#i TOLD you all he's at least 6'6

[shoyoist]

popped it in google translate because i needed to know and "IT SEEMS LIKE HE'S STILL GROWING TALLER" ??? 😭😭 SHUJI ?!?!

[alienpossession]

After a very demanding workout session and having several hours to spend before his date, Dean decided to slide into his Instagram and treated his close friends with some personal Q&A sesh

But, all the close friend and Dean himself are not necessarily of this world, to put it simply. Hence, the question that started to pile up might not sound like a series of question that you would ask in a normal human conversation

"How can you end up in his body? What's the trick? My host is a decent-sized jock and the battle to gain control over his body was crazy tough, cannot imagine yours,"

I just followed the manual, you know. Caught them off-guard and ensure that they are tired. He fell asleep inside this personal sauna after a grueling workout. Add the fact that he was cutting to prep himself for a bodybuilding competition, well, that's a cocktail for success to tame a beastly jock this size

"Is the sexual stamina better compared to your previous host, noting the size differences 😜😜"

LOL, sorry for the disappointment back then, Gustavo. There's not a lot of people that can withstand your sexual prowess anyway, but I'm definitely the top if we are ever hooking up again

"How do you handle the first 24 hours? The crash after all his memory become accessible must've been out of this world!"

Messed my bed like a baby, but it's cum and sweat instead of piss HAHAH. Yeah, crazy shit, dude is a horny, power-hungry muscle beast

"So, have you converted his significant others? Or do you plan to just mindfuck them later so they will be working as indentured labor?"

Nope, not yet. He lived on his own anyway so we gotta wait for the 4th of July break for it to happen. But the girlfriend already fell though, bitch never stood a chance once I plugged her throat with this monster, she was a sobbing flailing mess when mini-mes swarmed her throat and entire body. Now I told her to help out on slowly infecting my friends. Gotta do it subtly though, no reason actually, just love to play with those oblivious human

"Favorite thing to do as human, aside from sex obviously,"

To be honest, partying. It's just so nice being a 6'6", 225 lbs mass of a presence in a dark, packed club or even festival grounds with great music. I always have party or at least a night out inside my calendar for most of the week, such a blast. And of course, sex also involved to really spice things up, but honestly I don't mind if there's any sex or not as long as the party is lit

And Dean keep on answering all sort of other questions, thinking that his identity as a converted alien puppet remain hidden due to the close friends feature. But his little brother, a 21 years old sophomore living 300 miles away from him, took screenshot of every single close friend stories that Dean made, his mind distraught by the fact that his older brother practically no longer exist but his dick chubbed up to the point of leaking pre as his wildest sexual kink manifested in real time and happened to someone he personally knows.

So, like any horny 21 years old, he decided to rub one out while letting his brother stories played in loop. Should he confront Dean about all of this? Or will that risk him turned into a puppet too?

[rayshippouuchiha]

These two blankets are currently on my hook and I'm alternating between them.

The rainbow one is 3 weight acrylic yarn, also stored in the hoard since A.C.Moore's closure. The pattern is a stacked granny stitch used in March's stitch of the month from Jayda in Stitches' 2021 calendar blanket.

The striped blanket is also Bernat Blanket yarn (can you tell I have a favorite type?) in Yarnspirations' Lush Life pattern, which uses the Alpine stitch. I had actually planned to use this yarn to make a blanket for my youngest brother (I'll use his nickname, Bubba), who selfishly took all the height genes for himself and is already 6'6" and still growing. We were at my other younger brother's (who I am only allowed to refer to as Pie, he will accept no other name from me) apartment and I told him (Bubba) what I was planning and he immediately started making that face that all people who learn of a gift they don't want but will accept anyway because "family." I asked him what was wrong, and he hemmed and hawed for a few minutes before finally admitting that he didn't like the sensation of crocheted items against his skin.

I hadn't started the blanket yet, but I told Bubba that I would rather he had told me now so that I know and don't spend my time on making something he's not going to like. It would hurt my feelings more that he felt he had to accept something just because I made it for him. After I gave him a hug, our brother Pie, turns to me and says, "So, I hear you have yarn for a blanket, but no one to give it too. I find myself in need of another blanket." As if the little shit hasn't snagged everything I made that I didn't already have a person in mind for or kept for myself. He must have taken at least 20 pattern testing amigurumis and several blankets already. I have had to pat him down a few times for just completed projects that were commissioned before he left my place.

these are fucking art goddamn it

[thevanillerose]

TRAINING | GLADIOLUS x READER | FFXV

~ WRITING COMMISSIONS ~ ~ PATREON ~ ~ KO-FI ~

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own anything except my own writing. All properties belong to their respective creators.

“Hey, time to get up sleepy head!” “Mnn...” “C'mon princess, you'll have plenty time to doze later...” “Jes...just...one more minute...”

THWACK. “OW!”

You jolted up like you were on a spring, and quickly shoved his heavy boot away from your side. He hadn't kicked you hard, you were more irritated by the fact that he had pulled you out of such a nice dream. Riding a Chocobo through a field of fluffy white cotton. Ah...you could just...lay back down and...drift away again...

“Ah ah ah, you're not gonna slip that one by me. Come on-” A strong hand took you by the arm and hoisted you up before you had a chance to even open your eyes properly. Rubbing the sleep from them as you were sent stumbling forth and out of the tent flaps, you finally came to enough to turn and give him a good glare.

The man who woke you up was Gladiolus Amicitia- the trusted and loyal bodyguard for Prince Noctis. He stood tall in the sunlight...though he always stood tall, whatever the weather. Hard not to when you were pushing 6'6”. And if his height wasn't notable enough, his muscles certainly were. To say the guy worked out would be an understatement.

Amber eyes smirked back at you, and you scoffed, running a hand through your messy [H/C] hair so you could at least smooth it down. Yes, much like the Crown Prince himself, you were bad for sleeping in. However, Gladio hadn't even given you time to get ready, much less compose yourself. And you needed to. He was training you this morning...and training with him was really no joke.

“Remember what I taught you last time?” he walked over and slapped his palm down around your shoulder. You just looked up at him sourly. “I barely remember my own name right now.” He just laughed heartily. It was hard not to cheer up a bit when he did. His happy moments may not have been as infectious as Prompto's, but it was always nice to see such a tough man smile. Really, he wasn't so bad.

Gladio had been training you like this every morning for the past week while you camped out in Duscae, but it wasn't out of cruelty. If anything, it was the opposite.

You were more of a tactician than anything else, and sometimes you really felt tacked on to this party. Even being sent to accompany and protect Prince Noctis had been a last minute affair. Not that you were complaining...it was far better to be here than back in Insomnia.

You were still shaken by the news. And Noct...well...you tried not to ever talk about it with him.

Gladio only wanted you to feel like you were of more use, since you had told him you'd felt you weren't of any. He was looking out for you by doing this...as torturous as it could be having to wake up at the break of dawn and start exerting yourself. Regardless, you were grateful.

“C'mon princess, let's get going before the others wake up. You wanna be back in time for Ignis' famous breakfast, right?” Gladiolus attempted to spur you on with the promise of food, and yes, shamefully, it was enough to get you going. Letting him lead the way down off the camping plateau and toward the marshy plains, you jogged lightly after him, but soon picked up the pace enough to become level with the guy.

A little sweat was already gathering on your brow but you tried not to make a big deal of it. It would be true to say that part of you wanted to impress him. When it came to anything physical he was always the king, and you at least wanted to keep up in some respects.

Eventually you reached your destination, which was one of the fishing shacks arranged around the edges of the vast lake there. Coming to a stop by the mirror-esque water, you caught sight of yourself reflected within it. All hunched over with your hands on your knees like that and your hair strewn haphazardly around your face, you couldn't help grimacing.

So what? You were spending one-on-one time with an objectively attractive male. Who could really blame you for wanting to look presentable?

Quickly fixing yourself, you then turned and exhaled slowly, seeing that Gladio was already standing there ready and waiting to start the next phase of training. The run here was only meant as a warm up. Here was where the real tricky stuff started.

You called it 'tricky' because you really weren't a fighter. Sure, you could handle the daggers you carried well enough, but you were still distinctly lacking when it came to combat. Gladio was here to help you gain that sharp edge...to become more capable. You hoped.

“Let's pick up where we left off last time.” he cracked his knuckles, though it was for preparation, not intimidation. “You need to learn to become more aware of your surroundings. Half of combat is all about blocking. If you go crazy just trying to get in a hit anywhere you can, you'll not only tire yourself out, but you'll leave yourself completely open for a counterstrike.” This was all knowledge you could have inferred yourself, but you still listened to him intently as he carried on: “The key is timing. Knowing when to attack, and knowing when to shield yourself. Now-”

Suddenly, his fist swung. You gasped and stumbled back a step, quickly throwing up your arm in a clumsy fashion. Naturally he didn't plan on actually hitting you, but his knuckle still came close enough to give you a scare. Pulling back again, Gladio took another step towards you and laid his hand upon your shoulder once more, making sure you were steady. “See, now that's an issue. And it was only hand to hand too. You'll definitely struggle if you try to block a sword like that.”

Most certainly in the case of the one he carried. No innuendo intended.

“Right...okay...” you sighed heavily. A bout of weariness hit you again but you quickly shook your head to get rid of the sensation. Gladiolus didn't seem to notice, instead just carrying on with his lesson.

“Let me show you the best way of doing this. Take out your daggers for me.”

Doing as he asked, you placed them in his palm when he held it out expectantly. Lifting the weapons to his eyeline, Gladio then felt the blade of one between his thumb and forefinger, before humming and nodding.

“Yeah, it's strong enough alright.” “Strong enough for what?” Your innocently phrased question prompted a live demonstration from the man. And you didn't feel quite so innocent when he stood behind you and pressed up against your back.

It was in moments like these that you really noticed how small you were compared to him. You weren't actually that tiny for a girl, but you were practically a gnat in comparison to someone like Gladio. His strong and muscled arms looped around in front of your chest, though didn't wrap around you. Rather, he had only positioned himself in such a way so that he could take your hands in his and help guide the glinting blades. Even his hands alone seemed to engulf yours...

“See, if you cross them like this-” Gladio moved your limbs so that blade was against blade, forming something of an 'X' shape, “-it'll act as a makeshift shield for you. Blocking a two handed beast like this still isn't ideal, but it gives you an option if you don't have the time or speed to roll aside.”

As you stared up at the two intertwined blades, you could see the sun shining boldly through the gap. The heat from those golden rays beat down upon your already sweating face, and you squinted. Your vision started to blur, your knees wobbling.

Suddenly the sky was rolling around you. A mix of blues and greens shot through your vision, until you felt the middle of your back hit something firm. The sight before you was replaced by a sudden darkness, and your eyes fell heavy before closing...

Some time passed, yet for you it was an instant. Those same eyes of yours began to flicker, letting in little glimpses of far more filtered light, before eventually opening enough to let you see the canopy of leaves above. At your side, your palm ventured out to help push you up, gracing over a soft, cool fabric, set down against the slightly moist grass. Though you managed to urge yourself to sit, something quickly took hold of your shoulder.

You knew that motion anywhere.

Looking over, you could see Gladiolus sitting on the same navy blue blanket, his arm outstretched to hold you steady. His sharp amber eyes never left your weary visage for a second.

“Easy there...just take it slow.” he urged you cautiously, before gently letting his hand slip away when he was sure you were sitting fine. Blinking a few more times to clear away the last spots of drowsiness, you observed the gruff man with a furrowed brow.

“...What...what happened?” “You fainted.” he stated simply, turning his attention away from you momentarily to focus on the pot of food he was stirring, before looking back again. “It was my fault. I think I pushed you too much, too soon.” “No that's...that's what I wanted though...” you spoke drearily and shook your head in what felt like slow motion. Clearly you still weren't totally together after that ordeal, but at least you were in the shade.

Gladiolus must have caught you when you collapsed. Good thing he was standing right there, eh?

“Doesn't matter what you wanted, I should have seen it coming. Obviously you were already at your limit.” Gladiolus continued to scold himself while he spooned up some soup and motioned closer. His hand went to your lower back and he held the spoon before your lips. “Open up. Ignis made this for you.”

Usually you would have been internally freaking out at this point. Every time he touched you during training you always felt a bit of a spark anyway, but here he really was treating you like the 'princess' he affectionately called you (even though you were far from royalty). However, you were still so woozy that you merely did as he wanted with little reaction, opening your mouth and letting him feed you. It was delicious of course, as could be expected from the delicacy master himself- Ignis. Though a worrying thought came to mind as he helped you eat, and between your second and third spoonful you had to ask:

“-Did the other boys find out about this then?” “What, about you fainting?” Gladiolus smirked and shook his head. “Don't worry, I had a feeling you'd want to save face. I just told them you wanted to have breakfast down by the lake since it looked so nice. They didn't suspect a thing.”

Good. Relieved, you started to relax a little more. Your strength returned enough to let you finish the soup yourself, and once you had you felt magnanimously better. Finally, you were human again.

“That was awful. Dammit...why am I so weak?” you questioned curtly, and Gladiolus took his turn to frown. “[Y/N], you're not weak. Not even slightly. Do you think we could have come this far if you were?” He had a point. You were already well underway on your journey, and it wasn't like it had always been a piece of cake. Still... “I need to be stronger than this. I need to get stronger so I can protect the Prince...”

Yes. Maybe you did. But as Gladio looked at you, he didn't see a single thing he really wanted to change. At first he could admit that he had doubted how useful you would be as part of the Crownsguard. Yet over time he had come to see just how important you were to the team. You were incredibly smart, and quick thinking. You had a knack for knowing what to do even in the most baffling situations. Just as a good defence was as important as a good attack, it was also crucial to have that kind of clarity at your disposal.

Besides...that wasn't the only thing he had started to notice about you. You had many other notable assets too...and as you sat there in the mottled shade of the lakeside tree, he saw one of them very clearly. A gentle, tender smile had spread across your lips and in turn illuminated the rest of your features. Sometimes he doubted it was possible you could look any prettier, yet in that moment you perhaps looked the most beautiful he had ever seen you.

“Thank you, Gladio. For helping me so much. I promise I'll do better next time...” “Don't...don't worry about it.” Did he just stutter? Stumble over his words? Hell, he even rubbed the back of his neck like a sheepish schoolboy. Gladiolus quickly composed himself again though. Right now wasn't the right time for that. Right now he wasn't ready to reveal anything of that nature.

“You can take a day off tomorrow, and then we'll carry on after that.” he told you, to which you nodded affirmatively. “Sounds good.”

That was right. For the moment...he just had to focus.

In a way...he was training himself too.

[msfbgraves]

Terry has proved that he’s capable of cheating and of rape towards Daniel. Would Terry ever harm Daniel physically/be capable of domestic violence if he got angry or upset enough…maybe not even at Daniel, but to take out his anger on him like he did with Michael.

Last question: if Daniel knew years before what Terry would one day do to him, would he still want to marry him?

Terry is not a batterer. I think that he got hit, a lot, in "the life", maybe his Daddy threw his weight around sometimes (they had a good marriage, his parents, but Daddy may have thought an Alpha boy should be able to handle some physical punishment, and indeed all the mobsters he started working his way up for could be rough). One of the first things he tells his pups is "we don't hit people we love". Going by how Thomas Ian Griffith uses sex to intimidate when he plays villains more than outright manhandling, I felt it more likely he'd cross a line during sex than by attacking Daniel. Especially since Daniel has quite a lot of self-defense training, but would of course much sooner let his guard down making love. (I think that fight scene in Cobra Kai between them is out of character for him, and more fanservice).

Really if he were the slapping type you would have seen him do it by now in the story.

Also, and this is not meant to be a sympathy thing for Terry, he had a bad time doing it. Fuck you, Terry, of course, but even he didn't like how it made him feel. And Daniel has always known - if he does that again I will kill him. Maybe not during, but very soon after. Were this a normal marriage, it would have ended there.

But it's not, is it?

Had everyone known this for certain, there wouldn't have been a marriage, I can promise you. But now there were five pups involved. That changes things.

Daniel never wanted this marriage, but had you told him in year 2 of being mated he wouldn't have believed you.

Still, I know the trope of a mobster who would hurt anyone BUT you is really hot but I don't buy it. Sonny Corleone was a philanderer. Michael killed his brother, his brother in law and at least once assaulted Kay. Terry Silver we've all seen and even Terry McCain half forced his girlfriend back into a relationship with him by showing up, all 6'6 of volatile strength, and simply moving himself back in.

This marital rape, for me, is Terry Silver's version of what the whole Godfather 3 is about, a mobster crossing their own line. Rare enough as it is.

He won't do that again.

[purplekoop]

Time for the first of Overwatch 2's new heroes to get a requeue, with this one possibly being a surprise!

Sojourn

New Role: Tank Health: 500 (400 normal, 100 armor)

I'm skipping the backstory this time because... well truth be told, I'm not super read up on the ins and outs of Sojourn's normal backstory, and what I do know from her Origin Story video and cinematic doesn't really give me any great ideas for how to twist it. Instead, I'll go over the broader concepts for her visual design changes and then her kit.

The most obvious problem with making any hero into a Tank that wasn't one already (or vice versa) is size. Being a role all about being the center of attention in a team fight, taking a lot of damage and being able to shrug it off, Tanks have to be bigger than the other characters for balancing reasons. Of course, there usually has to be some "reason" a character larger enough than the average to justify a tank-sized health pool, which Overwatch actually accomplishes in a number of ways to make each Tank stand out from the rest. Reinhardt's a big dude in power armor, Roadhog is a big dude but with a hefty gut to soak up hits instead, Junker Queen is tall and buff but not as wide as the big guys, and Zarya is below average in height compared to the others, but carries around a massive gun that adds some bulk to her silhouette. There's also the more obvious ones, like mechs and big robots, but even between them there's variety in the execution.

Which... makes things hard here, since taking a character not designed to be a Tank and fitting them into the role arbitrarily goes against that design convention I respect so much. Doomfist is the one character that was originally made to be a non-Tank, then was assigned the role retroactively with OW2. This worked out for a few reasons, such as his kit already having more crowd control mechanics than typical for a Damage hero but perfectly enough for a Tank, but the other reason is that he was already a decently big guy, and that massive gauntlet certainly added to his bulk. He did get a slight increase in size (which I guess makes him so far the only hero to get a height retcon), but it was a pretty natural transition otherwise.

So that philosophical preamble in place of a backstory aside: how do we make Sojourn fit as a Tank.

In the initial post where I sorted each hero into a new role, I tried to think about what characters had traits that I could extrapolate into fitting a different role. For some characters this was based around existing gameplay mechanics, like Mei and Reaper already being more durable and defensive than other Damage heroes. For others, I tried to have a little foresight and think about how I could tie other traits, like narrative or aesthetic theming, into fitting the new role.

Admittedly, Sojourn was a bit of a toss up between the two possible requeue options. Her specialty is supposedly that she's a tactician, but this is a trait that her gameplay doesn't really convey outside of her being a competent fighter. Not to bully DPS again, but it's arguably the least "tactical" role of the three. I flipped back and forth on where to put her, but ultimately decided on Tank because I feel like I had the best ideas on what to do with it, both visually and functionally.

So, okay, for real now, what's the plan here.

Visually, my idea is... not the strongest I think, but it's fairly simple. Sojourn's body is very heavily cybernetic, and her weapon is a railgun... apparently. I know sci fi tech can do what it wants, but if you know what a railgun is in real life, then you know it's not exactly a handheld deal.

Her redesign is pretty simple, just bulking out what's already there. Her railgun now is much bigger, comparable in size to Zarya's particle cannon. To support this extra weight, her cybernetics are exaggerated to be much larger and more apparent, bulking her up overall and bringing her from about 5'10" (on the taller side already) to about 6'6" (around Zarya's height, though similar to some non-Tanks like Moira and Lifeweaver). The cybernetics also wouldn't quite as seamlessly be hidden away in this design like they are normally, with more of her arms and legs being clearly tech rather than having skin-colored covering. Her outfit would also have more clearly visible armor plating to go along with her armor health.

With that finally established, let's go into her kit:

Her primary fire is still, of course, the Railgun. As it is normally, it fires high-speed energy projectiles in rapid succession. However, it'd get some small adjustments to fit slightly better as a Tank weapon, namely a slight decrease to fire rate and a damage falloff penalty, but increased clip size and having greatly reduced spread.

We'll save her secondary fire for later and instead go over her other abilities, starting with her passive ability, Power Dash. This is a midair jump ability, similar to Hanzo's Lunge or Lifeweaver's Rejuvenating Dash. Using the thrusters built into her legs, Sojourn dashes a short distance in any direction based on her aim and movement. The dash can even be angled vertically to dash upwards. While the movement is brief, any enemies she collides with during the dash also take a small amount of damage and are knocked back in the dash's direction.

Speaking of adapting her old abilities into new roles, her second ability Disruptor Shot is now replaced with Disruptor Field. Sojourn's wrist opens up to reveal a blaster, as usual, but the projectile fired instantly creates an spherical energy field that travels ahead slowly, weakly damaging enemies caught in it, but more importantly destroying projectiles, with nearly identical behavior to Defense Matrix. The energy orb will shrink as it absorbs damage however, making its damage-denial capabilities finite, though the damage it can absorb is nonetheless quite high, and is more limited by properly aiming and timing the field to maximize its effectiveness. The field itself also technically counts as a projectile, and while it phases through barriers and enemies, it still can be absorbed or deflected. If two of the orbs from opposing Sojourns collide, they both instantly delete each other, regardless of their condition prior.

But Disruptor Field is only her supplementary means of denying damage. Her main defensive ability (in the ability 1 slot where Power Slide was) is Energy Guard. Sojourn has her Railgun change shape into an energy shield, which she holds up to protect herself from incoming fire. The shield only blocks damage from the front, similar to Doomfist's Power Block or Ramattra's Nemesis Form Block. However, unlike those abilities, Energy Shield has a unique factor limiting its effectiveness. The shield completely negates damage for the first few seconds it's active, but the percentage of damage it nullifies is reduced over time as the ability is active, with taking damage from enemies speeding up the rate the damage reduction is decreased. As the shield gets weaker, the more vulnerable it is to being reduced even faster. The shield's effectiveness is displayed on a meter near your crosshair, similar to Reinhardt's barrier. When the meter is reduced fully, the shield "breaks", causing the ability to go on cooldown for several seconds. This can be avoided however, as the ability can be cancelled early, causing the shield to be lowered to recharge. This still incurs a short 1 or 2 second cooldown, but rewards more careful usage of the ability by increasing its overall uptime if managed properly.

...Alright, that was a lot of words, but the reason why I made the ability this way is for her secondary fire, the Railgun charge shot.

Blocking damage with Energy Shield charges the railgun, similar to how landing damage with her primary fire does the same normally. The more damage is negated, the more the railgun is charged, on a scale of 1 to 100. This makes blocking damage with a fully in-tact Energy Shield more effective than blocking the same attacks would with a lower charge shield, as the damage Sojourn takes herself doesn't go to charging the Railgun.

Finally, firing the charge shot using the energy you've gathered from blocking attacks. The charge shot is her secondary fire, and fires a hitscan beam that does damage relative to the charge. This should sound familiar, but there's a few differences. You actually have to charge the shots by holding down the fire input before releasing to actually fire the railgun shot. However, the amount of energy you spend on the charge shot doesn't have to be all of the energy you currently have. You can hold the shot to spend all your energy in one big blast, or hold the input for less time to fire multiple long-range hitscan shots in rapid succession. A full-power 100% charged shot has a unique upside though: it can actually pierce enemy players and barriers. Unlike normal game Sojourn though, the charge shot can't score headshots.

Now for her ultimate... I don't have a better name for it, so I'm sticking to "Overclock", but its function is very different. Sojourn shifts her railgun into a third mode, shaped like a defensive manned turret with the shield out but the gun still aimed and ready to fire. While in this stance, Sojourn blocks all damage from the front completely for the entire duration of the ultimate, but her movement speed is significantly reduced. Damage blocked goes into powering a single, superpowered shot of the railgun, which pierces enemies and barriers no matter what, but the power and width of the beam can increase dramatically depending on the damage that was absorbed beforehand. The beam can be fired at any time while the ult is active, but doing so early naturally limits the amount of time it can instead be used to soak up damage and in turn power up the resulting shot.

So yeah, that's Sojourn! More of a gameplay and concept based one this time, but the kit idea finally clicked with me and I wanted to share it sooner than later without making myself come up with a backstory first. I had fun both twisting Sojourn's existing kit with all her existing abilities present in some way, adding new mechanics (with some inspired by other games like Disruptor Field being very blatantly just Engineer TF2's Short Circuit, or the new ult basically just being Ink Vac from Splatoon 3), and tying it together into something that'd hopefully be fun to play. I mean... not like it's gonna be playable, Workshop doesn't allow for some of the mechanics like projectile deletion, and I don't think it'd fit into my original hero shooter game concept in quite the same way, but hey, I like to do my best even in only daydreams.

Another one down after I got hit with a burst of motivation earlier today! For the next one, I think I'm finally gonna bite the bullet and finally de-Tank somebody for once. The two I have in mind for next are both gonna be interesting, and will probably be among the most drastic visual overhauls of the whole AU. For one they might even feel like a completely new person!... Possibly literally!

[myreygn]

WE ARE RESPONDING :D my sick day turned out to be a lung infection but it's almost over so i'm good

ANYWAY back to the important stuff

it's also so difficult for kanae to get him a present at first because he's the kind of guy who doesn't really wish for anything. like she asks him what he wants for christmas and his answer is "i want to see you happy" or smth like that and kanae smiles and kisses him while exploding on the inside because what the heck is she supposed to do with that?? but she learns to see through the facades he puts up and her gifts are just SO GOOD- they're usually useful too, she puts a lot of energy into finding something that would bring him joy but also make his life easier somehow. she often gets intel from his siblings and lets them partake in it too so they don't feel bad if they're not able to get him anything.

i LOVE the "jack of no trades", it's so accurate 😭 his selfmade gifts are almost always something he never tried making before and they're never perfect but still good and kanae treasures all of them so much.

tengen's family was definitely not loving and yes like you said christmas was just an event to show off at. his father would hold a big celebration for all of his important rich "friends" and it was just an entire night of backhanded compliments and shallow pleasantries, tengen absolutely hated every second of it. he definitely tried to make christmas somewhat special for his siblings but it was an impossible task; getting a thoughtful gift for someone is fairly complicated if you don't even know them. and once he gets some people in his life who actually make an effort to get to know him and let him do the same thing in return (not just the girls, his friend group in general) he goes all out for them. his gifts are always great but also sooo expensive, it's not christmas with tengen if there's not at least four people telling him "i can't accept this-" (sanemi especially will try and make him take the stuff back with brute force but at the end of the day the gift is just too perfect and also tengen is 6'6 and 200 pounds of muscle, it's very hard to get him to do anything with brute force)

the two days of christmas are always nice but the other 363 obanai's grinch-ness is THROUGH THE ROOF. if a shop plays christmas music before december he'll literally walk out backwards. during december he refuses to leave the house without headphones so he can tune everything out. if he's asked to give money for a good cause he'll make a point of telling them that he donates because he's trying to be nice and not because it's christmas. similar thing, if he passes a homeless person on the street he'll go "listen i will give you some money now and if you say 'merry christmas' i will take it back". if you try to put up decorations at his place that aren't black he will murder you in your sleep. one time when he was at sanemi's place on december 20th tanjiro came over to study with genya and when he told them "happy holidays" in passing obanai hissed back at him. (they had heard about each other but never met before. that was tanjiro's first impression of obanai.) but then on actual christmas everything changes and he's having a genuinely good time with mitsuri. he also keeps all of the scarfs she makes for kaburamaru and claims that he picks the ones he wears himself ("you picked that for him" - "he picked it himself, it's his favorite color!" - "he's a snake, he can't even see the colors" - "you'd know a thing or two about that huh" - "HEY-"). and mistletoe kisses YES PLEASE he even sneakily puts some up himself whenever he gets the chance.

60% of tanjiro's energy during december goes into keeping inosuke away from advent wreaths 💀 he's biting these things left and right - at his friends' houses, at the mall, st school, wherever else people put one - and by christmas he proudly presents a list of tastiest to least tastiest wreath and tanjiro wants to sob every year. but aside from that christmas is just such a great time for him, he's that kid that says "i'm just happy to spend time with everyone" and actually means it.

sabito would love brooklyn nine-nine, he could go through a whole day just communicating in lines from the show 😭 giyuu always silently takes on all the chores that come up during that time and after new year's day they switch so he can have some time off too and sabito is so thankful that giyuu understands that he needs these days to recharge.

YES akaza unironically wearing these sweaters is perfect!! 😭 koyuki knits him one every year and starts doing the same for rui when he enters the picture. rengoku thinks it's the cutest thing ever and no one dares to make fun of the sweaters because they're both very scary when they're angry (and rui is just too adorable to make fun of anyway)

SHAJSBFXH DOUMA STOP 😭😭 "i look in the mirror, the king looks back at mee- I CAN RULE THE WORLD, JJ, JUST FOLLOW ME" *crashes into the wall* never let lack of talent stop you from pursuing your passions and everyone who says otherwhise is just jealous of his ✨pizzazz✨ (the pizzazz of doing an entire figure skating program on your ass) also the singing thing is so canon, obanai does everything in his power to just not be around him during december and everyone else tries to put up with it with varying degrees of success.

zenitsu would omg- he gets back in january and hands all of his friends hideous gifts he got from the souvenir shop. inosuke gets a cool rock or a stick he found in the backyard of the hotel and it's hands down the gift inosuke is the most excited about every year.

thank YOU for indulging and adding these wonderful ideas, sorry it took me so long to respond 🖤

miss rey is having a sick day and she's gonna spend it sending you kny modern au christmas thoughts 😌 working in this goddamn elementary school has gotten me into the spirit for the first time in years and i need to embrace this while it lasts.

growing up sanemi never really got anything big for christmas, over the course of november he mostly necessities like new shoes when his old ones didn't fit anymore or a winter jacket and then on actual christmas day maybe a dvd or something handmade. it got a little better once he was old enough to do parttime jobs but even then he used most of his earnings to get something nice for his siblings. when it came to sanemi money was always tight and he was okay with that if it meant genya or the others could get something out of it. and when he got older and his friend group started to give each other christmas presents, the first time they'd come up to him like "we got you something" he'd be like "... why would you do that 🤨" - literally the second kanae hears that he never really got nice christmas presents you KNOW she's dedicating eight months of the year to plan something for him and it makes him cry every single time.

with tengen it's the same thing but sort of in the other direction. got everything he never wanted for christmas every year which was annoying and draining and just felt so detached and performative. the first time makio hands him a box with self made cookies and says "i'm sorry, i would've bought you something but i didn't find anything you'd like" he almost proposes on the spot because it just feels so great to have people actually put thought into their gifts for him and not just grab the shiniest looking thing from a shelf. (not that he doesn't love getting shiny things but only if it's a shiny thing that the person picked specifically because they thought he'd like it)

obanai is the grinch for exactly however long it takes him to discover that mitsuri loves christmas more than anything. once he's a bit more open to the idea he also discovers that it's actually fun to exchange gifts and spend time together during the holidays (who can blame him, he never had that prior to going to university) and he gets really into it. people are always surprised by his great gift giving skills but it really pays off to sit in the corner and listen in on conversations quietly, he really picks up on a lot of wishes that way and when december rolls around he just knows what everyone wants or needs. on their first christmas together mitsuri gives him a little scarf she made and says "so kaburamaru doesn't get sick" and obanai decides right then and there that christmas is his favorite holiday of the year. (ONLY christmas eve and christmas day though and ONLY for exchanging gifts and spending time together, all the blinking lights and santa merch and mariah carey can go to hell)

tanjiro is always all over the place during christmas time because there's just so much to do and so much to take care of and oh son of a monkey i have to go gift shopping and oh fudge what am i gonna cook and fiddlesticks i forgot to put the tree up and GOD FUCKING DAMNIT INOSUKE STOP EATING THE ADVENT WREATH - it's a lot. so on actual christmas day he's usually exhausted and his friends have to tie him to his seat so he doesn't continue to run around and try to do everything for everyone. he still loves it tho, he's always participating in social projects around that time as well and getting gifts for homeless people, children in poverty and volunteering to dress up and collect kids' wish lists in hospitals etc.

sabito on the other hand grew to despise christmas because of his job at the elementary school. it's just too much. all the music and all the glitter and the all the christmas shows he has to attend (and organize!), the baking and crafting and reading christmas stories and looking out so children don't burn themselves with the candles and putting up that dusty old tinsel that makes his eyes water and pretending that santa is real, christmas is the bane of his existence. of course he gets his loved ones some gifts and maybe goes out to eat with them but once that's done he immediately goes home and sleeps through til new year's eve. everybody knows not to say merry christmas until sabito has left because one time they all said it when they met up during the holidays and when they got to sabito he went "if i have to say that one more time i'm gonna kill each and every one of you and then myself" and now they just do it when he's not around.

that's all the thoughts i have for now, sorry for barging in with this long ass ask like that 💀 stay hydrated, i send you a fluffy blanket and a kiss on the forehead but with a mask so you don't catch my cough :3

Oh Rey! *hugs and brings all the healing vibes and tissues* I'm sorry you got sick; something about this season just brings all the germs! And lets go getting into the spirit of things! :D

IJKRKJERJEJKRJ AHHHHHHH THESE ARE FREAKING DELIGHTFUL! Sanemi prioritizing his siblings and necessities is such a canon thing he'd do; and Kanae making it her life's mission to give him a good christmas is so KJEJJREKJREJ She's the queen of gifting- she knows everyone's taste and preferences and while it takes a while to get any info out of him, she'll find him something special. He's always so touched by it and makes it a point to do the same for her- saving up to get her one of those nice hair ornaments or dedicating any free time he has to making her something from scratch. He is a jack of no trades, but the effort is there and seeing her genuinely love it is the best gift to him.

Oh my god YES! I feel like Tengen doesn't really like christmas all that much? Mainly like you said, gifts always felt draining and preformative and also, despite growing up in a large family, maybe it didn't feel like a loving home? (Going a little into his canon background there) Like- his family held christmas parties every year but gifts were more like bragging rights over their guests vs actual care and thoughtfulness. Christmas with the girls is so much more special to him cause everything feels like they really thought of one another. (Also Tengen liking shiny things makes me laugh- he's like a crow ajerkjajekraejrj)

KLJERKJLEJKLRJKERJ OBANAI HELP! Grinch 363 days a year- the last two it fades away, especially with Mitsuri. He's a gift giving god; rivaling Kanae with his observation skills and such. You know he's always dressing Kaburamaru in his little scarf during the colder months- even when it starts to get a little worn down. (Mitsuri makes it her new tradition to make him a scarf every year after that.) They'd be the couple sneaking kisses under the mistletoe throughout the party.

TANJIRO YES! He's a little busy bee running about during December; baking treats and keeping Inosuke off the advent wreath (that's freaking hilarious oh my god) and volunteering and just- all of it! Christmas rolls around and he's so tired he can't even keep his eyes open for a good few hours into the day. It's his little reward for working so hard; a nice break on the big day ajerjaejarj

Sabito hating christmas is a whole mood akjekjrakjejkrajkerja He might have liked it at one point, but after working at an elementary school and being overdosed with the holiday spirit he is so burned out jareajreajjaerjkeajr (NOT HIM QUOTING ROSE KLJWJRKEJRJEJR) Of course he's gonna keep the vibes up for the children and his love ones but when the day is done he's hibernating with a heated blanket ajkaerjae

Just to add on:

Akaza wins ugly christmas sweater every year; he has so many cause he unironically thinks they're cute (and they keep him nice and toasty during the cold months). He gets matching ones for his favorite/only nephew Rui; they take pictures every year and have a whole album dedicated to it.

Douma is a pro figure skater without the pro part; good luck keeping him off the ice this season, especially if you put on "Theme of King JJ"; he also sings christmas songs non-stop and while he has a nice voice and can carry a tune, there comes a time when someone's about to shout "STOP SINGING ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS, IT'S FREAKING JANUARY!"

Zenitsu is absolutely the one to plan a trip to a warmer part of the world during winter; he cannot stand the cold whatsoever and saves up every year to escape for a week or two. If it happens to fall during Christmas, he facetimes everyone with a drink in hand on the beach wearing pineapple sunglasses he bought at the souvenir shop like the absolute tourist he is.

Thank you for sharing these, Rey! They are absolutely delightful! :3

[satoshy12]

Ghost Puberty

As Danny had gotten to something called Ghost Puberty, from what he understood from Frostbite. FrostBite:"It would have radically changes on his Human and Ghostly bodies. It could be manners, personality and even your Body. I mean look at Plasmius and his changes."

Danny was interested what kind of changes he would get as his power started to fully develop, he just hoped he would not end like Vlad. At least stay with a human look just slightly messier Hair and Longer Fangs, his eyes had the biggest changes as his neon green eyes turned a bright, brilliant human green. And his control over Ice was now much higher the even before, but his skin while the same tone, seemed to be almost translucent in the light. And he had a Aura of pure coldness 🥶 like you have deep winter even in Summer.

Muscles had built up too under his clothes and even as human his skin had become more dense as had gained weight too he is almost 100kg/220 Pounds! Frostbite told him not just his skin had gone more dense but his muscles, organs and bones too. Tucker said it was like he had a weak form of Busoshoku Haki from that anime One Piece.

It was kind of Funny that Dash could not lift him up anymore. And Sam and Tucker told him his natural scent was all musk with a distinctly neutral, watery freshness.

But the ones that truly noticed his changes were Amity Park and the School.

The teacher were saying nothing as Danny started to get A+ in every test. As they noticed he did not even noticed his changes of notes. Lancer told the other teachers, it would be best to not say anything, it looked like he was gone from the start of his puberty and all is getting back to normal.

The School Girls were talking all the new physical and mental thins on him mean He is a VAMPIRE! I mean the Fentons would notice if he was a Ghost after all. And his tiny Fangs mean just that. And the ones that touched him know he was cold to touch

Dash and the other had stoped to Bully, Danny and his friends as they noticed the could barely move him and his touch alone hurted them. Dash had terrible bruises on the place Fenton grabed him, he could barely play Football and he does not want to know what would have happen if Fenton had pressed his arm.

The Fentons were not thinking fully and thought it was just a normal Fenton Puberty, I mean look at Jack he too is huge, So it is no problem that Danny had this growth spurt.

While it was true, Amity Park was still not sure what to think of his fast growth spurt even as he ended being around 6'6”/almost 2m in height as the years were going.

Edit:"Wrong prompt. Was not the crossover.

[mypimpademia]

hiii ok so i’m never sent a req to anyone before but i’m literally in love with ur blog and writing so i just had to lol... anyway could u do the trend/prank where y/n goes to pick up her bf and when he comes outside and opens the car door he sees the passenger seat all the way back like another guy was in there with BAKUGOOOO NCJSN and uhh dabi,kiri, and shoto? u don’t have to do all of them but like at least bakugo bc 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️ THANKS ILY

— Seat Back

Bakugo x reader, Kirishima x reader, Todoroki x reader

TW: Swearing

Note: this took an eternity to get to I am sooo sorry😭 but I hope you enjoy, ily2💖

They're older in this, so they're much taller lmfao

I don't write for dabi

— BAKUGO.

⇶ Somehow notices before he even opens up the car door

⇶ And when he does open it he's already got a scowl on his face, one that just screams 'what the fuck?'

"Everything okay, Katsu? What's wrong?" You ask him, casually acting like you don't know what the problem is.

"Don't 'what's wrong Katsu?' Me. Why the fuck is the seat all the way back? I'm damn sure no one you know is that fuckin' long."

⇶ Katsuki completely refuses to get into the car until you can give him a good reason as to why the seat is leaned so far back, especially when he's one of the tallest people you know

⇶ You both go back and forth for awhile while he just stands with the door open and his usual ugly rage face on

"Baby, it's nothing, just get in the car so we can get out of here." You insisted.

But as he'd been doing for the past 2 minutes, he refused.

"Like hell I'm getting into your car. You have one more chance to answer or I'm taking my ass back inside." Katsuki grumbled.

"Katsuki, it noth–"

He shut the car door then marched back into his house.

⇶ You rushed out of your car asap and managed to catch him before he shut the door completely

⇶ You spoke between laughter before telling him it was just a prank

⇶ Of course he was mad and definitely called you a dumbass

⇶ And his petty ass still refused to get in the car because he was pressed

⇶ Katsuki only agreed when you said you'd pay for food this time around, and he was picking

⇶ Picked a place you don't even like just to be a dick

⇶ He was chill after that, but he did always check the seat whenever he got in your car now

— KIRISHIMA.

⇶ Well you see... he's the tallest person you know💀

⇶ And probably grows to be 6'6+ when he's older so that seat is already almost as far back as it can go

⇶ So when he sees the actual back of the seat leaned back, he just assumes someone was sleeping or just gets very confused

"Was someone sleeping in your car or somethin' babe? The seat is pretty far back. Weird..."

⇶ You try to push him into believing another guy was in your car... it just doesn't work

"Nope, no one was sleeping in here." You told him.

"Hm? Really? So why's the seat all the way back? Oh! Did I fall asleep in here and forget?" Eijiro asked you.

"No, you didn't fall asleep."

⇶ You eventually gave up and just stopped trying to convince him of anything

⇶ But... the next day, he found a tiktok of a girl doing the same prank on her boyfriend and it all clicked

"Hey baby, were you trying to prank me yesterday with the chair? I just saw a tiktok of this girl doing something like that to her boyfriend." Eijiro said, showing you the tiktok playing on his phone.

"Eiji..."

— TODOROKI.

⇶ The King of Underreacting...

⇶ He gets in, and when he's laying all the way back in his seat, his eyes just go wide in confusion

⇶ Then he quietly and slowly adjusted the seat

"The seat is really far back... who was sitting here? Were they laying down or something?"

⇶ You tried to get him to think there was another guy in your car, and not someone he knew

⇶ But this poor boy is just so... something

⇶ After 5 minutes you just gave up entirely because he would not take the hint even if it slapped him in the face

⇶ Unlike Kirishima, Shoto never understood or got the prank

⇶ Yeah... it made you never even want to try another prank on him again

Taglist: @myhoodacademia @katsuflossy @minruko @ecao @nnnoya @hawklmaoo @wolfkid22 @mythiccheroacademia @myfandemons @lilsparkyswife @mindofess @kqtsukisgf @yuujisbby @angiebug101 @mads-fairy @solar3lunar @milliumizoomi @asaincy @silkylious @blackweebtrash @mitsumya @morosis-haze @cloudytamaki

[farfromhome97]

Living Life In The Night

Chapter 2: Meeting

The two men standing next to the curb fixed their posture as you walked up to them. The shorter yet still big as fuck of the two men had black hair that hung over his forehead and a handsome face from what you could see. The taller man, at least 6'6" had light pink short hair with a brown undercut and tattoos lining his face symmetrically. He was beautiful, but before you gave yourself a chance to fangirl, wrapping the blanket around you, you pouted. "Whatever he's paying you I'll double -no triple! Just get the fuck outta my face." You seethed still pouting. Hearing a deep snicker followed by and even deeper laugh, the tattooed man introduced himself, "Sukuna. Ryomen. Not going anywhere, princess," the pet name coming through clenched teeth. "This is Toji. Like it or not, we're stayin." Crossing your arms under the blanket you huffed, sucking in a big breath before whipping yourself, the best you could with a fucked up leg, around to the big ass black SUV waiting to take you all wherever you needed. Opening the door you flung your crutch to the floor and set your blanket on the seat, grabbing the window handle to do your best to get into the tall ass car, not getting far when a pair of hands wrapped around your waist. Not being able to say a word before you felt soft lips touch your ear, hearing tattoo ma- Sukuna, whisper, "I got you princess, jump." Instead of wasting more time, pursing your lips you did as he told you. Feeling his hands slightly grip your waist tighter and him slightly pushing you up, you jumped and softly landed in the car. Moving your blanket to cover you as the Toji seemed to be the one driving, thinking Gavin was coming to sit in the back with you, deciding to try to cat nap to the first errand which was a good hour away. Closing your eyes you tried your best to get comfortable, bringing your left knee to rest on the middle seat only to feel 'Gavin' man spreading. Instead of moving his leg, 'Gavin' instead leaned over your leg, careful to not put any weight on it, before gently taking your ankle and resting it on his...huge thighs? Wait. These aren't Gavin's thighs... Opening your eyes and looking over to the next seat, you were met with a tattooed face and pink hair. Sukuna. Before you could take your leg back, he gently rested his hands on your knee and lower thighs, causing your eyes to shoot up to his face, willing them to focus. Now that you were way closer to him, you noticed how truly handsome he really was. How his tattoos made the sharp features of his face even sharper, the color of his eyes being a brownish-red hue, his dark eyelashes long and wispy, his lip piercing sitting in the middle on his lower plump lips. He was truly breathtaking, deciding that maybe, just maybe it wouldn't be so bad for him to follow you around.

A/N: omg that was so fucking bad. I'm on my phone now instead of a lap to and I'm having to write FROM SCRATCH 😩😩😩😭😭😭😭 This is gonna be like a 50 part series y'all we goin ALL out. I will try to put out at least 2 parts a day if not 5! Love youuuuuu

[symphonicmetal101]

OCS MASTERLIST

I will add to this as I recieve braincells from the great unknown

Vizzie: me! Or a glorified self insert at least. She/they, 19 ish, 5'4, Queer and polyam, becomes Devildoms Queen (was not born a demon)

Jasper and Caspian: Vizzie's long lost brothers. Not fully human before all three siblings became demons. (18)

Jasper is gay and polyam as fuck, twinky little slut, emotional baby that demands attention (he/they) 5'7

Caspian is quiet demiboy, also an emotional baby but only lets his s/o see that (he/him) 5'9

(Also Caspian and Vizzie have slightly darker skintones than shown in this picrew)

Kai: Vizzie's childhood friend. Seperated from each other when they were 4, reunited in the Devildom years later, but they bring out the part that never grew up out of each other (demisexual, panromantic, he/him, 6'1)

Nanami: a bimbo-y little gorgon who genuinely just wants to make friends, but always forgets her enchanted glasses so she accidentally turns people to stone. (17, she/her, 13 feet long in her sneky snek form, 6'6 in her human form, figuring out her sexuality, leaning lesbian?)

Rouge: shes part of a family of 11, (I have names and picrews for all of them but there is a 10 pic limit on posts fhsjdb) a very shy and timid succubus until you piss her off. Fiercely protective of her family. Hates being summoned. Bisexual, leaning fem aligned preference. 19ish.

(Gia and Var are her parents, then Avon, Azro, her, Mary and Kay the twins (shhhh), Nyra, Belle, Manny, and Bubba)

Mazanine: RADs youngest and most ambitious teacher. She runs almost all the fine arts programs and acts as a mother/counselor figure in a lot of her students lives. One of the first aquatic demons to find a way to adapt to dry areas long enough to teach and whatnot. Shes an amazing cook, and speaks with something similar to a Nigerian accent.

Casimir: they're a ghost that haunts the HoL. Once upon a time they were Barbatos cousin from another timeline. They were sent to this timeline as a punishment and a last ditch effort to save their life. Has a lot of hate for angels. Little shit. (Genderfluid, they/she/he)

X and Nazari

X- was/is the oldest of a noble family. Ei did not want the role, gender or political, which lead to eim running away and becoming a bounty hunter of sorts. Ei are well practiced in traditional Devildom medicine. X visits eir little sister from time to time in secret as ei were disowned by the family. Ei dont care.

Nazari- was left to fill the role her sibling refused to. She's extremely driven but does hold some resentment towards her sibling. She has prophetic dreams, which help her in her decision making. She hasn't told anubody about it yet.

[lenetaylor]

Tolkien fandom is awesome

I have often thought about this: height is one of Tolkien’s obsessions, along with odd numbers and “grey” eyes. Thank you for this breakdown, anonymous Tolkien fan!

https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/440398.html?thread=2621547342#cmt2621547342

So I am going to amuse you all with some math, using Tolkien's comments about elven height. The base quote: "In Eldarin tradition it was said that even their women were seldom less than six feet in height; their full-grown elfmen no less than six and a half feet, while some of the great kings and leaders were taller." So I am going to take Tolkien at face value. What would "seldom less" be? I'm going to take it to be 2 standard deviations. 1SD would be 1 out of 6 being shorter, which is not "seldom" to me. 2SD would be 1 out of 40 being shorter than that mark, which may be a little high for seldom but much closer than 1 out of 6 and I'm doing the crude math here, we will will not tarry for any fractions of SD. So what does that mean? Well, the standard deviation for human height is 3 inches (again on a crude basis), and given the variation on height we get told about there is no reason to think that elves are not similar, so that would mean that the average height for women would be 6'6", for men *7 feet*. Now that seems crazy, but we have excellent reason to think it is an accurate projection, because it matches this quote, and also matches perfectly the height of the Numenoreans, the most elf-touched and noble of the race of Man. "They were called 'Halflings'; but this refers to the normal height of Men of Numenorean descent and of the Eldar (especially those of Noldorin descent), which appears to have been about seven of our feet." So we have the average; exactly how tall did the tallest get? For Numenoreans, we know that Elendil the Tall was 7'11". We also know that he was not the tallest Numenorean ever, or even the tallest alive at the time of the Downfall. Which makes sense! Because if the average was 7 feet, 7'11" would be quite tall, but would be a 1 in 10,000 type height, not a 1 in millions. 1 in a million would be a little over 8'2". Numenor lasted nearly 3300 years; taking an extremely conservative population history of Numenor to 20 million over that time, the tallest would likely be 8'4" or so. Turning back to elves, we have the very tallest: Thingol. So just how tall was he? "Tallest of all the Children of Ilúvatar", and that particular formulation is distinctive, because it is also used for the beauty of Luthien, and there it does not mean merely the most beautiful currently alive, but the most beautiful that ever was or will be. Which suggest Thingol is similarly tall. So certainly at least mid 8 foot, to overtop all those Numenoreans. *But*, LOTR is of course mythologically the prehistory of our world. And if that's so, he has to overtop the tallest human ever, Robert Wadlow, who was 8'11". So yes, Thingol may have been nine feet tall. So Turgon and Argon, the next tallest of elves, were also almost certainly well over eight feet, and even those just thought of as merely tall, like Maedhros, would be likely be mid-seven footers at least. This is particularly true since the 7 foot average referred to all Eldar, including the Úmanyar, while Caliquendi were specifically said to have in the Light of the Trees "became full-grown in stature of body and of mind," and the Noldor to be the tallest among the three kindreds. So the average for Caliquendi Noldor like the Exiles was very likely substantially more than seven feet. Now, there was a period where Tolkien seems to have decided that he had gone overboard, which is where you get Galadriel's 'man-height' being only 6'4" and a few other references dialing the Numenoreans back down, but in his last writings he seems to have gone back to crazy giant elves and Numenoreans, and dammit I like my elves nicely alien like that. My Galadriel is seven feet tall.

[sirro85-blog]

Humans are Space Orcs

Part 2

When Major Kovac returned to the accommodation his mercenary unit the "Dark Horses" were currently occupying his injuries, the attack by the Flet and his survival via an item of fruit seemed for some reason to cause a broad range of reactions.

His lover Captain Becca first looked nauseated when seeing him bleeding, then embraced him fiercely and then slapped him for getting hurt.

Captain Wolf seemed shocked more that Kovac was slowed by his blood loss than that he had overcome three "winged fucking puma" before joining in with Captain Dorman who both laughed and mocked while Kovac's wounds were cleaned, sterilized and dressed - this appeared to be a painful process.

Captain Gillespie was concerned for the safety of the Major and the rest of the unit.

Various riflemen in Kovac's service took moments to visit their commander and confirm he was ok, some like Knickers and Sergeant "Panther" both spoke of seeking immediate vengeance, others wanted to know how soon he would recover. Different human responses to the same event is something I've never fully understood.

Finally Kovac called a meeting of his commissioned officers. I was allowed along to witness.

"So if it's not personal and Kovac is adamant he hasn't stuck his bellend in a Flet, it can't be to stop us taking a contract as we have one lined up it must be professional, something from back in the day." Captain Becca said.

"That is a lot of history, we all served together in the United Nations Galactic Defence Force, the Galactic Defence Force and we've had 3 years as the Dark Horses, I can count a dozen conflicts with the Flet as primary antagonists and perhaps another dozen where they've been involved to some degree." Wolf looked at Kovac, "brother I love you but you picked a few fights in your time."

Captain Dorman shook his head, "It could be any of us or all of us, take out the Major and we're gonna find ourselves rudderless, we need to find an answer."

"If we are all at risk we need to look to our defences and I hate to say it but my troops are the weak link, medics are good soldiers but they aren't combat specialists like the rest of you, neither are the rest of my troop." Captain Gillespie gave a sigh, "we may have to confine them to lines."

"Good point Gillie, Bex 2 troop are gonna be in charge of keeping 4 troop safe; Dorman 3 troop sweep the lines, find any weak links, Wolf the whole of 1 troop are now on guard duty, have a roster drawn up and let the sergeants work out a routine between the troops." Kovac looked at his officers, "nobody goes off base alone, we travel in fire teams at least."

"Alright, and the Major has two guards at all times, I'm pretty sure I have the volunteers," said Becca, her tone brooking no argument.

An hour later Kovac was sitting in a chair facing an irate Becca flanked by the raw-boned, taciturn Knickers and the vociferous Cassidy, better known as Barbie his body guard.

"No, damn it Rad you're injured, you're not going out as bait now; or ever!" Becca said, her voice shaking.

"Im not waiting for them to come here, besides this time I'll have Knickers and Barbie watching my back," Kovac said calmly.

"Hey now Captain, I know you're worried but it may have all been a case of mistaken identity, perhaps they never wanted the Major." Barbie suggested, smiling sweetly.

"Yeah they no doubt saw him, and thought 'Oh hey, that 6'6" human built like a brick-proverbial with the white hair of an octogenarian he's close enough to our target' the Major is pretty damn unique looking." Knickers said with her usuall ascerbic tone.

The two women shared a glare as Kovac laughed, "look I trust these two with my life, more importantly I trust them with each other's lives, we'll be fine and if we get a bite and land something then we will have some answers."

Becca scowled a moment but finally nodded and the three left the fortified accommodation and returned to the market, Kovac shopped for a few hours, organising supplies and delivery, Knickers and Barbie sat at a table in the centre of the market, ostensibly sharing a meal but their eyes never stopped scanning the crowds. Kovac finished his errands and then stopped one merchant and asked for directions, once he received them he set off out of the market. The planet they were calling home was designated "Pelcar-3" and was known as the way station of the system, almost all trade routes went through Pel3 and as a result there were many storage districts, one of which Kovac entered now.

The warehouse was mostly empty but waiting inside was a Ditiri, humanoid in shape Ditiri were covered with a fine fur that gave them a "fluffy" appearance, they had a trader society and were not above working in less than reputable circles. Physically they were no threat to a human, moving significantly slower than most space faring species they did however have remarkably sharp minds and were considered cunning to the extreme.

Kovac and the Ditiri spoke for some time before the Major gained some information he was looking for.

"Flet will work for anyone, not like the Rhul, they are like humans in that respect, more so unlike Burtuq and Garax, Flet will work independently and not insist on being hired as a group, those three may have only been together for that job." Yellow eyes regarded the Major, "you are known Major Kovac, your achievements are known, past exploits may be coming back to haunt you."

Kovac nodded his thanks and the meeting ended, for the first time since I had met Kovac I feared for his safety. Kovac had fought in multiple wars if a former enemy was targeting the Major then entire star empires could be focusing their revenge on him and while the Dark Horses were good, they were not enough.

I don't know if Kovac heard the attackers, Flet are as silent as the earth felines they were nicknamed for but he threw himself to his left as a clawed paw lashes out at him, he landed heavily and rolled over coming to rest on his back, one foot planted on the floor with his knee bent and one leg raised off the ground with his knee pulled up to his chest, both arms bent so his hands were either side of his head, the largest Flet I had ever seen lunged at Kovac who raised his elevated foot higher.

The Flet was centimetres from Kovac when it dropped like a stone, behind it stood Knickers with a large club. She stared down at the motionless beast for a moment then nodded at Kovac, "plan worked," she said.

Barbie hurried to help Kovac up, "are you ok? Did it catch you? I forget how damn quick they are, thank God you're quick like a freak." She gave a small grunt as she pulled Kovac up, "you're not hurt are you? The captain would stab me in the tits if you got hurt...so would Knickers mind."

Kovac was adjusting the Flet on the ground and with a single movement heaved the 9 foot creature onto his shoulders with a slight grunt. "Gnnh I'm fine Barbs, really I am, thank you Knix, I owe you."

"No you don't" replied Knickers, she gestured and led the odd looking trio forward.

At the horses headquarters Wolf and Kovac had tied the Flet to the chair, while Wolf hummed a child's tune "pussy cat, pussy cat" a nursery rhyme that was fast becoming an abusive and xenophobic anthem when sung near Flet; Kovac left the room and returned with a bag, he crouched infront of the Flet and stared at the prisoner for a while. Then he spoke.

"Did you see the others?"

The Flet stared back for a long moment before giving the human "nod".

"Good," Kovac stood and walked to a low table, he set the bag down and reached inside. The first thing he pulled out was a pineapple, the kitty flinched at the sight of it, Kovac set it down on the table, then he reached into the bag again, he pulled a bunch of bananas out held them up while staring at the Flet before setting them on the table beside the pineapple, he followed this with an orange and then a yellow fruit that was oblong shaped the size of his fist, he paused for a moment looking first at the fruit then at the Kitty with an appraising look, finally he pulled out three limes individually setting them on the table before returning his focus to the agitated looking Flet. He looked in the bag and then at Wolf who gave a grin while producing a knife seemingly from nowhere, Wolf nodded encouragingly. Kovac seemed to hesitate before finally plunging his hand into the bag and placing at the end of the fruit chain a single kumquat. Wolf picked up the pineapple and spun it on the palm if his hand, his knife caught the light and glittered.

"Stop" squeaked the Kitty.

"Talk!" Yelled Becca from behind him.

Something that isn't understood by many is that the Flet are a matriarchal culture, the males may be the face of the military arm of their society but their females run the rest, so for the already intimidated Kitty having a female scream an order at it had a profound effect.

The Kitty talked he gave answers to all the questions he was asked only once did hesitate but Captain Becca's threat to "fuck him up with a kumquat" was enough to break his final resolve.

After the Flet was thrown out Kovac called an assembly, soon 150 men and women were assembled and Kovac spoke to them. He told them he was the target of the Flet Cosmic Imperium, it seemed he had been deemed responsible for the death of the heir to the throne and so was now sentenced to death. He informed them that there was no help to be called on and it was him against the Imperium, all of them were free to leave with his blessing, not a single soldier left there seat.

Some would tell you that this was human loyalty but they would be wrong, this was human insanity. Most of those thought Kovac stood a chance and those that didn't were so stubborn they wouldn't back down from intimidation.

In my fibres though I must admit that Kovac of all the humans I've known did make me wonder if he could achieve the impossible and defeat the Imperium with only 150 soldiers.

[seidanguard]

Out of Order; a primer on Hotaru, 2/2: uh...Hotaru

All right. Now that you know all about Seido, let's talk about Hotaru himself. I'll try not to make it too meta so you actually have to get to know him to know about him.

What you see: Officially at 6'6 and 207 lbs without armor (they used to give those kinds of stats for MK characters), Hotaru is an intimidating, commanding presence. In his iridescent commander's armor he has sashimono flags which make him even larger. Like his homeworld, his face and body are kind of eerily pretty, though his sheer size probably evens that out.

He is completely genetically Seidan, but unlike other Seidans he has white hair and eyes. His eyebrows, however, are black. It's unclear why this is the case. His relative age is hard to discern but if he were human he might be in his mid to late 30s, I don't really know. In earth years he is 874 (or something like that, I don't remember exactly what I chose).

Powers: Like his namesake - firefly - he controls what appears to be some kind of liquid light that has the properties of lava. Additionally, he is able to propel himself with this light and temporarily blind people with it. He has the strength of an elite human athlete of his frame and musculature: significant, but not superhuman.

Fighting style: Hotaru uses the martial arts styles of Pi Gua (a type of Ba Gua) and Ba Shan Fan, taking advantage of his long limbs. With such fast styles combined with his light, he aims to put pressure on his opponents while remaining out of reach. He is known to use a naginata, a traditional soldier's weapon, for this purpose as well.

Personality: He's MK's samurai archetype character, and that's reflected in his stoic, humorless demeanor . . . at least when his mouth is shut. He is unflappably calm as would be required by his job, and is absolutely tireless in completing tasks. He's actually pretty similar to Sonya, except a philosophical zealot. He's not nice, but he is honorable.

Occupation: Hotaru is the commander of the Seidan Guard. The Seidan Guard is the most elite law enforcement agency in Seido and also its military. Since Seido is a one-government planet there is no need for a massive military force. Other law enforcement and intelligence services answer to the Seidan Guard, which answers to the Senate. The Seidan Guard also directly runs law enforcement for the capital city of Seido. Hotaru's job is not a guard captain kind of role, but it's also not a purely administrative job, either. It's like being a colonel/general mixed with being director of the FBI. He is still directly involved in ground-level law enforcement and military activities. There really isn't a modern equivalent for this.

Associated characters:

Baraka: An enemy whom Hotaru doesn't respect much. Hotaru's guardsmen repeatedly repelled the Tarkata in outworld with a much smaller force. That being said, all threats need to be taken seriously.

Dairou: Former commander of the Seidan Guard. Now a wanted criminal. We don't talk about Dairou.

Darrius: Leader of the Resistance in Seido. I explained him in my previous post. Hotaru considers him to be the most pressing threat to Orderrealm.

Havik: Hotaru is more worried about Darrius in the short term, but Havik is a long-term threat who not only aids Darrius but also masterminds the attacks on Seidan water towers in Chaosrealm. He is essentially the spiritual leader of Chaosrealm and so eliminating him entirely would be risky because who knows what comes after him. They are both constant thorns in each other's sides.

Shujinko: He once deputized Shujinko to help stop a riot. Shujinko told Hotaru of the city in Outworld offering its sovereignty in exchange for protection. It turns out that Shujinko was deceiving Hotaru and also the leader of Lei Chen. Hotaru has grown more suspicious of him over time. (Not sure if also new timeline or just the old: Later, Shujinko broke out of jail with the help of Dairou while waiting for his hearing in court, where Hotaru was going to testify in his defense. Two guardsmen died in the process. Shujinko also stole the Orderrealm kamidogu after successfully defeating Hotaru in kombat.)

In the original timeline, Hotaru is also associated with Onaga, Kenshi, Li Mei, and Sub-Zero.

[somephsycicchick]

Last fall hunting trip experience

Last year just as hunting season had began me and two of my close friends planned our first solo hunting trip together. Both my friends Shawn and Nat were a year older than me and are family friends, i've known them since i was five years old. We planned to go up to a certain spot that we knew of through different people in our community and other hunters (I had been up the trails on quading and horse riding trips before and so had my friends), the place was filled with white tail deer to hunt and one particular spot we planned to check out was a large waterfall that sat way up in the hills there which was about a three hour quad ride from the nearest road where we planned to have Shawn's parents drop us off on our quads. I had never been on a trip like this without at least one adult so i was of course i little nervous but mainly excited, I had my dad's shotgun in a gun case that was strapped to the front of my quad (incase we ran into an angry bear) and my .22 huntig rifle on the back of my quad. We spent the day taking our time on the way to the waterfall, we were dropped off at the entrance of the trail at nine am and got to the waterfall at one pm, when we got there we were thankfull there werent any signs of any other hunters or hikers up there (concidering its realatively well know by my community). We swam in the natural pool under the water fall (which was absolutely freezing), after getting out we set up each of our one man tents we had a campfire and ate some canned food be brought. Once the stars were out we decided to go to bed, as Nat and Shawn tied our food bag up a ways away from our tents (to make sure not to atract bears) I went just about twenty feet from the camp to grab a few smaller sticks to put on the fire (just to keep the fire glowing for the night. I bent down to grab more sticks and broken branches from the forest floor (we were camped above the waterfall on the large flat rocks but i had ventured into the trees) I was bent over when i heard something, it sounded like a tree branch snapping but it had to have been pretty loud for me to hear it over the waterfall. I whipped my head up, hoping to just see a deer or rabbit but there was nothing to be seen. I brushed it off and grabbed one more stick to add to my stack i had in my arm. I threw them on the fire, said goodnight to Nat and Shawn and as I opened my tent something told me I should grab my gun off the quad. Over the years I've leant to NEVER ignore my gut, so grabbed the shotgun, two bullets and layed it beside me in my tiny tent. I fell asleep pretty quickly even through the fairly loud waterfall beside us, but I was woken up in the middle of the night by something hittign my body, I leant up in a panic and screamed, but Shawn had his hand over my mouth before i could make any noise and we fell backwards into a laying down position and he leant back up and zipped the tne closed, then with utter fear in his eyes he shimmyed away from the opening to be beside me and stared at the entrance of my tent (by our feet). I silently grabbed at the back of his shirt, I was freaking out now too, thinking there was a bear and i was going to have to go out there and shoot it if it possed a threat. (when you're a 5'8" fifteen year old girl the kickback of a shotgun isnt fun for your shoulder). I stare between Shawn and the entrance of my tent, watching in horror as the flickering embers of the small fire illuminate a massive shadow. My jaw drops, my stomach sinks and my blood runs ice cold. It towered over the roof of the tent, probably standing at 6'6" from what I could tell and it wasnt a bear, this thing was walking on two hind legs and had a bunched over back, Shawn was absolutely shaking. I thought it must be some huge guy, theres a ton of creepy stories ive heard of people being at known hunting places all the time, but I'm full on ready to shoot someone if need be, I grabbed the shotgun from beside me, loading it as quietly as possible and holding the barrel towards the shadow as it moved, slowly, across our little site and towards Nat's tent. I hadnt pumped the gun, that would be loud and I wanted to wait to see if this guy would leave before I had to go out there and tell him to get lost or get shot.Then the figure bent over and FLIPPED Nat's tent with ONE arm, she screamed bloody murder and was completely flipped over backwards, as soon as she started screaming the shadow sprinted to our right (the way I had been collecting sticks from). Nat was screaming and panicking, I lurched forward, ripping back the zipped of my tent and pumped the gun, throwing myself out and swinging the gun up just in time to see the monsterous, long hair covered beast turning back to look at me and I was so stunned as I stared into its glowing eyes I couldnt believe what I was looking at. I didnt shoot, I lowered the gun and watched the giant monster walk off into the bush. Its thick matted hair was so dark that I couldnt see it farther than fifteen feet. Shawn seen it too and Nat barely caught sight of it as it ran away in long fast strides. Sometimes I wish i had shot it, just to prove that it was real, but im happy I didn't because it would have been a wastful death. We were all terified to stay the night but we couldnt quad back down the steep trails during the night so we all crammed ourselves into Shawns tent (his was the biggest) and i had my gun right beside me the entire night, waiting for the thing to come back. The next morning there were tracks in the mud that were way bigger than even Shawns size 12 boots. I've been back up there three times since then, but with much larger groups and farm dogs with us. I hope one day ill see it that obviously again, even though it was fucking terifying, and I think I actually have had another encounter with one, or some psycho person but thats a whole nother story.

[toasttz]

How to make games: Hero Shooters

So, class, today I posit this little question to you all: Do you want to be the next Blizzard? Fuck no, you don't want to be "Don't you guys have phones?" Blizzard; you wanna be Blizzard from 5-10 years ago when they were at the height of their popularity. But that's not what I'm shooting for here. Do you want a fount of endless revenue? Do you want to do the absolute baseline minimum in terms of engine and game design to actually create a game but aren't creatively and ethically bankrupt enough to make a gacha game? Do you want to build a game whose rules, designs, and themes were just stolen from the effort of others? Do you really like Rule 34? Then it sounds to me like you want to make a Hero Shooter game! Hero shooters are easy to make on account they fundamentally have only three gameplay modes: push a payload, kill the other team, and kill the other team while standing on top of a glowing circular thing. They're also equally easy to design as they require no thematic consistency whatsoever and what little writing you'll be expected to bother with will simply be character bios, which you can keep so vague as to be virtually meaningless. There's never a 'story' in a hero shooter game and what semblance of one does exist is pretense for the non-canon aforementioned three game modes you'll be forced to build around. Best of all, the individual mechanics of each hero are easy to design - just steal them from whatever games came before. Now create about three or four maps with some different sorts of themes, but don't make them in any way mechanically varied - the most complex obstacles on any given map should be walls and maybe elevators that move at a very low speed. We're making a hero shooter, not Mario Party, dammit. If anyone asks why you are essentially just reskinning the same maps you can explain that it's to ensure that the game remains a "test of the players's skills" even though that's a bold-faced lie for the same reasons people who play Super Smash Bros as "tests of skill" are full of shit. Meta-gaming retards make games algebra homework instead of fun, but that's precisely what you'll be banking on in this genre. Once you have that, we need to get into the most important thing about hero shooters: the Heroes. Heroes in these games take one of three major roles: 1) The retard scrub DPS heroes - who will be played by the vast majority of your one-trick glory-chasing mentally-stunted community under the pretenses of being 'the most fun' and will be where the better part of your "cool" themes and motifs will be dedicated toward. These work under the key principle of "Shoot everything until it stops moving" and requires zero brainpower whatsoever. 2) The under-estimated doggedly persistent Tank heroes, played by those with either the willingness to learn something other than "Shoot bad guy with gun" or those who find pressing and holding a single button for the duration of the 10 minute match time to be the highlight of their bleak office-job lives. Though, on the other hand, some of the really cool designs will ultimately end up in this family. 3) The unsung gods among men known as the Support heroes, AKA: the ones no one will actually play. These characters will never be given cool or interesting mechanics or designs, but you'll be at liberty to make as many sexy nurse outfits as you can come up with and no one will be able to tell you otherwise. Like an ungodly amalgamation of tanks and DPS, your gameplay experience will boil down to pointing at your target and holding down the button the entire match - except unlike DPS heroes, you'll be shooting at the blue team and not the red team. Now, some might argue that there are technically other families of heroes, like flankers, zone controllers, pseudo-supports who can debuff enemies, but remember that the key to any good hero shooter is keeping everything rock-stupid. Every hero should have only enough abilities to fill a role for the left and right mouse buttons and the Q and E keys. F or R can be for reloading where applicable, but if you demand anything more of your players, you're going to lose their interest because Hero Shooters are hugboxes for sociopaths who care for nothing more than getting that sweet, sweet 5-second long "Play of the Game" replay at the match's end. This is why the character who invariably rips off Team Fortress 2's Demo Man and can kill people he doesn't have direct line of sight with will always be the most popular, without exception. I mean, sure, you can have 30 or 40 heroes, each with incredibly detailed outfits, backstories, kits, and personalities but everyone will just play the Not-Demo Man so you might as well accept that your userbase is going to be the only thing more toxic than a puffer-fish or a modern-day feminist. But I repeat myself. I don't have the time nor particular inclination to tell you exactly what you need to make but I can give you some character types that are obligatory by law to be in any hero shooter game. This will at least give you a start before you realize that being creative is hard and just steal kits from better games than your own. Call of Duty Man - The main DPS hero and usually the face of your game. Typically a grizzled war veteran man and almost exclusively an American if your game is set in the real world - remember, creativity is hard! He'll have a medium-ranged assault rifle and precisely one movement skill and one healing skill in his kit making him a jack-of-all-trades. Will either be loved or hated by your community with no room for in-betweens. Sexy Healer Lady - The main support hero who is literally just TF2's Medic reskinned and with tits. You really don't need to do anything more with her, as the fanbase will handle the rest. And the less said of that, the better. Big Knightly Dude - The main tank hero who has a big shield that, regardless of origin, will be transparent so Call of Duty Man and Not-Demo Man can fire through it while guarded. Probably wields a melee-ranged weapon even if in a modern warfare setting. By law, they can never be shorter than 6'6" (or 7200 cm. Pretty sure I did my conversion right on that). Flamethrower Guy - Literally just TF2's Pyro. Mechanic - Literally just TF2's Engineer. Sniper - Literally just TF2's Sniper. Probably also a voluptuous woman in a tight suit because creativity is fuckin' hard, man. Not-Demo Man - The cancer in your fanbase you will never nerf. Doesn't matter that he can party-wipe the enemy team single-handedly without being anywhere near them because Hero Shooter maps are literally just a set of narrow corridors so his kit is extremely OP. No, better just nerf Sexy Healer Lady again, since your DPS fanbase is pissing and moaning about her again and, this time, not in the same way a cat in heat does. Next, just make characters around elemental themes. Once you have 30 or so, you can get around to actually doing really mechanically interesting and varied heroes, since there's really only like 10-15 good FPS character ideas to begin with. So don't be surprised if you have some overlap. But by then we should hopefully have completed the next major step after the game is made: alienating your fanbase! This step is easy and requires no particular skill or coordination on your part. First, make some events seasonal, such that you have at least a major event every other month. Any more than that and your fans might actually think you're trying to be anything but another generic Korean eSport event, so be sure to space them out and have at least half of them be terrible. Valentine's Day is a good excuse to dress your female heroes sexily, summer games are a fun and not-at-all tired motif, and of course you need some kind of Christmas event. Just make sure these events only run maybe 2 weeks out of the year, have lots of stuff that you can only get during those times and, as said, that most of them are terrible and not fun at all to play. And don't -EVER- make any of them PvE, as that requires coding AI characters and effort and shit - what do you think think this is? Warframe? No, terrible gimmicky PvP events will be a good start because there is no frustration quite as severe as being told you didn't grind hard enough for: Loot boxes! Shit yeah, your hero shooter's gonna have loot boxes in them! Remember, we want maximum money for minimum effort and there's nothing like a Skinner Box within the hugbox that is the sweet dopamine high of popping a loot box open only to get common drops every time! If MMORPGs have taught us anything it's that Sub-1% drops are TOTALLY good game design and aren't at all unethical and an artificial, cheap tactic to keep people hooked on your game. This is why, in addition to the e-peen bolster that is your arbitrary profile ranking also drip-feeding a loot box upon level up that you have "Weekly Resets" for additional loot boxes. This runs on essentially the same principle as a cell phone games making you wait for additional tries to make it more a habit than a game - but that's okay! You can just rationalize it away as "it was the player's CHOICE to buy 300 loot boxes for the low, low price of 799.99 USD!" and not at all a psychological compunction found in human psychology! You're not an unethical douchebag in the slightest! And speaking of douchebags, it's time for the third and most important step in alienating your fanbase: Balancing the Game! What do I mean by that? You might think it's something like "Oh, this one character has an attack that is way too powerful and so it should be retooled in such a way that it either isn't available as-often, or maybe make its hitbox narrower to make the game more skill-based" but you're dead wrong. That requires actual effort and we all know how we feel about that. So, instead, just start an eSports team. Why? So you can listen only to the DPS players from each team and only implement THOSE changes. That way, only tanks and supports get nerfed into irrelevance and since no one in eSports is ever going to play those roles anyway, who cares? Who needs healers when you respawn to 100% after 7 seconds of dying?! Who cares if the majority of your fans hate these changes and that you end up completely destroying the kits and frameworks of their favorite heroes with needless, superfluous, unwelcomed tweaks? God-damn it, the Not-Demo Man needs to be able to wipe out an enemy team with a 3-second Time to Kill! No questions! I have a very specific vision!! Once your fanbase has been alienated - congrats! You're no longer obliged to release new heroes and levels! The responsibility of server upkeep and releasing new content twice a year are lifted! Now, just reskin the entire game top-down and release a new, better hero shooter founded on the same grounds to re-capture your fleeing audience and fleece them all over again! Now repeat ad infinitum and gain unlimited money. Congrats, you're now another Chinese game manufacturer that shits out products with no care for their fans or reputation but you get to go whaling every single day and fill your bathtub with money. You're ready to work for actual Blizzard now! You're welcome.