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thefirsttree · 3 years ago

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A personal update + my next game

OK, time to do this. I’ve been meaning to do a big DAVID WEHLE™ update for a while now and explain why I haven’t released a new game yet, but you know how life gets in the way. Especially when life is a quarantine hellscape, you have three beautiful, amazing, exhausting kids to raise, a spouse’s job you support, a viral YouTube channel that turns your brain to mush, a thousand emails waiting in your inbox since your game is free on the Epic Games Store (with an impressive number of redemptions too! … meaning lots of emails and customer support issues), etc., etc. What also contributes to my lack of updates is because… I just don’t really like posting online. Fascinating correlation, I know!

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a venting/ranting blog post (well, maybe a bit), because my life is seriously AMAZING and INSANELY BLESSED and LUCKY. I can’t believe how many dreams keep coming true, so much so that I feel I don’t deserve it and I really pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes… but I did want to at least be honest, because I owe that to myself.

Wow, where do I even begin? Well, how about we start with the reason I’m even a full-time indie game dev now: The First Tree. This small hobby project I worked on at night morphed into this gargantuan beast (or fox) that took over my life the past 5 years. Which is great! I’m living the dream! And yet, I really didn’t expect it to do as well as it did. At its core, my game is a slow-paced, sad walking simulator (ahem, I prefer the term “exploration game,” but you know what I mean) that somehow seemed to launch at the right time to the right audience. It resonated deeply with some of you, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I still get emails almost daily how my game changed their lives in some formative way. I’m beyond honored.

However, with that spotlight came criticism and demands from the ever-present, insatiable internet. I would randomly be surfing the gamedev subreddit trying to decompress, and I would see a comment by some rando saying how much I didn’t deserve my success, and how it was all one huge lucky fluke. And I believed them!

And to add to it, some devs considered me an indie marketing “guru”, which I was uncomfortable with. I worked hard to market my game every week, and after my GDC talk, people assumed marketing was my passion; the reason I got up every morning. Just to clarify… NO, I don’t like marketing, and I hate being the center of attention. I don’t like asking people for money and wishlists. But I did what was necessary because I was passionate about telling stories, and I wanted to give my story a fighting chance to be seen on the crowded pages of Steam.

So now, you’re probably wondering “well then David, why did you make fancy YouTube videos showing off your success? Not very modest if you ask me.” This honestly could be a long blog post all on its own, because my experience of putting myself in the spotlight and becoming a “content creator” is… complicated. It was an unusual step for me, especially since I never even showed my face online (as a game developer) until my GDC talk.

First off, I always wanted to teach and start a YouTube channel. I love video editing, especially since I’ve been doing it longer than making games! It’s a huge passion of mine. And teaching people who didn’t know they could make and finish games was a huge motivator (and it’s been so rewarding already). But the second reason is, I was scared. I was self-employed, and I was riding the success of a “huge lucky fluke” that would probably not happen again. I wanted to make sure I could provide for my amazing family, and give them food and health insurance and security in these tumultuous times. I was turning my lifelong passions and hobbies into a business, and it wasn’t as simple of a mental transition as I thought.

So, I went all in on YouTube and the accompanying online course called Game Dev Unlocked. I spent years editing the scripts and videos, and polishing them to a shine. At first, no one watched my videos, no one was buying… and in the blink of an eye, the YouTube algorithm picked up my main autobiographical video (“How Making Indie Games Changed My Life”), and I started getting 5,000 subscribers a day. Right now, I’m at 150,000 subs, which is still hard for me to believe. I always had a dream of earning 100k subs on YouTube, so I was pretty happy with the whole thing. Sales were OK, but mostly people didn’t want to buy the course. Then the emails came in…

Something you should know about me: I am a textbook “people pleaser,” and if someone asks for my help, I take it very seriously. If someone is mad at me, even if I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s all I can think about, and it ruins my day. So, taking an onslaught of people begging for help and multiplying that by an impossible amount of people for my brain to truly comprehend thanks to the internet… and let’s just say it wasn’t a healthy mix.

I received thousands of emails from people who were begging me for some kind of reassurance that everything would be OK. That their dreams would come true too. And I wanted to help every single one of them. I went from a nobody working on a game for fun to becoming a spokesperson for the indie game dream. I couldn’t even get a shake from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru without someone recognizing me and asking for game dev advice. And it didn’t stop there… I would get emails from suicidal kids asking for help, teenagers from Afghanistan asking me to get them out of their country, and on one occasion I received an email from a hopeful game developer in a war-torn country who had just experienced a bomb blowing up their neighboring village. His friends were dead, and he was hoping he could finish a game before he died too, and he needed my help. How do you say no to something like that? Didn’t I owe it to everyone because I was lucky with my hit game and I needed to “pay it forward”? (Something people constantly reminded me of)

And then to top it off, after you’ve given everything you’ve got to other people in need… you get hate mail in your inbox. You spend the whole day serving your children and strangers on the internet, then when the kids are finally asleep, you hit the bed to relax and take a look at your phone to decompress, and you randomly come across an angry gamer in your Twitter mentions telling you your game they got for free sucks, and that you took away a potentially great game from them and that your apology isn’t good enough.

Long story short, I went to a mental therapist for the first time in my life. I was broken trying to care for two toddlers and a new baby in a pandemic (which is very, very hard), taking care of my course students who gave me their hard-earned money and demanded results, and the countless people begging for help on the internet. I was this introverted, internet-lurker trying to take on the weight of the world. I was so tired and hurt that no one cared about me and my needs… only what I could do for them.

Quitting my day job and making this hobby my full-time job has stirred up… mixed emotions. This statement may disturb some of you, but I was definitely 100% happier when I had a full-time job and I was working on my game at night. I missed working with the amazing team at The VOID, working on Star Wars… back when the success of my game was this abstract thing I could only daydream about. Mostly, I was making my game for me with no outside expectations to pay the bills or satisfy the ever-demanding internet, and that brought me a lot of joy.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! I’m actually very happy now and in the best shape I’ve been since the pandemic started. I’ve had to confront my weaknesses and personality quirks, but I’m a better person for it (and I’m sure these issues would’ve come out eventually). I hired an awesome community manager for Game Dev Unlocked who is helping SO MUCH with the emails, I can’t even tell you the mental burden it alleviates. I even leased a co-working office to help separate work from my home, and that’s been a huge help too. I’ve decided to work with my old friends from The VOID on a cool, new VR experience. It will take me away from my projects a bit, but I’m ecstatic to work with a great team again (and not manage anything, whew).

These are all things I would’ve never guessed I needed, because I thought I knew myself pretty well… turns out I didn’t.

The reality is: running a business is HARD. Running it solo is even harder. You have to remember, I was burnt out on The First Tree well into the Steam release in 2017, but I kept working on it for 4 more years due to my fears of failing again and not earning enough money for my family.

So, I was wrestling with the age-old concept of commercialism and art. There was this dichotomy of doing whatever I wanted and being true to my vision (what most people assume the indie dev dream is like), and doing only what customers wanted to buy. This is something that has killed me with YouTube… in one specific instance, I was super excited to make the exact video I wanted to make. I loved every part of its creation, and I thought it had a message that would inspire everyone. I lovingly edited it over several weeks, posted it, and excitedly waited for the stats… and it was by far my worst performing video.

This is not a new problem. Even the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo was a commission forced upon him by the very violent Pope Julius II. My wife and I regularly talk about the fine balance between artistic integrity and commercialism, a problem she is very familiar with as an artist who constantly needs to balance what she wants to make with what the customer wants to hang up in their home.

For The First Tree, I was lucky. It was pretty much what I wanted to make (I had to compromise a lot of things of course), and it turned out millions of people wanted it too. Recently, I thought the safe business decision would be to do it all over again, so I started work on a spiritual successor to The First Tree (an idea that I may revisit one day since I do love the story idea). But that isn’t happening anytime soon. Trust me when I say I am now currently burnt out on animal exploration games.

So that realization left me with a question: what do I do next?

I’ve decided I need to make a game that I want to make, for me. It will be a bit different and I’m almost certain most fans of The First Tree will not love it… but it’s an idea that gets me super excited. It’s an idea that could help me fall in love with game development again.

A few more details: this game will be story-driven, first-person, and will use the Unreal Engine. That means development is gonna be slow going, because I have to learn a whole new tool. The “smart business” decision would be to make something quickly in Unity which I’m already familiar with… but I want to do this for me, and UE5 looks like a lot of fun. I’m also shooting for an early-ish release date so I avoid burn out and I keep the game short: I want to release it in Fall 2022, but knowing game development, it will probably take longer.

With the help of my therapist, I’ve also concluded that I’ve been too accessible on the internet and that my self-worth isn’t determined by the amount of people I try to help online. Of course, I love helping people and seeing them succeed, but I need to step back and focus on my family and myself. I will delete my social media apps on my phone (I will still post big updates occasionally) and stop responding to most emails, tweets, DMs, etc. It’s not that I’m ungrateful… in fact, if I don’t say thank you or at least acknowledge the incredibly nice people who share a sweet message about my game or want to tell me how I inspire them (still hard for me to believe, lol), I feel a ton of guilt… but I need to let that go. Please know I’m extremely grateful to all the fans who follow my work, so even if I don’t thank you directly, I truly mean it: thank you.

I will still post and stream occasionally on YouTube when I want to (and I still do live Q&A’s for my GDU students). The online course sales will help support my family as I work on a potentially risky game idea (and my new job will help alleviate the risk too). I’m gonna try one more marketing experiment and sell a mini-course soon (and add an Unreal section), and after that I’m done working on it. A gigantic thank you to the people who bought my course and are part of the amazing community, it has helped me and my family tremendously, and it’s inspiring seeing the games you make!

I’m a bit worried about the whole thing since this new game idea could flop, which could definitely affect my family. But a sappy, high-school yearbook quote is coming to mind… I think it applies here: “A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.”

Thanks for reading,

David

#gamedev #indie games #the first tree

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doufuhua · 4 years ago

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Resource tips when playing Genshin Impact, things the game won’t tell you.

I see a handful of new players, *cough* my mutuals *cough*, making mistakes when it comes to saving their resources and wasting their time by staying in a low world level.

Increasing your world level is always a good thing, when you increase your world level you have a better chance at getting larger and more better quality enemy drops, rewards from bosses, and artifacts. I understand there may be the fear of enemies in-game being too strong for your parties to handle, but players agree that accumulating your exp past the limit, like say AR25, is wasting your time, mora, and resin. Spending your resin at AR25 with accumulated exp, you are getting very low quality rewards in return with your world level 1 cap, when you could be getting much better rewards if you remove the cap and were in world level 4 for example. The jump in between enemy levels from world level 1 to 2 or 3 is not a huge gap to be honest, it’s not more than your characters can handle at level 40-50, it will take a little longer to defeat an enemy camp, but your party will survive. So, always remove your world level cap when you get the chance. If enemies really are difficult for you, co-op with someone at a higher AR, some are even willing to do the work for you because most high AR players are at endgame, bored with nothing to do, have your co-op join on and ask for help in your profile status. If the idea of co-op makes you feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, you can descend one world level in the menu, but I find that when I ascend, not once have I considered going down one level, even when my party is 20 levels lower than enemy bosses.

(One of the things I regret doing while playing this game was not following the advice from above, I was AR25 accumulating a lot of exp and not ascending my world level. When I ascended my world level, I believe the cap was 3? is where I stopped. I realized the enemies were not as difficult to fight as they were in world level 1. I’ve been leveling my characters accordingly equal to the world level, by the way, farming for exp books is what you should be focusing on when you’re a lower world level, I will elaborate that on another point. My party at level 50 were actually fine against enemies at level 62 and above, if you fight smartly, dodging and using your elemental reactions correctly, you can defeat them. I lost some hp between each character and the fights took longer than usual but that wasn’t a big deal, upon realizing that, I then realized that I wasted my whole time staying at AR25. It was like a moment of clarity, “oh my god, I stayed AR25 for maybe 2 months for no reason at all...I could’ve gotten more and better materials all this time and level my characters even faster.” So after that, I kept increasing my world level, but every 1 or few weeks, because I was dumb, didn’t listen to any advice, and didn’t farm enough exp books for more than 1 party when I should be when I was a lower AR, I needed to farm more exp for at least 2 or 3 parties. So you see, I wasted time and energy grinding, trying to catch up at higher world levels because I stayed way past than I should be in world level 1. It’s unfortunate when I see players in forums saying they don’t want to ascend because they don’t want to deal with the difficulty, or sometimes there are some arrogant players even boasting staying at a lower world level, asking higher AR players, what’s the point of ascending. Maybe when I was in world level 1, I probably wouldn’t care and maybe even agree, but now that I’m AR54, I realize how wrong that mindset is, it felt really sucky realizing I wasted free time staying at AR25 when I could’ve been like AR45, because now I have to play catch up, get characters to level 70 or 80, so that means wasting more time again to farm on top of already wasted time, it’s like starting the game all over. The game is so much funner when you’re at a higher AR, it feels really nice being rewarded with high quality loot, and if you’re like me, the challenges makes the game more interesting, especially when you have figured out the mechanics by now.)

Focus on getting materials and not artifacts when you’re below AR45/world level 5. When you’re at a low AR level, you should prioritize your daily resin to farming mora/exp leylines and materials for character ascension/talents/weapons. You’ll realize the higher you upgrade your characters, the more exp and mora you’ll need to upgrade all ascensions. Like the chart says in the link, the chances you’ll get any high quality artifacts is extremely rare to impossible at lower world levels. At world level 6-8 (the average that most players playing since launch are at), no one is using 1-3 star artifacts (they’re used as fodder for 5 star ones, so save your 1-3 star artifacts and don’t level them), even most 4 star artifacts stay in their inventory. Every AR45+ player are equipping 5 star artifacts on their characters, because they give them the best stats boost for their dps carries at endgame. Supports can make use of the 4 star artifacts however, if you don’t have enough 5 star ones, because they don’t stay on the field as long as dps characters do, but when you do get enough 5 star artifacts for your supports, replace the 4 stars. I say artifact farming should be reserved for when you get to AR45. When you are at AR45, you unlock the restriction that allows you the chance to get 5 star artifacts. Note that the link in the first bullet point says you’re guaranteed at least one 5 star artifact, whichever artifact you’ll get will also be random, so you may not get the exact artifact that you’re looking for, at that point you just have to try again, domain farming is just like gacha. Players would argue whether you should start farming at AR45 or AR50, I am of the opinion that you start farming at 45 for a couple of reasons. First, you get 5 star artifacts early, second, even if your haul from farming are undesirable artifacts, you can use them as fodder for your eventual perfect 5 star artifact with the right stats, and you’re gonna need a lot of fodder to enhance the perfect one. You’re gonna be farming artifacts for quite awhile which I will explain in the next point. (tbe)

Save your fragile resins for artifact farming, save as much as you can because farming for them sucks so bad (rng). (tbe)

Prioritize what you should be leveling for your characters. What I think people don’t realize is, talents are very important to level up maybe more so than leveling your character’s levels. Leveling your characters only upgrades their base hp, def, atk, and special stat, pretty basic and standard. However, leveling your talents, determines how much dmg your character is outputting with their auto attacks, elemental skill, and burst. Everyone has their opinion but my belief is the order should go: ascend character but do not level to max -> level talents to max (at AR35, if not AR35, level weapons then talents) -> level weapons to max -> level artifacts (at AR45, if not AR 45, skip this) -> go back to leveling characters in order to ascend, and then repeat. As far as character role priority goes, I think everyone is aware you should invest in dps/hyper carries -> dps/sub-dps -> supports. (tbe)

Don’t max every stat for your characters, ie. character levels 90/90, talent levels 10/10, especially if you’re f2p, it is very mora costly and spreads your resources thin. You don’t need to be maxed out in order for your characters to be strong or stand a chance against enemies. As you can see from the second link, the power difference between a level 80 character vs. a level 90 character is a small increment, depending on the character’s multipliers, their increase in damage from 80 to 90 ranges from 1-4%. It doesn’t make a huge difference in gameplay. Stat increases start to slow down or get smaller when your character is ascending towards levels 70-90. Most players, especially f2p, who are trying to save as much resources as they can, invest in at least 8 characters/2 good teams to level 70 or 80 all the way towards endgame, because spiral abyss requires 2 teams. So f2p players have to spread out their resources evenly to 8 characters. If you are trying to get every character in your roster to reach level 90, you will burn out your resources very quickly. Say you’ve been playing and farming materials since launch and you’re leveling characters to 90, you most likely will get about 4 characters maxed while everyone else is too low level to make any damage. Another thing about ascensions is just that it is so costly, it costs up to hundred thousands of mora, on top of that, you spend more mora per level up and you have to do it for 8 characters, a few million mora can evaporate fairly quickly when you factor in crafting, forging, buying ingredients you can’t find in the wild, enhancing weapons/artifacts, and upgrading talents. For point of reference, at AR54 my dps characters are level 80/90 and my support characters are level 70/80, talent levels 6-8 for all (at AR54-55 however, you should have talents level 8/8/8 for dps or support at least, that is a good stopping point), most artifacts (5 stars) at level 20, weapons at level 80 or 90. My teams can take on enemies 10 or 20 levels above them just fine, it may take longer to kill an enemy but it’s more fun than one-shotting in my opinion. Talents are the same as ascensions but they are even more costly than ascensions, more time consuming to level up because they require enemy drops from weekly bosses, and the drops are rng, you’re not guaranteed the exact material you need for a specific character, it may even take weeks until you get the right material (in the 1.5 update however, there will be a converter given to players who want to exchange a material they have for something else, but there is no further info about this yet). The unfortunate thing about this game is that there is too much rng factoring into chance, this is the most common complaint in the community and even though many have sent feedback about this, nothing much has changed since launch, it’s just something you have bitterly swallow. Talents are still very important despite all this, don’t neglect them (Tip: whenever a character banner comes out and they allow you to have a trial with them, you should check their character screen, take a look at their stats, artifacts, weapons, talents, that’s usually a model you should aim for. A perfect example, in Xiao’s trial, Mihoyo made him level 80, gave him talent levels 8/8/8, and gave him 2 Viridescent and 2 Gladiator 5 star artifacts to fight level 90 enemies for testing, and that is the exact set I see a lot of Xiao users in-game and on youtube used after his trial, they all just followed what Mihoyo set up for him). Always max out your weapons, there is no downside to this, your characters gain stat bonuses from them and get stronger, the best thing about it is that you don’t have to spend resin for it, you just have to mine ore as a daily routine. Take advantage of the adventurer expeditions, always keep on top of it, and always assign characters to get ore or mora.

There are some exceptions to maxing out your characters, however. Some people have their favorite characters up to level 90 with crowned talents (level 10), that’s totally fine, mainly the reason they would do that is because they love this particular character a lot, they love their playstyle and don’t plan on ever benching them soon. Youtubers like to show off their maxed out characters as a flex, you don’t have to follow their actions though, it’s not mandatory. Only max out a character because it’s personal for you, don’t think it’s like “oh I have to reach the max because that’s required to play the game,” it’s not that. Another reason for maxing is that maybe this character is a hypercarry and their multipliers are too good to ignore if they were at 90, for example, Hu Tao is a special case, she is a hypercarry and has the lowest base stats with average multipliers I believe, of all released characters, but her Staff of Homa makes up for that by giving her an insane crit damage boost (62%), but for a Hu Tao player who doesn’t have Staff of Homa, the sound of her at level 90 to give her a boost sounds appealing to them. If you’d like a model to follow by, the recommended levels I suggest for endgame would be - DPS: level 80/90 (level 80 ascended), talent levels 8/8/8 at least; 9/9/9 if you can, weapon level 90/90, 5 star artifacts at maxed level (look for crit rate/damage stats on each artifact). Supports/Sub-DPS: level 60/70 (level 60 ascended) or level 70/80 (level 70 ascended) respectively, talent levels 6/6/6 (supports); 7/7/7; 8/8/8 (sub-dps), weapon level 90/90, 5 star artifacts at maxed level (sub-dps), 4 star at maxed is ok (supports), but majority should be 5 stars like 1:4 or 2:3 (look for crit rate/damage, energy recharge, elemental mastery, and depending on what the character scales with, attack, hp, and defense stats). Follow what suits you best by taking a look at the first link.

Prioritize your support/sub-dps characters over dps characters. (tbe)

#genshin impact #原神 #genshin impact tips #gi #long post #艾美

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grailfinders · 4 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #50: Spartacus

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re going on a glorious quest to destroy oppressors with Spartacus! He’s a Barbarian/Paladin combo who fits a very unusual combat niche, right where “Too tough to kill without using your best stuff”, “Too weak to justify using your best stuff”, and “Too annoying to not kill” meet. Sparty runs around grappling and pinning more damaging combatants, not doing much in the way of real fighting, right up until the DM stops paying attention to you. Then you explode.

Check out the level-by-level breakdown below the cut, or the summary of the build over here.

Race and Background

Spartacus’ build isn’t “balanced”, and we really need the feat, so he’ll be a Variant Human. This gives him +1 Constitution and +1 Charisma, because odd numbers make me queasy. He also gets proficiency in Survival, because leading an army around the roman countryside for three years is hard if they can’t eat, and the Grappler feat. You have advantage on attacks against creatures you’re grappling, and you can pin them by double grappling them, restraining both of you until the grapple ends. Spartacus likes giving people hugs. It’s not his fault their spines aren’t strong enough to handle them.

Spartacus obviously has the Noble background- jk, of course he has the Gladiator background, giving him proficiency in Acrobatics and Performance.

Stats

Your highest stat is going to be Constitution. Spartacus is the second hardest berserker to kill off, and #1 is literally a god. Strength is second, his muscles aren’t just for show. Third is going to be Charisma; you’ve been in leadership positions before, and you’ve got a winning smile. Your Dexterity is a little low-you don’t get out of the way of stuff. Stuff gets out your way. Fifth is Intelligence. You can talk, but you don’t have much to really say. Finally, dump Wisdom. Madness Enhancement, berserkers... you probably get it by this point.

Class Levels

1. Barbarian 1: Starting off as a barbarian gives you proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves, as well as Athletics and Intimidation. The gladiator background probably should have had athletics, but whatever, you still got it.

First level barbarians can Rage, getting a whole bunch of strength based goodies in exchange for not using magic for a minute, or as long as you can keep hitting people, and as long as you’re not wearing heavy armor. To help with that, you have Unarmored Defense, making your AC with no armor based on your Constitution and Dexterity. When you told the oppressors to break their swords on your skin, you meant it. Not yet though, real armor is still a lot better for your. As a side note, I’m not sure what AC a metal diaper/fetish gear comes in at, but it’s probably some kind of medium armor.

For your weapon, we’re going with a Shortsword. Your muscles are big, your sword is not. (Also lets us keep a hand open for grapples and other neat stuff later in the build.)

2. Barbarian 2: Your Reckless Attack gives you advantage on this turn in exchange for giving enemies advantage until your next turn. You typically just run into wherever the oppressors are, so yeah, you’re a little reckless. You also have Danger Sense, giving you advantage on dex saves against things you can see, like traps and spells. That’s not going to help much with your dexterity score, but it’s a nice though.

3. Barbarian 3: Third level barbarians set down their primal path, and you become a Berserker! When you do, you can Frenzy instead of rage, letting you use your bonus action each turn to make another melee attack. At the end of your frenzy, you take one level of exhaustion. Like I said in the Lu Bu build, this is objectively terrible. Unlike Lu Bu however, you’re not getting any skills to replace this, and it is pretty in character for you, so.... just try to be careful with it.

4. Barbarian 4: At fourth level you get your first ASI, which is going straight into Strength. I hope you like having 16 strength, because that’s all we’re getting this build.

5. Barbarian 5: Fifth level barbarians get an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice per action, or three times per round with your Frenzy. You also get Fast Movement, adding 10′ of movement to your speed if you’re not wearing heavy armor.

6. Barbarian 6: Sixth level berserkers can go into a Mindless Rage, making you immune to the charmed and frightened effects while raging, and suspending any such effects you already have until your rage subsides. Ironically, controlling Spartacus’s mind just makes him more likely to hit you.

7. Paladin 1: Now that your mind is safe, let’s get some real firepower. Gods aren’t your cup of tea, but blind fanaticism and blowing people up with charged energy. 100% Spartacus. First level paladins get a Divine Sense, letting you spend an action to locate any celestial, fiendish, or undead oppressors who are within 60′ of you a couple of times per long rest. Fiends steal people’s souls, that’s oppression. Gods make you do stuff you don’t want to, that’s oppression. The undead are gross, that’s probably oppression.

You also get Lay on Hands, giving you a pool of HP to can hand out as an action equal to five times your paladin level. This is mostly your healing factor while raging, but if you want to break character for a bit and heal other people, I won’t tell.

8. Paladin 2: Second level paladins get a Fighting Style. Unarmed Fighting from UA Class Feature Variants lets your fists deal 1d6 damage, or 1d8 if both hands are free. The real reason we’re taking it though is because now when you start a grapple, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage immediately, and you deal another 1d4 with each attack you make while grappling. Spartacus isn’t that hard of a hitter most of the time, so every bit helps.

Paladins also get Spells at this level, and more importantly they get Divine Smite. When you hit a creature, you can burn a spell slot to add 2d8 radiant damage to the attack. Add 1d8 for each level above 1 the slot you used is, and add another d8 if the enemy is a fiend or undead. Technically you’re supposed to get this power from getting hit, but somehow I don’t think that will be an issue for you.

Your paladin spells are based on your Charisma, but we’re mostly here for buffs, so your score doesn’t matter that much. Cure Wounds and Heroism are more ways to sub in your healing factor, as long as you aren’t raging.

9. Paladin 3: Third level paladins take a Sacred Oath for their subclass. The Oath of Glory from the sunny shores of Theros is a perfect fit for a musclehead such as yourself. They get two Channel Divinity options: Peerless Athlete is a bonus action that gives you 10 minutes of advantage on Acrobatics and Athletics checks, doubles your carrying capacity, and adds 10′ to your long and high jumps. You may not be as strong as Heracles, but this will certainly help keep him pinned. Inspiring Smite lets you divvy up 2d8+your paladin level temporary hit points to nearby friendly creatures after you hit something with a divine smite. Spartacus can have a little healing, as a treat.

Glory paladins also get oath spells at this level. We’ve already talked about Heroism, and Guiding Bolt doesn’t really fit this build, so... moving on.

10. Paladin 4: Hitting fourth level in another class gives you another ASI, which is going straight into Constitution. We’re in the paladin class for buffs, and buffs require concentration. We’re also giving you an ungodly amount of HP, so this is a two birds one stone situation.

11. Paladin 5: Fifth level paladins get a feature we already have and 2nd level spells. Enhance Ability makes you especially powerful in one ability check of your choice for up to an hour with concentration. The strength option also doubles your carrying capacity, constitution gives you some temporary HP, and dexterity cushions your fall a bit. (You could also use it on mental saves, but... why?) Magic Weapon turns your weapon magic, and gives it a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls, for again, an hour with concentration. A lot of high level oppressors resist nonmagical attacks, so this will be useful.

12. Barbarian 7: Now that we’re done getting our explosions ready, we can return to the barbarian class. Seventh level barbarians have a Feral Instinct, giving you advantage on initiative rolls. You can also negate being surprised by raging at the start of combat. Normally this would be a no brainer, but you’ve got some magical effects that might come in handy in certain encounters.

I know, I wasn’t expecting Spartacus to be the thinking man’s berserker either.

13. Barbarian 8: Another ASI, let’s max out your Constitution for the best saves and the most health. Remember: this applies to your health retroactively as well. You’re not gaining 1 HP here, you’re getting 1 for each level.

14. Barbarian 9: Your Brutal Critical lets you add another damage die to your attack when you deal a critical hit. A shortsword only comes with d6s, but damage is damage.

15. Barbarian 10: Tenth level berserkers have an Intimidating Presence. Your winning smile might not win you any beauty pageants, but terrifying the oppressors is a good second place.

You can use your action to frighten a creature, who has to make a wisdom save equal to your paladin spell save DC. If they fail, they’re frightened of you until the end of your next turn. However, you can use your action to extend the fear by another turn, without a save. It also ends if they end their turn without you in sight, or they end their turn more than 60′ away from you, but nothing’s perfect.

If they succeed, you can’t frighten them again this way for 24 hours.

16. Barbarian 11: Your Relentless Rage lets you keep fighting after death. Maybe. When you drop to 0 hp while raging, you can make a DC 10 constitution save, and if you succeed, drop to 1 hp instead. Each time you succeed, the DC goes up by 5. Finishing any rest resets the DC. You have huge guts, so now it’s time to put them to use.

17. Barbarian 12: Use your last ASI to grab the Tough feat for 34 HP now and 2 more every time you level up. If you’re not able to take a Meteor Swarm on the chin and keep on trucking, can you really call yourself Spartacus?

18. Barbarian 13: Your Brutal Critical improves, and now you add two dice to your critical hits. Again, not huge but appreciated.

19. Barbarian 14: The last goody from the berserker subclass is Retaliation, letting you react when a creature within 5′ of you hurts you to hurt them right back. Being a human wobbuffet is Spartacus’ entire deal, and now you can do exactly that.

20. Barbarian 15: Your capstone feature is Persistent Rage, meaning your rages now only end when you want them to.

Pros:

You have All The Health. Nearly 300 hp, plus plenty of healing and temporary hp, plus damage reduction from rages. This is about as much health as you could possibly squeeze out of a build bar going full barbarian or powergaming as a barbarian/druid.

You also have multiple ways to heal yourself without using spells, meaning you’ll be able to rage without having to bother your healer too much.

Smites + on demand advantage = a lot of damage, fast. Grab an annoying spellcaster and start whaling on them until 20s pop out.

Enhance ability and your Channel Divinity options let you quadruple your carrying capacity for some silly power. If somebody’s moving house, you could probably move their house, literally.

Cons:

Your damage without smites is rather lacking. Keeping a hand open for grapples and spells means you’re not holding any heavy weapons, so your brutal criticals are somewhat wasted.

A lot of your damage and advantage comes from grappling, so fast and flying enemies can be an issue. You can use a reckless attack for the same amount of advantage without having to grapple, but you’re here for a long time, not a good one.

Finally, rages and spells don’t mix. You’ll have to weigh out your options and -urgh- think about what the situation’s like before you give in to your rage.

Just grab whoever’s oppressing your party the most, don’t let go until they stop moving, and everything will work out somehow.

Next up: It’s time to get Golden, baby!

#dnd 5e #Fate Grand Order #fgo #spartacus #Fate and Phantasms

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louiserandom · 4 years ago

Text

Play Games with Me

Pairing: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara | Rating: E

A/N: Commission for the amazing @rookie-d💙💗 thank you so much! *hugs*

Read on AO3 or continue under the cut :3 Ko-fi and fic commission info in the header!

Tobirama SenJERK has never had sex in his life, Madara types, as always brimming with spite when it comes to his least favorite person in town. Maybe on the planet.

Rereading the comment and satisfied that there aren’t any typos or any hint whatsoever at some kind of hidden affection (which isn’t there, never was and never will be, Madara reminds himself firmly), he hits ‘Comment.’

“Take that, you dumbass,” Madara mutters under his breath, and really, this could be classified as childish, were he not completely in the right to take vicious revenge upon the fucking asshole who dared refer to Madara as ‘so idiotic it’s pitifully adorable’ on his last stream. Hah! Like Tobirama isn’t the less intelligent one of the two of them; Madara has watched enough of his Uncharted 4 gameplay to note that Tobirama took twelve seconds longer than him to figure out arguably the most difficult puzzle in the game. And although Madara’s sub count doesn’t quite reflect his superior intellect compared to Senju’sーnot that he’s checked in a whileーit’s likely a testament to the viewers’ total lack of taste, if anything else.

(Two thousand, nine hundred and thirty four viewer’s, to be precise, according to this morning’s stats and minus the handful of Madara’s fake accounts that he created just in case to keep up with his chief competitor. Admittedly, it might be a tad annoying.)

A notification pipes up.

Hm, I wonder how you’d know that, MaddyGamerboy? Are you stalking me? I must admit, I’m flattered.

Madara sputters at the reply. At yet another butchering of his perfectly adequate nickname. The fucking nerve of the guyーand people fucking wonder why Madara hates his guts?

(Madara knows it doesn’t really help his case that he’s touched himself to fantasies of the younger Senju more times than he’d care to count, but hate-fucking a thing isn’t it? Hate-masturbation must be too, he supposes. Not the healthiest outlet for negative feelings, but it makes him feel good enough.)

(Heavenly, to be precise.)

I AM NOT, YOU SELF-OBSESSED DUMBASS, Madara types, simultaneously taking care of the half-a-dozen typos that appear of their own accord.

No.

Deep breath. Stop fingers from shaking. Think about something witty to say.

Pff, he writes, for lack of any better word to express his indignant huff, like I give a shit about you. You’re dumb.

It did sound much better in his head, but Madara has spent over a minute writing the comment already, and he doesn’t want to appear as if he’s thinking too hard on it.

He posts his answer, not dwelling too match on the number of likes on Tobirama’s comment far outnumbering the hundred Madara’s garnered. Again, Tobirama’s audience is clearly not the best judge of character.

“FUCK. YOU. SIDEWAYS, SENJU!” Madara shouts at the reply that follows, consisting only of the words:

Thanks for the sub btw.

“You fucking piece of shit,” Madara hisses. “Like eight fucking fake accounts do anything to boost your stats, I don’t even like all your videos from each one of them, you ass!”

I DID NOT SUB DONT BELIEVE HIM

I’m happy to have another loyal fan ;)

HE IS FUCKING LYEING!!!

With seemingly every single person in the comments raving about how it’s about time MadGamer69 and admitted he admires FlyingThunderGod’s skill, Madara has to consciously restrain himself from smashing his laptop against the wall.

“You can just tell him you like him, you know.”

Madara startles, almost stumbling to the floor when Hashirama returns with their drinks and quickly put-together snacks, always the one to rummage through Madara’s kitchen because Madara hardly cares what edible and inedible things existed there or what to do with themーthat’s Izuna’s job.

“I do not,” Madara snarls, as Hashirama flops next to him on the couch, “like that stupid clusterfuck you call a brother!”

“Madara!” Hashirama whines, with that ever-present pout on his face. “Be civil.”

“Yeah, when he returns the favor,” Madara glowers, grabbing a milkshake from Hashirama’s hand. “Did you forget that he fucking started it? Do I need to quote his “pitifully adorable how so much stupidity can fit in such a short man” again?” Madara can’t help flailing his arms a little, though far too conscious of this habit now since the Tobirama has started pointing it out. He makes up for it with what he hopes is a deadly enough glare. “Did no one in your family bother to teach him manners? Did you?”

Hashirama only sighs. “And did you forget,” he asks, “how before that you abused my invitation over to our place to hide his Golden Youtube Gamer Tablet?”

Madara groans. “It’s called a Gold Play Button. Idiot.”

“Now you’re insulting me,” Hashirama grumbles, “and who cares? The point is, you’d be upset too if he hid yours.”

“Youtubers care,” Madara says, “and also, that’s irrelevant, that was revenge for him making fun of my perfectly adequate gameplay.”

“To be fair, you were dying quite a lot in that playthrough...”

“He took twelve seconds longer to figure out that puzzle in the game!” Madara growls.

Hashirama rolls his eyes. “Well, of course, because that Yellow Flash guy was flirting and distracting him in the chat.”

Madara blanches. "That good-for-nothing pipsqueak was what?”

“See,” Hashirama drawls, “you are jealous. Why would you be jealous?”

“I-I’m not!”

“Madara, you are so far in denial, that as your best friend,” Hashirama says firmly, slapping a hand over Madara’s mouth before he can muster another protest, “I cannot stand by and watch you suffer. Anymore, that is, because this has reached a breaking point. So, please, for me, I am begging you, just try politely asking if maybe Tobirama would like to accompany you for coffee somewhere tomorrow? Maybe brunch? I mean, come on, I know you guys don’t hate each other anymore. Seriously, you guys seem like you enjoy arguments, and hey, who am I to judge how people express affection?”

“Affection?!” Madara shrieks, shoving Hashirama’s hand away.

“And please stop pretending you don’t have printed out screenshots of my brother’s videos hidden under your mattress because Izunaー”

“Is a fucking snooping rat!” Madara hisses.

Hashirama sighs. “If it helps you feel better, maybe Tobirama might possibly not feel extreme dislike towards you but actually the opposite,” he says, smiling nervously as Madara blanches.

Because... what?

He blinks, running Hashirama’s words through his mind again.

“And how would you know that?” he asks, suspicious. “I swear if you dared tell him anything about my possibly nonexistent feelingsー”

“Possibly?” Excitement starts bubbling in Hashirama’s eyes. “That’s progress!”

“Definitely nonexistent feelings, dammit!”

Hashirama, the asshole Madara calls best friend for some reason, giggles. “Don’t worry, I didn’t. I promise, stop glaring or I will start pouting,” he threatens, and Madara schools his expression back into a light scowl to avoid the infamous Senju pout.

Like a curse, memories of said pout curling Tobirama’s lips spring to mind, and Madara has to physically shake his head to banish those thoughts.

“Listen, the fact that we’re not as... aggressive as we used to be,” Madara says, “doesn’t mean we suddenly like each other.”

“Madara, you insist on coming along every time we hang out,” Hashirama points out.

“I like hanging out with you.”

“Yet every time we do,” Hashirama presses on, “you’re hyperfocused on bickering with Tobirama instead of talking about wholesome stuff with me. Did you even notice that I brought Mito with me the past few times and it was literally a double date?”

“Was not!” Madara shoves at Hashirama with his shoulder and stands up to pace, because there goes the tell-tale sweating of his hands, the fluttering in his chest and stomach and the memoriesーof him and Tobirama secretly filming the other on camera when they do stupid shit, their almost daily Best Playground Insult Contest that’s been memed half to death on Twitter, the one time they got separated from Hashirama and Izuna in Disneyland because they’d got caught in their arguments so much it devolved into discussing their favorite games and an actual conversation that had Madara’s insides tingling.

No.

No, no, no. If anything, they were just gradually becoming something not unlike friends. And Madara’s occasional fantasies behind closed doors were nothing but a means to a pleasant end.

Not. Feelings.

No matter how much he’s grown attached to the site of messy, white-gray hair that he knows is soft to the touch from all the times he’s tugged on it to irritate him. No matter how piercing Tobirama’s unique red eyes may look. No matter how objectively hot his recent workout routine video wasーand Madara knows he’d only watched it so many times because he wants to improve his own routine, right?

Right?

Madara groans. “Why are emotions so fucking confusing!” He slumps onto the floor and wraps his arms around his knees, hitting his head over and over again on his kneecaps because, “I don’t even know what I want from him, okay?”

There’s a brief silence before Hashirama joins him and keeps him from abusing his head further. “How about,” Hashirama suggests, rubbing a comforting hand on his back, “you just ask? Listen, he’s my brother. And you’re my best friend. You two fighting less and at least making an effort to get to know each other better?” Hashirama brings out the puppy dog eyes. “That would mean the world for me.”

Madara glances at him before looking away again, focusing on a random photo of the wall. One featuring Tobirama right after his university graduation with a wide smile on his face. Quite the adorable face, too, and the unprompted thought makes Madara want to descend into oblivion. Preferably forever.

“That’s difficult,” he says lamely.

“But not impossible,” Hashirama says, “and hey, it’s better than waiting for the Yellow Flash guy to actually make a move on Tobi and start occupying all of his time. He’s a really big fan.”

“Fuck Minato,” Madara scoffs, “the guy just showed up and is just shamelessly emulating Tobirama’s style. That’s dumb.”

“Dumber than you claim Tobi is?” Hashirama prompts.

Madara thinks about it. “You know what? Yes.”

“As I saidーprogress!”

Madara can never go through with his impulses to punch his well-meaning best friend, and so grabs the nearest pillow from the couch and smashes it into Hashirama’s face to shut him up.

Tobirama returns home only to find Hashirama and Madara standing by the front door, frowning as they watched something that sounded like a tsunami of some kind.

“Listen, it’s gotta be one of those black holes or something twisting that vortex. Look how stuff disappears right into it!” is his brother talking, and Tobirama is already heaving a frustrated sigh.

Please don’t tell me you think there’s a black hole on Earth.

“There’s no black holes on Earth, idiot! The nearest one is way off, like near Pluto or something,” Madara says.

Ah. Even better. Tobirama chuckles under his breath, crosses his arms and leans against the wall, observing the two idiots he knows and loves.

He mentally kicks himself.

Well, one of them, he loves. Of course he loves his brother.

The other is... complicated.

“And besides, that could just be the Loch Ness monster or a cthulhu or something. See how dark the water is?”

“Or maybe,” Tobirama says, making them both jump, “it’s a natural phenomenon that’s a tad too difficult for both your brain cells to comprehend? I’m happy to explain though.”

“I’m happy to see you fuck yourself,” Madara greets him his usual way, scowling despite the exceptionally conspicuous blush painting his cheeks.

The contrast never fails to make Tobirama’s heart beat faster. He hates himself for it.

“Mm, Madara,” Tobirama teases, “not in front of my brother.”

As expected, Madara starts spluttering, and Tobirama is left wondering again how he avoids making a total fool of himself in each and every one of his videos. It seems Madara saves most of his flailing for the comment section.

“You,” Madara snarls, pointing Tobirama’s way, “are an asshole, Senju, but spending time with the better part of society might do you some good. So see you at brunch tomorrow and do not be late.”

And with that, Madara gives Hashirama a cursory wave and stalks off, leaving Tobirama frozen on the spot.

Did Madara just?..

Tobirama blinks, swallowing heavily as he feels his throat running dry and his heart rate pick up.

No fucking way.

He must have imagined it. Through his stupor of trying to figure out what the hell just took place, Tobirama vaguely registers Hashirama’s facepalm.

“Sorry for that,” Tobirama hears his brother speak through the rush in his ears. “He meant, uh, will you please join him for brunch? Tomorrow at 11 am, Eggspectation?”

Tobirama blinks harder.

“I,” he starts, “I don’t... Did you blackmail Madara into asking me out?”

Hashirama looks scandalized. “What? No!”

“Did Madara just ask me out?”

“Well, yes, Tobi.” Hashirama chuckles nervously. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

Tobirama glares. “The idiot’s wake up text to me today was literally a collection of trashy limerick poems about how much I suck. Sorry if I’m a little skeptical.”

“You,” Hashirama says, wincing as a long-suffering expression settles on his face, “you guys send wake up texts to each other?”

A moment of awkward silence hangs in the air.

“Sometimes,” Tobirama says, defensive, although the damage is already done.

“And you’re still not going out? Tobirama, you do realize he’s in love with you, right?”

“Don’t say things like that, Anija!” Tobirama snaps, hoping the dim lighting in the corridor conceals the blush he can feel heating up his cheeks. Fuck. Now he’s turning Madara. “Yet, I mean.”

“I’ll save the celebrations until after your date then!” Hashirama sing-songs like the idiot he is.

Tobirama resigns to his fate. “I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You’ll thank me for this.”

“If it goes well,” Tobirama glowers though it’s ineffective, really, against his brother’s bubbling positivity, and the sheer awe still coursing through him from Madara asking him out on a fucking date is actually enough to make Tobirama want to hug him. He refrains. "Now, thanks, Anija, but I have work things to attend to.”

“Sure! Just don’t forget, 11ー”

“Eleven eggs and uh, no expectations, got it.”

“Wait, Tobi, noー”

With no time to waste, naturally, Tobirama bolts into their apartment and straight to his room to choose an appropriate outfit. And to mentally prepare himself for something he’s almost given up hoping for.

Tobirama cannotーwill notーmess this up.

Tobirama makes sure to arrive about ten minutes early. Not because he’s worried or nervous, of course; maybe just a little, but mostly just to get his bearings beforeーfinallyーa date with Madara goddamn Uchiha.

Madara, who’s been Tobirama’s stupid crush since high school, and just as in love with gaming as he is, only that didn’t turn out to be such a great bonding point between them, as Tobirama had hopedーbefore he actually got to know his Anija’s best friend.

Madara, who seemed to dislike Tobirama at first sight and only grew to hate him more over the years as they both found more joy in arguing than they did in talking.

Madara, who, despite this, blushes every rare time Tobirama genuinely smiles at him or drops a suggestive joke, who has an arguably unhealthy obsession with Tobirama’s ass which he always ogles when he thinks no one is looking.

Madara, whose plastered ass Tobirama had to drag home the other week, amid drunken speeches about capitalist injustice, some wacky conspiracy behind the disappearance of the dodo bird and... something quite interesting.

“Listen, Senju,” Madara was slurring against Tobirama’s shoulder, as the latter cursed every single nonexistent god that Hashirama had chosen that fucking day to go on a road trip with Mito, Toka and Izuna, leaving Tobirama in charge of this walking trash fire of a man. “Listen. Tobira... Tobi. Tobirama. You’re so hot.”

The words almost made Tobirama stumble.

“What, Uchiha?”

“And cute... So pretty, too, I wish you could see that...” Madara went on babbling. “I think you do. But still. Wish you could see me like I do. I mean see you. Like I do...”

“Tobira, you’re just, you’re unfair...”

“I hate you and I like you then I love you and I hate you again, why you’reー” A hiccup. “How do you exist...”

“I just want to hold hands and just... walk and talk and be together and...”

Tobirama watched in ever mounting confusion as Madara leaned completely into him, humming as he hugged Tobirama tightly and said,

“Is that too fucking much to ask...”

Tobirama stood, shell-shocked, with Madara whispering impossible nonsense in his arms, wondering if he was in a dream.

The next day saw Madara returning to his usual self insulting Tobirama at every goddamn opportunity, which left Tobirama... confused.

Confused, and conflicted, and sleepless for the rest of the night, thoughts held captive by the utter idiot whose ultimate goal seems to be to ruin Tobirama’s life.

It’s maddening.

Of course, he’d suspected that Madara’s flailing and constant blushing interspersed with screams and insults (the most creative ones, reserved only for Tobirama, it seemed) were signs of not so much dislike, as the complete opposite. Of course, Tobirama had tried flirting with Madara, just bordering right there on the edge of suggestive, only for his advances to be seen as patronizing or condescending. And hearing Madara speak to him this way, in a drunken stupor no less, when he’d probably have no causeーor abilityーto lie is...

Maddening. Annoying. Exhilarating. A tantalizing opportunity. Maybe a glimmer of hope.

And of course, Tobirama told his brother; they never really had any secrets between them. And of fucking course Hashirama had a hand in convincing Madara to change his usual behavior, which is nice and all, but doesn’t help the nerves wracking through Tobirama’s body, nor the crippling fear that he’s going to somehow screw this up.

But no. Deep breath. Exhale. And remember Anija’s advice.

Tobirama takes the last turn before he’s faced with their meeting place, surprised to find Madara already there.

Even though he’s usually always late. Sitting inside by the window, looking out onto the street with a slight frown, Madara keeps worrying his bottom lip and, apparently, trying to break a spoon.

It paints an endearing picture. Tobirama sighs, feeling a smile tugging at his lips.

This man...

Tobirama comes in, approaching him slowly, allowing himself a few moments to watch Madara needlessly fix his wild mane of hair, appraise his reflection in the spoon, try out several fake-looking smiles before settling on a scowl and going back to his nervous tics again. With another sigh, Tobirama takes the few steps left to his date, repeating Hashirama’s advice over and over in his head.

Just be yourselfーand have fun!

Just a few minutes into their date, it becomes obvious that Madara didn’t get the same advice from Hashirama.

Or just didn’t get the advice, period.

With their orders made and beverages served, they’re left to wallow in a less than comfortable silence, broken only by Madara’s... uncharacteristic attempts at conversation.

“Are you enjoying the tea?” Madara asks Tobirama with all of the softness of a brick wall.

Tobirama isn’t used to the man being eloquent, much less polite, and he has yet to have at least one conversation with Madara that doesn’t devolve into a pissing contest. So theoretically, Tobirama should be enjoying this.

But it only seems wrong. Annoying. Not them.

He tries to recall if, maybe, their first meeting was an adequate exchange? Tobirama thinks to the day Hashirama first introduced them. Only flashes of spilled milkshakes and jibes at intelligence run through his mind, and of course that was the very first time he’d called Madara an idiot pipsqueak, receiving quite the lame ‘stuck-up dandelion’ in turn.

Unsurprising.

“Yes,” Tobirama says, taking another sip as he eyes Madara struggling on the other side of the table. Struggling to do what is the question: either sit straight, or assume a more relaxed posture, or reach towards his own drink, or avoid eye contact, even though he keeps glancing his way when he thinks Tobirama won’t notice. Tobirama does, every time, and that just makes the whole ordeal more awkward. “Nice weather,” Tobirama says, with about as much enthusiasm.

If Madara wants to play this stupid game, Tobirama will indulge. Just to see how long it takes for Madara to break and return to his blustering status quo.

“Yeah...” Madara clears his throat, eye twitching as he manages to hold Tobirama’s gaze for a commendable three seconds this time. “Hate the sun. I meanーI mean I love the sun. Ugh. It just, uh. Burns.”

It’s both saddening and funny to see Madara visibly deflate.

“Skin too sensitive, huh?” Tobirama starts small. “Just like your ego?”

Madara’s jaw clenches and his nervous look shifts into a glare before he looks away again, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to calm himself down before he flashes an unnaturally cheery smile.

“Heh, nice,” Madara grits through his teeth, “nice joke, Senju.”

Tobirama raises his eyebrow as Madara flinches at his own words.

“I’m glad you appreciate my sense of humor,” Tobirama says, barely reining in a smirk.

“Sure! You’reーyou’re funny.”

“And?”

“And what?” Madara frowns, confused.

“And what else am I?” Tobirama demands, feigning thoughtfulness. “A recent assessment of yours was that I look and act like a self-obsessed dumbass, I think.”

“No-no,” Madara blurts out, looking much a cornered animal, “I think you... you are... you look not at all so terrible today?” he finishes with a nervous chuckle, running a hand through his hair.

Tobirama wants to scream from the agony.

No. This won’t do, otherwise he might as well leave.

“Can you just call me a stuck-up asshole like you always do or recite one of those horrible limerick disses?” he demands.

Madara actually yelps. “What? No! I mean, wait.” He narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re acting weird.”

“We’re on a date, if you were too stupーpreoccupied to get my invitation, Senju,” Madara says, jaw still clenched as he doubtless refrains from swearing, “and I’m being civil!”

That’s the advice he must have gotten from Anija, Tobirama thinks.

What a tragedy.

“Madara,” Tobirama implores, leaning his eyebrows on the table and meeting Uchiha’s gaze, “have you considered thatーI prefer it when you aren’t?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, thank fuck!” Madara slams his hands on the table, heaving a massive sigh as Tobirama laughs in relief. “I was ready to fucking die, you piece of shit! How does your brother stay so fucking kind all the time, it’s fucking torture!”

Tobirama rolls his eyes. “It’s a talent, naturally. Just like your talent at embarrassing yourself and mine at being awesome.”

“You’ve got it a little backwards, Senju,” Madara sneers, “but it’s excusable, given your level of intellect.”

“Twice as high as yours?” Tobirama parries.

“Twice as little.”

“That’s more like it,” Tobirama says, grinning despite himself, “I thought you were a decoy or something. You’ve told me to fuck off every single day since we first met and this was getting worrisome.”

Madara’s laugh is sudden, melodic, sending those irritating tingling sensations through Tobirama’s body. He makes an effort to appear outwardly calm.

“Maybe because you managed to piss me the fuck off every day that I’ve known you,” Madara scoffs, “but you’re all right sometimes. I guess.” He shrugs, feigning nonchalance even as he keeps nervously fixing and running his fingers through his hair.

A stupid, tantalizing habit. Tobirama imagines carding his own hands through the messy locks, tugging Madara’s head back toー

He forcefully aborts the thought process before he’s faced with a problem of the harder kind. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll try to strangle each other when we game together.”

“We’re playing today?” Madara asks.

Tobirama tilts his head to the side.

“You haven’t planned one gaming session after our date?”

“Um,” Madara says, blinking rapidly, “why should I be the one with the plan?”

“Because you’re the one who invited me,” Tobirama deadpans. And anyway, Madara is always the one to egg Tobirama on to gaming, which would usually only ever lead to semi-playful brawls and their fighting making Hashirama cry.

And without Anija there to assault them with his antics, Tobirama wonders what their play-fighting might lead to... and promptly shuts off those thoughts again. Control, dammit.

Madara opens his mouth, then closes it, sighs explosively and says, “All right, fair enough. But you’re the strategy pro here. And my thing is RPGs.” He smirks. “I can improvise.”

And Madara does, in fact, improvise, leading Tobirama on what he hopes is a satisfying daylong adventure. It’s strange, walking by themselves around Konoha without anyone else with them (not that they’ve taken to ignoring Hashirama and Mito anyway on their most recent group outings), free to talk about and do anything they want. Strange and perfect, the way Tobirama switches between poorly concealed bashfulness and his usual confidence, as their jokes and jibes at each other, every little prank they pull never fails to make them both laugh.

It’s perfect.

Just like Tobirama’s smile is, directed at him without any pretenses as they set off to explore the lush, gigantic forest surrounding the city, rumored to be home to mythical, many-tailed creatures. And that’s followed by their forays into an abandoned chemistry lab; the scares they get in the woods from intermittent growls coming from the shadows are nothing compared to the horror Madara feels when Tobirama insists on touching broken vials and experimental equipment, and going through doors with dilapidated ‘DANGER. CHEMICAL HAZARD’ signs.

“If we’re infected by some deadly and insidious poison,” Madara whispers as they explore the lab’s tunnels, “I’m going to fucking kill you before it does. Painfully.”

“It’s for science,” Tobirama says. “And trust me. We’re safe. I got a degree in this.”

“Youtube is practically your full-time job at this point. What the fuck else do you need?”

“The satisfaction of discovering something cool?”

“And deadly.”

"Unlikely.”

Madara groans, cursing his life, as well as his inability to say no to hisーapparentlyーnew boyfriend.

The boyfriend who’s just discovered another hidden pathway to a deeper level and has scurried off towards it like an excited five-year-old. Despite himself, despite his intent to keep complaining, Madara can’t hold back the grin tugging at his lips.

Still perfect.

Just like their lunch date which turns into a picnic by the Naka river, where Madara remembers meeting Hashirama way back when. Just like the first time Tobirama grasps his hand, fingers gently massaging it as he laughs at Madara stuttering to a stop from whatever rant he’d been on, heart in his throat and mind suddenly focused on whether his palms are too sweaty or not.

His mind goes blank. Eyes focus only on the man in front of him, whom he yearns to strangle just as often as he craves to tackle him onto any surface and ruin him completely. And it should feel wrong, it should be, only Madara hasn’t quite felt so right about anything in a long time, and with every minute they spend with their familiar bickering, just with a layer of something more behind it this time, it becomes harder and harder to deny how good being near Tobirama makes him feel. Happy. Complete.

Madara winces. Oh, gods. He’s waxing poetic now.

All worries about that fly out the window when Tobirama, without so much as a word of warning, leans in and draws Madara by his collar into a kiss.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t spring up to awaken alone in his bed like he always does, after dreams like these.

And, unsurprisingly, it turns out to be Madara’s best kiss to date.

Maybe he’s exaggerating, if just because he’s been craving this so damn much. Tobirama’s lips are hot, gentle, and welcoming against his, a curious tongue darting out to coax Madara’s lips open and deepen the kiss. The delightful drag of his tongue, his hands, rough and demanding on Madara’s chest, waist, thighsーit’s not long before he’s dizzy with it, barely holding back moans of pleasure for fear of sounding too desperate.

“Fuck,” Madara gasps as they pull away for breath, lips still touching as their eyes stay locked and he’s treated to Tobirama’s downright ravenous gaze. “That wasー”

Tobirama cuts him off with another kiss, then another, and it’s not long before they find themselves tangled in a mess of limbs and loose clothing. The hard ground presses against Madara’s back as Tobirama settles on top of him, ravaging Madara’s mouth with a passion that soon has his pants feeling too tight.

Fuck.

He groans, hips thrusting of their own accord and feeling Tobirama's own erection through the fabric.

Madara makes an immense effort to pull away, stifling a whine at the loss of contact.

“Bed,” he says, mortified at his own crudeness far too late after the word comes out. “Fuck, I meantー”

“Yes,” Tobirama growls, capturing Madara’s lips in another open-mouthed kiss before he hauls him up to start gathering their things. “Your place or mine?”

“Yours? Izuna,” Madara rasps, head too clouded to explain more in-depth, but Tobirama seems to understand.

“Anija shouldn’t be back for a while,” Tobirama says, a devastating grin on his face, “lots of time for us to play.”

Gods.

Madara scrambles to his feet fast enough to stumble, and for once, Tobirama has nothing to say about his clumsiness.

They all but crash through the front door, not even bothering to lock it as they rush through a cursory check to make sure Hashirama is out like he said he’d be.

“Fuck, thank the gods,” Tobirama sighs in relief before dragging Madara back into liplock.

Madara can’t hold back a moan this time, heat ratcheting up between them as he wraps his hands around Tobirama’s neck, pulling him closer as they stumble to the couch. Madara ends up straddling him just so that their cocks brush through too-rough clothing, kiss growing urgent and sloppy, as wandering hands touching every inch of uncovered skin.

Clothes fall away, leaving them both shirtless, and Madara needs a few moments to take in the miles of pale skin, so soft to the touch, toned muscles rippling as Tobirama squirms under him, gasps and groans escaping his lips in answer to every one of Madara’s touches. He leans in to mouth Tobirama’s neck, sucking bruising kisses onto the soft skin there pleasure flaring at the base of his stomach each time Tobirama moans and arches against him.

“You’re so sensitive,” Madara whispers, with a hint of incredulity. “That’s... fuck.”

“Yeah,” Tobirama rasps, eyes unfocused, “because... just get on with it.”

“If I knew this is what it took to finally get you to shut up,” Madara chuckles, “I would have tried this a long time ago.”

If he weren’t so sure Tobirama genuinely despised him. Butー

“I fucking wished you would!” Tobirama snaps, though the irritation rings hollow with the breathless tone.

Madara blinks in shock.

“You did?” Madara asks, moving lower to lap at Tobirama’s nipple, sucking the hardened nub into his mouth and eliciting another delicious whimper. “You thought about this? About my hands on you, touching you?”

“Yes!” The desperation in his tone only adds to Madara’s mounting confidence, one that he so rarely ever feels in Tobirama’s presence.

“My mouth on your cock,” he continues, heart hammering against his ribs as he trails kisses lower and lower, “would you like that? While I finger you, getting you ready to take me?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Tobirama’s hips jerk, making them both moan at the friction.

“Off,” Madara grunts, tugging at Tobirama’s pants with one hand as the other works the belt off his own. They scramble, a bit awkwardly, until they’re both naked and sprawled on top of each other, and Madara all but drools at the sight of Tobirama’s cock, hard and straining, beads of precum already leaking from the tip.

Perfect.

It’s tempting to just let go but Madara decides to take his time. Strokes Tobirama’s sides and chest, fingers his nipples, kisses every inch of skin he can reach, sucking bruises and biting slightly. He marvels at every little keen and groan he wrings from Tobirama, relishing how needy he grows with each second, how he moans Madara’s name, curses him and urges Madara to touch him, sliding his dick against his and huffing when Madara doesn’t do anything about it, before finally devolving into pleading.

Just what Madara’s been waiting for.

“Madara, please,” Tobirama’s whines, a soft, desperate sound that makes Madara groan in turn.

“Please what?” he asks, knowing he’s being a tease and enjoying the hell out of it.

Tobirama musters a pretty non-intimidating glare. “Just... fuck.”

“Tell me.”

“Fuck you.”

“Is that what you want?” Madara raises an eyebrow, making sure to wet his lips, letting his tongue gently graze the head of Tobirama’s cock. “I can bottom. I don’t mind.”

“Fuck!” Tobirama squeezes his eyes shut, heavy breathing interspersed with desperate whines. “Just... suck me off. Please. Now.”

“That’s it, Tobirama,” Madara drags out the syllables of his name, a smirk tugging at his lips, “when you ask so nicely, how can I refuse?”

He wraps his lipsーfinallyーaround the head, licking at the salty fluid gathered there, ears ringing from the heady feel of Tobirama’s cock against his mouth, his hands tangling in Madara’s hair, the sounds slipping from Tobirama’s lips that are borderline fucking obscene. Madara takes a breath to brace himself and takes Tobirama a few inches deeper. His length is hot, stiff, and heavy in his mouth as Madara presses the flat of his tongue against the underside, sucking hard, wringing another delectable whimper. Tobirama’s thrusts up, cock hitting the back of his throat, and Madara chokes for a moment, his own dick jerking at the sensation.

“Madara,” Tobirama breathes, “Madara, gods, you feel amazing.”

The words send another rush of pleasure through him, and Madara takes himself in hand to release some of the unbearable tension, stroking himself slowly as he relaxes his throat and sinks down to take Tobirama to the base.

Tobirama’s moan is a sweet, drawn-out melody. One that Madara enjoys making louder and louder as he starts moving, setting a fast-paced rhythm, uncaring for how debauched he may look, drool leaking out of his mouth and coating Tobirama’s cock, throat constricting around it as he takes him deep, lets him stay there, tongue gliding along his shaft. Tobirama soon devolves into barely coherent pleading, until ‘please’, and ‘more’, and Madara’s name are the only words coming out of his mouth.

It’s intoxicating. Overwhelming, far too much. Madara gives up stroking himself, the pleasure ramping up far too quickly, too soon, though Tobirama isn’t doing much better. Madara draws his lips up along his length, lapping up more precum gathered at the head, even as Tobirama’s hips jerk again and the hand in Madara’s hair tightens, urging him back down.

“Madara, please,” Tobirama keens, “I need...”

Madara has a pretty good idea of what he needs. He swirls his tongue over the head, descending again until his nose is pressed against Tobirama’s stomach. Madara swallows around him once, twice, a third time before he feels Tobirama nudging at his shoulder in a warning he doesn’t pay heed to, starting to bob his head again, wrapping his fingers around the base of Tobirama’s cock, using both his mouth and hand to bring him to completion.

“Fuck, Madara, Iー”

Madara lets out a muffled groan once he feels cum spilling against his tongue, swallowing rapidly as Tobirama’s cock pulses, again and again, through an orgasm that has him writhing and and trembling underneath him, hands tightening in Madara’s hair enough to hurt with the kind of tantalizing pain that only adds to the pleasure.

“You feel so fucking good,” Tobirama pants, watching Madara through white lashes, eyes dark and hazy as another shudder runs through him, “fuckーI want...”

Madara releases him with a wet pop. “Want what, Tobirama?” he whispers, voice too hoarse for him to speak properly.

Tobirama grips his shoulders in lieu of an answer, directing Madara to turn around so his back is pressed against his chest.

Then Tobirama’s hand wraps around his cock andーoh.

Madara has pretty much forgotten about his own pleasure, too focused on not coming too soon and making sure Tobirama was enjoying himself.

“My turn,” Tobirama murmurs against his ear, tone still breathless but with a commanding edge to it now that makes Madara shiver, “and lemmeーlet me hear you, Madara.”

Gods. He groans just from the sound of Tobirama’s voice. The feel of his teeth nibbling at his earlobe, his hand setting a quick, harsh rhythm that builds up the pleasure to impossible degrees. Tobirama’s heated skin pressed against his back, his thighs, the fingers of his other hand carding through his hair with a gentleness that contrasts with his harshness before.

It’s too much.

“Go on, Madara.”

Tobirama’s fingers swiping at the precome gathering at the head of Madara’s cock, smearing it over his shaft. His voice, a muffled whisper coaxing Madara to let go, to come for him, to say Tobirama’s nameー

“Just like that, Madara,” Tobirama grunts, “louder for me, come on.”

Madara thrusts into his grip, all but fucking into Tobirama’s fist at this point, moans his name as the heat grows unbearable the closer he gets to release.

“To-bi-rama...” He comes with a broken groan slipping from his lips as cum spills all over his stomach and Tobirama’s hand, each pulse coming stronger than the last, leaving him dizzy and boneless in Tobirama’s arms for however long it takes for his orgasm to abate.

Feels like forever. Probably a lot less. Time does seem to slow down, though, both of them collapsing against each other onto the cushions, breathing raggedly and curling into each other as Madara turns to bury his head in the crook of Tobirama’s neck.

It still seems unreal. Too perfect. So right.

They lie there for a minutes, coming down from the high, limbs tangled and lazy kisses exchanged here and there. Tobirama looks so peaceful, like Madara’s never seen him before: eyes half-lidded, hair messier than ever, sticking in every direction, skin still flushed and marked, all over, with hickeys and teeth marks, the mere sight of which has Madara’s dick stirring in interest, recent orgasm or no.

“You know,” Madara says, hands running over Tobirama’s chest, barely grazing his still sensitive nipples and making him shiver, “if this is the game you want to play, I’m really not against binging it. The rest of the dayーweekend, if you want.” Madara presses a kiss to Tobirama’s neck. “Make the playthrough as thorough as possible.” To his collarbone. “Unlock all achievements and, uh,” Madara trails his hand along Tobirama’s chest to his groin, past his length and to his ass, "explore every location.”

“If that was some thinly veiled euphemism,” Tobirama says, barely holding in laughter, “for you wanting to fuck me sideways...” Madara holds Tobirama’s gaze as his fingers hover just over Tobirama’s hole. “Then Madara, for fuck’s sake, stop trying to be subtle and get to work.”

Madara barks out a laugh.

“Whatever you say, Tobirama.”

Madara dips his voice low and deep, like he’s noticed Tobirama loves, and relishes the whimper it earns him. Relishes the way Tobirama arches against him, looking for friction, how delectable he looks, ready and responsive, so eager for Madara’s touch.

He knows then and there that if it’s up to him, Madara will do anything to make this last.

#madatobi #tobimada #modern au #youtuber au #lou writes #idiots in love #madara is in denial (and thirsting)#tobirama is laughing (and equally thirsting) from the sidelines #fluff and smut #humor #meow

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thesportssoundoff · 5 years ago

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“The Doughy Boys headline a better than you’d figure card” UFC Fight Night: Blaydes vs JDS Preview

Joey

January 20th

UFC 246 was a bit of a throw together endeavor, an attempt to get Conor McGregor on the card to start the year and using his name while he was still available and interested in fighting. In many ways, THIS was the original start of the year and it shows as this card, even with a mountain of injuries and fighters yanked, is pretty damn solid. At the top of the billing you have a solid HW fight between Curtis Blaydes and Junior Dos Santos with a damn fine co-main event pitting two massive LWs who have found consistent homes at WW with RDA vs Chiesa. The rest of the card has been picked apart due to injuries (and the Edgar yank) but there's still plenty of good with Arnold Allen vs Nik Lentz and an all action fight between Angela Hill and Hannah Cifers being trademark fights on the bill. We've even got yet another flyweight fight as Jordan Espinosa welcomes Alex Perez back down 10 lbs. The prelims are what they are but there's some intriguing prospects to keep an eye on here and the return of Sara McMann. It's not perfect but it'll do, I suppose!

2020 Stat-O-Matic:

Debuting Fighters (1-1): Tony Gravely, Nate Lewhwher, Herbert Burns, Jamahal Hill Main Event Exemption:

Short Notice Fighters (): Dequan Townsend, Angela Hill Main Event Exemption:

Second Fight (1-0): Dequan Townsend Main Event Exemption: Vs Debutantes:

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (2-0): Sara McMann, Justine Kish, Brett Johns Main Event Exemption (1-0):

Undefeated Fighters (1-1): Jamahal Hill Main Event Exemption:

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (1-1): Main Event Exemption:

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (): Nik Lentz, Alex Perez Main Event Exemption ():

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- If the rumors are true about Stipe Miocic maybe looking towards retiring due to eye injuries, does that intrigue you more as it pertains to this main event? If Stipe retires then it's fair to wonder if Cormier has any reason to stick around. Cormier is a two time LHW champ and a former HW champ and so realistically could he just convince himself that no Stipe = no reason to fight? If so then it may be worth wondering if this is a pseudo tournament fight where the winner of this fight faces the winner of Rozenstruik vs Ngannou. Does that make this fight more appealing to anybody?

2- Outside of Cain, JDS has normally done really well against wrestlers (look at Stipe's takedown numbers) and outside of Ngannou, Blaydes has normally done real well against strikers. Both guys have been wobbled in fights they eventually won (JDS vs Lewis/Tai Tuavasa, Blaydes vs Hunt) and I think it's fair to suggest that this is a pretty well put together matchup with a bit of a high lean for boredom if it becomes a Blaydes type fight.

3- On a realer note, does JDS vs Werdum still have an appeal to anybody? Feels like win or lose, that would be a logical next step for JDS?

4- A bit ago, posted a link to a sites top fighters of all time and RDA was on it quite high up. While it came off like I have an issue with RDA, I really was more surprised that he's THAT highly acclaimed. I've always assumed RDA was a bit of an overlooked commodity by fight fans but I guess I read the read at least one side of the room wrong. There's no doubt RDA has one of MMA's best resumes and what's really cool about it is that RDA is still fighting at a really high level now into his 3rd decade and with little sign that he's about to hit a wall from a fighter standpoint. He's sort of transitioned into a high level MMA kingmaker (beat him you've beaten a significant name) and if you beat him, it probably means you're going places in your division. As such this is a pretty damn important fight for Michael Chiesa who is 2-0 at WW and looks massive for the weight class. If Chiesa beats RDA then no matter how you feel about his limitations on the feet, you're looking at three wins in a row over name competition. It's a damn good fight for both guys.

5- Is Hannah Cifers the most unassuming main card fighter in UFC history?

6- Did we ever get a solution on Arnold Allen's legal issues that made him getting a visa impossible for a bit? I'm guessing we did because he fought in Vegas last time but it feels like this is going to continue to linger over his head otherwise.

7- Is Alex Perez fighting for a #1 contender fight when he takes on veteran Jordan Espinosa? Perez has one loss in the UFC and it's to Benavidez in Joseph's first finish in over four years. Perez rebounded to get a win and it's worth remembering that he's probably the most talented fighter outside of the Formiga/Benavidez/Figueredo trilogy at the top of the division. He may not be too far off with a win.

8- Herbert Burns is the younger wilder unrefined version of his brother Gilbert but that's led to some pretty exciting performances outside of the UFC. On the Contender's Series, he didn't look great prior to turning the tables around and subbing a guy off his back to earn his contract. I don't know if he has Gilbert's upside but his fights figure to be plenty exciting in the UFC. He faces fellow debutante Nate Landwehr who has been dominating M-1 out in Russia.

9- Montel Jackson is a tough fighter to wrap your head around at this point. He's very much a raw but talented underdeveloped talent who is essentially getting on the job training in the UFC. He doesn't always have a plan of attack to make good on his many physical tools and he's one of the many prospects in the UFC currently who is very clearly in need of MMA slowing down for him in order for him to utilize his length, reach, wrestling and striking chops. He draws Felipe Corrales who is a solid dependable fighter out of Brazil and while I'd say "Montel should win this one", it's hard to say that definitively given how raw Jackson is. He's got tools to really make noise.

10- Brett Johns being back is a good thing for 135 lbs. He's coming off two rough losses and took a year off I suppose to recharge and refocus. Really interesting to see how he looks against quality regional vet Tony Graveley who gets in via the Contenders Series.

11- Bevon Lewis has been such a bust in the UFC but I'm not giving up hope just yet! He draws DeQuan Townsend on the prelims in a fight he pretty much HAS to win.

12- It wasn't all that long ago that Sara McMann was still considered a potential title challenger to be. McMann has always had all of the tools (including a really good striking base) but has lacked that added quality to get people over the hump with losses to the likes of Meisha Tate and Ketlein Veira where she pretty much snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. She's been out of the scene starting a family but returns to the mix with a fight against Lina Lansberg who she should in theory have a significant edge over in just about every department.

#MMA #UFC

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kbrown78 · 6 years ago

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Yearly Wrap Up: 2018

Sorry this post is so late, it took awhile to get all the information I needed and I kept going back and forth on the format I wanted to do for this post, but I finally have an end result I am happy with. In this post I will be going over all the books I read in 2018, all the stats, completion of 2018 reading goals as well as 2019 reading goals. Also fair warning, this is going to be a long post. So to begin with I'll talk about my 2018 reading goals and of I was able to accomplish them. This year was the first year that I did the Goodreads Challenge, I thought it would be good to see how many books I could read in a year. My initial goal was 50 books and I ended up reading 80 books, so I was definitely able to tackle my Goodreads goal. Unfortunately that was the only reading challenge I was able to finish. One of my reading resolutions for 2018 was to finish a reading challenge and I did that with the Goodreads one, but I also did the PopSugar 2018 Reading Challenge. That one provided a large number of reading prompts that I hoped would help expand the genre of the books I was reading (which was another reading resolution of mine) and of the 50 prompts I was only able to complete 34, which is not bad, it's more than half, but I still wanted to complete all of them. As I mentioned I wanted to expand the genre of books that I read, since I mostly read YA fantasy, and I do think I achieved that goal by trying to read more adult fantasy, science fiction, different fantasy sub genre's, and a few books in other genres, but I will go more into that when I do a break down of all the books I read this year. I also wanted to go to more book events and that did not really happen. I only went to 1 this year and the rest I was unable to go to for various reasons, so I need to get better with planning in order to go to more events this year. I did want to be more active in the book community and I definitely think I achieved that, with providing regular posts and book reviews. I was originally going to do a channel on YouTube but I suck with editing software and I honestly prefer writing. Finally my #1 resolution for 2018 was to tackle all the books in my physical TBR, with books from 2017 and 2018, I was able to narrow down my overflowing basket to just 5 books. Since I now have a rule where I have to read 10 books before I buy a new one (holiday's are an exception) I'll probably have the rest of those books read by the end of 2019, so that all new books in my TBR pile will all be from 2019. Now that I've summarized my status on all my reading goals for 2018, I'm now going to start going into the actual books. I'll begin by listing all the books I've read and putting them in different groups based on their star ratings. Then I'm going to go into the statistics of all the books, like genre, authors, status, and other things.

Ratings:

5 Star Books: These are without a doubt my favorite books of the year, the cream of the crop, and some of them are possibly my new favorite books or series of all time.

A Natural History of Dragons (Memoirs of Lady Trent #1) by Marie Brennan, The Tropic of Serpents (Memoirs of Lady Trent) by Marie Brennan, The Tethered Mage (Swords and Fire #1) by Melisa Caruso, The Defiant Heir (Swords and Fire #2) by Melisa Caruso, East by Edith Pattou, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu, Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire, Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children #3) by Seanan McGuire, The Star Touched Queen (Star Touched Queen #1) by Roshani Chokshi, Crown of Wishes (Star Touched Queen #2) by Roshani Chokshi, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers

4.5 Star Books: These are the books that I did really love and couldn't find much fault with but I couldn't fully connect to the story (would still recommend all).

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire #1) by C.J. Redwine, The Voyage of the Basilisk (Memoirs of Lady Trent #3) by Marie Brennan, Rosemary and Rue (October Daye #1) by Seanan McGuire, The Call by Peadar O'Guilin, Robots vs Fairies

4 Star Books: This one is a bit split because some are books that are solidly 4 stars and lean more toward the 4.5 star rating, and other were saved by a fantastic ending from a 3.5 star rating. There are things that could have been improved on within the story but overall I enjoyed reading all of them.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children #2) by Seanan McGuire, Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi, Vivian Apple at the End of the World (Vivian Apple #1) by Katie Coyle, A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1), Ice Like Fire (Snow Like Ashes #2) by Sara Raasch, Frost Like Night (Snow Like Ashes #3) by Sara Raasch, Uppity Women Speak Their Minds by Vicki Leon, Invisible Planets translated by Ken Liu, In the Labyrinth of Drakes (Memoirs of Lady Trent #4) by Marie Brennan, Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) by Becky Chambers, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (Harry Potter #1) by J.K Rowling, Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs, Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity #1) by Elizabeth Wein, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

3.5 Star Books: This is a bit of an unusual rating because it usually means that I was expecting to be disappoint by these books, and while there were still issues that I couldn't ignore, I surprisingly enjoyed.

The Registry (The Registry #1) by Shannon Stoker, Caliban's War (The Expanse #2) by James S.A. Corey, Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes #1) by Sara Raasch, You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo

3 Star Books: These were books that I thought were decent, but they had flaws in them that I was unable to over look.

A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas, Walk on Earth a Stranger (Gold Seer #1) by Rae Carson, Like a River Glorious (Gold Seer #2) by Rae Carson, Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha) by Tomi Adeyemi, An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard, After: 19 Stories of Dystopian and Apocalypse, Illuminae (The Illuminae Files) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn #1) by Renee Ahdieh, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor #1) by Mark Lawerence, Sabriel (The Abhorsen #1) by Garth Nix, Monstress Volume 3: The Blood by Marjorie Liu, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, Nightfall by Jake Halpern and Peter Kujawinski

2.5 Star Books: These are books that I had a lot of issues with but were redeemable enough that I would still give them a try.

The Collection (The Registry #2) by Shannon Stoker, Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1) by Kendare Blake, Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #3) by Laini Taylor, The Bone Witch (The Bone Witch #1) by Rin Chupeco

2 Star Books: These are books that I had lot of issues with but it didn't upset me enough to make me want to quit it. These books and downward I personally wouldn't recommend reading, but that's just my opinion.

Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda Rodrigez McRobbie, Days of Blood and Starlight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #2) by Laini Taylor, Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (Vivian Apple #2) by Katie Coyle, The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking Trilogy #1) by Patrick Ness, Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1) by James S.A. Corey, Bitterblue (Graceling #3) by Kristin Cashore, Sandry's Book (Circle of Magic #1) by Tamora Pierce, Lirael (Abhorsen #2) by Garth Nix, Torn (The Unraveled Kingdom #1) by Rowena Miller, Into the Bright Unknown (Gold Seer #3) by Rae Carson, Front Lines by Michael Grant, American God's by Neil Gaiman, The Falconer (The Falconer #1) by Elizabeth May

1 Star Books: These, sadly, are the bottom of the barrel. I had a hard time finding good qualities with these books and some of them I got so frustrated by I ended up quiting them.

The Wicked and the Divine Volume 1: The Faust Act, Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2) by Victoria Schwab, Truthwitch (The Witchlands #1) by Susan Dennard, Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle #2) (DNF) by Libba Bray, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides, Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky #1) by Veroncia Rossi, The Library at Mount Char (DNF) by Scott Hawkins, Daughters of the Storm (Blood and Gold #1) (DNF) by Kim Wilkins, The Legend of Holly Claus by Brittney Ryan, Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)(DNF) by Ann Leckie (I didn't hate this book, it was just too weird and confusing to carry on)

Statistics:

This is the part where I'll break down authors (gender and ethnicity), status (finished or not finished, companion, stanalone, special cases), and genre of the books.

AUTHORS: (Not counting anthologies with multiple authors, also series counts as one)

Male: 16

Female: 42

White: 48

POC: 10

STATUS:

Finished (If the book was part of a series that ended than had a companion series follow it, I'm still counting that as a finished series, also I'm counting anything 2 or more books as a series): 8 (A Court of Thorns and Roses, Gold Seer, Monsters of Verity, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Vivian Apple, Snow Like Ashes, Ignite Me)

Unfinished and Completed (Unfinished means that I haven't finished reading the series, uncompleted means that all the books in the series haven't been released yet): 12 (Gemma Doyle (won't be completing), The Knife of Never Letting Go (won't be completing), The Wrath and the Dawn (won't be completing), The Facloner (won't be completing), Under the Never Sky (won't be completing), Abhorsen, Memoirs of Lady Trent, Imperial Radch (won't be completing), Harry Potter, Front Lines (won't be completing), The Registry, Circle of Magic (won't be completing))

Unfinished and Uncompleted: 10 (Legacy of Orisha, The Witchlands (won't be completing), The Bone Witch (won't be completing), The Expanse, Swords and Fire, Book of the Ancestor (won't be completing), The Unraveled Kingdoms, Three Dark Crowns (won't be completing), October Daye, Blood and Gold (won't be completing))

Companion series: 8 (Wayfarers, Wayward Children, Star Touched Queen, The Illuminae Files, Code Name Verity, Graceling, Nightfall, Ravenspire)

Stand Alone (includes non fiction): 13 (Princesses Behaving Badly, Beauty Queens, An Unkindness of Magicians, Uprooted, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Uppity Women Speak Their Minds, The Virgin Suicides, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, You Are A Badass, The Library at Mount Char, American Gods, The Red Tent, The Legend of Holly Claus)

Anthologies/ Short Story Collections: 6 (After: 19 Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Robots Vs Fairies, Invisible Planets, Tales of the Peculiar, The Language of Thorns)

Comics/ Graphic Novels: 2 (Monstress Vol 3: The Blood and the Wicked and the Divine Vol 1: The Faust Act)

Special cases (Special cases are for books that I'm leaving as a self contained standalone even though they have a sequel): 2 (East by Edith Pattou, The Call by Peadar O'Guilin)

GENRE: I'm going based off of where these books are shelved in stores, even if I don't agree with some of them.

YA: 44

Adult: 33

Fantasy: 42 (A Court of Wings and Ruin (Epic fantasy/ Romance)(YA), Every Heart a Doorway (Portal fantasy/ Contemporary fantasy/ Mystery)(A), Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Gothic fantasy/ Mythic fantasy)(A), Beneath the Sugar Sky (Portal fantasy)(A), Walk on Earth a Stranger (Historical fantasy)(YA), Like a River Glorious (Historical fantasy/ Romance)(YA), Into the Bright Unknown (Historical fantasy/ Romance)(YA), A Crown of Wishes (Epic fantasy)(YA), Day's of Blood and Starlight (Epic fantasy/ Portal fantasy)(YA), Dreams of God's and Monsters (Portal fantasy/ Epic fantasy)(YA), Children of Blood and Bone (Epic fantasy)(YA), Truthwitch (Epic fantasy/ Romance), A Great and Terrible Beauty (Historical fantasy/ Portal fantasy)(YA), Rebel Angels (Historical fantasy/ Portal fantasy/ Romance)(YA), The Bone Witch (Epic fantasy/ Romance) (YA), The Wrath and the Dawn (Retelling/ Romance/ Historical fantasy)(YA), East (Retelling/ Historical fantasy/ Romance)(YA), The Falconer (Historical fantasy, Steampunk, Romance)(YA), Uprooted (Epic fantasy/ Retelling)(A), Tales of the Peculiar (Fairy tales/ Short stories)(YA), The Tethered Mage (Epic fantasy/ Mystery)(A), The Defiant Heir (Epic fantasy)(A), The Library at Mount Char (Urban fantasy), Circle of Magic: Sandry's Book (Children's fantasy)(YA), Sabriel (Epic fantasy/ Gothic fantasy)(YA), Lirael (Epic fantasy/ Gothic fantasy)(YA), The Star Touched Queen (Retelling/ Romance/ Epic fantasy)(YA), Nightfall (Thriller/ Low fantasy)(YA), Monstress (Epic fantasy/ Horror/ Comic)(A), The Wicked and the Divine (Urban fantasy/ Mythology/ Comic)(YA), Torn (Romance/ Epic fantasy)(A), Three Dark Crowns (Epic fantasy/ Gothic fantasy/ Romance)(YA), Rosemary and Rue (Urban fantasy/ Mystery)(A), A Natural History of Dragons (Fantasy of Manners)(A), The Tropic of Serpents (Fantasy of Manners)(A), The Voyage of the Basilisk (Fantasy of Manners)(A), In the Labyrinth of Drakes (Romance/ Fantasy of Manners)(A), American Gods (Urban fantasy)(A), Daughters of the Storm (Epic fantasy)(A), The Shadow Queen (Retelling)(YA), The Legend of Holly Claus (Juevnile fantasy)(YA), The Language of Thorns (Retelling/ Short Stories)(YA)

Science Fiction: 10 (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Soft SF)(A), A Closed and Common Orbit (Soft SF/ Biopunk)(A), Record of a Spaceborn Few (Soft SF/ Generation Ships)(A), Leviathan Wakes (Space Opera/ Crime Noir/ Alien Invasion)(A), Caliban's War (Space Opera/ Alien Invasion)(A), Invisible Planets (Anthologies/ Translated/ Soft SF/ Hard SF)(A), Ancillary Justice (Hard SF/ Space Opera)(A), Under the Never Sky (Survival/ Romance)(YA), The Knife of Never Letting Go (Survival/ Alien)(YA), Illuminae (Survival/ Soft SF/ Cyberpunk)(YA)

Science Fantasy: 3 (contains magic and technology): 3 (The Paper Menagerie (Short stories)(A), Robots vs Fairies (Anthologies)(A), Red Sister (Grim dark fantasy/ Epic fantasy)(A))

Dystopian/ Post Apocalypse: 8 (survival's the name of the game): Our Dark Duet (urban fantasy/ post apocalyptic)(YA), Vivian Apple at the End of the World (Contemporary/ apocalyptic)(YA), Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (Contemporary/ apocalyptic)(YA), After (Anthology/ dystopian/ apocalyptic), The Registry (Dystopia/ Action)(YA), The Collection (Dystopia)(YA), Ignite Me (Dystopian/ Science fiction/ Romance)(YA), The Call (Contemporary fantasy/ Portal fantasy/ Horror/ Apocalyptic)(YA))

Literary Fiction (lacks magic or new technology): 6 (Beauty Queens (Contemporary/ Satire)(YA), Code Name Verity (Historical fiction)(YA), Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Philosophical fiction)(A), The Virgin Suicides (Contemporary)(A), Front Lines (Alternate history/ historical)(YA), The Red Tent (Historical/ Biblical fiction)(A), The Giving Tree (Poetry)(YA))

Non Fiction: 4 (Princesses Behaving Badly, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Uppity Women Speak Their Minds, You Are a Badass)

2019 Goals:

I did a T5W outlining my 2019 reading goals, and I promised I would talk about them more in this post. So I'm going to conclude my Yearly Wrap Up post by discussing what I hope to accomplish in my 2019 reading year. For starters I have a goal that I'm carrying over from 2018 and that is to read a wider genre of books. I wanted to accomplish this last year, but going into 2019 I have a better idea of what specific genre's I would like to try more of. This year I really started to transition from YA fantasy to Adult fantasy, but I haven't given up on YA yet. I want to try some YA contemporary and magical realism, but as of right now I only have specific picks in mind for this. I want to read more historical fiction and historical fantasy, like the Golem and the Jinni. I enjoy reading about settings from different time periods, especially if they have magical elements, I just need to be careful about finding books that don't get heavy handed with a crappy romance. I want to read more science fiction, specifically Adult Science fiction, since I haven't come across a YA science fiction that intrigues me. I'm sill trying to learn what exactly I like in science fiction, but I know I like character driven stories, like Becky Chamber's series. I knew I would like to attempt the New Weird and Hard science fiction genre's but at the same time I'm a little intimidated by them. I also want to get back into literary fiction, including adult dystopian's and classics. I used to have no problem reading classics and would read 1 or 2 a month, then I just got burned out by it, but I want to pick up that genre again. In terms of fantasy, I still expect that to be the genre that I read the most of put there are still some things I would like out of 2019. I've already said that I'm leaning more toward Adult fantasy and wanting to read more historical fantasy, but I would also like to read more fantasy standalone's. That's something I wanted to do in 2018 but sadly did not find any new ones that I really loved. I also want to read more anthologies or short story collections, in any genre really, because that was something that I discovered that I really liked in 2018 and want more of. The next reading goal I want to accomplish in 2019 is to complete is to finish at least 5 series. For this I'm counting anything that is 3 books or more as a series. I finished 7 series in 2018 but 2 of those were duologies, and I feel like those are super easy to finish. There are several series that I started I won't be completing or the series isn't completed yet. Fortunately most of the series that aren't completed yet I already know I'm not going to continue, and the rest are either being completed this year or have a large number of books that I need to get through for me to catch up with the series. With that being said there are at least 3 series that I will definitely be finishing this year: the Memoirs of Lady Trent, The Registry, and the Swords and Fire series, and I have also already completed one series, so this is goal I can definitely tackle by the end of the year, maybe even half way through the year. Something else I want to accomplish this year was to go to at least two book events, but that's going to be difficult to do. Most of the bigger book events or conventions, are over 8 hours away. I could also attend book signing events but all of the others that I want signatures from are either not doing events or are doing ones not within a close driving distance for me. That might change as the year progresses, but for now I'm not expecting to be able to accomplish this goal and will instead invest my time in completing a reading challenge, which I was not able to accomplish this year. Another goal for 2019 is to read more diverse books. I want to read more books with POC people as POV characters, or disabled characters, or on the LGBTQ spectrum. I think I've been progressively getting better about that over the years but where I really want to focus on is more diverse authors. As you can see from the statistics section my reading from last year was heavily skewed toward white authors. I want to change that and work toward at least having more POC authors, and almost all the brand new books on my TBR pile are from POC authors and I'm excited to get to most of them (although all authors I've read this year so far are Caucasian). I would also like to read more books by authors that are diverse in other ways beside their ethnicity but it's more difficult to identify those things. Like last year there's only a few couple authors that I'm pretty sure qualify in that way, but I'm not absolutely sure. My final reading major reading goal of 2019 is to get through half of my reread TBR pile. About half way through last year, I decided to go through all my books that I hadn't tabbed and reread them. I wanted to do this for a few reasons. I have a small bookshelf and large container and that's about all the room I have for books, including my non fiction ones. As I read more new books and find new series that I enjoy, that means that there will need to be more room. So rereading books will hopefully help me be able to tell which books I should keep and which ones I should give away. I also want to reread all these books in order to better review them and have a fresh opinion of them. At the beginning of this year I have about 50 books, and I know I'm not going to get through them all this year, so I set a more realistic goal with tackling half of my TBR which would be about 25 books. The last thing I want to talk about is the reading challenge's I'm currently participating in. On Goodreads I have set the yearly amount of books I read to 50. That was my goal last year, and I ended up reading 80 books, so I think setting it at 50 again is something I can manage. I'm also doing the PopSugar 2019 Reading Challenge, which I tried to do last year but failed to complete. How I want to accomplish that this year is by always reading a book that is can be applied to one of the prompts, that way I'm knocking out these prompts as quickly as possible. The last reading challenge I'm doing is a group on Goodreads called The Reading Frenzy, which I joined toward the end of last year. They have several monthly reading challenges, but this year it has been announced that every month there will be a pick my TBR Reading Challenge, which means every month you will be randomly matched with a person, and will pick one book for the other to read that month. I look forward to doing this, just because I like that random element to it, and this will help my slim down my Goodreads TBR (as long as I can get a physical copy of the book). So that sums up my 2018 reading year as well as what all I hope to accomplish in 2019. I look froward to it, and hopefully it's going to be a good year for everyone.

Thank You Everyone

Keep Calm and Keep Reading

#yearly wrap up #books #reading goals #2018 #2019 #reading stats

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the-pen-and-the-stethoscope · 6 years ago

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Step 2 Breakdown

So I know I promised a post about how I approached studying for Step 2 and here it is! Disclaimer is that at this point I don’t know my score so maybe this didn’t work at all, but I mostly want to act as a source of guidance mostly for people who are trying to squeeze the test in with a lot of other things going on at the same time.

Under the break: General stuff up top, including how test day went, and more specific things on the bottom. Feel free to reach out with questions!

General:

I had six weeks. I spent the first four mostly doing OME videos and the last two mostly doing practice blocks.

During the first four weeks I was doing an OB/Gyn Sub-I. I used CramFighter (which I didn’t use before for step 1) because I wanted to re-watch all of the OME videos during that time and I didn’t know how to set them up and space it out so I would get them all done. In the end I think it helped me most with not giving up once I got behind (see below for details).

I took two practice tests (just the UWorld ones), one the first day of my ‘dedicated’ and one a week later. There was a 6 pt improvement from Step 1 on my first practice test, then another 21 point increase between the two tests. At that point I had *technically* a week left to study - but with some big things in between (see below for details). I also did all of my practice blocks during this time on ‘timed tutor’ mode and it was awesome. Mentally the timed part made me go faster, but the tutor part made the reviewing faster. Overall I think I did about 1,300 practice questions outside of the two practice tests.

The day of I was pretty relaxed. The only surprise was the 8 blocks vs 7 (still convinced step 1 was 7 blocks....) but I ended up doing 3 blocks, ten min break, 2 blocks, 30 min lunch break, one block, 5 min break (sitting at the desk), 1 block, ten min break, 1 block. I brought trader joe’s trail mix as a snack (V CLUTCH - WOULD DO AGAIN) and a salad and yogurt for lunch. I made tea for myself and put it in a thermos that I’d borrowed from my friend but umm...her thermos worked too well. I never drank the tea. I got there around 7:15 and was able to start early so was done by about 4:30. Overall I felt good while taking the test, but definitely had a slight panic right after hitting submit. Will let you know how things end up!

What I Used:

1) Online MedEd - videos + printed out all the notes and used them as a textbook of sorts

2) UWorld

That’s it. I used First Aid for step 1 but I HATED the First Aid for step 2 so it was discarded after about two days of trying to use it.

The First Four Weeks:

The OME weeks are where CramFighter helped the most. I tried to watch about 3 hours of videos a day for four weeks, but some days I was tired and some days I got off late and some days I just didn’t fucking feel like it. So I got off schedule, BUT CramFighter was so good at keeping me motivated and also helping me catch up on days I had more time.

On the weekends I tried to do 80 questions (one block each day) to just keep on top of things. I had reset my UWorld at the beginning of this time period. I usually did these as timed blocks, but then I wasn’t the best about going over them afterwards. I wish I had just done them in tutor.

After my sub-i was over I honestly took a weekend off...

The Last Two Weeks:

Day 1: Practice Test. Was legit falling asleep while taking it. I couldn’t even understand half of the questions. I scored higher than I had on step 1.

Days 2-4: 160 questions a day

Day 5: Catch up day for OME, did all the peds and a few surgery videos I’d missed.

Day 6: 80 questions (quite a struggle day)

Day 7: 160 questions

Day 8: Second practice test. Did better than my goal, 27 point increase from step 1 score.

Day 9: OME catch up - did all the stats videos and 80 questions en route to the airport

Day 10-11: Conference, reviewed some old blocks I hadn’t gone over yet

Day 12: 120 questions

Day 13: Day before, did one block of 40 then read over the notes I had been taking while doing practice questions. Also went grocery shopping for ma snacks and made a cheat sheet of things I usually got wrong and really wanted to remember on the test.

Things That Got In the Way:

So I know I mentioned that I had a few things going on while studying and they were:

- My sub-i: remedied this by keeping the studying during the sub-i low key and casual. Doing some videos each day, for me, was as light as I could do while still being productive. I do feel like I was able to manage my time pretty well the whole rotation, especially because I had a pretty easy sub-i schedule.

- Weekend at beach house: This was the weekend after my sub-i ended. Basically there is a big party every summer that my family goes to that weekend and I really wanted to go. I brought stuff with me to study, but didn’t really look at it. I think it would have been nice to be productive, but I also think having the mental break was good for me overall.

- Taylor Swift concert: besides the fact that I literally died and it was the best night of my life I had to squeeze this in the weekend between my two weeks of studying. I actually think I managed this pretty well. The day of in the morning I did OME review videos and then the day after I had my friend drive back so I could do practice questions in the car. That day, though, I did not do as many questions as I wanted because i was just so tired.

- AAFP Conference: This was the big one - the thing that looking forward I was like I hope I don’t regret this. I had set up the conference before scheduling my Step and this was actually the second time I had rescheduled Step so I didn’t have a ton of options for dates or locations. I kinda just had to be like ok we are just going to see how we feel and might not be able to do a lot at the conference. Thankfully, the practice test I took halfway through made me feel pretty confident. Looking back I also really only took one day completely off because I was able to do a little bit of review the first day I was there.

Overall (without knowing my final score) I think I studied smart/well because I knew there were going to be big things getting in the way of my dedicated time so I started earlier than I needed. A lot of my friends while I was on my sub-i kept saying ‘I don’t get why you are studying so much’ but in the back of my mind I knew I wouldn’t have a ton of time those two weeks leading up and I would thank myself later. And I did.

One last thought: During step 1 studying I was a fucking machine. I literally worked ten hours a day for five weeks straight and I was on a perfectly timed schedule that I actually kept up even the week before the test. This was a totally different feeling. I could not have done the same thing I did for step 1. My mind and body were just not used to studying this way anymore. I think that is the biggest difference between the two tests - you just don’t have the stamina and for me it meant less hours a day studying, but maybe you don’t even need as many anyway because you’ve been getting ready for a year.

#medblr #med school #ms4 #step 2 struggles

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your-dietician · 3 years ago

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FINAL: Riverhounds SC 1, Charlotte Independence 0

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/soccer/final-riverhounds-sc-1-charlotte-independence-0/

FINAL: Riverhounds SC 1, Charlotte Independence 0

USL Championship – Atlantic Division

FINAL: Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC 1, Charlotte Independence 0

Match Stats

Match Summary & Takeaways

For the first time in club history, the Riverhounds beat the Charlotte Independence, 1-0, as Anthony Velarde’s goal off a nifty assist from Albert Dikwa at the end of the first half was the difference.

With the win, the Hounds improved its record to 6-4-1 to remain in second place, and in close range of the Atlantic Division’s front-running Tampa Bay Rowdies.

“We had a fair bit of the ball tonight,” Head Coach Bob Lilley stated. “We forced them into a long ball game. Charlotte is usually good at possessing but tonight we weren’t chasing guys. We were so fixated on what happened last game. We dictated the play and never sat back.”

HOW IT HAPPENED

The Hounds were in complete control of the match from the beginning.

How dominant were they?

In the first half, Charlotte didn’t see the net once. Not a single shot on goal or shot attempt.

After 20 minutes, and several chances for the Hounds, it seemed as if it was only a matter of time for someone to score.

Velarde, after being the captain last game at Loudoun, ended up being the man to do it.

“I’ve been here for three years now,” Velarde said. “I’m proud to wear the captain’s band when Bob wants me to. I thought we moved the ball well from right to left tonight. (Kenny) Forbes was able to set Dikwa up well. It was a good team goal for us.”

Velarde has started the past two games and has produced in both.

“I just want to build momentum and help the team. Score and defend. That’s the mentality for a lot of us. We knew it was tough to beat Charlotte, but we came in so aggressive to be successful tonight.”

Riverhounds SC midfielder Anthony Velarde evades Charlotte Independence defenders with the ball at his feet (Photo by Ed Thompson)

Coach Lilley even mentioned in the press conference the work that Albert Dikwa did on both sides of the ball. Not only did he get the game winning assist, but his pressure was a nightmare for the Charlotte backline all game.

In the second half, however, Pittsburgh wasn’t able to completely put away the opposition.

“I was getting very frustrated on the sideline that we weren’t scoring enough. At least we were getting chances but we need more goals to win games. Just more clinical and we can find more space to have open shots.”

Pittsburgh has only been able to produce two goals or more four times.

In order to put away teams, more than one goal is usually needed.

The game ended with Pittsburgh at 16 shots and nine on goal, compared to the Independence’s 6 shots and only one on target.

The one opportunity they had was a chip from Irvin Parra over the hands of Danny Vitiello. Fortunately, Shane Wiedt was able to save the day on the goal line, heading the ball out of bounds. But, these are the games when a team can completely outplay another, but still go away with a tie or even a loss.

Riverhounds defender Shane Wiedt (left) and goalkeeper Danny Vitiello (center) have their eyes on a ball heading into the goal area. Wiedt would clear the ball away to prevent a Charlotte goal. (Photo by Ed Thompson)

Under Lilley and Dan Visser, the Hounds seems to finally be finding a rotation, and subbing on players they can trust to play good consistently.

The past two games, the French winger Louis Perez earn start for the squad, picking up his first professional goal last game at Loudoun.

“I wish we realized sooner he could really help us,” Lilley boasted. “His contributions the past few games have been good. He’s kept his fitness up. He’s solid on possession and tight on the ball. He’s an option going forward.”

Riverhounds SC midfielder/forward Louis Perez (Photo by Ed Thompson)

It’ll be interesting to see if the same goes for Josh Gatt and Ezra Armstrong. Maybe their time will come soon.

More importantly, Pittsburgh stays in second place in the Atlantic Division, now with 20 points. But, Hartford Athletic, Charleston Battery and The Miami FC still sit close behind them with games in hand.

A win at home was vital, as it’s important for any team to establish earning results in their home stadium.

Lilley summed up, stating, “Look, the game ended 1-0, but there was more goals in it for us. We’ll take the three points and we deserved to win. Hopefully we can build on this and get a result down in Charleston.”

Ed Thompson Photo Gallery

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Final numbers from a big three-point night.#UNLEASH #PITvCLT pic.twitter.com/QlQSelx7gL

— Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (@RiverhoundsSC) July 4, 2021

Highlights

Gameday Updates

FINAL – The Riverhounds finally beat the Charlotte Independence on Independence weekend, 1-0. Now they’re 1-7-5 all-time vs Charlotte. Velarde was the lone goal scorer. Second home win for the Hounds on the season.

90′ – Marcelo Palomino who was subbed on 12 minutes ago gets a yellow card. 3 minutes of stoppage time added.

86′ – Tresor Mbuyu and Noah Paravicini are now on for Charlotte. Irvin Parra and Kevin Riascos come out. Hounds still lead 1-0.

83′ – Dikwa dives out with his chest to make a pass to Forbes. Forbes then plays in Cicerone who gets a shot on net but Miller is there again.

Jalen Robinson now on for Alex Dixon.

80′ – Dani Rovira awarded a yellow card now. He strongly disagrees with the call.

78′ – Valentin Sabella comes on for Clay Dimick.

76′ – SHANE WIEDT SAVES THE LEAD!! Vitiello was chipped by Irvin Parra, the goal scorer from the last time these two teams met. Wiedt sprinted back to the goal line and headed the ball out of bounds.

73′ – Noticing Todd Wharton playing more defensive now back on the right side. He can play practically anywhere and that’s why Bob Lilley trusts him so much. Wharton, a veteran is one of the few on this team that have played over 100 USL games.

68′ – Riverhounds make a few subs. Russell Cicerone in for Anthony Velarde and Dani Rovira on for Louis Perez.

66′ – Hugh Roberts with a header off a corner kick gives the Independence their best chance all game. Still don’t have a shot on goal all game but Hounds can’t let them break through now.

61′ – In trying to tie the game, the Independence have changed to a 3-5-2 formation.

.@RiverhoundsSC is putting on an absolute clinic right now in how to control a game. Currently outshooting a good Independence side 14-0, and the only reason it’s still 1-0 with an hour gone is because @DVOtwosix is pulling off save after save.#PITvCLT #UNLEASH

— Nicholas Murray (@NJEMurray) July 4, 2021

56′ – Dikwa with a header on net, yet again Miller makes a tremendous save. He’s been Charlotte’s best player, keeping this a one goal game.

53′ – Brandt Bronico fouls Forbes. Free kick opportunity from about 25 out is taken by Louis Perez but another spectacular save from Miller.

50′ – Dixon with two shots on net in the half so far, both saved by Miller. About 3,300 fans in the stadium tonight I’ve been told.

45′ – Second half begins. Hugh Roberts now down injured. Looks like the away team thinks Dikwa elbowed him.

0s on the left side is what we like to see.#UNLEASH #PITvCLT pic.twitter.com/vUnUhyNez6

— Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (@RiverhoundsSC) July 4, 2021

Half – Riverhounds certainly dominating in play tonight. The Independence don’t even have a shot on goal yet. Hounds have 9 corner kicks and 16 crosses with 66% possession. Could be a 2-0 game for sure.

A classy touch from Albert Dikwa puts the hounds out front. 🌊🐶#PITvCLT | @RiverhoundsSC pic.twitter.com/9qCxaM5hL3

— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) July 4, 2021

45+’ – VELARDE GOAL!! A beautiful cryuff type pass from Dikwa sets up Velarde inside the box. Velarde’s second goal and Dikwa’s second assist on the season. 1-0 Riverhounds at the half.

49′ Independence Substitution:

IN: #35 Blake Pope OUT: #14 Thomas de Villardi#PITvCLT pic.twitter.com/qHTbYWIGAp

— Charlotte Independence (@Independence) July 3, 2021

45′ – 3 minutes of stoppage time added. Thomas de Villardi of Charlotte is injured and walks off the field.

40′ – All Riverhounds right now!! Just can’t get it in! Wharton down the end line sets up Forbes but saved by a defender.

37′ – Todd Wharton issued a yellow card now.

35′ – Velarde with another shot on goal but straight at the keeper. The look on his face shows he knows he can make that shot.

32′ – Great build up play from Griffin and Velarde. Hounds just can’t get one of these in but are getting close.

29′ – Wiedt gets a header off a corner kick cross but doesn’t get all of it. Save for Miller. Miller has 4 SO’s which is second most in the league.

26′ – Louis Perez gets a great chance outside the box but pikes it way over the net. Field goal is good. He used his weak foot instead of his strong foot there.

21′ – I don’t think Danny Griffin has missed a pass yet. He shows great fitness out there, never tired. Hounds look like the slightly better team so far.

16′ – Kevin Riascos on Charlotte gets a yellow card for a foul on Velarde.

14′ – Dikwa trying the bicycle kick for the second time in a row. This time he’s pushed down by the defense in mid air. Fans wanted a PK to be called.

12′ – Shane Wiedt looks so solid centering the back line. He’s been their best defender all season. He has enough technical skill too, where he could play CDM as well.

5′ – Louis Perez looks very confident on the ball already early on. Is this a player that the Hounds could use out on the wing every game? I think it’s a possibility. Will be interesting to see throughout the season if Bob Lilley keeps starting him.

2′ – Hounds give up a dangerous free kick early. Danny Griffin heads it away. Dixon then almost sets up Velarde and goes out for a corner kick.

1′ – Game begins. Velarde and Perez getting another start. Cicerone starting as a sub, but I bet he gets in the second half at some point.

According to the USL Championship website, the Riverhounds are lining up in a 3-5-1-1 and the Independence are out in a 4-4-2.

Out tonight with @JSmith_1187 and @pghsoccernow at @highmarkstadium for @RiverhoundsSC v. @Independence. @SteelArmy is in the house tonight in full force. Weather is perfect. Should be a great matchup. @AHNtoday#UNLEASH #PITvCLT pic.twitter.com/b0XBGZ3uxA

— Ed Thompson (@ThompsonFoto12) July 3, 2021

Starting XI in the Steel City. 👊 🔵 #WeAreCLT #PITvCLT pic.twitter.com/xpWKrBuJ9D

— Charlotte Independence (@Independence) July 3, 2021

Here is how we lineup tonight vs. @Independence on #4thofJulyWeekend! #UNLEASH #PITvCLT pic.twitter.com/eBMnoSwEvm

— Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (@RiverhoundsSC) July 3, 2021

Pregame vibes 📈#UNLEASH #PITvCLT pic.twitter.com/bdixD3K4bi

— Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (@RiverhoundsSC) July 3, 2021

Look for lineups to be posted here along with game updates from Highmark Stadium.

PSN’s Mark Goodman’s preview is up…

Preview: Charlotte on the Mon, Maybe for the Last Time

Preview

Will this continue to be a week of firsts?

The Hounds would now like that to be the case as they’ve never defeated the Independence, a nemesis since they’ve been competing in the USL Championship since 2015.

The Independence (5-4-0) come to Highmark having never lost to the Hounds (5-4-2), with seven wins and five draws in 12 all-time matchups. That includes a meeting May 22 in the Hounds’ home opener, when a first-half goal by Irvin Parra was all the scoring Charlotte needed to escape with a 1-0 win.

Since that early loss, the Hounds have steadied themselves with a 5-2-1 mark, but nothing can be taken for granted in a matchup where the winner will hold sole possession of second place in the Atlantic Division.

In that 2-1 defeat Wednesday at Loudoun United FC, the Hounds did get a spark from Louis Pérez, the first-year pro who scored his first goal in his second start for the club. While it’s likely the lineup will be shuffled again, the Hounds are limited on the back line with Jelani Peters still away on international duty and Jordan Dover still being listed as questionable after missing the past two matches.

Charlotte, which was beaten 2-1 by Miami in their last match, is a different team on the attack than when they last came to Pittsburgh, having added longtime USL goalscorer Dane Kelly. Since joining the Independence, Kelly has four goals in six matches.

Recent PSN Hounds Coverage

Hounds Notebook: Independence Day tradition continues, sort of, and up close with Russell Cicerone

Hounds endure long night, first loss Loudoun United FC and an earful from coach Lilley

Jordan joined the Pittsburgh Soccer Now team in 2020 as a contributor to Riverhounds SC & WPIAL coverage. He is also a current Graduate Assistant at Point Park University in the athletics department, while also obtaining an MBA and MA in Media Communications. Jordan, during his undergrad four years at La Roche University, interned and worked part time for every pro team and several universities in Pittsburgh: Riverhounds SC, Pirates, University of Pittsburgh, La Roche University, Duquesne University, Steelers and the Penguins. With all of these experiences he began to gain a passion to work in sports as a career. Smith played cup soccer for Century United and Beadling during his youth years and also trained with the Riverhounds. He attended South Fayette High School where he helped his team win WPIAL’s and a section title his senior year in 2015, while earning All-Section and All-WPIAL honors.

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things2mustdo · 4 years ago

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The video game industry and culture changed substantially when women started to get involved. Whenever a successful male industry is created, a biological urge to change it comes from those with two X chromosomes. Here are e three ways that women have ruined gaming culture:

1. Inclusiveness

The videogame culture of the 70’s – 00’s was about making fun games to sell to consumers. This could mean controlling Bill and Lance from “Contra” to Duke in “Duke Nukem.” You bought video games that appealed to you and didn’t support the ones you didn’t like. Women don’t understand this basic formula. They would rather screech about a game not including a strong female role model than actually make a video game with a strong female role model.

A female Youtuber named Anita Sarkeesian used this premise to rally for more feminist narratives. A normal alpha would use Kickstarter to make a high budget game that appeals to them. Anita instead spent time begging on Kickstarter and used it to raise over $150,000 dollars to make snarky videos on an iMac. Females always want to be inclusive without putting in the work themselves. One example is this fat lady named Heidi.

This is an example of a woman who wants to write a poly-amorous love triangle in video games instead of working on a new physics engine. It’s also not surprising that she’s a fat single mother with a useless degree. If we had this chick developing games instead of Shigeru Miyamato, Mario would be a transgender Eskimo amputee and he would beat up racist men instead of saving the princess. It would also mean that video game companies would go out of business. Since the type of feminists the “social justice” games would be marketed to rarely support businesses that aren’t clothing, decadent food and media publications. In the big scheme of things, video-game companies need talented men to produce content that would be used to subsidize feminist outreach programs made by the same companies. Every time you see a conference or panel at a convention hosted by a video-game company about getting more women into the industry, you know that these wouldn’t even be possible without Joe Nerd spending 16 hours a day, 7 days a week unknowingly subsidizing it. Women want to be involved in things but don’t want to do the actual work to do so.

2. Video Game Journalism

Women and beta males have made video game journalism an entry point for dilettantes with humanity majors. Most major publications like Kotaku, Gawker, IGN, and Gamespot rather complain about how “sexist” GTA is than write actual meaningful game content. Video game publications have turned into tabloids with female writers at the helm. Most people can’t name a female game journalist because they coast on their male colleagues who do the actual work.

You’ll never have a Louis Theroux in the video game industry because women who work in the industry would bitch about inquisitive questions. They would rather write about some dumb ass model dressed up as a video-game character than something substantive.

3. Gamer Girls

The last part of this trifecta of regression is the culture of gaming brought in by women. The beta males of video gaming culture are the thirstiest betas in existence. When a former porn star can make more money by streaming video games for donations instead taking a fat dick, you know there has to be betas behind that.

You go to any Youtube channel about gaming and it will have a useless pretty chick talking about her experiences with Pokemon as a child. These women are not actual gamers but women riding a fad. They’re called “Gamer Gurls” for the reason to mock the gurl phrase that feminists like to use. These semi-attractive chicks have learned that they can get the princess treatment by pretending to be a video game enthusiast. Also another type of chick started to pop up. These women though don’t have the facade of being attractive. Instead they use videogames to up their social status. The land whales realized that if they could fake their enthusiasm for games, some video game beta would find them attractive as well. The betas fight over these chicks and since they’re all manginas of the highest degree. This is one of the reasons that betaness and even omeganess are the norms in video game culture.

Because of these reasons, video games have declined since their great rise in the 70’s-00’s. Girl gamers and their beta male hangers-on rather buy Call of Duty than support quality products. Don’t let women in to your sub-culture unless you want it permanently disfigured. Too bad they already did it to my favorite sub-culture.

https://www.returnofkings.com/12615/5-things-i-learned-from-call-of-duty

5 THINGS I LEARNED FROM CALL OF DUTY

WESTERN CANCER

I played a lot of video games growing up; not as much as those weird neck-bearded kids who play WoW, but enough to learn just how much time one can waste playing them. After I got home from school I’d grab a snack and sit my ass on the couch and start playing until dinner. I’d go to friends houses on weekends and play games and when a new game came out I’d play it tirelessly until I beat it. Fifteen hours a week isn’t all that much when you’re a teenager; school is easy and you have no reason to be doing anything else, but the older I get the more I realize how much of a time-sink it was. However, there are a few important lessons I learned from playing all those hours.

1. There are complainers…

Most guys who play CoD either talk shit about how they fucked your mother or they just keep silent. The rest are those who bitch and moan about every little detail. They’re the guys who complain you’re ‘hacking,’ playing unfairly, or using a loadout that gives you an advantage. They’re the sore losers and you encounter them in the real world all the time. In the real world those same guys whine about following the rules because they are scared of stepping out of line, they are the people who believe everyone needs to be brought to the same level lest one be left out. The best way I’ve found to deal with them is just ignore them. Ignore those who complain about perceived problems the same way you would ignore some 13 year old kid whining how using RPGs aren’t fair.

2. …and then there are those who find patterns.

On the more extreme end of things there are those who learn patterns and exploit them. They’re the guys who learn spawning patterns, optimized loadouts, good sniping positions and so on. They put in serious time to get good at the game, they also know they have to do more than learn the game to get good at the game. In the time it takes them to master the theoretical or detail oriented parts of the game their motor skills have increased as well. These guys are like us. We improve our social skills, appearance, and confidence as well as exploiting the current system in order to get better at the game of life.

3. The importance of competition

Competition is at the core of our masculinity, without it we are just participating in existence. Call of Duty is the most immediate form of competition I have come across and I never realized its importance until the first powerlifting meet I competed in. At the meet adrenaline coursed through my veins between attempts and although I cheered others on I felt a burning desire to lift as much as I damn could to prove myself better than the rest. While you may only be competing against half-literate, drugged out teenagers playing Call of Duty, you still get that same rush when trying to annihilate the other team. Even while relaxing with friends, having a few beers and playing CoD you want to beat their score. You want to be the best.

4. The average man sucks

The last CoD game I played regularly was the first Black Ops game. There was an option to look at another player’s scorecard. This scorecard showed their kill/death ratio, win/loss ratio, and every other imaginable metric of success. In this data was hours played. Between matches I’d always look at the opposition’s scorecard and 9 times out of 10 the dude had fucking terrible stats. I would regularly see players who played hundreds of hours yet still died more than they killed. Even though most guys play CoD to relax they’re still fucking terrible and aren’t any better than when they started. Same goes in the real world. Most men you meet will be extremely average, and as we all know average never got anyone anywhere. You reconnect with a friend 5 years down the line and his accomplishments include: having a mortgage, being in debt, becoming overweight, and maybe driving a new car.

5. People will do anything if given the right rewards

Video game developers are crafty sons of bitches, like social media mavens they sell instant gratification. When you think about it a game like Call of Duty is extremely boring and repetitive. Each game is 10-15 minutes long and you do the exact same thing each time, something has to keep you coming back. While much of the draw can be attributed to the thrill of competition and success there is another factor: the instant gratification of rewards. The first few hours you play Call of Duty you’re assaulted with various medals, ribbons, unlocks and upgrades. You get a medal for 5 kills, then 50, then 500. You get sucked in from the start and desire the hardest to get rewards. As in the real world people will perform the same mindless action day in, day out given enough monetary or emotional compensation.

I still play from time to time. Its nice to do nothing but move your thumbs for an hour, but no man should spend the majority of his precious free time doing something so unproductive as playing video games. One of my biggest regrets from being a teenager was spending much of my time alone playing games when I could have been out doing something interesting, or in the very least reading books. However I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned. I know now to ignore those who complain and instead of complaining myself I seek out ways to overcome obstacles and get better. I know now how easily average people can be manipulated into doing mindless things if they are sufficiently compensated. Most importantly I know the importance of competition in masculine development.

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