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#AND DO THE FINAL PROJECT FOR LEARNING FRAMEWORKS

comradekatara · 2 months

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I believe the way Sokka deals with his trauma oscillates between; my feelings aren't important, and there is no way anyone else feels like this.

There is also a middle ground where 'I wish someone could hug me so I could break down' but also, the feeling of 'I don't want anuyone to seem me like that' rolling around in his mind, and thus leading to suppress everything that he feels and believing he is doing great even though he is not.

What, no im not projecting my trauma to poor characters. I just resonate with sokka a little!

ok rn the film studies professor who lives in my head is yelling CHARACTERS DONT HAVE FEELINGS. obviously fandom as a discursive mode operates under a very different analytical framework but like. you get it.

anyway i reject this premise altogether because i don’t think sokka would ever think about anything in terms of feelings. if he has an emotion he must then explain that emotion as a thinking action or opinion. for example, he doesn’t say to yue, “i feel attracted to you,” he says, “i think you’re beautiful.” and to him, every action can be classified either as logical or illogical. so katara stealing from pirates is illogical because the benefits (katara getting back a piece of her culture that was stolen and studying it to better learn waterbending) do not outweigh the costs (being chased down and executed by pirates), but toph pulling scams is dangerous yet ultimately logical because the benefits (having more money for food and resources) do outweigh the costs (possibly getting caught if they’re not careful). and of course sokka rationalizes his own illogical actions through faulty logical reasoning, such as “i must sacrifice myself at the boiling rock because it’s my responsibility to fix this situation that i caused or die trying.” his logic is sometimes flawed or biased (as all human subjectivity is), but it’s think “i think this and therefore i must do this” rather “i feel this and therefore i must do this,” which is how katara largely operates, as someone who is also far more in touch with her own emotions (a skill sokka lacks to a truly atrocious extent). sokka cannot locate his own emotions because he would first have to acknowledge that he has emotions, which to him is a completely abhorrent thought, even though of course he very clearly does.

sokka definitely doesn’t want anyone to see him break down or be vulnerable in any capacity (he’s only vulnerable in front of zuko because he doesn’t care about zuko and assumes that both he and zuko will die soon anyway), and he’s normally resistant to hugs except for with his dad (although in the finale he does join their group hug and then hugs piandao later, so yay for growth). but it’s true that he keeps his trauma so bottled up that he basically just completely represses it. forgets his mother’s face as a way to cope with his grief. and also in sokka’s mind he literally thinks he’s normal. he thinks that everyone else is a freak and thank god he’s the most normal one here. so it’s not even that he’s like “my feelings aren’t important,” he’s like “feelings aren’t important.” and it’s not that he thinks “no one else feels like this,” he thinks “thank god i don’t have to feel all those messy complicated emotions that other humans do because i know how to completely detach myself from my emotions. it’s awesome how being less human means being less vulnerable. there are no downsides to this logic and it is very healthy.” not realizing that it’s like. actually a very harmful coping mechanism, and also that if anyone is capable of dehumanizing themselves to the point of objectivity (highly doubtful), he certainly hasn’t. but like. try telling him that.

#salt-popcorn #asks #sokka #analysis #i love you insane cognitive dissonance freak boy

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waitmyturtles · 1 month

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: A Honorable Mention For War of Y, and Another Look at How Thai BL Talks About BL (With a Bonus Watch of BL: Broken Fantasy)

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I take a look at the more recent attempts by the Thai BL industry to critique itself with War of Y and the mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.]

2022's War of Y. Let me start this piece off by saying that this show is not good. My friend and BL elder educator, @bengiyo, once said about the OGMMTVC project, that some people (LIKE ME :'( ) just have to look into the abyss to satiate their curiosity about how this genre has developed, and that's definitely a point of the OGMMTVC. Not all past Thai BL shows are good, not by a long shot, and I don't recommend War of Y if you're watching dramas for pleasurable experiences only. (If you want to watch a GREAT drama that critiques the Thai BL industry, start with 2021's Lovely Writer, and I'll get more into this later.)

War of Y, directed by the chaotic Cheewin Thanamin and the I-am-assuming-to-be-misanthropic-and-indulgently-self-righteous-and-preening Den Panuwat, gave us 20 episodes of what I believe they thought to be groundbreaking critical art about the currently Thai BL industry. Let me set up an outline so that I don't spend too long on the bad stuff, and explain why War of Y does at least get an important mention (but not an official inclusion) on the OGMMTVC list.

1) What was War of Y about, how it was structured, and some quick high points, 2) Comparing War of Y to other pieces of Thai BL fiction that did a better job of critiquing Thai BL culture, and 3) A close-out reflection of Aam Anusorn's 2020 mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.

War of Y, as presented by Cheewin and Den, is designed to be a meta-drama of four chapters, all examining a specific aspect of the Thai BL industry. The first chapter, led by Billy Patchanon and Seng Wichai, focuses on two ship partnerships competing with each other, to the mental detriment of one of the older ship's celebrities; the second chapter focuses on two HORRIBLE warring managers; the third chapter showcases, in excruciating detail, god help us, a Y idol reality show, replete with singing; and the final chapter depicts the creation of a BL series and the rise of another super celebrity, whose career potentially gets derailed by his relationship with a female acting colleague.

Before I get into the few high points, I just want to say that this bloated structure (four chapters of five episodes each) did not do this drama well. It could have been edited down GREATLY for more succinct messaging. The other major issue I had is that the Thai BL genre -- as a romance genre itself, that demands romantic and coupled endings -- is just not the right genre to meta-critique the industry from which the piece of art comes from, not unless you're the screenwriter of Lovely Writer, who deftly managed some very complicated storylines into true art. There was no deft to War of Y. Couples got together in pandering and condescending ways, because that's how a Thai BL should end, right (?!); HORRENDOUS warring enemies suddenly made up with barely any context except to make money, and so on. I kept saying to friends during my watch that in a Den Panuwat show -- the worse you are as a character, the more likely you are to be redeemed for seemingly no good reason.

[Exhibits B and C in Den Panuwat's screenwriting record of questionable human characteristics? Fucking Only Friends and Playboyy. THE WORSE THOSE CHARACTERS WERE, THE BETTER THEIR OUTCOMES. Yeah, we really wanted those assholes to end well. ANYWAY. (I am committing to never watching a Den Panuwat show again. ANYWAY.)]

But there were a few high points. Actually seeing a Y idol reality show, something that international fans may not be able to appreciate with a lack of subtitles, was at least eye-opening for the inter-related nature of these kinds of shows, with some performers subsequently getting series gigs. (I understand that Santa Pongsapak, of My Own 12%, is an example of this kind of performer, who started out first as a music idol trainee.)

And the acting. Some of the acting was EASILY the best part of War of Y, as it very often happens in questionable Thai dramas: Billy (BILLYYYYYYYY), First Piyangkul, Dome Waruwat (who we most recently saw in Cooking Crush, and who absolutely SLAYED as one of the SLIMIEST, GROSSEST characters EVER, ohmygod), and

SENG MOTHERFUCKING WICHAI

(who will win one of the crowns as one of THE BEST FUCKING ACTORS IN THAI BL at the conclusion of the OGMMTVC project)

were easily the best reasons to watch War of Y. The range of Seng Wichai. It's ironic that he left Idol Factory last year, ending the BillySeng ship, and was then disgracefully treated like utter crap by the media and BL fans for the reveal of his relationship with Freen Sarocha. That, in itself, could make for a heartbreaking drama about the BL industry, but alas. We have War of Y instead. Seng is a motherfucking hero, and is also the KING of cringe, playing a horribly behaved actor who learns to overcome his insecurities to stand up against the advantages taken unto him by greedy managers.

We also had MANY wild and crazy cameos from real BL professionals in the show. @twig-tea and I agree that director New Siwaj's cameo was BAFFLING. He played a BL director (which he actually is) who maybe hated making BLs? (Maybe he actually hates it?) But still does it? And was mostly checked out of making the BL-show-within-the-BL-show, until he was called out about it, and then behaved like a good boy. Like. That cameo, along with a literally-evil NetJames and an even more inexplicable and weird literally-evil MaxNat cameo (wtf, that wasn't filled out AT ALL), were the really weird ones. The sad ones were ones like sweet NuNew Chawarin telling young BL guys that they have to sing (NO THEY DON'T). There was actual!Tee Bundit telling off Seng Wichai's character, that was rad. Director Lit Phadung of SOTUS and Dangerous Romance (😬) was there. Even the original novelist for Thailand's first television BL, Love Sick, was there, playing herself as Kwang Latika, who complained to a producer within War of Y that the show-within-the-show (yeah, I know) was taking her novel out of context. That shit sounds familiar! I could have used more accurate commentary on that.

The last high point that I can muster is that the show began to toe the line of the issue of actors needing to explore their sexualities for art's sake. As fans, we truly do not have much insight into this process, and I think it's for good reason, so as to protect actors (wherever they land on the sexuality spectrum) from very real, emotional, and sensitive processes and workshops that prepare them for taking on queer material. We know that actors like Nanon Korapat from Bad Buddy use Method techniques in their performances, and that can be mentally draining. Do I believe that some actor pairings experiment with dating, and may actually be in relationships? Yes, I must believe it, considering the psychological work these young men have to do to build attraction to each other for art's sake. The CEO of Korea's Strongberry studio confirmed as much earlier this year.

Unfortunately, I think War of Y leveraged these very sensitive realities to blatantly and flippantly indicate that ships can be ASSUMED to either explore sex with each other, and/or to even assume that they SHOULD be in relationships, à la the television BL romance formula that I mentioned above. I think this show could have transcended the romance genre formula, frankly, and I think the show came kinda close to doing that in the last chapter with First Piyangkul -- but not before setting up First's character, Achi, as a cheating monster-machine who was willing to go to great lengths to protect his fame, including outing his trans-female ex-girlfriend and co-star (YEAH, THAT HAPPENED), as well as separating himself from his ship and sexual same-sex partner while still indicating that they were dating. The whole storyline was just -- BLEH.

As I chatted with another fabulous BL elder, @twig-tea, about after I finished War of Y, clearly, Cheewin and Den thought they were intellectual geniuses upon the creation of this show, thinking that a BL itself would be a sufficient mechanism to offer meta commentary about problematic aspects of the BL industry (IT'S NOT). Twig wisely said to me that a writer or directly simply CHOOSING a topic to explore vis à vis a BL -- like a criticism of the industry itself -- is not, in of itself, worthy of laudation. And Cheewin and Den were CLEARLY expecting flowers by the end of this drama. If you've ever lived in smelling distance of southern California, you'll know that entertainment industries love nothing more than to talk about the entertainment industry, and that they think that fictional drama art is the best way to obsess over the vagaries of these industries (IT'S NOT). Instead, Cheewin and Den basically outed themselves as economic shippers and idiot faux-savants who are clearly in the game for fame, and maybe the dudes themselves, which -- BLEH REDUX.

On the OGMMTVC list, Lovely Writer does such a better job at covering the latent homophobia and judgments against actors within and external to the industries that take on BL. War of Y actually teed up a LOT of interesting topics, such as the BL-to-het-drama-and-studio pipeline that I talked about in my past OGMMTVC KinnPorsche pieces -- but these topics in War of Y just instead drowned in misanthropic meditations about fame, sex, and money that seemed far more suited to reaaaaalllly-bad Cinemax than, say, a proto-documentary.

The OGMMTVC syllabus also has YYY, from 2020, as a first entrée to BL-commentary-within-BL (and funnily enough, YYY also stars Lay Talay, who was the main anchor of War of Y, and was actually fantastic in both shows). YYY is a lot more succinct, CONCISE, zany, weird as HELL, incomplete, INSANE, not the greatest show, but HILARIOUS, simply in part because of its different and wonderful writers in Fluke Teerapat (a former BL actor himself) and Tanachot Prapasri. If you're looking for commentary about BL within wild-ass fiction (and if you're willing to watch it with shrooms or a fifth of vodka), watch YYY. (And remember that you're really watching YYY to watch Poppy Ratchapong eat his role of Porpla totally alive. Utter brilliance.)

Otherwise, as a means of complementing this review, I also watched 2020's non-fiction mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy, by Aam Anusorn, another Series Y director who made the documentary, perhaps in part, to atone for past BL shows that he made, like 2Moons2 and Call It What You Want.

BL: Broken Fantasy featured interviews from directors, actors, and actual fans, about the nature of shipping, what the industry demands of actors, what fans themselves demand, and offered even a little bit of insight from two HUGE actors, Bright Vachiwarit and Win Metawin of 2gether and Still 2gether, about the process itself of young men acting in a queer coupleship.

The documentary is perhaps too short for its own good. And it sets up Aam as an unwilling participant within the BL industry, seemingly not knowing about what he was getting into when he first started making BLs (2gether's director, Champ Weerachit, also presents this way, which I found a touch disingenuous, as they were literally filming 2gether in the documentary).

But BL: Broken Fantasy hammered on a couple of important and real points. The economic benefits of shipping are HUGE. The sponsorship deals, the fame, the money -- they literally make young actors very rich and very well attended to. The fans EXPECT shipping performances, so that they themselves can situate themselves as caretakers or "mommies" to their young flock of boba-eyed actors that they worship. And for directors who want to earn money by making filmed art: the budding industry offers them that opportunity in growing spades. ( @lurkingshan will be happy to know that of all people, Aof Noppharnach, confirms to the documentary's audience that BL is a romance genre of love stories. As if there was any doubt, playa!)

At this point in time, in 2024, if I want a meta-critical understanding of the BL industry, and its many impacts on queer populations, fan bases, and Asian and global society, I'll go to Dr. Thomas Baudinette's Boys Love Media in Thailand and choose the academic route. We are SO LUCKY now to actually have tremendous academic discourse on the genre and its impact on media, fandoms, queer society, and global and regional acceptances of queer equity.

As opposed to the roads that academics are paving, War of Y allowed itself to bloat and gloat, on behalf of its creators, about their desires for shipping, for lavishing attention on beautiful young men, without offering us objective insight into the mindsets of these gentlemen who are important artists and creators in many of the shows we love. There needs to be a space for fair and objective criticism about an industry that may, at many times, take advantage of these young men. While there were many industry cameos in the show, the most frequent cameo was Den Panuwat himself. That enough should tell us what this show was ultimately really about.

[Well, as you can tell, I am fucking DONE with War of Y, laughing my azz off, and -- I'm off to greener pastures. I'm taking a cute and quick break from the OGMMTVC to devour Japan's anime version of Cherry Magic for an upcoming comparative (and totally self-indulgent) Big Meta on Thailand's and Japan's versions of that franchise. (And I have also been watching Fully Booked, AMA.) But I've got a long-awaited rewatch of The Eclipse coming up, to explore how GMMTV handled homophobia as a centered topic head-on, and from there, I go back to Idol Factory to watch Thailand's first GL, featuring the lovely FreenBecky, in GAP.

AND THEN: HOLY SHIT! FINALLY! My School President. I can't wait.

Here's the latest of the OGMMTVC list. If you've got any questions or comments about the syllabus, just mosey on over to this link and drop a comment my way!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here)

21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)

31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 37) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) 38) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 39) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows (watching) 40) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL)

41) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 42) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 43) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 44 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 45) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 46) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 47) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 48) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 49) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 50) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake)

51) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 52) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here)]

#war of y #war of y the series #billyseng #billy patchanon #seng wichai #cheewin thanamin #den panuwat #first piyangkul #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #turtles catches up with thai BLs #war of y meta

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olderthannetfic · 7 months

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Not sure if this is the best place to ask but you seem very knowledgeable about AO3 & its history/creation.

I wonder if you know about any papers/places I could go to find out about how AO3's database system works (like its framework/structure). I'm taking a database course in university and one of our final projects is to do a presentation of an existing database and how it is structured/organizes its data. I wanted to do it on AO3 bc I absolutely adore its tagging system and its unique compared to the databases we're studying in class. I want to do kind of a deep dive of it.

Do you know where I could learn about/find resources for it? Thanks

I was never on the coding side of things. Has someone written this up in a public way? Maybe @zz9pzza would know.

Depending on what you need to know, you could probably just write to the relevant committees and ask if anyone has time to talk to you.

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creature-wizard · 2 years

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FAQs & Newbie Orientation (Updated April 24!)

“What do you mean when you say ‘New Age’?” I am specifically referring to forms of spirituality that revolve around the idea that the Earth is about to enter an actual new age, commonly referred to as the Age of Aquarius, Fifth Density, or Fifth Round. If a belief system doesn’t include this, it ain’t New Age, even if it did emerge in the 20th century, even if Barnes & Noble puts books on it on the New Age shelf. (A Wiccan can be a New Ager, but the idea of a new age not a central part of Wiccan beliefs.)

“Why are you so critical of New Age and starseeds?” The short answer is, it's a belief system built on white colonialism, Orientalism, eugenics, hateful conspiracy theories, and always has been.

If you want longer answers, check these out: The Deal with New Age, in a nutshell New Age beliefs that derive from racist pseudoscience A quick intro to starseeds Various ways the New Age movement is shitty The New Age concept of ascension - what is it? Why New Age is thinly-veiled antisemitism/nazism Why David Icke’s reptilian aliens are sparkling antisemitism Starseeds: Nazis in Space? (Not my article) What is the New Age to Alt Right pipeline, and how do you stay out of it?

I also recommend checking out the #new age to alt right pipeline and #spiritual eugenics tags.

Now I want to be clear here, I'm not saying that everything associated with New Age is bad simply because it's associated with New Age. Many practices are harmless in and of themselves - the problem is the conspiratorial, morally polarized framework they're practiced in. For more info, see Some things associated with New Age that aren't inherently bad.

”What do you think of reincarnation, in general?” I think it’s fine to believe in reincarnation so long as you don’t act like it gives you special knowledge or wisdom, or entitles you to tell other people what to do, or entitles you to appropriate and misrepresent other people’s cultures and spiritual traditions, or tie it in with a conspiracist worldview. (Starseeds do all of these.)

“What if I’m alienkin, or I believe my soul comes from another planet?” Nothing inherently wrong with that! The problem with the starseed movement is its politics - it’s founded on a bunch of racist, ableist, colonialist garbage. (It’s no coincidence that a number of starseeds are outright Nazis.)

“What if I want to call myself a starseed, though?” That’s like wanting to call yourself a Nazi. There is something deeply wrong with you if you do. “Why are you so critical of ancient aliens?” See Spencer McDaniel’s excellent post.

“Do you think it’s wrong to believe in alien life?” No, I just think it’s important to be critical of what you believe about it, and why you believe it. If you believe in aliens, question your assumptions about them. What are you projecting onto them? Why are you projecting that? Is that projection a bit self-centered, whether positively or negatively?

“Why are you so critical of conspiracy theories?” Simply put, because conspiracy theories are tools of reactionary violence. Most conspiracy theories are derived from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a known hoax created to demonize Jews and blame them for the world's problems while justifying a return to monarchy; or early modern witch panic and blood libel. BTW, I recommend Justin Sledge's video on the Satanic Panic. "But isn’t there a bunch of evidence?” 'Fraid not. All of it's either fabricated (EG, the aforementioned Protocols), taken out of context (EG, the Dendera “light”), extremely subjective (EG, someone’s mystical experience), based on absurd standards of what constitutes "evidence" (being a depressed teen who liked heavy metal and D&D was taken as a sure sign being involved in a satanic cult in the 80's and 90's), or produced through flawed methods (EG, so-called recovered memory therapy), or questioning vulnerable people until the interviewers or psychologists finally got what they wanted to hear. (If you want to get an idea of just how much of a mess this was, and just how unethical and irresponsible things could get, I recommend checking out the You're Wrong About podcast's episodes on Michelle Remembers.)

"Wait, do you have actual evidence that false memories exist?" Yep, you only have to peek in on the starseeds to see hundreds of 'em. See my posts hypnosis is unreliable for memory recovery, and this is one way we know and false past life memories among the starseed movement. You might also take a look at Abducted by Susan A. Clancy. Also read my post here’s the trouble with hypnotic regression for an explanation of why it's so easy to generate false memories.

“But aren’t starseeds part of ancient traditional beliefs?” Literally no one has been able to produce a single scrap of evidence that anything like the New Age concept of starseeds existed before the Victorian period. However, New Agers are well-known for bullshitting about the age and origins of their beliefs. If you’re going to assert that starseeds are genuinely part of some ancient tradition, you need to provide some real evidence.

“What’s your problem with the Law of Assumption?” See this post and this post. See also: The prosperity gospel, explained: Why Joel Osteen believes that prayer can make you rich. (The Law of Assumption is closely related to prosperity gospel.) Why you should know about the New Thought movement (another closely related movement) "If the Law of Assumption is fake, what about the success stories?" "This Law of Assumption practitioner posted photos, doesn't that prove something?" Was Neville Goddard really trustworthy? No, modern witchcraft and the Law of Assumption are not "the same."

"Is X spiritual person a conspiracy theorist?" See this post, Is the spiritual person a conspiracy theorist? A list of red flags.

"I'm trying to get out of a shitty situation, what can I do?" See my post, "I'm in a bad place and need to get out, what can I do?"

"Why haven't you posted anything about X? Probably for one of the following reasons:

My primary focus is right wing conspiracy theories, and the beliefs/narratives that surround them.

I am a forgetful fuck; things can slip my mind indefinitely.

I literally do not know enough on this topic to say anything meaningful on it at this time.

I have simply never heard of X.

I literally did (maybe even post about it semi-regularly), but you missed it.

Please understand that researching conspiracy theories takes a lot of time and can be pretty draining. There's an immense amount of media to go through, and that media is often some of the most hateful shit you'll ever find. Sometimes I need days to decompress from it.

“Do you recommend any resources?” Yup, over here!

#pinned post

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class1akids · 1 month

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Am iI the only one that doesn't like who shoto seems to constantly be put down?

Its always emphasizes how much stronger Toya is and how shoto can't compare its kinda frustrating and I know that this is from shotos pov but we're not gonna anyone else's pov when it comes to this stuff like mid war when shoto did get his moment it got taken away immediately by Toya copying shoto and then for the final fight despite endeavor not doing anything and the rest of the familys efforts not being anywhere near enough when shoto stopped the explosion the entire fam got the credit and then Toya got an ice quirk (which I hate so much it's like if shoto suddenly got blue flames out of the blue like no this is literally shotos thing) and the we are reminded again of how shoto can't compare

Toya is always victimized and while yes he is a victim the fact the he doesn't get the right to kill ppl is only said once and thats not enough compared to the amount of times it's pointed out that it's not his fault while shoto on the other hand isn't and it's rather frustrating it feels like he's always getting the short end of the stick

Really like the shoto and AM talk, it was really overdew (also makes it seem like what allmight said to shoto mid war less like pressure and more like encouragement which I'm sure is how it was intended)

I'm personally not too bothered by it:

The hero being an underdog is a pretty common trope. If you look at all the other major fights, the hero is always on the back foot. Shouto deciding to go up against Touya despite his brother's overwhelming firepower is brave and admirable and people point it out repeatedly how almost everyone underestimated Shouto.

The entire framework of the Todoroki family is Endeavor's fire. Everyone's value is always measured in relation to fire, (Ice user? Worthless. Hotter fire? Good.) without ever pausing for a moment to think what that hotter fire is for. This entire fire is fueled by resentment. Endeavor's resentment against All Might starts it, it spreads over to Touya and Touya's resentment of Endeavor fuels it to new peaks. Touya's blue fire represents the generational trauma and the negative emotions of the family.

Phosphor is the perfect endgame move for Shouto. It's narratively beautiful, it brings together everything Shouto has learned and it represents ultimately the power of healing - both Shouto's personal healing, him coming to terms with his fire, his past, but also the family coming together. Shouto's two-sided power, channeled through his heart is born after his mother and father finally meet again after a decade and the whole family comes together for Touya.

So Touya copying Phosphor to me is hopeful because Touya up until then never copied anyone but Endeavor. Taking Phosphor is a special connection with Shouto Touya never forged with anyone else. I don't think it's fully paid off yet, but I think it will.

Touya having ice also doesn't bother me. It's to be seen if Touya can use it like Shouto does, but the moment it came through was about Endeavor. It was for him to know before what he thought was his inevitable death that the son he threw away at 5 was a "masterpiece" too - in fact all his children are. I don't think that Touya having ice makes Shouto somehow less valuable - only if you accept Endeavor's rules and the children's value is decided by their quirk or power level. I'm fairly certain Shouto does not resent Touya having ice - he's more happy that his brother is still alive.

Horikoshi did delete in the volume version Shouto's quip about not being a masterpiece. We still don't know why - I suspect that Shouto and the Todoroki family will be back in Phase 3 of the fight, and maybe it will all make sense then. But the way I read that line was basically Shouto pointing out that Touya (and not Shouto) is the culmination of what Endeavor dreamt of as a heir when he started his genetic project. Someone who can take his fire technique to new heights. But what did it achieve? A burnt firstborn, a broken family, a bunch of civilians in grave danger. Endeavor's masterpiece is not a badge of honor - it's madness.

Shouto not becoming what Endeavor wanted is a good thing, and in line with his arc. He took his power in a new direction (the right way to put out a fire) and he's doing what he does for the right reasons, while also becoming a reassuring, authentic hero - which is what he wants to be. His power-level is absolutely amazing still - but that's not what the story is really about.

So let's see where it all ends. Like I said, I'm still waiting for the conclusion of the Todoroki family. Horikoshi has been "hiding" them since Shouto's Rising chapter; now that people are warping in, I'd be surprised not to see them (especially Shouto) pop up eventually. I also would not be surprised to see a power-up for Shouto, considering he's the only one who hasn't had one in the final arc, and absorbing Touya's nuke would be a good reason to give him one and also make the power-ups between the brothers go both ways. I think that was the idea with the "mingling" comment.

Finally, the family resolving its issues, they should now use that power instead of fighting each other to help the overall endgame goal.

#c1a asks #todoroki shouto #dabi #endeavor #todoroki touya

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brilium · 8 months

Text

❥ K I N K T O B E R 2 0 2 3

Masterlist

➽──────────❥

❥ DAY 5. Clothed Sex! with Jean Kirstein

Summary. You're a pain in the ass for Jean, and for you? He's a nuisance before meeting up with Eren for a hook up. Fortunately, the two best students of Dr. Smith are smart (or horny) enough to find a middle point where they can do more than fighting.

Content Warning.Fem! reader, no use of Y/N, all characters are adults, smut, fingering, masturbation (f. recieving), vaginal sex, teasing, edging.

Word count. 3,169.

Author’s note. This was kinda hard to write since I'm rlly used to write about Jean but I tried to keep his personality as I wrote it hehe

MINORS OR AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT !!

Jean kept talking about something about God knows what. At this point you aren’t trying to pay attention anymore while you play with the border of your high socks on your thigh, thinking of maybe cutting it to get rid of the ugly rids of the past dye color that you still have.

Doctor Smith knew that you had potential, but you just weren’t interested in attending class or at least paying attention to him the few times that you showed up to class. So he had to try another way to make you learn.

And what’s better than pairing you for the final project with the top class student Jean Kirstein? Well, it was better for you and a total migraine for him.

The clock kept ticking on the isolated study room while Jean kept talking and typing on his laptop hoping that you were at least awake.

“I can work on the first part of the theoretical framework while you…” Jean raises his head to look at you clearly ignoring him and sighs. “Are you even listening to me?”

You huff, leaning on your elbows resting on the table and turning slightly to look at him beside you, Jean rolls his eyes when you just can yawn in response and nod sleepy while you tap quickly on your phone.

“Yeah, you’ll do the theoretical shit and all that stuff. Just tell me what’s my part and I’ll send it to you later, ’kay?” He swears on the low and shakes his head at your comment, you just giggle at your phone ignoring him and typing again.

Jean has a very low patience. Really Low.

So he extends his hand to grab your phone and toss it on the table to grab your attention, but before his hand finally grabs it, the picture on your phone calls for his attention.

Apparently, you weren’t paying attention to your damn final project because you were chatting with Eren Jaeger to drop at his dorm later. If Jean was already mad, knowing that the reason that his partner was ignoring him it’s because she was telling that idiot how you’re counting the minutes that you both reserved the study room to end so he can finally fuck her made him go furious.

“What the fuck!? Are you really making plans with Jaeger right now!?”

You startle, turning your whole body at him feeling the hot warmth growing on your cheeks and —finally— putting your phone down.

“Why are you looking at my phone in the first place?” You stand up, shoving violently the chair behind you. “I don’t even care about this damn final project. Fuck it— I’m done with this.”

Jean is faster than you in trying to leave and stands up too to grab your wrist and hold you from leaving. His grip is tight, not enough to hurt you but for as much as you shake your wrist in a try to get free, he keeps holding you.

“You won’t leave until we’ve finished this shit!” Jean pulls your wrist closer to him, making you look up at him to hold his gaze. “I need the credits to keep my scholarship and I won’t let you ruin it for me.”

“I don’t care about your stupid scholarship” You hiss, looking firmly at his eyes and laughing cynically. “Move away or I’ll scream”.

“You’ll scream?” Jean snorts, his free hand going up to your chin and forcing you to look at him. This time, the grip is a little bit rougher, his fingers pressing on both of your cheeks to keep you firm. “Go on, scream, scream as loud as you want. Anyways, scream and whine it’s the only thing you can do, right? That’s why you’re hooking up with Jaeger”.

Your eyes go wide as your hand grabs the neck of his shirt tightly, bringing him closer and feeling his warmth breath against your face. He’s talking out of his anger, but you’re reaching your limit too.

“Yeah, Jaeger it’s pretty good at making me scream, whine and beg for more. I guess that you use that as an insult just because you’ve never been with a girl.” You pout to take a fake sad tone of voice. “Get your nose out from the books and taste the real world, Kristein”.

“Really bold of you to tell me that when you are the total opposite of me” Jean slightly turns his head to the side, his grip on your chin got lighter but his face is closer.

"So you admit that you’re a virgin?” You snort, leaning your head to the opposite side, too.

“Try it for yourself and let’s see who is the wrong one”.

Jean doesn’t even give you time to answer when his hand on your chin already traveled to the back of your neck and grabbed your face against his into a kiss. You whimper against his lips, feeling weak legs and having to hold his shoulders for support.

It’s hard for you to admit how good a kisser he is, his lips sucking on your so sweetly and passing his tongue slowly through your lower lip in a try to join his tongue to the kiss. It gets harder for you to resist as his hands slowly slide down through your body to play with the border of your skirt on your waist.

By pride, you try to keep it like a simple kiss but his hands go up to stop on the verge of your shirt and squeezing the skin of your waist causes you to whimper and let him finally use his tongue.

He’s holding you firmly as you both continue, he groans softly when he pulls back and you grab him to bring him again to you. Your breathing is hard and your legs tremble as his hands slowly caress you under your shirt, teasing you by just barely touching the lower part of your breasts and passing softly your thumb against your nipples above the material of your bra.

“Are you scared to touch some boobs for the first time? Is that so?” You tease, throwing your head back as he starts to kiss your neck and push you gently to the table, noticing how you were changing from leg to leg to keep standing and letting you lie a little on the cold surface.

Jean chuckles and bites softly on your neck, kissing it and feeling how good your back arches under him. The movement of your body lets you feel his hard crotch touching softly your stomach, causing you both to groan by how sensitive you are already.

Jean sucks hard on your neck before answering, making you squirm on the cold surface with a soft whine.

“Nah, I just want to let Jaeger believe that you were needy for him when I actually got you ready” He winked at you and you chuckled in response.

“Fuck you. In your drea—” Jean thrusts between your legs, almost making you let out a lewd moan, but you bite your lower lip on time to not let him get what he wants.

You're about to swear at him and tell him that he's an idiot, but his thumbs curl at the border of your skirt and start to toss it down, revealing slowly more of your skin and making you shiver. Jean is impatient and hard right now, at the point to stop pulling it down at the level of the middle of your calves when he notices that you weren't wearing any underwear. He has to bite his lip to not moan at the sight of your soaked pussy already clenching to feel him inside.

So you were so whiny before because of that, huh?

His hand travels between your folds to caress your entrance and feel your fluids moistening his fingers, he opens his mouth to say the dirtiest thing about the pool between your thighs thanks to the absence of underwear, but you speak before he can say anything.

“Don’t say it” You struggle to talk, moaning softly as the dip of his fingers teases you. “My initial plan was to meet Eren after finishing this shit—”

Even though he’s wearing jeans. with the fabric as a barrier between you both, his thrust really got you trembling in arousal for feeling more. The fold of his zipper teases you so bad as he grinds slowly between thrusts, rubbing on your clit with the right fucking peace.

Your lip is starting to get a taste of iron between your teeths by how hard you are biting yourself to hold the moans but when he grabs the border of your high sock to pull it and let it go back to your skin with a soft slap. You let go a cute and small whimper as he does the same with the other leg.

“Huh? Did I hear something?” He asks, using a fake surprised tone as he thrusts, your lower lip holds it again, but your muffled moans against your hands says the opposite. “Again! What could it be? Rats?”

He keeps wondering about your noises and strangled moans, between every question it comes a thrust that has you trembling and shutting your eyes with a strength that has you almost seeing lights.

“J–Jean!” You whine through a moan, your voice coming out high pitched and making him grin with pride.

“Yes?” He smiles down at you, some strings of his hair falling on his face and sticking on his forehead.

He stopped thrusting to see how you struggle to breathe and your swollen lower lip is trembling, calling for his lips to get it to a worse state. But there's a bigger swollen pain between his legs. His boxers definitely are stained with a wet spot of precum, all the thrusting play got him sensitive too.

But he doesn’t want to be the one giving up first.

You murmur very softly three words that throw your pride to the floor, Jean clearly hears them as music to his ears.

“Can you repeat it more clearly, dear? Just to be sure that I hear someone whining and begging my name"

“I won’t. Just put it already—”

Jean introduced two fingers inside you before you could keep fighting, his fingers are long. Fucking long. So you are already squirming and biting your hand to hold the moans as he keeps fingering you and filling the room with the wet sounds of your cunt dripping on the table.

Fuck, now I understand why no one comes to the study rooms.

Then, your phone pops with a notification. Definitely is a message from Eren and you have to take a deep breath, trying to get a coherent sentence out from your mouth filled with the sounds of your pussy clenching around Jean’s fingers.

“J–Jean, please— Let me answer Eren.”

“Hmm? I didn’t asked you to say his fucking name right now” His fingers get a quicker peace, curling on the weak spot inside you that causes your back to arche and leave a hard bite mark on your hand to hold the lewd sound coming from your mouth. “I asked you to repeat what you said before that.”

Even in your current state, breathing hard and with a hot feeling pooling on your chest of your incoming orgasm, you deny with your head. Your pride was thrown away since you started moaning his name, what is stopping you right now is only the embarrassment of admitting that your pussy is clenching for him.

Jean is not really happy with your answer, sighing and pulling away his hands from you to sit again in front of his laptop, trying to fix his hair as he sighs, pretending to focus again on the screen. You whine in response, feeling a mix of emotions inside you: anger, sadness, disappointment. Everything at the same time.

“Why did you stop!? You’re fucking hard, I can see it even through your jeans!” The tone of your voice is unstable, trembling and feeling like your orgasm is about to go away. “Come on, Jean!”

Jean chuckles, his hand touching softly his thigh up and down to heal the pain a little.

“I won’t fuck you if you don’t ask for it.”

This motherfucker.

“If you ask me to fuck you,” Jean continues, unbulcking his belt to pull down a little his jeans and boxers at the same time, he’s needy as much as you that by the only feeling of the fabric passing through his aching dick makes him groan “I’ll do your part of the project, even if Doctor Smith doubts my words, I’ll convince him that we did it together.”

You already forgot about the damn project. But, the desperation of needing those credits to pass the semester joined to the desperation of needing to cum lead you to get off of the table and sit on his lap with struggle caused by your shaking. You hold his shoulder with one hand as you positionate your entrance above his hard crotch with your other hand to hold his base and put his dip right on the entry of your wet cunt.

“Please… Fuck me” You whisper desperately as your cheeks are a turning into a burning red, doing your best to hold his gaze as he chuckles and grabs firmly your hips, he licks his lips and smiles before answering.

“As you order.”

Jean bites his lip and pushes your hips down roughly, making you let out a bit too high a moan as his hard length stretches you out. In your thoughts, the fear of someone hearing you is forgotten, you just want him to start thrusting as hard as he was doing before, putting you in a worse state than before.

He doesn’t seem to care either. Jean’s moans are vibrating against the crook of your neck, using all his strength to hold himself from the need to mark you up.

But using Eren’s toy without him knowing feels so good.

“Fuuuck—” Jean groans against your neck as you move back and forwards on his lap, his nails are marking you under your sweater to keep you taking him as deep as you can while you move your hips. “This pussy is so fucking tight and wet for me, huh?”

You nod, you don’t know at what you are been agreeding, you just are tasting every second and thrust of how good it feels his cock hitting on you. Jean grabs your waist more firmly to lift you slightly so he can bring his hips up to thrust with more strength everytime he slams on you.

The soft moans coming out from your mouth when his curvature starts to hit on your sensitive spot are being held on the shoulder of his shirt, holding it so hard that you might rip it. The sweet release of your orgasm is coming from the foreplay, Jean notices it, so he picks you up to pull you out of him and put you again on the table.

Obviously, he pushes his laptop aside to put you on the table. In his desperation of getting inside you again, the laptop almost falls from it and you gasp almost scared.

“Jean! Your laptop!” You try to advertise him, but his dick getting inside you again makes you hold a breath in surprise as he starts to thrust again. The table is shaking almost violently as he hits hard on your pussy. “I–Idiot! It’s g-going to fall!—”

He ignores you, lifting a little of your sweater to hold your waist firmly on the table, exposing a little bit of your abdomen for him. You whimper at the cold feeling of the material, squeezing him harder and he lets out a weak whine in response.

“I don’t care, you’re about to cum, I feel it.” Although Jean’s comment, his thrusts lose their quick peace, but every hit is harder and deeper. Your hands travel above your head to hold the border of the table, torturing your lower lip to hold the moans. “Cum for me, cum all over my cock—”

His order resonates on your brain so hard along with his thrusts that you moan his name against the back of your hand as you squirm and shake when your orgasm hits you. All your body burns on his thrust trying to keep the same strength with your walls squeezing him.

“J–Jean…!” He keeps hitting inside you to let you ride your orgasm as long as you can, loving the sound of your whines and soft moans. You don’t want him to pull out for anything in the world “C–Cum inside, please!”

But he denies with his head, pulling out from you when he feels his orgasm about to explode and pumping his length up and down above you, throwing the white lines of his cum on your exposed stomach that slowly start to drip down to your swollen cunt.

He breathes hard, holding the table at the sides of your legs trying to recover. You are almost in the same state, breathing hard while you look at the dark bite marks on your hand. “W–Why didn't you cum inside? It’s okay for me.”

“Nah,” He laughs breathly, straightening up as he smiles, fixing his jeans and fixing his shriveled shirt and looking for something inside his backpack, moving this around until he grabs a pack of tissues and hands you one. “I wanted Jaeger to believe that he’s the only one giving you a good orgasm today.”

You snort, taking the tissue to clean your abdomen and fix your appearance too, biting your lip remembering that you’re still on plans to see Eren later.

“What makes you believe that that was a good orgasm?”

“The dark marks on your hand say otherwise” He smiles, grabbing his laptop from the border and sitting on the chair again, ready to start working again.

He literally had you cumming on that spot before and now he's typing again like nothing happened? Fucking nerd. You think with a smile as you grab your things and look at the messages from Eren.

“Are you sure that you can do it alone? I can stay a little longer if you want.” It’s weird to hear you wanting to help on it, but he shakes his head smiling and looks up at you.

”I think that if you stay here, we won’t get this thing finished in time.”

You smirk, walking to the door and stopping on it before leaving, turning to him with a soft blush on your cheeks.

“Only for curiosity” You balance on your feets, playing with your fingers. “I also need a partner for a presentation for the class with Professor Ackerman. Do you want to…?”

Jean smiles, winking at you as he answers.

“See you next week in the same room? I'll go all the way in so don't make plans with that idiot".

@softlilpeachxx

#kinktober #kinktober 2023 #brilium #aot smut #snk smut #attack on titan x reader #attack on titan smut #snk x reader #jean x reader #jean smut #jean kirschtein x reader #jean kirstein smut

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afreakingdork · 1 year

Text

Weak Spot - Chapter 6

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

Warnings: Aged-up Turtles, Romance, Meet Cute, Villain Donatello, Cussing, Crushes, Xenophobia, Fear, Intimidation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hurt/Comfort

Synopsis: When falling in love is the easy part where does the difficulty lie? In a society where we’re defined by our job, it’s those little details as a relationship goes on that ends up setting a course for whether or not a couple can make it in the long run.

This chapter includes mentions of suicide. Take care of yourselves, everyone!

Also available on Ao3

First 💜 Previous

Sleep took you regardless of how the emotions swirled in your mind. Clarity took reign when you woke and you used it to mull over a list of questions that would need to be addressed. Looking forward to that long lunch, you decided they didn’t all need to be asked at once. It hadn’t been said exactly, but you had a sense that the relationship, though he’d refuted that point, had shifted into a new stage: learning.

While any connection could be structured in thousands of different ways, there was always a sort of similarity to the stages. Learning usually acted as a feeling out phase right off the bat. You hadn’t necessarily missed that step with Donatello, but the meetings with him had been too short to parse out what was necessary and the puppy love had put on a sort of blinders. Moving through the motions of eating, washing, and dressing, you hadn’t left those affections, but you felt more focused. Doing final mirror check before leaving the apartment, you had a sense that this would lead somewhere. It gave you heated pause and an inability to look at your reflection as you tried to quell the thought. It was far too early and you had just established the new framework in mind. You needed to focus.

Grabbing your bag and checking for the essentials, you headed out. Door locked, a trip down the hall, a jaunt down the stairs, and out onto the road. Question swirled from bits and pieces to complete affairs which pulled your phone out to take notes. Though Donatello would probably have be pleased to read over them, you decided to memorize them before deployment. For now you just needed to make sure there wasn’t anything you’d forget. Bustling arms as more suits appeared on public transit, you tucked your device away to keep from losing it. The herd thickened as you neared the business district and when you hopped out as close to your building as possible you made the trek with a similar packed sidewalk.

It was when you broke out of the stream that you got the predicable freedom to walk at your own pace. Taking the few steps up towards your building, you slowed at an odd sight. Several feet from the entrance was a small enclosure that was tented by a netting of tarps. Curious why a small construction project would need anonymity, you headed towards one of the many doors and eyed two police officers meandering to the side. They paid you no mind, but you still watched them as you entered. Into the lobby, several more police officers were mobbing the receptionist desk. Two of them were craned over the computer there and the usual employee was nowhere to be seen. Again, not a glance was passed in your direction so you headed towards the elevators with an ever sinking feeling.

The elevator ride was unremarkable and the stepping out onto your floor had a nostalgic sense. After the roller coaster of atmospheric shifts, the mundane was a welcome one. It would be a petering end to a bizarre week and that wasn’t something you minded. Headed in, you wound the hallways and heard whispers that you presumed had much to do with team two’s looming overtime. With your plate clear, you now noticed that they had the worse end of the stick. Having to work late into the weekend was not something you’d have walked into willingly. You snorted to yourself at the thought. You hadn’t so much as fought back yesterday, so it seemed ridiculous to think you would have talked back today. Tucking your bag in, you caught the glimpse of passing navy and it was enough to give you pause. It wasn’t an unusual color to be seen around the office, but the jumpsuit quality of it took you to your feet.

Moving out of your cubicle, this curiosity was not lost on others as you met eyes with those doing a similar scan. Their wide eyed stares meant they knew little more than you did. You were about to return to your desk when the distinct sound of marching echoed from the entrance. Imaging an entourage, you moved back and watched in horror as procession of executives along with a swath of NYPD filed by. Mesmerized, you waited until they turned the corner to follow. Your fellow peeping Toms did the same and together you wound around the office until you glimpsed the group struggle at the boss’s office. You knew in an instant by the look on one of the executive’s faces; it was locked. They’d presumably call maintenance next. You watched as they hailed an employee in an attempt to get a phone and you were struck by how the secretary wasn’t present. The associates around you murmured and another thought hit you.

Your boss wasn’t here.

As far back as you could remember the man was staunchly in office for what seemed like hours before the prescribed time. If he were out sick or on holiday, there’d be an office email sent out with what seemed like days in advance. He was the ghost that haunted this floor and yet his office was still shut from the night before. Following the thought, you split away from the gawkers and headed back to your cubicle with purpose. Not bothering with your seat, you started up your computer and waited with a tapping toe for it to load. Once active, you opened your email to find nothing out of the ordinary. It all felt wrong. Finally rolling your chair over, you sat and debated.

At a loss, you frowned at the time. Your last lifeline would be your gossipy coworker, but he wouldn’t be in for at least another few minutes. As much as he liked to be in the know, he also detested work and would clock in with only seconds to spare. He’d been reprimanded about it on more than one occasion. You would have lingered on it longer when a maintenance worker rushed by with a set of keys announcing his passing. You debated going after them when your gossipy coworker then shot by. Shaking a head at his presumably rush to catch himself up on what was going on, you moved to open up your necessary applications. You’d let him do the leg work and reap the informational benefits later.

Clocking in right on time, you got approximately 10 minutes of work done when the first email came in. It vaguely addressed the police in the building and not to disturb their work. It also noted a mandatory meeting on one of the conference floors in the next half hour. Scrolling through the sparse information, you stared blankly as you reached the end of the email. It was sent from the CEO herself. Not sure what to make of it, you stayed put out of the severity of it all. Your coworkers seemed be caught in a similar net because the only persons to pass your cubicle after that were a few of the same policemen from earlier and the executives. You treaded water until the five minute mark before the meeting ticked onto your computer’s clock. You were on your feet in an instant and fell into a commingling of your associates. You all took turns riding the elevator in groups and headed to the designated floor.

As soon as the door’s opened, you saw the back of a blue uniform. The officer turned and directed you to one of the conference rooms. The herd moved along and it felt like a dozen more badges lined the way. Through a threshold, employees fanned out and two executives were discussing something with stern expressions at the front of the room. You opted for a corner near the sprawling windows and your gossipy coworker saddled up beside you in a matter of moments.

“Whatcya got?” You wondered to him out of the side of your mouth.-

The man did not mirror your stoicism and turned to you with a fervent eye. “Outside, there was-”

A clearing of a throat stopped the sentence flat.

An older female employee with caked on make-up was glaring through her oversized glasses. “Don’t speak ill.”

She sounded like she was heralding an omen.

Unusual for him, your gossipy coworker curled into himself and you wavered beside him in dismay. Dread bottomed out like lead in your stomach as between the stream of your coworkers came the CEO. She stood pressed in an expertly tailored suit and joined the executives at the board. Few words were exchanged and she instead took her time watching the group until only a few stragglers entered. Satisfied with the gathering and only starting a mere five minutes late, she then took a single step forward. The room instantly fell hush around her.

“What I’m about to tell you will be difficult to process.” Her eyes flicked down and then she held her head high. “I know some of you might already be aware and the subject matter is delicate, so I will be direct: Wendell Creighton was found dead at 4:37 this morning…”

Her mouth continued to move and you tried to will the words to come to your ears, but the deafening sound of the overhead lights seemed to drown her out. There were details; crucial details about what had happened and what would happen next that you needed to hear. Your gaze drifted downward and even the fluorescence stopped reaching you. You could hear his scolding voice. You hadn’t even turned to look at him.

Your boss was dead.

All of a sudden sound rushed back to you in a startling way. The CEO had stepped back and a detective had taken point in front of the room. You caught the tail end of him saying the words foul play and you could feel the way your skin paled. Glad you had chosen a corner, you tucked yourself against the wall. There was talk about individual interviews and all work being otherwise cancelled for the day. You were all required to stay on premises until dismissed and there were murmurs of questions. They were held and formalities of discovery were discussed. Your head shot up as you remembered what your gossipy coworker had said. Your lips moved and a hand came up to cover them as bile burned your throat.

The tarps outside were a precautionary coverage for the public.

It wasn’t that you were sick at the thought. The man had been a menace for so many years, but it didn’t erase the fact that the majority of your waking hours spent in his presence. That was how it was with all your coworkers. That was the nature of work. It was where he’d been found. He hadn’t even made it off property. His word’s about the steps echoed harshly in your mind. If you weren’t already anchored to the plaster you might have slid to the floor. There was a very real possibility that you were the last to speak to him. You’d gotten away safe in a taxi and then something had happened to him. It didn’t seem fair.

Your gossipy coworker touched your arm and you brought your hazy gaze up to him.

“We’re heading back…” Though you didn’t have the processing power to do a full analysis, he had the telltale signs of pallor to his skin.

You nodded and finally caught a glimpse of how your associates were filing out. You were haunted by the idea of a funeral process and a leading line to a casket. None of it seemed real as groups were reformed to return to your floor. It was now a level that no longer held its guiding spirit. Malevolent or not, he wouldn’t be there to slam his blinds. His scratched raw voice wouldn’t bark at unsuspecting victims. You could feel it within each and every person around you: no one wanted it to go down like this.

Back in your cubicle, you had several emails that you glazed through listlessly. One laid out a schedule for the day while another surmised a police report. You left a few of them unread and moved to open an internet window. You searched your boss’s name, but only dotted articles on his past achievements within the company appeared. The fact that there was no news report on it considering the number of police seemed odd. It almost read cover-up, but that seemed outlandish. With dry eyes, you tabbed back to your email. There were notes about catered lunch and therapy services that would be set up for those who required it. Each digital letter seemed devoid of emotion.

When you looked away from your computer, you found your jaw wound tight. When you relaxed it your cheeks ached and you went for your phone. You had a silly text from a friend that you didn’t bother to open and an unread message for Donatello. He laid out several lunch options and questioned what you preferred. Staring listlessly at it, you let your eyes move up to last night’s conversation. He’d ask you to confirm when you’d gotten home and then returned the same message in kind.

You had to say something.

You: Something happened at work

Unable to elaborate you sent the message and watched as a read receipt checked it off.

You stared into your device. The blue light bit back and your thumb kept it awake. An eternity crawled by before you were able to swipe the digit again.

You typed out about a dozen versions of the same message before shortening it down to its basal parts and sending it off.

You: Catered lunch

The response dots bubbled for a bit.

Donatello: I understand. Shall we reschedule?

A detached part of your brain said there was warmth in his pronoun choice, but you couldn’t make sense of the thought. You weren’t sure what you even wanted at this point. You still felt sick whenever you imagined what must have been a rust red blotch beneath those tarps. Beside that you felt near nothing at all. Another devoid thought wondered if you should be sad. That didn’t feel right either. You wanted to analyze it, but your fingers were moving.

When had they started that?

You: I know it’s too early, but can I be selfish? I don’t know what I’m feeling or what I’m doing and it will absolutely not make a good impression, but… I don’t know. Do I want to see you? I feel like I should go somewhere. I can’t, to be clear, but when I can, if I could just sit on a bench and just be. I don’t want to talk. I don’t know what I want. I just don’t want to be stuck in this shitty ass cubicle.

That was definitely the sort of message you should erase. It made little sense and you hadn’t given your statement yet. A cold sensation bit at the veins in your arm. It brought with it a bitter snap and you hit send on the wall of nonsense. Slouching down into your office chair, you watched as Donatello’s response sputtered as he presumably tried to parse out meaning where there wasn’t any. That devoid part of you said it shouldn’t, but you felt the littlest spark of fondness at it. He continued to struggle for a lengthy amount of time.

Donatello: Whatever the case may be must be severe. I’ll be available when you are.

The flicker ignited and you tucked the phone into your chest.

It wasn’t him exactly, but the acknowledgement by an outsider that this was as bad as it seemed pierced your frozen exterior. Your senses funneled back to you and you felt a confusing tug between all the things you didn’t know. Three had been all the missed information in the meeting and you wondered if it would look poorly upon you to ask your interviewer. Exchanging your phone for the mouse, you tabbed up the emailed schedule. Your appointment wasn’t for another hour and that cropped up a bitter scowl.

Regardless, time seemed to pass in a muddled fog as you tried to get your facts in order. You knew where you had been and, for the most part, when, but it felt like you needed to have just about any conversation with your boss at the ready. There were so many of a similar grating caliber that they blended together at a certain point. Peeling them apart had earned you a bright red lower lip from chewed concentration. When the clocked ticked near your appointment time, you headed to yet another floor for your interview.

This one charted up the proverbial ladder which meant everything was more posh down to the carpets. There was not a cubicle in sight and instead an organized run of office doors with secretary desks. You were quickly met by one such person who seemed solemnly aware of the duty she had been tasked. She lead you to a room where you glimpsed an officer give a parting nod to one of your associates. They didn’t meet your eye as you passed. The secretary stopped a few feet shy and you didn’t look back as the officer waved you over. He greeted you coarsely and you were brought into what you now identified as an empty office. Another officer was in there along with a separate worker you had never seen before. After taking an offered seat, you found yourself in an informal set of questioning that seemed to fall in line with cop dramas you had seen.

How well did you know Mr. Creighton?

Would you say Mr. Creighton was well liked?

How did Mr. Creighton seem over the course of the last week?

Not well, no, and irate as usual.

The questions and answers flowed out in an even back and forth. You were candid and the officers didn’t seem to care either way. The person who you know pinned as a stenographer buzzed away and it wasn’t until you heard a little walkie-talkie chatter that you remembered something.

“Where-”

“I’m sorry-”

The officer raised a tired brow.

“I… I didn’t mean to interrupt.” You grit your teeth.

“It’s fine, did you remember something?”

“Um, no. Well yes, but this…” You looked between the officer conducting the interview and the one off to the side. “I think I was in shock this morning during the… briefing?”

Patient silence weighed in.

“I didn’t… Did they… Could you tell me what happened to Mr. Creighton?”

The officer at the table leaned back. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“Of-of course. I meant like… literally… I didn’t hear the… cause of death.”

That same brow rose up higher.

The officer tucked off to the side didn’t move, but spoke. “It wasn’t addressed.”

You looked from one man to the other. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

There seemed to be several words exchanged nonverbally, but you couldn’t pick them up.

The officer in front of you ended it with a heavy sigh and continued. “We’ve gathered that Mr. Creighton held a group of you back yesterday night?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve touched on the… tumultuous nature around this work week, about what time did you leave?”

You could still see your computer clearly. “9:18pm.”

“That’s a long time. How would you say you were then?”

“Exhausted.”

“And your coworkers?”

“We were all zombies.”

“Can you describe what happened after you left?”

You went on to explain the elevator debacle along with the night janitor. The officer paused you around this point to make a whispered note to his partner. When he returned you explained the hold up at the door and then tapered off as Donatello’s appearance echoed in your mind.

A cleared throat shook you from where you’d halted. “You were saying…?”

“I had missed a date and he came to pick me up.”

The officer shared a glance with the stenographer. “Your date? Do you have his name?”

Your lips parted.

The stenographer kept typing even though you had stopped speaking.

You never had gotten his last name.

“It… was our first one, ya know? Date, that is. I don’t actually have it.”

The officer placed one of his hands on the table. “That seems unusual.”

You couldn’t argue that.

“Was it a blind date?” The officer in the corner stepped forward.

“Odd that a blind date would come and pick you up considering you don’t have his name?” The first officer spoke as if he were talking to his partner.

“He knew where you worked.” The other man nodded.

This was a ploy.

You resisted the urge to look between them.

It was undeniable the facts were suspicious. You couldn’t rightly tell the officers that Donatello had hacked your phone. You’d mentioned contacting the police about it last night, but even then you weren’t sure you’d have ever made good on that action. Donatello hardly knew your boss; he had no motive, especially considering every single person in this office had far more fodder.

That fearful moment of unadulterated fury flashed before your eyes.

Your heart rate spiked.

“We met at a café close by. I can give you the name. He wasn’t a blind date, but we only met for lunch a few times. We were going to feel each other out for a real date, but… that wasn’t in the cards.”

The officers both leaned in.

“He came by to see why I had stood him up. We talked it out and were about to leave when Mr. Creighton shooed us away for being on company property. He got me a cab and we went home.”

It was truth, half truths in some places, but otherwise there was no reason why this type of statement shouldn’t pass a polygraph.

You certainly weren’t strapped down.

“You went home together?”

Under the table you fisted the material of your slacks. “We took the same cab.”

You could see the proverbial needle skew wildly.

What were you doing?

The officer in the corner seemed annoyed. “I think my partner just wants to clarify. Are you saying that you took a man home that you didn’t even know the name of?”

Any shakiness to your resolve smelted into iron.

“Actually…” You mimicked the cop’s degrading tone. “He made sure I got home and then took the cab the rest of the way himself, paying the fare, but either way, whoever I choose to bring home in whatever way I chose to do it is my own goddamn business.”Though you knew it would look poorly, you punctured the statement with a shiny white smile.

Both officers adjusted themselves, clearly unsettled.

“I’m not going to indulge that line of questioning any longer. I’ll tell you what I heard Mr. Creighton say before we left, but after that, neither of us saw him and that’s all I know.” You went on to recite the lines as best you could and the officers took a moment to communicate with each other. It ended with the officer who had spoken bitterly leaving the room. It was only when the door had fully shut that the other man spoke.

“I apologize, that was out of line. We aren’t looking for suspects. We’re supposed to just be getting statements and if we needed to do any further interrogations, we’d contact whoever was necessary after the fact.”

You just watched the officer quietly.

You knew enough that that wasn’t how these things actually went.

“It’s just based on what you’re describing, you were the last person to speak to Mr. Creighton.”

So it was true. “I didn’t speak to him. Neither of us did. We just left.”

“Right…”

You weren’t sure why it was at that exact moment, but you felt emboldened. “If you’re making a suspect list than doesn’t that mean you think there was foul play.”

You remembered hearing something like that from the morning’s briefing.

The officer startled and then shook his head.

If this was some kind of good cop, bad cop scenario, then this man was playing at a near lethal level. As he scrubbed a hand down his face, it really seemed like he was done with his partner. “Look, I know what Mullins said, but you’re the seventh person we’ve interviewed so far…”

You channeled your inner Donatello and tried to caste a face of steel neutrality.

The officer gave the stenographer a look and she stopped taking notes.

“This man… was not liked. He did not seem happy. He was in a ton of hot water with his bosses. He also…” He looked you over and then shook his head as if the whole thing didn’t matter. “We have it on good authority that he took the keys from the night janitor and sent him home early. Meaning he had access to the roof. Meaning he-”

The way your eyes shot wide said it all.

You couldn’t reign them in. The shock ran through you and you pictured the stain under the tarp growing larger and larger. Your clenched fists seemed to appear only when they were biting into your ribs. Looking down at them with the same sterile gaze, you swallowed on dry a tongue.

A hand was on your shoulder and you flinched back to find the officer on your side of the table.

You watched his lips move before yours chased after the seemingly silent sound. “I’m sorry?”

He gave a sympathetic look. “I asked if you were ok. I may have overshared…”

You shook your head even though you agreed.

The shred of you brain that though this was a larger con was rapidly shrinking.

“Just thinking of him…” You hadn’t meant to hitch. It wasn’t like there were tears in your eyes, but your throat felt like the Sahara. “…jumping.”

The officer gave a nod and patted your shoulder from where his hand still lie.

That bench was looking better and better.

“I think we got enough.” He looked away from you and you assumed it was to the stenographer who typed out a few things. “You can go and if we need anything else, we’ll contact you.”

You gave a hollow nod and that hand only left your person when you’d gotten to your feet. It made your shoulder feel heavy. You wanted to rub it away, but instead you gave the officer what felt like a tired look. “Is that…? The email said…?”

“Home. You can go home.” The officer nodded and went to open the door for you.

You thought about mumbling a ‘thank you,’ but you weren’t sure if it actually manifested. You caught the gaze of the other cop that seemed to glare at you openly. Instead of returning it, you simply turned away and headed straight of the elevator. It was a grueling process to head back to your floor before returning right back to the steel boxes to leave. Clutching your bag tight, the ride down felt all too fast. You nearly jumped when the elevator hit the bottom floor and had the intention to leave as quickly as possible. Instead, the clear façade of the building stretched out ahead of you and you could see those damned blue tarps. Wincing, you shoved your hand into your bag to get your phone. By the time you hit the door, you had it up to your ear and used the motion to turn away from the offensive sight as you walked. It rang exactly three times before it was picked up.

“You’ve reached Donatello.”

“I’m out. I’m out. Where-?” You nearly tripped going down the steps that lead to the sidewalk.

“Are you still at work?” Your frantic nature almost made it seem like he was panicked as well.

“I am, but I can’t-” You hated that your throat kept shutting you down. Your eyes still felt dry. Nothing made sense.

You were the last person to see Mr. Creighton.

“Wait a few buildings down. I’m on my way.”

“Thank you.” You moved down the sidewalk and tucked yourself into the first enclave. It was only there that you stopped and the weight of the morning hit you. It took your breath away and you leaned back into concrete for stability. Your phone came along with your hands as you cupped your face to block out the afternoon light. In a slow methodical fashion, you inhaled until your lungs were faulty of bursting and then pushed it out in a similar sense.

There was no shake to the breath.

That seemed like a good sign.

Listening to the in and out of oxygen, you stayed that way until the load shifted from your shoulders. It brought your hands down and your phone lit up at the prospect of being used again. You stared at it for a long moment before the ticking timer there made sense. “Don…?”

“I don’t consider us at a nickname stage.”

“You…” You could almost laugh. “Why didn’t you hang up?”

“It’s more difficult to gauge when a conversation is over on the phone.”

“So you-” You shook your head, the barest smile on your lips. “Ugh, did you listen to me breathing in the receiver?!”

“Imagine my disgust.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Keeping your back to the building’s base, you turned to watch the pedestrians. “If I’m so gross then don’t come.”

“After-” His voice doubled and you spun around to see him walking up. He lowered his device in kind. “I already made the trip?”

You lunged forward and one of your hands came up. Its action pulled your eye from Donatello and you turned it over to look at your palm. What exactly was it searching for? You hadn’t meant to grab him. Looking up from the appendage, you saw Donatello watching you closely.

You probably seemed odd.

You felt odd.

Wracking your brain, you wondered why you had called him first. You had any number of close friends that could have been more suitable to deal with whatever your mental state was. Dropping your gaze to your still upheld hand, you flexed it into a fist before letting it fall.

A hug seemed like the sort of thing people did when something like this happened.

With your eyes still trended downward, you looked over Donatello’s sharp black boots.

The two of you hadn’t even hugged yet.

You frowned.

You’d almost kissed, but you’d barely touched.

Everything felt so mixed up.

“I’d like to offer something.”

Trailing up from his shoes, you found Dontaello’s face its usual picture of dispassion.

“I have…” He hesitated for a moment and you could see his nose wrinkle just a bit. “I believe you might find it amusing that I have been in the area scouting for a suitable bench.”

A single dry chuckle escaped you.

“I can confidently say it’s not something I’ve ever thought about.”

“Yeah…” You felt wistful, but you weren’t sure if that telegraphed. “Me either.”

The quiet almost set in again, but you turned over what he had said. It made your smile grow ever so slightly.

“Did you find one?”

“Yes.” He turned in a motion that said to walk with him and though you still felt strange, the gesture was another first you took the time to indulge in. The two of you walked side by side through the business district and you picked over the little he had shared.

“When you said you’d be available when I was…?”

“I came then and have been walking around since.”

“Are you a hacker?”

Out of your periphery you saw the way his head swooped towards you. Trying to curtail your smile, you kept your eyes forward.

“I’ve said before. I freelance.”

“No, you don’t.” You made your own show of turning to give him a knowing eye.

“Freelancing is a typical structure for programming.”

“Which makes it an easy front for whatever you really do.”

“And what-” He took a commanding step forward and turned his boot on the sidewalk to cut you off. You were ready and looked right into his face when he brought his down close to leer. He ignored the action in favor of finishing his grand gesture, “-pray tell, is what you think?”

“I don’t know, but you did hack my phone.”

He clicked his tongue and did a disappointed sweep with his coat before he continued walking. Still prepared, you kept in step with him.

“If you want to be secretive about it, I guess that’s fine. Is there a cool case or something online of your work?”

He turned away as if he were looking for something. “No hacker worth a damn leaves a trace.”

You bobbed at this curious sentence before his head came back and you flattened yourself into your regular walk cycle.

“What’s your last name?”

“I don’t have one.”

He suddenly turned a corner where you hadn’t realized there was one and you scurried after him. You were now heading down a strange narrow alley. “That’s not possible.”

“Legally it is, though it makes for a bureaucratic nightmare. Imbeciles who don’t take a moment to check their filing plague the system.” The pure malice his words carried made it seem like he was actually telling the truth.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that you’d been forced into a straight line, you might have pushed the subject more. “We’re… still going to a bench?”

“It’s tucked away in this company’s grounds.”

“Then this time I know we’re not allowed here.”

Just above him you saw the sliver of sky growing closer. There seemed to be more clouds than you remembered from the morning, but you also had a very slim view of the world. He broke free from the pinched space first and from where he adjusted himself from the squeeze, he turned back to you. “I’m inclined to agree.”

You felt popped out as you stepped up to him. He moved away and you looked out at the small square plaza. In the center a fountain rose with further platforms inside that made it look like the entombed sculpture was being cradled by streams of water. Along the perimeter was a scant but neatly kept flower bed and routine benches were lined in a way that looked upon the focal point. Scanning, you wondered when lunch had passed as the area seemed devoid of people. It felt like a shame the beauty was going to waste.

“What do you think?”

Your eye lingered on the fountain for a moment longer before you turned to your companion. “It’s… nice.”

You didn’t see a frown, but he did his own review and came back with what felt like a renewed aura. “I have two other options.”

“No.” You headed towards the nearest bench. “It is nice. I just… I don’t know.”

You listened as his boots followed after. You tucked yourself into the far corner of the bench and stared out listlessly at the water. His steps faltered as he drew near and you wondered if he was having trouble deciding how close to you to sit. Unable to help, you set it aside. The city sounds were muffled by the encased buildings and the gentle rush of the fountain didn’t quite echo off the concrete. It made for relative quiet in which you heard Donatello walk up behind you. You thought he might touch you, but after a few moments when nothing came, you settled into the bench.

“My boss is dead.”

The same swaddled sounds continued.

You eventually closed your eyes and focused on the red hues you could see through your lids.

By the time you opened them, the plaza seemed darker.

“I’m not sure what the appropriate response is.”

It must have been work for him to admit a doubt like that.

At least he hadn’t asked for what the right one was.

“Whatever it is, I’m also not having one.”

His steps moved until they were beside you and you tried to will yourself to look away from the water. Unable to, you gave a sigh.

Whatever Donatello was doing, he didn’t speak.

You weren’t sure why, but a little compulsion cropped up on your end. “I don’t like this. I don’t know what I’m feeling, but it’s all wrong.” You pulled your legs up to your body.

“Shock?” His voice sounded small.

That was odd.

“I don’t know, but I even lied to the cops today. Heads up, by the way.”

There was a rustle of fabric that you couldn’t place so you finally turned to him. He had crouched down beside you and was looking on with what you could only scantly label as intense wonder. “Why should I need a warning?”

“They suspected foul play.”

Donatello kept his gaze narrowly on your face.

“He jumped.” Your eye begged for the serenity of the fountain, but you were caught.

His brows knit to the slightest degree. “Which was it?”

“Probably… that last one.” You would have given anything to look away.

He gave the barest nod.

“W-we-” There it was again. You weren’t even sure you were thirsty. “We were the last ones to see him, what if…?”

You were drowning in the depth of those eyes of his.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Why didn’t you sit down?!” The peak your voice hit felt like striking tin.

“I’m giving you space to work out your feelings.”

“Then why-?!” You choked on it. Wincing at the effort, you slipped down with the intention of knocking some sense into yourself with a simple bop from bar on the bench. Instead of clipping metal, you found the resilience of a hand against your forehead. Sliding your face across it until your cheek rested against knuckles, you found Donatello had intercepted. His skin was soft in a moisturized way, but the texture was off from what you’d expected. It wasn’t unpleasant, just new.

You felt his fingers flex slightly as made a lazy grip around the bar.

“I didn’t like him.” You mumbled more to yourself and peered down at your body. “I hated him. He humiliated me. He was endlessly cruel. He made my day to day a damn nightmare.”

Looking back you found that Donatello had leaned in close as if studying a rare insect perched on his hand.

“I’d grown used to it. I wanted out, but it was still what I did… and now it’s just over and he’ll never yell at anyone again and I think that’s…”

His head tilted just a bit to one side.

“I mean, it’s not bad when I say it like that…”

At this proximity you counted the seconds between each of his blinks.

“Everything is going to be different now.”

That was it.

You rose up and Donatello, who seemed especially focused, mirrored your action.

“It’s too many unknowns. I’m not exactly scared so my body doesn’t know what to do. I’m not sad and I guess I feel guilty about that, but more so I just…”

You reached forward and gently grabbed the little of the bar that his hand wasn’t smothering. With his thumb closest to that spot, he extended it just enough to make a connection with you.

“I wanted to know something was stable.” You moved your own thumb until it pressed into his digit. “Real.”

“Why did you call me?” You had enough sense to indentify now that his voice hadn’t been small, but he was adjusting his pitch to put it near a whisper.

It was comforting, in a sense.

“You know I wondered that myself earlier. My roommate would have ditched work and rushed over, going the whole distance or whatever.”

Donatello gave a single nod.

“I think anyone else would have tried to distract me, take my mind of things, or comfort me. I… I didn’t want that.” You looked away and then back. “Or instinctually I knew I didn’t need that.”

He seemed like he was about to say something, but you gave him a tap with your thumb.

“I needed this. I needed you.”

As soon as the words left your mouth, you dropped your gaze to both your hands. It was there you watched a single water droplet land on his. You stared as it slid on the uneven surface and the whole world seemed to go unearthly silent. Something automatic turned your head and you watched the exact moment the sky opened up.

Within the sudden downpour you yelped and watched as Donatello similarly shot to his feet. He reached into his coat and for a moment you thought me might take it off to cover himself, but instead he pulled out what looked like a purple and silver cylinder. Rapidly trying to blink away raindrops, his hands cascaded over it and it rapidly seemed to change. Unable to process what was happening, you brought your hands up to block the accursed rain. When you attention returned to Donatello, a purple umbrella was already doing all the work for you.

Going slack, you looked up to find that only you were benefiting from the cover. “What are you doing!? You’re getting wet!”

“Spiny softshell.” Still holding the umbrella out with one hand, the other dipped into his coat. “Freshwater species and high-aquatic.”

It took you a moment to realize he’d shared his mutation. “You’re also half human and I doubt your clothes are as water-safe!”

He finally unearthed a purple handkerchief and held it out. “I budget for dry cleaning.”

“I would hope so with all your fancy clothes.” You stepped into him while struggling to get the hair glued to your forehead out of the way. It merely flopped back into place, heavy with water.

He gave a disappointed sigh that you could just hear about the rain. You looked up to locate what had offended him, but the hanky squashed into your face at the move. “Hold still.”

“You’re treating me like a kid.” You complained, but made no move to stop him. Your chest clenched as he succeeding in delicately sweeping your hair aside and curving the cloth around to pick up the water that was streaming down your jaw line.

“Could have fooled me.” As soon as the words left him, he brought the handkerchief up and pressed it into your face again with purpose. Your hands darted up instantly and you took the cloth, scrubbing away the errant jitters at his display.

“The umbrella isn’t going to fit down whatever that weird path was.”

“No, it won’t.”

“What’s up with that anyway? Never seen an alley like that. How’d you know to go down it?” With your face a little dryer, you uselessly blotted and wrung out your clothes where you could.

“In order: it is presumably a space neglected by zoning or required by building code. I located the plaza via a bird’s eye view. I then took to the streets to see if there was a viable entrance.”

You gave him a look and watched the humorous sight as rain cascaded down him in droves. He seemed completely nonplused by it. “Bird’s eye, like a satellite view?”

He gave you his patented no-nonsense look.

You rolled your eyes and stepped right into him. You took great care not to touch him, but the move forced him to bring the umbrella in enough to shelter you both. “I guess when we hit the alley we make a run for it and then meet on the other side?”

He nodded approvingly at the plan and you both moved towards where you’d entered. Donatello urged you to go first and he only closed the umbrella once you had taken off. You ran as fast as you could through the narrow space and were surprised to find that as soon as you popped out the other side, the umbrella already seemed to be held studiously over your person again.

“Shall I send you home? It would be best to get you dry.”

Keeping close to him, you peered up at him with a sugared gaze. “Be honest, how uncomfortable are you?”

“I’m always honest and I’ve already answered that.”

“No, you answered how turtley your were. How do you feel?” You pressed your statement by pointing on a finger and jabbing it into the center of his chest. That same hard surface was felt underneath, but the layer of squelching sweater acted as a barrier.

Had you not been staring you might not have noticed the barely perceptive wince he made. “You’re the one who needs to get home.”

“My list of your descriptive negatives are ever pertinent.”

You ignored him and moved to the street. It took a long stretch, which Donatello easily covered with the umbrella, but you were able to wave down a cab. The owner was surely to complain about how wet you both were, but you decided it was their fault for stopping. “Come on!” You called after him as you moved to open the door.

Donatello seemed bitter about holding the umbrella and you took hold of it above where he had the handle.

“I promise I won’t let myself get any wetter, happy?”

“I’d have preferred to avoid the downpour altogether.”

You gave him a lopsided grin and he released the object to get into the cab. You stepped close to join him and could already hear the cabby complaining. Reviewing the odd umbrella, you found no telltale button to make it collapse.

“Run your thumb down from where it is to the base.”

Throwing an incredulous look to your companion, you did as you were told and startled as the umbrella didn’t just close, but began to shift form back into the cylinder. The rain prickled your cheeks until you felt a hand snatch your wrist. A single yelped syllable passed your lips as you were yanked into the cab and the door shut behind you.

“Trying to break your promise?” Donatello mouthed, his voice dangerously close to your ear.

Heat fanned out in your chilled skin.

“No, no! No smooching too!! I will have to get a towel as it is!!” The cabby barked. “Address now or I kick you out!!”

You softened and Donatello seared a heavy look into your eyes before slipping into his side of the backseat. Feeling that as your cue, you gave you address to the driver and the taxi took off.

#rottmnt #rottmnt donnie x reader #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt x reader #donatello hamato #donnie x reader #rise donnie #rise donnie x reader #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie #me #fanfiction #my fanfiction #weakspotfic

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thygoddessouijathicc · 1 year

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Learning About Biology Doesn’t Have to Be Hard

Disclaimer, I’m not saying that this makes you an expert, or is any substitute for school and furthering your education on biology but it is a simple and fun way to learn difficult concepts that feel out of reach.

While school is always helpful for learning science and you learn many great things, for instance just this year I found out finally how organs work (I am unsure if I’m better or worse for knowing how digestion works, I know it’s a natural process but knowing my food is turning to bolus in my mouth feels like cursed knowledge), sometimes the way it’s taught just doesn’t register. There are many different ways of learning topics and it all depends on your learning style, interests, education, and what you like to do.

What works for me may not work for you, and even if it does you still need school if you want a full understanding, this is just a fun way to learn about evolution.

Now with that aside, let me explain what the hell I’m actually talking about.

As a young child I’d always had an extreme interest in zoology, evolution and fantasy, which of course led me to the very interesting niche type of fiction known as speculative zoology/biology.

What that is, for those who don’t know, is when a writer creates biologically feasible creatures using evolution as a framework, some famous examples of this are C.M. Kosemen’s “All Tomorrows”, the game “Subnautica” and Dougal Dixon’s “Man After Man”. Those stories are pretty specifically dedicated to only speculative biology and not so much plot although there usually is one especially in All Tommorows and Subnautica. I’m sure a lot of you reading this will know at least one of those works.

However, while those projects will teach you biology, and lots of it, they’re more about the results than the process, and they’re also not what I’m talking about.

There is a series on YouTube known as “Alien Biospheres” by the creator Biblaridion. While I would say I learned a lot of things from a lot of places, some things from random videos about animals, some from school, some from really liking spore as a little kid because my parents introduced me to it, some from speculative biology projects like the previously mentioned ones, I’d actually attribute most of my biological knowledge to the series.

Alien Biospheres takes you on a journey as the creator creates an ecosystem from the ground up, starting in a collaborative video with another great science creator, Artifexian (who you should also very much watch) with creating the alien planet itself. From that point on, starting with single celled organisms, he creates a world populated with hundreds of creatures that all seem very possible and interesting. As he goes, he explains the concepts and principles guiding evolution, and how each trait could evolve from what is already there.

You’ll learn about atmospheres, body plans, how flying works, the square cube law, and many other important factors to biology, all presented with the framework of building a creative and unique feeling world. For me, this was always the perfect way for it to be displayed in a way that was easily understandable, but not too oversimplified to the point you really aren’t learning anything.

His videos are the reason I can overanalyze and create theories on unexplained details of many creatures, and create my own biologically feasible (although objectively far more fantastical and unrealistic) monsters.

His videos may not work for you how they worked for me, but if you like biology, zoology, evolution, speculative biology/zoology, or fantasy creatures I would recommend at least giving his videos a try.

Again, I must say that they are a starting point and you still need an education on the topic if you want to be an expert.

However you should go out there and give it a try, Alien Biospheres helped shape my understanding of the world and it might help you too.

#Alien Bispheres #Speculative Biology #biology #zoology #speculative zoology #evolution #I just think it’s neat #(:

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witchofthesouls · 1 year

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So, I’m not sure if you’re taking emergency requests or not but I could really use something. I’m not sure if you know but parts of northeast Florida are basically underwater.

I’m visiting from college and I’ve been trapped at the Fort Lauderdale airport for a day and a half, soon to be two. My parents are trapped in their home (they live in an apartment but their garage is completely flooded) and can’t get to me, so I have to hold until the water levels here and there go down enough for me to get home.

I’m tried, cold, haven’t showered in almost two days, sleeping in shifts between rock hard seats and the floor to charge my phone and avoiding downstairs like the plague because that’s also flooded, I’m stuck with other people, my period tracker says in due to start any day now, and I want my moms home cooked meal. I have the feeling I’m gonna bawl my eyes out the second I’m out of this god forsaken airport.

Could you do a headcanon on how TFP Optimus, Megatron, and Ratchet would react to their human daughter being trapped in an airport for two days due to horrible weather and finally seeing her when it’s clear?

(Oh wow, anon, I didn't know about the storms flooding Florida. I had to look up news for it. And yikes, it still isn't over yet. That's a severely rough time, especially at a stopping point. Here we go with a different style: )

Optimus would immediately be in the vicinity when the weather subsides enough for him to safely transport you. Nature on Earth, he finds, is beautiful, but also devastating, especially on small beings without innate protection. Before you see his alt-mode, it's worn-looking, yet relieved "Leo Cullen" that greets your eyes. He takes extra care with his holomatter, so when he hugs you for a long moment, it's warm and solid. You feel the leather and flannel, the scratch of his facial hair, and roughened fingers. There's the underlying smell of sun and storm, and it feels like home.

The sleeper cab would be ready because, between the size of his alt-mode and root-mode, it's easy to transport a mattress in his subspace. Freshly laundered with your favorite road-trip snacks. The road back is long with pit and truck stops to stretch your legs, eat meals, showers, and look at the scenery, but that's because these trips are the only time between you and him and no one else, barring an emergency.

There's nostalgia over the radio, cassettes, and CDs. Podcasts of shared interests and audial books he listens on his spare time. He sings a little off-key to get you to smile and "Leo" smiles right back. He names the constellations visible in the sky and talks about the ones back on Cybertron; his voice lulling you to sleep as he steps through the mythology of Thirteen and their legendary battle against Unicron in the sky.

The one that fusses the most is Ratchet. His time at the base is a mix of complaints on such a chaotic nightmare of a planet and hyperfocus on things that need his attention. Otherwise, he'll drive himself up the walls with the continuous onslaught of new reports and in-and-out communication from you. (He wonders if he can simply take over your post-secondary education. Ratchet has mentored factory fresh new-builds, and he can learn his lesson from the science projects to take account of the planet's educational framework.)

You're stressed, so it makes him stressed because all he wants to do is bundle you up, keep you tucked away on his shoulder, and yell at everything that got you to that point. He can't fight the weather, so your 'old man' of a father picks you up with faded red hair and a severe frown as he impatiently waits. "Haiden Ratcliffe" looks like he just got off a double shift in his scrubs, and it looks to you that he hasn't been sleeping well with the presence of bags under his eyes on his holomatter. But now you two are a father-daughter match in exhaustion.

Despite his appearance, he's powerful and the force of his hug takes your breath away and skews his glasses as he lifts you up. He's tutting and grumbling in his usual, grumpy way as he gets you inside his alt, so he can run passive scans and get you more comfortable because he has everything on hand. "Haiden" doesn't make frequent appearances, unless it's necessary (and the PTA and school board would like to keep it as minimum as possible), so it's a nice moment to rest on his shoulder and he runs warm as large hands run through your hair.

On the opposite spectrum, for a mech known for his eloquence, Megatron has the hardest time providing soft comfort. He intimately knows bitter ones, harsh ones, wrathful ones, and heavy-handed ones. Cordiality is one thing, but gentleness is a beast that's foreign to him. It's not even a luxury he reserves for himself.

He gnashed his denta, bleeding them, opening a few scars on his face, and his fists clenched until the muscle-cabling and joints strained as he monitored atmospheric reports and potential damage. It isn't an enemy he can turn his fists and fusion cannon on, his rage cannot cow a storm or defeat tornados. Strength is what he knows and what he has, and he loathes how it fails him in this instance, even as he demolishes the training forces and simulations.

Nor can he hide easily. Even if he takes on a more appropriate Earth alt-mode, there's no way he can simply fly his way through the airport, especially if he wants to keep your presence beneath everyone's sensors. (Even if he stares at the blueprints of the infrastructure to casually find spots that could reasonably cover a ground bridge to get you immediately back on the warship. It's child's play for Soundwave to down the security systems and continuous storms could mask the power output, right?) He sends Breakdown to get you for the mech's thick armature and his ease with softer manners.

Megatron's care is more subtle, in some ways distant, because he struggles on presenting a kinder face. Your alarms are shut off as you're excused from practices. The showers are well-stocked with quality spa accessories and treatments. He says nothing when your pet drone slinks its way into bed and curls around you.

Food is a language he can understand and compromise on. Fuel was important, something close to sacred, to those deep in the mines and shackled in the Pits. Compared to what he's used to, the cuisine on Earth is nauseatingly overwhelming: diets and lifestyles and so many little, yet important factors that contribute to your health and wellness. What is edible and non-edible is not a hard line; it's a shore where it depends on the preparation and methods and cultivation. It's nothing at all like harvesting Energon crystals. And he vaguely wonders how humanity hasn't killed itself in its infancy between intentional poisonings of rotted or fermented food and accidental death by a simple mistake when foraging.

You can't drink directly from his lines, so he takes it upon himself to provide in another way and he tackles the culinary arts as a challenge to overcome. And, to him, it's a satisfying one.

Megatron cooks meals and balances your nutrition. Styles of all kinds and the world in his grasp. When you return, he makes your favorites, the things that comfort you the most as you and he sit down to fuel together. Your expression is all he needs to be pleased as he savors the warm purr of satisfied sire-coding.

#ask #transformers #transformers prime #tfp #optimus prime #optimus #ratchet #megatron #reader insert #parental relationship #domestic #maccadam #my writing #cybertronian culture #love language #implied violence #damn get ready for Iron Chef Megatron #anon i hope this gives a little comfort and your airport shelter stay is over soon

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izicodes · 5 months

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Hi Izzy,

I think your stuff looks great and it's inspiring to me. I was wondering how to be patient enough to learn web development. I can code fine but everyone has different opinions about what tools and languages to use and it's overwhelming and not always explained clearly (I assume because they are explaining things in a way that web developers are already familiar with). What's your approach to learning and choosing tools?

Hiya 🖤

"everyone has different opinions about what tools and languages to use and it's overwhelming and not always explained clearly"

The only way you'll be able to understand the terminology they use in their posts is researching yourself. The only way I got understand the tools I use today for my programming workflow is:

looking on YouTube / reading blog articles for initial opinion - like why and how useful is this tool

Then I go and try the tool out myself

Then I make my final opinion on it and if I will continue to use the tool

Take it one step at a time, trying out each tool and understanding its purpose and advantages. Don't feel pressured to learn everything at once. Instead, choose tools that align with your project requirements and personal preferences.

What's the right tool? You can look online and see what the majority of developers are using but in the end, it's up to you. What you're most comfortable with! I using a bunch of random tools but they all work for me and I'm happy. I'm not going to let Nate on Twitter tell me otherwise because he doesn't like the tool. And that goes for anything such as programming language / framework choices.

When I look back, I never really felt complete pressure to not learn something. A couple months ago, I was learn jQuery and someone commented that no one uses jQuery anymore (even though lots of websites still do) and that I should stop wasting my time on it. What did I do? Continue learning because I wanted to.

Hope this helps! 🙋🏾‍♀️👍🏾🖤

#my asks #codeblr #coding #progblr #programming #studying #studyblr #learn to code #comp sci #tech #programmer

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whatwooshkai · 5 months

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do you have any advice for a novice fic writer?

this is kind of a long one...

there's a piece of drawing advice that goes, "to get better at drawing get completely obsessed with something so you're forced to learn the rules to draw" or something. my philosophy is pretty similar, especially when I'm stuck on an idea- "I can do that better". almost all my ideas stem from something I watched/read/saw that I loved the concept and spun it into my own take

take for example my mummy rewrite- people tend to pick up on bad writing pretty easily, even if they enjoy something, so rewriting a story or making an au with another fandom and adding in all the things you felt were missing (like I did) is a great way to practice, and start looking at yours and others writing with a more constructively critical eye, if that makes sense. but it also gives you a framework and a good idea of the plot, which makes it easier to finish a big project.

have a plan too!! I always write a treatment for my fics, and then about halfway or a third of the way through I fully plan out chapters and finalize the plot, but keep it basic because I tend to come up with things as I'm writing, but you might not be the same way- still, you need a plan, because then the plot will start to meander.

get a second opinion! starting out I had people beta everything, but nowadays I kind of get impatient to post... I should take my own advice. but especially if you're starting out, it's good to get constructive criticism

read your stuff out loud as you write! that helps me imagine characters voices and better plan out jokes especially, get down the tone of dialogue as a read, and make sure the flow of description is good.

and a nitpick- learn proper formatting in terms of dialogue. not required or anything but it drives me up the wall and it's definitely good to learn

happy writing!! I'm always open to recs, so if you want to share with me your writing I'll read it!

#except smut #sorry guys I respect you like crazy it's just not for me #writing #fic writing #writing advice #writing tips #my attempt #hope this helps!!

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angelasscribbles · 1 year

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This or That Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @jerzwriter

Historical or futuristic?

- Historical fiction was one of my first (reading) loves!! But I do love sci-fi, so futuristic is also awesome! Can I choose both?

Opening or Closing Chapter?

- As a writer? Closing. I love the feeling or wrapping a series up! As a reader? Opening! I'm sad when I have to leave a book world.

Light and Fluffy or Dark and Gritty?

- You know what? I'm gong to steal Elsa's answer because I couldn't have said it better:

Dark and Gritty, I love light and fluffy, too, but I really like things that delve into human emotion. Stories that show people triumphing over trauma and hurt, learning, losing, growing - that doesn't happen in fluff.

I'm just going to add that, for me, happily ever after is better when the angst and darkness came first. Obstacles were overcome and/or they had to fight to be together, etc. makes the ending better.

Animal Companion or Found Family?

- Found family.

Horror or Romance?

- Again, I don't want to choose. I used to be a huge horror fan and have really only come around to romance when I started writing in here.

Hard Magic or Soft Magic?

- Hard, no question. I like things to make sense, even in fiction and especially when I'm being asked to suspend disbelief. Make it make sense within the framework of the fictional world.

One project at a time or Juggling 2 or more?

- So...I currently have 11 ongoing series, a round-robin I'm running, and a writer's group I'm about to launch. That's not counting any of the one-shots I'm currently working on or the trr visuals blog I recently launched. So I guess that answers the question. Although to be fair, it's just about too much. I strongly need to finish several of them and get back to something more reasonable.

One award winner or One bestseller?

- I guess out of those two choices, bestseller. But here I again agree with Elsa's answer about the best thing being when someone tells me that my writing helped them through a tough time. I've had a couple of different readers tell me something similar and it is the best feeling in the world to know that I helped someone like that in any kind of small way!

Fantasy or Sci-fi?

- BOTH and I refuse to choose!

First Draft or Final Draft?

- So....this is difficult. They both give dopamine hits in different ways.

Love triangle in everything or No romantic arcs?

- Love triangle Always!

Constant sandstorm or rainstorm?

- Rainstorm. In the words of Eddie Rabbitt, I love a rainy night!

Tagging the following people and pretty much anyone else who wants to play!! @karahalloway @harleybeaumont @alj4890 @aussiegurl1234 @nestledonthaveone @bebepac @dcbbw @walkerdrakewalker @tessa-liam @kristinamae093 @kingliam2019 @twinkleallnight @twinkle-320 @peonierose @lovingchoices14 @secretaryunpaid @queen-arabella-of-cordonia @indiacater @tinkie1973 @queenmiarys @amandablink @differenttyphoonwerewolf @bascmve01 @aallotarenunelma @inlocusmads @hannahsrambles2 @little-mouse-gardens @brieflyinfatuated

#tag game #angelasscribbles #answers #trr #choices

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sophia-codes · 6 months

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100 days of code - days 24-25

Hi! Long time no see!

Monday - Nov 13, 2023

My main goal for this day was to close a project I was procrastinating to do. And I finally did, maybe I'll write a post only about it (if I'm not too lazy) to review, since I stopped it in the middle to do other things. It is a project where I had to use docker and up a WordPress website, with nginx and a database. It was boring, I think I don't like devops that much. But the knowledge was worth it, I had to make a lot of scripts to configure the containers and the overall docker knowledge is useful.

In web dev I studied about CSS positioning (fixed, absolute, static, relative, sticky). And about custom properties that are like variables in CSS. So you can reuse some values in many places.

Tuesday - Nov 14, 2023

I read about browser compatibility, and what I can make to avoid problems.

Also learned a little about CSS frameworks that was something I always listen but not really know what it was. My understanding is that frameworks are basically libraries with some useful, ready code for you to use in your own projects. So you don't need to reinvent the wheel.

That's it.

Well, I was missing for, idk, 4 days; I was feeling a little down, and I wasn't really inspired to write here. Idk maybe I'm charging myself too much, for writing long posts, and It makes me procrastinate on writing. So, I'll stop charging myself this way, if I write a small post it's Ok if I write larger posts It's also Ok. I just want to have the commitment with myself for studying and writing every day and turn It into a solid habit.

youtube

#day 24 #day 25 #100 days of code #100daysofcode #codeblr #programming #progblr #studyblr #computer science #1000 hours #code #100 days of productivity #100 days of studying #software development #100 days challenge #tech #javascript #html css #coding

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elendsessor · 22 hours

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hey update on the nocturne no fusion run: it’s gonna be on hiatus.

ik this is sudden especially since it’s lucifer time but i got insanely burnt out. the last few weeks haven’t been great (seasonal depression especially sucks ass) and though i’m finally climbing out of that slump, whenever something like this happens, i need to take a step back from whatever i’ve been playing so it doesn’t cause some sort of relapse. this goes for a couple other games i’ve been working on and have live-blogged about. this doesn’t mean i’m abandoning anything!!! i just likely won’t get around to it until much later.

i still have a lot of grinding and skill resetting to do and tbh it hasn’t helped much because it kinda just. made my brain more mushy than it already is. i’m all over the place in general so sorry.

since i’m not sure when i’ll finally finish what i started, i did want to share some thoughts because i’ve gained a bigger appreciation for nocturne all by running through it again.

first off i forgot how fun team building can be. maybe it’s because without fusion i can’t do much with the demons i can get, but dammit it highlights a problem with a lot of turn based rpgs being the very little breathing room with how you can set up your team.

look, i adore monster collecting games but god there tends to be a definitive “don’t use this unless it’s in a specific way” tier that applies to nearly every one of them. pokemon kinda avoids this problem because of hms/tms and the breeding mechanic but that takes significantly more time and a vast majority of the games are kinda fucking easy. challenging for a kid especially when you get to the stuff like the battle tower, but there’s no incentive to build a good moveset outside of competitive play, and trust me—as an ex-competitive player—it does ruin the non-multiplayer combat in a ton of ways.

but ps2 era onwards megaten somehow gets around this still via mechanics like skill mutation. it’s random and hard to trigger but there’s still freedom, plus the way the games have always encouraged team building and learning how mechanics work is so rewarding. rpgs (action or otherwise) are my bread and butter but so many of them do fail to understand the importance.

nocturne’s combat flavor is so weird. it’s broken. really broken. somehow that’s the fun in it? when people talk about bullcrap smt moments there’s a reason nocturne comes up because it’s designed to be bullcrap. it fits the whole “the vortex world is harsh and unforgiving” angle.

the story structure is something i appreciate a lot more despite how flawed it is. talked about it a ton in a previous post analyzing how it handles characters like chiaki.

there’s so many fun and unique shots and angles and general framework that tbh isn’t something any other megaten has captured since, assuming they try. for all the ones that do post-nocturne, dds is the one that got the most cinematic but it doesn’t play with colors nearly as much. i love the raidou games (especially 2) but 2 got rid of most of the cgs and you could tell both games had much less of a budget than other atlus projects during that era. 4 and 4a have beautiful art and do fun camera movements but the hardware limitations make it so there wasn’t a ton of actual proper cutscenes. 5 is also beautiful and is aesthetic af but camera angles aren’t played with during conversation scenes.

the actual general issue is that talking stuff. nocturne doesn’t have a lot of strictly talking scenes, and the ones that are there are so spread out that you kinda forget they’re there. plus, some of it comes from pov shots like when talking with hijiri which does help with perspective. not many games period actually take the time to play around like that, making a lot of scene set ups feel samey. megaten is no exception especially in the ds/3ds era, and it kinda got abandoned tbh. the portraits and art are good yeah but they can only carry scenes so far.

also gained a bit of appreciation for tde. no it’s not the best written ending—the “bad”/demon ending and freedom ending are definitely the winners here mainly due to thematic importance. yes, it’s really shitty that going for other routes gives you half the content. you can do the amala labyrinth and then back out after beating metatron (as long as you don’t get to the bottom afterwards you can go for any of the other endings), but that’s still tde adjacent. however… i love how morally ambiguous tde is.

it is promising in several aspects but the consequences of said actions are huge. there’s still manikins in the vortex world, an entire society being built from what remains of tokyo even after the whole fight for the right to creation stuff happens, but siding with luci means destroying everything they’ve worked towards. the demifiend can liberate his and other universes from the cycle of death and rebirth, but that’s only if yhvh is defeated and, by extension, the great will. the great will has appeared before in megaten and isn’t actually a being, more a concept, only able to be fought in a comprehensible state. it’s literally existence itself. who knows what’ll happen if someone kills off existence?

gonna be completely honest, this is probably my new favorite mainline game. there’s a lot to it that i keep discovering and loving. (also on like a fandom standpoint i haven’t had a bad experience with the nocturne side yet/haven’t seen much of the toxicity so i’m biased lol). actually fucking slaps. it’s not perfect and some of it is more learning to love than love at first sight, but dammit it’s good.

#shantien rambles #smt nocturne #smt

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synchronousemma · 2 years

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Fin.

Skip to the end for our final set of discussion questions–I’d love to hear from you about your experience with Synchronous Emma! I'd especially love to see comments on WordPress from anyone who's been following along on Tumblr, whether or not you completed the project.

With the advent of November, we find ourselves firmly outside of the set events of the novel and into the speculative future of “perfect happiness” that Austen assigned to her characters. The paradox of this kind of reading becomes apparent–the novel is “over,” and yet infinitely re-beginable.

This project has invited us to consider how we integrate reading into our daily lives, and how this lived reality of time over which a novel “occurs” for us can interact with the realist texture of a novel such as Emma, which also invites us to consider the time over which its action occurs. Commenters on Tumblr and WordPress noted how Synchronous Emma fit into their quotidian schedules as they set aside readings for specific times of day; they also noted temporal coincidence between the seasonal activities of themselves and Emma’s characters (notably, strawberry-picking!). The pace, speeding along in December, February, and July and languishing in the intervening months, made clear the periods of boredom and reflection that preceded each volume’s primary incidents. Some people read with their friends and families, near and far–an eighteenth-century pattern of collective reading diffused across space and across time.

The write-ups I composed for Synchronous Emma included arguments about what the novel (and its various details) “mean.” A “conventional” reading of Emma–one that consolidated soon after the the novel’s publication, when what little critical attention it received assumed that it had the contours of a didactic tale–holds that it is a story about a woman learning the error of her ways; that it advocates disciplining imagination and desire in favor of learning to perceive reality; and that Emma gains said discipline as a function of the marriage plot (whether because of, or in preparation for, her love for Mr. Knightley). This type of reading persists to this day in the arguments of some critics, but it has also been assailed on all sides: some argue that Emma does not learn the error of her ways and is not suitably punished; or that Mr. Knightley is also required to repent of his past behavior; or that the imaginative hijinks displayed in the novel are far more interesting than the dour ending; or that Emma has done nothing really wrong in the first place.

Perhaps more importantly, though, the write-ups (and the divergent types of reading they put into conversation) also invite us to question what it means for a novel to “mean” something. Should we be looking for clues about what Jane Austen must have “meant,” in the text itself or in her life? Should we be trying to figure out how Austen’s contemporaries would have read this or that scenario, this or that word? Should we be focusing on our own emotional or cognitive responses to the text, and perhaps contrasting these responses with what the plot of the novel would seem to argue (“reading against the grain”)? And what can each of these types of reading teach us about how we get “meaning” out of a text? What might we gain from combining some of these frameworks (e.g. to argue, as scholars not infrequently do, that Austen “meant” something that her contemporaries did not pick up on)? Just as Emma, self-consciously concerned with its own calendar, is a good candidate for a calendar-based reading, it is also–in being self-consciously concerned with the reading and interpretation of signs, and how we act in response to these readings and rereadings–a good candidate for the consideration of this type of question.

The production of Synchronous Emma has been a labor of love for me–the frantic pace of posting every day during some weeks, the reflection inspired by slower months, the opportunity to perform close readings of sentences that I had never looked at so deeply before and that had not been closely examined in any of the secondary literature that I could find. The opportunity to engage with and to share literary scholarship during this past year, when my health has prevented me from pursuing scholarship through more traditional venues, is one that I cherish.

I’d love to hear what your experience of Synchronous Emma was like (yes, even if you dropped out partway through)!

Discussion Questions

What has been your past experience with Jane Austen? Are you coming from a personal, fandom, or academic background (or a combination of the three)?

Have you read Emma in the past? If so, how did this reading differ from other readings of Emma you have done in the past? How was it similar?

How did reading Emma “along with” the characters in the novel affect your experience of the novel’s characterization, setting, or plot, if at all? Did this reading “feel” different from other readings of Austen’s novels?

Were you surprised by the timing of any of the occurrences in the novel? Did this reading cause you to notice anything about Emma that you hadn’t noticed before?

Were the seasons where you live in line with, or misaligned from, the cycle of seasons in our synchronous reading of Emma? How did this affect your reading experience?

In what ways (or at what points in the novel) might a synchronous reading work with the reading experience “intended” by Austen? How (or at what points) might it work against it?

How did the scholarship presented in the write-ups affect your interpretation of Emma, if at all?

Did you find the schedule of reading Emma collectively and synchronously easy or difficult to follow? Were details of the book difficult to keep in mind this way?

Can you see a synchronous reading working with any other novel?

Discuss anything else you want to talk about!

#Emma #Jane Austen #Emma Woodhouse #George Knightley #austenedit

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