#I mean this is based on seeing like. one preview. but it was pretty prominent in that preview so.

[mochinomnoms]

The Private (not) Thoughts of a Moray Chapter 4: This thing called love, I just can’t handle it

Gender Neutral Reader x Jade Leech

Chapter 4 preview:

Jade! I’m so happy to see you! You look wonderful today. I mean you always look wonderful, so handsome! Oh, you look so cool as a human, not that you don’t look cool as an eelmer, but you’re always so cool and handsome and I just love you so much! I love, love, lovelovelovelove— Oh…  Jade (unfortunately) was looking back at you, thoughts of affection ramming through his head.  Darling! You’re so cute! You look so ethereal under the lights of Octavinelle, the blue reflects wonderfully in your eyes. You always look so angelic, though, but especially now that the color of the sea can act as a scenic environment for your presence. Oh, I love you~ I love you, I love you, I love you— Between the two’s thoughts fighting for space in your cramped mind, and you’re pretty sure you could feel a migraine coming on. 

[wc} - 8,150

[notes] - *crab raves* finally, struggled with it but it's out. i got done kinda setting up the characters and their dynamics so chapters should have an easier time getting out

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Chapter 4: This thing called love? I just can’t handle it

The liquid in your cat shaped mug (courtesy of Cater) slowly turned from a light purple back to a soft creamy brown as a few drops from your small vial of mauve liquid dripped into your drink.

One, two, and that’s three drops for me and for Grim…

Placing the vial back in your pocket, you set Grim’s own morning drink, a small cup of hot cocoa with the tiniest of marshmallows, to the side. The barely rising sun indicated it was just before 6 in the morning, so Grim, and most of the dorm was still asleep. 

You settled in on the nook of the windowsill facing the entrance of the dorm. From here, you could see the Hall of Mirrors, Sam’s shop, and the alchemy building. 

A loud yawn startled you as James entered the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and blinking at you owlishly. 

“Good morning James.” You said softly, waving. James mumbled what you assume was a ‘good morn’ back as he opened 

Frustrated grunts and growls emanated from James as he wrestled the, evidently well sealed, package of cereal. You think it was this world’s version of Captain Crunch, the image of a well-dressed pirate in red with a gleaming hook and mischievous grin staring back at you across the kitchen table. 

“Damn this—why do they make these things so hard to open!?” James hissed, throwing the colorful cardboard box across the room, nearly hitting a sleepy Tony in the face.

“Ack! Ayo?” Tony rapidly looked back and forth between the offending material and James, who was now yanking at the plastic bag of cereal with his teeth. Growling, he used his canines to rip the bag apart so that he could finally have a core part of a valuable, healthy breakfast. 

He was failing miserably. 

“Can you watch it? I’m walkin’ here—are you fightin’ a bag of cereal?” Tony asked incredulously. 

Taking a pause, James looked up, bag still in mouth, and gave a muffled “Yesh.”

“…and losin’?”

“…” Flushing, James let go of the bag and responded, “It’s my favorite.”

He yelped as one of the other freshmen walked past him and flicked his forehead. 

“Hey, what gives Yakub?”

Yabuk, one of the Scarabia students in your care, shoved James aside with his broad shoulders and tall frame, as he began to take out items from the small pantry in the corner. You weren’t sure what Yabuk was, you think either a beastman or fae based on the slight point in his ears and the way his bright red hair was ever so slightly feathery. 

In fact, you're pretty sure that it was actually feathers, the plumy hairline starting from the peak between his eyebrows and turning into a prominent widow’s peak. His hair, which was undercut and slicked up like a parrot, was quite striking against his dark brown skin and sharp yellow eyes. 

Framing his narrow face were a pair of red macaw feather earrings, which you think might’ve been plucked from his own head, as the blue and green ombre matched that on the tips of his hair/feathers. 

Yabuk sighed, deciding to turn and address James, who was back to gnawing at the bag. 

“How about this, how about you fight the rest of the cereal by yourself, and I’ll courageously make pancakes for those of us who want a little warmth in our mornings.”

James sneered at him, deciding that the best course of action was to vigorously shake his head in order to tear the bag open. He succeeded, after the bag split down the middle and spilled half of the yellow, red, and blue contents on the floors, where it would no doubt be vacuumed by the never-ending ravenous Grim. 

You lifted a hand to cover your mouth in an effort to hide the fact that you were seconds away from laughing your head off. 

…Uwwwah. 

James dejectedly poured himself a bowl of cereal, careful to not spill the rest of it. Deciding to be helpful, you walked over from your nook in the corner, surprised no one had yet noticed you. 

“Here, I’ll get the broom—”

“GWAH!” James shrieked at your “sudden” appearance. You wonder if it was just early morning fatigue that made him forget you were there, or if he genuinely didn’t process you sitting at the windowsill. 

“H-housewarden—I mean Prefect—I mean Y/N—” The poor man yelped as he knocked his bowl off the counter with his elbow. 

OH SHIT—

Yabuk, also squawking in surprise, managed to catch the bowl before it fell on the ground, wincing at the cold milk dripping down the slides onto his hand. 

“Hah—got it.” Clearing his throat, Yabuk gave you a nod. “Good morning, Housewarden Y/N, would you like a pancake?”

You too had been reaching for the bowl, bent over in an awkward position between Yabuk and James (who was internally screeching at the proximity between you two). 

“Ah, it’s fine, thank you, Yabuk.” You stood back, slightly puffing your chest out as you stretched your back, sighing in relief at your upper spine popping. 

“I have to go in here soon anyways, I’ll be out of the dorm for most of today.” 

Tony, who had poured himself a cup of coffee from the still warm pot you’d brewed earlier, piped up, “Oh yeah, ain’t we ‘upposed ta be going over to Octavinelle in halfa-hour?”

You winced and nodded. “Yep…that’s right.” 

Going over to the dragon’s lair. Or would it be the eel’s lair? Octopus’s lair technically…

“Ah yes! I’ve been ready to head back to our actual dorm for sometime now!” You jumped, noticing that Aspen had been watching your interaction from the doorway for who knows how long. 

Aspen gave a closed mouth smile, tilting his head. Can’t even be bothered to wake up early in the morning? Pathetic.

You raised your brow at that, deciding to return his smile with a polite one of your own as you greeted him, “Good morning Aspen, yes I’m aware—”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t keep us waiting, Prefect.” You didn’t miss the way he nearly hissed your nickname as he walked over to Tony and swiped his cup. 

“Hey! That was mine—”

“Ah, well, I’m sure you didn’t mean to do so on purpose.” Ignoring Tony’s grabby hands, he continued, “After all, being a magicless human for so long, and just becoming a housewarden so recently, I’m sure you’re still trying to manage everything.”

He made a face as he sipped from the cup, disgusted, most likely from the quality of your 2 thaumark grounds from Sam’s. Aspen decided to hand back the coffee to a pouting Tony, who was giving his friend the side-eye. 

“I have to wait on you anyways,” He sighed, turning around to head to the common area. “I’ll be in the living room, once you’re ready!”

He ended his sentence in a sing-songy tone, waving over his shoulder. You sighed, the 9 hours of sleep slipping away into exhaustion rather than rest, as you finished your now cooled coffee in just a few gulps. 

Myah! What’s this guy’s problem? Did someone steal his tuna? I bet it was Wynfred. Definitely Wynfred.  

Grim trotted on all fours to you, using the island barstool as leverage to jump onto your shoulder and affectionately smash his cheek into yours. 

“Mornin’ Henchman! Why did you leave the bed so early?” Grim pouted, hanging off of your shoulder as he winced at the sight of the hot cocoa you’d prepared. 

Mrrah, I don’t like the lavender taste! Grim grumbled in his head, taking the small mug with his paws and downing the now lukewarm drink like a child with a cup of bitter cough syrup. Next time, I get to choose the taste, sashimi-flavored, hehe!

You sighed, grimacing at the thought of a tuna flavored coffee syrup, “We gotta go to meet with Azul, remember?”

“Nooo!” Grim whined, fiddling with his mug. You tsked as cocoa spilled over. “I still don’t trust that shifty octopus, I still have nightmares of waking up with an anemone on my head again.”

Grim was still whining as he finished off the cocoa at your insistence. You yourself also finished your drink, placing both cups in the sink. A Heartslabyul student rushed over to clean them for you, muttering something about Riddle warning them to be helpful. 

Please tell him I’m good, I don’t want to get collared my first week like that freshman last year.

You withheld a snort, biting the inside of your cheek instead. You leaned down to whisper, “Thanks, I’ll tell Riddle that you’re doing a good job.” to the student, smiling at his beaming face. 

“Grim, let’s surprise everyone with our dorm uniforms today!” Grim whooped and jumped back down from your shoulder to climb up the stairs. He’d been so excited that you two had gotten proper uniforms, as he claimed that it was time everyone started taking him seriously as a mage. 

Once again, the ghosts had taken liberty to create your dorm uniform. Eliza had given them some of her old dresses from when she was alive as an apology for taking over your dorm. They’d decided to take those, as well as some of their own clothes to get you all dressed up. Your dorm uniform was relatively simple, compared to the other’s, but was comfortable. 

They’d given you two versions, noticing your affinity for both skirts and pants. Your top was made with a striped cream button-up blouse adorned with a silver collar chain sporting two mauve crystal ball pins. The top was accompanied by a dark blue cloak, reminiscent of the ghosts’ own capes. Of the two outfit variants, they had managed to find a dark gray and blue, front corset dress from Eliza’s collection. She had suggested to Bernard that you wear it over the blouse along with dark tights and her old, brown chunky-sole loafer shoes with the dress. 

The other outfit was recommended by Albert, who claimed he was rather fashionable while alive (Earnest gawked at that, so you’re not sure how true that claim was). This one had a vest, the same color as the cloak, with dark gray, high-waisted pants decorated with silver buttons along the waistband and pockets. You wore the same shoes as with the previous outfit, as they were in surprisingly good condition despite their age. 

Eliza must have taken really good care of her stuff before and after she passed. I hope she and Puffy are happily married in the afterlife. Maybe they’ll visit again…without the whole suitor stuff, though. 

You hummed as you decided to put on the dress version of the outfit. It was obvious that the clothes were older, time and dust took a toll on them, but you had to admit it was nice having a dorm uniform. Plus, the age of your clothes matched the appearance of a now fixed, but still full of character Ramshackle. Like an old Victorian ghost still trapped in their home. 

“Henchhuman! Help me with this cloak thing!” Grim was grumbling as he had trouble tying the bow of his own mini-cloak. He really looked like a mini-version of the ghosts, he just needed a hat! 

“Coming, coming!” You crouched down to help him, humming. “There we go. You look great, Grim!”

Hmph! Of course, I do! You don’t look bad yourself, henchhuman. 

Grim grinned as he jumped up to your shoulder, watching as you grabbed the hair pin with the Ramshackle crest and clipped your hair back. 

“We look like the real deal! Finally, gonna get some respect here, mehehe!” 

You and Grim shared a soft laugh as you pressed your foreheads together. The two of you rushed down the stairs, Grim gripping your shoulder so as to not fall off. Aspen and Tony were dressed in their school uniforms. Though, you noticed, Tony’s uniform was more hastily put together, vest and jacket unbuttoned and the tie messily put together. 

Aspen, who was prim and properly dressed, fussed over Tony’s appearance before noticing you and slamming his hands back to his sides. 

“Hello Prefect, took your time to look nice I see” Trying to impress? I still don’t see the appeal. “May we leave now? I’d like to actually be on time.”

Tony shoved an elbow into Aspen’s stomach, the latter smacking the former’s arm in retaliation as they shared a look. 

“Um, yeah. Follow me.” You gestured as you passed by Wynfred by the front door, who was currently trying to yank something out of Silas’s hands. 

“Give that to me—Oh! Prefect!” Wynfred happily greeted you as he managed to take the item from Silas’s hands and shove it in his pocket. “Off to Octavinelle? Will you be coming back for us Pomefiore students?” 

You nodded and replied, “Yes, but probably in the evening since I’ll have to do Scarabia and Heartslabyul first. Grim and I will both be out all day…”

Humming, you narrowed your eyes at Wynfred and listened to his thoughts. 

How nice, my club meeting was canceled today, so I’m bored. Maybe I’ll just watch everyone and see what they get up to.

“Hmm, hey Wynfred?” The redhead perked at the mention of his name. 

“Yes?”

“Can you do me a favor? Watch over Ramshackle and make sure no one gets into any trouble or anything like that. I have a chore board for tasks that Grim and I normally do around the dorm and school, but…”

You gestured to Aspen and Tony, the former looking and thinking about the inconvenience of stopping. 

“Well, we’re pretty busy now, so it would be a great help if—oh!”

Wynfred grabbed onto your hands, eyes dazzling and shimmering with glee. He yanked you close to him until your noses were nearly pressing together as he started yammering. 

“Of course I’ll be in charge! Oh, I’m so flattered that you’d ask me of that. You know I’m an exceptional leader of my coven, and I was back home as well, so you can depend on me! I’ll make sure everything is in tip-top shape, don't worry bout a thing! Off you go now!”

Wynfred gently pushed you out the front door, Aspen and Tony following, as he turned to start calling out to the remaining freshmen. 

“Alright! Housewarden Y/N put me in charge, so listen up!”

Geez, I hope this isn’t going to bite me in the butt later.  

The walk to the mirrors was short and quiet, on your end at least. A few steps behind you, Aspen and Tony trailed along, softly conversing between themselves. Based on their thoughts, you think they were arguing about something, or someone.

Gah! You’re more jealous than the nereids!

Tony’s voice rang through your head as you turned your head to look back at the duo, who was now muttering angrily at Aspen. The latter looked almost pouty, looking at the ground as he hissed back something to his friend. The image was actually pretty funny, with the near 1-foot difference between them, Aspen had to lean down fairly drastically to whisper with Tony. 

Gods, you’re so annoying, like a suckerfish, just take my side!

Tony, on the other hand, craned his neck up to reach Aspen’s ear, and kept darting his head into his friend’s eyesight every time Aspen looked away to pout further. 

Blah, blah, blah, jealous my ass, maybe I just don’t like them!

“It’s too early for them to be this loud, henchhuman! Make them stop!” Grim whined from his place in your arms, glaring at the pair over your shoulders. You cradled him as he sleepily rested his little chin on the crook of your neck.

“Let them be, they’re not that loud, be honest.” as you said that, you decided to turn your head to look back at the freshmen. 

Aspen locked eyes with you as he looked up at the same time you did, narrowing them as you turned back forward. You could still feel his stare burn into your back as the four of you turned the corner to the Hall of Mirrors. 

YOU! You’re nothing special, just a stupid human. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you, IhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhatehatehatehatehatehate—

You abruptly turned around as you arrived in front of the Octavinelle mirror, disrupting Aspen’s little chant of loathing, to address the pair. 

“Before we enter, a few things!” You smiled at the pair, listing out your tasks with your free hand as you spoke. 

“First, I need to meet with Azul myself to work out the schedule for you and your two other dormmates. I believe you’ll get fitted into your dorm uniforms with your vice while I do. Second, you’ll get trained for the working lounge while I go meet with Heartslaybul’s housewarden-”

Grim jumped from your arms to place his paws on his hips and continue your sentence confidently. 

“The Great Grim will come get you after your training since my henchhuman will have to move on immediately to the other dorms, so you better do what I say-” 

“Wait, is the cat actually our vice housewarden?” Tony asked with a deadpan expression. “I thought that was a joke.”

“Hey! How dare you mock the greatest mage of all time? Bow down and beg for forgiveness—mmpphh!”

You quickly snatched Grim up and covered his mouth as you gave a tight smile. 

“Third, once you're back at the dorm, please make sure the Heartslabyul students all leave with Grim, and let the Scarabia students know that they’ll be next. Afterward, you can do what you want as long as you're back to the Ramshackle lounge by 5:30! Any questions?”

You could see the metaphorical roll of Aspen’s eyes as he thought, No-

“Yeah!” Tony raised his hand up, akin to an eager kindergartener in his favorite class, as he asked, “Is Jade gonna be meetin’ us at the Mostro Lounge or somethin’? He’s usually off hikin’ in the mornin’.” 

Yep, just as I intended. Thank god he’s consistent at least, same as last year.

You let out a sigh of relief at that, making Aspen and Tony share a look. Though, they seemed to think your sigh was for a different reason. 

Hmpf. “Disappointed, are we?” Aspen grumbled, hissing as Tony jabbed an elbow in his ribs in response. 

Tony chuckled, “Aw, don’t worry Prefect, don’t be sad, I’m sure he’ll be back soon! You can say hi to him then!” Ain’t that cute, Jade sure knows how to pick ‘em. 

“W-what?” You furrowed your brows in confusion, noting that both of their faces matched your expression. Your grasp on Grim’s squirming body had weakened enough for him to slip out and climb up your arm to sit on your shoulder. 

“Why would they be disappointed?” Grim questioned, “Jade’s too scary for my henchhuman to be hanging around!”

“Grim! Be nice! No, it’s not that, I just hardly know him.” you hurriedly clarified as Aspen’s face turned to one of elation and Tony’s of disbelief.

Thank. The. Fucking. Sea Witch.

No fucking way?!

“Whaddya mean ya hardly know him? All summer, he’s been-ow!” Tony yelped as Aspen pinched his side, glaring at him as he instead turned to give you a smile. 

“What he means to say is: you’ve been a hot topic all summer, Jade speaks…highly,” Aspen’s face soured as he said that. “Of you, so we assumed you were rather close, is that not the case?”

Grim snorted as his thoughts spoke to you. Yeah, I bet he wished he was reeeeal close to ya, huh Y/N?

You let out a nervous laugh as you stammered out, “No, uh, we’re not close at all. Now come on.”

Gesturing to the pair to follow you into the mirror, your vision was blinded by the light of the mirror. Its lavender shimmering morphed into the underwater dorm, a bubble developing around your small group once you’d made it far enough in. The tranquil ocean that Octavinelle resided in never ceased to enchant you, with the soft bluish gray seabed and the light purple reefs, not to mention the clear glass walls of the actual dorm building itself, built right into the lavender reefs. 

Despite it being so early in the morning, you could see a numerous number of students running through the halls of the dormitory from the aquarium walls. Peeking behind you, you smiled at Aspen and Tony’s faces of delight, the latter pressing against the bubble until his face was smooshed against it, grinning like a madman.

“Yooooo, this looks sick! Aspy, look at all the reefs!” 

“Aspy?” Grim asked while you hid your smile behind your hand. Aspen’s cheeks turned a light purple as he kicked the back of Tony’s knee. 

I thought I told him not to call me that here!

“It’s a childhood nickname…” Aspen trailed off, his eyes lighting up as the Mostro Lounge entrance came into view. “Woah…it really is in the skeleton of an ancient whale.”

You tilted your head at the two as you asked, “Is this your first time in your dorm? You guys didn’t get to see it after orientation?”

Tony shook his head. “Nah, when we found that we’re crowded, we’re sent over to ya right awayyyYYYEEH-”

The bubble, once past the magical barrier separating the water from the café entrance, popped, causing you, Grim, and Aspen to land on your feet just fine, if a bit unbalanced. Tony, who’d been leaning down farther and farther against the bubble, fell face-first into the ground. 

Aspen chuckled in response, looking back at you with pursed lips. So if you hardly know him…then why…

“So back to what I was saying earlier…what’s the nature of your relationship to Azul and the twins then? They, Jade especially, spoke of you quite often.”

The thought of a love struck Jade talking off Floyd and Azul’s ears all summer with the same level of intensity that his thoughts betrayed made a strange feeling pit in your stomach. 

Ugh, maybe I’m getting sick. I think…

“Like what Grim was saying, I don’t really know Jade outside of class or even Floyd. Actually, I’m closer to Azul though…we’ve been through…a lot together last year. Plus, we hung out over the summer!” 

Aspen nodded, grunting as Tony used his arm to yank himself back up.

“Right…you and the other overblot students had to meet with Crowley, right?” 

You perked up in surprise, as did Grim, who whipped his head around to Aspen and growled.

“Some random freshman ain’t supposed to know that. Have you been snoopin’ around? I’ll cast a whole spell of hurt at cha if ya have!”

“Grim!” You growled, gaze strict, at your familiar as the fire in his ears grew in his growing ire. “Behave yourself. He's right, though, Aspen? Please explain.”

Aspen tensed while Tony abruptly explained, “Our families are…tight-knit! They all do business—”

“Heh, you mean ‘business’?” Grim air-quoted as he scoffed. 

“We do business together. When the headmaster told his parents, they told ours, so we learned pretty soon after it happened.”

Aspen, quick to agree, nodded along. “Yes! We all…grew up together?” 

You squint your eyes at the pair, hoping that your, admittedly halfhearted, glare would provoke one of them to either blurt out a further explanation, or their thoughts would betray something. 

Instead, a synchronized screech was echoing through both of their heads. You took a long, deep breath, and sighed heavily. 

“I’ll ask your housewarden about it later instead, how about that?” With a cheeky smile, you turned back around briskly walking to the host stand of the Mostro Lounge as Aspen and Tony  quickly followed after, resuming their earlier bickering.

Looking over your shoulder, you smiled again, softer this time, at the two. The way they bantered, brushed and shoved each other with their shoulders, reminded you of your own favorite duo.

I’ll have to make sure I say hi to my boys before I see Riddle.

Aspen eyes met yours, widening slightly as a soft lilac blush formed on his cheeks. He looked to the side instead, huffing in his head.

What are you smiling at, stupid human. Turn back around and…huh?

Still smiling, you turned to see what had taken Aspen’s attention, before running face-first into someone’s chest. You and the very tall stranger tumbled a bit before they grabbed your shoulders to help steady you, grasping you gently like you were a precious stone. 

“Oof! Sorry, I—”

“It’s quite alright, Prefect.” My pearl~ “Perhaps you should pay more attention, you might bump into someone less savory, fuhuhu!”

“EEK!” You rapidly jumped back, Grim falling off your shoulder with an ‘oomph’ as your back smacked into Aspen and Tony. “Jade! I thought you were hiking! You usually do on Saturdays.”

Jade, his tall frame now in full view, smiled as he leaned down to tower over you. “Oh? I hadn’t realized that you’ve memorized my schedule.” 

Aaaah! Did you want to make sure we’d bump into each other, too? My sweet, you can ask for my time any day of the week!

“NO!” The volume of your yelp made everyone jump as you turned a deep pink. You laughed nervously, waving your hands rapidly. 

“Ahaha! No, I just remember from last year that you’d be out by the woods near Ramshackle! I figured you’d keep up the same routine.”

Oh, of course. Still, I’m so happy they remember, my darling pearl! I love you~

“I see,” Jade closed his eyes as he continued smiling, chuckling, “I usually would, but today I decided to make an exception.”

You heard Tony mumble under his breath, “Gee, wonder why.” Aspen shoved an elbow into Tony’s ribs, shushing at his friend before smiling shyly at Jade, a small lilac blush on his cheeks. 

“Hi Jade,” Aspen waved, voice soft and almost meek. 

Jade! I’m so happy to see you! You look wonderful today. I mean you always look wonderful, so handsome! Oh, you look so cool as a human, not that you don’t look cool as an eelmer, but you’re always so cool and handsome and I just love you so much! I love, love, lovelovelovelove—

Oh… 

“Hello Aspen. Tony. It’s wonderful to see you again so soon,” Jade’s attention shifted to the two momentarily. “It’s like we never left home.”

He (unfortunately) was looking back at you, thoughts of affection ramming through his head. 

Darling! You’re so cute! You look so ethereal under the lights of Octavinelle, the blue reflects wonderfully in your eyes. You always look so angelic, though, but especially now that the color of the sea can act as a scenic environment for your presence. Oh, I love you~ I love you, I love you, I love you—

Between the two’s thoughts fighting for space in your cramped mind, and you’re pretty sure you could feel a migraine coming on. 

“Ugh, my head.” You rubbed your temples as Grim climbed back up on your shoulders, hanging himself off you. 

“Ya good, Prefect?” Tony asked. His voice sounded concerned. 

“Yeah, um, are you going to be training the two while I meet with Azul?” 

Jade’s smile grew as he leaned down, just slightly, to meet your eyes. 

“Floyd will be training them, and you’ll be meeting with me instead.”

What! Nooooo! Not Floyd, he still pinches my cheeks…

Aspen seemed upset, both internally and visibly, as his face soured. Tony, on the other hand, brightened and pumped his fist. 

“Yes! Floyd, my boy!” 

Jade chuckled and reached over to ruffle Tony’s head. “Do try and stay out of trouble, for poor Aspen’s sake. I’ll be too busy with our dear Prefect to keep an eye on the three of you.”

“Oh, yes.” Aspen drawled, “Our ‘dear Prefect’ will need all the assistance they can get. Did you know, they didn’t even realize that they had to sign off on their students’ club registrations? Our paperwork was barely submitted to the guidance mage yesterday!”

Hmph, I still don’t see the appeal in them. They’re such a clumsy human. Barely a housewarden. You can do so much better, Jade!

Ooooooh. That makes more sense now…wait, NO.

“Are you sure that I’m not meeting with Azul?” You laughed nervously, the panic setting in. “I double-checked with him yesterday, he said that we were still set!”

“Something came up.” Jade explained. The image of Azul’s bedroom door with a broken lock, door shaking as Azul’s muffled voice shouted through the wooden door, entered your brain. 

You raised a brow and slowly replied, “Oh. Should we go check, or?”

“Nope. If you’ll please follow me, I will drop off our newest employees with Floyd.” Jade turned, looking over his shoulder. “You and I will have our meeting in the VIP Room.”

Alone~

You cringed, a shiver going up your spine as you gave Jade a tight smile, gritting out, “Greeeeat. Cool. That’s fine. Yep.”

Jade is either oblivious or maliciously ignorant to your distress as he guides the small group to the dining room. As you approached, you could hear the bickering of familiar voices, one angrier than the others. 

Near the bar was an irate Azul, arguing with a bored looking Floyd. Based on what you could hear, Azul was asking Floyd about why his bedroom lock was jerry-rigged to lock him instead. 

“IDK Azul, I didn’t do it, wasn’t feeling up to anything like that today.” Floyd whined, flopping his head around before looking over to your group’s direction. He perked up as he noticed you, more specifically, noticed Tony. 

“HEY! TONY!” 

“HEY! FLOYD!”

Tony ran up to the taller man, dodging his attempts to grab him and ruffle his hair. The two played a small game of chase as Azul came up to you with a pleasant smile. 

“Y/N! Welcome back, I see you’ve taken on the role of housewarden quite well.” Azul nodded his head at you in greeting, directing his gaze to a stiff Aspen as he continued, “None of my students are giving you any trouble, I hope?”

You had the theory that his question wasn’t really for you, as he eyed Aspen up and down. His thoughts confirmed it, though. 

Aspy, you better have not been a pain, I know how you can be. 

Said individual was pointedly staring at one of the aquarium walls, pretending to be enthralled with the reefs and fish. 

Why do you even care, it’s not like they’re an actual mage. Just, stop staring… Please…

“Yeah, they’ve all been great, don’t worry about it.” You answered, smiling as you noticed the freshman relax. 

Yeah, I’ve been great! Hmph! Take that Zully!

Zully? Huh.

Azul smiled back, shifting his weight on his cane. “Good, I’m glad to hear. I apologize for not coming to greet you myself, it seems that someone—”

He directed a glare to Jade, who was still standing next to you with a small smile.

“—tried to lock me in my room, you wouldn’t happen to know who that was, would you Jade?”

“No, I can’t imagine who would do such a thing.” Damn, I should’ve added a spell too. I was in a rush to get to them first. “Would you like me to investigate?” 

“WoULd yOu LiKE mE TO INvesTIgATe” Oh shut up Jade, I bet it was you. 

“Yes please, that would be quite helpful, thank you, Jade.” Azul gestured for you to follow him. “Shall we?”

“Oh, we’re meeting, right cool, yes!” You sighed in relief as you rushed away from Jade to Azul’s side. “Just us right?”

“Us and Jade.” You screamed internally. “He’s in charge of the schedules, training, and position placements, so he’ll have to be involved.”

Aaah, at least we’ll be together in the same room again. I wonder if you’ll get flustered if I sit too close? Maybe I can get Azul to step out so we can be on our own…

Jade tapped you against Azul’s desk, hands reaching down to caress your thighs, before trailing down and making you wrap your legs around his waist. Your dress was unlaced and shirt unbuttoned to reveal your chest and neck, covered in hickies and bite marks.  Your hands were running through Jade’s hair tenderly, holding him close as you shared a deep kiss.  “Mmm~ Jade! Hurry, we’re gonna get caught if we—AH!” You yelped as Jade reached under your dress to tear a hole into your tights for easier access. Jade shushed you with another kiss, swallowing a loud moan as his hand worked you.  “We’ll get caught if you don’t stay quiet, unless you want to get caught~ Is that what you want? For everyone to know that you’re mine? For everyone to know that the one making you cry out in pleasure is me?”

Your face was rapidly turning red as you tripped over your feet, stumbling as Azul and Jade both reached out to catch you. Instead, you straightened and rushed out of their grasp, looking at Grim with a strained smile. 

It’s just for a bit. You can deal with Jade for a bit. 

“Okay! Grim, please go take care of the Scarabia students, and tell Kalim and Jamil I said hi. I’ll see you later!” 

Hmm? Oh yeah. “Got it! Hehe, I got a whole group of henchhumans to be in charge of now!”

Grim ran off, happy and in blissful ignorance, as you turned to address Azul, “I just remembered, I will have to go to Diasomnia today as well, so I can’t stay for long.”

Azul raised a brow, humming, “Is that so? I thought you didn’t have any Diasomnia students on your roster.”

“They don’t.” Jade answered, fond thoughts bouncing around his brain as he watched you walk. 

“I believe they should only have ours, Heartslabyul, and Pomefiore’s freshmen. I’m surprised that you also have Scarabia students, Prefect.”

Are you stressed? Are all the students too much? I can help! Ask me for help and I’ll make sure you’re never bothered by your freshmen again! 

You huffed at the suggestion, replying, “Jamil let them take residence with me to have a bit of extra space, since they were getting close to being overcrowded. Silver didn’t want to burden me with more. That’s all.”

“How kind of him, though I have to wonder if it was really a decision all his own, or if a certain prince asked~” Azul let out a musical laugh, smirking at your glare. 

“Tsk, please.” You opened your mouth to refute Azul, pausing as you felt a dark, angry presence from behind you. 

Hmph, as if they’d need assistance from him! He’s off in Briar Valley while I’m the one here with you, he’s hardly reliable. I don’t like what you’re implying Azul, did something happen between them over the summer that you’re not telling me?! Do I have to ask your mother for your baby pictures?

Slow blinking, you kept your gaze straight ahead, Azul’s words becoming gibberish as Jade continued ranting in his head. He was becoming increasingly more annoyed at the thought of you interacting with Malleus over the summer. 

I’m willing to bet that you would’ve enjoyed visiting the Coral Sea instead, hm?

Huh? Seriously?

I hear it’s dreary in Briar Valley, I think the warm waters of the Rosarian reefs would’ve suited your disposition much better! 

It’s not dreary, only a bit… you’re one to talk, don’t you live in the cold deep sea? That’s probably drearier than anything else, you can’t even see anything!

I would’ve shown you the perfect sightseeing location at Atlantia! I’m willing to bet my terrariums that he would’ve taken you to see gargoyles.

So? I find them quite delightful, you know?

“Prefect? Is your head in the clouds?” Azul lightly tapped your forehead as he stopped in front of his office. “You seem a bit out of it. Tired?”

“Uh.” You shook your head and stuttered, “No, just lost in thought, let’s get started.”

Azul opened the door to his office, gesturing for you to enter first, as he and Jade quickly followed after. Surprisingly, the whole ordeal was rather smooth sailing, if Jade’s constant barrage of what you could only describe as internal love bombing.

Cute~

Azul had brought out 5 student files, one for each student in your care and gave you the copies of their information. Class and club schedules, student ID numbers, and lots of information about their school before NRC. Interestingly enough, Aspen and Tony’s files were... sparse, with only their student information on the file. But no mention of their life, hobbies, or family before NRC.

I like that dress on you, it makes you look quite posh. 

Aw, are you nervous? You always tap your leg when you are, is it Azul? Is it me? HOW CUTE! There’s no need to be nervous around me, darling~ I only wish to make you and every other being in this school know that you belong to me~

You tapped your leg faster before pausing and shifting in your seat instead. 

Geez, just how much are you watching me to notice stuff like that?

“Based on their schedules, they should all be able to work their 15 hours throughout five week days.” Azul handed you a few files to look at the class and club schedules of your Octavinelle students. Each did have about 3 hours per day that they were free for a shift. 

“That leaves their weekend open for any duties they may have for Ramshackle and club activities. Are there any issues that could occur on your dorm’s end?”

Shaking your head, you looked through the student’s schedules with mild curiosity. 

“No, probably not. The Heartslabyul students have taken up most of the chores at the dorm.” 

Oh, Tony’s one of the ones in Spelldrive? Heh, ironic. 

“I’m pretty sure Riddle instilled the fear of the Seven in them, before sending them off to me.”

Oh, looks like Aspen’s in Pop Music Club? Huh, doesn’t seem like the type. Man, I really didn’t pay attention to their club paperwork…

“My my, that does seem like the Riddle we know.” Azul chuckled, nodding as Jade refilled his cup of tea. “Not surprising knowing how fond he is of you, isn’t that right, Jade?”

“ISn’T thAT riGHt JAde?” Yes, I’m aware, quit mocking me you're not too skinny to make a meal of.  

“Oh yes, I’m quite aware. I’m sure you enjoy having such a protective friend, Prefect.” I can be protective! He’s nothing compared to me! “You do quite need it, with all the trouble you’ve gotten into.”

“Really?” You nervously laughed, half-hearted and soft. “I guess? He’s just being a good friend, that's all, I’m sure.”

Azul scoffed, “For being a friend, he does underestimate you. I still remember how you almost took Jade’s head off when we first met. Remember, when you charge in here demanding I free everyone?”

You blinked rapidly in confusion. “What? I never did that, what are you talking about?”

“Oh, you don’t remember? Hah! Jade, they don’t remember nearly smacking your face with a server’s plate!” Azul laughed as you continued to look on in confusion. 

Jade smiled, chuckling along. “Oh? I do. Quite vividly, really.”

An image, or you guess a memory, passed through your mind of you, very clearly, brandishing a large silver platter like a weapon. The memory's vision shifted, dodging your hits as you tried slamming the plate into Jade’s face. 

“You were quite angry that we took your 3 friends as anemones. A rare sight, seeing as you’re tended hearted, hm?”

Aaaaah! I look at that memory so fondly, you looked so beautiful, angry! Fighting is always the first step to a moray’s heart~ 

You choked on the cookie in your mouth, frantically reaching and gulping your own cup of tea. Choosing to ignore Azul’s snickering, and Jade’s internal fretting, you nervously gasp-laughed. 

“Oh, I guess? Probably why I don’t remember, aha.”

“Perhaps. Back to the topic at hand,” Azul gestured to the schedules and continued, “do you foresee any issues with the shift schedules Jade assigned?”

You looked again, noticing the blocks drawn in a few of the spare spots in blue pen. 

“Ah, no, it all looks good.” You looked at the clock, peeking at the time. “Did we cover everything? I’m supposed to be meeting Riddle in about 15.”

Azul and Jade turned to look at it as well, the former clicking his tongue in disappointment. 

“Oh my, yes, this has gone far longer than needed.” Azul squinted at Jade. “Jade, I thought you were keeping the time?”

I know you’re lovesick, but please! Your brain isn’t made of sea foam, you know?

“Apologies. I have been quite focused on the schedules, I do have to ensure that they are able to fill in a position at work.” Jade replied, humming as he cleared the table of your empty plates and cups. 

I was just so enthralled by my pearl’s loveliness. They’re breathtaking…my love. 

You’re not sure what’s worse: the raunchy daydreams, or these. Sentences so full of yearning and devotion that it almost made you feel flattered. 

I want to hear what they sound like out of breath, can you even moan with no air in your lungs? How could you when I’m eating them up with my tongue~

Nope. Actually, the raunchy ones are worse. 

“Well!” You got up, dusting the imaginary dirt off your outfit. “If that’s all, then I’ll be heading to Heartslabyul. Grim will be bringing the remaining Octavinelle later for training, they all had clubs this morning.”

Azul nodded, holding the VIP Room door open. “That works perfectly. I’ll have Jade escort you over.”

“What? No, no, no!” You laughed, waving your hands and shaking your head. “I’m perfectly find walking myself-”

“Nonsense, we are a dorm of gentlemen after all, Jade?”

Say something this time, I beg. I don’t want to hear you whining about clamming up again. 

“Of course, if you will, Prefect?” Thank you, Azul, perhaps I won’t eat you after all.

You stiffened, eyeing the arm Jade held out. With a resounding sigh, you nodded and ever so lightly wrapped a hand around his bicep. You chose to ignore the cheers in Jade’s head. 

“Okay, fine. Bye Azul, I’ll see you at the next housewarden meeting.” You waved as you and Jade made your way through the hall into the lounge’s main dining hall. It was fairly full, the Mostro Lounge was always busy over the weekends, and you could see Tony running around with Floyd. He was carrying two trays in each of his hands with ease, balancing drinks with little concern. 

What are you doing! Let go of Jade’s arm, you whore! Die die die diediediediediediedie—

You quickly swiped your hand back from Jade’s arm, noticing the small pout he gave at that. From the corner of your eye, you could see Aspen (and the rage that was practically emanating like an aura) seething at you. He was muttering to himself as he angrily cleaned the inside of a glass tumbler. It seemed that he was put at the bar to “train” though based on Floyd following around Tony, who was gossiping with him, Aspen wasn’t actually getting much training in. 

That’s right, you better take your filthy hands off of him, you’re a sorry excuse of a mage and an even worse excuse of a human! You’re not even that pretty, you gross little—oh crap you’re staring, look away look away!

Aspen turned a deep lavender, looking down at the glass in his hand like it was the most interesting thing since sliced bread. You gestured at Aspen and suggested to Jade, “It looks like Floyd kinda left Aspen to fend for himself, maybe you should help him out? I can make it to Heartslabyul just fine.”

“Hmm? Oh dear, I suppose you are correct.” Jade sighed, eyeing Floyd as he and Tony leaned against a wall, chatting away. 

“Though, I’m sure I can escort you and be back in a reasonable amount of time. It would be rude of me to abandon you so, especially when Azul asked me to do so.”

“It’s not that big of a deal…”

“Nonsense, let’s be off now.” Jade shushed any further concerns of you as he gently pushed you to the exit. He nodded to Aspen as you two walked by, mouthing ‘I’ll be back’ to the young man. 

From the corner of your eye, you could see Aspen physically deflate at Jade leaving. Floyd noticed and gave his brother a wink, while Tony briefly frowned, looking between you, Jade, and Aspen. 

Just let me be around you a bit longer, my pearl.

You sighed, relaxing as Jade’s hand remained comfortably on your upper back. Though the thought of Jade cornering you in a spare empty room as you headed to the mirror made you warm up, Jade seemed remarkably relaxed around you, for once. 

It was weird, him just humming along without any screams or daydreams of fucking you. 

Weird…wait no! This is ideal, don’t jinx it! Knock on wood, or he’s gonna think of something! Wood, wood, wood?? AH! It’s all glass and metal here!

“After you, Prefect.” you’d been so distracted that you didn’t notice that Jade and you made it to the lounge doors. He was holding the handle of the exit, motioning for you to enter the bubble forming at the door. 

You made a small sound of surprise, rushing forward to push your body through the bubble. You weren’t quite used to the bubble, so It took a bit of effort, which caused you to fall forward. Jade’s arm wrapped around your waist, catching your fall. A small gasp left your mouth as he pulled you flush against his torso, your cheeks warming. 

Ah, you’re so soft. And clumsy. You need me to care for you, don’t you?

“Careful,” Jade purred into your ear. “I would hate to see you hurt, though I’d be happy to tend to you if that happened.”

You felt your stomach flip and heat settle as Jade’s hand tightened its grip. If it wasn’t for the warm breath tingling your ear and the rumble of Jade’s chest against your back while he spoke, you’d think this was another one of his fantasies. 

I can feel your heart pounding, are you nervous? Do I make you nervous?

Jade leaned farther down, his body nearly covering your own. Ironically, he was nervous himself, if his quick breaths were anything to go by.

You feel so warm against me, I wonder if you’ll feel just as warm when I’m inside…

Oh Sevens, seriously? Now!?

I would make you feel good, give you the most incredible pleasure ever known…

Please, bubble, move faster! Eek! Jade, where are you putting that hand!

Jade’s hand trailed upward, resting just below your chest. 

Ah, is this really real? It is!! I can feel your heart. 

“Just ask, and I’ll serve. I’m sure you could use the help now and then.”

Just say something, please! I want to hear your voice. 

What am I supposed to… god, why am I so flustered?!

Despite your thoughts, you couldn’t find yourself trying to get out of his grasp. Maybe it was due to the nerves, or the way the warmth in your belly almost felt pleasant, but you weren’t sure how to respond to Jade. 

“Uh, n-no that’s fine.” You mumbled, shifting as Jade continued to hold you, though it seemed his hand was loosening. “I’m good…by myself.”

But you’re never by yourself, are you? You have many friends, ready to come at your beck and call. Why won’t you add me to your little roster? 

“If you say so. Just know I’m always ready to be of assistance.” Jade finally let you go as the bubble finally floated up to Octavinelle’s mirror. It pressed against the now glowing mirror, allowing you to push into the flickering glass of the mirror. 

The familiar Hall of Mirrors was comforting, the air filling your lungs as you took a deep breath to  calm your racing heart and nerves. Jade followed, though he stayed close to the Octavinelle entrance. 

“Ah, I should be heading to Heartslabyul before I run late.” You nodded at Jade as you walked away. “Take care of Aspen, I think he’s nervous.” 

You omitted ‘around you’ for Aspen’s sake. 

Oh, that’s sweet. Is that so? How can you tell?

Jade smiled as he walked away, “How kind, I’ll be sure to keep an extra eye on him.”

The teal-haired man gave a small wave as he disappeared into a soft light through the mirror. 

See you soon, my love. 

You briefly watched him leave, before sighing and turning back around. 

Geez, that was intense… I’m surprised a that you didn’t freak out more—

GAH! I CAN’T BELIEVE I DID THAT!!!!!!

You brought up a hand to cover the snort leaving your mouth. 

Ah, there it is. Okay, I guess you’re a bit funny sometimes…

#twst #twisted wonderland #jade leech #jade leech x reader #twst jade #jade leech x yuu #mochi fic #the private thoughts (not) of a moray #ptm #twst jade x reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader

[celestial-ringleader]

So I read Rogue and Gambit #1 and I have some thoughts

I haven’t been keeping up with modern X-Men comics since I read (and was subsequently disappointed by) Excalibur and only chose to read select few comics if they seemed good or had characters I was interested in seeing. So far it has not been great trying to find any decent storylines since they’re all bland to me and play into the whole “Krakoa is great” shit with no real depth. With all that being said, when I saw that they were making another volume of Rogue and Gambit but set in Krakoa-era, I had some hope it could be pretty okay.

Until I saw the preview pages.

Usually I don’t like it when fans judge an entire run based on its first book because the plot hasn’t had a chance to really carry on and we as an audience haven’t gotten the chance to see the character development yet, to me to judge an entire run based on its first book is just not a good way to examine media, especially a comic book. However with this first issue of R&G...it’s not a promising look for the series.

Obviously I went into this wanting to read for Remy, and since this is a series where he plays a prominent role (I mean he’s in the title for fucks sake) I wanted to see him actually do stuff instead of just standing in the background for ten pages. And yeah, while he did do stuff in this comic it unfortunately led me to be even more disappointed.

This comic opens up with him drunkenly fighting off members of the Thieves Guild after being ghosted by Rogue because in her words “something came up” and not elaborating much further. After that, his entire purpose in this comic is to be the incompetent husband who gets into antics and everything he says is played off as him being dumb or not understanding; in fact the entire time Destiny was there, she spent any interaction she had with Remy criticizing the fuck out of him and claiming that his suspicions of her are baseless and dumb. And as much as I like Irene, him being suspicious of her just appearing out of nowhere and telling Rogue and him to go seek out Eden because she had a vision makes a lot of sense. He’s always been the type to be skeptical of other people’s intentions and not taking anything at face value. But despite that, not even Rogue thought to maybe...idk...trust her husband’s gut instincts a little bit???

And while this comic is meant to be a lighthearted one focusing on Rogue and Remy’s married life, it has only shown how dysfunctional their relationship is. Apparently after all this time has passed, neither of them had talked about a very basic topic of 1) how to make time for one another and 2) how to respect one another’s time away from each other. And when this is brought up when Rogue says they’re not going to talk about it while Remy’s drunk, Remy proceeds to say “We haven’t had this conversation sober.” which is something serious and very telling about the apparent lack of communication.

Unfortunately this scene is followed by something comedic which just makes it even more alarming. I mean there was an implication that Remy gets into situations like this so often that it’s an “old habit”.

I’m trying to keep an open mind about this comic, for all I know this could all be intentional and then lead to something pretty cool to read, but right now this doesn’t seem like a promising start. Neither of the leads are written particularly well, Rogue is written as being uncaring about Remy and doesn’t try to defend him after being the butt of the joke so often; not just in this book, but in most modern x-books.

This book is not awful but it’s definitely not making my anxiousness about this run any better. I’ll wait on making any hard and fast claims about this comic until like the third or fourth issue, but until then consider me skeptical and a little annoyed. Maybe it’s because I’m just really not a fan of romy, but even this feels like we’re being given crumbs and expected to just eat it up because “something something nostalgia”.

Anyways this got long and I’m tired so hopefully me screaming into the aether at least makes sense kjfbvkdjv

#wednesday spoilers #x-spoilers #rant-ish #remy lebeau #rogue #i have more thoughts but most of them just kind of lead to me being mad about comics period but akjbdjkvd #feel free to add your own takes im down for discussion #im not being anti romy more like....critical of it?? idk i like the romy in my head more than canon romy #thats all im gonna say on it akjbdkjv

[iamthelowercase]

I wonder if id Software are aware of the "Link and Doomguy are the same person" theory, and that's why in the next game they're giving Doomguy a hookshot.

#doom #loz #legend of Zelda #video games #I mean this is based on seeing like. one preview. but it was pretty prominent in that preview so.

[minruko]

Dragon’s Thief|Chapter 1

a/n: If you’ve come from the preview thanks for sticking around if your new welcome to my first series! For clarification for future scenes, the main character (or whatever you would call it) in this story is a POC. I hope you all enjoy this fic.

Summary- You are the kingdom’s most prominent thief anything your heart desires you can steal, but what happens when you happen to steal the heart of a certain Dragon Master?

Word Count- 1.3k+

Taglist: (Let me know!)

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Chapter One: Thief! Thief!

You were slightly awoken by someone softly shaking you awake, you opened one eye to be greeted by Uraraka’s smile. “No.” you said bluntly. “W-What? But I didn’t even ask you anything yet!?” You narrowed your eyes and glared at her “You were going to ask me to wake up and the answer is no.” You rolled over in your bed and pulled the covers over your shoulders to go back to sleep. “Fine..” she walked out of your room purposely leaving the door open. “I’m going to murder her later” you thought to yourself. Five peaceful minutes passed by until Jiro burst into your room, “Hey Y/N wake up.” “Never.” You said coldly. “I wish it didn’t have to go this way.” She walked up to your bed and pushed you off. “JIRO WHAT THE-” She calmly cut you off “You know how much Yaoyorozu hates it when you show up late.” You rolled your eyes “How could I forget she made me do extra training last week.” “Yet you refuse to get up.” “Ughhh I’ll get ready”

You walked into the meeting room and pulled up a chair to the table to sit next to Hagakure. She smiled softly at you. Even though you could not see her face you knew her well enough to be able to tell. Yaoyorozu walked to the front of the room to prepare everyone for the briefing. “Here is today’s task we were hired to steal an artifact from-” “Wait a minute” You interrupted “Who the hell would want to hire a bunch of thieves?” “You know the girls got a point” Jiro added with her brows furrowed in thought. “Well I was going to get to the point *ahem* as I was saying we were hired to steal an artifact from the royal museum.” Uraraka politely raised her hand. “Yes?” “Question who hired us?” “Well our hirer requested to stay anonymous to keep their name out of our affairs .”  “Well then who’s going on this mission then?” you asked.  “Based on current skill sets and compatibility with the mission… It will be you and Hagakure.” “Just don’t come back covered in flour this time Hagakure.” Jiro teased. “HEY! It was only one time..” You wrapped your arm around her shoulders “Don’t worry Hagakure we got this!”

You and Hagakure cleared a path from your base to the museum through the forest to avoid being seen. After an hour of walking Hagakure spotted the building. “Y/N look the building!” You looked up to see the tall white building with gold accents, a smirk started to grow on your face. “You ready Hagakure?” She turned to look at you “Always.” You both started sprinting towards the back of building stopping in front of a window to peek through. “I can’t believe there’s no guards outside, this seems too easy..” she mumbled. You turned to face her “Maybe they’re all inside besides, they won’t be able to see you anyways.” “You’re right, here hold my gloves and boots I’m going in.” You grabbed her gloves and boots and hid in the nearest bush. Hagakure was easily able to avoid the guards. She made her way to the treasure room where the artifact was held ready to take it, she reached out to grab the artifact once she grabbed it, she was getting ready to make her exit until she felt an arrow whiz past her head. “Don’t. Move.” the archer demanded. “Yeah..sorry about this.” She ran toward the nearest sword rack and threw a sword towards the window, she ran at full speed towards the window and jumped out. The archer tried to run after her but Hagkure was too light on her feet.“Gather the other archers! Find the guard captain, STOP THAT THIEF!” Hagkure ran towards the bush you were hiding in “Y/N LET’S GO” “What’s going on?!” She grabbed your wrist and ran while explaining the situation.

“Shit.” you cursed to yourself, they were hot on your trail and not letting up. “Ummm Y/N.. they’re catching up!” Hagakure exclaimed “Really? I couldn’t hear them OVER THE HORSES!” You said with sarcasm lacing your tone “I mean you could literally be invisible how did you get caught!?” Hagakure pouted “It’s not my fault they were- GO LEFT!” The guards had created a blockage with their horses. “Damn it!” You both took a sharp turn to the left, you ran past a sign reading “Maxin valley” a wide grin spread across your face, this did not go unnoticed by Hagakure. “Y/N... that’s too risky!”  You knew this kingdom like the back of your hand, up ahead was a ravine. “We have the momentum to make the jump!” You said with determination “This is crazy! What if we- “you cut her off “Do you trust me?” “What? Now is not the time for- “Do. You. Trust me?” “Of course, I do.” You could hear the fear in her tone, but she was always there for you, she trusted you with her all. As you neared the cliff the guards started to catch up pushing their legs to their fullest potential. “Well it’s now or never! You ready?” You looked at Hagakure. She simply nodded, even though you can’t see her face you could tell she had determination in her eyes. “LET’S DO THIS!” “STOP THEM!” The guard captain yelled, there was a very expensive bounty over both your heads, he was ready to do whatever it takes to take you both down. “READY THE ARCHERS TAKE THEM DOWN!” By the time the archers got into position it was too late, you and Hagakure already jumped and rolled to safety on the other side of the ravine.  

“Is the artifact okay?” “Y/N.. I almost died..” “Well is it?” You taunted with a goofy grin on your face. She laughed at your grin “Anyways put this in your bag and, let’s head back.” “About that heading back part…I have good news and bad news.” She tilted her head to the side. “Tell me the bad news first.” “Well the bad news is the base is back there.” You gestured to the ravine. “The good news is if you give me a lift and help me climb that tree maybe we could find our way back or at least find a place to stay for the night.” She sighed “Dang it, this is all my fault isn’t it.” She facepalmed. “You said it I didn’t, now take your stuff back and give me a boost.” After a few moments of bickering she gave you a boost, you climbed the tree quickly but slow enough so you don’t injure yourself. Once you finally reached the top you noticed a mansion far off in the horizon. “HEY HAGAKURE THERE’S A MANSION STRAIGHT AHEAD!” “Got it! Hurry up and come down so we could head off!” You carefully made your way down branch by branch. “Alright let’s go!” After walking through miles of forest you and Hagakure finally reached the doorsteps. “Soooo…Who’s knocking...?” you asked. She turned to face you and took off her gloves “Oh no I have no hands I guess you have to knock.” She teased. “But it doesn’t even- “you sighed “Were going to be here all day unless I knock aren’t, we?” “Yep!”. You hesitatenly knocked twice on the door. The second time you knocked the door suddenly opened. You both walked in “Huh you know what this place is pretty big I don’t mind spending the night here. Even though it is pretty dark.” “Since this place is pretty spacious let’s split up to find the bedrooms. And if you happen to find some candles somewhere that would be great.” Hagakure advised. You continued to explore the downstairs area while Hagakure searched upstairs. While exploring you found some matches and candles allowing you to further explore the downstairs area, you found a kitchen, a bathroom, and a spacious lounge room. “A girl could get used to this.” You thought. While walking down the halls you bumped into someone. You looked up to meet their gaze, two crimson eyes glared right down at you.

“Oh shit.”

[Thanks for reading! Hopefully you’ll read the next one!]

[Next]

#mha x poc!reader #mha x black reader #mha x reader #mha imagines #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou katuski x reader #bakugo x reader #katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #bnha x black!reader #bnha x poc!reader #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #bakugou x y/n #bakugo x y/n #katsuki x y/n

[sunnymenagerie]

RuPaul's Drag Race: Where Was Pink Slip?

Tina was right...there….and RuPaul really went and sent home a queen that was on the rise and not the one that’s been in quicksand from day one?

The remaining eight queens reached the makeover challenge and because of Miss Rona, could not makeover anyone from the outside world, so they were paired off by a psychic - yeah - and told to makeover one another in their drag style. First though, what the fuck was up with the psychic, and did anyone else feel like RuPaul wasn’t in the room with them? He looked like he was in front of a green screen the entire time and the psychic? Random.

She went from talking about Tina’s never-there-father to Utica’s dead cow. Again, random. Like, can we not act shocked that this lady knew things that they probably said online or in their audition videos? Anyways...Dollar Tree Miss Cleo paired the girls off in teams of two based on who could learn the most from one another. Unfortunately for the uptight Rose that meant getting down with the red, yellow, and orange-hued loosey-goosey Tina Burner. I went into this worried for Rose because they were going to be judged as a pair this week and well, that first look Tina put Rose in was a hot fucking mess. However, what she walked down the runway in was somehow worse!

Speaking of worried, from the preview last week I knew Symone and Utica were going to be quite the pair, and with one of them just having visited the bottom two...I didn’t know if that was going to deflate the small-town queen or ignite her. Right after we watched her rock an afro made of squirrels as if not to appropriate a white man with an afro, we watched her become very wary of stepping into the fierce heels of Symone because like all of Symone’s runways, her makeover one was unapologetically Black. Inspired by the Halle Berry cult classic ‘BAPS,’ Utica was either going to fucking serve or wind up lip-syncing for the second time in a row, and we all know it would’ve been her last. However, it wasn’t just on Utica’s fear of being canceled, because Utica’s look and runway walk is just as hard to imitate, especially for a fashion queen like her partner. Thankfully this pairing fucking worked, which is something I can’t say for Olivia and Denali.

Three of the pairs were pretty evenly matched in terms of size, especially Olivia and Denali, so I thought...these girls have it the easiest. Plus, they’re gorgeous and seem easy to paint. I guess when you assume it’s too easy, it’s actually well - let’s just say that one’s makeup was questionable, and the other was lacking a tiny purse. Unlike Denali and Olivia, Gottmik and Kandy Muse faced the hardest challenge based on their size difference. Nothing in Gottmik’s bags was going to fit her season 13 sister and they knew they were going to have to create something on the fly, and take another garment in. They were safe, but honestly - I didn’t live for Kandy’s look which...

In terms of the challenge, the judges weren’t wrong to declare Symone and Utica the winners of this week’s challenge. They embraced one another’s not only aesthetic but actually learned what they were supposed to from it. Plus, neither of them let their sister walk out there looking like a fool. Symone was engulfed in the oddities that make Utica standout, while Symone’s aura oozed out of Utica with every confident step she took. The judges had been waiting for weeks for Utica to serve fashion and tonight she did. Who didn’t fare well, most of the other girls. I will say that Rose did as best she could with what she had given Tina was her partner. This was the second time in 10 weeks that Tina’s looked okay. Rose...oh Rose, here’s where we have a case of someone letting their sister look horrendous.

Look, there were several weeks during this season where Tina Burner wore only three prominent colors for her brand. So when it came time to dress Rose like her, where the hell were the reds, yellows, and oranges? She went out looking like the blacklisted queen from season 12. It didn’t feel like Tina at all, and I feel like Tina should’ve been in the bottom two alongside Olivia since Miss Lux didn’t really put herself into Denali’s look. Which, Denali looked good - better than Olivia in my opinion, but…ya know. As for Gottmik and Kandy, I thought Gottmik looked great but I expected her to give us more of a New York City, Bronx look instead of a Harley Davidson Model. Then there’s Kandy, the makeup was good but I thought we’d see the actual Gottmik face. I was left underwhelmed with those two but agreed that they’d be rightfully safe as they were just...

Ugh, judging in pairs was such a mistake because, in the end, the wrong girl went home. Olivia and Tina should have been trying to save their ass with Mary Mary, but alas...Denali was in the bottom and despite two strong ass back-to-back top three placements - Ru sent her skating. I didn’t think Denali was going to make the top four, but I didn’t see her leaving before her makeover partner or Tina.

Next week is another acting challenge. The one where they have to sell an item, and while Utica just won a challenge, we all know she’s not the best in these situations. Even though she has all that improv to her name. Next week could either be the week she or Tina finally shines on their own, or we could be seeing them in the bottom.

Makeover Looks Ranked:

Utica: Once she got out of her head, she finally brought her runway to new heights

Symone: For as weird as it was, that headpiece was so Coachella, acid trip beautiful

Gottmik: It was a nice fit, I just wasn’t a fan of the print

Denali: She looked great but it just wasn’t Olivia Lux

Tina Burner: Rose should dress her more often

Olivia Lux: She looked like a used loofa

Rose: The face was a mess and the outfit was tragic

Kandy Muse:

Week 10 Rankings & Reasonings:

Symone - With another win under her belt, we’re heading into an acting challenge. There is no way she is going anywhere anytime soon - unless they surprise them with a sewing AND singing challenge!

Gottmik - Safe this week, but she still killed her runway and like Symone, knows how to deliver in an acting challenge

Rose - Rose being near the bottom this week was not her fault. She made over Tina the best she could, and with the acting challenge being a solo game - she has a chance to outshine her competitors

Olivia - Yes, most of the girls said her name when asked who should go home but as someone who bounces back and forth on the spectrum between bottom and top, I don’t think she’s close to leaving us quite yet

Kandy Muse - Her personality will lead her to another week on the show

Utica - One win to her name doesn't mean anything, especially when she’s gotta act next? We’ve all seen her bomb before in challenges like this so it’s going to be interesting to see if she actually grasps the concept of Drag Race humor

Tina Burner -

#rupauls drag race #drag race #gottmik #symone #tina burner #olivia lux #rose #denali #kandy muse #utica #tv review #tv recap #television #vh1 #drag queens

[theonyxpath]

Our Legendlore KS only has days left to run, and actually ends on Thursday this week, so as my final push for folks to check it out, I’m not going to try and convince you like last week. I’m going to let two excellent writers do that!

Here’s a great description of Legendlore, written, as only he can, by our own Matthew Dawkins:

But why should you back it? Well, in this time where some gamers are clinging on to the notion that “all orcs are evil from birth”, “disability has no place in fantasy adventures” and “there’s no such thing as a good drow” (they haven’t heard of Drizzt), Legendlore says the opposite.

Legendlore is a fantasy setting where diversity is a strength, we don’t shy away from complex societies and cultures, and where you can damn well buy yourself a wheelchair especially designed for dungeon crawling, or sit on a bloody floating disc! This is a game that embraces the fact that it’s magical, it’s wondrous, and yes, there’s evil out there in need of vanquishing, but there’s also a brilliant world to discover and enlightenment and wisdom to be found.

I’m in love with the art, the writing, and skilful design of this game, which uses the 5th Edition system to amazing effect. I’m impressed by the effort and energy Steffie De Vaan and her entire team of writers have poured into it. It’s a game I want to play, and if you feel orcs are better only as black and white villains, I invite you to read the manuscript – which is available as a free download from DriveThruRPG.com – and feel as impressed as I do.

And here’s developer Steffie De Vann’s excellent take on why she loves the game:

Legendlore offers a rich and layered world. No one is born good or evil, nor does it have ‘evil races.’ People come in all colors, genders, orientations, and alignments. You can be a black trans feminine elf & be right at home in the Realm. Our iconics put our ‘money where our mouth is’ – our elf is a trans black woman, our pixie a non-binary person, our dwarf is a combat veteran in a wheelchair, and I could go on. This is a game that believes diversity is strength. It’s an isekai/portal game, and we created Backgrounds ranging from ‘Activist’ and ‘RPG Aficionado’ to ‘Working Poor.’

The world of Legendlore is home to a sentient 1974’s Ford Mustang, parasite mushrooms that try to kill you by YELLING VERY LOUDLY (trust me, it’s effective), sacred Chipmunks, and the descendants of Amelia Earhart running an aviation nation. It pairs this whimsy with a genuinely complex world. For example, the orcs used to live in what’s now the nation of Drohm. Orcs ambassadors are petitioning the other nations to recognize their sovereignty, but doing so would give Drohm the excuse it needs to go to war – and make no mistake, Darkoth the Darklord *wants* to go to war. Are the orcs right? YES. Should the other nations help them out? HECK YES. Is it understandable that the nations are dragging their feet because war is good for no one except the Generals? Also yes. If that sounds like a conundrum you want to tackle, and sway the fate of Azoth, this is a game for you.

If that sound good to you, go check us out on KS. And if you’re still on the fence – there’s a link in there to a free preview manuscript.

In fact, Steffie has been posting examples of the Legendlore characters she mentions above:

This is Aaliyah, our elven iconic. She’s a Black trans woman who uses a mix of ASL and forestspeak signs to communicate. She’s a peaceful ambassador foremost, but doesn’t back down from a fight when it comes to that.

This is Najda, our dwarven iconic. She is a Muslim army vet who was wounded during her tour in Afghanistan. She now works in a Los Angeles comic book store, where she discovered a crossing into the world of Legendlore.

Here’s Jada, our pixie iconic. Pixies are born agender, and choose a gender as they grow up. Feminine pixies have 2 antenna, masculine pixies have 0, and non-binary pixies have 1. Pixies are as fierce as they are small, they love laughing and hate bullies.

There you go, and here’s the link to the Legendlore Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/legendlore-rpg-setting-for-5th-edition-fantasy-roleplaying-0

Let the Streets Run Red art by Oliver Specht

Besides Legendlore, What Else?

Just a warning, and it may just be a short-term issue, but right now it seems that we can’t ship anything to Canada or Mexico. We haven’t yet heard whether we can receive packages from those countries, but since our most prolific printers are based in Canada, we may experience some delays in our traditionally printed projects.

Right now, we’re only having issues with getting the physical printer proofs sent back and forth for approvals, and not the actual books themselves.

You’d think after all the panels and Actual Playing I did during the Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Con a few weeks ago that I’d be all talked out. Well, that does not seem to be the case. Ever.

Naw, I love telling folks about what Onyx Path is and the game worlds we make! I just can’t help myself, we have so many exciting and fun things going on!

Last week, Mike and the gang over at the This Week In Geek podcast interviewed me about WW and Onyx Path, and it turned into a sort of oral history of how the companies transformed into each successive version, and just where game lines branched off to different companies and editions.

If that sort of stuff is interesting for you, here ya go: http://thisweekingeek.net/news/interviews/fan-service-interview-rich-thomas-onyx-path-june-2020

Then this weekend, I sat in on a retrospective of the Art of Mage at Ascension Con 2020 along with Satyros Phil Brucato and artists Mark Jackson and Echo Chernik. Echo took on the slideshow duties and we all discussed the Mage art that came up as it appeared.

That was pretty great, and it was certainly a treat to chat with folks I haven’t talked to in years. Hopefully, that recording will show up on YouTube soon and we’ll get you all a link.

Cults of the Blood Gods art by Thomas Denmark

What wasn’t great last week were a couple of issues that we needed to deal with. While we dealt with them as best as we could, we realized that at core our little crew of folks here are simply not HR experts. And more importantly, we shouldn’t try to be.

We need to concentrate on making great games and amazing worlds, like we do.

Which means that tomorrow, I’m interviewing our current best prospect for an HR point-of-contact for the company. Someone who is HR trained and has worked in HR at other companies. And very important for us, someone who is unconnected to Onyx Path and has never been a gamer or in the TTRPG business.

We need someone who doesn’t have the connections or baggage that might make it hard to be objective when they review HR concerns. Hopefully, my interview is the one, and once everything is good to go we’ll include info concerning them prominently on our website so folks know who to contact.

I mean, it’s important that our worlds are all about excitement, and fear, and victory, and defeat. What our creators and community go through in the real world shouldn’t also require all those moments. We want everyone playing our games and reading our books to be safe while they explore our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

The Legendlore Kickstarter is in its last few days and ends this Thursday, and now we’re really building towards Stretch Goals: the GM’s Screen, and starting the Legendlore Companion book PDF!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/legendlore-rpg-setting-for-5th-edition-fantasy-roleplaying-0

Grab your friends and escape to another world!

You’ve found an enchanted portal — a transition point — between worlds. The portal, called a Crossing, takes you to a world you thought only existed in novels and films: a magical land where dragons roam the skies, orcs and hobgoblins terrorize weary travelers, and unicorns prance through the forest. It is a world where humans join other peoples such as elves, trolls, dwarves, changelings, and the dreaded creatures who steal the night. It is a world of fantasy — of imagination.

It is the Realm.

It is Legendlore.

Next Up On Kickstarter: They Came From Beyond the Grave!

Onyx Path Media!

This week: the return of the return of the Scion Actual Play as Eddy and Dixie’s characters dig further into the machinations of the gods!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

All our panels and games from Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention are still available on twitch.tv/theonyxpath! All you need to do is head on over to the website and subscribe. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can do so for free and access our entire catalogue of videos!

Legendlore‘s Kickstarter is coming to an end, but Jen Vaughn’s actual play is still going on our Twitch channel every week on Friday night! Lost in the Crossing is an amazing story played through by a fantastic GM and excellent roleplayers, and handles the Legendlore world from the perspective of visitors and native inhabitants of the Realm! Make sure you’re tuning in every Friday or catching up afterwards by subscribing.

That’s not all for Legendlore, as we have actual plays by Steffie de Vaan and Corinne McCrory over on our YouTube channel, which you can find here https://youtu.be/UaQXSlEatDw and here https://youtu.be/RRvnJOrmNzM! Please give our GMs some support and tune in!

This week on Twitch, expect to see:

V5 – Chicago by Night

Realms of Pugmire – Paws & Claws

Legendlore – The Metal Scourge

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – Thieves of Old York

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – They Came from Devil’s Reef!

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale

Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous

Legendlore – Lost in the Crossing

Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds

Chronicles of Darkness – Tooth and Claw

Deviant: The Renegades – A Cautionary Tale

Get watching for some fantastic insight into how to run these wonderful games.

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Legendlore – The Metal Scourge: https://youtu.be/ECRrErPLm64

Storytellers with Coffee – Safety Tools: https://youtu.be/FjG-YbG_Q1k

Mage: The Ascension – Technocracy Reloaded: https://youtu.be/9Al7ZdkLGiM

Even more Legendlore – The Metal Scourge: https://youtu.be/RRvnJOrmNzM

#OnyxPathCon | How to Write for TTRPGs [Panel]: https://youtu.be/UKmJQEhInP8

Subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

Occultists Anonymous continues right here with their excellent Mage: The Awakening chronicle:

Episode 108: Car-V Heist While Songbird prepares for a dangerous summoning, Atratus and Wyrd hit the junkyards with an overly elaborate plan to make an overly elaborate gift. How very Mage of them… https://youtu.be/wSy3c74jkfM

Episode 109: Crown of Blood Wyrd and Atratus enjoy the joy of a well-made gift and the good vibes that comes with that. Songbird joins together with Hadramiel to summon an Angel of Death to anoint a Vampire Prince in power. https://youtu.be/QxB6Ml6uStY

A Bunch of Gamers continue their actual play of They Came from Beneath the Sea! and conclude it with a mini review: https://youtu.be/qIMwcOZmR8k

The Botch Pit have released a wonderful new guide for Changeling: The Lost right here. Do give them a like and a subscribe: https://youtu.be/Bd0UZQZt2OM

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

Available this Wednesday, we present Dystopia Rising: Evolution shirts and posters on our RedBubble store!

Conventions!

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Squeaks In The Deep (Realms of Pugmire)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Under Alien Skies (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Post-Approval Development

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Tales of Aquatic Terror – Handing off to Meredith to AD.

WoD Ghost Hunters (KS) – Prepping KS assets.

Aberrant – AD’d. Sketches from HIVE in.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant

Legendlore – KS running.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS)

Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.

Scion: Dragon (KS) – Waiting on art notes.

Masks of the Mythos (KS) – Pinging potential cover and fulls artist.

Scion: Demigod (KS) – Art rolling. KS assets AD’d.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS) – Prepping KS assets.

TC: Adventure! (KS) – Shen Fei cover art finishing.

Geist: One Foot In the Grave – AD’d.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

TC Aeon Terra Firma

V5 Let the Streets Run Red – working layout now.

Pugmire Adventure

Scion Titanomachy

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart – Errata gathering.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Page XXs.

Contagion Chronicle – Backer PDF out to backers, gathering errata.

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet

At Press

Scion Companion – Awaiting errata from devs.

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – PoD files uploaded.

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Press proofs signed off on, PoD files uploaded.

Creature Collection 5e – PoD proof ordered. Traditional files sent to printer.

Pirates of Pugmire – Files at press. PoD proofs ordered.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.

Pugmire Buried Bones – PoD files uploaded.

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition Dark Eras Compilation – Creating PoD file.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

This coming week is a big one for our household with the birthdays of two of our widdle kiddies (really not widdle at all any more), and the July 4th celebration of the American colonies’ independence from Great Britain! “And just as Tom here has written, we say To Hell With Great Britain!” Sorry, Matthew…

In sadder news, we acknowledge the passing of Jim Holloway, noted artist for Paranoia and Star Frontiers and many early issues of Dragon Magazine. Personally, I very much enjoyed his style, and he brought a technical expertise and a sense of humor to the early TTRPG business that it sorely needed.

#Onyx Path Publishing

[sayingthesamethings]

there’s a $14 hole in my wallet and I blame western artists...

Context: I just blindly bought Map of the Soul: 7 and sat through the most heartbreaking 40 minutes of my entire existence as a BTS fan.

Author’s Note: Hi guys. I apologize, but this is not a new chapter of Magic Shop. This is simply a rant containing my opinions and criticisms of BTS’s newest album Map of the Soul: 7. You are free to scroll past. I don’t blame you. But please, do not message me to argue and harass me. We can have a conversation, and I can answer questions if you have any. Please, don’t be a butt. With that out of the way...

let’s get down to business.

To put it simply, I hated a majority of this new album. I bought the album without listening to the previews of the tracks (my biggest mistake), and decided to play straight through the album with no breaks for a raw first impression of the musicality of this album. No, I have not gone through the lyrics, and will not for a little while.

Because I cannot get over what I just went through.

This album has the most conflicting genres I have ever heard. Keep in mind, I did not read the translations, so my initial understanding of the song is not entirely correct.

But can someone tell me why we go from (what sounds like) diss tracks, to anime openings, to ballads, to upbeat pop in such an abrupt amount of time?

I feel like I have whiplash from how many turns this album took. I thought I knew where this album was going when I watched Shadow and Black Swan, but then Ego came out. Which wasn’t too much to swallow, but it was still odd.

And then ON came out.

Let me tell you about just one of my issues with ON. The most obvious one that almost everyone has been talking about is the excessive use of auto tune. I can’t tell what’s worse: the auto tune or the fact that I can’t imagine the song without auto tune. It almost feels as if the song was produced with auto tune being the only thing in mind. And this isn’t tasteful auto tune. It isn’t used as an affect. It drowns out the whole song! And I can’t tell if this was just a stylistic choice or if it was just a complete lack of trust in BTS’s ability. I doubt it was the latter, but I can’t say for sure.

The performance for ON is fairly enjoyable, visually. I’ve read a few people are unhappy with the distribution of the dance between the members, but I see it as a change in pace. It may be a good or bad change, but it’s change nonetheless. Yes, j-hope and Jimin are amazing dancers, but you can’t discredit all the other members just because you love j-hope’s and Jimin’s dancing more. Yes, they are definitely the better dancers of the group, but the others still work hard to perform the same dances. You can see the effort everyone put in to making this performance.

V, RM, and Jin stood out the most to me in this sense. I commemorate their improvements and hope they continue to work hard.

So this leads up to the album. I’m only going to comment on the tracks that stood out to me the most, cause there are a lot of songs and a majority of them felt too monotonous for me to really feel any kind of interest in. There’s gonna be a lot of skipping around, so bear with me please.

The most peculiar of the bunch, in my eyes, is Jin’s solo, Moon.

I feel like I just listened to the opening of the second season of a slice of life anime.

Moon is so simple, it hurts. I always make jokes about mainstream music and it’s lack of chord diversity and repetitive patterns (we did this a lot in jazz band), but this track takes the cake. I felt no climax or emotion from this song. This song was safe, and that probably disappoints me the most. Jin’s solos in the past have been so powerful and stunning, that this song just does him dirty.

Shawn Mendes has entered the chat

Filter does well in showcasing a different side to Jimin, but it sounds like Shawn Mendes ghostwrote this song. The guitar with the very prominent slides and shifts just screams Western music.

But I still think that Jimin did very well with this song. He works with his strengths, and the breathlessness in his voice really sells Filter as one of the few replayable songs of the album.

I can fuck with UGH!. It has similar vibes as Ddaeng (땡), but the backtrack isn’t nearly as good. The fall to notes in the backtrack is disturbing when done so prominently and in such a strict, reoccurring pattern, but I can look past it.

The aggressiveness in UGH! is something I can really appreciate. It’s one of the few saving graces for the track. It really reminds me of past rapline tracks, which is maybe why this track seems more fitting to their respective performers than others.

If Inner Child had been slowed down, I could have enjoyed the song just a little more. Taehyung really hits hard with slower songs, and he could have really put more soul into the song if he had the room to do so. Though, I suppose the chorus might not have made any sense as the oscillation might not translate well into a slower tempo. I think the slower tempo would have created a holier (for the lack of a better word) presence and a more delicate and fragile image.

Respect your elders...

...by sticking to your original sound. Respect starts off strong and starts sounding like older BTS tracks, but then auto tune strikes again and Suga is the victim. The rapping sounds like a conversation between the two, but the auto tune ruins the connection Suga and RM build through their interactions and interjections. I also wish that the back track was a little more busy because of how laid back the rap is, but repetitiveness seems to be the concept of this album...

ON felt the need to come back around for round two and dragged Sia into the mess. If they were gonna bother Sia about “collaborating” the least they could have done was actually have all of them record together rather than asking Sia to pretty please sing over this one part of the song. What bothers me more is that they butcher her beautiful voice just for the sake of continuity.

My suggestion for the second version of ON is to create an acoustic version and have someone who is more interested in singing in another language sing with them in the same room.

And this is nothing against Sia, but we’ll come back to that.

The saving grace, Ego. Easily the only track I would have bought, had I known what this album was before I purchased it. Ego is j-hope’s song. There’s no doubt about it. j-hope has such a duality to him, and the contrast between his more serious raps and more upbeat raps is clear as day. Again, the auto tune does him dirty, but I can appreciate the uplifting feel behind both the backtrack and j-hope’s raps.

So what’s the deal with the album itself?

There’s a few things I wanna touch base on. This album has no clear concept musically. It’s all over the place, and it sounds like the whole album is a playlist or like it was put on shuffle. I can’t tell what belongs in the album, and I’ve lost sight of the top and the bottom.

There’s such a heavy Western influence on this whole album that I can almost taste the cheeseburgers drenched in maple syrup.

So a lot of American and Canadian artists and songwriters had a part in creating this, and they’re very proud of the shit they put out. I went through the discography to look up some of the artists that participated and often ended up on their social medias, where a handful happily announced their participation for the whole world to hear.

Whether you look up the songwriters or not, it’s hard to miss the western influence in all of the songs. BTS has had songs influenced by Western music before. It’s just that the modern pop influence isn’t working for this album. But it still makes sense! One of BTS’s biggest markets is in the west, so speak to your audience. Influence is great and all, but domination is not.

The problem with Sia...

I don’t think Sia or BTS did anything wrong. What people sometimes need to be reminded of is that while these people very much love us as their fans, they are still part of a business. A business needs to look out for itself, or else it becomes a charity, and it just can’t function like that.

The collaboration is a business agreement that went sour. I think there should have been more care and work towards getting Sia to sing more parts. Korean, preferably, but English would have worked too. You can’t throw a single recording out on top of the song and call it a collaboration. It’s almost rude. And I really do believe they got her to sing that one line once and just used it again the second time it came around.

It lacks effort. Sia was used. BTS was used.

To summarize, I hated the musicality (or lack there of) in this album. I feel like I had an okay idea of what the over genre of music was going to be, and I feel lied to. It’s all over the place, and there’s nothing natural about their voices because of the overwhelming presence of auto tune. I’m honestly scared to see this all in concert because none of these have overwhelming potential to be something spectacular live. I’m scared to hear their natural and beautiful voices over such harsh music and backtracks.

I wish Western music would just stay out of BTS. I’m not saying I want it to go away, cause I believe there’s some good influence that has been shown. It’s just my disappointment is overwhelming these positive traits.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading my thoughts on Map of the Soul: 7. It means a lot to me that you were interested. If you’d like to chat about the album or have any questions for me, feel free to send me an ask or message me.

#map of the soul #map of the soul 7 #map of the soul: 7 #bts #unpopular opinion #criticism

[dramaqueeenamby]

Waves: Fighter [2] (preview)

“Just a few more seconds. Come on, Summer.”

Face scrunched up in discomfort, the actress swallowed her pain and scraped for every bit of resilience that she had left, successfully completing the set before relaxing as soon as her therapist gave her the okay.

Dropping onto the floor, Summer crossed her wrists and placed them over her head. Deep, relaxing breaths abated her nerves and aching muscles while Rene attempted to offer words of encouragement and praise that Summer was only halfheartedly listening to.

It wasn’t that Rene was bad at her job. No, far from it. She was a wonderful physical therapist who pushed Summer in ways that were both challenging while also welcoming. It was that Summer still hadn’t come to accept that she was back at square one. She felt like she was preparing to become Storm all over again. Relearning suddenly replaced years of maintenance. Her schedule had been disrupted, and it created cognitive dissonance.

Hand unconsciously falling onto her core, her fingers slid over the dark scar that still bled with remnants of trauma and regrets. One of two, it was the most prominent and noticeable. Folks rarely paid attention to feet, but the stomach, the area that generally garnered a decent amount attention based solely on the level of flatness.

Rene noticed the way Summer’s fingers stroked her slick skin and cleared her throat. “Why don’t we call it a day?”

“The day has been called, ma’am.”

The ginger grinned crookedly and complimented her client. “You did great today.”

Summer snorted, groaning quietly as she sat up and braced her palms against the mat. “Now you’re just kissing my ass.”

“While you do have quite the ass,” Summer rolled her eyes. “I’m not quite sure how my wife and your husband would feel about that.”

The actress rolled her eyes as Rene reached a hand to help her stand up. “Noted.” Rolling her shoulders, she walked over to grab her pink Blender Bottle, downing down the water mixed with lemons and limes. The typically acrid mixture was welcoming because of the addition of ice cubes that quenched her parched throat, assisting in the cooling down of her warm body.

“I think we could even maybe move down to twice a week instead of three.”

Swallowing a couple more ounces, Summer lowered her cup and wiped at her mouth. “Seriously?”

Rene nodded as she crossed her arms. “I meant it. You’re doing great.” A beat. “Physically.”

And just like that, Summer rolled her eyes and turned her body to start packing up her items. “Here we go again.”

Rene already knew that she was going to be met with apprehension, but that didn’t dissuade her. “I can only help you rehabilitate your body, Summer. But your mind—”

“—is fine.”

Rene stilled, her green eyes softening. “You can say that until you’re blue in the face, but it makes no difference if you don’t really believe it, and I don’t think you do.”

Summer stilled, her back toward the tall woman. A part of her, a very small part of her, wanted to switch things up. She wanted to entertain the conversation, just to see how it would play out, but another part of her knew exactly how it would play out, so she did as she’d done a lot lately.

“So, same time next week?” She spun around, swinging her bag over her shoulder. Before the other woman could offer a response, Summer shot her a wink and walked past her. “Thank, Rene.”

As if on cue, Phillip’s large frame appeared in the doorway, and Summer’s grin fell.

Arms clasped in front of him, he nodded in acknowledgment. “Ready, Mrs. Hemsworth?”

An elongated sigh escaped as she approached him and managed to reignite her previous smile. “I told you, Summer is fine, but yeah, I’m ready.”

A grunted response that she couldn’t really make out proceeded him opening the door for her only to quickly move back in front of her so that he was blocking her view. For a man his size, he was impressively quick on his feet.

A few more doors and an elevator ride down, and Summer was met with the blistering Australian heat as a firm hand moved to her backside and escorted her out the building. Out the corner of her eye, she spotted the photographers who snapped away, a few inching closer to the star but not enough where they were in arms reach of Phillip.

They weren’t stupid.

Phillip had served as a bodyguard for some of the most important figures across the world, celebrities and royals included. His resume was impeccable, and he was damn good at his job, a job that, while she respected, Summer felt suffocated by at times.

The fact that she even had a full-time bodyguard was something that she still hadn’t swallowed. She’d always been vocal and open about the fact that she loathed the whole “barrier” between celebrities and “regular degular” people. Her occupation, in her option, shouldn’t place her on a pedestal.

Plus, she was far from hopeless, and so a bodyguard was something she could never get with unless they were provided by the event she was attending.

But a certain husband of hers was absolutely adamant about hiring the 24/7 protection following the attack, and while Summer understood his reasoning, she still wasn’t in agreement.

Not that it mattered……

The drive was short as the outpatient treatment center was only about twenty minutes away from the Hemsworth residence. Once they reached the mansion, Summer relieved Phillip from his duties. She had no plans on going out again. Christopher was picking up the kids from school. She’d maybe take Doggy out for a walk on the beachfront, but that didn’t require the 6”3 giant’s presence.

Not even three seconds into the door, Christopher was in front of his wife, hands on her hips as he pecked her lips.

“Hey, honey.”

Summer faltered only for a second before chewing on her bottom lip. “Damn, waiting for someone?”

“Always.” He winked and smacked her ass, prompting her to try to push him away.

“I need to shower,” she protested with a small pout as he brushed her comment off and slyly lowered his mouth down to her ear.

“I’ll join you.”

Summer grinned, momentarily contemplating his offer. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”

“We are married, aren’t we?”

“I mean….” She laughed at his scowl and managed to pull away, walking past him to make her way up the steps. “Can you make us—”

Summer stopped and turned around on the second step only to see that was directly in front of her, on the first step.

She lifted a brow. “Sir?”

“What?”

She crossed her arms. “I’m pretty sure that I said n—Christopher!” She squealed as he silenced her by picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. “Put me down!”

“I am going to put you down,” he responded while continuing their track up the stairs. “On my dick.”

“Christopher!”

————

Summer rolled over on her side and ran her hand over her face, eyes shut as she struggled to catch her breath. Holding onto the pillow, she pulled the blanket up to her neck, depriving her nude body of the chilly air that the AC caused to consume their room.

She smiled softly as her husband kissed her temple. Feeling the bed creak, he peaked and saw him moving out the way as he started to pull on his clothes. Leaning on her back, she grabbed her phone off the nightstand and saw that it was time for him to leave to pick up the twins.

How long were we?

“Phillip will be here in a few minutes—”

Summer frowned. “What?” She sat up, not caring that the sheet fell down, exposing her breast. “Baby, I told him he could go home for the day.”

Christopher stood up, pulling his pants on. “Why would you do that?”

She looked from side to side. “Because I don’t need him? I didn’t plan on going out today.”

“But you knew that I had to go pick up the kids, so you’d be alone.”

Summer closed her eyes. “Christopher….”

The chime of his phone interrupted her as he glanced at the screen to see that Phillip had arrived and had entered the house using the key that Chris thought was a good idea to provide him with. “He’s here. I have to get going.”

Summer frowned and leaned back against the headboard. “Okay.”

Looking back over to see that she was still dissatisfied, he walked over and sat on the bed, reaching out to cup her cheek. “Why don’t you come with me?”

Her brows furrowed. “Seriously? Christopher, you’ve already called the man over here.”

“And?” The Australian didn’t see a problem. “He’s staying the night—”

“Again?” Summer was no longer so disappointed as she was irritated. “That’s the third damn time this week.”

“Okay?”

Summer scoffed and moved away from him, crossing her arms. “You know, I would appreciate it if you would actually, maybe, communicate with me before you make these decisions.”

“What is there to talk about, Summer?” He watched her move to the other side of the bed as she kicked the blanket off and scurried around to gather her clothes. “You need pro—”

“No, Christopher, what I need is for you to stop treating me like a child!”

#fic: waves #accept this as my apology for not posting Friday

[cards-and-stars]

✧ Nefertari Tarot

Author/Artist: Silvana Alasia

Editor: Lo Scarabeo

ISBN: 978-8865272312

Link: https://shop.loscarabeo.com/index.php?id_product=13&controller=product&id_lang=1

I have always been fascinated with Ancient Egypt so I was really excited about getting this deck. Especially given the fact the Nefertari was a prominent Queen, Great Royal Wife of Ramses the Great, a notorious Pharaoh. Plus, I do like some golden highlights in my card ;)

The deck is edited by Lo Scarabeo which makes a lot of cute decks, and especially some very lovely ones based on Egyptian aesthetic. As with all Lo Scarabeo decks, the booklet and box show off 6 different languages to make the deck more accessible.

Let’s dive into Nefertari’s gorgeous Tarot deck!

✧ The Box

The box itself is beautiful! It is golden and black, illustrated with the eye of Ra, There is not much information on it and no preview of the cards, preserving a sense of mystery. All the box says is "The Light of Egypt - Ramses' Bride", as "The Light of Egypt" was one of Nefertari's titles. The box is very regular in the sense that it is simple cardboard, not excessively sturdy or thick. It's pretty, but doesn't really protect the cards that much.

✧ The Cards

The card stock is very regular as well, pretty much like a regular RWS deck. However the illustrations are outstanding! The golden colour is used brilliantly and gives the cards a certain richness, emanating a precious and refined Light. Here are some of the cards:

What I especially love, is that the illustrations are based off of actual low reliefs (like Tutankhamun, Nefertiti with her daughters, Akhenathon, Egyptian dancers, etc....). It's a nice nod to actual Egyptian Art. Every single card has a golden accent, usually it is simply the back and it works very well visually. The colors are nice and bright.

Each card has its name written in 5 different languages, which is also typical for Lo Scarabeo decks.

The back of the cards is beige (probably in reference to sand), covered with hieroglyphs and featuring the Eye of Ra. To be honest, this is a bit poor quality: the print is blurry and the colours are toned down compared to the rest of the deck. I would have personally went for a black back with a beige cartouche of Nefertari's name instead.

The Minor Arcana aces are really interesting. The Ace of Wands is the Apis bull, the Ace of Cups is Khepri the scarab, the Ace of pentacle is Thoth in his baboon form and the Ace of Swords is Horus.

My favourite in this deck is the Moon card. It is one of the rare cards which do not have a golden background but, in this case, it’s a beautiful deep night blue. The moon shines through the clouds in the sky. The two towers are replaced by pyramids and the wolf and dog are pictured as a black jackal and a white jackal. They rest on what appears to be tomb which also works as a symbol of the deep unknown as it refers to Death, the last unknown continent. They each wear a red ribbon which may be symbolising life.

The cards are however a bit fragile. While the gold parts are still in pretty good shape, the black edges do get damaged quite easily. It's a shame because they are gorgeous but I feel like this deck is more of a collection piece than an everyday use. Therefore I cannot use it often, which is a shame.

✧ The Little White Book

Like all the Lo Scarabeo decks I have, this one comes with a small paper booklet. It features a short information blurb about Nefertari and about Tarot. It also provides you with a spread to Find your own goal. It then proceeds to details the meanings of all the Arcana. It's printed in black and white and without illustration. It contains all the relevant information, so it's not like you're missing out on anything.

✧ The Tryptich

The Strength card clearly shows that the woman handles the lion in a gentle manner. The color scheme of this illustration is very much reminiscent of the one from the RWS deck. The lemniscate and the flowers, however, do not appear in this illustration.

The Star holds two feathers and is kneeling on water. She doesn't pour water and there are 11 stars above her head instead of the traditional 7 representing the Pleiades. She has a headpiece with a gold circle protected by 2 cobras, this may be a reference to Ra's nightly voyage.

The Tower shows a collapsing obelisk, held by a few people who clearly try to avert the catastrophe. The poor guys may end up crushed which is a parallel to the characters falling out of the Tower in the traditional illustration. It feels like a cleaner version, without the distress, lightning, fire or clouds in the background.

✧ Conclusion

Likes

Beautiful illustrations

Based off of actual Egyptian Art

Interesting symbolism

Perfect for Khemetic cartomancy

Dislikes

The quality is not the best, the cards and box get easily damaged

The back of the cards isn't great compared to the illustrations

Overall, this is a lovely deck and I'm really happy I purchased it. It is the regular Lo Scarabeo deck quality and layout (thick outline and title of each card in 5 languages) so you know what to expect. But because it cannot be used on a regular basis, I have to rate it one star lower than I would otherwise.

✧ Rating

✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧

Thank you for reading and see you later, little MonStars!

#nefertari #ramses #ramsesses #neferiti #tutankhamun #akhenaton #horus #isis #osiris #seth #anubis #sobek #kephri #amun #amon #aton #atun #tarot #tarot deck #nefertari tarot #tarot review #tarot deck review #cartomancy #divination #khemet #khemeticism #khemetic #khemetism #khemu #egypt

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Sarazanmai Episode 6: “I Want To Connect, So I’m Not Giving Up”

All things considered, this episode was way more positive and hopeful than I expected, but it still hurt in it’s own way, and Ikuhara is still aiming to literally murder me with these post-ED scenes.

I was worried that Ikuhara wasn’t going to be able to pace out an 11-episode anime properly, but thus far it’s been fine, and this episode in particular gives me hope that the rest of the show will be just as good.

Also, I really think that anyone watching the show by this point needs to at least check out the ReoMabu prequel manga, if not also their twitter account, so you can get more context for their relationship, now that they’re becoming more prominent.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

It almost feels like a spoiler to include the episode title at the top of the post, since it’s one of the big emotional climaxes of the whole episode, but oh well. I still really love how this series is using it’s episode titles to hammer in specific emotions at the end of each episode.

This episode title also reflects how this is the episode where the patterns that have made up the show thus far have pretty much veered off-track. There were no musical numbers, no transformation scenes, no new Lucky Selfie Item, the kappa zombie of the week is determined to have love instead of desire, and for the first time ever, the episode title is actually a positive one that shows how Kazuki has grown as a person. I haven’t watched Penguindrum or Yuri Kuma Arashi yet, but I really like how Ikuhara intentionally deviates from the episodic patterns he sets up in order to create a sense of dissonance and change, and this is a great example of that. It really feels like this is the halfway mark that’s bridging the two halves of the show. I wouldn’t be surprised if the kappa zombie of the week stuff more or less stops after this, with how Reo and Mabu seem to be changing tactics, and the main trio are more aware of how the process works and how they’re erasing people from existence by defeating the kappa zombies.

Even though this is just the mid-season climax [and the point where the first of the two light novel volumes ends], it really feels like it could almost work as a full-on season finale, or at least a penultimate episode, with how it pretty much wraps up Kazuki’s entire character arc. But we still have five more episodes to go, and the post-ED scene in particular makes it clear that there’s still more to delve into. As I said above, I was worried that, based on what I’ve heard about Yuri Kuma Arashi, Ikuhara isn’t good at properly pacing out 1-cour anime, but this episode in particular makes it feel like if he was bad at it before, he’s certainly gotten a lot better at it. The pacing actually sorta reminds me of Planet With from last year, in how it feels like every single scene in this show is meaningful, and it feels like there’s more development than you get in most full series.

And on the note of Kazuki’s development, it didn’t go at all how I expected, but I’m really happy with how it went. I was honestly expecting Haruka to get turned into a kappa zombie and for the main trio to find out about the ‘erasure from existence’ thing after they defeated him, so I was surprised to see that he got saved, and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to also involve Kazuki finally accepting his brother’s love and saving him, after being given the choice to basically kill himself to erase all of his sins.

I think we can all agree that that whole sequence in this episode was ultimately a metaphor for him being suicidal and thinking that if he could die, or if he could have never been born in the first place, then everything would be better. There was just a vague plot mechanism in place to make him think that that might be genuinely true. Kazuki is a really complex and divisive character in a lot of ways, but moments like this really make it clear that he’s just a depressed teenager who feels unworthy of love. So it was nice to see Enta and Toi come through to save him before he could go through with killing himself [especially with how that whole bit incorporated Toi’s gun and Enta’s soccer skills].

The big climax of Kazuki’s arc, and his acceptance of Haruka’s love, ties in a lot with how we finally get some fairly blunt info about how society works in this series, and what exactly the loss of a Shirikodama means for a person. Like with how basically every Ikuhara anime is ultimately concerned with the idea of society being made of an in-group and an out-group, with being forced into the out-group being equivalent to death [but also to transcendence, sometimes], people in Sarazanmai are connected via their Shirikodama, and the linked desires that they represent, with those who cannot ‘connect desires’ being forced out of that circle of connection, and erased from existence. There’s a lot of in-universe lore and jargon going on there, but it basically boils down to ‘isolated outcasts get rejected and forgotten’. But on a more small-scale and personal level, this episode also explores the idea of smaller social circles, and the way that people can be rejected from them, and reject themselves from them. Kazuki feels that he was always on the outside of the circle after he found out that he was adopted into his family, and he’s been pushing Haruka away and refusing to connect with him directly for a variety of reasons. He’s been intentionally rejecting himself from that circle this whole time, and his big emotional realization in this episode is that Haruka genuinely loves him and just wants to have a normal relationship with him, and that he can allow himself to be loved and accepted into that circle. He can allow himself to be chosen. The fact that Haruka wants Kazuki to know that they’re a part of a circle together, from beginning to end, pretty much encapsulates all of that.

We also learn that part of why Haruka also has his own self-loathing issues going on is because he stole Kazuki’s mother’s scent pouch and rejected her out of fear that she’d steal Kazuki away from him. So he probably feels responsible for what ended up happening that day when Kazuki went to go see his mother at the train station.

I really hope we get to see the two of them interacting and talking things out soon. In a lot of ways their whole arc together has basically wrapped up, but it’ll still be nice to actually see their relationship improving.

I’m curious to see if Kazuki’s going to ever go back to his cross-dressing days now that the whole Sara thing has been exposed, and he’s finally allowed himself to love and be loved by Haruka as himself. I guess that’ll be what shows whether he only cross-dressed solely to try and connect with Haruka, or if he also had other reasons for it.

I have the wonder what’s gonna happen with the main trio now that Kazuki’s come to his big character development climax moment, and they all have a better understanding of how the kappa zombie thing works, and about the broader otter/kappa conflict. It’s also worth noting that, since they apparently defeated the sachet kappa zombie for good this time, they should have their fourth silver plate of hope, so they should just be one away from getting a full gold one. I’m really curious to see how that turns out, since I don’t think Kazuki is going to care about it at this point, since he’s managed to restore his relationship with Haruka without it. I think he’ll just let Toi or Enta use the gold plate for their own wish instead. And out of the two of them, with how things are going, it seems like Enta will probably end up letting Toi make the wish for himself.

It’s worth pointing out that even though Kazuki’s development more or less wrapped up here, there’s presumably more to do with Toi and Enta and their own personal conflicts. I think they’re each going to get one more focus episode before the anime wraps up. I don’t know entirely how their own stories will end, but Toi still needs to sort things out with him and his brother, and Enta clearly has to do SOMETHING about his repressed crush on Kazuki.

I would say that it feels like there’s actually not much more that even needs to happen with the main trio at this point since they’ve gotten so much focus and development already, but that’s where Reo and Mabu come in, since they’re clearly going to be way more prominent in the second half. The synopsis preview for episode 7 seems to imply that we’ll get more backstory for them, which will hopefully include the short chapter from the light novel that the anime’s apparently skipped over thus far. At the very least, this episode’s post-ED scene is enough to make it clear that there’s a lot to learn about them.

At first I was super thrown off by that whole scene, mostly because the art used for the backgrounds was so stylized that it looked like it took place on some fantasy planet, but after thinking about it, it makes sense, and I think it still slots into the same timeline as the manga and their twitter account. I think that their twitter account basically ended with the two of them getting drafted into the Otter Empire, and the post-ED scene in this episode shows them serving in the empire afterwards, and Mabu getting killed in the middle of them trying to finally capture Prince Keppi. It’s all very sudden, but it makes sense. And obviously we’ll learn more about it later.

It still looks like Mabu is being kept alive by a mechanical heart, which was probably provided by the Otter Empire in exchange for their continued service. But we still don’t know exactly how he got given that heart, and what his maintenance entails. It seems interesting that his situation resembles what Keppi said about the effects of having a Shirikodama removed, but Mabu still seems to be around, and Reo still remembers him and their history together, even if Mabu does seem to have lost his emotions. Maybe his mechanical heart is basically keeping him in a stasis where he’s not completely rejected from the circle like the defeated kappa zombies are. It might be worth noting that we’ve also only seen Reo interact with Mabu at all thus far, but that might just be a coincidence.

It looks like their goal, or at least Reo’s, has shifted over to capturing Keppi once and for all now that they’ve seen him in the security camera footage of the main trio saving Haruka. It definitely looks like his ultimate plan is probably to use Keppi to make a gold plate of hope that he can use to wish Mabu back to how he used to be. And honestly at this point I think he deserves it, lol. The main trio’s problems are all just real-life relationship issues that can be resolved through communication and honesty, but Reo doesn’t really have much of a choice if he wants to fix the issue of Mabu being a living corpse fueled by a magical mechanical heart.

I’m really curious to see how their methods change after this, now that they have a more concrete goal. I wonder if they’ll keep making new kappa zombies each episode, or if they’ll continue to play a more active role in things.

At the very least, I think that there’ll be a sequence later on where the two of them get their own Sarazanmai musical sequence and secret-leaking scene. It’d just make sense in a lot of ways if we find out that, similar to the main trio, they can transform into otters and do the whole Sarazanmai thing.

I’m also still curious to see if/when their connection to Sara comes up in the story, especially since it seems like the prequel manga is probably canon to the anime. I think it’d at least be weird if it doesn’t come up at all, since the fact that they raised Sara seems like a pretty big deal.

And on the note of her, and the prequel manga’s plot in general, this episode raises even more questions, even if it answers at least one. At the very least, it looks like the sleepwalking dude at the end of the manga was her manager, and the silhouetted figure with a crown was Prince Keppi. But even knowing that just raises it’s own questions. In particular, why didn’t Keppi mention Sara in his whole info-dump about the otter/kappa war? He basically acted like he was the only surviving member of his kingdom, but Sara [and her manager] are obviously still around. She’s even a popular TV idol, and even uses her kappa form as a mascot, so Keppi should at least be aware that she exists. So I wonder if he might be intentionally trying to hide his connection to her, for one reason or another. In particular, I wonder if maybe Keppi is trying to protect her from the Otter Empire by acting like he’s the only kappa left alive, so they won’t get suspicious of her. Though it’s hard not to think that his overall motives might be more sinister after his episode, so who knows.

I have a feeling that Sara might also have the power to produce dishes of hope like Keppi can, regardless of what he says about him being the only one able to do that. If she does, I could see that leading to an ending where she’s able to grant Reo’s wish, and they can basically go back to being a family together.

This episode kinda makes me even more confused about Sara in general, though. Now that we know more about the reality of the war going on, and the kappa being a nearly extinct kingdom, you’d think that she wouldn’t be quite so flippant about transforming into a kappa in public, or using her kappa form as a mascot on TV. Episode 5 also made her seem a lot more . . . spacey and off in her own world, in a way, than how she seemed at the end of the prequel manga. I wonder how she feels about all of this.

I was a bit worried that the show has been spending so much time on the main trio that it wouldn’t have enough time to really go into Reo and Mabu, and the whole otter/kappa conflict, and so on, but it looks like all of that is becoming a lot more important now, and this episode already spelled out a lot of info, so I think it should work out fine.

I really want to check out the light novels now, but I’ve already decided that I’ll wait until near the end of the year to buy both volumes together. I did import the ReoMabu manga yesterday, though, so that should get here next week. I have a feeling I’ll also end up importing the physical volumes of the new manga adaptation as well, lol.

All in all, this was a really fantastic episode. I’m really happy that Ikuhara hasn’t lost his touch, and that we’re still getting such great shows from him. Now I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping that the second half of the show can stick the landing.

#murasaki rambles #sarazanmai #this post got really long but there's a LOT to say about this episode #this show is just SO GOOD Y'ALL

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Iruma-kun 8 - 9 | BnHA 68 - 71 | NGL 8 - 9 | ID: Invaded Sneak Preview (i.e. eps 1 - 2)

Tw: suicide for ID: Invaded, by the way (it’s only briefly in the commentary, but it’s in ep 2). Plus, ID: Invaded gets its hashtag well before its debut.

Iruma-kun 8

“Lady Redhair”? I think Amelie’s hair is orange, but you do you, Clara.

I paused at the wrong time and saw Asmodeus had bug eyes behind his glasses.

Is that the vending machine Clara attacked her bullies with…?

I wonder what rank Amelie is…

Diabolical + botany = diabotany.

Come to think of it, the Azz-Azz/Iruma relationship is similar to the Gokudera/Tsuna relationship…

So as it turns out, Clara gets her juvenile tendencies from taking care of her younger siblings. Hmm…

Aw, it’s kinda disheartening to see Clara so down. It looks a lot like Zenitsu when he doesn’t see his own abilities, or something of the sort (which I always fall hook, lin and sinker for).

I wonder what Amelie’s seduction percentage is…?

Oh, you can see Succubus-sensei in the ED…hmm.

Update: where is Clara’s dad…? *gulps if he’s passed away*

Iruma-kun 9

Azz-kun is such a proud parent…even though he’s the same age as Iruma, LOL.

Lack of ambition? Clara just proved this wrong last episode and Sabro has his own ambitions…but then again, Azz-kun wasn’t privy to such knowledge.

“Fear 1” is a pun on ikkai (first floor). (At least, that’s what I can assume from context.)

There doesn’t actually seem to be a pun when Azz mentions Execution Cannonball (shokei gyokuhou)…which, I think, is weirder than having a pun in the first place. (The later joke is that Clara says gyouki instead of gyokuhou, which is pretty far off for part of it but completely spot on for the other , so the subbers put in a phrase that matched that kind of pattern in the English as well.)

Rumour has it there’s going to be an Iruma-kun dub. I wonder how they’ll make all the puns work…?

It’s-wahahaha! It’s just dodgeball!

Huh? A high-ranking demon? Sullivan? Opera?????

LOL, you can still see the tree sprouting from one of the rooms.

The Demonitor is handing Opera the dodgeballs, LOL!

I like Opera’s nails…they’re a nice shade of purple…

Ponytail Iruma…looks a bit strange, but I’ll get used to it. I like ponytails, y’know.

Even Azz-kun’s hands are big in comparison to Iruma…

That preview was far too abrupt!

BnHA 68

The giant moving crab is actually a thing. I went and saw it one time in Ginza and again on Dotonbori, Osaka. The crab is associated with Kani Doraku, a crab restaurant.

“Amajiki” literally means something like “eats the sky”. A good name for my good boi.

The subbers didn’t even finish the word “defence”! Eesh!

Amajiki likes butterflies…? I wonder, if he ate butter, could he be a butterfly too…?

Running All Might, I see…(it’s a parody of the Glico Running Man in Osaka.)

Basically, this is what Vigilantes was for! Woot!

I love how Kaminari charges people’s phones. That’s the sort of dumb thing heroes do with their powers, since you gotta remember they’re just young dumb boys at heart as well.

The problem with a hardening power is that it sounds lewd out of context…

I wonder what Fat Gum’s first job was…?

There’s a post-credits segment…keep watching.

BnHA 69

Centipeder has such a cute voice, albeit a distorted one.

Kirishima is voiced by Masuda, so it’s fun to hear him get such a prominent role again (after Charanko in OPM s2, Touken Ranbu and Boueibu, among other roles).

“Likes: All Might” – LOL, we knew that already though.

Nighteye is Seiya Ryuuguuin: Hero Version.

There’s a post-credits segment. Keep watching.

The manga calls the magical girl series “Preyure”, so it’s weird to suddenly have the dub refer to its dub name, “Glitter Force”.

BnHA 70

Midoriya doesn’t have any bedhead…because his hair’s already messy! LOL.

“…what’s important is what you do afterwards.”

“Maybe we can catch the League…and the Hassaikai all at once!” – Yeah…that’s not going to happen Kirishima, considering the series is still going.

Come to think of it, Eraser’s goggles are the only part of his outfit that don’t really match…no wonder the idea comes from somone else (maybe saying that is a spoiler for those only following the main series and not Vigilantes, though…?).

Swordfish will become important later on…you know Tamaki’s Quirk, so you’ll see when it’s important soon.

Another post-credits segment…keep watching.

BnHA 71

One of the reasons I like Amajiki is because of his intro. Now you can see why!

Hassaikai = Hassai Group, so calling the opponents the “Shie Hassaikai” and “Hassai Group” in the same translaton is inconsistent.

“…playing into their hands.” – You can’t say that when you don’t have hands, Tamaki…

No Guns Life 8

Well, there ain’t no metaphor like the blatant one – man is the deadliest weapon to himself…or something of the sort.

Geesh! I wanna dub for this!

Well…couldn’t Olivier light the cig and stick it in Juzo’s mouth…? Or is that not “sexy enough” for the target audience?

No Guns Life 9

I’ve noticed only the women have lip flaps now…LOL. (But maybe I’m stating the obvious because my head’s a bit fuzzy from lack of sleep…)

“Medico” appears to be the Spanish word for “doctor” (as you might be able to guess). Then again, what Spanish colonies are there in the world…? Spain, sure, and South America…*googles* Basically all of South America, dangit.

Context says “madre” = mother.

Context also says “mentira” = lie, or “you’re lying!”.

Geesh, that cup size joke was such a non-sequitur that I didn’t even find it funny…

Geesh! This Colt dude is basically Sabro (from Iruma-kun)! Update: He also looks like he came straight outta JJBA.

ID: Invaded 1 – 2 (SNEAK PREVIEW!) 

I thought I wouldn’t be able to access the preview, but by accessing Funimation’s videos…I can watch it!

Ohmygloooooooob, this “I’m in pieces, but I’m connected” concept is so cool! (But also hella freaky, which is exactly my style!...You do know that I’m a bit of a freak for body horror, right?)

You…probably shouldn’t be yelling at the person if they appear to be dead(!)  

This would make an awesome escape game, no…?

I never knew the future looked so similar to the present.

Ooh, this gets more and more interesting! There are people watching this murder mystery.

Whose ID Well is this…? If it’s Sakaido’s, then maybe he can find out more about himself through the celebs.

The code appears to be from the Windows operting system, since C: is the default hard drive. So I’d say it might be Windows Visual Basic, actually, or C (the programming language).

Hmm…maybe that’s when the episode ws being produced.

Okay, so how I’m understanding this is that Sakaido is in the world of the murderer (of Kaeru’s) mind and he has to find her murderer to get out.

Ooh, so Sakaido is also a murderer…and as it turns out, Sakaido’s perp drills holes in the heads of their victims…scary. What I was really here to say was that this reminds me of a movie called Minority Report.

I think one of the victims had part of his head missing in the ID Well, so maybe Sakaido’s missing an elbow in real life…?

The joke is that the word for “well” in Japanese is i (井) or ido (井戸) and then ID, of course, is ID and likewise id is id (but it’s ido in Japanese). Googling ID: Invaded reveals Sakaido is written with this same kanji, plus two others (酒井戸), meaning his name is part of the wordplay too.

It’s like Minecraft, except you make the world with your entire body…LOL.

Maybe that’s (takoya) short for “takoyaki”…? Just a guess. Update: I’m right.

The licence plates say “Shinagawa”. This show takes place in Shinagawa (or the car I read the plate of was obtained in Shinagawa)!

Huh? How did Hondomachi get into the well? Do they have a drive to kill as well????

These quotes have gotta mean something, so here’s the first one: “Is it ridiculous to believe that I have been given a certain role to play for this present world?”

What’s up with the numbers in the room Matsuoka is in…? (Apparently a terrible day volunteering is enough to put me on edge and subsequently make me a master detective, it seems.)

I went back to my old Honeyfeed stories recently and I rediscovered a character that I wrote about a few years ago – Yuki, after the matching character I axed from my original plot of Half-Paid Heroes (because the story I’m referring to is the Honeyfeed version of HPH) – who was partially close-shaven like Fukuda. I gave Yuki such a character design just to set up intrigue, but I didn’t think I’d ever see a similar design to it, ever. Now, here I am.

Narihisago? What a name! I checked what “hisago” means and apparently it means “gourd”.

Is this Kaeru (the one that committed suicide), perhaps, the one in Hondomachi’s head and that’s not actually the case…?

The CGI’s a bit awkward in this show.

Is “Muku” Sakaido/Narihisago’s daughter…?

I think the old guy – the head of the cop team – uses a Mac, based on his GUI.

New quote: “Wind comes in this hole and out the other, and it makes the world a little bit clearer.” This reveals the quotes are actually from the episode.

This music which acts as the ED is nice. I’m basically sold on this show, y’know.

The original work is by “The Detectives United”. I wonder what that means…?

#simulcast commentary #ID: Invaded #no guns life #boku no hero academia #My Hero Academia #mairimashita! iruma-kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #chesarka watches mi-k #Chesarka watches NGL #Chesarka watches BnHA #Chesarka watches ID: Invaded

[agallimaufryofoddments]

DMDP Chapter 36 Thoughts

I kinda thought this chapter was going to be out on Sep 13 (it released on Sep 20) for a couple reasons, but at the same time getting Chapter 36 only a week after Chapter 35 was perhaps a little too good to be true. Getting it two weeks after is a nice treat anyway, so I’ll take what I can get.

In other DMDP news, Young Gangan’s tweet announcement of this chapter release also announced that Volume 4 will be released in November! Already looking forward to its cover reveal, which I assume will be next month; anyone wanna bet on which character will be featured? I feel like Solitaire isn’t a bad guess given his prominence in the dirigible incident/chapters I assume the volume will cover...

Speaking of volumes: the Yen Press release of Volume 3 is still projected for December--so, a month after the JP Vol 4 release. Given that Yen Press has been releasing the DMDP volumes every sixth months or so... I’m thinking we may not get the English edition of Vol 4 until June? (But please prove me wrong and release it sooner.)

Anyway. Chapter reactions/thoughts are under the cut and include: extended paragraphs on Xiaoyu that I should maybe just copy into their own post; appreciation of a potential cynical streak in Izliz (I want to know more about her); and the belated realization that ‘Hagane’ means steel.

Armed people wearing gas masks? Congregating underground? I’m getting flashbacks to Metro: Last Light. 

Also...Goose’s speech to the Lemures in Baccano!, c.f. the speaker referring to himself + the group as “not people” but “spend rounds.” 

Who are these people? What’s their main unit’s goal? The last chapter ended on an Agakura namedrop, but somehow I doubt these guys are the Agakura...

"We are not inferior to Agakura’s boys” / It’s nice to be validated. Nor are they inferior to the Heilei, or “the followers of Crazy Bones Kagura...” Okay, Heilei I recognize....Kagura who, again? I can’t recall hearing the name before. Kinda echoes ‘Agakura’, doesn’t it? Enough that I wonder if Kagura has something to do with Agakura.

Oh hey, that’s the panel which was used in the chapter promo tweet. This guy’s character design definitely maybe me go ?! when I saw the promo image, which I suppose was why they picked the panel as the preview panel...

I think he killed these guys with his bare hands. As one does.

“At least you guys...remarkably...proved you weren’t inferior to Agakura.” In what way? Also, seems like Extra(TM) Tall Man is with the Agakura himself.

“The girls” took out the group’s main unit without casualties in five seconds?? Who are these ladies and when do we meet them???

“Momoya” is our tall guy, it seems. Annnd big surprise, his new job will be based in Shinjuku. Question is whether the ‘visit’ he’s supposed to pay Clarissa (who else could the mediator be) will be a...let’s say, ‘diplomacy’ visit or something more bloody.

Otherworld flashback. “Utsuro Juuza” is the third ranked sorcerer, says Izliz--hey, I recognize that name; I’m pretty sure she said it during the flashback to the empire’s collapse. I also remember it being one word (”It’s as Utsuroju(u)za said”) though...

At first I thought Sabaramond was referring to Corpse God when he said “in terms of ability...you should be standing in my position,” but I feel like it’s more likely he means Izliz. 

Speaking of Izliz, I want to see more of her apparent cynicism streak. I’m not prepared to say she’s necessarily a ‘cynical person’, since I don’t know enough about her yet and she’s also being pretty encouraging by saying the Corpse God can rise to tenth-rank (though, to channel Carol, i have to ask “out of how many”) despite having no magical talents...but she may at least be cynical when it comes to things like court politics.

Speaking of Sabaramond, oof that character design tease; I wanna see his design proper.

I want to make a Narita joke about Sayo’s shark antics but I may just save that for a separate shitpost.

CG says it’s definitely possible Sabaramond could’ve extended his lifespan, but Sayo doesn’t think that’s as important as the possibility of CG having an ally... ah, but is she thinking ally = Sabaramond himself (if he still lives), or that the “bastard children of Sabaramond” could be an ally?

The real Polka got a whole reaction panel to CG’s angst...important how? Maybe we’re gonna hear his take on the situation later.

Meanwhile, looks like we’re going to hear the Rozan-Xiaoyu convo this chapter after all.

See Xiaoyu literally says “something invisible was obstructing Lemmings and the other man” only for next panel to show the news photo of the arms and smoke. And then, “There was definitely SOMETHING there, I know it...!!” Did Xiaoyu end up seeing the large arms or not??

Oof, this conversation is a tough one for Xiaoyu (tears in his eyes!) but it’s one he needs to have. Rozan’s absolutely right on the money throughout the talk, and I think the gentle-but-stinging insinuation that Xiaoyu in distrusting fake!Polka is therefore not putting his trust in Rozan is a pretty apt point. 

(I was several bullet point paragraphs deep into Xiaoyu talk when I decided maybe I should move those thoughts to the post-bullet points section. Continued there.)

Just because I have bad eyesight doesn’t mean I think it’s possible for an ordinary human to be able to spot Xiaoyu at such a great vertical and horizontal distance as Momoya has. This guy has abnormal height, abnormal eyesight...I suppose we’ll learn how else he’s abnormal soon enough. On that note, I suddenly fully expect there to be a Momoya vs Lemmings match-up in the future. I don’t know how or why it’ll happen, but such a match-up is begging to happen nonetheless.

His cap-wearing companion...is that the person we saw on the phone last chapter? The backs of their heads seem similar...

“Shinjuku is Kuraki’s territory” but you don’t want to attract attention...kinda hard not to when Momoya has, what, at least two feet on everyone else. (Also, you can’t be expecting to take Clarissa totally by surprise, can you? Nah.)

Welp Momoya’s the Agakura guy personally responsible for de-limbing Xiaoyu! I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Their eventual (presumed) reunion is going to look like a David vs Goliath rematch. But will David’s cyborg enhancements and extra combat experience be enough to give him a chance at victory...?

We should assume it’s Momoya whom Arase spotted, right? He’s not gonna be able to spot Xiaoyu, and while the companion could perhaps be a ‘twist’ reveal...the companion was about as tall as everyone else in the crowd; Momoya is tall and stands out, so... “It couldn’t be. Could it?” Well, how many guys that tall are walking around Shinjuku...

Top likely guess is that Arase is familiar with Momoya from his yakuza/criminal days, but I suppose there’s also a chance he encountered Momoya during his later undercover operations. Arase’s been in Iwanome’s narrative shadow ever since Iwanome stole the story spotlight from him, so maybe he’s going to get some new spotlight soon?

Ah hey, it’s that journalist from the end of Chapter 35. Her business card is... wait, does it really say her name is “Eightport Kochou” or is CG just misreading it? Though, Takumi has a non-too-pleased moment of recognition...

This reporter and Misaki are awfully chummy. Enough so that my first reaction was to think, “Is this Misaki’s friend Hagane-chan?” Eh, I’ll bet a dollar she is. Dunno about you, but “Eightport Kochou” sounds like it just might be a pseudonym. Just perhaps.

Also, it only recently occurred to me that “Hagane” means steel; lest we forget, Misaki was heiress to Sakimiya Steel until her parents were murdered. I don’t...know what I’m supposed to do with this information? Should I consider it notable? Hagane’s name is first mentioned before we learn about Sakimiya Steel but that’s not what I’d call foreshadowing. Hm...

Right...thoughts. I have those. I guess I’ll start with a continuation of those Xiaoyu thoughts I started writing in the bullet points:

Xiaoyu’s vendetta against both Polkas is mostly a selfish one (he’s been jealous of real!Polka’s filial relationship to Rozan for years), but he has to some extent also (I think) convinced himself he’s acting for Rozan’s sake (fake!Polka must be a threat somehow, must have ulterior motives; Rozan will be better off without someone masquerading as a Shinoyama).

But...dismissing Rozan’s order to protect the fake!Polka was an act that essentially dismissed Rozan’s judgment and authority, even if Xiaoyu didn’t realize it at the time. I get the sense one of the reasons he considers himself to be Rozan’s true (’ideal’) son is because he (I suspect) conceives of himself as being ‘truly devoted’ to Rozan in every way. The real!Polka couldn’t possibly revere or respect or value Rozan in the same way Xiaoyu does, right?

Except if Xiaoyu were truly devoted to Rozan, if he respected and revered and valued Rozan in the way I guess he’s been perceiving himself as doing--if he gave Rozan the respect and service he believes Rozan deserves--then he surely should have respected the order to protect fake!Polka instead of assuming he knew better than his beloved master.

I’m not saying this all because I’m advocating for blind loyalty; I’m spending several paragraphs on this because it looks like this conversation is going to spark some overdue self-reflection on Xiaoyu’s part and yeah, yeah, he needs this. He has spent so much time preoccupied with being an ‘ideal’ (’ideal son’; ‘ideal servant’; ‘ideal guard’; at least, that’s my take on him at this time) that his self-awareness has (at least as of late) perhaps been awareness of a ‘self’ he’s constructed in his mind...

...but Rozan has prompted him into ‘real’ self-awareness now. I won’t be surprised if Xiaoyu’s self-confidence takes a bit of collateral damage, if it hadn’t already during the rooftop showdown, and I’m not sure if Xiaoyu will be able to suck up what pride and paranoia he has left and go have that “heart-to-heart” with fake!Polka right away. 

Do you think Xiaoyu remembers much of Momoya? Whether the trauma etched Momoya into his memory or blocked him out, I’m guessing Xiaoyu’s going to be experiencing some fear either way when he and Momoya inevitably cross paths again...but if they cross paths within the week or something, Xiaoyu might be in just that bit of a more brittle metal state than he already would be. 

Speaking of Momoya... I think Agakura is the name of the organization, yeah? “Within the Agakura” from last chapter indicates as much. I think the phrasing of a couple lines just tripped me up on it; at any rate, ‘Agakura’ doesn’t appear to be an establish Japanese surname or anything. I was half-expecting Momoya’s name to be Agakura, somehow...

But that’s all pablum. Last chapter saw those ex-Agakura (or at least, ex-Agakura associate) sniper siblings asking Clarissa for work, so I’m fully expecting the snipers to be present/relevant/brought up when Momoya pays his own visit to Clarissa soon.

I’m not necessarily expecting the visit to be about the siblings’ departure (since the Agakura guy didn’t seem too concerned by it), but it wouldn’t make sense to not involve the snipers in Momoya’s visit somehow. If they’re not present for his arrival, they’ll probably have some opinions on Momoya to share with Clarissa at minimum; Momoya himself might comment on their departure if he cares to do so.

Initial impressions of Momoya? I like his character design, but you knew that. His barehanded violence reminded me a bit of Claire (as well as his chattiness and self-assurance in being the cream of the crop), but I also got vague Yakumo vibes from his abnormal sight/height/abilities maybe? 

I don’t want to pin anything down about Momoya with only his debut chapter to go on--and I’m not sure I’d be able to pin down Momoya if I tried. He appears to afford ‘respect’ to his opponents (he says he’s impressed and respects Xiaoyu for surviving; he appears willing to consider or acknowledge opponents’ skills), but I can’t say how sincere that respect is (and if sincere, in what respect; e.g. could be more along the lines of Claire’s ‘gracious’ “you’re good; not as good as me, but good by ordinary standards” type of praise).

For now, I guess I’m just going to hope Momoya isn’t going to be a character along the lines of, say...Amaya from the “As the Gods Will” manga. I’m at the very least curious to see how he fits into Agakura, exactly; whether he cares about the group’s main goals or if he’s in the group for other reasons (in before ‘because I get to kill people”). 

As for the chapter ending... my initial response to “She says we’re going to be in the news!” was a somewhat snarky, “What, more than you’ve already been?” but I realize Misaki probably means the fortune-telling shop...uh, ‘local business spotlight’ style. Er, not that the journalist isn’t clearly interested in whatever happened on the rooftop (since she was in the rubbernecking crowd)...

...so I’ll grant the journalist probably at minimum wants to interview CG about the incident last night (”did you witness anything? Do you know anything about it?”). Still, I can see the ‘eyewitness account’ interview having a secondary purpose of business advertisement; the journalist might try to convince CG to be interviewed through such reasoning. 

“You let me interview you about the incident, your fortune-telling shop gets free exposure! Paranormal activity at a building with a grisly past, and on a fortuneteller’s doorstep no less? Everyone’s gonna be talking about it! ‘Hey, you think this guy is the real deal?’ They’ll be queuing down the streets!”

...Or something like that. This is all pure conjecture. This is all also way too many words for a simple Chapter reaction post, and too much time to spend on such a post at that. 

(PS: I remember Fujimoto tweeting about having to come up with at least three new character designs, and hoo boy if the cast numbers aren’t continuing to increase. Once again, I wonder how far Narita has planned head for this story.)

#Dead Mount Death Play #DMDP #DMDP Spoilers #DMDP Update

[fitnessclubappointment-blog]

How to Generate More Traffic with Google’s New Features

You’re probably already familiar with Google My Business.

If you aren’t, as a quick recap, Google My Business is a simple way to claim your office address or storefront on Google.

That way, when someone searches for your business, you’ll show up on the right side of a Google search like the image above.

Or better yet, when someone searches for a product or service you’ll offer, you’ll show up in the local pack.

What’s interesting, though, is Google has been making changes to it, which means it just got easier to generate leads and sales for you.

Best of all, very few marketers are even leveraging these features.

Welcome Offers

What’s one of the easiest ways to generate more sales?

By offering discounts and coupons, right? Just think of it this way, if it didn’t work, Cyber Monday wouldn’t bring in $7.8 billion in sales.

Google knows that people are looking for ways to save money and find good deals. With this new feature, businesses can reward their customers by giving them welcome offers.

By following your business, they can get first-time deals and always keep in touch to see when new deals are posted.

Not only will this bring you new customers but also repeat customers because people will be notified every time you have new deals.

To set up a welcome offer, open your Google My Business app and tap on your profile. Under “Turn followers into customers,” click on ‘Create Welcome Offer’ and hit ‘Create.’

You can enter the following information in your offer:

Once finished, you can preview your message and publish. For notifications on new followers, and editing or deleting offers, you can read more on Google Support.

Generate leads in just a few clicks

Google is now adding a “Request a Quote” button in your business listing which was discovered by Joy Hawkins and can also be seen on mobile when searching branded terms.

This is happening with businesses that have the Google My Business messaging feature on.

To enable messaging, open the Google My Business app and go to your listing.

Navigate to Customers -> Messages and turn on!

People will now be able to ask for quotes on cars, insurance, and pretty much any service out there.

You can even review these quotes and reply to them within the Google My Business App and connect with your customers easily for a quick sale.

Make sure you claim your URL

Businesses can now claim a Short Name and URL for their listing.

If you haven’t claimed your URL, make sure you do so before it gets taken by someone else.

Don’t get too crazy though as you can only change your short name three times per year. You can enable this by navigating to your locations page, click “Info” on the left-hand side, and see “add short name”.

You may not think this is a big deal, but if you have used Google My Business before, then you know it’s not easy to share your profile on business cards, emails, and text messages without posting a huge URL.

With short names, your landing page will show as g.page/businessname and can be easily shared.

A business can choose a name between 5 and 32 characters and it can contain the business name, location, and more. People can still flag a name for impersonating another business or if the name is offensive, fake, spammy, or contains inappropriate terms.

So, remember not to violate any policies with your name.

I recommend doing this as it will make it easier for your customers to refer back to your profile where they can read updates, post, make reservations, read/write reviews, and more!

And eventually, people will be able to search short names in Google Maps to find the businesses they love.

Google Assistant

Google is now letting customers order food from restaurants and stores via Google Assistant, which is delivered through DoorDash, Postmates, Delivery.com, Slice, ChowNow, and Zuppler, with other partners possibly coming soon.

Users can click on Order Now on the listing and can choose pick-up or delivery and if they want to order ASAP or schedule for later. Payment happens through the default payment on Google Pay. If they do not have one, they will be able to add credit card information through this too.

Additionally, customers can order food by using Google Assistant by saying “Okay Google, order food from [restaurant].” If the user has ordered before, it will let them see past orders.

Updating your menu online, as well as delivery service carriers and their apps will help get you started on this.

You’ll want to make sure your menus are consistent through all your service carriers to get the best orders to your hungry customers.

And of course, I know there is a good chance you don’t have a restaurant or aren’t in the food delivery business, but expect to see more ways Google My Business gets integrated with Google Assistant.

It’s better to be early than late.

And speaking of food, Google has also added the popular dish tab on your menu which features images and menu items that people love the most.

This scans reviews and images on your Google My Business profile to find the most commonly mentioned dish and adds it to your popular dish tab. Of course, if anything is wrong, you can suggest edits to these.

This helps if there are dishes without names, wrong names, or typos can be fixed.

Auto-generated posts based on reviews

Look, you are busy, but you have no choice but to create content.

Google has given you easier ways to generate posts… in essence, they are now creating auto-generated posts for you.

These recommended posts are suggested through customer reviews on your Google My Business profile and are similar to their Small Thanks program, which tried to get you to highlight reviews given by previous customers on social media and even being able to print it out and display it on your business walls.

You are probably wondering why should you use it, right?

This helps keep people engaged in your profile if you haven’t posted on Google My Business in a while and gives you fast and easy publishing. It even gives you options to customize backgrounds with images and colors.

This will pop up on your Google My Business dashboard and all you have to do is hit “Create this post”.

There’s no real way to pick other reviews for Suggested Posts, but you are always welcome to create your own. This is just a simple feature created to help engage your audience more.

Boost your conversions by controlling your images

Businesses can now set a preferred profile cover photo in your image carousel and have a place for logos at the top-right of your profile next to the business name.

This is an additional feature to the regular NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) as well as business hours and will be prominently featured.

You can easily create offline material

Google is launching a website where businesses can order and get custom promotional items such as stickers and posters to advertise their business. This is in hopes that it will entice customers to follow places on your profile, add reviews, and create bookings.

You can even order signs like ‘follow us on Google’ and more for free (one shipment per location).

For posters, you can use the editor to create your own type of poster that can be downloaded and easily printed by yourself or a local printing company. If posters aren’t your cup of tea, you can even share these on social media.

This is currently free as it is a downloadable offer, but you may want to pay to have someone print this out in poster size or as stickers to put on your business windows.

Just think of it this way, people put Yelp signage everywhere because it works. Chances are, it will work on Google as well.

Place Topics

Google launched Place Topics which uses data based on reviews to help give information on what previous customers think about your business.

This can help users see themes of reviews at a glance for businesses and it’s all automated.

It’s kind of like a tag cloud.

This does mean that you cannot generate these yourselves or edit them. So, if you don’t have one, you may not have enough reviews.

Also, if you have a negative one, there’s potentially no way of removing this unless you get the review removed. So, make sure your happy customers are leaving reviews is very important.

Possibly entice them with a 10% discount the next time they come… assuming you aren’t breaking any policy guidelines.

Q&A Auto-Suggest Answers

This feature that Google updated uses previous answers to questions and Google My Business Reviews to answer new questions on the spot. As you start writing the question, different answers start to pop up to give you the best match.

So how can you make sure people get the most accurate answer?

Similar to place topics, encouraging your customers to leave detailed reviews of their experience really helps. The more detailed the review is, the better the question gets answered.

Of course, people who are searching for answers can potentially see negative reviews such as prices are too high, service takes long, very long waits on weekends, and more.

In other words, always encourage positive reviews from your loyal customers.

If you haven’t used Google My Business before, you should check it out. With their updates and new features, it is now easier to generate sales and collect leads.

In the future, you’ll see a much deeper integration between Google My Business and Google Assistant. This is going to be important as 50% of the searches will soon by voice searches according to ComScore.

Make sure you are leveraging all of these features and release Google is releasing because it doesn’t cost you money and if you get in early enough, you’ll have an advantage over your competition.

So are you using Google My Business to it’s fullest extent?

This content was originally published here.

[pinelife3]

Mindhunter: No Magic

I’ve been reading the book Mindhunter. You might have seen the Netflix/David Fincher TV show (or read the book?) - it’s based on the life of FBI agent John Douglas, the guy who pioneered criminal profiling, especially of serial killers, in the 70s, 80s and 90s. An interesting element of Mindhunter is how many cases Douglas worked on where the police consulted a medium. I kid you not! In tough, high-profile cases where the local police needed a breakthrough, they would sometimes call a psychic to ask for confirmation on their leads, hoping that the medium could magically intuit something about the case that the cops had missed (where does the killer live, what does he look like, what’s his line of work, etc.). It doesn’t sound like Douglas himself ever called a medium, or put much faith in their psychic intuition, but he does mention that they were around and contributing to cases he worked on. It seems like in the early days of profiling, people had a similar opinion of Douglas’ work: that it was superstitious, unscientific, unreliable - this even extended to his testimony and analysis as an FBI expert sometimes being inadmissible in court:

Though I’d already been qualified as a crime-scene analysis expert in several states, the defense referred to me as a “voodoo man” for the way I came up with my interpretations, and the judge ultimately ruled that I wouldn’t testify.

In “Killing Types”, a post on this blog from January 2016, I compared two accounts of how the criminal psychological profile of the Butcher Baker was developed. One account was from Wikipedia, and the other was Douglas, who personally developed the profile:

The serial killer in question was Robert Hansen AKA the Butcher Baker (everything I’m gonna write about him is via Wikipedia. You should just read their article if you want a more detailed account as I’m just summarising here). He was a very shy, skinny young boy with acne and a stutter. He was horribly bullied and the cute girls in school didn’t like him. Wikipedia doesn’t have a citation for this, but apparently: because he was “shunned by the attractive girls in school, he grew up hating them and nursing fantasies of cruel revenge.” As he grew up, Hansen became an adept hunter. Like many serial killers, Hansen was also a thief and an arsonist. From 1971 to 1983 he murdered at least 17 women ranging in ages from 16 to 41.

Hansen’s typical move was to abduct women (usually sex workers) and take them to his cabin near Anchorage, Alaska. There he would rape them and then set them loose so he could hunt them in the woods. Of his confessed murders, many of the bodies have not been found.

By 1982, three bodies had been found in shallow graves in the woods and the Alaska state troopers called in the FBI to assist in putting together a criminal profile. According to Wikipedia, FBI agents put together a profile for a person with the following characteristics:

Experienced hunter

Low self-esteem

History of being rejected by women

Would keep ‘souvenirs’ from his murders

A stutter

...[Douglas] devotes a chapter to Hansen, and the way he describes what happened is actually kind of different from Wikipedia’s version of events. Wikipedia makes it sound like the FBI turned up and pulled the profile out of thin air just based on looking at the crimes, whereas Douglas says that when he and his boys rolled into Anchorage, Hansen was already a suspect. So what they were doing was comparing what they knew about Hansen to what they knew about the crimes and seeing how things matched up and if he was a likely suspect. So the profile they put together did include the bullet points above and, yes, some of that would have been speculation (such as the self-esteem problems, the history of rejection, and the souvenir keeping), but the rest (such as saying he had a stutter) were based on the fact that they knew Hansen and it was completely fucking obvious he had a stutter and acne scarring. Anyway, Douglas describes his profile and process as follows:

“[Hansen] was short and slight, heavily pockmarked, and spoke with a severe stutter. I surmised he had had severe skin problems as a teenager and, between that and the speech impediment, was probably teased or shunned by his peers, particularly girls. So his self-esteem would have been low… And, psychologically speaking, abusing prostitutes is a pretty standard way of getting back at women in general.

“I also made much of the fact that Hansen was known as a proficient hunter… I don’t mean to imply that most hunters are inadequate types, but in my experience, if you have an inadequate type to being with, one of the ways he might try to compensate is by hunting or playing around with guns or knives… I was betting that Hansen’s speech problem disappeared when he felt most dominant and in control.”

So I think we can call that another case closed: it is not possible for an FBI profiler, no matter how gifted, to look at a crime scene or a string of murders and miraculously determine that the killer has a speech impediment.

As you saw above, my read of the passage from Mindhunter was that Hansen was a top suspect, that Douglas made some additional speculations about Hansen, but essentially just endorsed the guy the local cops already suspected. So specific details in the profile that seem like magical inferences weren’t as magical as Wikipedia made them seem. In January 2016 I hadn’t read Mindhunter, but I looked up what I thought was the relevant section on Google Books and that was the basis for the above section of my blog post. (If you’ve never tried to read things online for free, you may not be aware of this, but Google Books provides previews of lots of books, but you have to buy the book to read the whole thing - so back in 2016, I just looked at the pages of Mindhunter that Google had made available for free.)

Now I’m finally reading Mindhunter in full, my take on the process of profiling has changed: I do believe that Douglas and co. could have inferred that the killer had a stutter or bad skin without knowing Hansen (a man with a stutter and bad skin) was the top suspect. Indeed, Douglas tells a number of stories where he and his team correctly made similar inferences - for example, in the profile they wrote up on the Trailside Killer (not covered by Wikipedia but chronicled elsewhere). On the process of developing the profile of Hansen, Douglas writes:

We didn’t profile Hansen or devise a strategy to identify and catch him according to our usual procedure. In September 1983, by the time my unit was called in, Alaska state troopers had already identified Hansen as a murder suspect. But they weren’t sure of the extent of his crimes, or whether such an unlikely individual, a family man and pillar of the community, was capable of the terrible things of which he was being accused...

Even though the police had a suspect before I heard about him, I wanted to make sure my judgement wouldn’t be clouded by the investigative work already done. So before I let them give me the specifics of their man during our first phone conference, I said, “First tell me about the crimes and let me tell you about the guy.” 

They described the unsolved murders and the details of the young woman’s story. I described a scenario and an individual that they said sounded very much like their suspect, down to the stuttering...

In a sense, this was the opposite of what we normally do in that we were working from a known subject, trying to determine whether his background, personality and behaviour fit a set of crimes.

Is he a wizard? How’d he do that? How could Douglas know from the description of the crimes that Robert Hansen had a stutter? 

The truth is common, ordinary, sensible: he had seen, heard about and worked on cases like this many times and had developed an impression of the kind of person who is capable of hunting women like animals in the woods. He’d spoken to serial killers in prison about their crimes, observed them up close, understood their motivations (control, domination, power, punishment, lust, rage). He’s a walking database of crimes and correlations, which allows him to mentally compile the information he’s received, query it against similar cases and then make what seem like totally uncanny inferences. In terms of demystifying something that seemed arcane and inexplicable, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book as satisfying and steady as Mindhunter. This guy isn’t magical - he’s just fucking sick at his job. He knows his shit. He’s a towering obelisk of professional competence. 

That’s not to say they got everything right. For example, Douglas and his unit saw a big difference in lust killers who raped their victims vs. killers who masturbated at the scene. If a killer doesn’t rape his victim but masturbates over her, Douglas and co. would infer that the killer lacks confidence, that he’s inexperienced with women, he’s single, anti-social, probably has a shitty job or no job at all, and because of that he likely lives at home or with a relative, he feels he lacks control, etc. This type of analysis was often correct, but did sometimes lead them down the wrong path (which Douglas acknowledges in the updated foreword for the 2017 reprint of Mindhunter). Since the publication of Mindhunter in the 90s, a number of prominent non-rape lust killers have been caught and it turns out they were married with kids, they were upstanding members of their community, they were homeowners who worked decent jobs, and they seemed normal around women in social settings (see: the BTK Strangler). They simply weren’t the conspicuous, twitching deviants Douglas and his unit imagined.

Mindhunter feels like a book from a different time. Douglas is vociferously pro-death penalty. He’s more sympathetic and vengeful when the victim was a cute lil blondie than a street worn whore. He is interested in the psychology of killers, but is unmoved by their troubled backgrounds: Douglas acknowledges that practically every serial killer he studied had abusive parents, never felt loved or safe, were victims themselves in many ways - but he’s pretty indifferent towards that angle. This perspective would probably get more play in a book on criminals written today - modern writers might be interested in a holistic view of criminality and suffering as cyclical. Douglas does say the number one thing we could do to prevent the development of serial killers and psychos is love our children more and have more resources available to intervene when kids seemed to be headed down the path of darkness... but, look at Douglas’ description of a guy they were looking for in Illinois:

Like so many of these guys, this one is a real loser with a poor self-image. He may come across as confident, but deep-down, he is extremely inadequate.

The UNSUB is a real loser! 

One of the key sources of information for Douglas is the killer’s signature. A signature differs from a modus operandi (MO) in that the MO is how the crime is carried out (e.g. killer surveils house for weeks in advance, cuts phone line during the night, breaks in via a window, uses the victim’s tights as a ligature, etc.) while the signature is what the killer does to get off: posing the body, keeping trophies, torturing the victim, taking photographs. Douglas says a killer’s MO may change over time based on failed crimes, stressors, changes to police work, etc. but a signature will remain steady. For example, when Bundy was at his most desperate after escaping from prison (for the second time!), he went on a poorly planned spree. By now, Bundy knew it was all over. The police knew who he was, what he’d done, and were searching for him - it was a matter of time until he was recaptured. The electric chair was waiting. Bundy’s MO had developed with experience and he was typically an organised killer who used a kit, props, and had the skill to lure his victims, but when he knew the net was closing in, he became disorganised - his MO changed. Instead of approaching a pretty girl on the street, luring her to his car and then taking his time to torture/kill her, he broke into a sorority house in the middle of the night and attacked the residents in their own rooms in vicious, quick attacks. Interestingly, this methodology was similar to his original technique when he was younger and less experienced. When he was under pressure, he regressed. Via Wikipedia: 

Bundy's modus operandi evolved in organization and sophistication over time, as is typical of serial murderers, according to FBI experts. Early on, it consisted of forcible late-night entry followed by a violent attack with a blunt weapon on a sleeping victim. Some victims were sexually assaulted with inert objects; all except Healy were left as they lay, unconscious or dead. As his methodology evolved Bundy became progressively more organized in his choice of victims and crime scenes. He would employ various ruses designed to lure his victim to the vicinity of his vehicle where he had pre-positioned a weapon, usually a crowbar. In many cases he wore a plaster cast on one leg or a sling on one arm, and sometimes hobbled on crutches, then requested assistance in carrying something to his vehicle. Bundy was regarded as handsome and charismatic by many of his victims, traits he exploited to win their confidence.

For Douglas, an MO is not a reliable way of tying crimes together - because an MO can change. But a signature (which is often at the crux of why the crime was committed) will remain relatively static and is a good clue that two crimes carried out in different ways may be related. The MO may tell you some practical details about the killer (he owns or has access to a car, he’s a local who’s familiar with the back roads, he was known the victim because he was able to gain access to the home without a struggle, etc.) but the signature is driven by behaviour - and that’s what reveals the pits inside a person. 

What’s been revelatory for me in Mindhunter is how there is a real, meaningful link between private behaviour and the surface-level details a person. We like to think that our interiority is private and inscrutable to others, that we’re boxed canyon mysteries with rich inner lives and motivations that are inconceivable to the people around us, that our true selves transcend superficial things like how we look or where we work - but Douglas can tell whether a guy will get a haircut after he’s killed someone. He knows if the killer was drunk at the time of the crime. He can tell if they were in the military or not - and if they were, whether they had a dishonourable discharge. How old the killer is. His race. Whether he’ll want to talk to people about the crime. The chances of him owning a German Shepherd. Whether he finished high school. If he keeps a journal. Whether he’s ever been married - and if it was a happy marriage. Most of these are visible details of ourselves that we display to the world, and feel safe displaying because they don’t give too much away: you don’t think people can accurately read anything serious or private about you based on something like how old your car is or whether you watch the nightly news. But all these insignificant details do reveal something. Maybe it is kind of magical.

#Trailside Killer #david carpenter #robert hansen #Butcher Baker #John Douglas #Mindhunter #David Fincher #FBI #Ted Bundy

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 100

Episode: Futari wa Precure Splash Star 02 - “The Welcome Party at Pan-Paka is the Premonition of a Storm!” Date watched: 01 December 2018 Original air date: 12 February 2006 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/5CtC8VX Project info and master list of posts: https://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

they bond quickly

This is a great follow-up to a great premiere. We get a better look at the villains, the lore, the girls’ lives, and see them become closer as friends. Basically it builds their world out more, and I love it.

First things first, the villains: we’re introduced to Goyan, an impish little dude who serves as the right hand of the boss, and the big bad himself Akudaikan. Having a right hand as a buffer between the boss and generals is a change of pace from the first two seasons but not an unwelcome one. Goyan is a curious little dude, you never know quite what he’s thinking. He seems like he already knows that Karehaan lost to the Precures and mockingly asks him if he returned with the spirits, but it could also be genuine sucking up. Either way Karehaan ignores him, and this will be the dynamic for most of the show. Meanwhile, Akudaikan is a big dark guy cast in shadow, so all you see are his eyes.

Goyan mocks him and Akudaikan berates him so Karehaan goes out once more to try to redeem himself, and we learn that Dark Fall, like most villainous organizations, is run by a bunch of dicks, and that is why they fail.

Over in the Land of Greenery, which is the new name for the Garden of Rainbows, aka Earth (most series have a special name for Earth that ties into the lore) Saki and Mai are doing school things. Saki chats with her friends Hitomi, Yuuko, and Kenta about hosting a welcome party for Mai but Mai is already out the door before she can actually invite her. Saki finds her on the roof of their unusually aesthetic school and they chat about the previous day, while Flappy and Choppy explain how Precure’s mission to protect the seven fountains, of which all but one have been conquered by Dark Fall. It’s exposition wrapped in character development as it’s part of a scene where the protagonists try to learn about each other.

You may recall that while Nagisa and Honoka got along fine in Futari wa, it took a while for them to truly become friends. Splash Star decides screw that, Saki is way too gung-ho to wait, and Mai definitely wants the companionship. They have to work for it a little, as that night Mai talks with her older brother Kazuya about her reservations, and he encourages her to try making friends with Saki if that’s what she wants. Mai has a bit of imposter syndrome, she thinks she doesn’t really belong, that Saki already has a bunch of friends and she’s only being nice because Mai is new. Nonetheless, she puts on her brave face and goes to the welcome party. She’s a bit early, so she sits in the backyard and draws.

FW similarity/difference number 2: While Nagisa was part of a working class family living in a high rise apartment complex, Saki's family lives behind their bakery and are afforded such luxuries as a yard. The town of Yuunagi seems a bit more suburban than the setting of FWPC, which seems to correspond to the region of Japan it’s based on.

Mai gets so caught up in drawing that she’s completely oblivious to Saki and friends setting up for the party right behind her, so when she turns around she’s super shocked to see the supplies.

Side note: Mai is a really good artist.

I am not and I’m wondering how you get lines that thin out of charcoal

It’s very admirable, and we’ll get to see her develop this skill further throughout the show. The two girls speak candidly for a moment, and Saki insists that they ditch the formalities of Japanese speech by asking Mai to simply address her by given name, and asking if she can do likewise. Mai agrees to this and so they truly become Saki and Mai, rather than Hyuuga-san and Mishou-san. (reminder: referring to each other on a personal-name basis with no honorific in Japanese is a sign of closeness reserved for good friends and family)

 Unfortunately the festivities are interrupted by Karehaan, who turns a potted plant into an Uzainaa and demands the girls hand over their spirits. Naturally they refuse, transform, and quickly get their butts kicked. Karehaan offhandedly wonders how they were such a threat to him previously. But after some scolding words from Cure Bloom about how much she values Mai’s friendship and the party and how DARE Karehaan interrupt that, the girls turn the battle around. To borrow some contemporary slang, they fuckin YEET the Uzaina across town.

It lands on a beach and Flappy and Choppy instruct them to give chase. By concentrating the power of spirits in their feet, they are able to leap across town as well.... but they have trouble sticking the landing. Fortunately the power of Precure protects them. Bloom gets caught by the monster and Egret gets a chance to return the earlier sentiment by declaring how Saki is important to her before throwing it. The pair recover, land a double kick, and then finish it off with Twin Stream Splash.

After the dust is settled, they detransform and Saki kind of gripes that they’ll have to keep doing this, but Mai says it’ll be okay as long as they’re together, and they begin their friendship anew with a handshake and a smile. Meanwhile, considering how far they leaped from Saki’s house to the beach, I’m left wondering how they’re going to get back in time for the party without arousing suspicion. I would kind of like the show to explain that, but it doesn’t.

The party goes swimmingly, with Mai loving the cake that Saki and her friends made, and then the rest of the class walks into the yard. Saki offhandedly mentions that she invited the ENTIRE CLASS to the party, which is news to her friends because they didn’t make nearly enough food for this, and Kenta starts chasing Saki around out of frustration (these two have a fun relationship, I’ll get more into that). We end on a freeze-frame of Saki and Mai being buddy-buddy, which is the top image.

Honestly my only criticism of this episode is that they detransformed on the beach instead of leaping back to Saki’s house and that’s such a non-issue. Some of the animation is spotty for wide group shots but they go by quickly. Other than those small things, it’s a perfect episode. It’s well-paced, it develops the characters after showing their insecurities (especially Mai) and you can relate to their friendship struggle. It took a bit longer for Nagisa and Honoka to become friends to this degree but they had less going for them. Saki wants to make friends, Nagisa was more like “let’s see what happens”. Plus Mai being the new girl in town makes her an object of interest before they become Precure, and that also means she has more room to make friends. So they bond quickly.

Saki’s other friends, Hitomi and Yuuko, are similar to Shiho and Rina in some regards, in that they’re also on the sports team with her and sometimes struggle to keep up with her. I remember Yuuko a little more prominently from my first viewing, partly because she’s chubby which stands out in a world of thin characters, and partly because of her crush on Kenta (not touched upon here). Kenta himself is an interesting animal. Since Verone Academy was an all-girls school, we didn’t get much in the way of male friendships in FWPC or Max Heart. There was Fuji-P and Kimata but they didn’t feel as close as the girls’ other friends. Kiriya came closer but he had to return to the darkness. Kenta is just a friend... a friend voiced by Takeuchi Junko, who is most famous now for being the voice of Naruto. It’s pretty much the same voice, just without “-ttebayo!” on the end of every sentence. She will also come back to voice Cure Rouge in the next few seasons. Kenta and Saki have a bit of a more aggressive friendship than with the other girls, but not in a bad way. They butt heads a lot because Kenta is a bit of a loudmouth and they give each other crap, but it’s all in good fun.

As much as I like the emphasis on girls and girls’ stories in Precure, it is nice to see boy-girl friendships that feel natural and aren’t dominated by romantic leanings. I mean yeah, Kenta does have a crush on Saki as will later be revealed, but it’s not the be-all end-all of their friendship. I’m not sure I’m expressing my sentiment well.

Overall like I said up front, it’s a great world building episode and it really makes me look forward to spending more time with these characters (not something I can say for every show). So look forward to more, and hopefully there won’t be a two week wait before the next one.

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 Zekkouchou Nari, in the preview.

Miracle Drop Count: 2

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Futari wa Precure Splash Star #FWPCSS02 #PCD100

[recherche-raptor]

Cyberverse Liveblog, S1E1: Fractured, part 1

I am super excited to watch this; I love the character designs, and while I'm not yet totally sold on the animation (everything seems strangely textureless, in contrast to Prime, so in certain lightings everything looks somewhat flat), I have seen more than enough solid clips and fan hype to look past that.

Time to actually watch! And thank you Cartoon Network for posting the first two episodes online! Please keep doing that! :D

I’m getting Jasper, Nevada flashbacks. The background looks pretty, but it is, again, very simple.

Oh my gosh, Bumblebee is such a happy goofball. I have no idea what he’s doing on this road, and based on the clips I have a feeling he doesn’t either, but at least he’s having a good time.

Are all comms communications going to be portrayed via floating head syndrome?

Okay so I do love the minimalist/action-poster art style they’re using for the opening. Sadly it moved a bit too quick for me to catch who all the background characters were aside from Grimlock, but I’ve seen people point out Chromia and Rung at least. Wonder what role they’ll play? And why the ‘bots and ‘cons given official art & bios weren’t featured as prominently? Unless I missed it that is.

This sounds kinda mean but Bumblebee’s little squeak of distress sounds adorable.

“Wait, I thought Ratchet fixed your voice-box?” I hope we get an explanation for the first and apparently second times his voice-box got messed with.

I really like this shot, for whatever reason. Also, I can tell that’s Perceptor, but I can’t quite figure out who the blue guy is. It’s not Blurr, since he doesn’t have Blurr’s helmet spike things borrowed from Drift, but I don’t remember another blue Autobot shown in the previews/bios. I’m guessing he (or she? please be a she?) is a plane like Windblade since they share the shoulder whirlies.

Not sure how I feel about the immediate giant infodump? It sorta makes sense, since Windblade hasn’t seen Bumblebee in a while and wants to get him up to speed, but it feels like a fairly slow opening. Nice to see other characters making cameos and being foreshadowed, though. Also, I’m curious as to how they’ll put a new twist on the old AllSpark-ejected-into-space-lands-on-Earth-becomes-One-True-MacGuffin plot. What does this space-magic-y d20 have in store for our heroes?

Shoutout to Shadow Striker for being portrayed as being on equal footing with Starscream. Is she a third-in-command? Intelligence officer? Will she have troops like Starscream does?

They decided they wanted a simple art style and dangit, they’re gonna stick to it! ...which part of Earth is that meant to be? The part on the far left looks sorta like the Iberian peninsula, but what’s the landmass beyond? What am I looking at? I know it’s not a major detail in the slightest but it’s confusing me here.

Say it with me now: Awwwwwwww! (Also couldn’t they have put red on Windblade’s eyelids)

Poor Bumblebee looking so confused at first when Windblade hugged him, then just smiling and being like “You! Are! Awesome!” was adorable. He has no idea who Windblade is and he already thinks she’s the greatest thing since sliced energon cubes. I also love how Windblade’s first reaction isn’t like “ha ha, very funny, stop joking around Bee” but to ask if he’s okay. Solid friendships and genuine emotions! Something I can latch onto and never let go!

When I first saw the clip of Bee doing donuts I was like “Bee, please, take something seriously, what is going on here,” so it’s nice to see the context and buildup to that bit- he’s not being totally careless, he’s trying to avoid uncomfortable questions with a bubbly happy front. At least partly.

Since this post has gotten long, and Cartoon Network has conveniently divided each episode into two parts, I’m going to put a pin in that and get to the next video.

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