#we're still only level 4 and figuring things out

[ansbobcar]

I'm ready to become a part-time lore builder of a fandom if I can't get any answers.

Seriously. Time to do some mental gymnastics again because, I LOVE TALKING ABOUT LORE (well worldbuilding lore) AND MAKING LORE IF THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT IT!!

We're back to looking at the Divine Visionaries again because, what the hell are these administration/department/subdivisions man.

Here are my rankings of most straightforward to least straightforward (in terms of what they govern) and my reasoning, questions, headcanons AND MANGA SPOILERS. Feel free to discuss!

1. MAGICAL ITEMS

It's basically quality control check of any magical tool and also acts like a museum. Very straightforward to guess. It's managing, checking the quality of new, old, or powerful magical items. We also know the most about it I think because Rayne currently manages it (idk why i trust the fandom wiki)

2. FORBIDDEN MAGICAL TEXTS

This is also straightforward. They manage forbidden magical texts from being accessed to the public. But I'd like to think that this department has to ensure that any texts which use magic, such as newspapers and maybe even children's books, abide by their printing laws and don't enter into that forbidden valley. Prevention of more forbidden magical texts is probably one of their main goals. I mean, confiscation of books and materials or clues regarding them will either be stored or burned possibly. Censorship is a possibility.

3. MAGIC SECURITY (FORCE)

Every time I hear security I think of that random post from twitter I think about how the US' whole military like thing is called the defense something or something. AND I THINK ABOUT IT. But you know atleast security makes more sense.

Current headcanon is that the magic police is under their jurisdiction but being called a magic security officer is diff from a magic police officer. The main difference is that magic police focus solely on internal and surface level, local scale magic (and lack-magic) crimes.

Magic Security is a more national/international scale, or something that involves the Bureau directly. Like a war between other magical races or those type of conflicts. The bar to being a magic security officer is much higher than a magic police officer too.

4. MAGICAL CEMETERY

The management of deceased magic users/wizards is pretty straight forward BUT what I'm tryna figure out is:

a) How many official cemeteries are under their jurisdiction? If so is it illegal to bury a deceased wizard's body on your own?

b) Do they only manage the cemeteries? If they don't does that mean that it's a law to contact their department while preparing for a funeral and burial? How early do they have to get involved?

c) Whoever was managing this division when Adam Jobs died was not good at their job. Nvm this guy's body was gone to bits. Still bad management on their part to not scavenge for that bit of flesh left over. Burn the area to the ground if you have to. Fucking Innocent Zero got his body.

5. MAGICAL CREATURES

The only reason I have this much lower than I initially intended is because there are so many fucking magical creatures in this fucking world that it should be one of the biggest ass divisions of the Bureau alongside Magical Items.

a) You need research/encyclopedias on these creatures. What their weakness is and so on, research on magical creatures (probably in conjunction with magical research).

b) Is animal cruelty a thing in this world? It probably is. It better be then there has to be a governing body for that.

c) I feel like for magical magical creatures like Dragons, they have to manage/hand out yearly licenses towards educational institutes to allow those dragons to be used. Otherwise, I think they'll be released to the wild and will be blacklisted from ever owning a dragon. (Animal cruelty act or something)

d) They probably have a national zoo which is used for both research and conservation purposes. Bet there's a bunch of endangered species.

6. MAGICAL RESEARCH

Just like the previous department/administration... this is also pretty broad. (You'll realise a pattern as we go down the list). The way I see it is that every year, they gather statistics and feedback from the people, and come up with 4-6 projects of varying scales to help. These can range from new technology for pre-existing magical tools or making new innovations and tools.

They also do research on animals, plants and probably somewhat manage the welfare of the country slightly.

What I wonder is if it's illegal to do research outside of their department? Or do they allow exceptions, like some company can pitch their idea to the magical research department who then greenlight their thing or not like Dragon's Den.

7. MAGICAL POWER

Orter and Rinka, idk how y'all even do this. Magical Power Admin according to the fandom wiki (which I think took info from the fanbook, but cannot confirm), looks into shit related to power basically (abuse, lack ofs, very magical power creatures).

My problem is that kind of overlaps with magic security just slightlyyy. I also headcanon that the magic police are governed by magic security and magical power.

So far for my fanfic (big spoilers lol):

a) Their main goal is to reduce/prevent the abuse of magic within the kingdom/country.

b) They can make and enforce laws/policies/the legal rules surrounding the use of magic which include giving penalties/punishments.

8. MAGICAL TALENT

What the fuck is Kaldo's job. I get he looks at Divine Visionary candidates before they even get to the final exam but seriously. I would like to think that part of his job is to take note of what kind of personal magic has ever fucking existed other than tryna analyse people. If his department was more like HR, I think it'd make more sense.

His department probably has the least amount of people/staff.

_ _ _

There's probably other departments as well that aren't governed by a Divine Visionary for now. My ted talk is finished. For now.

[chipistrate]

Need you more than ever.

Click for better quality

A piece inspired by some tags under one of my posts left by @stillangelxx (sorry 4 tag)

Explanation and very long Help Wanted 2 speculation rambles under cut

This rough piece can be taken as just your usual "save Cassie" AU, because it was kinda inspired by that- BUT it was made with some of the ideas left by Angel in mind, which were basically; What if Help Wanted 2 was split POV between Gregory n Nessa, and Cassie- where Cassie thinks she's the good guy and Gregory is the antagonist in her POV, only for it to be the complete opposite. It just,,, became way more disconnected from Help Wanted than it was supposed to- but it'll probably make more since if you read the thoughts I had to flesh out the idea, which are right below the line-

Honestly this whole piece was made as an excuse to ramble about the idea and my interpretation of how it could go as a (current)believer that HW2 is directly after Ruin, but then it got way too long to just add in a reblog- so now we're here with an original post instead!(hope that's alright,,!)

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Wrote all this at like 3am so cut me a little slack if some of it is incomprehensible- I tried cleaning it up but it's still late so I might not get some points across right

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Basic premise: Split POVs between 3 star fam and Cassie, where the 3 star fam has minigames much more grounded in reality as they venture through the ruined Pizzaplex in search of Cassie, while Cassie's minigames are much more VR/AR based as she finds herself wandering the underground of the Pizzaplex, just barely having made it out of the elevator crash alive, and now finding it hard to distinguish reality from VR/AR. -------

Gregory and Vanessa POV ideas

-Gregory and Vanessa's minigames are more Ruin based, little sections of them trying to survive the many threats of the ruined Pizzaplex. Though some fall into more classic Security Breach territory due to VR/AR shenanigans - -Their "Glitchtrap" is M.X.E.S, and their "tapes" are Parent Nodes. M.X.E.S is not a threat in the same way Glitchtrap was, just a looming figure trying to guide them down to the M.X.E.S room and getting stronger the more Parent Nodes they reactivate. - -Their POVs main hub and select screen area is probably a cam station near the entrance of the Pizzaplex - -We switch between playing as Nessa or Gregory depending on the level and the gameplay can switch up accordingly. Sometimes we're Vanessa trying to protect Gregory, sometimes we're Gregory trying to survive on his own, etc. Freddy might also affect gameplay, whether that be for the better like being the thing protecting us in the minigame, or for the worse- like somehow accidentally bringing more attention to us and making the minigame harder.

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Cassie's POV ideas

-Cassie's minigames are MUCH more VR/AR based, way more centered on the past games, specifically stuff like Sister Location and maybe Pizzeria Sim. - -She's having a hard time differentiating VR/AR from reality - -Her POVs main hub is probably either the room with the elevator or the Mimics lair where she first encounters him(speaking of which I have no clue where he went here but he's gone for now(physically at least)) - -Her "Glitchtrap" could be Gregory calling out to her, an illusion of him created by the VR world that's almost always there in the "main hub", while the voice is actually him- the echos of his calls just barely reaching her and repeating in her head, being embodied by the illusion of him creeping around in the "main hub". He's being genuine with a concerned tone asking where she is, but she thinks he's trying to trick her- probably back to finish her off after she survived the crash. - -Not sure what her "tapes" are… maybe things explaining patient 46/GGY/Rab that only further her thinking he's the antagonist? - -It's kind of hard to tell where Cassie is irl in the heavily VR/AR minigames, but if you look close enough in each level you can piece together where she is and how she's progressing through the undergrounds of the Pizzaplex

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The game has three endings; It ends with 3 star fam and Cassie meeting up in the M.X.E.S room, and branches from there.

We can see it from either POV depending on what POV we're in when activating the ending. 3 star fam enters M.X.E.S room and go to turn them back on, when Cassie ambushes them, jumping out of the Mimics lair and confronting them, starting a tussle with Gregory. There's no boss fight, just different outcomes to the confrontation depending on a few factors;

You 100% complete Gregory and Vanessa's POV and activate the ending before finishing Cassie's POV

You 100% complete Cassie's POV and activate the ending before finishing Gregory and Vanessa's POV

You 100% complete both POVs before activating the ending

Ending 1. Vanessa reactivates the M.X.E.S before something bad happens and M.X.E.S intervenes. Whatever "intervenes" means is up 2 you cause I can't decide - Ending 2. Cassie gets the upper hand(maybe literally if she has the Mimics severed hand as a weapon) and wins the fight. Again, whatever "wins the fight" means is up 2 you cause I can't decide - Ending 3. Gregory is somehow able to convince Cassie that he isn't the antagonist before something bad happens and they make up, turning the M.X.E.S back on and exiting the Pizzaplex

And honestly? I can't see any of these being canon- They're just kinda basic outcomes to the fight, but I can't imagine any of them being canon and where the next game would theoretically pick up from- Most likely it'd be something like "Gregory and Vanessa make it out almost unscathed, but aren't able to convince Cassie to come with them as she's still so stuck in the VR/AR world and the idea that Gregory is a bad guy, and she becomes the antagonist for the next game with this game being the build up to her next appearance and a deeper dive into her as an antagonist" That's what I think would make the most sense at least!

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ANYWAY!!! UHM-

If you're here then- thanks for reading my rambles!! Saw Angel's tags and immediately my brain started going crazy, and this was the result lmao

Don't really know what else to say other than credit to Angel for the initial idea, anybody else who's reading this should definitely go show them some love because her art is REALLY good!!!

Also hype 4 Pax West lets fucking GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[referrix]

Reasons placing the simulator is making me want to cry: 1. No two episodes can seem to agree where it's located.

With other locations, like the dorms, the kitchens and Wizgiz's classroom, the zoom in/fade in tends to have a strong percentage of agreement on where in the school they are generally.

The simulation room though...

The very first time we see the simulation room, we zoom in to the north tower (the one that gets destroyed in the season 1 end battle), subsequent zooms suggest the East tower, 'somewhere' in the north-east building (where the Winx dorm is) and in the west tower, where I've assumed the dining hall is. (or under it at least)

I had actually misremembered the order of events from the Season 1 battle and convinced myself the north tower was destroyed before the Winx were transported to Domino, but upon rewatch, the tower is still standing after the teleport.

The one major internal feature that stops me from wanting to put the sim room in the north tower though, is the windows.

Big curved and a little swoopy. Like a much shorter version of the windows of the rear towers' lower floors. There is nowhere on the front towers that have similar windows, the closest is, as far as I can tell, just a fancy open air walkway around the tower's middle-ish area.

And then there's season 4, which is the first time we really zoom in on the rear/east tower, but also the first time we get to see anyone going from the sim room to somewhere else:

(I have figured out recording! sort of. the splice is just the story of the Black Circle being chopped from the 402 opening)

This sequence cements the idea that at the very least the sim room is definitely in the north-west building, but further, that the sim chamber is on the lower levels of the rear/west tower.

While the group leaves and turns left out the door, the corridor they walk down has very distinct widows on their left:

These windows are closer in appearance to the windows found on the outer sides of the mirrored buildings:

Again we're seeing a case of the internal size doesn't match the exterior, but the scene does have some "internal logical consistency."

So at the moment I'm going to keep working on the assumption that the sim room is actually in the lower floors of the rear tower.

That the window we see from the inside is actually a smaller window separate from the external windows we see, because there is a hallway that runs along the outer wall from the open air hallway door mirroring the external staircase up to a landing (where it exits out the rear facing door,) and around to the other side, down a matching staircase and into the ground floor outer hallway.

over all I'm currently imagining it looking something like this:

Please ignore the fact the red dome indicating the mvr chamber is so far forward in the left half of the picture, I forgot it was sitting directly under the windows and there's only so many times I can redo things from scratch because I wasn't thinking and closed my files losing access to individual layers.

Also, yes, based on external measurements, I'm working on the idea that there are 2 internal hallways on the ground floor and lower mezzanine, separating two series of classrooms.

and the similar testing room without the mvr chamber being in the other rear tower's base, in basically a mirror but with more seating. Partly because that one does zoom/fade in to the other rear/south tower.

[msviolacea]

There's a lot of "oh, Baldur's Gate, isn't that game all about sex?" out there - I've seen it on the internet and heard it in conversation - which is fair, that's what the mainstream articles have been about, and let's not lie, most of us around here are all about the sexytimes with pretty people. (Me included, 100000%. And my "romance doesn't make an experience less interesting or serious" rant will be saved for another day.) But anyway ... it's Monday, and I'm avoiding work, so I figured I'd list as many things as I can think of right now that make the game amazing that have nothing to do with actually having sex with someone.

GINORMOUS areas to explore.

There are lore books literally everywhere. If you like reading random bits of in-universe texts, you'll be spoiled.

Have you ever played D&D and wished certain spells had more utility - like Grease, or Sleep, or Create/Destroy Water? You're in luck here! Anything that can either create a ground effect or temporarily distract/take enemies out is OP!

Animated, voiced cut scenes with nearly every single NPC you run across.

At the same time, most of them are not required. Some will give you interesting side quests, extra approval/disapproval from your companions, or interesting information that will give you more options in a future quest, but you don't have to spend hours talking to people unless that's your jam.

In character creation, you don't pick male/female as a gender. You pick from four body types (two small, two large, two with breasts/more slender, two more broad/slightly larger), three sets of pronouns (he/she/they), and several different sets of genitals - mix and match all three categories to your hearts' content. I'm sure there are other things they could have done, but it's the most inclusive character creator I've seen in a major game for sure.

The turn-based combat is a blessing for anyone who struggles with real time combat. Take your time, consider your options, look at things from all angles, sort through your spells and attacks to find the right one.

Or you can remember you picked up that barrel of smoke powder three rooms back, climb up into the rafters of the room, and chuck it into the fire pit in the middle of the room for maximum effect. I cannot overstate how fucking satisfying that is.

Big fucking tiefling horns. Of a variety of shapes!

Your female companions are the tanks/hearty warriors. Your male companions are all delicate fucking flowers, at least until you get Druid Daddy who can turn into a bear.

While optimizing your 4-person party to bring the usual configuration - one tank, one healer, a couple of DPS - is useful, it isn't always necessary. There are some fights where bringing four ranged options is a great idea, as long as you give them some survivability spells or plenty of potions. Sometimes bringing four people who can just barrel their way into a pile of ogres is satisfying. Mix it up!

Okay every companion thus far (I'm still only through act 1 yet, listen I have two games and my partner didn't feel well enough to continue the game where we're the farthest this weekend so I spent my time catching my solo game up) is absolute gold, no duds in the bunch, and the next few bullets will be one awesome thing about each one of them that has nothing to do with romance.

Astarion with the Thief subclass at level 3 literally cannot fail most lockpicking or trap disarming checks unless he rolls a nat 1. He is invisible when stealthed. He can one-shot most low level goblins with sneak attack arrows from range. He is a very bitchy fancy-lad Super Rogue.

Wyll is the Goodest Boy - the speed with which he goes from "I am oathbound to kill you demon!" to "well shit you're just a tiefling guess I'll deliberately fuck up my very dangerous warlock oath for you" is wonderful. He's noble and impetuous and wants to be more than a rich boy and gives nearly everyone the benefit of the doubt. I would die for him.

Karlach does the ADHD idle dance of "I could not stand still if you paid me all the gold in Baldur's Gate" and has the best puppy dog eyes. Also the story tie-in to her rage mechanics is really great and excellent storytelling.

Lae'zel is nigh unkillable if you give her the right stuff. Speccing her as Battlemaster is amazing for controlling the most powerful combatants on the field. Trip Attack has saved my ass so many times, you have no idea.

On paper, Gale should be absolutely insufferable. But somehow the writing and voice acting managed to hit just the right notes of humor and good nature and wizard geek. I'm very impressed.

Shadowheart is a very interesting combination of amoral/self-involved but also compassionate and I find myself fascinated by it. She clearly contains multitudes, and thus far the story is doing a good job of doling out pieces of her at a satisfying pace.

And speaking of interesting moral dichotomies, I absolutely adore that Halsin is both the good influence authority figure and also utterly ruthless when things run afoul of his strongly held belief system. Also thicc, broad-shouldered elf supremacy.

The tieflings you meet in Emerald Grove are directly tied to the D&D adventure "Descent Into Avernus" - as is Wyll! (And I'm sure it has a lot of context for Karlach's story as well, I haven't finished reading it yet.) I'm sure there's more when you get to the actual city of Baldur's Gate, but I'm not there yet. It's just fun to have that as an option to read for backstory about some of the game's characters and situations if you want. It's not required reading, though - cough, Bioware/Dragon Age, cough - everything that happens with them is perfectly understandable without any additional context!

The "Balanced" combat difficulty is a really good mix of fights that take a LOT of strategy and ones that can be easily cheesed.

Have you ever wanted to shove someone off a cliff even though you have like 8 strength? Listen, a 30% chance is STILL A CHANCE, and you have limited bonus action choices. TAKE YOUR SHOT.

... feel free to add your own. I'm still pretty early in the game and can't wait to get to more.

(edited for some slightly better phrasing about the character creation gender options, hopefully)

[monsieuroverlord]

BECAUSE I'M STILL UPSET BY RECENT EVENTS...

Warning: my convoluted conspiracy theories and ranting lol

We're only on part one of the Sabretooth War arc, and while I'm deeply unhappy with how that issue turned out, there's technically still plenty of time to introduce a twist that fixes everything (or at least provides a glimmer of solace from that clusterfuckery.)

I've thought on it, slept on it, and came up with a few theories that COULD dampen the blow of last issue.

In no particular order:

Twist Option 1: It's a fake-out and Akihiro is technically not dead. How, you may ask?

The Sabretooth crew's first target was Quentin Quire -- who is supposedly an omega-level telepath. Now, Logan's got telepathic resistance, but he's never been completely immune.

We also saw the Sabretoothes (Sabreteeth?) use a device to knock out Sage and Black Tom, one that distinctly has Quire's Pink Power Signature:

They haven't explained exactly WHAT this device is, but it wouldn't surprise me if they took Quire's brain and made a telepathic brain scrambler device. (wouldn't be the first time Marvel did something similar AND we don't see Quire's head in the final page). Creed's a savage, but also a clever bastard. He wouldn't be opposed to strats like that.

Who knows what that device is? Maybe its some bullshit like "projecting Logan's fears" and that's what he THINKS happened.

Though in this case, it is likely that Akihiro WAS at least captured and greatly injured (but still has his healing factor and is alive). Perhaps will come up later when Creed feels like fucking with Logan some more. (Cue badass sibling rescue mission when Laura finds out)

Not great, but perfectly in character for an extra-savage Sabretooth to draw out the Logan Birthday Bash. (And I'm sorry, but at the barest of minimums, Akihiro wouldn't go down that easy -- he's younger, faster, and much more conniving than his father. Logan has significant training, but he tends to drop it in favor of charging headfirst every time. Aki's always been more disciplined than that. Same with Laura, but that's another rant.)

Now this means Quire is definitely dead, but he also has a bunch of body doubles from X-Force, and he recently self-resurrected after that Cerebrax thing and a back-up body. If a character was going to self-resurrect, it'd be him. (Not to mention, if Betsy Braddock can restore her entire body via telepathy/telekinetics, he should be able to as well)

Twist Option 2: Akihiro IS dead, but there is a secret back-up resurrection (maybe limited use or something)

In the description-preview thing of X-Force #49, they're indicating they're gonna bring back Avengers-era Beast to take down current Beast. Now maybe they just happen to find a Beast clone to upload it to, but there's gotta be at least the groundwork for secret cloning somewhere (I mean, he cloned Wolverine too, so I don't see why not). Avengers-era Beast and Sage (Or just Sage alone honestly) could figure it out.

Then we just need a back-up database of Cerebro to upload memories and all is well. (I'm pretty sure X-Force already had a complete secret back-up database, or if not in canon yet, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out they did.).

Twist Option 3: Whatever is going on in ROTPOX comes to at least a partial fruition.

Either Xavier somehow succeeds (I don't think that'll be the case, tbh) and Krakoa is no more but everyone killed is reset or there's some partial success that resets Krakoa and resurrection can resume.

Either way, it'll reset the progress Akihiro and Logan have made and bleh.

(This would be such a fucking cop-out, in my opinion, but I digress)

Twist Option 4: Secret Weapon From the Exiles Crew.

Now called The Maroons, Nekra and crew still have that weird Krakoa seed. We don't know what it does yet. Implied to be really bad for Sabretooth, but maybe it also has secret powers like "restoring life to Creed's recent kills via draining his corpse" or some bullshit.

idk Krakoa science-magic.

Twist Option 5: There's another goddamn Muramasa blade/weapon out there.

What ever happened to Laura's Muramasa Armor? And the shield? How many weapons does Muramasa still have out there?

a. that armor will come up, and Laura will reclaim it. Since it also has a piece of Akihiro's soul, they'll extract that (probably breaking the armor in the process) and restore him via dope sword magic.

b. There's conveniently ANOTHER Muramasa weapon, one that can kill Sabretooth but ALSO has life restoring abilities (a weapon created for the perfect balance between life and death)

c. Solem lost his sword via general debauchery. And now Logan is gonna go get it. But also there's secret sword magic (which has life restoring powers) that Muramasa conveniently didn't tell Logan because he didn't feel like it

d. Logan's gonna go get his Muramasa blade (or one of them -- I'm pretty there's at least a couple at this point. wouldn't be surprised if there's secretly more) and there's the same secret sword magic as point c.

e. Percy and LaValle shock us all by giving Itsu some actual character -- where she knew Muramasa herself and gave up a bit of her soul for a secret weapon cuz it turns out she was a badass in her own right, which now can be used in the present day to both kill Sabretooth AND restore her beloved son. (And Logan never knew because he's a dense SOB and has a tendency to put his deceased love interests on a pedestal)

Twist Option 6: No twist at all. Akihiro is dead, gonna be dead for a bit, and everything is pain and suffering :(

At bare minimum, I wanna see Aurora pull her brother's moves from X-Men #163:

Just full speedster mode and kick his ass. She'd probably be more ruthless and I'd like to see that.

Or speedster sibling tag-team mode with said ruthless ass-kicking.

(I crave vengeance)

That's all I got. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading lol

[jaggedwolf]

Still trying to figure out why TGAA2-4 and TGAA2-5 set off my "man this is a lot of dudes dudeing" hackles when the other Ace Attorney final cases do not - I thought my baseline expectation of AA was that it's dude-centric while having rad female characters, but apparently it might've been higher, because those two TGAA cases meet that bar.

I kinda see the difference once I iterate through every other installment's (AA1-AA6, AAI1-2, crossover) finale. There's two levels to it.

There's the backstory level, where if you exclude TGAA all the other finales' have at least one major female player figuring into the drama of the backstory, often more. Misty Fey was nowhere near the elevator on DL-6 but she is inseparable from the case, for instance, and that radiates out to Mia and Maya.

Sithe comes closest, with her role in the Professor coverup, but she gets uninterestingly shuffled off in 2-3, her daughter relaying her reports in a way that dilutes both their presences. Even in the finale with the biggest similarity to this - dude-heavy conspiracy with only one female participant, we see more of that participant than we do Sithe, and there's another woman invested in exposing the conspiracy.

Then there's the present-day courtroom and investigation. Which sounds odd, given that if we're playing a male character as we usually are, we almost always have a female assistant around. There's a lot of room for variety here though. I'll take 1-4 again, both because it is the most-played finale case and so I hopefully won't be spoiling anyone, and also because it's a case where the victims were dudes, the arrested suspects were dudes, the only people within five feet of the both crime scenes were dudes, the only living people with previous direct connections to those dudes are dudes (we haven't met Franziska yet), so you know, it has as much of an excuse as any finale to focus solely on the dudes.

But Maya holding onto the bullet is what clinches us the case. It's not the biggest thing Maya ever does, but IDK, it's more interesting to me than Iris's part in the hologram deus ex machina. Heck, even comparing the finales of TGAA1 and TGAA2, in TGAA1 Susato's and Gina's decisions change how the incident and case play out, while in TGAA2 they each get bummed out for different reasons but don't do anything uniquely instrumental.

Anyway, I mostly like the puzzle-solving and emotional logic of TGAA2-4 and TGAA2-5, but I also would not have minded either Klint's widow (dead from childbirth) or Genshin's widow (dead from grief) surviving to the present day to have some feelings of their own and/or cause some drama of their own instead of being one of the three dead wives.

[andypantsx3]

Andy..do you have any tips on writing such long pieces, and as well planning for them ??

Omg I'm so thrilled you think my fics are long lol. It's my dream to one day hit like, novel length fics, but we're still a little ways away!!

That being said I do think there are some specific considerations that go into planning a multi-chapter fic!!

I think the first thing is to gauge where you're at in terms of motivation & interest. One of my biggest sticking points with multi-chapter fics, and also the reason I have not written anything longer than like 40k at this point, is that I lose focus/motivation the longer I work on something!! Try to have an honest conversation with yourself about how much interest you have in a particular fic idea, and where you think you are in terms of like, general motivation to keep working on that idea. For me, some ideas will be like, only 4 chapters worth of interest & motivation, while some will be 9.

Once you have that, use that to shape the level of detail or complexity of the plot you're going to include. If you're only going to work through a short number of chapters you can't have an overly complex plot and huge cast of characters, etc. Maybe limit your plot to just one or two story lines, like the central conflict and the romance. On the opposite side, if you truly believe you have motivation for a huge fic, scrounge around for extra C & D plots you can include to keep the fic moving!

In actually sitting down and planning a fic, I think others would have better advice for you! And I think this is also somewhat of an area where you have to try and see what works for your personal style, but I will give you the general tips that work for me!!

Choose a central conflict. This doesn't have to be anything intense (like for fingerprints it was just Reader coming to terms with the nature of Shouto's feelings for her, but for you're the one that i haunt it's that Bakugou becomes a ghost only Reader can see). But if you're going to write anything at length you will need some general conflict to keep it moving and tie everything together, otherwise it meanders.

Figure out how that conflict progresses from beginning to middle to end. For you're the one that i haunt, I outlined it as 1) Reader sees Bakugou and establishes that yes he really is there, 2) Reader and Bakugou team up to investigate why he's a ghost and how to fix it, and 3) Reader and Bakugou decide how they want to fix it (shoving ghost Bakugou through real Bakugou's body) and follow up on that plan. From this point you can sort of figure out what the key scenes will be for your fic, as well as how well some scenes you already had in mind may fit/not fit this fic.

Establish characterization. Think on how your Reader and their love interest are going to engage with the conflict progression. Is Reader smart or oblivious, and how will that shape how they respond in the scenes you are writing? Similarly, what is the canon character love interest like in canon? How does that mean they would respond to the events of your fic? This will give you a general idea of the actions and shape of the dialogue you will need to include in each scene. And it will also help you by keeping your characters somewhat consistent!!

Don't plan too much. Sometimes if you outline a fic too intensely it can feel like you have already written it and you end up losing the motivation to keep going on it! At least for me I like to outline the general events and characters' attitudes, but leave the specifics and the detail up to future Andie to decide as she's writing, so it still feels like I'm getting to explore and daydream as I go lol.

Anyway that is the general advice I have for you, although if you think of any more specific questions I'm happy to answer!!

Happy writing, sending you all my best vibes!!

[totallynotweird]

SAGAU Imposter AU but the higher the character friendship level, the easier it is for them to recognize you as the divine god without having to see your golden blood.

absolutely inspired by @hiraya-rawr !! hers are like.. four months ago, I just happen to be... really really slow. also just got tumblr recently so.. Apologies in advance for any weird things, I'm trying my best!! (If anyone can teach me stuff that'll be most appreciated)

MONDSTADT

Honestly? Mondstadt will be the safest, anyone with my friendship levels would absolutely prefer to stay here. Why? Well let me tell you.

First of all, we have the wallet- I can absolutely see Diluc (F-Level 10) giving me all the mora ever needed. A place to stay (i.e. Dawn Winery), and like absolute protection. He can probably be the ticket to getting to Liyue as well. Sure, it might be hard to get to him in the first place, but I also have something to help with that.

Kaeya (F-Level 9), the adoptive brother of the red-haired emo. One way or the other, Kaeya would probably introduce me to his brother for my safety. Since, well, Diluc has the money and the power.

And no, I'm not finished. You need information on something? Lisa (F-level 10) will be there. Ever get hurt, whether accidentally or caused by someone else? Do not worry, Barbara (F-level 10) will cheer you up and sing you a song!

Honestly, the figures of Mondstadt might as well be almost immune from the impostor ideas. With Diluc, Lisa, and Barbara around, people like Jean, although F-level 1, could probably be convinced. Venti could also be bribed by wine too, so...

Plus points if Lisa can talk to Albedo about it. That doesn't seem too far-fetched considering Sucrose (F-level 6) will be there to help a little.

LIYUE

I don't know how to tell me this, but I am screwed. Like. Super screwed, no one can believe this is this bad.

I'm not kidding. The highest happens to be Childe (F-level 6), and he isn't even from Liyue. A Fatui harbinger. And a 6. That's not enough.

Second in Liyue we have Chongyun (F-level 5) and Hu Tao (F-level 4), both of which are probably only available if you meet them by accident. I wasn't lying when I said I was screwed. Still screwed, actually.

Zhongli is a uhhh.... uh.... a rough topic..... let's just hope Xiao isn't around because uh.... uhhhhhh.... yeah I don't wanna talk about it.

Apart from probably getting confused with being part of the Fatui or hiding in a graveyard half the time (I don't know much about Hu Tao from this AU but I don't think she really cares about gods), I don't exactly think there is a way to get to Inazuma.

Well if we don't count sneaking in the Crux in a storage box and somehow not getting found out.

INAZUMA

Thank god we managed to leave Liyue! Now in Inazuma, we can have a good life-

NOT.

From sneaking around one of the biggest ships around to almost getting caught while leaving said ship. Maybe even getting a wanted poster on my head by Kanjou commissioners, and having to swim my way outside of Ritou, everything is okay. For now, right...?

NO IT ISNT- because apparently, no one in Inazuma has a higher friendship level than one!! Well except for a certain someone..

After being caught by one of the Shuumatsuban, I got dragged over to the Kamisato estate only to find...

Thoma being the local housewife he is. But no, that's not why we're here, because the Kamisato estate houses the only person that happens to have a high friendship level.

Kamisato Ayaka (F-level 10). The sister of Kamisato Ayato. Safety is shaky, obviously, but being a part of one of the most influential families who happens to be part of the Tri-commission-er is not something to laugh at.

There's the Shuumatsuban, Thoma, and.. the Kamisato family head, Kamisato Ayato. Honestly I just hope Ayaka can convince both Ayato and Thoma, but for the rest I... am not sure.

Ei will probably be the death of me.

TLDR; I definitely have favoritism towards Mondstadt.

[drafthorsemath]

I gotta rant about the state of math education for a minute. I say this as a math educator with a math PhD who currently works to create digital math content and assessments (primarily for high school and college level). We have to do better for students and the way we're attempting to do that is mostly garbage because of publishing companies.

I currently work for two educational publishers who will remain unnamed. They're competitors and I think it's funny that I and one other person I know work for both of them.

Anyway, company M, who I primarily work for, is finding that students are using fewer of their tools and appear to just guess when they don't know an answer instead of attempting and getting feedback. Instead of figuring out what would actually help students, this company is taking a more bare bones approach to authoring math assessment tools going forward, firing authors (the team I was on used to have over 20 people at any given time and now there are 4 of us), and then complaining how we can't keep up with authoring new content. The problem is that they are not offering a wider variety of content for different types of learners, but they don't want to hear that. They write a textbook, make online homework and study guides for it, and call it good. That's not nearly enough, but they don't want to invest in getting better.

This week I started training for a new part time job at company C to try to make a little more money and they are trying to do a better job. They want higher student engagement, fewer assessments, and for students to explore a topic instead of traditional lectures. Great. Research supports a more interactive approach to learning. Except their idea of student engagement and interaction solely focuses on extroversion: reading, writing, conversing, analyzing, actively listening, group work, sharing with the class, and more. And none of it has the options of being done alone. On top of this, they do not address disabilities and are only just starting to realize they need different content for multilingual learners.

Some students can actually read and learn and do not need to interact. Some students are anxious to interact. I've seen it. I've had a student stuttering just trying to talk in class to ask a question, and making her come to the board? Why? For what purpose? Said student was already doing well in class and she simply wrote everything out. I had multiple students who were combat veterans; one in particular who had a brain injury and needed a lot of repetition. Having a lot of approaches in a 50 minute class would have been overwhelming for him since he needed clear examples and lots of independent practice. He thrived in my office hours. Forcing this model will not help these students. While I think there are some good things about this versus just using a digital textbook, I take issue with the approach because it is still forcing students to all learn the same way. It's a different way of learning than using a textbook, but there is no room for flexibility.

Look, I know that it's impossible to teach a classroom of students in a way that gives each enough time and resources to perfectly meet their needs. I taught at a university for 8 years. I've tutored students in grades 3-12 for over a decade. This is not me bashing teachers, lecturers, or professors. I know they are simply limited to what math ed materials are on the market and what they write themselves. (Thinking of Dr. Bell who wrote his own book for Modern Algebra because he hated every book on the market.) I just get frustrated when everyone (publishers) tries to push new teaching styles and tools, saying "there are multiple approaches to suit multiple learners." If each student must go through and master each approach, how is that any better than saying they must all master this one approach?

I'm just a frustrated math lady. Also, this has reminded me of the time many years ago when I had an anon who would ask for math homework help in my inbox because they had no where else to go. That was also before we had DMing on tumblr. Thinking of you today, Stats Anon.

[quietbluejay]

Know No Fear 4

uh oh it's reunion time ffvii remake is invading calth as well

like gene-father, like gene-son guilliman's bad decision making is inherited through the geneseed

this is about these two but it's also about guilliman

oh we're back to Thiel vs a cool daemon also thiel figured out that older weapons work better against daemons but he's worried if he tells people they'll just dismiss it as superstition

thiel and this other dude are going door to door killing daemons "every door, a new horror" also, huh, I am now wondering if this was deliberate every time i thought it was setting up for a character to die for sure, they would have died in a horror movie they survived the guy with the wife and the vet he's buddies with, Old Person, Ventanus actually getting reinforcements that weren't a trick

this is why people don't like you guys

sometimes, the dead aren't dead

guilliman's problem is that, when he gets like this there's no one on his level who is able to tell him to knock it off but yeah they really are all like this, huh oh boy time for a new guy also, reading this book first really gave me a skewed idea of what happened at Monarchia

is it crack???? is it crack that you all smoke????

or is this just them all trying desperately to justify it to themselves and internally rewriting what happened

they really are just all eternal teen boys

congratulations the bar was in hell and you actually managed to wiggle over it oh welp

they're still wiggling over the bar but they're wiggling a bit closer

ope look at that a direct consequence of breaking your code daemon time

bruh really??

oh so he realized he was lying to himself seeing this, she casually threw aside a large rock

get lorelei'd idiot owo more Thiel POV he's in spaaace space fights…alas he is outnumbered 8:1 honestly i would have rioted if Thiel had bit it

OH WAIT RANE DIDNT DIE??

I CANT BELIEVE IT also, Old Person is old he was at Verdun

and Old Person makes an improvised bayonet with a ritual knife from a dead enemy okay he's even older Austerlitz so a century back from wwi

THIS DUDE HAS THE BEST LUCK OF LITERALLY ANY BIT CHARACTER IN A HORROR NOVEL EVER he got lorelei'd TWICE and managed to come out of it

oh holy shit does Ventanus get lucky nothing is working and the only weapon he has is the Word Bearer's ritual knife aka one of the only things in this book we've seen that seems to kill daemons oh! back to Thiel! things aren't looking good

I need a Hero starts playing in the background

i know it was plot armour (and there's more to come) but this was a cool moment and i did NOT expect this

abnett please stop with the clunky prose

GIANT FACEPALM

ROB ROB

YOURE GONNA GET STABBED BY AN EVIL KNIFE starting a long and "proud" tradition

AAAAA this scene ;-;

;-; "for a second, Ventanus envies her loss"

annnd yep guilliman got bodied by someone below his power level time for evil knife

guilliman: you know if i had a nickel for every time i was in this position, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but you'd think I'd learn.

thiel had to deal with this twice except by the second time, he was friends with Guilliman

okay, this was just cheap so, Guilliman put his power claw through Kor Phaeron's chest at least ONE OF THEM should have died from this they both have plot armour also why didn't the knife work on guilliman??? it sure worked on Horus there should have been long term consequences GUILLIMAN LITERALLY TAKES KOR PHAERONS HEART OUT sigh anyways, Tawren gets to be cool how many orbital weapons is she controlling rn? yes she's the one who actually turns the tables and makes this not a valiant last stand with a bare remnant surviving

looks like team rocket's blasting off againnnnnn

so guilliman and thiel are now besties, at least

epilogue time!

stay classy, Ultramarines and thus the ultramarines became mortal enemies with the word bearers anyways, it's overall a good book, aside from the plot armour and some of the clunkiness of the prose (and the weird Perpetual stuff)

[postmakerkiwi]

GUY WHO HAS WATCHED THE THIRD & FOURTH EPISODES OF V3 VOICE

NGL I wasn't expecting Kazami to really tone down after the premier but I guess I did figure that he would like. chill out a tiny bit?

He Did Not.

He climbed on top of and chased a goon across a chain of train freights and he's immune to hypnosis and he got chained to an operating table in the shape of a cross and he made a computer beg for death before it exploded from trying to comprehend footage of him and he caught on fire a little bit and he grabbed one goon by the balls and he got sealed in a coffin doubly locked inside a cremator which he escaped from inexplicably and then appeared on top of This

Not necessarily in that order. But the order it Did happen in wouldn't make it sound any more logical.

So okay having Riders 1 & 2 get exploded and say "hey we're going to MMX6 ourselves but it'll be a while. See ya V3" didn't get him to reign himself in but is he at least now getting time to process the deaths of his family members ABSOLUTELY NOT

They didn't directly come up in either episode but Junko is sticking around and you'd think having the girl (woman? I'm not sure how old she's supposed to be. She does have a preteen brother but like I have a preteen brother and I'm 27) he saved and who was also there when his family were killed and only just barely survived herself around would be a good springboard for both of them to process that traumatic night?

NO HE TOLD HER TO STAY AWAY AND WHEN SHE SHOWS UP WORKING FOR TACHIBANA HE TELLS HER SHE'LL JUST FUCK THINGS UP?!?

He does encourage her later in episode 4 by telling her she had actually been a help (she was!) but like . King she only knew them for a hot minute but she's the only person who had any connection with your late family and you kept telling her to never show her face to you again?????????????? Going from that to "yeah I guess you've been helpful. Good job on that." *leaves her and Tachibana alone to get themselves out of that rowboat in the middle of a lake* is an improvement but you're still very obviously avoiding her?

Is it just the "not wanting her to be put in danger"?? Does he realize on some level that Junko's connection to his family's deaths means that as long as she's hanging around he'll keep being reminded of it??? Why does he have a Devil May Cry taunt he keeps whipping out in fights??????????

Point is I think this man might have problems. Don't know if anyone else has ever thought this /j.

[antrea]

this is a ramble but i just wanna write down my thoughts

i'm a new hockey fan as of february so this was my second flyers game ever and first flyers game at home (now i'm like as being 'born and raised' in nj/philly area god i've missed out on so much)

ivan played so fcking amazing for literally just being thrown out there after what like 1.5 weeks stateside? like what on earth

i still wholeheartedly believe in sammy and i cannot take this slander bc if he is so bad then the whole team is worse and cannot provide offensive support (see habs, hawks games)

tipp is soooooooooo fast. i think there were 2 separate isles breakaway chances where thankfully he was actually the only one to catch up with the dude and the pressure he created was enough to totally erase the chance. there were so many times that i thought he was gonna score bc of his sheer speed :(

morgan had some brilliant moments but i think around 2nd period i was sure he was on torts' doghouse bc he just gave away (flag) a lot of pucks lol and he started to move more slowly and then i think that's also when torts moved tippy up and shuffled some lines and i was sad - but honestly he was still injecting so much speed and creativity and he was actively winning back pucks he lost so yeah!!!

i will never forget that final 10 seconds goal for the rest of my life. the farg ERUPTED and i was just like non stop screaming and JUMPING UP AND DOWN for like 5 whole minutes. i didn't even know who fcking scored, it was so chaotic. when they said frost i nearly expired on the spot

i think frost giving away the puck during OT was like the saddest thing ever but i think that line should've started OT anyway........

about refs: since i'm so new to hockey i wasn't sure what was a missed call or just philly fans yapping lol. it's definitely much harder to tell from 200's level what is a foul and what is not

i don't know if i was just like clued in to looking out for cam atkinson mistakes but oh he lost the puck a lot :/ and when he had it he never really did that much with it

whew PK was actually back today i think and i totally attribute it to seels. i think there was one PK where he and garny blocked consecutive shots and you could HEAR it ooft

on the flip side i hate our PP so much and i quote the woman behind me but "it doesn't even look like we're on a power play"

wells fargo center is nice. for some reason before 2024 i went to 0 hockey/ice arenas and now i've been to 4 (blue jackets, caps, habs, flyers) and flyers is by far the nicest

gritty is INSANE energy man we are so lucky to have gritty

due to driving in (ugh next time i'm taking the train) i only had time to speedrun one of the shops on the concourse and there were 0 frost jerseys broooooo. they had like every other player. i was trying to figure out which of the like 4 jerseys we have this season to get anyway and i still don't know...

i was just reflecting all the way home that like i've started seriously following sports since 2010 with german football/bvb and since then i've hardcore picked up ravens nfl, orioles baseball, and figure skating, and i've just never felt this kind of high in-stadium until flyers hockey. and maybe it's just bc i've never been to like orioles playoffs or bvb in germany (i've only been to bvb friendlies in the states) but like i feel like hockey should be more popular lol

[itsclydebitches]

Watch there be loads of death and destruction as a result of telling the world about Salem, and its blamed on James. WIth them saying 'if only he did not make us do that'/'Even in death James actions ruin things for people'

Yeah, at this point I expect one of two outcomes:

Nothing is mentioned about any world-wide destruction and, as usual, we'll get a lot of debates in the fandom about it. Some people will say it didn't happen and it's not at all important, despite the conversations in Volume 7 planning for this exact outcome. Others will insist it's all happening off screen and having a super significant impact (kinda like the other Dust distributors that simply have to exist to ensure RT's worldbuilding holds together) but the story expects you to figure that out without having your hand held. It'll be just another example of the trends we've been seeing for years now.

As you say, there will be chaos across Remnant, but the story will ensure none of the responsibility of that will make its way back to the team. The same way the story brushed off them coaxing a Leviathan into Argus, keeping the Lamp out so that it was eventually stolen, attacking the Ace Ops, the entire conversation with Ren about how everything they've done has been not just necessary, but heroic... yeah, the story hasn't done anything since Volume 4 to imply that the group would own up to their mistakes. Ruby's message went SO HARD on the 'We're uniting together!' angle which in the process required ignoring every glaringly obvious downside to this supposedly perfect call to action: the grimm dangers already acknowledged, the fact that no one can actually defend themselves against Salem, the criticism leveled at Ironwood for already trying to defend his city the first time around, and the end result of the scene trying to emphasize that world-wide unification while also having Ruby go, 'Except this world leader who was a close ally of ours until we disagreed over how best to save people, fuck him, this unification doesn't include compromise'. There was zero room for any nuance. The show already scoffed at every acknowledged, canonical, thoroughly obvious issue there, so to suddenly go back and start tackling them now would be surprising, to say the least. At this point I have little doubt that if the show acknowledges that impact at all (and there is a good chance it won't) then it will be in a 'I can't believe Ironwood forced us to tell the world about Salem, starting a domino-effect of grimm attacks that has decimated most of Remnant. The blood of all those people... on his hands... :( " Just like it's a whole lot easier to pin every problem on the now cartoon villain, it's easier still to continue pining them on him once he's dead.

[crystalelemental]

"megazardx2: I am of the firm belief that, aside from gimmick ‘mons like Unown or whatever, there shouldn’t be a single Pokemon that’s virtually useless in-game. Competitively, you can’t really avoid it, but in-game, you definitely can. I want to see major improvements to ‘mons like that for Gen X. Let me use Ledian without it feeling like a drag, Game Freak (and also Spinda)!"

It's tough, because "useless in general gameplay" is a wildly variable condition. Like...is Spinda useless?

It has some decent options to use in its arsenal, its stats are just low, and that can be overcome. Ledian isn't great, but it does have Baton Pass and Agility, and Dual Screens, all naturally. Most options, even without raw power and stats, have some solid tools. The bigger frustrations, and the things that drive me absolutely insane, are when Pokemon should have access to something they don't. Like, why does Houndoom, a Dark type focused on special attack, not have Dark Pulse naturally? Why does Drowzee, the Dream Eating Pokemon, not learn Dream Eater naturally in any generation? Why is the best Ice move that Mamoswine every learns naturally Ice Fang? Why did it take to Gen 6 for options like Sandslash to get natural access to Earthquake? Hell, why is the only Ground move it learned naturally prior Sand Tomb?

That's where the stupid lies. Because these Pokemon can be good, they can have access to useful tools that are extremely good...but only conditionally, based on having access to the TM at a reasonable point in the game, rather than the end. Like okay, I want to run Sandslash in HGSS. In order for that to be meaningful, I'd have to learn Dig first, because oops, Earthquake is in Victory Road. Or god forbid, you opted for Umbreon as a slow, tanky sack of shit that can barely attack at all. Your options are (1) Toxic (post-game with Janine's gym), (2) healing support (Wish is breed only, Moonlight is level 71, Heal Bell is tutor with BP), or (3) copy Karen's Curse deal for boosting (Breed only). All of these options are frustrating and shitty, and rely on putting up with something being unnecessarily bad until it can suddenly become good. Or, in extreme cases like Platinum, which I love dearly but oh my god, you have the entire game working its best to lock entire playstyles out of player access. Oh you need boosting moves or any kind of status? Yeah, that's BP gated to post-game, sorry. Even with infinite reuse TMs these problems still exist in legion. ORAS transitioned access to Thunderbolt, a staple, to effectively just before the League; Wattson isn't around for this quest until after you beat Wallace. You want to run Calm Mind Audino? Then I hope you have a plan until post-game or someone who's got the TM already, because that's something you only get after finding one of the Sages, and it's one you have to battle, too!

It's just...endlessly frustrating that in a game about customizing your team, they lock so many decisions out of consideration. I get that some of these tools are considered super strong (although Toxic is useless in main game, given the Full Restore spam you get), but if boosting is such a problem, design your fights better. Emerald had this shit figured out easy, every fight in that game has a lead with hard counterplay to setup sweepers, and it rules. Meanwhile in Gen 4, Cynthia is incredibly weak to setup. But that game effectively removed all setup TMs from the game, so when are you ever going to be able to use that? Well, Gardevoir and Alakazam learn Calm Mind so-oh right they're weak to Spiritomb and have nothing to significantly threaten it.

Oddly, one of the things that modern gens have done a little better is ease the access to TMs, but nothing is given without something of equal value being taken away, so we're back to single-use Technical Records, and you need to farm watts or random encounter materials to make it work. The materials are at least smarter than the watts; anyone who's ever used an action replay or GameShark back in the day can tell you how quickly the main game crumples when you get early access to Ice Beam/Thunderbolt/Flamethrower shit. Having more staggered release makes sense in some cases, but it also disproportionately hits certain Pokemon because they're not learning basic moves for their type. And that's a massive goddamn problem. TMs should be for supplemental coverage, not the basics of your STABs. Yet consistently, they're essential just to round out what should be there. Even modern gens have this learnset problem. Hey Coalossal, what's your best physical Rock-type move? Oh, Rock Blast? Which you learn at level 54? So if I want a real move I have to hunt down watts for Rock Slide or Stone Edge, otherwise your Rock-type STAB just sucks ass forever? Radical. There's no reason for it! Things should learn a ton of moves within their types, starting small and building up to powerful endgame stuff. I should never have to use a TM to learn the basics. Even if they only learned STAB moves, that's better than what we have now. I'd rather Swampert actually just learn a physical Water move like Liquidation, than get Rock Slide in its movepool for coverage, because at least Liquidation for its basic function and Rock Slide for something to build with TMs feels intentionally designed.

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.55 thoughts

[Just Dance 240+68+55+413+325+101+28+100+192+2+24+13+6+369+19+8+27+29+4+1]

(Contents: speculation - anxiety/predictions, thematic analysis - Friendship, character analysis - Anonymity)

Coming up with all of those numbers for the title took a lot longer than I'd care to admit. If you want to have a little bit of fun, each of the numbers I used has some level of significance to me, so try to figure out what each one refers to! Some of them are directly related to their neighbors, so those numbers should be at least somewhat easier to identify. Let me know if you have any guesses!

Anyway...AAARGH!!! This chapter did nothing to ease my worries about the series being canceled!! Is this just how the flow of this puzzle was supposed to go, or were all of the other cast members eliminated at once to get to the final match faster???

It works thematically to go this way, with everything being settled with what's essentially a big party and everyone having fun together, but so many of the characters didn't do anything! There weren't any major betrayals or twists aside from Karigane, when I really expected something like that from Kubinashi, Hakanage or Anonymity, and Rikiketo and Yonakiuguisu contributed essentially nothing to the arc at all! Were they cut for time??? Or have we just not reached the point where they matter yet??? Or is this just how Nisio works, and they're like the Plus Six???

Well, no sense in worrying about it for now. The important thing is that this chapter was a lot of fun! Seeing everyone coming together like this was nice; even if they're competing for the prize, in this moment they're not soldiers, they're kids. Everyone here has a smile on their face, or at least the closest thing to a smile they can muster, and even the defeated walk away satisfied that they tried their best

The only semblance of negative emotion comes right at the end, and is easily the most interesting moment of the chapter for me: Anonymity lets her emotions slip for just a second as she realizes that Iroha has chosen Toshusai as his final opponent over her. That little scowl, that brief moment of bitterness and regret, only to immediately go back to smiling and joking. Did she regain her composure as a sign of acceptance, or is she putting her poker face back on to hide the pain? The only thing we can tell for sure is that she wasn't lying when she said Iroha made her jealous, and that broke my heart. If this series does get canceled and that's the last bit of development we get for her, that's the thing that's going to bother me most in the aftermath. I want to see more of this girl's mask falling away and her real emotions spilling out, dammit!!

But even if it does continue, we'll still have to wait on that for a bit - cus next chapter, we're finally getting the showdown between Iroha and Toshusai!!! If the series is done, this is a great bookend for it since Iroha didn't get to face her for real in the CLP election, but otherwise this should serve as a good jumping-off point for the series to enter its next phase. If Iroha becomes the Code Emperor here, then he'll have reached the peak of the academy, so we'll need to move onto bigger and tougher opponents from outside the academy, so there'd be no reason for him to face off against Toshusai after this point. If he loses, he might face off against her again for some reason or other to prove that he's overcome the weakness that causes him to lose, but we can't really speculate on that too much right now

Of course this is all assuming that either Iroha or Toshusai win and even finish their battle. For all we know, the fight will be inconclusive and someone else will swoop in and steal the money, leading into the next arc to retrieve the Morgue from some outside force. Whatever happens, so long as the series isn't canceled, the mood we establish from the end of this arc is going to be abruptly undercut by the introduction of the next threat - that's how nearly every arc in Medaka Box ended, and it's the best way I can think of to keep this story going. I don't know how long Nisio plans to draw out this final battle, but I imagine we'll know the answer by the end of the month at the latest

Until next time

[abrushwithdeath]

((Hey, everyone!

I wanted to give an update on things while I have some time! I'm okay, I'm still here, and I've got no intentions of fully leaving! I've just been very, very, busy and incredibly stressed out, so on my days off, I've mostly just been... relaxing and playing games or watching youtube or reading because my brain refuses to cooperate with me long enough to get more than a couple paragraphs of writing done... if that ^^;

Now, to give a more thorough update for anyone who's curious about how soul crushing retail jobs are and why, exactly, I've been having a terrible time of things lately... (This is gonna be long, so feel free to skim or ignore it entirely):

Basically- I work at a retail store where we sell a lot of home decor and furnishings (including outdoor furniture) and such. Bed Bath and Beyond went out of business and they were literally like just down the street from us which means that, now, we're the biggest retailer of that kind of stuff in the area... which wouldn't be so awful if that didn't mean such a MASSIVE rise in our inventory levels the last month or two. The worst part? We were informed just last week that our inventory is only going to grow even further in the coming months. Which is especially annoying for me because, as the soft home coordinator (meaning that I'm the lead for the section with dec pillows, throws, all bedding, bath, curtains, rugs, etc) my inventory levels, specifically, have gone up the most drastically. I've already had just over a 33% increase in bedding, alone, and closer to 40% for JUST outdoor pillows compared to what I had last year (other sections have seen about a 15% increase, to give you a comparison), and, as I said before, it's only supposed to get worse from here. The biggest issue with that is that we're a store that is on the smaller side- like, we're a retail chain store, yes, but our actual, physical, space in our store, specifically, isn't that big. And we were already running at almost full capacity BEFORE the increase in product. Our sales haven't gone up much to cover the increased inventory levels, either, so we've got a backroom full of back stock (in our store, we aren't supposed to have ANY back stock, mind you- it's not like walmart or something, we're meant to get EVERYTHING out that we get in each week before the next truck) and we have nowhere to put it. We've done intensive markdowns every week for the last month. To put it into perspective- our markdowns are usually one half of the store one week, then two week after that we mark down stuff in the other half (markdowns usually take a day and a half with 3-4 people doing them, but it's been a 3 to 4 day process every week currently with even MANAGEMENT helping to get things marked down). The last 2 weeks (and the first of these 4 weeks, too) have included full markdowns in my sections, specifically, because they're trying to sell stuff to make space for all the extra inventory that I'm getting in... but nobody is buying the marked down stuff either, really, because we just don't have the kind of sales to keep up with this. It was chaotic before, but now we're literally at Christmas levels of inventory (which is, as with most places, the time when we get the most stuff in) but without the sales levels that we have at the holidays.

So what I'm saying is- work has been super stressful and everyone, especially in lead positions (my position and higher) have been all but ripping our hair out trying to figure out what to do with everything because there's WAY too much stuff and not enough sales to make up for it. I usually have one aisle and a couple B-endcaps of markdowns that then sell down to be just the one aisle. Currently, I have an aisle and a half, 9 B-endcaps (which is all of my back endcaps except ONE), a bedding fixture, the last 4 foot section taken out of 4 different aisles, a half wall (between 5 and 6 feet tall, 16 feet wide) and an 8 foot section of the back wall that are all JUST markdowns from my section alone. That is THAT much space that I don't have to put out new stuff (and they're sending 2 trucks a week instead of just one now). To make matters worse... our store doesn't count marked down stock as "inventory" so they don't account for the space that it takes up when sending things (aside from the one aisle for each section that's designated as clearance)... which is just... so fucking stupid??? We've also got to start thinking about holiday inventory coming in because we're supposed to be getting Halloween stuff early next month.

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So... TL;DR: Retail sucks and I'm not paid nearly enough for the stress that I've been under lately from work ^^; So me not being around much is literally just because I've been exhausted from work. I'm really, REALLY, hoping that my vacation next month will be enough to help me relax a bit. I'm not going anywhere- I just needed to NOT be at work xD

With all that said- I'm sorry for not being here much. It's just been a lot. I've mostly been reading or watching stuff on my days off because my brain cannot and will not cooperate with writing. In good news, though- I've been re-reading and annotating my copies of the Hunger Games books because I know the prequel movie is coming out this year, and it's been kind of making me want to write (which is how I got that one reply done the other night xD). So HOPEFULLY that'll continue to help!

In the meantime, thank you to everyone who has been patient with me. It means a lot to know that I can come back here and still have a few people who will want to write with me <3 Ya'll are fantastic and I love you so very much <3

Take care and I'll try to get to a thing or two tonight or on Friday when I finally have another day off!))