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illegal-spiegel · 4 years

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Voice Sweet as Caramel

Pairing: deaf!Katsuki Bakugo x gn!reader Genre: fluff, slight angst? Warnings: none Summary: You meet Dynamight and don’t know that he’s deaf. Luckily for him though, when you find out, your quirk comes in handy Word Count: 5.1k words A/N: I did a lot of research to make Bakugo’s experience seem as real as possible. If there is smth that I did wrong, worded incorrectly, etc., please don’t hesitate to inform me. Thank you and enjoy!

It didn’t really bother him at first. Being deaf, I mean. He didn’t have to listen to a bunch of nonsense all the time, he could sleep in peace, villains trying to goad him on and agitate him didn’t work anymore, and so on.

It didn’t take him long to realize just how many downfalls there are with that though. He started to fall behind in class because he could no longer hear his teachers. He wasn’t able to hear plans of attack or hear an enemy sneak up on him.

He can’t hear your voice.

He became deaf in the middle of his third year. It happened in the middle of a fight with the league of villains and he didn’t really have time to panic about it at the time. When school let out and he became one of the top heroes, he tried not to be bothered by it and for the most part, it worked. His other senses heightened as time went on but that doesn’t mean it made the reality that he’s deaf any easier. There were still the setbacks that will always hold him back from reaching top potential. Because of this, he’s the number three hero, right behind Deku and Todoroki.

That’s what really crushed him.

He never shows anyone, heroes, friends, and villains alike, that being deaf is a struggle for him, even when he gets used to it. He wants to hear the villains he defeats beg for mercy. He wants to hear his friends laugh when someone does something stupid. He wants to hear the praise of civilians when he saves them.

He wants to hear your voice but he’d, obviously, never tell a soul that.

He didn’t meet you until a year after he graduated.

You showed up when he was fighting some villains, and he’ll never admit that he was struggling a little bit. Somehow though, villain after villain suddenly couldn’t see him and they panicked. They’d run into buildings and each other before Bakugo beat them all to a pulp.

Seeing as how you’re the only one else there with a hero costume on, he assumes you had something to do with it. As he hands the villains over to the police, you come over with a warm smile aimed directly at him. He stares at your lips as you speak, his ears ringing with the silence that he’s grown used to.

He doesn’t really understand why you’re trying to talk to him, seeing as how everyone knows that the great hero Dynamight is unable to hear. So, why are you wasting your time trying to talk to him? Maybe you think he can read your lips. That is, after all, a common misconception about deaf people.

Without a word on his part, he turns and walks away from you. He doesn’t hear you stop in the middle of congratulating him. He doesn’t hear how you scoff a bit. He doesn’t see you frown at how rude he is.

You walk into the building with a bright smile already on your face, excited for something you literally do every day of your life. It doesn’t matter how many times you do it though. This will always make you happy. Plus, you just came to Japan from America a couple of weeks ago. You haven’t been here in years. You are excited to use your improved quirk to help others.

You greet the lady at the front desk as you grab your sticker name tag that the staff makes for you every day. You then go to your first stop, gently knocking on the door and coming in once you get the go-ahead.

“(Y/n)! You’re back!” the little girl squeals, a large smile coming to her face. Your smile stretches out further as you walk over to her.

“Hi, Keiko! How have you been?” you say as you move your hands slowly for her to read. She watches them attentively before perking up, her mother beside her smiling softly at the interaction.

“I’ve been really good! I’m glad you're back!” she says happily, her ‘accent’ coming through more now that she’s calmed down and isn’t shouting.

“I’m happy to be back too,” you agree, your hands moving with your words.

“(Y/n),” the mother says, grabbing your attention, “Thank you for coming back. You have no idea what this means to me. To us. After the villain attack...” Her eyes are watery as she speaks, her hand coming up to pet her daughter’s head.

You smile softly at her, coming over to sit in the empty chair by her bed. “Don’t even mention it, Mrs. Suzuki. It’s an honor to be of use to you and your daughter,” you reassure. You then look to Keiko, seeing her body impatiently wiggling around as she waits for you to work your magic.

You chuckle as you raise your hands, her eyes widening, despite knowing what you were doing. She turns to look at her mom as she shouts, “Mommy! I can hear again!” You read her lips and smile as she wraps her arms tightly around her mother. You watch with a soft look in your eyes, trying to ignore your oncoming sadness that will come when her hearing comes to an end again.

“Keiko, I noticed that you are getting better at JSL. You must be studying so hard!” you praise, watching her chest puff out at the praise.

“You bet I am! It’s so easy and my tutor says I’m really good at it!” she brags while using her hands for you to read, a chuckle escaping you at how proud she is. She has every right to be though.

“That’s so cool! Can you show me what else you’ve learned?”

You stay with the girl and her mother for their hour before slowly taking away her hearing again. She doesn’t seem to mind though. Even at her young age, she’s grateful for the opportunity that others don’t get to have and she knows that you can’t let her have her hearing back forever.

You walk down the hall and walk into the next room after knocking. “Daiki? It’s (Y/n),” you greet softly, not wanting to spook the teen. He perks up at the sound of your voice, a smile coming to his face as he turns to face you.

That has to be the best part of your quirk. You bring all of these smiles to these unfortunate people whose lives were changed at the hands of villains.

“(Y/n)! I’m surprised to have you come back so soon!” he greets, holding his arms open for a hug. You happily accept it, returning his sight as you pull away. He brightens up more as the life returns in his eyes, your eyes catching the sight of his gums showing from how big he’s smiling before your own vision goes dark.

“I’ll never get tired of seeing your pretty face,” he playfully flirts, making you chuckle as you take a seat by his bed.

“You’re such a flatterer.” When visiting Daiki, he prefers to use his time wisely. He likes to memorize the faces of loved ones, read, watch tv, and other things that he can’t do.

When his time comes to an end, he sighs as he closes his book he was reading, a sad smile on his face. “You really are my hero, (Y/n),” Daiki says softly, his eyes roaming your face to now memorize it without your knowledge.

“I’m just doing what anyone else would do with my quirk,” you reassure, giving him a sad smile as you slowly take his sight away again. He sighs and picks up the same book from before but with braille instead of typed words.

“Still. See you next week?”

“You betcha,” you say softly before kissing his cheek and leaving.

Your quirk allows you to eliminate or heighten the five senses. You can only do one sense at a time though. You can do it in increments too, meaning you can completely eradicate or heighten a sense, or you can do it partially. For example, you can increase someone’s smelling to 100% and they can suddenly smell ten times better than a bloodhound. Another example, if someone is getting a headache by a smell, you can remove someone’s smell by 50% and leave them able to smell but not as strongly as they normally would be able to. Also, when you use your quirk, that sense is completely removed from you but only while you’re using it on someone. You also can’t use your quirk on yourself.

It’s when you’re leaving the RCV, the Recovery Center from Villains, you notice the fight between a hero and multiple villains. You raise your hand to one of the villains, removing his, and your, sight. When you hear a loud explosion and a cry of pain, you turn off your quirk to find the villain you used your quirk on laying on the ground. You repeat this process with the other villains until there was none left standing.

When the hero hands them over to the police, you run over with a grin. “Hi, I just wanted to say that you were incredible! I know you probably didn’t need my help but I just wanted to-”

You cut yourself off with a scoff when the blond suddenly walks away from you, a frown coming to your face as you watch him go. Well, that was rude. Especially after you just helped him take down four villains!

“Excuse me. Were you the one to help Dynamight?” an officer asks. You give her a kind smile as you nod your head, turning to face her now.

“Yes, ma’am. I have a senses quirk, so I eliminated their sight so, uh, Dynamite could get the upper hand,” you explain. She smiles at this, becoming more fascinated by the second as you explain what happened. You answer any questions she has, noticing the sun is starting to go down.

“Well, it’s getting dark. I’ll let you go! Have a great day—oh! What’s your hero name?”

“It’s Esthesia,” you say before saluting and walking away.

On your walk home, a guy gives you an unseemly smile as his eyes flicker up and down your body. “Hey, baby. Where you going?” You give him a bored look as you raise your hand, taking his, and your, sight away as you continue to walk straight. He begins to panic, your ears listening as he runs around frantically before crashing into a brick wall. When his body hits the ground, you return both of your vision with a smirk.

“Have a nice night!” you sarcastically call to his groaning figure.

The second time you meet Dynamight—you learned from the news how it’s actually spelled—it was under pretty much the same circumstances. You stay by the sidelines, appearing as a civilian to everyone which is exactly what you wanted.

You raise your hand and remove the villain’s sight, listening for signs that the villain is defeated. When you return your vision though, you find a villain coming from above to attack Dynamight.

“Dynamight!” you shout in warning, pointing up for him to see what your warning is for. He never looks at you though, allowing the villain to attack him from above. You quickly remove that villain’s sight, hoping that you weren’t too late. Why did he just ignore you like that? Is he that stubborn?

When your vision comes back, you find that he has taken out all of the villains again. You charge towards him once you see this, coming up behind him. “Why did you ignore me? You could’ve been killed!” you shout, afraid for the hero’s life. He keeps his back to you though, his eyes moving from villain to villain to make sure that they will stay down. “Hey!” you shout as you lightly shove him to gain his attention.

“Hey!” he copies as he catches his balance and spins around, his eyes alight with an inferno that’s normally directed at villains. When he sees it’s you though, that inferno shrinks to a flame. “What is your problem?” he screams.

You scoff as you cross your arms over your chest, a glare of your own staring right back at him. “My problem? My problem is that you keep ignoring me! I was trying to help you back there and you didn’t even turn to acknowledge me! You could’ve avoided that attack altogether!” you shout right back, your eyes moving to the wound on his shoulder that he received from that villain. Your eyes return to his face when he huffs and looks away from you.

And just like before, he walks away from you, causing your jaw to drop open. “Hey! You don’t get to do this to me again!” you shout, running to stand in front of him. You notice that the police have arrived to take the bad guys away, which Bakugo also notices.

“Get out of my way,” he snaps, moving to go around you until you just block his way again.

“No! This is the second time I’ve helped you! You can at least thank me!” He doesn’t react to your words. He doesn’t even have an expression on his face anymore. He, again, just moves around you and walks away. This time though, you let him go.

“Fine! That’s the last time I help you then!” you declare.

It’s not.

He just seems to have an invisible sign that you can’t see that says, “Come attack me! I’m alone! Please beat me up!” You don’t understand why he never has backup. Well, besides you, that is.

After helping out several times though, you finally come across him in battle with another hero. About time. Where was he the last six times you’ve helped him?

You watch from afar, only helping if one of them seems to be struggling a bit. You notice that the other hero acts differently around Bakugo. Their body language is different and he never calls out to him. Does he not like him? Cause you sure don’t.

After the fight is over and the police have escorted the villains away, the heroes leave after interacting with the civilians for a bit. You notice that no one talks to Dynamight though. How is he the number three hero but isn’t popular amongst the civilians? That makes his situation even odder to you.

When they finally leave, you quickly catch up to them. “Hey! Hi, sorry! I just wanted to say that you guys did a great job!” you congratulate with a grin, not even looking in Dynamight’s way.

The guy with flaming red hair, named Red Riot you believe, gives you a toothy grin. “Oh, thanks! You’re Esthesia, right? I’ve seen you on the news with Bakubro a couple of times.” You raise your brow at the nickname but realize he’s talking about Dynamight.

“Oh, yes! It’s nice to meet you! You’re Red Riot, right?” At this, his smile gets even brighter, if possible.

“Sure is! You can call me Kirishima though! This is Bakugo,” he introduces. It takes everything in you not to scoff.

“Yeah. I’ve saved his ass a time or two before,” you say as calmly as possible. Kirishima looks to Bakugo and finds that he’s not even looking at you.

“Sorry about him. He can be so moody.” You raise your brow when Bakugo doesn’t come to his own defense, seeming to just take the playful blow.

“That’s one word to describe him. Anyway, I don’t want to keep you guys up. I just wanted to congratulate you,” you explain with a warm smile.

“Oh, it’s no problem at all! It was nice to finally meet the hero who has saved Bakugo’s ass so many times! Say, how about we meet up sometime? It’d be great for you to meet some of the other heroes. Your quirk is really useful!” You blush at this but nod nonetheless.

“Oh, that would be great! I love helping where I can!” You pull out your phone for Kirishima to put his number into your phone, this finally grabbing Bakugo’s attention, but he remains quiet.

“Super! I’ll text you when some of the others are free. We can all get drinks or something,” he says as he hands your phone back to you.

“Can’t wait! It was nice meeting you!” you say cheerfully before you leave the duo to go to the RCV, which is where you were heading before you stopped to help.

About a week later, you get a text from Kirishima asking if you’d be free Sunday night. You agreed to meet him at a restaurant and you couldn’t help but grow excited at the chance to finally meet other heroes in the area.

Sunday night came in a blink of an eye it seemed, your heart beating faster with each mile you get closer to the meeting place. You park your car and double-check that your outfit is in order before heading inside. You look around for spiky, red hair, and it only takes you a second to find him.

“Kirishima!” you call as you near the table. Everyone but a certain blond turns at the sound of your voice. His eyes look at his friends before finally looking at you. You make eye contact with him for a moment before looking at Kirishima.

“Hey, (Y/n)! You look great!” he greets, standing up and pulling out the only empty chair.

“Thank you,” you say with a blush, slowly taking the seat, to which he pushes the chair in for you once you’ve sat down.

“Everyone, this is (Y/n). (Y/n), this is everyone,” he introduces playfully as he takes his own seat. Once he’s settled, he properly introduces you to everyone, to which you happily greeted them all.

“And finally, Mr. Grumpy-Mc-Grumpy-Pants over there is Bakugo, which you already know,” he says as he taps Bakugo’s arm. Bakugo turns to look at Kirishima before following his finger to you.

“It’s nice to officially meet you,” you greet with much sarcasm. He, like always, remains silent and looks back down to his menu. You huff and decide to open up your own menu, trying not to be bothered by being shot down by the handsome male.

For the rest of the evening, weird things occurred. Kirishima always taps him when someone says his name, Bakugo’s eyes roaming the table until he focuses on the person speaking. Kirishima taps him again when it’s his turn to order. You’ve seen people talk with their hands, both literally and figuratively, but these people really seem to get into it, making wide and crazy gestures.

It wasn’t until your waiter came to your table with your food that you finally realized what was going on.

“So, (Y/n), tell us about your quirk. Bakugo hasn’t shined any sort of light on what your quirk is and Kirishima seems a little lost at what your quirk actually is,” Mina says with a smile.

Before you can reply though, your waiter and another worker bring your food to the table. “Who got the kung pao chicken?” the other worker asks, looking around the table. Kirishima was checking his phone when the question was asked, Bakugo not letting the waiter know that it’s what he ordered.

This is when it hits you.

The tapping. The blank, bored look. The quiet replies. The crazy gestures.

He’s deaf.

God, you’re such an idiot! You work with deaf people all of the time! How did you not realize until now?

“He got it,” you inform with widened eyes, your eyes staring at the blond. His eyes squint at you for pointing at him before realizing that you were just showing the waiter where his food goes. Once everyone has their food, you clear your throat.

“So, um, Bakugo is deaf?” you shyly ask. This causes everyone to pause and stare at you for a moment.

“Uh, yeah,” Kirishima answers, “Sorry, I assumed you knew…” he apologizes.

You shake your head, turning your gaze to Bakugo as you continue. “But why does he act like that?” you ask.

“Like what?” Kaminari asks with a furrow to his brows.

“I work with deaf people all of the time. A lot of them are decent at reading lips to some extent and most know, or are learning, JSL. Bakugo seems...like he doesn’t care or that it doesn’t bother him? Does he know JSL?” you explain quietly despite the fact that the man you’re talking about can’t hear you.

Kirishima sighs as he sets down his chopsticks. “Bakugo has been deaf for about a year and a half now. He knows JSL and uses it when necessary, but for the most part, he doesn’t like using it or when others use it to talk to him. It makes him feel....belittled, if you will. Like he has to have special treatment or something. I do my best to help him but I’m not perfect,” he explains, the last part being directed at what just happened.

You slowly nod your head as you take this all in, a small frown coming to your face. “So, you guys don’t know what my quirk really is, right?” you ask softly, a smile starting to come to your face. They all look confused in your change of subject but nod along anyway.

“Yeah, I was asking you about it before our food came. Kirishima says you can make people blind, or something?” Mina pipes up. You confuse them more when you begin to grin, all of them sharing a look amongst themselves.

“Do you want to see something amazing?” you ask, your eyes flickering over to Bakugo.

“Please don’t make me blind,” Denki begs, starting to ramble about needing to be able to see pretty girls. Jiro shushes him and then focuses back on you again.

You raise your hand to Bakugo, taking a deep breath before slowly giving him the ability to hear. Everyone looks to him when he drops his chopsticks, his hands shaking as he stares wide-eyed at his plate. His chopsticks landing onto the table is the last thing you hear before your own hearing is gone.

“I’m confused. What happened?” you read from Sero’s lips. You remain quiet and just keep smiling, your eyes focused on Bakugo. Bakugo’s eyes snap to Sero when he speaks, something seeming to lodge in his throat.

Before he can stop it, he’s tearing up.

“Bakubro! What’s going on?” Kirishima worriedly shouts, looking between you and him. “(Y/n)! What did you do to him?” Kirishima asks worriedly. At the mention of your name, Bakugo finally looks at you.

“I can hear,” he mutters, his voice barely being heard from how thick his throat feels. When everyone starts to say that they didn’t hear him and to repeat himself, he rubs furiously at his eyes and takes a deep breath. “God, I forgot just how annoying your voices are,” he complains, trying hard not to smile.

Everyone freezes at this.

“What?”

“You can hear?”

“What’s going on?”

“My voice is just fine, thank you!”

Everyone starts talking at once, bombarding him with their voices. A small smile comes to his face despite his best effort, looking at all of them fondly. He looks to you again, eyeing you up as the others continue to chatter on.

“Well, you being able to do this would’ve been nice to know a long time ago,” he grumbles. You stare at his lips, doing your best to read them. The average deaf person can only understand about 30% of what someone is saying based on just their lips though.

“Sorry, can you use JSL?” you ask politely before picking up your chopsticks to begin eating.

This causes everyone to freeze once more.

“Huh?”

“But why?”

Seeing their confused faces, you realize that you never explained your quirk. You give them the rundown before finishing with, “When I use my quirk on someone else, I lose the sense that I’m taking away or giving. So, in this case, I gave Bakugo hearing so now I can’t hear. This is all temporary, of course.”

The table vibrates with Bakugo’s hit, making your eyes widen as you look at him. “Take my hearing back away,” he demands, not using JSL despite your wishes. Your brows furrow at this, luckily understanding what he said anyway.

“What? Why? You were so happy just a minute ago,” you reply confusedly.

“No, I wasn’t! I’m perfectly fine being deaf! I don’t want your pity!” he shouts, grabbing the attention of nearby customers. With him talking so fast, you weren’t able to catch what he said. This is when an idea comes to mind.

You simply look away from him and down at your plate, starting to eat without another word. “Hey! I’m talking to you!” Bakugo shouts, realizing too late that, duh, you can’t hear him. “Don’t ignore me!”

Ah, the irony.

The others eventually get him to calm down, bright and warm smiles on their faces at seeing him act like his old self. Don’t get them wrong, he still acts like this all the time but there’s this...new fire to him that hasn’t been there in a while.

When he finally lets it go, you all start eating. The others use JSL to talk to you, seeing as how they all learned it for Bakugo, despite the fact that he didn’t want them to use it. It was a nice dinner, really.

When the night comes to an end, you all stand up and walk out of the restaurant together. “So, when will Bakugo lose his hearing again?” Kirishima asks curiously, signing out the words for you.

“Well, I can only use my quirk for so long before it starts to become dangerous, just like when you guys use your quirk for an extended amount of time. Because I use my quirk so much though every day all day, he could stay like this all night. I’m assuming we are all going our separate ways though…”

“Oh, okay. Well, we all really appreciate what you’re doing for him,” Kirishima signs with a kind smile. You smile back at him, not seeing Bakugo say ‘I don’t.’

“It’s no problem at all, really. I just wish I knew about it earlier, so I could help him sooner,” you apologize, turning to look at Bakugo now. By the look on his face and the way his mouth moves, you’re assuming he scoffed.

“Do you think we could hang out again soon? I think it would be good for Bakugo to-”

“What’s with that crazy idea? I’m going home,” Bakugo snaps before turning to leave. Seeing him leave, you slowly raise your hand and switch both of your hearing back. You bite your lip when he stops, the sounds of cars going past on the road and the chatter of people nearby suddenly going silent for him once more.

He almost feels like he’s going to be sick.

He turns back around, wondering how he can get you to give his hearing back without actually saying he wants it back. His eyes widen in surprise when all of the sounds come back, a small smile coming to your face.

“Not everyone has the opportunity to get their hearing back, even for just a little while. So, be grateful.”

It took a while for Bakugo to finally warm up to you but after a month or so, he finally accepted your presence. It took him three to actually refer to you as a friend. It took half a year for Bakugo to admit to himself that you’re his best friend; he’d never tell you or Kirishima that though. It’s been a year and he still can’t admit to himself that he likes you more than as a friend.

Bakugo takes a bite of the food you made, his face scrunching up in mock disgust. “What did you put in this? Rat poison?” he jokes. It honestly didn’t taste half bad but he wasn’t about to admit that out loud to you.

He watches you dance to the music that he can’t hear, your lips moving as you sing. He wishes he could hear it. He watches you stop and turn to look at him at his insult, your mouth showing your scoff.

“Do you want to die?” you ask as you swipe your thumb across your neck. He smirks at you as he makes a show of taking another bite. He doesn’t hear you hum but he watches as you sign, “Yeah, that’s what I thought, chump.” He’s the one to scoff now, his eyes rolling with his annoyance.

He’s told you time and time again not to use JSL but you never listen. He secretly appreciates it because he doesn’t have to piece things together when you use it. He still acts peeved when you do it though.

“I’m not a chump. You’re the chump,” he snaps. You set your food down before walking over to the big speaker on your kitchen counter that is currently playing one of your favorite songs. You stand in front of it and place your hands against it before raising your other hand over to Bakugo.

His ears are suddenly greeted with the sound of the music, a frown coming to his face as he looks at you. While he appreciates being able to have his hearing back, he hates that you lose yours in the process. He’s pulled out of his train of thought when you start singing, his eyes becoming wide. You use the vibrations emitting from the radio to keep tempo, singing in sync with the artist.

Talking without hearing was easy for you but you’ve never tried singing without your ability to hear before. This shows as you softly sing, your voice shaky and out of tune at some points.

It’s the most beautiful thing that Bakugo had ever heard.

Your voice is as sweet as caramel. He watches you with a soft smile on his face, not even realizing that it’s there. When the song comes to an end, you bring your food over to the speaker and eat while your free hand remains pressed against the speaker to ‘hear’ the music.

To his surprise, one of his favorite songs comes on after a couple of minutes and you grew so excited when you realized this. You belt each word with immense confidence, not a sign of hesitation or worry in your voice.

This is when he realizes that he’s in love with you.

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whoistheasshole · 3 years

Text

Why do I get yelled at when other people behave like dillweeds?

Anonymous asks: what to do when people vent their anger on me. is it because i am the quiet one in the family or maybe i am the easy target???? cause they did that to me instead of calling out the one who creates the problem

Hi there,

I am not sure if you mean „complain to me about other people/family members“ only or „lash out at me when they are angry at somebody else“ also. Therefore I will try to cover several bases.

Generally, venting can serve a social function where you go to a third party to blow off steam and come back to the original offender more level-headed and constructive. In this way it can be a healthy tool of de-escalation – instead of having a hot-headed debate and just riling each other up, you talk to somebody else to work through the problem and come back with some fresh ideas.

If you vent in this way, you will get a better understanding if you were overreacting or should stand your ground. It can be necessary support to hold firm when you are in fact right.

Of course, all this counts on the fact the everybody involved is a willing participant.

If somebody vents excessively, without the consent of the target or worst, blows up at somebody else because they cannot blow up at the original offender, the venter may still feel relief, but the ventee is drawing the short end of the social stick, so to speak.

It sounds like you are in the latter scenario.

As to the why – I don’t know where it originated, but there’s this story about the boss yelling at the male employee, the employee coming home and yelling at his wife, the wife yelling at the kid and the kid yelling at the dog. The dog then probably gets a stress ulcer and starts chewing up shoes. As this short, though heteronormative, image shows: Everybody is finding somebody else with less power to vent their anger that they are not able to direct back at the aggressor. In real life, it is not always that simple because human connections and power structures are complex (and not like a white US TV commercial from the 50s), but the general dynamic holds true: If people are not able or willing to re-create their equilibrium by fighting right back at the (verbal) attacker, they will find other means to do so. The means do not have to be interpersonal – a lot of people are internalizers and turn the stress inward, getting the aforementioned stress illnesses instead. Or they try to cope with the situation and turn to an advice column. Just as an example. But generally, if you have a group of people–friends, hobby groups, work, family–unwritten social dynamics will always be at play that direct, among other things, who dares talk back to whom, who will stand by and look, who will try to get out of the line of fire, who tends to get blamed and so forth.

Long story short: Through the unique mix of power structures and personalities in your family, you are where you are now. You identified that you would like it to change and need some ammunition to do so. Fortunately, I do have some strategies for you.

First: If there are no safety issues at play, direct is always best. That doesn’t mean spontaneous. You can rehearse what you want to say or talk through it with friends or alone in front of a mirror–rehearsal can be crucial. But it’s absolutely okay and within your power (again, if safe) to speak up about your boundaries and needs. Find a short script that feels right and appropriate for the situation and tell the venter. You might want different scripts for when they are ready to have their next feelings barf versus talking to them in a quiet minute to re-set the dynamic. E.g. „Hey X, I realize Y topic is weighing heavily on you right now, but I’m kind of at my limit talking it through, so I’d like to focus on other topics. I hope you work it out!“

The last part is your friend, by the way, redirecting them to action. It can be used beautifully with incorrigible venters to make it very boring/unhelpful to talk to you. You have to be persistent though, these kind of dynamics are not changed in a day.

„That sounds tough, well I hope you work it out!“ / „Oh. What are you going to do about it?“ / „I see. What do you plan on doing now?“ / „I see that you are quite upset right now so I will give you some space. Feel better!“ and move away. (Read the last one from a Captain Akward commenter and I am still in love.)

What you want to do is:

1) Make it boring. Ever heard that active listening is important? Not here. Here you want to be the least enthused and most unhelpful listener that has ever graced the earth. Short words are your friend, said in a completely neutral tone: „Oh.“ / „I see.“ / „Hu.“ / „Hm.“ If you need some more pointers, look up „Grey rock method“. Fiddle with your phone, get up to do the laundry, have something at the ready that you need to start doing now which means you need to move physically away/make some loud noise. Potentially something that the other person approves of, or at least has no good reason to argue back against. „That sounds tough. I wish I could help, but I really need to get started on my applications. Catch you later!“

2) Never under any circumstances offer your opinion on the situation and especially not on what the other person should do. They might try to make you solve their problems or alternatively, shoot everything down that you suggest, which is also frustrating. If you have the urge to say something or are unsure how to continue the conversation without saying what you think, try silence. Few things are more effective in a conversation than silence. Maybe a small „Hmm“ or other thinking noises, if you must. If asked directly, you can also use „That’s a tough one, no idea off the top of my head.“ / „Honestly, I don’t know. What do you think?“ / „Beats me.“ You can say it sympathetically and remorsefully, but the more monosyllabic and flat you can be, the better.

3) Redirect them to figure it out themselves. See above: „Oh. What are you going to do about it?“ / „I see. What do you plan on doing now?“ It doesn’t mean they ever will. They might actually leave in a huff, but that’s a success. We cannot make other people do things, we can only control what we do ourselves. And if Dr. Vent 3000 bothers somebody else next time, well, success. Some people will have the gall to say „Well, you are not very helpful today.“ Take it as a badge of honor, don’t try to convince them otherwise, you are the grey rock. „Yeah, I’m not creative today.“ / „I’m all out of ideas.“ *shrug*

Family dynamics can make this list of strategies a little less helpful because you are in close quarters more often (I assume) and you cannot avoid the offender as easily, therefore definitely weigh how direct you can be with the person. If you don’t expect serious repercussions, it’s fine to say „Hey, I’m not involved with this and don’t want to be.“ / „Sounds like you need to sort this out with X.“ /„I don’t want to be in the middle of this, please take it up with X.“ / „Frankly, I don’t enjoy these conversations. What about topic change?“ and the all time classics of telling them about other things you need to do now and leaving.

When people put us in a weird position, the anger we feel at the mistreatment can make us blind to the options that are actually at our disposal. It is possible that you can only use few things of what I suggested, but make sure to stop and make an inventory of things that you can do because they are in your power. Feeling stuck and powerless can be the worst thing about this kind of situation and the antidote is identifying what you can do.

P.S.: Don’t get drawn into the losing battle of making the original offender behave (the person who upset the venter). It doesn’t sound like you’re the parent/authority figure in this scenario, so all you need to do is treat people who deserve it kindly and state your own boundaries when they are crossed.

#post #questions #advice #learned helplessness #recovery #conflict resolution #grey rock method #family #boundaries #boundary #boundary setting #who is the asshole

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lgchunji · 4 years

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MERRY CHRISTMAS, LGC MEMBERS!

merry christmas, lgc members! oops! this time you didn’t just send something to they mods, they also wanted to send something to YOU!! every single mod, below the cut, has something wonderful for you all to hear! (no, this is not the christmas present side event lol) our mods deserve all the love in the world, but the members all deserve a little extra love too! happy holidays and everyone have a good new years!

admin l, writer of @lgcxjun, @lgcmiso, and @lgcnami says: 1) what is your favorite part about being a mod? making the members happy. when we put out a new event or implement something new in the rp and members are super excited about it, that's what i like the most. 2) what is the most memorable moment from being a mod in lgc thus far? hmm.. i think it's when we officially opened the rp for reservations and they came flooding. we weren't expecting this. we thought it would take weeks before we get enough reservations to open and were pleasantly surprised when in 48h we had the 10 minimum. we never expected to have over 50 members, either. so this whole experience has been amazing for us 3) what is the best part about lgc members/writers (characters or muns!) seeing the characters grow right before our eyes, that's the part i love the most. seeing the progression of each and everyone of you all always make us happy. the admods are your biggest supports, i swear to god. i also love how our members aren't scared of giving ideas and participate in the growth and events of the rp! we always love incorporating our mun's ideas 4) anything else you would like to mention? thank you for being here with us <3

admin *, writer of @lgcdanbi, @lgcnathan, and @lgctaesung says: 1) what is your favorite part about being a mod? oh gosh… i can’t pick just one! honestly, it’s just being able to plan and create stuff for our members with such a fun and dedicated team like the one we have here! we have so much in store for everyone, and we just hope y’all are as excited as we are for the big things to come! 2) what is the most memorable moment from being a mod in lgc thus far?: for me specifically, it had to be my *first* trimester change as the head of graphics. i literally SLAVED lmfao over our Q4 2020 graphics, and it was so nice to see how much everyone enjoyed the roleplay’s makeover. plus, now that we’re getting closer and closer to Q1 2021, i’m both excited yet SUPER nervous about the aesthetics i want to put out for lgc in the new year! 3) what is the best part about lgc members/writers (characters or muns!): character-wise, i can tell everyone is genuinely invested in their muses’ development and careers here. even though idol krps aren’t anything new, it’s such a breath of fresh air to be a part of a group where people want to see success with their muses from the very start to finish. mun-wise, it’s gotta be activity check sunday’s! seeing people’s live reactions to the queue is DEFINITELY the highlight of my week. 4) anything else you would like to mention?: we’re a small team here (but i swear it feels so much bigger!), and we dedicate a lot of our time in running lgc behind the scenes than in writing for our own characters. it can be a bit of a bummer and can definitely take a lot of muse and motivation out of you, but we’re always so appreciative of how considerate and thoughtful our members are of us. we’re not perfect—no one is!—but despite our flaws, it’s so inspiring to see a place (a home?) like lgc last for over a year and still be going on strong. and we can only thank you guys for all of that! so! thank you!

admin g, writer of @lgchanbyul, @lgcjaesun, and @lgcyumi says: 1) what is your favorite part about being a mod? i have a strange love for lists and stats, and so i actually really enjoy the administration part of being an admin. honestly, i would be the type of person to start a roleplay just to do the logistics lol. i enjoy helping to keep things neat and orderly, though admin a. has been doing a really great job of making my processes even better. my strong suits are not events or graphics, so i leave those tasks to the rest of the team. i think because of that, we make a really great team, and i just enjoy getting to see the fruits of our labor week after week and seeing people excited over them as well! 2) what is the most memorable moment from being a mod in lgc thus far? there are many memorable moments, of course, and this might sound silly … but probably when we received our first application that was not from one of our og staff members. frankly, when we started this group, we were fairly certain no one would want to join, especially with so many other great roleplays around, so to have watched it grow over these last 16 months has been pretty incredible! 3) what is the best part about lgc members/writers (characters or muns!) i wish i could give a special shoutout to each person, but that will quite literally take me a year so i apologize that i’m taking the easy road out. i think the best part about our members is just their willingness to help, whether it be helping others understand the points process, what is needed for an event, or just any of the other logistics that might lead to confusion. it puts a smile on my face to see that teamwork and selflessness exhibited by so many of you. when we mention that we’re stressed, there is never a shortage of eager hands being raised to offer help, and we always appreciate that. i think it’s not easy being a big group, and it can be easy to feel left out, so i just continue to applaud those who really help to make people feel at home! 4) anything else you would like to mention? 2020 has certainly been a wild roller coaster ride, but it’s certainly been made better by getting to write and interact with all of our members. i hope that those i haven’t had a chance to write with yet that i will get to do so soon! thank you all for your continued support and i hope everyone has a happy holidays and a happy new year! may 2021 be a better year for all of us! thank you also to leaf for organizing this! you’re truly a trooper for putting together this special treat for our members ( and months ago for doing it for the admin staff as well )! always appreciate your thoughtfulness in spending the time to think of others. ❤️

admin a, writer of @lgcaeri, @lgceunhye, and @lgcsanghyun says: 1) what is your favorite part about being a mod? my favorite part is seeing people’s reactions to everything we do in lgc and using some of those elements to help build their character or celebrate their accomplishments. a good example of this are the events that have been revealed in the past and reading the reactions and feedbacks encourages us to think more about what kind of events we can make or improve on! 2) what is the most memorable moment from being a mod in lgc thus far? i’ve only been here for a short period so i can’t quite name a lot, but the one that i can think of on top of my head is during the end of the trimester. it’s usually the busiest time for us for several reasons, but it feels the most rewarding to me personally because behind the scenes, we really try to make sure that everything goes smoothly. add that everyone is so patient during those times and we really appreciate it! i personally want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all of the positive messages and support you have sent to us! it really means a lot to us! ❤️ 3) what is the best part about lgc members/writers (characters or muns!) i mentioned this previously in the one year anniversary post, but i would say it’s the community that has been created and developed over time. it’s gone through a lot and the fact that we’re still active now still shocks me sometimes! aside from that, i would also say reading through the solos and posts that we see on the dash (and yes, we see what is going on 👀). while there is so much that i don’t know about everyone’s muses, sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and see what everyone has been up to lately.

admin c, writer of @lgcxking and @lgcjin says: 1) what is your favorite part about being a mod? for me it’s seeing members get excited about events that we put out, and creating new canons based off them. i don’t think i would be able to keep being an admin if i didn’t feel this sense of wonder and excitement coming from everyone! 2) what is the most memorable moment from being a mod in lgc thus far? i’ve probably mentioned it way too often by now, but when we created lgc we expected it to die off after a couple weeks/months. we never expected to last so long and it wasn’t easy in the beginning, but after a while, i’d say around october/november, we started welcoming a lot of new muns that have become such an integral part of the rp. the fact that we’d have enough members to form a lot more than one group for each gender is amazing in itself. and the 2020 family concert really had me realize just how far we’ve come! to see all of those muns and muses experiencing it for the first time even though they’ve been in the rp for so long and achieved so much. 3) what is the best part about lgc members/writers (characters or muns!) i don’t want to name anyone in particular because i’d want to talk about everyone and that’s impossible, but like i mentioned above, it amazes me whenever i see everything that the muses have achieved in a year. i think i realize now just how many events we put out LMAO. some muses are fairly new but are already on future dreams or lgc girls japan, others have begun acting, producing, hosting, etc. i always love to see the very detailed plan everyone has for their characters and even though it might take a while to happen ic, it’s important to set goals! some that might not even happen in a near lgc future, but it gives such life to muses. i also love seeing friendships form, relationships grow, suddenly being on dash and realizing that a muse FINALLY confessed to another, or sometimes just discovering important information through someone else because we can’t possibly read every single thread on dash (i’d love to, though, trust me). there’s a ton of people i haven’t interacted with yet on my muses, and i would sooo love to do it but with the amount of work that goes behind the scenes… let’s just say though that we love every single muse and i’m probably a bigger fan of them than you are!!!!! 4) anything else you would like to mention? small mention to you, leaf, for doing this! thank you for the love and care you put into these types of projects it’s very cute ;; we really liked getting messages from members last time too. also, to anyone reading this, just know that we’re glad you’ve decided to join us on this legacy journey!!!! why do i feel like i’m ending this too dryly but I LOVE YOU GUYS and thank you for all the support, patience, understanding and time investment <333

admin y, writer of @lgcjaehwa says: 1) what is your favorite part about being a mod? i'd say seeing members dropping random appreciation posts and messages would be my favorite part! there were times where i tend to overthink and become a mess. although it may just look like a simple ask, random messages like these really makes my day. 2) what is the most memorable moment from being a mod in lgc thus far? my first 'project'! its something i planned all by myself and to receive positive feedbacks makes me feel proud of it! i'm usually pessimistic when it comes to myself so this is really a big deal for me. this project is not out yet but will definitely be revealed in the future ;) 3) what is the best part about lgc members/writers (characters or muns!) the best part is of course the community!! i never expect myself to stick to a rp for this long. there is this saying, 'the muns keep the rp running'. without you guys, lgc will not be where we are today! 4) anything else you would like to mention? i just want to say that although i'm not close with everyone, i do hope i can get to know more lovely people here! and i thank you guys for staying with us throughout this journey. i'm sure lgc will still continue to stand strongly for the months or even years to come <3

#lgckrp #✧ .・゜゜leaf talks

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thermie · 4 years

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h h hewwo owoo 22 / 23 / 29 / 31 / 34 / 50 / 58 / 61 / 88 in any order, and u can also just. pick only those that u want :3

hhhh-ewwwo? I did say I wanted to chat and I desperately do not want to do work or studies so buckle in for a long post (derogatory). 22. role model? Oh man, I don’t think I have any, like, specific ones for entire things, though I do fall in my hero-worship phaes and then fall out of them like everyone else. I think that taking an entire person and being like I wanna be like them is... not for me though. But I do look up to some people for specific things - I look up to, weirdly enough, Abigail Phylosohpytube who I didn’t watch before her coming out for her graceful coming out video though she admits that the experience wasn’t obviously as smooth. I look up to lots and lots of people for their ability to create and their art (not gonna tag my fav artists bc am tiny and do not want people to look at me, but i do be reblogging). I look up to people like ConcernedApe Stardewvalley and Supergiantgames Hades for their ability to put so much soul in their work, smth I aspire to do. I look up to @not-poignant for, among other things, their idk how to say it best, wisdom in understanding and communicating with others and with myself? I’ve learned a lot by just sort of being in their periphery and seeing how they articulate their thoughts and choose to be kind and witness other’s pain. Hell, I look up to twitch streamers and youtubers sometimes (the recent nice trait I’d like to have if I ever went into bigger content production is how ibxtoycat deals with parasocial relationship realities). 23. strange habits? Hm. I don’t think drinking tea whenever I need a pick-me-up is strange, that’s just probably forcefully assigning a British nationality to me. I think my insistence on misspelling words in a way I think is lowkey funny might be one, I say thamks bc it feels softer, or thank bc it’s funny, I say sleeb, I say finkers or tryink or otherwise replace g with k for lulz. I also don’t know if it counts as a habit but I have a small leather band around my wrist that’s been there for a year soon. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm I probs have like, stranger habits but I can’t recall rn. 29. best way to bond with you? Hmm. Well, if you show initiative and are explicit about wanting to spend time with me, that’s already a big chance of me spending time with you. And then if our interests match and I don’t think that you’re like, young in a way that automatically puts me in a position where I don’t feel comfortable really being myself around you bc in my head I have to look out for you (it has happened with two of my friends, sigh), and we regularly spend time together, voila, friend acquired. It simultaneously doesn’t take much and takes a bit to be my friend and bond with me - it’s easy af to become a casual friend cuz I’m always open to new people, but there has to be a level of trust to become like, a close friend. Respecting my boundaries, talking shit with me, being explicitly committal about wanting to bond with me are big steps that way. 31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names? Uh, I don’t do neither, but a current fave that is reasonably badass is my black tshirt with like, a ritual circle and a deer skull. V edgy, 10/10. I also used to have like a real edgy tshirt with a jester and some dice that said the game of life, but I threw it out bc dysphoria. or maybe I put it at the back of my closet along with one other shirt In Case I Get Top Surgery so I can wear them then. 34. advertisements you have stuck in your head? Many, such is the nature of advertising, alas. I have managed to avoid most of it tbh though, so the only place I am forced to sit through ads so they stick is my scrabble capitalist nightmare app where I play and always beat haha my coursemate. And they have adds for those shitty apps where you have to solve a puzzle that ends up failing in the add and like, drenching a man in green goo. I find those kinda fascinating tbh. Who plays these games? Who plays these shitty shitty games whose ad has to be “prove your IQ“ to make you want to prove yourself to play them? Oh and also, the insidious nature of ads in media I consume - the mcelroys have gotten me informed about many many things bc they do it in a funny way. Have you heard about squarespace? What about meundies? I also literally installed honey yesterday that I knew abt bc of the relentless adds and I wanted to save, uh, 2.50 from my minecraft server purchase (and then spent some time googling how they make money before giving up. just say u sell my data, that’s easier than not knowing what part of this makes you money). I was tired and in a weird mood, ok. 50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have? It’s always the stupidest jokes, what matters more is laughing together with someone and getting caught in a laughing loop. I still remember laughing with my siblings until our stomachs really really hurt bc I think one of us said a rug was vomit-colored and it was funny in the moment. How many times have I laughed like that with you too, vit. I know that Laura’s one is nostrilatu, right? :D :D It’s just something that catches you off guard, I think.

58. four talents you’re proud of having? Oh shid. Hm. 1) My ability to analyze data and understand the basic building blocks of something. Makes me cool at studying and sexy at explaining things to my course-mates. 2) Not a talent more like a skill that I’ve worked hard on through therapy - but my inner positive voice/healthy parent is very strong and automatic (something I was sure would never happen). A good example is me going out for a walk, my phone dying so I can’t listen to music, when I went in my head “well I can always make music in my head. do-do-do *drum sound*“ and I could feel the wave of self-reprimand cresting but before I could actually hear any negative comments the positive voice said with a light of a thousand suns NO THAT IS ACTUALLY CUTE AND SEXY and just haaaaaaah. 3) I sing good. Need to sing more. 4) I think I’m good at making conversation. Even with people I don’t necessarily like or want to talk to. More of a skill again but whatever. 61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.? Do not come to me and ask for favorites, witch. Uh, I have some quotes in my notes app, like 7 from Pia’s writing :D. But imma go with “It’s a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world“ by Mary Oliver. It counts, ok. Or, wait, something I will for real one day either crosstitch of commission shitpostcalligrapher: “t’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. “What are we holding onto Sam?” “There’s good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.“” 88. your greatest wish? Hrm. Right now? To have like a couple days with no responsibilities and without the outside world bearing on me as heavily, to be tiny tiny tiny so I’m invisible and can drink tiny tea on a tiny leaf. Uh, in general? My recently formulated wish or a goal is stability/peace. Then everything else becomes ok because you can bounce back to stable ground between feeling shit or everything happening so much. And I’ve sort of reached that. Also like, half a million euros would be nice too so I can get a house and a car and go on a few trips abroad. :D // there’s two ask memes in my blog recently, go wild

#long post #derogatory #personal #i think the wish to be tiny was there more last week #now i just wanna have nice things and fun and a bit of rest but am otherwise less overwhelmed #also hey. talks #chats

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mauserfrau · 4 years

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Eyeshine, Part 1 - Bordertober

HEY KIDS WHO WANTS TO SEE THE TWINS ON THEIR SHIP HEADED TO PANDORA.

IT’S REALLY TINY.

AND THEY’RE HAVING ENGINE TROUBLE.

...or are they?

Lots of Tyreen eating and some other general nastiness from her. Appreciably Claustrophobic.

The jump brought them to a space so empty it didn’t even seem black. No— darkness rested between other stars, far off and distant. Here was a clear nothingness, out of reach of the rest of the universe.

Tyreen drifted at his shoulder. He could feel her fuming.

Neither of them had made much sound since they’d stopped. The lights were low, the gravity still off and wherever they were now, it seemed like there hadn’t been a sound there since the galaxy formed. A word from either of them would disturb this.

Besides, this wasn’t Pandora. This wasn’t even the Pandoran system. Or any system. This was nothing.

“Stars move, you know,” Troy said, fumbling the silence apart.

“It’s only been like twenty years,” insisted Tyreen. “They can’t move that fast. We should at least be able to see it!”

He gestured a spiral with his hand. Did she even care that the star cluster where Nekrotafeyo had grown spun opposite this one, that they were blue-shifting verses each other and that had choked the navigation system? He decided to summarize. “I think the computer’s a little off and umm...”

“Umm what?”

“I might have overcompensated for stellar drift since I ended up doing it manually.”

“Troy!” She made his name sound like she’d broken something. He half-expected a slap.

“Look.” He forced calm into his voice and turned to face her as he spoke.

She was livid, her whole body tense and her hair standing on end.

“We can’t run out of power. We jumped just fine. We have water. We have food. We have a working toilet.”

“And where are we!”

“I’m gonna run an extrapolation and figure that out while the jump drive resets.”

“Can’t you math it in your head?”

“Um.” Sighing, Troy turned back to the view screen, focusing first on the blank reach where their ship rested, then letting his vision float to the stars. The blackness lived between them, but in some strands there was no between, only points of light thick enough to make mist out of each other. “I kinda don’t think so.”

Tyreen groaned and swam off towards the bed.

Tyreen moved better in zero g than he did. Troy was always twisting around to his left to push, pull, founder. Still, he hated to turn the gravity back on. There was something about watching her float above the bed with the covers billowing around her. She seemed so right like that, singular and and easy and in this case put out.

Her Coeus reader was flickering lately. She ended up groaning and setting it loose to float through the cabin where Troy caught it.

She also said— “Hey, turn the heavy back on. I gotta piss.”

“Alright. On three. Three.” Troy threw the switch. His back crunched as weight returned to his spine through the seat at the command console. His sister landed with a thump. Their foodstores yelped and howled and shed feather-forms along the floor. Tyreen caught herself with a huff and pulled herself into the water closet, giving the cage of spindly hexlings a sour look before she shut the door. One of them shrieked after her. Troy shushed it and went back to the console.

The keys pressed easier with weight back in his body. He pulled up the extrapolation program. Another likely set of coordinates failed a final round of testing and ticked away. The system was working to match the spectrographic information of visible stars to known clusters as far as he could tell. Color seemed such a tenuous way to determine place, but that might have been the emptiness intruding on his thoughts more than anything rational. Besides, he kept thinking he had somehow spied the white supergiant that held Pandora out among all the other points of light.

Troy was tempted to ask his sister to try. She was the siren. She might be able to do it if she listened across all the dark matter between them and that place.

She was still in the water closet.

Troy let the extrapolator run in the background and idly tabbed into the superstructure of the ship’s hard drive. It had been made to be piloted by someone with little skill, all of the command icons in welcoming jelly style art with three to four clicks needed to access any functions more complicated than the gravity or the sublight engine speed. He’d picked the interface up fast enough, but modifying the OS to accept a jump drive had been more hours of frustrated keystrokes than any actual handiwork.

Every system responded in good order. He’d done the same check once they’d cleared Nekrotafeyo’s gravity well and before the jump. The only difference was thousands of light years to nowhere and the bottom falling out of his stomach halfway there, not more than a heartbeat.

He even dug into the audio system. If Tyreen asked, he wanted to be able to tell her literally everything was fine.

A handful of loose example recordings bothered the top folder. Troy thought about moving them, but the system considered their poor placement de rigeur and complained when he tried.

Tempted to try, he clicked down the list, which was when he realized: one of them had a different date than the others.

He leaned over a speaker and hit play, curious what had been loaded on this particular sound test file. Since that was probably it.

Instead, he heard Dad say, “Well, if it isn’t my favorite little minx. Yeah, that’s a good girl. Let me see those eyes shine. I love it when you...”

He slammed stop.

There was somebody else on the file too. They were laughing that bubbly way he knew happened, but he barely remembered as something he’d experienced in his own life.

Troy stared at the file. He breathed again.

A thump sounded behind him and Tyreen came tripping out of the water closet, pants around her ankles and her underwear yanked up in her fist. “What the hell was that?”

“Ah, system check. Since we’re here, you know.”

She growled and she sat down right where she was and in the puddle of her pants. “Warn me next time.”

“Your intuition didn’t tip you off?”

Those words didn’t even merit an answer. She closed her eyes and turned her back to him.

The ship was so small he only would have had to lean out of the chair and he could have had his hand on her. She wasn’t in the mood though, not about that, not about anything to do with Dad and definitely not about playing siren anytime before they made planetfall.

And well, then she wouldn’t be playing anymore, would she?

Maybe that fact had settled funny someplace in her stomach. Troy just knew that after a while she stole her Coeus back and stood in the corner, smacking the screen. The extrapolation program ticked off another hundred coordinates that didn’t suit, approaching 50% complete at a crawl.

Tyreen peered over his shoulder, but said nothing about the progress bar.

It looked like half of their chances for finding themselves had been spent. Troy thought it was more of a best match situation.

He wondered what he would do if he was wrong.

The jump drive ticked down to usable quiescence. Tyreen swore and started to get back into bed. Instead she kicked her pants off and stretched out belly-down on the floor which was chalky with the bookmarks of the night they’d left.

It had only been two days. He thought. The active time on the sublight engine monitor was somewhat misleading. Startup had taken so long, but he’d been fumbling all over himself, movements thick with the shock of what he was about to do.

What Tyreen said they were doing.

Like, she just… dragged him. Now?

Now there his sister lay, looking like she’d melted into the ground.

“What’re you staring at?” she muttered without looking up from the well of her arms.

“Mm. Nothing,” Troy murmured. “I was thinking about when we were kids. That game we’d play about not getting off the bed back when we only had the one and...” Well, he thought about that a lot, even though it hadn’t been bothering his mind in that moment.

Tyreen sat up, still hunched over. Her Coeus rattled in her grasp. Eventually, she tipped it into one of the charging slots. “I’m eating now. You want in?”

“Sure.”

Food was something to do anyway. Troy hauled himself out of the chair and got himself into the cupboard after some of the stale rye bread they’d taken from the stores back at the homestead. He checked it for mold and then also took a plum.

Tyreen picked over the cages with a tongs. Did she want manta eggs? A hexling or two? A flush of air coral and sprat? One one of the lonesome baby Djira mewing in their own slime?

She took two eggs.

The two of them hunched together on a sheet of tanned air algae. Troy’s plum was sour, but he sucked the pit clean while Tyreen stared at him. As he reached for the bread, Tyreen shoved one of the eggs at him. “Open it for me.”

Troy sighed. Speaking of games from when they were children— Tyreen could have eaten the egg regardless, but he’d gotten awfully good at spinning the tops off with his knife and one hand. He smiled and he did this for her now, placing the egg on a spare sack so that his sister’s leavings would spread through the ship, get into the Instruments.

The egg squished as she pressed her fingers inside. It turned to dust and glass. “Hmm. That was fresher than I thought.”

“Good. Want me to do the other one too?”

“Sure.”

So, he sliced again. He was going to have to wash his hand before he finished his own super as much as the second egg leaked.

This time, his sister stared at her dirty knees. “Are you sure you didn’t fuck everything up?”

“If I did,” Troy said softly. “Then we’ll deal wi-...”

Tyreen sucked the other egg down, sloppy now, sand leaking between her toes. She grabbed the piece of rye and stuck it in Troy’s mouth before burrowing into the bed and covering her head with the pillow.

Troy chewed thoughtfully and then moved to clean up. The baby Djira chortled in their cages as though night had fallen. Well, it was that time by the engine clock.

#bordertober #border-tober #borderlands 3 #fanfic #fanfiction #Tyreen Calypso #Tyreen being Tyreen #Troy Calypso #Troy Calypso PoV #enclosed spaces #claustrophobia #tags will change #appreciably some shade of horror #i couldn't get a straight answer on how ships are supposed to do ship things so have this #it's a hack sci-fi author blue plate special #oh and they had plums on Nekro in Grimeverse #mostly because I was hungry for plums one day

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writing-with-olive · 4 years

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How I plot/plan my novels (starting from a basic idea)

so I’ve seen various people wonder how to plot novels, so I decided to share my method. As usual, the steps without the attached descriptions and examples will be posted at the bottom for people who want to copy-paste

this method works for a single storyline/single POV. if there are two storylines or povs, you may have to alter some of the steps near the end of this process to fit your needs.

Spoiler warning: I use examples from both the Hunger Games and The Martian

1. Have an idea.

This can range from a general vibe, or something more concrete, such as plot points. The easy thing about this step is it doesn’t really need to be super specific, just a general idea of the direction you want to go.

2. Start writing down the things you know.

Start creating a list/brainstorm of all the ideas you have at this point. For me, this is usually an assortment of dialogue clips, worldbuilding, character vibes, plot points, things like that. You will likely find that you have a lot stronger grasp on some of these things, and a lot weaker grasp on others. This is perfectly okay. (for example, when I did this for my current WIP, I knew a lot more than I expected about the worldbuilding, but the characters didn’t have as much detail to them. The more time you spend brainstorming here, the easier it will be moving forward. To make it easier, I usually catagorize this stuff into the catagories of: plot, characters, worldbuilding, other.

3. Identify your main character.

You may already have a character in mind, but you will want to identify who that person is, and in a very basic sense of what they’re like. At this point in the process, it doesn’t really matter if they’re not fully developed/one or two dementional. You just need to know who is leading your story

4. Create a scaffolding outline.

NOTE: this will likely not be the same outline you end up with, but having a basic idea is going to be helpful when you start worldbuilding.

You should have a sentence/bullet point for each plot point, but not much more than that. Remember - this is going to be more of scaffolding than your final outline, and it’s more to give you a sense of where the story might be headed. If it helps you to think about the story in terms of acts, each of the three acts has two of the plotpoints listed below; one near the beginning of the act, and the other at the very end. Below, the -- indecates the seperation between each act.

The catagories you should fill out are:

Enciting incedent: this is the thing that first rocks your character’s world.

No return: your protagonist makes a decision (or has a decision forced upon them) that they cannot return from - no matter if they succeed or fail, they will not be able to go back to the same life they had.

Midpoint: (this actually comes half way through the second act, rather than being positioned near the beginning) This is a turning point, and something that will test your characters. This will be one of the most intense points in your book to your character, other than the climax and breaking point.

examples:

in The Martian, the airlock broke, and all the food was frozen. Unless this problem is solved, starvation is imminant.

in The Hunger Games, Katniss has to choose between dropping the Trackerjacker nest on her enemies, or not to.

Breaking point: something really bad happens, and this is your character’s lowest point in the book.

Climax: This is where your protagonist finally confronts the antagonist.

Resolution: This is the aftermath of the climax, and the determiner if your book has a happy ending or a sad one.

5. Worldbuilding: Brainstorming

Now that you have a scaffolding outline, think about what places might need to exist in your world. Does your Inciting incident plotpoint involve your protagonist finding a dragon in the forest? If that’s the case, you need to have a forest. Dragons are probably rare if this is the first time your protagonist has found one. Maybe they’re unheard of. Think about the implications of each of your plotpoints and add them to your brainstorming list that you started in step 2. The more you do here, the easier the next step will be.

6. Worldbuilding: Figuring stuff out.

This is the harder of the two worldbuilding steps. Figure out things such as climate, weather, animal/plant life, commerce, social norms, magic system, whether or not there’s a religeous system, etc. I strongly recommend this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3IgxY7dbU - Worldbuilding Basics) by Jenna Moreci. What I did was take notes about all of the questions she posed, and then copy-pasted it onto a google doc and filled it in from there. Rather than answer questions in order, it’s far easier to answer with what you know first, because that will influence your other answers. As you answer more and more things, other answers will get easier - you’ll be filling in gaps, rather than creating things out of nowhere.

This is also a great time to make world or town maps. Two resources that worked really well for me on this front (for fantasy) are: this tutorial (for making worldmaps), and this tutorial (for town maps)

character development, skeleton outline, create a story, organize your cards, fill in holes, more details (optional) all under the break

7. Character Development.

Starting with your main character, start to turn people from cardboard cutouts into 3-d characters. You can use this questionaire that I made based off of two of Jenna Moreci’s character development videos, and a video by a professional editor Ellen Brock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tup43nRDKqM - (Jenna Moreci)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQcQ-As2BU0 - (Also Jenna Moreci)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MozMgyppTjM (Ellen Brock)

I would strongly recommend watching all three of these videos

8. Skeleton Outline.

Now that you’ve got a sense for who the characters are - and how they will likely play into the story, go back to your scaffolding outline. You will likely find that that outline is no longer realistic for your characters. Repeat step four, thinking about what the character’s goals are, and how that’s going to affect their decisionmaking - and therefore the plot.

9. Create a story

I find it easiest to do this step with notecards on my bedroom floor, rather than on a computer, but if you find that doing the following on a computer works better for you, go for it.

Write down your six main plotpoints on notecards and set them aside. then, on more notecards, brainstorm events that you want to happen in the story, writing one thing per card (I usually like to sum it up in no more than six words, with the occasional card going beyond that). You may find later that you’ve left stuff out, or that multiple notecards will fit into one scene, and that’s okay. For now, don’t worry about it. Write down all the events of the story you can think of - and you don’t have to write them down in order, or even know the order yet. Ideally, you’ll end up with 50+ cards.

10. Organize your cards.

I like to start by seeing which events fit into which acts/before or after which of the main plotpoints. To do this, I set out the major plotpoint cards that I made at the beginning of last step, and line them up in a column. Then I take the other notecards and put them next to the major plotpoint they come after. It’s fine if they are mixed up in these catagories. If there are a handful of events that happen before your enciting incident (there shouldn’t be more than three or four tops), but them above your inciting incedent section.

Important: remember that in most books, your character is going to be more reactive to things during the first half of the middle (second act). This means that they will react to problems, but not have too many plans of their own to solve them. Your Midpoint will split up the first and second half of yoru middle/second act. After your midpoint, your characters are going to be a lot more proactive - creating plans, to better their situation, rather than just react.

example:

in The Hunger Games, Katniss spends the first part of the games reacting to things like dehydration or getting attacked

the midpoint is when she chooses whether or not to drop the trackerjacker nest on her competitors

in the second half of the middle is more proactive - she and rue make plans to win, such as a plan to blow up the Career’s supply pile

If your characters are doing something more reactive, it’s probably a better idea to put it before your midpoint. If it’s more proactive, it’s probably better to put it after.

After you have this done, now you’re going to turn the collection of cards into a pretty good outline. Going row by row, organize the cards so that they are in chronological order in your story.

11. Fill in the holes

At this point, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what the plot looks like. Now you’re going to type up your current outline in a google doc or other processer. Then you’re going to create scenes, using the goal>>decision cycle. Basically, that cycle goes as follows:

goal scenes:

goal: your character starts the scene with a goal.

conflict: there is something in the way of your character getting that goal

disaster: either your character does not achieve their goal, or, by achieving it, they create unseen consequences. (or both)

this brings you to...

decision scenes

reaction: your character is going to have an emotional reaction to whatever the disaster is. Depending on the disaster and your character, the emotion could range from mild annoyance to a full-blown meltdown

options: after your character gets through the main emotional reaction, they are faced with two or more options, ideally none of them good. In any case, the default options are to do something, or do nothing.

resolution: your character makes a decision. What they choose to do will be their goal in the next scene.

Your first scene is going going be a goal scene. Go through, scene by scene, alternating between goal and reaction. Some cards will be part of a single scene. This is the time to combine them. If you discover a hole, create the scenes you will need to bridge that gap, and fill in either the goal or decision scene details, depending on which one that scene is. In the scene outline, you may also choose to include notes, or various details that you want to include or avoid as you write the scene. When you’re done with this step, you will have a solid outline!!!

12. More details (optional)

Personally, I don’t do this step, but some people like more detailed outlines. This is the time where you might want to include all of the other details you think you’ll need/want as your write.

++++++++++++

Recap of the steps:

1. have an idea.

2. start writing down the things you know.

3. identify your main character.

4. create a scaffolding outline.

5. worldbuilding: brainstorming.

6. worldbuilding: figuring stuff out.

7. character development.

8. skeleton outline.

9. create a story.

10. organize your cards.

11. fill in holes.

12. more details (optional).

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psyga315 · 4 years

Text

Fixing RWBY Volume 7

Much like my Volume 6 Tweak, this Volume 7 Tweak doesn’t change a lot of things, but the things that do change will be to be centered around a theme: Who Can You Trust? With the amount of the word “trust” being thrown around, it helps to add more than just characters parroting “I trust you, do you trust me” and “can we reeeeaaaaally trust you” ad nauseum.

Now, normally, I’d begin with Episode 1, but for the most part, Episodes 1 & 2 do a great job setting up the conflict for the Volume. The only thing that would be changed is an earlier introduction to Robyn. Either through a character short style random fight or have the group bump into her during their trip to Mantle.

Also, probably change up how Weiss handles the drunkard because… Yeah, you don’t just fling a guy into the trash bin for being racist after you spend the past six volumes having a villain faction of murderous terrorists motivated by racists attacking their kind. The problem is that I don’t know how. The best I can say is that Weiss tries to do something about it, the dude’s like “wait, aren’t you a Schnee?” and then Weiss realizes “Oh shit, we should be incognito.”

Episode 3

Now here’s where things start to change up. Have a split in the group over whether Ruby was in the right to omit Salem’s immortality to Ironwood. A clear 50/50 split or as close to one as possible. If I was deciding who was on who’s side, Weiss, Blake and Nora would be on Ruby’s side and Jaune, Ren, and Yang would be on Ironwood’s side. Over the course of the Volume, they give their reasons, but I’ll explain their reasons now.

Weiss and Blake’s reasons are virtually the same, with Weiss’s added caveat being that she overheard Ironwood going “OZPIN SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED ME!” bit. Nora would be too pissed at Ironwood to care what he wants and anything to fuck him over is a win in her book, even egging on the other side to join by saying how he disqualified RWBY from the Vytal Tournament and how this would be good payback.

Ren’s reason was implied, but it’d be more pronounced that he wants Salem dealt with now. Not out of apathy or tiredness, but because he knows the Grimm now have a mistress and that the only person who has an actual plan to deal with her is being lied to. Yang and Jaune share their reason, but in different ways. Yang isn’t too keen on Ruby omitting information to Ironwood after they had just spent an entire two Volumes distrusting Ozpin for the same thing and Jaune especially doesn’t like that Ironwood is going to go into an unwinnable battle without knowing all the details, much like how Pyrrha never found out about Salem.

Oscar, Qrow, and Maria would be the middle of the fence. Maria doesn’t care too much about the situation and is just there to help out Pietro, Qrow has known Ironwood more than anyone but recent events had him uneasy, and Oscar just doesn’t want to be hurt because that tends to happen whenever people find out about Ozpin’s many, many skeletons. However, they all have faith that Ruby is doing something right…

The only other thing I’d change with this is giving the outright confirmation that these are the mines that Ilia’s parents died in. Maybe even have Marrow allude to how it was a major turning point in making the White Fang what they are now.

Episode 4

Not much changes, except for Ironwood showing genuine remorse for what’s going on with Mantle and trying to make amends by making the group Huntsmen and having them broker peace to Mantle by helping them out.

The other major change is Qrow not telling Ruby that she’s done nothing wrong. Instead, he warns that Ironwood, while he’s a very valuable ally, is also one whose trust is hard to earn and easy to break. He reveals to Ruby about how Ozpin was put on thin ice in Volume 2 and how Ironwood became the head of security for Vytal. Because the Tweaking Volume 6 showed Summer in the flashback to Ruby, I don’t think we’ll get that here.

A minor bit would be Penny and Jaune talking about Pyrrha, because what’s Jaune’s character arc without bringing Pyrrha into it?

Episode 5

Nothing really changes that much except for a training montage between the Ace Ops and RWBY so that we get that out of the way. Maybe even have Nora note the hole in the wall and get more furious at Ironwood for just leaving that out in the open when a simple patch would fix it. Ironwood would then give a rebuttal that it wouldn’t fix the Manticore problem.

There’s a small change in Robyn’s demeanour in which she doesn’t like Penny. “Just because you’re the protector of Mantle doesn’t mean you’re not another one of Ironwood’s machines. Once I get in power, you’re the first bot to enter the scrapyard!” Like, the world knows Penny is a robot, right? Speaking of, we have Ruby talk to Penny about how depressed she was when she died. Because remember when she broke down into tears over that and had Penny’s death be a major impact to her psyche?

The biggest change would be that whole scene with Winter and Fria. Weiss is appalled that Fria is locked up in a room before Winter tells her that it’s to secure her, explaining how Maidens end up having their powers taken from them through murder instead of the natural way and using the Fall Maiden’s death as an example. Weiss then asks “isn’t that what you’re going to do to her? Why don’t you just do Ironwood a favor and stab her right now?” Winter is silent.

Oh, and there’s no scene of Jacques inciting a riot. You’ll understand why later, but this will eliminate the stupid “riot happens off screen” bit. Instead, we get a scene where a plane flies towards the blockade. They demand to know who’s on the plane, only for Cinder to come out, smirk, and her Maiden eye flares as a snowstorm kicks off.

Episode 6

Not a lot changes here save for the obvious minor detail of a snowstorm hitting Atlas and Mantle (as well as Ironwood receiving reports about his blockade being taken out, thus he tells the group to take the night off while he looks into getting replacement planes) and one major detail: Tyrian’s attack during the rally would be him busting in during a power outage (engineered by either Watts’s hacking or Cinder’s snowstorm) and slaughtering people as they try to whip out their phones to try and illuminate the area. We’d even have an earlier scene where we could see Tyrian sneak in the background as Nora kisses Ren, giving the notion that, had Nora not macked on Ren, they would have seen Tyrian.

Penny tries to fight Tyrian because of her night vision, but Tyrian gets the better of her, even dancing through her slashes and have other people get hurt and possibly killed by her blades, blood being on her swords once the lights go back on. Robyn instantly attacks Penny, leading to Ruby to try and defend her and prove her innocence. Marrow gets the angry mob to “STAY!”, but it’s pretty clear that Robyn was out of the radius when that happened. As Ruby and Penny run off, Robyn gives chase, the Grimm invade, a plane lands without any problem on Mantle, and we get perhaps the largest change in the entire volume: An entire episode gets shafted in favor of one we were promised.

Episode 7

We see Blake and Yang with FNKI when they hear the Grimm siren go off and they go to investigate. Meanwhile, Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar exit the theater only to get attacked by Grimm. The majority of this episode would be them fighting the Grimm until Ruby, Penny and Robyn come in to Blake and Yang’s perspective.

Not sure what’s going on, Blake and Yang fight Robyn while Penny runs away. It isn’t until Robyn rants about Ironwood does Blake stops fighting her, tells her about Ironwood’s plan, and the whole truth Semblance thing happens. Yang confronts Blake on this, to which she gives her rant about how she distanced herself from the White Fang and that what RWBY is doing is exactly like the White Fang. It doesn’t help that, when Yang reassures Blake that they did what they had to do, she sounds exactly like Adam, right down to her saying “It's good to know I've still got you...”

Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar find Ruby and Penny and have a brief moment to reconvene before a mob comes after Penny, demanding her head. In the middle of this, Cinder and Neo look on. Neo nonverbally asks if they should get Ruby while they have the chance, but Cinder smirks upon seeing her scroll and says she has a plan. During a stand off where Ruby tries to proclaim Penny’s innocence, Cinder sneaks into the mob and, with the help of Neo disguising her as an old lady (because what’s RWBY without making characters into two different fairy tale references at once?), tell the group how Penny had been going out and murdering people for Ironwood, showing the group the doctored footage of Penny murdering Forrest and Cinder lying about how Forrest is her (grand)son.

Now in an even bigger frenzy, the crowd swarm Ruby as Cinder slinks into the background. Despite all their best efforts, the people of Mantle get their hands-on Penny and dismember her from limb to limb. The despair of Penny dying again followed by several more Grimm coming in causes Ruby’s Silver Eyes to go off, turning the Manticores to stone (and, if you want some instant karma, one of them could be in midflight and fall on top of some of the more ruder Mantleans, crushing them in the process) before she gets weak and Weiss carries her away, with Jaune and Oscar carrying Penny’s remains from the blinded crowd.

In the middle of all this, Ren and Nora fight Grimm on their own, getting into an argument about how Mantle is being treated. This is where Nora’s rant comes in, not to Ironwood, but to Ren. Ren tells her his reason why Ironwood is their best bet and because of his words, it upsets Nora enough to go her separate way. We end the episode with Nora coming across Robyn.

Episode 8

It’s been a week since the battle and we reconvene on Penny being rebuilt. Ruby and Jaune converse about how coincidental it is, with Ruby being clearly upset that she had to watch Penny die twice now. Jaune, however, elates that at least she’s alive, awkwardly bringing up his dead girlfriend again. Pietro comes in and tells them that it is not as coincidental as they believe and demonstrates by using his Semblance, the ability to be a make shift deliberator.

Basically, this is where I reinvent how Pietro’s relation to Penny works. I’m keeping the disturbing aspect that he slowly dies a little each time he uses this power while taking out the unintentionally disturbing aspect of Penny really being just Pietro in the robotic shell of a young girl. As for who Penny is… You saw this coming and if RT wanted to really make those fairy tale references, it just makes sense for them to pay homage to the very first anime that just so happens to also reference Pinocchio, or at least is compared to Pinocchio.

We have a flashback to Pietro and Watts working on the Paladin project together before Pietro gets a call. We don’t hear what it is, but we can definitely tell from how he reacts and how it’s framed exactly what happened. We cut to Pietro in the morgue grieving over a dead girl who looks similar to Penny and get that hard confirmation that Penny was Pietro’s daughter… or rather was the basis of Pietro’s daughter.

He uses his Semblance, which he says allows him to jumpstart people’s aura and save them from the brink of death. While normally an Aura technique in of itself to awaken another’s aura, it’s another thing to awaken another’s aura and save their life in the process. However, he tried that on a long dead Human Penny and all it did was put her in a comatose state, needing to be put on constant life support or else she’d die. Not wanting to let go of Penny, Pietro invented a means to transfer her aura over to something else: The Aura Transfer Machine. He places Penny into the shell of V1!Penny and jumpstarts her. She opens her eyes and says “Salutations!”

As the flashback ends, he explains how what he did was unnatural and, as a consequence, whenever he jumpstarts Penny with his Semblance, his Aura completely depletes and it damages him. It’s how he became crippled. Normally, the Aura would return slowly and he’d be recovered, but because he had to do it so many times in a short amount of time, it damages him. Jaune says he’ll use his Semblance to save Penny next time, but Pietro brings up the contrast between their Semblances: Jaune just dumps aura into other people, but Pietro is bringing the dead back to life. Even if Jaune were to use his Semblance, all it would do is put Aura into a robotic shell and not Penny. A sad reminder that, no matter what he did, Penny will never be a real girl again. Especially since, as one last flashback shows, Ironwood was more than pleased with Penny and convinced Pietro to turn Penny into a living weapon, something he was very hesitant about.

I’d add that Pietro would die right there to show that Penny has no ‘extra lives’ left, but I feel like RT would do that already… So I’ll say he’s written out of the volume by going into a coma.

Interspersed with this is the dinner scene. Because there’s fewer people going with Ironwood, RT might splurge a bit and give characters different outfits for the scene, like Weiss having an all-white version of her Mistral dress or having Qrow’s new outfit be the outfit he wears to the dinner. Obviously, not everyone gets new dresses, as the Ace Ops still have their uniforms. Only Weiss, Blake, Yang, Ren, and Oscar attend for obvious reasons.

Weiss investigates Jacques like usual, but she gets quite a few encounters, such as running into Harry Marigold (who gets in a heated argument with May and establishes who she is right there and then instead of doing Twitter) and even the Trophy Wife who she tried to kill. They’re brief, but show the consequences of Weiss’s actions. Maybe have the Trophy Wife flee in terror. She then comes across Willow, who, for the first time in Weiss’s life, is not drunk. In fact, she is elated to see Weiss return, but understands why she doesn’t share the same notion. She reveals to have sobered up since Weiss ran away and had done a lot of contemplation. She doesn’t say too much, but she does leave Weiss with the video and guilt trips her about Whitley.

While Watts turning off the heating grid is still in, it’s not the final scene. Instead, it’s during the dinner with Ironwood and the others, in which Robyn, as part of the “get Ironwood impeached” party, brings in someone who had been “tormented by Atlas’s boot on Mantle’s face for far too long…”: Nora.

Nora’s Backstory

Okay, granted, this is something that is operating on information we don’t know yet, so there’s a lot of speculation to go on here. I’ll probably make an update to this once we get a proper backstory for Nora, but for now, this is what I think would be Nora’s backstory:

Mantle had been scapegoated as the cause of the Great War and while they had a hand in it, the real cause of it, the nobles, decided to take their ball and go home by using the Relic to lift their Kingdom high into the clouds, leaving the rest of Mantle to take the fall. The Oz at the time allowed this to happen knowing exactly why they did it, but instead tried to cite it as creating a beacon of hope instead of what it truly was.

As a result, Mantle hit an unstable depression and unable to even be on the same level as the other Kingdoms, essentially being Menagerie before they made Menagerie. This resulted in people starving and dying. Of the few people who remained hopeful was Fria Valkyrie, who proposed life living out in the lands of thriving kingdoms rather than be ruled over by Atlas. She went to Mistral and got a few people into pooling their resources to make a new Kingdom, one that would exist outside the four and be by the people, for the people.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared her vision and some even took her resources to create Menagerie for the purpose of dumping the Faunus there. After she gained the Maiden powers by chance, she was forced to give up her dream by Oz. Her child grew up and inherited that vision, getting a child of their own, moving to Mistral, wooing someone to birth Nora, tell her about how Mantle became a shithole thanks to Atlas, and then head to make Oniyuri with the others. The Nuck came, killed Nora’s parents and left her an orphan, only for her to bring the Nuck with her to Kuroyuri and the rest is history.

Of course, this wouldn’t all be shown and is a rough idea, but the core idea is: Mantle suffered long ago because the people who caused the Great War refused to take blame and went into their floating castle while Oz just looked at it and said “hey, look at this shiny beacon!”

With that in mind, let’s return to the story:

Episode 9

Nora lays down Mantle’s grievances to Ironwood in front of everyone before she includes the two members of the council and Jacques into the shit pile, saying how they’re not blameless. When called out on going all “sins of the father” on the group, she says how they should have thought of that before doing that to Mantle. Robyn attempts to expose Ironwood before Weiss drops in and tries to expose Jacques…

And here’s where major change #2 comes into play. As the video plays of Jacques and Watts having their conversation, it takes a turn for the weird as Jacques just throws Watts out of his house and refusing to hear any further of his offer. This is one of the major scenes that convey the theme of trust. Throughout the Volume, we’re built up to not trust Jacques and trust Ironwood before the tables turn around this exact moment. Now, with the revelation that Jacques refused to work with Watts and Ironwood turning Penny into a weapon against her and Pietro’s will, Jacques is the trustworthy one and Ironwood is the deceitful.

Though, before any consequences play out, it’s all put on hold as news of the heating grid had been turned off. And yes, before you ask, in this tweak, the heating grid is in Mantle and thus is just as easy to hack. The reason why Watts decided to do this now is to make it look like Ironwood is doing it in retaliation for what happened to Penny. As a result, riots and Grimm naturally come. Robyn asks Ironwood why he’s working so hard to hide Amity Arena and this gives Oscar the (unintended) signal that now’s the time to tell him the truth. He covers for Ironwood, then gets him to a secure room to tell him all he knows about Salem.

Especially how she boned Ozpin.

Okay, joking aside… The rest of the episode (as well as Episode 10) play out like normal, but with Ruby and Jaune arriving to help from the ground instead of from the plane for obvious reasons.

Episode 10

The only big change is the reveal that Tyrian is a serial killer here because we retconned the original Episode 7. The only sight twist I can add to this is that he was part of the White Fang, had a hand in some of Weiss’s family members being killed, and that’s why Salem knew of them.

Episode 11

Okay, this is the best episode of Volume 7 so there’s not a lot to change. The only major changes are as follows.

Ironwood confronts the group over Robyn knowing about Amity. When confronted on why he had to keep that a secret, he explains that it was to prevent the enemy from learning about it, like what happened with Watts. When Yang calls him out for lying, he snaps and calls her out for lying.

“Oscar told me the truth. About Salem.”

“What!? He wasn’t supposed to!”

“Then who would have? And when? When everyone threw their lives away for nothing? You’re just like Ozpin.”

And then Salem shows up, gloats a bit, goes yo mama, and Ironwood decides to use the Relic of Creation to send Atlas somewhere else. He’s not doing the stupid thing of yeeting it into space, though. Instead, he’s going to use it to move them away from the continent and towards another Kingdom. When Blake says that they’re leaving Mantle to die, he just coldly remarks that “they did this to themselves”.

Naturally, RWBY protests about this. The funny thing is, The Ace Ops are almost able to convince the girls to leave Mantle… But then Ironwood says this to Ruby:

“After what they’ve done to poor Penny… Surely, you’d agree that they don’t deserve our protection.”

This causes Ruby to quietly turn that comment around:

“Yeah… But after I heard about what you’ve done to Penny… The only thing I agree about is that you don’t deserve my trust.” Before she calls the others and says how Ironwood had gone mad. This leads to the confrontation with the Ace Ops and the end of our episode.

Episode 12

Well… How do we make the worst episode of V7 better? Well, we begin with showing what happened to Oscar. Robots come to take the Relic from him, Ruby comes in and Oscar saves her. They have some romantic tension, but uh oh! It’s Neo! And she took the Relic!

We then cut to the airplane. I should bring up that the arrest warrant has been changed a bit, excluding Qrow, Oscar, Jaune and Ren from the list. Qrow and Oscar because they gave Ironwood their trust and vice versa, Jaune because Ironwood overlooking Jaune would be hilarious, and Ren because of the kids, he was the most trustful of Ironwood. Nora, however, is still on the list due to her standing against Ironwood. As well as Robyn.

This leads to a more natural reason for Robyn to pick a fight: She’s resisting arrest. They crash and Clover calls for a medical team. Qrow and Clover have a conversation about what’s going on. Qrow insists they talk to Ironwood about this, only for Clover to insist he arrests Ruby. This leads to a natural conclusion as to why Qrow fights Clover: He wants to protect Ruby.

Tyrian joins in and the fight isn’t a 2v1 like the original, but instead Qrow vs. Clover but with Tyrian running interference against both sides. This leads to Qrow and Clover teaming up against Tyrian, but Qrow, at the last minute, knocks Clover aura out so as to disable him. Tyrian is kinda shocked at the betrayal but stays around to let it play out, especially since he knows something Qrow doesn’t.

Clover asks Qrow why he did that and Qrow told Clover that sometimes, you have to do the right thing instead of doing what you’re told to. Clover remarks that the right thing is often the hardest and stands firm with his belief that Ironwood will do the right thing, even if the cost is people’s lives. Qrow then says “then he will take the fall.” Clover chuckles, says good luck, then dies because it’s freezing out on Solitas.

Tyrian laughs at this, Qrow gets pissed, he runs off, and the aircraft comes.

RWBY vs. Ace Ops goes about as well as the best of the best of the best going up against a bunch of college drop outs who only had a week or so of training with said best. Very poorly. In fact, the group takes advantage of the team’s insistence of fighting in the White Rose and Bumblebee pairs, curbstomping them by exploiting their weaknesses. However, just as they’re about to be arrested, Marrow takes a look at Ruby.

“You know, I never wanted to actually arrest you guys…” He breathes in. “And I don’t want to.” Turns around and shouts “STAY!” to the rest of the Ace Ops and tells Ruby and her friends to run. As soon as they do, he gets out his weapon and glares at his ‘friends’. Harriet asks why he did this, only for him to reply:

“Well, maybe we were just tired of being pushed around.” He says before he tosses a volatile Dust crystal on the ground and hurts the group, making a getaway.

And the JNPR bit stays the same.

Episode 13

Because this will be setting up Volume 8, this is mostly speculative at this point. But then again, I did the same with Volume 6’s Tweaking before Volume 7 premiered… That said, Volume 6 was more conclusive than Volume 7 so…

Bottom line, this will most likely get disconfirmed by the time Volume 8 rolls around.

JNPR vs Neo stays the same, but Nora and Ren bicker about whether to stay on Mantle and help the others, causing Neo to give them the slip with the Relic and further sever the ties between Nora and Ren.

Cinder vs Winter, Penny and Fria is also a little changed. Namely, Penny takes a blow for Winter that destroys most of her body. Despite this, she struggles to go through the whirlwind that Fria makes and saves her from Cinder. Penny is dying as a result of putting herself through the extreme and with no Pietro to save her, this will basically be her final death.

Fria knows this. She also knows that Ironwood had sent only one person to see her to make it easier for her Alzheimer’s and that Penny is not that person. Despite this, she is moved by Penny’s dedication, asks for her name, and passes on her powers to Penny, saving her life. Ruby flashes Cinder and secures Penny. On the ship during Ozpin’s speech on fear, Pietro wakes up, checks up on Penny to see if she’s alright. Upon seeing that there’s blood on a cut from Penny, he’s at first afraid, but then cries in joy as she had become a real girl. However, if RT decides to do a plot point like this in a future volume where they make Penny a real girl, then disregard this bit.

The final bit (don’t worry, I’m going to the Ironwood vs Oscar bit later) is that Maria explicitly says that they’re leaving Atlas. As soon as she says that, Nora and Blake object. Nora because they’re leaving Mantle as well and Blake because they just had an entire fight where they wanted to stay and fight. Yang tries to reason with Blake, but she just comments about how she’s not going to run. Likewise, Nora is tired of sacrifices after losing Pyrrha. They both leave and go to Mantle just as the plane leaves.

Ironwood and Oscar’s Conversation

Okay, no amount of summary is going to do this justice, so I’m going to include this as a subsection like with Nora’s backstory. This would take place roughly in the same spot(s) as the original. It starts out roughly the same until Oscar pleads to work this out.

Ironwood: There is no working anything out. People have been demanding me to do things their way, to make things easier for them, and every time I try to bend to their whims, Salem and her forces go two steps ahead. The easiest solution is for me to do everything myself.

Oscar: Including leaving people to die?

Ironwood: That’s what Ozpin had been doing for most of his life. You don’t hear people complain about that. Because he kept it all to himself and never told others the bigger picture. Just like Ruby.

Oscar: Ruby only hid the truth because she was afraid of what you’d become if you found out.

Ironwood: That’d I’d become another Lionheart? I’m not that weak-willed a coward.

Oscar: Then why abandon Mantle?

Ironwood: Because Salem’s forces are on our doorstep. If we don’t do anything, then we will fall!

Oscar: No… If you divide us, then we will fall… It’s what she wants, James.

Ironwood: … James is what my friends call me. To you… it’s General.

And the rest of the scene plays out like normal, including the ending of Salem’s forces arriving.

Stinger

This is less fix and more wish.

Marrow stumbles onto a rooftop, the top portion of his face heavily burned from the explosion, and sees Salem’s forces arriving. A recovering Fiona approaches Marrow and tells him how protecting Mantle had just become more complex. Marrow shakes his head and takes out something from his pocket before he fixes it to his face.

“It was never about protecting Mantle, Fiona… It’s about making Atlas pay for what they’ve done.” He turns around, wearing a White Fang mask.

And that was Tweaking V7, perhaps the most intense tweaking I’ve done with five thousand words.

#RWDE #RWBY #Rewrite #RWBY Rewrite

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metalgearkong · 5 years

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MediEvil 2019 - Review (PS4)

10/28/19

Developed by Other Ocean Emeryville / Sony Computer Entertainment, released October 2019

It has risen again! The original MediEvil from 1998 is one of my favorite games of all time, and one of the games I have completed the most. Like other games from the PS1 era, I discovered MediEvil on a demo disc and replayed it constantly. I loved the Nightmare Before Christmas aesthetics and music, and liked that it stared a cowardly bumbling skeleton. The late 90′s was a time of experimentation for 3D action/adventure games, and while some people hold Ocarina of Time or Super Mario 64 as their favorites of the genre, MediEvil has always been my personal favorite. MediEvil II released two years later, but lost a lot of its appeal for me because it took place in Victorian London instead of the graveyards and spooky locations of the original. MediEvil: Resurrection was made in 2005 for the PSP, but was more of a re-imagining of the original game, and not a true remake.

I had heard about MediEvil being remade yet again a couple years ago, but tried to have tempered expectations, and not buy into what could amount to be rumors. I imagined it would be akin to a big screen version of MediEvil: Resurrection, or at least the developers would butcher the original game. Last year was when I saw the trailer for this MediEvil remake, and I felt more confident in it. While most people were anticipating big triple-A or franchise games for 2019, my sights and hopes were dead set on this. Finally, after all this time of waiting, MediEvil 2019 has released exclusively for the PS4, and I couldn’t be happier with the final product. Other Ocean Emeryville has created a deeply loyal and extremely faithful remake of the original game I cherish so much, but I feel like only true fans will be able to truly appreciate it for the accomplishment it is.

Before I talk about the game proper, I have to elaborate on the unexpected odyssey it took to actually get the game going. Not only do I have to make a three hour round trip to the nearest Gamestop to get a copy, the game had to immediately download a day one patch: version 1.01. This update was a massive 16GB, and with my super slow mountainous wi-fi speed, my PS4 predicted it would take at least 50 hours. There was no option to begin the game without this update. I was floored. It put me in a state of blue-balled depression and denial. So I took my TV, PS4, and all the necessary cords, and physically hooked in my PS4 to my work’s ethernet cable in a public building, hoping no one would disturb it. The estimated time dropped to a meager four hours, and it made me feel a lot better. Ironically, my PS4 only realized I didn’t have enough storage space to download the update, and somewhere along the line it quit. Thankfully, it let me play after giving up.

Expectations mean a lot, and leading up to this MediEvil releasing, I intentionally did not do a lot of research on the game in order to discover it in person as I was playing. I didn’t realize this was a fully committed remake of the original. MediEvil: Resurrection disappointed me because it changed a bunch about the game and left out a lot of my favorite levels. 2019′s MediEvil recreates every inch of the original game with modern graphics. I was so thrilled I can’t even describe how cool it was to see one of my favorite games of all time with a new coat of skin, especially because I never thought THIS game would be chosen to be remade. Not only that, but the game uses the same exact audio for most of the dialog; each and every gargoyle head and character Dan meets plays the same audio as I’ve had engraved in my skull for over twenty years, only with new character models and more elaborate animations.

The developers even used the same music for each level, only re-recorded it with only small differences or flourishes. Even insignificant things like textures on a doorway or on the ground were recreated in 3D to look just like they did. I would have been perfectly okay with the developers simply using modern graphics and textures to remake certain pieces of architecture or focal points in this game, but no, every corner of Gallowmere represented the original locations, and I constantly had to pick my jaw off the floor (no offense Dan). Cinematics also play out exactly the same, with the same camera angles and movements. Part of me thinks about how maybe Other Ocean Emeryville could have taken these short cinematics sprinkled throughout the game and elaborated slightly on lore, but that would veer dangerously close to a “re-imagining” territory, and I’m just thankful everything is kept so faithful in the end.

The banished necromancer Zarok has raised an army of the dead to conquer the realm of Gallowmere. Unwittingly, Zarok also brought back to life Sir Daniel Fortesque, King Peregrine's captain of the militia, who perished embarrassingly years prior in an earlier battle against Zarok and his armies. After Fortesque’s death, fables, songs, and legends told of his false bravery and battlefield accomplishments, but now he has the opportunity to live up to his own mythical status as the hero of Gallowmere. I’ve always loved this story, wherein the bad guy accidentally raises the very hero who would thwart him. I’ve always loved Dan because he’s so unlike most knights and heroes. He has to live up to his own reputation, and prove those wrong who know what truly happened. We play as Dan and travel from the hum drum graveyards of Gallowmere all the way through more exotic levels such as a pumpkin gorge filled with demonic pumpkins, crystal caverns filled with Minotaur-like monsters, an enchanted forest containing a demonic prison, and much more.

The first advantage to the modernization of this game was being able to see the Hilltop Mausoleum (the 2nd level) from The Cemetery (the 1st level). It would make sense if you had an expansive cemetery, and the very next level, adjacent to that level, had a massive building on top of a hill, and you could see it from far away. As a PS1 game I’d never expect to see something like that, but with this remake, they had the care to include things such as this, which only helps the world feel that much more real and connected. The controls and mechanics are nearly the same as the original as well, only made slightly more convenient. Dan can still equip a one-handed weapon and a shield, and switch between weapons in a menu. He can block attacks, but only as long as the shield’s HP holds out, until you need to find a new one. Dan has all the same moves as the original, but the more free-form camera makes the game a bit more convenient to play by making platforming and seeing things easier.

As you slay enemies in each level, you fill a chalice, and bringing back a full chalice to the end of each respective level grants you a visit to the Hall of Heores before the next level begins; this world’s version of Valhalla, where the most accomplished heroes of history drink, feast, and arm wrestle for eternity. A side goal of this game is to collect the chalice from every level so Dan can also become a member of this ethereal warrior’s afterlife (twenty in all). This is something I struggled with as a kid, but in the past many years I’ve always gone out of my way to make sure Sir Fortesque gets into the Hall of Heroes where he rightfully deserves to be. Sometimes items can be found in a level which are to be used in entirely different levels, something the game only hints at. Case in point are the Ant Caves, which is a maze-like level hidden within a level that is completely optional to complete (but not if you want all twenty chalices).

Some of the original game’s drawbacks could be regarded as similar drawbacks for this remake. Criticisms like haphazard combat and imprecise platforming are somewhat the same case here, but I would argue that’s half the point playing as a gangling hero who hasn’t yet earned his stripes. I honestly can’t take an unbiased position on some of the game’s more objective problems, not only because I’m such a fanatic and have played the original so many times, but also because it’s impossible for me to have a fresh perspective on the game. I can’t tell you how hard the puzzles are or how tough the game is simply because I’ve played the original so many times, I’ve gotten used to any perceived problems and solved all the puzzles so long ago. Reviews for this game seem to be lukewarm, and it’s an opinion I can’t share because I’m so impressed by how faithful one of my all time obscure favorites has been recreated.

In fact the very few changes the developers did make I could count on one hand. Mostly these changes have been made to a few of the game’s boss fights. Most of the bosses have always been very easy, especially compared to today’s obsession where bosses are meant to be extremely punishing. I can honestly say the changes are for the better and improve on these boss fights. For example the fight with the captain of the ghost ship has been improved, allowing you to manual aim a canon before firing it at him, rather than running back and forth between two fixed canons, hoping one of your shots hit the captain as he paces back and forth. Another addition are the “Lost Souls” which are hidden collectibles, one in each level that can be found by Sir Dan. This basically makes you replay every level to find the Lost Souls, as they only appear once you’re already near the end of the game. I can’t say I was motivated to find them, at least not right now, since it appears to be a shallow fetch-quest.

Besides getting the game booted in the first place, I did a have a few technical problems while playing the game. These are probably because the version 1.01 patch never actually downloaded and installed, and I may have been experiencing what the developers were trying to fix. One example was a door not opening once I had defeated all the enemies in the room, effectively trapping me there forever, forcing me to restart the level. The problems were mainly things such as this, and I bet I’m the only person in the world who had to complete the game from beginning to end raw without the day one patch. Otherwise the game ran great, and looks good as Hell.

I’m so glad Other Ocean Emeryville didn’t try to subvert expectations or put a clever twist on certain things, leaving it as is. MediEvil 2019 constantly impressed me, and I don’t think I’ve felt this much fan service and satisfaction since the Shadow Moses chapter of Metal Gear Solid 4 from 2008. The music, dialog, weapons, level design, aesthetics, enemies and controls have been painstakingly remade, giving this cult classic an impressive new look. Its the restrictive nature of the developer’s design philosophy I appreciate the most; this is simply a game for the fans, and very obviously by the fans. MediEvil was my most anticipated game of 2019 and I am deeply satisfied and surprised about how well it turned out. Annoying day one patch download aside, I had an incredible time experiencing this remake. While some gameplay flaws might still exist, and those who don’t already love the original may not see it in the same level of reverence, this was a big payoff for me and I’m sure other dedicated fans feel the same. Thank you Other Ocean Emeryville, this has been a wonderful gift.

9/10

#otheroceanemeryville #other ocean emeryville #medievil #ps4exclusive #ps4 exclusive #1998 #2019 #cult classic #remake #sir daniel forestque #fortesque #sirdanielfortesque #excellent #brilliant #faithful

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sketchs-trashcan · 5 years

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so, it seems like tumblr ate my original post...*sigh* at least this means I can do the same thing but with the entire game now.

Since I ended up with PQ2 early, I wrote down most of everything that happened and decided to put it all together in a guide of some sort. I have a less-spoilery section full of general info and a much more spoilery section that pertains to the labyrinths. The labyrinth parts will be mostly about where to unlock special screenings as well as weakness to some FOEs and the boss of the labyrinth. Keep in mind that this is NOT a full guide and I definitely left some things out and/or vague. This is more like the bare bones of the game. Kinda. idk what to call it.

if you want something a bit more specific and/or want to scream about the game, feel free to message me!

Less spoilery stuff

•don’t play based off of knowledge from PQ, literally almost every shadow has different weaknesses and resistances

•hitting a (fill in the blank)bane lexy with something it’s resistant to can cause it to use holy wrath on a row (heavy damage, all binds) (seems to only be specific ones, i have yet to find a pattern though. i don’t think it started to happen until farther along in the game, which was an aboslute bitch in some cases)

•golden shadows always move first, don’t bother with moves like line guard unless that character is in boost

•FOEs can’t be knocked down

•speaking of knocking things down, you need all enemies to be down before you can do an all-out attack. also, all enemies will go back up after one

•after getting back up, enemies might attack. it’s a bit inconsistent

•you know what else is inconsistent? some of the in-game descriptions and explanations. i’m pretty sure armor smasher or whatever only lasts one turn, not three. also, blue is the weakest color for an FOE, not white. i refuse to believe that a dinosaur is somehow less threatening than a dude in a chicken suit. there’s other problems, but those are the ones i can think of off the top of my head

-i lied. i thought of something else

•in the shop, the “have” section includes anything in storage, while inventory is what you actually have with you. it’s a bit dicier when withdrawing items, i think that counting system’s just fucked

•the huge churros are a bit of a ripoff by the time you can get them unless you want to restore only 30 HP to a row in battle. otherwise, just use normal popcorn (as a side note, i was playing on hard, so my team had to be hella buff to take on the first boss, this could be why i view the churros with distain)

•the hotdogs and large dual dogs, on the other hand, are good. especially the dual dogs, stick to those once you unlock them

•selling FOE bits doesn’t really seem to unlock new items in the shop until later. very disappointing gosh darn it yosuke, stop messing with the game mechanics

•read item descriptions. i went into the first boss battle thinking gutsy fries were the same as revival beads. they are not.

•sacrificing personas doesn’t seem to create special materials anymore

•unison attacks can happen so long as at least one participating member is in the battling party. example: the unison attack with P3P and the other (human) 2nd years can occur even if fuuka is the only one present (she’ll need to be navigating the battle though)

•unison attacks occur at random from what i can tell. they’re very strong, but don’t count on one always popping up when you need one

•follow-up attacks are also random, but much weaker. they at least knock down the shadow that’s still up and gives you the opportunity for an all-out attack, so there’s that

•always take the opportunity for all-out attacks. enemies might recover before the rest of your team can attack and get into boost mode

•some special screenings seem to be unlocked only if you check the shop/box office at specific points in the game. i don’t know if they’re only at specific points or if they can happen after that, too

•wildcards do not all need to be at a specific level to unlock ultimate personas, so don’t feel completely obligated to keep them up to speed with joker (you should still train them a bit though). everyone else needs to be at least level 55 to unlock theirs afterwards

•if two FOEs end up running into you at different times during a battle, the most recent one will kick out the older one (aka you don’t fight both of them at once). which means if you win, the newer one dies, but the older one will still be lurking next to you (this is based off of one special screening where i got cocky and nearly paid the price for it)

-i am currently unconvinced that homonculi or however it’s spelled exist outside of chests. i beat the entire game, beat every FOE, and they still haven’t shown up in the shop

That was long. Oops? Well, next up is the labyrinths, so if you want to find out this stuff on your own, best not go any farther.

More spoilery stuff

Kamoshidaman

•i’m 90% certain that the goba-k more is in a golden chest somewhere in this labyrinth. if not, it was in junessic land

•Noir and Queen do not join until after boss

•P3P does not join until second floor (if I’m remembering correctly, otherwise it’s third)

•when rescuing P3P, take out the original shadow, then beat the shit out of tank with everything you have

•just try to stay alive during inital Kamoshidaman encounter, don’t bother too much with attacking (i don’t know if attacking is required for the battle to end, i tried to attack and quickly got pummeled)

•there’s a shortcut that leads to the stairs between the 2nd and 3rd floor, but you have to fight a battle before you can activate it. the battle is not nice

•Boss: Left is weak to fire, right is weak to electricity, middle is weak to fire once left and right are gone

also, the scene where the thieves make their move is fantastic, make sure to watch it. volume on also makes it better

Junessic Land

-lots of the enemies here have a weakness to psi, some of them have weakness to nuke. change your team accordingly

•you can’t sneak up on the pterodactyl FOEs. even if you sneak up on them. they “sneak up” on you and gain advantage (they’re weak to ice, resistant to curse, and can confuse you, btw) ::edit:: they don’t gain advantage so long as you approach them from the front

-t-rex FOEs only chase you if you walk into their line of sight (they’re weak to nuke and resistant to basically everything else, btw. highly recommend avoiding battle when possible)

•IT minus Yosuke does not join until the second floor

•Yosuke does not join until you rescue one of the herbivores

•dead end in area 1, D4: regain HP and SP

•for a certain special screening, ammonite is located in D3. don’t be a fool like me. avoid the pond until you find all the chests

•electric gates are essentially mean walls. you can walk right up to them, just don’t try to walk through them

•dead end in area 3, B6: unlocks new special screening

•can begin unlocking unison attacks after rescuing Yosuke

•dead end in area 3, E4: allowing Fox and Teddie to eat the fruit causes them to lose HP and gain SP (probably only matters if one of them is in your party, idk)

•dead end in area 4, F6: unlocks new special screening

•Boss: weak to electric, resistant (and eventually null) to wind

-Left back: Weak to psi. Resistant to ice, nuke

-Middle back: Weak to nuke. Resistant to ice, psi

-Right back: Weak to ice. Resistant to psi, nuke

-Based on context clues (those being the boss going from mostly chilling to beating the shit out of me), I’m 99% certain you do NOT want to actually knock out the “boss”, focus on the back line

A.I.G.I.S.

-for the most part, anything robotic has the exact weakness you’d expect it to have

•SEES minus P3 and Aigis join on the first floor

•the stationary FOEs are stupidly easy to defeat if you have electric attacks

•the other FOEs, on the other hand, are not. they will hurt you and some of them chase you through security gates. do not engage, do not pass go, do not collect $200 (unless they’re either blue or white on your map, in which case, go nuts)

•there are three possible tasks you can choose from to open the lab. don’t know about the other two, but power doesn’t involve battling

•Aigis and P3 join on first floor of lab

•dead end in zone 1, C4: unlocks new special screening

•dead end in zone 2, C6: unlocks new special screening

•dead end in zone 2, B5: unlocks new special screening

•southwest corner of small room in lab 1F (corner is in A4): unlocks new special screening

•dead end in lab 2F, B6: unlocks new special screening

•boss: no weakness initially, but weak to everything once hacked first time (it’s still on and can attack though, and the hack is temporary), weak to curse second (haven’t checked everything)

-has an attack that brings everyone to the same amount of hp, using all/line guard is probably a bad idea when it happens depending on everyone’s hp, recommend fuuka as battle nav for healing tide and bringing along someone with mediarama

-seals one attack from each person at random

-uses multiple magic attacks (have found electric, ice, fire, and wind)

-has attacks that can bind magic, strength, or speed

-make sure ALL elements are covered, preferably by more than one skill/person

???

•be very wary if you come across an actual set of stairs, there will be a battle in the next open space/beyond the next door

•some stage lifts have FOEs on them

•gnomes turn every three steps

•mr. bear can potentially change its path when you flip a switch

-in case you were wondering. they are weak to curse. and they hit really fucking hard (as in, over 200 damage while under the influence of debilitate to a roughly lv 50 aigis in the back row, and she’s resistant to physical attacks. big yikes). but. if you use the combination of debilitate/masukunda/masukukaja/orb of haste. they hit you once in a blue moon. so basically never

•there is a goho-m more in the golden chest in the first act

•dead end in act 1, 4C: new screening

•(just assume the rest of these are dead ends) act 2, 3E: new screening

•act 5, 5E: new screening

•act 6, 7B: new screening

•act 6: 6F: i’m 99% certain this unlocked a special screening but for some reason i wasn’t given a notification

•boss: first off. can i just say. WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS THAT??? WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?? DISGUSTING!!! EUUURGHHHH!!!!!

-looks like a variety of attacks, including almighty. it depends on where the eye is

-eye is the only part that can actually take damage, the rest seems to be just for boost

-knows mamudo

-eye: immune to everything except physical/almighty

-left arm: weak to wind

-right arm: ?

-head: ? (never figured out these two bc i beat it before i could bother figuring it out)

-real weak point: weak to electric and ice

-later on, if you use any support skill other than your new one (you’ll know which one), the real weak point will bind you again. also happens once everyone is unbound

-side note, normal unbinding items don’t work, unless that was a very unfortunate glitch i had

[REDACTED]

-you have to actually step on switches to use them. that’s really all i’ve got

-wait. there’s a dead end somewhere that unlocks one of the last unison skills. i forgot to write down where though.

-there is also a “treasure spot” somewhere on the last labyrinth floor :) that has :) a special surprise :) have fun :):):):) *screams into the void*

-defeating the FOE that chases you is required to unlock the ultimate weapons. the FOE that mimics you is required to unlock ultimate armor. both things require parts from other FOEs, so go nuts, i guess

-rain leg musha is weak to fire and curse, resistant to nuke. wicked turret is weak to psi, resistant to fire

-there are “reruns” of the bosses you have to beat. they’re easy so long as you exploit their weaknesses. they’re basically the easy version of when you first fought them, no extra gimmicks. i found kamoshidaman in the lower left, dino boy in the bottom right, computer in the upper right, and big ol’ blob in the upper left

ENLIL

-weak to psi and nuke, resistant to electric

MAELSTROM INCARNATE

-ok, this battle was both fun an an absolute bitch (my entire team was level 72 and i was on hard mode, if that give you any context)

-first and foremost, this boss can change its affinity. you can tell what it is based on what attack it’s using. in all cases, it’s null to wind. not sure why

-weak to ice, resistant to fire (and vice versa)

-weak to light, resistant to dark (and vice versa)

-the boss can nullify buffs to your party and debuffs to itself. this makes those skills useless overall, but they can at least distract her for a move, which could give you the breather you need

-the boss can bind and afflict ailments

-retake undoes everything that happened in the previous turn (it’s like the turn never happened in the first place), so if the boss is “charging up” and there’s no sword in front, just have everyone guard

-if the sword is in front and it starts glowing in waves? fucking. block.

-the attack seems to alternate which row it hits, but i beat the boss before i could actually think to look for a pattern

-there will come a point where the boss does an action you haven’t seen previously. see things through to the end (aka don’t turn of the game in a panic)

There’s another battle post-game, but it’s. uh. really. really. REALLY fucking hard. my team was all level 72, i switched to safety mode, and I still died before i could really do anything. the only tip i can give you is that when a new character joins the battle, for the love of all that is good, G U A R D, dammit

#sketch plays persona q2 #persona q2 #persona q2 spoilers

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skylightsofmylife · 5 years

Note

All of them you friggin Lovely lady ily

1: Kitchen Counter, Couch, or on top of the dryer?

Kitchen counter if I could ever find a counter the right height. Gonna be a requirement for our house babe, good counter fucking height.

2: Your last sexual encounter: Good or Bad and why:

Hella good cause it was with you!

3: A fictional person that you think would be good in bed:

Harley Quinn

4: Something that never fails to make you horny:

Rain......

5: Where is one place you would never have sex:

Probably public restrooms and kitchens

6: The most awkward moment during a sexual experience was when ______________

My partner had been going down on me for like an hour and a half and their mouth was starting to get sore/tired and it was my first time. They told me they were starting to get sore and asked me if I was close and I had to say, “I didn’t know if it was polite to cum or not.” Then proceeded to have trouble cumming because I’d edged myself so long and was really nervous/embarrassed.

7: Weirdest thing that ever made you horny:

One of my exes fingers.... they were just so long and I couldn’t stop imagining all the new places they could reach.

8: What is the best way to sexually bind someone: Handcuffs, Rope, or Other [if other please explain]:

Other. Pulling the other person’s t-shirt over their head so it blindfolds and binds them.

9: What is the fastest way to make you horny:

Push me against a wall or do that low sexy whisper in my ear telling me what you want to do to me.

10: Top or bottom?

Switch

11: We were about to ____________ but then ______________ [example: we were about to have sex but then his mom walked in]

We were about to send people home so we could have sex but then it turned into a birthday orgy.

12: Is one orgasm enough? Are multiple orgasms necessary?

One can be enough but I like a lot of foreplay in that case and it has to be one of those really strong O’s that leaves you breathless and just wanting to curl up into them and sleep. Not necessary but definitely appreciated.

13: Something that you have hidden in your room that you don’t want anyone to find:

Idk, both my parents have seen my sex toys so whatevs. I guess me.

14: Weirdest nickname a significant other has ever called you:

Little butter cause she was big butter.

15: Two things you like [or dislike] about oral sex:

1) The textures! Oral gives so many more textures than anything else. The hardness of teeth, the dexterity of a soft tongue, the pressure of the lips/suction.

2) That moment when they stop for a second and you have your hand on the back of their head. Your eyes meet and then you push them back into you.

16: Weirdest sexual act some has performed [or tried to perform] on/with you:

Probably the time an ex stripped me down to just underwear in front of guests not really with anyones’ permission.

17: Have you ever tasted yourself? [If no, would you?] [If yes, what did you think?]

Yes, was less flavorful than I thought it would be. Mostly just salty with a slight tang I guess but ever so slight.

18: Is it ever okay to not use a condom:

Yes. For me there is zero chance of pregnancy and I trust my long-term committed partners as I always have people get tested first.

19: Who was the sexiest teacher you ever had?

7th grade English teacher. She gave off strong plant filled house, lesbian vibes and was adorably quirky.

20: A food that you would like to use during a sexual experience:

Maybe whipped cream?

21: How big is too big:

Vaginally around 7 inches. Anally I have not really found a limit yet. Seems to be if I’m in the mood for it it’s gonna fit.

22: One sexual thing you would never do:

Gun play

23: Biggest turn on:

See 9.... same question basically.

24: Three spots that drive you insane:

1) Spot slightly to the left of my bellybutton (feels so good I have to be extremely comfortable with the person because too much and sex has to stop I cramp so bad).

2) To the left and right of the vulva, where my inseam meets my pelvis.

3) Neck

25: Worst possible time to get horny:

Never?

26: Do you like it when your sexual partner moans:

YYYYYYEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS

27: Worst sexual idea you ever had:

Anal in a shower no lube.... yeah.

28: How much fapping is too much fapping:

When I start wanting to strangle someone from the noise.

29: Best sexual complement you ever got:

I’ve never cum from oral before, I can’t believe you did that to me.

30: Bald, landing strip, Jumanji:

I’m more of a trimmed natural V line of the genitals. It’s fun to have a little something to hold onto down there.

31: Is it good sex if you don’t nut:

Oh definitely. It’s not always about you. Sometimes it’s about your partner.

32: Fill in the blank: “If they ____________, we are fuckin”

Put their hand under my shirt

33: What’s your favorite part of your body:

Right now my vagina.

34: Favorite foreplay activities:

Scratch me up.

35: Love (>,

..........what?

36: What do you wear to bed?

T-shirt and panties.

37: When was the first time you masturbated:

Someone did my first time for me at like 12 or 13.

38: Do you have any nude/masturbating pictures/video of yourself?

If you want the answer look at my twitter. Shameless plug: https://twitter.com/SkylightsofLife

39: Have you ever/when was the last time you had sex outside?

It’s been a hot minute. When I was 20? Somewhere around there.

40: Have/would you ever have sex outside?

I have and would again.

41: Have/would you ever had a threesome?

I have and would again.

42: What is one random object you’ve used to masturbate?

Nothing?

43: Have/would you ever masturbate at work/school?

Have and would again. It’s such the exhibitionist dream.

44: Have/would you ever have sex on a plane?

Probs not. Maybe some up the skirt action with the GF masturbating for me if we could hide it well enough.

45: What is one song you’d like to have sex to?

Desire by Meg Myers. Yes, I am a freak.

46: What is something nonsexual that makes you horny?

Rain

47: Most attractive celebrity?

Chyler Leigh

48: Do you watch gay/lesbian porn? why/why not?

Yes, but it has to be actual lesbian targeted porn. Not that crap for cis men.

49: If a child was born on the occasion of the last time you had sex, how old would that child be right now?

About three months old.

50: Has anyone ever posted nude pictures of you online?

Probably. Not that it matters. I’ve already “leaked” my own nudes.

51: What is one thing that NEVER makes you horny?

A dirty dish being in the room while my partner tries to do anything.

52: Do you have stretch marks? (How do you feel about them? Has anyone ever had a problem with them?)

Yes. Quite fond of the ones on my legs. Not to fond of the ones on my upper butt. Nobody has ever had a problem with them and if they did I wouldn’t keep them around long for shaming something so natural.

53: Do you like giving head? (why/why not)

FUCK YES. It’s just so much fun. Not really sure why I just know it’s one of my favorite things to do.

54: How do you feel about tattoos on someone you are interested in?

Please. Just all of them.

55: How would you feel about taking someones virginity?

I’m perfectly okay with doing it but I want to know first so I can make it special and we are going to talk about it to make sure no lines are crossed. Just want the person to have a good first experience.

56: Is there any food you would NOT recommend using during a sexual encounter?

Anything sticky. When you’re trying to make things slide easy sticky is the enemy.

57: Is there anything you do on Tumblr that you would not like your significant other to see?

Nope. She sees it all. She can see anything I do I don’t care. We trust each other completely. It’s why we work so well together in my opinion.

58: Do you own any sex toys? (what is it? (how long have you had it?)

Yes. Too many to list. Basic gist things that go vvvvbbbbbb, clamps, vaginal and anal penetratives, and bondage stuffs.

59: Would you give your significant other unrestricted access to your Tumblr for a day?

Sure. Have at it baby. I shit blog most of the time anyways but people seem to like it.

60: Would you be offended if your significant other suggested you get plastic surgery?

No. They need to do whatever makes them happy. I don’t get a decision in that. I’m here to supplement their happiness not control it.

61: Would you rather be a pornstar or a prostitute?

Pornstar. I can’t do casual sex.

62: Do you watch porn?

Yes, we already covered this. Who wrote these redundant questions?

63: How small is too small?

Everybody has fingers and can use a dildo so nothing.

64: Have you ever been called a freak? Why?

Hell yes. For so many things. Being gay, being trans, my love of fluid play.

65: Who gave you your last kiss? Did it mean anything?

The lovely Jessica. Hell yes. I kissed her as she was leaving to get on a plan knowing I wouldn’t see her for months. I cried lots.

66: Would you switch phones with your significant other for a day?

On a non-workday yes. I need mine for work.

67: Do you feel comfortable going “commando”?

Haven’t tried yet but in the right clothes probably. Don’t want something that’s gonna rub too hard.

68: Would you have a problem with going down on someone if they hadn’t shaved their pubic hair?

Nah. I can get down and dirty with the best of them.

69: If you could give yourself head, would you?

Probably not. Solely for the reason it’s the one thing I can’t do to myself so it feels more special when someone else does it and it’s the one thing I don’t get into a routine of so every experience with it is different and new.

70: Booty or Boobs?

Can I not have both??? Boobs more though just cause they are so good to lay on.

71: If you had a penis, what would you name it?

Firehouse, cause everyone wants to slide down the pole in them. ;) I’m dumb. Ignore me.

72: Have you ever been on an official date?

Yeppers.

73: Have you ever cheated on someone? (Why?)

Nope. That shit sucks and too many people have done it to me for me to ever put someone else through that pain.

74: If you were a stripper, what would your name be?

Luna, cause I’m as pale as the moon.

75: Have you ever had sex in your parents bed? (Would you?)

Not my parents but an exes parents. Was actually an orgy....

76: How would you react if you found out your parents had sex in your bed?

Burn it.

77: What was your reaction the first time you saw a penis/vagina

Holy crap that’s huge. I love it.

78: If you had a penis/vagina for a day, what are five things you would do?

As a person who’s had both I don’t feel the need to answer this.

Ps, fuck you Jess. That’s a lot of freaking questions. You owe me a night of you topping as punishment.

#ask #asks #ask me anything

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artyblogs · 5 years

Text

Across the Frozen Sea ch2

Star Wars the Clone Wars, Ahsoka/Barriss/Riyo

Across the Frozen Sea summary: Ahsoka, Barriss, and Riyo find themselves stranded in the Pantoran Taiga. They must get back to civilization, but the wilds are more dangerous than they realize. If the cold doesn’t get them, the locals will.

First Chapter : Previous Chapter : Next Chapter : Last Chapter

Chapter 2: Reindeer Ridge

Multi-colored ribbons of light arc across the night sky, partially obscuring the stream of stars. Riyo leads the way through the forest, her face upturned towards the sky. She’s using the stars to navigate to the coast because once they reach the coast, then they’ll find civilization, and once they find civilization, they can make their way back to Defiance, Pantora’s capitol city. Hopefully, it’s a solid enough plan to mollify Barriss, who has been exuding a quiet anxiety since they woke up out here.

Riyo has tied her suit jacket around her waist and wrapped her button-up shirt around her head to protect her hair and ears. This means that she’s essentially hiking in just a tank top and a skirt, but while it’s uncomfortable, it’s not unbearable. Her people are notorious for their metabolism, pumping out enough body heat to survive temperatures south of -50 degrees. Before she moved to Coruscant, her father would regularly take her and her sisters out camping in places like this, so this isn’t anything new. It’s just a little different, because of the Jedi.

There must be some Jedi thing that tells Barriss and Ahsoka that something is wrong, because they get despondent when they think no one’s looking, and they both sneak worried glances at each other. They reach out unprompted, but they refuse to talk about it when faced with an opportunity to do so. Take this hike for example. Riyo has listened to them go through this painful and delicate dance no less than five times while leading them through this forest, and every failed attempt to vent just riles her ire further. She’s going to go prematurely gray worrying about these Jedi. Watch.

But what infuriates her most of all, more than the tightly-contained angst, is her powerlessness. No matter how much Riyo may care for Ahsoka and Barriss, and no matter how much she may want to help them, she is an outsider and can do nothing but watch this war grind them to a pulp.

Within one minute of walking into a place, Ahsoka will have cased the area well enough to place herself in the most advantageous spot, where she can see all the entrances and exits. Riyo knows this because she sees Ahsoka’s eyes flicker the same way her army veteran uncle’s does. New people, new places, all of them are appraised. And whenever Riyo sees Barriss again, she always wonders if she’s eating. While Ahsoka has beefed up in her absence, Barriss has only gotten weedy.

If they asked, Riyo would help. To do what, she doesn’t know, but whatever it would be, she would do her best to fulfill it. Anything. Anything at all. Mother Moon knows they’d deserve it, and that Riyo would gladly provide it too.

Riyo takes another deep breath. This again. She shouldn’t conflate her will to be a good friend with…what she wants. It’s too dangerous.

To pass the time, Riyo asks them for rhyming words, and after a few minutes of this, Barriss asks,

“Can we hear what you’ve been working on?”

“It’s not ready yet,” Riyo says.

“Can we hear it anyway?” Ahsoka asks.

Riyo takes a deep breath and begins to speak.

Let me float Don’t call me home yet Let me float I’m not done here yet

We try to bail while You sink our ships We try to tread while in Your grip But You drag us down into the deep And put us all to sleep

Still, I keep to the tide as it ebbs and flows Even as the water laps at my toes I wade right in and swim ‘cause You take me away from the trouble I’m in

Keep me buoyant, keep me afloat Bring me fish and bring me a boat Take me to that destined port And never vex for sport

“It’s really short, but that’s the idea,” Riyo says.

“She used a lot of your suggestions, Barriss. You must be really good at it too,” Ahsoka says.

“Master Unduli insisted that I study the art. She was formally trained.” Barriss taps her chin. “That’s why she has tattoos here. But I’m not as inclined.”

Sure, Barriss, but Riyo doesn’t comment aloud. She pauses in a clearing and looks up at the brightening sky. The stars are fading, and she struggles to get her bearings one last time before the sun fully rises.

Barriss turns to Riyo. “Are you allowed to be so conflicted with your gods? I was under the impression that they would demand absolute reverence.”

Riyo thinks back to when she received her tattoos. To distract her from the thrumming of the needle, the priestess would tell her stories about the Gods and what they meant. “I’ve never thought about it like that, but no. It’s not like that at all. The Gods indulge us and we indulge Them because Mother Moon asks us to. What about you? Is the Force so needy?”

Both of the Jedi are silent, and Ahsoka’s face even screws up in thought. Riyo resists the urge to squirm and hopes that she hasn’t overstepped. For a minute, the only sound is the crunch of ice under their boots.

“Is it the Code? Is that how we worship the Force?” Ahsoka finally asks. “I feel like that isn’t really right. Where does it start?”

“You’d be correct,” Barriss finally says. Riyo releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and Ahsoka gives a small smile.

“I knew it! Because the Code had to come from somewhere.”

“We serve the Light Side of the Force by striving for peace. Peace within us and peace in the environment around us. That’s really what all of it boils down to. The Code was developed to guide us in how we should implement that peace, and therefore how we should worship the Force.” Barriss hesitates, then continues. “However, I’ve recently learned that for all of the reverence we hold for the Code, it’s really just a guideline.”

Ahsoka blinks and turns her head a little, as if struck. Barriss turns away, immediately ashamed. Riyo frowns, but doesn’t press further. Whatever just happened, they can always talk about it later.

Ahsoka looks off into the distance. “Do you hear that?”

Riyo could kiss her for the change of subject, awkward though it is. Barriss must feel the same way; her shoulders slump in relief.

Everyone stills and strains to listen. Barriss and Ahsoka step nearer to Riyo, as if shielding her.

The noise of deep grunts and heavy footfalls come nearer and nearer until out of the gloom come a herd of oversized elk. They’re enormous creatures, more than two meters tall at the shoulder, and shaggy with fur. Some of them have wide, sweeping antlers as long as Ahsoka is tall. They crush the undergrowth beneath their heavy hooves and the sharp points of their antlers scrape against the tree trunks and branches as they come through. Ahsoka grabs Barriss and Riyo and pulls them behind a wide tree to keep from getting trampled.

The three of them press against the trunk and hide their faces from the shower of broken twigs and pine needles while the herd passes. Hundreds of elk thunder past them, all huddled so close together they might be one mass, snorting and bugling and making the ground tremble. Riyo blindly gropes for Ahsoka’s hand and holds tight.

Eventually, the herd thins out until it’s only the odd straggler here and there. Ahsoka eases away from the tree and looks around it.

“They’re gone. Well, most of them anyway,” she says. She points at an oversized doe grazing what’s left of the meager grass.

“Eish! We could ride it to the coast,” Riyo says.

Ahsoka grins at them, then turns to the doe with her arms spread ride. “Hey,” she coos.

The doe starts, her large black eyes wide with terror.

“Woah! Whoa, whoa.” Ahsoka coos again. While the doe settles down, she still stays a little bit away and her ears stay flat against her skull.

“Are you using the Force to tame it? Is that a thing Jedi can do?” Riyo asks.

“I am using the Force. Why isn’t it working?” Ahsoka asks.

Barriss giggles, then covers her mouth with a hand and gives Ahsoka an apologetic look. “It’s probably because you’re an apex predator.”

Ahsoka’s mouth forms a silent ’o.’ “I guess there are some things the Force can’t do.”

“Let me,” Barriss says. Ahsoka nods and slowly retreats. Barriss takes a few careful steps towards the doe with outstretched hands.

The doe tosses her head and snorts, her breath coming out in a cloud of vapor, but doesn’t run. Barriss persists, murmuring, until the doe lowers her head and nuzzles her palm. Amazing.

“Good girl,” Barriss whispers. She strokes the doe’s large nose. “Will you let us ride you?” She beckons to Riyo and Ahsoka, who come forward. The doe steps back at the sight of Ahsoka, but Barriss soothes it again.

“Will she let us ride her?” Riyo asks.

Barriss is silent for a moment, then says, “yes, she will. Even, even the ‘Wolf.’” She gives Ahsoka another look. “She means you. It’s the closest equivalent she can find.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “If it means I don’t have to walk the rest of the way, then she can call me whatever she wants.”

The doe proceeds through the woods at an easy gait, which is good, because Barriss doesn’t think any of them know how to properly ride elk and would definitely fall off if it decided to go any faster. Riyo sits right behind her, with her arms around her waist. Now and then, she’ll even tell Barriss which way to go, and Barriss will use the Force to tell the doe. Behind Riyo sits Ahsoka, whose arms are long enough for her to reach Barriss’s shoulders.

This entire situation is…not unpleasant.

As they ride, the sky lightens shade by shade until the dark turns to deep purple. The trees thin out until they disappear completely, revealing a rocky ground and a quaint village in the distance. The houses are squat, with steep roofs to let the snow slide off more easily. They’re all crusted with snow and ice, and thin streams of smoke are already wafting from some of the chimneys.

From behind, Ahsoka takes a deep, audible breath and lets it out in a contented whoosh. “Salt,” she says.

Beyond the little village, hiding under a cracked sheet of ice, is the large expanse of the sea, and beyond that peaks the sunrise, throwing soft shades of pink into the sky. The three of them fall silent as they watch it, and even the doe slows down.

“Thank you, Friend,” Barriss says. “You may leave us here if you wish.”

The doe huffs.

“Should we walk from here?” Riyo asks.

“No, she wants to bring us into town,” Barriss says.

The doe snorts and makes her way down the hill and onto a dirt path that leads into the village.

Reindeer Ridge, a weathered wood sign says. There are a few villagers out already, opening up some of the shops and places along the main road. They’re rough; their clothes are worn, their hair is disheveled, and even their eyes are yellowed and glassy, but they smile and wave hello to them as they ride through. Some of them are strangely bloated. Ahsoka waves back before she slides off of the doe and helps Riyo and Barriss off. The doe dips down to nibble on a patch of grass just outside the general store.

A villager comes out of the store. His face is wrinkled and his tattoos have faded to a pale yellow. He talks to Riyo in Pantoran.

Riyo turns to him. “Ngentsasa ekuseni, uMalume. Ingaba uyasithetha Basic?”

“I do. Everyone does here.” The man thumps his cane on the wood walkway outside the store. “You early, neh?”

“Early?” Riyo asks. Her brows crinkle together. “I’m sorry, you must have us mistaken for someone else. We don’t have an appointment here. We’re actually just passing through.”

“Passing through? No, child. No one just leaves Reindeer Ridge.”

There’s something wrong with the man. Barriss’ practiced eye picks up signs of illness here and there from the way he moves, and from the blemishes in his skin. He’s very sick.

“Eish! You thieves!”

Everyone turns at the shout. A boy hardly younger than Ahsoka points at them from the middle of the road. He’s dressed in furs and he rides an elk buck. Behind him are a few other boys also riding bucks, and between them they lead a familiar herd of elk. This herd crowds the road until they can barely see the buildings on the other side of the street.

“We didn’t steal her, we found her in the forest,” Ahsoka says. She brings her shoulders back to stand at her full height, spooking a couple elk away.

“You stole her! She’s branded like the rest of them,” the boy says. The other villagers come out of their homes at his shout. Riyo turns around and sinks her small hands into the doe’s shaggy fur. She parts it, and there, on the doe’s rump, is a brand. They must have not seen it in the dark.

“Oh dear,” Riyo mutters.

“I’ve been looking for her the whole night!” The boy shouts again. The other villagers weave through the elk herd to see what all the commotion is about.

“Well here she is safe and whole,” Ahsoka says back. She crosses her arms over her chest as she glares up at the boy. “You can have her back and we can leave.”

“Leave? Leave Reindeer Ridge?” A villager asks.

“Who wants to leave?” Another says. The villagers begin to mutter amongst themselves.

Barriss steps closer to Riyo and places her hand on her shoulder. She can feel Ahsoka at her side, completing the triangle. Ahsoka tucks her hands under the hem of her parka, as if to draw her lightsabers.

“What do we do?” Ahsoka asks under her breath. “Should we fight them?”

“No, they’re all sick,” Barriss says. “Each and every one of them. Jedi don’t fight sick people, they help them.”

“Move! Move please!” someone else shouts from across the road. The villagers and even a few of the elk step out of the way of a tall, imposing woman. Her dark hair is long and plaited, and a shark teeth necklace hangs around her neck. A bandage is wrapped around what’s left of her hand; she is missing all of her fingers save the first two and the thumb of her right hand, which is covered in a leather work glove. At the sight of her, Barriss’s Force Sense squeals like a speaker emitting feedback. She winces and dials it back. Even Ahsoka shies away.

“What is going on?” The woman demands. “Why are you harassing these visitors?”

“They stole a doe, Chief,” the boy says. “They admitted it too.”

Everyone looks at the doe in question, who continues to graze as if nothing is amiss.

The woman looks down at them with deep and dark eyes. “You stole one of our elks?”

Barriss finds herself unable to talk under her gaze. It’s as if her tongue is made of lead. She gently nudges Riyo with an elbow.

Riyo has been staring at the woman’s hands, which is odd. It’s not like Riyo to be so rude. At Barriss’s nudge, she finally lifts her head, her face pale and solemn.

“We found the doe in the woods, Ma’am. We didn’t see the brand in the dark, and we only thought to ride her here. We just want to get home. We didn’t mean any harm.”

She says all this in a careful, subdued voice. Barriss has never heard her speak like this, and she shares a look of concern with Ahsoka over her head. The woman draws herself up and hums.

“You still took the doe,” she says. “And then you come into our village and cause a ruckus. You cannot just leave.”

Riyo’s fear spikes in the Force, and Ahsoka lowers a comforting hand onto her other shoulder.

The woman continues. “I am Chief Que-Malo. By the power entrusted to me by these good people, I find you three guilty of Theft. I find you guilty of Disturbing the Peace.”

Riyo’s jaw drops.

“And for these crimes, I sentence you…to a few hours of manual labor.”

“Oh. That’s it?” Riyo releases a sigh and wobbles a little, like her knees are going to give out. Ahsoka takes her hand and smiles down at her.

“That’s it! Okay, show’s over.” The woman, Chief Que-Malo, shoos everyone away. “Jimi, get these elk out of my town, neh? Stop being such a pest.”

The boy ducks his head and gestures to the others. They all start herding the elk through the village.

Despite technically being punished, and therefore criminals, the villagers offer them breakfast before they started working. In fact, they are so gracious and polite that Barriss forgets she is being punished. It’s like they’re guests instead.

Riyo gently turns them all down, then privately warns Barriss and Ahsoka not to eat anything.

“They’re all sick. Do you think it’s the food making them ill?” Barriss asks.

“No,” Riyo says, and refuses to explain further. The three of them follow Chief Que-Malo down to the shoreline, where the Chief leaves them to their work.

There are a pair of docks stretching out from the shore of the village and out over the sea. There are two fishing boats moored to these docks; the other two are far off in the distance, bobbing in the waves. They’re also marked by the flock of seabirds flying above them. Barriss, Ahsoka, and Riyo sit on the dock with a fishing net in piles around them. They begin to mend it.

The hours pass.

This fishing net is probably large enough to cover an entire grav-ball field, but between her, Ahsoka, and Riyo, they seem to be halfway through mending it already. They’ll be done before the day is through and then they can all go.

Barriss absently pinches sections of twine between her thumb and forefinger as she moves the shuttle over and under to make knots. Beside her, Ahsoka works with an easy air, but Riyo is tense. Her movements are stilted and slow, as if her mind is far away.

“This place could use a doctor,” Barriss says. “Have you noticed how many of them are injured? And the chief is missing most of her fingers.”

“All of her fingers,” Ahsoka says.

“Her right hand….”

“Prosthetics. You can’t fool these eyes.”

The three of them fall quiet once more. Barriss stares out at the ocean again. This village and the scene before her is so serene. So soothing. She can’t remember the last time she was in a place like this. Not even the Jedi Temple on Coruscant is this idyllic.

“The wars haven’t reached here,” Barriss says. “There isn’t anything to fight. No troopers. No droids.”

“No slavery either,” Ahsoka adds.

Riyo glances up at them. “Nothing like that here. Mother Moon would weep.”

“Maybe,” Barriss begins wistfully, but doesn’t continue. Riyo glances again.

“It is tempting, isn’t it? But we can’t stay here.”

Ahsoka clicks her tongue as her shuttle runs empty. She brushes the net off of her lap and gets to her feet. “Do you guys need more twine?”

“I still have a lot,” Riyo says.

“No, but could you get a couple extra anyway? We might run out before we’re done,” Barriss says. Ahsoka nods and makes her way down the dock and back to the village. Barriss waits until she’s out of hearing range, then turns to Riyo.

“She’s not herself, surely you’ve noticed by now. She’s not usually so…cold. Isn’t there some way we could help?”

Riyo lowers her shuttle and is silent for a long time. Barriss flexes the soreness out of her finger and thumb as she waits.

“What do you know about Ahsoka’s most recent mission? Did she tell you about it?” Riyo asks.

“She told me that she, Master Skywalker, and Master Kenobi were sent to Zygerria to turn the Zygerrian queen against the Separatists.”

Riyo winces, but Barriss can’t imagine why. Nothing she said was incorrect.

“Did…she tell you about her undercover role?” Riyo asks.

“She went as a slave.”

“Have you ever been a slave? Or even posed as one? Have you ever interacted with one on any of your missions? Or even a former slave?” Riyo asks.

“No.” Barriss has come across servants, and even indentured servants, but not slaves, and they aren’t comparable at all.

“Then it’ll be difficult for you—for both of us really—to understand. We can’t possibly fathom the depth of cruelty Ahsoka witnessed and experienced on her mission, but we can understand that it did hurt her and change her.”

“But she refuses healing.”

“Yes, she has been saying ’no’ a lot lately. I can imagine it’s a luxury she wasn’t afforded on Zygerria,” Riyo says dryly. Barriss cringes. She hadn’t thought about it that way.

“But with the power to say ’no’ comes the power to say ’yes’ too, neh?” Riyo continues. “All we can do is be there for her when she is ready to open up to us. It might not be what you wanted to hear, but that’s what I got.” She picks her shuttle back up and hooks her fingers into the mesh of the net.

Barriss tries to pick the work back up again, but finds it difficult. It really wasn’t what she wanted to hear at all, but it doesn’t mean it was wrong. If Ahsoka needs her to be patient, then patient she will be. But even as the worry for Ahsoka subsides, Barriss’ mind goes to a different problem that’s been bubbling for a long time now. She once tried to tell Master Unduli about it, but that ended poorly, and she advised Barriss to meditate on it. Meditate on it, and not talk about it. The Order is skittish about…disagreement. It wouldn’t do for Barriss to seek help only for it to backfire.

But not telling anyone about it hasn’t helped at all, and meditating on it only made it worse. If she doesn’t tell anyone, then what will she do?

“Riyo?” Barriss asks, the name coming from her mouth before she can stop herself. But after an initial pang of terror, she decides that this is okay. Riyo is not Jedi, and so she won’t report her to the Order. Above all, however, Riyo is her friend and if there is anyone who could help her sort out this mess, it’s her.

“When we talked yesterday about how this mission is ongoing, what if that wasn’t the real issue?”

“Then are you worried about how this is the mission? The one that sets the tone for the rest of your career?” Riyo asks.

“Not even that. My reputation is beyond reproach.” Out of anyone else’s mouth, that might be considered arrogance, but from Barriss it’s just the truth.

Riyo sets her shuttle aside and pushes the net off her lap. She scoots closer. “Then whatever you are worried about must be more serious than I thought. What’s bothering you, Barriss?”

“I’m not sure I understand it myself.”

“That’s all right. We’ll figure it out.”

Barriss hesitates. “I am a knight now. You know this.”

“Yes. Congratulations again, by the way. I don’t know if you got the card I sent you.”

“Thank you, it was very nice. But what if I don’t deserve it? The knighthood, I mean.” She rushes to explain at Riyo’s sudden scowl. “No one is saying I don’t deserve it; it’s quite the opposite. But what if I feel like I don’t deserve it?”

“Why do you feel this way?”

“Should I feel this way at all? So many people want this title. They work so hard for it and many of them never get it. How can I get a knighthood and then not want it?”

“So then because you don’t want the knighthood, you feel like you don’t deserve it?”

“Yes. It doesn’t make any sense. All my life I’ve wanted to be a knight and now here I am and everyone tells me I’m a knight, but I don’t feel like a knight. I should want this. I should want to train a padawan. I should feel some sort of vindication or completion, but I don’t. There must be something wrong with me.”

The weak link in the chain, remains unsaid.

“Is that normal?” Riyo asks. “Is there a shakedown period for new knights?”

“No. Anakin Skywalker took to knighthood like a Gungan to water and everyone else seems so assured. So confident in their purpose and their tasks. I don’t know how they do it.”

“But it’s not a question of skill; you’re perfectly capable of it.”

“Yes.” Barriss says.

Riyo tilts her head and watches Barriss with a slightly furrowed brow. “So then it’s something else. Forget about the other knights, forget about what they’d think; we’re talking about you. Why do you not want to be a knight anymore?”

Barriss stares out at the sea as she thinks. “When I was a youngling in the creche, I’d see these knights and masters and they’d be larger than life. They would go out into the galaxy and help people and they’d come back and say ’oh, I toppled a tyrant the other day.’ ’I solved a blood feud.’ ’I helped build a hydroelectric dam.’ Things like that. So I threw myself into my studies because I thought I’d be doing that.”

“Peacekeeping instead of fighting in a war,” Riyo softly says.

A maw of fear opens up in Barriss’s chest, wide and dark. She shouldn’t go further. This is wrong—it’s wrong! If she truly is as good a Jedi as everyone likes to say, then she needs to stop. She doesn’t know what exactly will happen if she continues along this vein, but she knows it’s bad. She won’t be able to return. It can’t be undone.

“Barriss?” Riyo takes Barriss’ hands in hers. “It’s all right, look at me. Breathe.” Riyo leads her through a slow, steady breath. Barriss’s lungs fill, hold, contract, and as this happens, the whirlwind in her mind quiets down.

“Better?” Riyo asks. Barriss nods her head. “Good. Do you want to keep talking about this?”

Barriss shakes her head no. “I should meditate on it.”

“Then it’ll keep. Would you mind telling me what you find? I’d like to help.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

It’s early afternoon when Ahsoka, Barriss, and Riyo finish mending the fishing net. They’re bundling the net in their arms and are about to carry it back to the village when Chief Que-Malo walks up the dock towards them, her heavy, weathered boots thumping against the dock.

“Thank you for your service! You are hereby released from duty. You can leave it there,” the Chief says.

The three of them drop the net back onto the dock and untangle themselves from it. Riyo steps out to meet her.

“Ma’am. I was wondering if there was a comlink in the village we could use.”

“There aren’t any comlinks here; no comlink towers either. This place is as isolated as it gets.” Chief Que-Malo gestures further down the coast with what remains of her right hand. “Bravado might have what you need. It’s the nearest city.”

“Brav-Bravado! I know that city! It’s near Defiance,” Riyo says. The Chief smiles down at her.

“That it is. Bravado is about a day’s walk from here, and Defiance is an extra day beyond that. But I must ask, are you sure you want to leave?”

“Yes,” Riyo says, to Barriss’ dismay.

“Then I wish you all the best of luck in your endeavors. We’ll see each other again someday.” The Chief steps out of the way so that they can pass, then goes over to the fishing net and begins to drape it over her shoulders.

“Come on, let’s go.” Riyo sets a brisk walk down the dock, and Ahsoka and Barriss hurry behind her. Halfway down, they hear a splash. Barriss turns to see the Chief gone and the fishing net trailing from the end of the dock into the water.

“She just jumped into the sea? Isn’t the water too cold even for Pantorans? Wouldn’t that kill her?” Barriss asks.

“Yes, it is, and yes, it would, if she were a regular Pantoran.” Riyo walks even faster, if that’s possible. She looks ready to set off at a run at a moment’s notice. “Come on, Barriss!”

The three of them set off through the village, and while they put on smiles and wave goodbye to a few villagers, they don’t slow down one bit. It’s only when they’re firmly away, and the village is a tiny spot in the distance, that Riyo stops In her tracks, wheezing.

“Why did we run?” Barriss asks. She’s only breathing lightly. “We could have helped them! We need to help Chief Que-Malo out of the sea.”

“No, we don’t.” Riyo puts her hands on her hips to help her breathe better. Her face is flushed.

“Riyo, you’ve been pretty tense ever since you seen the Chief. Why?” Ahsoka asks.

“And the whole ‘don’t eat any of the food’ thing, was that just paranoia? We could have investigated if that was the cause of their illnesses,” Barriss says.

“They’re not sick, Barriss! None of the villagers were sick.” Riyo takes a deep calming breath and continues in a whisper. “They’re all dead.”

Both Barriss and Ahsoka freeze.

Riyo continues. “They’re already dead. They’re all corpses. The Chief would have needed our help if she were a regular Pantoran, but she’s not. You’re right, Ahsoka. I’ve been afraid of that place the instant I saw her.”

“You know who she is!” Ahsoka says.

“Who is she?” Barriss asks.

“The Sea Goddess, the Keeper of the Dead,” Riyo says. She gestures down the coast. “We should go.” She adjusts the shirt covering her head, then sets off. Ahsoka and Barriss give each other one last horrified look, then follow her.

Want to read them on Ao3 or on FF..net? Click here for the links.

#artillery writes #star wars: the clone wars #Ahsoka Tano #riyo chuchi #barriss offee #fanfiction

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colitisandme · 5 years

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It’s no coincidence that ‘stressed’ is ‘desserts’ spelt backwards. That’s what I typically dived towards when I was stressed or sad. Desserts equaled gluttonous happiness. Whenever I was anxious, I ripped into packets, tubs and cake shaped items with joy and frenzy. Desserts and stress were my bed fellows. They were brilliant friends, hogging all the blankets under the duvet of my life, leaving me cold, plump, hyperactive, covered in sugar and shivering, with no cover on me, cursing the fact I didn’t wear fluffy socks to bed. my mind would whirl away like a washing machine. And so, cold and shivering with my hair on end, looking like a deranged Womble, I would end up seeking something sweet to eat. Instantly after the first mouthful, my hair would become less wild, my thoughts would be less chaotic and I would sink into a pile of sugary blissfulness. So when I had to give up sugar, I was, well stressed irronically.

Stress and worry have followed me around my whole life, from when I was in Primary school right up until present day. It has become such a huge part of my existence, I didn’t feel right unless I was worrying about something or constantly going over things in my brain. Not just tangible thoughts. Nope. My worries consisted about serious things that are going on in the world, my finances, my families happiness, the house, husband wellbeing, friends, have I upset anyone? Am I being a good wife? To other thoughts and worries like; Have I locked the door? Have I turned off the tap? To really helpful thoughts and worries like; ‘I am pretty sure I heard a crunch under my foot when I put out the rubbish? ... Why didn’t I turn the light on? Oh my god was that a snail? What if his family are waiting for him to come home. What if, because he never appears, the mum snail becomes an alcoholic, becomes hooked on nettle wine, and the children forgo their education to look after her. Eventually they leave because she’s just too much to handle, and so, alone and drunk, she sings songs about her lost love, while hiccuping and wailing in a nettle wine stupor ... And it will be all my fault.’ So round and round my thoughts and worries went, until I felt like a hamster on a wheel, running and running and going nowhere. I didn’t vocalise these worries. They were all internal. I just couldn’t switch off.

I beat myself up for anything that goes wrong. Nobody need punish me, I do a great job of that myself. Once when I was very young, I decided that the cat simply had too many whiskers that she didn’t need. Even at aged 5, I reasoned I was doing her a favour and she was probably absolutely fed up with having an even number of whiskers on each side. I was sure that if she could speak she would beg me to reduce her grooming time, as she was taking simply ages to preen her whiskers, tell me stories about when she would get laughed at by all the other cats for having rediculous symmetrically numbered and placed whiskers, and longed to remove herself from mediocrity and boredom. Well I certainly didn’t want her to be a laughing stock. Happy to oblige.... *snip* (I probably should have stopped when the cat tried to scrabble away from me, eyes wide with fright as I confidently strode over to her, gleefully, with arms outstretched looking like Edward Scissor Hands, but never the less I was convinced I was doing her a favour.)

I came downstairs clutching a traumatised, angry cat in one hand, and a pair of scissors and newly trimmed whiskers in another. I proudly showed off the new look to my parents. They were not as open to the new aerodynamic moggy as I had hoped, and freaked. I immediately lost it. I sobbed. I apologised over and over to the cat, I tried glueing her whiskers back on, I stroked her, cuddled her, I was convinced I had ruined her life. I was inconsolable. I spent many days after that setting up a makeshift counselling clinic for my cat, where I would stroke her and make sure she knew what a beautiful cat she was and I told her I was sorry that was going to be lob-sided, and struggle getting in to tiny gaps, and try and make up for what I did by taking extra special care of her. My parents didn’t chastise me, because nothing they could do could make me feel any worse than I did. Even at age 5, I worried a lot.

So you can imagine that as adulthood embraced me, just how easily worrying had become a part of me. As natural as breathing. Stressing about everything became normal. Overthinking was critical to my daily life. I lived each day on high alert, in case I needed to jump into action and fix whatever needed fixing, just like I tried to do with the cats whiskers. I am at my best in a crisis, and god knows I have had many to deal with in my life. I love being Superwoman. I love saving the day. But being in this hyper-alert state was not fun and certainly not healthy.

I became ill after a BIG burnout. I had been playing Superwoman for too long. I had been living on the edge for months, I was always stressed, I wasn’t sleeping, I was in pain, I was withdrawing, I was experiencing horrendous brain fog which was really sodding useful as I had just started an incredibly stressful job, where I would drill myself to be perfect and chastise myself for processing information incorrectly. On top of this I was dealing with a managerie of outside issues. Very quickly and surprisingly, (to me as everyone closest to me would describe me as the strongest person they knew,) my health and mental health imploded like a double whammy firework. I did not know it was coming, but oh my god when it did, I was floored. I had never been so ill. I was scared. I knew that I could not continue doing what I was doing. I needed to change my behaviours. I needed to spring clean my brain. I couldn’t turn to sweet treats anymore to relieve that anxiety because cake or sugar would make my bum explode. I needed to find another less ‘caboom, fire in the hole type way’ to manage my anxieties and stress.

IBD forces me to think purely in the present because I have to spend a huge amount of energy simply functioning. I have to stay in the moment. If I worry or think further past a day/ week it becomes impossible, as I am never sure what one day will look like from the other. Stress hugely exacerbates my IBD symptoms. I learnt this very quickly. The more I worried about why the hell my body was being so unco-operative, the worse my body felt and the more angry it got. And with IBD there is a lot to stress over. Finances, health, stigma of having an invisible illness, work, isolation, diet, questions over future plans etc. It’s a big thing to deal with. It’s enormous. So I worried and got worse and worried and got worse. And so eventually, feeling like I had been kicked by a horse, totally hungry, weak, prone to explode, sugar deprived and looking like a bum with eyes, with my wonderful Mum’s encouragement and support, I came across meditation and mindfulness.

Meditation and mindfulness have helped me manage my stress. After phone calls chasing mental health appointments, referrals and cursing the incompetence of Drs, mental health professionals and admin teams, I turn to mindfulness and meditation as a way of calming my mind. It has taught me to accept things, the way they are during the moment because that may change in the next moment, And be in the moment with it. For example, the pain I get with IBD can feel like your belly is being sawn in half. It feels like a group of can can dancers, jig about on my groin, back and stomach wearing high heels, and using exquisite timing and excellent rhythm, stomp on my intestines, causing me to chew my fist in distress. If I use mindfulness and meditation during painful episodes like this (sometimes whilst crossing my eyes, grinding my teeth and chewing the carpet) it helps me not to fight the pain, but to breathe through it and accept it in the present. When I am anxious, Meditation takes my mind away to another focus in a gentle way, and if my mind wonders off like a hyperactive butterfly, it gently brings it back again. It’s not easy. Sometimes it definitely does not work, but sometimes it does. I have learnt to focus on my breathing, I have trained my brain to change each thought. From a time where the thoughts on a day to day basis felt like they were running around my brain on fire, screaming fire engine noises, wearing a bucket on their head, careering into other thoughts who fanned the flames with a manual citing ‘50 ways to put out a fire’ and can’t work the hose, to a calmer place. One where my thoughts can pick flowers, float in a babbling brook, frolic with fluffy animals and where the fire extinguisher is readily available. Because IBD has forced me to strip everything back in my life, there is no room for extreme stress. No room for high anxiety, because it just hurts me. Physically and mentally. Where as before, I would keep my worries to myself because I didn’t like bothering people with them, now I talk about them, accept the things I cannot change, appreciate things in the moment and change the things I can change. So strangely in that way, IBD has probably saved my life. It’s very strange how things work. I am the most ill I have ever been and should be the most stressed I have ever been, but I can’t be, because that would make me even more ill. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a battle. But I try. I try to appreciate every moment. I appreciate every mouthful of food, and take ages eating it, where as before I would thoughtlessly shovel it in.

I start each day with a mantra and meditation, and even though sometimes Its not effective, I can honestly say that practicing Mindfullness and meditation, are the best stress relievers and stress deterrence I have ever had. They are also the best dessert substitute I have ever had, because meditation doesn’t make my jeans bulge, make me act like an over excited toddler at a birthday party or attract an enthusiastic colony of ants who desire to lick my sugary face. So if like me you are a natural worrier, I urge you to not get so stressed out, you end up gnawing on yourself like an Octopus and try it. Doing a little a day may just take the edge off and sometimes just doing that will help deal with things a little more positively. And when we are living with a long term chronic disease like IBD, being positive, even in the face of a huge challenge like this, is everything.

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fyrapartnersearch · 6 years

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rEEE writers inbound

hey there! i’m rhys. i am 22, live in the ct, and love ooc chatter! my ooc is pretty lax, but i promise my writing is a helluva lot more formal. i write in third person, past/present tense, and paragraph form. im not a rapid-fire writer, and won’t be able to constantly get replies in every day (i can get responses in anywhere between every couple of days to a week or two). however, i will ALWAYS put tlc into all of my posts and characters! i write anywhere between 300-900 words. it’s definitely alright if you don’t feel up to that amount at any given point, but i do appreciate keeping it somewhere in this range. im very wordy, and can spew out a novel if im excited enough lmao

my limits are pretty general; i will not do beastiality, pedophilia, vore, or scat. i can indulge in a variety of kinks, but if it’s a little much for any average person, i’m less likely to write it out (i.e extreme ddlg or adult babies, furries, extreme pet play, etc.) but i can be persuaded to lightly touch on certain kinks as long as they’re not 10000% filth lmao i cannot, and will not, do seme/uke or top/bottom dynamics. absolutely not. queer relationships shouldn’t be defined by whose taking the D. i dont want to interact with squeamish little femboys, or awful macho men with downright rapey tendencies. versatility is key, and power struggles are what i live for! i will, however, indulge in BDSM dynamics with certain plots— although, domination isn’t always about penetration, you know?

give me characters with aspirations, hopes and dreams, and crushing past experiences that flesh them out into who they are. no one is perfect, and we all have things that rear their ugly heads in the dark. problematic characters, male or female or anything in between, are everything. i love lgbtq+ characters, as i am part of the community myself, and will almost always be more inclined in writing queer characters. not to say i won’t write for strictly straight pairings, m/f, but usually i am iffy when approached with it if i am just meeting you.

i write for all genders, ethnicity, and orientations! you can find a few writings examples of mine here. i am pretty welcoming of most things. smut, of course. some kink a little out there that you want to suggest? let's do it, dude. i am super OOC friendly and i am pretty much a garbled mess when i get to know you! i’m a social person— i feel like a burden if you’re not into chatting with me, so please, if you’re not looking to be both a writing partner as well as a friend, i might not be the gal for you. i am open to crooked relationships, ones that don't function right, dark/morally corrupt characters, unconditional love, etc. my interests fluctuate! i am down, 24/7, guys! i only roleplay over email, but will ooc chat over discord or hangouts! here's a list of fandoms and pairings below that i am looking to write for atm. i do have many more, but these are just the ones off the top of my head!

_________

Borderlands

Handsome Jack/Rhys

Handsome Jack/Rhys/Nisha

Life is Strange

Max Caulfield/Chloe Price

Max Caulfield/Kate Marsh/Victoria Chase

Nathan Prescott/Warren Graham

Rachel Amber/Chloe Price

Frank Bowers/Damon Merrick

Dick Grayson/Jason Todd

Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson

Dick Grayson/Wally West

Harley Quinn/Pamela Isley

Batman: Telltale Series

Bruce Wayne/John Doe

Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle

Bruce Wayne/Harvey Dent/Selina Kyle

Marvel

Stephen Strange/Tony Stark

Bucky Barnes/Sam Wilson

Thor/Bruce Banner

Peter Parker/Harry Osborn

Peter Parker/Wade Wilson

Wade Wilson/Vanessa Carlysle

Gwen Stacy/Peter Parker/Harry Osborn

Peter Parker/Wade Wilson/Vanessa Carlysle

Uncharted

Nathan Drake/Samuel Drake

Nathan Drake/Harry Flynn

Chloe Frazer/Nadine Ross

TTGOT

Asher Forrester/Gwyn Whitehill

Rodrik Forrester/Arthur Glenmore

Mira Forrester/Margaery Tyrell

Gryff Whitehill/Elaena Glenmore

Gared Tuttle/Finn

Gared Tuttle/Josera Snow

The Walking Dead

Rick Grimes/Negan

TWDG

Javier Garcia/David Garcia

Clementine/Gabriel Garcia

Clementine/Louis

Clementine/Violet

Marlon/Louis

Javier Garcia/Paul “Jesus” Rovia

Far Cry (3-5)

Jason Brody/Vaas Montenegro

Jason Brody/Bambi “Buck” Hughes

Ajay Ghale/Pagan Min

Ajay Ghale/Sabal

Ajay Ghale/Sabal/Amita

Rook/Joseph Seed

Rook/John Seed

Rook/Faith Seed

Punisher

Frank Castle/David Lieberman

Frank Castle/Billy Russo

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Scott Ryder/Reyes Vidal

Scott Ryder/Gil Brodie

Scott Ryder/Peebee

Sara Ryder/Peebee

Sara Ryder/Vetra Nyx

Kill Your Darlings

Lucien Carr/Allen Ginsberg

____________

Onto original plots!

——————

Office romances/BDSM/Friends with benefits-turned-lovers

okay, so, i had this type of roleplay with someone a while back. maybe more than two or three years back that i fell out of contact with and i could never really get it out of my head because it was probably one of the best character-building stories i’ve ever taken part of. :’) i don’t remember their name, but i do hope they’ll contact me again if they ever see this. while some of this may seem specific, none of it is concrete and i promise i am very easy to get along with and very accomodating! the plot i remember had three different relationships— completely different people, with different lives and different worlds, with only one common thing between them being that they work in the same building. we can do all three, or we can do a few, or even one! i dont mind.

**pairing A; M/F preferred (lol i know broke my own rule, but i adore femdoms! extra: please come with an open mind. this is not a 50 shades AU, and i do not want it to be.) this one is between a CEO and an intern in their senior year of college. The CEO is a femdom, and freshly out of divorce, takes a liking to the clumsy intern who’d spilled coffee on her more than once. The intern has never been in a relationship with an older woman, let alone one running a multi-million dollar company, but hey, isn’t that the dream for some broke twenty-something down on his luck? She introduces him to BDSM, and while he’s hesitant, the idea is as exciting as it is frightening. He accepts her offer— while it’s difficult at times, he begins to learn more about her. Her ex-spouse, her young child, and her unwillingness to develop a sincere relationship with him. She’s had subs before, and while she tells him he isn’t disposable, he begins to feel it was the truth. He grows to have feelings for her, and while she isn’t too keen on admitting it, the feeling is mutual. I’d love to explore their dynamic in and out of sex, and the conflict between the intern and her ex-spouse. I love age gaps, and think it would be awesome to see them develop over time to find common ground to establish a personal relationship and trying to even out their power imbalances. I don’t mind playing either the CEO or the intern, but I am leaning more towards the CEO. :V**

**pairing B; M/M preferred (this one is waaay more gritty and more dub-con than anything so please beware!) this one is between two higher-ups who have been butting heads for years— and occasionally, sexual tension neither have acted on. A is a snarky, openly gay man, and probably what some would consider shallow and noncommittal. B is a brooding, closeted ‘by the book’ type well into his thirties, and refuses to engage in anything sexual with men despite his obvious attraction; B has younger siblings he takes care of as well as his mother, and being the oldest son and only provider, hasn’t done a thing for himself in twenty years. A lives completely alone, complete with a bachelor pad and, the influx of flings that went nowhere past sex, and has risen to the top with his own sheer will. they have conflicting motives, and while both of them have an intense hatred for each other, they’ve never engaged in physical altercations in fear of losing their jobs. one day, A jabs a little below the belt, and finally, B starts swinging. this fight turns into something way more heavy in the company parking lot. what happens between them in the long run is something desperate, needy, and longing for real affection. it began as a mindless need for sex, angry and mean and formal, with B being especially unwilling to ‘give up’ his masculinity and ever be on the receiving end in fear of losing the control he needs to keep this up. i’d love to see them begin to see each other in a different light, and changing each other for the better. i’d also love to see A showing B that sex doesn’t have to be meaningless, and that he doesn’t need to fear letting A be in control. And B showing A that commitment isn’t as terrifying as it may be, with them gradually going from rivals, to friends with benefits, and eventually lovers. i, again, don’t mind writing for either! **

**pairing C; F/F preferred. (aaa this pairing is way more fluffy and sweet, with hurt/comfort as a stable of their dynamic.) this one is between two small-office employees in the company. A is fairly tame at work in order to support her sibling(s), of which she has adopted from her father’s custody years ago. she is fairly confident with her sexuality, and while not being the type to frequent clubs, is dragged along by a few friends and there, meets B. B is a young woman who just recently got out of a relationship with an abusive ex fiance— B has only ever been with that man, and was never confident in exploring her sexuality due to a religious upbringing and parents who were dead set on traditional values. she’s never strayed from her ex, and while he wasn’t faithful or remotely good to her in return, she was heartbroken with their split. months after, he returns to the city and B’s close friends decide to take her out on a girls’ night to make her feel better— B coincidently sees her ex, and feeling childish and unattractive, heads off to the bar to get a drink. she’s nowhere near a drinker, and just before she does drown her sorrows, is hit on by A. while initially shocked, B is flustered and finds herself immediately attracted to A. they have a one-night stand, and while B believes that A would just leave in the morning, A instead lays with her until she wakes up, and leaves her number. B is too anxious to text her. they bump into each other at the elevator that Monday. they agree to be just friends, until B knows what she wants. A is willing to wait. B might have a crush, and A is intent on building B up to love herself and her body. i would overall prefer to write for A, but if you’re dead set, no prob!**

Serial killer/1960’s/Small town sheriff

no preferred pairing! would love, love, love to see something between a serial killer and a small town sheriff in the mid-to-late sixties. we could make up a new little town, or find one to our liking! A is the sheriff who had been born and raised in this town with a good home life, loving parents, and a steady moral compass, albeit trapped in a loveless marriage. they know everyone, and every nook and cranny of the place like the back of their hand. this is the type of place where people don’t have to lock their doors at night, or constantly watch their kids when they’re out in the yard playing. that is, until people start going missing and horrifyingly mutilated bodies began to pop up around town. B is a well-liked baker in town; known to be genuinely friendly and kind, B has a very corrupt past. both of their parents were heinously abusive, and as a child, B developed sociopathic tendencies. B was inherently spiteful of the town and the people in it, for leaving them to rot in hell for eighteen years, and for never reaching out. B formed a god complex, his intentions to ‘purify the corrupt’. they keep tabs on almost everyone in town, and the victims they do take are put in the soundproof basement of his home to be ‘baptized’; tortured, beaten, and mutilated beyond recognition. A and B are friendly with each other as A comes to the bakery every morning, with B’s motives completely unbeknownst. one night, A, frustrated and pissed from the dead ends of the case of the decade, decides to head to the bar and relax. B is the one face A didn’t mind seeing that night, and one thing lead to another, with A and B in a dark alley getting each other off— i definitely see this as B grooming A to be a complicit pet, and when A gets closer and closer to figuring out who the killer is, he forms a deep connection with B. B develops a possessiveness over A, along with that sense of ownership he’d established between them. B manipulates A, coerces him into a false sense of security, and eventually— A finds out, and while B initially thinks to kill A, A is corrupted by B and forms some kind of stockholm syndrome for B. it’s up to A on whether or not they turn B in, or cover the killer’s tracks. B, despite his very sick and repulsive nature, develops a true infatuation for A, as close to love as they were ever going to get, and A is desperate enough to please B that they’ll do anything to not disappoint them.

Post apocalypse/decades later/immunity

no pairing preferred! the plot I had in mind is loosely based off of a video game called "The Last of Us", which i am sure most of you have a general knowledge of! (definitely check it out if you don’t :O it’s a great game!!) the prompt i was shooting for goes something like this; in a post-apocalyptic world where a pandemic has killed off most living species, character A is a lone wolf with little to do with other people that don't benefit him, except for a select few. A is especially rough around the edges, as he's lived through some sick shit and lived to tell the tale. A had once been part of a group dedicated to finding a cure, but things went south, and a lot of people died. A had a close bond with the leader of said group, and coincidentally they were the only survivors. their past together, having been deeply demented and twisted, caused them to fall out. said leader has rebuilt a new group in the ten years since the last time they'd seen A. character B is the only known immune person alive, and has dedicated their life to being a resource to finding a cure. A and his (current) contact/partner in crime have something taken from them, and are determined to get it back. they do some searching, and are confronted with this group-- they have what they need, but are only willing to give it to them for a favor in return. no one can outrun their past forever. so, this plot isn't concrete. things can be changed, we can do whatever we want, and i am happy to comply to any revisions or suggestions! i'd really enjoy taking on A, if that's alright!

TREASURE HUNTERS/ANCIENT CURSES/LOVE-HATE DYNAMICS/MODERN

treasure hunters!!!! yES!! think Uncharted or Tomb Raider. an architect/treasure hunter is being funded an expedition to find a lost treasure and they are forced to bring along a reporter in order to receive the funds. the reporter and architect certainly dont get along in the beginning— they bicker, and clash on most fronts. the expedition wasnt meant to be dangerous. what was initially thought to be a simple job turned into something treacherous; bandits, a team of hired hitmen and their leader looking to take the treasure for themselves, and some rather supernatural elements that they both couldnt quite put a finger on. the treasure hunter and the reporter have to work together to get out of this alive, and get to the artifact before someone else does. (the “treasure” is definitely up for debate!! we can chose a real life lost treasure, or just make one up!! it can be anywhere around the world, and everything is at our disposal).

DEMON/INHERITANCE/HUNTERS/MODERN

character A has an awful time living in the city— alone, and without mom's guidance, completely lost. one day they receive a call about a deceased relative, one they'd never heard of, one that apparently left their estate and everything in it in their will to A. with nothing but the clothes on their back, A took a shot in the dark and drove out to this presumed "estate" come early summer, only to find that it's a mansion in a tiny little town with an eerie vibe and populated by the typical small town churchgoers and farm folk. living in this town was a hell of a challenge; everyone was nice, too nice, and people started to go missing. character B is an exceptionally charismatic, charming person and the only mechanic/handyman in town. A and B become friends, partially, when A needs to fix up the piping in their estate. A stumbles upon the attic one day, and for once, they start to get why this whole town reeked to the roots in weird shit-- their deceased relative was tracking something here in this town, having to do with all of the MIA townsfolk. DR has a board of possible suspects, and at the center? B. A shrugs it off as their relative having been paranoid, but the longer A stays in this town, the more apparent it becomes that DR wasnt crazy. B is, in fact, not the murderer, instead a supernatural being (open for debate! im on the fence with demons, vampires, etc.) on a mission to track down the monster, same as DR. i am so down for internal struggles, sweet gestures, and overall, two people just trying to make it work! i could also see A being hella paranoid that B is the monster, and maybe tries to throw cloves of garlic at them only to realize thats not exactly how this monster hunter business works lmao

DEPRESSED WRITER/YOUNG MUSE/between 1920’s-1960’s/sex, drugs, & the american dream

m/m preferred! A is a severely depressed middle-aged man believing his life has been wasted. his wife left him with their child at her hip, his career was in a rut, and he had nothing left to live for. opting for suicide, he goes out one evening to purchase a bottle of gin to down with a handful of prescription sleeping pills when he returned to his apartment. instead of going directly home, he’s swept in by the music in an underground club for queers. there he meets B; all encompassing, angel faced, and the only person A didn’t know how to look away from. B is a former US Navy Seal, aspiring musician, and avid indulger of the human body— A stays a little too long, owlish and red, and after the show, B approaches him with a cattish smile. they spark a friendship, and A is thrown down the rabbit hole when B introduces him to his social circle, filled to the brim with drag queens, junkies, queers, and the overall unusual— he integrates into this community, his contemplation of suicide only a distant memory, and begins to find himself extremely attracted to B. he lights a fire in A, something dangerous and unquenchable, and A finds himself drawn in by the unpredictability. A embarks with B on a journey of self exploration, passion, and inevitable love in a world that scorned the oddities of human attraction and anyone who dared to be free.

thanks for your time! if you've read through, please contact me at [email protected] on email or rhys#3615 on discord and mention kiwi somewhere in your initial message. n_n

Rhys xoxo

#oc rp #multiple paragraph #long term #email #marvel rp #twd rp #smut rp #mcu rp #dc rp #submission

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reecemalone · 6 years

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Why I HATE Brigitte

This is a post all about Brigitte Lindholm, but not out of appreciation. I HATE her. It’s a strong word, but that’s exactly why I’m using it. If I take every aspect of Brigitte’s character into consideration, my judgement does not change. Any way I look at it, she doesn’t belong in a game this good. Let me explain.

A lot of time, when you get killed in Overwatch, your first thought is “Oh, of course, it’s the ____.” Out of me and everyone I’ve played with, I almost always hear Brig filling this blank. The reason for this is because getting killed by Brig feels cheap, because almost all of her attacks don’t take skill to use.

The only exception to this is her Whip Shot, which isn’t even that hard to use regardless, and has some pretty damaging effects.

Let’s start with her most basic ability, her primary attack, the Rocket Flail. In my eyes, Brigitte is built around this flail, as most of her abilities involve it.

We see a similar thing with McCree, and in both cases the character is defined by the skill dependence of their primary attack. McCree’s Peacekeeper (revolver) takes quite a bit of skill to aim, and only someone who has this skill will do well with it (with the exception of stuns, which I’ll get to later).

However, with Brigitte, her primary attack is literally melee, meaning that she has to do very little aim with it, as you can clearly see in the photo (both me and my aim are miles away from that bot). Additionally, she doesn’t even have to think about ammo, or anything else that McCree players have to take into account. Also, as the definition says, this attack has a farther range over regular melee, making it even better, which you can also see in the photo.

Not to mention, this attack can hit multiple enemies at once, making it pretty powerful in conjunction with thing’s like Zarya’s Ultimate, Graviton Surge. In this case, a Brigitte can have her damage boosted by things like Mercy’s staff or Ana’s ultimate ability (an “Ult”), and could wipe out a team with very little effort.

With many of her abilities coming up next, I really want to prove the point that almost all of Brigitte’s kit borrows (or steals) ideas and functionalities from other heroes. Her ultimate ability, Rally, is no exception.

This ultimate steals almost directly from Torbjorn, her father, and Lucio (and I‘m glad to say that he is miles away from her in terms of story, because I like Lucio). With this, she gains speed (a big part of Lucio’s kit), and gives team mates within a certain radius of her (literally Lucio as a whole) extra armor (from Torb’s old kit) over time, which is permanent. In other words, this armor stays on an ally until it’s hit off of them through damage. Also, armor has benefits in terms of survivability over regular health, making this even worse. Oh, and one last thing. Brigitte isn’t made useless during this time, that would make too much sense for a support hero. Instead, she gets to use all of her other abilities during this time, which just sucks to go against.

Her repair pack ability is almost entirely stolen from Torbjorn and Zenyatta. It has the health benefits of Torb’s ability (+75 armor), and has the simple and easy-to-use targeting system of Zenyatta’s orbs. The main difference from Torb’s is that it prioritizes healing over armor. If the recipient has 25 less HP than their max, then it would fill that 25 health and add on the remaining 50 armor as extra. It has a cooldown of about 6 seconds, which compliments her other healing ability pretty well, because that one’s working almost constantly. In a perfect world, this would be the ability focused most on, since she’s a support hero, who’s meant to heal more than do damage.

Next up is her whip shot, which is the “skillful” one I mentioned before (because plot twist, you actually need to aim with it). It has the hitbox/usage of Roadhog’s hook when you throw it, and has multiple effects. Although it doesn’t stun the poor soul on the other side of this thing. It does 70 damage (quite a bit), and launches them farther away, very similar to Lucio’s secondary ability.

Her barrier shield is pretty much a poor man’s version of Reinhardt’s barrier. It covers only Brigitte, and has 500 health (this is quite a bit, especially when you compare it to a fully healed up Winston). This protects her from the front, but you can simply turn around as you’re using it to block behind you.

The most hated ability, Shield Bash, simply shouldn’t be in the game. On top of giving her movement benefits (there used to be a way to hit a sloped surface and fly into the air), it does multiple different things. It does a decent amount of damage to another player (50 to be exact) and more importantly, it stuns them. Stuns in Overwatch interrupt a lot of regular abilities, quite a few ultimate abilities, and almost always guarantee death for the recipient, or at least a big loss of health.

While characters like McCree have to use their stuns sparingly, Brigitte can use her quite a bit. The cooldown time of it has increased since her launch, but in my eyes she shouldn’t even have the stun in the first place. It allows her to pretty much kill a Tracer instantly assuming she executes a simple combo well, and it is extremely frustrating to be hit by.

Her last ability, Inspire, is her main healing ability. It heals her and nearby team mates pretty slowly for 5 seconds after hitting someone with one of her flail abilities. For example, you could hit an enemy once, doing 30 damage with melee, then you would heal 5 team mates for 5 seconds each, doing a total of about 250 to 300 healing just by hitting an enemy once, which I’ve shown isn’t that hard to do.

Now, that’s all just been her kit and what she can do. I’ve barely even gotten to the main problems with her, primarily being that in general, she does way too much. Whether you look at her individual abilities or at her role in a team, they all do too much relative to the amount of effort the player must put in.

As a support character, you’d expect her to be the pray, rather than the predator, because that’s usually how it is. However, with her stunning and high damage abilities, this flips that trend on its head.

I like Ana. Her skill dependence pays off well, as her abilities are pretty powerful. However, almost everything about her requires practice or game sense to use. She has long cool downs, which promotes the conservation of her abilities so you wont get “caught with your pants down.” She might be able to take down someone attacking her, but you’ll have to use most of her kit, and use it well.

Meanwhile, Brigitte has the same role as a support hero, but instead goes on the offensive, and does that too well. As I mentioned before, she can kill heroes like Tracer and “Baby DVA” (DVA without a mecha unit) with a simple combo, and they have no chance of escaping it. This combo doesn’t make much skill to use, and I can already use it well (I’ll show you why that’s surprising later). Also, the abilities that she has to use aren’t on very long cool downs, sometimes taking half the time to recharge compared to Ana’s abilities, which can take up to 12 seconds.

When I say Brigitte is a support hero, that’s just what the game SAYS she is. In reality, she fills pretty much every role in the game, and as I’ve shown, between her healing and her offensive abilities, doesn’t take much practice or skill to do it.

Additionally, the game even portrays her to be easy to play, with a 1 star difficulty rating as you can see in the picture. The point of this difficulty statement is to show that a hero with a lower one will be easy to play, but you won’t get much out of it. Because this system targets new players learning all of the abilities (that’s the page its on), it’s important to show who they may do well with in the beginning.

This is true with someone like Roadhog, who can definitely do work against the enemy team, but at a certain point an amazing Roadhog player can’t do anymore to impact his opponents.

This difficulty statement works to show that Roadhog is an easy character to play, but you probably won’t be turning heads by how well you’re doing.

In contrast, a character like Genji takes quite a bit of practice to use correctly, but can cause devastation in the enemy team. The difficulty statement shows this, as you’ll hear of a lot of “Pro Genjis,” while you generally don’t hear the same thing about Roadhog players.

Now, back to Brigitte. Her difficulty works to show that she’s an easy character to play, but fails to say that she CAN do a lot, because the 1 star difficulty generally means that you are limited as a character; at a certain point, you can’t do any more to “turn heads.”

Let’s take a break from gameplay. What about her character?

Like her abilities, she borrows a lot from other characters. However, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt because this is common for other characters: you could say something similar about Genji, whose story involves many other heroes.

As you can see in the photo above, she followed in her father’s footsteps (Torbjorn), and as I mentioned before this is shown in many of her abilities. She always wanted to be an engineer, and now she’s taken it to the battlefield.

Also, she was a “squire” to Reinhardt, a character who’s had a lot of importance in Overwatch’s story.

Personally, I’m not too mad about her story. She has a few roots in other characters, but doesn’t “invade” too much into the rest of the story. However, in my eyes, a problem arises with her personality and voice lines.

A lot of Brigitte’s tone and voice lines portray a person who loves to taunt her enemies, while trying to be optimistic with her team. Personally, I hate this, primarily when it’s done in combination with her abilities. After feeling cheated by getting killed by her powerful and easy-to-use abilities, she’ll usually follow up with a taunt or laugh, just to make you feel even worse about being killed. These bad manners aren’t uncommon in Overwatch (”ggez,” and things of that sort), but the fact that this is pretty much encouraged in terms of Brigitte is pretty awful.

In terms of trends in Overwatch (aka “Metas”), there’s plenty more to talk about. The last thing I’ll leave you with is this:

Brigitte is my least played character, and I intend to keep it that way. In fact, I’ve never actually chosen to play her, these 10 minutes were only in Mystery Heroes, where you have to be killed by an enemy to change heroes, and you have no choice who to play. In other words, I refuse to bring this much pain to my enemies, no matter how badly I may be losing. See? I have standards.

#Overwatch

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careycuprisin · 3 years

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Bear 100 🐻 Race Report: You Have to Run the Downhills

The past isn’t made of facts, not really, just stories people tell to make themselves feel better.

— Joe Abercrombie, The Wisdom of Crowds

Dear Reader: why are you reading this race report?

If you’re a runner looking to do this race and want info, read sections II, III, VI

If you’re wanting a narrative story about the day, read II, III

If you want to know whether my drop was righteous or wimpy, read III, IV, VII

If you want information about my kit and equipment, read VI

If you’re a geeked-out nerd person, or a strategy junkie whose idea of ‘fun’ is destroying Logic Men on Twitter, or an aspiring ‘life coach,’ read I

I. META-STUFF ABOUT RACE REPORTS: When you finish a race like the Bear 100 (by which I mean wrapping up the weekend, whether your efforts got you an official finish or a drop somewhere along the course), you are left with an enormous heap of impressions and recollections and thoughts and analyses and excuses and explanations. Most of these are true, but they are not all necessarily coherent when combined with all the rest, and (more importantly) they are not always helpful. The job of writing a race report like this involves sorting through all of these thoughts and selecting a coherent narrative that makes sense.

That’s the easy part. A lot of possible, true, narratives make sense. How to choose among them? If you plan to enter races like this one in the future (as I do), the narrative that you construct in your race report will be also be useful to you later, guiding you to make better decisions for future races based on your experiences in this one. This process will inevitably favor some impressions and analyses over others, and as the memories of the race fade, the race report will harden into the Narrative Story of My Race, which will be coherent, true, and (if I do it right) helpful to me in future races.

As an example of the difference between helpful and unhelpful stories, an unhelpful story might be, “I didn’t do as well in this race as I’d hoped because I have no natural talent” or “the aid stations stocked Heed and Heed is disgusting.” These might both be true, but if that’s your story, how do you fix it? You can’t, so it’s not helpful. Heed is ubiquitous at aid stations in races all over the country. A helpful story, in contrast, might be something like, “I didn’t eat enough” or “I started too fast” or “I wore the wrong shoes” or “I didn’t do enough weekly mileage to prepare for this race.” All of these things are something you can act upon to get better results at the next race.

II. THE UNFOLDING OF THE RACE: I got out of bed at 0350 and was full of coffee and on the start line by 0600. It was still dark. Chilly but not cold. I was unfortunately wearing the New Balance Minimus shoes that I’d driven to Logan in, because I’d forgotten to pack the actual Salomon S-Lab Sense 8s that I wanted to use for the first twenty mile section. Making do!

I was somewhere in the middle of the pack when we finished the three or four blocks of residential street and funneled into the single track trail headed up Logan Dry Canyon. The conga line wasn’t too annoying, except for the guy ahead of me who was one of those guys who like to play music on speakers during a race so everyone around him can share his obvious love for Rob Zombie. The view of Logan as we got higher and the sun rose was spectacular. (Most people are still pretty energetic during this section so you’ll find videos of this aplenty on YouTube if you search for “Bear 100.”)

I should mention the hornets. There were a lot of them along the course all day and they were stinging people left and right. I’m used to living a charmed life, so I was not too surprised when the hornets spared me. Thank you, hornets.

After the initial long climb there are some rollers and I ran them easily. My downhill pace was much faster than most of the crowd I’d been with on the way up. A Utah resident named Kalina ran with me for a while and kept me from doubting my judgment that I was going downhill at a reasonable pace. Alas! This was the last time I’d pass a significant number of people (this is called ‘foreshadowing’).

Near the end of the rolling section Kalina dropped me and everyone else around her like a sack of potatoes on some short uphills and I never saw her again. She ended up finishing in around 27 hours (maybe I should have doubted my judgment). We meandered over to the big downhill into Leatham Hollow and I am sad to report that halfway down this beautiful descent I was losing the ability to run downhill. Basically leg and knee and foot pain with everything tightening up. And so it had begun — people passing me. So it would continue.

I got out of the the Leatham Hollow aid station with 5:04 elapsed, which was pretty much on my best-case-scenario pace for the overall race. I had my first drop bag there with beefier shoes, so I put them on, ditched the long shirt I wore at the start in favor of a tank top, and moved on.

Next was a flat-ish dirt road over to the Richards Hollow aid station, about three miles away (23-ish race miles total). It was mid-day and it was now hot in the sun but still cool in the shade. I tried the trick of running the shady parts and hiking the sunny parts. After the aid station the course settles into the classic Bear 100 pattern: low aid station, then big climb and descent to the next aid station. This climb was sunny and hot and I got up ok, but the next downhill was a mess. I couldn’t PAY people to not pass me. That’s what happens when you’re not running the downhills! I came into Cowley Canyon aid station knowing that a 30-hour finish was unlikely but, hey, a finish of any kind is still fabulous. I took a little longer in the aid station then I’d like on a good day, but then was off.

The Bear 100 pattern of up-down continued through the Right Hand Fork and Temple Fork aid stations. The little creek going into Right Hand Fork had some of the most beautiful beaver ponds I’ve ever seen: clear water that let you see right to the bottom with bright green plants floating on top. Another thing about Right Hand Fork — there was a pickup truck in the parking lot with big white lettering on the windows: Search Dog, Do Not Disturb. I looked closely at the truck but couldn’t see the search dog. Needless to say I was mildly disappointed (this is another example of foreshadowing).

I had pretty much been suffering ever since Richards Hollow but I started to feel a little bit better coming into Temple Fork just before it got dark. This was probably just a function of it not being hot any more. I was off pace but dealing with it. Physically feeling generally weak and miserable but mentally very sharp, and emotionally pretty stable. I got my headlamp out of my drop bag, put on a long-sleeve shirt, a light hat, and a wind jacket for the chill that set in immediately when the sun went down, and headed uphill again.

III. THE DROP: Climbing up to the Twin Creek aid station at the about the 50-mile mark (the Tony Grove substitute aid station for 2021) it was predictably dark and, thanks to the dry air, quickly getting colder and colder. The good vibes quickly fell away. I wasn’t able to eat anything because of nausea, so progress was reasonably slow up the climb. Some runners about twenty feet ahead of me startled a beaver and I heard its tail slap against the water of its pond. (And, since I remember it clearly now, at least I must not have been completely delirious then.) So long as I was climbing I was warm enough, but the nausea was getting worse and worse, and if I tried to fight the nausea by taking my foot off the gas a bit, I quickly got too cold and started shivering. I was stuck between my GI tract requiring that I decrease my physical exertion so it could start to function again, and a dependence on continued exertion to generate enough heat. A catch-22 that most people who’ve run a 100-mile race will probably recognize.

When I got into the aid station at Twin Creek, I went into the warmed tent with the intention of relaxing for fifteen minutes to half an hour to give my stomach an opportunity to wake up. (Was that a mistake?) The plan was to eat and drink some things, put on some warmer clothes from my drop bag, and get out. Depending on who I talked to, it was somewhere between 12 and 14 miles to the next aid station at Franklin basin. This was the longest distance between any two aid stations in the race. I still had plenty of time before the cutoff.

Sadly, fifteen and then thirty minutes came and went and I was not recovering. The nausea wouldn’t go away and I was still shivering vigorously even in the warming tent after I’d put on warmer clothes and gotten under a reflective space blanket. The cutoff time got closer, and the decision became more and more about whether I should set off for another 12 (let’s be optimistic) miles without any food in the stomach, to try to get to the next aid station before I got hypothermic. It was unlikely that I’d get to Franklin Basin by 2 am, which is the time I figured I had to be there to have a reasonable chance of finishing the whole race in 36 hours. Ultimately I decided that the risks weren’t worth the increasingly unlikely reward. So I dropped. Nothing too unusual here, just weighing probabilities and applying my own risk tolerance to various decisions. This is probably what most people do when they DNF a race.

Grrr. Very mad. Many F-bombs.

IV. WHAT COULD I HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY? I think this is a mandatory question after a DNF, because I HATE drops and it’s not worth protecting my ego if it means I overlook mistakes and fail to handle the next similar situation in a better way. With the caveat that this is all in retrospect, and that my current comfort might be obscuring an accurate recollection of how feeble I was at the time, here is what I would do:

I would still wait in the aid station to give the shivering and nausea a chance to go away, but when they did not stop, before I dropped, I’d get up, put some snacks into a little bag I could take with me, and continue out of the aid station with the intention of going a half-mile down the trail to see what happened. If things were still shitty the whole way, then I could turn around and head back and I’d only have a half-mile return trip to safety.

V. THE SEARCH DOG, or, AFTER THE DROP: After two or three hours of lying on the cot in the Twin Creek aid station with a few other people and their pacers who had dropped, a guy named Rob arrived in an ATV and four of us piled in. Rob drove us down to Franklin Basin with full-bright headlights lighting up the rough two-track and the cold wind blowing in our faces. It was my first ride in an ATV! After we’d arrived at Franklin, I made sure to compliment him on his driving (he was obviously, even to an ATV virgin like me, very good at it). I immediately went into the warming tent at Franklin and settled in until I could find a ride, ideally back to my car at the Logan start line, but willing to simply be shuttled along to further aid stations if that were necessary.

Most of the people arriving to Franklin were in bad shape, and either dropped there or struggled out just ahead of the generous (in my opinion) cutoff time of 4 am. Like I said before, I doubted there was much chance of making the overall race cutoff of 6pm if you weren’t out of Franklin by 2 am, absent a resurgence of speed later in the night or when the sun came up. (There is an objective way to check if I’m wrong or not, but I haven’t done it because at this point, I don’t want to look at the results!) Anyway, most of the people leaving Franklin were leaving with their crews on the way to Beaver Creek lodge. I kept waiting for someone who could give me a ride to Logan, and the odds looked slimmer and slimmer. Well after the 4 am cutoff time, a woman walked in with a four-month-old golden retriever puppy who I immediately made friends with because the puppy wanted to chew on my hand and I let him. He wasn’t biting hard! Turns out the puppy’s owner was crewing someone who came in with her pacer around 6 am after having taken about six hours to make the trip from Twin Creek. This runner’s dad was also crewing; he asked if I needed a ride and was happy to take me back to Logan. So I struggled out of the warming tent and whoa! Remember back at Right Hand Fork aid station where I’d seen that pickup truck with ‘Search Dog, Do Not Disturb’ on the window? That was his truck, and the golden retriever puppy was his Search Dog! Turns out, he had two full-grown trained search dogs and this puppy was going to follow along after them when he grew up. So, happily, I got to ride back to my car in Logan with a very nice family and a very nice little pup.

The Search Dog!

Inside the Search Dog truck

VI. THE KIT: The most notable thing about my gear was that I wore the new High Capacity Running Vest from Naked Sports Innovations. It’s an extremely tight running vest with a front zipper. I like to call it a Sports Bra for Men. I thought it worked pretty well and I will probably wear it again. The advantages are that it’s very lightweight, you can pack a lot of shit into it if you have to, and because it’s so tight, there is zero bouncing of your water bottles or other gear when you’re running. The disadvantages are also related to its being so tight. There were times when my chest felt kind of sore, and I wondered if the vest was compressing my ribs a little too much. The other problem is that zipping it up in front can be difficult if your vest is fully loaded because, again, it’s very tight. Also, when you add layers for the night section, you have to add them on top of the vest or risk it being even tighter if you bulk up your chest with extra layers under the vest. My solution will probably be to buy another vest one size bigger for long races or when I plan to be wearing layers. It costs a lot of money, but so do other vests, and at least I’m not a triathlete so all my gear compared to that sport is CHEAP.

In addition to the vest, I also wore a Naked running band. Both the vest and the belt have good mechanisms for stashing folded-up poles. I had poles, which were very useful after thirty miles for both climbs and descents. I wore the Salomon Ultra Glide shoes for everything after the 20-mile aid station, and they worked great. Because I forgot to pack the Salomon S-Lab Sense 8 shoes that I had planned to wear at the start, I was forced to wear my New Balance Minimus shoes from the start to 20 miles, which did cause some plantar irritation and ankle soreness on the long downhill into Leatham Hollow. I think these shoes are great but only for distances less than ten miles (and never for gravelly surfaces with inch-wide rocks that can dig into your feet).

I used SkratchLabs and Ultima electrolyte mix in order to avoid the aid-station Heed (which is disgusting), and carried Spring Energy gels. I had the cheapest salt tabs I could find at REI. Goodr sunglasses and wool socks which I changed a few times. I had no blisters, no sunburn, and no injuries!

The obligatory pre-race kit photo

VII. THE AFTERMATH AND THE ANALYSIS: It’s never fun or satisfying to have to drop from a race. The good news is that this DNF wasn’t entirely surprising in retrospect. It was exactly what I deserved! Looking back on this summer, I basically just fucked around and did way too little preparation for this race. I had only one training run of greater than 20 miles and hadn’t raced at all this summer. I never really got out into the mountains and didn’t go up any fourteeners this year. The covid withdrawal from the world was probably part of this; I was just waiting stuff out. I had signed up for the Bear a year ago and frankly, wasn’t excited about it until about a month before the race. There were two or three weeks where I went back and forth about starting, and by the time I’d firmly decided to do it, there wasn’t enough time to actually train for it.

Another bit of good news is that unlike the Bighorn 100 where I felt I *had* to keep coming back every year until I finished that race, I do not think that way at all about the Bear 100 (probably because I’ve already finished one 100M race and I’m comfortable with not being a super-fan of 100s.) I enjoy this race and will likely come back to try it again, but I don’t feel *obliged* to.

The third bit of somewhat good news is that this failure at the Bear rekindled a bit of enthusiasm for actually preparing myself to do well at a race. On the drive home from Utah I was thinking about how I’d structure my season in order to do well at the Bear, and I think that’s a pretty good sign!

VIII. SO, HOW WOULD YOU STRUCTURE YOUR SEASON? Whatever it takes to be able to run the downhills after twenty miles! More specifically I suspect the best preparation for me for a fall 100 would be one or two 50 milers earlier in the summer. For the Bear, I would do the Pikes Peak Ultra 50M in July and maybe an earlier-season 50 like Quad Rock or Behind the Rocks. I’d probably tune up with something like the Telluride Mountain Run in August. In addition, I’d do a few more longer runs during the summer like Gold Hills or a Doug Loops or Morrison Triples, and I would do some above-treeline tundra adventures. All of this just to build a bit of endurance and let me RUN THE DOWNHILLS at the Bear. 🐻

Links

Strava GPS record for my race

Bear 100 website

Bear 100 Facebook group

Bear 100 YouTube videos

#bear 100 #trailrunning #rockymountainrunners

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