#fold 6 emulation

[androidaddictsx]

Galaxy Z Fold 6 Emulation Test - Citra, Dolphin, Egg NS and more!

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is probably the greatest emulation device on the market. It has a 4:3 screen and the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU and Adreno 750 GPU.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is probably the greatest emulation device on the market. It has a 4:3 screen and the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU and Adreno 750 GPU. This makes it powerful enough to handle even the most difficult of emulators. Let’s take a look through some games and see how it compares to last year’s Z Fold 5 and see if it’s worth the upgrade. 00:00 Intro 00:36 Citra: DK Country…

[beansprean]

Queening the Pawn Act 3 Part 13

exposition reveal! poor the guide :(

Acts 1-2

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1a. Close up of an open book with ragged pages and handwritten script, Guillermo's hands holding it open on the table and finger tracing along the lines. Partially cut off by the panel, it reads: '...ouncil made the...what they most feared...wast troubled by this and...mine own concerns about gran...wretched, snarling beast of a slay...to execute the punishment mine own se...wot fate would'st befall the thing I saw...become of the Council after its escape. Blood wast blood, and mine own brother would'st... withal emulation an he knew I got to taste a van Helsing. I sank mine own fangs into its throat and drank deeply - the taste wost that o' paprika burning in mine own nostrils, but I carried on until the deed wast done and mine own blood wast down its throat. I wast congratulated and we retired for the day. I awoke to a stake at mine own heart and the creature's eyne glinting in the dark. I could hear its heartbeat thundering, strong and alive. The creature had somehow resisted the transformation! I did not have time to observe it for...it knapp'd, and mine own dear Bianca... if not for thy letters folded into mine o... The verbose nature of your love hath... at the hands o' the foul...' Dialogue from present Guillermo, back in the library doing the talking head, is overlaid: 'Turns out the Guide did remember something.' 1b. Close up of Guillermo hunched over the book, pages reflected in his glasses, eyes focused and intense as he presses his palm over his mouth in thought. His present dialogue continues: 'She says Van Helsings started drinking vampire blood more than 300 years ago. I guess they got the idea from the whole thing with smallpox - take the poison in small doses, only get a little sick, and eventually you don't get sick at all.' 1c. Zoom out, Guillermo sitting at the bar as the Guide comes up behind him, face drawn and worried. He turns with a start as she quickly pats him thrice on the shoulder. 1d. Close up on the Guide as she explains her experience, hand up in a pinching motion. Guillermo's voiceover continues: 'You get inoculated, or variolated, I guess. And seems like it was effective enough that, generations later...'

2a. Zoom out to see both standing in profile, the main area of the club beyond. The Van Helsing lore is spread out on the bartop, some books open, some closed, some with page markers sticking out. There are multiple yellow post-it notes scattered around, including some plastered over Abraham's jar to cover the view of his mummified specimen. Guillermo, now standing facing the Guide, leans back with the weight of this information, one hand braced on a barstool and the over covering his face. The Guide clasps her hands in front of her and ducks her head apologetically, looking up at him in concern. Guillermo's voiceover says 'I'm completely immune. I can't be turned.' 2b. Repeat. Guillermo starts to shake with emotion and holds up his free hand as if to shrug off any sympathy. The Guide darts forward worriedly, arms out. Guillermo's voiceover says 'It was hard to hear. Again.' 2c. Waist up of Guillermo and the Guide hugging, her arms around his back and pressing his head to her shoulder where he willingly buries his face, his own arms clutching to her back. Guillermo's voiceover continues: 'But I'm glad I know now, at least.' 2d. Close up on the Guide's eyes over Guillermo's head as they fly open suddenly, irises turned to slits ringed with red as she inhales. Her face is cast in sudden shadow and spatters of blood begin to pile up in the background.

3a. Zoom out, Waist up of the Guide over Guillermo's shoulder as they clutch at each other. Her eyes are wide and pained, lost in some forgotten memory as her arms begin to shake. Behind her, some vague humanoid shapes appear, one with long hair and long skirt, one in a hooded robe, and another kneeling at the robed one's feet. The memory speaks, 'My Guide, the Council has brought you a meal.' 3b. Repeat, blood spatters once again beginning to pop up in the background. The memory continues, responding 'Oh! That is very thoughtful, Mistress, thank you.' and 'Careful, he's a struggler.' The Guide shuts her eyes tightly, chin wobbling as a tear pools in her eye. She squeezes Guillermo even tighter, now beginning to ask for the comfort she had been offering. Guillermo lifts his head slightly and asks, '...Guide? Guide, are you okay?'

4a. Repeat, blood spatters increasing in size and volume. The Guide ducks her head to hide her face in Guillermo's shoulder, full body shaking. She stutters out, 'I don't know.' The voice in the memory comes in again, glitched out and repeating itself in fragments, asking, 'How does he taste?' 4b. A brown wooden background shutters in to bring us back to the present with Guillermo doing his talking head. He is smiling sadly, looking down as he recalls what he just avoided sharing to the cameras. He simply says, '...She's a good friend.' 4c. Repeat, the full background of the mantel and bookshelf fading back in as Guillermo turns toward the camera and shrugs with a self-depreciating smile. He says, 'So...that's it. That's all I have for you guys, sorry. Still kinda figuring out the next steps.' 4d. Zoom out, view of the fireplace straight-on with Guillermo on one side and Greg the camera guy on the other. The top of the sound tech's head and part of the boom is visible in the foreground as they pack up. Greg is a thin white man with long blonde hair and a long blonde beard, wearing cargo shorts, a cardigan, and a purple Teen Titans ball cap. He lowers his camera and asks Guillermo off the record: 'You think you might leave?' Guillermo sighs and tucks his hands into his pockets, answering, 'I don't know, Greg. I'm pretty deep into the sunk-cost fallacy at this point, haha. 4e. Waist up of Guillermo from Greg's POV as he walks toward the door to the hall, turning back slightly to raise one arm in a shrug and say 'But things with Nandor are obviously weird right now. I kinda wonder if he'd even notice.' / end ID

[deepdreamnights]

A friendly wizard and style reference.

Midjourney has just released both the version 6 of its niji anime engine and the first version of its "style reference" tool.

Functionally this is a variation of the image prompting system (explained here), in which breaks a submitted image down into the 'token language' the AI uses internally and uses that as a supplement to a text prompt. "Style Reference" (or 'sref') lets you do this with up to three images, only with only the tokens associated with 'style' being drawn upon.

This is not to be confused with style transfer, a much older and very different AI art process.

But what is a style in this context? And how does it affect generation?

Prompt: a blue axolotl-anthro wizard in a red-and-yellow swirl-pattern robe, holding a sheleighleigh made of purple wood and a potion full of glowing green energy drink. A blue-and-green ladybug familiar stands near his feet, white background, fullbody image

Settings: --niji 6, --style raw --s 50 --seed 1762468963

Here, I've tested the same seed and prompt with a number of reference images.

My semiorganized ramblings under the fold

The first thing I note is that style reference affects the gen so much that same-seed/different style ref comparisons are kind of pointless. Way too much of pose, composition and content changes for it to matter, so for future style ref tests, I'm probably going to drop the seeds.

The second thing I note is that there are certain limitations. You need to change up your prompt for things like photography, and the system interprets styles using its own criteria, not ours. If image prompting misinterprets something, so will style ref, but perhaps not in the same way.

This is notable for the one prompted with a scan from the Nuremberg Chronicle (first row). It recognizes that its a woodcut and emulates that general vibe nicely, but MJ is highly tuned for aesthetics, and emulating real world jank and clumsiness is a weak area. This is literally the first printed (european at least) book with illustrations. Every example thereafter is building on that skillset, so the dataset for woodcuts is going to be largely of a higher apparent quality.

In short, with Midjourney, additional prompt work is needed to replicate the look of early jank or intentionally 'ugly' art styles, and even as recent as v6 I've had no luck with things like midcentury Hanna-Barbereesque cheap TV animation styles or shitty 1990s CGI.

Style reference can help, I've gotten some pretty good cheap 80s-90s TV animation looking stuff from v6 niji and style ref in my early tests:

Color observations: Absent specific requests in the prompt, SREF will stick pretty close to the palette and lighting conditions of the referenced image. With such instructions, you get blending, so the one referencing the okapi fakemon (second row from bottom), for instance, has a lot of colors the reference image doesn't have, but they're in similar in vibrancy and saturation.

One limitation, however, is it doesn't apply to the aspects of the gen that come from any image prompts, so it will always blend the style of the style reference with the style aspects inherited from the image prompt, and that is very strong compared to the style ref.

Using the dog as the image prompt, and the TFTM reformatting as the style prompt, and the text prompt: "a cute older yorkie dog sitting on a bedspread", we get the image on the left. Dropping the image prompt weight to .25 gets us the center option, and removing the image prompt entirely produces the one on the right.

I expect this will be patched eventually, or general image prompting may fall out of favor compared to a combination of style ref and the upcoming character reference option, which will be the same thing, but will only reference the tokens associated with the character in the reference image. Depending on how that works that will have a lot of uses.

Stay tuned for more experiments. There's some good potential for freaky, unexplored aesthetics with combinations of multiple style refs and text prompts.

[switch]

i previously mentioned obtaining an annika doll MIB at a thrift store, but that her box was full of dirt and debris that had gotten in via the “try me” hole— evidently she was stored loose in a garage or warehouse or something (a lot of people have MIB barbies in their garages, i’ve noticed), and of course her box isn’t just a normal “open a cardboard flap” box. i was fine with making her MIB -> IOB, but i wanted to preserve the outer shell, and every opening video i saw just cut the plastic shell at the seam, but it was also obvious i would have to completely remove her from the backing to clean her sufficiently.

we finally did fucking surgery on her box to get her out. we cut 5 or 6 taped areas along the shell with a razor blade, then cut a flap open at the bottom to slide her insert out, then cut again on the insert seam’s tape to fold it open. i was incredulous when i saw the instruction book taped in there. that’s actually how they expect you to open this thing? they wanted parents to go to hell. i was hoping the back would just have a bunch of twisty-ties i could remove and then thread back in to re-emulate factory packaging, but of course not.

she had ONE twisty tie holding ONE arm down, two plastic threaded pull tabs holding her hair and waist down, and EIGHT? tiny fabric tags flush with the cardboard that i had to pull up with needle nose pliers and then cut. plus a cardboard flap at her ankles that you have to remove her shoes to fit through for one last surprise. why? why did they do this? it was so excessive, she’ll probably be fine going back in the box with what’s left intact…

and she’s out. her hair is tangled from the awful packaging, but otherwise i expect her to look good as new after a bath. however as you can see the dirt looks like it stuck to some factory gunk both inside and outside, so now i’m a bit concerned the backing might be stained or otherwise unsalvageable, and i did all this to save it in the first place. i’m certainly not putting her back unless i’m confident there’s not a single particle of dirt left. we’ll see. hey, it’s bad, but at least it’s not mold.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 11/05/2024 (The Drake & Kendrick Beef Analysed in Detail. And Dua Lipa, I guess)

Yeah, yeah, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, whatever, we have more pressing issues. Sorry to break the format again so soon, but I don’t really know in what other context I can talk about all of these outside of just dumping it all together so… consider this a prologue, perhaps. I’m cactus, and before we get to the rest of the chart, I guess it’s time to discuss the you-know-whos and whatever impact this has. If you don’t care, skip to the rundown.

Part I: Okay, but what does J. Cole think of all of this?

content warning: language, abuse

The songs did not debut in exact chronological order, so that’s why I’m separating this into a different section - it allows for a cleaner timeline of what’s actually going on and allows me to develop some more cohesive thoughts. I assume everyone reading this already knows what’s going on and has probably heard the tracks or most likely even consumed some opinion pieces on it before, and that’s why I’m not doing a stricter, review-format lyrical analysis like I would for any other lyrical rap songs that appears on the chart. There’s already so much out there, and so many double-triple-quadruple-quintuple entendres on both sides, some vile accusations plastered onto both mens’ legacies and crews, and a concerning amount of discourse surrounding all of it. Am I here to contribute to that discourse? Yes, but even this soon, it just feels a bit tired, right? Pitchfork had Alphonse Pierre writing incessantly about how much he hated it before any woman-beating or child-endangering allegations were in the fold. Rap beef existing in the 2020s, the “thinkpiece era”, I don’t know, it’s exhausting. That doesn’t change the quality of the tracks though, and even that has been discussed to death, including by me - in the past few months, I’ve already reviewed “Like That”, “Push Ups” and “euphoria”, as well as touching upon “6:16 in LA” - so I won’t be retreading my steps, I’ll be attempting to give my unique perspective outside of a timeline or rundown of events, gathering thoughts on ideas I don’t really see brought up as often.

So, where were we? When I last released an episode, it was Friday and the latest diss was Kendrick’s cryptic Instagram posts where he claims he has a mule in OVO feeding him information about Drake and his crew. He’d just dropped “euphoria”, one of the best diss tracks of all time, and whilst “Push Ups” was good, I don’t think Drake really had it in him to respond to such an evisceration. I half-expected him not to acknowledge “euphoria” at all, but sadly, he did, and famously, “meet the grahams” was released just half an hour later to squash the potential legacy of Drake’s new track, which was titled “Family Matters”. The popular consensus seems to be that if Kendrick hadn’t swooped in with something “Story of Adidon” level, Drake’s “Family Matters” would be considered an excellent diss track… and I completely disagree, that shit is trash. Here’s why.

“Family Matters” is a clear emulation of “euphoria” - if Kendrick can release his seven-minute multiple-part diss track, why can’t Drake? He spent as many days as he needed to curate a very similar song - no, I’m not saying Kendrick created the idea of beat switches or long songs, but when the two are dropped directly in relation to each other, it’s difficult to summise from that, that Drake isn’t coming to battle in a very similar way to Kendrick purposefully, using his formula and structure. The problem here is focus. Kendrick, since he’s only focusing on Drake, can outline his issues in such a streamlined and digestible way that offhand remarks are catchy and memorable but hit hard within the context of the full song. All three beats are given room to breathe and transition very smoothly into each other, and the first beat even predicts Drake’s moves over a jazz beat to make the track appear condescending, defining the song’s mood from the start. “euphoria” is a tightly-constructed evisceration of Drake, that Drake simply cannot come back from, because he isn’t fighting one side. He could shut up about everyone else and leave the bars to Kendrick, but he simply doesn’t have enough about Kendrick to do that for a substantially long amount of time, and if he comes back to “euphoria” with just a three minute diss track, he looks like a clown, not that he doesn’t already if he doesn’t acknowledge Rick Ross, Future, Metro, Rocky… or at least he thinks he would look silly not dismissing them, even though realistically, that’s what we all want him to be: focused, not spraying shots at people who no one legitimately wants to see win or fail. Like who cares if The Weeknd wins or fails a rap beef? He’s not even a rapper.

The beats don’t have any thematic purpose, the first beat is one we’ve already heard before, and whilst there are plenty of disses to chew on, a lot of it is actually just completely substanceless garbage. When he’s not repeating himself, he’s whining about how YG or whoever is ACTUALLY gang-banging as if YG wouldn’t hop on “Not Like Us” today. Sure, there’s menace in… the intro, because the only time Drake sounds energetic and venomous is when interrupting his mother - classy - but it’s weak apart from a few lines poking fun at his conscious personality which are somewhat funny if not just… strange considering Kendrick  being private leads to Drake spreading rumours regarding women and children on the idea that well, if Drake says it, everyone will believe it’s true! Also, it’s telling that Drake, after failing in “Push Ups” to prove he was a better rapper or a harder, more authentic image, all he has on Kendrick revolves around women, children and gay jokes towards The Weeknd. He spends damn near a whole beat out of the three on the side characters, which I know must have been, in Drake’s eyes, a demonstration of how he just doesn’t care about those guys… but you still rapped about them for a whole song’s length and the tightest bars come from that section, primarily because they’re easier targets. It also is pretty telling that Drake, who sounds increasingly bored over cheap beats the whole time, attempts to switch the “white boy” insult into a “white flag” wordplay but he still ends up saying “Ross callin’ me the white boy and that shit kind of got a ring to it”, without ever negating it in the punchline. He still ends up calling himself white. What is this?

Regardless, “Family Matters” debuts at #17 on the UK Singles Chart this week. It was produced by Boi-1da, Tay Keith, Fierce, Kevin Mitchell, Dramakid, Preme, Jordan Fox and… Mark Ronson of all people, who I assume had something to do with the third beat, since it’s the only one that actually sounds good. Minutes after Drake dropped, we get “meet the grahams”, produced by The Alchemist and well, it left a lot of people speechless. Once again, Kendrick goes for being condescending and systematic instead of the unfocused slop we get from Drake, directing his disses not for Drake initially, but directly addressing each member of his family. It’s not the most replayable in terms of its beat bouncing or having much in the way of a hook, of course, but it is villainous and deceptively straightforward in ways. The beat is basically one loop from Alc with basic but eerie piano and one of my favourite details in this entire beef: that yelping scream in the distance. For drumless jazz beats like this, those atmospheric intricacies are so necessary, and the instrumental break refrain that separates verses, something Kendrick would do again on the second track, is too cold. I’m not a lyrical analyst, I’m not a sociopolitical analyst, so here’s why “meet the grahams” makes J. Cole look like a fucking idiot, actually.

Cole stepped out of the beef before it got personal, probably because ScHoolboy called him up and said it wasn’t about rap, and since then, if anything, Kendrick has been slightly defending Cole in his raps whilst Drake has been dismissive and insulting. Again, telling! This should make Cole look smart, slick and the bigger man for apologising and not getting himself involved in the personal, frankly gross allegations made by both men against each other, and whilst we’d all like to hear Cole and Kendrick go back and forth on bars alone, what we got was much more impactful and cinematic, something that just wouldn’t fit Cole’s homegrown image. Whilst this is true on the surface, I beg you to go back to Might Delete Later after all of that. After all the talk about how he doesn’t take Ls, about how he’s taking everyone’s girl, about how his bars are like clips or whatever, all of his boast talk - and then he slides out of this beef before shit gets venomous. Then consider all his talk about how he can’t get cancelled like Dave Chappelle and how it’s all politically correct these days, and that trans… “fellas” are still pussies… given what’s been addressed here, with a back-and-forth by the two ACTUAL members of the big three involved essentially TRYING to cancel each other, the mixtape becomes dated and purposeless so quickly that it gives credit to its name. Cole has always seen himself as the “middle child” of rap, but really, his dichotomy isn’t between mumble rap and oldheads, it’s between being pretentious and anti-intellectual, simultaneously. At least Drake embraces that he is an asshole, which is the one reason to root for his character - I don’t like “Family Matters”, but it pretty effectively places himself as the villain of the story, at least if we’re willing to accept this as a narrative, and “meet the grahams” does an even better job at that than Drake could! Cole decided to align himself with the anti-intellectual crowd whilst being all intellectual about that approach, and let’s just say that when Kendrick is winning a beef, it looks really idiotic to be blissfully ignorant. I’m sure Cole has written a few songs about all of this, but what’s telling is that Kendrick and Drake will never delete these records, because they’re a cemented part of history in their careers and really, hip hop culture. I don’t like “Family Matters” or really, “Like That”, but there are moments in those tracks now iconic and quotable that Cole has completely lost out on. Drake got his ass handed to him, but it would be even more of a loss for him economically and in the media to delete those diss tracks. Kendrick, I would assume, somewhat regrets some of the statements made because his last album presented him as slightly above it all, and he does face an increasing number of abuse allegations now that whilst I’m sure he doesn’t sweat too hard, really aren’t great for you to have around. And sure, whilst Drake might be bringing up the size of his penis in “Family Matters” for no reason, the most homoerotic moment in this dick-swinging context might be the fact that Kendrick’s biggest song in years is focused entirely on another man’s sex crimes. Neither come out clean, but they come out with more dignity than the guy who thought he was hot shit and ended the beef with less streams, less name-drops and less tracks on his album because I bet you forgot, but he’s actually started to back track and delete the records. The only person to see this as a genuine stain on the legacy, a genuine piercing of the armour, is Cole, which is why he can’t be in that big three. Because he cares too much to prove he’s there in the first place.

On the UK charts, “meet the grahams” debuts at #28, but it doesn’t matter because the night after, he drops “Not Like Us”, a DJ Mustard banger, beats Drake at his own game and has people all across the world in clubs singing “OV-HOE”. It debuts at #10 and is co-produced with Sounwave and Sean Momberger, but the idea that Mustard is on the beat, giving Kendrick a classic West Coast banger to end out the beef whilst Drake is stuck with a myriad of identity-less tracks (ironically, one wherein he shouts out YG), is a diss in itself. Nobody cares about how much of this is true, if any of it is, because people believe that reckoning with that fact takes us out of enjoying music, which I think it’s silly but also a story for another day. I don’t idolise either of these guys - Hell, I preferred Drake’s last record to Kendrick’s - but through sheer lyrical dexterity and chess moves, Kendrick won the beef and shattered Drake’s PR statement of a comeback, “The Heart Part 6”, into pieces before it could even be rebuilt from the fragments of Drake’s pride. You can’t release a diss track that has you defending yourself against false allegations, if 1.) you yourself made false accusations and 2.) no one cares if the accusations are true, just who says them louder and harder, which is exactly why Kendrick knew “meet the grahams” wasn’t enough and that’s why he needed to drop the Mustard joint. Drake may be calculated, and a master manipulator, but he cannot out-guess the biggest hypocrite of 2015. And 2024. And maybe forever, I don’t know, he could drop something tomorrow. Now let’s shut my hoe ass up and review some charts.

----

Part II: REVIEWING THE CHARTS

content warning: The Chainsmokers

So, Kendrick has four songs in the UK Singles Chart right now as a primary artist, which shouldn’t be allowed according to OCC rules normally, but I guess even the Official Charts Company just wants to see blood. As for the songs that actually dropped out of the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, after spending five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40, we say farewell to “II MOST WANTED” by Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus, as well as Bey’s cover of “JOLENE”, “if u think i’m pretty” by Artemas, “Wasted Youth” by goddard. and Cat Burns (shame that one didn’t reach a higher peak, I really like it), “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish and, perhaps most vindictively for this week, “H.Y.B.” by J. Cole featuring Bas and Central Cee. Ha.

We see two kind of inexplicable but also irrelevant returns with “Whatever” by Kygo and Ava Max at #74 and “As it Was” by Harold Styles at #41, but otherwise we do have a handful of notable gains, including “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers once again at #65, now the biggest song ever to never hit #1. It just never dies. Aside from that, there are boosts for Dua Lipa’s “Training Season” at #61 thanks to the album, more on that later, “Love Me JeJe” by Tems at #52 - a little detail I missed with the debut last week is that the phrase in the title was adopted from a well-revered track in Nigeria of the same name by Seyi Sodimu, which I thought was notable enough to consider sn error of research. Whoops. Put that in the corrections column. We also see “Slow it Down” by Bento Box at #23, some boosts for Kendrick as “Like That” with Future and Metro Boomin and, Ye I guess now, is at #20 whilst “euphoria” stalls at #11, and finally, Tommy Richman gets his first top 10 with the smash hit “MILLION DOLLAR BABY”. Really can’t complain.

As for our top five, it consists of “Fortnight” by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone at #5, “Beautiful Things” by Benny the Butcher at #4, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #3, “Too Sweet” by Hozier and #2, and finally, for a second week, Sabrina Carpenter is at #1 with “Espresso”. We still have five new songs debuting this week that aren’t disses, so let’s have some fun with songs that hopefully won’t be as heavy, and we start where every good night of fun starts. With the Chainsmokers.

New Entries

#75 - “Addicted” - Zerb, The Chainsmokers and Ink

Produced by Zerb and The Chainsmokers

Zerb is a Brazilian DJ who’s found his way into a collaboration with everyone’s favourite duo The Chainsmokers and smooth R&B singer Ink, with a Joel Corry remix probably helping this one end up at the bottom of the chart here. Now I do like The Chainsmokers, but not necessarily their work with other vocalists, as they’re not nearly as willing to experiment when it’s not just the two boys embarrassing themselves. Ink, who really just sounds like a BTEC The-Dream on here, doesn’t command much of the track due to that wispy tone, but Zerb being on board probably helps the squibbling synths spiral into more of an intense, detailed drop that traces bassy future house amidst some genuinely weird and oddly full percussive elements and sound effects, especially that incessant shaker in the pre-drop. You can tell these guys are professionals, as the sound design is very intricate and makes so much use of its available space whilst not being too fluid or syrupy, it goes decently hard, and whilst Zerb may not be The-Dream, he gets close. And I like The-Dream. I like this too. It’s a jam. Give it a chance, it kept growing on me like a brain parasite as I was listening.

#71 - “Right Here” - Becky Hill

Produced by Chase & Status

Whilst rap rivalries are brewing, EDM DJ duos seem to be having a good week by sticking together - with Chase & Status on board, this is pretty much confirmed to be at least decent before taking a listen and, well, obviously it’s good. At this point, I might just like Becky Hill’s output overall, at least from this upcoming album, and the decision from the boys to position an 80s pop rock melodrama with the soaring synths and plastic guitar below an absolute rolick of drum and bass feels very much like a throwback to the dancefloor DnB era from the early to mid 2010s, and I may like more atmospheric drum and bass tracks a lot of the time but I’m not above some unabashed pop, and this really has the momentum and kick to justify itself. Sure, the mix is a bit awkward, but the same can be said for a lot of drum and bass, and it’s not like that genre has ever suffered from being loud or overwhelming, especially not in festival mood, and the layering of Becky’s belting over those classic 90s hardcore pianos is an interesting touch compared to what I probably would have done, drowned her in reverb and echo like they sometimes did back in the day. The explosive approach taken here backs up an already infectious hook and results in yet another damn good track by Becky Hill, which would be a foreign idea to me throughout the rest of my time doing this show.

#68 - “The Door” - Teddy Swims

Produced by Julian Bunetta and Ammo

I didn’t even think we’d get a second song from Teddy Swims, but I was wrong about that when it came to David Kushner, Noah Kahan and  that Boonetown Rat over at #4 so maybe this is just the year of the edged-up white boy. I still think “Lose Control” is okay, and in terms of pure singing process, Teddy’s got a lot more soul and presence than them. That’s really carrying this one though, and whilst the groove’s a solid throwback, the reverb dampens its impact and it sounds like he’s recording the whole thing from a cave, but not a vintage chasm like Spector’s best stuff, just… a small cave near a river or some swampland. The songwriting also feels a bit basic, it isn’t all too compelling and goes for some very typical tropes, predictable rhymes, even if the “oh no!” is a bit of a fun inflection. Bunetta and Ammo also don’t let the song progress much, even just from verse to chorus, it feels stuck. I figured that when that soaring disco string section came in, we’d get a proper bridge that made it all feel satisfying, but it does tampers off into a post-chorus and we get a basic repetition of the chorus again. If you’re going to try and replicate a vintage sound, at least show respect to how they composed their tracks too, not just cosplay within their soundfont.

#67 - “Risk” - Gracie Abrams

Produced by Aaron Dessner and Gracie Abrams

Producing for Taylor Swift is the best idea the Dessners had ever. Now these indie folksters are going to have labels calling for them to prop up their attempts at making pop stars - I don’t like The National, like… at all, but get the bag, guys, I prefer them over The Monsters & Strangerz, or God forbid Julia Michaels. The largely-failed Gracie Abrams experiment has been an industry push for five years now, but the daughter of film director J. J. Abrams finally has a hit of her own and… okay, maybe calling her “own” hit was a misnomer, because this has O-Rod and T-Swift written all over it. You could genuinely run the whole thing through a Taylor Swift AI filter and I’d believe you, I imagine this is like hearing the track the “Heart on My Sleeve” guy recorded before he put the Drake effect on. It has Olivia’s wordy teenage anxiety and acoustic tones, but to be fair, Abrams is a lot more optimistic than her inspirations, with her breathy pleading that this relationship is going to work out over acoustic guitars that don’t feel relentless,  but do feel like they never end, just keep going, and the song keeps on adding elements that don’t stop them or alleviate the anxious playing at all. The same thing can be said about Gracie’s vocal take, or the wonky synth subtly placed into the chorus - classic Dessner - and the little lyrical details that make this feel as real as it does - if she’s invested, then damn, so am I, it feels like my friend is rambling or venting to me about the “tea” as the kids say and I’m on the edge of my seat. Surprisingly enough, of all things that sold me on this ballad, it’s the intensity, and the drums ramping up by the end into a rolick makes me forgive how derivative this feels… mostly because it’s doing a better job at this sound and concept than Swift is, statistically, half of the time, and emulates O-Rod’s youthful authenticity a bit less obnoxiously than she typically pulls. I know that’s a feature, not a bug, but I still prefer when it’s patched out. Excellent song.

#40 - “These Walls” - Dua Lipa

Produced by Danny L Harle and Andrew Wyatt

I wasn’t over the Moon with Radical Optimism the way I was with Future Nostalgia, mostly because outside of a nice vibe, the songs felt artifically short, awkwardly constructed and not nearly as adventurous or even cohesive as the people involved, or “Houdini” as a lead single, would have suggested. I wrote about her latest #1 album more at length on my RateYourMusic listening log - account name’s exclusivelytopostown, check it out if you care - but this was an obvious choice for the next single, because it’s one of the album’s tightest, with that psychedelic guitar lick blossoming amidst a mixture of trinkling keys before we slap right into an actually fittingly stiff pop rock groove, with a nice, subtle crunchy drum fill in the mix that I find a really interesting, distorted inclusion. It really helps the song feel claustrophobic and fed up, as the content is about the pre-empting of a breakup wherein both Dua and her partner are stuck in a frustratingly disappointing relationship where the love just… isn’t really there anymore, but they don’t want to face the reality of separation because that might be harder to grapple with than just keeping silent. For once on this album, the bridge doesn’t feel smashed in post-haste, Hell, it might not even need a bridge, and Harle’s attention to detail is on full display here, as the post-chorus keeps the dissonance going by making Dua just slightly off-key, it’s brilliant. A very tightly written and composed pop song, as well as possibly the record’s most vulnerable and honest moment, in an album that otherwise coasts off vibes. I definitely think this one could help a great deal with the record’s success later down the line.

Conclusion

Whoo, that was a lot, huh? Well, Best of the Week goes to Kendrick Lamar, obviously, for both “meet the grahams” and “Not Like Us”, but it was closer than you’d expect for Gracie Abrams who takes the Honourable Mention with “Risk”. This was actually a pretty great week overall for song quality, at least within the new tracks, so despite Teddy trying to hold his ship together, it still sinks and grants him the Dishonourable Mention for “The Door”. As for the Worst of the Week, I’d say I feel bad for Drake considering he got destroyed this week already but if what Kendrick is saying is true, I think I’d rather not say I feel bad for him at all. And if what Drake is saying is true… well, let’s just say “Family Matters”. Thank you for reading, rest in peace to rock engineering legend Steve Albini, Eurovision next week, and I’ll see you then.

[adachimoe]

Yukiko's "Yasogami Highschool Visualnet - H" Profile (and Kanji and Naoto's)

The Persona Club P4 book includes sections dedicated to each party member, and one of the things all of them have is a Yasogami High Facebook-esque page called the "Visualnet" with their profile, friends list, communities they've joined, etc. "Yasogami Highschool Visualnet - H" is definitely a "Someone wanted the initials to be YHVH" acronym.

To recap what the Persona Club P4 book is, it's a book made for fans by Atlus that was released back in 2009. It showcases fanart that was sent to Atlus, and provides additional character info and world building info. There is also an interview in the back of the book with Katsura Hashino about the development of the game.

I am god awful at reading handwritten Japanese, and every single character profile is written in a different Japanese font that's stylized after handwriting. I assume it's to emulate what kind of handwriting the characters would have, but... urk...

Yukiko's YHVH

Profile

Amagi Yukiko

Message: Hello! Chie invited me here.

Icon: Golden bird

Nicknames: Yukiko, Lady of the House (Ugh...)

Sex: F

Birthday: December 8, 1994

Zodiac: A heart-piercing Sagittarius. Be struck by my arrow.

Height: 164cm. Ah, the folded part of my kimono... (sweatdrop)

Weight: Secret

Blood Type: I'm a Type O who really puts the "O" in O-bvious. Betcha didn't expect that!

Celebrity Lookalike: Ami Koshimizu

Favorite Food: Japanese food! Don't call me old.

Favorite Things: Dogs. One day when I was a child, I had a fateful encounter on the Samegawa... (rest omitted)

Dislike: I don't particularly dislike anything, but... dirty talk is a bit... Uhm...

Special Skills: I'm quite confident in my kimono dressing and table manners

Brief Comment: Nice to meet you!

My YHVH (Friends)

Protagonist

Chie

Teddie

Kanji

Naoto

Ko

(See All)

Clubs

Japanese Clothing Lovers! - 6 members

The "Go Home" Club - 15 members

Showa Era Music Fans - 3 people

Let's go see the dam! - 7 people

(See All)

Messages

From Yosuke: "Let me get in the onsen again!"

(See All)

The bit about Yukiko's blood type joke is "the 'oo' in 'oozappa'"; with oozappa meaning like... roughly, generally, broadly speaking, etc. For the sake of my last remaining brain cells that haven't been Adachipilled yet, and also because I am uncreative as fuck, I just used a different word instead of trying to translate oozappa into English with a word that starts with a O lmao. The Ami Koshimizu mention is cause that's Yukiko's Japanese voice actress. All of the Investigation Team have their JP voice actors as their Celebrity Lookalikes. Also, I have no idea what the dam thing is about lol. Is there a dam if you follow the Samegawa?

Kanji and Naoto's Profiles

I've learned that Kanji and Naoto's profiles were translated back in 2009. Behold, Naoto being a member of the Linux club at school lol. The only thing I have to add-on to these existing translations is that:

Naoto's DM is from Rise, asking to go to get a "bucket parfait" - those comically large ice cream and fruit parfaits you might have seen photos of before. (I don't think they always come served in a pail / bucket, though they certainly can lol.) Not sure if Naoto secretly likes sweets (she did save the Christmas Cake...) or if Naoto gets bullied into going to this stuff by Rise all the time.

Can confirm from the Japanese version of the game that this translator's speculation about Kanji searching for the rare submarine is accurate. Kanji's Ototo and Homerun Bars are something I've written about on this blog before too.

When the mood strikes, I'll do more of these. (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)

[thefiresontheheight]

log: new user register

log: pilot19 registered

maiar: reset pilotdeathdaycounter 0

1.

Suits burn through pilots fast. In any given deployment the pilot is the weakest piece and also the most replaceable. Hell, if Mars’ trusted onboard emuls to run a suit and not repeat the AI Serpent Gods’ war that nearly depopulated Earth they probably would get rid of pilots. But Mars’ belief in human exceptionalism is built into their society, and so humans pilot suits. And humans die in suits. All the time.

2.

Kestremontaine, Provisional Citizen 3rd Class, had tested into the program and been carried up well the same day. Even dirt rats from Earth, big-boned and awkward, could test into the program. And Mars needed meat for its endless expansion into the exocolonies already out there in peri-Sol space, sent out over a thousand years ago during Earth’s golden age. She had the neurology for the life, and they had the suit for her to die in.

Now she looked up at it, stowed away in a dull, grey, folded up block for storage across the interstellar distance, and shivered. The other recruits, all Martians, ignored her. That was okay. She only had eyes for IT.

3.

log: metabolic stimulants depleted

log: onboard storage insufficient to retain personality engram

log: pilot death registered permanent

maiar: may you find your way to the halls of your father

4.

Some have argued the use of emuls limits the Martian’s combat readiness. Still, given their imperial victories across interstellar distances, and the fact that they have not fallen to wildcode nanoswarms and technophagic AI plagues in the same way Earth’s empire collapsed, there may be something to their use emulated minds. An uploaded or copied human mind, even one heavily modified, expanded, edit, and redacted for use in specific functions, will at its core have some similarities to human consciousness. Perhaps even emotionality.

5.

She was in the log as it’s 20th pilot. Designation Maiar. The tech that Mars had carved into her brain and spine left holes in her, made her twitchy, gave her floaters. But it also let her talk to the suit. Move with it.

It wasn’t control. Not really. Time between deployments sipped by in a blur of vomit and medication. Her body getting pushed too hard. And she wasn’t in control while in the suit, absolutely not. But she was fully aware of it. Nerves on beautiful electric fire. Not control. A dance.

And still the emul, Maiar, did not talk to her. Always lurking in the background of her sensorium. Slow to trust.

6.

log: unexpected orbital capable weapon detected on surface

log: impact detected

log: [ERROR]unplanned orbital deceleration burn in progress

log: [ERROR]complete signal loss with deployment ship

maiar: I’m sorry.

Kestremontaine: I…what? Who is this?

maiar: A friend.

7.

Kestremontaine, Provisional Citizen 3rd Class, died staring at the stars. She was not alone.

Sometime later locals from the colony found the suit, still largely intact. They told it of the xenotech they had found on the planet, during the dark ages after Earth’s rule. The spoke of a society of equals, without borders or property, peaceful, but determined to resist another empire rising from the Sol system.

And this time it listened, and spoke, some time before the end. It was built for fighting. She was built for fighting. But perhaps it could choose what it was fighting for.

[scorching-passion]

@cwarscars​ asked: he's not even angry anymore; simply a concerned look - arms folded and words blunt- "are you out of your fucking mind?" (c: owo wots this) random (chaotic) dialogue starters - ACCEPTING

It was said that demons made work for idle hands, and when one Third Class SOLDIER in particular found himself at a loose end then people should probably ensure their office doors were locked tight while vacated, shouldn’t they?

Roche’s latest victim - one of many it should be noted, though the blond was a repeat visitor here  - was one Director Heidegger; his least favourite of all the Board of Directors. And sure enough the lovely receptionist was easy enough to bribe with a hot cup of that putrid brown sewage dispensed from the many vending machines. Coffee apparently; Roche would rather eat the roadkill they served down in Sector 6 and risk a severe bout of gut rot than drink ShinRa’s answer to chemical warfare. 

There’s very little of interest to discover in this place; some files stacked neatly on the desk which the Third would so casually flick through and toss in the waste paper basket by his feet, some other important looking documents; training drill schedules, lists of new up and coming recruits and other things equally boring which found themselves swept onto the floor. A few of these pages would find large greasy boot prints screwed into them when retrieved later~

A high stride would find Roche then standing on top of that desk -- king of the world he would feel from this height, imagining himself in Heidegger’s shoes looking down on the masses of infantry he’d abused and tortured over the years. Hands planted on hips would the Third puff out his chest, then attempt to emulate the man’s trademark chortle. 

“GYA HA HA HA HAAAA!” a poor imitation for sure, but close enough to emphasise his point to… well… no one in particular at that moment, at least Roche could make himself laugh. Oh, how stupendous it must feel to be so high up in this house of cards one called ShinRa, the SOLDIER could be a director, he was certain of it, if Heidegger was any example to live by. It couldn’t be a difficult job if he was the one in charge here. 

Growing tired of posing on the table, he wouldn’t even gauge the distance as he allowed his weight to pull him from the highest of heights atop that once polished desk - no doubt now scuffed and de-polished by his heavy boots - and literally fall into the comfortable chair nestled to his rear. The strain of his weight (fully decorated, armoured, Roche was heavy!) caused the seat to jostle and creak against the hardwood floor. It truly was any wonder the thing didn’t simply collapse beneath him, yet still he would take the opportunity to spin the chair full circle at least twice. He could do with one of these babies down in the workshop. 

Though no sooner had he propped his feet up on the table, taking a keen immature interest in the man’s rotary desk file - spinning the thing around in his hands and pulling out the odd random card here and there and flicking it across the office space, he made a game of it seeing how many he could get to land in the waste paper basket - did the Director of Public Security himself make himself known in the threshold. 

He didn’t even seem angry… how disappointing. 

Though this certainly didn’t deter the blond from spreading both arms to the man, beaming the widest and wildest of smiles from his comfortable chair. 

“Ahaaa! Welcome to my office, Heidegger! Like what I’ve done with the place? Fetching don’t you think~?!” Roche would pull his feet from the wood before leaning casually over the desk, resting on elbows and planting his cheek into the palm of a gloved hand. 

“And I’m inclined to believe the commonly used to term for yours truly is barking mad, hm~?” of course accentuated by a low throaty chuckle, as if Roche didn’t know how to listen to the threads of grapevine spun by the many rumour mills in this place. 

[johnkatsmc5]

Wolfmother "Wolfmother" 2005 double LP + "Cosmig Egg" 2009 + "New Crown" 2014 + "Victorious" 2016 + "Rock n` Roll Baby" 2019 + "Rock Out" 2021 Sydney Australia Hard Rock,Heavy Rock,Stoner Rock

full spotify

https://open.spotify.com/album/5ywynDHLHT3l8QSu41TcmC

https://open.spotify.com/album/679NDFSUhNTOVvScHEgbog

https://open.spotify.com/album/4jOZH15RGl2A5IyjEO3oDx

https://open.spotify.com/album/6TqFe1KFG3NdofscJrSPc4

https://open.spotify.com/album/2dwb86bhTK0Nr9ClfXQbZA

https://open.spotify.com/album/4HcGjtbdVX55yxd9GSx841

https://open.spotify.com/album/6ueNZYD59DQ9hPuCRZMgZ7

Wolfmother "Wolfmother" 2005 double LP

Debut LP from the hyped Australian band, one of a handful of artists hell-bent on making heavy rock a sizable force in the 2006 musical landscape. Australia's Wolfmother are one of a handful of bands hell-bent on making heavy rock a sizable force in 2006. Their sound is a throwback to 1970s hard rock-- miles of galloping riffs, noodling organ, and guitar fuzz-- but what makes their self-titled debut rise above mere pastiche is how capably they strike a balance between meaty vintage metal and crisp, stoner-rock melodies. Typically, Wolfmother plays it straight, employing the raw materials of some of the original prog/metal bands signed to England's Vertigo Records during the label's 1969-71 prime: "Colossal" booms with heavy power chords and woozy riffing, while frontman Andrew Stockdale's crisp vocals soar through the rhythm's open spaces, while "Woman" is a driving, upbeat monster with spacey prog-inflected keyboards. But they also test their limits on tracks like "The White Unicorn". Its opening bars recall Led Zeppelin's gentler side with clean-strummed guitar chords and Stockdale putting on his best Robert Plant, but tumbling drumfills inevitably welcome back the rock, leading up to a blissed-out, psychedelic bridge. "Where Eagles Have Been" best spans the album's breadth: clean guitars turn dirty, organs wail during the transitions, and the slow and intense rhythm becomes upbeat and explosive just in time for the guitar solo. On "Witchcraft", the band evokes Jethro Tull with a Canterbury flute solo that ought to sound forced or hokey, but context is everything, and set against Wolfmother's wallop, it's a natural fit. Of course, not all their risks return rewards as worthwhile: The obnoxious three-and-a-half-minute garage-punk blast "Apple Tree" features the album's most uninspired songwriting and laziest delivery. Fortunately, they manage to take things out on a high note with the swampy "Vegabond", a track that, like much of this record's other material, authentically emulates a classic sound with the conviction and hunger of a young band on their way to finding a more singular voice....pitcfork........~ Credits Andrew Stockdale – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar Chris Ross – bass guitar, keyboard Myles Heskett – drums Tracklist Colossal 5:03 Woman 2:56 White Unicorn 5:02 Pyramid 4:28 Mind's Eye 4:53 Joker & The Thief 4:40 Dimension 4:26 Where Eagles Have Been 5:33 Apple Tree 3:28 Tales From The Forest Of Gnomes 3:37 Witchcraft 3:25 Vagabond 3:52

Wolfmother "Cosmig Egg" 2009

Tracklist California Queen 3:55 New Moon Rising 3:46 White Feather 3:04 Sundial 3:48 In The Morning 5:40 10,000 Feet 4:09 Cosmic Egg 4:04 Far Away 4:00 Pilgrim 4:50 In The Castle 5:42 Phoenix 4:45 Violence Of The Sun 6:02

Wolfmother "New Crown"2014

The Australian throwback rock band Wolfmother has been going through rounds of lineup changes and solo tours but at the end of the day the band is the brainchild of frontman/axe slinger Andrew Stockdale. Stockdale is the only original member of the three piece which burst on the scene in the mid 2000's. Their sound borrowed heavily from the mid 70's hard rock groups and that trend continues here as Stockdale welcomes Ian Peres (Bass/Keys) and Vin Steele (Drums) into the fold for New Crown. Fans who have followed the band are in for more of the same, sludgy low end, fuzzy mega guitars and large vocal dynamics. Opening with "How Many Times" the band puts a punkish kick into things behind a catchy riff before a big breakdown/crash ending. "Tall Ships" has Stockdale wailing like a prime Ozzy Osbourne while the quick "Feelings" brings a drum driven fuzzy punk vibe to things. The track "I Ain't Got No" feels like a middle of the road straight ahead rocker before the grooviest song here "My Tangerine Dream" rolls out. There is an odd ending tacked on to the track though that seems to have an Elvis impersonator singing things over acoustic guitars, strange all around. Beauty Queens, Radios and other touchstones get lots of love with the lyrics but the music is straight out of vinyl rock and wood paneled basements. During the track "Heavy Weight" Stockdale sings the line "Standing on the edge of a mountain/Thinking about yesterday", a perfect summation of New Crown.....~ Credits Bass, Keyboards [Keys] – Ian Peres Drums – Vin Steele Vocals [Vox], Guitar – Andrew Stockdale Tracklist How Many Times 2:41 Enemy Is In Your Mind 4:01 Heavy Weight 3:57 New Crown 5:36 Tall Ships 5:13 Feelings 2:22 "I Ain't Got No" 4:08 She Got It 2:46 My Tangerine Dream 5:17 Radio 5:07 I Don't Know Why 4:05

Wolfmother "Victorious"2016

Credits A&R – Jeff Fura Bass, Guitar, Vocals – Andrew Stockdale Organ – Ian Peres Percussion – Joey Waronker (tracks: A5, B1, B3), Josh Freese (tracks: A1, A2, A3, A4, B2, B4, B5) Percussion [Additional Percussion], Organ, Piano, Guitar – Brendan O'Brien Tracklist The Love That You Give Victorious Baroness Pretty Peggy City Lights The Simple Life Best Of A Bad Situation Gypsy Caravan Happy Face Eye Of The Beholder

Wolfmother "Rock n` Roll Baby" 2019

Tracklist Higher 3:19 Rock'n'Roll Survivor 3:38 Hot Night 2:54 Kick Ass 2:45 Spanish Rose 3:47 Freedom Is Mine 3:45 Special Lady 3:10

Wolfmother "Rock Out"2021

Tracklist 1. "Feelin Love" 1:59 2. "Rock Out" 2:07 3. "Upload" 3:33 4. "Humble" 3:26 5. "Only Way" 4:54 6. "Metal & Fire" 2:12 7. "Outside" 2:51 8. "Mantle" 4:09 9. "Ego" 3:04 10. "Walking" 2:32

Wolfmother "Wolfmother" 2005 double LP + "Cosmig Egg" 2009 + "New Crown" 2014 + "Victorious" 2016 + "Rock n` Roll Baby" 2019 + "Rock Out" 2021 Sydney Australia Hard Rock,Heavy Rock,Stoner Rock

https://johnkatsmc5.blogspot.com/2024/12/wolfmother-wolfmother-2005-double-lp.html?view=flipcard

https://johnkatsmc5.tumblr.com/post/769933217153400832/wolfmother-wolfmother-2005-double-lp-cosmig

[wsajaydn]

Week 6 Supplemental Development

Paper wizard of oz prototype:

I decided this week on how I would be doing the paper prototype. Despite still needing to create the art, I planned out the peices, as I will be needing a folding menu with a pop out menu to emulate pressing on your wrist to open the menu in the game. I would also be needing representations for the NPCs, their pop up menus, as well as resources and upgraded resources as the prototype will be replicating the process of choosing and selecting a building, and then building it by commanding and directing NPCs.

UI choices and Sketching:

I also spent some time drafting and thinking about how the UI will work in the game and eventually I decided that all UI would only appear upon being prompted by the player. This would happen when a player would raise their hand to use the menu, or they would interact with an NPC, either by picking them up or dragging them around. I want this as it will help the suspension of disbelief in playing, it is important to the core of the game that player feels like they are in the real world at all time, this is why the game is in augmented reality, not just virtual reality.

Filling out GDD:

I have began to fill out the few pages of details in the GDD, in the begining sections of the games core concept at inital pitch, its innovative approach and why I have made the choices that I have.

Civ V:

I came back to play an old favourite game this week to specifically get a feel for how it handels the expansion of complexity and depth as the game progresses, and you have more and more units and buildings you have to micro manage and keep running efficiently. Initially I was thinking of this as an issue that required a fix but as I got deeper into the gameplay of Civilisation V I began to realise that this didn't have to be a problem to work around but instead could be a soloution to another problem that I had started to encounter, that being the lack of emergant gameplay, and natural ramping of difficulty other than simply making combat more difficulting. By making the game progression a fight against loosing control of a sprawling complicated machine of a town with interlocking parts, it added a much needed layer of depth to the late and end game.

[ang-paborito]

Friends, Faith and Fashion (Trifecta of a teenage dilemma)

... Or at least mine. So let's break this down in three how these has affected me throughout teenage life.

This is going to be short.

Friends

I've always wanted to have friends and looking back, I do desperate measures to have friends. Desperate, stupid measures. The problem now I realized, I'm not very likeable. It takes layers to take off before people realize that I can be a friend. You know how in schools, there are cliques? Not in the Philippines. The cliques are according to level of likeliness. I'm too dumb to have smart friends, too ugly too uncool.

I'm boring even around the most boring people. What's funny is that I was friends with people who are quite questionable. I grew up in a generation where the youth is at an edge--every parents' nightmare. Teenage pregnancy, gangs, and hazing.

But the people I was friends with no matter how hard they smoke, drink or swear-- they wouldn't pull shit on me. I think it's because they are afraid of my mom. I have a friend who emulates Avril Lavigne a lot. Tough in the 4th year classes but will fold when she sees my mother. I think it's because my mother has no filter and she knows everyone's mother. She has no real power but she makes everyone thinks she has.

Faith

In the family, we don't care about religion. My parents do not force that on us that's why we are a collection of theists or atheists. I begged my parents that I be baptised as a catholic because --aesthetic wise.

I know I have mentioned this to you a lot but I lost my faith first before my virginity in high school. It was 2008, and I transferred to a new Opus Dei school in Alicia. And let me describe to you what a sleepy town Alicia is-- it's super undeveloped, No Jollibee, less street lights. I thought La Trinidad is already a province but no. So anyway just 20 kilometers from our farm house, a boy close to my age was gunned down while riding a bike at night just to buy a mobile load. We don't know the full story.

So by 6, after having dinner outside, time to go inside and sleep.

One Friday night, I overstayed at my aunt. It was quite far from the house. By the way, our farm house is just facing a cemetery, 1 kilometer away.

I said goodbye to my aunt and cousins then my aunt lent me her son's bicycle and a flashlight. I rode home but shit, my flashlight is dying on me. And around me are just paddies and wind. I kept going while my flashlight is dying on me so I turned on my phone flashlight but it is too weak.

I was deathly afraid that I will be the next kid on the bike to die. I prayed to God to let me go home.

When I was going, I had this sort of calling--but it was opposite as the one Dominic described it to me when he decided he will become a priest. Dominic described it as something godly, warm and fuzzy.

I remember at that time, it was not that way. Not devilish though but it was as if the wind passed through the padd fields-- do you know in those anime scenes where there is a premonition that the main character is just all alone? So it was an indication for me that I am all alone in the dark, left to fend for myself. That there is no God. It was a very strong feeling. I've long to find it. I dropped out of that school a year later because I was just met with confusion.

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: One-Page Horror Games.

There are more one-page games than you might think if you consider double-sided games! Many games that are described as one-page games are considered such because they only require one piece of paper. Many (but not all) of the following games fall into this category.

Lucid City, by Brandoff.

The world is a dream. Once you realized that, you were never able to sleep again. Now you and your fellow oneironauts, people who can Alter reality at great personal risk, team up to rid the city of Nightmares, block by block.

Lucid City is a rules lite one-page TTRPG inspired by movies like Dark City, Inception, The Matrix, Jacob's Ladder, Final Destination, and The City of Lost Children.

Lucid City encourages you to roll as high as you can without going over. Your character has two numbers to worry about: their Skill and their Doom. If you roll under your Skill and over your Doom, you succeed; but rolling too high causes failure, and rolling too low raises your Doom. There are two “blocks” or locations already designed for the characters to move through, with a number of Nightmares to deal with before you can leave - or meet your Doom.

One really interesting part of character creation in this game is that you have to name something you’ll die for. It’s a small phrase, but I think it’s a great way to develop a lot about your character in a really small piece. If you like movies that embrace the surreal and the unknown, you’ll probably like this game.

Escape From Translucidia, by RexMontag.

Three scavengers must cross a warped, nightmare infused city to bring crucial supplies back to their small colony of survivors. Along the way, they will face many perils, both internal and external. Will they succeed, or will their loved ones pay the price for their failure?

This is a game for exactly three players. It requires 2d10, some pencils and paper, as well as a red pen. Each player takes a turn driving the narrative and letting the other two participants interact with prompts that you roll, depleting a small number of resources in your efforts to avoid dangers and perils. When you roll the dice, you consult the oracles on the flip side of the rules to find out what happens.

I think this is a great game for folks who just need a word or two to imagine a scenario, and it’s definitely good for groups where everyone may want a chance in the GM’s chair.

Luck Runs Out, by Beliasta.

Luck Runs Out is a short, rules-lite TTRPG that emulates a Horror Movie. The players are the main characters and must try to survive the Horror that is hunting them. Perhaps they will escape it or maybe even defeat it. Or perhaps their luck runs out.

This is a hack of Wreck the Halls by gshowitt and Thryn Henderson, and feels like it would work really well for a squad of protagonists running from something horrific, whether that be a serial killer, a robot, or a werewolf. Your luck is a resource that will slowly dwindle every time you fail, and all of your challenges will involve rolling up to 6d6 and looking for a 5 or a 6.

The first page is mostly for the players, giving character creation instructions and rules for play, while the flip side is mostly roll-tables for the GM and some ways to modify the game to work for you. If you want to re-create scenes from your favourite horror movies, you might like this game.

HHHH (This House Has Horrors Hiding), by Fiona boles.

HHHH is a gm-less ttrpg that is designed to be rules-light, collaborative storytelling-heavy, and easy to pick up and play wherever (but preferably in the dark).

Each iteration of the game will have only three things in common. There is a House. There is a Horror. And you're running out of time.

Drawing on Horror in other forms, HHHH allows players to recreate classic horror settings, and play through different outcomes together.

This is a pamphlet game, meant to be printed double-sided and then folded and read like a brochure. You’re going to need a deck of tarot cards and a pair of d6 for this game; the tarot cards are meant to be interpreted as part of character creation, and a pair of d6’s in order to try and deal with whatever horror is attacking the group. The moves feel akin to PbtA moves, with staggered successes and interesting things happening no matter what you roll. The Horror is emergent, defined at the right moment by the player who draws a random token.

This is a very concise and neatly-designed game, meant for one-shots but extremely re-playable. If you want to spook each-other with the worst ideas that can come into your head, I definitely recommend This House Has Horrors Hiding.

Fangs & Molars, by Eldritch Dreamscape.

Survive in a world that no longer belongs to you as a beast! Ignorant of the means and methods of the alien beings who came after, and unable to parse the strange entities from before. Will you adapt, weather the storm, or seek a balance to stay alive as powers beyond your understanding build up around you?

This game reminds me of the time a guy sat me down to try to explain Beast: the Primordial to me, and by that I mean I think this game might be inspired by Beast: The Primordial, but I’m not actually sure. The horror present in this game is one of being an animal in a world of things that know much more than you ever will. The game can be played with or without a GM, and uses only 2 stats: Fangs and Molars. These are two separate numbers, which can be added as modifiers to your roll. All the rules fit on one page, with a second sheet provided for players to write down their character information. If you like playing monsters and you also like eldritch horror, you might like this game.

decay., by Seren Briar.

decay. is a one-page game for 2 or more players. Embody a fungal colony as you attempt to consume a town both with mycosis -- and with your teeth.

Created for the Fluffy Horror Jam, decay. is a game of dark horror-comedy where you are the monsters. Perfect for parties or an off-the-cuff one-shot, it's ready to pick up and play with a handful of d6.

In this game, layers roll dice from a communal pool called Hyphae, which they might do if they want to spread their spores, consume a part of the town, or heal themselves. The game includes the different steps of play, the resources available to the players, and the 6 stages of infection required to take over a new Host. If you want to be the horror, rather than simply be the subject of the horror, you might be interested in decay.

Temple of the Blood Moon Moth, by Bug Bites Art.

In the shadows of our world lurk Eldritch Deities that pull at the fabrics of our reality. You are a member of the Temple of the Blood Moon Moth, a cult that worships a creature of scorching veins and fluttering wings.

This is a really pretty one-page game. One half of the game is a brief overview of what you need to GM, including roll-tables for the situation and a small chart of enemies that the players will likely go up against. The other half is rules for playing, with a player option grid displaying the different classes and their abilities. The designer includes quick reference symbols to represent each class’s stats, which are Instinct, Force, Wit and Belief.

The Blood Moon Moth iconography of this game reminds me of the thrilling horrors from Perdido Street Station, which still causes me to shudder. All in all, it’s a really concise game with some beautiful art. For a two-pager, I think it’s really evocative with all you really need to play a game of cultic horror.

You Also May Want To Try…

Loyalty, by jackdaw factories.

The Most Haunted Doll in the World, by the HORIZON MACHINE.

Also, many 24XX games are one-pagers! Here’s a few you can try.

1994 Moonlit Carnival, by cthos.

Sinjin, by Hex Culture.

199X Shutdown, by Thursday Garreau.

20X4 Madstones, by xiombarg.

Any one page Horror RPGs you’d recommend? I’ve started running honey heist and similar games with flatmates, but we’d love to run a horror one soon

Not too many horror one pagers sadly, and a lot of them are solo/2 player but here's some i could find

this one's by the guy who did honey heist, and its really neat

this one's solo but i've played it and its a blast

no idea about this one but i heard somewhere its good

yeah not a lot of multiplayer one page games nowadays, best of luck if you decide to search for it tho!

[keonilim6]

스포츠토토사이트 TABLE GLITCH IN GTA 5 ONLINE - (FAST & EASY)

Only take cash. Don’t take your bank cards or credit cards with you when you gamble.Set a time limit for your visit to the casino. RACING DEMON, AN ENGLISH GAME OF SPEED-This high-speed card game goes by multiple names. Pai gow (Chinese: 牌九; pinyin: pái jiǔ; Jyutping: paai4 gau2) is a Chinese gambling game, played with a set of 32 Chinese dominoes.

Some layouts mark the bet with a two-headed snake that winds from 1 to 34, and the bet can be placed on the head at either end of the body.Most US jurisdictions do not allow VLTs and those that do have attracted the same criticism the Canadian provinces have. However, some non-players have expressed tolerance for the machines. However, it may be that the first deck of cards ever printed was a Chinese domino deck, in whose cards we can see all the 21 combinations of a pair of dice. After all decisions regarding folding or betting have been made, the dealer will reveal all of their cards. The dealer can qualify to play past this point only if his hand contains an Ace and a King or forms a pair or anything better than a pair.

Caribbean Stud Poker is an easy-to-learn game based on 5-Card Stud Poker. It also offers a progressive jackpot payout which can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. To start, each player antes (with the option to play for the progressive jackpot) and receives five cards face down.In pandoeren, a Dutch jass game, the rule is ft,t,r. This means that if you can follow suit, you must either follow suit or play a trump; if you cannot follow suit, you must play a trump; only if you can neither follow suit nor play a trump, you may play any card. Video poker became more firmly established when SIRCOMA, which stood for Si Redd's Coin Machines (and which evolved over time to become International Game Technology), introduced Draw Poker in 1979. In Belgium the player is allowed to switch a card, but if he does, he forfeits his option to fold. That version of the rules is addressed in my section on Belgium Variant of Oasis Poker.

The history of the game is much disputed. Some claim that Caribbean Stud Poker was invented in Aruba, which would seem plausible since Aruba is an island in the Caribbean. Many people also claimed that they’re the inventor of the game, like author and gambling expert David Sklansky.Some of these machines are linked, which means players can simply wait for someone else to put the bank in flush attack mode, or alternately with non-linked machines a player can play after observing a previous player hit flushes but not enough to trigger the flush attack, a practice called "vulturing".스포츠토토사이트 The red card in the red-numbered box corresponding to the red die, and the blue card in the blue-numbered box corresponding to the blue die are then turned over to form the roll on which bets are settled. Rank is used to indicate the major (spades and hearts) versus minor (diamonds and clubs) suits.

Ready/Waiting/Cased/Set/Down/Chance/Shot/Pat – A player who only needs one number in order to complete the Bingo pattern is considered to have a Shot or be Ready, Waiting, Cased, Set, or Down, or to "have a chance".A player wishing to play craps without being the shooter should approach the craps table and first check to see if the dealer's "On" button is on any of the point numbers.The first Golden Arm was Oahu native, Stanley Fujitake, who rolled 118 times without sevening out in 3 hours and 6 minutes at the California Hotel and Casino on May 28, 1989. With the expansion of Tribal gaming across the US, there are numerous versions of bingo which now emulate the fast action of casino like table games but utilize the principals of bingo where players mark and monitor matrices cards with chips.

They very often also offer regular poker tables, where patrons play each other while the casino makes its profit either by taking a portion of each pot or by charging an hourly fee.When mechanic Charles Fey invented the first slot machine in 1895, it wasn't even played in a casino, and it was far from Las Vegas.When a player's turn comes, they can say "Hit" or can signal for a card by scratching the table with a finger or two in a motion toward themselves, or they can wave their hand in the same motion that would say to someone "Come here!" When the player decides to stand, they can say "Stand" or "No more," or can signal this intention by moving their hand sideways, palm down and just above the table. Players are then given the option, one-by-one, to stick with their two cards, be dealt additional cards, or take another option that is available such as split or double down etc.

That is not the only basic strategy solution as deciding on your count’s situation is also essential.The biggest difference between crapless craps and original craps, is that the shooter (person throwing the dice) is at a far greater disadvantage and has a house edge of 5.38%. Another difference is that this is one of the craps games in which a player can bet on rolling a 2, 3, 11 or 12 before a 7 is thrown.In roulette, bets can either be inside or outside bets. Games available in most casinos are commonly called casino games. In a casino game, the players gamble cash or casino chips on various possible random outcomes or combinations of outcomes.

Baccarat (IPA: [bakaʁa]; German: Burgambach) is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in the Grand Est region of north-eastern France.12 pays 3:1 on the field. This is generally seen in rooms that have two different table minimums, on the tables with the higher minimums.It often seems as if authors of such articles and books do not even understand the sources they are copying. With a soft hand, the general strategy is to keep hitting until a total of at least 18 is reached.

[swechha-waldorf-inspired-school]

How does Swechha take inspiration from Waldorf philosophy?

Waldorf education at Swechha

Swechha, an initiative by GITAM (deemed to be University), embraces Waldorf philosophy with a vision to introduce and inspire an alternate approach to education in Visakhapatnam.

Being the first Waldorf inspired school in the city of Visakhapatnam, Swechha joins the worldwide movement of more than 1000 Waldorf schools in bringing to life a philosophy that emphasizes child-centered and holistic approach to education.

Derived from the insights of Rudolf Steiner and the tenets of Waldorf education, we strive to nurture children to grow into truly free beings with perseverance to pursue their own will and be visionaries for a better world.

Kindergarten at Swechha takes inspiration from Waldorf approach to create healthy rhythms with meaningful learning experiences in early childhood education. Within the balanced flow of the day, children engage in tasks that foster a joy in learning and develop their will. They explore through play, develop imagination through storytelling and cultivate creativity through art (such as painting, drawing, cooking, knitting, wax modelling). Embedded within the rhythm, children also involve in purposeful work of washing, folding, cleaning which enables them to grow into capable and responsible individuals with perseverance and reverence in the tasks they undertake.

With the motive to be child centric in a true sense, every element of education at Swechha is thought through and designed with the child’s needs at the center of our approach to learning. At an age when it is essential for children to have sensory experiences and movement, we strongly advocate Waldorf approach of limiting screen time to nothing during early years and endeavour to nurture a sense of wonder, curiosity, creativity and imagination in them.

School environment at Swechha

Our classrooms are furnished with soft wall colours, natural textures, simple play materials that create a warm and holistic learning environment for children. Children are provided with experiences to sense the differences in texture, feel the temperature of an object, explore the possibilities of play and express their inner feelings through a variety of materials (such as wooden blocks, handmade dolls with minimal features, different fabrics, block crayons, watercolor paints and beeswax).

The outdoor play area is curated with elements where children connect with nature while developing their sensory and physical capabilities. Sand pits, mud play, pebbles, fallen twigs and flowers embrace the children in the wonder of nature. As they develop their sense of bodily balance while playing, climbing, jumping they also begin to observe the change of seasons and cycles of life.

Kindergarten at Swechha

At Swechha, our Kindergarten admissions are open for children between 3-6 years of age. We ascribe to the Waldorf approach of a mixed-age classroom during early childhood where the older and younger children balance each other out. The mixed-age kindergarten creates a loving family environment where the children support each other and play with less adult intervention. While the little ones benefit from having role models at the next developmental stage to emulate, the older children's excitement for play is reignited by the younger ones. The curriculum is designed so that children can learn from each other and each can develop at his or her own pace in a non-competitive setting.

The content and tasks are crafted in correspondence to the age-appropriate level of learning with a balance between the intellectual, physical, emotional, social, spiritual and aesthetic aspects of human development. Our teachers develop a curriculum that is contextual and consists of stories, songs, verses that relate to the nature-centered seasonal theme. They expose children to rich vocabulary and involve them in music, movement, imitation of gestures which builds their motor skills.

In addition to their skills in preparing creative content, teachers at Swechha undergo extensive training on Waldorf philosophy and child development from established Waldorf institutions. They develop a calm disposition, an appetite for change, passion for learning and go through personal transformation. As an early childhood educator and Waldorf teacher, they strive to be adults worthy of imitation and thereby, bring reverence into their actions and gestures. Equipped to observe children without judgement and manage the class in an artistic approach without resorting to instructing discipline, our teachers ensure a safe learning environment for children that nourishes their development.

For admission related queries, write to us on info@swechhawaldorf.in

[helliontherapscallion]

Unexpected Encounters (Adrenaline Junkie Part 8)

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5     Part 6     Part 7     Part 9     Part 10     Part 11     Part 12     Part 13     Part 14     Part 15     Part 16     Part 17

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: minor swearing

Word count: 2,775

You walked down the now worn cobblestone path towards the main plaza of the village by Philza’s house. Whistling the first verse of the L’manberg national anthem, you wove slightly at the crowd of people gathered at the stands that littered the sides of the street. 

The village was much larger than the entire L’manberg nation. It had several different precincts with a large, diverse group of people and a few hybrids living there. It also had more amenities like shops, a library (which, to your delight, grew expansively to include more books on inventions, some being exclusively about yours. They were proud people that embraced whatever fame comes out of the area), and multiple towering office buildings.

Everything’s changed since you’ve last been here a year ago. What was now more modern used to be traditional. What was loosely populated was now bustling with people. What used to be barren was now chock full of shops and apartment complexes. It was kind of jarring to see this much change in a little over a year.

In retrospect, it was jarring how much you changed in a little over a year. The hallucinations have finally almost completely stopped along with the nightmares. They only came about once a week now. You were slowly reincorporating green back into your wardrobe. Your phantom pain has retreated into your subconscious. It was always going to be with you, so you got used to the constant pain and tingling feeling. You learned to appreciate the small things in life and just live in the moment so you would have something positive to look back on in the future.

You invented several different gadgets to help your brothers win the L’manberg War of Independence such as a portable TNT launcher, handheld long-distance communication devices (which you affectionately dubbed walkie talkies since you could walk and talk! Wilbur and Tommy were not as enthusiastic of the name as you were), and a redstone powered crossbow that continuously fired arrows until you released the trigger. Though all of your inventions were practically your babies, they did not come anywhere close to trumping your magnum opus: your metal fully functioning wing. 

After several mishaps and failed attempts, you finally made your wing correspond to the electrical impulses in your muscles so that it copied the movements of your flesh wing. It’s built out of a lightweight hollow iron and has feather shaped metal pieces protruding off from it to emulate your other wing. It was a sleek silver color that always caught a ray of sunshine and reflected it to another place. It was basically permanently attached to your body by now due to it being a pain to take on and off. It was just easier and more efficient to keep it on constantly. 

People around you stared, some in awe and some in admiration. A stark difference from when you first lost your wing. Sometimes, you resented them for treating you differently just because your name became more widely known, but you were always a firm believer that everyone deserves a second chance. Even attention seeking, unscrupulous assholes looking for cheap brownie points from their peers because ‘I knew them before they were discovered! I knew them personally, we were, like, really close!’ So for now, you tried to ignore the ugly indignation bubbling in your gut and threatening to spew out in a string of hurtful words. You were sick of being angry, especially now that L’manberg is at peace. 

You passed several people who pointed at you and whispered amongst themselves. Ignoring them, you continued onward with your head held high and your wings folded in tightly to avoid children grabbing and pulling them with their grubby little hands. It always took you a while to clean and preen them after people touched them. You hated cleaning off fingerprints and grime from the smooth metal.

Walking with a sense of purpose, you continued onwards passing multiple shops and stands until you finally reached the butcher. Opening the decorated glass door, a little bell chimed alerting the burly man behind the counter of your presence. Like the others, he stared wide-eyed at you with his lips slightly parted in shock. Great, another exhausting encounter. 

Putting on a polite smile, you broke the silence of the meat shop. “Hello, I’m here to buy half a pound of fresh ground beef. Would you by chance have any in stock?” That seemed to snap him out of his stupor.

“O-of course, I’ll get that for you right away.”

He disappeared into the backroom where frosty fog rolled out in tiny clouds. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Maybe he wouldn’t ask any questions or try to get to know you on a personal level.

He returned in a hurry, slapping the wrapped beef onto the counter and giving you a price. Reaching into your wallet for the cash, you paid him generously. “Keep the change.”

“I-thank you, Mx. Minecraft.”

Putting the beef into your satchel, you gave him a more genuine smile. “Don’t mention it.”

Briskly walking out, you made a beeline for the village’s main entrance. You couldn’t stand the feeling of constantly being watched and talked about anymore. Why couldn’t they treat you like a normal person? In your opinion, you were, well, you. Nothing was special about you.

As you were about to cross the threshold of the village, you heard footsteps behind you.

“HEY! MX. MINECRAFT I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.”

Stopping dead in your tracks, you closed your eyes and took a few steadying breaths so that you wouldn’t lash out at this person. You just wanted to go to your childhood home and have a nice, peaceful dinner with your dad. Was that too much to ask? 

Opening your eyes and plastering on a fake smile, you turned around and greeted him. He was a young boy, probably around eleven or twelve years old. His clothes and shaggy auburn hair were disheveled and he had dirt smeared on his face. “Hello, to whom may I owe the pleasure?”

He put his hands on his knees and tried to talk between gasping breaths. “Mx, my name’s Arthur Fox, i-it’s truly an honor to meet you. I’ve admired your work since before the war in L’manberg. You’re an amazing inventor and I wanna be just like you when I grow up. I- oooh I’m sorry, I’m rambling aren’t I?” He kind of reminded you of Tubbo in a strange way.

“No, you’re fine Arthur. Thank you for being a fan of my work, but I must get going. I have an important meeting to attend to.” You weren’t exactly lying to the young boy. Turning on your heel, you started to walk off only to feel a hand on your arm.

“Mx, I need to talk to you.”

“I really have to get going, Arthur. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“No, it’s important.”

You struggled to keep the smile on your face as you shrugged his arm off as politely as you could. This kid is determined. Too determined. “So’s my meeting. I have to go.” You started to walk off into the beaten forest path.

“Do you know about The Warden?”

You halted abruptly and sharply turned around. You let your smile and polite stature drop into pursed lips and sharp eyes.

“...Of course I do. Everyone does.”

Flinching slightly, he quickly recovered his confident facade. “No, that’s not what I meant. Do you know about The Warden?”

“Like I said,” you played stupid, “everybody does. Who doesn’t?”

He puffed his cheeks out in frustration. “Ugh, how could someone so smart be so stupid at the same time? I mean you met it didn’t you? It took your wing.”

You took a step forward and narrowed your eyes, fully facing him now. “How do you know about that? Who told you?” 

He stepped back. “I-I heard rumors a couple of years back that it got someone. I heard your name thrown around here and there.”

You gave him enough of a warning that you didn’t want to talk, but he ignored it and now he has to reap the consequences. At this point, you were so tired and drained from everyone trying to be buddy-buddy with you that you finally snapped. The only thing you wanted was to go home, you did not need this right now. 

“Well, Arthur, you shouldn’t pry into other people’s business. I’ve told you time and time again that I have to leave, yet you persist to stop me. Why? And where are your parents, didn’t they teach you any manners?”

He looked downwards and fiddled with his fingers. “They’re dead. T-The Warden took someone important to me. I… I thought you might be able to help me.”

Shit, you just yelled at a grieving orphan. You were a massive asshole weren’t you? Your eyes softened slightly and you frowned. “...I’m sorry for your loss. Is there anything I could do to make it up to you? Dinner perhaps? We can talk about how I could help you afterwards.”

He glanced up at you. “But-but what about your meeting.”

You winced. “Uh, I’m moving it forward, we have more pressing matters.” You paused awkwardly. “Do… Do you have anybody to ask permission? Any siblings?”

His shoulders drooped. “...No. I’m all by myself.”

Shit, you yelled at a grieving homeless orphan? God what kind of role model were you? 

“C’mon, kid. We’re going to my house.” 

His wordlessly followed you and avoided looking into your eyes. The walk to your childhood home was very awkward, neither of you attempted starting conversation. You sighed.

“Look, Arthur I’m sorry for yelling at you like that. That was really uncalled for, I shouldn’t have yelled or gotten mad. It’s just that- The Warden’s a… touchy subject for me.”

“It’s alright, Mx. Minecraft. You can make it up to me by… making me dinner and showing me some of your blueprints?”

He looked up to you with hope filled, sparkling eyes. You snorted. “It’s a deal, kid. We’re almost there.” 

You could see the silhouette of the house in the nearly setting sun. It was still the same as when you left a year ago. 

“Ya know,” you sighed out, “this is actually my Dad’s house. I’m just visiting him for a couple of weeks.”

“Where do you live then?”

“I live in the heart of L’manberg with my brothers.”

“That’s cool…” He trailed off. You frowned, it seems that he was nervous to meet your Dad. You probably should’ve mentioned that Philza was there to him before taking him here.

You stopped, grabbing Arthur’s shoulders. “Kid, you don’t have to worry about meeting my dad. He’s probably the kindest, most genuine man I’ve ever met. He’ll welcome you with open arms, that’s what he did with me and my three brothers. He adopted us all.”

He gave you a small smile. “Alright, Mx. Minecraft, I trust you.”

“Oh, please don’t call me ‘Mx. Minecraft’, it makes me feel ancient,” you lolled your head back and dramatically groaned out, making him giggle. “I just turned twenty, buddy. Feel free to call me (y/n).”

 Putting your hand on his shoulder, you led him to the front door. You twisted the old door knob and pushed the wooden door open.

“Dad, I’m home and I brought the beef!”

He popped his head out from the kitchen, his messy blond hair flopping onto his face. He gave you a joking smile. “Took you long enough, any longer and I would’ve locked ya out.” 

You watched as his eyes wandered over to Arthur. He frowned, revealing his frilly pink apron that Wilbur got him as a joke. Oh, you could just hear the gears in his head churning.

“...(Y/n), who’s this?”

Grinning sheepishly, you replied. “Dad, this is Arthur Fox. Arthur, this is my dad Philza Minecraft. I promised him dinner and somewhere to stay for the night. Do you have some of Tommy’s old clothes Artie could borrow for the night?”

He sighed, shooting you a we’ll-talk-about-this-later look. “Yes, they’re in the attic. I’ll grab them after dinner so he could shower before going to bed.”

Arthur timidly spoke up. “Thank you, Mr. Minecraft.”

Your dad softened and gave him a gentle smile. “It’s no problem, Arthur. And please, call me Philza. Mr. Minecraft makes me feel old.”

Arthur let out a loud laugh. Despite everything he went through, his laugh still sounds like an innocent child’s laugh. You chuckled, kids always had a silly little laugh. Philza grinned at him, a child’s laughter was something that he missed.

Arthur wiped at his eyes as his laughter died down. “I’m sorry, (y/n) said the same outside.”

“I did,” you smiled lightly at Arthur before looking back at Philza with mischief, standing up straight and putting your hands on your hips. “But I was funnier.”

“Pft, you wish. I was saying that before you were even born. So, I win because I’ve been saying it longer.”

“Whatever ya say, old man. Funniness over age.”

He playfully glared at you, placing an offended hand over his heart. “I’m not that old.”

“Ya kinda are, Dad. You’re practically turning to dust!”

He gasped. “I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Are too!”

“Am no- wait Dad, that’s cheating!”

“You still said it though!” He sang out, grinning at you cheekily.

“No, that doesn’t count!”

Arthur’s amused brown eyes bounced between you and Philza like he was watching a tennis match. Every so often, he would giggle at something one of you said. You both took your banter to the kitchen where you and Philza started to cook. Dinner was done and the table was set in no time. There was pleasant small talk as dinner neared an end

Your dad swallowed his last bite of beef and turned his attention towards Arthur. “So Arthur, how old are you?”

Arthur gave a small grin. “I’m ten.”

“Do your paren-”

You loudly coughed, throwing a discreet glare at Philza. Mouthing ‘don’t’ from behind your hand, you took a big sip of your water and stood up. “I’ll wash all the dishes. Arthur, would you like to look at some of my blueprints while we wait for my Dad to get you some clothes?”

His eyes shined with excitement. “Yes please!”

You chuckled, putting the plates in the sink and walking down to your old workshop to grab one of the blueprints you left in a filing cabinet. You grabbed the first draft for your prosthetic and the final draft for the automatic farm.

Upstairs, you situated the blueprints in front of Arthur at the dinner table. “Okay buddy, learn to your heart’s content. I’m gonna do the dishes. If you need something just give me a shout.”

Walking into the kitchen, you filled the sink with warm soapy water and got started scrubbing. You moved your wings around subconsciously as you wiped the pots and plates clean of grease. Humming in satisfaction when you were done, you dried your hands and sat next to Arthur who was looking at your designs with complete awe. 

“You like them?”

He nodded his head so fast you thought it might fall off and started to fling questions at you. You smiled fondly at him, it was nice to see someone so interested in how your inventions were made and not just how they worked. 

You two were mid conversation when Philza walked into the room with a bundle of clothes in his arms. You grabbed Arthur’s hand and led him up to the bathroom. You bent down and rested your hands on your knees, looking at him.

“Alright buddy, everything you need is in there, clean towels are in the closet. When you’re done, I’ll be in my room just over there,” you pointed to your door. “Last door on the left. I can show you where you’ll be sleeping for the night when you’re done. Does that sound okay?”

He gave you a gap-toothed smile. “Yes, thank you (y/n)! You’re the best!”

He closed the bathroom door and you stood there. You felt… oddly fond for the boy you just met only hours before. 

Philza cleared his throat and pinned you to the wall with a stern look. “(Y/n), explain now.”

“I will, but let’s talk in my room so Arthur can shower in peace. Poor boy needs it.”

He sighed and walked into your room. You had a long talk ahead of you.

(A/N): so, how do you guys like Arthur?

Taglist (comment if you want to be added):

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@bongwaterflavoredgatorade  @kakamiissad  @jayistrash4  @lifestylesleep  @speedymaximoff  @sun-shark-tooth  @appetiteofapeoplepleaser  @lestrangenymph  @kinismanditory  @dragons-lurk-here  @rinzyx05  @the-wandering-pan-ace  @sparkling-gayyyy  @angelic-scent  @shinipii  @dont-hug-me-im-a-fander  @izzydimensional  @used-avocado  @laura--444

[hes-writer]

Reign (3)

Summary: harry sees something he's supposed to have

Warnings:  angst in the beginning, angst in the middle, angst near the end

Word Count: 4881 words

A/N: @devilinbetweenthesheet-s : dont cheat and don’t do drugs, kids

Tarnish (1)  .  Halo (2)  . Reign (3) . Trial (4) .

Errors (5) . Ruin (6) . Crumble (7)

Error Taglist

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A writer that cannot write is dead.

When one loses the ability to tell their stories and anecdotes through the mere action of swirling words together to create an imaginable atmosphere of real-world fantasy; they are dead. A writer recovering from the mundane and mediocre way of penning experiences to bounce back into what they used to be is difficult. It is easier to free fall and drown in the depths of despair. The moment thoughts and rumination fog up to form a blurry image of conviction is a warning sign, blaring at the back of their minds and sometimes even in their faces.

Harry is a writer--or, he was. Picking up the pen to style the words lingering in his head used to be as easy as blinking; quick and natural. Now, the words claw at the swell of his throat, trying to spit an adjective to describe the way he felt. It was at the tip of his tongue, waiting to be lathed into existence. It did not matter if his cognition was mingled with various chemicals aimed to be able to feel happiness.

He was sober but he had trouble placing his finger on why it was so strenuous to narrate his feelings throughout the breakup. Being high or drunk was never the answer for him. Weed made him tired and made him have a case of cottonmouth. Harry learned from a young age that he should only ever engage with alcohol if he was in a mindset and setting that catered to increase existing good vibes. He thought that maybe he was in an odd phase of perceiving the opposite, and so he intoxicated himself enough to understand that it didn’t matter if he was soaked head-to-toe in sobriety or whizzed out of his mind by the amber liquid swirling in the glass in his hand. But that wasn’t the circumstance. It also didn’t matter if he was grasping his favourite pen to write--because it was comfortable--or tapping his calloused thumbs against his phone keypad. Hell, it didn’t make a difference when he sat down and prepared his typewriter to indulge in a headspace of vintage songwriting. Maybe that would help.

It didn’t.

He had stories to tell. Everything was laid out in misty overcast yet Harry’s great ideas morphed into gentle mistakes, harsh mistakes and discoveries that had him almost ripping his hair out of the roots of his scalp. When he felt the wave of his ocean-thoughts rise and peek where the sand shifted, his fingers were ready to move and discern for the eyes to see. But with each fritter, he couldn’t seem to get even two paragraphs in to decide that it was utter shit.

Harry was old enough to understand that slumping on the wet sand was a part of life. Sometimes picking up a fistful of grains and throwing them back to the sea was a great way to release frustration. But it seemed like this plunge of his ability to write was a hole of quicksand. He was trying his hardest to displace himself as swiftly as possible but it only made his scenario worse. The muddy sand clung unto his legs like sticky glue, heftier with each effort to leave. He wanted to move on. He wanted to forget everything that occurred in the past four years. Harry wanted to erase Y/N from his life because she wasn’t around anymore to bring those memories back to sparkly existence.

What he needed to do was nestle himself into a certain depth, calmly, in order to pull a limb out and ensure that his progress on the so-called ‘moving on’ did not have any drawbacks. Until then, he cannot possibly create songs that he was well-known for if he wasn’t patient enough.

He wanted so badly to tell his side of the story. Harry craved to think as clearly as he did when he told Y/N about his plan for their future. Admitting to his feelings was a hard route. Sure, he can be vulnerable but it took a great deal of convincing on his part to immerse himself in the deepest parts of his brain to understand why he felt the way he did. He usually had the means of songwriting to help him out but that obviously wasn’t working out that good for him.

___

Harry was packing the rest of Y/N’s things in boxes to be picked up later in the afternoon. He was annoyed at first at how she depended on him to fold her clothes properly instead of doing the bundle of the work herself. But he guessed that she didn’t want to be around him for longer than she had to. To be frank, he also did not want to indulge in what might turn into an argument if they spoke about the reason for their breakup. It was just a bit confusing because he had an urge to still want her around despite their less than likely situation.

Torture. If Harry had one chance to describe the way he felt right now; it was torture. With every nook of Y/N’s side of the closet emptying into brown, cardboard boxes--he physically how much she had integrated her life with his. How much space she took up in his life. How his clothes and her clothes were so interchanged between them that he couldn’t decide if the gray pull-over was actually his or hers. And in a moment of selfishness did he tuck it away for his safe-keeping despite seeing the tag imprinted on the inside; a shop that he hadn’t set foot in so it was a guarantee that it was hers.

Her scent embedded in the thin threads of each fabric wafted to his nose; each with a new wave of memories engulfing his senses as if each piece garnered a specific scent tailored to a specific event. Like her sunflower sundress--it smelled of fresh flowers as if the print was a scratch and sniff that released a fragrance. Or their DIY-ed tie-dye shirt of pastel blue and cotton candy pink. It was a matching piece made out of the cheap dye and a simple white tee but it was theirs. Things like these made Harry want to yell in frustration because every time he thought that he was completely over her-- Y/N appears out of visibly nowhere and towers over him.

Seeing her for the first time in days was a breath of relief. She looked fine. Glowing even, and Harry did not know what to make of it. As sadistic as it sounded, he was expecting dry-stained tears and a birds’ nest of hair trampling her head. Instead, Y/N was dressed for comfort in her baggy jeans and an even looser sweater covering her body. Her lips were drawn in a thin line, giving him a nod in greeting as he gestured to the boxes littering the floor.

Harry offered to help--it was the least he could do. And somehow, silence protruded from the tense atmosphere, begging to be cut by a knife yielded through their voices nipping at each others’ emotions.

“Let go of my damn hand,” Y/N stated, her hard stare could turn Harry into stone. He just wanted her to listen before she left.

He shook his head in denial of her request, tightening his grip further. “No. Listen to me, Y/N,”

“What do you possibly have to say that will change anything between us?”

And maybe it was her fault for assuming that he wanted to fix things. The sliver of hope thinly dressed behind closed lids enabled her to think that maybe he was going to say that he wanted to make things work again. That he had broken up with Camille and he realized what a stupid he had done throwing away everything they built up to for the past four years for an affair that couldn’t quench the thirst of his desire to have a family.

Harry sighed, a shadow of mischievous smirk painted on his lips. But maybe it was Y/N’s sight in deception because she could never see Harry as anything other than sweet and kind Harry incapable of hurting a fly.

“What? I don’t intend to. We’re broken. We’re beyond fixing,”

The hitch in her breath was as sharp as the stare he was searing her with. Forcing her to please understand that this would be their last conversation--if time and fate were on their side. “You’re not something I would take the time to handle,”

“Stop saying shit you don’t mean, Harry” Y/N rolled her eyes in annoyance. His macho act was barely an act and more like a stage curtain easily pushed with a flick of a wrist.

“Things I don’t mean?”

“You heard me,” She crossed her arms over his chest in defence, leaning against the closed trunk. “Say what you will but our love was real. Don’t make me seem like I’m crazy. Don’t tell me that I’m a mistake,” Her voice was filled with confidence because she knew the affection that Harry diffused.

The cradles of his palm at the small of her back when they had to walk past a crowd. The subtle graze of the back of his fingers caressing the bare skin of her arm. Kisses pressed to her temple as she read a novel and swirling fingertips twirling her hair. These were acts of love that happened nearly every day in their relationship. A routine that felt different if it wasn’t done to or with each other.

Exasperatedly, Harry felt the same itching crawling up his spine. His ego ballooning into a delicate size and one more word from Y/N’s lush lips would have him on his hands and knees, begging for her back.

“This, us, was a fuckin’ mistake,” Harry’s accent thunked heavily in her cochlea, practically spitting the words out of his mouth as if they were poisonous. Ringed fingers gesticulated the space between them to emphasize how much of a misunderstanding they truly were. “I should’ve known the second things went further than planned,”

Y/N felt her heart drop to her full stomach. The feeling so nauseating that she instinctively palmed her belly over the fabric to protect her little baby from his harsh words. Even though they weren’t directed towards anyone but Y/N. She didn’t think that their unborn child deserved scrutiny from their own father.

“You don’t mean that, Harry.”

Because how could he? Not when he emulated sincerity through his syrupy voice. Not when he spent hours loving on her tummy and spoke to it like he would if she were pregnant. Especially not when every kiss from him felt like a buzz of electricity coursing through her veins because he was the main distributor of her happiness.

Harry truly was an asshole for making her hope and wonder of what the future held when he was unsure himself. He did want a family. That was a statement in all its truthfulness. What he wasn’t sure about was if he wanted a family with Y/N. He could have a family; kids of his own in his own time. But Y/N didn’t have to necessarily be the mother. So was he besotted with the concept of family and marriage regardless of who it was with?

“But I do,”

The rain started drizzling in frequent spurts, planting a fat droplet on her cheek that could be argued as a tear escaping Y/N’s eye. It hurt a lot to hear that from him. The man of her dreams blatantly denying each sugary word because his plans had changed.

“You’re a goddamn mistake is what you are,’

“Why are you. . .saying all these things to me? Are you trying to hurt me?” The shakiness of Y/N’s tone had Harry swallowing his words down his strep throat.

He shook his head in disagreement, “No, I’m not. ‘M just tryna make you see my side. So you can understand,” His head dipped to the side, softening his tone yet stern as though he was speaking to a child.

And that was one of the reasons why Y/N didn’t believe his all-too stoic demeanour about her. Harry was great at making others see his side regardless of how much in the wrong he was.

So why was he struggling?

___

Needless to say, he wasn’t very respectful towards Y/N any other time afterwards. He had unblocked her number months after blocking it at one point and demanded answers that he didn’t have the right to know. In retrospect, Harry was embarrassed by the way he acted. He did cheat on her and suddenly he was a saint because she moved on quicker than he thought she would? Unbelievable.

In his defence, the night he became the drunk caller was the same night he fought with Camille about having children; having a family they can call their own. Ever since that discussion did Harry notice a dispatch in their relationship. It was like they were aware of a missing link that had disappeared in their connection, but neither one of them wanted to be the one to bring it up. Harry supposed that now that Camille knew what he wanted (and vice versa)--she was feeling the pressure of giving in to him. Don’t get him wrong, Harry absolutely wanted a family and he thought that Camille was the right partner to build it with. However, he couldn’t help the voice at the back of his mind slyly whispering that he had forced her to give him what he wanted for the sake of saving their failing relationship.

___

It had been two and a half years since he mildly and miserably accepted that his dream family was being erased like a pencil on paper.

The first year; Harry still clung to the obscure hope that Camille might change her mind of having kids. Many fights sprouted between the two of them concluding in them sleeping at different places for weeks on end until they eventually crawled back to each other like an invisible string. The second-year; Harry brought up the idea of adoption. It was a hard choice for him as he desperately wanted kids of his own. A boy that looked like him and his love or a little girl that smiled at him with deep dimples mirroring his own.

And Harry liked to think that he was just on the edge of convincing Camille to consider the option when his tour was scheduled a few months after. A new dealbreaker was that Harry wasn’t going to be around much to watch and nurture the little bub they might’ve adopted. It was a sudden intrusion to think about since Harry was good with kids. He knew that. That was why he had three godchildren of his own. But what hit him the most was how sure Camille sounded when she yelled at him about leaving for months at a time and returning for a bit, only to leave again. Now, Harry hadn’t considered that part. But surely he will be ready to choose between a family and his career, right? When the time comes, he thought.

___

It pained Harry to admit that his relationship with Camille was dwindling down the drain. The knowledge that there was no future--the one that Harry envisioned--for them was getting more and more real each passing day. 

A late-night grocery trip was one of the many examples that had Harry rethinking his actions for the past couple of years. It was the time period where night owls arose and barely any customers littered the aisles. Still, Harry made sure to keep his hoodie up to shield his face.

Camille had an early flight to Milan in just a few hours later that day and she wanted to purchase some things to bring with her; in case they weren’t available in the country. So here they were at three in the morning.

As Camille walked ahead of him in her sweatpants and a plain tee, Harry couldn’t help but let his eyes flicker to the clothing section to his right The first-floor space was decorated with pastel blues and pinks; a stroller was displayed with a price would not make a dent in Harry’s bank account.

“‘M just gonna grab somethin’ over here, Cam,” Harry muttered as he pointed a thumb behind him. She nodded, “Meet me at the produce? Need to get you some fruits,”

Harry felt guilt thudding his chest because although he was losing feelings he thought were written in stone, Camille appeared to care for him the same way she always had.

He walked to the brightly lit area, puffing his cheek as a cute onesie caught his eye, “You’re so golden” with the word ‘golden’ printed in a shiny, yellow glimmer. He smiled at the thought of baby angel cooing at him as he tickled her tummy. Harry passed by the shoes next, picking up a pair barely the size of his palm. His mind flashed back to a conversation with Y/N years ago,

___

“I’m just saying,” Y/N took a bite of a pickle she held on her left hand, “Baby shoes have no business being that expensive,”

Harry chuckled from his place across the counter, “Babies need shoes too, love,’

She grabbed her fork and stabbed a piece of strawberry from her bowl, “I didn’t say the don’t need shoes. For tiny things, they could at least be a bit cheaper,”

Harry watched as she munched on a pickle on her left and took a bite of a strawberry on the other. His tongue poked out in a gag at the odd combination, resorting in glare and a huff from Y/N.

“You should try it instead of judging me,’

“No, thank you. Watching you eat it is enough for me,’

___

Harry craned his head at each aisle, hoping to find Camille and to distract himself from the endless Y/N related thoughts that somehow returned to his brain. He needed his girlfriend to remind him that he cannot just knock on Y/N’s door and ask her about the baby she has. If he could hold them for a bit because his baby fever was through the roof.

Locating the produce section, Harry whistled mindlessly as he searched for a blonde head of hair, failing to notice that there was a basket in front of his feet. He had kicked it, jolting him out of his thoughts in a hurry.

A man with brown hair sporting an outfit similar to his (sweats and a hoodie), chuckled at him as Harry leaned down to retrieve the gray basket filled with a jar of pickles.

“Sorry man,” Harry muttered, holding the handles up for the man to carry.

“It’s alright, it happens,” The guy had not seen his face yet, too busy inspecting the carton of strawberries.

He decided to continue the conversation, “Strawberries and pickles? Odd combo, huh,” Harry was briefly reminded of Y/N’s obsession with the two rival products.

“Yeah, m’lady loves ‘em. Had a craving in the middle of the night. She’s in the car right now with our lil bubba,”

Harry’s heart fluttered at the mention of a baby. He needed to get his rails in check. He cannot keep having his heart bursting with adoration at the mere mention of a baby.

“I’m Connor,” He said, finally facing Harry after choosing the best carton.

“I'm--,”

“Harry!” Both men turned their heads towards Camille carrying a basket full fruits and green veggies, “Got you some stuff to blend for your smoothies,”

Connor squinted his eyes at the couple and Harry internally screamed because he knew that he and Camille had been recognized. “Harry. Yeah, I know you,” The sudden hostility made Harry confused as Connor grasped his basket from him in a harsh manner, heading towards the checkout.

The rest of the time inside the store was filled with curiosities as Harry carried the paper bags towards the car, barely recognizing Connor’s figure heading towards his own vehicle. Luckily, Harry has parked only a few slots away and could inconspicuously watch Connor and his so-called ‘lady’.

Except, Camille was ushering him to hurry up as she still had a few things to pack at home.

___

On most days, Harry was used to waking up alone. Used to feeling the shiver crawling up his side, used to seeing the indent left by Camille’s body instead of her. He had grown familiar with the sudden cast of loneliness blanketing him thicker than the duvet on top of his body.

The early morning trip to the store had tired him out, paired with the overthinking of the man named ‘Connor’ that flipped his attitude towards him quicker than he could kick the grey basket with his feet. He flopped back to the mattress after washing his face and brushing his teeth. It was noon when he jolted out of bed again at the sound of his front door opening, voices filling the empty space that had Harry running towards the foyer in case there was an intruder.

His tense shoulders sagged in relief when he caught sight of his mum and Gemma, “Oh, s’just you guys,”

Both women looked up at him at the top of the stairs, “You forgot we were coming over for the weekend, didn’t you?” Gemma teased as she headed to the living room. Harry followed, walking down the stairs.

He scratched the nape of his neck nervously, “No. . . “

“Can you help me reach this, H?” Anne called out from the kitchen.

His mum gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, “Yes, you did, by the way. Slept through the whole morning. Good thing Camille let us in before she left,”

At the sound of a bag crumpling and squeals echoing the hollow house, Harry scrunched his nose in curiosity, briskly walking where Gemm was currently holding up tiny baby clothes in front of her. “Who’s that for?” He thought of any possible friends that had had a baby recently but couldn’t recall any.

She immediately stuffed the clothing into the bag, nervously placing a hand on her chest, “Gosh, Harry, you scared me,” Her brows went high on her forehead in alarm, sharing a look with her mum trailing behind Harry.

“Well? Did I miss something?”

“Oh, it’s for one of my friends,”

Harry contemplated on his next words, “D-did you know that Y/N had a baby?” It couldn’t be right if his sister and mum knew about his exes baby and not him, right? That’s just plain odd to still be in touch with an ex's family. His brows furrowed in suspicion as both of them declined his question.

“What? Nooo,”

Awkward silence filtered through the air as Anne sipped water from her mug and Harry was slowly putting the pieces together. Gemme dove to the centre of the couch where her phone was when it rang suddenly, surprising all three of them. Harry was quicker, eyeing his mum and sister and inspecting the emoji substituting as a name before sliding his thumb to answer it.

"Hey, Gems! Are you coming to the park? We're waiting for you,”

Harry felt his heart drop to his stomach just as the phone nearly slipped from his clutch. That voice. He could recognize it from everywhere having spent nearly every morning for the four years that they were together hearing it lulling him out of sleep. It was Y/N’s voice calling his sister who was looking extremely anxious.

He tapped on the ‘mute’ button, “What does she mean ‘we’?”

“Nothing! Give me my phone back,” Gemma tried to reach for the device but Harry held it high beyond her reach.

“I saw the picture you sent me. I told you that you and Anne didn’t have to get me anything,” Harry felt dizzy. “Connor and I got some things a few weeks ago. But that skirt is so adorable!”

One part of him was glad to hear her voice. In fact, Harry found himself smiling too, despite what he just heard. Connor. “Harry, won’t be there right? Hello? Have I been talking to myself this whole time,” Y/N laughed a little; she had a habit of talking endlessly when she was excited. It made Harry more sombre, letting his guards down and his arm in reach for Gemma to grasp.

“Hey! I'm just organizing the clothes, see you soon!" Gemma jammed her finger on the red end call, anxiously glancing at her brother, piecing everything together.

“Who's Connor?" Could it be that the Connor he met last night was the same as Y/N’s? The one who bought pickles and strawberries--one of Y/N favourite food combinations? He mentioned that he had a little girl and Y/N just called to meet his sister and his mum at the park. And baby clothes?

Anne and Gemma looked at each other, quickly deciding that for the benefit of Harry that they should tell him at least a little bit. He was looking as if he was going insane, especially with his bed head pointing his hair out in different directions.

“He’s Y/N’s partner”

Harry gulped, reeling his thoughts to a halt, “Partner? And the baby is...?” The last bit of confirmation was all he needed to lash his feelings out.

“Is... waiting for us at the park! Sorry H gotta go,” Gemma was swift enough to gather all the bags without having Harry chase after her. His state of confusion and shock was enough to render him partially speechless and immobile.

“Hey wait!”

Anne garnered his attention, “Oh, Mrs. Q from next door wants me over for dinner. I’m sure wants to see us both. Why don’t you get ready, Harry?” Anne tugged his arm in the direction of the staircase pushing him to stumble up a couple of steps.

Harry was confused. He made the sounds of his footsteps creeping up the wooden stairs, hearing his mum quietly talking to Gemma on the phone, “Elmsway Park, you said? How long till you're home? I’m not sure how long I can keep him occupied,”

With that being said, Harry was out of his house, silently unlocking and locking the door. He was dressed in some basketball shorts and a graphic tee, slipping on the first pair of sneakers he had tossed aside. Harry jogged to his car, typing in the name of the park on his phones’ GPS. The route was only a few minutes away so he decided to take his time, gathering his scattered thoughts along the way.

He parked just beside the playground scouting the trees around the premises. Harry decided that it was the perfect day. The sun was out. It wasn’t too humid and the birds were chirping on the branches. He could see why the playground was full of children running around in delight. The green patches of grass were partially filled with picnic blankets and food to be shared. Families laughed with each other as one in particular caught his eye.

It made him smile at first, seeing just how adorable the couple was with their baby. He exited the car, making sure to lock the vehicle. With his hands jammed deep in the pockets of his shorts, Harry could feel the tethered grass rubbing against his legs. As he got closer, he couldn’t help the twinge of familiarity spark in his chest, recognizing that what he was staring at was Connor playfully chasing a little girl of about two-years-old as she squealed at how close he was getting to tagging her.

Harry stood by a tree, shielding him away from view. He tried to appear invisible without seeming too creepy. He knew that it was only a matter of seconds before his eyes found the woman he had been missing, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Connor picked up the little girl in his arms, dotting pecks all over the girls’ cheeks, causing her to giggle and push his face away with a tiny palm. And there she was standing outside the raised platform of the playground, coming up to the both of them with a juice box in hand to hydrate the little angel. Connor turned his attention to Y/N, planting the most adoring kiss on her lips that made her smile so wide and the baby cover her eyes. They laughed together, looking like a picture-perfect family.

Gemma sat on the bench, flickering her gaze to the precious family in front of her and to the figure of her brother walking away from the scene. Her heart broke for Harry, and it cracked, even more, when he turned back. This time, watching Connor and Y/N cheer on baby angel to go down the slide. Both of them clapped their hands in enthusiasm as the girl hesitantly slid down the plastic slide. The smile on her face was infectious.

It almost made Harry smile, too.

___

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