#future proof games

[futureproofgames]

Adrift on a sea of internet

We're awakening after a long hibernation here! Twitter has become an even more awful place, and we're mourning the upcoming loss of Cohost. Tumblr might become one of our new social homes; we'll have to see how it feels in the Year of Our Lady 2024.

Whether or not we stay on here long-term, you can always find our stuff at futureproofgames.com.

[thepenandpaperarchive]

2-0000-0019 - Rosette Diceless

by Future Proof Games

A genre-neutral system built for equal use at the tabletop or for use with Live Action Roleplay. It is built to be GM-less and focused on improvisation, emphasis on story, and consensus between players.

Rosette Diceless is available on itch.io for $9.99, or in a bundle with Rosette Diceless Companion for $11.98.

[doralovesgames]

Day 2: I Fell In Love With the Majesty of Colors, by Future Proof Games

Buy the remaster on Steam, or download the original Flash game version.

BlueSky has a trend going where you post 20 games that influenced you, for 20 days, with no comment or context, and I wanted to drag that over here. However, I wanted to focus specifically on indie games only. I got my start in games as a journalist in the Flash era, and there was such an incredible array of creativity and passion on display. Many of the games I played and reviewed have stuck with me well over a decade later. So I wanted to celebrate some of my favorites. So here's Day 1: The Fabulous Screech, by Jonas and Verena Kyratzes Free to download, or play in your browser on Newgrounds or Kongregate! http://landsofdream.net/games/the-fabulous-screech/

[amegeddon]

The Pikmin vs my art block battle continues! I wanted to mess around with the airbrush and just do a thing with that so white pikmin make yet another appearance... I love those little freaks they're so shaped :)

Was originally just gonna be the one pikmin in the centre there and then I decided to add more. And then the bulborb. And then the text. Probably could be better but eh I'm lazy tonight, this is the best I'll do.

Also might post a version without the shadow layers later, just to show the difference those things make in this. It's genuinely wild how much just rabidly airbrushing black over an image can do lol

[kaiowut99]

Duel Links Re-Translation Mod Project (Announcement post I guess?) - Dark Yugi In-Duel Line Re-Translation Test (WIP)

(Alternate project tagline: #LetYubelSayLove)

(Forgive some video stuttering, my Nvidia game recording thing was a bit buggy 😩)

~~~~~~~~

So. For the longest, I've been hella curious to figure out where the text for Duel Links is in the file assets, the in-duel lines in particular--as I'm sure most folks know, the English dubtitle text applied for the English dialogue is, nine times out of ten, inaccurate or decently simplified vs the Japanese audio played on the same line, and it's a bit wild that we still don't have a second English option for a more faithful take this long after Konami gave us the Japanese voices natively on Steam and made modding the game to get them a thing of the past. But for all my occasional searching through the files, I had little luck due to encryption and junk; at some point in September, I got curious and did more digging and was able to find some card text, at least, but nowhere near as much as is in the game now, and still no dialogue lines.

And then, 2-3 weeks ago, I saw that Aura (Octomaidly over on Twitter, part of @entamesubs handling Studio Bridge-era YGO fansubs for SEVENS+) had been working with a couple of folks to decrypt and re-translate the in-duel lines for SEVENS characters and came across her video on Twitter sharing her progress; I immediately reached out to find out how they're doing it and mentioned how I'd like to try and re-translate pre-SEVENS stuff, lol. (You can watch her latest video demoing her re-translation for GO RUSH world here; find her work as it develops on the NexusMods page for it.)

After connecting with Aura and the folks helping her and getting set up to work on things, I set up a quick re-translation for Dark Yugi's lines, had it all imported for a test-run, and recorded this demo test vs Kaiba to see 'em in action; I did fix a few things since recording this, like some line breaks here/there, but also fixed the one mention of "Dark Magician" in the cut-in shot since this was a test of my OCG-name translation (more on that below) and thus "Black Magician" should've been there--but all told, it looks pretty good overall!

All that to say that this is now another lil' project on my list 😅 It's very cool that this is finally doable and I'm looking forward to working with Aura and co to make it happen--though do note that it'll be at a bit of a slower pace since work on my finalized GX subs (currently revision work on 117-119 is underway) and Tag Force Special is a bit higher priority. That said, the nice thing is that working on in-duel lines in TFSP kinda does half my work for me here, lol; maybe half of Dark Yugi's lines, for example, are recycled verbatim from TFSP--the only difference being that Shunsuke Kazama is actually voicing him--with the rest being lines newly added for him in DL, from lines for dueling other characters to cards he didn't have lines for in TFSP, and this should be the case across the board for anyone who showed up in TF[SP].

My intention is also to work on two translations: one with OCG card names and one with the TCG names, as we're doing with TFSP, and I'll be starting this off by working on the first five characters from each series that appeared in TFSP, since that's how I'm working on the story events there (so for DM, working on Dark Yugi, Kaiba, Jounouchi, Ishizu, and Mai first), and then once done through VRAINS, that might probably be the first version of the mod I'd release. Or maybe I'll release a version as I get each set of five done; we'll see lol. I do plan to contribute my translations to Aura's project, as well. (Also we just recently dug up event dialogue text so those will be re-translatable, too; doing this for the older series' events that likely won't get reruns will at least be worth it since you can spend Gems to get those event scenes)

But overall, it's pretty encouraging--stay tuned!

[wardensantoineandevka]

I keep thinking about the second set of voices Antoine heard in the Blight, and he speculates that the Blight changed on its own beyond the manipulation of the gods, but I'm still so worried about it and what the other set of voices were and what they might want. Even with the Blight fading from Thedas, I'm worried.

[svtskneecaps]

as someone who has been on many, many family road trips this stream is the perfect representation of a family road trip. like they're cruising through literally fucking NOTHING bc half the time they're too high to see the scenery and that's assuming the chunks load, they've been going for forever but there's still hours left, they hopped out at a "rest area" to stretch their legs, ""dad"" is the one driving, this is triggering serious nostalgia in me

[ramonag-if]

Coming in June...

[passthroughtime]

well, aren’t you fucking stupid then

it amazes me how in LJ yagami is ready to save everyone and everything from the powers that be, UNLESS it’s kuwana. one might argue he’d learn something from okubo, but nooooo. granted, it’s not that simple of an equation (okubo’s “i didn't do anything” vs kuwana’s “i did it and feel no remorse”), but... yagami STILL struggles to see nuances of this particular situation.

and that’s ridiculous, because in any other case he’s more than ready to give a person another chance (to be heard/understood/supported/idk)

taking the school stories into account isn’t fair, but giving up on itokura never crossed yagami’s mind, even though she hurt seven people just because she was petty. he hopes that this isn’t what she wants deep in her heart, but is ready to let go if it is really. he talks to her, gives her the chance to accept his help and get out. he happens to be right, she doesn’t want this life. good for her. thank you yagami.

when he suspects sawa may be involved in mikoshiba’s murder, he still gives her a benefit of the doubt (after all, the screenshot above shows how he feels about her being connected to both murders, he just doesn’t want to jump to this conclusion because he knows her). he still goes and confronts her ofc, begs to make things clear, and after runs to her apartment when something troubling has suddenly happened that keeps her away from him, without thinking it can be a trap.

funny little tidbit in the main story as well:

who they are? idk! why does yagami suggest they don’t deserve to be punished? idk again! he’s just being a good guy i guess! (though i honestly think the last words should’ve been directed to kuwana. they always felt out of place to me, why would yagami think public security even has a use for that random dude? but kuwana... yet he can’t say that to his face for some stupid reason.)

kusumoto is a tricky one, because yagami blames both her and kuwana, but here’s the thing. he tries to convince him before he tries to convince her. time and time again yagami has the exact same conversation with kuwana, and only once with kusumoto (that’s undestandable though, BUT he pressures kuwana more in intensity time and time again vs the only chance he has with kusumoto).

an interesting thing here is what they are about to lose if kawai’s murder comes to light. kusumoto herself says it best:

kuwana will be tortured (to death), kusumoto’s political actions will be controlled. fair. the exact same.

btw she’s not the first one to tell yagami that kuwana is in grave danger. hell, yagami himself says (repeats) that to others.

but when kuwana says it to him, yagami suddenly doesn’t want to listen and doesn’t care that kuwana most probably going to die if he is about to go to the police (most obvious example of this exchange is shown before dig in your heels fight). which is kind of ridicuous, and may be the writers’ oversight, but i prefer to think that it is to show us how stagnant yagami’s beliefs may sometimes be.

yeah. tell me more. he literally says “i can excuse ANYONE but i draw the line at kuwana”. that is also considering that he still can save kuwana’s life, as opposite to emi and sawa. getting the truth of sawa’s murder out is retribution.

so, yeah, i believe that for the most part, his approach to justice is closer to punitive aspect than restorative, hence those all “i get how you feel, i know so well that it scares me”. yagami’s main problem with kuwana is that the latter decides himself what’s the right thing to do. it blinds him so much that he doesn’t care about what happens to kuwana after he surrenders to the police.

...to be fair to him, this is true only until the last cutscenes of the game.

this includes kuwana. i don’t care if i’m being delusional. it just does. the point here is that kuwana’s life is worth more than the justice system which is tend to be broken and redefined in the state that it is now.

...that’s not the point of this post though, so i’ll just shut up.

the whole “coming clear with your crimes” thing would work if both kuwana and kusumoto do that, simultaneously, not just kuwana. and yeah, yagami talks to them both, though in the end, kusumoto's confession seems to be enough. because for public security, kuwana is valuable as long as kusumoto’s secret is, uh, a secret. as well as he can’t be used as a scapegoat for soma’s crimes anymore, thanks to mafuyu and takano’s efforts to uncover this whole PS mess.

yet, yagami pressures kuwana the most. as if he’s not just a tool in a large-scale political game lol, and if his whole role in it wasn’t obvious to yagami from the beginning.

or what, he thinks if he was able to put himself in danger while investigating AD-9, and survive through it all, then anybody else can do it? kuwana is much more defenseless than yagami was, there’s nothing that would’ve protected him, or at least avenged the memory of him in the worst case scenario,

it fascinates me how yagami just... ignores the very real threat to kuwana’s life and his obvious insignificance in the grand scheme of things. idk. maybe yagami used kuwana more as an outlet for his frustration, but wow, that was fucking cruel of him to keep repeating to kuwana to go kys (sorry.)

during the boat’s scene, we can see in real time how yagami’s belief clash with each other: he knows that kuwana is about to be silenced for the greater good (the fate unfair to anyone), but kuwana is also a serial killer and that very kind of scum (who brushes away the consequences of his crimes) which doesn’t deserve to be saved.

^ i love this moment, how yagami still can’t figure out how to feel about him.

and then kuwana proves that he’s not, in fact, the kind of a person yagami despises, and the scales tip in his favor. yay. but kuwana is still a serial killer with no remorse to which he seems “deserving” of his justice. nay (?).

although, the problem is solved when kuwana uncovers his crimes. maybe, he won’t kill again, because going public with the reasoning behind them is good enough of a lesson (hard maybe).

but i think it’s beautiful, you know, in the end how yagami ends up losing his judgment of people, and that’s all just because of kuwana.

yes, it is a shippy post after all.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

No Lesser Evil

Beeping. Lazy repetitive beeping filled the sterile room.

Glaring sunlight flooded in from the large windows, and the only artificial lights were tiny, blinking on the countless medical devices that surrounded Chloe Grant.

The fog lifted from her consciousness, and she connected the beeping to those medical devices and tiny blinking lights. To the cables and diodes on her, and the IV drip attached to her arm. The lazy beeping belonged to the system monitoring her heart rate.

Her body ached, sore from lying in bed for too long.

A long sigh escaped her.

And as she twitched, her movement stalled, and searing hot pain shot through her side like lightning.

She pawed at the hospital gown and pulled it up to find a clean bandage beneath her ribs, and like the sunlight flooding in, shreds of memories flooded back, washing over her. The creature’s deadly claw had cleaved through the air and sliced her side open.

Without even removing the bandage, flashes of memories invaded her mind through a distant haze—memorizes of slipping in and out of consciousness, and riding the razor-thin edge between life and death—of latex-gloved hands, and a needle and thread stitching her up. Of masked doctors and nurses looming over her as they scrambled and rambled to keep her alive.

A chair at the side of her bed stood in a way where a visitor could have been sitting and speaking to her.

A visitor she vaguely remembered.

A woman. A woman with long, fire-red hair.

Loretta Corsino—she had been saying something to Grant while she was slipping in and out of her delirium. Another shredded memory that sank into a foggy oblivion.

Still, the monitor lazily beeped. Lights blinked.

The sunlight from outside felt warm on her skin. Pleasant.

Better than the throbbing underneath the bandage.

Grant knew better than to rip the IV drip out or leave hastily.

She stared at the button hanging over her bed, dithering on whether or not to buzz for a nurse. Doubtful that Celava’s sweeper team would have delivered her to a common hospital in Rome after her encounter with the Apex Predator they had kept contained in Intellitech’s basement.

The more awake she became, the more Grant’s side hurt, and the more that buzzer tempted her. The relief that pain medication might bring if she only asked.

Something told her: she only needed to press that button.

And ask.

Grounding her, her throat felt like burning desert sand. A glass of crystal-clear water on the bedside table tempted her even more than the buzzer and the prospect of pain meds.

She surrendered to that lesser temptation.

Grant grabbed the glass and sipped. Sipped again.

How good the water tasted to her now.

She winced as another jolt of pain shot through her side from all the movement.

The damned Predator had cut her. A deep wound.

It was a nice hospital. Too nice to be of the public sort.

Probably private, and most definitely under the corporate auspices of Celava.

Which only left one big, glaring question.

Why?

She had broken into their premises, and entered the country with a false identity. With the amount of resources and pull they had, Celava’s agents could have ferried her away to some black site, or simply disposed of her corpse and covered up any trail leading to them as culprits.

Any investigations into her disappearance would lead nowhere.

So… why were they keeping her alive? Nursed back to health?

She cursed under her breath and another twitch triggered another jolt of pain in her side.

The entire mission had been a failure. She had failed to get the data dump out of the building to Ruiz—so they were none the wiser on what Celava’s game truly was. And now she was sitting in one of the lion’s dens.

Left to wonder how hungry the lion was.

At the very least, Grant hoped, Ruiz had gotten away, and only she herself had been compromised.

Dark thoughts swirled once it dawned on her how little leverage she held in any upcoming interrogations, which she inevitably expected Celava agents to put her through. There probably wasn’t much they didn’t already know about Future Proof’s operations, but there was no telling how much it would take to satisfy them and let her go.

If they let her go.

The door to her hospital bedroom opened. A nurse in bright pink scrubs wheeled in a sleek black stand, crowned by a flat-screen television set.

The nurse gave Grant a weary smile. Tired, exhausted, perhaps even marked by pity—the nurse’s kindly face was hard for her to read.

“Dinner will be served soon,” she said, with heavy Italian accent. “I hope you are feeling better now.”

Grant nodded.

The oddity of it all dispelled all the dark thoughts. It all felt like she had fallen through the cracks of reality into another, parallel world.

After all—after traveling through the Anomalies, and seeing time re-written, again and again—that was the case, wasn’t it?

The nurse plugged in the TV, switched it on, and left the room with swift steps, flashing Grant another weary smile before closing the door behind herself.

The screen was on, but stayed a dark gray, with only green letters in the top corner indicating it was set to receive a signal. A tiny webcam topped the device. The shiny black bead of its camera stared back at Grant with utter coldness.

She steeled herself, prepared to see a familiar face, but not the one that winked onto existence on screen in vibrant color.

A prowling lion of a man stared at her through the television screen. Silver hair in a crew cut framed a roadmap of wrinkles, speaking volumes to a life of hard-earned power and dignified prestige. His gaze burned as it rested squarely upon Grant, as stern as the rest of his entire expression, barely distracting from a shaven jaw so sharp that it could cut glass.

Muscles on his crossed arms bulged within the confines of a dark blue three-piece suit.

Grant recognized him from the photos: Malcolm Wright. The CEO of Celava himself.

Conan the Barbarian in a designer suit, as Danielle had put it.

“Miss Grant,” he addressed her through the screen, authoritative gravitas to match his appearance. British accent, though different from the Operator’s Cockney—sounding more sophisticated and theatrical, like David Attenborough. “Welcome back to the world of the living. I hope these accommodations are agreeable, despite the unusual circumstances of our meeting.”

Though dryness still plagued her throat, she knew not what to say.

All of this—these circumstances—all of this was a far cry from whatever she had been expecting.

She took another sip of water instead of replying, and he kindly picked up the slack.

“The dossier on you has been growing quite quickly since your visit to the Intellitech premises. You must have questions.” He clenched his jaw and stared at her through the screen, reading her closely through that cold, dead lens atop the TV set.

Collecting intel on her, they likely only had data and secondhand accounts to interpret in gauging her and her motives. The less she spoke, the more he needed to rely on blind assumptions—and the more likely she might have ended up finding something useful to leverage in the interrogation she expected to follow their exchange.

Therefore, she took another sip of water. Stayed her tongue.

Wright smirked.

He continued after the prolonged pause, and the absence of any reply from Grant.

“From what I gather, you must be quite the asset to Future Proof. But with what happened at the Rome office, I’m sure that all of that has changed. The bad news is, Malachi might not see you as favorably as he once did. On the bright side, I have a job opening to a woman of your talents. There is a future in Celava for you.”

A sales pitch. And a clever move to match. The better they took care of her here, the more likely she had been compromised by the rival company—limiting her options, rendering her a persona non grata with Future Proof, and rendering her more vulnerable to whatever was bound to spill next from Malcolm Wright’s lips.

Rather than an interrogation… this was a job offer.

“I’m impressed,” she finally said. She needed to exert an air of authority of her own. Stand her ground, and angle for the best conditions. “For a moment, I thought I’d wake up on some volcano island, surrounded by sharks and lasers, while you monologue your dastardly plan at me. Well, Mister Wright, here’s your chance to show me you’re Mister Right, and not some run-of-the-mill lunatic, or… some deluded jackass who’s going to ruin the world for profit margins and a golden parachute.”

Wright smirked again.

“How very American. I admire audacity,” he said, with the last word riding on a gravelly growl. “If any of my reputation precedes me, then you know I am not one for petty formalities, nor do I give a hoot about false-hooded flattery. I’ll do both of us a favor and cut to the chase. I don’t want nor need you to act as a double agent on the inside of your former employer’s organization. I don’t need nor care about whatever insipid experiments Malachi and his lackeys are cooking up next. It’s now clear to me—we are already years ahead of the competition. The future, Miss Grant, is ours to shape.”

He had meant that quite literally. The gravity of his words echoed in her mind like rolling thunder.

The future, Miss Grant, is ours to shape.

She took another sip of water.

None of this was the kind of play she had expected. Then again, it fit the opinion pieces she had read about Wright.

Eccentric, confident, and deeply impatient. Like most in the tech industry, he believed governments and laws were posing unnecessary restrictions on brilliant and creative minds such as his own. Unlike most, he had lifted Celava up from obscurity and turned it into a successful company, though not as successful as those who cut corners or played loose with their ethical standards.

He certainly wasn’t the kind of man to suffer sycophants nor fools, and he wasn’t going to tolerate her dancing around the matter at hand.

Thus, she decided to play his game. To match the ante and call any bluffs.

“What exactly do you need me for? And would the price tag outclass whatever Spencer was paying me?”

“I’m aware of the dangerous field work you engaged in, and your excellent track record prior to employment in Future Proof. I will double whatever he was paying, all benefits included, and then some.”

She almost choked on her sip of water.

This was no idle offer.

So what was the catch?

He answered her unspoken question. “It would be the most dangerous, deadly, and rewarding work in your entire life. I can only use the smartest, the fastest, and the strongest in my entourage. You would be leaving your life behind to start anew—turning your back on the modern day as you know it, where corruption and weakness are endemic to our so-called civilization. But I assure you—you would be writing history, and your name would go down in the books with mine as the intrepid, as the warriors and explorers and scientists who went on to create a better world.”

He meant every word he was saying.

His convictions ran deep, rooted in every fiber of his being, and the zeal in his voice lent uncanny credence to his speech.

She washed it all down with another sip, hoping to finally dispel the cotton feeling in her throat.

Radiance.

Even through a screen, he radiated with the sunlight of his convictions, shining with charisma.

He meant every word. As naïve as it sounded, he was being sincere with her.

Where even in the world was he? No—when in the world was he?

Was he speaking to her through the Anomalies somehow?

Then she remembered the wasteland she had glimpsed of the future, past the Anomalies in the Crossroads she had traveled.

The doomed future Spencer had predicted, and pinned upon Wright’s back.

“You,” he said, and that single syllable placed a heavy weight on her sore shoulders. “You would lead with others of your caliber. You are educated, capable, and physically fit enough to face the challenges you would be tasked with dealing with. And you would challenge me. All I demand is loyalty, and unwavering courage.”

Another sip.

She asked him, “What if I say ‘no’? What if I want to just, you know, walk away from all of this?”

His eyes narrowed. The rest of his expression turned stony and cold.

“I would be very disappointed, and our conversation would end right here. But you are free to walk away. I will not press charges, I will not pursue you any further for your invasion of Intellitech’s privacy, though you may suffer the consequences should you choose to cross me again.”

The words sank in.

Once she walked away, back to Future Proof, Spencer and all the others would forever question her loyalty to the company. She would forever be considered a potential traitor, a double agent.

She could have asked for more details, but knew better. He also knew better, and would never divulge anything that risked the success of his operations. He wouldn’t open up about anything that might endanger… well, whatever he was plotting.

Beeping machines filled the silence between them until Wright spoke again.

“Think about it, and think carefully. I am not asking you to simply relocate to a different office in a different city, I am asking you to leave your entire life behind, and build a new world with your own two hands. It will be difficult, and there will be blood, and sweat to shed along the way.”

Building a colony out of time, deep in the past.

That was how Spencer had phrased it—what he believed Wright was up to. And with what Wright had just said, the puzzle pieces were all falling neatly into place.

“But I sense it—I sense the thunder in your heart,” he said. “Once you have made up your mind… call me. I await your response, Miss Grant, and I have a feeling you will not disappoint.”

He had leaned closer to the camera, having grown on the screen before her.

The image of Wright went dark, and with that, consigned his appearance to the digital void.

Was he already in his Promised Land, in a prehistoric era, manipulating their future from the distant past?

All dark thoughts now mingled with uncertainty and something else—with curiosity.

Some part of his offer excited Chloe Grant.

Mulling over his offer, she worried about those she might leave behind—her mother, Danielle, her friends, and her colleagues at Future Proof whom she had come to like. Even the memory of the late Max Carter and all his grumpy swearing surfaced in those swirling thoughts of those she’d leave behind.

Grant rubbed her temples, unsettled that this meant she was considering Wright’s offer in all earnest.

Some part of her was… tempted.

That part of her kept growing by the second. Like a blooming flower, blossoming in her mind.

Such warm sunlight on her skin.

What was it that kept her here? In this life? It wasn’t the money, though the pay didn’t hurt.

Was she so different from Wright? Didn’t she sometimes dream of something resembling his vision?

And could she really trust Spencer and his speech of Wright being responsible for some nebulous doomsday in the future? Or was Spencer the one who would be to blame for that horrid apocalypse, and the Apex Predators?

Then again—one of those creatures had been kept in Intellitech’s basement like a leashed hound. And her side throbbed where the Predator had almost cut her open to bleed out.

Then, yet again—she knew too little beyond whatever narrative either man was spinning. Two rival CEOs, two rival companies, all toying with the fabric of reality and time itself, by toying with the mysterious Anomalies.

And here she was, between them, at a fork in the road.

She needed to decide, and nothing would make this decision any easier.

There was no lesser evil. No certainty in doing the right or wrong thing.

Her mother would be fine. In her disappearance, Future Proof’s life insurance payout would kick in, and provide for her mother for life, beyond a shade of any doubt.

Her friends would move on. It wasn’t like their lives hung in any balance. She’s miss some of their scheduled appointments by the end of the month, and they would find out that Chloe Grant had gone missing, though her disappearance would be covered behind so much red tape that they would have no other choice but to move on.

And as much as she enjoyed the company of her colleagues at Future Proof, she felt no personal attachment to any of them. She barely knew them outside of their work life together.

That only left… Danielle.

Danielle, who had moved in with her.

But Danielle had been involved with a Chloe Grant of this timeline, while this Chloe Grant still felt alien to herself, and the timeline she returned to. Though they were the same Chloe Grant, somehow, learning of her past and actions and relationship to Danielle still felt like hearing another person’s story.

Like fiction.

And even if Wright was truly responsible for the doomed future that Spencer had predicted—could Grant not have had the best chance at changing that all by getting so close to Wright that she could literally get her hands on his throat?

He had to be there.

Then.

In his colony, in the prehistoric past.

The heartrate monitor still emitted lazy beeping, though the pace had picked up.

Reflecting her growing excitement. Anxiety, perhaps.

The sunlight from outside felt warm on her skin. Kept her calm.

Everything was falling into place somehow. Not puzzle pieces, but chess pieces. Maybe she was one of those pieces on the board, with Spencer playing against Wright. Or maybe she had the chance to become the player.

Maybe this was the right thing to do.

Grant clenched her jaw.

This was her chance to change the future.

“Wright?” she asked out loud. “I have made up my mind.”

The screen stayed dark, though the green letters in the top corner indicated it was still on.

Transmitting and receiving.

She had her answer.

Wright was going to like it.

He was the kind of man who liked winning.

[lord-luci]

I have one exam left for the semester (8am tomorrow, disgusting) and I know I should study for it, but I am so so so eepy. But I need at least a 90 if I want an A, and part of the exam requires memorizing a) all the articles and amendments of the US Constituion and b) memorizing 38 different law cases that helped develop civil rights and law today and that's just. disgusting.

[sol-flo]

soo impatient for my packidges today.... i wanna see what 20gb ram can do..... the year of the gamer.......

[loptrcoptr]

When one team complains that the historical materials you gave them for their project aren’t cool enough to use because they aren’t photos of individuals or big group meetings

And then they end up using the materials anyway and the whole workplace thinks it’s so cool and sends it around in an email chain praising the team for providing such fascinating insight into the organizations history

[mangoisms]

h-hello ... asking when fmrb's update coming .. ? 🥹 no pressure though! If you're busy i understand!

anon i need you know i saw this and was fully prepared to tell you that i have no idea because i get Lazy sometimes, at least in regards to proofing chapters before they go up and the longer i put it off — like today — the less likely i am to get around to it. but THEN. i looked at this longer and it gave me the burst of energy i needed to do it. i was like. no. no. it’s frmb tuesday. i must deliver on frmb tuesday. and this helped nudge me along to read chapter 29 and get it prepped for posting, which i did and it is here for you to read. so thank you <3

it also, after longer thought, made me realize i should just proof the rest of the chapters — which, after chapter 30, is 12 more (well 13 with the extras but. yeah) — and that way i can upload those drafts into ao3 and they’ll be ready to be posted when that day comes around, which will save me a lot of work down the line. so that’s what we are doing 😎😎😎

[fourspiceblend]

No fear

Creator Sword getting a shit refine just because m!Byleth was technically a free unit/the weapon has aged well and already has a lot of effects most units want

One fear

[jestiamy]

#responding to gloomy; 23 24 #1 #2 #3 #4 for the oc ask game since. oc was not specified I'm going to choose who I answer for what based on how interesting I think the answer will be

23: venera is stupidly loyal. 'how is that a flaw' you ask me. I say she takes it to the point it somehow is, in fact, a genuine character flaw. if she likes you and you say, hey man if I ever start going crazy and killing people you're joining me right? as like a joke or whatever. she goes yeah sure! in that way she says literally everything that kind of makes it hard to tell if she's being serious. only for you to find out several years later she in fact does have a very detailed plan of what she would do in the event you both are going evil, and it mostly goes 'fuck stuff up, vary depending on the brand of evil.' -- I guess if I put her in the linear lmk timeline she'd be an antagonist because of how I'd play with that, actually. / she's pretty honest, actually. well, for the most part. in the somewhat evil antagonist linear lmk au that's probably mostly her 'canon' setting she's probably not very honest most of the time. she's also actually physically really strong, despite shapeshifters not getting 'all' of the power of their source, even a fraction of unknown amount of macaque is like, several times the power of the average demon. she does not look this strong whatsoever, this is really helpful in the event of an actual fight as literally no one expects her to be able to throw even a proper punch (mostly because she can't. she just kicks stuff and hopes that's enough. it usually is.) 24: Makya is actually the only oc I have that had a serious plotline around that, as his father passes away in the summer of 1955 (around there, anyways. sometimes he dies in the winter of 1946 because I give makya a brother but that's a crossover au and so we are pointedly not talking about it) mostly he just kind of walled himself off after. became a bit of a globe trotter. basically dissociated for ten years straight. it's a bit of a ride but he was freshly immortal so he was kind of coming to terms with that too, in normal circumstances he just tends to isolate himself more. 1*: oh yeah sure, like all of them - makya has skulls, light has all consuming darkness (and spiderwebs), v has general fluidity, ch'en has the ouroboros/the circle, hong has, oddly enough, crosses, gongdai has clocks, I could keep going but I occasionally repeat themes a few times over sometimes. *taking motif to mean like, a central part of them and their journey and a representative of that. some being more literal then others 2: none of my characters have voice claims. literally none. except, of course, light, who has a stupidly distorted sans undertale voice beeps that come out whenever they talk. think error sans in underverse. they are the literal only one. I generally struggle with voice claims and don't like having to do it so I typically don't 3: indoor: default for all my ocs. outdoor: karius, makya, hong, jianwei. neutral: light, venera 4: venera has a hobby of watching people. an unfortunate hold over from when she was looking for a base like, several hundred years ago. she didn't really try to kick it. light talks to the voices in their head (the hypothetical tumblr ask blog mentioned in the tags of this post). the voices in their head generally ask stupid things, like wow why are you in this weird creepy void light, why don't you have clothes light, why are we here light, etc. it's not very fun for light, mostly because they don't really have answers. the voices don't need to know that though. jianwei melodramatically stands in the rain and wonders how his life devolved into where it is now in his spare time. makya does not have spare time and he generally prefers it that way.