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doodleferp · 2 years

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Finally got around to making a ref for Grace! (edited to add the format i came up with) Her backstory's under the cut!

Why'd You Make Her?: I like comics. I like Doctor Doom. And most importantly, if I ever end up in my dream job of making a comic series of my own, it's great to practice making characters to fit in a comic book setting. Grace is, in a way, a therapeutic oc for me and a way to help me grow as an author/artist.

What's Her Deal?: So Grace is a lot like Marceline the Vampire Queen in terms of personality -- she's slowly evolving from an ADHD memelord to what we'd call a "functioning adult", so she's still figuring a lot of stuff out for herself. Before she got pushed out of the country, she had a job at a publishing office. In terms of her powers, Grace is still figuring out all her limitations and what exactly she can do with a reality-warping supercube for a heart. She can fly and use energy beams and constructs and all that cool stuff that would otherwise be classified as "magic". But if the Cube is removed, she will definitely die if not put on life support like immediately.

Since there's already a crap-ton of stuff in the canon Marvel Comics universe (Earth-616), Grace and her story takes place in its own little universe, which I've dubbed Earth-71835. Feel free to figure out how I came to the designation!

Do I Ship Her?: Yes. As with a lot of my OCs, I am a serial shipper. Grace in particular is shipped with Doctor Doom, but in-universe she's had a girlfriend in the past.

What's Her Story?: So Grace is a Latin-American lady born and raised in Tampa, Florida. Her parents divorced when she was around eight-nine, and they both remarried by the time she was a sophomore in high school, with Grace getting a pair of older maternal stepsister and a younger paternal one. Her dad's new wife had a huge problem with her (due in large part to Grace's undiagnosed ADHD) and they still clash to this day -- but the biggest incident is that her stepmom convinced her father that Grace wasn't really his kid in part to her not having eyes like his or her bio mom (a side-effect of the cube), and this got Grace thrown out of the house. Grace lived with her mom and maternal stepfamily for the remainder of her childhood, and even though by now it's been proven through DNA tests that her dad is really her dad, there's till a big wedge between them thanks to her stepmom's histrionics.

When she was a baby, several AIM scientists took her from the maternity ward, mistaking her for another baby they had chosen for this very experiment, and removed her heart and replaced it with a Cosmic Cube to study the effects of such a thing. While they were busy watching their test baby, Grace grew up with wildly-fluctuating superpowers. One of these fluctuations, at age 31, teleported her to Latveria, where she met Doctor Doom. Grace offered herself up as a test subject to avoid being incarcerated, and what followed was a currently five-year entanglement that has ended with her dating the mad monarch. After their relationship was made public before they were ready, SHIELD did everything short of actually throwing Grace in prison until she cracked and made for outer space. Doom found out where she went, was able to find her and calm her down, and convinced her to come live in Latveria, which is where the Twitter posts start. If I ever get around to finishing the run-downs of their story, I'll be posting a bunch of stuff on Ao3.

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oxnardsart · 4 years

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New update! Also, the website has most Lesbini's chapter's pages up, aside from the finale:

http://boxerbeats.thecomicseries.com/comics/26 After defeating the Nameless Bird, Lesbuni heads to the stadium, passes a Boxer Briefs protest, and has to fight Don Badger, her romantic rival!

-----

Lesbuni was ready for another day at the boxing competition. Things weren’t going as great as she’d expected. On her way there, she noticed a protest going on - it was small, but the few people protesting were huge. As Lesbuni walked closer, she saw that they were all boxers!

The shy rabbit walked across the street so that she didn’t have to be on the same side of the road as them, but she perked an ear up to hear what they had to say.

“Hey! She looks like a boxer!”

“Well she’s gotta come over here some time.”

Lesbuni saw the muscle-heads looking right at her, and she realized, she was dressed in her boxing uniform - gloves and everything! She remembered hearing how professional boxers were upset about the competition not focusing on pure boxing anymore. This must have been the group, and no doubt they’d start trouble with someone enjoying the new Boxer Beats competition.

“Come on! Show us how to get in there.”

Lesbuni gasped - WHERE exactly did these guys want to get into?

“M-Maybe we have to ask the bunny nicely...” a strong, white wolf suggested. “Little bunny! How do we get inside the Box-o’-Briefs?”

Lesbuni was thrown off by that, “You mean Boxer Beats?”

The white wolf bent down and lifted up a cardboard box with ‘Box-o’-Briefs’ written on the side of it. “Nope, it’s Briefs! Not Beats. See?” he held up the cardboard box, “We want to get into the competition and express our feelings.”

“YEAH! Like my fist feeling Oxnard’s butt!”

“And my butt expressing a kick with my foot on his butt from mine!”

More of the protesting boxers started to yell out obscene, violent things. Lesbuni didn’t like that. She raised her snout and kept walking away - she knew bringing the professional boxers to the Boxer Beats competition would cause trouble. She made sure no one followed her there, feeling bothered and paranoid.

Round 2

The little rabbit made it to the stadium safely and enjoyed the show with Nishi and some of his friends. It looks like after a few days, she had some new friends-of-a-friend! She met Gaydar, the glue-loving gator from the other day - he was an absolute sweetheart. They were both sitting with Macaroni Penguin - a kind old lady Lesbuni had seen fighting earlier. Lesbuni had fun hearing them all talk together - she didn’t say much herself, she usually needed time to open up to others. They all wished her luck as she headed off for her next fight.

“Good luck, sweetie!” Macaroni waved, “Never quit!”

“Show the nextht boxther what you’re made of, girl!” Gaydar cheered for her.

Lesbuni couldn’t help but smile, showing her big bunny buck tooth. It was nice feeling like someone out there was rooting for her.

BZZZ-KT! A loud, sharp buzz blasted out the speakers as Lesbuni got on stage.

“Aw shoot, sorry guys! And non-guys.” Oxnard chuckled, “Some technical difficulties going on...”

“Shorry shir, almosht ready.” The husky voice of a nervous technician could be heard in the background.

“Hehe, your voice is so cute! Did you guys hear her accent?” Oxnard gleamed over the microphone, “Say something else!”

“Uh-uh. Jusht let me finish up here and I’ll be on my way.” The technician sounded a little panicked.

“Alright, al-”

BZZZ-KT-KT! The mic fizzled again, causing everyone to groan from the noise.

“Gosh dangit Bushy, what was that?” Oxnard yelled.

“I’m shorry, I’m shorry! Jusht ushe thish mic inshtead.” Bushy sighed, “You kept the shecond one up here?”

“Well, you didn’t wanna be my co-host, but maybe I’ll have someone up here chatting with me sometime!” Oxnard started to sound flirty, “Technically, you’re up here with me~”

BZZZZ-ZZZ-KT-PLUNK!

“Eeeeek!” Oxnard squeaked.

“Aaaahhh!” the audience yelled. Weird. For a crowd that hated noise they sure made a lot of it.

“You know what - while we fix this issue, let’s watch Lesbuni fight Don okay bye.” Oxnard’s voice disappeared quickly as the audience focused on the boxing ring. The referee counted from three on his fingers to avoid any more noise.

“What’s the rule for this fight?” Lesbuni whispered to the referee. The hummingbird shook his head while pointing to his beak. Lesbuni had an idea!

“What is it?” Don Badge looked at the two, clueless.

Lesbuni smiled and pointed to her mouth, shaking her head.

“Don doesn’t understand.” The badger looked around. “No one is. Telling Don.”

“You’re not supposed to talk...” Lesbuni whispered, “It’s the quiet game!”

“Don will use. This quiet moment. To talk about.” he paused, “Foxy.”

Lesbuni gasped! She knew that name. But she eyed the video screen showing their scores, and Lesbuni was in the lead with her silence...

“Special Foxy Lady.” Don began, “If you see. Don here. Don must say. How Don feels.” Lesbuni eyed him suspiciously as he continued, “Don is bound. To you. By his heart. Forever”

Her jaw nearly fell open.

“Foxie!? THE Foxie?” Lesbuni screeched, demanding an answer.

“No. It’s Foxy.” Don corrected her.

“Foxie, yeah. Foxie Farewell.” Lesbuni nodded.

“Saying it wrong. Her name. Is Foxy Farewell.” Don started to sound snooty.

“Foxie.”

“Foxy.”

The two argued back and forth. The ref tried to point towards the screen.

“Are you saying... you like MY Foxie?” Lesbuni bared her bucktooth.

“Don has liked. Special Foxy Lady. For many years.”

“Well...” Lesbuni cracked her knuckles, “You can’t have her.” She took a quick swing at Don, and hit right at his stomach. The badger rolled backwards. She went in for another hit, but he raised his spiked bracelets to defend himself in time.

“Ahhhhh!!” Lesbuni screamed. Those spikes sure hurt when you hit them!

The ref was flapping his wings all around, pointing at the video screen so Lesbuni would see. She saw she was about to lose the quiet game! It wasn’t only about being quiet and saying the least, but noise level too! Don always talked calm, but Lesbuni’s painful scream nearly pushed her over the limit.

She realized she had to use any words wisely. It would be tricky making Don yell louder than her. However, she had something that would work - the truth.

“I dated Foxie,” Lesbuni whispered - Don looked disgusted, “I kissed Foxie.” The bunny continued, the badger’s mouth hung open in awe, “I love Foxie.”

Don began to scream.

“YOU CANNOT.” He ran after her, chasing the rabbit around the ring, “DON DOES NOT. ALLOW FOR SMOOCHIES. ON HIS FOX. UNLESS DON KISSES.”

Lesbuni smiled as she saw Don’s noise level catch up with hers.

“DON’S LOVE. CAME FIRST.” His raspy voice whined in desperation, “FOXY AND DON. HAVE SECRETS TOO. WHEN FOXY. WAS A NURSE. WITH DOCTOR DON. THEY-”

The buzzer went off! Don had officially lost the game. All his all-caps screaming pushed his volume over the edge.

“We have a winner!” the referee jumped up happily. “Lesbuni won!” The little rabbit jumped for joy. As nosy as she was about Foxie’s past, she was more happy that Foxie’s future was one step closer to involving her instead of Don.

“NO. NO NO NO.” Don screamed. His guard came on stage and removed the upset badger from the ring. “DON’S STORY. IS NOT OVER. DON WILL. HAVE HIS FOX.” Don glared his rabid, unblinking eyes at her as he was dragged away.

“Wow, that guy’s seriously distressed.” The announcer chuckled, amused, “Great job Lesbuni! Not only did you win the quiet match, but my microphone is all better now! Thank you, my bushy technician.”

“Not’a problem, bossh,” Bushy beaver casually replied before exiting the booth.

In the audience, a particular tanuki and flapinko team were talking up a storm. Nikki, who had been through multiple resets in the boxing competition remembered Bushy Beaver being a co-host. For some reason, she was now a technician. It seemed like a small detail, so why did Bushy’s job change?

Nikki remembered Bushy Beaver and Sweaty Beaver both went missing near the end of the last reset... could they have encountered Dawn as well?

That wasn’t the only change either! Nikki noticed tag-teams like Team Dino Pubes, Team Arthbound, and The Quick & The Angry were all gone! The boxing competition itself changed to one-on-one matches. Lesbuni was no longer on a team with Foxie, and Don wasn’t paired with Anger Mouse. Why were parts of Boxer Beats changing during the reset?

Nikki and Thanks left backstage to start investigating. Meanwhile, Lesbuni smiled as Nishi, Gaydar, and little Macaroni gave her a cheerful group hug. (She didn’t mind them touching her!) She opened up about herself on stage, and her friends-of-a-friend became her friends. They were all rooting for her to meet with Foxie!

#boxer beats #lesbuni #don badge #bushy beaver #stan

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jq37 · 5 years

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thoughts on this week's ep?

**spoilers for broadway brawl**

***Before we start, I remembered as I was typing this one of the important notes I lost from last week’s recap: Interesting that Christmas seemingly went off without a hitch. I expected Santa to come back into play somehow (like, someone would check on him to make sure Christmas was still on or he’d call them in to help or something) but he hasn’t, at least not yet.***

My guys, my guys, my guys. Was that something or was that something?

I think I am on record as saying that combat is my least favorite part of ttrpgs generally speaking because I’m here for the RP but when a combat episode shines it really freaking shines (see eg: that first combat ep of Bloodkeep where everyone went full Galaxy Brain except for Matt who couldn’t hit a single thing) and this is such a good example. This is easily a top five ep of the season for me, maybe top three so let’s get into it and break down why it was so awesome.

We start right where we left off with Titania and members of her court having come into the theater to beat the tar out of Misty mid-show.

Quick note: At the end of last ep, it was set up so that Misty was thrust on stage right after hearing the mirror was on stage which would place this fight right at the top of Act 2 but at the start of this ep, Brennan seems to indicate that it’s taking place during what would be the closing number. Which would make more sense but imagine you go see a play, the first act is super dope, and then the second act is an insane, minute long fight that’s pretty unconnected to the plot and then a buff, naked, beautiful man tells you the show is over and you should leave. Wild. Anyway.

Pixies with tommy guns in inherently funny.

So one of the things that makes this fight really great is the way it directly ties into the story in a way besides “These bad guys are in our way.” Misty is using this show as a part of her reincarnation spell so if the show is messed up, it fails and she’s on her last life. Brennan has a cool mechanic of making her roll death saves every round at a difficulty lower than her modifier (which is s/t crazy like 11) but that gets harder with damage done to her and performance checks failed by other players who decide to jump on stage. It’s a great way to make the battle feel like it has more personal stakes and it’s my fave original Brennan mechanic since the Family in Flames Sophie’s Choice situation.

(I love that the death save counter is changed for theater comedy/tragedy masks for this. Nice touch.)

Em, Esther, and Wally are also at the fight which is clutch.

Also, Sondheim is specifically here which is an insane detail to add just because.

WILD that no one knows what’s going on with the ritual initially because, as Lou almost does, getting all the civilians out is the smart move and it would COMPLETELY ruin Misty’s plans instantly.

Lou having Kingston take the stairs bc’s he’s 50+ years old and has no time for that nonsense has equal but opposite energy to him doing extra rolls for Fabian to do unnecessary parkour before a simple attack because Fabian’s Like That.

Murph fireblasts the hell out of Titania’s foot soldiers right off the bat from outside of counterspell range which is very cool.

“Give me a performance check for the cockroach.”

“You’re upstaging me bitch?”

Another great thing about this fight is that because of it’s theatrical nature, everyone’s RPing it more than a usual battle ep (or more intensely maybe is what I mean).

Titania hypnotizes Don Confetti and his goons into fighting for her.

“She doesn’t know she’s in a play but she does sing most of her dialogue which is helpful for you.” Titania is just Like That.

Pete drops an erupting earth and drops a sick 37 damage on those same minions Kug got.

I didn’t notice before but yeah, Ally does roll die like a f-ing beyblade champion.

Emily hearing Murph’s low key, offhand comments and cracking up is great.

“Get Sondheim!” (Emily and then Ally: WHAT?!)

Actual living dude Stephen Sondheim being involved in this fight is just so ridiculous and fun and crazy.

We go around to Misty’s turn and she has to beat a 28 (upped from 10) and she fails which feels worse than a normal failed death save somehow.

Lou, in a very good RP move, tells Pete to tell Misty to end the show so she can tell them not to so the group has a valid reason to not evacuate which is a thing they (or at least him and Ricky) would obviously want to do.

Sophie, the madwoman, jumps out of the balcony, grabs a costume, then runs on stage. Emily’s glee at being told that her grabbing the costume will give her advantage is great. She’s always trying to figure out how to make the most of her moves. She is the living embodiment of the concept of method to madness (which is from Hamlet since we’re talking Shakespeare today).

Ox is constantly dying (Brennan!) but also it’s like, why was he even there before the fight started? I’ve never seen a non-service dog in a theater.

Ricky: Is this part of it?

Oh, forgot to mention that everything that happens on stage is kinda shielded by the Umbral Arcana so everyone watching thinks it’s part of the show, which is a cool plot detail.

Ricky gets fULLY NAKED (Emily, with perfect comic timing: Now do I roll with disadvantage?) and leaps into the fray. He casts Protection from Evil and Good on her which (1) He does by Magic Mike body-rolling on her while he’s naked and considering how much shorter she is that her raises some interesting questions about positioning and (2) is the most clutch use of this spell I’ve seen in a while. It’s a spell I always wanna take as a Paladin because it makes sense character-wise, but I’ve never been able to actually use it because we’re never fighting fiends, fae, or celestial.

Brennan’s dime change change reversal of the critic’s comments on Ricky’s body rolls when Zac re-rolls his 11 makes me glad I never had to face him in a debate team setting.

Ally: What’s Esther’s deal ;)/Brennan: *Esther’s Weapon Stats*

“Your only secret you’ve ever had in your life is that you have a crush on her.”

Wally has a beautiful singing voice and a working knowledge of Midsummer's which is wild.

Lou’s periodic, “My man”’s when Ally/Pete does something cool. He’s very dialed into being Kingston.

Ricky’s aura keeps everyone near him from being charmed and Misty saves everyone else w/ a nat 20 counterspell. Few things in D&D are more satisfying than a well executed counterspell.

Titania trying to get Pete to be her consort or something when he just over the super posh Priya is very funny.

“I mean between me and Sondheim, get Sondheim!”

“DO WE HAVE HOMEWORK TONIGHT?” (“We did have homework.”)

Anyway, Misty has one success now!

Misty tries to use puppet to get Titania to drop her crown and it doesn’t work. Brennan says the crown is Crown of Stars which I looked up and it’s actually a spell, not a physical crown, but I’m assuming he used the mechanical effects of the spell on a physical item.

Brennan doing all these musical/singing bits when he absolutely doesn’t have to. I love it.

I love Ricky and Sophie being the two martial fighting heavy hitters of the group. Like, the two fighters, having the spellcasters’ backs.

I hope the one kung fu fan in the back of the theater never sees another Broadway show again because he’s gonna be so disappointed.

“I’m just so inspired by that beautiful penis.”

Murph, out of character, verbally acknowledging how insane what they’re doing is. I love when someone pauses in a game of D&D to just recite what’s currently happening out of context so everyone can appreciate how crazy it is. D&D. Gotta love it..

Emily and Siobhan have a quick conversation in the background about whether Sondheim did Les Mis or not (not, that’s Claude-Michel Schönberg) while Brennan and Murph are Ring nonsense.

I also was mildly suspicious of Alyssa so I’m glad Kingston checked her out.

The entire roast of Brennan when he’s selecting D6s is an instantly iconic D20 moment. I can’t do it justice. You kinda just have to see it.

“Someone call Wizards of the Coast!”

Em, Wally, and Alyssa go out when Titania puts out a huge spell that blinds Kug.

“Yummy, yummy, tastes like ass.”

On Misty’s next turn, she rolls a fail which makes it 2 failures to 1 success. Brennan mentions that a nat 1 counts as 2 failures and a nat 20 counts as 2 successes. I’m sure that won’t be relevant later because you can’t foreshadow things when dice rolls are completely random.

Misty fails on puppet again again and Titania goes full Wicked Witch of the West on her and starts Jonesing for those shoessss.

Emily’s Emily(tm) move of the session is doing a flying leap at Titania, hitting her with a stunning strike and having Brennan retract the Box off Doom he was pulling out because she can’t save when she’s stunned. She just plummets out of the sky.

Don Confetti respecting the sacrament of marriage as he goes full Opera ghost and tries to garrote Sophie.

Ricky (still naked) grabs the crown from Titania, tosses it to Misty, and, with some improv and a good charisma roll, makes the show suddenly make sense to the very confused but entertained audience.

I’m so glad that Murph decided to turn into a bear and that they made the Winter’s tale ref. I should have had faith in Brennan and Siobhan, the theater nerds. Exit pursued by a bear y’all.

Lou and Emily bonding over being proud of their die for rolling well when they lend it out for a big roll.

Really wish Pete had wild magic surged in this fight. Just to add that extra bit of chaos.

With a very good turn (no damage taken, no performances failed) Misty only has to avoid snake eyes to get through this turn. She leapfrogs over that low bar and rolls a nat 20, instantly fulfilling her win condition. At this point, the play is superfluous and Titania is still down.

“Brennan lost and now he knows reddit is gonna eat his ass.”

OK, remember how I said earlier that Misty seems like the kind of character you nudge a little temptation at just to spice things up? Yeah, her killing Titania and getting the crown of the Seelie Fae makes me a liiiitle apprehensive, but we’ll see how that turns out.

“I killed my queen! This is America we don’t have royalty here.”

“Bear, I don’t know who you are, but take me on your back, let me ride on stage.” —creator of West Side Story, Stephen Sondheim

Misty charms the critic at the show to make sure they get a good review which is such a fae thing to do.

Kingston’s clearly not loving attacking Don and Co. post “real fight” what with his whole Do No Harm thing (well, that’s Dr’s but same principle applies I assume) is a good character detail. For that matter, so is Ricky just taking Titania’s crown and not beheading her which he super could have done while she was down but it would have been very incongruous with everything else about him.

Brian “This isn’t Loony Tunes” Murphy throws Sondheim as a projectile weapon at a pixie who snaps the pixie’s neck and then does a monologue at the audience.

I love it when someone rolls low on an insight check and Brennan gives them useless info and then they repeat it in their character’s voice.

4 mins from the end of the ep, Siobhan realizes there are two Perrys in this story for the first time and has a bigger reaction to that than almost everything else in this ep except her nat 20.

Ricky looks for costume faun legs to cover his fully out dick instead of costume pants or even his own pants.

Misty starts glowing with reincarnation energy and she runs into her dressing room for privacy. Also, she still super hasn’t told anyone what’s going on. (ALSO, assuming she’s gonna make the world think she died, it’s gonna be wild for the company of the show to have their leading lady put on the performance of her life and then die on opening night).

“Who am I to refuse a crown when it’s placed so deftly upon my head?”

You know that behind the scenes thing where Brennan is like, “Yeah, I knew Siobhan was gonna steal that book,”? I got some of those vibes during the crown scene.

The implications of what Misty did are gonna be left until next ep but Brennan says something about her creating her own court and it looks like she’s recruiting followers in the promo. IDK how I feel about that (these stories tend to have great power--especially tied to powerful magical items--as a corrupting force) but I am very excited to see how it goes down! See you then!

#the unsleeping city #dimension 20 #asks #galfast

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kaypeace21 · 5 years

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S3 plot predictions

Update: adding some more theories/made some slight revisions to this post, after the 2nd trailer (and us being less then a week away)

* so since we’re at the official 2 weeks mark- I decided to list all my theories I believe may happen. (X), symbol, is a link to where you can read the theory in more depth.

MAJOR PLOT PREDICITIONS

#1)Will Byers was born with powers but acquired more powers after the upside down incident – he was born a wizard but became a cleric. He was born a ‘wizard’ like his d & d character “Will the Wise” (Dustin in s1 even called El a wizard). He was taken by the mindflayer for a reason. And he later became a cleric, Clerics “get their powers from a god” (the mindflayer)- Will became a ceremorph or “flayer kin” (he’s part mindflayer). In d &d the more “wise” the cleric the more powerful they are.

Possible Powers : electro-pyrokinesis, technopathy, scrying/true sight, teleportation/shadow walking, portal manipulation … other’s i’m not sure of but he may have (astral projection, temporary super strength, invisibility)

* theory here (X)

#2) Will will have a “dark phoenix” moment at the end of s3 at the mall (X)

#3) Will and El team up to defeat the supernatural threat, and will be kidnapped at the end of the season by the U.S government. We probably won’t see him till s4, but Brenner is alive. (X)

4) Dustin and Erica (maybe Steve and Robin) use the radio tower to call in black-ops/military when things get bad. However they will be the ones that directly cause Will and El’s kidnappings. And it’s all because they (specifically Dustin & Erica) wanted to be patriots and believed in the lie of American Exceptionalism, and that their government are by default the ‘good guys’.

#5) Hopper will take a bullet for El and (probably) die . - Hopper quote will probably be a ref to s2 scene foreshadowing of his death, El catches him “I got you, you’re going to be ok”. “yeah, you got me kid”(dies).(X)

#6-9) -The smoke monster (with the MF’s sentience) was left in the real world in s2 and is still the main threat- sending creatures and spreading the ‘zombie like virus’. But the Soviets also accidentally reopen the gate, which is why the magnets stop working in town- and the soviets will be the secondary antagonists , for most of the season.

-The source of the virus will probably be the rats, and sources of water (like Lover’s lake and the pool).

-Soviet Mall: Robin discovers a dark secret- they’re quarantining/experimenting on those ‘infected’ in the mall’s basement. So Dustin, Steve, and Erica team up with her to investigate/fight.- Something weird is going on with that icecream (probably has to do with that green stuff steve was holding).But i’m not sure...

-Murray is an ex- Russian Spy, and will probably team up with Hopper and Joyce in their investigation (of the mayoral coverup of peoples disappearances). (The mayor also appears to have been bitten by a rat on the 4th of july). While Nancy & Jonathan investigate the supernatural elements of the mystery- the rest of the kids will probably be focused on the missing lifeguard, initially- until the greater mystery unfolds.

*more details of theories of 6-9 here (X)

10) Hints of a queer love triangle- between Will, Mike, and El (byler, mileven) -El dumps/fights with Mike (even if she still has feelings for him). Will is in love with Mike ( but how he feels for El may be up for interpretation). Byler and mileven fights.

Mike isn’t confirmed but is hinted as bi (like he has been for the past 2 seasons). Tension/stuff get’s awkward between the 3, until they and their friends/family come together to fight the big-bad (and they make-up_.

(Mileven might get back together) or no one ‘gets together’ romantically at the end of the season.

(X) (X) (X)

MINOR PLOT PREDICITIONS

1) Byers will struggle more financially, because of the mall, since Joyce works downtown. And it affect small town business

2)Will will struggle with his ptsd, , his self esteem/ dad-abandonment issues - as his friends and brothers drift further away from him.He also blames himself for Bob’s death. However, Max and El bond with him at one of his lowest points. - He may act out and be a bit self destructive , before making up with his friends.

3) El and Will struggle with ptsd, father issues, their powers, quiet nature, and not having proper childhoods making them feel abnormal/feeling socially isolated.

4) -Will will destroy Castle Byers (using his fire powers or something else?) during the rain storm. I just think it would be a great idea symbolically for Will to destroy it given what the castle represents (X). El might run into him in the woods after he’s destroyed castlebyers. She is seen eavesdropping on their D &D before the fight , she lives in the woods where castle byers is, and El finding him symbolically makes the most (X)

5) Billy is possessed by the MF, and he helps ‘build’ that monster for the MF to have a physical form it prefers more... (or as a henchman)? And the people who are captured are the mutated/fused bodies of those captured by possessed Billy .

6) WILL & Billy will be foils- and be paralleled and juxtaposed throughout the entire season. He’ll probably die (representing a cautionary tale of the perpetual cycle of abuse that some abuse victims can fall trap to (unlike Will, El, Max, and Jonathan).

CRACK THEORIES/Or Theories that won’t occur until s4

-I KNOW Sara Hopper is alive and a number - we probably won’t see her until s4. But if we see her in s3, she’s Robin. But it’s probably the first one, since the ages don’t quite add up. However, if it’s the latter I have an interesting theory on why she’s in Hawkins. (X)

- That Summer camp Dustin went to is more sinister than you think, we probably won’t know why until s4 (X)

-Ted Wheeler is a Soviet Spy.Probably wishful thinking (x)

- Will acts out and beats the sh*t out of hopper (because of his dad/abandonment issues),which is why his face is messed up XD . I only say this because Will’s cannon spotify playlist has a song about a boy named Willie beating the shit out of a ranger (who wears a hat) named Jim .

- Billy and the Karen dynamic, is happening because Billy’s subconsciously looking for a mother figure, like the mom he lost.

- Either the Mf chose Billy at random. Or because possessing him, gave him a direct connection to Max - and it would be beneficial (because it would give him an indirect connection to Will and El) . Just a hunch.

- Also in s1, Brenner said the demogorgan was ‘calling to her’. So if she wasn’t on his list of interest before... after she closed the gate, she got on the Mindflayer’s list of interest (along with Will). I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mindflayer views El and Will as gods of our dimension given how much stronger their psyonic abilities are compared to other human psychics (who generally only have 1- pretty weak power according to the comics/ prequel novels). And because of this they both have to team up to fight the mindflayer.

* Really curious if any of these ideas are right or at least partially right XD

#stranger things theory #will byers #el hopper #mileven #byler #stranger things

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traincat · 5 years

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Okay, I would absolutely be so interested in hearing your rules for writing Peter Parker if you would be intrested in sharing! Happy almost Hannuka!

Happy Hanukkah! A while ago I wrote up some things I keep in mind when writing 616 Peter’s voice here. I also have a post about some common physical motions for him, too. (I don’t think I’ve written the chin touch thing he does yet. I’m working my way up to it. Baby steps.) I made the post about his physical demeanor because I think in addition to dialogue, how characters conduct themselves physically says a lot about their personality, and because being able to conduct himself as physically as he does inform a lot about who Peter Parker is in 616. He loves being able to do what he can do, and it fills him with a lot of joy -- he’s very acrobatic and physical in addition to being pretty touchy-feely with the people in his life. (He’s a jock. He’s a genius jock with nerdy interests, don’t get me wrong, but he’s a jock.) I stand by what I said in the voice tip post -- some of my biggest rules for myself when writing him is to put a lot of steel behind him, to let him be a jackass when the scene calls for it (and sometimes when it doesn’t, because he can just be rude sometimes), to remember that this is a character who has been able to dodge a bullet and throw a truck for his entire adult life (on top of having a mean case of Only Male Child Syndrome) and to think about the kind of confidence you gain when you can walk through average everyday life like that. I think a lot of people back down from the machismo of the character, and that can really effect how he comes off. I also dissected the specifics of his wisecracking in that post, because -- and this is something I’m very critical of in canon at the moment -- just because a character can be very funny doesn’t mean they’re constantly cracking jokes, or that every type of joke or style of humor is something they employ, or that they joke for no reason, which I’m seeing a lot of right now in comics. Peter isn’t a character who is constantly joking because he’s got a light personality -- on the contrary, I think he has an extremely serious one a great deal of the time -- and typically he has a reason behind his humor, either because he’s trying to put someone else at ease or because he’s trying keep them off their rhythm. A lot of what now gets referred to as his quipping is actually extremely sharp-tongued. Going mean can be your best bet at nailing his battle dialogue. I also don’t like to go “youthful” with him in terms of his personality; I once summed him up as having the soul of a 80yo man aggressively trying to return a single piece of fruit and I stand by that. On the coffee meme scale, he’s “one black coffee”, not “McDonalds!” He can be stodgy. With most strong emotions -- but I think especially love, particularly romantic but also familial and platonic, and rage -- don’t skimp. He feels deeply. You can turn the dial up to eleven and then break it off, emotionally. If you like writing romance, he’s great in that respect.

This is all just stuff I picked up reading lots and lots of his comics and then picking them apart, because that’s what I like to do. He is one of those characters that, because the body of his canon is so vast, I think is hard to completely conceptualize at first, so with 616 Peter a lot of what I employ as my own personal tips is just familiarity with the character. I think some kind of reference folder, just to save little bits of characterization you like, or that strikes you as important, is really helpful, because then you can go back and pull it up whenever you need instead of trying to hunt through a hundred different issues because you sort of remember it happening in the mid-80s but you have no idea if it was in Amazing Spider-Man or Web of Spider-Man. I used to just save panels I wanted to post, but now I save anything that strikes my fancy, like any time he does the lift hug or the chin touch I pointed out in the body language post, or if I stumble upon a line of dialogue I feel is very essentially him. (And that’s why there are 6000 images and counting in my Spider-Man refs folder.) I also lean very heavily into New Yorker whenever I’m writing him, the stronger, the better -- there are characters whose location isn’t really important to their personality, and then there’s Peter, who bleeds New York. It’s a huge part of his identity and the more that comes through, the better.

#peter parker #*replies #traincat talks comics #yellowwallsbluesky

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fedora-cat · 6 years

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TIPS FOR STARTING A POKE-ASK BLOG - MASTER POST

HEWWO THIS IS A MASTERPOST OF ASKBLOG TIPS CREATED BY SKITTY-A-DAY MOD. I HOPE YOU FIND THIS TO BE HELPFUL IN ANYWAY AND IF YOU HAVE A TIP THAT IS NOT MENTIONED ON THIS POST, FEEL FREE TO COMMENT IT AND I WILL ADD IT RIGHT AWAY. - Keep your presentation clean and professional. By this I mean do your best. Try and post finished art. Don’t leave the rough lines underneath the finished work, try to avoid quantity over quality. A tip for this is to avoid overly complicated character designs! Keep it simple and sweet, and easy to recognize. That way you can draw it over and over without stress. For digital artists, or artists learning digital art. Here are some resources for you: Free: - Paint Tool SAI (Cracked. I use this version, it should be safe to download) - FireAlpaca - Krita - Medibang (Avaliable on the App store as well) - ibisPaint (App) - Autodesk Sketchbook (App) - OpenToonz (Animation software) Not Free: - Manga Studio 5 / Clip Studio Paint (I own this, I highly recommend it) - Photoshop (There are cracked versions, but please be safe) For traditional artists, it may be a bit rougher for you because digital art tends to be a bit more eye catching. But if you can’t make the transition to digital, here is a tip. If you can, use a scanner for your work instead of a phone. If you do use a phone, use this wonderful app: Camscanner

- Choose a Pokemon that you love but is easy for you to draw. Your best choices should always have arms. I know you may adore wooper or may love dratini. But if your muse lacks arms and even legs, your ability to draw responses will become incredibly limited as your muse cannot physically pick stuff up or easily interact with the environment. Looking at you voltorb.... - Character first, Pokemon second. Don’t look at a Pokemon and simply decide you’ll make an askblog revolving the said Pokemon simply because they’re cute or popular. It’s bad practice and can lead to you losing motivation for your blog. Try to develop a character first and create a reason for their existence, develop the world around them, give them motivations and struggles. Then choose a fitting Pokemon you love. - DON’T give into impulse blogs. I know that one Pokemon is awful cute…. I know how you think it would be real cute and easy to draw everyday and that you’d figure out a plot/character later…. DON’T DO IT THAT IS THE DEVIL TALKIN’ TO YOU Plan your blogs out. Don’t impulsively start a blog that honestly means nothing to you. Trust me, you will likely drop it within a month. And if you keep changing muses/recycling the blog, people will lose interest as they can’t keep the connection to the characters up. - On a similar note, DON’T JUMP ONTO POPULAR POKEMON BANDWAGONS. Or do so if you wish, but like with the impulse blogs, try not to create a blog simply because the Pokemon is popular/new. It will lead to inactivity if you don’t really have the passion for the Pokemon and instead jumped on board for the fad. Fads fade and so may your interest for that Pokemon! - Try to not oversaturate your ask roster. Unless you have great experience with it, try and keep your ask blog to one to two muses minimum. It’s more intimate for the audience learning about one or two characters than it is trying to keep up with a large cast. - Plot based blogs are hard They can be very draining and difficult to keep up with. I’ve noticed that this is one of the number one reasons why people drop their blogs. Story board your blog first if it’s plot related, as in make sure you at least write down major story beats and details. Do not rely solely on asks to keep the plot going, you won’t always gain the necessary asks you need. Make standalone story posts / comic pages to help further serious plot points. If you want to even, follow this next advice: - Send asks to yourself. Honestly, don’t be afraid to send asks to yourself. There’s nothing shady or embarrassing about it. If you’re a new blog and can’t seem to get enough asks to reply to / garner interest to get more asks rolling. Send some anonymously to yourself! Or have a friend send them! There’s no shame in prompting yourself to give yourself a head start you need. I gave myself a couple asks when I first started! With the format of ask blogs, you do what you gotta do to keep the format going! Another reason to send yourself an ask is if no one is noticing the finer details of your plot / characters! Perhaps you want to give a subtle call out to a detail people may have missed, send yourself an ask alluding to this said detail! - Interact with the community. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP. Unless you happen to have some ballin’ art right off the bat (even then...) you’ll rarely gain any followers or interactions unless you give with equal parts take to the community. Send asks, reblog other’s art with your added interaction, follow others! In return you’ll gain followers from that sort of friendly exposure. Keep in mind that the community seems to run on the mutual exchange of drawing each other’s muses. It’s fine if you don’t want to draw the muses featured in asks and focus on stuff like your own characters, but know that drawing other people’s characters encourages them to do the same for you, and as a result makes your character’s design more well known and recognized. - Join Pokemon Discord servers. There are plenty of them out there! Get to know the mods of blogs personally and then you’ll be able to support each other’s work on a more intimate level! If you have a Poke Discord, feel free to comment / reblog this post with a link to it! - Be consistent. Try not to disappear for long periods of time unless you need that mental break (I’m pretty guilty of that) A lot of popular blogs tend to have an upload schedule / have a steady pace in between uploads. On the flip side, don’t be afraid to take breaks! Keeping up with your blogs and your followers is wonderful and all, but if it’s taking a toll on you, popularity means nothing when it comes to your mental health. Stock up your queue if you wish, a queue is an artists’ best friend! But please take breaks if needed. - DELETE OOC CONTENT This one is a big one. I know some people don’t want to bother with a mod blog. But trust me, keeping your blog free of unrelated content is REALLY important. Visitors who come to your blog to see your work will inevitibly be turned away if they encounter nothing but ask memes and other unrelated relogged content. I know it’s your blog and you can do what you want with it, but if you want that ease of access for your followers, be considerate and provide what they followed for. Delete ask memes when you’re done with them, and keep unrelated reblogs to a personal / mod blog. It helps a lot in the long run with maintaining a viewer’s attention and interest. - HAVE A REFERENCE OF YOUR CHARACTER LINKED ON YOUR PAGE That means find a theme that will allow you to do so. There are plenty of tutorials online on how to find a suitable theme and implement it! People responding to your ask or interacting with your character will want to have that said character’s ref available on hand. It’s considerate to have it readily available for them so that they don’t have to dig through your blog! - Tag the person who sent you the ask in the finished response! (Provided by @walking-in-a-dream) After you’ve finished an ask sent to you by someone who wasn’t anonymous, tag them in the finished work, even if you are answering them directly. Tumblr, especially as of late, rarely notifys you of these sort of things. So if you tag the person asking, it’ll give a better chance of them seeing! - Reblog the asks you sent out! (Provided by @walking-in-a-dream) On the flipside of the previous tip, reblog the finished response someone took the time to create for your ask! It’s polite and it helps out that said artist by sharing their finished work! This may conflict with the ooc content tip, but this takes priority. Help out your community and share answered asks! - Draw for yourself, not for popularity (Provided by @leilani-popplio) Do not draw for popularity or any other goal in mind other than for your own enjoyment. If you obsess over your follower count or your notes, it can lead to unneeded disappointment, jealousy, or stress. So please do yourself a favor and don’t worry about what’s ‘popular’ Everyone works at their own pace and your blog will blossom with the love and dedication you put into it! - Tag your work! (Provided by @deathbycelosia) This is very important, for two reasons. One reason is for the exposure to new followers! If you tag your work with relevant tags, new people searching through those tags will find it! Tags may include: Pokemon, [Insert specific pokemon], pokeask, and askblog! Another reason is to organize your posts for the convenience of others. When your posts are tagged by character, by plot chapter, event, etc, it gives a better ease of access for your followers to find posts with certain content! [more to be added]

#I wanted to make a formal version of this #Like a masterpost #Please feel free to add onto it!#I'll keep expanding it!#pokemon #pokeask #pokeaskblog #askblog #tips #resources #poke askblog

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artoftemporia · 6 years

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the final refs and designs for my little cartoon/comic (???) scenario i have! info for each character is under the cut

Ziggy (Full Name: Sigmund Edgar Lychland) Age: 22 An energetic and stubborn fruit bat, Ziggy comes off as seeming obnoxious but just has a bad habit of putting too much of his heart into the things he does. He has enough dumb confidence and passion to fill a house, and tries to put that into his job and friendships, and especially his plans to better those things (although bad luck seems to follow him once he gets too confident). But even then, Ziggy’s not an easy nut to crack. Ziggy also likes to consider himself goth and wears gothic fashion, but is WAY too empathetic to be good at it. He’s really just in it for the good clothes. He works at the town’s only nocturnal animal focused cafe, Midnight Snacks, with his co-worker and best buddy Junie and assisstant manager (and unofficial other best buddy) Blake.

Junie (Full Name: Juniper Marigold Greymont) Age: 20 Junie, even though she can be as prone to trouble as her buddy Ziggy, is a very passive and unsure great grey owl. Junie seems to get stuck in her own head most of the time, as most of the stuff outside of her head seems to confuse her and scare her a little. However, she’s opened up a bit ever since she started working at Midnight Snacks and had to learn people skills. Plus, having Ziggy look out for her whenever she flies up into the clouds again helps too (pun intended). Ziggy does however believe she gets her best ideas when her head flies, and will let her do it sometimes to fuel ideas for his various plans and schemes. Junie just wishes she could get super creative in a less dangerous way.

Blake (Full Name: Blake Luciano Daubentonia) Age: 29 Plagued with a constant case of angry face, Blake is an aye-aye who’s gone through so many jobs that he’s just trying so hard not to lose this one, especially at such a well-known cafe. His constant blunders in the past have given him a perfectionist attitude towards himself, and more towards his co-workers now that he’s been promoted to assistant manager. He just wishes Ziggy and Junie would stick to a traditional work ethic already instead of trying to cram in new ideas to spice up business. Although Blake can have a short fuse, he tries his best to also be a fair boss and shape his two co-workers into the best employees he can. Fortunately, Junie and Ziggy know this and use a lot of their life-bettering ideas to try and make Blake a little happier at his job.

#midnight snacks #ziggy #junie #blake #shenani art

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0uimonami · 2 years

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her~

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #bendy #alice angel #myart #i love alice she's great #crack up comics were used as a ref :]!

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zee-isaiah-pugnacious7-blog · 6 years

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In Defense of Junpei Iori

I want to start off by saying this is my own thoughts on the character. Whether you like/hate this character is your own personal opinion; respect my opinion, and I will respect yours. Thank you.

So, Junpei. The token comedy-relief/best-buddy of Persona 3. Friendly, funny, charming and sharing the same voice-actor as Edward Elric (plus several others), he is one of the more memorable characters of the series...

And yet... a lot of people seem to hate him. More often than not, some people comment that he’s one of the most annoying characters in the game!

Ironically, my boyfriend--- who first introduced me to the Persona series--- was the one who brought up Junpei being a lousy character (He later took it back after noticing how similar the character is--- not even joking, they have similar issues at their homes). But it wasn’t because he thought Junpei was annoying--- it was mainly because... well, Junpei sucked on his team.

My Boyfriend: Good luck having Junpei on your team. He wouldn’t follow my commands, kept dying, blah blah blah...

Me: *after playing the game* Dude, Junpei is a tank on my team! I’m not even giving him commands, and he’s helping heal the group, he can take a blow, yadda yadda...

(Maybe they can just tell when a girl is playing the game XD)

I get the feeling that’s one reason why people don’t like Junpei--- they have trouble with him on the team. ...Then again, if that were the case, wouldn’t everyone have at least one [other] character they hated having on their team? I guess, depending on the equipment, commands and experience, the characters you choose vary in performance.

...But c’mon guys, how many of us got angry at Mitsuru and her overuse of ‘Marin-Karin/Tentarafoo’? THE COMICS ARE EVERYWHERE!

Me: Okay, Mitsuru--- the Shadow is weak to Ice. Watch me use Bufu. *casts it, destroys enemy* See? Easy. Use Bufu skills. BUFU skills.

Mitsuru: MARIN KARIN!

Me: F*CKING DAMMIT, MITSURU, YOU’RE OFF THE TEAM!

*ahem* So, yeah, no one’s perfect ^^’

But combat-performance isn’t the only reason I see people hating on Junpei. Like I said earlier, they find him annoying--- maybe they think he’s too much of a pervert (ironic in a game where you play as a guy/girl who can f*ck several people), or maybe they think he’s an idiot (Who’s playing this game, Yukari?), but more often than not, there’s a couple things that always come up...

Junpei’s want for attention, and how he gets jealous of the Protagonist.

Lets start with the fight for attention. During the first mission, Junpei is quick to rush ahead, trying to prove his potential. (And this may be a little late but I’ve never seen all the movie adaptations yet *only the 2nd one* so I’m just going by the game storyline). Clearly he wants to be in the spotlight, and *at first* sees fighting Shadows as some sort of game, up until he realizes just how serious it really is.

But think about it--- before awakening to his Persona, Junpei was a regular teenager. The creators themselves mentioned that Junpei was a crucial character because he acted like a real teenager--- cracking jokes, getting excited about having this power... I mean, how would you react if you were a high school student and found out you had a rare power? You’d be pumped, wouldn’t you?

Meanwhile there’s Akihiko, Shinjiro, Yukari, and Mitsuru who awoke to their Personas early on (for crying out loud Mitsuru awoke to hers when she was just a little girl! She was a chibi with power!). They managed to understand the concept of their potential--- and, since they had serious stuff going on in their lives, took this responsibility to heart. (It really hits you in the feels with Shinji’s case)

Now look at Junpei’s life--- living with an alcoholic father, having little skills and low grades... chances are, he was putting on a mask *no P5 refs intended*; behind that comedic behavior and charming smile was a teen struggling with depression, feeling like he was going nowhere in life. (You all saw his moment with Koromaru in “The Answer”). He awoke to his Persona--- not because he had some ‘mission’ to fulfill, but because he wanted to find a purpose in life.

AndthenhemeetsChidoriandfallsinlovebringinguphisdreamsofbeingabaseballplayerthenshediesinordertosavehislifeandyougethitwiththefeelsandhefindsanewreasontolivegaaaaaaaahhhhh---

Sorry! Got off-track for a moment there!

Point is, the moment he gets his Persona, he feels a rush of excitement, like his life has purpose after all! (This is emphasized after Strega encounters the group, bringing up that once the Dark Hour is destroyed everyone will lose their powers). So of course he’d want to ‘show ‘em what he’s got’ and try to impress everyone, because he’s trying to prove his self-worth.

Now lets bring up the part where he gets jealous of the Protagonist.

I can hear you all, “Of course he’s jealous--- the protag is a badass who gets all the girls and is acing the exams, etc.* SHUT UP. JUST. SHUT. UP.

First of all, think about the FIRST time you play the game--- where your stats are at an ALL TIME LOW. Your intelligence is ranked at dumbass, you’ve got as much charm as a piece of cardboard, and you have less courage than Scooby Doo!

So you’ve got a guy with zero intelligence, minimal charm, and zip courage... and yet all of a sudden he’s elected Team Leader just because he--- big shock--- awoke to his Persona and *gasp* fought Shadows! Just. Like. Everyone. Else.

Granted, there were reasons he got the Leader rank--- Mitsuru had to stay behind at the start in order to scan for Shadow activity, Akihiko’s arm was broken, Yukari was having confidence issues, and Junpei was the new guy---

Wait a minute! The Protag was the new guy too! Why was he elected leader? Why couldn’t he and Junpei have had a rock-paper-scissors tournament to decide? What, was it because Junpei wasn’t ‘serious’ enough? I’m pretty sure putting him in a responsible position would get him serious! (...or he’d abuse his power, much like many did when playing the game *cough*BikiniWarriors*cough*)

“But the Protag can use more than one Persona!” you may argue, but I’m talking about the very start of the game--- before you start your Social Links and start acquiring more than 1 Persona (and leaving poor Orpheus behind to rot lol). Like, out of the blue, Mitsuru just says “You can be Leader until Akihiko gets better,” ...then after Akihiko heals up, it’s like “You can keep being leader, you’re doing a great job.”

Okay, maybe I’m overthinking it. If Protag didn’t get the role of leader, we’d have no gameplay. Lets stick with Junpei.

Granted as the game goes on, your stats do improve by the time you get to the Hotel. And thus when Junpei gets jealous--- everyone fights these two massive Shadows... and the Protag is getting most of the praise. Despite any reassurance you give him, he still gets pissed and ignores you for the week.

(Me: Nuuuuuuu! Junpei, come baaaaack! I’ll buy you ramen!)

And of course this is where a lot of people consider Junpei to be annoying, for throwing a b*tch-fit about the Protagonist being hot-sh*t.

But, lets re-analyze what I mentioned before--- fighting Shadows is all Junpei considers himself good for. Heck during this time, he realizes he’s going to be a senior by the next year... and then what? What is he going to do with his life after high school?

Also, lets bring up the fact that he’s fighting Shadows with a well-respected valedictorian (Mitsuru), the captain of the boxing-team who has fan-girls surrounding him at the start (Akihiko), the most popular girl in school (Yukari), a girl with a rare Persona who helped her survive in Tartarus for 10 days/hours (Fuuka), and an emo-hunk every woman wants to sleep with (Protagonist).

DO YOU SEE WHAT HE HAS TO COMPETE WITH?! Throw in a robot, dog, kid and the baddest of the badasses, and you’ve got a lot of pressure on your shoulders! *granted they don’t come in until after the beach trip, but still!*

Keep in mind, these are all high-school students. If there’s one thing I remember about being in high-school, it’s that I wanted people to like me and achieve at something. There was always someone much smarter, more athletic, more creative, and more charismatic than I ever could be. (...I can hear you all making fun of me for being a geek right now. Go on, laugh it up!)

Junpei got jealous because the New Kid became a kick-ass leader (...depending on how well you play the game...) and he’s working his a$$ off to make something of himself in order to cope with a bad home life, lack of academic potential, and whether or not he’ll have a future after graduation.

He wasn’t just jealous, he was suffering from anxiety. If he was the least-anything on the team, he lost his motivation. It’s no different than feeling depressed because someone believed you ‘weren’t good enough’ at something.

I believe many of us have gone through that. It really hurts, and sometimes lashing out at someone who’s ‘better’ than you is the first response; other times you just shut yourself out from others, wallowing in your self-pity, trying to figure out if you’re worth anything...

But there’s something Junpei does that not many people do.

He realizes his mistakes and apologizes.

He realizes he rushed in too fast during the first mission, and asks for a second chance when the group goes to rescue Fuuka.

He realizes he was faulting the Protagonist for no reason *kinda like I did a minute ago* and apologizes to him for it.

Junpei: Sorry for being such a d*ck to you...

Me: *choosing option* Don’t Worry About It.

Junpei: *softly* Thanks bud.

Me: *while fainting* Friendship saved~!

(okay okay, that’s the last of the fan-girling, promise!)

As the game goes on, his character development gets better. He doesn’t even try to act like a class-clown that much after meeting Chidori (as Fuuka said, he acts more like a gentleman). ...It’s only during the trip to Kyoto that he reverts back to his perverted nature :P

(Saying it now, DAMN THOSE HOT-SPRINGS!!!)

Moving on.

It isn’t until near the end of the game that we really see him change--- and we all know the reason: Chidori.

You’ve all seen what happened, so I’m not going into detail here!

Point is, her sacrifice was what really helped him wake up--- he developed a new reason to not just get through life, but LIVE it. The love of his life didn’t want him to just give up--- she wanted to see him achieve his dreams and be happy.

After that, Junpei once again apologizes to the Protagonist, letting go of his jealousy and relying on his friend to help get them through this battle against the Dark Hour.

Because there’s a double meaning to the ‘Dark Hour’--- it’s not just some creative title for Tartarus appearing, but an analogy on how everyone is going through their darkest moments. Losing Chidori is Junpei’s Dark Hour--- and he needs his best friend to help him get through it until it’s over.

Then comes Ryoji, bearing the bad news that Nyx is coming...

This is where I really noticed a change in Junpei’s character. He’s scared, but reacts with anger rather than humor--- everyone’s losing someone already, then all of a sudden everyone’s going to die.

Yukari, ironically, tries to crack a joke in order to try and lighten up the tension... and Junpei blows up at her! The vice-versa of the beginning of the game!

This is proof that Junpei had been hiding his real emotions the whole time--- once things got serious to the point where its all ‘Oh f*ck we’re all gonna die’, he dropped his class clown charade.

“He should’ve been serious from the start!” you may argue...

But, lets face it, we had ENOUGH serious characters--- no-nonsense Mitsuru, training-focused Akihiko, hardass Shinjiro, truth-seeking Yukari, vengeance-seeking Ken, humanity-learning Aigis... geez I think Koromaru and Fuuka were the only ones not dead-serious about something!

As mentioned, Junpei was using humor in order to cope with things; he let out his anger at Shinjiro’s funeral, but once the grieving period passed went on with his humorous behavior, keeping enthusiastic because it was his only defense. Losing Chidori was probably his breaking point--- finding out the world was going to end in two months drove him over the edge, and he just couldn’t take it anymore.

But, he chose to fight, alongside the others, even if there was a slim chance of success. He didn’t want to give up. He wanted to try--- and succeed.

So I ask again... why do people hate on Junpei? Maybe you all have your own reasons outside of the ones I’ve listed--- whatever they are, it’s your opinion, I can’t tell you how to feel. This is just my thought on him.

Because, if you think about it, in some way we’re similar to the character. We often hide our real feelings until we just can’t take anymore. We get jealous of others, we get depressed when we can’t find a purpose in life.

But many of us still want to try.

And I believe we shall succeed.

Just don’t give up.

#persona 3 #junpei iori #personal thoughts #no flames please #sorry if i rambled too much

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flauntpage · 5 years

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The Outlet Pass: Jim Boylen is a Legend

The Case for Jim Boylen

The Jim Boylen Show is one of those classic NBA subplots that began as a cracked carnival ride, but—not so much including Wednesday night’s need for introspection—may be maturing into a situation that’s slightly more intriguing than pitiful. Boylen is a retrograde disciplinarian who’s extremely stubborn and passionate to the point of exhaustion. As someone literally coaching for his job, who knows how long the odds of him ever getting another opportunity this high up the food chain are, each game is its own battle. (Long-term gains are nice, but mainly accessible as the byproduct of decisions made with that night’s result in mind.)

The aftermath of Boylen’s initial roar for knuckle push-ups and inane suicide sprints was a pseudo-mutiny and the birth of a leadership committee. It was embarrassing for everyone involved. (Boylen’s response? “I’m juiced, man. I’m jacked up about it.”) But there are still nights when the Bulls appear to be take hazy steps in the right direction.

What’s bad is extraordinarily bad—Chicago is dead last in offense by a wide margin, and the only team since Fred Hoiberg was fired to average fewer than one point per possession; they’re pigs rolling in mud—but what’s not bad deserves recognition. Since Boylen took over on December 3, the Bulls have the ninth-best defense in the NBA. Before, they were 22nd. Eliminate transition from the equation, and before Wednesday night’s loss, only the Indiana Pacers had been more stout in the half court, per Cleaning the Glass. B.B.B. (Before Boylen Ball) they ranked 21st in the half court.

These stats include Chicago’s historic 56-point loss against the Boston Celtics, and two games against the Oklahoma City Thunder in which they allowed 233 total points. That is kind of impressive! Even with a schedule that’s gifted them the Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic (three times!), Chicago’s effort, hair-on-fire aggression, and tight rotations are sustainable to a degree against teams that aren’t expecting it. One month in, it’s too early to call this fully sustainable. But given all their injuries and ill-equipped personnel, it’s also impressive. (They stifled the red-hot San Antonio Spurs and held the Toronto Raptors to a 40-point half, too.)

Boylen’s priorities are clear. Chicago’s pace has gone from average to a trickle. Jabari Parker is M.I.A. Defense is the universe. And even when he chooses to impersonate Byron Scott by punishing first and second-year players who, you know, make mistakes, in an otherwise lost season there’s serious value in thrusting important defensive principles onto impressionable prospects. They consistently execute a game-plan that will sometimes change from quarter to quarter, and is based on opposing personnel more than anything.

Depending on which of their bigs is involved, when up against a ball-handler who can shoot, Boylen wants the screener’s man to either stay level or show and recover, forcing a pass towards back-line defenders who’re ready to secure the paint. An example can be seen below: As Wendell Carter Jr. extends himself 35 feet from the rim, Chandler Hutchison has already introduced himself to a rolling Ian Mahinmi, who immediately whips the ball out of bounds.

It’s a beatable strategy against those that see it coming (like the Magic on Wednesday night), but by engaging all five guys on most possessions—forcing communication, quick rotations, and an understanding of where to be—it suits a young team nicely. Here’s Robin Lopez up to prevent Bradley Beal from getting a clean look. Before the pass even comes, Lauri Markkanen is already in the paint, positioned to swat Thomas Bryant’s shot.

One of the big picture takeaways in Boylen’s first month has been the effectiveness of Markkanen and Carter Jr. as a frontcourt duo. Offensively, it’s definitely fair to say he’s holding them back (these two are compatible and too talented not to eventually thrive on that end). But on defense, in a 275-minute sample size, Chicago has a top-five defense when they share the floor. Markkanen isn’t able to switch out onto guards, but he’s quick enough to contain the ball 25 feet from the rim, prevent a guard from turning the corner, and then scamper back to his man. Meanwhile, Carter Jr. (who Boylen benched on Wednesday night for no discernible reason) is good enough to suck the oxygen out of your lungs by momentarily transforming into prime Kevin Garnett.

Rookies are not supposed to do everything Carter Jr. does on that play. Like a 10-year vet, his brain is on auto-pilot, correctly analyzing then reacting to the offense. There’s no margin for hesitation and so Carter Jr. doesn’t hesitate. Since Boylen took over, opponents are shooting just 51.9 percent at the rim when he defends it. This type of effort illustrates why:

On the whole, Boylen’s coaching style is Full Metal Jacket as a one-man show. It’s maddening, comical, and, at times, deranged. In response to a random Lopez hook shot, he’ll violently pump his fist and howl towards the rafters. Boylen lives and dies on every possession with a level of enthusiasm that no cardiologist would recommend. It’s Tom Thibodeau clutching a megaphone, blowtorch, and empty bottle of adderall. (When Sam Dekker got away with a travel during a recent Bulls win over the Washington Wizards, Boylen turned to rookie ref Ashley Moyer-Gleich and shouted “Ashley! He took six steps!” The man is a legend.)

But, in some areas, the man is getting results. The Bulls rotate on a string and fly all over the court, deflecting over three more balls per 48 minutes under Boylen than they did with Hoiberg—a leap from average to fourth-best in the league. This team is rabid, physical, and following orders. They bump cutters, help the helper, know when to switch, and hold their own in spite of an offense (constructed by Boylen) that provides zero favors.

It’s unclear how much of Chicago’s defensive success will continue under a coach who micromanages every speck of each possession, with no sign of him abandoning roots that have already started to rot. Boylen’s attitude isn’t one to shepherd a very good team to the Finals, but he may be a logical exorcist for some of Chicago’s bad habits. Until the inevitable day comes when this young core is passed onto more delicate hands (think Mark Jackson to Steve Kerr), Boylen deserves some credit for what he’s done to a defense most expected to be epically horrendous all year.

Draymond Green’s Sort-of-Impossible Box Out Stats

One of the more subtle reasons Draymond Green is an irreplaceable defender comes after the opponent’s shot goes up, when he wheels his body in front of whoever’s nearby, dislodges them out of position, and dramatically increases the odds of a Golden State Warrior grabbing the rebound.

Last year he finished fifth with 6.6 defensive box outs per game. Right now, he’s fourth, with 8.0. This is impressive when you compare his role to that of others who box out as frequently as he does. Green is not a traditional drop big who can just spin around and throw his ass into whoever’s nearby. His defensive responsibilities run the gamut. He switches out on the perimeter and perpetually exists as a help-side safety net—flying around, putting out fires that are nowhere near his original assignment. For him to also place near the top of the league in a category like this is sort of amazing, especially when you consider the impact it’s had on Golden State’s defense when he’s at the five.

Not nothing: opponents are grabbing a measly 22 percent of their own missed shots when Green plays center, a truly impressive number that’s far lower than it’s ever been since the Warriors became the Warriors. (When Green played center last year that number was 30.5 percent. The year before that? 31.9 percent.) For all the worry about his disintegrating outside shot (he’ll probably make nine threes in Game 1 of the Finals, and eight of them will be assisted by DeMarcus Cousins), Green’s effort in this area is as commendable as ever.

Point Guard Don(cic)

It’s been a little over two weeks since Sacramento Kings head coach Dave Joerger had this to say about everyone’s favorite wunderkind, Luka Doncic: “Perhaps there was an idea that there was a ceiling on him. I don't see it, unfortunately for us.” The statement was received as a searing subtweet aimed towards Kings assistant general manager Brandon Williams. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But more important, to me, was what it summoned: an interesting and ever-relevant debate about fit and context pertaining to prospects and the teams that draft them. Generally speaking, it’s silly to pass over a generational talent because he’d be limited in your system or on your roster. If that’s how you feel, change your system and/or your roster.

Doncic is good enough to transcend any environment he occupies, but like every other player on Earth, he’s also influenced by what his teammates can/can’t do, and his hypothetical role in Sacramento, next to a blurry pick-and-roll roadrunner like De’Aaron Fox, is different than his actual reality in Dallas. That’s OK. But it’s also fair and natural to consider how Doncic’s game might be limited there. Based on everything we’ve seen, Doncic, Fox, and the Kings would be perfectly fine, but it’d also rob us (and Doncic?) of maximizing the most exciting and beneficial area of his skill-set.

Doncic doesn’t need the ball in his hands to positively impact a game, but like so many great playmakers before him, it makes sense to let him influence a majority of his team’s on-court decisions. Before Dennis Smith Jr.’s return, we witnessed a few lineups that let Doncic literally stand alone as his team’s point guard. No J.J. Barea, DSJ, Devin Harris, or Jalen Brunson. When Dallas is healthy those lineups won’t see the floor, and there’s been mixed results in the limited time we saw them play, but those minutes offered a glimpse towards how the Mavs may want to build around their franchise player.

(I absolutely love DSJ and am not one to give up on the compatibility of any two players as young and talented as him and Doncic, but—an uptick in three-point shooting aside—nobody should be surprised if/when Dallas makes a trade; the Mavericks score 110.9 points per 100 possessions when Doncic is on the floor without Smith Jr. and 100 points per 100 possessions when they both play.)

Even though Doncic’s usage rate and True Shooting percentage are actually higher with Smith Jr. on the court than without, just look at the cool stuff he can do when operating in space beside teammates who naturally complement his profound ability to make the defense feel like it’s hallucinating.

Everything falls into place when Doncic is surrounded by wings and bigs who provide enough space and defensive versatility. They unlock his best attributes and will eventually let Dallas discover its best self. There are parallels here to how Brett Brown decided to use Ben Simmons last year (a move that wasn’t obvious at the time). Doncic’s skill-set gives a much longer rope and no pressure to go all-in down one road, but there’s a future where his assist rate is consistently over 35 percent on a top-five offense. (Right now he’s one of six 19-year-old rookies in league history to assist at least 25 percent of his team’s baskets while logging over 1,000 total minutes.)

Related: The Mavericks shouldn’t be shy about throwing a lot of money at Malcolm Brogdon this summer. He’s a low-usage cog who can defend point guards while quietly posting 50/40/90 splits. The perfect partner for someone like Doncic once the Mavs start putting the ball in his hands way more than they already are.

Kevin Knox is Starting to Show What He Can Be

It’s still too early to make any firm declarations about Kevin Knox’s future. But for someone who won’t celebrate his 20th birthday until August, it’s impossible not to look at his production since David Fizdale made him a full-time starter on December 12th and not feel bullish.

Since, he’s averaging 37.6 minutes, 17.9 points, and 5.2 rebounds while making 38.1 percent of his threes (of which he launches many). The Knicks are bad and some of Knox’s overall inefficiency comes from being 19 with a flashing green light, but there are aspects of his game—particularly off the ball—that make it feel like whenever New York acquires a star (whoever it may be), Knox won’t have any problem finding ways to impact the game.

The quick-trigger three-ball is fun, as is enough size and length to eventually guard three positions with ease. But the most impressive part of Knox’s game so far might be how aggressively (and intelligently) he attacks closeouts. Watch below, where he doesn’t wait for the ball to hit his hands before he curves into the paint.

It’s an instruction smart teams (the Spurs and Jazz, most notably) give their wings in an effort to get a step past their defender. And here’s Knox showing enough confidence to take Paul Millsap off the bounce (something the four-time All-Star clearly didn’t expect) before an and-1 finish at the rim.

Knox still doesn’t know how to pass on the move and is only shooting 40 percent on drives since he entered the starting lineup. He ranks 471st out of 472 players in Real Plus-Minus. But the silhouette of a useful player is drawn. The Knicks needed to hit this pick and they didn’t screw it up! Good for them!

Jamal Crawford’s Late-Career Transformation

Jamal Crawford will always be known for his ability to get buckets off the bench. That’s his DNA and the first line of his basketball obituary. But this year has been different. It’s not an evolutionary change, per se, but Crawford, at 38, has spent almost all his minutes as Phoenix’s de facto backup point guard, setting teammates up, throwing lobs, and rewarding cutters. His assist rate is the highest it’s ever been—second only to Devin Booker on the team—and his shots per 100 possessions were only lower during his rookie season.

During the month of December, he averaged about five assists per game, including a career-high 14 at Madison Square Garden. Crawford goes out of his way to feed youngsters like Deandre Ayton and Mikal Bridges, incentivizing them to cut hard, sprint the floor, and dive into the paint.

Crawford was paid to be “selfish” earlier in his career. He took (and made) tough shots even when a more satisfying option presented itself. Now, he’ll swing it to an open man without hesitation. (More than once I’ve had to rewind and double-check to make sure it was him who threw the pass.) When a defender races out to run him off the three-point line, Crawford will forgo a one-dribble pull-up and circulate the ball around the perimeter.

In three fewer minutes per game compared to last season, when he was on the Minnesota Timberwolves, he’s averaging five more passes. On high pick-and-rolls, Crawford’s head is up, canvassing the baseline for teammates, trying to do more than settle for the jumper he can turn to whenever he wants.

The play below would never happen five years ago. If the screener’s man dropped that far, Crawford would use the sliver of space provided by Ayton’s screen to pull up. Instead, he lets him attack an off-balance DeAndre Jordan, who clearly wasn’t expecting a pass.

The Suns are extremely bad, but Crawford’s readiness to tilt his role towards that of a playmaker has made life (slightly) easier for a young core that would otherwise have no stability whatsoever at such a crucial position.

The Outlet Pass: Jim Boylen is a Legend published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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leehaws · 5 years

Text

The Outlet Pass: Jim Boylen is a Legend

The Case for Jim Boylen

Draymond Green’s Sort-of-Impossible Box Out Stats

Point Guard Don(cic)

It’s been a little over two weeks since Sacramento Kings head coach Dave Joerger had this to say about everyone’s favorite wunderkind, Luka Doncic: “Perhaps there was an idea that there was a ceiling on him. I don’t see it, unfortunately for us.” The statement was received as a searing subtweet aimed towards Kings assistant general manager Brandon Williams. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But more important, to me, was what it summoned: an interesting and ever-relevant debate about fit and context pertaining to prospects and the teams that draft them. Generally speaking, it’s silly to pass over a generational talent because he’d be limited in your system or on your roster. If that’s how you feel, change your system and/or your roster.

Kevin Knox is Starting to Show What He Can Be

Jamal Crawford’s Late-Career Transformation

The Outlet Pass: Jim Boylen is a Legend syndicated from https://justinbetreviews.wordpress.com/

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iamnotthedog · 6 years

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ST. LOUIS: FALL 1999

Once I graduated from high school, I had been reading road books and travelogues pretty much exclusively for quite a while. After I read On the Road at Jim’s place, I caught the travel bug, and read Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Bashō’s Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which came at the suggestion of Mrs. Frame, who really knew me better than just about anyone at the time. Those books all lit a fire under me, and I couldn’t wait to get out of Morrison and experience more of the world, as well as a whole new life out from under my parents’ roof.

I wanted to travel more than anything, but I was determined to go to college first, and I sort of ended up fucking that whole thing up, to be completely honest. I mean, it wasn’t bad or anything, it just isn’t what I should have been doing. I got accepted to a writing program at a private school called Webster University.1 Webster’s a nice school and all, I just say that I fucked up because of all the places in the world that I could have gone after finally getting out of Morrison, I ended up in a suburb of St. Louis, which isn’t exactly the most exciting place in the world. I mainly ended up there because I was lazy with the whole “preparing for college” thing, and I hadn’t even applied anywhere else.

All that aside, I was excited to meet some new people when I arrived at Webster for the first time—as most college freshmen are. But then my first roommate in the dorms at Webster was a total dick. His name was Brett or Brent, and he was one of the several people on my floor who had barely even put their suitcases down before they started complaining that Webster University was too small, and threatening to transfer to UMSL (“threatening,” as though any of us would actually care if they left), where they could live downtown and go to football games and frat parties and chug beer out of holes punched into the sides of cans and maybe even videotape themselves fucking somebody.

That wasn’t my scene. Sleepy Webster Groves with its narrow tree-lined streets and long-haired, grey-bearded writing professors was more up my alley. And after about a week in the dorms, I managed to find a few like-minded people to spend some time with. I met the friend I would eventually end up taking to California with me—John—and John’s roommate and lifelong companion (at least up to that point), Marc.

I was walking down the hall completely aimlessly one afternoon when I heard Bob Dylan crooning through a door that was open a crack, and I smelled incense, so I gave a little knock. John came to the door and peeped out at me with his red eyes, his long brown caveman hair and unshaven chin. He was wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt with a stretched out collar, and baggy sweatpants with a bunch of pockets on the legs. And he was barefoot. He looked at me skeptically, furrowing his brow. “Yes?” he said.

“Hey,” I said, awkwardly. “Uh...what’s going on?”

He opened the door a little wider. Marc was behind him, sitting on a futon with long red hair flowing down over his pale, shirtless torso and a fuckin’ three-foot tall glass bong in his lap. He lifted a lighter in a sort of wave.

“Nothing much,” John said. He kind of tilted his head to the side a little and looked into my eyes. He still looked skeptical.

I stuck a finger in the air in an attempt at pointing at the music playing, as people do. “Blonde on Blonde,” I said. I wasn’t exactly sure how to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. Then I saw a couple guitars in the corner of the room, back behind Marc. “You guys play? I can play pretty much this whole album.”

That seemed to work, for whatever reason.

“C’mon in,” John said.

John and Marc lived in their own little hippie heaven there in the dorms. Their walls were plastered with tapestries and black light posters and pictures of Led Zeppelin and the Doors and Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead. They always had incense burning and music on the stereo. They would sleep to some of the weirdest shit, too. If you walked by their room late any night—say you were stoned and wandering down the hallway to hit up the vending machines for a Snickers or whatever—you could often hear some Miles Davis piping out through their door. It was the weird Miles, too. Not Kind of Blue Miles, but Bitches Brew or sometimes even On the Corner Miles. Even being a huge Miles Davis fan, as I was at the time (and still am), I couldn’t understand how anyone could actually fall asleep to On the Corner.

After I started hanging out with John and Marc, I ended up spending a hell of a lot more time in their room then my own. The amount of drugs those two smoked was comical. They would literally wake up in the morning and smoke opium. Opium! At, like, nine o’clock in the goddamned morning. Then they would go back to sleep for a couple hours, wake up, and smoke some weed to start their day.

John and Marc were great for me, though—at least at the start—because they were from St. Louis. Born and raised. They were the first people to take me out on the town and show me around. They showed me where to buy my weed—which was actually pretty hilarious, because they got all their shit from a fat black dude named Q who worked in the drive-thru of a local Steak ‘n Shake—and they took me to see shows at the local venues, and they’d drive me out to Marc’s parents house in the outer ‘burbs, which was huge.2 We’d have parties out there whenever Marc’s parents were out of town, which was actually quite a bit because they were getting ready to move down south somewhere, and were always going down there to look at property.

The thing was, though, that after a while John and Marc’s circle of high school buddies that were always hanging around started to wear on me a little—I mentioned that earlier. They had all that history together—all those inside jokes and anecdotes and all that loyalty that seems really nice at first, but really ends up making people lazy and afraid of change after a while. I started to feel like I had actually never left high school myself. So I started seeking out other circles with which to insert myself. These guys who came around to Marc and John’s room every once in a while to score some weed were pretty laid back, and they lived on the floor above us. Their names were Phil and Isaac. Phil was a California boy who had grown up in Salinas, on the Pacific coast, which prompted all of us who had never travelled west and had our ultra-idealized fantasies of California in our heads to ask him why the hell he had come to the Midwest. (His mother worked for the university and got him a really good deal on tuition, or something like that). As for Isaac, he was a classic cinephile type, born and raised in St. Louis, and he resembled the Dude from The Big Lebowski—always stoned, always in sweatpants. He even drank White Russians almost exclusively.

Anyway, I started hanging out with Phil and Isaac more, and Phil and I totally hit it off. He needed a roommate, as his previous roommate was not unlike Brett or Brent—one of those jock types who decided that he needed to drop out of Webster and go to a school with a fraternity and more “loose chicks.” So I said sayonara to Brett or Brent, and I moved into Phil’s room.

Phil was a handsome kid with a neatly trimmed goatee, a friendly smile, and a southern California sense of style. He and I started cruising around together in his tricked out BMW with black lights under the dash, flashy rims, and a lowered suspension. I was at the height of my adolescent kleptomania at the time, and when I got off work at this little deli I had been rolling burritos for, Phil would pick me up and I’d go steal us a big bottle of good liquor from the local big-box grocery store down the street, Schnucks.3 We’d bring the bottle back to the dorms and have some drinks with a joint or two before hitting up some of the other kids on the floor, seeing if they wanted to go drive around and find some shit to get into.

It was around then that I met Leah.

Leah lived right down the hallway from Phil and I, along with her friend, Lilith. Lilith and Leah were both into a lot of the same music as I was, and they were down to party pretty much whenever Phil and I were. The first time Leah came around to my room alone, I was probably listening to some Bob Marley or something cliché like that and working on a paper for one of my classes, and she came in wearing this tight tube top without a bra. She totally took me off guard.

“Hey,” she said, leaning on the doorframe in the open door. I looked at her tube top, her pale, flat stomach, then quickly caught myself, shifting my gaze up to her eyes and smiling.

“What’s going on?” I stammered. “What...uh...what are you doing?”

I had already thought Leah was cool and everything—she was hyper smart, funny, and had great taste in music and books and all that—but after that entrance—after she stood right there next to me and leaned over me and asked about my paper, with her nipples in my face and her sweet breath surrounding me—well, after that she had my attention pretty much all the time. Then one night, we were alone in her room listening to records, and she asked me to give her a massage. She slipped my hand down between her legs and put her hand between mine, and then she got me up into her bed and unbuttoned my jeans and slipped off her shorts and took my virginity. Just like that. It took all of three minutes, tops. I made some excuse that she was way too good and that my last girl had been a dead fish, but in all honesty, I had never even come close to getting laid in high school. My high school experience, as I mentioned earlier, had been nothing but one long dry hump.

So after that night, Leah and I were pretty much attached at the hip for the next few weeks. She was all I needed, really. But we weren’t even one month into our relationship before the honeymoon ended—as they do—and things got real.

It turned out that Leah was clinically depressed. She managed to hide it from me for our first few weeks together, but then she just couldn’t do it any more. It started to show itself—mostly in her retreating to her room, turning the lights off, and refusing to come out for anything.

It always happened the same way. A couple weeks into the semester, Leah had moved out of the dorms to the university apartments where kids with rich parents could afford to live. I’d go over there and Leah would turn off the television. We’d sit on her couch and smoke a bowl. I’d put a record on. She’d walk to the kitchen, right there in the same room, and put on a pot of water for tea. Then she’d come back over to me, stripping some of her clothes off, and we’d mess around a little, go into her bedroom for a while, and then take a nap or shower. Then we’d be talking and thinking about going out and finding Phil or Lilith or something and she’d turn off. Like someone pulled a plug.

And those were the good nights. On the bad nights the plug would get pulled far earlier. Sometimes before I even got over to her apartment. Sometimes I’d be walking around the black asphalt parking lot on that white cement sidewalk around those neatly trimmed bushes by the hot tub that Phil and I used to break into after hours, and I’d be all excited to see my girl, and then I’d look up at her window and see that it was dark and the shades were drawn. After a while I learned to not even try knocking when that was the case. She’d be in her huge bed with her thick white down comforter up over her head, and she wouldn’t come to the door for anyone.

On those nights, I would get so down on everything that I would avoid everyone and leave campus altogether. I’d walk for hours down Big Bend Boulevard, through Richmond Heights, and sometimes all the way through Forest Park to the Central West End—a good twelve miles round trip. I would just walk and maybe smoke some weed, and I’d think of all those travel books and all my favorite characters, and I’d think about how as soon as I just couldn’t take school anymore—as soon as I started to get bored with everything—I’d just get up and leave. I thought about how I had to do that at some point—how I had to do it while I was still young, before the university life managed to scoop up whatever was left of my spirit and funnel me into the downward spiral of some sort of career pursuit or another. What was I in school for writing for, anyway? Screw being taught an art, I wanted to turn myself into art—make myself into the project I would work on for the rest of my life.

I would think about all that while walking and seeing the city at night—piece by piece, building by building—and I loved those walks, even if the part of the city I was walking through was just boring ol’ Richmond Heights. Back on campus, though, I have to admit that I’d always walk by Leah’s place before walking back to the dorms. Sometimes her light would be on, and I’d go over there and we’d run our whole routine, just a few hours later than usual. Other times, though, she wouldn’t even come to the door. And sadly enough, thinking back on all that now that I am more than a dozen years removed from the situation, that depression is still what I remember most about Leah—the way it would consume her, over and over again.

Webster University is named after the place in which it resides—a mellow, inner-ring suburb of St. Louis called Webster Groves. It’s got a nice campus, with lots of old buildings and trees—some nuns founded it as a Catholic women’s college in 1915 before the first male students were admitted in 1962. ↩︎

When Marc’s parents finally sold the house, they ended up selling it to some hot shot rookie for the St. Louis Cardinals. ↩︎

When I say I was “at the height of my adolescent kleptomania,” what I mean is that it was pretty bad right around then. I would have never stolen from an individual person, or from a mom and pop sort of store, but big box department stores and grocery chains were like all-you-can-eat buffets to me. Nothing was off limits. I actually used to go into department stores in the mall or wherever and take like five t-shirts into the dressing room, put ‘em all on, then put my own shirt on over ‘em, cover up with a jacket or a hooded sweatshirt, and walk right the fuck out. I’d never have the balls to do that sort of thing nowadays. ↩︎

#college #stlouis #websteruniversity #artschool #fratboys #bobdylan #milesdavis #ledzeppelin #thedoors #jimihendrix #thegratefuldead #weed #opium #steaknshake #schnucks #suburbs #virginity #depression

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