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prof-peach · 3 years

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Hello professor, I have a pretty heavy question I’m afraid, but I’m running out of people to ask, so I’ll try my best to keep it PG13.

It’s my Mienshao, Daisy. Up until recently, she and I were members of a police task force tasked with rooting out illegal Pokemon smuggling rings and underground high stakes tournaments. We’ve been partners for a long time, me and Daisy, we grew up together, and I dare say we made a great team. But then things went wrong.

For the sake of security I can’t go into too much detail, but we were participating in a raid when we got ambushed. Someone must have tipped the smugglers off, because they were waiting for us when we got there. During the firefight, there was an explosion, a gas tank got set on fire by a charizard, I believe, and Daisy and I happened to be close. She got out with a few minor burns and scrapes, I... Did not.

I’ll spare you the gory details, but I have been confined to a wheel chair ever since, and I am due to be fitted for a prosthetic leg next week.

I won’t lie, the transition has been hard for everybody, me, my friends, my family. My other Pokémon have been hovering around me like over protective nannies for weeks. But I think out of all of us, Daisy has been taking it the hardest. Half of the day she spends locked to my side like a bodyguard, threatening to punch anyone that gets too close into oblivion. And the other half, well...

She’s started putting herself through some kind of hellish self training routine. Doing katas until she all but collapses from exhaustion, running laps for hours, fighting every Pokemon she can convince to fight, wild or trained. Daisy’s always been tough, and she’s always loved training, but this... This isn’t training, it’s a death march. I’m getting extremely worried, and that’s not even everything!

She’s stopped eating her favorite foods, deliberately choosing ones I know she hates, she won’t let me pet her anymore, she just steps out of reach, trying not to look at me. But most worryingly, she’s started cutting off her whiskers. She’s always been so proud of her whiskers, she groomed them every day, always got grumpy when I teased her for having a big ol’ mustache. Now anytime they get longer than an inch, she slices them off with her claws and throws them in fireplace, like some kind ceromony.

I’m almost certain Daisy feels guilty for coming out mostly unscathed, when I didn’t. She’s always been a bit protective, even before we joined the police, and she’s saved my life multiple times out in the field, but now she feels like she’s failed me, I think. I’ve tried to convince her that it wasn’t her fault, but that only seems to redouble her efforts. I’m terrified she’s going to burn herself out if she keeps going like this, and I don’t know what to do.

I know this is a pretty heavy question, but I I’m not sure who else to ask. Is there anything I can do to convince her that she doesn’t need to hurt herself like this? Or, something? Just anything to help! Losing my leg was jarring, but losing Daisy would be unbearable!... I just... I just want my best friend to be okay.

I am sorry for what you’ve been through, I cannot begin to understand what it’s like to be in your shoes, but like all recovery, physical or mental, this will take a fair bit of time to get past, you both may never fully return to how things were, but it can get better and you can both return to a full life together with work and dedication.

I’ve certainly seen Pokemon go to extreme lengths after dangerous incidents to protect their loved ones or themselves, in this case it would be wise to assume your pokemons suffering with a hefty bill of PTSD, and needs some actual therapy to handle the feelings and thoughts they’re having. We have facilities to accommodate that if you’re local to Johto, but most Pokemon centres will be able to put you in contact with reliable and certified practices to begin unravelling the issues that now plague Daisy.

That she considers herself to have come away reasonably unscathed is not true, yes your life has physically changed, but she needs to step back and take a look at her life too. Everything’s different now, and more specifically how she’s treating herself and handling her feelings. If that’s not trauma and injury, I don’t know what else it could be. You both came away with damage that day, physical or not. The first step is to help her see that, and to begin to understand that despite this all, you can both continue to move forward together if you can overcome the injury together, it is an event you shared, and you two can aid each others recovery with time and care.

There’s some seriously gifted therapists out there, those who study for years and can help far more than me, they’ll take time to break down the events, and start to really get into the feelings that your partner is going through. The cycle for Daisy right now comes around to self-punishment, and seems to be stuck on a loop. She needs time and space to process her feelings of guilt, grief, fear and loss, facing them instead of burying herself in her rigorous training. While it is difficult to discuss, you two have a strong bond that means you could talk with her. Try to remind her who’s truly responsible, she may be blaming herself, which is pretty common in these situations, but at the root of it, you were doing your routine job, and the bad guys, the Pokemon smugglers and goons are to blame. THEY caused the issue, not her, and while it may not sink in right away it’s worth saying, and sticking to. You said you told her that it wasn’t her fault, which is the gut reaction, perhaps giving her a logical target instead of herself will work better for now. Reiterating the true issue, and taking the heat off of her may help with other tasks such as self care, later down the recovery road.

Her guilt will feel terrible, but it kind of works as a protector, keeping her distanced from the worse, more overwhelming feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. In fact the guilt that masks this all will slowly make things worse over time. That underlying intense emotion below the guilt is what you both need to work through, but more than anything, she needs to face it, in her own time, come to terms with it, and eventually (hopefully) come to an understanding that life is an endless cycle of events, things will happen, but you have to pick yourself up and turn the lemons into lemonade. She could have lost you that day, that you came away with your life is a miracle, and now you two get more time together because of that. Luck isn’t something that runs out, it’s not like there’s only so much of it to go around, it is like wining the lottery. Sometimes 20 people win, other times no one does. It’s hard to accept, but there’s no greater order to stuff that happens, but when we can come to this conclusion, it’s oddly freeing. I’ve seen a fair few Pokemon in a symilar state who can move on when they realise there’s an odd randomness to the world and everything that goes on.

This is a job for someone with far greater skills than I, but you must help her by also looking after yourself, laugh when you can, show her that your life is still very full, and that you have loved ones, and joy to share with others. You mentioned that you’re due a prosthetic, and though the transition will be long and no doubt a little difficult at first, getting yourself back on two feet (kind of) will show her, and your other Pokemon that you’re willing to move forward. I think there’s a lot to be said about talking during this all. She wants to fight, to be strong, if this is how she’s going to cope, fine. If she’s out training, sit with her, spend whatever time you can by her side, as she’s taking this the hardest. You don’t have to say a thing, just try to do your best, without putting yourself in too much discomfort or pain. Reminding her who would be devastated if it had been her who got hurt, if she was not around, may help ground her back in reality a bit. You both got granted a gift that day, you came away alive, if she works so hard she burns out, that gift was wasted. She can use her kindness, and strength to help you, she can pass her knowledge and skill forward, but it’s hard to help others, and do your best if you’re exhausted beyond reason. Kind of like trying to give people bread from a basket but the damn basket is empty yknow? You got to take time to refill so you can help those around you again, so you have some bread to give. I know, probably sounds a little dumb but it’s always been the way I remember it.

Another very useful thing I’ve found with trauma survivors would be meeting others who have been in the same position. There’s plenty of support groups for both people and Pokemon who have been through events that left them in a difficult situation, emotionally and physically. Even here at the lab we have many species who have been left without limbs, with life changing damage, and a lot of them also have the emotional trauma too. She would probably do well to spend time with them, you can send her to a resort to retreat and recoup erase, mix with others who were just as angry as she is now, or you can take time to go with her to groups to interact with others. It’s one thing to have humans help, but it’s a whole other level of connection when Pokemon can help their own. They bond quicker, trust faster, and generally are more open to listening when it’s coming from a place of mutual experience. If she had time to talk to pokemon who actually lost their trainers, or parts of themselves, she may find some peace, even if only temporarily.

Don’t mention the whiskers, and where possible don’t offer her foods she actively likes, but also not ones she actively dislikes. Just for now. Start the ball rolling with just plain simple things that are neither good or bad. Indifferent is better than bad right now, the punishment she’s inflicting on herself will need addressing further, so contact a therapist, they use Rotom or porygon to translate from poke-speech to human language, and the repair can begin with a registered professional. My advice is not sound proof, I certainly feel like I have missed something important, it’s a big response, but it’s a start in the right direction, and should you come up to any further issues, message back and update us with what’s going on. With work you two will be on track to recover. Remember, patience is the biggest thing here, you two have history, and a therapist will no doubt take the sessions as a pair, and work with you to help Daisy feel less guilty over time. I hope you both find peace, and that both of you repair in due time. Good luck with the new leg, a step towards recovery for sure.

#pokemon #prof.peach #peach talks #take this one with a pinch of salt #I’m no therapist #but I certainly hope you both find some peace

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sarahjtv · 3 years

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BNHA Chapter 308 Spoiler Thoughts: Beat His Ass, Young Midoriya!

Chapter leaks are out! Full chapter hasn’t been revealed yet (and take what I say with a grain of salt until the official translations come out), but I think I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. Nothing super heavy, but it’s an action-packed chapter that shows us how much of a badass Deku has become since he left UA and went all vigilante on us. So, let’s do this:

Before we get into the chapter, I need to mention our mangaka, Kohei Horikoshi-sensei’s comment this week. He’s basically apologizing for taking a break last week, calling himself a “small-fry”, and promising to pick himself up. Horikoshi deserved a break last week and he is by no means a “small-fry” for creating one of the best and most popular pieces of fiction in the last few years. I hope that he knows that and that he shouldn’t blame himself for taking a break.

So, the chapter picks up right where we left off! Deku and Muscular’s battle begins and Muscular recognizes Deku’s voice. He says that he’s been waiting for this moment as everyone else he’s faced have been weaklings compared to Deku. As far as we know, Deku has been the only one to even beat Muscular by himself. It took over 100% of his strength to do so, but Deku did manage to kick Muscular’s ass. It makes sense why he’d want a rematch.

I need to take a moment here to talk about how awesome Deku looks in his Vigilante costume (as I’ve decided to call it). The tattered clothing really works for him and the dark sclera around his eye adds to the effect. Again, I love that he’s finally putting the bunny hood and metal mask to use. I mean, he used them before, but not as a real part of his daily costume. He looks almost like a completely different person with them on. I’d be scared of Deku tbh.

As the fight continues, he gives the injured Yo Shindo to his GF, Tatami. Tatami can’t see Deku’s costume because of the smoke surrounding him, but she does kind of recognize his voice from somewhere. I do wonder if Tatami’s going to put the pieces together and find out that the vigilante is Izuku Midoriya. And I wonder if she’s going to get the word about his actions spreading and if that will reach our UA kids. Or the news stations will, that might happen too.

Speaking of smoke, DEKU UNLOCKED THE 6TH OFA USER’S QUIRK! The 6th user is the Tobio Kageyama-looking dude with the long collar (He’s cute btw 😳!) and his name is “En” which translated to smoke. His Quirk is Smokescreen which explains the smoke surrounding Deku at the end of the last chapter. Deku is using the Quirk too much, so he needs to calm down a bit and use each Quirk individually. There’s actually quite a bit that Deku could use with a Quirk like Smoakscreen: He could hide himself for a sneak attack, he could use it as a distraction, use it if he needs to retreat, etc. My mind immediately went to Pokémon (because of course it did) and how Team Rocket would constantly use moves like Smoakscreen and Haze to either distract Ash and Co. to confuse them or use a sneak attack, or run away from the protagonist. It’s another support-type Quirk, but it’s a damn good one if used right.

Edit: There’s a panel that shows the scale of how much Smokescreen Deku used and it’s A LOT. Like, the smoke is covering several streets and it goes to the top of some buildings. It’s hard for really anyone to see anything. Deku’s really trying to keep himself in the shadows, I suppose.

To use all his Quirks well, En suggests that Deku think of each Quirk like a support tool. So, Float is a jetpack, Black Whip is a long string of rope, Danger Sense is a radio, and Smoakscreen is a flare or some kind of smoke grenade (I don’t know the specific name). This is a really good way of thinking for Deku since he’s been using object-focused metaphors for OFA before. Remember the “Egg in The Microwave” and the “Turntable in The Microwave”? Similar to that!

Edit: Fan-scans are out. It seem like Deku is actively talking to En here as if he’s a little voice in his head guiding him on what to do. My guess is that after his coma talk with the OFA Holders, Deku can now talk to the vestiges consciously. He doesn’t need to enter a dream-like state to interact with him; it’s just a thing he can do willingly.

So, Deku uses each Quirk individually and finally ties Muscular down with Black Whip. I can’t describe it, but it’s so cool to see Deku in action here absolutely folding Muscular. He really has improved since their last fight. There’s one panel that has a close up of Deku’s masked face and he looks so damn cool! I’m so tempted to color it when the official translations come out.

Deku is asking Muscular where AFO and Shigaraki are, but Muscular doesn’t know. He also asks why Muscular is doing what he’s doing, but Muscular just responds that there is only blood and battle in his heart and he doesn’t want to live a life where he regrets not fulfilling that (his name is revealed to be Gouto Imasuji btw. Don’t know the translation behind that, but I assume it has to do with his Quirk and his violent personality). So, this confirms that Deku is actively looking for Shigaraki and AFO. He’s not just saving people left and right, but he is actively looking for the big bad on his own. I can’t see that ending well without help unfortunately. Deku’s also trying to reason with Muscular to see if there’s a different path for him similar to his fight with Gentle and LaBrava. He’s really going for the “Save People’s Hearts” route and I can understand why. That’s Deku’s character at its core. It’s why he wants to try to save Shigaraki despite everything. If there is a different path for a villain, then Deku will try to lead them to it. Unfortunately, villains like Muscular don’t always have that path.

Edit: Actually, you know what, how in the world did Deku know Muscular’s real name? Did he see it on the news somewhere? Did he do some research and manage to look it up? Does he have someone to give him intel? I mean, unless Muscular’s name was broadcast out there, his real name is some very specific information Deku got a hold of.

Finally, as he remembers Shigaraki and Kota (the small boy Deku saved back in the Forest Training Camp), Deku runs towards Muscular with full speed and finishes him with one powerful punch! Deku speeds past Muscular as we finally see his face again under the mask (Badass Deku🥵)! One Punch Man has left the chat, my dudes. For real, though, if Muscular really is defeated, it’s amazing how flawlessly Deku beat him. Deku used every Quirk well and efficiently to dodge Muscular's attacks and pin him down so he could get a clean hit in. Everything was calculated and executed perfectly. This is not the Deku we knew back in the Training Camp Arc.

Edit: Ok, it was explained that Shindo’s Vibration actually did effect Muscular’s Quirk. Then tendons in his muscles were pulled and were starting to unravel. That’s what made an opening for Deku to get a good hit in. I think it would’ve been hard for Deku to knock Muscular out with one punch if that opening wouldn’t have been made. So, Shindo wasn’t entirely useless.

And that’s it from what I can gather! Damn good action-packed chapter! A+ art and writing from Horikoshi once again! This man just keeps bringing us 🔥. I’m so glad to see Deku fight like the badass he’s meant to be. I wish it didn’t have to take a war and several near-death experiences to get here, but Shonen gotta Shonen. He knocked the lights out of Muscular, I almost feel sorry for him. He got his ass kicked by the same kid twice in less than a year. You should’ve stayed in Tartarus, my dude. Really, all prisoners should’ve stayed in Tartarus. If Deku can defeat Muscular, then none of them stand a chance against him now. I can only assume Deku’s going to go after everyone who was associated with the LOV to find Shigaraki and AFO at this point. Thankfully, we don’t have a break next week. Will En teach Deku how to play volleyball?!? I’m kidding! I do want to know what our UA kids are doing, especially Bakugo, Shoto, and Uraraka. This would be a good time to transition to them. Like, they can see Muscular’s capture on the local news, put the pieces together, and go after Deku. Or we could just keep focusing on Deku’s vigilante adventures, that works too!

Me @ Deku:

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thepermanentrainpress · 3 years

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THE PERMANENT RAIN PRESS INTERVIEW WITH AZRIEL DALMAN

He may only be 7 years old, but don’t let numbers fool you. Azriel (Azi) Dalman already has nearly thirty credits to his name! The accomplished young artist from Vancouver has had a big 2020, but there’s no slowing down for Azi, who has a number of exciting upcoming projects to share with the world.

Your older brother, Aias, is also an actor. While you are only 7 years old, tell us about your interest in following his footsteps, and what made you want to start auditioning for film/TV?

I loved seeing the completed films my brother was in but I didn’t really understand how he got into them. One day, I was 3 maybe, we went to a commercial audition for my brother and the Casting Director came into the waiting room and asked the kids to practice singing “Old MacDonald.” I knew the song and sang it also. They took the kids in to audition as a group and I asked why this was happening. My mom said it was because they were going to see who should be in the commercial where they sing it. I realized what an audition was then, it meant they were trying out to see who got to be on the video. I asked if I could go do it too and my mom said no because it was not my audition, so I asked if I could get auditions too. After that I got an agent. I never got to audition by singing “Old MacDonald” though so I guess that ship has sailed.

What are your favourite movies or characters?

I love Wall-E and Soul for cartoons. For TV Characters I like Jim and Dwight from The Office a lot. I used to want to be Jake Peralta from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and I think I definitely look like him! And of course I love the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe)!

What is your favourite snack from catering? Is there a food item that you’re most excited to see on the daily menu on-set?

My favourite is a drink, it’s the iced tea. I also like M&Ms but I’m only supposed to have the yellow or orange ones or my mouth will change colours which annoys the people who do makeup... I don’t want to stress them out. I like beef jerky and ramen bowls too but they usually hide those on the truck so you have to ask for them special. For lunch I like trying the new things but my favourite most recent new food was crunchy pork! The 3rd ADs are so nice and deliver the food to my trailer but I like to go for a walk after we eat in the trailer and say hi to the catering people and look at the dessert. On this last project, they learned I liked watermelon on the first day and kept keeping special watermelon for me.

You recently wrapped Coyote Creek Christmas, your first Hallmark Christmas Movie! Congratulations! You worked opposite Ryan Paevey (as your father) and Janel Parrish, tell us about your experience working with Ryan and Janel.

Ryan and Janel are the best humans. They are both down to earth, kind, patient, friendly, funny, loving, talented, and FUN. It was so much fun to work with them because they treated me like a real friend and with a lot of respect. They included me in all of their talks and fun, and never made me feel like I was annoying them because I am a kid. I was very excited to see them every day and now I ask to see their Instagram posts because I love looking at their pictures! I am not surprised they work a lot, they are so good at acting and being around them is so easy. Ryan knows everything about bugs and Pokémon. Both of them are obsessed with dogs and when they saw someone walk by with a dog, they would hug and kiss the dogs... random dogs! It was really funny. They taught me a lot of acting tips also, both on purpose and by accident.

We saw on Instagram that Ryan took you to see Free Guy at the movie theater! Was it easy for you to bond as father-son?

It was easy and instant and it feels like I’ve always known Ryan as a real uncle or something. Sometimes when I am someone’s kid in a movie, I have to do real acting to pretend I am their kid, not because they aren’t nice but because I don’t know them well and I don’t really get to know them too well on the project. With Ryan I didn’t really have to do any acting to pretend I knew him, because I got to know him fast.

What can you share about your character, Noah Bailey?

I don’t think I can say too many spoilers, but I will say that Noah gets to be sarcastic and funny, and I love that. I don’t get to be funny on a MOW (movie of the week) usually, I just get to be cute or scared or sad. Noah was supposed to be a 10-year-old so I got to do some smart lines! And we have some funny scenes too. Ryan said one of the scenes we have together is his favourite scene he has ever done because it’s so funny and cute, and I thought that was really cool.

You can now cross this career goal off your list! Why was a Hallmark Christmas Movie on your bucket list; what do you (and your family) enjoy about them each holiday season?

Christmas movies are the kind of movies you watch every year like a tradition and I love things that are a tradition. My family lives in Vancouver, Canada but MOST of my family lives in America so we don’t get to see them at Christmas. I wanted to be in a Christmas movie so my family far away could see me on the TV at Christmas when they are missing me and so I can watch the movie with my kids when I’m a grown up and say “haha that is me!” For Christmas my family puts up a tree and we eat really good food. We also watch Christmas movies like Rankin/Bass movies, Home Alone, and Die Hard which is definitely a Christmas movie. I basically love everything about Christmas, especially the decorating. My birthday is 2 days after Christmas so I think I’m a Christmas Boy for sure.

Is it funny to see Christmas decorations and fake snow in the summer?

It was a little bit funny but it was also confusing! My brain kept forgetting what season it was. My mom warned me over and over again with every Christmas movie audition that it would be hot, but the joke was on her because we actually had some days that were cold! There were only one or two reallllly hot outside days. We got very lucky. I think the times it was hot on set it was mostly because of the gear and no air conditioning being on. Air conditioning is too loud for movies, I think. It wrecks the sound or something.

You are set to star in the short film Dragon Fruit. What can you share about this project?

Dragon Fruit is going to be so good. The Director, Jeremy Brown, is really nice and smart and made the whole experience really special for all the actors. His props and special effects are amazing... he makes them almost all himself... and the film is going to be... guess what... a sci-fi! It’s post-apocalyptic. A funny thing about it is that I am very dirty in the film so I would go to set clean and they would basically put fake dirt all over me and make my hair messy, then when I left they would clean me up! On one of the shoot dates I had to do a live interview in the middle of the day for another project, so they had to make me dirty, clean me up, and then make me dirty again, and then clean me up again!

Yvonne Chapman will play your mother. She is remarkable in the CW’s Kung Fu as Zhilan. Did it surprise you to see her as the villain in the show?

I was shocked she was a villain because in real life she is definitely NOT a villain type, she is so nice. She is obviously very good at acting! But I am not surprised she is so tough in that show because she does some really tough things in Dragon Fruit too! Yvonne is really nice to work with also, she sits and talks to me and makes jokes with me. I am wrapped on Dragon Fruit now which is sort of sad, because we did it for like 6 months or something, but at least it means the film will be out soon.

You have a part in the action sci-fi Moonfall out next year, and you even made it into the teaser trailer! How exciting! While you likely cannot say much about Sonny Child, what can you share about your initial reaction to booking this movie?

Everything about Moonfall was very exciting. The audition was one of the first ones I got after the forced break by COVID and when we saw it was in Montreal and they were auditioning kids all over Canada we thought it was a long shot, but auditions are opportunities that can be very rare, so you should always do an audition if you are comfortable with it, and always do your best. Anyway yeah, this one was far from Vancouver so when I booked it, we were extra shocked and grateful. Honestly even after the booking, we were not sure it would really happen because of the virus and how things changed every day, so we did not even believe it would happen until we were on the plane! Montreal was the best, I loved it there so much, and I hope I get to work at Grande Studios again!

Did you get to meet and interact with your director, Roland Emmerich? What did you learn from him, and had you (or maybe your parents!) watched any of his previous films?

Yes of course, Roland was the Director so he directed me! Before we left, I watched Independence Day and I was very impressed and thought “This guy really knows what he is doing! I better know my role well!” Roland was very nice and so was Harald (Kloser). They both gave me lots of compliments and I loved that! It was very full-on too, I worked every minute of my time on set there with the exception of my legal breaks and lunch. I loved it so much and I hope I will get to work with Roland on another project someday. I don’t know how to specifically describe what I learned without spoilers, but yeah it was a huge learning opportunity.

What is your favourite object you have gotten to take home from any set?

It’s impossible to choose just one! These are in no order, ok? The first thing is actually TECHNICALLY a lot of things because I often get to take home wardrobe from my character’s “closet” when we wrap. I am obsessed with clothes and was given really cool clothing from the costumers on many sets. Most recently I got a mint hoody I love. I audition in those clothes a lot for good luck. The second thing is a special prop that Jeremy Brown MADE me on Dragon Fruit as a wrap gift. There is a super cool secret weapon in the movie that I will not spoil, and Jeremy MADE me a safer toy version of it. Before my mom saw it was a toy version, she looked very scared when he handed it to me! Third, there are two special items Noah Bailey ALWAYS has with him in Coyote Creek Christmas (no spoilers!) and Ryan, David Strasser (the Director), and Antonio Cupo (the Executive Producer) presented them to me TO KEEP AS GIFTS at wrap in front of the whole crew. It was very special. I am saving these things forever, even some of the clothes! AND one more ok? Fourth, I get to keep the signs that say my name on my set chair and/or trailer door during projects. I hang those up on my wall in my room.

Is there a dream role or character you would like to play in the future? If not character, are there any specific film/TV genres or franchises you would like to be in?

Ok so here’s the thing. I had a few wishes that I wanted to come true in acting... one was the Christmas movie... and one was to play a very specific other actor’s sibling in something. GUESS WHAT? Both those things came true in 2021. Do you know the odds of that sibling thing coming true... my mom said it seemed impossible! But it did come true SOMEHOW. So now I am setting my goals super high and not worrying about how impossible they seem or how many there are. My biggest next goal is to be in Marvel ANYTHING. And you know what, I think Ryan should be in Marvel too, so I think my next goal is to be in Marvel with Ryan! I also want to be a voice of a video game character pretty badly! I also want to do some comedy!

What are your favourite places to visit or eat at in Vancouver?

I am obsessed with sushi and Korean food and lately my favourite place is Shabusen Yakiniku House because you can get both. There’s also a place on Granville Street called The Colony that has a bunch of old arcade games and I love that place too but we haven’t been since before COVID. I hope it’s still there.

You also enjoy other forms of arts like ballet, reading, and writing comics. How do you find the time for all your activities, school, and your growing career in film?

Oh I have a lot of free time. It’s weird. It sounds like I do a lot of stuff but lots of other kids tell me they do like 10 activities really well! I don’t want to do 10 activities because I really like relaxing, so instead of doing like 10, I want to do a few and just do them really well. Ballet is great because I feel like a ninja in the clothes, I don’t have to audition to do it, and it’s definitely a sport. Reading and writing comics I can do while relaxing, and even when I’m on set!

Tell us about the role your parents play in your life and career, not only for you but your brother as well! You keep them busy, but they must be so supportive of you.

My mom does mostly all the acting stuff like keeping track of the auditions and taping and going to set. My dad is a little nervous about going to set for some reason, but I think he would be fine! We are very busy but no one seems to ever complain. The only time it’s a little sad is when we are apart for long during filming but we always do video calls then.

For other young actors like yourself, do you have any advice for how to be confident in front of the camera? What (or who) has helped you prepare for roles and memorize lines?

I think to feel confident you have to know what you are doing. I was confident when I was 3 for some random reason, and then I took some acting classes at LeBlanc School of Acting and those helped me know what I was doing for sure. I have had lots of coaches teach me stuff like Julian, Athena, Kirsten, Natalie, Brian, and Beatrice are a few of their names. Sorry if I forgot anyone! For most specific auditions, I use the things ALL those people taught me and then I work with my brother on the specific scripts. Oh and on the set of my last movie, my new actor friend Naomi King told me that you should learn the scene not the lines... but you will definitely learn the lines once you learn the scene!

We have our signature question for you – if you could be any ice cream flavour, which would you be and why?

Well... I would not want to be ice cream! But if I had to be, I’d definitely be Green Tea or Mango.

Thanks for the insight into your projects and thoughts, Azi! We cannot wait to see you return to action on our screens, and follow as your career grows. To stay up to date on Azi’s upcoming projects and get a behind the scenes look into his busy and exciting life, follow him on Instagram.

Photo credit (top) to: Candace Woods Special thanks to: NoodleHead Productions

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jasontoddiefor · 5 years

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Title: Manor-Dad lets me drive the Batmobile Chapter 6 Summary: The Batkids think Bruce is dating Batman ft. Jason being the best big brother ever to Tim AN: BET YOU THOUGHT YOU’D SEEN THE LAST OF ME. Yeah I updated!!!

Jason felt pretty shitty for the first week Tim was staying with them. He knew the sharp claws digging into his throat and head as well as nausea accompanied by them were all symptoms of jealousy trying to establish its place in Jason’s heart. He was sixteen for crying out loud. He should be above feeling jealous of a thirteen-year-old, who, most of the time, wasn’t even trying to get anyone’s attention. It was almost pitiful to witness Tim startling every time some addressed him because he wasn’t expecting anyone to really ask him about his day at dinner.

And yet Jason was hiding away in his room because he couldn’t stand Bruce paying attention to someone else like a spoiled little brat. He would have gone to the Cave, but Alfred had banned all of them from sulking in there. He figured it was only a question of time until Alfred got Batman to switch into civilian clothes and stay in the manor.

Groaning, Jason buried his head in his pillows.

Don’t be jealous of the new kid, don’t be jealous of the new kid, don’t be jealous of-

The door creaked.

“What’s up, Little Wing?”

Dick.

Right, it was Saturday morning. Of course Dick would be here.

“Nothing,” Jason replied, but even to his ears, his voice sounded wobbly.

Dick honored his horrible nickname and took Jason’s annoyance as an invitation. He let himself fall down onto Jason’s bed and stretched like a cat, taking up all the space. He stayed as silent as a bat while he waited for Jason to gather his courage. It was dumb, but when Dick wasn’t being a dick, he had this annoying quality that made you want to talk to him. He was good at giving advice that didn’t boil down to “money” or “batarangs” or random actually helpful bits about social cues. Jason knew he could trust his brother, he had kept his mouth shut about Sheila for months after all.

“I’m jealous,” Jason finally admitted. It was strange to say it out loud

Dick laughed. “Of my charming good looks? Don’t worry, you’ll get there.”

Jason rolled his eyes but cracked a small smile nevertheless.

“Not of that, Dickhead. And I’m already taller than you anyway.”

“Lies! Slander! How could you even just attempt to break my heart like that?”

Dramatically, Dick put his right arm to his forehead and closed his eyes, reminiscent of a shocked Victorian lady.

“Uhu, just consult the measurements on the kitchen entrance door. I’ve officially surpassed you.”

Even if Jason couldn’t really believe it. Leslie had estimated his height when he’d first gotten to the manor and back then it had seemed like he’d be lucky if he ever reached Dick’s height. Personally, Jason was blaming that alien plant fertilizer goo he’d gotten dosed with a couple months ago for his growth spurt, but he sure as hell wasn’t telling anyone that. Except for Alfred, in case he ended up growing flowers instead of hair.

“But no, I’m jealous of the kid.”

“Tim?” Dick asked.

His voice wasn’t judgmental or anything, but Jason still felt like apologizing.

Jason groaned and fell back on his bed. “I know! It’s stupid! But Bruce has been busy with him practically the whole week! I know it’s ‘cause they have to get his guardianship finalized and everything, but still. And he’s so smart too! Even Batman’s noticed! I lived in this house for weeks and I didn’t figure out the big batty secret, but the kid did it from a distance!”

“You know, I was pretty jealous too when you showed up.”

Jason definitely hadn’t known that. Honestly, Dick’s sunny attitude around Jason had almost freaked him out the first times he interacted with Dick.

“What?”

Dick shrugged easily.

“I mean, I wasn’t talking to Batman at all. And then there was you spending so much time down in the Cave with him. Of course, I was jealous. You were all cute and tiny and knew basically everything about Gotham already. I swear, I had to study boring maps for months and you already knew Gotham’s streets.”

“How did you deal with it?”

“I considered your situation and I tried to get to know you. Figure out your interests and stuff.”

Jason frowned.

“Wait. Was that the reason you went everywhere I wanted with me? Passive-aggressive exposure therapy in a mall?”

Dick grinned mischievously. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

Surprisingly, it didn’t take much to get Tim talking about himself. After reassuring him that, yes, Jason didn’t have anything more important to do and no, Bruce really was expecting Tim to decorate his room, Tim could not be stopped.

He talked.

So much.

About skateboarding, how much fun the keyboard was, his more challenging school classes, photography, Pokémon, his favorite comics, exciting facts he learned, the heroes conspiracy blog he was apparently running, and Robin.

Whenever they were alone, Tim would talk about Robin.

The sky was blue, the sun was hot, Timothy Jackson Drake didn’t shut up about Robin.

He got super excited and cheerful then, retelling Jason cases he had actually worked and wondering about how all the cool gadgets worked and just Robin.

Tim’s case of hero worship hadn’t gone unnoticed by the manor’s other residents either, but Jason wasn’t sure if Alfred or Bruce understood the way Tim talked about Robin. Like he was more than just a vigilante, like the role was a symbol.

“Batman needs Robin,” Tim said seriously. “It makes him better. I mean, Batgirl and Nightwing and Magpie, you’re all amazing! But it’s not Gotham without the Bat and his Robin, right?”

Tim looked unsure, but Jason realized the kid understood it.

And then Jason began to think.

Barbara couldn’t believe it took over a month for her to finally get to meet one Timothy Drake in person. She had researched him, even exchanged a few words with him over the comms once, but she had yet to actually meet the kid. Even Dick had met him, and he lived in Blüdhaven.

But Barbara had finally managed to clear enough time in her busy schedule – she was coordinating two vigilante teams and operating as Oracle after all – and driven up to the manor. If she used her time there to update the Bat-Computer as well, then that was only her business. She wasn’t a workaholic and she had a life outside of her duties when they allowed it.

She had the work-life-balance figured out, honestly.

Tim was a cute kid. A bit shy at first, but he warmed up to her quickly enough. Jason must have expected it because he was grinning when Tim started chattering about video games.

“So, what do you think?” Jason asked.

“He’s a good kid.”

“Aaaand?”

“You’re being awfully noisy. What do you want to know?”

“Batman talks to you about my training, doesn’t he? How much longer until I can go solo?”

Barbara leaned forward in her wheelchair. “What do you think?”

Jason deflated. “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been ready for it for ages. I haven’t needed B’s back up in a long while, but imagining him being halfway across town is… unsettling still.”

Barbara nodded slowly before replying.

“Honestly? You’ve been ready for two months already at least. Batman just has a hard time letting go. He’s never really been without one of us for a very long time.”

“Right,” Jason said. “Which is why we can’t leave him alone.”

“What are you thinking?”

Jason pointed at Timothy, eagerly throwing batarangs at a target.

“He said that Gotham, that Batman, needs Robin. I’m thinking we should take advantage of the kid who already knows our secret and has a hard time falling asleep when we’re out.”

Bruce knew something was up, but he allowed himself to live in blissful ignorance a little longer. He let Dick sneak forensics lessons into Tim’s self-defense classes, allowed Jason to teach Tim about the various gangs ruling Gotham.

It wasn’t like these bits of information weren’t useful, the every-day citizen just didn’t particularly need them.

And Bruce definitely wasn’t thinking about who did need this knowledge and more.

Tim Drake was his ward for as long as his parents weren’t in Gotham. Nothing more and nothing less.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Bruce could see Alfred observing him while the kids (“I’m a twenty-year-old woman, B.” “And I remember babysitting you as a teenager, your point?”) bickered about some movie.

Ignorance was bliss, that was a lesson Bruce had learned early on. And sometimes you were allowed to indulge in it.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tim asked from where he was sitting on Jason’s bed.

“Absolutely,” Jason replied, grinning way too cheerfully for six in the morning. He’d only gotten back from patrol two hours ago, he shouldn’t be so awake yet, or so Tim thought, yet Jason looked like he could take on the world.

“But we’re breaking one of The Rules.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. They’re more like guidelines than rules. Besides, Aunty Diana and Kate already agreed to help us. This is a surefire plan.”

Tim honestly wasn’t so sure about it. He wanted to trust Jason, but what if Bruce and Batman didn’t think it was funny to be tricked into a date?

“But-“

“Jason’s right, Tim,” Barbara’s voice echoed from the laptop sitting on Jason’s desk. “Besides, the worst that will happen is that you get grounded because Bruce and B are caught up in the romantic bliss that was relaxing on Valentine’s Day in Paris.”

“That’s right!” Jason said. “We’re setting up dates for them at least twice a year if we can. It would be suspicious if we didn’t try to get them away.”

Tim pulled his knees to his chest and rested his head on them. “If you say so… I still don’t get why we need both of them out of Gotham for so long. Can’t they stay here?”

“I do say so, Timbit. Just you wait, they won’t know what hit them. And if they stay here, they’d just take their paperwork to bed.”

“Eeww.”

Bruce absolutely knew what hit him. Diana and Kate were good actors, they had to be if they even just wanted to operate as vigilantes, but they didn’t even bother to hide it from him.

“It’s cute,” Diana said. “How much they try to make their parents happy.”

“Very funny. What if something actually happens, though?”

“Then your Super-Bro will pick you up from Paris,” Kate replied. “And ten years ago you were working alone. Now you’ve got me and Dick and Jason and Babs to look over Gotham. We got this.”

Her words would have been more encouraging if they weren’t followed up by her narrowly avoiding a brick being thrown at her.

Nevertheless, he still pretended to buy WE having an emergency in their Paris branch and one of Gotham’s smuggler rings operating from Paris as well.

The kids’ happy expressions were worth it.

Dick felt maybe a little guilty for lying to Tim. It was true, they tried to give Bruce and Batman some alone time once in a while and Valentine’s day was perfect for it. This time though, they needed the two men away so they could properly get to Tim.

Truth be told, he’d been skeptical when Barbara and Jason had pitched the idea to him. Training Tim and giving him a home was one thing, bringing him into the active side of the vigilante life a whole other deal.

The longer he watched Tim though, the more could he see it. The teenager was smart, dedicated, skilled and – like Jason had said – he knew what Robin meant.

Though, seeing him be questioned about the law, recent gang activity, weapons, the Justice League, and various Gotham residing companies by Babs all while sparing with Jason, made Dick pity Tim.

Dick’s Robin training had been way more relaxed, but he also hadn’t had three older siblings.

If not for the fact that Jason had made Tim’s favorite smoothie for him, Tim would assume the older boy was trying to murder him. It was day three of their spontaneous ‘sibling-bonding weekend’ and Tim was pretty sure his whole body was dying. He had never had to think or work out this much. He was sore all over. The training mats he was lying on were becoming his favorite spot to be, right after his bathtub and his bed.

“And how do you feel?” Dick asked.

“Like Superman decided I was a threat and went several rounds in the ring with me because I couldn’t recall that the Kryptonite is locked with a special key, and three different locks behind the secret entrance-“

“Woah, woah, Timbit,” Jason interrupted. “That’s enough trivia. Didn’t think you could learn this much in three days.”

“Mhm,” Barbara muttered from the desk of the Bat-Computer. “You own me fifty bucks.”

Tim frowned. “Wait. You bet on this?”

“Oooh, yeah. This has been two months in the making?” Dick glanced at Jason, who nodded in confirmation.

“Yeah, putting together a time table for three days wasn’t fun, I tell you, but the results are pretty amazing.”

Jason smiled and dropped down on the mats right next to Tim to mess up his sweaty hair.

“Urgh, gross,” he cursed and rubbed his hands on his sweat pants.

“But- why did you do this?”

The three heroes in front of Tim shared a look and Tim got the distinct impression that he was missing a big piece labeled ‘context’ in bright neon colors here.

“Your parents will be back in a few hours,” Barbara said.

(Tim wondered what it meant that his first instinct wasn’t to think about his own parents but-)

“I guess that means it’s time,” Dick said and walked over to the display cases in which the various Robin uniforms were kept. From in-between them, he pulled forward a small gift-wrapped box.

“Catch!” He shouted and threw it in Tim’s direction.

Heart beating fast, Tim jumped up to catch it. The package wasn’t bigger than his palm and surrounded by Christmas themed paper.

“Christmas? Really?” Jason snorted, but Dick just shrugged.

“Didn’t have anything better at home. Go on, Tim, open it. If you want it, it’s yours.”

Carefully, Tim unwrapped the gift, revealing a cardboard box. He could feel the others’ stares on him but didn’t dare look up. They had put a lot of thought into this and spend so much time with him. He couldn’t disappoint them.

Tim opened the box and came face to face with a shiny black and gold emblem.

“What…?”

“You said it yourself,” Jason said. “Batman needs a Robin and I’m not putting on the green tights again.”

“What Jason means,” Dick added, “is that we really can’t be responsible for Batman running around without a talented little pipsqueak cracking masterful puns. So if you want to be Robin, you have our blessings. You only need to convince the other two overprotective idiots of this house.”

It took all of Tim’s strength not to burst into tears right then and there. He was thankful though that Jason and Dick dragged him over to Babs for a group hug.

Bruce didn’t even know why he had assumed it would end differently. Tim had been skittish the whole week and Bruce had watched the Cave’s security tapes, just to make sure they hadn’t tried to hide an explosion from him again.

“I‘m fairly skilled in a multitude of martial arts now,“ Tim began his speech.

“No,” Batman replied.

At the other end of the Cave, Nightwing and Magpie were supposed to be sparring, but they couldn’t be listening in more obviously.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

Tim pouted.

“You’re not becoming Robin, Tim.”

Tim crossed his arms and held his chin high. Batman recognized that stance instantly, he did it fairly often himself. Maybe Clark had been right when he said that it was freaky to work alongside his kids because they all had the same body language during missions.

“I already talked to Bruce and he said that Batman needs a Robin.”

Honestly, what was it with his children lying to him?

Nevertheless, Bruce couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Did he really?”

And Tim had the audacity to nod, all serious like he wasn’t lying straight to Bruce’s face. His poker face was pretty already, not too many cracks in the mask. The kids had done an excellent job training and it would be a shame if that training went to waste.

So, Bruce really couldn’t argue against Tim, could he?

#dc #DC comics #bruce wayne #Jason Todd #Tim Drake #dick grayson #barbara gordon #fanfic #manor dad verse

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nyctolovian · 5 years

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It’s Pride, ya dingus!

“Allow me clarify this,” Nahyuta said, holding his hand up. “You met Prosecutor Gavin during investigations with no idea of who he is, had several cases with him, went out with him multiple times on what you now realise are dates—”

“Might be!” Apollo loudly corrected. His face heated up quickly as he slid off the sofa and onto the floor, pressing a Pokémon cushion to his face. He added in a mumble, “Almost dates, I mean.”

The sight was not too unlike what Apollo would do when he was younger and caught in something embarrassing. Nahyuta repeated, “What might be almost dates, and then realised you were six feet deep in love with him when you once woke up drunk on his sofa. Is that right?”

“You know,” Apollo said, forming air quotes, “I think ‘six feet deep in love’ is a bit of a stretch.”

“I will treat that as a confirmation,” Nahyuta said dismissively, earning himself a Pokémon cushion to the face. Snickering, he sent the Swellow flying back at his brother. “You are such a brat,” he huffed. “But, at least that clarifies some things. When you first said that you had feelings for Prosecutor Gavin, I hadn’t considered that you had developed said feelings while interacting with him in real life.”

“What do you mean?” Apollo narrowed his eyes at Nahyuta.

“What I meant to say is that I assumed you might have been one of those fans to his music.”

Wrinkling his nose, he replied, “Have you heard his stuff? It’s migraine-inducing.”

The soft sigh of relief did not go unnoticed. Perhaps Apollo wasn’t the only person in the world who had strong opinions about Klavier’s music.

Nahyuta fiddled with the beads between his fingers. “I suppose this means we can rule celebrity crush entirely out of the list.”

“Even if I had a celebrity crush, it’s not going to be Klavier Gavin.”

Somewhere in Japanifornia, a rock star may have let out a sneeze.

“Actually,” Apollo mused aloud, pressing his finger to the center of his forehead, “what makes it so hard for me to figure things out is kind of because I’ve never had a celebrity crush. Isn’t it pretty common to figure out things out that way? ‘I know I swing whichever way because I thought so-and-so celebrity is hot.’ Right?”

Nahyuta hummed. “I suppose so, yes. That was partly how I found out I was pansexual as well.”

Apollo groaned. “Meanwhile, I’m stuck here with Prosecutor Gavin as my only lead.”

“You are making this sound like a case.”

“Well, it sure feels like it. The case of Apollo’s missing sexuality. It’s been missing for 24 years, I heard.“

“Missing?” Nahyuta laughed. “Well, I’m sure we can find it, Detective.”

***

“Borrowing the speech mannerisms of your country, I must say: I’d tap that.”

Apollo didn’t bother shooting him the withering glare again. It was clear that any signs of exasperation merely fueled Nahyuta to annoy him further. However, feeling the insistent expectant look from his brother on the back of his head, he relented and sighed, “Pass.”

Nahyuta swiped his finger across his phone screen. “What about her?”

Between a yawn, he said, “I’m serious when I say I don’t have a type, and I don’t find anyone hot. We’ve been doing this for a shit ton of people.”

“Language!”

“I’m an adult. I can swear however the fuck and whenever the fuck I want in my own fucking house.”

Nahyuta sighed and shook his head. “Now you are simply using that putrid language just to annoy me. Pray tell then, Apollo, do you kiss Prosecutor Gavin with that filthy mouth?”

“... Shut up.”

Eyes lighting up, Nahyuta typed into his phone and pushed it towards Apollo. “How about this? Surely you find attraction to him.”

On the screen was a quick search for “Klavier Gavin”. The result was a collage of pictures of said man in various states of undress and with hair that ranged from the usual drill to professionally tousled. Apollo shook his head.

“Satorha!”

“Did you just–”

“How could you possibly not find him attractive? Don’t you have feelings for him? If that were the case, how could you not find him... in any form or manner enticing?”

“Entici–“ Apollo huffed. “I mean, he looks good. But I wouldn’t call him ‘enticing’ or ‘hot’ or whatever.”

“I must ask. Do you know the definition of the English word ‘hot’?”

“Yes! I’m not a dumbass, Nahyuta!” Apollo shouted. He whipped out his own phone and did a quick search. “So, for the record, there has been absolute no one who has been able to do any of this.”

“Urban Dictionary? Really?”

Apollo sputtered, “It was the most direct with the definitions, okay? How the hell am I supposed to know what dictionary dot com means by ‘sexually attractive’.”

A smirk stretched Nahyuta’s lips in the most irritating way possible. Apollo could almost hear the murmurs of the peanut gallery that tend to accompany the sinking feeling of saying something stupid in court.

“Look, I needed to know what my college friends were talking about, and it frustrated me when I couldn’t keep up. So I did my research,” he snapped. “Now shut up!”

Despite the huff that hinted that he still had a lot more to say about this matter, Nahyuta let his pitiful flushing brother off the hook and scanned through the words on the screen instead. “None of this? At all?” he asked.

After a rapid mental check off through the list for the nth time, Apollo pulled back. “Yeah.” He slumped back, hugging Swellow to his chest. “None of it. I mean, I know what sexy and beautiful and handsome is. But it’s on a surface level.”

Gently, Nahyuta cocked his head.

“It’s like,” Apollo pouted and pressed his finger to the space between his brow, “if you looked at a music score and saw all the complicated music notes and said it’s hard. You don’t really get how it’s hard because you don’t even know how to read scores, but you know it is probably difficult.”

“I see. So this is similar to what you feel about the concept of hotness?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that makes things difficult.”

“Thank you for finally seeing my problem!” Apollo groaned, throwing his head back.

“Then, is our starting point Prosecutor Gavin once again?”

“Unfortunately, yup.” Apollo straightened up and frowned. “Alright, maybe I’m gay, and I’m just making everything overly complicated!” He was silent for a moment, then, crumbled when he couldn’t convince himself. “I don’t know!” he yelled, clutching the Swellow cushion closer to himself.

“Let us take this step by step. Am I right when I say that you’ve only ever fancied men?”

Apollo flailed his arms in frustration before settling on, “Technically yes!”

“Technically?“

“It could also be someone who isn’t a man.”

Loudly, Nahyuta sighed. “Have you ever fancied anyone who isn’t a man?”

A soft “no” slipped through pouting lips.

“Then, this is mere conjecture.”

Apollo struggled to find the words and fiddled with his bracelet. “But it doesn’t click.”

A long pause. “I am afraid you’ve lost me.”

Apollo chewed his lip. The bracelet was starting to rub his skin red as he spoke, “Because if you’re heterosexual, you like people of the opposite gender. And if you’re homosexual, you like people of the same gender. It’s plural.”

Frustration was seeping into Nahyuta’s voice. “Whatever do you mean?”

“People is plural! If I were gay, I’d like men, right? Plural men, right? But I don’t!”

“But you said you’ve only ever fancied men.”

“One man! Singular! I’ve never liked anyone like this. All weird and embarrassing.” Like a car doomed to crash, he couldn’t stop. “It doesn’t feel right to call myself gay because I don’t like men. Men is plural! It means I’ve looked at other men and was attracted to them! But I’ve only ever liked Klavier Gavin!” Then, his face burst with heat at the realisation of the words that just left his mouth, and he buried his face in the Swellow cushion. “You didn’t hear any of that.”

The doorbell rang.

“Shit,” he breathed. He scrambled clumsily to his feet, still clinging to his cushion, as he opened the door. It was his neighbour.

“Hey, kid,” the middle-aged woman said, rubbing his eyes. “Could you keep your gay crisis to an acceptable volume?”

By some miracle, Apollo felt warmer still as his mouth opened and closed like that of a goldfish, and not a very bright one at that. He floundered about but the woman didn’t wait for him to regain composure.

“Look, puberty is rough and we all love Klavier Gavin, but it’s very late. Some of us are trying to sleep here, alright?” She yawned and spun around. “G’night, kid. Quit screaming.”

With that, she went back to her flat before she could even hear Nahyuta’s wheezing chuckles and Apollo’s pathetic whine, “But I’m twenty-four this year.”

***

“Okay,” Apollo said, actively keeping his volume lowered. “So far, I could be,” he listed off on his fingers, “depressed, taking libido-inhibiting meds, tied down by previous relationships, a late bloomer, or setting my expectations too high.”

“Are you depressed?” Nahyuta asked without looking up from his sudoku game.

“I don’t have the other symptoms.”

“Are you taking any libido-inhibiting medication?”

”Unless someone’s been slipping me pills while I’m asleep, I’m not on any medication. And if we’re going down the entire list, I’ve never been in a relationship; I’d be one hell of a late bloomer if I were one; and I’m not even setting any expectations.” Apollo swiped to the next page. “Huh, this is new. So there is this word. Asexuality.”

Nahyuta quirked an eyebrow. “Asexuality? As in a lack of sexuality? I think I have heard of the word before. I never bothered to look into it, however, since it did not concern me at the time.”

Apollo typed the word in the search bar. “Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity,” he read aloud.

“So do you experience this lack of sexual attraction to others?”

“If that explains why on earth I can’t seem to understand what ‘hot’ even means,” Apollo muttered as he opened Wikipedia.

He scrolled through it silently and moved on to different sites while Nahyuta continued to solve the Sudoku puzzle beside him.

At the third Sudoku puzzle, Apollo spoke, “So apparently, people are still unsure if this is a real sexuality. Some people say it’s a disorder and a dysfunction of sorts.”

When Nahyuta stuck out his hand, Apollo gave the phone to him. “Well, there always seem to be people who have something to say about the validity of almost every other sexuality. Homophobes, biphobes, or transphobes for instance.”

That drew a shrug from Apollo. “And, it’s also a spectrum... It varies from person to person and moment to moment for some. Aroflux... demi... gray... Oh, and some people have differing sexual and romantic orientations too. Like aro ace? Pan ace? Gay ace? Damn, it’s basically a mix and match.”

“But do you find that asexuality applies to you though?”

Did it? Apollo asked himself. While reading the experiences that asexual people had shared to the web, he found himself nodding along. He had let out a few huffs of laughter at the humorously recounted incidents of confusion, exasperation and joy. They were millions of inside jokes — inside jokes that he could understand.

“Yeah. I think it applies to me,” he muttered. “But then... what does that make Klavier Gavin? A contradiction?”

Nahyuta hummed in thought, tapping away on his own phone.

“Hold up.” Apollo smacked the sofa. “But it’s not like I find him sexually attractive. So he isn’t a contradiction. He kind of supports the fact that I’m ace. So I just never have sexual attraction at all. Even with Klavier Gavin.”

“Well, you could be one of those people whose sexual and romantic orientation differ. Similar to the ones you mentioned just now. Bi ace and so on.”

“Could be, huh.” He scrolled through the page, searching. Then, he found the word.

Only after building an emotional connection. He recalled the way he gradually became a little more immune to glimmerous things, the way the purple turned less obnoxious and more endearing, and the way rev of a motorcycle engine grew from a source of annoyance to something that hinted to a more tolerable day and a night of laughter.

“Yup. Demiromantic sounds right,” he decided.

Nahyuta hummed. “Well, don’t you suppose that the case is solved, detective?”

“I’m a demi ace.”

The words tasted weird on his tongue. It was unfamiliar and he didn’t even know if he was saying it right, but it felt good to have a word for the things he experienced, and also perhaps the things he didn’t experience. From the inability to understand the world’s frothing obsession with other people’s naked bodies, to the frustration at why it seemed like the world saw everything as sexual, to the awkwardness of using the word “hot” or “sexy”. It clicked for Apollo, like a gear slotting into place. It made sense to him. And it finally felt like there was... a word for himself.

It felt pretty good.

A/N: Hell yeah. ACE Attorney.

#ace attorney #asexual apollo justice #asexual #demiromantic apollo justice #klapollo #fanfic #my writing #pride month whoop!#ive waited TOO LONG FOR THIS #finding home

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mad-queen-thorn · 5 years

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Massive vent under the cut, its been a week and a half and I can’t seem to dwell on this any longer. Venting again only because I have very little followers and 90% of them are good friends I hang with regularly, so I feel safe spilling out my feelings here, don’t want to burden anyone with my thoughts and feelings, reading is optional.

I didn’t mention this here, because I didn’t feel the need to.

When it comes to my Diabetes I’m almost in remission, its a good thing, and by June I might be off the meds and officially into remission. Which is looking promising, but knowing my luck, I beat one thing and two more take their place. Its like taking 3 steps forward and 2 steps back.

And well, its 3 things this time, I’m now on blood pressure meds for hypertension, only weak ones, so its not that bad. Docs think it might be the pressure I’m putting on my body with the lifestyle changes, but when I lose more weight it should go back to normal. Other than that they want to check out my kidneys as they said there’s a lot of protein in there. They’ve pushed back one of my tests which is causing me worry. But it was merely because the equipment they wanted to give me hasn’t arrived yet. So maybe I’m worrying over nothing.

Anyway, this isn’t the major thing I keep bottling up.

Along with my Type 2 Meds and my Blood pressure meds, I take Fluoxetine, which I’ve been on since late 2015. For anxiety and depression. So with all the appointments I’ve been having the past few months they’ve also been keeping track of my mental health, and now the docs think it might be more than just my Anxiety and Depression.

They think I’m Autistic. In fact, I’ve been told that its highly likely I am after them talking to me, a family member and a friend who has autistic children herself, talked together in the docs room about my past, my behaviours and such and how our friend sees a lot of traits in me, and the doc said “You’re most likely right.”.

We sent off a referral form with a tonne of information about myself, my hyper fixations, behaviours, stimming, social interaction and more.

I’m officially under investigation for Autism.

I’ve been trying to process the information for almost 2 weeks now, barely telling a soul about it. But with the information I’ve been given, the more I think about it, the more of my life is making sense:

When I was younger, I had a hard time making friends and I still do. I thought it was because I was ugly, weird and because of my overbite that it drove people away. That it was my fault entirely for not being good enough, like bullies made be believe.

Turns out, that making friends can be hard of Autistic people because of their differences in communication.

Which at the end of day... explains a lot.

I’ve noticed that in large groups, I’m very quiet, both in person and online. I don’t speak unless I feel its needed to, and I try to not speak over people and often find myself doing so. I really don’t mean to. I just find it really hard to understand when there’s a good window for me to chirp in without seeming rude. Other times I’ll wait and wait and then when its time for a moment for me to voice the conversation has most likely moved on, which isn’t a bad thing. It just seems like I don’t have a good grasp of social cues.

My black and white thinking also seems to impact my social interaction. As in the past I’ve just assumed and read situations wrong. Sometimes accidentally upset friends on multiple occasions without meaning. As sometimes my mind is just:

“It has to be 1 or 2″ And nothing like a 3rd option comes to mind until its pointed out or I’ve made my mistake and beat myself up for it. Thinking I was being selfish and horrible. But now I guess that this explains those moments. They happen a lot, but not in bad ways. Like I said, sometimes its either one or the other, and I fail to see alternative options unless stated.

Like, the other day I was with my friend who has autistic children, we play Pokemon Go together. And we had a debate about the design of Attack and Normal Deoxys:

(The top Two)

She said that they are a different colour, yet I said they are the same colour. Yet she said they’re different. Now, my brain didn’t connect the dots and that she meant that parts of their body are different colour but they both have the same colour scheme. It took me a few moments to actually get what she meant... so??? I guess??

I tend to have little moments in communication like that.

Also, when some of my family make a joke, most of the time I don’t laugh. My sense of humour tends to be niche and connected to my hyper fixations and spur of the moment puns. Or I’ll make a joke to my family or a friend and they don’t get it, and I have to explain and they still don’t find it funny. I seem to have stronger connections to people who are into the same things I am. Something for me to build a conversation off of or I’ll fail to maintain a conversation.

I thought this was just normal?? But at the same time it might not be...

Idk I have so many questions. There has been many things I’ve questioned about myself.

Like the need for a second opinion on situations others would see as common sense. Sometimes I go to someone I trust, explain a situation only to be told my feelings are valid and why I’m even questioning them.

I dunno, it feels good that there might be a possibility behind how I communicate.

While explaining to me, the doc said: “Your brain seems wired different, and you see the world differently from everyone else. People need to understand that.”

And I... like I said, I don’t know.

I mean, the following seems to also be signs:

In person I find it hard to make eye contact.

I like to be left alone sometimes.

I can’t be alone for long periods of time as I get stressed and it pulls down my whole mood.

I find it hard to take part in group conversations over voice. Text is fine.

My body language and tone can be completely different to what I actually mean. I’ve gotten in trouble with this, but the person who was mad at me didn’t understand.

I don’t pick up on body language.

But I’ll be observant on everything else. I tend to spot most things others don’t notice. I’ve had this in person many times and people tend to compliment me with “Wow you’re so observant!”, “You have good eyes!”.

Lack of excitement, this happened today. We got new carpets in and my mother was overjoyed, but I never felt a thing. I felt like I should be happy too but I couldn’t. I am capable of being happy for other people, but yet again, it has to be connected to a hyper fixation or someone I trust/care about.

Relationship with my parents isn’t great, probably due to my communication issues.

I only express myself to people I deem I’m close to, other than that I seem very disconnected. I’ve heard people say that I seem to be in my “own little world” on more than one occasion.

Selective Mute or nonverbal. Sometimes I just can’t speak or come up with what to say and remain silent.

Picky with food. For example, if someone puts beans on my plate, I simply can’t eat around them. I’ll dismiss the entire plate and feel bad about it. Cuz my mind tends to think the whole thing is “contaminated” by the beans and I can’t eat it.

In person I can tend to point instead of using words sometimes.

I’m not a touchy person, especially with my family. But if you’re someone I trust, I’ll probably cuddle you to death. Really selective of who I let close to me.

Nobody can touch my hair but me. Nobody can brush it but me. If I let you brush it, its a blessing.

Always listening to music while doing things like drawing/walking ect.

Questioning my place in social situations and how others think. I have a habit of putting myself below everyone else. The idea of other people thinking of me or thinking positively of me next to never crosses my mind, the whole thing seems foreign to me.

Another major pointer to it is my stimming.

Now, I’ve stimmed for many years now and felt BAD about it. Because I felt like I didn’t deserve the stim toys I have. But now everything is starting to make sense. Even though my stimming does piss some family members off, I try to not do it around them and simply can’t. Sometimes I start stimming without even noticing. The most common being my legs, I will bounce them. All the time. If my hands are busy its my legs, if my legs aren’t moving, I need something in my hands and I have quite a few stim toys. From fidget cubes to squishy pokeballs. I have a habit of making them click or rolling the ball in my hands between rounds on videogames or when watching youtube videos. I also tend to lean towards glitter shakers. Love those things. I tend to mute my mic a lot during voice calls as I get paranoid people can hear me stimming. Because I feel like the bump bump of my foot on the floor or the clicking of my fidget cube will annoy people.

Not adjusting well to change and being in social situations with a lot of people are another two signs. For example, yesterday I was in the kitchen with all the furniture while the carpets had been getting put down, there was limited space to move, I had nothing to stim with and didn’t like it. I felt bad for being annoyed. I wanted to go to my room but couldn’t. I wanted to move around.

When it comes to social situations, I can go to heavy populated situations like conventions but not for long. I start getting overwhelmed and feeling sick. I enjoy it as much as I can but I can only take so much.

Same with social interaction. I can only take so much.

Once I get overstimulated I can get moody and my temper shortens, but I usually isolate myself by the time it comes to that point.

I blamed all my social woes on my Anxiety but at this point it might not be my anxiety. It might be Autism.

But one final thing that also points to it:

Hyperfixations

I currently have two massive fixations.

Pokémon which is one I've had all my life

And Guild Wars 2 which has been a fixation since 2017

But within them I have specific things I fixate on. Which I guess are sub fixations?

For example, in Pokémon. I love the lore, certain legendaries and I absolutely adore cat Pokémon. Every time there is a new Pokémon game out I almost cry in excitement. My bedroom is covered in Pokémon stuff with a few other fandoms scattered in there but it's 90% Pokémon.

Pokémon shirts, Pokémon bedding. Pokémon posters, Pokémon bags, Pokémon plushies, keyrings.

Whenever I get something my family tend to go "Ugh. Not more Pokémon"

And Guild Wars 2 is pretty self explanatory.

I love Aurene, Tybalt and most of the main characters and lore.

I have the Rytlock figure and art and the OST discs ext. Books of lore and stories.

But 90% of my fixation is on the Thorns.

Thorn Pyjamas, Thorn bags, Thorn plush. Anything I can get my grubby little hands on...

Go figure!

I also try to not express myself too much as in the past I've had people try to force me out of hyperfixations because I was too "annoying".

I feel like I talk about my two major fixes too much. So I try to curb down on it to not drive people away...?

I wish I knew the results as I have so many questions.

They said they think it's very likely I'm autistic.

I don't want to write myself off and say "Yeah, I'm Autistic."

Because there's that chance I'm not. But so many people who know me in person think I am. And I've been asked many times over the years and never had a second thought about it.

And like I said, the docs said I most likely am.

I'm just waiting for an assessment and the result which I got told could take months to years.

I just want answers so I know how to make life is easier for me.

I want answers so I can just be myself without fear because I keep holding myself back thinking I'm weird or a bad person or bad at communication.

I always notice my social flaws and say they're "habits I need to kick"

But maybe they're not. Maybe it's just how I am.

I want to know.

I need to know...

I just want answers...

#just a vent post #need to vent

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monggu-eomma · 6 years

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Just the Beginning (Pokemon!AU)

Pairings: Slight Jimin x reader

Genre: Pokémon!AU, comfort, and fluff

Notes: I have been wanting to write a Pokémon!AU for the longest time, but I always felt too intimidated to do so because it is such a large universe. This scenario is miscellaneous story that is part of a much larger story that I have already planned out. Don’t worry, I still plan on continuing my Hogwarts!AU. This scenario is dedicated to @taengent and my little brother. The image is from the HYYH PT 2 photobook.

Park Jimin was freaking out, hard core. He knew that being a Pokémon trainer would come with its challenges, but he didn’t expect to find himself running through the greenery of Route 1 to return to Pallet Town. It hadn’t even been a few hours since he chose his starter Pokémon and already Jimin was in a frantic rush to go back home and find someone to heal his injured Pokémon. Professor Oak had told him that if his Pokémon was to ever sustain any major injury, or worse faint, that he should take it to the nearest Pokémon Center to be healed. The only problem for Jimin was that the nearest Pokémon Center was in Viridian City, which was a five hour walk from where he was located. Five hours was too long for his Bulbasaur, which he carefully cradled against his chest as he ran through Route 1.

“Hold on. Hold on,” Jimin panted as he ran with all the force he could muster through the paved path. His heart hammered against his chest, begging for him to stop and to rest, but Jimin could not stop. Although his Bulbasaur had been stubborn and unwilling to listen from the get-go, Jimin didn’t want to give up on his Pokémon. He chose his Bulbasaur and he was going to stick with his decision. His Bulbasaur whimpered in pain and Jimin ran faster, the trees on that populated Route 1 blurring. It could not end like this.

Jimin choked back a sob when he started to see the homes that populated the outskirts of Pallet Town. Almost home. His legs began to feel less and less stable, but he continued to push forward. His Bulbasaur needed him.

“Almost there, Bulbasaur. We’re almost there,” Jimin chanted as Professor Oak’s lab came into view. He hoped and prayed that Professor Oak would be in lab. That old coot had a habit of being out in the field when people seemed to need him the most.

The automatic doors of the lab opened all too slowly for Jimin when he arrived. When he entered the main area of the lab, he found it devoid of any person. He noted that the lab was messy as usual with broken PokéDexes splayed onto several tables, opened and unused Pokéballs littering the floor, and computers running long lines of code.

“Hello? I need help! My Pokémon is really hurt,” Jimin called out. He quickly walked around the lab, careful not to step on anything. After searching through a few rooms, to find them devoid of help, Jimin re-entered the main area of the lab. Although no one was still here, Jimin looked down to see the strangest looking Pokémon ever. It wasn’t strange because of its appearance, but because Jimin had never seen a Pokémon like this before he had found its appearance strange. He remembered spending hours absorbing information from books that his mother had bought him about Pokémon in Kanto and this Pokémon was not from any of these books.

The Pokémon was rather small, a little over a foot in height, and stood on its four feet with its body mostly covered in two shades of light blue. The feature that stood out the most to Jimin was the Pokémon’s bright orange cheeks dominated by three spikes on each cheek. The Pokémon blinked at Jimin and tilted its head to the side.

“Mudkip,” the Pokémon chirped. “Mudkip.”

“Mudkip?” Jimin heard a female voice call out. An assistant of Professor Oak, that looked about a year younger or older than him, he could not tell, walked to the Pokémon, Mudkip, with a puzzled look on her face. “Do you need any help?”

“Yes,” Jimin breathed out. His exhaustion from running was finally hitting him and he wasn’t feeling good. His legs felt like they were going to give out, the last few drops of sweat from his forehead were dripping, and he still found it hard to breathe. “My Bulbasaur, he’s hurt and I don’t know what to do,” Jimin explained, choking back a sob. “I know the nearest Pokémon Center is in Viridian City, but I was afraid that if I went all the way there it would be too late for my Bulbasaur.”

The assistant nodded her head and Jimin hoped that she could help him. He didn’t know how long his Bulbasaur had and he didn’t want it to end like this.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

“Jimin. Park Jimin,” Jimin replied.

“Follow me, Jimin. I’ll heal your Bulbasaur for you,” the assistant said.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Jimin said as he walked next to the intern.

“Come along, Mudkip,” the assistant said. The Mudkip happily followed the intern as she guided Jimin to an area of Professor Oak’s lab that Jimin had never seen. “Where is the PokéBall for your Bulbasaur?”

“Um, I,” Jimin stuttered. His Bulbasaur groaned in his arms and the assistant frowned.

“Here,” she said with open arms. “Let me hold your Bulbasaur so you can get its PokéBall.”

Jimin gently gave his Bulbasaur to the assistant and searched for the PokéBall in his backpack. “I didn’t put him in his PokéBall, because I didn’t know if it was safe to do that. I was worried it would make him worse,” Jimin stuttered as he pulled out his Bulbasaur’s PokéBall.

“It’s perfectly safe to put your Bulbasaur back in its PokéBall when it’s injured. Some Pokémon trainers put their Pokemon back in the PokeBall when its injured and other trainers prefer to hold on to their Pokémon. It’s just a matter of personal preference,” the assistant explained. Jimin breathed out a sigh of relief. “To heal Bulbasaur he’ll need to be in his PokéBall.” Without a moment of hesitation, which was a first for Jimin today, he returned Bulbasaur to its Pokéball. The assistant place the PokeBall into a machine that Jimin had never seen before and turned it on. “What happened to your Bulbasaur?” The assistant asked after turning on the machine.

Jimin sighed and hung his head low. “I was walking on Route 1 when I came across a Pidgey and I wanted to practice trying to catch my very first Pokémon, but after I let Bulbasaur out of its Pokéball, it wouldn’t listen to me and I got so distracted by my frustration that I didn’t notice until too late that the Pidgey was attacking Bulbasaur. I got in between Bulbasaur and the Pidgey and ran back here when I saw how injured Bulbasaur was.”

“It’s okay, Jimin. You did the right thing.”

“Huh?”

“You did the right thing to bring your Bulbasaur here,” the assistant said with a kind smile.

“Really?”

She nodded her head. “The first month of being a trainer can be pretty rough. Pokémon training is not something a person can master in just a few weeks and it certainly can’t be accomplished just by studying a lot.”

Jimin’s shoulders sagged and he began to wonder if he had really done the right thing.

“I don’t know what I’m even doing,” Jimin admitted, his voice small. “I thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve read books on Pokemon training, I’ve spoken to Pokémon trainers, but I just don’t know.” The assistant sympathetically smiled and gently patted Jimin on the shoulder.

“You’re not alone, Jimin. Although I wasn’t here for it, Professor Oak told me that today there were five people that got their first Pokémon. There are other rookie trainers out there in the world that feel the same way as you do. None us really know how it is until we go out there and try.”

“But no one else is here with their very first Pokémon on the brink of death,” Jimin lamented.

“That’s true,” the assistant said. “But what happened to you today will eventually happen to all of those rookie trainers. Everyone has to go through their first panic of figuring out what to do when their Pokémon is injured.”

The machine beeped, signally that it had finished the request that was made. Jimin moved close the machine, watching it carefully.

“Is Bulbasaur okay?” Jimin asked.

The assistant pulled the Pokéball out of the machine and handed it out to Jimin. “Let him out and you’ll see.”

Jimin released Bulbasaur from its Pokéball and to his complete and utter relief, he saw his Pokemon healthy and healed.

“He’s okay,” Jimin breathed out, with tears welling up in his eyes. He dabbed the tears in his eyes and looked away. “I’m sorry, I’m not normally like this.”

“Don’t worry, I understand.”

Bulbasaur looked around the lab, not quite understanding why it was here. Jimin watched as the assistant’s Mudkip walked to Bulbasaur and welcomed it back to the lab.

“I’ve never seen that Pokémon before,” Jimin stated.

“Mudkip is not from around here. He was a gift given to me by Professor Birch in Littleroot Town,” the assistant explained. Jimin’s eyes widened and it finally made sense as to why he had never seen this assistant before. Pallet Town was a small place with not many people, so it was hard to not know everyone.

“You’re from the Hoenn region,” Jimin realized. The assistant laughed and nodded her head.

“Yup. Originally I’m from Slateport City and after being a Pokémon trainer for about two, three years, I decided to try my hand at being an assistant for a professor in Pokémon research. Today is my first day here in Professor Oak’s lab as his research assistant,” she proudly proclaimed. Jimin was stunned. He had never met anyone from outside of Kanto.

“You’re a long way from home,” he said.

“That’s true, but I love to travel so I don’t mind being far away,” she explained.

Jimin smiled as he watched Mudkip and Bulbasaur interact. It seemed as though the two Pokémon were getting along quite well as Bulbasaur’s vines from its back playfully poked Mudkip’s cheeks.

“Thank you for helping me,” Jimin said as he looked at the research assistant. Since the moment he had come into the lab up until that point, Jimin hadn’t really looked at the assistant since he was preoccupied with the wellbeing of his Bulbasaur. He finally noticed that she was not much shorter than he was, with kind eyes, and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a long white lab coat, with blue skinny jean and a simple t-shirt underneath her lab coat. Jimin was sure he looked like a mess. He could feel the sweat in the armpits of his red shirt seeping onto his black jacket. The ankles of his jeans were dirty from the dirt that he had run through to get back to Pallet Town. He wished he was as clean as the assistant.

“It’s no problem. I am happy to help,” she replied. Jimin scratched the back of his head, embarrassed that he had not yet asked for her name.

“This is pretty embarrassing, but I forgot to ask what your name was,” Jimin shyly said. The assistant laughed and waved her hand.

“No worries,” she replied. She shared with Jimin her name and he felt his heart tug.

“That’s a pretty name,” Jimin said, although after those words came out of his mouth he felt pretty lame.

“Oh, thank you,” she said with a smile. “What are you going to do next?”

“I don’t know,” Jimin sighed. “Viridian City is the closest city to here, so I should go there, but after today, I don’t really know what to do. I don’t even know if what I am doing is even the right way to go.”

“There is no one right and perfect way to be a Pokémon trainer. Everyone has their own path that they must follow. Of course there are not-so-good ways to be a Pokémon trainer, but you’ll learn those lessons pretty quickly,” the assistant said. “You’ll never know until you try.”

“So I just need to go out there and just try?” Jimin asked with uncertainty laced in his voice.

“That’s what every rookie trainer does. We go out there and we try. We learn from our successes and we learn from our mistakes to be the best Pokemon trainers that we can be,” the assistant answered. “Would it be alright for me to offer one last piece of advice, before you decide which way you will go?”

“Um yeah. That would be great, since I don’t really know what I’m doing,” Jimin said with some laughter.

“There are four other rookie trainers headed to Viridian City. You should find at least one of them and befriend them. I found that traveling around and training to be a great Pokémon trainer was a lot better and easier when I could share that experience with someone. Maybe one of those trainers could be your travel companion.”

“A travel companion?” Jimin asked.

“Yeah. Plus you’ll be able to learn from one another,” she said. Jimin nodded his head and pondered over her idea. It wasn’t something he had ever thought of doing and although she made it sound nice, Jimin wasn’t too sure if he wanted a travel companion.

“I’ll think about it,” Jimin politely said. The assistant didn’t seem hurt by Jimin’s vague answer and for the first time that day, Jimin felt a little bit of peace. “We’ll I’m not going to give up right now. We are going to Viridian City.” Jimin’s Bulbasaur tilted its head to the side as Jimin returned his Pokémon to its Pokéball. He turned back to the assistant and thanked her for all of her help and advice.

Jimin left Professor Oak’s lab, still uncertain about his future, and looked down to his watch. Viridian City was a two and a half hour walk, which still gave him enough time to get their before dark. He decided he would put aside his fear and continue on his path to become a good Pokémon trainer.

When he reached the sign that welcomed travelers to Route 1, Jimin turned back one last time to look at his hometown. He was going to miss home, but he knew that this was something that he was going to have to do. With a newfound resolve, Jimin once again entered onto the road of Route 1.

“Wait!” Jimin heard a person shout from behind. He turned around to see the research assistant running towards him. In a matter of seconds she was standing in front of him, terribly out of breath and holding a small piece of paper in her hand.

“I know you aren’t sure about having a travel companion,” she began to say in between breaths. “But I wanted to give you the lab’s phone number and my contact information in case you have any questions, or you need someone to talk to.”

She gave Jimin the piece of paper and he smiled.

“Thank you. I’ll let you know when I make it to Viridian City,” he said. The assistant smiled and patted Jimin on the head.

“Good luck, Jimin, and stay safe out there.”

Jimin assured her that he would be more careful than he had previously been and set out for his journey.

It would have been a lie for Jimin to say that the uncertainty of his journey didn’t make him nervous, but the kind and reassuring words of the assistant brought a new perspective into Jimin’s heart. This journey would not be easy, but it would not be impossible.

#bangtanbuds #btssunshinenet #bts scenario #bts scenarios #jimin scenario #jimin scenarios #bts fic #bts #jimin #jiminfic #pokemon au #jimin imagine #jimin imagines #jimin x reader #bts pokemon au #comfort

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ianmrid · 4 years

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Behind Every Win...

I’ve talked a lot about new Generation 4 features, but the biggest change by far was definitely the addition of online support, allowing the Pokémon series to go truly global for the first time.

Previously, in order to interact with other players of the games, you needed to be in close proximity to them. Game Boys and Game Boy Colours required physical link cables to connect in Gen1 and 2, and GBAs required either cables or the bespoke wireless adaptors in Gen3. And while the new DS offers that same local communication as before (via Bluetooth - finally no more cables or adaptors!), Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum are also the first games to leverage the power of the internet. This was managed via a new Nintendo service know as Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, or WFC for short and as long as you had an internet connection you could connect to the WFC. This was managed via an in-game building located in Jubilife City known as the Global Terminal or Global Trade Station (GTS)..

Entering this rather fancy-looking building allowed users to perform all sorts of activities such viewing battle recordings and global rankings, sharing data about your pokémon and PC boxes and, most exciting of all, the online trading of pokémon. It was now possible to place unwanted pokémon onto a virtual market place accompanied by information about which pokémon you wanted to receive back for it, and then players from all around the globe could browse the listings looking for mutual beneficial trades. This is a really great feature as it fundamentally changed one of the ways that you could obtain pokémon, making trading a more viable way to help fill your Pokédex, just in case your real-life friends aren’t as cool as you and don’t play pokémon. On top of this there were other benefits to receiving a pokémon from another country or from a game in a different language. It wasn’t just cool seeing where it came from and what nickname it might have, but ‘foreign’ pokémon provided actual benefits to the in-game mechanics around breeding pokémon, something that competitive players spend a lot of time on.

Aside from all this the WFC also massively increased the function of Mystery Gift, the feature that allows for special items and pokémon to be distributed. Formerly only possible when in proximity, these distributions could now be done via the internet as well. For example, although some events required you to go a physical location to obtain a reward, now Nintendo and Game Freak had the option of just distributing to everyone, all over the world. This includes distributions of Mythical Pokémon and/or items associated with their events.

Now, this shouldn’t really be of any use to me since Nintendo closed down the WFC servers in 2014 after the life-cycle of Gens 4 and 5 were complete - because of course they did - so none of the above features were accessible any longer. HOWEVER, after this happened, several fan-made servers sprung up, such as the Poké Classic Network. These are servers made by and run by fans of the games who really want to be able to continue to use GTS and other online features. They use a DNS exploit in the DS by simply updating the settings to point directly to these servers, et voilà! This is incredibly easy to connect to and these servers are still running today. At the time of writing there 149 pokémon available for trade, including several that have been added today itself!

Now, I love the fact that fans have been able to keep games that are nearly 15 years old still running in this way, long after Nintendo shut down their old servers, but what I really love is the side effect of getting online in this way. When you go to scan for a Mystery Gift while pointing to one of these fan servers, you find that all Mystery Gifts are now available to you. Every. Single. One. The gifts are available only one at a time, and which on you get is random, so it requires a bit of patience to repeatedly scan until you have a full set, but it was way less than an hour until I had them all. Arceus, Shaymin, and Darkrai were all directly gifted this way, along with a set of shiny Legendary Beasts of Johto (Raikou, Entei, and Suicune), some commemorative pokémon from the World Championships, and a whole lot more.

I decided that, since the items associated with the mythicals were also gifted this way, I would use the items and capture them all in-game, as that way I would be able to nickname them. You can’t nickname pokémon received via trades or mystery gift as you are not the original trainer and I really wanted to since (Spoiler Alert!), I have plans to use Shaymin on my upcoming Platinum team. Interestingly, the Azure Flute required for the Arceus event was never actually distributed via Mystery Gift, for what seems to me to be a pretty stupid reason. When interviewed years later, Junichi Masuda had this to say:

When we were first developing the games we thought about including it. I thought it would be fun. But once the game was complete and released, I changed my mind down the road and didn’t think it would be – I thought it would be confusing for people and kind of hard to understand how it worked. So I eventually made the decision not to distribute it.

This doesn’t make a lick of sense, since it works the same way as all other in-game event items: take the item to a significant location and use it to fire the event. Still, despite this lack of distribution the event is ‘there’ and luckily it seems the WFC exploit bypasses any checks on whether something was actually released and includes available list of items. Thus giving me an as-legit-as-possible Azure Flute.

With this flute, Oaks Letter, and the Member Card all gifted, I was able to activate all of the in-game events and battle and capture all three Sinnoh Mythical Pokémon without any need for glitching, without downloading ROMs, and without dropping hundreds of pounds on distribution cartridges. Great progress!

#pokemon #pokemon playthrough #e plays pokemon #nintendo #game freak #Pokemon Pearl

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functioningcog · 4 years

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Hitting the bail button

"Commercial television delivers 20 million people a minute. In commercial broadcasting the viewer pays for the privilege of having himself sold. It is the consumer who is consumed. You are the product of TV. You are delivered to the advertiser who is the customer. He consumes you. The viewer is not responsible for programming - You are the end product."(Serra and Fay, 1973)

If it was true of television, it's even more true in the interactive and widespread media platforms of today. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Their brands are omnipresent. You are not their consumer. You are their product, and your data is offered and sold to the highest bidder. I have known this for sometime, but the mountain of reasons not to participate has finally tipped me over the edge. I am deleting Facebook. This doesn't make me better than anyone else, nor am I hear to preach. I just thought I'd share with you my reasons. Do with it what you will. First, a look into the past. Both mine, and ours.

In the fast food documentary "Super Size Me", one of the participants tells an anecdotal tale about cigarette companies of the past. Long before it became socially taboo to smoke, advertising for cigarettes was as commonplace, though maybe not as entertaining, as many ads we see today. Big Tobacco went further though; they advertised directly to children. Children far below legal smoking age were given toy cigarettes. It's hard today to see this as innocuous, but I imagine at the time most people had far bigger things to worry about. Well, those little innocuous toy cigarettes often had name brands on them. The tobacco companies were practicing "brand imprinting" on children as young as toddlers. They would pretend to smoke with their parents, and later on when they were old enough to smoke, they would unconsciously reach for the name brand they were familiar with. The sinister side of marketing, hard at work. It has not changed or improved in the years since.

Once when I was a kid, my father sat me down to have a talk. I wasn't in trouble; just being educated. The topic was Pokémon. The adorable, ubiquitous, trademarked pocket monsters that have dominated their corner of popular media for just about the same amount of time as I have been alive. They exist in many forms, and have evolved with the times. Videogames, toys both stuffed and model-like, card games, TV shows and films, all ad infinitum. My dad told me about the addictive nature of the games; how it's designed to grab hold of your attention, and your pocket book, and never let go. I don't remember his exact words, but the message has never left me. "Pokémon is addictive. I'm not going to buy you addictive things".

Not only is Pokémon addictive, but my father also stressed the fact that it creates a never-ending cycle for itself. There will always be new games, new cards, etc. Many medias that we enjoy have a planned ending to them. Movies, books, most TV shows, etc. They conclude and we move on to something else. We now live in an age where some of the most pervasive means of entertainment do not end. There is no logical stopping point. You can look at memes and posts and photos as long as your heart desires.

Note on Pokémon: I don't think the brand itself is evil. I have played the games in recent years and enjoy them. The lesson my dad taught me about addictions and marketing just happened to feature them. I wish I could say I have continued to avoid addictive habits and tech as an adult, but the battle is a lifelong one. Other addictions, mostly minor, have come and gone. It is the most pervasive and major one that brings me here; "Facebook"

Before I dive more into my own experience with Facebook, I'd like to share with you several of the most important influences that led me here today. The first is a fictional short story told via the anthology series "Black Mirror"; a favorite show of mine. The other two are documentaries, one from last summer and one newly released.

If you are unfamiliar with the show Black Mirror, it is an anthology series that explores the ethics and future of technology in our world through short self-contained stories. I highly recommend it. The Season 3 episode "Nosedive" follows a young woman in a world in which social standing is determined by internet interactions. People like and rate each other based on every interaction throughout their day. On your best behavior? You get some points. Accidentally snap at someone or make an off-color joke? You lose some points. Those points determine what events you attend, what cars you drive in, what jobs you can do, etc. It's not hard to extrapolate from there how our society is already well on its way to this kind of a system. The more addicted to social media we are, the more our lives revolve around the attention we get there. Likes and comments dominate our daily mood; they certainly have mine for years. It made me uncomfortable to realize how much my emotions could be controlled by digital reactions, or lack thereof. As "Nosedive" faded to black, I immediately pulled up my Facebook feed and then froze in place for a minute. "This is it. I'm looking at it". A sobering realization, yet I didn't stop my usage. The addiction continued, but no longer felt wholly innocent. By the by, this technology now exists in China. Look it up.

"The Great Hack" tells the story of a British Company called Cambridge Analytica, and how it developed it's technology to a point which the British government labeled "weapons grade communication". Analytica had contracts with a number of internet companies and groups to collect data on their users and used this data to develop tools, ads and propaganda designed to affect their target audience in highly specific ways. With the knowledge freely and unwittingly offered up by social media users, the degree to which you can predict and direct the users behavior and actions is truly disturbing. It's just human psychology and sociology combined with the newest tech. Cambridge Analytica used this data to influence elections in a number of countries around the globe, most notably the U.S. 2016 and the Brexit campaign in the U.K. They were hired first by Ted Cruz, then by Donald Trump's campaign. At the peak of the election season their American home base was being funded to the tune of over a million dollars a day and by it's end they had created and shared literally millions of targeted ads on social media. Were the ads truthful or reliable? Didn't matter. They were targeted at people most likely to shift their opinion based on the right information. And it worked. I wouldn't say that they single-handedly won the election for Trump, but they played a major part.

Cambridge Analytica was later shut down, but the cat’s out of the bag. I would expect to see both sides playing by these new rules throughout 2020. And that's all without even mentioning Russian hackers and bots, which Cambridge Analytica had nothing to do with. This documentary disturbed me. My own internal arguments and justifications in favor of Facebook were wearing thin. I began attempting to limit my usage, and calling out unreliable news posts when I saw them. But I also kept logging on daily. Repeatedly. My awareness of my addiction was growing more acute. I noticed my own behavior and reactions to the site more than before. The camels back was just a couple straws away from breaking point.

“Screened Out” focuses primarily on the how and why of social medias effects on us as people. The aforementioned psychology of what's happening. Turns out, it was always intended to addict us and keep us coming back for more. It's inherent in the design. Like gambling, like cocaine, our seemingly innocent social media is triggering dopamine reactions in our brain. Every like, every reaction, every notification is designed to draw your attention and satisfy the itch the system itself gave you. It was crafted this way knowingly and intentionally. The most widespread addiction in our modern world is available for all ages and free to top it off. Just like those toy cigarettes I mentioned earlier, the tech companies and marketing developers know quite well that children are more unsuspecting and susceptible to addictive behaviors and media. My childhood was predominantly internet free, and for that I am thankful; my addiction developed as an adult. But many children of today have all the access they want to social media and it's hard to argue it’s a good thing. They are becoming reliant on and obsessed with their image and perception before they even know who they are. Their addiction has drawn many of them into depression, or even suicide. Is being "connected" really worth it at this price?

One of the most common and persistent things I've told myself: "It's a way to stay in touch with family and friends". Yes, it certainly is. When the site was created, that goal was much more front and center and easier to enjoy. It's an admirable goal too, and if it works for you I'm happy for you. From where I'm sitting, Facebook's use for that well-meaning purpose has taken a backseat to what dominates its feed. As I scroll through multiple times a day, 80-90% of what I see is ads for things I don't need, news that I usually could do without or that is outright false, memes I could find elsewhere and people arguing and debating topics that are better discussed in person or not at all. This is what Facebook is for me now. That once enticing prospect of glimpsing the lives of my friends and family surfaces from time to time, and it's still enjoyable. Unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good these days. Again, if your experience is better than mine, please enjoy it and I'm happy for you. Aside from "Screened Out", the last piece of this decision was caused by nature; not human, but microscopic. I already knew about how fake news is created and spread via Facebook and Twitter. Donald Trump showed us just how incredibly effective it is and more evidence is not really necessary. Enter COVID-19. A global pandemic that should unite people of all beliefs in a common goal of defending ourselves from an enemy that has no morals or code. An enemy that has no mind or plan of its own. It simply spreads.

What did social media do in the face of this crises? Everything negative and nefarious about it kicked into high gear and was on full display. False narratives and conspiracies that actually endanger lives in the immediate future spread like wildfire. People arguing about data and statistics that effect us all and are utterly bipartisan. Guys, this is not ok. I do not think it an exaggeration to say that social media is precipitating a partial or total collapse of society. Something must be done to fix it, and I don't know what that something is. But I'm bowing out. This is not a system that can be fixed from the inside. Picture a casino sponsoring a gambling addicts rehab right next to the slot machines. You'd be better served just not going. As I said at the beginning, I don't want to sound preachy. My goal here was to share my decision making process and some information sources that you might appreciate. Maybe you're better at tuning out the bad side of social media than I am. Maybe you have ways by which you limit your exposure to it. I personally have addictive tendencies, and this is my way of addressing one of my longest and most insidious habits. And yes, I know that tumblr is technically another social media platform. My current intention is to use it as an outlet for my writing.

If you read all that, hi-five. Maybe being off Facebook will lead me to write more on my blog. I wish you all well and look forward to talking to you on other platforms or in person. Peace - JCP

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/08/18/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-81817/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 8/18/17

I swear, as much as I love pop culture, some weeks it’s just really hard to pay attention to that stuff with everything going on in the world. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know about everything that went down in Charlottesville last weekend. I don’t need to recap it, but I’ve got to tell you that I’m scared. Yeah, we’re supposed to stand up to the Nazis and #Resist and all that, but I can still be scared, can’t I? I’ve got to raise a kid in the world. I don’t know how to explain shit that I don’t even understand. We really judge people because of their color? It’s like the Chris Rock joke about VCRs and girls who don’t perform oral sex: “They still make you?” It’s crazy to me, and I tended to just go through life without really thinking too much about it. I had that luxury, and I knew it was a luxury. Part of what made it great was that these folks that are loud and proud used to just be keyboard warriors in their moms’ basements. But they’ve come out of the basements, y’all, and this shit is REAL.

About two years ago, I was driving us all home from the airport. I get to an intersection for a left turn, and the guy behind me keeps honking for me to go, even though he couldn’t really see that I saw cars coming. Eventually, he just speeds around me, and we end up next to each other at the next light. I see him mouthing something at me, so I roll down my window. Then he proceeds to ramble off a bunch of stuff, but what stood out most in my mind was him calling me a nigger. Oh, and my wife a bitch. But mainly him calling me a nigger several times. And it all went black for me.

I seem to remember calling him an asshole, because racial scientists have yet to discover the perfect counter to being called a nigger. White folks are like Teflon when it comes to slurs, as most of the ones about them have lost their effectiveness over the years. And then he challenged me to a fight. Wanted me to pull over into a parking lot. Like I said, I was GONE at this point. Plus, this was the longest red light in history. My daughter started crying in her carseat, and he told me to “go on home and don’t be a deadbeat nigger”, and Lindsay was urging me to just ignore the guy. Engines started revving. The lanes narrowed, and I think I wanted to run him into the median. That was my plan. As Evie’s cries got louder, I realized I had responsibilities and shit, so I let him speed off when the light turned green.

He wasn’t some good ol’ boy redneck. He pretty much looked like a regular White dude with a shaved head. At that point, I didn’t know what the Alt Right was because I hadn’t really heard of Gamergate and all that. But I can say, today, that he was the same type of dude that was down in Charlottesville, and that scares me. It scares me because I don’t like what they’re capable of. But it also scares me because I don’t like what they’re capable of making me do. Bad shit all the way around. Who’s to blame? Well, you be the judge of that. Some of you are still fooling yourselves, but you know exactly how we got here, and didn’t even stop think of what the ramifications would be. Fuck it all, ’cause “emails”, right? Anyway, here we are. Question I have for you is how are we gonna get out of here? And are you part of the solution or part of the problem?

Whew! OK. So, who’s ready for some pop culture ramblings, huh? Huh? Yeah, let’s get to that.

In a pretty big deal, Netflix acquired comic creator Mark Millar’s Millarworld comic imprint. You know, he’s the guy behind Wanted, and Kick-Ass, and Kingsman. Oh, what’s that? No, those properties aren’t part of this deal. Still, he’s quite the prolific writer (so prolific, in fact, that I’m not convinced he’s the one actually writing all this stuff, but I digress…), so there’s a lot of material to pull from. There’s Nemesis, which is basically evil Batman who dresses like a Klansman. There’s Superior, which is basically just Millar’s riff on the Shazam story. There’s Super Crooks, which is about, well, super crooks. I know I sound sarcastic and all, but I actually did enjoy all of these series. They may not have been the most original things I’ve read, but he’s found what works for him, so more power to him.

To me, the real winner here is Netflix, as they basically acquired a comic “company” without any of the hassle. You see, Millarworld isn’t a publisher like Marvel or DC. No, it’s an imprint, which is just a fancy branding tactic to let you know that all the stories spring forth from the same voice. Millarworld comics are currently published by both Marvel and Image. As an imprint, all of the heavy lifting is done by the actual publisher. So, Netflix gets the intellectual property without having to worry about comic shipping schedules, retailer outreach, or anything else that publishers should be doing. With this deal, they essentially get to have their cake and eat it, too. Part of me is scared that Netflix is being a bit too aggressive in the marketplace, and can’t sustain this level of success, but what do I know? It’ll be interesting to see what they end up doing with all of this.

Speaking of big deals, Shonda Rhimes – creator of the hits Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal – has signed a multiyear production deal with Netflix, moving her Shondaland production house from ABC. Her ABC contract was set to expire in May 2018, but word on the street is that she negotiated an early exit. A lot of folks are wondering what this means, especially for ABC, which had built the Thursday night TGIT lineup around Rhimes’s shows. It could be good, and it could be bad. For all of her success (the aforementioned shows), she’s also had some misses, including Off The Map, The Catch, and Still Star-Crossed. And for all the buzz surrounding its star, How to Get Away With Murder struggles to find the audience that Grey’s and Scandal have attracted.

There’s no doubt Rhimes is a powerhouse producer, but I think this move came at the right time, as TGIT was starting to get stale. Grey’s is on season 13, but could continue as long as Ellen Pompeo wants work. Meanwhile, Scandal ends this season, and I really don’t know how much more rope they’re gonna give Murder. I’m sure ABC would love to retool the night, without having to cater to one producer, so this will give them a lot more options. There were some potentially difficult decisions on the horizon that can now be avoided since Rhimes took an early out. As for what she’ll do for Netflix, we’re really just gonna have to wait and see.

So get this: apparently some lawyer bought the rights to My Cousin Vinny just so he could release Back to Brooklyn, a novel that follows the characters 25 years later. Now, I’ve never seen the movie in its entirety, but it’s certainly not one that ended with me wondering what happened to them next. According to the synopsis, not much. According to Deadline:

In the update, Vinny is working on a new murder case. This time, it’s set in his native Brooklyn. But domestic issues still plague him – he hasn’t married Lisa, and his career as an attorney really hasn’t taken wing, despite the Alabama triumph, leading to financial problems. Finally, he is hired to help a woman accused of killing her boyfriend, whose brother is the deputy mayor of New York City.

“Taken wing”? I’ve never heard that before. Is that like “Taking flight“? Anyway, that sounds boring as shit. This reboot/revival industry has really gotten out of hand, and this just takes the cake. I can tell you one thing about it without even reading it, though: 25 years later and Marisa Tomei is still a total smokeshow.

Not only has Chrisley Knows Best been renewed for a 6th sesaon, but it also scored an aftershow, According to Chrisley. Hey, at least it’s not another Hardwick talker! From the description, it’s really just a late night version of a daytime talk show, as Todd Chrisley will interact with the audience and give advice on marriage, parenting, and sex. Yup, good ol’ vaginal intercourse. I’m sure Todd knows TONS about that…

They say the third time’s the charm, and that’s exactly how many times they’ve now tried to make How I Met Your Father happen. This time, the show is being developed by Alison Bennett from a show that I love, FXX’s You’re The Worst. So, tonally, don’t look for the kind of humor you’re used to from HIMYM.

In the world of comics, Wizard: The Guide to Comics is returning in the form of WizPop, which will be yet another pop culture website in a crowded pool of pop culture websites. They say that a quarterly print version will follow at some point in the future, but I really don’t see that getting off the ground in today’s print marketplace. Apparently, WizPop will be a “digital daily video news service”, and I hate videos, so this already isn’t for me. I feel a lot of folks film shit that would’ve been more compelling written. Plus, I’m sure they’ll find some hot girl, get her to talk about Pokémon once a week, and expect the clicks to roll in.

The editor in chief of this project is Brian Walton, formerly of Nerdist, so I’m sure he knows his shit. The associate editor, however, is Luke Y. Thompson, who’ll I’ll always refer to as “the guy who killed Topless Robot”. Back in the early ’00s you wanted to have the popularity of 2 major sites: Topless Robot and X-Entertainment. Rob and Matt ruled the geek set, and when Rob left Topless Robot – a brand he had built – it really should’ve ended. Instead, Thompson came along and simply didn’t have feet big enough to fill the shoes he’d been left. I remember when the call went out for a new editor for that site, and I considered it briefly, but thought to myself “Nobody knows me, and it’s not like I have that big of a following”. Then they chose Thompson, whom I’d only heard of here and there, and who had basically the same amount of social media followers that I did. Son of a bitch! Anyway, I’m probably being too hard on the guy. I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t have fared any better than he did, as there just wasn’t, nor should there have been, a Topless Robot without Rob Bricken. Can’t begrudge a dude for needing to work, but I really don’t know what Thompson or Walton can bring to the Wizard brand to set it apart from everyone else who’ve already staked a claim to the digital world.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Everything’s coming up Jetsons, as DC Comics announced a new miniseries, while ABC announced they’ve picked up a pilot from Robert Zemeckis for a live action sitcom. I say this show dies on the vine like the Seth MacFarlane Flintstones reboot, but we’ll see…

The season 7 Suits finale will serve as a backdoor pilot for a spinoff starring Gina Torres, and set in the world of Chicago politics. I really hope it’s called Da Skirts.

Marvel’s Runaways are about to be DOOMED, as the former movie doctor (and Nip/Tuck butt model) Julian McMahon joins the Hulu series as some worthless adult character. Seriously, if you’ve read the book, you know you can’t trust any adults in their orbit.

Fringe‘s Kirk Acevedo has been cast as “Ricardo Diaz” next season on Arrow, who will be the Arrowverse adaptation of DC Comics martial artist Richard Dragon.

Unwillingly to let a little broken neck stop him (um, spoiler alert?), David Tennant will reprise his role as The Purple Man in season 2 of Jessica Jones.

If you’re looking for conversation fodder for when you talk to your grandma, you should probably know that Daphne Oz, daughter of the Dr, is leaving The Chew. Like I said, your grandma will have something to say about it.

If you’re a 15 year old girl and you stumbled across this site because you found me in one of your chat rooms, then you’ll want to know that the Teen Wolf 100th episode/series finale will air September 24th. No word if Michael J. Fox or Jason Bateman will make a cameo. Oh, you don’t know who they are? Fuckin’ Generation Z, man…

Paul Scheer will now spearhead the Amazon adaptation of Galaxy Quest, which can only mean one thing: Rob Huebel is gonna be the commander. Mark my words!

Lost executive producer/co-showrunner Carlton Cuse just inked an overall production deal with ABC. Spoiler alert: all the characters in all of the upcoming shows have been dead the whole time.

Michael Douglas is in talks to star in a Netflix sitcom created by Chuck Lorre, which means everyone will “hate” it but it’ll still be the highest rated comedy on the streaming service. I mean, Lorre is KING of the Guilty Pleasure.

NBC announced that there have been “talks” of a Frasier revival, though they aren’t sure if the creators want to do it without co-creator David Angell, who died in the September 11th attacks.

Not to be outdone, Fox announced that they’ve been in talks with Mike Judge to bring back King of the Hell. While I’d love to know how Hank Hill would regard Trump’s America, I feel the original run of that show is nearly perfect and wouldn’t want a lackluster follow-up like Futurama 2.0.

Bad Boys 3 is clearly never happening, so it just lost its release date to Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly’s Holmes & Watson, hitting theaters November 9th, 2018.

Nia Vardalos, of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame, is developing Suburbs Famous, a TV series loosely inspired by the Chewbacca Mom thing. I’m not sure what to call it. It wasn’t a phenomenon. It was just a thing.

Hold onto your butts, children of the 80s, as there’s a reboot of The Two Coreys masterpiece License to Drive. This time it’ll be a female-led ensemble, being called a “female version of Superbad“. Um, OK.

You know that coworker who clearly hates his job, and really doesn’t go out of his way to make you think otherwise? That’s Daniel Craig with the James Bond franchise and, as much as he claims to hate it, it’s a job, so he’ll be back in the next installment.

Get your towels, fangirls (and fanboys, if that’s your thing), ’cause Star-Lord is back on the market! After 8 years of marriage, Chris Pratt and Anna Faris announced their separation. He’ll get custody of the family’s successful movie career, while she gets the car and her job on Mom.

youtube

I thought this was pretty clever

In a rebranding move, Chuck E. Cheese’s is getting rid of the animatronic band that we all grew up being terrified of. But fear not, as the chain will still base their image around a rat serving you pizza, so if that ain’t classy, I don’t know what is!

This week I joined my good pal Classick for another round of the Classick Team-Up Podcast. This was my first show with his new cohost, Amber, and I think we all gelled really well together. You should definitely give it a listen, but listener discretion is advised!

To say that the new DuckTales is good would be an understatement. In fact, it might be too good. Like everyone else, I’m beginning to tire of all of Hollywood dusting off old properties for new money, so I was a bit apprehensive about a DuckTales reboot. I mean, Disney had come a long way since then, so did they really need to return to that well? I grew up with the Disney Afternoon, so I know some DuckTales. It was never my favorite show or anything, but I enjoyed watching it. Even saw the movie in theaters. I would’ve been more intrigued by a Darkwing Duck or, believe it or not, a Goof Troop reboot, but I was willing to return to Duckburg to check things out.

As the news started trickling out about the reboot, I began to get a bit more interested. The character designs were updated, yet faithful to the original. And the cast! They could’ve just gone with some unknown voice actors, but instead they went for Purple Man David Tennant, and SNL guys Bobby Moynihan and Beck Bennett. Hell, they even got Community‘s Danny Pudi in the mix. Even if the show sucked, it wouldn’t be due to the folks behind the mic. Then they announced that the show would premiere on 8/12, and air for 24 hours. And for 24 hours did it run!

I actually didn’t get to watch it until the marathon was over, but when it was over, I couldn’t believe what I had seen. It was great. I was surprised that Huey, Dewey, and Louie actually had personalities now. That’s something I don’t remember being true about the original show. I liked the personality upgrade that Webby received, and I now find her more endearing than annoying. There’s clearly a story behind the new Mrs. Beakley, as she’s not just some doddering housekeeper anymore. And Donald’s even featured this time! There were a ton of Easter eggs referencing the old show, including shout outs to Cape Suzette (Tale Spin) and St. Canard (Darkwing Duck). Hell, they even had Roxanne from A Goofy Movie in it. What’s not to love?

If I had any squabble at all, it’s that I kinda wish Donald had subtitles. I know that’s part of his gimmick, but during the first half hour, for whatever reason, I found him downright incomprehensible. It didn’t seem as bad during the second half hour, so I don’t know what the difference was.

Anyway, the series properly debuts with new episodes on September 23rd, and I think I found my new favorite Saturday cartoon. If you didn’t see it, you should definitely check it out. It might not be your speed, but you can’t help but marvel at what they accomplished. That’s why DuckTales had the West Week Ever.

Oh yeah, I’m still trying to make Sarahah happen, so leave me some comments!

#80s #Batman #Books #Comics #DC #Image #Marvel #Movies #Politics #Race #Star Wars #Television #West Week Ever

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sage-nebula · 7 years

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Anyone asked Alain yet for the meme? If not, Alain, Manon, Steven, and Sycamore~!

Alan:

sexual orientation headcanon

Aromantic asexual! And if I can finish it (it’s at thirteen pages right now, and I’m near the end, I just—!), I should have a fic exploring him discovering this posted for Pride Month. (Yes, we’re two days out from the end of Pride Month, and I have another fic due on the 30th, and I’m still struggling to finish this, orz.)

But essentially, Alan is as aroace as it is possible to get. He does not feel romantic nor sexual attraction for anyone, period. As I’ve mentioned before, he never once shows any kind of attraction toward anyone during his time on the show, which is notable for the Kalos saga due to how many characters openly and blatantly expressed romantic attraction to others (including Alan’s own papa, what with the way Sycamore blatantly hit on Meyer like that). Alan is aware that romantic and sexual attraction are things that exist for other people—that other people get into relationships and the like—but it’s not something that he ever experiences himself, and usually it’s so far from his mind that he doesn’t even realize when others are hitting on him / when others take the things he says as flirtations (such as, I headcanon that Ayaka thought he was flirting with her in TSME 1 when he said that it was an honor to be complimented by her, but he wasn’t—he just genuinely meant that in a respectful way, because he’s a nice person).

Additionally, while he’s not romance repulsed (he’s not interested, but it also doesn’t skeeve him out), he is sex-repulsed to an extent. Like, it doesn’t bother him that other people have sex, and he doesn’t mind if they talk about it in front of him / doesn’t mind discussions about it, particularly since it’s something that occurs in nature with pokémon and whatnot. It’s a thing that happens. But the idea of having sex or being involved in a sexual act himself is one that does skeeve him out and make him uncomfortable. He’s not only not sexually attracted to others, and is not only not at all interested in participating, but the idea of participating makes him uncomfortable to the point of wanting to up and leave. It’s not a huge, drastic thing, but it still is a thing nonetheless. It’s a part of who he is.

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

Right off the bat, he absolutely has complex post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as C-PTSD, as a result of being an abuse survivor. Based on canon alone, he definitely has it as a result of being emotionally abused by Lysandre over a period of years (two in my headcanon, but the exact time frame is unspecified in canon; all we can tell is that it was quite a long time). If we add the backstory I created for him to that, then he had C-PTSD even prior to that as a result of his abusive early childhood in Isolé Village. Living with Sycamore helped mitigate his symptoms and helped him heal considerably (particularly since Sycamore rescued him from Isolé Village when he was so little, and raised him for the seven years following), but when he was recruited into Lysandre’s service, the emotional abuse that Lysandre doled out on him reawakened and exacerbated the symptoms that, while latent, were already there. (Keep in mind, too, that C-PTSD can often strongly resemble a personality disorder when it occurs in childhood / adolescence—it shapes the way one grows and develops, and affects how they come to see and interact with the world. So this isn’t something that can ever be healed completely, nor is it something that will just “go away”. While Alan can and certainly will recover from his trauma, his C-PTSD is something he is going to be living with for the rest of his life, and something that has shaped him as a person.)

In addition to C-PTSD, I do think that he’s prone to clinical depression, as well as an anxiety disorder. His depression, while chronic, tends to not be severe unless it’s working in conjunction with his C-PTSD (in the sense that, his depression is acting up again while he’s also suffering a guilt / shame spiral as a result of his trauma, hence everything is exacerbated and the depression is a lot worse than it would be if it was just the depression acting up on its own). His anxiety, on the other hand, does tend to be more severe, particularly because Alan has the type of brain that never shuts up. Once he gets started thinking about something that stresses him out, he has a difficult time distracting himself from it. He’ll keep thinking about it, and think about it some more, and think about it even more, and this leads him on anxiety spiral that can spiral right down into a panic attack. (Of course, the problem is that Alan also tends to stifle his reactions to things and shut down / close in on himself, so it can be hard to spot. Yes, he’s having a panic attack, but since he shuts down and just goes silent, it can be damn near impossible for others to tell. That said, sometimes his panic attacks get so bad that he actually vomits, so … that’s a little more noticeable, even if he’ll usually try to get somewhere private (or at least with just Lizardon) before it gets to that point.)

So yes, he has C-PTSD, depression, and a major anxiety disorder. Fun times!

3 random headcanons

Only three? Heheh. I’ll try to share three new ones.

At some point in the Immortality AU he gets a massive sycamore tree tattoo on his back. It’s purely in black ink, and is rather stylized, but he got it as a tribute to his father, as well as … well … a reminder of his roots. ;)(… I’ll see myself out.)

He knows how to pick locks. Specifically, he knows how to pick locks with a paperclip. Even more specifically, he knows how to pick handcuff locks with a paperclip, and had to do this once when he was ten (which is also the time he discovered he could figure out how to do this). Yes, there is a story there, and yes, it will be written eventually. But the point is, he can pick other locks, too, if you give him a paperclip and enough time to work it. (And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a paperclip—a bobby pin could work too—but it’s just that a paperclip was what he had on him at the time, when he was ten. He was a lab assistant, what do you expect?)

Alan has various social media accounts, but he hardly uses any of them. Like, he has a Tripter, but he hasn’t updated it in months and probably doesn’t even remember it exists on the regular. He has a FateBook (and has had one for years), but he rarely posts things himself and changes his profile picture once in a blue moon. He does comment on other people’s statuses and the like, but again, his activity there is still pretty minimal, even then. (He’s also very selective about who he adds on FB. He has a very small Friends List, and even though the Friend Requests start piling up (much to his alarm) after he becomes Champion (and tbh he even had quite a few after winning the League), he just kind of … lets them sit.) Manon pestered him until he created a blog on Shakr, and so he does have one there, but … it still has the default theme. He has never posted anything. He never reblogs anything, either. No one even knows it’s his. He’s just not interested.That said, the one social media account that he does update at least semi-regularly? Immedigram. While he rarely adds captions to his photos, he takes a decent amount of pictures with his PokéNav Plus (or whatever the newest model is—Steven makes sure he stays current), and he uploads them to IG whenever he does. He has quite a few followers because, in all honesty, some of the pictures he takes while flying with Lizardon are downright beautiful. (And there are a lot of sky / dawn / dusk / star pictures. He … really likes the sky. It calms him.) So there is that, at least, even if Manon still thinks that his social media participation could use a lot more work. (Steven agrees. Alan just rolls his eyes and ignores them.)

Manon:

sexual orientation headcanon

She’s a lesbian, Harold.

Manon likes girls. She likes pretty girls! And this is something that’s always been a part of her, even before she consciously realized that she had pretty strong crushes on pretty girls right out of the gate. But once she hits her teen years it doesn’t take her long to realize that she really, really likes pretty girls, and from there to realize that she really only likes pretty girls. Like, guys are okay, she guesses—but they just don’t make her heart flutter the way girls do. Moreover, Manon being Manon, once she realizes this about herself she’s pretty okay with it. And by “pretty okay”, I mean that once Manon has a crush on someone, she goes after that person. She is not afraid to outright flirt with someone she is interested in, or outright ask them on a date, or outright tell Alan about how she found her future wife and they are going to get married and adopt three children and he better be her best man at her wedding.

“What’s her last name?” Alan asks.

“I’m—it’s—” Manon waves a hand dismissively. “I’ll get to that part. I’ll find out. It won’t matter ‘cause she’ll take mine, anyway.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do you mean, ‘uh-huh’? What’s that tone for? Why do you always sound so disbelieving whenever I tell you I’m getting married?!”

“I think you just answered your own question.”

“Hmph! Keep this up, and I won’t let you be my best man!!”

(For the record, he’s not her best man when she gets married. He is the one, given the absence of a father in her life, to walk her down the aisle, though.)

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

While I’m by no means an expert on it, I can absolutely see Manon with ADD, as well as dyslexia. She tends to talk fast and jumps from idea to idea, and some of her most common questions have to do with words or vocabulary, which could stem from a difficulty with reading (like, if she has dyslexia + has difficulties focusing on the page, then learning new words could be a challenge). These two things tend to frustrate her and make her feel stupid at times, because if she was smarter she wouldn’t have such problems—but of course she’s not stupid at all. She just has a learning disability / neurodivergence, and that’s okay because she learns in different ways, particularly once she learns how to work around her learning disability / neurodivergence to find the learning styles that work for her.

(Bonus: She had no idea that she had either of those, but Alan noticed her mixing up words / letters when reading or writing, thought it might be dyslexia, and talked to Sycamore about it the next time they talked. The three of them sat down and discussed things, did some research, one thing led to another and that’s how Manon had some pretty big questions answered for her. Who knew.)

3 random headcanons

Manon loves flowers and plants of all types, which is a big part of the reason why she ends up specializing in grass-types (to the point of becoming the grass-type specialist of the Kalosean Elite Four). When she’s older she’s almost always wearing a (fresh) flower crown in her hair, along with hair clips that are shaped like leaves. She also gets flower tattoos along her arms, with each flower representing a different important person in her life. Also, while I always imagined that she would evolve Hari-san into a chesnaught someday, lately I’ve been toying with the idea that maybe he stays a chespin forever, similarly to how Pikachu will forever be Pikachu. People can laugh, but Hari-san can be the most dependable pokémon in Kalos even if he never evolves—he could be strong regardless. I’m not sold on that yet, but I’ve been toying with it lately anyway. (Besides, it’s not like he can mega evolve—that’s for Fushi-kun the venusaur—so there’s no reason why he has to evolve all the way …)

Yvonne ends up becoming her rival. She is high-key outraged when she learns that Alan helped Yvonne pick her starter pokémon / gave her advice. (“Alan, don’t help her, she’s my rival!!”) They end up becoming friends (girlfriends??) later on in life, but it’s a hot rivalry there for a while, particularly since Yvonne picked fennekin, which has a type advantage over … well, Hari-san, but also the rest of Manon’s team.

She gets her ears pierced when she gets older. Let me be more specific: She gets her ears really pierced when she gets older. Not only the standard piercings, but also piercings all the way down her cartilage, on both sides. She doesn’t get gauges, though; those are gross, even to her.

Steven:

sexual orientation headcanon

I’m … not actually sure, to be honest. I really don’t have a firm grasp on Steven; sometimes I feel demiromantic demisexual, but then I also think that he recognized that Sycamore was damn fine when they first met and was only half-joking when he asked Alan if Sycamore was seeing anyone. (And even then, the half-joke just came from the fact that Steven is actually in a happy relationship with Wallace, and wouldn’t pursue Sycamore anyway; he was just curious because, damn, Sycamore might be ten years his senior, but he is still attractive in basically every way.) He obviously doesn’t have a bond with Sycamore at the time, which would suggest that he’s not demisexual, but … I don’t have a clear read on his orientation, still.

That said, it’s entirely possible that he’s still demiromantic, and maybe … pansexual? Homosexual? Allosexual without a clear boundary even though he’s never been attracted to women? Something else?? Like I said, I don’t really have a firm idea here, haha. Maybe I’ll just cheat and say that Steven has never felt the need to identify with anything specific because his feelings are what they are, he’s in a happy relationship for now, that’s all that really matters. He is Not Straight™, and that’s all he knows, and that is all he cares to know, and if anyone wants to have a problem with him not being more specific, they are free to take it up with his metagross.

(No one ever takes it up with Metagross.)

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

I don’t really see anything here either, haha. ;; Nothing about his behavior really stands out to me, personally, as reminiscent of a mental illness or neurodivergence.

(Though that said, now I’m laughing a bit, because when Alan sends out Lizardon to fight the Primal Legendaries in TSME 3, Steven expresses exasperation at how Alan went and just did that without giving any warning, because it’s reckless and dangerous and why can’t Alan at least communicate these plans or ask for help instead of just doing everything by himself, and I just—okay, well, we can’t all be neurotypical, Steven. =P)

3 random headcanons

His relationship with Wallace is straight up childhood best friends to lovers. Wallace was pretty much the only friend he had growing up (because Wallace only ever treated him like Steven, versus treating him like the heir to Devon Corporation), and as such they have a level of emotional intimacy that is nigh unparalleled. That said, they also have a level of comfort with each other that can lead to things like—well, like this. (They really do love each other, but sometimes Steven drives Wallace a little nuts and Wallace is not afraid to let him know.)

Although he does genuinely love steel-types (and rock-types as well) due to his fondness for precious stones and rocks and the like, part of the reason why he chose to specialize in those types as a child is because he has an allergy to various pokémon dander. The severity of the allergy depends on the pokémon, and to be honest he’s not even entirely sure he knows all of the pokémon he’s allergic to, but when it comes to pokémon with fur, there is a definite risk that if he spends time around them / comes in contact with their dander, he will start to get hives, and might even have some trouble breathing. (This is also part of why he very often wears long sleeves; it creates less risk for him to come in contact with pokémon dander while out and about, and therefore less risk for his allergy to trigger, just in case.) Such an allergy can be treated, of course, but it can also make training difficult (not to mention emotionally painful, if he couldn’t even pet his own pokémon without hives breaking out), so he sticks to pokémon without fur, which thankfully, steel-types and rock-types have plenty of.

He is gorgeous, and he is a fantastic dancer, but he cannot sing for anything. It is said that children have been moved to tears by his singing, and trust me, those are not tears of joy. Never invite him to karaoke night. There will be much regret.

Sycamore:

sexual orientation headcanon

He’s gay. Like, 100% into men only. Although he has always been a rather charming person and finds it easy to charm women (something he often does unintentionally—he can’t help it, he’s just charming by nature!), when it comes to romantic or sexual interest he has only ever been attracted in men. He realized this about himself in his early teen years, and has readily embraced it ever since.

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

Sycamore has struggled with chronic depression for pretty much his entire life, the severity of which varies depending on where he is in his life at the time (so like, it was really bad in university, but it’s not nearly as powerful and is much more easily fought in adulthood, when he has his dream job and a happy family). He also has experience with an anxiety disorder, as well as that fun cycle of “I’m too depressed to get up and go to class, but now I’m anxious about failing my classes, and the potential for failure worsens my depression, and my worsened depression increases my chances of failing, which then heightens my anxiety, and …” And so on and so forth. That was a monster to deal with in university, let me tell you. (Fortunately, he wasn’t alone. As much as Fulbert might have grumbled, he did help Sycamore where he could. There’s a reason they remained friends after university, and the fact that Fulbert not only used tough love such as flipping Sycamore’s mattress to get him out of bed in dire circumstances, but also helped Sycamore complete some of his coursework on top of the work Fulbert had to do for his own program, is part of it.)

3 random headcanons

He doesn’t drink very often, but he is the lightest of lightweights when he does. He really only ever drinks wine when he does drink alcohol, but it only takes about two glasses (if that) before he is slap-happy drunk. One time he and Meyer had some wine with dinner (while at home), and that was the first time Meyer had ever seen Sycamore drink, and it was not very long before Sycamore decided that it was time to enact some Risky Business. It was a good night.

He really likes cereal. Like, a lot. Not even just a specific kind of cereal, but all kinds of cereal (well, all kinds of cereal that you eat with milk and a spoon in a baseball helmet bowl, anyway—oatmeal is not really his thing). He will eat it for any meal or snack of the day, and sometimes all of them if he can get away with it and doesn’t have a small child he needs to set an example for. He just … really enjoys cereal, okay.

As notorious as he is for bad fashion, one of his favorite parts of taking Alan in when Alan was five was buying him all kinds of cute little kid clothes and merchandise and things. (I mean, he loves pretty much every aspect of (unofficially) adopting that boy, but you know.) In his eyes, pretty much every article of clothing and accessory available for purchase was absolutely adorable, to the point where he could hardly stand it at times. Like, for instance, one of the shirts Sycamore bought him had a rockruff rolling around on the front, with the words “Rock ‘n’ Roll!” Another one had a cubchoo on it and said “Chill Out!” He bought Alan light-up shoes, and also a plush komala backpack where the actual backpack part of it was the log, which unzipped at the top (the komala was purely a plush). For the orange theme day of Alan’s first Festival de la Vie (when he was still five) he got him a charizard hoodie that had wings on the back, spikes on the head to resemble charizard, and sleeves that ended in clawed gloves (with little holes on the bottoms of the sleeves so Alan could stick his hands through). It also had a detachable flame tail. Alan wore it for weeks and Sycamore probably has about a hundred pictures. But really, though, Sycamore just found all the little kid fashion to be so cute and would spontaneously buy shirts or what have you for Alan for the sole reason that he thought they were cute, and it was honestly one of his favorite things to do. He frickin’ loved it.(Also, I haven’t decided if Kalos has a Halloween equivalent yet, but if they do, imagine that when Alan was five or six, Sycamore decided on a werewolf costume for him, based on rockruff. And because it’s always fun for the parents to dress up to take the kids trick-or-treating too, he dressed up as a werewolf based on lycanroc. PAPA (WERE)WOLF WITH LITTLE (WERE)WOLF PUPPER. ADORABLE. Fulbert threatened to call CPS but Sycamore felt it was #WORTH IT.)

#character meme #my valiant dragon son #compulsory babysitting #lab family #ryttu3k

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chibipika · 7 years

Text

Right, so I’ve encountered yet another situation where ignoring my main character’s parents has threatened to nuke my entire fic (I just want to write cool Legendary adventures why does this keep happening.)

Unlike the previous times, however, I think I have a way to handle it this time. (Really boring plot holes under the cut:)

So, quick recap for those who don’t know—Jade’s family doesn’t exist because every time I try to acknowledge them, the fic almost dies. In earlier revisions, this was because her previous status as a self-insert made any attempts to write her parents unbearably awkward. Chapter 21 (which was the beginning of Book 2 in the old thread) took eleven months because of a single-page scene where Jade returns home, and I hated it so much that I deleted it a few months later.

So I’ve got Jade on this whole unofficial-training-and-fighting-Rockets adventure. And as far as her parents are concerned, she just disappeared one day with no explanation whatsoever. This of course causes HUMONGOUS problems and is the primary reason why trying to figure out how the hell to ever write Jade interacting with them is an impossibly daunting task. I… just… how do you even begin to go about fixing that?

So I’ve ignored them for this long… why is the fic in trouble about it now? Well…

In Chapter 23, Jade briefly debates returning home before deciding that it’s too risky to live in Viridian, and that traveling around is safer. But she doesn’t have a license yet, so she decides to get one (after some persuading.) Of course, the plot is gonna derail her from that hardcore, but she’ll still end up going through with that in chapter 30.

The problem is… how exactly is Jade going to get a license when her name is probably on like fifty “missing kid” lists and would get flagged the instant she entered the League system? This literally only just occurred to me yesterday.

The obvious solution is to finally get rid of the whole “training illegally” subplot and make it that Jade left home and said goodbye like any normal kid, which instantly removes all the awkwardness and makes it that there isn’t this big gaping plot hole hanging over her shoulder. The problem is… holy hell that subplot gets mentioned ALL THE TIME. It would be extremely hard to remove it at this point.

But I need her to get a license. I can’t have her travelling across Johto for a year with no license without running into some major realism issues. (Let’s be real, the only reason she’s made it this far is because of Stalker.)

So I think I’ve finally got an idea. I need to write an Extra that takes place after Chapter 5 (right after the plane incident is concluded) in which Jade calls home later that night, apologizes for being gone all day, and says she’s gonna be a Pokémon trainer.

Figuring out how to navigate a conversation in which Jade awkwardly apologizes for being gone all evening is infinitely easier than one in which she is gone for months. And I can just make Jade have one parent and no siblings, to make things as simple as possible (or if she has both parents, only one is present for the phone call).

Of course, said parent is going to be somewhat unamused by the whole “training illegally” thing and is going to ask if Jade has really thought this through and what her plan is. Jade will explain that she’s meeting up with some friends and will be staying with them, that she already got a Charmander (in addition to having taken Swift) and that the only reason she’s doing this is because she thinks she’ll never pass the test from learning about Pokémon training in school, and that the only way to understand it is to experience it firsthand. The parent agrees and makes Jade promise to get a license for real once she’s learned enough.

Being caught training illegally really only results in the League sending your ass home, having your Pokémon confiscated, and getting put on probation from training for a year. Which sucks, but isn’t gonna ruin your adult life or give you a criminal record or anything. Pretty much just ruins your chances at becoming a competitive battler, which isn’t even one of Jade’s goals. This would get brought up in the conversation. I could actually have a lot of fun with the dialogue here with stuff like, “Just don’t expect me to cover for you if they send your butt back to Viridian, alright?”

I don’t think this is too unreasonable. After all, Pokémon training is a huge part of the culture in their world and it’s basically expected that all kids will leave home someday as part of their coming-of-age. It’s just that yes, there are a lot of rules and regulations surrounding it.

So yeah. I don’t know when I’m going to write this Extra, but I definitely need to do it before Chapter 30. Probably not now, because I’m just about to enter my favorite arc and I have zero desire to write anything else. But I am not going to forget about this, because I would love to be done with this plot hole once and for all.

#LC #fanfic writing problems #pokemon fanfiction

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the-cryptographer · 7 years

Note

v f

Thank you so much for the ask! ;^;Also, sorry, these are extra long emblematik. I tried to double answer on them because I got double asked on both of them.

For the Fanfic Ask Game. Send me stuff if you haven’t already.(Or send me stuff if you have already. Not picky.)

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) toany fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Although I often am inspired to write in response to the themesand tropes in other people’s fanfic, I don’t often think of doing directsequels or prequels.

(For some reason though, I thought of As Clever Does (Harry Potter) I thinkit was a pretty clever bunch of snippets. I wouldn’t mind continuing the linewith a couple more. Also it may havealso started my interest in Pansy and Luna interacting further, which is kindof a thing in my drafts for Built Out of Whole Cloth, so maybe I’ve already startedwriting a sequel to it in that sense, heh.)

OKAY, but here’s a realexception. And, even more amazingly, I might actually write it:Since Animomactually put out an open challenge for sequels to Snowblind (ygo), I kinda gave thething too much thought and ended up with a plot, and told her about it. Andsince I think it could also kind of work as a standalone with some minimalexplaining I might do it.

The gist of Snowblind is that Kaiba and Jounouchi pile ontoan airplane after something happens to Yuugi. And then the plane crashes in amountain snowstorm and Kaiba has severe eye trauma. And then they bitch at eachother and make moves on each other (while quite possibly being steeped in regret for not making moveson the people they actually liked) as they huddle together to stave off impendinghypothermia. Then they may or may not die. (It’s a really good fic, btw.)

I think the ambiguous ending does more for the fic than anyconclusion could- But, during the fic, Kaiba says, ‘Blind and alive would bepathetic, but blind and dead won’t matter,’ which is just tempting fatesadistic authors, lbr. It wouldn’t necessarily be a continuation in a thematickind of sense, but just following from the concrete series of events laid outin Snowblind I thought it could be fun. Me in comments section:

I admit I kind of considered doing a [sequel], followingfrom Mokuba being on the case of saving them. Something where Kaiba was blindand Jou was a couple toes short, and Kaiba had hooked his sensory system up toa kind of constantly updated virtual reality that was synched with camerasaround his office and house. And then Jou kind of bursts into his life andforces him not to be a shut-in and drags him outside and out of bounds of hisvirtual reality sensor field. And probably Yuugi’d still be around andeveryone’s uncomfortably unsure about how everyone else feels.

I think I wrote this thinking it would theoretically be a JouKaific, since it was based on one. But tbh I’m kind of feeling now that it wouldwork better as a friendship fic with some other ship (rival? polar? buddy?) onthe side. JouKai as friends that slept with each other once in extreme (andextremely awkward) circumstances is honestly just about as good as foreverromance JouKai. I (friend)ship it.

Anyhow, I still don’t know if I’ll write it but, yeah~

On an unrelated note, do you know what needs a sequel, emblematik?Your sightshipping drabble. I would read all the fic about Isis and her babyhaving brunch with Pegasus. Love it~

F: Share a snippet from one of your favouritedialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

From Missed Signals, Lost Lines(pkmn)

“Silph’s using you, you moron!”Green shouts. “Team Rocket paid them off, and now that the Silph bigwigs havecashed their checks and realised what a shit deal they got, they’re using youas leverage. As a fucking bargaining chip.”

Pikachu sparks dangerously, inwarning, and Green withdraws his hands.

But it’s enough to get a riseout of Red.

“So that’s what?!” Red shouts.“Just now leave?! We walked out?! Letting Rockets now do what they want?! Theysteals! Killing!”

“No, that’s not what I meant!”Green protests. “Fuck Team Rocket, and everything they do, it’s just…”

Green sighs. “You can’t fightthem here, on their terms. This is bigger than just you and me. You can’t Red.You…”

Red ignores him. He chargesforward.

Green reaches out to grab hishand and yank him back, ignoring Pikachu’s warning sparks.

“Stop, Red!” he commands. Thenhis voice goes soft. “Your Pokémon could get hurt. Seriously hurt. And…you. You could get hurt Red.”

Red huffs, because he knows hisPokémon are strong at this point. Giovanni can’t touch him.

Green feels Red’s disaffection,though. And he reacts to it.

“Dammit, Red!” he flares up. “IfI tried to go traipsing off to Unova, you’d stop me! Wouldn’t you?! Or at leastyou’d come w-”

Green stops abruptly. He letsgo of Red and steps back. He raises his hand to his head and laughs bitterly.

Red feels the steady tug on hisheartstrings, softening his hard expression. He wants to tell Green he’llfollow him to Unova or Kalos or anywhere in the world, if he has to.

The impulse is too weak,though. And it’s not true, besides.

Red doesn’t say anything.

Green has his eyes covered withone hand.

“No. Never mind. You’re right.How would I know what the fuck you’d do?” Green spits.

That’s not what I said, Red thinks.

Green swings his arm down offhis face and grins.

“Fine. So, you are readyfor Boss Rocket!” Green says. “Well, Red! I’m moving on up and ahead! AmI a genius or what? I’m going to the Pokémon League toboot out the Elite Four! I’ll become the world’s most powerful Trainer!And you can do whatever you want. Don’t sweat it!”

Okay, maybe this exchange is an odd one to choose forseveral reasons

Red barely talks.

When Red does talk – broken English, because languagedisorder fic.

I didn’t even write that last line of dialogue. It’s lifteddirectly from the game text.

But it’s maybe because I’m working around all those thingsthat makes me like it. I feel like there’s a clear sense of a back and forth –action and reaction – between the characters, and even in how Pikachu does and doesn’t intervene.And I think that’s captured even despite the fact that only Green is reallytalking.

It was also a strange because the context and tone of thefinal quote isn’t very well established in the game itself, so distorting itinto this really sarcastic context in a way that made sense made me prettyhappy.

And also this conversation marked the first real break inGreen’s arrogant/cocky façade in the fic, and writing the way his anger andconcern radiated out beyond his control felt really significant and I hope Icaptured that well. I like the next big dialogue scene with Green, right afterRed defeats him at the Indigo Plateau, for the same kind of reason.

…

But, idk, sorry emblematik, Iknow you probably care more about ygo. I really liked a lot of the dialogue fromthe Wepet Renpet SetoKisa drabble. From Set’s conversation with Isis:

Set turned his head down.“That’s not what I-” He huffed and abruptly steered the conversation around.“Why is it, Isis, that you must always butt your nose into my affairs?!”

“Well, it’snot as if you butt into my affairs,” Isis said. “If I didn’t do it, what elsewould we talk about then?”

It would have been an easystatement to rebuff, had Isis made it to anyone other than Set. He frowned,crossed his arms, and returned to staring moodily at Kisara.

“Ooooh, I’vehad enough of this!” Mana announced. She stuffed the last of her cake loaf intoher mouth, pushed the rest of the bowl away, and licked the crumbs off herthumb. She stood abruptly and swallowed heavily before speaking. “I’ll takecare of this!” She jumped up on one foot, winked cheerfully, and began to skiparound the table.

Sorry, Iknow I’m not funny but the idea of Isis calling out Set on the basis of himbeing not nosy enough and being uninterested in her affairs (read:self-absorbed) just really gets me giggling. And Mana’s dialogue was alsoreally fun to write.

Also I think the combined conversation between Mana, Set, Atem,and Kisara later on also came out astoundingly well. I wouldn’t say it’s my best work,but just-

Anytime I get more than four characters into the same conversationtogether it becomes really, reallyhard to decide who speaks up when and how much. And, naturally, there arecharacters you want to focus on, and it’s hard to decide if it’s natural forthem to be one of the louder voices in the conversation, or if you’re shuttingthe other characters up too much. Anyhow, I find it so difficult, I can’t helpbut be proud even with passable attempts at group dialogue.

Thank you for reading~

#the process #my writing #ask #haha i chose a bad time to post an ask meme yesterday #right afterwards there was a blackout and the wifi cut out and then i went out with friends etc etc

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gemevieve · 7 years

Note

hex girl, gen, rotom

Hex Maniac: What is your favourite ghost type?

Oh shit that is difficult because I have many ghost favs. I love Gengar (well their whole evolution line is great) because they have a nice simple design and they are shaped like a friend (they are also a good fighter). There are also pokemon like the shuppet line (creepy hand puppet to evil voodoo doll that deserves love). the duskull line is cute. Shedinja (undead cicada shell who cannot eat), Sableye (gem eater goblin). Drifloon and Drifblim (creepy ballon that steals children and simple happy blimp). Froslass may be not the strongest defensively but she is still good and was a good edition to the Snorunt line. Rotom has a great design and concept (being the alolan pokedex is great as well). Griatina is a def fav for being a shapeshifting ghost dragon centipede thing. Yamask and Cofagrirus have nice designs and I love how the latter move. the Litwick line are cute and evil (and fucking good fire ghost types), Frillish line is good design wise (being ghost jellyfish monsters) and they can take a lot of hits. Golett and Golurk were my number #1 favs as ghost types because they are one of the few ghosts that protect people and they are giant golem robots (I dig giant robots! Also, them being ground/ghost types helped). The honedge line may be overused but I still love their design and typing. the phantump line and Pumpkaboo line are equally good with cute designs and creepy backstories behind them. Decidueye is a pretty good grass/ghost type as well (grass/ghost has been a good typing for me) and they are an awesome owl (I’ve been wanting another owl pokemon for a long time). Sensu style Oricorio I still need to use to see how they are but I dig their design. Lunala is a pretty good design with the space inside their eyes and being a skeleton bat doesn’t hurt as well. Alolan Marowak has a good typing and I like their design (I actually prefer Alolan marowak over kanto marowak). Mimikyu is a great fairy AND ghost type pokemon that packs a fucking punch! The totem Mimikyu almost took my whole team ddown in Sun becuase of how much of a hard hit they are. I used them throughout most of my journey in Sun. Sandygast and Palossand are cute and good with being really good special attackers with decent defense plus they are a HAUNTED SANDCASTLE THAT EATS PEOPLE! They were going to be my number one favorite dethroning Golurk that was until I got myself a Dhelmise. Dhelmise is a 12′10 tall monstrocity that when I first saw it I thought it was going to be a ghost/water type or ghost/steel type but instead is a ghost/grass type which is odd but cool. I love how this thing is and anchor with a broken helm, a compass eye, and a ships’ jet propeller. It looks like it’s covered in seaweed but that seaweed is it’s flesh! This thing as just normal seaweed and somehow becomes a ghost pokemon and absorbs what falls on the ocean bed. I named mine the Goryo after the sunken haunted ship with seaweed monsters from Okami.

Gen: Your favourite Pokémon generation?

My original fav generation was Gen 5 for taking what started in Gen 4 (attempting to add more lore and story in the series) and expanding it with developed characters, good heartfelt story, and new experimental pokemon. But now Gen 5 has been surpassed with Gen 7 taking everything from Gen 5 and taking what worked in Gen 6 and just multiplying it by 12. Sun and Moon has made me feel so many emotions and I felt so invested in the game with the story and characters. I love so many aspects of it and a lot of the mechanics are fun. The Z-moves are silly and I love the pokemon rider since that means I don’t have to use HMs. The changes it made with the trials instead of gym was a fresh breath of air to the series and I fully welcome it. I like it when pokemon does something new and different. I’m glad they put more effort in Gen 7 than they did in Gen 6. I’m also glad what helped Pokemon make Gen 7 the way it is was by having good competition of another series I like, Yokai watch.

Rotem: What is your favourite region in Pokémon?

That is a tough one because each Region has something to offer. But if I had to choose, the top for to me in no particular order would be Sinnoh, Unova, and Alola.

After watching Chuggaconroy’s lets play of Pokemon Platinum I started remembering all the good things about Sinnoh. Sure, Sinnoh’s victory road is annoying and a bitch to get through and having to use defog in certain areas was just no. But everything else in Sinnoh is well nice. Mt. Coronet being in the center of the region dividing it in half, the lore in sinnoh with the Canalave Library, and the Distortion world being one of the most unique looking places in Pokemon. Sinnoh was one of the good things from my days in Middle school.

Unova was a lot of fun to explore and all the things one can interact with was very nice. The change of seasons, the best victory road (and victory road music), very cool cities that some has designs differences between version and after the time skip in Black2 and White2, the bride at the time showing the improvement of the graphics in pokemon and the start of the improvement of them. How music was a key thing in pokemon with certain npcs you could talk to who played instruments or could sing and you would start hearing their inclusion in the background music. The return of characters like Looker and Cynthia. I have replayed black 3 times so far and I loved replaying it. This was the region that helped me start experimenting different pokemon to use in battle.

Alola just looks beautiful and I love the islands and just how different all of them are. The architecture differences like with Malie Garden stating that people from Johto who came to the island made Malie city or Seafolk Village with people living in boats OR even the Aether Foundation being an artificially made island. Alola is new similar to Unova but moreso. Alola brought a lot of new things and I loved how the Elite Four was new for them and how when you become champion (the first champion mind you) you have to defend you title similar to Blue to Red back in Kanto in Gen 1. It brings back all the old stuff but mixes it into something new.

#I answer a thing #pierce talks #pierce talks about pokemon #I really love pokemon okay #I could go on and on about it #same with yokai watch #rosemary the skunk #long post

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