#Stock Market Fantasy Game

[vijay01]

Stock Fantasy Game Trading App engage users in stock market activities without the risks associated with real trading.successful stock fantasy game trading app, developers must incorporate advanced features and techniques that enhance user experience, best techniques for stock fantasy game trading app.Like Integration of Real-Time Market Data,AI-Powered Portfolio Suggestions, Social Trading Integration

[blorbofrommyshows]

it’s Christmas now

[tradingleagues]

How Do Fantasy Games Help To Earn Real Money? 

Would you like to earn money while also having fun? A good way to do this is to play fantasy stock market games. These games are designed to help you earn money and have fun while also learning about the stock market. Check it out: How Do Fantasy Games Help To Earn Real Money?

[wanderingtycho]

By far one of my favorite things about the way Disco Elysium handles politics is that Libertarianism is treated as an absolute joke. Like the game is obviously sympathetic towards communists, but there are elements of sympathy towards the moralists and fascists as well. Not sympathy in the sense of “oh can’t we all just get along, we’re all human” BS, but sympathy in the sense that you are able to understand a persons thought process that would lead them to embrace moralism or fascism. Even if that thought process is deeply flawed, and leads to horribly off kilter conclusions, going through the centrist and fash quests gives you meaningful insight into the appeal of those ideologies.

But Ultraliberalism? The game just laughs at you, repeatedly and mercilessly. As it should, you’re a cop so poor a guy you’ve known for one day has to pawn some fancy hubcaps so you can afford rent, yet all you talk about is your grindset. Your hustle, how you’re gonna disrupt the market and groove your way into the lap of luxury. It’s delusion, utter stark raving madness, and characters treat you as such.

Kim is at a loss for words whenever you crank on your libertarian spiel, Evrart calls you a retard, you have to *trick* the mega-rich light bending guy into giving you mercury mining stocks because he’s simply too perplexed by you. Joyce, last of the self identified Ultras, doesn’t take you seriously. Sileng just goes along with it the same way he goes along with any of the other nonsense you can spout, because he’s on his own hustle, and there is no loyalty among charlatans. The only character who is wholeheartedly onboard with the money engineering and the visionary wave making lifestyle is literally named IDIOT DOOM SPIRAL.

But you see, all these things are just incidental, where the game makes it most potent jab at libertarians is when the vision quest stops. Notice I said *stop* not *end*. The communist quest line ends with a Rhetoric check in order to ask The Most Important Question about Communism. The fascist quest has you look yourself in the eye with an Endurance check to see if you can stomach the truth about yourself and your Vöws. The moralist quest ends with a heart wrenching Empathy check as you beg the iron grey and soulless enforcers of the status quo to please god help this district before war breaks out in the streets. There’s real personal stakes for Harry in all these disparate paths he can walk, what does Ultraliberalism get?

You and Kim look at a statue covered in tinsel and disco balls, Kim asks you why you went through with all this, and no matter what response you pick he’s like “Right, yeah, okay. Anyway, let’s finish the case.”

That’s it, no grand moment of pathos, no red Savoir Faire skill check to see if you really are the baddest hustler in the neoliberal hood after all. It’s completely limp, flaccid, lackluster. The game treats all the effort you put into this as exactly what it is: sad, cringe fantasies of a poor old man who’s huffing copium over the embarrassed millionaire mythos.

Disco Elysium doesn’t give libertarianism a poignant, profound conclusion because it’s an ideology undeserving of such treatment. It’s a hyper-capitalist cult mentality of toxic positivity and confirmation bias, a way for desperate people to trick themselves and other chumps into thinking they can bootstrap their way into wealth and prestige. It goes past wishful thinking into pure delirium, the game doesn’t engage with it seriously because it doesn’t have to, the only people who sincerely believe any of its tenants are morons and the clowns who sucker them.

[distinguisheddwarffriend]

Today on Hobbit-Headcanons:

What would the company of Thorin Oakenshield enjoy about the Modern World?

One of my WIP transports the company to our world shortly before they're supposed to reach Rivendell, and into the apartment of my OFC.

So here is a list of things I think each character would enjoy about the Modern World:

Thorin: Google Maps, Siri (will totally argue with her like she's real), Shows like The Crown, Game of Thrones, but also Bridgerton, Democracy (yes you read that correctly), Rock music

Fili: Birth Control (can finally fuck around without risking the royal lineage), Superhero Movies (has an huuuhe crush on Black Widow), Tinder, Martial Arts, Feminism, Henley shirts to show of his muscles, bars & clubs

Kili : TikTok (LOVES cat videos, Top Content Creator about Archery, 'deep thoughts'/rambling, 'prank my uncle/brother with me', does EVERY challenge, accidental thirsttraps & flustered by the comments), Parkour, Man Buns & (Hipster-) Fashion, LGBTQ+ - Community , karaoke bars, team sports, the zoo

Bofur: modern music (especially pop songs with dirty lyrics), Tumblr (is no. 1 shit-poster), music festivals, arts&crafts blogs, Christopher's Streets Day

Bifur: Google Translate, Modern Medicine, Pain Medication, ASL, RomComs (trust me), helps out in an animal shelter, country music

Bombur: Cooking Shows (has his own Online Show), Kindergarten (he had so many children, the reprieve would be SO appreciated), international foodstuff to try

Dwalin: Guns, MMF, store-bought cookies, sport shows (AGRESSIVE fan for whatever team he randomly picks), Barbecues

Balin: Twitter (the political possibilities!!!), mental healthcare (he's sending the whole line of Durin he had no time for their shit), Spa Days, public schools, classical music

Oin: Modern Medicine (Duh), hearing aids, physiotherapy

Gloin: bitcoins, the stock market, Facebook (posts daily about Gimli)

Dori: hair tutorials, fashion shows, tracking devices (has totally microchipped a drunk Nori at some point)

Nori: hacking, movies with the lovable rogue as the MC (Pirates of the Carribbean, Deadpool etc.), spy movies (duh), the mafia (yes, he becomes a boss within weeks)

Ori: Wikipedia, public libraries, tutorials for EVERYTHING (knitting, cutting your own hair, how to talk to royalty, fancy war cries, you name it), fantasy novels, public schools

Bilbo: Food blogs, the "ignore call"-button, Instagram, university (will mayor in at least three subjects), museums

Gandalf: the Internet as a whole, email/ instant messaging, yard sales, modern weed, museums (has a knack for finding cursed items), adventure movies (after watching Indiana Jones he seriously debated obtaining a whip)

[ultimate-anime-tournament]

THE ULTIMATE ANIME TOURNAMENT BEGINS! featuring 384 shows spanning 60 years!

all matchups are listed below the cut, and the first polls will be going up shortly 👍

edit: made a google spreadsheet documenting all matchups and their wins/losses!

left side:

Majokko Megu-chan VS Soul Eater VS Turn A Gundam

Noragami VS Ranma 1/2 VS Shadows House

Captain Tsubasa VS Barakamon VS Ojamajo Doremi

Dr Ramune: Mysterious Disease Specialist VS Joshiraku VS Concrete Revolutio

Maya the Honey Bee VS Bocchi the Rock! VS Senyuu.

Angel Beats VS Golden Kamuy VS Initial D

Lucky Star VS Mononoke VS Assassination Classroom

Go! Princess Pretty Cure VS Shirobako VS Space Pirate Captain Harlock

Golden Time VS Death Note VS Ao Haru Ride

Food Wars VS One Piece VS Space Battleship Yamato

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K VS Blood Blockade Battlefront VS Poco's Udon World

Space Patrol Luluco VS Yu-Gi-Oh! VS Your Lie in April

Slam Dunk VS One Punch Man VS Candy Candy

Doraemon VS Akame ga Kill VS Black Clover

Space Dandy VS Sazae-san VS Bloom into You

Show by Rock!! VS Pokémon VS Restaurant to Another World

Uchouten Kazoku VS Tetsujin 28 VS Miracle Girl Limit-chan

Sally the Witch VS March Comes in Like a Lion VS Ground Defense Force! Mao-chan

Day Break Illusion VS Heidi, Girl of the Alps VS Zombie Land Saga

Yuri is My Job! VS Kimagure Orange Road VS The Seven Deadly Sins

Akudama Drive VS Future Boy Conan VS Land of the Lustrous

BanG Dream! VS Rin-ne VS Serial Experiments Lain

Snow White with the Red Hair VS Juni Taisen: Zodiac War VS The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Ranking of Kings VS Osomatsu-san VS Odd Taxi

Flying Witch VS Bodacious Space Pirates VS Shugo Chara

Yuki Yuna is a Hero VS Super Dimension Fortress Macros VS Spy x Family

Magic Kaito 1412 VS Kaguya-sama: Love is War VS Kingdom

Aikatsu VS Cells at Work VS New Game!

Blue Exorcist VS Sound! Euphonium VS Ashita no Joe

Re:Zero VS My Hero Academia VS Pani Poni Dash

Ouran High School Host Club VS Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai VS Children of the Whales

86 vs Erased vs Demon Slayer

Mashle vs Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt vs Bakemonogatari

Skip and Loafer vs Shiki vs My-Hime

Laughing under the Clouds VS Naruto VS Sakura Wars

The Vampire Dies in No Time VS Dragon Ball GT VS Fist of the North Star

Shadowverse VS Blue Lock VS Tamako Market

Legend of the Galactic Heroes VS Lycoris Recoil VS Tanaka-kun is Always Listless

Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple VS Sonic X VS Samurai Champloo

Cutie Honey VS Tokyo Revengers VS Parasyte

Kaiji VS Deca-Dence VS Clannad

I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss VS Digimon Adventure VS Charlotte

Kageki Shojo!! VS Majuu Senshi Luna Varga VS Stars Align

Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions VS Gintama VS Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits

Bubblegum Crisis VS Air VS Made in Abyss

Touch VS Fire Force VS Love Live! Sunshine!!

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer VS Sket Dance VS Himitsu no Akko-chan

Zatch Bell VS Little Witch Academia VS Gal & Dino

Parappa the Rapper VS Life with an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout (Fabiniku) VS Talentless Nana

Nyanbo! VS Bomberman Jetters VS Do It Yourself!

Kochikame: Tokyo Beat Cops VS Nobody's Boy Remi VS Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Chika Ichiban VS Squid Girl VS Anne of Green Gables

Ikkyuu-san VS The Case Study of Vanitas VS Free!

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story VS Chihayafuru VS So I'm a Spider, So What?

Aggretsuko VS Hakumei and Mikochi VS Mou Ippon

What's Michael VS Kimono Jihen VS Kiratto Prichan

Mushishi VS Uma Musume VS Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Sabikui Bisco VS Dorohedoro VS The World Ends With You: The Animation

Un-Go VS The Case Files of Jeweler Richard VS Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure

Sonny Boy VS Tiger & Bunny VS Black Butler

A Place Further than the Universe VS Lupin III (all Parts) VS Tsuritama

Tari Tari VS Maoyu VS Buddy Daddies

Horimiya VS Akiba Maid War VS Cap Revolution Bottleman

Helck VS Play it Cool, Guys VS Revolutionary Girl Utena

right side:

Gegege no Kitarou VS Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood VS Urahara

D.Gray-Man VS Bakuman VS Devilman

Violet Evergarden VS Death Parade VS Speed Racer

Skull Face Bookseller Honda-san VS Mazinger Z VS Planetes

Aim for the Ace! VS Futari wa Pretty Cure VS Saiunkoku Monogatari

Comic Girls VS Galaxy Express 999 VS Dr. Slump

Wedding Peach VS Ronja, the Robber's Daughter VS Haikyuu!

Saint Seiya VS Mahoutsukai Chappy VS Yuri on Ice

Hikaru no Go VS Yona of the Dawn VS Mega Man NT Warrior

Black Lagoon VS Nichijou VS Space Cobra

Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles VS Stop! Hibari-kun VS She and Her Cat: Everything Flows

Space Brothers VS Gakuen Alice VS Dragon Ball Z

AKB0048 VS Kino's Journey -The Beautiful World- VS Musashi no Ken

Flip Flappers VS Hamtaro VS Daily Lives of High School Boys

Another VS Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju VS Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon

Gurren Lagann VS Hana no Ko Lunlun VS City Hunter

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water VS Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun VS To Your Eternity

Kiteretsu Daihyakka VS Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun VS Noir

Bungo Stray Dogs VS Soreike! Anpanman VS Moomin

Hajime no Ippo VS Paranoia Agent VS Mobile Suit Gundam

Maison Ikkoku VS Yuru Camp VS Sherlock Hound

Great Pretender VS Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress VS World Trigger

Little Princess Sara VS Ghost Sweeper Mikami VS Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!

My Next Life as a Villainess VS Kirby: Right Back at Ya! VS Air Gear

Saint Tail VS Haibane Renmei VS Astro Boy

Crayon Shin-chan VS Tokyo Ghoul VS Hell Girl

Heaven's Design Team VS Neon Genesis Evangelion VS Kiznaiver

Servamp VS Akane-chan VS Yo-kai Watch

The Vision of Escaflowne VS Tsurune VS Sk8 the Infinity

The Promised Neverland VS Hime-chan no Ribbon VS Fruits Basket

Urusei Yatsura VS Dr. Stone VS Shaman King

Star of the Giants VS Cardcaptor Sakura VS Angelic Layer

Berserk VS Kodocha VS Ping Pong The Animation

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's VS Boys over Flowers VS Otherside Picnic

Monster VS Sgt. Frog VS K-On!

Aria VS The Rose of Versailles VS Beyblade

Natsume's Book of Friends VS Planet With VS Detective Conan / Case Closed

Nodame Kantaabire VS Kyou Kara Maoh VS Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

Duel Masters VS Shounen Ninja Kaze no Fujimaru VS Hunter x Hunter

Mahou Shoujo Lalabel VS Carole & Tuesday VS Powerpuff Girls Z

Big Windup! VS Heartcatch Pretty Cure! VS Fighting Foodons

Gosick VS Ace Attorney VS Inazuma Eleven

Given VS The Prince of Tennis VS Cowboy Bebop

Code Geass VS Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! VS FLCL

Wolf's Rain VS Reborn! VS Princess Tutu

Magic Knight Rayearth VS Romeo x Juliet VS Oshi no Ko

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo VS Bakugan VS Jujutsu Kaisen

Yu Yu Hakusho VS Love Live! School Idol Project VS Trigun

Kimba the White Lion VS Waccha Primagi VS Toradora

Ultra Maniac VS Mahou Sensei Negima VS Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

Visual Prison VS Steins;gate VS Inuyasha

Vinland Saga VS Assault Lily Bouquet VS Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

Pop Team Epic VS Gingitsune VS Tokyo Mew Mew

Blue Period VS Higurashi When They Cry VS Fairy Tail

Chargeman Ken VS Shin Sekai Yori VS Chainsaw Man

Beyond the Boundary VS Silver Spoon VS Hyouka

Stitch! VS Mobile Suit Gundam SEED VS Symphogear

Kuroko's Basketball VS Pokemon Horizons VS Gatchaman Crowds

Ghost Stories VS Non Non Biyori VS Samurai Flamenco

Fushigi Yuugi VS Psycho-Pass VS Azumanga Daioh

Bleach VS Dragon Ball Super VS Ace of Diamond

My Neighbor Seki VS Mob Psycho 100 VS No. 6

Full Metal Panic VS Princess Principal VS Ya Boy Kongming!

Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei VS Puella Magi Madoka Magica VS Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song

[literaticat]

Noob question, as someone not in the publishing industry at all: why is middle grade so hard right now?

A combo of reasons, I'd say. First is just normal market fluctuation -- in kids books particularly, trends and things tend to go in waves. Like back in the day, HP ignited a passion for hardcover MG fantasies, which before then, sold bupkis. Those kids grew up and moved to YA, which blew up big time with Twilight and Hunger Games and whatnot. Those teens grew up and now they like Romantasy. When YA was at its height, you couldn't GIVE picture books away -- then there was a golden age of picture books. And on and on, etc.

Second, B&N is the largest not-online book retailer in the US. They cut the number of hardcover MG they stock to basically nothing but the BIGGEST hits (like, the new Rick Riordan, sure, but Rando McNewAuthor, no chance). This hurts discoverability, particularly for the McNewAuthor clan.

Third, I think the Pando really did a number on kids. More kids seem to be reading below grade level, attention spans are shot, etc. :-/ Hey, I get it, mine too, but still, that's a problem -- if 8-12 year olds aren't reading MG, who is? At least with YA, adults read it too (for better or for worse) but the vast majority of adults do not care about MG and certainly don't read it for pleasure.

Finally, the political vibe in this country right now is atrocious, if you haven't noticed. Absolute fuckwad assholes on school boards, "concerned mom groups" (haha) and right wing politicians pandering to them are threatening teachers and librarians, slashing budgets, rounding up books to ban them just because they are written by BIPOC and LGBTQ authors, or dare to mention climate change, or whatever... anyway, THAT'S A PROBLEM. Schools and school libraries are the BIGGEST market for MG books -- getting invited to schools, being placed on state book lists and summer reading lists, these things can make an author's career. But teachers and librarians are running scared these days; school visits are getting cancelled all over the place, and if they are afraid to even buy the books for the library because they might get fired, or they don't have the budget, or whatever... WELP.

[mxamalgam]

Silly Game Time: Who are some of your favorite alien (non-human *and* extra-terrestrial) characters? And what do you like about them?

They can be from sci-fi or fantasy, from other worlds or dimensions or realms. All that matters is that they're not from Earth and that they're not human in any traditional sense (and, most of all, that you find them interesting).

I fucking love Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. He's a capitalist, misogynistic little fuck and they gave him a redemption arc where he finds out his mom is a better businessman than he'll ever be and he hates it and she starts fucking the leader of his entire civilization because she's so good at the stock market and the leader loves her so much he gives women rights and makes Quark's brother next in line. All while he's just there not getting redeemed at all. He's still a misogynistic little toad and he's watching everyone else do crazy shit like "I object to this" and then no one cares because he's not important.

[rhounaugh]

What is FFXIV Gil?

Gil is the main currency in Final Fantasy XIV and players can earn it by completing quests, guildleves, dungeons, duty roulettes or selling items to NPCs or on the Market Board. Gil can also be used to purchase equipment, food buffs, rumors in the tavern and even induce monsters to leave battle - though doing so could violate both EULA and ToS of the game. Individuals with expectations to know about Ffxiv Gil and other details can feel free to visit here https://www.mmogah.com/ffxiv-gil .

[brostateexam]

Navok noted that if a game costs $100 million to make over five years, it has to beat what the company could have returned investing a similar amount in the stock market over the same period. “For the 5 years prior to Feb 2024, the stock market averaged a rate of return of 14.5%. Investing that $100m in the stock market would net you a return of $201m, so this is our ROI baseline,” he explained.

Besides production budgets, there are also marketing costs, platform fees, and other factors such as discounts to take into account.

“Assume marketing expenses at $50m, and assume that you’re not going to get $49 [after 30% platform fees] but rather an average closer to $40 given discounts, returns and other aspects,” Novak noted. “Now let’s say in that first month you sold 3m copies with $40 net received (we will ignore the recoup). You need to surpass $254m to make expectations. (That’s $100m + $101m in ROI baseline + $50m in marketing).”

[vijay01]

Fantasy Sports Stock Trading App Development is a unique and innovative approach that combines the excitement of fantasy sports with the strategic elements of stock trading. Here are some key aspects to consider for creating the best fantasy sports stock trading app. Concept and Design,Core Features, Advanced Features, Monetization Strategies, Technology Stack, Testing and Deployment, Marketing and User Acquisition.

[pangolinheart]

FFXIVWrite 2023 DAY 12 - DOWDY

Rhiki, Thancred, and Tataru go on a shopping trip!

I took this prompt in the direction of "generally unfashionable" and used it to vent my and Rhiki's shared sentiments about the design of Tank armor. I can almost always count on the gear designers for award winning mmorpg final fantasy xiv to disappoint me.

Rating: General Genre: Fluff, humor Characters: Tataru Taru, Thancred Waters, Z'rhiki Irhi (Warrior of Light) Word Count: 1,330 Content Warnings: None

“Oh, this is cute!” Z’rhiki held up one sleeve of the jacket to turn it on its hanger towards Tataru. “I love all of the orange parts! Ooh! And the waist is adjustable. And I think this scarf is actually attached….”

Tataru giggled as she watched Rhiki whirl around the shop excitedly. “I think it would suit you!”

“Right?” Rhiki beamed. It had been too long since she had gone shopping with friends – it felt like a lifetime ago. Recently she had been either busy, or trapped somewhere without a particularly expansive market. Sharlayan had very few redeeming qualities (at least in her opinion) – the food was bad, the people were rude, everyone was always reading or studying – but it did have a marketplace, stocked with enough wares that one could pass the time perusing them.

“I’m not sure how practical the color is,” Thancred pointed out. She had been a bit surprised that he had offered to come with them, but it seemed that even he had tired of sifting through dusty tomes with the rest of the Scion’s book club.

Rhiki rolled her eyes. “What do you know about practical color schemes. You wear white and then stand in spattering range of whatever you’re fighting!”

Their chatter must have drawn the attention of the shopkeeper, because all three noticed him hovering before Thancred could marshal up a witty retort. Seeing that he had caught the attention of potential customers, the middle-aged elezen gestured towards the jacket that Rhiki was still holding.

“Ah, this is from one of our latest collections: Moonward. It was inspired by the designer’s dreams of soaring through the stars. And I can assure you, it is very practical – every piece has been carefully tested for its durability in battle – not that you couldn’t wear it for fashion’s sake, of course. This jacket, for example, is perfect for hunters and ranged fighters. It’s warm enough for even snowy climes, it offers enough padding to protect you from the typical hazards of the unforgiving wilderness as well as any brief scuffles you may find yourself in, but is also flexible enough to allow for a wide range of motion, such as the drawing of a longbow’s string! Should the color not be to your tastes, we offer a range of dyed colors!”

Rhiki had returned to examining the jacket as the man spoke. “How do you think it would hold up against more than a ‘brief scuffle?’ Or if you were… closer to the action? Like with a sword?”

The shopkeeper’s pleasant, well-trained smile faded. “Not well, I’m afraid. I couldn’t recommend it for a swordsman. While the padding will protect from rugged environments and the occasional glancing blow, it isn’t enough to stop a swinging blade.”

“I see,”

Seeing her smile fade, the man quickly added, “However, I do have a set from the same collection that would serve you better in close-quarters combat.”

Tataru nudged Rhiki’s leg with an elbow, but looked towards the shopeeper “Oh, do you? We’d love to see it!”

Rhiki nodded along, hope in her heart.

“Wonderful, right this way, please.”

He led the trio past displays of richly colored textiles and dyes, weaving past mannequins draped in scholarly robes, towards the back of the shop.

“Naturally, Sharlayan doesn’t produce many warriors, but knowledge is knowledge and knowledge of armor is no different, so we try to keep some sturdier fare in stock. It’s greatly appreciated by the huntsmen who visit Sharlayan to accept or turn in bounties, many of whom seek more challenging prey than the usual game animal,.” the older man prattled as he walked. Tataru either listened, or made a good show of pretending to listen, and Rhiki tried to do the same, only pausing to look at a few items before taking quicker steps to catch up. Thancred, for his part, looked uninterested, his eyes listlessly roaming the shop.

“Here we are! The Moonward Fending Set! I expect you will find it well-suited, pardon the pun, to your needs.” He came to a stop in front of a row of mannequins lining the furthest wall from the entrance, and extended one arm in a flourishing motion.

“Ah.” Was all Rhiki said, the disappointment setting in almost immediately. Adorning the mannequin the shopkeeper had indicated was a heavy, silver cuirass with spiked pauldrons and a straight blue cape dangling behind it, apparently attached somewhere to the back of the collar. It wore matching flat-heeled sabatons that extended all the way up the leg before disappearing beneath the bottom edge of the chest piece. For reasons she couldn’t understand (certainly not fashion) there was no metal plating covering the arm, just a pauldron on the shoulder and a gauntlet that extended partway up the forearm. Between the two was only the white of the mannequin’s arm and two thin gold wires that crossed paths connecting them. At least there was a narrow golden belt slung across the waist so one was able to tell where the waist was supposed to be.

“Well, it certainly looks more… functional.” Thancred pointed out.

Functional? It doesn’t even protect your arms! She wanted to snap at him, but held her tongue. She didn’t want to offend the gentleman who was clearly trying to be helpful. There was no helping the forlorn look on her face as she stared up at the set, though.

She pondered what could possibly connect this design with the jacket she had been examining earlier to form a “collection”. They looked like they had been designed on different planets by two people who had never met nor spoken to each other.

Seeing her crestfallen expression, Tataru offered, “Maybe it will look better if you try it on?”

“Oh, yes,” The shopkeeper hastily tacked on. “Seeing it on oneself makes a world of difference! If you’ll step behind one of those curtains, I’ll see if I can find a set that might fit you!”

----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well?” Z’rhiki said, stepping out from behind the curtain. Her tone was flat. She already knew how she looked.

Tataru looked her up and down, eyebrows drawn together in sympathy. “It’s not… that bad.” She tried to comfort her.

To her surprise, the curtain next to her rustled, and Thancred stepped out, having heard the snippet of conversation. He looked to her, then to Tataru.

“Tataru, I understand wanting to spare a friend’s feelings, but don’t lie to the poor woman.” He chided, though his eyes twinkled with amusement.

Tataru scowled at him. “Don’t listen to him, Rhiki. It’s not like it’s awful.”

She groaned loudly.

“You know, I don’t think it looks half bad on me.” Thancred said, examining himself.

Rhiki took a moment to actually look at him, gaze combing over the details of the armor.

“UGH! You’re right!” She lamented. Whereas the pauldrons perched awkwardly on either side of her, their spikes getting caught in her peripheral vision when she moved her eyes from side to side, on him they accentuated the strong line of his shoulders. The cape that only drew attention to her diminutive stature looked downright heroic hanging behind him. With the more defined muscle tone of his biceps and forearms, she could almost see what the designer might have been intending when constructing the outfit. On her the exposed skin just looked… silly. The light, shining silver even matched his hair. Damn him.

He smirked, and she found herself grumbling, “Shut up, Thancred,” despite the fact that he hadn’t actually said anything.

He laughed, but reached over to pat her on the shoulder, carefully avoiding the pauldron’s thorny protrusion. “Never fear, we’ll find something that fits you one of these days.” His self-satisfied grin flickered back to life. “Or, if we don’t, you can at least take heart in the fact that you can use the time the enemy spends laughing at you to catch them off guard!”

“Thancred!” Tataru scolded as Rhiki stormed back behind the curtain.

[tradingleagues]

Why Should You Play Stock Market Games to Improve Trading Skills in 2023?

What is Stock Market Game?

A stock market game, also known as a trading game is a simulated platform that allows players to trade stocks, commodities, and other financial instruments as if they were participating in the real market. But fantasy stock market games provide a safe and fun way for players to learn about the stock market, improve their trading skills, and test their strategies without risking real money.

Different Types of Stock Market Games

Mainly there are two types of stock market games available online, ranging from simple apps to more complex platforms.

Some stock market games focus on a specific market, such as the stock market or the cryptocurrency market, while others offer a broader range of assets. Some stock market games are free to play, while others require a fee or subscription. So we can classify the stock market games into two: Financial and Fantasy.

Why Should Everyone Play Stock Market Games?

By playing stock market games, you can:

Practice Trading

Execute different trading strategies without any risk

Learn trading without having a brokerage account

Improve trading skills

Read more "Why Should You Play Stock Market Games to Improve Trading Skills in 2023?"

[secretgamergirl]

StarCraft 2's story- Good or garbage?

I'm kind of lurking in the discord of a new RTS that's running a kickstarter right now. I don't know how strongly I want to endorse that because while what they have in the can looks darn good in terms of mechanics and gameplay polish and the people involved seem generally cool, I don't think anything at all is really pinned down otherwise. At the very least though it looks very "I'll make my own StarCraft 2! With blackjack! And hookers!" and I'm down for a game with that flavor of mechanics doing well when made by anyone other than, you know, Blizzard.

It's impossible not to draw comparisons when a game is pretty nakedly marketing itself as "we want to divorce the things we like about this one game from the monsters who made it" of course, and so now I'm thinking about just how powerfully terrible the writing was in StarCraft 2, but I'm not going to go off about it in some poor people who I don't know even have a writer yet's forums. I'm gonna ramble about it on my blog.

Now there's two ways to look at this one. We can look at the story of this game on its own, in a vacuum, or we can look at it as a continuation of the story of StarCraft. It's terrible by either standard, but let's start by looking at it as a continuation first.

Now, I'm not going to jump in here and just slap you with a novella long list of all the flagrant plot holes, direct contradictions, and unrecognizable characters if you actually go through these beat for beat. I've done so in the past. Might have done so on this blog. I mean when StarCraft 2 came out I was absolutely insufferable to everyone around me shouting about these things. Like... I don't even know how you can drop so many balls like that. Maybe they were doing that thing where they didn't even glance at the source material and were just poking around some fan wiki populated with random crap from tie-in novels and comics by people who were just going off on their own things... I do always have to mention though that whether by intent or incompetence they seem to have totally dropped the expansion's story from the canon, at least before 2's expansions came along years later.

But no, I want to focus on just basic themes and character arcs here. So the original base game of StarCraft breaks its story into three arcs, each from the POV of a character from one of the three playable factions in the game. This isn't the greatest structure for maintaining narrative cohesion throughout, especially when one of those factions is the communal hive mind of a big swarm of space bugs who at the end of the day just want to eat everything. And if I'm being brutally honest, there isn't a whole lot to write home about in the back third either. They kinda slipped back into old habits there and it's kinda just the sort of stock fantasy story you tend to get with games. Decadent ancient space elf empire ignores a big obvious problem due to hubris and a frankly incompetent leader, turns out their ancient traditions and prejudices are total BS, go quest for some magic rocks, have your big grand final battle where the hero self-sacrifices to blow up the monsters.

That first third though, and some threads that carry through the rest, have some good stuff going on. We've got a newly appointed magistrate (the unseen unvoiced player) and marshall (Jimmy) on some backwoodsy wild west sort of planet. They're pretty young and idealistic. Space bugs attack, they try to help, trying to help gets them in trouble with their higher ups who don't really buy the seriousness of this space bug invasion. Desperate for anyone to help fight the good fight, they fall in with a fringe militant cult leader (Mengsk) and his right-hand gal (Kerrigan) who he busted out of some government psychic supersoldier program. Jimmy immediately crushes on her, she doesn't reciprocate.

The gang goes along with all of Mengsk's plans, overthrowing the government to gain control of their armies and psychic experimentation programs to deal with these space bugs, and the level of moral compromise this involves gradually ratchets up until everyone finds themselves complicit in Mengsk killing the whole civilian population of the capital by having Kerrigan set up a psychic murderbug attractor and nobody bother's to evacuate her afterwards.

The other two realize they made a really bad choice of who to throw in with, smash up some major military hardware in the process of bailing on Mengsk as he's setting himself up as dictator for life, and eventually throw their lot in with the protagonists in the third arc, just kinda helping out while they do the whole deal of defying the orders of the ancient space elf council, learning the magic arts of the misunderstood outcasts, flying a big spaceship into the main brain controlling the space bugs. Kerrigan meanwhile gets converted into a space bug/human hybrid super soldier which... honestly feels like it's setting stuff up for a big showdown that just kinda never happens.

Still, we've got characters, they've got arcs. Mostly we have Jimmy (and the silent player character) learning the hard way that long-established power structures tend to be too inflexible to be helpful, and you should never trust anyone openly seeking personal power because they will just exploit everyone around them. It all even roughly follows the classic 3 act structure (and I mean, there's literally 3 acts mapping to that too, just that act 2 is all shown from a villain's perspective). In other media, this is sort of just the bare minimum, but games rarely bother with characters growing, changing, or having real setbacks that make them question things along their way.

This was followed up with the expansion, Brood War, which mirrors that same structure. One long story arc for each of three playable factions. Space elves largely doing standard fantasy beats, middle third switching to a villainous POV so radically different the main narrative gets largely put on hold, and some really good stuff with threads stretching through the whole thing.

Here the villain interlude is that it turns out Earth in this setting is run by full-on fascists, they caught wind of everything going on in this region where there'd previously been a big rebellion, and swing back in to clamp down again. They don't interact with the actual protagonists much (generally, they see the space nazis sweeping in and run off to lay low), so we mostly just have them swooping in and quickly mopping up Mengsk's little newfound dictatorship, with the actual story being the relationship dynamic between the guy in charge (DuGalle), his right hand man he's known forever (Stukov), and a local rebel welcoming them with open arms (Duran). Long story short, Duran's actually a double agent and very gradually pits the other two against each other. DuGalle eventually has Duran kill Stukov thinking he stabbed him in the back, realizes that's dumb, ultimately fails at his whole invasion, and in the epilogue kills himself, which if you read the relevant bit of my FF14 summaries, you know is how I like my stories about clear nazi analogues to end.

In the main narrative though, we pick right back up from the big heroic sacrifice with the bummer of a reveal that killing the primary brain of the psychic space bug collective didn't really get the job done, because some of its secondary brains (refreshingly not a concept pulled out of nowhere, these were firmly established to serve the dual purposes of having clear military targets for a giant pile of bugs, and a way to actually have enough characters for dialog exchanges in that third of the story) are trying to put the band back together. In their current disorganized state though, Kerrigan is no longer a semi-autonomous corrupted bug minion, but totally has her free will and sense of self restored, while still being all chitinous and at least somewhat capable of commanding the other bugs.

So as the whole expansion plays out, and the perspective shifts from the space elves doing some real desperate migration and defense because the plan to save their home world from the big bug invasion ultimately failed, through the nazi invasion, and ultimately to the POV of the secondary bug-brain you'd previously played as who'd been buggified Kerrigan's baby sitter essentially, now forced into taking orders from her, we are mostly dealing with this big hanging question of whether she's really good and trustworthy again, or secretly still under bug control, or if she's good for now but any minute that hivemind could properly come back online and take her over again. And of course, Jimmy's all angsty and pining because he never got over that one-sided crush.

While there's plenty of red flags about her being trustworthy over the course of things, the narrative actually manages to play things close to the chest well enough for the ultimate reveal to be a pretty fun twist. She absolutely 100% is fundamentally herself again, it's just that for a series of mostly pretty well-justified reasons, she absolutely hates every other character in the story. Either they've been trying to kill her, they abused and manipulated her, or they've totally objectified her. Or they're nazis who just showed up, who you don't really need a personal reason to want to kill, but just for good measure they're trying to revive and mind control the central bug mind, so, yeah, that's a threat. So at the last minute the whole thing just reveals itself as a big elaborate revenge story with a fairly strongly gendered theme about being denied agency and being othered, where the actually quite clear-headed just ruthless girl wins.

And then, a decade later, we get StarCraft 2. And what's the main narrative of StarCraft 2? We spend the whole time focused on Jimmy, who has somehow gone from this young idealistic biker/space cowboy with thinning hair, talking like a hippie and bouncing around getting in way over his head trying to rescue people from space bugs by just lending a hand to whoever else seems interested in doing that and crushing on this girl Kerrigan who couldn't be clearer about not liking him back to uh... some sort of gruff jaded old former military general with a bunch of old war buddies, a drinking problem, and a full head of hair, cruising around on his big personal battleship saving various worlds from the big space bug threat pretty much singlehandedly, and hoping to rescue his love interest Kerrigan from space bug mind control, with the help of some kind of prophesied magic space rocks you can build a big totem out of. It even completely de-buggifies her in the end, leaving a helpless little naked girl to chivalrously scoop off the ground and carry to safety. P.S. She's white now.

This isn't like, "oh whoops, we forgot the main character lost one of his boots at the end of last season" nitpicking. This is doing complete 180s on the character arcs and backstories of the central characters here. Kerrigan not needing to be rescued from zerg corruption is the ENTIRE point of Brood War's story. Which also establishes there's no longer really a zerg threat of any sort beyond what she personally wants to tell her mindless bug pals to do. And really, even if you want to de-canonize all of that for whatever reason, tacking a "hero saves the girl" ending onto the story we had in the base game of the original StarCraft still just does not work. You're taking a story whose whole theme is "putting faith in the wrong sort of person has serious consequences" and then turning around and going "actually no it doesn't."

And you know, speaking of Mengsk, it's a much lesser point, but StarCraft 2 depicts him like he's some sort of grandiose emperor from some ancient dynasty. Big imperial palace, little silver spoon in his mouth prince of a son who wants to break from his family's legacy, the whole nine yards. Again, this both fundamentally misunderstands his part in the whole central narrative, and everything that happened to him in the expansion (where not very long at all after his big power grab the UED showed up and completely took him apart, and would have executed him but Kerrigan prolonged that to watch him squirm). And when did he have this kid of his? With who? And where is Jimmy getting all these war buddies? He didn't have'em at the start of things or he wouldn't have had to join up with Mengsk. And his war buddies from that war would just be the magistrate and the surviving protoss characters who act like they barely know him here.

So, no. This does not hold up at all as a continuation. How about if we just look at it in a vacuum then?

Nope, still bad. It leans heavily on a backstory we don't get to see. And I don't mean we're missing a ton of StarCraft 1 flashbacks. I mean, we have all these "old buddy" characters, especially Tychus, but we don't get into how they became friends or do anything to show how they still are, so there's no real emotional stakes to where that ends up going. We start with him drinking his life away in a bar over how he misses this apparent old girlfriend, but we never get into the history between them and even the depressed drinking never comes up again past that shot. We vaguely establish some bitter history with this Mengsk guy, but that never really leads anywhere at all. We just kinda have these various vague and generic handwaves at Standard Protagonist Backstory Stuff. Then we actually dive into things, and it's this very episodic affair where you just hop around from planet to planet either showing up to rescue people or showing up to collect a magic rock to help build the magic Toblerone that cures being half-space-bug. And I mean, I already covered how this sort of simplistic no tension, hero always wins, collect all the treasures for victory sort of narrative is the general baseline for game writing, but other people have been trying to move things forward the last couple decades and this is just sitting at the starting line with a princess to rescue.

Now to be fair, the original StarCraft absolutely also had questing around for magic rocks. The protoss have a totally magic rock based electrical grid, the overmind wanted to eat their special magic rocks to make them more vulnerable, the last protoss mission even had a big ancient temple that did an energy blast, but that one just killed all life on the planet outside of its immediate vicinity, which feels like a more grounded thing for an ancient alien artifact to do than... vaporize/purify space bugs and leave everything else alone. And it wasn't scattered in little bits everywhere.

And then of course there's the expansions to StarCraft 2... well the good thing here is they're so divorced from anything in the original game, and even from the base game of StarCraft 2 that you don't have to worry about them messing with the legacy. I mean, OK, Heart of the Swarm has this whole weird reset where we have Kerrigan mostly human again, just so she can go on a big spirit journey and bug herself up again, so that she's strong enough for her ultimate goal of... showing up to take down Mengsk... again. And you somehow end up with a zergified version of Stukov which... OK that's just the weirdest possible way to double back and recanonize that expansion. I'm not sure that Kerrigan and Stukov were ever even really aware of each other's existence, and he died to a bullet through the head in a military base with no zerg anywhere near it. I mean, unless you remember that Duran was a double agent working for Kerrigan. Except the thing there is if you know the plot of the secret epilogue mission you'd know he was ACTUALLY one of the secret ancient aliens who created both the protoss and the zerg just pretending to a horrible bug monster spy for Kerrigan, in turn pretending to be a normal human. And that's a pretty obscure detail I'd forgive someone for missing except that literally in the mission where you're playing as Zerg-Stukov, the whole reason you're playing as Zerg-Stukov is that Kerrigan is busy doing one of those things where the two wizards fire big energy blasts at each other like some kind of tug-of-war with weird phallic overtones, and the big energy phallus she's trying to squish back is FROM Duran, in his revealed-himself-to-be-that-whole-mess glory. They remembered one thing only to get it wrong basically.

But yeah, otherwise that one's just so wild a departure I don't even know what to say. There's just... named zerg characters? They're all like bug centaurs? Because we need people to talk to and they just totally forgot they had cerebrates to get around that problem? Instead of the ancient ancestral zerg being like, psychic ringworms gradually specializing their hosts over generations, here they're like... talking dinosaur puppies who steal each other's "essence" to get huge? Past a point there's so little resemblance to the source material that I can't even be mad. And then the protoss expansion just kinda decides that the whole casting the dark templar out of their society over irreconcilable religious differences is something they've actually done like... 3 or 4 times? So we've got the outcast invisible jedi and the outcast robots and the outcast Darth Vader wannabes with some sort of society-wide ordered queue where there's exactly one person directly ahead of everyone they're allowed to kill to move up in the world. Oh and we're claiming this one robot centaur is Fenix somehow. Despite Fenix being very dead, and this robot centaur neither having that goofy muppet-y orc voice nor the overwhelmingly positive attitude. And he also somehow doesn't notice that he's a robot centaur and not a guy in a life support pod inside a robot spider. They also expect us to believe this little naked twink turned into this pile of steroids and shoulderpads somehow:

Oh! I almost forgot but also there's this thing called the Khala and it's unambiguously this set of religious teachings defining a caste system and such... but then here someone watched Avatar so we're retconning that into some sort of psychic spiritual network you connect to through your hair. You don't plug your hair in though it's just like a wifi antenna. Also it only works if you're part of the main society that keeps throwing other people out none of these other people have hair wifi. Also like the entire deal here is that protoss just are not psychic, it's their one flaw. There's this whole thing with them representing physical perfection but being held back by being a bunch of very religious idiots, while the zerg are mentally perfect what with the hive mind but physically just, like, a ringworm, so the ultimate life form their creators really wanted to create requires the zerg to take over the protoss, or just going screw it and hybridizing the two in a lab. Again, this is one of those really obscure details, it only comes up in the weird backstory in the manual that doesn't even get touched on in the game outside the one secret mission in the expansion... but here we have the same scene both acknowledging that deep lore and totally contradicting it.

But yeah, taken as their own independent stories... well... what stories? Kerrigan wants to be a big buff bug lady so she can depose a jerk she already deposed, and she does that. There are no complications or twists along the way. "Artanis" has to go collect all the protoss the in-group don't count as people, because Satan got into their hair wifi and anyone who didn't just get a haircut turned evil. So he goes and does that. Again, no complications of any sort along the way. Also no real ideological conflicts.

The deal with the robot protoss is some idiots went "hey what if we took all of our greatest most celebrated heroes and we copied their minds into robots in their entirety" and then got super confused that they still, you know, want to be treated as people with rights and such and not just mindless robots. So, you know, simple fix there. Then the... actually just evil ones are... lead by John DeLancey. Everyone likes him. So, problem resolved? And the dark templar are already befriended from before, so nothing's needed there besides going to their homeworld to pick them up. Their uh.... home world everyone already evacuated to and then that was compromised and their leader was replaced with puppet and then everyone maybe died? But yeah they're fine.

So then after all the racism is solved forever by just... deciding not to do that anymore, Kerrigan jumps in some kind of magic pool to transform into a giant naked golden angel, and she does this to become the embodiment of purity of essence we apparently need (which also purges all zerg-ness I guess?) and... look there's no easy way to say this. It turns into Homestuck. That whole convoluted thing from Homestuck where there's this eternal cycle of universes being created by light and dark themed people teaming up to create the next one and in theory kind of operate as it's gods but not if they don't feel like it... we're just ripping all that off wholesale for this complete asspull of an ending. And then everyone shoots space satan in the face. He's a big squid. And then Kerrigan turns back into a normal human girl so she can go on a date with Jimmy. Oh and then there's a third expansion recycling the scrapped plot from that action game they were going to do back on the N64 or whatever but I learned how awful the company was before getting curious enough on that one.

It's just bad. Even by game writing standards, it's bad. And I didn't even get into how bad it is with women in particular. We've got the big doe-eyed scientist who needs to be rescued from the scary bugs and then oh no it turns out she got bit by a bug and now she's turning into one and has to be put down (and no, this has never been how that worked). Then we've got Kerrigan who aside from needing rescuing and purifying and coming out naked has this whole expansion to herself where in theory she's totally in charge and self-directing every decision, but every time you click anywhere the confirmation is just her getting all pouty and whiny? Like a toddler you're telling to put shoes on so you can go to the doctor or something? Like, is it just me? Is it the direction? Is it the voice filter? Was the actress just miserable in the recording booth?

Then she's got this little bug girl assistant who hangs down from the ceiling, kinda like the adjutant from the original StarCraft, but instead of being all detatched and robotic she's all uwu pwecious? And the protoss campaign just kinda keeps turning women into mouthpieces for Satan. It's... a whole thing.

So yeah, badly written stories all throughout, no matter how you slice it. No continuity, no consistency, no character arcs or tension, just be the big cool action hero, do some getting the band back together stuff, collect some magic rocks and ritual circles, purify this girl here with the big magic circle (3 times no less) and then whatever there's space Satan. It's a mess... did I even have a larger point with this?

Probably not, but it was entertaining I hope? Maybe throw a little cash my way?

[bretongirlwrites]

writerly thumbprint challenge

tagged by @wispstalk and tagging anyone who wants to take part :) i don’t remember who’s been tagged already

Rules: look back on your work, both past and present, finished and unfinished. what are five (or more) narrative elements, themes, topics or tropes that continuously pop up in your work?

a little more conversation, a little less action. almost all of my fics seem to revolve around some kind of conversation. nobody ever does anything do they. except what they manage to do through words. probably over a cup of something hot or alcoholic. i don’t drink either of those things so idk why... i guess i like the Aesthetic more than the Taste

ordinary people doing extraordinary things. i could probably do better than my stock of ocs for various games being overwhelmingly human. but without wanting to ‘exoticise’ the other cultures featured in them, it’s the only position i feel brave enough to write from, especially working so much in the first person. also even if it’s an option, i don’t like my characters having unique powers or being overqualified. and so they don’t tend to like it either

the power of friendship. established a long time ago that i cannot write romance. taking lessons from stendhal absolutely did not help. even when i write julienne and marcurio, i feel like it’s more banter between best friends than the sweet nothings of lovers. have quite often been known to portray romantic relationships as inherently turbulent and potentially destructive, but that’s a little unfair i think. anyway the importance of friendship and a number of platonic relationships are common across my ocs

ten thousand people, maybe more. even in game narratives that kind of revolve around the idea of the singular hero, i always seem to make it absolutely impossible for them to go it alone. which i suppose isn’t an uncommon change. but i am just so opposed to the idea that people don’t need other people to accomplish big things. some of my heroines actually end up being more the followers themselves (like julienne of delphine and even, sometimes, of marcurio), though they must also learn to find a bit of their own voice among the others

what time is it? as perhaps exhibited by one of my recent fics mentioning corn-exchanges, dustbin-men and a shambles-market in the imperial city, i have no idea what period of history i’m drawing my inspiration from. the same goes for various anarchically outdated features of my writing, like my chaos punctuation and uses of the subjunctive. in truth when it comes to material and sometimes immaterial features, i just make stuff up or introduce elements based on what suits the narrative. harder to do that outside of fantasy-fanfiction i suppose. but i hate researching what’s historically accurate or whatever if it’ll ruin a good story... but then i’m no realist, i don’t often stop to include specific material details, so it’s usually all fine

[joe9cool]

Collide-Justin Herbert-19

A/N I do not own or know the Chargers, Justin or any other real life person. This is all fantasy. Thank you

From the moment Sara arrived at her sister's house. It was chaos.

She didn't even have time to set her bags down before kids were tackling her and trying to get her attention. She gave them big hugs and then was passed around from family member to family member.

A mimosa was put in her hands at some point, (it was 11 am) her bags made it downstairs to her sleeping arrangements. It was all a blur, then she was at the kitchen counter while her family was arguing about going to Brent's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning later that night, which was news to Sara.

As much as she missed her family, she was worried about Justin, he hadn't spoken a word to her since Sunday before the game. That wasn't him at all, she knew the loss was hard on him, especially the ending. She tried to stay off Twitter, but she couldn't help but read some of the analysts' takes. (Which were bullshit)

"Sara, I wish you would have had one of us pick you up from the airport. You didn't need to take a taxi" her mother's voice broke her thoughts.

Her Uncle George cut in. "Well, now Sara is too good to be seen with us now. You know she's running around with all these plastic people. Matter of fact" He looked at Sara up close. "Is that a botox needle in your forehead?"

She frowned. Not even been here for an hour and was already getting teased. The whole group laughed while Aunt Willa chimed in. "Honestly Sara, if you get any plastic surgery I'd recommend chin lipo, although I must say you looked like you finally dropped the baby fat. We were all beginning to worry."

Brittany, Bouncing her baby bit back. "You were worried, for no reason." She looked at her baby sister. "Congratulations on the Fenty fashion show. We all look forward to seeing it on Amazon."

She was confused. "Well, I thought you guys would want to go. It's late January."

"Well it would be nice, but we can't get the time off."

Sara nodded. Looking over at her mom. "What about you and dad?"

Cathy smiled sadly. "Sorry sweetie I wish you had told me this a few months ago. I'd already booked my girls' cruise, and you know your father doesn't want to go to those things by himself."

"Yes, I don't think my brother would enjoy seeing his kid in lingerie. That's not a sight anyone would want to see, seriously Sara, how inappropriate." Aunt Willa took a swig of her champagne.

Now she was reminded why she never went home. Speaking of her dad. "Hey, where is dad? I haven't seen him."

Cathy shook her head. "I wish he would slow down. The whole plane ride here he was glued to his laptop."

"Surely his clients are on Holiday too. I'm sure they don't want to be speaking business all the time." Charles rolled his eyes and cut in "Unfortunately they all have the same mindset. Why do you think I never took a position with his company? I'd like to enjoy my kids and my life, thank you." He wrapped his arm around his wife, who smiled and kissed her husband. 

The whole group awwwed. Sara smiled, wondering how Justin would be if he was here. 

Kenzie began crying in Sara's arms, she took that as a sign to pass her to Alyssa for feeding, as soon as her arms were free Brittany passed her daughter Eliza to her, who for being almost a year old was a smiley and bubble child. She was pulling on her aunt's ponytail and giggling.

Alyssa rolled her eyes as she passed Kenzie for Sara to hold. "He's using Theo's playroom as an office. Seriously, even the week of Thanksgiving, he has a lead on some stock."

The group laughed as they watched the whole thing. Eventually, Cathy spoke. "Sara, so Friday night we need you to watch the kids."

Sara was playing with the baby's hands. "Why?"

"Well we are going to the Christmas market, and taking seven children would be a nightmare."

She was confused. "Well I can go, I love the Christmas market. I can ride the kiddie rides"

Katie cut in. "Well they have this couple thing that we are all doing, and since you're single…." She trailed off.

Of course, because Sara was single she couldn't be involved with any of the couple's stuff. 

They were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. Alyssa smiled. "Ryan and Michelle are here!"

Ryan was Brent's brother, he and his wife married the past April which the whole family attended. Sara's family was close, which meant that in- Laws were a part of the family as much as blood-relatives. Again she wondered how they would be with Justin in this scenario.

The entire family was welcoming to Harry. When he surprised Sara by showing up to Pittsburgh the family welcomed him with open arms. He charmed her mom and dad and acted like one of the siblings.

When it was revealed he cheated the whole family was in shock. Sara was in a dark funk and shut herself off from them. It was a defense mechanism. She didn't want the looks and words of pity, the whole speech of finding someone and 'there's one in this world for everyone' crap. Katie and Charles met in college, same with Scott and Brittany, Alyssa and Brent were together since middle school, only breaking up when he was drafted due to distance. It only lasted four months. 

Then there was her. She had a boyfriend in high school, who laughed and discouraged her love of acting. She had some hookups in college. After fame she had an on/off relationship with a guitarist from an indie band. Her family majorly disapproved of him. Sara was ashamed to admit he treated her like crap. Now that she thought about it, she liked the fact that dating him made her a rebel of the family. 

Once everyone greeted the newlyweds the conversation continued. Her dad had come into the kitchen finally and Sara greeted him with a hug and kiss."

"Missed you, Sare bear. You need to come around more often."

"Yeah we haven't seen you since April. Do you even like us?" Ryan laughed.

She smiled. "I've just been busy with everything."

Uncle George cut in. "Oh I'm sure Pilates and fancy lunches have kept you so busy." 

Everyone laughed. 

Sara wanted to just go home.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey you"

Justin turned around to find Kristen behind him, he was on his way to the film room after weight lifting. The overall mood was sour, the loss stung. As much as they tried to focus on the Holiday nothing seemed to cheer up the group. His mom and dad announced last minute they would be driving up Wednesday with Patrick so he wouldn't be alone.

"Hey! Aren't you supposed to be back home?"

She laughed. "Yes, but the campaigns are killing me. Besides, David is in town and that's all I really need. What about you?"

"My parents and Patrick are coming tomorrow so it will be nice to see them."

She smiled. "Oh how sweet! Mitch is probably busy with Med school, what about your girl?"

He smiled sadly. "She's with her family in Missouri."

Kristen made a sad face. "Oh I'm sorry, at least you will have your family. Trust me, Holidays suck when you're alone."

Justin laughed. "You don't have to tell me. I had one by myself. I was invited to join some teammates and their family but I feel bad intruding you know?"

She agreed. "Hey I have to go, but David and I are going to head to dinner later. Would you be down?

Justin shrugged. He could use the company. "Sure! It will be nice to catch up with another person from Oregon. Maybe he could give me the scoop on Patrick so I have something to tease him for."

Kristen laughed. "Sounds perfect! I'll text you the details." 

They waved bye and went their separate ways.

Unaware that someone was watching.

From fansports.com

Taylor Biscotti confirms romance with Chargers QB Justin Herbert.

The two sports stars, who have been linked since 2021, were spotted at lunch near Herbert's home in Irvine, a fan tweeted seeing them, although they weren't sure it was Biscotti, she confirmed it by liking another twitter user's post defending the couple's relationship. Inside sources also say the two were spotted hanging out near SoFi stadium.

The tweet may have been unliked, but their romance is alive

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"GOAL! The Blues take an early lead!"Sara stood up from her seat in the St. Louis Blues private box and cheered along with the rest of her family.

It was early in the first period, the Wozniak family having their own separate box for the game. 

Upon arrival, a couple of fans spotted her and asked for photos. She felt herself being recorded a couple of times when she was talking to her sisters. 

During the break they showed her face on the jumbotron. She smiled and chugged her beer to the cheers of the fans.

Of course her Aunt Willa made some comment about being classy.

The suite provided an entire buffet for the family of the players. While everything looked really good Sara was on a strict diet, deciding to keep her calories to alcohol. She was trying not to be obvious in checking her phone to see if she had any calls or texts from Justin. So far nothing, and that worried her. This is the longest they hadn't spoken since they first met. She knew the loss was hard on him, but not enough to shut her out.

Katie's oldest son, Charlie kept begging her to play games on her phone, saying that the game was boring. Sara instead told him they could play I Spy instead. The last thing she needed was for a message to pop up and the almost seven year old to answer its or worse pick up a phone call. It has happened before.

Once the second period started, Katie yelled at him to play with his siblings, since the other cousins were too young. Sara was holding Kenzie once again, taking in the baby smell and soaking up the cuddles.

Alyssa sat next to her and smiled. "You're a natural, you know that?"

"Well I mean she is number seven, so I have had practice." They looked over at Brittany who was sipping water. "Is it just me or is she pregnant?" Sara laughed.

Alyssa joined in. "She hasn't had one sip of alcohol, and when I took out the breakfast spread she looked like she wanted to puke at the smell of the eggs."

"Watch I'm calling it, she's going to announce it at dinner Thursday." They both bet on it. Being close, they usually knew something was up with one sister before they could say it towards the family.

It shouldn't have surprised Sara when Alyssa spoke again. "So Katie told me when you had lunch in New York that you have a crush on this guy? Jake I believe?"

"I don't remember what I said to Katie, you know she blows everything out of proportion."

Alyssa rolled her eyes before pulling out her phone, after a few minutes. "Justin Herbert, he follows you on your private account"

Sara groaned. "He's a friend. I've only spoken to him once at Joe's wedding in July.  Besides, I have friends that follow me on my account."

"How is he a friend if you have only spoken to him once?"

"He requested me, so ask him. I've gone with Joe and Alisha to Chargers games and he's good friends with them. So that is probably why." She was hoping her sister would drop it.

But of course she wasn't that lucky. "Come on Sara, he is just your type."

"He has a girlfriend." It was the only excuse to get her sister off of her back. It pissed her off to say it, but she had to do what she had to do.

That seemed to shut Alyssa up for a bit. "Sara, you need to get back out there, go on some dates. Maybe stay away from famous guys. Ooh maybe Brent could set you up with one of his teammates. How about one of the guys he used to be teammates with in Chicago? Or… you did say that you like-"

"Alyssa, stop please. I'm not concerned about finding someone right now, okay? I know when you all were my age you had rings on your finger. It's just not for me right now.

Alyssa studied her sister carefully. It was the way she spoke about this Justin character that raised her alarm bells. Katie had told her the same thing when they spoke on the phone. Their baby sister may be an amazing actress, but she wore her heart on her sleeve when it came to love. It was no different now, and when Alyssa and Katie researched him, they discovered he was dating a sports reporter. Leave it to Sara to fall in love with someone unavailable.

The topic was dropped as they enjoyed the rest of the game.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Table for three please, in the back." Justin smiled at the hostess and David and Kristen followed behind him.

It was nice to catch up with friends from Eugene, his only regret from his trip with Sara was that he didn't get a chance to Introduce her to any of his friends. Maybe one day that will change.

They were seated at a table with two chairs on one side and one on the other. David took the single seat, making Justin and Kristen sit next to each other. Justin was aloof, it was just a friend.

Too bad no one else saw it that way.

The waitress came over and smiled right away, recognizing Justin. She looked to be in high school and immediately glared at Kristen.

She took their drink and food orders, having been to this place frequently. When she walked away Kristen laughed. "Oh my god she thought you and I were together! I hope she doesn't spit in my food."

Justin was red. "Oh my god I'm so sorry, seriously I didn't mean for that to happen."

Kristen waved her hand. "It's fine, you should be used to it Mr. QB." David teased. "How does it feel to be getting all of the attention from the ladies now? I noticed Sara Wozniak follows you. She's one of the biggest actresses of our time."

Justin tried to play it off. "Yeah we met at Joe Grant's wedding in July. Only said a couple words to her."

David was looking at his phone. "Speaking of she's at the St. Louis Blues game. Her brother in law Brent Smith is a defenseman on the team."

It was like a light bulb went off in the blonde's head. Out of the corner of Justin's eye he saw her whip her head towards him. He knew it was coming.

"Justin. What does your girlfriend do in the entertainment industry?"

He was quiet for a moment. David was lost looking between the both of them. The conversation was on hold as the waitress came back with the food. Making sure to lay the niceness on thick with the athlete. Once she saw she was getting anything past the usual niceness, she huffed and walked away.

Normally someone would make a comment but there were other things to focus on. "So what exactly does your girlfriend do? I believe her name is Sara." Kristen leaned towards Justin with her head on her hand, she looked like a mom questioning her kid about something he did. "That is her name."

"And you said she is visiting family in St. Louis?" David was looking back and forth between the both of them, confused on what his girlfriend was getting at. "Kristen babe what-"

"I said she is in Missouri." Justin tried to be as vague as possible but unfortunately luck was not on his side. 

"Justin, is Sara Wozniak your girlfriend?"

Justin was silent. He didn't know what to say, but silence meant conformation. "Kristen it's very private-"

She clapped her hands in happiness."no way! That's amazing!"

David's jaw was dropped. "Dude, do you realize how lucky you are? She was 2019 Maxim's hottest celebrity of the year!" Justin and Kristen glared at him. "One of my buddies told me" He defended.

"I loved her in Don't worry Darling. Did she really hook up with Harry Styles? I always thought it was PR?"

Justin was uncomfortable. "I don't know, it's not something I want to talk about with her." 

David and Kristen dropped that subject sensing how pissy he was. "But seriously, how did you even meet?"

He felt like he had told this story a million times. "At Joe Grant's wedding in July. We just hit it off."

"I follow her on social media and she's hilarious, and so sweet. She is very involved with Charities and will help anyone. Never heard of a bad experience with her." Kristen smiled. "How have you guys managed to dodge cameras?"

"Well for starters you're the only one who knows outside of family that knows. Second, we don't go out in public, and I don't plan on it."

"No offense dude, you're dating one of the biggest stars of our time. If anyone close to her team knows eventually it's gonna come out. Not to mention if she has a movie coming out. Makes good PR."

Justin shook his head. "She would never, besides she had a movie premiere in October and nothing was said."

"At the end of the day celebrities are all about the image. It's up to her team to make the announcement when it would benefit their client."

Kristen, who sensed Justin was getting uncomfortable, decided to switch topics. As they spoke about Justin's family coming in for Thursday he was deep in thought. 

Sara wasn't that type. Was she?"

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was cookie day. 

The day before Thanksgiving everyone got together and made a shit ton of cookies. It was Sara's favorite thing about the Holidays. They made over 600 cookies, sugar, rainbow, chocolate chip, raspberry lemon, ricotta chocolate chip, ladyfingers, any kind you name it. They did it for all of the sisters' weddings. Over 400 made for the reception. They were handed out as gifts.

All of their friends appreciated the day. It was called Wozniak cookie factories. It was insane. 

Alyssa's kitchen was a factory, mixers were going, a ton of baking sheets were spread out on her kitchen island. Sara was helping the kids at the dining room table decorate the ones that cooled off. Theo was on her hip. He had a meltdown over Brent leaving for a week road trip, the almost three year old not understanding that dad will be coming back.

Aunt Willia remarked as Theo was screaming. "Sara darling, if you ever get married do not marry an athlete."

Sara could only nod. Alyssa rolled her eyes.

Charlie and his younger brother Tristan were arguing over who's cookie was better. Sara and Katie had to step in. Mike was sitting in the living room on his phone, making a business deal for sure. Sara rolled her eyes. Leave it to her dad not to be involved with this.

Her sisters may have gotten used to it but she wasn't. He still managed to make time for the others as they grew up but when it came to her it was always work. She hated to see the cycle repeat with her nieces and nephews.

She set Theo down in his seat once he finally calmed down.  Eliza was napping. Alyssa was feeding Kenzie. Tristan and Charlie were decorating while their sisters Samantha and Jessica were in the playpen as they were too young and their attention span was very short.

Sara was about to start with the turtle cookies. She was going to make a bunch for Justin but on cue she felt her phone buzz in her Jean pocket. She grabbed it to see Justin's name. It was the first time he reached out since Sunday. She looked around the kitchen. Everyone was occupied so she decided to go out the front door. Walking past her dad she told him "Hey dad my agent is calling I'll be right back. "

"Hmm hmm" was his only response as she closed the door behind her and stepped into the chilly evening. Making sure she walked a good distance so no one could hear her she picked up . "Well well Justin long time no speak"

She heard him sigh on the other end. "I know babe, I'm sorry. It's been a crazy couple of days."

She rolled her eyes. "So has mine, but I've texted you. You had me worried sick."

Silence. She knew that he knew he was in the wrong. After a moment he spoke. "I know there is no excuse. I'm sorry. I will make it up to you when you come home." 

That made her feel better. "Patience baby, less than one week."

"I know Sara, I'm anxious because I miss you so much."

"I hate that you're celebrating Thanksgiving alone."

Justin laughed. "I actually have my family in town."

"Oh my god, how long are they in town!" Sara wanted to see his family and hoped they would stay in town til she arrived Monday.

"Pat is leaving Friday for his game. My parents are staying til Sunday."

"Damn I'm making cookies and I have like four plates to bring home."

Justin laughed. "Really? Is your family one of those holiday cookies obsessed?"

"Our record is 700." Justin let out a low whistle. "I can't imagine that."

"Yeah poor Alyssa's kitchen is going to be a huge mess."

"Speaking of your family, did you say anything about us?"

"No, and they have been questioning me because you follow my private social media. I told them you were just a friend and you have a girlfriend."

She heard him breathing a little heavier on the other side. "Really? How would you describe this girlfriend of mine?"

A blonde reporter, she thought bitterly before she spoke. "Well she is a brunette, who is stubborn and a total goober." Her and Justin shared a laugh. "Also the major plastic surgery she needs is a chip lipo."

"Wait what?" Justin was confused, this was supposed to be playfully and she just comes out of left field with this. 

She didn't know why she said it, but her family tended to point out her insecurities and get under her skin. "My Aunt Willa said that if I get any plastic surgery it should be chin lipo. My uncle joked that I have botox."

"You're Aunt Willa sounds like a bitch." Sara laughed loudly. "Yep she is. I don't know why she always shows up to family events. She has her husband's family to go and bother but I guess they see through her bullshit."

They spoke for a little bit before she saw incoming texts asking where she went. She told Justin she loved him and missed him before sighing and walking back to the house. 

When she walked back in, all eyes were on her "and just where have you been?" Her mother scolded like she was coming in late from curfew."

Sara was confused and looked at her dad, who was in the exact same spot on his computer. "Dad, I told you I had to step outside to take a phone call?"

"You never told me that." Anger bubbled up inside of her. "Yes I did, you just don't pay attention because of work, as usual."

Cathy interjected. "Your father works really hard. Remember how you grew up."

Of course Aunt Willa cut in. "Seriously Sara, why must you always start something on Holidays. If you were going to do this we might as well not want your presence."

Sara's eyes widened and she opened her mouth to say something but Scott, Brittany's husband cut in. "Hey guys we still got a bunch of cookies to make! We want to break the Wozniak family record! To the kitchen everyone!" 

To avoid further confrontation everyone followed Scott's lead. Sara trailed behind. She turned around to give her dad one last glare. Of course his attention was still on the laptop.

It was going to be a long fucking weekend.

—-------------------------------------------------------------

Justin had just got home from Thanksgiving practice to the smell of a home cooked meal, something he hadn't had since Sara left. He walked into the kitchen to be greeted by his mother and father, as well as Patrick. His mom was checking on the small turkey he bought from the store last minute. Usually if his family wasn't in town he would just go by a teammate's house. But this was much nicer, he was around people he was comfortable with. It was times like this he really missed Sara. He loved how well she fit in with his family.

Yesterday's conversation with David and Kristen was in his mind. Sometimes he forgot that she was a huge celebrity.

It's not up to her when her PR releases info. 

He was a private person, the less people knew about him the better. So if this relationship were to be exposed. People would want to know everything about him, his family, friends, and people he was romantically involved with. He didn't want that at all. 

He had to push that off to the side before he gave himself a panic attack. 

Patrick and his dad began talking to him about the Lions-Bills game that was on and that occupied him, as well as the video review he needed to watch. 

He and Patrick were discussing the videos before Mitch called from New York. It was hard not seeing Mitch as often as he used to. He looked to him for advice considering he was the oldest and the wisest at life. Mitch wouldn't say that though, but it showed in his accomplishments. 

They spoke with Mitch over facetime and then ate. His mom was one of the best cooks. After a few minutes of silence his father spoke. "So what is Sara doing with her family? She's from Pennsylvania isn't she?"

Justin shoved mashed potatoes in his mouth. "Yes, but she is in Missouri. Her brother in law plays for the St. Louis Blues, so the whole family is down there."

"She has nieces and nephews right?" Justin smiled. "Seven, and she thinks her sister is pregnant and going to announce."

Patrick shook his head. "Wow, that's a lot of kids. He looked at his mother, and he knew the look on his face. "Don't you start asking about grandkids."

Mark and Holly laughed. "I'm not. Not yet anyways."

Patrick laughed. "Don't come around with that energy. If you want grandkids you better pester Mitch and Isabella for that."

Holly laughed. "Once he graduates med school in a couple of years. Or.." She looked at Justin. Who wasn't paying attention until he felt all eyes on him. "What? Oh no mom don't start."

"I'm not starting anything, I'm just saying anything but you and Sara seem really serious."

"Oh Holly please, he's twenty four and they have only been seeing each other for less than a year. Give them time, plus he's 24 and focused on football, way too young to be talking kids and marriage."

Patrick spoke. "Wait, I thought you really liked Sara."

"Oh trust me I really do, I'm just saying it's too soon. Trust me I would love for all my sons' girlfriends to join the family one day. Just not today because I don't want to feel old and I'm not ready to be called Grandpa thank you very much."

Holly smiled. "It's not much, but I would like to be a grandmother in five years at least."

Justin smiled. "We will see about that. But I still think Mitch is your best bet."

Holly smiled into her wine.

—------------------------------‐—--‐—-----------------------

Dinner was delicious.

She had to admit her family knew how to cook. Thank God, because if Alyssa was left to fend for herself. It would be drastically different. Her dad carved the massive bird. The blessing was said and they all dug in. Sara made the mac n cheese and posted it to tiktok. Which it was social media approved thank you very much.

Before the meal Sara and her family posed for a united photo to post on Instagram. Of course her Uncle and Aunt had something to say.

Things had seemed to calm down since the dodged argument the previous day. Sara decided not to let their shitty comments bother her. She didn't want to be the trouble maker as her aunt called her. 

Just a few more days she thought. I can do this.

The family launched into their plans for Friday. They had planned to make a whole day out of shopping and Christmas fun. Sara picked at her plate while they spoke of their couples fun date night. 

"Sara?" 

She looked up from her plate. "Yes?"

"We have enough bottles in the fridge, and we also wrote out their schedules for naps and stuff. Also Tristian and Charlie are to have no sugar." Katie stated. 

Charles smiled. "Although you're their favorite aunt for a reason, so we don't expect you to follow that."

Sara smiled. "I am the fun one for a reason. Which reminds me, give me a list of all the things they want for Christmas that will piss you off so I know what to get them."

The whole group laughed. But it was short lived because of Aunt Willa.

"Well dear you know sweets aren't good for them. You don't want them to be chubby like you growing up. Also be careful about your plate, you don't want to setback your weight loss."

Everyone continued talking, oblivious to the direct insult at Sara. It was always like this, to avoid conflict. Which was easy for them because her insults weren't as rude to them as it was Sara. 

She took another swig of her wine, reaching for the bottle again to pour herself a big glass. Of course Uncle George had to notice.

"Whoa we see Hollywood is turning you into an alcoholic. What's next, Coke?"

Sara laughed. "No Uncle George, if I ever wanted some though I could probably ask one of your law buddies."

That shut him up really quickly.

Cathy spoke up. "Oh my god, making all of those lady fingers yesterday reminds me of making them for all the weddings. Alyssa I can't believe yours was almost five years ago."

"It's been too long since we had a wedding." Scott sighed. "I must say the Wozniak's know how to throw a party." He looked at Sara. "I can't wait for it to be your turn. You always know how to get the party started."

"Yes we all know she had a lot of practice at UCLA while wasting it on that psychology degree." Willa stated.

"You know I also minored in Fine Arts too right?"

Ryan, Brent's brother cut in. "That's awesome though, hey I couldn't do that to save my life. Some people are good at science and some at arts. What makes the world go around" He smiled at Sara and she finally felt like someone was in her corner.

Mike cut in. "I don't think I'll ever have to worry about Sara bringing home a guy. She's learned her lessons from all the losers she's dated. She's perfectly happy being on her own."

Well fuck you dad.

"Well when Sara does get married, it's going to be a beautiful lavish affair. It's going to be full of celebrities. Oh Sara, please invite Celine Dion!"

"Mom, I don't even know Celine Dion. I can't just ask her to come to my wedding."

"Less money I'm going to have to dish out." Mike muttered.

Sara stabbed at her salad. "Yeah you saved so much money for not paying for my college."

Willa stood up for her brother. "Can you blame him? You got lucky getting discovered with that show. Otherwise you'd be a secretary working for your dad's company." 

Katie wanted to change topics. "So did I tell you that I signed Tristian up for flag football?" The group, eager to switch topics all were amazed by this fact. "Yes, he was watching the Steelers and wants to be like Kenny Pickett."

Charles looked at Sara. "Hey, you could get him a jersey and some tickets for Christmas."

Sara smiled and said she would do anything for her nieces and nephews. "I would love to. "

Brittany saw that her aunt was about to open her mouth again. "Scott and I have an announcement." She and her husband stood up. Katie, Alyssa, and Sara all looked at each other with knowing smiles on their faces. "Eliza will be a big sister in June!"

Everyone jumped up in happiness. Cathy cried, excited to be an eighth time grandmother. Sara hugged both Brittany and Scott. She knew that they wanted a big family and before Eliza they had two miscarriages that were hard on them. So they deserved this. The atmosphere changed to a lighter mood as they talked about the upcoming baby. They all had their predictions. (Mostly everyone thought it was a boy.)

They got through the rest of dinner and dessert. The family decided to have a game night while the kids fell asleep due to the food overload. 

Sara had to admit she had a blast, her family was close and fun (when aunt Willa and uncle George weren't involved.)

It was a little past one am when they decided to turn in. Everyone once again brought up the fun day they had planned without her.

She headed downstairs and got ready for bed replaying the insults that Willa hurled at her. She understood that while her family would talk shit about their fathers sister. They allowed her to bully all of them and tolerate it because she was her dad's only relative. Why couldn't her mom's many siblings and their kids ever join them? At least they were more fun and didn't treat Sara like she was scum on the bottom of the shoe. 

She messaged Justin that she hoped he had a good Thanksgiving with his family. He replied back which was shocking that he loved her and that he hoped that her family didn't put her down too much.

They went back and forth a few times before Sara fell asleep to get ready for the chaos of looking over seven kids by herself.

—----------------------------------------------------------------

Justin had to plan for Christmas.

His mother and father were out shopping, and it wasn't til they mentioned Christmas that he realized he was so far behind.

He usually only bought it for his parents and siblings, as well as the team. But this year he had a girl in his life, one that meant alot to him. So he wanted to make it special.

He did the basic decorating, he did have a tree. But he didn't put it up last year because of the little menace he called Nova kept trying to climb it. 

He was on his laptop while the television was playing game footage.

He thought about what she would like. Jewelry? Perfume? Lingerie? Well let's face it, that would be for him.

He knew Sara didn't care about materialistic things but he wanted to get her some nice things. He tried to rack his brain for some designer brands she wore. There was Balmain? Michael Kors did a shoot for them so he knew of them. She did mention about working out, maybe he could get some Nike gear for her.

He knew she shared his love for Oregon and enjoyed her time there. So he racked his brain for an idea. He sat there staring off into space for a few minutes before an idea popped into his mind. He grabbed his phone and began to scroll through his contacts. It was a personal number used for special clients like Justin. He felt bad for using it the day after a Holiday, but once the guy picked up he assured him it was no big deal and that he could work on the piece ASAP. It was expensive, more than what he would usually spend on someone. But Sara was worth it.

He told the guy his idea and Tony said he would draw up some sketches and send them to him within a couple of days.

They hung up, Justin felt good and confident in this gift. It wasn't going to be her only one, but it was the most important and sentimental.

And while the thought of her overwhelming fame terrified him. He was going to push that aside.

—----------------------------------------------------------

Did Sara want kids? Yes. 

Did she want a big family? Maybe, she always thought about three or four at the most?

Did she love and adore her nieces and nephews? Yes, she would take a bullet for them.

But damn was this overwhelming. She woke up to the family heading out the door while giving last minute instructions for the toddlers and baby. Tristian and Charlie, being five and older, just wanted to play video games, thankfully Katie packed their IPads. It's funny, because she swore her kids would never be IPad kids, but she sure as shit was thankful they had them

Their twin sisters Jessica and Samantha, were three and they demanded attention, as well as Theo. When he woke up he was asking for Brent and Sara had to remind him he was not home and wouldn't be for a week.

Insert chaos.

Theo went into a full meltdown, which in turn woke up his baby sister for a feeding, in turn Eliza was crying. Try feeding a six month old while trying to console a two year old. Then the twins needed food. She set everyone down at the table and had to yell at Tristian and Charlie to leave the electronics in the living room.

She took requests. The boys wanted eggs, while the twins wanted French toast. After placing a large order from the local breakfast house ( no way she was cooking) everyone was at the table eating while Sara fed and changed Kenzie and also spoon fed Eliza her baby food. She looked at the time on the stove and saw it was only 10am.

Once breakfast was done and trash was thrown out, in which she had to bribe Charlie to watch the kids for two minutes.  Theo began asking for his dad once again. When she tried to distract the toddler she could see another meltdown forming so she got her phone to facetime Brent. She didn't know what his schedule was or where he was at but god she hoped he was paying attention to his phone.

She saw his face appear on the screen and she took a sigh of relief. "Hey Sara what is the matte-"

"Daddy!" Theo came running and she scooped him up on her lap so he could see. "Hey little man! What's up!"

Theo, expressed how much he missed him and Sara could see how much Brent softened seeing his son. It made her own heart melt. They all spoke and once it seemed Theo was satisfied, well falling asleep. Sara put him down for a nap as well as the twins. Kenzie was on the jungle map and the boys were occupied, so was Eliza.

"Why are you with all the kids?" Brent questioned. Sara rolled her eyes. "Because everyone else is having couple time."

"Why did Alyssa go?" Sara shook her head. "I guess she needed a break."

"That's not fair for them to ask you to watch seven children."

She nodded. "Yeah. But I don't get to spend much time with the little monsters so I guess I'll let it slide. But I'm not doing it next year when Brittany has her baby."

Brent laughed. "Yeah Alyssa told me. Who knows next year you can join us for our nights out."

Sara smiled. "We will see."

"Alyssa told me what happened at dinner with Aunt Willa. Forget about her, she is a bitch." 

"Ooh Uncle Brent you swore!" Leave it to Tristan to walk in at the right Moment.

"You heard nothing from me kid if you want that hockey stick." That shut him up really quickly. He spoke once Sara gave him the nod the kid was out of the room. "But seriously, I don't understand why this family lets her be like that. She bullies everyone, but especially you."

"Trust me you have been in this family since middle school. You know everyone hates her, but she's my dad's only sibling and the only family he has left."

Brent shook his head. "Doesn't matter. She just turns good chaos into bad chaos."

Sara nodded. "Remember when you guys broke up while you were in Chicago? She was setting Alyssa up with every guy in the area"

Brent laughed. "Remember the look on her face when I showed up to her house after we got back together?"

They busted our laughing remembering that night a little too well. Sara wished him luck on his game and she would be watching along with Theo and the others. 

When she hung up Eliza waddled over and did her grabby hands. Sara picked up and pestered her face with kisses. She felt her phone ring again and saw that it was Justin. Picking up she saw his face that he was confused that there was another face. "Um hi?"

"Hi honey." She smiled. She bounced Eliza on her lap. "This is my niece Eliza, she can keep a secret, don't worry. Can you say hi Liz?" The baby held up her hand and Justin smiled as he watched his girlfriend kiss the baby's chubby cheek. It gave him ideas.

"You look exhausted." She laughed. "Gee thanks"

"I'm serious babe. You lost some weight but you look malnourished."

She playfully glared at him. "You a doctor or something?" He gave her a 'are you serious' look and she laughed. "Have you eaten?" She looked at the time, it was 1pm . "No actually I haven't had a sip of water or a bite to eat! I've been looking after seven kids all day."

Justin shook his head. "Eat. Please. And have some water." He saw her set the phone down and get up and grab a bottle of water. Once she sat down she tried to set Eliza down but the she started to whine so Sara picked her back up. Once she unscrewed the water the baby tried to grab it from her hands. Sara held the water out of reach. He heard another baby voice. "Aunt Sasa I'm thirsty and he assumed she handed the bottle to the little kid. "See? No time for anything. If I tried to get some food right now they would be bothering me"

"I'm hungy!" She nodded. "Okay Theo what do you want? You want Dino nuggets?"

"Oh Aunt Sara do we have any leftover stuffing?"  Before Justin could say anything Sara was surrounded by kids. "Look ill call you later" the phone went black before he could say anything.

Sara heard Kenzie crying and grabbed her from the playpen and quickly changed her. The twins woke up from their nap and wanted to dance so she put on Disney tunes and she bounced around with them while she prepared lunch. Eliza was clingy and wouldn't leave Sara's side, but then Jessica got jealous, and then Samantha was upset that her twin was getting attention.

Sara made a mental reminder not to watch all of them ever again. 

Once lunch was taken care of. She set everyone down to watch a movie. While she was holding Kenzie (Eliza and the twins fell asleep.) Charlie sat next to Sara on the couch and cuddled up to her. While she loved everyone, she had a special bond with Charlie, he was the first born and was the center of Sara’s world until his siblings and other cousins came along. He was expected to go to the wayside while his other siblings needed more care. That was the downside of being the oldest. She supposed that was how Katie felt growing up. She knew he was jealous that the others were soaking up the attention. "You need to come around more often. I miss you."

She ruffled his hair. "I know kiddo, I'm sorry."

"Are you coming for Christmas?"

"I don't know yet, but I will be by you guys for your Birthday in June. I'll take you on a special day. Me and you, no pesky younger siblings and I'll get ya a little cake so you can blow out the candles by yourself."  She whispered that last part. He smiled and rested his head on her shoulder. 

"Aunt Sara?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you not have any kids?"

She laughed and ruffled his hair.

—----------------------------------------------------‐—---

The rest of the day went smoothly. She took everyone to the basement to play some kiddie games. She had made sure to tire them out so when the parents returned home everyone had bathe and was in their sleeping arrangements. "Holy cow, the house is clean, kids are sleeping and you're alive. You are too damn good. I'll pay you to move in with us." Charles said as everyone laughed.

"Yes its a shame she's wasting all of her fertile years." Uncle George remarked and as usual, the happy mood was spoiled by the drags of the family. 

Sara got up from the couch and felt a little dizziness and realized again she hadn't eaten and had a few sips of water. "I need to eat something." She headed over to the kitchen and began to make a plate.

Her mother followed her while the others went upstairs. "Hey so your sisters and I are going shopping tomorrow. Come with us and we will have a girls day."

Sara put the leftovers in the microwave. "I'd like that."

"9am sharp." Her mom walked out.

"Love you too mom" She muttered.

—-------------------------------------------------------------

Your family really made you watch seven kids? All under the age if seven?" Justin was in awe as they spoke later in the night. She was in the bathroom sitting on the tubs edge.

He saw how tired she was and no matter how many times he tried to lecture her to get some sleep she kept telling him she wanted to talk to him and the lack of sleep was worth it.

"Fuck I can't wait to see you Monday" She breathed. "It's been too long,"

Justin smirked. "Baby we are not leaving the bedroom when I see you."

She groaned. "I'm going to suck you dry."

He moaned. "Baby please."

"I'll have a home cooked meal and dessert on my body for you to lick off when you win."

"Okay we need to stop before I need to jerk off. I don't want to ruin it."

"Ruin what?"

"The first time I nut in you."

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"Oh please do not buy him that!" Katie protested as Sara threw the marshmallow launcher in the cart.

 They had woken up and gotten breakfast before mani and pedis. They were now shopping up and down the major streets. A few fans approached her asking for pictures and autographs. She did ask a few not to record her family as they walked down the street and said that she was taking no more autographs and pictures. She was sure the video would end up on some social media platform.

The guys were home with the kids and Uncle George and Aunt Willa. It was her, her mom, and sisters. It was nice to have the girl time, something they hadn't had in a while.

Sara laughed. "Hey I'm not the favorite aunt for no reason. Any gifts my nephews want that would piss you off I'm for sure getting them."

Brittany was looking at the maternity section, despite already having a bunch of maternity clothes. Cathy and Sara were looking at Christmas decorations. "Oh Sara you should get these nutcrackers for your fireplace in the basement."

They were ugly but Sara didn't want to tell her mother that. "Yeah ill think about it."

"Oh my god I have the best idea! How about for Christmas we have it by you!" It took a moment for Sara to realize her mother was talking about her. "Wait what?"

Katie chimed in. "Ooh that would be amazing! Enjoying the sun, going somewhere warm instead of dealing with the snow."

"The best part is Aunt Willa wouldn't go because she hates California." The girls laughed. "Oh girls that is terrible." Cathy tried to scold.

Sara smiled. "Please mom, that was one of the reasons you even suggested it." Cathy smiled into her coffee and she knew she was right.

They continued with their shopping. All of then laughing and gossiping. "Oh Sara so while we were out I was talking to Trevor." The girls groaned. "Mom he's gay-" Cathy cut off Brittany. "There is a chance! You can't turn gay after having a fiance! He's probably just hurt and confused.

Sara rolled her eyes. "And I'm supposed to be his rebound savior, Gee thanks mom."

"You two would he cute together and you grew up together. He always liked you."

" that's why he was silent while his friends bullied me and tortured me in high school. Yeah okay."

Cathy sighed. "I wished you would let that go. Also I don't appreciate how you spoke with Aunt Willa. I'm just trying to keep the peace."

"By letting her walk all over everyone okay." She pushed the cart ahead. Not wanting to have this argument. 

Still her mom pushed forward. "Sara I just want peace, and you always have to just start tension."

"Mom I don't want to talk about it. I promise I'll stay out of her way."

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And she tried her best.

Saturday evening was okay. It seemed everyone was in good spirits and they devoured cookies and leftovers while watching Brent's team play in San Jose. They pointed out to Theo everytime they showed Brent on screen. 

Afterwards Ryan and Sara were in the basement and taught Charlie and Tristian the basics of piano. The rest of the family joined and while Sara played, they sang Christmas carols

It was a good night. Everything was going well.

Until Sunday.

During breakfast. Sara noticed Aunt Willa was on the phone probably with her daughter Kelsi, who was just as spoiled as her mother. Willa was upset that Sara couldn't hook Kelsi up with a modeling gig. First of all, Kelsi was not up to industry standards. Second, Kelsi was a PR nightmare. Sara didn't even follow her on socials because of the downright offensive posts she would share.

It just wasn't worth it.

She was quiet the rest of breakfast. But she was going her passive aggressive sighs.

It wasn't til lunch when George and Willa mentioned Kelsi's name

"Kelsi is in jail."

There was a gasp among the room. Sara could only roll her eyes. It wasn't that much of a surprise. This wasn't her first run in with the law.

"What is she in jail for? And how much is bail?"

Aunt Willa sighed. "Well this isn't her first run in and it is aggravated assault. But I'm sure there was a good reason."

Another eye roll from Sara. Her father sighed. "Well tell me the amount and I'll send it to you."

Sara couldn't hold back. "You got to be fucking kidding me?"

Everyone looked over at her in shock. Mike was glaring at her. "Sara."

"I'm just saying. Uncle George was just bragging about that new yacht he bought. Surely he can put up the money."

It just wasn't worth it.

She was quiet the rest of breakfast. But she was going her passive aggressive sighs.

It wasn't til lunch when George and Willa mentioned Kelsi's name

"Kelsi is in jail."

There was a gasp among the room. Sara could only roll her eyes. It wasn't that much of a surprise. This wasn't her first run in with the law.

"What is she in jail for? And how much is bail?"

Aunt Willa sighed. "Well this isn't her first run in and it is aggravated assault. But I'm sure there was a good reason."

Another eye roll from Sara. Her father sighed. "Well tell me the amount and I'll send it to you."

Sara couldn't hold back. "You got to be fucking kidding me?"

Everyone looked over at her in shock. Mike was glaring at her. "Sara."

"I'm just saying. Uncle George was just bragging about that new yacht he bought. Surely he can put up the money."

She could have sworn Aunt Willa wanted to jump across the table and strangle her. "That's what family does. You wouldn't know the definition because you don't appreciate yours. After everything your father does for you."

"Oh yeah, I paid for my own education, and got my shit together. Unlike your daughter."

Willa slammed her hand on the table. "Oh you think you are so brave for some little gig you got. You'd be some poor little pauper if it wasn't for that."

Sara was pissed. "Why the fuck are you here? Every year you and Uncle George come  here to cut everyone up. No one wants you here but they won't say it?"

Uncle George got involved. "You have some nerve little girl. My brother law did everything for you and you have a big mouth. If you were my kid I'd beat you black and blue."

Mike was silent during the whole exchange. Sara looked at him. "Come on dad I know she's your sister but she always does this! Cut everyone up and puts me down! For no reason!"

"Now listen you little bitch!" Cathy stood up, knocking over the glass. "Don't you call my child that you stupid little-"

Tristian walked up the yelling adults. "Uncle Brent told Aunt Sasa on the phone that Aunt Willa was a bitch.

Now shit hit the fan. Everyone started yelling. Sara began to walk away until Aunt Willa grabbed her wrist in front of her brother. "I told your brother having you was a mistake. You should have followed through with your attempt in high school"

Tears stung her eyes. She looked over at her dad who didn't say anything. "Really dad? That was supposed to be confidential? Aren't you going to say anything?"

Mike clenched his jaw. "You shouldn't have started it."

Her jaw dropped. She knew her dad was a pushover, but for this?

"You know what Mike? Since you never were around while I was growing up. You won't be around to see me get older either. Just forget about me." She ran downstairs and grabbed her bags. She did a quick search for everything. Grabbing her phone she was thankful that there were many ubers out and about. Seeing one coming down the street on the map she came upstairs.

Cathy walked towards her. "Sara please your father."

"I don't want to hear it. You can forget Christmas. " Aunt Willa was behind her. "You should have shut your mouth little girl. You maybe a Hollywood big shot now but you are always a attention seeking snot nosed brat "

"Shut up Willa you bitch." Cathy's attention turned towards her sister in law. Sara took that as her chance to escape.

Running outside, she hopped into the uber. Thankfully he was an older man who didn't seem go care if she was famous or not. 

Her sisters house faded away in the distance and Sara couldn't be more relieved. She was ready to get home and go to people who truly loved and cared about her.

Home to Justin.

A.N This is a heavy one, but its important for later on. Let me know what yall think!