The plain looking one.....with the freckles @queenexplosionmurder - Tumblr Blog

spazzdhn

frogkenny

I FOUND IT GUYS I SPENT HALF AN HOUR LOOKING FOR THIS VIDEO AND ITS HERE

tristikov

Always reblog peent.

videodromefag

*before clicking play*: IS THIS WHAT i THINK IT IS???

*clicks play*: IT ISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

rgr-pop

omg!! omg

ladimcbeth

Forever reblog.

thegreenwolf

Heaven let your eent shine down.

un-pearable

dear universe give me ten billion dollars and infinite free time and indestructible hands so i can do every hobby ever

grace-williams-xo

I am in TEARS this is hands down the funniest Bridgerton tweet [edit: was not expecting it to quickly become my post popular post lmao here’s the link if you’re a twitter person]

sunsetcurbed

iiilllsam

knock knock, i finally got out of my art block’s clutches who else cheered

thisloveforyourmom

the real reason ayako and monk figured out the spr ruse is that their w-2s came in and that shit did NOT say shibuya psychic research

mythivl

I miss them so bad

witchhuntress

Mai: Analysis of a Psychic (aka word vomit 😆)

The usual consensus of Anime Mai is that she’s stupid and often annoying😅 While she has the qualities of Light Novel Mai (who can also be stupid, yes), Anime Mai needed frequent particular explanations, w/c Naru usually singles her out for. She also often makes mistakes on idiomatic expressions for comedic relief. These don’t really often happen in the light novels, and it might be because of the usual shoujo trope to make female anime characters more clueless back in the days or the fact that the audience has to have someone as a layman’s guide, through that someone being the person who needs extra explanation. Hence, Anime Mai is an obvious foil to Naru and the others, but Light Novel Mai can feel less so because there are as many times that Mai knows more than Naru and the others as much as she doesn’t know some information in parapsychology.

I think it’s easy to cast Mai as uninteresting and annoying. After all, at the start, everyone else in SPR has extraordinary skills & knowledge that an ordinary high school girl like her does not have. However, as I said before, Mai does have a particular advantage in knowing urban legends, particularly where horror stories & the occult are concerned. While terminology can still confuse her and she makes blunders, she does have a great memory, and it’s also hilarious how Naru thinks her “jokes” can also be a case for study because Mai often says things lightly but what she says ends up as an important insight at the end.

Just think about it. Bou-san has his musician job and lives quite an isolated life outside of everything else. Ayako is a doctor and has other stuff to do in her life. John is a translator while at the same time an exorcist and a helper at a clinic for less privileged foreign workers. Masako has school like Mai but she’s also a celebrity with her own duties and schedule. Yasuhara has college among other things. Overall, everyone else might not know all the current urban legends and or horror trends at present because they’re wrapped up with many other things. Naru and Lin have been looking for a certain place in their spare time, so they definitely might not take notice of all the occult practices in Japan as well.

This is where Mai comes in. Mai who’s sociable with everyone. Mai who has had many experiences telling horror stories after school. Mai who’s interested in learning about the latest urban legends & horror mysteries out there with her friends. Mai who actually has dabbled in the occult as a pastime. Mai who takes in information wherever she can get it, even knowing ventriloquism which she said to be rarely seen on TV. Mai has a curiosity for all things paranormal and unusual, so her knowledge for those can be as extensive as a common folk largely attuned to her neighborhood or society. She’s always carefree, but Naru has also paid attention to what she says more and more because she can say quite the most surprisingly inquisitive things.

This particular advantage of Mai has been set up from the very start when she was telling horror stories with her friends after her classes in the first ever Ghost Hunt case which happened at her school—when she asked Naru what he was doing there and when she noticed his demeanor and replies are weird. Throughout the light novels as well as the anime, we see bits and pieces of Mai’s knowledge subtly revealed—such as when she knew about the common patterns for Kokkuri-san or about Qi-gong. Her “muses” almost always end up leading Naru and even Lin to realize what curse or problem they’re dealing with.

While Mai’s perspective is how we learned about everyone & the cases, she’s not simply a bystander who works separately while others do the exorcisms. In fact, there’s much to be said about Mai’s development throughout the light novels, which the anime could only show partially due to its early end. Mai’s post-cognitive dreams have become more and more important in the anime too, but what the anime lacked due to its early season cutoff is that Mai’s growth as a psychic only ramped up from there.

If we think deeply about it, Naru actually hit the jackpot by employing Mai. After all, Mai’s psychic powers have been dormant for long and seems to have only awakened when she met Naru (and Gene) and started working with him. Of course, this is Ono-sensei’s plan for the story, but let’s just think of the implications for a moment. Since Mai started working with Naru, her psychic powers developed little by little. She does not only have post-cognitive dreams, she also has come to have precognitive dreams as well as ESP and astral projection ability. When you think about it, what are the chances really that Naru would hire a multi-faceted psychic like Mai? To see a truly latent psychic develop before his very eyes also can be quite interesting for a psychic researcher.

This leads me to the very thought that from the start of the story, it was actually Mai’s dormant powers that possibly led her to working with Naru. Once again, let’s trace back to how Mai actually injured Lin accidentally. She wasn’t supposed to go to the old building, but she did due to her curiosity & possibly “intuition.” In fact, from the first chapter of Volume 1, Mai clearly said that she had a “sudden” feeling of “seeing the old building.” I think what this inciting incident tells us from the get-go is that Mai has a really keen sense. She has always had it, but something called her to go nearer the old building at that instance as she was passing by. We can call it her ESP now, but at the start, it’s easy to think of it as her being stupid and curious.

Now, looking back at the following volumes, we see Mai’s keen sense and intuition being amplified and literally becoming crucial in Mai’s decision-making and solving the cases that followed. And the more cases SPR took, the more we see Mai grow into exorcism-lite to full-fledged purification in Forgotten Children.

Mai’s growth from being a simple assistant to someone who becomes more involved in spiritual activities feels so natural and meticulous. What really are the chances that this random girl Naru hired would suddenly show signs of being a latent psychic? It’s next to none to be honest. To see her growth can make anyone proud because while most of the characters are somewhat the same, Mai continues to grow with her abilities.

I think it’s no wonder why Naru continues to employ Mai. He’s actually getting more out of it in the long run lmao. Can you imagine how absolutely valuable it is to have someone who not only has post-cognitive dreams but also has precognitive dreams for every case? If you think about it, there are a lot of psychics and exorcists in the SPR team already (i.e., monk, medium, Catholic priest, etc.) that one or two are redundant, yet Mai still found a good spot in it where she ends up actually indispensable. As Gene’s messenger in a way, she is also getting information from a different source. Thinking about it, to be a consistent messenger of a medium’s ghost is also shamanistic.

Furthermore, Mai has also learned seals from Bou-san and Ayako, and she has also come to use them more and more throughout the series. In all honesty, isn’t that amazing as well? Because she’s always actually fusing Kuji-in (from Ayako) and Acala mantra (from Bou-san). The former can be taught in Shintoism as well as Shugendo while the latter is in Buddhism—different religions and practices overall. We see Mai go from not quite confidently fighting a Kodoku spirit in Yasuhara school’s infirmary to confidently saving Naru from a possessing murderer during Akumu no sumu ie. As Naru once said in After-school Hexer/Spellcaster, superior psychics can be “superior spellcasters,” and I think this applies to Mai now as she has grown so much as a psychic.

There’s another psychic ability Mai has that is rarely or hardly talked about. I like to call it her bat signal 🤣, but in parapsychological terms, it’s called emotive telepathy. Every time Mai is in danger, someone always comes to the rescue. In the anime, it’s always after she calls for someone to save her, but in the light novels, even if she doesn’t think so in her mind, her feeling of dread seems to always bring someone to her rescue. I believe this is a case of emotive telepathy.

I think this ability is closely linked with her “animal-like” senses as well. Recall that Mai has tested -100% in Naru’s ESP test for her. That’s a really interesting result because while you can think that she’s 100% always wrong, you can also think that 100% she always “chooses” the wrong answer—which, in other words, means she knows the right answers “unconsciously” but always goes for the wrong one. So to speak, it’s almost like she’s drawn to the wrong choice all the time, but we can also interpret this as her always being drawn to what her senses feel is wrong, like a negativity bias but stronger. In this way, she can tell a friend from an enemy, and to be able to tell an enemy with that 100% accuracy, that’s what I think makes her abilities actually impressive, although hilariously so.

There’s also this case where two people have a strong connection that makes this emotive telepathy possible. I think this is what Mai and Naru have. During the After-school Spellcaster/Hexer (Kasai Panic case) and Forgotten Children’s cases, Naru had sensed when there’s something wrong. What are the chances that Naru would pass by such a remote area that Mai had decided to explore when she was about to save a child in a manhole? The timing was impeccable, as we can say so. It could be a coincidence, as we can say so. But that’s not the first time it happens.

Recall that Naru also went to help her at Yasuhara’s school before a ceiling fell down again. Naru has strong psychic abilities, and because of that, I also think he and Mai could form a strong telepathic link, an emotive one at that. In Forgotten Children, when Mai sensed something wrong about the number of vehicles, the “children” wanted to isolate her immediately. That’s because they knew that she could be dangerous to their goals. Mai’s sense of something being wrong seems to immediately have been perceived by Naru. He was adamant that she shouldn’t go with the children. At that moment, I think Naru and Mai really were on the same wavelength of foreboding, and that really has become possible with their continued interactions throughout the series.

Now, let’s talk about the kind of exorcism or rather purification Mai can do. We know the exorcists in the team have different skills and knowledge. For Mai, it is similar to Masako and Gene’s. In particular, Gene taught Mai how to do a purification, but even so, it actually can be hard to think how anyone can do it without showing pity or sympathy. Gene didn’t really guide Mai word-per-word on what to say; she figured it out herself during the Forgotten Children case. Naru himself told her that she could persuade the teacher the same way she has always scolded him lmao. If you think about it, Mai is actually great at persuasion and she has always done so throughout the series. How many times has she persuaded Naru to believe her? And how many times has Naru clung to what she said?

That’s why, when she ventured to try purification as Naru and Gene encouraged, it seemed just natural how she would do it. Her sincerity always touched people so it just seems like her to be able to do it. I feel like it’s possible that she has always been a “guiding light” (not only to Naru) in the story even before she did her first purification, and this is probably why Gene met her. Just as Gene has been said to be her guide, it seems logical to think that Mai is also Gene’s guide in connecting with Naru.

As we all know, Naru and Gene had this twin channel for so long, but then it was not possible for them to communicate again (though indirectly it was through Mai and unknown to Naru for some time) until Mai came. This is where a lot of questions come from, but also come to make sense. Gene could have only been haunting the lake where he was thrown into, so how did he reach Mai? I feel like for a while Gene has been called to Mai’s dreams by following her “light,” and only when Naru found Gene’s body were the twins able to connect again. This “light” we can also call wavelength.

In any case, Mai’s growth throughout the series is really a sight to behold, but even more so, her connections with everyone are so dynamic and interesting. Gene had said in Akumu no sumu ie that Mai was easier to reach because of her wavelength, and at the same time, I think Gene was able to connect Mai’s dreams and Naru’s visions because her wavelength also more easily reaches Naru. While we can say that Gene lends Mai his powers, it’s also evident throughout the series that she has grown as a psychic and paranormal investigator herself, and her ability to hold the same wavelength as Gene is still commendable because clearly not everyone can do what she does.

There’s also a lot to be said about Mai’s mental capacity. It’s not easy to see gory visions in many cases. It’s also easy to lose hope in humanity from all the atrocities people can commit in real life to curse someone. However, it’s a relief that Mai is not alone, and I think having emotional support in the SPR team also helped wonderfully in her growth as a psychic. What a great found family TT

In summary, Mai is not the typical foil we often see in detective stories nor is she the typical orphaned heroine. There is a lot to be said about how untypical Ghost Hunt as a series is to be honest, and indeed, even now, we still don’t know what other psychic abilities Mai could possess or how they often work. For one, her astral projection ability has been there time and time again, and the fact she can transport a physical object to Masako that one time also is an unexamined case. We often think of Naru as mysterious, but I can say the same for Mai. After all, isn’t discovering a psychic randomly in the wild absolutely mysterious? And just when Naru needed a psychic like Gene too🥺It seems like Mai eventually answered Naru’s call to the universe in some way as he did hope for someone like that in After-school Hexer. Mai is definitely quite an unexpected discovery😅

kardia-library-official

I think it's funny how people thought Ryker was just so weird that everyone was like "omg what IS he!?" And then the answer was just like.

He's a de Sainte-Coquille, obviously.

we-are-trickster

If I had a nickel for every time I romanced a white-haired elf ex-slave on the run from his former master with anger issues, body mods, and an unquenchable thirst for violence, I’d have two nickels, but it’s weird it happened twice….

queenexplosionmurder

My thoughts exactly 🤣

writingadvice365

Your first draft is not terrible.

It is not any sort of insulting name you call it.

It is a baby. A young, inexperienced baby that might throw up on your shirt and cause you to lose sleep at night but you love it all the same and will patiently feed it and tuck it into bed at night with a kiss no matter what happens.

You do not call a baby stupid or awful because they are new to the world and do not have the ability or knowledge to function on their own. Instead, you nurture and teach them so they grow up smart and strong and capable.

Such it is with a first draft. A first draft is not bad because it needs care and attention. Don’t insult it because it is newly written down with ideas that are not yet fully formed. In fact, that is the reason why it is AMAZING. It’s a DRAFT! The FIRST one for the story! LOOK at it! It exists! It is ALIVE! And it is YOURS, this story you made.

So be proud of your first draft baby and, most importantly, be proud of yourself.

petralemaitre

I use Arthur’s Note: “It’s a story! BRILLIANT! I love stories!”* to remind myself that my draft is just a draft, and it needs time to grow into itself.

It doesn’t always work, but it helps sometimes.

*Arthur’s Note is a Cabin Pressure reference, as it refers to a character who thinks damn near everything is brilliant, and who enjoys being told stories. And of course, it is also a pun on Author’s Note.

ithelpstodream

glitterz

Omg rly ??

ithelpstodream

yes! really!

translifeline.org

US: (877) 565-8860

CANADA: (877) 330-6366

Pacific time: 8am to 2am

Mountain time: 9am to 3am

Central time: 10am to 4am

Eastern time: 11am to 5am

Alaska time: 7am to 1am

Hawaii time: 6am to 12am

aaliyahbreaux

Okay so I just got off the phone with them. I talked to a trans girl named Aurora & she was super helpful! She gave me a few doctors to talk to & encouraged me to seek therapy instead of just rushing to get my pills. She literally found a trans friendly therapist in my town & I would definitely recommend giving them a call!

nothappy-nonbinary-forpositivity

GUYS COME SEE THIS!!!!!! I didn’t know about this, come look!!!!!!

suriandtaal

it literally would not be right to ever not reblog this

podcastgalore

For any trans followers I have. Stay safe and know you are loved

genderfluidfire

For my fellow trans and non-binary comrades

enteetea

Name a better feeling than getting the first comment on a fic you were uncertain about and knowing that at least one person liked the tiny piece of your brain that you put on the internet