#whereas now its just more of the same but also higher expectations

[teamfreelunch]

you know it's bad when even on the last day of the deadline when you dont have time to procrastinate anymore you still can't focus

[rocketturtle4]

Eclipse in progress part 2

Okay so I've only seen two more episodes and I kind of had in my head I'd watch till the end of 8 before writing anymore because I have the time but episode 7 just one two suckerpunched my feelings so I need to go regulate.

For the record while I'm a sucker for crying I get WAY MORE OVERWHELMED when things are bitter sweet and this episode is whoooooooaaaaaa

@wen-kexing-apologist @plantsarepeopletoo @grapejuicegay also @thegalwhorants I'm basically gonna @ you cause you interacted with my eclipse stuff, let me know if you'd rather I didn't

So some thoughts

I had forgotten about Namo he could also have stolen the diary and I think logistically this makes mroe sense because he is in a different year level so not expected to be in class BUT where did he get the key? Whereas Thua being class president potentially gives him key acces idk and I still feel like there's more layers

We still really haven't gotten background on anyone which is why I wasn't going to post yet so my theories havent changed much except

TURNS OUT AKK IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CAR

Did both Ayan and his uncle have a necklace? I'm really unsure about whether or not Ayan legit saw his suicide or has just vividally imagined it but n the dreams they're both wearing it whereas I had previously assumed Ayan was wearing his uncles necklace.

Namo also seems to genuinely believe in the curse so where did this rumour come from, I don't feel like it's NEW, did Akk hear it and just capitalise on it? or has someone else being doing this in the past? Is it passed down from the head prefect

also Khan and Wat are prefects were they indoctrinatinated by candelight??

1984 stuff was WAY LESS SUBTLE than I was expecting when Akk first found that book

Ayan convincing Akk he needs to 'tell the truth' and Akk being woried about his family and his reputation is obviously legit but also feels like a coming out metaphor ngl

Khan thinking Ayan is playing with Akk and Thua but gently confronting it rather than getting jealous made me appreciate him even more

ALSO THE POWER DYNAMICS in the framing of Ayan and Neo’s convo on the stairs, Neo is SO MUCH HIGHER and yet from the loew position Ayan managed to be confident and understanding.

IM SORRY ARE THESE CHILDREN EXPECTED TO WEAR THEIR BLAZERS REGARDLESS OF TEMPERATURE????

The three prefects convo was interesting when you consider the queer metaphor of the fact that Wat (so far) ISNT queer and is the one most openly empathetic to the protests, because he doesn't have the same personal stake as our gay boys

I want to know what wanna-be-prefect Nom and Aye think of the three prefects clearly non-prefect behaviour.

FUCK Firsts Goofy Smile is nearly as good as his doe eyes

Akk is way to relatable help me

god they're so proud this is gonna hurt

As a person who silently cries VERY SIMILARLY to Ayan (and just Khao in general because he cried like this on TC as well) I feel VERY SEEN by the way his tears just fall

HOW CAN I BE RELATING TO BOTH CHARACTERS HERE

I spent way to long examining the order of the boys and realising that Aye and Namo had swapped places

and that arguably you're more vulnerable when you're sleeping

THis ENTIRE SCENE

the interchanging eye opening

they both think each other was asleep

he's never really sleeping is one of my FAVOURITE tropes for forwarding a relationship and they doube whammied it but this one was CRAZY BECAUSE ITS NOT GOING TO FORWARD IT

Khan looked SO HAPPY TO HAVE KISSED HIM WAAAAAAAAH

DOUBLE WHAMMY

I have taken way to many screenshots and I can't believe episode 6 was a dream kiss and then episode 7 left us hanging but I'm still stopping for a bit. Have a few more moments that punched me in the gut

bye for now.

[ironhorsegirl]

Taking a break from maintenance, which I do every Wednesday, to explain something since I was chatting with my co-workers and figured out how to put it in layman's terms!

Most people who like trains are aware that it takes multiple diesel units to pull really long freight trains. They also pull these trains really slowly when they're really long. A big part of the switch from steam to diesel for these sort of things is due to their thermal efficiency - diesel locomotives are usually somewhere around 30%-40% thermal efficient, whilst the average steam locomotive was closer to 8%-9%. This means that steam locomotives went through more fuel - up to six to eight times more fuel. If you're pulling a mile-long train, you want to find the most efficient way to do that, and combined with their lower repair and maintenance costs, most railroads finished that switch by the end of the 1950s.

Now, that said, the thing with diesels is that their horsepower is more consistent. They run with internal combustion engines, like your car does. You can generally expect the same horsepower output out of them day to day, even as you open the throttle more. As an example, the famed EMD GP40-based passenger locomotives are usually rated for something like 2000-3000 HP, and their freight counterparts were consistent at around 3000 HP. The F40PH, a passenger locomotive, can get up to 3200 HP.

Modern diesels and diesel-electrics have even more power - Bombardier's ALP-45DPs, one of which I'm looking at in the yard right now, are rated thusly:

Both the power output and the tractive effort, which basically translates in layman's terms to "how much can this locomotive push or pull," are higher for electric than diesel. You'd think that this would mean a push for more railroad electrification, but...well, you probably know why cleaner forms of energy don't get used by now, so I won't get into that.

Now, for comparison, let's look at some steam locomotives. This is Nickel Plate Road 765, a 2-8-4 Berkshire built in 1944:

When you think about it, those numbers really aren't too different! By the 1940s, steam technology was really at the best it had ever been (superpowered steam). When they started testing diesels en masse, it was actually found that performance-wise, the locomotives more or less kept pace with each other. Ultimately, the diesels won out because they were easier to mass manufacture, were cheaper to maintain, and could be operated by one person (not recommended, safety first!). You can hook multiple diesels up to each other and operate them from the one in the front, whereas if you doublehead steam locomotives you need a crew to operate each one. So yeah, it was a cost-saving measure, ultimately, because executives are like that.

Just for fun, let's look at the Big Boys for a second, though.

Yeah, you're not gonna beat those numbers. Union Pacific's Big Boys were some of the most powerful machines ever built. Those mile-long freights that you see three or four diesels on? A Big Boy could pull those by itself without breaking a sweat.

But if the horsepower and tractive efforts come across mostly the same, why do steam locomotives appear to be able to pull more weight? It's all about how steam power actually works.

A diesel engine, as mentioned above, will have fairly consistent horsepower outputs. Steam locomotives take a bit more to get going, and you have to start pulling heavy loads slowly because of potential wheel slip. But once you get moving...that seems to change.

Here's a great story from Rich Melvin, who was the engineer of NKP 765 until he retired several years ago:

Now, in the comments of this video, I found someone explaining this really well:

Basically, the harder you work a steam locomotive, the closer it gets to its actual peak power output. The more you open up the throttle, the more fuel you have to add to the fire, and in turn, the hotter the fire gets. This means the steam in the superheater is actually drier, and that means that it expands more. So you can use less steam per stroke that way, and that means you can really get up to using your full power.

A diesel will have an easier job starting to pull, because they're great for getting those things moving. But if you have it running at higher speeds, the steam locomotive will have an easier time pulling it from that point.

So there you go.

[mariacallous]

By many accounts, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is already a colossal failure. The confirmed losses of destroyed and abandoned tanks and other armor alone exceed the entire army of a decent-sized Central or Eastern European country, and the rate of loss doesn’t look likely to be reversed anytime soon. Citing sources close to the Kremlin, Russian independent media has reported 90,000 irrecoverably lost soldiers, including battlefield and hospital deaths plus injuries severe enough to prevent them from ever fighting again. These losses now exceed those incurred during Russia’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, politically devastating conflicts that left deep scars on Russian society that have still not healed today. What’s more, it took Russia 10 years to accumulate its losses in Afghanistan, whereas it has only been fighting in Ukraine for eight months.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “partial mobilization,” which he recently promised will be over in two weeks just before the regular annual military draft begins, has also been a failure on all levels. Russian social media is full of clips of fresh conscripts facing squalor in hastily thrown up tents and cold abandoned barracks without food, uniforms, sanitation, equipment, or commanders, left to fend for themselves or survive on parcels brought by their relatives. As men are grabbed from the streets and sent right to the front with only a cursory training course at best, their relatives are expected to cough up money for basic items that are supposed to be provided by the army, such as first-aid kits or winter clothes.

For hundreds of thousands of Russian families, the war is not only an immediate threat to their livelihoods, as sole breadwinners are thrown into battles without regard for their dependents, but also a massive economic burden. On Telegram, chat groups with hundreds of members are popping up where wives and fiancés exchange tips on where to buy armor and helmets on the cheap while sharing their growing desperation about the chaotic nature of mobilization.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who’s been watching Russia. Generals have always treated their military districts as personal fiefdoms and conscripts like serfs existing for the sole purpose of their higher-ups’ enrichment. Ironically, one of the loudest pro-war critics of the Russian Defense Ministry for mismanagement of resources is former Army Gen. Andrey Gurulyov, now a member of the Russian Duma under U.S. sanctions. During his time as a military commander, Gurulyov was himself charged with “labor slavery” involving conscripts. The charges were dismissed, and he went on several tours in Syria. It’s far from an isolated case.

Corruption lies at the heart of the Russian military’s dysfunction on and off the battlefield. BBC News Russian found at least 559 documentable cases of criminal loss of property in the army since 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine. Quartermasters have pilfered uniforms, boots, winter gear, and sleeping bags by the truckload. Hundreds of thousands of uniforms that were supposed to go to the newly mobilized have suddenly been reported as missing. Corruption goes all the way down the chain of command. The scale of extortion by local commanders of the newly mobilized appears to be so large that even popular pro-war bloggers are complaining about it.

Investigative reporters and anti-corruption activists have documented the extravagant palaces owned by Russia’s military elite, only to be jailed or driven to exile for their work. Now, some pro-Kremlin bloggers are adopting the same rhetoric, but it’s too little and too late to salvage Russia’s war in Ukraine. Even if their pleas are taken seriously in the Kremlin, a country cannot launch a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of its military, including replacement of the leadership and the sacking of thousands of officers, while in the middle of an all-out war.

Russia’s military disaster will therefore continue to unfold. And it’s getting much closer to many Russians at home, for whom the war has been something between television entertainment and a distant rumble. Until the start of Putin’s mobilization on Sept. 21, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and their surrounding regions were largely spared from providing soldiers for the war, which was crucial for upholding the optics of life carrying on as “normal” for middle-class Russians. Meanwhile, ethnically non-Russian regions provided the cannon fodder, not least because the military was long one of the few dependable sources of income there. As a result, men from Dagestan, Buryatia, and Russia’s Far East have dominated the casualty lists, especially when one compares the number of deaths in relation to the total population.

No matter what they tell pollsters—and whether they support Putin’s imperial war or not—it’s clear that the majority of Russian men don’t want to go anywhere near the front. If they did, they’d have joined the “volunteer” battalions set up since the Ukrainians first beat back the Russians in March, battalions that mostly failed to materialize. And the Russian Defense Ministry wouldn’t be having such a hard time reaching even the initially announced target of 300,000 new conscripts.

What’s more, mobilization has irrevocably broken the social contract wedding Russians to their regime, a modicum of stability and prosperity in exchange for complete disengagement from politics. Even the most loyal servants of the regime do not appear to be safe now, as demonstrated by the mobilization of one of the department heads at the Moscow mayor’s office. Russian social media is brimming with videos of police rounding up men for mobilization at offices, markets, and metro stations. The scale of it is impossible to ignore, and belies initial attempts by the regime’s propagandists on television and elsewhere to dismiss it as isolated cases of a few overzealous draft officers.

Now, it’s glaringly obvious that the indiscriminate rounding up is a feature, not a bug, of Putin’s attempt to plug in the holes on the front in Ukraine. Body bags containing the remains of the freshly mobilized—often inexperienced and untrained—are already returning to Russia. Meanwhile, military installations and infrastructure in Belgorod, a Russian city some 40 kilometers from the Ukrainian border where many of the mobilized are being assembled, is now under daily shelling by Ukraine. The entire myth of Putin’s infallibility is coming apart: Russia’s much vaunted military prowess, the “stability” he promised in his first terms as president, the supposedly omnipotent propaganda which is now forced to make U-turns and admit previously unthinkable retreats, the “power vertical” now torn apart by infighting among Putin’s associates, and a population lined up behind its president.

What does this mean going forward? Putin’s final and irreversible retreat from Ukraine seems like a fantastical notion. But it wouldn’t be the first time post-Soviet Russia has admitted a humiliating military defeat. In the mid-1990s, Russia was beaten by a much smaller force in the First Chechen War, after launching an ill-thought out assault on Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, based on poor intelligence and sheer hubris. As hard a hit as it was to their imperial pride, leading politicians and media figures found it in themselves to say to the Russian public: The war is over and we lost. Many of those people are still around today, including top military commanders like Anatoly Kulikov, who managed the ceasefires and retreats.

If that precedent offers some hope that reason and reality could again prevail, it also serves as a warning. Defeat in Chechnya set off a wave of ultranationalist resentment, the same obsession with humiliation and revenge that infuses Putin’s speeches about Ukraine and defines so much of the Russian debate today. Unless Russia faces a national reckoning after losing the war in Ukraine—something akin to Germany’s reinvention after World War II—the cycle of imperial resentment and revanchism will only repeat itself.

[govindhtech]

News Flash: Intel Core Ultra 9 Processors in 2024

Intel Meteor Lake Laptops with Core Ultra 9 processors

Intel will introduce its Meteor Lake CPU family with Core Ultra 7 & 5 processors initially, followed by Core Ultra 9 computers in 2024. These chips are expected to arrive first.

With the initial launch of Meteor Lake, Intel will focus on mainstream laptops. The higher-end Core Ultra 9 is rumored to debut in the first quarter of 2024.

The most recent news comes from Golden Pig Upgrade on Weibo, who said that laptops would first be introduced with Intel’s Meteor Lake Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 5 CPUs. On the other hand, high-end Core Ultra 9 laptops won’t hit the market until the beginning of 2024. The source also states that Intel will directly compare the initial range of Meteor Lake CPUs against the already available Core i9–13900H Raptor Lake-H and AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS “Phoenix” APUs.

This information comes from the leaker. These are high-end components, but they are not necessarily the flagship model because the Core i9–13980HX/HK and the Ryzen 9 7940HS already dominate that market sector. It would appear that the replacement of any of these processors will have to wait until Core Ultra 9 “Meteor Lake” SKUs are released.

It is also important to note that both of the chips that have been discussed here are 35–45W SKUs when operating at the base frequency, whereas the basic TDP for Intel Meteor Lake CPUs is anticipated to be 28W. In addition, it has been said that the number of gaming laptops that use Meteor Lake Core Ultra CPUs would be extremely limited. The leaker is referring to laptops with discrete graphics processing units (dGPUs) here.

It is a good decision taking into consideration that Meteor Lake’s internal GPU will give performance that is comparable to that of low-end discrete processors and provide a significant improvement over iGPUs from prior generations. The vast majority of consumers are going to remain with Raptor Lake-HX CPUs for the time being, although there may be some Core Ultra 9 alternatives with discrete GPUs for those who are searching for improved gaming performance.

Now, while this information has just come to light for the very first time, there have been hints pointing in this direction in the past. It was reported by us some time ago that the availability of high-end Meteor Lake laptops won’t be extensively available until early 2024, after CES 2024. This is mainly due to cost-related aspects, and it will be followed by plans of various technology companies to unveil “bleeding-edge” laptops, right when the general consumer’s upgrade cycle starts, which is somewhere near the beginning of the following year.

The arrival of Raptor Lake Refresh “Core Non-Ultra” comes in helpful since it helps to balance out the range of next-generation laptops that are powered by Intel. As a result of the fact that the initial batch of Meteor Lake laptops is likely to cost more than US$1,500, Intel was unable to target consumers in the middle-to-lower-end price range.

Nevertheless, Intel intends to broaden the scope of its offers with the introduction of Raptor Lake Refresh. This will provide customers with the option of upgrading to new generations at a price increase that is somewhat less significant.

If we are going to talk about the forthcoming Intel Meteor Lake “Core Ultra 9” SKUs, there is one thing that we can be certain of: they are filled to the brim with innovative innovations. Our sole experience has been with the “Core Ultra 9 185H” central processing unit, which has a core configuration of 6+8+2.

This consists of 6 Performance cores based on the Redwood Cove P-Core architecture, 8 Efficiency cores based on the Crestmont E-Core architecture, and an additional two Low-Power E-Cores utilizing the same architecture located within the SOC tile. All of these cores are based on the Crestmont architecture. It is anticipated that these will represent the first batch of Meteor Lake CPUs to natively surpass the 5GHz barrier.

Although we have not been given a release date for the “Core Ultra 9” processors, the initial set of Meteor Lake SKUs will be available by the 14th of December. These will demonstrate the potential capabilities of the first real Intel chipet family.

[appboxer]

Will Game Development Ever Die?

Game development has made significant progress and will continue to do so in the future. Since the introduction of smartphones and app stores to the market in 2007, gaming has experienced fast development, changing not just the way people play games, but also bringing gaming into mainstream pop culture in unprecedented ways. Over the last decade, rapid advances in mobile technology have resulted in an explosion of mobile gaming. In the Video Games segment, the number of active players is 2.5 billion in 2022. The mobile gaming industry is expected in a report to increase from $95 billion in 2019 to $420 billion by 2026. The market share percentage of mobile and tablet gaming has increased from 29% in 2016 to 51% in 2020.

With the growth of technology, it is not difficult to predict what the future of gaming will be. Gaming has progressed to a whole new level in the last several decades. Starting with 2D games, our video games are now moving closer to reality. And video gaming systems are concentrating on it.

Future of gaming development:

Cloud Gaming

Cloud gaming eliminates the need for hardware upgrades to play games.  This will be the future of all games so, the development of games based on will boost in the future. As the cost of hardware gradation will be cut people could spend more money to purchase games and their packages which will boost game development in an indirect way.

The Metaverse

According to the latest estimates, the worldwide metaverse market will be worth $1,527.55 billion by 2029, up from $100.27 billion in 2022, at a CAGR of 47.6%. This expansion adds to a spike in online video gaming acceptance based on AR/VR trends and technology.

Foldable Phones

Foldable phones can grow in the future as gaming device because they can carry a larger battery and has the potential for higher performance owing to their CPU and storage due to their larger size. So development in the gaming industry can shift towards foldable gaming apps.

Virtual Reality (VR)

Players spent more than $4 billion on VR games in 2020. Experiencing gaming like a real concept has given rise to virtual reality gadgets such as the Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus. Facebook owns Oculus Rift, whereas Sony owns Project Morpheus. These gadgets aim to provide users with a quality gaming experience by allowing them to engage with others in the game world. In virtual reality, of course, you can fly, walk, dance, and shoot like never before.

Augmented Reality (AR)

People frequently discuss virtual and augmented reality together, yet both technologies have distinct growth paths. The use of augmented reality (AR) in games is becoming more popular. Globally the AR gaming industry will rise from $6.39 billion in 2021 to $38.03 billion in 2027.

E-Sports

The popularity of eSports is increasing, and so will the need for eSports management software. Video games are used in eSports. They do, however, incorporate many fundamental characteristics of conventional competitive sports. ESports, like conventional competitive sports, have spectators, leagues, tournaments, sponsors, prize money, salaried players, and media attention.

Instant Apps will be new trend

Instant apps can be used for small and instant gaming experiences. Google became aware of how challenging it is for users to regularly download and update new apps for various purposes as a result of the abundance of mobile applications available in the app stores. For this reason, the business unveiled its Android Instant Apps. Users of Android Instant Apps can only download the application's essential components, conserving space on their smartphones by quickly accessing the other material through a URL.

 Google's Progressive Web Apps are being created at the same time as Android Instant Apps. Developers may quickly convert their native applications into instant ones without having to create a separate application, and Google claims that 50 instant apps have already been created.

Will Game Development Ever Die?

No, Currently Game development is at its peak and will continue to grow in the future. In 2021, the gaming application category of the mobile application market had the highest revenue share of more than 42.94%. Furthermore, the category is predicted to maintain its dominance during the projection period due to an exceptional increase in the gaming population and, as a result, the number of mobile gaming apps in economies such as China and India. Furthermore, the three major Operating System (OS) platforms utilized to produce mobile games are iOS, Android, and Windows. The number of games downloaded on Android OS in 2019 was considerable, but iOS produced more income since premium games are more prevalent.  

Since ancient times, people used to play on open ground, but as time passed, new games such as chess and carom board were invented, and these open grounds were replaced by handcrafted wooden boards. Following industrialization, gaming machines became the new platform. We now live in a digital world, where gaming platforms are based on digital devices such as phones, tablets, consoles, and computers. As we can see, the gaming platform will evolve with time, thus we must also evolve in order to continue developing games. We must include new technology like cloud, AI, AR, Metaverse, etc. into game production.

At, App boxer, we understand the importance of our client's businesses and the people they serve, and we enable them to design quick, flexible, and future-oriented apps that help them flourish and remain ahead of the competition. After years of experience working with Android apps, our team is equipped to manage the fragmentation issues and complexity of Android products and software.

[jpbuildersus]

DIY vs. Hiring a General Contractor in Los Angeles

Do you plan to, or are you now engaging in home improvements? If so, you’ll need to figure out if you want to do it yourself or employ a general contractor in Los Angeles. It’s not easy to make a decision. While hiring a general contractor may save money in the long run, doing so is not without its complications. You may expect a thorough interview about your demands and plans for the property. In addition, you may have to deal with change orders and unforeseen circumstances as they emerge, which may easily quadruple your expenditures if you lack expertise in this area. Here are some key differences between doing it yourself and hiring a professional. Cost Money is at the top of the list as a critical concern. Even if both methods have their benefits and drawbacks, a do-it-yourself project will save more money than hiring a professional in the short term. Contractors must charge not just for their supplies but also their time, whereas DIYers may get by only buying them (or even utilizing free or cheap recycled materials). Do-it-yourself methods may save you a ton of money compared to hiring a professional, depending on your specific scenario and location and schedule. Think about how much time you have and how much money you can earn, and then decide whether doing it yourself is worth it. If the workload is heavy or you don’t really have the time, consider exploring outsourcing the task. Time Do-it-yourself (DIY) options might be appealing if you need results quickly or if your financial resources are limited, and you want to maximize your return on investment. Avoiding the need to make last-minute adjustments is one way that planning ahead may speed up the process. You may save time and money by doing the work yourself, and this is especially helpful if you live in an area with a shortage of hardware shops that have the supplies you need. However, if time is not a problem, hiring a general contractor in Los Angeles may be worthwhile. To begin, builders are used to juggling several tasks on brand-new building sites (for example, when building an addition to your house or converting an old garage into a living space). They usually have adequate resources (both human and material) to allow employees to multitask. They are also aware of methods for keeping costs down while maintaining quality standards in construction. Skill Level of a General Contractor in Los Angeles In many cases, the DIYer and the expert will have vastly different experiences while achieving the same goal. Several online resources give step-by-step directions for hanging wallpaper, but if you aren’t cautious, you may end up with a floor that is an inch or two off from where it should be or a window frame that has to be replaced because it was cut improperly. If you hire a general contractor in Los Angeles, you have a much higher chance of having everything go according to plan and not having to worry about repairing any problems that may arise. Although DIY is great for saving money, making design choices that look good in addition to the essential structural work may not be easy. Without professional guidance, it may be challenging to determine which paint color or flooring material will hold up over time. In some instances, it might be challenging to identify whether a material is stain-resistant or more suited for an interior bathroom than an outside patio. Hassle Factor It’s tempting to perform the job yourself and save money if you’re handy, but that’s not always the best option. DIY projects don’t always pay off in the end. You’ll need to set aside some time, hold out for favorable weather, and haul heavy equipment around. Sometimes it’s neither practical nor fun to do so. When you hire a professional, they will bring everything they need to your home. Of course, time is an issue here, but comfort is equally crucial. You don’t have to go out of your way or make any special arrangements for a general contractor in Los Angeles to come and perform their job; they will arrive with everything they need and get to it immediately. You may think you’re saving money by doing it yourself, and there are numerous fees associated with hiring a contractor that you indeed won’t have to worry about if you do it yourself. When you’re looking to remodel your home, you have two options: hire a general contractor, or do the work yourself. The DIY option is the best if you’re trying to save money while still getting quality results. But if you don’t have any experience doing home improvement projects, it’s easy to make mistakes that can cost you down the road. Contact JP Builders & Development today at (818) 699-0449.

[extreme-investor-network]

India Is Becoming A Global Hub For Crypto Adoption

Recent studies suggest that India is outpacing much of the rest of the world in terms of cryptocurrency adoption, and that’s likely to be good news for anyone who believes in the future of blockchain-based financial tech.  India has emerged as a hub of crypto adoption, according to Finder’s most recent Cryptocurrency Adoption Index. Its most recent report, in August, showed that the top five countries in the world, ranked in terms of crypto adoption, are all located in Asia. That’s a big surprise because most Asian countries were regarded as being off the radar during the early days of crypto development, where most of the action was taking place in the U.S. and Europe. But times change, and Finder’s findings suggest Asian countries are now playing a prominent role in accelerating the adoption of crypto as the future of finance.  Leading the adoption metrics in Asia is Vietnam, where almost 40% of its population claims to hold some kind of cryptocurrency. Vietnam is closely followed by India, where almost 30% of people say they own crypto.  The rapidly growing crypto adoption in India is especially interesting given its status as the world’s second-most populous country and its reputation as something of a technology hub. With its huge population, it means that the number of crypto owners in India is absolutely massive, with Finder estimating that some 279.5 million Indians currently hold some kind of digital assets. It’s hard to know if these figures are inflated or not - after all, many thousands of villages in India still remain without electricity, for example. Even so, the survey shows that crypto is far more common among Indians than it is among the populations of developed countries, which were long considered to be the most open towards digital assets. For instance, Finder's data, based on a global survey of 217,947 persons, shows that just 13% of respondents in the U.S. currently own crypto.  The U.S. population is lagging behind the times in the crypto space and that’s even more startling given that its government has, until now, always taken a fairly positive stance towards blockchain-based digital assets. Regulation remains non-existent in the U.S., whereas India’s government has taken a much tougher stance, recently introducing a 30% tax on income received from digital assets, as well as a new “transaction tax” - a 1% fee Indians must pay on all crypto trades.  Despite this, a second report by the global crypto exchange KuCoin suggests India’s cryptocurrency market will grow to reach $241 million by 2030, if not higher. The same survey, published at the end of June, backs up the findings of Finder, saying that around 115 million crypto investors in India either currently hold, or have previously traded crypto in the last six months. The report also notes that 56% of Indian cryptocurrency investors believe that crypto is “the future of finance”, and that 52% are investing in the space with the purpose of earning passive income to improve the quality of their lives.  Crypto Going Mainstream In India The latest statistics support the narrative that crypto is rapidly going mainstream in India. The fact it is doing so is not as surprising as we might expect. After all, India has some advantages that lend itself to crypto adoption. Its population is relatively young in comparison to many countries, and younger demographics tend to embrace digital assets more than older people do. Finders’ report found that people aged between 18 and 34 constitute more than 40% of cryptocurrency users around the world.  What’s more, India has experienced a sharp growth in digital services that make cryptocurrency more accessible to its population. It has an extensive mobile infrastructure with more than 500 million 4G users, that’s not only reliable but also very cheap, in comparison to first-world nations. Moreover, the exposure to crypto has encouraged people to want to learn more about how the global monetary system works, and how digital assets are disrupting traditional financial systems.  All of this comes despite mixed signals from an Indian government that seems to constantly flip-flop on its policy towards crypto. In June, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told parliament that the Reserve Bank of India had expressed doubts about crypto’s “destabilizing effect” on the country’s monetary and fiscal stability, and was recommending that lawmakers frame legislation around the industry, if not an outright ban.  “RBI is of the view that cryptocurrencies should be prohibited,” Sitharaman told India’s parliament.  At the same time though, India’s Ministry of Finance has been at the forefront of a push to establish laws and regulations around crypto that would make it possible for institutional investors to fund blockchain startups more easily. It is also said to be in the midst of formulating a policy that will put the country at the forefront of Web3 development. Progress appears to have been made here, with the launch in August of a new India Blockchain Forum, an industry group made up of prominent Indian blockchain firms that have the support of Hyderabad’s local government. Hyderabad is noted as the second-largest tech hub in India. The forum has established a ten-point agenda that includes the development of a homegrown blockchain stack, more regularity clarity and assistance for blockchain startups, and creating a talent pool of blockchain developers.  Startups Raising Cash Advocates of crypto within India’s government believe that the country can benefit by playing a primary role in the development of blockchain technologies. After all, India is said to boast more than 4.4 million IT workers, 80% of whom are said to be computer programmers. Moreover, these IT workers contributed around $180 billion, or approximately 7% of the country’s gross domestic product, to the economy in 2020. It means India has an extremely large talent pool that it can tap into to pursue its ambitions in the thriving Web3 economy.  Entrepreneurs across India are taking the lead, and the country has emerged as a hotbed of crypto startup activity in the past couple of years. Moreover, it has attracted some big investments too. Some of the biggest deals include SoftBank’s mammoth $450 million investment in the Polygon blockchain scaling solution, and CoinDCX’s huge $136 million raise in April. There are plenty of smaller startups raising cash too, such as the treasury management platform Coinshift, which bagged $15 million in funding last May, at a time when the crypto industry was still reeling from the crash of the TerraUSD stablecoin.  It’s not just about the money though, as there are a number of unique Indian projects and startups that are bringing real utility into the local crypto economy. For a long time, crypto’s utility has been seen as a speculative investment or, perhaps, a semi-stable store of value. That’s changing as crypto-focused social media apps like Chingari and Taki give people real reasons to want to buy, sell, earn and spend their cryptocurrency tokens.  Giving Crypto Purpose  Chingari has taken India by storm with its TikTok-like video sharing app. It has become one of the most popular social media apps in the country, ranked number one for downloads on Google Play. One of the reasons for its popularity is that it’s building a unique creator economy with crypto at its heart. With Chingari’s GARI mining program, users and creators can earn GARI tokens - the platform’s native cryptocurrency - by creating videos, sharing them, liking and commenting on others. The GARI tokens can then be sold on a crypto exchange, giving app users a way to earn a passive income.  Chingari provides greater utility through NFTs too. Its recently announced Creator Cuts NFT marketplace enables creators to “tokenize” their most popular videos as NFTs and sell them to fans. Holders of the NFTs can then earn 10% of the daily GARI rewards that video NFT generates. In this way, Chingari is creating a burgeoning crypto-based economy within its app, and it has plans to extend this by letting users sell physical merchandise and more, directly through the app.  Pursuing a similar idea is the Indian startup Taki, which is promoting the concept of “engage to earn”, where social media users can earn crypto rewards each day by engaging with other users. Taki, which has already seen more than 600,000 users sign up for its waitlist, has raised $3.45 million in funding Solana Ventures CoinDCX, OKX Blockdream Ventures, and others “We are pioneering a new #EngageToEarn model where casual users can earn crypto for just showing up and consuming content, interacting with friends, and making new friends, just as they normally would,” Taki wrote on a Medium post. What’s special about Taki is that both creators and casual users have the opportunity to earn rewards. Creators will be able to receive tips from their followers, and even create and sell their very own cryptocurrency. Moreover, the app has designed a unique “tip-sharing” mechanic known as Gold Taki, which allows popular creators to sell a share of the revenue their posts create. In this way, fans can invest in the future earnings potential of their favorite creators.  Crypto is also promoting a new economic model for video games. Rush Gaming Universe is an Indian-built mobile blockchain games platform that enables players to earn a passive income. At present, it offers ten games on its platform where players can battle against each other in 2-player or 4-player games. In the future it will add newer game formats, including 1,000-player tournaments and clan battles, enabling players to earn even bigger rewards than are currently possible.  Players can compete against each other while wagering on the outcome with the RUSH token, which represents the economic value of the network. With the RUSH that they earn, players can then invest in NFTs to upgrade their game characters and make them more powerful, boosting their earnings potential in the process.  Through its platform, Rush Gaming Universe has already whipped up an impressive crypto gaming economy that was generating more than $50 million in gross annual recurring revenue by January 2022.  Widespread Adoption On The Way By giving cryptocurrency more of a purpose, these Indian startups are helping to generate much greater enthusiasm among Indians to hold and use digital assets. No longer is crypto only seen as an investment, or an easy way to transfer money. With the likes of Chingari, Taki and Rush Gaming, users now have more ways to use their digital assets, giving them more reason to want to own them in the first place.  It’s clear that India is well on the way towards becoming a global hub for all things blockchain, DeFi, GameFi and NFT development, with its level of digital asset adoption threatening to leave other countries in the dust. If that happens it will be a good thing for India, for blockchain has the potential to vastly improve its overall financial infrastructure, attract international capital and create new business and job opportunities for its population. It can potentially transform India into a blockchain powerhouse - in the process helping it to become the first major country in the world where crypto is used by the majority of its people on a daily basis.  Mass adoption is on the horizon, and India will be one of the first to see it. Original Article Here: Read the full article

[starseed-twenty]

🌌Saturn in the Houses✨

Brief summary

Saturn is a planet, a generational planet, that rules structure, discipline, necessary limitations, responsibilities, lessons and karma. Some may describe it as malefic because of the rather 'negative' energy it gives off. Personally, I've grown to seen it as benefic because of the 'end-results' it aims to provide. Sure, it doesn't start off by being good to you and giving things to you nice and easy (like Jupiter does), however - it doesn't just give things bad and gloomy either. For one, it is trying to give you great lessons with the house it is in (by helping you to basically learn the right way and gain experience in the house) for you. And for two, while Jupiter gives an abundance, Saturn gives some restriction - helping you to be able to handle what goes on in the house its in. Because, as we know it, too much of a good thing can be bad. For example, Jupiter in 6th may mean a person finds it nice and easy to maintain work, planning, a schedule, time-management and maintaining a good body. Sweet, right? Well... this person can actually also overwork themselves sometimes, and be a little bit obsessed with their body too, and become critical of others because of their (the people's) work & planning, since they (the person) know how to maintains theirs. So... 😬 Jupiter isn't completely a good planet, and Saturn isn't completely a bad planet either. In a lowkey way, they're Yin & Yang. There's a bit of good in Saturn, in the same way there's a bit of bad in Jupiter too. Now... On to individual houses.

- This can also apply to transits -

🌌 1st House :

You may experience issues with the way you see yourself, your life and perhaps the way people perceive you. You feel like they have constantly either made fun of you or said inappropriate, harsh things, or they see you in a way you don't see yourself. Or even other times, you feel like you've done or said the wrong things, or live life in a bad way because it's not the 'normal' way people live, leading you to become critical with yourself. So you may be fighting some battles internally at times. On the other hand... The good news is that this does not last forever. As much as you feel like it does. Because as you grow, somehow you find yourself becoming more confident, more happier and feeling not the need to prove yourself to anyone and anything anymore. So, with time, Saturn teaches you how to be good to yourself and do good for yourself.

🌌 2nd House : 

You may experience a lot of financial issues (money, savings, material gain/possessions and assets), as well as issues of self-worth, values and resources. These could be in the form of you struggling to have a proper income or money seeming to be a scarce resource for you. You may also even find it hard to save or invest at first. For example, you try to save or invest, but the money has to go somewhere else or it turned out to be a scam. Additionally, you struggle internally as well. Your sense of self-worth or self-esteem fluctuates quite often, but most of the time it's lower than normal and this is because Saturn makes it hard to see/have value in not only capital gains, but yourself too. The lesson for you in this life is to learn how to comprehend value in tangible things as well as your self-worth the right way so as you do not take these for granted. So, the good news is that as time goes, you will be able to accumulate (a huge chunk 😉 of) these gains, and appreciate yourself more than you ever have.

🌌 3rd House : 

You may experience issues with communication and learning, or speaking and being listened to, or with technology/media. This means it can sometimes be a struggle for you to communicate efficiently/assertively at times, or there can be tension when you voice out your opinion. You may also struggle with having a bad rep when it comes to the media and technological things. People may come at you negatively a lot or they just do not understand you at times and think you're rather odd. Saturn in this house tries teach you to appreciate the art of proper communication and being educated (even though it can be through difficulty). So additionally, you can struggle with learning too, whether it's education (school) or work/training. It takes a long minute for you to get it. But the good news... you eventually do. And when you do it's close to perfect. Also, with time, people really understand your ways of communication and perhaps even love it.

🌌 4th House : 

You may experience issues with foundations (starting up anything), family, home/internal environment and ancestral roots. For example, you just happen to keep struggling when it comes to starting up your own little business or form of income (a blog, YT channel, mini job, etc.) and so there's always a delay or it doesn't turn out the way you thought it would. You may also have problems with your family or home environment more often than normal, something that they do that upsets or has upset you or something you do that upsets them and so it raises conflict between you quite often. But, the good news.... eventually, the issues will die down with effective communication and healing, and the bond will become even closer. Or, that foundation for that business/income will eventually be properly set up and exceed your expectations.

🌌 5th House : 

You may experience issues when it comes to your peers/friends or the people you vibe with (short-term dating), creative endeavours, children or maintaining hobbies. One or more of these is not something you find easy to connect with. For example, the people you get to know or start to vibe with may eventually start acting weird or the connection between you guys doesn't end up the way you thought it would. Additionally, your friends or peers are people who may not understand you at times... so getting along with people at first can be hard. As well as some creative endeavours, such as finding it within you to do artsy stuff or going bold with themes, colours, words, etc. The good news though... is that as time goes, you surpass the need to understand why this is and be hurt by it, but simply love your inner-self more, until  good people, friends and lovers start gravitating towards you. You also start to connect with your creative side, hobbies, and children more.

🌌 6th House : 

You may experience issues with time management and planning. You find yourself either being too early or too late for something, for example; an appointment, an event, or a project due. This (issue with time management) may also manifest into you struggling with completing tasks a lot of the time. But this may be more when you’re just growing up rather than when you’re older and have established the ability to take control of your time and complete tasks. You may also experience issues with your diet or body's health, so you may be someone who either eats too much or doesn't eat enough, or having some kind of body condition. But the good news... the problems do eventually fade away. You will find yourself loving your body and being content with your state. Plus, you eventually perfect the skill of  planning and time-management (with much discipline unfortunately).

🌌 7th House : 

You may experience issues with people around you, or partnerships you're involved in. For example, people seemingly going behind your back or treating you weird even though don't really do bad to them. People just suddenly find a way to be weird and take your kindness for an advantage, which then makes you have rocky relationships with them. As well as with relationships or partnerships, you can sort of struggle with the people you're in these with. They may hurt you or do something shady and you don't even understand why. But, on a brighter side... you do eventually find the right people and right someone who will do very good by you and it will end there. You'll never be hurt again. They will give the perfect love, respect and kindness you deserve. But only after you've learnt the lesson of not trusting too easy.

🌌 8th House : 

You may experience issues with either death, sex/sexuality, changes or transformations, or debt. Or maybe even all. This house is a rather sad one to have Saturn in unfortunately, because a lot of people I know who have this particular placement may feel or see life in a gloomy state, but they do try their best to have hope it gets better. But overall, the issues they encounter may feel like burdens a lot of the time. Such as, for example, their sexuality. They may be surrounded  by homophobic people, whereas their sexuality is one they are still trying to define properly because they can be stuck in being open about who they really are. Or, another example: people who have debt almost all their lives - or just something to owe (money, a job/task, an asset, etc.) because of the continuous struggles they go through. Good news though... is that this all ends eventually. They do find ways or fall on to paths that make it easier for them to live comfortably and not stress too much anymore. And when they do, they become way more optimistic about life.

🌌 9th House : 

You may experience issues with higher learning/knowledge, travelling or long journeys, foreign lands, or law & religion. This may be in ways where you don't connect with other, different cultures, religious endeavours or laws easily. You may have your own interpretations or understandings and they perhaps don't agree with these. Also, travelling far or going to 'exotic'/foreign places does become weird for you, or you don't get to do it as much as you've wanted to. And (this one may be random), you could experience issues with getting taught or finding the right teachers. You're keen on learning, but getting the right understandings doesn't happen the way you thought it would. However, in due time, you do become set on getting the right knowledge and perfect understanding on things (including cultures, religions, laws, etc.) and find yourself in tune with long journeys and exotic places.

🌌 10th House : 

You may experience issues with your public image/status, career, how you work, what we are working/have worked towards and long-term goals. So, you see how the 4th house (opposite house) is about foundations, developments, and the home environment... The 10th house is more or less the opposite of that; the external/public environment and successes through developments & foundations. Having Saturn in this house can then mean you struggle seeing your successes and end-results of your foundations come to life the way you want to (at first), as well as your public image or reputation/status can fluctuate or you (or other people) tend to see it in a bad light. This is not the case for long though. As time goes, your 'tarnished' reputation starts to heal and people then see and admire your work and success. Greatly so, that you become almost iconic. You also eventually fall in love with your image too.

🌌 11th House : 

You may experience issues with the community or large masses, organizations, social groups, social media/technology, global connections and perhaps even successes in your hopes & dreams. So for quite a while, people as a collective may be quite disconnected with you and either radiate negative energy towards you or no energy at all, to which you don't understand because you don't really do anything too wrong and would like positivity. This can also be a time, if it's a transit, that a good reputation is something you have to work hard towards because people have seen you the wrong way for some or other reason.  At the same time, it can be a tad bit difficult for you shine through social settings, social groups, social media and technology the way you want to. Your hopes and wishes can be dimmed, though you keep attempting to let them shine. At the end of it though (as Saturn eventually provides structure), you start to align with these social endeavours, and your hopes & wishes do start to radiate greatly to the point of you looking pretty lucky.

🌌 12th House : 

You may experience issues with connections to the subconscious, spiritual gifts/dreams, fears, healing, confinement, as well as perhaps abandonment/imprisonment/isolation issues. Saturn in the 12th house usually breeds people who are pretty shy, isolated or have a bit of trust issues. They can also be people who grow up heavily be in tune with routines or organized things, structure and wanting to have (or focused on) clear understandings of things. If you have Saturn in this house, it can become really hard for you to understand the concept of hidden things, karma, intuition-based ideologies at first (though you do constantly try and makes sense of these). You can also be suffering from a bit of closure/healing, but it's also something you don't know how to make sense of. So you may be hurting a lot inside, but will try to avoid it or make it seem as though it's not deep. But what Saturn does at the end of it all is allow you to see light in healing, connecting with higher entities and spiritual guides and gaining closure for your mental and emotional health. So you suddenly find it easy to tap in to the subconscious and become almost a master at understanding spiritual endeavours.

Side-note : The weird thing (and perhaps even sad thing) I've noticed about Saturn though, is that it possesses some sort of energy that doesn't allow you to give up on the issues it provides. So, while you may feel like you struggle with these issues... you can't give in to not caring about them or brushing them under the carpet. They appear within a minute and you're lowkey addicted to trying to fix these issues. For example, a person with a Saturn in 12th house : They probably struggle with dreams, understanding things beyond reality, spirituality, healing and all things subconscious. However, they simply find themselves always wondering about this whole 'spirituality' thing and trying their best to understand it. So while they may avoid it because of the huge struggle that comes with it, they revert back to trying to dream a bit more, heal, be in touch with spirituality, etc. Until eventually, they get it so right that they're lowkey experts.

💖💖💖

[foolzstar]

PLEASE elaborate on your glitchtechs ninjago au !!

SURE!!

so this is unpolished as fuck because i only just thought of the au this afternoon so i apologise if this doesn't make much sense for now, feel free to ask for me to explain more or something if you need me to!!

So its basically just the concept to glitchtechs being shoved onto ninjago, hinobi tech becomes borg industries and borg, whilst a seemingly friendly enough guy is very much more of an unseen higher power like how the guys who run the company (at least as of right now) are in glitch techs.

The system that borg has is pretty much the same that hinobi has, borg industries has several shops across ninjago that sell products whilst also dealing with glitches behind closed doors, all specifically located at or near gaming/population hotspots for easy access to the glitches.

the ninja are all part of the same store together, each of them having their own specialties. the au wouldnt necessarily have a main focus but if i were to give roles for who five and mikos replacements are it would be jay and nya, despite their varying dynamics.

the elemental alliance show up at points in the au as glitch techs from other stores that face off/ have a bit of a friendly rivalry with the ninjas store

none of them have their elemental powers, BUT their fighting styles would definitely be influenced by them, eg, zane using freeze bubbles to stun glitches and long range weapons whereas kai uses very short range weapons and probably got a fire breath power up at some point.

the digiverse and prime empire would probably have a major role in the show, the digiverse acting almost like a cloud for all the games that borg tech releases, and prime empire being one of the games that gets released mid story and causes a bunch of problems in terms of glitches and other stuff. i also like the idea of including the idea of jays bio mum being the powersource for prime empire that was scrapped by the show itself, im not sure how id do it yet but i have a few ideas that i might talk about once theyre a bit more fleshed out.

now to the ideas lightning round!!

x cole is their manager despite being only like a year older than most of his co workers and gets an insane amount of joy from pissing off karens who asked for the manager only for his weed smoking dumb ass to show up like "wassup kiddos"

x zane is still a nindroid in this au, his memoriy cant be wiped using the normal memory wiping beams and so he followed the glitch techs back to their base and kinda just stuck around. cole, who was the one to supposedly wipe his memory, is kinda like "what the fuck u remember" and demanded answers which is how they found out that hes a robot.

x half the team find zane really scary at first because hes literally a 6ft3 hunk of metal with no tact at all

x all of zanes gaming avatars have pink incorperated into the outfit in some way

x jay once challenged zane and lloyd to a dance dance revolution battle, they all had the most extravagant avatars made to look like vocaloids. it was the most ott thing ever and the competition lasted an entire day. lloyd won.

x lloyds specialty is the companions, he loves working with them and has a green salamander that sits on his head 24/7

x kai joined the team after nya, expecting it to just be a regular retail job and promptly freaks out over the fact that he has to fight giant kaiju monsters from video games. he rants about it to skylor at the end of his first day and she just laughs and says "you know, if i didnt already know about all this, youd be in big trouble"

x karlof is the manager for another area and him and cole are besties that have a scoreboard keeping track of how many glitches theyve managed to take down by themselves

x pixal takes on the role as bitt and likes to just stomp around the office in her massive fighting suit for fun.

thats all for now but i will be adding more as time goes on because this au is honestly so fun for me, ive been having a blast so far just thinking of the different games to include as well as just the lore!! because season 2 of glitch techs kinda left on a major cliff hanger so we dont know much of the specific lore ive kinda been building this on my own assumptions for what could happen lore-wise as well as just having fun with the goofy work-family aspect of it ^^

[doorbloggr]

Friday 8/4/22 - Media Recommendations #31

Very slowly, over the course of the last couple months, I've been watching a show called Little Witch Academia, and as of a couple days ago, I finished it.

With more free time coming up, hopefully next week I'll have more to recommend, but for now, let's talk about Little Witch Academia.

Little Witch Academia

Studio Trigger

Studio Trigger is an animation team that has earned its reputation as THE over the top giant robot and monsters action studio. With series such as Kill la Kill and Darling in the Franx in recent times, and from its predecessor studio Gainax, Gurren Lagann and Neon Genesis Evangelion. So what would happen if they tried a small scale story about learning morals, being humble, and magic? You'd get Little Witch Academia.

Little Witch Academia follows the story of Atsuko (Akko) Kagari, a girl in her early teens who is just starting her story at Luna Nova, a magic school for little witches to grow into esteemed spellcasters. Unlike most students at the the academy, Akko does not come from a line of magic users, and this seems to put her behind in many areas of magical aptitude. But she perseveres, aiming to become like her childhood hero, a showy witch called Shiny Chariot, who most of the magic world now looks back on as an outcast.

Akko has a knack for finding trouble, and through the help of Sucy, Lotte, and other friends of hers, they start turning the world of magic on its head. The girls make the world a more exciting place, while learning more about themselves and what it takes to become a master of magic.

I didn't think of this comparison before, but a friend suggested to me that Little Witch Academia is a unique approach to the Harry Potter type of story. A world of magic hidden from the greater modern world, that is struggling due to internal conflicts. But while the message of Harry Potter is... I don't know?? Make friends? The message of LWA is to keep trying in spite of adversity, and challenge established conventions to find your own path. Whereas the character of Harry Potter is talented in spite of his non magical upbringing, Akko is always several steps behind, and has to try harder than everyone else to succeed (often leading her to look for shortcuts). Although magical higher powers have greatness in mind for her, she still has to learn her lessons to get there.

Many of this studio's stories seem more like grand scale coming-of-age epics, but despite being their only series to explicitly explore magic, Little Witch Academia is very grounded. This series would appeal more to younger audiences, and it often feels like a classic Saturday morning cartoon. Arcs are contained within single episodes, and immediate conflicts are about bullies, homework, and boys. There are overarching plots that tie together later in the series, but it is definitely an overall more approachable series.

While it is a mostly smaller scale story than Trigger's other work, the series still has that same wild flowy animation true to the studio. Character designs are all very unique and fun, and movements are dynamic, and cute, and exciting. Studio Trigger does not shy away from showing off their expertise in giant monsters (and even robots) in this series. The audio is also a unique touch. Instead of the pop/rock music expected of the studio, it has more of a early 20th century Disney fairytale movie vibe. A real soft fantasy mood.

Little Witch Academia is a cute little story about believing in yourself. Because believing is the strongest magic of all. Give it a watch on Netflix as soon as you can.

[angstyaches]

Hey! Here’s the headache request #2 lol

Charlie or shayne (this feels more like Charlie to me, but whatever you feel like!) with an awful headache that is absolutely killer, and it’s lay-on-the-floor-of-the-bathroom-with-the-lights-out-and-cool-washcloth-over-the-forehead-time, except the other one doesn’t know that quite yet until they find them in pain and puking their absolute guts up, which cues lots of gentle caretaking, soft comforting whispers, and maybe camping out on the floor together until the poor kid is able to get some sleep and wake up feeling a little better.

Again, I'm so sorry for losing your original request! I didn't quite make it to the sleep/feeling better, because I felt it come to a natural end.

Word Count: 1458

CW: headache, emeto, demon possession, character needs help moving.

___

He gasped deeply, swallowing back a howl of pain. His stomach was lurching under his ribs, unable to still itself under the amount of pressure that radiated from his left temple.

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt so much that he couldn’t believe this was real, he couldn’t believe he’d ever known a time when his head hadn’t felt like it was being drilled into.

With clammy hands, Charlie felt around on the floor for the wet cloth that he’d been holding against his head before the vomiting had set in. It’d been his second course of action, after downing some ibuprofen (which were now swimming in the toilet drain), and before killing the bathroom light. He finally found it and dragged it towards himself, pressing it to his head and holding it up with an elbow on the toilet seat. Usually, he’d have shuddered in dread at the thought of putting a cloth on his face if it had just been sitting on the bathroom floor, but there was no room for pickiness now.

Besides, he was sure the floor had been washed that week. Yeah. Maybe.

An unproductive retch made his throat clench and forced his jaw open. He was almost relieved to think that he was nearing empty; once the nausea passed, he could focus on becoming a reclining statue on the floor again. Most annoying was the fact that the puking was a result of the headache, but was also making it worse.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the demon CT mumbled, Human bodies make no sense.

“Charlie, you okay?” That was a voice from the real world, specifically from the other side of the bathroom door. “You’ve been gone ages.”

Before he could even entertain the idea of responding, thick chunks rolled up Charlie’s throat and into the water. He dreaded to even begin to think what those chunks once contained.

“Charlie…?”

Before Charlie could protest, CT’s telekinesis kicked it and unlocked the bathroom door. Shit, he thought, flinching at the sound of the door clicking open. He yanked the cloth down over his eyes, desperate to keep his eyes covered.

“Don’t turn on the light,” Charlie hissed, feeling the demon’s energy kicking in to replace that which he’d already lost from his own body. The effort of talking was so intense, like every word was a kick to the inside of his skull with a steel-toed boot. He barely mumbled out a groan as he pushed himself upwards, his whole body thrusting back and forth lightly with the repeated spasms that went through his tummy.

“You’re sick?” Shayne mumbled, clicking the door shut slowly and cutting off the light from the landing.

“Mmhmm…” Charlie reckoned Shayne had figured it out hours ago, despite his best efforts to appear cheerful during the evening. It wasn’t often that Elliott and Felix made the trip out to Mulberry, and the last thing Charlie had wanted was for anyone to be worried about him. “Headache… bad one.”

As expected, Shayne let out a sigh. “You should’ve said something…”

“Please don’t yell at me,” Charlie gasped, saliva running down his chin as he hovered about the toilet seat.

“This is literally as quiet as I can –” Shayne shut himself up with a soft grunt. He knelt beside Charlie. It was obvious that he intended on rubbing his back while he continued to heave over the toilet, but Charlie had other intentions now that his boyfriend was here.

And by boyfriend, he meant human pillow.

The tiles were freezing as he lowered himself to the ground again. He’d sweat so much more since he’d started throwing up, and his clothes were a little damp and felt disgusting against his skin.

He didn’t really care about the rest of his body, though, as long as he could lay his head in Shayne’s lap. Shivers ran down his back, direct waves of tension that trickled down from his skull.

Charlie whined, low in his throat, as Shayne brushed his hair back from his forehead and laid the cloth across it. His fingers moved slowly and gently as always. It was as though Shayne believed Charlie’s skull was made of eggshell, and that it might have cracked and collapsed inwards if it was put under any serious amount of pressure.

Whereas honestly, it felt more like his head might crack from the pressure coming from the inside.

Even as he was lying still, Charlie felt like his head was being wrenched to the side, as though he was nailed to a turntable that was set spinning slowly. Only the sensation of Shayne playing with his hair kept him somewhat grounded, and even that didn’t feel like nearly enough.

“Just cut it off.” His voice was getting higher as time went on, like he was an old tea kettle slowly coming to the boil. “I want it gone, just – just chop it off.”

Shayne frowned. “Your hair?”

“My fucking head!”

“Sssshhhh…” Shayne’s fingertips glided down the nape of Charlie’s neck. In contrast to the light touch, Charlie could feel his own muscles tensing up, hard as rocks. Every inch of his body was reacting to the pain which, in itself, only really took up about one inch of his skull. "It's okay."

“It's not! I hate this,” he whimpered.

“I know...”

A low groan from the pit of his stomach alerted him to the fact that the convulsions were traveling through his insides again, and he choked on a sob. His head was still in pain after laying it in Shayne’s lap, but it was the most comfortable he’d been in ages. He didn’t want to get on his knees again and lose even more of his dinner.

His chest tightened with a hiccup. Shayne cupped a hand around his shoulder, ready to help him back up.

Charlie tried to hum in protest, but squeezed his lips together upon tasting acid on his tongue. His spine jerked him forward, curling him up even tighter. The cloth dropped off of his forehead again, but this time Shayne grabbed it before it could sit on the tiles for too long.

“Charlie –”

“I c-can’t, I can’t sit up!” He clapped a hand over his lips as his stomach clenched again.

“I’m so sorry, Charlie, just remember I love you.”

“Wh-wha –?” The floor suddenly seemed to tilt in the opposite direction, or maybe it was entire fucking planet, because Charlie suddenly didn’t know which way was up or down. He felt Shayne pulling his arm up around the back of his neck, dragging him to his knees and draping him over the toilet seat. Charlie could barely see for the stars exploding in his vision, but when sickly liquid clawed its way up his throat, he heard it hit another body of liquid at the bottom of the bowl. “Fuck…”

“You’re okay,” Shayne whispered, right next to his face. Charlie’s chin was practically resting on his shoulder. His arm was draped over Shayne’s other shoulder, like he was injured and being dragged off the battlefield.

He felt another wave of nausea bubble up under his ribs, his stomach letting out an uneasy gurgle. Charlie shut his eyes as a mouthful of bile stung his throat before cascading out of him. Needles of white-hot pain shot through his head.

A gentle knock on the door sounded like an elephant being dropped on the landing.

“Fuck – what?” Shayne hissed, turning his head to project his voice away from Charlie’s delicate eardrums.

“Is everything okay?” a voice asked from the other side of the door. Sounded like Felix. “Do you… need anything?”

Part of Charlie wanted to beg for some more ibuprofen to kill the agony in his head, but another wrenching pain in his gut told him it wouldn’t stay down this time either. He heard Shayne hesitate, probably having the same realisation.

“Water might be good,” Shayne said back.

“Blanket,” Charlie choked out softly. He had a horrible feeling he wouldn’t be moving from the tiles for a long time yet.

Shayne sighed again, rubbing a hand along Charlie’s spine. “And the blanket from the sofa, Fee.”

After chucking up another sliver of whatever was still in his stomach, Charlie turned his head and nuzzled into the hollow between Shayne’s shoulder and neck. His body would have crumpled to the ground if it hadn’t been practically tangled up with Shayne’s.

“P-please don’leave me,” he mumbled, realising his was slurring his words.

“Love,” Shayne whispered, sighing in the way he did that let Charlie know he’d just said something mildly infuriating. He wrapped an arm around Charlie’s waist and pulled him even closer, taking even more of his weight now that the sporadic vomiting seemed to have stopped. For now. “I’d never dream of it.”

[dreamingsnowflake2013]

Throughout S2, Nakyum's appeared in an elavated position during their intimate moments as the power in this relationship gradually shifted. Now, the role reversal is complete in chapter 71 as Seungho deliberately places Nakyum above himself both literally and figuratively. It's Nakyum who ultimately becomes the more powerful in this relationship because he owns SH's heart and holds it in the palm of his hand. It's a heart SH gave him willingly.

While Seungho realized the hard way his feelings for NK and confessed them to him on multiple occassions, Nakyum is still very much in denial. He tries so hard to avoid admitting that he is in love, finding so many excuses  that his feelings are only the result of random coincidences. He was hurt so much by his one-sided love for Inhun that he tries hard not to fall in love even though it's already way too late because he's fallen for Seungho a long time ago.  He's deluding himself and this inability to admit genuine affection out loud to SH might become a source of conflict between them in the future as SH gets hurt more and more by the notion that Nakyum might not love him not matter what he does and how hard he tries.  Right now, there is a huge conflict inside Nakyum between what he feels and what he thinks he feels and unless he solves these conflicted emotions, it will bring him and SH only pain.

This is the moment Nakyum's two braincells exploded and his brain turned to mush - the mighty Lord Yoon telling him that he will listen to his wishes and needs.The moment Seungho places NK's foot on his cock underwater might be fleeting but the meaning behind it is huge. It may seem kinky, but it's SH once again putting himself into a submissive and vulnerable position literally lying himself by NK's feet and making NK the dominant one. When Seungho places Nakyum's foot on his cock, he is saying: "Look how hard you've made me. I desire you", making it clear how much he wants NK, but at the same time he asks NK for permission and gives him a choice to say no.  It's a heady combination for NK.

The picture of Seungho kneeling and lying himself bare, heart, body and soul, his eyes imploring and pleading, by Nakyum's feet shown via NK's POV and his narration perfectly encapsuletes and symbolizes the current state of their relationship and its power dynamic.

Chapter 1 of S2 contained the foreshadowing of what's going to happen. There is always a piece of truth in the rumours and it's as if the gossips came true as Seugho finally treats Nakyum as his real fianceé - with respect, love and care, carrying him in his robe.

Seungho kisses Nakyum at every opportunity, he can't bear not to kiss him. He is giving Nakyum all the kisses his lovers asked for previously but which SH denied him when he thought NK ran away. He loves to kiss Nakyum and gains pleasure from NK's pleasure. It's obvious that Seungho is making this all about Nakyum and his pleasure,but he is also getting pleasure of his own - it's in the way he kisses NK whenever he can, how he swallow everything drop of his cum, how he savours the taste of his skin and insides,...

Swallowing his partner's cum is obviously something Seungho doesn't usually do nor did previously enjoy, but now he is swallowing Nakyum's as if it were the most delicious treat. That's why Nakyum is so shocked.  The journey on which Seungho starts off as a selfish man whose enjoyment, hurt feelings and pride are more important than his partner's happiness and pleasure only to become a selfless and giving lover is so satisfying, rewarding and riveting to watch.

 Also,  Yoon Seungho really went there and gave Nakyum a blowjob straight from his own personal textbook. Only the best for his lover. The man is a legend and extra af.

It's the memory of Seungho's voice and eyes looking at him together with his loving mouth sucking him that make Nakyum ultimately cum. Seungho is Nakyum's ultimate aphrodisiac.

Nakyum touches Seungho's body and cock not because he'd feel required to but because he wants to touch SH, to explore his body and give back.  When Seungho looks at Nakyum after he touches his cock, Nakyum doesn't look away or take his hand away in shame or doubt. He might be blushing but there is only excitement, desire, love and anticipation in his eyes. He is the picture of shy bravery and confidence.

It's Seungho who's breathless, flinching, surprised, barely holding onto his control and more affected. A shy touch from Nakyum makes Seungho powerless. His blush might not be as pronouced as Nakyum's but his ears are red. One of the reasons why Seungho takes Nakyum's hand away is that the moment he would allow him to touch him he would lose even the last bits of control, succumbing to NK's innocent and adorable seduction.

Not only does Seungho admit that he's wronged Nakyum in many ways, he vows to make amends but most importantly,  even though he says a noble can't bow to a lowborn, he purposefully places NK on the furniture and literally kneels before him, worshipping his body.

It's hilarious how the POTN fans were writing fanfics and expecting Nakyum to start calling SH "Seungho-ya", only for Seungho to say "hold my soju" and go "Lord Nakyum" on all of us, basically elevating his lover to nobility. Seungho most likely never called any of his former lovers, who were all actual lords, by the "lord" title which shows how special and important NK is to SH that he would even throw away his pride that was instilled in him since birht, making NK one of a kind.

Not only does Seungho call NK "Lord Nakyum", he also uses the formally polite speech (hasipsio-che) which is a higher level of politeness used, among other things, by lowborns to speak to nobles. You typically hear it in sageuk kdramas and it's these two characters "니다" =nida.

For all his flaws, Seungho has always been the best choice for Nakyum due to his intelligence, lack of respect for traditions and his rebellion against social rules because those qualities allow him to treat him and love him Nakyum deserves. The way SH's treated NK until now (calling the doctor,allowing him to eat with him,...) has been him instinctively trying to treat NK as his equal,his real and proper lover so him calling NK a lord and listening to his wishes is the culmination of that.

Painter of the Night features twin moments which echo each other-parallels,visual and narrative,that show NK's and SH's relationship at its worst & how it gradually grows and blossoms. Seungho dresses NK in the same cloak he wore months ago, symbolizing the role reversal and change. Back then he was angry that Nakyum tried to run away from him with Inhun and mad from jealousy. He mistreated him and used his body to stake his claim which ultimately led to Nakyum falling ill. Whereas now, he is worshipping NK's body, making amends for wrongly accusing NK of leaving him and later punishing him for it, asking for forgiveness and making Nakyum's welbeing and pleasure his priority. Both scenes look like a mirror image of each other but at the same time everything is different and that's one of the many things which make Byeonduck such an incredible artist and storyteller -her singular ability to tell stories and convey her characters' emotions with her art.

Does it ever drive you crazy just how fast the night changes?

[skulljackxiii]

Total Dangan Island

Contestant No. 1.5: Izuru Kamukura

History: He came from an unremarkable home with unremarkable parents with a lifestyle that wasn’t either tragic or rewarding, therefore of course a child of this background would be nothing special. Early in his childhood the boy knew this, he knew what he could do and what other people saw him as, so he felt why bother striving for things higher if he was already expected to be average. Despite the boy's content with his life, his parents were quite the opposite, they wanted more from him. This goes beyond just parents wanting their child to have a better future out of love, rather there was more of an underlying sense of greed and envy behind their motive.

Just like their son, they were unremarkable people that came from an ordinary background, but rather accepting who they were, they wanted more. Both of them despised losing, and others even more that were gifted that could achieve things that they couldn’t. They craved acknowledgement and valor more than anything that would make them stand out and could be used to exploit their superiority onto others. But they were not deluded from reality, they knew that they didn't have the capabilities to be rewarded anything. So their next big plan was to have a child, by raising a special child that could accomplish their dreams and more, that would ultimately lead them achieving the biggest reward that any parent would want. In their minds, every parent wanted to have a child that was special or had a unique talent to them that could be used for their own benefits and almost as a desired object that most others could only ever dream of having. But their grand scheme was demolished as soon as their son was born which was just like them, unremarkable.

Years later, both parents refused to accept the truth and persistently forced the boy  to practice, study, and train until they discovered what he was talented at. This was all the boy knew in his home; his face in books, exercising with various weights, and most noticeable of all was the disappointed faces of his parents who consistently berated him with lectures and complaints about him and all his flaws. This routine became so consistent that the boy became numb to it all and just saw it as part of his everyday life.

The boy always questioned why his parents were so desperate and acted the way they did, but he held no resentment towards them or anyone else. Though that didn’t mean that he wanted to uphold what they wanted or held himself in higher regards either. However, that was until he discovered this autobiography by an author that soon became this boy’s idol.

In the book it talks about how the author came from an ordinary and mundane household who was consistently underestimated and belittled by others due to his status and upbringings, but later became someone that could accomplish so much that most men could only dream of. It went onto further details that through his determination, hard work, and wit he was able to pass and overcome all challenges and diversities that came his way, thus discovering that he had innate talents that excelled in many categories. Then finally, it states that in his final moments he wanted to build an institution for young talents and give them opportunities that he was never given when he was younger. After finishing the book, the boy became infatuated with the author and adopted principles that reflected the author’s values. He soon treated the autobiography as his bible and uses it at times to help remind him of the tales of his hero that he wishes to be…”Izuru Kamukaura”.

With a fire lit in him and motivation driven to be like his idol, the boy sat down and seriously studied and trained in order to be the best. With days, weeks, and months pass by, the boy’s effort was unwavering and continued onward without stopping. His parents took notice of his change and their demeanor lightened after taking credit for their son’s sudden growth and change in attitude.

After his nonstop assault with his hard work, he finally saw results and was placed first in every academic category in his grade. Once he saw that, he felt completely different and was overwhelmed with joy after all his hard work paid off, but those feelings were nothing compared to the ones he felt once his parents found out about his results.

Despite knowing them his entire life and seeing them everyday, on that day the boy saw his parents as complete strangers to him once they knew of his achievements. Their mannerism and demeanor changed, and they showered him with praise and love for the first time in that boy’s life. The feeling was unreal to him, it was a warmth inside the boy’s chest that he never felt before in his whole life. As he continued watching his parents continue to embrace him with big bright smiles on their faces, the boy cried tears of joy and let it run down his face like a waterfall. That marked the moment when the boy knew that he wanted to preserve this feeling and maintain his parent’s affections.

As time moved forward and the boy continued his pace, his results remained in the top with no change in its order. Soon not only his parents, but teachers, relatives, and even other parents started showering the boy with praise like, “You’re amazing”, “Other kids should be like you”, “I wish my kid was like you”, and “You’re a role model”. But the praises that the boy would hear often and would stick by him the longest were “You’re so talented” and “You’re such a genius”. Those words struck the boy’s mind and filled him with such pride and confidence since those were the exact same lines used by others to describe his hero. Also the boy’s parents would often brag about their child towards everyone and explained that the boy’s exploits were only possible due to their superior parenting methods. Obviously, arrogant bragging like this would cause strain with other parents and relatives, but they had no room to interject since what they said wasn't entirely wrong. The boy had mixed feelings about what his parents were doing, but in the end he was still happy to see them so energetic and loving towards him.

Though his effort won him the affection of the adults, most of his young peers felt differently. It is because he tries so hard for results and the adults would often compare him to them, other children would feel irritated by his presence alone and start alienating him, even small acts of bullying would occur. But despite all that it didn’t affect the boy that much because he still had some friends left to play with, and his parents explained that those children were acting out due to how jealous they were since they weren’t “talented” or “special” like he was. The boy took all those words he received to heart and used them to help elevate his efforts in achieving his goal of becoming the next “Izuru Kamukura”.

But that wasn't meant to be as the phrase “all good things must come to an end”, rang in the boy’s head once he entered middle school. As soon as the boy set foot in that new school, all his previous achievements and efforts were meaningless once the boy met with real “geniuses” and “talent”, the true elites. His grades and performance kept on falling and falling until he was placed in remedial classes to help him from flunking all his subjects. Just as the boy’s performance dropped, so did everyone’s expectations of him as well. From stares of admiration to glares of disappointment, more and more people started mocking the boy for his wasted effort and even more so towards the parents after years of them bragging of how superior they were for raising such a “talented” son. Once the mockery occurred, the boy’s parents reverted immediately back to the state when the boy was small and younger; cold, disappointed, and full of dismissive complaints. Shocked by the setback, the boy refused to give up and sacrificed any means to get back what he lost. The boy discarded his remaining friends, destroyed his social life, and got rid of any meaningless free-time, all in order to use those remaining times to better himself. Alas nothing changed, the boy’s effort was wasted and not a thing has improved.

Now the boy is back where he started...no, he was in a much worse state than he was before. It’s true that his parents and everyone else around are back to thinking very little of him, but now he was completely alone and he even thinks very little of himself now. After experiencing that warmth from his parents and others, and following the footsteps of someone he admired, the boy can’t help but to feel empty and hatred for himself for not being special or talented. He would start questioning his own worth and see very little value in his own existence. There were times when the boy even thought of ending it all, but he would stop every time when he got these sudden flashes of “Izuru Kamukura” and thought about all the hardships he went through before he could achieve anything. He thanked “Izuru” every time for saving him from himself and giving him the strength to keep it together, but there was this other thought in the back of his mind if it was really right to compare himself to someone like “Izuru Kamukura”. Though he did have to overcome many difficulties, in the end he was actually talented, whereas the boy was not and was just ordinary.

A few years have passed and the boy is now of high school age, he was just another face in the background that had no one by his side. Though the boy didn’t stand out or got in anyone’s way, disdain and mockery still lingered towards him as his old peers still retells the stories about him and his past. With not much to do, all the boy did was get through it all and head straight home. At the end of the day, to no surprise there was no one there, the boy just bolted to his room and got started with his homework. His mind constantly wandered off and dreaded memories of his past, thinking up scenarios of his life where he stood out as “talented” and how content he would be with his life.

One day when the boy was reliving his past, he stumbled upon an online ad that advertised recruitment tryouts for a spinoff show of the infamous series “Total Drama” called “Total Dangan Island”. At first the boy wasn’t interested in the show or the prize since he knew of the show’s predecessor and its dangerous reputation, but there was something that caught the boy’s interest. In the ad it stated that only the top 16 most talented and capable youths of the World would be selected to participate in the contest. At that moment the boy had a sudden flash of realization, if he were to enter and win then everyone in the World, and especially to himself, would have to acknowledge that he truly is talented and special enough in order to beat the best of the best.

Once he finished recording and sending his tape audition, he went on and explained his plan to his parents. Despite the resolve he had for entering the show before, in his mind he was still scared since this show’s predecessor is known to be life threatening and is willing to endanger its participants for ratings by any means. So a part of him was hoping his parents would stop him or warn him that it was too dangerous to go out of concern for him. However they were ecstatic and were ready to pack all his things up, even though he was yet to be even nominated. The chances of him being accepted was between nonexistent to miniscule, the boy begged all his might to be let in.

After months passed by, the boy noticed a strange black and white envelope in his mailbox and tore it open. Upon reading the letter, the boy jumped in celebration as it was a congratulation letter from the show for being a following contestant. After telling the news, the boy’s parents quickly got his things together and was at the door ready to send him off. The boy was overwhelmed with various emotions clashing with one another; from joy, excitement, nervousness, terror, etc., and right before he took another step forward out the door his parents stopped him to say some final words. In the boy’s mind he was hoping to hear the words “We’re so proud of you”, “We love you so much”, or even a “Stay safe”, but all he got was “Make sure you win and get the prize.” After hearing those words, the boy’s emotions calmed down and silently nodded back at his parents in response. The boy then turned forward and walked away, at that point the boy was determined to win at any cost so he could finally put to rest all his fears and doubts and prove to everyone, especially himself, that he is worth at least something.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bio/Extra Info: (Read Previous Bio) Early on in the competition during one of the first Challenges, Hajime and the rest of his team lost one of its members. They all agreed to scatter to go look for her, but there was no luck. It became hopeless until Hajime finally spotted her in the deepest parts of the island. As he went after and finally caught up to her, he noticed that they were at a strange location that was like a gravesite for dangerous and decaying machinery.

It was the Dump Pit, a junkyard area where all Monokuma's prototypes and rejected ideas were all discarded to rot away (obviously this was all done without Monomi's knowing). As he was about to reach out to her, the ledge that they both stood on crumbled. Once they fell and got closer to the site, they landed on this strangely-colored puddle that was leaking from something that looked like a large battery, some in particular landed on Hajime’s eye, and they were covered by this terrible chemical smell that almost seemed like it devoured any clean air surrounding the area. In a panic, both team members quickly got out of the site and escaped from the forest together without any visible harm done to them. After thoroughly inspecting themselves they found nothing that was wrong, at first.

After a course of a few weeks, Hajime’s eye continuously got worse as it became more bloodshot red and throbbing profusely, in which he could receive massive headaches that would cause him to collapse onto the ground. In that state, all his fears and doubts would loop in his head constantly, then during that he would hear a faint voice telling him something. He could never make out what the voice said and at times when he was about to decipher it, the headaches would stop and so would the voice alongside it.

Then one morning when he woke up, he noticed that all the pain was gone though was surprised when he got to a mirror to check his eye. He saw that the pupil of his left eye had completely turned red, upon the mirror he saw a figure standing behind him in the mirror. In a scared panic, he quickly turned around and asked who the stranger was, but as the stranger answered Hajime instantly recognized the voice as the same one in his head from his headaches. The stranger answered that he was Izuru Kamukura, but Hajime had a hard time believing that since Izuru was long dead and that he looked nothing like him. In fact the stranger actually resembled Hajime who dressed up ruggedly as Izuru Kamukura.

Hajime cautiously reached out to this Izuru, but he phased through him and immediately jumped back away from him. When Hajime asked what he was, Izuru took a pause and thought deeply about that question. After a couple seconds, after analyzing all the clues and data from Hajime’s memories, he concluded that he was a separate persona that was conjured by his psyche. As Hajime was dumbstruck to the possibility, Izuru continued theorizing that after being exposed to all that chemical waste has created this strainful chemical imbalance in his brain. The area that was mostly affected was amygdala, which controls fear and anxieties, thus causing all those serious headaches he had up until now.

In order to answer and compensate for all his doubts and anxiety, his psyche has created a whole new personality that embodied all his desires and wishes, thus creating this Izuru Kamukura that stood in front of him. After the explanation, Hajime was taken aback and shocked by what he heard. After that’s been done and over, now all that’s left is for Hajime to decide what he’s going to do with his whole new roommate in his head.

(Hajime’s) Goal: (Read Previous Goal) Same as before.

(Izuru’s) Goal: He is indifferent, he doesn’t care about the game, prize, or anything of that matter. He only acts or takes control over the body only when Hajime requests his help or allows it. Izuru could process images in an instant, has access to 100 percent of his brain, and was in complete control of every single strand of tissue that composed his body. Until Hajime calls for him, he’ll just stand on the side and watch him go through huddles and other challenges. Since Izuru views himself as a perfect being that could do no wrong, which makes his existence boring and meaningless, he finds watching others struggle to achieve their goals, despite their flaws and imperfections, a bit intriguing and entertaining.

[shihalyfie]

An Adventure/02 pseudo-honorifics chart

I’ve mentioned a few times that I maintain an Adventure/02 honorifics chart for the sake of fanfic writing (it’s generally a pretty vital thing to have on hand if you intend to use honorifics in fanwork, or even in fiction at all), and I’ve even mentioned that I’d like to release it someday, but one thing that was always holding me back about it was my constant checks for accuracy -- an acquaintance was also keeping one, and when we compared them we found some minor inconsistencies that would require us to rewatch the entire series with a notepad to get the right references.

After a fashion, I realized that I was scrutinizing this way too closely. The important part is not the specific honorifics themselves but rather the pattern in which they’re used -- especially because they would often alternate in-series, partially intentionally, and partially because they would flip-flop depending on writer. On top of that, most people who would be interested in this are likely writing post-2002 fanfic, where it could be reasonable for certain honorifics to change based on certain relationships.

As such, I’ve decided to just throw out the minutiae, forget about making an organized “chart”, and simply write a general overview of how the twelve Adventure/02 kids use honorifics for each other. Hopefully this can be an interesting resource/meta for those who are considering writing fanfic with these (or even simply due to general interest).

Before we begin, a few notes:

Overall, I am mostly omitting “obvious outlier cases” where a character called someone else something different from usual, but context made it clear why that particular instance was different. (For instance, Miyako trying to butter Daisuke up by calling him “Dai-chan” in 02 episode 8; she very much would not have done this in most circumstances.) I am also not looking too deeply into one-off outlier cases that seem to wildly fall outside the pattern, and seem to merely be the result of whoever was writing that episode/piece of media not checking the chart.

The tri. anime series and tri. stage play actually contradict each other, and given that they’re supposed to take place in around the same period, you basically have to commit to one or the other here. Between the two, the anime series has a number of incursions that go against patterns in ways that make it difficult to form a consistent analysis about it, whereas the stage play is much easier to make a consistent case between 02 and Kizuna (with comparatively much fewer outliers), so in terms of providing actual analysis, I will be prioritizing the latter’s take.

Due to similarly having too many obviously contradictory incursions, 02′s first drama CD (Armor Evolution to the Unknown) is also mostly removed from consideration, with the exception of instances when it’s a factor in an already ambiguous situation.

All twelve Adventure/02 characters are consistently respectful with elders and strangers (with some exceptions; Taichi really wasn’t very amused with Gennai when they first met). The following analysis is important mainly in regards to the kids’ relationships with each other.

I’ll be marking down the first-person pronouns for Digimon partners as well, but for the sake of brevity I’ll be sticking with the “base” forms (Child for everyone except Tailmon, who’s Adult) and not the higher ones.

General overview

A quick crash course on honorifics and how they’re used!

Firstly, there’s first-person pronouns, which, in the scope of fiction, generally are used to indicate a character’s disposition. Note that “one character consistently using one first-person pronoun for nearly every situation” is very endemic to fiction in particular; in real life, one may change their pronoun depending on whom they’re talking to or the context in which they’re speaking, but Japanese fiction is generally much more consistent about using these as consistent points for characterization, even to the point of bringing out pronouns that aren’t practically in use anymore in real life.

The ones generally of importance to the Adventure kids:

ore: Masculine and assertive. Note assertive instead of aggressive; it simply implies being very self-assured, and you can still have a stoic character who uses ore. Since it’s a very casual and somewhat brash pronoun, a character who uses this might still default to something like boku depending on the surrounding circumstances (for instance, Taichi, who normally uses ore, will still use boku when speaking to adults on the phone).

boku: Masculine and deferential/polite.

watashi: Gender-neutral and somewhat deferential/polite. When used by male characters, usually it’s to imply that they’re particularly mature or polite (since otherwise you’d probably expect boku).

atashi: Feminine and casual. The “casual” connotation means that it’s often employed by aggressive or assertive girls in a sort of feminine equivalent to ore, but it can also simply mean that they’re just very girly (see: Mimi).

When referring to each other, honorifics come into play. Honorifics are generally used based on a combination of “comparative level of station” (i.e. whether someone is in a “higher societal position” than you or not -- yes, even a single school grade can matter here!) and “sense of distance” (i.e. whether you are a close friend to the person in question or not). And, of course, there’s also the question of how polite the speaker is in general. These factors do weigh against each other, so that’s why it’d still make sense for two very close friends to use honorifics on each other, if said friends are portrayed as particularly polite in general.

No honorific: Referred to as yobisute in Japanese, this is actually something that merits a category on its own, because it’s something you should only be whipping out when you’re particularly close to the person. This is especially in the case of elders; unless you really do have a close relationship to the elder in question that they can forgive it, you’re being a bit in-your-face and rude for acting like you’re on their level.

-san: The most common honorific, because it’s the one you can generally rely on to default to if you’re not sure and want to be polite. Upward-facing and polite.

-senpai: Similar to -san in that it’s upward-facing and polite, but it has a stronger connotation of “someone who has been in a certain field longer than you have”. Depending on the characters in question and the relevant situation, it and -san can be interchangeable (this happens with the 02 kids and their Adventure seniors, who are both people the 02 kids look up to as people in general and people who are in higher school grade levels and further experience in Digimon-related issues).

-kun: Downward-facing and polite. In this case “downward-facing” simply means that the person you’re addressing is either on the same “societal level” as you or lower on the social ladder; it’s not meant to be used in a condescending sense! (Well, at least, not by default, anyway.) Its use is still considered respectful, especially moreso than dropping the honorific altogether, but it simply means that you’re also not necessarily deferring to the other person being higher than you. On very rare occasions, you could theoretically use it for a senior you consider yourself particularly close with, but this kind of usage never comes into play with the twelve kids in the Adventure universe (its most notable Digimon usage is Appmon’s Haru using it for Rei, who’s one year older than him).

-chan: Endearing and somewhat casual. Often used for younger girls. Because of it having a “cute” implication, it’s the one honorific here that may be advisable to avoid if you want to avoid that implication; it’s not rude per se to be using it, but it’s definitely possible to want to avoid the implications and go for “-san” (despite that normally being upward-facing) or “-kun” (despite that being a bit more formal) instead.

On top of that, it should be noted that there is a difference between calling someone by their surname vs. their given name, mainly in terms of sense of distance -- formality usually dictates prioritizing surname first by default, someone really close with a particular friend can go as far as given name with no honorific, with the other extreme being using surname and adding an honorific. Likewise, “surname with no honorific” can imply a bit of bluntness yet mutual level of comfort in a relationship, while “given name with honorific” can imply politeness but still with a sense of tight friendship and familiarity -- basically, it’s a grey area. Fortunately, in the case of Adventure/02, this only really matters in the case of Ken (and, in one instance, Koushirou).

And finally, note that if two characters call each other a certain way long enough, honorifics can “stick” and even start taking on an “endearing nickname” sentiment -- which is why you might see a phenomenon of people still using honorifics on each other even when their closeness to each other might suggest otherwise. This is pertinent mainly in the case of certain characters who continue calling each other a certain way even after their relationship should suggest that they’ve gotten a lot closer -- the implication being that they’ve called each other that for so long that it feels weird to change now. (Yes, that even includes between dating and/or married couples.)

Incidentally, all Digimon partners (with the exception of Tentomon and Hawkmon, who use -han and -san respectively, and Wormmon, whose single-minded dedication to “Ken-chan” means he really doesn’t talk about anyone else other than a reference to “Izumi Koushirou-san on the phone” in 02 episode 26) simply refer to the humans by given name and no honorific (including humans who aren’t their partners); presumably they’re allowed this due to not being members of Japanese society per se, and therefore not being beholden to its standards.

To wrap this up, here’s a reminder of everyone’s school grade levels in relation to each other, from highest to lowest (note that we don’t actually know anyone’s specific birthdays, so we have to go by school years):

Jou

Taichi, Yamato, Sora

Koushirou, Mimi

Miyako

Takeru, Hikari, Daisuke, Ken

(empty space here)

Iori

Taichi

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Given name, no honorific for the boys (”Yamato”, “Jou”, “Daisuke”, etc.). Uses given name with “-chan” with most younger girls (”Mimi-chan”, “Miyako-chan”), the implication being that he simply treats them casually without being extra blunt or extra polite.

Parents: tou-san and kaa-san (still roughly respectful, but casual enough to drop the respectful o-).

Sora: As he’s known Sora for a while even before the events of Adventure, Taichi simply calls her “Sora” with no honorific.

Mimi: Taichi was known to call Mimi “Mimi-chan” in Adventure, which was consistent with how he called Miyako in 02, but in Kizuna it seems to be just “Mimi”. There are multiple potential interpretations, one being that something may have happened to make the two more intimately close between Adventure and Kizuna, one being that something happened to make Taichi feel that Mimi shouldn’t have a “diminutively endearing” honorific, one being that the scene in question was rather serious and he felt it wasn’t the right time...and one being that the writers simply just forgot.

Jou: Notably, Taichi’s lack of using honorifics for the boys also extends to Jou, who’s a year older than him, either because he’s fine being casual enough with Jou that he doesn’t mind violating propriety, or he made the same mistake as Yamato (see below) and initially mistook him for being in the same school year due to Jou not initially coming off as very senior-esque (unlike with Mimi, Jou wasn’t explicitly designated as the leader of the others’ camp groups).

Hikari: Hikari is Taichi’s sister, so he simply calls her “Hikari” with no honorific.

Other notes: Amusingly, while everyone calls Gennai “Gennai-san” for the most part, Taichi isn’t very patient with him at first and calls him “jiji” (old man) during Adventure, but seems to have gotten over himself and calls him “Gennai-san” in Kizuna. (Well, he’s not an old man anymore by then.) Unlike Taichi, Agumon uses boku (polite), despite the two characters otherwise being very like-minded. Agumon is a little more easygoing than Taichi in general, so it can be said that Agumon represents Taichi’s nature of not being altogether aggressive when it really comes down to it.

Yamato

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Given name, no honorific for the boys (”Taichi”, “Jou”, “Daisuke”, etc.). Like Taichi, he uses given name with “-chan” with most younger girls (“Hikari-chan”, “Miyako-chan”).

Parents: oyaji (think roughly in the sense of “my old man”) for his father, kaa-san (again, a bit more respectful but still rough enough to drop the o-) for his mother (whom he doesn’t live with).

Sora: Yamato omits the honorific for Sora, implying he considered her a close friend even during the time of Adventure.

Mimi: Notable mainly because of our lack of information about this; Yamato and Mimi never referred to each other over the course of Adventure or 02, and while Mimi’s way of referring to Yamato (”Yamato-san”) was easy to extrapolate even before Kizuna based on existing patterns, the reverse could go either way, depending on whether Yamato would see her as close enough to merit the drop. The Adventure mini dramas have him call her “Mimi-chan”, but this was in unison with everyone else, so it’s hard to tell whether it counts; the tri. stage play and the Kizuna novel has him drop the honorific.

Jou:  Like Taichi, he never uses any honorific with the one-year-older Jou, the canonical explanation being that he initially mistook Jou for being in the same year (well, not like Jou was acting as the epitome of a dignified senior...).

Ken: Yamato initially refers to him as “Ichijouji-kun” when discussing Ken’s circumstances with Iori in 02 episode 35, but during 02 episode 42, when Ken is now working directly with him and has integrated himself more as everyone’s friend, Yamato simply calls him “Ichijouji”, being more willing to speak to him on a more blunt/close level (but not quite knowing him as well as the other 02 kids, whom he’s on given name basis with).

Other notes: Yamato is the one Adventure senior who gets a lot of interaction with the 02 group in Kizuna, and interestingly, the four of them all call him “Yamato-senpai”, despite him not going to their school -- given that they’re dealing with a Digimon incident, the implication is that they’re treating him as an experienced senior in that respect. Despite what his shy personality would suggest, Gabumon in fact uses ore, like Yamato. Gabumon can be said to represent Yamato’s emotional core, so it is true that he can be very assertive when it really comes down to it.

Sora

First-person pronoun: Mostly used watashi in Adventure, with fairly uncommon lapses into atashi, fully moving to atashi by 02. This is consistent with her characterization difference between Adventure and 02, the latter of which portrayed her as quite a bit more assertive about what she wanted and rather less deferential (and also a lot more willing to come off as more feminine, at that). The tri. stage play sticks with atashi. Kizuna has her go back to watashi, which can possibly be taken as her deciding to be a bit more mature in her adult years -- basically, Sora is the kind of person where going either way fits her, since she’s capable of being assertive but also likes to carry herself calmly and maturely (and her teenage years are where you could most definitely believe she’d be the most aggressive about it).

General honorifics pattern: Uses “Jou-senpai” for Jou, treating him properly like a school elder. Given the rest of her way of using honorifics, most likely she’d use “-san” or “-senpai” for most elders. Uses given name plus “-kun” for younger boys (”Koushirou-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”) and “-chan” for younger girls (”Mimi-chan”, “Miyako-chan”). In other words, generally diligent about using honorifics, dropping it only with people she’s particularly close with.

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

Taichi: Having known Taichi as a peer for quite a long time prior to the events of the series, Sora simply just calls him “Taichi” with no honorific.

Yamato: Initially Sora calls him “Yamato-kun”, and it’s reasonable to extrapolate she probably would call most boys her age with the “-kun” honorific, but early in the series, Sora starts alternating between “-kun” and simply calling him “Yamato”, which allegedly was actually intentional to indicate foreshadowing of their building relationship. This alternation continues all the way into 02, even after they start dating -- Armor Evolution to the Unknown has her calling him “Yamato-kun” even when she refers to him super-endearingly (implying it really has become a nickname of sorts), while DSB has her drop the honorific, and both firmly depict them as dating. For what it’s worth, the tri. stage play and Kizuna also depict her as dropping the honorific.

Daisuke: Sora actually drops honorific for Daisuke, possibly due to knowing him from the soccer club.

Ken: “Ichijouji-kun” in 02 episode 38. This is in the context of her observing how much he’s changed, so, much like with the other seniors, she thinks well of him, she’s just not particularly close with him to merit moving to given name basis.

Other notes: Piyomon, who’s portrayed as clingy and affectionate, uses atashi from day one.

Koushirou

First-person pronoun: boku (polite)

General honorifics pattern: -san for everyone older (”Taichi-san”, “Jou-san”). “-kun” for younger boys (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”).

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

Mimi: Mimi is the same age as Koushirou, but Koushirou presumably doesn’t feel comfortable using the “affectionately endearing” “-chan” and would rather use the more respectful “-san” instead.

Hikari: Hikari is an unusual case in that she’s quite a bit younger than Koushirou, but Koushirou still calls her with “-san”. Presumably, he didn’t feel comfortable going with “-chan” like everyone else did (and presumably for the same reasons he won’t use it for Mimi either). This persists even all the way into 02, but interestingly, he calls Miyako differently (see below), so it’s hard to say what his stance would be on younger girls in general, or whether Hikari got special privileges due to the circumstances of how she met the group (as the younger sister of his respected senior Taichi, and as a fellow Chosen who met everyone during some rather personal circumstances detached from school). The tri. stage play floats up the idea that he might have accepted “Hikari-chan” by 2005, but Kizuna takes the stance that he’s still using “Hikari-san” in 2010.

Miyako: Koushirou, having met Miyako during some rather impersonal circumstances and initially only having a computer club senior-junior relationship with her, calls her “Miyako-kun”. Note again the avoidance of the “-chan”; he really doesn’t seem to want to use the “cute” honorific, and would rather treat her a little more formally.

Ken: Koushirou refers to Ken as “Ichijouji-kun” in general, Ken getting the surname basis as he joined the group on the level of him somewhat of a stranger to Koushirou compared to the other 02 kids. That said, this shows up even during their heart-to-heart in 02 episode 33, so other than the surname thing, it’s clear that Koushirou using the honorific is less detachment and him simply wanting to extend the same respect he uses for everyone else.

Other notes: Koushirou is infamous for using polite language (-masu, -desu, etc.) in every circumstance, including even with the Digimon (who are generally treated as being outside societal obligations of honorifics) and younger characters. The implication is that this came from Koushirou being deferential to everyone out of sense of distance and lack of self-esteem after his revelation of being adopted made him lose sense of his place in the world. In Adventure episodes 38 and 54, it’s made apparent that Koushirou wants to learn to speak more casually with others, but has difficulty doing so, and his parents and Tentomon assure him that he doesn’t need to force himself. Koushirou continues speaking this way even into 02 and Kizuna, but the epilogue implies that he at least doesn’t do this with his daughter (and the Character Complete File that he at least broke out of this with Tentomon). Tentomon uses Kansai dialect, which is stereotyped as being associated with easygoing and less book-smart characters (in contrast to Koushirou, and also for the absurd humor of the terrifying-looking Kabuterimon speaking this way), but he also uses the polite form, so he can be said to match Koushirou in this way by simply being polite and deferential to others in general. While most Digimon don’t use honorifics for humans, Tentomon also uses “-han” (the Kansai variant of “-san”) on any human he talks to.

Mimi

First-person pronoun: atashi (casual). Mimi is normally a very polite girl, but she also likes being in-your-face cute, so her usage of the pronoun is in line with this.

General honorifics pattern: -san for any and all elders (”Taichi-san”, “Sora-san”), -kun for younger boys (”Koushirou-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”), and -chan for younger girls (”Hikari-chan”, “Miyako-chan”). Mimi is depicted as having been raised as a sort of “lady of the house” (ojou-sama) personality due to having been spoiled by her parents, so she’s basically a “spoiled sweet” sort of girl who is polite and respectful to pretty much everyone -- hence why her speech pattern is uniformly consistent across everything. Of course, since she’s also very fond of “acting cute” and proud of it, younger girls like Hikari and Miyako get the cute “-chan”. The sole exception to her pattern is “Jou-senpai” (see Jou’s section on why).

Parents: Super-affectionate “Mama” and “Papa”, in line with the over-the-top lovey-dovey-ness of the Tachikawa household. Mimi’s mom goes as far as to endearingly call her “Mimi-chan” (her father is just “Mimi”).

Ken: Referred to Ken as “Ichijouji-kun” starting in 02 episode 25. This was in a context of her wanting to get him in to help, so she clearly has no ill will with him, she just doesn’t know him all that well compared to the other 02 kids.

Other notes: Palmon, who also enjoys acting cute, uses atashi much like the like-minded Mimi.

Jou

First-person pronoun: boku (polite). There’s an incident where he famously slips into ore when trying to intercede in the argument between Taichi and Yamato during Adventure episode 8, so it can be taken that he does have it in him to be more assertive if he lets his emotions take control of him, but otherwise is deferential.

General honorifics pattern: Interestingly, Jou seems to consider himself close enough to the older boys in the Adventure group to use given name with no honorific (”Taichi”, “Yamato”, “Koushirou”), despite what his insistence on societal propriety might make you think. In other words, he can be very casual when he really wants to be. With the girls, he generally uses given name plus “-kun” (”Sora-kun”, “Mimi-kun”), the implication being that he doesn’t like using the affectionate “-chan” on them and wants to keep them at a somewhat respectful and polite distance rather than the more casual manner he treats the boys with. Likewise, boys who are a certain level of younger than Jou are on given name basis plus “-kun” (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”); since this includes Takeru, who was also part of the Adventure group, it seems to have more to do with closeness based on age than anything. It’s unclear what he would do with elders since he’s the oldest depicted of the twelve, but most likely he’d at least be consistent about his -san and -senpai if he’s not particularly close with them.

Parents: Jou was never depicted with his parents in the series proper, but in Armor Evolution to the Unknown he uses “tou-san” for his father and “kaa-san” for his mother (generally respectful but still somewhat casual).

Shin and Shuu: Jou is depicted as calling them “Shin-niisan” and “Shuu-niisan” respectively.

Hikari: Jou’s one major reference to Hikari in Adventure was “Hikari-chan” -- presumably, Hikari being so young that it’s okay in his book to use the endearing honorific. The tri. stage play has him use “Hikari-kun”, so you can maybe presume he now sees her as old enough to be treated with the more formal honorific. Because both cases are somewhat isolated (one showing up really only once in the series and one being from a writer who may not have caught that one time), it’s difficult to make a projection.

Other notes: Jou infamously seems to exude such a “school senior” aura that he’s occasionally called “Jou-senpai” in settings where other characters might use “-san” for others (mainly Mimi, whose initial relationship to him was being under his responsibility in their summer camp group, and the 02 kids, who jump on using “-senpai” for him much faster than they do most of their other Adventure seniors, despite not even going to the same school as him). This has led to the Japanese fanbase often latching onto calling him “Jou-senpai” affectionately. Gomamon infamously uses the first-person pronoun oira, which is basically like the assertive ore but with a more laid-back and almost country bumpkin-esque air to it. It’s much in line with his very laid-back and playful personality, the complete opposite of Jou’s.

Takeru

First-person pronoun: boku (polite). This is actually a plot point; Adventure episode 12 (which is a Takeru focus episode) also uses boku in its title, and the narration for the 02 episode 50 preview suddenly uses boku, culminating in the reveal that the narrator was Takeru the whole time.

General honorifics pattern: Consistently uses given name “-san” for all elders (”Taichi-san”, “Jou-san”, “Miyako-san”, etc.). Uses given name plus “-kun” for boys who are the same age or younger (”Daisuke-kun”, “Iori-kun”). Hikari is “Hikari-chan”, so he’s comfortable enough to use the endearing honorific (although it might just be because it’s Hikari, whom he happens to personally know very well). In general, Takeru is a fairly polite person and adheres reasonably well to honorific propriety.

Parents: Super-affectionate and somewhat childish “Mama” and “Papa” in Adventure; generally respectful “okaa-san” for his mother and ever so slightly more casual “tou-san” for his father in 02.

Yamato: In Adventure, Takeru initially calls Yamato “onii-chan”, the “o-” being respectful, and “-chan” being endearing. He carries this into 02 as well. Given that it’s unlikely for him to continue doing this much longer after 02, different media ended up going in different directions with this; DSB went with “nii-san” (still very respectful, but missing the “o-” and not as “cutesy”), the tri. stage play went with aniki (one of its few holdovers from the tri. anime; somewhat more blunt and less respectful), and Kizuna uses DSB’s “nii-san”.

Ken: Takeru starts off calling him “Ichijouji-kun” when they’re just starting to get to know each other. This does happen to persist even as their relationship gets deeper and Takeru significantly warms up to him, culminating in him still seeming to call him this by Kizuna’s drama CD, but it seems to be more out of politeness/respect (or, most likely, habit, considering how long it took for Ken to get on good terms with everyone in the group) by this point. (Ironically, this is a significant improvement over when Takeru had punched out the Kaiser in 02 episode 17, in which his references had been an extremely passive-aggressive “Ichijouji-san” and a more genuinely angry “Ichijouji” -- once everything had calmed down, Takeru presumably felt that he at least deserved proper respect.)

Other notes: Patamon uses boku, much like Takeru, which is probably meant to accentuate his “childishness” (in Adventure) and general like-mindedness with Takeru and easygoing nature (in 02).

Hikari

First-person pronoun: watashi in Adventure, atashi in 02, watashi in the tri. stage play and Kizuna (specifically the drama CD). This is likely for similar reasons to Sora in that Hikari was portrayed as rather deferential to others in Adventure but got quite a bit more assertive in 02, then, as she got older, went back to carrying herself a bit more maturely (and, if the tri. stage play is to be believed, went back to it at an earlier age, presumably since she’s more on the polite side than Sora), albeit still of course bright and assertive when she wants to be.

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

General honorifics pattern: Much like Takeru, she consistently uses given name with “-san” for all elders (”Sora-san”, “Koushirou-san”, “Miyako-san”). Uses given name plus “-kun” for boys of the same age or younger (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”). It’s unclear what she would do with younger girls, but she probably wouldn’t be averse to using “-chan”. All in all, much like Takeru, she’s fairly polite and adheres to honorific propriety.

Taichi: Hikari consistently calls Taichi “onii-chan”. Given Hikari’s personality as a lot more willing to come off as “cute”, this is in line with her.

Ken: Like Takeru, Hikari starts off calling him “Ichijouji-kun” and sticks with it even after the group accepts him; again, Ken took an unusually long time to get on good terms with everyone in the group, by which time the surname basis had likely become habit for her, Takeru, and Iori.

Other notes: Because Hikari is called “Hikari-chan” by so many characters, the Japanese fanbase tends to attach the honorific to her name a lot when discussing her. Tailmon’s first-person pronoun usage mirrors Hikari’s in that she uses watashi in Adventure, atashi in 02, and watashi in the tri. stage play and Kizuna drama CD -- beyond mirroring Hikari, it also exemplifies 02 being the point in time when Tailmon seemed to be keen on making use of her new life and freedom.

Daisuke

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Consistently uses “-san” (”Taichi-san”, “Koushirou-san”) and/or “-senpai” for his elders (mostly “-san”), with the exception of Miyako (see below) -- in general Daisuke is actually quite respectful of his seniors in the Adventure group. For his friends in the 02 group, he eschews honorifics entirely and generally goes to given name basis with no honorific (”Takeru”, “Iori”), with the exception of Hikari (see below), so when it comes to people he’s actually closer with on a personal level, he doesn’t really seem fond of keeping distance with honorifics (much like Taichi and Yamato).

Parents: Doesn’t directly address his parents in the series proper, but the Character Complete File supplies “tou-san” and “kaa-san” (generally respectful but casual).

Jun: Refers to her as “aneki” (blunt and in-your-face).

Taichi: Although Daisuke has used both “-san” and “-senpai” for both Yamato and Jou, Taichi is the one where the interchangeability is most clear, since Daisuke has a particular relation to him as his respected soccer club senior.

Hikari: Consistently calls her “Hikari-chan”. The implication is, of course, that he sees her as cute and endearing, although it’s also completely possible he’d use “-chan” for any other similar age or younger girl he develops a particular rapport with (he does go along with Mimi’s suggestion of “Nat-chan” in The Door to Summer).

Miyako: Omits the honorific with her and simply calls her “Miyako”, despite her being a year older. The implication is that they banter so much and are so like-minded that he feels comfortable being more abrupt with her. She personally doesn’t seem to mind, especially given that, when Daisuke momentarily gets a bit disoriented and calls her “Miyako-san” in 02 episode 30, she complains that it sounds weird (meaning that it sounds weird coming from him, given that everyone else in the group calls her this).

Ken: Initially calls him “Ichijouji” prior to 02 episode 39, having just gotten out of the fights with him as the Kaiser and not quite being on personal friendship levels with him (much less treat him at a “polite distance”), but still wanting to handle him casually in his bid to integrate him into the group and get to know him better. He first drops the idea of switching to given name basis and calling him “Ken” in 02 episode 30, and is depicted as directly switching to it on-screen and committing to it when declaring Ken to be his friend in 02 episode 39. From then on, with Ken as basically his best and most important friend, he sticks with it.

Other notes: Being the very active and playful type, V-mon uses ore, just like Daisuke.

Ken

First-person pronoun: boku (polite); that includes as the Kaiser, implying that he was trying to portray himself as “regal and dignified” during that time.

General honorifics pattern: “-san” for all elders (”Koushirou-san”, “Miyako-san”), although he also uses “Yamato-senpai” in Kizuna (implying a sort of “Digimon senior” relationship with him and potentially other seniors by that point). Given name plus “-kun” for Iori, and presumably all younger boys. Ken generally uses given name basis for everyone, including the seniors; however, because he started off using “Motomiya-kun” and “Izumi-san” for Daisuke and Koushirou respectively before eventually shifting to “Daisuke” and “Koushirou-san”, it’s implied that this wasn’t necessarily the case when he was still initially ashamed of being around everyone.

Parents: Super-affectionate “Mama” and “Papa”, and his mother calls him “Ken-chan” in return (he’s just “Ken” from his father). The history behind this is really complicated, but the point is that the family is very affectionate when it all comes down to it.

Daisuke: Initially alternated between “Motomiya-kun” and “Motomiya” (phasing out the former as the series went on), having been in an awkward position of Daisuke so prominently having opposed him before suddenly getting in his face trying to befriend him. He drops a “Daisuke” (no honorific) in his head in 02 episode 26 and once outwardly in 02 episode 39, and while he never quite commits to given name basis during 02 itself, he uses it in DSB and in most postcanonical material, including Kizuna, indicating that with their relationship having gotten so close, Ken eventually got over himself and started referring to Daisuke as such.

Hikari: Hikari is the same age as Ken, but he calls her “Hikari-san”. Since the circumstances of why Ken wouldn’t use “-chan” with her are apparent (given his relationship to the 02 group at the time, it would have been incredibly inappropriate for him to use an “endearing” honorific with her), it’s hard to tell whether he would have extended this to all other girls his age or younger, or whether his way of referring to Hikari would have changed as he got to know the 02 group better (our latest point in time is Spring 2003, where he still calls her “Hikari-san”, but past that, it’s unknown).

Takeru: Notable mainly in our lack of information about this -- other than Daisuke (see above), Takeru is the only other boy his age that we get to see, and 02 never actually has Ken use his name in the series, so there’s been dispute over whether it would be “Takeru-san” or “Takeru-kun” (with a larger camp going for the latter, since Ken’s not averse to using downward-facing honorifics, he just clearly didn’t want to use “-chan” for Hikari at the time). There have also been interpretations that Ken might have been on surname basis with Takeru for at least a while; this is also ambiguous, given that he was initially on surname basis with Daisuke but went straight to given name basis with Iori (who, at the time, hated him the most out of the 02 kids).

Other notes: Nobody in the Adventure/02 group of kids actually calls him “Ken-chan”, but Wormmon and his family calling him this stuck so much in memory that the fanbase (and, at times, even official staff) constantly defaults to endearingly calling him this. Wormmon himself uses boku, much like Ken (and also in line with his generally polite disposition).

Miyako

First-person pronoun: atashi (casual). Does occasionally use watashi (polite), but this is very, very rare.

General honorifics pattern: Uniformly given name “-san” for all elders and seniors (”Sora-san”, “Mimi-san”), with the exception of Koushirou (see below), and seems to not be averse to using “-senpai” in certain cases. Generally uses given name plus “-kun” for younger boys she’s good friends with (”Takeru-kun”, “Ken-kun”), but will eschew it if she has a particular rapport with them (see below). Uses “-chan” for Hikari, and likely other younger girls as well. In general, Miyako’s neutrally polite to others “by default”, but is a bit more willing to be in-your-face with people when she deems them to be particularly close.

Parents: Uses “kaa-san” for her mother (generally respectful but casual). She’s not seen addressing her father directly within the course of 02. The Character Complete File supplies “okaa-san” and “otou-san” (overall respectful).

Siblings: Miyako isn’t seen addressing Mantarou directly during 02, and her only direct address to her sisters is in Armor Evolution to the Unknown, during which she calls them “onee-chan-tachi”, implying that she may call them “onee-chan” (respectful, endearing) individually.

Koushirou: Having looked up to him as a computer club senior (but not really having known him personally at the time) prior to the events of 02, Miyako starts off the series calling him “Izumi-senpai”. While she is depicted as briefly calling him “Koushirou-san” in 02 episode 33, most portrayals stick with “Izumi-senpai” (even Kizuna), and given that she calls the other Adventure seniors by given name honorific, the implication is that it really has stuck too much with her, given the way she looks up to him.

Mimi: After bonding with Mimi in 02 episode 6 and fantasizing about Mimi being a sister-like figure to her, Miyako starts calling her “Mimi-oneesama” (”older sister Mimi”). While she does carry this into 02 episode 14, this only crops up when Miyako is in a particularly cheerful or playful mood; when things get serious, she goes back to using “Mimi-san” as usual.

Daisuke: Unusually, she only calls him “Daisuke”, with no honorific like she does Takeru. The implication is that, with how they bounce off and bicker with each other, she considers him enough of a peer to just go straight for the name (especially since she’s averse to Daisuke calling her with an honorific in turn; see above).

Ken: Initially called him “Ken-kun” while gushing over him in 02 episode 8 (not knowing he was the Kaiser), basically fantasizing over the idea of being close to him. Once his true nature was revealed and the fight with the Kaiser ended, Miyako initially kept him at distance as “Ichijouji-kun” when contemplating her feelings on him, but immediately started going back to using “Ken-kun” after solidifying her intent to have him on the team in 02 episode 25, committing to it fully in 02 episode 30 after the incident that led to her slapping him. She is the first person on the 02 team to use given name for him; the implication is that she deliberately decided to start calling him this because of how much she wanted to reach out to him and consider him a friend, with no illusions of standoffishness, and the fact she made this kind of conscious change so early into knowing him is likely why she didn’t end up getting habituated into surname basis like Takeru and Iori seem to have.

Iori: Miyako never uses an honorific for him, simply calling him “Iori”; the implication is that this is from her background of having known him as a neighbor and friend prior to the events of 02.

Other notes: Hawkmon uses “watashi”, which is in line with his very formal and polite attitude. He also perpetually uses polite-form Japanese, and is one of the few Digimon to use honorifics, adding “-san” to everyone’s names.

Iori

First-person pronoun: boku (polite)

General honorifics pattern: Consistently “-san” for everyone older than him (”Koushirou-san”, “Daisuke-san”), occasionally “-senpai” if the circumstance is right (very rarely). Since he’s the youngest of this group, we don’t get to see much about how he would address younger people, but it’s likely “-kun” would be in play to at least some degree. In general, he’s extremely adherent to societal propriety.

Family: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san in reference to his parents. His grandfather is “ojii-sama”, getting an elevated honorific due to his extra tier of formal respect from Iori.

Ken: Iori calls him “Ichijouji-san”; by the time he fully warms up to Ken (which takes him the longest of any of the 02 kids), he still calls him this, all the way up to the Kizuna drama CD. Presumably, it also got habituated.

Other notes: Like Koushirou, Iori speaks to everyone formally and politely with the -masu/-desu forms, but in Iori’s case, it’s implied to be part of his strict and formal upbringing, and something he consciously has to hold himself to -- unlike Koushirou, who had to actively force himself to try and speak casually, Iori speaks casually on-and-off with the Digimon, and actually has multiple moments of slipping into casual speech whenever he loses control of his emotions or gets sufficiently angry. Because of this, it’s hard to tell if he’d continue to speak formally with younger people, although Kizuna depicts him as at least speaking that way with his peers in school. Armadimon uses the assertive ore and speaks in Nagoya dialect, giving him an image of a very rough-around-the-edges but laid-back type.

[kingofthewilderwest]

As "bad" as THW ended up being *glares in the lazed traitor De Blois' direction* just be thankful that it was made by DreamWorks and not Disney. There's no knowing how much worse the female character designs(both human and dragon), the sugarcoating of serious topics, and pretty much everything else would've been if Disney had made it.

So I’m of two minds about this one. On one side, you know how I feel about Disney and its current direction, with way too much power given to the financial and monopolizing aspects and too little heart coming through anymore. Also, as you said, Disney tends to be less gritty, etc. etc. etc.

One of the things I always loved about DreamWorks was that it was willing to be quirky and take chances. You could get some wonderfully artistic, heart-felt movies like The Prince of Egypt, How to Train Your Dragon, How to Train Your Dragon 2, the Kung Fu Panda trilogy, or Rise of the Guardians. You could get stuff that made you go, “What the fuck?” like Bee Movie. You could get stuff that intentionally turned expected animated movie paradigms on their head like Shrek and Megamind. You could get stuff that felt like standard but good family fare. And yeah, sure, you’d get your Shark Tales in there, too, but there was nevertheless a willingness to go places in their movies that made DreamWorks fun. Even with the movies that were mediocre, you could tell DreamWorks was willing to experiment, willing to have grit or wonkiness, but also trying to keep good heart in the story, too.

I think that DreamWorks in the last half decade isn’t quite that level anymore. DreamWorks is starting to settle into the role of an established company... which I mean, now it is. But with that settling has come creative complacency, too. The Boss Baby, The Boss Baby sequel, Trolls, Trolls sequel, that’s starting to feel increasingly like the norm for what they’re outputting. It feels like DreamWorks is playing it increasingly safe, increasingly standard. Its edge isn’t so edgy anymore.

Mind. They’ve had elements of this way longer than the last five years (Turbo in 2013 was no showstopper), but these traits are feeling increasingly pronounced to me. Whereas DreamWorks used to be a delightful mixed bag, now it feels increasingly... bland.

I would never call DeBlois a “traitor” or “lazy.” I think that’s misdirecting the thunder. I don’t like seeing him called something like that, myself. He worked with a lot of heart on beautiful movies like Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon, How to Train Your Dragon 2... that’s someone who’s helped put good soul in our stories. Whether or not he would have made something in THW all fans would’ve liked, I don’t know, especially given as no one creator will make EVERYTHING into a powerhouse... we all have our “okay” projects and our “awesome” ones. But we’ve seen hints of what the original drafts of HTTYD 3 looked like, and they’re more on par with the flavor of storytelling I’d expect from him. Major movies are created with too much corporate power and higher-ups molding them, and if the movies we get are bland, watered-down, sugarcoated, lacklusterly mainstream, etc. then it’s not necessarily the creative team (though good creative teams are more likely to leave in such environments)... it’s likely the business blokes stifling them.

So I am like, “Yeah, DreamWorks ain’t Disney.” But... they’re infringing on some of the same crimes, aren’t they? Isn’t DreamWorks already making projects feel more palatable and sweet, isn’t DreamWorks already showing money-first idea-second for some of its latest projects? I’m not as much in the DreamWorks camp as I was even five years back, and this is why. I’m a little jaded wondering where they’re headed.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that shift I’m seeing is just my perspective of the company changing, not the company actually changing. And who knows, maybe they’ll surprise me. They better do The Wizards of Once right. XD That’s something I hope they can make as beautiful as they did the first HTTYD.