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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Queen for a Day Part 2

So this is the continuation of my review for Queen for a Day. My personal favorite episode in the series, but it does have some flaws that needs to be pointed out.

You can find the first part here https://rachelbethhines.tumblr.com/post/622226424477171713/tangled-salt-marathon-queen-for-a-day-part-1

Summary: The King and Queen are stranded in the blizzard and Eugene and the Pub Thugs must rescue them. Meanwhile, Varian rushes to ask for Rapunzel's help freeing his dad, but Rapunzel tells him that she can't help him because of the blizzard, leaving Varian feeling betrayed. Rapunzel orders the evacuation of the island, but then remembers about a legend told earlier by Xavier about an underground machine with the power to change the way of the blizzard.

The Show Tells Us Things that Contradict What We’ve Already Seen

No they didn’t.

If it was up to Frederic you’d all be jailed, hanged, or banished. Don’t try to pretend now that the King is somehow better than any other leader when it’s his crack down on crime is what causes 75% of the conflict in the first season.

Rapunzel gave you a second chance. She’s the one to thank. And she only did that because she befriended you, not because she thought the system unjust.

Look at All This Time Spent On This Very Important Note, No Way the Writers Would Dumb Enough Not Follow Up On This Finely Crafted Set Up.

Why is Season Three So Bad!!!!?????

Evacuation is a Dumb Plan to Begin With

So throughout the episode Rapunzel is being pressured into evacuating the populace off the island. With the idea that, as an island, they’d be cut off from food supplies and whatnot.

Which is beyond dumb because they’re currently inside a castle. Castles are built specifically for withstanding sieges. They should have all the supplies and room that they need right there for weeks if not months.

Everyone is acting like risking exposure is somehow a better option then just staying put, inside the comfy palace.

Also keep in mind no one knows that this is a magic storm. They think it’s just a regular blizzard and it’s not even been one day of snow. You’re telling me that King Frederic is such a poor leader that can’t even keep the kingdom stocked for one day?

You know what. I'd believe that. Corona is a shittly runned country that can’t handle emergencies.

Cass Can Clearly See and Hear What’s Going On

The show will later act as if Cass didn’t know the truth about what happened between Raps and Varian, but that’s a load of bull. She clearly sees and hears Varian talking about the rocks and his dad. In short, Cassandra winds up looking like a horrible person because of poorly thought out framing.

Rapunzel Has More Options Here But She Doesn’t Explore Them

Look Rapunzel being inexperienced and not knowing what to do, leading to her making poor decisions; is a perfectly fine set up for a conflict. And the choices she makes are understandable.

However the show acts like these were the only options available to her; stay and help her people or go with Varian right then, and that’s simply not the case.

Here’s a list of things she actually could have done.

Send someone else with Varian. Cass isn’t doing anything right now. She’s not needed for the evacuation, as evidenced by her going with Raps to the demantius device later (a task that she doesn’t actually help much with) and she already is in on your secret about the rocks and is friends with Varian. Alternatively there are other guards you could have sent with him, but Cass is the best option for the job.

Keep Varian with her until the storm was over with. He could have helped with the demantius device and then you both could have gone to Old Corona afterwards.

Order the evacuation and then actually go with Varian. Once again, Rapunzel isn’t honestly needed for the evacuation, as evidenced by her taking off to find the demantius device later. She also. at the this point, doesn’t know if the demantius device is real nor does she have a plan in place yet to use it. It would have been a worse idea, yes, but it’s still an option that she failed to consider. (Unless they came back to the device after failing to save Quirin, cause it’s fiction and the writers can decide the time frame however they want)

Go check up on Varian after fixing the storm.

None of these options would have saved Quirin, obviously, but any one of them would have given Varian the emotional support that he needed. So while it’s understandable that Rapunzel did what she did, it’s still not excusable.

Therein lies the failure of the show. It tries it damndest to excuse the protagonists at every turn even when they do quite clearly mess up, all while shifting all the blame onto an easy scapegoat. The series then acts like, we the audience, should just blindly accept it’s manipulation as fact.

The Show Implies That the Heroes Just Threw A Child Out Into A Deadly Blizzard

Rapunzel’s ‘orders’ falls on deaf ears and that’s honestly on her. She’s in charge and ergo she needs to keep her guards in line. It’s up to her to give clear and concise orders.

Cause what we see is the garuds dragging away a 14 year old begging for help and next we see him, he’s back out in the snow storm. The snow storm that’s been deemed a national emergency and could potentially kill people stuck out in it.

If the show didn’t intend for us to think that Stan and Pete just chucked the poor kid out the door, than it needed to establish that Varian left of his own accord. But it doesn’t do that. So everyone is Corona just winds up looking like an bunch of asses instead.

Rapunzel Breaking Her Promise isn’t the Point

The show gives way too much focus on Rapunzel’s promise. Because not being able to keep a promise is understandable and something that everyone experiences. No, in truth what Rapunzel does here is much worse than that. She fails at her responsibilities as a leader, as an adult, and as a decent human being.

Her promise to Varian doesn’t actually matter. Her friendship with Varian doesn’t actually matter. Her even knowing him doesn’t matter.

Had Varian came to her as a stranger with this same problem and she failed to help him, she’d still be in the wrong. This is a child in need that she ignores. A subject that she is in charge of and responsible for.

Once again, I’m not hating on Rapunzel here. I’m fine, glad even, for the protagonist to make a mistake. But the show fails to even acknowledge that what she did was a mistake to being with; hence the real problem with the character.

Let’s Talk About ‘Daddy’ and How The Creators are Full of It

OK so there was some debate about whether or not Varian actually said the word ‘daddy’ in this scene. It was confirmed by one of the creators, Chirs, that yes, Jeremy Jordan (Varian’s VA) ad libbed this line and that the writers decided to keep it.

Which, in of itself, is fine. This scene still hurts like hell and is the most powerfully emotionally hitting scene in the show. It’s awesome.

The problem is the Chris’s reasoning for including the line.

According to the creator, Varian saying the word ‘daddy’ means that’s still immature and not ready yet to know whatever secrets Quirin is keeping from him.

OK first off, calling you father ‘daddy’ does not make you immature. What a stupid thing to say. My siblings and I are all in or 20s, 30s, and 40s, and we still call our father ‘daddy’ as well. (We’re quite spread out in ages)

Secondly, what secrets!? We’re never told what Quirin is hiding from his son. Varian never learns the truth of any earth shattering secret that involves him.

We get lots of behind the scenes hints that the writers prematurely cut Varian out of the plot in later seasons, despite his conflict not being resolved and the fact that he was presented as being integral to main plot.

We’re never given a real reason why Varian’s story so poorly was edited out and any excuses that the series creators, Ben and Chris, have given is nothing but that same BS as this line here and I’m going to call them out on it.

Xavier and Monty Should Have Been Streamlined Into One Character

Xavier is given no real introduction and yet he’s suddenly an important part of the main overarching plot. Nor do we ever get any backstory for him or insight into why he does what he does and knows what he knows. He’s just there to give exposition and that’s it.

Meanwhile Monty is given a whole episode worth’s of introduction and insight, but then proceeds to add nothing to the series afterwards.

Just imagine if Monty and Xavier were made into one character. Introduction, insight, plus actual story importance. As an added bonus, it would have forced Raps to deal with someone she doesn’t get along with in order to save the kingdom. Which would counterbalanced the ‘friendship saves the day’ bs of later seasons along with the idea that anyone who doesn’t kiss Rapunzel’s royal arse is a villain.

Once Again, Why Do you Know this Legends and No One Else, Xavier?

It’s lazy writing. You need to either set these things up beforehand or give reason for them later.

Pascal’s Story Makes Far More Sense After This Scene

The consequence of showing things out of order is that context is lost.

I Love the Reprise but it Gives the Game Away too Early

The writing team can’t decide where they want Varian’s fall into villainy to start and where to have it’s ‘twist’. This is suppose to be foreshadowing, but having it then undermines the ‘surprise betrayal’ in The Alchemist Returns. Not to mention that Varian doesn’t actually do anything truly ‘villainous’ until Secret of the Sundrop anyways.

In short this scene winds up being pointless and the insistence of having a shocking reveal later winds up being redundant. Which in turn then becomes a poor excuse for not featuring a episode dedicated to Varian’s side of the story.

Conclusion

I still love this episode, and I’m saddened that most of the series does not live up to this quality nor its own hype. On its own Queen for a Day is 40 mins of wonderful entertainment. As part of the an on going story it’s a bitter reminder of the disappointment to soon follow.

#varian #rapunzel #tangled #anti-tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tts #rta #queen for a day

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innuendostudios · 5 years

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The newest installment of The Alt-Right Playbook - Endnote 4: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship - is a little different. This installment was presented live at Solidarity Lowell, and includes a bonus Q&A section. This video expands on the ideas put forth in How to Radicalize a Normie.

If you would like more videos like this to come out, please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

He is intriguing, yet unpredictable. He demands unconditional loyalty. He seems to have an intuitive understanding of what people want to hear but no actual empathy; he treats others as simply bodies or objects. And he’s surrounded by a network of subordinates but the personnel is always changing.

Does it sound like I’m describing The President? Because these are, according to Alexandra Stein, qualities of a cult leader.

Hi. My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, the flagship endeavor of which is currently The Alt-Right Playbook, a series on the political and rhetorical strategies the Alt-Right uses to legitimize itself and gain power. And, if that sounds interesting to you, and you haven’t already, please like share and subscribe.

The most recent episode of The Alt-Right Playbook is about how people get recruited into these largely online reactionary communities like the Alt-Right, a subject which, as it turns out, is real fuckin’ hard to research.

What I want to talk about with you today is how I go about studying a population that is incredibly hostile towards being studied. It involves finding the bits and pieces of the Alt-Right that we do have data on - the pockets of good research, the outsider observations, the stories of lived experience - as well as looking at older movements the Alt-Right grew out of, that have been extensively researched, and spotting the ways the Alt-Right is continuous with them, and trying to extrapolate how those structures might recreate themselves in the social media age.

So it’s… a lot. And, in the process of researching, I found a wealth of interesting perspectives that, by focusing the video on recruitment specifically, I barely dipped a toe in. All that stuff is what I’d like to get into with you today. But I’m trying to thread a needle here: you don’t need to have seen my video, How to Radicalize a Normie, to follow this talk, but, if you have seen it already, I will try not to be redundant. This talk is one part making my case for why I think the conclusions in that video are correct, one part repository for all the stuff I couldn’t get into, and one part how I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right as a result of this research, including some pet theories I wouldn’t feel right claiming as truth without further research, but I do think are on the right track.

This talk is called Isolation, Engulfment, and Pain: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship. We’re going to cover a lot of ground, from information processing to emotional development, but we’re necessarily also going to cover racism and violence and abuse dynamics. So this is an introduction and a content warning: if some of these subjects are particularly charged for you, no offense will be taken if you at any point leave the room. I have to research this stuff for a living, and it is rough, and sometimes I have to step away. We don’t judge here.

Now. Requisite dash of self-deprecation: don’t give me too much credit for all this. I am proud of the work I do and I think I’m genuinely good at it, but much of this video was compiling the work of others. Besides research I had already done and my own observations, the video had 27 sources: three books, five research papers, six articles, one leaked document, three testimonials, four videos, four pages of statistics, and one Twitter joke. I also spoke to four professional researchers who study right-wing extremism and one former Alt-Righter.

Without all their hard work, I would have nothing to compile.

OK? Let’s begin.

We’re gonna center on those three main texts: Alt-America by David Neiwert, a history of the Alt-Right’s origins; Healing from Hate by Michael Kimmel, about how young men get into (and out of) extremist groups, be they neo-Nazi or jihadist; and Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein, about how people are courted by and kept inside cults and totalitarian regimes.

I began with Kimmel. The premise of Healing from Hate is that extremist groups tend to be between 75 and 90% male, and that you cannot understand radical conservatism without looking at it through the lens of toxic masculinity. Which makes it all the more disappointing that Kimmel has been accused by multiple women of bullying and harassment. I found the book incredibly useful, and we’re still going to talk about it, I just need to caveat here that retweets are not endorsements. Also, if I spoil the book for you then you don’t need to buy it, give your money to someone who isn’t a creep.

Kimmel’s argument is that extremism begins with a pain peculiar to young men. He calls it “aggrieved entitlement.” I call it Durden Syndrome. You know that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden says, “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rockstars, but we won’t, we’re slowly learning that fact, and we are very, very pissed off”? Yeah, that. As men, the world promised us something, and the promise wasn’t kept.

Some men skew towards social progressivism when they realize this promise was never made to women, or men of color, or queer or trans or nonbinary people, and recognize the injustice of that. Some men skew towards economic leftism when they realize that every cishet white man being a millionaire rockstar movie god is mathematically impossible. But they skew towards reactionary conservatism when they feel the promise should have been kept. That’s the life they were supposed to have, and someone took it from them.

Hate groups appeal to that sense of emasculation. “You wanna feel like a Real Man? Shave off your hair, dance to hatecore, and let’s beat the crap out of someone.” Kimmel notes that the greatest indicator someone will join a hate group is a broken home: divorce, foster care, parents with addictions, physical or sexual abuse. The greater the distance between the life they were promised and the life they are living, the more enticing Real Masculinity becomes. Their fellow extremists are brothers, the leaders father figures.

The group does give them someone to blame for their lot in life - immigrants, feminists, the Jewish conspiracy - but that’s not why they join. They’re after empowerment. According to Kimmel, “Their embrace of neo-Nazi ideology is a consequence of their recruitment and indoctrination process, not its cause."

But once an Other has been identified as the locus of a hate group’s hate, new recruits are brought along when the group terrorizes that Other. Events like cross burnings and street fights are dangerous and morally fraught, and are often traumatic for a new recruit. And experiencing an emotional or physical trauma can create an intense bond with the people experiencing it with him, even though they’re the ones who brought him to the traumatic event in the first place. The creation of this bond is one of the reasons some hate groups usher new recruits out into the field as early as possible: the sooner they are emotionally invested in the community, the faster they will embrace the community’s politics.

This Othering also estranges recruits from the people they are supposed to hate, which makes it hard to stop hating them.

So there’s this concept that comes up a lot in my research called Contact Hypothesis. Contact Hypothesis argues that, the more contact you have with a different walk of life, the easier it is to tolerate it. It’s like exposure therapy. We talk about how big cities and college campuses tend to be liberal strongholds; the Right likes to claim this is because of professors and politicians poisoning your mind, but it’s really just because they’re diverse. When you share space with a lot of different kinds of people, a degree of liberalism becomes necessary just to get by. And we see that belief systems which rely on a strict orthodoxy get really cagey about members having contact with outsiders. We see this in all the groups we’re discussing today - extremists, cultists, totalitarians - but also religious fundamentalists; Mormons only wanna send their kids to Brigham Young. They are belief systems that can only be reliably maintained so long as no one gets exposed to other people with other beliefs.

So that’s some of what I took from Kimmel. Next I read Stein talking, primarily, about cults.

Stein’s window into all of this is applying the theory of Attachment Styles to what researchers calls totalism, which is any structure that subsumes a person’s entire life the way cults and totalitarian governments do. Attachment is a concept you may be familiar with if have, or have ever dated, a therapist. (I’ve done both.)

So, for a quick primer:

Imagine you’re walking in the park with a three-year-old. And the three-year-old sees a dog, and ask, “Can I pet the dog?” And you say yes, and the kid steps away from your side and reaches out. And the dog gets excited, and jumps up, and the kid gets scared and runs back to you. So you hold the kid and go, “Oh, no no no, don’t worry! They’re not gonna hurt you! They were just happy to see you!” And you take a few moments to calm the kid down, and then you ask, “Do you still want to pet the dog?” And the kid says “yes,” so they step away from you again and reach out. The dog jumps up again, but this time the kid doesn’t run away, and they pet the dog, and you, the kid, and the dog are all happy. Hooray!

This is a fundamental piece of a child’s emotional development. They take a risk, have a negative experience, and retreat to a point of comfort. Then, having received that comfort, feel bolstered enough to take a slightly greater risk. A healthy childhood is steadily venturing further and further from that point of comfort, and taking on greater risks, secure in the knowledge that safety is there when they need it. And, as an adult, they will form many interdependent points of comfort rather than relying on only one or two.

If all goes according to plan, that is Secure Attachment. But: sometimes things go wrong when the kid seeks comfort and doesn’t get enough. This may be because the adult is withholding or the kid doesn’t know how to express their needs or they’re just particularly fearful. But the kid may start seeking comfort more than seems reasonable, and be particularly averse to risk, and over-focus on the people who give them comfort, because they’re operating at a deficit. We call that Anxious Attachment. Alternately, the kid may give up on receiving comfort altogether, even though they still need it, and just go it alone, developing a distrust of other people and a fear of being vulnerable. We call that Avoidant Attachment.

Now, these styles are all formed in early childhood, but Stein focuses on a fourth kind of Attachment, one that can be formed at any age regardless of the Attachment Style you came in with. It’s what happens when the negative experience and the comfort come from the same place. We see it in children and adults who are mistreated by the people they trust. It’s called Disorganized Attachment.

According to Stein, cults foster Disorganized Attachment by being intensely unpredictable. In a cult, you may be praised for your commitment on Monday and have your commitment questioned on Tuesday, with no change in behavior. You may be assigned a romantic partner, who may, at any point, be taken away, assigned to someone else. Your children may be taken from you to be raised by a different family. You may be told the cult leader wants to sleep with you, which may make you incredibly happy or be terrifying, but you won’t be given a choice. And the rules you are expected to follow will be rewritten without warning.

This creates a kind of emotional chaos, where you can’t predict when you will be given good feelings and when you will be given bad ones. But you’re so enmeshed in the community you have noplace else to go for good feelings; hurting you just draws you in deeper, because they are also where you seek comfort. And your pain is always your fault: you wouldn’t feel so shitty if you were more committed. Trying to make sense of this causes so much confusion and anguish that you eventually just stop thinking for yourself. These are the rules now? OK. He’s not my brother anymore? OK. This is my life now? OK.

Hardly anyone would seek out such a dynamic, which is why cults present as religions, political activists, and therapy groups; things people in questioning phases of their lives are liable to seek out, and then they fall down the rabbit hole before they know what’s happening. The cult slowly consumes more and more of a recruit’s life, and tightly controls access to relationships outside the cult, because the biggest threat to a Disorganized Attachment relationship is having separate, Securely Attached points of comfort.

And at this point I said, “Hold up. You’re telling me cults recruit by offering people community and purpose in times of need, become the focal point of their entire lives, estrange them from all outside perspectives, and then cause emotional distress that paradoxically makes them more committed because they have nowhere else to go for support?”

Isn’t that exactly how Kimmel described joining a hate group?

Now, these are commonalities, not a one-to-one comparison. A cult is far more organized and rigidly controlled than a hate group. But Stein points out that this dynamic of isolation, engulfment, and pain is the same dynamic as an abusive relationship. The difference is just scale. A cult is functionally a single person having a very complex domestic abuse situation with a whole lot of people, #badpolyamory.

So if we posit a spectrum with domestic abuse on one end and cults and totalitarianism on the other, I started wondering, could we put extremist groups, like ISIS and Aryan Nations, around… here?

And, if so, where would we put the Alt-Right?

Now, I have to tread carefully here. There are reasons this talk is called “How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship” and not “How the Alt-Right is Like a Cult,” because the moment you say the second thing, a lot of people stop listening to you. Our conception of cults and totalitarianism is way more controlled and structured than a pack of loud, racist assholes on the internet. But we’re not talking about organizational structure, we’re talking about a relationship, an emotional dynamic Stein calls “anxious dependency,” which fosters an irrational loyalty to people who are bad for you and gets you to adopt an ideology you would have previously rejected. (I would also love to go on a rant puncturing the idea that cultists and fascists are organized, pointing out this notion is propaganda and their systems are notoriously corrupt and mismanaged, but we don’t have time; ask me about it in the Q&A if you want me to go off.)

So I started looking through what I knew, and what I could find, about the Alt-Right to see if I could spot this same pattern of isolation, engulfment, and pain online funneling people towards the Alt-Right. And I did not come up short.

Isolation? Well, the Alt-Right traffics in all the same dehumanizing narratives about their enemies as Kimmel’s hate groups - like, the worst things you can imagine a human being saying about a group of people are said every day in these forums. They often berate and harass each other for any perceived sympathy towards The Other Side. They also regularly harass people from The Other Side off of platforms, and falsely report their tweets, posts, and videos as terrorism to get them taken down. (This has happened to me, incidentally.) I found figureheads adored by the Alt-Right who expressly tell people to cut ties with liberal family members.

We talked before about Contact Hypothesis? There’s also this idea called Parasocial Contact Hypothesis. A parasocial relationship is a strong emotional connection that only goes one way, like if you really love my videos and have started thinking of me almost as a friend even though I don’t know you exist? Yeah. Parasocial relationship. They’ve been in The Discourse lately, largely thanks to my friend Shannon Strucci making a really great video about them (check it out, I make a cameo, but… clear your schedule). Parasocial Contact Hypothesis is this phenomenon where, if people form parasocial feelings for public figures or even fictional characters, and those people happen to be Black, white audience members become less racist similar to how they would if they had Black friends. Your logical brain knows that these are strangers, but your lizard brain doesn’t know the difference between empathy for a queer friend and empathy for a queer character in a video game. So of course the Alt-Right makes a big stink about queer characters in video games, and leads boycotts against “forced diversity,” because diverse media is bad for recruitment.

Engulfment? Well, I learned way too much about how the Alt-Right will overtake your entire internet life. There was a paper made the rounds last year by Rebecca Lewis charting the interconnectedness of conservative YouTube. (Reactionaries really hated this paper because it said things they didn’t like.) Lewis argues that, once you enter what she calls the Alternative Influence Network, it tends to keep you inside it. Start with some YouTuber conservatives like but who’s branded as a moderate, or even a “classic liberal.” Take someone like Dave Rubin; call Dave Rubin Alt-Right, people yell at you, I speak from experience. Well, Dave Rubin’s had Jordan Peterson on his show, so, if you watch Rubin, Peterson ends up in your recommendations. Peterson has been on the Joe Rogan show, so, you watch Peterson, Rogan ends up in your recommendations. And Rogan has interviewed Gavin McInnes, so you watch Rogan and McInnes ends up in your recommendations.

Gavin McInnes is the head of the Proud Boys, a self-described “western chauvinist” organization that’s mostly known for beating up liberals and leftists. They have ties to neo-fascist groups like Identity Evropa and neo-fascist militias like the Oath Keepers, they run security for white nationalists, and their lawyer just went on record that he identifies as a fascist. And, if you’re one of these kids who has YouTube in the background with autoplay on, and you’re watching Dave Rubin? You might be as few as 3 videos away from watching Gavin McInnes.

There’s a lot of talk these days about algorithms funneling people towards the Right, and that’s not wrong, but it’s an oversimplification. The real problem is that the Right knows how to hijack an algorithm.

I also learned about the Curation/Search Radicalization Spiral from a piece by Mike Caulfield. Caulfiend uses the horrific example of Dylann Roof. You remember him? He shot up a church in a Black neighborhood a few years ago. Roof says he was radicalized when he googled “Black on white crime” and saw the results. Now, if you search the phrase “crime statistics by demographic,” you will find fairly nonpartisan results that show most crimes are committed against members of the perpetrator’s own race, and Black people commit crimes against white people at about the same rate as any other two demographics. But that specific phrase, “Black on white crime,” is used almost exclusively by white racists, and so Roof’s first hit wasn’t a database of crime statistics, it was the Council of Conservative Citizens. Now, the CCC is an outgrowth of the White Citizens Councils of the 50’s and 60’s which rebranded in ‘85. They publish bogus statistics that paint Black people as uniquely violent. And they introduce a number of other politically-loaded phrases - like, say, “Muslim fertility rates” - that nonpartisan sites don’t use, and so, if Roof googles them as well, he gets similarly weighted results.

I have tons more examples of this stuff. I literally don’t have time to show it all. Like, have you heard of Google bombing? That’s a thing I didn’t know existed. The point is, the same way search engines tailor your results to what they think you want, once you scratch the surface of the Alt-Right they are highly adept at making it so, whenever you go online, their version of reality is all you know and all you see.

Finally, pain. This was the difficult one. Can you create a Disorganized Attachment relationship over the internet with a largely faceless and decentralized movement? I pitched the idea to one the researchers I spoke to, and he said, “That sounds very plausible, and nearly impossible to research.” See, cults and hate groups? They don’t wanna talk to researchers anymore than the Alt-Right wants to talk to me. Stein and Kimmel get their data by speaking to formers, people who’ve exited these movements and are all too happy to share how horrible they were. But the Alt-Right is still very young, and there just aren’t that many formers yet.

I found some testimonials, and they mostly back up my hypothesis, but there’s not enough that I could call them statistically significant. So I had to look where the data was.

My fellow YouTuber ContraPoints made a video last year - in my opinion, her best one - about incels (that’s “involuntary celibate,” men who can’t get laid). Incel forums tend to be deeply misogynistic and antifeminist, and have a high overlap with the Alt-Right. If you remember Elliot Rodger, he was an incel. Contra’s observation was that these forums were incredibly fatalistic: you are too ugly and women too shallow for you to ever have sex, so you should give up. She described a certain catharsis, like picking a really painful scab, in hearing other people voice your worst fears. But there was no uplift; these communities seemed to have a zero-tolerance policy for optimism. She likened it so some deeply unhealthy trans forums she used to visit, where people wallowed in their own dysphoria.

And I remembered the forums I researched five years ago in preparation for my video on GamerGate. (If you don’t know what GamerGate was, I will not rob you of your precious innocence. But, in a lot of ways, GamerGate was the trial run for what the Alt-Right has become.) These forums were full of angry guys surrounding themselves with people saying, “You’re right to be angry.” And, yeah, if everywhere else you go treats your anger as invalid, that scratches an itch. But I never saw any of them calm down. They came in angry and they came out angrier. And most didn’t have anywhere else to vent, so they all came back.

I found a paper on Alt-Right forums that described a similar type of nihilism, and another on 8chan. What humor was on these sites was always shocking, furiously punching down, and deeply self-referential, but it didn’t seem like anyone was expected to laugh anymore, just, you know, catch the reference. I found one testimonial saying that having healthy relationships in these spaces is functionally impossible, and the one former I talked to said, yeah, when the Alt-Right isn’t winning everyone’s miserable.

So I think it might fit. The place they go for relief also makes them unhappy, so they come back to get relief again, and it just repeats. Same reason people stay with abusers. I wanna look into this further, so, I’ll just say this part to the camera: if there are any researchers watching who wanna study this, get at me.

Finally, I read Alt-America by David Neiwert, a supremely useful book that I highly recommend if you wanna know how the Alt-Right is the natural outgrowth of the militia and Patriot movements of the 90’s and early 2000’s, not to mention the Tea Party. Neiwert also does an excellent job illustrating how conspiracism serves to fill in the gap between the complexity of the modern world and the simplistic, might-makes-right worldview of fascism.

Neiwert also provides an interesting piece of the puzzle, suggesting what people are actually looking for when they get recruited. He references work done by John Bargh and Katelyn McKenna on Identity Demarginalization. Bargh and McKenna looked at the internet habits of people whose identities are both devalued in our society and invisible. By invisible, what I mean is, ok, if you’re a person of color, our society devalues your identity, but you can look around a room and, within a certain margin of error, see who else is POC, and form community with them if you wish. But, if you’re queer, you can’t see who else in a room is queer unless one of you runs up a flag. And revealing yourself always means taking on a certain amount of risk that you’ve misread the signals, that the person you reveal yourself to is not only not queer, but a homophobe.

According to Bargh and McKenna, people in this situation are much more likely to seek online spaces that self-select for that identity. A fan forum for RuPaul’s Drag Race is maybe a safer place to come out and find community. And people tend to get very emotionally tied to these online spaces where they can be themselves.

Neiwert points out that the same phenomenon happens among privileged people who have identities that are devalued even as they’re not actually oppressed. Say, nerds, or conservatives in liberal towns, or men who don’t fit traditional notions of masculinity. They are also likely to deeply invest themselves in online spaces made for them. And if the Far Right can build such a community, or get a foothold in one that already exists, it is very easy to channel that sense of marginalization into Durden Syndrome. I connected this with Rebecca Lewis’ observation that the Alternative Influence Network tends to present itself as nerd-focused life advice first and politics second, and the long history of reactionaries recruiting from fandoms.

So I can see all the pieces of the abuse dynamic being recreated here: offer you something you need, estrange you from other perspectives and healthy relationships, overtake your life, and provoke emotional distress that makes you seek comfort only your abuser is offering. And I found a lot more parallels than what I’m sharing right now, I only have half an hour! But the thing that’s missing that’s usually central to such a system is, an abusive relationship orbits around the abuser, a cult around the cult leader, a totalitarian government around a dictator. They are built to serve the whims of an individual. But I look at the ad hoc nature of the Alt-Right and I have to ask: who is the architect?

I can see a lot of people profiting off of this structure; our current President rode it to great success, but he didn’t build it. It predates him. It’s more like Kimmel’s hate groups, which don’t promote an individual so much as a class of individuals, but, even then, their structure is much more deliberate, designed, where the Alt-Right seems almost improvised.

Well… one observation I took from Stein is that cult recruiters often rely on two different kinds of propaganda: the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche. The diatribe is when someone talks at length, sounds smart, and seems to know what they’re talking about but isn’t actually making sense, and the thought-terminating cliche comes from Robert Jay Lifton’s studies into brainwashing. So, I went vegetarian in middle school, and, when I would tell other kids I was vegetarian, some would get kind of defensive and say things like, “humans aren’t meant to be vegetarian, it’s the food chain.” Now, saying “it’s the food chain” isn’t meant to be a good argument, it’s meant to communicate “I have said something so axiomatically true that the argument need not continue.” That’s a thought-terminating cliche; something that may not be true, but feels true and gives you permission to think about something else.

Both these techniques rely on what’s called Peripheral-Route Processing. So, I’m up here talking about politics, and, Solidarity Lowell, you are a group of politically-engaged people, so you probably have enough context to know whether I’m talking out of my ass. That’s Direct-Route Processing, where you judge the contents of my argument. But if I were up here talking about string theory, you might not know whether I was talking out of my ass because there’s only so many people on Earth who understand string theory. So then you might look at secondary characteristics of my argument: the fact that I’ve been invited to speak on string theory implies I know what I’m talking about; maybe I put up a lot of equations and drop the names of mathematicians and say they agree with me; maybe I just sound really authoritative. All that’s Peripheral-Route Processing: judging the quality of my argument by how it’s delivered.

Every act of communication involves both, but if you’re trying to sell people on something that’s fundamentally irrational, you’re going to rely heavily on Peripheral-Route tactics, which is what the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche are.

I noted that these two methods mapped pretty cleanly onto the rhetorical stylings of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. But here’s the question: cults use these techniques to recruit people. But can I say with any confidence that Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are trying to recruit people into the Alt-Right?

The thing is, “Alt-Right” isn’t a term like “klansman.” It’s more akin to a term like “modernism.” It’s a label applied to a trend. In the same way we debate the line between modernism and postmodernism, we debate the line between Right and Alt-Right. People don’t sign up to be in the Alt-Right, you are Alt-Right if you say you’re Alt-Right. But the nature of the Alt-Right is that 90% of them would never admit to it.

So are Peterson and Shapiro intentionally recruiting for the Alt-Right? Are they grifters merely profiting off of the Alt-Right? Are they even aware they’re recruiting for the Alt-Right? Part of my work has been accepting that you can’t know for sure. It would be naive to say they’re unaware; when they give speeches they get Nazis in their Q&A sections, and they know that. But how aware are they? I suspect Shapiro moreso than Peterson, but that’s just my gut talking and I can’t prove it. Like 90% of the Alt-Right, it’s debatable.

I don’t know if they’re trying to be part of this system, I just know they’re not trying not to be.

A final academic term before we say goodnight that’s been making the rounds among lefty YouTubers is “Stochastic Terrorism.” There’s a really great video about this by the channel NonCompete called The PewDiePipeline. Stochastic Terrorism is the myriad ways you can increase the likelihood that someone will commit violence without actually telling them to. You simply create an environment in which lone wolf violence becomes more acceptable and appealing. It mirrors the structure of terrorism without the control or culpability.

And I hear about this, and I look at this recruitment structure I see approximated in the Alt-Right, and I remember something I learned much earlier in my research, from Bob Altemeyer in his book The Authoritarians. Altemeyer has been studying authoritarianism for decades, he has a wealth of data, and one thing he observes is that authoritarianism is the few exerting power over the many, which means there are two types of authoritarians: the ones who lead and the ones who follow. Turns out those are completely different personality profiles. Followers don’t want to be in charge, they want someone to tell them what to do, to say “you’re the good guys,” and put them in charge of punishing the bad guys. They don’t even care who the bad guys are; part of the appeal is that someone else makes that judgment for them.

So if you can encourage a degree of authoritarian sentiment in people, get them wanting nothing more than to be ensconced in a totalist system that will take their agency away from them, putting them in the orbit of an authoritarian leader, but no leader presents themself… can you just kind of… appoint one?

Like, if you don’t have a leader, can you just find yourself an authoritarian and treat him like one? And, if he doesn’t give you enough directives, can you just make some up? And, if you don’t have recruiters, can you find a conservative who speaks in thought-terminating cliches just because he thinks they win arguments; find a conservative who speaks in meaningless diatribes because he thinks he’s making sense; and then maneuver those speeches and videos in front of people you want to recruit? If you’re sick of waiting for Moses to come down the mountain with the Word of God, can you just build your own god from whatever’s handy?

Every piece of this structure, you can find people, algorithms, and arguments that, put in sequence, can generate Disorganized Attachment whether they’re trying to or not, which makes every part plausibly deniable. Debatable. You just need to make it profitable enough for the ones involved that they don’t fix it. This is a system created collaboratively, on the fly, with the help of a lot of people from hate movements past, mostly by throwing a ton of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The Alt-Right is a rapidly-mutating virus and the web is the perfect incubator; it very quickly finds a structure that works, and it’s a structure we’ve seen before, just a little weirder this time.

I’ve started calling this Stochastic Totalism.

Now, again, I’m not a professional researcher; I do my homework but I don’t have the background. I have an art degree. This isn’t something I can prove so much as a way I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right that makes sense to me and helps me understand them. And I got a lot of comments on my last video from people who used to be Alt-Right that echoed my assumptions. But don’t take it as gospel.

Mostly I wanted to share this because, if it can help you make sense of what we’re dealing with, I think it’s worth putting out there.

Thank you.

#video essay

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firstlovesuggestions · 3 years

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Disclaimers, Rules, FAQ, and Resources

Hi everyone! Here’s the official one-stop post for this blog and how it runs. I’m excited to get things moving again after my long hiatus!

Disclaimers and rules are subject to change at any time~

The resources list is always expanding; if you have resources for help in the UK, Canada, Australia, or any other country, please message me so I can include them in the list. As of right now, I only have US resources.

Note: as of April 20, 2021 I am putting a temporary hold on answering advice asks. The inbox is still open for advice, but I’m just going through some personal things and need a little break, so I might not respond as soon as you like. Submissions will still be posted and my own suggestions will still be coming! Thank you~

Disclaimers

All suggestions are my own thoughts and feelings about my own partner and relationship. I have not, do not, and will not ever take another suggestion blog’s work as my own. Submissions from followers are tagged “submission” and I will never take credit for someone’s submission. If you think I am stealing another blog’s posts or there are any other sourcing issues, please message me directly.

I am a 22 year old cisgender bisexual woman in a relationship with a 25 year old cisgender straight man. As such, I may not always give the best or most fitting advice to others of different genders, sexualities, and ages, but I really do try my best.

Any advice I give is purely based on my own thoughts, opinions, and experiences. I try to be objective at the same time, but at the end of the day, I’m going to go with what I feel is the best answer for you. If you disagree with or are upset by my advice, please ignore it and move on. I can’t tell you what you want to hear just to make you feel better; that doesn’t help anyone.

I’m not responsible for the outcome of your situation if you choose to apply the advice I give. I’m a stranger on the internet you asked for help, not a fairy godmother. I can’t fix things for you, just give you my input. Please don’t blame me for things not working. I don’t like being harsh about this, but I just want to make this known and understood.

Rules

Homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny/misandry, and any other sort of discrimination is prohibited in your reblogs, replies, and tags. If I find anyone breaking this rule to any degree, you will be blocked on the spot, no questions asked. It’s 2021. You’re better than this.

If you find my advice or my suggestions to be problematic in any way, please message me directly and tell me why, so I know to correct myself and to delete the problematic post in question.

DD/LG blogs will be blocked immediately if I find any interaction with my posts whatsoever. This is not kinkshaming. This is me wanting no part of a community that sexualizes children.

No asks about family situations and relationships. These will be deleted, as I am not in any position to help with matters like these.

Asks about sex and sexual relationships are allowed, but please do not be overly graphic in your descriptions. Sex asks are reserved for those 18 or older**. I will tag all sex-related posts with “tw sex” for those who wish to avoid them.

I won’t post submissions about breakups, rejections, or any other sorrowful situations. I want this blog to be a happier place for people. I’m really sorry for this one, and I can still be here to support you if you want to direct message me.

If you have any questions about the rules, please send a message! I don’t want to discourage anyone from interacting with this blog.

** If you are a minor looking for resources relating to things like sexual assault or birth control, please see the resources below. If you have any other questions or situations you need resources for, please message me directly.

FAQ

This is a list of the topics asked very, very frequently and a quick answer to them. If I find your ask to be redundant and think it can be answered on this list, it will be deleted. This is not meant to ignore you; this is to keep ask traffic lower so that I can answer more people instead of repeating the same answer for one general topic.

“Would it be wrong of me to get revenge on [person] for [reason]?” - Yes. I don’t ever condone revenge for any reason when it comes to relationships. Don’t stoop to their level. Don’t give them the satisfaction of knowing you’re angry/upset with them. The best way to say “fuck you” to someone is to cut them off and move on, because you’re taking away the power they held over you.

“I’m in an LDR and my partner isn’t reaponding to my texts like they used to.” - Communicate. LDRs have no room for not responding to texts and calls because that’s the only way you get to connect. If they still aren’t willing to talk after multiple attempts to discuss the issue(s) at hand, you can give them an ultimatum or just leave.

“How do I get my crush to notice me?” - Talk to them. If you’re wanting to get their attention, reach out to them.

“How can I start a conversation with my crush?” - Casually compliment them, find something in the environment to comment on or send them a meme “accidentally”. It’s not creepy to start a conversation, and it could lead to a new friendship or something more! Just don’t rush things.

“How do I impress my crush?” - Be yourself. Seriously. If you try to be anything other than you, or if you do things you usually never do or don’t like to do, it won’t end well. If you did manage to reel in your crush and start dating, it would be under false pretenses and likely wouldn’t last long.

“I confessed to my crush, but they rejected me.” - Accept their answer. No means no, no exceptions. The worst thing you could possibly do is keep trying to get them to say yes. If they offer to stay friends after they reject you, it’s your choice to keep them in your life or to move on.

“I have a crush on someone who is already in a monogamous relationship.” - There’s nothing wrong with having a crush. What matters is that you do not, under any circumstances, interfere with their relationship. It will hurt to see them with someone else, but if you love them, you should respect their choices and who/what brings them happiness.

“I have/my partner has a crush on someone else.” - If you’re dating casually, this isn’t super uncommon, but if it bothers you, say something. If you’re in a committed relationship, this could be an issue because one of you doesn’t have your heart fully in it. If you feel like you two have become distant or that the trust is broken, communicate and determine where to go from there.

“I have a crush on someone, but they’re [sexuality, gender].” - In the same way they respect your gender and sexuality, you need to respect theirs, too. If they express interest outside of their sexual orientation, you can be there to support them, but do not force things unless you want to push them away or break your bond with them.

If you feel your question isn’t answered here depite being related to something on the list, or you need more specific advice, please don’t hesitate to reach out after you have read this list thoroughly and completely!

Resources (USA)

Crisis text line: Text HELLO to 741741

Domestic abuse hotline: 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE)

Sexual assault hotline: 1-800-656-4673 (HOPE)

Suicide prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK)

Substance abuse services (SAMHSA): 1-800-662-4357 (HELP)

Trevor Lifeline (LGBTQ mental health crisis hotline): 1-866-488-7386

Eating disorder helpline: (Call or Text) 1-800-931-2237, via NEDA

Dating issues/abuse: via loveisrespect.org

Birth control information: via Planned Parenthood

If anyone has resources for the UK, Canada, Australia, or any other country, please let me know. I want to only have the best and most reliable ones here, and it’s difficult to know which ones to include. Thank you in advance!

…………………

About Me

My main is @serenityfive! If reply to you in a post, that’s where I’ll be talking from. Same with if I follow you or I’m scrolling through and liking stuff on your blog. I like to pick a blog at random in the notes and look around since I’m trying to find people to follow despite tumblr being dead!

I started this blog in 2018 to express my feelings for a guy I had a massive crush on who eventually became my boyfriend. We have been together for 2 and a half years now and are living happily in Colorado! My side of our story can be found here 💕

So, a little bit more about me... I’m 22, I like cooking, gaming, cats, nature, and I have a strong interest in health and nutrition. I’m currently finishing my associate’s degree and want to obtain a certification in surgical technology!

I’m happy to make people smile with this blog; you guys are very fulfilling and kind, and I thank you! If anyone wants to chat, just hit me up~

With love,

Lily

#not a suggestion #rules #disclaimers #resources #about me

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kuriboo · 4 years

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Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Month

Day 25: For the Glory of Academia!

This is one of the two prompts for this month I felt a lot of inspiration for, given I did not have the time to work on all or even most of the prompts. At first, I wasn’t going to do this prompt either. As it turns out, I’ve written an au putting many GX characters into Arc V already, years ago in a fic called Righteous Justice. I’d felt like I’d said all that needs to be said on it -- I ended it at a nice place, had no intentions to continue, and writing a very similar au just felt redundant, given I wouldn’t change much in Righteous Justice even now.

Then I realized I had planned out a very unique role for Syrus in this au that I never touched on, because he never came up. I felt really inspired to write for that, to write out Syrus’ place in Righteous Justice and also focus on his relationship with Zane, given that Zane plays a large role in it. This is obviously very late given that GX Month ended in September; I finished writing this up at the beginning of October, but it took me to the end of October to type it up and edit it for posting. I enjoyed writing this a lot, so if you read, I hope you enjoy.

I’ll include links to both this fic and Righteous Justice on ao3 in the notes of this post.

⁂

Syrus glanced out the window. For the moment, everything looked peaceful. A few people were out and about, but as far as Syrus could tell, not a single person held a duel disk, or looked like they were disguising themselves. He couldn’t help but breath a sigh of relief.

Long ago, it was Syrus’ dream to attend Duel Academy. He wanted to become a professional duelist, and he was sure he’d have the skills to succeed after graduating, but...

Then he talked to his older brother, Zane.

Zane was already attending Duel Academy, so Syrus was sure Zane would have good insight on what the school was like. When Syrus asked Zane about his plans, Zane said only one thing: Syrus was too weak, not nearly good enough of a duelist to get in. Zane seemed to have no faith in Syrus. So, what was the point, then?

Those words in mind, Syrus changed his plans. He enrolled at a different high school, aimless for now but deciding to find a different goal to strive for. He was upset Zane didn’t believe in him, but Zane’s opinion still was important to him. Plus, since Zane was already going to Duel Academy, he was probably right, so Syrus’ confidence in his dueling ability dropped like a Truckroid in the ocean.

That all felt like it happened a lifetime ago, but it really wasn’t. It had been over a year, but in the scheme of things a year wasn’t that long. Zane hadn’t graduated yet.

Syrus wasn't sure what was happening around him anymore; rumors were spreading about Duel Academy about some project or something going on, but Syrus didn't know anything about that. What he had noticed, however, were the Duel Academy students roaming the streets. They often went after people trying to hide their appearances, seemingly trying to hide from something, or maybe someone. Maybe it was Duel Academy. Duel Academy students were seen dueling in the city more and more, and it seemed like the there were more people hiding all the time, too. At school, Syrus heard rumors that these people hiding their appearances were former students or staff of Duel Academy. That they didn't just leave, they'd had to escape. That they had formed some sort of rebellious group forming against Duel Academy.

But, well, Syrus was having enough trouble keeping up in all his classes. He couldn't keep up with the constant new rumors, or try to look into anything himself.

For now, though it seemed like there weren't any Duel Academy students doing...whatever they did around the city. No duels happening around him. The peace was nice for the short time it would last, and would make it a lot easier to focus on schoolwork. He had some homework to catch up on. Also, Syrus knew he was a horrible duelist. Zane had practically said so himself. He did not want to get caught in any of those duels that happened outside; he knew he would lose, and he did not want to know what would happen if he lost. There were rumors spreading about that, too.

Syrus sat down and put some homework in front of him. As he struggled through difficult problems, he couldn't help but think of Zane. They hadn't seen each other since Syrus graduated from middle school. How was Zane doing? What was his school life like? Did he have any friends? Would Syrus get a chance to meet them? One of his greatest fears was that he'd never know any of the answers to those questions. Would he ever see Zane again? Was there a chance they could become closer like they used to be?

He'd grabbed a snack partway through his homework assignment, but quickly realized it was gone already. He went to throw the snack's wrapper away, but he saw the garbage can was full. Time to take out the trash, then. He went outside with the bag. Currently, Syrus was renting an apartment because his school didn't have dorms (this apartment didn't put him very far from Duel Academy), so the apartment's dumpster was a bit of a walk. Still, it didn't take him long to get there and back. As Syrus returned, he looked at his door.

The door was left open. He'd forgotten to close it and lock it.

Even though it hadn't been long, Syrus felt nervous. He ran to the door as quick as he could, wanting to make sure nothing was out of place. As he reached the apartment, he shut the door behind him. He turned towards the living room, figuring that was the most obvious place to see if anything was broken or stolen.

Immediately, he saw two other people in the same room as him. Syrus squeaked as they both noticed him.

“It’s okay.” One of them held his hands up in a peaceful gesture. “I know it probably looks like we’re trying to rob you or something, but I promise we aren’t. It’s okay.”

”Then...” Syrus glanced at the person who had spoken, trying to stop himself from shaking (unsuccessfully). “Then why are you... Why are you here?”

”It’s a long story, but I guess we’ve already brought you into it? Oh, where are my manners?” The person who had spoken before held out one of his hands to offer Syrus a handshake. “I should introduce myself. You can call me Bastion.”

Syrus declined the offer. “I’m Syrus.”

”Nice to meet you, Syrus.” Bastion dropped his hand, seeming unoffended that Syrus rejected the handshake. “I wish it was under different circumstances.”

You and me both, Syrus thought.

”I’ll keep it brief—“

”We’re putting our trust in him?” The other person asked. They were holding one of Syrus’ homework assignments. Syrus stared at them. Bastion whispered to them to put it down, to which they complied. “He could turn us in.” They looked at Syrus. “Uh, yo, my name is Jaden, by the way.” They didn’t offer a handshake.

Bastion sighed. “It doesn’t really matter what he does now, I guess. We’re already here. He deserves to at least know why.”

”Right, why you’re in my apartment.”

”Yes. The main thing you need to know is we, uh, used to be at Duel Academy. We didn’t want to be there anymore. Duel Academy wants us to go back, but we don’t really want to. They keep sending students to find us, and we were just running away from them. We saw your door was open, and, well, it’s easier to hide when you aren’t out on the streets? I promise we won’t be here long, we just need to—“

”He could still turn us in to Duel Academy,” Jaden pointed out. “I thought you didn’t want to go back?”

”And you do?” Syrus was so confused, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Didn’t Bastion just say they both didn’t want to go back?

”He’s still undecided,” Bastion told Syrus.

Jaden stared at Syrus. Syrus found it hard to maintain eye contact, even more than he usually did with most people. Jaden shrugged, then looked out the window. “Whatever he decides to do, we can deal with it. But it’s cool. I trust your judgement, Bastion.”

Syrus turned his attention back to Bastion. “I’m really out of the loop,” he admitted. “Is something happening with Duel Academy? Why are people trying to leave? Why are they trying to get those people back? Isn’t it just supposed to be a duel school?” Might as well try to get a firsthand account while he could. Ignorance really wasn’t bliss for him right now; he’d rather know what was going on himself, even if only so he could stay out of the situation as much as possible.

”It’s supposed to be a duel school. It used to be just that. It’s sort of expanded beyond that? I was never a student there, but they brought me in to work on a project I never wanted to be part of. So, to make a long story short, here I am.”

”I guess that makes sense.” Syrus nodded, then looked at Jaden. “What about...” His words died in his throat. Jaden was still undecided, right? But then, why did he leave in the first place, if he wasn’t sure?

Before Syrus could think how to phrase what he was trying to ask, Jaden cut him off. “They’re nearby.”

Duel Academy was nearby?! “What if they come in?” Syrus stared down at the floor. Was it suddenly hot in the apartment, or was that just him? “I’ve seen people dueling outside recently, are they from Duel Academy? Will I have to duel somebody? I-I can’t, I’m not any good, I...” Syrus couldn’t duel anyone, especially from Duel Academy. He wouldn’t stand a chance. He hadn’t dueled since...

Jaden looked at Syrus, eyes widened with surprise. “Are you sure that’s true? That doesn’t seem right. I get the same feeling from you I got from Bastion when we first met. You just probably haven’t dueled anyone recently.”

”I don’t...it has to be true...I’m not...”

”The same feeling from me?” Bastion stared at Jaden. “I thought you thought I was...” He shook his head. “Now isn’t the time.” He turned to Syrus. “We won’t ask you to do anything for us. If a duel is demanded, we’ll step in. If someone comes in and doesn’t try to duel you, we will get out of here a different way, so they can’t connect you to us and give you any trouble.”

”Okay...okay...”

Less then a minute later, there were footsteps outside Syrus’ door. He squeaked. Bastion nodded to Jaden, and the two of them quietly walked away to sneak out the back entrance. After the two of them were out of sight, the front door was forced open. Syrus ran towards the door and looked up to see...

”Zane?!”

Standing now in the doorway, Zane seemed talker now than he had the last time Syrus had seen him; Syrus wasn’t sure if it was that Zane was actually taller, or if it was just because he was so intimidated by Zane. Syrus knew Zane was with Duel Academy. He could never tell by uniform what school someone was from, yet Zane wasn’t dressed like anyone Syrus had seen around his apartment. Zane’s uniform was different from the last time Syrus had seen him in, too, even though Zane had been a student at Duel Academy then as well. Syrus wasn’t about to act like he knew anything about Duel Academy’s uniforms, though.

”I haven’t seen you since...” Syrus couldn’t even get a full sentence out, the words just kept getting trapped in his throat. He wasn’t even sure how he felt, seeing Zane again. Happy? Upset? Well, last time he’d seen Zane was when he told him... Right now, he knew he felt scared and inadequate for sure.

Zane glared down at Syrus. “You’re still pretty close to Duel Academy.” He looked around at what he could see of the apartment from the doorway. “Do you really think you can transfer in later or something? Do you really think you’re good enough to do that?”

Syrus tried not to squeak in response. "No, I...I know better than that. It's just... My school is nearby..." It was mostly coincidence. Syrus hadn't realized when he enrolled at his school how close it was. Once he found out, though... the feelings Syrus had about Zane were very mixed after Zane told Syrus that he would never have what it takes to succeed at Duel Academy. But even with that, Syrus found some comfort with not being too far away from Zane. No matter wat, if Syrus ever were really in trouble he was sure that Zane would still try to help him (...he hoped).

"Sy." Zane closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Even if you aren't enrolled at Duel Academy, you still do not get it." His hand fell back to his side as he glared down Syrus . "At least it finally sunk in that you'll always be too weak to get anywhere at the academy. But it's not just the school. You're too weak to be anywhere near the school. Maybe this time it will sink in. We're fighting a war, Syrus."

" War?! " Syrus took a step back, unable to look away from Zane. "What is that supposed to mean?" Honestly, he could not remember anyone mentioning a war. Not Bastion or Jaden, who supposedly left Duel Academy, and Zane sure hadn't before now. He couldn't have heard Zane correctly. Really, how could a school be involved in a--

"It means we are fighting a war, Syrus." Zane rolled his eyes and scowled. "Our world is sick. It's sick and broken, and only the best of the best can fix it. Some people don't want to do that, so right now a war is what it's taking to accomplish that. Anyone who is weak is in the way. Some people who went to Duel Academy don't believe in fixing our world either, so this is part of the war zone now. As long as you're here, you're a liability and in our way."

Syrus didn't really understand what Zane was talking about. The world is sick? Somehow a war was supposed to fix that? Was this what all the duel in the area were about? But Zane said he was in the way, he was weak, so...

"What do you want me to do? Transfer somewhere else, move away from here? I can't do that! I signed a lease!"

Syrus looked down at his hands. They weren't shaking, were they? Definitely not.

"Then get out of it."

Syrus sighed. "Well, if you came all the way here just to tell me to leave, then I guess I can give it a shot..." That probably wasn't the only reason Zane was here, but he couldn't tell him Jaden and Bastion has been here , right? He told them he wouldn't. Besides, saying something could lead to a duel, and Syrus refused to be anywhere near that. He refused to risk getting involved in one. Zane was the best, so why would he need help from Syrus, anyway?

Zane frowned. "I hadn't even known you were here." Right. Zane probably didn't care where Syrus was, as long as it wasn't around him. " I was sent to chase after some Duel Academy traitors. I thought I saw them enter this building, but there's no way a coward like you could hide them, so this was a waste of time."

Without even a goodbye, Zane turned around and walked away, leaving the apartment. Syrus was barely able to get himself to walk to the door and close it behind Zane, he was shaking so badly. Taking a deep breath, Syrus started to think over what Zane had said to him.

⁂

The back exit of the apartment was easy to find. Bastion had taken the lead in sneaking out by Jaden's request, and he trusted Jaden to watch his back. The two of them were ready to leave without a sound unless something bad happened, but when Bastion heard Syrus talking to whoever Duel Academy soldier was after them, any thoughts he had about leaving quickly vanished.

"Zane? I haven't seen you since..."

"You're pretty close to Duel Academy."

Zane Truesdale was the one chasing after them now? Maybe this situation wasn't as bad as Bastion had thought. They were completely out of sight from Zane or anyone who might be outside the front door, so Bastion turned to Jaden. "Hold on," he whispered. Jaden nodded, seemingly trusting Bastion's judgement.

Bastion leaned against the nearest wall and frowned. Syrus was talking to Zane. It sounded like they knew each other. Syrus had known nothing about Duel Academy's new mission but recognized Zane immediately. How was that possible? How could he know about Zane, but not about Duel Academy? One could hardly put one in a sentence without the other these days. In Duel Academy's hierarchy, Zane Truesdale was on par with Aster Phoenix; commanders of Duel Academy's army, well respected, extremely talented duelists. He was also known to be harsh and cold to those beneath them. From the sound of Zane's voice, Syrus couldn't be just be some friend Zane had outside the academy, because that was clearly how he felt about Syrus. Or, at least, that's what he wanted Syrus to think.

How Zane truly felt, Bastion had no idea.

See, Zane was actually a double agent. He'd been serving as one for quite a long time by working with the You Show Duel School, mostly by feeding them information from within Duel Academy's more respected circles. Zane truthfully did not believe in the academy's mission; according to Alexis, respect was one of Zane's most championed values, so how could he believe in the war effort when they showed it to no one? Yet, Zane still played his role at Duel Academy very well to stay out of suspicion. Bastion and Jaden would both be safe as long as Zane didn't see them. If Zane saw them, however, it would not matter that he was a double agent. He would show no mercy.

Which made it all the more confusing that Syrus knew Zane. Whose side was Syrus truly on? Had Syrus lied about being unaware of Duel Academy 's actions? Bastion did want to believe Syrus, but...

Soon, Zane started talking how Syrus was too weak to be a student at Duel Academy, and something clicked in Bastion's mind.

"Before I left Duel Academy, as we realized how much the school had already changed and how much it was still going to change, Zane and I were friends. We both have brothers, and he used to worry about his. He was younger than Zane, wanted to enroll in Duel Academy too when he was old enough, but Zane... As Duel Academy changed, with his brother was in the dark about it, Zane told me didn't want his brother to follow his footsteps there. He wanted his brother to be safe from the academy, he didn't want him to have to go through all this like we did. So don't let his attitude bother you so much. He has a heart, he has a lot of it, I've seen it for myself. He cares a lot about all of this. But he can't risk showing it. He acts like he does because, well, he has to."

Syrus had claimed to be a bad duelist. Zane seemed to think the same. But Bastion trusted Jaden's instincts about Syrus' dueling ability. Did Zane convince Syrus he was a horrible dueling to keep him safe? Was Zane acting like this to Syrus to protect him from experiencing the horrors of Duel Academy's new curriculum firsthand?

Bastion glanced out the back door windows. He wasn't sure how well Zane accomplished that.

Syrus was living within walking distance of the You Show Duel School.

#gxmonth2020 #yugioh gx #yugioh arc v #tater writes #i don't have any intentions at this point of doing anything for any other prompts for this even #not necessarily bc it's been over for like a month. that doesn't really bother me at all. my health issues are just really bad rn #i just...really need to rest. that's all. but i wanted to get this out as quick as i could. after this though. break time #tater.txt

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geikee · 4 years

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A Story of Dakota and Cavendish and the adulthood on Milo’s S2

They are the best part of the show and I have to admit, since I met them, Milo’s main adventures stepped aside in my brain.

So I watched Milo Murphy’s Law first episodes on Disney XD, and fell in love. The weirdness, the creativity, the unexpected, how things could always and would always get crazier, just like P&F but in it’s own, wholesome, chaotic way.

Then I recall meeting the best anacronical dynamic duo, and fell in love a little more.

But then... I saw the Dakota Island. And shit got serious.

I mean, I would have NEVER expected this kIDs sHoW to show (redundance) real, explicit deaths, no falling into the mist and assuming their demise but ACTUAL EXPLICITLY MENTIONED DEATHS

DUDE WHAT

Even if it was for laughs, they were there, and Dakota would hurt every time it happened. And they showed it to me, a show that untill then had been mumbling about random super charismatic craziness and some time travel here and there. It’s as if in Phineas and Ferb Buford’s family had economical problems and Balgeet used his genious to work extremely hard and send anonymous donations every time they were too desperate to not accept them.

AND GRIEVE. They showed me Dak’s pain, as much as he was used to it. He would be sad, he would go back in time, he would spend the rest of his life imprisoned in an island the next time Cav died, rather than trying to move on with a normal life after his death. Even if it’s played for laughs some times, shit were serious.

They became what my main motivation to keep watching the series, although Milo’s adventures would always charm me in the way.

Actually, it was Dakota plus time travel

I’ve got to say that most of the time I felt like Cavendish didn’t deserve him. I mean, he seemed to look down on him all the time, pretending to teach him lessons about the right way of doing things and calling him selfish, while Dak acted clearly much more maturely in critical situations and had more common sense, as seen with the Counter-Agent Milo situation and the first time Milo went missing.

But here’s the thing: it is more recyprocal than it seemed.

I realized it in S2. Which is surprising because it was especially during that season that Cav became obsessed with saving the world and Dak was at his peak of maturity and down-to-earthness (the I could fix things but not anymore conversation was so strong). Then Cav left, and we see a very depressed Dak who is restlessly trying to find Cavendish, hurt because of the abandonment but missing him so much.

There he explains why Cav is so precious to him: he is the one that takes him through “less self-destructive” ways, helps him take care of himself. Cav fixes his messes and has a lot of patience with him (dear vinni is not the easiest person to have around either) (the toddler incident for example). Cav is, above all, kind and considerate, being the well-being of others his top priority when the situation demands it (though less assertively than Dakota) and valuing and respecting those who do the same (which was actually why their friendship was born). In this line, he really respects Dakota.

All of this without mentioning the 7 years that they have been together (since when Milo and Melissa were 6 to the present, though I think it would depend on.. more things). They are so used to have each other around, and it works.

I just finished watching the second season. The show grew, grew a lot, maybe too much for it’s audience. The Doof’s situation, Dak&Cav’s friendship, men having men problems (as you could call them in that universe). And I have to say, despite the fact that Doof’s episodes could get a little boring or even annoying, I loved that. But this post is about the anachronical duo, Doof can come later.

*Just to clarify: by men I mean adults who all happen to be men.

Men having men problems:

Dak & Cav losing their job, starting to work on something that wouldn’t allow them to something that they were so used to already: the possibility of going back and fixing things. If one of them died or messed up, there was no going back.

Cavendish having a crisis, feeling he is not doing what he is capable to achieve, frustrated by the intranscendence of his current doings. Dakota seeing him like that, worried about risking their stability, since it was him the one that the lack of time travelling had hit the hardest (because of the island situation, and probably most of his recklessness when breaking regulations came from knowing that he or Cav could go back and fix things if he messed up too hard).

Cavendish frustration before possibility of a more transcendental path, the unsuccesful result of doing it by a safe way (through his boss, which would have guaranteed stability), his consequential and vehement desire for doing things outside the rules just like his partner used to enjoy, the renewed frustration before the reluctance of that very same partner to take the risk, and his putting Dakota’s safety and stability above all by not letting him know where he was going so Dak wouldn’t follow him and risk losing his job.

Dakota’s feeling of abandonment and lonliness

It was beautiful

I loved all of that, and as I said in another post, it saddened me that they didn’t try that kind of development with the 13yo. That is such a complicated age, growth guaranteed for everyone. I’m not asking for the series to become a teen drama, nor I’m asking anything at all. I would just have enjoyed a little more if the teens had had experiences like those, since we were doing it with the adults already. Maybe they wanted to keep it light for kids and heavy for grown-ups? I don’t know.

Let’s just pray and scream for a new season, and a new chance to see those teens grow (or not, no problem) and, of course, new crazy adventures of Milo and his people.

#milo murphy's law #milo murphy #still tryna get them views #will someone ever read this #idk #milo murphy's law S3 pls #vinnie dakota #balthazar cavendish

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unordinary-analysis · 4 years

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Episode 173

Honorable Mentions:

PSA (I keep repeating in every recent post sorry) this greatly relies upon things I’ve said in previous episode analyses especially for episode 167 where I go most in depth about John and his inner battles (his fake personality vs. his old one). (seach “#episode 167” on my page). My recent post “John’s “fake” self,” though kind of extreme, is good too but please read the reprise I just posted on that.

Finally I’ve been able to create a concept that holds up both in my mind and in the story and that I find myself sticking to, and then this whole issue of having to explain it every post appears…

This comes off as annoying self-promotion and I’m aware of that, but I just really value reader comprehension uishiuskjh

When I refer to John’s “fake” self/side, I don’t mean it’s actually completely false, it’s just easier to differentiate his two sides that way. One side is John’s dominant nature, his “evil” side (I call this “dark, evil, and true” side) and the other side is John’s “good” side (I call this “fake, false, fabricated” to emphasize the idea that it’s “borrowed” in a way/not really ‘from John himself.’ I explain this a lot in the actual post though lmao im kinda redundant

Do new people even read my posts? I feel like they’re too bulky for a new follower to commit to reading… lmao. If so, this post really isn’t helping

John asking Sera why she didn't take him for a drink or on a walk to talk to him like they haven’t been avoiding each other for like a month sends. When even is the last time you got drinks with Sera, John.

Sera keeps bringing up stuff for the first time in the comic and its great

How thick are these school’s walls istg it’s like every other episode that one of the characters is yelling at another in one of these classrooms smh

I recently had the thought to go back to watch the progression of the ratio of John’s text bubbles changing from white to black in each episode as a sort of scale/timeline of how John’s dark side is overpowering his good one. But then I didn’t…

I want to talk about Sera’s mention of UnOrdinary the book so much, but this is too long and I don’t know what I would say

Word choice is hard :(

Lot of redundancy in this one that's what I get for going in chronological order

Favorite words of the day apparently: “obviously, “we’ll get to that later”, and further”

This doesn’t have a title because instead of breaking this into multiple sections like I normally would, this episode is only one scene plus the things I want to talk about are kind of intertwined. So you get this mega post.

I actually wasn’t too keen on the confrontation being limited to a single episode because usually I feel, it seems very crammed to read and just usually doesn’t resonate, but I thought this episode was actually amazing. I was so well entertained throughout and the conversation didn’t just “happen” you know? That was probably because the episode was a little longer than it normally would be, at least I think it was. It felt like it.

Anyways, this is still in chronological order, so let’s start at the beginning.

The first thing I want to talk about is how this episode starts off. John and Seraphina are alone in a room together, and John has on his wide, innocent (, fake) smile. And I know that was kind of expected due to him still trying to sell the whole harmless cripple thing to Seraphina, but it really struck me right off the bat because of much it stood out to me (love the repetition). John’s fake personality has been in use less and less in the comic recently because he hasn’t been interacting with Sera as much who really is the last person that he puts it on for anymore. This absence of John’s false innocence has dissolved my immunity to it and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m recognizing just how different the two sides of John are. When I would see it every chapter, I got used to it and became numb to the constant switches back and forth by John, but the heavy focus put on his more darker side recently has changed that.

This can also be taken into the context of that slow progression from the fake John to the old John that I’ve been talking about since my analysis for episode 161. Like I said, before I was used to both of John’s faces, and the fact that we have seen so little of his fake persona recently alludes to the thought that, just like it reflects on screen, there is less and less of that side to John left. Brief disclaimer: this sounds kind of dumb if you don’t understand my context. I have been in this continuous explanation of John’s two sides (fake personality that I just talked about and true personality shown recently by Joker and previously by New Bostin John) being in an ongoing battle with one another, a battle that is very much so one-sided as it is already established that the real John will win because John’s anchors to his fake side are slowly disappearing. That probably made some sense if you’ve never read one of my posts before, but if you don’t understand me even a little, please look at the honorable mentions. It is important to everything I talk about in this episode.

Anway, like I said, this is the first thing in this episode that points to this concept, and we’re only on like the third panel.

Something else that we get teased for in the beginning of the episode is John still putting effort into displaying this fake persona because in this episode, Seraphina does not even once smile back at him or display anything warmer than a deadpan expression (maybe later, but not right now). His immediate reaction is to still act so cheery and motivated. I will be honest though, this is only for a while though because he does start to show frustration and similar emotions while still trying to keep Seraphina believing in his created self, but more on that later. Anyway, the main idea this is hinting at is that John is clinging to his false personality as best he can and the easiest way to do that is through extremity. By showing more negative emotions, he is risking accidently slipping out of character, which would not only lose Sera (makes sense now, but will make more sense later), but also something else, which is why his go to with Sera is that over the top smile, that wouldn’t be naturally appropriate for a serious conversation that is obviously about to happen. More on that later too.

More recently, I made a post about what I refer to as John’s “fake” self, and I explain there how Seraphina is an anchor and draw of goodness for John. Him trying his best to put that goodness forward and project it onto her in not only this episode, but every episode, really shows how much he relies upon her because, as I said a bit ago, she is the only person he really does this for. When John is with Seraphina, he tries to get the most out of the person he’s forced to become.

This chronological order is already getting on my nerves, sorry about that. This might be a hard post to follow. Anyway, if you take two of the ideas I talked about in the previous paragraphs and put them together, they connect into the next thing I want to say. My statements “there is less and less of that[fake] side to John left” and “John is clinging to his false personality as best he can” lead into my next point, which is supported by the first outburst of the episode (there’s a lot). And I’ve also said this in previous posts. John doesn’t want to be overcome by his evil, past self. John doesn’t want to lose the person he created to hide behind, his fake self, because once that image of himself is shattered (haha get it) the only person left is John’s true, hidden self. All we will have left is the dark side of John. Obviously because John created this fake personality for himself, he doesn’t like the person he really is and attempted to overcome it, defeat it. But his attempt is experiencing exponential failure (for reasons I’ve kind of said before and will explain in this post) and his dark side is corrupting him again, slowly but surely taking over. Again, I repeat, John does not want this. John is scared of himself. This is one of the reasons why, whenever he can, John takes the opportunity to deny the progression being made by his evil side. This is why, when Seraphina tells him that she knows John is Joker and there’s basically nothing he can say to make her not believe that, John says, “How many times do I have to say it? I’m not Joker!” This internal refusal to accept that he is Joker (evil) is what I was referring to literally a second ago when I said that by slipping out of his fake personality, John would be losing Sera, but also something else (I swear I thought it would take me longer to get to this). That “something else” would be his belief that there is any good in him at all. Let me explain. Because dark John’s takeover is inevitable and we can recognize that he makes up most of John’s mind currently, if John switches to his dark side now, it would basically represent the defeat of his fabricated (“good”) self. A quote of mine from my analysis from episode 161 is, “By denying that Joker is himself, John is in part saying that Joker isn’t the only thing that makes up John.” The moment John stops denying that he is Joker to himself, he admits that he is wholly evil, and you’ll have to wait a second for a full explanation on this. In John’s mind, his two sides are very black and white: his past self (evilness) and his new one, (goodness). This is exemplified in his previous flashbacks to New Bostin and their contrast to his daily life. The colors used, the words used. Very good vs. evil, hero vs. villain. And it’s meant to be. It’s one or the other. Anyway, as long as John denies that he is fully old John, fully evil John, he is saying that there has to be some left of the other side (good) in him. (usually it isn’t this black and white but I hope I literally just explained how he sees it as so. For John, it really is one or the other).

A very important aspect of this whole thing, this whole denial, however, is actually in who he’s with. Seraphina’s presence in this scene is very influential, as I’m trying to stress. Her image, to John, is a symbol of his goodness, which I’ve said earlier in this post (briefly), but first in my analysis for episode 161, and even more so in my recent post “John’s “Fake” Self.” John draws his “good” (what I refer to as “fake”) side Seraphina because he doesn’t want to risk trying to get it from himself (because he’s scared of himself). Anyway, I said in the beginning of this post that by showing his evil side to Seraphina, he would lose her. And beyond the obvious, which is that she would hate him for it and leave, there’s also the reason that because Sera is where John tends to get his goodness from, by showing her his evil self, by admitting he is joker (what I talked about more recently), John would be exposing himself as completely evil (already explained this line of thinking). This would mean he doesn’t have any goodness (aka Sera) in him, or that Sera would have somehow lost her own goodness as well, which is something that I just thought of, so I’m not sure if I’ll expand. I’m still thinking. Anyway, John doesn’t want to fully be evil, or at least doesn’t want Sera to know, which is why this all has a more symbolic meaning. And why this episode is so polarizing for John. This is a confrontation between what he considers his goodness and what he considers his evilness.

Next in the episode, when John says a second later, “Hello? It’s me, John! I’m a cripple! I don’t have an ability! I like going out for drinks, and hanging out on the roof, and exercising, and playing games! Sure, I act like a smart-ass and it gets me in trouble sometimes…! But have you seen the kind of shit Joker has done? That’s not me,” this supports my statements that John is clinging to his fake self, that he does view his Joker side as his “evil” side (old statement, but confirmation is nice), and that he will keep denying himself as Joker to not become him fully.

Anyway, the next thing really shown in this episode is when John grabs Seraphina and begs for her to believe him. Specifically he says, “Everyone else can think I’m shit. But you have to believe in me! PLEASE!” Another nod to his obsession with Seraphina and my concept of her as the source of his good. This is just kind of repeating what I’ve already said, just in a very extreme and eye-catching way so I wanted to say something about it.

This back and forth that the chronological order is putting me in is not it.

Now we get to the part where Seraphina validates me :). John finishes his plea to her with, “I’m not Joker. I’m not a monster, okay?” To which Sera responds (in her head), “”Monster”? Why is he acting like this? Is he really still trying to convince me? Or… Is he trying to convince himself?” This is the first time an UnOrdinary character has brought this idea up. Sera is probably the only character to have been in such a situation with John, though. Anyway, the concept that John is trying to convince himself of his own goodness has largely only been used in my own episode analyses rather than the actual comic (lol). I’ve already talked about it in this post, but it’s been a common theme for me throughout my last 10 posts or so. Seraphina thinking this same thing herself confirms the importance of the idea. John’s denial of himself as Joker is just as much for his sake as it is for Sera’s, likely even more. I said all of this up above when I talked specifically about his denial of himself as Joker, but the direct confirmation from the comic made me happy.

When Seraphina tells John that she knows about what happened at New Bostin, it’s significance is more grounded than these mind games I’ve been talking about up until now, thank god. I can never tell when I go too far… This can still be taken into that context, but I want to talk about a different aspect, because I would just be repeating myself from earlier if we talked about all that again. Anyway, when Seraphina says, “John, I already know everything… New Bostin, your expulsion, how you’re secretly a high-tier... “ John has a very extreme reaction, instantly throwing himself back into those flashbacks to New Bostin. He sees himself as the monster he was then now paired with the knowledge that Seraphina knows all about it too.

The aspect of the story I want to talk about is one of my favorites :D. Parallels! The parallels between John’s past and his present are absolutely phenomenal and I love them. And they’ve been growing a lot more ‘in your face’ as of the more recent episodes. Some examples are when John and Seraphina fought off that fake joker in the hall that one time and also that one scene between Cecile and John where John got all pissed off at Seraphina. That probably made no sense to you, but I talk about it a lot in my analyses for episodes 161 and 167 so….. I don’t know what to tell you lol. Anyways, with my analyses, I’ve been pushing the concept that John is becoming more and more unable to differentiate both events and people from his past and his present. My main evidence for this is that John’s flashbacks have been pairing up with details from the current storylines. In my analysis for episode 167, I say, “John’s flashbacks are making it so that John cannot separate the present from the past. He cannot exist at Wellston without his subconscious relating everything that is happening to what happened to John at New Bostin.” I also talk about what this means for his relationships with the other characters who go to school with him currently, especially Seraphina. Here are two quotes that are, again, both from my analysis of episode 167: “This episode’s flashbacks to Claire and situations revolving around her and the comparison to current events revolving around Seraphina, and especially the outburst by John at her; they all suggest that John doesn’t see Seraphina as her own person anymore, maybe that he never has.”... “It’s become clear that John is, currently at least, viewing Seraphina as another Claire.” My whole support of this is because of Seraphina resembling Claire in the events of episode 161 cueing John’s flashbacks of her, but more importantly (at the moment): how John, when told about Sera and Arlo meeting behind his back, has automatic flashbacks to Claire’s betrayal and seemingly takes his anger at Claire out at Seraphina.

So, basically, Claire was John’s best friend, but then she went behind his back because of his evil actions to secretly recruit their other classmates to defeat him. I know anyone reading this post should know that, but I wanted to mention it because of how startlingly similar this is to how John is viewing his current situation with Seraphina. Sera was John’s best friend, yet she’s been drifting away from him, and according to Cecile, she has even met with Arlo behind John’s back. I’ve talked about all of this before (I think? I don’t really remember lol). Anyway, the developments that this episode adds to this parallel, this comparison, are quite substantial. Both Seraphina telling John that she knows he is Joker and that she knows about the events of New Bostin further push this concept of her and Claire’s similarity, which in turn encourages John’s mental association of the two characters and his inability to differentiate between the past and the present.

Seraphina telling John that she knows he is Joker is adding to the similarity between the storyline at New Bostin and the storylines at Wellston. As I described in my brief summary of Claire’s buildup and betrayal, Claire turned against John because she realized how horrible he’d become. This is why we have the infamous one-liner, “monster,” from Claire. Claire’s entire motivation for turning against and leaving John was that she saw how corrupted and twisted he was becoming and wanted to put her other classmates’ suffering to an end. Now, there’s a bit of bias here on John’s part, as I do not believe he truly grasps that Claire only wanted him put out of power/authority (which was what corrupted him in the first place). I think John just thinks that Claire couldn’t stand the person he was and what he was doing, and that attempting to defeat him was purely a retaliation without an end goal and less of the logical decision and mission it was (to dethrone him). I think Keon’s classes really pushed this into John’s head, actually, because they were so focused on enforcing the fact that John was a monster. He became overwhelmed with that idea of himself as a monster and assumed everyone else was too. (The last few sentences have awful word choice and consequently worse comprehensiveness, but it is what it is). Anway, back on track, because John thinks that when people discover what a “monster” he is, they go behind his back and plan attacks. Now, because Sera has admitted knowing of John’s past/his identity of Joker, which are the most obvious examples of the “monster” in John paired with her having recently gone behind his back to talk to Arlo about John, her actions are obviously mirroring the buildup at New Bostin for John. Something else that’s big in this episode, is the later panel of Seraphina and Claire overlapping each other says, “monster.” This is both a support for what I’ve been saying and its own separate addition. With Seraphina now playing Claire’s part, this is going to further John’s association and muddlement of his past and his present.

There will be a lot more of this later in this post though, so stay tuned.

I do realize that without the confusing explanation of John’s difference in view regarding the events of New Bostin in comparison to Claire’s was kind of useless, I just included that because it really emphasized the comparison to this episode particularly, which is what this post is about lol.

Next in the episode, we get the creepiest panel of John drawn ever. You know the one. I first saw that and was stunned. Anway, normally that would go in honorable mentions, but come on.

Moving on, we have finally reached the turning point for this post, for this episode, and for the entire comic of UnOrdinary lmao. Early on in this post I said, “John doesn’t want to lose the person he created to hide behind, his fake self, because once that image of himself is shattered (haha get it) the only person left is John’s true, hidden self.” And, besides me still laughing because of that, it really helps me explain what’s happening here.

Currently, we are at the panels of the episode where John is seeing an image of his created self, aka L for loser John, aka hair gel John, splintering and shattering like glass. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what this means. Everything I’ve been talking about for a while. Not only this post, but for many posts in the past, is finally completely itself.

This is the final takeover of the dark side of John. I’ve always talked about this gradual battle between good and evil within John where the evil side is going to inevitably win and this is that. Most of this episode has been me saying stuff like ‘if this happens, it will mean that John has truly lost himself and is completely evil.’ And that’s where we’re at now. All of that has happened, okay? It’s time to abandon everything I’ve been saying recently because it’s in the past now.

Which is why, we see that completion of Seraphina and Claire becoming mirrors of each other in John’s mind. Throughout the rest of the episode there is obvious molding of the two, more so than ever before. So much so that I can’t really call my ideas on this topic an idea because they’re proved correct. John is blatantly viewing Sera as Claire now, and it’s meant to be understood by the reader because of the constant switches between the two from frame to frame. The concept of John’s anger at Claire being targeted and associated with Seraphina also makes a comeback. I am confident enough now to say that it is confirmed in the comic that John cannot fully differentiate Seraphina and Claire’s characters from one another.

Even the whole idea that John cannot fully differentiate his past and present as wholes gets extreme support, though not exactly enough for me personally to say that it is confirmed. After the “shattering”(I like that, might keep that), John instantly attacks Seraphina with accusations of going behind his back and why even when Seraphina kept telling him that she was in no way taking sides, only collecting the facts, John repeatedly told her that she was abandoning “his side.” These are obviously things that happened at New Bostin, and though it fits into the more set in stone Sera vs. Claire comparison, I am using it to support this more overall idea of present vs. past. But the best support for that past vs present thing is in this episode when Seraphina says, “You’re repeating everything you did at New Bostin!” That line is very self-explanatory, I feel. Also, the fact that it’s one of the characters saying this, makes me pretty confident that this is true.

I have now decided to call this turning point in UnOrdinary “The Shattering” because of both John’s and Seraphina’s uses of the concept. So, that’s fun. And it also leads into the next thing in the episode: Seraphina’s personal shattering.

Seraphina is always a more grounded character than John and it’s kind of refreshing turning my analysis onto her because she makes more logical sense. In this episode, Seraphina really lets loose at John about everything she’s been through because of him and even uses the phrase, “My whole world shattered.” She expresses how she feels like she’s been lied to about everything for such a long time (which she obviously has) and how to figure out what parts of both her relationship with John and even her own personality are true. It’s a very passionate and straightforward moment and I do feel like I tend to overlook Seraphina in analysis when it comes to focus, probably because there’s more to analyze with John, but I do feel like while reading this episode, my focus was really split between the characters.

Seraphina has completely changed as a person since she met John. Mostly, in fact, because she met John. Upon learning that he isn’t who he says he is, she’s met with this inevitable question of ‘how much of my personality, of myself, is also built upon lies.’ John largely influenced the changes in Seraphina and if that wasn’t true, what does that mean for her.

I’ve talked about this before in my analysis for episode 162, so I don’t really have much to say because unlike John, I pretty much have the same feeling for Sera as I did then.

The real development in this episode, however, was obviously that, “Sera you’re just a cripple,” from John. That completely broke Seraphina. I know that she knew that he was faking his whole personality before, or at least most of it, but I think this is when she really takes that in fully. Before John said that, Sera even said, “This isn’t you, John. Something happened at New Bostin that you haven’t opened up about.” This really conveys the message that Sera still believes in part that John didn’t completely fake himself, or even that she’s in denial, but when John harshly mocked her for being a cripple, which is probably the thing most opposite what Sera could imagine the John she knew doing, she completely just collapsed into herself. Like she said, her whole world was shattered. We get this whole flashback collection of John that Seraphina knew and it’s almost like he’s died in a way and been replaced by this fake, but it’s even worse because that’s who he was this entire time.

So then she hits him at the end so i'm kind of really wanting to read the next episode now so I’m putting this up now, over an hour after the new episode came out. ;-; r.i.p..

#i apologize to the people that actual read these things #its too bulky #unordinary #webtoon #uru-chan #uno #official #episode 173 #unordinary webtoon

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ifbrd · 5 years

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Since the old villains in Word Up have been reformed, mind sharing what happened to them and how they turned their lives around? Do they play any part in Word Up?

Okay, so this time I was smart and decided to type this out in a word document!

Long post warning!

Before getting into each individual villain (or most villains, there’s just so dang many of them! I’m sure I’ll forget someone!) I want to talk about them as a whole.

All of them are reformed, and Tobey was basically the start of it all. He inspired several other villains, who inspired others, and over the years they all slowly gave up villain life. The last ones to quit (either BLHG and Invisi-Bill or Rhyme and Reason or both) did so after WordGirl retired from being a hero, because “everyone else did it and it’s not going to be any fun without WordGirl!”

After a few villains went good, Tobey and Dr. Two Brains co-founded the Anti-Villain Association (AVA), which was designed to be a place where villains, or even just minor criminals, who wanted to go good could go to discuss their struggles and experiences with switching sides (it’s kinda like a villain AA meeting). I don’t have many plans for each individual villain to play a major part in the story, again because there’s so many that would have been hard, but the AVA does play a part and so, by extension, the villains do play a bit of a role. However, I think most of this will go to Two Brains since he’s the co-founder and the other co-founder will be busy with all the other plans I have for him XD.

Many of their old weapons have been discarded, but also many of them are still around. For some, it’s to use in case of emergency (like a break-in), others have found other uses for their weapons (you better believe Chuck uses his condiment ray to make sandwiches!) others just couldn’t bear to destroy them (Tobey still has some surviving robots that were designed to crush the city, they’re happily living deep deep deep in the woods because Tobey didn’t feel right about destroying them for no reason), and some weapons are more difficult to destroy (like Mr. Big’s mind control, I’ll go into that a little more when I talk about him.)

Very few of them had kids, for a couple of reasons. 1. Many were too busy trying to turn their lives around to make a family life a priority 2. Many didn’t think they’d make good parents given their criminal history 3. There’s like 30 something villains and I wasn’t about to create children for each of them that’s just so many characters I would have had to make from scratch and I already had Theo, Julie, Emma, and Daisy, not to mention the new villains I had to make and I wanted everyone to have a little bit of depth so yeah… The ones who did have kids (and I might forget someone so sorry in advance if I did) are Tobey (obviously), Victoria, the unnamed henchman of Dr. Two Brains and The Butcher

Now let's get into them individually. Many of them I don’t have the story (at least not yet, if I get time I may start brainstorming that) of why they retired as villains, but for almost all of them I have ideas on what they’re up to now because I thought that was a little more important.

Dr. Two Brains- Was the second villain to retire. He saw Tobey doing such a great job and realized he missed that life for himself and said, “well if that little shit can do it, so can I!” He knew he could ignore the mouse brain’s evil desires, as long as he could fulfill its cheese desires, so his first step was to find a legal way to get a lot of cheese. So, he and his henchman started making cheese! And because Two Brains couldn’t wait, he decided to make a cheese aging ray. Suddenly he was able to produce quite a bit of cheese in record time. And actually, could make more than he could eat. He started selling his cheese and now is the main source of cheese in the city! The company slogan is “Evilly delicious!” And I was thinking about this today at work and realized he’s probably made a lot of money from this because with the aging process completely cut, he can probably charge less, but there’s something called “perceived value” where people think if something is super cheap then there must be something wrong with it, so you want to shoot a little higher when pricing products, so Two Brains probably has to have his cheese priced higher than he needs, so he probably has a pretty decent turn over rate! Anyway! As mentioned above, his unnamed henchman had a daughter, who Two Brains considers a granddaughter. She is aware of her interesting family’s criminal history and accepts it. She loves cheese but she’s not a fan of helping in the cheese-making process.

Chuck and the Butcher- (their stories are so linked it just made more sense to talk about them together) Were the third and fourth villains to go good and did so pretty much at the same time, for similar reasons, those reasons being “this isn’t fun anymore, I’m not getting anywhere with it, and look at what a great job Tobey and Two Brains are doing!” After retiring they partnered up and started a sandwich food truck, which today is a full-blown restaurant. Chuck does most of the sandwich making, but Butcher helps and he’s the meat supplier (guess where they get their cheese from!). I mentioned that the Butcher had a child. He has one son named Kale and a grandson named Baker. His son and grandson have powers like him, with Kale’s being vegetable related and Baker’s being bread-related (bread, not pastries! Important note! However, Baker does like to bake pastries, he’s about eight BTW). Kale and Butcher’s relationship will have a bit of focus in Word Up, and Kale will be a reoccurring character. Kale is very prideful and independent and will do just about anything for Baker. Kale is aware of his dad’s criminal past, Baker probably is aware too, but IDK maybe not. Chuck being close to the Butcher is naturally close with his family. Besides that, he still spends a lot of time with his mom and Brent, who he has a bit of a healthier relationship with now.

Granny May- The fifth villain to retire, and she basically just retired. She basically said “well I’m done! This is getting old and so am I!” She’s still alive, currently having the honor of being the oldest person in the city and is living in an assisted living facility. She’s pretty “together” mentally (how I describe residents at the assisted living facility I work at who haven’t been taken over by dementia yet). She uses a scooter now but carries a cane with her. Why? To whack people who need to have some sense knocked into them of course! Other AVA members are happy to pick her up for their weekly meetings and drive her back home, despite her claims that she could still drive fine “if they would let me!” (don’t let this woman go behind the wheel anymore, don’t listen to her!)

Mr. Big and Leslie- Mr. Big was inspired by the villains before him turning their lives around and claiming to be much happier. He tried this and struggled a lot. He eventually realized his issue was greed, it was too strong for him. So, he gave everything up, he gave his company to Leslie and basically became a minimalist hippie (again, my love for irony shines through!...also I thought the idea of Big being a hippie was HILARIOUS). Leslie has run the company ethically ever since. Today it’s essentially Amazon with morals. Mr. Big and Leslie are friends and talk all the time. Their mind control tech is still around, the reason I’ve decided is that some of the later tech was so powerful that destroying it might unintentionally send out a mind control signal. I’m open to better suggestions; I just need the mind control tech to still exist and be something someone could steal…hint hint….

Ms. Question- Eventually got a job as an interrogator for the police station! She’s the best interrogator there is! She doesn’t typically use her powers on people to get them to confess, usually, they just break from the mass amount of questions she asks, but in more extreme circumstances she is willing to use her powers.

Learnerer- Like Ms. Question, Learnerer found a better gig with the police force. He’s the city’s detective, and rocks at it with all his “learninging” skills. He looks for clues and learns how criminals commit crimes and uses that information to catch criminals in the act and stop them. He often works with Ms. Question.

Amazing Rope Guy- Actually got decent at rope tricks and is an entertainer now! I won’t say he’s incredible, but he’s alright! The other AVA members often hire him for entertainment events (he’s been to several of Theo’s birthday parties and Theo has politely asked his parents to not do that anymore, so now they’re gonna hire him for Julie’s parties) more to support him than because of his skills

Whammer- is a professional demolisher. You need an old building torn down? Call the Whammer! You need to gut the kitchen of a house you’re flipping? Call the Whammer! Need to clear an area of land for a project? Call the Whammer! Need snow off the street so people can get home? Call the Whammer. He loves his job

Lady Redundant Woman- She kept moving up in her job at the copy place, and eventually had learned to do every position there. With this knowledge and skills, she opened up her own copy place where she and her copies are the sole employees. Turns out your business can make a lot of money when you can have the exact right amount of employees at all times and don’t technically have to pay them because they’re technically you!

Hal Hardbargin- Sold his villain inventions and blueprints to the police station so they could have a better understanding of how certain villain gadgets work and therefore how to stop them. Also has made a few honest weapons for some heroes

Seymore- Hosts a self-made YouTube (or YouTube-like website) show called “Can You Spot the Scam?” where he helps innocent citizens learn how to spot scams

Big Left Hand Guy and Invisi-Bill-I never could think of what they’d be up to, so I decided they are still trying to figure out what they should do next. (because my favorite thing when I have a writing problem is to take advantage of it and turn it into a plot point! …something I did with a very important plot point in Word Up that will be revealed in Return to Fair City)

Rhyme and Reason- again I don’t have too much an idea of what they’re up too, but I like to think they are a QPR because I like platonic partnerships!

I talked about Victoria and Eileen here Thanks for the question! Feel free to ask more!

#Wordgirl

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voltage-fanfictions · 6 years

Text

Contact Voltage about Love Choice complaints

Hi guys,

Not gonna beat around the bush. I too hate the idea of the Love Choice system, so for those of you who want to contact Voltage directly, I’ve written us a handy dandy standard email, it may require some formatting in terms of paragraphs and of course you can add or take away from it, but the main complaints we seem to have are listed:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing today to express my dissatisfaction with the announcement that your new game, Masquerade Kiss, will be released as a Love Choice title,

When this system was released, a large portion of the international fan base was clear that this was not something we desired, to which you responded reassuring us that Love 365 was going to remain a mainly pay to pay application. This release of Masquerade Kiss under this model strongly suggests that you are going to follow the Japanese application, under which all new main stories are on the Love Choice system, if this is the case then you’ve been dishonest to your fans and has shaken our trust in you considerably.

The Love Choice system is distinctly a freemium model, and I shall explain to you why this is not received well by the fandom:

1) Firstly, the waiting. One of the most attractive thing about your stories is the ability for those who are short on time to be able to purchase a story and read through it at their own leisure. Love Choice’s requirement for you to wait to read the next chapter breaks the immersion that your writers create, and if you are a free to play customer, by the time the next chapter has been unlocked, you are having to remind yourself of previous events in the story. It ruins the flow of the story and makes it hard to follow.

2) The choices within Love Choice stories are clearly labelled as to which choice is preferred by the love interest. This blatant signposting removes an element of personality in the game, as rather than considering which option you would be more likely to choose yourself, you’re only thinking as to the cost of the choice, and whether or not it is worth the investment of hearts. This once again breaks the immersion in the story and makes the process of reading extremely linear by making the cheaper choices redundant.

3) The cost of Love Choice you may argue is free, however I must disagree. To read a Love Choice story to the standard of your current model, with no waiting and choosing all possible options, is triple to cost of your current main stories for an arguably weaker system. Considering people read these stories for the happy endings trying to argue that this system is free is rather disrespectful.

4) The lack of ownerships over the stories. With Love Choice you have made it clear that there is no way for readers to keep the stories they have invested time and money into, unlike your current system. This means even if we have spent hearts to achieve the best ending, if we wish to re-read a story you’re still going to make us wait to experience it again, and spend ever more money if we want to read it in one sitting. Only allowing ownership through ‘Collector’s Edition’ campaigns is highly unfair to your fans, as this means that those who don’t have to the time or money, and new fans will miss out on this chance.

5) If the Love Choice system is implemented as it is appearing it will be, it will make the ‘Monthly Pass’ redundant. The pass system is quite restrictive as it in, however in making main stories Love Choice it removes a large portion of the 400 coin value stories. This suggests you are either going to increase prices once again for coin purchases, which will not be well received, or that part of our money will be lost as there are fewer full price stories leading us to spending passes on cheaper ones.

6) Finally, and the most pressing complaint we have is your forcing of this system onto us. We don’t mind if you introduce more of these stories for those unable to afford the coin system, what we as paying customers are disappointed in is the fact you are not giving us the option to use the old system on these stories. This means that if there is a character or story we do wish to read, it feels as if we are being extorted into spending more on your app and aren’t valued as a paying consumer.

As a supporter of your company, your stories, your characters and the pay to play model you use, I ask you to reconsider the introduction the Love Choice system as it stands. Please don’t alienate those of us who’ve found joy in your creations and how you let us interact with them more freely through the pay to play model.

Yours Sincerely,

[Your Name],

A loyal Voltage fan

To send this to them, I would suggest using the in app customer support feature under ‘Settings and Profile’

Go forth and share! Let’s show Voltage exactly how much we detest this business model!

#voltage inc #love choice #masquerade kiss #contact #standard complaint email #voltage games #voltage romance sims #voltage otome #voltage

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otomeverything · 6 years

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CODE REALIZE: WINTERTIDE MIRACLES

Release Date: February 14, 2019 (North America) Developers: Idea Factory, Otomate Publishers: Aksys Games Platforms: PS Vita, PS4

I literally took my time playing this FD, knowing it’s the last (physical) otome game that will ever grace localization in the PS Vita.

Code Realize: Wintertide Miracles (Shirogane no Kiseki) is the second fandisc of the series, Code Realize. This game contains varieties of alternate and after stories that happened after the events of the last fandisc, Future Blessings.

This fandisc contains the following stories:

Cantarella (Side Story) – Walkthrough available here.

Finis’s Epilogue

Sholme’s Epilogue

Love Triangle Stories (Short Stories)

Wintertide Miracles “First Christmas” (Alternate Stories)

Special Epilogues (Epilogues for White Rose’s stories in Future Blessings)

ART AND MUSIC I know this is probably redundant as I’ve gushed about it a few times in my reviews for Guardian of Rebirth and Future Blessings. But, the artist Miko has done it again! I could not for the life of me, describe how incredibly beautiful the CGs are for this fandisc. There were also new sprites available for all the main and side characters, wearing their cozy winter outfits. Even Queen Victoria gets a new sprite wearing her expensive royal fur faux garb!

What I also loved about this fandisc were the new BGMs added for the series, they were all unforgettable and were specially made for the game’s Yuletide theme. One song that really stood out to me was the second Ending theme (Finis’ and Sholmes’ ED) “Beside You” by the artist SHOJI. Listen to the full track below:

***I purchased the whole soundtrack for Code Realize: Wintertide Miracles in iTunes. Link here.

NEW CHARACTERS

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Cantarella (CV: Mamiko Noto) – Fuuka (Persona 4), Kotomi Ichinose (Clannad), Inia Sestina (MuV Luv), Felicita (Arcana Famiglia), Marvis Vermilion (Fairy Tale)

Miles Strand (CV: Keiji Fujiwara) – Kagura Mutsuki (Blazblue), Jiro Hyuuga (Binary Star), Reno (Final Fantasy), Kiriya (Senran Kagura), Sakuya Tougane (Psycho Pass)

Baron of Aiguille (CV: Sugiyama Noriaki) – Akito (Norn9), Thor (Kamigami no Asobi), Suou Hana (Ayakashi Gohan), Katsuragi Naomasa (Yunohana Spring), Kashika Galle (Cendrillon Palika)

SIDE STORIES AND AFTER STORIES I did Cantarella’s route first, followed by Finis and Sholme’s epilogues, then knocked out the love triangle dates before I played the main course, that is the “First Christmas” alternate stories for Wintertide Miracles. I myself, enjoyed this play order, though I would suggest playing whatever story you feel like playing first because that’s the whole point of a fandisc! lol

CANTARELLA (Another Story) This story happened somewhere in the middle of Guardian of Rebirth’s common route. On their way home, after watching a performance at the Royal Opera House, Cardia and the rest of Lupin’s gang witnessed an attempted kidnapping of the Opera House’s beloved songstress, Cantarella. They’ve managed to save her as well as send her perpetrator running for the hills. They then took Cantarella to her home for safety measures, which lead the gang to meet her so-called “father” Miles. In this story, Cardia finds a friend in Cantarella and later on, discovers her true identity as both their existence managed to connect each other’s fates.

Just like “Lupin’s Gang’s” (side) story in Future Blessings, Cantarella’s route offers new likable characters and an interesting new plot for us to follow. Although I’ve very much enjoyed this story (for what it is), I didn’t like how the writers threw in these important characters on the third game, since canonically they don’t matter anymore as the main plot officially ended in Future Blessings. I would rather have this as an alternate story than a side story because It felt kind of unfair for Cantarella, Miles, and Auguille to get dissed like that after this little episode. lol Unless they’re planning on a third fandisc! (laughs)

Although the choices you make in Cantarella’s route, will not change the whole outcome of her story. It will, however, change a few scenes and dialogues in the game depending on the guy (main characters) your choices are inclined to. You can view my walkthrough for this route here.

FINIS’ EPILOGUE (After Story) This after story took place right after the end of Finis’s route in Future Blessings.

Six months have passed since Cardia managed to save his little brother, Finis from the unfortunate Nautilus incident in London. During this time, both twins return to their home in Wales and spend each day cleaning and repairing their old abandoned house while enhancing their bond as siblings. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose when one of Isaac Beckford’s invention called the “Knockers” have been spotted destroying a couple of buildings in London. It was made clear in the story, that these supposed-to-be-quarantined inventions of Isaac were “wrongly” activated by accident and it is now, up to the Beckford twins (Finis’ most especially, since he’s fully knowledgeable when it comes to their father’s inventions) to stop this heaving uproar that threatened London its peaceful days.

This was probably one of my favorite After Stories in the series. Not only we get to see Finis in his true nature, as Cardia’s adorable cinnamon roll lil’ brother. We also get to see Lupin’s Gang and the Gordon Family in action as they help out clear the disruption in the streets of London during the main incident. ***This epilogue was very heartwarming and I absolutely enjoyed seeing Finis’ soft side while he deliberately declares threats whenever one of the main bois flirts with his sister! *chuckles* (´ ω `♡)

HERLOCK SHOLME’S EPILOGUE (After Story) This after story took place right after the end of Sholme’s route in Future Blessings.

It’s been half a year since Sholmes defeated his arch nemesis, James Moriaty (in Code realize Future Blessings). During this story, Cardia becomes part of Sholmes’ Detective agency together with his partner John Watson. The three of them fight crimes for the cause of good, even to the extent of ‘trying‘ to stop Lupin, the gentleman thief’s planned diamond heist of the prized jewel called “Mermaid’s Tear”. Though try as they might, Lupin, as cunning as he is, still gets the upper hand and was able to escape with ease together with his genius engineer assistant, Impey. I know this was just a filler episode but it was kind of weird seeing Cardia as their enemy for once, but oh well…

Anyway, Sholmes actual main story revolved around finding a cure to Cardia’s poison. As the Horologium still present in Cardia’s body, this fact still poses a threat that one day it will activate again, killing her along with the demise of London and its people. With this complication at hand, Sholmes gathered his A-team geniuses in the field of science and medicine; Victor Frankenstein, Dr. John Watson, Impey Barbicane and even the deviant genius scientist Nemo, who apparently now lives in a tiny cardboard box located in sewers (laughs) 😂 Poor guy! As all of them try their hardest to conduct research on a formula that will counteract the horologium’s poison, more problems seep into the picture that eventually causes Sholmes and Cardia make one life-threatening decision.

I like how Sholmes’ epilogue was narrated in a fairytale-esque kind of way. I enjoyed the story’s fluff content though, to be honest, this is probably the weakest story in the game (imo) as there really wasn’t anything “new” going on. Nonetheless, if you’re a fan of Sholmes, I’m sure you’ll have an awesome time discovering a few surprising sides of our favorite hot daddy detective.

FIRST CHRISTMAS “Wintertide Miracles” (Alternate Stories) These are “after stories” that happened right after Finis’ route in Future Blessings. It’s merely an alternate story where our heroine Cardia finds love during the Yuletide season. We get one story for every five main characters. What’s really special about these stories is that Cardia falls in love with one of the guys while his brother is alive! …THIS couldn’t be any more perfect, ❤️ I almost wished this was headcanon!

Spoiler Warning: I will only be posting each story’s premise but I’m putting up my spoiler banner just in case.

Victor Frankenstein After Isaac Beckford’s Nautilus incident that wreaked havoc in the city of London six months ago. Victor ended up opening a clinic located in the downtown part of London in order to help as many people as possible at a cheaper cost.

Victor’s main story started when one day he receives a mail from his parents in Switzerland telling him to settle down. He, in reply, told them he has no plans in getting married anytime soon but then started talking about how he’s currently interested with this ‘one girl’ and went all out writing two whole pages regarding his feelings for Cardia. (´ ε ` )♡ Without thinking of any repercussions, he sends the letter back to his parents judging its only the right thing to do as he’s speaking honestly from his heart. uwu. The next few days, he receives a reply letter from his mom saying they’re coming to London for Christmas so they can meet their son, Vic’s girlfriend. 🤣

In result, a panicked Victor travels to Wales to ask Cardia to be his “pretend” girlfriend just for Christmas while his parents are in town. 😂

***This was by far the cutest, most endearing “First Christmas” story I’ve read among the selections and I absolutely enjoyed it to bits! Besides its overwhelming fluffy contents, we also get to see Victor introducing Cardia to his parents (in CG!).

Saint Germain Six months after the Nautilus Incident, Saint Germain, visits Idea’s leader Omnibus and reports that both Finis and Cardia, Isaac Beckford’s “problematic twins” are now living peacefully in Wales as normal human beings and are no longer a threat to humanity. As one of Idea’s faithful apostle, he awaits for Omnibus next order but was surprised to hear her tell him to take a long sweet vacation instead.

Still dumbfounded by their leader’s words, Saint Germain goes back to the mansion to find something to do with his newly acquired free time but since everyone in Lupin’s gang went about their own lives after London’s incident, he was left as the only resident in his house. This made him feel lonely and he admits to himself how much he misses the rowdy group clamoring inside the premise of his mansion. What’s more, is that he longs to see the face of his beloved, who he has not seen since his last visit in Wales.

This made him decide to write invitation letters to the group for a Christmas “Get-together” party. Though unsure if his anticipated guests would actually make it to the planned event. Saint Germain waits with hopeful eyes to see the faces of his precious friends again.

***The part where he waits for his friends actually made me tear 😭. Why are Saint Germain’s stories always melancholic? Why?! Thank goodness, this ended really REALLY happy. I would also like to gush on the fact that this is the only episode in the whole series where we get to see Guinevere outside her armor! Seriously, you absolutely can’t miss this!

Abraham Van Helsing After London’s Nautilus incident, Van decides to travel with Delly all over United Kingdom in search for survivors of the Vampire War.

During their travels, the duo hears about the upcoming Christmas festival in London and decides to come home for the occasion as well as attend the gang’s Christmas party at Saint Germain’s mansion. They haven’t seen everyone in a while, so this decision made Van and Delly both excited. While at it, Delly proposes to take a side trip to Wales before coming to London and see the Beckford twins. Van agrees with him with Cardia in mind. ( ´ ▽ ` )

A few days have passed and they both arrived at Cardia and Finis’ home in Wales only to be disheartened to see the twins not being around. But with optimism as their friend, Van and Delly decided to wait. Night falls, and finally, Cardia and Finis arrived in the most unfashionable way ever (their automobile almost came crashing towards the duo) 😂 Everyone says their greetings when Cardia noticed that Van and Delly have been waiting out in the cold for too long, so she insisted they stay for the night.

The supposed-to-be one night stay turned into days and the group eventually decided to go to London together. While still in Wales, Cardia wanted to make everyone Christmas presents in the form of knitting and Van insisted on helping her with it.

***I love this! (/▽＼*) This surprising side of Van Helsing is all I ever wanted. I’m so glad to see him happy, always smiling and in his positive beaming self. It’s so refreshing! I need more happy-ray-of-sunshine Van Helsing in my life!

Impey Barbicane Half a year has passed since the Nautilus incident in London and Impey visits the deviant scientist Nemo in prison from time to time as he plans to re-invent the gravity alleviator and is currently taking notes on Nemo’s advise while at it.

One day, In Saint Germain’s mansion, Saint tells Impey they received word from Van and Delly saying they’ll be back in London for Christmas. Since Lupin and Victor are already residing in the city, they decided to might as well invite Cardia and Finis in order for the gang to reunite once more this Yuletide season.

Meanwhile, in Wales, Cardia, (while fixing their automobile) thinks of how Impey’s constant declaration of love for her makes her heart feel woozy. She gets confused because she’s sure she loves Impey back but also “loves” the other members of Lupin’ s gang as well as her brother Finis. With this train of thought, she pesters her little bro and forced him to say the phrase “I love you” (to her), to which a blushing Finis, with all the effort, reluctantly did. 😂 But then yo girl was like “Oh but why does it feel different when Impey says it?” 😂 😂 😂 ROFL. This was adorably hilarious! I just can’t! 😂

Later that day, they received a package from London in the form of a miniature Impey doll with a recording of Impey, Saint Germain and Lupin’s voice telling the siblings to come home for Christmas.

***I really enjoyed reading this one! I love how Cardia was strongly forward of wanting to explore her own feelings as she tries to discover the different meanings of “love”. …and seeing Impey immensely blush time and again was such an awesome treat, I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear! Another plus point was that we get to see Nemo give love advises to yo boi and that, to me was the icing on the cake in this story! (laughs)

Arsene Lupin After the Nautilus incident in London six months ago, Lupin is back doing his thievery schemes like the proud gentleman thief he is.

One day while on a mission to steal a prized necklace from a corrupt Duke’s estate, he ends up being chased by Leonhartd as usual and just when he was about to execute his dashing escape, he gets distracted (by thoughts of Cardia) and gets shot by a rubber bullet instead. This, not only surprised Lupin himself but his perpetrators, Leonhardt, and his men were also perplexed at how they were able to take out the famed gentleman thief in one easy shot. In the end, an injured Lupin still managed to get away as he limped his way back to safety.

Back at the mansion, Victor along with Impey confronts Lupin saying he’s not being his usual self lately and asks him to perhaps, take a rain check from work (theft missions). A week later, Saint Germain chimes in, telling him the same and suggests that perhaps he’s longing for “someone”. Taking in the Count’s advise to heart, Lupin begins to think of Cardia and how her absence is taking a toll on him. He then concedes with his true feelings and finally admits he misses her badly and the only way to cure this yearning is to see her face to face. So he starts writing the ‘perfect’ love letter for his beloved lady. 😂

***I must say, this after-story has the best CGs, as expected from the game’s headcanon boi. Just like Lupin’s uwu story in Future Blessings, it had its glorious romantic moments between the couple. As far as I see it, the game is clearly biased on Lupin’s story… the kabedon scene and that loooong kiss at the end, come on! I couldn’t ask for more!

TRIANGLE DATES (More CGs!) These are short stories which involve scenarios of Cardia spending her day with two main characters in the series. Although these are rather shorter stories compared to the ‘Wintertide Miracles’ selection, I was really impressed by how exceptionally good these little episodes were. You think you’ve had enough doki-dokis? Try this one on for size!

Here’s a list of all the Love Triangle episodes (you can play it in any order):

Lupin and Victor

Lupin and Impey

Lupin and Van

Lupin and Saint Germain

Van and Impey

Van and Victor

Van and Saint Germain

Impey and Victor

Impey and Saint Germain

Victor and Saint Germain

Secret Episodes:

Delly and Sisi

Aliester and Nemo

Hansel and John Watson

SPECIAL EPILOGUES These are short epilogue stories continuing the last events of Future Blessings (White Rose). These will unlock last, after finishing all of the above’s selections.

IMPEY It’s been a few days and Impey hasn’t returned home after going on a work-related project (fixing airships and submarine engines in London). Cardia was left alone in the mansion and although she knows Impey will come back soon, she thought of surprising him by gathering a lot of research documents related to their ‘moon-project’. She leaves for Wales to collect any information her father might have written in the past that can possibly help with the project. Not to ruin the surprise for her hardworking husband, she leaves a note that says “I’m going”.

Impey arrives at home, finds the note then begins to panic thinking Cardia has left him.😂 So he hurries and follows her to Wales to clear out this whole silly misunderstanding.

LUPIN Cardia and Lupin go on a picnic at their secret place which has a great view of the industrial city of London and Lupin suggest that it’s about time to go on a honeymoon. Next few days, he takes Cardia to his birth city, Paris. There, they visit and the grave of his master, Theophraste and both of them said their prayers. They also ran into the head of the French police whom Lupin coined as someone equivalent to ossan Leonhartd. They had everyone (French police) chase them for fun and the couple gallantly escaped in style.

VAN Cardia and Van are finally getting married and Shirley helps Cardia put on her wedding dress. Cardia decided to step outside the church so she could practice walking in her high-heel shoes when a bunch of men in black suits kidnaps her and takes her to another wedding location. There she finds an impatient man wearing a groom’s outfit who urges her to walk down the aisle with him. Cardia remembers the combat techniques her husband taught her and throws the man to the floor. Meanwhile, a worried and upset Van bursts out through the church door and started taking down the men in suits Liam Neeson style! 😂 😂 😂 Before things get worse, the gang stops Van and explains this was all a misunderstanding as the kidnappers and groom were actually actors and the bride actress never showed up for rehearsals so they thought Cardia was her by mistake.

The Moral of the Story: Don’t mess with this couple… ever! 😂

VICTOR Cardia is now working as Victor’s assistant in the Royal Society and they spend their days doing research in Victor’s lab. Though they call themselves husband and wife, they realize that they never really had an actual wedding ceremony. So Victor asks Cardia if she wants to have a proper wedding and she says yes. A few days later, they began their search for a church in London but couldn’t find any since it’s peak season. Queen Victoria, along with Leonhardt notices Victor’s sullen expression and asks him what’s wrong, Victor tells them their circumstance and a snarky Victoria promises to help him only if he can prove to her how much he really wanted the wedding. After their deal, Victor comes home later than usual as he’s working extra hard to get her beloved wife that perfect wedding she deserves. Finally, the day has come for Victor to propose to Cardia and Victoria granted them permission to use the newly renovated St. Paul’s Cathedral. They got married in front of their friends and the Queen, and Cardia couldn’t be any happier.

SAINT GERMAIN Cardia is now free of her poison and she and Saint Germain return to London so they can hold their wedding ceremony. The Count buys the ship “Gloria” from their mafia adventures in Lupin’s Gang (Future Blessings) episode and tells her this will be their venue. A day before their promised wedding, Hansel takes Cardia to Omnibus cottage and there they meet with Saint Germain and the leader of Idea herself, Omnibus. The old lady gives them her blessing, saying they will no longer be in the watchful eye of Idea and Saint Germain is now finally, freeee! Both couples said their thanks to Omnibus. They got married in their luxurious ship the next day and all of their friends are with them happily celebrating the couple’s most special commemoration.

Will I be able to enjoy this game even if I haven’t played Future Blessings? There were a lot of characters and events in Future Blessings that were present and added to this game, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to skip Future Blessings in the series. In addition, the main “Wintertide Miracles” stories continue from the last events of Finis’s route in Future Blessings, so, all the more reason not to skip the first fandisc.

Localization There were a couple of typo mistakes that I couldn’t really overlook which makes me think that perhaps because of it’s promised released date on Valentines Day, the game was rather rushed and there wasn’t a lot of time spent dedicated solely on proofreading it. ┐(︶▽︶)┌

TRAILER

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FINAL THOUGHTS? ＼(＾▽＾)／ My overall play length for Code Realize Wintertide Miracles was a good 10-15 hours. Despite me trying to make the game last forever for about at least, two weeks, I finished it pretty quickly because I just couldn’t get enough of it.

Cantarella’s side story was way better than the gang’s Mafia adventures in Future Blessings and I sure did wish the ‘Cantarella-characters’ would’ve made a cameo in the special epilogues, because seriously, what a waste of good characters to be squeezed in, on the third game. ┐(‘～` )┌

Finis wins best boi in my book. This was one of the things I really appreciated most in this FD, and I’m sure most Code Realize hardcore fans would agree. Finis’ character finally gets justice! We get to see more of his adorable side as Cardia’s little brother while maintaining his hostile and dubious personality 😂. Who would’ve thought this boy is such a tsun-tsun! ❤

Do I recommend this game? YES (esp. to all Code Realize fans) Take note, this game is the series’ second fandisc. So literally, one cannot play it all willy-nilly without fully playing it’s first two predecessors. Personally, I’ve enjoyed this game a lot but that’s because I’m such a huge fan of the series. Perhaps to those who aren’t into Code Realize, you probably won’t enjoy this as much.

With the production of PS Vita consoles and games, completely shutting down worldwide this year, Code Realize Wintertide Miracles was such a special treat for us otome fans ~ esp. now, where there is scarcity of otoge releases in the West.

The game’s romantic Christmas theme really took this one up a notch and the newly added side stories are really something to look forward to. If you already like this series, loved the game’s main casts and wished for more adventures with them, this game is definitely worth the purchase.

CHLO’S RATING: 8/10

Code Realize: Wintertide Miracles Review CODE REALIZE: WINTERTIDE MIRACLES Release Date: February 14, 2019 (North America) Developers: Idea Factory, Otomate Publishers: 4,080 more words

#code realize #code realize wintertide miracles #Code Realize Wintertide Miracles Review #Otome game review #PS Vita #Shirogane no Kiseki #Wintertide Miracles Review

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bedlamgames · 6 years

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Q&A #94

Today we have various forms of removal, the new biomancy assignment, and corruption among others.

nh-maikochan said: Regarding the bimbo slave not being sold: Yes she did have bimboborn. Also, I think I may have sent a message like this before and have totally forgotten. If this is just a repeat, feel free to ignore it.

Thanks that really did help solve the issue. Should be sorted now as of the current update.

doof-ex-machina said: Hello! Could I ask some question about one particular problem I'm facing playing No Haven? The thing is, when I try to save a game and then load it, all the names of slavers and slaves in the boxes disappear, and that's just 'Slaver 1', 'Slaver 2' and so on that are visible in Inventory, Visible Characters and Room Objects boxes. I tried all the versions of RAGS available but none of them helped to solve the problem.

That’s a RAGS issue. Make sure you’re saving only when it is safe as detailed at the beginning of the game. Other than that if you finish day the names should update back to normal.

Anonymous said: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to remove someone from a current role in the camp on No Haven.... would you be willing to tell me? I am probably missing it because it's stupid simple.

No problems. Same way as setting them to the role so Right click > Talk to > Assign to an Encampment Position > -None-.

There’s a couple of positions like second-in-command where slavers will resist giving up power and for them you’ll have to use more nefarious methods.

Anonymous said: [NH 0.821] Bug / suggestion: My slaver has Dolled Up, and a ton of other corruptions, which is great, but the description is weird. Due to DU, it describers my slaver as having "dark crimson rubber skin[...]" and then "have eyes[...]covered up entirely", but the very next line describes my ponytail. Hair on red rubber is a weird mental image. Might I suggest that DU simply makes the skin rubbery rather than changing the color? That, and not replace the eyes? I miss my heterochromia. Thank you!

It is corrupted rubber of perversion and evil so is capable of having holes for hair :)

Also one of the risks with corruption is you can very much lose as well as win such is the risks of flirting with depravity for power be it traits, arms, or even your nice eyes.

Anonymous said: [no haven 0.843] so I tried to do basic bimbo training with a slave that had advanced obedience, selected 2 slavers and noticed it needed 3 so I clicked on slavers and then it began the assignment blocking the slave slot but not starting the assignment AND removing the slave permanently, seems like it is also overflowing because I'm getting "not enough to defend the encampment" while I have 6 out of 8 slavers in the camp.

Thanks for letting me know and will sort it for the next update.

Anonymous said: Love the new update, though I have several questions. A: How does one start the quest to gain better Biomancy? B: Say I had a Second-in-command who was set as my characters former owner. This seems to give the character massive bonuses to respect checks. My character has Dominator and Thrallforge, but I still cant succeed Dominating to get him to go nude, etc. Is it currently possible to succeed at such a check? C: Is there currently no way to force a 2nd out of their role via the respect check system? Surely we should be able to dominate or trigger them into giving up the post? D: On a related note, why is there no option to dominate when trying to force a merc to join the camp? E: Is there some kind of block preventing me from shrinking an Amazon Futanari's cock with Biomancy? I tried dozens of times, and never had any results. Anyway, thats all I can think of for now. Look forward to your answers. If I remember more Ill ask. Again, love the game and update!

The new assignment that will start the biomancy chain begins in the City of Aversol. It's a rare assignment, can be done by anyone with or without biomancy, and like bred to be broken you need a certain amount of gold in the stash to find it.

Theoretically I think? It’s going to be a long shot though unless you can mess with them like making them a bimbo through corruption or send them off on quick as you like.

Not currently. Will think about it.

Dominating is a short term will overwhelm so once it’s done the merc would just be unhappy and leave.

Futanari for plot related reasons which I swear I’ll get to eventually can’t have their cocks shrunk by biomancy.

Anonymous said: Since we already have Recruiter customization options for brother/sister, any chance we'll see father/mother or son/daughter added as options? I'd love to see that feature expanded on in general, especially if it adds more options for incest.

I’ll think about it. Not super into incest as it is, and the parental versions even less so. Saying that next update will have some implication in regard to one of the assignments so it’s possible as long as it’s not that much of a focus.

madron-fc said: Had the following happen to me in 0.843 of NoHaven, not sure if it is intended behaviour: I went on the Mountains asignment to catch the male drow after which I did get the request to fullfill. After doing some training on the new slave, I realised that the opportunity was no longer listed amon the asignments. I thought it might have just timed out without me noticing, but way later into that same game I got a notice for that very opportunity to soon time out. my guess is that when I completetd the advanced Sissy Training and the Slave changed name, the asignment disappears, but I do not have a save of that time so I cannot test this.

Huh, okay. That opportunity is timed in regard to expiry, but that does sound off. Will check, thank you.

And now some more from outside of the tumblr:

From Hypnopics: Is the demi Angel commission added to the game?

If you mean the four-winged Truly Divine one then that commission is being used for an assignment next update.

From Hypnopics: This game really needs a way to quickly and easily dismiss slavers and slaves you don't want. You should be able to immediately sell slaves taken as loot, even if only for 15-20 gold and able to R. click - dismiss slaves and slavers. I keep hitting a wall with content blocked because i have too many mediocre slaves/ slavers.

Update following the next one is going to be about having a more reliable way of freeing slaves than sending them to the whore makers. Slavers I always wanted to be one of your challenges to manage with more events coming involving them working to undermine your authority which is why you're limited to assignments like Sudden Betrayal. Saying that there likely will be more options to manipulate their morale/reputation to get them to bugger off coming in future. I'm also planning to introduce slave mines/farms/temples where you'll be able to parcel off a whole number of slaves and slavers at once for an ongoing bonus and the occasional choice/assignments to keep them going.

From TFGames: Loving the new update so far. I was playing with the slave mantras and really liking them, but had something happen. Had gotten two mantras on one slave, Obedience, which had fully embedded, and Sissy, which was at the advanced stage. I was planning on adding some more later, but wanted to finish his proper training first. I ended up getting a crit on Advanced Obedience training and giving him the Obedient trait (there's too many uses of the word Obedient in this paragraph). After that, I couldn't select him for hypnosis. I suspect because of the Obedient trait, it thinks that he has the Denial mantra embedded (which also gives the trait and blocks other mantras). Also, I haven't tried yet, but does the Bimbo mantra block Bimbo training? I had a couple odd situations in the previous version where traits gained outside of training blocked those associated trainings. Two main examples: Had a slave escape, recaptured with a crit, then escaped and recaptured with a crit again, giving them Obedient. However I couldn't do Advanced Obedience Training with them any more. Second was had a slave at Basic Sissy training stage and they got the Pretty Maid corruption result, switching them to the Sissy gender, but also blocking the Advanced Sissy training option. No I know these might be redundant, but the trainings alone add value to the slave, but then getting traits with shortcuts or luck could be a balancing factor, so it might be intentional. Anyway, this was in the last version so it might not be in the current one.

Those are both connected issues and kind of working as intended. If you get what the training/hypnosis is basically trying to achieve then that training/hypnosis becomes no longer available. Think about it as having different paths to the same result. Does mean that you don't get the same value bonuses, but I think I'm okay with that as it reflects how long you spent perfecting the slave and keeps them from being quite so similar in the long run. I do agree though that this can feel off and I'm open to other takes on this as it's feedback I've heard a few times now.

From TFGames: I voted Lamia because I feel like keeping track of all your slavers and all their traits is exhausting and starting with one fewer gives you a bit of time to get familiar with them before adding more.

There's also elitist and proactive under the full custom options if you want to start with less slavers. If you want to go full minimalist there's also the golem scenario where you start with only three slavers.

(This is in regard to the current poll running on the TFGames discussion thread)

From TFGames: Hello, I just spent about 20 hours playing this awesome game for the past 3 days!! It made me insane. I especially loved exploring the limits of corruption and biomancy. There is a lot of content with cum consumption, which is pretty cool =). There's one thing I didn't get: how to raise the encampment leader's tolerance for highly rated armors and clothes? I could wear a 55 rated item at most, but that's it. Oh and also, can the encampment leader get corrupted to the point of getting Babydoll? Or is that just for other players? I managed to inflict Babydoll on two slaves, but never on myself. Anyway, this game is awesome =D. Thank you for doing this.

Thank you, I'm glad you've been enjoying it! The clothing limit is in place to prevent you completely fucking your ability to lead by putting yourself in bondage. Then now the takeover options are included I may just remove it so you can see how long you can last while being in an armbinder and the like Babydoll for now is limited to others. Will possibly change this again given the takeover options as such a naive and gullible leader is also not going to last long at all. Though for that I'd want to include more personalization for the player to properly reflect that corruption.

#Q&A

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pianopadawan · 6 years

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Descent, A Poe x Hux Fanfiction Chapter 1

A/N: Decided to post the actual chapters on Tumblr for more convenient reading. This story is also posted on AO3.

Plot Synopsis: The collapse of the Empire brought not peace but chaos. The New Republic has given way to power lust and corruption. War wages on with rekindled desperation between the Resistance and the First Order, the spawn of the Empire turned disenchanted military branch of the Republic. A new generation must enter the battle, bound to one side or the other.

Amidst the inferno, the teenage corporal Armitage Hux is faced with unstable authority over a doomed mission. Meanwhile, the Resistance fleet’s most promising young pilot, Poe Dameron, finds himself climbing enemy ranks for the sake of a tenuous “greater cause”. In the most fortunate of cases, chance meetings in troubled times strengthen both parties. At other times, one man’s rise to fame will mark the other’s descent into madness.

Rating: Mature

Chapter 1: Miscalculations

11 ABY, Mineral Fields of Eadu

The boy’s hands tremble as his line of vision lurches forward. For a moment, he thinks the transport will surely give way, that the whole team will go crashing down, buried in a heap of scalding metal. But the moment passes, and he’s allowed another hurried breath, another heartbeat.

His console has fallen to the floor again. He feels the glare of the Commander heavy upon him as he bends over to pick up the device, mutters a quick apology and retreats back to the corner of the cockpit. The walls quake again. The commander barks out something about defending the western reaches, an order to which the rest of the crew can only respond with a few worried murmurs and snide remarks. It’s only a question of how it’ll end, how many more blows the transport will take before the legs give way.

No one dares to speak of evacuation. Better to die now than be blown to bits fleeing the battlefield or executed for desertion. This wordless resolution predated all understanding of the war and whatever trivial conclusions one drew from it.

Another blast makes the transport reel to the left before the pilot can regain balance. The boy fixes his eyes on his console, refusing to look up from the screen of expanding red. He knows his task – report back on the remaining transports and support ships, those in distress and those destroyed, whenever prompted by the Commander. It’s a simple task and one that’s become all but redundant. The commander stopped caring about the losses hours ago.

But the boy remains attentive, hoping to feel useful, hoping that surely, surely he can offer something before…

“Then, it’s hopeless!”

The entire team turns to the source of the outburst –a pallid youth with his index finger pointed accusingly at the Commander.

“Get back to your post, Ensign,” the Commander’s tone is stern as ever, but the Ensign is undeterred.

“We know it’s a lost cause without the shields,” the ensign persists. “More importantly, the Resistance knows. Why else would they target the generator?”

“The main generator went up in flames,” says the Commander. “There’s no use discussing it further. What we need now is reinforcements on the western reaches and your order is to shut your trap and get us there. Understood?”

“We aren’t going to make it there, Commander.” The transport dips forward again as if to prove the Ensign’s point. “We won’t make it much longer, but as far as the Resistance is concerned, none of that matters.”

“I don’t give a damn what matters to the Resistance scum! What matters is our task!”

“Our task is to counter the Resistance attack. They’re not after the western reaches. They’re after the weapons lab. Without the shields, the lab is an easy target.”

The boy watches the confrontation, wondering what could have kindled such impertinence. His father had been sure to instill in him a loathing for impudence (thinking about it made him wince), but that wasn’t the only lesson he’d learned. Above all, there was no excuse for accepting defeat when there was still fighting left to be done.

A heavy breath of silence passes before the transport pilot says in a quavering voice:

“If you would pardon my interruption, sir. There is a secondary shield generator that is not too far from our current position. I suspect it has already taken damage but may be salvageable with some mechanical work.”

The Commander frowns, giving the pilot a brief, impassive glance before asking:

“How far?”

“Roughly a mile,” the pilot replies. “In the Eastern Outpost. The work would have to be done manually, but the outpost’s transmission systems are down. We have no way of making contact with the technical squadron stationed there, even if they’ve managed to survive, but it is possible to get there on foot from our current coordinates.” He hesitates. “Though it would be… hazardous.”

Hazardous is an understatement. Such a task would be a suicide mission. The chances of success are too high to risk the lives of the expert crew members. Yet, the stakes are too high to discard the proposition. The boy knows this all too well. He shows no surprise when the Commander turns to him.

“Boy!” the Commander barks. “Come here. I have a job for you!”

“Take this,” the Ensign says, handing the boy a transmitter. “We’ll use it to communicate as you make your way to the outpost. Once you’re inside, the generator will be on the second floor. You’ve worked with similar generators in the past from my understanding. This should be much the same. Get there, and we’ll give you further instructions on activating the emergency shields. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s a tracker built in,” the Ensign explains, indicating the transmitter. “So, we’ll be able to track your coordinates once you’ve activated the shields and give you directions back to the transport. Are we clear?”

The boy wants to scoff at the idea of a return trip. The odds of him reaching to the outpost alive, much less return to the transport in one piece, are miniscule. It’s a hopeless task and he is but a token, cast away to settle the Commander’s doubts that they’ve exhausted all options.

Pushing these thoughts aside, he responds with another sterile, “Yes, sir.”

The Ensign nods. The transport comes to a halt, and the exit ramp unfolds. A moment later, the boy finds himself standing on the slate ground, watching the transport’s towering legs stalk past him, a metallic skeleton returning to the grave.

He can see the battle unfolding above, the shadows of the TIE Fighters engaging the enemy fleet. A mile away, a squad of troopers are manning the ground artillery. A minute later, an enemy ship swoops down, blowing another cannon and its crew to pieces. The Eastern Outpost is a mile away, or so the transport pilot claimed. The boy can see its figure, peaking out on the horizon what feels like another fifty miles away.

He starts towards it.

A crash echoes across the field and out of the corner of his eye, the boy glimpses the crumpled remains of an AT-AT. Presumably it was shot down by one of the enemy ships.

He wonders about the precision of an X-Wing. He’s seen TIE Fighter models with enough precision to shoot down a single ground trooper. An eleven-year-old boy, armed with nothing but a blaster, making his way across the battlefield alone must look suspicious. Maybe that’ll be enough for the enemy fighters to target him. He orders himself not to speculate.

Soon after, he encounters another group of Stormtroopers manning an anti-aircraft cannon. A few of them turn to stare at him, before quickly returning to their work. The boy fears at first that they’ll mistake him for a deserter, but the worry soon subsides. Any deserter who would attempt to escape by running into a live warzone would be too foolish to pose a threat.

A shadow passes over him. He dives under an overturned transport seconds before the explosion, which leaves his ears ringing.

A cloud of debris rises a few feet away from where he’s crouched under the rubble. A stinging pain crawls up his leg, and he looks down to see a few streaks of blood running down his torn uniform. He tries to reorient himself, silently rehearsing his task.

Reach the Eastern Outpost.

Locate the backup generator on the second floor.

Send a transmission back to the crew on the transport…

The transmitter. He must have lost it during the explosion.

He leaves the cover of the fallen transport. After a panicked search, he glimpses a red light blinking a few paces away. He seizes the transmitter from the ground and barely has time to check whether it’s broken before he hears the whirring of a starfighter engine.

He expects another bomb. He expects this to be the one that kills him, but by some strange fate, the enemy ship passes by. Next time, he suspects he won’t be so fortunate. He’s already running out of luck. The lab, his team in the transport, the First Order is already running out of time.

He sets his gaze on the outpost and makes a mad dash towards it. He doesn’t dare to believe he’ll make it, but while he’s still alive he’s damn well going to try.

There’s more wreckage up ahead. Smoke billows from the heap of metal which appears to be the remains of a starfighter. It’s hard to tell what kind, whether it’s an enemy ship or one of the TIE Fighters, and there isn’t time to check. The unmistakable stench of burning flesh rises from the crash site.

The boy is all too familiar with the smell. He remembers long hours spent salvaging whatever was left of the fallen the morning after the battle. It was a task frequently assigned to the juvenile recruits. His father had always believed in teaching his cadets the barbarism of the enemy early on.

The boy had learned well. He thought now of the cadavers. Some of them lay scattered across the battlefield, unidentifiable limbs to fuel the crematorium’s flames. Others were left much as they’d been in life, glossy eyes half-opened, the head leering to the side as if they hadn’t had time to realize their death before it came. Those were the worst ones…

Another shadow. This time, the enemy starfighter is ablaze. It swoops above him, reeling sideways. After another heartbeat aloft, the ship plummets to the ground. Another wreckage, more smoke, more burning…

The outpost is closer now. Almost there. Slowly, the building comes into clearer focus. The vague outline of the entrance solidifies. Part of him still refuses to believe he can make it.

Just a little further. He tightens his grip on the transmitter and pushes himself to keep running.

The bomb falls between the boy and the outpost. There isn’t even time for him to lift his head to see the enemy ship race overhead before the blast flings him backwards.

The world goes black upon impact.

His eyes snap open. His ears ring worse than ever. His head feels as if it’ll burst pressing against his skull.

An excruciating jolt of pain shoots up his left arm. He turns his head towards the source. The limb has snapped at a crooked angle above the elbow. Blood blooms from the crux of the injury, where the pale form of shattered bone juts from the skin.

At first, he can do nothing but stare, morbidly entranced by the fracture. Then, the tears blur his vision. He tells himself they’re only physical in nature, a reflex beyond his control, but that can only hold off the shame for so long.

The outpost, the generator lies twenty paces away. He’s so close.

He’d been reminded of his weakness more times than he can count. He recalls listening from behind closed doors as the High Command questioned his father.

I understand you have a son. Not of your wife – an illegitimate child? Will he be the best the Empire has to offer?

Even then, he had recognized his father’s doubts. Now, it seems the doubts were justified. Unless…

The boy leverages himself with his good arm into a sitting position. He stays like that for a few more breaths, shaking. A coughing fit racks his skinny frame. The transmitter is lying a foot away. The red light indicates that miraculously, the device is still working. The boy inches towards it, nearly falling down again as he grasps it with his right hand.

By the unknown grace that’s kept him alive thus far, he’s able to stand.

His arm shrieks as he limps towards the outpost. He’s moving slowly. Too slowly. But he’s still moving, still fighting…

He reaches the entrance to the outpost. The door is half-open, presumably jammed. The boy slips through and collapses on the floor. His broken arm jerks to the side and he bites back a cry. The tears slip down his face again. He brushes them away with a furious hand.

The building has not gone unscathed from the attack. The interior is dark, the few remaining lights flickering, dangling precariously from the ceiling. There’s no sign of the technician or security team.

Outside, the battle rages on. The ground shakes as another bomb lands. All it’ll take is for the next one to land on the outpost, and everything will be for nothing.

The boy can’t afford to think of that now. The elevator is straight ahead, its keypad still alight. He stumbles towards it, praying that it’ll work. After a few clicks on the keypad, the door opens and the boy limps inside.

The elevators opens on the second floor, revealing a long hallway. At the end is a long console with an array of glaring alarm lights. A trail of sickly white smoke rises from the corner. Collapsed over the console lies the body of a technician, her hand draped over a lever protruding from the floor. The boy feels his stomach sink.

He steps over to the console, coughing from the smoke. He fumbles for the power switch, prays that whatever damage the machine has taken isn’t irrevocable. To his relief, the lights of the main console flicker on.

“AT-AT Squadron 2406, come in,” he chokes out the words into the transmitter.

No reply.

“AT-AT Squadron 2406, come in,” he repeats.

He hears static on the other end of the line followed by muffled discourse. Then, at last, he hears the pilot’s voice come through:

“Go ahead.”

“I have located the generator,” the boy says. His arm throbs with every step. He thinks for a moment to mention his injury but dismisses the idea.

A shudder runs through the outpost. The boy glances upwards, half-expecting the roof to cave in.

“There is a K9 Reactive Switch near the base of the console,” the pilot says. “Do you see it?”

Leaning one hand on the console for support, the boy searches for the reactive switch, praying that he’ll remember his previous work on the generators at the academy. Another rush of pain ripples from his wound. It takes all his willpower to keep from screaming.

The corpse’s hand is resting on the reactive switch. The sight of it is enough to make his blood freeze. Before he can deliberate the spectacle further, the boy reaches out and moves the hand aside. The corpse’s arm falls back and the rest of the body rolls onto the floor with a hollow thud.

Don’t look at it, a voice inside him snaps. Focus. You’re burning time.

“Affirmative,” the boy speaks into the transmitter. “I see it.”

“Power it on,” the pilot directs him. “This will begin the reset sequence which will deauthorize the main generator and begin activation of the shields from the secondary generator. Once the shields are up…”

The pilot’s voice trails off. Someone is shouting in the background. The dreadful creaking sound of two hundred tons of steel plummeting to the ground blurs into static, and the boy is left alone.

He’s learned to suppress grief before. He’s watched the best officers usurp grief with cold acceptance. Efficiency, some would call it.

You’re burning time, the voice berates him. Wasteful. Wasteful…

He turns back to the reactive switch. It looks more like a misshapen bar than a switch and only twitches when he presses it.

Wasteful and weak.

The boy tries again, pushing harder this time. The switch shifts almost imperceptibly.

Weak. Always weak. I see my faith was misplaced.

His right arm trembles as he forces the toggle again, pushing all his weight downward. The ground rumbles again and he knows time is running thin. Drops of blood fall onto the console, mingling with his sweat. His head is throbbing, pleading for him to rest. He clenches the switch again and channels the last of his strength into the motion.

The switch clicks as it moves down to the active position. The console blinks and the monitor buzzes to life. A message appears on the screen: Beginning generator reset sequence. Transferring shield source to secondary generator.

Armitage Hux reads the notices of his achievement and manages a thin smile. Then, agony obscures his vision and he crumples to the floor.

Medical Bay of the Star Destroyer, The Herald

Commandant Brendol Hux strides into the medical bay. One hand rests on the grip of his blaster. The other is clenched into a fist.

The reports are still not entirely clear, but he’s heard enough to draw his own bitter conclusions.

At 11:26 on Eadu, AT-AT Squadron 2406 was hit by a T-85 Resistance X-Wing starfighter. The transport subsequently collapsed.

At 21:40, following the battle, AT-AT 2406 was located. The coordinates of the wreckage were recorded along with a body count of 21, accounting for the entire crew with the exception of the crew’s junior technician, Armitage Hux.

At 1:00 the following day, Search and Rescue Squad R86 located Armitage Hux on the second floor of the Eastern Outpost. On-site medics reported multiple tertiary blast injuries, including an open fracture in the boy’s left arm. He was transferred to the emergency medical bay aboard the Star Destroyer “The Herald” for treatment.

From what he’s heard, the boy’s condition is still precarious. Brendol doesn’t have time to dwell on uncertainties. What he does know for certain is that there are limited reasons why a cadet should be found nearly a mile away from his crew.

He’s dealt with deserters before. The punishment for desertion is clear in the First Order legal code. Still, Brendol has never been one to believe in drawn-out court procedures culminating months later in a death sentence. He values efficiency too dearly.

“Commandant Hux,” an older woman in a white uniform greets him at the door. “We’ve been expecting you, sir. I’ve been charged with overseeing your son’s treatment.”

“Where is he?” Brendol demands.

“Right this way,” the doctor replies.

She leads him into a long room lined with rows of cots. A medical droid zips past them carrying a basin, the contents of which lets off a foul odor. Several of the cots are obscured by curtains, through which the silhouettes of the doctors are vaguely discernable.

“He has an open fracture in his left arm, slightly above the elbow,” says the doctor. “We suspect it’s from a blast injury, judging from the shrapnel cuts. The cuts have been sanitized and bound with a bacta patch. As for the arm, we’ve completed our initial evaluation and bound the wound with antibiotic bacta beads. Since Armitage is not yet of consenting age, we’ll need your authorization for further surgery.”

Brendol says nothing in reply. He’s never been fond of too much chatter. He makes a mental note to comment on unprofessional behavior to the medical bay’s supervisor.

“Regarding his injuries,” the doctor continues, undeterred by the Commandant’s glower. “The footage is even more unbelievable. It’s a miracle alone that he survived the journey from the transport to the outpost, much less do what he did. I could hardly believe it until I saw the footage my…”

“What footage?” the Commandant interjects.

“Oh.” The doctor furrows her brow. “My apologies, sir. I thought you had heard. They recovered footage from the security tapes in the outpost. Apparently, some of the cameras were undamaged during the attack.”

“No,” Brendol says through gritted teeth. “I was not notified.”

As if the rumors alone wouldn’t be bad enough, there was now footage of the boy’s escape. At least, he can deal with the boy now before the situation escalates further. He tightens his grip on his blaster.

“There’s been talk around the Herald about your son,” Zan continues. “He’s younger than the typical age for any position of authority, but some of the officers here have taken interest in him. They saw the footage of him resetting the system to regenerate the shields and were rightfully impressed.”

“He did what?”

The Commandant stops dead in his tracks. The doctor stares at him worriedly.

“Is everything alright, sir?” she asks.

“I was not aware that my son was responsible for reactivating the shields,” Brendol says at length.

“Oh, my apologies again, sir,” the doctor replies hurriedly. “I… I had thought you’d seen the footage.”

“I will be sure to speak with the transmission team on the frequency of their reports,” is all Brendol can think to say. He lets his hand fall from his blaster.

They continue ahead. The doctor pauses next to one of the cots and draws back the curtain. Armitage is lying on the bed, his breathing shallow but steady. He appears to be unconscious. His head is turned to the side, revealing the ghost of a bruise which the doctors wrote off as “light tertiary blast trauma”.

Brendol gives a quick glance at the fracture and frowns at the grotesque angle the boy’s arm forms against the binding. Looking at the skinny child before him, Brendol still has his doubts about the footage. Yet, he can’t help but wonder if, for the past eleven years, he’s miscalculated the boy’s potential.

There are few things Brendol Hux despises more than miscalculations.

“Take care of him.” The indifference in the commandant’s voice strikes discord with the words. “Take care of him. I’ll be back.”

He turns to leave, but the doctor raises a hand to stop him.

“Excuse me, sir,” she says. “We need your authorization for the surgery. If you would like a detailed overview of the procedure, I would be happy to…”

“Have the required forms sent to my office,” Brendol says. “I will sign them by tonight.”

With that, the Commandant turns the corner and stalks off towards the exit. Hearing his father’s retreating footsteps, Armitage stirs. The doctor nearly calls the Commandant back before she thinks better of it.

The boy rolls his head to the other side and winces as his broken arm shifts. He’s wide awake. He’s been awake the entire time, and they both know it.

The doctor considers asking how he’s feeling, but figures the question is rhetorical. Besides, Armitage has not proven particularly fond of conversation thus far in his stay, not that anyone can blame him.

“Your father was just here,” the doctor remarks.

The boy gives no reply. The doctor purses her lips and decides not to pursue the subject further.

“It’s getting late,” she says. “We’d like you to try to get some sleep. I can give you one more dose of painkillers for the night. Would you prefer I give it to you now?”

Armitage nods. After administering the injection, the doctor leaves. The lights go out shortly afterwards.

The painkillers’ effects are swift. Soon, the agonizing pulses around the fracture are numbed to a dull ache. Armitage exhales heavily and gazes at the ceiling. The spectral hands of the battlefield reach back at him, claiming his thoughts with the cacophony of falling bombs and screeching engines.

He lays like that, haunted in silence for the rest of the night.

Next Chapter

#gingerpilot #damerux #poe x hux #armitage hux #general hux #first order #brendol hux #star wars fanfiction #fanfiction #enemy lines gingerpilot fanfic #descent Gingerpilot fanfic #my writing

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adieka · 3 years

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Keyword Research: Primary Keywords Only or Related Keywords Also?

(1) Keyword Research: Primary Keywords Only or Related Keywords Also? (2) Keyword Research: Should I Create Content Based on All Related Keywords to Increase the Chance to Acquire the Main Keyword I Aim To? (1) Keyword Research: Primary Keywords Only or Related Keywords Also? Allen Let's talk keywords. When you take on a new client or build a site out, are you pulling all keywords related or just a few at a time? 10 👍🏽 10 [filtered from 9 Answers]📰👈

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Jordan My team crawls the site (if existing), maps all ranking keywords to all pages, looks at the page itself and assigns a primary keyword on what it should be ranking for. (just because its ranking for keywords does not mean it matches with the intent of the page)

Allen » Jordan So how are you deciding on which keyword to use as the primary keyword for that given page? Jordan » Allen A combination of things but mostly intent of the page + common sense. It might be ranking for some high volume keyword on page 2 but has nothing to do with the intent of the page. Don't chase short tail keywords if they dont make sense. Do the Google search and see of the sites that are ranking match what your site is about. If it makes sense, optimize. If not, reevaluate

Keith L Evans 🎓 All keywords past, current and potential. I have to plan the site for now and the future opportunities. Key to is asking the CEO where they plan to be so products, geos, categories can be planned accordingly.

Allen Hey Mr. Trickster, so say you gather a list of 400 keywords. You're assigning each of those 400 keywords to each page and mapping them out at the start? Keith L Evans 🎓 » Joshua They are more like keyword topics or categories. I don't know what the cool kids call it now: clusters, clouds, clans. 🤭👍🏽4

Ejaz In start, we first go for the low competitive keywords in our niche. We first prioritize keywords on the basis of competition. Slow and steadily we go for the keywords having higher Keyword Difficulty (KD). Before making website my strategy would be Competitor Analysis — ->> Competitor's keywords after filtration — ->> Shape Content Plan — ->>Publishing Schedule Dino Better question: Why only pull just a few? Makes no sense to me. MORE DATA in my reasoning equals BETTER analysis for making the most PROFITABLE determinations. Whenever I am doing keyword research I want to find the most profitable keywords to target. I can't do that unless I have the best data to work with! Best data = MORE DATA

Allen » Dino Indeed. But once you have a list of 1000 relevant keywords, what do you do? Dino » Allen I sort them in a spreadsheet using conditional formatting to color code them by category. For example, all the keywords with a certain word in them. Also I narrow down the list first by removing anything with no search volume (unless of course it is in a niche that has very little search volume to begin with). So with a list of 1000 that can be narrowed down to just a few hundred. Also in the list you will find most of these are redundant. Like for example flipping the keywords "Chicago Dentist" or "Dentist Chicago". Other examples of redundancy could be the keyword "Dentist in Chicago". So by adding the word "in" you will still be optimized for "Dentist Chicago". Other examples of category could be having the word "best", "top", "number one", "highest rated", etc. So if the keyword with "best" has more search volume than "top" I will make that one a higher priority by optimizing for that in a stronger place on the page. After having color coded all the categories you will find that locating keywords in the columns of the spreadsheet is much easier and faster. It will be "scannable by a human eye to find the categories quickly. After the color coding I sort the list again from highest to lowest search volume - which will reveal the most profitable and relevant groups of keywords (because those have the potential to bring in more traffic). Doing this will make it so that you can easily prioritize which ones to use when writing the content. So when taking away the redundancy, the list of 1000 can be narrowed down to about 50 to 100 keywords - that can then be used for writing the main content on the website and later for things like blog posts. I usually do "question keywords" separate because these can be used for informational articles designed to draw in more traffic from potential buyers (who are in a different stage of the buying process). For the highest search volume keywords I will optimize for those in the strongest places like title tag, h1, h2, h3. For the lower search volume those can be sprinkled into the paragraphs in a natural way. It would make no sense to optimize for a keyword in the title tag with only 10 searches a month when another similar keyword has 100 searches a month. Unless of course your strategy for the pages is targeting easy to rank keywords that will rank faster for quicker results for whatever reason you are doing that. So by collecting more data you can then narrow that down to the best keywords - many of which most people will never find because they are not willing to do the extra work. I use the same process whether it is a list of 20,000 keywords or 1000. Larger populated areas will of course have more keywords with search volume to deal with (because of the higher number of people searching in that area). 💟1

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(2) Keyword Research: Should I Create Content Based on All Related Keywords to Increase the Chance to Acquire the Main Keyword I Aim To? Soni Trying to create content on the "Art Classes" keyword. I am seeing related keywords for the same. Should I create 5 different pages for the keywords I mentioned in the picture or just one page that covers all 5? 5 👍🏽 5 [filtered from 16 Answers]

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Zak Art classes ≠ online art classes ≠ art classes for kids ≠ art classes near me ≠ online art classes for kids // for me this 5 keywords have all different search intent so it's different pages. You could put them all on one page but I guess nobody likes to read 10k word articles (you will reach better rankings if you do for all this keywords different pages with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) like 2010). If I would be you I would create that cluster around "art classes" and link back and up… Properly there are much more of that low hanging fruits - don't overthink Google AI is not that smart :') Thomas I'd look at WHY you want to create content around "art classes" more. Are you offering art classes and want to sell art classes to buyers? Put up the content that's relevant to your business/client's business and the customers associated with that. Solve their pain points, entertain them, make them think, educate them, etc. Ben It seems like you're trying to rank for something without understanding the search intent, which is a problem. This is shown by the fact that you want to rank for a "near me" keyword, which is going to return mostly local city level results, which you would have a near-impossible time ranking. Just because keywords seem related, doesn't mean they should be grouped together. They could have different search intents, which is way more important. Search intent is basically, "what is the user really looking for when they search for this keyword?" People who are searching for "online art classes for kids" aren't looking to take in-person art classes, and vice versa (there might be a small overlap with some people, but it's not most people). As Thomas pointed out, ask yourself what are you trying to do? Are you actually offering art classes? If not, I would try to find a different keyword. 💟👍🏽25

Garnes » Ben Great explanation 👏 Ahmed » Ben This 💯 Marian » Ben The masterchef has spoken 🤭1 Sanker Yup. also the near me isn't an actual keyword, but local intent. Farley » Ben Seems like their trying to rank without knowing how to rank lol…which may be a bigger problem

Truslow "Related" does not always correlate to "Relevant." Start by looking at intent. Are your art classes online? Or In-Person? (Or Both?) If they are only in-person, then "online art classes" is silly to go after - even if you can rank for it, you don't have what the person was searching for. If they are only online classes, then "near me" is useless for the same reason. Do you have classes for kids? If not… then the "kid" variations are silly, too. Then once you've narrowed that down… you need to look at covering your bases logically based upon the user personas that are going to be visiting your site. Got some classes for kids but not all - then sure… create a page that lists your classes for kids, but don't forget to make one that lists classes for adults, too. If you've only got a "kids" page but didn't make an "adults" page because there wasn't enough search volume - where is Google supposed to send people who aren't looking for classes for kids? Ultimately, when it comes to products and services, keyword research gives you an idea of how you can classify and organize EVERYTHING on the site. It can give you an idea of how to tag or categorize things - but it won't cover everything. Think first of what you've got to offer, then use those suggestions as a way to look at how that can be presented, organized, and structured so that EVERYONE can get through. Build a site based upon keyword research alone and you're going to be in a world of hurt. Roger If the keywords have different types of intent, yes, build few pages and links them, else just group them into one. I strongly recommend you watch this video. Nathan is really good and kind to offer such value info in free video - https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=Nt7i_0pWu80 7 Advanced Keyword Research Tips for SEO (Works in 2021) 📰👈

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These may satisfy you: » Why Keywords are Important in SEO Content! » Unique Keyword Research » 4 Common Mistakes I See People Make in Doing Keyword Research for SEO

#keyword research

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voxwrote · 7 years

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GoT Season 5 Review (from ages ago)

Alright, it's taken me a little while to do but below is my somewhat garbled review of Game of Thrones season 5.

Keep in mind that there are spoilers for both Game of Thrones season 5 and all of the Ice and Fire Series up to the current book (A Dance With Dragons Part 2). It's long and boring but some of you might like it!

So after finishing Season 5 of Game of Thrones I thought I’d share my opinion as someone who watched the show up to season 4 then read all the books. I’ll split this up into plotlines and focus on each one separately and obviously feel free to tell me if you think I’m completely wrong.

Overall I found the season was pretty disappointing, it wasn’t necessarily bad from a critical standpoint but it took a while to hit its stride and while I appreciate that they have to tighten the narrative and drop certain plot lines it felt like some of the stories in this series were totally unnecessary and some scenes seemed to be inserted purely for shock value.

It’s a shame because I was actually very keen to see a show that was different to the books, I thought that it would be interesting to see how they took it in a different direction and would be good to see the characters handled by a different writer but I ended up just feeling a bit let down by it all. Below I’ve pinpointed what I feel are some of the high points of the series (because there were some still truly great moments that kept me watching) and some of the lesser points.

Dorne/Jaime

For me this was the most disappointing story of the series for me. In the books the Dorne plotline follows a kingsguard (Ser Arys Oakheart) who has been assigned to look after Myrcella during her time in Dorne. Over time he has fallen in love with Prince Doran’s daughter Arianne Martell and has broken his vows, he agrees to aid in a plot to smuggle Myrcella back to King’s Landing in a plot to put her into power over her brother. The plot is discovered and ends in tragedy with Arys being killed and Myrcella being maimed.

It’s a strong plotline with great characters but I would have totally understood if they cut the plot. It’s fairly inconsequential and would weigh down the TV series with the introduction of yet more characters.

Jaime’s plot in the books sends him to the Riverlands, sent away by a bitter Cersei who berates him and shuns him for letting Tyrion kill their father. He travels with the mute headsman Ilyn Payne and trains his left handed sword fighting with him at night while confessing all of his incest and past crimes (theorizing that Payne won’t be able to tell anyone on account of not having a tongue).

As Jaime travels through a land that’s still ruined from the terror of the War of the Five Kings he comes to realise that while he’s had the big picture he’s never taken a moment to think how all the fighting affects those who have little to nothing. It’s a humbling experience for Jaime and the pinnacle comes at the point where Cersei sends a letter asking Jaime to be his champion, he simply burns the letter and breaks the chains of the toxic hold Cersei has on him.

In the TV show Jaime’s character seems to have had a back step in character development, I feel during his time with Brienne he really flourished and started to realise that the world was something much different than he expected it to be, his name meant nothing and that was a huge wakeup call and he sees that you have to be more than just your last name. In this series they’ve just put two popular characters together on a comedy road trip and then lazily tacked political intrigue that in the end has no real impact on the story as a whole (at least from what we’ve seen so far). I felt almost cheated during the ending to that plotline as that could have been time focused on other characters, following Jaime’s book plot or including one of the plot lines that’s been cut such as the Ironborn plot.

It was refreshing to see Bronn again as he pretty much disappears from the books after Tyrion’s trial and isn’t mentioned again, Jerome Flynn really brings something to the character on the screen and he’s enjoyable to watch but I feel his character was really the only saving grace in this plotline. Doran was played very well too but he was sadly reduced to an exposition bit part.

TL;DR – Dorne seemed to be a filler arc which while beautifully filmed and well-acted seemed to fall short of the rest of the series in terms of character development and driving the overall plot. Screen time could have been better invested.

The Wall/Jon

This was a very mixed bag; it had some amazing scenes such as the Hardhome battle and some predictable and unnecessary scenes like Sam getting beaten up by his fellow brothers of The Night’s Watch.

I really enjoyed the scene where Jon is elected as the 998th Lord Commander and when he beheads Janos Slynt it really felt like they took the scenes from the book and put their own spin on them but in a positive way. It built tension nicely and overall this season I feel like Jon’s arc has been pretty consistent. Hardhome (a scene which hasn’t happened in the books but was planned to take place before Jon’s demise) was honestly a stunning set piece and I think probably the highlight of series. Tormund’s confrontation with the Lord of Bones was great and a fantastic example of one of the positive departures from the books, the mood of the scene was so tense it got to almost unbearable levels and I think the screenwriters, actors and the director really portrayed the bitterness of the wildlings but also their desperation and need to survive. The wights were portrayed in a good way, I’m really glad the main focus was on makeup rather than CGI and the scene where they try to tear down the gate and the reveal of the wight children was genuinely scary, It was one of those scenes that reminded me of Oberyn’s fight against The Mountain, it managed to make me feel a huge range of emotions in one scene. When Jon began to fight it was pretty thrilling and the cinematography really pushed this angle.

I enjoyed Jon’s fight with the White Walker even though it had a bit of an 80’s action movie feel to it I felt it kept within the scene enough. It was also good to see a little more of The Night’s King again but wasn’t too keen on his look, the CGI felt a little heavy handed to me.

Samwell’s part in the series felt redundant, in the books he travels to Oldtown with Maester Aemon and Gilly and I felt they could have done that this season instead of showing unnecessary scenes such as Sam being beaten up, frankly that scene did nothing except remind us that Ghost was there, Sam stood up to the men who were trying to rape Gilly but in the end he was reduced to being broken and battered. We know Sam has courage; this has been evidenced in previous series.

I will say that I extremely enjoyed Aemon’s funeral even though he dies on the boat to Oldtown in the books, it was very emotional and I thought the actor who played Sam really nailed that speech and though it was sad to see Aemon go, he was one of my favourite characters I felt this was a fitting end and was handled very well but again this could have taken place on the trip to Oldtown as it does in the books.

Jon’s return to the wall was really well handled; the scene where Alliser Thorne pauses just for a moment before letting him and the Wildling refugees in was great. I like the actor who plays Thorne a lot; he brings a bit of a human edge to the character that’s not really present in the books but I feel the screenwriters really went overdrive in making him a top notch knobhead.

As for Jon’s demise, I think it could have been done better. In the books someone enrages the giant and everything turns to chaos, in this chaos Jon gets stabbed. Jon receives a taunting letter from Ramsay and relinquishes his position whilst also asking wildlings and black brothers to fight with him, while stabbing might be a bit extreme I think it provides a bit more of a solid motive than “we don’t like wildlings”.

TL;DR – A very mixed story this season, Hardhome was the high point of this story and probably one of the big high points of the series. Samwell should have departed for Oldtown earlier but I did like that Aemon’s funeral took place on the wall, it added gravity to the scene.

King’s Landing/Cersei

Looking back over the series I think Cersei’s story arc was changed quite heavily but not in a way that affected the plot too much, a lot of the scheme to frame Margaery was simplified and I felt it worked for the TV show, you still got the same impact and the end result was the same, Cersei was the victim of her own heavy handed attempt at playing the game. She’s no stranger to botching attempts at politics but now she does not have Tywin to bail her out of trouble, Lena Headey gives another really accurate and interesting performance of Cersei.

My biggest problem with this story was the Faith Militant. In the TV series they seem to be depicted as people using the faith as an excuse for violence, even if this isn’t the case they aren’t as zealous as this in the book and seem to be genuinely devout and trying to protect those who cannot protect themselves. High Sparrow was on point though and portrayed with fantastic underlying malice by Johnathan Pryce, he really brought out the element of being completely devout while casting doubt into my mind as to whether his intentions were wholly good.

I was disappointed to see Kevan Lannister reduced to such a small part, he’s such an integral part of Cersei’s conscience and is a really interesting character. He came off as cold and arrogant in the show just like Tywin whereas in the books he is supposed to be the antithesis of his brother, a kind hearted man who while still understands the importance of self-image laments that he must keep to it over the love of his brother’s children and his own child (Lancel). Qyburn continues to be a favourite of mine, he’s portrayed so well.

Overall though I thought this was a solid part of the series and while some good characters have been removed and the plot has been simplified I think it still worked well, the screenwriters really emphasised how vulnerable Cersei is without the support of her father and when her name means nothing.

TL;DR – Strong plot and was well acted by all involved, some characters are missing and the plot has been watered down for TV but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Faith Militant are a bit too violent for my liking compared to their book counterparts. Very hyped to see Frankenstein’s Mountain fight.

Braavos/Arya

Maisie Williams continues to shine as Arya Stark, really enjoyed her story in this and it was pretty similar throughout the series up until the last few episodes which I felt muddled her story unnecessarily but I can see why they did it.

It was good to see they have brought back Jaqen H’gar, really enjoyed the way he played the character in the earlier seasons and I felt it made things a bit easier for the viewer not having to bring in new characters to get attached to. The books spend a lot more time going into Arya’s training and putting her in various different situations, this isn’t possible in the TV show with only two series left to go.

I didn’t like that Arya got her vengeance with Meryn Trant. It was certainly very gratifying to watch but I feel like it detracted from Arya’s quest to become more than a revenge fuelled orphan, in the books she’s also turned blind but it’s part of her training rather than a punishment. The other thing is that Trant never visits Braavos in the books so we don’t see the much darker side of him, I feel like the screenwriters put too much emphasis on Trant being a terrible person but I think it would have worked better if it was less clear, perhaps making us question how ‘just’ Arya’s quest is. In the books Meryn Trant is a guard who simply takes a bit too much pleasure in following orders, he’s a nasty piece of work but he’s not as terrible as he is in the show.

TL;DR – Great acting, good to see some changes made but the Meryn Trant plot line toward the end detracted from the experience.

Mereen/Daenerys

I feel like Daenerys’ story sort of pushed through the motions, until the end of this season I felt she was actually more of a supporting character which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. We got to see the romance between Grey Worm and Missandei blossom which doesn’t happen in the book and I really enjoy the chemistry that those two actors seem to have.

I was very disappointed by Ser Barristan Selmy’s death, I felt it was unnecessary and that whole scene didn’t make sense. How did an elite fighting force get decimated by untrained rebels?

In the books Barristan is alive; running the city after Daenerys flew away on Drogon. I understand that his death is to make way for Tyrion Lannister performing a similar role (in the book he hasn’t met Daenerys yet, him and Jorah are currently outside the city walls). Quentyn Martell was also removed from the plot line, I can understand this though as it is pretty much a non-consequential plotline (a young prince from Dorne attempts to wed Daenerys and ends up getting burned by dragons when trying to prove his worth).

It was also a shame to see the Aegon plotline removed, again I can understand it being removed but in a sense I feel that its omission has served as a spoiler for the book. Does its removal mean that Aegon’s claim and conquest are ultimately unimportant? It will be a shame if so, I particularly like Aegon and his mentor Jon Connington.

TL;DR – It’s a shame they’ve removed great characters with great actors, the focus on the secondary players of Mereen was a welcome change this season.

Winterfell/Stannis

Stannis the Mannis, honestly I thought Stephen Dillane did such a good job bringing life to such a supposedly ‘lifeless’ character, It’s a shame his plot has been completely changed (or has it been simply moved forward? Again I fear that the books have been spoiled by the TV show’s need to cut out plot points). The burning of Shireen felt cheap and inserted simply for shock value, especially since we had a touching moment when Stannis said he would never send his daughter away and the normally stone faced Stannis shared a hug with his daughter, then he proceeds to burn her (his one heir no less, so even from a political/tactical standpoint it’s a stupid move).

In the book Stannis burns men who have resorted to cannibalism because of their dwindling supplies, he does this as a sacrifice/punishment/intimidation tactic to discourage others from doing it. It’s been mentioned to me that George R.R. Martin has said the Shireen being burnt is going to happen in the books but seeing as Melisandre, Shireen and her mother are at Castle Black I would assume that this will be done without Stannis’ consent.

Davos is my favourite character in the series and in the books. He’s one of the few characters I can really get invested in and know that he has a consistent moral compass, it was nice to see more of him in the series (he disappears for a while in the books after Stannis sends him to gain the trust of the Northern Lords).

When Melisandre arrives back at The Wall and tells Davos Shireen died the look on his face was harder to watch than any of the gore or acts of violence I’ve seen in the TV series so far, he genuinely looked heartbroken. My eyes got pretty sweaty during that scene.

Replacing Jeyne Poole (a character who is dressed up to look like Arya Stark in order for the Boltons to conduct a sham marriage) with Sansa was a smart move in terms of tying plots together but ultimately this plotline detracted from Sansa’s arc a lot. In the books she is continually developing as a political player in the Vale, putting her in the hands of Ramsay Bolton just took that developing independence and cunning wit and made her the vulnerable girl she was under Joffrey’s torment. I feel that the only thing gained from this plotline was Theon’s redemption.

Worth an honourable mention are Brienne and Podrick who have essentially done nothing this season. I think this removal was a shame because we get to see the two characters wander through the war torn riverlands and interact with some of those affected by the war, it’s a great storyline that shows Brienne letting her guard down to those who are affected most only to have that trust ripped away from her again by bandits.

TL;DR – Stannis seemed to take an inexplicable dive in intelligence and morals simply for shock value, Sansa got set back to square one, Brienne did pretty much nothing (except kill Stannis in a one minute segment) and Davos made this face which haunts me at night:

http://imgur.com/mRGFj3M

Conclusion

I know there are some characters I haven’t mentioned here but I’m only really mentioning the ones I noticed the most or felt most strongly about. I’m still going to watch the show; I’m not deterred by one off season when we’ve already had 4 absolutely fantastic ones. It is worth noting though that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will not be attending the Game of Thrones panel at this year’s Comic-Con as they have done every previous year, I suppose they have anticipated that there would be some backlash from fans and I appreciate that they don’t really want to spend an hour justifying why they made changes to the book but it would be good to hear their philosophy behind some of the major changes, perhaps this would make it easier for fans to understand why the changes have been made rather than just a general “we cut it because we didn’t have enough time”. The creative decisions behind changing/cutting each plotline would have been both interesting and would have helped me appreciated the changes more I feel.

If you haven’t read the books, you definitely should. They’re extremely well written and I’m glad I read them after I started watching the show as it gave me a deeper understanding of the characters I’d already come to enjoy on screen for example Jon Snow’s chapters are more interesting than his TV arc because a lot of his emotion and the thoughts behind his actions are internalised.

If you read this far, thanks very much for reading the whole thing!

Here’s a picture of Jorah the Explorer’s new rap album.

http://i.imgur.com/6ILUVYQ.jpg

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itscooltobefanficy · 7 years

Text

Feeling Alive- Part 13

Summary: Dance school!AU (or the Step Up/Pride and Prejudice mash up nobody asked for). Bucky Barnes is forced to take twelve hours of commercial dance classes to pass the year- and that just happens to be your regular weekly dance class.

Introduction

Part 1 (Slow Hands)

Part 2 (Stay)

Part 3 (There Will Come a Time)

Part 4 (Weapon of Choice)

Part 5 (Came Here For Love)

Part 6 (Where the Sky Hangs)

Part 7 (When Can I See You Again?)

Part 8 (Manhattan)

Part 9 (Skip To The Good Bit)

Part 10 (Poison & Wine)

Part 11 (Clean)

Part 12 (Where To Start)

Second Chances

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader

Chapter 14/17: Second Chances

Word count: 2829

Warnings: Maybe a bit of swearing? Idk guys I’m so tired

OK... First things first THANK! YOU! ALL! In my head I refer to you all as The Ace Gang because you are all ace and I enjoy making references to British teen literature but the main thing to take from that is that you are ACE. And WONDERFUL. And AMAZING. And I’m running out of superlatives, so have a heart <333 Second things second... IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (nuh nuh nuuh nuh). This chapter, one sort of chapter that’s barely long enough to count but doesn’t fit anywhere else, then the final 4k plus monster (I haven’t actually finished writing it yet but nm) and then the epilogue!!! Third things third I have (with little fanfare) opened requests. So if that’s a thing you’re interested in you know where to find me. OK. That’s everything. Let’s go.

“You took him back?!”

You look sternly at Wanda. “No. I just… I couldn’t throw it away completely. But I’m taking things even slower than before. We’re not even texting.”

It’s true. You’d been walked back to your flat last night by Sam (singing loudly) and Nat (singing even louder), leaving Bucky to deal with Steve. Judging by the glower on Bucky’s face, that had not been set to be a fun conversation. Regardless, this morning you still have nothing more to say to him. This second chance is a tentative, cautious thing- walking across thin, fracturing ice, or leaning out over a precipice with nothing but the wind to hold you back- and your instinct is to withdraw.

Wanda appraises you over the rim of her mug. “You really like this guy.”

“I really liked this guy,” You clarify. “But now…”

A phone trills, and Wanda grimaces as you deal with the squirming mass of emotion in your stomach.

“Sorry, Y/N, do you mind if I take this?”

You wave her ahead, and she lifts the phone to her ear.

“Hey, Leo, what’s up?”

You raise an eyebrow. Leo is your current partner in the Advanced class: loud, cheerful and with a good sense of humour, he’s been the perfect antidote to the past few weeks. OK, he’s not as good as Wanda- but to make the troupe even, she needs to take on the follow role for the competition. The lady herself shoots you a don’t ask me look as she listens to Leo down the phone. Then, in an instant, her expression clouds over.

“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that, Leo. Are you sure-? OK. OK, thanks for letting me know. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you. Alright, bye.” She ends the call, then gives a dramatic groan. You don’t even have to say anything; she sighs and begins to explain.

“Leo’s datemate has just been made redundant. He’s moving down there for a couple of weeks, just while they get back on their feet, but it’s a four-hour drive from here. He called to say he’s dropping out of the competition.” Wanda’s mouth twists, and you frown in sympathy.

“Damn. Can’t you ask Pietro?” Wanda’s brother might not class himself as a dancer, but his natural athleticism and years of exposure to his sister’s training have made him more than capable of picking up routines, and he’s stepped in more than once to fill up the troupe. Wanda, however, shakes her head.

“He’s got a triathlon that day.” She buries her head in her hands. Her voice is muffled and furious. “I’m doomed. We’re going to lose to Vision before we even start.”

You try not to smirk at her mention of Luiz (who happens to be hosting the afterparty, and if you can’t engineer a situation that ends in the two of them dating you will be forced to admit defeat and eat your leggings), and instead try to think of a solution. Wanda’s right- you can’t perform the routine with one lead down. The dynamics, the symmetry, the impact would all be lost. You need… Someone to step in.

Someone who has experience.

Someone who understands how the troupe operates.

Someone who’s even practiced some of the routine before.

It’s your turn to groan.

“Hm?” Wanda lifts her head as you reach for your phone.

“Don’t thank me yet,” You mutter.

Y: Nat, can you send me Bucky’s number?

Wanda’s eyes go very wide (reading your screen, rude). “You’re not.”

“You need another lead,” You say, tightly. “And I happen to know of one.”

Before Wanda can retort, your phone chimes.

N: You deleted his number wow

N: good for you

N: Here it is

The contact is attached to the last message.

Y: Did he kill Steve?

N: nah

N: their friendship is too weird for that

N: now fuck off I’m too hungover for your relationship crisis

You snort.

Y: Yes ma’am

Then, before you can lose your nerve, you tap the contact she sent you and hit call. Your stomach twists and rolls as you lift your phone to your ear.

“Y/N?” Bucky sounds… rough. You hate how the gravel in his voice sends a flush crawling to your cheeks. “You OK?”

Something clenches in your heart. He thinks the only reason you’d call him is if you were in trouble, if you absolutely had to; how far away you are from the easy, wonderful familiarity you used to share.

Mind you, he’s not wrong.

“Hey,” You say, then have no idea how to continue. “Um. Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” The rhythms of teasing one another come back to you slowly. “You know. You sound like you’ve been gargling granite or something.”

Bucky’s laughter sounds surprised, as though he hadn’t expected you to joke. To be fair, neither had you. “Ah, the party may have got a little out of hand.”

“Nat did mention something to that effect.”

“Nat?”

Internally, you curse. You’ve fallen into that one. Swallowing, you press on. “Yeah. I had to ask her for your number.”

There’s a momentary silence. The reminder of all the broken, hateful things you said last night is thrown into sharp relief in your mind, and you hover, uncertain how to find your way back to safe ground.

“Right.” Bucky’s voice sounds forced, but at least he’s brave enough to say something. “I don’t think she’s feeling too good this morning.”

You snort, relieved. “No. Anyway,” You muster your courage, “I actually called you to ask for a favour.”

There’s another pause. You cringe, waiting for Bucky to tell you that it’s a bit early for that, or even that it’s verging on hypocritical to ask for his help now-

“Anything. Anything within reason.” His addition is no hasty backtrack; it’s slow, reasoned. Automatic. Your heart swoops, even as your eyes widen in shock.

“Um. Thank you,” You manage. “There’s no fire involved, or parachuting, I promise.”

“Knives?” Bucky’s tone is now wry, and you laugh.

“No knives.”

“That’s within reason,” He replies, and you can feel your shoulders slump in relief. “Now, what actually is this favour?”

You take a deep breath. “The thing is… Wanda needs another dancer. Another lead. For our competition next weekend. Somebody’s had to drop out, and I wouldn’t have asked you if there was any other way- I know you’re busy, and-”

“Hey. Y/N?” You stop midsentence. Bucky sounds, if anything, amused. “It’s OK. I’ll do it.”

“You will? I mean,” You swiftly change tack, not wanting to be any ruder than you already have been, “Thank you.”

“Like I said, it’s OK. When’s the next rehearsal?”

You check your watch and grimace. “In about half an hour.”

A complaint would be reasonable, but Bucky merely says, “OK. See you there,” And hangs up.

You manage to avoid looking at Wanda for approximately ten seconds before she pokes you, hard, in the arm.

“So?!”

You wince, then glare at her. “This still may be the most terrible idea I’ve ever had.”

Wanda tilts her head to one side, a small smile playing around her mouth. “We’ll see. We shall see.”

You’ve noticed over the years that when you get nervous, you forget how to just be. Your attention snags on silly details: how you’re standing, where you’re looking, whether or not you’re frowning. And, waiting for Bucky to arrive at Scarlet Studios, you’re more nervous than you can remember being in a long time.

Pepper lays a calming hand on your shoulder. “Don’t fret. He’ll be here.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” You hiss, and tug absentmindedly at your t-shirt.

“I can still punch him.” Clint isn’t smiling; it’s not a joke. Sighing, you shake your head. Clint had been the least convinced that Bucky should even be allowed in the same building as you, never mind crashing your practice. That’s not to say that a small part of you wouldn’t like Clint to punch him. It’s just that-

The door swings open, and Bucky slides inside.

All of your insides seem to drop through the floor. His hair looks wet: he probably got up and got straight in the shower after you’d called him. Just watching the way he moves sends sparks crackling up your throat.

“What do I say?” You spin around, panicking, and Pepper now gives you a gentle shove.

“It doesn’t matter.” She smiles encouragingly. Clint looks over at Bucky and snorts.

“You could read him your grocery list and he’d listen happily,” He mutters, and you glare.

“Not. Helpful.”

“Y/N?”

You whip back around. Bucky’s right there, expression cautious, hand resting on the strap of his bag.

“Hey,” You say, emotions fighting for control of your voice. Then a thought occurs to you, and you take a step forward. “I can’t believe I haven’t asked you this yet, but did you get in? Did they take you?”

His face undergoes a beautiful transformation, melting into relief, into hopefulness. Your heart squeezes.

“Yeah. Yeah, they did.”

A smile fights its way out across your mouth. You can’t go closer, not yet- but you can be happy for him. “Well done. I- I really mean it.”

Bucky’s eyes become unbearably soft. “Thank you.”

Then, thank God, Wanda claps her hands. “Get over here, you lot! Does it look like I don’t have better things to do?”

“We know you don’t,” Clint yells, and she gives him the finger in return- but everyone jogs over to her.

“Listen up, we’ve had a last minute change for the competition at Vision Studios next week! Everyone, you remember James?” You look to your left and find him standing to one side, looking a little awkward. It’s jarring to hear his name after so long: like it’s a reminder of those first, tentative steps you took towards friendship. You hastily look back at Wanda. “Unfortunately, Leo can no longer make the competition, so James will be taking his spot. I expect you all to help him out so that we can kick ass!”

“Understood,” You mutter, and Wanda shoots you a grin.

“Alright! To make it a little easier on you, James, we’ll go over the routines you’ve already learned: Stay, Weapon of Choice and So Good. I’ll help you all out with the transitions. Move it!”

“Start off in three lines,” You say out of the corner of your mouth, as the others automatically file into position, “Over here.” The two of you walk to your mark, halfway down the middle row. “How much can you remember?”

Bucky’s shoulders visibly relax. “I might struggle with a lot of things,” He smirks, “But remembering routines isn’t one of them.”

You roll your eyes, then crouch down into your starting pose. “OK, genius, whatever you say.” And before he can retort, the music starts.

He’s not wrong. Not once does he stumble, or wobble, or lag behind the beat. It’s almost unfair how easy he makes it look. You go through the motions almost carelessly in comparison; being thrown back together so suddenly has made you feel awkward, verging on clumsy. You make are no mistakes, but every time the routine forces you into Bucky’s personal space, you have to keep yourself from leaning back.

Still, you make it to the end of the rehearsal. When you can finally step away and put a little distance between yourself and Bucky, you feel a tangible wave of relief. You hadn’t realised how much still lay between you, despite your conversation last night. When you finally catch a glimpse of his expression, however, the disappointment in it makes your stomach drop a few inches.

“Bucky,” You say, impulsively, “Do you want to go get a coffee?”

He turns to look at you. “Now?”

All of a sudden, it seems like a stupid idea. “Sorry. I know you’re busy, and I dragged you out here in the first place-”

“No.” He cuts you off, his face suddenly hopeful. “No, coffee would be great.”

You catch Clint signing something over Bucky’s shoulder, and have to employ a great deal of effort refraining from rolling your eyes. Told you so.

Then you remember to smile. “OK. I’ll- um-”

“Stretch? Don’t tell me you’ve been slacking.” Something seems to have eased in Bucky’s face, and his teasing is comfortable, gentle. You really do roll your eyes this time.

“Fine.” Things aren’t quite relaxed enough to joke about whether you really should have invited him to practice, so you decide to drop gracelessly to the floor and start stretching. Truth be told, you have been stretching- but only because Wanda threatened to string you up above the studio door if you stopped. When you tell Bucky as much, he laughs. It’s the first time you’ve heard him laugh properly since everything fell apart: it’s equal parts intoxicating and devastating.

Ten minutes later, the two of you wander into a coffee shop down the road and snag a small table by the window. Being in such close (and, more specifically, date-like) proximity has the immediate effect of stifling all your conversational powers. You nervously push the wooden stirrer around your mug and chew your lower lip.

“So?”

You look up and find Bucky watching you. Unsure, you shrug. “So?”

His mouth twitches. “So.”

Leaning forwards, you blow on your drink. “So.”

“So.”

A snicker bursts out of you. “Look, we can’t substitute the word so for an actual conversation.”

The raised eyebrow. Idly, you reflect that the raised eyebrow will probably be the death of you.

“Can’t we?”

“No.” You try to sound firm. “Because I said so.”

“Because you said so.” His words dissolve into a smile, and you grin despite yourself.

“You’re…” You trail off. The fear of saying something hurtful blocks your throat. Your noble intentions mean fuck all to me…

“Y/N?” Bucky’s voice is light, but a serious undercurrent tugs at his words. “You can still insult me, you know. I feel like that’s a key component of our relationship.”

“God. That sounds awful.” You speak without thinking, then wince. ”I didn’t mean-” You take a deep breath. Now is probably the moment. “I just- I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

“Thanks. But- I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

You stare at him. It’s his turn to shrug. “I fucked up.”

“I mean- yeah. But, so did I.” Your thoughts have been clarifying over the past hour, and now you’re ready to explain. “I completely cut you off after the worst day of your life.” Bucky looks like he’s going to interrupt, but you shake your head and carry on. “OK, you started it. But I automatically assumed that you’d bailed on me.”

“Which I had-”

“But if I’d called you, five days or a week or whenever, would you have picked up?”

Bucky stares at you for a moment. Then he deflates.

“I… I don’t know. Probably. Even in the back of my mind, at that party, I wondered if you might be there. If I might run into you.”

You snort. “You did more than that.”

His grin is wry. “True.”

“Anyway, the point is that I overreacted. You overreacted. I guess I was already worried that you were going to drop me when you got signed-” The confession is out of your mouth before you can stop it, and Bucky stares at you with the exact kicked-puppy expression you’d hoped to avoid.

“Wait, what?”

You grimace, helplessly. “When you got signed by a company. I figured you’d… Move on.”

To your relief, Bucky’s expression of concern fades into one of exasperation. “Of course not.” He gives a little laugh. “You really thought that?”

“Yep.” You feel yourself relaxing, and your voice loosens up as your breathing comes easier. “And this is what I mean! If I’d just talked to you about it-”

“No, no I should have realised-”

“No, you shouldn’t.” You say it with a fair amount of force, and Bucky draws up short. “You’re not a mind-reader. Neither am I. We just… We should just talk. I think that’s what this whole spiel has been about.”

You take a large sip of your drink and stare hurriedly out of the window. The conviction in your voice surprised even you. Bucky, however, is looking at you like you’ve just discovered sliced bread.

“You’re serious?” His question is slow, like he can’t really believe it. “You’re prepared to give this another shot?”

You tilt your head, chewing your lower lip. “I… didn’t say that. But I don’t want you to feel like you have to accept all the blame.”

And yeah, another shot isn’t off the cards. But saying that feels like too great a leap of faith, so you stay silent as Bucky nods his understanding.

“OK.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then he smirks. “So…”

You don’t even hesitate before leaning over and hitting him with a napkin.

AN: We did it!!! We’re on the road to the finish line. I would like to take this usual opportunity to thank you all- The Ace Gang, you are the best- and @systemfailuresunshine who I am missing a great deal thanks to stupid time zones. She is, as I have said many times, the reason this exists. Now, don’t hold me to this, but I will *try* to post a chapter a day until we’re done. I will try. I send you all of the love and hugs.

Tag List: @learisa; @vintagesaph; @debzybrazy; @madeofstarsdust; @beingcrushedbysociety; @plumsforbuck2016; @buckybabybaby; @seb-styles; @youtube-obsessed-duh; @casdoesntunderstandthatreference; @sunnycolors; @imthemishamigo; @themarvelousmaximoffs; @blonde0n; @smaug-the-homedog; @gabby913; @sexyashmike; @fuckinxqueenx; @velociraptorinae; @frnkensteingrl; @tattooideasforthefuture; @inlovewithnovels; @ipaintmelodies; @whimsicaldreaming; @olicia-leeshy; @xxamix; @xxblackteabinchxx; @v-ickie; @imnegativetillbepositive; @lilythelionflower; @witchinghour24; @hollycornish; @lucyvaughan-omg-; @thel0stpr1ncess; @kur0k1tsun3-blog; @siobhanrebecca; @thighs0fbetrayal; @ur-an-indiana-boy-sonny; @fungk17; @da363; @sorryidontspeakgrounder-world; @burtheimperium; @fandom-writes; @farawell; @dorisagent101; @ghostwriterfanfics; @avengers–marvel; @the-creative-lie; @ms-brown10; @blackcoffeeandgreenteaforme; @marvelsavengersforever1227; @winchesterforever12; @stomachfilledwithbutterflies; @fictionwillneverdie; @basicwhiskeyprincesss; @tortadigranchio; @supikasia; @moonandstars-xo; @greengrassdiaries; @jiminera; @irreplaceablevogue; @jechloandhyde; @damagelove; @schaart; @satansknittingclub; @scentedcoffeefire; @brooke-supernatural16; @sarahmichelle5; @dreeams-unwind; @damnbuckyishot; @thestuffyouwant; @obliviousheaven; @moist-bread1234; @josiecarlton; @give-me-a-million-dollars-pls; @imyessieakiyama; @brooklyn-to-battlefields; @apolleo; @jadedomega; @marvelrevival; @artistic22dragon; @emolordisme; @butcanipetyourdog; @flowerbunbunny

Part 14

#bucky x reader #bucky imagine #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x reader #I wrote a thing #Feeling Alive #Feeling Alive Part Thirteen #This monster has a finish line #I just had a quick add up #And this has already run to over 30k #30000 words!!#Why did I do this #But also I'm so glad I did #Because I got to meet you lot #Definitely worth it

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