#Ghost does his best work when he uses his emotions for his philosophy

[ghouljams]

professor ghost on love's bday: she doesnt like to make a big deal of it and he cant wor up the nerve to give her his gift himself, so he leaves it in her office. its a manuscript, a scribbled out on curled pages, unfinished thing that ghost had to write down so the words would stop screaming in his head. all the edits he has to make to his old work since love came into his life.

Not edits, no, a new thesis entirely. If his first book was a meditation on grief, a thesis on the state of belief in misery, an exploration of predeterminism and fate, then this one is a true love letter. It's frankly embarrassing, but he can't stop thinking about it. None of the words are right. His writing is frantic, messy, nothing like the cool explanatory tone of his other books. He has no references to cite. Or- no, he has plenty of references.

He thinks of Aristotle, of his single soul theory(bullshit, Ghost rejects, my love is whole, she's too much to be half of me, and if she were what a terribly presupposition: that we are all divided into Joy and Sorrow like me and my love).

He thinks of Plato's Symposium, of breaking love into three parts(But that's too small, she can't be broken down into parts: eros, philia, agape. She makes him want to be better, she is passion, she is love in all forms, love to the point of inspiration, love to the point of consumption, to change and be changed. How could he break her into smaller pieces when he wants all of her?)

Ovid maintained that romantic love should never be consummated, that in its purest form it should grow beyond its physical needs, becoming transcendental. What does it mean that his skin craves her every touch, that he can't sleep without her dancing through his dreams? How is he supposed to maintain his distance when she presses to him at every opportunity? When he can't find anything but sorrow without the sight of her?

Ghost scribbles on his papers like a madman. He finds notes on receipts, on the backs of paper bags, in the margins of his books. He reads over the notes Love has left him and feels his heart squeeze in such a pleasantly hurtful way.

Behaviorism perhaps. It's all quantifiable, he just needs to find the right numbers. Or maybe aesthetic philosophy would be better? Feelings which cannot be captured through written language.

Yet the scribbling takes over his work. His walls covered in post its and pencil marks, his laptop running like a jet engine as he pours what must be incomprehensible drivel into his word processor. Ghost pushes his fingers under his glasses, feels the press of the bridge into his forehead, begs for his brain to be quiet, for his stomach to stop clenching each time he thinks about Love. He drags his hand down to cover his mouth, breathing as deep as he can manage through his nose. It all feels heavy, impossibly heavy.

None of it is right, none of it feels big enough, encompasses enough to describe the way he feels. None of the philosophers talk about the actual feeling of it. They don't talk about it hurting, don't mention how much he craves the pain of her.

Maybe he's a masochist.

He sends the draft to his editor with an apology.

"2.5 kids and a dog, eh?" Is the only response he gets.

#cod x reader #x reader #simon ghost riley #x oc #cod x oc #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost mw2 #ghost x reader #simon riley #simon riley x oc #mw2 ghost #ghost cod #ghost x oc #oc: love #professor!ghost #professor au #I smell another best seller #Ghost does his best work when he uses his emotions for his philosophy

[themurderofcrowscollective]

Rumor Has It

Breakups. No one likes them, sometimes it's all the boyfriend's fault or it's all the girlfriend's fault. Sometimes it's caused by a bad confrontation, by a few rumors being spread, or betrayal. However there are times where a girl gets sick and tired of being used for pleasure and emotional support, only to leave the next morning with everything she owns. Those types of breakups are freeing. Very freeing. And where does this particular girl end up going? Outside and out there for the whole world to see, taking a good couple years of time to herself. Who is she? Local bartender Rachel Hargreeves, she is a very skilled and trained bartender with an incredible educational background. Perfect A+ student in school, learned all there is to know about bartending and philosophy of everything, and made a reputation for being the best damn bartender there is. (Lil sneak peek of her actual look)

+ + + Her story begins after a very explosive breakup, leaving with her things and going to the bar on an early Saturday morning. Last night she had a very busy Friday night and worked overtime, but her boyfriend didn't like that. She was always there for him and supported his new endeavors but when he started scolding her about not being home on time, Rachel had enough and gained the courage to put him in his place. It was a liberating moment for her but she knew she couldn't stop to relish in it yet until she packed the last box of her personal items into her truck, gave back that prick the spare key, and drove off. Funny enough, the song 'The Dog Days Are Over' began to play as she drove through town to the bar. There's been a few times she's stayed there to sleep during the busy days, but now she has to look for a new place to stay. " Morning Rachel, enjoy your night? " Quickly Rachel turns around and smiles, brightening up this man's day. " Good morning Rupert, you should know, I was busy all night! But I should be honest, I just went through a very explosive breakup with that prick Richard and I could use a gin and tonic this early. Or a tall glass of Smirnoff's. " Rupert chuckles a bit. " I'm glad to see it isn't stopping you though, I never kept a girl worth a damn my whole life and it's never stopped me. " Rachel giggles a bit as the bar begins to fill up around 10:30, a few army-looking men walking in and sitting at the same booth. Luckily Rachel knows these gents, they all work at the military base in town and often frequent here. With a notepad in one hand, Rachel walks over to the four. " Price, gentlemen, nice to see you all today again. " She smiles as Price looks at her with a grin. " Morning Rachel, still on the clock? " While everyone else saw only her smile, Rachel sighs in defeat. " If I'm being honest Price, I haven't had a day off in 4 months and I just got out of a bad relationship, I need a vacation. " Gobsmacked, Soap drops his jaw as he looks at her with a look saying 'are you fucking nuts??' before Rachel looks at him. " Yes, I'm that crazy. " Ghost with his arms crossed tilts his head as he enters the conversation. " Do you have anywhere to stay? " " For permanent stay, nope. I got in touch with Larry about me staying here for a while until I can get back on my feet, and he's letting me stay for as long as I need. I'm not going to abuse that though. " Rachel responds while taking everyone's order for drinks and food, not noticing Ghost standing up and hugging her. Surprised, Rachel gasps before relaxing into the hug, god she's always felt so safe in Ghost's arms... However they're not in a shared bed, and she has work to do so she pulls away and ignores the blush crawling onto her cheeks. " Didn't know you were a softie, sorry, I just... god I needed that. Thanks Ghost. I'll be back with everyone's orders in a few minutes! " And just like that she's off to bus other tables, being grateful for the roller-skates she's wearing for ease of access. In less than 10 minutes, everyone who had things ordered are already drinking and eating but while the group watch Rachel do her magic at the bar, they get to talking. " So gents, Rachel's been a dear to us all for as long as we've been here... I propose we take her on vacation. " Price offers, looking at Ghost. " You've got more than 5 years worth of vacation time, Soap and Gaz too. Any ideas? " " I'm not sayin' no, neither is Soap so uhh... the beach in Venice? " He tilts his head as he watches Rachel have a chat with Larry and also some of the regulars, gliding around and making all sorts of intricate alcoholic drinks. " Maybe we go on a cruise to Venice? Wouldn't hurt, I've been keeping those tickets for a while. " Price also adds on, watching Ghost nod in agreement with the other two getting excited. " I got enough for all of us, not just this group. I'm talking about Horangi, Konig, Roach, Ale and Rudy. And Nik too. "

#spooky fanfiction

[lovenona]

and i repeat: anthropo-ceramics geto suguru is the type of toxic where he'd take your virginity, make a sculpture about the experience, then smash it on the ground as a metaphor

this ask is my entire life. this ask is my lifeblood. everyone please saddle up for the ride of a lifetime, otherwise known as 1500ish words of toxic geto featuring sukuna being a good fucking friend – please continue at ur own risk this absolutely contains geto being a pretentious toxic fucker and mentions of virginity/first time but yes i guarantee it does have a happy ending (link to the full college! cinematic universe here) 

let’s begin with the basics – why wouldn’t you fuck geto suguru? he has the type of beauty that lingers on the back of your eyelids even after you’ve long since departed from him; it’s the kind of fragrant, lasting beauty that you think sculptors muse over when they coax life from their marble. he’s smooth, like still water, and calming, like the sound of birds rustling and leaves swaying at dawn. he is helen: a beauty that nations would go to war over. 

and sure, he is pretentious, the kind of toxic pretentiousness that festers inside of all pretty boys who call themselves “leftists” but can’t be bothered to call their mothers or to care about their partners. but it’s the way he speaks, the way he looks at you with such fervor and attention in his eyes that you’re utterly willing to let him break your heart. 

and maybe it’s not often that someone looks at you the way geto does: it’s not often that someone looks at you like they want you, body and soul. and it feels nice to be cared about, to be flirted with, even if the figure doing the flirting condescends you in a way that is different, harsher, colder, than the way ryomen sukuna does. 

so geto suguru takes you on dates. after the avant-garde poetry reading, in which you feigned excitement as he recited a poem on global imperialism that you didn’t quite vibe with, he brings you to local bookstores with overpriced yuppie memoirs, farmers’ markets with organic fruit, human rights protests and philosophy meetings where greasy boys bitterly discuss the communist manifesto. he takes you to dinner, too, to vegan restaurants that you can’t help but rave about on yelp later and to bars where they serve your cocktails in mason jars. 

geto suguru, for all his faults, is incredibly lighthearted with you; he makes you feel beautiful and desirable and warm, even when he’s explaining anthropology to you with such intense vigor that you lose track of his meaning. after everything, you’d be lying if you said you regretted your time with him.

after awhile you let geto fuck you – and yes, he was your first time, which you were naturally quite nervous about. but you appreciated him because he waited for you; he never pressured you into behaviors you didn’t want; he never asked you for services you weren’t ready to provide. and so when you slept with him, after an invigorating open-mic night at the fair-trade coffee shop near campus, you felt ready for the intimacy. geto made you feel attractive, comfortable, safe. he praised you the whole night, gave you caresses that lit you up like fireworks, provided such a level of god-tier aftercare you still reminisce about it, even now. 

but that’s the thing about anthropology-ceramics major geto suguru: he’s quietly toxic. he’s a poison that sneaks up on you, infecting your bloodstream when you least expect it. 

you weren’t sure if geto wanted to pursue a relationship, either. you’d fucked, sure, and you went on dates, but he was always the type to avoid long-term commitments. rumors float around campus of the many partners he’s ghosted, of the relationships he exploited for his own “artistic musings.” they aren’t loud rumors, to be sure, but they hang around his aura like a strange, ghostly scent. 

geto is a pretentious little fuck. you’ve known it and agreed to enter his circle anyway. maybe you hoped, perhaps naively, that the rumors would simply not apply to you.

which was a stupid idea. three weeks after the experience, since which you have only spent one-on-one time with geto only a few times, mostly to talk about school, the art department hosts an art show. it’s a regular occurrence, where the art students show off their best works, grad students display their in-progress theses, and outsiders can browse the displays, drink wine, offer to give outstanding students jobs and internships. it’s truly a big fucking deal for the art department; many of the school’s the most successful artists received their first acclaim here. 

you’ve always enjoyed attending, even if the level of talent and expertise sometimes intimidates you, even if you know you’ll never be on this level. you know sukuna’s got a few paintings lined up to be on display – paintings you’ve modeled for, drawings you’ve watched him labor over for hours on end. you reckon that for all your begrudging time together, you might as well show your face in support. 

but what you didn’t count on was geto’s contribution.

at this art show, there are, every now and then, some interactive performances, speeches, explanations on certain works. so it happens that from the back of the auditorium you watch geto take the stage, wheeling a small, white sculpture behind him. from your perspective it could have been a flower – perhaps a lily, but you can’t be certain. 

(geto always did like sculpting precious, dainty flowers.)

he doesn’t call you by name, but he doesn’t have to. he talks at great length in that smooth voice of his about the construct of virginity, the purity culture plaguing the globe, the emotional sensitivity of having your first time. geto seguru tells an avid audience what you felt about fucking for the first time. he recreates the entire night for two hundred listeners: he recalls the foreplay, the insecurity, the orgasms. he doesn’t call you by name. he doesn’t have to. 

he may have asked for your consent the first time. but he certainly did not ask your permission to do this. 

you’re not sure if you should laugh or cry when geto dramatically smashes his own sculpture, citing the “destruction of virginity” and  the need “to demolish a social desire to classify one’s morality based upon their sexual activity” and “the symbolic popping of the cherry” among other phrases that are utter bullshit. you’re watching the fragments dance across the stage and you feel exploited. you feel used in a way that feels utterly worse than anything else geto could have done.

did he ever like you? or were you simply a muse for this moment? 

you’re about to ditch the art show and go wallow in self pity at your apartment when a familiar presence slides in beside you.

“that’s kinda fucked,” sukuna says, hands in his jacket pockets. he’s looking at you out of the corner of his eye. his tone tells you he’s joking. maybe he just doesn’t know. “no one gives a shit about virginity constructs anymore, idiot.” 

“yeah,” you respond, but the energy is gone. you feel strange, like you’re hovering outside of yourself. your head hurts: you’re angry. you decide you’d like to cry when you get home. “what a piece of shit.” it comes out strangled and lost. 

sukuna notices the dejection in your voice, the sag in your shoulders, the way you’re just barely able to hold yourself together. he may be arrogant, not ryomen sukuna is not mean.

a familiar arm around your shoulders, keeping your sanity together. “shit’s lame. let’s get the fuck out of here.” it’s a phrase that captures everything that remains unsaid between you: i’m going to beat the shit out of geto the next time i see him. that’s absolutely unbelievable.

you never explicitly told sukuna about your weird relationship with geto: you didn’t have to. it was always evident to the both of you. it was written in the way you’d look a little bit longer in geto’s direction, in the way you let yourself be strung along and become someone else. you’ve hung around sukuna long enough that you know his body language and that he knows yours. you’ve hung around sukuna enough that there are a lifetime of stories that never need to be told. 

you nod. “yeah.” thank you. i know. 

you’re both uncharacteristically silent when you exit the auditorium, when you collect sukuna’s belongings that are still lounging by his artwork as you prepare to leave. ryomen sukuna is famous for never shutting the fuck up. but as you button your coat, he’s silent, and it’s strange. comfortable.

“thank you,” you say with uncharacteristic softness as he throws a sketchbook back into his backpack and zips it shut. 

“why?”

“for asking my permission,” you say, gesturing to the gallery wall behind him, to the painting of you – “eros” – that you had posed for awhile back. even now, you find that it captures an essence you did not know you possessed. “he didn’t. ask, i mean.” 

ryomen sukuna has always craved your attention. and maybe he’s glad he’s got it back – but it feels sour. he doesn’t understand why he’s so fucking upset for you. he doesn’t understand why he wants so badly for you to be happy again. what he does understand is that he plans for retribution. 

“that’s fucked,” he settles on. “what bastard doesn’t ask for consent?”

you smile – and he does too, one that’s less feral and almost kind. and so you fall back into routine, already, some kind of weight lifting from your shoulders. ryomen sukuna may be a menace, but you can rely on him, trust him: that much you know. 

“you know,” sukuna says offhandedly as you exit the building and enter the parking lot. “i know where geto’s car is, i’m just saying. and i’d be lying if i said i didn’t have an extra precision knife in my backpack right now.”  

#IDK YALL #SMTH ABT THIS JUST MAKES ME FERAL #IF U NEED A FOLLOWUP U KNOW WHERE THE ASK BOX IS #sukuna #sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna #geto suguru #geto x reader #geto suguru x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #adele writes #artist!jjk #letters to adele #geto.seguru #ryomen.sukuna

[kaile-hultner]

Nihilism is so easy, which is why we need to kill it

(I initially published this here a couple weeks ago.)

So last night it dawned on me that, after over two years of being relatively symptom-free, my depression snuck back up on me and has taken over. It’s still pretty mild in comparison to other times I’ve been stuck in the hole, but after 24 months (and more) of mostly being good to go, I can tell that it’s here for a hot minute again.

How do I know? Well, it might be the fact that I spent more time sleeping during my recent vacation from work than I did just about anything else, and how it’s suddenly really hard for me to stay awake during work hours. I don’t really have an appetite, and in fact nausea hits me frequently. I don’t really have any emotional reactions to things outside of tears, even when tears aren’t super appropriate to the situation (like watching someone play Outer Wilds for the first time). And I’ve been consuming a lot of apocalyptic media, to which the only response, emotional or otherwise, I can really muster is “dude same.”

For a long time I was huge into absurdist philosophy, because it felt to my depressed brain like just the right balance between straight up denying that things are bad (and thus we should fix them, or at least try to do so) and full-blown nihilism. This gives absurdism a lot of credit; mostly it’s just a loose set of spicy existentialist ideas and shit that sounds good on a sticker, like “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

In the last couple years, while outside of my depressive state, I went back to Camus’ work and found a lot of almost full-on abusive shit in it. Not toward anyone specifically, but shit like “nobody and nothing will care if you’re gone, so live out of spite of them all” rubs me the wrong way in retrospect. The philosophy Camus puts out opens the door for living in a very self-destructive fashion; that in fact the good life is living without care for yourself or anyone/anything else. The way Camus describes and derides suicide especially is grim as fuck, and certainly I would never recommend The Myth of Sisyphus to anyone currently struggling with ideation. That “perfect balance” between denial and nihilism is really not that perfect at all, and in fact skews much more heavily towards the latter.

Neon Genesis Evangelion has been a big albatross around my neck in terms of the media products I’ve consumed in my life that I believe have influenced my depression hardcore. It sits in a similar conversational space to Camus’ work, in that it confronts nihilism and at once rejects and facilitates it. A lot of folks remark that Evangelion is pretty unique – or at least uncommon – in its accurate portrayal of depression, especially for mid-90s anime properties. The thing I notice always seems to be missing in these discussions is that along with that accurate portrayal comes a spot-on – to me, at least – depiction of what depression does to resist being treated. This is a disease that uses a person’s rational faculties to suggest that nobody else could possibly understand their pain, and therefore there’s no use in getting better or moving forward. Shinji Ikari is as self-centered as Hideaki Anno is as I am when it comes to confronting the truth: there are paths out of this hole, but nobody else can take that step out but us, and part of our illness is that refusal to do just that. Depression lies, it provides a cold comfort to the sufferer, that there is no existence other than the one where we are in pain and there is no way out, so pull the blanket up over our head and go back to sleep.

Watching Evangelion for the first time corresponded with the onset of one of the worst depressive spirals I’ve ever been in, and so, much like the time I got a stomach virus at the same time that I ate Arby’s curly fries, I kind of can’t associate Evangelion with anything else. No matter what else it might signify, no matter what other meaning there is to derive from it, for me Eva is the Bad Feeling Anime™. Which is why, naturally, I had to binge all four of the Evangelion theatrical releases upon the release of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time last month.

If Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion are works produced by someone with untreated depression just fucking rawdogging existence, then the Eva movies are works produced by someone who has gone to therapy even just one fucking time. Whether that therapy is working or not is to be determined, but they have taken that step out of the hole and are able to believe that there is a possibility of living a depression-free life. The first 40 minutes or so of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 are perfect cinema to me. The world is destroyed but there is a way to bring it back. Restoration and existence is possible even when the surface of the planet might as well be the surface of the Moon. The only thing about this is, everyone has to be on board to help. Even though WILLE fired one of its special de-corefication devices into the ground to give the residents of Village 3 a chance at survival, the maintenance of this pocket ecosystem is actively their responsibility. There is no room or time for people who won’t actively contribute, won’t actively participate in making a better world from the ashes of the old.

There are a lot of essentialist claims and assumptions made by the film in this first act about how the body interacts with the social – the concept of disability itself just doesn’t seem to have made it into the ring of safety provided by Misato and the Wunder, which seems frankly wild to me, and women are almost singularly portrayed in traditionalist support roles while men are the doers and the fixers and the makers. I think it’s worth raising a skeptical eyebrow at this trad conservative “back to old ways” expression of the post-apocalypse wherever it comes up, just as it’s important to acknowledge where the movie pushes back on these themes, like when Toji (or possibly Kensuke) is telling Shinji that, despite all the hard work everyone is doing like farming and building, the village is far from self-sufficient and will likely always rely on provisions from the Wunder.

As idyllic as the setting is, it’s not the ideal. As Shinji emerges from his catatonia, Kensuke takes him around the village perimeter. It’s quiet, rural Japan as far as the eye can see, but everywhere there are contingencies; rationing means Kensuke can only catch one fish a week, all the entry points where flowing water comes into the radius of the de-corefication devices have to be checked for blockages because the water supply will run out. There is a looming possibility that the de-corefication machines could break or shut down at some point, and nobody knows what will happen when that happens. On the perimeter, lumbering, pilot-less and headless Eva units shuffle around; it is unknown whether they’re horrors endlessly biding their time or simply ghosts looking to reconnect to the ember of humanity on the other side of the wall. Survival is always an open question, and mutual aid is the expectation. Still: the apocalypse happened, and we’re still here. The question Village 3 answers is “what now?” We move on, we adapt.

Evangelion is still a work that does its level best to defy easy interpretation, but the modern version of the franchise has largely abandoned the nihilism that was at its core in the 90s version. It’s not just that Shinji no longer denies the world until the last possible second – it’s that he frequently actively reaches out and is frustrated by other people’s denials. He wants to connect, he wants to be social, but he’s also burdened with the idea that he’s only good to others if he’s useful, and he’s only useful if he pilots the Eva unit. This last movie separates him and what he is worth to others (and himself) from his agency in being an Eva pilot, finally. In doing so, he’s able to reconcile with nearly everyone in his life who he has harmed or who has hurt him, and create a world in which there is no Evangelion. While this ending is much more wishful thinking than one more grounded in the reality of the franchise – one that, say, focuses on the existence and possible flourishing of Village 3 and other settlements like it while keeping one eye on the precarious balancing act they’re all playing – it feels better than the ending of End of Eva, and even than the last two episodes of the original series.

I’m glad the nihilism in Evangelion is gone, for the most part. I’m glad that I didn’t spend roughly eight hours watching the Evamovies only to be met yet again with a message of “everything is pointless, fuck off and die.” Because I’ve been absorbing that sentiment a lot lately, from a lot of different sources, and it really just fuckin sucks to hear over and over again.

It is a truth we can’t easily ignore that the confluence of pandemic, climate change, authoritarian surge and capitalist decay has made shit miserable recently. But the spike in lamentations over the intractability of this mix of shit – the inevitability of our destruction, to put it in simpler terms – really is pissing me off. No one person is going to fix the world, that much is absolutely true, but if everyone just goes limp and decides to “123 not it” the apocalypse then everyone crying about how the world is fucked on Twitter will simply be adding to the opening bars of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

We can’t get in a mech to save the world but then, neither realistically could Shinji Ikari. What we can do looks a lot more like what’s being done in Village 3: people helping each other with limited resources wherever they can.

Last week, Hurricane Ida slammed into the Gulf Coast and churned there for hours – decimating Bayou communities in Louisiana and disrupting the supply chain extensively – before powering down and moving inland. Last night the powerful remnants of that storm tore through the Northeast, causing intense flooding. Areas not typically affected by hurricanes suddenly found themselves in a similar boat – pun not intended – to folks for whom hurricanes are simply a fact of life. There’s a once-in-a-millennium drought and heatwave ripping through the West Coast and hey – who can forget back in February when Oklahoma and Texas experienced -20 degree temperatures for several days in a row? All of this against the backdrop of a deadly and terrifying pandemic and worsening political climate. It’s genuinely scary! But there are things we can do.

First, if you’re in a weather disaster-prone area, get to know your local mutual aid organizations. Some of these groups might be official non-profits; one such group in the Louisiana area, for example, is Common Ground Relief. Check their social media accounts for updates on what to do and who needs help. If you’re not sure if there’s one in your area, check out groups like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief for that same information. Even if you’re not in a place that expects to see the immediate effects of climate change, you should still consider linking up with organizing groups in your area. Tenant unions, homeless organizations, safe injection sites and needle exchanges, immigrant rights groups, environmental activist orgs, reproductive health groups – all could use some help right now, in whatever capacity you might be able to provide it.

In none of these scenarios are we going to be the heroes of the story, and we shouldn’t view this kind of work in that way. But neither should we give into the nihilistic impulse to insist upon doing nothing, insist that inaction is the best course of action, and get back under the blankets for our final sleep. Kill that impulse in your head, and fuck, if you have to, simply just fucking wish for that better world. Then get out of bed and help make it happen.

#Neon Genesis Evangelion #existentialism #philosophy #media criticism #cultural criticism #spoilers

[local-space-case]

Bakugou Katsuki is Not A Loser

Word Count: IDK

Rated: T (mention of abuse, self-loathing, cursing)

AO3 Account: FerociousFerret (out here only posting first drafts on a whim why?)

When Bakugou sees the looming  silhouette of Endeavor at the hospital outside of Todoroki’s room, he thinks he feels a million emotions at once.

Some he’s familiar with like fury, annoyance, and the protective fire he venomously denies exist are the ones off the top his head. But there’s also fear. An emotion he’s embarrassedly familiar with. A deep anxiety clawing it’s way out of his chest while still somehow keeping a tight grip on his lungs. It commands he stay rooted in the middle of the bleach white hallways that even so quiet he thinks they must be louder than he is. He wants to say something. He wants to yell, scream, curse, kick the fucker out the goddamn window, but he can’t.

Until the number piece of human shit takes a step closer to the door.

“OI! You can’t fuckin’ go in there!”

It comes out like the nasty snarl he was hoping for. The pro hero glances at him with a look disdain before reluctantly taking a step away from the door. Bakugou assumes he must not want to cause a scene. Doesn’t stop the stubborn shit from arguing with him though.

“He’s my son, I have a right to visit”. His tone was clipped, formal, placating, like he was delusional enough to think Bakugou was going to lose this fight.

Bakugou Katsuki was not a loser.

“Last time I checked, trash belongs outside not stinking up disinfected air.” He lets his gaze linger on a door across the hall. “Besides, I don’t listen to losers.”

Endeavor seems to puff up like a pissed off cat. God, so that’s where Strawberry Shortcake gets it from.

He looks like he wants to beat Bakugou into the ground and Bakugou lives by the philosophy of ‘If it can crawl, it can brawl.’, so he’s up for anything this fucker has to offer. But he doesn’t, instead he closes his eyes and inhales like he’s having an fucking asthma attack.

“You shouldn’t insult your elders.” Endeavor says after a beat. Bakugou huffs a laugh.

“Or what? You’ll hit me?” It’s an attack and based on the way the hero recoils, he knows it. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows it because it was broadcasted on live television. It was like a car crash, so gruesome but you just can’t tear your eyes away until you see that everyone is okay.

However, like a car crash, it’s abundantly clear that no one in the Todoroki family is okay. But, Bakugou didn’t find out when the crash happened. No, he knew the truth deep down when he saw the unsteady swerves of one of the drivers who had the audacity to essentially give him first place at the Sports Festival.

Bakugou thinks about that moment a lot. Usually at night when he can’t sleep because he feels like someone’s watching him, he wonders what Todoroki saw that snuffed out the fighting spirit he’d paraded around before their round.

He’s young, but he’s not naive. Not anymore. He knows, undoubtably, that during their fight Half ‘n Half didn’t see Bakugou’s drive to win, he saw his father’s flaming fists.

He feels his usual scowl paint itself onto his face, “How does it feel knowing your entire family is afraid of you?” The older man doesn’t say anything, deciding that floor is much more interesting than the conversation Bakugou wants to have. The conversation he needs to have.

“Number One Hero, hah?,” he mocks, “You know, that’s really fuckin’ funny. That’s a hoot ‘n holler. You could be a stand up comic.” he gives a pause waiting for a reaction. He doesn’t get on.

“Too bad they don’t like sacks shit lyin’ around.” A pause. “You didn’t answer my question by the way, so tell me, how does it feel knowing your whole family is afraid of you? That you have no friends because you decided you didn’t need them, you only needed to be on top. Well,” a sharp bitter laugh echos through the hall, “congratulations.”

He stalks up to Endeavor and gets up in his personal bubble. He can see a blue eye trained on his own red ones. With a pointed grin, the blond knows he has the man’s attention now, so he keeps going.

“How does it feel knowing that you lost? And before you open that fuckin’ cavity ridden mouth of yours, you’re gonna listen and you’re gonna listen good.” Endeavor had tried to open his mouth to object because apparently the idea of losing something was getting to him. Bakugou could deal with this.

“How can you call yourself a hero after everything you’ve done? How do you do that? How do you sleep at night knowing that the so-called number one hero can save a civilian but fuckin’ torment his family?”

Endeavor is trying to ignore him. He can tell because his eyes are once again back to the floor. He won’t let him though.

“How does it feel knowing that, after all these years, even though you won, you lost.”

Bakugou is, and has always been competitive. He wants to be the best, he needs to be the best, because only the best people can be heros. He’d always adored All Might growing up, but not the same way Deku did.

When Deku saw All Might, he saw a beacon of hope, a peace bringer, an unstoppable force of nature. He saw a role model. A mountain of a man who was as strong as a tiger, yet gentle like a rabbit. Someone who uses their power for good instead of evil.

When Bakugou saw All Might, he saw a winner. A strong man who beat villains into the ground and obtained more money and praise than anyone else could ever hope for in a lifetime. He didn’t see a man, he saw a king who had kept a tight hold on his crown. He wanted to take it. So, yes he liked All Might for his position of power, but he respected Endeavor.

Endeavor may have been the number two hero, but Bakugou saw himself in him. He saw the fights on tv with the walls of fire, the punches, the yelling, he saw it all. Endeavor was not like All Might, he never backed away from a fight, never bothered to try and find a peaceful resolution, but he always won. He won with fiery fists and scowls and he didn’t smile for the press, he wasn’t fake.

Bakugou thought he felt hate for Deku, but now he knows better. This is hate. This feeling in his heart that’s screaming, hurting, burning.

This is hate.

This is hate because he can see his reflection in this monster draped in human skin.

He sees himself pushing Deku away because he thinks he’s superior, kicking, hitting, burning, screaming, he can see it all. He can see Deku become smaller and smaller and he remembers how happy it made him because Deku knew his place and that meant he won.

He sees Endeavor hitting his wife, screaming til he’s blue in the face at Todoroki, his siblings tear-streaked faces when they realize Touya is never coming home. He sees Todoroki’s determined expression flicker with fear before dropping to the ground like a rag doll. He sees Endeavor’s please smirk turn into a sour scowl because his son didn’t get first, he didn’t win. He sees Todoroki sitting in the main area while all their classmates pack up to go home for the holidays with raised hackles and paranoid glances at the slightest noise. He sees what once was Todoroki Touya on live tv telling the whole world his father’s sins and he wants to make him pay.

He sees the ambition, the anger, the low tolerance for anything that isn’t the best, the need to be the best at everything all the time but, Endeavor didn’t win, did he?

Endeavor became the number one hero because his rival fell, but he did not win. He was a martyr to the public, but a monster to his family. He was the monster under bed, the demons in their heads, the footsteps they should fear, and the man they should not love, but worship.

He took and took and took until his family had nothing left to give. He sleeps at night uncaring that his family don’t have a home they have a graveyard full of phantom memories of the lives they never got to live and the dreams they never got to chase. They get the ghosts in the mirror, a walking corpse for a body, and the perpetual state of mourning the love they’d never receive.

Then again, maybe Endeavor didn’t win or lose, because you can’t win a game you aren’t even playing. The moment he insulted, or raised a hand to his wife or children, he was disqualified.

Bakugou knows he’s no saint, but he’s not a loser. He’s worked hard to get his head outta his ass because he already loss. He lost his best friend and any dream filled nights that may have come to him. He learned.

Shaking his head out of his thoughts, he glances back at the man he’d looked up to and respected for many years. A man he hopes karma kills as slowly and subtly as he had with his family. He huffs.

“Yeah, I don’t like losers. Now, go the fuck home before I call security.”

He backs away but doesn’t leave the doorway as the sack of shit made the right choice and shuffled away. Bakugou makes a noise of satisfaction.

The explosive blond glances inside Todoroki’s room where the staff drugged him up on sedatives and silently wills him to get better. He’ll never say it out loud, but they were friends, and he did care.

(He also fears, that maybe, the news is right about how insanity runs in the family and that maybe he didn’t chase Endeavor off fast enough before Todoroki lost it completely like his mother and brother. Bakugou hopes that maybe he finally did something good.)

The vibrating of his phone jolts him from his thoughts and he reads the notification.

Shitty Hair: hey bakubro we wanted to know if ur still coming to movie night

Shitty Hair: no stress tho!!! a lots happened so we get it if u wanna skip

Another huff of laughter, this time less bitter, escapes from his lips.

He allows himself to smile and tells Kirishima he’s on his way and that they better not start without him. Yeah.

Bakugou Katsuki is a lot of things, but he’s not a loser.

#reblog #bnha bakugo katsuki #bnha fanfiction #bakugou angst #bnha todoroki #bnha endeavor #bnha kiribaku #bnha kirishima #bnha izuku #bnha oneshots #bnha angst #bnha 305 #ao3 todobaku #todobaku #tododeku #bakudeku #kirikami #shinkami #dabihawks #bnha dabi #bnha 302 #bnha all might #bnha touya #bnha incorrect quotes #fuck endeavor #character study #ao3 feed #bnha ideas #bnha funny #todomomo

[morepeachyogurt]

we are good people (and we've suffered enough)

word count- 2.5k      Pairing- Temily

Summary- After Scratch, Tara and Emily run away to Italy to start a new life, ft. cats, cafes, and gardening. Based on this post, and this prompt. 

Part 2 of my, maybe we’re from the same star, series, work is a standalone, part 1

read here on ao3

tw’s- very minor mentions of substances and ptsd

Things were never the same after Mr. Scratch. The two of them were filled with more trauma than they had room for in their hearts to still hold each other in. Nights were no longer filled with a movie and cuddling, or talking about philosophy but tense sentences, paranoia, and nightmares. Tara knew that something needed to change, anything to stop the monotony of desolation. But still, they went to work every day and drowned their sorrows in killers like that would bring back the part of her that died when Scratch took Emily. There are only so many times one can be held captive and wait for death before something inside them breaks.

One night they get wine drunk, Emily laying sidewise on their black couch, and Tara sitting on the table staring at the ceiling.

“I miss being young, god, that’s such a weird thing to say. I mean, I spent my youth hating it. Hated my mother, and all of our traveling, never could make friends. I hated that I never belonged, hated not being in control of my own life, and here I am 50 years old working for the government that I used to despise trying not to cry myself to sleep every night,” her voice takes on a bitter tone.

“We love in our old age the things we hated as children. Does that make us matured or foolish?”

“Both, I think.”

“What was your favorite place to live? I mean it sounds like hell to keep moving between places but there must have been someplace you loved, right,” Tara’s voice fills with a tang of desperation as she searches for a way to help her lover.

“Rome. The weather and the scenery,” her voice takes on a dreamy tone, “and the food! Man, the food is good, don’t tell Rossi but his carbonara tastes like Olive Garden compared to the real thing,” they both chuckled at that, knowing it would have sent Rossi in a fit if he were to hear that.

“That sounds really nice honey.”

“I miss it sometimes you know? I think about how gorgeous everything was. It feels like home in my distant memories.”

“Then let’s do it. Lets, go move to Rome. You aren’t happy here Emily, I know you say you are, but you do this job for our team, not the position now. I miss when you laughed,” both of them sobered up by now, knowing that it has taken a turn for the more serious.

“No, no we can’t. I, I can’t keep leaving this team and our friends. And, people need us. You love this job Tara I can’t take that away from you, not for me.”

“They’d understand Emily, they all love you so much. Yeah, I love this job, I won’t lie. But, I love you more, and I’m not happy if you aren’t. So let’s do it. Let’s fucking run away to Rome together and be happy .” The two sit in silence for a minute, the unanswered question still hanging in the air.

“Okay. Let’s do it. Maybe I’ll fulfill my long-lost dream to have a nice, big garden.”

The team took it surprisingly well, they’d all noticed a change in Emily in the months following Scratch and knew that Tara had Emily’s best interest at heart. Of course, they were sad to lose two of the best members of their team, but Emily was family, and family looks out for each other.

“I’m going to miss you my favorite dynamic duo and your guys’ jokes. Ugh, it’s going to be so quiet without you two lovely ladies,” her eyes are welling with unshed tears as she says goodbye to more of her family, “Send me things from Rome or I will install a virus in your phones,” they both laughed at Penelope’s antics and promised her that they’d send as much stuff as they could. The last two weeks of their stay in the United States were filled with mixed emotions. They were excited to start the next chapter of their lives together. Away from all the serial killers and monstrous people out there. They could finally live with a fraction of the naivety that most people carry. On the other hand, Tara only speaks minimal Italian, and now they’re going to be living in a brand-new country, surrounded by strangers. A fresh start, but one filled with anxiety.

“Okay 4:30 is way too early for a flight,” Emily grumbled as they made their way to the airport. The pair had woken up at three, knowing that Tara can’t sleep on planes they tried to go to bed early and were now making their way to the airport in the dead of morning.

“Wait, babe, look! It’s a full moon,” they pulled over just for a moment and got out of the car to sit on the hood. The silence between the two is peaceful, the wind was the only whisper in the air. Moonlight shone on Tara’s face and Emily knew that there was no sight in the world as beautiful as this. With the moon reflected in her eyes and a small simple ghosting on her lips. She’s home.

Security was a breeze, they are former FBI agents after all, and they made their way to their gate. Airports always have a certain air to them, a place where time seizes to exist yet completely runs the place. Their gate was quiet, filled with the tired murmuring of people excited to travel.

“Tara, honey, wake up we’re boarding.”

It was odd for the two of them to be flying commercial after all those years on private jets. It was nice to feel normal though, to fade in the background instead of being other . Human desire is both to be noticed and forgotten all at once.

Italy’s airport is very similar to the DC airport, it would seem like they never left. Outside was a whole different story, bustling crowds and hot air hits them as soon as they step outside the building. They had picked out a quaint apartment building a week prior. Yellow walls with a terrace looking out to an alley. The couple's belongings had been shipped and were waiting to be unpacked. Not right then though. Now, it was time to explore.

Hand in hand they walked leisurely down the narrow alley way of the small Italian town they are now calling their home. Vines and every other type of plant that could grow did. Hanging off banisters, and climbing up orange brick walls. The sunlight was close to blinding, and it hit Emily just right. The golden rays hitting her face and illuminating the ghost of the smile now appearing on Emily’s face. That smile told Tara all she needed to know about their decision. Emily catches her staring, “What are you looking at,” humor evident in her voice.

“You, I’m looking at you miss Emily Prentiss. You’re smiling again,” her words come out softer than she intended, but they convey her point.

Happy couples seem to fill the streets, old and new, young and old. The town may be old, but it was filled with a life that they had been lacking. They pass a quaint little bakery. Bread, cupcakes, and assorted pastries fill the windows. There're bookshelves on all the walls filled to the brim with different books. The walls are light blue and there are flowers everywhere. It looks like something from the movies.

“Un Piccolo Angolo di Paradiso,” Emily reads the name of the building in front of them, they’ve since stopped to admire the view in front of them. It reminds the two of them how Emily asked Tara out. With a cupcake and book who had ‘I know there’s plenty of sugar in that cupcake but it’d be even sweeter if you went out with me. Let me take you to dinner Tara? ’ written on the inside.

“As much as I love hearing you speak Italian, what does that mean? Something heaven?”

“Little Slice of Heaven.” It’s truly a perfect name for the place.

“Okay, now we have to go in,” they’re both smiling now. They push open the glass doors, greeted by the high-pitched ringing of a bell and the smell of freshly baked bread.

The woman at the counter finishes the greeting, “Benvenuti nel piccolo angolo di paradiso, cosa posso offrirvi, adorabili signore?” they blush at the compliment and Emily orders them both cupcakes and coffee. Tara busies herself with admiring the books. Some of them have the most beautiful covers she’s seen. She knows not to judge a book by its cover but sometimes the most beautiful things are just as gorgeous on the inside as out. Just like Emily. She buys a book, and they take their drink and desserts to go. They make their way to a waterfront and sit down on the stairs, side by side.

“Rome is just as beautiful as I remembered. I missed it. It really does feel like home, although, anywhere I’m with you is home,” at the end of her sentence, she turns to face Tara, a look of pure love shown clearly on her face. And for that, Tara just has to kiss her.

The next day they unpack their boxes of belongings into their apartment to help rid the homesickness. Paintings go up on the walls and furniture is placed with the best view in mind. After a couple of hours they’re done, their apartment a bit more homey than before. They crack open a bottle of wine, put on an album, and sit out on the terrace. They watch the sun set over the water, the sounds of big band music filter in as the soundtrack for their night. The sky painted yellow, orange, and pink in the way only nature can create. If nature were an artist they’d be in every museum and sold to the wealthy. Instead, they are for the masses, the beauty of nature is for all to enjoy, free of cost, for those who wish to escape and fly into the night sky.

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” Tara leans forward on the balcony, not taking her eyes off the view in front of her, even as the colors begin to fade the sky darkens.

“No, tell me, what?”

“I always wanted to open my own bakery. I know it’s stupid, me a baker. But, I don’t know making things, it feels so uncomplicated. Just me and the dough.”

“In this alternate universe, I’d be a gardener. You and your dough and me and my flowers against the world Tara. Wait a second. I think you and I are onto something my dear,” Emily’s joined Tara at the balcony, the two of them leaning against the railing.

“Actually? You’re serious? You want to do this.?”

“Yeah! Why not? We’ve got enough money in the bank for us to last a bit, you can work at Un Piccolo Angolo di Paradiso,” the Italian rolls of her tongue in a way that drives Tara nuts, “I’ll find a gardening place to work at. We’re in fucking Italy let’s make our dreams come true.”

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

Alessia, the owner of the bakery, is pleased to have another employee. Especially one that is actually interested and isn’t in high school. Tara learns the basics of bread and pastry making. She has some skill, she used to bake with her mother before she died, it had been awhile since she had been able to bake without bumming herself out. Now it’s a nice memory of her. Gone but not forgotten, as is the saying. Emily comes in every lunch break for whatever Tara’s whipped up and to get her caffeine fix. One of the things that she still keeps from her law enforcement days.

They aren’t perfect. A move across the country isn’t going to cure PTSD, she has good days, bad days, and worse days, but now they have the time to deal with it. There was never anytime to process things at the FBI. It was always, distract yourself and throw yourself into solving cases. Now they can slow dance in the kitchen and stay up until three am telling stories from college. They fill their days with the happiness that was once stolen from them and bathe in it like perfume.

True to their word, they send Penelope all sorts of things, books from the café, pressed flowers, trinkets from the small shops to adorn her desk. In return, she sends them pictures of Sergio.

“I miss Sergio, his little paws, and his ability to climb on top of anything.”

Emily finds a job at a nearby garden that sells flower arrangements and herbs to local restaurants. It’s convenient, more than they would have thought. Emily now gets to stop into the bakery on occasion to deliver herbs and has plenty of flowers to give her lover. She also sends a few bouquets back to DC. Hoping that the flowers can brighten up the office in a way that fluorescent lights never can.

On one of their late afternoon walks, they hear a rustling by a trash can.

“What’s that noise?”

“I don’t know, let’s go look, it almost sounds like an animal. Could be a mouse,” Emily suggests, absently reaching to where her gun used to rest on her hip. They open the bag to find three small kittens. Seemly abandoned in a corner.

“Oh god, they’re so cute. We have to keep them.” It’s not a question, Tara knows that Emily is thinking the same thing, their minds connected in the way people who love each other’s minds always are. They look up the nearest veterinarian to make sure that their new pets are okay to take home and healthy.

The vet is sterile and a stark reminder of all the hospitals they’ve spent time in. Tara squeezes her girlfriend’s hand to remind her that they are both safe .

“They look fairly health, a bit malnourished but that is to be expected in these circumstances,” the vet is an elderly man with a mustache as thick as his accent,

“I’ve give them the shots they need, for now, come back in few months and let me take another look. Ciao.”

The kittens are fast asleep by the time they make it home. They gently scoop the kittens out of the bag and into their arms and the couch.

“Okay, what are we naming these angels?” Emily’s voice is pitched up as she talks to the kitten in her arms.

“Well, I’ve always been a classics enthusiast, what if we name them Artemis and Apollo?”

“That’s adorable. Little tiny archery kitties, yes, isn’t that right!” she coos, “And I think I’ll name this one Carter.”

“I love it, and you. Come on, sit with me, you look tired,” Tara grabs Emily’s hand and pulls her onto the couch. They fall over a bit and Emily yelps in surprise. They put the old music back on, a sense of peaceful needs for their new lives. The two sit on the couch, Emily’s head in her girlfriend’s lap, a hand playing with her hair. Apollo climbs on Emily’s feet and lays down to rest.

“I love you, Tara,” she doesn’t respond, just lays a gentle kiss to the back of her head.

The world is big and scary but the two of them feel safe in each other's arms.

taglist- @royalpenelope @criminalmindsvibez @haleymalaffey @scandinavian-punk @abitcriminalminds @hellskitchensmurdock @criminalmindzz2 @rosesonmyheart @ssaemxlyprentxss @reidrights if you’d like to be added to my taglist, the survey is here

#dkakakska I forgot to tag this now it won’t show up 💔💔 #temily #Tara lewis #emily prentiss #criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfiction #temily fic #lucy's creations #mine!

[ronnytherandom]

I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

 Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

#the truman show #horizon zero dawn #rimworld #factorio #destiny 2 #d2 #film #movies #video games #i dont know what im doing #hzd #opinion

[avauntus]

2020 favs: (short) fic recs

I am stealing this idea from @macgyver-sheriff, who has no clue who I am, but whose post I saw go across my dash. Thank you! 👋

Would you like some recs for the holiday season? - I too would like to share love for my favorite things I read that were written this year! <3

I’m going to do this in two parts - the short fics (10k or less, generally one-shot), and another post for the long or series fics I loved this year (it’s 2020, I figure we can use too much of a good thing?)

( @staidwaters - I’m ‘disqualifying’ your works because I’m biased, sorry! Look away! Unless you want recs!) 

"Congratulations, Get Rich" (9,238 words) by Attila (The Untamed - modern AU)

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year, which means Wei Wuxian has to get all of his bad decisions out of the way tonight.

Lan Wangji, Lan Xichen, Jiang Cheng, Mianmian are all so screamingly perfect as modern versions of themselves in this, and it is KNOCK DOWN HILLARIOUS. Wei Wuxian is just a screaming queer disaster (affectionate) - as he should be.

Excerpt:

After a long beat, Lan Xichen sinks gracelessly into the chair Lan Wangji had been sitting in earlier. “I just want to be absolutely clear,” he says delicately, “that you are currently under the impression that my brother has no romantic feelings for you. That is what you’re saying to me right now, yes?”

“Yes?” Wei Wuxian says, feeling desperately confused. “Obviously? Why?”

“Because at least one of you is very stupid, and I’m trying to figure out who,” Lan Xichen tells him, sounding distracted. It’s the rudest thing Wei Wuxian has ever heard him say, and his mouth drops open slightly.

“caved to the careless” (6,708 words) by ilgaksu (The Untamed/MDZS - Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen)

Love is a choice you make - like this, and this, and this.

Have you ever read a writer whose work is so distinctly itself that you can feel yourself slipping in time even as you keep going? That’s not very articulate, but it’s the best way I can describe everything of ilgaksu’s I’ve read. Their fics are the same emotional register as having the breath knocked out of you after a fall. This was the first one I read, and I think it ends well-- with what Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen find along the path-- but it’s still heavy. Discussions of canon-compliant character death and grief/mourning here.

Excerpt:

He pauses. Until this very moment, he was unsure who to ask for. He has heard the rumours of the Yiling Patriarch’s ongoing residence here, about Zewu-jun’s seclusion: he’s dead, but even the dead are not free from gossip. But he remembers a courtyard, nearly two decades ago, and the weight of eyes some might have called angry in their intensity. He remembers those same eyes, and how for the wear of the intervening years, they had kept the same essence: longing, yearning, a kind of small unspoken grief.

Song Lan had a dream once. A dream of a sect, bound not by blood, but by a shared belief in the right path. So many things are only an inheritance: shame is one of them.  

Love is a choice. Love is a choice, and you choose until you can’t.

“I am here,” he decides, carving the words into the dirt, every stroke of every character resolute, “To meet with Hanguang-jun. Please show this one the way to go.”  

“Green River Running” (8,169 words) by @rain-hat (Love in the Moonlight - post-canon AU)

5+1: Kim Byeong-yeon returns to the land of the living.

I skimmed through Love in the Moonlight during my quarantine summer (distinguishable from my “quarantine spring” or “quarantine fall” only by fireworks), and immediately upon finishing, thought: “Psht, they killed off their best character.” And then, something happened that never happens -- I went on ao3 and found the exact thing I was looking for, written far  better than I could have imagined. Kim Byeong-yeon is such a quiet yet powerfully subversive presence and the progression here is so masterfully done. This is true of all of rainhat’s work’s I’ve read, but this is a fine example-- I really treasure the warm humanism of them.

Excerpt:

People needed helping hands even more than they needed sympathetic ears, though. Over the last year, Hong Gyeong-rae and Byeong-yeon had built houses and planted crops side by side; negotiating with moneylenders here, helping small-folk secure their stores against bandits there. There was nothing courtly about Byeong-yeon’s capacity for labour, or his expectation of reward. Wherever he went, he worked from dawn to dusk, ate the food he was given, and slept under a roof if he was offered one.

It suited him, Hong Gyeong-rae thought, even though there was something outlandish about his gentle speech and palace manners in the midst of it all. But to behave in any other way would be untrue to his upbringing; nor was he the sort of man to whom it would occur to try. And after all, most people liked to be treated with courtesy; it did not come across as mockery from this solemn, severely dressed young man, who seemed to find no task too big or too small. Hong Gyeong-rae had seen him argue tax law with local councillors and stand up to highwaymen armed with nothing but a knife and staff. But he watched cooking pots for women who had to run to the fields to tide over the day’s labour, too; he wrote letters for them, and tolerated their fractious children and spoon-fed their bedridden elders, if that was what was called for.

“The Veritable Records of King Taejo: Year 2, Entry 208“ (9,857 words) by @sadviper (My Country: the New Age - Nam Seon-ho & Hwang Sung-rok slice-of-life)

Hwang Sung-rok eats his way to the bottom of a real estate scam, and Seon-ho and Yeon help (a little).

No one is out here doing it like SadViper. This is technically part of a series, but they can all be read separately. I did not realize I needed to see more of Nam Seon-ho in all his “type-A government official glory” until Viper started sketching him out for us, and as a bonus, we get to see Yeon, and Sung-rok as the world’s surliest caretaker (but don’t call him that). I have an authorial fallacy where I always think stories have to have some grand “plot” -- a “Maltese Falcon” to pull the reader along-- the genius of Viper’s work is she shows us exactly how interesting and important the day-by-day tiny choices and connections we make are, with an impeccable background of historical research to ground you in the setting.

Excerpt:

Nam Seon-ho was his master now. He was a strange one. He was a traitor, for helping the escaped Liaodong soldiers, but not, because he managed to wiggle his way back into Yi Seong-gye’s favor and was now a sixth-ranked inspector with the privilege of having personal audiences with the King. He was temperamental and belligerent from being the son of a slave mother and a lifetime subject of Lord Nam’s fantastic parenting philosophy. He was afflicted with perpetual guilt. And he was also one of the hardest working and most desperate people Sung-rok had ever known.

It was a terrible combination. He was not merely a disaster waiting to happen, but a disaster perambulating on two legs at the edge of a chasm. If Sung-rok intended to stay in service for long, he needed to find a way to cool down some of Seon-ho’s intensity, even though admittedly, it was what drew him to Seon-ho in the first place.

Thoughts like these plagued Sung-rok for a while. It was one thing to know a person; it was quite another thing to try to change them.

“Orison” (4,975 words) by @gravelghosts​ (aeli_kindara) (Supernatural 15x18 coda)

Cas says, I love you.

So! This rips my heart out, every time. All the times Dean imagines himself together with Cas...and then he imagines himself, if not happy, then thriving.

Jack: “What is the point...if everyone I care about is going to leave?”

Castiel: “The point is that they were here at all and you got to know them, you... When they're gone, it will hurt, but that hurt will remind you of how much you loved them.”

Excerpt:

The thing Dean tries to do is: listen.

Happiness isn’t in the having. It’s in just — being. It’s in just saying it, Cas tells him, and Dean’s whole heart is screaming, No, but he shuts his mouth. He listens. He listens like his life fucking depends on it, which it does, in more ways than one.

“Sky Full of Song” (6,632 words) by @drivingsideways (Supernatural, finale 15x20 fix-it, Dean/Cas)

Or: The One in which Cas ghosted Dean.

Look. Look. If Cas(tiel) can yank Dean Winchester out of Hell, celestial-scream at him not once but twice, burn out a woman’s eyes like an utter clown before thinking “Huh, an Earthly vessel, guess that’s not just bullshit, then,” and when they finally work it out, Dean greets them with a knife to the chest and THEN they’ll spend twelve years misunderstanding each other and bickering, you had better believe these two are going to be disasters even in Heaven. Drivingsideways gives us all of that dynamic, with the found family of Jack and Mary as facilitators, and the happy resolution, which of course includes a true form “roughly the size of your Chrysler Building.” <3

Excerpt:

The thing is, Castiel doesn’t want Dean to feel obligated.

Dean has a streak of self-sacrifice that's as wide as the Caspian Sea, and Castiel doesn't want to be any more of a chore or obligation than they have been to Dean for all the long years of their—brotherhood.

Castiel had shocked Dean, to the core of him, with their confession, and Castiel had seen the swirling confusion, the fear, the panic, the shit what do I say, what do I do—how do I stop him—

So, no, Castiel would not be paying a visit anytime soon.

Of course, if Dean evinced an interest in meeting them, then Castiel would not stay away.

Castiel isn't that cruel.

(They have, on occasion, been exactly that cruel, but they are trying to outgrow it.)

Dean is still their friend.

Dean knows how to reach them, if he wants to.

(see? disasters. haha)

“The Rough” (3,267 words) by anactoria (Supernatural, finale -15x20- ‘fix-it’)

 Heaven can absolutely fucking wait.

Rec’ed for the concept more than the style (this is dialogue-heavy, as a lot of 15x20 fix-its tend towards), but I *love* this course-correction: After kicking around Heaven, Dean and Cas return to Earth to take their place as urban legends among the hunter community. Just for a while.

Excerpt:

But it isn’t life. That’s the thing. It’s awesome, but it isn’t life; life’s a hard, painful, infuriating mess, and Dean only got halfway through his own, and he feels cheated. For all he held it together for Sammy at the end, for all he tried to take Cas’s big moment-of-happiness speech on board, he feels cheated.

There’s supposed to be peace at the end. When you’re done.

Dean wasn’t done.

#other's fic #fic recs #2020: a year! #spn #my country: new age #the untamed #love in the moonlight

[kickasskody]

                          DAKOTA ‘ kody ’ PIERCE, a character study.  “just because i cannot see it, doesn’t mean i cannot believe it.” -- jack skellington

Character’s full name: dakota pierce Reason for name and/or meaning of name: kody’s parents met and fell in love in north dakota, and decided to name their son after the great state 💖 Character’s nickname: kody Reason for nickname: in middle school, kody didn’t think the name dakota was cool. but the name kody, the most generic white boy name ever , was definitely cool Birth date: december 13th, 2002. baby sagittarius 

Physical appearance Faceclaim: austin abrams Gender: cis male Height: 5″8 #shortking Build: scrawny boy body. looks like he couldn’t lift more than 30 pounds... PSYCH!!! he’s a vampire so he can actually lift several hundred pounds 🤪🤪🤪 Eye color: blue with little dark green specks Glasses or contacts?: not with that snazzy 4k vampire sight !! Distinguishing marks/scars: funny little frecklescape on his back that looks like this emoji 😦 Hair color: dirty blonde Type of hair: type 1, aka straight hair Hairstyle: gets up out of bed, looks in mirror. maybe tussles it a little bit. thats it Physical disabilities: none Mental disabilities: adhd Clothing style: sweaters sweaters sweaters. striped sweaters ( because the best time to wear one is all the time ), disney sweaters, sweaters with dogs on them. white collared shirts to go underneath most of them. denim jackets, a couple of them tattering with holes in the elbows. black skinny jeans -- like he owns four pairs of the same black skinny jeans. someone tell him that skinny jeans aren’t in style anymore. uses the same jansport backpack he’s had since the eighth grade with a sewn in epcot center patch on the front pocket. dirty checkered vans. falling apart high-top converse. it’s not that he’s poor and can’t afford new things, he just prefers all his old stuff.  Make up: has never worn any but wouldn’t be opposed to trying some !!

Personality Good personality traits: good at secret keeping, friendly and uplifting, loyal, thoughtful, great memory, cautious, playful. chaotic good energy  🥰 Bad personality traits: gullible, slightly obnoxious, constantly confused, easily distracted Mood character is most often in: cheery, happy as f, practically bouncing off the walls Sense of humor: goddamn hilarious!!! at least he thinks so lol Articulation: loud and occasionally stuttery. repeating himself pretty often. the type to get lost in the middle of conversation and have to take a second to mentally loop back and remember what exactly they were talking about. uses the word ‘ like ‘ way too much. talks with his hands a whole lot. constantly talking like he’s a kooky disney character on a mission. Character’s greatest joy in life: riding a mf’in roller coaster Character’s greatest fear: disneyworld getting blown up / physically hurting someone  Character is most at ease when: he’s curled up with his friends watching a disney movie Most ill at ease when: he’s laying in bed at night, pretending he’s sleeping since he can’t Enraged when: thinking about how there are vampires in bridgemead -- that they could turn other people, kill other people, or worse... harm his friends.  Depressed or sad when: drinking from a blood bag. watching disney pixar’s coco. thinkin’ about a disneyworld churro and how he’ll never be able to enjoy the taste of one again. Priorities: at the moment? trying not to hurt anybody.  Life philosophy: “Keep Moving Forward!” -- walt disney said that Greatest strength: his optimism / ability to take something sad or bad and turn it around! Greatest vulnerability or weakness: giving just about anyone the benefit of the doubt. 

Goals Drives and motivations: getting enough money to be able to travel the world and visit every disney park on the planet.  Immediate goals: graduating high school / helping the scooby gang solve mysteries Long term goals: roller coaster designer / engineer. create a haunted house / rollercoaster hybrid ride

Childhood Hometown: orlando, florida Type of childhood: the kind where he’s an only child, where his middle class parents live to please and spoil him, take him to whatever amusement park he wanted to go to and buy him all the best merch. the smile on his face was worth more than anything they ever could’ve purchased for themselves. kody probably would’ve had siblings, but his parents had complications getting pregnant again, and thus they lived to make sure he had the best life possible.  Pets: a cat named toulouse ( shoutout aristocats ), but he passed when kody was fifteen Most important childhood memory: waiting in line for five hours to ride harry potter and the forbidden journey at universal studios orlando. blew his little kid mind. Dream job: imagineer!! Religion: non-practicing christians. church on easter and christmas ONLY!

Present Current location: bridgemead, massachusetts Currently living with: his parents 💖 Pets: none Religion: agnostic Sexuality: currently questioning his sexuality. growing up he always felt attracted to both boys and girls, but has never been able to articulate it. he’s only ever expressed interest in women, but he has a fat crush on chris evans as captin america Politics: would be socialist if he cared enough to think about politics Occupation/education: bridgemead high school super senior Mode of transportation: his parents dark blue prius!! but only thursday - sunday

Family Parent one: marcus pierce -- drug store manager Relationship with them: kody and his dad are best buds! if it weren’t for his fathers love for rollercoasters, kody doesn’t know what his life would be like today. they used to play rollercoaster tycoon growing up and kody still cherishes those memories today. Parent two: tina pierce -- bridgemead city manager Relationship with them: kody and his mother have a very loving relationship. however, kody’s adoration for his mother dwindled when it was her job that forced them to move to bridgemead. he thinks of it as her fault that he doesn’t get to go to disneyworld anymore, and there’s a bitter part of him that thinks that if she hadn’t made them leave, he never would’ve become a vampire. he knows its wrong to attribute her to his curse, but sometimes when he’s really sad he cant help it.  Siblings: none Other important family members: his widowed aunt shirley who lives twenty minutes from disneyworld and occasionally would join them on their weekend visits to the parks. he misses her greatly 😩😩

Favorites Color: that bright electric blue color on the cinderella castle at disneyworld  Music: electronic Food: a disneyworld churro.  Film: the incredibles / scooby doo 2002 Drink: pink lemonadde mixed with sprite Form of entertainment: disney+ subscription. if that’s all he had, he’d be content. Most prized possession: a magic kingdom two day passport ticket from the 1980′s

Habits Hobbies: playing rollercoaster tycoon / designing rollercoasters on his computer. obsessively watching ghost club paranormal on youtube. bothering aj with the latest thing on his mind that she definitely doesn’t need to know about Plays a musical instrument?: nope. wishes he could though!  Plays a sport?: nope, but would be great at track now that he’s a vampire! How he would spend a rainy day: playing kingdom hearts II in his pajamas. Spending habits: great at hoarding all of his allowance! since he’s not spending it on food, he’s an excellent saver. pre-vampirism kody was not as cautious with his spending.  Smoking/drinking/drugs?: no way 🙅🏼 has yet to even try alcohol Extremely skilled at: cheering up his friends! finding the good in others and convincing them to see it too 🤗 Extremely unskilled at: stopping himself from crying when he’s sad / when he’s in the middle of crying. putting together pieces of their investigations. sure, he can find things -- but what the hell is he supposed to do with them once he’s got it?!?! Nervous tics: anxious picking at his cuticles. messing with his hair. aggressive foot tapping. scrolling through his phone without actually looking at anything.  Usual body posture: that boy has been working on rollercoaster code on his computer for YEARS. his body posture is absolutely RUINED! Mannerisms: constantly talking with his hands. bouncin’ around like tigger when something exciting happens. abbreviating things that don’t need to be abbreviated. the loudest in the room at all times.

Traits Optimist or pessimist? Introvert or extrovert? Daredevil or cautious? Logical or emotional? Leader or follower? Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? Prefers working or relaxing? Confident or unsure of himself/herself? Animal lover? HELL YEAH.

Self-perception How do they feels about themselves?: before the year 2020, kody actually quite liked himself! he realized that he was goofy and sometimes not everyones cup of tea, but for the most part, he knew he was a good guy who was a little obnoxious! now, he has mixed feelings about himself. vampirism has elevated a lot of his emotions and more often than not now, he dislikes himself for what he’s become, or what he could become if things turn bloody.  One word the character would use to describe themselves: spunky What does the character consider their best trait?: his compassion What does the character consider their worst trait?: his gullibility  What does the character consider their best physical characteristic?: his fluffy hair !! What does the character consider their worst physical characteristic?: that he’s a short king. stream short kings anthem by tiny meat gang How does the character think others perceive them?: he’s pretty sure most people think that he’s wildly annoying, but that doesn’t stop him from being fully himself most of the time!  What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: his vampirism!! get this shit out of him just make him a normal aging boy again!!

Relationships with others Opinion of other people in general: kody is a big ole’ ball of love, and thus so, he tries to share that with everyone. strangers are treated with compassion, acquaintances are treated as old friends, and friends are treated like family. unless kody already knows someone to be a bad person, or is wary of them, he’s genuinely one of the nicest people one could ever meet. Opinion of the Scooby Gang: talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it. Does the character hide their true opinions and emotions from others?: it depends on the topic, but for the most part, yes. when it comes to most scooby gang related endeavors, kody will share his thoughts -- if it’s something related to movies or tv, he’ll be talking your ear off for hours. if it’s something that could result in it hurting someone else, he’ll be quiet, and if his vampirism was ever to come into question, he’d be absolutely be suppressing it.  Most important person in character’s life: oh god, not to pick scooby gang favorites, but probably aj. she’s the closest thing he has to a sister, and he doesn’t know what he would do without their banter, and her support. Best friend/s: aj darke, dylan frye, & arabella byrne Dating experience: absolutely none. kissed 2 girls in the span of 2 years over 3 years ago. Romancing: kody wouldn’t know the first thing about trying to get someone to date him. all he knows is the stuff he’s seen on tv, watched in movies, or experienced around him ( such as his parents successful marriage, or his friends dating people ), but if it were to come down to him, he’d be extremely awkward. picture tom holland’s spiderman trying to talk to zendaya’s mj in far from home -- because that’s extremely accurate. kody isn’t trying to date anyone right now for a couple of reasons: one being that he’s too nervous, and not exactly looking for love, but if it were to happen... he wouldn’t run from it necessarily. but two being that his vampirism creates a bit of a problem for him, and he’s not sure if he should subject anyone to the curse he’s stuck with.

Extra Physicality: if necessary, could probably lift a car and throw it down the street. as of right now, doesn’t know how strong he really is / is more concerned about hurting his friends with this supposed strength than he is finding out how many hundreds of pounds he could lift. kody in a fight? probably losing within the first five seconds, unless bloods drawn and the instinct to pounce takes over. Species: vampire How do they feel about it?: hates it. would do anything to reverse it. wishes he had just stayed a little longer at karma cafe that night. or had never gone at all. How do they look in their supernatural form?: pretty much the same, however when he’s hungry and near blood, his eyes go all dark and bloodshot, and the veins around his eyes start to pulse ( basically just like vampire diaries ), but kody is unaware of this since he’s never seen it happen to himself or another vampire

#bridgemeadtask01 #shoutout aaustinabrams for this gif #idk how to credit gif makers listen thats my credit right there

[tora-the-cat]

Phantom Troupe Members in order of who I'd be least to most upset to see die

No one asked for it but I just want to be clear on my opinions on the phantom troupe and no one’s been able to stop me yet <3

Disclaimers:

a. if you like these characters then yes I think thats objectively funny but like. it doesn't make you a bad person, cringe culture dead, like what you like, I'm just someone on the internet, etc etc. go ahead and leave angry rants/dissmissive insults/'umm actually's/etc etc for me to not read anyway tho <3

b. I refuse to look up anything about them, including their names, because I don't care enough. And also because I'm going to spell their names from memory and then laugh when people correct me. So, like, know that I'm not messing up any of the names on purpose, and might not mess them up at all, but I'm not doing a joke or anything with the spelling I just really care that little

c. Also!! Mild manga spoilers?? idk why you would care because it's literally just about the phantom troupe but if that bothers u for some reason then goodbye have a nice day <3 this WILL spoil deaths that I'm pretty sure happened. Maybe. No I haven't read the manga I have ADHD and haven't properly hyperfixated on HxH since I was 13 and didn't know what Manga was.

d. I lied through my teeth! I'm a Gemini bitch, if someone somehow actually cares enough about my correct opinions about the goddamned phantom troupe to leave a mean comment I'm absolutely going to read it.e. also if u actually somehow want to talk about the phantom troupe in a civil way (excluding H*soka) PLEASE hit me up. I don't know if reasonable Phantom Troupe stans exisit but I assume they do and I promise I'm funny and nice and surprisingly conflict avoidant and I'd honestly luv 2 study u. I'm not mean the worst I'll do is ghost u I'm an Aquarius mars I swear <3

Hisoka. I hate this clown man so fucking much. Like he has funny moments I guess but it doesn't make up for how uncomfortable I am every time I see him. The rest of this list will be funnier because the rest of them are funny and obviously shiny plot devices and not much else, but the fact that this clown man is alive makes me so angry. Also there'd be no entertainment value left here after the emotional exhaustion I'd have complaining about Illumi and also I forgot he joined until just now, so I'm grouping these bitches together and moving on.

Chrolo Lucifer: this man is so funny purely on a fandom level. Like he has half the personality of a stale potato chip, but he's hot and does atrocities and pretends to have thoughts so he lives in everyone's head rent free any way. Not me tho because I'm sexy and cool. Anyway I want him dead purely because the reactions would be hilarious (on BOTH sides to be clear, because people celebrating his death would be almost as funny as people mourning it), it's what Kurapika and the Kurta's deserve, and there's literally no reason for him to exist other then to eventually die.

sphinx: he's just. really annoying. I can't back this up because I don't remember anything he does I just remember thinking he was annoying.

nobabunga: He was mean to the boys!!!!! It's a death sentence those are just the facts. He cried and I gave a nice good chuckle. I want him 2 die then never get mentioned again until Illumi offhandedly mentions that he's Kikyo's brother or cousin or somehting so Kalluto can inherit his swords. Not because they should use them just because I think Kalluto deserves swords and also it would inspire a wave of people caring about Nobaunga WAY too much (one group hating him on principal for being a member of the Zoldyk family, one group deciding he's a Big Brother Icon and reimagining him having a cute and hillariously out of character relationship with Illumi/Kalluto/Killua/Gon, and a mix of the two pumping out psycology breakdowns with entirely too much time and effort put into them, none of which I will watch but each of which will add a week onto my lifetime out of the pure amused euphoria of knowing they exist).

Franklin: Boring. He's in the phantom troupe he can do better then overplayed-frankenstein-aesthetic and bullet fingers. uninspired. At least everyone else sucks in an interesting way.

Uvo: I can't lie his fight scenes were actually pretty dope, and I HAVE to admit that it is HILARIOUS just how much work Togashi put into overpowering/hyping up Uvo, specifically so he could have an established baseline for exactly how incomprehensibly and overwhelmingly excessive Kurapika's will and hatred is. Also that demi lavato AMV of his and Kurapika's fight is just free dopamine. Glad he's dead but he was funny while it lasted and I can appriciate what he gave to the story.

boxing gloves. I know nothing about them (including their name). They might already be dead in the manga but I don't think so.

Pakunda. I don't know how to elaborate on her bc I don't care about her all that much but some part of me can't help but kind of like her a little? I dunno. her loyalty would almost be commendable if it wasn't to Chr*llo.

Pheiten. his character concept and design is literally 'what if we combined Levi and Aizawa and then made him super fucked up' which is impressive because he was made like two decades before either of them. can't justify putting him this far up the list either because he's honestly kinda boring and overplayed but he looks cool and he's funny in a 'what the fuck is wrong with you??' way so here he is.

Kortopi. No I won't elaborate. Yes I know they're dead and I have no significant emotions about this besides >:I

Shizuku. She's cute and she has ADHD and plinky(?) the vaccum is one my favorite nen-things in the show. I'd love to study her and I honestly like her a bit more then I want to.

Machi. I love her specifically because she hates Hisoka. That's all she needs to get a pass in my book. doesn't hurt that she has pink hair and the closest thing to resembling common sense in the group. If Hisoka kills her I'll riot because she doesn't deserve that but if anyone else does it that's fine.

shalnark should be the leader of the Spiders, there, I said it. he embodies them and their narritive purpose and their nonexistant philosophy and arbitrary but unshakable rules and their faux 'emotional depth and complexity' that so many people buy into. He's so funny I love him so much. Like cholo is out here trying to double major in philosophy and theology and fooling thousands into thinking theres a single thought in his head meanwhile Shalnark's only personality trait is being a buisness major with no empathy, and if he was in charge the phantom troupe would loose all of the ambiguity people somehow beleive they have. Like Shalnark is played so straight that I can't help but lowkey love him. Kurta theory is fun in a fucked up way like tfw u become emblamatic of the group you helped kill your clan and you didn't even know because you live in meteor city. Yes I know he's dead and yes it's the closest I've ever come to caring about the troupe and yes it took me three whole days to get over it. Not my best moment I'll admit.

For the record if Kalluto dies I'm going to have at least one mental breakdown. Fuck you.

#hxh #phantom troupe #hisoka tw #hisoka #illumi zoldyck #chrollo lucilfer #phinks #shalnark #nobunaga hxh #franklin hxh #uvogin #pakunoda #kortopi #shizuku hxh #machi #kalluto zoldyck #luv u bby

[eldritch-elrics]

this summer, me and my brother watched four whole shows. at long last, here is my comprehensive review of all of them!

in the order we watched them, these shows were:

avatar the last airbender (ATLA)

mob psycho 100 (MP100)

demon slayer / kimetsu no yaiba (KNY)

fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood (FMAB)

they were all very very good!

i’m not going to try to rank them, but, as is probably obvious by the state of my blog, my favorite was FMAB :) if i had to pick a least favorite, then, it would probably be KNY—not by any fault of its own, but just because it didn’t appeal to me quite as much as the others. still a very good show!

i will review each show by:

giving a quick plot-based pitch discussing the show’s hook or appeal

discussing one element that i believe it does better than any other show on this list—in other words, a quality that i think it stands out for

discussing one element that didn’t appeal to me or that i had issues with—a criticism

putting forth my favorite character and favorite episode or arc, just for funsies

including various other commentary. mostly positive, as, again, i did really like all of these!

(i’ve tried to make this whole thing free of specific spoilers, but if you’re planning on watching any of these shows and want to go in more-or-less blind, it might be best not to read this.)

first of all, i’d just like to discuss all four of these shows as a whole! it was definitely interesting watching one after another and noting similarities between them.

all of them have siblings in them! which is, perhaps, fitting, as i watched them with my brother

two include a pair of siblings in which one has powers and one doesn’t (at least at first), and part of the narrative involves getting better at using those powers (ATLA, MP100)

two include a narrative centered around a pair of siblings and something tragic that happens to them, resulting in the older one being traumatized and forced to train to become a soldier, and the younger one turning into something (arguably) inhuman. the protagonist’s major goal is to return his younger sibling to the way they were before (KNY, FMAB)

ATLA and FMAB are both fantasy political dramas, which is rapidly becoming a favorite genre of mine

most of these are historical, or historically inspired in some way, which is interesting!

all of these shows are really really good at character building. all the main characters are interesting and complex, and the relationships between those characters are similarly nuanced and very well written. they make you really care about both the protagonists and the side characters!

avatar: the last airbender

pitch: as the ever-growing imperial force of the fire nation threatens the earth and water nations, a kid from the long-lost air nation turns up and it turns out he can control all four elements and he has to save the world and all that. sorry i tried to write this pitch like five times and realized that well at this point i think everyone reading this will know the plot of avatar

stands out for: avatar has possibly the best worldbuilding i have ever seen in a show—it takes the time to introduce us to so many places and aspects of its world, both explicitly and subtly. the main highlight of this is the magic system. by creating a magic system based in body movement, the process of using magic and learning to use/control it better becomes immediately obvious to the viewer. combine that with the philosophy behind each type of bending and the way that characters take bending inspiration from types different than their own, and you’ve got a system that is complex, flexible, believable, internally consistent, and just plain fun! it makes action sequences a blast. i especially liked the moments when bending was stretched to its limits in totally logical ways (metalbending, bloodbending). not to mention the way that bending is seamlessly integrated into the world of avatar! the example that comes to mind is the earthbending-powered transport system of omashu. a whole essay could be written on that topic alone!

criticism: i know this is a sentiment shared by many people, but the first season was kind of boring to me. some of the humor and the plots felt hit-or-miss. of course, it needed to take that time to establish the world, and it does a great job of doing that. it just didn’t hook me until the second season.

favorite character: i love toph she’s so much fun :) iroh is a close second! and zuko is great, too, of course

favorite arc: i loved ba sing se a ton, especially the episode when they get there and everything feels off. it felt so resonant with real life, in a very fun way. there’s a reason “there is no war in ba sing se” is a meme…

other commentary: what can i say? it’s a classic for a damn good reason. the plot is tight, and it does a great job raising tension and introducing new elements and twists. i also love the care put into the antagonists, especially azula, who has a fascinating arc.

mob psycho 100

pitch: a middle schooler and a charismatic con artist team up to smite ghosts using extrasensory powers. thing is, only the middle schooler actually has ESP, and it happens to be really, really powerful. can he navigate the difficult world of middle school while also getting a better grip on his powers—and his bottled-up emotions?

stands out for: the way that MP100 uses animation is excellent. it takes a little getting used to but it’s just so fun, combining all sorts of different techniques to create an experience rich with drama and emotion. it’s playfully exaggerated and self-parodying, adding to the show’s fantastic sense of humor as well as its truly emotional moments.

criticism: the way that ESP works makes suspension of disbelief tricky. it’s a great feat to introduce a character who is essentially all-powerful and still make them interesting (even in fight scenes), but at times (especially the second season finale) it felt like a magic system with too much breadth and too few limitations. this might just be my bias for hard magic systems talking, though.

favorite character: other than mob and reigen? probably teru. he’s loads of fun AND all the season 1 episodes he’s in slap hard

favorite episode: the one where the girl asks mob out on a date as a dare.. it’s super cute

other commentary: thank you mp100 for being the leftist propaganda we all deserve <3

in all seriousness though, this show is a blast!! it does a great job switching between silly and serious in the blink of an eye. i also really appreciate the way that it balances comically huge stakes with much smaller, more personal stories. for example, the conflict between mob and reigen in season 2 is especially well-done. in general the emotions just feel so real? characters whose emotions tie into their powers are an excellent trope, and mob is a wonderful protagonist who exemplifies this really well.

finally, on a more critical note—there are so many characters in this show! and it feels like only a handful are fleshed out? however, this may be due to the fact that it’s not an adaptation of the entire manga (which i haven’t read). there’s a lot more to go! more characters to dive into! so i probably shouldn’t try to critique it in the same way as a finished work.

demon slayer / kimetsu no yaiba

pitch: demons kill a boy’s family and turn his sister into a demon, so he decides to try and figure out a way to turn his sister back into a human. what follows is a demon-killing adventure that’s in equal parts harrowing, poignant, and hilarious.

stands out for: there’s not much i can say about this other than “please just take a look” but the art and design is phenomenal. it does a much better job of integrating 2D and 3D than a lot of other animated series, and overall it is just so so pretty! all the character designs are complex, memorable, and fit the characters perfectly. the color choices are interesting and satisfying. i also really like the sound design? not often that i notice that in a show. i’ve watched so many KNY amvs by now lol it’s just amazing animation

criticism: the narration style leans too heavily towards tell instead of show. this is mostly an issue with the first few episodes, but i got super annoyed by how much the show would narrate every single one of tanjirou’s thoughts instead of letting us infer those thoughts through his actions and reactions—the latter, i think, would have been more emotionally impactful. sometimes silence speaks louder than words! tanjirou was also not the world’s most compelling protagonist in my opinion, though i think that mostly has to do with my own tastes.

favorite character: *holds up zenitsu* I Just Think He’s Neat. i actually kind of lost it when he first used his powers, like… damn i love characters with weird relationships with their magic like that. i also think the narrative about how having a solid foundation is sometimes more important than knowing a ton of different moves was really powerful. and he’s just funny! pathetic boy i love him

favorite arc: really just the whole spider arc. fucked up man… i love it. they pulled off that last twist so well, and all the family stuff was so weird and complex and emotional…

other commentary: it’s just a really solid and very well-written show! the team of tanjirou, zenitsu, and inosuke is so much fun… bro bonding :) i also quite like the horror elements; it’s fucked up but in a good way. finally, this is very specific, but the demon that can alter buildings/rooms through drumbeats? appealed to me very much. it’s a cool and unique power!

fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood

pitch: two kids do some fucked up alchemy and end up getting parts of their body stolen by god. now they’re on a quest to get their bodies back, but find themselves wrapped up in crazy government conspiracies and alchemy more powerful than they ever could’ve imagined…

stands out for: plot. by this i mean less overall concept (though the overall concept is pretty great too), and more that the pacing and progression of the story is extraordinarily tight. for the most part (the first few episodes are a little weak but i’ll let it slide), it does an excellent job establishing its premise and building on it logically, adding layers and layers that extend naturally from what we already know. everything has a reason for happening; everything is revealed in good time and all the twists are super satisfying. there’s great balance between exciting moments and quiet moments. it’s just very good at being a story!

(fun fact: i’m reading the manga right now and so far it’s even better paced than the show, which is super interesting! it’s especially good at how it lays out pieces of the backstory and then fills everything in later in a really satisfying way.)

criticism: this is incredibly specific but it’s what comes to mind as something that bothered me: winry’s character arc was really disappointing. for most of the series she’s a pretty strong character, but in the end it feels like she gets pushed aside, defined only by her relationship with ed. what happened to her wanting to take action more? that was a specific desire she expressed—wanting to be less passive! since she’s such an important character, i wish she could have had more presence in the last season other than as a sounding board for the elric bros’ emotions. (even though her one scene in the last episode was really good and emotional…)

favorite character: other than the elric bros, absolutely ling. he fits into multiple of my favorite character archetypes (fun, silly, bastard, gets possessed…) and he’s just overall a delight. plus his relationship with greed is really really good. bro bonding at its peak!! (my other favorite is pride. i will not say why because spoilers. but if you know me.. you know)

favorite episode: this is really really hard to choose but i’m gonna go with envy’s death because. holy shit.

other commentary: i’m a really big fan of the complex and nuanced way in which FMAB breaks down militaristic, imperial regimes from the inside. many of the characters have done awful things, and the story forces them to grapple with that and accept that all they can do now is be better in the future. the moral complexity is just really good! characters with flaws—we love to see it!

finally, parts of this story seem so so catered to Me Specifically that it’s no wonder i got so into it. like just the entire premise? the way that so much of the conflict is built out of identity crisis and exploring the nature of consciousness and human vs inhuman? beautiful. i love ed and al so much

*

if you made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for reading!! glad to have finally gotten this done (3 months late…) and put all my thoughts down. i hope this inspires someone to try watching one of the shows i discussed!

#avatar the last airbender #mob psycho 100 #kimetsu no yaiba #fullmetal alchemist #my post #long post #then for my own tagging purposes.. #atla #mp100 #kny #fmab #i really hope some people read this! i put a lot of thought into it

[spookyc]

I sure do!!

Well then, I shall divulge.

So, in my talentswap Kiyo is the protagonist as he is the ultimate detective. Originally this was just because I thought it fit but I definitely have more of a definite reason as to why I chose him for the ultimate detective. So a big thing I wanna do with this au, is to give more of the unpopular characters a spotlight, this can be seen with the main central group of the game, Kiyo as the ultimate detective, Tenko as the ultimate astronaut, and Angie as the ultimate child caretaker/assassin. (Which, yeah, It's kinda funny how these three ended up being the main trio considering what happened with them in canon) And when I played v3 I always thought Kiyo was super interesting, not only his talent but also his entire personality. It was so unlike what you would expect from the typical dr cast, I mean the creepy guy of the cast isn't the main antagonist? It was so different and it drew me towards his character, and I even indulged in a few of his free times which were always super fun just because I learned something new with each one.

And then, well, chapter 3 happened. I don't believe I have to explain what happened with that. I remember being kinda bummed out, I mean, the creepy weirdo just ended up being a creepy weirdo, a creepy weirdo who was abused by his shitty sister, but a creepy weirdo nonetheless. Didn't help that I have a brother that I'm decently close with; the entire thing just made me very uncomfortable. So I figured it would be super interesting to go through a story with Kiyo's lenses, to understand why he believes the things that he does and to give him a second chance, in a way.

Also when I really sat down and thought about it, it made a lot of sense to me. Like, in this au I want to keep their backstories intact, (for the most part) and I also wanna keep the fact that they were originally pursuing their canon talents until an event happens that changes their mind. So originally Kiyo was still gonna go for the anthropolgy route, but on one of his vacations, he happened upon a murder case. In the beginning he planned to just observe how the scene would play out, but because he's so attuned with people, he ends up finding out the killer and has him arrested. After this he becomes fascinated with criminals, about their ideologies, their psychology, the history behind past criminals. And so he then redirects his path towards that of a detective, perhaps partially out of a sense of justice, but mainly out of a morbid curiosity to see, "how far the depths of humanity can go."

I also noticed how in the canon story Kiyo often likes to observe others and sorta likes to stay neutral on most topics and I feel this would really benefit him as a detective. But yeah! That's essentially the reason I decided to make him the ultimate detective but let's dive into more of his background and how he grows throughout the story.

So, let's just go ahead and get this out the way. The sister issue. Now, as I stated before, I have a brother I'm close with myself so the entire incestuous relationship with Kiyo and his sister makes me deeply uncomfortable. So I'm sorta divided on two options. 1. I could eradicate sister from Kiyo's story completely and pretend she never existed. Or 2. I keep sister but simply change the form of abuse she inflicts on Kiyo. I'm leaning more towards the second option as this way I'm not just neglecting the abuse Kiyo went through, but I also don't have to make myself uncomfortable by acknowledging the incest stuff.

Anyway! Moving on to the more exciting stuff. So, I still want to have Kiyo involved with the occult, or at least he used to be. See, possibly a year or two ago, (and possibly in regards to sister's death but I'm undecided on that) Kiyo performs a ritual that goes horribly wrong. And the result of this ritual enables Kiyo to see and hear the spirits of the departed. And while at first it was intriguing, it soon became annoying at best and mentally draining at worst. It's simply a fact of life he has to deal with, and due to this power he can see and hear the ghosts of his dead classmates throughout the story. Which is both a blessing and a curse.

Now, as for his development throughout the story, here's what I'm thinking. Now, Kiyo doesn't really have many confidence issues, he's proud in his line of work and he's unapologetic about his beliefs and such. And I wouldn't really wanna repeat Shuichi's storyline anyway. So, for this au, I think Kiyo's arc throughout the game will be learning to trust and gain acceptance amongst people he loves. Rather than the twisted perception of love that Kiyo gives off in canon, I'd want Kiyo's result from sister's abuse to be that no one loves him and no one ever will.

He then begins to believe that love doesn't exist, and not just romantic love, but any kind of love. But rather than grow depressed by this fact, Kiyo uses it as a way to uplift himself. Telling himself that he doesn't need love and that he's perfectly fine being alone. To put it bluntly he's basically just coping from the abuse, trying to use it as shield to protect himself when in reality it's just a sword pointed at himself. But then again, what reason would he have for not believing this? This very concept is what's made him such a great detective.

He doesn't take sides because he can't understand the reasoning behind either side, not in an emotional way anyway. And even though he's incredibly successful in his work, there's a part of him deep down that is terribly lonely. A part of him that longs for company, a part of him that wishes he knew why hatred always burns in the eyes of those he arrests. And it isn't until he's kidnapped and taken to the Ultimate Academy that he finally has to acknowledge this part of himself. This starts with his relationship with Tenko.

Which, as you might expect, doesn't start too well. Tenko of course still has her "degenerate male philosophy" (though after chapter 1 this part of her becomes severely toned down and we get to see what her actual character is like sorta like what canon should have done before chapter 3) but Tsumugi, (ultimate pianist) accompanies Kiyo for a lot of chapter 1 and this sort of slowly warms Tenko up to Kiyo. After chapter 1 tho, when Kiyo flawlessly solves the first case, Tenko sees how useful Kiyo is and grows a sort of begrudging respect for him. After the trial she congratulates him on a job well done and Kiyo appreciates the gesture, obviously being able to tell that it wasn't something she was particularly ecstatic to do. Chapter 2 comes around and if you read my ask about Maki (ultimate artist) , you know this is when she starts spreading the "rumor" that Angie is an assassin.

Kiyo initially doesn't buy this at all, because even though he's exceptionally good at reading people, Angie is a total blank for him, so he can't really confirm or deny the rumors. What he does notice, though, is that Tenko seems to he strangely angry at these rumors, growing visibily distressed whenever Maki brings them up. He doesn't really get it, seeing as though he's only seen the two talking a handful of times, but he brushes it off but he doesn't get involved with people's personal bis. Until Tenko comes to him. He's surprised to see her and even more surprised to see the angry expression on her face.

She tells him that they can't keep letting this go on. He asks what and she responds with the rumors. He agrees that the rumors have gotten out of hand but he asks her what she wants him to do about it. She tells him that he is the only one that the others will believe. And he's like, fair enough, but why do you care so much. And she responds saying, "Because I have her motive video." Kiyo is shocked by this info and asks why she can't just tell them herself. And she says that, "Well, because the rumors are true, she is the ultimate assassin."

Kiyo is again flabbergasted and asks Tenko if she intends on him lying and she says yes. He asks her why, in the most sincerest tone, truly not understanding why anyone would go this far to lie about someone they hardly know, Tenko responds. "Because something isn't right, Monokuma has to be playing some trick, there's no way Angie is capable of murder." Kiyo still doesn't understand, but seeing the fierce determination in her eyes, he knows he won't be able to refuse her offer. And so he agrees that tomorrow he will do his best to dispel the rumors about Angie and convince everyone that she isn't an assassin. And then, the very next day, another body is discovered.

Immediately the opportunity to clear the air is gone in the mass confusion. And it's not long after that everyone begins to pin their blame on Angie. So, Tenko approaches Kiyo again asking if she can accompany Kiyo on his investigation, but only on the basis of defending Angie. Kiyo, who isn't used to working with others, hesitantly agrees and the two form a reluctant partnership. Kiyo initially plans to work on his own but after Tenko finds a few vital pieces of evidence he grows more accustomed to her presence and the two actually bond quite a bit, although they don't admit it.

Eventually the investigation ends and the two head to the trial together, convinced that Angie isn't the killer. Of course the main lie of this trial is that Angie is not the ultimate assassin, the only real thing that was pinning her to this case. After that is cleared up, Kiyo, along with some help from Tenko, solve the case. All is well and good with the world it seems, until Maki speaks up. She asks Monokuma to show Angie's motive video, just to be 100% sure that she isn't the ultimate assassin.

Immediately Tenko retorts, saying that they already cleared up that she wasn't but Maki replies.

"Well, if you're so sure that Angie isn't an assassin, then you should have no problem with me showing this right?"

"Unless, you know something we don't?"

The others agree with Maki and demand that the motive video be shown. Tenko looks to Kiyo, demanding he do something but Kiyo shakes his head. "They're too far gone now." Tenko clenches her fists, but doesn't say another word. With a grin of pure malice, Maki tells Monokuma to show the video and he complies, if a bit reluctantly due to Maki's tone. The video plays and the truth is revealed, Angie is the ultimate assassin.

After the video the students erupt into an uproar, angrily turning towards Tenko and Kiyo and demanding why they lied. Tenko responds that if they hadn't lied, the rest of the students would have gotten them killed. They also turn on Kiyo, asking why a detective would lie. He responds saying it was the only way to get to the truth. He also adds that Angie being an assassin had nothing to with this case, they already determined the true killer.

But despite their statements many of the students are still outraged as they mount the elevator. They also notice Angie is not with them, as she seems to have disappeared during the chaos. Two individuals however observe the scene with twisted glee, Maki and Kiibo (ultimate supreme leader). After everyone gets off the elevator, Tenko approaches Kiyo. She thanks him for standing up for Angie, and this time she actually sounds genuine. She then admits that maybe he's different than the other degenerate males and that he's not so bad. Kiyo accepts the sort of compliment and Tenko walks off.

And for the first time Kiyo feels happy. Now he's felt satisfaction after a solved case and even sometimes felt contentment but, he can't remember the last time he felt happy. The last he felt like he belonged. And after this the two from a solid friendship, one that will carry them throughout the entire game and Angie joins the squad too and as much as I'd love to get into their relationship this post is far too long already and I wouldn't wanna waste anymore of your time. But! I hope this was enjoyable at the very least.

I really enjoy getting these asks because they always help me to flesh out the story and the characters and they're always super fun to write so if you ever wanna know about any of the other characters, don't hesitate to ask. Thanks for the ask!

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #talentswap au #korekiyo shinguji #tenko chabashira #angie yonaga #maki harukawa #kiibo #incest tw

[crocodileniall]

Part 9 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Quinn admitted quietly. “So I came in early. What kind of person goes in to work when they can’t sleep? I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Niall chuckled. “I’m...” he trailed off. “I’m going to come pick you up. We can go for a drive. Grab something to eat.” 

“No it’s okay,” Quinn protested weakly. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sure you have a ton of shit to do today.”

“I don’t,” Niall replied firmly, not taking no for an answer. “I have the day off.”

catch up here 

warnings: NSFW, swearing, alcohol use (brief), lil bit of angst ;) 

        ♡ ♡

It was a particularly bad day. One of those days where Quinn just knew she shouldn’t have gotten out of bed. She could attribute it to the fact that she didn’t sleep. Or the fact that she’d hardly talked to Niall in a week. Or maybe it was the fact that her mother had left her four voicemails throughout the night which resulted in her unable to sleep. 

Whatever it was, there was something in the air. It was a storm cloud. Quinn could practically see it as she walked into work. She was early because she tossed and turned the whole night, giving up around five. 

Her boss was waiting for her, a frown on her face which never was a good sign. Quinn barely got a breath out before her boss jumped on her about an article that wasn’t done. And Quinn was finding herself confused because obviously she can’t write an article if she doesn’t know about it that’s kind of like philosophy. Philosophy is kind of like one of the pillars for which the natural history museum was built on. 

Quinn was angry. Not because she was given a deadline. She could meet the deadline. Quinn was angry because it wasn’t her fault and somehow when things went to shit they were not her boss’s fault, they were Quinn’s. Quinn hated it. 

It had her sitting at her desk ready to cry, ready to pull her hair out because it wasn’t fair to be this stressed out and angry about a job she only half liked. Quinn was suddenly angry at herself for in this moment of deep frustration she wanted nothing more than to hear Niall’s voice. 

“Fuck,” Quinn breathed out, feeling her eyes sting. She would not cry in her office. She wouldn’t. “This day is so stupid,” she mumbled, picking up her phone. 

Her fingers moved on their own, dialing Niall’s number. She pressed the phone to her ear, knee bouncing under her desk. She clutched her cup of coffee in her other hand, lip tucked between her teeth. 

On the last ring, Niall picked up, voice rough and scratchy. “What’s up,” he whispered. 

Quinn was angry with herself all over again because she’d woken him up and he didn’t deserve that. For her to be waking him up at the smallest inconvenience. “Sorry were you sleeping,” Quinn answered after a moment. 

“Yeah I was,” Niall cleared his throat. “Fuck it’s early.”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn repeated. Her voice cracked and she knew he could hear it. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for his response. 

“What’s going on?” Niall asked softly. “Talk t’me.” 

“I hate it here,” Quinn rushed out, clenching her fist. “I hate it here. Everything is my fault. All the time and I fuck-“ Quinn cut off with a strangled groan. “I hate it,” she whispered. 

“Are ya at work?” Niall asked. “Where are you?” 

“I’m at work,” Quinn told him. 

“Why?” He asked though she could hear shuffling on his end. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Quinn admitted quietly. “So I came in early. What kind of person goes in to work when they can’t sleep? I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Niall chuckled. “I’m...” he trailed off. “I’m going to come pick you up. We can go for a drive. Grab something to eat.” 

“No it’s okay,” Quinn protested weakly. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sure you have a ton of shit to do today.”

“I don’t,” Niall replied firmly, not taking no for an answer. “I have the day off.”

The thought of getting the whole day with Niall was so relieving. Quinn took a deep breath, nodding her head. “Okay.”

“I’ll be there in a few,” Niall told her. “Don’t do anything rash, okay?”

“Okay,” Quinn chuckled weakly. “I won’t.” 

Quinn tossed her phone on the desk and let out a sigh. She rubbed her eyes and shook her head. Why would Quinn do something rash. That wasn’t like her. At all. 

But she just kept having these thoughts about sticking it to her boss. Storming into her office and demanding the respect she deserved. Or just quitting. No two weeks notice just a fuck over. 

Nothing rash, Quinn repeated in her mind. She shoved her laptop into her work bag and sat back in her chair. She typed out the most polite, most passive aggressive email she could to her boss. 

She let her know she’d be out of office all day and will handle her obligations in a timely manor but would like to not be contacted unless absolutely necessary. Quinn also included that she wouldn’t be able to meet the deadline she was given this morning and would explain it to the higher ups if needed. Though it would probably be her fault considering Quinn hadn’t even heard of the assignment which required at least a few hours of research and consulting among departments. 

Quinn felt a little bit of pride, sending the email. She didn’t really have the authority to say any of that but it wouldn’t stop her from saying it. Quinn shut her office light off and closed the door behind her. 

As she took the steps, Quinn saw Niall pull up to the curb. She felt a new sense of relief. And she even promised herself she would not cry when she saw him. She wouldn’t. 

Quinn opened the door, climbing in. She collapsed against the seat, eyes closing. “Don’t look at me.”

“Why?” Niall mused, hand settling on her thigh. 

“Because I’ll fuckin cry,” Quinn whispered, fingers winding into his. “And I don’t want to cry right now.”

“What happened?” Niall asked softly. “Quinnie.”

“So much,” Quinn shook her head, opening her eyes. “I slept maybe three hours last night. My mum kept calling. Over and over.”

“What did she want?” Niall asked. 

“I don’t know,” Quinn shrugged. She took a deep breath. “Her first voicemail was silent. Her second voicemail was her just asking a bunch of questions. I think she was drunk. I don’t know.”

“Weird,” Niall murmured. “What else happened?”

“My boss keeps trying to push things on me that she forgot to do,” Quinn shook her head. “Like apparently there was a special issue of our newsletter that needed done like last night and she caught me as soon as I came in giving me shit.” She let out a groan. “I didn’t know anything about it. Fuck I was in Tring for how long? They didn’t CC me in any emails so how the fuck was I supposed to know!” 

“You weren’t,” Niall agreed. “And it wasn’t your fault that you didn’t know.”

“Why does it feel like it is?” Quinn whispered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I do my absolute best and even on my best day she makes me feel like shit. For things she didn’t do.”

“It isn’t fair to you,” Niall commented. “To always be her scape goat. It seems like she’s abusing her power.”

“I just don’t want to go above her,” Quinn shrugged. “And like complain. It’ll seem like I can’t handle it.”

“But obviously you can,” Niall argued. “If even after getting shit thrown at ya you still first of all, show up to work and second of all do your job well.”

“I might be able to like talk to HR or something,” Quinn shrugged. “I dunno.” 

“I think you should,” Niall nodded. “And remember if-“

“If things get physical you have the best representation,” Quinn cut him off, turning to look at him for the first time with a smile. 

Niall smiled back at her, a chuckle escaping his lips. “See your catching on. The law can’t touch you as long as I’m here.” 

“That’s reassuring,” Quinn agreed. “Though it might be an abuse of your power.”

“Might be,” Niall agreed. “But as your lawyer that wouldn’t be any of your worry.” 

“Okay,” Quinn laughed. “Can I have boyfriend Niall back?” 

“What the fuck you need him for?” Niall asked, mock indignant. 

“Because I want to kiss my boyfriend not my lawyer,” Quinn laughed, rubbing her hands over her face. “Jesus.”

Niall laughed, leaning towards her. He kissed her chastely on the lips. “Kissing your lawyer might be kind of fun, though.” 

“Well I don’t know how to tell you this,” Quinn began slowly. “Lewis is my lawyer. Not you.” 

Niall breathed out a laugh, head dropping. “Fucking hell.”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn shook her head. “He convinced me last weekend at the event. There would be a fair amount of bias towards me on your end. And obviously when I marry you and kill you for insurance money you won’t be able to represent me then,” she shrugged. “It’s best for all of us if he represents me.”

“I tell ya you’ve been spending entirely too much time with him,” Niall laughed, pulling her in for a gentle kiss. “And never talk about Lewis while we’re kissing.” 

Quinn breathed out a laugh, kissing him again. Niall hummed against her lips, fingers brushing through her hair. “Missed this face,” he murmured, thumbing at her jaw. 

Quinn let out a breath, eyes fluttering shut and then open again. “Niall,” she whispered. 

“What lover,” Niall whispered, lips ghosting over hers. He kissed her softly. 

“Mmm fuck,” she mumbled, eyes squeezing shut. “I’m gonna say it.” 

“Say what?” Niall asked, pulling away to look her in the eyes. 

“I love you,” Quinn whispered, eyes stinging. She’d gotten a good look at him and the emotions were rushing over her. 

Niall didn’t give her a second to even let a tear fall. He surged forward, kissing her with a force that had her clutching his shoulder for balance. It was all tongue and teeth and emotion that made Quinn want to burst into tears right on the spot. 

Niall pulled away, wiping her eyes with his thumb. “Do ya really?” He asked softly. “Like really really. Not just-“

“If I didn’t do you think I’d be crying?” Quinn cut him off, laughing wetly. 

“I don’t know,” Niall chuckled. “Maybe you’re crying because you feel so awful saying it because it isn’t true.”

Quinn sniffed, wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve. She cleared her throat, shaking her head. “Or maybe I’m crying because you’re the first man I’ve ever said it to and it makes me kind of emotional because I never learned how to say that word when I was a child.”

Niall hummed, nodding his head. He breathed out a chuckle, scratching at his jaw. “I’d say that’s a similar feeling I have.” 

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner,” Quinn apologized. “And I’m probably still not good at saying it. Even if I don’t say it a lot. I do. Love you.”

“That’s okay,” Niall shook his head. “Don’t apologize, lover. It’s okay. Really.” 

“So uh...” Quinn trailed off. “Are ya hungry?”

“Mm yeah,” Niall nodded. “I could eat,” he said though his eyes were settled a little south of her eyes. 

Quinn’s cheeks flushed, she pushed him gently. “Food. Eat food.” 

“Oh food,” he repeated, surprised. “Then no I’m actually not hungry.” 

Quinn rolled her eyes, sitting back in her seat. “Well I’m hungry. I’d appreciate it if we got some food before you take me to bed so I don’t cramp.” 

“If you insist,” Niall shook his head, starting the car. “But I’m going to be honest, this is a bit weird of me to do for a client. I’m breaking a lot of lawyer ethics and morals.” 

“Shut up,” Quinn laughed. “Niall if you can’t be my lawyer and my boyfriend I will absolutely ask Lewis to be my representation.”

“Honestly it might be for the best,” Niall nodded, chuckling. “I don’t think I can handle it and I just find myself thinking of a lot inappropriate things when I consider you as a client.” 

Quinn shook her head at him, settling into her seat. She’d finally taken in Niall’s state. He was in a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. He had ruffled hair and tired eyes. His face was pale, chin covered with a two day scruff. 

It made Quinn’s heart ache a little to see him like this in a way that he never presents himself. It’s always cleanly shaven, styled hair- or at least brushed hair. 

“You really jumped right out of bed this morning,” Quinn commented, looking him up and down. 

“Of course,” Niall smiled, eyes focused on the road. “When my best client calls I’m up and out. No questions asked.” 

Quinn rolled her eyes, biting back a smile. She fished her phone out of her pocket. “That’s it I’m calling Lewis I cant take it.”

“Obviously I was joking!” Niall exclaimed, snatching her phone from her hands. He tossed her phone into the back seat. “I’m not ready to give you up.” 

“Oh come on Niall,” Quinn groaned, laughing. She twisted in her seat to look for her phone. “I was obviously joking too I don’t even have his phone number.” 

Niall’s boisterous laugh rang out in the silence of the car. Quinn couldn’t help but laugh with him, grabbing her phone off of the floor. “You ever fucking throw my phone like that again you’ll be the one who needs a lawyer,” she muttered, settling back into her seat. 

“You’re all talk,” Niall shook his head, sparing her a glance. “Besides I’m not scared. I know how to make you moan.” 

“There was no need,” Quinn shook her head, a begrudging smile on her face. She rubbed her forehead, looking out the window. “No need to turn this into a sex thing.” 

“I haven’t had ya in ages,” Niall murmured. “Just wanted to make it explicitly clear that I want ya bad. Like I’d take ya in this car right now.” 

“And I’m asking you to not do that,” Quinn laughed, looking out the window as the city passed them by. “Where are we going?”

“How pissed would you be if I said Tring?” Niall asked, an amused smile on his face. Quinn narrowed her eyes at him and he laughed. “It’s a restaurant in Camden. Best waffles. Hands down.” 

Quinn hummed, nodding. “If you say they’re the best then they must be.” 

“Oh they are,” Niall nodded, voice serious. 

It wasn’t long before they were sitting across from each other at a diner the size of a shoebox. Niall was explaining what had happened this week and why he was so absent. He apologized over and over again but Quinn absolutely wouldn’t hear it. 

Niall ordered blueberry pancakes and Quinn got vanilla cinnamon sugar. She had to agree they were incredible waffles. It lead Quinn to believe that he was right about everything. Including that she was worthy of his love even if it was hard. 

Quinn ordered her second coffee of the day and sipped it slowly. She knew no amount of coffee would keep her awake. The moment her head hits the pillow, she’ll be fast asleep. 

Niall’s phone rang many times during their breakfast but he silenced it, shoving it in his sweatshirt pocket. Quinn insisted that he took it but he shook his head. In a soft voice, he murmured, “I’m with you right now. I don’t want to think about anything but you.” 

Quinn’s cheeks ached as she smiled. “It could be important, though.” 

Niall shook his head, eyes meeting hers from across the table. “There’s nothing more important.” 

And what Quinn didn’t know was that before she called he didn’t have the day off. He actually had a lot to do that required him to be in many different places at once. But there wasn’t really wasn’t anything more important. Quinn needed him and he could see that. He needed her too. 

Their stomach were full by the time they left. Quinn had ate her body mass in fruit and Niall only encouraged her, winking as she bit into a pineapple. “Go on, lover. Eat some more,” he’d said. 

Quinn groaned, rolling her eyes. She shifted in her seat because it was absolutely embarrassing the effect he had on her. 

Niall drove with his hand on her thigh. Quinn felt the heat through his hand. It sent a wave of arousal through her that she couldn’t quite explain. Niall played the radio on the oldies station and it reminded her of home just a tiny bit. The home in Ireland that she desperately clung to as a child. 

The drive back to his flat felt like forever and sleep was calling for her at the most inconvenient of times. She fought it hard, eyes sliding along the building they passed. She wondered if the other versions of herself in other universes were as happy as she was now. 

The thought escaped her as he parked the car. Quinn hated driving to his flat because there was never anywhere to park. Somehow Niall always got a spot right in front of the door. 

Quinn got out, shouldering her work bag only for Niall to take it from her. He shook his head, throwing an arm over her shoulder. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Do you feel better?” He asked her.

“I do,” Quinn nodded. “You’re good at it.” 

“At what?” Niall mused, pulling the front door open for her. 

“Making me feel better,” Quinn told him, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s a little scary.” 

“Yeah it is scary when you get mad,” Niall agreed. 

“That wasn’t what I was talking about,” Quinn muttered, shoving him gently. 

“Quinn I thought you were gonna kill someone,” Niall laughed. “It’s not enough that you get mad you get so emotional and I can’t tell you how many crimes of passion happen in London every day.”

“Enough of the lawyer talk,” Quinn groaned, slumping against the elevator wall. “I am not your client I’m your girlfriend and if you think that I’d be capable of murder I think we need to have a very serious chat.”

“If you think we’re chatting when we get inside you’re sorely mistaken,” Niall shook his head, staring down at her. 

“I really do feel like just unpacking my whole entire childhood,” Quinn shook her head. “And then after that we can figure out why I can’t stand up to my fucking boss. Together,” she had an adoring smile on her face. “That’s what makes this so special. We can jut talk for hours and hours about everything.”

Niall shook his head. The elevator doors opened and he let out a grunt. “I’m sorry Quinn that’s not what’s going to happen.”

“Then what’s going to happen?” Quinn asked, leaning against the wall as he found his keys. 

“What’s going to happen,” Niall whispered, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “Is I’m going to open this door and I’m going to absolutely wreck your shit.” 

“Please tell me more,” Quinn encouraged, looking him up and down. 

Niall breathed out a laugh, eyes slipping shut for a moment. “We’re both tired so I’m just gonna give it to ya good and we’re both goin to sleep. But just you fucking wait until we wake up.” 

“Sounds to me like you’re all talk,” Quinn murmured. Niall unlocked the front door, pushing it open. 

But Quinn knew that he wasn’t. He was usually pretty honest considering all the shit he said. That didn’t stop Quinn from pushing his buttons just a little. 

When Niall got Quinn into the bedroom he kissed her teasingly, lips barely brushing together. He pulled away, taking his time to unbutton her blouse. “This is meticulously work,” he murmured, looking from his hands to her eyes. 

“Of course,” Quinn agreed. “Though some would argue you’re going so slow because you don’t know what the fuck to do with me. A woman in your bed? You haven’t got a clue.” 

Niall let out a laugh, nodding his head slowly. “Alright if that’s the game you want to play fine. I’ll play,” he shrugged. In one swift motion, Niall tore her blouse apart. Buttons ricocheted around the room. 

Quinn covered her eyes with her hands, laughing. “Oh my god, Niall. This was like my favorite shirt.” 

“Well,” Niall shook his head, roughly pulling her pants down to her ankles. “You drove me to it and I won’t apologize.” 

Quinn was still laughing when he finally kissed her again. This time, with tongue and passion and it shut her up for good. Niall’s hands were between her legs, brushing over her spot and it made her moan into his mouth. 

The things Niall’s fingers could make her do were ungodly and Quinn loved every minute of it. Niall gave it to her good, panting against her neck. He held her hands above her head and sucked at her neck. 

Quinn gasped his name, back arching off the bed. She writhed, eyes pinching shut. Niall moaned against her neck whispering nothing but filth into her ear. Their orgasms washed over them at the same time. Quinn moaned loud, legs wrapping around his hips. Niall grunted, head dropping. 

After a moment, Niall pulled out, collapsing on the bed beside her. He tossed the condom in the trash and settled into bed, eyes slipping shut. Quinn was breathless, chest heaving. “Fuck,” she breathed out. 

“What was that you were saying earlier?” Niall asked, head rolling to the side to look at her. “About me not know what to do with ya.” 

Quinn chuckled, opening her eyes to look at him. She shrugged her shoulders and licked her lips. “I don’t recall.” 

“Right,” Niall chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re full of shit.” 

“I suppose I am,” Quinn agreed, sitting up. Niall grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back down. Quinn laughed, twisting in his arms. “I need to get up.” 

“Stay here,” Niall mumbled, nose brushing against her jaw. He placed a kiss to the soft skin below her jaw. 

“I’ll be right back,” Quinn laughed, peeling his arms from her waist. She leaned down to grab her underwear off the floor, pulling them on. 

Niall let out a groan as she tugged a t-shirt on. Quinn shook her head, glancing over her shoulder at him as she walked toward the bathroom.  

When Quinn  came back, Niall had turned the TV on. He was laying there, eyelids heavy. Quinn turned the lights off, crawling into bed. Niall wrapped his arm around her, kissing her on the forehead. 

“Do you ever just want to run away?” Quinn asked, voice barely a whisper. 

Niall hummed, running his fingers through her hair. “Sometimes.” 

“Where would you go?” Quinn asked, looking up at him through her eyelashes. 

Niall thought about it for a moment, eyes shifting down to look at her. He breathed out a sigh, shaking his head. “I dunno maybe Ireland.”

“Ireland?” Quinn mumbled, eyebrows wrinkling. 

Niall smiled, smoothing out the crinkles on her face with his thumb. “Not like home,” he said. “Like the coast. Where there’s absolutely nothing for miles and miles. And it’s a little cold and rainy but the ocean...” he trailed off, head resting against the headboard. “The ocean just makes it all okay.” 

“That’s sounds nice,” Quinn murmured, eyes fluttering. “Am I there?” 

“Oh no,” Niall shook his head. “I don’t believe you’d every willingly go to Ireland. Any part of it.” 

Quinn laughed, resting her head on his chest. “I’d go with you. As long as we didn’t go home home.” 

“Alright then I guess you can be there,” Niall nodded, smoothing her hair out. “Where would you go.”

Quinn breathed out a sigh, eyes slipping shut. “I think maybe France. Just a busy city, lots of people. No one knows us. And we just drink wine and,” she hummed. “It’s nice.”

“Sounds nice,” Niall agreed. “Sounds a bit like you’re reliving your uni trip.”

“Maybe,” Quinn chuckled. “It was fun. Have you ever been to France?”

“I can’t say that I have,” Niall responded softly. 

“It’s amazing,” Quinn murmured. “Just wine and sex and amazing food.”

“My three favorite things,” Niall chuckled. “I’m sold. Let’s go.” 

Quinn laughed, rolling off of him and onto her pillow. She tugged the duvet up to her shoulders and smiled up at him. Niall sighed, rolling onto his side to face her. “Now why did ya move so far away.” 

“I’m about to fall asleep,” Quinn mumbled, though Niall slid his arms around her waist.  

“So,” he mumbled, brushing the hair from her eyes. “God Quinnie. I just look at ya and I’m like fuck I can’t believe it.” 

Quinn breathed out a laugh, closing her eyes. “Niall,” she whined. 

“Mmm sorry lover,” he whispered. 

“Go to sleep you’re talking absolutely madness,” Quinn mumbled, eyes closing as his fingertips slid up her back. 

“You go to sleep,” Niall murmured. 

Quinn let out one final sigh and Niall knew she’d fallen asleep. He smiled, adjusting the duvet to cover her shoulders. Niall sat up, grabbing his phone from the bedside table. He tugged his sweatpants on and lumbered into the living room. 

He had multiple missed calls and messages from various people at work. He sat down on the sofa, taking a deep breath. Niall dialed Richard’s number and pressed the phone to his ear. 

“Niall,” Richard answered. “Marie told me you’d gone AWOL this morning. I was just touching base.” 

“Yeah I’m really sorry,” Niall answered slowly. “There was a kind of emergency. Something personal came up.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Richard responded, not skipping a beat. “Do you need some time off or...”

“No no,” Niall shook his head. “Just the rest of the day. If possible.”

“Of course,” Richard replied. “I wanted to talk to you about partnering. Do you have a moment?” 

“I- yeah,” Niall nodded, rolling his bottom lip between his fingers. 

“We are holding formal interviews next week in front of a panel,” Richard told him. “It‘s quite unusual to do it this way but the board members are having trouble agreeing unanimously.” 

“Oh okay,” Niall nodded. 

“My assistant will email Marie and they’ll coordinate everything. All you have to do is show up and be yourself. I must say that your votes are high,” Richard told him. “And you obviously have my endorsement. I think it will go very well.”

“That sounds great,” Niall agreed. “I was just wondering if making partner I’d have a lighter schedule?” Niall asked. “It’s not that I can’t handle it I just-“ he cut off with a sigh. “I’ve been really tired lately and it seems like Connor’s been dumping a lot of shit on us last second. And it’s not difficult by any means. It’s just like we don’t have a lot of time to do it and it’s been kind of hard.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Richard hummed. “I wasn’t aware of the load Connor’s been giving you guys but I’ll definitely talk to him about it. As for partner, you will have a much lighter schedule and a lot of freedom to make it as you choose.” 

“Thank you,” Niall breathed out. “I really appreciate it. Honest.” 

“No problem,” Richard chuckled. “Oh and Elise has been buggin me about it. She wants to have you and Quinn over for dinner sometime this month. Just let me know a day that works.”

“I will,” Niall nodded. “I’ll talk to Quinn and let you know.” 

“Alright, Niall. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Bright and early.”

“Bright and early,” Niall echoed with a smile. 

Niall ambled back into his room, relief settling over him. Quinn was still fast asleep and niall knew he’d be right behind her. 

///

Quinn awoke a few hours later to her phone buzzing beside her ear. She let out a groan, rolling over. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and sighed, picking her phone up. It was Brigid. 

“Fuck,” Quinn breathed out, pressing the phone to her ear. “Hello?” 

“Quinn,” Brigid answered. “What are you doing.” 

“I just woke up,” Quinn mumbled. “What do you need.” 

“You just woke up?” She asked. “Isn’t it the afternoon?” 

Quinn fully sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Yes. What do you need.” 

“I was calling about last night,” Brigid sighed. “I wanted to apologize. Your father and I got into a fight and things got kind of messy.” 

Quinn pushed her fingers through her hair, taking a calming breath. “What’s going on?” 

“He’s been working so much,” Brigid explained. “And I’ve been lonely. I tried to talk to him but things got all turned around. I dunno.”

���I’m sorry,” Quinn mumbled.  That’s when Niall rolled over, eyes bleary. He wrapped his arms around her leg, cheek resting on her thigh. Quinn ran her fingers through his hair, eyes flicking down to meet his. Niall smiled at her, cheeks red from sleep. 

“I’m sorry that I called you so many times,” Brigid apologized. “I drank so much that I can barely remember what happened.” 

“It’s okay,” Quinn nodded. “I have t’go though.”

“Okay,” Brigid responded quietly. “We’ll talk soon.” 

“Bye,” Quinn breathed out before hanging up. She tossed her phone on the bed and sat back, eyes slipping shut. 

“Everything alright,” Niall asked, voice soft. 

Quinn nodded, feeling the curl of his fingers against her leg. She let out a sigh, fingers moving through his hair. “Just a fight me mum and da’ had. Not a big deal.” 

“Are ya sure?” Niall asked. 

“I dunno,” Quinn shrugged, looking down at him. “For some reason my mum was piss drunk on a Wednesday night? She said she’s been so lonely what the fuck does that even mean?” 

“Maybe that she’s lonely,” Niall offered. 

“Or that she’s got a boyfriend and my dad found out,” Quinn concluded, voice quiet. “No one handles loneliness quite like Brigid.” 

Niall dropped a kiss to Quinn’s thigh, eyes closing. Quinn breathed out a sigh. It wasn’t until his fingers brushed against her pantie-clad center that Quinn knew what he was doing. “Niall,” she warned though there was no heat behind her words. 

“What’s up?” Niall mumbled, eyes opening to look up at her. There was a smile tugging on the corner of his pink lips that Quinn could see. He wasn’t slick though he probably wasn’t trying to be. 

Quinn smiled at him, shaking her head. “Honestly. We just woke up.” 

“I know,” Niall mumbled, fingers stroking the inside of her thigh. “But I woke up hard as fuck and now that I’m lookin at ya...” 

A laugh rumbled out of Quinn’s chest despite her best efforts not to entertain his ideas. The feeling of his fingertips on her skin always lit a fire within her. Quinn let her eyes slip shut for a moment. Her stomach growled. “I’m hungry.” 

“Me too,” Niall agreed, kissing her thigh. 

“For food,” Quinn clarified, shaking her head. “Jesus Niall why must I always say that.” 

Niall laughed, finally letting her leg go to roll over. Quinn immediately felt the absence and longed for his touch again. Niall grabbed her phone from the bed, unlocking it. “What do you feel like?” 

“Mmm,” Quinn hummed. “Maybe wings?” 

“Sounds good,” Niall agreed, opening postmates to order their food. 

Quinn looked at the clock, feeling a sense of urgency. It was nearing six in the afternoon and she’d done nothing all day and it made her anxious beyond belief. 

After a moment, Niall set her phone down on the bedside table, sitting up. “Alright, lover lay down.”

“Why?” Quinn chuckled, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Because I’m absolutely starving and if I don’t get me mouth on you I’m probably not going to make it,” Niall shook his head looking at her expectantly. 

“Well I’d just hate for that to happen,” Quinn agreed as he shifted between her legs. 

Niall tugged her panties down, hands wrapping around her thighs. He let out a hum, nodding his head. It wasn’t long before he was diving in, tongue flicking against her clit. Quinn relaxed against the bed, eyes slipping shut. And when he pushed two fingers inside of her, Quinn moaned, back arching off the bed. 

Niall had her cumming not long after, mouth sucking on her greedily. Quinn moaned out his name obscenely, fingers gripping the sheets and it was everything Niall’d wanted. There was nothing he loved more than watching her come apart. 

Quinn had barely come down from her high when she panted, “fuck me,” against his lips. 

Niall’s lips brushed against hers, as he asked. “Ya sure?” 

“Yes,” she nodded, eyes slipping shut. 

Niall kissed her lips soundly before pulling away to rummage around in the drawer beside his bed. It only took a moment for him to pull a condom out triumphantly. 

Quinn already had her legs spread and her t-shirt bunched up. Niall kissed at her neck, positioning himself between her legs. Pushing in, he whispered, “fuck,” against her neck. 

Quinn tugged on his hair, pulling his head back to look at him. “What did you say about wrecking my shit? I’m ready for it.” 

Niall grunted, kissing her forcefully. He tugged her bottom lip between his teeth slowly. “I don’t think you are, darling.” 

Quinn wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him in. Niall groaned, eyes sliding over her face. “I actually think I am. But I’m thinking you’re not. Can’t hang.” 

“I can fucking hang,” Niall grunted, pulling out only to fuck into her with a force that had her gasping against his lips. 

“Oh fuck yeah,” Quinn laughed, eyes slipping shut. 

Niall kept fucking into her, mouth finding her neck to bite and suck. It had Quinn a mess, nails digging into his back, gasping his name. It wasn’t long before she had him cumming, eyes slipping shut as she clenched around him. 

Niall caught her lips in a clumsy kiss. He breathed out, “fuckin love ya. Jesus Christ, Quinn.” 

Quinn smiled, pushing her fingers through his damp hair. “That was all you. I suppose you are a good fuck.” 

Niall breathed out a laugh, rolling onto the bed beside her. “Fuck off Quinn. I can’t get wound up again.” 

Quinn smiled, rolling over to face him. She slid her fingers over his flushed cheek. “I think you probably could.” 

Niall’s eyes fluttered. He tilted his head, kissing her palm. “Fuck I could.” 

Quinn took the opportunity to kiss his lips slowly, taking her time. She licked into his mouth, a moan escaping her lips. Niall’s eyes fluttered shut. He groaned against her lips. 

Quinn reached down between them, pulling the discarded condom off of him. She leaned over, tossing it into the trash can. Niall slid his hands down her back, pulling her in. 

Niall was breathless, kissing her, hands roaming all over her body. He let out a soft sigh, pulling away. He murmured. “Need a moment.” 

Quinn hummed, kissing at his jaw. She rested her head on his chest, fingers sliding down his stomach. The rise and fall of his chest was enough to make her want to fall asleep again. 

A knock at the door had Quinn groaning, rolling off of him. Niall sat up, a smile on his lips. He chuckled, “I’ll get it.” 

Niall tugged his sweatpants back on and stood up. Quinn watched him walk out of the room, pulling a shirt over his head. Quinn took the moment to go to the bathroom and to search for some clothes. 

It must have been a miracle for her to find a pair of leggings shoved in the top drawer of his dresser. Quinn looked around the room, eyes falling on the overflowing laundry basket that was sitting in the corner.   

Quinn sighed, tugging her pants on. She met Niall in the kitchen. The takeout was spread across the table and he had two wine glasses filled halfway. 

“A fancy dinner,” Quinn commented, sliding into the chair across from him. “If I’d known I wouldn’t have put pants on.”

Niall chuckled, picking up his glass. He took a sip and sighed. “What a fuckin day.”

Quinn hummed in agreement, sliding her container towards her. She picked up a wing in her hands and took a bite. Niall cleared his throat. “So I talked to Richard earlier and he wanted me to ask you about dinner with him and Elise.”

“Oh,” Quinn nodded. “When?” 

“Whenever we’re free, I guess,” Niall shrugged. “He told me to let him know.”

“I’m free whenever you are,” Quinn offered, taking another bite. Her eyes shifted between Niall and the table. 

“If you don’t want to we don’t have to,” Niall added tactfully. “I know you said it was kind of weird.”

“It was,” Quinn nodded. “Definitely weird but it’s your boss. I wouldn’t mind.”

“Are you sure?” Niall asked skeptically. 

“Of course,” Quinn nodded, looking up at him. She shrugged her shoulders, taking a sip of wine. “Just a night. I’ll survive it.” 

“Okay,” Niall chuckled. 

“Besides you’re a fair man,” Quinn added, a smile spreading over her lips. “If I do for you I just know you’ll do for me.” 

“Interesting,” Niall murmured, an amused smile on his face. “And I am a fair man. I’m sure we can work out some sort of deal.” 

“Of course,” Quinn murmured sultrily. 

Just by the way Niall was looking at her, Quinn knew they were in for a long night. Quinn couldn’t wait to fall back into bed with him. And maybe in the shower too. It was safe to say she’d sleep like a baby tonight. 

///

Soooooo what did we think? let me know how you feel, what you loved or what you didn't! 

here is the lover board 

and my other works 

thank you for reading :)) 

#lover au #lover part 9 #niall fanfic #Niall au #niall horan fanfic #niall horan fanfiction #Niall smut #all I have to say is #WE PRACTICE SAFE S*X IN THIS HOUSE #and I love Niall and Quinn that's all

[bluewatsons]

Stefano Roberti Belli, A psychobiographical analysis of Brian Douglas Wilson: Creativity, drugs, and models of schizophrenic and affective disorders, 46 Pers & Individual Diff 809 (2009)

Abstract

The suggestion of a relationship between creativity and mental disorder has existed for centuries, and has been advocated by many psychological researchers. The present analysis offers a consideration of the nature of mental disorder present in Brian Wilson, an individual recognised as one of the most creative figures in 20th century popular music. Using converging biographical evidence, and the diagnostic program Opcrit, Wilson’s diagnosis is concluded to be schizoaffective. Employing details of his drug abuse, various models of schizoaffective spectra are examined, in particular a reconsideration of the LSD model of schizophrenia. The model is shown to be useful for positive schizophrenic symptoms including overinclusion, a potentially key element of creativity. In doing so, this psychobiographical analysis allows examination of potential relationships between mental disorder and creativity, the effects of various narcotics on creativity and various elements of men- tal disorder, the efficacy of various drug models of psychotic disorders, and the overlap between psychotic and affective disorders.

Introduction to creativity, mental disorders and psychobiography

Precedents for psychobiographical analyses of creative musicians exist, but the area is not as heavily researched as it might be. Studies across various disciplines (e.g. creative writing, music, politics, philosophy) have previously suggested a connection between creative potential and the presence of affective disorders (Andreasen, 1987; Ludwig, 1995). Other work suggests links between creativity and various psychotic traits, but the absence of perfect correlations precludes equating psychological disorder with creative talent (Brod, 1997). More recently, Nettle (2001) has made an attempt to draw these ideas together, suggesting that elements of emotional and psychotic disorders overlap and interact, with both being associated with creative potential. At present though, there does not exist any substantial body of work attempting to methodically validate these ideas. Furthermore, the specific consideration of musical creativity remains underrepresented in extant research.

Wills (2003) examined psychopathology in eminent jazz musicians, and found high rates of affective and psychotic disorders, as well as substance abuse/addiction in virtually the entire sample. The study is somewhat of a rarity in reviewing psychopathology and musical creativity in contemporary artists; literature on the relationship between creativity and mental disorder far more commonly concerns either historical musicians (Post, 1994) or non-musical artists (Claridge, Pryor & Watkins 1990). Given the exponential increase in mass media during the twentieth century, a far more intense and accurate degree of analysis is now possible for contemporary artists. The musician Brian Wilson presents an exemplary case for such an analysis, having produced many renowned works, as well as being the subject of a wealth of readily available biographic information.

Brian Wilson: an introduction

Brian Douglas Wilson is a composer, arranger, producer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, most famous for his work as a member of The Beach Boys. He grew up in a Californian suburb with his parents and younger brothers and fellow Beach Boys Carl and Dennis. From the establishment of The Beach Boys, Brian took the role of bandleader and creative force behind the group, though he often came up against opposition from his father and manager, Murry Wilson. Relationships between the two never seem to have been particularly warm, especially in light of allegations of physical and emotional abuse levelled at the Wilson patriarch by his children. Brian Wilson remains musically active at present, both in touring and composing new works.

Creativity and unusual thinking

Sternberg and Lubart (1999) highlight novel ideas, flexible approaches and appropriateness of outcomes as criteria for creative acts. This emphasises that while creative and psychopathological thinking are both unusual, only the former generates ideas that are recognised as meritorious by other individuals. Not all psychologically ill people are creative geniuses, and the majority of creative individuals show no signs of mental illness (Juda, 1949). Therefore, especial consideration should be given to Sternberg and Lubart’s suggestion that the discriminatory factor of creative value is evident from peer attitudes towards creative products. Creativity can be described as novel or unusual approaches that are appreciated by people other than the creator.

Brian Wilson employed musical techniques that inspired contemporaries both within his field (MacDonald, 1998) and without (Ligerman & Leaf, 2004). At the same time, his work garnered commercial success via a string of high-charting singles and million-selling albums, whilst nevertheless retaining integrity in peer reviews (Rolling Stone, 2003). That Wilson employed novel approaches in composition is evident from his use of unconventional instrumentation and compositional methods, which make heavy use of bizarre and idiosyncratic harmonic progressions (Wegman, 2005). Interestingly, his unusual approach to instrumentation seems linked to strange and emotional associations to sounds, e.g. remarking that the sound of the theremin (a rare instrument, which he championed) put him in mind of ’weird facial expressions - almost sexual’ (Wilson & Gold, 1991, p. 82). Unusual thoughts such as these provide the basis for speculation of a link between creativity and mental illness.

In later years, Wilson’s song-writing and arranging skills developed to such an extent that he was consistently named as one of the most creative and influential figures in popular music in the latter half of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, as his fame and musical prowess progressed from the year 1964, so too did a range of psychological problems, including heavy drug use. Wilson has been (at different times and by different individuals) said to suffer from unspecified schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia, depression, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar depression. Part of the scope of this analysis is to examine how valid these diagnoses were and how any symptoms he shows might best be conceptualised. This is of particular importance in trying to identify characteristics of mental disorder that may impact on creativity when we consider the vast heterogeneity of symptoms present in schizophrenia and related disorders (Buchanan & Carpenter, 1994), of which schizoaffective disorder is an example (Gershon, DeLisi, Hamovit, Nurnberger, Maxwell, Schreiber, Dauphinais, Dingman & Guroff, 1988).

Consideration of sources

Though various accounts have been given of Wilson’s life, these have not necessarily all been reliable: parts of his 1991 autobiography (Wilson & Gold, 1991) have latterly been criticised by biographers and the Wilson estate as being largely ghost-written, supposedly editing details so as to portray Wilson’s then psychiatrist/business manager Dr. Eugene Landy in a better light (Carlin, 2006). Though these remarks are oriented more towards how Landy’s techniques and business decisions are described in the book (mostly in the second half), it is possible that there is also some fabrication of accounts of Wilson’s mental states and biographical details. At the time of the book’s publication Wilson was still under the care of Dr. Landy, who was later proven to have taken an exploitative measure of control over Wilson’s life. Accordingly, any information used in this analysis has been included only when referred to by two or more biographical sources, and all information from the autobiography has been treated with especial scrutiny, bordering on scepticism. Sources used were: Wilson & Gold (1991), Carlin (2006), Gaines (1995), Ligerman & Leaf (2004), Abbott (2001), Webb (2001), King (2004), Gabel (2000) and (sparingly, and where appropriate) the liner notes to the re-issued albums by The Beach Boys (2000-2001): ‘Pet Sounds’, ‘Smiley Smile/Wild Honey’, ‘Sunflower/Surf’s Up’, and ‘Beach Boys’ Party!/Stack-O-Tracks’.

Accounts of Wilson’s psychological disorders

Nature and onset of hallucinations

Potentially psychotic aspects of Wilson’s disorders are straightforward enough to identify: he suffers from auditory hallucinations, and has also held various paranoid beliefs and delusions. He first reported hearing indistinct voices and screaming in his sleep in 1963 (at age 21), reporting that he was able to stop himself from hearing them as long as he kept working and producing music. This claim ties in with Wilson’s reports that at about this age he felt ‘a compulsion’ to write music constantly, becoming sick and anxious when he did not do so (Wilson & Gold, 1991, p. 72; Ligerman & Leaf, 2004). Compulsion to write music may also be an early indication of safety behaviours and attempts to regain control of his environment, given that Wilson has often made reference to experiencing anxiety in the presence of others, as well as reticence in engaging in interpersonal relations.

His strange behaviours deepened with time: by 1964, he would often become obsessed with tiny details (e.g. counting the number of tiles on a floor, the number of peas on a plate, the number of stitches on an aeroplane seat), and by 1966 he would conduct important conversations only in his home swimming pool, as he believed his house was filled with hidden recording devices. More overtly psychotic symptoms gradually worsened as Wilson entered his mid-twenties, particularly his auditory hallucinations which went from indistinct recollections of hypnagogic experiences to fully formed speech that reminded him of critical remarks made by his father (Carlin, 2006). As Wilson grew older, the voices he heard grew more frightening: in 2004 he reported that when he experienced them, they would threaten to kill him and his family (Ligerman & Leaf, 2004).

Though these hallucinations are clear indication of some sort of psychiatric disorder, there is conflicting evidence regarding Wilson’s drug use relative to the onset and development of such symptoms. His autobiography claims that he was hearing hallucinatory critical remarks in the second person by 1964, though more recent interviews place the beginning of these episodes after he had first used d-lysergic acid diethylamide-25 (LSD) in 1965. This distinction is crucial, given the ambiguous relationship that LSD has with psychotic symptoms: in a review of literature on the drug, Strassman (1984) emphasises that no causal link between LSD use and subsequent development of psychotic traits has been established, but this argument is somewhat undermined by the review’s concession that drug experiences may act as precipitating factors in the incidence of schizophrenic episodes. Considering drug use is prevalent among sufferers of schizophrenia and related disorders (Soyka, Albus, Kathmann, Finelli, Hofstetter, Holzbach, Immler & Sand, 1993), the specific nature of potential effects here are difficult to resolve, and it is unfortunate that currently no definitive source of information exists on when Wilson began experiencing verbalised auditory hallucinations relative to his first LSD experience.

Having said this, Wilson began using marijuana recreationally in 1964, with his use gradually increasing, especially following his retirement from live performances in 1964. Cannabis seems to play some role in the development of psychosis, be it a primary effect of the substance or a secondary effect due to subjective cognitions associated with its use (Hall & Solowij, 1998). Such effects have yet to be conclusively proven in normal individuals, though the drug has been shown as an independent risk factor for psychosis (Andr ́easson, Allebeck, Engstr ̈om & Rydberg, 1987; Caspari, 1999) in individuals with predispositions towards mental disorder (Linszen Dingemans & Lenior, 1994). Wilson may have had such a predisposition: despite an absence of reported unpleasant hallucinations prior to 1965, he consistently reports a curious subjective experience of constantly hearing music (‘musical hallucination’, cf. Sacks, 2007), dating back as far as he can remember. Furthermore, this phenomenon appears to be integrally related to his song-writing and arrangement (i.e. his creative ventures), where he would supposedly hear completed songs in his head before hearing them performed, baffling session musicians and bandmates who claimed that their parts would often make little musical sense before being heard in the context of the full arrangement of the piece.

Delusions

Wilson’s delusions were various and wide-ranging. Perhaps the earliest example was, in 1964, a belief that his bandmate Mike Love was having an affair with his wife (Wilson & Gold, 1991). With time, his delusions became more outlandish: as well as the aforementioned suspicions that his house was bugged, he became convinced that recording a song about fire had caused a nearby building to burn down, and he once refused to let a business associate’s wife into the recording studio because he believed she was a witch trying to control his mind (Carlin, 2006, p. 119).

Depression

That Wilson exhibits symptoms of affective disorder is given strong empirical support by the relative effectiveness of different drugs that he has been prescribed. Initially diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by the controversial Dr. Landy in 1983, Wilson was heavily medicated with anti-psychotic drugs; so much so that he developed tardive dyskinesia (Carlin, 2006, p. 271). All sources referring to the medication he was taking until 1992 are no more specific than mentioning ‘psychotropic drugs’, though the development of tardive dykinesia implicates medication with phenothiazines, and it is likely that chlorpromazine would have been used in such an instance (Starks & Braslow, 2005).

Psychiatric evaluations between 1992 and 1994, after Wilson had left Landy’s care, favoured diagnoses of schizoaffective disorder and mild bipolarity. This led to a change in Wilson’s prescriptions: to anti-depressants, and in a far more moderate dosage (Carlin, 2006, p. 280). These appear to have led to a greater lucidity and subjective sense of well being, which may however have been due to his transference to a less oppressive environment: whilst in Landy’s care, Wilson was separated from his family, and put under strict regimes of diet and timetabling. The positive mood effects following this change of medication are said to have come together with a reduction in the frequency and severity of Wilson’s auditory hallucinations. At the time of writing, Wilson’s hallucinations are still present, but are episodic, and he reports feeling better able to cope with them (Ligerman & Leaf, 2004). Whether this is a primary psychopharmacological effect of the new medication or a secondary effect due to his improved emotional state is difficult to say.

Other than improvements as a result of treating his disorder with antidepressants, there is biographical evidence that Wilson suffered from depressive episodes. He and others have noted him suffering periods of low mood and general disinterest in doing anything of his own volition, even growing bored of writing music, the one thing that he had previously claimed always offered some sort of solace. He has also shown episodes of vast weight gain and expansion in appetite, gaining over 100lbs between 1973 and 1975 (Wilson & Gold, 1991), clearly evident in photographic evidence from this period. Other depressive symptoms he has shown include sleeping or staying in bed for most of the day, and suicidal ideation that may have resulted in legitimate suicide attempts (Wilson & Gold, 1991; Carlin, 2006; but see Whitworth, 2004).

These episodes are typified by a period between the summer of 1973 and the end of 1975 where Wilson experienced all of the above, as well as refusing to groom himself for weeks at a time. Examples of his binge eating at this point included eating three to six hamburgers a day for lunch, and eating a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread for breakfast. Wilson himself has noted that when he was over-eating, he would often consume sweet, fatty, or unhealthy food. Even at a conservative estimate, it seems that this period qualifies as a major depressive episode (MDE) according to DSM IV-TR classification (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000). A biographical note regarding the onset of this specific episode is that Wilson’s father (with whom he had always had a strongly emotional and rather unhealthy relationship) died on the 4th June 1973, shortly before the episode’s onset. Though this may have acted as a trigger for depressive symptoms, there can be little doubt that what Wilson experienced cannot be fully accounted for by bereavement, given that the symptoms persisted for well over two months, and he was subject to marked functional impairment (criterion E for Major Depressive Episodes, regarding bereavement, APA, 2000), evidenced by his sudden decrease in rate of writing music (The Beach Boys, 2000).

Hypomanic qualities

Wilson clearly exhibited depressive symptoms, but evidence of hypomanic episodes is somewhat subtler and more elusive. There are a number of possible reasons for this: Wilson may not have suffered from mania; it could simply be the case that manic episodes were less pronounced and less common than his depressive symptoms; or it could be that his mania was manifest in irritable moods and other forms that may seem less obviously ’manic’ (cf. criterion A of the manic/hypomanic episode classification, APA, 2000) than a prolonged elated mood. It might alternatively be the case that Wilson was subject to mixed episodes, and as such any manic symptoms may have been overlooked due to depressive elements of his disorder, presumably more salient as they are less characteristic of how a pop singing sensation is expected to behave. Having said this, most biographical accounts make some reference to Wilson experiencing ‘mood swings’, two notable examples being: ‘Some days Brian would stay in bed, gazing vacantly up at the ceiling. . . Other days he would jump out of bed with all the energy and enthusiasm he had ever had’ (a description of Wilson in 1967, from Carlin, 2006), and the description of Wilson as ‘crying one minute, laughing hysterically the next for no reason’ by Wilson’s ex-wife Marilyn, who claimed that these mood swings gradually grew ‘wider, more unpredictable’ after Brian’s first experience with LSD in 1965 (Wilson & Gold, 1991).

Furthermore, there is evidence of events in Wilson’s life that, even if they did not form part of a manic/hypomanic episode per se, certainly show evidence of being symptomatic of such states. These include periods where he would stay awake for prolonged periods of time, experience highly goal- motivated periods of activity and flights of ideas (the recording and writing sessions for the albums Pet Sounds and SMiLE, respectively), as well as various rash business decisions (most infamously the opening, on a whim, of a 24-hour health food shop, which he had no idea how to manage. The shop quickly failed). Even if these symptoms did not co-occur, they are still indicative of hypomanic symptomatology, and given that they occurred together with Wilson’s depression over a period of years, this would suggest at least some sort of cyclothymic disorder, as defined by the DSM IV- TR. However, given that Wilson experienced what seems to be an MDE—an exclusion criterion for cyclothymic disorder proper (APA, 2000)—the diagnosis of mild bipolar disorder reportedly given by his doctors does appear to be the most appropriate. If we accept the previous diagnosis of an MDE, then type II bipolar disorder would be the most likely candidate, as it requires at least one incidence of an MDE (bipolar I disorder does not, but does require a manic episode).

Finding an appropriate clinical framework for the observed psychoses

There is good evidence that Wilson experiences hallucinations and delusions, and these (perhaps more likely in the case of the former) may be related to his creativity. However, as defined by the DSM IV-TR, schizophrenia (the disorder most commonly associated with these symptoms— cf. Rosenhan, 1973) contains an exclusion criterion whereby the disorder can only be diagnosed if the symptoms present cannot be alternatively explained by schizoaffective or bipolar disorders. The heterogeneity of Wilson’s symptoms together with the problem of hierarchical exclusion criteria potentially confuses diagnosis. The computer program Opcrit v4.0 (McGuffin & Farmer, 2004) was therefore used in an attempt to resolve this diagnostic issue.

Attempted verification of diagnoses with the Opcrit program

Opcrit 4.0 (McGuffin & Farmer, 2004) is a computer program that rates an individual’s psychopathology scores on 10 different diagnostic schemes (and 3 subsystems determining schizophrenic subtypes) following the completion of a 90-item checklist. An intrinsic feature of the Opcrit program is that it can be configured to generate diagnoses from a number of different sources, for example: hospital notes, structured interviews and (as was used in the present analysis) a combination of various sources not including a structured interview. Although Opcrit was initially developed for use in clinical diagnoses, there is precedent for its use with psychobiographical information. Claridge (1998) employed the program in a manner very similar to that used here, generating diagnoses from biographical information of creative individuals.

Data from all available sources were compiled and used to complete the Opcrit checklist. This was performed as conservatively as possible: evidence was only used when timeframes were evident and when corroborated by reliable sources. In instances of ambiguity (examples here being changes in the nature of speech/communication, and any items relating to libido), items were coded as absent, so as to ensure the most stringent analysis possible given the non-clinical form of the sources of evidence. Despite this, Wilson emerged with definite diagnoses on nine of the program’s ten main diagnostic schemes (see Table 1).

It is clear from these results that Wilson presents with diagnostically significant psychotic and affective symptoms. The diagnosis of ‘schizoaffective disorder’ is supported by those four diagnostic schemes that use this terminology, while the other schemes support the identification of both schizophrenia-related and mood disorders. Any uncertainty presented by this set of outputs relates to the specific nature of the affective component of Wilson’s disorder - namely that there is a split between diagnoses of bipolar (DSM, RDC) and unipolar (Taylor & Abrams, ICD) depression. This echoes earlier concerns of this psychobiographical analysis, and the absence of a definite bipolar diagnosis may reflect the conservative approach used in the data entry. Finally, there is some slight ambiguity in Wilson’s classifications on the schizophrenic subtypes. He emerges as paranoid type on Farmer’s classification, but conversely as hebephrenic type via the Tsuang and Winokur system. Taken together with the verdict of ‘mixed type’ from Crow’s classification this would suggest that a purely schizophrenic framework is inappropriate for Wilson’s disorder, as he demonstrates a mixed symptomatology with clear manifestations of positive, negative and affective syndromes.

Table 1: Showing the various diagnoses and subtypes for Brian Wilson generated by Opcrit 4.0

All considered, the extent to which these ratings resemble both the initial speculations of the present report and Wilson’s reported diagnoses is encouraging. It bears mentioning that even in their ambiguity, the outputs lend themselves to interpretation as the mild type II bipolarity postulated earlier. Given the preponderance of depressive symptoms in such a disorder (and the fact that Opcrit makes no distinctions between bipolar types I and II) mild type II bipolarity would seem the most plausible conclusion given the outputs. The Opcrit program lends strong, clinical support to the analysis and validates the use of a schizoaffective framework. Furthermore, the outputs— mainly atypical psychoses and schizoaffective disorders—resemble diagnoses from a range of creative individuals (Claridge, 1998), supporting ideas that such disorders are closely related to creativity.

Family effects and the Wilsons

Genetics

In contrast to consistent findings of high correlations within families of psychotic, schizophrenic, and schizotypal symptoms (Grove, Lebow, Clementz, Cerri, Medus & Iacono, 1991), no reports of explicit hallucinations are given for Wilson’s first-degree relatives, nor does there seem to be any family history of such psychotic qualities. However, there is strong evidence of other forms of psychological disorder among Wilson’s close family, implicating a potential genetic vulnerability to psychopathology, even if there is heterogeneity in symptom presentation.

Brian’s father Murry has been described as domineering and abusive by Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, as well as various neighbours of the Wilson family (Carlin, 2006). There is also evidence that Murry Wilson suffered from what may have been an MDE: after being dismissed as manager of The Beach Boys by Brian, Murry took to his bed for a period of between three weeks and a month, with a noticeable loss of motivation: ‘He could barely summon the will to change out of his pajamas at first’ (Carlin, 2006). Brian’s current wife Melinda has explicitly referred to Murry as having suffered from depression (Whitworth, 2004), though this comes with the caveat that she never met him, and no biographical evidence exists to suggest that he was treated for such a disorder. Brian’s mother is purported by Wilson & Gold (1991) to have abused alcohol (supposedly as a way of dealing with the intense and violent Wilson home environment), but this claim should be regarded sceptically, as it does not appear in any other sources. Both of Brian’s brothers suffered from addictions to various substances: Carl to alcohol and cocaine, Dennis to alcohol, cocaine and possibly heroin (he used the latter on multiple occasions, but the actual frequency and nature of his use is unclear).

The prevalence of substance abuse and dependence in Wilson’s close family is of particular interest when we consider that clinical and biological similarities between drug abuse (as opposed to recreational use) and mental disorders have been identified (Davis, 2001). As luck would have it, the environment of The Beach Boys provides an interesting natural experiment: assuming that all members of the group were exposed to the same kinds of situations in which drugs would have been available and accessible, only the Wilson brothers developed dependencies. The other three members of the band, one of whom (Mike Love) was a first cousin of the Wilsons, used drugs recreationally without becoming addicted.

The findings of Volkow, Fowler & Wang (1999) may elucidate the observed family effects relating to drug abuse and mental disorder. This research into dopaminergic reward systems and cocaine use suggests a biochemical predisposition (such as having significantly fewer D2 dopamine receptors) that enhances the hedonic aspects of the drug. These findings support the potential involvement of dopaminergic systems in genetic susceptibility to psychological disorder in the Wilson family. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that abnormalities in dopamine receptors may be related to bipolar disorder (Pearlson et al. 1995). Interestingly, dopamine tends to also be linked (with far greater regularity) to schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders (Meltzer & Stahl, 1976; Grace, 1991), albeit in this case with an excess of the neurotransmitter rather than deficiencies in receptors. No current framework exists to attempt to resolve these findings. Despite this apparent lack of clarity, there does seem to be familial evidence among the Wilsons of divergence from norms, evident in mood and likely rooted in biochemistry. More directly observable in the current analysis though is the role that Wilson’s family environment may have played in forming his personality and psychological disorders.

Family environment

One widely documented aspect of Wilson’s family environment is that of the relationship between Murry Wilson and his children, specifically the physical abuse he administered. This has been consistently reported across biographical accounts of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys alike, and typified by Dennis Wilson’s quote ‘He used to whale on us’ (Webb, 2001). More doubtful though is the extreme psychological torment recounted in Wilson and Gold (1991), which includes claims that Murry once summoned his family into the kitchen so he could shout at them that he was ‘King of [the] goddamn family. I’m the goddamn king’ whilst standing naked on a table; and that he once forced Brian to defaecate on a newspaper in front of both his parents. Due to Brian’s inconsistent memory, it is difficult to either prove or disprove these stories. As an example of his confabulation, he has variously attributed the deafness in his right ear to congenital nerve defects (Wilson & Gold, 1991); an early beating administered by his father (Ligerman & Leaf, 2004); and an accident involving a neighbourhood boy (Carlin, 2006). Though Brian no longer recounts the more extreme accusations of Wilson & Gold (1991), he has recently claimed (Ligerman & Leaf, 2004) that the beatings he experienced as a child were so severe that his stance was cowering and hunched until high school age.

Although the absence of striking psychotic (hallucinatory/delusional) symptoms in Carl and Dennis Wilson limits the influence ascribable to Murry’s behaviour on the specific presentation of Brian’s symptoms, physical abuse has been shown to be a significant independent risk factor for major depressive and dysthymic disorders, drug use, and cigarette smoking (Kaplan, Pelcovitz, Salzinger, Weiner, Mandel, Lesser & Labruna, 1998), as well as other affective disorders (Herman, Perry & van der Kolk, 1989). These points are especially pertinent in light of the fact that, although Carl and Dennis Wilson were never diagnosed as having psychotic or affective disorders, they did both suffer from drug and alcohol abuse and addiction. A healthy family environment has been shown to act as a protective factor for schizotypal traits (Raine, 2006), and childhood trauma has been identified as a significant independent risk factor for psychotic symptoms (Bak, Krabbendam, Janssen, de Graaf, Vollebergh & van Os, 2005; Janssen, Krabbendam, Hanssen, Bak, Vollebergh, de Graaf & van Os, 2005) and schizophrenia-related disorders (Read, van Os, Morrison & Ross, 2005). Accordingly, the abuse that Brian Wilson suffered may well have contributed to his psychotic symptoms. Murry would often make needless, malicious criticisms of Brian’s music; Brian has alleged that these critical remarks provided the template for his earliest (vocalised) auditory hallucinations, as well as some strange behaviour that may well have been delusional. For example, in 1980 Brian attacked a psychiatrist for lighting a pipe in a way that resembled his father (Carlin, 2006). It seem a viable assertion that Murry Wilson’s specific actions and the general abusive nature of the familial environment in which Brian grew up provided an independent contribution to his various mental disorders.

Drug Use

Another external influence upon Brian Wilson’s psychology was his substance abuse. This included extensive, excessive use of cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, cigarettes and caffeine, as well as sporadic use of LSD, and over-medication with prescribed sleeping pills when isolated from his drugs of preference. Aside from the role previously hypothesised for these drugs exacerbating certain of Wilson’s symptoms, there seem to have been distinct conscious reasons for his use of each. These points afford a unique insight into the influence of such substances on creativity and mental illness, as well as offering dissociations between the actions of different drugs - a useful consideration for drug models of psychological disorders.

The roles that caffeine and cigarettes played for Brian are easily explicable as consequences of his depression and his lifestyle, both coinciding as they did with Wilson’s years of depression, weight gain, and cocaine addiction. A concise overview of both of these overindulgences is given in the opening chapter of Wilson & Gold (1991), where they are portrayed as habitual excesses, as opposed to being used for any sort of high. This is exemplified by Wilson’s behaviour in 1978, where he would spend hours at a time lying on his couch, staring up at the ceiling and smoking constantly (Carlin, 2006).

Cannabis

Wilson was originally recommended cannabis by a friend, and enjoyed the new perceptual experiences afforded by its effect. Soon after this, he began using the drug explicitly for creative purposes, and he cites its influence in his decision to use bigger, denser sounds in music production, employing orchestral instrumentation as opposed to the simpler and more conventional rock arrangements that he had favoured for earlier tracks (Wilson & Gold, 1991, p. 114; Ligerman & Leaf, 2004). This finding is interesting in light of observations by Fachner (2006), who explains the greater incidence of cannabis use among musicians (compared to other artists) with data suggesting that marijuana subjectively enhances certain aspects of music by intensifying sensory perception with regard to duration, loudness, pitch, and timbre. Since many musicians have been documented as changing ’their sound’ as a result of using cannabis (see MacDonald, 1998 for an excellent overview of these changes in many popular bands in the 1960s), it may be that the drug does indeed offer creative insight for the musician. In contrast, Bourassa & Vaugeois (2001) found no effect upon divergent thinking (a common test of creative potential, e.g. Wallach & Kogan, 1965) due to cannabis in novice users, and found a detrimental effect in regular users, suggesting that the drug has no direct influence on divergent aspects of creativity. At the same time, it is not hard to see how allowing proficient musicians new perceptual insights in listening to music could produce novel results (cf. Sternberg & Lubart, 1999): that is to say cannabis may be associated with creative acts, but only when musical creativity is already the individual’s wont. These perceptual insights are orthogonal to measures of divergent thinking, and neither provides a full account of creativity.

Cannabis is also notorious for its supposed induction of psychotic episodes; both in short term cannabis psychosis and in hypothesised links to schizophrenic symptoms. Hall & Degenhardt (2000), in a review of such possibilities, suggest that though the former is a verifiable risk of overindulgence in the drug, the latter point remains unproven. Data implying that schizophrenic symptoms can be induced in normals as a result of using cannabis are lacking, but there is evidence to suggest that it may act as an independent risk factor for such symptoms where the individual already has some predisposition to mental disorder (Andr ́easson et al., 1987; Caspari, 1999) and that cannabis use can be considered a stressor likely to result in relapse among schizophrenic individuals (Linszen et al. 1994). The evidence from Brian Wilson lends some support to these ideas, but at the same time may be indicative of a more subtle interaction of factors. For example, drug use may have affected his psychology and behaviour indirectly in terms of how he approached the substances, and the initial use may have been associated with adverse life experiences (e.g. high stress). These extraneous variables are impossible to control for in retrospective analyses.

As well as the previous speculation about the involvement of marijuana in the first incidence of Wilson’s auditory hallucinations, he suffered what appears to have been a panic attack shortly after his first experience with cannabis, in 1964. In this incident, Wilson experienced a sudden onset of intense fear and anxiety on a plane, despite having had no previous disinclination towards air travel. The episode involved him screaming for his wife Marilyn, whilst running around the aircraft shouting for the plane to land. However, the timing here may be coincidental, given the mounting pressures of writing and touring that were then affecting him: as well as touring internationally, Wilson had, by June 28th 1964 (age 22), produced ten LPs in less than three years. It seems unlikely that this episode would be directly attributable to the effects of cannabis, given that Wilson has said that he would use the drug to relieve anxiety, initially together with the creative influence that he felt it gave him (Wilson & Gold, 1991) but subsequently more and more for recreational reasons (Carlin, 2006). This assumption seems to better suit past research on cannabis, noted for its relaxant effects (Wachtel, ElSohly, Ross, Ambre & de Wit, 2002).

LSD

The other drug that Wilson used with creative intent was LSD. Wilson has cited the drug as being greatly influential on his creative apex ’Pet Sounds’, but perhaps indirectly. Although it is a widely reported story that the influential single ‘California Girls’ was composed under the direct influence of LSD (i.e. whilst tripping), Pet Sounds shows a secondary influence of the drug, derived from Wilson’s reconsideration of sonic and perceptual experiences in reflection of the trip itself. Moreover, the poignant introduction of California Girls, which at first glance reflects more hallmarks of a stereotypical ‘drug influence’ (slow, wordless, unconventionally orchestrated), was in fact written later, with the portion composed whilst under the drug’s influence being nothing more than a straightforward and derivative rhythmic figure that Wilson sat and played at a piano for half an hour (Ligerman & Leaf, 2004; Wilson & Gold, 1991). This remains noteworthy, though, as such repetitive rhythmic figures would later come to define Wilson’s approach to song-writing after Pet Sounds, from 1966 onwards (Wegman, 2005). During this time his behaviour became increasingly erratic and his delusions reached a stage where they were interfering with his normal functioning (e.g. halting work and destroying music because he believed that it had unnatural power, as he did during the recording of the song ‘Fire’ in 1967; purposely avoiding people or leaving his room as a coping method for his increasingly severe auditory hallucinations), suggesting that his symptoms were becoming pathological.

Around this time, Wilson’s auditory hallucinations also started worsening, until by 1969 they had all the characteristics recognisable in his contemporary hallucinations (namely those of accusations and threats in the second-person, making liberal reference to the devil). Though Wilson indulged in LSD far less than other drugs he used (various sources stating that he took it no more than three times), it would seem foolish to discount the role the substance played in his mental degradation post-1965, especially in light of circumstantial evidence of similarities between LSD psychosis and actual psychosis (Young 1974; Vardy & Kay, 1983) and more explicit findings that LSD presents a significant independent risk for psychosis in predisposed individuals (Abraham & Aldridge, 1993; Vardy & Kay, 1983). Furthermore, only the truly cynical would discount its additional effects on his creative exploits. The question thus begins to emerge of whether this creative enhancement is related to the exacerbation of his mental disorders, and how far LSD may be accountable for each of these. This question will be addressed shortly, but is perhaps better viewed in light of a full account of Wilson’s drug use.

Amphetamines

Though not expressly used as a creative tool in the way of cannabis and LSD, amphetamines quickly became an integral part of Wilson’s working process after he started using them in 1967. During the writing sessions for SMiLE (the abandoned album that was to follow Pet Sounds), Wilson and his lyricist Van Dyke Parks would take vast quantities of amphetamines to allow them to work on their songs late into the night, for hours at a time. Thus amphetamines initially helped Wilson with issues regarding motivation and concentration: compare these speed-fuelled writing marathons with the writing sessions for Pet Sounds (a year earlier), where he would wake up in the early afternoon, procrastinate by watching children’s television after his lyrical co-writer had arrived, and take frequent breaks once song-writing had begun.

Given Wilson’s subsequent diagnoses and depressive episodes, one might claim that amphetamines were initially used in self-medication to allow him to continue to function as a songwriter by relieving the cognitive (focus-based) and physiological (tiredness-based) impairments that he was then experiencing. Certainly, self-medication has previously been shown to be closely associated with psychotic disorders (Haas, Weiden, Sweeney & Frances, 1991). The possibility that he may have used amphetamines as a self-medicating treatment for problems in focusing on work is tantalising evidence for an overarching concept of schizotypy and affective disorder in Wilson, given that impairments of volition are hallmarks not only of depression (Drevets & Todd, 1997), but also schizophrenia, particularly in how negative symptomatology maps onto avolition in a manner phenomenologically akin to depression (Lysaker & Bell, 1995).

Alcohol and cocaine

Further evidence for self-medication comes from Wilson’s use of alcohol and cocaine. Alcohol appears to have been the first substance that he used heavily, in this case to calm intensely anxious spells that he experienced while touring until 1964 (Wilson & Gold, 1991). This anxiety relief was later supplanted by cannabis, together with its use in creative endeavours. His introduction to cocaine came in 1968, upon a friend’s advice. He began overusing the drug and quickly became addicted, consuming it in excess, especially when he resumed touring in 1977. In this period there was little question of any drugs being used for creative purposes, given that by this point Wilson rarely wrote new songs, and certainly did not seek to push himself creatively when doing so (Carlin, 2006, p. 239). Instead his attitude towards drugs was characterised more by a desire to change his normal functioning, once again suggesting the likelihood of self-medicating.

Drug models of Wilson’s disorders

As noted by Claridge (1994), both amphetamines and LSD have been used to model schizophrenic symptoms, with varying successes; amphetamine models are more widespread and benefit from heavier research (Claridge, 1978). Admittedly, they tie in well with the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia (Meltzer & Stahl, 1976; Willner, 1997), a theory supported by observational sim- ilarities between amphetamine addicts and schizophrenics, as well as psychotomimesis from amphetamines that is reversed upon administering anti-psychotics (Griffith, Cavanaugh, Held & Oates, 1972). Furthermore, anti-psychotic drugs such as chlorpromazine block dopamine receptors in the brain (Abi-Dargham, Rodenhiser, Printz, Zea-Ponce, Gil, Kegeles, Weiss, Cooper, Mann, Van Heertum, Gorman & Laruelle, 2000). However, Claridge (1994) suggests that these findings do not serve as the most accurate drug model of psychosis available, drawing attention to the facts that amphetamine modelling of the disorder only reproduces a limited number of features, and even then only with very high or chronic doses, and only in individuals with predispositions to psychotic symptoms. This suggests that abnormal dopamine levels are secondary in the disorder. Evidence from Brian Wilson then provides a basis to emphasise the effects of LSD in accelerating schizophrenia-like symptoms.

LSD models of schizophrenia-related disorders

LSD models of schizophrenia focus on perceptual effects. The experiences that the drug elicits resemble positive aspects of schizophrenia as given by the DSM IV-TR, including delusions, hallucinations and disorganised speech/behaviour. Admittedly, LSD has not been shown to mimic negative effects of schizophrenia - and as such cannot be claimed to be a comprehensive model of the disorder - but a reconsideration of existing research into this area, together with other schizophrenia research and information from the case study of Brian Wilson, could prove highly informative.

The main thrust of LSD modelling of schizophrenia is that the drug disrupts serotonergic activity (Woolley & Shaw, 1954), likely by virtue of the fact that it resembles serotonin in its functional groups and as such affects sites of serotonergic action in the brain (Bennett & Snyder, 1976). Disrupting serotonergic activity interrupts perceptual pathways in which the neurotransmitter is implicated (Mehl, Rther & Redemann, 1977); this disruption could then lead to a mismatch between external stimuli and subjective perceptual experience, evidence for which abounds in available LSD research.

Claridge (1994) highlights findings of dissociations between visual stimuli and physiological responses in humans under the influence of LSD. Under low general arousal conditions the drug led to selective and progressive enhancement of visually evoked potentials (VEPs) from light flashes (measured by electroencephalogram, EEG), as a function of stimulus intensity. Instead of a linear effect of EEG signal increase with increases of stimulus intensity (seen in absence of the drug), there was a greater rate of increase in the neurophysiological responses to stimuli when these were more intense. These results demonstrate dissociation between external stimuli and subjective responses in terms of sensory, autonomic and somatic arousal, giving empirical demonstration of subjective reports of disengagement from reality as a result of LSD use (Linton & Langs, 1962). Claridge & Clark (1982) found identical perceptual dissociations in a schizophrenic sample, suggesting that LSD is an effective model of this aspect of schizophrenic functioning.

However, merely showing that LSD leads to perceptual aberrations comparable to some aspects of psychosis is not enough for a viable model of schizophrenia-related symptoms. Though researchers such as Young (1974) have stated that psychoses induced by LSD and schizophrenia are phenomenologically indistinguishable, the model is lame without a framework to link such observations. Jacobs and Trulson (1979) propose that the serotonergic disruptions seen when administering LSD to animals consistently serve to produce hyperactivity and hypersensitivity to all environmental stimuli. They suggest that the normal functional role of the affected serotonergic neurons is therefore to modulate an organism’s behaviour, providing focus and subjecting action to certain limits and constraints.

Impairment of selective attention is a fundamental deficit in schizophrenia (Kornetsky & Markowitz, 1975). Studies using dichotic listening to examine attention in schizophrenic patients have shown abnormalities inferring atypical filtering of information into the nervous system (McGhie, 1969). The notion of a defective attentional filter could potentially explain these findings and others mentioned earlier, especially if the filter were controlled by serotonergic systems. Though there is scant neurophysiological evidence to clarify what the neural mechanisms themselves might be, the idea of a dysfunctional cognitive filter has been proposed as a model for the disorder by Payne & Hewlett (1960), supported by cognitively disordered performance of schizophrenic patients on object-sorting tasks (Payne, Hochby & Hawks, 1970). The case study at hand provides support for suggestions of an impaired attentional filter in schizophrenia-related functioning: Brian Wilson appeared to suffer from such impairments, attested to by reports of his poor driving skills, rooted in an inability to selectively attend to a single stimulus (i.e. not becoming distracted by extraneous noises and traffic) for prolonged periods of time (Carlin, 2006).

The specific model of attentional aberration that best fits the observed data seems to be Cameron (1947)’s identification of ‘overinclusion’: schizophrenics’ tendency to incorporate irrelevant environmental information into subjective experience, and inability to maintain concise conceptual boundaries. Payne (1971) attributed this effect to a defective cognitive filter. Indeed, overinclusion adequately explains the greater variability of schizophrenics’ EEG evoked potentials, both visual (Rappaport, Hopkins, Hall & Belleze, 1975) and auditory (Callaway & Jones, 1975; Call- away, Jones & Layne, 1965). Overinclusion therefore seems a good starting point for a theory of schizophrenia-related functioning, informed as it is by the positive symptoms akin to the cognitive disorder component of schizotypy (Mason, Claridge & Jackson, 1995).

However, the LSD model of schizophrenia is far from being conceptually complete, as it falls short of providing a complete mimicry of positive schizophrenic episodes. A good example of this is that when Brian Wilson experienced an ‘acid flashback’ (‘post-hallucinogen perceptual disorder’: recapitulation of LSD’s effects in the absence of actually taking the drug—APA, 2000) in 1965, he recognised it as qualitatively distinct from his other positive symptomatological experiences (Wilson & Gold, 1991). Even if the perceptual effects reported in LSD influence (Claridge, 1994) and schizophrenia (Claridge & Clark, 1982) are identical, there are obviously other components that contribute to the subjective experience of the disorder. This shortcoming, together with the model’s inability to explain negative symptoms of schizophrenia, is clear evidence that LSD cannot model schizophrenia-related disorders in their entirety. However, what it does offer is an insight into the often-linked and just-as-often-debunked co-incidences of mental disorder, LSD use, and creativity.

Overinclusion in creativity and schizophrenia-related functioning

There are two key points here: firstly that of overinclusion, and secondly that in the case of Brian Wilson, the only drugs that he and others claimed changed his personality and creative attitudes were cannabis (the creative role of which has already been explained in some way by possible perceptual effects on audition) and LSD. Cocaine and amphetamines by contrast seemed to have had little effect beyond relieving depressive symptoms. Drug use for self-medication is frequently observed in individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (Dixon et al., 1991). Since LSD may foster or exacerbate the effects of overinclusion, we would assume that this second point is crucially related to the first.

At the risk of trivialising the eternal plight of the artist, overinclusion seems to be the mechanism by which the divergent thinking component of creativity (at least in Wilson’s case) may operate. This echoes Eysenck (1995), who postulated overinclusion as the mechanism for allusive thinking in both schizotypal individuals and creative normals. As previously mentioned, LSD mimics schizophrenic functioning in that it impairs the serotonin-influenced cognitive filter for information, which presumably allows for a wider spread of information to be incorporated into the attentional window. This sits well with the impairments of selective and sustained attention that characterise schizophrenia-like processing (Kornetsky & Markowitz, 1975; Juda, 1949).

Furthermore, Woody & Claridge (1977) report findings that individuals at higher risk for psychotic symptoms show higher divergent thinking, together with overinclusion. Perhaps most intriguing though are studies showing that overinclusion apparently leads to greater generalisation of learning and knowledge. For example, Key (1961) showed that (unlike amphetamines) LSD’s ability to alter the significance of stimuli led to a greater generalisation of conditioned responses in cats. Similarly, Mednick (1958) found greater generalisation and sensitivity to remote emotional cues in schizophrenic patients, via a higher responsivity to stimuli remotely associated to those presented. This corresponds to the ’novelty’ aspect of creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999); creative individuals may make associations between items which to the general population would seem distantly related. This is evident in the case of Brian Wilson from strange associations seen in his comments about the theremin, as well as his use of unconventional orchestration.

Overinclusion and other factors in Wilson’s creativity

As previously mentioned, the thinking of psychiatric patients is not creative; it is pathological. Overinclusion explains how unusual combinations of thoughts may arise, but - as evidenced by thought disorder—not all unusual thoughts are creative. Creativity diverges from simple expertise by being unusual, but this also implies that aspects of expertise are necessary for thought to be truly creative. In terms of the current argument, there is likely a significant contribution of overinclusion to Wilson’s creativity, but there must also be other factors at work.

Intelligence is often implicated in creative success as necessary, but not sufficient, for creativity (Brod, 1997). Claridge & Beech (1995) suggest that it may act as a moderating variable serving to ‘guard against’ the most serious expressions of mental disorder. Though Wilson did briefly attend college, he was not necessarily particularly intelligent in academic terms. However, his musical intelligence (not to be confused with instrumental virtuosity, where he was proficient, but not outstanding) was nothing short of extraordinary. This is evidenced throughout his life from an absurdly precocious start to musicality: being able to hold a tune before he was able to speak (Wilson & Gold, 1991), continuing through to casual displays of exceptional musical talent, e.g. arranging a six-part horn piece whilst conducting a conversation, in the midst of a period of drug abuse and depression (Carlin, 2006).

Although musical proficiency did appear to run in the Wilson family (Carlin, 2006, pp. 5–9), Brian outstripped all his relatives in skill. Whether this talent (as distinct from creativity) is directly related to his mental disorders is debatable, and has little precedent in the literature, but it can be reported with little doubt that his high musical intelligence is certainly a factor in his creativity. We can infer this from his unremarkable (even poor) lyric-writing ability: it is little coincidence that he expressly employed lyricists for various songs, as well as the albums that he considered his most significant creative contributions to music: Pet Sounds and SMiLE. Furthermore, evidence of Wilson’s poor prose style can be seen in the truncated, almost childish style of writing that he uses in the forewords to liner notes on Beach Boys albums, especially evident in the liner notes for ’Beach Boys Party!’ (2001). Music was the only domain in which Wilson showed especial intelligence, and was the only domain where he expressed creativity. Interestingly, music is an area of Wilson’s life that seems to be strongly related to various aspects of his schizoaffective disorder: both in strong emotional reactions (such as spontaneous crying) in response to music (Wilson & Gold, 1991) and in strange perceptual aberrations, notably musical hallucinations (Carlin, 2006; Ligerman & Leaf, 2004).

The role of affective disorder in the schizoaffective framework

At this point, little mention of Wilson’s affective (bipolar) disorder has been made with respect to his creativity or drug use, despite the fact that his mood swings are a prominent part of his personality-psychology continuum. Moreover, mood disorders such as his have previously been related to creativity, most often in creative writers (Andreasen, 1987; Jamison, 1993). As well as the fact that his affective disorders seem less prominent compared to his psychotic problems (not least due to the seemingly arbitrary hierarchical classifications in exclusion criteria that pervade the DSM IV-TR in terms of such diagnoses), the current analysis is guided by research suggesting not only that certain psychotic effects are effectively interchangeable across various schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, but that affective disorders are also part of the same or an overlapping spectrum (Nettle, 2001). Here there is evidence to suggest that schizophrenia-related symptoms are more suited to dimensional classifications than the rigid categorical model that currently exists. As well as vast degrees of overlap between schizophrenia proper and other schizophrenia-related disorders (Siever, Kalus & Keefe, 1993), there is evidence that positive schizophrenic symptoms exist along a continuum, gradually strengthening from personality traits to personality disorder to clinical disorder (Clark, 2005).

But there is more to schizophrenia-related disorders than positive symptomatology. In the current example, Brian Wilson’s schizoaffective disorder contains the additional element of bipolar disorders of mood. As highlighted by Andreasen (2005) and Jamison (2000-2001), mood disorders have been consistently linked with creativity, with some evidence that this is a stronger relation- ship than that with schizotypy. However, it may be misguided to propose an exclusive association to either affective disorders or schizophrenia-related disorders. For instance, Sass (2000–2001a,b) compellingly argues that affective disorder traits often correlate with Romantic creativity (based in strong emotionality), whereas schizophrenia-related functioning encourages the self-consciousness and sense of alienation prevalent in modernist and post-modernist creative works. The implication of both positive schizophrenic symptoms and affective components in creative thinking certainly draws parallels to the symptomatology displayed by Brian Wilson, as well as previous psychobiographies of various schizoaffective authors (Claridge, 1998).

So it appears that cyclothymic, schizotypal, and schizoaffective spectra are all associated with creativity to some extent. The problem then becomes one of trying to establish whether the associations of these disorders with creativity represent a single effect, or whether the routes to creativity are distinct in the different spectra. Unfortunately, a clear delineation of these possibilities is all but confounded by the vast amount of overlap between the disorders (Nettle, 2001). Some researchers additionally claim that the various spectra are simply different manifestations of the same disorder, with differences in symptom manifestation being attributable to personality effects (Crow, 1998; Kendell, 1991; Taylor, 1992). Although such assertions may be a little bold based on current evidence, the disorder types certainly have many phenomenological similarities, whether or not they share the same neurological substrate.

One way of uniting current theory is to emphasise the reactive and compensatory nature of symptoms and effects across affective and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Chapman (1966) pro- posed that for many schizophrenics, the first change in mental state is one of perceptual aberration; thought disorder, and atypical social functioning: safety behaviours (which may include delusions) may then act as ways in which an individual attempts to restore subjective normality or well-being, as a psychological defence mechanism. This then offers some explanation for the incidence of negative symptoms: they may be a reactive mechanism in response to positive symptoms. This is lent credence by observations that schizophrenics, when prevented from expressing positive symptoms, will ’lapse’ into negative symptoms (Bouricius, 1989). Moreover, a strikingly similar observation has been reported in bipolarity, namely that depression is a reactive process of exhaustion or compensation after episodes of creative or manic exertion (Persinger, 1993). So while by no means trying to demote such disorders to side effects of schizophrenic functioning, and fully realising that such assertions are beyond the scope of this analysis, it seems that the two spectra share the same reactive and complementary natures.

Of course, this is all proposed with caveats. Bipolarity could manifest itself as a reactive disorder in response to antecedents other than perceptual atypicalities (for example a hyper-responsive dopamine system), and it is important to note there are currently no grounds to disprove the possibility that reactive cyclothymic function simply represents the later stages of a deteriorative pathological process (Persinger, 1993), as opposed to a progressively more degenerative set of coping strategies for early perceptual distortions in schizophrenia (Chapman, 1966). Still, the data fit well with the current case of Brian Wilson, and provide grounds for empirical testing. For instance the theory proposed here would suggest that schizophrenic-spectrum patients would become ’more bipolar’ as their disorder progressed, showing wider mood swings and more pronounced oscillations between positive and negative symptoms.

Conclusion

The case of Brian Douglas Wilson has proven illuminating for current models of creativity, schizophrenia (and related spectrum disorders), bipolarity, and drug effects. The evidence presented strongly supports his diagnoses of schizoaffective and mild bipolar disorders, though there is also in- formation to suggest that such categorical labels may not provide the most qualitatively informative account of his condition. His drug abuse has had detrimental effects on his psychological well-being, as did poor clinical and medicinal decisions earlier in his life. His cannabis and LSD use may have exacerbated and contributed to various frightening aspects of his disorder, but at the same time had some (likely indirect) positive influence upon his creativity. Furthermore, this insight has allowed for a reappraisal of the efficacy of LSD as a drug model for psychosis (albeit an incomplete one), and the nature of Wilson’s coincident mental disorder has fostered development and clarification of theorising about the potential relationships between schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and bipolarity. Since no one drug serves to fully replicate his symptoms, we may also conclude that finding perfect drug models of either creativity or certain disorders is unrealistic. A more useful method may be a componential approach to models of creativity and psychological disorder. In the current instance, LSD-sensitive serotonin pathways are specifically implicated in attentional overinclusion, but this represents only one facet of creativity. Similarly, a pathologically wide attentional focus fails to account for negative schizophrenic symptomatology and the reactive nature of bipolar depression. Favouring a trait’s-eye-view rather than a disorder’s-eye-view would therefore seem a more fruitful approach for future experimentation and theory. That is simply to say that certain combinations of various (overlapping) traits manifest as diagnostically distinct disorders, but it is more enlightening for current purposes to consider them in terms of their phenomenological similarities and continuous variation rather than categorical boundaries.

As a final note, it bears mentioning once again that despite its presentation as a scientific case study, the current analysis in no way professes to reduce the astounding creativity of Brian Wilson to a simplistic account of his psychological disorders. Wilson’s life and music bears influence that stretches incalculably further than the stylised and convoluted ramblings of this article. The genius evident in The Beach Boys’ discography by itself makes this point rather eloquently.

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#brian wilson #mental illness #creativity #greats #the beach boys #music #biography #schizoaffective disorder #bipolar disorder #LSD #drugs #drugs and the brain #madness #eccentrics #schizophreniform disorders #eugene landy #case study #analysis #opcrit program #psychobiography

[reincarneth-moved]

Extremely detailed character sheet template

Character Chart

Character’s full name: Damian Vernell Castelleve Reason or meaning of name: It all just sounded pretty together,,,,,, Character’s nickname: Dami-chan, Dami Reason for nickname: Just a shortened version of his first name, with an honorific Birth date: Unknown, claims it’s August 15

Physical appearance

Age: Approximately 3 million. How old does he/she appear: 26 Weight: 234 IBs Height: 6′8″ Body build: He’s tall and slender. Muscular, but not obviously so. Definitely looks kind of like a bean stalk. His legs are the most prominently muscular.  Shape of face: Oval shaped Eye color: Crimson, formerly an ice blue Glasses or contacts: None. Skin tone: According to this image, either dolce or toffee.  Distinguishing marks: His skin is unnaturally smooth. He looks more like a painting than a person. Predominant features: Large, pointed elf-like ears. Hair color: Black Type of hair: Thick, somewhere between wavy and curly, silky, soft.  Hairstyle: Goes down to the bottom of his neck/top of his shoulders. Voice: His voice is incredibly deep, with a soft rumble that’s almost like a purr. It lightens up when he’s cheery or joking. Very melodic. Overall attractiveness: Physically he’s like an 8/10, but personality-wise he’s like a 0/10. All in all, the experience is Bad. -2/10.  Physical disabilities: none Usual fashion of dress: Usually, he’s seen with his long, red cloak over him. If he’s not wearing that, you can find him wearing mori-style clothes. All in all, fashionably homeless is his aesthetic. Favorite outfit: As long as he has his cloak he’s good. Jewelry or accessories: An old locket chain with an engagement ring on it. It’s almost as old as he is.

Personality

Good personality traits: Funny (subjective), can be genuinely caring to those who form the right bonds with him, tries to stay optimistic (even if he fails), can give good advice he usually doesn’t follow himself, very social, very unapologetically himself. Bad personality traits: Obnoxious, has an addictive personality, focuses on sex too much, barely has a filter, drunk most of the time. Flip flops on his morals often. Very easily manipulated, gullible. Mood character is most often in: Cheery, chipper. Sense of humor: Morbid, cheesy, usually the first thing to come to mind. Character’s greatest joy in life: Sadly, alcohol. Character’s greatest fear: His old boss, the Lord of the Red Tides. The original Blood Mage who was responsible for destroying his world. After that is dogs and blood sucking insects like fleas, ticks and mosquitos.  Why? He’s afraid of dogs because he woke from a Living getting eaten by a pack of them once. He’s afraid of blood-sucking insects because they’re heavily associated with the Lord of the Red Tides. What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil? His life can’t really get any worse than it already is. Being kidnapped and studied might throw him off for a while, but he would return to a sense of normalcy after a while. Character is most at ease when: When with someone he considers to be family. Most ill at ease when: When someone is being affectionate to him for no discernable reason. Enraged when: When he’s confused, being confronted for something hypocritical he did or going through withdrawals. OR when Dalet is brought up. Depressed or sad when: When he has time to think. Priorities: Having fun, finding distractions. Life philosophy: The past can’t be changed and the future can’t be predicted, so live in the present. If granted one wish, it would be: To have never become a Blood Mage. Why? So he could die with his family, not have to go through the trauma he did. Character’s soft spot: People who he considers to be family. His paternal instinct usually comes out around younger or troubled girls. Unofficially adopt,,,  Is this soft spot obvious to others? Probably. Greatest strength: His fierce protectiveness.  Greatest vulnerability or weakness: His lack of common sense and how easy he is to manipulate/trick. Biggest regret: Becoming a Blood Mage. Minor regret: Allowing himself to be possessed by Dalet. Biggest accomplishment: Graduating from college and getting to start his job at a law firm. Minor accomplishment: Surviving to his first Living.  Past failures he/she would be embarrassed to have people know about: None, he’s absolutely shameless! Why? N/A Character’s darkest secret: He killed his fiance. Does anyone else know? I’m pretty sure only, like, 2 people know.

Goals

Drives and motivations: To return to a sense of normalcy. Immediate goals: Start up his business as a contract killer. Long term goals: Remove Dalet from his body. How the character plans to accomplish these goals: who knows?? I don’t, he certainly doesn’t.  How other characters will be affected: They gotta put up with him,,,,

Past

Hometown: Halbirn, Morstika Type of childhood: It was fairly normal - he was one of those kids that was quiet until you started talking to him. Very kind, caring, always someone you could vent to.  Pets: He used to have a dog and a cat. First memory: He doesn’t remember it anymore, he’s too old.  Most important childhood memory: He can’t recall it. Why: N/A Childhood hero: N/A Dream job: Lawyer. Education: A master's degree in Law. Religion: Polytheistic, the name and practices have been lost Finances: He used to be very responsible with his money, saved up and was very well off because of that and his well-paying job.

Present

Current location: Moves around a lot. Currently roaming around Japan. Currently living with: Dalet, technically. Pets: N/A Religion: He’s seen Gods and doesn’t like them. Occupation: Professional mooch, a contract killer. Finances: Struggling, for the most part, due to his alcohol addiction.

Family

Mother: Irina Castelleve Relationship with her: It was a healthy relationship, she is currently deceased. Father: Henri Castelleve Relationship with him: It was healthy, he is currently deceased. Siblings: Noémie, Beau, Sylvester, Amir Relationship with them: Noémie is deceased, Beau is also deceased (reanimated, Damian is not aware of this), Sylvester is deceased (descended to Foul, their relationship is somewhat strained), Amir is deceased (a ghost). Before the apocalypse, they were all fairly close.  Spouse: Natalya (former fiance).  Relationship with him/her: She’s dead. Children: N/A Relationship with them: N/A Other important family members: N/A

Favorites

Color: Teal Least favorite color: Yellow Music: Pop, Classical Food: Spicy or sweet foods. Literature: Classic literature, horror, cheesy romance Form of entertainment: Drinking, socializing Expressions: N/A Mode of transportation: Motorcycle, walking Most prized possession: An old engagement ring and chain.

Habits

Hobbies: Plays a musical instrument? Piano, possibly guitar (haven’t decided yet.) Plays a sport? No. How he/she would spend a rainy day: Staying in and reading, maybe visiting an acquaintance to spend time with them. Spending habits: Mostly spends his money on food, alcohol and occasionally drugs. Mostly alcohol. Smokes: On occasion. Drinks: Beer, Vodka, Whiskey, Rum... Other drugs: Occasional marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine use. What does he/she do too much of? Everything??? Everything. What does he/she do too little of? Taking care of himself, trying to understand other people. Extremely skilled at: Picking up emotional cues. Extremely unskilled at: Thinking through things logically. Nervous tics: Avoiding eye contact, running his hands through his hair, looking away. Usual body posture: A slight slouch. Mannerisms: Tilting his head, placing a hand in front of his chin, narrowing his eyes/squinting Peculiarities: Doesn’t seem to be familiar with or fond of casual, platonic touch. Also doesn’t seem to get that a lot of the things he does aren’t normal. 

Traits

Optimist or pessimist? Introvert or extrovert? Daredevil or cautious? He’s a bit of a daredevil to an extent. If he knows he’s angering something that could potentially kill him, he will back down. Logical or emotional? Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? Prefers working or relaxing? Confident or unsure of himself/herself? He’s very egotistical but is unsure of the direction his life is going, his morals/values and he’s not sure where he stands when it comes to other people.  Animal lover? Yes, but they hate him.

Self-perception

How he feels about himself: He thinks he’s better than humans, being a ‘superior’ sort of being. That being said, he used to be human himself, and he struggles with trying to reconcile that fact with what he’s become now.  One word the character would use to describe self: Awful. One paragraph description of how the character would describe self: ‘Damian Castelleve is an inhuman beast incapable of true compassion. There is not a single redeeming thing about his personality and looks will only get him so far. He’ll never understand why people put up with something so unnerving. At least he’s nice to look at.’ What does the character consider his best personality trait? He would consider how social he is to be his best trait. What does the character consider his/her worst personality trait? He’s not a fan of how easily he tends to like people. It makes him more merciful if he needs to kill them.  What does the character consider his/her best physical characteristic? He finds his eyes to be the best thing about him. What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic? His height. It’s inconvenient and unnatural. How does the character think others perceive him: He’s pretty sure 90% of the people he meets don’t like him.  What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: Nothing, he’d be content rotting away just as he is.

Relationships with others

Opinion of other people in general: He thinks everyone is pretty much trash? There is no such thing as a good person in his eyes. This goes for himself as well. That being said, he does try to see the good in people, even if he thinks they’re mostly bad. Does the character hide his/her true opinions and emotions from others? Sometimes he tries, but he’s incredibly bad at it. His emotions and opinions become obvious in other ways. Person character most hates: Dalet, the spirit/golem that possessed his body. Best friend(s): He wouldn’t consider anyone his best friend. Love interest(s): None, he’s aromantic Person character goes to for advice: Konstantin, when he’s available. If not, Dalet.  Person character feels responsible for or takes care of: Mimi ( @shinkuraun​), Rima ( @bojoukken​), Masako ( @sukiban​) Person character feels shy or awkward around: Any beautiful woman t b h Person character openly admires: Other, older Blood Mages. Person character secretly admires: The Lord of the Red Tides. Most important person in character’s life before story starts: His family. After story starts: Himself.

#THIS TOOK #FIVE FUCKING HOURS #INCLUDING THE TIME I SPENT ON IT LAST NIGHT #KILL ME PLEASE #Currently Coding... ;; Dash Games! #Database: Damian ;; headcanons #long as fuck so it sunder a read more

[sagittariusboyfriend]

im gonna do a "how i see the signs" as well!!

traditionally masculine aries: a force of creativity. oftentimes politically correct. very friendly and easy to talk to, but will shift in temper and energy depending on whether or not he is in focus. musically inclined.

traditionally feminine aries: also a force of creativity. a kind of jittery energy that cant really be contained. might go up and down in volume a lot depending on social context but is always bursting to have a conversation. very awake and with fire in her eyes. openminded and wouldnt hurt a fly. artistically inclined.

trad. masc taurus: ugh horrible. forcefully straight forward, blunt in an unsensitive way, not that good at picking up on social cues because he is convinced of his reality. might be pompous and pretentious, even bitter. the flip side of venusian traits - pretty uncharming. snarky. way better at group/professional relationships than personal relationships. assertive in the workplace and is doing his job better than anyone else could.

trad. fem taurus: intelligent and an intellectual. sensual, assertive, has such a presence that people are in awe most of the time. might be pretentious but its actually genuine and doesnt come off as a negative trait. powerful.

trad. masc gemini: ahh gemini. witty, quick, reactive. genuine, but in short bursts. his intuition is based upon HOW he feels at any given moment, however he has no clue WHAT he feels. scared of emotions. might have a tendency to gaslight. obviously prone to communication and loves learning from history, but has a hard time seeing the bigger picture over the details. small things make or break him... for a week or so. then its forgotten, until something stirs it up 6 months later, and his emotions are all over the place; its like they get tossed up in the air and love might stick to the ceiling and pride to the wall and fear to that person over there and he has no idea where to start to assemble. charmingly childish, prone to grumpyness. social artisan regardless of controversial values or not. needs constant intellectual stimuli.

trad. fem gemini: does not need romantic relationships to feel like a complete person! prefers friendships over love relationships, and can usually pick and choose between lovers if on a romantic whim. not always even interested in shacking up with anyone, makes a happy independent single household. that "fun" friend. self-confident, quick, witty, might have a sharp tongue. absolutely excels in social situations and knows everyone in one way or another, and everyone knows of her in one way or another. prone to ghosting people for weeks because she simply forgets to respond. loses focus easily. probably works in sales. might come across as not so complex to other people.

trad. masc cancer: sweet, charming in a wholesome way. in tune with himself. intuitive and embraces and encourages talking about feelings. oftentimes very politically correct. might live somewhat of a fake life in the sense that he IS a family man, but cant help himself from wanting dirty, promiscuous sex for many hours with many random people. giving and generous - in every sense. probably does a lot of philantrophy or volonteers.

trad. fem cancer: reserved. exudes feminine energy, almost to a point that she is not comfortable with herself. very very sweet, just wants everyone to be okay. will disappear and reappear in social circles and no one will know where she has been, but theres an air of mystery to it and no one dares to ask. might be some kind of red preistess lol.

trad. masc leo: loyal, as long as he doesnt feel in the slightest that he has been made a fool of. very strong integrity, but an integrity that is based on image. easily approached, the nicest person in the room and will include and respect everyone. generous and genuinely loves anyone who does not come off as harmful, and will give you his last money if he feels you need it more. works hard to feel safe. creative in what he thinks is a funky way, but its actually pretty mainstream.

trad. fem leo: also honest, hard-working and loyal. integrity is also important. creative in traditionally artistic ways, like photography or drawing. has a natural authority but is the sweetest person and will NOT abuse it. very passionate about peoples equal value, doesnt really have a flare for drama at all, just wants to be stimulated. when she loves she loves with every fiber of her being and being affirmed by her partner is imperative to self-worth.

trad. masc virgo: retains information like a motherfucker! man, what a chattery bloke. an earth sign ruled by mercury makes the most, i think, well-rounded PR personality. gemini can frick off when it comes to arguments because trad. masc virgo WILL shut you down. he serves facts and will probably be a tad manipulative about it, but will also admit to it. doesnt really wait to run you over or quip back, and then just stares at you blankly as if he is waiting for a response. witty and warm like a sun to his closest, will make jabs and is cold like granite to people he doesnt like. might however have some ego issues.

trad. fem virgo: pretty much exactly like trad. masc virgo, only retains a certain jovial energy and a strong sense of nurturing and dicipline. very funny! authoritarian.

trad. masc libra: might come across as very calm and even meek at times. everyone likes him, no one dislikes him, but he isnt a big personality. nice and sweet and always positive. comfortable in the background as the glue that keeps groups together. not very verbally communicative, but ingenious when he channels his communication through music or art. wants to be appreciated and very much is. pretty private, but everyones friend.

trad. fem libra: full of the good venusian traits. loves love, loves good food, loves yoga, loves pampering herself and others. the best hostess you have ever met. has a hard time deciding on things and will make herself suffer through qualms and trials for days for something that, for anyone else, could have been decided within a couple of minutes. somewhat of a perfectionist. spiritual. gets along with everyone. very into female impowerment.

trad. masc scorpio: kind of rude, but smart. he doesnt know where it comes from, but his subconscious intuition oftentimes leads him to hidden truths, whether they are pleasant or not. might be the jealous type. can just trust his gut and will know exactly what is going on behind closed doors. intelligent in a very abstract way. might come across as always ready to strike just in case someone thinks they are better than him in any way.

trad. fem scorpio: does not show emotion easily. is very intelligent and knows how to lead a conversation where she wants it. inquisitive, literally opens her entire mind for you when you sit down one-on-one. not for anyone to enter, but for her to use ON you, and will analyze your behaviors to the core and dig around in there. make you see things from perspectives youve never even thought about. this could be used for bad, but usually its used for your own good because insight and truth, darkness into light is what she is after. intense. low key passionate. a great person to brainstorm with. excudes sultryness, but almost like a perfume, an illusion, mostly because people become so mesmerized with her psychological skill that they immediately figure she is coming on to them. powerful socially. doesnt want nor need drama, the quest for truth just gets ruthless sometimes. loyal if you dont mess with her integrity. unlike leo, her integrity is based on conscious and subconscious intuition. not into practical things in general. does not care for high morals.

trad. masc sagittarius: good at everything on the first try but gets bored easily, even depressed when forced into routine. diplomacy is important, so is personal freedom. a charismatic positive personality that shines bright and has an almost gravitational pull because of it. wants to be valued for his brain and generosity of free, non-traditional love and insight. learning is everything. the bigger picture is everything; abstract concepts that you can translate and cross-reference to different doctrines and schools and philosophies. on an eternal quest for knowledge in all situations, be it emotional or practical. "why do things work like this?" he asks and is genuinely excited to hear your and everyone elses reasoning. his goal in life is to get to know himself through others and to find firey partners to come along for the ride and share the fun. loathes drama, wants everyone to be accepting. optimistic. might be the guy many fall in love with but who is completely oblivious to it because he has his mind set on other things.

trad. fem sagittarius: very much like trad. masc sagittarius. also fierce, takes no shit, the life of the party, everyones instant friend and a BIG personality. equality is very important!

trad. masc capricorn: attractive, cold, sexual. on the grind, because everything works against him either way so he might as well work hard and overcome. dry humor and a smug smile, vicious eyes. but tender and fragile once you get to know him. so used to being the underdog in his own head that he hasnt realized everyone sees him as the leader. doesnt realize people follow him. doesnt care. is just and stern. is not afraid of delivering harsh truths, can shut you down with a look.

trad. fem capricorn: leads with silence. not because of shyness at all, its just a demeanor that comes naturally. although may have been shy when young, simply because of society. exudes power, unknowingly or knowlingly. intimidating and stylish as fuck. eloquent. uniformity is a keyword for everything. has learnt the hard way. hilarious dark humor. prefers respect to spectacle. is a force to be reckoned with and gains pretty much everyones respect.

trad. masc aquarius: might have a hard time deciding about personal freedom, what is and what isnt. contemplative, insightful, the least traditional of traditional men. high EQ, might prefer polyamorous relationships, almost lacks jealousy. tall and slender. very much capable of seeing through all points of view and will speak rationally. rarely gets heated in discussion because he just doesnt see the point in being reactive.

trad. fem aquarius: a higher being. high octave intuition; the person with the highest EQ youve ever met in your life. new insights with every breath. does NOT care for tradition, usually only indulges in the bare minimum of tradition to move about unnoticed in society as the penultimate alien being they are. she has an entirely different kind of mind that seems so complex and effortless at the same time, and her knowledge and ingenuity could change the world - if it was only ready for it. finds solutions to everything. altruistic. optimistic. so wise and so rebelliously young at the same time. manages to care for everyone and everything all the time. truly wondrous.

trad. masc pisces: an academic. a sensitive guy. highly philosophical, in its scholastic form. makes a good teacher of abstract concepts. always searching within himself first before speaking. interested in history and the human mind. constantly battles with feelings of not being good enough but always comes out as more and better than expected. probably very introvert.

trad. fem pisces: witchy. dreamy. some kind of seer. needs quite some time to process emotional impacts. has a tendency to mimick peoples traits and quirks without knowing it. very emotional, highly sensitive. very impressionable. open to and thirsty for new ways to make sense of all these emotional impacts, but might change ideologies and/or trim her sails to the current wind. conflicting subconscious emotional forces at play all the time which leads to a lot of self-doubt. not necessarily introvert, but introspective.

#astrology #how i see the signs #zodiac signs #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #obviously from my perspective and i actually know very few female geminis i realized????