#how to tell idols to look into cognitive functions

[bbanghiitomi]

BORROWED TIME

pairing: idol!khaerin x nj6thmem!fem!reader

trope: first love! angst with comfort! eventual fluff!

haerin sighed for the thousandth time, she realized just how tiring it was to keep sighing - ridiculous, haerin thought as she stared at herself at the mirror. how weird has this day been? she doesn't know, it's always been weird ever since y/n came back from the hospital, the doctors said she was fine, the blow she got on her head when she had an accident during one of their intensive trainings didn't physically damage her. to haerin, it was kind of hard to believe, how could such a huge blow not do any damage? it had to hurt so much, right?

oh well, y/n's charts that her physician provided didn't seem to show any anomalies...

she told herself not to think too much about it, but that's what haerin does best. she can't stop thinking about y/n, she stayed at the hospital for almost 3 months, hell, it was the worst accident that ever happened to their group; haerin remembered how terrible that night was, everyone was crying and worried sick, y/n fell on the floor and hit her head pretty hard on the ground.

but she survived, haerin hated to say this but it was even a miracle y/n survived, the blow was so hard that it could have shaken her brain and damaged it but her charts didn't show any problem in her brain.

till now, she seemed fine.

maybe she knew y/n more than anyone else but, it doesn't stop bothering her, even tonight.

"excuse me." y/n's voice echoed inside the bathroom, she walked her way towards the sink and stood beside haerin to brush her teeth, haerin stared at the girl and watched as the girl brushed her teeth.

"hey, today's the start of our filming... there's nothing wrong that can happen, right?" this has been occurring in the past few weeks since y/n came back from the hospital, haerin was glad for her to be back but it felt different.

y/n can't seem to recognize haerin's voice, she was functioning like an idol, she can dance to beat, hit the right notes, and act like her usual self but the least y/n thing to do is not respond immediately to what haerin was telling her, it felt weird.

y/n turned around to look at haerin and gave her a soft smile. "don't worry." just like that, haerin doesn't understand the sudden shift in her responses, she's the same way with the other members.

there were times were y/n took a few seconds to reply to the members, often times it felt like she couldn't recognize who is who.

but how?

haerin has no logical explanation, y/n's condition was beyond words, it was hard to explain, she didn't lose memories no, she could tell her members name, she knows what her life was once before the incident but it felt like a part of y/n was missing, barely holding on.

if haerin was to explain this to people, they'd think she's insane.

y/n left the bathroom and haerin, the girl frowned, damned and confused.

it's not like haerin has the sharpest eyes amongst everyone, literally, the shape of her eyes were sharp, but the way she see things weren't always as accurate as it is. but when she stared at y/n during their shooting, in the house where the light was shining upon y/n's face, she knew she had to get these feelings out soon.

y/n was silent, she turned to haerin and gave haerin a small smile. "it's hot isn't it? i didn't want to go to the convenience store with the others cause i knew you'd stay." y/n is still y/n, her memories are well intact, she knows haerin and everything about her.

maybe it's time for haerin to stop thinking too much.

what was that feeling? haerin blinked her eyes and stared at y/n. "i'm glad you're okay." haerin muttered, y/n nodded.

y/n felt bad, just how long does she need to hide this? she knew haerin was catching up to her, y/n knew how rare her cognitive disorder were from the force she got during the incident; she was scared they'd turn her into a lab rat.

that night, when she opened her eyes again, she could barely tell who was who, she knew her members' names but she couldn't recognize their faces as familiar. now, y/n is scared to close her eyes, because when she does, haerin's face fades away...

that same night, haerin didn't speak while everyone did, y/n couldn't remember what her voices sounded like, even now, whenever she's away from haerin, she can't recognize her voice.

in her three months inside the hospital, it felt like hell, her tactile sense was impaired, her auditory sensory too, and even her visual sensory was beyond repair; somehow y/n knew it was hard to explain her condition.

but there was hope, obviously, she really wasn't all that crippled, to y/n, it was just a side effect, yet it's hard to deal with but it was the best outcome out of all. who knows? if she wasn't lucky enough to survive that accident, she would've been dead by now.

yet, she is alive. y/n has to accept that she will live her upcoming years dealing with the anguish that her condition will bring her, it was hard to keep hiding but it was for the best.

y/n looked at haerin. "i promise, i'll always be okay." haerin looked down, it had to be the truth, right? perhaps, their perspective on that promise were different, y/n can only guarantee that everything haerin saw in her was okay, but haerin wanted to know deeper.

the girls came back with snacks, a cold soda, and some breads. y/n turned her head away as hanni cheered, y/n can't tell who was that, every now and then, she kept forgetting the girls' facial features, except for their hair and clothes.

hanni has a short hair in this filming, so it was easy to distinguish her from everyone else, the same with danielle with her curly hair.

y/n is only happy she picks up on it quickly without them noticing.

one day, she'll have to stop playing pretend and come in terms with her reality.

"you want bread?" hanni asked y/n, to which she nodded and smiled. "of course." she beamed at hanni and grabbed the bread.

ah, y/n couldn't tell if this bread was heavy or not.

"it's so soft!" danielle smiled, haerin watched y/n as she looked over the members with a smile. yeah, haerin hated herself for always thinking twice.

both her and y/n needed to make up their mind, find a place where they want their minds to reside, they can't keep going off anywhere.

y/n can't tell what texture this bread had, is it smooth or rough? soft or tough?

her disorder limited her performance in identifying most objects.

the whole filming felt natural, well, it was a tough job but overall, y/n managed to keep up quite well. she was happy to be given this chance to continue with newjeans, she promised herself nothing was limiting her from doing something she loved and being with the people she cares for.

ah, it was another one of those nights again when y/n is in her bed and crying; she can't feel her face, it's been numb and tired.

why does she feel like this?

it's horrible...

why can't she just be honest with what she feels? why does she have to suffer?

it's scary, she can't recognize haerin's voice, her members' face were out of the picture. once again, even for only a short amount of time, they felt like strangers to her.

she needed help and if she can't get it, her cognitive disorder will destroy her whole being, something worse than a nightmare, is her confusion, a poison was the truth.

there's no certain cure for agnosia, maybe it was a bad idea for her to surf the internet for an answer, it must be just anxiety, yeah - she's probably just worrying too much.

y/n sighed, the truth was a pill she couldn't swallow, necessary but felt like a punch on the gut, denial was her only answer, tonight, she wants to still her resolve to face her contests.

haerin heard faint sobbing as she leaned her ears on the door, she sighed, it's one of those nights again. haerin wanted to know what was putting y/n into these kinds of situations, crying herself to sleep until the time burns out and she's left to keeping herself awake till the next day.

haerin knows y/n and her have a connection only they can understand, it was some kind of feelings that both they shared and individually had. something that's hurting y/n is hurting haerin too. haerin knocked on the door. "y/n? are you okay? this is haerin."

y/n rose from her bed and wiped her tears, it's haerin, she knew only because haerin revealed herself.

"come in..." y/n faint voice made haerin's heart skip a beat.

when haerin opened the door, she caught a glimpse of y/n's back, haerin curled her brows but only for a few seconds as she gathered her courage.

"i could hear your sobs you know? what's bothering you?" there was no point with hiding, y/n looked at haerin, the swollen eyes caught the cat-like girl off guard, she sighed and sat on the other edge of the bed, their backs facing each other.

"a lot..." y/n muttered, haerin nodded.

"i guessed it, want to share it?" haerin's offer sounded tempting at the moment, y/n felt like it made sense if she finally came to agreement about what she felt, she'd be able to understand haerin more and get the heavy feelings off of her chest.

"it feels a little heavy for me to share... but i guessed it's you so..." y/n shifts her posture as she turned a bit to face haerin's back, she had a small sheepish smile, haerin chuckled; from what she remembered, the heaviest for her was having to see y/n at the hospital, it made her hate the emptiness of every corridor, the heaviness of her heart weighing all the worries she carried for y/n.

the comfort the practice room once gave her was gone, all that was left is fear of something worse as she await y/n's return.

"i can take it." haerin stated.

"i'm consulting a doctor, again." haerin finally turned her head, both of their backs facing each other but their eyes were on one another. haerin raised her eyebrows. "like your weekly checkups with the physician?" well it was something everyone knew was a part if y/n's new routine.

"why? you don't wanna go there anymore?" haerin asked again.

y/n shook her head as she took a heavy breath. "no," she paused, it was for the best, if she stopped consulting her physician, one thing could go wrong and it's over but she needed more help.

"i... i'll try reaching out to psychiatrists..." haerin looked at y/n, surprised, it was out of pocket.

"why..?" haerin was rather afraid to ask but she wanted to know. y/n shook her head and sighed. "that i'm still trying to look for an answer myself, i felt the need to reach out to a psychiatrist but i can only get the answer why i got the urge if i can hear them out." y/n answered, it was know haerin's turn to shake her head.

"no, there's definitely something wrong." the past was their playful banter, y/n remembers those memories with haerin but all with a distorted image of haerin's face and an almost empty sound of her voice.

even the touch of haerin's palm was unrecognizable to y/n.

that was her problem. "it's hard to explain." y/n said.

haerin frowned and looked down. "are you going to be okay?" like a sad kitten, haerin asked as she looked at y/n. y/n gave her a nod. "of course."

agnosia...

prosopagnosia, the disorder that affects her ability to recognize familiar faces.

phonagnosia, inability to recognize familiar voices, and ahylognosia, the disorder that hinders the identification of textures and materials.

the psychiatrist couldn't give her a proper answer to a cure, even he looked unsure; it brought y/n's hopes down. he could only say that time can help y/n re-develop these skills, it was a side effect of the trauma her head caught during her accident.

"give it at least three or more months. it should be advisable to stay with friends, families, or loved ones, that's the only thing you should really worry about, it doesn't get worse over time as long as you keep great contact with familiar people in your life."

that's what he said.

though, there isn't an instant cure, y/n held on to what her psychiatrist said, he'll keep in touch and check up on her every now and then, maybe that'll help.

as y/n was heading home, she kept listening to their own songs, familiarize... and remember...

watching music videos was her answer, since she gets to call her family all the time she needed to, y/n's main focus is once again recognizing her members.

when she got home, haerin noticed this.

"hey, you've been watching a lot of our music videos." she pointed out, y/n looked up at haerin, just a bit more, she told herself.

"yeah, i like our songs." it was true but in this situation it wasn't.

"how did your consultation went?" haerin asked, not taking no more risk to lose the chances. the members were gone except for the two girls. "it went as expected." y/n answered.

haerin looked down at y/n who sat down at her chair and haerin scratched her cheek. "i hate beating around the bush, can you tell me what you got? i promise i'll keep it." y/n appreciates haerin's honesty but it was hard to say something that took her a lot to understand.

y/n stood up from her seat and shook her head at haerin. "maybe the right time will come, i have something i want to say more now that that." y/n faced haerin and sighed as she let out a sheepish laugh.

haerin blushed as the gap between them got smaller, she really isn't good about these things unless they're playful, definitely not when it's y/n. "what is it?" maybe she shouldn't push the psychiatrist topic so much; it worried haerin yes, but it didn't seem right to y/n, it wasn't her choice.

"do you like me?" it was such a short question but haerin was taken back as she pointed to herself, she's got her tongue tied as she looked away with a soft blush.

"what's that suddenly about?" haerin asked as she looked at y/n again, y/n smiled and shook her head. "nothing, anyway i'll just get something from minji's room." y/n shrugged and haerin saw y/n walked past her and haerin reached over to y/n's shoulder. "wait!"

y/n turned around and looked at haerin as the cat-like girl took a heavy breathe. "i, i have something to say. promise we'll stay the same?" haerin's face looked delicate, to y/n's eyes, her expression were cute. "of course." she said.

"hm, i like you yeah. but why would u ask?" haerin looked at y/n before scratching her cheek. y/n stared at haerin and smiled, she shrugged and looked away for only a few seconds. "well, if i were to be honest it makes things easier for me. you know? just watch over me okay? i'll eventually get better in no time." y/n said as she beamed at haerin, haerin nodded, a soft blush covering her cheeks.

"well, as long as you tell me about what you feel." haerin shrugged, her breath feels short, must have been her heart beating too much. y/n looked down and nodded. "i promise to be transparent." y/n muttered as she leaned her head on haerin's shoulder.

y/n rubbed her face on the soft fabric of haerin's clothes, the cat-like girl's smell wafted around her, the smell of the fresh fabric conditioner. she's afraid if she closes her eyes her mind would be in a blur.

haerin looked at y/n, she awkwardly stayed still.

"i'm sorry," y/n sighed. "i can't really find a way to communicate what i'm going through, not to you, not to the members." haerin nodded.

"it is harder for you than everyone else..." haerin muttered.

"everyone will find out sooner anyway, i don't have to hide forever." y/n smiled as she she felt haerin's arms around her.

a future with everyone, that's what y/n wanted, though hard to put into imagination, she wishes that once all is over, she'll still be with haerin.

"it's okay, i won't let them force you if you don't want to." haerin knew she sounded silly, it was something tough and brave for her to say but it was true, she'd be willing to speak up if it was for y/n's betterment.

y/n chuckled and nodded. "i trust you." she whispered.

y/n doesn't want to close her eyes, she wants to know that she's with haerin, that when haerin speaks, her eyes could see her presence, she wanted more than to feel, it was out of her capabilities as her cognitive disorder limited her to be able to do such things;

if she closes her eyes, she wouldn't know it's haerin speaking, she wouldn't certainly be able to imagine the familiarity of haerin's face.

maybe just now, but in the future anything could change - hopefully.

haerin had to shake her mind off of y/n's secrets, not everything has to have her in the picture and she understood it.

haerin and y/n both hopes for something better to come, maybe tomorrow it will change, maybe not - maybe it'll only take a couple of days or if not, weeks, months or even a year or two. it's hard to try and live in the future if the present needed to be change; no one certainly knew what would happen.

but in this present, y/n only needed her family, friends, and haerin. through what limited her capabilities, it's not enough to put y/n to a full stop and not enough for haerin to keep caring for the girl.

as they stood in the middle of y/n's room, haerin's hug starts to feel tighter, without y/n noticing it.

"i love you." haerin thought, well, she didn't have enough courage to say it.

sighing, haerin carefully puts a hand on top of y/n's head and gently caressed y/n's hair. for a brief moment or more, it felt like home.

[p5x-theories]

Oracle in P5X

(last updated 10/17/24!)

Futaba Sakura is primarily present as a Phantom Idol, or cognitive teammate. She has not yet made any appearance in the main story, outside of her lines during the Sae Palace escape intro cutscene.

In the P5 Collab's Pyramid chapter, Oracle is first seen calling for help, fleeing from a shadow. At first, she mostly hides from Wonder's team, but after seeing they're also Persona users, she helps them out as they fight the shadow that was chasing her. While still uncertain about the group, she latches onto Wind (both as a fellow navigator and because she looks like a responsible bishoujo). Once they find Queen and Fox outside the entrance to the pyramid, she opens up a bit, though she still tends to stick closer to Wind.

They later reunite with Skull and Panther, but Oracle begins to complain their group is too big now. However, she later musters the courage to admit this location is based on her own Palace, despite Queen, Fox, Panther, and Skull trying to avoid telling the other group about that. She credits the Phantom Thieves for helping her, and says she's doing much better now. She and Wind also further bond over having repressed themselves (in Oracle's case, blaming herself for Wakaba's murder), and how their friends helped snap them out of this mindset.

Oracle is also the one to bring up the three poisons, from Buddhism, in relation to the animals in murals they see throughout the pyramid.

Later, facing Moha, she's angry to have to face the sphinx again, though she doesn't struggle to do so. Oracle notably manages to hack in a ballista to use against Moha, much like in the original sphinx fight. Alongside the others, Oracle is abducted up to the space station shortly after the sphinx's defeat.

Futaba can also be found in Leblanc in the real world, which Wonder is for some reason capable of crossing worlds to visit. She won’t appear until Wonder has met her in the Pyramid Chapter, but while she's nervous to meet him, she mentions she's been wanting to "forever" (presumably since first hearing her friends talk about him).

Oracle's Persona Necronomicon functions as a navigator. As seen in her previous appearances, Oracle sits within Necronomicon while navigating.

Necronomicon is an Elucidation Persona, the designation used for navigators, and her trait gives her "Analysis Progress" whenever a Persona skill is used by a teammate, gaining additional Analysis Progress whenever a weakness is hit. When "Hacking Complete" occurs, it buffs all teammates' damage for two rounds.

Her first support skill reduces the defense of all enemies for two rounds based on Oracle's own attack stat (defense is additionally reduced for incoming attacks that the enemy is weak to) and grants the team Hacking Complete if Analysis Progress is at 100% when the skill is used. Her second support skill increases the damage taken by one enemy for two rounds based on Oracle's attack stat, and while this lasts, the amount of Analysis Progress gained is increased; this skill also grants the team Hacking Complete if Analysis Progress is at 100% when it's used. Her third support skill requires Hacking Complete to be active to use, and lasts one round, buffing the attack of one teammate based on Oracle's attack stat, as well as inflicting all enemies with "Disruption Virus", which makes them one stage more vulnerable to that teammate's type (null/absorb/reflect becomes resist, resist becomes normal, and normal becomes weak); If their vulnerability becomes weak, they take 25% more damage from that weakness.

Her passive skills buff all teammates' stats based on Oracle's stats, allow her to start every battle at 100% Analysis Progress, and make it so that Hacking Complete also grants all teammates a shield based on Oracle's attack stat for three rounds.

While she doesn’t strictly have a melee or ranged weapon as a navigator, P5X does have tools that the navigators use for their abilities, also obtained through the weapon gacha, and hers are laptops.

Her recommended card sets are 1) 3 of Coins (Works) + King of Coins (Determination), 2) 4 of Coins (Power) + Page of Coins (Growth).

The game has no particular recommended teams for her at the moment.

[rainymbti-moved]

The Issue with 16personalities

A brief explanation on why 16personalities is unreliable

[ladykailolu]

I suppose I owe you a proper introduction to my Part 7 OC

Marcella von Meringue

or M&M

M&M is a 22-year-old racer

She has crippling narcolepsy and is almost always drowsy.

She seems rather soft and pathetic since she can't stop falling asleep and seems airheaded and dense.

Eventually, Juju and Jojo add her to their gang

Why you may be asking? well, the fact that they're cock assholes is actually part of the reason why

Gyro basically tells her that she's so pathetic that when he wins the race he's gonna feel bad about beating her, and he doesn't want to, so he's gonna help her so he doesn't feel guilty.

Johnny goes on about how he had no one there for him when he was first crippled, and see as she is more pathetic than he was, He might as well help her.

She basically goes along with them. She's rather nice but she can go from 0-100 really quickly.

Note: You don't ACTUALLY have to worry about her ruining the ship in her main story

She forms a sort of sibling-like bond with them in that one. She sees Johnny as her sort of bestie and treats Gyro like an older brother. (she never had older siblings) [Also Juju has a meaningful relationship with a woman]

As time goes on it's revealed she's really not as dense as she seems, which creates emotional conflict as Juju and Jojo start to feel bad as she lokey admits people calling her pathetic hurts her feeling.

Jojo and M&M kind of bond over shared trauma cause they're crippled orphans {M&M's parents died when she was lil}

Juju kind of teaches M&M to stand up for herself and be less of a pushover. She kind of starts idolizing him.

It's rather sweet.

So yeah M&M is great (please excuse my petty misuse of her but that's the only viable part 7 OC I had)

You will love her (or there will be consequences)

I love that. Right off the bat, "we're gonna take you in not because you're good or anything but because we pity you and without us you'd die alone in the woods somewhere and be eaten by the critters" like, thanks guys, I appreciate that a lot! So much!!!11!!1!1 :)))))))

((and I love how you put that Juju has a meaningful relationship with a woman in there like I wouldn't notice lmao jkjkjk we're not fighting over that too))

I like to imagine that in the end, Juju and JoJo treat her more of an equal (or at least like a little sibling, I mean come on fellas, she can keep UP with you!!!)

And I also like to imagine that M&M survived both Johnny and Gyro and lived a long life to tell their story to generations after them. In fact, I always liked to imagine that. She lives to be an elderly woman in her 80s or 90s who admittedly is losing some of her memory and other cognitive functions, but she remembers! Johnny and Gyro, she remembers. Well, she remembers what they looked like and what they did during the SBR race. Their names, however, slipped from her mind unless she reads an old newspaper describing the racers.

And occasionally, she goes to visit their graves and lay down a few flowers for them.

[rosenpacht]

Type Guess: Taeyong

Here’s the thing, I’m always hesitant to type a member that hasn’t revealed his type just yet, or hasn’t taken the test. Because I could be wrong and I would make myself look like an idiot lol. BUT. Since some of you guys asked for this guy, and because I’ve kinda been analyzing him for quite some time now, I decided to guess his type. Keyword guess here. I could be wrong, though.

But hey, this is all just for fun, alright!?

Now let’s begin.

I first stumble upon this type when I was doing my post about NCT Life in Chiang Mai. Honestly I don’t remember how I’ve come to the conclusion that I think Taeyong is an ISxP but I did. And ever since then, I kinda dive deep into those types (ISTP and ISFP). What stood out to me the most is that these two types are the most artistic of all the artisans type (xSxP). And we can all see how very much artistic Taeyong is compared to other members.

Now let’s begin with the cognitive functions of the ISTP

Dominant: Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Auxiliary: Extroverted Sensing (Se)

Tertiary: Introverted Intuition (Ni)

Inferior: Extroverted Feeling (Fe)

Ti as a dominant function is a way to absorb the outer world, bring it inside the mind, and process it inside. Ti user is always keen on learning about things, keep absorbing into their minds, and try to decipher it inside their head to make it more sense to them. The keyword to Ti here is learning.

Se as the secondary function, is an extroverted function so it’s how ISTP kinda produce something to the outer world, or communicate to the outer world. Kind of a way for them to project what’s on their mind into something that can be seen or heard or smelled, something that can be perceived by the five senses.

It is said that TiSe users often has an appreciation and a mastery on fine things. Once they learn something, they wanna do something about it. They wanna produce something or make something that can be perceived by the outer world.

Now I see something like this in Taeyong that isn’t like any other members. Not the dancing, no, not the rapping, not the singing, but his ART. Boy his art. I really reallyyy love what he’s done with his shoes. LIke, if he sells them, even without being known as a famous Kpop star, those shoes would definitely sell out. It’s not necessarily like Van Gogh class of Da Vinci class, but his art product is another class and something that I haven’t seen in other members, except from Ten (whom I also think is either ISTP) and Yuta (whom I think is ESTP), which are another artisans type (types who are known to be always creating something).

Another artisans type that you can easily spot is Jaehyun, obviously his musical talent is undeniable. But what makes me so sure that he’s an artisan is that his drawing is actually good, although not as good as Taeyong’s of Ten’s. Another is I think is Johnny (I think he’s an ESFP). There’s a bunch of reasons why I think Johnny has a huge fat SE function. Though, his hunger for creating isn’t as huge as Taeyong or Ten (from what I’ve seen).

But, we’ll get to Johnny some other time.

Anyways, so I think Taeyong is an ISTP. He is an introvert, but his Se drives him to create things, and from what I understand, Taeyong is always eager to learn new things. You can see from how quickly his English improved during NCT’s tour, and when he was in SuperM’s tour, he was practically one of the long speakers along with Mark and Ten despite being scripted. I mean, yes, he’s an idol so he must learn English too like how they should learn Japanese etc. But the fact that he absorbed it all very quickly, compared to other members, even though he didn’t really have the obligations to do so in SuperM (since he’s not the leader or anything), tells me that he is genuinely keen on learning.

Oh, and another thing is his music making. As I understand, apparently he has shown a couple of unreleased songs that he’s produced. And I bet he’s been making tons of other songs too as of this moment.

So, that’s what I think. I haven’t read that much into the type, and this is like my superficial analysis, and I might just change my opinion once I’ve done like a thorough analysis.

Lemme know if you wanna deep dive into ISTP.

Next, shall we talk about Johnny or Yuta?

[interlude-bib]

BTS’ confirmed MBTI and how it shows in them. pt2

Or how it’s inaccurate.

This one is accurate! :D

BTS confirmed their MBTI during BTS Festa in 2017. This likely being from the Myers Briggs test, it could be accurate or completely inaccurate.

RM - INFP (✔️)

Jin - INTP (!this post!)

Suga - INFP

J-Hope - ESFJ

Jimin - ENFJ

V - ENFP

Jungkook - INFP

I’ll be examining this by analyzing the cognitive functions.

Long post warning.

Jin - INTP

-Introversion, Intuition, thinking, perceiving

-This result shocked a lot of fans, including me. Until I looked into it, at least.

-I was almost certain Jin was an ExTP. Now I agree with the INTP result. (If anything else, there is a chance he could actually be an ISFJ.)

-Many view him as an extrovert because of his energetic and lively behaviors he expresses when on camera.

-But here’s the deal: not all introverts are mute shy robots with no energy or social skills. Honestly, about 95% of introverts do not fit that stereotype.

-Introversion and extroversion is based off of where they get there energy from! Introverts get their energy from time alone, and that energy gets drained more quickly when they socialize. That’s why they don’t go out and do as many things as an extrovert does. With extroverts, it’s vice versa.

-An example: I know two INTPs, both whom I am very very close to.

-One of them is an introverted introvert. She is quiet and reserved when around groups of people. But I strong part of that is the fact she has p bad social anxiety. When(or if) you manage to get to know her, she is super goofy, funny, and expressive. She actually acts similar to Jin, but has a slightly different sense of humor.

-The other INTP is an extroverted introvert. She is introverted, but when she is around people she’s talkative, expressive, funny(istg all INTPs are hilarious), and not hard to get to know.

-I’m an INFP yet I actually sometimes act like an ENTP when socializing. Its only the people I’m very close to that get to see my Fi.

-So what does that mean? Everything depends on the specific person!!!

-Everybody is different in there own unique way. Not everyone is exactly like the stereotype. Not every INTP is just like the next. Everyone’s personality is slightly different!

-That being said, I do think Seokjin is an introvert, but the way he expresses himself to others can appear very extroverted. Introverts can be confident, loud, and funny too, believe it or not!

-So now we have the I vs E thing settled, I’m going to look into the INTP cognitive functions. I would highly recommend googling cognitive functions if you don’t already know about them. It’s super important when it comes to MBTI.

-INTP’s functions are Ti-dom, Ne-aux, Si-tert, and Fe-inf.

-Another thing that made people skeptic Jin is an INTP is the fact that Fe isn’t very dominant in that type. His personality does give off strong Fe vibes and behaviors, but here is why I still think he is an INTP...

-It is possible for an INTP’s Fe to develop. Sure, it’s said that using your type’s inferior function can be mentally unhealthy, but thats only if you use it more than any other function. You can develop you inferior function, as long as the others are developed too and you STILL aren’t using it much more than the others.

-His dominant trait is Ti, introverted thinking. Because he expresses himself so lively and uses mostly his extroverted functions in camera, it was a bit difficult for me to figure out where I could see his Ti.

-the other functions serve the Ti, so I looked at them to help me see his Ti. Even when his Ne and Fe are very noticeable, I see his straightforward, somewhat factual way of speaking. Ti-doms also theorize but always come to a logical conclusion/observation with thoughts, and I can see this with they way he tells stories or jokes, or just overall when he expresses thought. They value accuracy and truth.

-Ti tend to love learning and researching. I don’t know how much Jin does this, but I can’t see into his personal life so we may never know.

-his auxiliary function is Ne, extroverted intuition. I feel like people were skeptic about him being Ne-aux due to the stereotype that they are super imaginative people, constantly expressing crazy and unrealistic dreams and ideas. Sometimes Ne’s are that way, but it often depends on what their dominant introverted function is. Ne “serves” Jin’s Ti, and his Ti is his main/most dominant function so you have to remember that.

-I feel Ne can be where he gets his energetic personality from. He may not be as energetic at home as he is on camera, and his Ti is going to be less apparent on camera. Instead, the Ne will jump out, and with Jin, his developed Fe too.

-Ne’s are known for making awful yet hilarious puns, and we all know Kim Seokjin is the king of puns and stupid jokes!

-I feel that because his Fe is developed, his Ne is a bit watered down. Either way, the Ne-aux in INTP specifically are much less “jump at your face crazy imaginative” or whatever the heck-

-His tertiary function is Si, introverted sensing, but I’m gonna completely skip over that because I don’t think many idols use their tert function outwardly on camera anyway. The tertiary is a “relief” function, so I don’t think Jin’s Si is gonna be seen by us very often.

-Now onto his inferior function: Fe, extroverted feeling.

-As I’ve said, it seems his Fe-inf is developed a good bit, so it shows in him more often than it would in the stereotypical INTP.

-It is known that Fe values interpersonal harmony. They are very selfless and will care for others over their selves. I’m not saying Jin does this 100% since it’s his inferior function, but he often knows how to interact with other idols at award shows in a way that offers win-win situations, or very occasionally win-lose, and he is the one losing. Selflessness, lol.

-He can be very talkative, lively, cringily funny and goofy with the boys(Ne), but also smart, logical, jokingly savage, and observant(Ti), as well as comforting, selfless, helpful and “motherly” with them(Fe).

-I feel the reason many disagree on what Jin’s type is because all of his functions are so well developed, it’s difficult to see with his dominant, auxiliary, tertiary, and inferior.

-But Jin did rank his test results 4.5/5, and I definitely think he is an INTP with a developed Fe.

-Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[varietywritings]

SOLACE

Draco Malfoy x OC!Esme Prewett

Solace Summary

CHAPTER ONE: THE SUNSET IS THE SAME FROM BRISTOL TO LONDON

Esme Prewett sat at her desk; the wood color was unknown even to her as it was covered in spare parchment, books, quills, and some liquorice wands—these were her favorite wizarding candies. Her audacious tabby, Sebastian, tried to fit his massive body between a pile of muggle books and an open bottle of ink. The ink tipped, spilling all over Esme’s notes from the wizarding book, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts. Though this would be her third time reading the book and the notes weren’t for anyone but herself as it was summer, she cursed at the cat; Sebastian looked satisfied by his accomplishment.

A loud peck on the window startled Esme, causing her to forget all about her desecrated notes. Ron’s fiery owl, Pigwidgeon, stood on her window sill, staring at Esme with his gleaming amber eyes. She smiled, sliding the window open so the small bird could enter her room. Esme untied the letter and small parcel from his leg and he began to bounce around impatiently as she read it.

Dear Essie,

We miss you over here. Mum has been intense, making us clean all the time. We’re so bored. I don’t know if they’ve written to you, but Fred and George have created loads of new joke products and we’re the test subjects. Professor Lupin nearly ate a fainting fancy. Luckily, George smacked it out of his hand. Mum was furious; it was truly hilarious.

Professor Lupin? She thought. Why would he be at The Burrow? Why is Molly making them clean? Her house cleans itself. She shrugged her confusion away and continued reading. Pigwidgeon began rapidly flying around her room; Sebastian followed him with his eyes.

Oh, Dad and Percy got into it the other day. He was promoted at the Ministry. He’s so far up Fudge’s arse that he neglects his own family. What a load of bollocks. Have you heard from him? Mum and Dad are very upset. Dad’s broken countless muggle artifacts and mum will not stop crying. He said some really awful things about not accepting us as his family anymore.

Bill is back home by the way. He took a desk job at Gringotts. I think he misses Egypt more than he lets on. You remember Fleur Delacour, right? He’s been giving her English lessons. I think he fancies her, but he won’t admit it.

Why on earth would Bill have taken a desk job? He loved the tombs. He loved Egypt. Things weren’t adding up to Esme; nevertheless, she kept reading.

It’s weird not having you spend the summer with us. I’m guessing you’ve got a lot of reading done. Hermione has too. How has your mum been? Is she even home?

I’ve attached a bag of liquorice wands. I figured you were running out. Tell Seb I miss him and I wish he were here in place of Crookshanks. Are you packed and ready for Hogwarts?

Can’t wait to hear from you,

Ron

PS: Pig couldn’t wait to visit. I’m sure he’d love it if you let him stay for a bit.

Esme sighed as she looked around her messy room. She wasn’t leaving for Hogwarts for a couple weeks, so she didn’t feel a need to pack just yet. She added Ron’s letter to the immense stack of letters she had received since her mother cut her off from the Weasley’s. There were several from Bill and Charlie, Ron sent her one weekly, Fred and George sent a couple, and Ginny sent almost as many as Ron. Esme loved receiving letters from her cousins as she was used to practically living with them until reports of Voldemort’s return surfaced via Harry. Esme believed him even though it pained her to admit. Sadly, her muggle mother believed him too and refused to let her interact with the wizarding world. As a result, Esme carefully hid the letters in her sock drawer.

She had been trapped in Bristol all summer while her mother traveled on business. As nice as the silent—apart from the occasional meow from a hungry Sebastian—house was when she was trying to get work done, she was lonely. She missed the terrible pranks Fred and George played, helping them plan those pranks, talking with Ginny, chess with Ron.

Esme laughed to herself at the sprightly little owl who had now landed back on her nightstand. Sebastian, still on her desk, was starting to drool on the parchment. Esme snarled her nose slightly, but she refused to bother him. She grabbed a clean piece of parchment and some fresh ink and began thinking of her response to Ron. She took her time so Pig was well rested.

Dear Ron,

I miss you guys too!  I’m sorry you’re bored. I am too. Can only read so much. Fred and George haven’t written to me in a few weeks. Are they still apparating everywhere? They told me they were using each other as testers and Aunt Molly thought they had been fighting.

Why was Professor Lupin at the Burrow? Is everything okay? And Bill? Why did he move back? Egypt was his favorite place on Earth. I’m happy for him and Fleur. He hasn’t written to me in a bit.

Percy has written to me, but he didn’t mention the promotion or his quarrels with Uncle Arthur. I can’t believe Percy would say things like that.

I wish I didn’t tell me mum about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. She freaked out. I get it, but she has to let me live. She’s not even here, and if she was, how could she possibly protect me?

I can’t wait to get out of this gloomy house and out of this town. Sebastian misses you guys. He is restless without you and the twins torturing him. He misses watching me destroy you in wizard’s chess and frankly I do too. Tell everyone I love and miss them. Tell Gin I’m awaiting her next letter.

Pig was a delight to have today. Thank you so much for the liquorice! Also, of course I am packed for Hogwarts. You know me, always prepared.

See you soon,

Esme

Esme threw the quill down on her desk and quickly rolled up the smudge-free parchment. She reused the leather strip Ron had sent to tie her letter to Pigwidgeon’s thin leg. His excitement heightened as she tightened the knot. He almost looked as if he was smiling. She petted his grey and white feathers before he took flight out the window and back to 12 Grimmauld Place—or the Burrow as Esme thought.

✶✶✶

Esme was up rather late redoing the notes Sebastian so gracefully destroyed. She didn’t mind though; it gave her a chance to make them neater. Esme could swear she heard the front door creak open, but decided ultimately that she had just stayed up entirely too late and was incapable of proper cognitive functioning. She closed the newest ink bottle she was using and got up from her desk. She saw a sleeping Sebastian on her bed and decided to join him until she heard a loud thud from the living room downstairs. She quietly ran to her desk and pulled the middle drawer open, grabbing  her spruce wand with a white-knuckle grip.

It’s probably just your mother home early from her trip. She thought. She checked the time: 1:34 A.M. Her flight could not have landed this late. She was hesitant to open her bedroom door. It could definitely be your mother, but it could also be a murderer or two. It’s probably fine, right? How often do bad things truly happen? But Voldemort is back. Bollocks. She reaches for the door knob, but then pulls her hand away and backs up. The staircase creaks as if multiple people were walking up it.

“It’s going to be less dangerous to take her than Harry.” An unfamiliar female whisper came from the hallway.

Esme furrowed her brows and adjusted her ever-tightening grip on her wand. Less dangerous? Where exactly do they think they’re taking me?

Esme’s bedroom door flew open and a gust of wind disturbed Sebastian. The light from the hall made it difficult for Esme to see because her room was dark. Once her eyes adjusted, they met with the eyes of an unfamiliar face. She was a witch with violet hair. Esme froze before her, her heart beating at an unnatural pace.

“Ron said you’d packed already.” This violet-haired witch sighed, leaning against the door frame.

“I’m so—who are—” Esme tried to gather her thoughts to speak.

“Ms. Prewett.” A familiar voice came from a tall wizard standing behind the witch.

“Professor Lupin?” Esme smiled. Her shoulders relaxed; she didn’t even notice they were tense. Lupin was her favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts professor to date. “What are you do—”

“No time to explain, sweetheart.” Arden, tenacious auror, Harry’s godmother, and Esme’s hero stood beside Remus Lupin reaching his chin. The Arden Walker is in my home. Esme was ecstatic as she hadn’t seen her idol since she visited Lupin’s class as a guest speaker in her third year.

“I’m Tonks.” The violet-haired witch smiled. “We have to get you packed.”

Esme smiled back at her. “Where are we going?”

“London,” Lupin chimed.

“London? Where are my aunt and uncle?”

“London.”

Esme gave the three an incredulous look. “Why?”

“Again, no time. Let’s get you packed,” Tonks declared impatiently.

Esme motioned for Tonks to enter her bedroom. Lupin and Arden went downstairs to get the brooms. Esme opened her brown trunk and began shoving clothes and parchment into it. Tonks waved her wand and everything Esme needed—books, parchment, dozens of ink bottles, her cauldron, scales, clothes, and even her postcards from her mother—chucked themselves into her trunk.

“That works.” Esme shrugged. “Thanks.”

Tonks nodded. Esme picked Sebastian up and shoved him in his blue carrier. He was less than excited, so she placed a few treats with him.

“Locomotor trunk.” Tonks said with her wand in hand. The trunk hovered and followed her wand motions downstairs.

“Ready to go?” Lupin questioned.

“I need to leave a note for my mother. She’d figure out how to contact the ministry just to spite me if I didn’t.”

“Nonsense, I already left one explaining the situation,” Lupin reassured.

“Well, then I’m ready!”

“Can you fly?” Arden asked.

“Uh—”

“No, she’s terrible,” Lupin teased.

“Hey!” Esme yelled in defense.

“Well, can you?” Tonks questioned.

“Well, no. Not well. I don’t even have a broom. I—er—borrowed George’s for class my first year and nearly snapped it in two only three feet off the ground.” Esme looked to the floor.

“You can ride with Arden. Tonks will take your trunk and Sebastian can come with me.”

Esme was elated to ride with her idol. The trunk stayed just behind Tonks as she led it outside into the streets of Bristol. The Hogwarts Crest on the lid beautifully reflected the moonlight. She used her wand to place it in the harness hanging from her broom. Lupin started to put Sebastian’s carrier into the harness below his broom.

“I’m not sure he’s going to be okay with that.”

“It’s a straight shot. Less than an hour,” Lupin reasoned.

“Your point? He’s a cat. A very pretentious cat I might add.” The three aurors looked at her with blank expressions. “He’ll be screaming the entire way there.”

“He’ll be okay.” Arden placed her hand on Esme’s shoulder. Esme relaxed and gave in.

Remus carefully placed Sebastian’s carrier in the harness. Everyone mounted their brooms. The night was warm, but windy making the flight a little rough. Arden was amazing at controlling the broom. She landed it serenely and methodically in front of a row of houses not so different from the one Esme and her mother lived in.

“I forgot to get Dumbledore’s deluminator from Moody.” Lupin grumbled.

“It’s almost three. I’m sure there aren’t any muggles looking out the window.” Tonks justified.

“Plus, they’re the least of our worries at this point.” Arden maundered.

Esme and Tonks removed her trunk from the harness while Arden grabbed Sebastian and his carrier.

Lupin moved his head back and forth to ensure there was no one around. He leaned closer to Esme and whispered, “12 Grimmauld Place. Where would it be?”

Esme, confused at first, looked to the house numbers in front of her. She found they were labeled as 11 Grimmauld Place and 13 Grimmauld Place. She blinked and all of a sudden, houses eleven and thirteen parted and an identical—except for the dirt and grime—one appeared in the middle labeled 12 Grimmauld Place. The dark night was as silent as ever before. The muggles didn’t seem to notice the sudden movement.

Lupin swiftly walked to the front door, holding it open for Tonks and Esme to carry the trunk in and Arden to carry the large cat in. Lupin checked his surroundings before joining them and quietly closing the door behind him. The hallway was dim and empty. The house was silent. Arden sat Sebastian’s carrier down and opened it. He quickly darted out of the carrier and across the room.

“Let me show you to your room. I can imagine you’re just yearning to get to sleep,” Arden said in a hushed tone; her Southern American accent almost disappearing into a more plain American accent. “Hope you don’t mind sharing a room with Ron until Harry gets here.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Esme whispered following Arden upstairs. Arden placed her trunk and the now-deserted cat carrier in the hall outside the room. Why does Harry get to take my bed? Where am I going to sleep when he gets here? Esme was too tired to figure that out. She snuck into Ron’s room as best as she could—he was snoring lightly, but she didn’t mind as she was used to sharing a room with Sebastian. She didn’t bother to change and plopped down on the bed which had what seemed like a centimeter of dust garnered on top. She suppressed a cough. I thought they were cleaning all summer.

✶✶✶

After breakfast, Esme found Bill in the lounge going over some parchment.

“What’s that?” She asked hopeful to get some information from him. No one had explained why they were in a dingy old house in London.

“Jus’ some stuff for The Order.” He quickly rolled the parchment up and sat it in his lap.

“The Order?” Esme questioned.

“They haven’t explained everything to you?”

“Nope. Just arrived early this morning.” Esme sat on the couch diagonally from  Bill.

“The Order of the Phoenix: they’re a group of retentive witches and wizards fighting against You-Know-Who’s cause. They were active during the Wizarding War.”

“Who was in this group?”

“Well, Remus, Sirius and Arden, James and Lily Potter, The Longbottom’s, and—erm—your father and Gideon. Of course, there were others too, but their names are escaping me.”

Esme’s olive-green eyes widened and her mouth fell open slightly; she was nearly the spitting image of her father, Fabian Prewett; she had a long, thin face accompanied by a long, protruding nose. “My—my father?”

“Yep.” Bill smiled proudly thinking of his uncle’s accomplishments.

“Is that why death eaters killed him?”

His smile quickly faded and he dolefully looked at his cousin. “Yeah.”

Esme looked to the floor. “And now you’re a member?”

Bill nodded realizing Esme wasn’t looking at him. “Er—yeah. Along with mum, dad, Charlie, Tonks, and a bunch more. Charlie’s staying in Romania trying to recruit witches and wizards.”

Esme looked at Bill again. “And Percy?”

He hardly winced at the mention of his name. “Don’t bring him up in front of mum and dad.”

“I know. Ron mentioned the promotion and his fight with Uncle Arthur in his last letter.”

“It was horrible. Mum hasn’t been in a good mood since. Percy doesn’t believe Harry saw You-Know-Who because Fudge doesn’t believe it. Dad tried talking sense into him, but it was no use.”

“That’a a shame. So, how do I join?”

“The Order?”

Esme nodded.

“You don’t. Mum won’t let you; you’re too young. Besides, we’ve got this handled.”

“Do you? You had to leave your job—one that you absolutely love—to join this Order. I want to help.”

“Es, you can’t help. Maybe when you’re of age, but hopefully by then this will all be over.”

Esme wanted to continue arguing but decided it was best to bite her tongue as she still had information to get from him. “So, Fleur Delacour, hm?” She smirked.

Bill was surprised Esme didn’t debate him more on joining the Order but ultimately didn’t want to question this refreshing turn of events. “And who told you about her?”

“Ron. He told me you’ve been giving her English lessons.”

“She just wants to improve at her English and I’m fluent, so what’s the big deal?” His cheeks were an almost unnoticeable shade of pink, but Esme noticed.

“Do you like her?”

“Of course I like her. She’s extremely kind, really smart too.” Bill was looking off into the distance, daydreaming of Fleur.

Esme started to further inquire about her, but a loud crack interrupted her thoughts and made her jump out of her seat. The twins appeared in front of the couch. Fred was holding Sebastian.

“You arseholes.” Esme’s voice quavered. Her heart was beating rapidly. “You apparated with my cat?”

“He was fine,” George said calmly.

“He rather enjoyed it actually,” Fred reasoned. “Jumped right into me arms.”

Esme’s blinks were slow as she was trying to comprehend what exactly went through Fred and George’s minds. “I’m going to take my cat now, if you don’t mind.” She didn’t wait for a response and reached out for her traumatized tabby who gladly snuggled into her chest.

“So, what have you two been talking about?” George asked.

“Sod off.” Esme sat back down on the couch; Sebastian curled up in her lap and started purring.

“Woah, Esmie. That’s a bit harsh don’t you think?” Fred smiled.

Esme playfully rolled her eyes at the two who sat on the couch on either side of her. “Congrats on passing your apparition test!”

“Thanks,” the twin boys sang in unison.

“Is it freeing to practice magic whenever you want?” Esme asked longingly.

“Not when mum yells at us for doing it.” Fred forced a laugh.

“Speaking of unbearable, how’s Margot?” George sneered.

“Don’t know. She’s been gone on a business trip the past week, s’posed to come home tomorrow.”

“We’ll see about that.” Bill laughed through his nose causing Esme to smile.

✶✶✶

The next couple of days were monotonous; this made Esme a tad anxious. She was almost joyed by Harry’s arrival as it was something that didn’t have to do with dusting every surface on every floor of 12 Grimmauld Place. Sebastian rapturously greeted Harry at dinner evoking a groan out of Esme.

Esme sat in the center of the table between Ron and Fred. Molly droned on and on about them all, especially Harry, being too young to be a part of the Order. She could tell Harry felt it was a load of rubbish as she did too.

Sebastian jumped into Harry’s lap, prompting Harry to shift to the left side of his seat to make room for the pudgy tabby. Sebastian sat in the empty space of the chair facing the table as if he were trying to join the conversations.

“He doesn’t need to be at the table.” Molly ordered.

“Sorry.” Harry mumbled.

“What is he harming?” Esme questioned.

“We’re trying to eat here.” Molly’s tone was stern.

Sebastian seemed to be offended as he glared at Molly.

“He hasn’t seen Harry in a while. They missed each other.” Fred chimed in.

“Yes, well, we’ve all missed Harry, but he needs to get down.”

Harry carefully picked Sebastian up and placed him on the cold floor. Feeling defeated, he curled up underneath Harry’s chair.

Esme carried on with Ron and Arthur throughout dinner. The conversation in the kitchen was trifling and whimsical until Sirius told Harry it was okay to ask questions. Molly blew up causing Esme to jump slightly.

“He’s too young.”

Esme rolled her eyes as Molly always used the same argument. Sebastian didn’t even want to be a part of it; he ran off to disturb Crookshanks.

Molly started to give in and decided Harry could stay for a bit and learn a minimal amount of information about just what the Order and Lord Voldemort have been doing.

Arthur convinced Molly to let the twins stay and Ron convinced Molly to let him and Hermione stay with, “Harry will tell us anyway.”

“Fine. Ginny, Esme go to your rooms now.”

Esme knew she could do better than Ron. “I don’t have a room. Harry took it. Besides, I was stuck at my house this entire summer because you made me tell my mother about You-Know-Who, so the least you could do is let me stay.” Molly’s face was an unmistakable shade of red. “Let me just add that I spent my summer researching legilimency.”

“Fine. Ginny, bed now.”

Esme regretted staying for the conversation because they weren’t given any information the Extendable Ears didn’t already hear for them.

She went to Ron and Harry’s room to gather her belongings, but found that they were already neatly placed in the hall. She exhaled deeply and turned around to find Arden walking up the steps.

“I can make you a bed.” Arden offered.

“Really?” Esme asked hopefully.

“Yep. Come on.” Arden’s accent, though subtle, was especially discernible in the last two words. She led her downstairs to Ginny and Hermione’s room where Hermione was telling Ginny everything that occurred in the kitchen.

“I’m going to make Esme a bed in here, if that’s okay with y’all.”

“Of course it is,” Ginny said.

With a wave of her wand, Ginny’s bed turned into a bunk bed. The top bunk, with white sheets and a comforter perfectly made, was for Esme.

“Thank you.” Esme smiled.

“Anytime.” Arden returned the smile.

She left the three girls to converse until they heard the creak of the floorboards that meant Molly was coming to check on them. They all dove under their covers and didn’t make a peep until they heard her heading upstairs.

✶✶✶

“Esme, you’re going to help me wash the dishes tonight.” Molly ordered.

Esme looked to Fred and George with pleading eyes, but they laughed and then vanished with a loud crack. She groaned quietly so Molly wouldn’t hear.

Esme stayed silent with every plate she washed. Finally, Molly was concerned as Esme was usually a garrulous young witch.

“Have something on your mind?”

“Hm?” Esme’s mind had trailed off to random things, such as which Ravenclaws would make prefect, which books she would need for this year, who Dumbledore would have hired for Defense Against the Dark Arts which brought her back to Harry not being allowed in the Order of the Phoenix.

Molly repeated herself.

“Oh, um just thinking about things.”

“Such as?”

“Just Hogwarts and stuff.”

“Stuff?”

Esme knew she was going to regret the next thing she said, but she couldn’t not confront her aunt. “Harry deserves to be a member of the Order of—”

“This is not up for discussion.” Molly almost dropped the rag she was holding to give Esme a flinty stare which was ignored. Molly began vehemently scrubbing the dining table.

“You-Know-Who does everything in his power to spite Harry. That’s all he wants: world domination and Harry dead. It’s inhumane to keep him in the dark about it.” Esme continued to scrub a bowl riddled with leftover food particles.

“Esme, I am warning you.” Molly nearly had steam coming from her ears.

“The ‘you’re too young’ excuse is a load of bollocks—”

“ESME JOANNA.” Molly had stopped cleaning altogether.

Esme didn’t flinch and continued, “—and you and I both know it. He’s the best at Defense Against the Dark Arts in our year, besides me of course.” She knew Harry exceeded her talents at the subject but couldn’t pass up the chance to rag on him.

Molly took a deep breath before speaking. “It doesn’t matter how good he is; I have a right to protect him.”

“You don’t have a right to control him and his every move. He’s not your chess piece. He’s not your son.” Esme put the sponge and the bowl into the sink and turned to her aunt.

“Well, I am the closest thing that poor boy has to a mother. I will not continue this conversation with you.”

“He has Arden.”

“Who didn’t take him in after they died.”

Esme rubbed her brow. “—and Sirius—”

“Who was gone for twelve years.”

“Locked away in Azkaban against his will, framed for thirteen murders. And Arden was told by your beloved Dumbledore that she wasn’t allowed to have him because she was a target.”

“That’s not the point.”

“That’s exactly the point. He has both of them now. His parents named Sirius and Arden his godparents because they wanted them looking after him.”

“I’ve been looking after him for five years. I can’t stop now.”

“I’m not saying you have to stop caring for him. He just deserves to know what is happening. You can’t keep that from him.”

“He needs to be protected.”

“How is he to be protected when the Order isn’t around and he knows nothing?”

Molly didn’t have an answer for this and Esme knew she had struck a nerve.

“Enough. I’m done having this conversation.”

“Because you know I’m right. Harry needs to be in the know, so he can be safe.”

“Esme.”

“If you keep him isolated from all of this, not only will he resent you, but he won’t ever be able to handle You-Know-Who.”

“Go to bed.” Molly pointed toward the kitchen door. Esme stayed silent and headed for the door. “Why must you argue me on every little thing?” Molly lowered her voice as Esme was leaving.

A/N:

Sorry this took so long, but the wait is over. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter!

-Ghost

TAGS:

@virgiill @yourfriendly-neighborhoodfuckup

[sun-to-my-luna]

#XVIII

― the time has come.

The focus of today is Camila’s self-titled album “Camila.” Depending on the person music has a variety of interpretation, and today we’ll be looking {into it}, and at other things.  Not from the average CS perspective. Not from the general public perspective, but from a totally different perspective.

ps. want to mention beforehand that I know I don’t usually talk about darker shit, but because it makes sense I feel like I should.

Anyways as we all know IHQ was placed in the intro of the “CITC” MV for promotional reasons, and they both  weren’t  put onto her album.  IHQ  was simply released as a single for the sole purpose of drama. It either left everyone wondering who it was really about, or confirmed the narrative that there was a nonexistent grudge.

When someone first listens to “I Have Questions” it sounds like a somber song aimed at a love interest, or possibly the girls of Fifth Harmony. Butー there’s one possibility no one seems to think about.

Maybe the song is towards multiple people, or at least for someone else. “Them” or those that control every aspect of her life except for what’s actually private.

This theoretical analysis will be divided into three parts.

When this was posted the “LAND vs. C” narrative had already been put into motion. Everyone else (GP) was lead to believe that the song was supposedly about the group when in fact it most likely wasn’t. The girls were out having fun...but Camila was stuck  in a hotel bathroom all day writing songs? It doesn’t make sense, unless she was actually being forced to work on her album...which was later delayed on purpose.

I.

I’ll start with this string of tweets.

The guy in the tweet above is the SND at Interscope Records, and he is giving a power statement in that tweet  that says, “ They work for you. You do as you’re told,” or “You don’t tell them how to do their job.”

That same day underneath that tweet he received a comment from Chippy who I completely agreed with, but “Marcus” here  seemed to disagree, and answered back sarcastically.

Then on May 27th he tweeted this. *cough* Are you referring to MJ? *cough*

I noticed this tweet on a different account run by someone else from the #E*** clan.

“ーThe Artist is doing mostly all of the work, & the label is just the #plug. The machine.. labels don’t even care if an artist doesn’t sell, they’re making money from streaming & singles & shenanigans (PR, Scandals, and Media..etc.)”

He’s right, but the thing I found the most interesting is he used the term “ machine” (similar to Chely Wright) to describe the big labels.

II.

***This next section is going to get a bit dark.***

All kinds of stuff has been mentioned on my blog before like “the dark web”, but nothing quite similar to the level of this. I’m going to explain it only briefly.

Commercial cult manipulation:

What is a cult? A cult is a group of people who organize around a strong authority figure in this case a multi-level marketing organization,  aka. “Major Label.”  Cults attempt to expand their influence for the purpose of money. They change someone’s old identity with a new one. The person may not have chosen that identity.

Before a celebrity becomes a“celebrity” in the entertainment industry they’re a normal person with a normal life under the radar.  After they get into a position of  known status they have to maintain  an image (that they don’t choose), and  they need to maintain their brand. 

Because that’s what they become, a brand that makes other  people money.

Edgar Schein described the process of “coercive persuasion” as a 3 stage process.

“an unfreezing of the identity” - breaking the person down

“changing” -  the change that should happen to the person

“refreezing” - Reinforcing the new identity.  

Everyone in Fifth Harmony had been assigned a certain role since the beginning, and if you watch interviews you’ll see that clearly enough. We’ve even mentioned here on tumblr before; how they break an artist down only to  build that artist’s image up again, and that’s a constant change.

a.

Mind Control:

Bare in mind:  mind control in a cult setting is a system that messes with someone’s identity

Mind control is not brainwashing

The people involved unwittingly participate, by cooperating with their controllers, and giving them private information that they don’t  know will be used against them.  Mind control in a commercial cult setting is achieved by placing a person in a social environment where in order to function, they have to replace their old identity, and adhere to the new identity.

Emotional Control:

Fear and guilt are central to any thought reform/mind control program. Cult tactics include:  inducing fears and phobias  in group members to allow the leadership to maintain control. Members can  believe that all sorts of horrible things may happen if they don't follow the  rules.

For example: If you come out, then you’ll lose fans or won’t have a career.

Alyson Stoner:

+ Plus many more.

They lose the freedom to choose for themselves, the freedom to do what they want, have the relationships they want or even eat what they like.

“Mind control may be largely understood by analysis of the three components described by Leon Festinger, a psychologist, in what has become known as the "cognitive dissonance theory.”“

These components are control of behavior, control of thoughts, and control of emo­tions.

b.

Behavior Control:

Behavior control is the regulation of an individual's physical reality. It includes the control of his environment— what clothing he wears, what food he eats, how much sleep he gets—as well as  other actions he performs.

This need for behavior control is the reason most cults give a very rigid schedule for their members.

We know they’re always over-working her.

 In addition, new diets and eating schedules also can have a disorienting effect. (Lost a little wight because I wasn’t eating.) After someone has been broken down, they must be built up again as the "new man" (or "new woman," as the case may be.)

In a mind control environment, freedom of choice is the first thing that one loses. The reason for that loss is  simple: the cult member is no longer themselves. Then, without warning, they seem to become their old self, with their old attitudes and mannerisms. Just as suddenly, they flip back to being a stranger.

Now obviously I’m not saying they’re a part of commercial cult manipulation. What I’m saying is there’s so much more shit that happens in the music industry  that we don’t know if they could be or not.   Cardi B has said it herself on instagram live, “ People have evil intentions around you. The Music Industry is more fucked up than the streets. The streets are way easier.” Anyways with that being:

III.

Lyrical  Analysis―

Why did you leave me here to burn?

 I’m way too young to be this hurt.

I feel doomed in hotel rooms staring straight up at the wall.

Camila was no longer a part of the Fifth Harmony partnership which means she was rarely getting paid for merch, and for preforming. They were forcibly making her a solo artist while she was still in the group, and they were most likely feeding her ideas  about it since 2015, even though she still wanted to be a part of  the group.  (Notice how Camila/Roger worded the statement. Not once were the girls mentioned, only the brand, aka Fifth Harmony.)

―“I was shocked to read the statement the Fifth Harmony account posted without my knowing. Saying that they were just informed through my representatives that I was “leaving the group” is simply not true.  I did not intend to end things with Fifth Harmony this way.”

She was probably working non-stop on her album all through out the 7/27 tour, and if that was the case it wouldn’t surprise me if she felt stressed, or tired.

One example is during the 7/27 tour in St. Louis when she had an anxiety attack, and couldn’t preform, but still preformed the next day. Panic attacks can happen because of demanding situations, or stress whether it be physical, emotional, or psychological.

Do you care,  Do you care?  Why don’t you care?

I gave you all of me

My blood my sweat  my heart and my tears

Why don’t you care?

{Camila}:  “They were actually working us to the fucking bone.”

{Lauren to Ally}: “ They’re making decisions on a regular basis to fuck us over, to make us literal slaves Ally.. we’re doing fucking labor everyday, and we see nothing.”

NUMBER 1  tell me who do you think you are?

You’ve got some nerve trying to tear my faith apart.

NUMBER 2  why would you try to play me for a fool?

I should've never trusted you.

The Camila from 2014 who was just a girl with big dreams, and the Camila from 2016 the girl that was feeling doomed inside hotel rooms... have two very different demeanors.

Yes, it’s true  bands never last a long time together, but they made the fans that she loved hate her. That way she wouldn’t have a choice, but to leave because they didn’t want her in the group anymore. They made her want to leave. They pushed the solo idea onto her.  They kicked her off of Fifth Harmony. They broke her down.  She was so tired, and you could tell.

NUMBER 3 why would you who you swore that you would be?

These people made it seem like she could trust them, and she believed that. Those people were supposed to be there for her. They were supposed to be her stepping stone. They were supposed to care. The only back they were looking out for though was their own. She would be the next rising “pop idol” and they did what they could to make it happen.

  Money is more important than someone else’s emotions, and health to them.

Don’t believe me? Ask Lauren Jauregui’s knee infection.

With that I leave you this:

No matter how successful someone is, or how happy someone looks it  doesn’t mean that they’re actually happy.  There’s a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that nobody knows about. You may think you know, but you don’t. They show you 10% of their life on social media, but that doesn’t mean you automatically know 90% of their life. You may talk to them for 5- 15 minutes, but that doesn’t mean you know what they’re going through. Make sure you show them love. Make sure you show them support. Make sure they know that no matter what they’re going through they have a fan base that won’t ever stop appreciating them even if they end up being  poor.   Show them you care no matter what. Show them you love them for them and not just because they’re “famous.” If you’re lucky enough give them the longest hug you can, because not everyone can.

[thephoenixiaproject]

Entry 02 (07/01/2020): Research, Inspirations and Ideas

Hi there!!

Welcome to entry number two! This project is still VERY much in the preparation stage, so I wanted to use this one as an opportunity to link all the sources that I’ve been using as a basis up until this point, as well as specific pieces of work that have inspired this project, plus some brainstormed ideas that might be experimented with in the future.

The next couple of entries after this will most likely be focusing on making some first demos, visual ideas, mood-boards, notebook scribbles, and maybe some character/story ideas too! I won’t lie, the scope of all the different areas does slightly scare me, especially since I have next to no experience in a lot of them - I feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants!!

But I’m definitely going to make a lot of mistakes as I try some new skills and play with new concepts for the first time, so please bear with me as I stumble around in the dark for a while :D Expect most of my nonsense to eventually end up getting heavily changed, retconned, or cut entirely!

--------

A List of Sources (at the time of writing!):

AWARE - AWAreness during REsuscitation - A Prospective Study (resuscitationjournal.com, October 6th 2014) - The first piece I found! The start of this idea came when I was thinking about how my dreams worked (more on that later!), and for some reason I suddenly remembered one religious studies lesson I had in school when I was 14 I think? Part of the lesson was talking about out-of-body and near-death experiences, and out of curiosity I looked it up to see if anything had changed. That’s when I came across this!

“What Really Happens After Cardiac Arrest?” - The New York Academy of Sciences (nyas.org, December 6th 2019) - A talk on the subject led by the Lead Author of the 2014 study, held in late 2019! There’s loads of interesting information and anecdotes in here.

Life — after life: Does consciousness continue after our brain dies? (nationalpost.com, April 18th 2019 [Updated October 2019]) - This article goes very in-depth as well as referencing a LOT of different studies, some even offering opposing viewpoints to each other! There’s loads of quotes and studies here that I really want to look more into.

Greyson NDE Scale (iands.org, 25th April 2015) - The NDE scale referenced in the National Post article - would be cool to use this somewhere somehow??

Understanding the cognitive experience of death and the near-death experience (academic.oup.com, 14th July 2016) - A summary of the 2014 AWARE experiment, but that references past studies into the field (see below!)

Life Changes in Patients After Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (link.springer.com, 8th December 2011) - One of the referenced studies, this one includes a ‘life changes’ questionnaire at the bottom which might be another source of ideas.

A qualitative and quantitative study of the incidence, features and aetiology of near death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors (sciencedirect.com, February 2001) - An older study, but with very similar results to recent ones!

A Prospective Analysis of Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Patients (link.springer.com, June 2002) - Another older study, includes characterisations of the experiences, some of which correlate with AWARE’s most commonly reported themes.

Possible source - What Happens When We Die? by Sam Parnia, M.D.(penguinrandomhouse.com, 1st January 2007) - I’m debating whether to look into this - it’s written by the same project leader as the AWARE study, but this book was written 7 years prior to it. I’m also fully aware that despite trying to look everywhere, the majority of my current sources stem from Dr. Parnia. (This might not be a bad thing! It’s just surprising to me that most of the recent studies into this field I can find out about stem from him.)

-------- Inspirations/Ideas:

Just a quick place to put current inspirations down! I’m sure that once I’ve finished this entry I’ll realise I’ve missed some out, so I’ll edit this as I go!

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD:

Bojack Horseman - S6 E15 ‘The View From Halfway Down (& S6 E16 ‘Nice While It Lasted’) - Netflix - The View From Halfway Down takes place within Bojack’s mind, after he commits suicide by downing himself in the pool of his former home. This episode has a LOT of themes which link to the studies:

Just like how some CA survivors reported on seeing their life ‘in review’, the characters are asked what the best and worst parts of each of their lives were, leading to conflict of ideals between them as well as trying to tackle large philosophical questions.

Black tar, representing impending death, begins the episode as a drip in the ceiling, before consuming all the all the characters one-by-one, followed by both Bojack and the dream world the episode takes place in. With newer theories on loss of consciousness and brain cell/tissue functionality arguing that it may be a gradual process of decay, rather than an instant loss, the black tar effectively mirrors this. Combined with the fact that Bojack becomes more frantic as the episode ends and the tar begins to chase him, as well as more supernatural events which begin happening, this may mirror the post-death ‘elevated state of consciousness’ idea.

For the first half of the episode, Bojack believes that he is in a recurring dream he has had many times before in his life, even stating how the dream will end event-by-event. However, once these happen but dream doesn’t end, things take a darker shift, and it takes him time to realise he might not be waking up. While being unaware of their own death might be a concept to try in the future (although a scary one), it does bring up the idea that final moments of consciousness may be very similar to the dreams a person normally has (or take place in a similar format with similar people).

While Bojack’s father, Butterscotch, does feature in the episode, he takes on the appearance of Secretariat, Bojack’s personal idol. A percentage of CA survivors reported that post-experience, they came out of hospital and care with a renewed sense of who their true friends and family were - here it’s represented as a father taking the shape of an idol (but keeping his father’s voice).

The 20-25 minute time length: Supervising director Mike Hollingsworth revealed in an interview that the episode took place over around 30 seconds - one of the many theories on the length of consciousness persisting after death is 20-30 seconds, but in an elevated state, perhaps leading to a longer perception of time (e.g. 20-30 seconds becomes 20-30 minutes of video/audio).

The world this episode takes place in is a connection of significant locations in Bojack’s life (e.g. the kitchen from Horsin’ Around, the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge which Secretariat jumped off), albeit with slight changes. Purely coincidentally, this is how a lot of my dreams function!!

While it’s still theorised as to whether Bojack is actually alive in Nice While It Lasted, or whether it’s a continuation of his NDE, this episode focuses on optimistic reflection and reconciliation with the other major characters in the show, a similarity to the reflection on friends, family and morals reported by CA survivors.

Rachel Joyce - ‘A Snow Garden and Other Stories’ (Published by Penguin Books, 3rd November 2016)

This is an incredible collection of seven short stories, each one told at different time periods by different characters, the events of each story being individually unique, and yet all of them are linked in some way!! My current plan is to make multiple stories based off the different experiences CA survivors have had, and I’d love to somehow be able to link them all like these short stories are, to be able to tell another story in and of itself!

I really need to find more short stories like these, since the end result(s) of this project will probably be in short-story format (maybe 20 minutes of video/audio per character?). This book’s given me a lot of ideas in terms of character building in a short format, as well as what the ‘link’ could be between each.

Some of the characters in the stories were scrapped characters from Joyce’s previous works - I’ve been trying to think a lot on how to best approach character design for this project (since I’ve never done it before!) and this seems to show to me that compelling stories could be founded off a character’s traits, and that this could be a good way to start?? I don’t know, I could be completely wrong!

All the stories focus on one specific life-changing moment for each main character, but either through narration of past events or it coming up in conversation. we get a fairly clear picture of each character’s lives, their mentality, and where it stems from.

Pixar Animation Studio’s ‘Sparkshorts’ Films: - What happens when you give Pixar artists 6 months and a set budget? So far, 8 incredible short films, all in different styles, each exploring different and very real themes!! (Seriously, please check these out, they’re all incredible and hard-hitting and so worth your time!)

Seeing how such strong themes are addressed in such short time is insanely cool, and is exactly the kind of thing I want to try and make! It’s also super inspiring to see what awesome films can be made under such constraints.

If I end up making films/audio/albums on multiple people, these films show that you can play around with animation style, aesthetic, and storytelling techniques to create just as much heart and soul as each other. Varying styles is something I’d love to try when representing different characters.

‘Gravity Falls’ - Hidden Codes/Messages and Stan’s Mind:

The hidden codes scattered throughout both seasons seems like a cool way to enhance an existing narrative, fill in gaps in backstory, or work to link multiple together!

The ‘memory rooms’ approach may be one way of experiencing the ‘life review’?

Conclusion:

And there we go! I’ll probably come back and add more later, but for now here’s a lil idea dump. At some point in the future I’ll talk about musical influences and ideas too!

This will probably be the last text-filled entry - I’m hoping to use future entires more like a logbook, where I put up demos of what I’ve been working on. There’ll definitely be explanations to stuff (that I’ll probably needlessly overexplain!!) but nowhere near this and the previous entry’s level of paragraphs!

University deadlines are getting closer, so progress will probably be a bit sporadic for the next month or so. But I’ll keep chipping away at this when I can!

[wrex-writes]

What can I do when I need meds that stifle my creativity, aside of doing lots of effort to try overc0ming that without stopping them? I've been struggling with description and chapter length lately because of that. It's never enough, and no matter what I do I can't think of many details, and the story's in first person. But then, the books I read are exactly what I want to write. Except I can't write like that at all. Help, please...

Okay, first of all: it really sucks that meds are often this trade-off (as you well know, but I’m saying this for other folks too). Sometimes it takes time for the side effects to wear off before you feel back to normal (or better). But, what if they don’t? What if you just have to live with those side effects, even though you need those meds to stay healthy and functional?

The main thing is: your creativity isn’t gone or reduced. It just has this new cognitive environment to live in that it’s not used to yet.

What I’d recommend is not to try and struggle quite so hard. I don’t mean “give up,” I mean let your new brain do what it wants to do for a little while. Your output may change in quantity or quality (not, like, get worse, just change its texture) and that’s natural. Your style and process may even change permanently. I can’t predict that, but it might. That’s fine. Gradually, you will adapt.

Also, if you are posting WIPs, try not to let your readers pressure you (or imagine they’re pressuring you) to write longer chapters. If you want, you can mention the changes you’re going through, or just keep it private and let them deal. But struggling to work the way you worked before because you believe people expect a certain thing from you isn’t going to do you any favors right now.

Second: nobody ever writes exactly the way other people write. You might be influenced but it’ll never be the same. Thank God! You are you and you have something nobody else has, even if it doesn’t feel valuable to you right now.

I can tell you what I do. I approach the writers I idolize not by trying overall to rise to their level (as I see it) but by looking closely at a specific trick they use that I want to steal. And I look reeeeally closely. I think as technically as I can. I don’t think “I wish I could reproduce in my own work the feeling I get from reading this.” I’m not trying to borrow their “genius,” I’m treating them as fellow practitioners who have discovered a technique I’d like to try.

So, if it’s wealth of description you admire in them, find those descriptive passages and think about why, exactly, you like them. Think about word choice, word order and the grammatical structure of their sentence. The way those descriptive sentences relate to (or grow out of) the more action-oriented sentences. Do they use a lot of emotion or sensation words? Do they switch between concrete action verbs and more abstract verbs? In sentences that don’t explicitly refer to the narrator’s perspective on what they see, how do we feel the narrator’s perspective indirectly? Pick one paragraph and look at the exact words. Now pick one thing you see them doing and try it out, maybe on a paragraph you’ve already written.

Anyway, this how I cope with my envy toward other writers, at least. (I feel it even though I don’t take meds with any significant cognitive effects!) But I don’t know if it would suit everyone, so other folks: what has worked for you?

[jira-chii]

Thoughts on the Shoumetsu Toshi anime after it aired

This post is probably overdue because the anime finished...a while ago. 

*Warning for long post and spoilers for the Shoumetsu Toshi anime*

Also, I didn’t rewatch the anime for this; I read the scripts.

So, before the Shoumetsu Toshi anime aired in April, I had written some initial speculations, mainly outlining three key challenges of adaptation the anime would have to face. Now that I've finished the anime, I would like to revisit that post and elaborate on how they handled those challenges.

Tldr on my og post: the anime had to find a way to not include too many of the (very loveable) characters from the game, had to be able to tell a complex story in a clear way within a 12 episode limit, and they had to do it in an interesting way without too much exposition. I definitely feel like the anime staff had these goals in mind, as there is evidence in the anime that they put in a lot of effort to solve them. But they may have fallen just short of that goal. 

Before I continue further though, I would like to say that I maintain my belief that making an anime adaptation from a source material as complex as Shoumetsu Toshi is incredibly difficult, and I admire the anime production team for tackling the challenge head on (putting in actual effort to make the anime a standalone-product, as opposed to shoehorning in an exact copy of the game’s storyline as so many other adaptations do for some quick marketing).

That said, the final product did not quite match my expectations (my bad for having my hopes up that high in the first place), and while I would love to chalk most of it up to episode constraints, time restrictions, budget limitations, and other factors outside the production team’s control, the truth is my issue is probably at a much more fundamental level.

Let's go through the order identified in my original post. 

Too many characters 

After watching the anime I am sure the producers were acutely aware of this challenge, and knew they had to be selective in who to choose to include in the production: characters who could not only propel the plot forward, but had interesting stories of their own to tell. 

Fan favourites like Tsubasa and Yoshiaki were an obvious choice, and including a mix of both frightening tamashii like Suzumebachi, and less violent ones such as SPR5, I can understand. The only real tamashii choice I can’t justify is Rou. Apart from looking slightly menacing, he does nothing, says nothing (maybe just one word. He gets a mention in the credits), and even worse he appears in episode one. 

My primary issue with Rou is that his character's design has too much...character. He’s a friggin’ monk. Flying around in a highway tunnel. It’s bound to raise questions. Which are never answered. If you introduce a character that flashy you've got to give him a backstory (he has one btw, but it's too complex to fit into this already packed anime). 

One could argue Rou's only purpose was to act as a weapon for the enemy, but I would think sticking with Suzumebachi would have been better? They serve the same role, and I feel having Takuya and Yuki resolve the conflict with Suzumebachi over the span of two episodes instead of just the one would make him seem like more of a threat and upped the tension. 

On the other end of the spectrum I have complaints about characters they didn't include, namely Lisa. How could you have Kouta without Lisa, that is just such a foreign concept to me? This could be due to the availability of the seiyuu themselves but, honestly, I would have rather they removed Kouta altogether. Don’t get me wrong. I love Kouta to bits, but for the purposes of the anime, it feels like he doesn't do anything at all. 

In fact, if you think about it, Kikyou, Yumiko, Eiji, Kouta, and Geek to an extent, basically all serve the exact same purpose. Which means having all of them at once is a waste of space. I know they made an effort to make it seem like Eiji and Kikyou are from a different organisation to Yumiko and Kouta. But really, what's the point? So what if Yumiko and Kouta used to work for the enemy? The impact of that to the main thrust of the story is minor; there are probably less convoluted ways to get to the same result. We could have had just Yumiko and Eiji and I’m pretty sure the story could be the same. Introducing just two of these characters instead of like, five, in episode one alone no less, also relieves the cognitive load on the audience (we can only take in so much information in those 20 minutes).

The actual problem though, is not so much there being too many characters, but that they were not used to their maximum potential.

For instance, if we broke down the explanatory purpose of just the tamashii that appeared in the anime, we would get something like this:

SPR5 explains that tamashii can materialise alternate possibilities;

Tsubasa shows AFs can be used to enhance the powers of the orphans who awakened powers as a result of human experimentation; 

Orphans reinforce what we learned from SPR5, including that the way to escape the alternate dimension is to fulfil their wish; 

Rou and Suzumebachi do nothing but seem threatening...; 

Akira protects Yuki and gets guilt tripped by Souma... 

One way of judging whether a character was “used” well, is to look at the narrative purpose they serve, and its correlation with the ending. You can probably see that, by themselves, with the exception of maybe SPR5 and orphans, these don't contribute much to understanding the ending of the anime. But that’s not to say they are useless filler. Some serve a functional purpose (for example, Yuki needs Akira to fight). Others contribute to the overall "core message" in their own way. Which seems to be: even though life is tough you have to move on. You can't change the past because then you would be denying the futures of those living in the present (More on this message later. Also, this exact theme appears in Souma's arc in Shoumetsu Toshi 0, but it’s done better).

However, even if a character’s or concept’s narrative purpose is not “useless”, that is not to say they couldn’t be made more “useful”. For example, AFs are basically never mentioned again after Souma dies. I only realised looking back retrospectively, but what was the real point of all that? Did we really need AFs in this story at all? Was there a way we could get to the same conclusion without the AFs? Alternatively, could we alter the ending to make the AFs more relevant?

Part of this involves altering the structure and flow of the story. Another part of this would be giving more strategic time for the important characters to make clear their narrative purpose. It is not easy to do that with a cast as big as Shoumetsu Toshi’s, but as a rule of thumb, the more important a character, the more screen time they should get.

I’ll use SPR5 as an example. In my original post, I was concerned they would get too much screen time, and in a sense they did. But it wasn't useful extra screen time, and this is a problem because the plot point that the anime uses SPR5 to explain is incredibly complex for just one episode. For that same reason, it seems reasonable to give them that extra screen time; but it could have been utilised better. For example, we could use their early cameos to make it clear they were victims of Lost. Before we formally meet Geek, why not show him mourning over SPR5 like everyone else did for the victims on the third anniversary of Lost, then show him binging their old videos. While you’re at it, why not throw in a comment lamenting that the idols will never have another live performance again? 

The advantage of this is that it is a much more clear and direct method of conveying information (compared to just the ambiguous montage we had at the very start of the anime). Additionally, having the audience know this stuff in advance, means it is more likely they will make an instant connection when they formally see Yua’s tamashii. Which means less time needs to be spent clarifying things we should already know (that SPR5 should be dead), and more time can be used productively on progressing the story (or apportioning more screen time to other important characters later in the show, like poor Ryouko).

Of course, this relies heavily on these pieces of knowledge being displayed in a clear enough way, or leaving a large enough impact, that we are able to link them in our minds almost instantaneously, even after several episodes.

Complex storyline

This was definitely where I thought the anime failed the hardest but was admittedly also the most difficult to pull off. 

First of all, the pacing was awful. The anime went for a 4-4-4 split for their twelve episodes, involving four episodes to set up the main plot, followed by four episodes focusing on stories of tamashii, and then a final four episodes resolving the main conflict. The problem with this is that major events are not given the time they need to make an impact. Like I mentioned, just introducing Ryouko earlier and keeping her around for more than one episode is a simple solution that would do wonders to fix the pacing. Therefore, I would suggest a better ratio for the split would have been 2-6-4.

It was clear that the anime was focusing on a linear story, and tried to link plot points to tamashii where possible (some with more success than others). It is very much plot-driven (as opposed to character-driven), and I honestly don’t have a problem with that. Except that using character-focussed side stories as a vessel to connect to a larger plot is undeniably one of the game’s greatest strengths, and it really shows. The anime’s best episodes were arguably the middle four, which focused on tamashii’s side stories. After the orphanage arc wrapped up, the anime honestly just went downhill from there.

But even then, some very deliberate decisions regarding the overall feel of the show seriously limited the potential of even those four episodes.

For instance, did anyone else feel something was missing with the Kaitodan? And I don't just mean the omission of some very important members, but the overall feel of the team. They were lacking charisma, and, while this is mainly due to not having enough time to develop, it is also a result of purposefully making them behave in a way that fit the story.

Essentially, the anime tried fitting all their characters into a very similar narrative pattern. Everyone needed a tragic character arc, whether it was losing someone dear to them, or losing their dreams and futures. The aim was to depict a truly horrible reality, to contrast against the ideal in an alternate reality, a parallel world. 

But the result of this was losing a lot of the core characteristics that made these characters beloved in the first place. Characters aren't given the full scope to showcase their personalities. Rui definitely felt a lot less playful, Sumire seemed to use a gun more than her signature chainsaw, and I fear this was also part of the reason Yayoi, Kouji and Saori got cut out. Their natural state was just too...positive, for the atmosphere the anime was going for. And I think this is a missed opportunity.   

What I am saying is essentially, this anime needed a better balance of positive and negative. While watching the show, there were times where I really thought it would have been better if the anime didn’t try so hard to be dark and dramatic and gloomy. One could argue that the core message of the anime relied on Yuki feeling miserable almost the whole time, but that doesn't mean you have to subject your audience to never-ending despair as well. Especially when another core message is that this world is worth living in. 

The key scenes in particular that I think could be leveraged are the "parallel world" scenes within Lost. These moments are so important as a reference point to understand the implication of Yuki's final decision. We need to know there is an alternative, and see how good life "could" have been. Yet these pivotal scenes are only given a brief couple of minutes. And that's such a waste, because I really think Lost was the most interesting setting in the whole anime. That's, like, literally where the tamashii are supposed to be. It's also where most of the surreal Observer symbolism happens, which is what 90% of the game's fans were looking forward to. And yet we're only in it for (not even) two episodes! What's the point of calling this anime Shoumetsu Toshi if they're not even in said Shoumetsu Toshi for half the time??

Anyway, my point is, Yuki makes a very big decision at the end of her journey, with huge implications. But, up until then, there was very little to actually guide her (and us) in that direction. Why, after everything she has been through, would she choose to reject resetting the world? We could probably come up with some answers if we tried (meeting Takuya being one of them), but these answers are never made obvious enough. And while this could have been done on purpose to put the “correctness” of Yuki’s final decision into question, it also risks jeopardising the message of the entire anime. Because there’s not enough evidence to convince us that her decision was the right one, and too much evidence making us believe it was the wrong one. And there’s no pay-off to either. 

As a result, despite the very strong core message, I could not help but feel that not much was resolved in the end. It was quite unsatisfying in that there wasn't enough closure for our main characters, but at the same time the ending felt surprisingly closed and final - there's no real hint that they want to make a sequel? Which is disappointing.

The biggest disappointment though was that there was no plot twist. There were so many interesting concepts they could have explored more. The source material by itself gives a heap of options around parallel worlds alone. What if inside Lost we actually dropped Takuya and Yuki into one of those ideal alternate parallel worlds? And had them live it out more fully? And gave Yuki more time to explore it, and give her some concrete reason to believe that keeping her world as it is, despite its flaws, is actually the best decision? 

You might accuse me of trying to fit more into an already packed anime but I am strongly of the opinion that a story's conceptual potential should be explored to its fullest wherever possible, even if it means not wrapping up everything perfectly by the end of twelve episodes. I would argue the anime could have, and should have, spaced out its events more to end on a cliffhanger, with a potential for a sequel (regardless of whether or not a sequel would even be feasible). Because saying this is the end, is just sad. 

Exposition 

This was the one thing the Shoumetsu Toshi anime probably spent the most effort addressing. The anime attempts to follow, for the most part, a show, don't tell approach. This is especially evident in the first few episodes, which are full of action. And well done on them for trying that. Key word being trying, because I don't think they actually successfully pulled off the show, don't tell. Because there is still a heap of exposition (sometimes they try to dress it up by having a news crew exposit instead of Eiji, or Yumiko. But don't be fooled). And even worse, a heap of missing exposition, which becomes apparent when you realise they needed an entire episode of just flashback to explain some key concepts (episode 9), because they couldn't do it in the eight whole episodes prior. Even worse, we were still left with so many questions about what happened in episode 11.

I guess what they needed was more strategic exposition, which should have been tied into the way the story was told and its pacing (see what I mentioned about the narrative purpose of the tamashii earlier). Sadly, the character who needed to utilise strategic exposition the most, but epically failed to do so, was Yuki herself.

Yuki’s poor character development was one of the things I definitely did not expect. She's the main character! But her personality is so...flat. Or rather, it doesn't make much sense.

Yuki’s perspective is the one we primarily view the anime from. She is shown to us at the very start of the show. Yuki is meant to be relatable to us. In the first half at least, we actually know more about her than Takuya does. We get to see flashbacks of her past that she doesn’t reveal to anyone else. We experience the same confusion she does when Takuya busts her out. We are meant to feel as betrayed as she does when Takuya calls her a “package”. If the anime continued on this trajectory, we are actually supposed to fully understand why Yuki makes the decision she does at the end. Except they completely broke our suspension of disbelief when Yuki basically develops complete trust in Takuya by the end of episode 2, and is even confident enough to enable someone else to move forward in episode 3. Something happened to Yuki that we weren’t a part of. And now she is no longer relatable because for some reason we weren’t on that journey with her.

Even worse, Yuki’s biggest character development happens off-screen, when Takuya is off at the orphanage doing an entire investigation without her. Isn’t it kind of sad, that Yuki gets more character development out of talking about Takuya to Yumiko, rather than actually interacting with him. This is also part of the reason the events of episode 11 are just baffling. Because the fact of the matter is, for the entire first half of the anime (possibly even the first three-quarters), Yuki and Takuya just don't seem to trust each other enough to make their relationship believable.

When even your main characters lose credibility, it becomes difficult to feel invested in the rest of the show. This feeling is exacerbated in Shoumetsu Toshi because the anime relied so much on drama. How many times did we see/hear the gunshot cliche? Gunshots serve as an effective way to transition between scenes, while creating a cliffhanger effect. The problem with this, though, is doing it too much, especially within a short span of time, results in high-tension scenes losing impact. Even worse, when you’re not even invested in the characters enough to care whether or not they die, the whole scene just feels cheap and ridiculous.

Basically, there were milestones we needed to see to make Yuki’s development seem natural and credible. Specifically, her development involved her gradually trusting in Takuya, and growing more confident in herself. These require at least one of two things happening: Takuya does something to make him worth trusting, or something happens to make Yuki come to the decision that she wants to go to Lost. I think the anime tried to go for the former in episode 1 (by having Takuya persist on taking Yuki to Lost despite his injuries), and the latter in episode 2 (symbolically through Yuki jumping onto the scooter with Takuya). But I'm not sure this is the best way to depict such a relationship convincingly to the audience. 

Wouldn't it make more sense to do it the other way? To have the two cooperating because they each have different motives to go to Lost (Yuki to find her father, Takuya to fulfil his contract), and then have Takuya do something outside his contract to finally get Yuki to trust him? 

Yuki probably did have a glimmer of hope when Takuya rescued her, but those hopes were dashed when he called her a literal package. I don't see why she should continue to trust him. Is it because he decided to look for her, and convince her to go to Lost? But that's not a particularly satisfying reason. Because the implication right now is, regardless of whether or not Yuki trusts Takuya, he is going to take her to Lost, even by force. Because of his dedication to his contract. 

Likewise, Yuki doesn't even get to the point of telling Takuya what traumatised her, even though she was ready to tell Ryouko everything after she brings up her father. Ryouko makes Yuki realise she really does want to find her father and is the first person she opens up to about the experimentation she was subjected to. This could have been a great opportunity to let Yuki decide for herself that she wants to go to Lost, regardless of whether or not she trusts Takuya. 

My point is basically: have Ryouko be Yuki's emotional crutch, while Yuki decides whether or not Takuya is trustworthy. Keep Ryouko around for a while longer to get us emotionally invested, and lull Yuki (and us) into a false sense of security. Eventually, it should get to the point where, if Ryouko died and Takuya comforted Yuki, we would know it was not just out of sympathy. Capitalise on Ryouko’s death. Show how bad Takuya is at comforting, but also that he's willing to try. Then, contrast this to what he does after Souma's death. He goes through all the rubble (basically Souma's corpse) to find the choker. Because he understood how important that was to Yuki. The two didn't need to say a word to each other to understand how the other was feeling. Takuya didn't even need to see Yuki. Just silently hands over Souma's choker, as he keeps his eyes on the road ahead, never looking back. 

If one could naturally see the progression in their relationship until this moment, almost everything that follows in the anime starts to make a lot more sense: especially the seaside scene and the Lost scene. 

The frustrating thing is, I could see signs of this in the anime, but they weren’t explicit enough. It is absolutely crucial to just nail that transition in their relationship: from cooperation, to dependence, to actual trust. It needs to happen in that order, and it needs to be incredibly obvious. Going for subtlety for something as important as this, is definitely not a good idea. 

Anyway, this post has become very long and messy so I’ll stop now, but I am definitely not going to stop talking about this topic. I think the key to theoretically fixing this anime is a stronger integration of plot and character. I've already given a bit of an idea into how this could be done, but it's probably a little hard to visualise from just what I’ve written here. In the future I do plan to go the whole way and actually write up a pseudo episode-by-episode potential outline of an alternate way to do the anime. So look forward to that.

In the meantime, you can see the prequel to this post here.

Or my thoughts on just episodes 5 and 6 (the Kaitodan-Tsubasa-Yoshiaki arc) here (including another way I would have done it)

[melblogsgfreethruptsd]

Asperger's vs. Narcissism There continues to be debate in the psychiatric community regarding the differences between Asperger's and Narcissism, and many have been positing that Narcissism belongs on the Autistic spectrum. Asperger's syndrome is a high functioning for of autism; you may know people personally who have it and not be able to tell, because they actually are "normal" people who happen to also be on the spectrum. (There are many who also believe autism to be a genetic difference and not a "disorder" in and of itself; I'm personally one of them.) To be clear, a key difference between Asperger's/Autism and Narcissism is that even with apparent lower empathy cognition, a person on the Autism spectrum is generally capable of learning and improving their empathic skills and abilities, as well as how to treat others, and learning why. They may not learn it easily like a non-autistic person might, but when they do learn it, they tend to "get it" and do it, and often with a much deeper understanding of the how and why than the average person. When they understand the reasons behind it, they will be apt to follow through. And they typically LACK the desire to FAKE empathy, fairness, care, courtesy and kindness, unlike most non-autistics. Those with Narcissism, on the other hand, tend to see faking as a SKILL and an asset. They also tend to see social interaction as a MEANS to an END, for their personal benefit. They tend to actually believe they're not only superior to others, but that others DESERVE TO BE MISTREATED because of their "inferiority". (And this is regardless of their position in work or life; and their "inferiority" labeling includes children, the elderly, and the sick or disabled.). When they don't get their way (with anything), they aren't just frustrated like ASD, they're enraged and feel "victimized", and will often plot revenge against whom they think has "victimized" them. This is part of their entitlement problem. Narcissists don't just want to be treated with consideration, respect and care, they want to be seen as ABOVE and SUPERIOR to others (naturally and intrinsically), and therefore deserving of MORE of everything than others, especially attention, praise, privilege, money, special care, and authority, (Most on the Autism spectrum don't even realize others think this way, nevermind think it themselves; they tend to want to be treated with genuine respect, courtesy and consideration, as well as deserved credit, but not more than is reasonable or due; This is where a lot of people get confused who don't have a good grasp on boundaries, fairness, or consideration of others; they tend to see the Autistic person who is standing up for themselves against unfair or poor treatment as the same as a self-centered person demanding extra attention, privilege, control or praise. But those who have firm boundaries and healthy confidence are well able to see the difference.) The Narcissistic don't WANT to learn about the reasons for fair, courteous or kind social interaction or empathy, because they don't CARE, and actually tend to believe it's a "weakness". (Which is obviously another cognition problem). They also think of learning about "people-stuff" as something they only need to do in order to better manipulate others or gain for themselves... and further, they think of kindness and fairness as BURDENSOME. ALSO~ The talent, skill and ability the Narcissist possesses is his or her ticket to the SPOTLIGHT and the NUMBER ONE SPOT. They tend to have contempt for others who share their abilities, and toward those who have abilities they don't. They don't want to have KINDRED SPIRITS, they want to be the ONE AND ONLY who gets all the accolades. They're "spotlight whores", but their lack of self-awareness will actually cause them to believe they're being VICTIMIZED by those who have recognition-worthy ability, just by existing. The only exceptions to their desire for the number one spot would be one of their "idols", whether they know the person in real life or not. But after a while, the Narcissist is likely to compete against them too. This is very different from most on the Autism spectrum who only want consideration and DUE credit regarding their special interests, talents and accomplishments. And they're typically INTERESTED IN those who have similar interests, not contemptuous or envious. One similarity is that both Narcissists and Autistic people can become enthralled with a person they admire, especially those who are famous, and associate themselves with the person. But there is still a difference; the Narcissist will tend to believe he or she deserves star treatment from those around them because of their similarity to the famous person, while the Autistic person is simply fascinated by the person or their work, but doesn't expect others to SEE them as that person's associate, twin, or "brother from another mother". Both autistic people and Narcissists are inclined toward bias for one sex over the other, (not all), but those on the Autism spectrum are mostly capable of learning and understanding MORE about bias and false stereotypes, and adjusting their beliefs and behavior with their knowledge ~ while Narcissists will typically stay firmly in their biases, especially when they use the biases in their culture for control and domination. Autistic people are also inclined to GIVE credit where it's due when they recognize it, ...whereas Narcissists tend to try to SABOTAGE those who deserve due credit, and sabotage the goals, work, reputation and career of others, and may also often try to STEAL the work of others and claim the credit for themselves. (Most on the Autism spectrum would be appalled by those behaviors.) Basically, autistic people are capable of humility and what comes with it, as well as empathy, for most, even if they need to consciously learn the social interactions and the reasons behind them. ~While for the most part, Narcissists avoid anything to do with humility and anything that's related to it, even to the point of trying to twist it into something that gives them more popularity, prestige, power or other gain. You can't trust a Narcissist, but you can usually trust an Autistic person once you've formed a relationship with them and they trust you. ~~~ There are obvious differences between Asperger's and Narcissism that are apparently being ignored. Even if a person can have both, it's still an important distinction, probably moreso. ~~~ Additionally: One of the problems with putting Narcissism on the Autistic Spectrum is that there will be a VERY high risk for clinicians as well as lay people to lump Narcissism in with the rest of the Autistic spectrum. In other words~ there will probably be a LOT of people who will categorize anyone on the Autistic spectrum as having Narcissism. This is obviously very dangerous. Ironically, (or not so ironically), Autistic people including those with Asperger's seem to be walking triggers for people with Cluster B Personality Disorders such as Narcissism, most likely because: ~ those on the Autism spectrum are typically either non-responsive to manipulation and intimidation ploys and social signals (which are common for those with Cluster B P.Ds), which means they just keep on trucking in spite of others' attempts to bully, control, and thwart them (this enrages manipulators and intimidators) ~ or they easily notice such social signals and behaviors and "call them out", thereby exposing them and the person doing it (also enrages manipulators and intimidators) ~ or they are easily manipulated by others because they believe others are "good", but react with anger and strength when they realize what's been going on. (also enrages manipulators and intimidators) Also, those on the Autism spectrum are prone to being more focused than the average person, and often have certain intensified abilities, talents or skills, (gifts), or a combination of them. This of course also "triggers" envy, jealousy, resentment and even rage in many with Cluster B Personality Disorder traits. Even further, those on the Autism spectrum often DO NOT follow along with the "gender cues" that others follow in their culture. It's not that they have sexuality issues, it's just that they simply don't follow along with others regarding stereotypes or social roles, because they don't see the point, nor why people expend time and energy on it. They typically don't think about it muich; they simply are the sex that they are, and they can have a hard time understanding why anyone would try to "prove" which sex they are to others with behaviors, jobs or appearance, since it's already pretty obvious without any of those things. This eschewing or ignoring of gender expectations within a culture easily triggers those who use gender stereotypes and expectations to navigate social situations OR to control and manipulate others. (For example, a heterosexual, masculine-looking man who styles women's hair or runs a daycare, or a heterosexual, small-framed woman who does construction, fixes cars or Th People who have "high-functioning Autism" appear mostly "normal" to both the average person AND to those who lack empathy function, so their "differences" are often misinterpreted severely as intentional and about the other person. (Also common in Cluster B Personality Disorders, especially Narcissism; everything others say and do is taken as being about them or affecting them, so even what another person does for work, or what another person eats, or how they arrange their own bedroom or wear their hair will be taken as "affecting" the Narcissist or being ABOUT the Narcissist.) ~ The point about Cluster B's (especially the Narcissistic) being easily triggered by the mere presence of a person on the Autism spectrum, often EVEN IF THEY DON'T KNOW THE PERSON HAS AUTISM, means that those with Narc. traits in the Mental Health and Medical field (and there are plenty), will be VERY LIKELY to diagnose a person on the Spectrum with Narcissism Disorder, because it's a stigmatized disorder that, in their mind, would give them an excuse to mistreat the patient. And whenever a psychiatric diagnosis becomes stigmatized in the psychiatric field, it becomes stigmatized in the entire mental health field, and then in the PUBLIC with lay people, including family members, communities, and the MEDIA. Paranoid thinking? Catastrophizing? Not at all. This stigmatization and poor treatment has already been going on for decades with those who have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia. Not only are patients OFTEN MISDIAGNOSED with one of these illnesses, but the diagnosis is often used to "label" the patient "defective" or even "inferior" or "bad", by both health field workers and lay people in their lives. And then used as an excuse to treat them poorly. ~ It's possible, and probable, that those on the Autism spectrum are better able than non-Autistics to communicate what autistic people are actually LIKE, and what they each think and feel. Rather than non-autistics in the mental health fields appointing themselves as authorities on the subject. It would be great if the same could be said for Narcissistic people, to describe what it's like and how they think, but Sam Vaknins are rare; most Ns will simply say and do whatever they think will get them more of what they want, including more power, money or recognition, and what will help them avoid consequences and criticism. Regardless of the field they're in. ~ S.J.Cole

Stella James Cole, Facebook.com

[holy-shit-dangan-ronpa]

New Danganronpa V3 AU - EXPERIMENT SAISHUU

Okay, so I got in the shower. Y’know how you think, in the shower? And I thought up this AU. It started with what I thought a collaborative killing could entail... Then Ultimate Despair AU... Then this. I present to you Experiment Saishuu.

Experiment Saishuu is an evil organization founded by the talented class of Saishuu Gauken; with four distinct teams, reminiscent of Harry Potter houses, but function like evil Pokémon teams. Each has a leader: Team Lure, Team Rewire, Team Refurbish, and Team Kill.

The mission statement: kill as many as possible whilst still having a functioning organization. That is it. The goal? Death. An evil sims - in which these sixteen students pluck away at the lives of the boring public around them.

Below, I’ve explained everyone’s role. So here’s my very first, home-brewed AU, Experiment Saishuu.

TEAM LURE is the most prominent team. As a team, they must convince the general public to participate in the Saishuu Eperiment. Through lies and hynotic techniques, they convince innocents to join them, under the guise of an excellent, talent-driven academy.

TEAM LEADER:

Kaede Akamatsu: In charge of advertising. She is the poster girl of the project, and its mascot. In the papers you see photos of her - she’s playing piano, she has a wide smile on her face. So happy and innocent. “I’m so glad I chose Saishuu! They helped me refine my childhood piano skills! I can’t believe I’m working with them!” She releases hit after hit on iTunes. Classical music fans adore her, and come to Saishuu hoping to learn her ways. She puts ads on television, the music hypnotic and drowning - all viewers can think of is Saishuu, and are drawn to the experiment.

Other Members: 

Shuuichi Saihara, Kaito Momota, and Maki Harukawa: Saihara is able to access criminal files, and brings known criminals into the experiment under multiple guises - sometimes he’ll say it’s for interrogation, other times for rehabilitation. Momota is passionate, he appeals to outsiders. Outsiders who wish to chase after their dreams. Harukawa is a Disney princess - attracting innocent youth into the organization. They all sometimes make media appearances with Kaede - they, along with Rantarou Amami, are the only publicly known members of Saishuu.

TEAM REWIRE is subtle, and refined. Despite Akamatsu being in Team Lure, they use many of her techniques. Their mission is to convince patients to murder each other through cognitive manipulation, IE brainwashing.

TEAM LEADER:

Kokichi Ouma: Who’s more fit to lead a team than an evil supreme leader? After his subordinates brainwash the patients, he gives them commands. Some are his brainwashed slaves, some are relentless murders, and some are commanded to commit suicide, all as his fickle heart wishes. He is also the leader of the Chamber, a room specifically for killing. He lines human heads along the walls of the Chamber, like taxidermied deer heads.

Other Members:

Korekiyo Shinguuji and Angie Yonaga: Shinguuji has a mesmerizing way with words, and can tell stories that make your skin crawl. He tells of demons that haunt the soul in words so vivid patients think that they are haunted, and kill themselves as release. Angie convinces the less susceptible to kill for their idols, or the gods that they praise. She can make the most evil person appear as a person to be worshipped.

TEAM REFURBISH is for the rebels. The kids who cannot obey mere command of word, the ones who don’t allow themselves to fall to hypnosis. Through brute force, Team Refurbish attempts to force patients to do as they command.

TEAM LEADER:

Miu Iruma: Iruma is the leader of human experimentation. With her partner Ki-bo, she converts living humans into robots, piece by piece. She’s broken bones, peeled away at skin, among other various fucked up things.

Other Members:

Ki-bo and Tenko Chabashira: Iruma’s assistant. He will hold people with an iron grip, and shock them until the pain convinces them to submit to Iruma’s orders. Tenko is a warrior. She will punch and beat you into submission. Knives and nunchucks are her favorite weapons of violence.

Tsumugi Shirogane: Shirogane is the “mother”. She will apply makeup to bruises, and make even the most hurt look clean and fresh, as if nothing has happened. This way, should someone escape before dying, nobody believes that they’ve been hurt: her makeup is simply amazing. Patients will underestimate their pain and fight with each other. She makes physical scars as  invisible as mental demons.

TEAM KILL is the simplest of the teams. Their mission? Murder. Kill as they please. That’s it.

TEAM LEADER:

Ryouma Hoshi: Who’s a better killer than someone who’s known for doing it? Murder Tennis has gotten even more violent. Bombs. Spiked rackets. Suffocation by nets. Making tennis deadly is fun.

Other Members:

Gonta Gokuhara and Himiko Yumeno: Gonta is a master of toxins. He can command animals to his will. He can train wolves to eat humans alive. Scorpions that bite with venemous teeth. Bee stings. So many bee stings. Yumeno can saw you in half, release doves to peck at you catch a bullet in her mouth, and then fire it straight at your head.

OTHERS:

Rantarou Amami: the whole leader. He fills in missing holes in every team. But other than that, he doesn’t do much leading, he mostly leaves it to the team leaders. He likes burning things.

Kirumi Toujou: The Chamber Maid. That’s it. She cleans up after the corpses.

And that’s the whole AU.

[goproudmama-blog]

A Father’s Huge Contribution | Happy Father’s Day!

"Any man can be a father but it takes someone special to be a Dad." -- Anne Geddes

The role of a father is often relegated to a secondary status as compared to a mother. Nowadays, though, we know the father is just as important for a child as the mother is. If mothers are the heroes of child rearing, the significance of a father in the development and emotional well being of a child is no less. Children depend on their father for their spiritual, emotional, physical, financial and social well being. For daughters, the father is the ideal man in the world and also the first man they adore; while for sons, the father is an idol and the strongest man they aspire to emulate.

Sunday is Father's Day: the perfect time to honor every Dad who shows up for his children. It's not an easy thing, being the best father they can be. But they are making a huge difference in their child's life -- now, and every day of their child's future.

Every hug, every joke they share, every moment that they listen patiently, every time they take a deep breath and see things from their child's perspective, every time they role model for their child how to show up with integrity, they are shaping their child into a person who will make them proud. We celebrate you!

Now, to honor the contribution of Fathers, let's consider some recent research findings that may surprise more than one.

Did you know that:

-Children whose fathers are highly involved with them in a positive way do better in school, demonstrate better psychological well-being and lower levels of delinquency, and ultimately attain higher levels of education and economic self-sufficiency. One of the most important factors in girls’ academic achievement is their father’s belief in them.

-Boys who frequently wish their fathers spent more time with them weigh, on average, 10 pounds more than boys who are satisfied with the amount of time they spend with their dads.

-Kids who feel they have good relationships with their fathers are less likely to use drugs.

-Kids who feel they don’t have their father’s respect are more prone to anxiety.

-An active and nurturing style of fathering is associated with better verbal skills, intellectual functioning, and academic achievement among adolescents.

-When fathers are involved in their children's education, the kids are more likely to get As, enjoy school, and participate in extracurricular activities.

-Toddlers with involved fathers start school with higher levels of academic readiness. They are more patient and can handle the stresses and frustrations associated with schooling more readily than children with less involved fathers.

-Kids who have problematic relationships with their mothers grow up to be worse parents -- UNLESS they have good relationships with their dads, in which case they can become very good parents. (And of course anyone who was parented poorly can become a great parent if they're willing to do the emotional work).

-Whether a girl has early and/or unprotected sex is greatly influenced by whether her father was loving and supportive to her. Adolescent girls living in homes without their fathers are 3 times more likely to engage in sexual relations by the time they turn 15, and 5 times more likely to become a teen mother.

-Fathers who take a week or more off to spend with their newborn are closer to their child at every stage of the child's life, right up into young adulthood.

-Dads often worry that they don't know how to care for a newborn. But research shows that men have a hormonal response to becoming fathers, including increased oxytocin, estrogen, prolactin and glucocorticoids, which creates a natural protectiveness toward the baby. So Paternal Instinct is as real as Maternal Instinct.

-The more time dads spend holding their new babies, the more their paternal instinct is activated, and the more comfortable they feel comforting and caring for their newborns. This is usually a transformative experience for Dad, a tremendous relief to mom, and a vital relationship for the baby.

-Fathers' parenting-related stress has a harmful effect on their toddler's cognitive and language development, especially with boys.

-Fathers' mental health issues such as depression causes behavior problems in toddlers, and can have a long-term impact, leading to differences in children's social skills, self-control and cooperation even as late as fifth grade.

-Teenagers watch an average of 21 hours of television per week. They spend only 35 minutes per week talking with their fathers.

Pretty impressive list, isn't it?

We don't need scientists to tell us how important fathers are. We can see it in the face of any child looking up at his or her father.

Happy Father's Day!

I would like to take this opportunity to specially thank my husband, the FATHER of our children, for he is doing a terrific job! And my dad, that although he passed away when I was very young, he has always been so present in my life...

Thank you for always being a great father and husband. Thank you for showing our kids how a man should treat their daughters and wife. Thank you for continuously encouraging our kids to run after their dreams. Thank you for giving your life away every day to work and support us. Thank you for lifting our spirits up when we are down. You are the daddy, hero, supporter and biggest fan of us all.

We love you!

[vanessessity]

talking to my own reflection pt.2

Let me tell you, sophomore year was a whirlwind. First semester was probably the most disappointing thing I have ever experienced. I was pre-med, so hopeful, with my Biology and Society major and I felt like things were really going right for me. I wasn’t going to change my career and plus, my mom would be ecstatic to hear that her dream would finally come true. So, yea. I was gonna be a doctor. “Was”, that is. First semester ate me from the inside out and spit me back out. I had to take general chemistry, retake my other biology class that I almost failed, I was faced with narcissistic deans who told me “You can’t get into medical school with that GPA. You’ll never get in, are you serious?”, I went to the pre-med advisor twice a week like she was basically my therapist, I was at the highest stress I have ever been in my life. The chemistry exam averages were 30-40% and you’d celebrate if you were within standard deviation of a failing grade. I didn’t understand anything this school was doing. Grade inflation is always talked about, but I’ve always believed that grades don’t really matter (I know I freak out about my GPA, but thats only when I think about applying to graduate school-and I mean, I’m a well rounded student). But the fact is, okay- you’re getting an A. Sure, that’s awesome. Obviously. But what have you learned? If you’re celebration comes from just the fact that you got a 35%, it surfaces a bit of doubt about how the university-the system, I should say-evaluates their students. Basically, I just didn’t like doing it-I didn’t feel like it was right. Like it was moral, almost. Though I did work my ass off for that bio class and got a final grade of a B+, so that was cool. But there was class that really had an impact on me first semester.

Controversies about Inequality. I hadn’t even known I signed up for it. It was just on my schedule, so I gave myself a high-five because it sounded quite interesting and so I went. I started to learn that it was one of the most popular classes at Cornell and it was super hard to get into. I didn’t even know what department it was. Sociology? I haven’t even- I didn’t even know what the fuck that was. I knew Ms. Robinson taught it in high school, but what the hell. What was I doing in this class? The professor seemed cool and excited to teach, the syllabus was pretty interesting and I was curious. I guess that’s all it took, really. I started really getting into that class. I attended a lecture-I suppose my first of its kind-for extra credit and it was the best talk I have ever been to (’til this day). It changed my life-my whole perspective on what everything was about. It was about mass incarceration and wow, did it move me. I remember getting home at around 9 or 10pm and I went straight to the internet to do more research on this horrible, horrible injustice of the system and lo and behold, I found a paper my professor wrote. She was an expert on mass incarceration. That was her field. Not only that but how mass incarceration affects black boys in school. Listen, this night was a pivotal moment in space and time and everything between that for me. Immediately, I emailed her (which I do not, do not, do not do. But, I did) and I thanked her for the opportunity to attend and I told her that I was super interested in her research and she emailed me back saying to come into office hours. So, I did. And I literally fell in love. She was-sorry, is-one of the most passionate, caring, thoughtful, most insightful person I have ever talked to. She spoke to me about her research and I left her office in awe. Sociology was a whole other field I hadn’t discovered until now and I was flustered. I loved it, but I was flustered. Thought the coming months, sociology was like that spec on your glasses you always tried to rub off but it just wouldn’t budge. Everywhere I looked, it was there. It really made me think about things in ways that was similar to how I actually wanted to. There was no “I got a 30%. Nice”. There was no “I have to study my ass off and then some and get a C”. Everything was genuine. Haskins really didn’t care about grades either to be honest, she always said she wanted us to succeed and she gave extra credit opportunities every other week, to be honest. There was a time at the beginning of one lecture where the undergraduate advisor in the sociology department gave a speech on majoring in Sociology and it was there that everything came full circle. Once I had time, I went into Prof. Cornwell’s office and poured out my heart-“I want to be a pediatrician. Sociology is so cool, but I’m going to medical school and I don’t know what they’ll think. I really want to do this”. And she pushed me to think about what I wanted. So, from then on, I decided I would switch my major to Sociology. From that moment, I started thinking about why I was doing things rather than its contents. “I have to do this to get into med school.” “Does this meet my requirements for med school?” “Is med school really going to take me with my GPA? Was my faculty advisor right?” But, why did I care? Why did I want to be a doctor so much?

Winter break came and I dropped the whole pre-med fiasco. It was just a waste of my time. I told myself, maybe in the future but definitely not now. Especially not at this school- I won’t feel accomplished. Well, I was majoring in Sociology… then what? I had to rethink my whole career path from the very beginning and I really had to dig deep and ask myself tough questions. Why do I care about sociology? What is it about it and why is it so interesting to me? Then I thought, wait. I just started majoring in it because it was interesting to me. That’s all, it’s that simple. That’s when I knew there was a second piece missing from all this. I immediately knew where my heart was and all it took was some little tiny steps here and there. Talking to Haskins, exploring sociology, majoring in it. I knew there was something else I had to add. My once star-crossed field of study became my focus-psychology. Always, always, always have I been interested-more than anything-in the field of psychology. It all came back to psychology. Why was I studying Biology and Society? To learn more about the brain. I didn’t care about anything else, I thought to myself I just had to get through the easy classes and then I would be able to finally learn about the brain and its anatomy, its functions, its biological processes, how it works, how it perceives information, how humankind needs it. That’s where my true intentions laid. I always knew, but I just didn’t have the courage to tell myself that it was the right thing to do. It was too easy for me, I thought. I need something that is challenging. But listen, pre-med kind of wanted to make me jump off a building and may in the middle of the road. Yea, it was challenging but I also was not having a great time. And my girl told me something that I haven’t really thought about. Maybe psychology was so easy for me because I actually understood the material and I was actually interested in it and I wanted to learn more about it. I never really thought about it like that and she was right. Of course, as always.

Second semester was really when I hit it off. I changed my whole spring semester schedule and I was so fucking excited. No more hard sciences (even though I will indeed miss biology) and I was on my social science grind. This was really it for me, I thought. I found my true passion-oh gosh. I forgot to mention a big factor in me choosing [cont’d at the airport] psychology as a major. First semester, I got accepted into an integrative neuroethology lab as a research assistant. The name is kind of extra I’m not gonna lie, I just use it to sound kind of pretentious, but  [cont’d on airplane] I just research how developmental early experience manipulations affect later prosocial behavior. I really got into it, I really did. My graduate mentor is awesome and I love her very much; she’s like my idol and reminds me of myself at times. So I really got into research and went to lab meetings every friday at 8am. If that’s not commitment, I don’t know what is. First semester lab meetings consisted of reading a book and discussing a chapter each week and I really enjoyed it (cognitive dissonance? maybe). Second semester each graduate student a some undergraduate students gave presentations about their data and results. Doing research and all of those meetings and getting into the nitty-gritty, I think it’s what made me go from a stable pre-med to an on-the-fence pre-med to an unsure pre-grad-school. It definitely had a huge impact on me and I can’t believe I didn’t mention it above, but yeah. I love it. So, next semester (fall 2017) I plan on being in two- but we will see what happens with that whole situation. Anyways, second semester lmao.

I found my true passion. Psychology with a mix of Sociology and a sprinkle of Inequality Studies was and is exactly what I needed to satisfy my academic hunger. The professors actually care about their students learning, they’re always excited to teach, excited about learning with their students and growing, they put in effort and make sure we are doing the same. I love it. All very down-to-earth individuals. Second semester I really rocked it in terms of my grades and studying. I still worked my ass off, don’t get me wrong. It was just smoother and more… me. I’m really grateful I went through the realization that I had and that it happened at the perfect time. I’m really proud of myself. I really am. So, yea. That’s that regarding my career path and choosing my journey. I actually just found out a few hours ago that I got two A+s (even though they were in tagalog and lab but hey whatever), so it’s starting off pretty good. Scared for the rest to come, but it is what it is.

But in terms of my social life, it definitely has been a bit weird. I got closer and closer with *. * pops up here and there but not that often. That’s fine. But anyways, yeah. I don’t really mind. Also made a new close friend, *. He’s always great. He’s honestly the only one who I’ve really had a genuine connection with. Made friends with *, she’s nice. I have a class with her next semester so I hope we stay in touch. She’s very chill and down-to-earth. I mean I don’t know, I like keeping my circle really close so like I said, I don’t really mind. Time alone is completely fine as well cause it keeps me in check. I feel as though I’m pretty socially balanced right now but a few friends won’t hurt.

Let’s see what else… well, I mean theres my relationship and where do I start with that one? I fall more in love with that girl every waking moment and then some. She’s been so good to me and I really can’t ask for better because better doesn’t exist when I’m dating the love of my life. She makes me so happy and I am so excited to be seeing her in a few hours. OH. This summer! This summer I have the amazingly perfect opportunity with a human development lab up in NAU and guess who’ll be by my side!! I am super, super excited for that as well. It’s honestly the perfect lab for me, studying neurodevelopmental issues in children and how it affects learning and attention. It’s so fucking great, I am so excited to be on board for the summer. AND they’re taking me to my first conference. Honestly, it was so so perfect. I can’t believe everything worked out the way it did. God is real, believe #that. So, yeah. I’ll be spending the whole summer with my girl and it’ll be wonderful.

I’m really happy with my life right now. I feel like I can’t complain about anything, except I keep on losing weight so thats not good and my mom will hate me cause I’m gay, but thats usual. But other than that, I am living my almost ideal life. I really can’t wait for the future and I’m extremely grateful for the things that God has given me this past year. It has been a whirlwind and I’ve been loving every second of it. Until next year, then.

[stormdoors78476]

Reason Provides the Push to Widen our Circle of Empathy

  Our ancestors were tightly connected with each other, which is why they felt only the pain of their family and the people in their village. As we started to travel more and learn new things, we expanded the circle of sympathy to the clan, the tribe, the nation, the race, and maybe all humankind.

It was a process that at its origin had what physicist David Bohm called “participatory thought” — in some cultures there was a shared understanding that everyone was part of the same experience. In his excellent On Dialogue, Bohm explains the meaning of participatory, it's about “to partake of,” and the idea was everyone drew from the same source of energy.

“Literal thought” stands in contrast to it:

Literal thought aims at being a reflection of reality as it is — it claims just to tell you the way things are. We tend to say that's the best kind of thought. Technical thought, for instance, aims to be literal. Such thought intends to be unambiguous; it may not succeed, but it aims that way — to know something as exactly what it is.

British philosopher Owen Barfield has compared such literal thought to idol worship. It starts as the symbol of something greater that itself, and gradually it stands in for that. That's how the object borrows literal value.

In a way we are worshiping our words and our thoughts, insofar as they claim to be descriptions or statements about reality just as it is.

But then we're inconsistent because we say we think literally, but in reality we're still tacitly giving a lot of value to participatory thought. For example, when a country is attacked, people think “I am attacked.” So inside the tribe and clan there's this sense of “we're it,” which is difficult to anyone outside, because being a person or human becomes identified with being a member of the tribe or clan. Anyone not in the clan is not human. We can see where this kind of thought leads.

Words have tremendous and lasting power to affect how we think about things and the actions we take as a consequence. We didn't need literal thought much when we lived in small groups, everyone knew everyone else. With population growth and scale through agricultural and industrial ages, literal thought became more a necessity.

Organization was important to function:

They organized society by saying, “you belong here, you do this, you do that.” They began therefore to treat everything as a separate object, including other people. They used people as a means to an end. The further civilization went, the more these societies went into this area of using thought as a means to an end.

Treating people as objects was transferred to treating countries as objects and literal thought kept spreading to more and more areas, fragmenting experience into discrete and separate parts. If we're to do anything together, as a group, however, we need participatory thought. We never got to considering humankind a collective entity. What we have instead is separation.

Something interesting happens in the way people treat a group of others, which in the world of tribes was logically inconsistent with the way they insisted on being treated themselves. Which means that empathy can go only so far in human relationships.

Economist and philosopher Adam Smith said:

Let us suppose that the great empire of China was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe would react on receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people. He would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure with the same ease and tranquility as if no such accident had happened.

If he was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep tonight, but provided he never saw them, he would snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred million of his brethren.

Without the idea of participation, we lose the more compelling aspects of sharing in common humanity and that is cognitive empathy. We miss the understanding piece, and thus we fail to use reason for we never engage the conscious ability to understand someone else’s perspective. We don't really “know” what it feels like because we don't internalize the thought, we don't participate.

Philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein says:

Reason has muscle. It's reason that provides the push to widen that circle of empathy. When thinkers through the ages give reasons for why some practice is indefensible, they demonstrated that the way people treated some particular group of others was logically inconsistent with the way they insisted on being treated themselves.

[...]

Contradictions bother us, at least when we're forced to confront them, which is just another way of saying that we are susceptible to reason. And if you look at the history of moral progress, you can trace a direct pathway from reasoned arguments to changes in the way that we actually feel.

Time and again, a thinker would lay out an argument as to why some practice was indefensible, irrational, inconsistent with values already held. Their essay would go viral, get translated into many languages, get debated at pubs and coffee houses and salons, and at dinner parties, and influence leaders, legislators, popular opinion. Eventually their conclusions get absorbed into the common sense of decency, erasing the tracks of the original argument that had gotten us there.

Few of us today feel any need to put forth a rigorous philosophical argument as to why slavery is wrong or public hangings or beating children. By now, these things just feel wrong. But just those arguments had to be made, and they were, in centuries past.

It was John Locke who argued that slavery was inconsistent with the principles of rational government. Once that movement for the expansion of rights was in the public domain, it inspired another with the same logic. Which is how reason provides the push to widen our circle of empathy.

Literal thought, which has gotten muddled in with participatory thought, sees individuals by their function — we say “I'm a banker,” “they're an accountant” and so on — and thus separate them into a hierarchy where we have people as objects. Eventually that tendency becomes self-inflicted, where we say, “I must fit here, and I must do this and that and become better.”

“But society is not an objective reality,” says Bohm. “it is a reality created by all the people through their consciousness.” It's the same with physics, when we try to measure an atom exactly, we can't, because it participates. We can get average behaviors in society, even predictable ones, though not significant, but we don't have an average person.

The things that really move us, we don't look at those. And we don't take into account the context and experience in which these things happen in relationship to each other. That's what art expresses, the connection. Science tries, it succeeds in some limited ways. Which is how we lost the bond with nature as we try and fail to manage it as an object.

So we have reason to help us with cognitive empathy, and we have thought to direct our attention. Here's where we want to make a distinction between two kinds of attention:

limited — what we call concentration, the brain is occupied by it. This is useful to earn a living.

unlimited — the fundamental kind we tap into when we're in silence and lack occupation. This is important to participate at a higher level. Bohm notes how the root of the word “leisure” means “emptiness, and empty space of time or place.”

To be productive in making use of reason, we want to think of thought as a process. When things don't go as we anticipated, maybe they're going to pieces, we want to identify the distractions. That's part of the learning process. This is how we connect to everything.

“Reason is intelligence taking exercise,” said Victor Hugo. In a letter to Grand Duchess Christina, Galileo Galilei wrote, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”

Making good use of this tool means having a glimpse of the daily illusion — that objectifying, separating, and fragmenting are the answer when there is so much more we can work out for ourselves through reason, and find those commonalities we often hold in contempt.

  from DIYS http://ift.tt/2nrsfbU