#WAIT nevermind got the date wrong it was today and it's sold out already

[racewinner]

mitski feature on the upcoming tamino album... omg

[ikesenlemonadestandstories]

Level 9

Can you believe we’re almost all the way through January? One more day left and we’ll be a full month into 2020. How’s it feel gang? We all doing okay?

Tagging: @loudartanimeeclipse​

Master List here or search Ikesen AFK tag

Warnings: None

Happy Reading, T~

Level 9

You were here, it was nine, and you were starting to get annoyed. Had you been played? Were you about to be ambushed? Jumped? Hacked? As your mind raced nearly a thousand pop up windows flooded your chat screen as you were thrown into a brand new group chat, this one titled “Team Azuchi.” Interesting. 

4myLord → Seriously, though, how do you not know where they are? You just met her last night. This is horribly rude.

OneEyedDrag0n → Nope, see? I remembered her username! She’s in the group chat! @WildCyt0m3try you are in the group chat right. /;3;/ Please tell me you’re in the group chat!

Present, though, I’m not super sure where you are? You said 9 sharp but never specified where... ← WildCyt0m3try

Betrayal_is_real04  → He’s as helpful as ever I see. 

Your answer was equally unhelpful… ( - . - )  ← WildCyt0m3try

D3vilK1ng  → I like her @OneEyedDrag0n, she’s got spunk. 

OneEyedDrag0n  → Right! Almost beat me in that tournament too! 

EdoPorcupine5661 → Oh? No surprise there. 

OneEyedDrag0n → Hey! I resent that statement 

Betrayal_is_real04 → You resent most of his statements. 

EdoPorcupine5661 → Is everyone here now? Except for @WildCyt0m3try? 

4myLord → No. We’re missing @B00kOfLife7. You can find us near the South gate @WildCyt0m3try. 

Thx! I see you now! ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → Does it matter? Can we start without him? He’s probably reading and forgot we were supposed to meet. 

4myLord → We cannot!

B00kOfLife7 → We cannot what? 

EdoPorcupine5661 → Nevermind… 

D3vilK1ing → Glad you could join us, shall we head out now that everyone’s gathered?

In a matter of moments, your screen warped, and your character and her new teammates were whisked off towards the southern dessert. Excitement bubbled up inside of you, this was your chance to shine. Sure, you barely knew these people, but if they fought anything like OneEyedDrag0n had, you didn’t want to look incompetent. Fortunately, the battle conditions were a perfect way to showcase your stats. 

The dessert terrain made it nearly impossible for anyone on foot to move, and cavalry or armored units had almost no chance at advancing more than a single space at a time. You, on the other hand, were a flier, meaning terrain that diminished that particular stat didn’t apply to you. Giving you the range to quickly traverse the battlefield and assist your allies. Which is precisely what you planned to do. 

Everyone had spawned in one of two groups; truly, the game seemed to be out to get you. Both of the warlocks had been pushed together in the back corner of the map with the sniper. Everyone else in your party was in the top corner with you. Meaning all of your long-range fighters were too far away to provide any sort of backup to the poor guy on a horse and your swords.

So...this is unfortunate ← WildCyt0m3try

OneEyedDrag0n → We’ve honestly gotten worse, this ain't too bad 

You’ve got to be kidding ← WildCyt0m3try

4myLord → We wish. We’ll have time for that story later. @B00kOfLife got a plan yet? 

B00kOfLife → @D3vilK1ng and @Betrayal_is_real04, please proceed towards the center of the field to become the central targets. 

B00kOfLife → @EdoPorcupine5661 and I will cover the exit point down here to the south so bandits cannot escape. 

B00kOfLife → @OneEyedDrag0n, please do your best to cover @4myLord since he doesn’t have a large range of movement. Fend off enemies as you make your way toward the center of the field. 

B00kOfLife → @WildCyt0m3try, please make quick work of the chests around the field then chase down any enemies that attempt to flee. You are quite capable of fending them off on your own, I presume?

Everything but archers, though, I’m usually good with dodging, and I’ve got plenty of herbs on standby jic. ← WildCyt0m3try

B00kOfLife ← Wonderful. Message if something should go wrong. Good luck. 

With the plan out, the chat went silent. This was nothing like your other team, no microphones were used for in battle communication, not a single word was typed unless something was direly wrong. You had been provided exactly 3 chest keys to do your job, but you knew that at least three of these bandits had keys of their own, so you shouldn’t have to dip into your stock unless someone called you for backup. 

Just as OneEyedDrag0n had stated last night, everyone here was a capable fighter. The plan was being executed beautifully, and you marveled at how the CPU’s seemed to go down one after the other. It was like the computer wasn’t even paying attention to the stats anymore. Why would you go after an enemy that you only had a 16% chance of doing 4 damage to when they had a 98% chance of doing 36 damage twice? It didn’t make any sense. You'd take what you were given, though. 

In half an hour, all of the chests were successfully looted, the enemy had been routed, and EdoPorcupine5661 was named the MVP. You’d never seen that before, granted you hadn’t been playing that long, but it was rare for a bowed unit to take accolades like that. Being a ranged unit seemed to have its perks on terrane like this, you supposed. Prize money was divided, and the weapons and armor were awarded based on participation and usability. It didn’t make much sense to give something to someone who couldn’t make use of it. After thanking them for letting you play with them, you were about to log off and head to bed when you got a private message. 

EdoPorcupine5661 → OneEyedDrag0n said you were in the market for a bow. 

I am. Not sure where I’d find one this late in my game, though, sort of hard to reclass and start over.  ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → You fought well, and you aren’t completely annoying, so here, it was part of my loot today. 

Are you sure? That’s a really nice bow! ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → It is, which is why you’d be stupid not to take it. I’ve already got one. So here. 

Thanks! UwU You’re the best! Now I’ve just got to get the skill up so I can use it! ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → If you’re free tomorrow at 5, I can meet you for some quick tips. Don’t need you shooting yours or anyone else’s eye out. 

Is that what happened to OneEyedDrag0n? Training accident lol? ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → No. It wasn’t an accident.

Omfg, you didn’t xD ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → I didn’t, but it’s always fun to imagine. 

So 5 tomorrow? ← WildCyt0m3try I should be down for that as long as I get off work on time. ← WildCyt0m3try   Are you going to give me any hints about where to meet you, or is that part of this team’s quirks? ← WildCyt0m3try Make the newbie guess where you’re meeting? ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → You know, I was going to tell you, but I’m not feeling quite as generous anymore. 

Noooo! Please! I don’t like wandering around like a lost CPU! Someone tried to buy stuff from me today, you know! ← WildCyt0m3try That’s how idle I looked waiting for you goons lol ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → Maybe you should evaluate the face your character is making? It’s not my fault you look like someone who sells cheap spears. 

I would not sell cheap spears! Only the highest quality merchandise is sold here! ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → Whatever you say. 

I’m glad you’ve come to your senses and decided to agree with me.  ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → Sure, we’ll go with that. 

Okay, well, thanks for the bow. I’ll see you tomorrow around 5. I’ve decided I actually need to get some sleep tonight! Work has been a H A U L lately. ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → You don’t need to explain yourself to me. Just go to bed, weirdo. 

Roger that, weirdo. ← WildCyt0m3try

EdoPorcupine5661 → That wasn’t a compliment. 

Sure it was. Laters~ ← WildCyt0m3try

You smiled as you shut down the console and powered off your television, that had been fun. It was so different from your other team's dynamic, but it added something different to the experience beyond solo playing. Besides, you had totally just scored a kick-ass bow, and a training date tomorrow. You couldn’t wait; if you kept going at this pace, you were sure it’d be enough to push your team to the winning slot next tournament! Real-life prize money here you came!

[one-of-us-blog]

The Audit (TGG, Season 3, Episode 10)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap The Audit, Episode 10 of the third season of The Golden Girls.  As an auditor by trade himself, will this episode be the grand tribute to a wrongfully despised profession for which he has often longed, or leave him with an intense sense of self-loathing?  Keep reading to find out…

Jon, I really appreciated your take on The End of Time (both parts), and your criticisms were very justified.  I’ve always wished that David Tennant had been given a better send-off than he got, although he still knocked it out of the park for his own part in the two-parter.  I also loved your retrospective on the Tenth Doctor’s arc as a whole, and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that DT won you over and made a lasting impression.  There is always a transition period for viewers when a new Doctor hits the scene, and that’s part of what makes the show so exciting and eternal in my opinion, but I’m really looking forward to getting your initial thoughts on Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor!  Now, it’s time for me to head to Miami for a tribute to a particularly noble, though maligned, profession…

Buttocks tight!

Written by Winifred Hervey Stallworth, directed by Terry Hughes

(Disclaimer: Proofreading this recap, I realized how obnoxious it sounds).

As the episode opens, Sophia is cooking some bangin’ spaghetti sauce, and Blanche is lamenting the fact that she hasn’t had a date in eight whole days.  What’s wrong with the bachelors of Miami, anyway?  Do they hate having a good time?  Is this the beginning of the end of her sensual lifestyle?  A couple of verbal jabs at Dorothy lift her spirits, and then Rose enters to present the B plot of the episode.  In order to get a promotion that she really wants at work, she has to become bilingual.  Blanche is taken aback, and tells her that nothing is worth dating women.  Hmm, I know this is just a joke about Blanche not understanding words, but I guess we haven’t come super far from Isn’t It Romantic?, have we?  Anyway, Rose will be taking Spanish class at night school.  Blanche thinks this might be just the opportunity she needs to meet some smart, sexy, single men, and she wants to sign up along with Rose.  I hope she’s ready, because Rose wants to go all Spanish, all the time in order to have the full experience.  Meanwhile, Stan also shows up, so you know there’s trouble on the horizon.  He eats some of Sophia’s spaghetti (which Dorothy is all too willing to share with him, for some reason), and then announces that the IRS is auditing him…and since they are digging back a number of years prior to the divorce, they are also by extension auditing Dorothy.  Stan also tells her that there is going to be a problem; he totes pulled some shady shit with his taxes.  The end result could be either a fee, or a prison term.  So, no biggie, right?

In the next scene, Rose is preparing for night school by practicing her Spanish, while Blanche is preparing for night school by prepping her bosoms.  Stan shows up with all his “tax receipts” (*eye roll*) in a garbage bag, because of course he does.  Blanche and Rose take off, and Dorothy and Stan get down to business.  Stan’s paperwork is both illuminating and troubling.  He wrote off a bad investment in tie bibs, and generally screwed things up.  He gives Dorothy an “I could have been a contender” speech straight out of On the Waterfront, and then she actually makes a pleasant discovery.  A ring he bought for her was more expensive than she realized, costing $2,500.  I’ll do my best to ignore the fact that he deducted this as a gift, which is more bullshit, because gifts aren’t even a thing you can deduct.  But the feelings of goodwill are short-lived, as Dorothy also learns that Stan bought himself a much more expensive Corvette and kept it as a secret from her.  Wait, how in the heck was he trying to write off a Corvette?  Anyway, Dorothy is now piiissed and wants him out of her life for good (uh huh, sure).  She doesn’t care if he goes to jail, but she is caught up in all of this with him and hates him for it.

Jumping ahead, Dorothy and Stan show up at a building somewhere to see the auditor, Wendell Murray (Side note: I guess the way they are going to depict this is with the two of them dropping off their paperwork and sitting in the same small room for hours while he pecks away at a calculator, which is not even remotely close to how any of this would work, but oh well).  Stan tries to bond with the bald(ing) auditor by removing his toupee, but he basically just insults him.  After some sweaty hours pass, the honorable Mr. Murray reveals that they owe a total of $5,000…he even splits it down the middle at $2,500 each since they are divorced, which is more nonse…you know what, nevermind.  But if they can’t cough up Uncle Sam’s dough, they could face liens or even jail time.

In the next scene, Rose is up late studying for her Spanish test, but Blanche isn’t sweating it; she already has the test key.  Rose wonders if she slept with the teacher, but that’s ridiculous.  She only promised to sleep with the teacher until she gets what she needs.  Duh!  Rose doesn’t want any part of this, as she only got caught up in cheating once, when she fed BBs to her prize lamb for the county fair, and it didn’t turn out well.  Dorothy can’t sleep because she’s so worried about the money she owes.  She only has half of her portion and she can’t get a bank loan, so she’ll have to sell off some stuff at the pawn shop (Side note 2: Look, I know this was made a few decades back, but it’s hard for me to believe that she can’t come up with $1,250 dollars to avoid jail time; and honestly, if she pays what she does have, there’s no way she’s getting locked up over $1,250, seriously).  Dorothy can’t believe where she has ended up in life, and Rose and Blanche have their own musings, which prompts Sophia to deliver her ‘3 Rules for Life’:

1) Hold fast to your friends; 2) There’s no such thing as security; and 3) Don’t go see Ishtar (topical!)

The girls arrive at the pawnshop the next day, and Rose’s attempts to practice her Spanish almost score the girls the cash for Dorothy in an attempted robbery.  After things calm down, the owner offers $100 for everything Dorothy brought.  This won’t fly, but he then notices her ring.  You know, the one from Stan, which we were specifically and conveniently told cost $2,500?  He eventually offers her $1,200 for it, and though she is reluctant to part with the ring because it represents something positive about her marriage with Stan (who she just said she wants out of her life forever), she gives in and sells it to cover her debt.

In the final scene, we learn that Rose and Blanche both dropped out of night school.  Rose was bad at Spanish, and Blanche wasn’t finding any manflesh.  Stan comes by, and Dorothy gives him the check for her half of the tax liability (Side note 3: I was screaming “What?” at this point in the episode…after the stress that this money caused, how are you just going to hand it over the Stan, the architect of all this misery, and trust that he’ll take care of things?).  Anyway, he gives Dorothy back her ring.  He learned that she pawned it after speaking to Sophia off-screen, and he bought it back for her.  To do so, and cover the tax liability, he sold his Corvette.  Now he’ll just be a middle-aged bald man driving a Toyota (Side note 4: WAIT JUST A MINUTE, NOW THIS IS JUST GETTING PERSONAL, WHAT IS WRONG WITH BALD MEN DRIVING TOYOTAS, MAY I ASK?).  The two hug, and Blanche and Rose hit the town to prowl for men.  Stan tries to take Dorothy to bed, and he pays for it.

The End.

Man, where do I start?  I’m just too close to this one to judge it fairly.  Look, I never dreamed of growing up to be an auditor, but here I am, and I know what the job entails.  I feel like this episode is basically depicting what everyone I know assumes that I do for a living, even thought my job has nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with making sure that government agencies spend their funds properly.  But I digress.  The way that everything unfolded in the episode was pretty (or very) unrealistic, but hey, it’s a sitcom…and it was nice to see Mr. Murray in action.  I always have such mixed feelings about Dorothy’s relationship with Stan.  I mean, the guy is obviously a tool who has screwed her over in multiple ways, and she needs to just stick to her guns in keeping this cancer out of her life from now on instead of handing him a plate of spaghetti the next time he shows up to prove what a bag of dicks he has always been.  But on the other hand, I guess they were married for a very long time, and it’s hard to just forget that such a significant portion of your life and all the associated feelings occurred.  I guess the ring thing was sweet, but it was offset by the fact that Stan even let her sweat the $2,500 for the amount of time he did, given that the whole predicament was 100% his fault.  Anyway, it’s a fine episode I suppose, but I feel compelled out of principle to give it a score of 2.5 poofy hairdos out of 5.

Be sure to check in tomorrow, when we will get Jon’s take on The Eleventh Hour, the Series 5 premiere of Doctor Who and the first outing of the Eleventh Doctor!  And pop back in next Tuesday, when I will be discussing Three on a Couch, the next episode of The Golden Girls.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!