#also don’t go to a quarter system college unless you know you can do a lot of work in a short period of time lol

[merridelicious]

PART TWO! (i can make this a separate, more organized post, if requested!!)

Here are some more things I picked up from being an undergraduate uni student in the US. (In the interest of transparency and honesty, I’m from a lower middle class family, and live paycheck to paycheck as a college student.)

transportation

As far as transportation goes, find out if your school does student discounts for public transit passes and cards. Mine does (I go to school in a city where public transit is shitty, but still heavily used and far cheaper than rideshare) and I’m happy I checked first.

If buses aren’t your thing, find out how much you’ll need to budget for car/rideshare expenses. I personally wouldn’t recommend electric bikes or scooters (heard too many hospital horror stories) but again, if it works for you, it works. Lyft tends to be cheaper than Uber in many cases, because of their “wait and save” option.

If you live in the city, you probably don’t want to be on the bus: in the middle of the night; after a concert; during rush hour when it’s crowded. This is doubly important to keep in mind if you commute to work and/or school and you know your commute is long.

work outside of school

As I said before: STEM majors, you’ve got my love and condolences. You might be too busy for this advice to apply to you even if you’re not a STEM major, in which case, feel free to skip.

I’m a working student. I can’t afford not to be. If you have the privilege of not having to work part time/full time hours while going to school, the work life balance advice won’t yet apply.

If you’ve made it this far, I’m going to be brutally honest for a sec. The more credits & classes you take at a time, the less time you have for work and other activities. I’ve managed to keep my schedule as open as I can while taking 14-15 credits a quarter. If you’re on the semester system, or a different credit system, results may vary. A late registration time is the short straw.

Your first job in college is probably going to suck. You’ll likely be overworked and underpaid, and I can’t think of a single state’s federal minimum wage that adequately covers living expenses. They’ll expect 3-5 years of experience on the application and if you’re anything like me, you’ll be saying “I’ve never had a job before! I just did community service!” LIST THAT. Also, the little filler skills like typing and Microsoft Word and such? LIST THOSE. If you’ve ever seen the inside of a cash register just write that you have cash handling experience. (If you’ve used cash IRL you know how calculating change works.) 3-5 years of experience needed, my ass. YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH, write that you’ve got 3 and it likely won’t be questioned.

As someone who’s worked in clothing retail: DON’T. I don’t feel the need to elaborate beyond the fact that the sexual harassment and body shaming there was unreal. It came from managers to customers and managers to employees, and because HR is never your friend, we were encouraged not to report it unless there was a “real issue”.

SUPER IMPORTANT: You’re going to need A VERIFIED COPY of your birth certificate, a VALID STATE REAL ID/DRIVERS LICENSE and MEMORIZE your social security number. I’ve never been asked for my social security card when hired & completing a W4 (tax withholding form at the beginning of every job), but they need to verify your identity in two ways besides your social security #. NEVER give your SSN away to a potential employer. As far as I know, no legitimate job will ask for it before they show you a W4 to fill out. It’s used for payroll and also for taxes when tax season rolls around.

Note: you might qualify for tax returns and/or the IRS Free File (filing your taxes online for free). I did because my income was under a certain amount for an unmarried person. If you prefer filing your taxes on paper, or having someone else do them for you, feel free to choose that option (though the latter might cost you a bit).

Applying for scholarships doesn’t end once you get to college. Chances are, your school will continue to offer opportunities for grants & scholarships. If you have the privilege to avoid college loans and solely rely on scholarships, this is even more important. I wouldn’t be shy about looking for scholarship and grant opportunities outside of school either. Some are as easy as clicking a button to apply; others require your transcript, letters of rec, and essays. Think about how much time you realistically have on your hands.

ORGANIZING YOUR SCHEDULE: if you don’t read anything else in this section, I’m about to drop the trick of the century. I have mad executive dysfunction and I hate having unplanned time. Each month, I make a weekly document for each week that month called “day by day schedule” and I input assignments & events every day, so my week is broken down day-by-day. I plan around classes and work shifts during the school year, and during breaks I add a “want to do” section for fun activities (some people call them “may do” activities, as opposed to “must do” tasks) so I don’t forget that I want to bake cupcakes, for instance, or continue a show I’ve been watching, or various other stuff I like to do in my downtime. *I can post a blank example if enough people think it’ll be helpful. I also make sure that I include enough commuting buffer time in case my transportation is late.

things that have kept me from completely losing it

The “daily delight” rule: you know about little treats, right? Daily delights include little treats, but also having at least one thing and/or one person to look forward to at the end of the day. You will be delighted every day.

Planning outings: either by myself or with a couple of friends. Going somewhere for a change of scenery, even if it’s just a different public park or the farmer’s market is nice.

Planning trips: I’m lucky enough to be able to fly to see faraway loved ones at least once a year. Whether it’s found family or blood family, it’s nice to connect with them when and if you can. If there’s a specific place you want to save up to see, and that’s your sole reason to keep going, go for it.

I’m moving into college in 3 weeks have you got any tips :0

yes!! quite a few actually. :) *for mutuals outside of the u.s., this advice is based on a U.S. American university experience, so some of it may not apply to you.

PLEASE SEND ASKS if you have specific questions, and I’ll either speak from my own experience or give information from other friends in university rn!!

packing:

You don’t need to bring ALL your stuff. (Really, it’s okay. Also, you have limited space.)

A quick Google search of “college packing list 2023” will yield many results. It’s up to you to decide what “essentials” are actually essential, but suffice it to say, think about the things you use on a daily basis and then think about what you don’t have at home that you’ll need in student housing.

Apartment or dorm, unless you’re really lucky—you’ll be sharing living space & appliances with other people. Yes, that includes showers. If you can get toiletries cheaper locally than in the location of your university, save yourself the time and money. Shower shoes are an absolute must, because those showers can get disgusting.

If you have a meal plan that lasts the entire year, you don’t really need to pack a bunch of food (or go grocery shopping a ton during the school year) but it can be nice to have dry goods & snacks on hand. (I keep rice, macaroni & cheese, crackers, & some type of dried fruit around, if nothing else. Whatever tastes strike your fancy, feel free to add/substitute.) If you’re cooking all your own food, you’re going to need at least a cooking pot, frying pan, spatula, dish sponges, and dish soap, as well as some resealable food storage containers and cheap cups and bowls (I got most of that at Target. They tend to have back-to-school sales and bowls & cups go for less than a dollar each.)

Laundry is going to be a pain in the ass, unless again, you luck out and have a washer and dryer in-unit. Ditto for dishes (unless your space comes with a dishwasher). Do yourself a favor & get a huge bin of Tide pods, pack of laundry sheets, & at least two paper towel rolls so you don’t have to run out every week to replenish cleaning supplies. (I personally despise having dish towels to wash, so if you don’t mind them take the paper towel advice with a grain of salt.)

My dorm was weird and had a sink in it. If you’re responsible for cleaning your own sink it will get nasty quickly. Either take turns with your roommate(s)/housemate(s), or figure out who the designated sink cleaner is.

friends/socializing:

Your first friend group in college will likely not be your last, nor will it last. This group is usually composed of people close in proximity to you aka convenience friends. You might realize three or four months in that these are not your people and you don’t like hanging out with them. This is perfectly normal and okay! You’ll find people who you do vibe with. I encourage you not to limit making friends to your specific university, although if you go to a small one like I do that can be tough.

Universities often have events with free stuff, including free food. Take advantage of these events if & when you can. They’re usually very laid back, and if you’re not in the mood to stick around, you can grab food and then dip.

Orientation events & icebreakers within your first week are to be expected. Try to remember a fun fact about yourself (which is what you usually get asked, along with your intended major, name, pronouns—sometimes, & hometown).

Your RA(s) aren’t cops, but they also aren’t your friends. They’re required to report sketchy shit that happens. My RAs had a rule that if they didn’t hear, see, or smell anything suspicious, it was like nothing happened, but try to get a feel for what yours look out for.

It is more than okay to need/want therapy. You’ve just gone through a massive change in your life and you did it mostly, if not all, by yourself. Your university counseling services (if applicable) are generally not the best place to go for therapy, though. This is especially true if you’re worried about your privacy. I don’t think I’ve heard of student discounts for therapy, but some therapists have this policy called sliding scale where you pay what you can. Find a person you can talk openly with and who is experienced with your mental health concerns/practices the right kind of therapy for you. (CBT, DBT, & EMDR are a few examples.)

dating, love, etc.

First and foremost, if this section doesn’t apply to you because you don’t participate or aren’t ready to in college, please feel free to skip!

If you’re still here, obviously I am not the expert on your love life—you are. That being said, without getting too personal, here are some things I’ve picked up through trial and error.

If you’re starting college, and haven’t yet dated anyone, it’s okay to feel behind. What isn’t okay is being patronized or taken advantage of for your lack of experience. I wish I could say it’s just common sense, but it’s crucial to figure out what your boundaries, limits, & standards are before getting into an intimate situation with somebody. (I myself learned this the hard way.)

simply put: It is okay to be picky! (Read that again.) Or not—what works for one person won’t work for everyone. Some people date & hook up just for fun, especially during college when a lot of changes are happening, and that suits them fine. Some people want stronger, longer connections, and that works for them. Some people focus on friends over partners and refrain from the entire dating & hookup scene. All are valid and healthy. (As long as you stay safe, sane, & consensual, and get tested.)

school stuff:

Please do yourself a favor and don’t schedule 8am classes five days a week. I don’t care if you could do it in high school—chances are you’re going to need to wake up way beforehand to get ready OR your roommate will do something ridiculous in the middle of the night that will wake you up. In this more than likely event, you won’t want to wake up and go straight to class. If you’re not a STEM major, this advice is easier than if you are (and if the first applies, my condolences and much love).

You need sleep no matter what—if that means midday naps, go for it. I don’t recommend skipping class to nap unless it’s an emergency though.

Re skipping class: some professors take attendance and your grade can suffer if you don’t attend. Aside from mental health days, skipping class for fun can be a slippery slope at some universities. (At some, Cs get degrees and grades don’t matter as much, especially if you aren’t looking to go down the postgrad path.)

[nullzero]

are you realy in art school? how hard is it would you say?

i’m not in an art only school, but i am in an art program and take mostly art classes, so i think at least some of the things i say here will apply to art schools!

the difficulty mostly lies in how fast you can get assignments done. i know a lot of people who have difficulty getting work done just because they’re pretty slow at drawing and painting and things like that. generally the assignments in the early years aren’t too difficult because they sometimes work under the assumption that you don’t have much art experience and thus try to help you get better at art. later years often ask for you to do a lot more technically difficult art in a relatively short time frame.

if you’re in an animation or game design major like i am, you’re also definitely going to be taking classes on 3D modeling and rigging 3D bodies. those are probably the hardest classes for me, just because i’m not very good at like, understanding the software and figuring out how everything works. if you want to go into these majors, i’d suggest looking into getting maya, or at least the cracked version lmao. look online and look up tutorials on how to 3D model because trust me it helps so much to already have some basic knowledge about those programs.

if you have a good porfolio though (if you want to know what i did for mine feel free to ask!), it’s pretty easy to get in! but just know that a lot of art schools have ridiculously high tuition, so if you want to get into an art program but you don’t want to spend an arm and a leg, check out your local community college and see what programs they offer! they often offer at least some art programs, and you can ask what schools your credits can transfer over to if you still want to go to a traditional art college after you get an associates degree!

[onmykneesforhotdilfs]

Oooh i'm gonna with #3 please! And Valtor as a bartender.

He truly loathed his job.

The disgusting smell of cheap drinks spilled on the bar mixed with the stench of sweat and cheap perfume, from grinding bodies on the dancefloor and humping barely-legals in the corner, made him nauseous. The music was loud to the point his heartbeat developed arrhythmia whenever a bass boosted song played through the obnoxious sound system. To make matters worse, one of the speakers was set directly above the bar and Valtor was sick of buying earplugs every week, because if he didn’t use any protection, he’s pretty sure he would go deaf before he hit 40 and he once again cursed himself for forgetting them at home.

A particularly high note came on, and the crowd cheered while Valtor cringed as he felt the microscopic hairs in his ears, sensitive to high notes, shrivel up and die. He rolled his eyes as he spotted a tall blonde dragging taller brunette towards the restroom. Apparently, couples basically dry humping each other on the dancefloor and sucking their faces off in the corners wasn’t enough, so universe also decided to throw in a couple about to commit an indecent act in a public bathroom?

He was just about to call one of the bouncers when it hit him – he doesn’t care. Oh well. What can you do?

A woman, wearing something Valtor could only describe as lingerie, came to the bar and ordered a fruity cocktail and for the umpteenth time, he wondered how his life turned into this? How did he go from graduating on a prestigious college, having a stable job and a fiancée, to wiping down spit from the counter top on a Saturday night.

He used to be a successful attorney, his yearly salary reaching up to five-zero figure, a stable relationships, loving girlfriend and more, and yet, all of that collapsed under the enormous weight couple of words held.

His hands worked on autopilot, mixing the necessary drinks while his thoughts were miles away.

Now, whatever’s left of his past life lives in a small condo across the town and Valtor chuckled at the irony of life giving him lemons while he chopped one to mix it into the cocktail. He squeezed the juice out of the poor fruit, with probably more force than was necessary, getting some of it on his shirt in the process.

“What are you chuckling about?” The woman was leaning over the counter, her chest basically spilling out of her dress as she played with the ends of her dark hair.

Valtor raised an eyebrow as he bent down to retrieve one of the decorative umbrellas. “Nothing that would be of interest to you.” He saw her flinch in surprise at the rather sharp tone he unintentionally used. “Miss.” He added as an afterthought, hoping it would make him look less abrasive. Unhappy customers don’t tip well after all.

“Oh. Well maybe it does interest me. You’ll never know unless you try.” The woman smiled flirtatiously while her fingers continued twirling the strands of her hair. “I’m Mitzi, by the way.” She offered her hand to him.

Valtor only quirked an unamused eyebrow. “I don’t remember asking for your name.” The smile was quick to disappear from her face and she snatched her hand back like it’s been burned.

He closed his eyes as his tongue, once again, proved to be faster than his brain. It’s what got him into trouble a lot of times and this one might’ve just taken a cake because if the girl went to complain to his boss, he’d be in a world of shit. “I was trying to be nice, but it seems to me you’re too much of an asshole to appreciate it.” Mitzi gritted out with obvious false confidence because a fierce blush was very much present on her face. This obviously didn’t happen to her a lot.

First time for everything, Valtor thought.

“What I would really appreciate, Mitzi,” Don’t do it, “is if you could stop your 36C's, that you stuffed into a 34B bra, from spilling all over my counter.” You absolute moron! “I have to wipe it.”

Now you’ve done it.

Mitzi turned even reader, and Valtor wondered if he should start dialing an ambulance just in case, but she only snatched the drink he placed in front of her and threw a 5$ bill in his face. “Jerk!” And just like that, she was gone.

“Have a nice evening!” Drop dead.

He rolled his eyes and took a glass that needed wiping just to occupy his hands for a minute because he felt like a coiled string, just about to snap and burn everything in its path.

“I have to say,” girl’s voice reached him, “you just fixed my evening.” Valtor lowered the glass to the solid surface and turned to face the owner.

His brain short circuited.

Though her body was mostly obstructed by the counter, he could see that the navy blue slip dress she wore draped beautifully across her slender figure. She was also incredibly short that even standing up straight, in what Valtor assumed were ridiculously high heels, she was at least head and a half shorten than him. But the most obvious, and striking thing about her, was her red hair. Valtor never even thought that hair could be as vibrant as hers.

In his almost 35 years of life, Valtor has never seen someone as interesting as the girl standing in front of him.

When he finally shook himself out of his stupor, and when it became painfully obvious he was making her uncomfortable with his gawking (really, there was no other word for it), he smiled and spoke. “Well, I’m pleased to hear that because it will undoubtedly ruin my life.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about her reporting you.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Her ego is too big for her to accept she just got rejected.”

“You know her?”

There was something nostalgic in her smile. “I used to know her… or maybe I just thought I know her.”

Valtor observed the unusual girl in front of him. In his several years as a bartender and even before, he developed quite a knack for reading people. She seemed, to him at least, like one of those lost souls that recently had their world turned upside down but tried despite to appear normal. You and me both. “Would you like something to drink?”

Her head snapped up and her electric blue eyes met his. “Oh! Yes, um,” she fidgeted slightly, her hands wringing together and picking at her nails, “anything with vodka.”

He nodded and turned his back on her to find a bottle of the best vodka the club had to offer. He didn’t know why he suddenly paid so much attention to what he’s mixing into drinks but something pulled him towards this girl like gravity and he was too weak to resist it. “Straight?” He asked without turning around.

“Ummm, that’s a bit personal don’t you think? I mean, I just met you.” Valtor stopped what he was doing and turned his head so she could see the confused frown on his face. “I don’t even know your name. As far as I know you could be a serial killer.”

It downed on Valtor what she was talking about and he chuckled at her adorable rant. “I meant the Vodka.”

Her lips shaped into a silent “O" and he saw how her neck and face turned red from embarrassed. She moaned and buried her face into her hands. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He picked the bottle and turned back around so he was facing her. He extended his unoccupied hand across the counter top. “I’m Valtor.”

She shook his hand, her hand incredibly small in his huge one, blush still present on her cheeks. “Bloom. And yes, straight vodka is fine.”

“I’ve only seen Russians drink vodka by itself.”

“I’m quarter Russian. My mom’s dad is from Russia.” Valtor nodded along as he fixed her a drink.

“Impressive.”

“it’s really not. It only made me the laughing stock of the entire class.” She took the glass filled with clear liquid, their fingers brushing together on accident, and Valtor felt a spark rushing up his nerve endings. “But, I can drink most people under the table so I guess I should be grateful.”

Humor was obviously one of the things she used to deflect the pain and trauma bullying inevitably caused. “Your hair is very… unusual. Natural?”

She nodded. “Yup. This is one of the things I inherited from grandpa.”

“Sorry if that made you uncomfortable, it wasn’t my intention.”

“No no, don’t worry.” Her lips wrapped around the edge of the glass as she took a sip and closed her eyes to savor the feeling of burning liquid sliding down her throat. “It’s actually one of the nicest things someone has said to me about my hair.”

Valtor looked at her with a small smirk on his face. “That bad, huh?”

“You don’t want to know.” Bloom tilted the glass and took a large swing of the drink, only a small amount remaining at the bottom. “What about you?”

Valtor shrugged. “What about me?”

“You have an unusual hair too.”

Indeed. His long strawberry blond hair was tied in a ponytail, but unlike herself, he loved his hair and didn’t particularly give a damn what anybody else thought about it. “I don’t really care about somebody else’s opinion and neither should you.”

“I’ve stopped that long time ago.” Valtor nodded towards her almost empty glass and she slid it towards him for a refill. “But you know, scars remain.”

He nodded. “That I do know.” Valtor saw another guy coming up to the bar so he excused himself. As soon as he moved away from her, the unpleasant sensations that accompany prolonged presence in a loud room came rushing back like a rogue train and Valtor felt the onsets of a headache forming. He served the guy and returned to Bloom who was now nursing her drink instead of knocking it back like the first time.

“So what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”

She quirked one eyebrow. “A girl like me?”

“Not to be rude, but this doesn’t seem like your cup of tea.”

She laughed. “It’s my friend’s birthday. She dragged me here against my will while promising she’ll stay with me the entire time. It took me turning around for her to vanish without a trace with her boyfriend.”

“That friend of yours,” he started, “wouldn’t happen to be a tall blonde dragging a brunette with her?”

“That’s her.”

Valtor made a face. “I don’t think you’ll be seeing a lot of her tonight.” His eyes slid to the direction of the restroom.

Bloom followed his gaze and she groaned when she saw where her friend went to. “Not this again.”

“Again? This happens a lot?”

“Unfortunately, it happens more than I would like to.” She rubbed her forehead.

“Right,” he drawled, “because who doesn’t like seeing their friends going at it.” Sarcasm was dripping from his words.

“How long have they been in there?” She asked while looking at her wrist watch.

“Fifteen minutes or so.”

“Damn animals. I’m never coming to the club with her again.”

An amused chuckle escaped him. “That’s not the first time you’ve said that, am I right?”

She smiled and took a sip of vodka. “Nope.”

Just as he opened his mouth to ask her another question, her blonde friend wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Valtor’s eyebrow did a backflip. How she managed to avoid detection while leaving the bathroom was beyond him.

“Damn Bloom, I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re already seducing hot bartenders!”

“Stella! First of all, I am not seducing anybody,” Maybe not intentionally, “secondly, it’s been almost twenty minutes and thirdly, what happened to your promise of not ditching me? And the moment I turn around, you’re already gone?”

Stella, if Valtor heeard correctly, giggled. “Oh live a little Bloom. Besides, it’s not like you were in a bad company.” Her eyes ran over Valtor’s form. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind taking a bite out of that.” She ogled Valtor like a piece of chocolate cake.

“I’m standing right here.”

“Okay, that’s enough for today! We’re going home.” Bloom grabbed her purse and was about to pull out her wallet when Valtor raised his arm to stop her.

“It’s on the house.”

“But Blooooom,” There was really no words to describe the sound that exited blonde’s mouth, “we just got here.”

“The fact that you're talking about having a threesome with a stranger says enough about your state.”

“I’m pretty sure Brandon wouldn’t mind.”

“Okay, time out. Let’s go.” She turned towards Valtor, a small card between her fingers. She leaned over the counter while one of her arms stayed behind, supporting her friend. “Thank you.” She slipped the card into his hand. “Call me if you wanna talk sometimes.” And with that, she spun on her heel and dragged Stella towards the exit.

Valtor stood in shock, not knowing how to react for a few minutes, staring at the business card in his hands.

Bloom Peters MD.

He shook his head, hand safely pocketing the precious cargo before he picked up the glass she’s been drinking from and turning around to wash it. The sound of retching caused him to turn around in time to see some wasted man empty the content of his stomach on an obnoxious red carpet. The stench of vomit mixed with other delightful aromas and Valtor was once again reminded how much he hated his job.

[mysticalmusicwhispers]

hey,,,your thoughts and headcanons on indchuran college au 😳😳😳😳😳(i am very predictable as per usual)

o-o o-o college aus have my heart so thank you for the ask! These turned out as platonic/general hcs but I hope you like them nonetheless! (also this isn’t really associated with any set AU and is separate from the indchuran bros for life AU)

notes: this is based on the little I know about how US colleges/universities work ahahah sorry for any inaccuracies lol

— They’re all in the same year, and China and India got put in a dorm together with Iran next door (oh my god they were roommates ;) )

— They meet when Roshan heard Aditya’s got a copy of a book they wanted, went over to borrow it, and found Aditya trolling Yao with meme songs while the latter was wearing headphones and trying to study (this is kinda half assed and I don’t think it’s funny enough so if you’ve got another meeting scenario please do tell 👀)

— Yao’s fashion is a hot mess, per usual. It’s half lazy college student wear and half blinding eye-strain. Sometimes he still goes edgelord mode and does dark colors and goth attire when he’s particularly annoyed or grumpy (in addition to threatening to evict Aditya/steal all his possessions if he’s bugging Yao); Aditya and Roshan just coo at this. 

— Roshan dresses very eccentrically. I think it’s called the art hoe aesthetic? They dress like an art student but pick even more outlandish outfits. But it’s elegant in an eye-catching way, and it makes them stand out a lot. They like it and also love the attention it gets them :) also Roshan would be an amazing person to ask for clothing opinions, except that they might criticize your current outfits too much hksdfsdf

— As for Aditya, I don’t really have a set image for him really? lol I'd give anything to see him dressed in some kind of academia aesthetic (glasses are a bonus), but I feel like his style is more casual and comfy? just average person casual shirts and hoodies. Still knows how to pick good outfits though, but makes awful decisions when in the wrong headspace (like being Severely sleep deprived)

— Yao either studies a) business b) politics c) game theory d) a mix of all three (overachiever). I think he’d also take some of those like, quantum math classes and stuff just to ~expand his horizons~ and ends up taking enough to get a minor in that. Also absorbs STEM stuff from other people although he never went that route :\

— Roshan studies art history! They’re wicked at math as well though, I think they’d definitely be interested in studying pure mathematics as either a minor or a fun side hobby.

— Aditya minors in literature/creative writing and regularly waxes poetic about life. He also complains about the school cafeteria food in flowery prose. Yao yells at him to just make food himself if it’s so bad, but it’s too much effort 😔 (this is literally me)

I’m still undecided on what he majors in, but for now I’m stealing your hc that it’s biophysics :>

— Yao’s tried dabbling in stocks as part class project and part personal side hobby; one of his professors probably helps him with this, and somehow he gets a lot of money even though he invests in some very questionable things that look like shitpost material

— Courtesy of talking with @luyous, these three competitively study during midterms/finals season. They hardcore compete to get the best grades, even though they’re in different majors, and literally. the temperature heats up a couple degrees in the dorm when they’re revising because they all want to “beat” the other two 😭

— Literally they’re such bookworms but have a thirst for being The Best 😔

— Yao has a shit sleep schedule and both Aditya and Roshan have called him out on this multiple times; Aditya more often because they share a room and it’s kind of annoying when your roommate’s desk lamp is still on at 3 AM while you’re supposed to be sleeping. He eventually bought an eye mask for this but still has to forcibly drag Yao to bed at least once a week.

— Aditya is the resident boomer and tech hoe (although he fools around on the computer more than he does useful stuff) inspiration from you raunak <3

— Roshan and Aditya once tricked Yao into watering a fake plant they bought from Target for a full five months :) They keep a log of the shenanigans on their respective social medias as proof <3

— Roshan has a windowsill with a line of very cute potted plants! It’s very aesthetic and they show them off to anyone who asks. Don’t touch though because the plants are their babies

— Aditya sings very well! Has perfect pitch and all that. Does karaoke nights with friends, drags Yao along even though all he does there is type away on his laptop (and sometimes glances up to simp for Aditya). Often prank calls acquaintances, occasionally with Roshan, because he’s also pretty good at voice acting

— Out of the three, Aditya’s probably the friendliest if you’re a stranger, but it do be hard trying to build a friendship with any of them 😔 yao’s condescending to strangers and it takes some time to crack him if you don’t come off as quick-witted and smart on the first try, Roshan doesn’t really take people they just met super seriously unless they can impress/charm them, Aditya’s flashy but is kinda flaky and sometimes talks down to you and seems to always have something else to do besides hanging out one on one unless you win his respect. They’re good with each other though, occasional spats are mostly misunderstandings unless there’s Too Much miscommunication going on

— They’re all kinda legends for academic achievements. Roshan probably got a paper published in some vaunted journal about idk, changing methods of making pottery in ancient Iran or something; Yao has his stocks (and is also kinda rich in the first place so he’s “famous” before that) and Aditya probably got an internship or opportunity to do lab work for a cutting edge research thing

— they no-homo each other all the time it’s insane. It doesn’t help that they’re in close quarters (Yao and Aditya being roommates and Roshan right next door) so it’s like, accidentally wearing the other’s clothes, stealing snacks, so much touching and closeness lol classic pining material

— Yao jokes at least once a day that Roshan is just a parasite of his and Aditya’s dorm, with the amount of time they spend in there instead of in their own dorm, but they sniff haughtily and say that at least their dorm is much more organized than whatever indchu have going on (it’s true; Yao believes in organized chaos and pretends his organization system is having No Organization; Aditya just does whatever he wants and “anyways I’ll find it when I need it”, Roshan is the only sane one here)

— Roshan drinks tea religiously (all three of them do, but Yao chugs energy drinks sometimes, Aditya binges coffee when needed, whereas Roshan’s solution is tea)

— They’re kinda chaotic but it’s fine they’ll make it through uni :)

[sickonthedancefloor]

His Personal Nurse, After Hours

Prompt: “I know it’s 2am but I had a nightmare”... or something along those lines. I can’t find the original prompt. Anyway, here’s some soft Namseok. Sickie: Hoseok Caretakers: Namjoon Content: fevers, flu-like illnesses, emeto

The nice thing about having Hobi as a boyfriend, Namjoon thinks, is that Hobi has a consistent sleep schedule. Jung Hoseok, the ever-busy dance coach and instructor, worked consistently early shifts and slept like clockwork. His good night texts always told Namjoon what time it was—almost always, 11:15 at night—and served as a good reminder on when he needed to sleep himself before he spent his entire night grading papers again. Being a college music history lecturer was no cakewalk.

But that’s what alarms him about that morning, waking up at a quarter past two in the morning to a handful of texts.

‘Joonie bug,, I miss you.’

‘I’m going to blame th Tue dance squad, they were all gros’

‘I love you baby’

‘I know is late but I ad a nightmare and I miss you, cannn you just tell me yu love me? Just so I kno you’re okay??’

‘unless your’e sleeping, plees slee\[‘

So, so many typos… Hoseok wasn’t the type to be hypervigilant on his texting, but he was far better about typos than a lot of them. But to see so many… a nightmare? The grogginess from his eyes begins to fade over the message. In the corner, he sees a flashing ellipses appear and vanish quite a few times. Was Hoseok still typing? Namjoon sits upright and just sends his own simple response:

‘I love you, Hobi, my sunshine.’

And then:

‘Are you okay?’

The read marking pops up immediately, followed by a typing indicator, but the only thing he receives is a small emoji heart. Hoseok up after two in the morning meant nothing good… Namjoon doesn’t bother to change out of his pajamas. He unplugs his phone from the charger and moves to slide on his jacket, before heading to the front foyer to grab his wallet and keys. Slipping on his shoes, he locks up and hurries to his car.

What was he even doing? In the middle of the night, going off of vague messages from his boyfriend who hasn’t said anything else. A heart isn’t an answer, not in the least; Namjoon merely hurries down the roads, the streets as relatively deserted as usual on a weeknight, and he’s quick to slide into the guest parking and make a quick run to the 24-hour shop next door. Hoseok and Namjoon have already traded keys, so Namjoon merely lets himself in to find Hoseok’s shoes kicked off haphazardly in the doorway.

Peculiar…

“Hob-ah?” Namjoon calls out softly.

He gets a low groan in response, coming from the living room of his boyfriend’s apartment instead of his bedroom. Being 2:46 in the morning, Hoseok should have already been asleep, completely tuned out from the world until his alarm went off. But Namjoon could see an abandoned mug on the kitchen countertop (already something very un-Hobi-like, he always liked having a clean kitchen in the mornings) and the television’s lights still on, and moves in to investigate. There, Namjoon finds Hoseok, in all his rundown glory, curled up on a cushion on his plush couch, huddled with a blanket pulled over his head. Hoseok turns when he hears Namjoon walking, eyes a little startled.

“Hobi, sweetheart?”

Hoseok blinks owlishly, confused over his boyfriend’s arrival. “Joonie bug? It’s late, what are you doing?” His voice is raspy and almost a little nasally, mixed with sleep and… what sounded to the beginning stages of a cold. That doesn’t sound good.

As Namjoon approaches, he can see the dark bags under Hoseok’s eyes reflecting sickly from the television light. His eyes also don’t miss the mixing bowl and plastic bag on the center table, or the opened soda can. Hoseok really must not have been feeling well, but he definitely did try to prepare. When Hoseok catches Namjoon frowning at the bowl, he leans his head back on the couch.

“My tummy hurt earlier, that’s all…” he mumbled. “But Joonie bug…”

“You texted me. So I, uh.” With that, Namjoon just holds up the bag. “I wasn’t sure what you had but I brought soup. It’s, uh… it’s my best hangover soup, but I wasn’t sure what happened.”

But the sight of it makes Hoseok grin, toothy and full of heart. And then he sneezes, hard and loud, and it makes Namjoon jump. The skin under Hoseok’s nose reflects in the light, and he’s quick to grab a tissue, blowing his nose with it. So… sick and not drunk, well that’s good to know. Kneeling next to him on the floor, Namjoon strokes Hoseok’s hair away with his free hand to press a palm against his forehead, sighing when he feels a pressing heat against it. To be safe, he slides his hand down to the side of his neck to make sure, a small, pitying smile on his face.

“Oh Hob-ah, baby, you’re sick… You should have called me earlier.”

Hoseok lowers the tissue. “I felt okay earlier…”

“Did you, or are you just telling me you did?” Namjoon questions, moving his hand upward to pet his hair. His long fingers rake along his boyfriend’s scalp, featherlight touches brushing gently. Hoseok seems to melt under his touch, his eyes already fluttering closed.

“…I didn’t feel okay earlier…” his boyfriend mumbles. “That feels nice…”

Laughing softly, Namjoon nods despite knowing Hoseok can’t see it. But he knows he appreciates the comfort, and he wants to give it while he’s here. He can already see the sleepy drooping from the older one’s mouth, the relaxed nature taking over almost instantly from the gentle notions. He knows if he keeps going, Hoseok will fall asleep quickly, and it hurts him that he has to stop. He ruffles his hair instead, smiling when he sees Hoseok’s cute little nose scrunch up in displeasure.

“Nooo… keep petting me,” he whines, his small hands reaching up to hold Namjoon’s wrist in place.

Namjoon chuckles again. “Did you take any medicine? Or… eat anything?”

“Joonie… pet me…”

“Will you answer me if I pet you?” Namjoon’s fingers resume rubbing along Hoseok’s scalp, and he receives a satisfied hum in response. He decided not to push him too much; after all, his boyfriend was sick, and it was the middle of the night. But… he wasn’t going to sleep on the floor by the couch. He moves his hand away and goes to put the soup in the fridge, fetching a water bottle instead. He moves into Hoseok’s room and is still pleased to see it’s clean. Pulling the blanket back, he sets the water bottle on the side table and heads back out.

His attempts to move Hoseok receive just a whimper, but he somehow manages to get his boyfriend to his feet. Namjoon keeps his arm wrapped around his waist and helps him relocate into his room. He dragged the mixing bowl in with them, setting it on the floor by the side of the bed. Then, as Hoseok begins to whine about the bed being cold and lonely, Namjoon shucks off his hoodie and curls up next to him, pulling the ailing man into his arms. Hoseok is too warm in Namjoon’s grasp, but he merely uncovers his arms and closes his eyes, letting his boyfriend’s congested breaths fill the air.

 ~*~

 Namjoon is used to nights where he hasn’t fully slept, where he’s taken a thirty-minute power nap to get him from Day 1 to Day 2 with a mug of coffee and nothing but adrenaline and work to keep him going. But after his nap from earlier, and his nap again with Hoseok in his arms, he’s completely disoriented when he feels himself shoved to the side, the room immediately filled with the sound of retching. Namjoon blinks his eyes open as his hand stretches over to rub Hoseok’s back, trying to comfort his boyfriend as he mentally reminded himself of his location.

His sweetheart was sick, and apparently resting did not help. He sees Hoseok sitting up, the mixing bowl double-lined with plastic bags in his lap as he weakly attempts to throw up whatever was in his system. Hoseok looks pale and even in the weak light of sunrise attempting to peek from the windows, Namjoon can see his hands trembling. That’s enough recollection to have him sitting up, arm moving to wrap around his boyfriend’s shoulders, helping hold him up as he whispers encouraging words to him.

When Hoseok finally stops, Namjoon brings his hand up to wipe stray tears from his cheeks before he moves the bowl back, but not away just yet. Hoseok takes a deep breath, a pout on his lips as he scrunches his eyes closed.

“Want to rinse your mouth out, baby?”

“Gross…” Hoseok mumbles. Namjoon hands him a towel to wipe his lips, then the water bottle. With a sip, Hoseok swishes it around in his mouth and spits it out into the mixing bowl, then repeats the process when he feels like once wasn’t enough. All the while, Namjoon uses a corner of the towel to stroke at his face, and whether Namjoon’s wiping away sweat or tears, Hoseok can’t quite tell. Lazily, Hoseok’s hand holding the water bottle just moves to rest on his leg; he’s not sure if he’d make it trying to put it back on the table, but he really just wants to lie back down.

“Think you’re okay, for now?” Namjoon whispers. When he receives a nod, he returns the mixing bowl to the floor and moves the towel back to the bedside table. Gently gripping Hoseok’s hand, Namjoon brings the water bottle back to his lips and instructs him to sip. Hoseok takes a few weak sips before he lowers it back, pressing his face into Namjoon’s shoulder. Namjoon can feel the radiating heat from him, and he can tell for sure that his fever is just climbing.

“Don’t fall asleep on me, Hobi,” Namjoon laughs, “I need to yet some medicine in you first.”

Whining, Hoseok just shakes his head. He’s tired, Namjoon knows, but he’ll only get worse trying to wait it out.

“Let me make you some tea. I know you won’t eat anything big but let’s get something in you or your stomach will hurt more later.”

He gets a whine from it, but merely kisses Hoseok’s cheek and helps lower him back onto the pillows. “Rest, sweetheart, I’ll wake you in a few.”

“Cuddle with me,” Hoseok mumbles, bottom lip pouting out.

Namjoon just kisses his forehead. “I’ll never get up if I do that.” With a soft chuckle, he crawls over him and heads out, taking the bowl with him. Replacing the lining, he returns that before heading into the kitchen. Instant coffee for himself, but kettle-boiled yujacha for Hoseok. And a small bowl of rice and crackers, just in case he could get him to eat something. Carrying everything back into the room on a small tray, he sets it down before he tries to wake up Hoseok, just to make sure he doesn’t make a mess of everything.

“Hobi… baby, I have tea…”

Namjoon receives a whine, and Hoseok’s face crumbles, tears welling in his eyes the second he opens them. Namjoon spends a few minutes just stroking his hair, trying to calm him down before he works himself up. “Come on, sweetheart… don’t cry, nothing’s wrong. You’re okay. It’s just tea.”

“Tea?” Hoseok mumbles. He shakes his head, fist moving to swipe across his eyes, wiping away slowing tears. His voice cracks as he talks, but the younger man can see realization dawning on his face. “Don’t want tea…”

“It’ll help your tummy,” Namjoon coaxes, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. Hoseok squints, trying to hide his face as his cheeks flush. With a soft chuckle, Namjoon moves his hand away to press another kiss to Hoseok’s warm face, then another. “Come on, baby, just a little bit.”

“Don’t kiss me, Joonie bug, you’ll get sick.”

“I’ll kiss you again if you don’t drink the tea.” Namjoon crawls back onto the bed, sliding under the covers, and Hoseok immediately curls up to his side. Laughing, Namjoon just pulls his arm. “I will, even if you cling to me.” He manages to get a grumbling Hoseok to finally sit up with his help, curled up against his chest with the tea cup in his hand. He sips cautiously, as if every sip is uncomfortable. Namjoon strokes his hair gently. “Want to try some rice?”

With a groan, Hoseok looks up at him, lips pursed in a pout. “I’m being tortured, Namjoonie.” Hoseok whines. “Rice is too much… you’re too much.” He takes another sip of his tea.

Laughing, Namjoon just shakes his head. The rice was a stretch… they can try again later. “Fine, fine. Finish your tea and—”

“And nothing?”

Nodding, Namjoon presses a kiss to Hoseok’s crown. “And nothing. Medicine and then we’ll go back to sleep.”

Thankfully, Hoseok cooperates. Namjoon helps him take two cold pills and tucks him back into the bed, pulling the blanket up to his chin. With a small smile, Hobi curls up next to him and falls asleep within a matter of seconds. Despite being warm to the touch, he curls up next to Namjoon in his sleep, an arm lazily draped over his waist. Namjoon wastes no time in messaging his TA, asking him to assign the next week’s assignment early on the boards. He writes a small notice announcing his calling out of work and the plan for the rest of the week, shoots a quick message to the teacher’s line calling out, and then just puts his phone on silent.

Right now, the only person that matters is his boyfriend, and it’s barely a quarter to six in the morning. He has more than enough time to catch up on sleep with his most important person.

[script-a-world]

How could I create enough living spaces for an earth with 90 billion population? Could there possibly be a lot more reclaimed land, man made islands? How about with populating currently mostly uninhabited or barren places, making what are currently towns into a big city? What would the poverty line be? How does all this affect animals and plants?

Tex: So originally I was going to say “be incredible inhumane and pack people tighter than sardines in a can”, but after a lot of math, it turns out this isn’t even remotely possible. I’ve left some margin for error, but you can read for yourself below how I’ve done things.

This is a formula that’s been calculated and re-calcuated for years, though admittedly I don’t really understand the point of the exercise in packing the planet with as many people as humanly (hah) possible.

In terms of sheer brute numbers, you could physically compile not only the current world population (as of this writing, ~7.7 billion), but also the all the previous generations put together (~101 billion people), in about 10,800 km2 - “which would easily fit inside Jamaica, Qatar, Kuwait, The Gambia, or Connecticut.” (WaitButWhy).

This doesn’t calculate for living space, as in the area an individual person needs to use such facilities as a bedroom, a bathroom suitable for washing oneself and not just a powder room, and possibly a kitchen (something of varying inclusion historically, see: Rome). It could be argued that bathrooms could be outsourced to a communal area as well (see: outhouses and public toilets).

What you would like to include for a residential unit varies by what you’d like to include in it. Insider posted an article titled “25 photos of tiny living spaces around the world”, where the sizes of a microapartment can go as small as 15 square feet (~1.39 m2; National Geographic). Quite likely the most basic amenities like showers, toilets, and washing facilities are outsourced as communal spaces - these are often apartments, though depending on the landlord they can be just as cramped.

Technology has enabled these microapartments, single room occupancies, and even capsule hotels to have a comparative level of luxury. As many college students who live in cramped quarters can likely tell you, it makes a substantial difference in living quality to have such things as hotplates, microwaves, laptops, and miniature TVs when space is at a literal premium.

We’ll take Hong Kong as an example, since they were technically already listed in the Insider article with their “coffin homes”.

The country has a population of ~7.5 million, with a land mass of 1,104 km2. 7.5 million divided by 1,104 km2 = 6,793.478261 people per km2. This is going to be a reference number, and we’ll be using it again later to do comparisons.

Now, to fit the same population per coffin home apiece, let’s take that same 7.5 million and divide it by 1.39 m2 - this comes out to 5,395,683.453 people per m2. That needs converting to km2, which multiplied by 1,000,000 (to cancel out the m2 in the stoichiometry) now results in 5.39568345x1012 people per km2 for coffin homes.

To compare these two numbers, I’ll take a percentage - if we assign the coffin home number (5.39568345x1012 people per km2) as A, and the original Hong Kong land mass number (6,793.478261 people per km2) as B, we can more easily calculate the percentage of each value to each other according to the following steps:

Plugging in the numbers, we get A (coffin home) as 7.94244604x1010% of B (original Hong Kong). That’s several billion percent more people per square kilometer than the original density.

This means that if we squish people into coffin-sized homes as that Business Insider article mentioned, 90 billion people - living requirements outside of a bed excluded! - could exist on 6.4780814x1016 km2.

Earth’s habitable land mass as of 2019 is 104 million km2 (Our World in Data), and this makes the amount of land required for 90 billion people - presumed as a single layer and only on Earth’s habitable land - 6.22892442x1010 percent more than the amount of habitable land on Earth.

Now, a converting everything into multiple levels might work, yes? Skyscrapers are classically 10-20 levels, and 40-50 in the modern age (Britannica), but I’ll go whole-hog because of the scale of numbers we have and go straight toward the largest number I know - Coruscant at 5,127 levels (Wookiepedia).

6.4780814x1016 km2 divided by 5,127 levels is 1.2635228×1013 km2 per layer. This single layer is still 12,149,257.7% more land required than there is habitable land on Earth.

Now, I don’t know if you’d like to expand this to non-habitable land, but either way, you would still need to calculate in the amount of space required for other requirements such as bathrooms, areas to cook/eat, medical services, transportation, educational spaces (provided you haven’t somehow squished everything into a helmet for “flash training” à la Star Wars clone troopers, detrimental to mental health as it is), places for people to work at jobs that can’t be done from their bed, and agriculture and manufacturing.

If you assume that these coffin homes are “only” a third or half of the cumulative living space, you would still need to multiply your required amount of space by at least 2-3x of the coffin home requirements.

Because of this, your question doesn’t account for the more humane theory of optimum population, as the above types of raw arithmetic calculations are inherently unable to factor in intrinsic values such as happiness with one’s life, enriching interactions with others, or the relaxation that comes from being around nature.

I would have to assume that the level of technology necessary for packing people like sardines in a can would need to be, at minimum, space age, but there are still space requirements (aside from the above-stated) for things like utilities and like… how big the walls are. I did not calculate for walls! This would realistically place people in mid-air and that’s not even feasible because you need to construct the coffin homes you’re wanting to shove people into.

My questions to you are these - what prompted you to consider this many people on a planet sized and shaped like Earth? Is it critically important to your plot, or does this have some function of novelty that appeals to you?

Is this plot based on Earth, particularly of a parallel or observable future, or is it based on some fictional world like Coruscant from Star Wars? How does this kind of world factor into your story, and how would it impact the plot if it were removed?

90 billion people on Earth - of any timeline or parallel universe - is so exceptionally far over the maximum carrying capacity that it’s flatly catastrophic to the environment, if it’s not equally as disastrous to the people from the way they would need to be treated in order to make your idea feasible.

This amount of population is far more sustainable on a substantially bigger planet, so I’m deeply curious why you’ve picked Earth. Is it because it’s the most familiar one for you, or something else?

Utuabzu: As Tex says, density is your friend. Theoretically you could pack billions of people into just a few towering megacities if you built them right, but at that level of technology you have to ask yourself why. It’d be a similar level of effort to build colonies in orbit and on other bodies in the solar system, with the added bonus of not having all your eggs in one basket and gaining access to more resources.  Thinking about the reason for having that many people on Earth will lead you to a much better idea about how they’d accomplish it. If Earth is like the capital of a galactic state, then likely you’d have one huge gigacity wherever the government actually is, and the rest of the planet would be fairly normal, maybe even better protected as nature reserves and parks. If space travel (and contraception) are unworkable, you’d probably have vast sprawling slums clustering around every city and constant food and water shortages. Reclaimed land is certainly a possibility, and can take multiple forms, but be wary of using it in earthquake prone areas as liquefaction is a nasty thing.

As for currently uninhabited places, they’re usually uninhabited for a reason. Now, technology might be able to overcome that reason, but you’d need to consider why people would bother when they could instead use the same tech to add to the carrying capacity of the major cities that already exist and that people already want to live in.

Another thing to consider when siting your megacities is local culture and geography. It’d be a lot easier to convince New Yorkers to cover their region in huge skyscrapers than Parisians, while the geology of Cape Town (largely bedrock) is better suited than that of St Petersburg (swamp) to supporting very tall structures. Consider climate too. The hotter or colder the area, the more energy will be needed to heat or cool buildings, while past the Arctic and Antarctic circles seasonal depression would seriously impact residents’ lives. Unless heavy use is made of green roofs and greenspace, a city of this size would produce an absurd heat island effect, maybe even enough to start affecting weather patterns.

Any city of this size would need to produce its own food and water, otherwise its hinterland would have to be unworkably large. Here, hydro/aero/aquaponics, desalination and recycling are your friends, with the added advantage of helping to offset some of the environmental strain the city will inevitably put on the planet.

[what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me]

The Best Laid Plans

> Chapter 1: The Sighting< Chapter 2

Summary:

Five of the finest minds that Planet Earth has to offer are brought together by a mission that will forever live in history. They are the crew of Humanity's paragon starship and they pave the way for future explorers.

The mission goes wrong when the existence of sentient aliens is confirmed. 

AO3

Notes: this fic is inspired by the concept of Among Us, but you don’t need to know the game to enjoy this story. CW: anxiety attack

.

The announcement that Humanity was done being alone was met with skepticism. Such an ambitious but vague mission statement made by the government seemed like an empty promise. 

Thomas remembered where he was when he saw it. It was a fall afternoon, during the slow lull between lunch and dinner, the TV in the corner was on the news channel. Thomas ended up joking with his coworkers about shaking hands with aliens while working at a coffee shop to pay off college debt. They all laughed and forgot about it because preparing for the next influx of customers was more important. 

The promise of The Day Dream did not seem like much until the ship began to be built. Then there were whispers of scouts visiting every small town and city, looking for any suitable candidates to join the crew. That was when he - and all of humanity - got swept up into the high. 

Everybody on Earth began paying attention to the exploration program, excitement for the future in those times was so common you could smell it in the air. By the time The Day Dream launched, everybody could tell you that they remembered where they were. There was more news coverage of their starship leaving the snaring grip of the atmosphere than the first moon landing. 

If Thomas ever got the opportunity, he would joke that he remembered the launch as if he were a pilot on the starship. 

Thomas, in his humble opinion, believed it took a different kind of person to drive a spaceship than it took to build one. Just getting something off of Earth was a feat that took hundreds of years. What got them this far was perfecting and going beyond the work of other humans long dead. Amassing a hoard of refined science until they made a tower of knowledge that could reach the stars. 

And Humanity did reach the stars. He was their cherry-picked ambassador. It was his job to lead the mission to create a stable bridge for future space farers. Both in the literal and diplomatic sense. Thomas still could not believe the honor was his.

But the Captain's disbelief is besides the point. The engineers and scientists who made The Day Dream were a brilliant crew who did not get enough recognition. The marvel of it all lie in how alive the ship felt. It felt so human. The engineers and the scientists outdid themselves.

The question the build team had to tackle was how to make long term space travel enjoyable. Was it possible to make a hollow metal vessel feel more like home than their planet ever was? All Thomas knows is during the short time he has been the pilot, he had concluded the answer must be yes. That is where the recognition fell short, Thomas thinks. Despite being hailed as a genius by Earth's media, his mind could not even begin to figure out how they did it.

Too bad the media was strictly forbidden from even looking at the ship. If they could not experience the wonder for themselves, there was no reason to write about it. To them it was just a glorified vessel, not unlike any other means of transport. Snooping into the lives of its personnel was more tangible for the press. Usually more rewarding too. 

The press had been suffocating. Thomas was relieved to be off that planet. 

There was nothing remarkable about him. Or anybody else here, he likes to think to himself. They are all wonderful people to be traveling with, brilliant minds, but not remarkable. Because he is as Human as the rest of them, and the pedestal they perched him on was one of sand. Just the lightest breeze and he will be lost to time. 

Now that he is living out every child's wildest dream, he knows. The Day Dream 's crew and their prestigious schooling meant nothing to the universe. But it was an honor to get to know the universe a bit better nonetheless. 

The ship woke it's Captain up with a gentle chime. 

And when Thomas did not get up the first time, the ship brightened the lights in his room. Very suddenly. 

That got Thomas' attention. The Day Dream could not do more than follow the alarms already set, unless something major triggered the override system. There were no klaxon alarms or notifications marked as urgent, so Permission from another administrator was needed for the lights to turn on. That meant the ship snitched on him to somebody already awake. Dream is getting smarter, Thomas laughed to himself. And this ship is full of traitors who think eight in the morning is an acceptable time to be awake. 

Jokes about betrayal aside, he knew there would at least be fresh caffeine waiting in the cafeteria. 

Thomas got out of the warm sleeping pod with a stretch that popped his back. The metal floors in his quarters were heated, but only enough to starve off frostbite. The cold making his toes curl woke up Thomas better than the lights. A chime from his com ringed across the room, listing duties for the day. He assured the ship that he would be present for the breakfast meeting requested by Roman in a timely manner. 

His loose definition of "timely manner" was to allow an optimal window to collect thoughts and set his 187th day in space up for success. The captain played music from home as he got ready. The bathroom was like every other room; spacious, clean, and bursting with plant life. The air never felt stuffy and the crew suspects (Patton, who was on the ship's build team, confirmed) it was designed that way. To help with homesickness.

The Day Dream was huge. Excessively so. The ship was only meant to only house five humans long term - and maybe, just maybe, any extraterrestrial life they will come across. For now, the rooms set aside for any new life would be empty. That meant some days, when everyone was too busy to spend time with anybody else, it felt like the plants growing in every nook and cranny of the rooms and hallways were his only companions. But business was business. And at the end of the day, nobody held it against each other. Today thankfully would not be like that.

Thomas pulled on the boots of his pristine white jumpsuit before he left his quarters. The doors locked behind him with a pneumatic hiss and the hall lights flicked on, illuminating his path one by one. There was a spring in his step as he made way through the maze of tall hallways. He barely acknowledged the sound of running water and smell of earth on either side of the metal path. The self sustained irrigation system was always at work, and with the wildflowers that started to bloom recently as a result in this part of the ship, any irritation was rendered null.

He arrived at the cafeteria where it was quiet, besides the ever present humming and the drip drip drip of the ship running itself. The caffeine dispenser had been preheated. Logan and Roman seemed to have already got to it. Virgil could do with the energizing benefit of caffeine if it was not for his anxiety disorder. Both crewmates were lounging in padded seats, a steaming cup in one hand and green flashing screens taking the rest of their attention. Thomas guessed they were reviewing the information about the meeting he was called for. Virgil, who seemed not to be fully awake yet, was slowly picking off the contents of his ration packet. 

"Where is Patton?" He flushed slightly at the outburst. Asking that before anything else was not his intention. 

Luckily nobody seemed to mind. Logan and Virgil turned their heads to him and acknowledged the captain with a good morning. Closing out of the menu, Logan answered, "I believe he was sanctioned an extra sleep cycle after the extended work he did last night. The ship refuses to go through the wake up procedures."

He lifted an eyebrow. "I don't think I ever gave the order for that. But The Day Dream can override an order if it seems necessary. What the hell was Patton doing last night?"

"He was helping me in the final stages of building the gate."

Thomas turned to look at Roman. "He-," that was not supposed to be possible. "The gate is supposed to be done next month, our fabricator can't work that fast."

"That's what I thought at first! But two weeks ago while helping me troubleshoot a problem, he found our combined efforts cleaved the build time in half!" 

Virgil chimed in, like it was news to him, "That's great, Princey. But how are we sure the quality was not compromised?"

"I'm so glad you asked bec-"

Logan cut Roman off. "We are sure because I have been keeping a close eye on the progress and have taken sporadic samples of the material. I also use the ship to ensure my analysis has no human errors."

"You'll have to send those numbers to me for final approval before we tell Mission Control. But this is amazing news! Why is this the first time i have heard about this?"

Suddenly Logan lost any confidence he had, and needed to pull up a screen again. Virgil deadpan looked at him and shrugged, going back to picking at his rations. Thomas managed to catch Roman's eyes and he cringed slightly, picking at his nails. "Well… we thought you would be angry that we didn't follow orders."

Thomas lifted a hand to his heart without registering that it happened. They thought that he would be angry? He never has shown that emotion to them then why? Was there a power imbalance here? Were they afraid of him or just the consequences of "disobedience". Of course, he always encouraged his crew to pursue and perfect science, just like the builders of the ship did. As long as nobody got hurt-

-and then he remembered about Patton. Why would the ship override a wake up protocol, especially if ordered by anybody, if there was not a reason? But he could not… Jumping to conclusions would not help. 

He sighed, Roman tensed but Thomas did not acknowledge it. "I'm not angry, Ro. You did a fantastic job."

"So we won't get punished?" It was small, hopeful.

"At most, you will be reprimanded with a tighter schedule, but that will be determined after investigation."

An investigation was not something he needed on his plate but apparently was now mandatory. Thomas did not want to say it out loud, but based on what he can tell, if the crew let Patton overwork himself, the strict schedule might go through. Like it or not, the existing schedule was in place for a reason and having his copilot out of commission could spell disaster for the mission and it's crew. The ship felt so safe, so much like home, but they were at the mercy of a cruel universe, anything can go wrong. 

Yet the small smile that broke out on Roman's face after getting his praise was too good to ruin. 

Thomas would indulge in a moment of weakness and lie. 

He only realised there was tension in the room when the air slowly became more breathable. He let himself enjoy a warm drink from the dispenser and his own share of rations before getting to work. He had the mind to have one of the ship's drones deliver food and drink to Patton's room to have when he woke up. Then Thomas glanced at the data himself. All the numbers and samples that Logan had run seemed to be perfect. He ran through the calculations manually himself to be sure. Still perfect.

So it was off to Mission Control. The message explained that his crew found a way to make the Star Gate mission more efficient. Surely, this was another thing they would be praised about. All of it was almost done.

"Roman, Mission Control has the data tables now. All we need to do is the final inspection before we can set course to Moon Titan." Thomas broke the news in a sing-song voice. Everybody in the room grew visibly excited. Thomas was almost sad that Patton was not here to complete their little crew. 

"That is fantastic!"

Logan hesitated before asking, "Was my work adequate to your standards?" 

Thomas nodded enthusiastically, "It had no errors I could catch, so you did great, Teach." The captain could have left it there, but he was feeling as exuberant as the rest of them. "In matter of fact, do you want to begin the system checks so we can be ahead of schedule for the journey to Moon Titan?" The gleam in Logan's eyes spoke volumes more than the affirmative confirmation he gave. Virgil had jumped at the opportunity to join and the two ventured off into the expansive halls of the ship. 

Roman was already at Thomas's heels when the two men left the room. "Do you want me to escort you to the hull of the ship? I believe you have a date with my wonderful creation." 

Thomas could not hide his admittedly dopey smile if he wanted to. This man and his dramatics did a lot to keep the ship lively. He accepted the offer, and let Roman do most of the talking while they descended through the guts of the ship. Plant life slowly became less abundant and the mechanical whirls and pulses became louder. When they stopped at the door of a decontamination chamber, Roman gestured to a wall of headsets.

"Personal protective equipment is mandatory past this point," Roman said, an apologetic smile on his face. 

Thomas did not comment on the fact that Roman added a personal touch to his headset. The paint was a vibrant red and the acrylic of the earmuffs seemed to glow. His own pair was only cold and metallic, and Thomas briefly noted he had no idea how long ago Roman added those changes. He could see in the cabinet that Patton had a similar headset, but in the teal color he loved so much. He would have to have The Day Dream permit more time in this part of the ship. 

Today was a successful day but something unsavory was settling into his core. Thomas was a bit out of the loop with his crew, he was starting to realize.

He swallowed down the inklings of a bitter taste and turned to the cabinet containing more mandatory protective wear. He would not take it personally. He slipped a hazmat suit over the jumpsuit. Thomas and the rest of the crew were just coworkers. Black gloves slipped over his sleeves and closed with a snap! They were all friendly, sure, but this was a science expedition, not a family road trip. The spotless boots he normally wore were left in one of the lockers, swapped out for steel toe boots. If his happy-go-lucky mood had suddenly dropped he did nothing to fix it.

Thomas followed Roman into the decontamination lock without a word.

As they exited, Roman clapped his hands and he saw the walls come alive around him. This area was lined with pods containing work assistant androids lit up and awaiting commands. His crewmate fiddled with a personal command key secured on his wrist, the assistants moved in synch around their feet, opening the doors to the hull. It was a massive room, bigger than most warehouses on Earth. It was perfectly suited for projects this size and storing the raw materials needed to make the Star Gates.

Hung on the ceiling of the room was the largest fabricator on the ship. Other smaller ones were littered about in rooms like that cafeteria and navigation, but were only capable of producing small objects. The machine, though modeled after a vintage 21st century machine called a 3D printer, was cutting edge. All it needed was raw material and a recipe to follow. On a raised platform below it lay the gate.

"I always forget how massive these are in person," Thomas breathed reverently. The smallest section was the length of a school bus, and sprawled much further than that.

"We put a Star Gate up on the Moon not even three months ago, Sir," Roman laughed. Thomas crossed his arms in mock anger, making Roman laugh more.

He had a point, though. Before The Day Dream is permitted to leave the solar system, it is their job to leave gates. Not every spaceship is created equal, only government sanctioned ships are allowed to have a warp core. Warp cores allow for a ship to change the very fabric of space around a ship, changing the location instantaneously. Teleportation is the unofficial name for it. But space travel would be too slow even if they had learned how to go beyond the speed of light.

The solution had been Star Gates. These opened up worm holes for ships that did not have access to warping. The gates were to be left at popular destinations. A trip to the moon that might have taken six months only took an hour. Soon a trip to Moon Titan, which revolved around Saturn, was in order. The possibility that it might contain life made it a hotspot for researchers. Their final goal was to leave a gate at Pluto, then the true expedition could begin. Once the path for other explorers is paved, The Day Dream will be allowed to search for sentient life. For now they were to travel with solar sails while waiting for each gate to be built.

Roman pointed Thomas to a messy desk, "Your checklist should be on there." Thomas, however, was lost. He opted to watch as Roman walked up to a group of assistants drones and dismissed them. The new ones that followed Roman and Thomas in picked up on the work as the old ones backed into charging ports. As they met eyes, he shook his head in a gesture he hoped communicated his confusion.

Roman got the memo, because he jogged to where Thomas stood, looking over his shoulder. He leaned into Thomas' shoulder to pick up the empty report and handed Thomas the tablet with a flourish. The almost-contact felt nice. Thomas made a mental note to ask Mission Control about the correlation between space travel and being touch starved.

There was not time to linger on that though, because Roman was too ecstatic to wait. He personally showed Thomas the work that he and Patton had done. Every individual thing he crossed out on the list pointed to a success. Two hours spent inspecting seams, double checking wiring, and doing strength tests went by without notice and soon Thomas forgot about any bad mood he was in because it was done!

"I can't wait to deliver this to Mission Control!"

Roman was not quite used to seeing the captain as anything other than a collected leader, but this change was good. "So we passed the final inspection?"

"With flying colors."

His smile brightened. "I bet we should start preparing for our warp to Moon Titan."

Thomas gave his approval, and Roman started to conduct the service drones around him like a symphony. Mission Control replied minutes later and Thomas knew everybody who was not occupied saw that the clearance to warp had been granted. As the complete Star Gate was being pushed to the path that lead to the bay, he waved Roman goodbye.

He walked back through the decontamination chamber and set the protective gear he had been wearing into a bin for specific cleaning. Setting his appearance back into place did not take long, and soon he was led away from the smell of grease and metal to the more comforting crisp air of the upper levels.

Logan appeared by his side just a moment later. "I have the results of the diagnostics scan ready for you, Sir."

"Are we all clear?"

"Sadly not." Logan shook his head and turned a tablet for him to look at. "The lower right corner of the starboard solar sail has significant damage."

"I bet it was stray debris," Thomas shifted on his feet before asking, "Can we go without it?"

Logan hated to be the bearer of bad news, "We can, but our navigation route will need to be recalculated completely."

It made sense, Thomas thought. Even subtle shifts in angle can land them in a completely different location then intended. He thought about it a little longer. "I think we should fix the problem now, the Moon Titan base won't miss an extra day without us."

"Yes sir. I'll send Roman a request to prepare the right materials for the patch. Do you know who is to accompany you on the space walk?"

Thomas shook his head. Logan took the screen back from Thomas to open up the schedule log. "Patton would have been ideal, but he is still out of commission. I recommend Virgil."

.

.

In half of a day, they were ready. It was easy for Thomas to report the damage reports to Mission Control, to state they wish to run repairs before anything else, and for the approval for the small mission to be granted.

For the second time that day, Thomas went through the task of putting on personal protective wear, but joined by Virgil and a lifeless service drone. The solar sail patch and other needed tools were handled by the drone. Thomas knew the ship better than the medic did, so he and the drone would be the one doing most of the work. Virgil was to be the one communicating with Mission Control so Thomas could focus and he was a second pair of eyes to ensure nothing went wrong.

Virgil probably was the one who took this task the most serious, only bested by Logan. Soon enough, the small group was seen out of the airlock by Logan and Roman, and the repairs were under way.

Virgil knew space walks were consequential. If he lost focus at the wrong moment there was every possibility he could end up drifting in space. If Thomas noticed in time, he could have Logan or Roman retrieve him by using one of the smaller ships in the bay. But that possibility weighed heavily on a " if".

Every space walk before this one went off without a hitch. But Virgil's stomach was turning uncomfortably and his ears were straining to pick up anything.

He knew sound can not travel in space.

Pesky instincts were screaming that something was wrong. He needed to pay attention, be alert and ready to fight. Protect himself, The Day Dream , and all the lives within it. Something bigger, smarter than him was lurking in the unforgiving void behind him. A predator, surely, with steps quiet as a leopard midhunt, and a maw stronger than any alligator. That means twice as painful. Three times as ruthless. The crowning crux of slaughter machines, delivered to the doorstep of the spaceship by Mother Nature herself and her sick sense of humor.

But when he turned around, the only thing he was was Thomas crouched over the massive solar sail, the ship under his feet, and the stars.

It might be just anxiety. Might. No, is. It has to be just anxiety. He should trust his eyes. Because he knows his mind is not rational when he gets like this. He will not think normal until it passes. He will not because it is impossible. Something is wrong. What is making him like this? This morning Virgil did not intake any caffeine, and his nutrition logs of the rest of the day indicate no other food-born anxiety stimulates. He even took the anxiety suppressant prescribed by his therapist on Earth this morning, like every morning before.

Nothing is wrong. Why does he feel so unsafe? He does not like it, he does not like the fear for his life-

He was spiraling. His vision blanked and he did not register Thomas' questioning voice over the com. Virgil's senses did not register in the moment, except for smell. Because this smell was out of place. The instinct was right, right, rIgHt . Somet h in g waS wRoNG. Was his suit breached? Oh stars have mercy he was going to die right here, wasn't he? The foreign scent of ozone filled his suit a split second before he felt it.

ZAP!

Then… nothing.

Well nothing was not the right word for it, because there was his beating heart and the sound of blood rushing through his own body. It was the shock of everything feeling regular again. Like a reset button was pressed. The universe must have felt merciful today for that alien feeling did not hurt. It felt wrong, invasive. Very much like burning and bright electricity had just reached into every crevice of his body. The feeling was uninvited and deeply intrusive. But it did not hurt.

He was so shocked in that moment he forgot about that spiral before it came back. He could feel Thomas by his side, a hand on his shoulder. Despite the fog of an anxiety creeping into his system, it was strangely grounding.

"-gil, this is my final time requesting this. If you do not answer me now then we have to null this mission."

That was Thomas. Not invasive ozone-electricity from the stars, his mocking self doubt, or a intrusive thought deadset on letting him break. It was his captain, a man he trusted. His authoritative voice rang through a speaker in his helmet, not even a hint of static. And he wanted an answer, right. "I'm present, sir. Sorry."

The relief in Thomas' heart was tangible. Though he knew Virgil could not see through the glare of the visor, he smiled for him anyways. He had been worried! The captain moved closer and held his hand over the vitals monitor on Virgil's suit. Virgil did not push him away so he started the mandatory scan. "I'm glad to have you back. We need to check your vitals and suit systems before proceeding with anything."

"Sorry, sir. I believe I had an anxiety attack," he explained with an unsteady voice. "My senses didn't register except for a weird smell. Ozone, I think? And I felt a weird zap before I got over it."

Thomas encouraged the explanation. They would go over the audio logs later and archive this incident. Any possible suit malfunctions needed to be reported to Mission Control. Then they would report it to Roman, who will use the fabricator to replace the faulty one. These reports are endless, Thomas thought, tired. It did not end there. If they expended those resources, they would need to get more raw materials. That was all in a day's work, though. Maybe he could get Virgil off of the space walk roster if being out of the ship was a trigger. While a pleasure to work with, his mental health came first to convenience.

He was reading off the screen now. "Your adrenaline levels are spiked, but that is expected. Your hormones outside of stress response are normal. The O2 levels in your blood are normal. You have six hours of oxygen left in your tank. All the circuits are operational-"

"Thomas!" Virgil's voice ran in through the coms, an uncharacteristically urgent tone ringing in his ears. It threw him for a loop and he did not answer fast enough. The results of Virgil's vital scans were all positive, did he say something to make it worse? And then again, louder, "Thomas, please!"

"Is... everything alright?"

"No! Yes? I- um, Maybe?"

A trickle of unease settled deep in the Captain's core. "What is going on?"

"I think I saw something flying, and I don't- We need to go back inside, Thomas please. I can't do this right now."

He listened.

The mission was called null right then and there and he picked up a few pieces of the repair kit with a haste to satisfy his crewmate. The repair drone was following behind them, unaffected by the events.

But the strangest feeling ran through his body when he reached his hand out to Virgil.

He let out a gasp in surprise, and Virgil heard it over the still connected com link. It was the gentle tickle of electric curiously dancing in and out of every nook and cranny of his body. It was quizzical, and embodied a researcher like him.

As it left, he swore the smell of ozone lingered in his suit and that he too saw something move in the corner of his eye. The shape of a black triangle. Massive and looming and definitely not natural and definitely something he was scared of. He could only tell it was there because the stars disappeared behind it. A row of lights flickered on, and Thomas was paralyzed. Virgil had seen it too, but responded by dragging his stupefied captain to the airlock with unprecedented urgency.

It was gone suddenly as it came.

[chameleonsallinvermillion]

153 Questions for Americans

Listen, as far as I am concerned, America is a place where movies are set. I know you’re all real but you don’t feel quite real, you know. Somebody actually grew up in New York? Impossible - that only exists on TV. I have questions. And somewhere out there, there is an American bored enough to answer them. Or at least some of them. 

I feel I should clarify that none of these are loaded questions. I’m asking these with no agenda other than burning curiosity. There’s no judgement or meanness behind them. I’m sorry that I sound incredibly stupid. 

1) Do you think of yourselves as American, or does your state come first? 

2) Where does the generic American accent come from? The one most people in movies have? Is it Californian, cos that’s where movies tend to be made? That’s my current working theory. 

3) Is it true that you don’t have egg cups? 

4) Is it normal to live in one state all your life and never go to another, even for a visit, or would that be weird? 

5) Are all school buses really yellow, like in movies? 5b) Why? Are they all owned by the same company or do different groups keep identical yellow buses for this one purpose? 

6) Do you have semi-detached houses in America? They’re never in movies. 

^^ These houses! Where two houses are mirror images of each other and share a joining wall. Do you have those? 

7) Turkey is your classic Thanksgiving meat, I think? So what’s your classic Christmas meat? 

8) There must be an insane number of colleges/universities in a country that size. How do you narrow down your choices? Do most people stay in their home state? 

9) Are school sports really as big of a deal as movies make them out to be?

10) How do you decide if your school is an obsessed-with-basketball school or an obsessed-with-football school? Is it regional? Have movies exaggerated this binary too much and I’ve got the wrong idea? 

11) Are there any girls’ sports teams at schools or is it basically just cheerleading? 

12) What is a pep rally and also why is a pep rally? Who goes to them? 

13) Do cheerleaders wear their uniforms around school casually like they do on TV? Wouldn’t a sports uniform need to be taken off post-training for cleanliness reasons? Do they only wear it before training to save the trouble of getting changed? 

14) Does the average American family own a gun or are they not as widespread as it is made to seem? Is that regional too? 

15) How similar is the culture between, say, Montana and New Mexico? Do they feel like the same country? 

16) Do you get sheriffs in cities or is it only out in the middle of nowhere? What’s the difference between a sheriff and a police captain? 

17) Is prom as big of a deal in real life as it is in movies? 

18) Are prom queens a real thing and, if so, how do they work? Are there duties involved or is it just wearing a tiara for a night? Can anyone be voted in or is there a pre-prom shortlist? Do you have to apply? 

19) What is stereotypically American, from the perspective of an American? I know what the stereotypes are over here, but how do you stereotype yourselves? 

20) Why does Alabama have a reputation for incest? Is there a historical basis or do people just not like Alabama very much? 

21) Is it true that you don’t have roundabouts, or do you just not have as many / don’t have them everywhere? (You might call them something else - the little islands in a crossroads that you have to circle round) 

22) If you were asked to name European cities, what would be the first ones you would name? 

Clarification: If somebody asked me to name American cities, my brain would immediately go: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. By the time it had thought of those, it would already be saying: Las Vegas, Washington DC, New Orleans, San Francisco. Then, Detroit, Miami, Seattle, Boston, Baltimore. After that, I would have to actively stop and think of another one. So, if somebody just says ‘European cities - go!’ what does your brain immediately leap to? 

23) Are those gigantic supermarkets (superstores???) standard across the country? What do the big brands (Walmart?? Target?????) look like in cities? Are they still that huge? 

24) Do the big grocery brands have specific personalities/reputations? What are they? Which one do middle class people look down on, for example? 

25) Is deep-frying everything something you really do or is it more of a regional delicacy / special occasion type deal? 

26) Do the states that are more “famous” (California, and the like) feel more or less American because of it? Are you a cultural beacon, or are you an independent entity shackled down to the rest of them? 

27) Do the states that often get ignored (Montana?? Iowa?????) feel more or less American because of it? Does your isolation make you separate, or are you bound together into a greater whole? 

28) I get that different states have different laws. So say one state said you could get a driving license without having to take a test, but the next state insisted on standardised testing. Would a license issued by the first state still be valid in the second state? Could you cross the border to the state with easier specifications just to get a license?

29) Which universities / colleges are really the ones with good reputations? Obviously, places like Harvard and Yale are world-famous but I don’t really know any others unless a character in a movie is aspiring to one. Which are the names that command respect amongst real people?  

30) Is the average American’s knowledge of geography or history beyond the US as poor as it is commonly described? Or is that more of a joke and the average person is perfectly well-informed, with a few outliers?

31)  Are those red cups in party scenes a convenient movie prop, because they’ve become the stereotype of “oh, that cup has alcohol in it” or something, or are they actually used that universally? 31b) If they are that ubiquitous, what happens when red is the colour of the enemy sports team? That seems like something people would care about.

32) Do you really recite the pledge of allegiance at school every day? If yes, is it done sincerely or just because it’s tradition? 

33) Are flags as popular a décor choice as popular media seems to suggest?

34)  Which state has the reputation for having the most attractive / sexiest people from it, or the people you would most want to date? Why? (I’m assuming this won’t be fully universal, but there are definite stereotypes of ‘guys from this region aren’t the romantic sort’ and ‘girls from this region are easy’ in other countries so you must have something) 

35)  What kind of cheeses do you have? This probably sounds insane, or possibly a little patronising, but whenever you see cheese in an American context, it tends to be those little plastic squares that look like linoleum flooring. Yet Americans are really into putting cheese in everything, so there must be other types. But I couldn’t name a single type of cheese off the top of my head as being a known American cheese. So what are the standard cheeses of an American household? 

36) Is that “biscuits and gravy” thing that people sometimes post pictures of when talking about the difference in biscuits across the Atlantic actually a thing people eat? On what occasion? And if that’s gravy, what do you call the stuff you pour on meat and potatoes? Are they both gravy? 

37) Do young people really hang around at shopping malls all weekend, or is that a movie thing? 

38) Do Americans eat custard? I’ve never heard an American mention custard.

39) If you had to pick an area of the country that is “where rich city folk go to pretend to get back to nature despite being afraid of dirt” where would it be? Or does every state have their own bit where people from their own cities go to buy big old houses and complain about phone reception? 

40) Why do Americans still talk about themselves as being, for example, “a quarter Welsh, a sixth Irish, a bit Swedish, but mostly German”? I don’t mean the people whose parents moved there, but the people who have been there for generations. Do you really feel connected to the cultures/countries your ancestors were from? Is “American” more of a circumstance than an identity?

41) Is Easter a widespread secular event in America or purely religious-based? What would a typical Easter celebration involve? Do you have the fruit cake and funny hats, like we do? 

42) If you had to pick one song already in existence to be your new national anthem, what would it be and why?

43) I know that it is possible to be made to repeat a grade, possibly several times, if you don’t get the required exam results. How common is that? Does it happen a lot, or is it more of a threat to hold over kids? 

44) Are there limits on how early you can legally drop out of school, or could a child stop attending at any age? For example, where I grew up it would be illegal to leave school before the age of sixteen but movies seem to imply you can drop-out earlier in the US.

45) What is homecoming? Who is coming home, and where from? 

46) What is a more important social event: prom, or homecoming? 

47) Can anybody attend homecoming, even the freshmen? I have this vague idea sports has something to do with it and it would seem logical that some freshmen play sports but how does that work logistically? 

48) Does homecoming also have a queen? Do she and the prom queen compete in some way? Which one outranks the other? 

49) Are there buses in America? Other than the school bus or the occasional long-distance coach, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bus in American media. Does a standard public-transport bus system exist? Is it only in some places? 

50) Why are trains not a more popular mode of long-distance travel in America? Or are they but it doesn’t make for as dramatic a movie scene as a desperate non-stop road trip? 

51) Are freshmen and sophomores really called that? Is it colloquial, or would you see it on official paperwork? 

52) Do teenagers get to choose which subjects they study to exam level at high school, or does everybody have to take a final exam in everything?

 53) Are places like Puerto Rico, or American Samoa, thought of as extensions of the country? Do they seem American to mainland Americans? 

54) Does Alaska ever feel left out, being up there on its own? 

56) Teen novels seem to suggest there’s an endless succession of school dances in high schools. Spring dances, winter balls, proms, homecoming, ladies’ choice dances… Is that true? If so, do people really care about them or is non-attendance no big deal? 

57) Is Halloween as big an event as movies suggest, or was Hocus Pocus not representative? 

58) Sometimes from the outside, it seems that we know more about what’s going on with American foreign policy than Americans do. Does it seem that way, as Americans, about other countries? That you’re getting information that is not being shared with their citizens? 

59) Do Americans really like British accents that much, or is that just a small but vocal handful on the internet? Do different foreign accents go in and out of fashion? 

60) What is the whole deal with white shoes and Labour Day? Or was that just a line in Legally Blonde? 

61) Do American teenagers really have sex in cars a lot or is that a movie thing?

62) Do American teenagers really sneak out of the house at night a lot, especially via the window, or is that also a movie thing? 

63) Are people as blasé about tornados as they seem or is that bravado? Are tornados really that common that people can just shrug about them and carry on with their day?

64) What age are the majority of people when they are learning to drive? Not what age can they legally learn; what age do most people actually learn. 

65) How many of the things you might call an American stereotype really only apply to one specific region? 

66) Are taxicabs yellow everywhere or is that just a New York thing? 

67) Are Sweet Sixteen celebrations a real thing? What happens at one? Is it just a particularly impressive birthday party or are there specific traditions? 

68)  Are sororities and fraternities as common or as important to college life as movies make them out to be? 

69)  Why would somebody join a sorority or a fraternity? What’s the point? (I know the phrasing of that sounds critical but I really don’t mean it like that. I just do not have the cultural context to understand what they’re actually for.) 

70) So, I know that the price you have on price labels isn’t the price you pay because of tax being a secret. I see you talk about this a lot. Does this mean the amount you’re asked for at the end is always a surprise, or are you all really good at mental arithmetic? Is calculating tax something you learn at school?

71) Do Americans generally have a good opinion of their fellow Americans?

72) Is New York the only place theatre really gets a chance to go big? That can’t possibly be true, it’s a massive continent, there must be incredible actors and writers and stuff hanging out somewhere in South Dakota or something. Is this why the people in Glee were so fixated on living in New York? 

73) The garbage-eating drains you have in kitchen sinks…where do they lead to? Can you put anything down them? 

74)  Which parts of America are the parts other Americans go on vacation? Is it different to where foreigners want to visit?

75) Do any American schools have school houses or is that absolutely not a thing at all? 

76) Do American schools have a system of merits or house points or some other way of giving a positive score for good behaviour that adds up to something eventually? Or is good behaviour expected and therefore not given special recognition? 

77) What actually is a hall monitor, and is it a position people respect or aspire to? 

78)  Is it as common for people to drive themselves and their friends to school as movies make out? How is there parking space for that many students with their own cars? 

79)  How did the town in Footloose have the power to ban dancing? Do individual towns have that much control over their laws and citizens? Does every town council get to make decisions that huge? 

80) Are big house parties the most common place for teenagers to get drunk and hook up? It seems like that in movies but surely that would be inefficient? You’d have to keep waiting for somebody’s parents to leave town. 

81)  What is the deal with Americans hating France? Is that a real thing or was it just a throwaway joke in enough media for me to think it’s a real thing?

82) Why do people not live in national parks?

83)  Which states actually count as “The South” and which ones are officially “The North”? Because it doesn’t seem like the line is just drawn across the middle. 

84) Whenever you see Americans talking about candy on the internet, it’s always the same six or seven items. Are those just the big favourites and there are lots of other candy types around the place that don’t get a place on personality quizzes, or are there really only a handful of familiar items that are widespread? Do different states have different candy?

85) Which sport is most central to American identity? I’d assume it was one of the three (baseball, basketball, American football) but is one of them more important than the others?

86)  Are all your prisons out in the middle of the desert or something? 

87) There’s this sort of mythology around an American idea of just getting a plot of land and building your home on it and making it your own, with an implication that you can grab anywhere and do whatever you like with it. Are planning laws that relaxed, or is that more something you could do in the 1800s that has taken up a place in cultural mythology? 

88) When kids are hanging out in someone’s yard or an empty lot on a summer day, what game or sport would they be most likely to be playing? It feels like American football, for example, wouldn’t be very good for that, and it’s hard to improvise a net for basketball. 

89) Is it strange to live in a large city that nevertheless is virtually unknown nationwide because all the attention goes to the enormous cities? Or are these places known nationwide and it’s just internationally that they get forgotten?

90) How far from somewhere would you have to be to consider yourself in the middle of nowhere? 

91) How localised are things like local news or local tv? Is it every state? Every county? Every major town and its surroundings? 

92) Does national television have to take place at different times regionally because of time zones? 

93)  Is there a reason why American recipes measure everything in cups, even the things that it doesn’t make sense to put in a cup e.g. solid items that don’t fill the space so could vary in cup-filling volume? A cup full of butter is a different thing if the butter is in blocks to if it is poured in, as it were, to fill to the edges completely. Is there a trick to it?

94) Is marching band the only kind of band you have at schools? Is there no orchestra? Swing band? Concert ensemble? 

95) Why do you have marching bands at schools? Where are they marching to? Do you have a lot of parades? 

96) If you had to choose one (non-reality) TV show that best represents what life is actually like in America, what would you pick? 

97) What is spirit week? Is it important? Do people take it seriously? I think it might be something that happens at schools but beyond that, I have no idea.

98) How big is a school locker? Apparently big enough to fit a person in but are they standing comfortably or curled into a tiny ball? If it were person-height, wouldn’t it have shelves in it? Does the victim go on a shelf? 

99) When you dress up for Halloween, can you be anything? I mean, could a kid going trick or treating conceivably wear any costume at all? It doesn’t have to be spooky? 

100) On a similar note, in movies there are always wild packs of children roving around on Halloween, filling the streets with their trick-or-treating. It’s crowded. Kids are running everywhere. There’s a gang knocking on every door. Is that movie magic or is Halloween really like an unofficial street party? 

101) Do you have half-term holidays? I assume you wouldn’t call them that. Mid-semester break, maybe? You know. The week off in the middle. 

102) Do you have days when you don’t have to go to work or school that aren’t for a special celebration? Just…days when the country stops working? Or, at least, most of it because cafés would always be open on that sort of day. 

103) Which is the bigger deal: Thanksgiving, or the Fourth of July? 

104) How diverse is the landscape in any given state? If you take, say, Ohio, does it all look like roughly the same place all the way through or are there lots of different landscapes going on? I feel like there should be, but there’s still this very typical image of what Ohio is.

105) Do people care about what clothes they wear to school or does the fact that everybody sees everybody every day mean that it all stops mattering? 

106) What makes something a diner rather than a café, a restaurant, or whatever else? What defines a diner?

107) What is the one, singular, most significant place in the USA? (I realise this could be controversial)

108)  What would you, as an American, say was the best thing America has ever done, or the most important contribution it has made to the world? There’s no need to be coy here, I’m not asking for a fully-analysed unbiased dissertation on the subject, I just want to know what people are thinking. A person, an invention, an action…whatever takes your fancy. 

109) How does a state fair work? Is it really a fair for the whole state? Wouldn’t it have to be the size of a city for that? Does all of that get taken down at the end of the week and packed away, or do bits stay standing? 

110)  Are music festivals an upper class thing? Coachella seems to be an upper class thing but, then, I don’t really know what Coachella is, only that celebrities are there. Are there other music festivals of significance? 

111) When Americans say things like “We drove from New York to California last weekend, didn’t even stop to sleep, no big deal”, is there an element of bravado to that or is it completely genuine? I get that you drive long distances very casually but is there a point where those distances do become a big deal and a serious trip, you just pretend they don’t to mess with non-Americans? 

112) Is summer camp a normal thing for people to do, or is it something the minority of people send their kids to but it makes for a convenient movie setting so we see it a disproportionate amount? 

113)  Is a maths summer camp a thing or was that a joke in one book I read once? What would you even do at a maths summer camp? 

114) Is standing just inside the entrance of a shop and yelling a greeting at anyone who walks in a real job or is that a movie joke I don’t have the context to understand? If it is a job, is that the whole job or are you expected to do other things at the same time? 

115) Okay, the thing about the gap between the door and the wall in a bathroom stall. Is that as widespread as people say? I mean, is it everywhere? If so, there simply has to be a reason for it, it’s too weird otherwise, so does anybody out there know what’s going on with that? 

116) What actually is Kool-Aid? Is it true that you can drink it and use it as hair dye? 

117) What is an American Girl Doll? It seems to be a big deal but I can’t really figure it out. Is it just a brand of doll or is there more to it? 

118) Are the indicator lights on your cars officially called blinkers or is that more of a colloquial thing? Or not a thing at all? Would they be called that on your driving test? In a car manual? 

119) What actually is a GPA? What is it based on? And what counts as a good one? 

120) Is pancakes for breakfast a normal thing or a special occasion thing? 

121) What are cooties? I feel like I ought to know this, it comes up so often in various bits of media, but I’ve never actually figured out what it means. 

122) Is going to a pumpkin patch and just hanging out a real thing? Do you take pumpkins home with you? How about when you go apple picking? Are all these cutesy autumn activities a normal thing to do or is it just in romantic comedies?

123) How do school qualifications work? Are the exams you take at the end of high school, when you’re eighteen or whatever, the only ones that count if you’re looking to get a job? Or are there, sort of, mid-high-school exams that could also count towards something? Is it just “high school” then “degree” or are there other levels, is what I’m trying to ask. 

124) What is making out? By which I mean, what makes something “making out” rather than just kissing? Where’s that line drawn?

125) I understand that school newspapers are a thing. But do people pay to buy them? Other students? What kind of things do you write about in a school paper?

126) How does seeing the doctor work? Do you book an appointment with a local practitioner? Are there clinics? Does everybody wait until it’s an emergency? They don’t see doctors on TV unless they’re dying.

127) In Glee, they had slushie machines in the school. Which were used as weapons of bullying. Is that real? Are you allowed slushie machines? 

128)  Why is the president addressed as “Mr President”? Is there some historic reason? It seems odd to me, like calling somebody Mr Shopkeeper or Mr Insurance-Salesman. Is it because it is so clearly not a peerage title and that was important when America began? That’s my working theory based on no history whatsoever.

129) I understand that tipping servers at a restaurant and so on is very, very important but does that extend to other jobs? Do you tip postmen, for example, when they deliver your mail? Or shop assistants for bagging up groceries for you? 

130) Is a school mascot a) a real thing and b) a position of prestige? 

131) How do Girl Scout cookies work? Do the Girl Scouts make them themselves from secret recipes? Is it just a cookie company they happen to have a good relationship with for bake sales? It seems important but I can’t unravel the mystery. 

132)  What’s Delaware like? No stories ever seem to be set there. Nobody ever really mentions it. What goes on in Delaware? 

133) Somebody mentioned something called “color guard” once, which I think is something that happens at schools, but I don’t know what it was or whether they were messing with me. I’ve never knowingly seen it in a teen movie. Tell me about color guards. It sounds so fake. What are they guarding? 

134) I know that legal drinking age is twenty-one, but what age would you say the average person started drinking? I don’t mean “had a glass of wine at a family dinner” but I also don’t mean “drank to black-out”. Just…drank socially with the aim of getting at least tipsy. 

135) I can already tell that this is a silly question but what is under the bleachers? People seem to have clandestine meetings there a lot, but I thought bleachers were just benches. How do you get under them, and what is there once you do? Is hooking up there something people do in real life?

136) How small is a small town? Is it based on population or more on facilities e.g. if it has a certain number of basic shops, it becomes a normal-sized town?

137) Movies seem to think that being involved in music or theatre at school is deeply uncool. This is so contrary to my own experience at school, that I have to ask whether it is true or not? If so, is there a reason why or is it just one of those adolescent mysteries? 

138) Does everybody have those netting screens over their windows or is that only in regions prone to, say, mosquitos? 

139) Do small towns tend to have their own little tiny high schools or do the students have a long commute every morning to a bigger high school elsewhere? How far is considered acceptable/normal to travel to get to school?

140) When it comes to prom, is it considered really important to get a date or do lots of people turn up alone / with friends? If you do have to have a one-on-one date, is it usually romantic or is it acceptable just to pair up with a friend? Movies are very intense about this and I’m not sure the portrayal is accurate.

141) Do most schools have big theatre auditoriums with fully-functional stages and raked seating, or is that just High School Musical? 

142) Is sex ed really as poor as people joke about it being, on average? Is abstinence education the norm, or is it rarer but we hear about it a lot because it’s so controversial? 

143) Are chastity clubs at schools a real thing? If so, why, when almost all students must be underage? I mean, I know people are having underage sex but why make a club about obeying the law? I don’t mean for this to sound all judgemental, I’m just really lacking the cultural background to make sense of this. 

144)  Which is the most popular state, the one the fewest number of people hate? Is there even one that is universally well-liked? 

145) Would you normally refer to your country as “America” or “the US” or “the USA” or, I don’t know, some other variation? It seems pretty interchangeable but is there a preference? 

146) Is the “no outside food in the movie theatre” rule as rigorously enforced everywhere as general media would suggest? TV shows make it seem pretty militant but they might be exaggerating for comic effect. 

147) Is kindergarten a part of the compulsory school system or is it more of an optional pre-elementary-school step that only some people attend? What do you do in a kindergarten?

148) What makes somebody a redneck? Is it just a catch-all for the rural poor or is there something more specific behind it? 

149) Why is spring break supposedly this wild party time? What makes that a more suitable time for crazy shenanigans than, say, the autumn? Or July?

150) What is the difference between college and community college?

151) If you could pick one place to add as a new state, where would you choose? 

152) If you had to get rid of one state, which one would you kick out of the union? 

153) What is a letterman jacket for and why is it called a letterman jacket?

154) Washington DC. How does it work? I understand that it’s not a state, but if it’s not a state in a federal system, who governs it? Who runs the schools? And if the big elections are held by every state collecting their votes, figuring out the majority, then passing that on or whatever, how does Washington DC vote? Do they have people in the electoral college, whatever that turns out to be? What is going on there? Do real people actually live in DC or is it just politicians / people who serve politicians? 

If you’ve actually read this far and have even the slightest intention of answering any of these questions, you are a true angel and I love you. I’m sorry they’re not divided up into thematic groups or anything like that. I’ve been collecting this list for a few years now and I thought I might as well just ask at this point. 

[morfinwen]

For the Excessively Detailed Headcanon ask: 4 for Angela, 5 for Christopher, 12 for Reagan, 39 for Neal, 43 for Lanzo, 7 for Ash, 46 for Connie, 35 for Aidan, 20 for Q, 22 for Nate, 19 for Amanda, 23 for Niner, 42 for Elise, 11 for Julie, 26 for Jerome, 24 for Kayla, 18 for Hannah, 17 for Knife, 32 for Elarin, 31 for Meaghan, 38 for Leah, 48 for Avery, 1 for Ian, 8 for Lauren, 15 for Kira, 37 for Darcy, and 16 for Susanna.

Almost forgot the read more!

1. What does Ian’s bedroom look like?

Contained chaos. Poorly contained chaos.

He’s got a bed, a desk, a dresser, and an end table. The desk is the tidiest: the papers on it are stacked haphazardly, there might be a pen or pencil or two lying on it but most are in the drawer, and if something that doesn’t belong gets set on it there’s at least a chance it’ll get moved by the end of the week.

The dresser is mostly for stacking stuff on top of, and storing clothes he no longer wears but hasn’t gotten rid of yet. There’s usually a jacket or a shirt or some more awkward piece of clothing hanging off one of the knobs. 

The bedside table has his phone, its charger, and a variety of junk -- mail he brought to the bedroom to read, a comb he forgot to take back to the bathroom, a half-full (or half-empty) glass of water, a pair of socks he picked up to wear then forgot about, a single slipper set there while he was looking for its mate, etc.

There's sheets on his bed, plus a blanket if it's been cold lately, but if the corners of the fitted sheet are all pulled over the mattress, then it is tidier than usual. Whatever he’s wearing for night clothes at the moment, if he’s even bothering, will be anywhere from near the pillows (he has two very flat pillows that are usually in pillowcases) to hanging off the foot. The sheets, it’s worth noting, often have cartoon characters on them.

The floor is hidden under a layer of clothes, towels, shoes, blankets, boxes, sheets, books, etc. About the only things you won't find on the floor are plates or food-related items, anything that will attract bugs, as well as loose papers since those pose a falling hazard (everything else just makes him stumble). 

4. What would Angela do if she needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy?

If there’s something near to hand that doesn’t require the kitchen, she’d have that, but most likely she’d wait until it was available. She doesn’t particularly like or dislike cooking, but she does not like fast food, and she’s patient.

5. Christopher’s cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.)

There are places he cares about cleanliness, and there are places he does not.

Most of his living quarters, particularly the kitchen, are spotless. Dishes get washed and the table and counters wiped down immediately after eating. Clothes get folded or hung as soon as they’re dry, and dirty ones go straight in the hamper. Making the bed happens almost as soon as he gets out of it.

Christopher’s work areas, on the other hand, are disaster zones. Anything that might provide some inspiration, or is part of that thing from two months ago he’s still working on, or was used for that other thing two years ago he wants to revisit, ends up on a desk or a table or lying on the floor somewhere, and isn’t getting put away until he’s done with it. No one is permitted to touch anything -- he knows exactly where everything is (which is true, and he can prove it too), and it’s all part of his own particular organizational system (which is … less true; there’s some organizing going on, but it’s less of a system and more of a feeling), so leave it where it is.

His personal hygiene is hit-or-miss. Brushing teeth, usually a hit; showering, often a miss, unless he’s performing soon.

7. Ash’s favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time

It isn’t necessary to schedule every hour of your day, but even after a few years of regular contact with Lanzo, Ash still does not have what Lanzo considers a proper appreciation for the value of lazing around.

That said, for years Ash has found it difficult to ignore the allure of a summer afternoon nap; particularly when it’s raining outside, he’s just had a mug of relaxing lavender tea, there’s a soft blanket and the entire couch is free to stretch out on … zzzz.

8. Lauren’s favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging

If she’s had a really rough week, the first chance she gets, she’s having a hot bath, followed by a bowl of cinnamon ice cream while watching either a screwball comedy or a tragic romance, whichever she feels like.

Lauren’s got a fair amount of good old-fashioned Catholic guilt, but it’s heavily concentrated in certain areas and almost never touches other things. Some things she’s overindulged in and never felt guilty about, other relatively harmless things have kept her awake at night for hours. The above scenario usually doesn’t make her feel bad.

11. Julie’s intellectual pursuits

Julie is -- well, was, post-Allwinter -- attending college, for what would probably end up being a degree in History, but she likes reading about all kinds of different things. Mostly psychology and philosophy, but also about other cultures, geography, and nature, specifically trees and plants. She’s one of those jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none types, only more with knowledge than skills.

12. Reagan’s favorite book genre

Science-fiction or fantasy. A slight preference for the former, as she’s found it easier to find sci-fi graphic novels. 

With her dyslexia, Reagan doesn’t read much, so anything that is easily read, and more importantly easily visualized, is her favorite, regardless of genre.

15. Kira’s biggest and smallest short term goals

Biggest: Survive high school. In the third-largest city in the country. Where she knows no one. No problem! (said with major sarcasm)

Smallest: Find a way to remember her locker combination so she doesn’t need to carry around a scrap of paper with it written on it.

16. Susanna’s biggest and smallest long term goals

Smallest: Learn to do a handspring.

Biggest: Get elected president of the United States.

17. Knife’s preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress

Customizable!

From a young age, Knife’s mostly gotten plain t-shirts and jean jackets that she could decorate herself, with fabric markers or felt patches or (for a very brief period in middle school) bedazzle. It was one of the few things she could keep doing after the accident, which changed it from just a hobby to a representation of her independence and self-image, and therefore practically sacred. Not that everything she wears is customized, just most of it. She’s also familiar with sewing basics, not enough to make her own clothes from scratch, but she can modify them.

As far as “rituals”, it is important to her to display something she’s decorated or modified the first time she wears it. She’s not looking for praise or even acceptance really, just acknowledgement. 

18. Hannah’s favorite beverage

Chocolate milk. She also drinks a lot of Sunny D.

19. What does Amanda think about before falling asleep at night?

Ideas for new articles. Sometimes ones she could reasonably write for work, others are something she might want to work on independently in the future, and still others are too niche or weird for publishing anywhere but are just fun to think about. 

20. Q’s childhood illness? Any interesting stories behind them?

When Q was very little, he was more prone to catching any bugs that were getting passed around him. As he’s gotten older, that’s become less of a problem, but he’s got a 50/50 chance of getting the flu in a given year. 

Once he was old enough to go to boarding school, and therefore came under the jurisdiction of his aunt and uncle, if he so much as sneezed or coughed suspiciously, that was grounds for him taking the day off school and spending it in his room instead, with a steady supply of fluids and soups, regular check-ups by staff, and a nurse if his temperature climbed a degree too high. 

On the one hand, it was great to get out of school, and probably prevented him from getting sicker in at least a few cases, as he didn’t get exposed to more germs while his immune system was already busy. On the other, it didn’t take him too many years to realize this was his aunt and uncle’s way of protecting an asset rather than any kind of familial concern for his health, which kind of ruined it as relaxation. 

Honestly, the worst thing about it (from Q’s perspective) is how very Rich Kid™ that was, and how much of an effect it had on him. The first few times he got sick as an adult on his own in LA were not pretty.

22. Nate, given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?

Doodles or little comics, poking fun at people who annoy or aggravate him but he isn't willing or able to confront. 

23. How organized is Niner? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in her everyday life?

From a certain perspective, Niner is very organized: she organizes everything into two categories, stuff she cares about and stuff she doesn’t. She keeps the two things very separate in her day-to-day life. Stuff she doesn’t care about gets ignored, left alone, or explicitly dismissed, while the stuff she cares about gets her full attention -- at least for a little while.

24. Is there one subject of study that Kayla excels at? Or does she even care about intellectual pursuits at all?

Kayla values intellectual pursuits, but they’re not of particular interest to her, generally speaking. She’s mostly interested in keeping the house clean, helping Hannah grow up healthy and happy, and just figuring out all the various aspects of being alive.

26. Does Jerome have any plans for the future? Any contingency plans if things don’t work out?

Pre-Allwinter, Jerome’s future plans mostly had to do with Hannah’s future (health, college, career, etc.) and eventually retirement. He and Kayla hoped to adopt at some point, since she couldn’t have kids herself, but at the time it wasn’t something they were directing energy toward. None of those plans were hard-and-fast, so they didn’t really require contingency plans.

Now, he has even fewer plans, as just figuring out how things work in the Allwinter and adjusting to it is a full-time occupation. He has an excellent support network now, so even if he does make plans that don’t work out, he’s pretty sure he’s in a good place.

31. Meaghan’s most prized possession

Her lightsaber. Not just because of its usefulness, but because how much it represents everything that’s happened since her exile and return to the Order. It’s different from her first one, in its materials, construction, and design, and shows how much she’s changed and grown. 

Also, it’s a fricking lightsaber. Not even Meaghan is immune to the awesomeness that is a fricking lightsaber.

32. Elarin’s thoughts on material possessions in general

Unlike Meaghan, Elarin followed the Jedi regulations on owning possessions because she had to, and because she didn’t have many opportunities to violate it, not because she believed in it. She hasn’t acquired many things herself, but while she understands the dangers of greed and the potential to get buried by one’s things, she thinks getting hung up on how many possessions someone has is missing the forest for the trees, or whatever the Star Wars equivalent idiom is.

35. What activities does Aidan enjoy, but consider to be a waste of time?

Meticulous fan wikis that document how many times a character shows up, or how many times a character in a 1,000-issue manga eats this particular flavor of ramen, or document every slang term used in a sci-fi series. It’s fascinating to read or think about documenting, but really Mac, don’t you have anything better to do with your time?

37. Is Darcy more analytical or more emotional in his decision-making?

He is much more analytical than emotional. Not quite as analytical or as immune to emotion as he thinks, but still very analytical.

38. Would Leah consider herself a Type A or Type B personality?

Still Type B, though that defined her better pre-War. 

39. What recharges Neal when he’s feeling drained?

Anything that can either be done alone, or in a group setting where talking isn’t expected, but keeps him occupied enough that his thoughts don’t overwhelm him. For Neal, painting, playing the drums or guitar, surfing, or sculpting fit that bill. The last two more than the former.

42. Elise’s hobbies

Tennis is the main one. She and an old friend from high school get together every so often for a game, and she’s taught Julie to play. She also jogs on occasion.

Elise isn’t as in to knitting or crocheting as other people she knows, but it’s something to do with her hands when she’s watching something: usually baseball, as she is a loyal New York Yankees fan.

If she has a few hours of downtime, she’s a fan of old-school Mario games and in particular speedrunning, without using glitches or cheats. She’s got a very respectable time.

43. How far did Lanzo get in formal education? What are his views on formal education vs self-education?

A brief Google search tells me little about education for medieval German nobility, but for Lanzo i imagine it involved a Latin grammar school (probably through a local church) and university. He was not a particularly diligent student at the time, and if there was some way for him to stay at home with a tutor instead, he would have taken it.

Formal education has its merits, but Lanzo is absolutely in favor of delaying college or skipping it entirely if you like. He's supportive of the idea of self-education, but from his perspective, how your life turns out is at least as dependent on luck as anything deliberate. He does recommend learning rudimentary finance stuff and something that will reliably give you work, however (if you can’t marry someone loaded).

46. Does Connie express his thoughts through words or deeds?

It takes him time to express anything, as he wants to think it through from beginning to end before he’s comfortable sharing them, but words, mostly. Not that he’s unwilling to follow through with actions.

48. How does Avery express love?

In love language terms, Gift Giving and Acts of Service (in game mechanics terms, giving gifts and helping out with personal side missions). For those she really cares about, she’ll make the effort to spend time with them even when they’re not doing anything interesting, but she’s a busy, active woman who gets distracted easily, so that’s less common.

Thanks for asking!

[hbh-entertainment]

i tried to make my fictional kpop company’s head quarters on the sims 4 and this is what happened.

i got this idea from @ephemera-sm​ who posted a text post about how it would be interesting to see a floor plan of oc dorms, companies, etc. I thought that was an amazing idea so i decided to make my company on the sims! 

some notes before we start: 

the sims only allows 4 floors to be built. obviously a real company has multiple floors and multiple different levels. some of the layouts that i created i see as being a ‘repeat’ floor (so like... multiple floors may have the exact same layout)

i am really really really ungifted when it comes to sims4 building. please don’t judge me too hard. i don’t have cc furniture either. i was working on limited skill and resources. i’m insecure about posting this lmao please be nice.

if you even read through this whole thing.... i’m open to answering any questions about HBH or the building or staff or whatever! questions help me world build and I really need to work on world building.

Alright. Let’s start with the ground floor. 

Ah, the main lobby. Where visitors and artists alike enter the wondrous building and are greeted by the equally-wondrous, piece of ancient history secretary, Mrs Son Youngja. Right next to the entrance (that you can only get through if you either have an ID or buzz in), are three large display cases. Inside these cases are all the awards that HBH artists have won over the years. Yes, this is a flex on any newcomers that have never been to HBH’s headquarters. No, it’s not subtle in the slightest.

If you’re a trainee, employee, or artist, you have to show Youngja your HBH Entertainment ID before heading to the elevators. Anyone who doesn’t have their ID has to wait in the lobby, but they will be asked to leave by security if they loiter for more than ten minutes. You do not want to mess with security. 

In order to access the rest of the building, you will need your HBH Entertainment ID to open the elevators. Depending on your position at the company, your ID may only get you into specific locations. For example, a corporate intern will only have access to the corporate floor. 

I always pictured HBH to have a wall full of ivy or plants or maybe even running water behind the front desk. I feel like Hak Bonghwa would want that just to like ‘bring calmness’ or something. The sims 4 ivy wall looks fugly but please just envision a cool looking plant wall.

In my Sims 4 world, I called it ‘The Big Practice Room’. At HBH, there are actually at least 2 of these types of floors, stacked one on top of the other. 

So there are two floors that look like this! The first one is on floor 1, and they call it Practice Room A. The second one is on floor 2, and they call it Practice Room B. 

These larger practice rooms are mostly reserved for debuted idols to practice their choreography. Large groups like Triptych need big practice rooms like this so all their members can work together. 

Trainees rarely use these practice rooms unless they are given permission from their instructors to book them. They are sort of a rite of passage to be able to use the larger practice rooms after you debut. 

I showed a picture of some random posters next to the ‘sound system’ in the second picture because in my head these practice rooms just have a ton of vice/promise/triptych memes printed out and pasted onto the walls near the back of the rooms.

Part of being an HBH artist is coming in at five in the morning to see a new meme of yourself right next to the aux cord. Good morning, Seoul. 

As you can see, there are two locker rooms up here. Most of the idols just dump their stuff against the wall in the practice room, but sometimes people actually use the lockers that HBH paid for.

There’s also three showers and if I could find space for it there would have also been bathroom stalls but.... hehe i made everything too small and was too lazy to rescale. There should be three toilet stalls in each locker room, just use your imagination. 

In the Sims 4, Trainee Town is one floor. At HBH, it’s more like two. So imagine this floor, but another identical floor on top of it. 

They call it ‘Trainee Town’ because these two floors are only used by trainees. 

Well, not all the time, but you will rarely see a debuted idol in a practice room up here or walking around unless they are hosting a class or dropping by to give tips.

Trainee Town has four practice rooms, all which are significantly smaller than the larger practice rooms that we saw earlier. This is because when they are training, they are broken down into smaller groups and taught by instructors. They also are broken down into smaller performance groups when it comes to busking and showcases, so they never really need a large place to practice.

Actually, the kids will practice anywhere. The space between the two elevators has been used as a practice room multiple times. 

Right when they get off the elevators, there are bulletin boards that not only have the schedules for their training and showcases, but also sometimes they’ll leave messages to each other on them. It’s cute. 

You might have noticed that the locker rooms don’t have showers. That’s because I ran out of space again. There is supposed to be showers and toilets. I just don’t know how to be an architect. 

There’s at least three floors of corporate, but only one has Hak Bonghwa’s office. (The floor above his has an office very similar to his. That office belongs to Heo Seongja.)

They all generally have this same layout. Open seating, no cubical, only a half-wall to separate desks.

HBH’s unofficial-official color is a greyish blue so I tried to keep the color theme going in this specific floor because this is like... where the Business Happens. 

I couldn’t make it but there is a specific floor in HBH that is dedicated to just conference rooms. All the top floors of HBH are for business offices and stuff, but the conference floor is the second-to-top floor. The only floor above that one is the food court, which overlooks the city.

I totally forgot to add the food court, but imagine like... a college dining hall. It’s like that but with healthy food and tables with benches. 

Anyways! Hak Bonghwa’s office is in a glass box so he can see all his workers. He doesn’t do this to be controlling or whatever, he wants to make it feel like they’re all in this together. 

His desk always has photos of his family on it. 

He has a small conference section of his office with a cat vase. In my head, there was no cat vase. Now that I saw this one from the Sims, there is now canonically a cat vase in Hak Bonghwa’s office. 

The tea is: a good chunk of HBH workers hate this office layout because there’s no privacy and you can always see what other people are up to and it’s distracting. 

The last level I created were The Dungeons. 

The Dungeons got it’s nickname for two reasons. One, the other half of the basement (which isn’t shown because I got too tired to finish it) used to be the old trainee rooms when Vice were training. 

The second is because of the obsurd amount of time you spend down here when you’re working on a new album.

Most of HBH artists are self-producing so the members will spend a good chunk of their time down in one of the studios to record their comebacks. 

There are three recording studios. The Green Studio, the Red Studio, and the Blue Studio. They all get their names from the carpets that are laid on the floor. 

The Blue Room is used the most frequently for production lessons for trainees.  

Across the hall, you may have noticed two other rooms. One of these rooms “belongs” to Cyth from Vice. The other belongs to Rushi and Haeun, two long-time trainees. 

Cyth gets a room because he produces not only for Vice but he also has had a helping hand in almost every HBH artist comeback since Triptych debuted. He’s earned his own work space to say the least.

Rushi and Haeun have one for similar reasons. They have both been trainees for nearly six years now. A part of their training was that they got to produce, compose, and write for other HBH idols. They have helped Promise create their whole “Dancer” album as well as a few early Triptych tracks. Even though they are just trainees, they are very valuable members to the HBH gang. 

To explain the “random space” part! 

I’ve thought it through and I’ve decided that I will probably be putting several ‘empty’ rooms down there for a variety of things like rap practice, vocal practice, lyric writing practice, etc. Just more practice space for idols and trainees. 

I have nothing else to add. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear them. I may or may not make the dorms?? idk. We’ll see. i’d love to see other people’s floor plans! hop on this! let’s make it a trend! Thank you for reading this very long post! Stay healthy please. 

[usieldaca]

DACA: Here To Stay?

It was a warm and cloudy morning on September 5, 2017. As I woke up, all the news outlets were flooded with breaking news. DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was rescinded by President Donald Trump. Hundreds of thousands of DACA Recipients also known as “Dreamers,” were left with confusion, uncertainty and their legal status left in limbo. As a DACA recipient myself, little did I know that this decision would be met with pushback and legal challenges would proceed. A roller coaster of emotions were set in motion for dreamers. 

DACA is a program that protects undocumented youth from deportation. This program was created by an executive order mandated by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. DACA recipients were brought to America at a young age and this country is the only place they know as their home. DACA enables immigrant youth to come out of the shadows, go to college and work legally. Recipients undergo background checks and other procedures by the USCIS to ensure eligibility. In order to maintain DACA status renewals are required every two years.

In January 2018 an order by U.S. District Judge William Alsup gave hope to DACA recipients as he ordered for DACA renewals to be put back in place. Nearly 690,000 dreamers, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, were safeguarded from deportation. However, The Trump Administration didn’t concede defeat. The battle to terminate DACA ensued. 

On June 18, The Supreme Court ruled to reinstate DACA as it was a violation of law to end it. According to an article titled “News Tip: Scotus’ DACA Decision Major Win For Young Immigrants, Experts Say” in the Duke Today, “efforts to end it had been arbitrary and capricious. The Trump administration’s error, the court ruled, was procedurally unsound, a kind of power grab that violated institutional norms and administrative culture by not addressing the policy consequences of changing DACA.” It was a huge victory for DACA recipients, immigrant families and everyone that supports the program. 

According to an article titled “Are DACA Students Still Safe to Stay?” dated April 25, 2017 in the New England Journal of Higher Education, from 2012 to 2016 the DACA program received approximately a million initial applications nationwide. Only 752,154 were successfully approved. 

In Nevada, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, there are 12,100 recipients as of March 31, 2020. Of those, there are 9,700 in the Las Vegas Valley. 

Some of those recipients go to school at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

UNLV Student Juan Pablo Plascencia,  recalled that day, “Well when President Trump rescinded DACA, I didn’t get scared because I knew there was a long, legal battle going on. There are amazing people in our community who fight for us specifically Senator Dick Durbin who I think is a great man. There are a lot of amazing lawyers that see us for who we are. We’re human beings and not just a pawn to be played with when politics come around.” 

Plascencia doesn’t shy away from reality, “My mentality is pretty simple on this. I know my parents broke the law to bring me here. I was a child when I was brought here. I have no idea what happened. One day I was in Mexico. The next day I’m here in Las Vegas. It’s like time travel. That’s the way I explain it to people when they ask me but the thing is that my parents had to do something that even though it wasn’t legal, morally it makes sense.” 

Many DACA recipients grew up unaware that they were undocumented. The harsh reality of who they are came at a young age. Many wanted to start employment or travel outside of the country. 

Leslie Vazquez, University of Washington Tacoma student with DACA status recalled, “I first realized I was undocumented when I was in middle school. I actually wanted to travel to Mexico and my mom had to have a conversation with me about me not being able to leave the country.” 

Growing up unsure of what the future has in store is terrifying. President Trump’s antics fueled fear and unpredictability. 

“I felt like I couldn’t breathe and enjoy living in America. I could empathize with jewish people. I understood how they felt, be extra careful. Don’t say anything, don’t post anything. That might be used against you.” Plascencia said. “It was hard. As a history teacher, one of the things I always tell my students is to love your country. Love your country enough for when you see an issue, you want to go and fix it. I think President Trump is a hypocrite. He tells us that he’s going to treat DACA with kindness and a lot of heart. It’s a good thing for the DACA kids. He then puts his foot in our butt and files to remove DACA. Loses the court case and then he states he will file the proper paperwork to get this over. I’m sorry sir, am I just a pawn to you? Is my humanity not real? Are my efforts not good enough for you?”

Joe Biden became the U.S. President-elect earlier in November. Biden has been vocal about his support on DACA. On November 2, 2020, Biden tweeted, “Dreamers are Americans -- And it’s time we make it official.” 

Vazquez said, “I am excited to know that Biden has won the presidency and I remain hopeful that he will be able to help us ‘Dreamers.’ It's easier to believe Biden when he says he will help us gain citizenship because we’ve had four years of someone who has consistently put us down. However, I am not going to get my hopes up until action is done.”  

Although hope is not lost, it has dissipated for many DACA recipients.

“I saw who he appointed for his cabinet. He appointed the same woman that approved for family separation at the border under the Obama Administration. I just hope it’s not the same thing. Which it’s looking like it might be.” Plascencia said. “Personally, I have hope but at the same time I’m not holding my breath anymore. I’m not going to wait to live my life. I’ll do the best that I can under the system that I’m in. At the end of the day, I’m not going to beg for scraps. I’m a productive member of this society. I don’t see immigration being on top of Biden’s list. Right now we are in a pandemic and after the pandemic it’ll be the economy and after the economy we have another two year election.” 

Furthermore, Plascencia explains his thoughts on DACA, “I did what I was asked to do, I signed up for DACA. I have done everything right, I’ve never broken the law but what I want is for politicians to make this right. We passed the test. DACA is a smashing success. There are 95 percent of us that are excelling in the program. Five percent have been sent back. That’s good, this is an audition. We have to prove to the American people but at the same time I’m not begging for scraps. I don’t beg for scraps but at the same time it has to be done in a way that makes sense. DACA to me makes perfect sense. You put us young people to audition. What was the audition? Exactly what it says on the applications. I think instead of democrats and republicans promising the world to us, I’d rather see some action. I need to see some movement.”  

However, those that oppose the DACA program state that illegal immigration is being encouraged through its’ policies. According to an article titled, “Are DACA and The Dream Act Good For America?” in the Britannica ProCon, Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said that DACA “encouraged more illegal immigration and contributed to the surge of unaccompanied minors and families seeking to enter the U.S. illegally.” In the same article, according to Karl Eschbach, PhD, “DACA will increase the undocumented population because those who don’t qualify for DACA will stay in the hopes of qualifying eventually, and more people will immigrate assuming coverage by DACA or a similar program.”

In addition, according to an article titled, “It’s Time to End DACA -- It’s Unconstitutional Unless Approved by Congress” in the Heritage, “Providing amnesty and potential citizenship to DACA recipients and other illegal immigrants before we have a secure border will only encourage even more illegal immigration, just as the 1986 amnesty in the Immigration Reform and Control Act did. That law provided citizenship to almost 3 million illegal immigrants and was supposed to solve the problem of illegal immigration. Yet within 10 years, there were another almost 6 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

The federal government should be concentrating on enhancing immigration enforcement and border security to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the country and reduce the number of them already in the interior of the U.S.”

As DACA continues to hang in the balance politically, recipients continue setting goals for their futures optimistically. 

“I would love to graduate with a PHd in Neurological Psychology,” Plascencia said. “I would love to go to Medical School to practice Psychology. That’s something I believe I would be really good at. Again I’m not hoping for it, I’m just waiting to make my moves. When my parents came to America they had ten dollars in their pockets. Now, I’m about to purchase my own house, I have my own car.”

Additionally Plascencia added that he is working on his third degree at UNLV. He will be graduating with his Masters in Curriculum/Instruction in Secondary Social Studies. He is a social studies and history teacher at the Las Vegas Academy Performing Arts. 

Plascencia reflects, “Education is the most powerful and important thing. I think that as a person I want to be more educated. I would love to become a citizen because I do want to vote. As a teacher it’s ironic I can’t vote but I teach my students how to.”

Vazquez is currently in the last quarter of obtaining her Bachelor’s degree in accounting at the Milgard School of Business. Vazquez and her parents own their own Mexican restaurant which has been open to the public for three years. “I hope that I will remain in the country for years to come. My ultimate dream is to get my CPA degree to help our community.”

As the uncertainty is still not over, recipients contemplate their decisions with valor. 

“As a person who has DACA, I’m pretty much at the end of my road. I could go teach at the University in Canada, I could teach in a University in England, I could go live in Spain, Germany. But instead I’m choosing to stay because this is the only country that I know about,” Plascencia said. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT IDEAS

Object-oriented programming in the 1980s. If it can work to start a startup. Instead of building stuff to throw away, you tend to want every line of code to go toward that final goal of showing you did a lot of startups grow out of them. Already spreading to pros I know you're skeptical they'll ever get hotels, but there's no way anything so short and written in such an informal style could have anything useful to say about such and such topic, when people with degrees in the subject have already written many thick books about it. Those are both good things to be. I don't mean that as some kind of answer for, but not random: I found my doodles changed after I started studying painting. When someone's working on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to give the startups the money, though. What would it even mean to make theorems a commodity? There seem to be an artist, which is even shorter than the Perl form.1 However, a city could select good startups.2

Tcl, and supply the Lisp together with a complete system for supporting server-based applications, where you can throw together an unbelievably inefficient version 1 of a program very quickly. Or at least discard any code you wrote while still employed and start over. But a hacker can learn quickly enough that car means the first element of a list and cdr means the rest. If an increasing number of startups founded by people who know the subject from experience, but for doing things other people want. It could be the reason they don't have any.3 An interactive language, with a small core of well understood and highly orthogonal operators, just like the core language, that would be better for programming. The more of a language as a set of axioms, surely it's gross to have additional axioms that add no expressive power, simply for the sake of efficiency.

One of the MROSD trails runs right along the fault. When you're young you're more mobile—not just because you don't have to be downloaded. The fact is, most startups end up doing something different than they planned. The three old guys didn't get it. PL/1: Fortran doesn't have enough data types. What programmers in a hundred years? Just wait till all the 10-room pensiones in Rome discover this site.4 Common Lisp I have often wanted to iterate through the fields of a struct—to push performance data to the programmer instead of waiting for him to come asking for it. It would be too much of a political liability just to give the startups the money, though. And they are a classic example of this approach. For one thing, real problems are rare and valuable skill, and the de facto censorship imposed by publishers is a useful if imperfect filter.

I'm just not sure how big it's going to seem hard. Often, indeed, it is not dense enough. If the hundred year language were available today, would we want to program in today. Of course, the most recent true counterexample is probably 1960. A friend of mine rarely does anything the first time someone asks him. As a young founder by present standards, so you have to spend years working to learn this stuff. The market doesn't give a shit how hard you worked.

You can write programs to solve, but I never have. One advantage of this approach is that it gives you fewer options for the future. Otherwise Robert would have been too late. Look at how much any popular language has changed during its life.5 Java also play a role—but I think it is the most powerful motivator of all—more powerful even than the nominal goal of most startup founders, and I felt it had to be prepared to explain how it's recession-proof is to do what hackers enjoy doing anyway. The real question is, how far up the ladder of abstraction will parallelism go? Anything that can be implicit, should be. New York Times, which I still occasionally buy on weekends. So I think it might be better to follow the model of Tcl, and supply the Lisp together with a lot of them weren't initially supposed to be startups. It's because staying close to the main branches of the evolutionary tree pass through the languages that have the smallest, cleanest cores. The way to learn about startups is by watching them in action, preferably by working at one. At the very least it will teach you how to write software with users.

Few if any colleges have classes about startups. All they saw were carefully scripted campaign spots. It might help if they were expressed that way. It's enormously spread out, and feels surprisingly empty much of the reason is that faster hardware has allowed programmers to make different tradeoffs between speed and convenience, depending on the application.6 At the top schools, I'd guess as many as a quarter of the CS majors could make it as startup founders if they wanted is an important qualification—so important that it's almost cheating to append it like that—because once you get over a certain threshold of intelligence, which most CS majors at top schools are past, the deciding factor in whether you succeed as a founder is how much you want to say and ad lib the individual sentences. This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School. Preposterous as this plan sounds, it's probably the most efficient way a city could select good startups. Most will say that any ideas you think of new ideas is practically virgin territory. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Whatever computers are made of, and conversations with friends are the kitchen they're cooked in.7 That was exactly what the world needed in 1975, but if there was any VC who'd get you guys, it would at least make a great pseudocode.

If this is a special case of my more general prediction that most of them grew organically. Writing software as multiple layers is a powerful technique even within applications. The more of your software will be reusable. Using first and rest instead of car and cdr often are, in successive lines. Of course, I'm making a big assumption in even asking what programming languages will be like in a hundred years? It must be terse, simple, and hackable. It becomes: let's try making a web-based app they'd seen, it seemed like there was nothing to it. Both customers and investors will be feeling pinched.8

The main complaint of the more articulate critics was that Arc seemed so flimsy. That's how programmers read code anyway: when indentation says one thing and delimiters say another, we go by the indentation. You need that resistance, just as low notes travel through walls better than high ones. Maybe this would have been a junior professor at that age, and he wouldn't have had time to work on things that maximize your future options. How much would that take? It's important to realize that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand.9 You'll certainly like meeting them. It's not the sort of town you have before you try this. This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School. I'm not a very good sign to me that ideas just pop into my head.

Notes

Dan wrote a prototype in Basic in a series A rounds from top VC funds whether it was 10.

With the good groups, just harder. Which in turn the most successful founders still get rich from a startup could grow big by transforming consulting into a great one.

There are two simplifying assumptions: that the only way to create events and institutions that bring ambitious people together. A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that's not as facile a trick as it was putting local grocery stores out of their portfolio companies. If the next one will be familiar to anyone who had worked for a really long time? One new thing the company they're buying.

If I paint someone's house, the growth in wealth in a bar. I didn't need to warn readers about, just as much the better, but they start to be about 50%. Together these were the impressive ones. Other investors might assume that P spam and P nonspam are both.

All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads. The point where things start with consumer electronics.

If they're on boards of directors they're probably a cause them to keep them from the VCs' point of a press hit, but that we wouldn't have understood why: If you have two choices and one or two, and so on. But if so, or in one where life was tougher, the same reason parents don't tell the whole story. Incidentally, the switch in mid-twenties the people they want.

Trevor Blackwell points out, First Round Capital is closer to a clueless audience like that, except in the median VC loses money. Unless of course reflects a willful misunderstanding of what you care about, just those you should seek outside advice, and this trick, and so don't deserve to keep them from leaving to start or join startups. There is not much to seem big that they only even consider great people.

You also have to do it right. In every other respect they're constantly being told that they are bleeding cash really fast. Probably more dangerous to Microsoft than Netscape was.

In theory you could probably improve filter performance by incorporating prior probabilities. If you have the concept of the reason for the coincidence that Greg Mcadoo, our contact at Sequoia, was no great risk in doing a small proportion of the subject of language power in Succinctness is Power. As I was there was near zero crossover. Some urban renewal experts took a shot at destroying Boston's in the evolution of the next year they worked.

[reddielibrary]

My lonely heart calls

Prompt: “Listen, I know I originally came over here to talk about the noise but OMG you are so high right now like how are you even standing so no objections because I’m taking care of you until you’re sober" AU

Written by: Alexis | @quixoticquest

Word count: 3903

*click title to read on ao3

The eighties had not been a fun time for Eddie Kaspbrak. In fact, he preferred to forget the decade altogether. The local top forty radio station begged to differ, though, and wouldn’t you know, that’s what most people wanted to listen to when he was chauffeuring them around in a limousine. Jackson, Collins, Benatar and Gabriel all competing to make Eddie relive the worst years of his life. His only reprieve came at home, in the privacy of his apartment, where he was free to listen to whatever he wanted, eat cereal for dinner, and turn in at nine thirty promptly.

Unless it was Thursday night.

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down Letting the days go by, water flowing underground Into the blue again, after the money's gone Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground

Eddie groaned, throwing himself back against his couch. It had been like this for three weeks now. Like clockwork. Every Thursday, about an hour after he got home, the music would start in the next apartment over. Some eighties-loving sociopath and his endless collection of synth-saturated music that had come out when Eddie was a kid.

The only reason he hadn’t complained yet was because he was new to the apartment complex. Eddie had gained a reputation at his old place for being the overbearing neighbor, and he hadn’t even realized until he’d called the landlord over a party full of people not even five years younger than him. He wondered what kind of crusty curmudgeon he’d turned into, at the ripe old age of twenty-four - also, why wasn’t he getting invited to parties like that?

This time, though, it was personal. There was no reason to be blasting music, no matter what awful decade, on a weeknight. Noise curfew wasn’t in effect for another few hours, but Eddie had time to kill, and he couldn’t hear Seinfeld.

He marched himself over to the adjacent apartment, fists balled and ready for knocking. Here, the Talking Heads’s redundant lyrics were louder than ever.

Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it ever was Same as it-

Eddie pounded on the door, just hard enough to drown out the words, but not the thumping bass. By the end of it, his knuckles ached as he cradled his hand to his chest, but the distinct sound of approaching footsteps could be heard from inside, so he had succeeded either way.

The door swung open, and a full frontal barrage of music hit Eddie square in the face - right alongside a thick cloud of earthy musk.

“Hey, neighbor, what can I do ya for?” the tenant drawled, just loud enough to be heard as he pushed his glasses up with the back of his hand.

And you may ask yourself Where does that highway go to? And you may ask yourself Am I right? Am I wrong? And you may say to yourself,

"My God! What have I done?" Eddie wondered.

His mother’s voice came screeching from some dark corner of his mind. WEED?! In my house?! Not that this was Eddie’s house, or even his apartment, or that he had ever touched the stuff. More likely than anything, he’d be dead if Sonia Kaspbrak had caught him high, stoned, or otherwise.

“Are you okay?” Eddie pronounced over the song, feeling his priorities shift from angry neighbor to medic. Just the sight of the guy - red-rimmed eyes magnified by dorky specs, leaning dangerously in the doorway - was enough to have all Eddie’s deeply ingrained warning bells going off.

“Better than ever, now that you’re here. Finally it’s a party.” Neighbor dude grinned so wide Eddie thought his cheeks might split open. “Do you want to come in? I’ve got some chips and Fanta - ooh, sorry, Orange Crush. Hope that’s not a dealbreaker.”

“Thanks very much.” Eddie barrelled past without much ceremony - thinking maybe he shouldn’t be so eager to act like he owned the place, but he had been invited inside after all.

Better yet, he could turn down the music himself.

“I’m Richie,” the stoned idiot stated as he shuffled down the front hall, while Eddie searched for a stereo. “I think I helped you bring in a box of baking supplies when you moved in.”

“Oh yeah, I remember.” Eventually Eddie pulled his shirt collar when the skunky stench became a bit too much. “I’m Eddie.”

“Nice to meetcha proper, Eddie. Glad to put a face to a KitchenAid mixer to a name.”

Eddie eventually found the big stereo system behind the couch, complete with speakers and a big honking volume dial that he used to turn the music down far enough that he could barely hear the Huey Lewis song that came on next.

“Hey hey hey! What are you doing?” Richie demanded, landing hard enough on the couch to send it teetering in Eddie’s direction for a single, terrifying moment. “You can’t just waltz into a man’s home and turn off his music! Didn’t your mama teach you manners?”

“It’s too loud,” Eddie answered, feeling himself slow his words as he stared down those bloodshot eyes (as if he was talking to a non-English speaker, and not a stoner). “That’s why I came over here, to ask if you’d turn it down.”

“Well I don’t have to turn it off. Noise curfew isn’t until ten.”

Eddie sighed, and reached for the dial again. He cranked the song as loud as he dared.

Don't need money, don't take fame Don't need no credit card to ride this train It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes But it might just save your life That's the power of love

“Is that okay?” he asked.

“I can live with that.” Richie flopped away to lie on his back, humming along to the instrumental section. “Hey, do you want to smoke?”

“No,” Eddie said immediately - which made him realize his next order of business.

“Actually,” he went on, rounding the couch in search of paraphernalia, “where’s your, uh, blunt? Joint? Bong?”

“Uhhhhh.” Richie stared at him for a couple seconds, and finally pointed over toward the window at the back of the apartment. “My bowl is over there.”

“Thanks.”

The glass tube didn’t look anything like what Eddie was used to from pot (not that he had very much experience), but there was definitely marijuana in it, smoldering remnants releasing dank smoke into the evening air. Eddie opened the window wider, dumped out the contents of the bowl onto the fire escape, and pocketed the thing.

Eddie’s experience with marijuana began and ended catching a whiff of it off certain students in college. He knew sometimes his friend Bill smoked, but other than that Eddie had, and wanted, nothing to do with it.

He had, however, helped his friends through drunken stupors and hangovers on many occasions. This couldn’t be that different, right? They were both drugs. He’d just stay to make sure Richie didn’t drown in his own vomit or anything.

“I don’t think you should smoke anymore tonight,” Eddie said as he rounded the couch again.

“Is that so?” he asked, a smirk curling into one corner of his mouth.

“Yes. You’re high as a kite, I don’t want you to go overboard.”

Richie snorted hard enough to sound like it hurt, and rolled toward the floor, laughing like a hyena. Eddie stood watching, bewildered.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll stay in me quarters, captain,” Richie answered when he had recovered, taking on some kind of pirate voice as he saluted Eddie. “Won’t be goin’ overboard this time, I’ll keep me sea legs alright.”

“...Okay,” Eddie uttered, deciding he was better off not unpacking that one. Instead, he sank into the recliner next to the couch. Both pieces of furniture did a pretty good job of framing the tiny area that constituted the den.

“Do you want to watch TV?” Eddie asked. “Seinfeld is on.”

Before Richie could answer, The Power of Love gave way to a new song: chant, and a guitar solo ripping right on after. The toked idiot scrambled to sit.

Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on Livin' like a lover with a radar phone Lookin' like a tramp, like a video vamp

“Demolition woman, can I be your man?” Richie screeched in a tone matching the singer’s, echoing himself as he air guitared with more soul than Eddie could ever dream of having.

“I hate this song,” he grumbled to himself, thinking Richie wouldn’t hear over his own rock fantasy, and the actual track.

He was wrong.

Richie gasped. “This song’s awesome!”

“The singer sounds like he’s whining,” Eddie griped, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

“Joe Elliott is singing his heart out. And it’s about sex, which is like, arguably more awesome than the song itself.”

I'm hot, sticky sweet From my head to my feet, yeah

“Sticky sweet from my head to my feet,” Eddie repeated dully. “How moving.”

Not to mention, Eddie wasn’t all that interested in sex with a woman to begin with, demolition or otherwise.

Richie waved his comments away with his hands, only to twist over the edge of the couch. He managed to reach the stereo, and skipped to the next song.

I've been hearing your heartbeat inside of me I keep your photo right beside my bed Livin' in a world of fantasies I can't get you out of my head

“Oh.” Eddie sat back in his chair, arms crossed. “I don’t mind Whitney Houston.”

“Don’t mind.” Richie huffed dramatically. “Is there anything you like or do you judge everything on a scale of how much you hate it?”

“I just don’t like eighties music, okay?” Eddie stated. “It’s not my thing. I like what’s popular now. Whitney’s best stuff came out this decade.”

“Well what is it? Not a fan of synthesizer stuff? Don’t like rock in general? You more of a nineties divas kind of guy?”

“No, it’s just not my thing. I guess bad associations and stuff.”

Richie tilted his head, propped up on his hand, on the armrest. “What kinds of associations?”

Eddie scoffed. “That’s a whole decade’s worth of explanation.”

“Well we got time to kill,” Richie replied, sweeping his arms around the empty apartment in a grand gesture. “Just try to keep it under a decade, I got work tomorrow.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, tonguing at his cheek to avoid a smile. Was he really about to unload on a stoned stranger why he didn’t like a particular type of music?

I get so emotional, baby Every time I think of you I get so emotional, baby Ain't it shocking what love can do?

Well, he was high off his ass. Maybe he wouldn’t remember.

“I guess I just don’t like the eighties in general,” Eddie explained, shifting to tuck his legs closer. “My mom was kind of a bitch, and I got bullied a lot. So whenever I hear any of these songs I just remember long car rides to the doctors or getting yelled at, or hiding from assholes at the arcade. Soundtrack to the worst years of my life.”

“Dude, I feel,” Richie said, a hand flying out to put on top of Eddie’s. He short-circuited for a second, and yanked his hand back to tuck under his chin. “But that’s why I like the music! It distracted me from the shit going on in my life.”

Richie jumped up on the couch, sneakers and all. Eddie jolted upright when he heard a dangerous creak of springs.

“If I was getting reamed out by my folks, or dealing with pea brain jocks at school, I knew I could always go to my room and turn on the radio at the end of the day.” Richie moved back and forth to the beat, probably stuck in some memory of being twelve and jumping up and down on his bed. “Queen, and Bowie, and Journey, and Bon Jovi raving about the underdog. It’s not all sex and love, my friend, it’s about finding your voice and powering through!”

He dove behind the couch hard enough to shake a couple shelves, and Eddie rushed to his feet to see if Richie had killed himself. But he was fine, skipping through the songs until he found what he was looking for. A rhythmic baseline resounded from the speakers.

“Ice Ice Baby?” Eddie asked after a moment, lip curled in disdain.

Richie shot to his feet. “You’re really pushing it.” He began to bob his head, mumbling along to the song, and Eddie realized he was an idiot.

Pressure! pushing down on me Pressing down on you, no man ask for Under pressure, that burns a building down Splits a family in two Puts people on streets

Richie babbled the interlude of gibberish with the singer, snapping his fingers to the beat as he gently herded Eddie back around the couch. It took him a second to realize the stoned jackass was trying to dance with him.

“No, Richie, that’s okay-”

“It's the terror of knowing what the world is about,” Richie sang, just about cornering Eddie at the coffee table. “Watching some good friends screaming ‘Let me out!’ Pray tomorrow gets me higher-”

“I pray tomorrow gets you sober,” Eddie proclaimed. Richie didn’t seem to hear him though. He was just about back to his bum-bum-bums and dee-da-dos.

The beat was pretty catchy, Eddie decided. Which was the case with a lot of eighties music, whether he liked it or not. There was a reason Vanilla Ice had sampled the bassline.

It couldn’t hurt, he also decided, if he nodded a little to the music. Richie seemed to like that, and mirrored Eddie’s awkward movements with a lot more gesticulation.

Even as he wondered whether or not he should be letting Richie move around so much, Eddie felt himself relax enough to move a little more, as much as he allowed himself without shaking the foundation. If he forgot all his obligations for a second, and his crummy childhood, then it was easy to get lost.

Can't we give ourselves one more chance?

“Why can't we give love that one more chance?” Richie caterwauled.

Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love Give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?

They danced like dumbasses with no rhythm for as long as it took several more tracks to play on the stereo. Richie knew the words better than Eddie could ever hope to, and his voice wasn’t that great, but Eddie was happy to let him wear himself out all the same.

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go faded out to nothing, the next song came in with a familiar voice, humming and ad libbing to the beat.

“Whitney!” Richie cried with his arms cast wide. “Your favorite!”

Eddie panted, catching his breath. “She’s not my-”

“Clock strikes upon the hour, and the sun begins to fade,” Richie crooned, singing into his fist like there was a microphone. He did a very good job matching the voices each time, even Whitney Houston’s velvety cadence. “Still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away!”

He hopped up on the table for his performance, and this time Eddie didn’t try to stop him. Richie kicked magazines every which way as he shimmied and shook, singing his heart out.

Oh, I wanna dance with somebody I wanna feel the heat with somebody Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody-

Suddenly Richie thrust the pantomimed microphone up to Eddie’s lips. He was just lost enough in the music to open his mouth in time.

“With somebody who loves me!” Eddie exclaimed, watching as Richie grinned at him, eyes shining behind his glasses.

A second later, the microphone was cast away so that Richie could jump off the table, grabbing Eddie’s hands in exchange. Twisting to and fro, heads thrown back, to the tune of a bangin’ good song.

Doncha wanna dance with me baby? Doncha wanna dance with me boy? Hey doncha wanna dance with me baby?

“What the hell is going on?”

Eddie froze, tripping over his own feet in the process. There was another stranger standing at the foot of the front hall, keys in one hand, looking at them like they’d become a two-headed dancing monstrosity.

“Stanley! Come join us! Dance your fucking heart out!” Richie kept on rocking, but Eddie shuffled away, flushing on his neck as if he’d been caught doing something much worse.

Stanley, Edde figured, huffed, and put his things down to march into the den. “It’s almost noise curfew, Richie. You’re done for the night.” He turned the stereo off completely, much to Richie’s anguish - and, actually, a little bit to Eddie’s.

“Sorry, who are you?” Stanley asked Eddie, looking absolutely unamused.

“Oh - I’m your neighbor,” Eddie offered, wiping a bit of sweat from his hairline.

“Oh yeah. I think we’ve seen each other in the mail room.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Why are you jumping around my apartment though?”

“Uh.” Eddie glanced at Richie - only to find him slumped on the couch, already knocked out. Leaving him all alone to deal with the annoyed roommate.

“He was high,” Eddie tried, motioning to the snoozing lump that had once been a dancing, screaming idiot. “I came to ask him to turn down the music, but I didn’t want him to get hurt or pass out or throw up or anything, so I stuck around.”

“What?” Stanley’s brows furrowed together. “He’s not drunk. He’s high, he’s fine.”

Eddie felt his shoulders drop. “Oh.”

“He eats some crap and listens to his music really loud and eventually tuckers himself out.” Stanley sent an accusatory glance in Richie’s direction. “He’s not really supposed to of course, but I don’t care and as long as he does it when I’m not around then I don’t have to get in trouble for it.”

“Oh,” Eddie repeated. Only to realize something and add, “Okay, but he was jumping around and acting like an idiot, singing and shit. You sure he didn’t drink too?”

Stanley snorted. “That’s just how he is. I think he gets nostalgic or something when he’s high. I got him some eighties hits CDs for his birthday so he’d stay off my CD shelf.”

One more “Oh,” out of Eddie. His gaze drifted to Richie - absolutely out cold on the couch. Safe and sound, apparently. In no immediate danger due to his substance abuse. Eddie felt his neck warm again.

“That was nice of you, though,” Stanley mentioned, plucking Richie’s glasses off his face to fold up and set on the coffee table. “And if he plays his music too loud, don’t hesitate to come over and tell him to cut it out.”

“Thanks,” Eddie murmured.

“Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I wasn’t really planning on guests tonight...”

“Right.” Eager to get out of Stanley’s hair, Eddie hurried for the front door, offering a quick goodbye before seeing himself out. His own apartment was just a short walk away, and soon he was back in his own home.

His own, utterly silent home.

He didn’t realize until he started undressing for the night that he still had the bowl, when it fell out of the pocket of his jeans.

***

Eddie didn’t get a moment to himself until almost noon, when he found ten minutes between rides to grab a coffee, and sit in a normal chair for a second. If he wasn’t inclined to get promoted soon, he would have dropped chauffeuring weeks ago.

The tinny ringtone of his Nokia sounded in his pocket, and he hurried to answer without spilling his coffee.

“H’llo?” Eddie asked, taking a sip afterward.

“Hey! It’s Richie.”

Eddie managed to swallow before he spit his drink all over the window in front of him.

“How the hell did you get my number?”

“The landlord gave it to me. I told him you borrowed something from me and I needed to get in touch with you soon to get it back.”

“I didn’t borrow-” Eddie clammed up, and remembered the glass tube tucked away in his sock drawer, where he had put it in fear of the landlord doing random apartment checks for some reason.

“Oh, yeah. I’ll bring it back after work. Sorry, I forgot I had it.”

“No problem, no problem. I’ve got a spare laying around somewhere.”

“Oh. Neat.”

There was a beat of silence. Eddie heard Richie cough and sigh dramatically on the other end.

“I had fun last night,” he finally said, while Eddie rubbed his lip raw with his teeth. “I hope Stan didn’t scare you too much. And if he didn’t, maybe you’d want to come over and learn to like eighties music again. We could dance too, if you’re into that. It’s kind of cool to do stuff with someone else, and not just sit there by myself with the stereo going.”

“That sounds like fun,” Eddie said honestly - even if he was a little embarrassed Richie remembered everything after all. Weed really wasn’t alcohol at all, huh.

“And I won’t smoke. I’m not sure I dance better either way, but I guess we’ll find out.”

“Actually…” Eddie glanced around the tiny coffee shop - as if anyone gave a shit who he was, or what he was saying.

Nevertheless, he kept his voice low. “It’s not something I want to make a habit of, but if you were being serious when you offered, I’d like to try it.”

“Smoking pot?” Richie asked after a second.

“Yeah. You seem to know what you’re doing. Maybe just...ventilate the area better.”

“Yeah, okay. We could do it on the fire escape if you’re nervous. I know for a fact that the landlord goes out for bingo Sunday nights, so…”

“Sounds good.”

“Why the sudden interest?”

“Oh I don’t know,” Eddie murmured, feeling warmth creep into his cheeks as he traced the lid of his coffee cup. As if he were a flustered teenager again. “I think I could afford to mellow out a bit. Just for one night, maybe. And learn a thing or two about what it’s like.”

Richie laughed on the other end. “I can jive with that.”

For once, Eddie let the smile twitch onto his face. “Great.”

There was a little more silence, where he couldn’t think of what else to say. Luckily, his pager saved him, letting him know he was off on his next drive.

“Gotta go. Talk to you later, alright?”

“Sure thing.”

Eddie hung up, threw out the rest of his coffee, and drove off to meet his next ride.

“Any music preferences?” he asked, glancing into the rearview mirror as he navigated.

“The local station’s fine.”

Eddie flicked on the radio, turning the volume up so his passengers could hear.

Cause love's such an old fashioned word And love dares you to care for The people on the edge of the night And love dares you to change our way of Caring about ourselves This is our last dance This is our last dance This is ourselves

That suddenly familiar bassline came in, bringing Eddie back to the night before. Not his mother’s car, or the arcade. Just Richie’s haphazard dance moves, and the coffee table.

Eddie smiled. Maybe eighties music wasn’t so bad.

[rwbyconversations]

DmC Devil May Cry- Six Years Later

A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay about Dante from the Devil May Cry series and his character development across his six mainline appearances. Doing it got me thinking about the franchise and got me to get around to finishing the DMC games I own in my possession- Devil May Cry 4, which has a great combat system but is let down by having far too few environments and missions, and DmC Devil May Cry, the black sheep of the franchise and one of the most controversial reboots of a franchise. Finishing DmC gave me a perspective that only finishing something yourself can provide. 

I’d owned a copy of the original launch version of DmC but found it dreary and sold it less than a quarter of the way into the game, before grabbing its Definitive Edition during a Christmas sale on really a glorified whim- sort of a “Let’s see how bad it can really get” vibe, but then I put it down and didn’t come back to it for three months because other games and other projects took prominence. But about a week ago I was bored and decided to knock the entire game out in one day due to a lack of anything better to do, and after a few days to mull on it, I decided to write an essay about DmC and how this oddball entry into an otherwise mostly beloved franchise has aged.

1) Pre-development

Devil May Cry 4 was a success for Capcom, selling about two million units in its first month of release when Capcom were hoping for 1.8 million by the end of the fiscal year. On a critical level too it walked away satisfied, with Metacritic rating both the PS3 and 360 releases of the game with 84/100, praising the fluid gameplay and intricate combat system, but knocking points off for a very repetitive campaign which saw Dante literally backtracking through Nero’s stages. But Capcom were hoping for more from DMC4. This was the debut of the franchise on not just the Seventh Generation of Consoles, but the franchise’s Microsoft debut, and the hopes were that DMC4 would be a smash success potentially on par with the numbers Western games like Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 had made the year prior. 2.1 million was still good, but Capcom wanted more.

The mid-2000s marked a turn in Japanese game development, with the increased costs of HD modelling and Japan’s home market becoming more apathetic about buying games (some Japanese games reported only 10% of their total sales from Japan itself), while the West began booming. With the 7th Generation, gaming went mainstream for many people in the West- as an example of this, I’m sure we all know at least one person who went to college after 2007 and can share stories of nights spent playing Halo over XBox Live. The mass success of the God of War franchise in the West also told Capcom that this gold mine of a market was ready and willing to enjoy some classic hack and slash action gaming.

The decrease in local sales gave Capcom the idea that they needed to begin outsourcing their properties to the West so they could appeal to a larger market, which led to such projects as Lost Planet, Dead Rising and Bionic Commando being made by Western studios. This was largely the brainchild of Keiji Inafune, nowadays known for the utter disaster of the Mighty Number 9 Kickstarter game. Inafune had a mindset of “doing the same thing is going to get us the same results (if we’re lucky). Let’s try something from a different perspective.” Unfortunately for Inafune, his different perspective failed to set the world on fire, with only Dead Rising proving to be a success and making it into the 8th console generation when handled by Capcom’s new Vancouver team, and even that series has suffered some fatal blows due to the poor launch of Dead Rising 4. 

Even though Inafune cut ties with Capcom in 2010 (a month after DmC was announced), his idea of Westernizing several dormant properties was still in effect and Devil May Cry became one of the franchises that was outsourced. British company Ninja Theory, known for their games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved Odyssey to the West, were the company Capcom gave a phone call to. While known nowadays more for Hellblade, back in 2010 Ninja Theory were known for two very simply action games that relied more on their stories and usage of motion capture and facial captures to fill in the gaps. What didn’t help was that in the interim period between 4 and the reboot, DMC1 director Hideki Kamiya had since formed Platinum Studios and proven themselves to the West with Bayonetta, a game hailed by many as a spiritual successor to the DMC franchise. 

Capcom had faith in Ninja Theory to translate DMC’s vision to the west, and as such at TGS 2010, the first trailer for DmC Devil May Cry was released and... well the rest is history.

The fanbase’s hackles were immediately raised and knives were out within seconds of the launch trailer dropping. A series that had become known for its over the top cutscenes and wry sense of cheesy humor had been Westernized into another gritty, bleak product. Dante went from the goofball who quoted Shakespeare to a gravelly voiced methhead who smoked. And for a series that prized itself on action and combos, that no proper gameplay was shown at the reveal was a worrying sign. The reveal trailer tainted the whole game right out of the gate; alongside Ninja Theory’s less than stellar track record with action games the fanbase was ready to hate this game on principle if it followed what had been done to Capcom’s other franchises that went on a foreign exchange trip.

Being fair to Ninja Theory though, several extenuating factors must be addressed. Among them is series director Hideaki Itsuno’s admission that he didn’t want to do Devil May Cry 5 yet after having worked on three straight games for the series out of concern that he would suffer from burnout. He wanted to go off and finally make a passion project he had been dreaming of for years in Dragon’s Dogma, which launched in 2012. Additionally, Ninja Theory did try and make a more faithful rendition of Dante, one who even kept the white hair and vibrantly red jacket, but these initial designs were shot down by Capcom, who told them to “go crazy.” In fact one of the people who rejected the designs that were close to classic Dante was Itsuno himself, who saw little point in Ninja Theory just copying Dante’s look if the whole point of the project was a new approach on Devil May Cry.

But the fanbase at the time didn’t know that Capcom were actively encouraging Ninja Theory to experiment, and what didn’t help was the quotes coming from the game’s director, Tameen Antoniades, which would prove to be a series of disasters that plagued DmC’s PR campaign. Tameen, put bluntly, wasn’t ready for the backlash to the game and its visual style and shot back at the fans. When asked by Venturebeat how he felt about the fan reaction to the TGS trailer, Tameen “took a drag of his cigarette and without blinking or pausing to exhale the smoke from his mouth, said: ‘I don’t care.’” People began to mockingly compare Tameen to Dante as seen in the trailer, which caused some fans to question if Tameen had used his own likeness as the basis for Dante. 

And unfortunately for Capcom’s PR team, he didn’t stop there, mocking Dante’s original design in a later interview when saying that what was and wasn’t cool had changed in the years since DMC1: “If Dante, dressed as he was, walked into any bar outside of Tokyo, he’d get laughed out.” 

I’d like to remind you that Tameen as director of the project likely signed off om some of these alternate concepts for Dante and keep that in mind whenever Tameen or a Ninja Theory staff member talk about A) what is and isn’t cool B) Original Dante’s character design.

The fanbase didn’t exactly make a good case for themselves after the game’s announcement though, with Ninja Theory reporting that they received death threats from some more hardcore fans. It still doesn’t make Tameen admitting he didn’t care if his game sold “a thousand or two million copies” look stellar, nor his derisive attitude towards the original series and its depiction of women, mocking Lady and Trish as “prostitutes with guns.” Ironically, despite being insistent that he’d made the game he wanted to play, Ninja Theory did dial back on methhead Dante, redesigning his model to be more beefy and replacing his voice actor, alongside redoing some scenes to make Dante crack more jokes. 

On a technical level, hype was low from the hardcore fans due to simplified combat and, more egregiously, the game being locked to 30FPS on launch unless bought on PC which offered an upcapped framerate. For those unaware, all prior Devil May Cry games had run at 60FPS, including DMC4 which had come out some years earlier on the same console. 60FPS was a requirement by many pro players due to how it made animations silky smooth, so DmC being capped to 30 was an immediate red flag. Suffice to say, the fandom was ready for DmC to be a disaster at launch and began prepping their funeral pyres.

2) Gameplay

Early reviews for DmC were quite positive, with the game earning a Metacritic rating about even with DMC4, but the fanbase were far less forgiving. The 30FPS framerate lock outside of the PC port (which was admittedly one of the more polished ports of 2013, as covered by the late and great John Bain) had tainted the well pre-release and then came back with a vengeance to haunt the console launch in 2013. Without a lock on system, movement felt sluggish compared to the other games, hurting the flow of combat.

Difficulty was a major criticism of the game from long-term fans, particularly pertaining to how the style rank system rewarded damage done over pulling off varied combos. Whereas in the older games the player was punished for repeating moves over and over, DmC’s style ranks were so easy to abuse that so long as the combo was never broken due to taking damage, achieving a SSS rank was child’s play. Aquila’s Tornado and Arbiter’s Trinity Smash were especially broken in this regard. 

Being fair to the game, it did introduce several mechanics that were later incorporated into DMC 5 in 2019- enemies get a subtitle during their first appearance (taken from Bayonetta), weapons getting a slight glint when the player pauses to let them know they can launch a pause combo attack (also taken from Bayonetta) and a dynamic soundtrack that racketed up the higher your style rank got, alongside the killing blow at the end of a fight getting a cinematic camera angle. These are all features that were genuine improvements over Devil May Cry 4, and while Bayonetta likely paved the way for most of these improvements, DmC still served as a test-bed to experiment on their integration with Devil May Cry as a whole.

The level design was also a huge step up from the earlier games. Dante’s whip functions made platforming far more varied that it had been in prior games, and these new traversal mechanics allowed for the level designers to stretch their legs. DmC arguably has, even in light of 5, some of the best platforming in the entire franchise, and a gorgeous color palette in some areas when Dante is in Limbo. Gothic European cities were cited as a huge influence by the team, Barcelona in particular, and it shows whenever Dante is outside as he gets dragged into Limbo. The idea of the city itself being a weapon of Mundus that tries to kill Dante is inspired, with obvious homages to Inception, and allows for the designers to make environments that at the drop of a hat can try to kill Dante. The team did their best to bring their unique aesthetic mixture of grunge and color to life, and even goes through a full color script. The downside is that exploration is rarely allowed beyond side paths that lead to collectables, meaning the player is on rails for much of the game.

DmC’s largest gameplay addition is in Dante’s Devil Arms. As he progesses through the game, Dante absorbs angelic and demon weapons from the bosses, gaining Angel Weapons that serve as fast crowd control, and Demon Weapons that are single-target but heavily damaging. Both of these sets of weapons are accessed by holding a trigger button during combat, allowing Dante to fluidly switch between weapons as the situation calls for it. One of my personal favorite applications of this tactic was to use Rebellion’s opening two slices to lead into Arbiter’s Trinity Smash as it was easier for me to read the above-mentioned glint tell on Rebellion. Alongside Dante’s firearms, it gives the player eight different weapons to switch between in combat, allowing for some unique combo potential, albeit potential that isn’t as deep as the original games. Dante losing his styles from DMC3 and 4 alongside the unique moves from those styles like Royal Guarding and jump cancelling was a particularly heavy blow for the hardcore fans, to say nothing of the revulsion generated by the color-coded enemies who could only be hurt by specific weapons.

Another heavy blow for the fans was the handling of Dante’s Devil Trigger, which gives Dante his traditional color palette, slows time to a crawl and gave Dante an attack and speed boost, alongside automatically sending most enemies flying into the air upon activation. The air-boosted hurt the usage of Devil Trigger in the long run, as it reduced whatever encounter it was activated in a stomp for the player- even Dante’s basic combos could tear through enemy health with DT active. Devil Trigger in the original games was a mixture of emergency button and power boost, but here it just serves as an “I win” button on whatever enemy irks you today.

And yet for all that can be said of DmC at launch, it could have been worse. Despite being busy with Dragon’s Dogma, Itsuno still served as an executive producer of the reboot and often gave Ninja Theory advice on areas to improve the gameplay mechanically. One such story goes that Itsuno saw a design for an enemy with blades in its arms. Upon asking what purpose the blades served in combat and being told they had none, Itsuno ordered that the blades be removed. Capcom producer Motohide Eshiro later noted in a Famitsu interview that Ninja Theory had to be reigned in on several occasions in spite of the “go crazy” approach given to them in early design, in order to avoid the game receiving a rating that could potentially stonewall it being sold in physical stores in Japan.

Ultimately the gameplay failed to impress for DmC in 2013, which reflected poorly in its sales. Capcom initially hoped for DmC to break 2 million units like DMC4 had back in 2008, but then quietly lowered the projected sales to 1.2 million. Rumors circulate to this day that Capcom were so desperate to boost the game’s poor sales that when DmC was part of the PS+ membership offer in January 2014, Capcom counted PS+ downloads as part of the sales for the game. In a financial report for 2013, while not speaking of DmC by name, Capcom spoke of a "delayed response to the expanding digital contents market," "insufficient coordination between the marketing and the game development divisions in overseas markets," and a "decline in quality due to excessive outsourcing." Capcom would only report in June 2018, a full five and a half years post-launch, that DmC had met the original sale goals of 2.3 million units. But it wasn’t the gameplay that ultimately turned off the fans and prevented Capcom’s sales pitches from becoming reality. No, that matter fell to the story.

3) Story

DmC’s story isn’t so much a straw that breaks the camel’s back, as it is an anvil. Regardless of your opinions on the gameplay, the story is where DmC comes to a grinding, screeching halt and fails to capture any of the essence of what made Dante and characters from the original setting interesting or even cool. Before we dive into the narrative itself, we need to discuss what started the controversy back in 2010 at TGS, and that’s Dante.

Dante is simply not likable in the reboot. While the original Dante was a goofball and a bit of a jackass, he always backed up his actions with flashy deeds and was ultimately a good-hearted man. In this setting, Ninja Theory try so hard to make Dante cool and badass that it loops around and makes him look like a petulant child’s version of what’s cool- a hard-drinking loner who has threesomes with strippers in his trailer by the amusement park. Dante in DMC4 threw Shakespeare quotes out at Agnus, while Dante in DmC screams “Fuck you!” at demons and writes profanity on clipboards. Nothing about Dante carries that effortless swagger that the original had. His smug, IDGAF attitude tries to make him cool and more fitting for the gritty tone but it’s so different from the original Dante that the subsequent tonal clash makes Dante a much more poorly written character. Again, this is something that must be put at Capcom’s feet and not Ninja Theory, as they were the ones telling the developers to westernize Dante, but the end product stills fails to match up with what came before. 

While Dante does have an arc over the game that sees him develop concern for the people close to him and humanity as a whole, the characterization and framing regularly undermines his arc. Dante is written as the archetype of “Jerk with a heart of gold,” but as a direct violation of a core rule of this character- that they must be fun to view and see their antics as an audience member- Dante fails to meet this tenant and it makes his obnoxious, smug and asshole moments taint the character and make it difficult to care for his struggles. Rather than see Dante’s dark backstory that puts his behavior into context and makes you understand why he’s so sullen and bitter, the audience just sees Dante being a smug jackass, and one who takes himself too seriously to be fun like mainline Dante. The one time I buy that Dante genuinely cares for other people is at the Order hideout raid when he stays in order to guide Kat through being arrested, and stays with her as the SWAT officers shoot her and beat her unconscious. His facial expression sells his anguish at seeing Kat be brutalized like this and it contains the best acting from Tim Phillips.

Ironically, despite how hated Methhead Dante was, I do have to wonder what the game would have been like had the developers stuck to their guns and committed to their original idea for the character- someone with psychosis who has no clue if he’s actually seeing and killing demons or if he’s just a mass murdering lunatic. It might have been even worse or it could have made the game work. It’s probably for the best we don’t know what Methhead Dante would have been like, but part of me can’t help but wonder.

It’s important to understand all these problems with Dante, since as the protagonist, the story partly rests on his shoulders. While older Dante had the charisma in most of his appearances to be able to sell the weight of a story moment when he stopped fooling around, reboot Dante’s heavy angst focus means that feat is harder for him to accomplish, and it doesn’t help that his supporting cast are less than ideal.

I mentioned earlier Tameen’s “prostitutes with guns” remark aimed at the DMC female cast, and I think it’s amazing how little self-awareness he must have had to say that when his own story’s approach to female characters is frankly insulting. DmC has one of the most sexist stories I’ve yet seen in any media, and it’s galling when compared to the mainline entries, DMC3 in particular. Kat, Eva and Lillith are all plot devices, Eva being long-dead and existing just to give Dante motivation to kill Mundus, Lillith being the stereotypical sexy villainess who gets reduced to her womb, while Kat is basically the subject of a snuff film with how she gets brutalized by the plot and the camera makes sure you see all of her injuries in extensive detail. And this all goes without saying how the second act revolves around the two female characters in the narrative being traded like Pokemon cards only for Vergil to perform the now-infamous sniper rifle abortion. 

It doesn’t matter what joke you’re making in your head right now, it’s still not half as tasteless as this actual scene

Speaking of Vergil, his depiction in DmC is genuinely upsetting and while I’ve seen people argue for Dante’s arc in the reboot, Vergil is almost universally despised and seen as a black mark on the prime version of Vergil. Putting aside the sniper rifle abortion, Vergil is just not written well and he never gives the impression of being powerful. Vergil’s opening scene has him say point-blank to Dante “I’m powerless to stop you,” words that should never flow out of the mouth of anyone claiming to be Vergil.  It doesn’t get much better as throughout the game, Vergil hands all the major physical parts of the plan against Mundus to Dante to preserve the secret of Vergil’s Nephilim heritage. The problem with this is that Vergil subsequently never gets to show his stuff in a fight until the very end of the game when he fights Dante and suddenly has a lot of his moveset from the old series transplanted. It makes moments like Vergil hiding behind a barrier at the hands of one demon that Dante has to kill undermine his character and make him look like a coward, to say nothing of his awkward heel-turn which just shows up for the sake of having a final boss. Compared to the depiction of Dante and Vergil’s rivalry in Devil May Cry 3, which was amazing on a thematic and character level, DmC falls flat on its own shoelaces. And the character Vergil gains through his DLC is just further unpleasantness as he rips off Bleach and the Hollow Ichigo fight wholesale. Vergil is just a mistake in this game, and alongside Dante is the cardinal sin in its writing. 

Mundus represents a lot of the larger problems with DmC’s story, in particular its on-the-nose message and symbolism. The game is so focused on making sure you get the point that “Hey, we’ve seen this niche film called They Live and it’s the sickest shit also FUCK THE MAN, CAPITALISM SUCKS, WAKE UP SHEEPLE,” that Mundus doesn’t really get to be a proper villain. He’s just this stereotypical slimy corporation guy, with one slight hint to his character in that he’s obsessed with continuing his lineage. The problem is that his lack of writing makes him boring and one-note, a cliche rule-the-world dictator that’s been done to death. He’s not even a major threat in gameplay, his boss fight just being a giant blob monster. It’s visually drab and has the most boring boss fight in the game. Mundus may not have had much personality or screentime in the original DMC1, but he made up for it with a powerful presence that made him feel dangerous. This Mundus is just a bald guy in a suit. The only fear he puts in me is the fear that I’ll drop my controller when I fall asleep.

DmC’s story is a mess. While structurally well-put together, its dialogue is often weak and cringeworthy, most of the villains have no real staying power beyond Barbas, Vergil is a waste of the character name, Kat and Lillith are plot devices and Dante is just a jackass. It’s a cast of unlikable people being unlikable jerks to each other and when the story it’s making me sick with how repulsive it can be with its tone deaf themes and sexism, it’s putting me to sleep with how fucking dull it is. 

4) Definitive Edition

The post launch years of DmC weren’t kind to Ninja Theory or Capcom. Capcom retracted their Western development philosophy after a string of flops resulted from it, while Ninja Theory became the whipping boy of the action community for several years post-launch, which led to the now infamous GDC presentation where Dante was photoshopped onto scenes from Brokeback Mountain by someone who had no hand in designing Dante’s old costumes:

Revenge, evidently, is a dish best served cold

What didn’t help them was that 2013 also saw the launch of Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Platinum’s take on the Metal Gear franchise that quickly gained the adoration of the action fanbase while leaving DmC in the dust. According to Dante’s voice actor Reuben Landgon, Itsuno apparently was extremely close to retiring after DmC, and Capcom had to offer him the chance to finally make DMC5 before he decided to not quit (though this story has been disputed by Capcom USA producer Matt Walker). 

Capcom, like many publishers, has taken Sony and Microsoft both refusing to have backwards compatibility in the PS4 and Xbox One as an excuse to re-release many of their old titles on the new console platforms, often slapping a new coat of paint onto the game and potentially adding achievement/trophy support and calling it a day. In the case of DmC though, the team went above and beyond in solving many of the mechanical problems that players had complained about in the following two years.

Released in March 2015, DmC Definitive Edition was handled more by Japanese side of the Capcom team, and they set to work on making DmC more mechanically in-line in with the mainline entries, as covered by this extensive changelog. 60FPS was an advertised feature on the box, Dante got multiple costumes that let players play with white hair, the style rank system was retooled to punish repetition more harshly and a slew of balance changes were made to the core game- some even based on PC mods players had made of DmC’s original PC port like a lock on function, though sadly the adventures of Donté, el exterminador de demonios didn’t serve such a function. 

Rest in piece, you brave soul.

The Definitive Edition goes leaps and bounds in solving the pressing issues of DmC. With the combat balanced and framerate bumped up, the combat had a much better flow to it. In particular the addition of a new mode, Must Style, where Dante can only damage enemies when he has an S Rank or higher, received a warm reception from the fans to the point where it was hoped that DMC5 would adopt it. With the DE upgrades, DmC goes from a flawed game with potential to being one of the best attempts by the West to emulate Devil May Cry’s frantic, stylish mode of gameplay while adding variety to how the combat and level design was handled. But even two years on, the damage had been done; while Definitive Edition was well-received by hardcore fans, it still failed to set the world on fire sales wise, and in fact was outsold by DMC4′s own HD remake that launched that year, even though the Special Edition was a digital only purchase outside of Japan. In fact, DMC4SE’s sales were so strong Capcom noted them as being behind the company having a good financial quarter during 2015, which many saw as an ironic nail in the coffin for any hopes for the DmC universe getting continuation.  

There was no saving the story unfortunately, barring removing Vergil’s laughably pathetic fedora and one especially cringeworthy line from Lillith (”The world is at last your bitch, as am I. Nothing left, but to grab it by the hair, bend it over and-”), which means that much of the issues that DmC’s story presented are still haunting the overall product. One new scene added in the game has Dante calling out Vergil for shooting Lillith and causing countless deaths from Mundus’s rampage, but the scene was itself criticized for missing the point in the fan anger to Vergil’s .50 caliber coat hanger. And the further away the player and time gets from DmC’s outdated-at-launch messages and symbolism, the more the script just fails to entertain or educate, leaving just apathy and the ability to mock it.

5) Conclusion- Left in Limbo

DmC Devil May Cry is... alright. It’s not the worst game I’ve ever played and there’s far too many good things here for me to even call it a boring game. The level design and color palette has real moments of beauty, the combat system is a decent showing from Ninja Theory with Capcom supervision and the Definitive Edition showed that the teams from both cultures acknowledged the feedback and made a more mechanically satisfying game to play. DmC is one of the best Western attempts at emulating the over-the-top action of Japanese games alongside Darksiders 2 and does deserve credit for being a satisfying experience to play.

Where it falls apart is whenever control is taken from the player. This story is just terrible and wrought with bad choices that haunt the entire experience and taint the game by association. DmC’s cutscenes are almost slimy in how detestable they are, and it is odd that they inspired such loathing from me on my first run while I was left feeling nothing towards the entire cast other than pity towards Vergil due to what had been done to him on a writing level. I must repeat that I have never played a game as derogatory in its depiction of women as DmC and I pray I never will. 

DmC is a flawed experience, perhaps one that you should experience yourself so you can formulate your own opinion on the matter. I wouldn’t recommend it for full-price but if you see it on sale for ten bucks, you can do worse- if nothing else, get some friends over and laugh at the story to get past the cutscenes and onto the mostly-decent gameplay. But you can also do a lot better, being honest. Ultimately DmC is this weird relic of Capcom’s attempts to branch out into the West, and one that ultimately just.. happened with no real lasting impact. Itsuno went on to make DMC5, Ninja Theory and Tameen redeemed themselves in the eyes of many with Hellblade and then got bought by Microsoft, while Capcom finally started to turn around and starting with the 8th console generation, made a concentrated effort to return to the “Capgod” reputation that they had before the 7th gen. Everyone came out of this story with a happy ending and got what they wanted, but that leaves DmC as this odd relic of a weird time in gaming, albeit one that certainly made... memorable experiences.

Thank you for reading.

I guess a million years just comes in at... about five or six.

[viking-hel]

Writing British Fanfic

Hi guys! This little post is just something me and @survivor-reborn put together for when you want to write fanfic with characters that are from the UK!

This isn’t to discourage, or poke fun at, but to help really set the scene or location, because sometimes there’s nothing more jarring than seeing a word or phrase that just isn’t used as much/if at all in the UK, especially when the rest is pretty good!

Now, that’s not to say you need to do this; these little things can sometimes really aid in telling the story, especially if they are set in Blighty.

1. Mom / Mum

Kinda obvious? Yeah, I know. However it is easily done. Perhaps some people in the UK say this, but more often than not, it’s with the ‘u’ and not the ‘o’.

2. College / University

Right, this might get hard to explain. What people in the USA call college, we call University or ‘Uni’ for short. College in the UK is actually something else. The education system here is not like the US for example, which I’ll get onto. College here is where you get qualifications called ‘A-levels’ which you need to get into uni.

3. Kindergarten / Primary / Middle / Secondary (High) School

Kindergarten: we don’t really use that word. Or at least, I don’t where I live and down in Devon. Does that mean it isn’t? Perhaps not, though I don’t think so. In the UK we have something called ‘nursery’ and that’s for little kids, aged about 3-4 years. 

This leads onto primary school, which is sort of elementary school equivalent. Primary school may have a nursery (mine did) but really it goes from Reception (4-5yrs) up to Year 6 (10-11 yrs). HOWEVER, and this is where it can get confusing, some areas of the UK do have a middle school system, but NOT ALL. I never went to middle school, but my niece did! 

[If the area is a middle school systems, then it goes Infants/First - Middle - Secondary/High. Infants/First school ends at Year 4. Middle school covers from Year 5 to Year 8, and high school from Year 9 to either Year 11 or Year 13 (Years 12 and 13 are essentially college years where you do A-levels).]

For simplicity, just stick with Primary school and secondary/high school. Certain places in the UK call it high school, others say secondary. Others say both. Secondary/high school goes from Year 7 to Year 11 (or perhaps Year 13). 

4. Highways, roads, streets.

This will seem silly. Though we have something called ‘Highway Maintenance’ we don’t use the word ‘highway’ or ‘freeway’. We use motorway for the big (UK-big, which is no more than fours lane in each direction) main arteries if you will.

We say main road to mean the next step down. These roads connect to the motorways (which start with M e.g. M6, main roads start with A e.g A500). High street often implies a street with shops on it through the local ‘hub’, not always meaning city centre. 

5. Supermarket

We don’t often have grocery stores. We might have a greengrocer / grocers, but don’t add ‘store’, we don’t use that word much. But there is the supermarket, where you get most food e.g. Tesco or Morrisons.

6. Chemist / Pharmacy

Can use either but if ever you see the word chemist, we mean the pharmacy.

7. Stores

The only time we use the word store is in relation to ‘department stores’ which sell clothes, home items and makeup / perfumes perhaps, like Debenhams. Use the word shop instead as most people are likely to say that.

8. ‘Ay up mate!

Mate means friend, and though some may beg to differ, you don’t commonly hear the word buddy or pal. Except for perhaps a dog’s name.

9. Lass!

The further north you go in England, and then into Scotland, lass or lassie means girl. They’re more likely to say that.

10. Pop

Some places in the USA use the word pop to mean soda. If we want a particular kind, we’d say the name e.g. Coke = coca cola, Sprite or 7-UP = lemonade (yes, we don’t do the lemon and sugar thing much, so we mean pop if we want lemonade).

11. Sofa / Settee

Though couch is becoming slightly more common, certain areas of the UK might say sofa or settee more.

12. Kettle

You boil water in this for cups / mugs of tea. Found in the kitchen, plugged into the wall, likely next to the teapot.

13. AC

We don’t have AC built in with the house. They might be in offices, but not in the house. 

14. Drinking age

Is 18 here! So if you’re writing about teens in the UK, then legally can drink from 18 years, but have likely been drinking since they were 14/15 because, yeah rules.

15. Age of consent

Is 16 years old. Just so you know.

16. POPTARTS

Others in the UK may say “WTF are you talking about, I eat them everyday,” but I can count on ONE HAND how many poptarts I’ve ever had (three!). They aren’t common in my neck of the woods, and so I don’t think they’ve become a staple in breakfast diets until recently.

17. Pies.

Here in the UK, pies are often savory as well as sweet. We do have apple pie, I have had other fruity pies. But we do also have meat and potato (yum!), chicken, steak, steak and kidney pie, the list goes on.

18. Pasties

Not pastries, though we do have those too, pasties, as in Cornish pasties are savory and delicious. Can be flaky and make mess when eating.

19. Cheese

Unless you intentionally buy the pre-sliced stuff, most kinds of cheese in the UK comes as blocks of cheese. And depending on the type of cheese, different ‘strength of taste’ from mild to extra strong (cheddar).

20. Cookies / Biscuits

Cookies have chocolate chips in them. They are a particular type of biscuit and don’t refer to all of them. Those are biscuits.

21. Gravy / Biscuits and Gravy

Gravy is savoury and commonly brown coloured, made from veg flavours, chicken or ‘meat’. And we don’t have biscuits and gravy.....that wouldn’t make sense with the former!

22. Holidays

Only in Uni have I ever seen the period of teaching called ‘semester’ and the holiday breaks termed ‘vacation’. When in school they’re called instead ‘terms’ and ‘breaks / holiday’. 

We don’t have Spring Break, but we have something called half-terms, which is a week long break in the middle of each term, which usually last between 6-9 weeks, depending on how things are scheduled which are not the same country wide. 

Easter is two weeks off, Christmas is also two weeks, and Summer holiday lasts for 5-8 weeks, it keeps changing but they’re often 6 weeks, and get called 6-week holiday.

23. No Thanksgiving or Fourth of July, just to remind you!

24. Lessons

What are called classes in USA, are often called ‘lessons’ here, or in high school, you just refer to them by subject e.g ‘I have geography now’. Class / classes are often reserved for external activities like dance.

25. Canteen

Essentially the cafeteria of the school. This may not be the same for all of the UK.

26. Queue

What we are known for. We queue, which means standing in a line. At school you might be asked to ‘form a line’ before going back into the classroom, but outside of that, you queue.

27. Rubber

An eraser. They rub out.

28. Take-out

What is called take-out we call takeaway!

29. Bangs

Bang means something else in the UK, so we say fringe: the hair that falls over your forehead.

30. Half-an-hour

We have perhaps an odd way of saying time? We don’t say counter-clockwise, we say anti-clockwise. We often use the 24-hour clock so we know what 16:45 is telling us, which is ‘quarter to five in the afternoon’. We say half-an-hour, meaning thirty minutes. We say ‘ten to’ or ‘twenty to’ or ‘half past’ or ‘quarter past’ etc.

31. Fortnight

Not the game. This means two weeks. Bi-weekly.

32. Aye

I use this to mean yes. Though in the south of England you might not hear it much, the further north and into Scotland, you will hear this.

33. PB and J.

Peanut Butter and Jelly. Well jelly in the UK is what Americans call jello. What they call jelly is jam in the UK. There will perhaps be some people who have this, but I don’t think Peanut butter and jam is that common. At least, not to together.

34. Cheers

Thanks, thank you. Or “ta very much”.

35. Fanny

Fanny means arse (ass) in the USA. It doesn’t here and if you said that we’d give a right funny look.

36. British Accent.

NO. NO SUCH THING. I don’t sound like Sam Heughan or Ewan McGregor. Nor do I sound like Tom Holland or Kit Harington. They’re all ‘British’ but the British accent does not exist: if you live in England, you will have an English accent. Live in Wales, you’ll have a Welsh one. Live in Scotland, you’ll have a Scottish accent. Live in Northern Ireland / Ireland, you’ll have an Irish accent. 

And to further make it worse, they’ll all sound different! 

I don’t speak like the guys of Peaky Blinders. I don’t sound like a cockney from London, and I don’t speak like the Queen. Me and @survivor-reborn won’t sound the same. This goes for people in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. We’ll have an English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish accent, but we won’t sound the same, and at times, will use dialectal words: if I said “what do thee know, owt o’ nowt?” only certain people will know what I’ve asked.

So these are just things to perhaps keep in mind, and I know people will likely get things in American culture wrong and across the globe. If you don’t live in it, how will you know?

Add to this if you like, because I know I’ve missed some things. And if you want, you can ask either me or @survivor-reborn and we’ll try to help!

[petnews2day]

No Shave November Fundraiser - AZ Snake Pit

New Post has been published on https://petnews2day.com/pet-news/small-pet-news/no-shave-november-fundraiser-az-snake-pit/

No Shave November Fundraiser - AZ Snake Pit

One of the beautiful things about the AZSnakePit and our community is that I have next to zero idea how old most people are. Or what walk of life they choose to live. Are you a twenty-something like me (for about a year at least)? Are you retired? Do you play video games or rant and rave against children/grandkids wasting their lives in front of EVEN MORE SCREENS?!

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions for most of you. And I don’t ever need to unless you see fit to let me know. I’m certainly not going to judge you for whatever the answers may be (as I hope you won’t judge me either).

But one thing I know for certain about this community is how open and genuinely caring we are as a group. Sure we have spats in the comment section (we’re all passionate after all). Far more often than spats though are comments about Nik’s BBQ successes, or well wishes for Gzimm in his recent medical emergency. These are just two examples from a plethora I might have highlighted.

I’m now going to ask you to dip into that shared communal respect. Not for myself, but to help fight cancer (with a little impetus selfishly applied). Bear with me, there’s a short story before the request!

I live in Columbus, Ohio. While I live near my only brother, I moved here for work and family in 2018, abandoning my previous home of Central Missouri, where I went to college. It’s also where two of my absolute best friends live. Two other best friends live in Chicago, IL and Fayetteville, AR. We don’t get to see each other in person often (read ever) as you can imagine. So during COVID, we all obtained Xboxes and now play together at least weekly. More realistically we play Xbox together 2-5 times every week. I know more about their lives than my own family at times. They were life savers during the lockdown and we have pretty much zero secrets from each other. When you can play/talk that often, it truly is like having your best friends in your living room with you.

Our current game of choice is Fortnite because Mr. Arkansas liked it in April 2021. The game is so massive it lets you voice chat with your party regardless of system (a not super common perk in a video game). We all learned to love the game; it’s a blast to play and we don’t have to take it (or ourselves) seriously at all to sometimes stumble into a victory!

So we came up with a donation game to play during No Shave November, which is all about raising awareness and money to help fight cancer. Specifically men’s cancer, but we aren’t limiting the scope of potential donations! The rules of Fortnite are irrelevant unless you plan to play yourself, but I hope if you choose to go that route you’ve at least got some understanding of how a Battle Royale works in a video game! The rules of our donation game are simple: choose a small amount of money for each place Spencer gets and agree to donate it to a good cause!

In my case, I have chosen $.25 (one US Quarter Dollar) for my place upon knock down in each game. I will play as many games as I want some night the weekend of December 2-4, 2022 and keep track of how many players remain when I get knocked down each time. Then I will multiply that sum by $.25 and donate the total to cancer research!

My hope is that you will either play yourself or agree to match my donation with one of your own. Even our small amounts can help make the difference in some researcher’s, a victim’s, or a family’s lives. We’re never going to know exactly what good comes from our actions, but we’ll know we tried!

Link to our team page: https://no-shave.org/team/we-play-fortnite-4-cancer/