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mlobsters · 4 months

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supernatural s13e1 lost and found (w. andrew dabb)

metallica's nothing else matters for the road so far recap? mmmk. i loved the black album.* it's in my big playlist right now! and nothing else matters was very teen angst sad boy shit appropriate for me (album came out when i was 11 and i remember it featuring at middle school dances) but this song is way too downtempo for the clips/editing as it progresses before we get to the loud parts. weird choice. and maybe shows do this all the time and it's not with songs i know well enough to notice, but splitting the song up midway through is very jarring. i get cutting down the long instrumental intro, but segueing into lyrics differently? buh. stranger things did it with atmosphere by joy division and it wasn't terrible, but noticeable. but the scene/song combo was so impactful to me i didn't care because i was a mess

the overriding theme here with this song and clip selection is like 🚨FAMILY 🚨okay bro, i get it. calm down. is this why i see people harping on how the show is about family, not just sam and dean? is this gonna be A Thing? or am i projecting? both?? i have literally nothing else i might want do if i don't watch this. but i also don't really want to watch this. sigh.

and now i'm all distracted by them using some new fancy filming technique while they're driving where they're being paced and we're seeing the conversation from the outside and it was cool at first but it keeps going and now i'm just too busy trying to figure out where the camera is and where it's going and getting vaguely dizzy.

i get what and why they're doing this thing with jack being at the station with the sheriff but also. im tired

all right. this also reminds me of hmm. combo leo in titanic and ...josh hartnett in pearl harbor?? o.0

glad sam is totally freaked out and afraid of jack, as he should be

JACK (still fondling the wall) Lucifer? No, that's not his name. My father is Castiel.

LOL transcriber! fondling?? how about touching. anyway. papa castiel it is

MIRIAM I don't know what he's told you. I mean, I can guess. Some line about how he and his brother… (deepens voice) save the world. Grr. So macho. (she sighs and speaks in her normal voice) But really, he's not a hero. He's Becky. DEAN Becky? The roommate Becky? MIRIAM You take things and break things and piss people off, and just do whatever you want, no matter who it hurts. Also, you're a giant super bitch. DEAN Well, it takes one to know one. MIRIAM So, yeah, you're Becky, and Becky needs to die.

really odd choice to go with becky for this whole story business, unless they're invoking the actual becky from the show it's just confusing. i really hope it's not show-becky.

i think these are the angels that were in the script in 12x23? got 'em in now, i guess. so i thought carver was around for s12 but apparently it switched to dabb/singer as showrunners that season

....why did the angel just stab the sheriff's kid...? i know they're generally not big on humans but stabbing one for no real reason other than some distraction seems a bit excessive.

MIRIAM: Oh, sweetie. Almost anything. Castiel, he's dead. All the way dead, because of you.

rolling my eyes. that's a reach to try to induce a guilt trip

conveniently got confirmation that jack can't be killed easily, as expected being how they talk him up like he's more powerful than anything basically for whatever reason

DEAN Okay, Chuck… or God, or whatever. I need your help. See, you– you left us. You left us. You went off. You said… You said the earth would be fine because it had me… and it had Sam, but it’s not, and we’re not. We’ve lost everything. And now you’re gonna bring him back. Okay? You’re gonna bring back Cas, you’re gonna bring back Mom, you’re gonna bring ‘em all back. All of ‘em. Even Crowley. ’Cause after everything that you’ve done, you owe us, you son of a bitch. So you get your ass down here and you make this right, right here and right now.

being a cynical asshole but ok scenic backdrop for this praying to chuck that he could have done in the car. and he's giving my kids when they want something. need some foot stomping. punch something and risk breaking your hand instead, good choice

i think there's a handful of reasons** but i have never emotionally connected with cas and this... angsting and preparing to burn him and all, knowing that it's all going to be walked back at some point, it's just frustrating and exhausting. and now we're mourning cas, kelly, mom, crowley....

i didn't want to be sitting and stewing over pondering the logistics of how cas comes backs so i went and looked it up. and um, okay. i'm sure i'll have some thoughts about when it rolls around.

well, suffice it to say, i didn't particularly enjoy this episode. and had surprisingly little (for me) to say about it.

**his characterization that seems to change week to week is part of it and how the show talked up his relationship with the boys but didn't match up to what they were showing us for seasons on end. and unfortunately, how some sectors of fandom are about him also i think has an effect. which is a bummer all the way around

*oh james. i do enjoy your voice. i saw them live once or twice i think, but i don't really remember it. it was in the days of the album with the blood and jizz on the cover, which people didn't like. the songs or the jizz, i think

according to wikipedia, james also didn't like the blood and jizz artwork, and says homophobic shit in his explanation. great!

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 13x01 #spnwhinge #andrew dabb

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alabaster-moon · 8 months

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*I* want to hear about your stuff! Tell me about your stuff!

i- that is so ridiculously sweet of you… i thank you, truly (and also totally don’t know where to start ohmigod). this may be a touch long, as i have a lot of stuff, and much of it never gets voiced… apologies for the sheer length.

i mean first and major project (that won’t be posted here for reasons like enjoying being faceless) is my cosplay for an upcoming convention. i’ve been planning since literally last year to make a megamind cosplay, and it’s finally starting to come together! the cape’s nearly done, i have a solid plan on how to do the suit (after a tiiiiiiny mishap with my first attempt… like the cardboard i used to protect layers from paint sticking to the back of the thing… heh) and it’s just… it’s finally looking like it’s gonna work, and i’m Very Excited. i need to buy more spikes though. but that’s on brand.

i’ve also got another thing planned for that con - a dear friend of mine (who should be asleep now, she doesn’t know about it) is a brilliant fic writer, and i only ever see her for this con… i want to try and hand bind one of her fics to give to her. she has given blanket permission before, and it would be a single copy for her; i won’t have time to make one for myself. i’m very, very new to bookbinding: i have no skills, but i have the audacity, which is basically the same thing. fingers crossed i can get that done, i plan on doing the typeset on tuesday, wish me luck~

there are also another fic i was binding - i don’t think that author follows me on here, and they know about theirs, so i can state this too. but that one i was going to bind one copy for me, then one for them, so their copy was Nice and Pretty (and i can fix the bloody typesetting mistake on page 116 for theirs). but like, and this part they don’t know about, i was deciding on what i wanted for the cover of the fic when they said that they buy themselves sort of congratulatory rings when they finish a longfic, and posted a pic of them. so i’m going to find a way to make the cover of this book match the ring they treated themselves with as congratulations. i think it’d be cute. i hope they like it.

last week, i got fabric for two other cosplays; a william james moriarty and a james bond, and while i’m uncertain when i will be able to work on them, i am very excited. i plan to tailor both suits myself (again with the sheer audacity), and because of that i can make fun hidden things… like the crimson red lining in william’s jacket, and pastel pink lining the shade of bond’s manga cover in bond’s. i’m also considering embroidering the characters’ initials into the lining of their jackets too, because if you can go fancy, why not go all out? i managed to get my hands on a lovely wool for the waistcoats rather cheap, which was nice, and the patterns i have seem straightforward enough. i do plan to remake my sherlock’s jacket too, as the one i currently use was my mother’s; it is both too feminine and i would be devastated if i wrecked it… when i make his i’ll make the lining blue. small details, but the thought of them makes me so freaking happy.

a bit of a different one now, but i’ve also set myself on a little personal journey of transcribing the whole of the yuumori musicals - they have become so dear to me, and i want to appreciate them somehow. that being said, my primary art form is music, so short of covering them (which i’m tempted to do anyway, i’ve wanted to learn the violinist’s parts since the first ten minutes of op1) there’s… not a lot i can do. but making sheet music? yeah, i spent a three year degree on that, i can do that much. it’s a tough slog (@ sherlock’s actor specifically who very much enjoys going into free timing just on the good violin parts… hiraryo why you do me like this?) but it’s been so rewarding so far, and honestly im getting faster at it, which i’m also so glad to see. (i also have a very long meta about the role of the organ in op4 that i need to format into a tumblr post… it is currently across like six or seven paragraph messages in my friend’s dms. apologies to her notifications).

not so much a thing i did, but of late i’ve also had a wonderful time exploring the 2.5d musical scene; i had already known about hetamyu since like 2018, and the time between finding yuumori and finding morimyu was Very, Very Short. but i’ve had a friend guiding me through a bunch of others, which has also led me back to my very first manga fandom via tenimyu. i didn’t realise how much i’d missed prince of tennis until i saw those boys on stage… like those characters really were something so special to me growing up, and i’m thankful to have them back. i kind of want to have a look at the hakuouki musicals properly soon (the first live yaisa… iykyk), and i promised another friend that i’d watch the black butler musicals with them, so there’s a journey ahead of me and i am so excited to see what it brings.

there’s also a couple of bits and pieces, meta posts that i’ve been too scared to actually voice (i just see certain similarities between my last fandom and my current fandom and i want to write the comparison post to recommend the thing i enjoy to all my favourite people but Fear yanno cause what if they don’t like it) and all the plot bunnies that i either don’t have the time or don’t have the skill to complete (mostly the time one). i also lowkey decided on a whim to join flufftober, so that’ll be fun. i laid out the doc, and i have a really nice idea for two of the prompts, so we’ll see how that one goes.

also i’m thinking of reviving my university final project… i’d made an utau, and then wrote an album for her, but never got it to a state where i was content enough to release it. it’s like the one thing i regret… but it’s never too late to bring back, right? i can revamp the songs and bring her back properly… if i have time, i really want to do it.

but yeah. that’s my current stuff, barring one or two things that are group efforts and as such idk what i am able to say. hopefully the formatting is somewhat coherent. i thank you for giving me the mental permission to voice it all though… that was lovely of you ^^

#mooniemail #uhhhhh idk what to tag this with #but man felt good to get that all out #thankyou again i needed that about now #also ohmigod i love your posts #your meta about not telling sherlock is one of my favourites #and the it’s time to save the crime lord line like fundamentally changed me i swear #❤️

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sydmarch · 11 months

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ok I can't listen to an interview w/o taking notes for myself apparently so

no volume 3!! 1&2 are it!@ its meant to be one album essentially & "the last song on the first album is really the last song on both albums" I FUCKING KNEWWWWW it not literally but like it has thay feeling. explains why I always felt like it felt so much more more An Ending than croc killers 1. bcus it is!! & also said that the gadzooks series was at least somewhat inspired as a response to the reception of the mother stone in a doubling down on the criticism way & thats why there's "20 minutes of nonsense" because "people say a song needs to be this or what or whatever & j think that's not true". you were so right bestie. stick it to them.

& wrt writing the album during finch: there was a lot of stuff left over that i couldn't put into the film that went into the music. & ok the podcast format is actually really good bcus he's refuted all this shit that was written in other interviews lmao like tms was NOT an accumulation of all the stuff he's been writing since 18 & no he doesn't ever bring an instrument to set. & other interviews had talked about him discovering the Beatles as a teenager as an influence but in this one he said he remembers it ar 8 & his mom said he was like 5 or 6. he DOESNT consider his music psychedelic???? he days psychedelic to him is more "something with a theremin" idk if im spelling that right..I thought there WAS a theremin on these???? losing my mind. & he said it's annoying how people are always trying to figure out what drug was behind it when it's just natural to him & like imagination. felt. I always assumed there weren't actually drugs involved but I can see how the boring "lol what we're they smoking when they made that" type of people would get thatbinpression.

ok this part I just have to like transcribe where he was saying how he doesn't realize how many different voices he goes through in songs until reading what other people say "oh yeah I guess they do change pretty quick I guess there are a a lot of parts in the song hm. I guess things don't come back yknow sometimes." SO THATS WHERE THE TITLE COMES FROM!!!

WHAT THE FUCK OK "after infinished the film I was working on in Australia i had a lot left over thatbi poured into an album called bag of rabbits that im not sure will ever see the light of day" album written during nitram??? pleeeeease release jt please I am on my hands & knees. ok I thibkntheyre just talking abt acting now so I'm ending this post but. great podcast

#texticles #gadzooksposting

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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

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just had a thought also along the lines of like, what do you feel being autistic is conducive towards / makes easier for you, adding the baja galaxy brain blast i had here like "oh right, the linguistics thing" lmao....b/c that's always been something i like Immediately latch on to and have had some intent Interest in forever, i've been enthused about Language Learning (despite only knowing one language lol), translation, interpretation, transcription, and transliteration are all Really interesting and/or engaging 2 me, i'm big on etymology and always get struck like where tf does this word come from, or like, Figurative Language equivalent of etymology lol like where's this phrase come from actually, or i'll be like "oh i only really know the definition of this word via Context Clues, i wanna look up the definition directly / figure out what differentiates it from close synonyms," i think reading a dictionary is fairly fun, i'll like, find some very particular / strange Word and try to memorize it like, on principle lol, i'm big on Puns and Wordplay lmao i find puns genuinely funny i do not understand the experience of disliking them in the least, and it occurs to me how yknow, i think being autistic you're used to needing to try to figure out how to translate what you're saying / what you Mean for other people, and to translate what they mean for yourself, where, you know, nt people might recognize like "oh the classic Irl Experience and Fictional Theme of Misunderstandings / Miscommunication / Incorrect Assumptions / etc" but are out here not realizing they're Misinterpreting you in the first place, so you say something and they don't get it and don't realize they don't get it and instead dismiss whatever you said entirely, probably also You by extension. like when it comes to Talking, it feels like the rarest thing of all is for someone to like, realize they maybe don't understand what you meant / aren't interpreting something in a way that makes sense to them here and will like, let you know so you can try to clarify / Translate what you're thinking in a different way......and like, always preemptively defensive about things, With Obvious Reason, like i'm really interested in breaking things down re: language and stuff but it's like Ah, autistic people Would be interested in the nitty gritty mechanics and Rules and miss the transcendent forest for the cold, reductive trees, like well you know what i also am super interested in how the Limits and Ambiguities of Translation are navigated, where there might be different approaches in trying to minimize interpretation and maintain fidelity, or that also there might not be some "correct" or "objective" translation of an idea or element and you do have to Interpret it and its context and end up with a less literal translation or, you know, that there isn't that available Literal translation and you have to convey the equivalent idea within the context of whatever target language and/or culture you're translating for......when there's some figure of speech being translated, i definitely want to know How and Why it's translated like it is, but i also want to know the literal translation lol. well the point is i'm big on Translating and it's like well yep i guess in a way i have to consider it all the time lmao, i do not expect people to always Get what i mean and god knows i don't always get what their secret implications or contexts are, and i'm having to try to break it down and reverse engineer it, and you know. i also think about my particular like, personal vocabulary tendencies or whatever, i sure absorb things lmao like well that phrase or quote is kind of in my lexicon now, for some reason i do like to drop like, specific french words or phrases or when i just choose something to spell as if in french syllables lol, i do not know french at all.....i will make up my own custom figures of speech lmao......i've got my "words of the week" like aha i just used some particular word / remembered how good it is and i can tell i'm gonna be using it a bunch now, or words i

just always especially use like "conducive," i suppose even language things like when i start an alphabet list but almost every time this was only to separate two ideas / parts so it's just a) b) the end

#sorry for the block of text it's Been 6am i cranked it out #still took a minute but editing would take even longer. as though i edit anything i ever say #but again it's 6am so whatever's going on here.....extra chaos #just was thrilled to look up ''why both catsup and ketchup'' and learn it's b/c it's a transliteration #i forget things i'm v interested in like ohh yeahhh i guess my whole life i've been big on linguistics or whatever #i also feel my Math Passion fire up....bit into physics as well. alternate timeline particle physicist me or smthing #quant.......um #but then i also like animals. jot that down #wow wasnt even thinking about it like ‘’nice; the The End works two ways’’ like the Wordplay again lol #why im saying this yet am ‘’im completely incoherent ive never articulated a single thing in my life’’ Well lmao #part of it is im trying to Transcribe my thoughts in ways where it’s like #oops i forgot that maybe this wouldnt read back v comprehensibly lol #was trying to evoke whatever particular maybe vibe or cadence or something but forgot that when im writing down like #‘’okay so i shift from one line of thought midsentence to another with No indication of this’’ lmao like hmm. maybe a comma or semicolon or #Something here bc otherwise of course someone’s not gonna know to read it some certain weird way #had to edit a tag on a prior post like that lmao like nobody’s gonna read it and be able to interpret how you meant it #while sometimes I gotta decode my own writing too lol. rip

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shingia · 3 years

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Heya. I know this is very angsty of a request, but I saw the fic of characters reacting to their s/o who [tw] relapsed into self harm and was wondering if you would do some for asahi, ushijima, and oikawa?

[𝐓𝐖] 𝐒/𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅-𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐌 𝐩𝐭.𝟐

hi ! ofc you can honey <3 i hope these will bring you as much comfort as you need, and plz don’t hesitate to dm me if you need to talk to someone, or to reach out for help in any way. here’s a hug for you bcs you deserve it, love you 💗

also im sorry but i really couldn’t imagine asahi ever arguing with his s/o so i didn’t include this in his fic (he really is too precious)

warnings : mentions of self harm, one mention of blood, some self-depreciating thoughts. please do not read if any of these might trigger something, stay safe everyone <3

➾ 𝐚𝐬𝐚𝐡𝐢

asahi trusted you blindly. and everyday, he had to make an effort to persuade himself that you trusted him in return. you did of course, how could you not trust the one that had helped you through so much ?

but this wasn’t about trust ; it was about shame. because the last thing you wanted was to find in his eyes the anguish and fear as they were a few months ago. you couldn’t do that to him, yet you kept doing that to yourself.

however, you had the misfortune - which was more of a blessing really - to have a very observant boyfriend who cared about you. and he cared enough to gather the courage to finally ask you about what he had hoped you’d come to him for. sat next to you on the couch, he took the plunge.

« do you… do you remember when you promised to always come to me if you needed help ? ». there, he had said it. and from the way that his arm tightened encouragingly around your waist, you understood what he meant by this innocent question. he kept speaking : « you know i trust you, right ? i really do. but something tells me that maybe you forgot about this promise recently ».

each of his words was carefully chosen, more than usual. because even if he didn’t show you, he was terrified of messing up. the fact that you were reluctant to answer was enough for him to understand that he had guessed right. but what confirmed it was the single tear that slowly streamed down your cheek.

« oh angel, no, come here. come, you’re ok now… » he spoke in a tone that was more comforting that anything you had ever heard. his arms were wide open for you to snuggle in, and when they wrapped around you, his words replayed once again in your head. i’m ok now, i’m ok now… you repeated internally. and you were, asahi was a man of his words after all.

« i’m sorry for being weak » you finally said after a few seconds of silence, voice half-muffled by his embrace. his warm fingers traced the outline of your face, encouraging you to look up to him. not because he needed to see your face, he already knew it by heart, but because you needed to see his. « weak ? y-you’re the furthest thing from weak. how can i even put it..? you are one of the strongest person i know, and i wouldn’t be half the man i am today if it weren’t for you.

you wanted to thank him, but exhaustion took hold of your body before any word could leave your tight throat. and when you woke up - two hours later according to the clock - asahi was still there, holding you tight against his heart like a promise to never let go of you anymore.

➾ 𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐣𝐢𝐦𝐚

ushijima hated to waste time and energy on ‘petty fights’, as he liked to call them. but it was really frustrating to always feel like he avoided confrontation ; arguments were necessary in a relationship, and he didn’t seem to understand that.

whenever you got into fights, you were always the only one to get angry, which never failed to make you feel guilty afterwards. and eventually, this feeling of guilt started to become permanent, taking so much place in your brain that you had to sacrifice a part of the self-confidence you had built up the past months. but you didn’t know how much longer you could conceal it.

tonight was the first time you were sleeping together since your most recent fight, the one that had damaged you so badly. and you couldn’t lie, feeling his warmth next to you after about three days spent ignoring him almost felt like a reward. but a reward for what ? you were certainly not proud of what you had done, and you were terrified at the thought that he’d ever notice it. but unfortunately, your efforts to pretend like everything was ok were put to an end in the middle of the night, at about 3 am. something silly, really : ushijima had just turned around in his sleep, and his shoulder accidentally weighed on your wrist, making you hiss in pain. he immediately opened his eyes at the sound, his hand immediately finding its way to your side - he was always a light sleeper with you.

« are you ok ? » he asked, propping himself on an elbow, barely distinguishing your silhouette in the dark. « yeah, just my wrist. come on, let’s go back to sl- ». oh… that wasn’t supposed to be said out loud. it was hard to gauge his reaction since you could not properly see his face, but since he sat on the bed as soon as you interrupted yourself, you understood that it had not fallen on deaf ears. « are you comfortable with me turning on the lights ? » he asked, obvious concern in his voice. saying yes was tempting, because you knew this was a serious matter, but you couldn’t bring yourself to let him see you like this, vulnerable and ashamed.

ushijima accepted it of course, he knew he was not the best with words, so the least he could do was to make sure you were comfortable with whatever he decided to do. « is it ok if i hold you ? » he asked once again, his tone a bit more hesitant. the muscles in your jaw tensed at his words, it was more than ok, or at least you wanted to give it a try, but the worry you had caused him was bringing you back to the familiar feeling of guilt.

however, when he carefully made you rest on top of him like he had always done, something inside you felt healed to know that whatever you were going through did not impact every aspect of your life. his embrace felt the same, so did his heaving chest that rocked your body to sleep every night. surprisingly enough, you did not shed a tear. because the comfort finally felt stronger than the pain, you refused to let anything trouble this moment.

« are you ready to talk about it ? » he questioned, his voice rumbling like a soothing storm in his chest « or do you prefer to wait until tomorrow ? ».

ushijima might have avoided many discussions with you, but this one ? he simply refused to. and if he was more than ready to help you overcome your pain, he also knew not to pressure you into talking. words would come, eventually. but actions were always first.

➾ 𝐨𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐰𝐚

despite his usually confident behavior, oikawa knew he had a tendency to second-guess each and every one of his actions, and to beat himself up quite often.

he could not remember the last time he had felt so utterly disgusted by himself, he was usually more careful with his words. but all it took was one angry outburst from him for you to withdraw into yourself - and he had to fix this as soon as possible.

luckily for him, your relationship was strong enough not to be too affected by this argument - which had not been your first, but definitely the biggest one. however, you had been affected. a lot actually. but you knew better than to talk to him about this, knowing that he would obviously take the blame for your relapse.

but oikawa was attentive, and, clever as he was, it did not take long for him to guess what you were going through when he saw the red-stained tissues in the bathroom trash. it had been two weeks since your fight, and just the thought that he had left you alone with your struggles for so long made him want to throw up.

without wasting any more second, he burst out of the bathroom and made his way to the living room where you were absent-mindedly watching a movie. he would have preferred to have a discussion with you with a clear head, but the sight of the tissues kept spiraling in his head and he was incapable of doing anything else but to pull you in for a hug whose suddenness made you gasp.

oikawa’s hugs were usually soft, with little kisses here and there and a few compliments chuckled in your ear. but today had nothing to do with those. his arms were engulfing your figure in a desperate need to feel you against him, like he was trying to make up for all the time he had left you alone. « i’m so sorry, so sorry baby… can you forgive me ? » he breathed out, his voice cracking with emotion. obviously you knew what he was referring to, how could you not know ? and just like him, the thousand words on your mind only transcribed in your arms wrapping around him, closing the last few millimeters that separated you as you frantically nodded your head yes.

you did not think he had anything to be forgiven for, and sadly, you also knew that he would continue to blame himself no matter what your answer had been. that was actually your biggest motivation to begin your recovery journey. oikawa needed to know that, from now on, you’d turn to him instead of your old habits. and you wanted nothing more than to make him happy, so, since his happiness seemed to depend on yours, it could be considered a package deal towards a better future, together.

before you leave, here are links to two mental health support apps that i hope will help you deal what you are going through right now. i know it’s not much but i’ll be the happiest girl if this helped someone in the tiniest way. take care of yourselves ❤️

Calm Harm - Play Store | App Store

Wysa - Play Store | App Store

@toworuu @catwithangerissues

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu comfort #haikyuu angst #asahi azumane #asahi x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #ushijima x reader #oikawa tooru #oikawa x reader

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wisp-of-thought · 3 years

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l o v e l a n g u a g e

language: the principal method of human communication or

a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings

93% of communication is non-verbal. and i tried to learn a new language for you.

it was not an easy one. there were no textbooks, or online review tests, or vocabulary sheets. there was only my hastily scrawled notes trying to understand. there was only me, practicing my pronunciation in the mirror, watching my mouth form around unfamiliar vowels, my hands trying to learn how to hold the consonants so you might be able to better understand my accent. there was only you, trying to teach me a language that had never been transcribed.

you lend me one of your earbuds on the bus and play a song i cannot understand because there are just chords. just brushstrokes of sound. just melody threading notes together. the music is trying to say something. but you are trying to say something too by giving me this rythem. i cannot understand. but i listen anyways. and these are the ways in which i try to learn. you memorize my coffee order but forget my birthday. you never say you miss me but you look back twice exactly when we part every time. your eyes are always closed when we touch. i do not understand what these things say, or what you are trying to tell me but i listen anyways. and these are the ways in which i try to learn.

once, we don't speak for too long and the first night you spend in my bed again, i ask you, before i turn the light off, what it means. you don't look at me. you say you don't know. so i flick off the light switch and curl around myself under the covers. your hands find my hair, find my waist, find the soft skin of a scar, find the place where the flesh is thinnest between the world and my heart. i ask you what that means. you say it means, "you still have me." and so i kiss every one of your finger tips and in this way i respond, "i am glad." i let my legs tangle with yours under the blankets and in this way i say, "you still have me, too." in this moment you have not learnt my language yet either. but we are both learning. and some things are hard to misinterpret.

you take me to the movies to watch the same film for the second time. i do not understand what this is trying to say or what you are trying to tell me but i listen anyways. on the drive home, we take the leftover silence of the theatre with us, and i ask you what you meant when you did this. you are still picking the quiet out from your teeth with your tounge and so i say, "in my language, this means, 'i would choose the silence over your voice.' in my language this means 'you are only worth the past, over again. there is no moving forward, only backwards. until we fall into the oblivion from which we came'. " you pull off the road. you shake your head. say, "in my language, this means, 'the quiet is hard sometimes but never with you.' in my language, this means 'i think we have time enough to reread stories twice'. this means, 'you are the familar and for this i am grateful'. this means, 'i do not need adventure to stay'. that I am content to sit with you and the dark and devour a peice of the world together."

and so i come to learn that your leg slipping over my hip when i am just on the cusp of sleep means: i forgive you. learn that a sandwich found in the fridge made the night before for me to take to work means: im sorry. learn that the hour long shower means: not now. learn the bitting of the nails means: now. now, please. i learn the sunday morning pancakes mean: i love you. but so do the forehead kisses and the 1:30 am texts about tomorrow and the you telling me about your day. i learn the offer to fix my car means "let me be something for you, please." i learn 2 dirty mugs in the sink mean a bad day unless one of them is the red one and it's thursday, because then that just means working late, and in this way i learn about the context of a phrase.

you learn things too. pick them up slowly. through daily conversation. murmmer things in passing. nonchalant and nervous. i don't correct you. i just smile. because I know what you are trying to say.

i wince sometimes at the misused vocab and poorly built sentences that crumble quickly, but i do not offer to teach you until you ask. because i know for certain what you are saying then. saying:

i want to know how to speak to you in the language you feel most at home in.

i want to be able to know you in the words there are no direct translations for.

i want to be able to find you in the dialect you retreat to when the day has gone on too long.

you are saying:

i want to be able interpt everything you think there are no words in my language to say, and so you don't say them.

i want you to be able to tell me everything

you are telling me:

i want you to know that i want to try and talk to you even when it is hard.

you offer to walk with me in the fall afternoon even though you hate the crunch of the leaves that you say sounds too much like endings and i ask you if this offer means "i love you" or "i don't want to be alone right now" and you are looking away from me when you explain that sometimes things can have more than one meaning.

i tackle you half screaming half laughing when you buy us the concert tickets for my birthday and you ask me if this means "thank you" or "i love you" and i am smiling when i explain sometimes things can have more than one meaning.

i come home late to find you sobbing on the bathroom floor and i hold you for hours. i show you videos of baby's laughing until the tears subside long enough for you to kiss me with salt sorrow stained lips and i ask against your mouth if this means "thank you" or "i love you" and you whisper of how different things can have the same meaning and in this way i learn of synonyms.

sometimes the learning of a new language is difficult.

is frustrating.

is silences that scream two things in dissonance.

for the hardest things to define are the absences.

for there are a million subtle ways the pronunciation of quiet differs depending on what you are trying to convey.

sometimes learning a new language is

mistakes.

is misunderstandings.

is apologies

for violating customs

and muddling unfamiliar proverbs.

i'm sorry,

this is not my native tounge.

but i am trying.

i am learning.

if you are willing to teach me.

sometimes a new language is something we become fluent it. the bilingualism comes easy. it rolls off our tounge like second nature. you realize now there are new ways to love in this language. but there are also new ways the hurt. and new ways to heal. and new ways to apologize. you realize there are new ways to know someone when they are not afraid to be misheard.

sometimes a new language is a patchwork quilt of simple words and poorly stitched grammer. sometimes i pull out a few words at the restaurant to impress you. you smile less at the phrase, more at the gesture. sometimes i stumble over the words and you help me up, help me along the sentence, because you know it means the world to me to try for you.

sometimes all we can do is learn to understand. the words never come out right so we stop trying. but we listen. we nod. we laugh. we hold them at all the right parts of the story.

sometimes the greatest gift you can give someone is to understand

what they are trying to say.

when she makes paper flowers and sends me photos of them. i know she is trying to tell me: "look. i got out of bed today and created something beautiful. i thought of you in the slow process of the cultivation of this miracle." and i don't know how to reply. not in her language atleast. and so i don't. but i know what she means.

sometimes it is enough to understand someone.

sometimes it isn't.

sometimes a new language is not for us. we tell ourselves we are too old to pick it up. we tell ourselves it is too difficult. too forgien. too complicated. we try for the sake of saying we tried. but we don't.

in the end, we know how to say hello and goodbye and thank you and a handful of curse words. sometimes we know how to say i love you. in the formal tounge. with textbook pronouns and rigid verbs.

sometimes learning a language is

things lost in translation

how was I supposed to know what that meant?

why didn't you just tell me?

i didn't know how.

being too tired to roll your r's and remember the right tense.

sometimes learning a language is screaming everything you cannot translate at the language barrier between you. hoping they understand. hoping they don't.

but there is something unmatched about being welcomed home in your mother tounge.

something about being forgiven in words you could never misinterpret.

about being called to bed by the familar.

t h e r e i s s o m e t h i n g u n p a r a l l e l e d a b o u t b e i n g l o v e d i n

y o u r o w n l a n g u a g e.

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rigelmejo · 3 years

Text

6/28 I DID A LOT

WOOH

I talked in chinese today! For around a half hour!! AHHHHHHHH

ANYWAY

AHHHHHHH

IM SO HAPPY I WAS UNDERSTANDABLE AHHGGHGSIUSJAJEJDJEEJIE

So first of all I practiced with Google translate today beforehand (lol yes machine translate isn’t perfect). I clicked the app, clicked transcribe, spoke in chinese then saw if the English translation it was producing was close enough to what I was trying to mean to say. (Also I learned chinese transcribe will need to process for a few moments if you play Chinese audio like from a podcast because at first it will give you a sucky transcription lol and then correct itself). Anyway so I did that and quickly learned: Google translate WILL fucking think I am speaking sentences when I’ve only said a couple words of my sentence because I pause “too long” so when I tried thinking of tones or grammar I spoke too fucking slow for the app so BAM I had to speak faster for the app just to comprehend me. So I did not practice Thinking about how the fuck to say things right much, just how to recall words on a fucking speed time limit lol. So uh that was an experience. I’ll definitely say that my 学习普通话 app is way better for me actually practicing pronunciation with any success, because Google just will NOT tolerate me speaking slowly goddamn.

Anyway so then tonight I spoke with my language partner. Well

WELL

good news: I was understood, I was told I sound pretty standard and they can tell I maybe imitate some peoples phrases and words from shows I watch (which in this case is a compliment since they said weeks ago when I asked how they improved their standard mandarin accent for a speech competition that’s what They did and the kind of shadowing they suggested I try doing more for accent work).

My grammar and word choice was understandable (I KNOW I wasn’t perfect and there were fucking mistakes Especially just notable spots where I forgot common words and tried to talk Circles around those words to describe them since I know Enough words to kind of “explain around” and come up with a more word description of a simple word I forgot sometimes but fuck is it probably awkward to listen to. Like I forgot “back then/at that time” so I said “the time when I was in high school” or “in high school I..” just because I couldn’t say “that time” on the spot, also fucking I forgot how to say “also” and “or” in certain ways and just had to figure out a different way to make my point like “this is like that” or “not the same” ToT).

Anyway regardless it’s a real big accomplishment to me. Reasons being: 1. I’ve never talked in chinese that long straight or to someone else communicating, or telling stories about my life and asking questions and actually testing my fucking communication abilities past small talk. Even talking alone to myself it’s just phrases or small situations where if I forget a word I just stop, so this was huge for me. 2. I did not have time to think about tones period while talking today with my language partner so like being comprehensible is!!!! GREAT. Considering I tried speaking to a language partner simple common word tone pair examples or very simple small talk at 5 months into learning and remember being incomprehensible like 50% of the time. Versus me now a little under 2 years in so being able to simply not be constantly thinking about tones and still know I might be understood (and in this specific case was understood) is nice to know. 3. I did better at winging vocabulary and talking my way around words I didn’t know than i thought I could. 4. REALLY simply tone and grammar being comprehensible is blowing my mind on its own - I know there were many mistakes (I personally could hear my 3rd tone not always sounding right to my own ear, and know I heard a few grammar mistakes I heard after I’d made my point lol). But just being comprehensible enough for someone understand my points even if I made those mistakes was really cool. 5. I’m hoping this means all the things I’ve been doing lately: the Listening Reading, the watching shows with English subs this month while repeating some of the Chinese lines to myself, listening to audiobooks and repeating many of the lines to myself, and the weekly language exchange I’ve been doing, have all been helping to some degree. Improving production skills is not something I’ve tried studying before and so basically all that I’m doing is flailing around trying stuff and hoping something is useful. It’s nice to see something must be if I’ve managed this.

Anyway it was just very very cool to be understandable. ;-; At this time last year I was absolutely assuming it would take years to get even a little understandable. Also for now idk this proved to me to maybe just stick to shadowing for a while and Not specifically thinking of tones While actively speaking. For a while I thought of them actively which made me clearer and I think was important and helped, at this point currently I think sometimes i overthink and trying to speak from memory/more shadowing practice might help it become a bit more automatic? And then I can go back to some corrective work where I’m messing up specifically or haven’t internalized certain words/phrases tones maybe.

—

IN OTHER NEWS

today I ALSO played 4 hours of Kingdom Hearts II in Japanese WHICH WAS AN EXPERIENCE

AN EXPERIENCE IVE NEVER HAD BEFORE LIKE FUCKING THIS

So 1. EONS easier than last time I studied Japanese. For context at 2-2.5 years into studying Japanese I played the opening of KH2. I remember it was brutal, I used my phone constantly to look up words, but I got through like the opening portion to the first save point after the haunted mansion (so like is that day 2? Basically what’s usually .5-1 hour of play or less that took me a few hours back then). It was doable, kinda brutal, but also I have kh2 near to my heart so I could play it without reading when I felt drained. Now?? I had over a year break from Japanese study (maybe 2-3 years break idk). I reviewed Japanese in I think March-April 2021 this year. April/May to June (now) I’ve been studying some new material. The biggest new material being some more Nukemarine memrise decks, and Clozemaster as of this month. So like... this Eons of improvement is after a long ass gap of no study, a cram review, and some just beyond last-times-progress kind of new study. It is a HUGE difference to me in how it feels.

I did not use a dictionary at all this time. I did not play slow either, I read at a speed much more bearable, I comprehended most sentences totally (understanding words because of a mix of knowing most words, knowing the context for the words since I know KH2 WELL, knowing Hanzi from chinese, and thanks to Clozemaster of all things feeling a lot better/quicker with Japanese grammar comprehension), and a few sentences I knew the overall gist because of recognizing the Hanzi (tho they were being used in words that aren’t similar to Chinese), the grammar overall (the rough intention of the sentence), and knowing KH2 well enough to remember the main idea of th English sentence. So it was overall a much more pleasant, easygoing experience this time around playing! It was something where I COULD play 50 hours of Japanese KH2 now.

This kind of showed me some things: first that knowing a basis in chinese (for me) makes a huge difference. Kanji now make words easier for me to learn and guess. I can now recognize when some pronunciations are somewhat similar to Chinese words. I can recognize when some kanji are used to mean Different things from Chinese (since I know the English context too). I can also now actually Like and Appreciate that KH2 specifically uses kanji in some speech bubbles and scenes then hiragana for the same words at other times - it gives me a chance to use context to see both versions of the word and learn both the pronunciation and kanji a bit more. Now I have katakana English like words and kanji (in the sense of their similarities to Hanzi) and my basic grammar grasp to rely on to parse sentences which makes all of it much easier. For me chinese was just easier, and that’s now paying off also in making Japanese easier in some ways than it was before.

I also appreciate now why “prior context” and “comprehensible input” are encouraged so much. My effort level is comfortable and NOT draining, so I could’ve kept my playing for hours and I did not need a dictionary for new words because I had TONS of context. Part of this is KH2 being a game I know super well (so even back at year 2 it was doable if draining when no other video game probably would’ve been doable at all). So it makes sense now it would be the first comfortable feeling one. It is VERY comprehensible input for me, especially now with some of the Japanese improvements I’ve made.

Whereas I tried to play crisis core a month ago (doable but DRAINING in part because I knew the game so comprehensible but I didn’t HAVE the game remembered by heart like KH2 so I had to slow down to read everything slowly and figure out words much slower with no prior meaning in my head for many parts), and persona 3 (which was doable but DRAINING in part because I have little prior context compared to cc or KH2 and in part because it has so much reading). Also KH2 is easier to read than cc or persona 3 - kh2 is obviously meant for age 10+ and so the amount of text I’m required to read is shorter, a lot of conversational stuff and not layered (cc had a lot of technical paragraphs of directions for missions and persona is aimed at older teens and has much more like “think about it more long term” conversations which I struggle more to parse). Also just persona 3 has so much dialogue I started speed reading just to get to a save point which felt Draining. Whereas KH2 the reading is comfortable so I don’t read too slow, and so it doesn’t feel as draining since it’s not slow nor do I have to rush at lower comprehension to get through it - I can just read and comprehend everything as much as I can at a reasonably non draining pace.

Also I DO think Clozemaster (so kudos to u app) is actually helping noticeably. I’m doing Clozemaster Japanese by common word tracks (still in the 100 most common words sentences and almost done). I’ve been doing listening mode and then reading sentences after. I can TELL it’s helped me already with the following. I’m doing better at recognizing some grammar structure particles/words/conjugations in various forms and levels of politeness. I now have much less issue telling how to separate sentences into word/grammar functions - it makes everything just much easier to start being able to segment my sentences as I read so I can just pinpoint WHAT parts I know versus don’t know and what their rough function is (and since in KH2 I know the English lines usually it makes it way easier to guess what words mean roughly what English translation). I also read some manga during this past month that’s also helped with this skill. I noticed Clozemaster also is just helping with it a lot since in Clozemaster the politeness level varies and stuff so I’m forced to practice guessing and figuring it out more with Clozemaster sentences over and over. The listening mode has helped because I can tell that some of the most common words I can hear more instinctively now and read aloud at a more normal pace now. I still CLEARLY read over listening when the subtitles in KH2 are there if I don’t know a word, so my listening has HUNDREDS or likely thousands of hours to go (my Chinese is much much better). But I can already notice the sheer fact Clozemaster listening question mode is forcing me to 1 HEAR Japanese more (and I need like what 2000 hours listening) and 2 start recognizing more easily at least recognizing words I’ve learned when I hear them (whereas before I would struggle to hear certain words even if I’d studied just because I’d read-studied a lot but not actually heard much of those words much). Now this all isn’t a huge help with new words in KH2 since I’m learning to read them from the game but my listening isn’t picking them up or Parsing them well. But as far as IN Clozemaster: yes the constant audio word drilling is helping me recognize words by sound which is great since thanks to Chinese kanji recognition is now not intensely difficult, it’s the sound recognition and match up to spelling that’s now the major confusion for me. I mean grammar is also confusing.. and will take years... I do think Clozemaster forcing me to practice interpreting the grammar somewhat with nothing to help me is helping me at least feel less drained by the grammar. I used Clozemaster before for french and chinese at the stage between graded readers and actual native speaker material, and I think for Japanese it’s also Good for this purpose. Clozemaster is good for a lot of immersion-like sentence reading practice, with tools to make it easier like a translation and mostly words you know in each sentence. Making it a bit easier than just diving into the deep end into a random novel. I do think it helps with preparing you for less learner-tailored materials a bit while still being easier than native speaker materials so you can practice without feeling youre drowning.

anyway ahh. WOOH I PLAYED KH2 in japanese today!!! I HAD FUN

gonna do it some more.

kh2 is maybe THE original reason i started trying to learn japanese. its really fun playing it now.

—-

And finally, while I’m at it: I am ALMOST done with the Sundial arc in Guardian Listening Reading wise. I’m on chapter 17. I have like 2 days left so who knows maybe I can manage to finish the sundial arc we’ll see.

What I mostly did this month was Redo L-R chapter 1-12 with a second audiobook, read the novel print version up to chapter 12, read chapter 1-2 in the traditional print version, also read maybe 4 chapters of other random things, listened to audiobook files of stuff overall idk 20+ times while repeating after a lot of lines, did a small amount of Clozemaster chinese (mostly just Radio mode), did 30 min - 1 hour writing or speaking language exchange sessions once a week, and watch a bunch of Chinese shows with English subs this month while repeating after a lot of lines.

As you can tell my reading Amount lowered significantly since the past couple months. However, I think I’ve pushed up my listening amounts a little.

#rant #June #June progress #I wonder if my 2021 horoscope says things I worked for years on are paying off #also looks like if I get into linguistics there’s a decent chance I’ll need French too so. French for a career is why I started learning #that baby way back when. so it really would be a bunch of old stuff paying off and becoming useful and needed. I even have job inquiries for #character artists for game companies rn! which is. literally what my dream was at age 11.#oh man when will I have time for the French... ToT I may actually NEED need it soon fuck #u know what I love about chinese and dread about Japanese and French? the grammar #Chinese grammar I may make some mistakes but I know I’m understandable and I DO in fact have some grammar exercise books I can do if they’l #help. and Chinese grammar is quite clear and idk logical to me. Japanese has.. so much politeness levels and casualness even after the gramm #I struggle to instinctively ‘get’. and French god if a teacher isn’t making me cojuygate I only use je vais je va j’ai va ToT #my French production skills are nightmarish #hey universe babe ;-; please be nice #whatever’s coming ayyy

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darkestwolfx · 4 years

Text

Designated Driver - Re-Review #22

Parker! Really I think I love this character too much, but he’s such an individual, I personally think it’s hard not to.

So, this episode was so so hilarious to rewatch.

i’m still a little unsure as to why Alan is sleeping on the floor... considering he tends to fly in his sleep, I’m going to say that he rolls out of bed often so the floor seems easier to sleep on.ms easier to sleep on to save the fall.

“Alan, get up!”

“What is it?”

“We need you. Now.”

Thinking there was a rescue to go to and ending up at Lady Penelope’s is just classic. I would so love love love to have seen the other Tracy brothers driving lessons. I have my own theories - like I reckon Gordon’s was a nightmare and John and Virgil would have been very good at the ‘perfect gentleman’ part, and Scott would have been a speed merchant - but if anyone would like to make those potential visions come true (I don’t mind in what form) then go for it!

“Has The Hood redirected a comet towards the Earth? An underground earthwork in the Tokyo subway system? Oh, a fusion reactor about to melt in - I’m guessing here - Belgium?”

“Bigger than all of those things.”

Alan has such an imagination. Although they probably are all based in fact if we’re being honest.

“Driving lessons, are you serious?”

“hOh, yes, Mr hAlan, Sir. hI’ve taught hall the Tracy brother’s to drive, hand your father hand hall ‘is brother’s before ‘im. hAnd ‘is father hand hall... hoh no, wait ha minute, hI’m not quite that hold.”

“Great, Parker. Hey, do you teach Parking? Ha-ha.”

“No lip hat Parker’s Motoring School, hif you please, Mr hAlan, Sir.”

“Nobody drives FAB One hexpect me.”

Prepare to swallow those words, Parker...

And now we get to Parker! His acting is even more superb than I thought it was.. There’s kinda hints towards TOS ‘Lord Parker’s ‘oliday’ in here. Not obvious, and nothing big, but the whole idea of Parker acting like a high born.

“So, where (h)are we (h)off to today, Tracy?”

“I dunno, London?”

“Jolly good. (h)I (h)imagine (h)I’ll be meeting Baron (h)and Baronness ‘(H)igh-Falutin’, hand their cousin, Cecila Von-Posh Face.”

I wonder if Parker has based them on real people Lady Penelope’s met? I reckon he has. By the way, for anyone wondering, I’ve transcribed the h’s in brackets because you can tell Parker is trying not to say them with his high, posh voice.

“Thank you so much, Tracy.”

“Mmm-hmm.Very good, Parker. Beautiful deportment. But if you’re going to be playing me, you may as well go the whole dog. You know, for authenticity’s sake.”

“Yes, M’Lady.”

There’s is nothing that can lessen my love of this particular scene.

“When do we get to do the, you know, real driving?”

Yeah... I reckon Scott was the same.

I love this shot just because it makes it look like Sherbet is about to do the driving! Poor Parker though with his broken arm. That wasn’t one of your best moments, Alan.

“You just broke my h’arm, Mr hAlan, Sir.”

“Sorry!”

Now to introduce Sylvia Anderson’s little cameo character. She plays, drum roll please... Lady Sylvia. Not that much of a difference I know, but she’s very well picked for a voice actor and the character is perfectly well designed to fit in with Lady Penelope. it’s a nice little tribute over all and one that couldn’t have come any sooner, considering life and death.

“By the way, Parker, Lady Sylvia is coming for tea today.”

“You’re great hAunt, Ma’am? Lady Sylvia Creighton-Ward, coming for tea?”

“Yes, Parker. You know that drink we pour out of pots and cups.”

Anyone else get the feeling Parker has a thing for Lady Penelope’s great Aunt?

“hI ‘appen to like hantiques. Lady Sylvia for hexample.”

Oh, yeah, there we go.

“You keep TEA in kitchen?”

“Yes, Aunt Sylvia, where else would it be?”

I completely adore this cross-talk going on about tea and TEA. It made for such a nice twist to the episode.

The next characters we meet are this episodes villains, bad guys, whatever you want to call them’s...

And we’re seeing here some elements similar to TOS ‘Brink of Death’ with the attempted robbery at Lady Penelope’s Stately ‘ome (and the car looping around the well element, but we’ll get to that). Terry, the blonde with the top hat. And Bill, the red-head with the beanie.

“Young geezer” - I wonder how Alan would feel about that name...

“So, where’s the treasure?”

“What treasure?”

“Don’t call it treasure! We’re not pirates.”

“Well what would you call it?”

“Well... er... valuable um... stuff.”

“Oh, that sounds rubbish! Where’s the ‘valuable stuff’? You see? Not frightening.”

“It is if you say it frighteningly. Where’s the valuable stuff?”

“They don’t look frightened.”

Of course they don’t mate, they’re both super spies and way more bad-ass than you could ever hope to be...

“What about just valuables? Forget the stuff?”

“Suppose.”

“Where are your valuables?”

“Still think treasure sounds better.”

Considering they managed to get you sat down and debating that... yeah, super bad-ass.

Lady Penelope trying to put them off the scent and Lady Sylvia messing up all of those attempts was absolutely classic comedy.

“Treasure!”

“Valuables!”

“Either way, something that’s worth a lot of money!”

And money makes the world go round!

“He’s the fourth richest man in Europe.”

Hmm... nice to know just how much money this family is sitting on.

“Bill, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I hope not, Terry, because you are stupider than a bag of rocks.”

Let’s leave that argument there shall we.

“Oh this is a dumb idea, ‘Mr Clever-than-a-bag-of-rocks’ man.”

Yeah... or not.

“No hone steals FAB One.”

“Now you’ll realise, you burglar chappies that you’ve met your- match.”

Yeah, you should have been prepared to have to eat those words again.

Now this is how to do afternoon tea.

And this is so how to do an awesome car chase. It had a little bit of everything: stalling; circling; bumper-crashing; cut-offs; wheel spins; running out of petrol; getting stuck on a roof; a bit of bog standard jet-powered engine flight, and just your every day flight and TEA. You know, just the bog standard Italian Job style affair.

Yeah, yeah just your usual car chase, nothing to see here.

I love that Alan gets to drive FAB One and Scott seems so upset by this! I’m guessing maybe he’s now been made the second best driver of the Tracy brothers?

“Wow! Even I never got to drive FAB One.”

And apparently no one drives anymore in 2060. Ha, well, Parker does a good job, and hey, if no one drives, we’ll definitely be reducing global warming so there could be a chance for us all yet!

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someone-always-cares · 4 years

Photo

[image description: a q&a for the webcomic someone always cares. full desc under the cut because its long and wordy sorry]

post chapter 3 Q&A

first - previous - next

thanks for yalls questions!! it was fun to answer! if anyone still has questions feel free to ask whenever i am always 100% down to ramble. even if i did go slightly off topic in some answers

additional: went off topic with the hair question a bit. their bright hair is all part of the transformations. regular hair dye does exist though. best way to tell is that if the eyebrow matches the hair its probably not dyed. also, quartz’s hair is naturally ginger.

also for more on ages, check out the character bios here

also was gonna keep this in the tags but thought i might as well actually try to answer it: the question i found it hardest to answer was someone the song one. my taste in music is. a mess really. ive been listening to like the same 5 songs on repeat all day. more under the cut because i was rambling again and now its uhhh half 1am

if it helps at the time of answering that specific question i had home by cavetown on repeat, and that song reminds me of both rami and lewis. but that may be because i project onto those two a lot, and as a aro trans dude. who sucks with people skills, yeah of course i love that song.

specifically the vibes of like not knowing how to communicate (rami is fine with his friends but other people are different), the lines “ Turn off your porcelain face, I can't really think right now and this place, Has too many colors, enough to drive all of us insane” idk what the porcelain face line is supposed to mean but im picturing it as like. a mask. that you need to take off and stop hiding and rami does tend to hide when hes feeling upset, and the next two lines kinda could tie into that, like the feeling of when youre overwhelemed and just want the world to stop so you just hide somewhere. also the colours could go with chapter 3 with the chromatic abberation.

also the bit with “ my eyes went dark, I don't know where, my pupils are, But I'll figure out a way to get us out of here” just kinda sums up ramis whole hero thing with his powers and all. anyway this has turned into less what songs rami would like and why this particular song reminds me of him and lewis (lewis specifically has the hair cutting/chest hiding, [big transmasc mood], and also messy haired trainwreck who doesnt know who he is yet. also the ghosts bit)

i did end up picking upbeat songs because ramis a dude who like to try and be upbeat even if things arent. even if hes not really feeling it he will pretend to.

[full description: Anonymous said to someone-always-cares: “hi ily!!! do characters like quartz who have colored hair have that naturally or did they dye it?”

“its both natural and not! while most supers can do a magical girl ish transformation, including a change in hair colour, there are some exceptions.”

theres two small full body drawings of rami, one in civilian clothes, one fully transformed.

“if a superhero were to have a biological child, the child will inherit the powers of the parent(s). however, the child will not inherit the full transfromation. they do inherit any physical transformations, but not the outfit.”

theres a drawing of a woman in blue, quartz’s mother, fully transformed, holding her mask in her hand, smiling down at a much younger quartz as a child. hes smiling back up at her with the same blue eyes, pointy ears, and blue hair, but hes still in normal clothes.

“in the case of quartz, both of hisparents had superpowers, and he inherited those powers and the physical transformations.he can also pick and mix whatphysical traits to change.“

next is a headshot of adult quartz, his face split down the middle with one side having hair and eye like his mother, the other like his father. theres a list of traits from each parents, blue hair and eyes and pointy ears from his mum, and purple hair and eyes and pointy teeth from their dad.

“Anonymous said to someone-always-cares: Are all the characters the same age? If not, how old are they? Are they irl friends or just superhero friends?”

theres some headshots of rami and his team lined up with ages labelled: cam is 15, rami himself is 17, lin, mateo, and dante, are all 18, and cap is 20.

“rami and xandra were somewhat friends before she got superpowers, so when, after the incident with her old team, she found rami had developed powers, xandra stuck close to him. their other teamates started off as superhero friends but soon turned into irl friends too”

theres a headshot of lewis and jade. theyre both 17

“when lewis first decided to start being a vigilante,jade quickly found him and decided to help train himand offered to be a mentor of sorts, as they both have similar powers. that quickly derailed.”

“ cinder5555 said to someone-always-cares: How long does it usually take to make a comic page? I'm curious because they're so freaking good that they must take FOREVER”

theres a drawing of myself, a fluffy hair tired bastard in a hoodie, smiling

“Thanks! Ive been doing this shit since like 2017 and i still have no idea how long it takes me. i can get a page done in a day if i have nothing else to do or if its a simple page, but if i have work then maybe 2-3 days? i spend like, most of my free time doing this.“

another drawing of me, now looking frustrated muttering “how the FUCK does time work”

“but i can never do it all on one sitting.i will inevitably get distracted and zone out daydreaming mid drawing so its very hard to get an accurate read on how long it takes. so however long a piece of string is i guess“

the only qustion not from tumblr is a discord message from RuneStone Cabin:

“Q: Can you talk about the incidence of superpowers in this world? Like many people are supers, which powers are more or less common, how long they've been a thing for, stuff like that. Also does Omen know I'd die for them “

theres a drawing of omen pointing at a date circled on a calender marked “decembuary”, theyre saying “i know. i already wrote your death in my calender.”

then a giant wall of text reading: “Supers have only existed for a relativly short time, since the early 1940s. momento mori was the second person to have ever gained powers.

Only a small number of the population are supers! the chances are higher in more populated cities, but unusally london has oneof the higher percentages of supers. while nobody in universe has any idea of the origins of superpowers, it does seem that powers are more likely to occur in people who would actually use their powers.

as for what powers are most common, after making a badly catagorized spreadsheet of every superpowered character ive made for this world (70% of which will probably never even be seen), turns out that elemental powers are the most common. although not all elemental powers manifest as the straight up 'controling this element' as seen in characters like lin or tsunami. for example, iris's powers would fall under shadow elemntal powers, but theyre a lot more weird that just controlling shadows.there are some abilities that have never been seen before,such as ressurection or full on time travel (aka anything that could bring a character back to life), but powers are certainly allowed to toe the line eg healing, powers involving undeath, immortality, pausing or manipulating time.

aside from that, anything goes. you could get plain old superstrength, but you could also get the ability to create dogs with your mind. other not quite rules, more guidelines are that supers are immune to their own powers hurting them (unless they were pushing themselves too hard), although the way the imminuties occur may be inconvinient to the super.

while some powers may be 'more powerful' than others, powers dont really get to be way underpowered or overpowered in comparision to others. sure being able to talk to animals may feel a bit useless compared to someone who can lift 4 tanks at once, but nobodys going to end up with a power like 'can turn into a goose but only once' or 'can grow toenails twice as fast' or 'if i sneeze i can change my hair colour'. at the same time, youre not going to get someone with the power to snap their fingers and level a city, or instantly blow up the moon or whatever.

“Anonymous said to someone-always-cares: I love rami PLEASE tell me his favorite song(s) and why. I will die for you”

a drawing of rami saying out loud “i dont really have any specific favourite song, really? i just listen to whatever sounds catchy and then listen to that on repeat for hours until i hate it. i guess i do like upbeat songs? ones that make you feel happy even if the lyrics are sad”

“ un1c0rnhh said to someone-always-cares: tell me,,, please,, cam,,, are they a cat person or a dog person?? ily"

theres a drawing of cam a metre away from a cat lying down. she has her arm out and is making ‘psspsspss’ noises at it. end id]

FUCK i am so glad i didnt hand write all of that, it would have been a major pain in the ass to write it all and then have to transcribe all that next. but nope i could directly copy paste the asks and word answers. cheers if anyone made it this far down. if anyone wonders why this is uploaded late, you know now.

#sac #someone always cares #sorry to my friends i rambled to about the previosly mentioned attempt at catagorizing powers #i made a fucking spreadsheet and everything #it was awful #also it probably obvious but i still have yet to download the font i use to this computer #did i ever mention what i named the font when i made it #because its called 'dicks out for the void' or something #it was funny back in mid/late 2017 ok

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kara-does-fandom · 4 years

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Vincent Route: Ch 22 aka The Shakespeare Scene People Hate

TL;DR BOY PUSHES PEOPLE AWAY CAUSE BAD TRAUMA COPING SKILLS. Read about my heartbreak here So I got to chapter 22, the one where people generally go FUCK U WILLIAM and I too went FUCK U WILLIAM cause I love the boy but What tHE Ever Loving Fuck?? HOW DARE U HURT VINCENT THAT WAY! But I’d also been noting that when he snaps the umbrella, and how he deals with Vincent's determined and goodhearted approach to true love, and how he thought about MC's kindness.. and things I recalled from his route that is lovingly transcribed here (ive linked to the route chonologially if you wanna check it out) And oh boy It makes sense, considering his depression, self loathing, and his entire lack of support system. Coupled with a tragedy he's been blaming himself for, and general bad coping skills cause, again, no support system at all cause he spooked and ran, leaving any healing daddy Comte and Leo could offer behind... well you have a recipe for shit like this. Cause William found himself liking Vincent, and being flustered by Vincent’s Mc, and likely saw he was developing a strong bond and went NOPE cause deep bonds have only led to being emotionally gutted later and he is determined to not deal with having his heart ripped out by people he cares about, and so he delves into tragedies to get out any excess hurt and pain and tbh he's coping by acting cold and writing angst fic. He's not yandere, he is a Tsun who writes angstfic and spooks if you show him affection. Please dont let his trying to scare you off work, he really does need a hug. Like the boy genuinely believes god hates him and likely so does everyone else. His acting troupe and his bunny are his only friends, but he can only show the people friends a part of him, and is likely scared of getting TOO close cause of past trauma.So for sharing his true self he only has a bunny.

And I see this pretty often in how he interacts with others if he figures out they like him, or he figures out he likes them. He goes SURPRISE IM AWFUL HAHA I REALLY HAD YOU GOING DIDNT I? SUCKS TO BE YOU FOR LIKING ME BUT IM REALLY AN TERRIBLE PERSON, GO RUN HOME AND NEVER LIKE ME AGAIN. aaand thats a trauma response to being hurt by people he cares about and being TERRIFIED of them being able to hurt him cause he let them have a piece of his heart. As someone who has been through that trauma, and is still recovering, I too, have made the mistake of listening to my fears, and tried driving off my friends so they wont be disappointed by how awful my trauma and insecurity and other mental problems convinced me I was. When you are that deep in the pit.. well... "Drive them off before they can hurt you like that, its a kindness to show them how garbage you are so they dont get thier hopes up" starts to sound pretty logical, added to how coldness and anxiety is the usual human response to emotions they didnt want to be dealing with.

William is a person who has at least 5 layers of mask to hide his depression and aching loneliness and self loathing behind. As someone who writes a lot of dramas and works with actors, he has a lot of experience in making those masks as real as possible. He is genuinely sure his MC hates him. He is genuinely sure that if the mansions residents have something or someone else to pay attention to, he may as well be last week's leftovers. I still WTF WILLIAM but holy shit does this man need a stubborn friend who will stick with him and patiently and lovingly pry those masks off him and give him the love he needs while gently Not Dealing With This Nonsense when he tries to scare them off. Because he can be a very loving and loyal person... but he has no one who has faith in him.

#ikemen vampire #ikemen vampire william

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madd-information · 5 years

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Maladaptive Daydreaming: Tic Toc Breakdown

A recent post on Tic Tok got some attention. I’ve transcribed the videos here to make some comments on them and provide some additional information. Here are the relevant bits, full transcription below.

“Maladaptive Daydreaming is when you daydream so intensely that you talk to yourself or you act out scenarios by yourself. It's not like psychosis, you're not seeing things, it's daydreaming out loud. Like you're letting your daydream out. And some people have severe maladaptive daydreaming, that's when they do those things in public and kinda don't realize they're doing it.”

MD is not “daydreaming out loud”, movement is not even a requirement. It is very common among us, however, about 21% of MDers don’t have any movement associated with their daydreaming behavior. Severe MD is when more than one area of life functioning is impaired by clinically significant distress or dysfunction stemming from the daydreaming behavior. It makes no difference if it happens publicly or if the MDer realizes they are doing it. MD is not like psychosis, she’s on point there.

“Maladaptive Daydreaming, itself, is not a disorder but it is a trait of quite a few different mental disorders and could be a trait of someone on the spectrum. But there are creative and healthy ways to deal with this… if you make characters and story lines in your head cosplay them. Even if you put it on private and it's just for you turning what you've created into something tangible. People like this are so creative, so you guys are good at writing, could do scripts, skits, like TV shows, plays, like novels, incredible things!”

A little more murky. MD is not an officially recognized disorder, this is true. It will take many more years of study to gather enough evidence that MD is a unique disorder, if, indeed, it is. MD researchers are pursuing MD as a possible disorder in their studies and have developed reliable measures for it, here is a link to the MD [proposed] diagnostic criteria.

MD is a construct that stands alone, though it may be closely related to other constructs. Excessive or vivid daydreaming is a trait found in many disorders, many of these are not MD. This seems to be a matter of not distinguishing other forms of fantasy from MD.

There is not, yet, any research on MDs relationship to ASD. If they experience MD at higher rates than the general population is unknown.

As for the ‘healthy ways to deal’, recent research suggests that MDers are less creative than both normal daydreamers and non-disordered immersive daydreamers. This is because we don’t make anything from our fantasies in reality. Giving yourself a creative outlet is good advice, even, as she says, if you never share it, the act of making fantasies tangible is a good way to engage in reality in a safe and artistic way. I do think there is an underlying misconception here though; that MDers are naturally good story tellers. That’s just not how MD works, fantasies do not play out like readable scripts, they are often repetitive and derivative and impossible to make sense of or turn into anything readable.

Writing is a wonderful skill, and an absolutely accessible one. If writing interests you, or if you just want to get things out of your head, or if you think it will be therapeutic, for any reason! Do it! Don’t be upset if you suck at first because your’e “supposed to be a naturally good story teller”, you’re not, and sucking at something is just the first step to being kinda good at something, keep at it.

“So, it's not considered a disorder but there is like the lighter form of it... just when you're by yourself sometimes when you're bored, you're not doing anything, you just start imagining things, and do it out loud. And then there's the severe which can be unhealthy because some people create like whole fictitious worlds and characters that they form friendships with and fall in love with and they would rather spend their time by themselves, like, locked up in their room or their house than actually go out and interact with real people in the real world. And that is when it can get tied in with OCD, but it's not a disorder that's in the DSM.”

I think what the underlying problem in these videos is that OP doesn’t seem to be making a distinction between IMers and MDers. IM is not the “light form” of MD. Maladaptive Daydreamers are a subset of Immersive Daydreamers. Immersive daydreaming is not pathological. MD is always, in every case, unhealthy or negative for the daydreamer in some way. That is the definition of MD. If it is not then that person is not an MDer. And, again, the ‘out loud’ part is not true for many. She does tap into some reasons for MD distress/dysfunction, preferring fantasy to real world responsibilities (being ‘locked up in their room’) is a common experience for MDers.

Research does show a link with OCD, though it’s unclear if MD is (in at least some cases) an OCD spectrum disorder. It is likely a behavioral addiction and is almost certainly a disordered form of dissociative absorption. She’s not wrong here, just making OCD sound a little more at the forefront than it might actually be.

“I went about those first videos, I feel like, completely wrong because maladaptive daydreaming isn't a healthy thing to do and I went about it in a way of not wanting people who did this to call themselves weird. Because if you are the type of person that mouths and gestures in front of people they're already going to do that for you.”

Her final video makes it more clear that she was trying to be more reassuring than informative and perhaps didn’t present what she had to say in a way that was appropriate. She just didn’t want MDers to get down on themselves, so, thanks for that.

Full transcriptions below:

Video 1: If you do this now you know it has a name.

So I'm willing to bet that a lot of you never heard of this and a lot of you might do this so I wanted to talk about it so you'll know you aren't that weird. I mean, just, you're not weird. So I've done this thing my whole life that I thought everybody did until about two or three years ago when I started asking people that I was very very comfortable with, like, do you do this and they were all like "No?"

And that thing is Maladaptive Daydreaming. So it is going to sound really weird for the people who don't do this but Maladaptive Daydreaming is when you daydream so intensely that you like talk to yourself or you act out scenarios by yourself. It's not like psychosis, you're not seeing things, it's daydreaming out loud. Like you're letting your daydream out. And some people have severe maladaptive daydreaming, that's when they do those things in public and kinda don't realize they're doing it. But now, if you do that, now you know that it has a name and it's not weird, you're just creative. It's cool.

Video 2: Maladaptive Daydreaming again

So let's talk more about Maladaptive Daydreaming because I never thought that so many people would say that they do this and it's really cool because now you guys know you aren't alone and it has a name.

So Maladaptive Daydreaming, itself, is not a disorder but it is a trait of quite a few different mental disorders and, I found out in the comments, could be a trait of someone on the spectrum. But there are creative and healthy ways to deal with this or like find a way to make, what I would believe would be really cool is to make it tangible, right? So, this [Tictok?] is a wonderful outlet for that, if you make characters and story lines in your head cosplay them. Even if you put it on private and it's just for you turning what you've created into something tangible. People like this are so creative, so you guys are good at writing, could do scripts, skits, like TV shows, plays, like novels, incredible things!

Video 3: Pt2 Still doesn't mean you're weird.

I wanted to do a little more about Maladaptive Daydreaming because there's actually a bunch more to it than what I could get out in the last video and it can get to an unhealthy place. So, it's not considered a disorder but there is like the lighter form of it, which is like what I would do like when, just when you're by yourself sometimes when you're like bored, you're not doing anything, you just start imagining things, and do it out loud.

And then there's the severe which can be unhealthy because some people create like whole fictitious worlds and characters that they form friendships with and fall in love with and they would rather spend their time by themselves, like, locked up in their room or their house than like actually go out and interact with real people in the real world. And that is when it can get tied in with OCD, but it's not a disorder that's in the DSM so, I don't know, if you want to know more let me know.

Video 4:Pt 3 I'm sorry

So I'm doing thing backwards because I should have made the captions in my maladaptive daydreaming videos, like, not that. Like, I went about those first videos, I feel like, completely wrong because, it's, maladaptive daydreaming isn't a healthy thing to do and I just went about it in a way of not wanting people who did this to call themselves weird. Because if you are the type of person that mouths and gestures in front of people they're already going to do that for you. And I, so I went about it wrong, it's not that you're weird but it isn't a healthy thing to do and if it's to a point, guys, where, like, you would rather live in this place that you've created it may be tied in with OCD, which is just like that need to have things a certain way that you would rather live in this place that you've created. If your parents aren't understanding this YouTube it, there's lots of stuff on there guys

#maladaptive daydreaming #actuallymadd

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kitsunebishake · 5 years

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Why Hríd is such an amazing character who just got done wrong during his “character arc” (SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE BOOK II AND FORGING BONDS)

WARMING: THIS IS JUST ONE LONG ASS LOVEMAIL POST FOR HRÍD

this was originally written as a thread on twitter but i’ll try my best to put it all here because someone asked for it some time ago

I’m putting it here because @chascah suggested i uploaded it here as well for those people who actually appreciate the icy boy

this is basically an analysis to most if not every quote from hríd, also adding some translations and little details from the japanese quotes (and some lore behind the whole idea of hríd’s new year alt)

let’s start then!

lemme start with the fact that hríd only appeared in 3 out of 13 chapters, yet is the character that caught my interest the most (funny because i already had a crush on alfonse, then i saw hríd and was like "oh, hello there")

hríd arrived like a half-dead yet somehow composed prince who somehow (x2) survived by himself in múspell for weeks (maybe even months, there's no exact timeline but it is canon that alfonse and the others spent some weeks in nifl, it probably also took them a while to navigate through múspell until loki arrived as ylgr)

he served as some kind of excuse to not put bruno too much with the main characters, practically a messenger only despite this guy being alive with burns and a broken sword (the crack on gjöll's blade hurts bc he couldve actually lost his sword and ended up defenseless in battle oof)

so, there was no really much use of his character other than being a magical solution for everything

he even helped unmask loki (though they never explain why hríd suspected of ylgr, we only know loki's own take)

btw, can we talk about the fact he probably outsmarted loki while the others weren't yet in múspell? he terrorized surtr's army and even outsmarted laegjarn and laevatein

and since he survived for so long i believe most of his wounds were made by surtr himself

they never really say whether he actually managed to kill surtr or not, but let's say yes just to add up on all of the things hríd does just in the story

at first glance it looks like he's doing nothing, but reading further into it and applying some logic

hríd's... he's pretty impressive for a prince so young

gotta also add how hríd appears less impulsive in japanese than in english

when "alfonse" blames him for being a traitor, hríd gets to the defensive immediately in english

in japanese, he's more in shock, probably because after all he's tried, he's being doubted by his allies (which shows a lot how much he cares about being perceived as perfect, something i'll get on to later if i have enough time)

I added this part in the middle of the whole thing because it was a different thread so excuse the sudden change of topic, kinda. It’s supposed to be from the last conversation in Book 2, where Fjorm tells Hríd she’s going to stay in Askr despite her “condition”.

"I understand your feelings, Sister. By all means, go. I will pray for your safety."

this is one of the quotes i'd like to put in that one hríd character thread i want to make

the feeling behind this quote got completely lost in translation, as there's no way to translate it properly

in japanese, hríd uses a pecular way of speech to refer to his sister here he says "... I get it. If that is what you wish, it's alright to go. I'll pray for your safety." the peculiar part, aside from hríds "..." is where he refers to fjorm, the "you"

hríd normally uses "kimi" to refer to people, which is like a more... gentle? way of speaking? men usually use it towards women bc they want to treat them nicely, and jps in general use it with people they don't know (it's that, or "anata" or "[name]-san")

yet here, hríd decides to use "omae" to refer to fjorm, which is more informal and even rude (specially for someone who normally uses "kimi", it means he wanted to express some kind of anger or frustration about fjorm's decision without saying it directly,,,,,,,,,,,,,which is very japanese to do so,,,,,, *looks into the distant "most japanese people i've known don't directly say 'no' and instead go 'hmmmmmm' '*very indirectly rejects*' and it's probably a fact*)

it feels like instead of being supportive, hríd just understood there was no way of convincing fjorm to stay with them

so he gave up and felt hurt by that

please protect hríd

Back to the rest of the analysis.

now let's talk about forging bonds, in the wiki there's only the opening part transcribed in japanese, the rest is only on english (i curse not having started playing 3 months earlier orz)

the first thing you can notice in the japanese version is how informal hríd is when he's stressed

while he speaks in an usually softer manner, here, he doesn't even greet ylgr and gunnthrá, he goes directly to "gunnthrá... ah, ylgr is here too" (he kinda does the same in the mainstory, where he just says “ah, fjorm, you’re okay... ylgr too :)”)

AND IMMEDIATELY, HIS NEXT TEXT IS HIM CALLING GUNNTHRÁ WITH "OMAE”

ALREADY DEEP INTO THE STRESS OF MÚSPELL INVADING THEM

this shows how easily stressed hríd gets and how much he lets his emotions dirve his attitude and actions (which makes sense with the part where he tells fjorm she should be the one wielding leiptr and not him, he's too emotional despite how much he tries not to be)

in these parts we also see some level of deattachment from gunnthrá, on english he goes "sister..." by the end of the opening conversation

in the jp, however, he stays silent, he doesn't even call her name

idk if it's just me overanalyzing it, but from my experience with animoo and vidya, it feels a little weird that he says nothing there, like he's thinking (this is probably foreshadowing hríd's inner feelings oof)

something that i particularily like about this event is that hríd seems so at ease when he's on the dreams, even in the english translation it seems like that he mentions it might be because he feels at ease with kiran but i feel like it also has to do with the fact they're just a dream, it's not the real world, there's nothing to worry in a world where there's no war

at least, that's the feeling his dialogues give me

the closest thing to that hríd is his lvl40 speech and ny hríd (who's happier)

the only quote where hríd mentions some type of concern for his mother btw

from here on it only gets worse when it comes to hríd, though

he speaks about the invasion and such he talks in a way that implies he's probably taking the role of a commander (same as how it is implied he trains the soldier, or that he trains with them, though since he's been training alone with fjorm for so long, it's most likely the former) aside from that, he's weighting on himself the responsibility of what happens to nifl and what happens to his family

and since he's doing so, here's when it comes the part of hríd not being able to care about himself

this young man is carrying a heavy weight, the hopes and dreams and lives of many innocent and PEACEFUL people who barely even know how to fight, on top of those of his loved ones

it doesn't seem like anyone asked him to, not even his mother or sisters

he just decided it on his own that he needed to be "the perfect prince/king" in order to "protect" them

/even if it costs him his life/

he prepared his sisters for that moment (which, might give an insight that hríd knew more than he says, but let's leave my conspiracy theories aside lol)

and to THAT PART, we can add this from the mainstory

in english, when he's rescued, he thanks them for doing so

but in the jp text he actually apologizes for it

not sure how to exactly translate it, but it's something along the lines of "my apologies...for having to be saved..."

idk you guys, but it sounds like what someone who just failed to commit suicide would say, instead of someone who's grateful to be alive

and it makes sense, with how obsessed hríd seems to be about "dying for his loved ones" despite it not being entirely necessary

i mean, look at that, he survived surtr and was aided by bruno as he escaped (probably? they never say what exactly happened, but since they're looking for hríd and not for bruno, it's most likely that they just found each other by accident)

and yes, even though he seems to calm down with those thoughts during the sequence, it is only a dream and we know he has no recolection of them

he forgets completely about that motivation to keep living, which leads him into further down the path of death (whichinnorsemythologymightbecalledhríd,,,,,,orgjöll,,,ykow?)

im still not done, havent even gotten to his unit quotes lmao

hríd still did his best to survive for as long as he could, but it feels more like his strategic "i'm making time for fjorm and the askrans to make their moves" purely, out of the fact he didn't seem too happy to survive until he saw fjorm and ylgr

hat's all of hríd's quotes from that event, i can finally move on to his unit quotes

let's start with this one, luckily it is practically the same quote in both languages

this immediatelly counters any "hríd is boring" comment

though that is subjective, in my case what drove me even further into loving hríd was how different he was from usual characters related to ice

he might come off as cold sometimes, but it's purely because he's actually really dense/has a really bad sense of humor

in jp he tries to make an ice joke, but says "it's not suitable for him" (which is funny because in english he does have ice puns and i hate it)

1. he doesn't mention his mother 2. hríd blaming himself and being kinda gloomy part 1

"I should have protected my people and sisters, I couldn't play that role... I can never forget that."

this part hurts a lot (it's a little more poetic than the og one, i like it lol)

he could be talking about himself, about his sisters, his people, or all together, since the four of them have expressed desire for peace, and all four ended hurt by such thing

this part is scary, though it's not as much in english

NOT BECAUSE OF THE TRANSLATION, but because of his battle lines in eng (i'll get to that first and then come back to this one)

the most shockingly different skill trigger is the second one

the first one is exactly the same the third one in jp is "this is the last blow" (or smth like that) the fourth one is a little weird to translate (ice upon you works, but "freeze your life" sounds a little scary??)

OKAY BUT THE SECOND ONE ALONG WITH THE VOICE CLIP

IT KINDA SCARES ME A LITTLE FOR MY CUTE SWEET MOCHI BOY

it literally says "no mercy for the enemy"

IT'S LITERALLY SUGAR COATED, hríd went from a gentle giant to a merciless killer (who knows how many muspellians he's killed???) thanks to surtr and his fucking ass

hríd blaming himself and being gloomy part 2

the fact that he has not one, not two, not three, but about 5 to 6 lines that imply he's still dueling over everything that happened during the war is hurtful, he really can't forgive himself for that

he also sounds a little dead to me here (it’s one of the voiced quotes from his status page!)

which brings me back to the initial scary one

hríd is obsessed with earning his peace no matter what

and for that, he wants to get stronger

for that, he's willing to even perish, for everyone's sake

it's so sickening for me since i can kinda relate???? it reminds me a lot of the kind of wording they use for depression-themed japanese works, with the "peace" part and his willingness to just die anytime (which, is actually pretty normal for a warrior outside of FE. outside)

iT MAKES ME FEEL BAD BUT AT THE SAME TIME i kinda like he's written this way

AND EVEN WHEN HE'S LIKE THAT, hríd is still a gentle sweetheart who speaks so kindly you kinda forgets how merciless he is in the battlefield

like, the audio where he holds kiran's hands???? where he speaks about how the order of heroes saved nifl????? EVEN WHEN HE GETS STARTLED

he's always such a gentle and kind person

it makes me hate surtr even more because they didn't deserve this

hríd didn't deserve going through all of this fucking shit HE. DESERVED. HAPPINESS. AND PEACE.

then there's the ny hríd

he's an angel

a happy angel who makes me a little sad bc og hríd is not as happy

From here on everything was written like 2 weeks after the previous stuff :’) i’m sowwy

he's a resolute prince, he has the resolution of saving even at least one person,,,,,instead of being a "king", instead of being a "brother", or a "prince", he just wants to be "a hero",,,

hello, this is my opening statement of why ny hríd makes me cry with just existing

welcome

let us start with something that makes his quotes even better, particularily the previous quote and his lvl40 speech, which is the powerful meaning of this alt itself for a character such as hríd

in japan, new year used to be celebrated not at the end of the year, but at the end of winter, which is where geishun comes into the scheme, as it currently means "new years greetings" but in those old times, it was actually "welcoming spring" (or something along those lines i suck for precise translations)

and that's where our next quote comes into the picture

hríd speaks about nifl's winter, about how it practically symbolizes the nifleans' strength and will power

the alt itself is a more positive hríd, one who's willing to try his hardest for everyone, who doesn't regret his past, but looks into the future and has the purpose of being even better than before

of course, this hríd didn't suffer the same fate as the OG hríd, as he still has all 3 sisters (i want to believe ylgr was with them, just not shown bc of the lack of space for a sixth character) and now also 2 new allies to power their search for peace and strength to defend that peace

so, while our normal hríd is desparate to become stronger and suffers, this hríd is like his pole opposite, it's like the sun and the moon (too bad this hríd has no default special, sol would've fit him so well)

can we talk about how he feels so comfortable wearing the celebratory outfit?

the obi (the.....thing that acts as a belt) should be tied strongly enough so the hakama (the pants) doesnt fall down while he fights, yet he feels comfortable with it

i mean, it isn't as constrictive as a kimono as it doesn't prevent him from moving around freely, but he still shouldn't normally feel as comfortable with it as he is, he's never even worn something like that (it is implied, at least) yet he's loving it, isn't it adorable???

one time i joked about hríd being able to feel when winter is coming or when snow will start falling but

i think this quote pretty much confirmed it (YOU CAN'T SAY IT'S BECAUSE IT'S WARM, IT DOES SNOW IN ASKR WE'VE SEEN IT)

blessed boy munchs a whole fucking piece of mixed flour with FOUR HUNDRED GRAMS OF FUCKING SUGAR

he's got a sweet tooth i know it, i know my people when i see them

it's just that he doesn't seem disgusted, and he also only mentions the mochi so we can assume he didn't drink sake or matcha with it

he ate the fucking thing alone and apparently liked it

we have a sweet angel, guys

i just think this quote is cute, he loves cold just as much as i love him

t HIS IS SUCH AN IMPROVEMENT FROM OUR NORMAL HRÍD HE'S SO POSITIVE AND DETERMINED I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

though in japanese, the last quote is a little more gloomy

im not entirely sure of how to properly translate it *looks at the jisho page of the kanji he cant understand* it's certainly a word

but it could be something like "to be in such a predicament from so early in the year... I'm unable to say it's pathetic..."

i???? imagine he says he "can't say it" because he's trying to be positive?????? or something along those lines, but saying it proves he's taking it way to the extreme

nasakenai can also be shameful or miserable, pitable, disgraceful stuff like that

i'm not sure how to describe this quote?

this time it's the english localisation that kinda throws me off, i don't understand what he's trying to say lmao

in japenese he's saying something about having been graced this early in the new year

7 years speaking english and i still can't break down complex phrases the only reason i've survived this long is through the power of deduction abilities

pray for me

u know hríd's damaged quotes in english are all grunts, right?

in japanese, this hríd has a peculiar quote i find adorable when he gets damaged

he says "as expected from you...!"

hE'S COMPLIMENTING HIS ENEMY, THIS IS THE SAME MAN WHO SAYS NO MERCY AS HE KILLS THE FOE

btw listening to his english quotes is so funny

he sounds so damn cool in japanese and in english he

he sounds like a fucking nerd

I THINK IM TAKING A LIKING TO HIS ENGLISH VOICE ACTING PURELY BECAUSE HE SOUNDS STUPID

compare this (JP) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/1/12/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2_jp.wav

to this (ENG) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/6/6a/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2.wav

it's the exact same quote by the two different VAs

HE SOUNDS LIKE A NERD IN THE ENGLISH VERSION I CAN'T

back to translations and analysis

i hate this one

his eng quote is more positive while the japanese one is something along the lines of "I was useless... I'm sorry..."

HATE

look, say whatever you want, but hríd is such a sweet man

he cares for people and he tries his best to be the perfect prince everyone thinks he is

AND FOR HIS *MORE POSITIVE VERSION* TO SAY THIS AS HE IS DEFEATED IS JUST

WHAT DID HE DO TO U INTSYS TO MAKE HIM SUFFER THIS MUCH??

despite how "im so useless...!" his japanese version is

he way he says these two quotes sounds way more positive in japanese lmao it's the same translation, only that he's more "I'll repay you!!!!!!" in jp ( https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/3/34/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_MAP_3_jp.wav )

adorable

can’t use emojis on this pc so i’ll just leave the whole screenshot here

you see this quote here?

this is what it actually says

I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY CHANGED IT BUT I THINK IT'S CUTE BECAUSE I THINK HE DIDN'T JUST SWALLOW THE WHOLE MOCHI

HE ATE IT NORMALLY AND THINKS HE'S GOT SOME ON HIS CLOTHES BC PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT HIM LGHDSKLGSDFKS

why are u so cute aaaaaaa///////////

this is probably the translation of hríd's quotes i hate the most in english it just...sounds so rude

in japanese it's more like "could you please tell me if i'm wearing these clothes wrong? i'll fix it fast"

he's trying to be respectful to the hoshidans sobs

THESE TWO QUOTES ARE SO DIFFERENT BUT SO EQUALLY ADORABLE AND POWERFUL

THIS 180~195CM OR SO MAN IS THE MOST ADORABLE PERSON IN THIS WHOLE PUTRID PLANET AND IM GOING TO TELL YOU WHY

first, this is my fave quote on english

he sounds so confused as to why people think the hoshidan clothes suit him

HE'S. NOT. AWARE. OF HOW FUCKING GOOD HE LOOKS.

TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE CUTEST SHIT EVER HE JUST DOESN'T GET IT

to make it more adorable, in japanese, the original quote is something like "I wonder what makes a type of clothing 'suit' you..."

HE'S GOING ALL PHYLOSOFICAL ON THAT SHIT probably because people keep telling him he looks good in that kind of clothing

this man's density is so powerful that he can't even begin to understand people find him attractive and that the attire literally makes him go from a 10 to a 1000000000000000000

he doesn't get it and he wants to know if it's really true so he goes out of his way TO ASK KIRAN

i love hríd so much he's so adorabl e

i want to give him a hug

with this i finish my thread for now

for now

hopefully we will get another alt for hríd and i can come back to spam about how adorable his quotes are

please stan hríd he's literally an angel

#analyzing #overanalyzing actually #i read his whole quote set like 30 times for this #it took me a full hour to put this on tumblr from twitter aaaaaaa #I DON'T EVEN HAVE HALF A YEAR IN THIS FANDOM AND SINCE I CAN'T BE UP TO DATE WITH ENSTARS I TOOK IT UPON MYSELF TO ACTUALLY ANALYZE HRÍD AS #A CHARACTER #HE'S AMAZING PLEASE LOVE HIM #HE'S ACTUALLY WELL WRITTE IN CAN'T BELIEVE THIS #could've added facts about his name origin and such as well but #anything to do with his name and gjöll is just theory #pretty sure they sadly just chose a cool name set for the nifleans #hríd #hrid #icy blade #prince of nifl #feh #heroes #fire emblem #fire emblem heroes

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gonnagetyoubaby · 6 years

Text

Anonymous - Taehyung/ Part 9

In which you decide to text a number scrawled on the walls of your lecture hall.

Genre: Fluff

Chapters: {1} {2} {3} {4} {5} {6} {7} {8} {9} To Be Continued…

Tagged readers: @rainbow-pandacorn

Your thumbs tapped across the glass, sending a quick “done” followed by a series of thumbs-up emojis—just enough to reciprocate the number you’d received from Jimin.

The music continued to play from your phone speaker as you placed it on the dresser, returning your attention to the curler beside it. With quick twirls, you steamed away the frizz and shapelessness of the last layer of hair tied to your crown. Rubbing serum into your palms, you ran your fingers through your hair, heading to the en-suite bathroom to wash the excess from your hands before giving yourself one last once-over.

This wasn’t Broadway, sure, but you weren’t really dressed for Broadway, were you?

The onslaught of athleisure culture on campus made your chiffon blouse and skirt ensemble look painfully formal, and the last thing you would want anyone—especially Jimin—to think is that you put any genuine thought into this outfit (even if that was the case).

Your phone vibrated from the bedroom. Striding over, you read the notification from your lockscreen.

Jimin: Almost there. Make sure you wear something nice love 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

There was no way you were reciprocating those emojis. With a sidelong glance at your closet, you let yourself think about maybe, potentially changing real quick. Leggings and a sweater were never the wrong decision. The chiffon blouse might be a bit much, no? It seemed a little try-hard. And you certainly were not a try-hard. Not for Jimin. And definitely not for what’s-his-name. But, as luck would have it, the phone in your palm lit up with another message.

Jimin: Here.

The outfit only says as much as the attitude you adopt when you wear it anyways. Glancing in the dresser mirror one last time, you nodded in satisfaction. Blessed be the Gods who granted you a face so naturally apathetic, even the nicest outfit couldn’t make you appear approachable. Grabbing your bag, you headed downstairs, shutting the door behind you.

The fact that Jimin drove a coupe should have come as no surprise to you. He leaned over the steering wheel waving at you through the passenger window. You skipped over the foliage by the dorm gate and slipped into the car. He flashed a hundred watt smile.

“You look nice.” He almost giggled, the words dripping with innuendo.

“Let’s just go.” You mumbled back, sinking into the chair.

The smile never faltering on his lips, he shifted gears, zooming away, ever the speed demon.

“You know we’re still technically in a school zone.”

“It’s a college campus, love. We’re all adults here.” He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road, switching lanes as he found himself behind one of the school shuttle buses strolling at a leisurely 30 miles per hour. “Besides, you wanna get good seats, don’t you?”

"This isn't a reserved seating type of thing?"

He arched a brow, lip twitching. "Have you been to a theater performance before?"

You turned to stare out the window, "I mean, once or twice... when I was in middle school..."

Although you didn't see his face, the scoff was enough to let you gauge his reaction.

"Since middle school?" his voice went up an octave, "How do you expect to date- uh- my friend---"

"Damn, you'll slip his name one of these days---"

"--If you don't even like theater?"

You rolled your eyes, turning to him again, "First of all, I don't wanna date him--"

"Mmmmmmmmmmhmm--"

"-- And second, I don't not like it, I just... never got around to going."

The car inched forward, still behind the shuttle, stopping yet again. Jimin mumbled a curse as the rear lights flashed and the shuttle slowed. He sighed, glancing at you, "Well, you'll like this one. It's a good one to break your musical virginity with."

"I'm not a---"

"Middle school doesn't count, love."

"Whatever." you half-laughed, leaning an elbow on the sill of the window, resting your head in your palm, "It better be good."

"Are you doubting our talents?" he smirked.

"If Mystery Man acts anything like he texts, then..."

Jimin burst into a peal of laughter, turning back to the road, "He's pretty great, actually. You'll enjoy his performance."

Even as his laugh faded, the secret smile lingered on his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed your glare, chuckling softly, "I'm not telling you, okay? You're lucky I even told you this much."

"Well, what's the point of going if I don't even know who I'm looking for?" you whined, arms flailing in front of you.

The shuttle continued forward and Jimin pressed on the accelerate, your body jutting forward as the car hummed to life. The smirk on his lips told you it wasn't an accident.

"And why aren't you performing?" you frowned, pushing your hair back from where it'd fallen over your eyes, "I thought you were both in the production."

He shook his head, the car speeding up and swerving around the shuttle via the left lane. Your hand clutched at the armrest, a sharp "Jesus!" falling from your lips.

"We have to do at least one backstage production for a major requirement-- you know, to get some experience behind the scenes-- and I volunteered for this one."

He faced you, grinning from ear to ear, "I did the choreography."

You gave him a tight smile, clutching the dashboard as he took a sharp turn.

"Do you wanna slow down a little?" you mumbled, voice shaking slightly.

Unfazed, Jimin zoomed down the street, one hand off the wheel to point at the time, "We're gonna be late. Just hold on, love."

You muttered a short prayer-- apparently not quiet enough, as Jimin giggled and, for no other reason than sadistic pleasure, you were sure, sped up.

The congestion of the parking lot might have suggested Jimin was right to speed up. Although the time on the dashboard indicated you still had a good twenty minutes before the show started, the lot was almost entirely packed, forcing (or at least that was how he phrased it) Jimin to park on the grass. The car fizzled off as he glided out, heading over to help you out, arm naturally coming around your shoulders as he guided you towards the repertory theater. Through your classes and study sessions together, you’d come to learn Jimin was an innately touchy person, which also meant you could easily brush him off without inspiring offense, so you weren’t surprised when he barely noticed you sidestepping his arm.

“You didn’t even tell me what the production is.”

Jimin stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, shrugging with a sly smile. “No point in ruining the surprise now. You’ll see when we get inside.”

He skipped ahead, compelling you to half-run to keep up.

The congestion of the parking lot should have warned you of the state of the main hall, yet, even so, you weren’t prepared for the sheer number of bodies crowded together waiting to get in. The ushers, clad in staff shirts, manned the double doors, eyeing the clock by the entrance.

“The show starts in fifteen.” Jimin yelled into your ear over the cacophony of voices, “They’ll start letting people in soon.”

You nodded, eyes scanning over the crowd, the posters on the wall too obstructed by the bodies to properly read. Sure enough, in a matter of minutes, the double doors opened and the ushers began collecting tickets in exchange for programs. The crowd slowly formed a makeshift double line, shuffling forward.

When you’d finally reached the doors, Jimin pulled out two tickets, handing them to the usher. She returned a thick program, which he handed off to you. As he guided you to your seats, arm around your shoulders again, you read the front of the packet.

“The Great Gatsby?” your eyes widened, “I didn’t know there was a play for this.”

“Musical.” He corrected, moving you in front of him to enter the aisle, “Sit there, A6.”

He sat beside you, taking the program, “And you’re right, it’s been transcribed.”

“From the book?”

“From the movie.” He flipped through the pages, showing you a list of scenes, “The new one, you know? They used the songs and assigned some of them to characters. So, like, Daisy does a number for Young and Beautiful, Jordan Baker’s gonna perform at the party, and so on. It’s cool right?”

You nodded, looking over the group photo beside the list of scenes. Jimin squatted in the front row, holding up a peace sign and flashing a hundred watt smile like the rest of the cast and crew. You smiled to yourself, looking over their faces. There were a number of boys, none of whom stood very close to Jimin.

“Are you looking for your Mystery Man?” he teased from beside you.

You glanced up, hoping the blush on your cheeks wasn’t visible in the dim auditorium lighting, “No. Just looking.”

“Which one do you think he is?”

You pressed your lips together, “If I guess right, would you tell me?”

He thought for a moment before grinning, “No.”

“Then what’s the point of guessing?” you folded your arms, leaning back in your chair. He laughed lightly to himself, handing you the program.

“You’ll see him on stage. I told you he was one of the major characters, didn’t I?”

“There’s several major male characters in this. He could be Tom Buchanan for all I know. ” You sighed, before remembering his texts. You flipped through the program to the last page, listing the cast and crew, the short instance of excitement shriveling up at the sight. The first page alone has at least 10 names.

“I thought only the relevant characters get bios,” you whined, “The whole goddamn cast is on here.”

Jimin bit back a laugh, perhaps deciding no response was the best response. Nonetheless, you skimmed over the names. Kim Brian, Woo Jiyeon, Im Kaerim, Kim Taehyung. The short bios gave little away other than their theater credentials, and that wasn’t going to help you either. With a sigh, you closed the program, just as the lights dimmed.

“How about this?” Jimin whispered, leaning into your ear, “By the end of the play, if you can guess who your mystery man is, I’ll tell you.”

“Why not now?” you leaned in as well, holding up the program, “I have the picture.”

The orchestra began to play, the strings lilting with Jimin’s laugh, “What’s the fun in that? Then you’ll know before it’s even started.”

A husky voice began to narrate over the speakers, “In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice.”

“Or you know I won’t be able to guess when he’s in costume.”

“"Always try to see the best in people," he would say.” The voice continued.

“You don’t even know what he looks like without costume.”

“As a consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments.”

You bit your lip. The stage lights faded in, and, for reasons beyond your comprehension, your mind wandered to the last conversation you’d had with the man behind those anonymous texts; to the abrupt way he’d ended your conversation. And to the realization, he hadn’t reached out to you since. You turned to Jimin, wringing the program in your hands.

“Fine.”

He grinned and nodded towards the stage. You turned.

Illuminated at the center of the stage, situated at a desk, was Nick Carraway. A dusty brown mop of hair hunched over the table, writing rapidly in a notebook, the sound of his fountain pen scratching the parchment sounding through the speakers. The orchestra matched the sound with screeching violins, building to a crescendo until it ceased altogether. The man sighed, slowly sitting back and looking out at the audience. For a moment, he said nothing, and you didn’t realize you were holding in your breath, until his gaze reached your side of the audience—or was it only you? The stage was close enough that you could make out the flicker of a frown across his face. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jimin smile. Nick Carraway’s lips parted, eyes lingering on yours before he stared into the abyss of the audience.

“But even I have a limit.”

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rattlung · 6 years

Text

Play It Again Pt. 2

uuuuhhhhh here we go again sorry. I wrote this all in the span of two ish days? so if there’s a shit ton of errors lemme know. also, if you want to read it on ao3 because that’s ur jam, you can do that here

enjoy! or don’t im not ur dad

The sun was as it should be in the wasteland; high in the sky with an intent to kill rather than sustain. McCree squinted at the brightness, using a hand to shield his vision as he transitioned from Doc Amari’s low-lit home to the harsh burn.

The town, Goodsprings, wasn’t much. It was a decent size, but only because the occupied houses were few and far in between, the rest of the buildings crumbling husks from a time before him. The ones still standing looked about ready to join them when the next hard wind rolled by, what with the recent-looking patchwork and lopsided foundations. Still, they had a stubborn quality to them, something that was mirrored in the people McCree caught sight of milling about. No one smiled when they looked his way, but they were friendly enough; quaint like their town.

Goodsprings was not the place one expected to get murdered, that McCree was sure of.

Gravel crunched underneath a single tire, drawing closer to where he stood on Doc Amari’s doorstep. The figure approaching him was shadowed at first, as it had its back toward the sun, but McCree didn’t need much of his eyesight to distinguish the bot. When it wheeled to a stop at the foot of the walkway, he was able to make out the cartoonish features of the grinning cowboy on the bot’s screen. He’d never seen a unit like this one, he was sure, but before he could question it a voice emitted from the bot’s speakers.

“Howdy, partner,” it exclaimed, it’s southern drawl more pronounced than even McCree’s. “Might I say, you’re lookin’ fit as a fiddle.” McCree could do nothing but stare for a moment, watching the bot roll back and forth to maintain its balance in near awe. When the silence droned on for too long, the bot spoke again. “Ooh, maybe not. Well, ‘least you’re on your feet, partner, that’s all you coulda hoped for after the deviltry you were in.”

“Beg your pardon - sir," he apologized, adding the last part in an awkward haste. “I ain’t never seen a robot like you before, is all.”

“You haven't? Well, I'll be! I’m a Securitron, RobCo security model 2060-B,” the bot told him, sounding far too pleased with himself with the chance to relay that information to another. “If you see any of my brothers, tell them Victor says howdy.”

McCree nodded once with an easy grin. “I’ll be sure to do that, sir. Do you know where I’d find the town’s saloon?”

“Well, sure, friend.” Victor made a swift, two-point turn to face the road behind him and gestured toward it with one of his long arms. “Just follow that there road and it’ll be the last building on your left.”

“Much obliged.”

“Plannin’ on havin’ a few drinks before you leave?” Victor asked conversationally when McCree made no move to follow his directions. “Reckon you’d be on your way to find the rascals that shot ya, didn’t expect you to stay in town much longer.”

“That’s the plan. You wouldn’t know anything about them, would you?”

“Just that they’re a shady lookin’ bunch. I was out for a stroll when I saw ‘em at the ol’ bone orchard.”

McCree felt his brow furrow. “You were there that night?”

“Sure was,” Victor confirmed, voice as cheerful as ever, like they weren’t discussing McCree’s attempted murder. The strange tone of the conversation had McCree feeling uneasy but anything the bot knew was valuable, so he asked him to continue. “I heard ‘em causin’ a commotion, but I laid low since they had numbers on me. They ran off after a time, so I got to dig you up and see if you was still kickin’. Turns out, you were, so I hauled you off to the Doc right quick.”

So it was Victor who had initially found him in his grave. McCree had been under the impression that Amari had been the one to drag him out despite never being told so. “Well,” McCree said. “‘Spose I should be thankin’ ya for saving me.”

The bot waved him off. “Don’t mention it! I’m always ready to lend a helping hand to a stranger in need.”

“You’ve been more than a help, Victor,” he assured him. “I’m gonna make my way over to the saloon now, but it’s been a pleasure speakin’ with you.”

“Happy trails,” Victor responded in kind before rumbling back down the road.

McCree watched the dust trail he kicked up in his wake and frowned. It was odd, he thought, for any robot to be rolling around in a small town like Goodsprings, let alone one as strange as Victor. There was a chance he could belong to one of the settlers, built and maintained by a person with time on their hands. McCree looked around him again at the Bighorners and the farmers tending to them. No, they were not the industrial type of folk. He didn't think Victor was any type of dangerous, or else he doubted he'd still be rolling around town, but there was something curious about him.

=+=

McCree found Hana Song where Doc Amari said he would: in the back of the Saloon leaned up against a dingy pool table. He nodded politely at the woman behind the bar and made his way over to the girl, but only barely crossed the threshold of the back room before a deep snarl held him in his tracks. An impressively massive dog slunk from around the table, head low and teeth bared with its wide eyes locked right on McCree. He grimaced at it; he didn’t want to have to kill a dog.

“Meka, stay,” the girl commanded. The dog immediately withdrew, and even lolled out its tongue, appearing like a totally different creature from the one that threatened him a moment ago. Hana offered him a smirk, which he guessed was meant to be apologetic. “Don’t worry. She only bites when I tell her to.”

He raised a brow but otherwise kept his expression neutral. “Well, that’s good to hear. Doc Amari sent me after you, said you’d help me get by in the desert,” he explained, still keeping one eye on the dog, Meka, but only because she was sat at an odd angle to gnaw at an itch on her leg.

Hana nudged her to get her to quit. “Yeah. There’s a some things I could probably teach you. After getting shot in the head, there might be a few things you’d need help with,” she laughed.

“There sure is, miss.”

“Meet me outside behind the saloon, then. I gotta go grab something.” She whistled shortly, grabbing the attention of Meka, who’d continued to pester with the spot on her leg. “C’mon, Meka.”

McCree followed her out back, but stayed behind as instructed. He leaned against the fencing and tried to ignore the way his fingers itched for something to do. Was it unorthodox to ask a doctor for a pack of smokes? Maybe there was a store he could visit before it got too late.

With no desire to let anxiousness jitter his bones, he immersed himself with the Pip-Boy on his wrist. It didn’t take long to get used to the constant weight of it like he thought he would, and it was relatively easy to get the grasp of. He transcribed the note Doc Amari had said she found on him while he waited, as paper didn’t tend to hold long during travels. It was the only tangible piece of evidence that tied him to the woman who'd shot him besides the scar itself; too important to have ruined.

He read it over carefully, hoping to find some clue as to why someone would try and kill him for what he had been carrying. It seemed horribly insignificant of a package to be worth stealing. It was oversized for a poker chip, yes, but it still wasn’t a great amount of platinum. There were more valuable materials to pillage in the Mojave. McCree was sure it was the caps in the job. He remembered it was the reason he took the job as gladly as he did, and the 250 cap bonus upon delivery was the metaphorical wax seal. Except, McCree thought, the woman didn't seem short on money, unless she made a business of murdering couriers on the job for their pay, which he would have heard about. There had to be a reason for his attack, but no matter how many times he read over the delivery order, he couldn't put it together.

Hana and Meka returned with a crate full of empty bottles and an extra rifle. The glass clinked together when she dropped them by McCree’s boots and she shouldered off the rifle, handing it to him without preamble. “A 9mm is only going to get you so far in the desert,” she explained, and then proceeded in balancing the bottles on top of the fence. “It’s not much, but it’s something.”

She wasn’t wrong; the rifle was not much at all. It was practically held together by duct tape and McCree could tell it was prone to jamming just by looking at it. He had dealt with worse, though.

Once enough bottles sat in a precarious line, Hana stepped back a good three yards and beckoned McCree to follow. “Go ahead and take some shots. For me, it’s always easier to aim when I’m crouched; gets you steady and all. The sights might be a bit off, the gun’s probably older than me but - “

She jumped slightly when three of the bottles popped to pieces at a rate that few could manage with the busted old varmint rifle. After blinking, she turned her gaze slowly to McCree and regarded him with a raised brow, like she was ensuring it had been him to shoot the bottles and they hadn’t just been blown off from the wind. “Why didn’t you just tell me you knew your way ‘round a rifle before I set up all those and went on my spiel?”

“Didn’t wanna be rude, miss.”

“Well, what does that make you now, after wasting both of our time?” She smirked again, her tell that she didn’t intend for McCree to take her seriously. “Tell you what, to make it up to me, why don’t you help me clear out some geckos at the watering hole? There’d be caps in it for you, and some more practice with that rifle.”

=+=

The geckos weren’t much of a scare. Hana explained that they weren’t a rare occurrence, either. The creatures looked to be about waist high and awkward on their feet, but they moved quick enough by the looks of it. Their teeth were probably the worst about them, but McCree didn't expect to let them close.

Hana splashed some water onto the dirt when they’d been hugged close to a rock just in front of the nest, dipping two fingers into the new mud and drawing two, reddish streaks across each of her cheeks. “Alright,” she said, raising her own gun, looking as giddy as Meka at the opportunity of action. “You take the first shot.”

Unbeknownst to McCree, she had kept score of how many of the oversized reptiles they’d downed each. She let him know, when they reconvened at a nearby campfire, that he had lost by a five ‘tile gap. By then, the mud on her cheeks had dried, so it cracked and chipped when she grinned at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll still pay you, even if you lost. Nobody’s beaten me before, anyway.”

Hana Song wasn’t odd by the Mojave’s standards, but McCree wouldn’t think of her as unforgettable, of that he was sure.

The sun had sunk low by the time they made it back to Goodsprings; less people out and the roads were warmly-lit from oil lamps set in the windows of homes. Victor still rolled around, busy with trekking up the hill with a windmill and wooden crosses sat atop it. McCree watched him as they walked.

“That’s Victor,” Hana said when he stopped responding to her idle conversation with his one-worded answers.

“We’ve met.”

“Odd, ain’t he? Trudy says he’s creepy, but I don’t know. He doesn’t do anything.”

“Where’d he come from?”

She shrugged, “No one really knows. People say his owner used to live here, but we don’t know if they died or just left him when they ditched town.” McCree grunted. Hana seemed satisfied enough to change the subject. “I’m gonna head back. If I missed anything good on the jukebox, Meka would be pissed. You should stop by. Trudy would chew me out if she knew I didn’t send you her way; she likes meeting new people.”

“Sure thing, miss,” McCree said.

The door to Prospector Saloon swung open when they made it to the entryway, crashing loudly against the siding of the building. A man stepped out, cursing thickly under his breath, but his mouth snapped shut when he caught eyes with Hana. He glowered, but mostly withered under the girl’s hard stare, and McCree raised a brow at him. He was dressed like he was ready for a fight, heavy padded vest strapped to him, but upon closer inspection, McCree thought he must’ve already been in one. There were stains on his pants, rich and dark; blood. He didn't seem to be the Goodsprings type.

The man hurried passed them, holding their stares uneasily until his back was to them. He continued down the street briskly, and McCree just barely made out the N.C.R.C.F. printed in bold, white letters across the shoulder of his riot vest.

Hana scoffed and shook her head, looking irritated by the encounter. Before McCree could ask her what exactly had happened, she practically stormed inside the saloon with a quick, “ Good luck, McCree ”, Meka at her heels.

Once he had collected himself, he made his way inside, shutting the door behind him. The same woman was behind the bar still, looking a little miffed herself. She was straightening her short, cropped hair in a huff, but there didn’t appear to be any evidence that there’d been a real scuffle. McCree decided he wouldn’t bother her further on broaching the subject of the man; based on her and Hana’s reaction to him, he was not well liked. That was enough for McCree.

She seemed glad for the distraction, because the tenseness in her features eased a little when he took a seat at the counter. “You’ve been causin’ quite a stir,” she told him, more of an accusation than a statement. “Glad I finally got to meet you,” she added on anyway. “Name’s Trudy, welcome to the Prospector Saloon.”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

“Don’t mention it. Can I get you anything?”

McCree opened his mouth, but the request of beer got caught in his throat. He wouldn’t call himself exceptionally knowledgeable in the medical field, but even he knew that drinking wasn’t the smartest thing to do a day or two after getting shot in the head. “Nuka-Cola,” he said, “if you got it, ma’am.”

“Sure thing.”

The bottle she served him wasn’t cold, and it was flat like most cola one would find in the wasteland, but it was as refreshing as anything. He laid down the two caps for it on the counter and sipped from it slowly, enjoying the music that drifted in from the back room. Trudy sighed, still looking weary, and slid an ashtray from the other side of the bar closer to her, pulling a pack of cigarettes from a pocket in her dress. She flicked at a rusted flip lighter and sighed again at the first drag, seemingly out of relief this time. McCree watched on enviously as the smoke curled around before her before it dissipated.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Trudy said, starting to back away. “It’s probably rude of me to smoke in front of you after the injury you had, isn’t it?”

He doubted that a little secondhand smoke would affect whatever healing process was left for him. Drinking was different, it did something to the brain. Smoking was just the lungs. That’s what he told himself, at least. “It’s only rude if you don’t share, ma’am,” he said back, mostly joking but a little hopeful.

Trudy laughed, lucky for him, and offered him the pack, which he took from, then her lighter. He thanked her, breathing in the stale smoke. It was good, but the taste was off, something that didn’t have to do with the age. Still, it held him over, and his shoulders felt less stiff.

“Speakin’ of my injury,” he started, ashing off the cig into the tray, “I’m trying to track ‘em down, the men who shot me. I was hopin’ you could help set me on my way. Know anything about ‘em?”

“Not much, other than they’re a bunch of freeloaders who expected free drinks out of me. I got them to pay, though.” She smiled a little, smug, but it turned sour in the next second. “Of course, one of the Los Muertos did knock my radio to the floor by accident .” She rolled her eyes, leading McCree to believe that that wasn’t the case at all. Mournfully, she eyed the radio on the counter behind her. “It hasn’t been working since.”

McCree furrowed his brow in solidarity of her mood and set his cigarette between his lips, gesturing toward it. Trudy handed the radio off to him and watched absentmindedly as he popped the back casing off and began to fiddle with it. “Who’re the Los Muertos?”

“As far as I know, they’re enemies of the NCR. Don’t know too much, they mostly stay in their territory up in the northwest. The two that was with the fancy woman, they were probably just hired guns.”

McCree grunted. “They didn’t say where they were goin’, did they?”

“They seemed to be havin’ some kind of argument about it, but the ringleader - fancy girl in the checkered coat - she kept shushin’ them.” Trudy looked up in thought, tapping her cig on the ashtray rhythmically. “From what I remember, it sounded like they’d come in from the north through Quarry Junction. If that’s the case, I can imagine why they didn’t want to go back.”

“Why’s that?”

“The whole area is full of critters that just get pissed off if you shoot ‘em. People treat it like it’s radioactive - which it probably is, for all I know.”

After making sure everything was secure with the innards, McCree slid the casing to the radio back in place and flicked it on. Frank Sinatra’s voice crackled from it before the frequency settled, his notes coming out smooth. Trudy smiled at it happily, taking it from McCree and set it back in its spot on the counter. “So where were they headed?”

“I didn’t hear exactly,” she said “but the leader was talking about the Strip. If she wanted to get there and avoid the 15, she’d have to go east. Take Highway 93 up.”

McCree finished his drink and thanked her, leaving with a few bottles of Nuka-Cola on the house for the fixed radio. Once back out on the porch, he pulled up the map on his Pip-Boy and found the stretch of road he’d have to walk to find his way to the woman in the checkered suit. He hesitated before he powered down the screen, then flipped on his own radio.

He set off under the stars, the tinny, rumble of a man as his only company on the road.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our program. This is Mr. New Vegas, and each and every one of you is wonderful in your own special way. I’ve got news for you. Troubling news from Primm, as merchants report a large presence of armed and unsavory figures patrolling the town. Residents are nowhere to be found. More news for you: A package courier found shot in the head near Goodsprings has reportedly regained consciousness, and has made a full recovery. Now that is a delivery service you can count on. That’s the news. This is Mr. New Vegas, filling in for Mr. New Vegas. Mojave, mo’ problems.

Am I right?

this was meant to be a series of one shots. I’m not exactly sure how I’m planning on keeping this going but it’s for sure going to be a slow burn lmao

#mcgenji #jesse mccree #genji shimada #kon's a writer

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