#the middle part is general apathy towards a character

[heartscrypt]

KSGDKSHD LOVE THE BEEF U HAVE WITH IDIA FOR SOME REASON BECAUSE SAME HONESTLY . IDK WHY HE'S LIKE MY LEAST FAV BUT I DONT /HATE/ HIM I JSUT NEED HIM TO EXPLODE. FOR THERAPEUTIC REASONS

i dont hate idia i just think its funny to constantly put him at the bottom. being like "i love the housewardens! (and idias there too ig 🙄🙄)" os peak comedy. also the amount of second hand embarrassment that i feel whenever he opens his mouth to say anything is horrifying. he is horrifying. if he existed in real life id probably hatefollow him on every platform to qrt and repost everything he says with a caption absolutely dunking on him

[candlewaxandp0lar0ids]

if I can never give you peace — one || Jungkook

Pairing: Jungkook x reader // Word count (chapter): 6k // Genre: Mafia AU, Hybrid AU, enemies to lovers // Ao3

↳ It starts like quite a few stories do, in your world. Girl meets boy, who happens to be a hybrid, girl buys him at an auction where hybrids are sold, boy falls in love with her, girl gets bored of him. Then it’s not so typical anymore, when the boy ends up forced into illegal fighting rings, until he makes a wrong move and the girl’s father decides he needs to be killed.

Where does that leave you? Well, you’re the one who handled Jungkook’s fight and generally organized his life, and, when the girl’s father, your boss and mafia leader, tells you he wants him ‘put down’, you’re the one who has to get it done. Except, instead, you let him escape, and everything turns out fine.

Until he comes back.

Warnings and tags (chapter): Descriptions of violence, Minor Character Death, Guns, kind of dark in general

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The first gunshot takes everyone by surprise. Unsure glances are exchanged all around, “did you guys hear that”, and disbelief is clear as day on people’s faces. There’s no way this would happen here, right? People are mostly aware of the fact that they’re technically working for a mafia leader, but this is the legal side of the business, and this building is in the middle of the town’s business centre. This cannot be happening.

You stay perfectly still, immobile where you were standing. Out of all the people here, you’re the one who is the most involved in the questionable parts of the family’s activities. In fact, you were just about to go up to Mr. X’s floor to discuss said questionable things — in this case, the smuggling of a large cargo of weapons.

The gunshot is still ringing in your ears when it is followed by another one, and then possibly more, but you can’t hear them because chaos erupts all around you.

People get up, start running around, some towards the elevators, some towards the stairs. Your brain tells you those choices are probably bad. If those gunshots are for the Family — and who are you kidding, they are — then whoever is firing them is coming up.

“Don’t use the stairs,” you order, and some people stop to look at you, unsure of what to do. They trust your decisions, to a degree, but you doubt it’s enough in this situation. “They’re probably coming,” you explain, even if three of the employees have already slipped through the door and left, “and I don’t think you should be in front of the elevator when the door opens.”

Blood drains from people’s faces. Downstairs, there are more shots fired. A woman starts to cry. Your brain is going in overdrive, processing everything, trying to come up with the best decision, and yet it doesn’t feel like anything is actually registering.

“You should barricade yourself in a room,” you say. Your voice is eerily calm, even to your ears, and it feels strange to hear it. It’s like a curtain has fallen between you and the world around you. You understand that this situation is terrifying, that you should have a reaction that is not apathy. You just don’t. “I don’t think you’re the main targets here. I’ll be going up to see Mr. X.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” a man shouts. “You just want to leave us here to be canon fodder! You—”

He’s shut up by your bodyguard pulling out a gun of his own.

“I suggest you do what she’s saying,” he orders, voice deep and gravelly.

On top of being armed, Hector is a bear hybrid you hired about a year ago. He’s tall and large, very impressive physically, which is generally enough to discourage any kind of altercation. He’s also a calm and gentle person most of the time. This is the first time you’ve ever seen him hold the gun he carries.

“You should stay here with them,” you tell him. He send you a disconcerted look.

“Are you sure? Even if they’re not the target, you might be.”

The statement shouldn’t take you by surprise. It’s something you should have considered immediately, and it takes you a second to figure out why you haven’t. If you are a target, that means the attacker knows about the workings of the organization. That would mean that they’ve been planning this for a while, and that they’ve simply gone completely under your radar all this time. Which is a lot more worrying to you than anything else.

“Stay,” you insist. When this is over, it will be better if people here think you had their best interest at heart.

If you make it out, that is.

Hector ushers people inside a conference room, and you walk towards the stairs. From there, you hear gunshots better than you did earlier, and you wince at the sound. You’re not used to it. It’s strange, since you’ve been working for the Family for years now, but you’ve very rarely heard people firing guns. You’ve never even had a gun pulled on you. You’d like to think it’s because you’re too careful, or too smart to find yourself in those situations, but the truth is you’ve just never been in situations where that sort of things would happen.

Sure, someone could send a killer for you — they have, actually — and then the carefully crafted net of precautions you’ve woven around yourself would — did — stop them, but you don’t participate in drug deals and you’re rarely out in the street, and that’s where those things happen most of the time.

You glance down. You’re on the fifteenth floor, so you doubt the employees who ignored your warning have made it out yet. You doubt they will, to be honest.

Glancing up, you wonder if you’ll make it to the twentieth before someone catches up with you and, since it’s a useless thing to think about, you begin your ascension. You’re not the most in shape, most of your daily exercise consisting in walking from places to places. That is a lot of walking, and you can do it without getting breathless, but you never take the stairs. Soon, you’re panting, and you’re about to take a break after three floors when you hear new gunshots that make you freeze.

These were in the stairwell. They echo deafeningly, and, for the first time since this all started, fear actually grips you. You swallow, heart beating loudly, and you keep going. You hear some screams, down there, and the horrible sound of flesh — bodies — hitting the floor, and then nothing. You’re sure someone must be climbing up those stairs, but you can’t hear them at all, and that terrifies you. You have no idea how fast they are, how soon they’ll catch up with you, how—

You slam open the door to the last floor. The time is not to discretion, and anyway, whoever is down there is probably coming for the twentieth floor.

The second you walk out, three guns are pointed towards you, and someone is screaming at you to stay where you are. You obey, until Mr. X’s bodyguards identify you. You had told him that hiring hybrids would be a good idea, since they rely more on their heightened senses and tend to have better reflexes, but you’d been ignored, so you had just shrugged it off and followed your own advice.

“Mr. X is inside,” one of the men tells you, pointing at the door, but not moving to take you there. You walk by him, and they all keep their eyes firmly on the stairwell’s door. That makes you assume the elevators don’t work, otherwise they’d have part of their focus on there.

“Mr. X, do we have any idea what— Miss Xanders, I apologize, I hadn’t seen you there.”

“It’s fine, (Y/N),” Anna says. “We really have more important things to concern ourselves with.”

“Do we know who’s attacking us?” you ask, giving your attention back to Mr. Xanders.

Mr. Xanders is an old man, you feel that he was already an old man when you’d joined. He had Anna quite late, when he was nearing his fifties, and he recently celebrated his seventieth birthday. You would know, you organized the party.

He’s looked old for as long as you’ve worked for him, using a walking stick, small eyes hidden behind large glasses, skin marked with wrinkles. But there was always something sharp and smart, cunning, in his eyes. Despite everything, he felt dangerous, and you had never doubted that he was not a man to underestimate.

Right now, though, he looks tired. Exhausted. He’s staring at his laptop screen and shaking his head, utterly confused.

“I can’t recognize anyone,” he says, and your heart misses a beat. Not good, that’s not good at all. “Can you?”

You walk around the desk quickly, examining the view you get from various cameras placed all around the building, and your hands involuntarily clench into fists as you see how dire everything is. On several different floors, men with machine guns are walking around, and you know for a fact they’re not working for you. You can’t see what’s happened to your people in the low-resolution, but you can guess, and your stomach tightens at the thought.

“How is that possible?” you whisper. “How has no one intervened yet?”

You know the police isn’t too keen on coming here, but this is genuinely insane. The only explanation you can think of is that they’ve been paid-off, and again, you don’t know how you wouldn’t have heard about that.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Mr. X says harshly, and you wince, focusing again on the men on the screen. You scan the men again, quickly. Some are wearing masks, but a lot of them are brazenly showing their faces, and that is one more thing that is not good. They should want to make sure no one would recognize them. If they’re confident enough to do that…

“I don’t know them,” you whisper. Some look vaguely familiar, but you just can’t place it, so you’re sure they aren’t big names. You have definitely not been on the look-out for them.

“Dad, we should really go up to the helicopter,” Anna says urgently.

Mr. Xanders hesitates, then nods, getting up in a movement that is slow and clearly painful. You help him out without thinking much about it, holding his arm and giving him his walking stick.

“How will you do that? The elevators aren’t working and the stairs don’t go to the roof.”

“We’ll reactivate the elevators,” Anna explains with a shrug, and you stare at her in disbelief.

“That will mean those people will be able to move freely in the building. I don’t think—”

“They are already moving freely,” Mr. Xanders barks.

“Still—”

Then, a lot of things happen at the same time. You were standing in front of the elevator, Anna calling it with a special key, the bodyguards surrounding you, eyes and weapons still directed at the stairwell door.

The elevator opens with a ding. And the door slams open.

There are gunshots everywhere. You dive to the ground, or maybe you’re pushed down, you’re not too sure. You look up to see two men falling down around you, the third guard ushering Anna and her father in. You try to push yourself to your feet, but the door is already closing. You call out, you can’t hear your own voice, ears ringing from all the noise.

You meet Anna’s eyes, filled with indifference and a complete lack of remorse, and then the door is closed, and you know they’re gone.

And someone, someone who wanted them dead and just killed two men, is in this room with you.

Slowly, oh so slowly, you turn around. As you do, you feel your lower lip starting to tremble, and you sink your teeth into the flesh to stop it. You push yourself on your elbows, and your eyes fall on a man with bleached blonde hair pushed back with a bandana, a round face that makes him look younger than you suspect he is, and a mocking smirk. Once more, you’re struck by the fact that you don’t know him. He’s alone and he took out two trained guards, not to mention the people he must have killed to get there, and you have no clue who he is.

His eyes confuse you, at first, and then you realize it’s their color that is throwing you off, an unnatural yellow, and the slit of his pupils. He’s a hybrid, you understand, and you curse yourself for how slow your brain is at the moment. You don’t have time to wonder if he’s part cat or part snake before he takes a step towards you. Fear grips you, and you consider crawling back, but you force yourself to stay unmoving. You don’t let emotions control you. That’s not who you are.

Instead, you stare at him straight in the eyes, even as you feel tears well up in yours. You’ve never been afraid of death, and yet it seems that you can’t stop your body’s reaction as you understand that this is it. This is how you die, where you die, this is who kills you.

The man crouches down in front of you, and lifts his gun to press the barrel against your forehead. He looks at you like an animal playing with its food. The situation seems to be amusing to him, and you think he is waiting for you to beg. You have no intention of doing that.

“Just make it quick,” you say.

You don’t recognize your own voice. The man’s smile widens, revealing pearly white teeth and a set of fangs. Tears start to roll down your cheeks, and you’re completely unable to stop them. You don’t feel sad or afraid, you just feel empty, but the tears keep falling. Still, you hold the man’s gaze. You won’t beg for your life.

“What if I let you go?” he drawls, and you can’t help the way your eyes widen at the possibility. Then, he laughs, pleased by your reaction, and you’re horrified to find out that this had an effect on you. The treacherous hope you’d just felt makes the reality of your imminent death crushing. A sob escapes you before you can get yourself under control again.

“Please,” you whisper. “Just get it over with.”

A pout forms on his face, and he shrugs. Then, to your surprise, he removes the gun from your forehead. The next thing you feel is the grip of the weapon, violently connecting with your temple, and then you don’t feel anything at all, not even the floor when your head hits it in your fall.

You wake up to the sound of soft, muffled sobs. It takes you a few seconds to piece things together, your head throbbing painfully and your mind in shambles. You lift your head with a groan, trying to take in your surroundings. Your thoughts are slow and you hate it. It makes you feel so vulnerable and defenseless.

Of course, that gets worse when you realize your hands are tied behind your back. That sends a jolt of adrenaline through your body, and you manage to look around you. It seems like you are in some warehouse, which, in your experience, is not a good thing. That’s where executions happen. They’re places that are accident prone, so the presence of blood could be explained easily, and they aren’t inspected that often anyway.

There's another sob beside you, and when you turn to look where it’s coming from, you find Anna, not just tied up but gagged, tears streaming down her cheeks. You assume that means her and her father were caught before they made it to the helicopter. On the other side of her is Mr. X, who seems to be in the same situation as her.

I’m here to be killed, you think. You can’t see another explanation. Mr. X and Anna are definitely here for that reason, so if you’re there with them— it means you’re here to die. You hope it will be quick, like you had asked that man, but you doubt it. If they took you here, it’s probably because they intend to make an example out of you. Intellectually, you don’t blame them. If this is a takeover of the family, they’ll probably need all the intimidation power they can get to keep the situation under control. It’s a ballsy move, certainly, and you would be at least a little impressed if you weren’t thinking about the creative and painful ways they can choose to get rid of you.

“Is she awake?” a voice asks. You turn your head quickly, too quickly, and another groan escapes you as your head painfully reminds you of the blow you just took.

You meet the mocking eyes of the man who knocked you out, before he looks away from you, at a large man you don’t think you’ve seen before.

“He wants to see her.”

The man nods, and then he’s on you in just a few steps, roughly forcing you up, his grip tight around your arm. You groan again as he drags you through the warehouse, to a large black car. You have just the time to think that someone must not want to be seen, if they’re in that, before you’re pushed into it. You lose your balance and land on your knees, and that’s when legs appear in your field of vision. They’re clad in black suit trousers.

You slowly look up. First, you discover elbows resting on spread knees, tattooed hands joined between them. Then there’s an elegant white shirt, unbuttoned at the top, muscular shoulders, a strong jaw, an amused, mocking smile and—

Your mouth drops open. Today is definitely proving to be a trying day for your reputation of never expressing your emotions, no matter the situation.

“Jungkook?” you ask, in disbelief.

Because it’s him. There’s something harsher in his eyes, his hair is longer, dark locks falling down to his jaw, and he’s lost any remaining softness he still had two years ago, when you last saw him, but it’s definitely him. He looks confident, and he’s more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him, clearly knowing that he’s in full control of the situation.

“Hey,” he says. “Wanna take a seat?”

He watches you struggle to get to your feet, something that turns out not to be that easy when your hands are tied behind your back, and doesn’t make a movement to help you. When you manage to sit opposite him, you’re still watching him like you’ve seen a ghost.

“What are you doing here?”

You know you should be able to piece things together to get an answer now. The deferential tone the man had when he talked about him earlier, everything that happened since these first gunshots… In another situation, it would be obvious to you. But because it’s Jungkook, you can’t bring yourself to come to the natural conclusion.

Jungkook had an out. He could have left this world behind altogether. So why wouldn’t he?

“Come on, you’re supposed to be smart,” he says, mocking, and his smile is harsh and condescending. “I’m taking over for the Xanders family. I think that should have been pretty clear.”

There’s a moment of silence, a long moment, as he waits for it to sink in. He’s in no hurry.

“But why?”

He shrugs, lean back against the leather seat.

“Because I can. Don’t you wanna why you’re here?”

That… would be a good idea, actually, and you’re bothered by how long it took you to think about it. You’re also bothered by how you lost track of that the second you saw Jungkook. You blame it on the surprise and on the fact that you’ve known him since before you became as— you’d like to say ‘efficient’, but the right word is probably ‘emotionless’. Empty.

“Why am I here?” you ask, frowning. If he wanted to kill you, he would have done it outside. It could be that he just wants to gloat, but something tell you he has—

“I have an offer for you,” he says, and then he grins and reveals his teeth. “It’s my way of saying thanks for how generous you were when you gave me five minutes to save my life.”

His tone is so abrasive it almost makes you wince, but you’re already falling back into your normal self. ‘Offer’ is a good thing, it means negotiation, conversation, things you can do, things you’re good at, things you can focus on to block out everything else, like the pain in your head or the guilt that settles in when he describes your actions.

“What offer?”

The grin disappears. He doesn’t seem happy he didn’t get a reaction from you.

“Work for me.”

That… makes sense, you suppose.

“I’m taking over for Mr. X. You know everything around here, and some people say you’re the best there is at what you do.” Then he shrugs, and casually pulls out a gun that you think was tucked in his back pocket. “That, or join him out there. I’m not sure you’ll like the outcome for that though.”

Despite the obvious threat, you can’t help but seriously consider the offer. If there’s one thing you’re sure of, it’s that it’s not a good one. Even if he manages to replace Mr. X, you doubt all the people who work for him will obey him. Stabilizing the whole thing will be a titanic task, but that’s not even what worries you — you can appreciate a challenge. No, the issue is that if you switch your allegiance, people will remember it. You will make a lot of enemies, and that doesn’t even include the people who simply will not trust you because you used to work for someone else. It’s a poisoned gift, really, and you’re sure Jungkook knows it.

“How do you plan on making the families follow suit?” you ask with a frown.

He rolls his eyes.

“Do people ever tell you how boring you are?”

They do, actually.

“This is not the only coup happening today. Some people who have already agreed to work for me will get in power. And the others… will take some convincing, but I’m sure they’ll come around.” He gives you a joyless, aggressive smile.

You’re still focused on his first words. You were already so puzzled that you wouldn’t have heard about what’s going on today — about how Jungkook is back in town, about how he’s been planning an entire takeover — but this is on a whole other level.

“How did you do that?” you ask, and when he lifts an eyebrow, you know you didn’t manage to keep your surprise out of your voice.

“Which part?”

“How did I not hear about that? I mean, Mr. X could sneeze and I would have known about it. People couldn’t open speakeasies without getting approved by me first — and they tried more than once.”

Jungkook looks at you, and disbelief passes on his face. This is what gets you? You couldn’t be bothered to give a shit about anything earlier, now you seem barely affected by the fact that he was threatening to kill you, but that caught your interest. Not just that, but you almost look impressed.

Okay, maybe you’re not as boring as he’d said, but you sure are fucking weird.

“We can smell you,” he says, tapping his nose. “It’s not too hard to figure out who you’re in contact with. Just had to make sure to avoid them. There were a few close calls, but we took care of it.” Then he shrugs. “It wasn’t as hard as you think it was. You’re not as cautious around hybrids.”

You stare at him for a while. He starts picking at his suit, looking annoyed by the turn the situation has taken, and you think about what he said. He’s right, you realize. You fucked up here — badly. You should have taken hybrids’ senses into consideration. You’d like to tell yourself that you didn’t think about it because there were no hybrids in high places, in the organization, but that’s not a good excuse. You file the information in your brain. You’ll do better.

“I’ll do it,” you say, and Jungkook glances at you.

“What changed your mind?”

“I’m— curious, I suppose. I’d like to see where this thing is going.”

Jungkook considers taking back his offer. He didn’t know what he thought would happen, but he expected it to be more interesting than this. Instead, you sat there, face as stiff as ever, and now you’re talking about being curious, which sounds wildly out of character, if you ask him. Yoongi’s told him you cried when you thought he was about to kill him, but he doubts it right now. It doesn’t look like anything can get through that thick shell of yours — and even if it did, he doesn’t think there would be a lot underneath it.

But the thing is, he was telling the truth earlier, when he said you were rumored to be the best there was at your job, and Jungkook is nothing if not a perfectionist. He likes to surround himself with the best. Which, unfortunately, means you.

“Suga!” he shouts, opening the door.

The man with the slit pupils jumps in easily, and looks at you with a disapproving twist of his lips.

“I’m not killing her, am I?”

He sounds disappointed.

Jungkook shakes his head in response.

“That’s Suga,” he tells you, pointing at the man. “He’ll explain how we work to you.”

You nod.

“I think he should kill you,” Suga informs you off-handedly, dropping on the seat next to you. “I think you’ll betray us.”

“If she does, I’ll kill her, if she fucks up her job, I’ll kill her, ” Jungkook says, and you have no doubt he means it. “Consider this your five minutes. Let them go, and you won’t have another shot.”

“That’s fine by me,” you say evenly. Betrayal has never been an option for you. You had no loyalty towards Mr. X, but the threat over your family was too big to risk it. And now, with Jungkook— you guess you’ll have to wait and see. You don’t think you’ll betray him, but if things turn sour… You suppose you’re not above it.

Maybe it should worry you, how little you value your own life, but you brush it off quickly. Thinking about it too much could compromise the way you do your job, and you can’t have that.

“So,” Jungkook says, leaning back, eyes watching you carefully. “What do you suggest we do with the Xanders?”

Suga opens his mouth, but Jungkook lifts a hand, signaling that he wants your answer. You wonder if this is some kind of test.

“Killing them would be the best decision,” you say, somewhat reluctantly. You know your decisions in the past, your suggestions, have lead to the death of people, but you’ve rarely been so direct about it. Then again, death is part of the game, when you work this kind of job. Mr. Xanders is about as close to an actual monster as it gets. And Anna… Well, maybe Anna isn’t. You don’t like her, and you absolutely believe that she was happy to enjoy everything that came with what her father did, but she’s not him. Which is a low bar to clear.

“She’s not wrong,” Suga echoes, sounding annoyed.

“Letting them live would be seen as a proof of weakness and they would try to come back. It’s just— a bad idea.”

You can see Jungkook’s jaw tensing. Next to you, Suga starts to make his leg shake. You suppose he has the same kind of bad feeling you do.

“What if we kill Mr. X but not Anna?” he asks, and Suga groans. Jungkook rolls his eyes and develops. “Yoongi, we’re not taking over the legal part of the business. We can just— leave that to her, and not bother about it.”

“We’ll have to figure out something else to launder money,” you say, because that was the main point of that side of things, legal just in name really. That is not your biggest concern, though. “But if you kill her father and not her—”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Yoongi snaps. “She needs to die.”

He’s right. It’s just the smart thing to do.

“People here aren’t impressed by mercy,” you insist, and that’s when you realize you’ve lost that fight already. Jungkook knows it. There’s no way he doesn’t. He’s made his decision, even if it’s a bad one, and trying to change his mind is useless. So you’re quick to jump to the things that need to be done if he lets Anna live. “You need to get her to sign emancipation papers.”

Jungkook tenses suddenly at the suggestion and a low growl comes from his throat as he bares his teeth at you threateningly. Yoongi barely moves, but you see his hand settling on his hip, near his gun, which you guess serves as a reassuring gesture. The car fills with tension, and you swallow. You feel small and defenseless. It’s not that rare a sentiment, but you suddenly become extremely aware of the fact that you’re alone with them, hands still fucking tied behind your back, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do.

“Anna doesn’t own me,” Jungkook snarls.

“Legally she does,” you explain. You’re choosing your words carefully, making sure not to anger him any more, but you’re still staring right at him. “You may have forged an ID or something, but if she lives and she can prove she hasn’t freed you— the consequences will be bad.”

There is a second that feels like an eternity, Jungkook just staring at you, lips now in a tight line, before he shrugs and you can breathe again.

“Okay. Let’s do that.”

Yoongi groans and sends you a furious glare that you don’t understand. You agreed with him. What did you do to deserve that?

“I’ll take care of Xanders,” Jungkook adds. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

“Can someone— Can someone untie me?” you ask as they’re moving towards the door.

Jungkook glances at you.

“We’ll see when we come back.”

A grin flashes on his lips when your lips twist into an offended expression, and then he jumps out of the car, followed by Yoongi, and leaves you alone in there.

Fuck.

What an asshole.

Jungkook walks towards his captives with long, confident strides. Yoongi is right behind him, of course, his shadow, the perfect killer. He may disapprove of Jungkook’s plan, if you can even call it that, and he sure doesn’t like how easily you dropped the topic, but he’s still loyal to him. If he fucks up, he’ll clean up after him.

Jungkook savors the moment when Anna’s eyes fall on him. He can tell she recognizes him immediately by the way they widen and how she tries to speak through her gag. It’s been years since the last time he saw her. Much longer than the last time he saw you, which leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He’s thought about this so much. A long time ago, he dreamt of her telling him she wanted him back, but over the years, it mostly turned into him finally taking revenge, and he intends to fully savor it now that it’s happening.

He removes the gag from her mouth, and takes an unhealthy pleasure from the way she sobs out, loud and desperate.

“Jungkook, Jungkook, baby, please, please…”

Jungkook only needs to glance at Yoongi for him to set her free, albeit after an annoyed roll of his eyes. The second he does, Anna falls from the chair, right into his arms. Jungkook knows that she’s only trying to save her life, doubts she’s thought of him for more than a split second since he’s disappeared, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to enjoy it.

“Hey baby,” he grins, and he watches as she winces when she sees his sharp teeth. Right, she didn’t see him after that.

Fuck. It’s been a long, long time. She really didn’t give a fuck about him, huh?

And yet he can’t kill her. And yet he knows her bright, pleading eyes, the light weight of her body, the curve of her neck by heart.

“I’m going to need you to do something for me,” he says, voice deep and eyes boring into hers.

She blinks.

“And if I do you won’t— you won’t kill me?”

Jungkook’s opinion of Anna is far less charitable than yours. He thinks she’s an opportunist, will do anything to preserve herself and, sure, she’s not personally involved in her father’s business, but she wouldn’t bat an eye if she was. She likes to play the innocent girl who’s horrified by what’s going on with her family, but she just isn’t. As simple as that.

“Nah. I won’t.”

It doesn’t take long before Anna is kneeling on the floor, writing down what Yoongi is dictating to her, reading from his phone. Jungkook could do it, knows the text by heart, learned it a long time ago when he still hoped for it, but he just stays there immobile instead, watching her at his mercy.

It’s not as nice as he’d imagined.

Finally, she hands him the piece of paper with trembling hands, a small smile forming on her lips as she thinks that her nightmare is over.

Jungkook takes it, reads it over, and nods. Then he pulls his gun out, and Anna’s smile vanishes. Jungkook thrives on her reaction, on the idea that he has complete power over her in that moment. It feels dark and twisted, but fuck, it also feels good.

“But I—”

He shoots and Anna yelps, protecting her ears in reflex.

It takes her a second to realize he wasn’t aiming at her, and relief washes over her, before she understands what it means. She turns around, slowly. And screams.

A clean shot, Jungkook decides, looking at Mr. X. The man had been glaring at him the entire time, and he doubts he would have groveled like Anna had. Now, his blood is splattered on the floor, head thrown back, mouth open, staring at the ceiling with empty, dead eyes. Jungkook doesn’t care when Anna runs to him, sobbing, calling for him, trying to shake him awake.

“We’re going,” Jungkook announces to Yoongi, who finally seems a little less angry with him.

He doesn’t look back at Anna as he walks away.

You rub your wrists, then your shoulders after Yoongi has cut you free. Jungkook doesn’t say anything about it, just sits back in the luxurious car. You thought he would look content, happy with himself. He doesn’t.

When the car stops in front of your building, you’re not sure what to do. Part of you still can’t believe he’s letting you live.

“We’ll come and get you tomorrow to get things started,” Jungkook informs you while staring out the window. “You know, you probably should have moved two years ago,” he adds, and for some reason, that really rubs you the wrong way.

“I changed the locks,” you answer, and he grins.

“You still haven’t figured out how I did it, right?”

You frown. You haven’t.

He looks genuinely pleased by that.

“What should I call you?” you ask. “Do you want to be the new Mr. X?”

He growls at the suggestion, but seriously thinks about your question.

“Call me— Call me Mr. Jeon,” he decides spontaneously, without explaining his decision, and you nod. This should help make things more professional, isn’t if this isn’t actually a professional setting.

“Fine, Mr. Jeon. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You’re pleased to find that your voice is back to normal, calm and even, not letting anyone know of whatever you’re feeling.

Except Jungkook and Yoongi can probably hear how fast your heart is still beating, but that’s a problem you’ll have to deal with some other time.

You step out, and linger there a second too long, the door open. Finally, you gather the courage to turn around and look at Jungkook.

“Why are you back?”

You mean a lot by that. In the city, sure, but also in that setting. You’d always thought— you’d always thought Jungkook was better than that. You’d always thought he should get the opportunity to get away and he’d be fine. That’s something you can’t shake away, can’t push under the rug.

He couldn’t escape.

He stares at you blankly.

“Where else am I supposed to go?”

Then he leans in and closes the door, and you’re left alone on the pavement.

Tagging list: @chaiwivluv​ @mintyrae​

[benjaminmoorepaint]

red: the color of...grantaire?

Figured I might do another meta post like the one I did for Marius to address the myths and misconceptions surrounding certain characters, so it's Grantaire's turn!

I'm sure we all know Grantaire quite well...a sensitive starving artist, with his Apollo as his muse, and a cynic who pragmatically points out the flaws in Enjolras's idealism, which they quarrel over.

Let's unpack that!

Grantaire is most likely middle class if not wealthy, he is certainly not poor. We don't know what he's studying (if he's studying at all) but he is nevertheless a quintessentially Parisian bourgeoise "student", much like Bahorel. "A rover, a gambler, a libertine..." As the foil of "severe in his enjoyments" Enjolras, Grantaire is a pleasure-seeker, indulging in the excesses that Enjolras disdains.

Again, though we don't know what Grantaire is studying (and I suspect he's just Bahorel-ing it) he's clearly an educated man, judging by the references he throws into his speeches, and he mentions that he once was a student of Gros.

So is he really an artist? He might have been an apprentice at some point, but it's clear he was not particularly enthused by it. After all, discipline is something that Grantaire…lacks. And because it's Grantaire, you can't completely discount the idea that he made it up just for a pun (though I do find that unlikely.) But it's a triple (quadruple?) play--it's important not to take this quote too far out of context because he's actually saying several things here.

It is a shame that I am ignorant, otherwise I would quote to you a mass of things; but I know nothing. For instance, I have always been witty; when I was a pupil of Gros, instead of daubing wretched little pictures, I passed my time in pilfering apples; rapin is the masculine of rapine. So much for myself; as for the rest of you, you are worth no more than I am. I scoff at your perfections, excellencies, and qualities. Every good quality tends towards a defect [...] there are just as many vices in virtue as there are holes in Diogenes’ cloak.

Gros was a well-known neoclassical painter of the time, and I believe Hugo's inclusion of him here is a jab at the neoclassicists, as Grantaire doesn't seem to care for him.

There's a pun! "Rapin"--term for a painter's assistant--is the masculine of "rapine"--to steal.

So he likely means he stole the apples intended to be painted for a still life, which fits his careless attitude... but he's ironically putting himself down for it too, and at the same time

putting his companions down, saying they're no better than him even if they do have more "good" qualities because each good quality has a corresponding downside, so what's the point, really?

You can see that even in this small sample of his speech that Grantaire often has layers upon layers of meaning in what he says. He's a smart guy! But that means you can't always take what he says at face value, as Hugo says, he's constantly "reasoning and contradicting" himself. So let me invite you further down into what I think his real meaning is here (though now firmly into the depths of my own conjecture, so others may have different interpretations.)

I would speculate that "the rest of you" who he professes to mock refers mostly to a specific person, you can probably guess who. After all, Enjolras is surely the paragon of virtue among them, and you could certainly argue that his good qualities edge on being flaws. I think Grantaire is right about that, and it's a sort of theme we see pop up again and again--the Bishop's generosity does hurt the women he lives with, Valjean's self-sacrifice hurts Cosette, and Javert is someone who's tipped all the way over to his virtues being vices.

But like, man, come on. Seriously. "I scoff at your perfections, excellencies, and qualities." Dude. We all know that you're obsessed with this man.

And you might notice that this is just a whole lot of Grantaire talking and talking over people, never letting anyone else get a word in. It's not a debate, Grantaire never actually debates anyone, let alone Enjolras. The idea of Grantaire debating Enjolras and making him see the flaws in his idealistic revolution is wholly a fandom invention.

The closest we get, really, is Grantaire trying to convince Enjolras to send him to the Barriere du Maine...and Grantaire doesn't come out of that looking so good.

“Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu’s?”

“Not much. We only address each other as tu.”

“What will you say to them?”

“I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles.”

“You?”

“I. But I don’t receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. I have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution of the year Two by heart. ‘The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.’ Do you take me for a brute? I have an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hébertist. I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand.”

I won't bother going too in-depth here since you're probably familiar with all this--Grantaire talks a big game and then fails to follow through. And we see one of two red waistcoats mentioned, neither of which are worn by Enjolras.

Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Café Musain. He went out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat.

“Red,” said he as he entered, and he looked intently at Enjolras. Then, with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points of the waistcoat across his breast.

So yeah, it's actually Grantaire who wears red, at least canonically! I know their popular red/green color scheme comes from the musical, but it might be fun to reverse it sometimes...I think Enjolras would look great in a nice emerald green, and he'd be more likely to wear that, actually.

Why? A red waistcoat like would be a very obvious, in-your-face political statement--perfect for Bahorel, the other red waistcoat wearer, but Enjolras is actually a lot more reserved and less reckless than fandom sometimes makes him out to be. Wearing something that blatant isn't really his style.

The real question is, why does Grantaire, of all people, own one? Why has he read Prudhomme and the Social Contract and the Rights of Man?

Grantaire is not a super sympathetic character. He's a man of means, talent, intelligence...and he wastes those gifts and privileges on doing nothing, he has no aims in life, he does not aspire to do better or make the world better. He may be Enjolras's foil but I would also contrast him with Feuilly, who has spent his life dedicated to improving himself and the world despite the challenges he's faced. He's obnoxious to women, denigrates his friends for their beliefs, and is generally useless. He's given the opportunity to change and he squanders it. He's not so much cynical (because that's a belief) as he is indifferent, which is arguably worse. His indifference can certainly be read as symbolic within the group, their belief versus the apathy of the world.

But, layers upon layers...Grantaire does have a good heart hiding underneath all that. What I've been getting at all along here is that he does care; he may say he doesn't, he may even believe he doesn't, but he does, clearly, care. He says he hates mankind; he loves people. He says he scoffs at his companions; he admires them. He declares himself indifferent, yet he can't help but talk about the sufferings of the world.

Which isn't to say that simply caring absolves him of anything. Up to this point, he's still just been a useless layabout. What does absolve him (narratively speaking) is the first time, possibly the first time in his life, that he chooses to act. He chooses to take a stand. And this transfigures him, as Hugo says.

Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man.

At the last moment, he chooses to believe, and Enjolras finally accepts him.

One last thing: Grantaire never calls Enjolras "Apollo". Furthermore, he's actually the only one who couldn't have called him "Apollo". The only line where this nickname is mentioned is as follows:

It was of him, possibly, that a witness spoke afterwards, before the council of war: “There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo.”

Who could have called him that? Not Grantaire, he was fast asleep during the whole thing. So I choose to believe it was Prouvaire…he would.

[meteor752]

Dsmp Hogwarts AU, except it’s all the characters and I go into why they are what they are, please reblog this took a long ass time

Man, what a title Huh? Anyways, this will obviously go over the characters and not the content creators, because in some cases those are vastly different

Also, before we start, I will go over an important thing that I will mention probably a few times, and that is the difference between Hufflepuff Loyalty and Slytherin Loyalty.

Both of these houses value loyalty, but in very different ways. Take for example that you’re a spy who has their best friend as their partner, and you’re out on some super important mission. Let’s also say that your partner got shot and is close to death, and the only way to save them would be to abandon the mission entirely.

A Hufflepuff would try to complete the mission because it would be the best for all, while the Slytherin would abandon the mission despite the fact that it could result in countless deaths, just to save their friend.

See it as Selfish Loyalty vs Selfless loyalty. Both are great things to have, but are still different.

Anyways, on with the show

Tomathy Danger Kraken Careful Innit

I have seen people try to argue that this boy is a Hufflepuff because of his loyalty and such, but gosh darnit everyone this child is a god damn Gryffindor. I mean, one of his main character traits is that he’s brash and too brave for his own good. The reason he got fucking exiled is because he burned down George’s house without thinking of the consequences, and then just screamed at Dream without thinking of the consequences. The same goes for Ghostbur’s “death”, it was because he had no real plan except Stab Dream with an axe. So yeah, Gryffindor

Wilbur Soot

Slytherin, 100%. This man has created one and a half nation, one entirely out of spite, he was both a general and a president, he’s a smart lil fella, and he managed to hold his own against the god of the server. I don’t even thing you guys wanna argue with me here

Tuberculosis Underscore

This one is tricky, because it’s really between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw for me. Like, he does possess the Hufflepuff loyalty™ plus he is very kind, but he’s also one of the more logical and observant characters we have in this server (The bar is very low let me tell ya). But I think I will have to go with Ravenclaw, just because like, the boy invented nukes. He built fucking nukes. So yeah, a very chaotic Ravenclaw that will spout bee facts at you, be prepared

Technoblade

My man is a Ravenclaw, no doubt about it. I mean, he started talking about an old greek myth in the middle of a war? Just Ravenclaw things amiright?

Philza Minecraft

I will have to go with Slytherin on this one, simply because of the large amount of Slytherin Loyalty, but also because of his cunningness and resourcefulness, but for real this was very tricky, simply because I don’t like to think about c!Phil too much because as some of you may know, I kinda hate him (Not the cc though, obvs, he’s awesome)

Ranboo My Beloved

Hufflepuff. This boy’s ideology is literally “Choose people, not sides”, he’s an honest and compassionate boy who works hard, and has a very open mind. He’s literally the by the book Hufflepuff

Eret

Honestly, Slytherin. I mean, they are ambitious as fuck, both shown by them betraying L’Manburg for the throne, but also by working hard towards their redemption arc. They are also a good leader of the smp, and in general a great role model to have

Nikki Nihachu

This one is actually difficult, simply because Nikki has gone through quite the character arc the past couple of months. She started out kind, sweet and loyal, a classic Hufflepuff. Then she joined the syndicate and straight up tried to kill a child, which is less Hufflepuff but who am I to judge. But in her core, as seen through her discussion with Jack about Tommy’s revival, she is still a good person that works hard for what she believes in, wants the best for everyone (Despite sometimes working in her best self interest) remains kind through it all. So yeah, Nikki is a Hufflepuff, just a bit of a sadistic one. But we can’t all be perfect ya know?

Fun Jonathan Michael Vincent Georgina James Sus Dy Soot

Ah, my favorite character, and also one of the best examples of a Ravenclaw. And I ain’t saying that just cuz I’m a Ravenclaw, Fundy is one of the most Ravenclaw characters out there. He’s creative, Clever, Spontaneous, Witty, Curious, Sharp, and a real trickster. The idea of Ravenclaws being the goody two shoes kids that always does their school work is just false, we never do our Homework and instead sit and read about things we find interesting, and Fundy is a good example of that. Also he was quite the eager learner during the Dreamon Hunters arc, which again is a good example of a Ravenclaw. So if Ranboo is the by the book Hufflepuff, then Fundy is the by the book Ravenclaw.

Dreamwastaken

I’m pretty sure it’s confirmed that Dream is actually a Slytherin, and I ain’t arguing with that. This boy is cunning, sly, a leader, traditional, Self-Preserving, and a master with words. There is not much more to say here, apart from the fact that Slytherins main colour is literally green, so it all checks out, this boy is a snake.

George Lore

Mr not found over here really is hard to pinpoint down, simply because his main character trait is his apathy, which isn’t really a trait for any of the houses. I was discussing this one with my girlfriend, and both of us were pretty clueless of what to do with him. I was thinking if Hufflepuff since they take the ones that don’t fit anywhere else, but then I was reminded of the most recent Dream XD stream, which showed us one thing, and that is that George is clever, observant, and Sharp Minded, all the traits of a Ravenclaw. Sure, he could also be Slytherin as he was both cunning and sly as well, but I think Ravenclaw fits him more personally.

Sappitus Nappitus Boyhalo

Finally we have another Gryffindor, there’s been a serious lack of them on the list. My man is a fighter, he’s bold, he’s brave, he’s passionate, he’s confident, and he doesn’t really think that much of the consequences of his actions (Cough the pet war cough), so yeah this boy a lion.

Punz

Ah, Punzie, the mercenary themself. Tbh, I know very little about them because Punz don’t get involved that much in lore unless they are hired for something. I mean, they were in the eggpire, but even then they were barely involved, which is sad cuz I like Punz. But what we have seen of Punz is that they are someone who does not care about you or what you want, as long as you pay them. They are power hungry and self preserving, which means that I have to put them in Slytherin.

Jack Thunder1408 TV Manifold

The boy who I can’t help but be sympathetic towards. Jack is also a hard character to pin point because of the reason that he’s gone through quite the development. Jackie boy is a very broken character that has literally been through hell, so it’s hard to properly sort him. He’s quite confident and clever, yet cunning and resourceful, so for me it’s either Slytherin or Gryffindor. But I do lean towards Gryffindor more, partly because of his stubbornness and gullibility, and part because of all the fire imagery that’s associated with him. I mean, the cc described him as burning inside, he’s been through the scape of fire and death, and he burnt his nation to the ground. In case you didn’t know, Fire is the element of Gryffindor, so yeah, another red and gold boy.

JSchlatt

Schlatt is as both charming, charismatic and calm in the early days, using subtle manipulation tactics to get his way and achieve ultimate power. He’s ambitious, narcissistic, cunning, and tyrannical, while still hiding it all behind a facade of smiles and waves. He could also be both cruel and irresponsible at times, aka the time he had an underage child drink during an event, but ya know, mistakes. So all in all, I think it’s pretty clear that he’s a Snakey boy.

QuackityHQ

As much as I love CC!Quackity, I also fucking hate him because of the many, many different directions he’s taken this character which makes it possible for him to fit in literally any of the houses. The duckie is both Chaotic and lawful, he’s both friendly and hostile, he’s a smart cookie and a fucking dumbass, so like bruh. But, I’m gonna have to go with how he is now, which is manipulative, power hungry, cruel, and strong willed. Aka, another Slytherin.

Karl Jacobs

Finally, a character that is not broken down to the point of barely making out a readable personality. Karl is a kind and funny person, who is very open to new people considering how often he gives tours to visitors and new people, and he is quite literally loosing himself traveling through time in an attempt to help people. Hufflepuff

Awesamdude

This one I know will be controversial, but I’m saying Hufflepuff on him. Sam is one of the best cases of the Hufflepuff loyalty, literally letting both Tommy and Ghostbur be stuck and ultimately die in the prison just so he wouldn’t risk Dream breaking out. Before that point he was very kind and gentle towards Tommy, literally building a robot to keep him safe and take care of him. Sam nook is a reflection of Sam’s feelings towards Tommy, and they are kind and gentle.

Dropsbyponk

Ughhhh, another tough one. Ponk is a chaotic being who is mostly neutral in conflicts, but is shown to be very open about their feelings towards those they care about, like Sam or Foolish. They seem to be have strong feelings in what they believe in, and can be a bit brash sometimes, not really caring about the consequences of their actions, which is what makes me say Gryffindor for them.

Badboyhalo

Our favorite muffin demon. I assume, I don’t know what life you live. Anyways, Bad is like the stereotypical Hufflepuff. The kindhearted, well meaning, sweet, responsible Hufflepuff. The Hufflepuff that’s like in all of those incorrect quotes blogs and “Slytherin and Hufflepuff friendships uwu” posts. But for real, Bad is very Hufflepuff. He does however have Slytherin Loyalty, considering he pretty much sacrificed the entire server for Skeppy, but if you would try to convince me that Bad is a Slytherin I will just laugh at you

Skeppy

It was at this point I realized what I’ve gotten myself into with this post, which you know, not fun. Skeppy is both cocky and filled with energy, with a real ambition to cause chaos. He’s also shown to be willing to sacrifice himself for the person he loves, Bad, when he gave himself up to the egg. I’ve seen some people say Slytherin, but I’m kinda getting Gryffindor from the lad, so yeah, another lion.

Antfrost

Frosty here is a kind hearted person that for the most part seem to be along for the ride. He reminds me a bit of a parent of toddlers, with his patience and serenity towards the more chaotic people on the server, so of course my natural instinct is Hufflepuff. Buuuuut, then there’s again the issue with the egg and the Slytherin loyalty, this time towards his boyfriend Velvet who he was willing to join a cult for (relationship goals) but again, you can’t really say Ant is a Slytherin considering how wrecked he was about what he did while in the eggpire when he was released from it’s grasp. So yeah, Puffle boy

Captain Puffy

Oh captain my captain, you are such a Gryffindor. And some of you may disagree on that, stating that she’s a Hufflepuff or something (I did research before this to check what other people think, I know) but naaah, she a lion. Puffy is very motherly and protective towards other people on the server, especially the minors, but in the way that a Bear is protective towards its cub, which is gentle towards them but fierce towards others. Puffy also falls natural in the role of a leader as seen with Pro-Omelette, but that is kinda expected since she’s a past Pirate Captain. But she wasn’t the leader she was supposed to be, as she waited quite a while to act against the eggpire out of fear of hurting her friends, which lead to quite the damage towards the rest of the server. She’s also been shown to act on impulse, killing Antfrost and taking one of his lives after he killed her son. Idk if this is a good explanation of why I believe Puffy to be a Gryffindor, it sounds more like I’m claiming her to be a Slytherin or Hufflepuff, but she is a Gryffindor I promise!

Foolish Gamers

Foolish is a kind and friendly being, if not a bit naive and easily distracted. He’s also not the brightest person, in fact I’d go as far as to call the guy a Himbo, and he can be a bit skittish sometimes if he’s stressed or haven’t taken a break in a while. But despite it all, the guy is someone who’s creative and hard working, with a brilliant mind for his building. The man is an artist who can get grumpy if you suppress his creative aura, and put his heart and soul into his works. He also has a habit of getting wrapped up in big projects, and ignoring sleep or personal care until he’s finished them. This all leads me to say that Mr Gamers is a Ravenclaw, just not the smartest one. But hey, we can’t all be geniuses, can we.

Slimecicle

Slime is very naive and very trusting towards people around him, taking every word they say as a fact. He can also be a bit dark and ominous at times, but quickly shakes it off as nothing important. This all makes him quite childish, which is very hard to sort, so I’m gonna say Hufflepuff for his friendliness and move on.

Purpled Bedwars

I actually started loving this guy the minute I saw him, purely because Purple is my favorite colour, like my man has taste. Purpled, like Punz, is a guy who helps whoever pays him the most. He’s not interested in most things on the server, too busy looking out for number one (And Dogchamp of course). He’s very self reliant and resourceful, but still quite passive. He may not be the most ambitious guy, but Purpled is definitely a Slytherin (It also brings me and my girlfriend Serotonin knowing that the mercenary siblings are both in the same house, we love those two)

Hannahxxrose

I don’t watch Hannah that much, but god I love her voice, it makes my lesbian little heart happy. Hannah is a friendly person who is very naive about the conflicts on the server, thinking it all can can be solved by placing a rose (God I wish). She’s a good decorator and a good hearted person, who unfortunately fell victim to the egg’s influence. I’m going with Hufflepuff on her, but I’m honestly not entirely sure as I don’t know that much about her.

HBomb94

H is a very well meaning person that only really wants people to be friendly towards each other. He had a strict moral code and he keeps to it, as shown where Fundy tried to get his help with blowing shit up. He’s very helpful to those who ask and is willing to back up his friends when it’s needed, which makes me say that the friendly totally not dirty cat maid is a Hufflepuff.

Connoreatspants

I just want you all to know that I’m writing this before Connor’s lore stream that surely will just go against everything I say because fate hates me, just so ya know. Connor is not a person that does stuff on the server with lore and he for the most part keeps to himself, so this is a bit hard. Connor also has this thing where he likes to say things just to confuse him, and also making a bit of cursed lore, but he’s still a fairly humble person. He does lie and steal a bit, and has this habit of moving into other people’s houses, but I digress. I’m actually leaning towards Ravenclaw on him, for some reason, so that’s what I’m going with until I have more of an established character.

ItsAlyssa

I know she has left the server and stuff, but she was one of the original members so it would be a crime not to include her. Alyssa is a bit chaotic, often going on killing sprees, or burning down the trees outside of L’Manburg. So I’m placing Alyssa in Gryffindor, but to be honest I don’t really know at this point.

Callahan

How do you sort a person who does not speak, stream, or show like anything of his personality? The answer is, you don’t. Hufflepuff is the house of those who don’t fit in anywhere else, and that’s where I’m placing him.

Vikkstar123

Please log onto the server I’m begging you, I didn’t watch you as a kid and honestly know nothing about you. From what I’ve seen of Vik he’s a very humble person that tries to stay out of it all, instead forming a land together with his bro Lazar. Honestly my instincts say Ravenclaw and I trust my instincts, so I’m putting him in Ravenclaw

Lazarbeam

Lazar was actually a big part of the exile arc which I realized after already have written his, so now I gotta rewrite it. Lazar is fairly ambitious on the server, and has the goal to obtain the most powerful objects on the server just to rival the other strong members of the smp. He’s especially against Tommy, and aims to do a lot to be the opposite of him, aka well respected and not a war criminal that got exiled (Totally fair goal). Despite that, he was able to show some empathy to the British child, even going as far as to give him a disk during his exile. This all makes me say Slytherin on him.

Michaelmcchill

Newest boy. Michael is a very apathetic person, showing little to no empathy towards most people’s trauma on the server. The person he does feel empathy for however is Dream, who of course did nothing wrong and is locked up in the prison which is just horrible oh no. Michael just truly does not care about what you’ve been through (as of now) which is why I’m gonna say Slytherin, because he does have Slytherin loyalty towards Mr Was Taken.

TL;DR

Tommy-Lion

Wilbur-Snake

Tubbo-Eagle

Techno-Eagle

Philza-Snake

Ranboo-Badger

Eret-Snake

Nikki-Badger

Fundy-Eagle

Dream-Snake

George-Eagle

Sapnap-Lion

Punz-Snake

Jack-Lion

Schlatt-Snake

Quackity-Snake

Karl-Badger

Sam-Badger

Ponk-Lion

Bad-Badger

Skeppy-Lion

Antfrost-Badger

Puffy-Lion

Foolish-Eagle

Slime-Badger

Purpled-Snake

Hannah-Badger

HBomb-Badger

Connor-Eagle

Alyssa-Lion

Callahan-Badger

Vik-Eagle

Lazar-Snake

Michael-Snake

So all together we have Seven lions, Ten Snakes, Seven Eagles and Ten Badgers. I think that’s fair tbh

[biot08]

FFXIV Character Sheet

with love given to @bluespiritfire (original here!)

Name: Zoissette Vauban / Zo

Age: High 30s

Pronouns: She/her

Birthdate: I forget, but it’s on her in-game paper doll

~~PLACE OF ORIGIN~~ Race: Ishgardian Wildwood Elezen Hometown/city: Ishgard Current residence/popular haunt: Work for the Maelstrom, so has barracks space in Limsa Lominsa. Works for Gage Acquisitions, so sometimes crashes on the couch at their HQ in the Goblet. Her parents still live in Ishgard, and so she can also couch-crash there

~~APPEARANCE~~ Eyes: Brown Hair: Black with purple highlights Hair type: Straight and thinnish Hair style: Short undercut Body type: Athletic, the wiry kind; muscles of steel cable Height: Tall Skin: Light brown Facial features: Nothing notable Body features: Shortish ears for an Elezen

Favourite/commonly used clothes: That beautiful skirt and jacket combo that Tataru made for her when she is being casual. The heavier dark jacket and sabatons that Tataru made when she has serious business knight work to do.

~~SKILLS~~ DoL/DoH Dabbles in the entire list of DoL/DoH skills for self-sustainability purposes, but has no real talent for any of it

~~COMBAT~~ Main discipline Gladiator/Paladin (she will never refer to herself as a Paladin; her training is that of an Ishgardian knight); her other main discipline is arcanist/scholar

Secondary/Tertiary/Extra Classes Red mage and machinist (in-game, she also has NIN, but that’s more because I like the class and less because it’s appropriate for the character)

Fighting style She shifts between hard-and fast and defensive/protective as a knight. She appears reckless to the inexperienced, but she very much knows what she is doing. As a scholar, she is tactical, and very wait-watch-and-see.

Any difficulties with magical/physical disciplines? Red mage is the only magical discipline she is extremely good at, because it relies heavily on her physicality (channeling with precise rapier work) and on her personal mana pool. She is awful at drawing in external aether. Her magics as a scholar also lean heavily on her ability to work with the summoned fairy construct to do the bulk of the aether work while she performs the necessary manipulations and calculations. As a result, she was merely a middling arcanist, but is a very good scholar.

~~PERSONALITY TRAITS~~ Analytical, cunning, curious. She can be impulsive, but it is not because she is not considering the consequences, but often because she is very interested in what they will actually be. She is very self-assured in general.

~~LIKES~~ Environment: A warm home with a warm fire. She does find Ul’dah’s dry environment endearing after the snowscapes of Coerthas post-calamity. She tolerates Limsa. Weather: Warm days Flavours: Nuts greens meats and fruits Textures: Cotton or wool Favourite Dish: Meat pot pies of any sort. They can be well made, and that’s great. Or the can be mediocre, but easily portable and reheatable on the front lines, and that’s also great. Favourite Colour: Purple Favourite Sound: The utter silence of the soundscape during a lull on the front of the dragonsong war provides her with strong mixed feelings that have turned nostalgic. The way snow dampens sound and makes for a particular kind of quiet night is eerie, but dragons tend to be very loud; as a result, the eerieness was overridden by the knowledge of a promise of a good night’s rest Favourite Smell: Hot meat pie straight out of the hearth Favourite Place: The little fort outpost she was ‘in charge’ of and responsible for for a great deal of her adult life. She can’t go back, but she has fond memories of the place Favourite Holiday: The new ones they’re inventing celebrating the  end of the dragonsong war and the beginning of a new promise of peace

~~DISLIKES~~ Environment: Snowy environs. She’s had enough of that for several lifetimes. Weather: Snoooooow Flavours: Gamey. You get a lot of gamey meat on the front. Textures: Weirdly, finds silk to be entirely too slippery Least Favourite Dish: Ishgardian knight hardtack. It’ll feed you, but you’ll regret it the entire time. Least Favourite Colour: White, though she has no strong opinion here Least Favourite Sound: Bells. Too many alarm bells in her life. Least Favourite Smell: No strong opinions here Least Favourite Place: Coerthas. Even though her most favourite place is there Least Favourite Holiday: Doesn’t really have one, though she ignores several; this is less dislike and more apathy

~~HOBBIES~~ Reads voraciously, both for research and as a hobby. Finds working out invigorating. Does not skip leg day. Never saw a mountain that didn’t need someone to at least attempt to scale it. Pretty fond of fucking around (and often finds out, which is also fun)

~~RELATIONSHIPS~~ Parents/Legal Guardian/Parental Figure: Mother and father. While no longer Ishgardian nobility, the Inquisition merely stripped them of house titles and colours, but did not excommunicate them. They live in the repaired parts of Ishgard now, as commoners Siblings: Second oldest of seven Children: Nope Romantic: Single, about to be complicated (for tax and guild fee purposes) Friends: Picks up acquaintances easily enough, thanks to an easy going personality and willingness to just generally roll with things. Has few truly close friends, though, due to having a tendency to keep a bit of a distance. Loyal for life once past that point, though. Rivals/Enemies: No rivals, but there are definitely people among the noble families of Ishgard who she would count as enemies. Not enough to truly go after or do anything about, but people who she is, at best, cold towards if she ever has to interact with them. She gets on well with Alphinaud, as the two complement each other, his diplomacy making up for her lack of it, and her foresight making up for his frequent naivete. She snarks with Y’shtola and the two often banter like old maids. She merely has a working relationship with Thancred, but it’s not cold; it’s just not a close friendship, either. Tataru finds her vexing. Estinien and her have a deeply shared understanding that comes from both being front line participants in the dragonsong war. Krile and her do not understand one another, and tend to settle for just being cordial. She finds Urianger likeable, and gently needles him at times, and doesn’t always realise when he’s doing it back.

Any special gestures of affection they have with people in their life? She will, without fail, ask Lennier if he’s been working out, and will swoon when he performs physical feats (squats, pushups, etcetera) nearby.

~~HAVE DEALT WITH/IS DEALING WITH~~ Definitely has some PTSD. Also, her entire family has gone from lesser nobility to commoners with a status that, until recently, left a bad mark on their name (their status as a minor house was lost when the inquisition found evidence that some members of the family, cousins in relation to Zoissette, were hertetics). She keenly feels the disruption of life in Ishgard due to the end of the dragonsong war, but does not quite know how or what to feel about it.

How are they dealing with the most prominent of the above? How does it affect their in day-to-day life, if at all? She sleeps lightly and poorly and generally pretends she doesn’t have a problem

~~ODDS AND ENDS~~ Notable Weapons Not really. Any sword is still a chunk of metal made with lethal intent

Notable Mounts An Ishgardian raised Chocobo, of course, for the most part. If she is travelling into danger, the Magitek armor, while defanged, is still a walking tank. If she has to fly somewhere, the manacutter from the Ironworks is just plain fun to fly

Notable Minion/s She has come to value Midgardsomr’s council and will travel with him as he is willing

Keepsakes/Mementos ... the Fortemps Shield.

Chronic Illnesses or Disabilities None

Education Level The same schooling most Ishgaridan noble family knights get to enjoy. She did a lot of self-study, because she found it interesting, but it was also part of a continuous bid to try to be accepted in the astrologian guild; however, due to House politics, she was never accepted. Fortunately, when she left home due to the situation after the inquisition investigation, the Limsa Lominsan arcanists were more than happy to take her on and guide her studies further. Generally her studies started with things she thought would be helpful for the war effort; history, strategy, logistics, and tactics. Since then she has dabbled in any of  dozen different subjects, learning few of them deeply, but being at least conversational in a great many of them

Habits I should probably come up with some!

[voidmanned]

a quick character concept rundown: 

john a. goode is a supernatural creature that feeds on reducing a person to apathy. he will take your ambition, enthusiasm, and fun and through his general aura, actions, and words he will suck them dry from you. this is the life force on which he feeds.  john a. goode is an ageless white, middle-class, middle-aged man in appearance. he is likely your faux-friendly boss, your awkward uncle, your husband of ten years who you realize, only now, is a stranger to you. as is your life.  john a. goode is not cruel. not on the surface. he is friendly, talkative, and surprisingly perceptive. this initial charm exists for one purpose: failing upward, so that he might slouch toward intimacy and feed upon your vulnerable parts.  he will ask you about your day only for his eyes to glaze over as you realize he thinks it uninteresting. his craft is a subtle, slow torture. 

the character lends himself to comedy, angst, and horror. the character does not easily lend himself to healthy ships, smut, or comfort. 

[firelxdykatara]

Zutara ask game, #1 and 8!

You and @epaire asked for the same numbers so I will answer you both together!

1. What made you start shipping Zutara?

I’m pretty sure it was all the fanart lmfao. I didn’t get into AtLA until after the first season of LoK had come out, or maybe the first two, I think it was 2013 or so by the time I watched the show. I’d been on tumblr for a couple years by that point (that was smack in the middle of my ‘TVD is my favorite tv show’ phase, and also the height of my captain swan obsession; ahhhh those were the days [and to be clear on this tangent, i still love captain swan, but the show went down in flames lmfao]), and via fandom osmosis had seen a lot of art of the water girl and the fire guy with the cool scar on his face, and i’d even seen gifsets and things and im pretty sure i went into atla thinking ‘oh this must be the canon ship’

needless to say, i came out disappointed, but everything i saw cemented the fact that zutara SHOULD have been canon, and well, it snowballed from there and here i am lmao

8. How have your opinions on A:TLA changed since you entered the fandom?

I don’t know if there’s anything I’ve done a complete 180 on--for the most part, I started out shipping zutara and thinking they made the most sense for both characters and for the show, and I only became more convinced of that as time went on and I got deeper into the fandom. Katara jockeyed for position as my favorite character with Zuko, and some troubling headcanons gained prominence which made me more determined than ever to love Katara and she claimed that particular crown (I still love Zuko of course, but Katara is the queen of my heart). I think I got a little angrier though? Like, when I found out about Bryke’s ‘Book 4: Air’ video, and their general attitude towards their own fanbase that persisted throughout the years.

I will say, though, that I’ve become a lot more critical of the show, particularly book 3, than I was when I first entered the fandom. For example, where I used to just think Kataang was cute but kinda boring and not for me, I have a lot more concrete problems with the ship and can and will talk a lot more about the disservices done to every character involved, particularly in book 3. My apathy towards Maiko became a lot more biting too and I’m not sure if I could really choose which ship I dislike more if pressed, bc they’re both terrible (imo) for very different reasons.

ask me zutara questions!

[feeshies]

This next generation of creators online will be ones who weren’t part of the “your oc needs to be 100% realistic, fill out this 200 question form to make sure your oc isn’t a mary sue, if your character has 2 different colored eyes and a sad childhood it’s time to start over, don’t forget to constantly talk about how much you feel disdain/apathy towards your ocs so people know you aren’t ‘too attached’ to them, here’s my blog dedicated to ‘critiquing’ cringy ocs made by middle schoolers” chapter of fandom culture and honestly I’m so excited to see what comes from it.

[dis--parity]

okay i couldn’t narrow these down, so you can totally pick which ones you want to answer, but for the character solidifying: 10, 12, 29, 32, and 49 for yeong-hui!!

Character Solidifying // Accepting!

Me, answering all of these anyway bc they need development and also bc I love you and your curiosity about my characters:

10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted?

Yeong-Hui’s intelligence is... hard to define. I’ll get more into the reason in the next question, but Yeong-Hui is mostly more emotionally and linguistically intelligent than anything else - one of the precious few traits they share with Garis. Emotionally intelligent, in that they can understand and empathise with peoples’ emotions very easily, and if they put effort into doing so, can understand peoples’ motivations and intentions quite easily. Linguistically intelligent, in that they’re not only poetic and silver-tongued, but also have a keen faculty for learning new languages. Though Yeong-Hui themself only speaks Korean, English, and Mandarin, Garis can speak those three as well as Swedish, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese.

12. How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?

Yeong-Hui’s education is a complex matter - most of it took place when Iris fronted for what would become their system, so Yeong-Hui has no direct memory of it. Only the essential knowledge such as some languages, basic math, English, and home economics, were willingly transferred to Yeong-Hui once they became the host again. As a result of this, Yeong-Hui mostly takes their speech patterns from the kinds of people they associate with, rather than any formal ‘education’. Their vocabulary in day-to-day conversation is therefore rather basic and laid-back, mostly crutching on contractions and slang to get through a conversation - but they do know how to use much more flowery language when they turn on the charm, or when they want to write a poem for someone, for instance.

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?

Yeong-Hui’s main weakness is that they’re too self-absorbed, and too nonchalant about, well... everything, except for the things that they can be convinced to care about. This isn’t rooted in apathy, however - it’s more a result of a narrow, self-serving approach to life. If someone is in need, they’ll still do everything they can to help - it’s just that they’ll be more inclined to help if it benefits them in some way. This isn’t always the case, obviously - a huge part of their reputation as a model consists of their charitable donations towards homeless shelters and medical research - but it certainly is more of a motivating factor for them. And, as with some of their relationships, they end up being prone to stepping on other people, inadvertently or not, to rise above their own station.

32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively?

Yeong-Hui mostly tends to be avoidant of any kind of stress in their life - if anything, it mostly feeds into and roots from their attitude as outlined in the previous question - they firmly believe that nothing in their life is permanent, and the quicker something that no longer affects them is forgotten about, the better. Of course, there are times where they just can’t avoid stress, whether it’s thrust upon them, whether it haunts them in the middle of the night, or in the rare occasion they find themselves in a life-threatening situation. In either case, they’re very much prone to receding into a dissociative state - which is when Garis is more likely to emerge out of defense for the system they don’t know exists.

If that happens, of course, Yeong-Hui retains none of the memories of it - and if it’s been dealt with and they wake up back at their apartment without explanation, they don’t deign to question it. They just move on, and try to forget it ever happened - whatever ‘it’ may have been.

49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?

I hate this question because I only just recently came across a decent singing voice reference for Yeong-Hui but it’s from a fucking bingus video bc I can’t find the original audio source... here it is but god. god dammit.

For a more written description - when speaking normally, their voice is quite thin rather than strong, but with a moderately low pitch. However, they do not speak flatly at all most of the time - while their resonance is mostly consistent, their pitch fluctuates wildly, especially when they’re in public or talking at length about something they like, or something that’s interesting to them. They’re also prone to letting vowels ‘hang’ for a bit -- for lack of a better term what I mean by this is that they often say words like “so” as “sooooooooo”  in conversation - letting it drag out for a second or two for emphasis.

As for accent, this is once again a product of their associates, and they take on a slight American drawl to their accent when they’re speaking English. Sometimes they end sentences or words slightly abruptly, taking from Korean and Chinese pronunciation structure, but this mostly only occurs when they’re speaking to either another native speaker, or when they’re generally more relaxed - otherwise, they seemingly make a purposeful effort to drag out vowel sounds and word endings in public, or with strangers.

[akechicrimes]

Hey crimes, feel free to disregard this tangent but, do u ever feel like P5 inadvertently or otherwise implied Goro was right with his fake “vigilante justice operates outside and the law and thus must be brought to heel” opinion? What with the fact that the Yaldabaoth confrontation implies the thieves work perpetuated humanity’s sloth AND THEN after an entire game showing us the hundreds of people who were at the v least COMPLICIT in shido’s machinations, a system which is (1)

ohhhhh this one is fun!! this is a super neat question, ty for asking!!!

hmmmmmmmmm

im going to try and break this down into parts, partly because persona 5 is such a convoluted mess with its own lines of thinking, so tell me if i dont do it right. the issues are: (1) goro definitely did say that operating outside the law was bad just on principle that you shouldn’t operate outside the law, and (2) persona 5 did definitely go on to say that all of the phantom thieves’ operations outside the law didn’t come to anything in the first place anyway, because they were only targeting individuals instead of mass systemic corruption/their presence was enabling people to become more apathetic.

i think what persona 5 is trying to get at is that it’s not necessarily that acting outside the law is bad, but that, like you said, targeting only individuals doesn’t work as a tactic. so vigilante justice (e.g. batman style of taking down supervillains) cannot compare to societal reform through collective action.

when i say collective action, i mean that i think persona 5 is trying to point out that “systematic” corruption is really just a corruption of many, many, many individuals working in concert--and that “reform” could just be said to be the opposite, which is activism from many, many, many individuals working in concert.

obviously the ending cutscene where akira;s social link network gets together to protest his arrest is the best example of collective reform, but i think one of the things that i rly like about shido’s wide-spread conspiracy is that it does a rly good job of paralleling akira’s social link network, and pointing out that in the same way that shido’s conspiracy is a collective effort of many many many people that make up a “system,” akira’s widespread social link network creates the opposite effect of a collective effort of many many people that make up a force for change. 

which is why having the phantom thieves as a group itself just promotes more apathy--you get one group of people doing all the work for the rest of society, when if anything’s going to change, we need everyone on their feet.

which surprisingly correct, insofar as i’m aware. if society’s going to change in a substantial way, beyond just changing the hearts of a handful of abusers and letting the rest of the system remain untouched, everyone’s got to be involved. collective effort. do your part. wash your hands. stay indoors. don’t forget to vote. seriously, wash your fucking hands.

but when it comes to whether or not persona 5 says that you shouldn’t be acting outside the law... 

i think persona 5 really really really really really doesnt want to be caught promoting lawbreaking while also being You Should Break The Law: The JRPG.

part of this trouble, i think, is just because they need players to actually like the characters in the game, and therefore all the character have sympathetic reasons for breaking the law. because persona 5 has to sell marketable characters, too, persona 5 itself makes it pretty clear that people who operate “outside the law” are usually not evil dipshit criminals who love sin. the people in persona 5 who act outside the law are usually people who dont have enough power to operate inside the law in the first place. akira, the pt, and goro all seem to have resorted to what they did because they had no societal power at the start, wound up with a persona (aka fast and easy power source), and wouldnt have been able to do anything about their situation otherwise. characters who operate outside the law (like takemi with her vaguely illegal practice, or kawakami and her also vaguely illegal sex work, or iwai and his vaguely illegal gun business) are still supposed to be waifus you are sympathetic towards. 

(...i think i accidentally called iwai a waifu? hmm. on second thought, i’ll just leave that sentence as it is.)

and i really do have to point out that persona 5′s attitude of FUCK COPS is insanely strong. like. persona 5 HATES cops. and that doesn’t let up basically ever, at all, at any moment. for anything. persona 5 wants me to believe that makoto will become a good cop in the future, but if i wanted to find an existing good cop, i’d have to go all the way back to persona 4. like!! shit!! goro akechi is the closest thing we have to a good cop, and he has a pet guillotine for CEOs and his middle name is komaeda.

and that part of the big attitude with FUCK COPS is that it’s another way of morally exonerating the phantom thieves. i think... although the game ultimately concludes with “you should probably not break the law any more because the metaverse is gone,” it’s difficult to argue with the fact that persona 5 is a game in which it presents you with 10000000000000 reasons to break the law and feel Great about it.

(another tangent: i feel like one of the big undercurrents of persona 5, and especially the TV station, is that the phantom thieves are justified in their lawbreaking because the police aren’t doing their fucking job. like, someone’s got to keep people safe, and if the cops don’t like the phantom thieves, maybe they should get off their asses and actually get the criminals before the thieves do. akira literally was on live television and he was like ALL COPS ARE BAD and goro was like wow. anyone else think that was really sexy? @ the guy in the glasses in the back, call me later when you’ve leveled up your charm and knowledge.)

so atlus is in this place where they’ve pointed out that people break the law because they dont really have any other choice, and also persona 5 the game HATES cops, and also persona 5 the game cannot tell you that breaking the law is bad because it is literally A Game About Breaking The Law, but at the same time, they cant really go around promoting crime. from a doylist perspective i was 100% unsurprised that they came up with a fancy narrative reason to get rid of the metaverse and their change-of-heart abilities and just the phantom thieves in general, because all of those are a threat to the status quo. although the game might be right that relying on the phantom thieves to change society for the rest of the population makes the rest of the population lazy and apathetic, it’s pretty convenient that this means that the kids are now no longer able to break the law. so persona 5 really wants people to do things the kosher way, e.g. protesting and such. 

hhfmgmhfmghfmgfmghmfhgg. taking this all with a grain of salt, because again, i do think atlus is trying very hard to avoid saying that people should break the law:

i think atlus wants to say that it’s not necessarily acting outside the law that’s not right, but the fact that just loading the phantom thieves with a ton of power makes people apathetic, and changing the hearts of a few individuals is Not enough to get rid of something like shido’s conspiracy. so instead they say, you shouldn’t break the law because it’s not effective without collective reform. 

i think another thing that persona 5 wants us to believe is that for the most effective reform to be achieved, people both inside and outside the law/system have to be involved in the collective effort to improve society. 

e.g., toranosuke wants to be a man of the people--someone who speaks for the people who are outside of the diet, but toranosuke himself is someone inside the diet. sae’s the other good example; the phantom thieves protest akira’s arrest at the end of the game, but sae, as the insider in the justice system, has to be there to hear and work with them. and this might just be because i watched haru’s s link last night, but i feel like takakura is a really good example: haru pushes back against the company’s shitty policies with her “outsider’s” perspective (quoted because she’s technically the largest shareholder, she just hasnt ever been really involved in how the company is run), but takakura, as the company president and most powerful person at okumura foods, has to be there to hear her request and agree with her, and make company changes based on her requests. 

and it’s for this reason that persona 5 wants us to consider maybe lawbreaking isnt morally bad, just not effective.

i wish i could say that that’s more bad atlus writing, but it’s not. i’ve only really examined changing schools on an institutional level, but the best examples of institutional change in school administration have always been cases where the administration, parents, and community members all work together. in some cases, parents bring up requests for the school to accommodate their needs, and the administration listens and works with them. something something--everyone needs an advocate. the point of a lawyer is to advocate for you. the point of a politician/representative is to represent you and your interests. so on and so forth.

(and i also wish that it could be as simple as saying, “wow atlus said something right for once!” because that’s not true, either--acting outside the law can be outrageously effective. persona 5 trying to tell us that acting outside the law to get shit done isn’t effect smells like corporate trying to tell its workers that unionizing doesnt actually do anything.)

(and i also wish that persona 5 would have acknowledged that sometimes, it takes more than just an extremely moral person to change the world. take toranosuke, for example--i’m sure that if he gets elected, he’ll go out there and be a wonderful representative of the people, but at the same time, can’t we also simultaneously acknowledge that any politician who can make “politics” a career for profit will always be incentivized towards self-interest? in the same way that a military for profit will always be incentivized towards war?)

but insofar as whether or not persona 5 thinks that vigilante justice/acting outside the law is in and of itself morally bad--i’d say probably not. i think they want us to think that it’s not effective.

-

-

-

this is a slight tangent that kind of goes off the issue of whether or not persona 5 is concerned with whether or not breaking the law is moral or effective. i was going back through goro’s dialogue in the engine room--who knows if that’s going to be changed in royal--but i was trying to figure out exactly what the phantom thieves condemn him for. (fucking difficult as fuck considering how bizarre that dialogue was at places.) 

the first one is murder, which goro is unimpressed with (LMAO. KING). the second is that he operated outside the law, to which he replies that they did the same thing (valid). the third is that his form of justice was “selfish,” in that it only served his personal need for revenge. at that point, goro changes the subject--which is not really surprising, since goro admitted long before the engine room that his quest against shido was for his own personal satisfaction. 

that is to say, the phantom thieves can’t say that they don’t operate outside the law, because they do--however, if the phantom thieves can’t be legally exonerated, the phantom thieves are morally exonerated despite operating outside the law because they do it for the benefit of others. that’s actually not an incorrect statement from the phantom thieves, although i dont think they’re doing it for Society Writ Large. the phantom thieves in every single palace have taken on targets to help someone else: firstly ann and ryuji and shiho, then yusuke, then various shujin students being blackmailed by kaneshiro, etc, etc. i remember pretty distinctly that ann insists that she doesnt want to get involved with madarame just for drama or fame (whereas ryuji wants to pick a big target just for the sake of getting famous), but she agrees to get involved with madarame’s palace because she doesn’t want to leave yusuke to possibly kill himself like a previous student.

because the phantom thieves are not able to say that they haven’t operated outside the law in the same way that goro has, the dividing line between them is instead that the phantom thieves are doing so selflessly. but this is just an elaboration on the question of whether or not “is lawbreaking moral?” rather than necessarily “is lawbreaking effective?”

there’s an argument that nothing goro or the phantom thieves did was effective in the long run, and there’s an argument that sae is proof positive that working inside the system won’t be effective, either. 

anyway, unions are effective. so maybe we should agree to wash our hands and join a union.

[dearsubconscious]

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading my very first post on this page before continuing. This story has themes of emotionsl/psychological/narcissistic abuse. This is my true story. Readers be advised.

Sifting Through the Memories: Part One

Dear Subconscious,

6 years. It took you 6 years to tell me the truth. I don’t think you understand how impactful that actually is. Maybe you thought that you were helping me. Maybe you thought that the walls of ignorance that you had built were keeping me safe. I don’t think I will ever really know. However, those 6 years managed to do just as much damage to my life, if not more that the years prior, all because I didn’t understand.

Those 6 years were so confusing. I found the courage to leave her in fall of 2013, senior year of high school, but you waited until 2019 to explain what really happened during that 5-year-long relationship during my most vulnerable years. In the process of waiting all of that time, I had no real understanding of why I had these horrible habits or these self-destructive tendencies that ruined nearly all aspects of my life.

I knew and understood a lot about depression from middle school and high school; from class discussions on the topic; from the people I was close to at the time that suffered greatly from it; from the people that I helped through the dark via deep and open conversations late into the night over text; from the people I care about most struggling through it; perhaps most of all, from my own struggles with it.

I wasn’t really sure at the time why I was depressed, however. I tried to pin it on my apathy for school, which caused my bad grades. Deep down, I always knew that was actually a consequence of my depression, among other reasons, not a cause. I thought maybe it was because of my family situation at home that had been ever changing from around 4th grade on: parent divorces and marriages, arguments, moving houses and changing schools, new step siblings (I was an only child), destructive, alcoholic step parents. These things may have initiated some depression early on, and they may have been contributing factors over time, but I never really felt that any of these events were ultimately what led to my darkest moments in life. I always knew people my age going through worse things than I was, and they seemed to be keeping themselves together better than I was. So why was I having such a difficult time in life? Why couldn’t I keep up with everyone else? Why was my self esteem so low? My parents were always good at supporting me and giving me love and attention, so how could I feel so low? I just never actually knew until recently. Until it was beyond too late.

I was always taught to try to reach out and always be there to help those in need when they need it most and be a helping hand. It could save a life. And I know that I helped save some of my friends lives. I wasn’t looking for praise or to be a hero. I just wanted to make sure that everyone around me was okay. Maybe I was always hopeful that the favor would be returned should I ever need it. I still hold these values today, as I know that so many people just need to be heard to be saved.

Just like me.

Most of my friends knew that I didnt sleep well in high school. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out that was a symptom of my body and mind being in fight-or-flight mode at all times. I was too afraid to sleep for fear of making my girlfriend mad. This still affects my sleep habits to this day. More on that later. This, however, meant that all of my friends also knew that they could text me at just about any time, 24 hours a day, and I would most likely respond. For much of high school, it definitely seemed like I was talking to someone every night, helping them sort their thoughts out and generally letting them vent or open up about their emotions. These talks also, occasionally, had me talking people “back from the ledge” when things got really bad for several of my deeply depressed friends. I always remained anonymous about it for their sake, but I was always glad that I could be there to help in the middle of the night when they were at their darkest. I distinctly remember, in one week, for some reason, three of my friends from three different “walks of life,” unrelated from one another, had all gone through deeply traumatic events and I found myself texting and calling them late through the nights to keep them from making the ultimate decision. All of these years later and I am happy to say that nobody that I knew in high school has taken their own life to this day. It definitely feels a bit miraculous, since I know that my younger step siblings have each lost several friends to suicide during their high school years.

Being young an naive and constantly empathetic toward everyone around me meant that I also left myself very vulnerable and very easy to push around. I never saw it that way at the time, though. Again, naive. I left my empathetic ways open to be used. I didn’t think that anybody could use my kindness against me with malicious intent. Why would they? How could they? I was just being nice.

I suppose that should lead us back to 7th grade, where the real story began. In theater class, an elective I enjoyed in high school, I got to know people better that I hadn’t known before. I had started at a new school where I knew virtually nobody in 6th grade, and the experience of 6th grade didn’t leave much time to get to know anybody yet (though I did meet my best friend in 6th grade). The 7th grade schedule allowed us more time to meet and learn about people in our classes, and theater in particular was a class all about getting to know people so that you could perform characters well together.

This was where I really met her.

We had one other class together, French, but that class had a very strict teacher that allows no time for talking amongst ourselves, so seeing each other’s personalities in theater class meant much more. I remember she always wore the same sweater jacket everyday, just like me. She was small, shy and quiet and she tended to use the sleeves on her jacket to cover her hands. She would wrap her fingers over the ends of the sleeves, gripping tight as if it was protecting her, like some kind of shield. We had to present mini performances often in that class and I could tell that she was very nervous for one of her first ones. She was trying hard to recall her lines and was gripping hard and fidgeting with her sleeve trying to protect herself. I saw a lot of myself in her at the time and I had a lot of empathy for her in that moment. I tried to motion to her to let go of her sleeves so that she could appear more confident. She noticed my sitting in the back motioning, but I think I just looked crazy to her at the time. My use of empathy here should have been the first sign that I was approaching this relationship all wrong. I saw her as someone I could help because I could relate well to.

We started talking a bit in that class. Eventually I managed to convince her to chat with me on yahoo messenger after school so that we could talk more. Our phone plan at the time did not include texting or data, so I was stuck with using yahoo messenger at home on my desktop. We made this work though. I found out quickly that her mom had just gotten married without telling her to a man she didn’t like with two daughters that she did not get along well with. While I don’t entirely blame her for those feelings, even now, her deep apathy for this still probably should have been a red flag at the time, but I was too young and naive to see it at the time. Plus, I was going through something very similar at the time so we had a lot of connection through that. Our conversations were long and we learned a lot about each other. We would trade off asking each other simple questions, like what our favorite song was, or who our favorite family member was. I think this made us feel closer than we were, and at the time we didn’t feel so alone in a strange and lonely life.

She started venting to me about the, supposedly, traumatizing things that she had been going through with her moms marriage and the new people in her house. I should her a lot of sympathy during that time. This probably made her feel like she had someone that would listen to her deepest problems, but it was also the start of her use of my own empathy against me. She would start to use it to trap me in a conversation. Making me feel a little guilty if had to leave for dinner or homework. She didn’t really get angry, but I would always apologize a lot for leaving so she started to get annoyed with the frequency of my interruptions. At the time I thought absolutely nothing about this.

A short time later, I had decided that I definitely liked her because she would connect with and listen to me. I had gotten to know a few of her friends and I had even passed a note to one of her friends that I was thinking about asking her out. Her friend was immediately all over this and wanted me to do it soon. So, one day we were out in groups in theater class, and I remember eaves dropping in her group nearby where her friend was asking her if she likes me. She nodded yes and they discussed a bit. It was a bit of a blur from there, but one way or another I ended up asking her out by the end of that class and she agreed. I was giddy with excitement for weeks, of course. I felt like I couldn’t have asked for things to go better. Puppy love (a term I have come to loath as we called each other puppies for the entirety of the time that we dated. I realized later how she used it as a name to belittle me most of the time). That said, our actual relationship, behaviors and conversations did not change basically at all once we were dating.

Her family was a strict catholic family that taught her to be very uptight about relationships (or so she told me), so we didn’t even hold hands for months. It didn’t even seem like we were in a relationship at all. We were very young anyway, so nobody was really surprised. Summer quickly came around and I was off to see my family in Europe for a month. There was no way for me to communicate with her during that time. With the state of our relationship, that was actually okay. When I returned from that trip, I saw her within the following days and she seemed a bit distant. I asked if we were still together and she agreed, but she seemed a bit apathetic. Our conversations started again on yahoo messenger in the evenings and all seemed normal again.

School soon started again, 8th grade. We only had French class together and we just didn’t seem as connected. I could tell that she was putting some distance on me. I was developing new friends and I became caught up with them more often. Soon (around mid September), she told me that she thought that we should call it off. She felt that we were better off as friends. With the way things were and the fact that we never became very close, I agreed, but it still hurt a little. I had felt good about what we did have at the time, but I couldn’t blame her. I hadn’t helped to close the distance in the weeks before that.

I know, this seems inconsequential on my life up to this point and this clearly wasn’t 5 years, so what really happened. Well, it got a lot more complicated very quickly.

Up to this point, I don’t think that you were blocking much or trying to hide any pain. Not much of the damage had been done yet. You couldn’t have seen what was coming next, so how could I blame you. You didn’t do much to keep me from being very vulnerable around that time, though. You were probably sending up red flags that I didn’t understand because my conscious brain was blind and full of emotions that were blocking you out. I was a teenage boy after all.

To be continued.

Thank you for reading. I only write these when I am going through the low days, often after a PTSD trigger, when I have some sleepless time. It helps me collect myself. Updates to this will not be regular, but I hope that you can follow along. Most of all, I hope that sharing my story can help others that are in or have been in similar situations. This situation has had me feeling incredibly lonely for years. I don’t wish this pain on anyone and I hope that you can keep moving forward like I am. We are stronger together and most importantly: you. are. not. alone.

[goingoverthegardenwall]

Chapter 8: Babes in the Wood

In this last hurrah of explicit homages to animation of the past, the most obvious discussion point is Merrie Melodies and its ilk: Babes in the Wood is essentially a full-episode reference to the bouncing musical shorts of yore, where everything can sing’n’dance and the villain is a blustery bozo who’s defeated with a sight gag. If we expand to children’s entertainment in general, as we did with Greg’s Beatrix Potter episode, then The Wizard of Oz is our logical next step: the song welcoming him to Cloud City owes everything to Dorothy’s introduction to Munchkinland, complete with the fact that our hero has just entered a dream.

And look, there’s nothing wrong with talking about the obvious. But as we near the end, I think it’s a little more interesting to instead explore the very beginning. So let’s go back to a newspaper cartoonist in New York—the one who inspired fellow New York newspaper cartoonist John Randolph Bray to become an animator, which in turn led fellow New York newspaper cartoonist Max Fleischer to become an animator, because it turns out that just like the birth of superhero comics a few decades later, the birth of American animation hinged on print artists who dreamed big in the city that never sleeps. 

A boy named Zenas was born in Michigan on September 26, 1871. Or maybe he was born there in 1869. Or maybe he was born in Canada in 1867. He said one thing, and a biographer said another, and census data says another, and I wasn’t there. It’s similarly unclear when or why he started going by his middle name, but by the time he took his first job at age 21 (or 19 or 17) as a billboard and poster artist in Chicago, he was calling himself Winsor McCay. They sure did know how to name ‘em in the 19th century.

McCay began his newspaper career as a freelancer, but moved to New York in 1903 to work for the New York Herald, where he wrote a variety of comics before hitting it big with Little Sammy Sneeze. McCay’s art was always brilliant, but his gag work was formulaic to a fault: the joke for Sammy Sneeze was always the same, he would sneeze and ruin everything right before the last panel. That devotion to formula would continue in his second big comic Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, where a fantastical events would occur for ever-changing characters before the lead woke up in the last panel, revealing it was a dream.

That second formula was the basis of McCay’s masterpiece. Already a successful cartoonist in the two short years since he’d moved to New York, his fame skyrocketed with Little Nemo in Slumberland, which used the same “wake up at the end” formula but with recurring characters and a running story. He toyed with the medium like none had before, playing with panel arrangement and innovating the portrayal of motion in comics, and his art skills only improved with this full-color strip. His success led to the vaudeville circuit, where he turned the act of drawing into a performance, and this combination of stage entertainment and his continuing comic work led him to seek new ways to dazzle the crowds.

By 1910, the earliest animated shorts had already started to emerge, and McCay was inspired by pioneers like James Stuart Blackton and Émile Cohl to try animating the characters of Little Nemo. Under Blackton’s direction, McCay singlehandedly drew around four thousand fully colored frames to produce his first animated cartoon, presented at the tail end of a filmed short about said cartoon in 1911. As mentioned, animated shorts were already a thing. But none of them looked anything like this. (If you’re concerned that there might be racist caricatures in it, don’t worry, there definitely are, McCay had a lot of strengths but overcoming garbage prejudices was not one of them).

The sheer quality of his work, continuing with the legendary Gertie the Dinosaur, directly led to the invention of the rotoscope as a means to mass-produce cartoons of similar finesse. The influence of Winsor McCay over animation as we know it is hard to overstate (and let’s stress again that this was his side gig, and he was just as influential over comic art): as crazy as it sounds, it’s safe to say that Over the Garden Wall would not exist if not for a story about the whimsical adventures of a little boy who traveled across a land of dreams from his bed. 

“Where’s Greg, Wirt?”

Babes in the Wood is delightful and goofy and lighthearted exactly once.

In the same way our fourth-to-last episode mirrored our fourth, this third-to-last episode mirrors our third: Chapters 4 and 7 focus on Wirt, but 3 and 8 are Greg’s. It’s not simply a matter of who the main character is, but what these episodes are about: Greg’s love of fun clashing with his drive to help others. Both times he's spurred by the desire to help others to go off on his own, both times he gets distracted by whimsical wonders involving funny animals and physical humor, and both times he ends up deciding to help out anyway. But despite switching his goal from making the whole world a better place to just helping his brother, the stakes are actually far higher now, so the fun has to be that much more fun if we want the full horror of the ending to sink in.

There’s no tonal shift in the series that’s more devastating than Greg falling prey to the Beast after nearly ten minutes of goofiness in Cloud City. It turns a moment of welcome relief from the growing tension of Wirt’s despair into a dagger in the heart, and the knife is twisted when we learn in our next episode what the Unknown truly is.

That despair is evident well before Wirt explicitly gives up. We get our second opening in a row featuring Beatrice in a hopeless search, and things aren’t much better for the boys. All sense of progression from the first episode feels lost, with Wirt reverting to mumbling poetry and Greg reverting to Rock Facts. Their boat is an outhouse and Greg uses a guitar as an oar, because (if you’ll pardon my French) they’re up shit creek without a paddle. When they land, Greg’s victorious bugle is a ridiculous sign of hope, but he soon drops it in the same way he abandons the guitar: in Schooltown Follies he takes instruments to help others, but this time he loses them.

Wirt’s frustration with Greg threatened to boil over in The Ringing of the Bell, only to be cooled when the Woodsman interrupts them. This time there’s no such interruption, so after Greg’s total failure to read the room gets to be too much, his brother finally snaps. It crucially isn’t entirely unjustified, as Greg’s antics might be funny to us but have not been appreciated by Wirt, and despite Greg’s age excusing his lack of emotional intelligence, it’s still gotta be frustrating for a teen to deal with that behavior nonstop. And Wirt’s “tirade” reflects his depression, because he doesn’t even seem that angry: he doesn’t shout or rave, he’s just openly irritated as he argues that they’ll be lost forever. This is apathy and fatigue, because he’s lost the energy to be furious.

But the most chilling part of the exchange isn’t Wirt cruelly blaming Greg for their mess, or abandoning their search. It’s when, after Wirt asks if they can give up, Greg responds with a chipper “You can do anything if you set your mind to it!”, a sentiment that the Beast will fiendishly repeat verbatim while tricking Greg. It’s such a generic positive expression that Greg hangs a lampshade on it, but it shows the darker side of the power our minds have over our well-being. Sure, it’s a great lesson that focus and dedication can help us achieve our dreams, but if we use that focus and dedication towards self-destructive behavior, there’s no limit to how badly we can hurt ourselves. 

After a goofy sort of prayer (incorporating lines from the classic Trick or Treat poem, which will become super relevant an episode from now), Greg is whisked away by so-creepy-it’s-funny cherubim to the score of a so-overwrought-it’s-funny song. His flight aboard the bed/cart pulled by a donkey across the sky feels legitimately magical, but we soon switch to the surreal world of 1930′s songs and physics.

Cloud City is such a stark contrast to the tone of the episode so far that it instantly feels delightful, and such a stark contrast to the tone of the entire series that it lends a special sort of wonder to Greg’s dreamland. References to old cartoons are everywhere in Over the Garden Wall, and before we delve into the tension of our last two episodes, we get one last gigantic celebration of the past with a sequence straight from the golden age of animation. 

The transition alone is enough to make this scene hilarious, but the actual jokes help quite a bit: Greg’s growing impatience with the numerous Wizard of Oz reception committees is my favorite gag of the night. Everything is cute to the point of being cloying, including our three angels that look and sound an awful lot like Greg, and the parade that he leads seems like such a fun and peaceful affair after so much time wandering alone. It’s easy to get as roped into it as Greg when we first watch it. But considering the events of our next episode, the scene destroys me every time I rewatch it, because there’s a very specific place Greg is being welcomed to.

Babes in the Wood gets a lot less cute when it becomes clear that it’s a welcoming committee for a dying child. Greg and Wirt are drowning, and this is the episode where the shock wears off and the cold sets in and the younger and weaker of the two looks into a bright light. Greg’s near-death experience is hammered in when we get to The Unknown, but for now it’s being rationalized in a way that brings him comfort.

The cold is Greg’s enemy, and the same childish tone is used to show that he’s willing to fight for his life: thus, the North Wind segment is ironically more hopeful to me than the parade’s warm welcome of death. This third song sounds enough like a Randy Newman number that I’m honestly still convinced it’s an uncredited Randy Newman performance, and it jolts us back to reality for a moment as we see the effect this bitter wind has on our babes in the woods. The boys are starting to freeze, and we again see Beatrice searching for them, getting so close before an owl that looks remarkably like the one we saw in our first episode scares her off. The episode doesn’t want to lose us completely to the sky, and this grounding helps keep the stakes clear as we complete Greg’s dream.

The Popeye-esque battle between Greg and Ol’ Windbag is a hoot, between the latter’s grumbling anger and the former rolling up his sleeve to get back into the brawl. Its conclusion is hidden from us, so we have no idea how Greg gets him in a bottle, but that fits right in with the weird logic of this throwback and allows us to meet the Queen of the Clouds.

I ought to bring up the theory that everything we see here is an illusion created by the Beast, even though I don’t really subscribe to it myself. The most obvious “hint” is that this sequence directly leads to Greg deciding to join the Beast with an off-screen promise, but we also have the old man in the welcoming march wearing an outfit just like Wirt’s and holding a lantern, perhaps a reference to the Beast’s intended fate for Greg’s brother. Plus there’s lines in the songs that seem like they’re luring Greg in, especially the assurance that the wonders of Cloud City “ain’t gonna lie,” which sounds a lot like what a liar would say. Both the Queen of the Clouds and the Beast pointedly call him Gregory instead of Greg, but so does Old Lady Mrs. Daniels (and Wirt when introducing him in Songs of the Dark Lantern). 

While it’s a neat enough idea, I think the Queen of Clouds is pretty clearly on Greg’s side for real: she seems upset at his fate in a way that doesn’t make much sense for an ally of the Beast. I also think it’s more meaningful for Greg to truly have the choice between happiness and responsibility, between the possible peace of rest and the definite struggle of life, and for him to choose the latter right as his brother is giving in. But I’ve got no beef with folks whose interpretation of the show is enhanced by this theory, so believe what you want to believe about this ambiguous situation.

Either way, we cut back to Wirt instead of Greg when the dream ends, and he’s still annoyed as he’s trying to sleep. Greg’s strange new seriousness is already cause for concern, and asking Wirt to take care of the frog is even more alarming, but even that doesn’t compare the horror of realizing where he’s actually going. Or rather, with whom.

This is another reason why I think the Queen is an ally: while it’s obviously dangerous for Greg to go with the Beast, that’s what it takes for Wirt to snap out of his funk. It’s a hell of a gambit, but as soon as he starts to awaken, he’s immediately concerned for Greg’s safety despite whatever anger or resentment he had, sparing no time or thought to the branches creeping over him as he runs after his brother. 

The quiet distortion as we follow his frantic search is soon met by the Beast’s song, but even as he blames himself for Greg’s plight, Wirt is no longer content to wallow in despair. Because it turns out that these brothers are more similar than they seem, and neither is truly capable of letting the other suffer. In the folk tale for which this episode is named, two children abandoned in the woods eventually die and are covered in leaves by small birds (with some versions seeing them enter heaven), but as we’ll see in our next episode, this isn’t a folk tale.

The thrumming noise intensifies as Wirt slips on the ice, then we add visual distortion as he plummets into the freezing water. He’s saved, but this isn’t water that sees him reborn: the distortion finally breaks as Beatrice asks the episode’s terrible question, and we’re left in the cold.

Every even-numbered episode of Over the Garden Wall, perhaps by virtue of airing twice per night, ends in a mood-setting cliffhanger that grows tenser and tenser with every iteration (or at least it does until the end). First we got a leaf symbolically caught in a fence, then the Beast’s introduction, then the fallout of Adelaide, and now the capture of Greg. Getting trapped has always been a threat for these roving heroes, but the greatest threat of all, that of Wirt trapping himself, has been handled. Things look bleaker than they ever have, but despite the glee of Greg’s dream contrasting with the harshness of reality, Wirt’s ability to climb out of the pit of despair keeps hope alive: even in absence, Greg’s influence looms large.

Rock Factsheet

Dinosaurs had big ears, but everyone forgot because dinosaur ears don’t have bones.

Where have we come, and where shall we end?

Most of these were mentioned in the main analysis, but it’s great that we hear Wirt’s description of Into the Unknown right before the episode itself shows us what happened.

[alternis-dim]

If someone wanted to get into persona, what is the best game to start with?

to be honest, Persona is kind of nice in that it doesn’t matter a whole lot where you start, since each game is a relatively self-contained story which only has brief mentions or cameos of previous entries! some elements of the lore make more sense if you play certain games before others, but it isn’t anything drastic enough to impact your enjoyment. Hell, I started with Persona 5 and was just fine. So I guess I can just sorta talk about the pros and cons of each game as an entry point to the series! I can also briefly describe their premises in case a particular one seems more interesting, which could help someone with deciding where to start.

this is gonna be long, so I’ll put it under a read more.

Persona 1/Revelations: Persona is the only game I wouldn’t recommend playing first. Its mechanics are pretty outdated and not reflective of the rest of the series, and it’s relatively short compared to the others as well. Not to say that it’s not worth ever playing! In fact, from my understanding it has wonderful characterization, an engaging plot, and lays important groundwork for the franchise’s worldbuilding. I just wouldn’t recommend it for getting a taste of what the series is like.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin is the first of the dual entries for the Persona 2 duology. It has some of the same cons I mentioned for the first game; it’s relatively old, so its mechanics are a little outdated, and it plays more similarly to an SMT game than the future Persona entries do (for example, the story is fairly linear and occurs over the course of a few days, whereas later entries are strung out over a year). It is a little more refined, though, and the formula is starting to get there. It also has, in my opinion, some of the best character writing in the series.

P2IS is a story about how strange occurrences are brewing in the city of Sumaru because of a phenomenon where rumors actually influence and/or become reality. A group of high schoolers get tangled up with a mysterious man named Joker, who can supposedly grant wishes and, for some reason, seems to hold a very personal grudge against them. They discover their ability to call upon Personas to defend themselves from the demons at his command, and soon end up teaming up with journalist Maya Amano to get to the bottom of Joker’s identity and the source of the rumors which are warping the city. Over the course of their journey, they slowly start to piece together their past in order to figure out why Joker seems so invested in them.

Pros: - Stellar character writing- An intriguing, interconnected plot which is a bit of a rollercoaster but a lot of fun- Lays the groundwork for lore in the Persona series (most importantly the existence of Philemon and Nyarlathotep, as well as the origin of the Velvet Room)- Incredibly mature takes on the impact of trauma and familial abuse (TW for both of those things though)- Canonically bisexual protagonist with a potential same sex dating optionCons:- Unavoidable random encounters and really grind-heavy, as most 90′s jrpgs go- Outdated mechanics that aren’t really reflective of future Persona entries- One of those wiki-heavy games: it’s damn near impossible to unlock certain character interactions or personas without use of a guide- The second game in the Duology, Eternal Punishment, isn’t nearly as accessible to English audiences

Persona 3 is where a lot of the series formula originates from! It’s also my personal favorite, but I’ll try my best to be unbiased describing it. Small note: I recommend playing Persona 3 FES specifically, since it refines a lot of the things that were clunky in the vanilla version, adds more character content, and features a post-game which answers a lot of questions.

P3 takes place in a coastal city called Iwatodai at the beginning of the school year, where the protagonist moves in as a transfer student after being bounced around in foster care for ten years following an accident which killed his parents. Upon arrival, he experiences the strange phenomenon of the Dark Hour: an extra 25th hour in the day where people are transformed into coffins and monsters roam free. Technology doesn’t work during this hour, and anyone not protected by a coffin is violently attacked and seems soulless the next day, a condition local news dubs Apathy Syndrome. A select few people have the potential to stay conscious during the Dark Hour and protect themselves by use of a Persona, and these people make up a unit called the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.). The protagonist joins, and the game follows their investigation of the phenomenon. It’s considered the darkest entry in the series, and for good reason: “memento mori” is right in its introduction. The game focuses heavily on themes of death, what it means to be mortal, how people deal with being confronted with their mortality, what the point of life is, and much more. 

Pros:- Introduction of the Persona formula: school life and dungeon exploration which requires time management on a linear calendar, the knockdown/1-more feature in combat, all-out-attacks, social links. Starting with this game may actually be the best way to go gameplay-wise, since coming back to this game after playing later entries makes it seem clunky.- Dungeon-crawl style of gameplay, which is a lot nicer than random encounters. You explore randomly generated floors and choose when and where to ambush enemies.- Excellent character arcs which enrich the game’s narrative- A dark, mature, and interesting story which explores human natureCons:- Still an older game, so some controls are clunky. One game mechanic in particular that many are frustrated with is the inability to directly choose what moves your teammates will use, instead requiring you to use Tactics to direct how the AI should behave.- Probably has the worst pacing issues out of any game in the series. There’s an entire calendar month where you do basically nothing.- The post-game is grind-heavy and long for the amount of story it offers. Some people just recommend watching a playthrough.- Features an uncomfortable transphobic skit towards the middle of the game.

Persona 4 is a refinement of many of the features of Persona 3. The best version to play is Persona 4 Golden, since it has a lot of extra content, but it’s vita exclusive and I’m stuck with vanilla :( Vanilla’s still fine in my experience, at least!

P4 takes place in the small town of Inaba, where the protagonist has transferred for a year to live with his uncle and cousin due to his parents leaving the country for work. Shortly after his arrival, a bizarre series of serial murderers start to occur where the bodies are found strung up on telephone lines. There’s also a rumor that looking into a turned off television screen on a rainy midnight will reveal your soulmate; this rumor is referred to as the Midnight Channel. The protagonists and friends inadvertently discover a parallel world which exists alongside Inaba, which can be entered through televisions but which can’t be exited without the help of a mysterious denizen named Teddie. They discover that these worlds are linked; people who show up on the Midnight Channel turn up dead in the real world shortly after, and the weather is inverse to Inaba’s. They discover that this is because someone is throwing people into this world, who are then unable to escape, and that the Shadows living in it become violent when the fog lifts (inverse to when the fog settles in the real world). This world also has an interesting quirk: people who enter it end up confronting their own shadow, which is a manifestation of the parts of themselves they repress or deny. Denying your shadow leads to it attempting to kill you, and this is likely what caused the deaths of the first victims. The protagonist and team discover that confronting and accepting your own Shadow, however, turns it into a Persona which you can then use to combat the monsters in the world. Equipped with their unique knowledge, the team sets out to save victims, solve the murder mystery, and learn how to accept themselves.

Pros:- A powerful message about the importance of seeking the truth and accepting all facets of yourself- An absolutely incredible murder mystery with clever plot twists and high stakes: getting the true ending is actually difficult if you don’t know who the murderer is, and you’re expected to understand the themes of the game and the characters in order to get it.- A nice in-between for the mechanics of P3 and P5: it’s pretty easy to transfer to either one after playing this one. (also introduces the ability to control party members directly, thank god)- A TON of spinoff content if you find you enjoy the characters and setting- Probably one of the best games in terms of understanding the overarching lore of the series, since it explains how Personas and Shadows work in much more depth than other entriesCons:- Has sort of a wonky difficulty curve. The first couple dungeons are honestly kind of a pain in the ass because of how level scaling works, and it takes a little while to level out.- The character arcs aren’t quite as well-written as previous games, due to the ultimate personas being associated with social link completion rather than events in the plot.- Oh god, such clumsy handling of LGBT topics. Plays around the idea of a gay narrative for one character (Kanji) and a trans narrative for another (Naoto) but ultimately just ends up playing up stereotypes and then backing out before doing anything “risky.” Another character in the party is pretty homophobic to Kanji for a while too, which sucks.

Persona 5 is the most popular in the series for sure, and for good reason. It’s the complete culmination of the Persona formula, and it adds all sorts of stuff to the gameplay and lore. It has a pretty lovable cast, to boot. Not that it doesn’t also have its problems, imo.

P5 features a protagonist who was falsely convicted of assault after attempting to defend a woman from a drunk man harassing her. His criminal record and probation result in his expulsion from his home school, so he moves in with a family friend in Tokyo where a school will accept him until his time’s up. Tokyo’s been strange for a little while now. Mysterious incidents have been causing disruptions for a while. There’s been a surge of “psychotic breakdown incidents” in which people act out unpredictably for seemingly no reason, and on rarer occasions “mental shutdowns” where people seem to completely break and die shortly after. The protagonist and friends get tied up in nonsense pretty quickly when a mysterious app on his phone transports him to a parallel world in which real locations of Tokyo are warped beyond recognition. The protagonist discovers the power of persona pretty early on, which he uses to fight the enemies there. With the help of a strange creature named Morgana, they learn that this is the “Metaverse”, a space in which the twisted desires and perceptions of people are made manifest. It’s a space where a person’s Shadow lords over a “Palace”, an altered version of real-world locations which reflects how that person views the world around them. They also learn that personas are the result of having a strong, rebellious will, allowing you to control your Shadow in combat. By breaking into a Palace, defeating the Shadow, and stealing the “Treasure” at its core, the Palace will crumble and the person in real life will come to grips with the morality of their actions, effectively outing themselves. This is referred to as stealing hearts, and the Phantom Thieves are born; they quickly become infamous in Tokyo, though their reputation attracts unwanted attention, as well as blame… could those breakdown incidents be related to the Metaverse, too? This game focuses heavily on the corruption of society, the abuse and manipulation of people in power, the ways in which our circumstances force us to hide parts of ourselves, ideas of justice, and all sorts of fun ideas of “rebellion”.

Pros:- ABSOLUTELY the best gameplay in the series. The controls are smooth, the battles and UI are streamlined, the visuals are absolutely stunning. This is the one that’s most fun to actually PLAY, bar none.- More of a stealth/heist game than a dungeon crawler, which is a fun spin on the series.- Excellent social commentary on the injustices young people face in a system stacked against them.- A really lovable cast of characters, and social links which actually grant you access to helpful gameplay features as incentive. Cons:- Sort of a small thing, but one of the game’s twists is a lot more fun to figure out if you’ve already played at least one other entry in the series.- Has some serious writing issues. The game has a very strong first half, but then starts to feel rushed the further along you get after a certain point. You can tell that the developers wanted to fit in a lot, but didn’t quite have the time to refine the ideas they implemented.- On that note, some of the character writing starts to regress or even becomes contradictory.- Has a couple instances of homophobia surrounding the Red Light District.

This got long, sorry, but I hope it’s helpful! like I said, you really can start anywhere, and you don’t have to play them in a particular order. Just pick the ones that seem the most interesting and have fun!

[nothinghereanymoremaybelater]

Into the Depths Pt.1

Here’s the first part of our adventure! It introduces the characters you can choose from, and a bit about our setting. I hope you all enjoy! Let me know who you’d rather see our reader ‘enjoy’ the attention of!

WC: 3k

The outdoors are not your thing. You loiter around the back of your friend’s pickup, breathing in the strange mixture of engine exhaust and fresh, clean air, with your arms folded and a war raging inside your head. You’re trying to express your apathy about the camping trip without words, but your companions are paying you no mind as they stand talking in front of a map. The whole drive over, you were second guessing your decision to join them; wondering if you could somehow gracefully bow out even now, standing in front of the ranger station that marks the entrance to the forest. The largest forest in the world, as signs that dotted the roads in this area like pimples, intrusive and unwanted.

 And you don’t see a way out of going camping in them. It’s not that you don’t want to spend time with your friends; you absolutely do. The four of them are the most important things in the world to you, and you’d do anything for them all. Usually you wouldn’t have been so reluctant to go on an outdoors-y adventure like this, even with your general distaste for all things involving nature; you’d been on hikes and camping trips with them before, laughing over roasted marshmallows and climbing to scenic cliffs just to watch the way the clouds moved overhead. They liked to tease you about the modern conveniences you brought on these trips- the most comfortable tent and sleeping bag you could get, enough bug repellant to clear the whole area of insects- but you knew they appreciated you indulging their interests. 

 Usually you would have been fine with loading into Michelle’s van and careening down the road towards another week of exploring the world around you. 

 But you had… problems, with this forest. 

Nothing concrete. No earth-shattering experiences that had traumatized you and shaped you into the person you were today, no story you could tell your friends as explanation for why you really, really wanted them to choose any other camping ground for the trip. Nothing you could grasp in your memory and hold onto as proof that you weren’t crazy, weren’t just imagining the way this place made you feel every time you set foot on its trails. You’d been here before, on trips when you all were younger or on outings with your family- the mountain that rises in the middle of the blanket of trees has watched over the town you live in for your entire life. 

‘We live near the largest forest in the world,’ everyone always says. ‘Why not take advantage of it?’ 

You don’t have a solid reason not to. No solid reason except for the creeping feeling of eyes on your back whenever you draw near the thick, dark lines of trees that stretch for miles and miles. No explanation for the paranoia that sinks into your bones and makes you shake and shiver at a cloud passing overhead or the snapping of a twig under your own foot. There’s nothing you can tell your friends about your misgivings that wouldn’t make you sound delusional and so the only thing you can do is stew in the exhaust from the idling car and wish you’d followed through on faking a sudden illness to get out of having to join them. But this was your last chance to do an outing like this all together- Eli and Michelle were going to grad school, Sarah was moving for a job offer next month. Andre was the only one staying, but it just wouldn’t be the same without all of you together; and so here you are, in a place that terrified you. 

“The station should be just down that trail,” Eli announces with an air of triumph, apparently having finally solved the confusing array of colors and squiggles masquerading as a map of the trails and ranger stations in the forest. Michelle throws her hands up in the air but seems to accept his pronouncement, walking back to the van to turn the idling engine off. You’re treated to clean air once more, with only the lingering smell of gasoline to keep you company as your friends re-lace their boots and ensure the doors are locked. 

 Andre throws a glance your way, furrowing his brow at the way you’ve isolated yourself from the rest of them. You offer him the best smile you can manage, but even here, at the very edge of the forest, you can almost feel creeping hands that crawl up your spine and seem to chill your very being with their touch. You’d volunteer to stay with the van as they trek to the ranger station to get registered, but that would leave you all alone until they got back- perhaps a fate even worse than walking further into the depths of this place. Making your decision, you join the little group as they set off down one of the marked trails, trusting that Eli had read the map correctly. 

To distract yourself as you walk, you contemplate the little group of people around you- faces and voices that feel like home, a welcome distraction from the alien feeling of the woods. Sarah’s the closest, hanging back to walk in step with you without saying much. You appreciate the gesture- you’d have to be playing catch up with the other three if she wasn’t with you. The comfortable silence is all you think you can take at the moment, unsure that you wouldn’t just start screaming if you opened your mouth. Eli’s leading the way with his sister and Andre close on his heels, glancing around at the trail as they contemplate plans for where exactly you all are going to set up camp for the week. You’re not paying close attention- you just watch the way that Michelle links her arm with Andre’s, the tread of their boots leaving prints in the mud like carving a pattern into the trail.

 It’s not that far into your group’s trek, only five minutes at most, when a building suddenly appears out of the tree line. It’s ramshackle and shoddy at best, seemingly cobbled together from fallen logs and discarded wood from around the forest rather than any real building grade materials. ‘RANGER STATION’ is painted on the side of the building in brilliant yellow, and a number of ATVs and a van are parked in the small, dirt lot outside it. Andre whistles at the sight, frowning. 

“I guess the budget really got cut for the parks service,” He says, though you aren’t sure there’s any amount of budget cuts that would force such a dilapidated building into service. It seems to you that it must have always been like this, though you can’t remember such a strange structure in any visit you’ve had to this forest before. The five of you climb the stairs and they creak under your weight so badly that Eli and Sarah hang back, going up one at a time after the rest of you are already on the porch. Michelle opens the door and waves you all inside. 

The first thing you notice is that the interior perfectly matches the exterior. Everything appears to be held together by some loose nails and a prayer- the counter in front of you lists to one side and the surface of it is rough and uneven, certainly almost useless for writing on. Behind it, the walls are absolutely covered in plants- climbing ivy and hanging terrariums that house blooms you’ve never seen in this part of the world, huge ferns that have almost completely obscured the rows of shelves and stacks of papers arranged against the back wall. There are a few doorways, with wooden doors shut tight in their frames and no labels or nameplates hanging on them to hint at their contents. You look at the clouded glass windows and see shapes outside in the lot that don’t look anything like the vehicles you’d noticed on your way inside. 

Before you can move closer to the windows to get a better look, one of the doors swings open and a man comes shuffling out. It’s hard for you to believe he’d actually fit in the cramped office you see beyond him- he’s enormous, at least six and a half feet tall, with wide, muscular shoulders and dark, curly brown hair. His ranger’s uniform seems to be having trouble containing his figure, the sleeves stretched over rippling muscles that strain the fabric as he places his hands on the counter. You all watch in awe as he clears his throat, not looking any of you in the eye but rather staring down at the wood below his fingers- if you were paying closer attention, you’d have said he was uncomfortable with all of your eyes so clearly focused on him.

 “Can I help you?” He asks, in a voice as deep and rumbling as thunder. You can almost feel it reverberate through your chest. After a moment of silence, Andre manages to clear his throat, stretching his shoulders out as if he could physically shake off whatever strange spell you’ve all fallen under. 

 “Yeah, we need to get a camping permit and then some directions to the campsite,” He says, swallowing nervously. The hulking man nods to himself and ducks underneath the counter for a moment, though he’s so large that you can still see the curve of his wide back as he searches for something underneath it. Michelle audibly gulps at the sight, and you have to agree with her- you’ve never seen someone so physically imposing before. Surely he’s new to the ranger team here; you were sure you would have remembered someone like him from your previous visits, even if you were preoccupied with that creeping paranoia this place inspired in you. 

The ranger sets a piece of paper on the counter, and places a portable credit card reader down next to it. It looks comically small in his hands. 

“Every adult who will be camping needs to sign this. Are there any children with you?” The giant asks, sounding like he’s reading from a prompt. 

 “No,” Andre shakes his head, and steps up to the counter to grab the dented ballpoint pen lying there. He signs his name with difficult on the uneven surface and then passes the pen to Michelle, standing next to him. 

 You don’t want to sign it. It feels like you’ll be signing your life away if you do, like signing a contract with some unknown, terrible creature. The one whose eyes you can feel on your back even now in the station- maybe closer than before. 

 But with the same awful inevitability that led you to agree to coming on this trip in the first place, you step up to the counter when it’s your turn. The ranger is pointedly not looking in your direction as you do so- he hasn’t looked at any of you, not really, since the moment he stepped out of his office. You reach for the pen where it’s lying on the counter and accidentally brush against his hand. 

The man stiffens. His gaze flashes to you and his mouth falls open. You’re not sure why but you find yourself trapped in this moment- watching the way his eyes cross your face, watching the way he closes his mouth and opens it like he has something to say but can’t manage to get the words out. Time seems to stretch on forever in this moment, until he snatches his hand away and the spell is broken. 

Blushing furiously, you stammer out an apology and go to sign and print your name on the designated lines. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t move other than to hold the hand you’d touched aloft as though he’d been burned somehow. 

 “Did you tell them the mountain sites were closed?” Someone calls from behind another closed door. You look towards the voice and back away from the counter, but the ranger doesn’t seem to even acknowledge that someone spoke. His gaze is locked on you. 

 “Hector!” The voice comes again when there is no reply. Your friends all look at each other- you know they’ve noticed the strange atmosphere in here, the ranger still seemingly entranced by you. Eli comes up next to you and folds his arms, watching the hulking man with suspicion. You wonder if something is about to happen; if the group you’re with has finally noticed what you’ve been feeling all along, if they’ll pull you outside and run back to the van. You feel that invisible presence right behind you, practically pressed up against your back.

 Another man emerges from his office, letting the door bang against the wall to express his frustration. He’s tall, though not as tall as the other ranger and more lithe in build. His dark skin contrasts with the fire engine red of his hair, a garish color that must have been dyed only yesterday to still be as vibrant and radiant as it was. It was tied in a long braid that swung over his shoulder as he moved, disregarding the assembled group on the other side of the counter in favor of his dumbstruck colleague. Finally the larger ranger- Hector- tears his eyes away from you and turns towards him, shaking his head. 

”Gotta do everything myself,” the new man says, though you’d say he was actually enjoying the spectacle of showing off his annoyance in front of you all. The new ranger turns to you guys and smiles, showing off rows of white teeth that appear to have been filed into points. You can’t imagine that’s up to uniform regulations where he works, but you’re too preoccupied with the look on his face to make much notice of it. 

 Just as Hector did, he stops completely at the sight of you. There’s a look of shock on his face, like he’s run into someone he’d never expected to see again- like he’s seen a ghost. A moment passes, just a moment- he’s better at recovering his composure than his coworker and the man with the red hair straightens out his smile once again, gaze still watching every movement you make. Sarah leans her arm on your shoulder, staring them both down. You’ve never been gladder for your friends. 

“I’ll have them stay in the Forest’s Glen site,” Hector says defensively, seemingly responding to the other ranger’s earlier comment. The newcomer frowns at the words, holding up one finger. His braid swinging as he moves, he makes for one of the stacks of papers hiding underneath the crawling ivy on the walls. Sweeping it away, he picks up the top sheet and scans it, counting out something on his fingers. 

 “Actually, I think I was a little too hasty…” He says, waving the paper around. “We’ve got one open spot at Mountain’s Peak. We can send them there.” 

“Nico…” Hector says, but doesn’t follow up with any sort of protest other than that. 

 “What? I’m sure they came for the views, right?” Nico enthuses, waving his hands around in the air. 

 “Uh…” Michelle murmurs, interrupting them. “Can we pick which site we want to go to, if there’s a couple spots open?”

 Both rangers blink in surprise, as if they haven’t thought of that. They look at each other for a moment before Nico shrugs, Hector looking a little unhappy about the direction this situation has taken. 

You’re still reeling from the strangeness of this all, wondering why exactly they had stared at you like that. 

“Sure,” The red-haired ranger says. “If you want to stay at the mountain site, I’ll show you the way there.” He flashes his teeth, all sharpened points, in something that might was probably supposed to be a smile but which missed the mark quite a bit. 

 “Forest’s my area,” Hector chimes in with his arms folded across his chest, voice rumbling through your chest with every syllable as his fellow ranger comes to stand next to him. 

 They watch as your little group withdraws towards the door to talk about the decision, casting furtive glances towards the strange duo as you all do so. 

 “This is strange. Did you see those looks on their faces?” Eli asks, gesturing at you as he talks. “They looked like they were going to jump across the counter.

” “Yeah,” Sara echoes. “I dunno what their deal is, but it’s weird.” 

You wonder what to make of all of this- the creepy atmosphere, the strange rangers, the feeling that something terrible and awful is looming over you. If you had your way, you’d go home right now and forget all of this ever happened.

 But you know your friends have been looking forward to this for months. And you know this may well be your last chance to camp altogether as a group- you’re all moving on to different places, different phases of life, and you don’t want to let it go out like this. You can put up with a bit of paranoia for a week, you tell yourself; you can put up with the feeling of being watched and odd rangers who look at you like a starving man looks at a meal. 

 “Don’t let them put you off guys,” You say to your friends, voicing the exact opposite of your real opinion. “This is supposed to be fun- we won’t even see them after this.” Your friends nod one by one at what you’re saying, shifting on their feet without looking back at the rangers. 

They cast their votes one by one for which site you guys should camp at- Michelle and Sarah for the mountain, Eli and Andre for the forest. 

They look at you for the deciding vote and you can’t help but glance up at the rangers, apparently still standing in the exact same spot as they had been before.

 Somehow you feel that this choice will affect more than just this week. Nico and Hector and all your friends wait.

Vote here

[deltaengineering]

Summer Anime 2019 Part 2: let’s play cops & vikings

Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou

❓ 💩

💩 This saves the backstory for later, but rest assured it is very much a 💩. It particularly loves RPG stats because how else could you tell that someone’s awesome.

💩💩 It’s also particularly in the Shield Hero vein, i.e. written by someone who got their lunch money stolen a couple of times too many and is now getting revenge by annoying the shit out of me with shitty self-insert fiction.

💩💩 While powering up in the darkness the dude gets white hair and GUN’s so I think it’s safe to say that this is featuring Donte from the Devil May Cry series. 

💩 There’s some bits of the ol’ THIS CHAIR suffering monologues. Which Higurashi ripped off from Tsukihime, then got ripped off by Re: Zero and now every Web Novel hack thinks it’s très deep.

💩💩 I was about to say that it’s visually whatever (i.e., mostly too dark to make out how bad it looks), but then the CG monsters appeared and OH BOY.

Cop Craft

❓ A portal to the fairy dimension opened and now we have FAIRY CRIME. A loose cannon cop with nothing to lose gets paired up with a haughty fairy princess to get to the bottom of FAIRY CRIME.

✅ If this all sounds vaguely familiar, yeah it’s the FMP guy writing a love letter to 80s buddy cop movies. It has absolutely all the clichees of that genre, but since it’s not a genre I see every day that’s okay and in fact a little bit novel again. I did not watch Bright.

✅ It’s pretty competent at it too, the leads have good chemistry and the tone is good. It’s more serious than something like Red Heat, I’d compare it more to Lethal Weapon.

♎ Directed by Shin Itagaki, who does a competent job with the first episode but is known to be involved with production disasters lately. There’s already signs of slight jank and I hope this doesn’t fall apart really quickly.

Ensemble Stars!

❓ Nondescript girl enters idol school, which happens to be full of hunky boys. Things happen and she joins a movement to seize the means of stage production.

❌ The first half of this episode is just dreadfully dull, generic and features one of the most annoying genkiboys ever on top of it. And going by the old rule that if idol shows must have a producer it has to be a memorable one, Ensemble Stars scores a big fat zero because that girl is a void.

✅ However, then it turns out that this is also a fighting shounen somehow, because part of idol curriculum is hitting each other with guitars. Not to mention that we then reveal that there’s a revolution brewing because the system is corrupt and rigged.

♎ So yeah, there’s some shit going on in this show and it’s quite amusing. I’m just somehow not convinced that it’s more than window dressing because the basics are so bad. 

♎ Even if it turns out to be Revue Starlight (which it won’t), that one was well made enough to beat Ikuhara at his own game. Ensemble Stars doesn’t have the money or the style.

Hakata Mentai! Pirikarako-chan

❓ A super short mascot anime where a cute girl sprays cod roe everywhere, with sensibilities straight from 1964.

❌ ...

Kawaikereba Hentai demo Suki ni Natte Kuremasuka? / Hensuki: Are you willing to fall in love with a pervert, as long as she’s a cutie?

❓ Highschooler is surrounded by girls, gets a pantygram from some unknown party. Turns out they’re all horny. Hijinks ensue?

❌ This is just a basic-ass ecchi harem all around. I don’t think it needs much more explanation. Except...

❌ For some reason, it seems to attempt to treat its pantsu and boob shenanigans with the intellectual aspirations of a Monogatari or Oregairu. Needless to say, that causes it to fail on both sides.

♎ Basic shit for basic bitches, but I’ve seen worse in the genre. It’s less pretentious than e,g, Monogatari but also lacks the style. Or any style, for that matter.

Kochoki - Wakaki Nobunaga

❓ Before Oda Nobunaga became a warlord and recurring anime character, he apparently was a smart teen with a propensity to not wear shirts.

♎ This is about as good as an anime about a teen Nobunaga getting up to Tom Sawyer adventures while not wearing a shirt could probably be. Which is to say, it’s not as terrible as it sounds.

✅ In particular, the character writing is decent. I can imagine that this can actually pull of drawing a throughline from these silly adventures to the Nobunaga we know and don’t want to see any more of in fiction ever.

♎ Yeah, it’s basically alright-ish but you really, really have to care about these Sengoku clowns to get anything out of it. I still don’t.

Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu]

❓ It’s Danganronpa, only about a bunch of streamers, LPers and speedrunners stuck in an MMO. Because 2019.

♎ Why not a turd? Well, isekai is so rigid as a genre that something that isn’t about some dude getting hax & harem barely seems to count anymore.

♎ Still, this setup is so brazenly shameless and idiotic that I can’t help but respect the hustle.

✅ There’s some neat SHAFT-y visuals going on here, reminiscent of how Reincarnated as a Slime tried to pretend to not be the most boring thing ever.

❌ Kenjiro Tsuda is entirely wasted as the least threatening Monoalpaca ever. Please don’t give the guy comedic roles. The rest of the characters are very bland, which is not a good thing in a genre that thrives on its outsized personalities.

❌❌ I just realized I didn’t give this any double Xs, which it definitely deserves. Just look at this shit. The only upside is of course that this is SO dumb it could be the next Caligula or something.

Re Stage! Dream Days

❓ School idols. MIDDLE school idols. In the middle school idol club.

♎ This is another basically competent show that also doesn’t really feature anything to set it apart. They took a mobile game about middle school idols and animated it.

♎ Well okay, I have to admit that for a show about middle schoolers it features more yuri undertones than usual, and shows like this usually feature quite a bit of that.

♎ But yeah, apart from that... seems watchable but nothing special. Looks alright, characters are alright, everything’s just fine. But you have to be a REAL afficionado of the genre to bother.

Vinland Saga

❓ VIKINGS BRUH

✅ Not gonna lie, I was negatively predisposed towards this show because the manga is very popular with the intersection of MANIME idiots and viking-adjacent metalheads. So while this does feature some sick & gnarly viking fights right away, overall it’s more about people sitting around in Iceland being cold and miserable.

❌ So about these sick & gnarly viking fights though? Sorry to report they look very subpar, with a ton of floaty CG and not much of a point to them.

✅ Apart from that, it’s looking pretty good. Nothing really flashy, but I think Wit’s house look works pretty well here. Better than in Titans at least.

♎ That said... I don’t really find people being cold and miserable in Iceland all that compelling either. I understand that this is a huge saga that goes places, but that doesn’t get me all hyped right now. This is one of those times where I’d say this show is (probably?) good and a recommendation, but it’s not really something I feel compelled to watch because it would have to be outright brilliant to overcome my apathy towards the subject.

[auriccmus]

[ ARABELLA HAMILTON ], the [ 28 ] year old, is the [ COUNTESS OF MARCH ] from [ SCOTLAND ], but the old world knows them as [ TECHNE ]. [ SHE ] is known to be [ INGENIOUS ]. Rumor has it, however, they also have a tendency to be [ ABSENTMINDED ]. portrayed by [ NAOMI BATTRICK, CISFEMALE ].

BASIC INFORMATION

Full Name: arabella  helen  hamilton Nickname: ara  by  those  closest  to  her Race/ ethnicity: caucasian Nationality/ Residence: scottish, currently  resides  in  linlithgow  palace Age/ Place of Birth: 28, born  on  december  1466  in  cadzow  castle, hamilton

APPEARANCE & MANNERISMS

Physical appearance: with  a  graceful  stature, fashionably  robust  and  of  the  fairest, long  hair, she  appears  as  a  timely  beauty, fit  to  one  of  the  muses  for  saints  in  holy  chapels. Mannerisms: tba ! Social Status/ Occupation: born  and  bred  into  nobility,  as  the  eldest  daughter  of  a  family  that  has  been  in  close  proximity  with  the  crown  ever  since  the  reign  of  robert  the  bruce, the  hamilton,  who  have  been  steadily  raising  in  title,  regard  and  wealth  at  each  generation. after  her  marriage,  she  has  resigned  the  simpler  title  of  lady  of  arran  to  take  that  of  her  husband’s  and  is  now  referred  as  countess  of  march. Education: her  education  was  supervisioned  by  her  lady  mother  closely, attending  to  the  scholasticism  teachings. despite  the  attention  to  her  schooling,  she  was  not  pushed  towards  academical  pursuits, the  focus  of  her  education  instead  being  that  commonly  feminine. however,  as  her  twin  brother  grew  distasteful  of  his  own  more  demanding  academical  studies,  she  has  trailed  and  stolen  quite  a  few  of  the  manuscripts  the  men  in  her  house  has  had  access ( something  that  has  been  promptly,  and  rather  endearingly,  overlooked  by  her  father ) ; though  neither  part ( herself, her brothers  or  her  parents )  would  admit  so,  it  is  arabella  that  seems  to  excel  the  most  in  her  pursuits, and  she  often  been  complimented  by  her  tutors ( despite  disapproval  over  her  ingeniousness,  unbecoming  of  a  woman who  should  not  concern  herself  with  such  matters ).

PERSONALITY

Likes:  tba ! Dislikes:  tba ! Personality Summary:  tba !

RELATIONSHIPS

Family:

daughter  of :

james  hamilton, 1st  earl  of  arran  and  lord  high  admiral  of  scotland ( b. 1437 )  and  helen  boyd  of  kilmarnock ( b. 1444 )

sister  to :

james ( b. 1461 / d. 1471 ) duncan ( b. 1463 / d. 1493 ) archibald ( b. 1466 ) helen ( b. 1468 ) agnes ( b. 1470 ) janet ( b. 1473 )) greer ( b. 1475 )

Romance: originally  engaged  to  one  of  the  most  likely  successor  of  her  father  and  colleague  courtier,  the  second  son  of  the  1st  earl  of  angus,  arabella  was  unable  to  fulfill  her  marriage  contract  before  the  bridegroom  was  taken  by  the  sweating  sickness  while  stationed  at  the  scottish  borders.  the  period  of  mourning  was  as  short  as  appropriately  acceptable ( both  by  her  father’s  impatience  with  her  marital  status  at  an  advanced  age,  and  her  own  apathy  with  the  match ), and  she  was  wed  to  ruadhrí  stewart,  the  earl  of  march,  by  mid  1494,  more  to  fullfil  her  duty  by  contracting  a  sensible,  advantageous  match  than  for  her  own  self - interest. Others: she  has  taken  the  shared  guardianship  of  quite  a  few  pets  due  to  her  husband’s  fondness  for  animals, particularly  his  lap  dogs,  effie  and  dougal.

ABILITIES

Magical: as  the  personification  of  techne, the  spirit  of  arts,  crafts  and  technical  skill,  arabella  has  been  haunted  by  muse  for  as  long  as  she  knew  herself  as  a  person,  though  her  bouts  has  become  more  intense  and  deeply  disturbing  - -  as  a lady  of  the  court,  she  is  supposed  to  be  highly  aware  of  her  surroundings,  but  her  mind  is  always  at  work  distracted  from  court  machinations,  flooded  by  designs  she  must  put  to  life ; the  biggest  struggle  about  her  endless  creativity  is  her  passivity  as  a  woman  in  the  middle  ages,  for  it  would  be  unproper  for  her  to  dedicate  herself  to  the  crafts  as  she  knows  of  no  woman  who  has  trailed  the  same  steps  as  her.  unfortunately,  that  does  not  stop  the  stirrings  of  inventiveness  from  plaguing  her  every  waking  hour,  and  she  is  ever  dependent  of  scribbling  and  sketching  the  ideas  that  come  to  mind. Martial:  tba !

PROGRESSION

Background:  tba ! Character Arc:  tba !