wire. I have a small task force on the case who have dubbed them ‘The Phantom’. We are keeping this as in house as we can. Once the public hears about the Phantom, we’ll lose the most valuable asset we’ve ever had. Plus until now we weren’t sure if they were a sensible vigilante or a mobster who was taking out competition in a very clever way. Given what you just said I’d be inclined towards the former. They might have some sort of gift that hides them well enough to get away with spying. But right now, they are putting themselves in danger.” Davies turned towards Roman.

“Keep an eye out, see if you can spot him during your patrol this evening. And if you do, get him on board with the program.”

“Prince did not go through all that training to be your recruitment poster boy!” BS snapped to Roman's surprise. That was the most emotional response he's seen from BS ever. Aside from when he scolded Roman on his reckless behavior.

Davies glared at BS, looking quite intimidating, despite barely reaching to his chest.

“Now don't go all noble on me BrainStorm. What? Did your heart grow three sizes while I wasn't looking? Is there suddenly room for more than one other person there?”

Roman knew that this was a threat. Davies knew BS’ true identity, where he worked, who he cared for. She could ruin whatever he had built in an instant.

Roman often wondered what kind of life BS had outside the facility. Did he have a partner? A family? Did they know about his past at all.

A few seconds ticked by with no one daring to do so much as breathe.

Then Davies relaxed and stepped back. “I'm no monster BrainStorm. I wouldn't ask some rookie to deal with this if I hadn’t tried everything else already. I send in my agents and even called in other gifted. All we got out of that was this,” she gestured and Manifestor showed the next image. A note in the same style as the previous one that said ‘no babysit!’

“Our profiler thinks they are young. So maybe your prince won't seem as threatening. They might've had his back once before already. If this Phantom were someone you cared for, would you rather we left them be, or would you drag their noble behind here yourself to give them proper gear and back up?”

The question hung in the air for a moment, BS had nothing to counter with. Roman imagined Phantom being one of his friends, or even Janus and the answer remained the same.

“I will do what I can,” he vowed before lifting his chin and facing the fierce chief head on. “But ma'am, I don't appreciate you threatening my mentor like that.”

BS had stood up for him, it was only right for him to return the favor.

Davies chuckled. “Just when I started to worry you were only brawn and a pretty face. You can be smart too huh? And you’ve got guts. You just might have what it takes kid. Now. I have places to be. Keep me updated, and don't lose this.” Roman accepted the watch he was handed with a confused frown.

“My people will call if we need you. Please use that brain and return the favor?”

With that she left. Well… that was intense.

Roman put on the watch and saw that it had a frequency displayed on it instead of time. He also spotted two buttons. One blue and one red. It didn't take much to realize that one was a panic button and the other was to make it so the cops could hear him. He wondered if it would connect to the nearest patrol car or to Davies directly.

He hoped he’d never have to find out.

“Well… time to show the city their hero is ready for action.”

 It had been a pleasant evening so far. He'd stopped a few shoplifters, broke up a fight or two and dodged a few reporters, though he let them snap a good picture of his new outfit.

Now the sun was down however and he was making his way to the back alleys.

“Looking for a fight is foolish Prince!” BS growled through his earpiece.

But Roman wasn't looking for a fight. He was looking for someone who'd gotten him out of at least one pickle.

He ignored BS as he landed on a roof, overlooking the city using his sight. He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly, but it was his only plan.

Suddenly he spotted something strange and unusual. There was an energy, a few blocks ahead. But it was impossible for him to really see it. Like he was looking at it trough glasses with strong prescriptions.

He rushed towards it and found a gang of criminals with violently swirling auras. He knew what this meant. They were going to hurt someone.

“Send back up to my location,” he instructed before turning the receiver off. He needed to focus.

“I say we attack now! They are week! We can take them down easily.” A shorter guy with energy like glass shards insisted.

“Boss says we have a truce until the rat is found,” a giant of a man stated calmly, though his energy betrayed how much he wanted to go with the first guy's plan.

Were they talking about Phantom?

“What rat!? Those idiots just bragged to the wrong crowd.” The first voice shot back. Phantom was becoming a bit of a ghost story it seemed. Some who believed, judging by the shudder that went through the other men's auras at the mere mention of them. But clearly not everyone was convinced.

“Oh and they gave out pictures as well? Did a little livestream? We're not safe until this rat is lynched,” the tall man pointed out tensely. He was a believer. And he wanted Phantom dead. Not good.

Roman studied the tugs and to his relief he spotted they were all armed. Weird thing to be happy about. But it meant he had probable cause to interfere.

He jumped down, slowing his descent just so that he didn't hurt himself on the landing without sacrificing the cool factor.

“Do you gentlemen have permits for those weapons?” he asked as he rose up to his full length facing them fearlessly.

“what the…?”

“It's that Prince clown!” Rude.

The tall guy, the leader probably, silenced the group with a gesture and smiled, his anxious energy almost completely disappearing. He'd found something to vent on. “Sure kid. Got mine right here.”

Roman flung his cape in front of him and manifested a gelatinous shield around himself as the leader pulled out his gun and fired several rounds at him. The tugs wouldn't see it. But it was there, and it caught the bullets slowing them down until they were harmless, making them fall to the ground when they met with the fabric.

“Well now you just pissed me off. This is brand new!” he complained as he dropped both cape and shield.

“I suppose you won't surrender peacefully?” he deduced. The criminals all readied their weapons. Seriously? Did they not get that he was essentially bulletproof?

He sighed as he took off his cape and hung it on a water pipe that ran down the side of the building.

“Fine,” he sighed and then he amped up his speed a bit while shielding himself from the rain of bullets heading his way. He used the gelatin shield because he didn't want to risk the bullets ricocheting and injuring someone. Especially the gifted he was sure was still watching the whole thing.

It wasn't hard to disarm the criminals. He even managed to knock a few to the ground. But there were at least two who'd gone down without him even touching them. And he would’ve sworn he saw a figure move between him and a tug once or twice to block a blow. He couldn't really see the other hero. It was an odd sensation. But he could feel his presence better and better and soon he was adapting his moves to those of the Phantom. Together they took out the whole group. Though to the villains it would seem like he'd done it by himself. He stood victorious over the leader, a pile of disassembled guns behind him and sirens lighting up the alley.

He twisted his foot to show off his white boot with gold accents. “So… how does it feel to get your butt kicked by a guy in heels?” he wondered playfully before looking up towards the presence and winking in acknowledgment.

“Good job Dream Prince. We've got it from here.” Roman turned to the cops and bowed to them

“It's my pleasure to be of assistance to the police of this fine city.” Then, while turning around, he made a gesture that could be taken as a ‘goodbye’, or as a ‘follow me’.

He was glad to notice that the presence seemed to follow him. He found a fire escape and floated himself to the roof it led to.

He turned to face his hopefully soon to be partner in crime fighting.

He could hear the clanging of someone climbing the metal fire escape. And while he still couldn't quite make out the figure that reached the roof he saw his reflection in a pool of water left behind by the rain earlier that day.

An unfortunate weakness, but so long as no one knew, no one would be looking for it. In order to be a hero, no one could know Phantom really existed. Was that why the authorities were kept at a distance? Why Phantom never made introductions despite having crossed paths at least once before?

He stepped forward with a bow. “Greetings Phantom. I must thank you for the assistance. Both just now and three months ago. I am Dream Prince, he/him if you please. A pleasure to officially meet you.”

A distorted chuckle made him look up. He could see Phantom much better now. He was dressed in Male coded clothes, though that was no guarantee. The hero outfit was simple. A black t-shirt, boots and denims, paired with a black coat that reached down to his calves and had the collar popped up. He looked really cool… but Roman couldn't make sense of his head. He was looking right at him he could see it, but his brain couldn't identify a thing.

It was so weird.

“Phantom huh?” His voice was a strange deep echoing sound. The distortion was pretty spooky if he was honest, but he wasn't afraid. Phantom was on his side.

“Sure you can call me that. He/him… mind telling me what that was about? I thought you officials weren't let of your leash unless you could be responsible enough to not get yourself killed?”

Roman cocked his brow. “Says the guy who has half the criminal underworld out for his blood,” he reminded him. Phantom looked away. Clearly he knew Roman had a point.

“Do you have something against the program?” His tone had been oddly bitter.

“No I…”  Phantom took in a deep breath. “Sorry, I’m just pissed at the cops for sending you, I guess.” He sure sounded upset. And Roman could understand that. Here Phantom was, doing his part and all the cops could do in return was bother him At least as far as the young vigilante could tell. But then why…?

“Yet you chose to follow me up here?” Roman pressed. That didn’t make any sense. Phantom had shaken off his ‘babysits’ before. What made Roman special?

“Um… Well… I just…” Phantom stammered. Roman wondered why. Was he bad with confrontation? Social interaction in general? Or had Roman said something that hit a nerve somehow?

“You interrupted my stake out!” Phantom blurted out all of a sudden.

“Do you know how long it takes to work my way up the ranks? First I have to find a low level runner, then I follow him to his boss, that guy to his and so up the ladder I go. I was getting real close to the big guy of this group. And now…” Oh… Well Roman could understand how that would be frustrating.

“I apologize,” he said sincerely with a small bow. “I merely intended to help. They were talking about killing you.” Surely he could understand that he could not stand by after hearing that.

“And now there is a price on your head! The leader of that little club is like two steps away from the big boss. They won’t be happy with you taking him in.”

Well… He had a point. But Roman had back up. It would be rather stupid of the mob to come after a hero with government sanctioning. And these guys would go behind bars for a long time right? “You got dirt on them?” he asked. If the guns weren’t enough then surely whatever Phantom  had gleaned from his stakeouts would be sufficient. Right?

“Yes… But that’s not the point. They have no clue about me. Not really. But you are out in the open. This is not your kind of mission Royal pain.” Oh, he had nicknames huh? It was an insult, but Roman didn’t mind witty banter. Especially if it came from a place of care. And Roman was starting to think it did.

“And now that you are out, you can’t expect me to hold your hand any longer…”

Roman crossed his arms and smirked catching the implications of what Phantom just said.

“You’ve been looking out for me all summer huh?” he guessed.

Phantom scoffed and probably rolled his eyes. While Roman still couldn’t quite see it, he would bet his entire Disney collection on it.

“It’s not like I came looking for you.” Phantom snapped. And Roman believed him.

“Still… Thank you…” he was going to say more but then he heard a beep in his ear followed by a loud voice. “Prince! Answer this instant!”

“Ow!” Roman exclaimed annoyed, reflexively reaching for his ear though it wouldn’t help much. He pressed the button to talk to BS. “One. Loud. Two. Rude! I am in the middle of something! And did you seriously remotely reactivate my com?”

He would demand a new com that couldn’t do that or he’d refuse to wear one period. What if he needed to concentrate right now? What if he was in the middle of tense negotiations or being told delicate information. As a matter of fact. This situation right here was delicate. One wrong move and Phantom might bolt. And he might not come along next time he found him. And even if he couldn’t get him to join the program, he wanted Phantom to know he had an ally in him. Someone to talk to, confide in, count on if he didn’t have anyone else.

“You do not turn off your com while going into a gunfight! It’s moronic to go in alone!”

Roman rolled his eyes. “I am fine, not a scratch on me.” He wasn’t going to mention that he wasn’t alone exactly. Phantom had never consented to BS and the rest of his team knowing.

“I’ll call you when I’m done here.” And this time he took the com out of his ear. BS could yell at him later.

“Sorry,” he sighed. “My mentor is… intense at times.” In a cold and distant way.

“Mentor?” Phantom asked.

“One of the people helping me practice my powers, test my limits. Comes with the program. It’s not just a babysit and a nice suit,” he joked casually.

“Oh…” Phantom’s tone was odd. It made Roman want to come closer and offer comfort. He didn’t though. They weren’t at that point yet. Not by a long shot.

“Listen, I admit I was sent by the chief. But I didn’t come here to recruit you. I wanted to thank you and tell you… If you ever need someone to talk to, to help you figure something out… I’d be more than happy to oblige. No need to tell me your name or anything about yourself,” he vowed as he reached out his hand. Phantom hesitated for a few moments before bridging the distance and offering his own.

Roman grinned and grabbed it for a firm shake. “I’ll see you next time,” he assured his fellow hero before letting go and turning around to finish his patrol.

Progress was made. Not much, but still.

He just might’ve made a new friend.

@cirishere @hestianerd1 @moonlightshow00 @naturallyunstablegamer @alias290 @meowthefluffy @frida0043 @angelic-cali @selenechris @theblackveilinreverse

End of this part meet Virgil and read his story.

Masterlist

[mushroommushy]

Enter Bunnix

The Bubbler

Breaking news! Local teen calls Mr. Agreste out on being a shitty father!

- Adrien’s birthday! He’s turning 14

- Alix is still older though at 15

- She got him some Heelys since he’s been begging to use hers all the time

- And planned on giving him hair dye just to get on Gabriel’s nerves

- Nino had been talking on a private group chat that excluded Adrien about planning a birthday party for him

Nino: This is gonna be Adrien’s best birthday party!

Alix: Of course it will be.

Chloe: He’s never had one.

- Alix, Sabrina, Nath and Chloe were a little worried, due to Gabriel’s history of not allowing birthday parties

- But forcing his son to go to galas he doesn’t want to attend is perfectly fine!

- Bunnix showed up at Adrien’s window at literally seven in the morning to say happy birthday

- Then Ladybug popped up to say the same thing an hour later

- Gabriel saw that and was very much confused since why the hell did two superhero’s thank a random kid happy birthday

Nathalie: Maybe they know him sir? Or admire him?

- He’s considered using his son as leverage

Adrien, at Plagg: Did you just. Eat a ribbon?

Plagg, coughing it up: Yup.

- Adrien was very nervous about leaving his house because fangirls exist

- Gorilla gave him a hug when he came downstairs and Adrien was vibrating like he drank 7 cups of coffee made with Red Bull from happiness

- He wants affection and will cling to people if needed

- Jalil had stayed up the entire night studying for his exam and when Alix walked downstairs she shoved him on the couch

Alix: Sleep ya dork. You look like a zombie.

Jalil, muffled from his face being in a pillow: I have an exam

Alix: At 2 Pm. Sleep.

Alim, from the kitchen: *Extreme amusement*

- Alim loves how close his kids are

- He can go and check on Jalil and Alix is just clinging to him while he’s working

- Alix defending her brother from those who pick on him

- He does worry about Alix seemingly being gone more lately though

- He can tell that she isn’t getting much sleep either from something

- And also he’s wondering when did his daughter start developing muscles

- But he just assumes Nora must be training her or something like that

- For context, Nora and Jalil are the same age and are best friends

- That something would be midnight Mr. Pigeon attacks and patrols

- She really wants to know why the fuck Mr. Ramier is out that late

- She suspects he may be drinking but who knows

- Wouldn’t be much of surprise

- Alim has known Gabriel for ages and can get away with yelling at him a little bit

- So of course he scolds him on being an uptight dick about not letting his kid have a party

- Doesn’t get him to change his mind though

- Once Adrien got to school, Alix smacked him on the back of the head with his gift and ran off cackling

Adrien: *Flips the bird*

Nino: WOAH DUDE I THOUGHT YOU WERE A SUNSHINE??

- Alya was very much not expecting that to happen and was a little stunned

- Marinette was more confused at what happened while Chloe was trying not to laugh

- Nino is very determined to get his friend a birthday party

Nino: I’m sure he’ll let you have a birthday party!

Nathaniel, whose tried several times: *Insert press X to doubt meme*

- Marinette still wasn’t able to gather up enough courage to give her present to Adrien

- Chloe didn’t shove Marinette though

- She did wish him a happy birthday however and gave him Ladybug, Chat Noir and Bunnix plushies that she had custom made

- She also has some of her own but will die before admitting to it

- Alix was dragged off onto the photo shoot with Adrien while hissing

- This was because Gabriel was still trying to market them as a couple despite Alim cutting it off

- The latter is not happy about this when he hears about it

- Alix has also been getting attacked on Twitter and such by Adrien’s fangirls despite not liking him

- She just wants to forget about it

- This is when Mari finds out about Alix and Adrien being ex’s

- Which she was not expecting

- Marinette delivers the present to Adrien and screamed at the camera

- She signed it this time thankfully

- Nathalie called Gabriel out on his bs and told him to buy his son a present himself

- Nino was turned away by Gabriel because he wasn’t presentable and banned him from the house

- When he heard a throat being cleared as he turned away he assumed it was Nino again and was about to dismiss him

- It wasn’t Nino

- It was Alim

- Who was not amused with the photo shoot

Alim: I believe I explicitly told you that my daughter as well as your son were uncomfortable with the relationship. Then my daughter calls me telling me that you forced her to act like they were a thing again? Maybe your son wouldn’t talk to you because you distance yourself so much Gabriel. But I make an effort to tell my daughter to talk to me. So the next time you try to control my daughters life it will end badly.

- Alim is a good dad, and has had adoption papers for Adrien for years

- He just needs signatures

- Adrien was also not happy when he came home from the photo shoot with Alix and saw Nino stomping off

- Alix went up to join her dad

- Adrien at this point has trusted Alim more than his father for awhile and stayed behind him

- Gabriel, like the coward he is ran off to hide from Alim and to Akumatize Nino

- Nino is akumatized into Bubbler with the intention of getting rid of bad parents rather than all adults as he does understand that not all adults are bad

- He doesn’t look stupid this time because I despise Bubbler’s design with a passion

- Alim immediately picked up Alix and Adrien noticing the bubbles outside, and a few adults floating in the sky

- Alix and Adrien just gave each other a nervous look

- They appreciated Alim’s care but they couldn’t go transform with him around

Alix: Should we split up? It might be safer.

Alim, immediately: Absolutely not! I’m not letting you two get hurt.

- Alix and Adrien are considering telling him their identities because he is trust worthy

- Thankfully they don’t have too

- Because Bubbler broke into the house with a smile

Bubbler: Adrien!! Glad to see you have a decent adult around. Now I can throw you a party!

Adrien: Nino?!

Alix: Oh boy..

- Bubbler leaves Alim alone since he isn’t a bad parent

- He also leaves Gorilla alone

- Nathalie isn’t spared however and Bubbler demands for Gabriel’s location to which she doesn’t respond

- He just growls and sends her sky high and leaves, gathering the rest of the classmates

- Marinette was already transformed having seen the bubbles

- She just hoped that this would maybe end with some in jail if they were really bad parents

- She was searching for the Akuma until she saw Bubbler carrying a terrified looking Rose across buildings

- She had a bit of a hard time catching up with him until he stopped at the Agreste mansion and dropped Rose off in the back yard with the other classmates for the party

- Bubbler started the party with most students looking a little nervous

- Most of their parents were left alone

- I said most not all

- Nathaniel, Chloe and Sabrina’s parents were all taken by the bubbles

- Alim is pulling out adoption papers again

- Bubbler is honestly more amused by that

- He likes this parent and is planning to drop his classmates bad parents because they are his friends

- Alix can’t really slink off to transform and with Bubbler watching him Adrien couldn’t either

- Chloe still pulls the slow dance thing

Rose, dancing with a random dude: I’m a lesbian.

Random dude: Neat. I’m gay.

- She made a new friend with her dance partner, a black haired boy with bright green eyes

- Alix was taking slight amusement in Max tripping over himself because he can’t see shit without glasses

- Ladybug shows up, and switching the music with her lucky charm record

- Several kids tripped and it took Alim glaring at Alix not to laugh

- Alim was the responsible adult and ushered all the kids inside to hide

- Which thankfully gave Alix and Adrien the ability to transform

- Bunnix and Chat fought Bubbler while Ladybug fed her Kwami

- Chat did flirt a little with Bunnix

- This is how Ivan, Kim and Sabrina started shipping Bun Noir

- She just smacked him with her umbrella lightly

- Alim was panicking because he managed to loose both his daughter and Adrien and couldn’t find them

- Ladybug got back, using her yo-yo as a shield against the bubbles

- She also bonked Chat because she wanted to

- Bunnix was cackling

- Bubbler used the green bubbles on them, trapping Chat and Ladybug in one and Bunnix on her own

- Bunnix hearing Chat’s comment she just went: Dude please go to therapy your dad is a dick and I’ve met some shitty people

- Bubbler just sent them up into the sky

- Chat used his cataclysm white Bunnix exited with her burrow

- Bunnix was waiting where they landed and slowed them down so they didn’t skid

- Bunnix and Chat’s timers started up

- The fight ensued on the Eiffel Tower and they successfully deakumatized Nino

- Ladybug used her cure and sent the adults back down to earth

- They did their pound it and Bunnix and Chat ran off to get back to the mansion

- Alim was a little mad at them for disappearing but they just said they were nervous and couldn’t hear him looking for them

- Gabriel is now scared of Alim a little bit

- Adrien gets taught how to use his heelys by Alix and sleeps with the hero plushies every night

[pkmnsdarkqueen]

The Villain’s as their dnd race and class

From this

that helped inspire all of this

(used hero forge )

-some edits to original design-

Team name: Rainbow

How they got the name: They kept arguing over what to be called and some Npc said they were all so colorful, and should go by rainbow. This stuck, they all collectively hate this npc for being the cause of what they find a terribly lame name.

other teams:

Elite (Kanjo)

Second Gen  (children group)

Dropouts (main group coming soon)

Giovanni-Shifter mountain lion, Fighter: Battle Master

A shifter fighter as before still trying to absolve his crimes for ya know running a mafia that controlled many towns. Instead of uniforms to signify being part of the mafia members where shoulder armor all in the same colors to signify their allegiance. The helmet on the ground is reserved for the leader alone. He still has these in case some of his old ways or contacts are needed by the group. Also in his fighting style he still uses some dirty tactics such as rings since brass knuckles are a bit too obvious, and well the good old broken class bottle his tail is holding. A touch of an orange vest since well, the anime version of him is something my mind will never forget.

(rest below cut)

Archie-Sea elf, Rouge: Swashbuckler

I know sea elves aren’t a traditional race, but the homebrew stuff people have made is so good and I want to keep the elf/dwarf rivalry with Maxie plus someone else is already a triton. So he fights with a giant anchor because of course he does, and no matter what has on his captain hat despite not currently having a crew. The center skull of his necklace is a sapphire, and the skull mask was his claim to fame as a pirate since I can’t make the x pattern he has in the games. 

Maxie-Mountain dwarf, Wizard: Evocation

Ah maxie the dwarf, He came from the mountains fascinated with rocks and that comes into play ash his magic is mostly volcanic. Like most dwarves he wears a helmet this one with a Ruby in it as it is traditional among dwarves to have armor. However he’s very unlike most dwarves in that he keeps a clean face,a nd isn’t terribly rugged which aids to why he left in the first place. His book has spells as well as all of the research he’s done on various land scapes.

Cyrus-Kalashtar, Artificer: Forge Adept

He doesn’t look like he belongs, and he does not care. He’s like the one person in the party who’s hired them for this job, and just wants his answers dang it he doesn’t care what he looks like to them. He sleeps in that outfit and through some artificer tech bs it keeps his body temperature perfect unless the weather is extreme. And he gets 2 angels cause he’s the one guy in the party with a gun, that he made mind you, and will not let anyone touch it. Also has a scanner to find the planar abnormalities and the little orb is like a small spy drone. He’s not as friendly as other Kalashter but has the no emotion thing under control to a terrifying degree, or perceived lack of emotion.

Ghetsis-Human, Warlock: Fiend

Again he has to have a good enough reputation to be allowed to hang around so he looks almost knightly in a way. Heads up the copper sickly green color on the dog’s paws, ANYONE WITH THAT COLOR IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE BBEG (big bad evil guy so final boss). Read plot to understand. He claims the spectral wolf he rides on is a warlock spell adjusted, since they can get mounts, but it’s one of the gifts from the god he is taking orders from since he’s older and it’s colors are somewhat based on his hydreigon. As far as the color I also used it in his magic where the sword he summons has the evil god’s influence. The staff on his back is the cane he uses when the wolf is unsummoned. Also yes he is missing an arm cause I like that more than him having one. Finally the scattered objects around him symbolize the fact he, ye know killed his former party.

Lysandre-Leonin, Paladin:Oath of the Crown

He’s a lion because of course he is, but as he is oath of the crown and royalty much of his armor details are polished in the brightest of golds. Overall his attire has little silver usually a black or gold. His blade would be gives waves like fire, and his abilities would be mostly fire based. He would be the best in the party as diplomatic ventures due to being royalty, despite the disgrace he recently brought on his family, and the fact he’s a paladin thus the quil and paper at his side.

Lusamine-Aasmir, Bloodhunter: Profane soul

Blood hunter another kinda sketchy class, but as an aasmir people instinctively trust her more. Her powers would be ice based if her own, and project some heavenly like light as well. However as she is also helping the main boss powers from him would resonate int hat sickly copper green color as well. Her weapon of choice would be scythes though she’d be able to talk away any suspicious. Better yet the amulet on her neck is how she is able to make sure those who can sense good and evil such as paladin Lysandre is enchanted to throw them off. It also is what holds the mind control on Guzma who got too close. 

Guzma-Bug Bear, Barbarian: Wild Soul

The palest and most BUG of bug bears you’ll ever meet. I wanted to keep the pale look cause it fits with ‘team skull’ and kept the dyed hair as well. Also naturally he’s got some skulls. The blindfold is excused by Lusamine saying he has an injury there when in actuality it hides that he’s possessed and the eerie glow from soem of her and Ghetsis’s magic is in his eyes. Also yes most of his armor is bone based. Now for the reasons as to why he has a thorax and bug antenna. So barbarian wild souls get their powers from another plane of esistence after having come into contact with it. Since Lusamine is well experimenting with merging planes, and has used various races as experiments before why not use now mind controlled bug bear? Yeah so he got kinda merged with another plane’s race of bug people. Lusamine has a whole story about how she saved him, and he’s been left kinda mentally unstable and half bug when it’s all her fault. 

Rose-Loxodon, Cleric: Life

A simple elephant that just wants to know if there is a chance magic can be used up fully or is truly as renewable as everyone claims it to be. Certainly can fight though truthfully doesn’t mind helping out by healing. However if soemone gets hurt from fighting in the party, cough maxie and archie, he’s strict about not healing them till they apologize. I kept him in mostly grays since it matches his suit, and some armor since he’s a steel trainer. I also decided his magic would mostly be a gray with pulses of yellow. I gave him brown details on the skin so that it’s true to form, and also he’s got some colorization past usual gray elephant. He’s high key one of the most vital party members as the healer and uses that sometimes, also the one who buys the most health potions. (If I could give the elephant ears piercings I would)

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Copy the Free Organic Traffic we used to get 100s of views in hours… Sending this traffic also boosts site authority and engagement.

Developing & sourcing Magnets: Including using other people’s products freely and ethically (Yes it’s legal)… Follow this and find products to use in seconds.

Full Step-by-Step Process suitable for Newbies and seasoned Marketers alike.

The Secret Page: 20 – 30% of everyone who sees this page will result in you receiving commission from any affiliate product you like

Orientation Training Call

Drop & Pop Traffic… multi (newbie friendly) FREE traffic sources included so you can get started instantly without cost.

Access to the Facebook Mastermind Group

The Pre-Sell System: add this content to your blog (as detailed) and you WILL Make Money and build an evergreen business at the same time.

6 Videos covering the basic set up (designed for Newbies)

Let’s take a minute to recap the benefits come up with this training:

Drop & Pop is the only system available that enables anyone to generate income from affiliate products without actually promoting affiliate products… this is a unique system they developed for their own business.

This is system generates Pro-Active & Passive income once setup

Highly targeted, risk free traffic is the key to profiting online. Start with a budget of only $5 and you’re set… That’s it!

Can 100% be run part time (in fact, most people do just that!)

Many Drop & Pop Posts will also hit Google, Bing and Yahoo Page #1 without any additional work!

This is a tried-and-tested easy way to make money if done the right way!

Anyone can do this (even complete Newbies) and get awesome results, so it might as well be you!

It has the potential to make you money and build growing authority assets which generate income for years almost on autopilot.

No technical skills required at all, Drop & Pop is designed to be stupidly simple… All is laid out in an easy to follow system.

Very easily scalable and only invest more after you earn.

MUST SEE: “We Found an AMAZING Discounted Offer on Drop & Pop Right Here!”

Who Should Use It?

Generally, Drop & Pop is a MUST-HAVE item for:

♦ Affiliate Marketers

♦ Marketers

♦ Com + Amazon

♦ Freelancers

♦ Website Owners

♦ Social Media Marketers

♦ Local businesses

♦ Any other kinds of online business

Pros and Cons

Pros

Makes You Commissions on Autopilot

Zero Selling or Traffic Needed

Unlimited Cash Potential

Works Great Even for “Internet Dummies”

It’s a Lot of Fun

Builds an Evergreen Business as you go which runs 24/7/365

30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Cons

No Cons Found.

>>>> Visit This Drop & Pop (International) From Official Website

Front‌ ‌End‌ ‌Pricing‌ ‌Structure‌ ‌-‌ ‌ ‌

FE:‌ ‌$12.93‌ ‌(Pop‌ ‌&‌ ‌Drop)‌ ‌ OTO‌ ‌1:‌ ‌UNLIMITED‌ ‌Edition‌ ‌  ($37 – $67) OTO‌ ‌2:‌ ‌Done‌ ‌For‌ ‌You‌ ‌  ($97 – $197) OTO‌ ‌3:‌ ‌DFY‌ ‌LEADS‌ ‌&‌ ‌SWIPE‌ ‌  ($97 – $197) OTO‌ ‌4:‌ ‌Limitless‌ ‌Traffic‌ ‌  ($97 – $197) OTO‌ ‌5:‌ ‌License‌ ‌Rights‌ ‌to‌ ‌Everything‌  ($67 – $167)

Drop & Pop Review – Is it worth buying?

Let me remind you how ready Drop & Pop is a complete income package that’s set & forget easy to have up and running in.

Gets you results in less than 24 hours (usually the first hour)

Multiple Traffic Sources for Instant Traction

Use in any Niche (Works Best in Niches where people buy multiple products)

Free organic traffic from Google as a side bonus in addition to the main source

100% Repeatable & Super Scaleable

Guaranteed Fix for anyone who can’t get approved to promote affiliate Products

Honestly, Drop & Pop’s worth way more than what they’re asking.

But the launch is wrapping up which means the price is about to rise soon.

Do what you need to do right now.

==> Order Today: Drop & Pop Click Here To View Pricing and Availability <==    

F.A.Q.s

Is This Real Or Yet Another Theory Based Idea?

Yes, Drop & Pop is a real system we’ve used to generate consistent results online.

Where Do I Get The Traffic?

A system without traffic is NOT a workable system. Inside Drop & Pop you will find details on multiple traffic sources, all of which are simple and to the point. But the great thing is that traffic is immediately created and multiplied with the organic byproduct of activating Drop & Pop.

What About Ranking On Google?

Drop & Pop is not about ranking in search engines, SEO or any of that boring, time consuming stuff. However based on phrase competition, popularity and engagement on your Drop & Pop posts some will rise to page #1 of Google, Bing and Yahoo on Autopilot… There is no additional work involved & we make no guarantees as to which of your posts rank on search engines.

Is This Another Loophole?

Absolutely not… loopholes and quick fixes come and go on a monthly basis, and when they get closed down (which the do) you will have wasted time and probably money. Drop & Pop is a real ‘Ethical’ and Evergreen business model… Follow this system and your online business will be created the right way… and it will still work in 5 years’ time

Is This Really That Easy?

Yes! Drop & Pop is designed specifically to be 'Low-Tech’ easy to understand and apply. I put Drop & Pop together for myself in order to generate affiliate income without having to promote product after product.

Do You Guarantee I Will Make Money With Drop&Pop?

Drop & Pop is an Evergreen system which we guarantee made us money simply by following the process. We cannot legally guarantee results of any kind, but there are real people all over the world that have made money with this. You will need to apply the training for it to work. Do as instructed… keep doing it and you will see the rewards of building a real online business that is consistent.

What If I Don’t Have Any Experience?

Experience is not a requirement. We’ve seen “green” beginners that have never tried to do anything else on the internet, and they still made substantial income with this method.

I’m On A Tight Budget… Will It Work For Me?

Drop & Pop is a business… and all business requires some investment. In this case, we are really minimizing the total amount of investment you will have to make here. There is no additional costs you need other than to activate the Drop & Pop system.

Buy the offer from my link and send me the screenshots on this email (digitaloceanreviews@gmail.com) and I will send you the bonuses

👉 Click Here to buy

[srattueba2b]

Ideas for the Main Character and ‘Ethical Issues’

When coming up with ideas for the main character’s design, I began just by doodling whatever came to mind- sometimes trying to emulate Nick Cross’s style. However, I then remembered watching the short ‘Hair Love’ recently and how endearing the main character’s design was in that film, so I tried drawing a character using one of the hairstyles.

I found that I really liked the design and thought it could be fun changing her hairstyle in each stage of her life, maybe getting progressively more intricate and creative the more she learns to embrace her fascination for art and animation. So, I presented it to the rest of my group and it was received quite well.

However, Tiago brought up that they were concerned whether or not it would be ‘appropriate’ for our main character to be black, alluding to the fact that our group is predominantly white.

And this really surprised me. Whilst I understand that when creating characters who have a different culture or ethnicity to yourself, you won’t be able to share the same personal experience. But this is true of almost any character you create. Following this logic, am I limited only to creating white, female characters?

If this were a film specifically about black culture or what it means to be black then I would agree that that is not our film to make. But this is simply about a person who loves and is fascinated by animation. And I see no reason why that person can’t be black.

On another note, poc are severely underrepresented in TV animation as is, especially women. To quote Cree Summer (a voice actress who voices multiple black animated characters) from this 2018 interview:

‘I do the voices of all the brown girls... There still ain’t that many. Because there is this really crazy belief that black girls don’t watch cartoons, and that we don’t collect comics, and that we don’t like sci-fi, and that’s BS man. We love it’.

(Cree, paraphrasing her fans) “You don’t know what it meant to me to see myself in a cartoon, I got one little black girl that I get to see that looks like me. Thank you so much”

Tyler the Creator raises a similar argument in this 2017 conference:

Furthermore, I also recently watched this video analysis by ToonrificTariq of black characters in animation, and though it’s quite informally written and its sources often aren’t fully cited, it raises some valid points (and includes the above clips). 

‘there is no one black experience’ and ‘not every character with brown skin needs to be a political statement’. 

However, he also raises the point (at 13:00 in the video) that in the birth of animation, film & media, the way black people were portrayed was dictated by predominantly white people, and more often than not with harmful stereotypical caricatures. Only recently have we been able to move away from these depictions, even I remember watching Tom & Jerry cartoons growing up and seeing Jerry with a shoe-polish blackened face and big red lips. So it is imperative that black characters be portrayed respectfully and that we listen to a range of opinions from people of colour- to do our research.

A successful example of this would be Craig of the Creek, an animated series that began airing in 2018. It was created by Matt Burnett and Ben Levin, two white men. The series revolves around Craig, an African American boy growing up in the suburbs. With the series’ Emmy nomination, Common Sense Media award, and upcoming spin-off series, it’s clear that the show is well-loved. And this is because Burnett and Levin hired a diverse group to work on the show and help to shape it:

“We worked hard to put together the team that would help shape the show, a very diverse group of voices to add something that we needed that we couldn’t do on our own,” Burnett says. “That was always our goal when we decided to create the show, to work with a huge range of people and get their voices heard on TV.”

“We saw first-hand [working on Steven Universe] how much representation mattered to people and how important it is for people to feel seen. And so when we had the opportunity to create a show, we wanted to make something fun that the kids would love but would also have a positive impact,” Levin says. “In animation, you’re creating the world from the ground up. So every character is a decision in its own way. So as we’ve gone through the show, we talk about ways that we can provide representation as we create characters.”

(quotes from Fast Company, Inside Cartoon Network’s Racially Groundbreaking Show “Craig Of The Creek” (2018) Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/40551963/inside-cartoon-networks-racially-groundbreaking-show-craig-of-the-creek [Acessed 29/03/21])

White creators can make successful, relatable black characters, if they listen to black voices and take on their ideas and concerns.

One of the main things that I take away from these videos, is that what is more important than simply including a black character, is portraying them as a character- giving them a personality, a story, a life. ‘There is no one black experience’ (ToonrificTariq). According to author Leye Adenle: ‘I believe that you can write any character as long as you have empathy.’

Fascination is a human experience, I have experienced it, anyone who has fallen in love with animation has experienced it. And with this idea at our film’s core, I think we can make a successful, relatable character, regardless of race.

What I draw from all of this is, whilst it is extremely important to be respectful of other cultures and ethnicities, and to do your research to avoid any stereotypical or insensitive pitfalls, being overly-cautious to the point of seeing it as ‘inappropriate’ to portray any race other than your own seems to be holding us back from creating actual, needed change. 

So, learning and moving forward from this. I’d like to continue developing my take on the main character as a British black girl. Whether or not this becomes the final design for the film is up to the rest of my group. But, nevertheless I am going to look at sources from predominantly black artists such as Allen Fatimaharan, Vashti Harrison and Matthew A. Cherry as inspiration for my take on the main character’s design. And in the future, if we do decide to go forward with this design, I’d like to present our work to a diverse range of people to gather their opinions and make sure we are doing our due diligence. 

[jolgan]

Something Wicked Comes to Stay

Intro/Summary

Prologue

Chapter 1 

Rating: T

Warnings: teenagers making out, demons, knives, identity crises (plural), existentialism, strong language at times, violence (teenagers attacking each other in a controlled environment, mentions of gang violence, oh yeah, demons), Teen Angst and other dumb teenage bs

Word Count: 5.8k

Chapter: 3/?

A/N: I’m still experimenting with narration so if there’s inconsistencies or things seem awkward that’s why and I’m sorry. Also character descriptions... Sorry about those too. 

Chapter 2

Waves lapped at CeCe’s ankles, feet sinking further into the sand as she stared across the water. She could tell it was the ocean because of the salty brine in the air, even though the passage of water itself was narrow. On the opposite beach, a dark figure stared back at her from across the waves. She couldn’t tell anything about them, other than they were looking at her. This may have made her uncomfortable if it wasn’t something she’d seen before. Instead, it just left her frustrated.

A high-pitched beeping snapped CeCe from the beach. She opened her eyes and sighed. After a moment or two of staring at the ceiling she rolled over to turn off her alarm. She groaned, wishing she could go back to sleep, but it was the first day of school and she needed to get ready. She glanced toward the window as she got out of bed. It was pitch black out, not even four a.m. yet. CeCe yawned as she headed for the bathroom, thinking back to her dream.

She had been dreaming of the same beach since she was little. Before that, actually. Her mother dreamed of it when she was pregnant with her. The dreams started out as just the ocean, CeCe standing in the sand looking out across the vast expanse of the sea. Progressively, the ocean got smaller and another beach appeared. A while after that, the figure became visible, standing across from her. Although she had the same dream for her entire existence, she had no idea what it meant. No one else had any explanation for her either, other than it was probably linked with her powers. But she could have worse dreams she supposed. Some people might have even found them soothing, but they left her slightly unsettled at the lack of answers and made her feel like she kind of had to pee.

After getting ready for school, CeCe went downstairs to find something quick for breakfast. She was surprised to find both her parents in the kitchen waiting for her, but it made her smile that even though she was seventeen now, and perfectly capable of getting herself out the door, they still wanted to see her off on the first day of the new year. Wyatt sat at the table, scrolling through his news app and sipping coffee. Her mother, Melanie, poured her own cup and walked to the table to sit across from her husband.  

“You didn’t have to get up this early,” CeCe told them as she entered the kitchen, but they both ignored her statement.

“Good morning sweetie. Did you have good dreams?” Her mother asked

“Wet ones,” CeCe answered. She closed her eyes, immediately regretting what she just said. Luckily her parents ignored the double entendre. She was glad she didn’t say that in front of Chloe.

“The ocean again?” Wyatt asked. CeCe nodded in response. “Any new developments?”

CeCe shook her head this time. “No, it’s still just a dark figure standing across from me.”

“You’ll figure out what it all means soon,” Melanie assured her with an eerie tone in her voice. She always responded that way when it came to subjects like this one. It must come from experience; they did have the same power after all.

CeCe pondered what her mother meant as she put a pop tart in the toaster.

“It’s just frustrating. I’ve been having these dreams for as long as I can remember, but I still know nothing about them. It doesn’t make any sense. I wish I had more control.” She complained as she joined her parents at the table. She took a bite of her breakfast while Melanie spoke.

“I know, honey. Someday you’ll be in full control of your powers and it will be easier. But even then, you’ll only know what you’re supposed to in the moment.”  

CeCe knew her mother was right, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept. She echoed this thought in her words, “I know, Mom. But it would still be nice to have all the answers.”

Melanie chuckled and reached for CeCe’s hand. She squeezed it as she said, “But then there would be no adventure in life.”

CeCe finished her breakfast, hugged both her parents, and exchanged “I love you’s.”

“Be safe,” Wyatt called as CeCe was surrounded by white light and disappeared from the kitchen.

Magic School was on its own plane of existence. The specifics of this plane were unknown to most people, but it didn’t really matter. Everyone who needed to know how to get there did, and only those with pure intentions were allowed through the barrier. At least that’s how the Elder’s explained it. The school itself existed for thousands of years at this point and not much about it changed in all that time. Aesthetically, at least. The sun was shining when CeCe passed through the barrier. She landed on the cobblestone path and looked up fondly at the timeless school. The architecture was both ancient and modern and it was huge, no one alive today knew exactly how big it was. CeCe was grateful she got to go to school in such a beautiful place. She smiled to herself as she walked along the path to the tree that she and her friends had made their designated meeting place.

The three boys were already there when she arrived. Adam was sitting on the grass with a portable game console in his hands, fluffy, bleach blonde waves obscured his forehead and much of his eyes. Leaning against his back, was another bleach blonde boy, but his hair was straight and had longer, darker roots than Adam, giving it more of a two-toned look. The two boys had a similar build, both of about average height, or maybe even considered on the shorter side, and more wiry than anything else. The second boy was staring intently at the console he held in his hands. Laying in the grass front of them, was a smaller boy with wild red hair.

CeCe yawned a good morning and sat down next to the red head. “Why does school have to start so early? It’s not even five a.m. my time,” she said to no one in particular.

“How do you think Shoyo feels?” Adam questioned, barely looking up from his game. “It’s nine p.m. his time.”

CeCe looked at the red head next to her. “Are you gonna be okay today, Sho?” she asked.

The smaller boy, Shoyo, opened his eyes and squinted against the light. He stifled a yawn and smiled. “I’ll be okay. I started switching my sleep schedule around last week.”

CeCe smiled back and turned her head to address the other blonde boy. “What about you, Kenma? Ready for a new year?” she teased.

“I guess,” he answered, still fully invested in whatever game he and Adam were playing.

CeCe met Kenma Kozume four years ago when they were in the same class and got paired together for a project. Kenma is quiet and reserved and CeCe enjoyed being around him. His presence introduced a much calmer energy to the chaotic atmosphere that surrounded her and her cousins at the time. It was a classic mischievous, extrovert adopts unassuming, introvert situation. They got along well despite the differences in their personalities and eventually became very close. When CeCe introduced Kenma to her cousins, unsurprisingly, he and Adam hit it off rather quickly. They had a few commonalities and bonded over them. One of them being their interest in video games, another being that Adam was perceived as the least erratic of the Halliwell trio. Chloe, however, was a different story. They got along well enough, but their personalities clashed at times. Although Kenma was much quieter than the Halliwells, and based on the reputation that surrounded them, it didn’t seem to outsiders like he’d fit in, but he did. And much to his own chagrin, he enjoyed their energy.

Shoyo Hinata, however, visibly fit right in with the group. He was friendly and energetic. Shoyo was the newest addition and the youngest. He had only been a student at Magic School for two years, but when they met, Kenma and Shoyo took to each other right away. Soon after, Kenma introduced him to the cousins. They all loved his happy-go-lucky personality and welcomed him with open arms.

“Why aren’t you playing, Shoyo?” CeCe asked, gesturing to the console in Kenma’s hands.

“My mom won’t let me have one. She says they rot your brain,” he answered earnestly.

“How old fashioned,” Adam commented before swearing. “Damn it, Kenma! Again?”

Kenma shrugged. “No need to get sweaty about it, Adam. It’s just a game.”

“This is the fourth one I’ve lost this morning!” Adam complained.

“Guess I’m just built different,” Kenma deadpanned.

CeCe leaned closer to Shoyo. “I see what she means,” she said in a mock whisper. Her comment caused the younger boy to erupt into a fit of giggles and her cousin to whip his head around and glare at her with icy blue eyes. She smirked and cleared her throat. “Anyone seen Chloe yet?” she asked the group.

“She and Celine got here a little while before you did. They went inside already.” Adam told her, still glaring slightly.

“They seemed tense,” Kenma commented.

“They never argue verbally,” CeCe explained, knowing exactly what he sensed.

“I can understand where Celine is coming from. Chloe is a bit overprotective of her,” Adam empathized for his younger cousin.

Celine was Chloe’s younger sister and it was her first day back at Magic School since integration. Understandably, Chloe was worried for Celine’s safety and wellbeing and she let everyone know.

“Wait, how do they argue if it’s not out loud?” Shoyo wondered.

“They’re both empaths,” Kenma answered.

“No need for words when you know exactly what the other is feeling,” CeCe added.

Shoyo looked intrigued and then shuddered slightly, like he came to a realization.

The bell rang, cutting off any further discussion. The group collected their belongings and headed toward the entrance of the school. CeCe’s mind wandered as they walked, passing other groups of students. In the two years that passed since demons started coming to Magic School, tensions had settled. The transition was understandably rocky in the beginning, both sides butting heads frequently, but eventually they adjusted, and settled into their new reality. Some students had even made friends with their new classmates. Every now and then there was still a scuffle, but disciplinary actions were taken, and things were seemingly resolved.

At the front entrance of the school, glimmering marble steps lead up to a pair of giant wooden doors that were visibly ancient. Other students rushed around them, trying to make it to class on time. Once inside the school, the group of friends said their goodbyes and went their separate ways. Adam and Kenma joined hands and orbed to their first period class which they had together. “See you in fourth period?” CeCe asked Shoyo. He nodded with a grin and they too headed to first period.

The first half of the day flew by. CeCe had magical literature, potions, and lunch by herself, which she was used to. The administration learned early on in their education to not put any of the Halliwells in the same classes. This was a bit irritating now that they were maturing beyond their mischievous childhoods, but they understood that they created a reputation for themselves, and now they had to live with that.

Fourth period finally came along. CeCe was currently sitting in “Theory of Practical Healing” a class for half-whitelighters who haven’t awakened their healing abilities yet. She listened to the teacher drone on about how “You need to have enough compassion in your heart to be able to heal others.” CeCe rolled her eyes internally. She knew what it took to gain the ability to heal, if you were going to anyway. She shook the thought away and looked over her shoulder at Shoyo, who to her surprise, was listening intently and taking notes on what the teacher had to say. The more she thought about it, it made sense that this class would be able to hold his attention better than another subject. Shoyo was a born-whitelighter. This meant that one of his parents, in this case his father, was a whitelighter who fell in love with a mortal and had a child. There were a couple of them around, but it was a rare thing. Most of the other students in the class were half-whitelighter (or quarter in CeCe’s case), half-witch. After sitting for what seemed like way longer than an hour and twenty minutes, the class ended.

“Do you have a free period now, Sho?” she asked the red head as they packed up their materials. Before he could answer, they were interrupted by another student that was still in the classroom.

“Hey Hey, Hinata!” a big guy, both tall and muscular, with spiky gray hair exclaimed as he bounded up behind Shoyo and threw an arm over his shoulder. “Halliwell,” he added with a smile and nod in her direction. CeCe smiled back.

“Hey, Bokuto,” Shoyo greeted.

“Did you guys have a good summer?” Bokuto asked. Both CeCe and Shoyo told him they did. “That’s great to hear! Let me know if you need anything! I gotta go meet up with Akaashi,” he said, unwinding himself from the much smaller boy.

“How are you guys doing?” CeCe asked before he left.

With a dreamy look in his eyes, a dopey smile slowly spread across his face. “We’re great, thanks for asking,” he said before sobering up. “Alright, I’ll catch you guys later,” he said as he orbed off to find his boyfriend.

“They’re so cute,” CeCe commented, mostly to herself. “Anyway, you wanna come to the library with me?” she asked Shoyo.

The library was close enough to the classroom they were in, so they decided to walk and chat. CeCe asked Shoyo what he did over vacation since she hadn’t seen him since his birthday at the end of June. He explained that the school year was a bit different in Japan, and summer break was a lot shorter than what they had at Magic School, so he was pretty much home alone during the day for the first part of their summer.  He told her about how he took care of his little sister, Natsu and kept her entertained while their mother was at work. He also told her all about his friend Kageyama and how they practiced volleyball together for the rest of the break. Curiosity struck CeCe about how Shoyo managed to keep friends outside of Magic School and magic in general.

“Where does your friend think you go to school?” she asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Oh, uh, he thinks I go to an international school that my dad managed to get me into,” he told her. “It’s not exactly a lie, but it still sucks that I can’t tell him the real truth,” he said, sadly.

CeCe looked down, nodding sympathetically. She didn’t realize her question would make him sad and she kind of wished she kept her mouth shut.

“But hey!” he said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t think Kageyama would believe me even if I could tell him. And honestly, I don’t think he thinks I’m smart or creative enough to come up with any of this on my own. He’d probably think I just got it from a movie or something,” he chuckled awkwardly.

“I’m sorry, Shoyo,” she said sincerely.

He brushed off her apology with a wave. “It’s not a big deal, really,” he smiled, though it wasn’t as bright as usual.

They walked silently for a while. CeCe thought about how Shoyo didn’t find out he was magical until he was thirteen and how he used to lead a completely different life. Since she was raised magical, she couldn’t imagine how it would feel to have her life totally uprooted like that. From stories that Grams would tell, she knew that it was really difficult to maintain relationships with people who didn’t and couldn’t know about magic. She felt terrible that Shoyo had to keep so much of himself hidden from his friend, especially when they seemed like they were pretty close. Under the sympathy she felt for her friend, she was also a bit irritated with him. If she had known that he was alone for most of the summer, she would have asked him to hang out more. It’s not like she couldn’t orb to Japan and be back in time for dinner. But she felt like she had already done enough damage, so she kept that irritation to herself. A few more moments of silence passed between the two before Shoyo broke it, saying he was going to use the rest room and he’d meet up with her at the library.

CeCe continued down the hall, hoping that she didn’t upset Shoyo as badly as she was afraid she had. She pulled out her phone to distract herself. She had a text from her dad. “Hey, sweetheart,” It read, “We’re going to be having family dinner tonight at the house. Your Aunt Melinda is back in town.” As her eyes scanned over Melinda’s name, she felt her body being pulled forward. She blinked and when she opened her eyes again, instead of being in the hallway at school, she was standing in her attic in front of the Book of Shadows. It was open to a page with “Akuma” written across the top with Chinese characters underneath it, but she couldn’t see any other details on the page.

“I don’t know, kid. I’d ask Grams about that. She would know better than me,” Melinda told her.

CeCe felt herself walk into something large and hard. The “object” grunted. The noise dragged her back to the present. “I am so sorry,” she apologized, “I-,” she was going to explain, but the words died on her lips as she looked up and was met with a cold, hard glare. It was a demon boy. He was at least a foot taller than her. Based on how it felt when she walked into him, she inferred that he was in excellent shape. He had wavy, black hair and cold, black eyes. The rest of his features were hidden beneath a cloth mask, except for two moles stacked on top of each other over his right eyebrow. Under other circumstances, she might find them unique and maybe even attractive. But right now, she was intimidated. She felt herself shrink under his gaze.

“Watch it, witch” a masculine voice said from her right. She didn’t look to see who it had come from.

Neither CeCe, nor the boy she walked into said anything. He continued to glare at her and she stared back, not wanting to let her guard down, but she also felt frozen, like she couldn’t look away.

“Come on, Omi,” a feminine voice whined. She tugged on the demon’s right hand. He pulled it from her grasp, his glare shifting from CeCe to the other girl. Finally, he stepped around CeCe and continued down the hall with his group.

“Witches, man,” The other boy said.

The dark-haired demon ignored him though and chose to address the other girl instead.

“I have repeatedly asked you not to touch me,” he told her, bitterly.

CeCe remained in the spot he left her. Her mind swam as she tried to process everything that happened in the last two minutes. On top of the confusion she felt about the premonition, she was mortified. She felt betrayed by her powers and body. How could she keep moving if she wasn’t mentally present?

“Are you okay, CeCe?” Shoyo asked as he jogged up behind her. His voice helped shake her out of her internal struggle.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she responded. “Demons are rude as hell.” Shoyo snorts at her joke, that being enough to convince him she was alright. She offered a small smile and they continued to the library.

Kenma and Chloe were already there by the time they arrived. They sat together at a round table in the far corner of the room. Chloe seemed anxious, nerves rolling off her in waves CeCe could feel from across the room, even without being an empath herself. Kenma did his best to ignore her, opting to focus on a game instead.

“Have you had any premonitions today?” Chloe asked CeCe before she could even sit down and say hello.

CeCe was taken aback by her cousin’s question. How’d she know? she thought to herself.

“Uh… about what?” she asked out loud. She felt Kenma’s gaze shift to her curiously.

“Celine!” Chloe shouted impatiently, the outburst earning her dirty looks from students at surrounding tables. She lowered her voice when she continued, “It’s her first day and I’m so worried about her. I haven’t had any either.”

“Well, if you haven’t had a premonition about her I’m sure that means she’s fine right?” CeCe reasoned.

“No, that doesn’t mean she’s fine at all!” Chloe raised her voice again.

The boys stayed quiet and let CeCe try to calm her cousin.

“Chloe,” CeCe said in her most soothing tone. “I’m sure Celine is fine. It’s not like she’s never been here before and she knows how to get to us if she needs help.”

Her words were not enough to douse Chloe’s anxieties.

“She’s never been here with demons before! I’m gonna go find her,” Chloe vanished in pinkish-red light, not even bothering to get up before beaming to find her sister.

With that discussion over, Kenma piped up.

“So, what was it about?” he asked CeCe nonchalantly.

“What was what about?” she asked, confused about what he meant.

“Your premonition. You only asked, ‘about what.’ You never said you didn’t have one.”

In their four years of friendship, CeCe still couldn’t get over how perceptive Kenma was. It was kind of unnerving at times, how he knew so much more than other people did just by paying more attention to small details.  

She sighed. “Uh, I was in the attic at home, talking to my aunt. Nothing special,” she shrugged.

Kenma seemed satisfied with that answer until Shoyo asked, “Is that why you walked into that guy, CeCe?”

She groaned. She hadn’t realized Shoyo saw that much of the unfortunate interaction.

Kenma snorted “You walked into someone? Who?” he asked.

Shoyo answered for her, “Those really tall Japanese guys. The demonic ones. I was afraid they were gonna kill her.”

“Oh yeah, those guys are jerks,” Kenma agreed. “You okay?” he asked CeCe.

“Just a bit humiliated,” she huffed. She was jealous of Chloe’s premonitions. They were more like flashes of the future instead of actually going there. Chloe also had way more control of them than CeCe did. She didn’t walk into people in the middle of them, for instance. CeCe searched for a way to change the subject and remembered the text from her dad. “Do you want to come to family dinner tonight?” she asked both boys.

“No thanks, I can only take so much of your family,” Kenma declined.

“That’s fair. What about you, Sho?”

“Oh, I would, but I have plans with Kageyama later,” the red head answered.  “Thank you, though,” he said with a smile.

“Sure,” she smiled back.

The three students settled into a comfortable silence, only breaking it to ask each other a question about assignments they were working on. CeCe tried desperately to not think about the debacle in the hallway. She couldn’t help but think about her premonition though. How random was that? CeCe hated the visions that gave her no context. She wondered if it would have been longer if she hadn’t walked into that guy.

Shoyo’s voice interrupted her thoughts when he asked Kenma what a certain kanji meant. Cece knew the book would be written in perfect English when she looked at it, but she glanced at the page anyway. That was another cool thing about Magic School, and what made it so easy for them to educate magical students from all over the world. Students heard and read their native language no matter where they were within the plane. Sometimes it tripped CeCe out to think that when she spoke to Kenma, for example, he heard Japanese even though she was speaking English and vice versa.

A nagging feeling ate at CeCe as she thought about her premonition and the characters on the page in the Book of Shadows. “Hey Kenma? Do you know anything about who or what Akuma is?” she asked when he was done answering Shoyo’s question.

Kenma’s face fell slightly and he was quiet for a moment. He cleared his throat before he answered, “Uh yeah, he’s a demon, based in Japan. He mostly works above ground now. He seems to be heavily involved with organized crime these days.”

Cece felt like there was something he was leaving out, but she didn’t pry. She knew he would tell her when he was comfortable enough, he always did. “That was part of my vision,” she explained. “I was looking at his page in the book.”

Kenma nodded his understanding and the group fell back into silence, working on their various assignments. Around ten minutes before the end of the period, Chloe returned. She walked back to their table and sat down. She looked both flustered and slightly more relaxed.

“I embarrassed her.” She said sheepishly.

“What did you do?” CeCe asked accusingly.

“I may or may not have beamed directly into her classroom.” Chloe admitted after a moment of hesitation. “I got chewed out for interrupting her professor’s lecture on exposure. Then he used me as an example.”

“Is Celine okay?” CeCe asked, more for Chloe’s sake than Celine’s.

“Oh yeah, she’s fine. She probably just won’t talk to me for the rest of the day,” Chloe told her. “What classes do you guys have next?”

Shoyo answered first and told her he had Wiccan History. Chloe smiled brightly.

“So does Celine!” Of course she memorized her sister’s schedule as well as her own. “Would you keep an eye on her for me?” she asked him very seriously as she ran a hand through her thick, dark hair, her smile turning saccharine.

Shoyo cleared his throat and agreed, a hint of pink tinged his cheeks.

“You are the best, Shoyo,” Chloe praised, while she made direct eye contact with the younger boy. Her soft, brown eyes bored into his. Shoyo’s blush deepened and he looked like his brain might short circuit.

“Chloe,” CeCe said her name like a warning.

Chloe tore her eyes from the bright red, red head and turned her focus back to CeCe and Kenma.

“What about you guys?” she asked, tone shifting slightly. Kenma rolled his eyes at her.

“Kenma and I have something called “Tactical Magic,”’ CeCe said. “Whatever that is.”

Chloe scrunched up her face. “What the hell? Are they gonna use you guys to raise an army or something?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” CeCe shrugged.

Kenma and CeCe walked to class together silently. He always found it easier to keep his mouth shut around Chloe, only speaking to her when she asked him something directly, but this seemed different. CeCe wondered if there was some lingering tension from the Akuma conversation.

They walked into a large, airy classroom. It was located in one of the towers, so the far wall of the room was curved, making it a semi-circle. All the desks were pushed to either side of the room leaving a large open space in the middle. They were instructed to remain standing as they entered. Murmurs from other students filled the room. They mostly asked each other if anyone knew what this class was about.

The bell rang and two men came to stand in front of the class. CeCe recognized one as Takeda, a whitelighter and the school’s counselor of sorts. He had curly, black hair and brown eyes. He wore thick framed glasses and a soft, approachable expression. The other man was almost the total opposite of Takeda. He was taller and broader than the counselor and had blonde hair that was held out of his face by a headband. He had multiple piercings in his ears. Overall, he looked like someone you might cross the street to avoid. This guy was clearly a demon.

The demon spoke first. “Hello, welcome to Tactical Magic. My name is Ukai and I’m going to be your instructor for this class.”  Takeda cleared his throat from beside his counterpart. Ukai rolled his eyes and added, “Takeda is here in case you wanna drop the class or if you end up with emotional trauma, I guess.”

“I’m here to make students more comfortable,” Takeda corrected.

“Right,” Ukai snorted. He inhaled to continue speaking but acknowledged a student who had their hand raised instead. “Yes?”

“What is this class about?” the student asked.

“I was getting to that before I was interrupted,” Ukai told the student. “This course is to evaluate and develop how you fight against the opposite side.”

A beat of silence filled the classroom before a wave of voices crashed over them, all varying degrees of confusion and outrage in their tone.

“So, you’re teaching them to kill us?” a voice asked from behind CeCe. She couldn’t tell whether its owner was a witch or a demon. It didn’t matter at this point.

CeCe looked at Kenma, his amber eyes slightly wider than usual. She took his hand and squeezed gently. He looked at her, his features relaxing slightly.

“What do the Elders have to say about this?” another student asked.

Concerned chatter from other students continued to fill the room until Takeda finally regained control.

“Alright, enough,” he said sternly, surprising some students with his tone. “The Elders developed this course to provide a controlled environment to teach you all to defend yourselves outside of this plane. This is meant to keep you safe. All of you,” he said pointedly.

The students processed the whitelighter’s words and the meaning behind them. They eventually settled down and silence fell over the room. Ukai glanced gratefully at Takeda before he spoke once again.

“Today we are going to do an exercise to get a feel for your individual strengths and weaknesses,” he said, getting right into it. “I’ve already paired you off, one demon or warlock, one witch. You’ll have two minutes to do your best to subdue your partner. Powers and hand to hand combat are both allowed, but no weapons.” Then his tone changed, “It really is a shame they don’t allow them anymore. They used to have a bitchin’ selection.”

Takeda shot him a weird look.

Ukai cleared his throat and called the first pair of names. The two students walked to the center of the room and faced each other from opposite ends of the open space. The instructor set a timer for two minutes and told them to begin. When their two minutes were up, the round ended with the demonic student as the winner. The next two names were called. This went on for a couple of rounds, sometimes the witch won, sometimes the demon. As CeCe watched the other students spar, she tried to come up with a plan of her own. She decided that simply freezing her opponent and anything they threw at her would be sufficient. Another pair of names were called. When their round began, CeCe looked over at Kenma again. He seemed like he had relaxed, his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, watching the other students spar. Kenma shouldn’t have any trouble with this exercise. He may have seemed unassuming, but he was one of the most powerful students at Magic School. He had the power of thought projection, meaning he could create images and show whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted. It made him formidable, but also put him in danger.

“Kozume, Kuro, you’re up,” Ukai called.

Kenma walked to the center of the room with his hands still in his pockets. His opponent, Kuro looked familiar to CeCe. She had seen him around a lot in the last year, hanging out with Bokuto. She was pretty sure he was a warlock. He was tall and had jet black hair that he wore in an interesting style. He looked like one of those “scene” kids Aunt Melinda used to talk about.

“Begin,” Ukai told them as he started their timer.

“Let’s see what you can do,” Kuro said in a rather cocky tone.

Before he could take even a half a step forward, or blink, Kuro’s eyes glazed over. He was already trapped in Kenma’s illusion. Kenma stood the same way he had been before the match started, hands in his pockets, looking at Kuro. Neither of the boys moved for the full two minutes. Kuro couldn’t have fought his way out of the projection if he wanted to. Finally, the timer went off and Kenma let Kuro free.

“Uh, okay… Kozume, good job I guess,” Ukai said, not really sure about what just happened.

Kenma walked back to CeCe and reclaimed his place beside her. Kuro stared after him with glassy eyes for a moment before he too walked back to where he had been standing in the group.

Cece leaned closer to Kenma. “What did you show him?” she whispered.

“The meadow,” he answered simply.

Ah, the meadow. She thought back to the first time Kenma had shown her the meadow when they were fourteen. It was gorgeous. Bright sunshine and pretty wildflowers surrounded her. There was a crystal-clear brook that babbled in the distance. The main attraction, however, was the guy that joined her. It was that one guy from that one band. The cute one with the swoopy hair. She smiled to herself as she thought about it now. That was the point of the meadow, to show you your greatest love or biggest crush and distract you with them. Kenma couldn’t see who they were though. To him it was just a white figure.

CeCe was jolted out of her happy memory by Ukai’s voice calling her name.

“Halliwell, Sakusa, your turn.”

A nervous pit that wasn’t there before settled in CeCe’s stomach. She walked to the center of the room and saw her opponent. Dread washed over her as she looked into the same cold stare from earlier. It was the boy from the hallway. The one she walked into. Well, this should be interesting, she thought to herself.

“Halliwell, huh? This should be interesting,” his deep voice rumbled through her, mirroring her sentiments.

[analyzingadventure]

Emerging from the endless void to 1) react to some Psi episodes and catch up a little and 2) say that I did in fact see that new poster/key visual for Psi and I LITERALLY CALLED THEY WERE GONNA DO THAT HOLY FUCK LMAO

Anyways!! EPISODE 34 TO 36! (Not catching up fully but just a lil)

Tailmon.... baby.... I’ve missed you so much...

I am deeply enjoying how Tailmon has revelant information about Mille’s plans etc to share with the kids- like y’all know how I love the Villian Theory in Adventure, and even when it’s canon in the novels, Tailmon never has any relevant information to share beyond getting the Crest of Light back (and while I admit I haven’t properly read the novels I at least don’t remember her giving any useful info) (which is one of the key points against the theory of course), but I’m rambling

Tailmon’s new voice is nice! I do miss her old VA, but new VA is nice

TAILMON CUTE

So they burst a hole into the glass ceiling of this underwater city... and no water is rushing into the city to flood it?

Too lazy to skip back bUT WAS THAT A WHAMON SKELETON?? IS THIS CITY MADE IN/AROUND THE REMAINS OF A GIANT WHAMON??? That’s COOL YO (although that leaves some questions but...whatever)

DAIPENMON! Frontier rights!!

Okay I’m not sure that’s the skull of a Whamon specificially but it could be and regardless THAT IS A COOL DESIGN

MARIN ANGEMON! :D You are very lorge

Wait no LMAO she is very tiny, that’s good lmao

Wait holy shit Daipenmon is huge now that we got a better look djfhdfg

Tailmon.... tiny........ widdle kitty.... Yisss... soft cuddles... good....

Daipenmon is in charge of moving the city?? Holy shit that’s a stronk Digimon

HOW DID IT GREYMON GET THAT HIGH UP?? I CALL BS GREYMON CAN’T FLY FUCK YOU

Mambomon would you please help Tailmon and at least catch her instead of letting her free fall??

God everytime I hear MetalGreymon announce their name during evolution... Oh that’s so sexy and cool... Sakamoto Chika I love you so much

Man remember how big MetalGreymon was when Agumon first evolved that far? MetalGrey has shrunk so much....

BABY HIKARI

(I don’t wanna complain about this because this series has never been particularly good about it but man the animation is a bit wonky in this episode)

MOVING ON! ANGEWOMON!! GIMME ANGEWOMON!!!! EPISODE 35!!

Oh they can just. Breath underwater now. OKAY thanks Marin Angemon??? For this extremely convenient ability???

Amazing, their fire-attacks don’t instantly die within the water either

OH NO DOES SHE HAVE LIKE EVOLUTION PTSD??? (Good thing Agumon and co evolving never triggered her PTSD but oh no baby ;;__;;)

GIGA DESTROYER!!!

Ooooo it’s MarinDevimon time bros

I love how Komondomon didn’t even try to avoid the tentacles or wriggle out of them lmao

I gotta say, I’m kind of already super disappointed that Tailmon was given like evolution PTSD in this episode but she’s also going to overcome it this episode, like, there was no time for that to really sink in, they totally could’ve introduced that character point at least in the previous episode

YEAH HIKARI!! HOLD TAILMON’S PAW!!! ;;__;; SHE WILL HEAL YOUR HEART

NOW GET OVER THAT PTSD, EVOLVE AND KICK MARIN ANGEMON’S ASS

LET’S GOOOOO

THE ANIMATION ISN’T DOING HER JUSTICE BUT SHE’S PRETTY ANYWAYS!!!!!!! ANGEWOMON!!!! AAAAAAAA

(No really though her time in the spotlight didn’t even compare to Angemon’s, I’m sad)

I’m expecting nothing exciting so uh. Moving to Episode 36

Did Koushirou get Vadermon’d???

I’m sorry I still just don’t give a damn about the Human World crisis (and this whole episode is gonna be about that, isn’t it)

Oh lorge Digimon can leave behind remains? Guess that explains the underwater city

Awe, Komondomon is cheering them on c:

dsjfkhfdgjkhsfg Kabuterimon’s reaction to BladeKuwagamon was hilarious jkdhsg

OH YEAH THIS

AFGJKHADFGJJSDGKJDG

I SAW THIS ART ON TWITTER AND OUT OF CONTEXT SPOILERS ON YOUTUBE BUT I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS THIS EPISODE

ALTERNATIVE EVOLUTION PATHS!! BLITZGREYMON!!!! AAAAAAA

THE ONE FUCKING THING I HAD BEEN WISHING FOR AND IT HAS NOW BEEN FULFILLED TWICE!!! (And based on the spoilery poster of the Ultimates all gathered up, will be further explored in the future)

AAAAAAAAAAAA

THIS IS SO FUCKING FUN AND COOL, A THIRD EVOLUTION FOR METALGREY!!! YEEAAAAHHHH

(BTW I love how they did like a lowkey fake out and made us (or at least me) think we were gonna get Mugendramon for a few seconds) (That would’ve been also cool tho)

No pressure Koushirou, ya just gotta save an entire city from being wrecked

Ah, so Koushirou didn’t get Vadermon’d ike in Adventure, they were just lowkey evoking that familiar imagery

Cute, HeracleKabuterimon imagery vwv V cute, v cute

Agumon is glowing red?? Oh it passed, the left-over energy from BlitzGrey

Okay this is all the time I have now to catch up with Psi, I’ll catch up with the rest soon (I hope)

SO LET’S WATCH AN EPISODE PREVIEW!

And nothing interesting in the preview

So uh, summary

Episodes were all mediocre as always, nothing special aside from a few fun moments here and there

I am missing how, due to the power escalation in Psi, we’ve seemingly gone from Devimon being the villian to straight to Milleniummon (who isn’t even revived yet), with no direct villianous force to look out for... Like it just makes Psi feel pretty aimless right now (I think I had the same complaint about Appmon too)...

That said I am deeply enjoying the alternative evolutions (even if they’re just temporary)! I am hoping we might see a little bit more of those but not holding my breath for it (but Toei if you did give us more, specifically for Sora and co, that would be cool)

And now, IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE SPOILERY POSTER DON’T READ FURTHER, GONNA RAMBLE ABOUT THAT FOR A MOMENT

OKAY YOU WERE WARNED

I am just losing my shit how Toei trolled us by fucking building up Seraphimon and Ophanimon and then revealing they’re doing Holydramon and fucking GODDRAMON instead

Like 1) that is great fucking trolling and I applaud them for it

2) While I’m sad about the Ophanimon rights... Holy shit we’re gonna see Goddramon??? That’s new! THAT’S FUN that’s interesting! THAT’S REFRESHING! I’m so tired of Seraphimon that the idea of seeing Goddramon is fucking hype as hell!

Like honestly I’m just gonna lament how we’re probably not gonna see a full line-up for alternative Ultimates for the whole group (I mean I’m sure Yamato is gonna get one just like Taichi did but the others probs not), but like, any change to the line up will still be refreshing, fun and different, so I’m here for it!

As always, I have no idea where Psi is going, it’s been real mediocre so far, but I’m still really curious what they’re planning so ye!

[byebyebriar]

Talk to me about the stock market being a ponzi scheme I watched a video last month about how the federal reserve and big banks just fucken make up money and I also have Thoughts but my brain hates economics so I’d like to hear yours thanksss

I want to preface this with that I have taken exactly 1 Intro to Macro Economics, 1 Intro to Micro Economics, and 1 White Collar Crime class in college. I am by no means an expert. I’m a liberal arts gal who has lived through three recessions. 

Right, so, Ponzi Schemes and the Stock Market. 

Just so we are all on the same page, a Ponzi Scheme is when someone (let’s call them Taylor) borrows money from Person A. Taylor claims that they are an investor/business guru/CEO etc. and will use A’s money to make more money and give A a hefty chunk of the profits. What they really do is go to Person B and Person C, use the same spiel, borrow money from them, and then use that to pay Person A while pocketing a good chunk. Then Taylor is off hunting for Person’s D, E, and F to pay B and C. Rinse and Repeat. 

The key features of a Ponzi Scheme are:

The As, Bs, and Cs make BANK. At least at first. If any of them are reinvesting their money in Taylor than they’ll be just as broke as F when the Ponzi Scheme falls apart but until then Taylor is making them rick. This is what makes it hard to spot the scam.

A Ponzi Scheme WILL collapse. There’s not an infinite amount of human beings. Taylor, at some point, is not going to be able to find enough suckers to repay all the money they borrowed. When people stop getting paid, they start asking questions and Taylor’s house of cards comes crashing down. (At least until they move to a new state, change their name, and start all over again.)

Now, when it comes to the Stock Market there is a lot of math involved. Supply amount, demand, the worth of a currency, are translated into a numerical value. Then turned into lines on a graph. Its a lot. It doesn’t help that economics has more lingo than a 90s chatroom. So, for the non-Econ Majors, what does all the math mean?

The stock market does not run on this math. Math isn’t 100% a non-issue but what is really driving it is people. People who panic at a stock slipping and sell off in droves. People who buy into a stock because the CEO was really passionate in an interview. People who think Vegan Dog Toys are the next big thing.

The stock market is the Hitachi Wand of Economics. Was the wand created as a back massager? Yes. Does anyone use it for that? No. Is it being used to fuck people? Yes. 

Hedge funds, billionaires, and other people who actually use the stock market are not operating it as an investing tool. They are operating it as a gambling game and so a gambling game it has become. Everyone is trying to figure out what the next big thing is while also guessing whose fresh corpse they can harvest next week. Their attempts at future seeing logic would make a fortune telling scam artist dizzy.

So, what does this have in common with Ponzi? 

Well, Key point #1 is definitely in effect. A select group of people, the long term investors, are making bank. The twist here is while a regular Ponzi Scheme investors have been genuinely conned, these people are not only in on it. They are running their own games along side and with our buddy Taylor. 

Key point #2 is a little harder to connect but I want you to think about how you make money at the stock market. You sell stock. To “win” at this gambling game, you have to choose the right moment to scoop up your toys and go home. This is not a game that is designed to be played infinitely. In fact, it is designed to encourage players to leave and take their toys to a different house. 

The big difference is that if everyone goes home, it isn’t the end of the party, the company is dead. 

At some point in time, a Ponzi Scheme is going to fail to pay its players and collapse. At some point in time, a company’s stock is going to be sold more than it can handle and the company will collapse. 

You could argue that a company could make enough profit that it would always have people buying its stock. But, that’s a lie. The stock market doesn’t operate on math, it is a poker game. As the Gamestop Stock has illuminated, not only is the house rigging the odds but the players themselves are cheating to screw the one sucker at the table who drew the short straw this round. 

The difference between getting caught doing a Ponzi Scheme and messing around with the stock market is that Taylor doesn’t have to change names or move states. They get told to do it again. 

[diabolikmosquito]

Just-Watched Thoughts on S3

Alright time to write this while I’m still here recovering so I can go to bed already. I might add more/clean this up once I get some proper sleep. Tagging it but putting Castlevania Season 3 spoilers under a cut just in case people haven’t got tags hidden and such. Here goes-

Overall I’m honestly just kinda shocked? I think it’s because a lot of things were easy to predict (that the cult might be trying to bring back Dracula, something was up with the Judge, Hector was obviously gonna fall for Lenore’s bs, etc.) so when things happened I didn’t see from a mile away.. 

When I was only like an episode or two in, things actually felt a little stunted to me? Something about it felt like “This is what people liked from before, right??” particularly with certain action or such, but I feel like it picked up pretty quickly from that. I’m still kinda in winding-down-emotions mode so I can’t really definitively say what storylines I liked and which ones I disliked for the most part. I liked Isaac’s, and the design of the... Hivemind Magician? Was all pretty sick. It felt like the first thing that was actually a massive challenge for him, and nearly overtook him, but he overcame it and even came out of it thinking through what he wanted for the future. It’s a nice change from seeing him steamroll anything that came his way. 

I like that Trevor and Sypha’s storyline ends up with them not getting their heroic grand time like they did last time. Yes, there were sacrifices made, but before it still felt grandiose: they’d worked together to kill Dracula, something the world didn’t even think possible for the most part. This time, they sacrificed a lot more and ultimately didn’t win a thing other than their own lives, and were helping a hidden monster in their process of killing other monsters. What a crushing thing for them to have to go through, and I think Trevor’s conversation with himself before (and later with said monster, ironically enough) about missing parts of his old non-heroic non-adventuring life was pretty somber and interesting. 

The whole Lenore/Hector route was exactly what’s expected from the beginning, but it was done well for what it was, and I don’t think they were trying to fool anyone with the direction it was headed. Carmilla’s plot was.. eh, more or less not much seemed to actually happen, but it did introduce us to the awesome vampire sisters so I’m more than down with it. I wish we got a little more about Saint Germain’s whole deal with that portal and such, who he was looking for and how he knows they’re still alive in there, but I assume that’s a next-season kind of thing. I’m gonna ramble if I write anymore so here’s a more concise/clear list:

Things I liked -  Trevor and Sypha’s chemistry! I thought it was good the first couple seasons (which apparently puts me in the minority?) but they felt much more compatible as a couple this time around. The little exchange about the “taste for rougher things in life” is wonderful, and I definitely snorted when she sleep-bapped him in the face. - The tidbits of funny dialogue! Seems to still be a show specialty. Some of them were understandably a bit funny (using “Nope! speedwalks away” in place of “shut it” is pretty good), and others weren’t funny but I just found it hilarious (e.g. Morana’s repeated fancily-stated things that boiled down to “... Lenore, seriously, TMI”) - The soundtrack! Not really any surprise, despite it not being the famous Symphony of the Night tracks people clamored for trust me I totally get that and despite it still not being released even from season 2 much less 3,  it was very nice to listen to.  - The vampire sisters! While it was obvious from the beginning Lenore was the “cutest/nonthreateningest-looking of the scary bunch but actually the scariest” one I liked the energy they all had, especially Striga and Morana and their relationship. I liked that we got to see Carmilla’s attitude bouncing off of other vampires who (while respecting her skill) also called her out for it from time to time. - The references! I’m sure there’s more and I’m a dumbass who only spots the obvious ones, but... the fact there’s demons that’re exactly ones out of the ol’ Symphony of the Night game again, like the Malachi and Fire Demon. It’s so dumb but I love shit like that, especially since they obviously stray far from the game canon and don’t have to do that but do it anyway. - Some of the action scenes. I cannot mention what I like without mentioning the parts that made me go “... Okay, yeah, that was badass.” You know the ones! When Cho busted that sword with her hands, when Sypha chopped that angel-like demon into pieces. ... A lot of the stuff Sypha did, actually, I’m glad she got some more epic moments to kick ass this season. I thought the earlier action scenes of the season were just alright, but by the last fight it was definitely starting to feel like that awesome dynamic fight style we saw in season 2. - The fact Dracula saw an opportunity to return and didn’t want to. Not much to say here other than the obvious - I feel like that’s extremely fitting, and I’m glad they made it clear without bringing him back and having him be angry/regret it or something like that. Without any dialogue, even. - The ending.. somewhat. It destroyed me a little on the inside, but I actually like that nobody really had a happy ending. Particularly if there could be another season, it feels really fitting. I’ve seen some people complaining “They ended up where they started! Trevor and Sypha are back on the road, Isaac’s traveling with his army, Alucard’s alone in the castle and Hector is a slave” but I couldn’t disagree more. Of course if you boil it down to the words themselves, it’s “the same,” but did ya see the sheer trauma literally everyone was put through? Obviously some had it worse than others (and we’ll fucking get to that) but nobody came out unscathed. Everyone’s now had some belief challenged or retreated further into a fear/mistrust that already existed - previous events planted the seed for it and the hell the cast went through gave it growth. 

Trevor and Sypha are going to have to challenge their goal they’d been following since working together/getting together: they can’t just go headlong adventuring and fixing people’s problems, because things like this can happen. Their new allies and the entire town were slaughtered or trapped somewhere, and the man they’d trusted and been helping this entire time was a serial killer, particularly of children. Alucard is drifting into a state of consciousness not unlike his father before he met Lisa, but potentially in a worse place since he’s witnessed and felt true kindness, but has retreated away from it even so due to the betrayal he’s suffered at an already-fragile time for him. Isaac has to reconsider what he’s going to do once he has his proper army, and even if it’s worth it to get his revenge or to carry out Dracula’s original plans. Saint Germain.. I mean, he’s in psychodelic hell searching for that person and presumably a way out, I assume it’s tragic. Hector’s learned a hard lesson in trusting and is going to have to figure out if his freedom is worth risking pain or death. Likewise I think the characters grow this way. Even if it was a happy ending, or an ending where everyone “wins” some small victory somehow, I think it’d ultimately have been worthless if nobody was fundamentally changed by the end of the season.

Things I didn’t like - The sex scenes. I’ve seen a lot of people like “If you’re gonna put in gratuitous sex then actually include Trevor and Sypha??” and I’m gonna have to disagree with that. While I love the ship and all, I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt and say sex scenes weren’t thrown around randomly or just to flex the rating - they were only tied to actual story, hence why I’m down with the bedroom stuff of the show’s main ship only being alluded to. However, I gotta say that the long broken-up sex scenes mixed with battle/action was not the way to do that. I think I know what they were going for (it definitely drove my anxiety up having those scenes back to back with intense action/violence, I can tell ya that!), but it just wasn’t a good idea. Yes, they were obviously made to be uncomfortable (particularly since I’m pretty sure one of them was dubious consent at best?) but that was reflected well just in a few key frames/actions - it didn’t need to be drawn out and mixed with the action. It made me want to skip through (I didn’t out of fear I’d miss battles, which isn’t really good design) and I’d like to bet parts of the finale are unwatchable for some. For the record, yes you could say “well they got into an adult-rated show, deal with it,” but the fact of the matter is up until now sexual violence/discomfort wasn’t heavy-handed and in-your-face like this. Non-sexual violence was definitely all over the whole series, but it’s still a bit like whiplash considering. Also, the fact people think the scene with Alucard was at all chill. I see it from a story standpoint (though I honestly think their motivations were weak and there’s other ways to betray someone/get their guard down), but I think the people going on about “power bottom” and this and that are forgetting that the absence of a no is not a yes, particularly with someone severely emotionally damaged after spending months alone not only without a support group but without any contact, immediately following the death of his father by his own hands. I’m no expert but I don’t think that’s someone in the proper state of mind to consent to anything sexual, even if there were a couple weeks or whatever of spending time with these new friends. He very well might’ve been on the way to a stress disorder before they turned his world upside-down and frankly I’m wondering how he’s going to be faring come the next season (assuming there is one.) That’s more of a fandom gripe than the show itself I suppose but it’s worth a mention. - The pacing. It’s hard to pinpoint it, but something about it felt off, especially in the first half. The best way I can describe it is when you pump the gas and brakes because your brakes aren’t working great and you’re loosening them up - maybe it was necessary to get things going, but it’s a bit destabilizing/odd for anyone in the car. I think it’s what contributed to that stunted sense I got until things picked up a little more. You can see it more in just how packed with stuff the latter half is, some things which could’ve been planned a bit better through the whole season. - Sumi and Taka. I honestly felt that they wanted to get in a way to have a punch-in-the-gut arc with Alucard (not a bad idea, I am one for tragedy), wanted to kill off some characters who were actually important, and decided to do these both with one stone. I don’t think they were successful on the second part, because these two absolutely contributed to the stunted feeling I had about some of the season. They had a good start in terms of backstory, and the idea of two people working together to fight vampires without having some big legend tied to their name to drive it (e.g. Speaker magicians, Belmont legacy, Alucard’s heritage), as well as a connection to/fleshing out of one of the nameless generals, sounded like a great concept. A great concept, but it was rushed I felt, to the point that their motivations for turning on him were so packed and squished in they just weren’t believable if we’re supposed to believe these two were sane. They had some sort of mental/trust issues due to their backstory - that’s fine, and could contribute some emotional problems. However if their distrust in Alucard had been given more time to fester and grow, more little comments of Alucard’s brushing off their attempts to learn about specific things, and more cues from him that could be misinterpreted by them as him causing trouble and lying (not just them not believing him by itself), it would be more believable that the past and misinterpretations of the present get into their head and poison their thoughts of him. You can plant a seed of doubt but just like any other character bonds, it has to be given time to grow. Alucard’s rapid bonding with them could be attributed to his loneliness, trauma, and need for a support system, but you can’t make that excuse for Sumi and Taka’s motivations going from “Hm.. I wonder what he isn’t telling us” to “We need to emotionally gut him and then kill him” basically overnight. Edit:

I forgot to add a conclusion last night, so I guess the TL;DR is season 3’s a good 7.5/10 for me, -1 for the overall pacing, -1 for missing a bit of the punch from before, and -0.5 because the last few episodes jumped me with a bat and I let it happen.

[ahiddenpath]

hey hidden. I hope this question isn't weird but your job is very cool to me, so I was wondering: what exactly did you need for education to get into it, and what's it like for you?

Are-  Are you-  Are you asking me to nerd out?

THE NERDING WILL COMMENCE BELOW THE CUT!

EDIT:  Trigger warning for discussion of cancer treatments/research.

SO I am a molecular biologist.  I am currently researching immunotherapies for a biotech company.  

One thing I should emphasize is that this stuff takes an enormous team working together for years.  I don’t want anyone to think that I’m, like...  Personally producing cancer medicines.  I’m part of a team of about 400 people, working together with 20 ish years of data produced by our company and the companies we partner with.  And my boss tells me what I’m going to work on!  I design the experiment, run the experiment, and consider the data from there, but I’m not the “mastermind” for anything.  It’s usually the upper level career scientists with pHDs doing that.

Another disclaimer is that, sadly, we as humans aren’t at the “defeat cancer forever” stage.  Like, it’s not... near.  The best defense continues to be frequent screening so it can be caught and treated early (which is bad news in the states, where people can’t afford the screening because we don’t have universal health care, or they can afford it but don’t go because they have three part time jobs, none of which give benefits-  But I digress).

Oh!  And one more thing I want to tell all future science dorks, something I was super lucky to learn at age 19: follow the money.

When I was 19, I was culturing and chemically processing algae, then assessing the data.  My company at the time wanted to create biodiesel from algae, and my whole world was rocked when they told me: WE ALREADY CAN MAKE VIABLE FUEL FROM ALGAE.  The problem is that it costs about $4.50 per gallon, so it can’t compete with normal diesel (at the time, this was like 12 years ago).  

So what they wanted was algae that had the correct chemical profile for use in biodiesel, that could also be grown at tropical temperatures.  Why?  Because the algae was to be grown in sugar cane processing centers, where it’s tropical, and most of the production costs came from cooling the incubators and instruments that would grow the algae.  So they needed algae that could make diesel, but also grow in hot weather, which apparently isn’t common.

ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY!  It’s often not even about “can we do it,” but “can we do it at x cost, considering conditions hundreds of miles away.”  Crazy!

Ah, but you asked how to get into biotech!  It’s not that hard, thankfully!  I have a BS in biology.  I made sure to get good grades and all of that, and if you’re serious about biotech, you want to take classes in things like immunology, virology, any science class that can return to human health and biotech.  I will say that, while I’ve always naturally excelled at biology, I had to take more chemistry than bio!  Plus, you need math and physics...  

But here’s my best advice for biotech-interested young people:

-If you’re looking at universities while in high school, PLEASE check out what AP classes will get you out of undergrad labs.  The WORST PART about being a science kid is the labs.  For example, every bio and chem class has a lab.  The class itself usually consists of three 50 minute lectures (150 min/week), and you get 3 credits.  The lab is 170 min per week, and you only get 1 credit.  If you don’t place out of some classes with labs attached with AP credit, YOUR ASS WILL BE SITTING IN LABS FOR AT LEAST 340 MINUTES A WEEK!  AND YOU ONLY GET 2 CREDITS FOR THAT!!!!  It’s utter bullshit.

So, if you’re in high school and really serious about pursuing a science degree, check out which AP scores get you out of labs at your favorite universities, and really commit to getting 5s in those.

I was able to place out of 3 labs this way, and it played an enormous role in maintaining my sanity.

-Everyone in biotech knows EVERYONE in biotech.  It’s absolutely astounding.  But it’s a small field, centered around a few hot spots, and lots of these people have been at it for 40+ years.

Here are some of the hot spots in America (you might have to live in one of these areas to find biotech jobs, so be sure you’re down for that).

Anyway, like I said, I worked as an undergrad at a biotech.  I was so fortunate, because they paid me, I was already doing actual-factual research, and I got to know people.  And when I graduated, people went, “Oh you worked for Bob?  Let me give him a call.”  And then they did.  And then Bob said, “Oh yeah, she’s a hard worker, hire her.”

SO you need to make connections ASAP, and strive to show people your hard-working, curious, problem-solving, good-attitude-having self.  Sadly, there’s an element of luck there, for sure.  But you need to be ready to try to work in professional labs in college, which means juggling your difficult courses and school labs with work.  Hooray!

...Did I say this wasn’t hard?  I’m full of shit, aren’t I.  Looking back, all I can see is how lucky I was, and how I “only” needed a 4 year degree, but...  It really takes a lot to get here.

As for what it’s like...

I love it, it’s great, but like any job, it...  Well, it’s rough.

Here’s what I think you need to thrive in biotech, assuming you’re not put off by the stuff I’ve already covered:

-Organization, time management, and focus.  Honestly, being a lab researcher isn’t about being smart, it’s about juggling a lot of things simultaneously.  Lots of folks describe the job as “hurry up and wait,” because you rush to mix the experimental ingredients together so they can incubate for two hours before you do the next step.  And while that’s incubating, you do x, which has a few 15 minute incubations.  In those 15 minutes, you generate graphs with yesterday’s data, make records for you lab notebook, order items for next week’s experiment, print labels, or...  Any number of things.  There are ALWAYS tons of balls in the air, so organization and time management are 90% of the job.

And you need to focus, because most of the time it looks like you’re adding a single droplet of water to other droplets of water.  Almost everything you work with is a clear liquid, so you can’t go spacing out and forgetting what you’ve already added to the mix.

A typical day is to arrive at work, sit down for a while to plan out how to best use the incubation times to do other things, head into the lab, hope for incubation periods for toilet/water/food breaks, and scramble to get data processing in there somewhere.  Deadlines are usually tight, because it’s always a race to patent a medicine before one of the other 5,000 companies trying to do it can.  We all work from the shared published scientific knowledge, so there’s no...  Developing something in secret.

I’d say my job is challenging, but rewarding, especially as we come closer to generating medicines for what we call “patients with unmet needs.”  Remember how I said “follow the money?”  Sadly, often, um...  Okay I’m gonna do a really quick and loose explanation.  People have different versions of the same genes, right?  And sometimes, there are “cancer” genes- this is a really sloppy explanation, sorry.  So medicines get created for the most common mutated cancer gene first.  So say 70% of cancer patients have this mutated gene, 20% have that mutated gene, and 10% have a third mutated gene.  Guess who gets medicine made for them first?

If you guessed the largest group, you’re right!  The trouble is that big companies will then move on to the largest group for another cancer/gene group, leaving people with more rare genetic issues without treatment options beyond chemo, which many elderly or immunocompromised patients simply can’t tolerate.

My company specifically aims to help these people with no help in sight.  On the one hand, follow the money- we are doing it because we will have a market, and we can’t compete with big companies yet.  On the other, we are helping people who have no options.  I’m so grateful to use my gifts (organization, planning, focus, problem solving, and natural curiosity) to play a small, small role in hopefully helping people.  It means something to me.

On the other hand, it can be a grind, no lie.  And any high-pressure job will have colleagues who are also under pressure, and might lash out or try to throw other people under the bus when problems arise.  A certain level of emotional maturity and strength is required, and frankly, I needed therapy to get there.

Also, if you’re a female-presenting human, some people will give you shit in biotech.  Luckily, I’ve only ever had one coworker be blatantly sexist and ask me (multiple times) if I was sure I belonged here.  Unfortunately, you’re more likely to see more discrete sexism, like folks asking you to organize parties for pregnant or engaged coworkers because “you seem like you’d be good at it,” ie “you’re female and I am throwing social tasks at you so I can focus on my science, which you also have to do.”  I’ve had a lot of coworkers try so hard to corner me into doing emotional work for them.  But...  Honestly, most of this is just existing as a woman, and isn’t specific to biotech.

So yeah!  You’re gonna have to work hard, but if you have an interest in science, great organization skills, and want to play a little role in helping people who are suffering in a way that doesn’t involve direct social interaction with the hurting people...  It’s great!

Sorry for the absolute wall of text, I hope this helps!  I’m always happy to talk about this, so please ask away if you’d like.  Thanks for the ask!