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mbti-notes · 3 years ago

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Anon wrote: INFP with social anxiety here. I have a therapist but we're focusing on some other issues right now. In the meantime, I was wondering if you had some advice for me. I know you're not a professional (you say that multiple times in your posts) and of course I'm not asking you for a fix for my social anxiety with this - I'm just asking your help to understand what part my cognition could be playing in all of this cause I'm really curious.

Basically, my problem is the time frame right BEFORE I meet someone and, sometimes, immediately after. I don't really have problems socializing in the "middle", if you get what I mean; I'm easily adaptable and once I'm relaxed, once I realize no one is there to attack me, my mind starts getting ideas and I kind of know what to say, even though I'm a bit out of practice and I still have problems convincing other people of my emotions (like, mirroring their emotions so that they know I agree with them and stuff like that; for some reason they never ---believe me when I say it with words).

When I make plans, anyway, and I still haven't met the person, I get this anxiety: like I would rather stay home than go there because it's going to be "boring" and I'm probably going to feel like an idiot or make some sort of social gaffe. I mean, I do kinda get bored after a while anyway, but I also know I tend to overestimate that level of "future boredom" to the point it hurts me to even think about showing up and forcing myself to think of stuff I can-- say.

I get anxious because I start thinking about the way people used to treat me in the past (I've always been the black sheep of my family and/or my social circles and I vividly remember some bad things they used to say to me) and I start worrying that, deep down, they still think of me like that and they're never going to forget that "preconception of my identity" and open their eyes to who I am now, or I guess to who I've always been.

I do realize it doesn't make much sense, this "who I ----really am" part - but I've always had the impression that I was a bit different than the "me" they percieved, maybe because after many, many years of being accused of "selfishness" and "inability to tune in with the emotional atmosphere" I learned that in order not to ruin the "social mood" I should've adapted myself to the group - but the problems is that I suppressed "myself" in the meantime (and with myself I mean, like, my real interests, the things I'd like to talk about for ages without-- having to be interrupted or looked down on because, quote unquote, "ok, cool, but we don't really care").

I understand now that if they don't give me hints of actually caring about the subject I should stop rambling like a fool, but this is making me feel like I have nothing "useful" to offer them and therefore bringing the anxiety I'm struggling with. It makes me scared that I'll never be able to be myself around them because of the "social rules" I want to respect to be accepted, & to make----it worse I'm out of practice like I said before and sometimes it just gets too awkward and I want to get out of there.

I bet I'm doing something wrong because friendships and relationships in general are not supposed to be "boring", am I right? And yet until I don't get distracted by the actual conversation, I feel like it's going to be really boring and uncomfortable and sometimes going through it is SO horrible... most of the time I end up making up some excuse to go home earlier and talk----my internet friends instead (thank God for the internet!!!!). Anyway, thank you if you'll answer! And have a good summer vacation c:

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The first thing I notice is that your thought process bears a very striking resemblance to many INFJs who struggle with social anxiety due to poor Fe development (see past posts). As a general rule, if I have good reason to suspect that someone might be mistyped, I won't provide info about function development until they undergo a proper type assessment. Otherwise, they might adopt the wrong method of improvement.

You say you want to understand what part your cognition plays in the social anxiety you experience, so I will mention the aspects of your cognition that seem most significant:

1) No Chill: You overthink things to an extreme, to the point of self-sabotage, perhaps even creating a self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e. when expecting the negative actually makes the negative happen). Overthinking means that you're not confronting the real obstacle getting in the way of your socializing. You're constantly trying to envision, imagine, or predict what will happen in a social interaction? WHY? What's the point of that overthinking? It's how you avoid confronting your fear head on.

2) Insecure: Your "predictions" are too often faulty because of being tainted by your underlying insecurities. You're insecure about being attacked, being accused, being misjudged, doing something wrong, being deemed of no value or unworthy of care, not being accepted or acceptable, dying of awkwardness, feeling bored, feeling uncomfortable, and on and on. You've described your thought process in detail. But nowhere do I see you confronting your insecurities, digging deeper into them, in order to understand the root of them. Insecurities are a manifestation of fear.

3) Control: Irrational anxiety is oftentimes about trying to control things that you shouldn't be trying to control or cannot have any control over - it wastes mental energy and leads to futile behavior. As long as you're trying to control social situations and their outcome, you are either trying too hard to make reality match up with your expectations or you're fumbling whenever reality unfolds outside of your expectations - you become rigid and frail. You claim to be "adaptable" but everything you say after that only proves you don't know the meaning of the word. You can't handle unpredictability, hence, the attempt to be in control by trying to "predict" everything. Do your attempts to control actually work? Do they help or hinder you? If they mostly hinder you, then isn't it time to change your strategy? Anxious people often believe that having more knowledge or control is the answer to their fear. But, in your case, the huge cost of being controlling is being incompetent. What's worse, the fear is still right there running the show.

4) Unresolved Trauma: You attribute your troubles to your past. Fair enough. Growing up in a social environment that did not respect and appreciate you is painful, even extremely traumatic for certain personality types. It also makes people too hungry for validation. It's natural that you wouldn't want to feel the pain of it again. However, if that pain remains unexamined and unresolved, you will unconsciously keep seeking to resolve it, which means re-enacting the trauma over and over again throughout life. The proof? Every time you meet someone, your first stance is defensive, because the first thing that comes into your mind is that you don't want to be attacked or invalidated. That old pain is running the whole show because you are deeply afraid of experiencing it again, yet you don't realize that YOU are the one calling it back up and rehashing it. What are you doing to resolve the pain rather than indulge the fear?

5) Self-absorbed: Social anxiety makes people too absorbed in their own thoughts, feelings, hopes, and expectations. They are too preoccupied with what they want, what will happen, how they will be perceived, how they might make a mistake, how they might be attacked, etc. This means they're not truly present with people, so the relationship can't really go far. Driven by fear and insecurity, they are always behind a wall, too difficult to reach.

Even if you happen to meet the right people, do you make it easy for them to befriend you? It seems that you can't open up with ease, you can't go with the flow of the other person when they don't live up to your expectations, you can't keep your emotions in check and misjudge situations, you get bored when it's not about you, you run away instead of making things better. Looking at yourself objectively from the outside, would you want to be friends with someone like that?

If you want to have good friends, you first have to BE a good friend. You want care, love, and validation? We all do. The best way to receive it is to be the first to give it. By being more aware of other people's needs and doing more to show that you care about them, you put them in a better position to care about you and meet your needs in return. This is the difference between actively trying to "make" a friend vs passively wishing for a friend to drop into your lap.

Being a friend isn't about what "value" you have, as though you're some kind of object being appraised and sold. Being a good friend is quite a simple matter of putting out the energy to care and show that you care. When you meet someone who's moved by your care, they will care for you in return. When you meet someone who's unmoved by your care, figure out the real reason why, in order to determine whether you should keep trying or put your energy elsewhere.

You never really know who you'll hit it off with. One of my favorite experiences in life is making a friend in the unlikeliest of places. As an adult, meeting new people is a numbers game. All you can do is keep pushing yourself to meet new people. The more people you meet, the greater the odds of clicking with someone. If you're looking to meet like-minded people, go to places that are likely to have people who share your interests. If you don't hit it off with someone, simply move along. You don't have to be friends with everyone, do you?

Yet, you take every little social interaction so seriously that each step is like life or death - that's what makes socializing tiring, laborious, and unfun. Why not enter into every social interaction with an open mind and an open heart? Why not truly go with the flow, without having to undergo the repetitive ritual of predicting what will happen or fussing over what did happen?

6) Poor Emotional Intelligence: This point is the common thread that runs through the previous points, which is why I keep repeating the word "fear". You have extremely low tolerance for negative feelings and emotions, which means you really need to work on learning how to deal with your emotional life better. Any little sign that things won't turn out the way you want and you start to panic, overthink, blame, or flee. Why do you recoil from yourself and your own feelings and emotions? Why are you so easily shaken by boredom, awkwardness, invalidation, failing, other people's negativity, etc? Why do you react so badly to these things (when others just brush it off and keep going)?

7) Low Self-Awareness: It's not enough to just name the fear ("I'm afraid of____"). Does the label explain why you have this particular fear and not some other fear? It's not enough to blame the past ("It's because of ____"). Why did someone else with a similar past as yours not develop this fear? To get to the root of fear, you have to identify, in exact terms:

what aspect of you has to change to overcome the fear

what aspect of your identity has to "die" (i.e. be let go of) in order to evaporate the fear

Until you answer the fear properly, it won't go away.

#social anxiety #anxiety #fear #emotional intelligence #mental health #ask

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4ragon · 4 years ago

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can you please expand your thoughts on how aai1 handled turnabout ablaze? I noticed your (rightfully) low ranking of Alba earlier so I’m kinda curious about your opinion ^_^

Okay, before I go into this, I want to say: I love this game. I love all the AA games. Even the ones I have the most complaints about (this and DD) are wonderfully fantastic games with a fun cast and intriguing murder mysteries. You should play the ones you haven’t played yet, even the ones you’ve heard negative stuff about.

That being said, Turnabout Ablaze I think is sort of emblematic of every single problem I do have with AAI.

Ace Attorney Investigations is a little bit of a mess. At its best, it’s a fun murder mystery game with a stellar cast. It introduces Kay Faraday and Shi-Long Lang, it gives us more time playing as Miles Edgeworth, always a treat, and more time with my man Gumshoe. The mystery solving is fun and it offers a new kind of gameplay than the usual point and click style for investigations.

However, it also has a lot of weird pacing problems. Your new assistant and rival don’t show up until case 3 of 5. And Lang isn’t even in case 4, so he’s barely even a presence in his debut game, even though he’s a wildly interesting and fun character. All of his development is shoved into Turnabout Ablaze, and even though it’s welcome development, I kind of wish it was spread out more.

But going more into Turnabout Ablaze: It is long, arduous slog occasionally interrupted by some fantastic moments only to be dragged back down into the deepest recesses of hell. Its midpoint feels like a climax and everything past that point slowly and sadly peters away into a sad mess of one man slowly walking away from you to get on a plane.

To start with, this case in particular has so many different people being accused of murder. Kay, then Larry, then Shih-na, then Franziska, then Alba. AAI has this issue in almost all these cases, but it never feels as pronounced as it does in this one, this meandering, confusing mess of a case. It feels like we’re never really making progress, we’re just running in circles and occasionally hitting a brick wall while we get derailed from some bullshit or another.

I feel like the setup of AAI makes accusing people you care about far less impactful than it did in any of the other games, since that blame can be passed around so quickly and easily. Every single case has at least one moment where a recurring character gets accused, and it feels almost artificial? Like of course we’re going to have to care about Gumshoe and Maggey and Kay and Franziska and maybe not Larry but that’s a personal choice of mine. Yet most of those accusations never really last long enough to have anything meaningful happen plot or character wise, save for maybe Gumshoe in the flashback case? But there’s no tension to that one since we know Gumshoe ends up fine. The rest of the time it’s just an excuse to keep dragging Miles through a constantly meandering plot.

Also, there’re these weird distractions all over the place that lead nowhere. Having to deal with Larry and Oldbag for a few minutes hours even though it has nothing to do with the case at hand is annoying. If we got rid of that second murder, would anything have changed other than a few hours of gameplay? You just have to rewrite a few parts and boom, two hours of my life saved. Or the statue section, did we need to have that statue section? These would be well and good if they were fun to solve, or character building, but they weren’t. They were just there to add time to an already bloated final case.

Adding to that, I was not a huge fan of the Smugglers plot that they were pushing to be the overarching narrative. I feel like it was meant to be this big, intimidating force, but it ended up being so boring and impersonal. And boring. And did I mention boring?

You know what was interesting? Calisto Yew, betraying her friends. Calisto Yew murdering Byrne Faraday, and then Kay’s investment in hunting her down. Then you get to the big climactic showdown with Shih-na, and it’s amazing! It’s satisfying! We’ve been developing this Big Bad for three cases and watching her finally break down, getting to that reveal of who she was, the shootout, all of it was fantastic and wait, what was that? Shih-na didn’t do the murders for this case? She was just a cog in the machine? There’s more game? Oh. Uh. Right. Okay. Whoo.

Also Quercus Alba, uh, sucks? He sucks. He sucks so much. He’s boring and smug, but also he’s this nothing character. He sweeps in at the eleventh hour to be the final hurdle, but he had no buildup other than walking around in the background as this doddering old man we didn’t care about. It wasn’t even in a “Ooo he was always there the whole time” way that Shih-na had, it was just this boring old man doing boring old man things.

And then they have the audacity to make the final confrontation with him last for HOURS longer than it needed to. And every single time it feels like we’ve progressed, not only have we made no progress, but we are actively slamming ourselves into the same brick wall over, and over, and over again.

“Oh, you see, Miles Edgeworth, I have ✨Diplomatic Immunity✨!”

“Ah, well, how about this proof! Proof that you are involved with the smuggling ring! What do you think about that?”

“Well, what do you think about this ✨✨Diplomatic Immunity✨✨ that I still have. Oh well time to go on a plane—”

“Wait! Wait Quercus Alba, what about this new proof! This proof that you could have done the crime!”

“Wowie, my ✨✨✨Diplomatic Immunity✨✨✨ certainly thinks you’re making an interesting point.”

And then Lang shows up to get rid of his ✨✨✨✨Diplomatic Immunity✨✨✨✨ after we’ve been in the same fucking time loop for what feels like twenty years of my life and then suddenly we have to prove without a shadow of a doubt that Alba did the murder?? Why???? That’s not how it works?????? Can someone fucking ARREST THIS MAN???? GUESS WHAT GUYS YOU DON’T NEED TO PROVE HE DID IT YET, YOU HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH TO ARREST HIM YOU’RE NOT IN COURT?????????? END IT!!!! PLEASE!!!!! JUST END IT!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!

I don’t care about the Smuggling Ring! It’s this weird nebulous idea that has no real bearing on any of the main characters other than Lang. And also like “Oh no, my country’s economy is in shambles” that’s so????nothing???? Again, if we could have anything tying us to the importance of improving Zheng-Fa’s economy maybe that would be different. Human beings as a species don’t really connect that well to a macro level if there’s nothing to make it feel personal, you know? We know nothing about Zheng-Fa and have no connection to Zheng-Fa, and we don’t have any way to conceptualize Lang’s struggle in a way that holds any meaning. Sure it’s important, but it’s not dire to us, and that makes for a shitty confrontation!!!

Let’s look back at the other final cases in this series. AA original: Miles is in danger. His smug mentor is not only trying to get him killed, but did the killings himself. AA2: Maya is kidnapped. It’s a struggle between your ideals of finding truth and justice and making sure your best friend isn’t killed. AA3: Maya is missing, and then later, suspected of murder. You’re confronting this big bad who's been a problem from case one and then also proving yourself to Godot.

They’re all personal stakes. They all matter to the main character, and the bad guy had a DIRECT hand in why. And yes, Alba ordered the killings, but again, it’s so impersonal, it’s like three steps removed so as rendered meaningless. Then you add on top that he’s got no motivation, other than greed and power I guess, he’s not fun, considering how many circles he makes us run in only to get to the same problem every single go around, he’s barely a character, he—!!! I hate him!!! I hate him and not in a fun way!!! Just end the case!!! Please Capcom!!!!

Again, the first half? When we were building to that confrontation with Shih-na? Great! Climactic. Fun. Interesting. But the rest? So deeply incredibly frustrating.

Sorry this was longer than I meant for it to. But I’m not too sorry. After all, I have ✨✨✨✨✨Diplomatic Immunity✨✨✨✨✨

#ace attorney #ace attorney investigations #spoilers #aai spoilers #meta #j

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dennou-translations · 4 years ago

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K SIDE:GREEN – Chapter 1 (Part 2)

Feel free to message me about possible corrections. If you can, please support the creators by purchasing the official releases.

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“‘Electricity’, activate!” Letting out a resonant voice, Hikotarou raised his PDA up high.

Isn’t this guy reading too much manga? Should I stop looking up to him after all? Sukuna thought, hands buried inside his pockets, yet the PDA’s screen started glowing green before his eyes.

“Eh?”

As if to sneer at his foolish reaction, a green shine burst from within the terminal. Drawing a zigzag track in the empty air, the green lightning pierced a PET bottle about five meters away. A chemical-like smell of melted plastic drifted from it.

Sukuna approached the burned PET bottle, and as if to say that he was acting without thinking, he touched it.

“Hot!”

Instantly, he flung it away. The PET bottle made a loud noise as it hit the ground. White smoke dissipated in the wind. A blistering appeared on Sukuna’s hand.

“What’re you doing?” Hikotarou cackled a laugh.

With his back turned to that laughter, Sukuna was looking down at his hand, forgetting to even blink.

That was real. It was neither magic nor a trick. A real supernatural power.

He had never even imagined that something like it existed in this world. Games were games, not reality. It was exactly because he usually played many of them that Sukuna was perfectly aware of this much – or at least he intended to be.

However, the words that Hikotarou had said to him one day came back vividly. A video game that one could play in the real world. That was most certainly a fact, not a metaphor or anything of the sort.

Sukuna heard an unfamiliar noise. A steadily pulsating beat. That was something Sukuna could hear from nowhere other than his own chest. A fragment of a world that had only ever exited within fiction and fantasy was unmistakably floating before his eyes – this truth was making Sukuna’s heart beat loudly.

“How’s that? It was true, wasn’t it? You believe what I said now?”

It was a wholly different story that Sukuna was annoyed at Hikotarou, who, in a stark contrast with him, was smirking proudly and pushing his PDA against Sukuna’s cheek. He gave quite some thought to knocking down the device, but that would be lashing out while being in the wrong, which was pathetic. After reflecting a little, he decided to attack from a different opening.

“You said you’d bought this thing, right? How much was it?”

When asked, Hikotarou quickly averted his eyes and said in a low voice, “1k.”

“So expensive! Ain’t that the same amount as the promotion points!?”

1k was a short for 1000. In order to rank up within JUNGLE, the points had to be consumed, and the points required when an E-rank was promoted to an L-rank were exactly a thousand. When thinking about earning that many points in an honest manner, it would likely take almost a month.

“Also, didn’t you say this was disposable or something? Don’t tell me this is the end.”

“O-Of course not! I said it was disposable ‘cause there’s a frequency limit! We can still use it!”

“How many times more?”

“Four...”

Meaning that item cost 1000JP for five times of use. Unfair overcharging was an understatement for it. And out of all things, Hikotarou had spent a valuable opportunity to make fair use of those 200JP on a PET bottle. Most likely with the sole purpose of showing Sukuna something nice.

The moment he thought this, something welled up within him.

“Fufu,” he snorted as if about to burst out, a roar of laughter following suit. “Ahahahahaha! What’s with that? Such a waste! Aren’t you an idiot!?”

“Sh-Shut up! It’s fine! Those are my points after all!”

“Even so, you—for something like that—”

“It’s ‘cause you wouldn’t believe what I said if I didn’t do something like this!”

A worked-up Hikotarou was so amusing that Sukuna laughed even louder. If his classmates saw him now, they would be wide-eyed and shocked. Sukuna himself had just found out for the first time that he could laugh with such a strident voice.

“Damn, it ain’t something to laugh so much for. You’re always making such a sour face too,” Hikotarou said with a strained smile. It was apparently influenced by Sukuna’s burst of laughter.

And so, for a while, the two players laughed together.

“But how does this thing work?” After laughing for some time, Sukuna scanned Hikotarou’s terminal with his eyes. “Doesn’t seem like there’s any mechanism planted in your PDA. It’s the same model as mine.”

“Yeah. Everything is apparently thanks to JUNGLE’s personal use app. Everybody calls it ‘ESP app’.”

If one could use psychic powers upon signing in, then there was indeed no social media more revolutionary than this one. It was about enough to become explosively viral, but it had its own reasons to remain as underground.

According to Hikotarou—

“There are these two types, the ‘skill’ and ‘item’, in the ESP app.”

“Skill” referred to powers that could be used constantly. If people called something a “psychic ability” in JUNGLE, it normally indicated one thing. That when rising to G rank and above, they could choose only one power and use it limitlessly. From among many abilities, they would select just one that matched them and nurture it in their desired direction.

On the other hand, any player could use an “item��. However, it was disposable – as Hikotarou had just showed, one had to spend copious amounts of points for each time of use. In exchange, it could be used in combination with skills to develop various strategies.

“You can clear high-level missions by combining those two – that’s what the upper-rankers are doing, it seems. Well, this is just what I heard, since I’m still in a low rank.”

“Huun. Sounds like you can do a lot, depending on the combination.” Looking through JUNGLE’s store, Sukuna nodded as if impressed.

“Yeah. Sukuna, you should think now about which you’re gonna pick when you turn into a G.”

“That so? I can also use it?”

Up until the present, Sukuna had lived a life where “things that he could not do” did not exist. Which was why he had never once thought that he wanted superhuman powers like those from mangas or movies.

The reason for Sukuna to have butterflies in his chest when he saw the “ESP app” was that JUNGLE had destroyed his world.

It was such a wholly different world that it could completely overturn the things imposed on him until now – the tedious common sense and reality – by his parents and the people at school. Coming in contact with a power none of them could imagine and racing to a place their hands could never reach – how thrilling that was!

When he realized, Sukuna was gripping his PDA strongly. This was neither him fleeing from suffocation nor rebelling against parents. Sukuna had just now come to know the true appeal of JUNGLE.

“Right. Aah, that’s right! I’ll rise too! Then, I’ll use even more amazing powers and accomplish bigger missions!”

“Yeah! That’s the spirit!” Hikotarou nodded, laughing.

Sukuna was also grateful that he existed. Hikotarou was the one who had told him about JUNGLE and showed him its real charm – it was all thanks to him.

If he could one day clear up all sorts of missions using various kinds of psychic abilities with Hikotarou, it would surely be extremely, tremendously fun.

It was Sukuna’s first time being excited ever since he was born.

◆

“Well, see ya tomorrow,” Hikotarou said at the three-way junction on the way home that day, waving his hand.

Sukuna stopped walking involuntarily, as their talk had been at the most interesting part. They had looked into the JUNGLE store list, discussed about this and that combination and just as he figured out the best combo, he had started talking about it.

Sukuna’s house was on the right side of a Y-shaped three-way junction. Hikotarou was about to walk toward the left side. Wordlessly, Sukuna went to Hikotarou’s side.

“Sukuna?”

At Hikotarou’s surprised look, Sukuna pouted and turned away. “It’s fine to go the long way around sometimes, ain’t it?”

Hikotarou blinked repeatedly. That gaze was annoying. Enough to make him almost unwittingly forget the invisible combo that he had finally come up with.

“That so? Then hang out with me for a bit.”

Hikotarou did not try to tease him for it. His countenance surly, Sukuna replied with nothing but a “fine by me” to that grinning face.

And so, Hikotarou took a detour. The place he stopped by was a drugstore in front of the station and what he bought was cat food.

As Hikotarou held two one-kilogram dry food packages with both arms, Sukuna asked as if skeptical, “You had a cat?”

Hikotarou averted his eyes with a rather subtle expression. “It’s not like I’m keeping it.”

Through that single sentence, Sukuna was somewhat able to understand the situation. He followed behind Hikotarou, who was walking mutely.

Eventually, the two arrived at a vacant lot on the outskirts of town. In a corner of said vacant lot, where weeds grew boundlessly, there was a cardboard box. Cries of “mew, mew” that seemed to beg for something could be heard coming from inside the box.

“They were four at first,” crouching down and opening the food package, Hikotarou whispered as though talking to himself. “One was the mother and the others were kitties. But one day, the mother was gone, and when I came to see them after a while, the two other than this one were dead.

Sukuna looked around. On a spot at a short distance from there, he could see two small stones lined up beside the block wall.

“This guy here was about to die too, but I did a bit of research, and after I gave him milk and brought him something warm, he managed to recover one way or another.”

“Won’t you try to take it home?”

Still crouched, Hikotarou looked up at Sukuna. He had on a weak smile. “We can’t have pets at my place. My da—my father hates this kinda stuff.”

“Then—I know; how about you use JUNGLE? Send out a mission to find him a foster parent.”

Hikotarou laughed dryly, “I think whoever takes it on will probably just take the points and send the cat off to a health center.”

Sukuna went silent, crouching down.

The little cat was dirty. Its fur and skin were muddy, its tail bent. It was engrossed in eating the food, but once it looked up, its eyes had hardened mucus on them.

Hikotarou took out a tissue and gently wiped it off. “Wanna pet it?”

“That okay?”

Hikotarou raised his voice as he laughed at the dumbfounded question. With a sour face, Sukuna reached out a hand and touched the kitten. Perhaps thinking that he was food, the kitten thrust its nose onto his palm and sniffed it incessantly. It was ticklish. His mouth distorting, Sukuna endured the sensation. Finally, the kitten pushed its body onto Sukuna’s hand and its sleeping breath began to ensue.

As if not to disrupt the revolving, throaty sound, Sukuna complained in a low voice, “Hey. What do I do about this? I can’t move.”

“Won’t it be fine if you don’t move?”

“You!” He let his anger show, but the kitten might awaken if he moved recklessly. As if having bitten into a bitter-tasting bug, Sukuna looked down at the kitten. “Does it have a name?”

“Yeah. He’s also Nine.”

That was Hikotarou’s handle name. Sukuna stared at him with a look that said, “Don’t give it such a confusing name”, yet Hikotarou was gazing down at “Nine” and laughing.

“I’m glad it’s summer right now. A parentless kitty wouldn’t survive if it were winter. Even then, many dangerous things will likely happen to him, but if he grows up just a bit more, he’ll get by on his own—”

“I’ll,” Sukuna opened his mouth before thinking of anything. “I’ll keep it.”

Hikotarou looked at Sukuna with wide eyes.

“My parents probably won’t allow it, but even so, I’ll keep it. I think I can do it. My house is big. I can think of lots of places that neither my parents’ nor the servants’ eyes could reach.”

“Sukuna—”

“That should be better for this guy than here. I can put up a box, a blanket and things like that in our unused warehouse, and a toilet too, I guess. I don’t know about that stuff, but I’ll look it up later. You can also come over when you feel like seeing him.”

As if angry, Sukuna was making a surly face. Hikotarou looked at that expression of his with rounded eyes. Unable to bear the gaze, Sukuna stared down at the little cat once again.

“Of course, only if you’re okay with it.”

Hikotarou replied to Sukuna’s mumbled words, which sounded like an excuse, with a smile that seemed to shine, “It is! I’m counting on you, Sukuna!”

Sukuna laughed sheepishly. The kitten’s sleeping breath ensued windingly from within his hand. While feeling its body temperature on his palm, Sukuna inferred his opinion by muttering a few words, “By the way, can’t you change the name Nine?”

“Nope.”

◆

The home of Nine the kitten was soon found.

There was a wooden shack in a corner of the Gojou estate. Originally used as the gardener’s warehouse, it was now abandoned as the garden tools had been moved to a storehouse in the main residence. The shack, which Sukuna’s parents obviously did not go anywhere near and neither did the servants, was perfect for his purpose. He had arranged the kitten’s needs in a corner of the cramped and dim shack.

He could not possibly bring that cardboard box home, so he had laid a blanket over a basket woven from wood, making it into an improvised bed. The kitten Nine had raised its voice in protest against being moved from its former location, but it soon quieted down after being tossed into the blanket.

He had left it with a box of food, a water bowl and litter for its toilet. He could not take it outside, so he would have to raise it there for a while.

Looking around the small shack, Sukuna had nodded to himself. The kitten would surely be okay there. Nobody would find out. Convincing himself of this, Sukuna had cautiously left the shack and returned to the main house.

Today was the day to eat dinner with his mother.

“How was school, Sukuna?” such words came out of her red lips.

His knife, which had been carefully cutting the meat, stopped moving completely.

Sukuna looked at her with upturned eyes. The appearance of his mother enjoying an elegant dinner on the other end of the pure white tablecloth and silver candlesticks, with two servants at her left and right sides, was almost like the queen of a nation.

“Just normal.”

“‘It was’.”

“It was normal.”

His mother titled her neck a little. With a slight movement from her gaze, one of the servants moved soundlessly and poured wine into her glass.

“Have you been getting along with your friends? Your face has been bright lately. Are you having fun?”

Sukuna was silent.

If she was asking if he was having fun playing with a friend, the answer was yes. But not with the friends she had provided for him – Ninomiya and his former followers. It was with a smart and lively boy named Kue Hikotarou.

What would his mother do if she found out about Hikotarou?

She did not approve of anything that did not act in accordance with her will approaching him. Needless to recall the matter with Ninomiya, if his mother knew about Hikotarou, she would certainly try to keep him away. He could not think that she would be appreciative of things like JUNGLE.

Hikotarou might have to transfer schools because of him. As this possibility crossed his mind, Sukuna was horrified.

After thinking a little, Sukuna answered, “Yes, I am having fun, Mother.”

So you have nothing to worry about. So don’t meddle in anything and leave it as that. Leave me alone—

His mother drank a sip of wine, smiling. “Is that so? Then I’m glad. Your happiness is my happiness—”

Suddenly, the smile disappeared.

She stood up from the chair as if kicking it away. The glass collapsed with a smashing sound, the wine spilling and dyeing the tablecloth red. Approaching the frozen Sukuna with big steps, she firmly grabbed the hand that was still holding a knife and raised it with force.

A raspy voice came out of her lips, which were once tightened into a thing line, “What is this?”

Stock-still, Sukuna looked at it. He had a burn on his right hand. It was the wound that he had earned himself right after school today, when Hikotarou showed him the ESP app.

It had happened due to his own carelessness, and until just now, Sukuna had even forgotten that he had a burn. After all, it did not particularly hurt and he thought it would heal soon.

But his mother was different.

“Explain, Sukuna.”

Sukuna’s mother thought of him as a treasure. He was her property, like gemstones and rings. Of course his mother would be angry if said property was damaged. Whatever the property itself thought did not matter.

Sukuna spoke with a voice that sounded like a gasp, “It—is nothing, Mother. This is just—”

“‘Just’ what?”

“I was eating something hot during lunch and... I touched the food with my fingers...”

It was a painful excuse if he were to say so himself, but he could not think of anything else. Talking about Hikotarou was out of question. If he said he had borne it in class, there was no mistaking that she would check with the school for confirmation. If the lie were exposed, Sukuna’s mother would thoroughly investigate his surroundings.

If this happened, Hikotarou’s existence would definitely be revealed. And if she found out about Hikotarou, farewell would be waiting in the not-too-distant future.

Sukuna’s mother stayed dead-silent, peeking at his face fixatedly. Halting his breath, Sukuna accepted her gaze.

“Is that so?” muttering these few words, the mother let go of Sukuna’s hand.

Sukuna pulled his hand to his chest as if stealing it back. His heart was beating with strong thumps.

As a Crescent Moon-like smile once again crept on his mother’s red lips, she reached her hand out to caress his head. “Mother has an urgent matter to take care of. I will be going now, but you can eat dinner by yourself, right?”

Swallowing saliva as if swallowing lead, Sukuna answered, “Yes.”

“Really? You are a good child, Sukuna.”

Stroking Sukuna’s head in a noticeably rough manner, his mother turned on her heels. The way that the wine splashed on the back of her skirt looked like a spurt of blood was forever seared into Sukuna’s eyes.

◆

Five: You there?

Nine: I am. Got any business with me?

Five: Nothing that you can call “business” in particular.

Nine: Then what is it? Can’t sleep?

Five: Hey. Didn’t anything happen to you?

Nine: I don’t get what you mean.

Five: I mean, like...

Five: Didn’t anyone, like your parents or people from school, say anything to you?

Nine: Aah, I get it. Is it about JUNGLE?

Nine: I told you, didn’t I? That the level of anonymity is super high in JUNGLE. You can change the app icon anytime so nobody can tell who you are just by looking, and you can also hide that you installed it if you feel like it. You’re scared of being found out ‘cause you’re from a good family, right?

Five: No! That’s not it!

Nine: Then what is it?

Five: Like I said...

Five: It’s nothing.

Nine: What’s up with you?

Five: I said it’s nothing!

Five: Just, if anything happens at school, make sure to tell me. ‘Cause I might be able to do something about it.

Nine: Don’t say such creepy things out of nowhere... What, you mean something’s gonna happen to me?

Five: I don’t know. But this is a what-if.

Nine: Yes, yes, thank you for your kindness.

Five: I’m serious!

Nine: Then I’ll answer seriously; I won’t rely on you even if that happens. JUNGLE players are independent by default. No matter if they have friends, they don’t do that kinda thing. Aren’t you the same?

Nine: ......

Nine: Sukuna? You awake?

Five: I am.

Five: I get it. It’s just like you said. Forget about that.

Nine: Ah, that so? Then are you done? I ain’t done with tomorrow’s homework yet.

Five: Haa? You should finish homework the moment you get it.

Nine: Shaddap! G’night!

Five: G’night.

◆

The next day and the one after, Hikotarou did not show up at school.

Sukuna was fretting about all sorts of things, yet it was not as if he could do anything. Hikotarou had said that in the chatroom, but if Sukuna’s mother attempted to keep him away, there was surprisingly little that Sukuna could do.

Sukuna’s mother loved him and tried giving him whatever he wanted. However, it was completely impossible to change her opinions through his. Plead as he might, his mother would do as she willed. His voice would not reach her.

But that did not mean he could fold his arms and watch.

He was the first and only friend that Sukuna could respect ever since he had been born. Just thinking about this friend having to go somewhere far away because of him made chills run through his spine.

Until now, he had never experienced so much fear and anxiety. Although he did feel suffocated and disturbed by his mother’s actions, he had never felt dread.

Before he realized, Sukuna had sneaked out of his room and headed to the shack. He opened the door gently. Relying on the light of his PDA, he found the basket he had left in a corner. Wrapped in its blanket, the kitten Nine had been sleeping soundly.

However, perhaps noticing Sukuna, Nine looked up at him with its round eyes. Raising a sweet cry of “mew, mew”, it scrambled its way up the basket, crawled out and ended up rolling down to the floor with a thump.

“Ah, h-hey—”

He frantically picked Nine up, but this time, it climbed up his arm. As he let it do as it pleased out of not knowing what to do, Nine reached Sukuna’s shoulder, rubbed its head against his neck and curled up on the spot. It was warm and ticklish.

Sukuna’s cheeks slackened. Supporting Nine with one hand, he made sure it would not fall. Sitting down in a corner of the shack, he whispered in pauses, “I gotta protect him, huh.”

As if to respond to his talking to himself, Nine cried out a “mew, mew”.

◆

Even though he had consolidated his determination, on the very next day, Hikotarou popped up in front of Sukuna as he was getting ready to go home.

“Hey, Sukuna. Have you become an L ranker ye—ouch, owowowowow!”

As Hikotarou waved his hand lightly with the same bright smile as usual, Sukuna forcibly grabbed his wrist and went out to the corridor.

Hikotarou raised his voice in protest, “Wh-What’re you doing?! That hurts!”

“Shut up! Why did you take days off!?”

While Hikotarou was not coming to school, Sukuna had imagined all sorts of bad things. Such as, he could be preparing to be transferred or his parents could have told him to stay away from Sukuna. That was why he was awfully irritated by Hikotarou’s carefree smile.

However, Hikotarou, who had no idea about that, said while cackling a laugh, “My bad, my bad. I was just a bit busy with missions lately.”

Apparently, Hikotarou had been absent from school due to fake illness. As he said that he had been running around town while pretending he was at school in order to accomplish JUNGLE missions, Sukuna was flabbergasted.

Feeling spent, Sukuna leaned against the wall. He gave Hikotarou a sharp gaze. Fretting had made him look like an idiot.

At that moment, he realized something. Hikotarou’s forehead was just slightly swollen above his right eye.

“What’s that?”

As Sukuna pointed at it, Hikotarou raised his voice with an “aah” and said, “I hit it in the middle of a mission. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nobody’s worried.”

“Thought so. That aside, wanna go on a mission now?”

At Hikotarou’s shining eyes, Sukuna asked curiously, “Missions can be done in duos?”

“What, you didn’t know? There’s an urgent mission coming out now!”

“‘Urgent mission’?”

Despite finding the unfamiliar term strange, Sukuna tapped on JUNGLE and opened the “mission” tab. As he did so, the words “urgent mission” were indeed dancing over the top row. Unlike the other missions, a large red font was used for it.

The title was “Urgent Mission: Uwagami Town Survey”.

“Activating urgent mission. The mission content is a survey around Uwagami Town. Please record the cityscape and roads of Uwagami Town in photos and videos and upload them. For the photos, the reward is 5 JP each, and for the videos, 50 JP per minute. We will pay double the reward for videos near Uwagami First Street. Details are as follows─”

Sukuna dry-swallowed. “This is around here?”

“Yeah! So it’s a chance! It was activated just now, so most of the players haven’t noticed!”

Hikotarou was excited. Of course he was. Uwagami Town – moreover, the First Street – was precisely the surroundings of Uwagami Elementary, which Sukuna and Hikotarou had to pass through. Meaning that they would earn JPs just by taking pictures of this area. It was as if dirt had turned into gold.

“All right! Let’s go!” Squeezing his PDA, Sukuna gave a broad nod. As if he were infected by Hikotarou’s enthusiasm, his chest started throbbing.

◆

Uwagami Town was a high-class residential area located in the heart of the city center. The adjacent Shimogami Town was a government district where governmental facilities were concentrated, and many people who belonged to government agencies lived in it. In particular, there were police officers stationed in front of mansions where important people lived, watching for suspicious figures.

To start off, Sukuna took a picture of one of said police officers. The police officer merely squinted without saying anything.

“First, 5JP!”

“Let’s go steady! Steady!”

Talking loudly to each other, the two took pictures one after another. A two-lane main street that ran from east to west through Uwagami Town, an enormous building under construction, a vast parking lot, commercial buildings lined up as if to jostle one another, a spacious park and the children playing tag in it.

Upon a more careful look, there were countless other people taking pictures like Sukuna and Hikotarou. Salary men, high school girls, housewives and even elders who, no matter how one looked at it, were over 70 were positioning their PDAs to photograph and record the streets. Amongst them, there were also those who were being interrogated by police officers due to taking pictures too unreservedly. They indeed looked suspicious.

The chances that Sukuna and Hikotarou would be questioned were slim, but they somewhat did not want to be regarded as the same as those people, so they started moving to less popular locations.

“Let’s go, Sukuna!”

“Ah, wait!”

The main street of Uwagami Town stretched through a beautifully maintained city, but when one entered one of the back streets, an old townscape spread out. The back alleys, so narrow that it seemed people would have a hard time just passing each other in them, had branches and leaves hanging over them as if they were tents. Hikotarou and Sukuna sprinted under the sunlight coming through the gaps between the leaves, storing everything that caught their eyes in pictures.

At the veranda of a wooden house, an old woman was napping with a cat on her lap. Just beside the gutter stood an outdated red post. In front of a mysterious shop, there were three lined-up statues of tanuki. Sukuna photographed them all with refreshing surprise.

“It might be my first time coming to a place like this.”

Hearing the whisper that leaked from Sukuna while taking pictures, Hikotarou made a skeptical face. “Your house is around here, ain’t it? Never went exploring?”

Sukuna shook his head. The only part of Uwagami Town he knew was the main street up to the school and its surroundings. He had never made side-trips or eaten outside – he was never given the choice to go “exploring”.

Because by no means would his mother allow such a “vulgar” conduct.

Head tilted, Hikotarou said with a nonchalant voice, “Hu~n... Welp, that’s okay. Then, I’ll be your guide!”

“You know much about it?”

“This area’s my backyard!” Hikotarou said, full of confidence and grinning.

With just a step, they jumped over a stream fortified with concrete. As an unknown dog barked at them, Sukuna laughed at Hikotarou for dropping his PDA. They hopped onto the block walls and rushed through as if to sew the gaps between the houses.

All of it was a new world that Sukuna did not know about. Every time he took cuts of said world, his JP went up. He was accumulating the power to open novel worlds. Absorbed in it, Sukuna pressed the shutter over and over.

Eventually, by the time that this unfamiliar world began to dye itself in the colors of sunset, an electronic sound suddenly echoed from the PDA.

“Urgent mission concluded! The cumulative JUNGLE Points will be calculated now. Please note that any subsequent shooting will not be converted into points!”

As the end of the mission was announced, Sukuna and Hikotarou looked at each other’s faces at the same time.

“How many did you take?”

“About 200, I guess. I’ll probably rank up with this!”

As Sukuna said so, Hikotarou grinned. “Then let’s celebrate!”

Hikotarou turned around, going back the way they had come from. Sukuna followed behind him.

Two arrived at the shop with the tanuki statues that they had seen on the way. The sign that the tanuki were holding had the words “snacks shop” on it.

Sukuna stared at it in puzzlement. “What’s a snack?”

“For real?! No, well, that’s right. You’re a rich kid.”

Sukuna was offended by the disbelief in the way he spoke. However, Hikotarou opened the glass door unconcernedly and stepped into the store.

It was small and dim. The objects tightly crammed into the cupboards and baskets were all things that Sukuna did not get very well.

When he picked one up and inspected it, he found that it was a bag with richly colored gummy-like things inside. It looked like some new type of poison, but he could not rule out the possibility that it was food.

“Sukuna, you’re taking that? Then me too,” Hikotarou said, stealing it from Sukuna’s hands.

“No, hum—”

“Granny~, I’m leaving the money here~.”

“Aight~.”

Ignoring Sukuna’s voice, Hikotarou put money on the front edge of the unattended entranceway and then took cider from the refrigerator. Without time to do as much as be surprised at this innovative system, in which the owner of the shop did not have to even show her face, Sukuna was taken outside by Hikotarou and the two sat down next to the tanuki.

“My treat. We’re celebrating your raising of status!”

Being handed the colorful gummies bag, Sukuna stared fixatedly at it and opened his mouth in hesitation, “Hey, is this...”

“Edible?” was what he intended to ask, yet Hikotarou was devouring them without paying him any mind. Apparently, it was really food.

He opened the seal. If his mother knew Sukuna was eating something that had any foreign substance in it, his mother would probably pass out. That was why Sukuna closed his eyes, readied himself and threw it into his mouth.

“How is it? Good?”

As Hikotarou asked innocently, Sukuna said with an indescribable facial expression, “Tastes like chemicals.”

“That’s what’s good about it. Feel like you’re gonna get addicted to it one of these days?”

“Don’t wanna be.”

Sukuna washed his throat with the cider. Heaving a breath, he looked at the tanuki statues beside him.

“I didn’t know this kind of store existed at all.”

“Told ya that this area was my backyard, didn’t I? There’s lots of other places like this one!”

Earnestly impressed with an “eeeh”, he casually asked, “So your house is around here?”

Hikotarou’s smile instantly thinned. “Hm, well, kinda like that.”

Hikotarou’s complex facial expression caused Sukuna to hesitate asking any further, so he kept his mouth shut. It might be that he did not want to talk about his home circumstances. It was not as if Sukuna wanted to pry either.

Hikotarou was completely different from his “school friends” of until now. He knew Sukuna was a member of the Gojou family, but was not swayed by that. He saw Sukuna for what he was.

So his home circumstances did not matter.

“I see,” Sukuna replied with a mutter, looking up at the sky.

A large airship was crossing the sky, which was painted in sunset colors.

As he ate the mysterious gummy candy and drank the cider, a question left Sukuna’s mouth out of the blue, “By the way, what was so urgent in that urgent mission?”

“Eh?”

“Well, ain’t it kinda weird to make a survey of the city into an emergency? Just what’s the reason to investigate the city in such a hurry?”

Folding his arms, Hikotarou began to think. “Now that you mentioned, it’s indeed suspicious. The reward’s too high in the first place.”

“For starters, who issued that mission? I’d never heard of an urgent mission until now, y’know?”

Sukuna opened his PDA, which was in the middle of charging, tapping the “mission” tab. Even if a mission had already ended, one could check the details from the history category.

Hikotarou explained while doing the same as him, “Just like the name says, urgent missions are missions with a high level of urgency. They’re easy to spot ‘cause they come from the top of the list, but they charge a lot, so not many people issue them. To begin with, only upper rankers can activate these. Well, the one who issued it was—”

“H. N”.

That was the name of the player who had triggered the urgent mission. Apparently formed of just initials, the handle name was tasteless and dull. Even as they tried jumping to the user page, most of the information was private. There was no doubt that this was a top ranker, but they found out nothing more.

Staring in a daze at H. N.’s user page, Sukuna opened his mouth, “Since we’re at it, let’s try to guess. This guy’s objective, I mean.”

“I’m in.”

Meaning that, just as when Hikotarou’s mission and Sukuna’s JP gains had been speculated about, they would try to conclude what goal this H. N. person had that warranted issuing an urgent mission.

“It told us to take pics of the city. Is he a cameraman or something?”

“There’s no way a pro would use photos taken by amateurs. He’s better off doing it himself on that matter.”

“So, in any case, he just needed a big amount of them? He used lots of users for it ‘cause he wouldn’t be able to handle it on his own?”

“If he were taking a bunch of pics alone, he might be warned off by the police. But if it’s done in large numbers, he’d get the pics even if one or two people were caught. Besides—” Sukuna pointed to a sentence in the mission details. “Here says, ‘back alleys that aren’t on the map will give you bonuses’. So he wants info on backstreets, secret paths and the like?”

“For what?”

“The only thing that comes to mind right off the bat is, well – a preliminary investigation, I guess.”

“Of what?”

“Let’s see; some kind of data—”

“Like an escape route?”

The duo’s smiles disappeared at this casual phrase.

Those were disturbing words. As they could not grasp the whole picture, their imaginations were awfully agitated. Pulling their faces close to each other’s, the two continued the “speculation”.

“Escape route for who?”

“If he gotta run, he must be a criminal.”

“Like, say, a robber?”

“There’s government buildings here, so ain’t it more possible that he’s a terrorist?”

Silence.

The “caw, caw” cry of the crows echoed comically. The two burst into laughter at the same time.

“N-No way! There’s no chance that’d be it!”

“Y-Yeah! None, none! No way there’d be terrorists in Japan!”

While laughing, they were aware there a somewhat dry ring was mixed in it. Indeed, something of that sort was, first of all, probably impossible. However, it was not as if it did not exist.

Most importantly, there was nothing they could do now. They had already submitted the photos. No matter what H. N. was scheming, they could do nothing about it.

Even so, unable to erase the vague fear he had once acquired, Sukuna peeked at his PDA. In that moment, a fanfare-like sound played from the PDA. A holographic image of a deformed parrot character – Jumpy – appeared, dancing around Sukuna and Hikotarou’s general area.

“Urgent mission accomplished! 2745 points added to your JUNGLE Points! Rank up! Five has been promoted to JUNGLE L-ranker. Congratulations.”

Just like dates changed, the rank display in his own page was replaced with a flashing noise. From E-ranker to L-ranker. Along with that, the functions that had been restricted until now were unlocked as well. New rank mission ordering rights, mission activation rights, AR function usage rights—

Sukuna felt that his world had expanded yet again.

When he looked to the side, Hikotarou was raising his cider bottle with a cheerful smile.

“Congrats on your promotion, Sukuna!”

“Thanks.”

As Sukuna gave a lopsided smile, he and Hikotarou had a toast with their cider bottles.

Yeah, that’s right.

JUNGLE was the source of Sukuna’s power. It was a window that showed a new world to someone like him, who was bound hand and foot by his parents and simply made to walk the rails that had been decided for him.

No matter how shady it was, he could not think of losing it. That was about as terrifying as losing Hikotarou.

“Hey? Sukuna?”

He came to his senses. It seemed Hikotarou was calling him.

“A-Aah. What is it?”

“Just wondering how the cat Nine is going.”

“Aah, he’s so well that it’s a problem. He climbed on my shoulder a while ago—”

“Eh~, what’s up with that? He’s never done that with me!”

Laughing at Hikotarou’s sullen face, Sukuna said, “Then come see him next time. He’ll be happy too, for sure!”

“Yeah, true. One of these days.” Hikotarou laughed faintly, filling his mouth with cider.

◆

He woke up early that day.

“6AM?” as he whispered, a yawn came out. Sukuna turned off his PDA, put it in his sleepwear’s pocket and got up from his bed.

He had to wake up earlier than usual ever since bringing Nine in. That was the expected, as he was the only one looking after it. He had to set up a time to take care of Nine before going to and after returning from school.

He quietly slipped out of his bedroom and headed to the first floor, sneaking out through the window of an unused guest room. He had secured this “escape route” by making use of Grass Root. He picked places where the servants would not be and times when they would not be around, rushing within the stipulated period.

Therefore, he was at ease. He had made sure that by no means would anyone find out about it.

Upon opening the door, Sukuna learned that this was nothing but an assumption.

Nine had disappeared from the shack.

His heart resounded with a strong thump.

He wondered if it was hiding somewhere. It was a kitten. It might have crawled into a spot that would not cross his mind.

However, he could not find such a breach anywhere in the shack. Neither could he hear its voice. It would always come crying loudly and cling to Sukuna whenever he arrived.

There was only an empty basket and a blanket that had grown cold in there.

He peeked into the bowl that he had filled to the brim with water. It had not decreased in the slightest. Was it not going thirsty or hungry, wherever it was? For starters, where had it even gone? His own expression full of anxiety was reflected over the water in the bowl.

As he looked at himself in blank amazement, a sweet voice coiled around him from behind, “Sukuna.”

His body trembled with a start.

As he turned around with eyes wide-open, his mother was standing at the shack’s entrance. Her red lips were forming a smile. Both her arms were holding a basket with a pure-white kitten on it.

“If you want something, you can just tell your mother.”

Grinning at him while he was motionless as if frozen, Sukuna’s mother left the basket with the white kitten by his feet. Not making the littlest movement, the white kitten stared fixatedly ahead, as if already disciplined to do so.

Words finally spilled from his dry mouth, “Where’s Nine?”

His mother tilted her head, but after catching on, she at last said, “If you mean that filthy one, it has been disposed of.” She spoke while smiling, “You wanted a cat, right, Sukuna? If so, you should purchase a proper one.”

Her hand caressed Sukuna’s hair. As though she were admiring a treasure.

“You mustn’t touch such a dirty stray cat like that one. What if you were scratched and contracted some disease? My dear Sukuna, I can’t let you do that.”

Sukuna looked down at the white kitten. It was well-manneredly, quietly sitting in the basket. There was a luxury accessory, adorned with a golden chain and red ribbon, fitted around its neck.

It was a choker.

While he was looking down at the kitten, a dark emotion gushed forth within Sukuna. It was a sensation that he had tasted countless times until now. When those people had tried to provide him friends. When he found out that those people were watching his room. That was the feeling that welled up inside.

He had managed to swallow it down until now. He had been able to control it. Because he was aware, somewhere in his heart, that there would be no going back once he laid it bare.

But he believed that, if he gulped it down now, something within him would definitely end up broken.

Therefore, Sukuna reached out and took the bowl full of water in his hand. As he glared at his mother, the smile disappeared from her red lips. Fear did not surge even as he saw this. More strongly than that, the dark emotion – “hatred” – was filling Sukuna from the inside.

“WHO—” He swung up the water bowl. “—SAID I WANTED A CAT?!!”

Sukuna slammed it at the kitten.

The bowl did not hit it directly. It collided with the nearby wall, bouncing off a big splash. Struck by said splash, the kitten let out a cry and jumped off the basket. It ran to a corner of the shack and gazed up at Sukuna as if scared of him.

When he saw that look, the dark feeling was gone like a retracting tide.

The kitten was not at fault for anything. It was simply brought here unknowing of anything and made into a replacement for some stranger. It was shameful and pathetic of him to take his anger out on it. He felt like he had become the same kind of person as his mother. Sukuna sensed that his own hatred was aimed at himself.

On the other hand—

Any facial expression had vanished from his mother’s face. She was as expressionless as a Noh mask. Lips sewed into a thin line, she stared intently at Sukuna.

Sukuna did not return the gaze. However, he did not attempt to explain himself either. It was not that he feared doing so. But because he was repulsed of even speaking to her.

After a moment of silence that could be deemed as an eternity, his mother muttered in a few words, “Really? I see.” She then turned on her heels, exiting the dim shack.

Left behind, Sukuna did nothing. He crouched on the spot, burying his face in-between his knees. Recalling Nine’s voice whenever it called for him, the softness of its fur whenever it snuck up to him and the ticklishness of its breath whenever it sniffed him, Sukuna cried with his shoulders shaking.

The white kitten was observing Sukuna.

◆

The next day, Sukuna found the collar that the white kitten had been wearing inside his residence’s trashcan.

That was what happened to the things Sukuna said he did not want.

◆

What should he say to Hikotarou? Lying on his bed, that was all Sukuna could think about.

The answer did not come to him. There was no way it would. The one who had offered to take in the kitten Nine, which Hikotarou found and had been taking care of, was Sukuna himself. There was no way he could tell him that his parents had found out about it and gotten rid of it.

Ever since losing Nine, Sukuna had secluded himself in his room, refusing to go to school or even eat, thinking about this all the while. His parents had knocked on his door and spoken words mixed with persuasion, and every time he heard their voices, he desperately had to overcome the urge to clear them away using the ESP App.

What should he say to Hikotarou? This question without an answer occurred to him whenever he opened JUNGLE and saw messages from Hikotarou piling up.

Amidst his spiraling thoughts, Sukuna became someone who did nothing but fiddle with his PDA. After all, he was able to escape from this reality just by staring at the several lined-up missions in JUNGLE.

The reality was catching up quickly.

It was no coincidence that Sukuna had activated Grass Root at that moment. He was wary of his parents perhaps trying to force him out of the room if he kept shutting himself in it.

Only the security surveillance cameras of the lowest floor could be viewed on Grass Root, but it could detect if someone were to break through the door of his room. He had not decided what to do when that happened, but he imagined that he would likely have to use an item from the ESP App.

However, that did not happen.

The one projected in the surveillance camera was not the robust guard-man. It was a man clad in a wrinkly suit and a boy who he was bringing with him.

“Hikotarou? Why...?”

With the words that he had whispered in a daze, Sukuna awoke at once. There was no “why”. It was because his parents had found out that Hikotarou existed.

Sukuna felt goosebumps. He jumped out of bed and rushed to the door of his bedroom, but gave up on opening it.

There were lookouts on the other side. His mother had arranged a sleepless watch so that she could deal with Sukuna whenever he came out. If he came out, he would quickly be caught and transferred somewhere else. And then, he would never get to see Hikotarou again.

The door’s no good. I need a different means of escape—

He looked back. Outside the window, he could see the trunk of a garden tree about three meters away. Even if one jumped off the windowsill, they would not be able to reach it.

That was the case for ordinary humans. However, Sukuna was a JUNGLE player.

Taking out his PDA, he opened it without hesitation. He activated the item “physical strengthening”, which was within the power of L-rankers.

Instantaneously, a green electric current burst out from the PDA, ran through Sukuna’s whole body and then disappeared into thin air. However, that strength remained within Sukuna. Each time his heart struck a beat, a force that was not his own circulated his blood vessels, his muscles absorbing it.

A countdown appeared on his PDA. He did not know the reasoning behind it, but once this period was over, his power would be gone as well.

In short, he had no time to waste.

Sukuna opened the window and jumped up. The unbelievable jumping power more than compensated for the three meters. The momentum was so strong that he almost missed the tree trunk, spiraling around it when he reached out and clung to it. His eyes spinning from the gymnast-like maneuver, Sukuna jumped from branch to branch and landed as if rolling down.

Sukuna broke into a run barefoot.

It was not as if he could do anything by running. Sukuna’s parents would not listen to his opinions. Rather, they may consider Hikotarou even more dangerous as a cause of his rebellion against them.

However, he had a feeling that he would resent it for the rest of his life if he just watched the current situation with a finger in his mouth.

From the position of the surveillance cameras, he calculated the place where Hikotarou would be at right now. It was one of the normally unused reception rooms. He ran along the outer walls, taking a wide turn around the mansion. Holding onto the reception room’s window, he quietly peeked inside.

And so, Sukuna experienced a lifelong regret.

“Good job on your report,” his father said, sitting on an extravagant chair.

The middle-aged man and Hikotarou were standing opposite to him, on the other side of the office desk. The middle-aged man was giving his father a toadying smile. Hikotarou, standing next to him, was merely staring at his toes with a mask-like expressionless face.

Sukuna’s heart began to beat copiously fast. If he kept looking at this scene, he would lose something important. Even though he knew this, he was unable to take his eyes off it.

“You might be poor, but since you have enough brains to be able to talk to him as an equal, we have selected you to be his friend as a special case.”

Sukuna’s breath caught. The conversation he was hearing through the window was as vague as a nightmare, with no sense of reality to it.

“Make sure to do your job modest and humbly. I have already transferred this month’s payment.”

“Thank you very much! Hey, you show gratitude too.”

While bowing repeatedly, the middle-aged man put his hand on the back of Hikotarou’s head and squeezed it with force. Unresisting, Hikotarou let himself be handled and bowed his head. He weakly muttered incoherent words.

He was extending his gratitude. To Sukuna’s father. To the power of the Gojou household.

His father leaned his body against the backrest and looked down at the two. “However, your interactions seem to be going too far lately. My wife is worried that Sukuna might have become defiant due to bad influence from you.”

The face of the middle-aged man quickly turned pale.

“Who was it that put in word so that someone from the fallen Kue family could somehow attend that school? I would like you to be a bit more aware of that.”

“M-My deepest apologies! Hey, you!”

The middle-aged man grabbed Hikotarou’s head violently. Hikotarou let him do as he pleased. He was mumbling something – perhaps apologizing?

Enough already. I don’t wanna see any more of this.

He did not want to see Hikotarou – his friend – like that. Still, in the end, that “friend” was also nothing more than something those people had arranged for him.

After watching Hikotarou receive punishment for a moment, his father raised his hand. “Do that somewhere my eyes can’t reach.”

“Yes! I-I always—”

“Enough of that. Sukuna is what matters now.”

Hearing the name, Hikotarou sluggishly raised his head.

“He has been confining himself in his bedroom all the time lately. I called you here to convince Sukuna. Talk him into it and bring him out of his room.”

“O-Of course! Hiko! Get ready at once!”

“Hum.” At that moment, Hikotarou’s voice sounded clear for the first time. “Sukuna has been absent from school all this time... Is he sick or something like that?”

Snorting, Sukuna’s father narrowed his eyes as if to poke fun at Hikotarou. “There seems to be no problem with his health. Apparently, he had picked a stray cat recently. By the looks of it, he got angry because we disposed of it. Honestly, children are so...”

Hikotarou went stiff. His small hands balled into fists.

“If he wants a replacement, we can provide anything he wishes. So hurry and do something about this. It will be bad for our reputation if the current situation continues as it is.”

Hearing the words of his father, who thought of no one but himself, Sukuna slammed the windowsill with his hand, reinforced by JUNGLE’s superhuman abilities. The only one who noticed the sound was Hikotarou. His eyes alone moved, taking in Sukuna’s figure. Their gazes met for just an instant. Yet Sukuna would probably never forget those wide-open eyes.

Sukuna peeled his body away from the window. He had lost all reason to stay in that place.

The “physical strengthening” was still within its effect time. Making full use of that power, he ran. Tears spilled as he rushed through the estate’s garden.

That was the first friend he had made ever since he was born. For the first time ever since being born, he had admired someone and thought of him as even cooler than himself. He had taught Sukuna about many things. Such as the enormous power that he had never even imagined and a new world that he had never so much as noticed, even though it was lying right next to him. He deemed the memories of breathing in the air of freedom and of playing around shoulder-to-shoulder with him as brightly sparkling jewels.

However, they were not jewels but glass marbles arranged for him by the adults.

He had nothing. The resounding beating of his heart, the new world that shone so vividly – everything had disappeared. Right now, the all that surrounded Sukuna were adults so filthy they made him want to throw up, as well as the fakes they had provided for him—

No.

“That’s not true,” Sukuna muttered little by little.

At the same time, an electronic voice echoed from the PDA in his hand, “The effect time of item ‘Physical Strengthening’ has expired. If you wish to extend the effect time, please add extra JUNGLE Points—”

“Extend effect.”

“Voiceprint authentication confirmed. Consuming JUNGLE Points in order to maintain effect duration.”

Hikotarou was a fake. A fake that his parents had prepared for him. Whenever he was with Sukuna or whenever he laughed, he had been probably making a fool out of Sukuna deep down.

Nevertheless, it was not as if everything was fake.

Only this power, JUNGLE, was real. True strength. A tangible world. Beyond that window, a new world was spreading out. That was the sole truth.

And right now, having wiped the tears away, Sukuna was seeing yet another world.

In that world, Sukuna was free. Sukuna was lonely. Having lost his only friend, Sukuna figured that there was no longer anything chaining him to that place now. The exciting world that he had once had a glimpse of together with Hikotarou was lost forever, and the only thing spreading out before Sukuna was a desolated, perishing world.

Yet he had no options anymore but to jump into it.

Strengthening this resolve, Sukuna set forth while gritting his back teeth.

◆

On the day that Sukuna used JUNGLE’s superhuman abilities to the fullest, stealing everything he could take and vanishing from the Gojou house, a large number of thieves attacked Uwagami Town.

Multiple government officials’ homes were raided at the same time. After suppressing the police officers guarding them as if it were nothing, the thieves robbed all houses of information related to secrets of the state and disappeared into the back streets and alleys of Uwagami Town.

The Metropolitan Police Department identified the case as a large-scale beta case due to the clear criminal techniques and the testimony of police officers describing them as “physical abilities that would usually be impossible”. The command of the investigation was transferred to Scepter 4.

Sukuna only came to know about it much later.

#k project #kprojectedit #k side green #gojou sukuna #sukuna gojou #k #kue hikotarou #gohands #gora #novel #my translation

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zachsgamejournal · 3 years ago

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PLAYING: Breath of Fire IV

I think we’re closing in on the end. But in good ole BoF fashion, the last leg is taking the longest. Also, Nina is totally the main character of this game.

NINA

I’ve only ever beaten BoF 3, 4, and 5--though I’ve played 1 & 2. It’s a constant that Ryu is the main character, and that Ryu is the player. Ryu is never (to rarely) given dialog because the player is meant to imagine the voice of Ryu. And while this definitely works for BoF 3 and 5, Nina is clearly the main character in 4.

1. We Start the Game as Nina

In both BoF 3 and 5, we start the game as Ryu, and that’s basically where we stay for the whole adventure (occasionally controlling other characters). BoF 4 has us start with Nina. It’s a simple distinction, but sets up my next point.

2. Nina Makes All the Decisions

My screenwriting professor said the main character makes the decisions that drive the story. In this sense, Ryu is extremely passive. He’s mostly just along for the ride. It’s Nina that offers to help him, Nina that decides he should tag along, and it’s Nina’s quest he joins. Later, Nina decides to rescue Cray. Nina goes to her father for help. Nina asks the gods for assistance. Nina insists they save Ryu. Nina encourages Dies not to abandon Ershin. Nina insists on the helping that furry...thing. All the while, Ryu is just like, “...sure.”

I vaguely know how the game will end, so we’ll see if this all holds up.

3. It’s Nina’s Quest

The game starts with Nina and Cray on a mission to find/rescue her sister. While Ryu is integral to the plot, he doesn’t have a lot of skin in the game. Nina is also royalty, and this game has some Games of Thronesian politics going on. While Ryu’s actions carry little weight beyond the act itself, everything Nina does has the ability to affect policy and international relationships. We see this when the Empire pressures the Alliance to cede territory post Nina’s rescue op failure.

Also, Nina just told Ryu that she loved Cray. Ryu isn’t even the love interest in this game.

I’m actually really happy that Nina is the star. Female characters aren’t normally given the respect they deserve. Maybe instead of Breath of Fire, they should have called this “Wings of Destiny”...cause Nina has wings.

Back to the Plot

So, Ryu went super-Dragon and killed some imperials. The gods have offered to help Ryu, (as long as he plays hide and seek first), and Fou-Lu has escaped the village in which he had started to feel at home.

Nina and the team discuss things and decide that if it’s Ryu’s destiny to meet up Fou-Lu, they might as well confront him proactively. They seem to be under the impression that the empire is using Fou-Lu gain power (if they only knew).

Ursala is the Imperial captain that captured us, but now she’s our captive. The team asks her to help them get into the Empire. She’s confused. It was her mission to bring the dragon to the Empire, so this kind of works out...She agrees and is now a playable party member.

I like her.

Heading back to the warp gate, we learn that it’s broken because of our previous activities (and because we were attacked by Captain Jackass). Ursala tries to make us feel bad, but she works for an evil Empire--so jog-on. We have to head north and need a sandflier but don’t have the cash. This is comical, cause I put in a cheat for infinite Zenny way back when...

We’re supposed to ask a merchant sandflier for help, but we’re too late. Ursala immediately jumps to action and without a word, Scias follows her lead. They take the merchant ship like a band of pirates and it turns out to be a French-accented froggy friend from before that sexually harassed Nina, Marlok. He tries to make use feel guilty, which works on Nina and Cray--but the rest of us know he’s a POS. He offers us a bond to buy a ship, expecting that we’ll do great things and thus able to cash in on our success.

We get to a checkpoint, but it’s blocked. Ursala wants to fight the guards, but Nina is against it. We do the non-violent solution of trampolining over the wall. We get to a ship yard...I only now realized in the game that the oceans aren’t water--but mud. weird...where’s all the water? So the only seas are up north.

The captain doesn’t want us on without the blessing of the sea god. We got to coastal cave and find the Sea Dragon there...I think. We get his blessing and are good to go. The captain now doesn’t want women on board. The women insist that they are tough and have been through a lot. The muscle the dude we keep fighting shows up, and it’s implied that his defeat would prove we’re tough. Ursala shoots him and falls off the mass of the ship. So a new test of courage is needed. Ursala and Nina must stay within the hull of the ship over night with ghosts and bugs. They succeed.

As we travel across the sea, we fight muscle dude again (he was much stronger this time). And then the wind stops. The sailors think this area is haunted, maybe by a god. We go check it out. The dungeon is interesting, but frustrating. You have to walk across planks to get to the other side, but the planks break and drop you down into the hull. There’s a light over your head to warn you when you’re about to fall, but I still fell a lot. In the hull, as you walk, skulls that are spread about rattle and vibrate: it’s eerie and entertaining. Eventually we find a rock creature that thinks of itself as a god, but it’s just a rock powered by god-power. So we kill it.

No remorse.

The wind returns and we make it across the sea. After traveling through a jungle, we meet a furry thing. I feed it some food and it seems happy...I think. At the end of the jungle we find a treehouse and are attacked by more furries. The previously furry comes to our defense and we meet Beyd. He has married one of the furries and maybe these are his children? Cray had my reaction and was like, “Well...uh, anyway--how do we get to the empire?”

One of the furries gets sick and Nina vows to save it (cause she’s the main character!). This brings us to an interesting, but not super fun mini game. We get to sail the boat, but you have limited supplies. Every second you’re on the seas, the supplies get used, but they’re used faster if you row. Rowing is necessary because the wind doesn’t always blog in the direction you need. So you have to decide whether to burn supplies by rowing, or wait for the wind to change directions. There’s places to find and treasure to discover. It is, kinda fun...

While we’re out here collecting medicine on the high seas, I also find the sea god: SCORE!

We save the furry and are guided to some islands that are available to walk across when the tide is low. So we venture a cross some tropical keys. It’s pretty. The group gets tired and Nina insists on taking a break: cause she’s the main character. After our rest, the tide has risen and the group is trapped. Cray is pissed and Nina feels responsible.

This is an interesting part of the game cause the group has to survive on an island and reflect on their mission. Ursala warns it could be months or years before the tide recedes. Chill Ursala. The group explores the island and finds both water and and great fishing spot. We’re gonna be fine. Just delayed.

Scias likes the island, as he just sleeps all day. After a while, Cray chills out and apologizes for his temper. While Ryu is casting a line, Nina reveals that she’s in love with Cray, causing Ryu to trip. Nina reflects on her feelings, unsure if they’re true and doubtful that Cray feels the same.

The tide recedes and the team escapes. We come to a riverlands that requires some log riding and log dodging. It’s cute, but I want to get out of here...

Fou-Lu, after escaping the village, receives a direct hit from the hex canon. They apparently used the friendly lady that help Fou-Lu as a “sacrifice” to power the canon. EVIL! Fou-Lu survives and arrives at the capital. He meets statue guardian that recognizes him as the first emperor. Fou-Lu orders the guardian to destroy the imperial city. Fou-Lu is pissed, and just doesn’t seem to think humans are worth it...

As the guardian destroys the city, Fou-Lu cleans up loose ends, finally killing the general that ambushed him on the night of his awakening, and then killing the current emperor. The Emperor first tries to act subservient to Fou-Lu, but then stabs him with the “dragon slayer” sword. It doesn’t work and Fou-Lu laughs in his face.

Similar to Breath of Fire 3, the game has reached a point where it doesn’t have more story to tell, but wants to add hours. So there’s tons of little quests and obstacles that have little to do with the overall plot. It’s sad, because the minigames and mini-nations they’ve created are really interesting.

I tried to think back to how Final Fantasy 7 handled this. I think, for the most part, the game doesn’t make its endgame clear until much later. Most of the game is, “What should we do now?” So I don’t feel there’s as much a “rush” to get to the end. Also, much of the game is about tracking Sephiroth, so you’re really looking for clues as you find obstacles, vs having an end destination and just running into a million reasons why you can’t get to it. You feel out of control and inconvenienced. But these obstacles would make really interesting and fun side quests. Having them as options would absolutely make them more interesting.

Another thing that Final Fantasy 7 really succeeds at is making each new area a new piece of the puzzle. You’re always learning history about the world or a character. So while it might be a brief obstacle, it’s also an interesting deeper dive into the world. Breath of Fire’s diversions don’t feel as enlightening.

Still, BoF4′s diversions still feel like progress cause we inch closer to the goal...it’s just that we’re not getting much character or world development in the process.

Combat

I do prefer the combat over BoF3 (and many RPGs). I like that the other characters are always on-call in the battle, and it’s easy to switch out (more so than Final Fantasy X -- how I remember it anyway). I’ve done zero grinding, and I’m pretty proud that I’ve survived so far. After crossing the sea, it seemed like the enemies were getting ahead of me, but I got better at using the spell combos (which are cool!). So surviving a few battles usually meant getting a few levels up. When I first played the game, i was cool with grinding, but I’m glad I don’t have to now. The only thing that is cheating: I gave myself 99999+ zenny. So I’m able to stock up on healing supplies. Though it helps, I’m sure a few hours of grinding would have me being just as well stock on healing supplies.

Is it better than Breath of Fire 3?

I’m a little torn. Breath of Fire 4 is “epic”. There are multiple nations that have a strong sense of culture and history. The mythology around the dragons is of the galactic scale. World War is in the balance and my party includes two members of royalty and two semi-gods. The world feels huge even if the story is pretty linear.

In contrast, Breath of Fire 3 had three nations--that I could tell: Wyndia, Eastern Kingdom, and across the sea. Strangely, Wyndia had gangster cities, gangster markets, and amoral lab that was accidentally making mutants. While eastern kingdom seemed pretty chill and peaceful--but lacked a ruling entity. Hmmm...

Where Breath of Fire 3 feels “better” is that it feels more personal. The story starts small: a lost dragon-boy found my starving thieves. We live in a small town and solve small-town issues. This slowly grows to include local gangsters, a kingdom, and a dragon holocaust before we battle God. I like Breath of Fire 4′s characters, but I feel like I have a stronger bond with BoF3′s. Also, I felt like BoF3 tried to explore the grey area: killing monsters that had feelings. I felt emotionally challenged in the different scenarios. Whereas, BoF4 is always: “We’re the good guys, and we do the good things!”

#Zach's Game Journal #PLAYING #Breath of Fire 4 #PlayStation #PS1 #DuckStation #Video Games #Nina is the Hero #Of Gods and Dragons #JRPG

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stirdrawsandreblaws · 7 years ago

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I'm gonna fuckin. Write fanfic

#I've had a saiyuki mafia au plotline banging around in my head and I think it'll be a good break from my other projects tbh #I kinda hit a wall with the game development and I only have one active commission rn #i need the money so i should be taking on more but my mental state has absolutely nosedived recently #so a personal project might just be the refresher I need to throw myself back into things #stirring up trouble #guess we'll see

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fletchphoenix · 4 years ago

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New Territories, New Enemies

Chapter 2 of the Little Nightmares AU! I just realised I’m only 11 minutes into this game and have another like-3 hours to go including the sequel!!! I love it! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this because I kinda wanted to get it done and posted. Oh and also I’m treating the second game as a sequel because um I want to and I have some ideas for what to do next so yay. Enjoy!

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Stone developed around his legs as little dust particles and raindrops fell around him. They pounded against his bare head, his coat now discarded at his feet and torn to pieces with bloodstains covering the fabric, exposing the tourniquet around his leg that stopped the bleeding there, though it was slowly becoming more waterlogged. Static filled his head as his hands violently shook. Struggling was pointless, the stone building up his legs and now on his thighs leaving only the tourniquet above the cold material. He rapped his fist against it gently, knuckles catching on the stone and causing a steady stream of blood to roll down his fingers. It didn’t matter anymore, he was stuck here whether he liked it or not. He raised his head to look around at where he was, the fuzzy feeling in his head contorting into an agonising pain and nausea as he looked around and tried to gain his bearings. He couldn’t find anything notable or identifiable about where he was, the metal all looking the same as any other place on that cursed ship he’d been put on. However, as he rose his head, his eyes met the geisha woman, now fully turned around and slowly moving towards him.

The figure was getting closer, the kimono dragging across the floor though with the way she moved, she looked as though she was floating and gliding. The water that covered the floor didn’t even seem to bother the woman, the bottom of the kimono never once brushing against the water built a shallow pool on the floor. Her hand was outstretched, fingers-no. Claws trailing across the metal and scratching their long marks into it, the sound ear splitting. Varian wanted to scream, the noise unbearable as it filled his brain with nothing but pain and agony, the boy wanting to tear his hair out or bash his head against the wall until it stopped. Tears threatened to fall down his cheeks, though he held them back and straightened his back. No. He wouldn’t cry in front of this demon. He refused to show her that she was breaking him. Sucking in a breath, the boy rose his head defiantly and glared at the woman. She was so close, if her arm had been outstretched, those claws would’ve sliced his face. He wanted to sob, his hands shaking as he felt the stone build up his chest, his neck, his face-

Varian sat up with a sharp inhale, the pain in his leg throbbing and causing him to lay back once again, his head pressed against the metal of the box behind him. The chill of the box cooled his head, easing the headache that thudded across his head and left his vision fuzzy. The water had stopped falling by now, the cyan raincoat that covered his figure dryer than earlier, and the wood below him no longer waterlogged as before. Even the metal behind him no longer had little condensed droplets on the surface, it being dry and smooth to the touch. He rose to his feet, propping himself against the wall for a minute to adjust to his pain and lifting the hood of his raincoat. He shook, pain coming in little bursts as he tried to walk along the wooden platform.

Along his travels, another little pyramid head man turned from around his box, his little feet pitter pattering across the floor as he scurried away from Varian. Flicking open his lighter, Varian trailed after the little guy, floorboards creaking as his feet thudded against the floorboards, the weight causing little moans to sound from the decaying wood. Turning the corner and slowing down, he made his way across a single board, the creaking of the boards making a pit of dread build in his stomach as he glanced down. The pit was still below him, as it was before he’d made it all the way here. A sigh left his lips. This place was like a maze - a dungeon even. He didn’t even know if the falling water was rain or from something else. As his feet connected with another platform, his feet maneuvered over rotting boards and holes in the planks to a wooden staircase, pressed against the metal wall of...wherever he was. With a deep breath, he began to ascend, his leg throbbing with pain. He took a few moments to think. Why was he here? Where even was he? How didn’t he remember where he was before? He shook his head and teared up with a gentle sigh

At the top of the stairwell, he turned right at the crossroads in front of him, keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible as he headed across the old boards. He’d felt uneasy this whole time, the brightness of his lighter dimming with each gentle breeze that pushed it one way or the other. Eventually though, he jumped a gap between two more platforms and headed up the stairwell in front of him. Why were there so many intricately designed platforms across this place, when as far as he knew, he was the only one to escape the confines of...wherever he was before. Distant screeches and sharp, unidentifiable noises sounded in the background as he headed across yet another wooden pathway, the noises causing an even deeper pit to form in his stomach as he tried to ignore them. Was the one screaming just like him? Were they trapped and doomed to die? No matter, he told himself as he shook his head with a sigh, he had to continue if he had any hope of getting out of here. The track led the boy to a crank, Varian grabbing the lever and turning it with all his strength, a door rising on the other side. As he let go, the sliding door began to close, the raven haired boy running as fast as he could towards the gap before sprinting and sliding under the door into an illuminated room.

As the boy looked around, a few notable features stuck out to him. Hanging from a thin wire descending from the ceiling was a bulb, barely covering the room in a blanket of light and a large fan, probably quadruple her size, that made a gentle breeze blow through the room, causing the boy to wobble slightly. The one that caught his eye the most, though, was a metal hatch, akin to the one he’d seen prior, on the wall to his left. Experimentally, he lifted it and, much to his surprise and shock, a little pyramid head ran out, its paper like hat shifting and shuffling on its head as he ran towards a small gap in the wall, shaped like a semi-sphere. Seeing no other option, Varian crossed the room, the light swaying slightly as he moved through, and crouched to make his way through the gap, his head grazing the top as he shuffled back into the salty air of what awaited him outside.

His fall was broken by some wooden crate, before he dropped himself on the metal flooring below him. This place seemed to have no end, all that surrounded him being metal and the unbearable moist and salty air that where he was seemed to have adopted. Maybe he was residing on a ship somewhere? He couldn’t quite remember after he was taken. As his footsteps pattered across the floor, a dragging noise sounded from above him and, glancing up, he casted a glance upon a man. Or, what he thought was a man. It didn’t really look all that human if he was being honest - short, stubby legs and abnormally long arms, along with a bowler hat that sat on his head at a slightly lopsided angle. It sent shivers down his spine as he saw it move out of sight, away into some unseeable room on the ship. Varian continued, sucking in a deep breath and trying to regain his focus as he headed towards a wall in front of him. A rope made of bedsheets hung from a small hatch, the fabric damp to the touch, though Varian could still use it to climb. Though the thought hit him as he got higher and higher, who had put that rope there? Were they still alive?

As soon as those thoughts came to his head, he let himself drop into the room, a lone sink on the left hand wall, its porcelain reflecting the scarce light provided from the hatch, and an oak door that loomed and, engraved into its glossy wood, the symbol of an eye stared down at him judgingly and as though in disappointment. Pushing the massive door open, his eyes squinted to take in the sudden brightness of the room around him, a counter pressed against a wall that curved around the corner faced him, a roll of paper towels falling from the sudden disruption in the otherwise desolate room. On the other side of the room sat an electrified fence, clearly needing something to turn it off, or he was trapped here. Hastily, the boy shut the door behind him, his eyes meeting a lever suspended in the air. That would turn off the power, he thought, as he attempted to jump and activate it. “Too high.” he spoke under his breath, eyes darting around the room for something to give him a little more height and help him, settling on a crate of paper towels, discarded on the left side of the room. Dragging it over, he jumped up on to the lever, the weight of his body bringing it down before letting it go and dropping onto the floor. Electrical crackling sounded as all the lights went out, the boy sprinting through the bars and flicking open his lighter as he ran.

The flame of his small lighter revealed what looked like a playroom, with building blocks and toy trains sitting untouched in the darkness, a coat of dust covering them, much like his raincoat covered him. He didn’t have time to think about this, he reminded himself. Not now. Not when that..thing he saw was prowling right above him and could appear at any moment. His chest heaved for breath as he barely shuffled his way through the bars, the electricity coming back on as he narrowly avoided a (most likely) fatal electric shock. Holding his side, he paused for a second and gasped for breath, the physical demand leaving him with a nasty pain in his right side that throbbed each second it went untreated. In some past life, he would’ve called it ‘stitch’. He thought long and hard for a moment about what to do to get rid of it, before stomping his left foot down as hard as he could multiple times. A triumphant grin came to his face as the pain subsided somehow - he’d have to look into it next time he was safe, though now, as he turned to face his surroundings, a frown overtook his features.

Among the left wall (for some unbeknownst reason, everything was always on his left, though he didn’t think to question it at this point), a series of doors sat, none of them open. With nothing to give him any leverage and allow him to grab the handle, the boy continued down the hall with a deep sigh. Creaking sounded below him as he passed a seemingly endless amount of doors, the boy beginning to run before meeting a dark room. As fast as he’d arrived, a large, eye-shaped structure opened and shone a light down into the room, a burning sensation taking over Varian’s skin. His skin tingled and felt as though it was peeling off of his body the longer he stood in the light before he crawled for salvation - some shade behind some boxes. He rolled up his sleeves, checking for injuries though nothing but a few marks were on his arms. Beside him, however, he saw those who weren’t as fortunate as he was. Statues of what was once people stood, bathed in light and fear frozen on their stone faces for eternity, presumably unable to make it to cover. The giant eye shifted to the middle, then the end of the room, Varian making a run for it to hide behind a bed, acting as a shield, and crouching before the light shone back onto him. With another shift of the eye to the left side of the room, the boy sprinted deep into the shade.

No longer wanting to waste time, he jumped and climbed up onto a box, before grabbing some metal, presumably acting as a cage for...god knows what..and making his way up, the eye’s light still shining and revealing more and more statues of children. Bile made its way into his throat as his eyes caught what he thought was a little boy, curled up on the floor, a victim to the eye’s piercing beam. He couldn’t help them now though. Not anymore. Once at the top, he walked across the platform above the eye, doors now on the right littering the wall and seemingly leading to nowhere. What if these were the children’s rooms as well? Was he lucky enough to not get caught by the thing he saw earlier? Were there more people like him still alive? He had so many questions, but so little time. One door on the far end of the hall was open, Varian walking into it.

Walls covered in inky handprints greeted him, a makeshift and messy drawing of the eye staring down at the abandoned bed that sat pressed against the wall. Varian flicked open his lighter to take a better look at his surroundings, finding another geisha doll that he promptly picked up and smashed, once again a few black particles left the remnants. Parchment that littered the floor also showed depictions of the eye, all stained in ink that bled out from under the bed, as well as little footprints covering the mattress. His worst fear was confirmed: there were others like him trapped in here, and a lot of them weren’t as lucky as he was. He turned on his heel and sprinted out of the room, the very sight of it making him feel sick to the stomach with guilt and anger taking control.

Flicking open his lighter as soon as he was at the other end, he headed through a door, a breeze slamming it shut. Varian looked around frantically, settling on crouching under the metal bed before the thing from earlier sauntered into the room, the door also closing behind it. He tried to steady his breathing, his thudding and racing heartbeat being the only sounds he could hear at that point as he silently begged for his life. The thing began walking to its right, running his hands under the bed, with Varian deciding to go in the opposite direction. As he quietly made his way through the room, little snores and shuffles alerted him of the presence of sleeping children, just like him, though he couldn’t risk saving them at this point. He ran into a dimly lit room, immediately turning to his left and climbing up the cages, leaping up onto one shelf, then another, and crouching through a small vent. His heart still raced as he shuffled through the vents as quiet as he could to not alert the thing in the room, as from the looks of things, he had...insane reach.

Varian dropped to the floor on the other side, rats scurrying away from him as his stomach began to groan and grumble. Wrapping his arms around his midsection, the boy doubled over in almost unbearable pain. Shit. When was the last time he’d eaten? Still, he forced himself to move forwards, though the sharp pains came back and stabbed at his stomach repeatedly, as though it were beginning for him to eat something- anything! His eyes could barely focus on the bars to his left, revealing a small canteen area where the children most likely went to eat, little wooden tables decorating the walls. He let out another groan of pain as he kept trying to push forwards, a figure on the other side rising to her feet. As soon as the other stood, they threw a small loaf of bread to Varian, the boy lunging forwards to quickly eat the graciously given food. Exchanging another glance to the girl on the other side, who seemed to be dressed in purple and light blue as well as having raven hair, like him, and dark skin, he nodded in her direction. A promise. “I’ll come back for you.” he whispered as he climbed up onto boxes to his right and into a small, metal room at the top through a gap in the bars.

A noose swayed gently as Varian took a seat beside another little cage, the boy curling up as much as he could to stay warm and stay hidden, though his cyan raincoat did him no favours on the grounds of camouflage. He let out a gentle sigh as he slipped the lighter back into its pocket home and his eyes fluttered shut, ready for another dream, or even another nightmare.

#varian #tangled varian #varian and the seven kingdoms #varian tangled #little nightmares au #i swear this'll get more action soon #just a lil slow burn rn #and hugo will be here soon #;)))

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dourpeep · 3 years ago

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vampire, cozy, ghost, nighttime, boo

🦇,🦉,☕️!

-🃏

Spooky Seasons Asks!

Ah!! Hehe hello :DDD

How are you dearest Joker? It's been a few days since you've last popped up, so I hope you've been well!

Hehe keep me busy with asks (please I'm begging these are so much fun)

contains: blood mention (not really, but more b/c the horror movie ask)

vampire - do you like horror movies? if so, what’s your favorite?

Ahhh I don't really like horror movies. Mainly due to an over-active imagination and I've developed paranoia b/c of that--but! That's only for the slasher//gorey parts of the genre. I prefer psychological thrillers nodnod.

Which is ironic.

As for favorite...uhh I'm bad at recalling titles and the only one I can think of is Deus Ex Machina but I can't remember how much I liked it. There's also Black Swan--is that psych horror?? Hannibal!! That's a show but that was so good-

That being said, gore doesn't scare me--neither does 'death' themes because I kinda grew up around medical textbooks and stuff so rather than being scared I end up being like "??? That's not how blood would spurt out??" Yeah, slashers are funny about biology.

tl;dr, I like the mental/emotional based horrors. Make me feel that trepidation and dread.

cozy - besides halloween, what’s your favorite holiday?

Ah! I talked about this in another ask game but--Mid Autumn Festival! I also really love Lunar New Year nodnod. Both are very near and dear to me nodnod

ghost - do you have any paranormal experiences?

Ahhh not really? Mainly more dream-based things where I'll have some far-fetched dream that's incredibly specific and then a few weeks to years later it'll hit me and I'll see that exact scenario w/ that familiar tingle in my veins.

Oh! When my gonggong passed away, there was a large, brilliantly blue butterfly that landed on my mom when we were at a rest stop. It was on the way to visiting because he was getting really sick.

I've also had a dream or two where I could hear/feel him or my Lolo hold me and say that it'll be alright after a particularly rough patch.

If those count, that is!

nighttime - favorite halloween movie?

Ahhh hm

I...don't actually know many halloween movies? I grew up without cable for most of my childhood..but I do remember Scary Godmother!

boo - what’s your favorite candy/treat?

Butterfinger!! Before they changed the taste--it doesn't taste like peanut brittle-y anymore...it's more like peanut butter. And the texture is different too. I miss the kind that crumbles if you look at it too long.

Smarties---I always nab these from my siblings because no one likes them. Same with Twizzlers--and Candy corn--almond joy nodnod

I like the candies that a lot of other kids don't like so I get soooo much ehehe

🦇 - black cats or three-headed dogs?

Black cats!!! Though Cerubus can be really cute-

🦉 - inside or outside on a rainy day?

I prefer to stay inside! At least during the cooler days. It's cozier to sit inside and type on my laptop with the sound of rain and a warm cup of tea. But when it's warmer out, sometimes I'll stand in the rain! Jump around a bit---the usual.

☕️ - fall scented candles or big cozy sweaters?

Aha I like both--I kinda went a little crazy two years ago when they released these hot cocoa scented candles and bought three large ones and three small ones, 4 wall plug-ins...I still haven't used them all up.

But I also only use them around Autumn/Winter so that's probably why.

Also as we speak I'm wearing a soft cardigan and at every possible opportunity to go outside I wear soft sweaters that are a size or two large on me nodnod. It may still be in the 90's here but that won't stop me.

#anon asks #joker 🃏 anon #about me #ask game

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zeta-in-de-walls · 4 years ago

Text

Hey guys. So in MCC you might have noticed that Dream got a little salty. This was a shame for me as it’s so much nicer to watch Dream whilst he’s in a good mood. For better or worse though, he’s super competitive.

Here’s a breakdown of how the event went badly for Dream and his team. It’s pretty long...

The event starts well; Skyblockle is an interesting, if stressful game, and they do pretty well for their first time. Not perfectly though and they recognise they could do better too - Dream’s already pretty hard on himself for any mistakes he makes. But it’s purely directed at himself and how he can improve - I think it’s pretty evident he holds himself to a high standard.

Bingo is next and he kinda doesn’t know what he’d doing and wastes some time. I feel like he notes it down too much to not knowing the game but it is pretty luck-based anyway. Also this was a really quick game as so many of the items were very easy to obtain in a very short time. Anyway, they didn’t expect to do well really and Dream’s in good spirits, looking forward to the other games.

Then Battle box comes... and it’s extremely laggy and even glitchy. The weapon choices of Wooden axes and tnt seem honestly pretty bad just in terms of gameplay and the tnt is outright gamebreaking with the lag. Despite this, Dream’s team is doing well, having won their first 4 games and they’re keen to win more. Dream’s even instructing Sylveey to wait on the wool in order to maximise kill points (you can see he’s taking this really seriously as he could sound a little nicer as she’s certainly trying to win too).

Anyway, the game needs to be restarted - some players killed themselves outside the rounds and that’s not exactly fair. For whatever reason, reviving them is not possible. The chosen solution is to restart the entire round which regretfully seriously inconveniences Dream’s team. He’s incensed at the perceived injustices. He feels that it would be better to push on without restarting.

The proceeding rounds don’t go nearly as well for them as the first play through. Many teams have now realised how effective rushing strats are for this map - the axe is too slow in pvp to meaningfully stop players from quickly placing down wool and the tnt is dangerous enough to scare people from the centre. It’s a legitimate strategy but feels rather unlike the traditional battle box which is usually the closest minigame to a straightforward pvp battle. While the lag is universal, it rather this strategy which goes against purple’s playstyle which includes maximised kills. Additionally, restarting gave a lot of teams the change to realise the potential of this rather cheap strategy which they may not have with only a single round of battle box as it would have been without the lag.

It’s not really anyone’s fault that the game messed up but Dream’s ire is now directed towards the organisers and he’s lost his good spirits.

Buildmart comes next and it’s not exactly one of Dream’s favourite games to say the least. Still, it’s long and a nice distraction from the mess that was battle box and Dream has developed some strategy with his team, even if it didn’t really work amazingly.

But then comes the audience takeover. Dream was really looking for parkour warrior - which he’s been really keen to play. He’s extremely fond of parkour and wanted to try out the new course - he and his whole team had practiced the old course a lot and were ready to crush the game. But it wasn’t one of the the options in the poll at all. Up to this point Parkour warrior hasn’t been an option at all and it is one the team has every reason to want to play.

Regardless, they soon settle on Hole in the wall - a gamemode they’ve played before and enjoyed. And yeah, the system messes up. Rocket spleef, which was Technoblade’s choice, narrowly lost the poll but gets selected anyway due to faultiness from the twitter poll. Needless to say, Dream is pretty annoyed. Given how the resetted Battle box earlier, he is of the opinion that they should switch in to Hole in the Wall to accurately reflect the audience vote. What he doesn’t realise is that this isn’t possible and the situation is less similar to battle box which only reset itself, not the game choice.

This is where Dream gets outright angry, even going as far to say he feels like quitting entirely. He feels like the tournament is working against him, which it kinda is, though it’s not in fact due to human design - just errors outside anyone’s control. That said, compounded with the mess that was Battle box earlier, Dream’s in a terrible mood, especially with his competitive nature, feeling like he’s losing due to circumstances outside his control rather than his own abilities. (When fans are saying rigged, I feel like many of them simply mean that the game’s working against him rather than that someone is actively sabotaging them (an incorrect definition...). It’s a minority that kicked up a large fuss as well, not that this excuses them or anything, or Dream for not realising the effect he’s having on his audience.)

His heart is simply not in Rocket Spleef, which seems to be a pretty tough game for newcomers to pick up anyway, while the other top teams, Orange and Green, both excel at this game mode. (And Krimson too maybe? I think I missed how they were doing in this game.) It’s a shame as he can’t allow himself to enjoy the game mode at all. It is an interesting one that he’s not amazing at but isn’t terrible at either, managing to survive longer than the rest of his team, who are all also doing lacklustre. Their performance has not been helped by everything that’s going on.

Then there’s ace race. It’s a new game and pretty different from the standard minecraft experience. It’s the first time for everyone so there’s probably a few kinks to be worked out etc. and Dream and his team find it interesting but they don’t exactly love it. It’s very different from the standard minecraft experience. Their strongpoints are definitely vanilla minecraft and they’re not too confident with elytras. I feel like if they weren’t in a dour mood they would have enjoyed it tons more. Two elytra heavy games in a row is unfortunate. Still, this game acts as a breather. The one issue is that parkour warrior is finally on the board and so they’re very keen to play it.

As the next decision dome comes up, Parkour warrior, Hole in the Wall, TGTTOS, Survival Games and Sands of time are all available. These are all probably Dream’s favourite games aside from Battle box (which obviously didn’t work out this tournament). Dream notes beforehand that the one game he’d really like to play is Parkour Warrior and the one he’d prefer to avoid at this stage is Sands of Time.

So naturally, Sands of Time is chosen. He’s a bit irritated. Fortunately, Sands of Time is awesome and his team is great at it. Single player survival stuff is what they excel at after all and they all perform. They take risks, make a lot of coins, get far and are among the longest teams to stay in, coming in second overall with both Dream and Sapnap doing really well. This game proves to be what finally cures Dream and his team’s mood. The game is also worth a ton of points for some reason, putting them in with a (still small but possible) chance of making the finals.

Last game and they really want Parkour warrior of course. Yeah, it’s not chosen. Instead we get hole in the wall. Some may joke that its good that the game finally got chosen but it’s obviously not the favoured choice for this team when Parkour warrior’s an option. Oh well though! They’re disappointed to miss out on it but they do like hole in the wall and they all have fun playing it, doing decently though not nearly well enough to do better than their rivals.

By this time they’ve regained their spirits and eagerly support Green Guardians in dodgebolt. It’s an intense match and they all thoroughly enjoy watching it, especially seeing Pete team clutch out the win after being down.

At the end, Dream finds that despite everything he’s still somehow managed to obtain 3rd overall on the individual boards, the same as last time, and he’s really happy about it. His team are pretty happy too with Sapnap also managing to get 8th place in his very first event.

Dream closes off the stream with an apology. You can see as it goes on how the frustration slowly melts away as he begins talking. At first still obviously still annoyed but soon confessing that he seriously overreacted and that he still loves the event and the team behind it and holds them to a very high standard. He offers kind words towards Technoblade and Pete too, noting that the rivalry is for show and he greatly respects both of them and encourages all his watchers to go and subscribe to them, helping Technoblade to hit 2mil. He notes that he’s really competitive and he really wanted it to go well - especially as its the only time he’ll be allowed to play with George and Sapnap and really wanted to win it with them. His sentiments feel real and he expresses interest in playing again while noting that he could see them also not inviting him back after his behaviour during this even and understands that.

Overall, game choices and unfortunate circumstances worked against Dream and his team and left him in a bad mood but once it ended, he did bounce back. It’s easy to see the contrast from the last event where he was annoyed he didn’t win but blamed his own performance - not the event and not his teammates - reflecting on how he can improve and do better. (He got temporarily a little annoyed at buildmart admittedly but it was purely his fans who blew that out of proportion, he quickly reassured George that it was okay and that it wasn’t his fault.) Dream is always very determined to improve and succeed or fail due to his own skills.

This turned into a long analysis of the event, wow. Dream’s perspective wasn’t that much fun to watch and it pains me to see how it all devolved. Let’s calm down and try not to blame the event, the other competitors or Dream too hard for any of this, okay? Things went wrong and it’s mostly outside of anyone’s control. I hope he’s in better spirits if he joins next tournament.

#dreamwastaken #sorry this was so long!#i guess I had to analyse the whole event #a summary of it from dream's perspective i guess #apparently techno's viewpoint was far more entertaining #this one left me feeling bitter at least until sands of time #his talk with techno afterwards was great though #best part of the event for me #post-end i know #i look forward to the upcoming manhunt and collabs #the dangers of tryharding #and the issues with having a large fanbase #i think he forgot he wasn't just talking to his friends #analysis

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madammayh3m · 4 years ago

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I want to know more about these tieflings of yours - do you have any memorable moments you've had playing them? Or just talk about them in general (or the other non-tiefs too!), I see someone with d&d PC's and I gotta know ask about them ~

I've got three tieflings so far, but I've only ever gotten to play with one. I've made character sheets for one of every d&d race (in the PHB at least) actually as like... an exercise in creating unique race and class combinations, and also in figuring out how to fill out a character sheet (especially for spellcasters good god) and also just because I have loved d&d (and just tabletop games in general) for a while now

the one I got to play was a five foot nothin' feral (that's not even a joke, she's the winged 'feral' variant from Unearthed Arcana) tiefling barbarian named Anakis who's backstory was she had been prizefighter in an arena, and her adopted wizard brother (also tief, collabed on the backstory with another player, grew up in the same orphanage) had a racket going to make big bucks on her wins. Brother got yoinked by the government because they wanted him to work for them. From her perspective though, he just got kidnapped and so Anakis just went rage mode, and so part of the agreement ended up being that she'd also get hired as his bodyguard. Unfortunately, the brother died only a session or two after we joined back with the party (said party went through 2 tpks and we all had to reroll characters at one point or another) and then I had to stop playing not long after that because my work hours weren't compatible, but I still have her character sheets saved on roll20 and I think I still have access to the discord the dm made? But it's definitely not been active in four years, which is a damn shame - that was my first group I ever played with, and despite being all guys, they were super respectful and made me feel really welcome as a newbie, and I have some great memories from that campaign

the other two are npcs that I also made character sheets for because why not? One of them, Defiance, was made to teach the guy I was seeing at the time how to fill out a character sheet lmao and I liked her and decided to keep her. Defiance's whole deal was that she was a supply runner/fighter for a rebellion against a corrupt, racist regime that is currently at war with another nation and is using the people as cannon fodder basically. She works as a field laborer during the day, and is thus tall, built af, and comes across as stoic and unimpressed with everyone and everything, but she has a big soft spot for the various children (mostly orphans) that live in the shanty-town surrounding the walls of the city-state and is basically their adopted mom. So she's basically just kinda available to me in either npc or pc form depending on whether I'm running the game or not

the last one is definitely more of a dmpc, which I know is like a big no-no or whatever, but a) I don't give a shit, life is too short not to have fun whilst playing a game, and b) it's not a problem if the dm isn't an asshole about it /endsoapbox

but yeah her name is... I think I changed it to Nara? She's had like five different names as I've been developing the setting that she's basically a package deal with. Her whole thing is she's been frozen/sealed away for the past thousand years by a lover who betrayed her and has been kind of reincarnating to stay alive and be the bbeg for the pcs. I had actually started dming this campaign idea for some people who used to live in my dorm, but covid lockdowns hit my part of the US literally right after the session where my players found her and we haven't met or talked since which

oh my god the campaign was just kicking off and I'm really proud of the story I came up with and my players were starting to bond and really get into it augggh (and then d&d had to get put on the backburner anyway because my school/state has handled covid just.. so poorly, and it's been affecting my grades)

but yeah, those're my tiefs! This reply got super long (whoops) so feel free to read at your leisure lmao

#things are getting dicey #rambles #made a read more because this post is gonna be a long one lmaoo #yeah I was right the post is a long one aksdjadkd #I miss d&d stuff so much oh my god #I need to get better at managing my time so I can fit it into my schedule again #I have like.. zero idea if tagging users in the post or @ing them works?#tumblr is a website

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lightkrets312 · 4 years ago

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Alright, so y’all wanna talk about Corvus and Horror? Let’s talk about Corvus and Horror.

First up, Corvus! Cause it’s a short little bastard!

This is your playfield. Some things of note:

Collectors and Relays are roughly similar, if in an opposites way. Relays go twice the distance a Collector does (and only if it connects to another Relay, but both connect to each other), but Collectors allow you to get energy and cost half as much as a Relay.

Mortars are good on deep amounts of creeper and are very good for maintenance and lowering creep levels, but Blasters are very good for covering a lot of area very quickly. They’re good when paired together, so the blaster covers the mortar while that takes care of the big stuff... buuuut in most gameplay you’ll probably see the Mortars get used a lot.

Storage and Speed are only really in this game, but are also self-explanatory: they expand your storage and increase the speed of packets, which carry Energy and Ammo packets, which is how everything gets done.

Emitters are those blue spiky things in the corner. They emit Creeper, which wants to wreck your shit. They’re assholes.

“But that’s pretty straightforward!” It is! “That shouldn’t be too bad!” You’re right!

“Hey what are those pill shaped things on the map?” Those are survivor pods. You want to collect them all before the creeper gets them.

“Oh, well what about that one pod in the bottom left that’s sitting super close to one of the emitters?”

Yeah that’s the little asshole that caused me to reset several times trying to figure out how to save them!

You have two saving graces here, and that is:

The creeper emitter has TWO pieces of high ground blocking it from immediately overloading the terrain with creeper and drowning the escape pod.

That little island next to it that’s kinda close? CAN link to a Relay. If you put it in the top left corner of the island. And not the bottom left which I spent my first run trying to do, cause I wanted a turret on the island. Don’t do that. Put it in the lower right if you really want a turret. It’s fine, I promise.

Other than that, it’s a matter of mad-dash placing enough collectors just right to gather energy, putting Relays down to hop across Islands and grab the pods (which are immediately collected upon connecting to them), and then activating those green flower-looking Totems to skedaddle before you die. Oh, also getting some Blasters and a Mortar or two to take care of the creeper. Shouldn’t be that big of a deal, only would take what, 10 minutes?

(to be fair, i’ve gotten faster since then, but... yeah. it’s rough.)

And then there’s Horror. Which looks you in the eyes and LAUGHS while you try to save the civilians.

Here’s a stitched together map cause this one has scrolling capabilities and BOY do you gotta juggle.

You have:

A pod above your ship that’s under threat by a store of Creeper that’ll bust through some breakable terrain in about a minute (and this is the least of your worries).

A pod through some twisty tunnels to your right on the other side of some breakable terrain that the creeper emitter nearby will be digging towards.

A pod below that where the creeper will be flowing towards it and form a ring that is VERY hard to shoot through and will take you lots of effort.

Double-up hell AKA two emitters that will be constantly generating creeper that will rise slowly up towards the final pod as the pressure builds, which will be a RACE to beat by the time you get to it.

oh yeah there’s also a creeper emitter right below your ship when you start lol

You enter with no guaranteed safe terrain, no upgrades, and no additional power generation. You have to build everything you need as strategically fast as possible. You have 5 minutes before the first pod is excavated, and 17 minutes before the third one is flooded. Losing any of them is an instant loss.

This took me almost 3 hours and around 15 resets to figure out how to beat.

“...how.”

*INHALE*

Press P to immediately pause your game, which you’re gonna do like 50 bajillion times cause FUCK do you need the time. Also maybe set the speed to half with the little toggle on the bar down there. (See that speed thing? Down there next to techs? Hit the button on the left, you’re welcome.)

Put your ship as far as you can in the top right corner of the area it’s currently in, put three reactors (power generators) in below those weird green chips (techtites), collect those chips AND the red gem, and also save the first civilian highest up (click the weird cracked terrain up top and you can dig it; ONLY dig the bottom half out, top half can be used for more reactors and you need that.)

Unpause your game to let the ship move into position.

As soon as you collect the green chips, immediately go into Techs and take the Reactor efficiency and beacon range.

As soon as you collect the gem, PAUSE and set up as many reactors as you can put down, just like you did with the first few (in those slots). Grab the yellow thing once they’re done, you’ll want that for later. Unpause.

I’m not gonna tell you to keep pausing, do it as you need to. I’m also not gonna tell you where to set up Reactors, cause that’s what the rest of the map around them is for, but I am gonna tell you to mine out the three dirt to the bottom right of your ship. For later, when you can put down a few tech researchers.

You’re gonna want a Repulsor up top to take care of that watertower of creeper about to flood out to kill everything, set it up on short and point it at the door. Get another one on LONG set up to deal with the emitter in the same room you spawned in at and point it at the floor, then set up a third Repulsor as far into the twisty bits that are now right next to your ship. You should be able to get into the downwards twisty, build it towards the top. Set it up on Long and down.

“But that’s not dealing with the creeper though!!” You have 17 minutes to save 3 pods, and you’ve probably spent about 1 of those already. You’ll need to save the first one in the hellmaze within 5. You need as much time as you can get, and you don’t have the resources to fuck around with that right now.

And the Repulsors deal with those two problems until you need to deal with them, so it’s fine!

While those are setting up, get started on about 1 or 2 blasters. Up to you how many at once, but you’ll need two.

You’ll also need a mortar (called a Launcher here). Pick your moment, get it set up around when you start heading back up.

Get a short Repulsor set up, point it right, slide it to the bottom once a blaster’s shooting, then slide that blaster immediately in front of the short one.

Take the long Repulsor in that tunnel, slide it next to the blaster, and point it straight up. Take the blasters, move em into the tunnel. Stick a lamp down so you can hit most of the chamber, should be able to do that in the down twisty.

Put a minirift right under the ship. Trust me on this.

Wait for the long repulsor to heal up enough, then slide it to the end of the path once you’re pretty sure the blasters will hold long enough and point it into the chamber. Then grab both blasters, stick em right in the entrance of the first emitter, and make sure they’re far enough to blast the hell out of your problems.

Don’t move the short one, but you see how it’s firing into the wall there? Mine next to it two right, up one, and then when THAT’S done... mine one more right. It’ll catch the creeper before it floods the chamber, but it’ll take off just a bit of pressure. Also move your mortar close if it hasn’t yet.

Also start mining up just above the long repulsor. Three up, make a 2x3 room, then place a blaster on the upper row as soon as you can. This should make a room that’s not exposed to the creeper yet, but it’s as tall as the room you’re about to breach into from the top. Put a maker (AC maker) set to active in the tunnels, you’ll need it for later.

Move the highest cannon forward in the room you made and open ONLY the topmost block once it’s done and loaded a bit. Now you’ve got three cannons dealing with your problems.

Blast the FUCK out of the creeper and slide the topmost cannon along the top until you’re able to put it right next to the wall where the pod’s hiding. Accept it’ll take some damage and get a bit risky with it, as long as it doesn’t die it’s fine. Get a lamp going on the floor and mine through to the pod once the room’s empty enough.

Nullify that fucker ASAP, you’ll need everything for the next room.

Also build a minirift in that room, the packets take fucking forever otherwise.

Dig a tunnel immediately above the pod below the room you’re in as soon as it’s safe to do so. You can expand a little to the left and right in there too, but once you start shoving weapons down the hole that’s life for a minute.

Send your blasters in to start clearing stuff and slide a Launcher halfway down your new tunnel. Get a second launcher while you’re at it.

Once it’s cleared up enough in the room, get both Repulsors in the room, slide em right next to the supply arms, and set em on short pointed at the arms. Work your blasters into the room, build a fourth, wreck house for a bit.

Drag the maker in while you’re at it and set it up to start flooding the room. Grab the pod once a gap develops, then slide the Maker into the hellring.

You’re looking for an opening to develop in the other side of the ring, which should progressively happen. Turn the top Repulsor off while you have a second.

Once it does set up a minirift right next to the 5x5 chunk of dirt and start digging. You’re gonna want a little room right in the middle of the dirt and a hole through the middle to enter and exit it.

While that digs out, dig a path through the bottom towards the emitters and the final asshole with the slowly flooding room. Do NOT dig into there yet. Set your offline Repulsor to long and stick it in the bottom once it’s clear enough, just under the entrance.

Back to the Ring emitter, take two of your blasters and slide em through to start shooting the supply, should be in the leftmost gap with one right behind it. Stick the launchers above and below it, and build a third Repulsor pointed left.

Back to the tunnel below the Ring room, start building a couple more turrets, stick the other two in there once it’s clear enough up top, put the Maker in the tunnel with em, and put a shield in the entrance of the tunnel to bottleneck it and up the pressure of the AC.

If your turrets aren’t set up for optimum firepower, now’s the time to shimmy them around. It’s tight, I know.

Bust open the roof of the supply right below. If everything’s right it should hold.

Back to the ring emitter, pop a Nullifier to the left of it once you have the room for it, maybe a third turret if you need the space opened. Walk the turrets towards the emitter while you’re at it, should basically be done from here.

Grab one of your other unoccupied Repulsors, point it down on Short and slide it down the double trouble tunnel. You need the space to get in,

Slide a turret into the new space, then when you have a gap get your last Repulsor into the tunnel, pointed left and long enough to skim by the second emitter supply.

Start chucking turrets at shit. Also take the repulsor by the entrance and point it at the closer emitter, then get some turrets (and one of the Launchers) to clean it up and nullify.

When you can do the same with the second one, repulse, shoot, and nullify it too.

Run your blasters down towards the last pod and chase after the creeper. Keep hopping them past each other, at this point you have like 6 or 7 so you should be able to keep doing that.

keep the pressure up on your end or the pod will die and you will lose your progress.

Once you’ve basically run the turrets all the way through to the pod, the pressure should stop building in that room. Run a turret or two up to cleanup.

If you’ve done all of that fast enough and just right, congratulations, you have officially saved the last hostage pod and have basically won the map.

Now take care of those two creeper pools from point 7. You can fly your Launchers and unoccupied turrets back to deal with them, they’ll use the minirifts as shortcuts.

Savor your 20 minute victory. Never Look Back.

This Level Fucking Sucks And All I Got Was A Steam Achievement.

anyways yeah, that is the hell known as 13 - Horror

#my post #creeper world #what's even worse is the first game ACTUALLY HAS SURVIVORS. THE SECOND ONE JUST HAS A LOT OF PODS. ONLY ONE HAS A HUMAN.#I SPENT 20 MINUTES SAVING ONE PERSON AND THAT'S JUST THE IN-GAME TIME #anyways if i get a request for it ill do a video essay on the topic

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bionicdragonguardian1 · 5 years ago

Text

Ranma 2/4

Part Two: Chapter 13 - 25

Unless someone comes up with a better name I’m sticking with this one

HOW tf is the principal crazier than before?!

Yup, spreading out the Kuno-Principal thing

Is Sasuke seriously an anime-only?!?

Like I said Ryoga needs to chill a little first

Main reason I don’t like Ukyo That scene where she blatantly states she’s fine with turning Ranma into something he’s not rather than helping him

(Ignoring the near constant amount of undermining his abilities)

“I’m gonna cheer him up” as she holds a sword! Why?!

Ranma you dummy, hug Akane!

I hate this demon/ghost cat

Shampoo, you manipulative bitch

Akane learns to swim like a normal person

The lifeguard in me can’t do it

The principal is background shenanigans

Totally forgot about the kid who wants to play video games and is “weak” bc of it

Definitely need to find a different reason tho

Lazy little shits are a pain

Also his mom is crap

Akane… why you be dumb?

Weird Happosai is Santa plot…

What is with the Excalibur meets lucky 1000 meets fairy godmother?

Good news is, with what I’ve done to Kuno’s understanding of Ranma’s curse Ranma knows Kuno wouldn’t give him that wish and calls it quits sooner

Someone just needs to explain Ranma’s really confusing sense of morality to me

Cuz it’s either on 110% or it’s nonexistent, now normally nonexistent is for Kuno but still

Look Ranma’s got ego problems but he ain’t stupid

No betting the Tendo Dojo at five!

On what planet is that a legal document?!?

Some1 tell me why Shampoo using Ranma as a stop ramp bugs me so bad

That mo when you can’t remember if the Hot Spring Challenge is when Ukyo met Shampoo in the anime…

I don’t think so…

Akane you made me need to google a word

That like never happens Ranma you idiot

So close but so far

So much more logic, thanks

I mean more insanity, but it explains why Ranma swapped clothes

Finally! Ranma apologizes

Jesus Christ someone would think I won the goddamn lotto with how loud I cheered when this happened

600% approve of this over what happened in the anime

Oof poor Ranma

Hahahaha in your face Shampoo, but I also think I know why Ranma chose it

Poor Ryoga

I KNEW this guy was coming I still hate it

YEET you can’t PAY ME to do this arc

Look, is it the fact that I had etiquette and dance classes as a child and everyone assumed this is what it was like? Probably.

It wasn’t so I won’t.

Any1 else notice how Nabiki is one of the few ppl that uses she/her when Ranma is in his cursed form no matter what?

Why does this bug me?

Akane, stop beating Ranma up, honestly

This is closer to abuse rather than teasing

*sighs*

Gotta work that out of the narrative, intentional or not

Every1 sayin she’s violent isn’t helping

Like I said really fucking morally GREY Nabiki

How grey can you go before you get black?

Let’s find out together

Can everyone PLEASE stop treating Ranma like an object?!

I literally can’t tell if Nabiki is fucking Aro or not…

STRESS

Why is this so hard?!

I hate seeing Akane cry

I know she’s playing Ranma like a kazoo, but the point still stands

WHY ARE YOU TWO SO DUMB?!

Nope, nevermind it’s just Ranma that’s a fuckin idiot I blame Genma

No, I’m not kidding

*sighs* I don’t condone Nabiki doing this in any way just for the record THAT’S not an apology Ranma!

This mess is totally your fault Nabiki

STRESS

am I intentionally pointing out where this work of fiction is stressing me out since I’m now online schooling and suffering for it? Yes, fuck off.

Actually, don’t.

But Fuck Covid19

Aww his hat’s back!

Why do I love his hat so much?

No, seriously Akane’s so cute!

Oooww tree

y’know the sec she realized what Ranma was doing Nabiki should’ve TOLD him!

Congrats Ranma ya got the wrong sis- I mean the right- but wrong- dammit y’know what I mean

Some1 give me a logical explanation for why Ranma goes on a date with a panda doodle, PLEASE

I do appreciate the epic battle background fight for the anime

Further proof that Happosai sucks

Manga name’s somehow less believable I think it’s the use of “snowman” rather than “yeti”

Did Soun just find out that Pchan is Ryoga, and say nothing?

Ooo, Imma commit arson

Remember when I said obey Physics and Medical, I meant it

Arson is wrong and I know this but “transgender bitch” crosses the line

I will do it

Shampoo is a fucking yandere psycho

Just sayin “we’ll see who can get him first”

honestly, any other group and I’d be annoyed, but these four can’t work together for shit I

’m still pissed at Taro, but he can kill Happosai, please

I can’t tell if Shampoo, Mousse and Ryoga are being purposefully obtuse or not

I just reread their names I know the answer to at least two of them

Idk how I feel about Kuno-amnesia we’ll see

yep, Kuno gives me the creeps w or w/out his memories

kinda wish this was anime

jesus christ, poor Ranma

press f to pay respects for Ranma’s stomach

InstaRegret

Also Ukyo’s assumption that some1 can make Ranma doing anythin he doesn’t want to is crap

Like HELLO! Wake up moron!

Nabiki, I mean this in the nicest way possible, shut the fuck up

You’re making it worse

Also TALK to each other you ding dongs!

OH RIGHT! I almost forgot about the biggest fucking insult that Ukyo said of her own freewill!

It also proves that she doesn’t know Ranma as a person AT ALL!

It’s not a pick one or the other kind of thing

The fact that she thinks Ranma would accept that is insulting

The fact that she thinks that is insulting and makes me hate the patriarchy

Again, treating him like a prize than a person

*tries not scream, sighs*

Nabiki, you’re the cause of at least 30% of the stress I get from this

You having feelings ain’t the fucking problem here Ukyo, you not acknowledging Ranma’s is

I hate fake criers, anyone who does this I hate you

Always let others in on your plans, kids

When’s every1 gonna realize Ranma’s “wishy-washy” cuz no one’s ever committed to HIM before?

This episode confused me, I’m prepared to be MORE confused

Less confused, I’m surprised

Gonsunkugi, you creep

There is SO much wrong with this

*shudders*

WHAT?!

Y’know I didn’t think Gosunkugi could surprise me, I was wrong

Happosai still sucks unfortunately for all of us he’s now weird on top of it

I love how much Ranma needs to be kicked in the teeth to get any character development out of him

Ryoga is my #1 choice for it, always

Ranma… why are you like this?

Genma, emotional range of a goddamn wall

I am jealous of Ranma’s brain

I could be SO mean with the Shishihokodan

Also, are they implying that Ryoga has depression?

Gimme Ranma’s brain

I won’t ask for his confidence cuz that’s impossible but I want his brain

In Akane’s defense, given what she knows she couldn’t’ve known how badly that would affect Ryoga

I ain’t gonna say “leave Shampoo” cuz that’s cruel

I like the “turn into a Cat” rather than the “Can’t Cross” & the use of New Year’s rather than random but this still brings around the fact that she doesn’t LISTEN to him

Mousse you’re NOT helping in fact you’re actively making it worse did you miss when he said blatantly “I don’t wanna”

oh, sure, NOW you’re ok with it

ugh Mousse, you have a brain, I’ve SEEN you use it. Do so now.

This entire episode weirded me out

IDK if it’s the age-dff or the fact that he was makin it up and somehow everyone thought this was okay …

I won’t YEET it but MASSIVELY change

heheheh

Light bulb

NOPE I’m keeping this surprise to myself

it was a rather sweet end tho

Oh, this episode is a mess and a half, honestly

Also Nabiki, congrats you’ve literally enabled a stalker S

o many laws are broken here

okay, so Kodachi not being in on Ranma’s secret after so long makes sense purely because she doesn’t go to their school

however, with what i’ve done to make Kuno marginally less dumb it makes a little bit less sense…

I literally hate Kuno with what I’ve done to his logic of Ranma’s transformation, but that’s the point Kodachi… how do I handle you… oh, duh!

Ok, so Kodachi is now also terrible

I’m trying to figure out where this is in the plot since there is ZERO

Ok, there’s a LINE, Nabiki

This one would be touching, if it didn’t end the way it does

TALK gentlemen!

It won’t kill you

Fuck a parent that says they’re not your parent for no reason, EVER

I am going to make this hurt

Also gonna take out Genma’s fail at stealth

Remember I said Akane’s going to learn to cook

heheheh

sorry, I just love this idea

Oh this is SO against the rules it’s not even funny

tiny adjustment so they actually have quasi-competent referees

Crazy wants crazy?I won’t stop ‘em

I reiterate: CHEATING!

I am aware that the “ending” apparently sets them back to the start in terms of their relationship but I swear to God if they pretend shit like this didn’t happen I will scream

Someone ships something other than Akane x Ranma PLEASE explain why/how

don’t ship bash but I would insight when you explain

STICK TO CANON

please trust me, I’m a multi/poly/crack shipper

(for frame of reference to a bnha I ship DabiHawks)

I understand the appeal of Fanon

however, I would like to stick to Canon here

so no Fanon

Canon Only

Fully love that high kick

Genma shows Ranma’s secret here, but they already know… so… I shall find out

Ooo, you’re not getting out of this Ranma

Do you know how tempting it is for Akane to at least tell Ranma she’s a girl- oh wait gendered sports… right…

Ranma…

if you didn’t realize it was Akane when she hit you for calling her klutzy I can’t help you

I want to commit arson at some of the comments…

but can confirm that these are HS boys

Doesn’t mean I gotta like it

I was wondering how long I was going to have to wait before tearing into Nodoka

FINALLY

Took me WAY too long to remember that Nodoka calling Ranko tomboyish is due to how he speaks in Japanese

I’ll need to figure that out since… English

Can I explode on Genma’s choice to take Ranma at TWO?!

Can I further explode on both of them for making a TWO YEAR OLD “sign” a Seppuku Pledge?!

I hate both of them, honest

ALSO communication!

Genma! Just fucking TELL HIM!

Making her transphobic is SO tempting

I don’t mean in a “i hate you” way I mean in a “I sheltered my whole life” way

It’s still bad, and painful, but she can easily learn from that

Or be worse, this could go 2 ways

I feel so bad for Akane for this entire conversation

Also poor Ranma like ouch…

Awkward

I’m going to make this hurt something fierce

Slight change since I’m hoping Ranma isn’t as “peak fight or flight” by this point

Genma don’t be an asshole for FIVE MINUTES

Please, that’s all I want

If she doesn’t learn the truth before the end I will make a bad decision

Really, I will

Don’t kill Genma, you can’t

Akane, don’t say like you wouldn’t… honestly

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, honestly, just look the other way Ranma

*sigh*

Ranma…

See, this kind of crap here is why I really don’t like Cologne

any other day Akane’d be right

oof, that means he self aware that girls flock to him

I’m quite frustrated by that if I’m honest

Ranma is clueless about all the wrong things

I love him but God I wanna punch him sometimes

Why is there a swing from the ceiling?!

I had a jolt from the way they set that panel up, thanks

Are you trying to kill me?!

Thank you Cologne, now fuck off

Oh thank God, at least he learned

This is nonanime stuff so I have no clue what’s happening but anything to make Happosai miserable

I’m enjoying this immensely

ugh, “think of it as a compliment” ghost

Eat me

okay, yeah, as much as I want him dead, that’s worse

I’m glad he’s not a one-and-done character

I will forever ONLY call him Taro when it is NonDialogue

Wait Saffron as in big-bad Saffron?

I literally only know pieces of the end so I’m just pulling from what I know

Lol, wait… was that soldier Anime only too?

I almost liked you there for a sec Taro

Now I’m pissed again

bravo

Oh, YIKES

… if Ranma falls into the Spring of Drowned Twins would he split?

I’m not going to DO IT, obviously!

I’m just curious okay…

that answers that… and kills anyone other than Ranma’s plan to turn back to normal I hope everyone is aware of that

oof

Since when is there a castle on an island in Japan

tis just a scratch, I’ll admit that was funny

Ranma… your stomach gets you in so many problems

ok, that was wholesome

I approve

Okay, so my understanding is that Mrs. Tendo got sick, so I can understand the reactions to Kasumi

BUT I still find it odd because… well… anyone in my house gets sick and you mostly can’t even tell I mean, minus a worse attitude and a mask, other than that though, nope we keep ‘er movin’

I’m moving this section sooner EVEN IF IT KILLS ME!

I like her mom’s cookbook tho

I could make a Ranma x Ryoga joke here, but I won’t

I also won’t make a Ranma x Ryoga joke chapter cuz I’m nice like that

Actually I might have no choice

I’m FINE just dying

Help

my multishipper heart is dying here

I love this

InstaRegret for THREE people

If nothing else, I’m impressed

(well three once Ranma’s back to normal)

I need help

Fangirling/Fanboying/Fanpeopling is dangerous folks, remember that

Poor Ryoga

Though I too feel that right now like where do I look because everything coming in at mach 6

I’m changing that one scene tho cuz I can’t justify the aftermath without it

This… is… weird to say the least

I feel like I should just expect anything with Gosunkugi remotely involved to be weird at this point

okay, not as weird as I expected

glad it was short tho

I think I am officially out of anime terf

YAY, new content!

This is why I ask about any ship that isn’t Ranma x Akane

Also, names?

That- that- that can’t...

I DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW THAT!

EWWW

gross

WHY?!?!!

also, biology, that’s not how that works!!

You two ARE idiots

Ryoga you die I’ll kill you

Well… that hurt to see so quick…

Ranma, get up!

I officially hate this Herb guy

ok, so if you put HOT water in the ladle do you stay that way forever?

Alright! Way to go Ryoga!

I need to stop shipping Rivals it’s bad for my health

fucking eat it you dick!

Poor Akane

nevermind, Ranma you idiot

awwwww

ok, so that whole no more Anime-content… I was wrong, and I admit that, but still

I’m just thinking of my bff when they realize she’s an adult cuz, yeah, she’s like that too

except like physically an adult unlike tiny-Hinako

oh MY GOD Ukyo you’re driving me up the goddamn wall I swear!

THANK YOU AKANE!

“You’re all Ranma’s fiancées” when only one of them actually is

GIANT SIGH OF ANNOYANCE

Ranma, learn to communicate, PLEASE!

Okay… so is this where they figured it out or are some ppl still in the dark?

TIMELINE!!

Honestly, mood Ranma, mood

This entire plot line confuses me if I’m being totally honest

I mean I live for the Akane focus, but there are so many better ways to do this

#ranma ½ #ranma 1/2 #ranma saotome #ranma #akane tendo #nabiki tendo #kasumi tendo #soun tendo #genma saotome #nodoka saotome #tatewaki kuno #kodachi kuno #full series au #bc I know no restraint #I'm doing this to distract from stress shut up #don't judge me #COVID19 binge watch

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cruddyborderlandstheories · 4 years ago

Note

Would you rather see GB buff Zane's other trees, buff everybody else to be on par with Seein dead Zane, or nerf Seein dead?

Why only stick with one? Let's go for D, A mix of everything, plus other class mod buffs (for all!). I can't imagine Seein Dead Zane is the strongest VH atm (as far as I know, I haven't been keeping up with meta because this game beyond my own little bubble is kinda making me sad-o lately. I thought that award went to IB Moze nowadays), but regardless of my knowledge yes I'd genuinely love to see everyone at the same power level. Buffs ahoy! Or nerfs. Whichever works, so long as the game is actually fun and satisfying to play.

I'd personally like them to swap the Seein Red capstone with Seein Dead, but without the +25% kill skill buff. (aka: Seein Dead (mod): activate kill skills on action skill start. Get +25% kill skill efficiency. Seein Red (capstone): Zane has a chance to activate Kill Skills when shooting/damaging an enemy). Seein Dead would still be his top mod probably, but at least it would open him up for other playstyles (somewhat- we still actually need damage in his other trees). He's almost unplayable end game without that mod, because of his reliance on the skills it buffs, and I'd love to try a late-game build on him that isn't centered around kill skills for once. I tried to make a Conductor build and gave up after it took 4x as long to do anything. His new mod (won't go into more specifics bc spoilers) is looking a tiny bit promising for an Under Cover build, but we'll have to see how well that actually plays out when I get down into it. I get the feeling the damage output is going to be 'not good'. But I will be very happy if I'm wrong!!

That said, I really want to be able to use any other class mod at M10. Op8/10, my main VH Zer0 had the sniper OR melee build and even for the melee build (I am a dirty melee zer0 main) I could swap between two legendary mods. In Bl3 that difference is felt even harder because class mods are supposed to give us unique skills. But it's a pretty goddamn easy choice between "get a random dot when freezing an enemy" or "activate all your kill skills and also they get a 25% damage buff". They could've buffed Death Follows Close and Seein' Red, you know to match pre-release values (and maybe also swapped their positions back to how they were iunno just a thought), but instead dropped that class mod on us (BEHIND A PAY WALL NO LESS) and said 'whelp. We did it, boys. Zane complainers are no more'. If anybody wants to play Zane late game, they've gotta drop money on the Handsome Jackpot dlc to get their hands on the mod. That's so... Messed up? Like it feels like they locked his fix behind a pay wall and a gear slot. Like, Zane mains don't get to experiment with the new class mods that drop because we know it's never gonna top Seein Dead. Even if it's kind of 'okay' in comparison. So maybe buff his other mods? Fix Zane's skill trees? Both?? Like why. Okay. Hear me out. Seein Red: activate kill skills on AS start. Wonderful! CCnC: (potentially) infinite AS uptime. Cool! But trying to mix those two together? There's no synergy. Why does Good Misfortune buff Zane's AS uptime when the literal next skill in the tree rewards short uptime and fast cooldown? Same with Borrowed Time. There's so much... Non-synergy in his trees it's almost comical. Fixing Seein' Red would open up a ton of possibilities. Running a CCnC/Seein' Red build could actually be possible if they made it so Seein Red activated Kill Skills on damage. Or! Fix CCnC so each proc of it counts as both action skill end AND action skill start. Do *something* to make his skills synergize instead of being polar opposites.

And it's not just Zane, but he's the biggest example in my books since I know him the best. I hear Amara only has 1 (2?) good mods, too. She definitely only seems to have 1 good action skill and it's unfortunately the Phaselock redux. They could buff her other two skills, make phaseslam or phasecast actually hit hard at later levels, but they don't. It's the whole Deathtrap thing again, except now they proved its possible for AS to deal damage in m10 with iron bear and Blane (Zane's clone) so what's the deal? Also, I'd love to see Amara actually deal decent damage with DoTs at higher levels given how many of her skills are dedicated to them. It would make that one class mod that applies your AS element dot to all enemies hit by your AS really cool for mobbing.

So, okay, clearly I'd love to see everyone balanced at one level, but honestly I think they need to get to max level before they do that. I don't think we're going to have a 'Salvador' situation in 3 unless they fork up the new skill trees Big Time, so I'd love to see all the VHs at one power level (whatever they decide is best). The constant tweaking to max levels and adding new skills/gear/Mayhem levels is doing not great things to the balance (or fun-ness, imo). I get the game is still in development, and I get that they wanna buff longetivity with grinding with each level cap, but my biggest wish is that before they add new content, that they'll fix the stuff we have now so there's a base to go off of. VH skills, class mods, guns, grenades, Mayhem levels, all of it. I especially want them to test stuff at M10, given what happened with the Guardian Takedown on launch.

I know the borderlands games aren't... The best... At scaling/balancing issues late-game. But I really hope they will try to fix that this time. It is extremely disheartening to see every patch/hotfix that Zane is still... Basically borked at the base level. He's had a handful of really good fixes (stacking kill skills, the buff to quick breather) but a lot of his trees/skills are still pretty messed up, especially when you think about synergy. Also, you know, just saying, the Under Cover tree is just... So bad after tier 3. I used to vouch for CCnC, but why use CCnC when we have good misfortune which is 3x better with none of the restrictions? And why use his ice-based life steal skill, when you can get life steal at tier 2 on *any* enemy, frozen or not? Someone just needs to scrap the whole tree and remake it from the ground up. That capstone is... Blegh. So bad. I have not seen a single viable, m10 build with that capstone. You can make Seein Red work. You can make Double Barrel work. Fuckin distributed denial? N O P E. I tried. So got-damg hard. But it's a headache when it doesn't work with at LEAST half the shield effects in the game and you don't know which ones it won't work with without testing and also it's mainly for multi-player and none of my friends wanna play because the balance is so forked and...

Aw geez. This just turned into a rant about things I want fixed haha. Sorry about that, it's late and I get cranky and rambly at night.

So uh. To answer the question: yes. Just. YES.

Tl;dr: Someone please fix Zane I want him to be playable late-game without players needing to drop money on DLCs. plz thx.

#Sorry I ramble when I think about his skills :(#They're #So bad #Just.#They seem good in theory but no #Someone fix him please #Is asking for a full overhaul of a character after year 1 is over too much? No.#Fix him!!!#Ech #I could go on for years #I won't #But I could #Any who #Thank you!!!#Ask #I appreciate the chance to go feral for a moment #Bl3

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hushman · 5 years ago

Text

Curse you Pidge the Paladin

Summary:

Pidge the Paladin (known also as Agent P) is an agent for O.W.C.A. (the Organisation Without a Cool Acronym) and dedicated to helping keep the world safe. She does this by stopping the "nefarious” schemes of “Evil Genius” Lance McClain, founder of Lance McClain Evil Inc. and evil invention tester for L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. (the League Of Villainous Evildoers Maniacally United For Frightening Investments in Naughtiness). Armed with the best untested equipment L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. can supply him with, Lance will work tirelessly on his plans for global conquest, unless it's on the weekends, after 5pm or if he’s takes a personal day. Taking over the world is all fine and dandy but a good work-life balance is essential.

Rating: Everyone

Tags: Comedy, adventure,

My entry for the Plance Mini Bang over at @planceminibang

Special thank you to @oddreycharge for Beta reading this and to @perrytheplatypusgirl for making a gorgeous piece of art for this fic.

Check it here

You can read the story below or you can read it over at Archive of our Own

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19764709

Enjoy

****

Pidge, hotshot O.W.C.A. agent, arrived in her secret base in a teal smart suit, orange tie, brown fedora, and black-rimmed glasses. She sat down in her chair in front of a screen as her boss, Coran Smythe, appeared onscreen.

“Greetings, Agent P,” Coran said. “Our intelligence shows strange frequencies being transmitted from the headquarters of Lance McClain as well as “how to detect increase in bird behaviour” on his web history. Your mission is to go there and put a stop to whatever nefarious scheme he is up to. Best of luck, Agent P.”

Pidge gave a salute, climbed into her jet-powered hover car, and flew off just as her theme song was starting.

Dooby dooby doo-bah Dooby dooby doo-bah Dooby dooby doo-bah Dooby dooby doo-bah Pidge!

She's a computer savvy, tech loving lady of action! (Dooby dooby doo-bah) (Dooby dooby doo-bah) She's a scrappy young hacker, Who'll never flinch from a fray-ee-ay-ee-ay!

She's got more than just all that, Fe(Wah-ah-ah) She's got a snazzy suit and a hat, Fe(ah-ah) And the men all swoon whenever they hear her sa-a-a-ay

“Hold up, who said anything about swooning?”

She’s Pidge, Pidge the Paladin But you can call her Agent P. Pidge! I said you can call her Agent P! A-gent-P!

A short flight later, she arrived at Lance McClain Evil Incorporated by crashing through a skylight.

Waiting for her was Lance McClain in a lab coat and holding a remote.

“Ah, Pidge the Paladin, what an unexpected surprise,” Lance commented. “And by that I mean entirely expected!”

Lance pushed a button. A massive pole popped behind Pidge. Before she could react, a stream of bola flew in, tying her to the pole.

“It appears you have fallen for my cunning trap.”

“Cunning trap?” Pidge deadpanned. “This is the third time you've tried to use this thing. You even marked out on the floor where you wanted me to stand.”

“And yet, you fell for it,” Lance crowed in rebuttal.

Pidge gave as much of a shrug as her restraints allowed. “I wanted to see if you had fixed the aim on the bola launchers.”

Lance pursed his lips. “Fine, act all high and mighty tied to that pole while I enact my evil scheme.”

“And by “enact”, you mean tell some backstory to justify whatever hairbrained scheme and device you have today.”

Lance ignored this jab as he introduced his latest “tragic backstory”.

“You see, it harkens back to my miserable youth spent in my cold and unforgiving fatherland.”

“You grew up in Cuba.”

“It’s a metaphor,” Lance snapped back before continuing. "My siblings have always despised me."

"Just last week, you said Veronica was wrapped around your little finger and loved you with all her heart."

"That was last week,” Lance dismissed. “As I was saying, I was left to face the endless shame and ridicule from my elder siblings. But no more! Finally, they shall learn true terror with this: the Fowlagitationinator!”

Lance flung his arms flamboyantly towards the glorified satellite dish.

“So what exactly does it do?” Pidge asked.

“I am so very glad you asked.” Lance paused briefly as he failed to discreetly pull back his sleeve notes. “This device will emit a frequency that will increase the aggression in every bird within the city.” He read monotonously, “All urban activities will grind to a halt as everyone is terrorised by millions of feathery foes, leaving the city ripe for the taking.” His voice and arms pitched in confidence, dropping his speaker notes in the process.

“Millions?” Pidge raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re overestimating the city’s bird population.”

“I was going for dramatic effect.” Lance let out a groan. “Look, you’re here to thwart my schemes, not criticise them.”

“Fair enough,” Pidge conceded. “Speaking of thwart...”

At that moment, the restraints fell off her body.

“So, did it actually take you this long to escape, or were you waiting for me to finish talking?”

“Didn’t want to be rude.”

Pidge pounced at Lance with a jump kick. The man dodged with a last minute swivel, just barely missing Pidge’s boot. While the first strike had not connected, it had placed her between Lance and the device. He tried to throw a right hook at her. Pidge ducked and delivered a double palm strike to Lance’s abdomen.

“Your gut feels firmer,” Pidge commented. “Have you been working out?”

“Why yes, I have. Thank you for noti..Argh!” Lance was interrupted by Pidge flooring him with a roundhouse kick.

“Are you ever going to not fall for the compliment sucker punch?” The agent snorted.

She fell to ground with a yelp when Lance yanked one of her legs.

“It’s not a crime to appreciate it when you notice the effort I put into this body,” Lance replied as he stood up and wiped his mouth to check for blood. “Speaking of which, would you stop going for the face?”

“Sure.”

Lance managed to catch Pidge’s foot before it connected with his groin.

“Not what I meant.”

Lance flung Pidge by her leg across the room, causing her to hit the brick wall with a crash. He raced to press the large red button on the device. Pidge fired her grappling gun. The cable shot out, wrapping around Lance’s arm and pulling him back. He managed to get his arm free from his lab coat in time to bring his guard up against a furious onslaught of limbs.

What followed was a series of back-and-forth blows. While Lance had a higher endurance, Pidge was harder to hit. This continued unabated until he picked up a nearby chair. Pidge snatched a stool of her own.

Before either of them could take a swing, a ringtone interrupted the battle. Both Lance and Pidge put down the chairs.

“Is that your phone or mine?” Lance asked.

“Yours,” Pidge replied. “I changed my ringtone last week.”

“Huh.” Lance checked his phone. “It’s my brother. I’d better take this.”

Pidge nodded her consent as Lance answered the phone.

“Hey Luis, how’s it going?...Not too bad. Same old, same old...Yeah, she’s here to thwart my scheme...Nah, it’s fine, what’s up? Sure I can watch them tonight...not a problem at all...You’ll be here at 7? Yeah, that's fine.” Lance looked up and saw Pidge pointing to her watch. “Listen I’d better get back to work but I’ll see you tonight...Love you too.”

Lance hung up and put away the phone.

“Thanks for that, so do you want go back to chairs?”

“Nah, the moment’s gone.”

“Fair enough.”

Pidge proceeded to duck and perform a leg sweep, causing Lance to fall to the ground. As he picked himself up, Pidge raced over to the device. She pushed the self-destruct button and pulled out her grappling gun. She fired out a line, yanking herself through the skylight as the device exploded.

“CURSE YOU, PIDGE THE PALADIN!” Lance yelled.

Once he was certain was alone, he picked up a broom and started cleaning up the debris.

“You know, just once, it would be nice for her to stick around to help with the clean up.”

****

Lance had just finished sending his report to head office when the doorbell rang. He opened the door and was tackled by two blurs of energy.

“Come on you two, don’t break Uncle Lance within the first two minutes.”

“Hey, I can take it,” Lance laughed. “How about you both pick a game on the gameflux?”

At that sentence, the two raced off to where the gameflux was set up.

“I swear that thing is 90% of the reason they like me babysitting,” Lance commented.

“Well, that and the fact you usually offer pizza,” Luis said. “So you okay? You’re developing a bit of a bruise.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Lance replied. “The agent O.W.C.A. assigned to me just got a lucky hit in.”

“The compliment sucker punch?” Luis asked.

“Gets me every time.”

“You know, man, you really need to see about getting out of that franchise.”

“Eh…” Lance gave a non-committal shrug. “It’s not that bad. Besides, we both know it takes three million dollars to buy out of the place before the two years are up. I got into this mess. I can take the lumps to wait it out.”

“Just promise me you’ll stay safe.”

“Trust me it’s fine. Sure, that woman kicks my butt on a regular basis, but at least we’re keeping things professional.”

Luis rolled his eyes. “Only you would consider being punched in the face as professional.”

“Well, it kinda is her job to punch me in the face since I am technically trying to take over the city slash country slash world.”

“That sounds like the best job in the world.”

“Love you too, bro.”

With a quick hug, Luis left. 20 minutes after watching his niece and nephew screech at each other in Combat Cousins X, Lance heard the doorbell.

He answered the door. Standing there was Katie Holt, holding a couple of pizza boxes.

“Battle supplies as requested,” she said with a wink.

“Thanks, Katie. You're a lifesaver.”

“Oh please, considering the stuff I’ve seen you survive, you’re practically immortal,” Katie replied flippantly.

Lance scowled at her suspiciously. “What exactly have you seen me survive?”

“For starters, Charlene LeManche.”

“Objection withdrawn.”

Katie’s watch started vibrating.

“Excuse me.”

She stepped out onto the balcony. Satisfied that Lance had given her privacy, she activated her watch to see an image of Coran.

“Hope I’m not bothering, Agent P,” Coran said. “I just wanted to congratulate you another job well done.”

“Thanks, Coran. Though if you don’t mind, I’d better head back inside. Secret identity to maintain and all that.”

“Of course. Have a good night, Agent P.”

Katie hung up on Coran and went back inside. Tomorrow, she would probably be kicking Lance’s butt again, but she was perfectly satisfied with beating him at Pancake Dojo 2 whilst enjoying a slice of pepperoni pizza tonight.

****

It was Tuesday morning. Lance had finished his breakfast and was savouring the first sip of coffee. The blissful start was interrupted by the doorbell. He answered the door to find several men with crates.

“Morning, guys,” Lance said as he stepped aside to let the movers in.

After everything was moved into the open space “Evil Lair” area, Lance got to work opening first crate.

“Alright, let’s see what L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. cooked up for me today.”

Lance pulled out a letter from his superior. The latest device was something called the Vapourmatroninator. Apparently, there was a little extra assembly required.

After all the other crates were opened, Lance realised that that by “a little extra assembly”, they meant that this assemble would be bigger than a minivan, yet not a single piece was bigger than the palm of his hand.

“No worries. So long as the instructions are clear, I’ll just work through it piece by piece.”

Not only were the instructions incomprehensible, Lance wasn’t even sure that it was in English. After an hour of failing to make any headway, he picked up his phone.

“Hey Hunk, I need some help with building the latest world conquest machine… I know what I’m doing. It’s these instructions that make no sense...Look, can you come help me without making fun of me?...Alright, but can you still come or not?...Thanks, Hunk. You’re the best.”

****

Pidge kicked open the door to Lance McClain Evil Inc. at 4 p.m. on the dot.

She was ready to get her thwart on when she saw Hunk working on the device. He looked up to see Pidge standing there.

“Katie? What are you doing here?” Hunk asked. “And what are you wearing?”

Before Pidge could answer, Lance walked in.

“Hi Pidge, sorry I’m running a little behind so I had to call in some help.”

“Wait, this is Pidge?” Hunk asked in disbelief.

“Oh right, where are my manners?” Lance said. “Hunk, this is my nemesis Pidge. Pidge, this is my friend Hunk.”

“This is Pidge?” Hunk asked again. “As in the person that thwarts your plans daily.”

“Well, it's more of a Monday to Friday basis, gotta keep that work life balance, but yes. That’s her.” Lance answered “What’s your point?”

“Lance, that’s...argh!”

Hunk was interrupted by Pidge grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back.

“Shut up,” Pidge hissed to Hunk. “Play along and I’ll explain everything later.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, Pidge! Let him go this instant!” Lance scolded.

Pidge complied.

“Hunk doesn’t work for L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. He's just helping me out as a favour. Do whatever you want with me, but I will not have you attacking my friends!”

Pidge looked genuinely remorseful as Lance took out some money and handed it to her.

“Now you are going to say sorry to Hunk, and then you’re going to go the donut shop and pick up a dozen lemon cream-filled donuts with passionfruit sprinkles. When you get back, he should be done with the Inator and then you can thwart me.”

Pidge complied, sending Hunk one last pleading looking before heading out the door.

“Sorry about that,” Lance said to Hunk. “She honestly isn’t that bad, she’s just a little wound up at times.”

Hunk eyed Lance with utter astonishment.

“And she doesn’t remind you of anyone?” He pressed.

Lance paused thoughtfully.

“Now that you mention it, with that fedora, she kinda looks like Indiana Jones.”

“You think she looks like Indiana Jones?” Hunk asked, clearly not sure how to react.

“Kinda.”

“So when are you next due for an eye exam?”

“Next year, I think. Why?”

“Might want to move that forward.”

****

Pidge arrived with the donuts just as Hunk finished assembling the Inator. She handed them over Hunk he packed up his tools.

“Well, I better be out of your way,” he declared as he headed for the door with tools and donuts in tow.

“Leaving so soon?” Lance asked.

“Yeah, as much fun as it would be to watch you getting thwarted, I’d rather not watch the device I worked so hard on get destroyed.”

“Fair enough, catch ya later.”

Hunk shot Pidge a meaningful glance before leaving.

He hopped in the elevator and waited for the ding signalling the ground floor. Just as he exited the building, the Vapourmatroninator crashed onto the sidewalk, inches from his ears.

He could faintly hear Lance yell, “CURSE YOU, PIDGE THE PALADIN!”

****

A while later, Hunk and Pidge, in her civilian attire, were at Hunk’s favourite sandwich place. Only after he was halfway through his sandwich was he ready to address the elephant in the room.

“Alright, Katie, tell me what the heck is going on.”

“Okay.” Pidge took in a deep breath. “You remember that internship I took with a think tank? Well, that think tank is a secret government agency, and that internship is more of a field agent position.”

“So, who do you work for? The CIA?”

“No, I work for O.W.C.A., the Organisation Without a Cool Acronym.” Pidge watched Hunk raise an eyebrow. “Look, the name isn’t great, but they do good work.”

“And why exactly are you kicking Lance’s butt on a daily basis?”

“When Lance signed on to an employment contract with L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. that marked him as an ‘evil genius’, O.W.C.A. protocol is to assign an agent to be a nemesis to every evil genius. This was my first nemesis assignment, so the higher ups wanted to assign me to something lighter to chew on.”

“And the fact that you and Lance being friends isn’t against policy?”

“It would be if Lance recognised me,” Pidge explained. “I would get reassigned and he would get a new nemesis. I’ve been busting his scheme for nearly a year, and I thank whatever miracle that he still hasn’t worked out that I’m his nemesis.”

“How can he not know? All you do is put on a hat and glasses. You don’t even change your voice!”

“Look, are we really going to debate Lance’s intelligence? He has some strong suits, but he signed on to an evil organisation because their name was L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. And it took three weeks of being friends with him before he realised I was a girl.”

“To be fair, we were 12 at the time, but I see your point,” Hunk conceded. “But why stay as Lance’s nemesis? Franchise or not, you know Lance isn’t evil. Wouldn’t you rather spend your time taking down real bad guys?”

“Three reasons,” Pidge explained. “First, if I don’t do it, O.W.C.A. will send someone else, someone who will actually think he's evil. Second, Lance has been a surprisingly useful asset in undermining L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.

Any tech that fails with Lance tends to get scrapped, so stopping Lance also prevents some of the actually dangerous tech from being used by actual evil geniuses.”

“And the third?”

“Being Lance’s nemesis means that my work day is usually done by 5 and I get weekends off. Nothing wrong with appreciating a good work/life balance.”

Hunk rolled his eyes at this. “Alright, so what happens now?”

“Well it’s up to you,” Pidge explained. “Standard procedure would be to take you in to have your memory erased.”

Hunk choked on a piece of sandwich. A long sip of his drink helped him to speak again.

“Erase my memory?”

“Just the events of today,” Pidge assured him. “But if you promised to keep this secret under wraps I could conveniently forget the part where you recognised me when I file my report.”

Hunk deliberated for a moment. “Alright, I don’t like keeping this from Lance, but I’m not risking forgetting my great aunt’s banoffee pie recipe over this.”

“Thanks Hunk,” Pidge said gratefully.

“Though if you ask me, the real reason you like this gig is because you get to spend all your time with Lance.” Hunk emphasised his statement with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle.

Pidge glared at Hunk. “Don’t make me change my mind.”

“That wasn’t a no,” Hunk singsonged.

Pidge was about to respond only to let out a cough.

“You alright?”

“It’s nothing,” Pidge replied.

****

Wednesday morning was somewhat easier for Lance. The day’s Inator came in mostly assembled. So now all he had to do was wait for Pidge to arrive.

An hour later still had no Pidge. He was starting to worry. Just then, his phone rang. He answered for only to have his ear fill with the noise of hacking.

“Hey Lance,” Katie said in between coughs. “Sorry I can't make game night.”

“Jeez Katie, you don’t sound good.”

“It’s fine, just gotta rest up and I’ll recover soon.” She let out more coughs.

After hanging up with his friend, Lance felt conflicting emotions swirling in his chest. He really wanted to check on Katie, but he was also meant to be trying to take over the city in time to get thwarted.

It certainly was a dilemma.

****

Allura the Altruist was on her way home from stopping her nemesis when she got a call from Coran.

“Great work, Agent A. Though would you stopping by Lance McClain Evil Inc? Agent P is not feeling well.”

“Right away, Coran.”

Flying her car over to Lance’s evil lair, she parked her car on the roof and dropped elegantly through the sky light, ready to battle. To her surprise, the lair was completely abandoned. She then noticed a large device in plain sight with a note attached.

Dear Pidge,

Sorry I can’t be there. Had to go check on a sick friend. I’ve marked out the self destruct button. See you tomorrow.

Lance McClain

P.S. Curse you, Pidge the Paladin!

Against her better judgement, Allura pressed the marked out button. As she left the ruins of the lair, she couldn’t help but wonder if O.W.C.A should reassess Lance’s threat level.

****

“Here you are, Katie,” Lance said as he carried in a steaming bowl of soup.

“Thank you,” the sick girl wheezed as she took the soup. “You didn’t have to come over to take care of me. Don’t you have work?”

“It's all good,” Lance said dismissively. “I’ve got it covered. Besides, I wouldn’t leave you hanging.”

Katie blushed. If asked, she would claim it was fever.

****

On Thursday, a recovered Pidge arrived at Lance McClain Evil Incorporated, refreshed and ready for a day of thwarting. She flew in through an open window. As she arrived in the lair, she realised Lance wasn’t there.

“Er...hello?”

“Pidge! I’ll be right there,” Lance called out before coughing.

A dishevelled and ill-looking Lance stepped into the lair. He was still in his pyjamas and his lab coat was crooked.

“What a...an unexpected sur…” Lance started coughing again. “Sorry, think I might’ve caught something from my friend.”

Pidge looked at Lance in dismay. “You should be in bed,” she scolded.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Lance insisted. “So, behold my… achoo!.... Latest invention the...Something...inator!”

Lance gestured towards a crate that was barely even opened.

“With this I...shall take over the...world.” Lance’s half-hearted speech was shot through with more coughing.

“Lance, seriously, go to bed. I can come back and stop you tomorrow.”

“No, I flaked on you yesterday. I’m not going to do it twice.” Lance raised his fists, staggering slightly as he fought to keep balance. “Thwart me if you dare.”

Rather than fight, Pidge took hold of his hand and dragged him to the kitchen. She pushed him into a chair and silently heated up a can of chicken soup. She plopped the bowl in front of him and said, “Eat.” After making him eat all of it, she hauled him to his bedroom. She took off his lab coat and pushed him into his bed.

“There,” she quipped as she draped a blanket over him. “I’ve thwarted you. Now get some rest.”

“Curse you Pidge the...zzzzz,” Lance was asleep before he was even able to finish his sentence.

Not too long after, Katie arrived to check up on Lance.

****

Friday came as Pidge arrived at the hideout.

“Ah Pidge the Paladin, so nice to see you,” Lance greeted. “Sorry about dropping the ball the last couple of days. Still, I promise to make up for it as I unleash my TRINITY OF TERROR!”

There was a dramatic orchestra and flashes of lightning.

“Head office finally approved your effects budget?” PIdge asked.

“Why yes, thank you for noticing. Anyhoo, behold! The Degravitinator!” Lance held out a handheld, ray-gun-looking device. “Capable of disrupting the personal gravity of its victims. Behold the Plantinator!” He gestured towards a device with a large antenna. “Capable of sending out a pulse that will cause all the plants in the city area to grow at an uncontrollable rate. And finally the DX7J.” He pointed to a large cubic machine. “Capable of...something equally evil, I guess.” He noticed Pidge’s raising eyebrow. “Cut me some slack, not only did I have to finish building yesterday’s device, head office sent me two inators instead of one today. It's a miracle I know what the first two do.”

“And you had time to set up the special effects?”

“Look, are we going to fight or waste time criticizing my workplace priorities?”

Lance jumped back just in time to dodge a right hook from Pidge. He aimed the ray gun at Pidge and fired. Pidge jumped out of the way, narrowing missing the purple ray that shot out. The ray instead hit a nearby couch. It glowed purple as it started to float. Lance continued firing at Pidge. The agent kept ducking until a desk, several crates and a metal barrel were floating.

“Darn it!” Lance muttered. “Why didn’t they put a decent sight on this thing?”

Pidge leapt onto a floating crate, hoping to get high ground. She leapt to another crate to avoid the ray. She finally lunged at Lance with a flying kick. The kick hit Lance squarely in the chest before he could let out another shot. He fell back to the ground and accidentally pulled the trigger.

A purple beam shot out and hit the Plantinator. The Inator started to float in the air. Seeing her opportunity, Pidge kicked with all her might. It flew out the open balcony door. It then came to a rest between the two buildings.

Both Lance and Pidge stared at the floating Inator.

“Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was expecting,” Pidge admitted.

“Well, we can’t leave that out there,” Lance said. “Eventually, the ray will wear off, and it'll fall onto incoming traffic. I already got a citation for what happened with the Vapourmatroninator. I don’t need another.”

“Fair enough, any ideas?”

“Do you have your grappling gun?”

“In shop getting a tune up. You?”

“The winch on mine broke and I’m still waiting for the replacement to arrive. How about your hover car?”

“Came here on the moped today.”

“Fair enough.”

Lance turned a dial on the ray gun and aimed it at the floating Inator. He fired a red ray that vapourised the floating inator.

“That thing has a disintegrator setting?” Pidge asked in shock.

“Yeah, you really think that would be the main feature of this thing.”

“If it could do that, then why were you bothering with the gravity setting?”

“I’m not firing a disintegrator ray in my own lair,” Lance said indignantly.

“That’s surprisingly responsible of you.”

“Thank you.”

“Still got to destroy it.”

“Fair enough,” Lance replied as he turned the ray gun back to gravity mode.

Lance spun round, firing the ray gun at Pidge. Pidge dropped and sweeped out Lance’s legs, causing him fall flat on his back. “Nice move,” Lance said, winded but clearly impressed.

“Thanks.”

Pidge picked up the nearby raygun and smashed it against the handrail. She then started to head back inside to deal with the DX7J only for Lance to snatch her foot, tripping her up.

Lance scurried to place himself between Pidge and the DX7J.

What followed was another fist fight. Lance was holding his own until Pidge hit him with kick to the gut, knocking him backwards.

Lance bumped into the DX7J, turning it on. Sounds of moving parts and sloshing liquid echoed in the machine. Shortly afterwards, there was a loud ding and a small hatch on the device opened to reveal a cup of steaming liquid.

Curious, Lance picked up the cup and sniffed it. He then proceeded to take a sip, much to the panic of Pidge.

“False alarm,” Lance said. “This isn’t an Inator. It’s the coffee machine I ordered.”

“You ordered a coffee machine?”

“Yeah, and not just any coffee machine. This is top of the line, does everything from expressos to cappuccinos.”

“That sounds pricey.”

“I charged it to the head office,” Lance replied. “They’re an evil organisation trying to take over the world - the least they can do is fuel my caffeine addiction.” He proceeded to take another sip from his coffee.

Pidge nodded; she couldn’t really fault the logic.

“Wait, does that mean I already thwarted you?” She questioned.

Lance paused his drinking.

“Huh...I guess so...Oh well. CURSE YOU, PIDGE THE PALADIN!” He hollered before returning to his normal tone. “Do you want a coffee for the road? I’ve got a travel mug I can lend you.”

“Can that machine do a Chai Latte?”

Lance scoffed. “Do you honestly think I would charge my boss top dollar for a coffee machine that couldn’t do Chai Lattes?”

****

“So glad we managed to switch game night,” Lance said as he brought in a bowl of chips.

“I’m just glad neither of us are mucus factories anymore,” Pidge commented.

“I’m just glad I didn’t catch it,” Hunk commented. “So care to explain how all that stuff is floating?”

“Today’s evil invention was an antigravity ray.”

“Antigravity ray?” Hunk repeated in surprise. “How does that work?”

“I aimed the ray gun, pulled the trigger and then whatever got zapped with it would start floating.”

“No, I mean…” Hunk paused as the realisation of who he was talking to struck. “Nevermind.”

“I don’t get what the end game was,” Pidge commented “As cool as it is, I just don’t get how your bosses expected you to take over the world with an antigravity ray.”

“They don’t really look at how so much as they just throw whatever random idea that comes to them at me and wait to see what happens.” Lance explained. “I’m still not sure how I was supposed to take over the world with an iguana cannon.”

“Buddy, you really need to get out of this gig,” Hunk affirmed.

“Would love to, but we all know that’s not going to happen until my contract expires. Besides it's not so bad. I set my own hours, I don’t pay rent on this place and I now have a coffee machine. Speaking of coffee, you guys want one? It's pretty good.”

“I’m good,” Hunk said.

“Chai Latte, please,” Pidge requested absentmindedly.

Lance paused and stared at Pidge suspiciously.

“How do you know it can do Chai Lattes?”

“Would you honestly invest in a coffee machine that couldn’t do Chai Lattes?”

Lance let out a laugh.

“You got me there. One Chai Latte coming up."

As Lance went over to the coffee machine, Hunk turned to Pidge.

“You know, eventually, he is going to figure it out.”

“Agree to disagree,” Pidge replied as she watched Lance come back with her latte.

Lance handed to the latte to her. As she took a sip, Lance spoke.

“So guys, I’ve been wondering. Should I invite Pidge to join us for games night?”

PIdge did a spit take.

“Sorry,” she sputtered. “It’s a little hot.”

Hunk kept his composure.

“You want to invite the person whose job is to kick your butt on a daily basis to games night?”

“Alright firstly, I can hold my own just fine.”

“Have you ever stopped her from destroying your stuff?”

“Well, no, but that’s not the point,” Lance argued. “Neither of us take the whole thwarting thing personally, and she’s the closest thing I have to a work colleague that I actually like.”

“You like her?” Pidge asked, not really sure how to process this.

“Well sure, she’s skilled, self assured, witty and honestly kind of a badass,” Lance replied.

“She also wails on you almost every time you face off,” Hunk added.

“No one’s perfect,” Lance replied. “Come on, what could it hurt to ask her? If she says yes, it will be a chance to get to know her better.”

“If you feel so strongly, I think you should do it,” Pidge replied.

“What?” Hunk said in dismay.

“Great, next time I see her I’ll ask,” He looked down and realised his hands were empty. “Whoops, forgot my coffee.”

As he went to get it, Hunk turned back to Pidge.

“I know this week has been full of shocking revelations, but how do you plan to be two places at once?”

“I won’t have to,” Pidge replied. “I’ll simply say that O.W.C.A. forbids me from fraternising with supervillains outside of work.”

“You know that’s only going to be a temporary fix.”

“It will do for now,” Pidge replied. “I’ll cross that bridge when I reach it.”

“Yup,” Hunk replied. “Keep telling yourself that.”

#plance #plance au #plance mini bang #Lance #Pidge #Hunk #phineas and ferb #Lance being lance #bless him he is trying #flirtyrobot #Evil Genius Lance #Secret Agent Pidge

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scottynada · 4 years ago

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Core Set 2021 Set Review - White

Pick: 3-5 Shortcut: C+ Besides the sad flavor, I like Selfless Savior. It’s super annoying to play against since it requires your opponent to throw two removal spells at your best threat and makes it very difficult to block your big creatures. It doesn’t work super well against Black since the common removal frustratingly works around indestructible. I still think this pup plays well.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Don’t get Brushwagg fever with this one. Five mana is a lot more to activate than four and there are no mutate synergies to boost this Chorister up. Pumping this does mean that you will gain four life for your “gain three life” synergies, but even then this is one of the worst ways to get there.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I’m treating Speaker of the Heavens as a 1/1 with Vigilance and Lifelink since I don’t think there are any games that you can reasonably hit 27 life that you aren’t already crushing.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Cheap spells are nice to facilitate an aggressive draw, but this just isn’t an aggressive creature. It doesn’t even block that well. Note that it does hold +1/+1 counters, so if you have some Basri’s Acolytes and not enough early creatures to put the counters on, this might just do.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: B There are four common Dogs and two uncommon Dogs split between Red and White. Pack Leader pairs much more nicely with the Red dogs as attackers, but a 2/2 that can’t take combat damage on attacks is already pretty nice.My favorite Dog pairing is with Bolt Hound since that dog likes to attack, but rarely survives combat.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B Seasoned Hallowblade is very difficult to block or attack in to. The concept of ‘threat of activation’ is huge here. You never have to actually discard a card unless this is going to kill a creature in combat. Even when you do discard, you are spending zero mana to trade with a creature your opponent spent mana on.

Pick: 6-8 Shortcut: C Tempered Veteran is slow and has miserable stats, but can make it difficult to interact with your +1/+1 counter creatures in combat and will eventually make a huge threat. I wouldn’t see this as a pull into a +1/+1 counter themed deck, but it’s a nice pick up if you already have those synergies.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Daybreak Charger dies to everything in combat, but in an aggressive deck this can represent a lot of damage. You can throw the +2/+0 onto a flyer later in the game or enable a small creature to make an attack into a larger blocker. Don’t be afraid to cast this on turn 2 with no target for the ability.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- The flying synergies in M21 are no joke. I normally don’t like this as a 1/3 very much, but I think this will be the common flyer of choice for certain Blue/White decks.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Alpine Watchdog looks trusty, but you really don't need to take this highly. If I'm lacking two drops near the middle of the draft, I'll be happy if a couple of these find me. Note that this card has specific interaction with Alpine Houndmaster. I think the Houndmaster combo is quite good, so this goes up a lot in value if you pick up a Houndmaster.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D It’s a flash bear.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Oof, I’m not huge on White’s three drops in M21. I think Celestial Enforcer is fine. It is very good when things are going according to plan for your flying deck, but this doesn’t perform well in every White deck. If your opponent removes your flyers you are also left with a mediocre body.'

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Vryn Wingmare used to be a rare in Magic Origins, but I don’t think it’s amazing. You can skew your deck to be less affected by the noncreature taxing ability, but I only expect it to be backbreaking versus the deck that is based around cheap draw spells and the draw synergies lying around.

Pick: 7+ Shortcut: C- When you are curving out, Makeshift Battalion gets the job done. Same with Celestial Enforcer, when your plan gets disrupted, you won’t even be able to leverage your +1/+1 counter synergies because getting the counter in the first place is so conditional.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D In what board state is this swinging in for huge amounts of damage without being easily blocked by a small creature and results in you getting attacked back for too much? I think this wants to be paired with evasiono or +1/+1 counters. It’s risky to tap your blockers just to send this creature in.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I love walls. If this had 4 toughness rather than 3, I’d be hot on Warded Battlements. As is, this doesn’t block well enough to live the dream of sitting behind this and crunching in for a bunch of extra damage with flyers. You can try it, but I think you’d rather just have something with stats.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Lots of stats. Don’t need other +1/+1 counters to make this good. Pick this.

Pick: 1-2 Shortcut: A Mangara doesn’t do much in the way of attacking, but it does slow the game down and pretty much halt any aggression towards you. After you cast this, your opponent probably just develops the board slowly and draws until they can point a removal at this. Meanwhile you are unhampered and can hopefully find some way to pull far ahead.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: C+ Basri’s Acolyte adds a lot of stats for just four mana and a pretty good blocker to boot. The +1/+1 counters can be seen as haste power that sometimes allows you to make attacks that you wouldn’t have had previously. This is a big board impact at common for White, so expect turn 4 to be pivotal when White is involved in the match. This card’s existence alone is enough to make it much better to trade off creatures early against White aggro.

Pick: 3-4 Shortcut: C+ Gale Swooper is decent stats with a conditional burn attached. White really has some powerhouse four drops at common. Like Basri’s Acolyte, this one also benefits from having creatures on the field, so make sure to trade off with White creatures while you can.

Pick: 4-6 Shortcut: C Falconer Adept is White’s worst four drop?! This card isn’t even bad. If you get two attacks in, you are getting great value. Look for ways to assist the Falconer in combat since a 2/3 attacker is not strong by the time this can attack. Combat tricks, evasion and +1/+1 counters will be key.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Lotus Cobra, untap, fetch land, turn 3 Baneslayer Angel, your move.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B After collecting its trophy for most ridiculous (read:best) card name in M21, Syr Gagglemaster proved itself to be a beefy flyer quite good at winning race situations with only a weakness in blocking.

Pick: 5-8 Shortcut: C- Putting 5/5 worth in stats on the board immediately is pretty decent. You don’t need many five drops in general, but Valorous Steed will never be embarrassing.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D This is not a set where every deck will have great artifacts and enchantments to roll over, but if you see a couple good hits, bring this in from the sideboard and it will be good.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D There are some synergies in this set with drawing cards, but I don’t think that pushes this over the edge of being a great include. It’s not super impactful and feels very bad when your creature gets removed in response.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D The Sanctum of Tranquil Light counts itself, so the ability will at most cost five mana. I don’t want to pay five mana to tap things. I don’t want to pay four mana to tap things. Three isn’t even that great - and you can only get there if you hit the jackpot with Shrines.

Pick: 2-4 Shortcut: B I think the payoff for Griffin Aerie is strong enough to take this card early and build around it. Gaining three life is not as simple to put together as just gaining any amount of life, so be on the lookout for cards that get you there on their own.

Pick: 3-6 Shortcut: C+ The normal issue with cards like Swift Response that deal with tapped creatures is that they can never clear out blockers when you are the aggressive White deck. However, it looks like White does a lot of its aggression in the air in M21, which raises the stock on this.

Pick: 4-6 Shortcut: C Feat of Resistance is a very strong trick. It makes sure your creature never dies in combat, even if your opponent has a combat trick of their own. It can protect your creature versus removal. On top of all that it permanently boosts your creature afterwards. There are even +1/+1 counter synergies here. Great trick that will define how you interact with two open White mana.

Pick: 6-8 Shortcut: C- Runed Halo will play out like an aura that prevents a creature from attacking you. It will still be able to block just fine. The dream of hitting multiple creatures with this is very unlikely, but will happen a couple times throughout the format. Send me your sweet screenshots of blanking your opponent’s army.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C The dream is to add something like 10/10 worth of stats can comepletely crush your opponent with your two mana card, but Basri's Solidarity will rarely play out like that. The most likely scenario is that you curve out with 2-3 creatures, then cast this to enable a couple of your creatures to make attacks where they wouldn't be able to otherwise. It's low mana cost also makes it a pretty good double spell with another cheap creature. It's not bad, but expect this to be a nice aggressive curveout card rather than a token go-wide payoff.

Pick: 6+ Shortcut: C Angelic Ascension is not how you want to be answering your opponent's dangerous threats. A 4/4 angel is pretty close to a must answer threat, so replacing one must answer threat with another doesn't really get you very far. This is honestly going to be very frustrating to lose to, since I think the best mode for this card is to play a one drop, then exile it on turn two and hope your opponent doesn't have an answer to your angel.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I kinda like Revitalize here. That being said I think you want to be wheeling these if you find yourself in the life gain archetype. Gaining three life is important and honestly not the easiest to do in this set, so a card that triggers all your life gain payoffs on its own is valuable.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A All these "Basri's" cards are great. Why wouldn't Basri be great too? You want an assertive deck with a curve that can reliably get a creature out before you cast Basri, but it's really not a big deal. Basri will be powerful even if your deck isn't maximised for it.

Pick: 1 Shortcut: A Glorious Anthem is one of those cards that your opponent casts and you just know it’s going to be an uphill battle. This will add a lot of stats throughout a normal match and is only really dead if you have no creatures at all. Don’t fill your deck up with cards that don’t effect the board and you will be rewarded.

Pick: 4-7 Shortcut: C- Idol of Endurance is more of a five drop than a three drop. You will basically never cast this on turn three and want at least two creatures exiled to be reasonably happy. I see this is a pretty similar to some effects that Black gets, but unlike the Black cards you won't always be able to get back your best creatures. As far as card advantage goes, this has a pretty high best case scenario, but this isn’t a bomb or anything.

Pick: Nyan Shortcut: F Nine Lives will buy you a couple turns if you manage to cast it at a low enough life without dying unexpectedly first. I don't think this will ever be worth it over any card that more proactively progresses your game plan. After you cast this, it also gives your opponent the power to decide how quickly they want to take your lives, so you don't even get the surprise factor of Instant speed life gain.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D There is a minor “4 power matters” theme in M21, but I still wouldn’t feel excited about starting this card in the main deck. I think you most want to play this if it is covering a weakness of your deck, like if you are an aggressive White deck that has no other ways of dealing with your opponent’s one large blocker on turn 5 or so.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D Dubbing your two drop and attacking every turn is a pretty fragile game plan. It’s also a gameplan that sometimes just works. If your deck power level is low, adding a high variance card like Dub is sometimes your best option to beat stronger decks before they can get rolling.

Pick: 9+ Shortcut: D I know I just want to slap this on a lifelinker and make a huge monster, but Light of Promise is slow, risky, and conditional.

Pick: 1-2 Shortcut: B Faith’s Fetters is no joke. The life gain text triggers all the payoffs in M21 and can help buy you a real turn to stabilize if you are getting beaten down. This answers most problematic permanents, including planeswalkers.

Pick: 4-8 Shortcut: C- Secure the Scene is a nice catch-all answer to have, but it will rarely be exciting. In an aggressive deck, clearing out a blocker is awkward because they can still save some life with the 1/1 Soldier. This works best if you are just looking to play the long game and need to answer a wide variety of threats from the opponent.

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nightshadedawn · 5 years ago

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Persona 6 Concept Part 7

{First} {Previous} {Next} {Last}

I should really be adding in more concrete parts, especially in the puzzles and things they have to solve in the dungeons. I just... Don’t know what would work? I’m not a game developer; I’m a story writer. Anyway, all we’ve got this time is plot, so let’s get right into it!

Plot/Playthrough

July 22: Avis will convince you to sneak away from your duties and into the Endless Forest, as there has been a rise in infected victims and corrupted cores that you need to take care of NOW. You meet The Plague, and find out Hoshiko has followed you.

July 23 - 25: You and your friends try to talk to Hoshiko, but she’s in too much of a stupor for it.

July 26: It becomes apparent that Hoshiko’s core is corrupted and that she has a palace. You enter the palace, Hoshiko following once again, and she awakens her Persona.

July 27 - August 12: Your available days to complete Hoshiko’s palace before it kills her.

August 13: Hoshiko is released from the hospital.

August 14: School starts up again. Hoshiko joins the others at school. You meet Jun and stop him from hitting Hoshiko after she rejects him.

August 15 - 17: No free time. You and your friends escort Hoshiko everywhere when it becomes apparent Jun is still trying to push the issue. He challenges you to a fight, which you can either just brush off or deny. Either way, you won’t fight him.

August 18: You expect it to be like before, but Jun keeps his distance and resumes his princely persona.

August 19: It’s finally time for Hoshiko’s release party. The party is interrupted by Jun fighting outside, beating another guy to a pulp.

August 20: This is the first day you see Jun again, back at his princely persona.

August 21: Free day.

August 22: An argument breaks out in the team whether or not to heal Jun’s corrupted core. Jun follows you into the waterfall and awakens his Persona.

August 23 - September 13: You allotted time to save Jun.

September 14: Jun returns to school.

September 15: Jun’s release party.

September 16 - 20: The Tokyo trip. There’s something amiss with Shinju…

September 21 - 23: You will have strange dreams; some nightmares, some with The Plague, and some in the Velvet Room. All seems to have warnings foreshadowing events to come.

September 24: Dr. Ueda comes to the school to give an announcement that the town is on lock down and quarantined.

We begin the story again on September 24.

There is obvious outrage from the students and the parents of the students who have comes to witness this. Masahiko’s father immediately tries to drag Masahiko away, but is stopped by the law enforcement. Dr. Ueda explains that since Masahiko was one of the ones who was sent to the hospital because of the virus, he can’t be allowed to leave town until they’ve found a cure for the virus and/or have secured the knowledge that Masahiko isn’t carrying it and could infect someone else.

An announcement is made that over the next week, everyone in town will be seen by the doctors so it can be ensured whether they’ve been infected or not, and how far along they are in their illness. Everyone is given a time to show up for their examination, though are told to go in immediately if they suddenly worsen.

Yuuki and Haruka go in for their examination the first day and you’ll wait with Haruka and Shinju in the waiting room for him to get his results. The next day, Yuuki goes back to work but you return for your own examination, along with Sayaka and Yūdai. The third day, you go with the second years. The fourth, you go with Shinju and Hoshiko. With both Haruka and Yuuki being busy, Shinju asks you to come with her into the exam room.

It’s during the exam that you fully notice her darkened core. As a note, and this is important, you’ve been leveling up her social link this entire time. I’ve decided that since you live with Shinju, it’d be kinda difficult to not get close to her, Especially considering she’d need a little help getting around sometimes. So, yeah. Plot ranking!

Moving on, it’s obvious to both you and Hoshiko what the result of her examination will be. Obviously, she’s been infected. Everyone has. But she’s also been corrupted.

On the fifth day of examinations, Dr. Ueda will call you back to his office. He’s confused, worried, skeptical. You are the only one in the entire town who is not infected. Everyone, within months if not weeks, gets infected as soon as they come to town. But you have remained virus free.

That’s not totally true, he admits. You were infected once, back as a child. But now you’re not, when no one else has managed to find a cure. But as you can’t tell him about your special abilities, you can’t exactly answer him about what he wants to know. (He wants to save everyone, but you can’t do that either; even completely curing one person, a small child, killed your mother). He lets you go, but the day has given you too much to think about, so you go to bed early instead of doing anything that night.

In the middle of the night, in a rare moment of cellphone activity, Hoshiko will text you, asking about how Shinju’s doing. She’ll admit that Shinju’s always been kinda lonely and left out, though a little livelier since you arrived. The contrast between how Shinju acts right after seeing you or knowing she’ll see you again soon is vastly different to how she acts the rest of the time. While most kids would be excited and essatic to be exempt from cleaning duties or other classroom chores, Shinju was dubbed unable to do them, and might even consider herself USELESS because of it.

Shinju is really one of the only physically disabled characters in this story, but it’s terrible to make her character about that. It’s just another attribute to who she is, so perhaps her illness isn’t her paralysis, it’s her feelings of inferiority that stem from her paralysis. An Inferiority Complex.

Anyways, the conversation goes that Hoshiko brings up that Shinju might have a Palace. She doesn’t know, they’d have to look for Shinju’s Shadow in the Endless Forest first. Not that they need to bother. The MC gets another dream, with The Plague visiting them again in their dreams, and challenging them.

He’s trapped Shinju’s Shadow somewhere they’ll never reach it. She’ll die as punishment for you and your friends interfering with his experiments. It basically solidifies that yes, she has a Palace.

In the morning, Shinju will talk to you after Yuuki and Haruka leave for the day. She’ll confront you about how all your friends were infected and hospitalized, and yet they survived. She asks if she’ll die and begin crying because she’s scared she’s going to do so, but she doesn’t want to die. Then she asks you to save her. She begs you to do the same thing you did for the others and make sure she doesn’t die.

A some point in this conversation, you’ll decide that she needs to go with you, and you’ll take her into the forest to the waterfall with you after notifying the others to meet up. Basically everyone will say it’s a bad idea, she’s in a wheelchair, you don’t know what her Palace is like, she doesn’t have a Persona… but some will argue that everyone else has been there to face their Corruptions and Shadows. That this is too big to leave her out of. If anyone knows the layout of a mind, it’s the owner of it. In this case, Shinju.

Point being that there’s absolutely no way Shinju would have wheeled herself out into the forest and up the path to behind the waterfall by herself. That’s something she’d probably need help with, and this way, she’s made to feel useful already, even without the Persona yet.

Anyways, they get into the Palace. Shinju starts leading them through it, because she can feel the tug of her Shadow. However, the team’s stopped by her Corrupted Paralysis/Inferiority. It brings her down, points out how useless she is, how she’ll always be passed over for someone who’s capable, someone who’s ABLE. It doesn’t matter how smart or talented she is, that’ll never change.

Shinju will fight back and eventually awaken her Persona. I kinda feel like I want it to take the form of something that’ll make it easier to go around on so she’s not always trying to wheel her chair and it’s easier to keep up with the rest, but having a regular Persona would probably be fine too.

Anyways, you’ll have to exit the Palace quickly after that to prevent yourselves from getting all frozen in Shinju’s arctic wasteland. Everything gets explained to Shinju, and during the conversation, you all agree to start wear your winter weekend clothing to prevent getting too cold in the other world, changing after you get out of school and before you go meet up with the others.

From October 1 to October 22 you will go through the motions of trying to save Shinju. And literally EVERYTHING about this Palace has gone up in difficulty. The last Palace was maybe a six, but this one is a ten. The Plague is doing his damndest to keep you from reaching Shinju’s Shadow, and her Corruption is doing a fine job of that already.

As stated before, Shinju’s Palace is an arctic wasteland. Snow blows constantly, and there will be parts where you’ll be going through blind due to a whiteout. (Think Nijima’s Casino, where you had to go through the maze)

You’ll eventually reach an abandoned fortress and have to go through it to reach the middle. There will be broken parts and parts that are too frozen shut that you can’t get through, even with fire spells.

Getting to the middle of the fortress will lead you to somewhere underground, and this will be where you find Shinju’s Shadow. She is basically melded to the wall in a reference to Persona 3. Before you can even get to her Shadow, Shinju’s Corruption attacks and the final battle begins.

The battle will be won, as it must be, and the MC, Sayaka, and Yūdai go to break Shinju’s Shadow off the wall so the MC can heal her. But the Plague appears from the shadows and grabs onto Sayaka as the MC and Yūdai pull the Shadow down. The Plague injects Sayaka with something, a black liquid, and she screams out in pain. At this time, he says something about having the real body rather than the Shadow self being an interesting variable to consider.

The others turn towards the scream, but are too late to notice the power coming towards them from The Plague. Avis takes the entirety of the blast, and The Plague leaves in a huff. Avis dies with all the others surrounding her, literally going up in flames. Fire catches on everything, but the MC takes the small, newborn Phoenix born from the ashes.

They barely make it out of the fortress before Avis’s fire and sacrifice burns everything around them. The baby bird is Avis, yet not. This new Phoenix is a child while Avis was obviously a dignified lady. This new Baby Avis can only slightly remember the previous Avis (though, no mater your gender, she will call you Mother).

After you take Shinju home that night, she requests to go to the hospital for further treatment. So Yuuki will drive you and Haruka out there with her to check her in. Dr. Ueda promises she’ll be in good hands before leading her away.

The only thing left will be to wait for October 24, when Shinju returns home. That same day, there’s a release party for her, but then the team decides to go to the hotsprings to ‘thaw out after that arctic disaster.’ You’ll go that night and spend all of the 25 there, and again into the night. You’ll leave early the morning of the 26 to return home in time for school.

During this trip, Sayaka will express worry about what The Plague did to her, and you can choose to side with her and be worried or try to calm her nerves and say it can’t be that bad. Nevertheless, collectively as a team, you’ll eventually be able to calm her nerves and get her to enjoy the trip.

October 27 begins prep for the cultural festival, and you’ve only got a week to do it (maybe less). November 2 begins your Cultural Festival, and for the next five days, it’s nothing but scripted fun with your social links. While it’s held at the school and is mostly used for the students to show off their team work, it’s ended up a tradition for the whole town to get in on it.

Day 1: The market. While markets are usually big for this town, this one is huge and has games like bobbing for apples and the dunk tank. You’ll be able to meet Hiroki, Hiroko, Mizuki, Dr. Udea, and Tsubasa during this event. You can win the bobbing for apples and dunk tank if you have high proficiency and guts.

Day 2: The barbeque. Food is good, and so are eating contests. You’ll be able to hang out with Sayuri, Natsuki, Yota, Masaru, and Akemi on these days. Having high charm, kindness, and knowledge will allow you to serve a good dish at the barbeque and will please your social links. Natsuki/Yota will battle you in the eating contest, and it all depends on how high your guts, proficiency, and knowledge are as to which of you will win. You’ll also be able to see Yūdai, who is a judge for this contest. He’s abstaining from things so incredibly unhealthy for him and would enable him to easily get back into his bad habits.

Day 3: Yuuki and Haruka catch a play that some of the middle schoolers decided to put on. I feel like it should be a reference to one of the ORIGINAL Persona games. Hasn’t been one of those in a while.

Day 4: After your shift at the haunted hallway is done, you and your teammates all get together and wander around the school and booths. Miyako casually mentions that the vibe of the festival is different from before; Yūdai agrees with her. Even though it seems happy now, usually it’s much more upbeat. And Sayaka’s worrying doesn’t do much to help the team’s mood either. She’s quite obviously hiding something, but you never get the chance to bring it up.

Day 5: Having looked at everything and experienced everything, there’s not much else to do. There’s a few small things, and the gang parts with the excuse of spending time with other friends and/or family. The MC gets a text from one (or two!) of their datemates and they go through the haunted house together. If not with the datemates, with Shinju, Yuuki, and Haruka.

It is after this fiasco that you and your chosen teammate goes back to the gym where there’s a large game of truth or dare being played. You’ll have the choice of asking Sayaka, Shinju, or Masaru a few choice questions (they’ll all choose truth) about their love lives or deepest secrets.

After this, it’s your turn to answer truth. And no, you don’t get the option. (“I choose truth.” versus “I choose dare.” “Alright, then I dare you to tell us who you’re dating!”)

Here’s how it goes depending on your relationship status:

If you’re single, everything goes fine, but everyone’s disappointed.

If you’re dating one person, well, you just outed your relationship and there’s wolf whistles galore and a bit of teasing, but besides that, it’s all good.

If you’re in a consensual triad, then whoever you answered will blush and be awkward, but the other will pipe up with an “And me!” proclamation before kissing the other significant other on the cheek.

If it’s not consensual or you’re dating more than two people, there will be fighting. Everyone will be arguing, and everything will turn nasty very quickly. You get the hell out, but are later lectured about harem infighting by Yuuki and how you’re supposed to treat your lover right and all that good shit. However, there are really no nasty repercussions.

If you are dating consensually, it will be implied that after the game you snuck off for some sex with your lover(s).

Be lucky that you have November 7 off and November 8 is a Sunday. If you pissed off your lovers, they won’t interact with you for those two days, but afterwards, things will move along as normal.

November 9, you will get a call from Dr. Ueda. Sayaka has been admitted to the hospital.

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