#i don’t think i’ve ever had my baseline be so good??? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

apomaro-mellow · 2 months ago

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Yall said you wanted more of Victorian steddie cucking Jason so here ya go

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Steve had been distracted and it only got worse as his appointment with Doctor Munson got closer. He had never felt that good before. No omega he’d ever talked to had mentioned that an alpha’s touch could feel like that. He didn’t even know using mouths was an option. Was it strictly a medical procedure? Surely he couldn’t expect his husband to perform that for him. Only a licensed expert should….should…

He clenched his legs together and bit his lip, trying to look like he was present as his husband went over the final preparations.

Jason sighed. “I do wish you didn’t have to see the doctor on the same day as the party. What if you fall ill?”

Steve sighed. “It’s for the best. You want a child, don’t you? One of our very own. And Doctor Munson has been recommended by all our friends.”

Of course, Jason had been the one to seek him out, but when Steve mentioned the name Munson to his own circle, Heather and Carol had nothing but praise for the man’s practice. Carol had even confided in her own struggle to conceive before taking him on as a physician and now she was set to pop any day now.

Before, Steve had chalked it up to a pill or tonic, something that made her and her husband’s attempts more fruitful. But…when he remembered how the doctor had helped him. Now Steve was wondering if Carol’s child would be born with hair darker and curlier than it should be. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that but the only way to know more was to get to his appointment.

Jason wouldn’t be joining him for this one, too busy with the last minute details. They were hosting a celebration for Jason’s commendation and Steve hoped he’d be in a jovial mood when it was time to get to bed.

He didn’t even have to spend time in the waiting room when he arrived. Doctor Munson was already in the front room, almost as if he’d been waiting for Steve.

“Mrs. Carver, right on time, follow me.”

Steve did, entering and sitting down on the table as he had the first time. Doctor Munson closed the door behind himself. He started with asking baseline questions. Most of which were easy to answer, as it had only been a week since he had been here last. Nothing much changed except…well…

“And your urges? The ones Mr. Carver was worried about? Did they get any better?”

Steve started to wring his skirt before remembering his manners and straightening it out. “I um, well, yes and uh no?”

Doctor Munson chuckled. “So a solid maybe? Could you elaborate? Are they different from before?”

Steve thought about it. He still felt an ache, a need. But they only came upon him when he thought of-oh.

“The urges used to be directed solely at my husband. But I don’t think about him anymore. Instead I-”

“Instead?”

Steve cleared his throat and turned up his gaze from his lap to the man before. “I’ve been thinking of you.”

The grin that came upon the doctor’s face was both endearing and searing. Steve felt his body get warm and his eyes were drawn to that mouth. He missed entirely what was said next.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said that’s perfectly natural. Your omega desires the one who will care for your needs. Typically it would be your husband. But it’s not uncommon for an omega’s sights to turn to someone else.”

“Oh.” It felt better to hear that it was normal.

“Now, let’s not dither any longer. You have a party to prepare for.”

“Speaking of”, Steve started as the doctor scribbled something down. “I know it’s very last minute, but we would be honored if you attended.”

“Would you now?”

“Of course. If all goes well, we-I’d have you to thank for my child.”

“In that case, I would be honored to attend. Now, onto business. Do you feel that need arising now? When you look at me?”

Steve thought about the times he had admitted to Jason the sort of feelings his husband caused within him; how his husband had recoiled to know his inner thoughts. Steve didn’t want Doctor Munson to be repulsed by him. But if he lied to a physician, what was the point?

So he nodded. “Yes. I am, I mean I do, feel those things.”

Doctor Munson nodded and moved to stand behind Steve. “I’m sure you and Mr. Carver have plans for a more private celebration tonight, yes?”

“Yes. We want to make the most of my appointment today.” He could feel the doctor’s breath against his ear.

“And as I understand it, this will be your first knotting. Being knotted and pupped up, you’re going to experience some changes. It’s time you got acquainted with yourself more than ever before.”

Steve tried to turn to see what he meant but Doctor Munson was already moving, placing a large mirror in front of him. The doctor got behind him again and put his hands on Steve’s waist.

“May you lift your skirts and spread your legs?”

Steve felt his cheeks heat up but obeyed. When all was said and down, his core was exposed to the world. He was only able to glance at his reflection before turning his head away. He was surprised to feel a gentle hand massaging his hip.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of down there.” His hands moved down to Steve’s thighs, slowly making their way inward. “You have a healthy thatch of hairs.”

His hand cupped Steve then, simply holding him. Steve’s breath got short and yet he felt secure, safe. Doctor Munson hummed, sounding observant and pleased.

“Has your husband ever told you how lovely you are down there?”

Steve’s eyes snapped open, though he wasn’t quite sure when they’d closed. ‘Lovely’? Down there? He turned his head to look at the doctor’s face but he wasn’t even looking at Steve. His eyes were on the mirror. Steve turned his gaze to that and found eyes transfixed on their reflection. Specifically on what was happening….down there. Doctor Munson’s finger was stroking up and down.

“I asked you a question Mrs. Carver. Are you still lucid?”

“He’s never-n-never said that about me, um, rather about that part of me.”

Doctor Munson tutted. “Husbands aren’t always the best at expressing themselves, I’m afraid. But I’m sure he must think so. Beautifully pink in color. And the shine.” He took in a deep breath in the same moment that Steve breathed out. He pushed a finger in, a low growl coming from him as he watched it get sucked in.

“All alphas owe their lives to this. It’s a pity they don’t always know how to show appreciation. So allow me to tell you - the way you could take a knot is divine.” He pushed a second finger inside. “And the way this same part can pass through a child, bringing new life into the world, is godly.”

Steve’s hips shifted but he fought to keep them still. In his mind he could hear Jason reprimanding him. And he could also hear his governess telling him that good omegas stayed perfectly still so their alpha could complete the deed without interruption.

“Don’t fight your instincts.”

“B-but I-I was told-”

“Your body knows what it needs. And if your mate hasn’t given it to you right away, use your body to tell him what that is.” To prove his point, Doctor Munson stilled his hand.

Steve couldn’t help the whine from the back of his throat. His hips squirmed without any coordination for a few moments before he was able to find some kind of rhythm and he watched through the mirror. Watched as those deft fingers moved in and out of him.

“That’s it, Mrs. Carver. Just like that.”

“Steve. You can-that is to say-you may call me by my first name.”

“In that case, you may also drop the formalities with me. Those close to me know me by Eddie.”

“Eddie”, Steve sighed, trying it out. It certainly felt more intimate than calling him by ‘Doctor Munson’. And right now, he didn’t want to be known as ‘Mrs. Carver’.

“You’re doing wonderfully Steve. You produce slick like a master and your scent is perfectly enticing. You can take a good stretching”, he said, a third finger slipping inside. “And then there’s this little button.” His other hand pulled at the top of his mound.

After his first appointment, Steve had been curious. He had thought to look but could never quite gather the nerve to look for long or do any true exploration. But he remembered where he had felt Eddie’s tongue that sent jolts of lightning through his body.

“Do you know what this part of you is for?”

Steve shook his head. Hole was for the alpha and then later the pup to come through. Everything else was a mystery that only men in medicine knew. He watched with hungry eyes as Eddie finally touched it, just with the tip of his finger and still he reached up and clung to the sleeve of the doctor’s coat.

“Do you understand now?”

“Wha? Mmn, what?”

“Pay attention, Steve”, Eddie reminded gently. He touched the small nub again and this time Steve paid attention to his own reaction. Not just how it felt good but what his body actually did in response to it. How his hips lifted to meet the touch, how he tightened around Eddie’s fingers, and how more slick came from him.

“Do you see now?”, Eddie asked. “Most will ignore it but this part of you is important too.” He used the hand not currently in Steve to spread his slick around. “It will make you clench around your alpha. That, combined with his knot, will make sure none of his seed leaks out. An evolutionary advantage, back from the days where an omega could be taken by any alpha. It made certain that even if that happened, a bonded omega would already be pupped by the one of their choosing.”

His fingers started to thrust deep into Steve while the ones on his other hand rubbed quick circles. Steve’s head came to rest on his shoulder, mouth agape and eyes rolling back. His husband was most definitely the last thing on his mind right now.

“That’s it Steve, let go. Just feel. An alpha should consider this his honor, his sacred duty.”

Steve found it hard to believe any alpha would feel that way but certainly Eddie must. He was focused on his mission and nothing else. And Steve felt that delicious heat build up in him again just like last time. Then he felt Eddie nuzzle at his neck. His high collar kept from any pure skin contact, but it made him burn all the same. Eddie buried his nose on the side of his mating bite.

A clear challenge to the alpha who had already bitten him.

Steve opened his eyes in time to see himself put Eddie’s fingers in a death grip and watch everything down there pulse in time with the waves of pleasure that crashed through him. This time, instead of washing his hands, Eddie brought his slick-soaked fingers to his mouth and cleaned them off with his tongue.

“What time is that party?”

For the evening’s events, Steve changed his gown to something more celebratory. It showed his neck and parts of his shoulders and collarbone. But of course, his bond bite was hidden under a choker, as was custom. The only omegas who went without were those without a bite to show. Steve had spent the better part of the evening distracting himself with idle talk.

Eddie hadn’t arrived yet and it made Steve’s thoughts wander. Did he help out all omegas the same way? Was Steve just next in a long line of conquests? Eddie had never offered Steve anything but his medicinal techniques and yet he was clearly challenging Jason. And Jason didn’t even know it.

Jason said nothing about Eddie’s scent on him when he returned home, though Steve was sure he must be able to smell it. He washed himself before the party just to be sure.

And speaking of the party, it was going swimmingly, he had to admit. Everyone was enjoying themselves and Jason had his chest puffed out all night. It made Steve anticipate their bed all the more. When it was time to dance, Steve took his husband’s hand and followed his lead. Dancing for him was an excuse to have his alpha’s hands on him in public. Jason always kept a respectable distance though. Sometimes more than respectable.

After one dance, they moved to the side. Steve could have danced more but sometimes it felt like Jason only wanted to touch him when necessary. Jason conversed with some of the other men, Steve loyally at his side when someone tapped his bare shoulder.

“Eddie?”

“Apologies for my late arrival.”

“‘Eddie’?”, Jason echoed.

“I would like to make the most of what time I have left in the party. So if I may impose, may I have the hostess’ for this next dance?”

Steve was tempted to take Eddie’s hand even without his husband’s approval. But he still looked to Jason, hoping he didn’t look too eager.

“You have my permission, doctor.”

Eddie took Steve’s hand and led him to the dance floor. He didn’t wear his white coat and his hair wasn’t pulled up like in his office. Instead, it fell over the shoulders of his dark jacket. Eddie nodded to Carol and Steve was reminded that she was one of his patients. Eddie brought him into a dancer’s hold so close that their chests rose and fell against each other.

“Carol is due any day now”, Steve commented as they swayed to the music.

“And glowing with the pride of it. Mr. Hagan must be proud.”

“I’m sure they appreciated your help. Carol was so worried before conceiving.”

“And that worry was stress that made it all the more difficult for their family to grow. It seems they’re doing quite well now.”

“Do you help all omegas in the same way?”, Steve ventured to ask.

Eddie grinned. “Each person who passes through my practice requires different care. I don’t normally gossip about specifics, but for the Hagans, I simply coached Mr. Hagan through some bedroom techniques. Mr. Wheeler simply needed a tonic for vitality. But you, Steve…”

His gaze got intense and Steve realized he could scent him for the first time. It made sense for doctors to cover their scent, otherwise it could unease a patient. But this was a social event and Eddie had no need to hide his cinnamon and cloves scent.

“Yes?”

“I knew I had to assist you by any means necessary. And if that meant I was allowed to touch…to taste…”

Steve’s body grew warm. “Tonight-”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“But Jason-”

“Will be taken care of. He is still your husband. And I intend to respect his claim over you. But you deserve a pup. You deserve to hear a child’s laughter in your halls and to be someone’s mother.”

“Eddie”, Steve sighed, not even realizing how close their bodies were pressed until the musicians changed the tune.

Their bodies separated and Steve was returned to his husband. Steve fanned himself and used the dance as an excuse as to why he was slightly flushed, not that Jason acknowledged it beyond a sneer. As the party began to wind down, Steve noticed his husband was more intoxicated than usual. He became worried about what this meant for the night and his suspicions were proven correct.

Their guests had gone home and the married couple dressed for bed. Jason needed help getting into his gown and he was in bed while Steve was still sitting at his vanity, brushing his hair.

“Jason? Jason?”, Steve called out, going over to his side of the bed. “Don’t you remember tonight?”

“He’s just about passed out”, Eddie’s voice sounded from the door, causing Steve to whip around.

“You’re here.”

“I said I would be.” Eddie shrugged his coat off.

“Here? Now?”, Steve asked his heart rabbiting.

“Yes”, Eddie nodded. “He won’t wake until morning. But the scent you make and the sounds you produce should reach his subconscious mind and make him more susceptible to you.”

“You’ll give me a pup? Tonight?”, Steve put a hand to his chest, trying to calm his heart.

“I promised it to you and your husband. And I am a man of my word.” Eddie closed the distance between them and cradled Steve’s face, illuminated only by moonlight, then kissed him sweetly.

It was a different kind of kiss than what Steve was used to. Barely there pecks. This was like a thunderstorm after a drought. Eddie’s hands smoothed down Steve’s neck, around his waist, and then settled on his hips. Steve’s hands stayed perfectly still at his side. When Eddie pulled back, he took Steve’s hand and guided him to the other side of the bed where he normally laid. Steve laid down on his back.

His heart had just calmed down but it picked up again as Eddie undressed himself fully. Steve’s legs trembled, fighting between the instinct to spread and show himself and his learned behavior of keeping his legs shut. But he remembered the alpha’s words just that morning. He was allowed to give in to his instincts. So he not only spread, but he pulled the hem of his nightgown up and over his knees, exposing himself to the room.

“There it is, just as gorgeous as always”, Eddie praised, coming onto the bed.

Steve thought he should feel more shame. Or more reservations. He was letting another alpha take him while his real husband and mate slumbered right next to them. But Jason benefited from this too. Eddie started to kiss his thighs and Steve just about forgot the presence of his husband. He felt warm breath on his loins and covered his mouth before he could cry out. Then a hand came up to pull it away.

“Mr. Carver needs to hear you. He needs to associate your sounds with satisfaction.”

“But I’ve never…”

Eddie licked a stripe up his core, eliciting a sound somewhere between a hiccup and a gasp from Steve. “The more you allow yourself to feel, the better chance you have at conceiving.”

Steve’s lips parted and he allowed short breaths. Then Eddie’s tongue started to draw circles and whimpers fell from him. He thought he’d be more scared of Jason waking up. He turned his head to see his husband on his back, appearing almost dead to the world. Then Eddie blew cold air onto his hot flesh and Steve jolted, a sharp cry coming from him. Jason shifted, turning on his side now so that he was face to face with Steve.

That only stoked the flames in Steve’s body and he felt himself get more wet. Eddie hummed, seeming pleased at his reaction.

“You feel good and you want your alpha to know that.” He rose up and kissed Steve’s chest through his gown while rubbing a finger against his slit. He pressed the first one in and released a low rumble, pleased at how easily it slipped in. His lips found Steve’s neck, the unbitten side, and sucked a mark into it.

“Alpha”, Steve moaned softly, arms winding around Eddie.

Eddie got him to three fingers like before and then pulled them out. Steve’s eyes fluttered as he felt the head finally slip in. One hand fell from Eddie, needing to grip something and that ended up being Jason’s nightgown. Steve could feel his husband’s chest rise and fell while Eddie sunk deeper and deeper into him. His mouth fell open and every indecent sound he had held back all these years were set free as Eddie thrust in and out.

Every touch was true to Eddie’s words from earlier. He considered it a privilege and an honor to be allowed to do this. Steve felt something else begin to push up against him and realized in euphoria that it was a knot. He was going to be knotted, he was going to be filled and thoroughly seeded and it would finally take root and turn into a beautiful life.

When it popped into him, he could hear Eddie growl into his ear. Eddie bit into his shoulder and Steve saw stars.

Jason didn’t stir until morning came. He sat up, head still swimming from the previous night. He rubbed his temples and slowly stood up from the bed. It was only then that he noticed Doctor Munson sitting in a chair on the other side of the room.

“What are you-?!”

“Shh”, Eddie put a finger to his lips. “Watch your volume. Your wife is still resting.”

Jason looked down to see that Steve was very much still asleep. “Why are you here?”

“Mr. Carver when a patient puts their trust in me, I see it through to the end. And I must say, you performed quite well last night. As I was able to observe, Mrs. Carver was properly knotted.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. He didn’t want to say that he had no recollection of that. But he truly remembered nothing after collapsing into bed. Eddie stood and walked over to the bed. He was fully clothed, excluding his coat and hat.

“The proof is right here.” Eddie pulled the blanket back and then lifted Steve’s gown. He then very gently spread his legs. “His amount of slick is proof of a coupling. But if you look very closely, not a single drop of your spend is on the outside. I say not even a textbook would have a more perfect illustration.”

Steve shifted and Eddie covered him back up. Jason swallowed, feeling challenged and yet now knowing why.

“So it is done?”

“Conception should be complete, yes. But your journey has only just begun. We can discuss it more later. But I recommend that Steve visits my office regularly from now on. Perhaps every two weeks or so.”

Jason watched as Doctor Munson put his coat back on and then his hat. “Um, yes, very good. Thank you, doctor.”

“My pleasure, Mrs. Carver”, Eddie smirked.

Finale

#apo writes #stranger things #steddie #a/b/o #omegaverse

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dr5amatic · 1 month ago

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RUNNING TOWARD HOPE ,

a sentence starter prompts list comprised of quotes from the novel blood over bright haven by m. l. wang. please be advised that this list may involve topics including, but not limited to, murder, death, violence, alcohol, and religion. change verbiage as needed.

was that a veiled dig at my intelligence?

leave your tools and weapons. they’re just weight.

while you can still breathe, keep moving. stop for nothing. turn back for no one. not even your own blood.

it must be hard to be you! how terrible to be so singularly talented!

since when do you really care about people who aren’t you?

i take it that wasn’t supposed to happen?

be cold, be hard, and don’t give them an inch, you understand? no matter what they say of you.

when i care how attractive you find me, i’ll let you know.

you’re certainly not going to survive playing against me.

that’s a lot of power.

i already missed my train. i’m going to sleep here.

the world isn’t about love for me. it’s about power.

i think i’ve just had a problem with magic since the first time i tasted it–like some people have a problem with alcohol.

magic is the one area where i can shut myself in a room with my books and my thoughts and come out more powerful than i went in.

the unbreakable rules of magic are unbreakable for a reason.

don’t play dumb with me. it doesn’t suit you.

is there something unreasonable about wanting to do my own work correctly?

brilliant men–even moderately intelligent men–in this city get showered with opportunities to succeed. brilliant women have to fight for those opportunities, and, when we get them, we have to defend them tooth and nail, or they’ll be snatched away.

i’m not married, i’m no one’s apprentice, and i’ll be damned if i let a man find some other way to take my glory from me.

women are always told to be kind, be forgiving, be nurturing. as far as i know, it’s never gotten them anywhere. the men, who have the real power, won’t return the favor when it matters.

if you are capable of everything they are as a group, then who can say you’ve been arrogant or unvirtuous?

if i can’t clear that clouded glass, there’s nothing left to do but break through it.

i never said i didn’t believe your god existed. i just don’t believe he’s the greatest or only deity at work in the world.

a ravine won’t water crops or quench the dying. at some point, there has to be a river, or what good can you really claim? if the man of good intentions never manifests a river, only calamity, should he not go to hell?

this is the balance of the universe. it is only right for the world to bring back upon him what he brought upon the world.

anyone with enough self-delusion can admit himself to heaven. this is nonsense.

it’s much easier to tell yourself you’re a good person than it is to actually be one.

i can’t work with you if we’re not honest with each other.

i’m not trying to twist your words. i’m trying to make sure you mean them.

you want me to be honest. i want the same thing from you, but you can do that without disrespecting me, my discipline, and my culture.

i can be civil, or i can be honest. you can’t have both in their entirety.

my knowledge of magic and history is obviously nothing in the face of yours.

maybe you’re not remembering clearly. sometimes, when an event is too upsetting to wrap your mind around, your memory gets muddled.

you’re that committed to your god of greed? go on, then. serve him. destroy me.

you’re the worst kind of murderer, i think. the kind who won’t even acknowledge their crime.

you never worshiped a god of truth. you worship a delusion.

i lost myself a little. and it took today–took something terrible–to bring me back to reality.

let me pose you a question that’s been troubling me for hours: must i forgo brilliance–no, not even brilliance; must i forgo any sort of intelligence; must i forgo the baseline mental functions that come with being alive–for stability?

you must be the dullest conversation partner i’ve ever met!

they’re either evil or they’re the stupidest people who ever lived!

you have to play along. pretend to buy his cover story. whatever he wants you to believe, act like you believe it and go about your business like nothing is wrong. don’t ask questions. don’t antagonize.

swear to me on your god and your mother’s grave.

i’ll be happy when i see you alive and whole tomorrow morning.

i just want you to be smart. be careful. acting on your every emotion the way you do is going to get you into trouble.

the most powerful minds and hardest hearts have a breaking point.

your head will clear, you will remember who you are, and you will move beyond this.

your devotion has always been to magic. none of that has to change because you’ve uncovered a few skeletons.

it seems i misjudged you. my theories about you were flawed.

for many, the denial must be a necessary shield against the guilt.

we’re surrounded by devils.

someone’s going to bleed and nothing bleeds like a mage’s ego.

things are about to change. the future has to be different. it will be different.

are you really going to do this? is this the mark you want to leave on the world?

i’m realizing how ridiculous it is to demand civility when the world is so disgustingly uncivil upon closer inspection. so, i’m not here to ask for your friendship or your politeness.

mages are detached from reality. they’re obsessive, socially stunted egomaniacs. you know, like me.

good people will turn monstrous when it’s down to their survival or someone else’s.

all i can say is… if you’re going to do this, i don’t co-sign it. don’t do it for me–or for anyone else. be selfish. be arrogant. do it for yourself.

i don’t want to be the reason anyone gets hurt. i don’t want to be the reason you die.

is it better to be safe and broken than it is to be dead?

all this agony for your goddamn ego.

i can’t believe i ever called you my family.

the forces of darkness are nothing to the light of god.

sorry about your reputation.

you could’ve been something great.

as far as the public is concerned, you will be forgotten–all your skill and innovation.

i never helped you for glory. i did it because it was the right thing to do.

i’m not your glory. i’m your penance.

we have done a great evil, and you’re smart enough to know that, deep in your soul, no matter what lies you spin around it. and i’m your attempt to get out of that feeling, aren’t i?

we all bear the burden of knowledge in different ways. some of us endeavor to do good.

have i dragged you anywhere you weren’t determined to go by your own power?

if i was to be your penance for what you have done, is it working? do you feel absolved?

you want me to throw away honesty in exchange for my life?

i don’t know what you’re capable of.

i think it’s important to be honest with the people you care about.

i don’t want your protection! do you hear me? do you understand? if you harm any of those people down there, it’s for yourself, not me.

you still have a chance to do the right and honest thing.

you have a long way to go yet before you’re half the monster i am.

if i’m going to die, i want to go knowing i left you safe and right with yourself.

if this is the last night of the world as we know it, i want to spend it with someone who can appreciate that with me. i want to spend it with you… if that’s alright?

don’t stay because you’re hoping to talk me into your plan over the course of the night.

honestly, i don’t know why i indulge your pessimism.

remember all this grief and terror–and try to do something good with it.

#inbox memes #inbox prompt #roleplay memes #roleplay prompts #rp memes #rp prompts #rp sentence starters #sentence starters

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midwestmade29 · 7 months ago

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Heat ❤️‍🔥

My first Adam Cole story Bay Bay! I can't believe it's taken me this long to write one about him because the man is 🔥🔥 AND it's a AU version of him! I had a lot of fun with it and I hope you all enjoy reading it 🖤 Word count: 1.5k Divider by: @saradika-graphics *GIF is not mine

Disclaimers: Cursing, mention of weapons, unprotected sex.

In this story, Cole owns a nightclub and conducts business there. I never specified exactly what "business" he takes care of, but it would be along the lines of taking over/securing certain territories or he’s a bootlegger. (NOT drugs)

When you and Adam end up alone in his office, things start to heat up...

I was sitting at my desk listening to Roddy carry on while my mind was elsewhere. He was trying to strategize for our upcoming meeting that was scheduled for tomorrow night, but I just wasn’t feeling it. We had already covered all the bases for our safety plan which automatically made me feel better knowing everyone had a role and a place to be. In this line of work, there’s always a risk of danger or a chance for things to turn south. Safety is my number one priority.

Matt and Mike usually keep watch outside of my office while Roddy is always with me. I assigned Wardlow to my girl to keep her safe and never leave her side. If anything ever happened to her because of my job, I’d never be able to live with myself. The five of us were always equipped with weapons while extras were placed in areas around the club only we knew about. I’ll be damned if a deal goes bad and the opposing side gets the better of Adam Cole Bay Bay.

“ADAM!” Roddy yelled loudly. The look on my face was pure annoyance when I met his eyes, although he didn’t seem to care. “What Roddy?” I asked through gritted teeth. He continued speaking without missing a beat, “Did you hear what I said? I think we should…” but I tuned him out once again. The guy has no self-awareness.

A sudden knock on my office door added to my annoyance. “Come in!” I snapped while rubbing my temples. When Y/N peered around the door, I instantly softened. “Hi, sorry. I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Y/N said softly. Roddy interjected before I had the chance to respond, “Actually you are interrupting. This is an A B conversation, so you should C your way out of it,” My mouth dropped open in utter astonishment at how much of an idiot he really is. “Roddy, would you please just shut the hell up? Y/N is always welcome in here,” I scolded before directing my attention to my beautiful girl. “Hi baby, it’s good to see you. Come here,” I motioned for her to join me at my side. Even though she tried, she couldn’t hide the smirk on her face as she sauntered into the room, eyeing Roddy the whole time in triumph. God, I love her! When she was next to me, I swiveled in my chair and pulled her down onto my lap. As if it was a natural instinct, our lips found their way to one another, sharing a kiss that was full of heat and want. Y/N and I didn’t give to shits about Roddy standing in the background likely feeling incredibly uncomfortable.

Even with me biting her bottom lip and tugging to keep her lips on mine, Y/N pulled away. She had her fingers splayed in my hair as she rubbed the baseline of my neck, turning me into putty in her hands.

“So, how are you baby? I’ve been thinking about you all night,” I asked while nuzzling my face against her collarbone. She smells like Heaven. “I’m good! I was popping in to tell you that I was going to have Wardlow take me home. I wasn’t sure how much longer you were going to be,” her voice was sweeter than honey, her eyes my favorite color but they shifted over to my incompetent counterpart leaning against the wall. “Don’t you have anything better to do than stand there? You make an ugly wallflower,” Y/N jeered. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of her! I rubbed my chin trying to hide my smile, but my laughter gave me away. Roddy was clearly appalled when he asked me, “Did you hear what she just said to me?” “Yes, Roddy I did. I think she’s onto something here. Get out,” “Get out? What do you mean-” “You heard me. I said get out. We’re done for tonight, you can leave,” I instructed flatly. He knew better than to protest, so with an exaggerated sigh, Roddy grabbed his jacket and sulked out of my office. I directed my attention back to the beautiful girl still sitting on my lap, looking into her eyes, and being immediately entranced by her smile. “So, where were we?” “Well, I was about to go home but I think I’ll stay since you’re free now,” Y/N winked. I got the impression that she was implying something, so I decided to bite. “I’m glad you knocked on the door when you did. Roddy was killing me slowly with his rambling. Enough about him, I’m all yours baby. What would you like to do?”

Y/N had a mischievous smirk on her face as her hands slinked down from my neck to the tops of my shoulders, her fingers creating a trail down to my chest. She began toying with the buttons on my shirt never breaking eye contact with me. With the first two buttons unfastened, Y/N whispered, “I have an idea,” My cock twitched with excitement when the last button was undone. She took her bottom lip in between her teeth, admiring my newly exposed chest while she slid my shirt down my arms. My pants and boxer briefs were off in the blink of an eye after Y/N stood up, her dress and panties joining my clothes on the floor. My cock grew harder from her supple, naked breasts before me. They were just begging to be fondled by my tongue.

Even though our bodies weren’t touching, I could still feel the heat between us. My body was aching for this girl, I wanted her. I needed her.

“Look how stunning you are baby. How did I get so lucky? I’ll never get enough of you,” my voice overcome with lust the more my eyes took in the sight of her naked body. My gaze caused the most beautiful shade of pink to bloom across her cheeks, but her confidence never faltered. Y/N straddled my lap, her tight cunt hovering just above the tip of my cock making me shiver with anticipation. “Should we lock the door?” I asked only a whisper away from her lips. “Someone could walk in unannounced at any time,” Without hesitation, Y/N responded boldly and assertively, “Let them,” before crashing her lips against mine. She tasted so damn sweet.

With my hands gripping her hips tightly, Y/N sank down onto my cock. Her arousal was silky as it coated me, allowing me to slide in with ease while her walls squeezed tightly. “A-Adam!” she cried out. “So f-full,” Y/N wasn’t wrong, I was filling her to the hilt once she was fully seated, and holy fuck did she feel good around me. “I know baby girl, but you take me so well! That’s it, rock your hips and take what you need from me. Good girl,” my praises nothing more than a murmur against the shell of her ear.

The whimper she let out as I took her nipple in my mouth sent a shockwave straight to the very heart of me, her moans filled my office the more my tongue played with it. My teeth grazed the stiff peak before I sucked hard and released it with a pop. I kissed my way over to her other breast and repeated the same ritual, this time it made my beautiful girl’s head fall back in utter bliss from every sensation my mouth and cock were making her feel. My hands began kneading her ass while my face was buried in her neck as her hair cascaded around us. We were both completely enamored with one another, getting closer to the edge with every rock and roll. When I started meeting her every movement with a thrust of my own, everything began to feel more frantic and fervid. “Come on baby, I know you’re close. I can feel it in the way your sweetness is dripping down my shaft. I can hear it in your whines. Cum for me, let yourself go baby,” In an instant, Y/N completely unraveled. Her body quaked beneath my hands as she refused to yield to her orgasm, still working hard to bring me to the land of ecstasy with her.

“Fuck, Adam! It’s your turn to take what you need from me, take everything. It’s all yours!” her voice breathy and oh so angelic. Her hand grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged making me hiss from the sudden sting, but the rest of my body reveled in the sensation. My beautiful girl smiled against my lips when I finally erupted inside of her. I pulled her as close to my chest as physically possible while my cock pulsated deep inside her warm cunt.

We were still melded together as we came back down to earth, my thighs soaked from the mess we made of each other. “Feel free to interrupt all my meetings from now on,” I teased. The sound of Y/N’s laughter was just as intoxicating as the sexy noises she had been making mere moments ago.

#adam cole #adam cole fan fiction #adam cole smut #adam cole x you #adam cole x y/n #adam cole bay bay #roderick strong #undisputed kingdom #mike bennett #matt taven #wardlow #aew fanfiction #all elite wrestling #aew #fanfiction #fanfic #aew fanfic #aew fic #aew smut

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girldragongizzard · 3 months ago

Text

Chapter 11: Teasing out the data

It’s cold, it’s overcast. I’m not shivering, but I feel a little sluggish and very cuddly and I’m wishing I had a heat lamp. And I’m wondering what the winter is going to be like for me.

Ptarmigan’s outfit, which she never changes, actually looks appropriate for this dark, sixty-two degree with high humidity Pacific Northwest weather.

So does Chapman’s. Sie is dressed like a classic witch, if that witch was also a carney and an Elvis impersonator, but with a cloak.

We’re on the roof of my building, and looking around I think I can see where the insulation is thin, because the colors are shifted here and there just ever so subtly.

My tablet is at my feet, and I’m sitting on my haunches.

They’ve both already scanned or made a divination for me, as a baseline for today. And I’ve reported how it felt.

I’ve also arranged with a couple of other dragons to participate in this.

Now, I turn to Chapman, “Scan Anurak.”

And I switch over to Discord as Chapman turns to face the direction of the library and touches the tattoos on hir wrists together.

I feel the shift, and then send Anurak a simple message, “Now.”

“No,” comes the reply.

“You,” I say to Ptarmigan with my syrinx.

Ptarmigan nods, looks in the direction of the library, holds up her little journal and scribbles furiously with her pen.

I feel her particular brand of warm, staticky shift, stretched out and a little itchy.

“Again,” I send.

“No,” Anurak replies.

“Thank you,” I tell him. And then to Chapman, “Next.”

This time Chapman turns toward where we know Astraia to be. I’ve invited her into my territory for this, and she’s tucked away into a different coffee shop, two blocks away, and very curious about how this will go. And Chapman does hir thing.

And I feel it.

And I notify Astraia.

She does not.

I look at Ptarmigan, who then does the same thing.

I feel it.

And she does not.

One out of three dragons so far can feel this, and it doesn’t have to be directed right at them. So far, I am a little special.

Except, I remember seeing Joel twitch in response to Chapman’s Art.

Joel’s been warned, and has been told to make a noise when he notices something. So far, he hasn’t.

I switch back to my app and say, “Now, in turn, each do Joel.”

Shift.

“Yawp!”

Shift.

“Yawp!”

So, he’s a little special, too.

I didn’t organize this with anybody else, yet. I wanted to keep it as much on the downlow as I could while at least confirming a basic premise. But now I do want to test this with nearly every dragon in town.

I report, “No Anurak. No Astraia. Joel yes only direct scan, both of you. Me yes every time.” And so I’ve spilled my tiny little secret to Ptarmigan.

She raises an eyebrow and her head slowly tilts up and to the side as she looks at me, expression otherwise deadpan.

“You say not done with me,” I tell her.

“I’m definitely not,” she responds. “But this does give us a really good idea of where to start, doesn’t it.”

“Other dragons,” I say.

“Yes, we should test them,” she says. “We could do that with a little less prep work, if you like, too. Chapman and I could tour the town over the next few days, and get permission from each one and test them then. And every time you feel a shift from either of us, you message the one you felt it from. Then we’ll report back and compare notes.”

“Good plan,” I say. “Watch for Säure.”

“Of course,” Ptarmigan says as Chapman watches her passively. “Meanwhile, I’d like you to meditate on that sense. See if you can pick up anything else happening around town, even subtly. Any little change in feeling, any direction or lack of direction. Even if you don’t really notice anything, paying attention to it will hone your ability to use it. And every time one of us pings you, you’ll get definitive feedback to reinforce it.”

“Okay,” I agree.

—

Over the next couple of days, I have one more pointless counseling appointment and continue my daily routine, which includes a lot of me time just resting on my roof. And, any time I feel a shift from either of my Artist friends, I send the relevant one a thumbs up emoji.

It happens a lot more frequently than I expected, but then tapers off pretty quick. By the second day, I’m getting nothing.

And I’ve been thinking about just what I can sense.

With Ptarmigan, so far, I sense it the moment she puts pen to paper, and it lasts the whole time she’s doing it.

With Chapman, however, I sense it when sie activates hir glyphs, such as when putting hir wrists together. But I definitely feel it coming from the middle of hir being.

Ptarmigan’s is less specific, her whole being sort of vibrates, and so does the pen.

But, I also experiment with the transformation pendant a few times, really focusing on it, and I don’t feel a thing except the transformation itself. That is pretty disruptive, though, and I know I can sense anything at all when I’m wearing the pendant.

This tells me a little bit about how Ptarmigan and Chapman each channel and use their Arts.

And also, the fact that my sense of their shifts got weaker and disappeared as they got further away definitely seems to indicate I’ve got a range. A lot like how sounds will be fainter as they happen further and further away. That makes sense to me.

I suspect, with 900,000 Artists on Earth, it would be a nervous cacophony to me if I could sense whenever any one of them used their Art at any moment, regardless of range.

Chapman messages me at one point to say, “I think you have a range of about a mile with me. Roughly.”

Ptarmigan doesn’t send anything.

I don’t hear from her until they’re done and they both get back in person on Friday evening.

—

Before either of them have a chance to talk, I ask them a question as they climb up onto my roof to join me in private again. I’d been working on it for a bit.

“Can you sense each other like I can?”

“No,” Chapman says.

“No,” agrees Ptarmigan. “Not the same way you do.”

Chapman nods, and adds, “I can watch Ptarmigan do her art, and I can see most of what she’s doing when she does it. But, I don’t have some kind of warning sense that alerts me to when she’s doing it. I don’t think any of us actually have anything like that. It’s almost like the difference could be described by saying you have the equivalent to a fly or a cockroach having a hair on their back or leg that’s connected to a reflex that makes it fly or run when triggered by an air current. While, we each can see the wind as if it has layers of dyed smoke in it.”

“Yes,” Ptarmigan says. “Different senses with different evolutionary purposes, essentially.”

“What next?” I ask.

“We didn’t go all the way out into the county,” Chapman reports. “So we don’t have a survey of the dragons that live out in the other cities and such. But it looks like about one in ten local dragons has some degree of your sense. But you have the strongest. Locally, at least.”

“What mean?” I press.

“Well,” Ptarmigan says, crossing her legs and plopping down on the rooftop in one awkward jarring motion. “If your sense is a defense mechanism to alert you to the working of Art, and only a smattering of dragons have it and you have it the strongest. It feels like it’s new. And it feels like it suggests that maybe you have the trait because the dracomorphosis was caused by an Artist who was using you as the target of their work, the locus, the focus, the center of it, the catalyst. Something like that. But I don’t know.”

“And,” Chapman says, “because we don’t usually notice when another Artist is doing their work unless we’re paying attention to them, we don’t know who it was. Not definitively.”

Ptarmigan continues their tag team explanation by saying, then, “There are a handful of our siblings who could have done this. The Artist of Transformation is only one of them. But it would take a lot longer than a couple of days to seek them all out and ask them. And that’s only if they’re not hiding. And then we have to just trust that they’d tell us the truth. However, of course, I’m going to do just that. Just don’t expect results for a while. And in the meantime, we should think of other ways to investigate this.”

“This was a really good exercise,” Chapman says. “Thank you for suggesting it.”

Hm.

“Chapman,” I say. “You said dragons could appear naturally.”

“That’s still a possibility, yes,” sie says. “But that’s a harder hypothesis to test for right now. It’s easier to eliminate the possibility that someone triggered it first.” Then sie looks at Ptarmigan, “Unfortunately, the only other angle I can think of right now, for what might have set the dracomorphosis off, is to find out what’s happened with Daniel Säure. Why did he go into hiding, or outright disappear on August 24th when it happened? There might be nothing there, but it is conspicuous, especially along with one or more of his companies interfering with the lives of local dragons.”

“Yeah,” Ptarmigan agrees. “It’s more than one. He’s using all the clout he’s got to lobby the City and County Councils. The Daily keeps publishing stories about noise complaints against dragons, property damage, and fights. And their editorials are just full of fear and hate. That has to be Säure’s influence over the paper. Nevermind he’s the only reason it’s still in business. Morning Glory Inc. is his land holding company. That’s where his money makes more money. So it can stay apolitical, but it’s helping, too, really.”

That makes a lot of sense, and I want to get into figuring out what to do about it. Though I can think of anything remotely legal or peaceful. My mind is too bloody when it comes to this subject.

Instead, while I’ve been listening to this, I’ve been typing out another complete sentence. So, I hit “talk”.

“You two are very cooperative today.”

Ptarmigan looks at Chapman with mock alarm and says in utter deadpan, “What? No. Not with this asshole.”

“I strenuously object to being called an asshole,” Chapman says. “That term is inaccurate and incorrect. I am a jerk.”

“Are not.”

“I really am. I can be a complete jerk.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Okay,” I interject. “Shit.”

Their behavior is obviously a reminder to me that they think of themselves as siblings. And, it makes sense, they’ve been sharing this tiny little planet since before memory. And, of course siblings, especially ancient immortal siblings, will have complex relationships.

But then my mind turns to us dragons and how we interact with each other. And then I think of diversity, and how not all of us dragons can sense when an Artist is doing something nearby. But then I think about the rest of our physical and psychological diversity, and also where we come from.

Anurak’s human ancestry is Thai.

I’m pretty sure Astraia is Latina, like her boyfriend, though she has the Greek spelling of her name.

My family comes from a variety of European colonialist nations. Mostly Scandinavian and Germanic.

I don’t know about the rest of the dragons in Fairport, unfortunately, but I can guess we might be at least as diverse as the local population of humans. I know that I’ve seen the global demographics in an article on the internet, and no ethnicity is without their dragons.

But, like, Anurak doesn’t resemble any Thai dragon that I know of. He doesn’t even look anything like his namesake angel.

Astraia looks like an old Hollywood take on a hydra, a Greek monster. But, if she’s Latina, her ancestry might include Maya or Aztec, and a hydra doesn’t fit well there.

I’m the only stereotype I know personally, at the moment. And I’m pretty damn stereotypical for a modern fantasy dragon, though I’d probably fit in in a tapestry or illuminated manuscript.

I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that implication, so I want to look things up, see what’s going on around the rest of the world.

My two Artists have noticed me thinking and have been waiting for me to say something more. Their heads are tilted opposite directions, in imitation of my own favorite quizzical expression.

“Need to interview dragons,” I say. “Find out why shapes they have. Maybe clue.”

“You could ask that on your Discord,” Ptarmigan says.

I huff, and then say, “Yes.” Then I go into the appropriate channel and type out the questions more carefully, “@everyone Why do you think you look like you do? Is it how you feel you should be? Is it wrong? Imposed on you? May be clue to something. Thank you.”

I show it to Chapman and Ptarmigan before hitting “send”, and they both nod.

Almost immediately the words “someone is typing” appear with the animated ellipses.

All three of us are huddled over my tablet on the rooftop, Ptarmigan having scooted closer and Chapman kneeling down. We watch.

Anurak replies, “I am me. This is me. Don’t know why. I love myself this way. I look like my own monster doodles.”

Almost immediately afterward, Astraia responds, “We’ve always been a hydra. It just makes sense.”

And that’s it, for now. Those two were already logged into Discord for our experiment before, and have been paying close attention since apparently. The others may take time to filter in.

I start to feel quite a bit better. It seems like, so far, we’ve each known who and what we were.

Chapman points to the screen, “This is also good. It’s definitely backing up what I’ve seen elsewhere. But, again, thank you for reminding me of this.”

“Oh?” Ptarmigan prompts.

“Yeah,” Chapman says. “Across the world, dragons have appeared in every culture and every demographic conceivable, at about an equal rate. And they’re incredibly diverse. As diverse as their mythological counterparts. And while, say, you’ll find that almost all nagas, which weren’t typically thought of as dragons by their native cultures but have manifested, have the appropriate ancestries – which is quite a lot of cultures – those cultures also exhibit a lot of dragons of different origins or even purely chaotic physiologies. Like Anurak, who looks like a cross between something Maurice Sendak might have drawn and Trogdor, kinda. But, in every case where a dragon can be interviewed, they report being happy with what they are, or having always known it.”

“So, either this is an Artistry designed to provide wish fulfillment to people with severe species dysphoria, or…”

“This is what dragons are and this is the first wave of them emerging. Or something like that,” Chapman says. “I can think of all sorts of scenarios between those two. Compromises. Different triggers or origins.”

“Mm,” Ptarmigan nods. “And this eliminates any mechanism that involved transforming people against their will. At first glance, at least.”

“Makes it seem less like the work of an Art, doesn’t it?” Chapman asks.

My gaze is switching back and forth between the two as they talk, though I’m switching from right eye to left eye, and my head is moving in a small twitch instead of pointing at each one.

“In what way?” Ptarmigan asks.

“When one of us attempts something at this scale, it’s not this nuanced,” Chapman says. “There are too many variables to keep track of, even for one of us. But if we combine our Arts and do something collaborative, it gets really chaotic. This would require an eon of setup, one Artist laying the ground work before passing on a finished product for another Artist to work on, without creating a disastrous synergy, and narrowing it in with each phase until it was ready.”

“How do you know this?” Ptarmigan squints at hir.

“How do you not?” Chapman looks at her out of the corner of hir eye incredulously. “Well. It doesn’t matter. I’m the Physicist. Dragons might be my special interest of the epoch, but I know how energy and matter function, and this is that. When I really look at this evidence, the numbers don’t add up.”

“Which epoch? The anthropocene, or…”

“Don’t be obnoxious.”

“Don’t be vague.”

“Ptarmigan, how long have nightmares been a thing?” Chapman asks.

“Since I came into existence, at the very least.”

“Physics is older than that, and I also have my hands on a thesis written by a delightful student that suggests that dragons are really an emergent behavior of the general chaos of the universe itself. Physics,” Chapman says.

“Chapman,” Ptarmigan snorts. “Every time you go about describing what dragons are, you contradict yourself. You say something wildly different than before.”

“Dragons are like that,” Chapman says. “Isn’t that right, Meg?”

“Yes,” I say, without thinking. And then realize that I’ve spoken up between arguing immortal beings.

Ptarmigan apparently recognizes my expression, because she says, “Don’t worry, we’re not gods. We don’t smite people.”

“Well, except for the Artist of Smiting,” Chapman says.

Ptarmigan tilts her head and points at Chapman.

I look down at my tablet briefly

Wentin, of all dragons, has responded next to my query, “I’ve always had this recurring dream that I was chasing a terrified child through the woods. It was a different child every time, sometimes an adult, but this form is what I’ve always been in that dream.”

I wonder how it typed all that with its massive paws. If it uses speech to text, I feel like I’m going to be even more annoyed about it than I already am.

“That’s not disproving our theory,” Chapman says, pointing at the screen.

Ptarmigan looks, “Huh. I know that one.”

I glance at Ptarmigan as I wonder what that statement must mean.

Follow up question time. This seems like a non-sequitur but I’ve been thinking about this for a while, so I type in, “Do you think there will be more like us?”

“Don’t know,” Astraia responds.

“No clue,” says Anurak.

“Oh dear, yes please. I do hope that there are.” And I can just hear Wentin’s creaky breaking croon as I read the words.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Ptarmigan says. “It’s been around since before English was a language, at the very least. In the recurring nightmares of so many people. I’ve talked to it in an early Ingvaeonic once, I forget what that language called itself.”

We all look at each other.

#dragon #writeblr #original fiction #serial fiction #transformation #transgender

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cuntyglam · 4 months ago

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hi! sorry in advance if this is bothersome, like fr feel free to just delete if you’d like, but for some reason your ask box seems like a good place to go to talk about this? anyway, that “lovingly help her transition” post has me thinking about transfem butch zoro again & just, like, yes sexy muscle woman blah blah but also honestly it just adds several really interesting layers to zoro’s relationship with women, as well as her relationship with strength itself that don’t really get discussed in conjunction with that headcanon & it’s a travesty fr. like, the way she hears kuina- a girl who will come to be the baseline for zoro’s view of strength for the rest of her life in someways- struggle with internalized misogyny as a result of their environment goes from something that frustrates zoro as it relates to his own strength to something that frustrates her on a much more nuanced level because, though zoro may or may not be aware she’s trans yet, if she can’t beat kuina, & kuina can’t be the strongest because she’s a woman, then what hope does zoro have? & that’s not going into the ways that the rhetoric placing any win specifically on zoro’s body rather than skill could be a huge source of dysphoria, & honestly i think that both of those would follow zoro for quite a long time in the context of her being transfem? but it also adds another layer to her taking on kuina’s dream as part of her own- like it was meant to be a pair of women fighting for the title & now that it can’t be zoro would feel like a more gendered? ig? responsibility to take the title on top of just the more directly interpersonal stuff. & it’s also a reading that i think has a very interesting impact on her whole thing with tashigi because i think both in canon & in this context part of what frustrates zoro so much about her is, for all she looks like kuina, she in many ways lacks kuina’s resolve or desire to prove her own strength. for all tashigi is very clearly (rightfully) outraged by the misogynistic expectations placed upon her, we very rarely see any desire from her to better herself for her own sake or in spite of those expectations (though the scene at the end of alabasta is a noteworthy exception) & like where in canon i think zoro tends to fuck with her because of it in a way that’s a tad more spiteful & demeaning, i think in a transfem reading of zoro it’s a bit more like… genuine indignation over how much of her ability to move through the world tashigi is willing to give up as a result of those expectations in comparison to her actual capacity. like it goes from “you wear the face of my dead friend who has come to be definitional to my person while in some ways being antithetical to her existence, & so i am fine talking down to you” -> “you are allowing the expectations placed upon us as women to hold you back & wasting the chances to do better never knowing when you’re gonna die & you can’t even see it. my best friend was willing to fight for it as a very young girl before death caught her, i’ve had to fight for it my whole life, what the hell are you doing to yourself?” & then there’s tashigi’s insistence on zoro’s disconnect being a result of being biologically male… like tashigi goes from irritating to triggering for zoro in a way. & with strength it’s like… kuina defined both strength & girlhood for zoro in a way that is incomparable to any impact anybody else has ever had on her, but the blueprint was cut off before completion, & now zoro is having to figure it out all on her own. & her commitment to being herself takes on a role that’s just as large as her commitment to strength, if not outright merging the ideas in a far more direct way than canon itself. to be the strongest swords(wo)man she has to be a woman who is herself who is able to carry the people she loves for the girl that taught her all this in the first place, yk? plus it just adds a cute layer of solidarity to everything going on with zoro & okiku. anyway sorry if this is too long or irritating or incoherent, just wanted to say butch transfem zoro rights!

oh my gods this is fantastic you need to write an essay NEOW. i’ve always headcanoned zoro as trans masc just because they feel very trans masc to me, and i’ve also headcanoned kuina as someone who may have been trans masc if they were able to grow up, but i really love this interpretation !! it’s just so fantastic, and i really love it. you could do debates or something fr. while i’ve always interpreted their relationship with women and misogyny in a transmasc light it’s so cool to see that reflected on a transfem zoro. i don’t know why i’ve never thought about it but i adore it !!

#one piece #one piece posting #roronoa zoro #trans zoro

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universitypenguin · 1 year ago

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hey alice! i just wanted to ask, does lloyd and princess celebrate thanksgiving? I don’t rlly see lloyd as a holiday kind of guy buy princess i definitely see!! do they make like a feast together and say thanks? haha im jot rlly sure what goes on during thanksgiving im not american 😵‍💫 thank you!!!

Yes, Princess and Lloyd celebrate Thanksgiving.

Princess always celebrated with her family, while Lloyd, Zach, and Jake usually gathered with Jake’s military buddies. However, what they all celebrate together is an annual “Friendsgiving” celebration that occurs on the Thursday before Thanksgiving. This event was traditionally hosted by Landon and his fiancee, Elle, but this year the responsibility was passed to Lloyd. Caught up in the midst of wedding planning she’d decided it was too much and asked if Lloyd would be willing to take over the burden of hosting.

You were surprised by how unfazed Lloyd was about being asked. Of course, you knew that Lloyd could cook. He was competitive in the kitchen and intense about the science of food preparation and even more intense about nutrition. He wasn’t the kind of chef who was tied to a recipe, either. While he was living in France he’d taken culinary classes. Lloyd knew which herbs were soluble in water instead of oil and what ratios of sugar to fat created the best flavors.

Perhaps it shouldn’t really be a surprise, given that he’d once been a top athlete, but Lloyd knew exactly what went into his body. Since his father, Joe, hadn’t cooked, his skill hadn’t been born from love but rather, necessity/ The need to eat was what drove him to the kitchen. He’d picked up the ability slowly and eventually, cooking had become one of his passions.

Now, returning to Friendsgiving… Lloyd spared no effort in the preparations. He ensured the house would be spotless by arranging for the housekeeper to come on Monday. That night he picked up a fresh turkey and an eight pound prime rib roast from the butcher. The prime rib roast was in deference to the fact that he was the son of a cattle rancher and as such, believed that no festivities could be complete without a healthy serving of red meat.

Then he began the meticulous process of separating the turkey’s dark and light meat because every chef worth their salt knows you can’t cook dark and light meat evenly at the same time. You’ll either make the light meat stringy or the dark meat greasy, so separating the different types of meat is the most necessary step in the whole process. Next, he applied a citrus rub of orange and lemon to tenderize the meat and infused herbs under the turkey’s skin. He used a seasoning rub on the prime rib roast.

Everything had been done. The meats were roasting, the table was set and all that was left was for the guest to arrive.

He’d deliberately invited you to come over an hour earlier to give your approval on the decorations and taste the food.

“What do you think?” Lloyd demanded, two seconds after you’d begun to chew a bite of stuffing.

“Mmmhhh…” you held up a hand, warding off his impatience and savoring the flavors.

“Very good.”

“Good?”

Lloyd’s outrage cracked your composure.

“Lloyd, it was delicious. Can I have another?”

“No. How was the crust? It wasn’t soggy at all, right?”

“It was the best stuffing I’ve ever tasted,” you said.

He frowned. “What kind of stuffing does your mother make?”

“Are you questioning my mother’s cooking skills?”

“I’m trying to get a baseline of comparison. ‘The best I’ve ever tasted’ isn’t very concrete, Princess. Be more specific.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” you said.

Lloyd held up his hands in surrender. “I would never. Now, moving on. Try these.”

He pulled a tray out of the oven and offered you something that looked like a pastry.

You picked up one to inspect. “What is it?”

“Cranberry Brie scones. Take a bite and tell me if it needs a dusting of powdered sugar. The recipe called for it, but I didn’t want to ruin the tartness of the cranberry sauce so I left it off.”

You sampled and approved. Lloyd continued serving dishes. Green bean casserole, twice-baked potatoes, homemade gravy, and mac n’ cheese. The mac n’ cheese impressed you the most and when you said as much, Lloyd delivered a highly technical explanation about the importance of blending to achieve a proper ‘roux.’ You waited until his back was turned and googled ‘what is a roux?’

“How long did all of this take you?”

Lloyd shrugged, pouring you a glass of wine. “I’ve been doing a little bit every day. The potatoes, stuffing, and casserole were made in advance. I just reheated them in the oven. And the meat takes less work than you might think.”

“What are the others bringing?”

“Elle’s bringing roasted asparagus and a pumpkin pie. Zach’s indulging his inner Southern boy and bringing biscuits and a pecan pie. Also, did you know that pecan pie is the official state pie of Texas?”

“No.”

“Well, according to Zach, it is.”

“Is Jake bringing his new girlfriend?” you asked.

“Yes. He’s also bringing a salad and candied yams because she’s a vegetarian.”

You raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to share a meal with a vegetarian?”

“Apparently. I’m even letting her into the house. I considered putting a table out on the deck for them on principle… but that seemed a little bigoted, even for me.”

“I’m proud of you. That shows real growth.”

You lifted your wine glass, making a toast. Lloyd smirked, raising his glass to clink with yours.

“To growth,” you said.

“Cheers.” Lloyd’s face wrinkled with disgust and you giggled.

“Don’t worry, it’s only for a few hours. You’ll cope. The house looks nice. Did you have a decorator come?”

“Yeah. She put up the leaf garlands and spread candlesticks everywhere. Who even needs this many candles?”

“They’re just for show,” you said.

“Then what’s the point?”

“It looks pretty.”

Lloyd grunted and sipped his wine. “I get why Elle wasn’t up to hosting Friendsgiving this year. It’s a lot of work.”

“Be careful. If you knock this out of the park, they’ll want you to host Christmas, too.”

“What?”

“Christmas, Lloyd. It’s in four weeks.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

You smirked and sipped your wine.

“Tell me that’s a joke.”

“I love your fireplace. Wouldn’t it look lovely with a pine garland?”

- - - - - - - - - - - -

THE END

masterlist

#lloyd hansen x you #lloyd hansen x reader #lloyd hansen x y/n #lloyd hansen x female reader #lloyd hansen x fem!reader #lloyd hansen fic #lloyd hansen fanfiction #lloyd hansen fanfic #gray man fanfic #the princess and the lawyer: ask #the princess & the lawyer: ask

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literary-illuminati · 8 months ago

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2024 Book Review #23 – Montress Volume 4: The Chosen by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

My monthly Monstress read! Because spacing them out forces me to evaluate each volume more as an independent piece in itself (still not very good at this), and also putting five books between each 6-issue comic volume makes it feel less like cheating. This volume was still very good, but also pretty easily the weakest of the four I’ve read so far – though honestly I can’t be entirely sure how much of that is honest analysis and how much is me just finding a couple big choices made this volume very aesthetically disagreeable.

The story picks up with a bit of a timeskip from the previous book, as Kippa’s kidnappers carry away to their employer and Maika and Corvin furiously search for her. Kippa manages to escape into an incredibly cursed tomb and gets to safety with the help of a selectively friendly dragon, while Maika is captured herself while trying to rescue her – and finds out that the ‘Lord Doctor’ who had Kippa kidnapped is her father, a centuries-old direct descendant of the Shaman Empress who has assembled a collection of warlords and cultists he plans to found an empire on. He attempts to sell her on accepting a role as the princess of his Court of Blood as he plots to set off the world war everyone knows is brewing, and also to embrace the whole cannibalistic-eldritch-monster-symbiote thing and just stop worrying and eat people. Maika, of the arbitrary and incoherent but very stronglt felt moral code, is not an easy sell on this.

My biggest issue with the volume is just that it feels a bit disjointed, I think? Not that previous volumes haven’t had mostly separate plot threads running through them, but this one felt more meandering than any of the others I’ve read so far. The impression wasn’t really helped by how much of it felt like it was just jumping from Kippa getting exposited to by a dracul to Maika getting lectured by her father, either. The little cutaways to Vihn and Ren or Tuya and the Warlord were both great on their own merits, but they didn’t exactly improve the sense of narrative focus or forward momentum.

Part of that was just this being (if I recall correctly) the first time that the Maika/Ren/Kippa trio’s been separated for functionally an entire volume? I really didn’t realize how much I missed the dynamic each of the three has with the other two until it was gone. I can only hope they stick together a bit more from here on out.

As for more obviously subjective issues – I really, really don’t like the fact that Marium (the Cumena’s messiah-figure) was apparently deeply tied into whatever was going on with Zinn and the Shaman Empress? It’s just too neat and tidy, tying everything important that ever happened into one tight weave. Makes the whole setting feel claustrophobic.

Besides that – and this is pure aesthetics – but blech, really don’t particularly care for the way that the Ancient’s, uh, ancient civilization is shown and described almost through the idiom of science fiction? Skyscrapers and flying cars and hyper-[magi]-tech and a past descending from distant stars to claim this new world. It’s just kind of boring, I guess? Two great tastes that absolutely do not taste great together.

Not to say this was bad, or anything – I absolutely still enjoyed it overall, and it never became a chore to read. Maika’s cosmically comically awful family is always fun (even if I wish the Doctor would die sooner rather than latter, preferably messily), and even if Zinn’s layered tragic backstories are getting a bit much, the complication of its relationship with the Shaman-Empress is intriguing in its own right. Also Tuya and the Warlord’s toxic yuri soap opera is amazing and I kind of want a whole issue of just them tearing into each other (though the Warlord so far seems to really be a bit of a dumb brute. Really not holding her own).But the baseline set by the previous volumes is high, and it doesn’t really quite live up to them.

In terms of writing anyway, the art remains as sublime as ever. One thing that especially that struck me this time was just how unique and high-quality the designs of characters who are, functionally, extras there to provide background color were. Both the various warmasters of the Blood Court and Kippa’s kidnappers had these incredibly rich, detailed designs that were just full of personality and individual flourishes – it really is one of the main appeals of the book.

#book review #monstress #Marjorie Liu #Sana Takeda #sff #comic

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solongandgoodnightxoxo · 7 months ago

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Random ooc post

Hello everyone, as we know I’d hate Gideon if I ever saw him irl and I’d 100% eat him for being rich.

I just really like his character…

Is he the best villain ever? No

Is the media he’s from flawed? Very much so

However, I really like the idea of him. The premise around scott pilgrim is really fun and I like it a lot, and I think the exes are a really good part of it!

Sure in the comics and movie they weren’t the biggest most fleshed out thing ever, but they’re still very fun to play with and I like their characters, even if we don’t see much of it

I don’t love Gideon, in fact I think he’s a “nice guy”

However he is still one of my favorites. He’s very fun to play, and I think he was really fun in the movie (even if I didn’t like the movie besides the jokes)

I’d beat him to death on sight for the kung pao chicken line. Won’t even make a justification there.

I know others don’t like it much, but I like how different he is in each media while still having the same Baseline.

Comics? I really like that version! It shows Gideon in his most deranged, and I think he has some pretty good lines + I like characters with a mysterious element

Movie? Like I said, far from my favorite, but Jasons performance was really good and he clearly had fun! I really only like the movie because you can tell everyone had a really fun time making it and obviously really loved their roles. I’m never excusing the lesphobia and racism though thats ew!!!

Spto? Its flawed, and the rose tinted goggles have fallen, but I still really like how Gideon was shown. I will admit, there were plot holes (like gideon having an act around julie, who was on his side) but I think its a great way to cast him aside and stop his yapping so others could finally have their time to shine. I think it was refreshing, and opened up a whole new view of how he acts (even if it was flawed). Also goosepowers. Im the number one goosepowers defender. LOOK AT ME. THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME TOGETHER IN THE COMICS.

I do acknowledge that Bryan himself never seems to know Gideons character..but that makes it so much fun to run with! As long as you’ve got the basics, You could accurately portray Gideon (which btw im gonna rewatch spto and the later half of the movie so I can get back on track with him, as well as Matthew)

This is probably a total yapfest with no true rhyme or reason, but I just want this to be known.

I am 100% against this man. I will be the first to drag him actually, and if he was around irl I’d be trashing on him so unbelievably hard. However, he is a really fun role to play and I’m so glad the other Gideon blogs got me to really focus on him.

He’s one of my favs, but thats really only because of you guys. I love Matthew more than him but oh my god Gideon is SO fun to play. I feel like such a theater kid rn, but its true. A lot of the blogs are shitposts, and I’ve done some of that too, but I have put my heart and soul into this blog. I really like being up on stage for people to see! Every rp I do I think of everyone reading along, and I really hope I’ve done my job of entertaining and keeping it fun!

I can say the same for Matthew too, but I love him in a different way. Gideon is fun to play and I like characterizing him, but Matthew is just a TBH creature to me. I dont think i can explain it.

Anyways yapfest over bye bye!!

#I will be honest im just really jittery today and I wanna talk as much as possible #wanna get stuff off my mind yknow?#spto #spvtw #scott pilgrim #spvstw #gideon graves #scott pilgrim rp

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lowpolynpixelated · 1 year ago

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Let's talk about handhelds!

Specifically the Steam Deck and what (at least I think) is a decent part of its success as a handheld in today’s rather stagnant landscape as far as competition and innovation goes in the gaming space. For those who don’t know, the Steam Deck is a device first released in February 2022 by game development/publishing company Valve. Valve is mostly known nowadays for being the owners and operators of Steam, the largest and most widely used online marketplace for PC gaming, but rose to fame in the late 90s for their smash hit game Half-Life as well as its sequels and expansions. During the mid-late 2010s Valve had taken a pretty big step back from game development and focussed more on running steam and supporting some of their games (Dota 2, Artifact, Team Fortress 2 just to name a few) though the support varied from game to game. But that aside, let's get into it! PART 1: The Steam Machines

During this time Valve had ALSO begun to dip their proverbial toes into the waters of gaming hardware in the form of both the “Steam Machines” as well as the “Steam Controller”. So what were the Steam Machines? Why are they important to this article about the Steam Deck and other modern handhelds? Well everything has to start somewhere, and I’m of the opinion that the Steam Deck accomplishes the original mission of the Steam Machines better than they ever did, but I’m getting ahead of myself. First announced on September 23rd, 2013, the Steam Machines were touted as a new pillar of console gaming. The aim was to provide a console-like user experience on a device with the horsepower and game variety of your average gaming PC. Runnin on a Linux based operating system called “SteamOS” valve wanted the the consoles to be an open source experience in the living room to compete with the likes of Microsoft’s Xbox consoles. So what went wrong? Well let's start with the big one: variety. I first want to preface this part with: I am looking at these pieces of hardware through the lens of someone with little technical knowledge, the average consumer if you will. I myself have a decent bit of tech know-how, but I wasn't always like that, and I’ve certainly been poor enough my whole life that knowing the biggest and best PC stuff on the market didn’t really mean I could afford it. So, why was variety a bad thing? To your usual console gamer, consistency is key. It's usually assumed by whoever is getting whatever Xbox or PlayStation what-have-you that the box you’re paying money for will play the games you put in it. And to that credit, this is usually the case! Back in the day if you bought a PS2 or a Wii, bought a game for either and slotted it in, your game box would play it no problem. This isn’t always the case for PCs however. PC games vary way more wildly when it comes to the sorts of specifications the game is made to run on, or even what hardware the PC has that can be considered reasonable for said game. The fact of the matter is that PCs are modular, which means optimal configurations and what is considered “a baseline” are changing far more frequently than in the console landscape. The Steam Machines still wanted to offer some of this variety, but in the end it backfired more than anything.

Steam Machine models ranged in price anywhere from $400 to $2000 in 2015 money when they finally released (November 10th, 2015) depending on the parts they used. And the difference between a $400 model and a $2000 model could mean not being able to play a good chunk of games on the market at the time. To your average console fan, this was perhaps too much choice when it came to finding which box to get to play all the shiny PC games they were being told they’d be able to play. Now this isn’t a matter of being disingenuous, more of an oversight. Valve wasn’t specifically trying to just target average consumers, but they did end up somewhat alienating those who didn’t have the technical know-how to figure out what model best suited the games they wanted to play. What reason would I have to buy a Steam Machine for $650 that might play all the games I want when I could just wait until November 15th, 2013 when the PS4 launched for $400 and would play all the games that came out for it? It was a perfect storm of releasing a brand new (and honestly decent) idea into an already pretty stagnant and established market and not being able to sell to people who weren’t already buying gaming computers. Steam Machines were decently popular with the PC gaming crowd. Being able to buy a pre-assembled computer with decent parts is appealing to a pretty decent chunk of people who primarily play on PC. Maybe you don’t know much about building computers and have always bought pre-built, maybe you like the specs of one of the Steam Machines and don’t mind the price tag too much. This big issue with all this though, was that almost no one was buying the Steam Machines to be a Steam Machine. To quote an article by Tyler Wilde for PC Gamer back in 2018, “Nobody was buying it with SteamOS,” Digital Storm marketing manager Rajeev Kuruppu tells me over the phone. The manufacturer had already been building the Eclipse—which is still available with Windows—when Valve pitched SteamOS, and added a Steam Machine build mid-project. That version has since been axed, and Digital Storm no longer has an active relationship with Valve.

“I think over time as the demand from customers wasn’t there we basically had no reason to speak with Valve,” says Kuruppu. Digital Storm is still open to working with Valve, so long as its customers want what Valve is putting out. Right now, they don’t.” - Rajeev Kuruppu in a 2018 phone interview with PC Gamer Executive Editor Tyler Wilde for his article “What happened to Steam Machines?” (link in sources section)

This highlights the issue beautifully. SteamOS just couldn’t make the waves Valve wanted it to with the PC manufacturers they partnered with, leading to people simply not buying the pre-built machines as what they were intended to be. So what happens now? Well, after the failure of both the Steam Machines and the Steam Controller (a topic for a different time), Valve wouldn’t try again in the hardware space until 2019 with their admittedly very impressive VR gear, the Valve Index. With the Index making positive waves in the burgeoning VR space, Valve would then go on to release another successful piece of hardware. The real topic if this article, the Steam Deck.

Part 2: The Steam Deck (part 1: Launch)

Revealed on July 15th, 2021, the Steam Deck was Valve's answer to their failed hardware attempt of the past. A handheld computer with a brand new version of SteamOS capable of playing most of your favourite PC games with a set of specs that only changed depending on internal storage (and eventually small differences in battery life.) So what changed between the times that the Steam Machine and Steam Deck released? Well, the PC and console markets (at least at the time of writing this article, 12/21/2023) are a bit more stable in how new and better parts are being pushed. Make no mistake, the PC community’s search for new and more powerful machines will always be a constant, but it's at the very least a little easier to keep up with right now. On top of that, the Nintendo Switch made MASSIVE waves in the console landscape being a near instant success story of merging handheld and home console markets into one harmonious group. Handhelds were all the rage, with many companies throwing in their lot with the mobile console idea such as the LYRA for playing classic games, and Google’s STADIA (which hilariously imploded shortly after launching to poor reception). Valve’s new device was right at home in the new invigorated market of gaming-on-the-go, a boom of innovative and experimental handhelds to rival the Gameboy’s release all the way back in 1989 (but more on that later.) The Steam Deck launched to a generally positive reception. Lots of PC gamers were more than happy to add the device to their repertoire of ways to play their favourite games, with higher ups in the gaming space like Tim Sweeny of Epic Games and Phil Spencer of Microsoft calling it “An amazing move by Valve!” (- Quoted from a PC Gamer article by Andy Chalk written in 2021 titled “Tim Sweeney: Steam Deck is 'an amazing move by Valve”, link in sources section) The things the Steam Deck was offering on launch were more in line with what some key parts of the overall gaming space wanted at the time, and so the device was more positively received by people already in those spaces. Now let’s talk about what I said before about consoles being able to play their games off the bat and why the Steam Deck stood out despite being essentially a handheld PC. The Steam Deck stripped away the modularity that the Steam Machines boasted by having a set table of Specs to offer across all 3 of its launch models, with the price and model really only determining how much storage you got. At launch the Steam Deck models on offer were the following:

-$400 for 64gb of internal eMMC storage(embedded multi media card, think a thumb drive) (and a bonus carrying case!) -$530 for 256gb of internal SSD storage (SSD or Solid State Drive being a decent bit faster than eMMC but also more pricey) (exclusive steam profile goodies and a bonus carrying case still! wow!)

-$650 for 512gb of internal SSD storage AND a more premium anti-glare etched glass screen (along with the profile goodies, a steam virtual keyboard theme and the bonus carrying case! wowsers!!!)

These models were more on-par with consoles of the time. Maybe not as powerful, but comparatively so in performance and price in such a way that the Steam Deck was a genuinely appealing offer to not only someone who already knew their stuff about PC gaming, but someone who played on PC and maybe didn’t know too much but wanted a good mobile option other than a laptop. Now those are both still parts of the same niche, PC gamers, and we’re here to talk about your average console Jane, as it were. And we will! But first let’s compare Valve’s previous attempt with the Steam Machines to their modern success. One of the most powerful (at the time) Steam Machines on offer was the Alienware Machine. Alienware is a popular manufacturer of gaming PCs and laptops for those not in-the-know. Here’s what anywhere from $550-$900 could get you in 2014:

Alienware Steam Machine basic specifications:

Processor

Haswell Intel Based CPU

RAM

4GB - 8GB

GPU

Nvidia GPUX

HDD

500GB - 2 TB

(specifications sourced from IGN’s “Steam Machine Guide” from 2014, link in sources section) Now at the time these were decently impressive specs, but I would like to point out both the price tag and the fact that some of these parts vary! If you don’t know, the GPU (graphics processing unit) being listed as “Nvidia GPUX” could be any one of SEVERAL parts which would most likely change your price point wildly. In fact, everything on this list is a variable component! Having anywhere between 4gb-8gb of RAM, what size HDD you have, and what CPU you put in, could end up boosting you all the way to that $900 point mentioned above. As stated before, this wasn’t going to win over anyone who was already going to pay $500 less for a PS4 that could just play PS4 games with no research on components needed. Let’s compare these general specs to those of the Steam Deck, which haven’t changed much since its launch in 2022. No matter what model you pick (aside from the storage and screen in the case of the 512gb model) here’s what you get in a Steam Deck:

Steam Deck basic specifications:

APU

6 nm AMD APU

CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)

GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.6GHz (1.6 TFlops FP32)

APU power: 4-15W

RAM

16 GB LPDDR5 on-board RAM (6400 MT/s quad 32-bit channels) Storage Steam Deck 64GB eMMC

Steam Deck 256GB NVMe SSD

Steam Deck 512GB NVMe SSD

(specs sourced from the Valve official website for the Steam Deck, link in sources section)

Granted there’s almost 10 years of technology between these specs and those of the Alienware, the point here is consistency. All 3 models of the Steam Deck use the exact same internal components for things like GPU, CPU, RAM, and almost everything else! To someone looking for something with more oomph than the Switch and maybe even wanting to get into PC gaming alongside it, it’s a pretty good deal! And it’s only gotten MORE appealing with more recent developments in the Steam Deck’s models and pricing, but we’ll talk about that after a short jaunt through gaming history.

Part 3: Handheld market factor history and why I think the Steam Deck is a pretty cool example of them (intermission from the Steam Deck)

As I said we’re gonna take a short break to talk about what I would consider the core of this article. You may have noticed me using terms like “handheld boom” and “market”. I’m gonna throw out some more of those so bare with me, but we’re gonna talk about the Gameboy. What’s so special about the Gameboy? Lots of people know it for being the most popular handheld console of the 4th generation beating out the likes of the Atari Lynx and more importantly, the Sega Game Gear. Why is that important? We’ll get there in a second I promise. The bigger question is “why was the gameboy successful?” to which the answer is usually “brand recognition”. Which isn’t incorrect in its own right, but is only one piece of a larger whole. The Gameboy entered a market that was predominantly occupied by two things, home consoles and arcade games. Handheld games DID exist, but not in the cartridge based console form the Gameboy popularized. This “wild west” era of console development was the second resurgence of video games after a market crash from 1983 to 1985. Spearheaded by the 3rd generation consisting of heavy hitters like the NES and Sega Master System, it gave way to an era of constant development and innovation attempts. The Gameboy specifically hit a couple of key factors when it comes to your average person. No remember, this was during a time when large portions of people still didn’t really understand what a video game was, and a lot of them were even marketed as toys to help them sell. The Gameboy’s success lies in a few points that went a long way towards selling it specifically to people without a ton of video game experience. These were: price point, and usability.

Let’s get into it! First off: price point! In 1989 the Gameboy launched with an introductory price of $90 in the US. Compare this to the Sega Game Gear releasing the following year for $150, and the Atari Lynx at $180. Retailing for HALF the price of a (at the time) big name competitor is kind of a big deal! Price point ties directly into something like accessibility for something being sold as a product, and needless to say paying less than $100 for something with Nintendo’s (again at the time) pedigree behind it put the Gameboy in the hands of a LOT of people. Next off: Usability! What does this mean? Well, this one is a bit rocky. To put it bluntly: the Gameboy was incredibly underpowered for its generation. (A Nintendo console underpowered? Never!) Why was this a good thing? From the perspective of someone trying to get the most “bang for their buck” so to speak, the Gameboy’s underwhelming specs gave it a bit of an edge. How you may ask? Battery life and cost! Let’s get the bad out of the way first by directly comparing the Gameboy and the Sega Game Gear. The old SGG was rocking not only a full colour backlit display in 1990, but also had a good bit more horsepower as far as its specifications go. Able to run full colour games at nearly 60fps on a handheld in the 90s is nothing to sneeze at! But the cost of that is 6 whole AA batteries that would die out in anywhere between 3-5 hours depending on the games you play. The Gameboy in comparison, had a simple dot matrix display that only showed in black and white. (or various shades of off-green if you’ve ever seen one in person.)

The Gameboy as well couldn’t handle beefier games, with notable examples like Mario Land 2: The six golden coins having a good amount of slowdown due to its large chunky sprites and level assets. So its battery life must’ve been something special then? Compared to the Game Gear, absolutely. Clocking in at 15+ hours of battery life on just 4 of the same AAs the Game Gear uses, the Gameboy’s game time and price were unbeatable.

This is why I think it's important to look at more than just a piece of hardware’s specifications when it comes to measuring success. And I can hear you. “Clair, why are we talking about the Gameboy and how it sold a bajillion units because it was more affordable and had Tetris on it? How does this relate to the Steam Deck?” Well my dear reader, let’s finally answer that and talk about the new Handheld Boom.

Part 4: The Steam Deck (part 2: OLED and new pricing)

So here we are! The year is 2023, the Nintendo Switch is 6 years old, the Steam Deck has been selling decently well, and I need to wrap this whole thing up. In November 2023, Valve announced the Steam Deck was getting some pricing adjustments, as well as a brand new model that included better battery life and a slightly larger OLED screen for better picture quality. The Introduction of the new OLED model not only introduced 2 new tiers of Steam Decks to choose from (the new OLED 512gb model for $550 and the OLED 1tb model for $650), but also locked in ONE of the previous Steam Deck LCD models as the only LCD model available, for a price cut! If you go back and look at the old pricing, the 256gb LCD model used to cost $530. Due to the OLED models knocking out the lower tier LCD models entirely, the price has now been locked at just $400. Why does this matter? Well, just like with the Gameboy, you’re making some sacrifices for the lower cost. The higher tier OLED models have nicer screens and better batteries, but also cost a good bit more. Just as well, the Steam Deck is in NO way one of the beefiest PC gaming devices on the market.

In recent years more and more PC handhelds have been coming out to try and cash in on what the Steam Deck has set up. My personal favourite example is the ROG Ally, and AMD powered handheld that for all intents and purposes, outpaces the Steam Deck in raw power. So why aren’t people flocking to the Ally? Well the basic model clocks in at around $600, and can be upgraded with a better processor for another $100. Looking at just the basic models for both, the Steam Deck wins out on being just the right amount of a powerhouse it needs to be for just over half the price of the Ally. This matters because that’s going to appeal to different parts of the market and landscape as a whole.

I hold the opinion that the Steam Deck serves as an EXCELLENT initial entry point into PC gaming for someone who has only ever played on console. It offers that console experience the Steam Machines tried so hard to at a price point that most people interested in game consoles are paying nowadays anyway. A PS5 cost $500, and a PS4 (the console the deck is most likely to be on par with) launched for $400. I find it a much easier sell to get someone who wants to get into PC to play with friends, or have a Switch-like experience for games not available on it, than trying to tell them the $700 one gets more FPS and has a better processor. It all comes down to those factors of price point and usability. It's been so interesting to see the Steam Deck rise into popularity in so many corners of the internet that I hang around in. I haven’t even talked about how emulating on the Steam Deck is one of the most seamless and easy to set up processes I’ve ever seen! With arguably the best LCD model option now locked at the introductory price for most modern game consoles, it’s so neat to see what could genuinely be considered a truly NEW game console enter the fray. And a handheld at that! Part 5: I am just one woman (conclusion and thanks)

Hey there! If you read through all this garbled nonsense I’d like to extend a small thank you. I also want to take a second to say that I’m not presenting any of this as objective facts. Yes I have listed facts in this article, but as the title of this section says, I am just one woman. These are my overly excited thoughts on a phenomenon I’ve observed in my own time and wanted to share with anyone who would read it. Thanks a ton for reading! I’ll be back with more ramblings at some point, but for now let's part with this: The Steam Deck is an awesome piece of tech that I feel really shakes up the gaming space. I’m not sponsored by anyone, I’ve only been paid in the satisfaction of writing. If you’re someone who doesn’t dabble much in PC gaming, and are planning to buy a new console, maybe give the Steam Deck a try! I definitely plan on getting one after watching some stuff on the EmuDeck frontend for emulation and being thoroughly impressed. That’s all for now, see ya around! -Clair (FembotY2K) (sources below the cut!)

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magicalbats · 1 month ago

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Also since there HAS been so much content coming out I thought it might be fun to do a bit of a recap on everything and share some of my thoughts! I know there are at least a few people who read my fics without playing the source material or really having much baseline info on the characters before going into it (and you guys are incredibly special to me, rest assured 🫶🥺) so I figured this might be a nice way to do some little introductions!

Sticking this behind a cut so anyone who doesn’t want to see me rambling can easily skip over this post lol

In an attempt to keep things somewhat chronological, I’m going to start with the drip marketing for these two. Iirc they were officially announced one day apart, back to back, and I saw multiple people making angel/devil comparisons with them which really tickled me. 🤭

I’ll talk about Sunday first since he’s by far the character we’ve known the longest and man what a wait this has been. We met him in 2.0 and he is finally going to be playable in 2.7, and in a lot of ways it almost feels surreal that we’ve finally made it to this point. Genuinely it’s been such a bumpy, perilous ride with him. For a good moment there I wasn’t even sure if he was going to make it out alive or not, then I wasn’t sure if he was going to be playable, then leakers were saying he would be joining the Stellaron Hunters and then it was actually wait, he’ll join the Astral Express instead, and then he was getting a new outfit and for a second there it even looked like he might end up getting a new VA too. 🤣 When I tell you this man has had me STRESSED this entire time.

Luckily there is finally light at the end of the tunnel though, and I’m honestly so, so happy with how his playable look turned out! My silly little guy with his youth pastor drip 🙏🥹 He’s honestly my second favorite character in HSR right after Sampo, and I know that probably sounds bizarre for how different they are but look. I’m a woman with a refined, complicated palette okay? xmdkdmdkzk There really isn’t anything at all I don’t like about this man, he’s a little crazy but he’s also soggy and a bit pathetic at the same time, I’m sure you can see why he’s like crack cocaine to me. And the fact we’ll get to travel with him from now on … the fics really do just write themselves.

And that’s not even mentioning the religious trauma, god. I need him more than I can even put into words. Please let me win this 50/50 in a few weeks, I am begging. 🙏 😭

For Ororon I didn’t have that same immediate click with him when we got our first glimpse in the 5.0 Natlan trailer. He barely showed up for five seconds which didn’t help but he was also presented in a very mysterious, brooding kind of way that just didn’t lunge out at me. But the one thing I will always give Mihoyo credit for is they’re very good at layering different personality traits on their characters to make them not so one note. With that in mind I wanted to meet him first before drawing any definitive conclusions on whether or not I liked him.

And I am SO glad I did because he truly subverted every single expectation I think everyone had just based on that initial impression. Not only is he NOT an edge lord of the highest order, he also turned out to be one of the sweetest, cutest characters I’ve ever seen. 😭 He’s just a little guy, your honor. Please do not bully him.

He’s confirmed to be in his early 20’s but he has this very innocent, guileless manner about him that makes him feel indescribably boyish in the most charming way possible. He’s also a grandmas boy, and he calls anyone who he perceives to be older than him granny or gramps. I have some thoughts about him calling us mommy, either accidentally or on purpose … and other thoughts about him using the vegetables from his quaint little garden in less then wholesome ways. 😏 Like, guys. He loves animals, feeds squirrels, raises aphids, and he’s got his own little cottage core farm away from the rest of his village. I don’t think you understand what he’s doing to me.

With his release in game and access to his full bio we’ve also learned that he has a talent for art on top of everything else and look, I’m just saying but he might actually be perfect.

What are we looking at here, you may ask? Ororon’s art, that’s what. 😤

I was very pleased to learn that we actually do have another male character coming up in the Natlan lineup at SOME point in time, but this is the one and only look at him we’ve got so far. His name is Ifa and he’s a veterinarian, and also seems to be Ororon’s bff. I don’t have much else on him yet but we know he exists so I figured I’d mention him. For posterity if nothing else. lol

I fully admit knowing he’s a veterinarian is like having a fast pass into my pants. I love animals so if a man also loves animals there’s not really much else I can do other than fuck him, you know what I mean? 🤣 I’m very curious to find out how accurate the drawing of him is, so I’m really hoping we get to see some visual leaks coming out soon.

I’m also going to take a quick moment to talk about Mr. Reca too. Now, he doesn’t have drip marketing yet but he did appear in version 2.6 in the main storyline and wow, he was such a blast. Definitely a bit unhinged like his lightcone art suggests but in such a fun, mostly harmless way that I can’t help but stan. Also he’s a girl dad to a mechanical frog who acts as his assistant director? Good lord …

Indeed he is a little film nerd freak and also a Memokeeper, we don’t know much else about him just yet but I want to assure everyone here that as soon as I got my first glimpse of him I was looking so incredibly hard and I have not stopped looking once. He resembles Zhongli imo, if he was less unflappable and more prone to whimsy. I like that. A lot. 😏

“We can shoot a movie, we can bang like Rambo 🎶 “

We knew for sure Lighter was coming pretty early on into 1.2 when Caesar and Burnice got their banners so his drip marketing didn’t come as a surprise and he also has the esteemed honor of being the FIRST ever limited male 5 star in ZZZ, and yes it feels like a long time coming even though the game is only a few months old now. ✋😩 All the other men are either 4 stars or standard 5’s so I was more than likely going to pull for him no matter what. Out of desperation, and to show support for the men, even if he ended up not being to my taste.

For better or worse though, he actually turned out to be an amazing character and I fear I am very smitten with him. He’s just so cool and hard boiled, but also a little silly? A little goofy? And man, I don’t want to take up a bunch of time waxing poetic about this, but the fact he’s the only guy in the Sons of Calydon that we know about, surrounded by all women, and he is not the least bit threatened by it just really does something to my brain. Like, I unfortunately can’t add the picture due to Tumblrs image limit but his drip marketing has a little shot of him buying stuff for the girls — makeup and fashion magazines, stuffed animals and snacks and like … that’s real masculinity right there. I can’t decide if he’s like a dad or a big brother to them, but either way I am HERE for it.

I’m genuinely confident beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would have no problem at all buying tampons/pads for you, and I also think he’d be perfectly respectful about it too. He’d ask what brand you prefer, what size and what type, and he’d make sure he came back with exactly that even if he had to traverse a hollow completely blind to get it. I’d bet everything I own on that. I like him a lot. 😌

His banner will be available this coming Tuesday and I am unfortunately going into it on a 50/50, no guarantee, so please pray for my success. djemfkxksmwkw

So remember when I said Mihoyo is good at layering different personality traits on their characters? Yeah, so Harumasa is another great example of that.

When we first met him I (and I think many others too) kind of got the impression that he was a smooth talking playboy type and I even called him a fuck boy on multiple occasions. 🤣 But at the start of 1.3 in Yanagi’s story quest we actually got to see him interacting with his fangirls and he was not feeling it at all so I now suspect that he probably only flirts when it’s beneficial to him, specifically so he can fall back on his good looks to get by and put in less work than everyone else. He understands what pretty privilege is and he intends to use it to his advantage. lol

I actually think he ended up being a very charming character now that weve gotten to see more of him. He’s chronically tired and maybe just a bit lazy, doesn’t like hard work or long days, calls out sick often and looks for any excuse to leave work early. He’s INCREDIBLY relatable tbh. 🤣 Based on a few brief pieces of dialogue in Yanagi’s story I’d started to suspect he might actually be for real sickly in some way but then we got a leaked image of his weapon …. And it’s literally just a pill case full of medicine. So although I don’t yet know all the details I have to say Harumasa has really grown on me since his first introduction where I mistook him for some kind of womanizer. lol And this is exactly why I like to wait and actually get to know Mihoyo’s characters before deciding whether or not I like them, they’re just so incredibly good at layering them together in a way that imo makes them feel more tangible and alive. I genuinely can’t wait to see more of him in the near future!

Gonna go ahead and just toss WuWa right here, this won’t take too long seeing as there’s only one new male announced so far! 🤪 And look, I’m going to be completely honest here. Kuro Games is really pissing me off with this because we still have not seen hide nor tail of Scar since 1.0. Let me say that again. 1.0!! It’s been MONTHS that he’s just been rotting away in jail, let him out already you sick bastards! I want him!! I need him!!

Now Brant … I literally know nothing about him aside from his appearance and his name. He was just revealed the night before last so this is literally all we’ve got atm. But I will say I think he’s real cute and I definitely think I’m going to like him a lot. It took me a while to figure out what he’s reminding me of and then it suddenly clicked that his silly little cape looks a bit like Howl’s Moving Castle, doesn’t it? I’ve never seen the Ghibli film before, just screenshots, so I’m not sure what Howl is like or how that might potentially play into Brant’s characterization but I thought that was an interesting possible connection.

I especially like the deep plunge in his shirt, that shit goes almost straight down to his pants. He might be a little slutty. 😏 And the obvious pirate motifs paired with the harlequin mask on his hip. I am definitely looking. Disrespectfully, I might add. Eager to learn more about this one tbh.

And finally we have the big HSR reveal from the livestream on Friday. 🤭 I was ofc hoping for a preview of the next planet we’ll be going to since version 2.7 will be the last update before 3.0 but I wasn’t even remotely prepared for the trailer that dropped. Three men feels like a HUGE win so yes we are definitely celebrating this one.

Much like Brant all we’ve got so far are faces and names so I won’t be able to talk too extensively about these characters unfortunately. As for my initial impressions though I will say that Anaxa has my attention the most right now. I like the eyepatch and his long hair tied in a loose ponytail over his shoulder, and just his entire general vibe. He definitely seems to be my type and for the moment he’s the one I’m most looking forward to meeting.

Mydei is next in line for me, he looks like he might be a hot blooded masculine type and in fact I’m almost reminded of Itto a bit. I think? He might be equivalent to the god of war, Ares or Mars, so he should be an interesting one.

Phainon is definitely attractive but I think he looks a bit too much like Ayato for me to get super excited for him right off the bat. I don’t dislike Ayato, mind you, but his personality just doesn’t do much for me overall — so I’m tentatively looking forward to actually meeting this guy and seeing how he is in person. All of these characters seem to be alternate versions of ones from Honkai Impact the 3rd which I know close to nothing about but based on what I’ve heard Phainon should be a Kevin expy and I think he’s pretty important? I expect he’ll probably get the characterization to match tbh so I’m choosing to trust the process for now.

And that about wraps it up!

I will say if nothing else, this has taught me that if you’re someone who enjoys male characters the key here is to play multiple games at the same time to get your fill. 🤣 Because individually other than HSR they’re really just giving us crumbs one at a time. Like going into Natlan we truly only had two confirmed boys and maybe Capitano further down the line to look forward to, the rest were all girls. But when I put them all together like this we’ve suddenly got ten men to talk about, and tbh that’s really giving me the pick me up I needed. alsmfcosmszk

So, if anyone’s stuck with me this long, what are your thoughts on these characters? Who’s your favorite and who are you most looking forward to? Are any non players thinking about picking up one of these games? Feel free to share any of your thoughts with me, my inbox is always open! 🫶😊

And of course happy thirsting everyone!

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past-j · 2 months ago

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October weight loss journey reflection 🧡🎃🍊 happy halloween!

Averaged 1 lb/week of weight loss this month! Ideal! Went from 203 ish to 198 ish

It feels so slow when I’m living it, but I know this is the way to go. I can easily keep this up. I really enjoy fresh healthy foods, and I’ve had an easy time balancing fun and nourishment.

It just takes some discipline to not engage in the habits that got me to this point / kept me here (honestly it was munchies, not allowing myself to get hungry ever, and keeping up with the boys lol).

I played the LONG game here and worked on my relationship with food FIRST, so I don’t have a huge emotional tie to food anymore and I don’t typically prefer processed food / takeout. When everything is on the table, I’d genuinely rather eat a nourishing home cooked meal over anything.

So that meant I already had a good baseline diet / activity (which was much easier to get to as a goal on its own without adding the baggage of weight loss). but my habit of overeating prevented me from seeing physical progress. When i commit to weight loss, i can commit to not engaging in those habits without changing much about the rest of my diet.

I broke 200 lbs for the first time in YEARS which shows me that it is my time to shine. In recent attempts, I don’t think I was ready to approach weight loss healthily. I’d go too hard with it mentally while also not committing hard enough in reality. So it was very mentally taxing and ineffective.

This time ive been doing the opposite - truly committing in reality (actually admitting that I’d like to lose weight instead of pretending that weight loss isn’t the goal) while going easy on myself and not allowing the process to take up too much mental space. I have a busy life and other goals OUTSIDE of weight loss now.

I can also see how addictive weight loss is. I get a little too excited to check the scale. So I think it’s really important for me to continue setting mental boundaries with weight loss. Like I said, I have to keep busy & work towards other goals. Weight loss gets to fit into my already full and busy life. This is the most sustainable way to do it anyways :-)

Overall I’m feeling very optimistic about all of this! And proud of myself for reaching a point where weight loss can be fun and simple. It took a lot of healing to get here. And I’m feeling soooo good about my appearance 🧡 feeling more myself again / feeling like I recognize myself again.

November goal is to break 195 lbs! That’ll be a 10 lb weight loss overall. I will continue to nourish my body with home cooked delicious meals. I will continue to say no to munchies, listen to my body, and make the healthy choice when i can. And I will allow myself to eat foods for fun if I genuinely want them!

Finally I will continue to be mindful about how much mental space this all takes up. Other goals also take priority and I will focus on them too. Not trying to become obsessed with weight loss.

Thanks for reading 🧡🎃🧡

#weight loss #healthy weight loss #healthy lifestyle #health and fitness #self improvement

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kayleigh-83 · 2 years ago

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Thanks for tagging me @eulaliasims

1. What’s your favourite sims death? Never thought about having a favourite, maybe the cowplant? Or maybe when death results from something usually mundane like hail or lightning (I’ve had that one).

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Mainly Maxis match, but I think of my style as like 90% MM and 10% semi-realistic (more on the BB side) because I do find the occasional thing that fits in with my style from that aesthetic. And I feel like my style is somewhere between the true Maxis match and the cartoony style.

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? No? Seems odd!

4. Do you use move objects? Constantly, it’s on more than it’s off. I have an alias set up in my cheat file.

5. Favorite mod? Wow that’s a hard one to narrow down, so I’m gonna choose a few. Based on what has the biggest and most widespread effects, I’d say ACR, Community Lot time, and the whole Traits system (that’s cheating since it’s a million mods but I don’t care lol)

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? Would have been the very first pack, so University I guess! When the games came out I was living at home still and my mom played too, so we always got them relatively soon. Uni came out a month or so before my birthday so I suspect I probably got it as a gift that year.

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? LIVE as in LIVING, @eulaliasims is 1000% correct.

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? So not counting born in game? Sort of a tie but I’ve always been very fond of Joshua and Roxanne Lewis, they were two of Brightmaple’s founders - the first ones I thought up, and first ones I created.

9. Have you made a simself? Yes, in my old neighbourhood, I was a vampire along with the Sim version of my cousin. We lived in a huge Victorian mansion I built where I sent all the vampires in the hood to live.

10. What sim traits do you give yourself? Brooding, couch potato, good, loves the heat, hopeless romantic

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color? Don’t really have one I guess.

12. Favorite EA hair? Also don’t really have one lol.

13. Favorite life stage? Probably adult because the most happens, but I also really enjoy toddler which is a hot take in most circles.

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? Both! The building is fun and a creative outlet for me, but I do it so I can create more immersive and enjoyable worlds to play in too.

15. Are you a CC creator? Yes but on and off, I do it purely for fun and primarily for things I want in my game. So I take long breaks of making nothing at all, when I’m not in the mood.

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? I wouldn’t really say so? I do chat with people from time to time and have lots of great acquaintances on here! I find it to be a generally very nice community. But I usually find online friendship difficult since I find it harder to read people purely through text with no baseline for knowing them irl, for things like tone of voice/mannerisms/body language and just general vibe.

17. What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4) Well I think it’s pretty obvious TS2 has ruined all other games for me (not just other Sims games either).

18. Do you have any sims merch? nope

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims? Actually yes! For speed builds.

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? Gotten more Maxis match in terms of aesthetic, if you scroll back to like, pre-2017 on my blog you can see that for sure. For play style it’s a lot more structured - pure rotational so ages sync, more wants based, paying a lot more attention to their personalities etc.

21. What’s your Origin ID? I’ve been playing with either the RPC Launcher or a no-CD crack since the day I switched to the UC, so although I do have an Origin ID I’ve literally used it probably twice ever. So no idea!

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator? There’s too many to pick!

23. How long have you had a simblr? My very first Simblr post was July 31, 2016. Before that I had a bit of a hiatus from playing for a few years, and before that I was on Livejournal/Dreamwidth.

24. How do you edit your pictures? My photo editing program (PSP8) is literally from the era of TS2 itself, which seems appropriate. It’s always worked perfectly well for me - I downloaded Photoshop a couple times but always found doing the same actions clunky and unfamiliar, so I stick with what I know. I adjust curves, saturation, and add a very slight (probably imperceptible) bloom effect. Then I crop in, and I resize by width - meaning my pics are always the same width, but the height varies slightly. I prioritize getting everything into the frame that I want, and don’t really care if the heights are different.

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? If I were making up hypothetical TS2 EP’s? I wouldn’t have minded something like Superstar from the Sims 1, having my Sims become famous (if it was done more like OFB/hands on style rather than “off to work in a carpool for the day” style) would have been pretty fun.

26. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? That’s really tough to pick. Probably Seasons (such world building!), Freetime (the hobbies system adds so much depth for me!) or Open For Business (my whole hood has no EA careers and only businesses sooo...) or Pets?? I love my Sims having pets. They’re all so good!

I’m seeing this going around, so please allow me to tag @you if you haven’t been yet and wanna do this!

#ts2 gameplay #ts2 maxis match #ts2 tumblr #ts2 #simblr #ts2 simblr #maxis match #thesims2 #sims 2 #the sims 2

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freetheshit-outofyou · 2 years ago

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Hi Sir.

First, thank you for your years of service.

But thank you also for your intelligent, interesting, often funny, always thought provoking Tumblr!

(My own Tumblr is, um, less high minded.)

We may be very different men in some ways, but your ideas on government, self defense, outdoor recreation, food, nature, married life, and most other subjects are right on, Sir!

On marriage, I happen to have a husband, not a wife, but I think for both of us the experience is an amazing journey of discovery and adaptation.

On self defense, I was never in the military. Honestly I don't know what half the weapons you post are. I just try to do a little karate, and lately a little kobudo in my "old age." (59, the oldest I've ever been!) But I marvel at your evident skill and breadth of knowledge. The whole point of being able to fight, after all, is to attain peace.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts online, Sir!

Just when I’m sure the Human race is beyond recovery someone pops up and reminds me there are still good damned people on this blue sphere we call home. @hoss-sc, First and foremost, thank you for your kind words, with that said I have been accused of a great many things, High Minded is not one of them, but I'll take what I can get. Thank you, it is my honor to have served, I found more than I’ve lost and it changed my perspective on so much. It is true we are different men but as I have found, people as individuals, devoid of the separations and segregation that are placed on us by society and governments see more eye to eye than we know. When you understand that the very people, organizations and governments that keep putting us in little boxes are the very one’s fanning the flames of hate and distrust. Reminds me of this scene from Men In Black.

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I don't have much need of those little boxes, those categories that we are yoked with. I chose who I like, or dislike, based on who they are not who I'm told they are. As I have said many times on here I don't care where a person comes from, who they bend a knee to, who they sleep with or what color they are. My baseline qualifier is what kind of Human they are. I have never had one of those artificial sub-categories clarify a person for me, only time and actions can so that. The chaff will always separate from the Wheat given enough time to do so.

I am pleased you and I have much more in common than not. I think every Human has Rights that exist before the laws of men. I think life outside teaches more practical lessons than and room and 4 walls can. I think Governments should be small and people should be allowed to be free. Hoss, I’m glad you have found your love and your happiness, damnit it is a rare thing in this age of instant gratifications and disposable relationships. With that said I have been married 3 times, the first one left me while I was deployed, the second one stabbed me and the one I spent all those years looking for, well, we’ve been together 17 years this July. I don’t care if one is in a same sex relationship or an opposite sex relationship, who people sleep with has very little to do with me or what I think of them. I’m sure you and I could have long conversations about the boxes society has created to keep people both locked up and hidden in. Self-defense, Man this hits me to my core. EVERY HUMAN HAS THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE!! Self-defense is the cornerstone to living a life free from oppression either from thugs and criminals or oppressive governments. I think everyone should learn a form of unarmed self-defense and learn to use firearms because deferring your safety and the safety of those you love to someone less concerned about your survival just isn’t the greatest option. I taught unarmed self-defense for 10 years and I have taught armed defense for close to 30 years, each one is an important aspect in our personal responsibility to not live in victimhood. A few years back I started training in Filipino martial arts (kali, escrima, arnis) with a guy out at NAS Fallon, it is so different from the traditional Jiu Jitsu I started with in the 90’s and the Gracie style of Jiu Jitsu I did for many many years and the same style my kids do now. I trained at if for a little over a year before the guy got orders and I haven’t found an instructor since, small town blues. I cannot accurately express how important I feel self-defense is. But, as you know, as we get on in the years all the shit we did to our bodies in our younger more rambunctious years starts to slow us down. I’ll be 53 in June and all those “Oh shit, I survived that!” moments remind me that I am not quite a spry as I once was, but I’m also not dead. I will never be as fast or agile as I was at 20 or 30 or even 40 but I will never go down without a fight, it’s just not in my DNA. Thank you again, I mean that from the deepest places in my soul. “The ultimate aim of martial arts is not having to use them” ― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

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toonpunk-game · 1 year ago

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So what happens next?

So.

Toonpunk Second Edition is out. While I have stories to tell in the Saskatoon setting, that part of my endeavor - creating the game and establishing the baseline for what its fiction and gameplay looks like - is, broadly speaking, “behind me”. I’m still going to fund and add more illustrations to fill out some missing spaces - that’s gonna take time, that’s gonna take multiple revisions of the PDF, but it’s all fairly easily done.

So here we arrive at the question: what’s “Next” for Toonpunk?

Well, at risk of sounding a little like a carnie...you ain’t seen nothin yet. Toonpunk, as you know of it, has only ever been a preamble. The Saskatoon setting is just a foundation. For years I’ve known what I wanted to do next, but I just had to get this right.

Before I can answer that question in detail, I gotta tell you about a tiny patch of land in central Alabama.

The bounded area here - that weird little polygon - is where I’m from. I was born here. I’ve lived my entire life here. I’ve spent less than a cumulative two months of my life anywhere else. More than 99% of my life has been spent in this unremarkable subrural sprawl. I’ve watched the city expand and contract; I’ve watched the farmlands get shaved away and I’ve seen the buildings grow tall and then become rubble again. I’ve seen people come here seeking fortune and leave to seek it again. And I’ve come to live it all, as anyone loves their home. I love the long hot nights and the obstreperous Summer storms; I love the strange people and their bizarre customs; I love the rich forests and the undulating hills, where the roads wind so circuitously they at times seem noneuclidean.

There’s between two and three hundred thousand people in this red polygon.

We, and it, are being erased.

We’re being erased by inches, the same way most people like us are. Year after year the thermometers keep rising and our politicians keep enacting more and more brutality against us. We, a hopeless people, prostrate ourselves before a system that we know hates us. Some of us have families that have been here since the time of our ancestors - when they were dragged here in iron to make some plantation owner rich. The rest of the country pretends not to see us; and when the rest of the world does look at us, it’s with disgust. It is commonly reproduced in everyday conversation that this is a land of hopelessly backwards racists, whose impending annihilation will do the world some measure of good.

And let’s not make any bones about it: there’s some real rotten goddamn people in this place. But no more than anywhere else. Here you find a world of kind souls, who tend a needy neighbor; noble outlaws who bring charity wherever they walk; people of the forest and the swamp, who love every creature under the sun as they love their own family; punk rockers, hopeful artists; a robust queer scene; decent people who were born here, and never gave up the ship. All clapped in irons by the rule of law, as my ancestors were before us, so that we may never take our freedom nor give our kindness.

And one day - one day soon - we will all be erased. Either the heat will go up so high we can’t live here, or the sea will rise and swallow us, or the fascist genocide crusade will liquidate every one of these decent souls. And when this happens, the news will be received in Denver and Sacramento and New York City with indifference; but more than that, with relief. A great many souls will hear that Alabama and Georgia and Louisiana and Mississippi are no more, and they will mutter “good”. And that shall be the end of that.

I don’t really think it’s in my power to change that. But I won’t let it happen quietly.

All of this is to say that my next project is Toonpunk: Hellsouth. A toonpunk expansion, and setting, that takes place in and around my home state of Alabama - a monument to the strange people, beautiful places, and idiosyncratic culture that brought me to this point.

As a game, it’s a near-complete overhaul of the toonpunk core mechanics that turn it into a tense resource-management survival-horror game, where the stakes get even higher and the fights get even uglier. I’ve got some incredible things to show you already: Movie-monster inspired abilities, which players can level up by forging pacts with the creatures of the deep black; a wholly retooled damage model, where even one bullet can be deadly; expanded mechanics built around bluffing and standoffs; weather simulations and long distance travel - all wrapped up in a unique cartoon/cyberpunk setting that didn’t “fall” through the cracks so much as it was “pushed”. This is a great labor of love that I’ve been working on for years; and, regrettably - it won’t be done for a long, long time to come.

Unlike the original Toonpunk, I intend this book to feature many stories from people who live in this part of the country, from many different storytellers. It is in some ways a cairn for my homeland, erected while it’s still mostly-intact.

I don’t know if this book will really be for everyone. But if you feel like it might be for you, and you have a story about some place in Dixieland that’s near and dear to your heart - shoot me a DM.

Stay tooned.

#cartoon #cyberpunk #Tabletop RPG #alabama

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