pheromonefragrance

[mythicalmagical-monkeyman]

Do Rumble and Savage ever get stuck in trees? (Not a writing request yet sorry I was thinking and ended up with this instead lol)

Rumble: We eat trees bro

Savage: WE DO FUCKING NOT

Rumble: YUH, I can think of at least five times where we've eaten tree bark

Savage: SHUT YOU LITTLE BITCH

MK: They do, they really do

Bai He: Eat trees or get stuck in them?

MK: Both, they've tried to climb some of the trees on Flower Fruit Mountain before realizing that said trees are very far off the ground

Bai He: Oh, pfff

[that-weird-mime]

Dark thought I had... (TW For graphic descriptions of parasite behavior!)

Each one will be explained here. However, these are graphic in description because I felt my inner write coming out! You have been warned.

A Dinocampus Coccinellae, henceforth known as a ladybug killer, is a wasp that lays eggs on the underbelly of a ladybug. In a Bugsnax sense, that may mean eating a bugsnax with little snax eggs on it. After a week spent hatching, the ladybug killer will spend about a month going through several larval stages before it prepares to pupate, paralyzing the host. Note that the host can spend this whole month unaware of the parasite, foraging as usual. Once the host is paralyzed, the parasite will tunnel out and make a cocoon on the ladybug's, or grumpus', leg. This cocoon is extremely vulnerable. Thus, the host is forced to protect it until it emerges. If something goes for the cocoon, the host retaliates. After a little more than a week, the adult parasite emerges. 25% of ladybugs actually recover from this afterwards, if they survive the paralysis. Still a high death count. A jewel wasp has a more aggressive approach, stinging their chosen host twice in the head. One sting paralyzes, the other gets rid of the escape reflex. Afterwards, the host is led to the wasp's burrow where two eggs will be laid on it. The burrow entrance is then covered to prevent predators from getting in. The eggs hatch after 3 days, feed for 4-5 days, and then burrow out. Over the course of 8 days, in the final larva stage, they consume the host's internal organs, finally killing them, and pupate inside the their corpse. Eventually, an adult emerges. In a bugsnax sense, I can see this happening with the much more aggressive snax, like maybe the boss snax.

Everyone knows how a cordeyceps fungus works, lol. The spores take over the mind, make the host go to a higher place, and then erupt from the body to expel more spores. In a bugsnax sense, I can see this happening when a grumpus is fully snakified, perhaps.

Horsehair worms are the worst ones. They trick a host into eating it at a young age, as bugsnax do, and grow inside them. Later, they hijack the host's nervous system and make them go to a body of water, jumping right in. They proceed to (ahem) wriggle their way out through the keister. You know, arse. If you want to be generous, the mouth instead. Anyways, they breed and go on their merry way. Hosts are more likely to live through this if they don't drown. I don't really like this one from a visual standpoint, but I got to cover my bases in terms of parasites I can remember.

Anyways, this was a dark idea I had. What if bugsnax were more like real life parasites in a way? They would be horrifying predators, lol. There would be a lot less grumpuses considering the high mortality rate of most of these too. Perhaps the grumps would learn of ways to prevent these? Anyways, I want to know what you all think.

And, sorry, for what I have unleashed on the world. :sob:

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Let's talk about Delly Cartwright.

Do you like her character?

What do you think about Katniss' description of her: "Delly Cartwright is a pasty-faced, lumpy girl with yellowish hair"

How did you feel about her exclusion from the movies?

What do you think happened to her after the war?

Do you have any fancast?

Any fanfic with Delly as main character or with her POV of the book events?

Thank you :D

@curiousnonny

Delly yaaaaaaassss my girl. I love Delly's character because, hear me out, in Mockingjay, Delly talks about how awesome she's always thought Katniss was, and while Katniss comments that this is just who Delly is, she is genuinely kind and just likes people, the way Delly talks still comes off as a little... strong? Socially awkward? It just fascinates me to compare Delly's character with Peeta's, whose kindness we associate with sincerity, just like Katniss does with Delly's, but Peeta's kindness also comes with charm and charisma, which he uses effectively to manipulate the Capitol audiences. Even Gale comments in Catching Fire, on how it's difficult it is to dislike Peeta, because he's just so damn... nice. Compare that to Haymitch and Katniss's shock over the way Delly describes Katniss in Mockingjay and how they just don't know what to do with it. And I think it's because they can't see how it benefits her to be nice, other than... she just is. Peeta's kindness is usually genuine, but at times, he can wield it as a weapon, and that's something Haymitch and Katniss can understand.

Everybody seems to like Peeta, but Delly seems to like everybody.

As for the way Katniss describes her, I think it smacks of jealousy. Katniss, my girl, you can be so petty at times, lol. I think it's entirely likely that Delly wasn't exceptionally, aesthetically beautiful. And Katniss, whose default mode is prickly and protective, is jealous of Delly's ability to be genuinely kind and friendly to most people. That makes her description of Delly come off as almost... cruel. Especially when you compare it to how Katniss thinks about Delly's inner qualities and personality during Mockingjay.

Her exclusion from the movies is one of the things that really ticks me off, although I had a feeling when they cut Madge out that Delly would face the same fate for the movies. Madge and Delly are the only named, non-romantically involved, district 12 friends we have for Katniss and Peeta, respectively. Their exclusion from the movies removes some of the depth of the stories and the main characters. I get why they did it, time constraints blah blah blah, but this goes back to my point about it working better as a series than a movie.

Anyways. I have to hope that Delly survived the war. There was no reason for her to leave District 13, even though she was old enough to be training as a soldier, I doubt she's someone 13 would have sent to the frontlines. I can't imagine her doing well in military training, given how nice she is, so it's my belief that 13 would have trained her for something else. I don't think she would've stayed in 13, though. I think she probably found a way to convince 13 to take her to the Capitol so she could be there to help Peeta recover from his burns and maybe continue what she was doing to help him recover from the hijacking.

I have two theories I go back and forth on as to what she does after Peeta returns to 12. Sometimes I think that she stayed on with Dr. Aurelius for a while and trained to become what would amount to a psychologist/therapist in Panem. I don't think she stayed in the Capitol for long, though. I think at some point, she'd want to come home to 12. She could always conduct her education through a mixture of correspondence and trips to the Capitol and other districts. My other theory is that she resumes her parents' trade, making shoes, and contributes to the rebuilding process that way, and she picks up a few other tangential skills as well while she's at it. For wither theory, when she comes home depends on how old her younger brother is and what he winds up wanting to do. Usually, though, I think he'd want to return to 12 with her to ceremonially bury their parents and help rebuild the district.

@curiousnonny

[rowanisawriter]

how abt director’s commentary for “juxtaposition” bc that fic makes me rotate johnny silverhand in my head like a reheated mug of tea and I love ur take on corpo V

He wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole if he wasn’t stuck in her body, the body he wants so bad it feels like an ache, the body he wants to cram full of nicotine and whiskey and whatever fucking pills he can fit in his hands. He hates how perfect her skin is, no freckles, no scars. How perfect her hands are. He touches her wrist, the green veins that pulse just under her pristine skin, and wants to bite her hard enough to draw blood.

“Why do you corpo types always polish away every imperfection like you’re fucking robots?” he says.

She lifts her shirt and shows him the scar on the skin that stretches over her hip bone from the last gig or whatever that they did. He remembers they spent the money from that one on the new apartment, that she got it for him because he wouldn’t shut up about that nasty megabuilding unit, and he buried the thought that she had gotten hurt because he had gotten bored.

He buries it again. He’s so good at that, good at overwriting the past just as his engram overwrites V. Second nature. Evolution.

“Here’s a scar you can see,” she says, and he runs a finger along her hip bone, over the scar and trailing across her belly, raising goosebumps in his wake. “And in my head, a scar you can’t see but you can feel it all the same. Can’t you?”

He shrugs. She shifts and his hand drops onto the bed and bounces just a little.

“I’m in your head,” she tells him. “And it smells like guilt in here. Like shit.”

ahhhhh thank you for asking! tbh juxtaposition is one of my favorite things i’ve written 🥹

ask me for director’s commentary on one of my dumb ass stories

ok so, from the beginning i wanted to somehow convey just how strikingly different a corpo v is compared to johnny but also how similar. i also really really liked the idea that they are actually trapped in the same body. the game has to show us that they’re different units because it is more dramatic to see johnny outside of v’s body, it looks cooler to see keanu!! but in the story i kept them in the same body the entire time, it gave the whole fic a very disjointed feeling because some passages had johnny acknowledging they were the same person and some had him creating some kind of mental block to separate them, as the thought that he was now a corpo/corpo adjacent was too much for him to bear.

this scene is near the end and i wanted johnny to come to some kind of understanding that v isn’t what he thinks she is and that he actually can survive with her in this body, that the two of them are kinda similar at least in stubbornness and pride, that she is willing to get her (their) hands dirty and shows him the scar as proof. he immediately buries this and literally right after this he tells her to go punch the wall and get more scars. like the vengeful insane rocker boy he is, enough is never enough for him lol. but v is willing to do this to get him on her side because she’s in love with him and he’s willing to acknowledge she might not be just corpo shit because he’s in love with her 😭 god i love this story so much 😭

a few more scenes here really are ingrained in my brain forever, there is some inner monologue for johnny that aren’t in quotations but are still in first person, just chaotic methods of writing lol i felt during my playthroughs that johnny was a presence akin to a tumor, an aggressive shadow in v’s mind, his thoughts as full of hatred and resentment as they were just churning in v’s head, sometimes his monologues can be overbearing and overwhelming and i tried to convey that in the fic by leaving them outside of quotation, as if he was hijacking the narrative just as he’s hijacking v’s mind.

anyway!! lol thanks for letting me rant about this story it is also rotating in my head like a mug of tea tbh!!!!

[lemonluvgirl]

Can you share your thoughts about Gale as character? Thank you.

@curiousgalehawthorne

I really like Gale.

I like the nuances between him and Katniss as much as I like their similarities. I know Gale is a very polarizing character from the original trilogy, but he's always intrigued me.

I like his facets, from his "best" friendship with Katniss, to his quasi-friendship/antagonistic relationship with Peeta, to his interactions with Johanna, and some of the other rebels. Gale is one of those characters that keeps you guessing as to his inner motivations and feelings. On the surface he seems very clear cut, but when you go deeper you can see he's got layers. Good layers and bad layers just like we all do.

One of the similarities that Gale shares with Katniss that I find most interesting is people's willingness to follow him. From the early leadership role he takes on with his family at a young age (at 13 or so, he begins hunting and helping feed a family of 5) then at the end of CF he leads 800 or 900 survivors out of D12 and keeps them alive for days in the woods, to the leadership role he takes on in D13 and the rebellion. I am just so intrigued by the unnamed quality that Gale (and to a much greater extent, Katniss) must exude in order to get hundreds of people to follow his lead during an emergency situation.

Throw in his paternal overtones with his siblings and his sharp mind for strategy and it just makes me want to know more.

Then you've got his and Katniss' relationship.

Whoa boy! It's messy, full of history, partnership, and eventually jealousy, anger, but also loyalty and heartache. When Peeta gets captured and then hijacked Gale becomes part of the inner circle that makes up Kantiss' support system. He fails at this sometimes (when he keeps the truth from Katniss regarding the propos, or doesn't heed Katniss' warning about the bombing of the Nut), but other times he succeeds in helping her. Like when he breaks Bogg's nose defending Katniss from Coin while Katniss is emotionally unstable, or when he protects her during the battle in D8, or the times he protects Katniss' family for her (D12 bombing, D13 bombing).

But ultimately I see Gale as having a kind of tragic flaw. His idealism and zealous nature end up being exploited and leading to the destruction of his relationship with his best friend of six years, not to mention the killing of countless innocent civilians, including Primrose Everdeen herself. The little sister that Katniss volunteered for. The girl that Gale himself kept fed while Katniss was in her first Hunger Games. The girl Gale saved from the bombing of D12 and again in D13. She ends up as collateral damage in a war she should never have been pulled into.

That to me, the way Gale in the end dishonors his own legacy of being the person Katniss could count on over and over again to protect her family, just breaks my heart.

I wish that things had ended differently for Gale. Not that he should have ended up with Katniss, (because Katniss herself said her and Peeta were inevitable) but that Gale could have bowed out gracefully and let his best friend live her best life with the man who made her happiest.

Maybe I'll write an alternate ending for Gale like that one day. LOL you gotta love fanfiction, because it gives people the freedom to rewrite the story in a way that satisfies their inclinations.

Anyway, hope I answered the question. All this was just my rambling opinion. I am aware a lot of THG fans really hate Gale. So, sorry if I offended anyone, but this is my take on Gale.

[exovapor]

I'm OBSESSED with your writing. Can you try.. Maybe, Donnie being a filthy boy being an 'stalker-ish' of his long time crush? Be checks their FB for new posts, saves every picture of them he finds? He doesn't mean to be a creep, feels guilty, but just doesn't know how to ask for more than friendship?

Good afternoon Anon. Here is my short story in relation to your ask.

I wasn't sure where you wanted me to take this, so I had to do a bit of guessing on my part. I hope this something like you were wanting.

I will admit that this ask was a bit of a struggle for me, not knowing a clear direction to take it outcome made me a little unsure of my writing and guessing abilities LOL. However, I will admit to crying along with the characters in this story more than once.

Thanks again for the ask and the initial compliment. I hope to continue to earn your favor in future posts.

· Stalker [noun]: 1a person who harasses or persecutes someone with unwanted and obsessive attention. 2a person who hunts game stealthily.

· Donnie stared at the definition on his one of his monitor screens while his various other screens were busy flashing receipts of files downloaded, text trail streams from your phone, notices of any social media post/update/like/heart/emoji, a GPS line grid of your routes today (overlayed over the routes you’d taken previously), and data search hits of anything and everything that pertained to you.

· At this point, the boy had literally every picture you had ever posted, anywhere, of yourself. In fact, he had all the pictures that other people posted of you in them. He had even gone through the effort of designing a face recognition program that picks you out of the background of total strangers’ pictures and, yeah, he had those in a file too.

· He has special file folders that compile things that you like, things you don’t like, things that make you happy, things that make you sad. He is your own personal Pinterest and you didn’t even know it… and maybe that is the part that keeps bothering him so much.

· He sits staring at that word and definition and chewing his bottom lip. True, he knows the word and the meaning, but he needed to LOOK at it, analyze it, mull it over in his guilt ridden brain.

· He just KNEW the word Stalker couldn’t apply to him.

· After all, he isn’t harassing or persecuting you, you don’t know! So, it isn’t necessarily ‘unwanted attention’. It is just…unknown attention.

· Stealthily, hmmmm, did that part apply to him? Well, He isn’t EXACTLY being stealthy.

· If you knew about technology like him, then you would probably see his programs running on your devices and be alerted to his activities. AND, if you shared his love and view of technology, then you would probably be more understanding of his activities and not consider them stealthy…just data mining. In fact, you might applaud him.

· ‘Ok, that was taking it a bit too far’, Donnie thinks to himself and he feels a band tighten and squeeze around his infatuated heart.

· He is almost certain that you would be shocked to learn of his extra curricular activities and how they revolve around every aspect of you.

· Regardless of how he tried to spin the truth and wiggle out of the definition of stalker, Donnie still felt guilty for invading your privacy. However, he honestly couldn’t help himself…at least not anymore.

· He has fought the urge, the nagging thoughts and the burning need, to know more about you for what seemed like an eternity.

· Listen to him, he is starting to sound dramatic like Mikey! What is his turning into? He is losing his rational edge!

· To be accurate, it hasn’t been an eternity. In fact, he has known you 1 year, 36 days, 14 hours, 11 minutes, and 23 seconds to be exact. However, you started occupying space in his mind 2 minutes into meeting you and your claim over his mind has grown exponentially over time.

· You were quiet and reserved during that first meeting, so there wasn’t much to go on. It started as a simple visual interest with a thought of ‘Oh. She’s pretty’.

· However, then you started talking and that changed everything.

· You opened up more and more each time you hung out with their little group, revealing layers and layers of interests and personality. You were fascinating…and that’s when his thoughts about you really started to snowball and spiral out of control.

· You went from being a simple pretty face to being a walking embodiment of everything he seriously ever dreamed of having in a mate.

· Early on, there were three sticking points that really made Donnie’s feelings problematic. 1. He was a nearly seven foot tall walking talking turtle and you weren’t. 2. You had a boyfriend that you were deeply in love with and adored. 3. Donnie was too insecure about #1 and how you felt about inter-species dating to let you know that you had started to OWN his heart.

· Now, thanks to his surveillance, there were only two sticking points….#1 and #3.

· He still remembers the feelings of that day, 44 days ago, when the blip of information popped up on this screen alerting him to the fact that your boyfriend was starting to stray.

· Donnie had severely conflicting feelings bombard him at once and it was overwhelming.

· The initial knee jerk reaction was elation, one of the problems blocking him from you may soon be null.

· However, the feeling of elation only lasted for a second or two before the intense anger and sadness set in. Donnie was honestly shocked at the depth of his anger, he didn’t even know he had that level of malice in him. Had he been in physical proximity to your boyfriend at that moment in time, Donnie isn’t sure that he wouldn’t have hurt your guy…or worse.

· How COULD this guy do this? WHY would he? He HAD YOU! What the heck was this guy thinking? Not only did he have you, but you thought the world of him. When you spoke about him you would smile so genuinely, your eyes would shine and gaze off into a bright imagined future. Donnie was always so jealous to watch it happen, he wondered what it would be like to be THAT GUY. And here the idiot was throwing it all away and meeting up with another girl!

· WHAT THE…(yes, this called for a curse) HELL…IS WRONG WITH HUMAN MEN?

· As the anger set root in his heart, the sadness engulfed Donnie like an all-consuming wave. He realized he was going to have to share this information with you, somehow, and that he was going to have to watch as it destroyed you.

· At first, Donnie had a plan to try and save you both from that fate. True, it would hurt him more to save your relationship, but he would rather be the one facing the pain and not you.

· He TRIED to circumvent the situation. He sent anonymous messages to your boyfriend stating that he knew about the infidelity and that he would tell you if needed. However, it didn’t seem like your boyfriend cared because he sent messages back stating Donnie could, basically, go fuck himself.

· Life had cruel sense of irony, thought Donnie, that is exactly what I do since this moron has the woman that I love.

· So, after trying for nearly two weeks to stop what was happening behind your back, Donnie had no choice but to let you in on the secret.

· Donnie couldn’t come right out and tell you that he caught your boyfriend cheating by hijacking your data streams and the data streams of those around you. So, Donnie intercepted some texts between your boyfriend and his mistress and he then sent you a text, under the guise of your boyfriend, telling you to meet him at a specified restaurant for a date.

· It had been a gut wrenching night for Donnie. He remembered watching it all play out on camera feeds from around the restaurant and street outside. He watched you dressed up in your pretty dress get out of your cab in front of the restaurant. You had such a lovely smile on your face, you must have thought you were in for a romantic evening.

· He watched as you walked inside and how the hostess got flustered and confused by a 2nd girl showing up for your boyfriend’s seated-for-two table.

· Donnie stopped breathing as your eyes found the new couple holding hands and giving each other sweet kisses across the table. Hands and lips that were supposed to be yours were touching some stranger.

· Donnie watched your smile and eyes die…the light of your inner sun go out…

· …and it killed him.

· He’s not sure who was crying the hardest, you standing there in that restaurant witnessing the scene or him back at the lair watching your world crush around you on his monitor.

· It had taken a while for you both to recover from that night.

· His brothers noticed his melancholy mood for a couple of weeks but Donnie wouldn’t tell them what was bothering him. And you stayed in your bed, refusing to face the world, for nearly as long.

· Eventually, the group began to notice your silence and absence, so April stopped by your apartment to check on you. She was the one to pull you out of bed, get you to shower and eat. She visited everyday and made sure you had someone to vent to and a shoulder to cry on.

· Donnie was glad that April could be there for you when he couldn’t. He didn’t think it was appropriate for him, a male, to be your confidant at that time. Especially since he felt so much guilt over having to be the one to expose you to that pain.

· No, he didn’t CAUSE the pain, but he did have to make you face it and he didn’t like not being able to protect you from it. You were such a rare, precious creature and watching you in pain felt like he was suffocating slowly.

· There were some points during those first few weeks that he questioned if he did the right thing, but logic told him it would have eventually come to pass with or without his involvement. It was better to rip the bandage of quickly and let you start to heal than it was to let you linger and drag out the inevitable.

· Donnie did secretly check on you every single night during patrol. And, of course, his surveillance feeds were always running. He watched from a distance as his beautiful phoenix burn down to ashes and, eventually, started to rise again.

· Now, it’s been over 3 months and you’ve begun to be more like your old self. Donnie can tell there is a silent sadness there, but you are able to laugh and smile with the group during your get togethers. And each time you two are left alone, his mind nags at him about those last two sticking points.

· Would you be at all interested in him? And HOW does he go about telling you that you have become the center of his world?

· Still staring at the monitor and the Stalker definition, Donnie sighs and rubs the bridge of his snout to release of the pressure now pushing against the inside of his head. The memories of what has happened, the emotions of what was and what is, it was all starting to be too much.

· “Bro, what’s all this?”, Mikey says standing behind Donnie’s chair, talking around a mouth full of pizza.

· “NOTHING!”, says Donnie, voice breaking from the stress of being caught. A startled Donnie quickly taps some keys on his keyboard and the screens revert back to the standard lair camera feeds.

· Mikey may look or even come off as naïve at times, but he’s no fool, he can sense that his older brother is trying to hide something. “Dude, seriously, what was that? I’ve been standing back here reading the screens. I saw Y/N’s name and that looked like her phone number on that other file…, you know the file that looks like texts messages. And why is there a plotted map of the area around her apartment, her work, and to the lair? What’s up?”, Mikey said giving a disapproving look at being thought a pushover.

· “Just standard surveillance, Mikey, nothing to worry about.”, Donnie says trying to placate Mikey’s curiosity. Donnie hates lying, especially to Mikey, but he’s feeling so guilty about being such a…(inward sigh)���stalking creep that admitting the truth is hard to do.

· Mikey stands there staring at Donnie and, as he does, Donnie begins to fidget with his computer chair armrests.

· Mikey stuffs the remnants of the pizza slice into his mouth and does his best Leo impersonation by crosses his arms and staring down at Donnie as sternly as his jolly face can achieve, “Dude, I’m not going to ask you again. You’ve been weird for months. We’ve let it go for the most part but now you are hiding things from me…from ME, dude! You and I, we’re like peanut butter and jelly, we’re ice cream and chocolate fudge, we young dudes have got to stick together. Trust me, bro, I’ve got you!”.

· Donnie stared at the floor, too ashamed to meet Mikey’s eyes any longer. He gave a heavy sigh and reluctantly started to speak, “Sorry Mike, I…I honestly don’t know what’s come over me lately. I’m doing things I never thought I would do, I’m feeling so guilty about it, but I don’t know if I can stop doing it either. I feel…lost.”.

· Mike relaxed his leader stance and leaned against one of Donnie’s lab tables, “Bro, I can tell you’ve been carrying some heavy stuff lately. You need to let it out.”

· Donnie felt the heat rise up through his body like he was suddenly being consumed by a fire and he ripped his glasses off his face and drew them down on the desk in frustration, “Mikey, I’m in love with Y/N. I have been for a while. I have been…”, Donnie hangs his head in shame, “…tracking all her digital foot prints and watching her. In fact, I’m the reason she found out that asshole boyfriend of her's cheated.”

· Mikey’s mouth drops open at Donnie’s demeanor and use of the word ‘asshole’, “Whoa, dude, why didn’t you say something earlier?”.

· Donnie can feel a stinging at the corners of his eyes, this was so embarrassing, so frustrating, so…..so many things at a once. He didn’t have a response for Mikey, all he could do was shake his head.

· Still with his head hung down and staring at the floor, Donnie starts to hear Mikey chuckle. Donnie looks up to see Mikey’s eyes on him and for some reason they are full of merriment at his painful dilemma. Donnie stares at his, normally, very considerate brother in astonishment, this isn’t like Mikey at all!

· “Mikey, I’m more than serious here, now is not the time to make fun of me. What is so funny?”, Donnie asks exasperatedly.

· Mikey shakes his bald head and claps his brother on the shoulder with his green hand, “Bro, she thinks you’re cute.”.

· “W-What?!”, Donnie stammers out.

· Mikey, still chuckling, says, “Yeah, dude, that’s why I asked WHY you didn’t say something about liking her sooner, she’s always thought you were cute. She and I talk about it all the time.”.

· Donnie just stares at his jolly brother in silence. His mind is too blown to form a sentence.

· Mikey turns to leave stating, “And by the way, dude, stop watching her like that…that’s just creepy.”.

@turtle-babe83 @tmntspidergirl @kokokatsworld @nittleboo @the-second-circle-of-shell

[cblgblog]

Hi there! I’m the one who went in the ask about Bucky’s arm and I just wanted to say thank you so much for your response! You genuinely give such thought out and honest answers, it’s kind of amazing I desperately wish I could write like that.

I think probably everyone had a slight laugh at at least one of the memes that people dropped, it unfortunately though evolved into such a negative space so quickly.

I’m also so sorry that you had to go through that.

I hope you have an amazing day!

Hey!

Listen, I appreciate you sharing, seriously. I had not looked at it from that angle before, and it’s an interesting take. Particularly because yeah, it’s Bucky of all people, not just a “regular” guy with a prosthetic, but a guy who’s already had so much of his autonomy hijacked.

As far as why there would be a ‘failsafe’ built into the arm—the ability to remove it, here’s my thoughts. Given now because I believe you mentioned it in your first ask and I forgot to address it ‘cause oops, lol.

If they were worried, why not give him a regular prosthetic, I believe you asked. I think there might have been a few things happening there, honestly. It’s very possible that they did make him a less…Terminator-esque one to start with, when they were still working on the brainwashing in the early days. Very possible he himself requested that, given his constant concern about hurting others if he loses control again. As he got further along in his recovery, Shuri could have moved him on to a more advanced prosthetic.

So, why do that if there was concern he’d hurt them with it? The short answer is that he for sure would’ve benefited from a better mouse trap, so to speak, during the Wakanda battle in Infinity War. I’m honestly sure he would’ve kicked ass even if they’d given him something made of wood, but a better model certainly helps. The longer answer is, I think, where things get interesting.

I honestly do not think Shuri is capable of not upgrading something. Like, she’s got Stark levels of ‘I can make this better,’ so even if he started out with a more typical prosthetic, how long could Shuri resist improving that? At the same time...she’s a teenager, and her dad is dead. Very publicly murdered, despite Wakanda’s infinitely better tech, despite the Dora, who can kill people with their fingernails, despite everything. They don’t talk about that at all in Black Panther, T’Chakka’s death and it’s impact on her. Which I get, because it’s ‘Challa’s story and all that, and that’s fine, but at the same time, it’s still a thing. We got a deep dive on T’Challa’s mourning, but not Shuri’s.

She’s 16 years old when her dad, the all powerful Wakandan king dies. She’s in charge of making the tech that protects Wakanda and it’s people. Now, that had nothing to do with the death. It’s not like they lost ‘Chakka because of a failure of one of her inventions. But still. 

So they’ve lost one king before his time. T’Challa then dies in front of her, as far as she knows, in the Kilmonger fight. Erik takes over and Wakanda’s resources are briefly used for ill purposes. We’ve also got the history with Klaw here, and the fact that, however briefly, everyone thought this Bucky guy they’re now in charge of curing killed T’Chakka.

What I’m taking an extremely long time to say is, it would actually be weirder to me if there wasn’t a failsafe to remove the arm. I say this with hindsight, because I, like most people, I assume, had not even remotely thought of such a thing until the scene in the show. All this assuming it was Shuri’s idea her design, and not ‘Challa’s. Which is it’s own assumption, because the man is a genius in his own right, in the comics. Movies don’t really touch on it, but he does call that first Panther suit “my design,” the one Shuri calls old and then upgrades. Keep in mind too that T’Challa fought this dude. He knows how strong the man is, even if he no longer blames him for ‘T’Chakka’s death. You have a guy who the Black friggin Panther would have trouble beating, being brought into the inner sanctum of a notoriously isolationist country. You have this guy potentially being around T’Challa’s mom, his baby sister, other loved ones, people he’s not only known since birth, but who are now his literal responsibility. It is his actual job to protect the people of Wakanda from all threats.

What I keep taking a long time to say is that in hindsight, knowing the failsafe was there, it’d be weird to me if it wasn’t there, no matter how you look at it, who’s idea it was, etc.

Mind you, Bucky is Bucky and I also think that removing the arm would’ve done relatively little to reduce his ability to kick ass, had he wanted to, but that’s neither here nor there, just an observation.

Annyyyway, this is why everyone always regrets asking me things, on account of these Illiad-length answers, but I wanted to add that yeah, I can’t blame you for stepping back from the fandom. It’s an incredibly toxic place if you turn the wrong corner, don’t manage your contacts within it, etc. I watched the show without engaging too deeply in the discourse because so much of it was racist bs spewed at Sam, villainizing Sam for breathing wrong, villainizing Sam and Bucky both because they weren’t villainizing Steve, those dumb fucks, he betrayed them and they don’t even care...

Most of my engagement with any sort o MCU fandom has to be very carefully managed, because the place absolutely can be a hellscape. So again, can’t say I blame you or anyone else for stepping back.

That said, people like you, who show up to engage in discussion politely rather than screaming? You be the gold standard. Again, I appreciate you taking the time to share your viewpoint because I hadn’t caught it before. 

You’re a star, you gave me an excuse to both think and rant too much, hope you have a fantastic day, thank you again.

[sandalaris]

001 Umbrella Academy and 003 Seth Gecko and 004 Buffyverse/Teen Wolf

Thanks @yossariandawn for sending this!

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Favorite character: Diego 💕 but Five is a close second.

Least Favorite character: Reginald! The only good thing I can say about him is that he brought the Hargreeves together. Oh, and I guess he did give Vanya her first violin. Still an awful guy though.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Not sure I have a full five, but in no particular order: Lila/Five, Diego/Vanya, Agnes/Hazel, Luther/Alison, and Five/Vanya

Character I find most attractive: Probably Ben, but Alison is a gorgeous close second.

Character I would marry: Maybe Diego? Possibly Klaus after season two if he could stay sober.

Character I would be best friends with: Probably Alison. I feel like she and I would get along well in that regard.

a random thought: I hope there’s not an apocalypse next season, and I hope the next time they do an apocalypse, it’s not because Vanya loses control of her powers but rather some other siblings who sets it off.

An unpopular opinion: Luther was just as messed up as the rest of his siblings by Reginald and deserves the same amount of understanding/forgiveness for his mistakes.

my canon OTP: Luther/Alison are such a cute couple

Non-canon OTP: Lila/Five came out of nowhere and grabbed my attention in both hands and demanded I pay it the respect it deserves :P

most badass character: Five

pairing I am not a fan of: I can’t really get behind Ben/Klaus. Most of the other ships I’m at least neutral on, but that one just isn’t for me.

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): I can’t say that they screwed her up yet, but if they magically bring the Handler back next season I think that’d be a major screw up on the writers back. Once I get, and I love the character, but they can’t keep killing her off and then bringing her back without the whole thing losing the impact it had the first time. (Now if they find a way to have her past self pop in now and again to make things sticky, I could be down for that, but I don’t want her back as a main antagonist again.)

favourite friendship: Ben and Klaus... which also might be why I don’t ship them romantically. They’re too much of a brOTP for me.

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: all the little Hargreeves! :( And maybe Lila too, let them have more normal childhoods.

I did the Seth one last because it ended on a bunch of gifs

004 | send me 2 fandoms and I will give yo my crossover OTP

BtVS and TW aired at two such different times that I don’t think I’ve ever thought about crossover potential between them.

And since I couldn’t seem to think of an OTP, I went with three potential dynamics I wouldn’t mind exploring XD

Is it odd that I think there’s potential between Willow and Peter? There’d have to either be some history there, maybe they bonded in early school years. Or else Peter manipulated and pushed Willow, either because he saw her as an easy target or because he sensed the magic potential in her and was poking at it, to the point she snapped back. Once its established that there’s some hefty bite behind the fuzzy sweaters and nervous babble, he’d get curious. And curiosity would eventually lead to some kind of relationship, whether romantic or platonic. Peter would become weirdly protective over her, but not in a physical sense so much as a he speaks to her in a way that isn’t designed to provoke, and will glare/threaten those who he feels isn’t giving her the care she deserves.

I think I could also at least mildly ship Scott/Dawn for some reason. I don’t know why, but I feel like his puppiness and her sort of optimistic awkwardness could click. Plus he’d take the whole “I was a glowy blob of energy for most of my life” thing in stride. 

Oz, being BtVS’ primary werewolf, would have been great as a Just Passing Through wolf who runs into the Hale pack circa Derek��s keeps-turning-high school-students phase and who ends up sticking around for a bit. He’s not an official pack member, he likes his lone wolf status just fine, but he’s discovered quite a bit of harmonizing with his inner wolf and ways of controlling a shift that he ends up becoming kind of a much needed mentor. He also has a plethora of much needed supernatural knowledge and unlike Deaton, he’s willing to share.

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you Seth Gecko

How I feel about this character: Sarcastic, grumpy asshole with selective morals! *heart eyes*

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Kate... that’s it, the whole list. No seriously, all the ship questions below have the exact same answer... Kate...

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Gecko Brothers are brOTP to the max. They are ride or die for each other and I love that they are such a package deal.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Not sure I have an unpopular opinion on him specifically. At least not one that I haven’t mentioned before, lol.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:  Whoops, almost missed this one. The show did a pretty good job at showing Seth’s journey, I’m not sure there’s anything I would change per say, but maybe getting to see a bit more of what was happening during the time between seasons. The Mexican Honeymoon and the Seth and Richie integrating into the culebra world, that sort of thing.

my het ship: SethKate 100%

my fem/slash ship: I really only ship him with Kate... so maybe Kade, the stubborn preacher’s son trying to hold his family together after the death of his mama when they’re family vacation gets hijacked by a couple bankrobbers trying to flee to Mexico.... and I actually remember seeing I think it was a gif set, but it might have just been some pics, of someone’s idea of a genderswapped Kate Fuller and now I’m trying to figure out the actor they used...

I’m kind of picturing this guy (only with a dye job and maybe some green contacts), but he’s got a more masculine version of Madison’s jaw and his nose, while not perfect (she’s got a pretty unique nose) is long and slender like hers, and his eyes have that sort of slight downward angle.

I found one other guy that might work, his mouth was spot on and his eyes were practically perfect, but his nose is all wrong, his look much edgier (although that could be easily changed), and his jaw/chin wasn’t quite right. He’s here if you‘re curious. :)

my OTP: SethKate... yeah, I’m pretty predictable :P

my OT3: I’ve at least enjoyed the occassional Seth/Kate/Richie fic, so that’d probably be the closet I have to an OT3 for Seth

my cross over ship: er... I’m not sure I’d put Seth with anyone else. Maybe for funsies I’d play with the idea of movie!Seth/show!Kate and/or show!Seth/movie!Kate, but that’d be as far into crossover territory I’d take him romantically.

my kink: I don’t know that I have a go-to one, but that little one sentence prompt where Seth tries to seduce Ms. Fuller? I really want to explore more of that. So student/teacher?

a head cannon fact: Seth, for all his rebellion and bluster and rudeness, doesn’t know it but he wants the approval of those he sees as father figures, to himself and others. With guys like Uncle Eddie it comes out as trying to please them, charm them, make them like him and find him worthy of their approval and praise. For others, like Jacob Fuller, who he thinks will never accept him, will always find see him as beneath him, he goes of his way to try and prove that he doesn’t want or need their acceptance, shoving it in their face at every turn.

my gender bend: Michelle Rodriguez is the first person I thought of. I wish I could find more pics of her in Seth approved outfits, but you’ll have to make due with what I did find :P

Now I’m picturing female!Seth and male!Kate (who will forever be Kade in my mind) during their Mexican Honeymoon and that tearful good-bye at the gate.

[bigskydreaming]

Scoooooooore! LOL gotta love that wayback machine. Anyone remember me talking once about this series I did back in the Dark Angel fandom, one-shots of varying length focused around Max’s family who we never really saw much of in the show? So ever since then I’ve been trying to find them anywhere, since it was before Ao3, I didn’t use ff.net for that fandom, and all the fic sites and archives that were DA specific are pretty much dead and gone-zo nowadays.....but I kept coming up empty, mostly because my dumb ass wasn’t remembering my own titles correctly. So then I started searching by plugging in actual lines I could remember from the fics themselves, and that worked, and quick question self, but explain to me how it is you can remember LINES you wrote in individual fics almost a decade and a half ago, more clearly than you can remember the freaking titles of those fics themselves?

Ah, me.

Course, I still only found half of them, but that half includes most of the ones I really like best, and of the ones still lost the only one I’m really bummed about and still trying hard to find is “Little Lightning Girl,” aka Jondy’s story.

Its always a trip reading really old stuff of yours though. I’m surprised, like, there’s stuff I’ve written from around this same time, both fanfic and original, where I’m just like YIKES, no, hard pass, we’re just gonna pretend this wasn’t a thing....but most of these hold up surprisingly well? I’m pleasantly pleased? Chuffed, almost? 

Zane’s “Zen and the Art of Not Breaking Your Customer’s Fucking Face (remember: its bad for business)” is a definite keeper, heh, I amuse myself tremendously sometimes. 

Zack’s “Rules for When the Sky is Falling (plus side: this time its not your fault)” is a little weak in spots, like there’s stuff that in hindsight I could see easily strengthening the arc in that one but I’m wondering how much of that has to do with changing/evolving views on character types in general....just because Zack was never a fave of mine back when I was watching then, but falls into a character type I have a lot more appreciation and empathy for now, and that definitely would have led me to write his story differently now than I did then. 

Ben’s “They Keep Calling Me Crazy (I say: its the world that’s gone mad)” is kinda the complete reverse.....Ben falls into a character type I have soooooo much less patience for nowadays than I did back then, mostly because of well. The over-glorification of such characters and me being like okay but what about yawn though. Reading his took me back more fully to that mindset than I’ve managed in years though, so it didn’t annoy me as much as I thought it would lmfao.

Tinga’s “A Storybook Kind of Princess (a Grimm kind of happily ever after)” is as weird to me now as it was back then. Easily one of the most experimental “I have no idea what I’m actually aiming for here, just go with it” fics I’ve ever written, and apparently fifteen years later, I STILL can’t decide if I think it worked and I actually like how it came out or not. Hahaha, what is decisiveness though, other than a myth and hashtag Fake News.

Kavi’s “I Never Learned How To Play Ball (striking out comes naturally)” is still one of the weakest of the series, that hasn’t changed.....I didn’t have a really clear idea what I wanted to do with him or where I wanted to take that and that unfortunately kinda shows and the re-reading didn’t really spark anything in terms of what I would definitely have done differently if writing it now.

Vada’s “Chase Me To The Desert, Watch Me Live, I Bet I’ll Thrive (you better believe: I was born to survive)” is the complete opposite, because its another one of those very experimental pieces where I was totally winging it because we knew next to nothing about Vada in the series and I totally just pulled everything about her character and an entire storyline for her completely out of my ass and said sure, why not go with this, but surprisingly it worked I think, and it feels disconnected enough from the rest but standing alone well enough on its own that I can probably do something original with it, as I actually really like the voice I came up with for her.

Eva’s “Big Sisters Know Best (so when I say I’ll die for you: just say thank you and never look back)” I’m actually damn proud of, because its always fun when you successfully sucker punch yourself, let alone with a plot twist you don’t see coming on the reread even though you came up with it in the first place, lmfaaaaaao, and you’re like well hot damn, I do NOT remember doing that but guess I did, wow, go me.

But the big winner for me was Syl’s “The Kind of Girl You Bring Home To Meet Your Parents (when you’ve got the kind of parents that need killing).” That was always a fave, and I’m super stoked it held up as well as it did, cuz I’d hoped it would but wasn’t sure if I was just remembering it through nostalgia-colored glasses and it hadn’t actually been all that great. 

(One of the three longest ones in that series, it was a one-shot a whopping 30K in length, in which Syl wants to hijack the local mob’s operations in order to gain access to a Manticore facility in the same city so she can blow it to kingdom come, because Syl’s a little bit crazy in that ‘I know I’ve got issues and I’m totes fine with them, especially as long as I’ve got my trusty grenade launcher’ kinda way....and so to accomplish her goals, she seduces the son of the local mob boss in order to get close to his father and the inner workings of the mob. Only she eventually realizes this kid is a fucking innocent in every sense of the word, wants nothing to do with his family or their business, hates his dad, who’s abusive as hell, and once Syl concludes what she came there to do and has everything she needs, she’s halfway out the door - well, window, technically - before she stops and groans and bangs her head softly against the wall cuz she’s like, uggggh fuck, he’s totally gonna get blamed for this and his dad’s probably gonna kill him and my Jiminy Cricket’s gonna be a fucking BITCH about it forever, so, well, looks like I don’t have a choice, guess I gotta murder his dad and overthrow the mob so he can skedaddle and live a quiet life on a farm in Bumfuck, Whereverville, god, I so did not need this tonight, thanks a lot conscience, like DID I FUCKING ASK, UMM NOO?)

So like, I think that one’s got definite potential to do something else with, possibly turn into an original project, lol.

Anyway, randomness is random, but yay Wayback machine! Still kinda bummed that I could only seem to find half of them, you’d think that’d be enough to make it easy to find the other seven but nope, apparently not. Its really only Jondy’s fic that I still really want to track down though, the other six I could live without. Okay, I kinda want to reread Brin’s and see how that one holds up too. Okay and Jace’s so never mind, scratch that, still wanna find all the other seven, lmao. (I did NOT make it easy to keep track of anywhere I was or anything I was doing fifteen years ago. The mutuals on here who knew me all the way back then can attest to that, lol. Ah me, part two).

[ryouverua]

Trial 6 - Ghost in the Machine (8)

Please clap.

(LET 👏 US 👏 (NOT) 👏 VOTE)

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

Whoa, she’s seriously, truly not happy about this at all! This is… really, really scary? Like, I’m kinda finding her more terrifying that Junko right now…

!!! I - I didn’t even notice that? But she’s right - so that’s Tsumugi’s tell?!

Shouldn’t you be happy about that?! Isn’t that an acceptable ending? Or is it because it’ll just be a boring ‘default’ to it - so if they’d all submitted to despair it would be okay, but still not ideal -

I LOVE THAT THEY USED MAD-EYED!KOMAEDA SPRITE FOR HOPE

- quote from K1-b0, also known as ‘kibou’, self-proclaimed Ultimate Hope Robot.

“I literally just don’t give a shit anymore.”

ultimate tsun strikes again

I would have laughed if that had triggered the voting time screen??? But alas, the only student with that power other than the masterminds themselves has been Kokichi -

.... Wait, Kaito, technically.

Kaito if only you had realized you had such power in you this whole time - !

This is.... really weird music for a debate lol. But I like how they give you a ‘continue the game’ bullet! And of course, since the lying function turns it around...

I MEAN HE LITERALLY TOLD YOU THAT THEY WERE DONE -

Aaah, I see how this is going to go. Alright, I got the message loud and clear. I got your back, Sweetcheeks!

I just love how the music keeps stopping when Shuichi talks.

.... And of course, starts up again when Tsumugi responds.

And yeah, now that Maki pointed it out, she’s right??? She really is changing much less than before???

oh now you give me a normal answer for hangman’s gambit

Well since I’m chilling here anyway for the next 30 seconds.... eh, the music in this minigame isn’t bad, but it’s definitely not my favourite or particularly memorable -

FFGH the screen scared me and I thought I might have actually done something wrong?? But that’s the point, isn’t it. To make you feel like you’re making the wrong choice - !

Oh shit are we actually going to rotate through all the games?

.....

WAIT HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN ABLE TO SEE SHUICHI DOING THESE THIS WHOLE TIME?!?! WHAT?!

THIS HAS SOME REALLY WILD IMPLICATIONS -

THIS music is a jam though. Oh, they’ve definitely shortened the playtime for this! Probably good, tbh. Wasn’t the normal time limit at least 5 minutes, maybe even more?

n oooOOo I’M TRYING NOT TO GET ANY BUT I CAN’T STOP THE CAR ENTIRELY FUFUFUUUU

M... Monokuma, that’s.... literally the point....

OH MY GOD HOW DEEP DOES THIS MINIGAME RABBIT HOLE GO

YOU HAVE THIS MUCH CONTROL -d

Yo he is yelling straight past Tsumugi and Monokuma and right at the audience lmao

TSUMUGI SAVE YOUR SELF-ESTEEM AND DON’T READ THE LIVE COMMENTS

Holy crap they’re being so brutal to Shuichi et al., though? Look, I get we all have the people we wanted to survive but -

Anyway Tsumugi definitely has the face of a woman who went against all reason and logic and read the comments anyway. You are definitely a denizen of the internet! You should know better than this!

He is straight up wailing on them I am LIVING for this

Ooof those comments though, honestly - Shuichi is definitely riding high on spite, because I think he’d crumble otherwise. ... Probably being extremely sleep-deprived helps. I also get salty when I’m tired

Tsumugi they are literally going to sit here and complain if you don’t move forward, which is not very entertaining either. 8′D

Ah, but it’s great that they’re a united front. makes it easy to forget this is basically a suicide pact but, uh, let’s try to stay positive -

Oh she’s going for the softest target. But... I don’t think he can be swayed anymore. Even if he was the one fighting hardest for hope.

HUH -

HEY

HEY

HEY WHAT THE FUCK -

WHAT

WHAT JUST HAPPENED

WHAT DID YOU DO -

TSUMUGI WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!!!

guys

I........ I ......

..... I

I thought we were..... at the finish line

what.... this is.... this isn’t good.... wkajfsd;

i’M SCREAMING WHAT THE HELL

WHAT DID THEY DO?!?!?!

THIS IS SABOTAGE! YOU CAN’T JUST HIJACK HIM -

This is also literally K1-b0′s worst nightmare??? As a robot who wanted to be a human??? Oh there are so many layers of unfair to this -

the COMMENTS OH GOD

CTRL+ALT+KEEBO I am mad at how clever this is

dangit grandpas I cannot believe

Life ends in a flash LOL yeah the audience is completely desensitized huh

Is this really okay? .... or maybe not all of them

look at all this salt

shoot for the hope ending

Obviously, they’d be erased.

100% out of 100?

question taaaaaimu!

couldn’t read all of them but yeah

Whoa that reverberation on his voice...

AAAH THEY’RE SO WORRIED ABOUT HIM D: (Maki too, she just seems to react to this in different places for whatever reason.)

AND THEY SHORT-CIRCUITED HIM?! HARD RESET HIM OR SOMETHING?! HE’S A SURVIVOR TOO DAMN IT YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT -

FFFFFFUFFUFFUUUUUUUUUU

They.... they bloody killed someone.... in the middle of a trial....

And hell, how could the audience have the ability to make that choice??? Who gave them that option?

That means... That definitely means there’s someone that had the ability to create that question for the audience to vote on, someone outside of her... right? Or could that be done via Monokuma? Via that staff she was talking about.... there was definitely a third party that created that option for them, right? As a way to salvage this situation for them.

Are they that depraved?! Do they really feel no attachment to the character they travelled with this whole time?! That’s.... actually really terrible?! I get that there’s a whole genre dedicated to living out your own fantasy through a character you can project yourself on, and K1-b0 served that function in a sense, but he still .... had his own.... character.......

LITERALLY DOES NOT DESERVE THIS

IF THEY TOLD YOU TO JUMP OFF A BRIDGE, WOULD YOU -

Wait actually don’t answer that -

WHY

WHY DID THE VOICE SHE JUST PUT ON MAKE ME LAUGH

FHGSDLKFJ

DAMN YOU TSUMUGI SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED I FEEL TERRIBLE FOR LAUGHING AT SUCH A CRITICAL JUNCTURE

And now they have their hope vote.... fffgh

AAAAH HE’S BACK HE’S FIGHTING IT

Wow you’re really going to pull the ‘good put-upon white-haired boy gets controlled against his will but struggles against the inner voice in his head in order to help his friends’ thing on me now, huh

....

well it’s working damn it i am not okay

also kokichi will you respect him now that he can theoretically be interpreted as a YGO reference or -

THEY’RE ALL SO WORRIED FOR HIM

god why did it take so long for this

why did it have to be at the very end that they finally banded together with K1-b0

it’s so far too late for that now

K1-b0..............

ME FUCKING TOO SHUICHI FJSKLDFJSDFL;ASDJK

you don’t, uh, look sad like... at all

On that note - she was so pissed at him pre-trial? I’m sure that’s contributing to her feelings right now. And I swear she barely interacted with him in the previous chapters.... in fact, didn’t she dump on him in Ch 4 or 5 about being too sensitive about robophobia? About his ‘persecution complex’? Hot and cold, man...

WE WON’T LET THIS HAVE HAPPENED IN VAIN LET’S FUCKING DO THIS SWEETCHEEKS

UNHOLY SCREECHING AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

I WEEP!!! I WEEP!!!!

that is also the noise I made wow I can’t believe we are in sync in this small incremental moment in time

This is the chance they worked so hard to give us!!!

I mean, there it was right there - him using that line that Kaito used to try and inspire them the entire game. He already died, but his love for Shuichi and Maki is present and here right now.

If all of them knew what was happening... I don’t think they would be upset at all. Hell, Kaede walked into that first trial knowing that it was going to be her last day, and Gonta, Kokichi and Kaito all basically used their lives as weapons to try and get the ending that they thought was the best for everyone - and that didn’t even always involve the class’s survival! We were practically primed for an ending where ‘dying is for the greater good‘ from the beginning!  So you know, he’s not... wrong. He’s just following in his classmates’ footsteps.

okay this is slightly cheesy but I’m still with you and more importantly I am always about tearing the wall down between the metaworld and the prime world via the power of love oh wait wrong series...

Would it be presumptuous to say that this is him now using Kokichi’s love for his classmates, right here? After all those things he said about the power of lies, and how lies could be kind, and that final sacrifice... is it okay to say that?

Honestly, Shuichi learned so damn much from the last trial. It’s so great to see it finally come together here.

ghgjgkhdkfh

Oh -

oh no, are we about to do what I think we’re going to do?

Oh no -

isn’t him being chained up a little on the noSE OH GOD OKAY HERE WE GO -

also does that mean this is the one minigame Tsumugi et al have no control over or -

THESE COMMENTS ARE INSANE

AND THE WAY HE’S STRAINING AT THE CHAINS AAAAAH -

oh god he’s screaming they’re all screaming I-I know she said he’s been erased but this isn’t his fault it’s not fair to him -

THIS IS SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME G O D

slkdfj the whole globe is blocking me I cannot believe

They’re calling it preachy, they’re talking about it being too meta, they don’t like these twists, hope, despair, hope, despair, give me the happy ending I want, kiibou-da, zetsubou-da, kiibou-da, zetsubou-da, they want closure, it’s all just about entertainment but -

IT’S HAPPENING -

That’s.... it........... -

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE CATCH K1-B0 OH MY GOD HE’S FALLING SO FAR -

I choose to believe that Shuichi spent the last five or so minutes screaming at K1-b0 zooming around the ceiling while the others watched

.... and Tsumugi just let him do that

I JUST SAID SHUICHI SPENT THE LAST FIVE MINUTES SCREAMING AT K1-B0 WHO WAS JUST FLYING AROUND THE CEILING BLASTING INTERNET COMMENTS FROM THE LOUD SPEAKERS MIU INSTALLED ALL OVER HIS BODY -

Logically, I know this must have gone through to them. There’s no way this hasn’t. My heart hasn’t caught up quiet yet, though - I am... cautiously optimistic, but also with that edge of nervous and tentativeness. We’ve gotten through... we most certainly have gotten through...

Why.... Why are you monologuing. You must realize. You’re setting yourself up. You’re setting yourself up, you’re supposed to be the genre-aware one -

Shuichi knows. Shuichi.... knows.

Doesn’t that??? Sound terrible??? And so contrived??? Monokuma, this is why it’s getting stale! It’s the same thing, every time! Honestly Shuichi is doing you a damn favour -

Famous last words, my girl. Famous last words.

It’s been a long time coming, but... we’re finally bringing it home, Kaede.

But, y’know - it just didn’t seem appropriate to end it all looking at her. So, Sweetcheeks? To the end?

.... We did our best. You did good, kid.

Yes!!! You were so strong throughout this whole thing, Himiko! This couldn’t have been an easy decision for you, after pushing yourself so hard to live for Tenko and Angie!

I think... we’re safe on that front at least.

‘And you totally screwed yourself over Imeanwhat-’

I have to wonder then what she would have done if the ending really was looking like it was going to be despair. Would she have allowed that to happen?

y-you can’t say that and ‘puhuhu’ in the same sentence -

You just said kiibou was the winner no need to be redundant okay that was bad I’m sorry

What a terrible ending. Hope at any cost... And here I thought Komaeda was the natural extreme/twisted version of ‘anything for hope’. One game later and we have a mastermind whose end goal was hope winning???

With a new personality, a new script.... and no memories of anything that happened here. Of the people he met, and lost, along the way. That’s so sad.

Wow I don’t know why but I really like that it’s Maki coming to K1-b0′s defense right now???

Her idea of fiction is actually pretty screwed up??? I mean, so much of fiction and writing prides itself on flowing smoothly, and people talking about things ‘being forced’ in a story is generally a bad thing???

Then again, she was perfectly happy to LITERALLY let K1-b0′s 'characterization’ be destroyed in order to brute-force the happy ending she/they wanted...

…. Just like Junko. But…

dude I know it’s a bit very super super super late to ask this but uh, do you need... to talk to someone? Maybe a therapist? I... I don’t think this excessive attachment is healthy....

No dude that’s cheesy af. What - what do those words even mean together? Grasp true hope - like, what?

NO IT’S SO AWFUL AND VAGUE THE ONLY THING INTERESTING ABOUT IT IS K1-B0 BEING THE LONE SURVIVOR AND THEN WHAT? AND THEN WHAT? YOU’VE GOT NO HOOK YOU’VE GOT NOTHING -

maki you sound like me tf

That smile - oh, he knows. Shuichi knows.

TSUMUGI I AM TELLING YOU, YOU ARE FALLING VICTIM TO ALL OF THE CLASSIC VILLAIN TROPES AND ‘DEFEAT DEATH FLAGS’ -

Here we go.....................................

!!

[nanyoky]

It has been a week and A HALF and it’s only wednesday i deserve so much food and the drama BETTER BE GOOD this week

of course chic’s not a blossom he’s a whatever-alice’s-maiden-name-is/jones we all know this please let the confrontation be messy with alice and fp PLEASE LORDS OF MELODRAMA

oh my god. as much as i prefer season 1 alice to season 2 alice, this reaction is great. so great. “who’s his dad? who knows! it’s a mystery! highschool was so long ago i don’t even remember everyone i dated! doesn’t matter! no one needs to know who i rode like a pornstar in the back of his pickup after the homecoming game senior year! and no one needs to know i still think about it all the time! especially when he’s talking all sarcastic with his rough hewn charm! It was one time and I definitely don’t have dreams about it ever, okay? IT’S IRRELEVANT BETTY”

oh no you guys i just thought of the fact that alice cooper likely knows where fp’s serpent tattoo is and i don’t and now i’m DISTRAUGHT

okay- like i love it when they remember people i love are friends, but why is kevin sitting in on this register interview?

....i don’t know who this dude is but kevin is excited so i’m excited for him

also why is hal talking like there’s an audience to this interview? i know i bitched about the bad season one dialogue but now it’s just WEIRD

oh noooo.... veronica actually kinda thought her mom let her invite a friend just to be nice and then had to come crashing down to manipulative reality

jughead’s back on his bullshit again *claps hands aggressively in his face* ACTUAL. AT. RISK. KIDS. SUPPORT. THAT. SCHOOL. BEING. SHUT. DOWN. STOP. TRYING. TO. HIJACK. THEIR. LIVES. SO. YOU. CAN. FEEL. MORALLY. SUPERIOR.

god i really want there to be a falling out between jughead and toni where she finally tells him off for acting all martyred when he has essentially been a serpent for a hot five minutes and sees it as a novelty that can excuse his selfish actions when the rest of them live the reality of needing a gang to survive poverty and violence and i want that scene to HURT a lot because we like jughead! we genuinely do! but he’s been such a prime fucking pill this season and he’s not going to learn and grow until he gets hurt a little bit as a direct result of the shit he’s been pulling

um so i was excited that ethel was back..... and then a characterization 180 for zero reason other than they needed someone to throw a milkshake????? why

okay that was dumb but josie’s reaction was great

like- i’m still waiting to figure out how veronica’s long con with her parents is going to shake out. they better give her a great season three subplot to make up for this messy crummy mob malarky

that was a SOLID punch

also YASSS let her snap- give us some indication she’s been holding back and biting her tongue this whole time and now she can’t take it anymore

lol leaning HARD into the crimson peak vibe with that “special tea.” they know what we want.

i. am. so. glad. jughead’s hunger strike is a joke to everyone.

but also lol: jughead: why are you being such a bastard, v? veronica: my parents don’t want me to do the thing but i’m going to do it anyway. jughead: you are my favorite friend and i’ve always supported you.

and he’s back into anti mode because betty is being softcore up for some beronica

and a hard cut to toni killing it for no reason other than that we all forgot the vixens were a thing- and toni is a swell dancer so we’re all glad to see it

THE POMPONS ON HER SNEAKERS??????

“inner circle vixens- you know who you are” PPPFFFTTT

“MANDATORY SLUMBER PARTY” GOD I MISSED YOU HBIC VIXEN CHERYL

“you were only at southside high for like- four days” thank you. and i know jughead is tying it all to growing up in the neighborhood but like- come on. jug. he’s right. you didn’t hang out with toni and sweetpea and fangs and joaquin growing up. you hung out with archie and betty and kevin. you should not be speaking for the former just because you shared a zipcode in the part of your life you won’t even remember as an adult. and if you miss your mom and jellybean so much like- call them?! why are they not brought up more often?!?!?!?!!?!?!?! when am i going to finally see neeve campbell claim her right by combat to divorce skeet ulrich in dramatic fashion when she finds out about his lovechild?????????? she killed him twice in the nineties SHE’S EARNED THIS

HOMO EROTIC BRAID TRAIN

what is cheryl wearing is that a dress? a slip? a nightgown? I DON’T CARE I WANT IT ON MY BODY

also HOLY SHIT DOES SHE HAVE HER “BURN IT TO THE GROUND” DRESS ON DISPLAY ON A DRESSFORM GOD LOVE THAT WOMAN

“wait- is this real or a game?” i stand by the headcanon that not only did joaquin tell the gang about “this is riveting-” but secrets and sins and the whole night so toni like- has tangential second hand knowledge of season 1 cheryl’s bullshit and is trying to reconcile that with the vulnerable but emotionally stunted hottie she’s learned to love

god i’m still FURIOUS that we will never see teen serpents all together i would kill for a flashback of them all hanging out on the night of jughead’s birthday and joaquin bursts through the door at 2am like “I JUST HAD THE WEIRDEST FUCKING NIGHT OF MY LIFE INCLUDING THAT TIME I STUFFED A BODY IN A FREEZER LET ME TELL YOU *EVERYTHING*”

also i just realized toni has primarily male friends so her confusion might be partially due to the fact she’s NEVER BEEN TO A SLEEPOVER?!?!?! she’s just sitting there like “oh shit- ‘i don’t feel safe in my home’ is this a game??? i haven’t seen this in any teen flicks how do you play??? are their pillow fights involved?????”

SHE JUST CALLED HER TT. LIKE JJ. as a messy bitch who loves questionable things in her suburban gothics: FUCK. YES.

there is.... something both HILARIOUSLY implausible, but also HILARIOUSLY realistic about this. “i invited you all here because i fear for my life in my own home.” “omg same let me tell you MY family drama.” sleepovers just be like that.

they just turn in after thiss???? okay THAT i don’t believe. sleepovers are the time for plotting convoluted and dangerous plans to solve your life problems, not vent for 30 seconds and then go to bed

THEY MADE EVERYONE ELSE SLEEP ON THE FLOOR BUT CHERONI IS BATHED IN SEXY RED MOOD LIGHTING I’M CACKLING

i’m trying to picture cheryl announcing the sleeping arrangements and i can’t stop laughing. “as the newest vixen, toni will have the privilege of a mattress. not alone of course. i AM the hostess after all. there is plenty of room.” toni: oh that’s so nice and not weird or suspicious of you cheryl i would love to bone- i mean sleep on the same bed three feet apart from you. everyone else: we’re still here stop being nasty.

cheryl and toni are meant to be because they both don’t remove their makeup before bed like some kind of goblins with naturally perfect skin no matter what hell they put it through

BLOSSOMS! BACK AT IT! THERE’S MY FAM! BRINGIN HOME THE GOLD WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER AND SOME CLAUDIUS/GERTRUDE- I MEAN PENELOPE ACTION

((i can’t tell if this episode is actually better or if i’m just in a better mood tonight. don’t care. having fun.))

molly ringwald!!!! missed you boo

.....who is that boy veronica just snubbed on his cupcake and kiss i only saw the back of his head but i know my TYPE when i see it

“right now i’m only interested in one girl, you.” ethel shifts uncomfortably because no one could resist that gay shit right there no matter how hard we may try

also tho- for the record, i’m with ethel, sexualizing your student body president campaign is tacky and archaic af

oh my god jughead you look like a freshman delivering his first speech at the regional finals

also lol they got like Other Serpents to fill in the club so that it’s not just the snakey core four

AND HE’S BACK USING THE TRIBE FOR HIS OWN NARRATIVE GODDAMMIT JUGHEAD YOU’RE MAKING IT SO HARD TO LIKE YOU RIGHT NOW

KEVIN THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THIS NONSENSE I THOUGHT YOU AND I AGREED YOU WORK ON JUST BEING YOU FOR AWHILE AND THEN IF JOQUIN COMES BACK THEN YOU HAVE A LOVE INTEREST?!

oh kev i can’t stay mad at you not when you can’t keep a secret to save your goddamn life. sweet bean. precious pea. too good for this world.

oh i like this. i like betty getting FEROCIOUSLY protective of kevin- even though i’m not even entirely sure chic is as dodgy as they’re trying to make us think

ahhh there she is josie- my ambitious girl.

oh my gooooooddddddddddd. serpents why are you listening to jughead- with that edit away from the scene i thought they were gunna let him have it. why do they suddenly think he’s right????? THEY HATED THAT SCHOOL! THEY WERE HAPPY TO GO TO RHS! THIS IS CANON AND IN THE DIALOGUE! I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS SEASON!

WUT THE FUCK BETTY. i kinda love it tho

oh lordy- heavy handed girl power political twisting- COMPLETE WITH SONG

i mean- i know that ethel has always been a very minor side character, but i’m still disappointed they’re using her for this plot when the last we saw of her in season one was her being very mature and understanding that veronica does not control her parents actions and now she’s the exact opposite with like- no new personal story to back this change up. you either get put on a bus at the end of season one or you stick around long enough to be handed a sloppily put together new personality that no one wants.

JOSIE?! honestly i know i keep saying it but this is so messy what even is this show anymore

((sorry i’m whining again- i really liked the sleepover bring that bit back))

that was a well done breakdown from mendes good job girl that built really nice

also was that a spark of season one hermione i saw???? please?????

“she wears it when she has sex with jughead” oh my. oh dearie me. this is. goodness.

betty you fell into one of the classic blunders- never admit anything you’re accused of until they have proof lol even chic is surprised that worked

alice needs a system reboot at the thought of jughead and betty boning for various reasons- not least of all the generational echo of her life

JUGHEAD AND FP SCENE. these are the only times this season that remind me of my love for that skinny little twerp. their interactions remain golden and heartbreaking and i love themboth to bits.

boys- wake up and smell the custody papers. jellybean aint comin back. good or bad idea. also jug- you’re sixteen? two years you’ll be out of here on a scholarship anyway- stop acting like people don’t move out of small towns anymore

OH GOD THEY’RE GENTLE SNUGGLING HLEP ME just bury me in scenes of these boys bonding over their pigheaded natures

like this annoys me that they’re couching this in archie drinking hiram’s koolaid because “i don’t think jughead’s fighting FOR anything.” is the smartest thing archie’s said all season

archie deserved that now go after jughead, molly ringwald i trust you to dress anyone and everyone down as you see fit

“i’m.... very well acquainted with how alluring the jones men are” yes.... yeeesssss..... yaassssss YASSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“woah- wait-” keep up betty we all knew this from alice and fp’s first interaction in season one

there she goes- puttin it together. “absolutely not” my lumpy ass

“don’t forget what he did.” “i will never forget” ......i’mma confess i honestly forgot about the murder that’s how fucking messy this season has been.

jesus christ this mutual blackmailing but also gaslighting between chic and betty is just nightmarishly stressful 

YASS BACK ON CHERYL BEING THE TRADITIONAL GOTHIC HEROINE OF EVERY MOOR-SET PAPERBACK EVER PRINTED i missed this. i missed the trational gothic heroine trapped in an american/suburban gothic.

*sigh* i’ve spent all season holding out hope- giving varchie the benefit of the doubt that they were both playing close to the chest and pulling long cons on mama and papa lodge, but i don’t know. i think it’s just bad writing now.

yeah hiram like anyone would ever believe that the bulldogs would go to disband a protest of their peers with wire cutters completely of their own volition. NO ONE is going to think the developer who is essentially the only one with a personal stake in the demolition of the school might have twisted their arms. solid plan. no one will suspect you’re pulling the strings of these teens.

god they’re making this so dramatic but i hate this plotline and the lack of consistency with the serpents plot so it’s just laughable

omg omg- can we just forget the unfortunateness of this episode’s plot for jughead and instead get fucking PUMPED to see him try to get votes for student council i am READY FOR THIS TRAINWRECK

lol- if this was anyone but jughead i’d be laughing at him agreeing that she stay in the trailer without consulting- you know- the adult who owns the trailer and is his legal guardian, but this is fp we’re talking about he’s gunna be so stoked. he’s gunna buy like all new pillows and sheets and curtains and like a “welcome home” teddybear and stock the fridge full of healthy things he imagines people like betty eat. like smoothies. fp needs all the strawberry smoothies as jughead’s dowery to seal the deal

MORE MOLLY RINGWALD?! YAYYYY!!!

HOLY SHIT???? i mean- i was all for cheryl being the typical gothic heroine trapped away and called mad once she wised up to her shady family but this is... hmmm. wow. that’s..... a lot. nto sure how i feel about it.

[retphienix]

Usually I spend this final post talking at length about every part of the game, and sure this will be a lengthy post but honestly? This game gave me something to talk about at every turn. I've already said it all, and don't really see a reason in repeating myself here beyond summing things up.

The final boss was... fine.

Honestly that's about how I'd rank her. She was fine. Multiple forms, some deadly attacks. If this was any other RPG I'd say she was "fine", but it's worth mentioning that "fine" in FF8 is nearly god-tier because every encounter is usually utter garbage.

She even managed to kill me once because I got a bad trio and remained cocky, resulting in two dying and Squall (my third) sitting at 1000 HP using his Limit Break instead of healing.

I lost because of my ego on that one, but she gets the credit I suppose.

The story throughout was usually passable. I feel it was stronger at the start, was performed better towards the middle (with things like the garden battle and space scene which still ranks as my favorite moment in the game), and obviously dumb at the end because the weak plot points from the middle become the main emphasis.

It feels like some of the plot was left at first drafts or written by different people without consulting each other, and it's annoying to follow.

Like the GF memory issue brought up in the orphanage scene was, in my opinion, totally fine! It would have been MORE fine if it CONTINUED to be important to the story.

If GFs ended up being the reason Edea turned evil through brain rot, and the final boss ended up being the GF inside of her, I'd be saying the story was pretty decent to good!

Instead they latched onto possession which was unbelievably stupid and only made worse by saying it's not just possession, it's FUTURE possession.

At that it was still "passable, but disappointing" to me, because I much prefer expanding on the GF idea. But it just got worse!

All of a sudden the reason Ultimecia is doing this is revealed and it's just dumb.

Time Compression means nothing! It's a plot device with no form! It has no reasoning, it has no real world equivalent, it MEANS nothing and we're never given the slightest hint as to WHY she wants this or even WHAT this is.

If you would have said she was evil because evil is cool I'd be more forgiving, but this plot point and LITERAL GOAL of the antagonist means NOTHING.

The characters started out as cardboard and slowly became actual characters (with some exceptions who merely became decorated cardboard).

I started this game utterly amazed that such an unlikable character was made the main protagonist, but as it's wrapping up I must admit I like Squall and friends.

Squall explained why he was a little craphead and has begun (and in some cases succeeded in) growing out of it and becoming a better person who's willing to trust.

Rinoa becomes much more serious compared to her reveal in the plot and towards the end she's a key part in major plans necessary to defeat Ultimecia instead of just dipping her toe into making a change.

Irvine mostly just goes from acting like a playboy to fawning over Selphie. There's a little more to it, but not as much as I wanted from him.

Zell mostly just becomes a more emphasized version of himself, and that's fine too, but he's in the same boat as Irvine.

Selphie remains pretty much unchanged, but at least she gets a little backstory with Trabia in which I became curious if she's always been a beacon of optimism or if Trabia made her into one. Saaaame boat.

Quistis only gets any characterization at the very beginning with her getting fired from her position, and a small bit when her infatuation with Squall is explained to be a misinterpretation of forgotten emotions. She's "interesting", but she got the least out of everyone here. She's not only in the same boat as the majority of the main cast, she's captain of the sucker.

The characters are arguably the weakest part if you ignore the god-awful gameplay, but I ended up liking them more than this writeup implies.

I LIKE Squall and Rinoa and hope they enjoy each other's company.

I LIKE Irvine and Selphie for being who they are and wish the same.

I LIKE Zell as a character, and I WANT to know more about Quistis.

That's a pretty big difference from Disc 1 where I generally didn't like anything that was going on.

The gameplay is TRASH~~~~

I've said so many things on it, so I'll leave it at just this.

They innovated in a lot of ways. They added a lot of things. They tried to emphasize a feature that was extremely well received in 7 (summon animations) but they just messed everything up.

Features either ruin balance or ruin another feature. Half the features work against each other. Most of the features appear to have been developed in bubbles without knowing or testing with other features.

Some features exist for very specific reasons like enhancing world exploration, but they just don't work. (That being enemies leveling with you, as it unbalances literally every boss and it makes leveling in itself counter productive to getting stronger.) While others are solutions to non-problems, like replacing loot with draw spots (lowering the excitement value).

It's bad. Like really bad.

And if the best thing I can say about the gameplay is either "On paper it's interesting" or "You can skip most of it by using this broken feature to negate all the rest" or "Just throw Encounter-None on and never fight again", then I don't think I need to explain how bad it is.

As for the ending itself, my interpretation is pretty definite and good enough for me.

Squall gets lost in the compression and, as Ultimecia hinted towards, it begins to delete him from existence.

Earlier in the game they say the safest way to make it through the compression is to believe in each other and keep their bonds and relationships in mind at all times because they don't belong in that time so time will try to erase them if nothing IN that time is bound to them (so stand together or vanish apart).

Since Squall is bad at that kind of thing, he gets lost. When he gets lost he begins to doubt because he has a history of losing everyone around him, and when he doubts he begins to be deleted by time itself.

The memory loops and distortions are that process happening in his brain as it not only began because he failed to hold onto his friends, it makes it harder to rebound because it deletes all those memories in the first place.

Once it finally deletes his memories we get that meme'd up void face and he falls back and sheds a tear, a husk of a man. This is cemented by the feather he caught falling easily to the ground as if it had fallen straight through him.

Squall is gone.

Follow that by Rinoa refusing to give up and proving this is a two way street, just because Squall failed to believe in everyone strongly enough doesn't mean she can't do it for the both of them. She believes so hard he comes back, the end.

I gave it a less than serious tone towards the end there, but in all truth I'm serious in my interpretation.

Continuing beyond just Squall's freakout, I liked the ending. It suited the goals we all had and it showed some MUCH. NEEDED. CHARACTERIZATION- that would have been fantastic to experience in the core game! *cough*

They got to choose when they went back to, so Laguna chose to go back to marry Raine and lived up to this current time again?! THAT'S GOOD STUFF.

Irvine being Irvine in ways I WISH were in the main game because LOOK AT HIM. HE'S BEING A TOTAL DORK AND I LOVE HIM FOR IT.

Zell choking like the dork he is and then immediately starting a fight, just FANTASTIC stuff there that I wish there was more of.

Selphie and Quistis showing that they care about their friends through the traditional "Save you from choking and mock you for it" way.

Selphie even stole Irvine's hat. It wasn't much, but if she did more "silly" things like that we might have had an excuse to understand her more and get more character out of her. The most I recall is singing on trains and hijacking the Ragnarok, that’s not enough.

There are so many little good things in this game overshadowed by miles of poorly thought out mechanics and glossing over details in the story that shouldn't be, or deciding to follow through with unbelievably bad plot points.

I WANT this to be better because some of it IS good.

But I would be lying through my teeth if I said that all made up for the gameplay. The only reason I’m remotely singing these praises is because (ironically) it’s so broken you can ignore 90% of the gameplay and just play through the ridiculous story to find the good bits.

In the end though. I'm happy.

If you would have told me beating FF8 would make me happy as a kid, I'd have believed you because I liked it then.

If you would have told me this when I was wrapping up disc 1 I'd have called you a liar.

But here I am.

I'm happy with the end result, despite the poor turns the story took, despite the lack of sufficient characterization for the main cast, despite the TERRIBLE TERRIBLE gameplay, I'm content and happy with this.

And now I know so much about the inner workings of this piece of garbage that I could probably beat it in no time flat with almost no fighting outside of boss fights. lol.

[non-pursuitofhappiness]

Ah, what an odd, emotional week. I’ve been doing a pretty good job in recent years of maintaining a balance between things I can and cannot control, living in the moment, and taking care of myself, but starting the week off on two mass shootings -- one of which targeted people who look like me and my family -- was rather rough. I don’t mean to insert myself into other people’s dramas/tragedies, but it’s always hard for me not to imagine the thoughts and feelings of the small individuals involved. I imagine myself losing my toddler nephew or some other family member and that imaginary grief alone, knowing that others are feeling that exact thing but have no escape from that grief, puts me into a pit of despair that’s hard to climb out of. It’s hard to exist knowing that we allow such things to happen and will continue to do so until it’s someone I know. It’s hard to feel so powerless and also guilty.

I coped as best I could by angry-donating to several political organizations in the hope of vanquishing the Republican party for decades, crying, and losing sleep by staying up reading the news. That last was a terrible idea, and on top of the lost sleep and being notified that I still owed several hundred dollars to two different entities for having the gall to visit the ER for an allergic reaction to cashews last month (despite having excellent health insurance) during a year of a lot of unplanned expenses, I was somewhat angry and exhausted by midweek. I managed to pick a fight with my best friend by ranting a little too aggressively at him, which made him feel attacked, which made me feel terrible and alone so I cried quietly at work, and I had nightmares of living in an alien city surrounded by people who hate or are disinterested in me despite how much I may love or hate them.

So, yeah, lots of bad juju.

But I apologized to the dear friend and we are fine. In the meantime, my mom’s birthday arrived and my family and I each drove midway from each other’s towns to meet up for dinner. My two-year old nephew smiled so sweetly and happily when he saw me and said, “What’s up?” for the first time ever to me. I hugged him and kissed his soft cheek and we all had a lovely time sharing food, laughing at stupid jokes, and gossiping about our extended family members together. Then I went home, said hello to my roommate, and passed out by 9 pm which was exactly what I needed. After 9 to 10 hours of sleep, I spent the next day feeling incredibly calm and happy and far more reasonable about my life situation than I had felt the day before. It was easier to let minor shit go and to remind myself that I am not anywhere near broke or homeless and can deal with some unexpected expenses. I can be grateful for the good things happening in my life and enjoy regardless. Lesson learned: get some fucking sleep. Don’t reflexively check the news late at night. Even if that solves nothing.

That day of calm also made it much easier to be competent at other life shit. I called the A/C guys to get the leak in my A/C cooling pipes fixed and scheduled. It may be that the community property manager had done nothing that she had told me she’d done, no idea, but regardless, I took things into my own hands and got it DONE like a grownup homeowner who ISN’T helpless. I called the insurance company, confirmed the ER bills needed to be paid by me, then fuckin’ paid them. Then I made a credit card payment so my balance wouldn’t get too high. Then I changed the passwords for my email and Spotify accounts after they were briefly hijacked. I caught up on some work emails. I ate a fruit. I ADULTED and it was fucking fantastic.

And then my best and oldest friend Ohm came back for a visit from Spain/Canada on Friday, napped at my place with his mom while I worked, and then drank coffee and talked with me for hours when I came home. I played super sad country music for him (it was the original emo music and can be pretty good even though I rarely listen to it now), we listened to Aretha Franklin and motown, and then my roommate finished her own work and joined us for an amazing homemade dinner and pisco sours on our couch while we watched “It, Chapter I” in our pajamas (which they didn’t think too much of, but that’s okay, they appreciated the child actors like I did) and I learned that sex can in fact be compared to really good bread that you can’t pass up. It was my kind of night and it’s so nice to watch one of my oldest friends and one of my newest friends have a great time together. It always enhances my sense of family, community, and inner peace when my friends know and enjoy each other.

Meanwhile, today, post-Ohm’s-chaotic-yet-delicious-cooking, I washed and put away the dishes, scrubbed down the counters, swept and swiffered the floor, covered and refrigerated the leftovers, and took out the trash. It’s hilarious how satisfying the completion of basic chores feels in your 30s after you’ve decided you’re done with constant low-level misery. It’s probably a sign of being old and boring but it feels good to feel so competent.

In the meantime, I also tried to finish up “Bachelor Girl” but let’s face it. I’m at that point I always get to 2/3rds of the way through non-fiction where I’m already excited about the next book I’ve decided to read and I’ve lost patience with the current subject and just want to finish it already, lol. I want to read the “Good Omens” book I borrowed from a friend because I know he’s itching to get it back (it’s freaking signed by one of the authors) and because it will give me that completist feeling of accomplishment, and I have a book on modern American masculinity that I also want to read just so I can UNDERSTAND WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU BASTARDS (j/k, j/k, some of y’all are okay, I know).

Maybe now after having done something else for a bit I can go back to it. And have some rum and water on a Saturday night to go with it. Mmmmm.

[skamenglish]

Fan account of Det Går Bra

Our translator, Anna, got a chance to see Tarjei’s play in Oslo! Her account is below the cut. We want to remind people that this play is an exaggeration of truths in the actor’s lives. Tarjei is playing a ‘douchey’ version of himself etc. We do not know the extent of the truth behind his confessions in the play.

Trigger warnings for mentions of rape, please proceed with caution. 

The theater is right next to Elvebakken. In this area that’s kind of been hijacked by creative people. A lot of interesting stuff going on there. Art, dance, theater etc.

We all met up at the entrance and then a woman came and took us around the building, and down a narrow staircase that went deep into a basement. My friend almost couldn't go down there because she’s claustrophobic.

It was a fairly small black room with chairs all along the walls sort of like a circle/square with a long black table in the middle, and that was the scene. And a few props and boxes around the room.

The room was jammed packed so some people had to sit sort of in the back. I did not envy them and I’m glad we came there early. A few chairs amongst the audience had cards that said “reserved” on them. I had a vague feeling these chairs had to do with the show so I made sure not to sit next to them. Two fans who looked Chinese or Korean sat next to the reserved chair who was closest to me and my friend. And this was the chair Tarjei used during the show to sit on. Like what in the hell. What are the odds. The Chinese girl acted like she was about to faint every time he came and sat next to her.

And then all the lights went out and a guy came in with a flashlight. He walked around the table flashing people with it as he went by, saying “Går det bra?” (Are you okay-like ‘how are you guys doing’) He kept repeating it so we thought we were supposed to reply, but then he sort of became manic and started running around faster and faster and talking louder and louder until he was screaming on top of his lungs. With the flashlight going it was actually quite scary and I had to hide behind my scarf, lol.

And that sort of set the tone for the entire show. You didn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry. It really reminded me of Festen by Lars Von Trier. Funny but dark and uncomfortable at the same time. Very Scandinavian social realism i you know what I mean. Anyways.

And then the actors came into the room one by one, which was still pitch black. And they introduced themselves and talked about themselves. Kind of revealing inner thoughts that you should keep to yourself, like “I’m Tina and I spend most of my days sleeping, I don’t read the paper, I don’t vote, I hate it when my friends talk about their problems etc etc.”

When Tarjei suddenly ran onstage in a really beautiful Bunad (our national costume) I was so surprised that I wasn’t listening to a word he was saying to be honest. And my friend kept hitting me and I was scared to even look at him. I just remember him holding up a phone and reading messages off of it. Negative stuff. Can’t remember what. But it was directed at him.

And then the next scene is a party where they’re all supposed to be drunk and one guy stands to his feet and holds a speech and everything it gets really awkward. In the beginning I was sort

of thinking what the hell have I gotten myself into, I don’t want to be part of this awkwardness. But then the play just sucked you in and got better and better.

Tarjei plays the little brother of one of the girls. Her name was Moe as well? So maybe it’s his half sister, idk? She was really tall and skinny. And funny.

I can’t remember all the scenes chronologically. Only bits and pieces, so I hope it’s ok that I just write it like that, randomly.

But the play is about a group of friends who fall out. It starts out with the one guy, the main I guess, who says that they should all try in the next year and be more open and honest with each other. And then the show shows different scenes over the next year and how that completely breaks the friendships apart and it all goes to hell. The play ends with the same party (17th of may party like in the beginning. 17th of may is our independence day where everyone wears their nice clothes and drinks all day/ too much and it often ends in a catastrophe)

And all the scenes are very dark and awkward. And very physical for the actors. Like they run around and use their bodies. So even if you wouldn’t understand you’d get an idea of what it was about and enjoy watching it I think?

They go to sit in between the audience all throughout the play.

They all sit on the reserved chairs when the confession time begins. It’s pitch black and they each hold a flashlight which they light at one another when they speak.

Tarjei talks about how at the bus the other morning on the way to school he saw a really cute girl. And he has this thing where he stares at people, anyone, he can’t look away and it’s really embarrassing. So he was sitting there staring at her. And then he noticed that she was carrying some heavy bags and he wanted to go up and help her, but then he thought that he’d be that douche actor who goes up to cute girls in the early morning trying to hit on them. But then she’d noticed him staring at her and he got scared that she’d noticed him noticing the heavy bags. And now he wasn’t only the douche actor who stared at girls on the bus in the morning, but he was also the douche actor from SKAM who stared at girls and didn’t help them when they clearly needed help. And then he had anxieties about it for the rest of the day or something. I can’t remember exactly.

And then all of them shared awkward stuff about themselves. Some of it funny. Like intimate stiff. One girl talked about going to the gynecologist. And then one guy alluded to being abused by his grandfather and when he finished talking Tarjei blurted out “I’ve been raped.”

And not in a ha ha way at all. The room basically held their breath because the atmosphere was so coloured by what was being said. And then the whole thing ended in a sort of nightmare and I almost pissed myself and wanted to run away.

There’s also a scene between his sister and him where she’s really upset about how much weed he smokes and she almost starts crying.

And there's a scene where he takes drugs and drinks vodka and dances like a maniac. Like flash dance x 10000. In the end he’s basically laying in a bridge on the floor convulsing.

And then the other guys roll around the floor embracing and touching and saying how much they love each other.

He also wears russ overalls, gets in a physical fight with one of the older men and is pushed half ways across the room. And it’s a proper push too because he made a grunting sound like all the air went out of him.

It’s just really raw and gritty.

Oh, and he sings too!! And it’s good!

A girl who’s supposed to be really correct and annoying is talking over everyone and suddenly he grabs a microphone and starts singing lol. Everyone was laughing. Tarjei definitely got a lot of laughs and gasps. His delivery is just really good and powerful.

At the end he gives a sort of rambling monologue where he says something about skam again, but I can't remember exactly what it was. But just how he felt bad about not knowing enough about politics, not knowing what to vote, about feeling selfish because he grew up in Norway as a young white boy and privileges etc etc. He sounded really insightful and anxious and worried.

And there was sooooo much more, but this is all I can remember right now.

His shoulders are hunched over a bit when he stands, but he moves with confidence and isn’t awkward at all. And nothing he does looks dumb, if you know what I mean. He’s a pleasure to watch onstage. He outshone everyone, even though he’s got the least speaking parts. (But still quite a lot, but not as much as the others) It was weird but I felt like I was watching a version of Isak up there. Only in a completely different setting.

I’m in love/the end.

[artistsintheclassroom8]

Wisdom 2.0 2017: Day 2: My Notes

Disclaimer: As with all of my published notes from workshops or conferences, these are in no way comprehensive. Nor are they a literal summation of what was said. They are simply my notes, my interpreted, perspective-ed reflections, photos, and jottings, that occasionally combine my own records & thoughts with those of the speakers. There might be some typos.

Palace of Fine Arts | Innovation Hangar. February 2017. San Francisco, CA

Mindfulness At Work | Parneet Pal (Wisdom Labs) | Scott Shute (LinkedIn) | David Gelles (NY Times):

Changing business from the inside out.

Why do people come in for mindfulness at work? What’s the driver?

Stress relief.

Ancient brains in a modern world.

Tech. as distraction.

Looking for meaning & purpose, connecting with team-mates in a way that’s authentic.

But work in itself is stressful.

What do you do when the disease is the medicine at the same time (great question!).

How do you have ambition and mindfulness in the same container?

How do you make each second perfect, and then let it go?

What are big companies looking for vs. individual employees?

How do we relate to stress differently?

Burnout at the individual level, AND as a systemic issue.

Decision makers need to have a visceral experience of mindfulness.

Cracking the code on culture change.

Top down leadership w/ bottom up models (!).

“Do employees feel pressure to be nice to one another?

Belonging & Inclusion (John Powell) (BUZZ WORDS).

“Getting out of your own way.”

How important is real buy-in from the top?

LinkedIn’s Mindful Moments.

To what extent are we preaching to the choir?

Needing to see the data / evidence.

“This is good. Let’s look at next steps.”

A chance to talk with colleagues about really powerful things.

Skills & shifts in world views.

Leading with the science as much as possible (Wisdom Labs).

Loving  / Meaning / Compassion / Empathy.

A progressive learning curriculum.

The science of behavior change.

Linked in has 10,000 employees, and 2000 are involved in mindfulness.

An engineer in the heart of the company, trying to build product.

Changing the individual FIRST, and then the company / culture / community.

Catch 22 with regards to data.

Two pieces of advice: 

1) Ask yourself, how can I be kind today? 

2) Stop & breathe.

“An edge walker.”

The Relationship Bottom Line: Prioritizing Personal Growth and Connectedness at Work – Lesson from Sounds True | Tami Simon (Q&A on the Village Stage)

Questions For The Leadership Team.

How was conflict dealt with in your family?

Goodnight Yoga :)

What do you really want Sounds True to accomplish?

The aspects of the business that I’m really excited about….

Broadcasting = my first love.

It’s __________, and it’s a profitable model too.

How do we encourage our clients / leaders to try something that they might consider woo-hoo?

Essentially, how do you wake other people up? Answer: through modeling and inspiration.

Can you get a leader of a company to do a deathbed meditation? I don’t know.

Instead, we can be such a human light, that people become curious & want a little bit of what you got.

Executive coaching is expensive.

How do we make more of this knowledge accessible?

Whenever you’re training leaders, you want it to penetrate the entire organization / work culture.

An ethos that’s at the fiber of our being.

The workplace can become a crucible for transformation and human growth.

Are you getting advice from the right people?

Hey 👋🏽, pssssst! Ms. Simon, I think you're awesome sauce! 😀  🎧 

Power, Ambition, Enlightenment, and Rotting Rat Carcasses | Chade-Meng Tan (SIYLI)

Creating a good world.

Defined as:

1)   People in power are very good.

2)   Very good people are willing to hold power.

Premise: Goodness is trainable.

All we have to do is deconstruct the __________ (can’t read my notes) to goodness.

There is a difference:

Taking apart to understand.

Taking apart to dismantle.

Greed, hatred, vengeance.

Samantha (calm abiding).

Inner joy arises spontaneously.

It is independent of sensual & ego pleasures.

“Jhana” (absorption, mastery of Samantha)

Danger & addiction & habituation.

Joy comes from inner peace.

Campassion Fatigue – Mathieu Ricard would say there’s no such thing – there’s empathy fatigue (YES! I think this is what I’m experiencing).

Vipassana (Insight).

Selflessness.

For people who are highly developed.

Grand work: Make compassion & mindfulness mainstream.

Going deeper with –

LOVE, POWER, WISDOM.

Soryu Forall (Monastic Academy)

Nirvana / Nerdvana.

How to train your million Jedis.

Every Body Yoga: Strength, Balance, and Inner Calm For The Rest Of Us | Jessamyn Stanley

The experiences that help us become confident in our bodies…

Confidence doesn’t come cheap.

In so many ways, the things that are supposed to weaken us, strengthen us (AMEN!)

When we criticize other people, it’s so often that we’re looking inside our self, and sad with, or not happy with what we see.

The best teachers in my life: Being truly and authentically yourself, and being OK with that.

It’s important to be skeptical of things that have been packaged for us. (YES!)

Body Positivity.

Deciding: “I’m going to be OK with myself, how I am today.”

If this is the last day, I want it to be lived in a genuine and authentic fashion.

We live in a body negative society (YES!)

The Yoga Industrial Complex.

Sucking out the soul of Yoga.

We live in a society that has taught us that self-care requires purchasing things.

Talking from a position of immense privilege.

You cannon build community if you’re not taking care of yourself.

Pain, Healing & Finding Your Truth: A Conversation with Glennon Doyle Melton | Glennon Doyle Melton | Michelle Gale

“I was actually told not to talk about this..” (LOL!)

Click  - Bait ;)

Our lives can easily be hijacked, and turned into two-dimensional stories.

As artists, how do we stay with the commitment of showing all our humanity to each other?

The only way you can undo something, is figure out how it was done in the first place (debate-able, from my perspective).

“When you can’t be good, you get really good at being bad.”

I had missed the growing up period.

“If you can do a scarf, you’re just crushing life, in so many ways.” (LOL!)

Becoming the object of your life, instead of the subject.

Girls: “Voting your body off the island.”

Boys: “Voting your emotions off the island.”

Sometimes things just feel like the wrong kind of hard.

It was in everyone’s best interest that my ______________ be redeemed.

I could do what I wanted to do without asking, and then after, without explaining. (NICE!)

I started living like a man.

Letting fear voices drown out that still small you.

Healing partners for each other.

A lot of things can be true at once.

“I want, for once, to trust what I want.”

“After I blew up my life, carefully, and with honor…”

“I never told any lies.”

Every truth that you hold back, even if is makes people uncomfortable, is unkindness. (YES!)

Holding people’s fear in our hands, without letting it into our heart.

TRUSTING WHAT YOU WANT.

The third way: Not flying from things, but not railing against them.

Rock Bottom – Is an amazing place to be! :)

Everything happens from the bathroom floor.

And our country is on the bathroom floor.

The Power of the Human Spirit: A Unique Live Performance by the Four-Time Grammy Nominated Singer-Songwriter, Jewel | Jewel (Never Broken)

Me no take any notes - so captivating!

What I did write down: Jewel on growing up -- “I never knew my mind had a sex.”

[allwicca]

I’m not ready for the Crone?

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As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I looked into the mirror and saw the gray hairs. It seems I’m working on quite a silver streak in the crown of my mane. Up to now, I have been fighting the grays, running to the hairdresser’s when they threaten to take over, but this morning I spent some time really thinking about why. Is it that I’m not ready to embrace my inner Crone?

As a Witcchan (Wiccan Witch…is that phrase catching on yet? lol), I understand how the strength and power of the Crone have been hijacked by a patriarchal society, have been twisted and darkened by a culture that fears a strong wise woman, and yet here I am resisting the title. It was in the middle of this internal muddle that the Goddess gave me a little smack on the back of the head (aka an epiphany): are we ever just one thing?

This question sent my thoughts in a whole new direction. I am Wiccan, Witch, Lover, Mother, Wife, Daughter, Friend, and so on, often at the same time and never in the same order. These aren’t phases I move through, they are all part of who I am. If this can be so, why would any of us think we can only wear one of the Goddess aspects at a time? When you were young (or if you are now), did you ever have moments when you “mothered” those you care for? Do you ever have moments of wisdom that come from beyond your years? What about you mothers? Do you have times when you feel both the Maid and the Crone coursing through your veins? As a woman who is moving into what our culture tells us is the Crone phase of my life, I can tell you that finding true love in my late 40s after living with what I thought was love (what did I know back then, I was so young lol) has brought out the Maid aspect in me.

The three phases of the triple moon that represents the Goddess are waxing, waning, and full. They also represent the Maid, Mother, Crone aspects but when we make this connection, we forget one essential characteristic of the moon: these phases aren’t finite, they repeat. We experience each phase of the moon many times throughout our lives, so why wouldn’t the corresponding Goddess aspects also be recurring throughout our lives? I believe we shift through each of those phases many times as we travel our paths, our lives aren’t categorized and minimized by an arbitrary line demarcating the divisions between each aspect we pass through.

Western civilization has twisted and demeaned the crone to the point where, we as women, fear to embrace her. The Crone is not a used up, dried out, ugly old cat lady living on the outskirts of civilized society. She is a vibrant wise woman, skilled in the ways of healing, life and death; she is a teacher, mentor, and guide, and she has always been a part of who we are as women. Embracing the Crone doesn’t mean giving up our power, it means embracing and accepting it – no matter when she shows her face to us!

Reaching a specific age doesn’t relegate us to a particular phase of the Triple Goddess. Those phases already exist within us, and we access them as we need to. At 52, I am more vibrant, loving, and alive (in every sense of the word) than I was at any other point in my life. These gray hairs don’t make me any less of a woman, any less feminine or desirable. I reject society’s mandate that women of “an age” are no longer useful in any way and I wholly embrace my inner Crone (though I’ve yet to decide about that silver streak!)! This doesn’t mean I won’t someday become that crazy cat lady on the outskirts of town; it could happen but not because I’m a Crone.

Blessed be!

Rain

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