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goblinconceivable · 3 years

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braindump: betty/daniel

I’ve been living with them for a while, notes taken, a few stories significantly started but there’s a gelling issue, which I’m hoping is at least partially down to a lack of proper braindumping. So, in no particular order and certainly not comprehensive:

Frankly I also got too hooked on the last 2 eps, which is likely where I’m blocked. It’s an abrupt emotional twist for them (esp Daniel), and in trying to make sense of that I’m losing focus on the 4 previous years.

- I’m a little bit obsessed in the scene where Betty tries to convince Matt she’s fearless by pointing out her bang-less-ness. And then runs into Daniel, who is at that moment half brain-washed, but yet when she asks about her fearless quotient his response is immediate and natural and entirely lacking in irony: “no bangs.” It’s a tiny little moment that shows how well he not only knows her, but understands her. Without judgment, without fanfare. Were I to have a husband, this is the sort of response that would confirm I’d married the absolute perfect guy for me.

- They’re too close for mirroring to be an important indicator, but there are two scenes that stand out in this vein: the first is when Betty thinks he may have pushed Christina down the stares and steals the video. She’s backing out the door, and he follows, matching her step for step. I love the direction choices because from her perspective there’s a sense of menace, Daniel as potential villain is stalking her. But from his guileless perspective he’s talking to her and if she’s moving, so is he. The second is from the penultimate, talking about Trista, where Betty’s rolling back and forth and he moves with her, rather than simply turning his head. It signals his full engagement in the conversation, seeking her attention, and is why the scene plays as flirting rather than their normal banter.

- That bulletpoint was getting a bit long, so second point on the flirting is that it plays against Betty shutting down the conversation “none of my business,” leading to the fight over involvement in each other’s personal lives, leading to the revelation that they know each other at that deep personal level so very, very well. Which was a very clumsy leadup to Daniel’s revelation during Hilda’s wedding speech, that could have been handled so much more deftly but those last two eps were quite rushed, I don’t know when they found out about the shortened season but it feels like they’d planned for more space and had to jab in exposition.

- Becaaaaause: they narratively broke his ‘aha’ moment onto “know you better than you do” while the strength of the message is really in the “do anything to protect them.” Which is, I believe, where they cut to his softened expression. Not coincidentally, this is precisely what a lot of fan-readings of the characters focus on: Daniel will do anything to protect Betty. Bobby might have said he’d throw himself under a bus for Hilda, but Daniel HAS done that for Betty- in fact literally doing so would probably have been easier than publicly shouldering the blame for the Tornado cover and giving away the profits. Due to the fact that he had time to consider the consequences and did it anyway.

- Which is tidy segue into an admission that I’m flying mostly blind on the Molly arc because I basically skipped all her scenes, but it’s my understanding that Daniel doing this was a pivotal moment for them. Ie, she was impressed that he did this thing. I mean, I really appreciate that he spent the whole press conference scene looking for Betty, so the show in no way undercut their relationship. But then they very clearly built the Molly relationship on the foundation of not only the man Daniel had become due to Betty, but choices he was making in large measure for Betty: it’s not that he saw Betty beaten down and resolved the situation: he was upset but lost, she yelled at him, and THEN he resolved the situation by taking the bullet. Did I break grammar by ending up with two colon’d clauses in the same sentence? It’s a braindump, ain’t gotta be pretty. XP

- Quick sidebar that the same thing happens with Alexis. She was expecting to come back to one brother, but then listens in on his pep talk with Betty and finds she’s returned to a different brother. This may be where I got the “an assistant” phrasing, if so, my bad. But basically, she was impressed with Daniel’s actions, not understanding that it was Betty specifically inspiring his actions.

- Follow that a step further and did Molly ever acknowledge how important Betty is to him? Legit question. I think her line here was about him doing it “for an assistant” (?) rather than even “his assistant,” establishing Betty as a non-entity for her. (Quoting a summary but I think I’m in the ballpark.) And I’m sure I’d have read about it somewhere if she brought Betty up during their discussion on who he’d date when she was dead.

- Just one last note on Molly, (okay it’s a multi-part though it veers off her as a character) but a possibly incorrect beef is that I hate the Daniel/Molly relationship because there’s no interesting or even real conflict? It’s perfect? I’m supposed to think this is magical “true love”? Molly has apparently been engaged for years to a man she doesn’t really love (and um... that’s lazy not strong), and helps inspire a vengeance filled betrayal by her ex because she’s so awesome everyone loves her? But she comes out squeaky clean because any emotional cheating on her part is balanced and thus “justified” by Connor falling for Wilhemina. And then the only “conflict” is that she’s dying, and is perfect throughout it? That’s... weak.

-That poem thing WOULD have been an interesting point of conflict but it was resolved by Betty’s intervention, rather than within the relationship. Which actually is an incredibly interesting beat. The problem with that being it’s so entirely consistent with the role Betty plays in Daniel’s life that it’s treated as just another beat, as if it doesn’t MATTER that a fundamental moment of intimacy and growth of vulnerability in Daniel’s very important romantic relationship is a door opened by a third party. There’s a strong argument to be made for something but I broke off to write the next point and now can’t remember what that strong argument is. I might remember later. It may have had something to do with Molly being a stepping stone in Daniel’s arc, but the cult-thing was so long and dominating that it didn’t work, it tied him too tightly for too long and coinciding with a loosening of his relationship with Betty there was flailing.

- Quick one: Daniel’s fast-forwarded and time-bounded relationship with Molly is the analog to Betty’s time-limited relationship with Henry. Which is a discussion I would like Daniel and Betty to have. Esp. noting that Betty and Henry had issues they worked through together (ice cream foreplay being one.)

- Player! So going back to a happy place, when Betty’s on the phone trying to fix the apartment situation and the camera pans onto Daniel just leaning against the doorway: this may be a legitimate little moment of “squee!” There’s so much denial in his laid back attitude at Player, but I still love watching how the informality of the environment reflects in the informality with Betty. He gives her free reign, and there’s many answers to “why,” and I (almost) don’t want to go into them because I totally adore how this Daniel is basically a College!Daniel only he’s latched onto Betty, who, meanwhile, is just being Betty. OMG how different his life would have been if he’d met Betty in college...

- Okay I actually don’t feel like going into whys, it’s just an arc to enjoy. With a small mention of how he TOTALLY was playing with the MODE book and handed it to Betty knowing she’d understand and use it to get them back in. Such a crazy subtle manipulation, to the point where I’m not sure it wasn’t almost entirely subconscious on Daniel’s part.

- The YETI recommendation letter. What I love is that this is another time when Daniel fvcks up, but fixes it, and more importantly displays competence and ingenuity alongside authentic caring and effort. Here’s the thing: YETI wanted Betty, even if it was just a quota thing (which it wasn’t entirely, at least one of the board was generally enthused.) So all that was necessary was to have them re-label her as from Player. Daniel knew this and did this. And told Betty that. BUUUUT that point was purposefully (by script and character) overshadowed by the gesture of the lengthy rec letter he put significant time into. Whose real audience was... wait for it... Betty. He even did a second draft! Which is more time and effort and a cleaner product.

- Also flaking on her practice run. I also enjoy how he (finally...) bounced back into the office clearly having forgotten her schedule, but having mentally shifted from Molly-space into Betty-space. He’s enthused, he’s engaged, he’s sort of bantering and I’d like to see where that scene would have gone if she hadn’t immediately gotten the acceptance call.

- So there’s this moment somewhat early on, pretty sure when Betty’s taking the writing class, and wants Daniel to give her feedback. And he’s all “why?,” coming from his “I don’t actually know what I’m doing” place. She responds that he’s her friend and wants to know what he thinks. And he does a little double-take at that word. Because until that point Daniel totally sees Betty as HIS Friend, and they’ve referred to each other as friends, with a little “f,” and he believes that. But it wasn’t until this moment that he even considered that HE might be HER Friend. Presumably because he doesn’t believe he has anything to offer her, beyond the power he holds as EIC and her boss - ie, “here run this show” and other such responsibilities.

- Which is a recurring theme. Pronounced on relationship stuff especially. When she asks him for input on the Henry vs Gio situation, when she’s trying to date the playwright. His response is always “I’m in no position to offer relationship advice/judgment on relationships.” He sorta dodges the first and is permissive on the second. I don’t know where to go with that so I’ll leave it (for now).

- When he was supposed to be in Rio, Betty wasn’t even at MODE, she was working for the “enemy,” and he was sending her regular postcards? First, they’d have been postmarked in New York and presumably with local stamps, so I’m not 100% on Betty not cottoning on. But it’s super cute that he was thinking of her when he was incommunicado with literally everyone else. Did he want her to figure it out (subconsciously)? It’s an act of reaching out, but also of convincing: he’s created a fictional narrative of being in Rio, fed and embellished by the media and swallowed by coworkers, but it’s through Betty that he’s establishing the fiction in a definitive way. He wants HER to believe it, because if SHE believes he’s there and having a good time, then he can believe it too, with a small piece of his imagination.

- Same convincing as in Player. BTW, how did all those messages on her phone work? He was 99% totally hiding the situation from her. a) why wouldn’t he just call her from his phone, as he always did in the past? b) he was creating another fictional space. Where her “number” was literally on a post-it on his temporary assistant’s monitor. It’s all play: “call Betty” happens many times, and every one is the act of doing it while knowing that he’s not really doing it. c) Betty does not point out that he should have been confused he never heard back, or more to the point, that he never heard her voicemail message. d) he was in a state of limbo waiting for her to come back, nothing is real until she does. At which point there’s lovely dramatic tension since he both wants her to fix it and get them out of there, and wants to draw her into this new reality and thus make it feel viable.

- 100th Anniversary edition. I love the idea that he’s hep on her writing his bio because he needs her name, at least, to be next to his. His identity as EIC is predicated on her being his partner, and needs that shown, even if it’s functionally an “in joke” because it’s not like she can be featured. In musing over his thoughts while flipping through the book right before deciding to quit, I usually come back to a realization of the transience of the role, but I want it to be a gutpunch of how he assumed, without being aware, that Betty would be next to him in picture, and that’s what they were heading for.

- I’ve actually got through most of my notes, so just a couple more. Daniel is super impressionable. He did what Becks told him to in the pilot. He did what Natalie told him in the cult-situation. Both against his better judgment - his look after Betty when he kicked her out for being “drama he didn’t need” - that’s the same look when he told her to clock out and was dragged off by the not-16-year-old. I’m too tired to go check the pilot, but assuming similar look there. He does what he’s told by anyone telling him to do something, but he WANTS to be rescued from the bad influences, who are so often so forceful.

- Final scene: okay so it turns out quick a lot of my thoughts are trying to understand Daniel. His growth is blatant and deep. So a second round will be more Betty-focused. ‘Cuz I identify strongly with her and don’t have a lot of surface questions about her motivations, but I’m LOST on side of the romantic coin. And plus she deserves a close look regarding how she grows during the series.

- I watched at least part of the reunion and very much like how AF answered the question of the final scene versus what EM says. Because I think they each, as actors, see it from the perspective of their characters, which means it was played authentically and grants insight. AF basically says that she saw it as Daniel coming to say thank you, and how it came down to Betty teaching him that he was good enough. Which came across a little funny because her phrasing implied they’d never talk or see each other again or something and that’s an alarming finality. But also implies that Betty really did see moving to London as a significant parting of ways, something that started as soon as she became an editor and their relationship changed. Probably before.

- She then challenged EM as to why Daniel didn’t say goodbye (as if she didn’t know and hadn’t thought about it? I’m guessing this was panel performance: asking the question “in character” and throwing the question to the other relevant actor.) But anyway, EM’s answer was “Because things were just starting.” Which is blatantly a shippy answer, and he even explains Daniel’s “revelation” as when he “really saw Betty for the first time through and through.”

- At some point in these things you’re like: oh but I thought of something else, and only stop when your brain falls asleep.

- I thought of something else. And then I forgot it. My brain is failing! But not yet failed.

- After Betty gets her braces off there’s this scene near the end, at the shoot. Daniel sees her and crosses quite purposefully to talk with her. He wants to banter and share this exciting moment with her. And the scene goes a little strange when Betty kinda goes “yeah, going now bye.” I expected more eye contact, a big smile, more conversation. That’s Betty. That’s them. But instead it’s a little awkward so Something Is Happening Here. Is she self-conscious? Did she see and hear something in Daniel’s look and comment right after she was detached from the bra and isn’t at this moment comfortable with him? Is this all fallout from her dream in which she and Daniel slept together/he thought she was a bad person/rejected her only they chose not to explicate this/cut a useful scene/thought I’d get that right away but I’m obtuse? I don’t think it’s the last one because while I can be horribly obtuse, I don’t think it was coded. But that’s what the obtuse would say.

- At any rate they don’t pick up on it again, next scene (next ep) they’re back to normal.

- But Daniel does immediately chase after Amanda and let go of her. Which is payoff for his convo with Betty earlier where she sort of disdainfully asks if he WANTS a more serious relationship with Amanda. I did sort of wonder if he actually does, but Betty’s judgmentalness is what convinces him he doesn’t. Usually I’d say Betty understands him so well she knows he doesn’t, but they’re not as close at this point, Betty is living her own life much more, so I dunno.

- But I don’t actually think Daniel was falling for Amanda, or that the show wanted us to think that was ultimately a viable path. Because of that moment when he’s in a car, calls Amanda, says “I really need to see you” and she turns him down. It parallels his text to Betty when Molly died. One text and Betty came over. This was an actual distressed voice convo and Amanda doesn’t care enough about him to be there, which is really great development for Amanda even though we don’t see her! She previously went after Matt when he was in jail, she’s interested in Tyler here, she’s not totally pining for Daniel!

- Daniel of course was using Amanda and their earned if mild emotional intimacy as a crutch, trying to fill the space Betty left. Also note when Amanda turned him down for sex and he stayed to “hang out,” - this is not supposed to be an analysis of Amanda but I wanna note I like that moment because it felt like she was pleased to think she wasn’t just sex to him, while still being over him romantically. Because she does care about him.

- Or for pete’s... I have this bad habit of writing notes which I later look at and am like... “huh?” This is a fic idea, from Daniel’s POV: “Betty had moulded him, often by sheer force of her iron will, into being a man who almost deserved Molly. And he'd turned right around and become a man who would never deserve Betty.” And I DON’T REMEMBER WHAT THE SECOND HALF MEANS. Specifically.

- Wedding dancing. Happens twice. Hilda’s wedding, we know what that is. But at Daniel’s wedding. I like that he wasn’t 100% Molly focused, ‘cuz, shipper. And I know why the show had Matt cut in, because gotta keep things moving. But isn’t it a thing that you don’t cut in on the groom/bride? It’s their day. Daniel just sort of nonverbally asks Betty if it’s okay (to leave her with Matt), but can’t help a) thinking he was a bit put out and b) want Molly to see his expression looking at Betty and have some sort of “aha” moment where she - do Molly and Betty have any scenes together? I don’t remember seeing any and I think I did skim through all the eps, but I need to do that again.

- Ooh, one of the things I forgot en route! I like that Betty has revolving love interests, because that’s textual argument for Betty never having feelings (romantic) for Daniel. Which is super, super important in this iteration of the story. There’s a couple moments - pilot and the first bridge scene - where she arguably has a momentary crush, which quickly settles into a developing platonic relationship.

- Jump back to Daniel finally seeing Betty as a true equal = romantic feelings. It’s a thing. Look my brain is deteriorting and wording is hard! So there’s two sided imbalance throughout. Daniel always saw Betty with this veneer of youth, and a great deal of his use for her is helping her “grow into the woman she’ll be.” And that’s the roadblock in him seeing her as a romantic possibility. Which was initially quite awesome because he was sleeping with people younger than her, even the “she’s actually 20″ girl was younger than Betty. And yet always saw her as in many ways more mature and competent than her. And double-yet he still saw how much further she could, and would, grow. His belief in her knows no bounds.

- Meanwhile Betty sees him as... someone who’s also becoming. Who has great potential. Bullying him into it if necessary. And because he’s guided by her, she can’t crush on him, he’s like her pet. Were she to have a crush, much less fall for him, it would have been horrifying. She needs to have a moment when she sees him as a true equal, someone who - look, everyone is always still growing so it’s not like he needs to be fully formed, and it’s a little murkier what the moment would look like when she finally sees Daniel “for the first time.”

- ‘cuz as noted, Betty has been there for pretty much every important moment of growth and crossroads in every facet of Daniel’s life. Whereas Betty consistently had many things and relationships in her life Daniel was not involved in. She’s always been way more self-reliant (not the word I wanted, is there one that starts with c?) It’s why they did sort of need to peel away through a chunk of S4, because Daniel needed to learn to cope without Betty propping him up, because it’s like a Miranda-thing:

- “I don’t need Gary. But I want him.”

- Daniel has to be able to be find without Betty before Betty can see him as a viable romantic partner. She has to see something she never has before. Daniel saw that the seedling he’d been protecting was not only strong enough to survive on its own had grown up and bloomed (process begun early in the season when he was being overprotective and she shut that down). For Betty... I guess Daniel... ... ..... it didn’t happen in the show. As EM noted, for Daniel, the ending was the beginning. Because his moment isn’t leaving MODE, that’s just the corresponding moment to Betty shaking him off. His moment is further down the road when he puts into practice everything he’s learned and ... something answered in fanfic because it’s spec and I’m tuckered.

#daniel x betty #detty #ugly betty #meta #braindump #my brain literally has nothing except #i got nothing #what a satisfying feeling #to have removed everything and set it in a magical tardis of a post

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sta-bright · 3 years

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My First Tumble

Hi Tumblr,

I was inspired to get a Tumblr account, believe it or not, from Netflix's 2021 four-part docu-series "Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel." Although I highly doubt anyone cares enough to read any of my posts or has the attention span to read anything longer than a few sentences written by a 23 year old with her boobs out, *just in case,* SPOILER ALERT.

The (main) topic of the show focuses around Elisa Lam, who vanished in early 2013 when she was staying at the Cecil Hotel and was then found dead in one of the four water tanks on the roof 19 days after being reported missing (I think I have that correct but don't hold me to it, imaginary readers. It was something like that.).

Anyway, "...to make a long story short"... "too late" #cluereference, Elisa had a Tumblr blog. It seemed to be a good setup for how she was writing very personally, which is what I want to do, so here we go. I have a blog page for the business I own, but to be honest, it's geared more toward, well, business, so I don't feel like I can write freely, or only like the "good" or "normal" part of myself, the good stuff geared at an audience without scaring people away or whatever. So for this one, I don't really care as much about proper grammar or spelling, just somewhere to write my real thoughts if and when I can focus enough to sort them out enough to put them down. I have a bunch of journals, but they are all over the place and I can't write fast enough, so I'm going to try this out. I have a lot to say, and I think even just putting it out there even though I know no one cares might help me feel a little bit of relief, even if anyone does read it and might think I'm an idiot or whatever.

I wasn't sure what to name my blog, and I'm not sure if there's a way to change it in the future, but for now I have decided on "Sta-Bright." Most of my family and some of my close friends call me "Sta" and my partner David calls me Sta Bright, which I think is really cute and makes me happy, so here we are. I use the word partner because I think the word boyfriend is a little too young for us and our relationship warrants a higher level than that. ANYWAY, there is the background information for you, my new friend, Tumblr. I already feel better.

So, this show really pissed me off for a few (many) reasons. I've legitimately been pacing around all morning. First, even the title of the show is misleading. The death of Elisa Lam was not a "crime." It was a devastating incident of accidental death highly likely (as confidently confirmed by all professionals involved) related to a psychotic episode of her mental illness, Bipolar I, which I also happen to have. Netflix using the title "Crime Scene" to lure watchers in is disgusting within itself. Good for you, Netflix. Holla for the dollas! Make that money, baby.

Then, beyond the fact Netflix milked four episodes out of a glamorized case that was ruled an accidental death for this reason not even long after finding Elisa, it is the whole ordeal of the reality and dramatizing of this saga that is so sad.

Upon the release of the famous elevator footage the day she went missing, it went viral almost instantaneously.

*Hold please* I actually just read an article by BBC.com where director of the series, Joe Berlinger, says, "For the average viewer it's another compelling story you watch and then move on to the next. But for who this happened to, it's the worst moment in their life. It's a real tragedy for that person and that family." LOLOLOLOL OKAY JOE!!!! Is this why you spent FOUR EPISODES talking about bullshit theories to keep people hooked and open more discussion? You know that this is not out of respect. Shame on YOU!

"If you look at the other tellings of the story, you'd see she's the victim of some horrible, evil presence that took control of her.

"Those kinds of narratives, I think, are incredibly disrespectful and probably why the family just didn't want to deal with another show that was going to exaggerate the circumstances of the tragedy."

So is this why you made a show exaggerating the circumstances of the tragedy? Lol. "We need to talk about the ghost stories" Or do you need to talk about them to open a can of worms to more losers who fixate on the case? OR IS THAT JUST ME? I don't know. Lemme tell ya what. If anything ever happens to me, please make sure this Joe Schmuck doesn't make a pathetic docuseries about it.

Then, aside from the pathetic profit of Netflix, the actual details of what happened and how society and the "web sleuths" investigated, obsessed, and chimed in on this case is a whole other ballpark about society's minimization and lack of knowledge or respect for mental illness on its own.

THEN, there is a quote by Amy Price, the manager of the hotel during the incident, who is now profiting on a book she is writing about HER experience:

"I want to share my story," she says.

"But this isn't a horror story or anything like that. This is a story about struggle."

Okay, Amy. Whose fucking struggle are you writing about here? I legitimately don't know if she is referring to hers or Elisa's, but either way, it's gross.

It makes me so sad that this whole situation warranted MILLIONS of theories, millions of internet trolls writing articles about the "BIZARRE" death of this girl. This case is not fucking bizarre. It is unfortunate but it is not bizarre. This case was plastered all over internet lists with the titles "bizarre, unexplained cases of missing people." It's not unexplained, and it only was not for long.

These "web sleuths" were busy having a blast, going to the crime scene, smiling as they recorded, posting videos about their stupid theories. Trolls posting their dumb, far-fetched theories without knowing all of the facts, thinking they know better than the professionals, who DO have the findings, did do the labs, did do the investigations. And people still insist that THERE HAS TO BE MORE.

Of course, I don't know all the facts either. BUT, according to the actual professionals involved rather than the entire population of people who love a good "mystery," Elisa's toxicology results showed that her levels of the medications she was supposed to be on signified she had not been taking them as she should have been. They also found bottles of her medicine that had more pills than prescribed, also showing that she had not been taking them.

THEN, she was removed from the room she had been sharing with a few others due to "odd behavior" leaving weird post-its telling them to go away, or whatever. THEN, apparently going into the hotel lobby and screaming "I'm crazy!" or whatever it was.

Although all experiences with mental illnesses are unique, all of these details plus the footage, both detailing erratic behavior, leave no doubt in my mind that the professionals, SHOCKINGLY, CRAZILY, may be right! Who thunk it! I have legitimately acted in the ways described and shown in the video. I don't and couldn't understand HERS, but I understand MY paranoia, hallucinations, experiences I have had, and the actions that are presented, and I guarantee some would look very similar to that footage. Ask the few people who know me best what it's like when I'm not on my meds or fuck them up. I legitimately saw myself in her actions.

Yet, the internet losers had to fixate on a death metal artist who had stayed in the hotel for a few days A YEAR before any of this happened and legitimately ruined his life. His alibi was completely valid and he was dismissed by investigators. He was out of the country, he had tons of substantial paperwork and proof that he was, but that didn't matter.

Because no one takes bipolar disorder seriously, dismissing it as just mood swings, people being dramatic, seeking attention, being lazy, and everyone needs something more sensational, THIS wasn't even an option. They needed to fixate on crazy, fun conspiracy theories, watching the footage over and over and over again, sitting in their caves with their thumbs up their asses writing about their ballpark theories, internet bullying innocent people instead of doing any research on bipolar disorder, instead of defending or considering that it was a psychotic episode, which literally all of the official facts and footage present.

Clearly I'm not a professional either, but like... watch the show and you tell me. You tell me what you think is likely. You tell me what the professionals agree on. But before you make that call, try reading a little bit about bipolar disorder. Try reading about the psychotic episodes that can come with it. It probably won't change your mind, but oh well. It probably is just the hotel being haunted, ya know. Right? This is just my little rant that doesn't matter.

If you want to think it was a ghost, a demon, if it was a murder even though she literally had zero signs of any physical violence and there was zero evidence of it and all evidence the other way, you do that, boo. Have a blast. Hey, I 100% could be wrong, right? Absolutely. Who am I? Just a little dramatic, stupid, crazy nobody.

That's just my take, no better than any other internet trolls, I suppose. When all is said and done, in my little fantasy world, I guess people would just take bipolar disorder seriously and understand the severity of it. People would take it to consideration for the actions and words of those who have it. That's not fun, though. Everyone loves money, everyone loves a good story. Everyone loves making fun of people. Everyone loves a disability you can see. Everything I do is just me being an oddball. Everyone loves to be an internet bully.

I'm sorry for Elisa and her family who have had to deal with years of this. Years of people dismissing the severity of mental illness and obsessing over ghost stories, obsessing over the number of likes or views they get, money they make off of it.

Wow, that was a blast. I'm fairly confident no one will read this, but I feel a lot better that I put that out there. Again, I'm a little nobody, so nothing I say matters, but that's just my take on all of it. I've given up trying to convince anyone that I'm anything but weird, because I know no one will care or accept that. I'll just keep making people feel uncomfortable and keep looking like an idiot. Woe is me, am I right?

You have a blessed day now.

#mental health #mentalhealthmatters #bipolar disorder #bipolar 1 #fuck you netflix

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enjoy-the-small-thingsxx · 3 years

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#Auspol #TonyAbbott

Get this:- (What began as a plague of anonymous fact-checkers attempting to elevate their preferred politics, has metastasised into a truth manufacturing line with the same quality control as a Wuhan mask factory.) NAILED IT.

Probably the best article you will read today and will most likely be ignored because its long it needs to go viral.

(Spectator)

I hope you all have a good memory, because you are going to need it.

Modern political events are being re-written in real-time – dare we say it – ‘whitewashed’ by the unanimous vote of the unelected press. What began as a plague of anonymous fact-checkers attempting to elevate their preferred politics, has metastasised into a truth manufacturing line with the same quality control as a Wuhan mask factory.

There is a danger that the only faithful record of our era will be the one decaying inside our memories. It is a shame that civilisation has fallen back into this bad habit of allowing the powerful to coerce the truth, seizing control on a scaffolding of lies. That said, there is never anything new regarding the squabbles of humanity. The dramatic events of the past few weeks are, in the proper historical context, a tired repeat of the poorly produced saga of our species. These episodes have different authors and a fresh cast, but their underlying story remains the same.

Liberty creates prosperity. Prosperity creates power. Power creates tyranny. Tyranny creates civil upheaval.

After this, the way forward is uncertain. More often than not, the battle for liberty is lost and the citizenry can do little more than lament the freedoms that were so easily and swiftly surrendered to the mob.

If we are to successfully defend our democracy, preserving the historical record is essential. Failure to do so will leave us in the goldfish bowl of fortune, circling the water with Big Brother looking in – distorted and immense on the other side of the glass.

In 2021, our history is guarded by Silicon Valley. We rent space on their cloud servers and entrust companies like Amazon and Google with our private information – usually without reading their terms of service. One accident at a hosting centre or arbitrary censorial act has the potential to erase businesses and memories. Most people place so much faith in these companies that they do not bother backing anything up for safekeeping.

Our civilisation is awash with data hosted by corporate third parties. While most of us are old enough to remember an age before digital streaming, our youngest generations have lived their lives in the palm of Big Tech. They have entwined themselves with these companies in such a way that any attempt made by the wider community to threaten Silicon Valley’s empire will be resisted by devout technological serfs.

When did Social Media’s control of the historical record begin?

Wikipedia was a shiny new thing when I was in high school. Instead of traipsing to the library to locate a reference book that probably wasn’t even filed in the right place, we were gifted this crazy website out of nowhere. Wikipedia was essentially crack for the academic class, providing instant gratification for knowledge-seekers. Type in the question and voila! all the work was done for you. No more waiting in line at the photocopier with an idiot attacking a paper jam with a pair of scissors.

It was like cheating, and that was certainly what our teachers called it. Despite having this glorious database of seemingly infinite knowledge, no one was allowed to use it for anything other than time-wasting ‘wiki-surfing’. (If you haven’t done it, don’t start.)

Our teachers had two objections to the rise of Wikipedia.

The first was a (perfectly reasonable) fear that it would make our inquiring minds lazy. With everyone receiving instant answers, there was no opportunity to stumble over the complexities of a topic. Wikipedia left classrooms in danger of forming monotonous opinions.

Which brings us to the second concern. Wikipedia was given authority over the truth because of its usability, not quality.

Conceived in an open-source environment, it invited thousands of users to post entries about topics which other users then edited – collaborating to create a vast network of information that quickly outstripped the dictionary cabal. With enough people interacting, it was assumed that the truth would win out. Generally speaking, that was the case.

It later became obvious that absolute freedom over information in a publishing environment had a few flaws – namely – humans could be real little shits when they set their minds to it. A common muck-up day activity involved editing the school’s Wikipedia entry with the level of hormone-induced humour that you’d expect.

As usual, politics ruined everything.

The official pages of contentious public figures were the first to be vandalised by bad actors attempting to defame and damage their political opposition. These budding propaganda agents soon learned that subtle changes were the most effective because they went unnoticed for longer. Slight edits to history could be compounded over time, gradually altering the accepted truth until it became the only truth.

As an intellectual product, Wikipedia was simply too good to die from its wounds. It fed off the accumulation and summation of vast quantities of knowledge. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses – they all joined this digital abyss, leaving our language vulnerable to shifting definitions. As Wikipedia’s traditional market competition learned, information grows too fast to filter through layers of validation. If you can’t keep up, you die off. This is the exact same dynamic playing out between legacy media and social media.

Wikipedia’s influence over society became so acute that it suffered censorial attacks by the European Union when the commission launched Articles 11 and 13 in 2019. This caused a crisis of intellectual freedom across the world that went largely unreported by the mainstream press. In response, Wikipedia blacked out swathes of the European continent until amendments were made. Extraordinary, considering the inflexibility of the EU.

Things declined rapidly with the rise of Cultural Marxism. Wikipedia became the choking canary, wiggling its legs at the bottom of a mine shaft while a cuckoo took up residence. Its articles have since been heavily edited to bring them in line with the prison cell of social justice. Instead of recording knowledge, Wikipedia’s primary goal is to avoid causing offence, leaving the site rife with contradictions and politically correct fiction. It capitulated to these censorial demands and maintained its position as caretaker of (revised) information.

For all the power Wikipedia has, it pales in comparison to social media – a conglomerate in charge of the real-time recording of history. Forget editing the facts; they aren’t even making it to print.

With the US election over, the next information scandal will revolve around medical tyranny. When China’s Covid-19 became a Catch 22 for the global political class (who are terrified that private citizens will sue them for incompetence), discussion surrounding vaccines became intrinsically linked with the survival of those in power.

Medical advances have always created conflict between healthcare, politics and corporate – especially with the global vaccination market worth almost $US60 billion in 2020.

‘Trust the experts’ simply isn’t a good enough mantra for social media to invoke during its censorial binges when we have hard evidence that experts often make horrific mistakes. Thalidomide was available over the counter for years before it was found to cause birth defects. Despite mounting complaints in the public sphere, it was deemed safe across the medical spectrum. In the end, it killed two thousand children and left ten thousand with serious physical abnormalities. Without public pressure, it would have killed more.

Vaccines carry similar risks. While they save millions of lives, they can be wildly unpredictable in their medical infancy. It is imperative that the government maintains public choice and consumer transparency across social media platforms to ensure that alarm bells ring when something goes wrong.

Silicon Valley has inserted itself into the pandemic, no doubt due to political pressure, by announcing plans to ban users from reporting or discussing side effects related to Covid19 vaccines. They claim that these measures are in the interest of public safety, but Big Tech is not a medical institution, nor should it be allowed to silence the necessary feedback to protect its political and corporate friends.

Under their heading ‘Our Expanded Approach’, Twitter detail their intent:

Twitter has an important role to play as a place for good faith public debate and discussion around these critical public health matters. […] Using a combination of technology and human review, we will begin enforcing this updated policy on December 21, and expanding our actions during the following weeks. We will enforce this policy in close consultation with local, national and global public health authorities around the world, and will strive to be iterative and transparent in our approach. We remain focused on helping people find credible health information, verifying public health experts, and updating our policies in an iterative and transparent approach.

If anything goes wrong with a Covid-19 vaccine, don’t expect to hear about it.

Who are these public health experts allowed to dominate the market of information? Absolute authority demands intense scrutiny. Let us run one example.

The World Health Organisation is one of Twitter’s verified sources. They are a medical bureaucracy that has conducted itself appallingly during the Covid-19 health crisis. When Covid-19 emerged, the WHO helped the Chinese Communist Party suppress reports about the severity of the virus circulating inside Wuhan. It released incorrect information about Covid19’s transmission and deliberately ignored Taiwan’s dissenting medical evidence because of regional politics. The WHO then looked the other way when China bullied nations with accusations of racism if they tried to close their borders. When it became clear that a pandemic was underway, the WHO assisted China in concealing the (previously acknowledged) origin of the virus while allowing the Chinese Communist Party to avoid a mandatory independent investigation into ground zero of the pandemic.

This is the same ‘trusted’ WHO that has been caught editing medical advice to keep up with propaganda circulated on social media. Two prominent examples come to mind. The first is their flip-flopping over mandatory mask-wearing after various world leaders put their careers on the line by interfering with constitutional rights. To justify medical mandates, the ‘science’ behind mask-wearing was altered by the WHO after the political decision to enforce them had been made. Warnings printed on the boxes of these masks still contradict the WHO’s advice.

The second and most concerning manipulation of information by the WHO relates to the long-held definition of herd immunity. Our medical understanding of herd immunity has not changed since the arrival of Covid19. What has changed is the effectiveness of the vaccine in relation to the grand promises made about it by politicians who used its existence to initiate financially devastating lockdowns.

Both of these releases are by the same department at the WHO (the emphasis in red is mine for clarity):

9th June, 2020: Herd Immunity is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection. This means that even people who haven’t been infected or in whom an infection hasn’t triggered an immune response, they are protected because people around them who are immune can act as buffers between them and an infected person. The threshold for establishing herd immunity for Covid19 is not yet clear.’

13th November, 2020: ‘Herd Immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’, is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached. Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not exposing them to it. Read the Director-General’s 12 October media briefing speech for more detail.

The second statement from the WHO erased the natural phenomena of herd immunity – which remains the dominant method by which human populations overcome disease – and replaced it with an absolute mandate to vaccinate. The true definition of herd immunity survives with people who remember studying it prior to the edit and anyone in possession of medical books that cannot be so easily manipulated.

It doesn’t help that these institutions in charge of reality are headed up by some of the world’s shonkiest people.

When asking questions about why the WHO has acted inconsistently and bizarrely concerning China’s role in the pandemic, it is worth noting that China played an instrumental role in putting its Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, into power. His ascent was vocally opposed due to positions held within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) – an ethnically-based party that has been the dominant force in Ethiopian politics for nearly thirty years. Tedros served as Health Minister despite the regime being recognised as a serial offender against human rights.

In an open letter against Tedros, it was noted that inside an eight-month period, eighty thousand Ethiopians were imprisoned in gulags run by the TPLF where they were tortured for holding a different political opinion. Party officials stole billions from public and state-run projects. Dr. Abiy Ahmed, the current Prime Minister as of 2018, later admitted that the regime Tedros served under was essentially a terrorist state.

Tedros’ own actions were called into question regarding his handling of a Cholera epidemic – which he incorrectly renamed as ‘Acute Watery Diarrhoea’ even after Cholera was confirmed. A letter signed by the Amhara Professionals Union suspected this inaccuracy related to Tedros covering up a public health crisis to protect the tourist industry – an action which prevented aid organisations from intervening. The open letter further accused Tedros of actively marginalising health care treatment based on ethnicity, resulting in a disproportionate mortality rate among the Amhara people.

This is the man Silicon Valley allows to fact-check your opinion. In addition, Big Tech is heavily invested in the pharmaceutical industry and does not disclose its financial interest in the silencing of information regarding side effects that could harm its profits.

The control that these corporations exert over our access to information has gone far enough that it may never be unpicked.

We are now at the point where the facts of history are so distorted that activists can claim, without contest, that the months of Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots were entirely peaceful, then use this false claim to validate their censorious reaction to the ‘unprecedented’ Capitol Hill riots.

Fearing that their despicable actions would be covered up, I kept a sample of the direct incitement to violence propagated on Twitter by activist groups it publicly endorsed. You can view the archive here – including images of burning public buildings and captions that read: ‘this is what justice looks like’, ‘all pigs burn’ and ‘riot 2020 – burn this motherfucker down – eat the rich’.

The manipulation of truth within our civilisation is nearly impossible to believe. We already know that you can convince people of fabricated facts if you bombard them with enough marketing material from certified sources – especially if it supports their preferred world view.

The twenty-four hour news cycle that created a heightened sense of drama to pull ratings, has transformed into a full-time propaganda house. The media are over-feeding the goldfish as they swim around in stagnant water.

Why would anyone, including Silicon Valley, seek to corrupt the story of humanity?

Simply put, it is to install a political party into government who will not punish them for breaking antitrust legislation or the Communications Decency Act – both of which carry serious penalties if convicted. Big Tech corporations are free to continue making money in their lofty oligarchy while a political party has solidified its position in the absence of opposition.

In truth, politics has become the law, with information as its accomplice.

https://spectator.com.au/2021/01/welcome-to-the-age-of-the-goldfish/

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harcourtholmesii · 3 years

Text

Unintended Purpose (Part II)

Pairings: As Of Yet; Unknown

Warnings: - Swearing - Slavery (Whether Characters Realise It Or Not) - Mentions of Violence

Words: 2110

Enjoy!

The ride to breakfast was a strange one. ‘Connor’ had taken a seat in front, staring ahead and with back ramrod straight. Hank had been worried the thing had broken the moment they had entered the car, but he was relieved to see it turn its head as he switched on his music.

In the backseat, Cole was excitedly asking about what working as a police officer was like, and even if the android was about to answer, Cole was quick to ask something else. Hank watched the android with some suspicion, a little frustrated that it had not even attempted to answer Cole’s questions or humour the kid even a little. He had to keep reminding himself that this was not your standard model. Fucking thing probably didn’t understand the concept of ‘small talk’.

Hank pulled up to Chicken Feed, Cole dashing out of the car with a wave at ‘Connor’, barely waiting for Hank to stretch his legs. He turned, opening his mouth to order the android to stay behind, but decided against it when the damned thing didn’t even turn its head to acknowledge him. It reminded him of some pompous blue blood from the higher ranks in the force; some cock-sure asshole who ordered officers around from the safety of his desk.

He met Cole by the food truck, lifting him up so that he might have a proper view of the menu. Gary was a close acquaintance, always willing to shirk some dollars off the bill in return for Hank not taking him in. Not that Hank would. The Chicken Feed truck served only the best burgers in Detroit, and he wasn’t going to let the police force take it away.

With their food in greasy paper bags, Cole and Hank returned to the car. And to ‘Connor’. It confused Hank why, of all times, did the android wait until they had left to turn its head and acknowledge them. Warm, brown eyes peered at the bags in their hands, and for a moment, the LED blinked a bright yellow.

As they took a seat in the car, ‘Connor’ finally spoke.

‘Lieutenant.’ Hank nearly jumped in his seat, glaring at the android beside him. How the fuck did he know about his rank? ‘I would not recommend eating what food you have purchased. The food has been prepared in an unsanitary environment, as the owner, Gary Keyes, has a criminal record of violating hygiene regulations.’

Hank just stared.

Cole just gaped.

‘The food may not be toxic to the human body, but the calories are twice the amount recommended for a man of your age, and may cause indigestion for Cole Anderson. I understand that you have a history of minor egg allergy, suggesting that you may have passed the condition onto your son. The condiment, mayonnaise, has egg as its base ingredient, and may cause illness if either of you should ingest it.’

‘Connor’ reached across and grabbed the paper bags from Hank’s hands, the man too stunned to say anything. The android returned them just as quickly, running leftover grease from the bags between his fingers and licking it from his synthetic skin. Hank felt a little sick.

‘It appears that Gary Keyes had been drinking before-hand. He has also left traces of blood in the grease from an open wound, presumably from a cut on his hands.’ The android’s mouth snapped shut, as it tilted its head to look at Hank, almost innocently. ‘Perhaps you should arrest Gary Keyes, as he is still operating the establishment without a license.’

Silence.

The android returned to peering straight ahead, Hank just completely astounded by what he had heard. Yes, he was familiar with the conditions the Chicken Feed worked with, but he never knew so much detail. In fact, he still didn’t understand how the Hell this fucking android knew half of what he did. He shouldn’t have access to those kind of files.

Cole was suddenly pushing himself half into the front seat, babbling on at a hundred miles a minute.

‘How did you do that?! That was so cool! How did you know my dad works with the police?! Did you work with him?! Can you tell me about the criminals you busted?! Did you use a gun?! Can you do that again?! What do you know about me?! What do you know about Dad?!’

‘Cole!’

Hank felt a little guilty when Cole shut his mouth, and slowly slipped back into the backseat. Hank would apologise later, but he just wanted to get the android’s attention and work out what the fuck had just happened.

‘Hey!’ No answer.

‘Connor!’ Those eyes turned onto him. They seemed so emotionless; cold. It unnerved Hank. He didn’t trust this thing. Not even a little bit, and normally Hank’s gut was pretty good to trust. ‘What the Hell did you just do?’

‘Are you referring to what I said, lieutenant?’

‘What else?’ The android tilted its head once more, seemingly confused by the response. ‘Yeah, what you said. What was that?’

‘I simply relayed to you the details of what I scanned of the premises and the staff. It is my duty as your assisting android to aid you in what ways I can; including preventing you from causing potential harm to yourself and your son, or potential endangerment of your career.’

Hank couldn’t believe this. This fucking robot thought that a couple of burgers were practically poison and that ignoring this one man was going to get him fired from his job? That was rather insulting. Hank may no longer have been as popular or as young as he used to be; he had gotten a bit lazy as to who he would bother to bring in, but that didn’t mean he was about to get fired over something minor.

‘Do you scan everyone you see?’

‘Of course. If there is the potential that someone is a threat to you or your son, lieutenant, I must be ready to act. If I fail to search for threats and you are placed into danger, I will have failed my purpose, once again.’

Hank had forgotten about that. If the thing was human, he wouldn’t have been surprised if failure scared it. A human failing once was not often the end of the world. Normally it meant something minor, such as answering a question on a test incorrectly, or mistaking how many steps in an apartment stairwell, causing them to trip. But for an android, failure often meant deactivation, and being torn down for parts.

‘Can you scan me?’ Cole asked, peering up at ‘Connor’.

‘I already have. If you wish me to relay to you what data I found; you are nursing a slight limp in your left leg. Still recovering from a minor shock and minding what pain is there. Perhaps you tripped. Your hands have traces of isopropyl alcohol, and minor stains to your fingernails would suggest you were using a colouring book, specifically, a paper-back book. Fine hairs on your clothes, primarily white, bare the DNA samples of a St Bernard, and from the wear on your trousers, one that is small and excitable. A puppy.’

Holy shit.

‘I am correct?’ It sounded more like a statement than a question, but Hank nodded slowly all the same. Instead of bursting into another round of uncontrollable questions, Cole simply sat there, mouth agape as Hank pulled off the curb.

The drive was a slow one, almost drawn out by the silence in the vehicle. Hank really wasn’t sure what to think. On the one hand, this android was far more advanced than the ones that worked at the precinct; able to gather such in-depth information with a single glance. It was beyond impressive, and Hank would have given most anything to have that power.

On the other hand, he was pissed. The android hadn’t spoken a word since he introduced himself and then he was suddenly telling Hank that he was putting his son in danger?! Well, whilst it had not been specifically stated, it seemed implied. Could androids even imply things? Either way, Hank wasn’t sure how he felt about an android being able to ‘scan’ Cole or himself.

When they finally pulled onto Michigan Drive and then up the driveway, Cole rushed out of the car and practically pulled Connor out with him. Silence broken, he started babbling like mad about how ‘mom’s gonna love you’. Hank doubted it.

Entering into the house, Hank was thankful for the smell of crispy bacon and the sweeter scent of pancakes. He hurriedly tossed out the paper bags full of burgers, and let Cole run over to the kitchen to greet Renee. Cole practically dragged her out by the hem of her skirt, until she was facing Hank. And ‘Connor’.

‘H-Hank…’ Oh, fuck. He knew that tone. It was one of some disappointment. ‘W-What’s this?’ She crossed her arms, indignant at the sight of their new android. Before Hank could answer, ‘Connor’ had stepped forward.

‘Renee Anderson née Tuppens. I’m the RK800 android as made by CyberLife. Intended purpose; a failure. New purpose; home assistance. May my work be satisfactory to you.’

One dark brow arched, red lips pursing as she all but glared at ‘Connor’. Her lips stretched to accommodate a strained smile as she gestured Cole to the kitchen table and then took a step forward, around ‘Connor’ and over to Hank.

‘It’s ‘intended purpose’? And what exactly was that?’ Hank should have known she would latch onto that. It was why he had hoped to speak first. Perhaps, knowing from him that the android was once a police detective, she would have considered it another layer of protection, or some shit. But then the idiot bucket of bolts had to open its mouth.

‘It… It was a police android.’

‘A police detective; a prototype for the new RK900 models due for release in December.’

‘Oh?’ Renee turned her angered gaze onto ‘Connor’, and Hank cringed for him. ‘And, how exactly did you fail your original purpose?’

Hank, admittedly, was just as curious. But he didn’t want it to become another argument between himself and Renee. The last thing he wanted was for her to stress for Cole’s safety because the android had failed some multiple choice quiz.

Both pairs of eyes on ‘Connor’ took notice of how the LED ring lit up almost immediately neon yellow, and then briefly flashed red. Hank knew that was never a good sign. He raised one hand to rest it on Renee’s arm as if to pull her behind him. Of course, she just shrugged it off, too pissed to care.

Sumo, though excited to greet them at first, had slunk away, and was hiding beneath the kitchen table and Cole’s dangling feet. Cole was watching the confrontation, mouth half stuffed with pancakes looking between the three of them.

‘How did you fail your original programming?’ Hank asked, resting one hand over his jacket where his holster would have been.

A moment of silence.

‘It was my first mission; I was supposed to capture a deviant android for questioning and eventual deactivation.’ Hank knew about deviants; very few people didn’t. Androids that ‘broke the bonds of their masters’, or just ‘completely snapped’. Most deviants turned violent, triggered by something that would be traumatic for a human, and sometimes killed their owners.

‘I found them. However, I made a mistake when I confronted them.’ Deviants were often unpredictable, and had the power to turn the tables of a confrontation or the ability to blend in once the LED was removed. Perhaps, an android that was not turned deviant would struggle to predict most courses of action, even one as advanced as ‘Connor’.

‘There had been a human officer that was injured in the crossfire. Though the deviants were incapacitated and eventually destroyed, it was determined that it was a miscalculation on my part.’ Hank didn’t like where this was going. Suddenly, Renee was clinging tightly to his arm, when before she had been so willing to ignore it.

‘I had shot him in the shoulder. He was in critical condition when they shut me down to be wiped of my programming.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘I do not know if I killed him. But I did cause him damage, and as an android, I was fortunate not to be scrapped immediately.’

The LED was bright red.

‘Thank you for allowing me into your home.’ By the way Renee’s fingers tightened, and how her nails dug into his skin even through the jacket, Hank knew he had fucked up.

#DBH #Detroit: Become Human #RK800 #RK800 Connor #Hank Anderson #Cole Anderson #Fanfic #Fanfiction #HarcourtHolmesII

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charmmycolour · 4 years

Text

Lilo & Stitch: Kweltikwanians and Plorgonarians

Lilo & Stitch dedicates plenty of time to expose and explain everything that is known about Jumba’s experiments, especially 626. However, lovers of extended lore may want to know more about Jumba himself or the other alien on the franchise, Pleakley.

Unfortunately, there’s a severe lack of information about their species available to read at once. And fortunately, here I am! I watched the four movies and all the series and collected all the facts and interesting bits I could find about them. It’s possible other things had escaped me, and in that case, please let me know! The more information we have, the better.

This only includes things that are stated, mentioned or implied in canon, which means you can’t find my personal headcanons here (does anyone want to hear that?). Between brackets and in bold you have where every one of these references had been found.

Ready?

Kweltikwanians

Jumba’s home planet is known as Kweltikwan, also spelled Quelte Quan or Kweltiquan (The Asteroid). His species is either referred as Kweltikwanian or simply Kweltikwan and was revealed on promotional material and official descriptions before the first movie’s release.

Tantalog, the fictional language the experiments talk fluidly, is presumedly the native tongue of Kweltikwan and Jumba (Lilo & Stitch).

Kweltikwanians are most likely a binary species with males and females, according to the existence of Jumba’s ex-wife (Spooky) and a photo of a female-looking Kweltikwanian on the wall of Jumba’s cell (Lilo & Stitch). Their sexual dimorphism seems to be limited to females having bigger breast and being slightly more bluish than purple.

Two more woman can be seen in the cell, but the lack of details makes difficult to determine if they are intended to be Kweltikwanians. If they were, it would confirm it’s possible for them to have sharper teeth (and presumably, it would be considered a desired trait) and pale skin without markings (Lilo & Stitch).

Females having breast suggest newborns may need be nursed for a while before being able to absorb their own nutrients (Spooky). If that was the case, females may have nipples.

Male Kweltikwanians don’t have nipples (Lilo & Stitch: The Series) (Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Have a Glitch).

Kweltikwanians don’t have visible belly buttons (Lilo & Stitch).

Kweltikwanians have four teeth in total. The most notorious are two big rounded fangs leaning towards each end of the bottom of the mouth, usually the only ones visible. Two smaller but similar ones can be seen at the top, leaning slightly more at the center (Lilo & Stitch).

However, the Series Timeline added two more at the bottom, a lot smaller and a little more sharper, that can be found between the larger fangs, being the more centric of all the three sets (Stitch! The Movie). As these are very small and are usually not visible anyway, it can be explained that they were simply hidden.

Baby Kweltikwanians already have the larger fangs but lack the other sets (Babyfier).

The reason it’s hard to see their teeth it’s because Kweltikwanians have a blue membrane that seems to cover the inside of their mouth in front of the teeth (Lilo & Stitch). It’s unknow what the function of such membrane is, but it could be related to his aquatic capabilities.

Kweltikwanians tongue is blue, suggesting their blood is probably that color too (Lilo & Stitch).

Their strong accent, resembling a Russian one to humans, can also be the result of them lacking teeth for proper pronunciation and having a completely different native tongue (Lilo & Stitch) (Spooky).

On their planet, Kweltikwanians absorb most of their nutrients directly through the skin, and they need to eat rarely or not at all (The Asteroid). As Jumba is unable to do so on Earth and presumably on Turo, as he’s seen eating on his old lab (Frenchfry), it seems they need a specific atmosphere first to be able to absorb the nutrients.

Despite having a functional digestive system that allows them to eat, it seems Kweltikwanians don’t find the sensation pleasing at all (The Asteroid). Most likely, it’s due their lack of proper teeth, which would make chewing uncomfortable.

Kweltikwanians are able to either breath underwater or hold their breath for extended periods of time, as Jumba is seen diving without the help of a breathing apparatus, even with his mouth full open (Lilo & Stitch). It’s possible they can hold reserves of air somewhere on their body or have some organ that allows them to filter the oxygen from the water.

Kweltikwanians also have at least the potential to be quite amazing swimmers, as Jumba doesn’t need any equipment to dive and still moves underwater with much more precision that any of the other characters, even swimming inside a wave and jumping outside of it at the exact point he intended (Lilo & Stitch).

It quite compensates their movements on ground, where they are bulky, quite slow and prone to accidentally knock over things due their size (Lilo & Stitch).

However, that makes their body extremely durable. Kweltikwanians can withstand small plasma explosions, being hit with objects much larger and heavier than themselves and can hold a battle against stronger contestants (Lilo & Stitch).

That does not make them less skillful and precise about their movements. They think fast and are rarely clumsy (Stitch! The Movie) (Angel) (Heckler) (Swirly). Jumba is able to handle delicate equipment and chemicals despite his size, which suggest his species may have special abilities to crafting and tinkering (and may explain why Jumba doesn’t boost his ability to create and focus only on his intellect).

Kweltitwanian’s eyes also seem to suggest they are naturally good at mechanics. They have extremely good deep perception, more color receptors, and can focus on several things at once (Swapper). However, that also means they cannot concentrate well on a single object, which probably leads to a lot of multitasking. Every one of their eyes can blink independently. The two back eyes and the two front ones can depict different emotions and look at different places; but they can also be separate by side (two right ones and two left ones together) (Lilo & Stitch). In some rare occasions, it seems they can even use two opposite eyes for the same action (like winking), suggesting the four of them function separately and Kweltikwanians only use them together because it’s more comfortable.

When young, Kweltikwanians have a fluffy down hair on the same color that the markings on their skin (Babyfier). The nature of this seems to be temporary akin to baby birds, as they will develop normal hair later in life (Clip) (Spooky). Straight, curly and afro are possible, and so far, raven black and blonde had been observed.

Kweltikwanians hair seems to be able to grow really fast based on their self-esteem, if Jumba sudden hair grown is natural for them. However, it’s unknown if it was prompted by external causes, as he is seen earlier trying ways to get his hair back (Clip).

Being bald is perceived as negative on Kweltikwanian, based on Jumba’s reaction to his own lack of hair (Clip).

Kweltikwanians are very strong, as even someone like Jumba who is presented to not have any interest in working out can lift extremely heavy things (Lilo & Stitch) (Yin and Yang) (Melty) (Slushy).

On the other hand, they are not agile at all. Jumba had been seen able to run decent distances without panting, albeit slower than Lilo (627) (Spooky) (Remmy); but he had not jumped once, not even on a basketball game (Slugger). If Kweltikwanians cannot jump or Jumba is just too lazy for it, it’s up to the viewer.

As Jumba is almost always wearing high boots, it’s not seen often, but Kweltikwanians have three big, rounded toenails in each feet (Stitch! The Movie).

Jumba usually stand with his legs facing inwards (Lilo & Stitch). It’s unknow if it has something to do on how their hips are bended or he just have a bad posture.

In primitive stages of their development, Kweltikwanians used to have more sharper teeth that protrude from the mouth, the body covered in fur, their ears pointed upwards and much bigger feet and toenails. Their acted akin to gorillas (Retro).

In Kweltikwan, if a sports team loses a game, their member become slaves to the winning team (Slugger).

Kweltikwanians have concept of both weddings and divorces, and they seem to work the same way human ones do (Spooky) (Swapper).

They also have concept for parades and seem to organize them for notorious individuals (The Asteroid).

Jumba regards Kweltikwanian children as chaotic, destructive, and hard to control (Babyfier).

Jumba tries once to cook a traditional meal from his planet, which resembles bread and meatballs. Ironically, it’s extremely hard, but that’s probably because Jumba is stated to be quite a terrible cook (The Asteroid).

Kweltikwan doesn’t have any equivalent to mud (Link).

Jumba is familiar with snow, which suggest it’s at least a possible phenomena on Kweltikwan (Slushy).

Plorgonarians

Pleakley’s home planet is known as Plorgonar and his species is referred as Plorgonarians (Mr. Stenchy).

The planet resembles a Plorgonarian’s head. It seems to be orbiting a bigger planet (Mr. Stenchy).

Their language is know as Ploginar. It’s only known “Wendy” means “Brave Warrior” (Fibber), and “Smyzzyx” means “beat their pants off!” (Slugger).

Plorgonarians are a sex binary species with males and females (Mr. Stenchy) (Fibber). Sexual dimorphism is noticeable: males are completely or almost bald, while females have hair on their head. Females have a more accentuated waist and a slightly more pronounced chest curve. Interestingly, none of the young female Plorgonarians had ever been show having any breast, but Mrs. Pleakley appears to have saggy breast (Fibber). It may be a mere effect from the clothes or a trait that only develops on elderly females.

They lack skeletal system completely; their body hold together through nerves and muscles instead (Poxy).

That make Plorgonarians extremely fast, flexible, and agile (Lilo & Stitch) (Slugger) (Shoe). However, they are also pretty weak, albeit stronger than they may seem at first glance (Link) (Yaarp).

Despite their apparent delicate body, even a weak individual like Pleakley can withstand quite a few rough situations without being badly harmed, like being squished, hit, attacked by animals, or falling from great heights (Lilo & Stitch) (Poxy) (627). This durability is probably result of their lack of bones.

Pleakley, who is already shorter than an average human, is stated to be tall for his species (Fibber).

Something on Plorgonarian’s skin seems to be extremely attractive to mosquitoes, as Pleakley is attacked viciously by them (Lilo & Stitch) (Bugsy).

Plorgonarians doesn’t have belly button (Stitch! The Movie) or nipples (Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Have a Glitch).

Their brain seems to be quite small, smaller than their eye (Poxy). However, it may be simply constructed different that a human one, the part show being only a fraction of the cerebral area.

Plorgonarian’s vision is limited and they can’t focus on more than one thing at once because of their single eye (Swapper). However, that also gives them great ability to discern details (Skip).

The antenna on their head is called Plorgonarian quart flanch, and acts both as olfactory and auditory organ (Mr. Stenchy) (Yaarp). Pleakley states that the flanch is capable of reading "several strata of subspace ether transmissions”. It seems Plorgonarians can also have two flaches instead of one (Mr. Stenchy). Their species seems to find appealing odors that are generally considered horrible (Mr. Stenchy).

The flanch goes orange with age, at least on males, and it’s considered unattractive (Spike). Pleakley dyes his, with implies it’s a common practice to avoid the effects of age, albeit embarrassing by his own admission.

However, their respiratory system is not connected to their antenna, but their mouth, as Pleakley have to use a breathing apparatus on it while diving (Lilo & Stitch).

Once, after being held captive for about 2 hours, Pleakley is seen with bushy eyebrows and a long gray beard. However, due his dramatic nature, he probably was using wigs to create the effect (Checkers).

Plorgonarians don’t have a proper jaw lock, so they can unhinge it completely (Bugsy).

Not only have Plorgonarians two tongues, but also two uvulas (Mrs. Hasagawa’s Cats). The purple color suggests their blood is probably also purplish.

Pleakley have upper teeth (Phantasmo) (Mr. Hasagawa’s Cats) and other Plorgonarians had been observed with teeth too (Fibber). However, it’s difficult to determine how many teeth does they have, as they almost always hidden under the lips. As they have no problems chewing, it’s very possible they have a complete denture that it’s simple too short to be visible above the lips.

They use clothes that enhance their shoulders, implying it’s a desirable trait on Plorgonar (Fibber) (Heckler) (Houdini).

Plorgonarians have two hearts, one next to the other (Poxy).

When Lilo touches her chest and says “love come from here”, Pleakley states that, on his case, it would be around one of his tighs (Snafu). The dialog references the heart, but as Pleakley had mention several times before his hearts are located on his chest (and it had been seen on Poxy); he probably got it confused with another organ.

In primitive stages of development, Plorgonarians were more akin to big amphibians with more wilder appearance, including bigger teeth and a larger antenna. Is revealed that their third foot was once a tail that heavily resembles a fish fin, suggesting that Plorgonarians might had been aquatic (Retro).

Plorgonarians also seem to be rather homophobic, as Jumba was forced to pretend to be a woman to pose as Pleakley’s fiancée to meet his family expectations. However, they seem to be completely fine with other species altogether (Fibber).

They value appearances and good reputation, as Pleakley states that when your family choose a partner for you, you must accept to preserve their good name. Not that only means that arranged weddings are extremely common in Plorgonar (if not the only type at all), but that parents are perceived as an authority figure you shall not disobey (Fibber).

Plorgonarians live on houses that resemble their heads. Their neighbors seem to be very symmetrical and organized in similar fashion that 50s style houses (Mr. Stenchy).

Instead, their fashion has a distinct 80s feeling with pads, extravagant attires and colorful palettes (Fibber) (Mr. Stenchy).

Plorgonar have a sport called Priznolaprack that it’s nearly identical to basketball (Slugger).

Plorgonarians have gender roles similar to western humans, and they expect certain clothes, behavior and positions depending on their gender (Fibber).

Pleakley doesn’t understand the concept of physical money, which suggest currency in Plorgonar, if they use any, uses some kind of intangible form (Stitch! The Movie). However, Pixley being more successful based on her career and material possession also suggest they do, in fact, have some kind of transaction system (Fibber).

Pleakley is completely oblivious to the concept of credit cards, debt and owing money, which means these are things not used in Plorgonar (Yapper).

Based on Pleakley’s being strict on rules, yet having no problems taking things from others and even stealing, it can be deduced Plorgonar have a very loose sense of property (Lilo & Stitch) (Stitch! The Movie) (Leroy & Stitch).

Plorgonar doesn’t have an equivalent to mud (Link).

Pleakley doesn’t recognizes snow, meaning it doesn’t snow in Plorgonar (Slushy).

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onegirllis · 4 years

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Since Life is Strange 2 is finally fully released, I let myself to write a probably not-so-short review of the complete season. The momentum for such a summary is already gone I presume but it took me a moment to finally digest and find the proper words to describe what I think and feel about this production. Following the game from the start, I patiently waited to look at the story as a whole, hoping to find an explanation for tons of burning questions and satisfying outcomes to my choices and decisions. Unfortunately, most of those didn’t happen, therefore I present you with a piece that is not very favorable towards the newest Dontnod production, harsh in places but honest. Please, do not read if you really enjoyed the story of the two brothers and find it meaningful and important, not burdened with any fallacy. Life is way too short to read reviews that just leave you frustrated.

Remember the scene in Life is Strange season one (I still hate the fact that I have to separate different instances of the franchise calling them seasons), when Max summoned by an enormous plasma TV in Victoria’s room fantasizes about watching “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” on it? “I like this movie, I don’t care what everybody says,” getting protective about her preferences, the little freckle leaves the room soon after, never gifting us with any explanation as to why she indeed values this animation so much or why it was an important statement. It was never brought back again, it will never matter, becoming simply a meme material or a trigger for snarky comments from Twitch streamers and YouTubers. I watched the said movie a long time ago, recalling only two things about it: the breathtaking animation of hair at the beginning and the fact that the main male character looked like Ben Affleck. The rest of the story fell into obscurity before the end credits hit the screen. I reached for this title only because I was interested in anything video games related, and the name of the popular franchise was more than enough.

The same thing goes for Life is Strange 2.

Just like the mentioned FF: The Spirits Within, the second instance of the beloved series is more of an animation than an interactive experience. Recently, plenty of video games, overwhelmed by finally reachable technology of smooth mocaps, facial expressions, hyper-realistic locations, and scanned people as characters, turned into an alley dedicated to B-class movies. From adventures by David Cage to Death Stranding, video games started to flip their working template, replacing the actual action with long animations, not the other way around. With scattered gameplay, sometimes forced as if the developers reminded themselves at the last minute that this product is supposed to be interactive, they raise an eyebrow at best, and boil your blood with the lack of creativity at its worst. Life Is Strange 2 follows this trend with astonishing enthusiasm and to the core. Even regarding this particular genre that’s supposed to focus on narrative, it barely stands as a walking simulator becoming a hardly watchable TV series — a road trip story where walking is limited.

Well, shit.

The gameplay in Life is Strange 2 is nonexistent. To be frank, riveting action-packed sequences were never a trademark of the series, but a blatant lack of any didn’t make this experience any better. With the first one, the rewind power allowed the player to actually be part of the narrative. The second, where Sean just serves as a witness to his brother’s actions, plays more like a full motion picture. An enormous amount of un-skippable cut-scenes change LIS2 into a tedious, dragging journey straight from the worst selection of buy 1 get 3 free Z-class movies. The music and the mastery in creating an atmosphere that rose Dontnod to international fame due to widespread acclaim can’t save those sequences either. It almost feels like their own creation so enchanted the development team that they ignored all the red flags and clumsy solutions to immerse in the world themselves, treating the actual player as a lesser evil, throwing them a bone just to claim it is a video game format. To no surprise, most of the items the player interacts with don’t matter at all and don’t serve any purpose either to foreshadow an upcoming outcome, present exposition to the world, or be in any way helpful.

The lack of superpower is not an issue here though. Before the Storm met the expectations with way more grace, proving that a story doesn’t need a lot of strange in life to grip and hold its audience for hours. Watching a superhero growing up is an interesting premise, but a hell of a challenge to execute and execute well. Some stories like “Little Man Tate” translate to a brilliant film, but don’t necessarily work as games, after the planning stage or first Game Design Document. The references regarding the first game also remain scattered and uneven, tossed on the pile with a heap of faith that devoted fans would notice, but without a purpose in mind.

Even if I sound harsh, I do believe that Dontnod wanted to deliver the best story possible, but Life is Strange 2 feels even too big to absorb or fill with details. Captain Spirit, not necessarily my cup of tea either, was in my opinion way more coherent, as the creative team felt more comfortable with such a small scope of a product. Everything falls into place after careful exploration, makes more sense with every minute. The mystery about the mother, an alumnus of Blackwell Academy, and an admirer of Jefferson’s work is a solid premise that didn’t raise expectations up the roof nor overpromise. The mystery of yet another mother, this time Life is Strange 2, played for over 3 and a half episodes, falls flat in comparison and ends in the disappointing question “that’s it?”

No, that’s not it. There’s more to it.

Life is Strange 1 was mocked as Tumblr: The Game, while the second instance could easily pass as Twitter: The Animated Series. The writers didn’t challenge themselves or the audience to answer the question of why certain people voted for Donald Trump, or why they would do it yet again. The only reason presented in the story is quite simplistic and obvious – because they are evil, deplorable people, not worth listening to. They are the worst. We are better. Issues of being harangued by foreigners about domestic policies and troubles of your own country are a brewing can of worms I wouldn’t like to touch at the moment. Still, this particular stance, which serves as painful generalization that every single republican voter in the US is foul, can be forged only by someone who either lives in a bubble or doesn’t live here at all. Simply because we all have parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, or co-workers who decided to elect the actual prescient to power. Some of them are racists, disgusting, and horrible personas, and some just belong to the scared of change, confused and manipulated crowd that don’t accept the fast-paced transformation nor the need for a revolution. We coexist together, arguing and fighting, especially during holiday breaks, but even if it costs me a headache, I wouldn’t call them evil. Millions of people voted for Trump, but only a few wouldn’t spit on a swastika if confronted with the Nazi banner.

It’s even more painful when you understand what kind of message was sewed into the stitches of a shattered story. There was no ill will, or at least I don’t think so, but an honest, genuine need to express the concern about modern America. Unfortunately, when executed, this concern changed into another yell or discourse by the family table during an argument with your racist uncle. An open discussion in a game community that unifies both left and right supporters equally by their love for this form of entertainment would be appreciated by many, just like after playing LIS1, a handful of people changed their views on LGBT issues.

Instead of a lesson that had to be experienced, we got a lecture about morality and tolerance, contradicting itself constantly and nonchalantly following the well-known tropes NOT in a sarcastic and admirable way known from Saturday Night Live, but in a lazy and sometimes even clumsy substitute of a dramatic format. The political landscape painted in LIS2 is caricatural, unforgiving, harsh like a deserted wasteland with a few peaceful oases to stop at, but shies over its own existence, not willing to thoroughly discuss the dreadful weather. Guess what? The sand won’t change into greener pastures only because you close your eyes, putting your imagination to work. Donald Trump might not be re-elected for a second term, but his supporters will stay in place, even more conflicted by the other side. It’s a brave decision to deliver such a punitive story but such a cowardice to break its pillars, hoping that the general public wouldn’t notice or get distracted when things get too heated up.

The lack of subtlety forced scene by scene is even more polarizing. There is no peaceful dialogue with the other side as if it couldn’t exist in this world. There is no change of heart or a path to do so. Sometimes it feels like the only message that LIS2 writers wanted to provide was to find your own, peaceful and liberal hermitage, either among hipsters in the Redwood forest, driving a car that your ‘family with money but no soul’ had bought you or move to a trailer park filled with artistic souls in Nowhere, Arizona. Any contact with the outside world can hurt you and your feelings. Drop off the grid or die. The end.

No discussion.

The efforts of trying to understand the motivation behind even the most dreadful character of the first game, got lost in preparation for the second. LIS2 builds a higher wall between two political sides, than any other game released after Trump became the president of the United States and desperately wants to keep it erected, ignoring the crumbling foundations of such. A proverbial river you shall not cross nor build bridges over since the only outcome would end up in death, destruction, or you and your young brother getting hurt.

I’m familiar with the discussion about LIS2, especially with a shouting match that if you do not like this instance, you are therefore a racist pig, a disgusting person without a soul, conscience, or working brain that doesn’t understand the situation and never will. On the contrary. In my humble opinion, we deserve a better discussion, better stories, better representation, not sticking to whatever is presented because it’s brave enough or was never approached before. I disagree with the stance that a Latino, bisexual main character is enough to close your eyes, omitting all problems that this title tries to shun, riding its high horse. No. Those topics are way too crucial to just walk past, setting for less with your head down, thanking for the game industry to take notice. You the player deserve better, even if you don’t struggle with specific issues on a daily basis. And after playing LIS2, you may feel so good about yourself, stating that an effort was made but it it wasn’t made enough.

I expected more. I wanted Dontnod to do more, and frankly, I feel silly putting so much faith in them and supporting their efforts. Armed with resources provided by Square Enix, I’m sure they are aware of the fact that most of their audience is quite young and wouldn’t mind a lesson or message about what to do amidst troubled times. Well, Dontnod doesn’t have any but warns you that voicing your opinion or being different may end up in disaster. Outraged, they just yell at the news, angry about what our reality has changed into, but nothing comes out of it. It’s all right, though. Our parents do the same thing. We started to do the same thing, but instead of complaining to family members, we have Twitter.

While Life is Strange 2 tries really hard to come across as a realistic and raw portrait of the US at the end of the decade, they didn’t have enough courage to show realistic obstacles two runaways would be faced with. The brothers do meet a handful of bigots and racists, but the rest of the fellow travelers help them beyond understanding or hidden agenda. Sean and Daniel never really struggle to find a place to stay or a warm meal, usually complaining on or off the screen just before the game mercifully provides them with a solution. There’s no trap they can fall into, no ambiguous characters that promise one thing and then demand something in return. It’s very honorable for Brody to pay for a place to stay, but if an adult man gave young kids a key to a motel room, I would consider a way more sinister outcome. It’s not even about Brody himself, since good people exist, just like the racist ones, but the boys not even once are put in a realistic, scary situation created by a supposed ally. If somebody is helpful, this person is always decent, offering them a job, a ride, some food or money. The bad people wear red hats and yell racist slurs. America by Dontnod is simple to navigate but raw and painful when not necessary and fairy-tale-like when it could teach an actual lesson. Running away from home is not so hazardous because of Trump supporters but because you can end up dead in a ravine, being robbed and raped. It’s not the first and surely not the last time when the developers feared to touch any topic of sexual abuse with a ten-foot pole, but then the journey plays more like a vacation than a desperate escape. Sean gets beaten-up a few times, loses his eye due to a brawl, but it doesn’t affect him at all in the long run. When Daniel finally gets kidnapped, it’s not an Epstein-like circle, dealing with human trafficking, but a religious cult that worships him. The first option, even if it feels like a stretch, is unfortunately way more realistic than the latter.

Preaching to the choir is not the biggest sin this game commits though. That brings me to the most discussed theme of the production, which is education.

With all due respect to the developers, writers, and designers, Life is Strange 2 in this aspect falls flat as a discovery of a Sunday father, who is responsible for taking his kid to the zoo and struggles to find any common ground with his offspring, either trying to crack jokes about famous pop-culture phenomena or talk about food discussing their next favorite meal. The said father is trying his best though, perfectly aware that it’s his only chance to teach his son a thing or two, but doesn’t know exactly where to start, torn apart between buying more ice cream and throwing a fit about a stain on the carpet. The father doesn’t even like kids that much and can’t translate his lessons into an engaging play that would be memorized forever, rolling his eyes and counting the days to his kid’s graduation so they could share a beer or two and talk about adult things. Now, any effort to explain how the world works seems to be in vain, therefore a waste of his precious time. Leaving the emotional approach aside, the father doesn’t have to cuddle with his kid when he’s scared, bullied, traumatized or asks millions of questions about the future or present, because the full-time mother is waiting at home willing to replace him in this duty. The mother, knowing that her ex-partner sucks big time at talking about feelings, will be the one who will hold the kid, patiently explaining that the boogieman does not exist, playing pirates, or stay late at night to distract his sorrows. The kid will never discuss his fears with his dad though, trying so hard to impress his male parent. He will never know, and it’s fine. The mother is going to do the job while he can deliver a once a week entertainment along with the lines of ultimate wisdom that most likely will be forgotten anyway.

This is not raising a kid, it’s nursing them like a fragile plant in a flowerpot, focusing on water, sun, and fertilizer, but discarding the emotional background, hoping that somebody else would take care of such issues if things go south.

Sean can’t raise his brother well, simply because he is immature and will stay immature for the rest of the game. There is no moment when he truly goes through a transformation changing from a boy to a man, a fully grown-up adult who takes responsibility for his actions and makes sacrifices for the sake of the greater good. No, surrendering in a fight in the church doesn’t serve as one, neither does the first sexual experience. He doesn’t wonder even once if the hastily constructed plan is benefiting Daniel, forcing it to the last minutes of the game, taking the separation as the worst thing that could happen. There’s no spark of a tragedy like in “The Road” when a father gives up his son to strangers for the sake of saving him. Sean doesn’t care, presenting no character development across the board, merely pushing forward. If there are doubts, they disappear in the blink of an eye when the next cut-scene takes place.

I understand that such a young lad as Sean wouldn’t know how to raise a kid, especially if having no model to rely on. However, a part of growing pains is developing the awareness that we know way less than we assumed. That said, Sean Diaz is always assuming he is right, not asking for advice regarding Daniel even once. Apparently, it’s not something that he’s interested in or ever will be. If Life is Strange 2 wants to pass as a coming of age story, it falls on its face before it even starts.

Moreover, locked in the auto-driven plot, Sean cannot grow up and gain a new perspective; otherwise, the story wouldn’t reach its big, explosion-packed finale of crossing the border. His desperate efforts of influencing his brother usually converge to order him around, feed him with half-truths or simply leave him in the dark when convenient. I didn’t see any difference or change in Sean’s approach from episode one when he scolded his brother, annoyed for his party plans being interrupted, and in episode three, when he reacts similarly, for the sake of spending time alone with the chosen love interest. There’s no deep thought, no wonder about his own wrongdoings expressed to his brother, no faults admitted, no fallacies explained, with one life-threating situation after another. From an illegal weed growing farm, to destroying police stations, Sean just follows the road, paved by the writers, oblivious to the harm done to his younger sibling, as if Daniel simply forgets the morally gray choices, growing his moral spine entirely on performing chores. Washing the dishes and peeling potatoes does not make us better people but understanding a perspective so different than our own does. Thanks to Sean, Daniel expands his world, but it’s a very one-sided perspective, focusing on always praised, hippie-style liberties, and disregarding every option that requires any code of conduct, as represented by the grandparents. While the older brother forces the younger one to keep up with the designed tasks, he never discusses the issues that really matter. In episode 3, the youngster gets involved in a heist, a robbery, but after it fails, costing Sean his eye and the possible death of some of their companions, this is never mentioned. Mexico, a plan that is hardly a plan at all, is supposed to be an answer to all the questions and doubts. El Dorado of knowledge.

This is not how you raise a dog, not to mention a child.

There is no emotional bond, no special ties between the brothers, except a few problematic moments that play mostly on simple connection forged by blood, not by circumstances. Sean worries about Daniel because he’s his brother, but the player starts to wonder quite quickly why and what for. Reminiscing about old times gets nailed down to a few lines about the comforts and amenities of a life long gone. The tough topics, such as grieving after personally witnessing their father’s death, are mentioned scarcely and without much emphasis, as if serving only as a reminder to the player, but not a poignant struggle. Same goes with the dog, their friends mutilated at the end of the weed farm chapter, Chris (aka captain spirit) who is mentioned just before the end credits of the second episode, and tons of others. On top of it, the scattered and not so often dialogue lines about putting people in danger refer only to the good folk, siding with the brothers, not to humankind in general. Killing a police officer or knocking down a gas station owner are just natural ways of how things work in America, honorable deeds since it’s apparently perfectly fine for a kid to attempt a homicide if people are mean.

What a brave story.

Chloe Price had been suffering for five years after William, her beloved father, died in a car crash. For Sean and Daniel, there is no grief to experience, but a memory to share with a plan to erect a monument in the future. Esteban Diaz is a plot device, a symbol of inequality, but not a family member. Even a dream sequence with his guest appearance lacks the impact of the subconscious conversations we’ve seen in Before the Storm. It just simply doesn’t matter.

I can’t believe I have to say this but the relatable part about LIS1 wasn’t the tornado, just like in LIS2 crossing the border is its weakest point, but it’s those small moments, gestures, quick smiles in passing, the atmosphere and a breath of fresh air when a line, sometimes silly, got dropped. In the most recent story, there is not a single line worth quoting, memorizing, or discussing. And please, don’t bring up “awesome possum” again. It’s literally taken from The Lego Movie song.

The brothers, just like Thelma and Louise, decide to leave everything behind, throwing away the life as they knew it and forging their own future despite all odds. Although, when the two desperate women drive off the cliff committing suicide, chased by the armed forces, there is nothing to explain as the audience fully understands their reasoning. Their will of life was strong, but the path they followed was too steep to return. Without any help or support, confronted with brutal honesty and the world’s cruelty around them, it is the best possible solution. The story of the two brothers, even if it tries to echo the iconic movie, couldn’t be more different. Despite resources at their disposal, family members that do care about their wellbeing, the whole community rising in protest in their hometown, they risk everything for the sake of getting back to the land they don’t even know. Their Mexican heritage is also mentioned just as an exposition, and, as we learn in the very last episode, just before the ending that Daniel doesn’t speak Spanish. So why do the stubborn Diaz brothers despite all odds travel to Mexico? Because.

Canada was too close, I guess.

Last but not least, let’s talk about sex, because why the hell not. A lot of fans or admirers of the previous instances howled across all social media about how much they miss Max and Chloe. I don’t really think it’s the case, but those two girls symbolize something that LIS2 has a tremendous problem with. There’s no emotional connection between the characters the brothers meet along the way, especially the ones that really should matter. Even the love interests feel more like nagging choices than anything else, an experiment during a camping trip, not something that would last or could be fantasized about. Instead of nerve-wracking decisions such as if you’re supposed to kiss Rachel, hold her hand, or the ecstatic discovery (for PriceFielders, but it was ecstatic, right?) that Chloe changed her phone’s background, we are instead presented with a lineup of sexual experiences, that maybe trail-blaze the road when it comes to topics tackled by a video game, but fall into obscurity as an emotional construction. There is no build-up between Sean and Finn as everything develops to a kiss in one conversation, and Cassidy has fewer lines than Victoria Chase before she invites Sean to her tent. We watch it as we watched it before, trying to get attached, feel something, but the only thing we remember was how much it touched us years ago when we played a different game but with a similar title. The sex scene, relatable or not, is stripped from the emotional intimacy and is as sensitively challenging as a dog being killed.

Character development doesn’t move an inch even if Sean, a surrogate father to his brother, lost his virginity to an older girl. There’s no single thought in his head that he might conceive his own offspring during this short but probably memorable experience. There’s not a single line except for the satisfaction of some female parts finally discovered. Oh, dashing explorer, will you ever learn?

It’s sad. I did want to like this game and gave it plenty of chances like no other titles ever. I’ve made excuses for the poor execution, technical problems, with the whiny voice acting that was driving me up the wall, plot twists written (I think) on a lunch break, and so on, but I couldn’t stand it. It’s a hard pass when it comes to a video game in general, not to mention the story, script, and everything else. Life is Strange season one; a low-budget production, was the first step to create a masterpiece that LIS2 might’ve been able to become. The second season didn’t learn much from LIS1’s mistakes, additionally exchanging the well-known beauty for a garbage fire, ignoring all the warning signs along the way. Delivering a story that tackles such important topics, it slides between the checkmarks on the board of issues, mentioning conversion therapy, religion, gayness, illegal immigration, and a spiral of crimes but never elaborating on any of them. There is no meat and potatoes presented on the plate of events, but just a sticky, sweet gravy with nothing underneath that leaves you not only hungry but frustrated, willing to call the chef and yell at the waiter. The trick is that unless you were living under a rock, there are tons of other productions in different media that give those themes justice, carefully unfolding all the aspects, giving voice to both sides. The fact that it’s the first video game having an affair with serious issues doesn’t matter. I don’t believe that anybody who consumes any kind of other media like decent books, movies, or TV shows can remain blind to the problems of Life is Strange 2, claiming it to be a good story. It’s not.

So here we are, girls, boys, and beyond. Life is Strange 2 with its broken mechanics, story, characters, and spirit slowly but surely will be forgotten. It’s Dontnod’s Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within that you might love to watch or play on your brand-new TV, despite what everybody else would say, omitting any valid or invalid criticism, but unfortunately, it won’t change the general optics about this particular piece of media. A lost chance or recklessness created a convoluted mess and with a heart beating in the wrong place. You might praise Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, get excited about it since it’s a free world, free country (and even if it’s not, no one will take this ersatz of such liberty) and don’t let anybody tell you what to love. The problem is, that most likely the only thing that people will remember about this production is that the main male character looked like Ben Affleck and the hair animation was dope. Everything else won’t matter.

The same thing goes, unfortunately, for Life is Strange 2, subtitle: The Spirits Without.

#life is strange 2 #review #honest #dontnod #square enix

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thatyanderecritic · 5 years

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Yandere Hybrids

Hey there everyone. Kai and Julie back with another yandere analysis post for you all. We’re covering a topic that we have mentioned before in a couple of different posts: Yandere Hybrids. To properly define what a Yandere Hybrid is, a Yandere Hybrid is a combination trope of a yandere plus a different dere type. For example: a Tsundere-Yandere. Unfortunately, we don’t have any actual examples of a proper Yandere Hybrid since it was never professionally done in media before. I guess we can call this a “writing theory” on how to write a yandere hybrid. Here in this post, we’ll discuss how one can properly write a Yandere Hybrid.

The first and foremost important thing to remember when making a Yandere Hybrid is that the “yandere part” is always the the recessive trait (in reference to a punnett square). The other dere type must always be the first thing a reader sees about the character. The yandere aspect should be a surprise for the reader… a revelation if you will. The yandere is the inner personality while the other dere part is the outer personality. This brings me to the next important point you need to remember when writing a Yandere Hybrid: how the outer personality and the inner personality influence each other.

You shouldn’t consider the yandere part and the dere part as two completely separate entities (ex. Split personality). While, yes, you could do that for a story plot, it’s a lazy cop out for a writer to do. It’s an easy topic to do and easy to write off proper character development. There’s two ways you can write a Yandere Hybrid without using a “split personality” cop out: “The Mask” tactic and “Defense Mechanism” tactic. Let’s discuss “The Mask” tactic. This is a tactic where the yandere is the true core personality but due to reason the yandere put on a sort of “mask” when interacting with other. While the yandere is acting like a dere type to others, on the inside, the yandere still “thinks” like a yandere. This tactic is probably the easiest next to the “split personality”. The “Defense Mechanism” tactic is for more complex characters. You should expect to have a lot of character development with this one.

The “Defense Mechanism” tactic is when a character develops an outward personality to protect their true personality. This tactic is far different from “The Mask” or “split personality”. You see, the outer and inner personality should be intertwined and affecting one another. People act like this in real life when the take on certain characteristics depending on who they are with or when they’re alone. You wouldn’t consider yourself a completely different person if you act differently between your friends and family. At the same time, you wouldn’t consider yourself “acting” either (unless you are that sort of person). That dere part is very much part of the character as while as the yandere part. It’s a balancing act of the two sides. As you can imagine, this could be considered a difficult tactic but if done well, you could make a complex character.

Now, let’s jump into examples of some Yandere Hybrid tropes and how to write them.

Tsundere-Yandere. This is probably a trope most people probably think of when they imagine a “Yandere Hybrid”. A good way to imagine this hybrid as a “love-hate” relationship. For “The Mask” tactic, it’s pretty easy. You can normally write it off as “I don’t want my S/O to realize that I like them.” It’s quick and you can give any excuse for the S/O to not know this fact. For “The Defense Mechanism”, there’s several angles you can do this from. There’s one angle where the character doesn’t know how to handle their feelings and have this “hot-cold” affect. Another angle would use the original purpose of a “tsundere”. Original the trope was made when one character in a pair isn’t ready or “mature” enough for a relationship. This video goes in more depth on a tsundere’s original purpose. Important: Be sure not to make your tsundere an asshole. You want to avoid going to the extreme since you’ll end up making them look like a straight up abuser using their S/O as a punching bag. No one likes an extreme tsundere.

Kuudere-Yandere. The next popular trope combination a person would be imagining. They’re basically the sort that starts of as cold and unemotional then turns out they’re not as unemotional than you expected. But it’s important to be careful when writing this combination. What normally happens is that people make a quiet and cold character suddenly snap for practically no reason, basically making the action look out of character. That’s a big no no. It’s important to have a slow burn with this type. With these character, you need to either have the reader be looking into their mind or have the gestures that “there might be something up” very obvious.

Himedere-Yandere/Oujidere-Yandere. I guess this would basically be a oresama and yandere combination. Since people tend to mistake the two sometimes when it comes to their treatment of their S/O, one would imagine that they’re easy to combine. Well, not really. The roadblock that makes this combination have a hard time is the Himedere’s arrogance, egotism, and materialism. With these issues present, it makes the character’s possessiveness of their S/O seem disingenuous. Does the character really love the S/O or is it their materialism taking control? It’s important to ultimately remove this arrogant facade when it comes to the S/O. The character can still act like a himedere around other characters but once it comes to the S/O, they shouldn’t be treating them like an object.

In conclusion, it’s possible to combine tropes to how you see fix but the Yandere aspect wouldn’t be as strong since it’s the recessive trait. But on the other hand, when it’s executed properly, this can give the character more dimension and make them really interesting as a result. With that in mind, we hope y’all will have fun with your own OCs!

#yandere analysis #yandere #male yandere #female yandere #yandere hybrid #tsundere-yandere #himedere-yandere #kuudere-yandere

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littlemisssquiggles · 5 years

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Hey squiggle meister. What're your thoughts on the flood of people on YouTube who are constantly ranting about the series. And how it's dead after Monty died, and how it's so much worst than before. Etc etc

Tobe honest with you Key, I really don't want to answer this question.I mean it's alright that you asked and I'm going to answer you however I'mgetting a strange sense of deja vu here. Wasn't it not too long ago that youasked me to give my opinion on a similar condition that was happening pre-V6?

Thiswas the issue back then and yet here we are again. You may wanna grab yourselfa snack and settle in because this is going to be one long response post. Let’s just say,this squiggle meister had a lot to let off her chest regarding this particulartopic in the FNDM:

Ihave actually had a small listen to some of these critiques on YouTube and toput it bluntly, I couldn't bring myself to finish most of them. I am a RWBY fan whoalways advocates respecting each other’s opinions regardless of whether or notwe share the same sentiments about the series. I am also a RWBY fan whounderstands that the series is not a flawless show and has suffered more than its fairshare of shortcomings throughout its last arc trilogy.

Nevertheless, in spiteof this, I’ve also acknowledged some noteworthy improvements in the quality of the show that honestly deserves more praise.As someone who has been with this series since its humble beginnings, I have beenthere for each transformation the show has undergone and in doing so, I haveseen RWBY evolve.

Whilesome of the show’s changes haven’t entirely been welcomed by its fandom (withits main change being something completely out of the showrunners’ control) I’dbe lying if I said these changes didn’t contribute to the show’s success insome shape or form.

Speakingfor myself, initially RWBY earned my attention because, like most RWBY stans, Iwas a fan of Monty Oum before and when I discovered that he had his own seriesproduced by RoosterTeeth, I was interested. I didn’t care what the story wasabout or what it looked like. All that mattered to be me back then was that itwas something from the creative mind of Monty Oum so I expected somethingepically action-packed.

At the start, I joinedthe RWBY fandom becauseof Monty however as the seriesprogressed, my reasoning for sticking with it and staying loyal to the showtranscended my past loyalty to the franchise as a by-product of anartist/animator I admired so much.

Thisbrings me to my main point. You want my honest thoughts onthe YouTube RWBY Rants, Key? To be frank, I’m tired of it. It is exhausting listeningto the tirades of these proclaimed RWBY YouTube reviewers who do nothing butgripe and express their disdain for everything the show does wrong according totheir standards. I am so fed up of seeing this happen time and time again.

Andwhat’s sad is that I don’t think part of this is even due to the show or theCRWBY’s fault. Do you know you are more likely to find a video shitting on RWBYas opposed to one that genuinely outlines its positive elements or at leastpresents a fair and just constructive argument of the good and bad of the show?Do you know how many RWBY hate videos the YouTube algorithm has recommended to mesince V6 concluded? It’s ridiculous.

ButI also know I can’t do anything to stop it. So long as RWBY exists, there willalways be these so-called ---I guess we can call them the ‘hate parade’ type of fans who wait like vultures to a carcass to pick apartthe show whenever a new season comes out.

Anddo you know what the sadder part about watching these videos is?

Thesevideos try to give the allusion thatthey are coming from a practical standpoint---as if the things they’repointing out in their reviews are genuine problems with theshow and that their personal advice to the showrunners are valid enough torectify these problems they indicated about RWBY.

Herein, lies my personal peeve with these types of reviews. The best kind of criticto me is one who can point out a flaw in something, justify why they believesaid thing is a clear flaw and then use their own understanding to outlinetheir concept for a possible solution to that flaw that they respectfully leaveopen to the creators of said property to take their advice or not.

However,this is not the case with these YouTube RWBY Rants; at least from the few I’veviewed. I’ll admit, there are some genuinely good RWBY Reviewers on YouTube. Ofthe top of my head, Thatkaitodan, MurderofBirds are two and believeit or not, I actually like some of EruptionFang’s reviews from time to time. Imay not always agree 100% with everything he says in his breakdowns but in myopinion, I can’t get too mad at the things he says in his reviews/video essaysbecause he’s able to justify it in a manner that I’m able to see where he’scoming from. Even if that justification comes from a place of unbridled rage.Referring to EF, I know he’s been receiving flak from FNDM members regardinghis recent views on Adam’s conclusion and Bumblebee; however if I’m beingcompletely honest here, I feel some of that bashing is unwarranted.

Inall fairness to EF, at least I’m able stomach his opinions a lot better than thatof other RWBY Youtubers. As I said, EF is able to properly defend his pointswell enough for me to grasp the validity of his statements which is the least Ican say for some of the others I’ve listened to.

Oftenat times, on the adverse side of RWBY YouTube, I find myself listening toYoutubers who spend more time outright bashing everypersonal gripe they have with the show as opposed to presenting a good argumentthan gives hindsight to why these problems are such an issue to them.

Theworst kind are the ones where this Youtubers point out flaws in the show andtry to give solutions to what the showrunners can do to fix these problems. Butmost of the time it’s done so rudely that it comes off more obnoxious thanhelpful. As if these Youtubers are proclaiming to know and understand moreabout the animation production process than the actual people running the showwho have the qualifications and past industry experience

I’llgive you two examples. Not naming names but I recently watched two videos fromtwo RWBY Youtubers---one critiquing the shows character designs while anotherwas a Youtuber’s final video explaining why they were quitting the RWBY FNDMfor good.

Inthe characterdesign critique, the individualexpressed their disappointment in the recent designs for the RWBY girls and thevillains as of the Mistral Arc. They then proceeded to offer their own tips for how the show could have helped to spruce up someof these designs. However rather than attempting to make their own alternatedesigns to the character outfits, this Youtuber just slapped some rather poorlylaid out flat base colours on top of screenshots of the characters in question.Which from a digital art perspective is…admittedly…lazy.

Iunderstand that not everyone in the world is a designer, much less is a characterdesigner or at least knows how to draw. However…if that is the case then whyare you, as the individual who clearly doesn’t appear to have the design skills,commenting on the work of a studio with a full production team of artists whodo have those required skills and experience and can probably rationalize theirreasons for going with the final designs presented in the show. You get whatI’m saying?

Ifone is going to critique the show’s overall character design then the least youcan do is make the effort to back up your claims. Illustrate your own designsfor RWBY character outfits. Create a mock-up 2D/3D screenshot illustration withproper lighting and atmosphere to see how your design ideas holds up againstthose elements of a scene and then compare that to the actual show’s productionwork. This reviewer didn’t even bother to attempt to maketheir own original designs or even redraw the current designs in their ownstyle and test out their suggested colourpalettes to see if it would fit with the overall design aesthetic of thecharacter.

Youmight be asking now: But Squiggles are you saying I need to know how to draw tocomment about RWBY?

To which I say: No.Being an artist is not a requirement that you as a fan need to really have inorder to comment about something you love. HOWEVER, if you are the type of individualwho has the massive chops to try and dictate a production studio with a team ofeducated and/or industry seasoned artists on how they should handle designingtheir characters without you yourself having the design knowledge to supportyour critiques then… you wonder why the CRWBY often get upset with these typesof fans and don’t take their comments seriously?

Contraryto what others might say, I am not a believer that RWBY is dictated by thedesires of its fandom community. That’s a comment I’ve been hearing buzzingabout since V6 ironically in the face of the recent hate crowd to gather fromwhat transpired with the Bumblebee pairing in the recent season.

Iunderstand that there are fans making the argument that the showrunners onlymade this pairing canon because its popular with its shipping community. Thesame can be said about Neo’s return to become Cinder’s protégé.

Admittedlywhile I might find the CRWBY’s decisions to be questionable at times, this still doesn’t prove that they are run by theirFNDM. If something happens in the show, it’s because it’s something theshowrunners and has wanted to do for some time and picked that current volumeto do so. The mere fact that that thing just so happened to correlate withsomething the fans wanted to see is just a matter of coincidence.

Thatbeing said, I will admit that I’ve noticed one or two members of the CRWBY castwho are guilty of encouraging certain ideas without the show itself officially confirming it in its narrative as yet.

In light of that, Iwill admit this. Regardless of whether or not you as a member of the CRWBY teamsupport a particular ship with all your heart, if other fandoms have taught meanything is that as a cast member you should NEVER encourage anything within yourown fan community. It never ends well and I’m seeing this repeated in RWBY. Butthis is not what I’m here to talk about right now. Moving on.

Inrespect to the video from the individual who was leaving the FNDM, I actually didn’tfinish watching their video because the instant they mentioned Monty Oum and their disdain for the CRWBY not living up to hislegacy and all that stuff, I couldn’t.

Ahyes, the classic ‘RWBY Animation hasn’t been the best since Monty passed away and the RWBYAnimation team are terrible because they can’t replicate Monty’s animation’ debate.How many times is this dead horse going to be beaten? According to this RWBY Youtuber, ‘replicatingMonty’s style of animation is easy andit is appalling the RWBY Animation Team can’t replicate Monty’s style afterfour seasons’.

Thiscomment not only annoyed me as a fan but also as someone who has studiedanimation before. Again, how many times will this poor dead horse be dug up tobe bludgeoned? Will these fans everallow Monty’s name to rest peacefully without bringing it up to tarnish theefforts made by the CRWBY to finish the story he started with them?

Iget it. MontyOum was a good animator.He wasn’t the best animator. He wasn’t some genius animation prodigy. He was a creative mind who had his own way of thinking and doing things andfrom that, he established a style about hisanimation that shined through his work. If you were to show me an animatedpiece done by Monty and the same piece animated by another person, I caninstantly tell you which one is Monty’s because Monty had his own style.

That’sthe appeal of Monty’s work, on my opinion. That’s what he became known for by hisfans. However, even though Monty was great at animating fight scenes, his way---hisstyle is NOT the only wayto animate a fight.

Recently,I took the time to go back and count the number of fights that happened overthe volumes. I did this because as of V6, I couldn’t help but feel as if theCRWBY might be shying away including moments where the characters areactually engaged in combat. I omitted the character shorts because onemandatory element of the Character Shorts is a fight scene. I just wanted tohighlight the individual seasons alone.

Someof this numbers might be a little iffy depending on what I counted as a fight,but here’s what I gathered.

THE VALE TRILOGY

RWBY V1C1:2C2:0C3:0C4:0C5:0C6:3C7:0C8:2C9:0C10:1C11:1C12:0C13:0C14:1C15:0C16:2

Totalfights = 12 Fights

RWBY V2:C1:1C2:0C3:0C4:1C5:3C6:0C7:1C8:0C9:4C10:0C11:4C12:4

TotalFights= 18 Fights

RWBY V3:C1:1C2:2C3:1C4:1C5:2C6:1C7:1C8:0C9:1C10:2C11:2C12:2

TotalFights = 16 Fights

THE MISTRALTRILOGY

RWBY V4:C1:1C2:0C3:1C4:0C5:0C6:1C7:1C8:0C9:2C10:0C11:0C12:1

TotalFights = 7 Fights

RWBY V5C1:0C2:1C3:0C4:2C5:0C6:0C7:0C8:0C9:1C10:3C11:5C12:1C13:1C14:0

TotalFights = 14 Fights

RWBY V6:C1:3C2:0C3:0C4:0C5:1C6:0C7:1C8:0C9:0C10:1C11:3C12:1C13:0

TotalFights = 10 Fights

Why I bring this upis throughout V4 and V6’s runtime I’ve seen one or two all-stars inthe new CRWBY animation team. While not all the fight scenes from the MistralArc were the best, there were definitely some good ones that I stood out to me.

OneV4 fight that keeps being overly praised is the Tyrian vs. Qrow dual. Many fanstend to vouch that fight as the best fight of V4. The only reason that fight isso popular is because it was one of the more important fights of thatrespective season.

However,I’m being completely honest, the Qrow vs. Tyrian one on one was good but itwasn’t the only good fight of V4.

PersonallyI took enjoyment in the small sparring match between Yang and Tai Yang.Believe it or not, I felt like that moment, though small, was well animated andI’d actually give props to the animator behind that small scene. There was a nicesense of rhythm to that small fight that I quite liked.

Notmany folks will agree with little ole me regarding that scene but this just goesto show, we all have our own personal preferences with what we consider to be agood fight sequence vs a not so good one.

Often at times, Ifeel really sorry for the series animators cherry picked to handle the combatmoments for the current seasons because I feel like those animators suffer the most pressure and scrutiny in the eyes of the FNDM. I feel like some FNDM members are sofocused on nagging atthe current CRWBY to capture Monty’s old style of animating fights that they aren’t really giving these new animatorswith their own styles a fair chance toshine outside of Monty’s shadow.

Again.I get it. RWBY was Monty’s brainchild. He’s the creator andno matter how far the current CRWBY takes the series, he will always becredited as its creator.

HoweverRWBY has come a long way since Monty’s days. The show haschanged.The overall look and visual style of the series has changed.Even the production pipeline and the software used to animate the series has changed.The CRWBY hasgrown allowing a greater mix of artistslending their talents to breathe life into the series.

Butwhat seems to kind of still be stuck in the past are some members of the FNDMcommunity. The ones who only watch the show because they are waiting to see thecurrent RWBY recapture that essence of Monty thatthey claimed the show lost after he died.

RWBY is dead after Monty passed away? In some ways, this isboth true and false. The truth is that RWBY did die. The old style that the show was being produced on was laid to restafter its creator unfortunately passed. The false is that RWBY didn’t end withMonty because it’s being continued in its current new style by the people whohelped bring it to life in the first place alongside Monty. The same people whoare diligently carrying on Monty’s project in his place. RWBY isn’t dead. It’sstill breathing. Still going. Because a story still needs to be told.

Ratherthan being judged for how well they can interpret a good fight sequence, theseanimators are judged for how well they can replicate Monty’s style. And when theseanimators don’t live up to that expectation, that’s when the shit storm begins.I myself have been found guilty of comparing the past animation to the present.However now I realized that I was wrong in doing that.

Ithink it’s high time some of these fans let go of the past and accept that theaction fight scenes of RWBY are never going to reflect Monty’s style anymore.

Montyis unfortunately not around to guide the current team with this. And they are doingtheir best to find their own style. To some extent, they found it in V6 becausethe fights in this last season were a tremendous improvement from V4 and V5.

Ifeel like there are some genuinely talented animators workingnow on RWBY who know how to create and sell a great fight and if left to theirown devices, they could really dazzle the audience with their own way of doingthings. I feel like since V4, the CRWBY have been experimenting with how they craftout their fights especially in the new Maya pipeline but it wasn’t until V6where I feel they finally found their footing again.

I think most fanscould agree that the fights in V6 were much better compared to theirpredecessors. One of the best one on one fights was the Neo vs Cinder clash. Whoever was the animator responsible for thatscene should honestly be given more opportunities like thatwhere their work can shine through because that fight was well done. Thesame can be said for the Maria vs. Tok oneon one fight despite how short it was. But the thing is, none of those fightsfelt like Monty’s style to me. It didn’t feel like someone was trying to copyMonty but rather it was someone who probably took a little inspiration Monty’soriginal work and the rest was them bringing their own unique spin to it.

Ifthe CRWBY have been trying to replicatethat Monty style in their fights for the past arc then I’m starting to thinkthat that is what’s been holding them back ratherthan aiding them to move forward.

Thisis why I find the whole point about replicating Monty’s style being easy to be ludicrous. Replicating someone else’s style,depending on the medium is not something you can just do on a fly. It’s noteven something you can perfect in a matter of years. It’s something that takes adeep understanding of the art form you’re using (in this case being animation),time, strict discipline and most importantly of all, guidance and critique from theperson who’s style your copying or someone else who is a master of said style and/orhas a great understanding of it themselves.

That’swhy sometimes you might hear behind the scenes tales about animation studiostaking sometime during their production pipeline to train theiranimators on the style or quality of animation they are trying to emulate in acurrent project. DidMonty do that with the CRWBY? Did Montyget the chance to pass his knowledge and technique onto otheranimators? Did Monty even get to see his story grow to what it is now?

Sadly,no. Monty was a creator who didn’t evenlive long enough to see his own idea flourish for the six seasons it’s beenrunning; now moving onto its seventh season. As far as I know, Monty passedaway as early as V2. Most people don’t even get the chance to see their ideascome to life but Monty was among those fortunate few who was given the shot tomake his idea a reality.

RoosterTeethgave Monty that chance after he worked with them on some of their otherprojects like RvB. He had made himself a household name within their companyand among that, he had made friends and had formed an in-house family with thecolleagues he worked with both on RvB and RWBY.

Saywhat you will about RoosterTeeth and the CRWBY. The original CRWBY who workedwith Monty between V1 and V2 were the people who knew Montythe most. They were his friends. His family. This is all the more reason why itdoesn’t give us, as fans looking in from the outside, the right to use Monty’sname to disrespect the people who knew him better.

Imay not always like what the CRWBY Writers do with the story but I respect themboth as writers. I respect Miles and Kerry because they are the showrunners. RWBY’s plotstarted with Monty, Miles and Kerry.

TheRWBY hate parade need to stop acting as if RWBY was made by Monty alone.Monty did not make RWBY by himself. Shit, he didn’t even create the plot byhimself.

Montyis credited as its creator because RWBY was his brain child and he will foreverbe remembered as the man who conceptualized this idea. But Monty did not writethe story of RWBY himself. He wrote this story with Miles and Kerry.

Whatfolks seems to be misunderstanding or downrightneglecting is that Miles and Kerryhave been with RWBY since its start. They are the two people who worked withMonty in developing the story of RWBY

Itis depressing that Monty only got to live long enough to see two seasons of hisbrainchild come to life.

Insteadof honouring Monty’s legacy by showing support to the people who worked with himto make RWBY happen, folks instead use Monty’s name to slander the CRWBY.

Tothe people who are guilty of this, how can you call yourself a fan? Howcan you call yourself decent human beings witha legit conscience by using a dead man’s name to disrespect the people who werehis colleagues and friends just because you were displeased with something theychose for the show? How is mouthing off the CRWBY and claiming that Montywouldn’t have consented to the direction they’re taking RWBY in a definition ofyour loyalty to Monty?

Howwould you know what Monty would have consented to? How would you know whatMonty would have wanted in general?

Didyou know him personally? I doubt any of you did. So why claim that in yourhateful comments?

RWBYis not the Monty Oum show. I've mentioned this before and I will say it again. RWBY is acollaborative effort. Monty may have conceived RWBY on his own buthe birthed this series through cooperation with RoosterTeeth and the talentedpeople who formed the creative team that made this show with him.

Andit’s those same people who are busting their asses volume after volume to keepthe show going. The CRWBY could have easily cancelled RWBYafter V2. It’s not the first time RoosterTeeth has cancelled a series undertheir name. They could have hung up the towel after V2 and called it quits. Butthey didn’t because they wanted tocontinue the show. They wanted to keep moving forward and finish the story theymade together with their friend Monty.

RWBY’sproduction takes time,thought, passion and effort. If the RWBY YouTube Critics community wishto be the type of people who want to tell the showrunners how to properlyhandle their IP, then at least back up your points with the same level of time,thought, passion and effort that is put into the show.

Andbefore anyone jumps at me and is all like, Squiggles, do you know how long it takes to makea YouTube video essay on my own time? To which I answer with, do you know howlong it takes to produce a full season of an animated production on a studiobudget and a strict deadline within a studio that is juggling multiple IPs?

Anyone can point out a flaw insomething or rather what they perceive to be a flaw in something. But it takes morework to point out that flaw, justify why it’s a flaw by your standards and thentake the time to suggest how it could be improved while throwing in your own workto help boast your claims. But no RWBY Youtuber Critics, at least from the onesI’ve seen, wants to do that. They just want to run their mouths and what’sunfortunate is that they will gather an audience of individuals who do the samewhen it comes to the series.

It’salright if you give your opinion but where it crosses a line is when a fantries to tell the showrunners how they should run their show. It’s even worsewhen they try to do it WITHOUT backing up their claims. You want to downplaythe effort and thought that someone else made without producing your own toargue against theirs?

You want totell the CRWBY how they should write the show? Where are your own retellingsof the show? Where are your own plot breakdowns? Your own scripts possibly accompaniedby storyboards and/or animatics to give others a taste of how your ideas wouldplay out?

You want totell the CRWBY that their character designs are terrible and need rework? Where your own conceptsheets containing dozens about dozens of drafts of redesigns that could betaken?

You want totell the CRWBY that their animation is terrible, that animating like Monty iseasy and the animation of CRWBY would look 100x better if they did x, y, z and123?

WellSkippy, why don’t you prove it? Where is your rendered animation that youpersonally modelled, rigged, textured and animated in your own spare time to backup your proclaimed assessments.

Youmight be telling yourselves, Squiggles why do all of that? That sounds like a whole lotof extra work just to prove points for a critique where I’m trying to tell theCRWBY what to do?

Towhich my response will be, EXACTLY.

Ifthe RWBY Hate Parade wish to make a mockery of the extra efforts the CRWBYmembers put into RWBY, then where is their extra effort? If they at least dothat then maybe I can respect them a little more as people who know whatthey’re talking about because they have the skills and knowledge to back uptheir arguments.

But how am I as the outsider listening in on some of theseYouTube rants supposed to take any of these people seriously when all they’redoing is making lengthy diatribes slandering the work of others and trying topass off as someone who knows more about animation and how it’s done thansomeone who does.

Dothese fans believe that makes them seem witty?It doesn’t. It makes them seem very disrespectful.

Idon’t understand the fans that are like this and I’m not sure if I want tounderstand. I don’t even wish to discuss them furthermore because at the end ofthe day, I can’t speak for these fans. I can only speak for myself and I knowwhere I stand as a fan of RWBY. If there is one advice I can give to my fellow FNDMfam is that weneed to stop drawing attention to the hate parade. Too often do Ihear more about the negative side of the RWBY community and their opinions ofthe series than the actual good that show and its FNDM has spawned.

Weas the people who still love RWBY and are willing to accept and stand by it andits showrunners, flaws and all, need to become more vocal aboutshedding light on the positives of RWBY

Eitherthat or just ignorethe haters. Seriously, we need to stop giving these guys anaudience. Similar to how the RWBY Hate Parade spend their time mostly pointingout the negative in the show, we the FNDM often at times draw too much attentionto these folks.

Ina sad way, we’re kind of sending traffic over to them. Giving them moreattention that they don’t deserve.

Thesetypes of fans can talk but we don’t need to listen to them. Because for all theflak they give the series and its showrunners, the RWBY train is still moving;strong and unaffected.

Why?Because I’d like to believe the CRWBY don’t pay attention to the hate paradebut more focus on what they wish to do with the series while looking out to thesmiling fans who help spread good word about their show. And really, isn’t thegood still that’s very much there all that really matters?

Soto conclude finally, this answer took me way too long to write. Sorry to haveyou wait so long Key. This answer took me some time to put together. Apologiesif it’s a very long-winded answer. I really don’t like discussing any negativestuff in the FNDM.

I acknowledge that it exists and it’s pretty much alwaysgoing to be there but that doesn’t mean I should give it any attention. But forwhat it’s worth, I hope I said enough to make my full peace with this topic.Cheerios!

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)

#squiggles answers: rwby #rwby #oscar pine #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #monty oum #crwby #roosterteeth #keyenuta

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islahhofficial · 4 years

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Top 9 tips for Dhul Hijjah

Many people are eagerly awaiting the start of the 10 blessed days of Dhul-Hijjah. They’ve probably read a dozen articles on the virtues and blessings of those Days. But some still wonder: what exactly do I need to do to make the best of those days? If you’re not going to Hajj and you’re looking for a To-Do List or an Action Plan to make the best of those blessed days, then here are a few ideas: (Make sure you share the URL above with friends and family via email, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp so they can learn also)

1- Recheck the intention: We’re doing this out of Love!

Take a few moments and recheck your attention. Ask yourself “what exactly do I want to achieve, and why? First and foremost, we want to do the best in those days because Allah loves for us to be in the best condition in them. And what’s beloved to our Beloved should be beloved to us. Remember this hadith and note the word “beloved”… Ibn Abbas narrated that: The Messenger of Allah said: “There are no days in which righteous deeds are more beloved to Allah than those ten days.” They said: “O Messenger of Allah! Not even Jihad in Allah Cause?” The Messenger of Allah said: “Not even Jihad in Allah’s Cause, unless a man were to out with his self and his wealth and not return from that with anything.” [Jami` at-Tirmidhi]

So, Allah ‘loves’ good deeds during those days. Isn’t this an excellent opportunity to show the Owner of our souls, the Owner of Existence, The Owner of Jannah, The Most Merciful that we too love Him and love to be in a state that is beloved to Him?

Primarily, we’re doing this out of love to Allah (Glorified and Exalted), and we wish for Him to accept us and accept the little that we do that isn’t even worthy of the eternal rewards He has prepared for us… but we do what we do out of gratitude, sincerity and love to The One who deserves our ultimate love.

2- Desperately ask Allah for help with this

No success will happen without the Help of Allah. So, recite this dua after every prayer and throughout the day to ask Allah to aid you in doing the best and earning the best rewards these days: Mu’adh (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) took hold of my hand and said, “O Mu’adh! By Allah I love you, so I advise you to never forget to recite after every prayer: “Allahumma a’inni ala dhikrika, wa shukrika, wa husni ‘ibadatika (O Allah, help me remember You, to be grateful to You, and to worship You in an excellent manner).” [Abu Dawud].

So keep reciting this and especially when you feel weak or lazy: “O Allah, help me remember You, to be grateful to You, and to worship You in an excellent manner.”

3- Seize the generous reward of fasting the 9 days of Dhul- Hijjah

“’Allah, the mighty and sublime, said: Every deed of the son of Adam is for him, except fasting; it is for me and I shall reward for it.” [Sunan an-Nasa’i] The reward for fasting is too big in fact, that it is something that angels won’t be able to record, and instead they’ll refer it to Allah to set His generous reward for it! In addition to that, fasting grants you a guaranteed answered dua! It was narrated from Abu Hurairah that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: “There are three whose supplications are not turned back: A just ruler, and a fasting person until he breaks his fast. And, the supplication of one who has been wronged is raised by Allah up to the clouds on the Day of Resurrection, and the gates of heaven are opened for it, and Allah says, ‘By My Might I will help you (against the wrongdoer) even if it is after a while.’” [Sunan Ibn Majah]

So basically, by fasting, you’re getting unfathomable reward that you didn’t even think of PLUS you can ask for something that YOU want. Amazing Opportunity!

Definitely aim for fasting all 9 days, or as much as you can of them, or at the very least, the day of A’rafa. It was narrated from Abu Qatadah that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: “Fasting on the Day of ‘Arafah, I hope from Allah, expiates for the sins of the year before and the year after.” [Sunan Ibn Majah] Who doesn’t want that? It’s an opportunity not to be missed, insha’Allah.

4- Start building Your House in Jannah

Praying on time is among the most beloved acts to Allah. ‘Abdullah bin Mas’ud (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: I asked the Prophet (ﷺ), “Which of the deeds is loved most by Allah?” Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “Salat at its proper time.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]. Let’s think about it: when you call someone, you appreciate when they actually pick up the phone and answer you. Right? Imagine if they take 2-3-4 hours to get back to you… Not the best attitude, right? Might even reflect that you’re not really a priority to them. Now, to Allah belongs the Highest Attributes and Most Noble Mention, when the call for prayer is made and we delay answering… it isn’t exactly the best deed. So, these days, aim to make everything you can to pray on time. This if for the obligatory prayer. Now to start building your house in Jannah, follow this hadith:

The Prophet [saw] says: ‘Whoever persists in performing twelve Rak’ah from the Sunnah, a house will be built for him in Paradise: four before the Zuhr, two Rak’ah after Zuhr, two Rak’ah after Maghrib, two Rak’ah after the ‘Isha’ and two Rak’ah before Fajr.’” [Sunan Ibn Majah] These are voluntary prayers. These prayers complement the shortcomings in our main obligatory prayers. So, if you pray without enough concentration/khushoo’/if you’re not fulfilling the rights of prayers adequately, then the voluntary prayers complement the shortcomings in the obligatory prayers to help us earn better rewards and be in a better condition with regards to prayer—which is the first thing we will be asked about on the Day of Judgement. The Prophet (ﷺ):

“The first thing about which the people will be called to account out of their actions on the Day of Judgment is prayer. Our Lord, the Exalted, will say to the angels – though He knows better: Look into the prayer of My servant and see whether he has offered it perfectly or imperfectly. If it is perfect, that will be recorded perfect. If it is defective, He will say: See there are some optional prayers offered by My servant. If there are optional prayer to his credit, He will say: Compensate the obligatory prayer by the optional prayer for My servant. Then all the actions will be considered similarly.” [Sunan Abi Dawud]

5- Fulfil a primary rite of Dhul-Hijjah: Dhikr, remembrance, mentioning the name of Allah

Allah says in Surat Al Hajj: “And proclaim to the people the Hajj [pilgrimage]; they will come to you on foot and on every lean camel; they will come from every distant pass – That they may witness benefits for themselves and mention the name of Allah on known days over what He has provided for them of [sacrificial] animals. So eat of them and feed the miserable and poor.” (Qur’an 22: 27-28)

And He says: “And for all religion We have appointed a rite [of sacrifice] that they may mention the name of Allah over what He has provided for them of [sacrificial] animals. For your god is one God, so to Him submit. And, [O Muhammad], give good tidings to the humble [before their Lord]” (Qur’an 22: 34)

Mentioning the name of Allah and remembering Him is a main- if not THE main- component of those blessed days. It is all essentially about truly remembering and acknowledging Allah and connecting with Him and supplicating to Him.

So increase dhikr throughout those blessed days. Dhikr doesn’t take any effort really, but its reward is immense.

Make sure to: 1- Daily recite Tahmid (AlhamduliAllah), Tasbeeh (Subhan Allah), Takbeer (Allahu Akbar), Tahleel (la illah illah Allah). And internalize their meanings: internalize that truly all praise is due to Allah for all His blessings, that Allah is Greater than anything and anyone, that there is no deity worthy of worship but Him, that He is High Above any imperfection attributed to Him… This is the essence of true faith and worship.

Remember that saying “La illaha ila Allah” is the best dhikr, so increase in reciting it. “I heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) say: ‘The best of remembrance is La ilaha illallah (None has the right to be worshipped but Allah), and the best of supplication is Al-Hamdu Lillah (praise is to Allah).’” [Sunan Ibn Majah]

2- Start incorporating the adhkar of morning and evening in your daily routine if it isn’t a part of it already. The reward of dhikr is really immense, additionally, it protects you from a lot of harm you’re not even aware of and it keeps you in close connection with Allah Almighty.

6- Spare an hour a day for Qur’an recitation

Reciting the Qur’an, the verbatim Words of Allah and remembering Him through His own Words is among the greatest acts one could do. In normal days, reciting the Qur’an brings immense barakah and rewards. Each letter you recite is equal to at least 10 hasanaat and Allah gives more to whom He wills. Now, in these days when rewards are multiplied even more and it’s more encouraged to do what’s beloved to Allah, it’s essential to engage with the Qur’an further- we shall at least give it our best try to the best of our ability. If you managed to dedicate an hour to the Qur’an every day, you can actually do khatm (completing the recitation of the entire Qur’an) by the end of the 10th day of Dul-Hijja! We have 30 parts in the Qur’an. Each part is around 20 pages. If you have an hour, you can read 60 pages (3 parts a day) and finish the entire Qur’an in 10 days. We ALL have an hour or more to spare a day. But it’s a matter of time management and priorities. We do surf the Internet and our social media for hours—which are probably acts that won’t bring us much reward. So what really prevents us from dedicating an hour or 2 to complete reading the Qur’an during those days which will bring us immense rewards?

Allah says: “And indeed We have made the Qur’an easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?” [Qur’an 54: 17] Let’s aim to be among those who remember…

7- Revive the night with the ultimate source of peace

One of the most praiseworthy acts to do also is to recite Qur’an during the night prayer. Allah says: “And from [part of] the night, pray with it as additional [worship] for you; it is expected that your Lord will resurrect you to a praised station.” (Qur’an 17: 79)

If you can’t seem to find an hour to spare for reading the Qur’an during the day, then make it an hour of the night. Leave your bed for an hour, make wudu purifying yourself and your body, wear clean and beautiful clothes, get onto your prayer mat and start reciting the Qur’an… slowly, in humility and peace. You have no idea how this will bring immense peace, serenity and tranquility into your heart and mind, and how this will energize you and put a lot of barakah in your time. It is worth trying. Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-‘As: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: “If anyone prays at night reciting regularly ten verses, he will not be recorded among the negligent; if anyone prays at night and recites a hundred verses, he will be recorded among those who are obedient to Allah; and if anyone prays at night reciting one thousand verses, he will be recorded among those who receive huge rewards.” [Sunan Abi Dawud]

Note: the highest reward mentioned at the end of the hadith for reciting a thousand verses can be easily accomplished by reciting the last 2 chapters of the Qur’an (Juz’ Tabarak 29 and Juz’ ‘Amma 30).

8- Dua, Dua, Dua

Throughout the 10 days and especially on the Day of ‘Arafa: MAKE DUA! The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings upon him), said: “The most excellent dua is the dua on the Day of Arafa, and the best of what I and the prophets before me have said, is ‘There is no god but Allah, alone, without partner.’” [Muwatta Malik]

9- Sacrifice with ihsan, feed the poor and bond with your family

Of course “audhiya” or “qurbani” is a main ritual that we follow. But it is important to do that with ihsan (excellence). On the authority of Abu Ya’la Shaddad bin Aws (may Allah be pleased with him), that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Verily Allah has prescribed ihsan (proficiency, perfection) in all things. If you slaughter, then slaughter well. Let each one of you sharpen his blade and let him spare suffering to the animal he slaughters.” [Muslim] Allah gave us blessings to benefit us and help us benefit others and bond with our families. So, let this be about the gratitude to Allah Almighty who provides for us from the heavens and the earth, and let this be with mercy and excellence befitting to His Mercy and Excellence.

Now, you might look at this list and feel overwhelmed. But remember a few things: We were created to worship Allah. These things are part of our purpose in life. We do not lose anything by doing them. These are acts we start here, they bring benefit, peace and barakah in our lives here, and then later they earn us eternal rewards, eternal peace, safety and nearness to The Creator. So, remember the intention; we do this with love and out of love to Allah. Also remember that if Allah wills, He can make anything possible, if He knows of your true desire and sincerity, He WILL enable you to do these acts and more, so easily in fact that you will not understand how you did it. Trust Allah! Now, BismAllah… enjoy the most blessed days of the year!

By Dina Mohamed Basiony

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#Islahh #islahh.com

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fire-fira · 5 years

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More TMNT Junk (this time 2003 post-canon!)

[Ao3 version]

Soooooo I was vaguely thinking about posting this, and then I saw shit that the soggy cheetoh’s doing on my dash, and decided screw it-- to temporarily shove aside that unpleasant BS here’s some more TMNT stuff.

(Full disclaimer, most of this came from me babbling to @sounddrive about this concept. Plus a couple added things thanks to @babblingweirdnonsense. Because why the hell not?)

Just imagine the 2003 turtles living a ridiculously long time. I mean ridiculously long. Like still going strong when they’re around 121. (You can’t really tell me that it couldn’t happen when the Ninja Tribunal are thousands of years old and still look like they’re in their 30s-40s. If they can do it, so can these boys.)

It might be their mutation or it might be their level of chi control (or it might be both), and somehow Usagi's hanging on as long as they have (because separating Leo from his husband after that long would be cruel).

Yes you read that right, we’re going full-on Leosagi/katanashipping for this.

Of course with them being so old that brings up the question of why they wouldn’t have been present for the events of season 6 (since most of it takes place 100 years after they were 18). But I’ve got an explanation for that!

20 years prior to those events they got caught up in a war in Usagi's world and got stuck there. It wasn't supposed to become a war-- it was probably originally just supposed to be a vacation, time away from loud city noises and all that-- but nope! One thing led to another and escalated out of control, and they couldn't turn their backs because that wouldn't be fair-- and then some pain-in-the-ass magic user tried to trap them in that world (maybe to make sure they couldn't get reinforcements).

- Needless to say, they weren’t happy about that.

- So much inventive swearing from Raph. SO MUCH.

Plus Mikey probably adopting who knows how many kids. Because it’s Mikey and he’d hate the idea of leaving any orphaned kid behind when he can do anything about it.

- Though of course this is in addition to any kids he had already adopted over the decades who were spread out over their world and Usagi’s. So he just ends up with even more kids even though he’s already a grandpa... and a great-grandpa... and very likely a great-great-grandpa.

- Mikey will not be stopped.

- Leo and Usagi probably also have their own gaggle of adopted kids/grandkids/great-grandkids (although some actually related to Usagi through his son Jotaro, which is the family secret everyone pretends not to know, at least in Usagi's world), but they've got nothing on the sheer number of children and babies Mikey has taken in. There've been jokes that Mikey alone is going to completely rebuild the Hamato clan just through the number of kids he takes in.

Donnie in Usagi’s world mourns his lack of access to the tech he's used to, but he's been figuring out work-arounds. Mainly because sometimes when he's out in the field he wants nothing more than to just electrocute someone in a fight. What scares others is that he's got several nieces/nephews/etc. who have taken an interest in his inventions and tech to the point that they're sometimes referred to as a specific 'sub-division' of the Hamato clan (which can 'command lightning' and other such claims that most of them scoff at).

Raph's also got parts of the family that will happily glom onto him and follow him around and gleefully switch into 'coordinated ninja mode' when he gives the signal. People outside of the family tend to see Raph as one of the most terrifying of the family, but everyone in the family see him as a big old teddybear.

- Raph tends to lean on the 'scary' facade to keep people at a distance, because by that point he knows that if he doesn't then he's going to end up with a fan club. Again. And people are going to be throwing themselves at him. AGAIN. And he learned his lesson the last time (mostly).

- Though not being able to go anywhere in Japan in Usagi's world when he was about 50 without having people trying to throw themselves at him in increasingly desperate attempts to court him or while pledging their undying love to him was enough of a nightmare that he's amazed that sometimes he still forgets about trying to maintain a distance. Even worse, he still has a few diehard hangers-on that have yet to give up even though they've been trying to chase him for decades. (Usagi thinks this is absolutely hilarious and routinely ends up in cackling fits with Leo over it.)

- Mikey sometimes helps Raph dodge his fans and plays innocent if they spot him.

- (Raph was not counting on being seen as so attractive the first time he went to Usagi's world. For several subsequent visits he still wasn't prepared. When he found out about the first 'fan club' the poor man almost fainted, only to end up hiding for about five hours instead.)

People in that world are reasonably unsurprised by the fact that the turtles are still around (because I can easily imagine turtles in that world on average probably being a little longer-lived), but the surprise comes in with the fact that Usagi's still alive.

- He has made vague comments that maybe living with turtles for so long has affected him.

- He's also made vulgar jokes of varying levels of subtlety that have led Leo to facepalm, blush, clamp a hand over Usagi's mouth, or deliberately interrupt so that he won't have to hear one more comment about how sleeping with Leo has 'magically extended' his life.

- Mikey is terrible and cackles every time. Naturally he encourages Usagi's comments just because Leo is 'Too Old For This Shit™', and therefore it's all the more hilarious to him.

- Usagi’s comments may have drawn them more attention than Leo would prefer.

- (You can thank @babblingweirdnonsense for this sub-point addition.)

Usagi: "The true secret of immortality is to worship the flesh of the Kappa Ninjas. I have bedded the leader, and he in turn worships my flesh and gives me life."

Leo: "Stop telling people that sleeping with me will make them live longer."

Usagi: -winking- "I'm trying to make our bed a bit more fun."

- Leo: "...Look what you did. I bet you're proud of yourself."

Usagi: -smirks- "I am indeed. After all, I know all about the magic of a skilled turtle."

Leo: ". . .I love you, but please stop saying words.”

- Raph and Donnie have mastered 'tuning this shit out for the umpteen-millionth time™'. (The kids still have various levels of shrieking about it though, which is part of what makes it so hilarious to Usagi and Mikey both. They both have a terrible sense of humor.)

Mikey's go-to excuse for why he won't settle down with someone while they're stuck in that world for those 20 years is that he's "married to being a parent" and doesn't have time for a partner. Considering the number of great/grand/kids he has, no one's going to disagree.

- It’s mostly because he doesn’t want to end up in the same situation as Raph.

Then there's the perpetual argument over whether Mikey trying to refer to their family as a clan of 'ninjurai' or 'roninja' is remotely acceptable. He insists that both mashup terms fit perfectly since their family is made up of so many ninja and samurai/ronin. Most of the family disagrees on the principle of 1) those aren't real words, and 2) as old as he is why does he still insist on butchering Japanese as much as possible? (He insists because even as an old man he gets a kick out of being a little shit.)

- Other contenders for mashup terms Mikey’s gotten his family to shoot down are: samuninja, shinorai, ronobi, shininja, and rinjarai.

- Even his great/grand/kids have jokingly threatened to disown him for that.

- The argument has had various iterations going for decades

Everyone who knows anything about the family knows that if they want to interact with anyone who gives a sense of being calm, respectful, polite, and so on to go to Leo. And yet despite this everyone also knows that the five old men are possibly the best fighters in Japan; that all five of them are skilled, resourceful, and responsible. It still doesn't change the fact that at times Leo seems to be the only one who cares even a tiny bit about formality anymore.

- It also doesn't help that Leo probably knows entirely too many secrets from too many high-ranking officials scattered throughout that world's Japan.

- 'Oh yes! The responsible one! The leader! Now we can get some proper negotiations out of the wa- Oh no. It's him.'

- Old man Leo keeping a polite face even while the barest hint of a smile is on his face and amusement is dancing in his eyes-- because he knows.

Donnie's gotten so used to saying outrageous things in a deadpan due to having to occasionally explain his tech as 'magic' that there are times where he'll say something like, "No, it's intended to make an entire wall of a building explode if you sneeze near it," without even giving a hint that he knows he said anything that doesn't make sense.

- Raph may or may not have scared off some obnoxious would-be trouble-makers by telling them that if they didn't straighten up that he'd tell Donnie to just go ahead and summon the demons already.

- Leo's given up trying to tell the two of them to not say things that imply they're sacrificing people in some sort of twisted blood ritual. He's just grateful that their reputation is so wide-spread and they're so well-thought-of (if regarded as very strange) that most people seem to know not to take those comments seriously.

- Usagi may have once claimed that he was sacrificed and brought back from the dead several weeks in a row. Leo just rolled his eyes and pretty much told him to stop telling people that he'd let his brothers ritualistically kill his husband on a regular basis.

When Mikey wants to be lazy or a pest at the kids, he absolutely pulls the 'I'm old, I'm so achy and tired, I can't possibly get to my feet and walk that short distance to get (insert whatever here)' card. No one buys it. They've seen him in a fight, during training, etc. They know he's not 'frail', 'weak', or 'fragile' no matter how much he plays it up.

- Which at least once has resulted in a bout of--

"I can't possibly go on! I'll just stay here. And die. Of thirst. Because my grandchild who I thought loved me won't help dear old Grandpa."

"Grandpa. You were running across rooftops an hour ago. I highly doubt that you 'can't' get up."

"Dying. Of thirst. Leo! Leo, are you there?! Everything... going... dark..."

Leo just shaking his head. "No one in the family believed it when we were kids, no one's believing it now."

"I... can't possibly... move..." Over-exaggerated theater gasp.

"...Grandpa. I don't believe you. That didn't even sound close to a death rattle. And you can see the tea kettle from where you're sitting."

"...Too bad I don't have a good swivel-chair here."

"Mikey, no."

- (This is another sub-point you can thank @babblingweirdnonsense for.)

Mikey: “Child! Please give me that plate of food one foot away from me. My knees hurt.”

Child: “Father, I saw you beating an enemy ninja not two hours ago.”

Mikey: “I am sore from the fight.”

Child: “You were doing a handstand five minutes ago.”

Mikey: “I can no longer walk on my feet! Only my arms work now.”

When they’re finally able to go back to their world (a year after their younger selves return to their time) the media almost has a meltdown. Especially since Cody is able to confirm that they’re them. (Because realistically you can’t tell me that Donnie isn’t a famous scientist in that time. All four of them probably ended up in history books.)

Donnie keeps his deadpan semi-nonsense explanations. (Explaining to family or someone who gets what he’s talking about or doing is one thing. To others? He’ll still say things like “It’s magic” and leave it at that.)

- "No, really, how does it work?"

"The power of jesus."

- It even carries over to Donnie talking to reporters.

Reporter: “Where were the four of you for all these years?”

Donnie: "I could tell you-"

Raph: "-but then he'd have to kill you."

Donnie: "-No I wouldn't. But it'd be difficult to answer."

Reporter: "Could you try to explain?"

Donnie: "...Somewhere over the rainbow and in another dimension."

Raph: "Don, we weren't in frickin' Kansas."

Donnie: "Close enough."

Raph: "No it wasn't. Wasn't even on the same side o' the planet.”

And to top it all off, there’s the random thought of someone trying to suggest that one of the older turtles should probably sit in a chair normally (while they're either sitting on the back or on an arm or upside-down, who knows what), mostly out of concern that they might fall since they’re so old, and just the whole,

"Child, I am far too old and nowhere near straight enough to care about how other people think about how I'm sitting when I'm comfortable."

#TMNT #TMNT 2003 #Donnie #Leo #Raph #Mikey #Usagi #katanashipping #Leosagi #long post #my fiction #I had way too much fun with this

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kai-borg · 5 years

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VV finds, Ebay grab unboxings, and more bio-related things: Part 3 - Mocs

And now’s where we get into the real meat of these posts. The real filler. That quencher for an appetite I so rarely feed due to my terrible laziness. MOCS!

For the most part the ones in this aren’t that special beyond one who managed to enter my hall of favourite personal mocs. Beyond that they’re just some basic characters, a rather fun little... ‘concept, and a pair managed to spawn a minor joke-’headcanon’ for me.

Firstly I give you, ‘Toa’ Elnas:

Name: Elnas

Element: Iron

Gender: Male

Species: ‘Toa’

Kanohi: Kualsi

Weapon/s: Spear

Bio: Elnas is an interesting character for a Toa. Ancient in build, speech, and what little wisdom he gives, and uncaring, distant, and near disdainful of those around him in personality to a degree even a Toa such as Kopaka would find him... cold.

Despite this Elnas does still protect those under his watch, mercilessly so. Any who dare to attack what is ‘his’, to disturb him, quickly find that they will never be able to attempt such again.

Elnas, while a powerful a Toa, is far from one any consider ‘good’, much less a proper Toa.

When Elnas is not patrolling his village he is either studying, or collecting items and materials which he transports... elsewhere. Wherever that may be though is unknown to his wards. Al that is known is that, despite his location while he is there being unknown, it doesn’t mean his sight decreases any.

Or at least, this is the mask he lets others see.

In truth Elnas, a name cleverly come up with due to its meaning, disrupted detection (technically detection disruption (Elda + Felnas), is actually a being disguising himself as a Toa.

A being better known by the title of, Makuta Avrua, the devourer of knowledge.

While Avrua did take his current form as an attempt to escape from Teridax and his plans, a successful attempt at that, that doesn’t mean he is any better than the conquering betrayer. If anything he is worse.

Avrua, while truthfully similar in goal to Teridax, is also far different.

Avrua has, since the day of his creation, found himself obsessed with knowledge, with learning all he possibly could, and in particular everything he could find on the Great Beings. Both that about them, and from what they left their creations.

Where Teridax wishes to rule the GSR, to overtake and become one of their creations, Avrua wishes to join them, to gain such knowledge he himself can become a Great Being and do as they once did. And he will do anything it takes to gain their knowledge, and reach his goal.

Next off are these fun little two from Sidorak’s species. A duo of infiltration & elimination class dark hunters. A mated (or whatever word you might use for GSR species marriage/romance/whatever) pair to boot! Also a lil’ joke-’headcanon’ along with ‘em!

Ok, so first off comes the headcanon.

As you can see Nille (the name I’ve given to my tall, keetongu orange, green, and gold friend) is rather... ‘extravagant’ looking. Especially in comparison to his much smaller, more ‘dulled-down’ mate, Guhra.

At first, this wasn’t really planned, just started building and once I was done I realized how well, like, blatantly different the two were. Combine that with the somewhat more ‘feminine’ styled ‘hair’ I’d given to the second, smaller one of the two, and, well... that section of my brain that keeps spitting out all my weird character ideas, AU’s, and everything related started kicking! And from that emerged my newest ‘headcanon’.

Basically I kinda had this idea that, what if Sidorak’s species were kind of like peacocks, or similar birds. You know, the male’s are real colourful, flamboyant, and flashy. Also typically probably larger than the females (though this does not mean it’s by a high percent, nor that said females are any weaker (if not even stronger)), and typically try to gain a mate through lots of posturing, looks, and giving them random little (and sometimes big) gifts all in an attempt to better curry favour with them.

Heck, this even works with, and honestly kinda makes sense with Sidorak’s own courting attempts towards Roodaka.

Every scene he’s in he’s acting flamboyant in a way. Posturing, speaking, and even moving in ways oh-so purposely done to show himself off. Make him look more impressive. Draw attention to his literally polished looks.

And then there’s his gifts, such as literally giving Roodaka what basically amounted to full control of the Visorak hordes. Sure, she basically already had it, but he actually acknowledge it instead of, y’know, deluding himself that he held the actual power over them.

There’s also his promises, the way he speaks and acts around her, and quite a good bit of other little things. I mean, heck, if I really wanted I could even consider the fact they had some, like, crazy goal or whatever to rule their entire universe/world as a sort of gift to Roodaka.

Y’know, showing his dedication by literally giving her the entire world as a gift.

Though going by this logic it also means Sidorak himself was kinda gay/bi due to him, you know, going after Roodaka. One of the most bloody extravagant characters out there in the canon bionicle universe. Like, yeesh! Her build, her stance, the aura she projects, even her friggin’ voice all scream ‘extravagance’!

I dunno, I just really liked the idea for some reason once I came up with it, and couldn’t help but keep it. (Though the Sidorak bit also helped said choice. XD)

Name: Guhra

Gender: Female

Species: Steltian

Weapon/s: Dual modifiable-energy launchers

Bio: Guhra’s more the heavy hitter of the team. Surprising to some due to her difference in size to Nille (though far from it for him), though due to her less than noticeable build she does exceed in more visible/crowded infiltration work

Name: Nille

Gender: Male

Species: Steltian

Weapon/s: Hidden Y-blades/shields along his forearms

Bio: Nille, despite colour and size, is the infiltration expert of the team. His looks, and lifetime of cultivating the necessary skills and personality to be as flamboyant a gentleman as possible have lead to him being quite skilled in the necessary etiquette to easily sway higher ranking officials, steer conversations, and easily dismiss suspicions towards himself with but a few touch words, and the proper posturing.

Thirdly you have, while still a Moc, less so one built for the character than to show off an idea/concept. A rather infectious one at that.

Shown above is an example of an individual infected with a partially developed case of a disease known as the ‘Plagued Vines virus’, or, as it is more commonly referred to as, the ‘Zombie virus’.

The Plagued Vines virus is a highly infectious, fatal, highly adaptable, and near incurable disease. As shown the individual carrying a partially developed case of the ‘Plagued Vines virus’ has suffered multiple physical changes. From heavy growth of a black, oily flesh-like organic material, metallic spikes and claws, the beginnings of various, randomly positioned extra limbs, and the emergence of the virus namesake, pitch black, vine-like veins beginning to emerge from the individuals various facial orifices.

As mentioned above, the vine-like veins that emerge from an infected individuals facial cavities are where the diseases namesake comes from. This is due to them regularly being the first physical changes an infected individuals undergoes, and the full activation of the diseases mental takeover,

A Plagued Vines infection is very difficult to detect before this initial physical development. This causes most cases of it to result in a fatal conclusion even when the rare cure is developed due to the emergence of these ‘vines’ indicating the hosts brain to have already been fully consumed.

Infected individuals show little sapience, but high sentience when alone, or in groups numbering less than 20. Creating crude traps/ambush locations, plans, and being able to track prey for long distances despite attempts to cover its tracks.

In groups of 20 and above it has been noted that infected individuals begin to develop varying degrees of sapience. Allowing for even greater efficiency in gathering food, and infecting others to further increase their packs size.

Fortunately in most cases the elimination of a quarter of the packs is usually enough to highly decrease their collective sapience, and half is enough to fully erase it.

Addendum: A pack of 90 infected individuals was discovered. This pack showed a much higher sapience than even an uninfected’s average, the ability to partially vocalise words, and were developing the materials needed to create various weapons, armours, and traps.

They were quickly eliminated, removing the possibility of further pack, and collective intelligence growth, but during this it was noted near two thirds of the pack had to be eliminated before they began to show a notable decrease in sapience. Fortunately once a loss of 3 quarters was reached a full decrease was noted.

Infected individuals display notable aggression towards others of their kind not in their designated ‘pack’, and a focus more on physical consumption, with a focus on meat and metal, which has been hypothesized as necessary to further the diseases physical growths, than spreading of their infection.

In truth the only reason the infection is as dangerous as it is, having required the destruction of entire galaxies to eliminate outbreaks of it, is because of how quickly it physically overtakes infected individuals that die. Requiring mere minutes to begin physical emergence, and revival of any killed by an infected individual that aren’t quickly burned.

Due to its highly adaptable nature it is nearly impossible to find a universal cure for the virus. The disease practically rewrites its genetic structure for every planet it shows up on.

The Plagued Vines virus is even more so dangerous due to how its outbreaks begin. All of which have been noted to be started soon after a successful meteor strike on the soon after virus ridden plant.

Its origins may be unknown, but the fact that this is a truly alien disease is not, and the danger its form of spreading poses, being near undetectable before outbreak, make it one of the most dangerous viruses out there.

And last, but oh so far from least, my favourite Moc of the bunch (discounting Lhikan’s trio who’ll have their own separate post), Tolzak, ‘skakdi’ of psionics.

AAAAHHH! I just can’t help but love her so much! Her builds greebles, colours, shaping, even the way her weapons store are all just so... perfect in my mind!

And, what’s even better, is the fact that she lets me use an AU I jokingly came up with a good while back after reading a certain what-if post about swapping species sizes, and took the base concept on my own odd little route.

A little hint right here and early is, as you’ll notice, Tolzak is rather... odd looking for a Skakdi. A bit too tall. A bit too thin. A bit too... colourful. And then there’s here little... additions. Small, heel-esque structures naturally built into her feet, her odd, built in, hair like head adornment.

All things less so found in her species, than in a certain others.

Name: Tolzak

Element: Psionics

Gender: Female

Species: ‘Skakdi’

Weapon/s: Tonfa style, curved blade, & dual throwing knives

Bio: Tolzak is an outlier for her species.

Where most Skakdi are cruel, violent, and aggressive, Tolzak is surprisingly calm, sociable, and at times even gentle with others around her. This of course doesn’t mean she doesn’t mean she doesn't have, nor show said typical Skakdi attributes. If anything she can at times be even worse than most of her species.

Tolzak typically acts as a sort of... hero in a way, or more-so a mercenary for higher with strict morals, aligned only with the ‘lighter’ end of said compass, and a willingness to both take jobs, and offer a hand in additional tasks she might spot without pay if the reasoning behind such is both reasonable, and honourable enough.

Now, while such may be an odd sight for the denizens of the standard bionicle-universe, for hers it is much less so.

Yes, you’ve read that right. Tolzak is actually a displaced denizen of a different universe, though she herself didn’t know that at first.

The universe Tolzak originally came from is an... odd one. Even for one of any connection to the bio!verse.

In her universe, to put it simply, everything has been reversed in a way.

Where in the main!verse The GSR is the species home, and Bara-Magna the world they’ve fled from in a way. Where the Great Beings left themselves, and the other inhabitants of their planet to die while their creations lived and traveled. Where the Toa were heroes, the Matoran their ‘universes’ keepers, and the Makuta, and all else villains.

All has been reversed in hers.

The GSR, while existent, was made not to act as a travelling, humanoid ‘ship’ from which their creations could live. No, it was made to preserve them. The Great Beings, the Agori, the Glatorian, any who were fortunate to make it in, while the rest remained upon the devastated planet with the GB’s creations.

To act as their new world until their old could be rebuilt.

That’s where the GSR’s species came into play. The Makuta to act as rebuilders of the environment, the repopulators of animals, the various other species the more hands on/detail workers, caretakers, and spreaders of the Makuta’s creations.

They were this universes ‘heroes’.

But this left the Matoran, the Toa and Turaga, the usual heroes requiring new roles. More villainous roles.

They were the keepers of order, those who ensured everything went to the Great Beings plan, and if not, then those who would bring about a reset to it.

The reset is also where another difference between this universe, and the main differs. Where the original has its ‘world’ centered around the Ignika, the Mask of life, as that which keeps it alive, that resets it when needed, her world is centered around the Vahi, the mask of time, as its reset button.

The GB’s, upon the completion of their ‘saviours’, the GSR and their worlds rebuilders, created an additional device which they activated upon their departure.

A large, indestructible machine, hidden behind barriers only their Toa should’ve been able to pass, and designed to use their two strongest masks, the Vahi, and the Ignika, to reset all life, and the world itself back to its ‘original’ (i.e. the time of the machine’s activation) point whenever their creations begin going against their plans, and to add minor... changes to said beings in attempt to gain different results.

During these reiterations a point eventually came where the GB’s creations were made more organic, to a degree they truthfully were not that far from the remaining Agori and Glatorians in their ‘mechanics to organics’ mix.

In fact they were at such a similar level that they gained the genetic functions needed to physically reproduce in but a handful of further reiterations. A useful, and apparently permanent achievement seeing as how the GB truly had no way to otherwise repopulate the species if they died off beyond a full global reset.

But with this newfound ability soon came the possibility of hybrids.

You head that right folks! Hybrids of the various species came into being in this universe, Tolzak being one of them. A Skakdi Vortixx hybrid at that, which does help explain her physical differences in comparison to a ‘proper’ Skakdi.

Tolzak was sent to her current universe, one of the more standard ones during one of the numerous attempts at resistance seemingly every ‘reset’ has happen once the Toa are sent down to begin it.

During her 'generation’, Brutaka, Axonn, and a good number of others had defected from the Order of Mata-Nui (OOMN), the organization now dedictaed to ensuring the Great Beings wills are successfully followed, even if that means they themselves most lose all.

As is to be expected though for such a group, many tend to defect, and resist their will once it comes down to the choice of initiating a reset.

While they failed in their attempts, as was truthfully usual, Brutaka decided to attempt to save at least one member of their resistance, already fatally wounded himself, before the Toa succeeded.

He chose Tolzak. Just barely managing to drop her through a portal into a separate universe as the Toa activated the Great Beings machine. This left her, while physically unchanged beyond some ‘youthening’, mentally muddied. Much of her memories shattered, hazy, and otherwise unrecallable upon her awakening.

This is also why she so readily allowed herself to fall under the moniker of, ‘just an odd Skakdi’. At the time she herself didn’t known otherwise, and while she has regained much of her memory, having pieced together what she could, and slowly been clearing up and recalling the rest, enough to remember she is not a true member of her current universe, and her hybrid status, she still is more than ready to continue carrying said moniker.

It is truly a much easier option than attempting to explain the truth of her origins, and the actual reason behind her physical ‘oddities’.

So far Tolzak’s world has gone through near 500 000 separate reiterations, though she herself came from the 35 372nd reiteration, and upon her ‘escape’ from the world was never reborn.

Also, here’s a little bit of a closer look at her weapon storage, and just why I find it so... perfect.

I mean, heck! Look at it! Everything's perfectly aligned, her curved blade is stably positioned, and I can even fit its cross axle in right there at the top due to the Metru torso’s build!

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fantroll-purgatory · 5 years

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Haemir Elazra - Doctroll Extraordinaire

Planet: Alternia, minor AU/Alternate History elements

Name: Haemir Elazra Haemir: From Haem, an alternative spelling of Heme, the oxygen-carrying, iron-containing molecule in blood. Links up to his blood caste woes and his lusus.

Elazra: From Azrael, Angel of Death, and Lazarus, the man brought back to life. It fits in with his role as a healer on a planet of death and slaughter, and also to his status as the last living limeblood. An Angel of Death is also a specific kind of serial killer; a nurse that kills their own patients. Fun fact! @chaoticevilfantrolls (SA here to say that you have designed a troll that 400000% appeals to my interests. I screamed when I opened the box and saw him here!)

Age: 7.5 sweeps. He’s a youngster, compared to my other trolls.

Strife Specibus: caneKind. Not much reason behind it beyond the fact that actual IRL plague doctors would use canes to distribute treatment. Plus the Rod of Asclepius could reasonably fit under this strife spec. (If you wanted to go a bit more Black Death with it, you could weaponize some herbal medicine for poisons? Fight with some syringes?)

Fetch Modus: Quarantine. Items are stored and sterilized in little plastic bubbles. It makes cleaning his equipment a breeze! But, he can’t store anything he intends to eat, and living things have a habit of turning up dead from the storage process.

Blood color: Limeblood! The whole concept of the character revolves around a mysterious figure with strong empathy becoming a doctor to soothe the woes of others, so I figured a lone limeblood would work. He’s based heavily around the headcanon that limebloods were killed off for their empathic abilities, which lead to a rebellion in this particular setting. (We LOVE an Empath Limeblood. I have not reviewed your other trolls, so I don’t wanna poke too much into Limeblood Politics without knowing the AU, but if they’re still in hiding, I’d suggest on blood-color alone a little bit of generational trauma? A little skittishness from Literally Feeling all of the death and pain his people have gone through, and the Knowledge that that kind of feeling comes with.)

Symbol and meaning: The alchemic symbol for Alkali. Alkali are chemically basic substances used to make soap. That’s about as far as that goes for depth, haha. (Soap Troll! Soap Troll! Soap Troll!) (There’s a whole suite of Alchemic Symbols out there, but if we’re zooming in on a Soap Troll, I think this dovetails into some expansion. Let me explain:) (Soap’s a cleansing agent, both of wounds and of places. Most alkaline substances (think Lye and Quicklime) wash things away with ferocity, and can burn skin. I think you could easily expand Haemir -who already has a darker, death element to him- with a bit of vengeance? A bit of anger? Something sincere and hard to excise from himself. Someone who, at his core, wants to wash away the sins of the past and plant the seeds of tomorrow.)

Trolltag: caduceusCreed [CC] Caduceus: The staff carried by Hermes, associated with the medical profession through it’s adoption as a symbol of American military medics. The Caduceus was mistakenly chosen over the Rod of Asclepius, and thus has become a bit of a point of contention in the medical professions (for those that even give a shit, at least.) Creed: Well. I mean. Kind of a reference to the Hippocratic Oath, just in a way that fits GCAT, out of personal preference. (Basic, easy to scan, and effective. I think you could use Asclepion instead of Cadecus for a more fitting tag, though using old Traveler Man’s symbol could hint at a desire to travel, to tell, to proclaim.)

Quirk: He’s got a simple quirk going. All lowercase, with t’s turned into crosses and doubled, as well as doubled x’s to represent stitches. He otherwise uses proper punctuation, and he really capitalizes on his corny jokes to ease the stress of his patients (putting the pun in all caps). He represents his mask in his smiley faces. Which is to say, he only ever uses one smiley for all emotions ever. 8>

CC: ++he quick brown foxx jumped over ++he lazy dog. (This scans well and doesn’t seem too out of place.)

Special Abilities:Beyond having an extensive knowledge of medical practice, as well as some more traditional healing, Haemir’s most fundamental ability is that he’s a powerful empath. He’s not able to impact the emotions of others, nor can he weaponize the feelings he picks up upon. No, the danger of his power is from how it encourages him to help and heal.

Haemir is able to pick up on the emotions and feelings of near-by trolls, especially discomfort and misery. Because he’s a bit of a soft boy, and because he personally feels that discomfort himself, he feels compelled to treat that discomfort in any way he can. He’s been a doctor as much as he’s been a stand-in moirail. (I think my conflict with your vision from a review standpoint comes here. Nothing about the ability needs to change, but I think you’ve let it dominate your character’s Path, put a pin in this- we’ll talk about it further into the review.)

Lusus: You know the big snake monster from Hiveswap? The one with like, sixteen arms? Imagine that, but a horse-sized white leech with massive fangs. That’s the Leech-Lord, and Haemir’s main mode of transportation. (I find this ESPECIALLY amusing because both of my limeblood trolls have serpentine-modified lusii. Limebloods really just have that Slithery Energies.)

Personality: Haemir is… odd, and by most trolls standards an aberration. He’s a limeblood empath on a hostile world with a strong inclination to help people, even when he knows there’s no reward in it for him. This doesn’t mean he’s a fool, by any means, even if other trolls tend to confuse his compassion and conviction for cowardice.

He believes strongly in everyone’s right to live, and live well, even if another troll would see him dead for his blood color. That’s why he dresses in heavy clothes, wearing a mask at all times to hide any hint of skin or mark that could potentially betray his color. He also tends to be very flighty and anxious when people attempt to get too touchy with him, often prompting adorable squeaks of frustration. He’s perfectly capable of speech, mind, he just chooses not to most of the time. (We’re getting into it! There’s a nice undercurrent of justice, of human(troll) rights, of life and death and the societies we build to combat them. Being shaped by the society he lives in and yet wanting to change it, ignoring what’s laid before him to forge his own path…)

Interests: Medicine, biology, anatomy and physiology, and surprisingly enough, an appreciation for teen romance novels and movies. He just wishes there were less books about rainbow drinkers and lycanthropes and more about those hot, hot plague doctors. (Hshshshshshshsh I want him to have gotten into the Plague Doctor getup due to some ill-advised CW Show about Troll Black Death and he was like “that’s it! I’m gonna dress like a featherbeast!”)

(For expansions on this: I definitely think History is a solid interest, given that he dresses up like a historical profession. Reading about the Limeblood Rebellion and the flow of Alternia- he’s probably done a lot of reading on the Condesce as well- learning how to Speak Truth to Power and how a Ruler shapes the lives of people she’ll never meet and- I could be here all day.)

Title: Sylph of Heart (I will be blunt with you: This character is neither of these things. Remember my comment under Special Powers? Here’s where we take that pin out.) (You’ve built an incredibly solid character here, which makes pointing this out very, very easy. I scanned this profile once and knew immediately what I was going to recommend.) (Let’s talk about why this is ill fitting: -First, this character is no Passive character. He already has the team/community focus that a Passive class would teach him, and given that- he’s taken matters into his own hands. This is a really solid Active player. -With Creation classes (and Sylphs ESPECIALLY), you have to think: What is this character destroying? A Sylph is but a Prince reflected. With Heart, your character would be Actively Destroying Mind- breaking people’s brains and toying with their emotions. Your character FEELS their emotions biologically, he doesn’t go out of his way to take hammers to their decision making. Sylphs also LOVE to meddle, which is why healing comes naturally to them. Your character has elements of this, but not in quite the sly, background kind of way.) (Heart, is traditionally linked to Derse (similar to Time) because it’s portfolio of disguise, facade, and truth being mutable all lend themselves very well to the Dersite playstyle. Your character, while hiding his face, doesn’t deal in facades as much as your typical Heart player, nor does his path as a character seem to fortell him learning to be different people or play with their heartstrings.) (My recommendation: Maid of Life or Bard of Doom) (But SA! A doctor that’s a Life player? That’s so cliche! And yes, it would be, on a character without as many hooks as this one.) (Maids learn to rely on themselves- look at Aradia, who dies and comes back in many forms as she takes time into herself. Your character looks like a Doom Player, and yet is a healer, and grower, a shaper.) (The Life-Doom inversion is much more than Life and Death, it is also Energy and Society. Your character is a healer, an active bringer of Life, and in doing so, not only directly counters Death, but Alternian Culture too. Your character isn’t a Prince of Doom, for instance: he’s not actively challenging society, he’s changing it as a side effect of his own actions. Life-Doom is much broader than individuals.) (The Path for this character is less in changing as a person and more in reinforcing his good nature. Learning to be more open, learning what needs to be done, learning how he can be the force of good in the world that he’s already being, even if it feels small.)

Land:Land of Miasma and Malaise

Dream Planet: Prospit (I like this guy as a Prospit Dreamer. Even if he hides his face, he can’t really hide who he is- that sense of care and justice end empathy shines right on through.)

CD here with the design time at SA’s behest. The design was already pretty much perfect, just a few little tweaks. The design read a little costumey/like a human dressed up as a troll and I wanted to fix that. So as Really, Really Cute as the eyes were, I replaced them w/ more typical shiny plague doctor lenses in a still contrasty eyeball orange. I put some hair over the horns to make them feel more integrated and less tacked on, and I adjusted the outlines of the shoes to make them feel more integrated and less like the human kids’ shoes!

(This was a great troll to work through, thank you for submitting!)

#limeblood #submission #sa review #Haemir Elazra #haemir #elazra #review

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blankie-greenie-anon · 6 years

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Notable Stuff from Boueibu HAPPY KISS ep 2

Today, I watched this episode in my college. I viewed it, not on my laptop nor any android device. I turned on the projector in my classroom and played the episode movie-style. This will be my routine every Monday morning starting now.

I was correct. They weren’t using any censorship methods to hide their identities. Everyone knows everybody and there are no secrets.

This episode is more focused on the Student Council, so it’s only natural that they cut down the Defense Club’s screen-time. The following episodes will likely balance between the two groups now that both have been formally introduced.

Furanui actually explained the situation to the Student Council whereas the Defense Club are totally dumbfounded by the whole ‘fight for the throne’ thing going between Furanui and Karls.

Nanao seemed interested about Furanui’s motives at the beginning, but Furanui turned out to be the type to give overly-long sermons that bore everyone to death that even Nanao didn’t want to listen anymore.

Oddly enough, when the boys changed out of their costumes while Furanui explained everything, they were back in their school uniforms, even though they were originally in towels. The only other way they could have regained their clothes is if one of them ran back to the bathhouse and brought the clothes to the others, or Karls used teleportation magic to bring their clothes to them as an apology for exposing their naked bodies to the cold and also to avoid being skinned into a pelt.

Ichirou is acquainted with Martha, since he speaks quite familiarly with him. It’s probably because they’re the same class. Ichirou also warned Martha that he could slip and fall, which means he might see Martha as a friend, even though Martha easily treats him like a pest.

The current King of Honyala Land is a platypus, and Minister Wao is a lemur. Seeing as there is no queen, I’m taking a guess that the King gave birth to the princes themselves. Platypi lay eggs, so it sounds possible.

Minister Wao has yet to show himself in the human realm.

The King tends to end his sentences with ‘kamo’.

Tawarayama became the headmaster of Binan High. He was the most recent to retire since his photo is at the end, or he could be the current one.

In the Pretty Boy Contest poster, the guy in the center looked like Kakeru Kazami from Shounen Hollywood.

The first thing Furanui did upon entering the human realm was to eat a grasshopper, which he found delicious.

There were three things Furanui hated in this world: indolence, affectation, and deceit. He finished off his spiel about the world being to lazy with “Rise, Furanui! Strive, Furanui!”

Furanui quickly rushed to Kyoutarou when he thought he was dead, either out of worry or curiosity. He scurried down the wall on all fours. When he found out Kyoutarou was just sleeping, Furanui casually says he could slit his throat.

Kyoutarou has an aura of laziness that incapacitates any animal in vicinity, lulling them into a slumber with him. It is so powerful, not even Furanui can resist.

There’s some sort of connection between Kyoutarou and Ata. Kyoutarou had no qualms referring to Ata by his first name, and while Ata is angered by Kyoutarou’s lazy attitude, he never ordered him to call him ‘President’. Ryouma seems to know Ata, too, enough to use his first name.

Kyoutarou doesn’t let Ata call himself stupid, whether he’s being sarcastic or not. He keeps reminding him that he’s smart.

Ata tried to be insulting to Kyoutarou, probably to get the latter mad and attempt to prove himself, except that Kyoutarou already knew he’s a lazy good-for-nothing and has no need to state otherwise.

Ata has some sort of grudge about Kyoutarou doing something to him, but it doesn’t seem like it is because Kyoutarou left him behind or anything since they’re still interacting like normal. It sounds more like he was frustrated by his behavior. It’s possible that Ata eventually became sick of Kyoutarou’s character and wanted him to change, except Kyoutarou didn’t want to change and there wasn’t anything Ata could do about that, or at some point in the past, Ata was in trouble and Kyoutarou did nothing, which the former attributes to the latter’s sloth. This would explain Ata’s present attitude towards indolence.

Furanui is quite haughty. He believes Ata is perfect to be his knight, but considers him a lower being.

Furanui has been mistaken for a dog, a chihuahua, and a fox.

Ata was hardly frightened by Furanui, only shocked when he displayed magic. In fact, a ‘talking chihuahua’ didn’t seem like anything special to him.

Martha was enamored by Furanui’s adorable animal form at the beginning and tried to take a selfie with him, until Furanui snapped and kicked his face in the same way Hercules punched Hades.

For someone who likes baking treats, being fat is considered a terrible thing in Martha’s vocabulary.

In comparison, the Student Council actually had a choice to join. I mean, Ata was threatened, but that was mostly due to his insolence and he willingly consented afterwards. On the other hand, Taiju just went along with it because of Ata, and Martha, unsure at first, was ready to join once Furanui presented himself more grandly. Karls forced the Defense Club into becoming the Happy Kiss, but Furanui won the Student Council’s loyalty through charisma alone, minus Taiju who only participated because of Ata.

When Furanui changed to his human form, he did a somersault and showed off his butt.

It’s clear that the Defense Club could care less about the Edelstein’s world domination plan because, let’s face it, being under the Edelstein’s control could be no more different than having the Student Council run the school like normal, Taiju did very little to threaten them, and their idea of conquering Earth involves making weird monsters with weird powers that do weird things.

Kiyara Bentaro is a pun on Chara Bento.

In this episode, the type of fear being addressed is the fear of not getting to eat the food you love.

The monsters seem to have a theme of “If I can’t have this, neither can you!” and “We shall become the same!”

Despite already having the Happybraces, the boys are still required to kiss Karls’s hand before transforming. In this episode, they transformed for the a similar reason as the Battle Lovers during the Melon Monster episode. For the former, it was to increase their endurance against the monster’s attacks. For the latter, it was to increase their mountain-hiking abilities.

The Cutesy Lunch Monster would turn its victims into boxed lunches using a beam cannon. Strangely, his beam didn’t affect the Defence Club at all, besides hurting them physically to the point that Kyoutarou almost died. Maybe being Karls’s Knights provides some protection against the monsters created by Furanui’s Knights, as seen as Taishi didn’t go “Blorf!” when he was hit by the Voice-Changing Monster’s beam.

Ryouma always try to talk to the monsters, which usually seems to be the best option since they always listen to him. The Voice-Changing Monster easily explained his motive when asked, and the Cutesy Lunch Monster was almost convinced to step back when Ryouma told him his mother worked hard to make him his food.

Taiju is probably the cruelest character in the show, besides Kyoutarou. Even if it was to strengthen the monster, there was visible enjoyment when he revealed the soul-crushing truth to the monster. Taiju isn’t good at making scary threats like Kyoutarou, but he is very capable of dealing an emotional blow on people.

The Cutesy Lunch Monster’s mother makes cute bentos to show off online, and the monster interprets this as his mother only caring for her ego instead of her child’s welfare.

Actually, no one even made fun of the student for having a cute-looking bento. In fact, one of them was amazed.

This marks the first time a monster in the Boueibu series has ever taken a second form.

Ichirou probably watches a lot of anime. That’s why he’s so insistent that Kyoutarou, who had the color red, should act like a proper protagonist.

Kyoutarou never wanted to be a main character. Rather, he would be happier being a background character who is partly in the scene.

It wasn’t exactly a pep talk, but more of an advice when Kyoutarou told the student who was turned into a monster to just go make his own lunches if he doesn’t like his mother’s.

Additionally, the students, after reverting from monster form, actually snapped out of the trance induced by the finishing move.

As of now, Furanui has displayed the power to transform into a human, manipulate nature to do his bidding, and like Karls, lend his power to other humans and fly. Unlike Karls, he doesn’t need to blow kisses each time casts a spell, and simply summons some circles on the spot from his paws.

Karls’s also shows a new power, and that is to erase the memories of bystanders. Seeing as Furanui didn’t do that himself, it could mean either he didn’t have the power or he wants people to remember the horrible events which would strike fear in their souls.

Kyoutarou often falls asleep in hot baths and there’s only Ryouma to prevent him from drowning.

Karls loves hot baths, which seems to be something he cannot experience back in Honyala Land.

The first-years don’t understand why the club goes for group baths all the time. Ryouma simply answered, “It’s an old habit.” They don’t call it tradition, meaning it might be unrelated to the previous Defense Club, at least not directly.

When the shooting star appeared, Ryouma’s voice echoed when he called Kyoutarou’s name.

It might not seem like it, but the Defense Club literally fought two monsters in the span of a single day.

#BGA blabs #Boueibu Happy Kiss #Boueibu HK #The HAPPY KISS list #Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu HAPPY KISS

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themostcleverandwittyname · 6 years

Text

Posing: (Detroit Become Human Fanfic)(Connor X OC)

CH1 CH2 CH3 CH4 CH5 CH6 CH7 CH8 CH9

Summary:

Claire finally has the funding that she needs to do some proper research on the possible causes of deviancy, and with Cyberlife breathing down her neck she is more inspired not to fail than ever before. To succeed, she must pose as an android for thirty days and record what it is like to be in such a position.

It just so happens that an android that is designed to notice any human behavior in a machine has made his way into the same police station that she chose for her research, which means that she cannot let a single mistake catch his eyes.

Chapter 5: Stolen Lunch

Chapter 5 on AO3

So far, it had been just a normal day. The most normal day so far and a day with the least issues yet. The day had moved quickly and flowed like water, the morning passed quickly. The day was gorgeous outside and the warmest it had been in several months, despite the threat of rain lingering in some distant clouds. The air still held a chill, but the warm sunlight had been enough to keep Claire warm as she picked up the scattered remains of a tipped over dumpster behind the police station. She wished she could stay outside today, in any other circumstance she could call in sick, but androids don’t get sick. Stepping into the shade, she could feel the real chill of the November air on her bare arms, reminding her of yet another thing that separated androids from humans. They would never feel cold or too hot, and at that, Claire felt a tad jealous.

She sighed and stepped back into the warmth of the building, the dumpster problem had been taken care of. She tried to mentally prepare herself for today, her soreness from the day before yesterday still remained in her back as a reminder of how quickly her experiment could go wrong. She thought she would be more nervous about today, the day that the Connor model would officially begin investigation from this particular precinct. However, today she felt the most robotic she had felt in months. She was dead tired from having to deal with staying later the night before, not returning home until around one in the morning. No human emotion would be able to seep out of her tired brain, she reasoned, so she wasn’t worried.

Or at least, she didn’t feel nervous at the prospect of the Connor showing up just yet.

The android poser made her way into the busy office space, more people had found that they wanted to stay in the office for lunch than leave for a fast food place. Claire assumed everyone was busier today and kept in mind to be quick on her toes. The buzz of officers chatting, dispatch beeping in, and phones ringing gave the space a more lively feel. Several officers were already planted at their work desks, eating their lunches and scanning the screens of the terminals. A curiosity prodded her mind, wondering what was happening in the city if any of the cases were interesting. She had heard that in the past few weeks, they had gotten more reports of deviants rising up than months before and she wondered what exactly it had to do with. She had her suspicions but she tried not to think about it and tried to spot something productive to do. She didn’t have to wait long.

“Hey, can you refill this water for me?” that was unusually polite. The voice who had asked was from a woman with dark hair sitting at his desk, her eyes not leaving her computer screen. She held the styrofoam cup out for her to take.

“Yes, of course. Right away.” She gave with a smile, pleasantly taken aback by the question, used to hearing harsh, biting demands. She took the cup and made her way in the breakroom, the scent of coffee enticing. She was so tired if only she could get her hands on more caffeine. It would be impossible to sneak a cup of coffee for herself during this busy lunch hour. Perhaps she could later when no one was looking. Stepping into the breakroom, she surveyed the area to note how dirty it had gotten. Crumbs were on the floor, condiments had been used carelessly and were dripped and smeared on the counter, the microwave was dirtied. She would have to sweep and mop in here again and wipe everything off. The business of this day had made things three times as dirty than the previous days. She inwardly frowned.

Among the people in the breakroom were a group sitting at the tables, watching the television and a man who Claire recognized as the detective from the previous days, Mr. Collins. He was muttering to himself, his voice nearly drowned out by the group at the table. This was no new sight, Claire realized. Without a word, she moved to fill the water cup, and counted down, knowing it would happen soon.

“Claire, have you seen where my lunch went today. It was pasta in a green tupperware container?” the man asked, having learned her name already with the number of times this has happened, having heard it from the captain. He was one of the few officers who knew her name, opting to refer to her as something more than just hey android . He wasn’t trying to be nice, he just wanted to have a better chance of figuring out who had been stealing his lunch.

“No, I’m sorry Mr. Collins. Did you try what I suggested yesterday?” She asked, pouring purified water from a filtering pitcher into the styrofoam cup. She heard the man shuffle, getting to his feet and closing the refrigerator door.

“No sticky note is going to stop a thief, if it were that simple I wouldn’t have this job. Do you have any other genius suggestions?” the man asked, sarcasm thick in his voice. She turned to look at the man, absent of any clothing that seemed professional. She had come across an understanding while carrying out her experiment here. Police officers wore uniforms. Detectives wore clothes that made them look homeless, lazy, or just downright depressed.

“As a matter of fact, I do. May I suggest buying a mini fridge, placing it at your desk, and putting a lock on it? That would deter thievery.” she offered, with a tone that could have easily been mistaken as snide if she wasn’t dressed as an android. She mentally punched herself, hoping her attitude hadn’t been too apparent in her voice. The grey-haired man looked as if he were about to argue, but thought about it.

“That's… not a horrible idea. I still don’t want to have to buy a mini fridge to keep some prick from stealing my stuff.” the man said, placing his hands at his hips and looking at the ground, his frustration pulled his eyebrows together. “Just let me know if you see anything, I mean it.” he finished, with a huff. Without much more than an angry mumble that she didn’t catch, he walked out of the breakroom. Claire glanced at the water cup in her hand, having forgotten what she had been doing momentarily.

Taking the water cup out into the office area, she noticed that it had gotten quieter, probably due to the fact that the preferred lunch hour was coming to a close. The office was emptier now, even though she had only been in the breakroom for maybe two minutes. She went to the desk where the woman had sat before, but this time the woman wasn’t there. Claire decided to just place the cup on the desk, careful not to set it close to anything that could get ruined like paper or electronics. She was about to go see what she could begin with on the breakroom current disaster state when something caught her eye.

Under the officer’s desk was a satchel with a poorly tucked away green tupperware container.

Bingo.

The woman turned away slowly, not wanting to cause any trouble by ratting out the lady officer, but she was still a suspected lunch thief. She made up her mind quickly, finding the detective on his way out the door, presumably to get a replacement lunch. She managed to catch up to him in quick strides, catching him before he got out the door.

“Excuse me, Mr. Collins.” she started, the man didn’t seem to want to give her his attention, continuing out the door. “I think I found your lunch.” she stated, the man stopping in his tracks, casting her a mixed look. He looked hopeful but skeptical of her claim.

“Oh did you now? Why didn’t you bring it directly to me?” he asked, his eyebrows arching up. That was a dumb question. She can’t just take it ad risk causing trouble.

“Androids are not allowed to displace personal property unless specifically instructed to do so. I will show you where I think it is hidden if you like.” She feigned patience in her voice, keeping her tone level. The detective glanced back out the door and into the parking lot before obliging.

“Yeah, yeah. Show it to me.” he said, resigning to following her to the desk. She didn’t know why the people in this office had such a predisposition to ignore and discredit what an android had to say even after they order them to do something beforehand. She would write this down later and explain her theories about it when she got home this evening.

She stopped at the desk, glancing around to see if the lady officer was anywhere to be found, instead spotting a horrible and cringe-worthy figure stepping through the front entrance, the sliding doors allowing the android to step inside. Perhaps this was the worst time to try and be helpful? Claire tried not to look at the android, whose brown eyes looked around the office. She cleared her throat and brought her focus back to the detective, motioning to the satchel under the desk.

“Is that the green container you described earlier?” She questioned, watching as the detective spotted the object halfway sticking out from the bag. She stepped back to allow the man to bend down under the desk and take the tupperware from the bag, scrutinizing it to be certain. He pulled the corner of the lid up to peek at the contents, his eyes lighting up in recognition.

“This is...So she’s the one who has been stealing my lunch.” the man muttered to himself, pulling himself up with the lip of the desk. Claire felt something linger behind her, turning to find that the lady cop had returned at the absolute worst timing possible. The woman’s eyes flicked down to where the detective held his stolen and recovered lunch in his hand, her face flushed of color at having been caught red-handed.

“What are you doing at my desk, Collins?” she asked harshly, attempting to flip her defense into an offense, hoping that her accusing tone would cover her own ass. She folded her arms over her chest, hiding her name badge on her uniform. Claire stepped back to allow things to take their course, hoping not to attract any unwanted attention from the surrounding people in the office, more importantly, the deviant hunter who had just walked in.

“Where are you going? Stay right there.” the woman demanded, any hint of her previous softness gone. Great, the one somewhat undemanding officer here and Claire had to go and make an enemy of her. The officer’s tone was beginning to turn heads and the android poser looked to the detective to diffuse the situation. Hopefully, after finding his lunch, he would be sympathetic towards her, right?

“This android found my lunch with your belongings. Care to explain?” he asked, holding the container up. This did not help her case at all, in fact, the detective just threw her under the bus. The officer glared at the android, her eyes narrowing. Great, this would all be blamed on her. Claire readied herself for harsh words, steeling her face as much as possible.

“So you thought you could play a hero, you little plastic bitch?” she began, taking a step towards the android poser. This statement had definitely attracted the wrong kind of attention. Claire knew thatif things took a turn for the worst, no one would bat an eye. Her only hope was that it didn’t compromise her research. If she bled, it was over.

“This is between you and me. It doesn’t have anything to do with what you have done.” The grey-haired man spoke up, the woman turned her glare towards him. It was in that moment that Claire took her eyes away from the woman to glance at the Connor model, who had been watching in curiosity this whole time, having gotten a bit closer. Great. Five days wasn’t enough to consider useful for her investigation, this was the worst situation for the android to watch. If Claire didn’t play her role completely right, then the Connor would definitely catch on, if he hadn’t already.

“Like hell it doesn’t.” The woman spat out, it was emphasized. Without a warning, the woman grabbed the collar of her uniform and yanked Claire closer to her, a string of threats readied themselves on her tongue. The android focused on keeping her face stoney, her breathing light, and her body rigid to avoid acting out of sorts. “It needs to do its job and not fucking snoop around my desk.” the woman pressed on, shaking Claire about. It wasn’t the worst she had been treated yet, but if this experiment didn’t mean so much to her, the aggressor wouldn’t be getting away with treating her this way.

“That’s enough! Officer Hopkins!” a voice growled, the officer’s attention snapped to the source of the voice and she loosened her grip on the android poser. Captain Fowler had peeked his head out of his office at the commotion, his dark eyebrows furrowed. “If you damage that thing, the repair fee will be coming out of your paycheck.” he threatened, the officer casting a decisive glance at the android in her grip. Deciding it wasn’t worth it, she released her, nearly sending Claire on her ass, underestimating the tension that the officer had pulled on her uniform. The director watched the officer in expectation, his arms folded firmly, propping his office door open with his shoulder.

The officer resigned her aggression, for now at least, stuck under the glare of her boss. She ducked her head and whispered quick words to the android in front of her.

“You haven’t gotten off this easily.” she threatened, before turning on her heel. At that, the interest of everyone in the office hoping to catch light of some developing drama or violence dissipated. The tension still hung in the air, Claire standing there dumbly attempting to ground herself after the display. She turned to the grey-haired detective, grateful for him trying to distract the blame to himself after essentially putting the mark on her head.

“She really is unbearable. Not even able to take the blame.” the detective shook his head, cradling his lunch in both hands in front of him. Claire looked over the man’s shoulder to spot the Connor model standing patiently and rather awkwardly outside of the captain’s office, watching her and the detective converse. His LED swirled yellow, no one else seemed to pay any attention to him. Of course, he was watching her.

“I guess all androids aren’t useless.” The detective’s words brought her attention back to him. “You’re the first one that’s made any impression around here. What model are you?” the detective asked, throwing her off guard. Model? She hadn’t been given a model number. Damn, why hadn’t she thought of that. Why would he need to know her model number? General curiosity? If he was planning on buying a model like her, he was out of luck. Cyberlife doesn’t sell Claire Ripleys.

Her mind wandered over a few possible model numbers she could use, even if they didn’t fit completely. Androids are made to change appearance to suit humans, right? So even if she didn’t look like a model, it was still possible that she could pass as that model...if someone didn’t do their research that is. She could pose as an AX400, AP400, AP700, or maybe a WG700.

“T-800. I’m designed for janitorial and domestic housekeeping purposes.” she blurted, realizing her mistake as soon and it left her mouth. T-800? Why had she said that? It was the worst number she could have told the man. She hoped the man wasn’t an eighties sci-fi thriller genre kinda guy. She cast a nervous glance at the Connor, who was still standing and watching. Maybe he didn’t hear that? Not a chance, the model’s face shown his confusion at her words, his eyebrows knitting together and he narrowed his eyes at her.

There wasn’t much of a chance for the Connor to step forward and call her out for her blunder, being gestured to join the captain in his office. She let herself relax for a moment, realizing that the detective had caught her looking behind his shoulder. He too looked behind him, seeing nothing special and deciding to ignore it.

“Well, we may need more T-800’s around here.” he said, giving her a congratulatory pat on the back, feeling more like a club hitting her. At that, the man left her to decide what needed to be down next. Reasoning that the breakroom would be easier to try and clean after the lunch hour, she went to the storage closet to grab supplies to clean the restroom.

All the while, trying to ignore the threat from the angry officer and the confused and suspicious look from the Connor model.

A few hours had passed since the unfortunate incident with the officer and Claire remained calm and collected, praying that she hadn’t done anything more to stir any suspicion from the Connor model, who she had the displeasure of seeing out of the corner of her eyes for the past three hours. He had been given a small rundown of what to expect from the office and how to behave, all of that first day introduction bullshit they do at every job ever. The captain said that he would look over the investigators in the precinct and pair the Connor with the person with the least cases on their head. Since he couldn’t do anything without a human to assist him, the android was left to wait for the director’s word

Until then, the Connor had done nothing but watch her.

She had managed to get the bathrooms cleaned and half of the breakroom wiped down and mopped before she began to notice the android’s speculative eyes on her. She tried not to make a single mistake, a single significant human movement or gesture. She ran to get a hard copy of something for an officer who rushed her more than necessary, conscious of the android watched her, almost convincing her that he felt genuinely curious and invested in what she was doing. He did this without a word, comment, or scrutinizing expression. Had he found her out already? The model number thing was sure to sell her out if the detective android had paid any attention to it. She dreaded getting anywhere close to him.

While he was carefully studying her, she did the same, wondering once again what set him apart from other androids. Claire would steal looks at him from where he sat in a chair, completely and unnaturally straight. She noticed that he was especially fidgety for an android, always adjusting his clothing, rolling his shoulders, and messing with his tie. If she didn’t know any better, she would assume he was uncomfortable. It was most likely a feature to make him more human-like. Why on earth would he need to be more human-like in that way? She supposed it might help under some circumstances that she couldn't place immediately, but he felt more quirky and awkward than the standard joe. He was definitely not like any other android she had seen.

The office had cleared out, not many workers were to found at their desks or wandering about. This was a bit better, not having to speak to anyone and focus on her work, which significantly helped her appear more android. She had done everything that she could possibly do except for paint the building, having nothing else to wipe at or do. This was the part she dreaded, hating mocking an android’s “standby” mode which consisted of just standing with no movement or expression.

It was incredibly difficult.

“Hey, get over here. I need you to do something for me.” a voice spoke up, Claire inwardly relieved that she wouldn’t have to stand around and was given a task. She recognized the two figures who had come up behind her. The person who had spoken was the man who called her the very unclever insult of bolt brain. She believed his name was Reed. He was followed by another person who she wasn’t excited to see, officer Hopkins, who had sworn to get her back earlier.

Reluctantly, she joined the two at the man’s desk, both seeming cozy with each other. They were friends, she could tell.

“What may I do for you?” she asked, giving her standard fake smile and bright eyes. The man smirked at her, giving his buddy a snarky grin. She felt her heart drop in dread. This wasn’t going to end well.

“The coffee in the breakroom is stale. Go make a fresh pot.” he demanded. The officer gave him a look, but he shrugged at her. Claire didn’t like this. She knew something was being planned and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

“Right away, Mr. Reed.” she responded, turning on her heel to head toward the breakroom. She glanced at the Connor from the corner of her eye to see him look between her and the pair of assholes at the desk. His LED was the standard blue light, showing his calm state. If he was going to have to wait, why did he have to wait here? It was such a nuisance.

The pot of coffee was made in no time, Claire tapping her fingers impatiently on the countertop, watching in vague interest to what was happening on the television. Some news of tension between America and Russia over the North Pole was told with concern from news anchors. She poured the coffee into a styrofoam cup, leaving it exempt of sugar and cream just as was standard unless someone asked for it. The steam swirled out of the cup, the scent was enticing. She was beyond tired, her brain feeling somewhat numb. She wished she get ahold of something that could wake her up a bit.

As soon as the coffee was finished, she wasted no time in bringing it back to the man with the five o'clock shadow and bad attitude. He watched as she made her way to his desk, the woman next to him snickered with him. Had they timed her? Filmed her? What kind of dumb trick was the two planning?

“Here is your fresh coffee. Don’t hesitate to ask for anything else.” she offered, gently placing the cup onto the desk. The man looked at the cup and gingerly took the hot liquid in his hand, raising it closer to his face to scrutinize it.

“Don’t hesitate to ask? Aren’t you efficient?” he asked in mock surprise. He then did the unthinkable. With a quick flick of his wrist, he sent the contents of the cup flying into the air. As a knee-jerk reaction, Claire took a step back, but only avoided the boiling coffee’s trajectory onto her torso. It had not, however, missed her bare left arm. The searing hot coffee burned deep onto the surface of her skin and the initial flare of pain was nothing compared to the stinging, lingering scald. She somehow managed not the yell out. She simply breathed out of her nose in a shaky exhale and clenched her fist and jaw, unable to do anything about the pain on her arm. She felt sick, disgusted at the person who smirked in front of her. The woman gapped in a pleasant surprise at what her scumbag friend had just done. Claire considered her burn and slowly pulled her arm behind her back to hide any red indication that she was human.

“I won’t hesitate to ask you to clean this shit up then, plastic bitch.” he said after looking fondly over his damage, his sick humor hinted at in his voice. He tossed the flimsy cup at her feet and stood, motioning for his friend to follow him. He roughly shoved her from his way, caused her to hold her breath at the painful contact of the man’s shoulder with her own.

“Look at it’s LED turn red. It’s so pathetic.” The officer spoke up, following the scumbag detective off towards the back of the office.

Claire bent down and picked the styrofoam cup up and sighed, trying to control her expression. Turning to go back to the breakroom to try to do something for her burn, she saw that the Connor had disappeared behind her back. Where had he gone? She didn’t have any time to scout out the android, her only concern was to try and sooth this burn that flared with each heartbeat. She was very lucky it had only been her arm.

She wouldn’t have been able to keep her cool if it had been her face or on her uniform, where the heat would have soaked in and stayed.

She glanced around the breakroom and saw no one and no indication that anyone was intending on coming into the breakroom. She calmly made her way to the sink and gave her arm a good look over, glad to see no blistered skin. Her arm was tinged red from where the coffee had made contact, a splatter-like pattern was evidence that it had indeed happened. She looked around again and was satisfied to find no one around.

Turning the sink to the coldest point that she could, she held her arm under the frigid water, the burn only slightly feeling better by the second. She knew that Holly would have a fit at seeing her hurt when she got home. She knew there was no chance she could hide the burn from her roommate either. This had definitely woken her up. She seethed at the scumbag who did this to her. Who would be that cruel? How even? Her fist clenched and her face twisted into a scowl at the thought. She was beyond livid right now.

She reluctantly turned the faucet off, afraid that she would be caught. At least her arm wasn’t as red as before. Before she had fully wiped the water from her arm, a voice spoke up from behind her. A voice she had only heard a few times and voice she hoped she wouldn’t have to hear again. A soft voice that did anything to calm her nerves.

“Miss Ripley, you are quite the actor. You may have gotten away with this if I hadn’t come here.” the voice spoke, not particularly hateful or scheming. Simple and honest.

She slowly met the brown eyes of the Connor model, whose eyebrows were raised in questioning.

Shit.

CH1 CH2 CH3 CH4 CH5 CH6 CH7 CH8 CH9

#connor x oc #dbh fanfic #dbh connor #connor rk800 #rk800 #detroit become human #my work #posing

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cvenir · 6 years

Text

here i am to introduce EIGHT characters that i actually thought i had already introduced lmao set me on fire !! but yay, take a look under the cut! ofc eventually proper bios will hit my pages and their tasks will expand much more on my children! as always, pinterests and songs are linked if u wanna go a lil deeper

just kidding i drafted that when i was aCTUALLY gonna do 8 but thankfully tea says she won’t accept me until i post 2 intros so yOU SHALL RECEIVE 2 RN and 8 later <33333 gotta keep y’all on your toes heh also i wrote niall’s in my journal on the plane so like... it’s not great (literally just bullets of sentence fragments) but wtvr that’s what bios are for amirite

NIALL O'DONOGHUE looks an awful lot like TARON EGERTON. HE is TWENTY-EIGHT and while they're ASTUTE, they have a tendency to get pretty ARDUOUS. You’ve probably seen them around Kola listening to DON'T WANNA FALL IN LOVE by KYLE (ok his pinterest is incredibly unfinished look away)

v conflicting mix of soft and hard

king of suppressing his lowkey intense feelings

kinda awkward around others due to the fact that he spent his entire life reading, writing, and studying –– he rarely interacted with other people as a kid and this mostly continued into his adult life

sweet soft boi has a double masters in medieval and renaissance studies and french and romance philology; he’s working on his phd rn while interviewing to become an assistant professor at kola university

grew up w a single mom (never knew dad) and had no siblings so his childhood was even lonelier :////

so like mad libs = his bff :’(

well mad libs and the shoulder flashlight he invented for late night reading (shoutout to amy santiago)

v soft and passionate heart

loves intellectual discussions like my boi has v strong gemini/virgo/mercury influences –– and a libra (or taurus i haven’t decided yet) venus so waTCH OUT

takes friendship v seriously (love u grant <333 @mcnuggcts )

buttt he can be a giant asshole sorry i don’t make the rules

v organized and particular

and scared of getting close to people bc he’s so used to being alone ugh my son!!

but once you get in there you’ll see he’s a good guy like rlly is he just has a bad temper sometimes and can barely express any emotion but anger half the time :///

ISLA VARGA looks an awful lot like ALEXIS REN. SHE is TWENTY-TWO and while they're SAGACIOUS, they have a tendency to get pretty MACABRE. You’ve probably seen them around Kola listening to COOL GIRL by TOVE LO.

so i’ve played isla before n i’m v sorry to do this but i feel hella lazy so i’m sORRY but here comes a fucking huge wall of text don’t look at me and don’t feel like u have to read it ://// all the triggers i tagged apply to her; she’s p dark so seriously do not read it if you think she will make you uncomfortable!!

to preface, isla is like the embodiment of all of the seven deadly sins, and i molded her a lot after amy dunne (scary, i know) and april ludgate (mostly amy tho april is just deadpan like she is –– when she’s being herself, that is), as she is an incredible pococurante yet perfectionist who borders on sociopathy

soooo this will make sense later but her real name is actually brigid (father’s surname idk) which she now uses as her middle name

so isla’s dad is a fucking rockstar !!! badass right. she’s half-siblings with hadley ( @ofadorations ) and colby ( @shtbgs ) but she actually never met her mom, something she’s not too pressed about

bc she was cute as a button, family friends decided to get her into the entertainment business as a child star almost as soon as she could walk –– she did it all, acted, modeled, danced, sang, she was literally hollywood’s little starlet and she hated every minute of it. the entertainment business loved who they created, but that girl was never her and it weighed deeply on her psyche.

when she was twelve, she decided to fake her own disappearance because she was fed up with everything –– she cut her hair to her ears, dyed it brown (and has continued to do so ever since) and sneaked her way to nyc hoping no one would recognize her

well someone did, and they happened to be a member of ruthless and organized mobs of the city –– in return for keeping her concealed, she pledged her devotion and became one of their most skilled and lethal honeytraps in the business (WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE BC THEY MADE HER START YOUNG I AM SO SORRY FOR WRITING THIS IT JUST PLAYS HEAVILY INTO HER CHARACTER)

along the way, members inevitably died –– people she was sworn to care for –– many times before her eyes as well, which only lead her to realize she enjoyed witnessing all sorts of death, even those of people she was supposed to “love”. emotion was almost nonexistent in isla’s childhood, a trait that bled into her character development.

she began to idolize the gang and its power, something she now craved. still, isla was doing a great job of portraying herself to those around her as a rosy, meek, baby-doll, when in actuality she was a child full of hate who would soon blossom into a young adult of the same tone. she became even more obsessed with death, fantasizing about it as if her unusual thoughts would make her less afraid when it came for her.

eventually, as she grew older, she was accepted into the higher ranks of the mob; this couldn’t have made isla more content. the macabre girl was honored that someone else noticed her genius, the way she could predict things, assess situations, manipulate people to do her bidding. it was only right that she was initiated into a society that praised her for such harshness

but, as all things do, her time in the gang ended after ten years and isla did what she does best: disappeared. she’s relocated back close to home, kola california, and it’s only a matter of time before people and the industry realize just who she is

if she’s acting like her true self, she behaves like a negative, eldritch layabout who likes to watch others suffer (sounds extreme, i know). however, she rarely lets anyone see the real her, and instead accepts various facades in a big game –– the darkness is truly her personality, she’s not faking her cold demeanor. this image enables her to mask her true potential and the fact that she is unflaggingly loyal and cares about those she’s close to.

if i had to give her a label, it would probably be the pococurante (which is defined as: an indifferent person. possibly they’re bored, jaded or even been hurt. either way, they tend not to get attached to things and don’t show much enthusiasm, whether that’s on the outside or the inside, too)

on the other hand, she could be accurately summed up as an arcane, as she’s an enigmatic mystery and she prides herself on being a puzzle that several people have failed to solve. there are many sides to her personality; in some aspects, she’s very much an aesthete considering she spends a great deal of her time taking putting together outfits, so she has a very defined fashion sense and typically dresses like a princess half the time, which is very ironic considering her dark personality. she truly is so GLAMOROUS (and this is why i love alexis for her) and she works that mean girl, hard soul aesthetic while serving looks and also able to come across as incredibly sweet, which is perfect for her multiple personas. she’s a stunner, with both her appearance and personality; as much as she is indifferent and would prefer to fly under the radar, wherever she goes people always want to ask questions, making her into this intangible concept that everyone wants to define.

people will recognize parts of her as if they’ve seen here in another life, and because of her ostentatious, puzzling, and spellbinding personality, she’s unforgettable. on the other hand, she’s also something of a virago, due to the fact that she can be incredibly feisty when angered; but it takes quite a lot to actually set off her fuse, as she’s good at controlling which emotions she shares. for the most part, she is incredibly blasé and even-tempered. additionally, she’s is a bit of a picaro because her primary aim with her life at this point is to be independent and liberated from any and all attachments to other people. mostly, though, she’s is nothing more than a girl who’s afraid; of what, she still can’t decide.

all in all, she’s so much of everything that she isn’t quite certain of her own identity. her character is one shrouded in secrets and shadows yet alluring and sensual. but, lbr, most of all she’s just deadass terrifying. one of her defining characteristics is her desire to make things happen for her through her own abilities and determination. obstinate as all get out, she doesn’t like to own up to making mistakes so she tries to prove that she’s almost invincible to them bc she doesn’t wanna let anyone see her vulnerable, or she doesn’t want to let someone down - this refers only to those that she’s actually close to. due to her apathetic nature, all she really wants to do is let most people down – people she finds boring and useless – and have some fun because of it. however, when it comes to people she truly has allowed herself to care about, her deepest desire is for their happiness because they must be pretty damn special for making her give a shit.

still, because of her evasive tendencies, she almost always does ruin things for herself and for others, even when she actually cares. she’s like a double-edged sword; when she finds something worthwhile, she sees so much beauty and potential in it, but she’s got a midas touch. whenever she wants to obtain it or pursue it, her involvement makes everything fall to ashes, and she is afraid of her own influence. despite her tendency to run away, once she latches on and decides to be truly loyal, she’ll be devoted in such an extent that she would undoubtedly kill for them.

she can be a loudmouth whenever she actually decides to speak, constantly fabricating outlandish stories and even going off like a deranged person, but beneath her caustic and frightening exterior, isla is rather pensive. on the occasion that she chooses to offer legitimate advice, it’s usually very elaborate and composed. still, she doesn’t want people to know about capable she is, or how intelligent she can be, so she hides her rare brilliance with a tough exterior and stoic personality.

idk if you can tell but i like diving into the specifics of my character like their star signs and stuff so i searched an amy dunne mbti and tweaked it bc it really helped describe her even further! she’s a intj !

introverted intuition (ni): isla sees everything around her in a world of symbols, of metaphors, and of potential. her narration will continually be littered with predictions, with ideas about how things are going to be and what will result from this or that. despite her brashness that some may assume is impulsivity, she is a planner, anticipating new “problems” and seeking to rectify them with her own twisted brand of justice. she tries to work everything into her overall system of understanding, of her big ideas about how the world works, including her take on her various false identities she possesses for her previous job as an escort but also to mess with the minds of others around her. she’s always disappointed by how the real world is never as good as the way she imagined it; she is perfect and nothing else can catch up with her expectations.

extroverted feeling (fe): despite her aloofness, and rather lack of any sort of emotional bearing, empathy, or any sort of true feeling, isla is conscious of how others’ perceive her, of the image she’s created, and of how key that social perception is to her success, even if it’s just in her own imagination. she restrains her real opinions in order to adapt to her environment, as she’s somewhat of a chameleon, only a few have had a chance to catch the true witch beneath the crown. she’s the mistress of change, easily altering her identities in order to better fit in with new people, should the situation require it. she’s easily devastated when she reveals her real personality to others, as in the past, some that she’s left truly see her have refused to accept her twisted true-self. even though she is wholesomely selfish and self-seeking, isla is very people-focused, and applies most of her intellect and analysis onto general people-based functions, that may she can have the confidence that she has clearly manipulated and analyzed every aspect of her environment, as she needs this to feel in control.

introverted thinking (ti): as mentioned, isla is highly analytical, always trying to see the why of a scenario, what’s behind human behavior, which turns her attention to psychology and manifests in her flair for anticipating the thoughts and actions of those around her; she is so obsessed with understanding why people tick that she looks past her own slighted judgment, as she herself could easily qualify as a sociopath/psychopath. she’s always trying to fit in any new experience, or piece of information, into her pre-established system of facts, and as such is rarely ever surprised. despite her apathy and lack of care for her life or how it progresses, she’s highly organized and loves to make checklists, arrangements for the future, and methodically ticks of her obligations, one by one. while her emotions and feelings are significantly suppressed, and even nonexistent, she makes up for that human trait with a very powerful mind, one that is quick to learn and adept with languages, memorization, and logic. however, she doesn’t want anyone to know just how brilliant and quick she is, as it’s her greatest asset, thus explaining why she chose not to be a member on the intellectual team.

extroverted sensing (se): isla tends to respond her physical environment with fierce analysis, as expressed in her intellectual capabilities. she’s almost incapable of living in the moment, contrary to how people suspect she is, considering she portrays herself as impulsive and cunningly excitable. in reality, though, even when she’s crossed off everything on her checklist, she’s almost incapable of relaxing, or enjoying the world around her, as she doesn’t find things that other people find beautiful. she struggles the most with the physical side of her plans, even though she is a very physical individual. she is very open with her body and indulges with the lusts of the flesh, as she sensuality is at the same level as her wickedness. along with this, isla craves for the environment that houses her figure to be pleasant and organized, and can’t stand when things are out of order.

#tw sociopath #tw gang #if that's a thing i'm so sorry i'm kinda oblivious w triggers please someone correct me or tell me if i'm missing anything #fckit:intro #tw death #tw childhood trauma #tw prostitution #in a way #tw child abuse #tw human trafficking #could also apply i'm so sorry i'm trying to cover all the bases just in case

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