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larrythefloridaman · 11 months

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Rewatch notes update! Cpuk 12-14! These notes are getting Dense as i have to resist the urge to give play by plays. The P. Rool arc sits below the cut.

CPUK12! j0hn intro ep of sode <3

Johannsen's champion ruleset is kept a secret at first, but as im sure you'll remember, was 'i get to fight in all round 3s. because im boredt im here to scrap not sit around in the champion's suite.'

Introduces team calibur as the team of disrespect and Possible Evil. Korioni the ice dragon from hell being the first calibur contestant post crimson is very funny to me especially because it's the Chill head talking in this episode. Hell has no ice but hes just vibing with it. Ryan: "Squid Jenny tried to go down and ask like 'whats your story?' and all she got was 'I'm an ice dragon from hell.'" Comona: "no big deal." Ryan: "He's not like 'YOU ALL WILL SUFFER, BLEGH' hes just like 'yeah im from hell. dont worry about it.' Comona: "like 2000s neopets rp boards." Korioni: "grass grows, birds fly, and brother? I'm from hell." Chill head's Dramatic And Aggro brother getting retroactively vagued about

Spaghebbi <3 Comona has heard of her, from when she applied to the tournament, looking over her resume, and she uses the stage name spaghebbi to advertise her restaurant of the same name to boost her brand.

Team charm, Pixel! Fashionable funny doggie here to look good and give the world a show.

Team clutch, Jacob. Normal suburban 11 year old who plays fortnite that acquired special powers after killing real actual ganondorf from the legend of zelda. He's the nephew of Somebody in cpu kerfuffle. Jay's submission information: 'also jacob's like. Stupid. Like REALLY stupid even for an 11 year old.' Guess we know why he didn't notice anything was weird considering the guy he's the protege of, punished k. rool, isn't actually there but rather Some Guy Stealing His Identity,

Team Chonk P. Rool! Plumb <3 As we eventually learn the intro information on p. rool is only applicable to the guy he stole the identity of. But the real punished k. rool is a rude ass chaos fiend who's scales dulled to brown after enduring a punishing training arc.

Team cones! John my beloved <3 Comona: "Everybody knows Hackers are meant to be disruptive, to lurk in the shadows but Hackerman John not exactly the kind of hacker people would think him to be. He has his very very long universal key- the Skeleton Key if you would- but he doesn't just use it to hack, but he also uses it to slice and dice. He'll hack but you're gonna know he's coming." Ryan: "but you know what key he uses the most right?" Comona: "which ones that?" Ryan, doing a shulk impression: "BACKSLASH!"

Team Cross, johnathan joestar. Jojokes. Gentlemanliness.

Team Craken, Duke Salad! King of the crop. That thing's straight up just some lettuce Hoedown and Patch grew that came to life <3

Exhibition match- Johannsen vs. Blond Sora! Ryan realizes he hasnt put johannsen into the system yet and comona and Ryan joke about maybe needing john to help out with fixing the overlays

Duke salad v. P. Rool - P. Rool's infamous comeback potential is first described RIGHT out the gate. Comona: "when you're fighting P. Rool and you're in the lead, you don't want to give him time to consider the last time he got his ass beat, you don't want to let him imagine that wall because he will use those feelings." Haha yeah he sure will. Several tournaments of forced losses will sure as fuck give him Some Feelings To Use.

Duke Salad nearly zeroes to death the first stock of the second match and P. Rool dunks him anyway for a 2-0. Comona: "P. Rool THRIVES when he's behind."

Pixel vs. Johnathan. Commentators still nervous about Johannsen's special secret rule. Jojokes abound. Pixel is trying too hard to style on johnathan. Pixel gets 2-0'd and three stocked, and Johnathan finds his tenacity inspiring. Pixel: "dont patronize me." But he isnt hes just earnest like that

Hackerman John vs. The Ice Dragon From Hell, Korioni. A joke is made about John sounding like Patrick Warburton, which. god. god no. Awful. /lh

Ryan: "See, I've played enough Overwatch to know you don't actually need compatible technology to hack, you can just go LEGS? HACKED, COMBAT ROLL? HACKED, FLASH GRENADE? HACKED."

They land in reset bomb forest for match one and Ryan says Korioni casually burned this village down because it was full of sinners, You Know How It Is, and now uses the burnt space as a vacation home. Huh.

Comona: "my favorite part about hackerman john is the way that he actually hacks his own body, like he bulks up his muscles and a variety of other various things. The weird part about it is he's not even a cyborg or anything he just hacks… muscles." Ryan: "taking tips from Sombra." lol. lmao

They go stock for stock, despite commentators concerned at the start that John would, as a simple mortal hacker, have trouble dealing with An Actual Literal Dragon. Korioni is also confused by this. Korioni: "why is this Mortal giving me so many problems what is his Deal?" John bullies immortals for fun moments <3

J0hn activates Glass Cannon Protocol (smash art) last stock high percents and goes 'either im hitting and winning or getting hit and losing. either way im making it end here' and Comona admires the gumption even though it costs john the match. John's Decisive Straightforwardness is probably something Larry admires about him honestly, considering how much more fidget-y about what-ifs he seemed to be before they were together, based on the nccts. Guy who "knows exactly who he is and what he wants to be" (cpuk17) for sure.

Also, commentators use she/her a few times for Korioni in addition to he/him, or at least, as canon later establishes them as a hydra, the Normal Chill Guy head. (nccts making it clear this head's individual name is Jonny. Lot of johns and jons in this tournament. CPU Kerfuffle, shockingly, one of the only shows ive enjoyed with a somewhat realistic amount of Johns.) Good for her!

John doesn't do so hot in the first match or the start of the second, but starts playing dirty and quickly, disrespectfully turns the set around. The first round three of the tournament reveals Johannsen's special rule- The Rat Fights in All Round Threes, at a lower cpu level. (Its funny to me that every time ryan wants to nerf a character he lowers the cpu levels but like. That doesnt make them Weaker it makes them Dumber, which sometimes is Advantageous- there's a brief terrifying moment where johannsen is in the lead despite being lower leveled because sometimes a lower level cpu will go for plays a level 9 would be too smart to go for or expect and sometimes, that pays off!) Anyhow. John utilizes the rat as a distraction to make easier work of Korioni. Korioni's a little scared of the rat.

Comona: "John must have paused the game to get that tech because that was IMPOSSIBLE." There's a joke about John's 'hackerman eyes' and him getting visions of the Very Immediate future and skipping them if they're just not interesting enough. Understanding in retrospect why I got so attached to The Visor as a design element. Also, Quad, in a later episode: "I can't see the future. Yet." Why you holding out on the man, John? Gonna share the precog software with the rest of the class? Anyway. potentially another drop of evidence in my 'sensitivity to/ability to manipulate/perceive the script is generally perceived as Weird Psychic Phenomena by the denizens of the cpukverse but doesn't seem to be Known About, Understood or Believed In outside specific circles' worldbuilding speculation bucket

Jacob vs. Spaghebbi. Spaghebbi replaced her arms with spaghetti. Jacob is an 11 yr old that plays fortnite. He feels Exactly like captain falcon when he wipes out tilted towers. Jacob is the kind of kid to eat microwave chicken nuggets off of the fine china. Comona and Ryan chatter nervously about how it feels almost like theyre watching a real person play as Spaghebbi plays with her food. They feel like Spaghebbi could pass the turing test. Jacob gets spaghetti sauced on.

Losers bracket! Duke Salad vs. Pixel. Ryan: "so. who do you think is going to win, and Be Nice About it." Comona: "to put this lightly- as lightly as possible to be kind as i can… after Pixel's SHAMEFUL display in winners bracket, i don't see pixel standing a CHANCE against duke salad. If i put it any lighter than that I would be telling you lies."

Johnathan taught Pixel Hamon and Pixel did much better against the Duke than expected in their first match. I don't know enough about jojos to comment on this. Pixel and the Duke go stock for stock in match 2, and Duke takes it. Game Three. Rat Time. Ryan: "From what I know about Pixel, they're gonna get tilted by the rat, but maybe their training with Johnathan has made them a little more patient."

The Red Kraken visits Patch farms often, but Duke Salad's never ridden on their ship, the Crimson Melody. Duke salad makes the match a 2v1 and takes johannsen and pixel stocks in a killstreak. Duke Salad's patience is emphasized, between poison cloud and the special cannonball move, and takes Pixel's last stock.

Korioni vs. Jacob. Jacob just wandered in here and fought a restaurant owner and is now fighting An Ice Dragon From Hell. 11yr old fortnite player vs. A Dragon. Ryan: "equal power."

Yoshi's Island. Comona: "ah, this is where korioni actually grew up, when they were a young wyrmling." Ryan: "yeah, before The Great Catastrophe. You'll see the great catastrophe later on I'm sure." Korioni: "you are 11 years old? It's cute that you have a concept of time."

Ryan: "I love the lore with Korioni right now, she's just an eldritch being but she's like. Incredibly Chill about it. Pun intended." Comona: "completely intended."

Korioni is getting her ass beaten by an 11 year old because Kori keeps trying to outplay jacob and stumbling into failure. Jacob is not winning, korioni is losing, crucial difference. Korioni starts bringing it back, until Jacob fucking Gets Him offstage. Comona: "the dragon's pride is often their downfall."

(Knocking on door) Are You Winning Son? Jacob, with his single bouncing screensaver braincell: "yeah im winning i Love bloodsport!"

Second match, Korioni's home turf, Hell. Korioni loses her first stock in less than 20 seconds. Comona says Jacob's gotta be scouted for esports teams soon looking at these plays.

Korioni's losing the spirit to fight and goes yknow what? Maybe I should just leave the fighting to the kids and go continue being An Awesome Dragon From Hell instead, maybe cpu kerfuffle just isn't for me. Jonny gave it a go and isnt interested in showing up again. As we see later though, his siblings/other heads however…

Korioni and Pixel go for coffee as the first guys out. Comona: "I'd love to see a just… ice dragon from hell. At starbucks." Ryan: "yeah, with this fashion gay wolf." Comona: "power couple." Ryan: "we should leave the gossip to squid jenny." huh. pixel/jonny. donkey and dragon from shrek type beat

P. Rool vs Johnathan Joestar. Comona suggests Jojo's nurturing empathy and Punished K. Rool, who thrives on punishment, are bound to clash over fundamentally opposed ideals. As we know, this isnt actually punished k. rool but Plum, who's 'thriving when punished' comeback factor is more fueled by rage than anything. Match goes about as they usually do for Plum- hes losing at first, down to the wire, and then firmly Doesn't. Death by chonk. Lot of jojokes i do not understand. Johnathan homie stocks while down a game. Ryan suggests it was so his lead doesn't stay too big and activates Prool's punishment complex. Comona: "P. Rool functions on revenge and revenge alone, and Johnathan knows better than to let him tap into those selfishly driven emotions. P. Rool still does his stupid comeback thing. For the fourth time. Ryan's start of darkness, almost whining: "die already..." Comona: "this is- this is rapidly approaching plot armor levels of ridiculous."

John vs. Spaghebbi. Comona: "for all intents and purposes if someone didnt know what this was, you'd walk up to these two and these are just two people fighting in the streets, like whats going on, but despite these two's normal, grassroots upbringings, these are two formidable opponents. I'm reminded of the dragonball world fighting tournaments- these are people who just fight as a hobby and enjoy it and testing their abilities."

Comona: "johns a very sneaky player, i always feel like johns getting sauced and then i actually look and percents are even." Ryan: "hes very funny because he'll look like hes getting his ass kicked and then hes just. winning." John survives past 200% on his first stock without using Shield Protocol.

John chokes last minute in their second match, throwing because He Wanted The Rat. He Has Chosen The Rat. Guy who is Completely Willing and Unphased By the prospect of embarrassing himself if it means getting to see a lil guy. Its suggested this was an attempt at a strategic play but if it was it did Not work out. He wanted to see a little guy. lets be honest. Spaghebbi's playing loose, cutting loose, putting on her fucking footloose. Feet, foot feet, dance on your fucking feet.

The giants from majora's mask are hired on staff to keep the moon from crashing into the beach.

Comona: "Hackerman John's gonna need to hire some help to get through this one." Ryan audibly struggles to confidently remember Dan's name to make a joke about John hiring him. John gets very close to bringing it back, but ultimately spaghebbi takes it.

Chat member: "Hackerman John and Shapeshifter Larry. Gay?" Ryan, with an air of mystery: "who knows?" the seed is planted.

Jojo v. Jacob. A gentleman must always shake hands first. Jacob knows jojo memes and nothing else about it. Jojo loses a stock second match at 10 seconds in. Jacob really really really likes upsmashes. This set is mostly direct match commentary. People chant and beg and PLEAD for the rat and they get what they want. Jojo, Jacob, Johannsen. J. Jacob wins.

Chat member: "what is Johannsen's Last name?" Ryan: "no idea, have to get squid jenny to check on that." There's speculation in chat about Johannsen being, in some sense, a jojo,

Hackerman John vs. Duke Salad. John loses his first stock VERY fast. You can't hack a plant. It's not allowed. It doesn't work. John loses first match spectacularly. Ryan is getting a report from the field. Ryan: "Hackerman John's showing some weird signs of… something, he's panting really hard, he's sweating a lot according to Squid Jenny- maybe if this goes to round three we'll see what's going on." John manages to pull ahead and take round 2.

Ryan: "update on the report from the field from Jenny, the sweating from hackerman John has continued, and with that successful victory, he's making an announcement to everybody. Let me make sure I'm hearing this right- 'time to reveal the true form.' I don't know what that means but I get the feeling we're about to find out." Strangest part of this is how much effort it appears to take for John to… whatever this is. He changes form pretty casually later and it doesn't seem like maintaining his human-looking appearance takes him any active effort in later appearances, nor do I see why it would, so my best guess is he's psyching himself up to do the Robot Reveal and. maybe powering through having a bit of a panic attack about it? In nccts terms this is extra interesting because this is the moment on a narrative level he's first established as robotic in nature and as gaiden 2 and then the nccts later establish this means, script-sensitive, which j0hn explicitly mistakes for/processes as anxiety, so this must've Felt Pretty Weird.

Anyhow, introducing- Hackerbot J0hn! With a freshly minted zero in his name. In a sudden turn of events, the reason he can augment himself so freely is because he's a robot that can hack other bots. And its round three, so there's also a Rat In The Mix. Duke Salad: "...I just fucking work here, man."

J0hn, now working with the fullness of his robotic potential, still is not used to it even a little bit and does not do well. Drawbacks of not using your fucked up science-granted powers unless you think you need them for practical reasons- having MUCH less practice at using them than your boyfriend who uses his every ten minutes for fun or because he cant help it, I suppose. He's still hacking himself on the fly but in a very different style, Ryan says. He's actively less effective in combat in his 'true form' than he is in his human 'disguise,' but J0hn's just happy to have shown off his true self to the world and heads off to relax and get coffee. Ryan: "He can't drink it, but he's gonna go get it." 😔

Winners Finals. Prool vs. Spaghebbi. Round one goes to prool and its stupid and makes ryan understandably angry. Ryans asking the referees to double check and make sure all that was legal, and it seems to be. Round 2 goes similarly, even with Spaghebbi trying to play defensively against Prool's comeback power. Ryan admits as Spaghebbi loses 2-0 that he doesnt want Prool to be champion and, after saying he shouldn't metagame, that he cant just make him ditch to go back to his home dimension like dani, he says, no, fuck it, he doesnt want Prool to be champion, and hes willing to cheat to stop it from happening.

Round one is thrown out with concerns about the legitimacy of the win on grounds of Prool pulling some fuckshit. Spaghebbi is given another match with him to set the record for real. Spaghebbi was perfectly fine with losing, but the refs called her out for a redo and she wasn't going to turn down another shot at winning. Prool is starting to get irritated with this- the refs gave their first round the a-okay already, why do they have to redo it anyway? Regardless, Prool fully confirms his 2-0.

Jacob vs. Duke salad. Mostly just match commentary, but a very fun set. Duke Salad's got his eyes on a rematch with Prool. 'Duke, you killed a child… Amazing!'

Duke Salad vs Spaghebbi. FOOD FIGHT. Round one on fountain of dreams. Very even, very steady very tense. Ryan's blatant bias is for duke salad, and the duke takes match one. Round 2 goes to Spaghebbi. Rat Time. Johannsen does very little and Spaghebbi wins.

Grand finals. Spaghebbi and Prool rematch. Getting a report from the field before the first round- Duke Salad has given Spaghebbi a gift. A House Salad, from the duke himself. She eats the salad and throws herself into the first match with Prool.

Spaghebbi gets the first stock even after a cannonball to the head. Prool's comeback potential looms. Spaghebbi takes it to a last stock situation and Ryan holds his breath, trying not to hope, and he was right not to. Prool takes it last second despite Spaghebbi's huge percent lead. Ryan cant even bear to comment.

Round 2. Green Greens. Ryan keeps trying not to have hope Spaghebbi will take this so he wont be disappointed, his biases now fully, shamelessly on display, having turned against Prool entirely. Chat Member: "Hangry, red, villainous, anyone else think something's up?" Ryan: "...hm. i dont wanna make any assumptions, but…"

Ryan admits to being salty as chat comments on his deafening silence watching Prool and Spaghebbi fight, fully convinced she's going to lose. Hes right. she does. Prool wins.

Ryan openly declares he will not allow prool to become champion as he queues up the championship match. Ryan, talking out of his ass: "I know what you did, Punished K. Rool. I know. And I'm not letting you do it here." ← this is nothing and goes nowhere. he is using his powers of storytelling to say fuck this lizard because he doesnt want him to win <3

Hes too mad to even commentate about johannsen losing to Prool. He is grumbling and grouching and salty and peeved.

Its time to break some rules! And so an exception is enshrined IN the rules- fuck prool. prool is jumped by a collection of competitors to be prevented from taking his earned championship- Johannsen, Captain Valentine, Big Yopper, Spaghebbi, Duke Salad, Rights Sentience, and Mario from Super Mario. Most of them are said to be there for revenge of some kind in a very handwavey sense, rights is supposedly there because Prool is 'an affront to rights,' ironic given this whole exchange is the tournament wrenching away Prool's rightfully earned win on a basis of 'fuck that guy in particular.' I assume while revenge is the blanket statement the real motive for the participating parties here is another chance at championship despite the breach of rules and fairness, not unlike Spaghebbi's unearned redo, and not unlike the competitors apparently devolving into mad max shenanigans offscreen when the champion's seat was left 'unclaimed' during the hiatus. (it was captain crimsons. but this was apparently left unacknowledged for 'fuck that guy' reasons which like. Is justified in a vacuum but is and has Become even more kinda retroactively weirdly targeted over time in a way as the comedically driven moral double standard about murder in the show reveals itself, as is hilariously demonstrated by the commentators discussing letting the Grunk, himself manslaughtered and brought back which everyone hates crimson for, just attack and/or kill whoever he wants if it's funny in the next season and as is briefly discussed in the nccts. Murder is okay but only if we like you and its funny 👍)

Ryan had fun watching him get ganged up on. Valentine gets the last hit in, and the three characters who got kills on prool enter a four player free for all with him and whoever wins gets championship. Ryan: "if Prool wins this one, I promise I will accept it. Just kidding I'll pull some other bullshit because im a bitch baby The Real Championship Begins!"

Captain Valentine wins, finally getting his groove back after 11. Captain Valentine: "Fuck That Rat!" Ryan: "Honestly? To be fair? Right now? You know what, I think Captain Valentine's just happy that in the end he doesnt have to fight that FUCKING rat again."

Ryan throws that rat at him for shits and giggles. Apparently this fight is happening because Val just wants to put his pride back together. He is doing worse than last time at first, but hes developing a begrudging respect for the little fella, and manages to pull out a win. Ryan promises Prool can come back next tournament and try again, for the sake of fairness, and dont worry chat, he has a plan.

CPUK13! ryan catches jay and comona up to speed. Jay, punished k. rool and jacob came from another universe. They had tickets for the Dimensional Plane (GOOD pun, and also very funny confirmation that the bus is not the only means of public interdimensional transport. In the nccts universes are implied to have some element of physical proximity/distance between universes to account for with regard to travel time, what with nelson warp not being instantaneous and such. so i suppose it makes sense there might be different forms of dimensional transport accommodating for said travel time, planes are faster long distance than cars and all,) but jay couldnt go. Punished K. Rool was such a heel however that noone wanted him to win, so there was a 7v1 to stop him from becoming champion. Jay: "yeah thats about accurate to what i expected."

Ryan: "now, this was a very big breach of The Rules, and the Iggy Collective elected, in the interest of fairness, to invite P. Rool back to try again, along with some other people." 'In the interest of fairness' is the Funniest way that could be put because whats fair about that. You blocked him from becoming champion as a group Just Because You Dont Like Him, and then tell him 'you can go ahead and try again if you want!' With full intent to do it again if he wins. Like thats not fairness you are playing matador and P. Rool is an angry bull for whom there is no winstate. "We'll let you win if you can win when we won't let you win."

Jay, talking about Punished: "Prool is a really good fighter, and yknow nobody likes to acknowledge that hes a really good fighter, because he's just an asshole. Hes the biggest heel. He counter picks to stages he wont even win on because he just wants to piss you off. He'll turn items on when its illegal." Ryan: "damn. What an asshole. We all hate him." Plum does not understand why everyone hates him so much, alas hes been mistaken for Some Guy Who Sucks whose behavior he obliviously resembles 😔

Zagreeus, from Hayds! Zagreeus is a 14 yr old edgy bi kid that loves and kins zagreus from hayds. His submission information states that he found zagreus's plight with his parents and life in darkness relatable, and has tried to summon gods before, failing every time but once, when a god took pity on him and didnt want him burning down his parents garage with a gasoline summoning circle. Some unnamed goddess granted him the powers he wanted, and with them, and equipped with his power glove (which is So Bad, and that he uses to play hayds,) he joined cpu kerfuffle. Okay so what id remembered about him kinning zagreus so hard he developed his powers either wasnt exactly accurate or that's how the commentators simplify it later or smthn because Wow

Matrimony Knight! Just likes marriage, especially gay marriage. Ryan princess bride mawwiage bit is going to happen All Night.

Genwun! My miserable little clown submission. Ngl when i submitted them i had No idea how bad some people's experiences with genwunners were, they were just A Bizarre Subset of Nostalgia Blind Internet Weirdos With Absurd Beliefs that i knew existed in the abstract but had never met any. Regardless, they get better though and genfour has evolved normal opinions about pokemon and willingness to accept the progression of time. they're my one and only cringefail submission and I do love them.

Chili's! Ryan: "I can't imagine what other restaurant chain a Red Robin would represent." Comona: "yeah, me either." Chili's will get so very angry with you if you label her as any other restaurant. The commentators react with confusion to Jay implying red robin was ever a restaurant that existed, and jay says it must be something that only exists in his dimension. It's all Chili's now. The family coming of age rites name change domination of a new restaurant thing established in cpuk 23 truly be rewriting history huh

Machiavelli! Submission information states: Machiavelli is a science project using the tournament as field practice for testing and creating the perfect killing machine, though it is sometimes very clueless, self-destructive and dimwitted in its actions and lacking knowledge. It adapts to mimic it's opponents fighting styles to learn as combat progresses. Exact sentience unknown, although its intelligence appears to sit somewhere between a child and a dog, loyally following the command of its 'owners,' but shows enough free will to act unprompted in pursuit of its own aimless whims. As for what Machiavelli is, and what he is made for, that information is as of yet unknown.

Twist! The mage aboard the red kraken and first member of the red kraken proper to appear.

Sephiroth. Just The Real Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7 and remake. Ryan: "now you might be asking, 'why is he HERE?'" Jay: "do you think we could STOP HIM?! do you think WE know?!" He was not invited, he just showed up. Johannsen was gonna fight but Sephiroth was like *One-Winged Angel plays* (which follows him around like an aura) and Johansen was like *porky pig stammer* w. well Okay-

Sephiroth's comically long sword apparently pierced the hull of the Dimensional Plane and jay apologizes for possibly having brought this upon us all. I think sephiroth's sword should be like doug dimmadome's hat. Infinitely long so that you cant see the end of it whenever its funny for it to be that way

UPS Founder vs. Jacob exhibition match. Not much to comment on here, mostly just plain match commentary.

First match- Sephiroth vs. Chili's. Jay remarks nervously upon chili's resemblance to aerith, while discussing their hopes for the tournaments winners and Valentine's rule changes as champion- cutting a bunch of the weirder, messier stages off the list to leave mostly more clean, traditional ones. Chili's spellbook is a menu and her spells are named after menu items. Thoron is the bigmouth burger. Chili's down-aerithed him into hell <3 sephiroth, unamused: "puns are the lowest form of comedy." She remains rent free in his head the entire second round sending sephiroth to losers Immediately.

Jay: "does Chili's serve wings?" Ryan: "of course it does its a bar and grill, everywhere serves wings." Jay: "well it certainly does now!!" Ryan, getting it: "but only one wing." Comona: "you only get one. Choose Your Sauce Wisely."

Twist vs. Zagreeus. Extended bit about zagreeus being on a bad run and pronouncing greek gods names and things like weapons weird. zayus. Arr-TEM-is. Po-sedd-in. Shy-eld. Spee-are.

Comona: "zagreeus is failing the skill check, how did twist learn to fight like this?" Ryan: "she was born with it. And she may have absorbed the power of an eldritch god but thats beside the point."

Zagreeus loses hard first round. Jay: "if im zagreeus at this point im pulling out the cheat engine." Ryan: "you think so?" Comona: "i dont think the situations that dire yet, lets give him a little credit." Zag manages to take the second round on Gamer, as something of a gamer.

Jay: "if zagreeus is the son of hayds, then the son of zayus would be hercules?" (pronounced like molecules) Ryan: "no, its herakles, obviously" twist dunks zagreeus

Ryan starts queueing up p. rool and Jay pops off so hard it sounds like he stuck his microphone in his mouth. Jay: "im sorry. I get excited."

Then machi gets queued up! Baby's first match, quick get the camera. Machi is small and light and Jay expresses concern for his ability to survive P. Rool's heavy hits. Jay: "of course, i have no reason to assume hes lightweight considering he's completely original and resembles no other character." Comona: "as much as i'd like to say Machi will pull out a win here, and I do think he'll get off to a hot start. P. Rool always comes back. Like a boomerang."

Ryan is trying to have hope P. Rool will lose. Jay makes the first comment suggesting something is amiss with regard to Punished K. Rool, saying that P. Rool as he knew him HAD been a huge heel but after eating a loss he'd gone away for awhile and when he returned, he'd thought he'd grown, showing his stuff as an incredibly good but much fairer fighter, and that this regression into heeldom is… odd. Machi's like one of the only fighters ive seen consistently dodge pretty successfully with plum's stupid fucking gun. Powerful little dodgebeast. Got SO close to beating p. rool first round. Machiavelli is so powerful and perfect and also balling <3

The second match is so frustrating because machi is working so hard. and i know it's for naught. Anyway its very funny that they describe Machi's battle prowess as 'playing 5D Chess' when babygirl you KNOW he's eating pieces. A close, exciting game.

Matri vs. Genwun. Jay: "having only played one game in their entire life, I think genwun's experiences- theyre pretty limited, having only played pokemon red and blue. I feel like Genwun's gonna lack the matchup knowledge they're gonna need here that they'd have if they played Literally Any Other Video Game or watched anything but Star Wars."

Ryan clarifies again for someone in chat that Iggy and his collective of friends and companions are the showrunners, staff currently including Squid Jenny as field reporter and Home MD as the field medic.

P. Rool hungrybox at the grocery store copypasta

Matri and Genwun slug it out. Comona: "this match is just- The idealism of being together forever for the rest of your life vs.-" Ryan: "being a genwunner." Comona: "I was gonna say never branching out and being alone your entire life." Ryan, more insistently: "yeah, being a genwunner."

Comona, after Matri takes first stock hard: "that is the only time genwun is ever gonna get something put up his ass." GOD!!!!!!!!!!

Jay: "read that like he was reading their vows!" Matri (Comona): "i do promise to WRECK your ASS in SMASH, in Sickness and in Health," Ryan: "matrimony knight can see the FUTURE hes going 'This Will End In Divorce' and then Finishing It!" Jay: "that was not the matchup of two people who have never met, i think these two have Fought Before, these two have a History." They share no words before starting another fight, and genwun looks pissed.

Matri is said to be steel/fairy type, neither of which being things Genwun understands. Also its noted gender wasnt introduced until gen 2 outside the nidorans, ergo why genwun does not participate. Beloved cringe ass loser nonbiney submission of mine. Genwun gets 2-0'd.

Sephiroth vs. Zagreeus. Sephiroth gets his makeup from sephora. Jay: "I would love nothing more than for Sephiroth to have stowed away in my trunk, forced himself into the competition and then just got stomped." It took way too long for like the third hit to land, they dance around eachother a lot. They discuss some confusion over the exact functionality of Sephiroth's wing mechanic. Jay: "I mean, its not like this is a game or anything we could just ask sephiroth-" Zagreeus reflects a flare killing sephiroth instantly before he can finish the bit. Despite some striking plays from zag he still firmly loses match one.

Zagreeus is adept in minecraft, sephiroth is a nineties kid ill equipped for modern gaming, despite Sephiroths best efforts zag takes first stock and gets so close to taking the second before seph finishes the match with a commanding comeback. sephiroth does Not congratulate him for doing his best but zag just gives a thumbs up to the rest of the fighters and heads to the cafe to relax. Zag got such a tough hand, dealt twist and sephiroth back to back, lil man fought SO hard

Genwun vs. Machiavelli. Genwun struggles to respect and consider their opponents playstyles for adaptation. Machiavelli doesn't respect his opponents not out of malice but because hes a baby that doesn't comprehend how or why he should.

First match takes place on the Unova Pokemon League. Genwun, upon seeing Shaymin: "the fucks that green thing." Machi LOVES to fake people out with the rock. Genwun doesnt get threestocked but gets sauced on so hard that an Event occurs anyway. They meet up with Matri to discuss something. Genwun has been given pokemon platinum on Nintendo DS. Time dilation occurs, (jay says it might be a side effect of him visiting from his dimension? More space and time intertwined-ness,) genwun speedruns the entirety of pokemon platinum in a near instant, watching the lucario movie while making dinner in the middle of this temporary time bubble and transforms into Genfour. Comona suggests they saw shaymin in the background and were like 'i… dont know that one but… i kinda like it…' and decided finally to give more things a try.

One-winged angel plays. Machi: "why do i hear boss music." Genfour's newfound excitement for new things powers them to take like. the only match they ever have <3 as jay says, genfour might make a friend, something genwun never had, and that friend might just be machiavelli!

Megalovania duck hunt. Genfour looks at retro games and says No. Im Clean Now. Nostalgia was their drug of choice and they Want No Part Of It anymore they want to be a Well Rounded Being Now.

Comona: "im gonna be real with you i need genfour to win this one, I need genfour to see, purely, the joy in living for the future with other people." Jay: "living your life as it is right in front of you, not restricting yourself in the past." Fun thematic foreshadowing for the rest of the season, methinks, given the coming arc villain, introduced in the next episode and Machi's creator, Dr. O's whole 'gifted kid gone rotten' situation, for what is a gifted kid gone rotten but someone who grew up thinking they were special and better than other people and people used to KNOW that and could not accept the reality when they grew up that they are, in fact, just like any other person. (Reinforced by her ironic fate banished into the distant past and further reinforced by the nccts, where she was explicitly still hung up on high school bullshit.) Cue larry coming in swinging with the revelation to break her- that Some Broke Stupid Petty Criminal Cunt from the Grocery Store with enough Patience Determination Resilience and Willingness to Change and Adapt can do exactly what she does and Better when just given the opportunity because she isn't special <3

Genfour loses, but Machi follows them to the cafe to hang out a while. friends!! Its suggested in his submission info in gaiden 2, iirc, that genfour's original mewtwo form served as 'inspiration' for chessmaster's creation, and unlike Plus he wasn't treated as Brand New, so it feels safe to assume Mach 2 was made sometime between this episode and then- and the first time Dr. Order decided to show herself in the tournament instead of sending experiments or assistants and observing is the next episode. not all her creations go straight to tournament when created- Crimsonaut being Crimson's 'respawn point' and next host following being exorcised from the captain, Order's initial study of Crimson samples from the Grunk's corpse mentioned in the nccts, his created purpose and cover story for hosting crimson, and his being paired with the dimensional bus which has referenced usage in season one suggests both that he at least slightly predates cpuk11 and that direct combat was never what he was made for so there was no reason for him to be involved in it until dr. O needed to stock a full tourney, but Mach 2 was a second iteration of her attempts to make the Ultimate Fighter. Did Mach 2 maybe… do poorly enough in some kind of preliminary testing she didn't even bother sending him to tournament and took that slot herself instead? and was that why she was so particularly harsh to him, despite his not rebelling like Google? Much to think about

Twist vs. Chilis! The queen of the 5$ margarita and the purple pajama'd mage of the red kraken. They go stock for stock but Chili's is unbreakable. Chat: "after this can they go on a date to the cafe"

Comona: "you gotta remember to watch your back going into an applebees after all this." Jay: "yeah cuz chili's is gonna be right behind you tapping on your shoulder like-" Chili's: "are you sure about that?"

Comona follows this bit with a firm disclaimer not to allow cpu kerfuffle characters to create real-life brand loyalties to things that don't care about you and that the commentators dont really care about either. And that by the way for chili's pricepoint just going to a good local place instead is just practicing self-care, honestly. responsible commentating.

Again twist and chilis go stock for stock, Chili's losing the second round. Mostly match commentary, but theyre some very entertainingly intense matches. Ryan talks a bit about the Taco Mac clause. Theres some fesh pince jokes in there. Round 3 is similar, with more jokes about the Chili's menu. Serving loaded potato skins. Twist is tipping the waiter with a boot to the head. Twist takes it.

Ryan: "people in chat are shipping twist and chili's which- I will say, the character twist is based on is, i think, ace, but this also is a separate continuity- ive got several continuities- so i'm leaving the shipping up to you guys." Comona: "yeah, any headcanons, any fanons- and, I mean, ace doesn't necessarily mean theres no room for something romantic-" ryan: "yeah!"

P.Rool vs. Matrimony Knight. Ryan: "I hate to say this but I do think p.rool is taking this." Comona and Jay agree with an audible grimace. Matri does not do well first round. Comona and Jay make fun of ryan sneezing like someone who should be in a hospital. P. Rool is, as usual, disgustingly powerful in combat.

Matri begins to pull out a lead second round. Jay: "P. Rool is never on his final form. Watch him pull out D. Rool." Ryan: "what is that, destroyed rool-?" Comona: "what about ja rool."

Matri manages to take it to round 3, to ryan, comona and jay's joy. But they temper their excitement with 'listen its p. rool. Dont get your hopes up. Dont do it.' They're right to do this matri very nearly gets threestocked and the last stock is matri getting dunked like a fucking basketball.

Losers bracket, Chilis vs. Machi. Comona thinks chili's is gonna win the tournament. Jay thinks Machi is going to be a comeback god, losing at first and then taking it back. First match on mario maker. A stage only left legal because ryan LOVES it because it fucks with the ai. Machi doesnt do well with the random stage at first, but brings it back HARD, nearly a reverse threestock, ending with Machi stealing Chili's sword and fucking Getting Her in a clutch move.

Match two funny zelda tower. Machiavelli in his 'anime arc' after copying chili's. Ryan: "he's just grown hair!" Comona: "He's a growing boy!" Stocks stay pretty even throughout, chili's footstooling to take the final kill. Taking it to round 3!

One winged angel, machi and chilis stock for stock again. Machi's on last stock and the commentators are talking about kid icarus uprising nearly the entire match. Chili's walks off, having learned some things herself and is approached by… some shady individuals apparently involved in creating him. Iggy says to pay them no mind. Don't worry about it. Comona: "...is this like the equivalent of like, if Boston Dynamics entered a robot into a smash tournament?" Jay: "this is like if Boston Dynamics entered a robot into a real actual martial arts tournament."

Swordfight! Sephiroth vs matri. Comona: "the two ends of the spectrum as to what constitutes a sword." Fuckin. wedding butter knife versus masamune the doug dimmadome ass katana.

Matri, hank hill impression: "frame data? Cancels? I Just wanna Grill for gods sake!" Also Matri, teleporting behind Sephiroth: "nothing personel, kid."

Matri does not win. If sephiroth wins the set he's fighting chilis. The next match is mostly match commentary with some family guy impressions for flavor. Sephiroth is the kind of guy who mimes crushing it out of spite when you blow him a kiss. Matri manages to take round two.

Word from the field! Sephiroth is pissed. He knows this could be his last game. Ryan: "hey, comona? You know sonicfox, right?" Comona: "of course." Ryan: "you know how in that one game when he thought he was out, he took his hat off?" Sephiroth takes his shirt off. The limiters are off. Matri does best with plenty of momentum but its hard to keep momentum with sephiroth. Matri's wedding vows (for at least one of his weddings) was the opening of the song Start Of Something New from highschool musical. Sephiroth ends up taking it in the most embarassing, sad, possible choke from matri. Sephiroth puts his shirt back on.

Twist vs P. Rool. Drac's Castle. Furthest a team cracken members ever gotten at this point. Twist racks up damage fast. Comona: "is this like, a dark arts emporium twist likes to frequent? Shes looking mad at home right now." Ryan: "y'know with all the purple, it would make sense within the lore of the red kraken story." Twist takes first stock and dash dances on prool and Ryan's almost crying tears of joy.

Twist gets prool down to one stock, then prool takes his first and gets her to over 100% in seconds and then takes her second, and you can hear ryans heart breaking as the other commentators start submitting themselves to the inevitability of Prool comebacks. Twist does, however, manage to take the first match!

Jay starts to turn around a little on prool, saying his loyalties lie first and foremost with people from his home dimension. Ryan: "i understand it. I dont respect it but i understand it." Twist successfully 2-0s Prool and Ryan feels the most alive he has all tourney. Jay: "he'll be back." Comona: "well of course he'll be back, hes still lurking in the losers bracket." Ryan: "nothing you can say will wipe the smile off my face right now."

Chili's vs. Sephiroth runback! Ryan thinks we're gonna see a 2-1, that sephiroths gonna put up a little more of a fight but chili's is still gonna take it. This proves a good guess with sephiroth taking first stock. Sephiroth wasn't taking Chili's seriously before, but now this becomes a meeting of the minds. Chilis still takes match one. Chili's isn't taking Sephiroth seriously anymore.

TWOOOOOO BANANAS.

Round 2, monkey watch wuhu island. Sephiroth may or may not like monkey watch. Jay: "hes an edgelord but thats like, his dayjob, we dont know what he's into in his freetime." Chilis struggles on Wuhu island because there's too much space for bartending and too many local businesses to outcompete her, and sephiroth takes round 2.

Megalovania find mii. Sephiroth is hearing boss music. Terrifying stock for stock match, but chilis keeps the lead and finishes the match with a vicious dunk in the gap. Comona: "stamping a close set with 'but really, i was winning the whole time.'"

Losers finals, Prool vs. Chili's. After twist, prool can officially bleed so Comona feels no reservations about backing chili's. Prool got pineappled at barely over 20%, but chili's loses her first stock only 40% into Prools next. The match is fast and chaotic but not particularly lore-heavy. Chilis takes round one. Jay: "the way i see it, matches with prool dont even start til round 2." Ryan: "if prool gets 2-0d by twist and chilis both thatd be the lesbianest thing ever. Considering the headcanons running around." Next match is stock for stock again, but Plum finishes it, sending them to a round 3, which ALSO goes stock for stock.

Jay, sounding sad: "if prool loses here youre gonna make me put him back in the car, arent you?" Comona and Ryan, firmly: "YES." They jinx it. Chili's loses, and prool wins by the skin of his teeth with a violence. Jay, scared: "HOW DOES HE DO IT. I DONT WANT HIM BACK. HE WASN'T LIKE THIS IN MY WORLD. I DONT WANT THIS FUCKER BACK." Comona: "you did this." Jay: "I DIDNT DO THIS! I DIDNT DO THIS! IT WAS YOUR WORLD THAT DID THIS TO HIM!" Comona: "alright, Huey Emmerich!" I know just enough about metal gear to know how grievous an insult this is.

Grand finals. Twist vs. P.rool. Ryan: "im so afraid. Because i know p.rool. I know what he's gonna try to do here." Foreshadowing. Ryans trying so hard to have hope. But i know craken won't have a winner in grand finals until gaiden 5. Jay suggests, as a compromise, that if P. Rool wins, they can let Jacob take championship and pick the rules instead. Ryan remains firm that P. Rool cannot win, its against the rules. If Jacob wants it he can win it himself fair and square. Note how things have shifted from 'i need an excuse to keep p. rool out of championship because hes too strong and i dont want to use the same one i used for dani again' to 'FUCK p. rool, no quarter no compromise he is an object to hate for fun.' Due to a simple shift in the rules which ryan Iggy put there. Makes you thonk dont it.

P. Rool bracket resets Twist. The dread is seeping into Ryan. Jay and comona try to cheer him up by pointing out twist might do better on this stage. Ryan: "I liked it better when she 2-0d him but thats just me." Ryan, later, watching Twist still losing and sounding like hes wilting: "I'd like to see him dead, but thats just me." Comona: "P. Rool's really taking advantage of these layers to the stage." Ryan, becoming sephiroth and trailing off: "uh huh. My immortal rage…" Comona: "Yeah, im struck pretty silent watching P. Rool fight too. Like hes just… sucking the hope out of me." Jay: "Personally I'm feeling pretty good, i gotta be honest." Comona: "be happy if you want i wont judge-" ryan: "i will." Comona: "-but its not gonna stop me from voicing my opinion." Jay: "is now a bad time to share he offered me a cut of his winnings if he takes this?" Ryan: "not very pog." Jay: "dimensional plane tickets are EXPENSIVE."

P. Rool takes another match. Comona, bitter: "hes just too GOOD. at the GAME." Twist requests a port switch, forfeiting a stagepick in exchange, which prool accepts. The next match goes stock for stock until twist takes it, to Ryan's vicious glee. Comona and Ryan pop off excitedly about port priority. Jay: "I dont think thats real, ryan, i gotta be honest-" Ryan, turning into the fucking green goblin: "WELL, IF YOURE SO CONFIDENT, THEN LETS SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE KEEP TWIST ON PORT ONE, SHALL WE?" Jay: "okay!" Ryan has fully unhinged.

P. Rool wins. Ryans hit despair. P. Rool calls Jay. Ryan: "kick him off the call. kick him off the call." P. Rool says hes not giving him his money. Ryan: "oh, so youre on OUR side now, now you UNDERSTAND,"

P. Rool championship match. P. Rool vs Valentine. Ryan: "ive said it before ill say it again. This fucker is never going to be champion. Never. as long as I live. So we'll see what we do if he wins this." Comona: "as much as i dont like p. rool he does have spice." Ryan: "yeah he is spicy I just hate him." Jay: "cant believe hes not giving me my money." Ryan: "i can, have you met him?Jay: "its just, i had faith- its not like you guys knew him first!" Ryan: "true."

Jay: "we might need to start a go fundme to send me back to my own timeline." Comona: "the hell does a big fat asshole crocodile need with money anyway?" Jay: "good question." Ryan: "fishing?" Comona: "i was gonna say influencing government but that works." Anyway rip valentine time for another p. rool beatdown. Someone in chat special requests a match with sephiroth. Jay: "lets see who wins- the main villain or sephiroth." Prool decimates him. Ryan decides to take his rage out and beat the hell out of plum himself via Iggy. Ryan: "this isnt for the audience. this is for me." Plum still takes first stock against a human player. It still goes to last stocks. Iggy does win tho.

Twist vs. Valentine bc fuck P. rool. Ryan: "got a lot of haters in the chat mad that I wont acknowledge P. Rools win. But you forget, the 3rd rule of cpu kerfuffle: Fuck P. Rool. Dont blame me, I dont make the rules- well i do but-" Comona: "yeah, Iggy does." Ryan: "right! Take it up with Iggy. Or dont, cuz he'll kill you-" Jay: "i dont know how Jacob, who's just such a good kid, ended up on a team with p. rool." Ryan: "im sure theres some lore reason."

Valentine keeps a commanding hold on his championship, although twist put up a damn good fight. The commentators say, once again, that P. Rool will be returning for the next tournament. Comona: "we are an equal opportunity tournament, that doesn't turn away proven challengers."

Cpuk14 time! Representing Team Calibur, the team not for becoming the best, but for knowing you already are the best- Doctor order. Right out the gate. 'Ever wonder where all these lab experiments gone wrong and super fighting robots come from? Doctor Order knows, not that she'd tell you. mad scientist/personal trainer who seeks to create the ultimate fighter. Joined team calibur over, say, team cones, as she seeks to reign in chaos, a lofty goal in the face of what cpu kerfuffle is. What's driven her out of the lab and into the spotlight remains to be seen.'

Neither Comona or Jay have seen her in action, not even in jays dimension, although Jay says hes aware of an alternate universe version of her named pablo that's just a totally normal guy. Jay, sounding uncomfortable: "Dont ask me how I know theyre connected." Ryan: "is it the vibes?" Jay: "its the vibes."

Bing! Bing's original submission information says hes a personification of the web service bing and decided to take up fighting because he was tired of being overshadowed by the popularity of Google. Interesting given that Google the person did not yet exist, but future tournaments do in fact insist he's got his complex about that Google. 'also, due to being a search engine, hes very knowledgeable.' LOL. LMAO EVEN. Ryan has high hopes for his results in the tournament. He places 5th.

Returning from CPUK1 for the first time, Dark Jimbo! A hypebeast turned emo. Hes not quite as edgy anymore (thank his therapist) but hes gotten attached to the aesthetic and music and such. Apparently discovered an emerald mine beneath the house and the money from that is whats funding his access to the expense of recurring hair dye and band merch nowadays. Comona expresses that in what hes seen of Jimbo, despite the aggressive, dark exterior, as a fighter he is sort of timid, which might cause him some trouble. But hes been training with his dad, and you cant count him out.

Team Cones! Larry the Florida Man <3. Ryan explains Larry's previous appearances under separate show names, and describes Larry's powers as something that 'awoke' in him. Of course, this is before the Dr. O connection was made, but its fun wording nonetheless. Jay: "as you know, im a very cut and dry commentator." Ryan: "uh huh." Jay: "No jokes. So of course Larry is right up my alley as the most consistent fighter in the tournament." Jay clarifies Larry ironically is pretty consistent in a way, jokes aside, he can perform fairly well in all his shapes. He openly wonders if Larry's ability to perform as well as he does with all his forms is a trained skill, or if it's all instinct. Ryan suggests they'll get Jenny to look into getting an interview about it.

Team Cross. Engineer TF2. They solve practical problems. The commentators proceed to start referencing TF2. I dont know anything about tf2. Jay says he and engie trained under the same fighting master- Superb Mario. Unclear if this is the same character as Mario From Super Mario.

Team Charm, team of all thats good and kind and gay, representative Therapuppy! Chat member: "Thats A Dog!" The blurb for her says, paraphrasing, 'with the introduction of Sephiroth to smash, therapuppy went ahead and signed up for cpu kerfuffle, because god damn Cloud and Samus really are in The Same Game as Sephiroth and Ridley, huh? Damn, kinda fucked up.' funny. funny that sephiroth is directly one of the reasons theras here. Thera's just here to check in on everybody's mental wellbeing and have a good time.

Team Chonk. P. Rool. Jay: "man, fuck this guy. me and p. rool, we're from the same neck of the woods, we're from the next dimension over, and i couldn't make it to a kerfuffle one time so he took my ticket, and he came over here and he started throwing hands and now we can't get him to Leave." Hes jay's ride home so hes been stranded here for 2 weeks and Ryan's been pulling strings to keep him out of the champion's suite and hes heard that P. Rool's getting Very Mad about that. Ryan: "but- fuck it. Its my tournament- its iggy's tournament. Iggy made me do it."

Team Cracken! Whip. Yeehaw. She's a cowgirl bayyyybe. Whip's sea creature accessory is an Electric Eel Whip. Neigh Neigh the horse has never appeared but they live in our hearts. Whip is canonically 'a cringe ass neigh neigh baby.' Vital lore information.

Exhibition match: Squid Jenny vs Chili's! Jenny and Jimbo have the same problem of being good at wracking up damage but struggling to close kills. Jenny is more of a recon specialist than a frontline fighter. Jenny supports all other contestants and is well known and well loved as an upstanding young member of the kerfuffle community. They shake hands and the commentators give their predictions for the tournament, by which i mean, guesses about who has the best chance of making p. rool bleed. Comona and Jay want to see Engie pull it off, Ryan thinks Bing can do it.

Round one, Jimbo vs Engie. Comona: "now, if this were two human players, Id say, now lets buckle in for a 24 minute set," absolutely zero faith in jimbo from jay and comona. The phrase 'not to play crimson's advocate' is used,

Jimbos first match against Engie is so embarrassing that engie throws the poor kid a southern hospitality pity stock next round. A slip of tongue results in the suggestion that engie tf2 is nonbinary. Jay: "i really dont know 'im that well, could be!" Engie: "y'dont need a gender t'solve PRACTICAL problems."

Jimbo manages to do better that next round, on the starfox stage that isnt the plane that i forget the name of, because engie couldn't pick up momentum after that thrown away stock and Jimbo took it and ran with it. Comona: "Jimbo was looking real comfortable up there in the vacuum of space, where I assume he was born…?" Ryan: "hes dadondorf's son, and who knows where dadondorf came from." Everything about dadondorf's background except his immediate familial relationships is an absolute mystery and I think thats delightful. it creates so many questions that will not be answered. He adopted a (Apparently Potentially Alien in Origin.) orphan hedgehog as a son after his birth parents' passing. He married a meat dragon. Jimbo's granddad is a fucking BOAT

Round 3 commences on Mementos. Jimbo's a gamer, but as a persona fan hes never actually played a persona game before, so he might be at a disadvantage. Jimbo has a bit of a panic attack during the set after losing first stock and loses his second with an SD. Jimbo manages to avoid a 3-stock and gets close to taking it to last stock, but no dice. To losers bracket with the poor emo kid.

Larry vs. Whip. Pre-match predictions for larry matches are pointless. donations from real life chat members serve the in-universe/in-character purpose of helping to pay for the high upkeep costs of the stadium and facilities with all these explosive, destructive matches going on here, which is kinda funny. Never seen a tournament arc where they mention the tournaments gotta crowdfund a budget for repairing the stage when someone hits someone else into the floor so hard they leave an anime crater because of how often it happens

Larry pulls out bubblegum banjo on wuhu island. Larry's in whips head, hes in the commentators heads, hes in the AUDIENCE'S heads. nobody knows wtf is goin on but its entertaining and he's winning. Whip is having fun and playing on the ledges. It is not doing her any good. Comona: "yknow, if Larry just had a main he might be one of the best players in kerfuffle history." Ryan: "bold of you to assume his adhd will allow him to focus on having a main." Comona: "thats what im Saying, like, if he Could, but that's just not how life is balanced." Jay: "the way i see it, Larry is so good BECAUSE he doesnt have a main. Hes got that GENERAL knowledge." Comona: "got those fundies down." Ryan: "mhm, a new character could come out today and he could probably beat you with 'em." Larry <3

They discuss how it must be rough for Whip as a newbie to get matched against Larry round one, the unpredictability probably rattling her a bit. Ryan: "I mean, it all depends on what Larry ends up rolling, if Larry rolls something she can deal with then Whip could do well, y'know?" Jay: "a good point." Comona: "mhm. An interesting thing, to not be in control of your own fate." Ryan: "That's why Larry thrives."

Larry rolls Peach, they suggest Whip's experience with her team leader Hoedown might help her some as far as familiarity with the fighting style goes. Larry gets a stitch very early and doesn't even bother to use it just to fuck with Whip. Just to flex. Despite Whip's strong damage lead, Larry takes first stock. Things go down to even on last stock, and whip manages to take one game. They make a game of trying to guess what character larry will be and they're all wrong he's blue dark pit and he decimates whip on warioware

Bing vs. P. Rool. Cue the booing. Bing you're not winning this one. Comona says Bing has been overshadowed by the Green Roy, Google, (before he's even been born,) and is out here to show his stuff as a perfectly respectable player in his own right. Bing has an inferiority complex over a guy that straight up doesn't exist yet. like a kid sibling getting jealous of the new baby getting all the attention before it's even born. Jay: "I have my… feelings, about P. Rool, obviously, but objectively, with my experiences with real life combat because this is all happening in real life, Bing has a sword, but P. Rool has projectiles he has no way to counter. It's coming down to P. Rool on this one." P. Rool has a strong damage lead and Bing Chromicides him about it. Then P. Rool stops him from recovering the next time theyre offstage for an instant. And then destroys his last stock with all the swift ease of swatting a fly. Ryan, terrified: "I THINK P. ROOL'S MAD, GUYS. I THINK HE'S OUT FOR BLOOD?" Jay, similarly shaken: "ive never seen him do that before." Comona: "this has gotten very personal." Ryan: "im worried for MY safety! Round 2 I guess!"

Bing takes it to Dracula's castle because he saw P. Rool lose to twist here. P. Rool takes first stock so quickly but Bing isnt going down without a fight and manages to take the next game in another very fast match. Bing takes P. Rool's first stock (and his own) in Yet Another Chromicide, truly his signature strategy when fighting a tough opponent is and has always been Youre Coming Down With Me, Fucker, because he struggles to be confident in his ability to win without also completely wrecking his own shit in the process. P. Rool takes game 3 and sends Bing to losers. Bing says he'll see P. Rool again next time, Jay mistakes it for sportsmanship before Ryan clarifies that no he's shittalking like hes gonna decimate that lizard the next time they fight. Truly Bing is this interesting blend of stupid, deeply insecure, and yet profoundly overconfident, all of which compound into a man who is straight up going to get himself killed in the stupidest most unnecessary possible way just trying to prove something noone was honestly asking him to someday

Dr. Order. vs Therapuppy <3 a scientist who's been creating artificial life in pursuit of creating the ultimate fighter aaaaaaand. A therapist. 'That she might probably need.' lol. First round is on midgar, Comona: "which is probably where Dr. Order resides. Big City where people won't uh. Question your experiments." As Therapuppy wracks up almost 90 damage without order landing a single hit, the Commentators guess that Dr. Order is having a hard time mentally psyching herself up to hit a puppy. Jay: "i feel very strongly that Dr. Order is evil, but not cruel." Oh how time will mark you as naive. Therapuppy steals Order's ball with her fishing rod twice and yeets her for the final stock.

Before round 2, Jay describes Dr. O as someone who has a knowledge of psychology, but like None of the people skills necessary to apply it usefully, unlike Therapuppy whose training in not only that but as a therapist and counselor give her a very particular dominance in the realm of mind games that leaves her with an inherent advantage in this matchup because Dr. Order thinks she knows more than she actually does. Comona references Short Skirt/Long Jacket by Cake in reference to thera. 'I want a therapist with a funny dogy and long, looooong fishing rod.'

the Doctor is nooooot the best as a fighter in terms of skill, but she is described by Comona as a hard hitter and her experience as a personal trainer (and coach, of her creations,) is touted as evidence she knows what it takes to create success and build strength, which. As we see later proves mostly only technically true to any extent of machi and quad, really. Despite this, order does manage to eek out a game two win against thera utilizing deep breathing. Jay: "i think Deep Breathing is some kind of experimental proprietary invention of Dr. Orders because lemme tell ya. I breathe and that doesn't happen." Ryan: "yeah but is your breathing deep." Jay: "gimme a sec lemme try that." Jay leaves. Comona and ryan giggle to themselves about him punching a hole in the wall as gamers are wont to do. Jay, returning: "MILLIONS ARE DEAD."

Round three goes stock for stock, therapuppy managing some excellent mind games and strategy. Therapuppy's happy to have (hopefully) helped the doctor and with the doctor's 'regular stoic vibe' shes like. "Interesting. I'll have to remember this." And goes to losers. Every cpuk villain starts off as vaguely stoic or otherwise emotionally restrained in some fashion and then just Unhinge at some point

Dark Jimbo vs. Whip Losers round one. Comona accurately predicts its going to be a looooong one, especially so with CPUs. this sets' record for The Longest Match in CPUK History's never been dethroned, and thats probably because it nearly singlehandedly drove the decision to add a timer. Especially funny remembering his dad hamhel fought the shortest, the legendary match from 20 with val that could fit, in its entirety, in one twitch clip. Jay: "dark jimbo has like… powers of darkness, right? Not like evil darkness powers, but like-" Ryan: "I mean, i thought it was just aesthetic, but he could, I mean we've seen stranger." This set runs so long it makes jimbo reconsider his approach to both combat and life itself and in his second match starts putting effort into closing out kills much more. Whip continues to play the patient waiting game and it doesn't pay off. First 2-0 of the night.

Bing vs. Dr. Order. Hell on earth. A point is made of how dr. Order's patient methodical combat mindset just doesnt work for someone who gets up in your face and stays there before you can think like bing does. Round one is on castle siege, which they joke about being microsoft headquarters. Bill Gates lives in a Fucking Castle. Bing keeps the lead for most of the match but Order brings it to last stock with a Fancy set of maneuvers. Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just got away with a sick move. Ryan: "this one isnt open and shut- Bing's an explosive player but eventually that's gonna blow up in his face." Bing takes it.

Ryan: "I think, Dr Order, like whip, thrives with very patient play, but thats not gonna work against bing, who is All About getting up in your face." The commentators agree- Dr. Order needs to adjust her strategy to be more aggressive. She does not do this. Bing also does not change his strats. Comona: "say what you will about Bing- he gets results." Jay: "just maybe not as many as google." lol

After losing, Dr Order pulls out a notebook to start writing something down as she leaves. Ryan: "thats not… something we should be worried about, should we…?" Jay: "this is fine."

Chat asked about them. Gen4's chilling. Is a platinum speedrunner (which is an oxymoron) now

Engie TF2 vs Larrold. Once again no point to predicting the outcome of larry matches, only measuring his opponents' adaptability. Larry rolls luigi and ryan and comona interpret this as Larry making fun of engie for being short. Ryan: "it doesnt feel like Engie is learning, if anything Larry's learning." Comona: "if larry's learning then this whole bracket is over." Ryan: "yeah, larry's a fucking learning computer." Jay: "do we have word from Squid Jenny if Larry can control who he gets?" Ryan: "sometimes. Only sometimes." Larry rolls mega'd man next and does 70 damage before engie can land even one hit, and survives on first stock to 200%. Engie alllllllllmost brings it back but larry still fucking gets him.

Comona: "Larry's really shining now- its good to see this kind of glowup from larry. hes always had some potential but honestly- its kind of- touching, Larry has embraced the chaos inside of himself and isnt hiding anymore, hes not afraid of it anymore and hes just here like 'This is who i am.'" shrimp emotions about this one

P. Rool vs. Therapuppy. Jay just got a phone call. Ryan and comona discuss. From the standpoint of the competition, comonas still pretty sure this is p. rools game, but that he's going to learn more from it than any other match he's ever fought in. Ryan thinks thera might take a game at least. Thera takes first stock despite p. rool's damage lead, and prool takes it to even, but thera makes shockingly short work of p. rool. Comona: "who knew that what p. rool really needed was Fucking Therapy?"

Jay gets a call from a friend in his dimension, and. His P. Rool is still there. He got a snapchat from him hes at quizno's with jacob. Thera starts the second match before the commentators can process this. Who the fuck is this guy because hes Not P. Rool. Jay: "think about it- how many times have i said he wasn't like this in my world?" Comona: "an IMPOSTER? AMONG US?"

P. Rool just has no counter strat for the fishing rod. Therapuppy 2-0s P. Rool, to the astonishment of the commentators. Jay explains after talking more with his P. Rool, that hes never come to this dimension even once for a kerfuffle. It's been this mystery guy the WHOLE time, in a case of identity theft. Chat ponders potential crimson involvement but ryan shoots this down as unlikely and sends Squid Jenny to ask the guy some questions. P. Rool grabs her, changing color with white-hot-rage and promptly starting a battle. This is E. Rool. Enraged K. Rool.

Ryan: "the therapy didnt Work, hes just Mad as Fuck now!" Comona: "he's resentful about how he's been treated- Which- which i guess is fair, but don't resort to violence against the TO! You're gonna get banned!" Ryan: "way he sees it, we clearly don't give a shit about the rules, why should he?" Comona: "which i mean… he… but we run the event, right…?" Ryan: "i mean yeah, we run the event, but that's just what he's saying." Jay: "realistically I see where he's coming from but identity theft and…" Comona: "but violence is never the answer. Harming your fellow man is…" Ryan: "your fellow squid, even." Comona: "your fellow squid or kid even." They are saying this about bloodsport. They are saying violence is never the answer about bloodsport. Comona expresses hope that this will help E. Rool get the frustration out of his system so he can calm down. Small voice. Small baby bird. and commends jenny for sticking out the fight in the meantime. They describe E. Rool's eyes as glazed over in a blind rage, like he's just absolutely gone, beyond reason. Home MD retrieves Jenny, she's in good condition, just in need of some medical attention. Ryan makes a joke about donating to help pay for jenny's medical bills and then has to clarify for chat that yes you do in fact get medical insurance working for iggy dont worry

E. Rool vs. Jimbo. They do not have high hopes. Jimbo does better than expected with a big target on the small bright stage of prism tower, he keeps it sorta even. E. Rool is playing cruel and cheap, fueled by the rage of both being cheated time and time again, and of being exposed as a fraud. He's so angry that he's just letting himself get hit. In the second round they get a darker stage, and Jimbo's doing better, getting hits in. Comona: "hes like batman, he thrives in the darkness." Ryan: "he is just like batman, in fact i think the fact that you just said that gave him power." He loves batman. One of his idols, jay says. So excited about the comparison. Imagining jimbo in a little batman costume for halloween. adorable. Anyway he footstooled E. Rool about it. Truly jimbo's performance in combat is directly tied to his current self-esteem. Jimbo brings it to last stock but doesn't win. The commentators get scared hes gonna SD again but Jimbo says 'nah those days are behind me now that im BATMAN' and then immediately gets launched into the blast zone. E. Rool: "im da joker, baby."

Bing vs. Engie tf2. Theyre pretty confident in Bing. Jay: "in comparison to bing, engie over heres looking like yahoo." Chat: "bing gonna make engie look like jeeves." Bing gets runover by a boat twice. Bing hates water. Greatest weakness. future lore making this Bing also getting killed instantly by space hornets. The commentators call game one a very overconfident homie game. Engie keeps schmoving around him but Bing manages to take it to last stock, but Engie ultimately 2-0s. Bing tells engie to take care of the big man for him.

Winners Finals. Larry vs Therapuppy. The winners finals noone expected but everyone wanted. The populist's choice. Comona thinks this will be a tough one for therapuppy, because larry is already Very comfortable with who he is, even if, for the good of Society that might be best changed. Hes comfy with the chaos. Therapuppy's goal is making people happy and better and Larry's already got himself figured out. Jay thinks this is still in therapuppy's corner because nobody knows what to do with the fishing rod and he doesnt think larry's an exception. Larry lies to a therapist about being illiterate on international television, potentially to avoid confronting his trauma on the same internationally televised scale. <3 florida schools dont teach you to read but they do teach you to handle gators. Therapuppy presses, trying to get to the root of why not being able to read makes him so insecure, and Larry's probably just doing everything in his power not to laugh. Round 1 goes to thera.

Larry rolls lonk from pennsylvania for round 2 on skyloft, or rather, either lenk from north carolina or lunk from ohio. Take your pick the commentators can't decide, but one way or another he's 'betraying even his origins,' even as the commentators also decide skyloft overlooks florida. Larry gets real silly with this one, takes it to last stock, but Therapuppy 2-0s, sending Larry to losers.

E. Rool vs. Engie tf2. Jay thinks hes too angry right now to fight smart, so engie Might take it. Chat asks if E. Rool is a free agent, and the commentators say they dont know, they dont know much about E. Rool except that hes mad as hell, strong as hell and a Liar. Jay speculates that Team Chonk might consider kicking him out with these new developments. Engie struggles to close a kill without the help of the stage, and no hat is hard enough to stop E. Rool from crushing his skull. The second round is only more painful. Engie manages one funny stock before E. Rool kills him dead.

Losers finals. Larry vs. E. Rool. Utmost excitement from the commentators. Larry pulls out sans hoodie ice climbers to megalovania. They go stock for stock down to the wire and Larry takes it and its legendary i dont need to give the play by play its all match commentary because its So Much that theres just nothing else to talk about. E. Rool: "how did i lose???" Larry, turning back to original form: "heh. maybe its the way you're dressed."

Round 2. Larry rolls Venus skin palu (before venus even exists.) This does not go as well as the ice climbers as far as weird picks goes, E. Rool leads the whole round. Ryan gets mad at Larry doing less well this round and has to remind himself not to expect anything of him and just enjoy the ride. He's not great at Palu, so E. Rool takes it, but Larry started taking it back more toward the end than expected. Lategame matches before voice acting became a bigger part of the format tend to have a lot less lore in them because the commentators are too tense about the actual matches themselves.

Round 3, Larry rolls kirby, its very even, E. Rool bled in his fight with Machi. Its apparent, though, that Larry's more interested in this being a good show than winning, and brings it to last stock even damage, but Larry finally gets yeeted. Commentators express certainty that in terms of raw skill, these two are equals, and Larry lost because the unpredictable factors of his condition simply didnt quite roll in his favor today.

E. Rool vs. Therapuppy. True finals. Therapuppy takes first stock after only moments of doubt from ryan, maintains a lead on at least damage the rest of the first match. Fishing rod inescapable. E. Rool's getting Scared of it, but E. Rool manages to take first round only because he survives to 200% and thera is much more launchable than him. Thera doesnt mind losing- she takes it in stride and goes into their second round with a smile. Round 2, thera makes it to 200% before losing first stock, E. Rool leads this match, until thera spikes him for his second stock. They end up even almost blow for blow on last stock until thera finally smashes him into the blast zone to take it. Round 3, norfair florida. Thera's just having a good time. E. Rool's so mad hes not thinking and its making it difficult for him to learn and adapt to Thera's plays, so thera sticks with the tried and true tactics and things keep fairly even, up until the end. E. Rool bracket resets.

Everyone takes a nice break, things have been way, way too tense in a scary sort of way, but E. Rool seems to calm down, and he and Therapuppy are seen having a talk, (Apparently one reason in-universe there were less visible voiceacted scenes at this point was just not having the sound equipment for it,) and since Jenny's down right now Home fills in for her to check up on things- and E. Rool almost attacks him, but Thera talks him down. The commentators reevaluate- is he really that bad of a guy? Like, he's been playing the heel, but realistically, the only reason he's gotten so angry and unmanageable is because HE'S following the rules and no one else is, and until things hit this boiling point he hadn't really even put up that much of a stink about it, beyond a little complaining. Home MD comes back with a report: his real name. Plum K. Rool. Thats always been his name- there was just a bit of a… mixup, because he shortens it to P. Rool too, and he kinda… ran with it. Played it like a character. A lie he didn't even intend to be telling at first just got too big.

Thera and Plum run into the reset in good spirits. Plum's doing better taking a step back and just enjoying the ride. Still sucks that he took out his anger on Jenny- and hes not feeling too good about it either- the tournament will surely be followed by apologies, or maybe he'll continue to be a heel about it, but either way the commentators are fine with that- its just good to see the competitors remember that in the end it's just a game, and it's supposed to be fun. A good time. The commentators discuss how dangerous E. Rool clearly was during his blind rage- and how Thera couldve easily gotten seriously hurt if she hadnt been careful. Things go to last stock, even% on round one of the reset, and thera almost takes it but fails to recover. Second round is on mario maker, P. Rool's favorite stage. Cute. Thera takes it, sending it to game 3 of reset on dreamland, final round. The whole sets been electric, down to last stocks of last sets with short leads, P. Rool fearing and respecting Thera's power but ultimately juuuuust clinching a win.

Therapuppy: "Congratulations P. Rool! Im happy for you!" Plum: "b. I. H. i thought. You didnt. You didnt want me to win?" Thera: " course not. You're my friend! Course im happy that you won, why wouldnt i be?" Plum: "yknow what? thanks therapuppy. Thanks." And they have a nice hug.

Ryan claims that if P. Rool actually wins he'll actually let him win this time. Plum K. Rool vs. Captain Valen- hold up. Squid Jenny, who is fine now, getting a report from the field. Val and Plum are talking, and asked Val who his best friend is, and hes got no idea who to say except johannsen. Not sure if he was just caught off guard by the odd question and picked the rat as the first friend that came to mind or if hes genuinely made better friends with the rat in the past month or so than he is with gordo's revenge, visible man or rights sentience but the former feels more likely. Either way Plum wants to make the champion bout a team doubles match to celebrate his victory with the only person who's really rooted for him. Thera says she would've done the same. Val and jojo have pretty good team synergy. It goes down to thera vs. val on last stock and val takes it, remaining champion. Comona: "where valentine goes, johannsen follows." Ryan: "yeah, ever since dantoinette kind of- yknow."

And so dusks the P.rool arc and the dawn of Spoiler alert! doctor order being the Worst rises.

#cpu kerfuffle #rewatch

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cosmic-hearts · 4 years

Text

hate or love? | lee donghyuck

You awake with a start, blurry vision slowly swimming into focus. You stare at the mass of sky blue around you and almost fall right out of the bed. Since when were your bedroom walls blue? Then you look down at the bed beneath you and gasp aloud, because it isn’t yours either.

That’s also when you realize an arm around your waist holding you in place, and you whip around to see the sleeping face of the bane of your existence, Lee Donghyuck.

You would have screamed, if not for the searing headache that tears through your skull right at that exact moment, threatening to rip it apart. You let out a moan of agony and shift uncomfortably beneath the deadweight of Donghyuck’s arm.

“You shouldn’t have drunk so much last night,” a husky voice slurs in your ear, and in spite of yourself, you feel chills running down your spine.

“Shut up,” you recollect your senses and hiss, latching your hand onto his arm to detach it from your waist, filled with regret at agreeing to come to his stupid party with Mark last night. But Donghyuck refuses to remove himself from you and even has the nerve to pull your body closer to his. Your body goes rigid in his arms.

“Don’t leave,” he murmurs softly, lips grazing the shell of your ear. The usual acerbic bite is gone from his voice, replaced with a pleading tenderness and a quiver of uncertainty that makes you forget your resolve to hate him, just for a little bit.

“Why?” You venture to ask, wanting but fearing his answer.

“You shouldn’t move too much yet; you’re hungover. You’ll get nowhere with that headache and you know it. Don’t want you fainting in my house.” It’s bullshit and you both know it, a diversion from his true feelings beneath that mask of cavalier.

You don’t say anything for a moment, your fogged-up brain trying to register the feel of his strong arm draped across your stomach, the back of your head resting against his chest. So close to his heart you swear you can hear the steady rhythm of its beating.

You’d never admit that you don’t ever want to leave the warm embrace of the boy you hate so much.

“Fine. But after this we’re going right back to hating each other’s guts, and don’t you dare bring this up ever again.

You can feel him stiffen behind you, just for a fraction of a second, but his hold on you doesn’t loosen. If anything, he pulls you impossibly closer.

And then he gently snuggles his face into the crook of your neck, as though trying to breathe as much of you in as possible before having to let you go.

“Of course,” Donghyuck whispers against your skin.

It’s hard to miss the hurt in his voice.

—

a/n; just a short lil hyuck blurb hehe,,, rlly wanna start writing chaptered fics again but idt ill have time anymore :(( so many ideas floating around in my head tho siiigh

ALSO!! i rlly need help on this—does anyone know why my tumblr icon is always pixelated whenever i reply to replies on my posts :( ik it flags explicit / sensitive content but i don’t even have any posts on my main blog (cosmic-hearts2)? like yall can go check lol theres literally 0 posts... and i don’t think this writing blog covers anything explicit either so i’m really confused ?? and when i try to change the icon on my main blog it just reverts back to the default one :(( if anyone knows how to fix this pls help!! bc i hate that my blog is flagged as explicit when i really dont think i have any explicit content on any of my blogs? sigh pls send help if yall can <3

#lee donghyuck #lee donghyuck scenarios #lee donghyuck fluff #lee donghyuck imagines #lee donghyuck angst #nct haechan #haechan scenarios #haechan nct #haechan fluff #nct dream #nct drabbles #nct dream scenarios #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 drabbles #nct 127 soft hours #haechan soft hours #lee donghyuck soft hours

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tfw-no-tennis · 4 years

Text

hxh....MUSICAL

as soon as i saw that a hunter x hunter musical from the year 2002 starring the OG 99 VAs existed, i knew i has to see this...so i set out and watched the nightmare of zoldyck (i would later find out that theres ANOTHER musical, which i plan to watch too)

luckily its all on youtube subbed! in 360 quality...oh hell yes lmao

ok i logically knew this was gonna be a musical but seeing the characters singing is like. a lot. THIS IS SO STRANGE

musical illumi is played by a woman which is interesting. shes got a good voice

i think they just panned to killua but it was so pixelated that i legitimately could not tell hvbadjkfbjkdsf

i have no idea whats going on vhbajdfhhajsdf theres a bunch of people falling over on stage...i think theyre dying? who are yall

oh shit backup dancers?

lmao illumi killed the backup dancers rip.

oh that IS killua lol. s/o to the 3 pixels that are visible

is this gonna be the zoldyck arc but a musical? lmao

OH WAIT IS THAT KURAPIKA AND LEORIO? i cant even tell lmaoooo

i can 100% tell these are fan subs lmaooo i love bad fan subs SO MUCH it makes a viewing experience even better

this is p much just a musical version of the manga/anime so far lmao i love it

the way theyre spelling zoldyck is. a lot

is every character gonna get an intro song. how much of this musical is singing and how much of it is dialogue cause theres defs a range w/musicals

lmao i love gon leorio and kurapikas interactions even here, they rlly feel like two parents being dragged around by their energetic kid

i cant even see the set at all so im just gonna assume theres like, the gate and all that behind them, but it all just looks like a dark wall to me lmao

i love singing exposition

HISOKAS IN THIS???????????????????? oh my lorddddd

OH i see now in the description that hes played by the 99 VA too lmao i love it

wow musical hisoka rlly b like [writes himself into the zoldyck family arc]

oh here we go w/the song introducing the zoldycks

damn grandpa got mad flips

this is. wild

its especially wild that alluka isnt here bc she like...didnt even exist yet at this point in the story

zoldyck family sitcom wow

i see the gon/killua romance is still going strong in the musical

oh so they did all the training and goin thru the door stuff offscreen lol

this is actually doing a pretty good job expanding on the canon stuff from this arc lol so props. espec w/showing more of killua being scared of illumi

oooh this is interesting actually, this is like....an AU where illumi is present during this arc, and how that would change things. And Also They Sing

the zoldycks are so fucked up lmao

also i feel like theres some ‘early adaptation’ character weirdness going on, like w/the grandpa, who seems much less intense here than in the anime (at least after seeing him in the yorknew arc), and milluki, who seems like a gag character here lmao

oh my god lmao is hisoka here to visit illumi?

the hilarious irony of illumi telling killua that assassins cant have friends, then going to hang out with his good buddy hisoka

kurapika is the only one here with a brain cell (for now)

ah yes hisoka and illumi doing their nasty murder flirting thing

HISOKA IS SO NASTYYYY I HATE HIM tho his actor is very good and smarmy

OH its canary!! is there uh. blackface goin on there. i cant actually tell, what with there being only 3 pixels present at any given time

really love how half of this is just the regular arc but with the characters singing abt stuff during it

the lady playing killuas mom has a rlly good screeching voice jesus lmao

ohh i love musical fighting so much

the sound fx on kurapikas sticks are cracking me up

butlers got mad cartwheels

oh theyre doing the coin thing! this is so out of order lmao

oh my god i love that theyre doing like, sick dance moves while coin flipping

ah the zoldyck messenger hawk makes an appearance. i love that thats canon and real

the 12 yr old gay romance is REAL even here

the subs seems to be translated very literally, especially in the songs, so its honestly not clear what theyre even singing about vbsjkdjhfskjfd

gon and killua singing about each other is adorable tbh. also i love how silva asks killua abt his friends and killua is like yeah i made some friends. and then only talks abt gon ahjsduhfabhskdf gayboy

ok so the zoldyck arc is like, ending, but theres still an hr of musical left so whats even gonna happen lmao. also where did hisoka go

oh no the audio and video arent synced anymore huvbhjadfbhjsakdf

oooh they asked canary to come w/them, thats cool

theyre having a party??? hvbajdsfbhasjkdf

oh shit??? what did zeburo just do to killua??? WHATS GOING ONNN lol this is UNCHARTED TERRITORY

OH GOD IT WAS ILLUMI. SHOULDVE KNOWNNN

omggg all their formal outfits....everyone cheering wildly at kurapika is cute

LEORIO AND KURAPIKA DANCING.....

the fact that both killua and gon are taller than kurapika in this is rlly funny

the idea that the zoldycks are also highly trained ballroom dancers is super hilarious to think about, even moreso when you consider how isolationist they are

seriously grandpas got mad flips

also i love leorios outfit

this feels like a filler arc tbh. and i dont mean that in a bad way!

leorio trying to get kurapika to go to the hot springs with him lmaoooo

HVDSJBJFSBFJHS HISOKAS BACK. IN DISGUISE. OH MY GOD

hisokas stage presence is fantastic gotta say

damnnnn dad zoldycks got mad flips too. guess it runs in the family

props to the actors for managing to keep their wigs on while flipping around like that

its so fuckgin funny thats hisoka just introduces himself as illumis friend, when this whole arc is all about how assassins Cannot Have Friends

so hisoka is just here trying to get family approval too huh

gon miming a fishing trip was adorable and realistic...sometimes u get skunked and It Just Be Like That

leorio is rlly tryin to shoot his shot w/kurapika and kp is just Not Realizing huh vbjsdufjbsaukjf

wow leorio breakin the fourth wall like that lmao

wow so illumi hacked killua. rude

hisoka and illumi are lowkey hilarious in this

leorio is rlly sending every signal possible to kurapika and kp is like. No

leorio: killua is a scary murder baby, but also im adopting him

kurapika singing abt how weird it is having friends after dedicating their life to Revenge(tm) is v on brand

HISOKA OH BOY

LMAOOOO HISOKA IS SUCH A FUCKING SNITCH I CANT

no wonder illumi didnt wanna tell him abt his evil plan lmaoooo he fucked up even telling hisoka that much clearly

the zoldyck siblings just staring at hisoka in confusion bc How The Fuck Did This Clown Get In Our House hvbhjdksfnjksdf

you can tell the subs are off when the audience is cracking up but you dont even see a joke there lmao

oh my goddd hisoka using bungee gum to make everyone dance is. hilarious

oh my god synchronized dancing

HVBSHDJFBJDSKFHBSJ illumi doing a dance routine independent of hisoka and hisoka being like ????? vhbjsdkhfjkjsdnfkj THIS IS HILARIOUS

supremely funny to me how illumi makes such a big point abt assassins not having friends, yet hisoka is announcing himself as illumis friend w/every given opportunity hvbhajdkdfhjskf

this feels so filler arc i love it. thats so charming to me since the 2011 anime doesnt have any filler (from what i can tell?)

kurapika and leorio rlly feel like killuas parents here lmaooo

this is all dramatic but kurapika keeps repeating what leorio says and its cracking me up hvbajhkdhfbjsk

i lov this fambly

ah, even in the musical illumi is still such a manipulative bastard

i feel like the quality just went down EVEN MORE, which i didnt think was even possible hvbhjkdsfskf. at least the audio is synced w/the video again

illumis got a good evil laugh

this is the exact brand of dramatic angsty filler content that i was hoping for in this lmao i love it

oooh more zoldycks

honestly this is more how i expected the zoldyck arc to go in canon hbshjdkujfkjsfdas

dramatic gay filler angst + somewhat incorrect fansubs = perfection

OH SHIT CANARY

BRO DID SHE JUST DIE???? OMFG

the subs keep calling illumis power ‘spells’ which seems to imply that illumi is some sort of assassin wizard rather than a nen user hvbsudhfkjsdjgf

come to think of it, what point was the manga at when this musical was written? it has to be pretty early on, maybe just as nen was being introduced

gon boutta go ham on illumi...Get His Ass

OHHHH GON DOING THE ICONIC ARM GRAB....ARM GRAB REPRISE

gon doin the good ole reliable shounen ‘punch your friend and yell at them so they snap out of a funk’ lol

i do love how typically shounen this is. friendship speeches! but delivered by SONG!

illumis main hobby is butting in at the worst possible moments

HISOKAS BACK OH BOY

hisokas playing card blocked killuas hit hvbhjakdhsfjnakdsf thats like in jojo when those manga blocked dios knives

wow the whole zoldyck squad is here

ooh forbidden zoldyck lore lmao

killua: mom u guys are lame im joining this much cooler family now. bye

i love how hisoka is just weirdly lurking around for all this zoldyck drama lmao

silva seems like such a bro in this but i feel like hes rlly not like that in canon vhauidfhbsjhdkjfk

oh nope there he goes w/the evil laugh lmaooooo

sorry dude but leorio is his dad now

gon sniffing zeburo hgbajkdfshbjkdfjnsjdk oh my god

oh hell yeah some synchronized main character finale dancing

actor showcase! everyone loves kurapika which, same

ah so the director of this musical also directed the sailor moon musicals, which i didnt know existed but of course that exists...thats funny considering the hxh mangaka is married to the sailor moon mangaka

anyways that was fun honestly!!!! i fuckgin love musicals, and musical adaptations of non-musical source materials can be like, SO different tonally, but this honestly felt like a fun filler

it was really interesting seeing something based on the canon from this early on - as i said above, some of the characterizations (like the zoldycks) seems a bit different than we’re used to, but others were spot on - like hisoka only showing up intermittently to sow chaos and do nothing else vhjkadhbfhkjdsfnj im assuming the yorknew arc hadnt happened at this point, but hisokas actions in this musical were hilariously similar to how he acted in the yorknew arc, so, props.

plus it was cool to see the ‘what if’ factor w/hisoka and illumi also being there, espec illumi interacting w/killua bc its so wildly different from how killua reacts to any of his other family members - hes clearly scared of illumi, in a way he isnt w/anyone else, and that was done well here w/the scene where illumi threatens killua’s friends to get killua to listen to him

also the angst was honestly great, and there was some REALLY sweet wholesome parts that i loved. and the music wasnt half bad either!!

i think the VAs did a great job playing the characters - hisokas VA was especially great (and i really loved kurapika too). gons hair was not very similar to how it looks in the show so it was a little more obvious that he was being played by a grown woman, but still a great performance.

anyways fun times, i love musicals and this was a fun ole 2000s filler shounen musical adaptation

#lj watches hxh #well. hxh ancillary material #also we're almost done w/the chimera ant arc but i still gotta edit up my heavens arena stuff hvbhjsdfbjdskgs epic fails #i have all my chimera ant liveblogs ready to go but i dont wanna post things outta order Ls #hxh

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widowmaker-na · 5 years

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kayn masterpost

(long post)

hey guys. as you guys are all probably aware, im a bit of a kayn enthusiast and he’s by far my favorite champion in the game. that being said, i play him a lot. i have over 500 games on him, and my ranked winrate hovers between 59-62%, which I know isn’t that great but that’s not the point. ive met a lot of people who are new to the game or new to jungle who have asked for recommendations and i kinda just wanted to give my input on why i play kayn and why he’s a strong pick. im by no means an expert, but I do have plenty of experience with the champion and would love to see more people playing him. if anyone has something they would add or change, feel free to do so; i want this to be as informative as possible for both new and experienced players. so without further ado, let’s get into it. **a lot of this is written with game terms so msg me if there’s something you aren’t sure on**

strengths and weaknesses

jungle is a pretty volatile role right now, with the meta going every which way, so it makes sense that im going to talk about kayn as a solo queue jungler. here’s a few things that kayn offers in solo q, as well as a few of his shortcomings. ill explain a few of these in detail later on, as well as how you can play around them.

pros:

- fast, healthy clear

- insane map scaling with e and q

- inventive gank pathing

- incredibly versatile

- strong mid/late game

- low skill floor with a decently high skill ceiling

- percent max health dmg from rhaast

- mixed damage from shadow assassin

- high mobility

cons:

- laughable early game

- needs items to function

- useless** until form

- cant deal with most meta junglers

- loses most 1v1’s

- no strong crowd control without form

- your team will always pressure you to go rhaast

- big learning curve with gank pathing and positioning

kayn is understandably weaker before his form, which is often one of the reasons he can be frustrating to play in the early game; however, he’s actually quite strong early if used right. kayn is one of the few junglers who can do a full clear and still be full health, considering that you kite and smite effectively. his clear is also extremely fast, giving him more time to be creating pressure on the map. at levels 2-3 specifically, you will usually finish your second camp before your opponent, giving you a few extra seconds to make plays. ganking early as kayn is crucial to doing well, as the sooner you get your form, the better off you’ll be.

because of kayn’s lack of cc and fast clear, a lot of newer kayn players will attempt to power farm and scale; however this is highly ineffective for establishing mid game dominance. as kayn, you should be ganking and skirmishing as often as possible, both to establish dominance and get form points. also, only ganking lanes who give you your desired form points is not that good of a strategy and can result in you losing the early game. regardless of the form you want, you need to be ganking lanes that are either overextended for no reason, or your winning lanes. these ganks are always more successful in the long run, and even if you get the wrong form, the wait usually is irrelevant if you’re winning.

another mistake i see is kayn players underestimating their damage, especially to objectives. at full health, kayn can actually solo drake at level 4 (more safely at level 5) and a lot of kayn players i see dont take advantage of this. if your lanes get early priority and you have it warded, go for the drake after your first back. the enemy team will definitely not expect it and you should be able to do it with no interruptions. additionally, with conqueror, kayn actually outputs a surprising amount of damage in skirmishes. don’t be afraid to make aggressive plays in the early game because of his weaknesses, play him like you would play any other jungler in terms of ganking and objective control.

clear

kayn has a lot of options for how he can do his first clear, and identifying which path you should be using is crucial to succeeding in the early game. The basic 4 paths i would recommend for kayn players are:

- red (leash), raptors, blue side

- red (leash), krugs, enemy gromp

- raptors, red, krugs, scuttle

- enemy wolves, enemy blue, enemy gromp

red (leash) into raptors into blue side:

this path is great if you do not win a lvl 3 fight with the enemy jungler and they start their red. with this route, you and the enemy will end up on opposite sides of the map and from there you can either gank or ward. it’s also the healthiest, although it doesn’t get you to lvl 3 the fastest. i would also recommend this pathing into lvl 2 gank junglers, as you will be by mid around the time they would look to gank, allowing you to countergank if necessary. do not go red into raptors into krugs unless you know you are ganking a side lane and will succeed, otherwise you waste time walking.

red (leash) into krugs (into enemy gromp):

another great route to run if you know the enemy started their red. this is the fastest route to hit level 3 and gank, as you can q over the wall to their blue side to get there faster. this also completely avoids pixel brush wards and is generally not a predictable . it also sets you up to gank a side lane from behind, which is the best way to guarantee success. i would not run this route and invade if you don’t know where the enemy started, as you might waste time walking to something that isn’t there. alternatively, going red, krugs, raptors is somewhat inefficient and can make you waste time walking so be careful running that route.

raptors into red into krugs:

this is one of kayn’s original routes, but I only use it if i am 100% set on ganking/counterganking at level 3 in a side lane. it’s slightly slower than red start routes, simply because you will not be receiving a leash, but works well if you are against a level 3 jungler like hecarim. this is also a decent route if you are unaware of whether you will be vertical jungling, as it allows you to stall for a bit before moving to gank or take blue side. do not run this route if the enemy jungler starts blue side as it leaves you open to invades and counter plays on the opposite side of the map. for example, if you see the enemy jungler goes blue to red, rotate to your blue side to counter their movement instead of full clearing.

enemy wolves into enemy blue/gromp:

debatably kayn’s best invade pathing in terms of vision avoidance and unpredictability, if the enemy jg starts their red, you can invade their wolves and get level 2. it’s about as fast as raptors start, so you don’t lose much time, from there, if you know their blue is warded, you can e to sneak around the ward and take their gromp. if not you can either steal blue or leave. this route does not get you level 3 quickly, but it is a good setup for a gank. you can also run this route if the enemy jungle starts blue, and you can either leave their jungle or attempt to cheese and steal their level 1 buff. be aware of how deep into enemy territory you are though, it’s easy to get collapsed on if you aren’t careful.

*notes*

notice that I haven’t added any allied blue starts which is because of how inefficient the route is for kayn. red side gives you red buff and has 2 aoe camps while blue side only has one, and it also doesn’t even give you lvl 3. plus, blue buff is useless for kayn in fights so it’s just not really that effective. however, if there is no other option, then don’t risk dying and just start blue.

another note for first clear, if the enemy jungler typically cannot clear raptors or krugs before level 3, you should attempt an invade on these camps. best case you get their camp, worst case you put a ward down and leave. it’s an easy way to get a lead over the enemy, as well as some respawn timers for later. this also applies to wolves, if you’re willing to make that commitment to an early invade.

finally, a bit of elaboration on early cheeses. if you know exactly what camp the enemy jungler is on, you can e through the nearby wall and attempt to smite steal the camp and leave. be incredibly careful when doing this, but if you know you will lvl up/deny a level to the enemy jungler, feel free to engage on them afterwards. this takes a bit of game knowledge to do, as well as good timing, but it can be a really strong way to tilt the enemy jungler and get free xp

ganking

kayn has one of the best abilities for initiating ganks in the game, but learning how and when to gank is crucial for coming out on top early. denying and avoiding vision takes time and practice to learn with kayn but by the time you get good at it, they won’t ever see you coming. kayn has 5 options for ganking, all of which have specific strengths and weaknesses that I will elaborate on.

- river gank

- drake/herald pit gank

- enemy jungle wall gank

- lane gank

- **reverse lane gank**

river gank:

this is the standard gank path for most junglers and is usually the one you’ll be running when the enemy team is pushed to your tower. you can either walk through river and save your e, or e through the wall closest to you to get into the lane. this gank pathing is solid, but i wouldn’t recommend it before your first back. the most important thing to getting this gank off is denying vision, so make sure to buy a control ward and scanner on your first back. use the scanner before you walk into the river and any wards there will be disabled, allowing you to gank without being seen (for the most part). also, don’t use this if the lane is towards the middle since you won’t be able to do much and they’ll run away. for mid lane especially, make sure the opposite bush is warded so you don’t get counterganked at the start

drake/baron pit gank:

used for the side lane where drake/baron pit is closest to the enemy. clear wards at drake and use your e to go through that wall and the one by tribush in order to get into the lane. id still recommended using scanner, just in case tri is warded, but this usually puts you at the best angle for ganks. be wary of how close you are to the enemy tower though, because you can easily get hooked/pushed into tower range if they see you coming. this route is only effective on pushed or even lanes, and can be used mid if you simply go the other way. if the enemy laner and your laner are fighting under your tower and the enemy isn’t backing off, do not run this route

enemy jungle wall gank:

used for the side lanes where drake/baron pit is on your side. similar to the drake into tribush gank, you go through the wall behind the enemy and flank from behind. if you go through drake/herald pit to the enemy blue entrance you should avoid river brush wards; however, you should start using scanner the second you get into the pit in the case of deep wards. this gank does work mid, but you run the risk of taking turret shots if you aren’t careful. if the enemy laner and your laner are fighting under your tower and the enemy isn’t backing off, do not run this route.

lane gank:

mostly used in side lanes where your team is about to engage or already has. this pathing is most effective if you have someone with a hook/pull/root like thresh or darius since you won’t be flanking from behind. this gank is effective regardless of where the wave is, but takes a bit of practice to do well. it also works best with shadow assassin because sa gives the enemies less time to react due to how fast he is. this gank is an effective way to countergank, but also allows you to back out easily if you get counterganked. for mid you kinda just run it down and help your laner, not much to say there.

**reverse lane gank**:

by far the worst gank option that could ever come out of league of legends. it hovers between stupid and broken, so use it accordingly. basically you gank from behind the enemy t1 turret and e through the wall into the lane. this only works on side lanes and honestly shouldn’t even be used then. buy a scanner and time the upcoming minion waves if you’re going to do this. i hate it.

*notes*

if you are counterganking a lane, don’t bother with fancy theatrics, just use the route that will get you to the action the fastest. for example, don’t drake/herald pit gank if the enemy team is under your tower, you’ll spend too much time walking.

also, scanner is absolutely necessary to flanking from behind and should be purchased early in the game. tell your team to get controls too.

shadow assassin vs. rhaast

this is really the last thing I’ll be talking about since micro and itemization is a bit niche and it’s not really worth mentioning, so just look up matchups and whatnot. im not really going to be giving you the strengths and weaknesses of each, but rather how each is played because it’s pretty obvious what each brings to the team.

shadow assassin:

sa is more of my main than rhaast is, meaning i can give you guys a few more tips here than there. you should run shadow assassin in 3 general situations

- your team has tank shred/ a bruiser

- your team has no ap

- the enemy team’s carries are squishy

obviously there are exceptions such as a full tank enemy team or your team having no tank and needing one, but those are the general situations. often, your team will give you reasons to run rhaast instead, but these are NOT reasons why you should.

- “rhaast is more meta”

- “we have no cc”

- “they have too much peel”

rhaast is the better pick in terms of utility but that does not mean he is more meta. additionally, if your team has survived without cc they can likely continue to do so (death is the greatest form of cc). finally, a good shadow assassin player will have absolutely no regard for enemy peel if they position and engage correctly; people slip up all the time and you are there to capitalize on that.

shadow assassin is far more versatile than rhaast is, and is less limited to landing his cc and staying alive. that being said, sa has a far higher skill cap than rhaast does and should be played accordingly. sa is best used like any other assassin, weaving in and out of teamfights and making picks; however, sa also has incredibly short cool downs, unlike most assassins. you should constantly be using your w and e to poke and scout around before a fight, just make sure not to die while doing so.

if you have blue buff, e all over the place and be annoying as hell. you’ll usually pose enough of a threat to get them to back off/ reposition so use that to your advantage. honestly there isn’t much i can tell you about teamfighting with him because you kinda have to learn that stuff yourself.

when ganking as sa, you can pretty much run any route effectively, but flanking from behind is always preferable.

personally, if you want to climb, shadow assassin is just so much better at solo carrying than rhaast is but im pretty biased so. if you’re trying to close out a game early, always go shadow assassin. that’s about it.

rhaast:

if for some reason you feel morally obligated to go rhaast, only do it when you absolutely cannot go shadow assassin. if your team has absolutely no cc, go rhaast. that’s honestly about it. it does come down to personal preference mostly, so if you do enjoy rhaast more don’t listen to me and play rhaast. anyways, rhaast can act both as a frontline and as a backline diver, so play accordingly to what your team needs. your job in fights is to just q w q w q w and survive. you’re only really useful bc of the tank shred and knockup so don’t hesitate to let your team handle the dps. as rhaast, it can be easy to overestimate your damage and healing, so only go into fights you know you can win. think of rhaast more like base kayn with cc rather than having a different playstyle.

more importantly, you are not an assassin so don’t play like one. rhaast is easily kited and his abilities are easy to avoid, so don’t dive the backline for kills if you are alone. if you do have to dive the backline, your job is to keep them cc’d and out of the fight for as long as possible so your team can clean them up at the end. if you’re playing frontline, peel for your backline and hit as many people with your abilities as possible. you heal for a pretty substantial amount of damage so don’t be afraid to tank major enemy abilities for your team. if you think you’re going to have to do all of the damage in fights late game, reconsider choosing rhaast.

finally when ganking with rhaast, always flank from the sides of behind and wait until all enemy mobility is blown to w if possible. you really rely on your w to pull off successful ganks as rhaast, so play accordingly and don’t blow it for no reason.

—-

well guys, that’s about all. sorry for the long post, but i just wanted to get a little bit of knowledge about kayn down on paper, as it might help a lot of people looking to learn him. tl;dr, kayn is a strong pick with a lot of room to improvise and adapt to your opponent. he’s a pretty forgiving jungle champion, making him a decent pick to learn the role with. as i said earlier, if you guys think anything here should be changed or elaborated on, just reply or dm me directly. good hunting!

#loooooong post #kayn #rhaast #kayn guide #mine #game stuff #league of legends #reblog this if you guys dont mind i dont want it to die here

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amoristt · 7 years

Text

Sunday Keepsakes | Nathan x Reader

disclaimer: i know nathan is not a good person. i am not putting a blanket over his actions in this fic. i, the writer, understand he’s not an innocent character and has made many terrible choices. im just answering people’s requests, please dont put me under the fire for it.

thank you.

Anonymous asked: Hi could you write a fluffy NSFW nathan x reader but they're married?

i loved writing this sooo much... i tried to age him mentally as much as i could, hopefully its not too ooc! enjoy <3

reblogs + tags and replies will make my entire day as i put a lot of effort into this!

story continues beneath the read more. let me know if you can’t access it!

Warning: language

Rain was the soft sound you’d woken up to. It pattered against the windows that were still covered by pulled down curtains, and when you rolled over you found the other side of the bed empty. You groaned disappointedly and brought yourself to sit up. Tired and hazy from your slumber, the blankets wrapped around your waist as you tried to crawl off the mattress, and you barely registered clumsily picking them off the floor before venturing out the door.

The hallway floors were cold against your feet even in early spring, and you shivered thanks to the exposure of only being dressed in a baggy t shirt.

“Nathan?” You yawned, fingers running along the wall as you peeked quietly into your child’s room. It was empty save for the the crib, and you smiled at the silence. Your baby was still sleeping soundly, and you realized this had been the first night in weeks that you’d had a full night's sleep.

You called out for your husband again and shifted your fingers through your hair, then you turned into the living room and leaned against the wall at the sight before you.

Nathan was wrapped up in looking into a binder, his hair a mess, his clothes loose and unfitted. Short flashbacks ran through you, dating all the way back to when you’d first him. He looked like he did now, sitting while leaning forward, staring into a binder almost secretively. However unlike when you’d first met him, when you cleared your throat he didn’t yell at you to go away. Upon seeing you watching him, Nathan instead set the binder on his legs and leaned back.

“It’s about time.”

You smiled, pushing off the wall and finding your way next to him on the couch after urging him to scooch over. Like you’d done countless times before you leaned and placed a kiss on his lips, one that he returned happily. All was well.

“Morning.” You replied softly. The binder on his lap gained your attention and when you looked at the photos you felt your heart flutter. It was the family album you and him had put together throughout the years, stock full of a mixed variety of photos.

Some were aesthetically pleasing, ones that he had taken of you in front of the sky or sitting among flowers. His style had drastically changed throughout his years, going from monochrome and haunting to something more focused on a bright side of life. In some way it felt witnessing a caterpillar, afraid and young, morphing into a butterfly.

Other photos were professional shots of important dates in you and Nathan’s history, and your eyes lingered over a particular one. “Remember that?” you asked fondly, placing an index finger on the thin plastic cover. He took one look at the image and sighed into a smile. It wasn’t a great photo so to say, the angle was mostly wrong and if you were being honest it made you look like a goblin, but the memory is what mattered.

Your 5 year anniversary. It was a serene celebration, one where you got to pick the location. You chose the area where you and him would often sneak to when you skipped class- an empty field beside a long river that ran into the wide ocean. A blanket was set out, a basket in the middle and drinking glasses on either side. The date was incredibly well put together compared to the other casual ones you had, but the both of you enjoyed it. Your friend snapped a quick candid photo before parting ways and leaving you and Nathan, and the photo consisted of you two looking up in confusion. You looked ugly, unsuspecting, but comfortable.

It was nostalgic seeing the both of you so young. It hadn’t been too long since that anniversary but you both did look different now. Nathan’s hair had grown darker, he stopped slicking it back and instead would usually just let it do whatever it wanted. Your hair ended up growing out much longer than it had when you were young, and thanks to the sun had lightened a few hues. That field was the site of a canoeing business now. The river had a ‘do not swim’ sign nailed to a post.

Nathan turned the page and stopped to tilt his head at one of the photos, then he laughed.

“Bailey.” He mumbled. You followed his line of sight and then you too, let out a breath of laughter.

This picture was one that you had taken. It was a gorgeous day at the beach, the sky golden with the late afternoon, and Nathan was knee deep in the waters while you were out sitting on the sand. He was older, 23. In front of him was a white and brown pitbull, a thick stick in it’s mouth that Nathan was trying to retrieve.

Bailey was an amazing dog. She was sweet and well trained, and she never once showed a fang to you or your husband. Before Bailey, Nathan swore up and down he could never get a dog because they were too messy, too much work, but when you were volunteering for a shelter trying to gain some more college credits he’d seen her. She was curled up in the corner of her cage with a caution sticker, but she was nothing but kind. Nathan adopted her that day and you had no complaints.

She was the perfect companion, but she was old when you’d adopted her. It took Nathan a while to get over her, as did it for you, but looking back at the image made you feel happy in a melancholy kind of way.

Before a lump could form in your throat you flipped the page again.

“Oh,” you grinned, pointing at a photo of him standing in front of Cedar Point’s gates. “Remember this?”

Nathan rolled his eyes and groaned, placing a hand on his forehead. “How could I not? You dragged me on every single coaster.”

You gently nudged at his shoulder. “Don’t act like you didn’t have fun.”

He glared at you, unamused. “I threw up like 3 fucking times.”

“Yeah, afterwards.” You flipped the page again, then almost did once more before he stopped you.

“Wait,” His features softened at one particular photo that was larger than the rest. You leaned your head to the side, a fresh and content smile forming on your lips. Your wedding day.

“It was nice seeing you in a suit and tie.” You remarked teasingly, but softly. Lovingly. “Even if you didn’t tie it yourself.”

“You can’t tie a tie either.” Nathan’s eyes never left the image, tracing over every edge and pixel. It was an amazing photo, one of your best.

Though the official picture with you standing beside each other was a favorite, it didn’t compare to the candid one Victoria had captured. You and Nathan dancing together, a loving grin adorned on both of your faces. The dress was white and pooled over the floor like a waterfall, the color a crisp contrast to Nathan’s black, fitted tux. Of course you’d seen Nathan smile before, you’d seem almost every expression there was to know, but on that night when you looked up at him you were taken aback by how peaceful, how happy he was. There was nothing weighing him down.

“I almost tripped walking up the aisle.” you breathed, wanting to cover your face at the embarrassing memory. He laughed beside you, flipping the page.

“I would have lost my shit.”

“I think everyone would have.”

There were a few more images here and there of your friends and family- Nathan’s father void of all of them. The day you left Blackwell was the best of your life, and you knew your husband felt the same way. Although you two were obviously not married at that point you both knew that you would be soulmates, and so you two disappeared together. Adults and fully capable of making it, you and him settled down in ome urban area you didn’t even know existed. It was peaceful, the neighbors were friendly. It was just what the two of you needed.

At first you were afraid that he wouldn’t do well in the new environment. He’d been working on his anger and outbursts for quite some time but this was a drastic change in lifestyle- what if he couldn’t handle it? However, Nathan certainly did surprise you.

Much like you, a kinder and less dramatic city was what he needed. He no longer felt like he was the freak of a town, and something about knowing he could have a fresh start made him want to be better than before. He waved to neighbors, he thanked the mailman.

He had his moments of weakness but you were there to help him, and before you knew it he was truly turning into the man he always wanted, and could have, been. When you were younger you’d never have imagined settling down with him. You’d never even had imaged him being willing to settle down.

Without the overshadow of his father and the pressure of working beneath him he started searching for new options, and eventually settled down for being a designer and part-time wedding photographer. For a time before that he tried to take a place in building but it ended up not working out, as he discovered that he was a horrendous builder.

But, luckily, he had directions for assembling a crib.

Your baby was unplanned but it was a blessing, and you were taken aback by how mature Nathan was during the whole ordeal. When you told him the news he was oddly silent for a time, and you were terrified that this wasn’t what he wanted. You and him had never really discussed children- you always assumed thanks to his father he wouldn’t want to raise a child, but then he told you he was happy. He told you this was good for the both of you. He told you that you’d make great parents.

Nathan, behind this, was afraid however. You could see it in his eyes as the months went on. He was nervous that he would end up like his father, cold, uncaring, and distant. Try as you might to push those thoughts out of his head he still had his doubts but that was to be expected- you had them too, but they were gone on the night ___ was born.

She was so tiny in your arms, and she was so beautiful. Nathan held her so gently and a smile broke over his features, and it lit you up. Now, here she was, nearly a year old and you two were doing great. Some days were harder than others but you were content.

You and him had a house together, away from Arcadia Bay, away from his father and away from his reputation. Of course Victoria was still around here and there- and she was a story just as much as he was. She still had so much fire in her but her edges weren’t nearly as sharp as they were when you’d first met. She was kinder now, and she had a loving husband with a baby of her own on the way. Nathan also still had ties with his mother and sister, though they only showed up for the greater holidays. His sister was kind, she loved you. His mother was sweet too but you could see something behind her eyes, and you wondered if she thought you stole Nathan from his family.

You flip the page, looking at more memories, and Nathan goes rather silent in thought for a few long seconds but they aren’t tense. The rain never let up even after pouring down all night and evening, but it calms you in some sort of way. Leaning your head on Nathan’s shoulder, you smile when he lets out a deep breath.

“Did you ever think we’d end up here?” You asked without looking up at him.

“Fuck no,” He answered with a sharp laugh. “I didn’t think I’d make it to 22.”

“Are you glad you did?” This time you do move to look up at him, reaching to flatten down some of his hair. He doesn’t move under your touch like he used to years ago.

Nathan’s eyes soften down at you, and you remember how much leaving Arcadia Bay has affected him. It had been a slow and gradual process, and it had been anything but easy, but he’d come so far from the angry, bitter, teenage boy who lived like it was him against the world. He wasn’t nearly as angry anymore. He had his moments where the child he once was would part through, but he’d learned to catch him, take a moment to remember how he was different now. He was better now. He smoked but he wasn’t much of a drinker anymore, and he’d kicked drugs years ago. It was an incredible feat, and you and him both knew it.

Part of you expected him to say something sarcastic, but he leaned down and placed a brief kiss on your lips. “You know I am.”

You smiled, looking back down at the photos. There were just so many, some artistic, some candid, and some horrendous that didn’t compliment your face at all. But you kept them, remembered every single moment and every single story each one held. When you were a small child you imaged an easy life, one where you and your soulmate would click the moment you laid eyes upon each other. It would be smooth sailing and everyone would envy your relationship, wonder why they couldn’t find someone who loved you as much as your ‘prince charming’ did. But Nathan was not a prince charming. When you’d met him he was insufferable, and you were scared of him. Little did you know that he would end up being the person you’d devote yourself to, the person you’d give everything to. You never once stopped to think you could be the one he changes for.

Thunder sounded from outside but it was distant, echoing. Nathan leaned back against the cushion of the couch and you followed him, setting the binder on the coffee table and lifting your feet up so you could cuddle against his side. He faced up at the ceiling and closed his eyes.

“What do you want for breakfast?” He asked flatly, voice tired. You shrugged. “If you don’t pick something I’m gonna skip it all together.”

“Fine, fine, waffles.” You giggled, shutting your eyes. Breakfast sounded appealing but neither of you make an effort to get up, Nathan’s arm snaking around your body and resting at your hip. You could’ve fallen asleep right there if you wanted, but it was already 11 am, you should be getting up and getting ready for the day. Another roll of thunder sounded and you yawned, reluctantly pulling away from his comfortable hold and patting his chest. “Alright, time to start the day.”

Nathan groaned and grabbed a throw pillow from the end of the couch, wrapping his arms around it and shoving his face into the plushness.

You grabbed at the edges of it and half-assedly tried to pry it from him. “Come on Nathan we gotta’ start doing things.”

“Why can’t we start our shit at noon.”

“Because you hate being rushed, and I know if I let you you’ll sit here the whole day.”

“I don’t have anything to do today.”

“Yet,” you pulled it from his arms and sighed at his mildly annoyed expression. “You always find things to do on sundays.”

Reaching out in front of him, Nathan interlocked his fingers and stretched, yawning and then rolling his neck. He stopped to linger for a moment, staring down at the photo album still open on the table, before he reached down and then folded it shut. You stood and he did so as well, tucking the binder under his arm and yawning again. The collar of his t shirt, much too big for his form, bared his shoulders almost artistically.

He followed you into the kitchen, only stopping for a minute to put the album back into the hallway closet. As you opened the cupboards to start retrieving the items you needed Nathan felt no shame in coming up behind you, moving your hair from your neck and kissing along the newly exposed skin. You shivered in delight and grinned, tiling your head to the side and giving him more room which he took complete advantage of.

“I thought you wanted breakfast.” You remarked, eyes slipping shut. He wrapped his arms around you and hummed against your skin.

“By all means, go ahead.” He nipped at your skin and you could feel his lips curl when you jumped at his teeth.

Once again you reluctantly broke away from his hold but this time you were joined right back with him, turning around and wrapping your arms around his neck. He took the invite gladly, one hand resting on the countertop to trap you in front of him and the other keeping it’s place at your hip.

“Very funny,” you breathed, pulling him in for a kiss. He started getting antsy against you, fingers starting to slide under your shirt and you by no means wanted him to stop. You leaned your head back when he paused the kiss to run his lips along your jawline, then down your neck. The counter was hard against the small of your back but it barely registered to you, too caught up in running your fingers through his already messy hair.

“This isn’t very productive.” Nathan joked against your skin, and you laughed.

“You started this,” You tugged at his hair and bit your lip when his hand lifted up the hem of your shirt. “You wanted breakfast, now you want this. Can’t you make up your mind.”

Though you teased him, goosebumps still ran along your skin as he brushed the pads of his fingers along your stomach and abdomen. You cursed softly, eyes unfixed but staring at the ceiling as he felt you. He finally hooked his fingers beneath the wireline of your bra when suddenly a sound rang through the previously silent house.

Down the hall, door on the left. A baby was crying in it’s room.

You sighed in defeat, eyes slipping shut. “Damn it.”

Nathan’s fingers pulled away from you as the baby continued to wail a few rooms down, and you both knew your session had come to an end.

“Do you want to get it or?”

“You stay here,” He breathed, rubbing at his cheeks. He was no longer half lidded, fully aware of his surroundings and definitely awake. “I got it.”

He shuffled away from you with his head hung low, and you giggled at the sight. Defeated by an infant. When you turned, resting your hand atop the cold counter, you looked over the items you'd previously taken out. One by one you put together everything you needed, starting the waffle maker as you hummed to yourself.

Outside it still rained, and occasionally thunder grumbled miles away. It was a serene sunday morning, but the sounds of nature wasn’t what made you grin from ear to ear. It was the sound of Nathan in the baby’s room, voice soft as he cooed good morning at your now pacified child.

#nathan prescott #nathan prescott x reader #life is strange #lis #imagine #scenario #fic #imaginefictionals

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cheezlogerratum · 6 years

Text

A Persuasive Essay

☼

The two duos of half-plastic half-rubber wheels have remained, for the past thirty seconds or so, at rest. Kurtis Spottiswoode, preferably to him Kurt, the owner of the pack, has been repeatedly, over and over, scanning a sign off to the side of the asphalt path. In yellow, it's been telling him:

ATHLETIC EVENT

... with an appropriate arrow pointing to the left. Still, in that same spot, he stands. He can't necessarily tell whether he's trying to understand something he's missing or if he's just spacing out, knowingly looking like a moron, but too afraid to break out of what he believes is a commitment. Even still. Eventually, Mr. Spottiswoode catches onto the fact that the sun has long been set and that there are no "ATHLETIC EVENT"'s in session at this time. His feet succumb to the decline and start stepping across into the parking garage wondering if the sign was placed for a past "ATHLETIC EVENT" or a future one? This is all he seems to think about in the structure, the halides buzzing above and the rumble of the little wheels on his backpack don't even register in his mind. He unlocks and enters his used Camry automatically and realizes he's driving, somehow unable to shake the image burned into his eyes or maybe his head:

ATHLETIC EVENT

←

Mr. Spottiswoode arrived at his apartment complex at around 9:23pm, around a minute or two later than he usually remembers, and follows the rut path up to his apartment on the second floor. The residents on the first were shrieking, almost with no words, but it soon shifted into laughter and niceties he couldn't quite make out. He went to the bathroom, where he unzipped and went about his business looking at himself blankly in the mirror mysteriously installed right above, maybe a little crooked, the toilet. Kurt had small beady eyes and a large forehead mapped out by rows of remnants of brow folds and a receding hairline, brown and faint. The rest of his torso was adorned by a sport coat and a wrinkly plaid shirt, the rest is invisible. It was a lingering revelation in Mr. Spottiswoode's mind that he was wasting away, not really doing much, but he never wanted to address it head on in fear of possible sadness... but, as he undresses getting ready for bed, he wasn't feeling much now? Just sort of following what he'd always been doing and doing at as succinctly as he can, probably to occupy his mind from that "possible sadness".

☼

Kurt was traversing through the input and output population of students in flux all around him, talking into headphones and trading glances back and forth, when he realized—the sign was still up! "ATHLETIC EVENT". He felt a minuscule rush inside of him, slightly increasing the speed of his pace, and making him aware of his breath, of his life. He looked around with his head at anything and everything of interest, impulsively, excited. ECSTATIC! He thought he might be forcing this adrenaline onto himself, but he told himself to shut up. Shut up! He was loving it, and would remain loving it all the way to class, his wheels rumbling at a higher pitch.

Höffus Hall, room 488, was unlocked, dark, cold, and alone for the past thirteen hours or so. Mr. Spottiswoode, with his newfound motivation to live, flicked on the lights and plopped his computer bag onto the table offset at the front of class. He thought of himself as a bearer of life to the once dead or perhaps unborn room, mentally patting himself on the back as students came in at different intervals of time and frequency, totally unaware of their professor's enthusiasm. He unzipped his bag and brought out his old Dell laptop, gray and void of any personal touch. He logged in and fired up Microsoft Outlook, twiddling his fingers as more students populated the room. Outlook revealed itself, updated its folders, and notified the user of an "important message" he received. WOW! Kurt clicked the alert and he was brought to an e-mail sent by an unfamiliar address containing the following:

dear professor,

ive been thinking about alot of things like the paper we were made to write a few weeks ago. i know i haven't finished it and i bet its too late to turn it in now for any grade and i know im failing the class, but i cant fail this class and i think this paper is the only thing that will save me. i hope you understand. ill have the essay done by the start of class on thursday but if you dont accept it or give me a high enough grade to pass the class im going to kill you. i dont want to kill you but i also dont want to fail. i hope you understand.

best, your student

Kurt Spottiswoode read the message over a few more times, just to make sure, again, not knowing what he was feeling, but whatever it was it wasn't exciting. Before he even had the chance to reply, or give the message a sixth reading, or to think about what the hell, just what the hell he was going to do? he looked at the clock in the bottom right and saw it change from 11:13 AM to 11:14 AM right before his eyes, four minutes late. He looked up with a buzzy sharp air behind his eyes, at a loss of what to even do. What to say? Most importantly, WHAT?

"Uhhh," Spottiswoode emitted, "who was it that sent me an e-mail this morning?"

Blank. The look on the students' faces suggested that he had said absolutely nothing. Instead of reading the students for any kind of response, he started to read for any clues, any telling thing coming from any of their persons that might inform him of the presence of a possible murderous psychopath enrolled in his class. There were only 19 students on the registrar but only, after doing the math with his eyeballs for a few seconds, 11 students present. Both the fear of the anonymous student's absence and the regret of not making attendance mandatory via a sign-in sheet and a significant percentage allotted to "Attendance" in the final grade struck him like headlights he wasn't aware he was invading the path of. He quietly surveyed those present in class and what he knew of them. To his knowledge, only 3 students were failing the class, and one of them, Mehi Georgensen, was present, but he knew for a fact she turned in the last assignment. The prompt, by the way, was to write a persuasive essay supporting their opinion on the scientific studies surrounding the spike in American crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s and how experts believe that the trace amounts of lead found in gasoline sold during this time is directly related to the uptick in violence and aggression in people who are exposed to automobiles on a regular basis if not daily. Mehi's essay was roughly 85% blockquotes, 5% topic and concluding sentences, and another 10% dedicated to an enlarged, pixelated image of a red, turned dark gray by the printer, gasoline jug. No, Kurt thought, it can't be her. The other two names failing the class were Eloy Hewitt and Harold Skouras III, both with zeros in the gradebook, but that's all they were to Mr. Spottiswoode. He tried forcing himself to remember who these boys were, what they looked like, who the sick culprit could be. He started to sweat and realized so when a droplet fell from his nose and onto his knuckle belonging to his right hand cupping his mouth out of a side effect of vigorous thought, if you could even call it that. It was now 11:19 AM and Kurt stood back up, hands at his side, eyes open, looking again trying to recognize anyone. He knew who some of the kids were but couldn't remember others because of, what he thought was, a lack of in-class participation. He did, however, recognize Kevin, hands clasped together resting on the table up front, good posture, beaming at Mr. Spottiswoode. Kevin, politely responding to Kurt's gaze, cracked open a smile, unimaginably ready to learn. What a good egg Kurt thought, and looking at this kid, this bright and utterly innocent young man smiling undoubtedly at him, his spirits were lifted by a fraction of security, but that was enough. Kurt breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, clearing his throat, coughing, and began the day's belated lesson.

Sitting in his assigned corner of office room number 528, populated by a desk, a shelf, a disconnected phone with the cord bunched up, various handbooks on MLA, APA, and Chicago format, yesterday's ¾ eaten Subway sandwich, a stack of filled manila folders, a photo of Bruce Springsteen printed out on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper taped to the wall, and a lamp—Mr. Spottiswoode sat leaned back in his office chair borrowed from the downstairs supply closet, staring, arms crossed, eyes serious, at his computer screen. The e-mail shone through the screen, he couldn't stop thinking. He followed a tangent marveling at the screen itself and its thousands of little pixels made by three columns, red, blue, green, each flickering at him performing as one chunk of some incomplete illusion, creating the image of something that is anything but. Kurt, at a loss, followed multiple tangents like that, perhaps, in a kind of unconscious fashion, trying to find some external excuse or explanation for all this. Surely, surely, it can't be real right? It made no sense, absolutely, completely, totally no sense whatsoever, that this array of pixels that have orchestrated themselves in varying degrees of dimness onto his laptop screen could spell out so plainly and absent of reality his own eventual fate. Well, it doesn't have to come true, does it? Kurt Spottiswoode couldn't believe that he didn't just think of giving in and offering the perp the grade he so desired. Yes. Yes! That was it! He didn't even take into account the circumstance of his academic honor, he had his life! Once again, "LIFE!" He was up, his fists were in the air, his legs were spread apart, and his breathing had escalated into a pant. Yu Quoque, or Professor Quoque as she vehemently prefers, in the opposite corner saw him and witnessing this side of Kurt she had never seen before, she stared, on the phone, mouth slightly agape.

"Where are you," over the phone, "what was...?"

"Nothing," Yu whispered, "just work."

☼

It was Wednesday, the next day, game day! Kurt missed whatever athletic event that happened the day before due to the fact that he was fearing for his life, but now, having found out what to do about the whole situation, he decided to treat himself to a nice, relaxing, athletic event, which happens to be a weeklong championship. Mr. Spottiswoode arrived at the makeshift ticket booth, which was a plastic table with a print out of ticket prices taped to the front side and a cheap cash box guarded by two girls, both with one earbud in whatever ear was facing away from each other, and inquired, "Hello! One ticket for the athletic event and please!"

"Eight dollars please," the girls in unison, almost in harmony.

Kurt immediately took to his various pockets in his coat, pants, and satchel, where he finally found a dilapidated ten-dollar bill with a frowny face drawn on Hamilton's face. The girl on the right snatched it, the girl on the left gave him the ticket, and the girl on the right gave him one dollar in change, but he was so ecstatic and overwhelmed by the butterflies in his stomach that he didn't even realize. He wobbled right up to the bleachers taking it all in, smiling, just like Kevin, and started down the steps. The sun was blaring but the air was freezing, a paradox Kurt pondered on fairly often before, but not today, game day! He found a nice spot just above half way down and sat down next to an incredibly buff guy with, who Kurt assumed was, the man's son wearing a black hoodie and buggy glasses. "Isn't this just great," Kurt broke the ice, "this is just... agh! It! You know?"

"I don't."

"What's your name?"

"... I'm Kurt! Err, Professor Kurt to you though, haha!"

"Goodbye Kurt."

And the big man got up, even more ginormous than he... holy shit—walked down the bleachers, stomping between other attendees and their picnics, to another spot. Kurt stared a while at the man and thought of his nerve, how someone can be so mean and... rude? but he caught himself in the act of negativity and tried to snap out of it, clamping his eyes shut as a reset mechanism of sorts. Upon opening them, he saw the faded green field, but the longer he looked, the more green it got. He started getting the hang of it and tried it on the trees, the bleachers, and even the jumbo man. The spark of an auxiliary cord boomed through the stadium and was shortly followed by T.I.'s "Bring Em Out" featuring Jay Z. "BRING EM OUT BRING EM OUT" The players jogged onto the field and started warming up, running around preset patterns of cones over and over. Just beneath the song blaring throughout the entire area, echoing off the apartments just next door, Kurt heard a voice, "What's today." Kurt felt it to his left and realized the voice was coming from the kid in the hoodie, still sitting where he first saw him.

"Wednesday?"

"And tomorrow?"

"... Thursday."

The kid hadn't even turned his head to Kurt, in fact, Kurt hadn't even seen the kids' lips, only his eyes bulging out of the edge of his hood. "I need you to proofread something for me," the glasses said.

"Do I know you?" Kurt inquired.

"It's important, it's my life's work."

"I can give you my office hou-"

�� "I feel twisty, I can't move correctly... I'd appreciate this greatly."

"... Ha ha, come on now, let's just enjoy the game?"

"It's only if I express what I mean and get my point across in a certain perfect way and if I have a clear thesis and purpose to the essay and I make myself believable to the reader that I will get an A."

"... Harold?"

"I just need a professional opinion."

"Eloy!?"

"It's not done yet I'm sorry."

And the glasses dropped 8 loose sheets of what Kurt can already make out as a poorly formatted essay and strode his way up the bleachers as swiftly as possible. The sheets were lifted by the wind and flew up down left right forward back, all directly away from Mr. Spottiswoode. Kurt scrambled to follow all of the sheets at once while the image of that hood and those lenses and his voice seared into his mind, playing in a loop, all floating in a superposition playing at the same time, over and over and over again. Kurt caught one of the pages, repeating, "one, one" and so on in his head, adding to the jumble, now worried, now realizing, all at once, that death was way too near. "Two, two two two" but what? He felt silly again, remembering he had a plan, a master one you could call it, but he still felt petrified, sad, wasting away, stumbling over people at an athletic event reaching desperately for pages of an essay a kid is threatening his life over. He lost track of all the remaining pages, looked around, drenched, and saw a page in the middle of the field. He ran down the steps, head bobbing, eyes on the sheet, feeling utterly lightheaded, and sprinted into the field, tunnelvisioned, and bonked heads with a girl swerving out of a row of cones. The audience's collective shocked, "Ooooohh" and a girl nearby's inhaling hissing sound of pain only made everything worse, and he felt like a kid. Mr. Spottiswoode reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at the girl rubbing her head and only thought of himself, how he looked, how people must think of him now, and, somewhat noticing, his stomach sunk. He tried, "I didn't... I'm sorry I'm sorry," under his breath. He grabbed the piece of paper, now grass stained, and made his way up the stairs, eyes down, only wanting to leave, only wanting to go home, and as the girl got up, ready to rumble, the audience broke out in applause.

←

Kurt couldn't even look at Sally Pilckner and her glasses without shuttering somewhat, or feeling some sharp sweat incoming, so for the remainder of her presentation, he looked down at her converse pretending to be following along when really, truly, he's completely lost. He had already taken attendance to no avail, had sort of thumbed through the essay, but hasn't been able to read it, not even knowing if he should or not. So here he is, Kurt, sat, in the back of a classroom, looking at shoes and contemplating his chances of life or death. The ginormous mega man played in his head over and over, torturing himself somehow just for fun, relatively. "Observe," he remembered "Listen, yes!" So he tried, forcing his brain to latch onto everything happening in the room, which—well, he didn't know—wasn't working. He attempted to consciously meditate on the PowerPoint slide stricken on the pull down screen, bleeding off to the edges onto the whiteboard, infuriatingly so, and thought about the words without reading them:

HUMANOID.

CORN.

BC.

And he just thought, tried to imagine. He pictured a humanoid in his head and saw wiggles and a form blinking, on and off. The harder he tried the faster it disappeared. Okay uhh, the corn! He saw a kernel, a nugget, perfectly formed, so well imagined he was impressed with himself. Mr. Spottiswoode sat with that little kernel suspended in his mind, projecting it in front of his eyes, over the words, bouncing it around the room, putting it over Sally's face. "UuuaAAAGGHHHCHOOOO!!"

"Bless you," in unison, harmonious monotone.

Kurt, looking at the culprit's face a bit too long finally realized the kernel had been erased from his mind. The panic struck him and the sweat kicked back in, trying and trying, squinting and bubbling his mouth. Mr. Spottiswoode needed a plan B, so he remembered:

BC.

Okay, this can do. He chugged into his noggin the image of rocks... rocks? And monkeys, for some reason, a wheel? He was doing his best, breathing in and out. "Knowing what uh... how corn was the main commodity in indigenous cultures, what would the world look like right now if we used corn for money?" Dead flat silence, but Sally didn't seem to mind. The class willingly sat in the hoisted dead noise of the room, adding to it every millisecond, everyone thinking someone else will talk, they have to, why aren't they? Why is everyone doing this? And Pilckner, Sally stood face to face to the excruciating silence, swaying, hands clasped behind her back, sniffling, heard a cough, grounding the silence to the utmost potency of bad participation skills. Kurt felt himself walking but didn't remember doing so, and somehow decided to stop right beside Sally, too close, she steps back, and those monkeys are still in his mind, swinging and hooting until they come across a kernel, a big one, glowing in the shattered sun shooting through the tall grass, or the banana leaves, either or? staring at this weird yellow coconut. It's here that they stop moving, their personalities and characteristics put on hold, freeze framed, with the class waiting and peeking under the rim of the table trying to be sneaky superimposed atop the scene before Christ, now at the same time, both immobile, not moving, freeze framed and dead. Kurt stood there until the clock struck 11:58 AM, close enough, and the irresistible sound of ruffling papers and backpack zippers filled the room, sparking some kind of Pavlovian response in the students telling them, "it's time to go", which was probably for the best.

Kurt Spottiswoode decided to keep on driving tonight, not a clear decision but merely allowing himself to do so. Millbrae now, by the BART station, the monumental Chase Bank shining blue up the columns, credit card slots blinking and egging him on, that Peter's Café across the street, still open, still not much business... but boy, oh boy... Kurt took a leap of faith and pulled an illegal U-turn across the yellow line, the toast in his sights. He parked haphazardly and sat for a minute or two, looking at the fog grow on his windows, and waited for it to completely shell his car. He was now encased, in his own little world he thought, free of anything and everything except him and the essay, now sort of dead within the new realm of his. It was only paper, just neatly formed, digitally stamped stains of ink on a page, saying nothing in particular. He wanted to marinate in this, get the feeling then go, and he went. The wet chill struck him as he left the stratosphere he created, and, with the essay in hand, walked into the snoozy joint.

A song he couldn't recognize right away was wrapping itself up, and right when he thought he knew the song, "HI welcome to Pete's Café!" She popped up from right behind the circular bar, knowing he was going to be there somehow. She slapped down the menu, the cocktail menu, and a freshly laminated dessert menu. "Freshly laminated!"

"Yep," Kurt sniffed the menu, "That's fresh for sure, hahahaha!" laughing more for himself than her.

"What can I start you off with tonight?"

"Just toast, please."

"Sweetie, just toast?"

"Yep just toast."

The look on her face spelled imminent harm, then immediately transformed into unconditional hospitality. "Vikas! Toast! Sure thing sweetie," snatching the menus in one swoop.

"Thanks uhh," trying to read her name tag but only caught a V.

He looked around the place, at the lighting hung in trios across the sloped ceiling, the booths hidden by CLINK... Kurt looked down and saw a plastic tumbler, blue and chipped, filled with water and weak ice cubes, but no V in sight. Noticing this, he noticed everything, which wasn't much, just a diner open for business, no patrons. He sat tapping his fingers in a kind of rhythm when "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee jumps on the overhead speakers.

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames And when it was all over I said to myself, is that all there is to a fire

Is that all there is, is that all there is If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing...

Once that chorus kicked in he was humming along, eyes closed and drinking out of the mini cup. He opened his eyes and there before him was the essay, off to the side, right where he left it. He was lost in looking, only thinking about reading it, telling himself he wasn't afraid, and then the glasses appeared again, knowing that they belonged to the student, that the student typed this and printed it out, touched it, the net total of his movements to that moment of delivery resulted in the crimps and creases in the pages, the same on every page, again and again.

Let's break out the booze and have a ball If that's all there is...

His hand shot out at the pages and smacked them once, not knowing what to expect, just a release? Kurt looked up and saw V staring at him before she broke out into strides in his direction. He grabbed the paper and started reading it vigorously.

professor Spottiwoods

Rough Draft

Pedagogyy is the study of how tot each a class in school, anywehere, like elementary school or college. I have been in school for almost all of my life and I feel like I have a big say in how I should be taught in school. There has been much discusssion on what progressive pedagogy might look like, but it has always been discussed and taught in regressive pedagogical systems, which is something liek a paradox isn;t it? we seem to think education is the greatest good, it keeps us young, that's what Aristotle thought, but these systems are old, the teachers are old, and theyf ail to realize that they they are only apart of an institu

"SPOTTISWOODE?" Kurt froze in the middle of that word he knew was going to be 'institution', maybe spelled wrong, but couldn't help but feel several shots of adrenaline pumping through his body, his heart trying to compensate. "PROFESSOR SUPERWOOD IN THE FLESH!!"

Mr. Spottiswoode craned his shoulders around to see Zip Baltgalvis—he thinks? —and can only widen his eyes. Zip skips over to Kurt's seat lugging what might be three backpacks at full capacity while Kurt creeps back at the paper, wide eyed, blank, stuck on the same word. Zip spins into the seat next to Kurt's and side hugs him, not responding. "Duuude what's good Spurt? ... It's me!" Kurt turns his head, zonked out, to Zip, frozen in a smile with his fingers turned inwards into his chest. "Zip..." Kurt emitted.

"Ziiiff!" exasperated, "Ziff Baltgalvis! Twenty-fourtee-" leaning in closer for the whisper-shout, "Twenty-fourteen man! Duude! You're here!!"

"I'm... here."

"Yes! Yes!"

"Hey where's my toast..." slurring and directed in the direction of unseen employees.

Ziff looked down at the essay through the blonde frizz hanging in front of his face. "State huh? State huuuhh!!? MAN in the flesh! Front and center, late night!! You know, I've been working on things..."

"Things."

"Things mmhm... some futuristic things," nodding slowly almost to hypnotize Kurt.

"What things..."

"I've been thinking about those things, like to help the future out. Man, Kurt, your mind will be buhlown."

"Uhh... toast," again at the ghost place.

"Yeaaah man toast! You're brain'll fry man right on!"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh you just gotta come and see."

"See what Zip?"

A plate of burnt toast lands and swivels down onto the table in front of Kurt, on top of the essay.

"The future man..." nodding.

☼

Kurt Spottiswoode didn't even know he was fast asleep until his own drool cooled by the leather returned to his cheek, sliding his face into consciousness. Wriggling his fingers, cracking them, still on his side, his arm slept along with him. He was awake, but only with his eyeballs. Everything else was testing the waters. Every few seconds the interior would illuminate, sometimes yellow but most times teal-ish, and Kurt was in it and apart of it, an honorary component of the car. Kurt inched his head up off the seat to get a better look at the LED clock up front. It was 12:02, most likely AM. He plopped his head back down, scrunching his mouth to avoid the drool as he tried making sense of the situation he was in. This wasn't his car, he wasn't driving, he wasn't tied up, he was stagnant yet rumbling across asphalt barely any more than two feet from his wet cheek, as the crow flies. Mr. Spottiswoode liked it here, liking the most being able to pretend to be invisible, or to transcend the state everyone thinks you're in, knowing something no one else in the world knows. It was also the quiet of the interior which implied a disappearance of everything outside and anything in the future, just being able to lay... wait... future...

"COCKADOODLEDOO TEACH! Un-conked?"

"Muh... Zip,"

"Hahyeah,"

"Zi-," stuck on a clog in his throat.

"Honest man, be honest,"

"Where are we going?"

"Dude, you remember this!"

"I...?"

"You can think it man, you can access this,"

"Why was I..."

"If you just reaaally think,"

"Is it... Thursday?"

"Unrelated inquiry, unrelated inquiry,"

"Zip come on-"

"Patience is a virtue,"

"This is fuckin-"

"Woah, woah,"

"This is frankly, fucking stupid Zip!"

"WOOOAH WOOAH,"

"I wanna know! Where am I going? Where am I being taken to?"

"I w-"

"ZIP my foot is down it's being put down right now you got to tell me,"

Ziff looked back over his shoulder at Kurt, now up in his seat drenched in sweat, eyes locked and loaded. The light outside illuminates the car in red for a split second, distant honking. Ziff looks back and forth hoping he isn't seeing and hearing correctly.

"I don't like the way you look right now man,"

"Zip,"

"I don't friggin' appreciate those looks man!"

Ziff is nearly done pulling the car over to the side of the road into the grassy overflow of an empty lot next to them once he says this. The back of Ziff's head jerks about, trying to put the car in park while storming out of the car at the same time. "Jesus... ZIP!! ZIP!" Kurt yells at Ziff with the foggy passenger window in the way, trying to unbuckle himself. "ZIIIIIP!!" It was Thursday, it was without a doubt Thursday, and it all came crashing into Mr. Spottiswoode's stomach. Kurt didn't even consciously think these thoughts, but he knew somehow by the way his neurons scrambled to ignite, scrambling together as one, but the buckle is jammed. Kurt sits back and processes the vagueness of himself at this moment, unconsciously looking around, widening his eyes, tuning out everything in order to tune out himself, and the door closes. He looks up and sees the long hair splitting out from Ziff's head. "Zip, where are we,"

"Mr. Spottiswoode, it'd be really sick if you said sorry,"

"I'm sorry, now-"

"For what?"

"For yelling at yo-"

"And?"

Ziff turned his head around to look through the gap under the headrest, eyes worn and wet.

"And."

"..."

"Ziff."

"No, no no, slip of the tongu- er the mind. I'm sorry. My-"

"I really wanted you to see what I made Mr. Spottiswoode,"

"Sure-"

"When I saw you at Pete's tonight I thought that it was like fate, like that dramatic shit... right?"

"Sure yea-"

"I thought 'Hey Kurt's here, I bet he'd like to hang with me' you know? See me..."

"Yeah,"

"I thought you were gonna be like the guy who pretends he didn't make eye contact or something, and I was bummed out Mr. Spottiswoode. You were like the first guy... to uh... like really, you know, get me stoked on learning shit. And you were eating and I knew that it was like that fate happening maybe, like the universe collapsed on itself for that one time right?"

"Sure,"

"Do you get the same emotions too?"

"Maybe, I don't really know,"

"Cause like, the universe likes us...? Like it doesn't stop turning. It's like it keeps wanting us to know something, like..."

And Ziff stopped, seemingly lost in that universe that led him to what he thought was right now, but Kurt, on the other hand, was back on the paper. "Ziff, I need to sleep I'm sorry."

Ziff dug into one of the three backpacks he dropped in front of his front door to fish out the keys. Kurt was keeping his distance considerable out in the middle of a parking lot, by the car. Ziff tumbled the keys into the lock and cracked open the door, creaky to the point of filing a complaint with whatever de facto powers that be. The place was lit by strung lights around every edge, ceiling, doorway, floor, but only out of necessity of upholding the common courtesy to the household. Ziff lifted his arms in introduction of the place, "Uh, you can crash on the couch probably."

Pots and pans brought Kurt back to the waking world, seamlessly too. What amazed Kurt's brain, the first thought in his head this morning, was how shrill these utensils ringing off each other were and how, somehow, that comforted him. He rubbed the sleep off his eyes and got up to mull. He scuffled towards the kitchen a few feet away and stood in the doorway, drawing a blank at the kid with pleasingly messy hair, jammies, bare feet, flipping a piece of bread with a hole in the middle occupied by an egg. The kid felt his presence and gave a half-nod half-smile, what Kurt came to hypothesize as a newly evolved human instinct. Kurt leaned on this doorway, scanning the room for a clock or any other furnishing that might give him a clue of some kind. A group of kids passed by him, recalling, "...ea and his brother was a raccoon in the firs..." and further down the hall a burst of "pffff" and laughter bounced back to him as he tried logging the series of events in his brain. Looking, still standing, invisible again, superposed in this doorway and periodically thrusting his body off enough to fall back onto the wall. A printer fired up in a room somewhere reciting its rhythm of obeying the data it's been fed, music to his ears but merely instinct to itself. But now the printer was approaching...? It was getting louder and louder, its rhythms becoming more complex, fading into Kurt's range of comprehension, but the closer it got the less he knew, the more it wasn't printing anything. Kurt leaned his torso over to peer through the commons area and into the main hallway, footsteps thrown into the mix now too. An upright arrangement of plastic and spinning metal emerged from behind the opening to the room, then a rubber foot inched down onto the wood floor, and the robot was now recognized by Kurt alone. It continued forward, stopped, made minor adjustments to the placement of its feet, and made way straight towards Kurt. His stomach sank and kicked into some kind of action backwards and to his left feeling his way towards some cover of sorts. Kurt crouched behind the side of the fridge, peering out at the rest of the kitchen. The whirring got louder, again, and the robot emerged, again, stopped, repositioned, continued in Kurt's direction. Kurt stayed put this time only because he couldn't think of anything else other than the fact there was a fucking robot walking straight towards him. The robots innards became clearer and clearer as it approached, stopped, repositioned, and reached for the fridge handle, and pulled it, pinching Kurt's fingers. He freaked out for a split second but didn't want to make any sounds in an effort to preserve the invisibility thing that the robot may or may not have seen right through. The door closed and revealed a jug of soylent in the robot's plastic nubs, repositioning away, and inching back out of the kitchen. Kurt stood up and stared at the robot, mouth wide open, sweat flowing, trying to think of its thoughts and what it must be conscious of to do what it does, where it's stored, what it means to it, does it feel what Kurt feels, does it know? A poke arrived on Kurt's left shoulder and he spun around clockwise to whoever it must be, who turned out to be... "Sorry,"

"Nono I'm sorry," Kurt rattled out.

"Just getting the uh," she reached up to the cabinet above Kurt's head, which he dodged as it swung open.

"Woo heheh,"

"Wanna sit?"

"Wuh,"

"Down?"

"Well okay yeah sure heheh,"

And he looked underneath and around himself and settled on sitting on the tile, criss-cross applesauce. "Do you go here?" she asked, eyes on the readymade pancake mix.

"A- me? No I uhhh... I don't, no. I uh don't. Do you?"

"Yes I go here."

"Pretty cool, pretty cool uhmm... for what?"

"Literature, but I'm thinking of changing,"

"To uhh... ?" shrugging, nervously laughing.

"Electrical engineering,"

"And uh, why's that?"

"I'm working on a project of my own right now with a team of people so I sort of just want time to work on it and E.E. offers independent study in their labs so,"

"What's the something?"

"I've been studying the stichomythia of reading common literature. Technically it isn't stichomythia, but it sounds nice to me for some reason and for what I do. So I study that stuff, the ups and down of laughter, contagious at moments and absent the next. Could you read a book or get its sense and flow from the mere knowledge of the progression of chuckles? Or guffaws? What does a 'guffaw' suggest in a story? This depends on the reader, though, which makes my job complicated. There's a flaw in studying and observing these things with people, who read and re-read, the speed increases and decreases, and this warps and distorts the nature of my work, the laughs and chuckles. Me and my team are now looking at developing a system which reads a book at an average pace, its text, and pinpoints or detects the humorous areas to give us a controlled, concise, perfect result of this landscape, the musicality that might be objective to itself and its language that the common subjective emotional someone simply lacks the capability of experiencing. This is what I do,"

Teams? Landscapes, chuckles, this was all he could pick up on knowing the robot was walking around the place with soylent in its hands. He tried to be interested, but his mind was firing on other cylinders and sputtering out in the process. He was looking at the pan, sometimes focusing in on his periphera and the figures wearing mute colors walking in and out and past in silence—but what was silence to him, Kurt Spottiswoode thought, might have been a universal language to them that he was left out of. "What do you think of that?" He forgot.

"Sounds pretty cool to me!" looking for something to catch his attention.

"Do you read?"

"I uh read lots of things every day yep,"

"Enjoy it while you can,"

"Well, you too heh! I'll uh see you around," offering a small wave and some kind of mouth movement he hoped would come off as normal. As he shuffled his way out, she started to mumble and hum the words to a song, loud and proud, making pancakes. He didn't know, he couldn't know if this was just himself projecting, but it sounded like she was humming the words to "Is That All There Is?", pushing himself away now, embarking himself into the house keeping his ears out for the bot. He stepped softly in hopes of the robot not hearing him, and he waddled and peered around and down the halls, doors open, now releasing lots of machine noise, almost every room. He walked up the stairs with his eyes locked on the chandelier which was smothered in webs and dust blocking the way of any light that might be wanting to pass through and offer itself. He was feeling his way upwards, and at the top he saw another commons area with a few couches riddled in no pattern whatsoever, and on one sat the robot, with its soylent in hand. Kurt sleuthed his way by way of his back to the wall down the hallway, soft stepping. "GOOOOOOD MOOORNIIING PALO ALTOOO," Kurt's body scrunched and searched for Ziff's whereabouts, leaning, dodging nothing, and finally finding it, papers and clutter reaching the ceiling and Ziff sitting in it all like a throne with his soylent in hand. "Where ya been buddy?"

"Ziff listen I have a lot of papers to-"

"Next on the program we have none other than English Composition extraordinaire-"

"Ziff,"

"Bonafide rager-maestro and chug champ 2000,"

"Ziff that rob-"

"AND honorary member of the fun boys themselves, Kurt 'Spurt' Spottiswoode!" as he started clapping by himself, clapping rang out from the rest of the second floor. He wheeled himself on his rolly-chair, stood up, and took Kurt by the shoulder leading him back down the hall. "We are utterly stoked to have you on this morning,"

"Heh I-"

"Mup, I'm asking the questions, I'm the teach... what is the future to you?" holding the air-mike up to Kurt's mouth.

"It's soon,"

"Would you say it's now?"

"No cause... now's the present?"

"But the now always changes right?"

"I guess, but-"

"Have you ever seen the future?"

"No,"

Ziff was now jogging over into the commons area, Kurt already knowing what the punchline would be. "Would you-"

"Ziff, I need to go home,"

"I gotta introdu-," taking the soylent out of the robot's hands.

"Ziff. I'm going," backing down the stairs.

"Kuuurt... Dude..."

And everything seemed to fade out, leaving only Kurt's mind reeling in place. He got out onto the street and started following it wherever it went, freezing cold outside. He replayed that robot in his mind a long while and kept zooming in on its soylent trying to find a semblance of a clue that would lead him to some peace of mind, but he couldn't, just stuck in replay. Whatever direction Mr. Spottiswoode was heading in, there were trains.

Kurt was staring while his mind rambled out the window. The train, he thought, was way too quiet, an environment that discouraged the cocoon of isolation he loved putting himself into. The tracks might as well have been non-existent, leaving Kurt the sole pleasure of listening to his own ears, ringing to themselves to avoid insanity, an instinct. For a moment, Kurt believed that the window his head was leaning on was nothing but another screen, extremely high definition, millions of pixels perfectly and spectacularly calibrated to fool passengers of any scenic route that might have been perceived. It had to be a conspiracy against the senses. What if the screen was hiding something grim and evil? Like an unforgivable violation of human's rights? Dwindling shacks, bodies slogging around awaiting their doom—if his eyes were to penetrate this screen, he wondered, maybe his eyes would meet someone else's, and maybe he would see something rapturous and impossible there in the shared misery, if that's what it was, only to witness it being cloaked by the train's comfy encasing, vanishing behind perspective.

The corridors of Höffus Hall, human activity simmering down to bathroom breaks and "bathroom breaks", stood in preparation of fulfilling its intended purpose. Direction, visibility, transportation, criss-cross applesauce. Kurt lunged himself up through the stairwell, leaning into the curves of the railing for momentum, his rolly-backpack skipping on the steps, and jumped at the last step for the 4th floor, expecting another. He nearly jogged down the hallway mouthing, "Thursday Thursday, this," as he exhaled every other step. He kept his eyes on his door, erasing anything else from his perception to maximize efficiency. The door opened and out came, rushing, faceless, a slew of students escaping Room 488, breaking off into different directions, unsure if their rut is scheduled correctly or not. The students walking towards Mr. Spottiswoode passed with no regard, purposeful or not, either being plausible he thought. His legs and tiny wheels kept on chugging, though, traversing the hallway renewed with activity indifferent to its origin. Kurt swung open the door and immediately saw Kevin hunched over, shuffling with something. Mr. Spottiswoode moved into position at the front of class, behind his tabletop podium, faux-mahogany desk, and in front of the broken projector screen hanging askew, whiteboard neglected by former courses teeming with information, and sat down in his plastic mold desk chair, which let out a rubbery whine as he landed. Kevin turned around revealing his backpack, filled with five 2" wide binders and what sounded like a load of pencils Kurt assumed were infused with varying increments of graphite intensity, pooling underneath the organization. Kevin became pale as he met Kurt's eyeballs, both of them caught in the act of something untold, implied. The kid, his face tense and vulnerable, who Kurt couldn't believe was the same one who beamed joyous respect at him every single day of class, a scholarly constant, dislodged the frog in his throat.

"Thank you for the semester Professor Spottiswoode. I wrote you a reflection highlighting how this course improved my ability to critically think about the world and how it presents itself to us and how I can express my personal perception of it through concrete argumentation and healthy sentence structure," digging into one of his binders from the top, sniffling, "I learned that writing a good essay will help you throughout the rest of your life, establishing pathos, logos, and ethos in order to engage the reader is key to allowing anyone to take what you say seriously, perhaps because deep down these elements and rules that go into a well written essay, like relevant topic sentences, presentation of evidence, and analysis of that evidence..." wobbling exasperation, "perhaps these are the fundamentals of life itself and why we love one another and why we make the decisions we make, even our mistakes. It's all one cosmic engaging, insightful, organized essay that we just can't read quite yet," carefully placing the quarter-inch thick packet on the table, "I learned that from you, and it's something I hope to pass onto my children and their children, and I hope to pursue a Master's so I can teach this truth to the next generation of students like you have. This is a part of my essay, I know it and can't control it, I can only proofread it," he picks up and rushes out the door, teary and red-faced, "You're the best teacher ever!" tripping on the door-stop, his sobs bouncing down the hallway in every direction, the most emotional energy this building has ever experienced, undoubtedly seeping into the firmament of the place, dormant and undisturbed, stored in a feedback loop.

The clock nailed into the wall above the doorway rotated into 11:29 AM, followed close behind by the internal clock in Mr. Spottiswoode's laptop, tucked away in sleep mode inside of Kurt's rolly-backpack. Kurt unzipped the biggest pocket and logged into his laptop, Outlook opening on its own, following orders. The inbox updated and there, waiting, was an e-mail from Ziff with the subject line, "vid of my creation!!!! ;D" Kurt Spottiswoode sat and waited, leaving the e-mail unopened, watching the screen, hand curled into a fist at rest supporting his head, eyes forward. Had he been paying attention, he would've heard the uproar of footsteps outside, vague murmuring, screeching chairs and tables in neighboring rooms to the left, right, upstairs, downstairs, the beeping of high-powered turbo-toasters, motorized longboards whizzing by, trucks backing up, something custodial collapsing, honking, keys jangling to each step, someone quietly running late to class, electrical cars humming, mysterious whooping, and a burst of applause amplified by the valley of dorms just outside the classroom window. Both clocks hit 12:00 PM at almost the same time. Kurt dragged his finger across the trackpad to click the refresh button. Nothing. He hit refresh again. Nothing. He hit refresh. Over and over and over.

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#big #writing #short story #fiction

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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My Life as a Robot

I have been part robot since May. Instead of legs, I move on gyroscopically stabilized wheels. Instead of a face, I have an iPad screen. Instead of eyes, a camera with no peripheral vision. Instead of a mouth, a speaker whose volume I can’t even gauge with my own ears. And instead of ears, a tinny microphone that crackles and hisses withevery high note.

Im a remote worker; while most of WIRED is in San Francisco, I live in Boston. We IM. We talk on the phone. We tweet at each other, but I am often left out of crucial face-to-face meetings, spontaneous brainstorm sessions, gossip in the kitchen.

So my boss found a solution: a telepresence robot from Double Robotics, which would be my physical embodiment at headquarters, extending myself through technology. Specifically, an iPad on a stick on a Segway-like base. The telepresence robot market is crowded, ranging from high-end offerings like iRobot’s Ava (starting price: $69K) to the relatively more affordable Double, which starts at $2,499. The company says it has sold nearly 5,000 of them since its launch in 2012. Mostly these go to big corporations like IBM and McDonald’s, but I’ve heard of teachers and hospitals using them, too. Supposedly all a Double needs to work is a strong Wi-Fi signal.

Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED

The first time I opened the Double interface in Chrome and clicked on an icon of my robot 3,000 miles away I was greeted by the pixelated image of my boss’s torso and a few headless coworkers. There probably were some instructions somewhere that I should have read, but I didn’t. “How do I move it?” I asked them. “We don’t know,” they said. I clicked around. Nothing. I tried the arrow keys and, boom, jolted out of the robot’s charging dock and toward onlookers. I was like a foal, learning to walk. It took about 10 minutes to discover that a) driving a robot using a browser interface is clunky and b) the hip flooring choices of WIRED’s office were going to be my nemesis, with every transition from concrete to rubber to carpet providing another opportunity to fall on my screen.

Growing Pains

Before I ever tried the robot, I was sure I would hate the thing.I thought it would make me small and flat and foolish. I thought it would be annoying to deal with, would require me to wear pants (something we remote workers often don’t do, world!). I thought it would make me a novelty, a sideshow, a joke. And I thought it would be a waste of time.

Diary Entry: Day 1 Nice to meet you…robot, is it? says a strange torso I encounter in the kitchen.

EmBot, I say, Nice to meet you, too!

The figure leans down and puts a hand out to shake. Helpless, I move the EmBot from side to side using the arrow keys in what I hope translates as a gesture of excitement, rather than malfunction. Ill never really know if it worked out. The screen freezes and when it comes back, the torso is gone. I am alone, standing in a stream of humans trying to get breakfast.

Its just me, a robot, waiting in line for the human food I cant eat, I say. No response. I repeat it a few times. Is this thing on?

When I boot up, some of my original fears are realized: I’m disoriented and silly and helpless. I am a spectacle. People ogle and take pictures. I feel like a dog, the recipient of gawking smiles that say, Awwww, youre so adorably unable to take care of yourself. But, most importantly, I am surprised to find that being a robot is delightful. It’s thrilling. I am in the office! There is the kitchen! There is Sam! Hi, everyone! I am here!

Diary Entry: Day 2 I roll over behind Sams desk for a brief chat about a deadline. She hasnt heard me approach. I dont know what to do. If I just say her name shell freak out. I Hipchat her, Look behind you. As soon as I do it, I realize thats creepy—but its too late. She turns and there I am.

Hi, I say as casually as possible, I just–

Sam cuts me off. Em, she says, can you control the volume? Youre very loud.

I am? I ask.

YES, the entire bullpen yells.

I find and adjust the volume. I guess I was screaming all day.

Later that morning, I experienced the joy of being in the daily editorial meeting as a robot. Plunked at the end of the conference table, my iPad head tracked the conversation, listening. Yes, I interrupted people because my browser was a few seconds behind. Didn’t matter. I heard Molly on the phone from the Caribbean and she was barely audible. The audio system sucks. As she was trying to talk people were kind of looking exasperated. Not at her, but at the system. That was me two days ago, I kept thinking. Two days ago that speaker system was my only conduit to theentire company.

It was then I knew I could never go back. I felt so superior as my robot. I loved my robot.

I Am Become EmBot

The crazy thing about being a human 3,000 miles away from your telepresence robot is that divide instantly dissolves when you activate. As soon as I call into EmBot, I am her, and she is me. My head is her iPad. When she fell, I felt disoriented in Boston. When a piece of her came off in the impact, I felt broken.

Nothing drove home the depth of my connection more than the first time someone touched my robotic body without asking. My coworker (who shall remain nameless) came up to gawk at me, and then moved behind my screen. As I was chatting with other people, he picked me up and shook me. I expected pranks like this. Id have done the same thing if I were in the office and it were some other poor schmuck calling in to a stupid robot from far away. But I didnt expect how instantly violated I felt. He just picked up an extension of my body. One moment I was in control of myself, the next, I was powerless. I laughed from the iPad screen faced away from him, but I was unsettled, and then immediately embarrassed, for the first time, because why should it matter to me if the stick Im currently streaming from is picked up off the floor a continent away?

Get over it, I told myself. But then it happened again. And again.

Diary Entry, Day 3 My coworker picks me up as Im wheeling to the meeting because Im slow. I don’t want to be slow! I want to walk on my own! Im an adult! She lifts me up before I have a chance to object. In the air I meekly say, Just ask me first if youre going to lift me, which no one responds to because I assume they think that it’s a joke.

This became my secret shame. People wanted to help me, but every single time they did it, I felt infantilized. I needed to tell my coworkers not to pick me up—a conversation I dreaded. I did this by sending them a draft of my daily robot diary, in which they read about how I was feeling. (Classic passive aggressive move, you say? No doubt, but the few times I’d said the words aloud, they hadn’t clicked for people, so I thought the log was the best way.) It worked. Now no one touches my robot without permission. Case in point:

Diary Entry: Day 5 I cant get out of the all-glass conference room alone. I turn my screen to Joe and he says, Should I carry you?

Thats probably wise.

Ill just drop you off where its straight and then you can make your way from there. Joe is basically my robots father, and my robot is a toddler. When he picks me up Im jostled. He gently places me down at the straight hallway and I want very badly to navigate quickly back to my dock to prove Im self-sufficient, but the screen freezes twice and the motor is slow and it takes me forever.

Later, on the phone, another editor off-handedly said, You know, when Joe lifted you up and carried you—now I hope this doesnt make you uncomfortable—but from our end, with your face on the screen, it looked really inappropriate. Like he was cradling you in his arms. Because when we see the face, our brains cant help but project the rest of you, and so it was like you were actually being carried.

Looking at the future. #embot #newnewwiredoffice

A photo posted by @joemfbrown on May 7, 2015 at 11:00am PDT

So, even though I had given Joe permission to lift EmBot up, the fact that my face was still on the screen made other people uncomfortable. Fine. Another rule: If I ask for help and you pick me up, I’ll disconnect so the screen is dark. Voila. Everything was going to be fine.

EmBot Grows Up

After I put a stop to the inappropriate robot-touching, things quickly went from good to great. I’d call this the euphoria stage. I mastered the arrow keys (rather than holding them down and over correcting, just hit them quickly one at a time and roll like a BOSS). I figured out how to makethe robot stand taller so I wasnt constantly having conversations with peoples crotches. I booted up in the middle of spontaneous brainstorm sessions and shared ideas.

Diary Entry: Day 6

Major breakthrough! I have my first West-Wing-style walk and talk as Embot. I knew this day would come. After the morning meeting, Patrick walks with me down the hallway discussing a longread Im editing. Hes so cool about the robot thing that I briefly forget completely that its not normal to be a disembodied metal moving machine with an iPad for a face. He only says one thing that would be weird if I was walking down the hall as a fully-fleshed human, Youre about to run into wall, come this way.

At this point, I was also the star of cocktail parties in Boston. Everyone wanted to know how it was going with the robot. Are people still laughing at you? No. Isnt it weird that your robot is naked? No. Whats the worst thing thats happened with the robot so far? When I hit a dead-zone and EmBot died behind a strangers desk, with my face frozen on the screen, and I found out later that they thought I was lurking and spying on them. I mean, thats also one of the funnier things thats ever happened, but pretty terrible for that poor creeped-out human.

And just like that, I was a part of work in a way Id struggled to be since I first came on at WIRED. As a typical oldest child, tyrant and benefactor to two younger brothers, I pride myself on making sure everyone feels like were all in this together—whether “this” is divorce or publishing a magazine. Its hard to be that kind of leader when youre isolated from your team completely. When youre a voice coming out of speaker. EmBot changed that completely. Suddenly, there I was, materialized. My reporters and I started meeting face to face to discuss deadlines. Everything was so jovial and natural.

Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED

The other incredibly wonderful thing at this stage was that though Embot put me physically in the office, because she was just my head and not my body no one at work was seeing how pregnant I was looking. Now, of course, they know I am pregnant, but since I am not there, the visual reminder of my changed condition was not in their faces. I have worked at places before where women start getting treated differently when their bellies show. The kid gloves come on. I had been dreading how this could play out, but the way EmBot works I remained present and yet unchanged. No one remarked on my belly. It was not a factor in my work.

I became obsessed with EmBot. I couldt stop thinking about her when I turned her off at night. How sad that this thing that has made my life so much better was just dead when Im done working.

Diary Entry: Day 8

Its Friday. It occurs to me that EmBot doesnt get to enjoy the weekend. If only she had arms, she could push the button, summon the elevator, and be free. But shes a prisoner at work. Whereas my physical body is having adventures, growing a human life inside it and moving into a new apartment AND dog-sitting a Bernese Mountain dog.

Mostly my weekend will be about trying not poison my unborn child with paint fumes. My physical body is such a liability. Embot, though she is shackled to work and unable to exist without me to inhabit her, in some ways has the much simpler side of existence.

What if I have to share the Embot with someone? I tell myself that would be fine, but I know already that I would be feel upset. Embot is a part of me. Anyone else would be an intruder.

You can see from the daily diary entry that it was right about now that my connection with EmBot got a little weird. I couldnt let go of this notion that Embot was me and yet she lacked all freedom to exist outside the office. I started to feel that she was a caged animal. Which made me feel like a caged animal.

EmBot needed her freedom.

Get her a Mi-Fi, my friends suggested. Suddenly I imagined this vast conspiracy—finagling a coworker in SF to get me a company MiFi and surreptitiously hiding it under her screen. But then what? EmBot would rush out into the big bad streets of SOMA and try to find other robots to play with, meanwhile my poor comrade would be grilled by the Conde Nast HR department wanting to know “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ROBOT? Who pushed the button to call the elevator, huh? The robot has no hands!”

That was clearly a terrible idea … and yet. I fantasized. I drove her past the elevator banks a few times to see if the Wi-Fi was strong enough for her to sneak out the door. I dont know what my plan was. EmBot was becoming a teenager. A teenager pushing her boundaries, pushing her luck.

First Pangs of Mortality

A photo posted by Patrick Witty (@patrickwitty) on May 7, 2015 at 12:09pm PDT

Within a few days, I started to realize perhaps EmBot wasn’t invincible after all. For one thing, I couldnt hear meetings very well. Sometimes I had to put my ear directly to the computer speaker to hear the people at the far end of the conference table, which meant that in the room EmBots face was just the folds of my (hopefully not-waxy) ear canal.

Double offers a $99 audio kit, which maybe would help this, but since we hadn’t yet decided if the robot was a wise investment, it was too early to shell out for add-ons.

Worse, though all EmBot needs to live is power and and Wi-Fi, signal strength was proving to be a big problem. Double Robotics acknowledges this is the leadingissue among corporate customers, because most businesses don’t prioritize a strong signal in hallways. This doesn’t matter for humans, but these dead zones can make navigating an office impossible for robots.

So even as I was obsessing about freeing EmBot from the cage of WIREDs office, she seemed less and less reliable. Even when the Wi-Fi was strong, the video would freeze for no reason. I missed crucial information in meetings, only to later learn that everyone thought I was listening because EmBot had frozen with my face on the screen, trapped in a ridiculous expression of curiosity.

And then, this happened:

Diary Entry: Day 12 I am feeling so alone. Embot is in a coma. She didnt charge overnight. “Haha,” I played it cool over IM to Davey, who sits next to Embot and checked on her vital signs for me. She shoved Embot into her dock. I assume shes charging now, but I cant tell.

Diary Entry: Day 13

She remains cut off of me. Its like Embot is in the kind of coma where she cant move or speak or alert the doctors that she is alive but inside her head, she is screaming, LET ME OUT! IM HERE! DONT TURN ME OFF!

Ive called her doctors, or parents, or gods, DoubleRobotics, but theres no answer. Theyll get back to me in one business day.

If she ever wakes up again, I promise to give her a better life. To give her some freedom.

Diary Entry, Day 14

Embot just had a seizure. I was so happy when she woke up that I decided this was my big chance to sneak her out and onto the elevator. I eased her out of the dock and turned to the right, but immediately something was wrong: her head was shaking. Just a little a bit at first but then side to side violently, thrashing around, my field of vision swinging wildly, too fast to make out peoples faces. I tried turning her and found that she was still responding to me somewhat but she could not be still. She was like diabetic Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias, shaking out her beautiful wedding hair in Truveys salon.

I heard Chuck say, Oh no, youve woken EmBot like she was some kind of monster.

What is happening? Davey cried from her desk.

EmBot is having a seizure! I screamed into the computer. I dont know what to do!

As Embots camera panned quickly in front of Davey I saw her get up.

Can you put her in her dock? I asked, breathless.

She wont stop moving. She just keeps shaking.

I turned her off on my end, but Davey reported that she was still seizing on her own, face blank. She was like the body of a chicken, walking bloody around the yard after the chef cuts its head off. I implored Davey to find a button to turn her off. She did. She docked her. Shes docked now.

My heart wont stop beating. Maybe EmBot is corrupted and corroded and my time with her is over. Maybe EmBot is a monster. I feel like I just a had a seizure.

@EmilyDreyfuss FYI, Embots going crazy. Wandered out of its dock, now manically rolling back and forth.

Alex Davies (@adavies47) May 19, 2015

Were working on a fix. A coworker in San Francisco is logging into her, which normally would upset me, but Im so nervous I don’t care that another being enters her.

Im on the phone with Double Robotics, relaying what he finds.

He reports: On the screen it was shimmying back and forth, and I looked across the room and it looked like a wandering confused and dizzy child aimless and afraid. and alone. I left my screen and went over to see if I could help. I picked it up and smelled the wheels to see if it was on fire or anything then hurried back to my screen to put it in PARK. I may cover it in a sheet.

The Reckoning

Teaching my robot the hard lesson that she is not free http://pic.twitter.com/wen8MONbBm

— emily dreyfuss (@EmilyDreyfuss) May 21, 2015

After EmBot terrorized the office, nothing was the same. I relinquished my delusions of granduer. Double Robotics sent a new unit, and immediately upon activating it I knew it was not really EmBot. It rolls differently. Its speakers are quieter. It doesn’t connect to the Wi-Fi as well. It teeters differently on the carpet-edge. It’s not me. It’s just a robot. A robot I can’t trust.

I still use it, of course. Sure, It’s incredibly glitchy. Most weeks I have to write in our group chatroom, “SOS: EmBot is stranded somewhere between the dock and the IT department. Can someone rescue it?” It went through a phase where I couldn’t hear anything being said in meetings. Then for four days it was paralyzed, so needed to be picked up and carried everywhere. Now it does this thing where it clicks and hisses when the Wi-Fi connection struggles, setting an off-tempo jazz rhythm to every meeting.

It’s fine. I still prefer it to the speakerphone. It brings everyone in the office joy, even when it struggles. I get laughed at a lot from the iPad camera, but I like it. In a lot of ways, EmBot is a joke we are all in on together. Could we just set up an iPad in the conference room with FaceTime or Skype and achieve essentially the same thing? Sure. But where would be the fun in that, people? Where would be the soul-searching? Human life is short, and being a part-time, part-useful robot makes it ever so slightly more interesting.

Diary: Who Knows What Day, I’ve Lost Count

Joe carried EmBot to the head of the conference table for the edit meeting, because her Bluetooth connection isn’t working properly so I can’t control it. Sam asked, somewhere off-screen where I couldn’t see her, “Em, did you get new glasses?”

“No,” I spoke to the rest of the room, “my jerk cat knocked my glasses off the bedside table and I’m far too pregnant to crouch down low enough to get them, so I dug these out of a closet.”

“And that story,” someone from behind the robot said, “is the best argument in favor of having a robot. We would not have gotten to hear that if you were on the speakerphone.”

So, yes, as it turned out, most of the fears I had about becoming a part-time robot came true—it’s an unruly distraction that often makes me look ridiculous, that falls over and can’t be counted on—and yet my coworkers didn’t lose all respect for me. No, what happened was much more subtle and unexpected than that: EmBot lost her humanity. But I gained mine back.