#(context: he wouldn’t stop bugging this girl (who was actually usually mean to me) but I was like bro it’s sad that my dog knows what no

[leverage-ot3]

Pink but also, paradoxically, brown. Like you’re a friendly little creature BUT you will hunt someone down for sport when the conditions line up

anon do you know me personally that is literally me

#fun fact I’ve always wanted to be in a fistfight or fight #idk why I just crave violence as a form of self release #I am a feral beast but also like. caring and nice to others #I am a friendly creature but WILL fight #I once roasted a bully on the bus and everyone was like OHHHHHHHH that was one of my satisfying moments #(context: he wouldn’t stop bugging this girl (who was actually usually mean to me) but I was like bro it’s sad that my dog knows what no #means but you don’t :/ and people went wild) #asks #answered asks #anon ask #ask games #vibe check ask meme #ask meme #jackie talks #about me #mine #not leverage #jackie talks in the tags

[one-boring-person]

A Game Of Numbers. (Part Three, I)

Marion "Cobra" Cobretti x reader

Warnings: mention of death, mention of violence, very vague mentions of homophobia (barely)

Context: When a string of seemingly connected murders and kidnappings break out in LA, Cobretti is called in to figure out what is going on. He is, however, not alone in his investigation. Lieutenant "Hawk" (Y/l/n) is deployed to help him, though it quickly becomes clear that the crimes taking place are not as random as they first thought, but rather a little more personal than either of them would hope.

A/n: the "long post" limit thing has struck again so this part is in two👍

Masterlist

"This is your car?!" Hawk exclaims as she lays eyes on the replacement of his old ride, marvelling at the brand new paint job, as well as the sleek design.

"Yeah, it is." Marion smirks, feeling a flash of pride at the look of wonder on his new partner's face. Peering out from behind his sunglasses, the lieutenant casts his own eyes over the car, glad now that he'd asked to get it replaced after the first had been completely destroyed. 

"Echt? I'm impressed." Hawk looks back at him, grinning as she waits for him to imply it's ok to get in.

"Thanks." Cobretti nods, opening the driver's door and climbing in, waiting for her to do the same, before he starts up the engine.

His companion buckles up, sitting back in the seat with her arm up on the door, resting her head in her hand as she watches the view from the windshield. Her other hand lightly brushes over the dashboard, clearly as enraptured by the car's interior as she was by the exterior, something which Cobretti observes with some curiosity as he puts the vehicle into drive, pulling out into the road. Remaining quiet, they sit in somewhat awkward silence, both focused on the traffic ahead of them as Marion heads towards the middle of town, aiming to find a somewhat safer place to park near the actual club and street, knowing full well the place is crawling with thugs.

"What d'you think the killer did with the murder weapon?" Hawk finally questions, looking over at him casually.

"Probably kept it, or got rid of it." Cobretti muses, the match in his mouth twitching as he speaks.

"Would make sense." She hums in agreement, cocking her head as she turns back to face the traffic, "I guess if they dumped it, we'll have a hard time finding it."

"Depends." Marion grunts, turning onto a smaller street.

Frowning, Hawk looks over at him.

"What do you mean?"

He glances briefly over at her, before returning to the road.

"If the killer was in a rush, or was panicked, they'll have tried to get rid of the knife quickly, in a dumpster or something nearby. They wouldn't have thought about it too much, which would make it easy to find." He informs her, gesturing a little with his hand, "If they were more careful, then yeah, it'll be a nightmare trying to find it."

She nods in understanding, still contemplating something.

"Why do you think they did it?" She asks curiously, drumming her fingers on the door.

"Huh?"

"Why'd you think they murdered this girl, and then kidnapped another one?" She reiterates, "It doesn't make much sense to me, unless they're trying to make a point of some kind." 

He doesn't reply immediately, thinking to himself as he pulls into a parking lot. Drawing to a halt in a spare place, he turns off the engine and sits back in his seat.

"I don't know. It's bugging me, too." He admits,  looking over at her.

She nods, before climbing out, pulling her coat tighter around her body as she observes the surroundings. The parking lot is mostly deserted, but that's not surprising given that it's just past lunch time, leaving only a few people ambling about in the usual collection of odd clothing that is typical to this end of town. A taller guy stares at her from across the road, his electric blue hair falling across his bare shoulders in a wave of grease, his grimy face carrying a disgruntled expression behind the cloud of smoke coiling up from his cigarette. Ignoring him, Hawk turns to face Cobretti, who is watching the same guy, brow furrowed slightly. Silently, he jerks his head, gesturing for her to follow him as he stalks off towards the road, his coat flowing out around him. 

Falling into step beside him, Hawk shoves her hands in her pockets and discretely observes the surroundings, keeping an eye on the few odd people loitering around the area, keeping her expression neutral as her gaze strays over the blue-haired guy again.

"You got a picture of Kernes?" Cobretti suddenly speaks up, moving off towards the slightly busier road a little way ahead of them.

"Hm? Oh, yeah I do." Hawk replies, tapping her breast pocket knowingly. 

"Good." The lieutenant says, stopping outside a dingy tattoo parlour, pulling out his police badge, "We're gonna need it."

"Klar, weiß ich schon." She responds, her meaning nearly lost on him as he shoots her a confused look.

Shaking his head, Marion enters the small store, fighting to wrinkle his nose at the bad smell emanating from the place, eyes roaming the designs covering the walls, admiring the art momentarily. The tattooist looks up from a client, her dark skin as covered in designs as her walls are, her messily braided hair thrown up in a messy style that gives her a roguish look. On another day, he may have considered her pretty, but right now, he is on a job, meaning he must stay focused. 

Frowning, she wipes over her client's tattoo, before she turns to face us completely, expression unimpressed.

"What do you want now, Cobra?" She greets, voice wary of him.

"Just wanna ask a question." He replies, gesturing for Hawk to take out the photograph, "You ever seen this girl?"

Hawk hands her the photograph, which she looks over carefully, brow creasing a little.

"Yeah, I have. She's one of my clients. Did a piece for her a couple o' weeks ago, but she ain't come back to get it finished." She explains, giving the picture back, "Why?"

"Can't tell you that. Confidential." Marion denies, nodding at the information, "Did she come in with anyone?"

"No, she was on her own. Said she had plans, though. Told me she was gonna get wasted that night with a few friends."

"Did she say where?" Hawk interrupts, listening closely.

The tattooist cocks her head, eyeing the lieutenant curiously.

"Who're you?" She asks, lifting an eyebrow.

"Lieutenant (Y/l/n). Now please answer my question." Hawk supplies evenly, ignoring Cobretti's slight look of disapproval at her tone.

"No, she didn't say where, exactly. Only that it was near here." The tattooist frowns again, "Now is that all? I have to get back to work."

"Yeah, thanks for the help." Cobretti steps in, turning to leave with Hawk.

"Where to now?" (Y/l/n) asks, replacing the photograph back in her pocket.

"Just over here." Marion gestures at a nearby bar, the small place lit with neon signs, a few kids skulking outside it, cigarettes hanging from their mouths.

#cobra #cobra 1986 #marion cobretti #Marion cobretti x reader #Cobra imagine #sylvester stallone #sly Stallone

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 3.5

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time in chapter 3, Kaito ditched the training that would have helped him feel at least a little better thanks to his delightful idiotic selflessness, Maki and Shuichi discussed why Kaito has been good for them (hint: not because he’s invincible) and Maki started opening up just a little about her awful past, the student council became a dictatorship, and Kaito was still not able to properly be himself despite trying as hard as he could.

Now it’s free time again.

Kokichi:  “I went to check on the manhole, but it was covered in debris. But Gonta’s simple. Do you think he’d move it for us if we gave him a little nudge?”

Like you actually care about that tunnel when you never did before. When you were the one to manipulate everyone else out of even thinking about trying it again, because you’re a coward.

(The game designers actually did put rubble on the manhole, for the record.)

Gonta:  “Oh, Shuichi… Um… Gonta is member of student council now… Angie tell Gonta, he need to set good example. So Gonta no can spend time with you! Sorry!”

Oh, Gonta. Of course he wouldn’t question it, but it makes blatantly no sense how him not hanging out with Shuichi could be “setting a good example”. Surely the best way for him to set a good example would be to actually hang out with Shuichi and spend the time acting in the proper student council way (whatever the hell that is) so that Shuichi can learn from that example? Angie doesn’t care about setting a good example at all and is just manipulating Gonta.

But it’s not just Gonta – literally everybody in the student council will refuse to hang out with you today. The others who aren’t Gonta don’t even give you a reason; they just tell you to go away and leave them alone.

So, given that plus the fact that Kaito is also still holed up in his room feeling too unwell to hang out, this means that for today’s two free time slots, there are only four options out of the eleven surviving non-Shuichi characters: Kokichi, Kiyo, Miu, and Maki.

It should go without saying that there is only one correct choice here. There is no conceivable universe in which Shuichi, if left to his own devices and not controlled by a player with separate opinions from him, would actively choose to spend his free time with any of Kokichi, Kiyo or Miu in this situation. I could maybe imagine him deciding to tolerate one of them if they were his only options, but not when there’s also the option of him spending time with a Maki whom he’s already started to become friends with.

That’s part one of the reason I didn’t hang out with Maki yesterday. Part two is that Maki’s FTEs are written such that her third one and onwards clearly canonically take place only after a specific scene in chapter 4. So the only way for today’s two FTEs to make any sense in terms of keeping Shuichi in character and in terms of keeping their contents in line with canon is if they’re spent doing Maki’s first and second events. That’s why I couldn’t do them yesterday, and that’s what we’re doing today.

Maki:  “If you want to know my job, then I don’t mind talking about it. It won’t be a problem.”

Implying talking about something else might be a problem? Perhaps it’s not a surprise her first FTE is spent talking simply about the logistics of how her job works – that’s easier to talk about than how she feels about it, and much easier than talking about her normal life back at the orphanage that she can never have back.

Maki:  “It’s a new cult. From behind the scenes, it trains assassins.”

Shuichi:  “Th-That sounds… made up.”

I don’t know if you’re noticing a pattern here, Shuichi.

Also, remember your alligator hunt? Your own past sounds a little bit made up too.

Maki:  “There are several assassins besides me, but no one is devout. We don’t really get along with each other anyway, so I wouldn’t know.”

It’s implied later in Maki’s FTEs that all of her cult’s assassins are child slaves like her. It’s a shame they couldn’t be friends and help each other through this awful ordeal… but of course their training would condition them not to think of each other that way.

Maki:  “When the time comes, assassins will be cut and disposed of.”

…That and getting attached to a fellow assassin in this cult sounds like a recipe for heartbreak anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cult leaders dealt with any troublesome friendships between their assassins by forcing the friends to fight to the death and keeping whichever one survived.

This line is also, of course, implying that the cult was just going to kill Maki off once she was no longer useful to them (possibly when she reached adulthood and was therefore too likely to start thinking for herself and fighting back?), so that’s a thing.

Shuichi:  “…” (Her tone hadn’t changed. She’s just accepted it. …What did I say to put her in that state of mind?)

It wasn’t you who did that, Shuichi! It was the awful people she works for! She’s had no choice but to accept it; it’s the only way she can cope with it.

Kokichi:  “Aw, maaan, stupid student council! Maybe we should just get Maki to ‘clean’ them up!”

Oh, so now you’re okay with the fact that Maki’s an assassin, when she’s only potentially going to kill someone who’s inconvenient to you and not you yourself? That’s noble of you.

If you try and talk to Tenko here, you catch her looking really worried for a second before she snaps herself out of it and goes into I’m-totally-on-the-student-council mode. Probably worrying about Himiko, heh.

Gonta:  “…Sorry! Gonta no can spend time with you… Cuz Gonta member of student council. Shuichi… will you join student council? Please? If everyone join… we all can spend time together with Atua.”

Aww, Gonta! He really wants to be able to spend time with Shuichi and thinks that the only way for that to be possible is if Shuichi joins the council too. He has no comprehension of how fucked up it is that Angie is forbidding him from being friends with half of the people here as a price for him getting to “be useful”.

(He’s also hanging out in the room with the manhole, making me wonder if he’s sort of regretting covering it up.)

Maki is hanging out under the terrace at the training spot, which makes me smile.

Maki:  “…Is Kaito alright? He complains about others, but he can’t even take care of himself… Irresponsible idiot…”

Look at Maki being worried about Kaito! She really is a lot more caring than she thinks – and cares about Kaito a lot more than she lets on considering that she claimed two nights ago she was only training to stop him from bugging her.

She’s also completely right. Usually when someone calls Kaito an idiot I try and argue that that’s not quite the right word, but, in this context? No, his inability to look after himself – to even want to try to – really is incredibly stupid of him.

Maki:  “I mostly have knives. Also poison, sniper rifles, jiu-jitsu, bombs—”

Maki’s go-to weapon of choice being a knife is certainly going to be relevant later, as is the fact that she knows a thing or two about poisons. (No mention of crossbows, though. Apparently that’s not a common one for her.)

Shuichi:  “…So what kind of people have you assassinated?”

Maki:  “What do you mean?”

Shuichi:  “Well, I only know about assassinations from movies and stuff, so…”

Maki:  “…This will probably disappoint you, but I don’t kill only bad people.”

Shuichi:  “…”

Maki:  “I kill anyone on my orders list. It doesn’t matter who the person is.”

Shuichi:  “I suppose that’s just the way it is.”

It kind of sounds here like Shuichi was fishing for a reason to try and think that Maki’s not such a bad person because maybe she only kills bad people – and Maki picked up on that and deliberately shut him down. She could easily have instead talked about the reasons she kills people and the fact that she really has very little choice in the matter, but she didn’t, because she still feels like Shuichi should think she’s a bad person.

Maki:  “…But, I’ve also had to dispose of people who I knew well.”

Shuichi:  “Huh? Like who?”

Maki:  “Friends from school.”

…This is probably part of the reason she feels that way. It turns out she’s only talking about one single friend, someone who was the daughter of a yakuza leader, but still. Couldn’t the assassin cult have given that job to a different assassin? No, they probably wanted her on the job because she already knew the target well and they didn’t give a fuck about how she felt because their child slave assassins are just tools to them. God damnit.

(More to the point, god damnit Tsumugi not easing up even a little on the mountain of awfulness you’ve given this poor girl to deal with.)

Shuichi:  “Just make sure you don’t forget her.”

Maki:  “Why are you looking at me like that? I don’t have time to remember every face I killed.”

I think it’s less that she doesn’t have time than that if she remembered every single person she’s killed then the weight of that guilt would absolutely crush her. She’d obviously try and make a point to not remember them as much as possible, simply so that she can keep going.

Maki:  “But… I actually do remember her. Is this… …No, it’s nothing.”

…But of course a friend that she’d killed would be someone she couldn’t forget even if she tried to. This is you regretting it, Maki, and feeling bad about it, because you’re not a heartless killer who kills without remorse, however much you try and tell yourself you are.

Maki:  “Everyone does what they can to live. You, me… and everyone I’ve murdered. I kill. But I can also be killed. That’s all.”

This is actually a really respectable mindset for Maki to have, given that she’s an assassin. She fully accepts that the people she kills had reasons to live and yet she killed them anyway – and in order to not be a hypocrite about that, she also accepts that she can be killed at any time despite her own reasons to live. (Said reasons are, of course, the kids at her orphanage, not that she’s ready to talk about that yet.)

Nighttime comes around again, which means more training… and more Kaito not feeling well enough to train.

Shuichi:  (I’m worried about him…) “I wonder if Kaito’s okay… I hope he’s feeling a little better.”

Can we take another moment to appreciate how adorable it is that Shuichi is this worried about Kaito. They are friends.

Kaito:  “O-Oh, hey bro… Perfect timing. I gotta apologize to you, too…”

Kaito, you’re not supposed to apologise when something’s not your fault.

So here’s part of the reason I kept stressing Kaito’s convictions about apologising – because as it turns out, under certain circumstances, he will break his own principles on this and apologise more than he believes a person should, even when he hasn’t done anything wrong. Specifically, the times when he does this are when he feels like he’s let his sidekicks down. No matter how much he didn’t want to do so, no matter how much the reasons for him having done so aren’t remotely his fault, it’s still something he feels like he has to apologise for, just for having done it at all.

Recall how the main reason Kaito believes you shouldn’t apologise when something’s not your fault is so that you don’t go making yourself feel bad for no reason. But when this is applied to him? Apparently he doesn’t care about not making himself feel bad unnecessarily. If he let down his sidekicks, even though he never meant to, then he should feel bad about it, right?

(This isn’t the first time he’s apologised for this, either – it just seemed most appropriate to talk about it here, since he’s making a point that he believes he has to apologise. No, Kaito, you don’t.)

Kaito:  “It’s pathetic, but… I haven’t been able to eat or sleep much since yesterday.”

It’s not pathetic! You’re sick! That’s not your fault and not something to be ashamed of!

Part of this is down to the fact that the real reason for him feeling this way is his phobia, and Kaito feels like he should be able to not let that get to him so much and stop him from functioning normally. But no, that still counts as him being ill, just in a mental illness sort of way instead, so it still isn’t his fault.

Mind you, even his phobia wasn’t involved, I feel like Kaito would be calling himself pathetic anyway, just for being sick and having the sickness hinder his ability to do stuff. Which, you know, given that he is also physically sick and that’s going to be affecting him more and more from here on, is pretty relevant.

Kaito:  “I think I’ll get better if… I just rest a little longer, y’know?”

This sounds sensible. This would be Kaito dealing with his sickness in a reasonable way and making efforts to take care of himself, if he really was just physically ill.

But since that’s not what’s wrong with him right now, this is actually almost entirely an excuse so that he can hide away in his room and not risk letting Shuichi and Maki see that he’s scared of ghosts, which he believes is even more pathetic of him than just being sick. After all, I went over yesterday how him coming to train with them would be more likely to help him feel better about this than staying shut up in his room. And we know that when he really is just sick and nothing else and absolutely should be looking after himself and resting, he won’t even try to.

Shuichi:  “Yeah… sure, Kaito. Do what you have to do.”

Shuichi is smiling and being glad that Kaito is going to look after himself. Man, he has no idea how much of an idiot his friend really is.

Kaito:  “We’d have to reschedule our training sessions either way, come to think of it… The student council said being out after nighttime was prohibited, right?”

This is so unlike Kaito and it’s heartbreaking. He would never usually let anyone push him around and tell him what to do. His phobia really is just draining his emotional strength in a way that absolutely cannot be his fault, because if he had any control over it, he would refuse to let this happen to himself.

Maki:  “If you’re feeling sick, that’s one thing. But I don’t want you to change the training schedule. You don’t… need to do that.”

And I love that Maki realises just how unlike Kaito this is and she hates it! It was Kaito’s indomitable stubbornness that got through to her and convinced her to change in the first place. She hates that he seems to be compromising that part of himself now. If he’s not really that ridiculously stubborn person after all, then why the hell did she even begin to change?

Maki:  “…Do you want to die?”

Shuichi:  “D-Die!?”

Maki:  “Oh, sorry… That’s an old habit. Just pretend you didn’t hear that.”

Here’s the first instance of her catchphrase! That’s a landmark. Let’s appreciate: A, how fucked-up it is that she developed this catchphrase at some point during her training presumably as some kind of twisted black comedy coping mechanism, and B, how safe she feels around Shuichi and Kaito by now that she’s able to let herself use it in front of them without being afraid they’re going to think she really wants to kill them.

Maki:  “Anyway… I don’t want to give up now. I’ve finally started to think about… how I can confront it. So… if I have to train alone, so be it.”

She’s talking about her “enemy”! She’s really committed to figuring out how she can get stronger and find a way to like herself, and she’s thinking of these training sessions as a way to help her do that! Kaito has been so, so good for her!

…And Kaito’s apparently in too much of a state to even respond to that and be able to feel proud of how far she’s come already, which makes me sad. Hopefully he still noticed it, though? That can be something for him to think about while he’s cooped up in his room, to take his mind off the resurrection ritual and get his phobia to leave him the hell alone.

Shuichi:  “…Maybe it’s just because you’re not feeling well, but this is really unlike you, Kaito. I never imagined that you would obey Angie. I thought you did whatever you wanted.”

Shuichi also cares about how Very Not Kaito this is of him! Don’t worry, Shuichi – it is just because he’s not feeling well. He would never compromise his principles if he had any control over it.

Kaito:  “Shuichi, I’m sorry, but… can I leave the training to you until I’m feeling better?”

I can’t be completely certain because this is one of those ways in which English is ambiguous, but… I’m pretty sure that’s meant to be a singular “you” there. (When Kaito uses a plural “you”, he usually says “you guys”.) It’s almost like he’s asking Shuichi to take his place and be the figure of support and motivation for Maki’s growth. Like he wouldn’t ask Shuichi and Maki to support each other, because he feels like Shuichi doesn’t really need as much support any more – but since Maki still does, Shuichi is enough of a “hero” that he’d be capable of providing it.

(And look at Kaito still apologising about not being able to be there for them himself.)

Shuichi:  “Maki, about Kaito… You shouldn’t worry about it. He’s just feeling a little weak because he’s sick, I’m sure he’s not—”

…not being such an irresponsible idiot that he’d flake out on the unshakeable stubbornness that convinced you to change in the first place, Maki. Again, Shuichi understands just how much Kaito cares about trying to back up his own words and that any appearances to the contrary are misleading. That if he doesn’t appear to be trying to do that right now, then there must be a really damn good reason for it and it’s not just that he doesn’t really care after all.

But before they can start training, Tenko shows up, and Maki gives her her most terrifying glare.

Tenko:  “You probably want me to leave, right? But… I won’t run away.”

[Maki drops the glare]

Maki:  “I’m not here to fight you… and I don’t think you’re here to enforce the curfew.”

Seems like maybe Maki was only glaring so terrifyingly to test Tenko, assuming that if she was here on behalf of the student council then it would have scared her off, and the fact that she stayed anyway means that she’s here for a more important reason. It is pretty brave of Tenko to be asking Maki for help, and to not break under her terrifying glare, after she showed signs of feeling threatened by Maki earlier in the chapter.

Maki:  “You’re not brainwashed… Does that mean you willingly joined the student council? That sounds… worse.”

Pfft, that’s just like Maki to think that – being brainwashed wouldn’t be her fault, but joining it willingly would just be her being stupid.

Tenko:  “I only believe in Aikido! As long as I have that, I can’t be swayed by anything! Aikido values mental fortitude, and Aikido moves are a reflection of that fortitude.”

Look at how much Tenko cares about sticking to her convictions! Have I mentioned how much she and Kaito would get along swimmingly if it weren’t for her stupid annoying prejudices.

(Which have barely been brought up at all in this chapter, by the way, and I very much appreciate that. Again, this chapter’s writing is worse in a lot of regards, but significantly better with how it handles Tenko.)

Tenko:  “I think… Himiko has gotten so lazy, she’s given up on thinking for herself…”

It’s a shame that not even Tenko understands the fact that Himiko’s problem isn’t that she’s lazy but that she’s horribly depressed. Laziness as bad as Himiko’s doesn’t exist. That’s just what people call depression when they don’t realise what it is.

Tenko:  “Angie… truly believes in Atua. She believes that she is under Atua’s protection. That’s why… she does whatever she wants. She thinks she’s Atua’s vessel, so she doesn’t feel guilty about anything she does.”

And that’s Angie’s character. At the very least, there’s no active malice about her, but even so, she’s deluded into believing that her whims are always right and she doesn’t have any culpability for her actions. So still not a great person.

Maki:  “And that’s why you want me to kill her?”

Shuichi:  “Huh!?”

Maki:  “Asking someone like me for a ‘favor’ can only mean one thing.”

Maki, no! Even though she’s been making some progress, she still sees herself as just a tool that others use to kill people and assumes that’s surely the only reason anyone would ever want her help. How could she possibly ever help anyone in some way other than that? Guh.

Tenko:  “I… won’t deny that. I’ve wanted her gone even before all this happened… And I think everyone has wanted someone to die at least once in their life… But going through with it is a different thing! It’s wrong for a person to commit murder! It doesn’t matter what the reason is!”

I really like this! I like that it shows that Tenko’s not a perfect person and her jealousy of Angie getting more of Himiko’s attention has led her to have some pretty dark, twisted thoughts – but she’s still a good enough person in her principles that she would never even consider consciously acting on those thoughts.

This is also setup for the part in the trial where people start suspecting that Tenko killed Angie and then herself – in order to move past that assumption, Shuichi has to trust that what Tenko is saying now is the truth. Which it is.

Maki:  “Do you… realize who you’re talking to?”

Tenko:  “Oh! I’m so sorry! That’s not what I meant…”

Apparently Maki took Tenko’s speech as an attempt to guilt trip her specifically. It’s not like Maki doesn’t also believe killing is wrong, but she still hates herself enough for doing it that she feels people have every right to attack her for it and automatically assumed Tenko was doing that. In reality, to someone not in Maki’s position, it’s pretty clear that Tenko’s speech was mostly to herself, to remind herself that her desire to see Angie dead is wrong and stop herself from acting on it.

Tenko:  “That’s why I came to ask you two! You’re the only ones who can stop Angie!”

Shuichi:  “Only us?”

Tenko:  “Well… I obviously can’t ask Kokichi, Miu, or Kiyo. And Kaito’s not feeling well, y’know?”

Look at Tenko considering her best options to include Shuichi and Kaito without a single comment about how male they are! And treating Kokichi and Kiyo like bad options because they’re shitty people and not because of their gender! Tenko is at her best when the writers completely forget about her stupid prejudices and I wish they were just never a thing at all.

Shuichi:  “We didn’t even answer yet!”

Tenko:  “Grghhhhh! Quit complaining and do this favor for me, you degenerate! I’m even bowing to you! And I would never do that for any male!”

…Well, mostly. At least the writing acknowledges that she’s willing to put aside her prejudice for this.

Maki:  “So what will you do, Shuichi? This seems like something you’d ignore.”

Shuichi:  (This is something I’d ignore? Who do you think I am…?)

…Apparently Maki isn’t a great judge of people? I don’t see why it shouldn’t be pretty clear to her by now that Shuichi would care about stopping the potential motive. I guess she’s mostly seen the meek, nervous Shuichi that he is outside of investigations and trials and assumes that he’d be too passive to take action here.

Man, those Flashback Lights can do some serious work if they can make an ordinary, untalented person into someone capable of creating these near-perfect waxworks of people who aren’t even there anymore for her to use as reference. This is one of the parts of the whole implanted-talents thing that’s a little difficult to buy, but, eh, let’s just go with it.

Maki:  “You do such cruel things so innocently.”

That’s saying a lot coming from Maki… or maybe not, as someone who has done plenty of cruel things herself but who had to become so, so far from innocent to be capable of doing them. She still realises that they’re cruel, and she still sees this – creating lifelike representations of their dead friends – as an act of cruelty even though she herself is probably desensitised to it and not as creeped out as the others.

Maki:  “You try persuading her first. Detectives are good at talking, right?”

Shuichi:  (I feel like she might have some misconceptions about detectives… But I know Maki isn’t very good at persuading people. So it’s up to me.)

Look at Maki again assuming she’s worthless at doing anything except killing people. She probably wouldn’t actually be that bad at persuading people if she tried – she has a very blunt, pragmatic way of approaching issues, but that can be kind of useful sometimes.

Shuichi also isn’t the greatest at persuasion either. Too bad the most persuasive person they have is currently shut away in his room not feeling like his usual self. 

Shuichi:  “The effigies were nearly perfect, but the real bodies still had traces of a soul. A soul desperate to live, struggling, fighting for life… That’s something that can never be replicated.”

This is a bit of a weirdly poetic way of putting it, because I’m going to assume Shuichi isn’t being completely literal here. (Kaito would balk at hearing his sidekick talk like souls are things that really exist.) I imagine what he really means by this is that looking at the bodies gave the sense that they were once alive, and you can’t copy that by creating a fake body that was never alive at all.

Shuichi:  “No matter what technology you have, you can’t fake a soul.”

…Not quite in the way Shuichi is thinking of it, you can’t. But Flashback Lights can create entirely new “souls” and shove them into living bodies to overwrite the one currently existing there, as it turns out. Even “souls” that are exact copies of previously existing ones, if one wanted that. So in a sense, the technology to fake a soul actually does exist here.

Angie:  “Hmm, are we done talking now? Cuz I’m still busy preparing for the ritual.”

What other preparation is there to do? All that’s left is to burn the Necronomicon and sprinkle its ashes on Rantaro’s effigy. If Angie went to get a candle for that right now instead of randomly at 2am, then she wouldn’t get murdered tonight.

Angie:  “It’s safe to say that Tenko has betrayed the student council, right?”

I don’t think she’s realised that Tenko was never even on board in the first place. Not that she actually cares about being betrayed, because she doesn’t care about anything except her own whims, and Tenko’s trust or betrayal has no bearing on that.

Himiko:  “Nyeh!? She betrayed us!? That sounds like a big problem, but if you’re saying ‘it’s nothing’, then…”

Himiko shows up and hears this and seems to actually care about being betrayed for a moment – you know, like a person with feelings would – before slipping back into being brainwashed and worshipping Angie.

Tenko:  “Please, snap out of it! Aren’t you a mage?”

Himiko:  “That hurts… let me go…”

Tenko:  “Himiko, why can’t you see that you’ve been brainwashed? If you can’t even see that, then… you’re not a real mage at all!”

I like how Tenko tries to appeal to Himiko’s belief in her “magic”. She knows that’s very important to Himiko, kind of like Tenko’s own belief in her Aikido that she was talking about earlier, or at least she’s hoping that it is and that this will help her get through to Himiko.

Tenko:  “Feeling angry? If you are, then show it! Get mad! Get upset! Yell at me! Just fight back already! Do something!”

It’s also sweet how Tenko wouldn’t even mind Himiko getting mad at her just so long as she starts showing some kind of emotion and facing up to her own feelings. I appreciate Tenko’s feelings towards Himiko the most when they cause her to try and help Himiko selflessly like this, without the ulterior motive of trying to get with her that Tenko seems to have half the time she does anything involving Himiko (but which, again, isn’t really a thing in this chapter specifically and I appreciate that).

Tenko:  “I-I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I just yelled at you!”

Because you had emotions, Tenko, and you acted on those, which is exactly what you’re trying to get Himiko to do! Don’t be ashamed of that!

Himiko:  “…”

(Himiko didn’t look Tenko in the eyes.)

Here’s a small indication that Tenko did get through to her a little bit and that she’s ashamed she doesn’t have the courage to do what Tenko wants her to and face up to her emotions.

Tenko:  “Augh… I know she’d never hate me, but she’ll demote me from best friend to just a friend!”

Maki:  “You guys were best friends?”

Tenko:  “Well, if you round up to the nearest whole number, we were basically best friends!”

Shuichi:  (I feel like you’re rounding up a little too much there…)

Yeeeaaaah, Tenko is absolutely deluding herself about how much she and Himiko are friends. At least Maki and Shuichi (and therefore the narrative, too) are aware of this.

Tenko:  “Don’t worry! I’ll use my own words to apologize to Himiko!”

Admirable as it is that Tenko wants to apologise to Himiko… if we go by Kaito’s logic regarding apologies, then she shouldn’t really do so. She still meant what she said about wanting Himiko to show her anger and would still stand by that now, and it did get through to Himiko just a little bit. Without Tenko’s outburst just now and her future, admittedly rather less heated speech about it just before she gets killed, Himiko might not have been able to change at all. That is absolutely not something Tenko should apologise for. Perhaps she should apologise for the way in which she said it here, but not for what she meant by it.

Maki:  “She bounced back rather fast… I guess I didn’t need to worry.”

Shuichi:  “Ah, you were worried?”

Maki:  “…Huh? Is it weird for me to worry?”

Nope! It’s really starting to look like it’s not weird at all to see that from you, isn’t it, Maki.

Maki:  “…Do you want to die?”

Shuichi:  “…Ah!” (There’s that habit again! Well, I suppose on the positive side, she’s able to act more like herself around me.)

Aww, Shuichi’s realised that Maki beginning to use that catchphrase is a sign of her growth, even if the phrase itself is kind of alarming until you get used to it.

Shuichi:  “But I’m glad.” (Especially now that I’m able to talk about things more with Maki.)

He’s glad that they’re becoming friends! Did you know this game is about friends.

---

[Next post]

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #chapter 3 #daily life #free time events #commentary

[a-tapestry-of-words]

first chapter of my story!!!

"I have a story to tell you."

"Sorry, but your stories suck. I'm not interested."

"Listen to this one. It's different."

"How can I be sure?"

"You can't, and while you may not want to listen, you have to. You know you do."

"Fine. Let's hear it."

"This story starts like all others. Once upon a time..."

-------

There was a prince named Lorcan who didn't want to be a prince. True, he wanted to be famous, but not for his bloodline. Instead, he wanted to be an adventurer, to go on a quest.

-------

"A prince, really?"

"Oh hush, you. This is merely the beginning."

-------

Yes, all Lorcan cared for were his dreams of adventure. This was fine when he was younger, and he had years and years until he would be king. Then, his parents died, leaving him an orphan, an only child, and the sole heir to the throne. His uncle took it upon himself to raise the prince, and thus, Lorcan was shoved into lessons on his forthcoming duties.

When he was young, he used to try to sneak away, only to be caught by his guards. Eventually, he learned not to try. Instead, he spent all possible free time in the highest tower in the castle. The entrance was supposed to have been hidden, but Lorcan learned of it when he was young. He went there almost every day, and almost everyone in the castle knew he was up to something, except his uncle.

Uncle Alistair preferred to remain blissfully unaware of all the trouble Lorcan was up to. Instead, he imagined his nephew as the perfect prince, child, and heir. He believed the boy would find a queen at the ball that was being thrown just three months short of the coronation, which was precisely why he was looking for Lorcan, who was involved with other things up in his tower.

-------

"Other things?"

"I can't believe you. It's not those kind of things. This is a fairy tale."

"Implying fairy tales are innocent, are we?"

"Oh, like you actually know any."

"So Lorcan was involved with other things."

"Yes, he was lost in his own world."

-------

Or rather, the world he wanted to be in. Lorcan's time in the old tower was often spent staring out the window at the world beyond. Sometimes, he imagined what his life would be like if he lived in the village or if he was an adventurer in the forest. Mostly, though, he fantasized about running away. Even more now, with his upcoming eighteenth birthday and impending coronation. He was in the middle of pacing around, making his plans, when a scullery maid poked up through the trapdoor.

"Um, Lorcan?" The prince, who was quite startled, turned to look at her. "Your uncle wants to see you."

"Tell him I'll be down in a couple minutes," Lorcan flopped his hand in the air.

The girl huffed, "He said now, and I really don't want to explain to him."

"Leila," he stretched out the name, "please."

"No."

"Tell him I'm busy," before Leila could object Lorcan continued. "That's a direct order from the prince."

The girl laughed, "I don't really care. You wouldn't do anything to me anyway."

Lorcan grumbled and trudged over to her, "Fine, but we're going the long way."

-------

"Now, I could tell you about Leila and Lorcan's walk, or I could explain their friendship. Continuation or context, the choice is yours."

"That's-that's just wow. You seriously have that prepared?"

"I know you're not actually impressed."

"No, no I am. I mean, I most definitely don't have the patience to-"

"Quit stalling and choose."

"Yeah, alright. Let's hear some context."

-------

Leila and Lorcan's story starts when they were five years old. Lorcan had been running through the palace gardens when he tripped over a loose stone in the path. Leila, who had been sitting on the fountain nearby, heard the thump and ran over.

She stared down at him for a few moments before saying, "You know, you should be more careful. My mama said the garden can be very dangerous."

Lorcan, who had been too busy staring at some bugs on the ground, looked up, "How do you know I didn't mean to trip?"

"I dunno, but I never fall on purpose. What are you doing out here, anyway? You're the first other kid I've ever seen here."

"Why are you here?" Lorcan pushed himself off his stomach and into a sitting position. He crossed his arms and scrunched up his face. Leila kicked him in the shin, but didn't hurt him that badly. She wasn't trying to hurt him, though, she only wanted to express her annoyance.

"I asked you first."

"Fine," Lorcan grumbled, "my parents are busy, and I'm bored. You know kicking people isn't very nice."

"Neither is making faces," Leila sat down in front of him. "I'm supposed to help my sister with her job, but she's taking forever to get here."

The boy thought for a moment before getting mischievous glint in his eyes, "What if we explore the castle! We can look for hidden rooms and secret passages!" This caused Leila's look of boredom to disappear.

"I already know one hidden room!"

She grabbed his hand and dragged him back towards the castle. The two ran through the doors and up three flights of stairs before stopping at a pair of grand, oak doors.

"The library?" Lorcan asked, slightly disappointed. "The library isn't special at all."

"Not the library, silly. We have to go through to get to the room." Leila pushed the door open and sprinted inside, quickly darting behind a towering bookshelf, "We're not actually allowed in here, so we have to be careful not to get caught."

Lorcan followed her as she scurried from bookshelf to bookshelf. Eventually, she stopped at one on the very back wall.

"What do we do now?" Lorcan whispered.

"This." Leila grabbed a deep purple book off the shelf and tapped it against a stone on the wall. The shelf began to slightly glow before it disappeared altogether. "Come on. It won't stay open for long."

She ran into the space where the shelf had stood only moments before with Lorcan quick to follow. They entered a small corridor lit only by torches on the wall. At the very end there was a spiral staircase that seemed to stretch on forever to the two children. They raced upwards until they got to a trap door in the ceiling.

"I need some help with this." Lorcan helped Leila push on the door until it slammed open with a puff of dust. The two pulled themselves up into the room above. It was lined with shelves of books, jars, and mysterious objects. The tiles on the floors looked like a model of the solar system, and there was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling that looks like the stars.

"What is this place?" Lorcan asked, the awe obvious in his voice.

"I'm not really sure. My sister showed it to me, once, and told me to never tell anyone, but I just told you, so you can't let anyone know you know about this place."

"I won't. No one ever asks me things, anyway."

"Wait, do you have a name?"

"Lorcan. What about you?"

"Leila."

"So Leila, we should be friends!"

"Okay!"

Thus, Lorcan found someone who didn't know that he was the prince, and Leila found someone who was just as interested in adventure as she was.

-------

"Wait, but Leila knows that he's the prince, now. What happened?"

"Well that's a completely different story, and my stories suck, apparently."

"Fine, fine, they don't. Now, will you tell me this story?"

"If you insist."

-------

It was five years after they met when Leila learned of Lorcan's true identity. The two, who were now ten years of age, were sneaking back through the library when a nurse ran up to them.

"Prince Lorcan, you must come with me at once. Your parents have been gravely injured in a carriage accident," she said in a rush, completely ignoring Leila.

Lorcan, being so struck with worry, could only nod. He followed the nurse, leaving his confused best friend behind. Leila then had a decision to make. She could either stay back and wait for Lorcan to come to her, or she could follow him. Now, Leila usually thought all her plans through, but when there was a time limit, she made rash choices. She ran, as quietly as she could, through the castle. Instead of following Lorcan into the infirmary, she thought it best to wait outside and give him some time with his parents.

Inside, Lorcan was told be the doctors that his parents wouldn't survive much longer, and he should say his goodbyes now. He decided to speak to his father first.

"My son, I know you shall make a great king but be warned, you should find your love earlier on, or bad things will happen," the dying king managed to cough out.

"I-I don't-I don't under-" Lorcan was cut short by a hand grabbing his.

"I love you, Lorcan, you shall be great." With that, the king's hand went limp and his eyes cold.

Lorcan solemnly walked over to his mother's bedside, knowing this was his last chance to speak to her.

"Lorcan, baby, come here," she called to him. He went to her side. "Take this, but don't open it until the time is right." She slipped her locket into his hand.

"How-how will I know?" The tears were beginning to flow.

"You will know. I love you, Lorcan, more than anything." She cupped his face in her hand, but it soon went as cold and limp as her husband's had been.

Lorcan, red faced and bawling, stood up, clutching the locket to his heart, and said, "I love you too, both of you." He couldn't take being in the room anymore. It felt cold and unforgiving; it was no place to mourn.

-------

"What! You can't just kill off characters like that!"

"You see, I actually can because I'm the one telling the story."

"They didn't have to die, though."

"Yes, they did."

"Give me one good reason."

"It strengthens the bond between Leila and Lorcan, as you are about to see, and it'll affect the story later on. Now, will you let me continue?"

-------

Lorcan rushed out of the room, and Leila emerged from the shadows to talk to him.

"Leila? What-what are you doing here?"

"It doesn't matter. What  matters is that you're alright."

"Oh, so you only care because I'm prince. Who sent you?"

Leila, being completely taken back by her friend's sudden accusations, spat out, "I'm here because you're my friend, idiot, but if you don't want me here, then fine! I'll leave!" True to her word, Leila began to stomp away. Of course she felt bad, but Lorcan was being a jerk.

She was too lost in her thoughts to notice someone running up to her. "Leila, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have accused you like that. I'm just upset."

The girl was indignant for a second before softening, "I-I know. Hey, the sunset looks beautiful from the tower, and I was wondering if you wanted to watch."

Lorcan, at first, thought he should stay back to mourn, but he didn't want to think about his parents. "That sounds-that sounds nice."

As they walked through the castle, Lorcan realized there was a question he never asked, "Why aren't you acting like I'm the prince?"

"What? Oh, because you haven't changed. You're still my best friend."

"You're mine too."

-------

"Why does Leila sort of brush aside the fact that Lorcan's parents are dead?"

"She doesn't really have much experience in dealing with death. When her parents died she was like three years old. She doesn't really remember it. All she remembers is her sister taking her to watch the sunset a lot that year."

"Wait, her parents are dead, too?"

"I didn't think I needed to include that fact as it's unimportant. Also an unimportant fact, in Lorcan and Leila's kingdom, sunsets are commonly associated with the dead. It's seen as a way to watch them go."

"So that's why Leila takes him to see the sunset."

"Kind of. Neither of them know of the tradition yet, so Leila takes him there as a way to comfort him. Now we really should be getting back to the actual story."

-------

Leila and Lorcan approached the throne room doors. Lorcan went over to push them open before turning to his friend. "You're coming with me, right?"

"I'm afraid I can't, this time-" Leila shook her head "-but I know what he's going to say."

"What?"

"It's a surprise, so you should probably go find out." Lorcan made a face at her. "Making faces at people isn't very nice."

"Neither is kicking them."

"Yet, I didn't kick you. Now go see what your uncle wants."

Lorcan took a breath before opening the door. He was taken aback by how decorated everything was. There were banners lining the walls, carpets leading down the stairs, marvelous chandeliers glowing on the ceiling, and tables lining the walls, all in the colors of the kingdom. Burgundy, dust flower, and gold, his brain supplied. He quickly brushed away the thought and walked to the throne.

-------

"Okay, what the hell is dust flower?"

"It's a shade of pastel blue. Of course, I made up the name and the flower is based upon. If you're interested, the three colors come from the main export of the kingdom, the most common natural feature, and the most common metal. In this case, wine, dust flowers, and gold."

"I didn't care about any of that. Can we get back to the story, now?"

"If you're really that excited."

-------

"Ah, Lorcan, come here, nephew," the regent called from the ornate throne.

"Yes, Uncle Alistair?"

"I'm assuming you've noticed the decorations in the throne room."

"How could I miss them?" Lorcan muttered sarcastically.

"No muttering. Have you no manners?"

"Sorry Uncle."

"Never mind that now." The older man stood up. "Walk with me. Tonight we shall throw a grand ball, and you will choose a queen."

Lorcan blocked out the rest of his uncle's blabbering about the ball. He had never put much thought into marrying or choosing a queen. In fact, he wasn't even sure if he wanted one. It's not like he ever felt any sort of attraction to any woman, not that he knew many. He began to ponder his situation. Perhaps he could figure out a solution where he wouldn't have to choose some princess to marry.

"Now how does that sound?" Alistair's question broke Lorcan out of his trance-like state.

"Um, Uncle Alistair, what if-what if I didn't-" he began to mess with the hem of his shirt "-didn't choose a, um, queen?"

"Not choose a queen? That's preposterous, unheard of! You will choose a queen tonight!" Lorcan tried to argue, but he was cut off. "I will hear no more of this. Now go see the tailor about your suit for the ball."

Lorcan somberly walked away, dreading his fate.

-------

"That's all for now."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, I have to work on the next part."

"Well hurry up with it."

"If that's what you want."

#my writing #wip #a story to be told #link #wattpad #lorcan #leila #uncle alistair #narrator #listener #tw- death #its not graphic #but just in case

[redsletterday]

The Difference

#26 In this generation, reaching 2 years in a relationship is either a triumphant achievement or a worrying feat.

When I gave thought to how I should write my anniversary Tumblr post (which Babie always remind me to do! Sorry only got to it now), I always thought of writing about how we made things work to reach two years together. To sum up my thoughts about it, we were and are a complementary pair. Babie was always up in the clouds from the way she would act and speak to the ideals and traits she possesses. I was on the other side of the coin. Babie would be the loud one always stuttering excitedly sharing a story. I would be the silent one listening to the story processing what I hear. Babue would have these intense emotions giving her a hard time putting them into words. I would have this unwavering tenacity to find those words for her. I could go on and on, and as is, I intended to write less about this than I already have. I don't wish to write about this now because this was the topic of my 2nd anniversary with Yela and I said the same thing - that we were complimentary opposites.

No, Babie is different. So many things are different which is why now is not the time to write about it. But what I would like to start writing about is that difference.

Whenever they ask how my relationship was with Yela or how it all ended, I would immediately reply "it was toxic" as if it was my second nature to reply tnat way. While it straightforwardly answers the latter, I would fail at making it clear that the toxicity was not always there throughout the whole time with her. At a point, we did grow. After all, I learned a lot from her and hopefully she did too from me. The toxicity, I believe, began on our second year together. The eight months after that was just us trying to save what we already knew was going to end.

In a few months after our first year anniversary, the whole situation of having and losing Max was what shook and tested our relationship. Nearly everyone from ViARE found out about it because Yela got drunk in in her birthday party at her house. I wasn't able to go because I didn't have the same freedom back then and that I needed to attend a cousin's debut (which, if the same scenario happened "again" this year, I would've ditched it anyway). Long story short, I got judged hard by the people and the verdict was understandable - that they advised Yela to break up with me. This was an interesting case too. Yela stayed with me despite it. I had nothing to offer. I was only a 2nd year college student that came with a lot of naivety and immaturity. Both of which I did not understand until then when Yela told me the reasons for our friends' verdict on our relationship. I hated them for it. Told myself that they merely misunderstood my motives. I would fall into the trap of self-pity to make Yela stay with me. Add in to how she has this sense of messianic complexity and you're in for a recipe of a Titanic disaster. I would think that this boat would last a hundred years only for my naivety to be exposed and be broken by a mere iceberg. The sink would last for several months until the boat is finally underwater and Yela finally decides to give it up. I'd get constant reminders that Yela tells me that our friends and even some respectable higher ups would want us to break up. The way I saw all of those was like taking candy from a baby. Only that the baby had diabetes and that the baby can't understand how that's any better for him because of how he associates happiness with the mere feeling of pleasure in whatever form - from holding the candy, knowing he has it, or the taste of it. I am that baby.

I need not to go on further explaining events that led to our break up. Suffice to say that I'd cling on to her and bet on the feelings aspect to make us last long. I explained my situatuin with Yela quite lengthily and ironically this is supposed to be for Babie. But it is with this in mind that I know that Babie and my time with her is different. After all, if there is one thing that both Hum and IMC agree to, it's that "content is king, but context is King Kong."

In my second year with Babie, I unfortunately fortunately found myself in a parallel situation with her. We get too intimate close enough to almost have another "Max" situation. Real close, if I may say. But I was given a second chance of not repeating the same sins from the past. I finally learned how to stop my urges. With that, I let go of feelings and know how and why to choose to stay. No longer do my choosing to stay be motivated by feelings alone. Of course, there are many counter arguments that my mind has come up with. Valid arguments, I believe.

One of which is the how the choice to stay might only be motivated by my sense of fear of Babie's parents. Had we found ourselves in the exact situation with Yela, the consequences would be more unbearable as guilt will definitely consume me knowing that most of my achievements in the past few years was almost entirely because of their support financially. However, I've moved past those thoughts in two ways. One, financials was not a problem for Babie's parents. After all, if it were, they should be bugging me about paying it soon but not once did they say anything about it in the past year. Two, even if I did stay for the sake of fear and compensate by cheating on Babie - and may I mention thay I had many chances to do so - I still don't find myself being able to do it. At the end of the day, I come back wanting to be with her.

I put emphasis on "at the end of the day." And by "day," I mean it even on a day filled with outings with friends as opposed to a day filled with just staying at home because Yela wouldn't leave me alone with my friends. Even if I hang out with girls alone with some girls she knows that like me and I know I find attractive (outside physicality too), I end up finding myself turning around and wanting to go home where Babie. In fact, if you haven't noticed it yet, this leads me to another point. That she actually allows me to be out doing a lot of things that many other girls would already end up calling their man worrying if they've somehow secretly cheated. I used to hang out with Jayce a lot. I'd have friendly lunch or dinner with Rensa. I'd do many things alone with my friends like partying or 2am drinking sessions and yet she's fine with all that. It's in the trust that she gives me that makes me trust myself.

That said, of course, I'd allow her to do the same. I never found myself getting extremely jealous of guys she hangs out with (unlike me towards DJ back then). In fact, I'd even want her to hang out with her friends more. After all, it's in the freedom of our individuality that we grow together.

It's like taking video games from a teenager because his grades are getting lower. Only now the teenager understands because his parents were finally able to properly negotiate with him that it's for his own good and the teenager understands. That baby from before is no longer a baby. That baby has grown. I have grown.

Happy 2nd anniversary to the 2nd and last person who reached the 2nd year with me. I love you. 🙇🏻‍♂️

P.S. As I've promised to write more, comment on my posts about what topic you'd want me to talk about next. It could be a person, a thing, a concept, idea, anything. Of course, that's aside my usual posts!

[rejectedbyeharmony]

BOY BYE.

Ok I’ve had some time to cool off so I can finish this story. The point of this blog was to air out my baggage around love and relationships. But writing this story has made me realize that I never had a relationship with Matt. I had one with his child. That’s who I spent all my time with, that’s why I put my heart and soul into. I threw his birthday parties, I made sure we sent everyone Christmas cards, I hung out with other moms who had kids his age so that he had time to socialize. These things seemed important to me, as a parent. They were not as important to his actual parents, and it’s really opened my eyes to what a completely different childhood a kid can have when their parents put them first. This was not the case. All decisions made around the child were in the interest of mom or dad, but never him. Oh, and I was not allowed to have input in any of these decisions, but I was still expected to take on all the responsibilities of parenting him. Seems fair. Okay I’m getting upset again, let me get on with the story…

 Matt was a line cook at a golf club when we started dating. He was frying frozen food and making soggy quesadillas for the already half-in-the-bag club members. He cooked for me a few times and I could tell he had far more potential than he realized. I’ll never forget the time he cooked kale in a pan with ACV, apples and walnuts. It changed my life forever.

He mentioned that he spent one semester in culinary school, and one of his professors told him that he already had all the basic skills he needed to get into the restaurant industry, and he would get a better education in the kitchen than in the classroom. What Matt lacked in self-advocacy, he made up in talent. So I encouraged him to seek out better employment, but he worried about the schedule. Chef’s hours are hard. He would have go into work around noon, and wouldn’t get out until midnight or later. I worked regular hours, 8 to 4, so I promised to step up as a coparent in order to help him make his dream a reality. (Cue the Mean Girls gif: Because I’m SUCH a good [girl]friend.)

 For months, he and I were like passing ships in the night. Sometimes he would get up and hang with me in the morning, make me coffee and kiss me goodbye. Matt would drop his son at a babysitter’s house on his way to work, and I would pick him up on my way home. We would play and have dinner, and watch Paw Patrol or My Little Pony until it was his bedtime. Most nights it was pretty easy getting him to bed, but I dreaded it.

 This poor kid absorbed all of the trauma of the fights between his parents, inconsistency with schedules, being passed from adult-to-adult all day long, and vacillating between a house with rules, and a house with no boundaries. As a result, the kid had night terrors. Every night when I put him to bed, I would brace myself. I gritted my teeth and clenched my butthole waiting for it to start. Then, like a haunted house starts up every night, he would scream and cry for as long as an hour. Sometimes I would lose it, and I would scream with him. I would sit in my bed and scream and cry and curse Matt for not telling me about this before we moved in together. One time, I thought I might actually kill him. I imagined Matt coming home to a bloody mess, and me just sitting in a corner, eyes bugging out, rocking myself, repeating “he just wouldn’t stop screaming.”

 It stressed me the fuck out. I begged Matt to take him to a pediatrician that could help, but their agreement was that Amelia would take care of all the doctor’s appointments. Shockingly, she couldn’t ever find time to take this kid to get him the help he needed, she could barely keep a fucking job. It was devastating to me because all I wanted to do was just help him. I wanted some answers, some solutions… my heart broke for him. I dug deep into the bowels of the mommy interweb to get answers, but all I could find was that weren’t supposed to wake them up.

 Holy. Fucking. Shit. There was no solution to this problem. Talk about psychological warfare. I begged for the bedbugs over the night terrors.

 Matt was only home at bedtime once a week to experience this, so he didn’t believe that they happened every night. And his son didn’t remember them when we asked him about them. I was literally losing my mind. Matt and I fought about it constantly. One day, two of my closest friends—who are both moms—reached out and told me that Matt had contacted them. He explained to them, that because I wasn’t a parent I couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through, and that was my friends should be the ones to tell me I was wrong.

 What the fuck? How fucking dare you… I helped you excel in your career, I provided a home for you and your child, and I made myself a technical single parent every other week. I dealt with your ex’s bullshit, because you refused to, and this is how you thank me? He wasn’t the only one working on creating a career for himself. I had only recently finished college, and started working my dream job with my dream company. I was working my ass off, and he was totally out of line.

 Naturally, both my friends told him to fuck off. I felt so betrayed by him, that, not only would he go behind my back and try to turn my friends against me; but worse, he didn’t even give them all the information, making me sound like a control freak bitch (which is not entirely untrue, just not in this context.) All I wanted him to do was to take the kid to the goddamn pediatrician to find out what we can do to help him.

 Finally, Matt took the kid for a dental appointment, and even though he was four, his dentist was very concerned about the state of his teeth. He asked if we were doing regular dental hygiene. Matt and I brushed his teeth every morning and every night that he was with us, so we knew that we were doing our part. He called Amelia to ask her what she was doing, and she answered that she didn’t think she had to brush his teeth.

Louder for the people in the back: She didn’t think she had to brush his fucking teeth!!!

 She fed him garbage food all day, having no sense of nutrition for herself or her child, and she wasn’t even brushing his teeth. Clearly this woman had no business being a parent. I had enough. I told Matt I needed some space, and asked him to stay with his sister for awhile. Later, he got his son’s cavities filled, and the night terrors stopped. Weird…

 Eventually he moved back in. With no more night terrors, and this incident giving us an upper hand with Amelia, things seems to chill out. Life was much easier, and we were getting along much better. Then, one unfortunately day, I learned that my one of my best friends passed away. He lost his fight against liver failure, and it was very tragic and sad. I texted Matt on my way home “hey just found out JT died and I’m really sad, could you just be home and hang with me tonight?” It was his day off but he usually has something scheduled like playing Frisbee golf, or getting stoned with his friends or whatever, but I just needed him that night. We had been working hard on getting along, and asking him to sit with me that night was me raising a white flag. I just needed a shoulder to cry on. He agreed to stay home and told me he would see me soon.

 Imagine my surprise when I got home and he wasn’t there. And neither was his dog. I texted him and he said he “just ran out to get cigarettes and will be right back!” I couldn’t understand why he took the dog with him, but I didn’t ask, I was too preoccupied with my own grief to try to decode the actions of a stoner on his day off. One time I came home to him naked in our bed passed out and I just left him there. He came downstairs like “babe when did you get here I was in bed waiting for you.” Fuck outta here Sleeping Beauty, you were drooling.

So when he got home, he had a backpack and the dog on a leash and he was dressed to go somewhere. It was obvious he had something to tell me and I really didn’t really want to hear it. He started to tell me that he decided to leave me. Wow, could this have waited a few days, considering the circumstance… In spite of my anger towards him, I still didn’t want to be alone with my grief. I asked him to stay, we could order food and smoke a bowl, watch tv… and he said “I’m sorry, I can’t deal with you being sad right now.” And then, he left. And my heart broke and I never forgave him.

 I let him stay at his sisters house for a few days, and then I asked him to come back and pack up his shit. I was done. I was done getting treated like a babysitter for both him and his child. I was done being a mediator between him and his ex, because they couldn’t communicate. I was done being a life coach and teaching him to stay motivated and ask for more in his career. He had to go be his own man without me. And I needed to learn to grow on my own too. Codependency got the best of me with this one, and it was a hard decision to end it, but I knew it was the right one because he was dragging me down.

 My family could see this, but I couldn’t. I resented them for how they treated him, and how they never supported our relationship. But in hindsight, I’m grateful that they didn’t pretend to accept him. So many relationships before him lasted too long, because my family was complacent for my benefit. We were learning together that we needed to be honest about our impressions and feelings toward the men in my life. This became especially difficult in my next relationship, because he presented as such a great person, when he was really the worst thing that ever happened to me. The next story is the longest, the hardest, and the last. For now, at least.

[falling-rhayne]

Be More Chill Is A Self-Aware Musical: A Conspiracy Thread

Note: I haven’t actually read the book yet, but I’ve watched the musical twice and have been pondering over the soundtrack for four whole weeks, so I have a lot of thoughts...

Okay, so in the intro song “More Than Survive”, Jeremy laments on about how he’ll never be the hero of the story. 

“Out of all the characters at school I am not the one who the story’s about...”

Which is like, a typical thing to say when you see yourself as the high school loser. Like, of course you think the story’s not about you. You’re not a popular kid. You’re wallpaper at best. But there’s something that always bugged me in the song. This line:

“And that’s not what I need right now. End scene. I hang a left and there’s--”

It may just be a quirky thing that Jeremy does, narrating himself like a writer would with their main character. I mean, he’s been narrating himself from the start, but at that point... At the point where he literally quotes words that can usually be found in a screenplay, well... That’s when shit got interesting for me.

Okay, so the song after “More Than Survive” is “I Love Play Rehearsal”, right? It’s a catchy song, and a great introduction to Christine’s character, but there are some parts of it that stand out for me. First of all, there’s:

“I love play rehearsal, ‘cause you’re equipped with directions and text. Life is easy in rehearsal, you follow a script, so you know what comes next.”

And, as someone who also has mild ADD, I relate to her on a spiritual level. Following a script is so much easier sometimes ‘cause you can stick to it and never get distracted by our own thoughts. You just go with it, and you know how it’ll all end. 

No fear. No anxiety.

Nothing holding you back.

But, get this...

Script = Squip

If you say Squip fast enough, it sounds like Script. I only recently realized this when I talked about the musical with a friend, who didn’t know what a Squip was, and said “I think you mean script?”.

It just hit me like a ton of fucking bricks.

Y’all might be thinking: “This is all just a coincidence! Squip doesn’t even mean anything! It’s just a fancy acronym for robotic shit!”.

Well, y’all might be right, but the last line of “I Love Play Rehearsal” kinda supports my lil’ theory:

“’Cause we’re here at play rehearsal. And it’s starting, we’re starting, it’s starting... Soon...”

The last word, “Soon”, doesn’t rhyme with the other words in this verse at all. It just comes outta nowhere, and kinda flows weirdly in the over-all song. Wouldn’t “now” be more appropriate? Because they’re already at rehearsal, aren’t they?

BUT IF YOU PUT IT INTO CONTEXT. WHAT’S COMING SOON? WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN? JEREMY’S ABOUT TO GET THE SQUIP.

And after he gets the Squip, not only does Jeremy become “the one who the story’s about”, but he also stops narrating himself. If you noticed the songs he sings after this, every time he tries to narrate himself, the Squip stops him.

JEREMY ISN’T ABLE TO WRITE HIS OWN NARRATIVE ANYMORE.

WHY?

BECAUSE OF THE SQUIP.

BECAUSE THE SQUIP IS THE SCRIPT.

This also explains why Michael gets blocked. If you noticed, every since “More Than Survive”, Michael has always been his own narrative.Chloe, Brooke, and Jenna enter Jeremy’s narrative because his locker is close to theirs. Rich bumps into Jeremy, and then has a conversation with Jake --  a convo related to what Jeremy overheard the girls gossiping about. And Christine? JEREMY FUCKING INTRODUCES CHRISTINE.

You know who he doesn’t introduce? At least, not voluntarily?

MICHAEL MELL.

Michael Mell writes himself into Jeremy’s narrative. He comes in out of left field, sushi and slushie in hand, introducing himself in a completely different melody. His song, his soliloquy, his fucking monologue “Michael In The Bathroom” is proof. 

No other song in the musical is named like this.

The whole title almost reads like a scene heading in a screenplay.

I might just be reading too much into this, but it almost feels like this song was something Michael inserted into the narrative. This is Michael’s POV. Because Jeremy’s drunk and his Squip is a lil’ out of it too. Michael has the time to insert his narrative into the story. FINALLY.

And the only other time Michael, or in another case Jeremy’s Dad, can insert themselves into the narrative is when Jeremy’s in a battle with his Squip. The only time the narrative is stalled enough for somebody else to enter with their POVs.

Because if the Squip is in control, the Script is back on track, and they’d have to force themselves into it again. Which explains...

“MICHAEL MAKES AN ENTRANCE!”

#be more chill #bmc #jeremy heere #michael mell #brooke lohst #chloe valentince #rich goranski #jake dillinger #jenna rolan #christine caniglia #christine canigula #long post #play analysis #writing this #JUST A REALLY LONG RAMBLE REALLY #I JUST WANTED TO LET THIS ALL OUT #HEAR ME OUT OKAY

[tumblunni]

Ok so.. I feel really ungrateful as fuck saying this.. but it kinda bugs me how much perrin being nonbinary just.. isn’t really shown at all.

At least, in what i’ve seen so far, yknow? I watched the first ep of someone else’s let’s play to see if i was gonna like this game, and i like this game SO MUCH that I stopped right there and am downloading it at the speed of light yo!!! My hype is maximum and I really don’t want this to be seen as a hate message or anything, it's just a mild opinion piece about something that bummed me out a little, as a nonbinary person.

Ok so.. again, this makes me sound like an ASSHOLE but I have to say it.. Perrin looks like a boy. 100% of all LPers I have seen have assumed they were a boy. I, a nonbinary person, assumed they were a boy. (And felt like absolute shit afterwards, man I still have to work on my internalized gender stereotypes!)

Now in real life I absolutely wouldn’t go around being some douchebag who tells other NB folk they aren’t dressing ‘right’, or whatever. In real life people can feel very different ways about being outside of conventional gender norms. Some people feel like “both at once” or “neither” or “something else entirely that doesn’t touch either side of our society’s current binary stereotypes”. And regardless of whether you’re agender/bigender/genderfluid or any other type of genderqueer person, your fashion sense doesn’t have to fit any strict rule to “prove” it to people. Some people try and dress in androgenous stuff, some people try to mix parts of both gendered fashion worlds, some people like to wear very neutral baggy stuff as a different way of being androgenous, some people like to wear wild and fun stuff that never had any gender stereotype in the first place/because it helps them feel confident in themself if they have a big brave kind of fashion, yknow? (that’s why I dyed my hair at least, and why I think a lot of lGBT people do) And of course, some people just prefer ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ clothes regardless of not being that gender, and if we can accept that cis women can enjoy ‘tomboy’ fashion then we should accept that trans people don’t have to fit into even more rigid fashion rules in order to ‘earn’ their gender.

BUT this isn’t real life, it’s a videogame

We have a lot more context here, with the context that this is a character designed within a fandom whose previous attempts at NB representation have kinda started setting up a trend. In that context, this is a bit worrying that it’s happened again, and maybe future fangame creators are feeling like they have to do it, or something?

Like the NB protagonist Pluto in Pokemon Uranium.

They’re still someone I deeply love, but their design looks incredibly masculine aside from a side ponytail. If anything their design communicates more that they’re a younger option compared to the other two, or something?

And the two NB protagonist options Ari and Decibel in Pokemon Reborn

Their designs look like more traditionally masculine and feminine-leaning ways of being nonbinary, ykno? And that wouldn’t be bad on it’s own, but let me try and explain what I mean...

A similar issue occurs in the unrelated dating sim Hustle Cat:

Which is generally incredibly progressive and actually the first dating sim I’ve ever seen that lets you play a nonbinary protag! But you still get only two character models to choose from.

Like it’s great that they had two options to aknowledge how not all trans people are the same, but it starts to look a bit.. odd, when those two options are ‘feminine and masculine’ and no form of androgenous is ever an option. or even like.. someone with a ‘masculine’ body build but a ‘feminine’ fashion sense. That would be kind of a stereotypical way to depict a trans character but it wouldn’t just be making a random design that could fit amoungst the already existing gendered protags and then just saying they’re trans. And a lot of people found it weird how these ones seem to be drawn as like.. both on the far masculine end, just a cis man and a trans man.

Like.. even as a nonbinary person myself, I wouldn’t have known these characters were nonbinary if you hadn’t told me. And that leaves me feeling horrible about myself that I judged them on first sight, but I mean this is within a genre of entertainment that’s literally never had any Me in it and i’ve got used to being all ‘no you’re just reading too much into it’ whenever i headcanon anyone as genderqueer...

And just.. I feel like if you’re gonna just draw another two masculine and feminine looking characters, or just a second masculine one (or a weird two masculine ones that’re labelled male and female with no option for in-between...) then couldn’t you have saved time by just letting us choose our pronouns for the two you already had? like I already play a lot of games headcanoning the protag as just a masc-fashion version of my enby self, I feel like kinda the point of adding a third design would be to make it something the others aren’t already delivering. Look at it this way, you already HAVE two nonbinary characters who look masculine and feminine, just like the player could also play them as a trans boy and trans girl. Pronoun selector box is the greatest invention of our time! So what I’m really saying is not “don’t have super masc NB protags” but just “can we have another option too?”

Oh, but then that’s also been done not-so-well by certain games too.. Awesome amazing multiplayer party game dating sim Monster Prom let’s you choose your pronouns!

...except these are your only character options! All of these are very clearly intended to be read as masc or femme, you’re probably gonna feel dysphoric as heck if you play them as trans, and none of them work super well as nonbinary either. I think pretty much every NB player has always gone for Oz (yellow one), cos he’s the one that’s most capable of fitting that headcanon just by virtue of being perpetually shadowed. Tho still his default is “he” pronouns, his fashion sense is masc and his voice is masc. Still I’m really fuckin proud of the fandom for collectively latching onto NB Oz and using “they” all the time in fanworks, and then the developers being okay with it, like holy shit man you healed my goddamn heart... <3

Still, it makes me feel a lil like this would have been easy to fix? like I’m not saying redraw everything to have them all change bodies/fashion style depending on your pronoun choice, but like.. maybe just not draw them with such super disparate body styles in the first place? like in this style every girl is hourglass and has weird legs out arms out pose, and every dude is a chunkfest with twice as big hands and feet. Like you could have maybe just made two of the characters be a very curvy girl and a very buff boy, and then the other two be more neutral in appearance but still retaining the same designs. Like I think if you just gave the blue girl a baggier shirt that doesn’t highlight her boobs and hips so much, she could easily be my favourite ‘most NB-able’ design! maybe also tone down the eyelash and lipstick effects?

I think probably a similar thing could have been done with the Reborn protagonists? like there’s nothing inherantly feminine about wearing a tanktop and having a fancy undercut hairstyle and such, its just the way they drew Ari that makes them look feminine. I guess maybe that’s a necessary evil of fangames, since they usually use edits of already existing characters from the games? Then again the games have plenty of androgenous characters already, even if nobody is canonically confirmed as LGBT. *shrug*

Anyway

I absolutely am not trying to nitpick and attack the game for not being perfect in this one aspect. i’m still super excited to even see someone like me in a videogame at all, and I’m definately not one of those people who’s like ‘I’d rather have nothing than have something flawed’. I already admire you greatly for what you’ve done for the inclusivity of this fandom, and I hope that my discussion of this stuff doesn’t discourage you from continuing.

And I guess my point is, in summary

What I mean is not “there are no nonbinary people who prefer to dress masculine instead of androgenous”, but instead that when you’re designing a nonbinary person as the only option a nonbinary player gets or the only nonbinary person in the game, with no playable option, it would probably be a little better to draw them androgenous.

Like, you’ve put that NB character into the role of representing all nonbinary people ever, to the hypothetical audience of people who’ve never heard of the concept before and aren’t super educated about the intricacies of gender presentation. And then also rather than using traditionally gendered outfits to aknowledge that NB people have many ways to present themselves... you’ve given us less ways to present ourselves.

Also it’s a little bit odd that you have an NB rival but said “we’re not ever considering an NB player option in the future”. Sorry but I cannot understand the logic? Like.. you know NB people play your game if you wanted to put NB representation in it, but you didn’t put it as playable because... reasons?? I hope maybe that interview was just taken out of context and you meant something more like “it’s not planned for now because it’s a lot of work and the game is still in its demo stage”, which is absolutely an understandable reason and how Uranium and Reborn did it. But Uranium and Reborn were kinda odd for being a world where literally nobody else aside from you could ever be NB, so I am really grateful that your game did add an NB character. And one in a big role!! This is what i mean about how grateful I am and how I feel awful that my bad internet typing skills are making this post come off as more aggressive than intended.. *sigh*

OH and also maybe a tip for Periin? just.. like.. mention their pronouns. It’s really frustrating to watch everyone doing let’s plays of this thing and constantly assuming Perrin is male because their design is very masculine. Even me! Even me was assume! :( So like... maybe just have Perrin actually tell the audience that they are nonbinary at some point, during this introduction? or have the protagonist’s inner monologue mention it, or another character mention it on the way towards meeting Perrin? like I dunno, maybe a Perrin fan npc?cos it would seem a bit more natural to talk about gender if it’s someone saying “wow I admire Perrin’s androgenous fashion sense” rather than like.. a stranger saying “i can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl from your face”.

I can understand how it can be tricky to figure out how to introduce a LGBT character’s LGBT-ness without having them go around saying it to every new person they meet, it’s something I’ve had to fix in the editing process even as a trans person writing trans characters. But just having their gender only be mentioned on missable promotional material outside the game means that a lot of players won’t ever hear about it, and it like.. has zero impact of actual inclusivity on the game. It’s why people were angry about DUmbledore only getting revealed as gay after the series already ended. Him being gay missed all of its chances to make gay readers of the series feel welcome, or have any part of his character be informed by his sexuality. like the plot between him and grindlewold could have been way more effective if it was him losing a boyfriend to the dark arts, just sayin...

anyway whatever, bunni is bad at writing coherant posts in summary thanks for perrin and sorry for whining about perrin, aaaaa

#bunni plays phoenix rising

[babbbyygurlll]

denied (2) | jungkook

member: jungkook

genre: fluff? angst? smut? i really don’t know

POV (point of view): jungkook pov until the end, then reader pov

- summary: She liked him and he didn’t like her. He was everything she wanted and she was everything he didn’t ask for. He was the only person she had eyes for and she didn’t even exist in his mind. However, this wasn’t the beginning for the two

note: hEYYY GUYS i’m back with part two of denied!! sorry for the delay i just went back to school and i have had 3 assessments due this week so i was very busy. thanks for so many likes on the first, i wasn’t expecting like 66 people to like it, that would be 65 more people than i expected. I would also like to mention before you read this, i have this in an Australian context. I am basing this off of my experience at a high school so i use “canteen” which is like a cafeteria? but yeah since i’m aussie its just easier to do this and also the reason for the area code in front of her phone number. Nothing important actually happens in this chapter, but don’t worry actual y/n x jungkook interactions should happen in the next chapter. aNYWAYS THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT AND ENJOY CHAPTER 2

[phone]: aye papiiiii

[phone]: did you miss me ?

[phone]: you were so harsh yesterday kook

[phone]: you lucky I have thicc skin

[phone]: almost as thicc as those thighs of yours

[phone]: maybe even that dick-

You: Jesus christ

You: I thought I blocked you

[phone]: lol dad

[phone]: I changed my numberrrrrrr

[phone]: my old one had a zero at the end

[phone]: now it's a one

[phone]: im like those bad infections you can’t get rid of

[phone]: im sure you have a lot of experiences with stuff like that ;)

You: You are kidding me

[phone]: iM mAKING A JOKE KOOKIE

[phone]: im not trying to offend my papi

[phone]: tbh I would still hit it even if you had an infection

[phone]: unless you have vagina warts

[phone]:

tHAT SHIT IS NASTY

[phone]: my pussy is a new concrete road not some bumpy brick path

You: How can I have vagina warts if I have a dick?

[phone]: man I wasn’t planning on giving a biology lesson so early in the morning

[phone]: but vagina warts are also known as genital warts kook

[phone]: and genitals include penises

[phone]: so it is very possible

[phone]: I have an educational question

[phone]: are boobs genitals?

You: anyways

You: Do you have a good explanation

You: For texting me

You: At 6:34 in the morning

[phone]: ahhhhh

[phone]: I have a really good reason

[phone]: okay okay here it goes

[phone]: its amazing

[phone]: so i wanted to tell you there is a bake sale happening at school this morning

[phone]: so you should go early

[phone]: to have some breakfast

[phone]: :)

You: Is that it?

[phone]: also

[phone]: to try out

[phone]: my new phone number

[phone]: :)

You: okay

You: Im gonna block you now

[phone]: wHATTTTTTTT

[phone]: man jungkook you and that block button are very intimate

[phone]: wHY YOU BLOCKING ME AGAIN

You: Cause you messaged me again

[phone]: whats so wrong with that

You: I don’t know who you are

You: And im not one to talk to strangers

[phone]: im not a stranger

[phone]: if anything im a nicer

You: Also you make jokes like that

[phone]: mY JOKES ARE FUNNY

You: not really

[phone]: wow kook

[phone]: that really hurt

[phone]: my body is in pain

[phone]: wait that's my period

[phone]: wELL YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE

You: I will leave then

[phone]: but but

[phone]: you are my medicine ☹

you: you don't need medicine for you period

[phone]: dang he got me on that one

[phone]: you are my aspirin <3

You: I need to get ready

You: Change your number as many times as you want

You: I will still block you

[phone]: okay I have a grand idea

[phone]: how about you go to that bake sale

[phone]: and buy some breakfast

[phone]: and I will stop bugging you

You: You serious?

[phone]: as serious as herpes

You: Fine whatever

You: Leave me alone after that

[phone]: OKAY KOOKIE

[phone]: p.s the sweet bread is the best

[phone]: SEE YOU AT SCHOOL

[phone]: wait don't see me

[phone]: I will see you

[phone]: but you won’t see me

[phone]: hopefully

[phone]: dONT GO LOOKING FOR ME BOY

[phone]: bye bye kookie <3

You: I told you to stop calling me that

[phone]: okay okay

[phone]: bYE BYE PAPIIII

You were smiling alongside your friends, with your binder in one hand and a sweet bread in the other. A smile was spread across your face as you and your friends continue to walk to school. It was a cold summer day, you were wearing your school uniform that reached just above your knees along with your ugly ass school blazer. It may be ugly, but you were freezing so you choose to look ugly and warm for that day only. Your heavy backpack weighed down your shoulders, it was filled with schoolbooks you barely look at and packets of snacks for when you get hungry in class. You had your hair out which was an inconvenience for you as it kept on getting in the way when you tried to take a bite from the sweet bread. You were currently still in your morning daze as your eyes began to droop whilst walking. Unfortunately you were disturbed when you heard a loud pitchy voice.

“Oh yeah y/n, why didn't you want to come to the mall with us yesterday? We were going shopping for Bella’s birthday party.” One of your friends, Anna asked you whilst shaking your shoulders.

“ahh you see, my mum said I had to look after Aaron after school so yeah I had that. I need to get a present for ___ though.” You retort back to your friend, ignoring her shaking whilst continuing to snack on your bread. You smile to yourself when recalling the events of yesterday and even this morning, when you were lying on your bed with a chocolate bar in your mouth as you kept on messaging jungkook daddy and papi.

“Why are you smiling to yourself y/n? You look like a pervert when you smile like that” Anna snarks at you in disgust before you hit her chest with your binder.

“Ouch y/n!” She screeches loud enough to bust your ears. Her face was scrunched in pain but instantly stopped to look at you. “Wait did you say Aaron?” She questioned with bright eyes, you already knowing where this is going. “Yes I did” You said as you all stopped at the stoplight.

“oh my god! Aaron is so cute, I wish I had a baby brother” Your friend continues to whine whilst stopping her feet like a baby. You smile to yourself again as your friend takes the bait. “Why have a baby brother when you already are one?” You comment at her with a blank face, but your statement causes her to slap your arm. Your other friends begin to giggle and laugh with their hands covering their face, like how any high school girl laughs. The stoplight turns green and you start walking across the street. “Don’t be so mean y/n! My cup size is larger than yours, I wouldn’t call me a boy with that cutting board you call a chest!” Your friend rebuts before stomping in front of you murmuring something along the lines I’m not a little boy. You finally reach the path walk and you see Anna marching away like a little troll with that big ass backpack. The rest of your friends continue to laugh their heads off, but you just get lost in your thoughts and then pulls your dress away from your chest to take a peak at your boobs. “They aren’t that small” you whisper to yourself before removing your hand from your dress and shove another bite of the sweet bread into your mouth.

Jungkook was just a small crush, or at least that's what you say to yourself. You like Jungkook but you wouldn't say you love him. You barely knew the dude and only had a few interactions before the text message incident yesterday. The whole Jungkook situation only started a few months ago. You were walking to the canteen with a huge grin on your face as you went to go buy your third snack today. You had two sandwiches today so you were craving something sweet. Banana bread crossed your mind and it wasn’t a bad idea, so you take out the exact change you needed for a slice of banana bread in the palm of your hand. Your smile takes over your entire face when you skip past the canteen doors into the humid slightly – smelly canteen, and as soon as you enter you lock eyes with where the banana bread usually are. Your soul almost left your body when you take notice that there is only one banana bread left in the brown basket. Your feet start moving before your mind even notices the tall male figure walking towards the basket. You push through crowds of people as they wait in line, you hear yelling and screams in your direction but you were only thinking of yourself in this moment.

The worried expression on your face begins to disappear when you are a metre away from your banana bread. But when you start to lean towards the basket, a large hand moves in front of yours and quickly grabs the bread so fast your eyes didn't even notice until you reach out to grab nothing. Your eyes pop out of your head and a loud gasp leaves your lips. A hand is on your chest as you stare into the man’s back. You were left dumbfounded, as your precious baby was snatched before your eyes. Your body was motionless as the man stood in front of you waiting to pay for your banana bread. Your body couldn’t react to the man whose back was currently facing you, but in your mind you were burning his head with your laser eyes. The boy awkwardly looks over his shoulder to see a small brunette girl in a slouching position, squinting her eyes towards him with her hands in front of her in a grabbing motion. When you realises he was looking at you and that wasn’t your imagination you stand straight and suspiciously starts whistling whilst playing with your feet. It took you a minute to notice the boy’s very handsome features. His jawline, his eyes, his shoulders. You were always a fan of broad shoulders and a muscular chest and this boy had both of those. You could also say his chest is better than yours, but his chest wouldn’t look good in a pink lacy bra so yours ultimately wins.

“Do you want something?” he asks with his eyebrows squished together.

“Well” you drag on and scratch the top of your head. “ Since you asked” you say before stopping and using your index finger to point to the banana bread in his hand. “I want that” You flash him a big warm smile, hoping to appeal to the stranger’s soft side. He fully turns around to look down at you then look at the banana bread in his hand. “This?” He says whilst waving the bread in your face. “Yes please” you hold your hands together and start to bat your eyelashes. He looks at you oddly for a minute and then grabs your hand. Your body jumps at the instant contact, before you could ask him what he is doing he places the banana bread in the palm of your hand and walks off.

“ Take it. If it causes this much trouble, its not worth it.” He murmurs as he brushes shoulders with you and exits the canteen. You look towards the exit and tilt your head in confusion.

“What did he say?” You ask yourself, as you try to remember what he said. “Excuse me, you are delaying the line” A loud voice yells in your direction, you turn around to see the canteen lady yelling at you. You run forward and show your banana bread to the women. You hand her the two dollars and fifty cents in fifty cent coins and slowly walk out of the canteen. The court yard is filled with students, but your eyes try to find the same tall figure that was in the canteen moments ago. You unwrap the banana bread as you scan the yard, but the same tall figure wasn’t to be seen. You start to walk away from the canteen and go back to your friends. The banana bread was being shoved into your mouth and you took a large bite, still thinking about that mysterious handsome boy.

Then and even now, you didn’t even notice that you have met that boy before. In fact you were quite familiar with the stranger, and he did appear in your past quite often.

“Y/n!!” Anna wailed once again, seeing her wave her hands in the distance. You were standing in place by the cross walk but you could see all of your friends a far distance away from you. You were daydreaming and they didn’t even notice you stopped walking until now.

“Come on y/n!” Anna yells for the hundredth time. Waves of laughter leave your mouth and you start travelling towards her. Before you could make a step you fell a small vibration coming from your back pocket. You reach behind you and squint your eyes towards your phone screen, if you weren’t smiling before you sure would be smiling now.

New Text Message Jungkookie <3: You weren’t wrong about the sweet bread

An unexpected warmth spreads through your body and even hues of red appear on your cheeks. You shove your phone back into your pocket and start attempting to run towards Anna, which is more like waddling with that heavy backpack. As you sprint towards Anna, you shove piece of sweet bread into your mouth. You giggle to yourself when you realise Jungkook is eating the same food you are right now and tasting the same flavours you are right now, but if anything you are glad you got to repay him for the Banana Bread.

#was that good? #i really dont know #this was so fun to write #anyways bye bye #bts #bts jungkook #kpop scenarios #kpop icons #jeon jungkook #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fake texts #bts scenarios #bts fanfction #bts fanfic #fuckboy jungkook #squishypeaches #junghooker

[jackkel-dragon]

Blue Reflection “Steam” Review

I wrote up a long review for a game I’ve been playing lately, and was going to post it as a Steam review until I noticed that my review went over the character limit. Since I couldn’t find a way to cut it down that I liked, I decided to post the full version of the review here. Behind a read more for length and spoilers. (Spoilers are also behind a warning to make the main review low-spoiler.)

Blue Reflection is a magical girl JRPG, a type of game I've been hoping to see for a while. It plays similarly to a Persona game, where it is split into daily life segments for getting to know the characters and otherworld segments for exploring and fighting.

The story is very character-focused, which works to its favor. Most of the story involves the main character gaining power through empathizing with others, allowing herself and those she meets to grow. This power is used to fight supernatural monsters from outer space and the negative emotions they impose on an otherworld sustained by humanity's collective unconscious. While there is an overarching plot, it doesn't get much play until near the end of the game. More information than that goes into spoiler territory, so that will be addressed later.

The "daily life" gameplay is very similar to the Persona series, albeit simpler and more streamlined. Outside of story chapters, free time can be spent exploring the school, completing side quests, or spending time with friends. There are several interesting things you can find in the school, particularly an odd collectible-like system where finding glowing spots in the school will open up new topics for the main character's IM app. Side quests involve either jumping into the otherworld to fight monsters/collect items, or simply bringing items to the person in question. While simple in design, each side quest has an interesting hook to give context to the mission, and so it's interesting to see what each student has problems with. Spending time with friends works similarly to Social Links/Confidants in the Persona series, where you get special events at certain levels of affection. During some of these events, the player may get a choice on how to respond, which changes the skill the player earns from completing that event. There is also a system where, at the end of each day, the player can decide what to do at night, which can cause certain events to play the next morning (sometimes giving stat boosts). There's no real time limit to free time, so it's possible to complete everything except for alternate scenes in a single playthrough.

The other gameplay for the game takes place in "The Common", an otherworld that is shaped by the collective unconscious. Because of its nature, it is split into certain "zones" such as Joy and Fear. Here the player fights monsters and prepares to fight the "Sephirot", giant monsters from outer space. The basic exploration will be familiar to those who have played the Atelier games, since it involves the same kind of on-screen monster icons and the ability to find items in certain areas. Battles are turn-based, though there are some interesting systems unlocked later in the game that make the wait time between turns an active part of the battle (such as allowing the use of a special meter to heal or accelerate turns). Instead of having XP, the game uses "growth points" to level up, which are gained exclusively from story progress and spending time with friends in daily life. This reduces some of the grind found in other JRPGs. On the other hand, it's easy enough to grind growth points from spending time with friends that combat will be easy for most of the game, even on the hardest difficulty. Each character also learns far more skills than you will ever need to use, and some skills end up being redundant because of this. While there is a system for learning specific skills in the growth point system, whatever combination of level ups you decide on will end up leaving you more than powerful enough to win. This is made even easier since HP/MP is restored after each fight. Battles can still be fun once you've become overpowered, but don't go into the game expecting something as difficult as a Megami Tensei game.

The last major gameplay element involves fighting the giant bosses. These are 2-3 phase fights that involve a single large enemy with multiple parts. You can finish each phase just by killing the main part, but each sub-part you kill will be inactive for a while and cause a debuff to the main body. These fights also allow the non-magical friends of the main character to support the team, usually with small buffs or attacks that increase the special gauge (which allows for certain abilities between turns later in the game, as mentioned earlier). These fights are usually about as easy as the rest of the game, but may take a bit longer due to high HP and the need for the player to heal.

Overall, it's a fun magical girl RPG, though not something for anyone looking for a challenge. This is very much a game focused on the stories of its major characters, with the main story and battles as part of the experience (but not the focus).

A note on the PC port: The game no longer has a game-breaking crash thanks to a patch, but it still is pretty resource-hungry and can crash under certain conditions. If you don't have a pretty recent computer, it may be better to look into the PS4 version.

Now, onto some spoiler talk... If you want to go in blind, the review essentially ends here.

====SPOILERS====

Note: I'm going to assume some basic knowledge of character names and such, in order to avoid making this part of the review longer than it already is.

To start with, I really like the characters and most of the story of the game. That might come into question with my later ramblings if I don't point it out right away. It's mostly how the main plot was handled near the end that gets to me.

With that said, let's start with some good things about the story. I really like most of the characters, and they all have really nice stories when you complete their friendship events. Even some characters that I wouldn't give a chance in real life ended up growing on me. The daily life main plot regarding the school festival was also a really nice way to explain why Hinako was getting so close to her classmates.

Now, something I have a problem with is the Sephirot. Aside from sounding cool, I have a hard time finding out what connections they have to Kabbalah and its philosophy. Aside from surface connections (Yesod, the foundation, being the first one fought; Da'at/Daath, the place where all Sephirot are one, being the last fought), I can't see a whole lot of how these space monsters are connected to Jewish mysticism. Now, the series everyone thinks inspired the game--the Megami Tensei franchise--also makes heavy use of mythology in every game. But those games also show their work in how everything connects to what they are named after. The tarot arcana in the Persona series are always thematically related to the people they are assigned to. The initial and ultimate personae of the leads are connected to the theme of the game. (For example, Orpheus/Thanatos are connected to Death.) Aside from Daath's sudden idea to combine all of humanity into one being, I don't see much connection between Blue Reflection's Sephirot and the real world's idea of Sephirot. Maybe this is a lack of research on my part, but it still bugs me.

The main plot also contradicts itself and becomes a mess near the end. Yuzu and Lime being ghosts is actually foreshadowed fairly early, but then gets swept under the rug until the reveal. More importantly, Daath directly contradicts things that Yuzu, Lime, and Yuri claim, and no one explains why this thing that shows up in the last twenty minutes of the game is suddenly changing all the information we were told. For instance, Yuzu and Lime claim that there are 22 singularities, each with a Reflector. This is further shown in a scene without Hinako that proves they aren't lying to her about this. But then, after they are outed as ghosts, they say there is only one Reflector at a time. Hinako never addresses this, and Daath later points out that only Hinako is a Reflector. There's a lot more I could complain about Daath, really. Yuzu and Lime also recognize it (him?) when he decides to show up in the final scene, yet never thought to mention him to Hinako before he started killing and absorbing people.

Even worse than Daath is the ending. I was mostly okay with it at first, despite not liking how many Japanese stories seem to end with timeloops or resets. (I have to wonder if Puella Magi Madoka Magica inspired Blue Reflection to use this particular trope, despite this game not needing such a plot point.) But the more I think about it, the suckier it is without making some serious assumptions. Basically, Yuzu and Lime return to being dead. Daath is gone, but apparently might come back later (he's not clear on whether he's dying or not). But everything else in the story snaps back to the opening cutscene, aside from Hinako remembering some of what happened. This memory alone seems to warrant a bittersweet, rather than downer, ending. But keep this in mind: this means that all twelve of Hinako's friends and all of the sidequest characters are back to where they were at the start of the game. Rin is back to being indecisive about her crush. Sarasa is back to being bitter and upset that Hinako stopped ballet. Shihori is back to being hated for something she isn't doing. Mao is back to being a loner jerk that keeps others at arms length. All of those problems that Hinako fixed are now undone, and now she doesn't have magic or Yuzu/Lime to help her re-fix everything. You have to assume that Hinako can befriend everyone again and help them in more mundane ways to solve their problems, otherwise the ending is really depressing. Yet Hinako is just happy that she didn't forget about Yuzu and Lime, and we're supposed to be okay with just that. I thought this game was about empathy and friendship overcoming adversity, not how everything one does in life is ultimately pointless.

There are other things that bother me, but those are the more major ones. Accidentally undercutting the premise of the story in the last half hour of the game is not really a good way to leave a lasting impression. I still like the game, but unless a sequel/spinoff fixes some of the issues, I have to mentally rewrite or re-contextualize the ending in order to be okay with it.

At any rate, I still recommend the game. It's a fun game, and the character-focused parts of the story are really good. As a story of how Hinako comes to terms with not being able to dance again thanks to her new friends, it works well. Just try not to take the self-contradicting myth arc too seriously if you don't want to get annoyed.

#blue reflection #game review