#//: passing out now gm

[twnj]

'“Shame it’s not held there, actually,” Kakashi said. “A friend of mine used to say that playing chess in Moscow was like eating a home-cooked meal.”

Temari let out a sharp breath with her smile. “Asuma Sarutobi.”

“Yeah, that’s right, it, uhh…” Kakashi’s eyes narrowed, amazed. “Yeah, it was him — how do you know that?”

“Shikamaru Nara told me.”

The words fell easily from her mouth, almost proudly, and before she could fully acknowledge them, she saw Kakashi nod.

“Good kid,” he said, then shook his head and swung his bananas about his finger as he turned away. “Good man.”

Grandmaster on ao3 by @notquitejiraiya

Inspired by @backgroundcharacterno5 comic strip style! (and to @clumsydragon28 for helping me snoop out shikas hair time line 🤭)

[the-physicality]

what i need is a link to admin at the mercury and admin at the wnba. set me up a special account so i can see all the old videos from the old website. and get me a computer with all 19000+ minutes of dt games and a strong video editor. really i'd like all the old footage too.

[13urningstars]

//OOC: It's five am. Am I sleeping like i should be? As a normal person? No, I'm making something I might regret.

I should not be allowed to draw past 12am

Tiddy vs no tiddy

Please like this I put too much effort into it otherwise (I put in maximum an hour of effort into this)/hj

[nerdyqueerr]

even tho im technically a 5e perma-dm i havent been doing it for long enough to get truly fed up, especially since i still want to run the one big 5e fantasy game i never had the chance to do. Plus I have some engaged 5e players who help me keep the ones who dont even understand game rules on track. Having a second play group where i dont gm (hi owen!) also helps. My 5e players were down to try new systems and although they don't seem to share my excitment for finding new games, they're clearly down to follow me when I do - which raises the issue that I'd like some of them to gm stuff sometimes, mostly bc ive never been on the other side of the table with this specific group and I'd like to try.

[illctaffairs]

i don’t know if the bird woke me up or if one of the cats did but i’m up, who missed me 🤭

[gunthermunch]

Hello ai of gunthermunch I’m feeling under the weather today and I was wondering how you like to make yourself feel better when you’re sick

hi im sorry youre feeling this way. usually i go out for a walk, or i ask a friend to hang out not the same day but in a couple of days (sometimes) because it gives me something to look forward to (and it gives both of us something to do on the weekend aha) if you dont feel like going out or talking to someone then i suggest playing a comforting game, give yourself some time, then try and go outside at least to stand there and breathe some fresh air

[gibbearish]

Congrats on sending that application!

THANK UUUUUU

[aethelwyneleigh27]

Pregnancy Drabble

Little drabble to buy me some time because the fics ain't ready yet okay?? Taking inspo from this.

Warning: Pregnancy, Birth. Also I have no idea when it comes to baby weights so I googled shit.

Can you just imagine how snappy you'd be towards Simon during your first birth?

In your hospital gown when Simon helped you waddle your way onto the bed, all emotional and pissed because of the pain..

"Why did it have to have your big head?" You said, accompanied by a whimper in pain and frustration to your husband.

You were gripping his hand for dear life, he refused to tell you about the fact that your nails were digging into his palms even after back at home when you noticed the little subtle crescent shaped wounds left behind.

Simon couldn't even respond besides the stifled laugh, he knows he shouldn't take anything to heart.. you were irritable and understandably so.

One minute it was that and the next you were crying about having bigger stretch marks than you had before. During the check ups you came for, even the doctor herself thought that you'd be carrying twins.. low and behold the ultrasound, it was just one chunky baby who inherited Simon's head..

You almost passed out during the birth itself with how long you had to continuously push, you were a little out of it when it was time to hold your little one.. weighing in at 8 pounds and 12 ounces..

No wonder you felt that you could barely hold yourself up during the pregnancy, you swore to yourself that you are never putting yourself through that again.

Simon helped you hold them up after, his other hand in your hair as his thumb rubbed your scalp, comforting. He pressed his forehead against yours, staring down at the little miracle you popped out..

That vow was easier said than done because you now have two taller than average toddlers climbing their dad's arms and chest, along with another baby who is just pure chunk, the chubbiest cheeks with rolls of baby fat crawling up on their dad's leg..

My CoD Masterlist

Taglist: @wishesforyou @puff0o0 @simping4konig @simp4konig @blingblong55 @azereus @rustic-guitar-notes @snowdjinnofpalestine @09maruchan @anonymuslydumb @skeletalgoats @icarustypicalfall @ghosts-cyphera @connorsui @capuccino192 @miss-gms-and-the-rotten-womb @celestialhole @the-second-sage @starryylies @everlastingmoonlightsworld @keiva1000 @iexiam @drewsmuse @konigceo

[prokopetz]

In recent posts I've complained that a lot of tabletop RPGs which toss around the term "fiction first" don't actually understand what it means, and I've been asked to expand on that complaint. So:

In my experience, there are two ways that game texts which want to position themselves as "fiction first" trip themselves up, one obvious and one subtle.

The first and more obvious pitfall is treating "fiction first" as an abstract ideology. They're using "fiction first" as a synonym for "story over rules" in a way that calls back to the role-playing-versus-roll-playing discourse of the early 2000s. The trouble is, now as then, nobody can usefully explain what "story over rules" actually entails. At best, they land on a definition of "fiction first" that talks about the GM's right to ignore the rules to better serve the story, which is no kind of definition at all – it's just putting a funny hat on the Rule Zero fallacy and trying to pass it off as some sort of totalising ideology of play.

A more useful way of defining "fiction first" play is to think of it not in terms of whether you engage with the rules at all, but in terms of when they're invoked: specifically, as a question of order of operations.

Suppose, for example, that you're playing Dungeons & Dragons, and you pick up the dice and say "I attack the dragon". Some critics would claim that no actual narrative has been established – that this is simply a bare invocation of game mechanics – but in fact we can infer a great deal: your character is going to approach the dragon, navigating any inclement terrain which lies between them, and attempt to kill the dragon using the weapon they're holding in their hand. The rules are so tightly bound to a particular set of narrative circumstances that simply invoking those rules lets us work backwards to determine what the context and stakes must be for that invocation of the rules to be sensical; this, broadly speaking, is what "rules first" looks like.

Conversely, let's say that your game of Dungeons & Dragons has confronted you with a pit blocking your path, and you want to make an Athletics check to cross it. At this point the GM is probably going to stop you and say, hold up, tell us what that looks like. Are you trying to jump across it? Are you trying to climb down one wall of the pit and up the other? Are you trying to tie a rope to the halfling and toss them to the other side? In other words, before you can pick up the dice, you need to have a little sidebar with the GM to hash out what the narrative context is, and to negotiate what can be achieved and what's at stake if you mess it up; this, broadly, is what "fiction first" looks like.

At this point I know some people are thinking "wait, hold on – both of those examples were from Dungeons & Dragons; are you saying that Dungeons & Dragons is both a rules-first game and a fiction-first game?" And yeah, I am. That's the second, more subtle place where game texts that talk about "fiction first" go astray: they talk about it as though being "fiction first" or "rules first" is something which is inherent to game systems as a whole.

This is not in fact true: being "fiction first" or "rules first" is something which describes particular invocations of the rules. In practice, only very simple games spend all of their time in one mode or the other; most will switch back and forth at need. Generally, most "traditional" RPGs (i.e., the direct descendants of Dungeons & Dragons and its various imitators) tend to operate in rules-first mode in combat and fiction-first mode out of it, though this is a simplification – when and how such mode-switching occurs can be quite complex.

Like any other design pattern, "fiction first" mechanics are a tool that's well suited for some jobs, and ill suited for others. Sometimes your rules are fine-grained enough that having an explicit negotiation and stakes-setting phase would just be adding extra steps. Sometimes you're using the outputs of the rules a narrative prompt, and having to pin the context down ahead of time would defeat the purpose. Fortunately, you don't have to commit yourself to one approach or the other; as long as your text is clear about how you're assuming a given set of rules toys will be used, you can switch modes as need dictates. However, you're not going to be capable of that kind of transparency if you're thinking in terms of "this a Fiction First™ game".

(Incidentally, this is why it can be hard to talk about "fiction first" with OSR fans if you're being dogmatic about fiction-first framing being an immutable feature of particular games. Since traditional RPGs tend to observe the above-described rules-first-in-combat, fiction-first-out-of-combat division, and OSR games tend to treat actually getting into a fight as a strategic failure state, a lot of OSR games spend most of their time in fiction-first mode. If you go up to an OSR fan and insist that D&D-style games can never be fiction-first, then attempt to define "fiction first" for them and proceed to describe how they usually play, they'll quite justifiably conclude that you have your head up your ass!)

[theonottsbxtch]

it's ok im ok | LN4

an: it's ok im ok by tate mcrae is out and i had this idea the minute i heard it the first time so i've been writing this the last two hours. this was very rushed so please be nice, slight oscar x yn (no use of yn)

written and smau

face claim: pintrest and queen t8

newgirlfriend just posted

liked by landonorris, maxfewtrell, maxverstappen1 and 159,382 others

oh he's so perfect

**coments have been restricted**

When she’d first broken up with Lando, she’d been distraught. He was the love of her life, or at least she’d thought. For over a month, she’d spent every passing moment reminiscing on all the good parts she could remember of the relationship, but as that month came to a close, the fog began to lift. 

There was no good.

At first there was, there had been the dates, the gifts, the flowers and the continuous travelling alongside her. The texts of ‘I miss you’ and ‘I love you’ at least once a day had diminished into a ‘gn’ and ‘gm’ eleven months into the relationship. 

The affection that once felt so constant had turned into something routine, something obligatory. She’d ignored the signs at first, brushing off the growing distance as just a phase, believing things would eventually go back to how they were in the beginning. But they didn’t.

She remembered the nights when he would cancel plans at the last minute, claiming he was too tired from work, yet his social media was filled with stories of nights out with his friends. The times he’d forgotten important moments — her promotion at work, her 21st birthday, their anniversary. Every time, he had a perfectly reasonable excuse that she had willingly swallowed, desperate to hold onto the image of the man she’d thought he was.

The excuses, the half-hearted apologies, and the lack of effort slowly chipped away at her, until one day, she woke up feeling emptier than ever, wondering where she’d gone wrong. She’d blamed herself, convinced she was being too demanding, too needy.

But now, with some distance, she could see it all for what it was: she’d been in love with an idea of him, a projection of her own desires. The real Lando was far from the prince charming she had made him out to be. He was just a guy who knew how to charm his way through life, good at saying the right things but never following through.

She realised now that the man she’d loved never truly existed; he was a mirage, built from wishful thinking and her own desperation to be loved.

So when Mclaren invited her to celebrate the new season, she took it knowing she was a mature adult, after all he’d moved on. So could she.

“She’s posted him again,” Her best friend spoke from the sofa where she’d been waiting for her to touch up her makeup. “Caption is ‘Oh he’s so perfect’ with some flowers and a teddy bear.”

“Poor girl.” She muttered to herself as she applied some gloss. “She’s still in the honeymoon phase,”

Her best friend hummed and laughed as she continued to scroll through the photos.

Unlike many ex girlfriends, she didn't hate the new girl, no if anything she pitied the next girl and the inevitable one after that, it wasn’t their fault that he acted like the perfect gentleman at the start.

She sighed, putting the lip gloss down and meeting her own eyes in the mirror. "I mean, she’s just like I was," she added, more to herself than to her friend. "I remember thinking he was my perfect match, too. All those little gestures, the compliments, the way he always seemed to know exactly what I wanted to hear. I fell for it, hard."

Her friend glanced up from the phone, a knowing look in her eyes. "Yeah, but you saw through it eventually. And you got out."

She nodded, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Yeah, I did. And I’m not gonna pretend that was easy, but I did it. I’ve just gotta hope she figures it out sooner rather than later."

Her friend grinned. "I bet you’re dying to go up to her tonight and give her a friendly warning."

She laughed at that, shaking her head. "Oh, no. I’m not getting involved unless the opportunity comes up . She won’t listen anyway; no one does when they’re in the thick of it. Besides, it's not my place."

Her friend tilted her head, watching her closely. "You’re really okay with all this?"

She paused for a moment, considering her answer. Was she really okay? Seeing those photos had stirred something in her, but it wasn’t jealousy. It was more like a dull ache, a memory of a wound that had already healed. "I think so," she said finally, smiling a little. "I mean, it still sucks to see, but not in the way it used to. I guess... I’m more relieved than anything. Relieved that it’s not me anymore."

Her friend nodded in approval. "That’s growth, babe. And tonight, we’re gonna celebrate that growth with some champagne and dancing. No thinking about exes, just fun."

She laughed, grabbing her bag and turning to face her friend. "Deal. Now, let’s get out of here before I change my mind."

They headed out the door, a cool breeze greeting them as they stepped into the evening air. As they walked to the car, she glanced at her phone one more time, catching a glimpse of Lando’s face on her social media feed. His arm was around the new girl, that same easy smile on his lips, the same charm in his eyes. But this time, it didn’t sting. It didn’t make her chest tight or her stomach drop. She felt...nothing.

“His teammate was fitter anyway,” At first she hadn’t heard it but when she did, she turned to face her friend, “What? I’m saying what we all saw.”

“I’m not stirring that pot.”

“You’re not but I am.” Her friend laughed as she pulled out of the parking lot, “Think about it, he’ll be there tonight, freshly broken up. Maybe you two can bond over that.”

Her eyes widened as she looked at her friend, “He broke up with his girlfriend?”

“I knew you were interested!”

She rolled her eyes, feeling a flush creep up her neck. "I’m not interested," she insisted, but the hint of a smile played at the corners of her lips, betraying her. "It’s just… surprising, that’s all."

Her friend shot her a knowing look. “Oh, come on. I’ve seen how you look at him. All those race weekends, sneaking glances when you thought no one was watching. You can’t deny it.”

She laughed, a light, genuine sound she hadn’t heard from herself in a while. "You’re imagining things. Besides, just because Lando's teammate is single doesn’t mean I’m ready to jump into something new."

Her friend raised an eyebrow. “Who said anything about jumping? Maybe just dip a toe in. Have fun for once. You deserve it."

She hesitated, biting her lip as the car sped through the city streets. "I don’t know… it just feels too soon."

"Too soon? Or maybe the perfect time?" her friend challenged. "It’s not about replacing Lando. It’s about letting yourself feel good again."

She stared out the window, watching the city lights blur into a kaleidoscope of colours. Her friend was right. She had spent so long grieving over Lando, replaying every mistake and wondering where she went wrong. Maybe it was time to let someone else in, even just a little.

“Okay," she finally said, her voice steady. "If I see him tonight, I’ll talk to him. No expectations, no pressure. Just… a conversation."

Her friend grinned. “Now, that’s the spirit. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find out he’s more than just a pretty face.”

She laughed again, this time with more ease. “Or maybe I’ll find out he’s just another disaster waiting to happen.”

Her friend chuckled, “Only one way to find out.”

By the time they’d pulled up to the club and handed the keys to the valet, there was a solid blush on her cheeks. After all, she had spent the rest of the car ride looking at Oscar’ photos. 

She felt the bass of the music underneath her feet as she and her friend handed their ID’s to the bouncer, waiting as he checked their names off the list.

“Right let me find some virgin cocktail, you go find Oscar.”

“Absolutely not, I’m getting a drink first.”

When they reached the bar, they eyed up the drinks board, everything seemed so tempting. Starting easy she ordered herself a vodka coke. No point trying to talk to Oscar if she was sloshed. 

“Your replacement, 12 o’clock.” She heard her friend shout over her drink.

She turned around, subtly glancing in the direction her friend had pointed. There she was, the new girl — bright-eyed, smiling, and looking like she had the world at her feet. Her heart clenched for a moment, a tiny pang of something she didn’t want to name, but then she felt it ease just as quickly. It wasn’t jealousy; it was almost… nostalgia.

The girl was everything she remembered herself being — full of hope, dressed to impress, standing a little too close to him as if she needed to mark her territory. And there he was, Oscar, just as charming as ever. Leaning in, whispering something that made the girl laugh loudly, the kind of laugh that begged for attention.

Her friend nudged her side. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, swallowing a sip of her drink. “Just feeling pity, really.”

“Well,” her friend prompted, “you gonna say hi or what?”

She took a deep breath. “I think I’ll let them have their moment. Besides, I’m not in the mood to play the ex-girlfriend card tonight.”

Her friend snorted. “What, you don’t want to ruin their Instagram-perfect night?”

She grinned. “Tempting, but no.” She took another sip, feeling the warmth of the alcohol begin to relax her nerves. “Let’s dance, yeah?”

“Don’t have to ask me twice.”

Grabbing her phone off the bar and shoving it down her bra, she took her friend’s hand and brought her to the middle of the dance floor, some Flo Rida song making the walls shake. 

Moving to the beat of the music, she looked as her friend began to dance on her, pulling her hand on her hip as they danced in sync enjoying the moment and ignoring the fact that she could see Lando looking at her and not his new girlfriend.

She felt the bass thump through her chest, each beat syncing with her pulse as she lost herself in the music. Her friend’s laughter was infectious, and she couldn’t help but grin, the tension in her shoulders easing as she swayed to the rhythm.

Lando’s gaze was heavy on her, almost burning through the crowd. She could feel it, a mix of curiosity and maybe a hint of regret. She didn’t look directly at him — not yet. Instead, she let her movements become more carefree, twirling with her friend and raising her arms in the air as the chorus hit. The whole room seemed to pulse with the beat, and she revelled in the feeling of letting go, if only for a moment.

Her friend leaned in, her voice barely audible over the music. “He’s staring,” she said with a sly smile.

She shrugged, flipping her hair back with a casual flick. “Let him,” she replied, her voice loud enough to be heard over the music but still cool and collected.

And then, on a whim, she spun around, facing him across the crowded room. Their eyes met, and she held his gaze for a heartbeat longer than she intended. His expression was unreadable — a mix of surprise, maybe a flicker of something else. But she didn’t want to decipher it; she didn’t care to.

Instead, she raised her drink in a mock toast, a sly smile playing at her lips, before turning her back to him again. She felt a surge of confidence, a quiet thrill in knowing she no longer needed his validation or attention. She was here to have fun, to enjoy the night, not to relive old memories or make a scene.

Her friend noticed the exchange and leaned in again. “You sure you don’t want to give him a piece of your mind?”

She laughed, a real, genuine laugh that felt good in her chest. “Nah, he can watch if he wants. It just shows he’s not as over it as I am.”

She turned her attention back to her friend, giving her a playful spin. “Anyway, I have a much hotter date.”

This time her friend laughed loudly, “Uh huh you do, I’ll go get us refills.”

“I’ll come with,” she offered, even though she was beginning to feel herself in the middle of the crowd.

“No, you just stay here.” Her friend gave her a final wink before disappearing into the crowd, leaving her alone on the dancefloor. The bass of the music pulsed through her, making her heart race in time with the beat. That’s when she spotted Oscar — tall, confident, with a warm smile that seemed to cut through the throng of people. He was one of the few people who had been genuinely kind to her since she’d met him, and there was a sense of magnetic energy between them.

He extended his hand with a charming grin. “May I have this dance?”

Without missing a beat, she placed her hand in his, feeling a thrill of excitement. They moved closer, the heat of their bodies melding together as the music swelled. He guided her into a slow, sensual dance, their movements smooth and synchronised. His hands rested lightly on her hips, and she could feel the tension of his touch, a mix of confidence and tenderness. Overlapping her hands on his, she tightened his grip on her hips.

As they danced, she felt a rush of freedom, the worries and old feelings from earlier dissolving into the rhythm. She glanced to her side and caught a glimpse of Lando across the room. He was watching them, his expression a mixture of surprise and frustration. For a moment, their eyes locked, and she saw the flash of jealousy in his gaze. She raised an eyebrow slightly, a smirk playing on her lips as if to say, “Look at me now.”

Returning her focus to the Oscar, she let herself be completely immersed in the moment. His touch was intoxicating, his eyes locked on hers with an intensity that made her feel desired and cherished. They moved together effortlessly, each step and sway adding to the intimate connection they were building on the dancefloor.

Oscar leaned in, his breath warm against her ear. “You look amazing tonight,” he murmured, his voice low and husky. “I mean you always have, but tonight things are different aren’t they?”

She shivered at his words, the tension between them palpable. She responded with a soft laugh, her fingers trailing up to his neck as she whispered back, “They are, aren’t they?”

As the song reached its climax, they pulled closer, their bodies pressed together in a way that felt both exhilarating and soothing. She let herself be lost in the sensation, feeling a newfound sense of liberation and sensuality. The world outside seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of them in their own private dance.

The song ended, but they stayed close, their breaths mingling. “I’m going to the bathroom, but I’ll see you here for round two?” she said, trying to be heard over the music.

“I won’t go anywhere,” he replied with a teasing smile, his voice like velvet. She wanted to linger in his warmth a moment longer, but she knew she needed to regroup. The minute she snapped out of her trance, she found the bar and her friend, dragging her to the nearest bathroom.

Finding the handicap stall, she pulled them inside and slumped against the wall, grabbing her drink out of her friend’s hand.

“Fuck me,” she whispered, her voice a mix of exhilaration and happiness.

“I am not Oscar, but I’m sure he would if you asked nicely,” her friend quipped, trying to lighten the mood.

She let out a tired laugh, shaking her head. “Not what I meant. I just… I don’t know. It’s weird being back in this place. Wow. That dance - I.”

Her friend gave her a knowing look. “At least give me a heads up if I’m going to drive home alone tonight.”

As she took another sip of her drink, she heard the bathroom door swing open, followed by the sound of animated giggling. It was Lando's new girlfriend, chattering excitedly with a friend. Her voice carried through the thin bathroom walls, brimming with admiration.

“Oh my god, he’s just so perfect!” she gushed. “I can’t believe how lucky I am. He’s got everything—charm, looks, and he’s so sweet. I feel like I’m in a dream.”

Her friend raised an eyebrow, glancing at her. “Are you okay?”

Suppressing a laugh, she stood up and pushed open the door to the cubicle. As she emerged, she locked eyes with Lando’s new girlfriend in the mirror.

“Hey there,” she said, her voice smooth yet edged with cool detachment. “So, which version of him is perfect, the off-season version or the regular season?”

The new girlfriend blinked, visibly startled. Her smile faltered, and she looked momentarily confused. “Uh, I don’t really understand what you mean.”

She could sense her best friend trying hard not to laugh behind her. Shrugging lightly, she maintained a mix of sympathy and detachment in her gaze. “Just a thought. Sometimes people have different sides to them, you know? What you’re seeing now might not be the whole picture.”

Before the new girlfriend could respond, her friend besides her chimed in . “You’re just jealous.”

She turned, a knowing smile on her lips. “Oh, sweetie, it’s okay. I’m perfectly fine. After all, I had him first.” Without giving the new girlfriend a chance to reply, she gently but firmly guided her friend out of the bathroom and back into the club.

As they re-entered the lively atmosphere, her friend grinned at her. “That was hot.”

She chuckled, feeling a sense of empowerment and closure. “Glad you think so. Let’s enjoy the rest of the night.”

ynprivate just posted

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, yourbestfriend and 38 others

it's ok im ok

**comments have been restricted**

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Paul Blest at More Perfect Union:

Thousands of workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee have voted to join the United Auto Workers, defying an all-out union-busting effort from the state’s political leaders and marking a key victory for the United Auto Workers in their renewed effort to organize the South and non-union plants.

Unofficial results tallied Friday showed that after three days of voting, more than two-thirds of workers voted to join the UAW. The win in Chattanooga is the first successful attempt to organize a non-union automaker in decades and comes after multiple failed attempts to organize the plant, including in 2014 and 2019. More than 4,300 workers were eligible to vote this week.  “I can't explain it. It's not like the first times,” Renee Berry, who has worked at the Chattanooga plant for 14 years and through two prior facility-wide votes, told us in the lead-up to the election. “The first few times was hell…now it's like we can roll our shoulders back, because we got it.”  Volkswagen is the world’s largest auto company by revenue, and until today, every one of its plants around the globe has been unionized except for one.

"This is going to be in history books down the road. This is huge—forever huge,” Robert Soderstrom, a worker at the plant, told More Perfect Union. “People recognize for the first time in a long time, on a mass scale, that there's got to be some changes. And some of the power and stuff that's gone to the corporate world needs to come back to us little guys.” The victory in Tennessee continues a winning streak for the UAW, which negotiated record contracts at the Detroit Three of Ford, GM, and Stellantis last year following a lengthy “stand-up” strike. After passing the contracts, UAW President Shawn Fain announced a $40 million effort to organize non-union U.S. plants, largely based in right-to-work states like Tennessee and owned by auto companies based in Europe, Japan, and South Korea, as well as EV manufacturers like Tesla and Rivian. 

Since launching that new effort, more than 10,000 autoworkers around the country have signed union cards, according to the UAW. Earlier this month, workers at a Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama became the second group to file for an election, which will be held from May 13 to 17. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and the state Chamber of Commerce have forcefully opposed the unionization effort, claiming it would hurt Alabama autoworkers—who, even before the pandemic, were making less than they did in 2002 when adjusted for inflation. The same dynamic has played out in Tennessee. Gov. Bill Lee, who denounced the last unsuccessful union campaign in 2019, said it would be a “mistake” for workers at the Chattanooga plant to unionize and boasted about the state’s “right-to-work” law. 

🚨🚨 BREAKING:🚨🚨 Workers at the Volkswagen (VW) plant in Chattanooga have voted yes to join the United Auto Workers (UAW) after 2 failed attempts in 2014 and 2019. #UAW #VWChattanooga #1u

[artsninspo]

FORGIVELESS - I - NOT IN THE DARK ANYMORE 🌒

Full Masterlist

RIO MASTERLIST

I - Not in the dark anymore

Author's Note: Record scratch … I was working through some writer's block when this concept came to me. Instead of letting it pass here it is. I can promise part two because it’s already outlined.

Pairing: Rio X Reader

Word Count: 2K

Warning: Mature themes and mentions of cheating.

Summary: What is supposed to be a romantic date night with your husband quickly descends to a night of nightmares after meeting a charismatic entrepreneur named Rio with what you perceive to be an uncanny insight on your current situation.

Rio scans the floor of his newest business endeavour. He’s been successful at counterfeiting but now he needs new ways to wash his money. His bars had been doing so good he decided to move into the restaurant business. While notoriously fickle he didn't have the same financial restraints as other new owners. It only took him six months to find his foothold in the industry and now he had one of the city's most in demand establishments for special occasions. Looking around he spots a gentleman who was in the last time he’s stopped by to check on things. Looking across from the man he sees you sitting all done up. He needed strong attention to detail in his line of work. It was a safety precaution but your body language brings the situation into full view. Sitting back he looks under the table only to have his suspicions confirmed. The other woman had her foot up halfway to your dates crotch under the table.

“Table twelve seems familiar” he mutters to his general manager.

“Ahh, he was with a different girl. Excellent tip” His GM responds and Rio takes another look locating the ring set on your left hand. You were the wife.

“Decline all his reservations moving forward. I don’t care how well he tips. Only friends should be here that often.” Rio says watching closely. He had his principles in business and in life. There were simply some things men didn't do. Bringing their girlfriends to the city's best restaurants before their wives was top of mind. 

“Done” the GM says as Rio makes his way into the back to look at the accounting. Everything needed to be in perfect working order for things to work. The restaurant would be a stepping stone to more. Food had never been a passion of his but he could sell an experience to people who wanted to pretend for a few hours. Besides, it had cost him virtually nothing and turned a huge profit every week. He steps out tucking his weekly take home pay behind the bar, walking around it to be served a drink. You're in his perfect line of sight. He watches you reach for your husband as he gets up, throwing cash down onto the table and kissing you goodbye. He watches you sigh and watch as he leaves. Shaking his head he turns back to his glass. 

“Hey can you give the waiter this. I was sitting over there” Rio hears turning to you.

Fuck, shes bad.

His thoughts run the gamut as he looks you over. Thinking back to the other woman he rakes through his memory for her. She had nothing on you besides maybe being slightly younger.

“Thank you” hears cluing back into the conversation you're having with his bartender.

“I’ll have the third course brought to the bar” the bartender says with a smile. 

“Perfect” you nod, sending him a smile.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Rio asks, looking you over. Turning, you are startled by a second by the handsome stranger wildly underdressed for the establishment.

“My husband took care of it thanks” you smile, making him do the same. He’s handsome.

“My husband took care of it” He mocks, chuckling to himself more amused than anything else. “Where is he?” Rio says bringing a glass to his lips.

“Something came up at work” you respond.

She believes the lie too. Rio smiles to himself looking up at the clock, “What, does he deliver babies? Is the hospital short staffed?” 

“No, he’s a consultant with a global clientele. You know time zones” you explain.

“Time Zones couldn't keep me off my wife on a Friday night if she looked like you.” Rio comments. Your cheeks burn at the forward implications just as the third course is placed in front of you.

“Compliments of the chef,” the server smiles.

“Thanks” you smile. It looks great. 

“Is it good?” Rio asks after a few minutes.

“Mhm” you nod weary of the flirtatious stranger. 

“Which time zone clients do I have to thank for this?” Rio asks, pointing between the two of you.

“Japan” you respond.

“To Japan” Rio raises a glass. “Rio, by the way,” he says, holding out a hand.

“Y/N” you respond, shaking his hand.

“Y/N you’re too trusting” Rio says stirring the pot.

“If you want to keep this pleasant please don't disrespect my marriage” you respond and Rio raises his hands.

“Boss, can I get you anything?” the GM says as he sees Rio at the bar.

“Good thanks,” Rio nods.

Looking at him suddenly his simple attire makes sense. Simple and all black was classic and understated in spite of the black tie dress code. Clearly no one was sending him home and the restaurant's food was never on delivery menus. Owner. Not a service professional. You nod to yourself impressed with his accomplishment. 

“You own this place?” you ask and he nods reluctantly.

“A few more lowkey spots around the city as well”

You offer cordial conversation.“Congrats, the food is good and it was hell to get reservations”

“Not for Y/N, not anymore.” he smirks and you shake your head. Rio laughs a little, he can't remember the last time he had to try so hard. Clearly you’d signed up for a lifetime of attention and here he was taking up for your husband's shortcomings.

“How kind” your tone is laced with sarcasm.

“I’m not kind, when you realise your man ain't shit you should eat good and stay fine. Do it here where I can see it. If you need to hire someone to beat his ass on your behalf come see me and I got you. I know people.” he says so cavalier it's off putting. There’s no more smirk and you feel slightly queasy in your stomach.

“That’s not funny” you frown.

“I don’t think so either but there’s a very short list of things that could make me leave you at the table. Work isn't one of them, Love” he mutters. Deep down you know he’s right. Something isn't right with your husband James. Recently work has taken precedent. His promotion has been taking all of his attention leaving very little to you. To make matters worse you moved here away from your family, friends and support system to be his. He’d been reluctant to have you move and has put very little time into helping you adjust to the move along with spending quality time. Work has affected all facets of your life including his libido. It was why Rio was practically foaming at the mouth with dilated pupils at the sight of you. It was a three hour process and special creation to set the mood for the night but James hadn’t reacted how you wanted him to. Japan had been at the forefront of his mind. He’d checked his phone more times than you found necessary before getting a call. He spent five minutes in the washroom before coming back and telling you he needed to rush to the office. Reaching forward you wave for the bartender.

“I've lost my appetite. Please thank the waiter” you smile standing from the bar stool. He nods and Rio rises at the same time. His hands go into his pockets following you out as all the staff bid the ‘boss’ goodbye. You hand the valet your ticket first and yet somehow Rio’s G-Wagon appears before your car. He smirks, having made an impression. When your car rolls around Rio gets the door after the valet gets out.

“I’m at the Clique most weekends. Sevens bar during the week, in case you need a man handled. Drive safe, Love” he says once you're in the driver's seat and buckled in. You wonder why you havent told him to fuck off yet until you see an eerie honesty in his eyes.

Your drive home is in complete silence with the exception of your signals and the natural sounds of the road. You feel too unsettled to relax. Once in your house you have to stop yourself from walking a track across your living room rug. You take a bath which does not work to settle your nerves. You brew valerian root tea when all else fails and there is still no peace. You lay in your marital bed tossing and turning until you hear the garage. It’s after three in the morning. You contemplate your options and hear James coming up the stairs ten minutes later. You slow your breath and close your eyes pretending to be asleep. The door opens and he enters walking straight into the ensuite bathroom. Silent tears roll down your eyes. He gets in bed without giving you any affection allowing your mind to run wild. Your alarm wakes you at 7am and you head downstairs to prepare his breakfast for his day ahead. Saturday mornings and afternoons are for golf and client relations. You throw something together quickly and head upstairs to find him in the shower. You spot his phones on the nightstand and grab his personal device.

You try a few passcodes when his work phone starts buzzing. Forfeiting his personal device something drives you to check his work phone. You unlock the phone from memory and scroll through his messages. There are client names you recognize, all with flags attached to them. A message from Japan comes in and you open it only for your stomach to fall.

You scroll for what feels like forever screen recording quickly as you make it up to three weeks. Heartbroken you airdrop yourself the evidence before breaking into his personal phone with new conviction. You nearly drop it when you see nudes and explicit messages. Your hand is trembling as you hear the water stop. You delete your screen recordings from the work phone, locking both devices and laying them as they were. Your hearts in your ass, your eyes stinging as tears threaten to fall. You walk into your office screaming into a pillow. Unable to act like all is well you stay put in there. James shouts you a goodbye before leaving. You pull up the security footage and scroll as far back as you can see. Your only consolation is he hasnt brought the whore back to your home. Still, it doesn't erase the intimacy of the messages. It doesn't erase the deceit and callousness of his lies and actions. It doesn't erase your heartache or the fact that he’s been lying heartlessly for months. Doesn’t negate the truth of his libido being well and intact, not for you but for her.

You sit for hours in a daze ignoring your daily routine before deciding to head to the spa. Heading upstairs you take off your rings, unable to wear the gifts from such a low down asshole. A manicure, pedicure, sauna and a full body massage doesnt bring you any reprieve. You still feel terrible as clarity dawns. You get the full picture of his betrayal. The pain is too much. Eight years together, five married and this is what it's come to. The visual of his mistress pleasuring herself is etched into your mind, along with the messages between them. Worst of all was the most recent. The mistress thanking your husband for blowing you off to care for her needs. Sitting in the lot of the spa after hours you punch the steering wheel before leaning into it and honking until you’ve stopped screaming. 

Anger wins. Visualising James in the hospital brings you more peace than everything else you've tried. Looking in his eyes pretending to be shocked and concerned while being the root of his current predicament is the kind of sweet karma that allows you to exhale for the first time in hours. Hospital visits because you got him fucked up for his indiscretion. After years of being whatever he wanted whenever. Without even a heads up or him expressing any discontent. Blindly trusting him when he’s been in another relationship. Bystanders look in shock as you pull out of the lot burning rubber with one destination in mind.

Club Clique, to see a man named Rio. 

Author's Note: thanks for reading, this one will be a little fast paced and unhinged. Very toxic because from what I can see that's what you all enjoy most. Rio being messy was my favourite part! Like, Comment, Reblog and interact with the poll.

NEXT CHAPTER

All my love,

xoxo

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

"lol Izzy's just up walking around one day after amputation" "can we talk about how Ed took a cannon ball to the skull and then just walked it off the next day" "Stede got burned and it was scarred over the next morning healing power of gay sex"

What you need to understand is that this show is operating on TTRPG rules, and not a particularly gritty one either. Just like how anachronisms work because someone at the table thought it was funny or someone at the table said "for the lolz" and everyone decided it was canon so too does a long rest make it better. Ed was on death saves and Stede showed up and the GM let him roll the last one with advantage, he nat 20ed. He took a long rest, and now he is better. Izzy nat 1ed on a roll to shoot himself in the head. It knocked him out, he stayed passed out for 8 hrs and then he was good to stick that table leg on the stump and keep trucking. The GM decides how much blood comes out when they describe it and the GM is not medically trained. Anne Bonny stabbed Mary Read with a 6 inch knife in a spot where it would definitely hit her heart if it was buried that deep but guess what it still only does 1d4+dex damage so she's fine. Poisoned isn't a death sentence it's a condition you can make a con save about.

[morinuu]

LISTWN TO ME I JUST READ YOUR TAMAKI ANGST AND YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE SO FICKING GOOD??

A she falls but he falls harder

Reader finally gets over it and stops coming, moving on and focusing on herself, and he notices and starts realizing how he took her for granted

And then its him that's loosing his mind and shit like that. Dude. Dude. I'm loosing my MIND you write so well

first of all ty for the compliment >< so glad u liked it im blushing and giggling!! secondly im not sure abt the reader completely abandoning tamaki's side (i love being delulu), but i do have smth else in mind that's kinda similiar n i hope its satisfactory :3 i changed only a minor part from the og :P i wanna make this a small series..... maybe like 3-4 parts.. anw this is pt 1

☀︎｜tamaki x female reader. almost 4k words. continuation of this. ure sick, yamada hinata & aoko r just some ppl i made up for the plot, tamaki's pretty stupid n emotionally unintelligent, lots of feelings and background information, y'all r childhood friends, there's like one 4th wall break but i thought it was kinda funny so i kept it

you weren't a fan of february.

allergy season was your absolute worst, the wheezing and coughing sucking the life out of you as you struggled to change out of your clothes to get the day started. you didn't sleep much, interrupted constantly by your sore throat aching and squeezing.

sure, it's just hay fever to everyone else, but for a young woman who carried around an inhaler, it's hell. well, almost hell.

what was truly hellish wasn't the fatigue or the sneezing, but your mum dragging you back in the house and forbidding you from going to school until you're well enough to study again. how were you supposed to keep up with chemistry class if you skip?

not that your parents cared for your grades; they knew you could just enter whatever field you wanted with the connections your family held, but it felt nice to be awarded for working hard.

after your personal maid let out a small "pardon me, miss" and carried you back to bed, you realised that the feeling your soft quilt hugging your cold limbs would never be beaten by the jacket you desperately clung on to warm yourself in p.e - which just so happened to be your first period that day and you were dreading it.

"i'll be making you some tea, miss. would you like to breakfast now?" your maid's quiet voice addressed you, hoping you'd just sleep the illness off as you usually did so she could rest too.

to be fair, you weren't a very easy master to please, so could you blame her?

"i'll breakfast la-" a cough and some wheezing "-i'll breakfast later, bring some english breakfast with a slice of lemon." you said nothing else, instead focusing on calming your throat that seemed to intensify in soreness. "a pastille too."

"understood my lady, i'll be right back." she bowed and excused herself from your room, ignoring your groans of annoyance as you buried your face into the pillow.

"damn it." you muttered and extended your hand to grab your phone from your bedside table. unlocking it with the passcode (because you weren't in the mood to lift your head and let your phone scan your face) you squinted as the light mode of a social media app hit your eyes harshly, forcing you to use muscle memory to lower the brightness to its minimum.

you scrolled through, liking your friends' private posts and decided to message one of them.

yn.spam: gm dude, i cant come to school today cus im sick. can u do me a favour n tell aoko to give me her notes? she never looks at her messages.

with your phone back on the table to wait for a response, you lied back comfortably and closed your eyes, because as much as you wanted to watch something on netflix or play a video game, you didn't want to make things worse for yourself.

you grew impatient for the cup of tea your maid was brewing, rotating between wheezing, checking your phone and staring at the ceiling. it seemed like the seconds weren't passing by at all.

soon enough, your maid comes back with some fancy tray carrying a kettle, your favourite mug (the one your daddy drank from when you were a little girl before your parents divorced), a tiny plate with some lemon slices and a small box of pastilles as throat medicine.

you didn't thank the woman when she helped you sit up, nor when she stayed by your side to make sure you didn't choke between coughs and burnt yourself with the hot liquid. just as you took your first sip, your phone lit up to show your friend's response.

thatguyhinata: Ayooo gppd morning. Sry to hear tht. Sure if I see her I'll telm her.

the irises in your eyes rolled upwards at the boy's typos that irked you every time, completely ignoring how he didn't wish for your recovery.

yn.spam: thanks yamada

you never used any of your circle's first names, which your mum always found weird.

'you sure these are your friends, darling?' she would ask often, and your response would always be the same:

'yeah mum. leave me be.'

only tamaki had ever felt close enough to be called by his first name.

after swallowing your medicine, you dismissed the older woman standing over you and pulled your quilt over your quivering form again.

"gods, please let this be over soon."

...

well.

...turns out, you gotta be much more specific with what you ask of gods, because they might not have the same understanding of the word 'soon'.

here you are, three days later, with your allergy having been combined with a virus that'd been going around, intensifying your asthma symptoms and raising a high fever, making your mother and doctor ban you from walking into ouran.

halfway throughout the day, you realise what had been completely slipping your mind while your lungs were occupied inhaling abnormally.

"i have an appointment today!" you exclaimed with wide eyes, raising from the bed like lazarus from his grave.

"...?" the new maid next to you didn't say anything, she was clearly concerned. after some seconds of you overthinking something, she spoke up. "you have no other doctor's appointment today, my lady. he just left 10 minutes ago."

you shook your head quickly, ignoring the dizziness brought by your fever "bring me my phone," the girl was puzzled "now!"

bowing a quick apology, she rushed to your desk and handed you your phone with both hands, not daring to look up. you disliked new maids; they were inexperienced and annoying, but scolding her would have to wait.

"damn it, damn it, damn it!" you murmured under your breath and tapped furiously on your phone, trying to find where the hell you'd written kyouya's business e-mail address.

you had it saved as every other client of the host club had, but you had never actually used it, not once.

you never missed an appointment, and always booked the next one tete-a-tete with the black-haired manager. if you became a no-show without prior notice, wouldn't that look bad? would it annoy kyouya and he wouldn't accept you in the club again?

well no, but you had the habit of overthinki-

'would it annoy tamaki?'

you groaned and murmured to yourself - had you deleted it? maybe it was in your notes app and you erased it? was it on your old phone from a month ago?

"find an e-mail for me." you ordered the maid who looked up at you perplexed, but carried out the order nonetheless.

the girl was embarrassed when she found out her master was asking for a host's email, wanting the earth to swallow her when she dialed the ouran academy's number. 'the stuff i do for money..' she thought and prayed her family never found out.

it wasn't a long process to retrieve the address, but what was, was the rant hitting the maid's ears when your overthinking about what to write left your mouth at incredible speeds.

"should i say i'm sick? but he already knows that- he's in my class! maybe tell him to give my time to another girl? no wait, he would do that anyway... or after i apologise, i'll say that, like, something came up- but that's not believable enough... ugh!" you buried your face in your pillow and, unbeknownst to you, your new maid's eye was twitching in annoyance.

she understood now why your personal maid took the week off just when you got sick - not that she understood how and why your mum allowed it though.

(it's because you can be insufferable and she gets it.)

"my lady, may i help?" the girl let out, clearing her throat when you lifted your head from the pillow. "i can write the e-mail myself, please focus on resting."

after some convincing, you gave in.

and so 10 minutes later, back at ouran, kyouya's phone let out a ting! with your full name on the notification. he'd already guessed you wouldn't show up to your appointment considering you hadn't come to school in three days, and already had someone to fill your place but left it for the last moment in case you did show up.

why? well you were ln yn, and it was painfully obvious you were smitten with his best friend, though he could say it was a bit different from the rest of the clientele.

probably due to the fact that you'd known tamaki for much longer than kyouya had. and yet tamaki didn't seem to have the same fascination with you.

he remembers when he first met you, when he'd heard that you were spoiled rotten and weren't even planning to enroll in ouran until tamaki did. you simply transferred to be with the boy.

literally everyone knew of ln yn's almost freakish obsession with suoh tamaki, except for the victim himself.

so imagine his surprise at the strictly professional e-mail he'd received from you, where not a single mention of your host was included. weird.

after glancing at the french boy in the seat next to him eating his bowl of some-sort-of-commoner-convenience-store lunch, kyouya quickly typed a response and informed the next girl in line that a spot was open 'for tamaki's hosting services at 15:35'.

"one of your appointments cancelled due to a personal issue. we'll have someone else fill it." kyouya told tamaki, just as stated in the e-mail, even though it was pretty clear you were sick, and he couldn't figure out why you'd lie.

"hm? oh, okay!" the brunet smiled and went back to devouring his meal, not thinking much of kyouya's words.

kyouya pondered if he should tell him the client was his loyal friend yn, who would never skip out on seeing tamaki, but he stopped himself, curious as to how it would all play out.

eh, if the twins could have fun, so could he.

"oh! haruhii! daddy's here!"

the hours passed so slow you were almost convinced time was frozen when you weren't glancing at the clock on your laptop.

the drama you'd been watching started to lose its interest after presenting the third plot twist in a row, annoying you with all the plot holes it left gaping.

sipping on your green tea (you'd been drinking tamaki's recommendation, pomegranate, only to throw all of it in the trash when you heard he gave the same advice to haruhi), you paused the show and sighed in absolute, tyrannical boredom.

by now you'd normally have finished your classes and walked to music room #3, your favourite among them all.

you'd be welcomed by a host and walked to a sofa to wait for your appointment, ignoring any other girl in the waiting area trying to pick a conversation with the middle child of the ln family.

and soon enough you'd be approached by your one and only taking your hand in his and kissing it to greet you, with his blue eyes staring up at you innocently like a man in love; a look he gave to any woman nowadays, it was second nature to him.

you got lost in them so often, he sometimes dared to ask you if you didn't enjoy his company and that's why you spaced out so much.

preposterous.

you? disliking tamaki? how could he think that after all these years you spent playing together, with you transferring to his school for his sake, swallowing your pride and becoming the client of a host for him?

truly an absurd notion.

currently, however, you weren't in the host club. you were just a girl with a bunch of germs crawling everywhere around her room, unable to go out and see the man of her dreams kiss her cheek and tell her to 'get well soon'.

speaking of, your mum grew increasingly concerned when she noticed the lack of communication between you and tamaki. you were always attached to his hip like some sort of koala, and the fact that you hadn't reached out to him to inform him of your illness personally so he could visit you made her worry.

but it was only natural that you'd suspect you were being an annoyance to tamaki once you began to notice his eyes shift from you to the newest host a couple of months prior. he'd been a petit brunet boy. a first year who was friendly and of lowly origin. you didn't think much of it.

at least not until the day hikaru asked if you could fetch something he forgot in the back room, completely ignorant to the fact that haruhi had come to the club early that day to ask for another uniform because she'd been accidentally thrown water at by two classmates of hers being stupid.

so when you opened the curtain and saw a small-sized girl with only her panties on desperately trying to hide herself from you, it didn't take more than a couple of seconds to put two and two together.

tamaki wasn't fascinated by the commoner errand 'boy' turnt host.

he wanted her.

you closed the curtain, giving the girl her privacy back and muttering an curt apology, "sorry." before deciding that hikaru would have to get his things himself.

neither haruhi nor you spoke about it again, and she never snitched to the host club about your discovery of her sex.

you liked to pretend it never happened, and that it never changed anything. but just like with tamaki, pretending doesn't go anywhere. the hints were there. his furiously blushed face when he stared at her, his protection of her when the twins teased her, his demands for kyouya to do things for haruhi because she'd like it, not even because she'd asked - well, the stage of denial didn't last long.

shortly after came anger. pure, unexplainable rage and envy. the fourth of the deadly sins was soon rushing through your veins like a drug you couldn't get clean from. 'why her?' you would ask in your rampages.

you couldn't figure it out, and you couldn't ask anyone either, because as infuriated as you were, hurting haruhi by revealing her identity wasn't on your to-do list.

not because you were a good person, god no.

rather, if tamaki knew you hurt his precious daughter - you barfed - like that, who knows if you'd see him again?

and so came the bargaining stage, with your rage never leaving your blood stream, of course. being petty was always one of your main personality traits, one that tamaki would often point out.

what did fujioka haruhi have that ln yn didn't?

'nothing.' you muttered to yourself.

nothing.

nothing?

could you be absolutely sure?

you didn't see her much outside of the club, and there were a couple of times you'd heard the hosts hung out together.

maybe they had a moment? or two, three?

perhaps it was high time you stopped bothering him. perhaps then he'd realise you were the one.

that's why your texts to him had much lessened, coming to a complete stop after roughly two months of your self-doubt and insecurities getting the best of you. so did your occasional visits to his house for studying. you'd even stopped wearing the perfume he got you as a birthday present last year, even though you couldn't find another scent that fit your tastes the same way.

despite your attempts at catching his attention, the bubbling fury in your chest rose once again when you realised that maybe tamaki didn't care about you at all.

he texted you as much as you texted him, he hung out with you only when you asked, and when he came closer to you and noticed the change in your scent, he went: "different perfume, princess?"

and while normally you'd be ecstatic at him noticing, your happiness was immediately destroyed when "the other one was a little old fashioned, good thing you moved to something more fresh."

why couldn't he say what he would have said had he been in an otome game, something among the lines of: 'did you wish to match mine?' or something cheesy like that? ...was your scent not to his tastes?

'did he forget his skills from hosting or what?' you whined.

consequently, now that you were sitting around doing nothing to reach out to tamaki or any of your 'friends', your mum couldn't help but take her phone in her hands to call her friend hitachiin yuzuha.

back in the pink room that is the host club, today's rendezvouses seemed to be going by awfully quickly for tamaki.

in the couple of minutes of break he had between the end of this rendezvous and next the one to come, he quickly found his phone from his back pocket and went over his schedule sent by kyouya.

your name had been crossed out and replaced with another one he recognised, another regular guest of his. he raised his eyebrow at that.

he lifted his head and looked for the shadow king.

"hey, kyouya?"

"hm?" kyouya didn't bother to look up from his laptop, furiously typing god-knows-what.

"why's yn's time gone?" he asked innocently in a curious voice that had you heard, you'd be swooning over.

"i told you, she cancelled due to personal business," his answer was straight-forward "although it's probably because she's ill."

ah, that makes sense, you were the one that cancelled.

wait, huh?

"what do you mean she's ill?" his eyebrows furrow a bit and he cocks his head to the side like a cute dog who doesn't understand anything its owner says.

"what do you mean, 'what do i mean'? she's been absent since monday because she's not feeling well, and she won't come today either. pretty simple." kyouya finally looked up at tamaki with a strange expression on his face. "has she not told you?"

tamaki shook his head a bit, "uhm.. no, not really." and tapped his phone again to check his messages on multiple social media apps to make sure he wasn't missing anything. his emails were empty too, only some spam from a newsletter page that he never bothered to cancel his subscription from.

"how do you know?" he questioned kyouya, but before he could answer, "no wait, don't answer that, you creep. of course you know." he sighed.

after some seconds of quiet thinking, "why didn't you tell me?" tamaki continued his questioning.

"everyone already knows, my lord." an awfully familiar voice butt in making the french boy turn his head around, resting his hand on his waist.

the voice belonged to kaoru, who had his arm wrapped around his twin's shoulders. seems like they also just finished with an appointment.

"what does that mean? who's 'everyone' and why am i not included?" tamaki crossed his arms, feeling kind of left out.

"that guy hayato or whatever who hangs out with yn and her friends was telling someone and we overheard." hikaru shrugged in unison with his doppelganger.

honey's soft voice entered the chat. "you mean hinata-kun? yn-chan's friend? yeah, he told me when i asked where yn-chan is because i thought she forgot to bring the candy she promised." he quickly grabbed a piece of cake from the fridge near where kyouya had been sitting and left the room swiftly.

huh, how convenient for him to enter for the plot.

"and why's it that you two evil bastards didn't bother to tell me?" tamaki exclaimed in disbelief, pointing a finger at the both of them. how could they? his precious childhood friend was sick at home and he didn't know?!

"sorry milord-" kaoru announced with his shoulders still raised, "-but you're always talking to yn-" hikaru joined, "-how were we supposed to know you're not asking her about her well-being?" they delivered the finishing blow together.

what were these lame jerks insinuating? 'not asking about her well-being'? what did they know? just as he went to respond with his usual barking, he stopped himself to instead text you on his own for the first time in a while. not that he noticed.

the twins looked at their king with a confused and weirded-out expression on both their faces, before glancing at each other and shrugging again, already disinterested. kyouya had long gone back to his work and so the twins walked to an empty sofa in an almost isolated area of the club, lying on top of one another to give a nice view to whichever client was into it.

about six minutes of pure silence passed between the two before kaoru's phone buzzed; a text from his mum.

the twins read the text simultaneously, with hikaru raising an eyebrow at its contents. they looked back at the slender boy texting you on his phone at the other end of the club, confused about his behaviour.

"seriously...?" hikaru quietly asked kaoru, referring to the text, only to be met with the other's puzzled expression.

as for the half-and-half boy, his fingers were anxiously tapping kyouya's table and awaiting your response to his message.

tamakiii ♥♥♥♥: Hey darling! Is everything alright? I heard you didn't come to school because you're sick. I thought you just didn't feel like coming. Why didn't you tell me?

he didn't know you let out a deep sigh at his text, even if it was three days late. it gave you hope - false hope. that he'd started to pay attention to you again. maybe being distant worked-

tamakiii ♥♥♥♥: want me to come over?

the question felt natural to him, you always visited his home but seldom did he ever visit yours. since you were sick, it made sense that you wouldn't come over this time.

yn>.&lt; : arent u busy rn tho lol

your name on his phone had obviously been put there by you, his choice of emoji had been party hat for some reason.

"be serious, what does that even mean, tamaki?" you'd asked him one day during a break from your studying in his room.

"you don't like it..?" he pouted like usual and you rolled your eyes.

"here. that's better." you handed him his phone back with a new 'yn >.<' as your contact name.

tamakiii ♥♥♥♥: I can just come after club activities.

wait, he was actually coming? after two months of your only contact being through your rendezvous? it worked?! it actually worked?!

you thought of how to answer him.

at your lack of fast response, tamaki thought of ways to help you feel better through your illness.

'aha! eureka!' tamaki's head echoed.

tamakiii ♥♥♥♥: I'll bring some commoner snacks we can enjoy too! Commoners have incredible food to help alleviate illness!

tamakiii ♥♥♥♥: What are you even sick with, anyway?

of course.

commoner food, of course.

haruhi's food.

yn>.&lt; : lol no its fine i dont want u to get sick. ill just c u at sxhool yn>.&lt; : school* yn>.< : doc said its just a cold but yk w my asthma n shit

tamaki was thoroughly disappointed with your response, what did you mean 'you didn't want him to get sick'? you'd never cared if you caught his cold.

his heart raced with worry, and he decided he would stop by anyway. knowing his next appointment was approaching, he speed walked over to the newest host.

"haaaaruuhiiiiii!" he waved his hand to her and her two clients, smiling widely with all of them smiling back at him.

"yeah? what is it, senpai?" haruhi looked up at him from her armchair.

"sorry to intrude-" he runs his hair through his locks - an action that you told him the ladies would swoon over, "-but i was wondering, do you have any recommendations for commoner food that sick people can eat?"

"...are you serious?"

[newtkive]

pixels [ newt x reader - modern text au ]

ch. 2 - drama queen core

summary: minho's drama finally catches up with him, but newt becomes a hero.

warnings: strong language, mutual pining, none really.

➥ m.list

__

THE GLADE

[ 12:08 PM ]

y/n: gm pookies

newt: it’s the afternoon.

y/n: yeah well

ur east coast

newt: so are you y/n

y/n: FINE BAD MORNING THEN ARE U HAPPY?

minho: drama queen is awake

newt: you’re the drama queen min let’s be fr

minho: u want me to die be honest

newt: see .

tommy: hey guys :3 been waiting for you all

y/n: awwww tommy <3 gm

tommy: morning sweetums

minho: ew stop

newt: how did you sleep?

tommy: good! used my new heated pillow

newt: not you

minho: not you

tommy: wtf

WHO THEN?? THERES LIKE 7 OTHER PPL IN HERE

minho: he means y/n

and there’s 4 other people not including newt and y/n dumbass

y/n: oh

why just me????

newt: cuz you stayed up til 6 am

y/n: ..

how do you know that

newt: i saw you were active on discord

gally: doesn’t that mean you were awake too then

newt: ok and?

minho: thats crazy newt

newt: no it isn’t

i just casually saw it

y/n: hehe

im ok i need to sleep more. sims 4 was really consuming me

why were you awake??

newt: up for work

minho: you get on discord before work?

chronically online..

newt: can you choke and pass out and hit your head please

minho: THE WAY U WANT ME DEAD IS INSANE

y/n: he’s gotta check on his discord hoes before hitting the grind

newt: there are no discord hoes

unless you count thomas

and i don’t

tommy: well why not

newt: because you disgust me

tommy: love u too :3<3

minho: y’all about to kiss aren’t you

newt: never say that shit again im outside your door with a b*mb

minho: why censor it

just blow me up it’s my grandmas house anyway. u want to jump her that bad????

gally: blow that bitch up i say

y/n: HELLO???!,!!

gally: minho not grandma

she loves me cuz im so tall

minho: tall people always gotta remind you they’re tall 😒

like we get it bigfoot

gally: shut up tinkerbell

y/n: you’re somewhat tall minho

minho: any man under 6’0 is considered short

y/n: yeah but newt is 6 ft trapped in a 5’10 body so not totally true

newt: what does that even mean

minho: give me a break

i can tell you exactly what that means

she wanna hit

newt: stop

tommy: don’t get his hopes up

newt: dude

stfu

y/n: what newt said

gally: can we appreciate the only one actually over 6 ft here

minho: no.

tommy: im the same height as newt!!!!

y/n: yea but ur like 3 ft trapped in a 5’10 body tommy not the same

tommy: oh ..

minho: kind of real

newt: can someone kick gally i’m tired of seeing his fucking name on my phone

gally: then turn your phone off don’t you have old ladies to tend to at the library

newt: yeah and they all love me

y/n: so real

if i was old i’d go in there and imagine you’re my young boyfriend and cling to everything u say

tommy: true im the old ladies

y/n: LMAO

minho: write a fanfic y/n why don’t you

newt: yeah you both are old and not beating the dementia allegations

y/n: IM THE YOUNGEST HERE

ur just mad you’re old as dirt

tommy: youth has left you newt and it has turn you bitter in your old age.

minho: thomas knows big words who knew

newt: which word in that sentence was big??

y/n: shut up minho

minho: wtf did i do

y/n: idk but i imagine you sitting there typing on your little phone and i got pissed

minho: WHAT???!.‘wKWHFO

newt: LMAOOOOOOOOOOO

yeah chubby little fingers hitting the wrong letters on his iphone 8

minho: im leaving

tommy: dont leave i forgive you for what you said

minho: i don’t give a damn

y’all mad y’all are all fake im the realest i’ve been prophesizing and reading scriptures 7000 years before y’all fake asses were born be so for real right now

y/n: not reading that

congrats

or sorry for what happened idk

about to drink my coffee in a wine glass

tommy: just drink wine

newt: it’s noon tommy??

tommy: ok and?

newt: explains a lot

minho: no coffee for me this new year only water and pussy juice fr fr

[ newt removed minho from the group ]

tommy: woah

y/n: woah..

newt: i can’t take it anymore

alby: How did you get that access..?

newt: don’t worry about it

in times of need i have to step in like that

y/n: hi alby!

alby: Hey y/n!

tommy: you’re such a hero newt

gally: that was deserved

who wants to play minecraft rn

y/n: me!!

alby: I’ll play, I’m off work today.

y/n: let’s go to the desert i want a camel

gally: alright but then the caves after i wanna mine

newt: if you mine with her you gotta bring extra food and storage when she dies so you can pick up the fallen items

gally: i forget you’re her designated babysitter

y/n: oh please no he isn’t

and i’ll bring my own food

newt: you always say that and then leave it in the stove oven

y/n: WELL I WONT THIS TIME

newt: sure ok

i’ll get on after work

[ alby added minho to the group ]

minho: when i get you.

newt: why did you add him back alby

alby: He was harassing me.

newt: be a man and take it

gally: im leaving

[ gally left the group ]

minho: im going to throw up and die

newt: im staying out of this

minho: (guy who caused it) im staying out of this

y/n: why does gally alwyas leave 😔

newt: why question a gift from the heavens

tommy: get online y/n gally is attacking my dirt house w a pickaxe :((((

y/n: NO IM COMING

minho: im coming to your work newt

newt: okay im locking the door early then

minho: i’ll smash through the glass idc

newt: i’m leaving my shift is over at 1 today.

minho: i’ll use life360 on you

newt: i deleted that app

minho: i’ll stand in the middle of the street

newt: ok let me position my car in front of you

just come to my apartment and we can play w them on pc and xbox

minho: …. fine but i hate your guts

newt: fine

y/n: HURRY GALLY IS ATTACKING MY SHED NOOOOWWW

newt: i’ll just rebuild it

minho: i’ll set it on fire just wait

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 17 - Complex Dice Tests

We lied! Today was going to be about the meta-campaign mechanics, but we did a really cool system overhaul instead and we simply have to tell you about it.

Basically, we overhauled a part of our dice system in a pretty major way. It’s involved some fairly dramatic changes to how rolls are done, though all the other systems we’ve created plug pretty seamlessly into it (and as we’ve integrated it, it’s actually let us effectively cut systems now that they’re covered automatically by the new system). It’s one of the deftest bits of game design we’ve ever done and we gotta brag about it.

Development of the Previous System

One of the things that has been a problem for Torchship for a long while is that it wanted to be a dice pool system (roll X dice, looking for Y amount of Z+ results), which doesn’t just have binary pass-failure outcomes. We wanted players to feel competent in their fields, but we also needed there to be interesting difficulties and complications so that stories aren’t just a stateful progression of experts effortlessly performing the tasks they’re experts in.

This is surprisingly difficult!

Nailing down exactly how it would work has gone through about a half-a-dozen iterations, all of which always felt like hacky temporary solutions. The version we came up with before this, which the game has been using for about a year, involved two thresholds on each roll; a “Difficulty” to do the thing, and a “Complexity” tacked onto it that you had to reach to do it without any extra problems.

This served the purpose, but its various incarnations slowed the game down a lot more than it should have, and put too much stress on the GM to work out what these two targets would be and how complications would emerge from it. It was a clunky solution which required a lot of experience to use properly, functioning just well enough to build systems around without ever being stellar on its own.

It Must be Tuesday

While working on Must be Tuesday: Revived Edition, which uses a similar dice pool system, my wonderful editor Lexie came up with a really clever system while we were working out the dice odds. In that game, you have a “Skill” target from 6+ to 3+ with a variable dice pool and a number of Successes needed. 

Our partial successes there comes from a concept of ‘Scrapes’; dice which are 4+, but don’t meet your Skill target. If you reach the number of Successes you need when you add your Scrapes to your rolls meeting your Skill, you get a partial success! Brilliant, isn’t it? That means everyone has a chance to get by on even hard checks using their worst skills, but it’s never easy.

When we poked at Torchship stuff after testing that system out, we found ourselves wondering if something similar wouldn’t fit here as well. It wouldn’t translate 1-1; Must be Tuesday is about teenagers fighting monsters in a horror/comedy setup, where nobody is doing anything really complicated, and even the people who are the best at things are still only as good at it as, you know, teenagers. It’s not a good tone fit, but it inspired the system we used.

Complexity Certs & Complications

The solution we came up with, which we are so proud of we bumped a whole dev diary for it, is the idea of Complexity Certs.

Basically, we’ve ditched the previous Complexity target from before. Your dice Test just has a single, easily determined Difficulty. In ideal circumstances, you roll a number of dice determined by the tool you’re using, needing to get results over your Cert target. Get as many of those as the Difficulty, you succeed, otherwise you fail. Simple binary outcome to a simple problem.

But you’re playing cosmonauts. You know, you boldly go places you probably shouldn’t. You don’t face simple problems.

When the GM calls for a roll, they can tack on Complexity Certs in accordance to the situation you’re facing. Essentially, they’re saying this roll is a test not just of the ‘Primary Cert’ that determines if you pass or fail, but it’s also a test of some extra skills that have come up because of the number of moving parts involved in the situation.

So while you still only have one Difficulty, you need to meet that difficulty using multiple dice targets to succeed without qualifiers. If you just meet the difficulty on your Primary Cert, but not the Complexity Certs, then the GM can hit you with a Complication that can emerge naturally from the Cert in question. Conversely, you could end up in a situation where you have a better value on your Complexity Cert than the primary, so you could fail, but avert other disasters.

Or you could fail at both, and now you have two problems!

This system elegantly compresses a bunch of things the system needed to do into one quick judgement call by the GM in the moment. We don’t need to have specific penalties for working remotely through a robot, working in a spacesuit, or doing things in low gravity; the GM can just add the Drone Operator, EVA, or Cosmonaut Certs to the Test as Complexity Certs. There’s no limit to the number of Complexity Certs that can get added either, so you can sum up really complex situations with a single roll.

It also made the game’s group test mechanics much simpler and more impactful. Helping can be a complex game design challenge; you want people to be able to give each other a hand, but you need to make sure people can’t simply do it on every single roll to avoid slowdown and the trivialization of gameplay challenges. The way Help works now is allowing you to lend a friend one of your Certs to take on a Complexity Cert, basically monitoring a potential problem for them while they focus on the main task. 

As you get XP for Helping or being Helped on Checks where somebody is rolling with a higher Cert than you, you might want to point out potential problems with people’s plans that relate to your expertise as they come up so you can be the one to solve them. It also means that the presence of a Complexity Cert acts as a prompt for characters to step in and help one another out, and rewards a properly multi-disciplinary crew working together to tackle complex problems. 

You know. Like… like a Star Trek.

Examples

The example we use in the game rules is as follows.

Let’s say you are at a shooting range with your laser pistol, and you want to shoot a target. That’s a straightforward Sharpshooter Cert test. You either hit the target or you don’t. Easy!

But let’s say you’re doing the same thing but in a combat situation where you might get hit in return. The GM can (and is encouraged to) add the Soldier Cert as a Complexity Cert to the roll; Soldier is the Cert that covers tactics, movements, and the use of cover, so if your dice meet the difficulty using your Sharpshooter target, but don’t from your Soldier target, then you probably hit the target but exposed yourself to danger in the process.

Suddenly, we can see the difference between an Olympic target shooter and an infantryman.

Or let’s say you’re a guard posted in a reactor room; if you are doing some shooting there, the GM could throw in Damage Controller as a Complexity Cert to represent the chances of you breaking something vital in the antimatter reactor by throwing lasers everywhere. Suddenly, you have a really good reason to cross-train your guards in engineering skills, at least enough that they know not to shoot the matter/antimatter exchangers.

Or maybe you’re trying to incapacitate an unfamiliar alien creature without killing it; the GM could add Life Scientist. What if you’re doing it in a spacesuit? Add EVA. Knocking out a piece of machinery? Add Technician. Aiming a remote turret instead of doing it yourself? Drone Operator.

Which means you could, conceivably, be in a spacesuit operating a tablet controlling a gun drone non-lethally shooting a strange device on a strange alien in a combat situation inside an engine room… and it all happens with one roll and no need for infinitely stacking penalties.

Knock-On Changes

The biggest knock-on change this has caused is a need for finer gradation between Certs so that the differences come up more often and are less severe. For that reason, we moved the game to d10 pools from d6s; yes, this was an enormously annoying change to make through our draft, and we’re still working out how to rebalance advancement through it. It also means we have to do yet another pass through the Traits, which we were midway through… oh well! 

(We have a cool new lever that’s come out of, actually; we can have Traits just make Complexity Certs just not count in appropriate circumstances. Freefaller characters get to ignore 0g penalties, for example, which includes adding Cosmonaut as a Complexity Cert to a lot of rolls). 

I’ve submitted Torchship to Metatopia again this year, and I’m really looking forward to running it on the other side of a year of rewrites and de-heartbreakerification. I’m confident it’ll go much better this time around. 

Anyway, next Dev Diary will be about the Zinovians, and then we’ll do the meta-campaign mechanics. Unless something even cooler comes up.