#ruan rants

[iantcjcnes]

it’s the twenty sixth of february, 1;48 pm, and i am going to be twenty six in two days. and my depression has reached such a level today that it is telling me to kill myself.  

and i don’t know what to do. (apart from not killing myself, obviously.)

at the moment i hate myself. well, i hate myself more than usual, which is a lot. i hate my depression i hate that i hate myself. i hate the way that no matter how hard i try i can never be normal. i hate the fact that 

i just. i want to do something with my life. and i know that i'm not gonna. i hate that i am a discount version of holly, unable to do anything without having someone to hold my hand. i hate that i cant make or answer phonecalls without fucking moral support.

i fucking hate how like holly i'm always going to be stuck mentally at the age of what-ever-the-fuck-teen, being unable to be a functioning member of society. 

i wish that depression and anxiety didn’t fucking haunt every decision that i make. i wish I didn’t have to win a battle with myself every time i even thought about leaving the house. i wish that i didn’t feel so guilty every time i looked at the dog because i suck so much, that i can’t even take him for a walk. 

i hate the fact that i almost wish that i had killed myself when i was a teenager to stop the adult me, current me from feeling this way.

i wish I could fucking clean by myself, without forcing my mum or holly to hurt themselves to get me off my backside. i wish i could force myself to do the dishes, or fucking force myself to remember two buttons on the washing machine. but i can’t, and mum with her shitty legs has to do it for me. 

i see mum struggling to pay for things this month, and i know i should be helping. i know i could be helping, but i just cant. i cant articulate why but living here, rent free makes me feel so selfish and so shitty

i want to be an adult, with a job that i can do that i don’t hate, that pays the bills and lets me live comfortably. i want to be able to be spontaneous and do random things. i'm thinking about joining the army (which i wont because i suck so much that no matter what i do i know that i'll never be fit/thin enough.)

i want to be a streamer (but i wont because i suck, my voice sucks, my teeth suck, and i can’t get a fucking microphone to work.)

i want to act (but I cant for all the reasons i just mentioned. i want to get a history degree and do something with it. (but i cant because i don’t know how. i don’t know how to start where to start when to start, and i refuse to burden my mum further.)

i know tomorrow will be another day. i probably won’t feel this way for a week, a month, a year. but i know that i will. like a bad stomach after an awful curry, this feeling will again overwhelm me. i want to stop feeling this way i just want my brain my body myself to metamorph into a functioning human being. i want my brain to stop. 

i want i want i want i want

my mental health is like an unexploded bombshell, and the rest of me is the unwilling city waiting for it to go off.

… i actually sobbed while writing this. fuck  

[r3stingangel]

You wanna know what I hate? People who don't tag properly, whether it be on AO3, Tumblr, ECT. Tags exist for a fucking reason.

A great example of not tagging properly is a fic I found that was marked "Dazai/reader" so it must be an x reader, right? WRONG! It was a Dazai x AN OC. AN OC WITH A WHOLE ASS NAME.

It pisses me tf off

[charichoo]

I think what some people need to realize is that behind all that tough guy stuff and that “im better than you” act that Dr Ratio puts on, he’s actually a good guy.

he just wants people to realize that they have the potential (although his means of doing so are…questionable) like if I was surrounded by people who are not even in the slightest smart, i’d be pretty pissed too

like least when he was a dick to us in the event, he had a reason. We were the last ones to see Herta, which is why he thought it was us that took the puppet.

but Ruan Mei….she just straight up drugs us and expects us to like her??? like tf???? ALEAST Dr Ratio has an OUNCE of humanity in him. like he actually cares

but ruan mei is more worried how her beast that almost KILLED trailblazer didn't last long. she LITERALLY just brushes it off and goes on with her crazy experiments.

apparently Ruan Mei and Dr Ratio are supposed to be opposite of each other, which is why behind her kindness, theres a cold heart that doesn't care. but with ratio its a good heart hiding behind a cold exterior.

the reason why im calling her cold is because not only does she brush off the needs of the very things that SHE created, (she also basically calls then failures??) she also just ignores that we almost died because of something SHE created.

she also hides her experiments from the literal space station founder and owner, herta. also if she didnt trust us, why send us on errands for her, or make us her “assistant”??? she couldve just asked someone else

sorry for the rant again x-x

[hitokiri-izou]

Just saw a video calling ruan mei evil and most of the comments agreeing. I hate people applying a black and white view to characters, especially when it seems to almost always happen to women. "She's like a female dottore!" No she literally isn't. Her hope is to one day become an aeon yes but she doesn't have any harmful intent. She's not experimenting on humans and causing suffering, at most she's just unable to love her creations back. Plus dottore never got as much hate as ruan mei. She is a morally grey woman who has a great curiosity about life and creation which has become an obsession. She's gentle but terrifying in the way she's mostly indifferent to her research once completed, but she understands this about herself and feels guilty about it. She doesn't express her emotions in an obvious way but she feels deeply. Like hell, she named herself after her parents' surnames.

UGH i don't even know what I'm trying to say at this point but god i wish people would allow for nuance when it comes to women

[kiskutnya]

Any hyv fans in the chat. Can someone please explain to me why this fandom is so ungodly misogynistic (and often also biphobic)? It's genuinely driving me insane atp. (rant below cut)

My favorite characters in HSR are almost all female save for a few, and it's SO hard to find merch of them for some reason? Even though they're all extremely significant lore-wise or have incredibly gripping and interesting narratives and backstories. It's definitely not a gender ratio issue either, because the gender ratio in HSR is 32:18 atm (female:male)

It's actually insane to see how misogynistic this fandom is... It's a little sickening and insane? Every time I try to look for merch it's almost always the same 4 male characters with like 1 or 2 female characters thrown in MAYBE. If you're lucky. God forbid there's fan merch of a female character who did 1 thing wrong or shows even a modicum of a negative trait, bc then people will just outwardly despise them (re: Sparkle and Ruan Mei).

Sparkle and Ruan Mei are 2 of my favorite characters in the game and they are both so, so interesting. Sparkle is such an interesting character with SO much to dissect abt herself and everything she says and does but people brush her aside because she's annoying and untrustworthy. I fully understand her comment towards Aventurine was horrible, but let's not forget Sunday and Dr. Ratio both said same/similar things to him, and people constantly argue neither of them actually meant it, which you could make the SAME exact argument for Sparkle... But Sparkle's a woman, so she doesn't get that treatment. Never mind the fact Sparkle did nothing but assist the entire Penacony quest, even if it was in obtuse and mysterious ways. The ENTIRE Penacony quest revolves around characters keeping their cards close to their chest until the moment it's actually okay to let their guard down, so why is Sparkle treated so differently and like a villain/antagonist (especially one worse than Sunday) when she does not even function as one narratively?

And with Ruan Mei... Don't even get me started lol. I was so shocked to find out how many people actually despised her. I did her companion quest and I absolutely loved it and fell in love with her character! I thought it was so obvious they were trying to show Ruan Mei is a character who is deeply emotionally stunted, but feels and shows compassion and care in her own way, even if she struggles to realize that... But then I realized everyone just took her at face value and thought she was just heartless and selfish and rude and whatnot? HUH? Yes, she abandoned her creations, but the end of the quest EXPLICITLY shows that she DOES care about them, even if she doesn't understand that emotion and struggles to show it in a way that is expected. Probably because she is a woman and god forbid a woman isn't uwu wholesome and nurturing 24/7.

It's just... It's totally fine to like male characters (I love so many of them myself!! I love IP3, boothill, argenti, etc), but the disproportionate amount of hate towards female chars, esp ones that do the SAME THING many male chars do (or very similar things) is just... Um. Eyebrow raising...? Especially when I legit have to fight tooth and nail to find fan merch of female characters I like.

I don't know. I just wasn't super active in the hyv fandom until I got really invested in HSR and I was seriously stunned at the amount of blatant misogyny that goes around, especially because I see almost nobody calling it out. It's pretty isolating and has left a really bitter taste in my mouth. Has anyone else experienced/noticed this or am I just crazy 😭😭

[sorrinslays]

About the headcanons--

Do you have any specific ones for like how he may be in a normal au? Like if he was in our world?

If not then please elaborate on any headcanons you want!:>

Okay, so, dealing with a normal AU is. Tricky, for a lack of a better word. It really depends on what's the story is about.

If I were to try a 'realistic' take on Sampo then I would have to reimagine a lot of things. From Masked Fool lore to how Belobog could be isolated and how the fragmentum could exist realistically.

If I were to give a concrete answer, I would probably start by saying that the Aeons exist, but instead of alive concepts, they are either powerful humans, a group of likeminded individuals or crazy single minded people because I don't think we can take the 'oh they are this world's religion' route since in the game they make decision that have consequences.

The Masked Fools, realistically, would be a crazy cult. Unlike a lot of people who headcannon, I don't think the Masked Fools collect orphans. I just don't think they would 'force' elation onto children, they should find it themselves. They don't force it because then it isn't fun, the antithesis of their belief.

I think Sampo in this AU would be an orphan, one that literally has no name. Parents dead since he was an infant, home village burned down, no background, no relatives. He was taken in by some government officials or whatever and lived his whole life in an orphanage (not Natasha's). No childhood memories due to trauma.

He probably found the Masked Fools when he left (ran away from) the orphanage. I can imagine a fifteen-seventeen year old Sampo who just ran away with a fresh new name stumbling across the World's End tavern, looking for shelter from the rain after being borderline homeless for a week or two (he has an apartment, he didn't leave completely unprepared! Okay?! It's just a bit... run down...).

Just imagine, young Sampo with no penny to his name listening to the stories of other Fools, deciding to join and making a lot of stupid decisions. After living life and maturing, he decides to takes some time off. Leave the Masked Fools and truly find himself. Find what the name 'Sampo Koski' means to him.

By chance he learns about Belobog, a city that is supposed to be dead due to heavy snow storms and a lost connection with no way of communicating with the outside world. He also learns that, contrary to popular belief, the city is not dead. There's people living, a whole civilization.

So he goes there, and the rest is history. I think the Belobog storyline can be played out basically the same (without the violence). The Stellaron can be some research gone wrong by lunatics (the antimatter legion or the followers of Destruction) and, out of despair Cocolia convinces herself that this thing will save them.

The Astral Express crew can be a respected 'vigilante' group that travels around and looks out for Stellarons. But I'm just spitballing here.

Like I said, it depends on what the story is about. Sampo is a very versatile character and it's very easy to take advantage of that. If you want to write a cheesy comedy about a boyfailure thief, you can!, if you want to write a complicated noir movie about people in power and hidden motives, you can! you just have to find a way for it to be cohesive and to understand how much lore from the story you want to use.

What I described is what I would do if someone told me to make a 'realistic hsr universe'. If I had to pick a genre, it would probably a comedy with a lot of social commentary, I think the premise fits the genre

[aria0fgold]

So that's... the power of Luocha e1... I get it now. I am now a lil less salty from losing my 75/25.

[feixiiao]

Ruan mei.... the womam. Yiu ar.e. ..... oh myg.od.

[sugar-phoenix]

she pushed me all the way to 80 pity. literally one day before her banner ends. ruan mei I hate you but you're like the best support in the game. so.

[simkaard]

I am really conflicted right now. I went for Ruan mei but got himeko instead. Should I cry (cuz I didn't get ruan mei) or should I laugh (cuz I love himeko) XD. God am I one greedy mf🌚

[lookforsomeoneelse]

mwehehehehe

ugggghhhhh SUMMER’S ALMOST OVER HOOOOOWWWWWWW

anyway i’m done procrastinating so like. uh. idk. wrote this mostly for me but if yall like it me can do part 2 or something

so you know how normally self aware au’s go something like this:

-reader gets game

-reader plays game

-characters think that reader is god

-player gets isekaied into game

-plot

or something?

well uh

imagine you aren’t the player.

SAHSRAU, but you watch your friend play the game (oh, did i mention you’re an eldritch horror? (not that you know it))

-you don’t exactly remember the date, but it roughly started when your friend started to freak out over Hoyoverse’s newest release: Honkai: Star Rail. they freaked out over the leaks, the beta, everything related to it.

-you, being the busy individual that you were, decided not to partake in these events, as you had your own responsibilities and interests. you couldn’t devote more of your precious time, unfortunately.

-out of consideration for your friend, however, you decided to ask them what the game was all about.

-your questioning starts a rant that lasts a little longer than you would like it to, where you get a brief summary of Honkai Impact 3rd before they tell you what they know about Star Rail.

-about a year has passed since that conversation, and a lot happened.

-most relevant to the story here, your friend has been diligent in their gameplay of… what was the game called, again? …ah- yes, Honkai: Star Rail!

-they’ve told you about the fun they’ve had and the challenges they’ve conquered; their greatest achievement being the completion of MoC 11, you think they called it?

-anyway, you’ve just noticed that you’ve been pinged a bunch by… your friend? kind of weird, but you open up discord and see what’s causing all the commotion.

-you find out that it has, in fact, been one year since the release of Honkai: Star Rail, and your friend wants to show you all the progress they’ve made over the year.

-they tell you to hop on a call so that they can share their screen. not long after the message is sent, you get a prompt and a little ring with your friend’s username next to it. it’s a call.

-eh, whatever. you’ve got time to kill, so you accept the call.

-they’re pleased to see your presence- they share their screen. and so they begin rambling about relics and 50/50s and their builds for their characters. the one they have on display currently is a woman named Ruan Mei.

-you barely have a grasp of what they’re talking about, so you do the equivalent of nodding your head and simply respond “mhmm” to everything they say.

-meanwhile, on the other end, Ruan Mei… to put it in very very very light terms-

-she is not in a good mood. -she’s normally apathetic even with her back turned to one of the most dangerous entities in the universe: an emanator of propagation, and even if it was a replica. it was dangerous. but to her, it didn’t feel like it was.

-that is not at all the case now.

-she feels an overwhelming presence all around her. she struggles to breathe or even blink, in terror of what the being that’s gazing upon her would do.

-her mind discards her research, her purpose- all in favor of thinking of a way to get this gaze off of her, because she doesn’t want it. she originally desired to become an aeon. she doesn’t want to anymore.

-no more.

-no more.

-she can hear whispers weaving themselves into her brain, clawing into her skull and scarring her being.

-and to top it all off, she can feel all of these sensations, akin to a flickering lightbulb ages old, going dark after the long years of shining in the darkness.

-meanwhile, on your end, you’re alt-tabbing to check on other sites, all while listening to your friend explain the game’s lore as best they can.

-what a day it is.

_________________________________________

A/N: ohhhh my goddddddd this toookkkk wwwwaaaaayyyyy tttttoooooo long because life is a bastard

anyway the TL;DR of the au is that you watch your friend play HSR, and while their account isn’t self aware on its own, it comes to life when you watch them. unfortunately, they see you as an eldritch god- H.P. Lovecraft type, and so they start a cult that revolves around you so that you don’t put them in a life of eternal suffering. which basically means that they cause the game to crash… occasionally.

why did i write this? because i’m a bastard, i guess. or maybe it’s because i spend too much time on the internet.

maybe it’s both. who knows?

you wanna use the idea? well, i don’t get paid for this and you probably don’t either. good luck with that.

anyways, this shitass is off to do god knows what yet again!

[iantcjcnes]

✨☆✨put some stars into the inbox of your favourite blogs! it’s time to spread positivity✨☆✨

This has honestly made my night, anon. Thank you! I'll definetly spread the message around :D

[thatringboy]

A Body Built for an Undeserving Soul, A Boothill Theory

My definitely sober thoughts while grinding for the eventual Ruan Mei rerun and writing some robinhill have led me to a startling train of thought. I’ll do my best to sound sane as I say this, but the 18 minute discord voice memo I originally made is definitely anything but. Spoilers for Boothill’s backstory, character stories, and other lore, and no I’m not really gonna be citing things because it’s 3 in the morning and I’m high. If at any point I say something that isn’t really supported by canon, please be nice i’m a little silly boy

Anyways

I don’t think Boothill is a Pathstrider.

Let me cook, please. Here’s my reasons why:

The way he talks about Aeons and Paths

The way his body is designed

And 3.

Enjoy the madness below the cut

So, there’s not really a proper way to word any of this without it being an ADHD word vomit. Bear with me. Please.

Penacony has been a fantastic update for those of us waiting for worldbuilding. We’ve learned a LOT about the many factions in the cosmos, the true nature of the IPC, the powers of the Aeons, and that the Paths are tangible things in the universe. The Luofu arc opened up a bit about this, but since it was so focused on The Hunt and The Abundance and The Permanence, we sort of fell back into the same story beats as the Herta Station arc. Either way, Penacony has been amazing for little lore bugs like me.

So what does this have to do with the wild claim that Boothill somehow isn’t a Pathstrider?

Let’s touch some grass for a minute and consider our places in the irl universe. Hi, I’m Perseus, a young transmasculine white adult guy from South Texas who grew up reading too many Rick Riordan books and now has a complicated relationship with both the christian god and the greek gods. It’s an autism special interest of mine to learn about the greek pantheon and while I don’t know everything about it, I’m a silly little guy and can recite fun facts about dozens of gods. I can also recite fun facts about the christian bible and christian mythology because I was forced to study christianity when I was younger. Nice to meet y’all. Now, when I, Perseus, talk to people about the various religions I know a thing or two about, I infodump. A lot. I think I once ranted about Dionysus for 20 minutes before my sister told me to shut up. It happens.

Now focus back in on the important topic: the fictional cyborg with jiggle physics. I’m working purely on memory, but I’m pretty sure when he first meets Dan Heng and Pom-Pom, he does go on a spiel about the Aeons and Paths as he tries to prove his identity as a Galaxy Ranger and Acheron’s identity as Not a Galaxy Ranger. The way he describes The Hunt, The Nihility, Emanators, and Paths, it all just sounded… i don’t know, canned? It came across as very emotionally disconnected, even as he talked about The Hunt, but he was saying all the right words. Like someone who studied a religion but isn’t actually a part of the religion. 

On its own, this means absolutely nothing besides just reminding us of his home planet’s hostile takeover by Qlipoth-worshiping IPC workers. If you haven’t seen the post yet, I really recommend reading the So, Honkai: Star Rail made a cyborg cowboy... an INDIGENOUS cyborg cowboy. post by @ahworm I’ll link it here, please check it out because it recontextualized a lot of how I viewed Boothill’s actions and mannerisms

So the way Boothill talks about the Path he should be a Pathstrider of sounds more like an encyclopedia than a follower. Now, maybe this can be explained by the fact that Galaxy Rangers aren’t the most zealous bunch, especially when standing next to the Xianzhou Alliance who worship Lan as a deity more than The Hunt itself. The Galaxy rangers are the opposite, they are hunters first and last regardless of what Lan in THEIR “greatness” does.

But if Boothill is just a normal Galaxy ranger (whatever that means), then how does he recognize the Jade Abacus of Allying Oath instantaneously? Dan Heng’s barely put the damn thing on the table and Boothill’s already jaw on the floor amazed. One could make the argument that, well, Boothill’s a well-traveled guy, of course he’d know the most valuable artifact to his Path. To that, I say: there’s more to it.

Boothill’s main accusation against Acheron in the beginning is, what? “An Emanator that shouldn’t exist.” He talks about The Nihility and Device IX the same way he talks about The Hunt; learned and detached in an agnostic way. He’s aware these are real concepts and beings, he’s crossed paths with an Emanator of Elation before so he can’t deny the existence of literal gods in the universe

We also know that it’s canon in the star rail universe that there are planets who haven’t heard of the Aeons before, like Sigonia - Aventurine’s planet. Instead of Aeons, we know the Avgins worshiped the goddess Giathra Triclops. I’ve seen the argument that Giathra is just another name for Xipe since THEY have three faces, but Aventurine’s flashbacks are very clear in showing that the worship of Giathra was very different from the worship of Aeons. We don’t know much about Aeragan-Epharshel, but from how the IPC described the indigenous people as needing civilization and other disgusting things (not to mention how they forced a synesthesia beacon into boothill when he was maybe like a teenager? And then his brain nearly broke from the influx of information?), I think it’s safe to say that the tribes of Aeragan-Epharshel also didn’t follow any specific Aeon.

But Aventurine is now a Pathstrider of Preservation, so why can’t Boothill be a Hunter Pathstrider too? Well, dear reader, allow me to bash my head against the wall trying to form words. Aventurine doesn’t believe anything about the sovereignty of The Preservation, just like the rest of the Stonehearts. He has his agenda, and if he has to play Preservation to do so, then he will. I think Boothill is the same, which is also why I can’t wait to see what happens in the upcoming quests with the two of them in the same room. That being said, Aventurine’s Preservation powers only come from his Cornerstone, crafted by an Emanator of Preservation. It’s how he and Topaz and Jade can all be such different people but all be classified as Pathstriders of Preservation, the sheer proximity to an Emanator’s powers canonically give them powers equivalent to actual Pathstriders.

So… what about Boothil? This leads me into my next point: Boothill’s cyborg body. By looking at his Character Story Part 3, we learn that Boothill VOLUNTARILY became a cyborg to become stronger. He literally shed the skin and name from an ancient, dead tongue to become a real loaded gun. His voice lines in combat talk about death a lot, his name literally is in reference to a graveyard - this man cannot wait to finally die in some sort of blaze of glory and vengeance. I say that with a little bit of sarcasm, but Boothill designed his body to be a weapon. 

In a lot of parts of the USA, it’s illegal to even insinuate that you have a firearm as that constitutes as the crime of  “armed robbery”, even if you don’t even have a gun. The threat alone is enough to warrant a higher penalty. But Boothill is already a great shot with a gun, why does he also need augmented teeth and crosshair eyes and hips that can fold his body into any sinful shape he needs? Because the threat alone is enough to give him power over his prey. Almost as if he’s compensating for a lack of magic godly powers. He needs to be able to keep up with even the strongest IPC goons, to pierce their Preservation shields with his bullets so that he can get closer and closer to Oswaldo Schneider.

But how can I prove that Boothill doesn’t have any Path magic? Well, let’s take a spin around his character model. What’s that thing sitting snugly against his exposed asscheek? His pistol? But that’s not weird, Perseus, most cowboys hold their guns there!

But what other playable character has their weapon on their actual model like him?

There are so many in-game cutscenes showing that, canonically, the Pathstriders summon their weapon from some sort of unseen storage or hammerspace. I like the term hammerspace, let’s use that. The playable Pathstriders all use hammerspace to easily summon their weapons. None of them actually carry their weapons on their model. Even Welt Yang has scenes of him summoning his herrscher cane (I’ve never played hi3 please forgive me for using incorrect terms) from his hammerspace. But not Boothill. He has his arm gun and he has his trusty 9 millimeter pistol on his little slutty hip. His idle animations involve reloading his weapons and putting them back on his person. No particle effects, no vanishing tricks, just a man sticking his tongue out to catch a bullet for a snack.

So what have we learned?

Boothill doesn’t have an emotional connection to his Path, it most likely is just the Path he figured met his needs and decided the philosophy was good enough

Boothill’s body is designed to perform specifically to kill Pathstriders, especially sturdier Pathstriders of The Preservation

Boothill either can’t or won’t use the same hammerspace the other canonical Pathstriders use

Each point by themself means nothing, or can be chalked up to unique character designs. But together? My intoxicated mind theorizes that Boothill is not a Pathstrider, merely a broken man trying to play the game according to the rules of the oppressors that colonized his planet and bombed his tribe into reservations and the dirt. Thank you for your time.

[charichoo]

SPOILERS//RANT

sorry for the little rant but I just NEED to get this out.

if Ruan Mei didnt want us to tell anyone, and I mean ANYONE, not even Herta, why didnt she just ask??? Im pretty sure even IF there wouldve been an option to tell someone about Ruan Mei’s experiments, we probably wouldve been forced to help her clean it up and stop the gossiping

im sure Asta Herta and Ruan Mei have enough influence to quell the gossiping. Instead of drugging us with anti truth serum, she couldve just asked. The universal word: Please.

her drugging us in my opinion just ruined her. Like she seemed nice at first—during the livestream for that update and when we first met her at the space station base zone. AND THEN SHE DRUGGED US???

anyways sorry for the rant

[lonelylonelyghost]

Re-watch of The Spirealm. Episode 8

Human Skin Drum

I've already ranted about what I'm think of this concept in general, but I'll reiterate again - people got to stop their obsession with virginity. It's not even real. Y'all are weird and not in a good way.

I just love them... Dumbass x3 (extremely affectionate)

I still think one of the best qualities you can give a character is kindness. Being kind does not equal being boring. This drama proves that even while being inherently good you can also be completely unhinged. Those qualities are not mutually exclusive.

I commend to the actor who plays Cheng Yixie and Qianli. For the embarrassingly long time I was trying to figure out if those were 2 different people playing them or not.

OK, so for those confused about the bracelets and door-skipping rules. I'm about to make it even more confusing.

In theory you have to pass through all 12 Doors, but there is a way to skip some steps. If you, for example went through only the first Door, you can go together with someone who's going through their 5th one. In case you manage to go through it and survive, it will be counted as if you went through all 5 Doors, so in total you'll have less Doors to go through, hence less chances of you dying. But this method also comes with its risks - if you are not experienced enough and enter a higher-level Door, the chance of you successfully going through is extremely low.

And the way to "latch onto" the other person's Door you'll need bracelets. Wearing them allow people to enter the same Door, so the one whose Door needs entering goes in first with others following shortly after. You all will need to take off your bracelets immediately after, so that others could not detect that you are together.

A Maiden is distress. Which one of them? You decide

Ah, to live inside a giant tree with mysterious bones scattered around aesthetically. The house of my dreams...

🧡🧡🧡🧡

Drama Queen strikes again!

Also, not the "bro", this sounds so weird omg hahaha

His immediate and visible distaste towards Xu Jin is hysterical. Yes, we lost a lot by not having the cross-dressing element, but this change also made everything so much gayer

No clue

The touch. The little shudder. The worry.

Kill me.

Bed design.

Looks exchanged with a flag made of human skin in between them. Peak romance.

The way Nanzhu's eyes lit up immediately. You dare? To talk? With MY Lingling? Perish.

"How old are you?"

"I'm 25."

"But I'm only 24. I should call you Ma'am."

Ruan Nanzhu heard once: "All is fair in love and war" and took it literally. He fights dirty, he fights to the death (of his rivals), and he is completely unashamed by it

And his little self-satisfied expression afterwards. I literally can't even with this man

I like that they all genuinely like each other

Not gonna lie, I want a hoodie with this design

Oh, to be a mysterious old woman, living in a mysterious village, doing mysterious shit. Goals.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Hatred and condemn. And it's so clearly not just because Nanzhu suspects her of not being who she says she is. No. It's because she dares to exist in close proximity to Lingling and take up a shred of his attention.

I think this is the closest thing to a hug we'll ever gonna get for the two of them. And I almost feel bad for Xu Jin - poor girl, you never stood even a fraction of a chance

Needle rain is horrifying, but also look at them

[zerokissingbooth]

rant under cut ab dr ratio

i know we don't know much about his actual personal life just yet, but it feels less like earning nous' gaze is earned by intelligence but rather drive to your field. your passion willing to push the boundaries of what's known- ruan mei as an example.

until ratio does something worthwhile like idk, preventing the mass extinction of sentient inorganic life in hopes of stopping an egopowered supercomputer (screwllum vs emperor rupert i) or continued to actively reject the genius society despite MULTIPLE INVITATIONS (ruan mei) or having mass intellect, developing the simulated universe from an OUTSIDE LOCATION and being acknowledged as insanely smart but refusing to actually use it (stephen lloyd) he won't ever be acknowledged by nous.

it isn't a matter of humanity, empathy, or anything like that- hell there's still genius members we haven't met because they're all various levels of too invested in their work, introverted/anti-social, or something else that has nothing to do with morality.

dr ratio's prime drive outside of spreading knowledge is spreading himself outwards. he has ego, he actually put an entire space station in danger just to try and prove a point. like why hasn't anyone talked about that? dr ratio putting the station in crisis just to stick his nose up at a small group of people-- two of them not actually caring at all, by the way. the entire conflict of the space station issue with dr ratio's introduction was entirely focused on ratio and screwllum.

and you cannot say ratio has empathy-- he makes his students cry without care, his class has an insanely low graduation rate, he's quick to insult first due to his own admitted bias before actually listening to someone (see: ratio actively insulting aventurine's race and lack of intelligence first). he refuses to debate people because he automatically declares himself a winner. his entire philosophy of 'spreading knowledge and curing ignorance' is counteracting his own actions with how harsh and refusing he is to accommodate to students. even if students that do graduate out of the 3% become experts... that is an insanely low number for a guy who taught 52 courses.

and we know why some of the geniuses are the way they are or why they seem less empathetic. like ruan mei's trauma with the death of her parents and the failure to keep family promises (seen in chara stories 1 and 2) caused her to spiral hardcore into trying to bring them back and nearly broke the biology of the abundance on her planet. she didn't eat until needed, didn't sleep, she was literally in a daze working.

or screwllum! while we don't know much we know that not only does he hate any mechanical constructs that follow rupert i's orders (which are to destroy organic life) he is utterly fascinated and enchanted by life. his own invitation by nous to join the society actively prevented the IPC from wiping out all mechanical lifeforms, further prevented due to his own intervention.

ratio is insanely fascinating, but he is not as empathetic as it seems. he's rational, logical and a jackass; knowledge and being able to carry a title is first to him, with how narrow of a birth he has within education. many degrees he has, but they're ranging from philosophy, mathematics, biology, and whatever- nothing within the realm of history, the arts, languages or literature. an argument could be made here that ratio specifically values mathematics and sciences above other aspects of knowledge, leaning into his bias, but that's just me.

"but his note to aventurine!" was a note explaining how he had an answer to aventurine's previous question. acheron had more of an impact on aventurine's almost-death in the dreamscape which makes sense, seeing as her entire thing is with nihility and death. it doesn't surprise me he figured it out, as he is a philosopher.

"what is death in a dream?" is a great philosophy question and would've been a treat for him to pick at and solve.