#and I only had like 3 mental breakdowns during which I completely switched up the background scenery

[descalled]

my @layton-secretsanta piece this year!!

I hope you like it Minichou!! I tried to incorporate several of the things you said you liked! Happy Holidays!

#not to brag but I put a lot of love and care into this #and I only had like 3 mental breakdowns during which I completely switched up the background scenery #hershel layton #luke triton #professor layton #phoenix wright #maya fey #can you find them ? >:)c #plsecretsanta2022 #desmond sycartmore

[aquamoon33]

GAME CLEARING 2022: The year of severe depression with Coroni on top!

So, I was in a bad place mentally this year, mostly trying to make it through the day without a breakdown. Didn't help that my boyfriend also got fired from work and moved out back home, due to a family tragedy (But on a brighter note, we are engaged now!) Because of this, I didn't play that much this year, and it also didn't help that most of my games were 60+ hours RPGs. I finally got Coroni as well, and I don't know if I've caught it at a con or at workplace or somewhere completely different. All I know is that the virus caused significant damage on my lungs, causing me to be out of breath faster and I still haven't stopped coughing.

Now, the list for this year:

Game 1: YS - Monstrum Nox (Nintendo Switch) 

Got this game for my birthday in 2021, waited for the winter break to put it in and spent 9 days playing this game until I beat it 100%, meaning that I did every quest, uncovered the whole map, got 120 Azure Petals, got every treasure chest and killed multiple gods. It's been a while since I went on an adventure with Adol and gameplay-wise is pretty much the same as YS VIII, with the exception of Gifts, which are similar to Adventurer's Gear, but permanently equipped (example, some gifts enable you to run up walls, grapple to certain objects, glide, etc.), and the story is pretty interesting. I mean, at the start of the game you're escaping from a highly secured prison! And then you get shot.... and turned into a supernatural being.... and then you have to disguise yourself by dying your hair, because your bright red hair is too noticeable. "Raids" make a comeback in the form of Grimwald Nox, a supernatural plane that is full of monsters that threaten to invade the human realm, and you need to stop them. However, that ain't the main plot. There is much to uncover in the Gllia region (Probably YS' version of France, since back in the Roman times, Latin name for Gaul was Gallia).  Tho, I'm sad that there are no references to older games until late game. 

Game 2: Devil May Cry (Playstation 4) 

Had this game on my hard-drive for a while now and this is one of the rare games that I managed to beat in one day, taking me only around a few hours. For those who have never heard about this franchise, it's about a demon hunter named Dante, hacking and slashing demons and devils. The game is fun and I see why people like it very much. I was surprised to see a Resident Evil like camera for a hack n slash game. The story is basic (albeit a bit cheesy towards the end), which isn't surprising when it comes to first games in a new IP and the "great" voice acting shows that the game was made back in the early days of voice acted games. Gameplay-wise you wield a sword, gauntlets and twin guns into fights and while guns stay equipped all the time, you can switch between the fast moving sword or the hard hitting but slower gauntlets. This series is also the birth place of the mechanic called as Devil Trigger, during which your attacks deal more damage and replenish some health.  Now if you excuse me, I have to go fill my dark soul with LAIIIIIGHT!!! 

Game 3: Pokemon Legends Arceus (Nintendo Switch) 

My GOTY 2022 right here, y'all! I had a blast playing this game (obsessively, I might add, to the point my boyfriend almost confiscated my Switch 😅) , but the concept of you writing the "first" ever Pokedex is a phenomenal idea. Yeah, might get tedious, but that is how research works normally (also, kudos to that one guy who 100% all the tasks in the pokedex). Story wise, you, the MC, get isekai'd to the past version of the Sinnoh version, then named Hisui, and get told to be productive to the community or we leave you to die. There are no villain teams this time around, only you, the immigrants from other regions and the 2 native clans, named Diamond and Pearl Clan (Oh, and for some reason, a train guy from BW/B2W2, who has amnesia). Gameplay is basically Breath of the Wild meets Pokemon, you have your crafting, your gliding, your wall climbing etc.  By the way, Arceus? Can you send me and Ingo home now? Or just Ingo? His brother misses him. 

Game 4: Stray (Playstation 4) 

Was hyped for this game back when it was announced. Playing as a cat who, prompts to the devs, acts like an ACTUAL cat! Smart, but also a bit stupid. Gameplay is pretty simple, move, sprint, press X to vault onto nearby accessible ledges, and the most important button, the MEOW button. Story is simple at first, a stray cat living with its brethren in a what seems a post apocalyptic wilderness when a normal scavenger hunt results in your cat falling into an underworld city, populated by robots. There you meet a small drone who translates robot language for you and there are also head cra- sorry, they are Zurks in this game, that chase you around certain areas and devour you if your too slow to shake them of. As the story progresses though, you realize that humanity is gone and that something happened outside the walls that forced humans into this closed off city.  Ending almost made me cry.  

Game 5: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Nintendo Switch) 

It's a Xeno game, and the best one gameplay wise so far, and full of nostalgia for those who played the first two ones. I ranked this my second favorite Xenoblade game tho, since the first one is still my favorite (and the second one gets last place because of the gacha system). I loved how they tied in the other games into this, with both locations, music and some... ermmmm.... spoilery things that I won't mention here. Battles are slow at the beginning but get insane once you unlock d-pad slots, and while the whole job system is pretty deep, you can just press the Y button for the game to optimize for you (not recommended for super bosses tho). Side quests, while not as plentiful as in the first game, we're hit or miss for me. Some were obvious to see on your mini map, some you had stupid requirements to complete first that I wouldn't find on my own without a guide.  Now, Eunie, you may slug that guy, but only once. 

Game 6: Splatoon 3 (Nintendo Switch) 

I love me some squids and octopuses, but since I've acquired an allergy on sea food, I can only shoot them with ink in Turf Wars. First thing's first when I got the game I only had an hour to play before I had to go to work, so I only tested out the multiplayer and Salmon Run, while leaving the Single Player mode alone for later. When I asked my boyfriend about how he liked the game, he accidentally spoiled a major plot twist in the first part of the story, leaving me a bit (okay, a lot)  bitter (to the point of not talking to him for 2 weeks). And I liked the story mode A LOT. Instead of looking for Sunken Scrolls in the levels, you had to look for them in the overworld, which made the hub world fun and left you to solely focus on the level, instead of worrying if you got everything in it before finishing it. Gameplay is your standard 3rd person shooter, aim and shoot, with the addition of your little Small Fry buddy, who helps you a lot during the levels. The stages themselves are very reminiscent of Octo Expansion, having to pay a fee in certain stages to even attempt it. I won't talk about the story, because as said before, the very beginning has a HUGE plot twist.  Can't believe, they pulled a Fast and Furious 9 move with the final boss. 

Game 7: Here comes Niko! (Nintendo Switch) 

A cozy game for tired people is a perfect comparison for this game. A cute game where you control the titular character Niko, who is on their way to live independently and trying to get a job. A friend of theirs got them set up for a job interview at Tadpole HQ, and the whole game is Niko being put on trial by one of the employees called Pepper, to become a "Professional Friend" as they travel from island to island, solving people's problems. During the travels between Islands Niko gets voicemails from their parents and friend, the former demanding to come home, while the latter supports their decision to get away from their family. Gameplay is very A Hat in Time like, no surprise considering it was co-developed by Gears for Breakfast, and the art style is very Paper Mario 64 like.  Hat Kid also makes a cameo as a tourist, enjoying her vacation. 

Game 8: Return to Monkey Island (Steam) 

I have a confession to make... I have never played a Monkey Island game before. Most I know of it is through Youtube clips and some memes and that's about it. That said, I quite enjoyed the game. The puzzles were clever, the humor was phenomenal (had me laughing a lot) and the story was wacky, for lack of a better term. There is an option in the menu to recap the previous games, but I chose to skip that. There are also in game Spoiler Warnings for previous games in some areas. For the game's story, we have our "lovable" Guybrush Threepwood finally going after The Secret of the Monkey Island (that he apparently didn't find yet???) and is once again competing with his nemesis Le Chuck to get to it. But I don't know how to feel about the ending.  I'm surprised how Elaine can keep up with her husbands bullshit and destruction. 

Game 9: Sonic Frontiers (Nintendo Switch) 

Hands down, one of the best modern Sonic games I have ever played. I loved messing around in the hub world back in Sonic Adventure DX days, and blasting around at the speed of sound in this game felt so satisfying! Sure, there were little hiccups here and there (Sonic YEETing himself off a cliff when I boosted and the camera changed for example) but otherwise it felt like a Open Zone (Not world, ZONE) mixed with a collect-a-ton. I started playing on Normal, heard that there was a secret boss fight if you play on hard, and switched on hard, but it didn't feel overly difficult. The boss fights were phenomenal, story was chef's kiss, which isn't really a surprise, considering that Ian Flynn of Sonic IDW fame had a say in it. I did feel a little weirded out hearing Roger Craig Smith giving Sonic a more deep voice, since I'm more used to Sonic sounding more higher pitched (maybe Sonic is going through puberty in universe 😆)   By the way, how do you guys feel about Ikaruga?  

Game 10: Pokemon Scarlet (Nintendo Switch) 

I have mixed feelings about this one. I was very hyped for this game and even pestered my boyfriend to get it for my birthday (which coincidentally is on November 18th, same day the game was released), but then Twitter happened and people wouldn't shut up about the glitches and bugs, making me feel guilty for enjoying it. Don't get me wrong, I liked playing the game, even thought the whole open worldness is an illusion, as you're still expected to follow a set path, as gyms, titans and Team Star don't level scale. Story wise, I liked having three paths to follow, each one telling it's own tale, the world feels huge and the school side quests ain't that bad either. I still prefer PLA's catching mechanic, being able to just chuck a ball at them and voila. The final act however, hooooo, the area game me massive Xenoblade vibes and the music was phenomenal!  I saved a doggy as well!  

Game 11: RWBY Arrowfell (Nintendo Switch) 

This game was sitting in my backlog for a while, since I didn't have any time to even get to playing it, thanks to both Pokemon Scarlet and Sonic Frontiers. I was however hyped for it, ever since they announced it a year ago. While I would've liked the original gameplay (since it seemed like a 4 player co-op, instead of the single player), it's a good game. The only complaint I have is the lack of a map inside stages. Gameplay is tight and fluid, story is a bit on the short side, since it's implied that this was Team RWBY's first official mission as Licensed Huntresses and fans of the show will already know that the bad guys won't succeed, since the show itself never mentions this incident ever taking place (though, that might also be because this game was in development after Volume 8 already finished). Combat is fun, but it's also easy to get yourself killed if you're not paying attention (I mostly used Ruby since her long range helped keeping enemies away from me). I also liked when bosses made you use all 4 of your characters and their semblances.  Where my Team JNR at tho? 

Sadly, I think this will be the last game clearing post for me since I don't want to write how I beat only 5 games next year. Real life is catching up to me (my mental health is almost N/A) and workplace is a mess right now (Thanks Putin) which leaves me with almost no motivation to play/draw/write/do anything.

So my word of wisdom are, take care of yourselves, take a break from the internet from time to time, and, mostly importantly, STAY SAFE!

#eri rambles #game clearing #and yes i do use FamilyJules' word for coroni

[amarriageoftrueminds]

How do you cope with Steve's completely out of character actions in Endgame? And by coping I mean have you ever tried to come up with some kind of logical explanation not to justify, but at least to try to explain them? Because it's been two years since Endgame came out and I'm still wracking my mind about certain scenes, trying to come up with a logical explanation for all of them. For example, the one at the very beginning where they're going to space to kill Thanos and Steve had to look, of all things, at that goddamned compass (I've never held so much contempt for an inanimate object); again, during that therapy session meant for people who lost loved ones in the Snap, and he just went and talked about Peggy, and I want to know, why? Or him telling Natasha that maybe "it doesn't need to be done" and how is that actually Steve Rogers? And I'm not even going to talk about the ending, because well... I don't think they'll ever retcon that ending, but if they do I'm rooting for the Skrull theory.

Oh, I forgot to say, I'm not talking about the deliberate writing choices, I'm talking more from a fictional standpoint.

How do I cope-

Tbh I don’t? 

I never understood why fans could go so mental over certain directors (all this fuss about whatsisface and Star Wars, for example). Until Endgame. 

I’ve never left a cinema before feeling like I hated one of my favourite characters, re-evaluating everything they’ve done before as if maybe I’d misread them and they’d been a douchebag all along. It was absolutely gutting in a way that shocked me. 

So I just don’t watch it; Steve’s isn’t the only character assassinated, after all. Thor’s portrayal was actually nasty (I’m not a fan of Ragnarok either, for how much it took the piss of or destroyed; I want Asgard back!) And there’s a scene where Tony is asked to save trillions of lives and he just says no?! WTF?? Steve giving Sam the shield was the only thing it did right and even that frankly, as we’ve seen in FATWS, was a poison chalice. 

.

BUT

you didn't ask how shitty I think it is (we ain’t got all day) you asked how I'd explain it so:

Some possibilities... 

.

1. Steve is a Skrull. 

Steve had a breakdown after Infinity War but still didn’t want to be seen to let his remaining friends down so he hired and trained a skrull to imitate him. Maybe he went to live somewhere else, maybe he put himself into cryo. This opens up the problems of how he know what a skrull is, and how he made one imitate him. 

Maybe it wasn’t Steve himself who hired them but someone else? Fury? Or maybe someone else kidnapped Steve, shut him into a cryo unit, and put the skrull in his place, with a view to abusing Steve’s power in the snapped world... 

.

2. Steve is some other supersoldier wearing a Steve nanomask.

Again, hired to impersonate Steve for some reason and not very good at it and raises the question of why.

.

and my personal fave:

3. Steve is Loki. 

Ours isn’t the universe in which we beat Thanos.

In our universe, Steve turns to dust along with half the world. 

But, all the wizardly timelines show that the Snap can only be undone, and the stones restored to their rightful places, by a team which includes Steve. 

So...

While he is fixing timelines with the Time Police or whatever they're called, Loki is tasked with imitating Steve to make sure events go as they’re supposed to with Thanos, the second time around. 

This begins by inserting Loki-Steve into the first Thanos battle in Wakanda, immediately after Our-Steve dusted, while everyone is disorientated, and in such a way that nobody notices the switch. 

The Time Police Or Whatever They're Called give Loki a copy of everything Steve’s ever said, but he only skims it and so only has a very superficial basic idea of who Steve really is. To do his job Loki isn’t allowed to abuse Steve’s power, and since he isn’t a Steve fan at all this results in a Steve who seems unusually apathetic and self-centered and doesn’t connect with anyone else who’s gone through the Snap because Loki himself didn’t. 

This means that during the time heist, in 2012, there were two Lokis.

BUT, like all good plots

There's a Twist!

You remember how 2012!Loki briefly impersonated Steve to make fun of him, before Thor put the gag on him?

What if he did it again? 

What if: 

2012 Loki stole the tesseract from the lobby, disappeared, got the gag off, and then reappeared elsewhere in Stark Tower because -- like the 2023 time-thieves -- he wanted to go and get the mind-stone scepter for himself. 

He knew everyone trusts Captain America, so he took on Steve’s form. 

And he was wandering around upstairs (where 2012 Steve shouldn’t have been since he was supposed to be out in the streets helping with clean up), when he bumped into... 

2023 Steve... 

Who was also Loki. 

2012-Loki loses the fight because 2023-Loki has the scepter and 2012 can’t give away that he has the tesseract. 

After being knocked out, 2012-Loki wakes up, and uses the tesseract to take off before he can be caught again. 

(But then he is caught by the Time Police Or Whatever They're Called and told or forced to badly-impersonate Steve on and off for five years.) 

2023-Loki-Steve and 2023-Tony go back in time to the 1970s to get the Tesseract. Because he’s Loki, he also sneaks a bunch of extra Pym Particles for himself. 

When Bruce snaps his fingers and brings everyone back, that includes Our-Steve. 

During the confusion created by Thanos’ arrival and nuking of the Avengers HQ, 2023-Loki briefly pulls Our-Steve into an alternate timeline. 

There he explains to Steve what he needs to do: including shaving his beard 😩  , cutting his hair, switching his Nomad costume for his OG Steve get-up, and then going into battle against Thanos. 

He also explains that he has been whanging on about Peggy and that he stole extra Pym-Particles so no one will be surprised if Steve were to- say -disappear back in time. 

Then they nip back to 2023, where our Steve slips into step beside a clueless Tony and Thor.

So the Steve in the awesome kickass portal battle is our Steve, from Wakanda. 

This is why he is able to wield Mjolnir and Stormbreaker.

The Steve on the time-platform is also our Steve, but is half-assedly acting out the shitty ending Loki arranged for him because he's decided he does want to disappear and retire.

And the old-Steve who gave Sam the shield is our Steve who used the half-developed time-heist suit to age himself up, before then reverting back to his proper age.

(Bucky, of course, was in on all this, and pointed out that if Steve were really from the future he would probably be wearing a wedding ring. This is how he and Steve accidentally get engaged.)

Loki sneaks up to New Asgard, where he impersonates Valkyrie; so he can spend a bit of quality time with his brother -- only for Thor to declare him (as Valkyrie) King and announce he's off on a spacetrip.

So Loki goes back to the Time Police Or Whatever They're Called, mission accomplished.

Or does he...?

#long post #antiendgame #meta #headcanon #hey nonny #toAyourQ #endgame steve is a skrull #...OR IS HE??? #stuckbunny #🤔 #ask cat they said she'll give you a nice concise sensible answer they said #(no they didn't) #and the 'steve kissing peggy' shot we saw #was like the Story According to Luis montages from the ant-man movies: #the story they told // not what actually happened

[class1akids]

don’t you think that todoroki is a bit weak, especially since he’s been training all his life? i mean, he got folded during his round in the JTA arc and he doesn’t compete AT ALL with bakugou and deku 

What a shitty bait, but fine, I’ll bite, because I do see these moronic takes from time to time. Way to miss the entire point of Shouto’s arc, dear anon. 

Look up any number of articles that talk about pushing children way too young and way too hard in sports and you will find that it will cause severe emotional, psychological and physical consequences. 

For Shouto, his “trainer” was his abusive, asshole father, who made him HATE his fire so much, he even refused to use it for YEARS - making him completely one-sided: a pro-hero level competence with his ice, and a beginner with severe psychological issues with his fire. Like Shouto explains again and again, switching to both sides, not only requires him to add his left, but to DECONSTRUCT moves that have become autopilot due to excessive training. 

Not to mention, Shouto grew up with no childhood, no mom, no emotional support, no agency, lost a brother - all of this connected to his fire - don’t you think this level of trauma maybe, kind of holds him back somewhat and is its own obstacle to overcome? And just because the obstacle is mental, it is no less hard and no less painful than classmates who can progress just by lifting weights or doing pushups or whatever...

If anything, it shows that all the training Endeavor put Shouto through his childhood didn’t even give him advantage beyond the first few months of school. Because the others, with age-appropriate and non-abusive training methods can and do catch up. 

Calling Shouto weak singling out the JTA is like calling Bakugou weak just based on the Moonfish fight. Shouto did not get FOLDED in the JTA - read the chapter again or watch the anime and notice what happens:

(1) I don’t know remember Bakugou and Deku or anyone else on that battle field walking into a low-stakes class, mere days after their father almost dies on national TV and being triggered into a PTSD episode even before the fight starts - so let’s not pretend that they are remotely in the same situation as Shouto, but still:

(2) At the beginning of the fight, it takes Honenuki’s softening + Pony’s horns + Tetsu’s steel combined to counter Shouto’s ice attack (we already know fire would have been better, but we also know the reason why he used ice)

(3) Tetsu’s quirk is a perfect counter to Shouto’s half-cold half-hot, and was recently upgraded which took Shouto by surprise  

(4) After the initial surprise, Shouto still managed to counter Tetsu, despite having literal flashbacks in the middle of the fight, and reach for flashfire - that move that his father tried to shove down his throat violently beating him as a small child - and actually make a flashfire fist. And to me, that’s someone who is STRONG. Not just physically, but mentally. 

(5) He was about to take Tetsu out, when Honenuki reappeared and softened the ground under him, so Shouto lost his footing and got hit by a metal pipe. 

So Shouto did not lose his 1-on-1 (this is why Tetsu is taking it as a loss), despite having to face not only a perfect counter to his quirk, but also fighting his trauma at the same time. 

It’s not like Bakugou or Deku didn’t get into trouble - they both had to be saved at some point by their teammates and if in those moments their teammates didn’t step up, they could have “FOLDED” just as much as fandom thinks Shouto or Momo did. This is what a team-battle boils down to; nobody can win it alone, and there are a bunch of other factors, like how balanced the groups are, whose quirk is a counter to whose. Or just the fact that in the first battle Shinsou’s support item was a total surprise to everyone (giving a huge advantage to class A), while by the time Deku’s group faced him, they already knew to expect it. 

So anyway, the JTA performance does not in any way show that Shouto is so WEAK compared to anyone else - it was an obstacle that the story put in his path specifically on that day to push his character arc of conquering his trauma and his fire further. That’s all there is to it.  

And most importantly, Shouto comes out of the JTA arc with a renewed motivation to seek out the help of his abuser, because he wants to be better for his friends and not feel like he’s letting anyone down. I don’t know how you can’t see that, but that takes a lot of STRENGTH to do. To face his father, to put himself under his guidance, to accept his moves... all of that. 

And the Endeavor internship arc shows the Origin Trio very explicitly head-to-head several times. Shouto is not “weak” compared to the other two. He’s equal. That’s the point of the Ending fight.

Sure, their quirks have different strengths and shine in different situations and in different ways. Bakugou is faster and more dynamic, Deku is physically stronger (he’s a strength-type) and starts to have a bunch of utility functions, Shouto can do long-range and AoE better, etc. - but all three of them are working also on their weaknesses to become well-rounded heroes who can do everything.  There will always be situations to which one of their quirks is better suited (like Bakugou holding the kid in his teeth during evacuation vs Deku lugging a whole bus, Shouto large-scale freezing the debris, giving them a crucial moment to be able to get away from the Decay). 

And while they have been balanced with Deku up until now, I don’t know if it’s worth talking about it much more, because OFA’s entire point is that it’s an incredibly broken OP power - Deku not only has power-levels available that will probably be out of reach both for Shouto and for Bakugou, he also now has a specific quirk for any imaginable situation, which Shouto and Bakugou will have to pull off with a single quirk.

But during the war arc, you can see that Shouto’s contributions aren’t any lesser than for example, Bakugou’s. (And while Deku does a lot of 100% smashes, by trying to do everything alone, he does a lot of cross-purpose acting with the rest of the team).

So I think Shouto is plenty strong. Not only his quirk (which has a huge open potential, and a lot of versatility, not just for beating people, but also for rescue, something Bakugou doesn’t have to the same extent, for example - Shouto could use his ice to stabilize a collapsing building, make massive slides for evacuation, etc), but more importantly, he’s mentally very STRONG because he’s putting in a lot of work to heal from his trauma, to overcome his negative feelings for his father and by extension for his fire. While those memories and negative feelings made him give up at the Sport Festival, and keep resurfacing at the most inconvenient times, Shouto gets up again and again, each time stronger, to the point he’s able to act when it matters, even in the middle of a complete breakdown.

He’s found his true motivation - and it’s not to beat Deku or Bakugou - but to be the best version he can be, so he can reassure people that things will be ok, because he’s strong enough to face whatever threat, because his trauma won’t hold him back from helping and saving. 

How can you call that weak?

#bnha meta #todoroki shouto #shouto positivity #shouto's quirk development #i'm so sick of people with moronic takes on shouto #he's one of the strongest characters around #and it's not even because of his power #or his quirk #but finding the strength to overcome his trauma for others

[shipping-receiving]

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

An Analysis of Hwang Si-mok and Han Yeo-jin’s Final Scene in Stranger/Secret Forest Season 2

Alright, it’s been almost a week, I’m still crying every time I re-watch this scene, and somehow I’ve written 3,500 words about five minutes of this damn show, so here we go:

As with Stranger/Secret Forest Season 1, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s final scene in Season 2 ended with a farewell meal, complete with soju. On a very basic level, this meal felt significant in a season where Si-mok was subject, more than ever, to interrupted meals or meals he didn’t particularly want to be present for – at least until he was able to have a drink with Yeo-jin in 2x12, and then lunch with her in 2x13.

More importantly, though, this scene is the most loaded scene we’ve ever witnessed between these two characters. That’s saying something for such a nuanced, detail-oriented show, in which two people placing their phones in a storage locker at a detention centre can possess such emotional weight, particularly when played by two actors who make very subtle and sophisticated acting choices.

I’m struck particularly by the way this scene bursts with subtext – things unsaid and unresolved – when Lee Soo-yeon could just as easily have written a neater, more light-hearted exchange that reaffirmed their connection, more along the lines of their final scene in 1x16. There are a thousand other ways their farewell could have been presented to us that would have given a greater or at least a more comfortable sense of finality, even taking into account their character development over this season. This lack of resolution is evident not just from what happened during the scene, but also when the scene happened within the episode itself. The meal occurred after Yeo-jin had been bullied by her colleagues, but before she met her new boss – at this point, it seemed to the viewer that her promotion would likely bring not the pride she experienced in S1, but more challenges and isolation.

More so than the Seo Dong-jae cliffhanger, this scene makes me think that this was written with a future Season 3 arc in mind, one in which Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s relationship will continue to evolve and deepen substantially (whether that will be ‘romantic’ remains to be seen). Considering they’re the core partnership of this series, there was a deliberate withholding of stability in their farewell, rather than an affirmation of it. I won’t go so far as to say destabilisation – because despite their separation, I think their bond is more profound than ever – but at the bare minimum an absence of certainty, when it could have been written otherwise.

Anyway, on to the breakdown:

The scene opens with Si-mok carefully folding a napkin and placing cutlery on it for Yeo-jin, a simple gesture of care that Cho Seung-woo plays with a startlingly gentle attentiveness. Immediately, it signals that there’s been a shift in Si-mok – how he’s able, at least with Yeo-jin, to do something that isn’t just polite, but also thoughtful. The director even snuck in a little clue that Si-mok is thinking of Yeo-jin as he’s doing this – Yeo-jin actually appears at the left side of the frame from the start, as the camera pans over to Si-mok: 

In this shot, Si-mok is visually separated from Yeo-jin by a pillar. This could be read on the one hand as a kind of sectioning out of his mental space – a visualisation of his thoughts of her as he prepares her cutlery – and on the other hand, as a foreshadowing of their impending separation. (I do, however, enjoy the first interpretation more. It reminds me a little bit of her sketch of the inside of his head from 1x06.)

Back to the napkin: if you look closer, Si-mok didn’t fold a napkin for himself – his spoon and chopsticks are on the table next to his bowl – so this isn’t just a matter of neatly setting the table for their meal. In a very small way, he’s anticipating her needs, just as she has done with him in much more demonstrative ways in both seasons (helping him with his headaches being the most obvious one). This isn’t something he’s necessarily actively worked on in the past two years; he’s still the person who doesn’t instinctively say ‘hello’ over the phone, or ask after someone’s kids without being reminded. Yet, it’s a capacity for care that has expanded significantly, at least where Yeo-jin is concerned.

Compare his behaviour with the equivalent scene in 1x16 – back then, he only ordered a bowl of noodles for himself and not for her. Interestingly, Yeo-jin’s comment to Si-mok during that part of the S1 scene was, “Gosh, you haven’t changed one bit,” suggesting that he was, by nature, somehow unable to be considerate to someone else. Just from the opening to the S2 scene, we see that that comment is not or no longer true, at least when it comes to the way he acts around her. In both the S1 and S2 scenes, he was the first person to arrive for their meal; in S1, the first thing he said was, “Why are you late?” and had already ordered his soju and noodles. This time, however, Yeo-jin asks him, “Why didn’t you order something first?” – implying that although she was late again, he was patiently waiting for her to arrive.

There’s also a difference in the way he responds to her appearance. Now, I personally don’t think we can frame Si-mok’s connection with and care for Yeo-jin in conventional understandings of romantic attraction (which is not to say romance isn’t possible for them canonically, I just think it will manifest differently). Nevertheless, I’d say that he responds to her haircut in a way that is probably as close to the mechanics of attraction as we could possibly expect from Si-mok – not just the shock of “oh, you cut your hair,” but lingering looks and nostalgia for when they first met; nothing at all like noticing that she’s wearing lipstick and saying, not so kindly, that it looks weird. In fact, in a direct parallel to this moment in 1x16, Yeo-jin asks him if her haircut is “weird”, and he says, “I just meant it’s different.”

(I think the way he stares at her is not wholly due to being ‘transfixed’, but also because he’s trying to figure out what such a drastic change means, and why now, and whether he has to worry. Basically, his brain is trying to compute; part of his stare is him trying to analyse her behaviour, just as part of it is him revisiting his memories of her from two years ago, and part of it might well be an attraction he doesn’t quite understand or know how to reel in. He does stare at her for an inordinately long time.)

Switching over to Yeo-jin, I really enjoy this little routine of hers when they have meals together – how she narrows down options for him to a series of questions, and even helps him decide on occasion. It never feels like she’s trying to speak for him, but rather that she knows his likes and dislikes. Her question in this scene – makgeolli or soju – is phrased like her question in 2x02, when she asks him to choose between stir-fried octopus and hot pot; when she specifically requests a lot of cabbages, she must be thinking of how he ate lots of them in 2x12. This kind of care comes naturally to Yeo-jin – we’re talking about the person who took in a murder victim’s mother in S1 – but it’s still a form of intimacy, and one that Si-mok is clearly used to as well.

Soon, though, we have our first indication that things might not be so comfortable – not in the sense that their bond has weakened, but that there are fundamental shifts occurring in both of their lives that affect this bond. Si-mok, after a lot more staring, points out that her short hair reminds him of when they first met. (He wouldn’t have needed to take that much time to come up with that simple observation, which makes me think he was trying to choose his words carefully.) With enthusiasm, Yeo-jin responds with, “I haven’t changed a bit, right?” – echoing her comment about Si-mok in 1x16.

Perhaps Yeo-jin had meant this comment sincerely in the moment, but given context, her cheerfulness feels performative. We’ve just witnessed her crying after being bullied by her colleagues, in contrast to the warmth that she enjoys with her old Yongsan team; we’ve observed her changes – a result of maturity, disillusionment, a loss of innocence – throughout the whole season. In fact, she seems to have cut her hair precisely because she feels weighed down by all that has unfolded, just as one might after a break-up or some kind of painful life event. It’s a decision that seems to say: I acknowledge that everything has changed around me, but maybe doing this will make me feel like myself again, or the ‘myself’ of two years ago.

Si-mok, of course, isn’t quite so able to agree that she hasn’t changed. Multiple times this season, he’s observed the changes in her – “You don’t draw these days?” in 2x06, “Didn’t you want to work in police administration?” in 2x08, “You weren’t the kind of person to postpone things.” in 2x12. Now, he doesn’t respond to her question, and instead looks at her in silence, smiling only ever so slightly when she shakes her head playfully (and we know that she can make him smile wider than that). Perhaps he’s even choosing to withhold any judgment of her. But this is a moment, I think, that factors into his decision to ask her that question at the end of this scene.

Next, we have confirmation that Si-mok was the one who asked Yeo-jin out for dinner, just as he had in 2x02 once he’d settled into his new posting. It isn’t clear in 1x16 if it was Yeo-jin who’d asked to meet Si-mok when she found out he was being posted to Namhae, but it’s been affirmed twice this season that he prioritises this time with her (even more so than meeting his own mother). Then, he breaks the news to her that he is leaving for Gangwon Province this weekend.

In 1x16, Yeo-jin finds out that Si-mok is leaving from the special investigation team, without Si-mok being present. At the time, they still think he’ll be sent to the US for training, and Yeo-jin is visibly disappointed. She has the same crestfallen look on her face in this scene, in front of Si-mok. She doesn’t want to be separated from him, and when she asks about his cases, it seems she’d expected him to stay for quite a while longer to see them through. Mind you, Wonju is only about 1.5 hours drive from Seoul (yes, I mapped it), but Yeo-jin still looks like she’s had the rug pulled from under her. Perhaps, in an uncertain time, she’d hoped that Si-mok would be in her life more than the few weeks he’d spent in Seoul.

Yeo-jin’s responses in both 1x16 and 2x16 are a pretty big indicator that she has feelings for Si-mok (whether she’s aware or willing to acknowledge those feelings is another matter). I suppose one could argue that her reaction is simply out of sadness at the thought of being separated from a friend, but based on certain events in S2 – for example, Choi Bit questioning Yeo-jin about her relationship with Si-mok, and Yeo-jin deflecting – I think the viewer is at the very least meant to question whether their bond is truly ‘platonic’. This isn’t the type of show to include superfluous details just to tease their viewers, and in any case, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s connection has only deepened through the course of this season despite being on opposing sides of the council. It feels like the emotional stakes are much higher this time than back in S1.

As Yeo-jin is absorbing this news from Si-mok, there are a couple of little details here that feel significant to me, but could be nothing: first, the way Si-mok half-holds out his hand as Yeo-jin is pouring her soju, just as he’d held out his hand when she was pouring makgeolli in 2x13. Second, how she pours out a cup of soju for herself first, but not for Si-mok. In any other situation, it might seem impolite – after all, Si-mok is the one who’d chosen the drink – but here it seems that she’s pouring a drink to steady or busy herself more than anything, and she doesn’t drink from it till after their toast.

Following this, Yeo-jin confides in Si-mok that “I never thought the council would end like this. [...] Will the higher-ups be replaced with more honest people while I’m catching bad men out there?” When he replies with, “Why are you talking as if those two are the same?”, it’s yet another of his probing questions, questions she never seems to have an answer to. The Yeo-jin of old would never have assumed that all the higher-ups are dishonest – she has always seen the good in people – but she feels betrayed by Choi Bit, the one person she sincerely respected. Here, she changes the topic rather than opening up, reverting to her most comfortable mode of showing care for someone else by asking Si-mok why he looks so tired. It’s a guardedness that we’re not used to seeing from Yeo-jin; when Si-mok met with Choi Bit at the start of the episode, he describes Yeo-jin as someone who “opens up easily”, even if she doesn’t “blindly trust or respect just about anybody”.

While Yeo-jin is evasive, Si-mok is more willing to be vulnerable in comparison. His openness isn’t surprising, given that Si-mok has shared more about his life and thoughts with her than with anyone else, but it is still heartwarming to see. Instead of brushing off Yeo-jin’s comment, he tells her about his dream of the prosecutors from the Western Office. For anyone else, this might not seem like a significant conversation topic, but for someone who hardly ever dreams (which Si-mok mentioned in S1), it feels like he’s sharing something special with her. This dream, and his factual recounting of it, seems to be a means for his brain to process the traumatic events of two years ago.

Before Si-mok tells Yeo-jin about his dream, there’s a quick insertion here – a lament about seeing your boss in your dreams – that suggests that she is still troubled about Choi Bit, more than she’s letting on. Again, Si-mok doesn’t push her to elaborate, though I think he’s been absorbing all the things that seem off with Yeo-jin since she arrived. Yeo-jin proceeds to analyse his dream in her head, but doesn’t verbalise her interpretation (that Yoon Se-won might be considering suicide, since he went off in the same direction as two characters who have both passed). As she’s deep in thought, Si-mok tilts his head questioningly at her; she says that he probably won’t have time to go anywhere else this weekend, implying that she was thinking of bringing him with her to visit Yoon.

Knowing that Si-mok won’t be able to come with her, however, leaves Yeo-jin resigned. As she announces, “All right, then,” I wonder if this is the moment that she’s choosing to steel herself. The two people she treasures and respects most in her life (Si-mok and Choi Bit) are disappearing from it, and she will have to learn to move forward without them.

Now, we come to their toast. In the corresponding scene in S1, their toast is bittersweet, but has a sense of resolution; upbeat piano music plays in the background as Yeo-jin says, “Goodbye, I won’t be able to see you off,” while Si-mok echoes that with, “Good luck in your new position. Sorry I can’t attend the ceremony.” In S2, the music is quieter, and much more sombre – I’ve been describing it in my head as ‘breathy sad wooooo music’ – even as Yeo-jin laughs and says, a little helplessly: “It feels like we keep repeating this.”

Si-mok, on his part, doesn’t even echo her laugh with anything more than the barest smile. Instead, he says, with a deep sincerity: “Take care, Senior Inspector Han.” As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways that they could have written or played this scene to convey even a little more resolution – choosing different music, or having Si-mok smile along with Yeo-jin, or even giving Yeo-jin a bit more notice of his departure so that she can prepare a gift (as if to say, she doesn’t draw as much these days, but she would for his sake). But the viewer is made to feel all of their reluctance, even sadness at this separation, even if those feelings are hidden beneath pleasantries. “Well, I guess I’ll be okay,” Yeo-jin says, as if there’s a possibility that she won’t be – that this is something she has to recover from in the future.

Si-mok considers her words, her phrasing, her demeanour, tilts his head at her again and says: “Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

This, above all other lines, shows how much Si-mok has grown in the past couple of years because of Yeo-jin’s influence. Whereas he started S1 cold, guarded, and isolated from the rest of his colleagues, he has arrived at a point where he has cultivated enough of an emotional sensitivity to ask her this question – to show her care, just as she has shown care to him and other people around her. I’d even venture to say that Si-mok feels, himself, that there’s a chance he won’t be as okay with their separation as he might have been two years ago. In 2x05, during the conversation with Seo Dong-jae outside the prison, Dong-jae asks Si-mok: “You don’t feel a tad bit sad even if you’re sent far away, do you?” Si-mok answers, “No.” That doesn’t feel so definitive anymore. There isn’t anything either Si-mok or Yeo-jin can do, given that they both prioritise their careers and understand that these careers follow a certain trajectory, but parting feels a little bit harder this time.

Yeo-jin answers Si-mok’s question as reassuringly as she can, with an adorable smile and shake of the head; she lets out an “ah” after she downs her soju, as if to reorient herself. Yet, her cheerfulness in the rest of the scene – her excitement at the food, her over-enthusiastic chewing – rings empty as the sombre music continues to play in the background. For perhaps the first time in the entire series, there is something about Yeo-jin that seems feigned. Strangely, it is Si-mok’s blank expression that represents the more authentic emotion in this scene – communicating the very resignation that Yeo-jin must be feeling inside, beneath a facade that might read as comical in any other context.

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?” is, in fact, the last thing that Si-mok says in this whole scene, despite quite a few more lines of dialogue from Yeo-jin. The way he looks at her for the rest of the scene, though, is charged with meaning. It seems to say: ‘I don’t really believe that you’re okay, but I’m going to give you space because I can tell you don’t really want to talk right now.’ It’s not as if Yeo-jin hasn’t confided in him before – their phone call in 1x15 was especially intimate – so it’s not that Si-mok is incapable of listening to her. Still, he respects her choice to deflect, and continues to observe her closely while ignoring the pajeon, even leaning forward right at the end of the scene. This very overt concentration on her is something we’ve never really seen from Si-mok before; even in the rooftop scene in 2x06, which is probably the most loaded scene they share after this one, they’re standing beside each other and rarely make eye contact. Here, his focus on Yeo-jin is palpable.

As much as this scene felt heartbreaking to me (thanks breathy sad wooooo music), it actually left me with a lot of optimism for the development of their relationship in the future. Lee Soo-yeon has said that she has enough material for five seasons of the show, and while I’m not so sure we’ll get as many seasons as that, it feels like she’s pushed Si-mok and Yeo-jin out of their comfortable friendship – planting the question, “is there a chance we won’t be okay?” I wonder if we’ll see something quite different in the third season (which is apparently in discussion!), which surely won’t see them on opposing sides again.

I’ve been burned by enough ships that can potentially be read as ‘platonic’ to know that I shouldn’t hope for any overt romance, but Si-mok is such a unique character and has such a unique connection with Yeo-jin that I’m hopeful that their relationship could be deepened with nuance, even if it doesn’t become romantic in ‘recognisable’ ways. (I have other thoughts on his asexuality/aromanticism that I won’t get into here.) It’s precisely because their connection is built on mutual trust, respect, and understanding that it remains so compelling, and I think this scene promises growth, and some resolution, whenever we see them next.

#tvn stranger #secret forest 2 #stranger 2 #stranger #hwanghan

[meditationnearme]

Is This Crazy New Treatment The Cure To Your Insomnia? - how do you reduce stress

NuCalm promotes itself as neuroscience-backed tension and sleep technology. In practice, though, it simply helped me nap. I recently awakened from a delightful 20-minute nap. Really, it was more of a 10-minute half-nap half-trance, preceded by ideas of what I required to accomplish today that slowly liquified into the types of non-sequitur visions that take place because earliest phase of sleep.

In some way, this was rejuvenating. For the last week, I have actually been checking out the NuCalm system. According to its website, NuCalm is "the world's only trademarked neuroscience innovation clinically shown to deal with stress and improve sleep quality without drugs." It includes a neuroacoustic software application app utilized for 20- to 120-minute increments, an eye mask and the abovementioned processing discs, and in practice includes listening to ambient, cinematic sounds (comparable to this) with your eyes closed and a sticker label stuck to your inner arm.

Each of the elements are designed to set off the body's parasympathetic nervous system, which aids with recovery and relaxation. The disc is created to launch gamma-aminobutyric acid, a neurotransmitter that inhibits cortisol and adrenaline. With this and the app, NuCalm halts your body's tension action and therefore the mental and physical toll tension can handle the body.

military, 49 sports teams and in over a million surgical treatments. Some dental offices even utilize it for clients who hesitate of the dental expert. NuCalm's 'bio-signal processing disc' Although the product is touted as a way of possibly healing the body from injury, addiction and physical concerns, it appears predominately useful for relaxation and anxiety.

By this procedure, my use of NuCalm was a success: After my 20-minute session this afternoon, I certainly felt far more refreshed and awake. While a few of my sessions kept me conscious the whole time, I at least felt a bit more relaxed than previously. At the start, I 'd believed I was supposed to treat the session like a meditation, preventing letting my ideas roam.

Why I was so focused upon events of this age during my session is a secret to me, but regardless, I think I still dropped off to sleep for about five minutes. Unusually enough, a FAQ section of the app states that memory recollection is a typical characteristic of "theta brainwave variety," and that recalling memories in this phase allows you to dissociate negative feelings from them.

Overall, NuCalm did enable me to take best little afternoon naps in a structured method. I am decent at sleeping as it is, but I do believe something about NuCalm, whether it be the discs or the noises or the timer, made those naps more effective than usual. One glaring problem with NuCalm, nevertheless, is its rate.

Perhaps as I keep utilizing it, I'll find that this is a totally reasonable expense for the advantage of much better relaxation, health and sleep. At this moment, however, I 'd pay possibly $10 a month. The app likewise requires some major upgrading, as it presently only uses 3 various session types (recharge, reboot and rescue) at differing lengths and with a rather cumbersome layout.

Instead, it feels rudimentary, with lesser parts of the app like the post-session debriefing FAQ totally nonfunctional. I have actually taken some fantastic naps this last week, and I'll keep utilizing NuCalm for this function. It's a nearly simple and easy way of fitting 20 minutes of pure relaxation into my day. Whether those bio-signalling dics do anything, I'm still suspicious in addition to a cleaner app, I 'd need to get a bit more trust in the science to pay $60 a month.

Magdalene Taylor is a junior staff writer at MEL, where she began working two weeks after finishing college. Her work is a mix of cultural analysis and service, covering whatever from reconsiderations of low-brow hits like Joe Dirt and Nickelback to modern disability issues, OnlyFans and the kinds of small concerns about life like why baby carrots are so wet.

According to the company, thirty minutes of NuCalm is equal to 2 to 3 hours of corrective sleep. The NuCalm website boasts that the de-stressing treatment takes simply 2 minutes to administer and less than 5 minutes to accomplish its effects, making it the extremely meaning of a quick repair.

With its sleek website and claims of high-tech, borderline-magic outcomes, I half expected my NuCalm experience to occur in the literal future or, at really least, a center that reeked of sci-fi vibes. I believe I was imagining a workplace that looked like the ship from Passengers and a large set-up reminiscent of the memory-implanting tech from Total Remember or possibly even a coffin-like pod directly out of The Fifth Component.

My NuCalm treatment was not administered on the set of a motion picture, but it also wasn't administered in a dental expert's workplace. On the early morning of my visit, I drove across Los Angeles to Santa Monica to the workplaces of an authentic medical professional to the stars, whose Hollywood customers includes starlets, authors and motivational masters, and who boasts know-how in energy medication, integrative medication and bioidentical hormone replacement treatment.

Rather, my NuCalm experience began in a (actively) dimly lit waiting room that looked more like the living-room of an eccentric, well-traveled college professor than a medical center. The doctor was fashionably late not with another patient, simply in getting to the office. While the tardiness might usually have actually frustrated me, here, it appeared like part of the experience, almost like a sneak peek of the outcomes of the high-tech treatment that awaited me.

Throughout a quick consultation, the physician discussed the NuCalm procedure and summarized the science behind it (more on that later). The gist of the system, I learned, was this: I would chew a tablet of gamma-Aminobutyric acid, or -aminobutyric acid (or GABA, for short), a repressive neurotransmitter suggested to decrease activity in my nerve system.

I would listen, through headphones, to binaural beat music music with two various balanced pulses that activates Alpha and Theta brain waves, which are connected with the very first stage of deep sleep and meditation. Likewise, I would be blindfolded. And, in Doc Hollywood's workplace, I would do all of this while lying on a waterbed although the waterbed, I learned, is not a standard or needed element of the treatment.

I was led to a small exam space (or, possibly, a large closet), where I was offered a big GABA tablet and told to chew but not swallow it while the medical professional marked time the binaural beats and connected the Biosignal Processing Disc to my wrist. Lastly, after what seemed like a much longer duration of time than it possibly could have been, I was informed to swallow the GABA vitamin sludge, which had the artificially sweet, fruity taste and distinctly milky taste and texture of Flinstones vitamins that are a couple of months past their expiration date.

The NuCalm treatment itself was completely pleasant. The music was calming but interesting (I've since registered for a binaural beats playlist on Spotify bless the web). The milky, orange-adjacent taste of the GABA tablet didn't remain in a particularly noticeable way. And the waterbed was warmed, that made for a relaxing place to lie down and rest.

What am I doing incorrect? Why don't I feel calm? If science can't make me chill TF out, am I just a lost cause? Perhaps if I do a body scan, I'll be able to feel the results. That's a good concept. I'm going to do a body scan. This will resemble mindfulness on steroids orange-flavored, healthy steroids.

I am broken. I was wrong. It was not practically over. Maybe it's the kind of thing you can't feel in the moment, however I'll observe a substantial distinction when it's over. I have a lot work to do. Stop thinking of work and being stressed. That beats the entire purpose.

I asked how typically he advised that individuals come in for NuCalm treatments and he stated that it differs, but that some individuals "need it daily." I couldn't help however think, based on my experience and the lack of concrete outcomes, that that appeared excessive. He handed me some research study further discussing the science behind NuCalm prior to rushing off to his next appointment, and I left sensation disappointed and a little anxious about my failure to feel less distressed through the treatment.

For the record, it's not. I discovered the experience to be a little New Age-y in practice, however the system really is based in science. Drawing from neuroscience research into the patterns the brain goes through throughout natural periods of relaxation, every component of NuCalm is created to simulate that process and prompt a stressed brain to switch gears to a more relaxed state.

NuCalm works specifically on the body's inhibitory system, the GABAergic system. This gadget is bio-mimetic in that it resets the naturally taking place negative feedback loop of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which when properly functioning is expected to shut down and stop releasing cortisol from the adrenal glands after the end of a stressful occasion.

Individuals in this state are physically not able to have a distressed reaction. Within moments of application, users will start to feel remedy for the 'fight-or-flight' considerate nervous system action and their tension hormonal agent (cortisol) levels will start to decline as the HPA axis is hindered." Here's a quick breakdown of the science behind each phase of the NuCalm process.

It's really the primary repressive neurotransmitter system in brain circuits. Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid is a relaxation neurotransmitter that the body produces naturally when we're preparing yourself to sleep, so the strategy of utilizing GABA supplements to signify the brain that it's time to relax makes good sense. What's not completely clear, nevertheless, is how effective oral GABA supplements remain in triggering those advantages.

While some studies have actually revealed that GABA can cross the blood-brain barrier, others have shown the opposite, suggesting a possible placebo result behind perceived benefits of the supplements. Researchers agree that more research is needed to figure out how useful GABA supplements really are. According to NuCalm's website, the disc "simplifies the process of triggering the parasympathetic worried system, by tapping into the body's Pericardium Meridian with specific electromagnetic (EM) frequencies." The disc (which, again, was a round sticker, about the size of a quarter, that was used to the within of my wrist) was, undoubtedly, my greatest source of apprehension at the same time, and NuCalm's official explanation of the science behind it highlights the most Brand-new Age-y vibes of the company.

It is hypothesized that if you can restore the frequencies that take a trip through the Meridians you can reinstate ideal physiology. Each NuCalm disc holds the EM frequency patterns of GABA and its precursors to provide a pure biological signal to your body. When put on the within your left wrist, at your Pericardium-6 acupuncture point, the disc sends a signal to the pericardium of your heart to trigger regional parasympathetic nerve fibers, which then transfer the signal to your brain telling it to increase vagal nerve output and start the process of decreasing the body.

In 2017, Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP promoted a $120 brand name of bio-frequency stickers, leading to a short-lived viral moment for the tech. Sadly for proponents of the devices, the action wasn't fantastic, with Mark Shelhamer, previous chief scientist at NASA's human research division, significantly decrying the GOOP-endorsed product as "snake oil." Although the NuCalm site describes that "each disc holds the electromagnetic frequency patterns of GABA and its precursors to provide a pure biosignal to your body," it's unclear exactly how putting the sticker on your wrist sets off that shipment.

#meditation for sleep

[fallin-flcwer]

JIWON’S TRUTH BOOTH

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. Please state your full name: “Moon Ji Won” 2. Does your name(s) have any kind of meaning? If so, what is it? “My name has numerous meanings. “Ji” can either mean ‘wise’ or ‘ambitious’ and “Won” can either mean ‘beautiful woman, as well as ‘first’. My parents never really decided what it meant, but I just take it as “ambitious and beautiful woman.””  3. Do you have any nicknames? “Nope” 4. Where were you born? And in which country? “Seoul, South Korea” 5. What is your date of birth? “I was born on June the 22nd, 1998″  6. Of course, the following question; what is your Zodiac sign? “My star sign is Cancer, I believe.” 7. Do you believe in Zodiac signs? “Not completely, but I still find them interesting to read about sometimes.” 8. Where do you live? “I’ve got a house Lilac Wells, I’m staying in while I’m here. I’ve also got a house in Seoul, as well as in Tokyo but I don’t visit that one often since I’m usually busy in the first two.” 9. What is your home situation like? (ex. do you live with your family? Your partner etc.?) “I live on my own.” 10. Do you have any siblings? “I’m an only child.” 11. Do you have any kind of allergies? “None that I know of” 12. Do you own any pets? If so, what kind of pets are they? “Yes! I’ve got a miniature poodle called Bambi and a bombay cat called Byeol” 13. Why did you apply to St Jude’s? “Honestly I just did it for fun. It wasn’t until I got accepted that I realised how big of an opportunity it was.” 14. Did you had to go through a lot audition rounds? “Not really. I had already debut by the time auditions came. Personally, I think I could’ve done a lot better for my debut, but it still got me by.” 15. What is the current course you’re following? If you can switch courses, which one would you switch to and why? “I am currently doing music and dance. I think acting and fashion would be fun” 17. What is your proudest project you’ve done? “Gotta Go! I think some people my argue that Snapping was the better comeback, but I still see it as a sequel to Gotta Go. It definitely the comeback that started steering my career to where it is now.” 18. What is the proudest project that someone’s else has done? “Singular Act I! I think, especially since Everleigh and I were both opening acts for Ruby, I’ve seen her grow so much as an artist.” 19. Do you like FanCons? “Yes!” 20. What do you like about FanCons? “I like being able to meet fans.” 21. What don’t you like about FanCons? “I don’t really have anything bad to say about them.” 22. A fan memory that always stuck with you? Can be positive or negative. "While I was doing a fansign one fan walked towards me, got on her knees and bowed down. It happened so quickly and caught me completely off guard.” 23. Your favorite event so far? “I love anything halloween, to be honest.” 24. What kind of event would you like to see in the future? “Something in Korea, maybe? We’ve got quite a few K-Pop artists here now so it’d be nice to do something there.” 25. Would you recommend St Jude’s to friends, family. etc? “Yes.”

PERSONALITY QUESTIONS

26. What are your positive traits? “I am very ambitious, approachable, and detail-oriented” 27. What are you negative traits? “Sometimes I don’t know when to rest and I kinda set myself into overdrive until I’m satisfied with everything” 28. What would other people describe you as? “Hard-working, always busy and resourceful” 29. What are your pet peeves? “Does constant, loud yawners count?” 30. What makes you happy? “Seeing a project I’ve been working hard on finished.” 31. What makes you upset? “Seeing people not take me seriously because I’m a woman. It doesn’t get to me as much as it used to, but it’s still gets disheartening from time to time.” 32. What is something you love? “My parents, Byeol and Bambi, and my work.” 33. What is something you dislike? “Having my idol and hotel life interfering with each other. I’ve done a pretty good job keeping them separate, but there have been times where they’ve coincided and it got too overbearing.” 34. What are you strengths? “Singing, Dancing, Working” 35. What are you weaknesses? “I can be overly critical of myself when things don’t go to plan.” 36. A misconception people often think of you? “That everything came easy for me. Yes, I’m privileged, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t work. In fact, it really meant that people expected more from me. I graduated high school and got my degree early, but I worked myself to the bone making sure I was on top of everything. I chose to become an idol as well as working in the hotels, and people gave me hate for it. That’s died down a bit, but still... Both jobs consist of me having to satisfy people, so I have an ongoing cycle of writing reports, writing songs, recording, choreographing, performing, promoting, the list goes on forever and it’s rare that I ever catch time to set aside for myself.” 37. Do you have any fears? “Mice and rats. I’m fine with mice that are kept as pets and stuff, but if I ever found out that there’s a mouse or a rat living in my house. I just might move out.” 38. What scares you the most? “Not being able to live up to people’s expectations of me as the next CEO of the family business.” 39. What do you do to entertain yourself? “I don’t have time to entertain myself, unless choreographing counts, but it’s still work.” 40. What is your MBTI? “I believe I am ESFJ-A” 41. How do you deal with stress? “I think I handle stress relatively well. I kinda just work through it.” 42. Are you a determined person? Are you a stubborn person? “I’m definitely a determined person” 43. Do you consider yourself selfish? “I think sometimes I can be, but after a bit I scold myself for being selfish.”  44. Would you like to be different? “Nah” 45. Are you more introverted (focused on your inner world) or more extraverted (focused on other people and the outer world)? “I’m definitely more extroverted”

ROMANCE QUESTIONS

46. What is your sexual orientation? “I’m heterosexual”  47. Current relationship status? “Single” 48. When was your first kiss? “I think I was about 17″ 49. Do you remember your first date? If so, with who was it? What did you do? “My first date was set up by my parents. It was with a one of their acquaintance’s sons in Tokyo and he showed me around the city.” 50. Have you ever experienced heart-break? “Yes” 51. Have you ever been in love? (If yes, skip to question 53) “Yes” 53. How do you know when you’re in love? "I think it’s when I realise I want to spend time with them outside of work, and I catch myself trying to make time for them despite always being busy.” 54. What would be your ideal date? “A day out exploring. I’m more of a city person, so that’s my preference, but I’m open to anywhere” 55. What is your perspective on marriage? “I’d love to get married one day, but I don’t think I’ve ever have the time for it at this rate. Maybe if I ever quit becoming an idol I will.” 56. (only for non-virgins) Are you a sub, dom or switch? “Pass” 57. What do you think of relationships? “They’re best when both parties are putting equal amounts of effort into it.”  58. What do you think of one-night stands? “I don’t really have an opinion on them. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve experienced one or two before when I was younger, but it’s not something I plan on doing again.”  59. Are you still a virgin? “No”  60. Most attractive trait in a different person? “A nice personality” 61. What matters most to you when it comes to a relationship? “Honesty and loyalty. I’m also an incredibly busy person, so I hope that they can be a bit patient with me too.” 62. Are you comfortable with PDA? Or would you be comfortable with PDA? “I think so? I’m relatively private when it comes to relationships but I think once I have the confidence to go public I’d be fine with PDA.” 63. Are you more of a type to be asked out or the type to ask the other out? “I’d rather be asked out.” 64. How do you express love to the other? “I change my schedule up to make time for them.” 65. Who is your celebrity crush? “Sung Hoon”

GETTING DEEP QUESTIONS

66. Do you regret anything? “Yes” 67. Is there something you would like to re-do? So, start all over again? “Pass” 68. What is something you would never share with anyone?  “As rewarding as my life is, it can get draining.” 69. When was the last time you cried? Why did you cry? “I definitely had a mental breakdown sometime between after Boxing Day and New Years. I got into a little argument with one of my Dad’s competitors during an event in Seoul and I had a little breakdown when I got home.” 70. Most memorable event that happened in your time in St Judes? This could be anything: “Winning Female Artist of the Year at Spotlight. Since there were so many artists nominated that had a big impact on St. Judes I was 100% certain that I wasn’t going to get it.”  71. One thing you wish you could do all over? “High school. To be honest, I didn’t really make many friends growing up, since I was so determined to rush through my studies.” 72. Someone you miss? “My mother.” 73. Something you wish you could forget? “My past relationship”  74. Who has the biggest impact on you? “My parents” 75. What is your perspective on love? Is it beautiful? Does it scare you? “Love can be risky, but if you play your cards right it can be rewarding.” 76. What has hurt you in the past that you don’t want others to go through? “Pass” 77. What is something you have gained, something you have lost and something you let go of during the past year? “I think I’ve gained a lot of direction as to where I want to go as an Idol in the past year. I haven’t necessarily lost anything, but I’ve let go of a lot of the negativity people usually give me when it come to my role in the family business.” 78. Have you ever lost a friend? do you wish you would still be friends? “I’ve definitely neglected some friendships because of my workload. If I got the chance I’d love to reconnect with them.” 79. Do you have any triggers? What is the history behind these triggers and are they related to any disorders or mental illnesses? “Nope”  80. If you could meet your 16 year old self, what would tell them? “Keep pushing through the same way you do, but don’t be afraid to relax whenever you need to.”

RANDOM QUESTION ROUND

81. Summer or Winter? “Winter” 82. Cats or dogs? “Dogs” 83. Beach or mountains? “Mountains” 84. Phone calls or texting? “Phone calls" 85. Have you ever skipped class? “No”

#stjudestruthbooth

[kpopfic-recs]

♡ bts ships masterlist♡

Note: If you are unable to view the formatting on the mobile app, switch to reading on your mobile browser

(Last update 4/27/20)

Key: Fluff (❀) Angst (☆) Smut (☾) Completed Series (✓) Incomplete Series (✗)

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Jikook

↳ One Shots

And Back Again by novilunar II ☆ ☾

Summary: Jimin wishes he could stay away from Jungkook. (FWB!AU)

Length of story: 3.1k words

Warnings: None

The Good Doctor by snarcsics II ☾

Summary: Jungkook’s your basic sex addict. Troubled, distant, angry, and somewhat cocky, however Jimin suspects that was there long before Jungkook became an addict.

Length of story: 11.4k words

Warnings: Sex addiction

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Taekook

↳ Series

cause when you look like that, never ever wanted to be so bad by centurystorm II ☾ ✓

Summary: The TA for Jungkook’s chemistry class is fine as hell but no way is that why he enjoys chem class. (Lies, all lies). AKA the “oh no you spilled a chemical and now you have to use the emergency lab shower” AU. (College!AU)

Length of story: 2 parts/11.4k words

Warnings: Top!Jungkook, bottom!Taehyung, oral sex, blowjobs, semi public sex, spanking, dirty talk, anal sex, anal fingering, come eating

flowers love the sun by bootaeful II ❀ ☆ ☾ ✓

Summary: Taehyung, a beautiful mortal, had caught the eye of Jungkook, a god. Based on the Greek myth of Apollo and his mortal lover Hyacinthus.

Length of story: 2 parts/12.2k words

Warnings: Blood, death

Preach by bruhnam299 II ☆ ☾ ✓

Summary: It had been of their kingdom’s tradition to have a young lad or lass selected for the princes of the kingdom, for purposes justifiable by the princes themselves. They say that upon selection, you live a life of royalty just as the kings and queens do. Taehyung does not believe this; he knows that his life will be one of a sex slave if he were ever to be selected.

Length of story: 3 parts/12.9k words

Warnings: Top!Jungkook, bottom!Taehyung, dom/sub, anal sex, oral sex

Not My Delivery by winter_taebum II ❀ ☾ ✓

Summary: In which Jungkook believed that the person ringing his doorbell was his best friend Jimin along with the pet cat that he was 'supposed' to adopt. Jungkook was never really a 'cat' kind of person but he was willing to have a go at looking after a new furry playmate. Besides, whether it be cats or dogs, he was an animal lover in general. That being said, what shows up in front of his front door instead was neither of that but a beautiful man with breathtakingly sharp feline features and glowing skin instead..Jungkook stares blankly at the stranger in front of his door and what came next was jaw dropping. "Are you my master?" The beautiful male purrs.

Length of story: 3 parts/19.3k words

Warnings: Top!Jungkook, bottom!Taehyung, praise kink, barebacking, master/pet, anal sex, anal fingering, dry orgasm, orgasm delay/denial 

  ↳ One Shots

You Make Me Ssstutter by hauntedaffair II ❀

Summary: “For here or to go?” Taehyung asked sweetly. “Yes.” Jeongguk blurted.…Fuck my life. Jeongguk could almost cry. Burn me in hellfire right now. Taehyung is a cute barista and Jeongguk experiences multiple mental breakdowns. (Coffee Shop!AU)

Length of story: 1.6k words

Warnings: None

Hate Me, Love Me (Everybody Wants to Kiss Me) by parmajeon II ☾

Summary: Jeon Jeongguk never wanted to kiss someone while knocking the living daylights out of them so badly before. (Or: jeongguk is stuck between saying 'fuck you' and 'fight me' and ends up saying 'fuck me' to taehyung in the middle of a fight). (High School!AU, Enemies to Lovers!AU)

Length of story: 2.7k words

Warnings: Slight smut

Love Is Easy by xsmallathenabug II ❀

Summary: Taehyung accidentally says “I love you” to the guy on the other line while ordering a pizza and gets a “Love you too” followed by a "I hope you’re not expecting a discount on the pizza just cause we confessed our undying love for each other.”

Length of story: 2.9k words

Warnings: None

Badabing-Badaboom (We Should Fall in Love Baby) by bruhnam299 II ❀

Summary: Taehyung is so utterly confused. Jimin is a gym enthusiast (who drags Taehyung to his doom). And Jungkook isn't following up on the latest dating etiquette on how to do feelings (or ask someone out). Like. At all. Yugyeom gets pulled into all of this shit (and remains disloyal 'till the end).

Length of story: 3.1k words

Warnings: Scent kink

Let Me Lie Tangent to Your Curves by parmajeon II ❀

Summary: Taehyung didn't think grocery shopping would be that eventful until he almost gets arrested and finds himself face-to-face with an angel. (Aka the au where Taehyung gets his hand stuck in a car window after trying to carry out a heist and its midnight and hes alone in the parking lot and shit shit shit the owner is approaching and he's super hot??)

Length of story: 3.1k words

Warnings: None

Hit Me Like a Tidal Wave by parmajeon II ❀

Summary: Taehyung is a lifeguard at a beach and Jeongguk is an innocent beach-goer. Cue Jeonguk almost drowning, Taehyung actually drowning, and what should have been mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Length of story: 3.4k words

Warnings: None

Take Me Home by puddlesofme II ❀ ☆

Summary: “It’s the middle of the night and i’m walking home alone in the dark and there’s this guy following me and he’s starting to gain on me and i found this phone booth with a lock on the door and I tried to call my best friend but my hands were shaking so badly I accidentally dialed the wrong number and i don’t even know you but help me” au

Length of story: 4k words

Warnings: None

Until the End of the World by parmajeon II ☆

Summary: Taehyung and Jeongguk are best friends, and that's all they'll ever be. (College!AU)

Length of story: 4.3k words

Warnings: Mentions of sex

Time’s Ticking by parmajeon II ❀ ☾

Summary: Jeongguk might have magic older than time itself, but Taehyung’s tongue works its own kind of magic. (or: the au where jeongguk is literally the fountain of youth and explorer Tae decides he's gotta suck his dick to reap the benefits). (College!AU)

Length of story: 5.2k words

Warnings: None

Date Me by flywithtaetae II ❀ ♡

Summary: Taehyung flirts with the cute high school boy and relishes in the flustered reaction he gets for almost an entire year. But when the following year comes along, he finds himself choking on his own words. (Coffee Shop!AU)

Length of story: 5.4k words 

Warnings: None

Snow by gukvee,  jeons_v II ❀

Summary: Taehyung is obsessed with snow filters and he bumps into Jeongguk in a grocery store with his face shoved into his mobile phone screen.

Length of story: 6.1k words

Warnings: None

Stuffed Drumsticks and Cotton Candy Kisses by parmajeon II ❀ ☾

Summary: Taehyung is really good at precision-based games and Jeongguk is really good at strength-based games. Together, they amass a terrifying number of prizes before being kicked out of the carnival.

Length of story: 6.5k words

Warnings: Slight smut

Snap Streak (author unknown) II ❀

Summary: "who dat qt boi on ur story?" Aka: in which Kim Taehyung discovers the love of his life on Park Jimin's snapchat story.

Length of story: 7k words

Warnings: Sexual content (not smut)

Melt in Your Mouth (Not in Your Hands) by mindheist II (+ Jimin) ☾

Summary: What happens at a rave stays at a rave—except this one.

Length of story: 7.4k words

Warnings: Mentions of drugs and drinking

The Dawn Before the Sun Rises by internetpistol II ❀

Summary: It all started when Kim Taehyung almost impaled Jeon Jungkook with a pink umbrella. (College!AU)

Length of story: 8.1k words

Warnings: Mentions of sex

We Only Have Red Bull to Thank by parmajeon II ❀ ☆ ☾

Summary: “But lately,” Taehyung’s mind flashes back to the instance where Jeongguk had literally brought them outside when Taehyung suggested they ‘go out.’ “It’s not the same anymore. We’re on two different wavelengths and it’s fucking weird considering most friendships like this are ruined after the two people date, not before one of them even gets to confess.” (Or: 5 times when Taehyung tries to confess and Jeongguk just doesn't get it + the 1 time he does)

Length of story: 8.6k words

Warnings: None

You’re My Type by dom_joonie II ❀

Summary: “Taehyung turns away from the commotion to look up at the blue sky, but before he can tilt his head all the way back a six-pack catches his eye and, of course, everything goes south from there.” In which Taehyung has a crush on the lifeguard of the local pool, and his thirst cannot be contained. Especially not when eye-candy like THAT is walking around.

Length of story: 8.7k words

Warnings: Drinking, sexual/suggestive content

Been There All Night by Bangtanbananas II ☆ ☾

Summary: Taehyung never planned to fall head over heels for Jeon Jungkook but it just sort of...happened. And he didn't realize the extent of his feelings until Park Jimin walked into their lives and ruined everything. Or the lawyer au where Taehyung gets jealous and becomes a petty bitch. (Office!AU, Lawyer!AU)

Length of story: 9.1k words

Warnings: Drinking

Jingle My Bells by parmajeon II ❀

Summary: When Jungkook met Taehyung on the Polar Express, he didn't expect to see him twelve years later on campus yelling, "Santa Watch Team! Please sign up!”

Length of story: 9.4k words

Warnings: None

Drink Up Baby (It’s Poison) (author unknown) II ❀

Summary: Love thy enemy or better yet, make them fall in love with you (Harry Potter!AU).

Length of story: 10.9k words

Warnings: Drinking

If You Love Me, Let Me Go by buttstrife II ☆ ☾

Summary: They’re alone in Jungkook’s bedroom. There’s a song playing faintly from the speakers of Jungkook’s phone. The lyrics go like this: Oh, my heart hurts so good. I love you, babe, so bad, so bad. Taehyung is his love, his best friend, his soulmate – Jungkook is sure of it. Taehyung is a famous actor/model, and Jungkook is one of many who fall for him.

Length of story: 11.5k words

Warnings: Drugs, mentions of drinking, major character death

Hercules by GinForInk II ❀ ☾

Summary: Taehyung forgets his strength kink until Jungkook picks him up during a group project meeting.

Length of story: 11.6k words

Warnings: Implied/referenced homophobia, light masochism

dating for dummies by sugasus II ❀

Summary: In which Twitter is evil, Jeon Jungkook is a bit tsundere, Park Jimin is satan and Kim Taehyung may or may not have a boyfriend.

Length of story: 12k words

Warnings: None

oh, for the love of god by florations II ❀ ☆

Summary: What could go wrong with falling in love with your best friend? Not a lot, to be honest. That happens to people all the time. But what if said best friend is the God of Love and you're the God of Death? Then a lot. A lot of things could go wrong. Or conversely: What the fuck, Jeon Jeongguk. 

Length of story: 12.6k words

Warnings: None

maps to you by antiking II ❀

Summary: There is a dick on his face. There is a big, bold dick drawn onto his face in black permanent marker, and though Jungkook scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until his forehead is red, he only succeeds in smudging it around. He pumps a fistful of soap onto the towel and renews his efforts with twice the vigor. He has hagwon later today, and he’d rather step on Legos than go there like this. Maybe, he thinks, pausing for a second to examine the state of the dick, his parents will allow him to skip just this once. Does this count as a medical emergency? Jungkook isn’t sure, but his hands are shaky and the towel is shaky and he’s growing more panicked by the second because it won’t come off. He’s going to die. He’s going to die of public humiliation in front of everyone, and then he’s going to come back to life and kill his soulmate, because who the fuck draws a dick on their forehead knowing full well that it’ll show up on someone else, too? (Soulmate!AU, College!AU)

Length of story: 13.1k words

Warnings: Suggestive content

Let Me Hear You Scream by parmejeon II (+ Yoonmin) ❀

Summary: “We both rode as singles on this giant roller coaster and I didn’t realize how afraid of heights I really was and you don’t seem scared so please let me hold your hand for emotional support.”

Length of story: 13.1k words

Warnings: Suggestive content

you’re my earth (the center of my day) by taetastic II ❀ ☆ ☾

Summary: He likes watching the colors dance in Taehyung's wings when they catch on the light of the sunrise, and the golden glow of his fingers when he brushes them over flowers and plants. (Fantasy!AU, Werewolf!AU, Fairy!AU). 

Length of story: 14.3k words

Warnings: Blood, violence, death

Get Me Out Of My Mind (Get You Out Of Those Clothes) by taekookmusings II ❀ ☆ ☾

Summary: Taehyung never thought he'd fall in love with his roommate. Then again, he never thought his roommate would have been a literal gift from god either. (College!AU)

Length of story: 15.8k words

Warnings: Drinking

Let My Body Do The Work by seikou II ☆ ☾

Summary: Seriously, this is agonizing. He didn’t ask for this. His goal isn’t this and yet he finds himself moving his arms to Jungkook’s prompting and misery really loves Taehyung’s company. Gym is frustrating. (College!AU)

Length of story: 17.2k words

Warnings: None

I was told there’d be cookies by mintsoda II ❀

Summary: “Taehyung, this is a very special present I have here,’ Namjoon holds it up for Taehyung to see and Taehyung blinks at it, bottom lip jutted out a little, 'I would like you to deliver it for me. Could you do that for me, Taehyungie?' 'Really? Me? It's my turn finally?' he asks a little too fast, taking the box out of Namjoon's hands to observe it carefully but with a pinch of curiosity. 'What's in there?' 'It's something very important, please be careful with it. It’s for a young man called Jeon Jungkook. It’s a special gift, something really, really precious, you see?" When Christmas elf Taehyung accompanies Santa to the human world on his first ever present shower – Santa forgets to take Taehyung back home with him. Luckily for him, his first present delivery is for aspiring baseball player Jeon Jungkook who, as he finds out, must have had a very peculiar Christmas wish: milk and Taehyung's favourite cookies. (Elf!AU)

Length of story: 18.1k words

Warnings: None

Toads and Periwinkle by Kavbj II ❀ ☾ ♡

Summary: Jungkook’s kinda cursed (like really cursed) and Taehyung’s kinda a witch (like really not a great one but he tries).

Length of story: 18.2k words

Warnings: None

Body Ache by lethallergic II ☆ ☾

Summary: If you listen closely, there are two boys connected so deeply their hearts beat as one. (Or the one where Taehyung desperately needs an accompanist and Jungkook appears to be his only option.) (

Length of story: 18.8k words

Warnings: Smoking

Here Fishy Fishy by Kavbj II ❀ ☆ ☾ ♡

Summary: Taehyung's a real fish out of water (no like, for real) and Jungkook just saved him from drowning. (College!AU, Merman!AU)

Length of story: 21.5k words

Warnings: None

Shark in the Water by mindheist II ❀ ♡

Summary: As far as fairy tales go, this one doesn’t have a lot of fairies. Tales, yes. Tails, that is. Just the one. One (1) tail.

Length of story: 30.6k words

Warnings: Mentions of drinking, suggestive content

Frooty Loopy (author unknown) II ❀ ☾ ♡

Summary: "We both reached for the last box of Froot Loops and I don't care that we're both adults I will fight you.” In which Taehyung fights Jungkook to the death for a box of artificially flavored and colored loops.

Length of story: 31k words

Warnings: Mentions of smoking/drugs, drinking

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Vmin

↳ One Shots

Friends Won’t Let Friends be Sexually Frustrated by staycute1234 II ☾

Summary: Jimin runs into Jungkook on the basketball courts, the younger male leaving him in a sexually frustrated mess. Thankfully his roommate, Taehyung, helps him out. (College!AU)

Length of story: 3k words

Warnings: None

In The Same Boat by pornographicpenguin II ☾

Summary: "You want to what?" "Dock," Jimin says. Taehyung blinks. "You mean like...with a boat?"

Length of story: 3.8k words

Warnings: Docking

call me (whenever you want me) by jhopeg II ❀ ☆ ☾

Summary: Jimin should’ve known that mixing alcohol with his feelings was never a good idea. Because he sure as hell didn’t need to accidentally call a guy (whose voice was incredibly hot) offering sex to him. Over the phone. (College!AU, FWB!AU).

Length of story: 23.3k words

Warnings: Drinking, top!tae, bottom!jimin

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Yoonmin

↳ One Shots

assembly required (author unknown) II ❀

Summary: "It's like 3am and I'm exhausted and I can hear you raging next door about failing to put together an Ikea bed so here I am helping you and holy shit you're cute.” (College!AU)

Length of story: 3.9k words

Warnings: None

Movie Night by sungmin II (+ Taehyung) ☾

Summary: "Maybe we could try messing with one of the other members." He can almost hear Jimin's ears perk up. "What do you mean? Like a prank?" "No," Yoongi says, "I mean like mess around with one of them. You know, fluster him. Make him sweat a little at the very least."

Length of story: 4.5k words

Warnings: None

  ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿

Taegi

↳ Series

Brownies? (author unknown) II ❀ ☾ ✓

Summary: There was an unspoken rule in the music industry, never accept food from fans. So it was no surprise to Min Yoongi when he saw Kim Taehyung happily accepting just that. Or: Taehyung eats poisoned food that gives him fox ears and a tail and Yoongi has a good time.

Length of story: 2 parts/16.9k words

Warnings: Fox hybrid!Taehyung, hand jobs, blow jobs, rimming, praise kink, top!Yoongi, bottom!Taehyung, hyung kink (slight), anal fingering, anal sex, cum play, butt plugs, cum swallowing, masturbation

  ↳ One Shots

First Time at the Rodeo by parmejeon II ❀

Summary: Yoongi doesn't like loud and obnoxious people. Or people at all, actually. Enter Kim Taehyung with wide pants and a smile that could rival the sun's.

Length of story: 1.3k words

Warnings: None

  ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿

Namkook

↳ Series

The Curse of Curves by snotboy II ☾ ✓

Summary: An explanation as to why Jungkook had a boner during the Billboard video.

Length of story: 2 parts/2.8k words

Warnings: None

  ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿

Vhope

↳ One Shots

Truth or Dare (Cause I double dare you) by 2kitsune II ☾

Summary: Hoseok and Taehyung are forced to kiss, again. “So, you want to do a friend with benefits kind of thing?” Hoseok asks. “No,” Taehyung starts, eyes firmly stuck on the single window they have in their room. “We’ll just be friends who occasionally kiss,” He pauses, and his gaze flicks back to Hoseok, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips. “If that’s okay with you.”

Length of story: 7.3k words

Warnings: None

  ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿

Namjin

↳ One Shots

Bet You Won’t by Iridescentpulse II ❀ ☾

Summary: Seokjin choked on the rice he was trying to eat, eyes wide and the tips of his ears burning. He turned his startled gaze toward Taehyung, who just sat grinning at his friend struggling to breathe. Jimin quickly handed him his own drink, and after a few gulps, his throat was clear, but his brain struggled to grasp what the younger man had just said - "I'm sorry, could you run that by me again?" “I dare you to take a selfie while having sex with Namjoon." Taehyung dares Seokjin to take a selfie while having sex with Namjoon, and the group chat ends up getting more than it bargained for. (College!AU)

Length of story: 2.9k words

Warnings: None

  ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿

Multiple Members

↳ One Shots

go all day, go all night (i’m a beast) by sungmin II (Jimin, Taehyung, Yoongi & Hoseok) ☾

Summary: It’s safe to say that Jimin is a bit of an exhibitionist.

Length of story: 10.2k words

Warnings: Foursome, food kink, asphyxiation.

#bts #bts fic #bts fluff #bts smut #jikook #taekook #vmin #yoonmin #namjin #vhope #namkook #taegi #jimin #taehyung #suga #yoongi #namjoon #rm #jin #seokjin #jungkook #jhope #hoseok

[satoshi-mochida]

The Final Fantasy Portal Site has published the first in a three-volume series of Final Fantasy IX interviews in celebration of the game’s 20th anniversary. Final Fantasy IX first launched for PlayStation on July 7, 2000.

The first interview is with Final Fantasy IX event design and scenario writer Kazuhiko Aoki. Volumes two and three will feature artist Toshiyuki Itahana and director Hiroyuki Ito.

Get the full interview with Aoki below.

―Final Fantasy IX is sometimes introduced with the phrase “returning to roots.” Where did Final Fantasy IX sit in the minds of the development team?

Aoki: “The slogans ‘returning to roots’ and ‘return of the crystal’ were there from the start. That’s why the setting of the game also has a medieval fantasy theme.”

―It is true that compared to the science fiction elements of FFVII and FFVIII, Final Fantasy IX made a sudden return to classic fantasy. There were even references to past FF titles, like character and vehicle names. Were those concepts also planned to be included from the beginning of development under the theme of “returning to roots”?

Aoki: “There were some things that were planned from the beginning, and then there were other elements that came about from those in charge of each part of the game during the creation process.

“The newborn chocobo, named Bobby Corwen…smash those names together and you get Boco.

“The foundation is 10 percent, and the remaining 90 percent comes from individual creators putting their own ideas and heart into a project. I think that’s the creation process of not only FF, but all games from Square Enix.”

―Each main character of Final Fantasy IX carries their own background story into the battles they face. Do you have a favorite character? Please tell us your reasons as well, if you have any.

Aoki: “I did my best not to have any favorites, so as not to be biased toward any specific character.

“There were backstories we wanted to elaborate on more, but sadly had to give up on due to time and data constraints.

“At the time I wished I could have developed how Zidane is afflicted by the difference in social status between him and Garnet a little more. Illustrating the breakdown of relations with the nobles in Treno due to their disapproval of Zidane and Garnet’s relationship, Zidane butting up against the social confines he faces and the incredible power Garnet holds as royalty, and how Zidane gets back up on his feet despite all of that—I felt that would have done a lot to help further portray him as a character.”

―The NPCs are also very well developed. What about them?

Aoki: “I don’t have any biases when it comes to NPC characters either. There actually wasn’t any differentiation in my mind between main characters and sub characters. Once the game’s story started to come to life on screen, my drive to develop each character even further – the steadfast reliability of Marcus or Garnet’s internal struggles, for example—only got stronger.”

―The Tantalus members Genero, Zenero, Benero and all their siblings are an unusual bunch. How did they come to be?

Aoki: “There wasn’t a trace of them until right before the game went gold. Not only limited to Final Fantasy IX, each FF series title has a period of about three to four months of quality improvements and brushing up after all elements that will be included in a game are implemented. How can we make it more interesting, what would make it easier to understand, what new discoveries can we find to add to the experience…as a creator you approach the process with a feeling similar to recreating something entirely. Those siblings came about suddenly right in the middle of that final tweaking for Final Fantasy IX.”

―The characters in Final Fantasy IX are built shorter than in previous FF games. Was there a reason for that?

Aoki: “I don’t know the reason for making the characters shorter in stature, but I did often hear that the cutscene team had a hard time making use of the know-how they gained working on Final Fantasy VIII. It was apparently a lot of trial and error.

“The characters in Final Fantasy IX excel at showing a certain sweetness or silliness, but even when they take on a totally different serious tone their expressions are so genuine. I feel that Final Fantasy IX had quite a good balance going in that sense.”

―Final Fantasy IX is known for its many popular and memorable lines. Whose idea was it to put together the loading screen of CG screenshots overlaid with words from the game and art?

Aoki: “The cutscene leader and event staff made that by picking out lines from the game. It was also the manifestation of a strong desire to show what kind of characters these were.”

―There were also many monsters with unique gimmicks, such as Ragtime Mouse’s quiz-style battle. Do you have a favorite monster or gimmick used by one?

Aoki: “I’m not sure if you could call it a unique monster, but my favorite are the black mages who appear in Cleyra. Your party characters don’t do a victory pose even if you win against them. That came from the battle system team’s consideration of the scene those battles take place in. You grow used to the characters celebrating when they win a battle, so I was really surprised the first time I saw that.

“I don’t know if this is still true, but development happened with next to no meetings between the event and battle design teams. Although that’s not to say that those teams didn’t get along.”

―Final Fantasy IX has a lot of mini games, many of which are quite difficult. Are there any you find particularly memorable?

Aoki: “Chocobo Hot and Cold. It came from the director wanting some contents that would allow traveling all over the game world. The concept came together in less than 30 minutes, but the actual creators who worked on the mini-game put a lot of time into it. Every last detail was done with such care.”

―Final Fantasy IX’s soundtrack was handled by Mr. Nobuo Uematsu. We feel that music is another important factor in expressing characters or story. If there are any songs from Final Fantasy IX that really stand out in your memory, please tell us about them.

Aoki: “That would be the song that Mr. Uematsu played for me the first time he worked at the Hawaii office.

“It was in response to me asking if he had any recommended songs from the new game—I got an idea for part of the story the second it came on. That song would eventually be titled ‘You’re Not Alone.’

“I asked, ‘Are there going to be any more changes to it?’ and he responded, ‘Yes, sorry… I’d like to tweak it a little more.’ It wasn’t finalized until the last minute, so I’m sure he really struggled with the composition of that piece.”

―Was there anything during development that was especially challenging or that sticks out in your mind?

Aoki: “The last few weeks were a battle with data restrictions. We had data increasing every day, having to think about where to divide the story so we’d end up with an amount that fit on each of the four discs. That fine-tuning took some real mental gymnastics.”

―If there’s anything else from your experiences during the development of Final Fantasy IX or messages for the many people who still love Final Fantasy IX you’d be willing to share, we would love to hear it.

Aoki: “There were about 300 people at the party celebrating Final Fantasy IX’s completion. It was developed by a team divided between Japan and Hawaii, so about one-third of the faces there I had never seen before…I was surprised all over again at how many people were involved in the project.

“I’m incredibly happy that Final Fantasy IX is loved by so many people; that’s been a huge motivator and confidence booster when facing jobs I’ve had since. I think that’s true not only for me, but also the many creators who worked on Final Fantasy IX as well. It would be nice to celebrate the game’s 20th anniversary with everyone who was at the post-launch party.

“Near the end of that party, there was a moment when the sound effect team went up on the venue’s stage. ‘In Final Fantasy X, there’s going to be this thing called Blitzball, and there will be a scene with the spectators cheering. We’d love if you would all be willing to help with that!’ they said. And I thought ‘…Oh, they’ve already started working on X.’ Just when I thought things were finished, they had already begun a new Final Fantasy. It really hit me being there, this is how the Final Fantasy series continues on forever.”

―Thank you for your time today!

Final Fantasy IX is available for PlayStation, PlayStation 3, PSP, and PS Vita via PSone Classics, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC via Steam, iOS, and Android.

#Final Fantasy IX #Final Fantasy 9 #Final Fantasy #Kazuhiko Aoki #Square Enix #Gematsu #I never did finish IX. ^^;

[stcrr]

elle fanning. cis female. she/her.  ／  lorelei “lorrie” gunther just pulled up blasting which witch by florence + the machine  — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty-three year old musician, i’ve heard they’re really -reclusive, but that they make up for it by being so +observant. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say chipped glitter nail polish, a silver gilt mirror, losing yourself in the beat of the music. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( ally, 22, est, she/her )

me: i don’t have a type when it comes to muses! also me: unveils this new muse that is also introverted and anxious but this time with more glitter. anyways, meet lorelei, starr to her fans, and lorrie to her friends, an observant girl, gifted mimic, misfit, mirror, and musician. kind of a jem and the holograms/hannah montana/perfect blue hybrid. details under the cut, like for me to hyu to plot !! 

(also her pinterest im really proud of it you guys)

statistics.

full name. lorelei amelia gunther. nicknames. lorrie. aliases. starr. occupation. singer-songwriter. age. twenty-three. date of birth. february 1st, 1997.  nationality. american. ethnicity. white (austrian and irish).  gender | orientation. cis female | queer. hometown. boston, ma. zodiac sign. aquarius sun, scorpio moon, pisces rising career/voice claim. lorde.

height. 5′9 weight. 120lbs build. willowy.  distinguishing features. wide eyes, full lips, constant bags, probably has glitter in her hair.  health. 7/10; has no major illnesses but eats like shit, has a whack sleep schedule, is a dysfunctional adult basically. she’s also big depressed but you know how it be. 

positive traits. ambitious, intuitive, observant, imaginative, independent,  neutral traits. talkative, intense, impressionable,  negative traits. anxious, avoidant, moody, secretive, resentful, aloof, 

likes. the nighttime, storms, baggy clothes, mountains, weed, lsd, books, blanket forts, lying on the floor, singing, cryptids, cemeteries,  dislikes. being herself, deadlines, dolls/puppets, the paparazzi, social media, planning ahead, the outdoors, conflict, the beach, 

history. 

(tw suicide mention, anxiety attack) (tldr at the bottom)

her mother called her lorelei after the sirens of the rhine; she insisted her first cries were the sweetest song. and lorelei continued to have a beautiful voice; she sang more than she spoke. but only at home. 

she never responded to lorelei, though, not really; it felt too grand for her. she was a chicken-legged girl who liked overalls and goosebumps books. she was just lorrie.

she grew up in a lower-middle class region of boston, ma. her father was a salesman, and her mother was a travel agent. 

for a while, at school, she didn’t speak at all. she was diagnosed with selective mutism at age five, and it took until she was thirteen to overcome it completely. 

this was not at all helped by the fact that her parents had a nasty divorce when she was seven years old. her father used her mother’s ten-year-old suicide attempt against her in court to prove she wasn’t stable, and gained full custody of lorelei and her two older brothers. her oldest brother, matthias, sided with their father, but the middle brother, jeremias, sided with their mom, and tried to run away to his mother’s house basically every month. he ran away for good when he was fifteen, living with his girlfriend’s family. 

what helped her overcome this selective mutism, at least at first, was her middle school drama class. at home, lorelei had always been an excellent mimic. she did her favorite impressions for her drama teacher, and she encouraged her to try some monologues and scenes. as she got better at acting, she realized that she didn’t have to be herself; she could be somebody else. and that made talking all the easier. 

by high school, she was no longer selectively mute, but was still anxious and shy. she was, however, a total drama kid, and still loved to act. she could be outrageous, incredible on stage; she wasn’t being herself, after all, so if people were judging her, it was the character they were judging, not her. 

still she was def the kind of girl who had a mental breakdown every four months and dyed/cut her hair/gave herself bangs. she could never quite shake the feeling that she was an outsider looking in, separated, different. 

she still loved music, and as she grew older, she started to write songs. it was her secret dream to be a musician. one of her theater friends talked her into singing one of them when she was sixteen, and then encouraged her to try out for the talent show. she was able to get through the audition, though she was a little nervous, but she knew it would be fine. she was on stage all the time, this would be fine. 

but this time, she had to be herself in front of the entire school, and she froze up, not a sound leaving her lips. she doesn’t remember leaving the stage; only remembers that suddenly, she was in the girls bathroom, sobbing her eyes out. 

her friends comforted her that night, partying in their basement like they always did, but thats when lorrie had an idea. what if she didn’t perform as herself? 

that’s when a starr was born. 

as lorelei dressed herself up in all the holo and glitter she had, she created starr in her head; she was born beloved, charismatic, fearless, this glitz and glamor girl who had it all, but what now? even at the top, she found emptiness. she was a beautiful supernova, so breathtaking you forgot she was really a collapsing star. 

starr was lorrie’s ultimate muse; she wrote song after song for her in the next few months, until, finally, she asked some of her friends to help her record a music video. she didn’t expect this music video to get 60 million views in a matter of weeks. 

royals, of course, blew the fuck up, and she had people calling her house to get her to sign with this record company or that record company, and her eventual producer flew her out to la with her dad. and, of course, the rest is history. (her dad also blew a lot of the money she earned as a minor but she got rid of him and that’s neither here nor there.) 

however, as she got more and more into the la lifestyle, she began to rely more and more on starr as an alter ego. people liked starr, after all, and lorrie didn’t even like herself. she played the part of the dignified, wise, and eccentric former queen during interviews, when recording, at after parties and award shows. 

even her first major relationship she got while acting like starr, someone fearless and fun, basically a manic pixie dream girl. if you’ve ever listened to the album melodrama, then you know how badly that ended. 

that’s around when she realized that starr had taken over her entire life. coming home from a house party absolutely zonked, she looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize herself, didn’t see that nerdy, overall-clad chicken-legged girl from her family pictures. 

she stripped her clothes off, scraped the makeup off her face until her skin was red and dry, dragged a brush through her hair to get rid of all the product, and pulled on a hoodie and leggings she had brought with her to la a year ago. she wrote the first draft of all the songs in melodrama in the coming hours. 

however, she still wrote from starr’s perspective, knew she’d perform it as starr. it may be far more personal, but lorrie wasn’t ready to come out just yet. in fact, she’s kind of been hiding the last year or so, a full-on depression mess. 

tl;dr lower middle class nerdy girl from boston overcomes crippling social anxiety through acting, finesses this into an alter ego to be a musician, hits it big, loses herself in the alter ego, has a disastrous relationship, and tries to become herself again. 

present.

first of all, her real name is Known to the public, but not her “brand” outside of starr. it’s proven to be a boon as of late; she’s known for basically being a walking sailor moon cosplayer, not a skinny woman in baggy jeans and a big black hoodie.

since she’s trying to work on herself, she’s kind of in a creative slump. like, she still has more than enough royalties off her music to keep her going, but her agent and producer are both pushing her to clean up some of her songs and record them for a new album. she can still write as starr, but it feels... different, now. melodrama was far more personal than pure heroine, and she wants to continue to grow; writing as starr feels like reverting back to her sixteen year old self. but she’s too scared to write as herself So....

at events though she’s still in the gauze and stars people expect from starr. 

trying to reach out to her mom and brother jer again. not her dad, fuck her dad. 

loves true crime, the supernatural, and conspiracy thought. is probably watching a true crime doc rn. 

she’s just starting to leave her house for the first time in like... a year? like she’s only started to get out again in the last few months.

as for drugs, she def drinks, but she’s more likely to smoke weed. also, she’s a big fan of lsd, but holds herself off to only tripping every few months.

is considering moving to the woods and being the lonely crone everyone whispers about. or maybe switching to voice acting. 

she fuckin hates dolls. literally her worst nightmare is being trapped in some collectors’ doll rooms.  

wanted connections. 

melodrama ex (0/1) - the ex she wrote her breakup album about. can be any gender. i literally want this connection so bad kfdskjkadsfds

best friend (0/1) - someone who was with her throughout her... Transformation

squad (0/3) - bc who doesn't love a squad. this is the vibe i’m going for (sound warning)

icon (1/1) - someone lorrie looks up to and like... majorly doesn't wanna disappoint. - filled by kami!!!

musician buddies (0/?) - they bounce lyrics off of each other, you know how it is.

rival pop star (0/1) - idk i just think it would be Neat. maybe even with a plot that they had a major falling out and now they have to pretend to get along.

hookups (0/?) - or other messy shit

texting crush (0/1) - really weird concept but like... i imagine lorrie would have the number or snap or insta or whatever of this muse and they get talking after melodrama and she just... lays it all out. they don't really talk in person, but she feels really close to them and definitely develops a crush

weed buddy (0/1) - they come to her house and smoke and complain its great

friend turned enemy (0/1) - maybe someone who adored starr but doesn't like who she is now?????? idk idk

enemy turned friend (0/1) - maybe someone who thought starr was fake af but then meets lorrie being Herself and is just like "oh you're a Human" idk idk

bonus.

as a thank you for making it to the end of this fucking enormous intro, please take a moment to enjoy these tik toks reflective of lorrie’s personality (they’re also???? great on their own) 

lorrie talking/singing to herself alone in her house 

honestly she has tinkerbell vibes

drunk mouths speak sober thoughts

and thats on mental illness

#excess:intro #admittedly another novel #also i've been vibing to pure heroine all day and like #im going THROUGH IT #suicide mention tw #anxiety attack tw #drugs tw #also a notice i am not going to be making an open starter since... the event is TOMORROW so #i'll just reply to a few

[foreverfamilyforevervongola]

Could you please write a small scenario expanding your headcanon on Fran's first breakdown (when he locks himself in the Varia basement) if you have time? Thank you! I love reading your stories!

Fran didn’t like basements.

Which was why he was hovering in the doorframe, peering down the stairs that led into the dark depths. His heart stuttered in his chest and he took a few, sharp breaths to calm himself down. The Varia tolerated his fear of storms, but he did not need them to know he had a problem with basements.

There was no way they would let that one slide.

The twelve-year-old was tempted to just forget the whole thing and return to his room. But Xanxus’ voice echoed in his mind and Fran’s posture straightened with determination.

The only reason he was scared of basements was because of her.

He left the door ajar and traversed down the steps. When he reached the bottom his fingers crept along the wall until they found the light switch. The dark space was weakly lit by a couple of yellow bulbs.

When the anxiety started to twinge in his chest Fran muttered, “I’m fine. It’s just a basement. Get what you need and get out.”

It was a large basement and there was no organization to the storage bins and cardboard boxes stacked in pillars and formed in aisles across the cement floor. But they were all labelled and Fran searched for one that might contain his winter jacket.

Usually Lussuria took care of exchanging their seasonal clothes, but this year it had gotten cold early and his fall coat was not cutting it.

He found a box marked Winter Coats halfway down the fifth aisle, right at the bottom. He knelt down and wrenched it free.

He had expected a few boxes to come tumbling after his reckless and impatient action. But a domino effect occurred and Fran clucked his tongue in annoyance when a few of the aisles started to collapse.

The annoyance immediately evaporated when he heard the basement door slam shut.

The blood roared in his ears and suddenly he was hyper-aware of his surroundings. He dropped his box and sprinted back to the stairs, where a solid barrier between him and the hallway greeted him.

He shoved frantically against the wood but it remained firm. The doorknob refused to turn and he discovered in horror that he was locked in.

Not again not again not again

“Get me out!” he screamed, pounding his fists against the door. “Get me out!”

His vision blurred and his mind created a vivid image of the small, cramped basement back in France. He had been a toddler when she tossed him down there and locked the door behind him. He had cried until his chest and throat ached from it, and screamed until he lost his voice.

How long did she leave him there? Two days? Three? He didn’t know. The passage of time meant nothing to him then. When she finally let him out he was very hungry and very thirsty, so he supposed it had been a while.

He was ripped from his mental blast to the past by the basement door being thrown open. Fran fell forwards and slammed to the floor with a strangled gasp. Xanxus studied him, his face impassive but his mind racing.

Anxiety attacks during storms were expected. But this was new. This was a proper breakdown.

Tears streamed down Fran’s cheeks and he was gasping for breath. Fear and anxiety flooded through their bond, nearly strangling the both of them with its intensity. Xanxus knelt down and Fran habitually recoiled.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” grumbled Xanxus, leaning forwards and wrapping an arm around his waist. He hoisted the kid against his side and walked away.

The solid, warm weight around his body caused Fran’s breathing to ease. His emotions smoothed out and he was able to regain control of his thoughts.

Humiliation surged through him and Fran furiously scrubbed at his wet cheeks. He hadn’t had a breakdown in a long time. But now here he was, a sobbing mess, all because he had been locked in a basement.

A basement that did not belong to his biological mother. A basement he would not have been locked in for long. A basement he could have shifted out of if he concentrated hard enough.

Stupid, stupid.

They reached the living room and Xanxus lowered the two of them onto the couch. He didn’t let go and Fran felt himself sagging against his side, the physical contact a reassurance.

It took a few more minutes for Fran to completely settle down and he sent Xanxus a wary, uncertain look. “Uh…thanks,” he muttered.

Xanxus’ hand rose up and Fran tensed, expecting a solid thrashing for his weakness. But it clasped his chin and kept it steady as Xanxus regarded him. “Didn’t know basements freaked you out.”

“I don’t like them. But I’ve never really been in one since I lived with her, so it never really mattered.”

“What happened?”

“She locked me in the basement. For a long time. I don’t know how many days.”

Xanxus’ jaw twitched and Fran felt the burn of his anger. “We’re not going to lock you in the basement, small trash.”

“I know,” said Fran tiredly. Xanxus let go and he rubbed at his eyes as exhaustion crashed upon him. “I was fine until the door shut.”

“It’s broken, moron.”

“Well, why haven’t we fixed it?”

“Mammon doesn’t think it’s necessary, and what the hell do I care? I don’t use it.”

“I did keep it open. But I knocked over a bunch of boxes and I guess the impact rattled it shut. I don’t know. Sorry.”

The kid didn’t apologize often but whenever he did, it was usually related to his emotional episodes triggered by bad memories. “You don’t need to apologize, small trash.” Xanxus gave a shake of his head and he added dryly, “I don’t know how someone can be so emotionless and yet so emotional at the same time.”

“Trauma can do that to you,” said Fran.

But he gave a slight smirk when he said it and Xanxus rolled his eyes, giving him a light swat upside the head. “Stop letting it control you.”

“Working on it.”

“What were you even doing down there?”

“I needed my winter coat. It’s freezing out there.”

“Go get it.”

There was a brief flicker of nervousness before Fran’s eyes hardened with steely resolve. He gave a nod and went to give it a second shot. Xanxus watched him leave and focussed on their bond.

There was the initial spike of anxiety but nothing more followed it. A few minutes later Fran walked past the entrance with his winter coat in hand, a triumphant gleam on his features.

“Troublesome brat,” Xanxus muttered, even as a smile twitched at the corner of his lips.

#katekyo hitman reborn #khr #fran #xanxus #tw child abuse #tw anxiety attack #forever family forever vongola

[aijcw]

Hello

Hi, this is a blog that will be used to track and document my college experiences from my second year on. As of now, I am a Marketing major which is under the business school... Please hold your laughter and scoffing at my major choice (directed at you STEM majors). Currently I have just successfully completed my first year in college. I think that there are several big takeaways from my first two semesters. 

FIRST: Academics always trump extracurriculars

Being able to balance your mental health, academics, and any extracurriculars is extremely important. Coming from an International Baccalaureate Program, I did not think that school would be super challenging for me. I was also able to acquire leadership positions at my high school fairly easily, but as College is a lot bigger, I panicked and jumped at as many possibilities as possible. This included picking up the position of Marketing Director for a residence hall organization, videographer for a Chinese American organization, club rowing, and even a MGC sorority (rushing for the first semester and then becoming historian and webmaster for the second semester). In my first semester, I took 15 credits: Macroeconomics, Experiencing Music, Survey of Calculus 1, a course required by my university, and Introduction to Business. The two hardest courses here then were for sure Macroeconomics and Survey of Calc. But mostly Survey of Calc, as I found Macro to be a relatively easy class that did not require me to study weeks in advance to perform well on the exams. Calculus was hard for me from the beginning to the middle of the semester, I truly did not know what I was doing and was very frustrated about this. However, I was also juggling so many other extracurriculars and organizations that had time commitment requirements. Reflecting back on this, I see that I prioritized my extracurricular organizations and spent a majority of my time completing tasks for my organizations over studying for my exams. Remember when I said that Macro was easy? Yeah, it was definitely a class that came easily to me, but I finished that class 1% off from an A-. After actually dedicating time to my calc class, the information finally started to click and make sense after many many practice problems. However, I also finished that class off 1% away from an A-. Interesting how that works, huh? I still look back at that semester bitterly as I have concluded that had I not been overly involved in so many different organizations, I would have been able to allocate more of my time for studying or going to office hours and might have been able to get an A or an A+ in both of those classes.  As my second semester is coming to an end, I realized that no matter how bitter I was about my almost A’s, that I ran into the same exact problem from my first semester in my second semester. I was still involved in all of the same organizations, excluding rowing, too many events happened late at night for many of my organizations and would conflict with the early practice times (I would sometimes only get 3 hours of sleep). And while yes, I could argue that I still was super involved, this second semester still shows the same result as my first: I prioritize my extracurriculars over my academics. As a person that prided themselves on taking academics very seriously, this first year at college seemed to show a complete 180 from the previous 12 years of schooling that I had done.  That being said, I have turned down all leadership positions in my organizations to better focus on my academics without having the weekly officership requirements. I have also cut down on the organizations that I am involved in to just my sorority, since (lol) that is not something that I want to just drop as it is an organization that I take a lot of pride in and enjoy a lot, much to my parents’ dismay. However, with this next semester and academic school year coming up, I am utilizing more efficient ways to schedule things in and will actually schedule in study times into my schedule. I plan on making use of both my bullet journal and google calendars as I will get visual notifications from both and phone notifications from my calendar events. 

SECOND: Mental health always trumps everything

Sometimes things just don��t work out. Whether it be relationship related, organization related, or school related. The most important thing is that you do what is actually best for you. This second semester as I continued to overexert myself, I actually had a mental breakdown in front of some board members before going to another organization’s events. Earlier that day, my parents had come to visit me to tour where I would be moving to for the next school year. While it was very nice seeing them again, they ended up cutting their visit short because I had little to no energy to actually interact with them. I was so tired from doing a late night event for one of my organizations and had barely gotten any sleep that night. So when they left I took a nap for about 30 minutes before having to get up and go to, you guessed it, a board meeting. As I am about a 24 minute walk from main campus, I ended up crying through those 24 minutes because of how mentally unhappy I was. This is what people like to refer to as “burnout”. I had been to every single required event despite there being a system where I could switch off with other people to go to those events. Why? I enjoy being social, I enjoy supporting friends, and at this point, I was so lonely and sad, that going to these events made me happy because it felt like I was temporarily eased of my sadness and my loneliness. As I type this I realize how sad that makes me sound, oh boy. But yes, burnout is a very real problem that many people can experience given enough time for build up and improper time management. It is okay to say no to things. It is okay to reach out to others when you need help. There is no such thing as over communication. The worst thing about this burnout experience was that I had not communicated with my employer, my organizations, nor my friends about how much I had going on. I only told them after I had my mental breakdown. It felt like a surge of different emotions were coming out of me all at the same time. At first I was sad, and then those sad tears turned into anger. Anger over how my organizations were requiring so much, anger over people that weren’t pulling their weight, and anger over how I had let myself get to this point.   The most interesting thing about this entire experience perhaps, is that I tend to fill my void of sadness or emptiness with work and this time, the work happened to be for my organizations. Something had happened at the beginning of the second semester that had made me really kind of sad. To take my mind off of things I set my mind on something different like my organizations. This actually worked spectacularly well at keeping my sadness away, and so I continued to give my all into each organization. However, towards the end of the semester, I found that I had been hurting myself mentally by exhausting myself so much. You need to take self care days, you need to take care of yourself and learn to love yourself. Only then can you contribute and partake in other external activities. If your mental health and state are not doing well, then there is no way that you can give back to others and give be able to give back well.  Something small that I picked up this second semester was watching little retanking videos before I slept. They were very peaceful and were able to help put me at ease before sleeping.  That being said, I feel like another main contributing factor to my decline in mental health was that I procrastinated... a lot. Very bad yes. All of these factors combined to make one huge toxic cocktail type deal. 

THIRD: Staying proactive and productive can help you

It is so important to keep track of when assignments and exams are due. During this semester, I had a few... surprise... exams come up that were definitely not a welcomed surprise. This would make me stress study for exams and cram for two days straight. This is not fun. Pulling all nighters is not the way to go if you can avoid it. This second semester, I have missed small quizzes because of my lack of planning and scheduling. While I still ended up getting an A in that class, my stress would have been significantly reduced had I planned ahead and stuck to the schedule that I would have made. I feel like this takeaway is pretty straight forward and there isn’t really too much to talk about regarding this topic as it is also pretty self-explanatory. 

#college #freshman #productivity #mental health #academics

[illustrious-rocket]

Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution 2: Anemone (review)

Score: * (out of 4)

Summary: A creatively bankrupt film that represents a new low for a beloved yet beleaguered franchise, Anemone is an epic misfire that begs comparisons to, of all things, The Room.

Long review (spoilers):

The story of the Eureka Seven franchise has been a long, and unfortunately, often troubled one. I have a separate post in development documenting its history through my eyes as someone who got into the series long after its original airing, so many of the matters relating to that subject will not be in this post. What this post is, however, is a breakdown of what makes this one film a failure.

Strap in, this is going to be a ride.

After several years in dormancy following the ill-received Eureka Seven AO, a new film trilogy titled Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution was announced. Immediately, this news begged comparisons to other cinematic reboots to well known franchises, two examples being the recent Code Geass reboot series and, more notably, Rebuild of Evangelion. I know when Hi-Evolution was announced, I was apprehensive. I dropped AO halfway through, and the installment of the franchise prior to it (Pocketful of Rainbows/Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers) was an average at best alternate universe. I was curious to see what the Hi-Evolution trilogy would do, but I had little faith that Tomoki Kyoda and Bones would produce something to redeem the series after AO.

The first film would later be promoted as finally telling an untold part of the story: the First Summer of Love, an incident in which main protagonist Renton’s father Adrock gained hero status for saving the world during an incident involving the alien Scub Coral. Unfortunately, this proved to be a bait and switch. The new animation depicting the First Summer of Love - which came about as the result of the military’s Operation Necrosis, a mission to use a weapon called Silver Box to destroy the Scub Coral and liberate Earth - comprises only a fraction of the film. The rest is made up, somehow, of footage recycled from the 2005 series with new audio dubbed over it to tell an altered story. As a result, the first film was mostly a failure.

Then the second film was announced to focus on Anemone, an immensely popular supporting character from the original series. Not only that, it would portray an angle of the Eureka Seven universe never seen before: for the first time, the story would take place in the ‘real’ world, being set in Tokyo. This represented a greater ambition on the part of the production, but also was a concept that could easily go wrong. Prior to the release of the film, I was expecting it to be another sort-of-retelling, this time focusing on the psychadelic nightmare depicted in the infamous original series episode “Acperience 1.”

If only that was what this film actually was.

I admit, when I saw this film, I had already been spoiled on its plot. I am glad I was, because had I not been, I would have found the movie incomprehensible. Tomoki Kyoda’s attitudes going into producing it have also been troubling, particularly remarks about “auteurism” in one interview. When the words “A Tomoki Kyoda Film” appeared on the screen at the beginning of this film, I gulped. I knew I was in for something.

The film opens with a flashback sequence introducing Anemone as a character and explaining some of the context of the movie’s story. Two problems immediately become apparent. One, this sequence - and all flashbacks to similar moments throughout the film - is rendered in full 3D CGI that looks extremely cheap. The colors and shading create the image of dull, flat figures created by a 3D printer moving around on CGI backgrounds. Worse, the mouth movements in these 3D CGI scenes do not match the dialogue. Viewing this movie, you will see mouth flaps regularly desync from the audio.

Worse yet, this movie is titled “Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution: Anemone” and was promoted as being an Anemone film, but Anemone is not in it. The “Anemone” in this film is, in fact, a new character named Fuuka who looks like her and has the nickname Anemone. She isn’t Anemone, though, because her character is completely different. It couldn’t be any more unlike the original Anemone’s. She’s an exact polar opposite of who Anemone actually was. The fact that this film is an even bigger bait and switch than the first one was is bad enough. But even if you roll with the idea of Anemone being a totally different character, it introduces problems that undermine the film internally. Let’s put a pin in that for now.

Anyway, the movie establishes Fuuka/Anemone’s backstory as a military brat whose father, Ken, was killed during an operation to fight an “Eureka,” one of several phenomena that destroyed the planet over time, eventually annihilating many nations and killing nearly three billion people. She is an inoffensive character, but does not have much at all of the spark the original Anemone had, instead sacrificing it for more typical tropes. Once the flashback concludes, the film jumps forward to the present day. Here, the first thing we see is a long battle sequence in which military forces battle “Eureka Seven” (the seventh Eureka), which attacks with a manifestation of the Nirvash. This sequence is drawn out and poorly plotted, making the action difficult to follow. That’s a problem throughout the film, in fact - we see cuts to similar battle scenes many times, and they always feel like incoherent sequences where things just explode to fill space.

Once this incoherent battle sequence ends, the true plot begins to kick in. Anemone consults “Dominic,” an app installed on her phone by Ken during the earlier flashback, for advice during the battle, and Dominic’s advice leads the military to decide to send Anemone “diving” into Eureka Seven using a special device. This device greatly resembles a virtual reality setup, but when activated, it sends Anemone into flashbacks to the original series. Here is where the recycled 2005 footage comes back in, but this time, it is executed better thanks to the context of it being in an “alternate world.” Anemone is sent to a moment where Nirvash and theEND battled in the original series and manages to destroy Nirvash, catching a glimpse of Eureka holding Renton’s clothing before being ejected from the dive. This causes a portion of Eureka Seven to be destroyed in the real world, which is humanity’s first victory against the phenomena.

There are several things we need to unpack here. First, the Dominic app. This is a bizarre reinvention of the character Dominic Sorel from the original series, who was a military officer that usually served as Anemone’s handler, often found himself on the receiving end of her abuse, and ultimately became her love interest. He had a story arc alongside Anemone where he came to doubt his role in the military and had his views evolve over time until he changed sides to join the heroes. Here, he is nothing but an annoying app with no real characterization. Worse, the avatar of his face rendered on the phone is depicted with CGI even worse than the flashbacks. Many of his sentences will begin with Dominic’s mouth moving, only for him to stop moving his mouth halfway through and yet continue to talk. It is a jarring sight to see every time it happens.

While the use of 2005 footage is better contextualized this time, and there is even some new footage animated in original 4:3 style, other things happen that bring down anything good that could come of this. Because all the leaps take Anemone to various battles between Nirvash and theEND, a plot hole is created: if Fuuka is the real Anemone, how was theEND there battling Nirvash before she leaped into it using the dive device? Worse, still, because of how different Fuuka and original Anemone’s personalities are, there is abrupt shifting back and forth in her character within the same scenes. Fuuka is, to put it mildly, an average anime girl who hits the usually expected tropes. Original Anemone was an ill-tempered, mentally damaged person with a violent streak and an addiction to drugs given to her by series antagonist Dewey Novak, who abused her and took advantage of her depression and need for validation to benefit himself. The problem comes in the fact that some of the recycled footage from 2005 includes showing Anemone piloting theEND in battle. Because Fuuka and original Anemone are so different, she suddenly becomes much more bloodthirsty and violent and then reverts back depending on when the individual moment was animated. It’s not consistent and takes the viewer out of the film. Another inconsistency in this same place comes with Dominic, who manifests as Dominic Sorel while inside Eureka Seven. He is present inside theEND’s cockpit while Anemone pilots, but even while new footage is animated for these sequences, Dominic is not present for the Anemone combat shots. He appears and disappears between individual shots.

Moving on. This basic setup drives much of the film. Anemone makes more dives into the world within the Eureka Seven, each time returning back to a battle between Nirvash and theEND that ends with a portion of Eureka Seven in the real world being destroyed. Because she is responsible for humanity turning the tide in the battle against the Eurekas, Anemone is turned into an idol by the military for propaganda purposes. This element is severely underplayed and has little real signficance in the plot. Her primary motivation is to come to terms with Ken’s fate battling the Eurekas, and thanks to this and intelligence gathered during the missions, the military decides to bring Anemone to meet a familiar face: Dewey Novak. Unlike the rest of the characters in the film sans Eureka herself, Dewey is the real one, having been ejected from another world heavily implied to be the world depicted in the first Hi-Evolution film. He was captured by the military outside Eureka Seven and placed in restraints that cover his eyes, while his legs are trapped in the other world and fade away to nothing.

Dewey’s presence in this film accomplishes little other than give tastes of what it could have been and provide sequel bait for a future installment. Many of his scenes are merely him saying mysterious and vaguely threatening things, none of which really make sense in the context of this movie alone. Further, because he is the Hi-Evolution 1 Dewey and Anemone is Fuuka, the reunion of the two ends up having no emotional resonance at all. In the original series, Anemone suffered terrible physical and mental abuse at Dewey’s hands, through his administering drugs to enhance her performance in battle and dispensing praise and attention in measured amounts to ensure her compliance. The idea that Anemone would be reunited with Dewey, who is now (apparently) a ragged, powerless old man at the mercy of his captors, could have been an opportunity for great mental catharsis as Anemone finally obtains closure for what Dewey did to her. But because neither one of them knows the other, this ends up being a false start. They merely speak about the mission against the Eurekas and therefore the dialogue could be between any two people. It is not something only Anemone and Dewey together could do, and feels wasted.

As her mission continues on, Anemone eventually destroys enough of Eureka Seven to expose its core. The core has a design that was clearly intended to be frightening, but instead is laughable; it is covered with small eyes and has one big one whose expression makes it look tired and unhappy about having to show up. Suddenly, Anemone gets trapped in “PLAY BACK” during her dive, a phenomenon that rewinds time back through the events in the earlier dives. She ends up being brought to a time just prior to Ken’s death, where she is confronted by Eureka.

The film was not good until this point. At this exact moment, it completely falls apart.

Eureka is no longer the naive but well-meaning girl from the original series, or even the mother who would go to any lengths for her children from AO. In fact, those Eurekas never existed at all. The “true” Eureka is a psychopath who became this way after accidentally killing Renton when her powers were awakened by her exposure to Silver Box (thus implying the event took place in the Hi-Evolution 1 world.) Since then, she has been using Silver Box’s power to rewind time and try to create new worlds where she can have her happy ending with Renton, but they all go wrong, forcing her to “PLAY BACK” and start over again. These actions were responsible for creating every other part of the franchise - the original series, manga, light novels, Pocketful of Rainbows, AO, all of them were nothing but dreams made real through Eureka’s use of Silver Box’s power, in the process releasing the Eurekas in the real world and killing billions of people.

Needless to say, this twist is appalling and fails in more ways than one. First of all, it renders the entire plot of this movie and the trilogy dependant upon knowing the events from the previous installments. If you don’t know anything about what took place in the previous installments, this twist is meaningless to you. It only lands if you have an attachment to the events now revealed to be false worlds. But if you have this attachment, the movie then steps squarely into the same mistake AO made by revealing that what you liked in the past didn’t end up the way you thought it did and wasn’t real. Worse, though, it makes it hard to care about any form of the franchise anymore, because at this point, it becomes apparent that every character can be whatever the demands of the plot dictate. When no character has an actual consistent personality that won’t change on a dime depending on the whims of the plot, there is no reason to get invested in them. Eureka is now essentially Monika from Doki Doki Literature Club, killing innocents and erasing entire worlds out of an overwhelming selfishness to get her own happy ending. It’s a complete betrayal of the central character. This twist also disrupts the logic of the timeline even further - because Anemone was leaping into battles between Nirvash and theEND, theEND already had to be there, but since Anemone didn’t meet Eureka until this point, how could she have created a world where Anemone was her enemy prior to meeting her?

Eureka offers to create a world in which Ken survived, but Anemone refuses, and after Anemone leaves, this happens.

There is little to say about this image, as it is the downfall of this franchise encapsulated in a single picture. The scene itself is even worse, rendered in the CGI and as awful to look at in action as it is in a still image. Worse still, Eureka’s dialogue in this scene has her saying that she is willing to become “the devil itself” to get her happy ending, which just butchers her character even further.

When Eureka Seven is destroyed and Eureka falls into despair over being unable to reach Renton, a new monster appears and goes on a rampage. At this point, Dewey suddenly reveals he has superpowers by breaking out of his restraints, manifesting his legs and showing that his eyes at least temporarily turn black. He telekinetically escapes from the prison, displaying powers similar to those of Truth, the main antagonist of AO. I strongly suspect he will be treated as a Dewey/Truth amalgamation in the final film of this trilogy.

With nothing left she can do, Anemone calls out an unheard phrase Ken once told her to call when she needs him. This causes Dominic to reappear, and he summons a new form of theEND that resembles Gulliver, her pet badger, into the real world. Together, they resolve to enter the monster so Anemone can try to save Eureka, and engage it in battle. This sequence is the only truly good portion of the film, offering a stunning example of what an Eureka Seven movie could have been and finally truly recapturing its magic. Contrary to the previous battle sequences, this one is well choreographed, exciting, and is enhanced by the presence of Ballet Mechanique during it. Unfortunately, this dizzying high is fleeting. When she reaches the inside of the monster and dives into its world, Anemone finds Eureka at the apartment complex from Fuuka’s childhood. This means we’re back into the awful CGI again. Eureka confesses her actions and motivations to Anemone, but Anemone refuses to give up on her and honor her request to kill her now that she no longer can use Silver Box’s power to make more worlds. This being Fuuka instead of original Anemone, and the alterations to the timeline, end up leaving no relationship between Eureka and Anemone in the “real” timeline. Like the interactions between Dewey and Anemone, there is little emotional resonance. Anemone manages to convince Eureka to leave, but before they can escape, the most stupefying event yet begins.

Millions of giant Gullivers begin pouring out of the apartment building and eating the entire world, forcing Eureka and Anemone to escape from them. If this sounds like a dumb visual, it is. The Gullivers also have the voice of Larva Nirvash from Pocketful of Rainbows for some reason. Yet this scene is treated completely seriously, with heroic music and everything, creating an embarrassing sequence that is impossible not to cringe during.

Eureka and Anemone escape, destroying the monster and causing it to drop a giant egg. Everything that happens after this point feels like a post credits scene placed in the wrong point of the film. Somehow, the Gekkostate members, Dominic Sorel, a giant Gulliver, and Charles and Ray Beams all appear in the real world despite their worlds being false. Dewey, having gotten to the surface, says more mysterious comments to set up the sequel. Anemone and Eureka talk, and Anemone says she thinks Renton may still be alive after all. Suddenly, the egg cracks open to reveal a new Nirvash model, whose drive displays Eureka’s name inside of it. Eureka realizes someone is searching for her, and the final shot of the film reveals Renton on another planet, using his Compac Drive to call out to Eureka.

Now that the plot is fully picked apart, I feel like I have to finally sit and really address one of the major elephants in the room when it comes to this film. In both broad strokes and smaller, more specific instances that would not be notable if the context of the more blatant examples didn’t exist, this film heavily copies things from the various installations of the Evangelion franchise. I don’t mean this as a reference to mere inspiration from Evangelion, which is widespread. This film is blatant, Darling in the FRANXX Episode 19-levels of copying things from it.

One doesn’t even need to actually view a single second of the film to see this, either. The teaser poster sets a trend the rest of the movie follows by brazenly copying the imagery of the Evangelion 2.22 poster.

Needless to say, this image sets the stage for what you see within the film itself. Within just the first 10 minutes, it becomes immediately apparent that Anemone lifts stylistic choices and imagery wholesale from Evangelion. Throughout the film, but most plainly in the early scenes, the scenery and composition of camera shots are directly lifted; when I first watched it, it was mere minutes into the film that I stopped and said “oh my God, this is ripping off Eva.” Smash cuts into title cards and scene transitions abound at the beginning (the first thing that made me notice the copying) and the first battle sequence is not just ‘inspired’ but flat out stolen from the well known battle sequence featured at the beginning of Evangelion. It steals the imagery of tanks and battleships engaging the enemy wholesale, and the story’s lead character (Anemone/Shinji) is being driven through the battle to an important location by a female character in a position of authority (Mischa and her crew/Misato), where the main character is coerced into piloting a weapon (the dive system/Eva Unit-01) against the enemy (Nirvash & Eureka Seven/the Angel) that nobody else can defeat.

Things don’t really improve for this topic after getting through the first battle. The unit “ASSID” that Anemone enlists and serves in is more or less a copy of NERV, both being paramilitary units ostensibly under affiliation with the United Nations to battle the enemy creatures. This might not be a big deal on its own, but in the context of the more obvious copying elsewhere in the movie, it is an example of something that is made worse by the rest of the film. We reach another shamelessly stolen point a little while later, when Anemone goes to visit Dewey. First of all, Dewey is held in a complex whose design - from the vast open spaces to the elevator to Dewey’s cell deep underground - is blatantly ‘inspired’ by Terminal Dogma, a chamber of similar design concept deep underneath the NERV base where the Angel Lilith is restrained on a cross. Accordingly, Dewey’s personal state is seemingly copied from Lilith’s. For no reason, Dewey has his arms pulled back onto a cross-like structure on the back of his wheelchair, giving him the appearance of being crucified sitting down; meanwhile, his eyes are covered with a blindfold, in context seemingly mirroring Lilith’s mask. Most notably, however, is one of the oddest things about Dewey’s appearance in this film: his legs fading away into another world. Lilith’s legs are also significantly malformed, barely forming stumps before splitting into dozens of tiny human-like legs. Both having such a specific, unusual similarity is hard not to notice. He even regains his legs after an important event related to him - the defeat of Eureka Seven and emergence of the Eureka monster - takes place, much like how Lilith regrows her legs in the original Evangelion series after the Spear of Longinus is removed from her body.

Also notably, the way Nirvash is suspended in the real world as it fights the military forces clearly mirrors the way Evangelion units are transported by air, save for the blatant crucifixion imagery being removed. This is depicted on the poster for Anemone I posted above. There are other smaller, more nitpicky examples of the specific cribbing from Evangelion I am excluding from this review to more highlight the significant ones.

Next let’s move on to something you’ve likely been waiting to see if you’re reading this review: the comparison to The Room. I’m sure that will likely cause some controversy, but I feel it’s on solid footing. As I mentioned, Kyoda remarked about having reached a point of “auteurism” with this film. That comment implies a certain mentality on his part that he absolutely failed to live up to, and it is hard to not see shades of Tommy Wiseau and his fanatical belief in The Room in Kyoda’s belief in his film’s quality. There is one point where they diverge that is troubling, though - Tommy Wiseau, after releasing The Room and seeing its reception, realized how people saw it and decided to roll with the reputation The Room acquired even though it wasn’t what he intended. Kyoda, on the other hand, seems to believe that his movie is the masterpiece he thought it to be and everyone else is wrong about it. To me, this represents a self-fulfilling prophecy in which Kyoda doubles down on previous mistakes in each new installment because they were poorly received the first time, as if he believes doing so will eventually force people to “get” what he’s doing. You can see in Anemone a doubling down on three of the worst aspects of AO: time travel/dimension hopping, butchering Eureka/past characters, and the inclusion of boring and irrelevant “real world” politics. It is like if Tommy Wiseau, instead of becoming self-aware after The Room was treated as a joke, decided to teach the public why his filmmaking style was right by getting the rights to make an adaptation of War and Peace with his style in it.

The continual doubling down on mistakes is something that can be traced through the franchise all the way back to the very first followup, the 2009 film Pocketful of Rainbows. As someone who only got into the Eureka Seven franchise many years later, my relationship to that film is different from that of people who were fans during that era, so I sought out opinions from a friend who was an original-era Eureka Seven fan. As it turned out, topics I was already honing in one turned out to have been controversial or poorly received back then, too. While Pocketful of Rainbows was ostensibly set on real-world Earth, it continued to feature the fantasy political structure from the original series, so that problem was at least partially dodged. One big flaw of Pocketful of Rainbows we did agree upon was its extensive use of recycled footage, with my friend pointing out that it also had an ugly gray filter applied to it, giving the film a “darker” look. Comparisons to what was released in 2018 are almost painfully obvious, and arguably even uglier than the filtered footage in 2009 was because of the fact the recycled footage is now 4:3 in a 16:9 film. Pocketful of Rainbows also drastically changes its characters, turning Gekkostate into the villains, Anemone into an elderly priestess/prophet of the Scubs, Dominic into a bit character who appears briefly as Renton and Eureka’s mentor before dying ten minutes into the film and popping up again later very briefly, the Scubs themselves becoming the “robotic” “EIZO,” and most notoriously, derailing Eureka in a fashion to which I will simply quote my friend:

For example, Eureka was made into this tsundere childhood friend of Renton, which felt cliche and unnatural. Not only that, but Eureka was completely helpless for much of the film. She didn't do any fighting and was just a broken bird for Renton to save. Some people took it as an insult to her character, a huge step down from the capable girl she was in the original.It's a common theme in these other entries, really. Eureka is consistently disrespected and derailed as a character to just fit the narrative. 

Another point about Pocketful of Rainbows that comes back in AO and Hi-Evolution is its use of alternate realities. While the original did establish such a concept existed, the followups have increasingly abused the idea of alternate universes to retcon previous installments, retcon themselves, and ultimately in Hi-Evolution 2, completely delete the entire franchise from existence.

As someone who came into the series late, I have always felt that Pocketful of Rainbows is an average, watchable film that fails to live up to its excellent predecessor, but I can easily understand why fans in the original era would not have liked it. It is not a good Eureka Seven film, but unlike AO and Hi-Evolution, it still feels like Eureka Seven. In my opinion, it includes enough of the spirit of the original in its fairytale-esque story (including the use of one, singular parallel universe) to still capture the whimsical tone that distinguishes the original series. That is where Tomoki Kyoda’s constant insistence on doubling down on the same mistakes over and over and over has destroyed the franchise since then, and the Hi-Evolution Anemone film is the pinnacle of that collapse. It tops all its predecessors in terms of alternate universe abuse, character derailment, and boring and irrelevant politics, choking out the soul of the franchise. As I said earlier, the Ballet Mechanique sequence is the only moment in this film that truly feels like Eureka Seven. That may be because at the core of Kyoda’s discernable vision, it would appear he wants Eureka Seven to be a darker story with a much more bittersweet ending. The problem comes with the fact that even if it was childishly naive, the unambiguously happy ending of the original series was a big part of its unique identity landing so effectively. I have mused before that what made Eureka Seven stand out was the fact that it combined a mecha anime with themes from 1960s counterculture, which effectively worked hand-in-hand with the fairytale tone of the story to create something unique. Even as childishly naive as it may have been, it was always at its heart about fighting for the right thing and for love, no matter what the odds or the forces opposing you. This wasn’t what Kyoda planned for it to be, it is what the series evolved into once other minds placed input into it. Now don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of respect to be had for a creator who sticks to their vision, but Kyoda has doubled down on the same ideas so many times now while remaining stubbornly closed-minded to the merits of the original’s evolution that any goodwill has burned away. Pocketful of Rainbows still felt like Eureka Seven because it still captured that idea of fighting for the right thing no matter what, but it did have a bittersweet ending. People criticized that movie, and Kyoda followed up by creating the grim, depressing Eureka Seven AO that retroactively inflicted damage on the original, as if it wanted to retcon what he was unhappy with. AO was rejected by fans, so he takes the same ideas and makes them even worse, flat out retconning the entire franchise out of existence with a film that barely has any identity of its own beyond undoing Kyoda’s dissatisfaction with his past work.

In the end, all these problems, in my opinion, come back to Tomoki Kyoda and his stubborn, singleminded obsession with executing a vision and forcing it to be liked. The first screening of this film in the United States, at the recent Anime Expo, was a very telling moment for it. As per my friend (original post at this link https://historyman101.tumblr.com/post/186188741243/so-i-was-talking-with-my-friend-pantsunugerumon), the Anemone screening was attended by only enough people to 1/3 fill the hall, and the film was met with silence for almost its entire runtime, the only moment eliciting cheers being the appearance of Gekkostate, Renton and Charles and Ray at the end. When the credits rolled, there was more silence followed by polite applause when the audience realized it was over. Kaori Nazuka, Eureka’s seiyuu, was in attendance and made a comment during the Q&A section of the presentation that also did an excellent job encapsulating the reason Kyoda’s approach brought the film and the franchise down. Accoring to Nazuka (voice clip provided by my friend via his friend who attended AX https://historyman101.tumblr.com/post/186190292840/kaori-nazuka-strikes-me-as-someone-who-is-just), Kyoda told her not to worry about Eureka being so different in this film because as long as she provides Eureka’s voice, it will always be Eureka. While it is true that a voice is an important part of an iconic character, it demonstrates a mentality that characterization, development and logical progression doesn’t matter. Those are key factors for any work, but especially for a character-centric story like Eureka Seven that lives and dies on getting you to care about the characters and what they experience. If characters become completely fluid and change on a dime to suit the director’s whims, the entire backbone of the story collapses.

I could go on for ages about this film, but I’ll finally wrap this review up. Since I reviewed a film that was ruined by its director’s obsession with executing a specific vision, next time, I will review a movie whose director was able to carry out their vision with exactly the creative control Tomoki Kyoda wanted himself.

#movie review #Eureka Seven #Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution: Anemone

[studysnooze]

i kind of felt like i needed to make this post because i have been stressed out of my actual mind as of late and that isn’t helping me with my anxiety so i thought i would share some tips with you guys- friends in hopes that this helps you and also in turn helps me bc i am s t r u g g l i n g right now haha 

If you find yourself in panic attack/mental breakdown situations (during studying, sleeping, whenever):

1. TAKE A DEEP BREATH: this is legit some of the most underrated advice but this is so so so so so important. i often find myself holding my breath without thinking and even if you look stupid forcing yourself to breath between shaking and crying just do it. please. you will instantly feel better because bottling things up is legit the most toxic thing you could do to yourself

2. if the resource is there: talk to someone. talk to a trusted adult like a teacher, mentor, counselor, or even your parents. i know how it is: you might not trust them, believe me- i have had a fair share of adults who have let me down from time to time and trust me, once you find someone that is perfect for you to talk to, you will cherish that person for the rest of your life. I will never forget my first middle school counselor, i don’t know her name mainly because i was having a panic attack when i met her but i’ll remember her face and her hospitality forever. and she was a stranger to me at the time: sometimes you need that outside stranger to talk to you know? that way, you get a less biased? (idk weird wording there but you get it) response

3. FOOD AND WATER: i cannot tell you how bad i am at drinking water like it’s hopeless at this point but its SOOO important for you! pleaseee drink water. i think water tastes like nothing and it’s pointless to drink it but that is really crazy thinking so don’t follow me on that please because i am seriously working on it these days and my skin has started to clear up majorly but i also feel so much better in general? like hydration does wonders i’m serious- you might not even notice but it’s doing something nice at least to your body. food food food food food please eat something. i know sometimes when i dont eat a few meals because i am so caught up in work, i forget what it feels like to be hungry and that is absolutely ridiculous, do not skip that many meals. i don’t care if your grade depends on it tomorrow for chem or that you need to finish your slide for that group project: if you cannot remember what you ate last literally drop whatever you are doing and get a freaking granola bar- not even- get a sandwich, some chips, and a water or a salad or some carrots and hummus LITERALLY ANYTHING put it in your mouth and chew it slowly and savor your food and thank the universe that your food is making you more energetic to complete your work because honestly not eating makes you feel so weak and it shuts you down. and you know what? when you shut down, it gives you more room to be stressed and anxious because that happens to me too many times in my life and it is the worst feeling in the world: being anxious, sleep deprived, weak :( its not okay and i need my people to stop suffering so eat your carrots kiddos❤

4. nap! this is also extremely simple but soooo underrated. literally nap for like 10 minutes and you will feel SO GOOD afterwards. i know it takes me at least 30 minutes to fall asleep because that’s just me but as soon as i feel sleepy, i turn on my alarm. shutting your brain off for a few minutes does wonders: it actually recharges and resets your brain for a little bit and as long as you don’t sleep for too long, you will wake up more motivated than ever before! 

4.5 going off of the previous point: if you are truly tired, sleep. sleep. sleep. i cannot tell you this enough. there is absolutely no point and no shame in going to bed if you have a headache, your eyes are closing and you cannot focus anymore. plain and simple: it’s just a major waste of time and you will have to end up studying it again anyways. i try to get to bed around 11 which i know is already pushing the late boundaries but if you go to sleep and really, truly, need to finish your work in the morning, wake up a couple hours earlier and finish it quickly- maybe catch a few more z’s. it’s better to get your hours in earlier and wake up feeling better than going to bed at 4:30 (cough thanks nonso) and waking up 3 minutes before school because you shut off your alarm. i’m only telling you guys my stupid mistakes just so you know there are consequences to not following this advice people- this is first hand experience haha

5. TAKE YA MEDS KIDDOS: that’s literally it, you may have forgotten and now are in deep doodoo with yourself whoops set a reminder

if you have trouble sleeping/resting at night or whenever:

1. i have had trouble staying asleep throughout the night for the past few years now. i’m not sure how it started but my brain is just too hot wired these days to stay put: there are some quick things i do when i wake up shaking, panicking, restless, miserable, whatever in the middle of the night: 

 listen to rain sounds on spotify

listen to my favorite podcasts (i gotta make a post about this, message me if you want podcasts like asap after reading this something)

watch “planet earth” or “round planet” on netflix-  round planet is by BBC so there’s that old british guy talking and i think it’s nice :) overall, it’s super therapeutic i highly recommend 

make a warm cup of tea or milk: i usually put honey and cinnamon in my milk or honey in my tea and it’s quite nice i think, it makes me sleepy again

sometimes i wrap myself in extra blankets and cuddle with more stuffed animals to help me fall/fall back asleep. i think there is some nostalgic feeling about being tucked in and being all warm and safe that makes me calm down again i’m not sure why 

if you’re having trouble focusing while studying (i got through this at least once a day omg):

1. take a breather! drinks a glass of cold water, stare around the room for a bit, walk around the neighborhood or the house or the library or wherever you are for a bit- get that blood flowing again

2. look at something motivational! i have a motivation tag kind of thing on my page called #feelgood so you can check it out if you want haha but there are tons of motivational videos and posts from the studyblr community so :)

3. study something you are interested first! this is by far the most useful study advice i have ever received because it motivates me to subconsciously focus my brain and keep me in a “grind” kind of mood 

3.5 related to the previous point, study in small chunks! also switch up on the subject if you get bored.

4. do a hobby! i LOVE reading for fun during study breaks or when i can’t focus especially when i’m super interested in the book because i get sucked into that universe and after i finish a chapter i want to finish more work in order to keep reading- it’s great. i also love doodling intricate designs on my moleskine to keep my busy and i also like writing poems or editing photos. just find something that is calming to you in order to give your brain a break! once you have that little reset, i promise you will feel better going back to work 

5. stop studying? sometimes i burnt out in the middle of studying and you just have to realize when you’ve reached your limit for the night/day so just stop and get some sleep, there’s nothing wrong with sleeping or taking a rest just a reminder <3 and sometimes that means you can get back to your work later or not and that’s okay :)

along with my finals series, i’m going to dedicate an entire post for reasons as to why you should stop comparing yourself so look for that in the next couple of days or so :) 

and just a reminder that you can do it! no matter your barriers you WILL overcome them with flying colors and you will have an amazing summer very soon✨

love,

Nonso

#original #studysnooze #studystudystudy #studyspiration #studyspo #studysnap #studysthetics #study #student #Study Guide #STUDYMODE #studymorning #studymotivator #study motivation #study mode #study music #podcasts #food #water #sleep #mental health #feelgood #studyquill #studyspread #studyblr #studyblr gets real #rain

[nyrandrea]

The Night Shift

Sorry for the longer wait but here’s another chapter! The whole story so far is also available to read on ao3!

Mike managed to survive the night, but what’s he gonna do now? Go back? Surely not....

Small warning for swears and mention of blood.

Chapter 3 - The Fresh Start

This was the only time when he felt truly calm.

No stress, no anxiety. Just a cocoon of warmth, dark and protection keeping him safe from the outside world. With a small smile of content, he snuggled in to his side. If only this could last forever…

A shrill beeping brought everything back to reality.

With a small moan of protest, Mike slowly opened his eyes, wincing when the bright rays of the sun blinded him through his window.

‘Ugh…how long have I been asleep…?’

He lazily turned his head to look at the alarm clock, which was still beeping away. It was 4pm in the afternoon, still early.

Resisting the temptation to roll over and doze, he forced himself to get up from bed and stumbled throughout his apartment. The space was pitifully small, with his living room and kitchen being literally combined and his bedroom and bathroom were so small that even a mouse would feel claustrophobic.

But hey, beggars can’t be choosers. At least it was clean and comfortable.

Mike went through to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water before dumping himself onto the couch, taking a long drink. His strained throat was incredibly grateful.

With a satisfied sigh, he set the glass down and rubbed his temples, he finally had a moment to properly think.

What…what happened last night?

‘Went to work, checked the cameras as usual, things went south, animatronics came after me, the door wouldn’t work and…’

Mike’s eyes snapped open.

The whole incident was a blur and he couldn’t remember much, but he could recall how the fox animatronic towered over him, the glint of his hook in the faded lights. Mike tried to fight back but…somehow, the robot started talking.

Mike knew that he was incredibly lucky even to just be sitting here, instead of being stuffed into one of those backstage Freddy suits, probably gutted and slowly bleeding to death. He instinctively shuddered at the thought.

‘Yeah…probably shouldn’t think of that.’ Mike reminded himself.

But it did make him think. Somehow, he had managed to convince one of those things not to kill him. Just by talking to it.

Well, lying would be the more accurate term. He honestly didn’t think it would have even worked.

But what about tonight?

He may have managed to fend Foxy off but that was only on the terms that somehow he would talk to Freddy.

Mike never thought he would dread such a…goofy sounding name.

But alas, Freddy was the leader of the group. According to Foxy, his word meant law in that pizzeria, and right now he really wanted Mike stuffed into a suit.

‘I have to convince him that I’m not an endoskeleton, otherwise I’m dead.’

Though there was still the option of just…not going back at all. Why was he even questioning this?

Mike frowned, there was always this niggling presence at the back of his mind that beckoned him to go every night, despite the horrors that awaited him. It was like…he had unfinished business there or something. He needed to go back.

‘God, I’m such a dumbass.’ Mike thought to himself as he covered his face and let out a defeated sigh.

He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. This was only his third week and he had already had a complete mental breakdown. During the day he would flinch at the slightest of noises, jump at moving shadows.

He was an absolute wreck.

To further prove this point, he nearly leaped from the couch when there was a light knock at the door.

“Mr. Schmidt?” A small voice called out from behind the door, “Mr. Schmidt, it’s Aaron.” There was a small pause. “I um…think I left my ball in your apartment. Mister?”

Mike was taking a moment to comprehend what was even going on before it dawned on him.

“Shit…” The guard quietly swore as he scrambled to get up from the couch before turning to the door, “J-Just wait a moment, I’ll…go look for it!” He shouted as he practically started to run towards his bedroom to get some pants and a shirt on.

Aaron lived just a few rooms down in the apartment complex, kid was about…eleven or twelve? Mike didn’t really know, but he was young.  He had moved in not so long ago with his mother who…was quite another story altogether.

As soon as Mike looked decent enough, he looked around his messy flat for the spherical toy. How it managed to get in here was beyond him…

But lo and behold, there it was. Sitting in the corner of the living room/kitchen.

The guard frowned but decided not to question it as he picked the ball up and moved to the front door, opening it up to the little boy, who beamed when he saw the object in Mike’s arms.

“You lookin’ for this, champ?” Mike jested as he lightly tossed it to the kid, who caught it with ease.

“Oh man, thanks Mr-“

“Mike.” The guard interrupted, “Mister makes me feel old….”

Aaron stopped but nodded.

“So uh…how’s things…?” Mike started.

“Fine.” The child bluntly answered, switching his gaze down to the ball as he dropped it to the ground and rolled it around with his foot.

Mike gave him a sympathetic look. He had sort of took to looking after the kid every now and then, taking him out to play soccer or to grab a bite to eat. Aaron always asked hm to take him to Fazbear’s but he refused.

Always.

In a way, he had sort of become like a discount big brother figure. But it wasn’t right. None of it was. He just didn’t know what to do. And with work becoming more of a problem for Mike, he just couldn’t be around to look out for the kid all that much anymore, and he was worried about the consequences it could bring.

He decided to at least ask, maybe get more of a grasp of what was going on.

“How’s your…?”

“She’s fine.” The boy curtly answered again, before asking, “Hey, do you wanna hang out later?”

Mike frowned but quickly covered it up with a smile, he decided not to push the topic further.

“Sorry champ, but I have to drop into work today.”

“I thought you worked at night.” Aaron said, his tone dropping to one of disappointment.

“Paperwork to sort out, just boring adult stuff.” Mike lied, though he would have taken paperwork over dealing with homicidal robots any day.

“Oh…” Aaron trailed off with a thoughtful expression.

Oh God, Mike knew that look.

‘Don’t ask to come. Don’t ask to come. Don’t ask to-‘

“Can I come with ya?”

‘Damn it.’

“You know why I can’t do that.” Mike sighed, crossing his arms.

“Because it’s work.” Aaron sarcastically drawled out with a roll of his eyes, “But c’mon, just say I’m your like…. apprentice or somethin’!”

“You’re eleven.”

“Twelve!” The boy corrected, not looking best pleased.

“I can’t.” The guard tried to change the subject quickly, “But I can bring back a pizza, yeah? Then we can hang out.”

“…Fine.” Aaron pushed up his massive glasses and gave Mike a determined look, “But all the other kids get to go there.”

Mike chuckled, a little in amusement, mostly in nervousness. Oh, if he only knew.

Actually, he took that back. No child should witness the horrors of that place.

Before Mike could say anything else, Aaron kicked his ball down the hall and chased after it, “I’ll be at the park so get me there!” He shouted, before adding, “And bring pepperoni!”

Mike gave a light sigh, “Right.”

Closing the door behind him, he glanced down at his watch, it was nearly 5pm. The place would be shutting soon. If he was going to return tonight, he was going to need help to somehow get Freddy’s attention without getting himself killed. Foxy seemed to be his best option, but was he even operational during the day?

Mike took a deep breath.

“Ah, screw it.” The guard mumbled as he quickly grabbed his coat, “I’ll take my chances.”

Besides, he did promise that kid a pizza.

As he pushed the large glass doors open, he was met with nothing but absolute chaos.

Children were running and screaming everywhere, food and toys flew across the restaurant. It was difficult to avoid being hit and not trip up over the hyperactive kids, but Mike managed nonetheless.

A few of the parents seemed as though they were trying to calm their own children down, but most of them were either outside smoking or were sitting at the tables, just…not bothering. Mike slowly managed to get through to the dining area, where he noticed exhausted looking staff trying to keep up with the amount of orders they were receiving. The waitresses struggled to manoeuvre their way through the crowds while balancing steaming hot trays of pizza on their hands.

Huh. Maybe his job wasn’t so bad after all.

“Excuse me, sir?” A bored voice called out to him. Mike looked around until he saw a slim, blonde woman, looking roughly in her thirties coming towards him with a stern, scrutinised look.

“Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“What? Why?” Mike asked, a little surprised. He hadn’t done anything, had he?

“Adults must be accompanied with a child to get a table.” She paused as she looked him up and down, almost like she was judging him for even existing.

“Oh, no, no. You don’t understand. I work here. I’m the Night Guard, my name’s Mike Schmidt.” He explained, hoping she would at least be a little friendlier, now that she knew he was part of the staff.

But that didn’t seem to be the case, as she sighed and held out her heavily manicured hand.

“Your ID, please?”

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.’ Mike thought with a frown.

“Michael?” A new voice called out, “Michael Schmidt?”

A tall, rounded man with greying hair came up from behind her, his blue suit and red tie could be easily spotted from a mile off, even in this crowd.

“Mr…Mr. Hastings…!” Mike called back in a wavering voice, his lips upturned in a nervous grin.

Shit. Why was the manager out on the floor? He was usually holed up in his office during the day.

“It’s alright, Julie. He’s with us.” Hastings said with a dismissive wave to the woman, who simply shrugged and walked off, not really seeming to care all that much.

Mike swallowed as the older man turned back to him.

“What on earth are you doing here during daylight hours, son?” He asked before his smile turned into a sour frown, “You’re not quitting already, are you?”

“N-no sir…I was just passing by.” He answered as he gave a quick glance towards Pirate’s Cove. The curtains were shut, he wondered if Foxy was even active right now.

“Ah. Good.” Hastings let out a small sigh of relief, “We’ve lost too many guards already…”

‘Gee. I wonder why.’ Mike bitterly fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“Well, I best be moving along. The paperwork isn’t going to sort itself out, eh?”

Mike forced a fake smile, “Right.”

Mr. Hastings gave the guard a small nudge on the shoulder and motioned towards the stage, “The show’s about to start, you should stick around, Michael. Get a discount on the food while you’re at it too. Enjoy!” With that, his boss walked off.

Mike finally managed to drop the smile and sighed. He never really did like that man, there was always something…off about him.

His thoughts were interrupted as the lights suddenly dimmed down and the room went silent, all eyes turned to the show stage. A bright spotlight focused on the curtains and a booming voice called out through the surrounding speakers.

“Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls! Welcome to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria! We hope you’re enjoying your pizza and are having tons of fun today!”

The speaker paused for a moment as if he were waiting for a huge uproar of cheers and such, but the only noise was that of a few children arguing over a toy, and their parent scolding them. After an excruciating prolonged silence, he continued.

“Now you’re all in for a special treat, because a certain bear wants to come out and meet you!”

Mike couldn’t help but flinch at that.

“Now, everybody give a big welcome to…”

An exaggerated drumroll sounded out and several coloured lights started swivelling around the room. Kids gasped in amazement while the parents chuckled in amusement. Mike could only raise an eyebrow.

“Freddy Fazbear and the gang!”

The curtains shot open and the spotlight focused on the restaurant’s famous mascot, while two more shone upon Bonnie and Chica, who were to the right and left of him. The dining room went into utter chaos again as children shouted, cheered, clapped and cried. Mike wasn’t exactly sure if they were ecstatic or terrified.

He was the latter.

Thankfully, the noise eventually died down and Freddy held up his microphone. His jaw lowered ever so slightly before a deep but gentle voice resonated from him.

“Hello there children and welcome to my pizzeria, the best in town! I do hope you’re all enjoying yourselves today?”

As he lowered his microphone to the audience, there was a chorus of “Yeah Freddy!” or “We sure are, Freddy!” The animatronic bear nodded in approval.

“My, my…we sure do have a lot of talented young people in here, don’t we Bonnie?”

The violet bunny turned his head to Freddy before jerkily nodding, “We sure do, Freddy! There’s a ton of great guys and gals and I can’t wait to play with you all! We’re all gonna have lots of fun!”

Bonnie’s voice had a slightly higher pitch and an almost gravelled tone to it. Guess it was to fit the whole ‘Rockstar’ personality he had to go along with the red guitar he carried.

“Of course, we are!” A feminine voice added, with a slight accent to it. Chica held up her cupcake prop and waved to the crowd, before adding, “And remember to eat plenty of pizza, after all, mine’s the best in the entire world!” She cheered.

“They sure are, Chica.” Freddy nodded, “Nobody would doubt that!”

For once, Mike had to agree. Those pizzas that she apparently cooked and left for him at the start of his shifts were pretty damn delicious.

“Now, how about we sing a song for these lovely ladies and gents? Would you like that, kids?” Freddy asked as he put a mechanical paw up to his ear and leaned forward, cheers and shouts answered him.

Bonnie readied his guitar prop and Chica held up her…cupcake, while Freddy raised his microphone.

“Alright gang. Hit it!”

The three animatronics broke out into a number of cheesy songs about friendship and pizza. Mike had to stifle a laugh at how stiff and jerky they were, it was a stark contrast compared to how swiftly they moved at night.

With the staff busy and his boss out of sight, this was his chance.

Mike slowly made his way to Pirate’s Cove, trying not to look too suspicious. All the while, he kept an eye on the animatronic band still playing on stage, half-expecting them to suddenly jump off the stage and charge straight for him.

Luckily, they didn’t seem to even notice him as they kept singing and entertaining the children. As Mike reached the out of bounds stage, he opened a slit in the curtains and slipped through. Though as soon as he did, he was hit with complete darkness.

Squinting, he started to make his way through the empty show area, cursing his stupid ideas.

‘Damn, it’s dark. And quiet. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.’

He turned around to go back, only…he couldn’t even see the way back, there was no light to guide him. Mike held out his hands, hoping to feel for the curtains or even a wall to guide him back to the dining area, but to no avail.

How big was Pirate’s Cove? Mike had only thought it was a mini show stage or something, but right now it just seemed like a never-ending black abyss. Panic was starting to set in now…

Finally, he came across something. It felt…soft, so it wasn’t a wall. But it was too solid to be the curtains.

‘Oh God.’ Mike thought as his eyes widened. ‘Please tell me he’s offline.’

“Arghh…who be there?” A soft but gruff voice asked.

The guard immediately jumped back as a single yellow eye shone through the darkness and looked directly at him. Mike had to hold up a hand to shield his own eyes against the blinding light.

“Uh…” He started, wondering if now would be a good time to start running, “It’s Mike…w-we talked last night…?”

The eye blinked for a moment, “The endo’ who’s not an endo’?”

“Right…”

Did Foxy not remember his name? It hadn’t even been 24 hours yet.

“Ye ain’t ever been in during the day before.” The animatronic replied. The eye gained height and there was a sound of metal scraping together, Mike presumed he must have been standing up.

“Well…guess I’ve never really had a reason to before.” Mike reluctantly answered, panicking when the eye seemed to be turning away, leaving him in complete darkness once again.

That didn’t last long though, as a click suddenly brought all the lights back to life, illuminating the room. Mike had trouble adjusting his eyes for a moment, but he did manage to see Foxy standing nearby, his metal finger hovering over a switch.

“So what be yer reason now then, eh?”

“I…well…”

His mind stopped working for a moment as he looked around the now lighted area in awe. He had no idea there was a whole pirate themed room behind the small show stage. There were foam pirate swords stashed in a box, balloon palm trees and treasure chests and even a large wooden ship smack bang in the middle, carved out so it could act as a play area for children.

It was a kid’s paradise.

Despite the space being neglected for what Mike presumed were years, it was still immaculate. Did that mean Foxy was doing the housekeeping? He doubted it was the cleaning staff, nobody was allowed back here after all.

“Damn…this place is huge…” Mike muttered.

Foxy tilted his head.

“Ye act like ye’ve never seen it before. Didn’t ye say ye came here when ye were a wee lad?”

Shit, he forgot about that.

“Yeah, yeah I have. It’s just….” The guard nervously smiled, “Never realised how big it really was, y’know?”

Thankfully, Foxy seemed to buy it.

“Well, it be this pirate’s lair. Though it was…really for the kiddies…”

The animatronic’s ears drooped slightly. Mike couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy, despite his unease.

“How’s it so clean? Do you have a hoover back there or something?” He joked, hoping to lighten the mood somewhat.

“I like ta do a bit o’ dustin’ every now and then, keep it tidy for the wee ones.” Foxy said, brushing off a stray bit of dust from a prop.

“So…wait…you still put on shows in here then?” Mike asked, a little confused. He could have sworn that this place was off limits to…well, anyone.

“…No.” The fox shifted slightly, looking a bit embarrassed, “They put me out of order, they did.” There was an obvious hint of bitterness in his mechanical voice, Mike couldn’t help but feel a bit more on edge.

“Ok…well…place looks great.” Mike decided to get back to his original plan, “I actually came here to ask for your help.”

“Oh? This be about ol’ Freddy, I suppose.” Foxy stated, giving the guard a look.

“…Yeah.” Mike said with a sheepish grin, “Look, I really don’t want to have to fend for my life anymore and if…we can convince the others that I’m human-“

“Ye don’t get stuffed.”

“-I won’t die.”

Foxy let out a garbled equivalent of a sigh, he looked unsure.

“Look, ye seem like a nice lad, but I don’t see why-“

“Please.” Mike interrupted, desperation taking over him now. Foxy looked at the human with slight surprise, before curiously studying him.

“…Why don’t ye jus’ leave this place? That would probably solve yer problem.” There was a hint of sarcasm in the animatronic’s voice.

“I uh…” He really didn’t know how to word this, “I just have to. It’s my job.”

There was a beat of silence as the fox seemed to mull it over.

“…Yer a strange one.” Foxy finally said.

God, even the robot thought he was stupid.

“I could try, mate. No promises they’ll listen though. They be a stubborn trio.” The animatronic said with a shrug before tending to another one of his props, turning his back completely to the guard.

Seemed as though this was the best he was going to get. At least he actually had a bit of a chance now, albeit a small one.

“Um…well…thank you.” Mike awkwardly said as he slowly backed off towards the curtains, “I’ll show myself out, yeah? S-see you tonight.”

He could feel himself start to get jittery, so he quickly turned and made his way back to the dining area.

As soon as he touched the purple curtains, a cold metal hand grabbed his arm and pull him back. It took absolutely everything in him not to scream like hell.

“What are you-?!” Mike was cut off as the hand let go of his arm to clamp around his mouth instead, a little too tightly for his liking.

“Jus’ wait a wee minute!” Foxy whispered as he pulled the young man back into Pirate’s Cove before finally letting go. Mike rubbed at his sore face, he was lucky his damn teeth didn’t break.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Mike angrily asked, though he suddenly regretted it as he remembered he was speaking to a seven-foot robot who could easily kill him without a moment’s hesitation.

The animatronic looked down to the floor for a moment, almost in shame.

“S-sorry…I shouldn’t have grabbed ye like tha’…”

“It’s…It’s fine.” Mike nervously crossed his arms, “What’s suddenly so urgent?”

Foxy continued to look down at the floor before sheepishly fiddling with his hook.

“Ye wouldn’ mind…stayin’ for a while, would ye? Can’t remember the las’ time I interacted with a human. This ol’ fox be a bit…lonely sometimes.”

Mike blinked in surprise, he certainly wasn’t expecting…this.

Even when he was being hunted, he had noticed that Foxy just seemed so…isolated from the others. Mike could relate to that, somewhat.

Plus, if he got this machine to trust him. It would help him in the long run, especially with tonight.

“Well, I…” He smiled slightly, “Suppose it couldn’t hurt to stay for a little while.”

Foxy’s look of shame quickly turned into a joyful, toothy grin that looked all the more unnaturally wide due to the slackened jaw. Even with the lights on, it was still terrifying. But Mike managed to swallow back his fear and nervously grinned back.

“Great!” Foxy said, excitement in his tone, “But we should probably keep our voices down, eh? Don’t want anyone else comin’ in.”

Mike swallowed.

“Right.”

“Now how abou’ a story? I’ve got a ton memorised on me hard drive!”

Before Mike could even respond, the animatronic launched them into a tale about how he single-handedly took down the most feared pirate captain that ever sailed the Seven Seas; Blackbeard.

As Foxy rambled on, Mike decided to sit down on the floor cross-legged, after a while he couldn’t help but start to get engrossed in the stories. Foxy was certainly good at his job.

He almost felt like a kid again.

Looks like Foxy might have a new BFF eh? :p

Let me know what y’all think!

Buy me a coffee~

Chapter 1 - The Attack

Chapter 2 - The Misunderstanding

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fanfiction #mike schmidt #foxy the pirate #freddy fazbear #bonnie #chica

[paleorecipecookbook]

The Carnivore Diet: Is It Really Healthy?

In my recent debate on the Joe Rogan Experience with Dr. Joel Kahn, I touched briefly on the carnivore diet. I’m a huge believer that meat is an essential part of a healthy diet, but eating an all-meat diet is an entirely different subject, and I think we need to be very careful about assuming that an intervention that works well in the short term will also be safe and effective in the long term.

In this article, I’ll discuss the diets of ancestral populations, how the carnivore diet affects the body, my concerns about the potential consequences of such a restrictive diet in the long term, and alternative dietary approaches that might offer the same benefits without having to go pure carnivore.

Are you considering going carnivore? The all-meat diet is trending, but completely dropping plant-based food off your plate could have a significant impact on your health. Check out this article for a breakdown on the strengths and weaknesses of the carnivore diet. #chriskresser

What Is the Carnivore Diet?

The carnivore diet is pretty straightforward: eat only animal foods and stay away from all plant foods. This means that you are primarily getting your energy from protein and fat and are consuming close to zero carbohydrates.

Many people who have adopted the carnivore diet report faster weight loss, improved mental clarity, healthier digestion, and even improved athletic performance. I certainly don’t doubt the anecdotal reports of people that have found remarkable relief from debilitating chronic health problems with this diet. For many of these people, nothing else they had tried worked.

However, when considering the health of a dietary or lifestyle intervention, I’ve long believed that we should look at the big picture: historical evidence from other populations, plausible mechanisms that explain its effect on our bodies, and scientific data regarding outcomes.

Were Any Ancestral Populations Carnivores?

Let’s start with a brief look at the diets of some supposedly “carnivorous” ancestral populations. Indeed, many ancestral groups thrived on large quantities of animal products. However, every single one of these groups also took advantage of plant foods when they were available:

The nomads of Mongolia nourished themselves on meat and dairy products, but also gained nutrients from their consumption of wild onions and garlic, tubers and roots, seeds, and berries. (1)

Gaucho Brazilians consumed mostly beef, but they supplemented their diet with yerba mate, an herbal infusion rich in vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. (2)

The Maasai, Rendille, and Samburu from East Africa primarily ate meat, milk, and blood. Young men almost exclusively ate these animal products but also occasionally consumed herbs and tree barks. Women and older men consumed fruit, tubers, and honey. (3)

The Russian Arctic Chukotka subsisted on fish, caribou, and marine animals but always ate them with local roots, leafy greens, berries, or seaweed. (4)

The Sioux of South Dakota ate great amounts of buffalo meat, but they also ate wild fruit, nuts, and seeds that they found as they followed the buffalo herds. (5)

The Canadian Inuit lived primarily on walrus, whale meat, seal, and fish, but they also went to great lengths to forage wild berries, lichens, and sea vegetables. They even fermented some of these plant foods as a way of preserving them. (6)

Every culture we know of that has been studied ate some combination of animal and plant foods. This does not necessarily mean that animal or plant foods are required to remain healthy, but it does speak to the ancestral wisdom of these cultures.

Five Reasons Why the Carnivore Diet Works

When any diet, drug, or other intervention “works,” it’s important to try to understand the mechanism behind it. In the case of the carnivore diet, there are several reasons that might explain the benefits people report.

1. The Carnivore Diet Can Restrict Calories and Mimics Fasting

Ever felt stuffed after you ate a huge steak? Protein is very satiating, meaning it fills you up and sends signals to your brain that you’ve consumed enough food. It’s no surprise that people report not feeling very hungry and start eating less frequently when they adopt an all-meat diet.

Food habituation may also play a role here. When you eat the same thing day after day, your brain doesn’t get as much reward value from food, so you start to eat less food overall—even if the food is usually something you find rewarding, like a big juicy steak.

The ultimate result is unintentional caloric restriction. Caloric restriction sets off a number of changes. When caloric intake drops, the concentration of insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), and growth hormone are significantly reduced. This condition triggers autophagy, which literally means “self-eating”—an internal process of cleaning up old cells and repairing damaged ones. Autophagy is also induced during fasting.

This may be why caloric restriction is so effective at reducing inflammation and alleviating symptoms of autoimmune disease. (7) Of course, caloric restriction also results in weight loss. These are arguably the two primary reasons that people seem to be drawn to the carnivore way of eating, but these effects might also be achieved through simple caloric restriction.

2. The Carnivore Diet Is a Low-Residue Diet

“Residue” is essentially undigested food that makes up stool. A low-residue diet is a diet that limits high-fiber foods like whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables. It is often prescribed for people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) to alleviate symptoms like diarrhea, bloating, gas, and abdominal pain. (8)

Meat is made primarily of protein and fat, which are absorbed high up in the GI tract, leaving little residue leftover to irritate or inflame the gut. In other words, an all-meat diet is effectively a very low-residue diet and gives the gut a rest.

3. The Carnivore Diet Is Often Ketogenic

If you’re eating large amounts of meat but are only eating once or twice a day and adding extra fat to the meat, your diet is likely ketogenic. A ketogenic diet is a high-fat, moderate-protein diet, with:

60 to 70 percent of energy from fat

20 to 30 percent of energy from protein

5 to 10 percent of energy from carbohydrates

While the carnivore diet has no such macronutrient ratios, it’s likely that some of the benefits that come with eating meat alone are due to the body being in a state of ketosis.

Ketogenic diets have been shown to be helpful for a wide variety of conditions, including multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. (9, 10)

4. The Carnivore Diet Changes the Gut Microbiota

Switching to an all-meat diet can also rapidly alter the gut microbiota. A 2014 study found that putting healthy human volunteers on an animal-based diet resulted in significant changes to the gut microbiota in less than 48 hours. (11) The animal-based diet increased the abundance of bile-tolerant organisms and decreased the levels of microbes known to metabolize different plant fibers.

The gut microbiota has been linked to virtually every chronic inflammatory disease that has been studied, so it’s no surprise that an intervention that drastically changes the gut microbiota could have significant implications for health. (12)

The Biggest Potential Problem with This Diet: Nutrient Deficiencies

Now that we’ve established some of the mechanisms involved, the big question is: is the carnivore diet safe?

The short answer is that we really don’t know, since there are no long-term studies that have tracked large groups of individuals on carnivore diets for any significant length of time. One of my chief concerns about it is that it lacks several nutrients that are crucial for health.

There are four micronutrients that are especially difficult to obtain on a meat-only diet. Based on a typical carnivore diet and the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) established by the Institute of Medicine, these include:

Vitamin C: An antioxidant that boosts immune cell function and is important for stimulating collagen synthesis

Vitamin E: An antioxidant that prevents the oxidation of lipids and lipoproteins

Vitamin K2: A fat-soluble vitamin that reduces the calcification of blood vessels

Calcium: A mineral required for healthy bones, muscle contraction, and nerve transmission

If dairy is included in the diet, this will cover vitamin K2 and calcium. However, if you don’t like organ meats, the number of potential micronutrient deficiencies increases significantly. In that case, you can add to the list:

Vitamin A: A fat-soluble vitamin important for proper vision and maintaining immune defenses

Folate: A B vitamin important for cell growth, metabolism, and methylation

Manganese: A trace mineral needed for the proper function of the nervous system, collagen formation, and protection against oxidative stress

Magnesium: A mineral that supports more than 300 biochemical reactions, including energy production, DNA repair, and muscle contraction

It’s also important to note that vitamin C is extremely heat sensitive, so only fresh or very gently cooked organ meats will have appreciable amounts.

Many carnivore dieters claim that the nutrient requirements for the general population simply don’t apply to them. Anecdotally, I know of several individuals who have consumed a carnivore diet for three or more years without any overt signs of nutrient deficiencies.

Still, we’re lacking data. Currently, the DRIs are the best we have to go off of, and I don’t think we have enough evidence to unequivocally say that this diet has no risk of producing nutrient deficiencies in the general population.

Should We Be Aiming Higher Than the Daily Recommended Intake?

Even if the carnivore diet were sufficient to prevent outright deficiency, we should also consider metabolic reserve. Metabolic reserve is the capacity of cells, tissues, and organ systems to withstand repeated changes to physiological needs. In other words, it’s having enough nutrients “in the bank” to be able to deal with a major stressor, injury, or environmental exposure. (13) So if an all-meat dieter manages to meet a recommended nutrient intake, it still may not be enough for optimal health.

Other Reasons an All-Meat Diet May Not Be Healthy

It Lacks Beneficial Phytonutrients

Phytonutrients are chemicals that are produced by plants to protect against environmental threats, such as attacks from insects and disease. They can also have major benefits for our health. Curcumin, beta-carotene, quercetin, and resveratrol are all examples of common phytonutrients.

Some proponents of the carnivore diet suggest that phytonutrients are toxic to humans, and that it’s best to eliminate them completely from our diet. However, many of these “toxins” act as acute stressors that actually make us stronger through a process called hormesis.

Much like resistance training is an acute stressor that leads our muscles to adapt and get stronger, exposure to small amounts of phytonutrients is a hormetic stressor that activates several different pathways in the body, ultimately serving to reduce inflammation, enhance immunity, improve cellular communication, repair DNA damage, and even detoxify potential carcinogens. (14, 15)

It Might Affect Hormones, Fertility, and Thyroid Function

We have zero long-term data about how an all-meat diet impacts hormones, thyroid function, and fertility. I have written before about why carbohydrates are particularly important for female fertility and why very-low-carb diets may not be the best choice during pregnancy.

Carbohydrates are particularly important for supporting thyroid function since insulin stimulates the conversion of inactive thyroid hormone T4 to active T3. In fact, traditional cultures that ate largely animal products and had little access to plant foods often went to great lengths to support fertility, including eating the thyroid glands of the animals they hunted. (16)

My guess is that most modern “carnivores” are not consuming the thyroid glands of animals and are therefore at risk for suboptimal thyroid function and (at least temporary) infertility.

It Could Overtax Your Liver (If You’re Eating Lean Meat)

When you don’t eat sufficient carbohydrates and fat, your liver can make glucose from protein via a process called gluconeogenesis. This process creates nitrogen waste, which must be converted to urea and disposed of through the kidneys.

While this is a normal process that occurs in every human being, there is a limit to how much protein the liver can cope with safely. More than 35 to 40 percent of total calories as protein can overwhelm the urea cycle, leading to nausea, diarrhea, wasting, and, potentially, death. For pregnant women, this threshold may be as low as 25 percent of total calories. (17)

Interestingly, anthropological evidence suggests that hunters throughout history avoided consuming excess protein, even discarding animals low in fat when food was scarce. (18)

In short: When eating meat, it’s important to have a good amount of healthy fats or quality carbohydrates as well.

Is the Carnivore Diet the Ideal Human Diet?

In the last section, I outlined several potential concerns with the carnivore diet. But this leads me to another important question: even if the carnivore diet is safe, is it really the best diet for optimal health?

While you might be able to get away with a vegetarian or carnivorous diet for a short while, the evidence suggests that the ideal diet includes both animal and plant foods. Dr. Sarah Ballantyne broke this down in part three of her series “The Diet We’re Meant to Eat: How Much Meat versus Veggies.”

While you can theoretically get all of your nutrients from one group alone (and potentially supplement with any missing nutrients from the other group), we need both sets of nutrients to be optimally healthy, and consuming animal and plant foods in their whole form is the best way to accomplish this.

Five Alternatives to the Carnivore Diet

Here are some options that might provide the same therapeutic benefits that the carnivore diet can offer—but without as much potential risk.

1. A Low-Carb Paleo Diet

Some people trying a carnivore diet are going straight from the Standard American Diet to pure carnivore. Oftentimes, a low-carbohydrate Paleo template might provide some of the same benefits, including weight loss, improved insulin sensitivity, and an alleviation in autoimmune symptoms. (19, 20, 21)

2. A Fasting Mimicking Diet

A fasting mimicking diet can reverse type 1 and type 2 diabetes, alleviate age-dependent impairments in cognitive performance, and protect against cancer and aging in mice. (22, 23, 24) In humans, the fasting mimicking diet was found to significantly reduce body weight, improve cardiovascular risk markers, lower inflammation, and potentially improve symptoms of multiple sclerosis. (25, 26)

3. Periodic Prolonged Fasting

Undergoing a 72-hour fasting once every few months could also achieve many of the benefits boasted by the carnivore diet. Prolonged fasting causes organs to shrink and then be rejuvenated as damaged cells are cleared out and stem cell pathways are activated. (27)

4. A Ketogenic Diet

The ketogenic diet has been very well studied and has documented benefits for epilepsy, neurodegenerative disease, and autoimmune disease. Ketones themselves are potent anti-inflammatories. (28, 29)

5. Addressing Gut Pathologies

If a healthy lifestyle coupled with the dietary approaches above is insufficient to control your symptoms, consider working with a Functional Medicine practitioner who is knowledgeable about gut health. If you’re thinking about becoming a strict carnivore because you’re experiencing adverse reactions to even very small amounts of plant foods, that’s likely a sign of an underlying gut infection that should be addressed.

Share this with friends and family who might be considering an all-meat diet, and be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

The post The Carnivore Diet: Is It Really Healthy? appeared first on Chris Kresser.

Source: http://chriskresser.com February 06, 2019 at 01:31AM

#paleo #recipe #food #delicious #healthy #yum #diet