#i am the leftmost player

[genomesoldier]

GETTING SHOT POINT BLANK IN THE FUCKING STREETS, CAN'T HAVE SHIT IN TELAMONS MANSION

[out-of-control]

BOUND

PREV: RED

NEXT: MULE

words: 4066

warnings: alcohol, explicit sex

summary: jax drags jim to a party, but jim has some other things on his mind.

The party has shitty music and mediocre drinks, and Jax is familiar with maybe three people in the house, just so long as you don't count Jim, who had fluttered off to explore the setting almost as soon as they'd gotten through the door, even though Jax had had to nearly beg him to come along in the first place. Jax doesn't really care where Jim is, though; at the moment he's totally engrossed in some poor drunken idiot's attempts to stop repeatedly driving their tiny cartoon go-kart off a bridge. He gazes at the lower leftmost box on the TV screen, feeling kind of emotionally invested in the player's dauntless perseverance in the face of futility. That, or he's just drunk enough to be getting totally mesmerized by moving shapes and colors. Either way, Jax is more or less content. 

He gets startled out of his contemplation by an object that takes him a couple of seconds to recognize as Jim’s arm being roughly thrown over his shoulder, and then Jim's nose is brushing against his ear and Jim's breath is hot on the side of his face and suddenly the plight of the stupid little car is totally fucking dead to Jax. Destabilized, he sways under Jim's weight, Jim’s cigarette burning inches from his cheek as he finds his footing.

“I want to tie you up and tease you until you’re about to cry with how desperate you are for me to fuck you,” Jim murmurs, apropos of absolutely fucking nothing.

An electric sort of shiver skitters down Jax's spine. His next moves are a no-brainer. 

He gulps down another mouthful of warm beer and snakes an arm around Jim's waist, turning his head so that they're nearly kissing. He flicks his gaze down to Jim's mouth, then up to his eyes, bottle-green in the low lighting. "Yeah?” Jax whispers. “Then what?”

Jim takes a drag from his cigarette, blowing the smoke right into Jax’s face. He doesn’t seem to think long before giving his response. “I want to rail you so hard you try to scream, so I shove your face into the pillow before you even get the chance and keep you there.” His voice is low, his words for Jax alone. "While I fuck you even harder."

Jax curls a finger in one of Jim's belt loops. "Then what?"

“Then when you’re right on the edge," Jim says softly, almost gently, "I’ll pull out and leave you to desperately try to get yourself off while I watch you.”

For a second, Jax can see it– Jim above him, staring down with eyes half-lidded, Jax burning and desperate below him. He turns his body and curls towards Jim, resting both arms over Jim's shoulders, like they're slow-dancing at senior prom. He bites gently at the corner of Jim's jaw and says, in a low, soft tone that curls up at the ends: "So why don't you?"

Jim smiles at that, and Jax can't even see the look in his eyes, hidden as they are behind his hair. Jim leans in, licking a stripe up the side of Jax's neck before whispering in his ear: "It's more fun this way." Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he shucks Jax's arms off his shoulders and walks away into the bustle of the party. 

Jax watches him leave, and lets him disappear. For now. 

–

The party is still in full swing by the time Jax decides he's had enough. Before he can leave, however, he has to collect something.

The hunt leads Jax around the whole house, stumbling up and down staircases and peering around corners. Jax finds him, finally, pouring himself another drink while eyeing a riveting game of flip cup. Jax marches right over and snags the collar of Jim's jacket, pulling him around. Jim, caught off guard, trips a little before catching himself and blinking owlishly at Jax.

"Hey," Jax says, stepping in close, "you're staying over tonight."

A smirk makes its way across Jim’s lips. He casts his eyes downward, reaches out a finger and runs it along the strip of skin peeking out from below the hem of Jax’s shirt. “Am I now.”

Hairs stand up on the back of Jax's neck. "You fucking bet you are," he rasps, trying not to let the shiver into his voice. 

Jim doesn’t look away, his fingertip still barely grazing Jax’s skin. “Well that’s so kind of you.”

"Yeah," Jax whispers, "I'm a real good guy."

“Yeah,” Jim echoes, cutting his gaze up to meet Jax’s eyes with a, frankly, goofy grin. “Real good lookin’.”

Jax blinks, simultaneously shocked and furious that a line as stupid as that is actually working on him. Desperately, he tries to come up with something devastatingly cool to say in return, but the heat he’s feeling in his face must also be cooking his brain because the best he's got is: "Yeah, well– You fucking– you too. Asshole. Whatever."

Jim snorts. “Smooth,” is all he says, pulling his finger away to slip his hand into Jax’s back pocket instead.

–

The whole walk home, Jax feels like he’s vibrating. Side by side, step by step, in studiously casual silence, occasionally exchanging insubstantial comments about strangers back at the party– as if Jim hadn’t been muttering Jax’s own fantasies into his ear in the middle of a crowded house just a couple of hours ago. The booze might have worn Jax’s edges down, but the anticipation is spiking them all up again. He has to remember to breathe evenly as he picks his way along the sidewalk, every block taking him closer to what he knows is coming to him.

Jim goes up the stairs ahead of Jax, as self-assured as if it was his own apartment to which he was returning. He steps inside the apartment first, too, scarcely waiting for Jax to finish with the keys before he’s placing a palm flat on the face of the door and pushing it fluidly inwards. 

Jax follows him. 

The door has hardly clicked shut behind Jax’s back before Jim spins around, grabs him by the shoulders, and slams him backwards against it. Jax just barely keeps himself from moaning as his back collides roughly with the door, though any sound would have been lost regardless as Jim quickly covers Jax's mouth with his own. 

Jax readily shucks off his jacket, with Jim breaking them apart just enough to tug Jax’s shirt over his head. With one arm braced across Jax's sternum, Jim fumbles with Jax's belt buckle. One jerk of his arm yanks the belt half of the way out of Jax's belt loops; a second finishes the job and leaves Jim with the black leather strap dangling from his fingers. Jax is grabbed by the shoulder and roughly turned around, Jim pinning Jax in place with his own shoulder as he takes Jax's wrists in one hand and wraps the belt around and around them with the other, tightly securing the buckle. It makes Jax a little crazy to think about Jim remembering the things that do it for Jax like this, so instead he allows the wavelengths of his arousal to amplify until they drown out all his thoughts. Well. Almost all his thoughts. 

"So?" Jax can't help panting, cheek pressed against the door, heart racing. "You going to put your money where your mouth is?" he asks, as Jim shimmies Jax's pants down enough for him to step out of them and kick off his boots.

“Get on your knees,” Jim says in a low, stern voice once Jax is naked, apparently indifferent to anything Jax might have to say about this whole situation, which shouldn’t be hot to Jax, yet absolutely is.

Blood rushing in his ears, Jax turns around and gets on his knees– but then, rather than wait for any further instructions, he simply closes his eyes, leans forward, and presses his open mouth against Jim's belt buckle, a reverential, filthy kiss. Then he drags his lips lower, mouthing carefully at Jim through the fabric of his jeans, breathing him in. Jim runs a hand down the side of Jax’s head, alongside his mohawk. Then he traces back, over Jax’s jawline, curling his fingers under Jax’s chin to tilt his face upwards a little, as he gently pushes the pad of his thumb into the center of Jax's lower lip. Jax lets his jaw fall open, and Jim slips his thumb inside. 

Jax briefly presses the side of his face against Jim’s hip, breathing deeply through his nose, before leaning back so Jim can switch his thumb for two fingers. Look at how good I could make you feel, Jax thinks in Jim’s direction, sucking diligently at the fingers moving in and out of his mouth. Look at how good I can be for you. Jim tilts his head and slides his fingers in deeper, Jax closing his eyes and letting out a moan in response.

Jim removes his hand. Jax keeps his mouth open, a drop of saliva hanging from his bottom lip. Jim unzips his jeans.

A few minutes into what Jax was considering a pretty good blowjob, Jim starts rummaging in his pockets with one hand, the other still gripping Jax’s hair firmly. Above his head, Jax hears the familiar whisper-scrape of metal striking flint.

Jax peeks upwards, at just the right time to watch Jim take a drag from a cigarette and blow the smoke up towards the ceiling, tendons in his neck pulled taut. Jim looks back down then, and roughly pulls Jax further down onto his cock by the hair. Jim kicks his hips forward, and Jax feels his own dick twitch as Jim rams down his throat, as his eyes begin to water, as he struggles to keep his balance with his arms bound, as his knees begin to seriously complain about the unforgiving wood floor, as the smell of smoke fills his head so strongly he thinks he must be imagining some of it.

They fall into a rhythm, forceful but steady, rocking together for a while, until Jim abruptly pulls himself away; Jax can't keep from making a sound that, maybe, possibly, could perhaps be described as a whine. But that's as close as he gets to a complaint, because in an instant Jim has dragged him up by the elbow and is hauling him across the room, through the bedroom door, and onto the mattress.

Jax squirms on top of the sheets; his bound arms make lying on his back awkward, and he struggles to sit up enough to look down the length of the bed at Jim. Jim stubs his cigarette out on Jax’s desk, and then just stands there, looking at him. "Christ," Jax pants, urgent, hard as a fucking rock, "come on, let's do this."

Jim slips off his jacket, abandoning it on the floor as he crawls up the bed after Jax. He doesn’t go very far though, befuddling Jax by simply lying down on the bed and resting his face against the inside of Jax’s thigh. Modestly, he even does his jeans back up. 

"Hey, what the hell," Jax says.

“What,” Jim replies, gazing innocently up at Jax with big green eyes, “didn’t I tell you I wanted to tease you for hours?” He gently skates a finger up the skin on Jax's other thigh– and no further.

"Asshole," Jax whines, as his Judas of a dick throbs between his legs, in response to nothing more than the cadence of Jim's voice and a mostly-chaste brush of skin against skin.

Jim simply hums in acknowledgement, shuffling around on the bed a little to hold Jax’s legs apart as he starts sucking a hickey into the inside of Jax’s thigh, just inches from his dick.

"Fuck, come on," Jax pleads, chest heaving, arms folded awkwardly underneath his body. Jim is so close, if he could just–

Jim sinks his teeth into Jax’s flesh.

"Fucking asshole," Jax gasps, "Come on–"

And then Jim seems to decide Jax is being a little too noisy, because he reaches up and very rudely sticks his fingers back into Jax’s mouth. Jax bites them– softly– but then he can't really resist the urge to suck on them instead. Jim, in turn, goes back to mouthing at Jax’s skin.

The whole intricate web of nerves scattered across Jax's body seems to shift and condense down to a little patch of flesh on the inside of Jax's right thigh. He gasps and arcs, and allows Jim to drive him further and further out of his mind.

Jim nips at Jax’s thigh one last time before sitting up, eyeing Jax for a second before he uses his other hand to knead one of Jax’s nipples, pinching and rolling surgical steel through flesh. His eyes burn against Jax's skin as Jax writhes on the bed, moaning quietly around his fingers. Jim leaves Jax’s nipple alone after a few minutes to rummage through the nightstand, and Jax can feel his own heart rate pick up when he hears the drag of Jim’s zipper fucking finally being undone.

Jim takes his fingers out of Jax’s mouth, moves both hands to the back of Jax’s knees, and bends him in half. For a second, they just eye each other: Jim completely focused and Jax unraveled. And then, slowly, Jim presses inside, watching Jax’s face intently, like a cat about to pounce. A little flustered, Jax opts to simply shut his eyes, to escape more fully into his sense of touch rather than sight as he acclimates himself to the always-novel experience of having another person inside of his body. Jim pauses, keeping still for a minute as Jax adjusts before moving against him, agonizingly slow. 

"Faster," Jax whispers, eyes still shut tight. "Just a little…"

“Say please,” Jim whispers back.

"Asshole," Jax breathes, rolling his eyes beneath their lids, then undercuts himself by saying: "Please." Jim obliges, moving ever so slightly faster, then faster, then faster, until he lets go of Jax’s legs to grip tightly at Jax’s hips, the fabric of his jeans rubbing roughly against Jax’s thighs. Jax hooks a leg around Jim’s back; for a little while, he wishes he could reach out, grip at Jim’s shirt and pull it over his head and rove his hands over his skin and scars and tattoos, but then he's not wishing for much of anything too complicated at all.

"Christ, I'm gonna come," Jax huffs, shoulders twingeing, eyes shut tight as he rocks along with Jim's movements.

Movements which promptly come to a complete stop.

Jax, naturally, starts cussing Jim out immediately.

Jim, if anything, appears to be gleeful about this.

"Fuck you," Jax swears, "Fuck you and your whole everything, fuck the fucking horse you rode in on–"

“You asked me why I wasn’t doing any of that at the party,” Jim interrupts, separating himself from Jax. “Now I’m doing it.” He turns his attention away from Jax, starts working his hand on his own cock, positioned right between Jax’s thighs and not touching him.

No fucking way. Absolutely not. Jax clamps his legs tight around Jim, holding Jim's arms against his sides as Jax tries sort of fruitlessly to rub his dick on whatever part of Jim might be available. Unfortunately for Jax, it doesn’t take long for Jim to free himself, and he strikes quickly, pinning Jax’s hips down tight against the mattress.

“God, look at you,” Jim remarks, eyes wild, voice low, like he's reverent of the spectacle in front of him, which is, of course, simply Jax, naked and sweaty and aching and so turned on he feels like he might die from it. “You’re such a desperate little whore for me, aren’t you.”

A bolt of arousal travels down Jax's spine and right into his cock as Jim speaks. "Yes, fine, fuck you," Jax half-yells, struggling in Jim's grip. He goes on, spitting profanities and pleas for Jim to fuck him again in equal proportions. He squirms with his wrists bound, shoulders taut and wrists chafed, and his dick vehemently vertical the whole time.  

Then, Jim proposes: “Be nice and I’ll fuck you again.”

"Fuck you," Jax blurts reflexively, before snapping his jaw, closing his eyes, and breathing out through his nose. 

He does like to put up a good fight. Half the fun is in putting up a good fight. But maybe he's chewed at the leash for long enough tonight. Maybe, he's ready to really submit. 

"Okay," Jax says after a pause. "Okay, Jim, I'll be nice. I'll be good, please."

“Promise?”

"I promise," Jax breathes, chest heaving as he stares Jim down. He wants Jim terribly, in this moment. 

“Good boy,” Jim says sweetly, and rewards Jax with a kiss. He shuffles around on the bed, giving another kiss to the very tip of Jax’s cock before bodily flipping him over, onto his stomach. Jax feels Jim’s hands rove over Jax’s back and shoulders, before that's replaced with the sensation of Jim's body weight pressing down on him. “Being so good for me,” he murmurs into Jax’s ear, and Jax thinks that maybe, he could die here, and it might not even be so bad. Jim fastens his teeth into Jax’s shoulder, at once sinking back inside Jax with an exhale. Then Jim sits up, plants a hand on the back of Jax’s head, presses his face into the mattress, and starts fucking him in earnest. 

Jax takes it all, arms twisted behind his back and cheek flat against the sheets and leather cutting into his wrists and the next time he feels like he's going to come, he remembers to be nice about it.

"Jim, please, please can I come now," he hiccups, his cock rubbing back and forth against the sheets.

Jim reaches around Jax, finally putting a hand on him and says, simply, "Come for me."

Jax comes. Stomach clenched, sweat beading all over his body, arms twisted, Jax comes for Jim.

“That’s it,” Jim murmurs, stroking Jax through it, slower and slower. “That’s it.” Jim lets Jax’s breathing even out before pulling out and slipping a palm under the center of Jax’s chest to pull him upright. Shuffling backwards a little, Jim carefully takes Jax’s wrists in his hands and starts unwinding the leather. Jax closes his eyes as the tension melts from his shoulders, his body feeling achy and warm and still buzzing a little all over. 

When Jim finishes, discarding the belt on the floor with a clink, Jax laces his fingers together and stretches his arms above his head: one long, glorious stretch that is not entirely unlike a second orgasm. And then he twists around and reaches a hand between Jim's legs, eager to return the favor. Jim wraps a hand around the back of Jax’s head and pulls him in close, kissing him long and slow. They stay like that, on their knees on top of Jax’s twin mattress, kissing more and more fervently as Jax works his hand, until:

“I’m close,” Jim pants against Jax’s mouth.

Two things happen in quick succession.

First, Jax stops moving his hand immediately.

Then, Jim shoves Jax backwards onto the mattress, straddling his chest and grabbing his hair in one swift movement. “I can fuck your throat instead,” he threatens breathlessly, green eyes blazing down at Jax through wisps of brown hair.

"Oh no," Jax breathes, grinning up at him. "I'd fucking hate that."

–

Jax could lie here, loosely tangled together with Jim in his bed forever, he thinks. To be honest, that’s essentially the whole plan at the moment. To lie here, skin to skin, breathing softly. And then Jim has to go and ruin it by sitting up. 

By way of apology, at least, he leans over to give Jax a kiss before buckling his jeans up and leaving the room. Jax assumes he’s gone to take a shower and stretches out on the sheets, rolling his shoulders, settling in for the night. 

However, Jim returns a minute later, shirtless, damp washcloth in hand, and lounges right on the bed next to Jax. “Hold still,” he whispers, gently taking Jax’s chin and tilting his face towards himself. Jim wipes under Jax’s eye, and It’s not until the towel comes away with a black smear that Jax puts it together, remembers the eyeliner he'd caked on for the party, realizes that between the tears and the sweat it probably ran all the way down to his chin, and suddenly Jax feels like he can’t breathe anymore.

Jim continues to scrub away at Jax’s face, punctuating with a, “There," like that's a normal thing to say, like it's okay to just do that to someone, to fuck them into oblivion and then cuddle them and then clean their fucking face all tender and gentle and fucking sweet, Jim just acts like it's all perfectly fine to do all of that to Jax and Jax isn't even allowed to say I love you in return. 

Jim pulls his hand away and stares at Jax, with what seems to be hesitation. “Are you okay,” he asks, after looking Jax over.

Aiming for casual, Jax plasters a quick smile across his face and says, "Yeah, man, you just. Jesus, I'm still recovering. You fucking crazy person."

Jim seems to accept this answer, and wordlessly goes back to cleaning Jax’s face. They lie there together, Jim propped up on his elbow and scrubbing away, tilting Jax’s face this way and that, until Jim is satisfied and leaves the cloth on the nightstand.

And so then his face is clean. And Jim is smiling faintly down at him. And Jax can't say I love you so he cheats and does the next best thing he can think of and reaches a hand up and wraps his fingers around the back of Jim's neck and pulls him down into a soft kiss. Jim lies down, curling right up under Jax’s arm, and starts roving a hand over Jax’s chest as he settles in.

Jax blinks up at the ceiling, following a crack in the plaster by the light of the bedside lamp. For a moment he aches, and the ache is yawning, cavernous, and very cold– and then he packs it all away, folds it tightly and stuffs it into a box and kicks the box somewhere deep and dark and quiet. He turns his head and pokes his nose into Jim's hair. 

"So," Jax says, "Is it too soon for you to want another cigarette?"

–

Jim sleeps like a rock. That is, until, a sudden assault of pinches compels him to open his eyes and find Jax, sitting pretty directly on top of Jim’s stomach, grinning down at him. Jim wastes no time shielding his face from the sun in the crook of his elbow after it sends a sharp pain bouncing around the inside of his skull. “Ow,” he groans.

“Good morning, James,” Jax chirps, stretching his arms over his head and looking incredibly pleased with himself. “Let’s get coffee. You wanna go get coffee?”

“I’m not really sure how you’re even alive right now,” Jim responds.

"Dunno," Jax says, his grin unflickering. "Guess your dick is a pretty good hangover cure."

“Can my dick cure my hangover too?”

"Well, can you suck yourself off?" Jax inquires, peering down at Jim interestedly.

Jim carefully lifts his arm up enough to peek up at Jax with one eye. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

"I'll take that as a yes," Jax says breezily. Then he rolls off of Jim, stands up, and says, "Hey, check this out," as he presents to Jim the dusky red bruises on the inside of his thigh. While completely naked. 

Jim reaches out and skates his hand across the skin, brushing all the way up his thigh, and there's really nowhere for Jax's dick to hide when it twitches at Jim's touch. Just a little. 

Jax clears his throat, face ever so slightly pink. "Anyway. Coffee," he says, and turns away from the bed– and Jim can't resist dealing a brisk slap to his ass as he goes. Throwing a middle finger up without looking behind himself, Jax marches towards the coffee machine, and Jim watches him go with a faint smile playing across his lips. 

[mealvaan]

Pawn

Dragging steps part the red carpet as if it were its predecessor sea.

His hand is aloft as if there should be a drink sitting comfortably within it, but he’s forgotten the whole thing at the previous table. The legality of him indulging in drink is questionable — these Keeper men look so boyish until they’re decidedly not — but the staff will be damned if they tell him no. In his other, he lifts a loose leaf of parchment and slaps it onto the table.

“Am I late?”

The Gold Saucer attendant looks at the desk chronometer. Itimmediately strikes quarter to the bell.

“… No, sir.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he says, turning tail quite literally. He swipes the parchment off the desk once she’s had a sliver of time to check his details, a needless formality at this point. Even for lack of a draft, the gumption with which he’d scooped the thing causes it to flutter into his hand, with only a miniscule crease to show for it.

He enters the Battlehall with a slouch and a yawn. Seeing this space in its liminal form, bereft of crowd chatter and its repetitive, lift music-esque anthem, should be uncanny. Instead, he feels at home. His occupation may require him to be a performer too often, and he plays up his irritability more than he’d like to admit as the despised heel of the tourney. However, this is a private tournament played solely for the amusement of rich folk that fancy themselves better Triple Triad players than they are. So the close-quarters audience is quiet to feign a deep connection with the cards — he doubts they can even read the numbers on them.

That knowledge that there isn’t a true audience is oddly calming. He can kick up his feet as much as he’d like here. Literally. All those that might tell him off eye his swirling drink and pistol at the hip and decide they can clean off the table later.

His opponent is already seated at the venue. She usually plays the face, if by virtue of being at the centre of the Far Eastern craze that’s swept Ul’dah in droves. Truthfully, as someone who’d joined the audience for most of her matches, she isn’t very good at it. She keeps a placid expression, hardly reacts to her victories or her losses, and shrouds any expressiveness in plain, white robes the same colour as her horns. 

On second thought, that’s probably what the crowd loves about her.

Himself? He’s a natural heel. He’s dressed in all black, he loves to flip off the crowd when they tell him to make dogshit plays, and he’s a keeper of the moon for crying out loud. You could blame his strategic forethought — i.e. obvious reads into obvious tells — on boons from miqo’te occultism and Dalamud worship. 

But there is no audience for whom the narrative spins. There’s no hero, no villain, no arc to follow. The spectators are purely here to pick up a dozen strategies (and only a single opener will stick); the Ruby Princess and the One-Eyed Royal are just here for fun.

Who are they fucking kidding? They’re here to make money.

Truth be told, he hadn’t expected to get this far in such a high-stakes tournament. The odds had been against him, yet here he is at the finals. 

“Good luck,” says the Ruby Princess, succinct and quiet. This is the first time she has ever spoken to him.

“Don’t need it,” retorts the One-Eyed Royal gruffly, and she’s reminded of why she never speaks to him. 

The determining order is drawn. Two blue, one red. He looks over his deck as he smirks for the advantage.

One card is an obvious opener — if he can capture the middle-right with these stats ahead of time, then he’s assured the entire right hand side. For a moment, his fingers dawdle over its crest. There’s a cold energy to the card; isn’t the most blatant play simply playing into his opponent’s hand? Will she not see that this is his strongest play and capitalise on the weakness to come?

His fingers dart to the leftmost side of his deck and he whips the card from it, playing into the middle-right. 

Its left hand side reads ‘1’.

The Ruby Princess raises a brow. The peanut gallery incessantly scribble their notes. The attendant clicks the chronometer and the timer on his opponent’s end starts.

Perhaps her dull, doll-like stare was a character after all, because he can actually catch glimpses of her expression as he observes her movements. Between the slivers of the foil fan she’s concocted for herself, he can see the beginnings of a smirk. She underestimates him, just like everyone else. His rise to the finals is an utter fluke, as she’s rarely faced him off save for elimination matches, and his backdoor is wide open.

She places her weakest card to his own’s left. Her 4 is enough to trump his 1, and she won’t waste her big guns on this trifle, she decides.

Without hesitation, he captures her centre card with a mid-tier one on the bottom. Her eyebrow twitches. The match proceeds with increasingly defensive plays on her end, as he captures the space she leaves in untouched corners when he can’t beat her walls. It doesn’t matter that she has untouchable real estate in red. His first play has already made its scoring difference and secured the match, resulting in the final score of:

“6-3 to the One-Eyed Royal,” calls the attendant.

The smirk has been completely wiped off the raen’s face. In his one visible eye and between the slivers of his fringe, he gives her a knowing look. She’s let the fool transcend to royalty, past the last bastion of her bloodline, and now he reaps the rewards of sovereignty from the bulk of the sports’ sponsors.

Golf claps all around.

He takes his cards as she leaves hers, dumbfounded, and collects the Gold Saucer chips into the crux of his arm — his wooden infant, clicking and clacking against his chest. 

“Cheers,” Vahri'to says in his wake. It’s a good thing he’s not playing a character, too, as his tail swings with the base joys of a child.

[fadebolt]

Here we have another 1v1 between two rooms with very different roles and purposes. Though when it comes to these two, I very distinctly remember rambling a bunch about both of them, and since neither options are overly complex, I'll make sure to keep this slightly briefer than the rest of my reblogs.

FINAL03 is the more straightforward one, so let's address that first.

It's the room that starts off the non Void Sea ending for Gourmand, Survivor and Monk, by taking away the player's control, and making them walk to the leftmost side of this place.

I sort of get why that was done, but to me, it felt a tad jarring. I know a lot of people like to talk about how player control being taken away during the Saint ending is a lil weird, but I'd argue this is even worse. Because here, you don't even have to use any fancy abilities.

All you have to do is walk to the end of the room, which is something most players will be trying to do anyway. The Void Sea ending is a lot more confusing, and there, you don't get any guidance (as such, on the first time, it took me a while to figure out that I need to swim down… and especially that there was a light I needed to swim towards, in the later section), so I think this was rather uneccessary.

Outside of that, the background visuals are… fine. They were weirdly dull, when compared to the rest of the region, but of course, they were really not meant to be the focus here. Because let's be honest, the boring layout and visuals of this room work way better for the ending, than what you can find in a place like RUIN05 or RUIN06. It makes the room less interesting, sure, but it is undoubtedly the correct choice.

But I'll still stand by the fact that it sucks how we don't get to see Slugcat drawings or items collections in the last screen of this room. We were really robbed here, especially when you compare this place to the treatment that Scavenger territorries got :<

At least the surprise of getting to see a bunch of other Slugcats on Gourmand's ending was still there, and it still made me view this place in a positive light overall. This was especially helped by the place being empty on Survivor and Monk, acting as another surprise, with a bit of a gut punch added.

C04 by contrast is a place that doesn't really have story relevance, nor is it particularly emotional.

However, it's still surprisingly important, being a very central room of Industrial Complex, as it connects all the important parts together.

Despite its size, the base idea of this place is very simple, yet it still manages to be unique and memorable, as I can't think of a single other room in the entirety of Rain World, that has this whole "do a big fall to enter into a completely different section of this place" sort of thing, even though it does quite a lot for C04.

Because in isolation (and by that, I mean as two separate rooms that aren't connected in any way), the two sections of this room are not very impressive.

Sure, in the top part, you can have fun, knocking Lizards down into that hole, and the bottom part is a perfect place to learn the function of Bubble Fruits, and to get comfortable with the water mechanics, as well as wall jumping, but they would still only be in the category of the "just good" rooms, meaning they'd be a 6/10, a 7/10, or an 8/10 at the very most.

It's the twist that really elevates this place, because it takes rooms we've sort of seen before, and does something unexpected and cool with them, that we haven't.

It also helps that the creature spawns around this place tend to be quite fun. You'll rarely be alone in this room, but that's something I never had an issue with, as I do very much enjoy creature interactions here. The layout lends itself pretty well to them.

So to summarize - yeah, I am voting on C04. Anyone that would keep up with all my writings would probably expect this, since I have talked about these two before, and my choice here does absolutely fall into a ton of patterns I've noticed in myself. I still think it's the correct choice, and I'm still sticking with it, as an opinion being predictable doesn't necessarily equate to it being bad or wrong. It feels really incredible to see it win, too. It feels like the voters making up for allowing C08 of Chimney Canopy to fail (which is funny, cus I do like IC's C04 way more than CC's C08, so this is actually sort of an ideal outcome for me :3).

Pick Your Favorite Rain World Room, Day 290 R5

There is a hidden slugcat in one of the rooms (they can be in any color). If u can see it comment or reblog with where they are and if u are first, u get a cookie!

Credit for game screenshots goes to: Rain World Interactive Map, Rain World Wiki and me

Congratulations for day 289 winners!

[poppymonster]

taking a different approach to npc designs for an upcoming funky session of my dnd campaign

[megareviews]

Octopath Traveler Combat Review

Hello whoever’s reading this, I’m here to talk about Octopath Traveler’s combat system, and how it sucks. Now you might be wondering, why am I writing about this now, isn’t that game kind of old at this point? Yes, it is, but I only “finished” playing recently since I was working off of a borrowed copy and it’s more the level of disappointment I felt while playing it has stuck with me much more than many other games I’ve played. Since I want to go into game design and development, I thought that it would be good practice to do a deep dive on game mechanics, and it’s easier to write about something that I have strong feelings about to start with. While I have many issues with Octopath, the combat system is what the player is dealing with the most (which in itself is an issue), so the fact that it was lackluster dropped the enjoyability of the game more than if it were better balanced with story and exploration. I’ll try to hit everything that I had a gripe with, from minor things I personally would want changed, to what I view as major flaws that lower the enjoyment for everyone. I will be talking about the post-game boss, because a lot of my issues come into focus during it, so spoiler warning.

For reference, I’ll be talking about the game the way I played it, so I’ll give my main character loadouts in relation to the final boss. Team 1: Hunter Therion, Cleric Alfyn, Sorceror Cyrus, and Thief Olberic; Team 2: Warlord H’annit, Scholar Ophelia, Apothecary Primrose, and Runelord Tressa.

Now the big overarching problem with this game is its simplicity. Making a game simple can be a good thing, and definitely makes it more accessible, but there are a plethora of sub issues that I will be going into throughout this caused by how oversimplified many systems are in this game. For starters there is the lack of skill diversity, as in, there just isn’t very much that characters and enemies do over the course of the game. The offensive skills have 12 possible damage types, 6 weapons (Phys) and 6 elemental (Elem) and there’s only really 4 different ways these are implemented: single hit, multi hit, wide (hits all enemies) hit, and wide multi hit. Multi hits are generally just better due to the break system and damage limits, and wide hits are better the more enemies there are. Those of you good with numbers might have already multiplied those to get 48 ways of hitting an enemy, and I’ll add two, since the Merchant has an single hit untyped skill and the Starseer has a wide untyped skill, for a grand total of 50 that I can remember. Looking at that number I actually don’t know if that looks like a lot for somebody who hasn’t played the game, but the damage types only really matter in the break mechanic of the game and which stat is used for calculating damage. No particular type of damage is better for damage or accuracy skill wise, and the elem skills will do the exact same thing no matter which element is used since they’re only based on the user’s Mag stat. Phys attacks are a bit different since each one is affected by the weapon the user has equipped for that type, but they’re generally all +Str and then +Mag / +Acc / +Crit / +Spd / +Eva. Some Phys skills also have side effects that help differentiate between them, but the basic attacks are the same when the weapons are similar.

Since I brought it up, let’s talk about the two main mechanics of combat that this game has, the break and boost systems. Overall, these systems are pretty good on their own, and most of my issues are rather small here. First up is the break system: hit the opponent with their weaknesses a number of times, and they lose any remaining moves they have this turn, any they would take on the next turn, and all attacks against them deal more damage, though on the turn after the next, they are guaranteed to move first. This is where most of the fun of the game is, figuring out the enemy’s weaknesses, as they are hidden when you first encounter an enemy, only revealed when the weakness is hit, or with the Analyze skill, and then timing the breaks to be the most beneficial to your team. Many enemies belonged to groups with similar weaknesses, so it’s interesting to learn like winged creatures are generally weak to wind and / or spear attacks. The main problem I have with the break system is that once an enemy is broken, all damage types have the same effectiveness. Before being broken, an enemy that is weak to fire will take extra damage than if it’s hit with an ice attack, but while broken these attacks will do the same damage. Any accuracy bonuses don’t matter, since you can’t miss an attack on a broken enemy and speed bonuses only really matter if the order in which skills are cast is important, which there are some cases, usually with buffing allies. Then a bit smaller is how the weakness bar is always ordered, so some damage types are more useful to figure out all of the weaknesses. For example, if a weakness to staves is the leftmost weakness to be found, the player knows that there are no other physical weaknesses and to just start trying elemental ones. There were also some interesting extra mechanics that were only used a few times, such as shuffling weaknesses after a break, or, one mechanic used exactly once in phase 1 of the final boss, rotating through weaknesses when being attacked.

Then we get to the boost system, which complements the break system very well, with only minor annoyances. It makes the player decide between spending power against an unbroken opponent to break them faster, save up to deal massive damage to an opponent once they break, or how frequently turns need to be spent to cast buffs or debuffs. One issue that I have here is that magic users get the short end of the stick again, as basic attacks are the only moves (besides Bewildering Dance, the RNG move) that boosting will cause more instances of the move to occur. Boosting three times on somebody that will basic attack an enemy can cause them to lose 4 shields, while doing the same on a fire skill will just cause it to do more damage, which is objectively better to do when the enemy is broken. This usually isn’t an issue, as the BP can be spent on status effects and healing which will always be helpful, so besides Cyrus (laugh at him, he’s a nerd) there’s always something to spend BP on, thought your personal playstyle might dictate otherwise. Something that’s more personally annoying is how the limit is 5 BP max per character, since the most you can use is 3 per turn. What would be really nice and satisfying would be to break an opponent, have everybody spend 3 BP for full boosted whatever on the break turn, and then have everybody spend another 3 BP on fully boosted whatever else on the second break turn.

Next is another facet of the simple problem, is that there is significantly less character variability than the game wants you to think, and that’s not much in the first place. There are only 96 total skills for player characters, as there are 12 jobs with 8 skills each, and each character has their default job and may also equip a secondary job, letting each character go into battle with 16 skills, ignoring the path actions that grant others conditionally. The 8 base jobs can be simplified into 2 categories, DPS and Utility, 3 if you want to split the utilities into physical and elemental which I see as reasonable, or if you want to stretch it and split the 2 DPSs in the same way. I’ll stick with 3 since I can show how to best simplify them this way, watch. DPS: multiple damage type skills; Phys Utility: one weapon type set of skills, one single target elem skill, and a couple (de)buffs; Elem Utility: a single target elem skill, a wide elem skill, and a bunch of buffs. The advanced classes are even simpler, three of them being every attack type in either weapons or elements and then the remaining one being a bunch of buffs with one multi element skill so that every element had 5 related skills. I’m debating going into each individual job, but there are two that I will be getting into later for sure, Thief and Starseer, for opposite reasons.

Related to the lack of damage types and skills, is a lack of feeling of progression throughout the game. You gain access to 66% of the skills you will ever have by the end of the first quarter of the game, and the last 33% you won’t get until about the last quarter of the game. While the beginning of the a game it makes sense to give the players a bunch of tools rapidly, especially given the whole theme of versatility of the 8 different starting characters the game is based around, skills just scale up with the player’s stats, given through levels and equipment, otherwise they stay the same. While the middle half of the game can be used to mix and match secondary jobs on characters, it’s all just variations on the familiar. While this lack of progression just makes the game a bit boring until you start finding the advanced jobs, the actual issue is how SP scales through the game. The game ends up getting significantly easier as you progress further into the game since the SP costs become a smaller percentage of each character’s SP pools, and most forms of SP regeneration are percentage based, so characters get back SP easier too. For example, I had Ophelia with Second Wind (which I will get to in detail later) and a bunch of SP equipment, which by mid-game meant she could cast most spells and heal back more SP than they cost, and late-game everything was free outside of revive, which took two turns to fully heal. This is contrast to the beginning of the game, where a single skill cast could deplete a character’s entire SP pool, especially the physical jobs, as they usually came with smaller SP pools in the first place.

But where the runaway scaling is the worst, is actually on the thief job. Thief is a physical utility class, so it comes with dagger skills, the mandatory single hit fire skill, phys str and def debuffs, and some slightly more interesting abilities that falloff as the game goes on and you don’t need items or SP as much. All three dagger skills have special qualities, the divine skill uses the characters spd in the damage calculation, but HP Thief and Steal SP are the really broken ones. They both function the same way, hit twice with the dagger, then recover some percentage of the damage dealt to the stat in the name, 50% to HP or 5% to SP. The cost is also the same for each, 6 SP. There seemed to be a bit of a decrease in accuracy for each compared to just basic attacking with a dagger, so early on it was a bit of a risk to use it on enemies, especially if they were unbroken and not weak to daggers, as you would be losing SP to gain 30 health, or getting two dagger hits without boosting. But then, once the total damage of both hits reached 120, or even if you wanted to be safer, the damage of either hit, you start having a move that is free to use and hits more times than a basic attack without using BP, while also being able to heal yourself in a pinch. Now, the max damage you can deal in one hit without the Surpassing Power is 9,999, and you can very clearly see that a thief becomes an invincible slaughterer, as one can either heal themself for 9,999 HP, which is the max, or 999 SP, which is also the max, per turn. Now this might take a bit of set up, such as decreasing the enemy’s physical defense, which I remember mentioning is an ability that the thief job has, or increasing the thief’s physical strength, and there are a few ways to do that, but what I’m saying is it’s pretty much just all lined up for you to do way too easily with next to no drawbacks.

I’ve mentioned two support skills by now, so I should probably talk about them and the issues that they have. There’s 4 for every job, so 48 total, and each character has 4 slots that they can have support skills assigned to with no job related restrictions. This theoretically is about 200000 combinations, but since many support skills don’t synergize well with either the other ones or with the character or just are worse than others, there’s actually a lot less. The first way the options are culled are through support skills that are basically required. First on that list of required ones is that everybody needs Saving Grace, full stop. It changes the equipped character’s max HP from what is listed to 9,999, though if their HP is above their listed max, they can’t be healed any further until they have returned to a normal HP level. This gets very important for many late game bosses, and I feel like every paragraph is opening another two or more topics to go to, as most character’s 2k~3k isn’t enough. After that is some form of SP assistance, as the support skills are the ones with all the fancy %SP recovery. There’s 4 options to choose from: % max heal, heal % basic attack damage done, halve all SP costs, and heal % damage taken. Your magic casters will generally get the % max heal, since they have large mana pools to take advantage of that, and your DPSs will have the basic damage one, with much smaller mana pools and higher physical attack damage. Anyone with the Thief class can skip this, since as I’ve said, they will never run out of mana anyways. The % damage taken isn’t particularly useful as it’s such a small percentage and much less reliable than the others given it’s based on the enemy’s actions and targeting rather than yours. The Halve SP costs skill is situational, as some classes have higher SP costs, but losing the ability to actually regenerate SP makes the longer (and usually harder) fights more dangerous as you still run the risk of running out of mana. I used it on Tressa, since I played her as a caster and her mana pool is a bit lower than the other main casters, plus her Rest ability allows her to regain SP on her own. Third is either of the stat buff skills, once again the choice is based on how the character will be dealing damage. There’s Physical Prowess for Phys attack and defense or Elemental Edge for Elem attack and defense, and instead of being a stat boost like other similar skills from base jobs is that they permanently grant the combat buff to those stats, which means you don’t need to spend time casting the skills that do that AND that they can’t be dispelled by the enemy. What you do with the last slot (or two for thieves) is more open and is going to be where you can have ideas about different builds.

For me though, that last slot went to Surpassing Power on most characters, because by late game, most of my characters were hitting the damage limit pretty easily. Now the damage limit is just the fact that no single attack can deal more than 9,999 damage, because the developers said so. The support skill Surpassing Power, similar to Saving Grace, ignores that, and instead makes the max 99,999, though have fun trying to reach that before your character’s stats max out. Octopath unfortunately has a lot of these kind of arbitrary limits which only seem to exist to highlight an ability that can get around it, like purple treasure chests and Therion’s job ability. By the time I got to the post game boss 5 of my characters were consistently hitting the damage limit, and due to the sometimes absurd amounts of health that opponents had, Surpassing Power just made most of those fights so much faster.

Now a bit of time talking about enemies, because the difficulty scaling of the game is pretty boring, once again due to how simple the game is. This is really an issue among a lot of this type of RPG, since the game is just a numbers game and bigger numbers = harder fights. There’s two points specifically that make Octopath particularly bad with this, the lack of weaknesses on player characters, and enemy health. Since the player characters don’t have any weaknesses like enemies do, you really don’t have to pay attention to what specifically the opponent is doing, at most you can pay attention to whether you are taking physical or elemental damage, but the types are completely irrelevant. There’s a slight exception since there are accessories that reduce specific types of elemental damage, but as far as I could tell it was just better to use accessories that gave stat bonuses. Some enemies had abilities that could inflict status ailments, or had secondary abilities similar to player skills, but they were so few and far between that once again it doesn’t really contribute much. The other issue is with enemy’s health, in that they generally have way too much and causes the game to become so much slower. Fighting basic enemies is almost never a danger to your team assuming you are properly equipped, but the fights can still drag on for 5~10 minutes just whittling down their health. This even applies to fighting enemies that are much lower level than your own team, mostly due to the defensive bonuses that an enemy that hasn’t been broken has. This culminates to a final boss with about 700,000 HP, ignoring all the summons that it has and that it can’t take damage while the summons exist. Again remember that the maximum damage per hit is 9,999 in most cases and 99,999 in the other (which I’ve never gotten close to even with max offensive stats). Then also add in that you probably won’t be anywhere near that first max damage unless the boss is broken too, and you can see why the fights just take so long.

Ok, time to talk about the other job that particularly stood out to me, the Starseer. It’s a healing support job mostly focused around manipulating the party’s BP. Or at least the good skills it has are focused around BP. The divine skill is a wide untyped elemental attack dealing damage based around the whole team’s BP stock, and one of its utility skills also increases damage when the user uses BP, which you have to for divine skills. Another skill it has increases the BP gain of an ally to two per turn, rather than one. Unfortunately we’re already starting to get into the ok skill territory, as due to the way BP is gained, it is only useful for about half of the duration. After a character uses BP, they don’t gain any for the next turn, and since the max is 5 BP, there can only ever be two turns in a row where you benefit from this, and depending on support skills, the maximum benefit a character can get from this ability is an additional 4 – 6 BP. Now there is a Merchant skill that can give another character 4 BP instantly for the exact same cost. The rest of the skills range from decent but situational to worse versions of other job skills, and remember, Starseer is a secret job, meaning you don’t start with access to it, all the abilities are relatively expensive, and you have to fight a boss to unlock it. Continuing to a decent but situational skill is one that can target either enemies or allies, and prevents all stat buffs from being able to be applied to an enemy or prevents all stat debuffs from being able to be applied to an ally. If you know the enemy is a type to be able to apply either, this can be helpful if you can time it properly. The other skills of the job are mostly more expensive and / or worse versions of skills that other jobs have. From dealing multiple types of damage (worse than just 1 in 95% of cases) to healing over time (enemy’s damage considerably outpaces the healing it provides) to a counter that doesn’t prevent the damage like its counterpart, pretty much every active skill they have is disappointing.

I ran out of steam on that last paragraph, and stopped writing this for about 3 months, so I’ll just get one last point in. There are actually a lot of mechanics in the game that are kind of complicated, but since this game is about oversimplification, much of the most important nuance that the game actually has is hidden from the player. There are a ton of little bits of information that would make decision making in the game so much easier, but because the game refuses to display them, there’s a lot of guesswork. In some cases, this hidden information is obfuscating mechanics that subvert player expectations, so what they thought was an easy decision should actually be harder. The following is a non-comprehensive list of some of the worst offenders of hiding information in my opinion. The stat nuts, which raise character stats permanently, give different amounts of their stat depending on which character eats it. Moves that hit a random amount of times ignore all bonuses and penalties to accuracy and evasion. Items that reduce damage or recover HP/SP don’t say by how much, or whether it is percentage or a flat number. Healing skills scale with the caster’s elemental defense. What makes these and similar mechanics the most annoying is that there are some skills that do list exact numbers or percentages for their effects, so it is inconsistent too.

I will end this now and hopefully I covered everything I meant to. A lot of this was thought up while mowing the lawn or laying in bed trying to get to sleep so if something was lost in the recesses of my mind that’s unfortunate. I hope whoever made it all the way down here enjoyed reading, or at least thought it was interesting, and feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to hear more.

[fantroll-purgatory]

@chrisjoshington​

Okay before we start: CD I first saw this submission through my mobile browser and therefore had no idea that you sent it and was gonna message you to BEG you to hold it for me. I love them so much holy shit. And I have some ideas.

Alternia, Beforus, or AU: Alternia

Themes/Story: Corday is nb and uses he/they/she interchangeably. He’s basically Theater Kid taken to its logical extreme. They’re a master of the art of disguise and utilize this skill to aid the rebellion. And also do some assassinations. So there’s her themes; theater, disguise, assassination. 

Thank you for giving this offering to me, an Adjacent to Theater Kid. I am planning a murder mystery party for my birthday. My birthday was three months ago. Corday is invited.

Name: Corday Nopper

Corday is a reference to Charlotte Corday, Marat’s assassin. Nopper references Noppera-bō, a mythical creature that disguises itself as human and can wipe off its face like a chalkboard. 

I…I never knew about Charlotte Corady before I read this holy shit.

Age: 9 sweeps,19.5 human years

Strife Specibus: Knifekind

I wanted to keep it simple and discrete for him. It’s also just subtly, just a little bit a reference to the assassination of Julius Caesar.  

I think you could also maybe get away with Staffkind if he’s into musical theater because of the pun.

Fetch Modus: Monologue Modus. They have to monologue for a minute about an object without saying the name of the object and their modus has to guess which item he’s talking about.

My main concern with this modus is that it doesn’t seem like Corday would use this one because it would require too much noise if they were sneaking around. Maybe a CHARADES MODUS? It plays into the acting without them needing to speak, and it lends itself to comedy when they need to retrieve, for example, a Perfectly Generic Object.

Blood Color: Indigo

They’re described as the enthusiasts of the spectrum and I thought that fit well for the level of Passion she brings to her job. 

Special Abilities: Nothing aside from the usual blueblood strength. 

Symbol and Meaning: I’ve been split between Sagio and Sagirius. I’m leaning Sagirius though since it’s called “the Bardic.” 

I can see either one working for her tbh, but I LOVE Hope players so I side very strongly with Sagirius.

Trolltag: zealousDeathspian. Zealous references their enthusiasm, Deathspian is a portmanteau of Death and Thespian. 

DEATHSPIAN IS SO GOOD. What about dramaticMurd–I’m kidding I’m kidding. If you wanna go even harder on the theme maybe Deathspion to include “espion” in the title?

Quirk: As neutral as they can possibly make it. Outside of their acts, they like to project a relatively neutral image to make them harder to pin down. They are partial to (~: emojis, though. Their one identifying marker. 

Ex: Just as normal as can be. Definitely not a fun assassin or anything. (~: 

They change the quirk up between disguises, though! 

Lusus: Probably a big raccoon with many faces. As a reference to shapeshifting racoons in Japanese mythology.

Personality: Have you ever met a method actor? He buys into roles with all the enthusiasm possible. If you have any question about her disguises’ lives or personalities or likes or dislikes, she has a thorough answer. If she has a long mission playing a character with a broken arm, she will Break Her Arm. 

They’re committed to this because they thoroughly believe in the good of the cause and that if everyone just works hard enough, they’ll succeed, and succeed Soon. They’re definitely an optimist to a somewhat critical degree. They expect most things to go right simply because they believe in it. 

He also has a tendency towards the ruthless. When he’s got a mark, the mark will die. He’ll do anything to accomplish his goal. He has a strict moral sense, but that moral sense includes Never Fail To Follow Through On A Promise. 

She’s predisposed to drama and acting over the top when hanging out with friends, but can actually be a very serious and competent person when she needs to be. Dedicated and focused and responsive and passionate. 

Interests: Theater, Musicals, Costumes, Makeup, Sculpting, Glassblowing, Jewelry Making- Basically anything to do with costume making. Soap Operas, Trashy Dramatic Tabloid Magazines, A Good Knife. 

Title: Witch of Hope

Hope seems to fit her because of her strong convictions and optimism as well as her willingness to do anything to reach her goal. He has a strong personality, so an active class makes sense. But the Witch comes in in the active change, the need to shape and mold the nature of all that potential and optimism that he holds into a usable form. 

Land: Land of Drapes and Pinion 

Dream Planet: Derse

Design party…: 

Leftmost: Their True Appearance/how they dress in front of friends. They hacked off their horns so they could put fakes in their place because they’re just that hardcore. And he also designed a new symbol to do a little more anonymity preservation. The shoes are from fan-troll. 

Blue: This is what she wears if she wants to walk around discretely. The goal is to be as generic as possible. The shoes are John’s! 

Purple: He disguises himself as a Bartender/Candy Vendor and runs in highblood circles to get Intel. The symbol is meant to look a bit like a lollipop. There’s sopor candies stuck in his hair. And I couldn’t decide on a good makeup so I did like… paint that looks like drool and a black eye. The suit and pants are both from fan-troll. 

Violet: Her most recent disguise, she assassinated a violet Career Adviser and took on her role. And uses this as a way to meet people she can convince to join the rebellion.  

Listen…I love him so so much my redesign is the MOST minimal thank you for this joy. I especially love that you kept visual continuity with the eyes without compromising your vision for him as a master of disguise.

Okay SO. Minimal minimal changes idk if I’d even go top to bottom. Let’s go left to right?

True Self

I liked how you gave Corday’s casual duds this very “hanging out backstage before curtain call” vibe so I pinned their hair back the way one might if they were gonna wear a wig over it.

I also figured like. Breaking her horns its badass and all but it may be difficult to fit a prosthetic horn over that? So I gave her slightly shaved down horns (she could even do this with her knife!) that could potentially fit a prosthetic over them.

For his mouth I really liked the look of his teeth but I figured if they stuck out too much then they would difficult to conceal when he was undercover so I colored their outline in grey to keep the definition while visually implying that they’re set further back from his gums.

For their shirt, I gave them their real symbol. If we’re gonna push that this is how they are with their friends then that’s them at their messiest and most relaxed, which would include aspects of their True Self.

Other than that just a few outline changed but all in all it’s a real good look.

Generic

So I edited the symbol you originally gave to her true self and shifted it over, mostly so it could feasibly comply with multiple sign languages? I also edited the horns so they’re just pointy and not so arrowlike.

For their disguise, I wanna explain my reasoning. So we know that hemoanonymity is effective in that people genuinely can’t tell what your blood color is, but that it’s also see as childish and immaturely rebellious, so doing so may bring you attention in a way that simply wearing a shirt with a blood colored symbol may not.

BUT

A really, really effective disguise makes the onlooker draw their own conclusions and feel much smarter than you are. So, fine! Let his symbol be hemonanon! Deck him out in grey-colored clothing that’s indistinguishable from others’ fashion choices.

but

If you look closely you’ll see that they’re wearing bronze ankle socks. They’re very small! Barely noticeable! Almost like something they’d worn them by mistake.

Someone speaking to her would obviously roll their eyes at her greyed-out sign and cast about for hints of her “real” blood color and see the socks. Aha, they’d think, she’s slipped up. Forgot to leave those at home, huh? And now that they think of it, it’s obvious she’s a bronzeblood. It’s not just the circle in her sign either; she may not be dressed to the nines, but look at the touch of mascara around her lower lashes! The slight gleam of her lip gloss. Typical bronzebloods. They can try to hide their blood color all they want, but their desire for creature comforts will always give them away.

Barvendor/Candytender

Once again, not much to change here. Made the white threads in their suit yellow for that little pop, and swapped out the tie for a loud bow tie for the whimsy. I also adjusted a few stands of hair that felt like they were laying oddly.

For the face paint, between the candy association and the single sharp snaggletooth, he’s already halfway to being a jack-o-lantern, so that’s what I used for his makeup! Other than that he was perfect.

Career Advisor

I lengthened her jacket collar and her sideburns to more deliberately cover up the space where there would be a line between her face and her fin; we don’t really know how far practical makeup can take us in this instance. Aside from that though I really didn’t have any fixes and tbh that was more because I felt like I had to futz with the sprite a little bit.

I LOVE THIS TROLL SO MUCH LONG LIVE CORDAY.

-TR

[heartandsoulgames-blog]

Not Dead Yet progress blog 2

I realise this is not quite weekly already, purely as I had forgotten.

This week, we solidified some more mechanics such as enemy movement, enemy AI (including attack patterns, following the player, line of sight, and pathing), random level creation from predetermined rooms, and random enemy spawns.

On my behalf, the most important aspect was creating hitboxes for enemies including damaging hitboxes for the melee enemy (two more to be made) and damagable hitboxes for all other enemies. This wasn’t too hard, but was a little tedious as there were quite a number of models we had to catch up.

One problem we encountered was enemy pathing. This is because enemies require a NavMesh to path properly. Unfortunately, the Unity engine does not like saving NavMeshes to prefabs, and as such we had to figure out a way to bake NavMesh during runtime. We did some research, but most of it came to suggestions of building the whole level beforehand. As we’re making a randomised roguelike, this was not an option. Ultimately we found some code that bakes NavMesh and our programmers implemented it extremely well.

As the first prototype of this method works well, we’re sticking with it.

We’ve determined the different types of enemies and separated the types into three distinct classes - elemental type, health/movement ratio (”Difficulty”), and attack method. As such, we have 9 unique combinations before elemental type (totaling 36) plus a one-off unique sniper-type. Of the 10 unique types (as the elements are simple colour changes instead of unique models) we have 5 models already created and I am on the way with a 6th. The other two designers are focusing on level asset creation and animations.

Here are some examples of the hitboxes. The leftmost blue alien has overlapping hitboxes on his “hands” as those are the damaging hitboxes for player damage.

Hopefully future blog posts will be more timely 😅

[tadaima2019]

june 22

Today, Baaba’s brother Yasuji-occhan, and his wife, Hiromi-no onechan arrived at 10:30 AM to begin our road trip to Okage Yokocho, Ise-Jingu and Toba, all within the Mie prefacture. Before that, Jiiji took Brandon, Mommy and I to UNIQLO right when it opened at 10 AM, in hopes to buy the newly released BTS shirts. They bought 5 t-shirts, some for themselves and some as gifts. While they were busy racing other people to the t-shirts, I picked up a backpack, a dress, and pajama pants.

Soon, we were on our way, Jiiji driving one car (Jiiji, Baaba, Brandon, me) and Yasuji-occhan driving another car (Yasuji-occhan, Hiromi-no onechan, Mommy, and our luggage). The drive is about an hour and a half, and we stopped halfway through at this service area. Jiiji bought these amazing sweet potato and brown sugar fugashi snacks. I hope we go on another road trip so I can find these again. 

We soon reached Okage Yokocho, an ancient traditional street that has been preserved, maintained, and visited for centuries. Okage means gratitude, and the street was given this name by visitors who stayed here when traveling to see the Grand Shrine, Ise-Jingu. We’ve visited this street a few times throughout our summers in Japan, but this was the first time we’ve been here since I’ve become old enough to fully appreciate the history and beauty of these landmarks. 

The clouds looked ominous at first, but the sky quickly cleared and the weather was beautiful all weekend. 

[The main plaza]

Okage yokocho is fun for all ages of visitors because of the endless amount of traditional gift shops, restaurants, food stands, selling street food, snacks, handmade toys and keepsakes. 

This picture is funny for me to look back on because the three men in the white and black clothes are the Taiko team that we watched perform later in the day. When I took this picture, they were still just random strangers in the background, and I recognized them when selecting pictures for this blog post. 

Yasuji-occhan made a reservation for the seven of us at this udon restaurant, famous for its Ise udon. This udon is served cold with a sweet salty sauce, with udon noodles so soft that you barely need to chew. Apparently they are served this way because, 400 years ago, when Ise-Jingu visitors were weary and in a hurry, and this meal was made to be easy for them to digest. 

We sat at the zashiki (tatami floor seating) table in front of the leftmost window.

Brandon ordered zaru udon with regular udon soup as dipping sauce. 

My Ise kitsune udon was delicious :)

Everybody laughed at me while I ate because I was unsuccessfully trying so hard to not splash sauce onto my shirt. This meal is made to be eaten quickly but I took forever. 

After lunch, we were refreshed and ready for the hike to Ise-Jingu, the Grand Shrine. This is a Shinto shrine built to honor the sun goddess Amaterasu, the sun goddess, most sacred of all Shinto deities. It is believed this shrine was built 2,000 years ago and has been visited yearly by emperors ever since, even still today. There are several smaller shrines along the way to the Grand Shrine. It was really interesting to visit Ise after studying Shinto traditions and deities in Asian Mythology last semester.

People come here on all sorts of pilgrimages, most people in Japan dreaming to visit this shrine at least once in their lifetime. It’s very popular to come here as a pre-university student, praying at the shrine to ask for success in university entrance exams. This river is very sacred as the emperor visits here each year, and everyone throws coins as an offering. 

One of my favorite things about this hike was seeing how beautifully the grounds were kept. The trees and gardens were stunning, some of the tree trunks being mindblowingly grand with centuries of age. The walk was very peaceful. 

These are the steps up to the main Grand Shrine. Pictures were not permitted past this point, but up the stairs was a place for money offerings, and a fence behind which we could see the shrine. People are only allowed to enter one day a year, or in a group for a very revered, very expensive ceremony. 

After walking back from Ise-Jingu, we came back to Okage Yokocho for some more snacks. In Awajishima, I declared that oranges were my current favorite fruit. Jiiji and I were super excited to try these freshly squeezed orange juice oranges. They were super sweet and super refreshing, I wished it never ran out. 

Baaba and I make fun of Jiiji for always buying snacks that are either huge in volume or served on a stick. This caraage fried chicken skewer falls under both categories and was also delicious. 

[Brandon with his honey orange lemonade soda and me with my orange]

Jiiji and I stopped to watch a kamishibai, a very animated man telling a story using a set of paintings. We joined partway through so did not catch the whole story, which ended with a “to be continued...” anyways. 

This is a link to a video I took of a toy maker demonstrating a very perplexing toy. I tried to figure out how to embed a video into a tumblr text post but this is the closest I could get :( I still wanted to include this video because pictures can’t capture the charm of this toy. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CgN5YlTEo41oMPWvl_9by25bzFoi6T7e/view?usp=sharing&autoplay=1

Mommy, Brandon and I found a lollipop artist who used a claylike candy to mold a kitty lollipop for us. He worked so swiftly and narrated the legs, arms, face, and ball into existence. Later, Brandon ended up accidentally knocking the lollipop out of Mommy’s hands, but it was a fun experience to watch it be made. 

Jiiji bought us hiyashi kyuuri, pickled cucumbers. This is a tradional Okage Yokocho snack that we always look forward to when visiting. 

We took a break from walking to watch a Taiko performance at 4 PM. There were three players, the guys I unknowingly took a picture of earlier in the day. They played two songs, the first song using the huge elevated taiko and the next song using the huge one on the ground. Even with only three players, the sound was so loud and powerful, and they caught the attention of everyone that passed by. They were super talented; it was very nostalgic and fun to watch. It looks super tiring but they kept up their energy through the whole performance.

While we watched the performance, we ate some amazing kakigoori, shaved ice with strawberries and condensed milk. It was a very welcome refreshment :)

[Brandon, Baaba and I on the walk back to the cars]

[Bye bye Okage Yokocho]

After about a 40 minute drive, we arrived in Toba, where we were staying the night. I had zero idea that Toba is an ocean town, and this picture captures the exact moment that the ocean came into view and shocked Brandon and I. 

This is the vacation apartment we stayed at! We were expecting a tiny motel, but arrived at this resort. Apparently Yasuji-occhan’s boss owns the keys to a unit in this apartment and allows the company’s workers to stay here for family vacations. The gardens, lobby, and views were amazing.

[Some weird parrot beak ‘flowers’ we found]

This was the view from our room’s balcony! I didn’t take pictures of the hotel room today, but there will be some in tomorrow’s post. 

[Sunset in Toba]

After exploring the gardens and room where we were staying, we went to a family restaurant in JUSCO for dinner. I got the same miso ramen that I eat literally every time it’s an option on the menu.

Post dinner, we decided to visit a street festival that we saw going on when we arrived in Toba. It was a bit of a walk from JUSCO, but when we reached, we bought Baby Castella cakes and I got a candied apple. Even though I’ve never been to Toba, this festival was also really nostalgic and a great last adventure of the day. 

After we got back to the apartment, Hiromi-no onechan played a music-box Ghibli music CD, and we sat around the table eating snacks and talking about the things we saw today. We laid out all the beds and called it a night. 

[carusothefic-blog]

Non-IF Fiction Works

The stories I’ve been covering on this blog have typically followed the same format. Games that the player inputs commands and directions to proceed farther in said game while telling the story of said game. The pieces I am looking at today are more unique in nature. These pieces use different forms of technology to tell the story the authors want to tell.

The first piece was “Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge” by Dinty Moore. The interesting twist with this piece was the fact it was told in Google Maps. The story focuses on a writer who has to pick up famous author George Plimpton from the airport. Problem is that the main character got hopped up on all types of drugs before getting to the airport and leaves an awful impression to George Plimpton. Throughout the main character’s life, he keeps running into Plimpton and believes that the author remembers his awful experience after the airport. The main character becomes an esteemed author and runs into Plimpton again and finds out that Plimpton doesn’t even remember that awful experience the author has been dreading on. The interesting thing with this story is at each of the author’s experiences, the google map location shows where the author was which adds a layer of investment for the reader. This piece is missing some of the most important aspects of interactive fiction. AKA the interaction and different endings. You can’t really influence what happens in the story as the ending is always the same. The only change is what order you go through it. I really enjoyed how this one worked, the google maps made the story more interesting to read and I was actually disappointed when it ended.  I can personally relate to the author’s experiences as I have had embarrassing experiences with people that I dread remembering and turns out the person has no clue what I’m talking about.

The next piece is “That Sweet Old Etcetera” by Alison Clifford. This piece is an adaptation of the poem “That sweet old Ecetera” by E.E Cummings. The twist with this piece of fiction is as you click on the words on the screen, the poem develops more and eventually becomes a beautiful background. For example, a tree sprouts with small branches and as you click on the branches the tree expands and becomes a full-sized tree. Once the tree is formed you can click on the branches which lead to developing the environment more. This is an interesting way to tell the poem but I had trouble actually getting the gist of the poem due to all the weird aspects of the poem like letters and words getting jumbled together. I also had a problem where I got stuck on the leftmost branch with many colors and couldn’t progress. It doesn’t fit in with interactive fiction like previously covered. The actions that the player takes actually affect the world in those types of games. What the player does will change the course of the story. Solid piece and an interesting experience

The last piece is called “The Last Performance” by Judd Morrisey. This piece was very weird. It took place on a website and as you clicked the words it acted out a dance. I had a problem with this piece personally. It didn’t give much explanation to the dance itself. The dance looked as if it was telling poems but it was not clear on what the poem was. Once I clicked on The Scene at the top there was another area which directly led to different poems or “lens” as the site told me. The dome had a large variety and amount of poems which I figure are the poems the dance was going through if you let it go for the whole length. I found a good video that goes through a live performance of the piece here. This piece is incredibly not an interactive fiction piece. It seems to actively reject interacting with the piece and just creates pop-ups that don’t move the piece forward. It makes you figure out what to do to progress more than most if works do. At the very least, you can at least interact greatly with it.

Links to the pieces:

Mr. Plimpton

That Sweet Old Ectera

The Last Performance

[starwriterulia]

Forgiveness, Thankfulness and Remembrance: Chapter 3 - Homeroom Thoughts

From my Quotev.

-❄❄❄ September 6, 2017. 9:01 AM  ❄❄❄-

        I look up from my phone as a cute, somewhat short male student with silky, light brown hair and beautiful brown eyes passes me. Oh, isn't he the second guy who passed us in the hallway? He gives me a brief, small smile as we make eye contact. He quickly reaches the fifth and final row to sit in the desk near the window. Ah, so this is our main protagonist.

        "Uh, good morning, Baekhyun." Mrs. Mok says, making a slight face as she turns on the SMARTboard behind her. Is this not his usual morning behavior? 

        He turns to her from looking outside for a moment. "Hi, Mrs. Mok."

        "Are you feeling OK today? You usually sit in the front, right beside where Eunju is sitting."

        Baekhyun catches my eyes that paced between him and Mrs. Mok. "Your name is Eunju?"

        "Yes, I transferred here from Canada for my last year. It's nice to meet you, Baekhyun."

        Baekhyun's chest slowly sinks as he exhales. "It's nice to meet you, too." He gives another little smile, but his expression reflects anguish. Should I... ask? 

        As I open my mouth, Mrs. Mok takes my place. "Baekhyun, are you feeling alright?"

        "Yes, I'm fine." His tone doesn't make it seem that way. Just as Baekhyun finishes his sentence, more students file in, filling the seats. I guess it's not my business to ask what's wrong, but I still can't help but wonder if his mood has something to do with the student he was walking with, this morning. The bell chimes again, then shuffling comes from the speaker on the ceiling's corner to the left of the door.

        "Good morning, SGHS." Oh, this is the secretary's morning announcement. "Welcome back from summer vacation, we hope you all had fun. Today's block rotation is 1-2-2-3-4 after homeroom. As a reminder, you only have to be in homeroom before the first block for the first week for attendance."

        "The first dance of the year is on the last Friday of this month, the 29th. The theme is Fall Fair, so dress in denim and plaid if you want to. As always, there is a small prize draw, and admission is ₩8200." That equals about $10 CAD. "You can preorder your copy of the yearbook starting October 1st by the office."

        "They are ₩45, 600 until December 1st, then they will then be ₩53, 900." That equals around $55 and $65 CAD. Ugh, my other high school had overpriced yearbooks, too. "That is all for today's announcements. This has been Seo Jeonghae, your secretary in the office. Have a wonderful day."

        There's a bit more shuffling as Jeonghae ends the announcement, then Mrs. Mok rises from her seat. "Alright, good morning class, I'm Mrs. Mok." She begins to write her name in Hangul on the SMARTboard with the black pen. "As Jeonghae said, welcome to the 2017 school year." Mrs. Mok adds her name in Hànzì underneath.

        "Mr. Jeup and I teach Korean, Japanese, English and Mandarin, so we collaborate our classes." She writes her name in Hiragana and English, then sets down the pen and puts her hands at her sides. "Our students often share one language and wish to learn another that a peer knows. It's a trade that has shown to be enjoyable and educational for everyone. Language has helped people communicate for generations, and it's my job to help you communicate wherever you go."

        "How many people here are looking to learn English?" A good half of the class raises their hands, and everyone looks around like curious puppies to see each other. I notice that Baekhyun is one of these people. "Ah, a big number, like always." Mrs. Mok smiles.

        "Good, very good. Who is here to learn Korean?" A small portion of the class raises their hands. "Mm, good. How about Japanese?" Another small portion raises their hands. "And, Mandarin?" I raise my left hand with a third small portion of the class.

        "Excellent, everyone here is looking to learn something different. Mr. Jeup and I enjoy posting videos of students talking to each other in their newly learned languages on our school's YouTube page. We have a collection of playlists that has been growing since 2012. We will teach you through various games, exercises, and activities. At the end of every week, you will be tested by talking with me using what you learned that week. If everyone does well, you all get ice cream. Does that sound good?"

        We cheer and applaud collectively, laughing at ourselves. "Now, may our new student come to the front and introduce herself, please?" I rise from my seat and walk to Mrs. Mok's left side. She gives me little nod and smile. "When you're ready."

        I huff, nodding firmly, then turn to the class. "Hello, my name is Young Eunju, I'm in this class to learn Mandarin. I am in twelfth grade. I am a transfer from Canada on two scholarships. I enjoy writing and can make friends easily because of my personality. I look forward to knowing you all; please treat me well." I bow to finish my speech, and the class gives me a warm applause, Baekhyun included, who looks a little interested and a little relieved of stress.

        "Thank you, Eunju. You may return to your seat, now." Mrs. Mok says, and I nod in response, doing so. "Now, let's go over the course assignments and begin the first assignment." Mrs. Mok picks up the keyboard on her desk and closes the application, Word 2017 beneath it.

        She puts down her keyboard and hands a stack of booklets to the leftmost student in the front row. "Please take one and pass it on." After everyone had taken one, Mrs. Mok proceeds to go over the assignments for the course. Our first assignment was to create a poster in our chosen language, with help from Mrs. Mok, of a small self-introduction. We would present them to the class on Thursday, then they would be posted to the bulletin board outside for a week.

        We began to work on our projects, making rough drafts on lined paper about what we wanted to put down. I met Hyejae, who's in twelfth grade, during the class's Q&A time featuring me. She was adorable and idol-image-material with big, dark eyes and short, black hair. We clicked right after I mentioned we were both lactose intolerant, knowing the struggles of not being able to find vegan ice cream so easily.  She turned out to be vegan as I am, and she cosplays as Kagamine Rin, so we got excited about Vocaloid, too. 

        I received many questions from students about my home country and town, which is Vanderhoof, located in the geographical heart of British Columbia, scholarships, dwarfism, and the way I walk. Of course, this lead to a brief explanation of my knees for the upteenth time. I discussed my other interests, starting with Pokemon and my preference of Water and Fairy types and favoritism of Mudkip and Sylveon, and Project Diva, and that I like music and can sing but wouldn't sing then and there. I talked about Minecraft and why I don't play online or Story Mode, cosplaying, and that I don't own a maid outfit and sew the costumes myself, and how I play Magic: The Gathering casually and attend Friday Night Magic.

        Everyone who asked me questions and listened seemed thrilled to meet someone as unique as me. It didn't surprise me because I knew my appearance alone would raise questions. I noticed that Baekhyun was among the intent listeners, quietly working and smiling a little when I talked about how I adore Miku and all of her possibilities, and why I'm not a great Magic player: unlucky decisions. After everyone had asked their burning questions, I thought about Baekhyun and the student I saw him with. Baekhyun's face was red, and the way the other person was holding his wrist was a clue that something was happening.

        Maybe someone did something to anger the other person, like try to... take... Baekhyun away. Oh my God, I think they might be a couple. Pretty fucking sure that guys don't hold each other like that unless they're gay. The latter being totally fine to me, I mean, hell, gay and lesbian etc. people can be just as wonderful as straight people. They probably went somewhere more private than a bathroom, they missed two of them by the time I stopped looking their way and missed if they turned the right corner or went down the stairs at the end of the hall.

        I think the former option is most likely because Haeun told me that the door to the fenced school rooftop is always unlocked. The door follows the Information Technology and Law classrooms, on the right, and the third set of stairs, on the left, at the end of the hallway after the turn. The History, Social Studies, and Planning classrooms are on the left wall as well. They might have went there and had a talk. Oh geezums, now I'm curious and worried, when it's none of my business.

        I quietly sigh, looking to Baekhyun from the protection of my hair over my desk. I hope everything's OK, he seems to . Also pretty sure that if I asked someone about the two, I'd get some raised eyebrows. Or, maybe I wouldn't. Hm, I'll observe people in the school a little more, see if I can spot Baekhyun with anyone. Or, maybe I'll meet someone who knows Baekhyun and what's going on, and they'll tell me. I... I fucking hate being an author, I overthink things way too easily. Eh, at least I've got a plan. 

        I feel like a fucking cool-ass teen detective too, like Nancy Drew, but with brown hair and green eyes. Even though I'm naturally a dark blonde, so there's that, too. After everyone was working for fifteen minutes, the bell rang. "Alright, I'll see you tomorrow for the double block." Mrs. Mok says, standing from a helping a student at their desk while everyone hastily packs up.

        I wait for everyone to file out so I don't get run-over, insisting to Hyejae and a few other students that I was sure of my choice. Yeah, I'd say this is going pretty well. Mom's gonna be glad to hear about this. I look over my left shoulder as I watch Baekhyun approach me. "Hi, Eunju."

        "Hi, Baekhyun. Did you need something?"

        "No, I was just wondering what your next class is."

         "Oh!" Not a question I expected from him. "After ASWM, I have Visual Arts."

        "Really?" Baekhyun gives a light huff. "I have those courses, too. Do you wanna go to math, together?"

        "Sure, I wouldn't mind." Baekhyun nods, then we take a right to the staircase that way.

        "So, ASWM, huh? You're not good with math, either?" I chuckle.

        "No, I'm not very bright in math or science." He lowers his shoulders. Oh, something's telling me his parents may have high expectations for him. 

        "Are you good at art?"

        "I'm not bad at scenery painting." Baekhyun answers as we descend the staircase. "I'm good with people and gardening, too. I might go into social work, or my parent's business at the greenhouse." I give an 'mm' in reply. "What are you going into, Eunju?"

        "Something with writing, if I'm lucky. I have a business certificate, and I've worked at a bank before, so I could work in an office, too. Something where I'm not up on my feet all day." Baekhyun nods a little in understanding. "By the way, what grade are you in, Baekhyun?"

        "I'm in twelfth grade, too." He answers, waiting for me at the bottom of the first set of stairs. "So, your knee incident actually happened?"

        "Yeah," I answer, starting the final set. "I'm wearing black pantihose to help hide my scar. I mean, I shave, but I had a habit of scratching at mosquito bites as a kid, so I have circular scars all over my arms and legs. That's why I chose to wear the long sleeved uniform." Baekhyun gives a low 'mm' in understanding.

        When I was a little more than halfway down the stairs, the student that Baekhyun was with this morning halts in front of the opening into the hallway from the right. I never realized how tall he was until now, and his face is kind of baby-like, his eyes are very dark, piercing brown. "There you are, Baek. Are you coming?" Whoa, that’s a deep voice, if I ever heard one.

        "Chanyeol, you still have to go to class, after homeroom." Baekhyun replies, reaching the bottom. "We have to wait until break to..." He pauses, then shakes his head a little as I finish descending. "...To talk on the roof."

        "Just for a minute, come on..." Chanyeol whines.

        "Nope, we're going to class." Baekhyun replies, taking Chanyeol's left hand and pulling him along as we go to the math classrooms down the hallway. Chanyeol's face holds this bewildered, judging and pleading expression, telling me that they're a couple, and that Chanyeol is the masculine figure who is currently confused at his partner's actions. He's also judging me because he may think I have something to do with it, and pleading to be released from Baekhyun's hand so he can recapture it and away with Baekhyun. Just... just fuck my analyzing brain; I'm thinking too much, and I have math, next.

-Forgiveness, Thankfulness and Remembrance-

WE: 2260 words, yes, very good. To clarify, if an idol is born before '95, they are in tenth grade. '95 liners are in eleventh grade, and '94-'90 liners are in twelfth grade. There are many exceptions for the sake of ship-relevancy for idols who are in twelfth grade. Yep, you heard that right. Ship-relevancy. Thanks for reading!