#i understand if this was an accessibility feature that could be turned on optionally but I DON'T THINK IT CAN BE FUCKING TURNED OFF

[six-of-ravens]

*grabbing skullcandy by the proverbial shoulders* listen. listen to me. your headphones have excellent battery life. 25% battery will last literally like 5 or 6 hours. so. you need to stop making the british "battery low :(" lady interrupt my shit every 10 minutes starting then. please. let me turn this off. i can see on my phone what the battery percentage is. don't keep interrupting my podcast and making me miss 10 seconds of audio to tell me something i already know.

[stonedlilac]

You'd like to become my divine piece, love? Adding little marks here and there to outline your beautiful features. You'd of course, would have to stay still for me. You'd can do that for me correct, painslut?

If not, we have other options and devices that would be of good use. Sometimes, even good girls need a little coaxing.♡

You'd be displayed for me, every inch of you accessible so I could work freely. You're probably wondering how I'd accomplish both at once, hmm? I'd strap you down to a stockade, isn't it so satisfying how one device can accomplish so much?

I'd place you down, facing the floor and fasten your wrists first, enoying the small pants that quicken with each click of the binds. You'd be forced to lean forward, everything exposed for me. Your neck laying on a platform and firmly strapped down.

Mommy has a little surprise for you too. I smirk, gently turning your attention to a strap bolted behind you. Your cute little doe eyes widen and I grab you softly by the hips, coaxing your bottom half down. You moan against my touch and I smile sweetly, gently sliding in the head. "Good girls get filled." I purr at you. And you're being so good for me.

You hear multiple clips but the strap cockwarming your cunt has left you dizzy and needy. You try to move, even an inch. Your arms are strapped down and your tits hang pathetically for attention. Your bottom half is displayed in the air like a bitch in heat. Your torso strapped down to make sure those little hips stay cocked and ready for me. I want my artwork on proper display and every detail is important, no matter how small.

The strap now fully stuffing your pretty pussy making you tremble. I click in the last few binds, your calves and ankles firmly locked in. Fuck. Such a pretty piece you are for me. I've always loved art, but now I love it that much more.

I took my time with you, you stayed bolted down for days, you'd claim I was overly-particular but I don't expect a hazy-filled pain whore to understand. It takes time to create a masterpiece, after all.♡

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Have you heard of Cloud Breakers? It's a Fantasy Post-apocalyptic RPG. And no, it's not a "after the bomb" type deal where it somehow created magic or ood tech became seen as magic etc. It's a genuine fantasy setting with a magical apocalypse that the survivors are trying to rebuild from.

The event was called the Cloud Fall. Thick Clouds covered almost the entire planet, and they empowered and created monsters of all sorts. And if one got lost in the clouds for too long, they could turn into a monster too. Pockets without Clouds became havens for survivors to try and rebuild civilizations. Under such intense pressure for so long the survivors developed new, experimental, and sometimes extreme ideas and measures to survive.

Now, over a thousand years later, things have changed. It's possible, though quite dangerous, to cut back sections of the cloud cover. Those who do so are Cloud Breakers. An alliance built from four surviving civilizations, the Cloud Breaker Alliance faces many struggles. One of the chief ones being that they aren't fully backed by any of the four governments and, with only a century since the contact was even possible, trust and cultural understanding is relatively new between the nation's.

Still, the Alliance may be new, it may be understaffed, underfunded, and only semi-legitimate in the eyes of most governments, but it isn't going to give up that easily. There is a world to save, clouds to break, mysteries to uncover, and possibly even more civilizations to contact. There is hope for the future, but it won't be easy.

Features:

* Four distinct regions, each with its own culture, unique technology/magics, and even enemy types. Be that meme of a cowboy, a samurai, a Victorian gentleman, and a Caribbean pirate being a historically accurate party.

* A flexible character class system with basic and advanced classes to unlock. Each class also gives you a choice of sub-class from the start, which are usually quite flavorful and can differentiate them in substantial ways.

* A Quirk system that gives guidance for rollplay and provides mechanical benefits for being in character.

* Easy to learn magic system: spend MP and you cast a spell you know. Leveling up gives access to more options, but the basics are never useless.

* Fighting isn't just reducing one side to 0 HP faster than your enemy reduces yours. Use your skills and tool kits to Neutralize the enemies without having to fully deplete their HP. Defeat enough enemies, and the rest will retreat once you break their Morale.

This is a submission but i think they meant to make it an ask I've heard of it! can't buy it rn because of lack of ca$h but it looked at the very least really interesting, even though I hated how it was pitched (WHAT DO YOU MEAN "FINAL FANTASY MEETS STAR TREK", THAT'S LIKE SAYING WORDS MEET IMAGES. THATS SO VAGUE)

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Okay so here’s my thoughts on the staffcon thing.

I still think collapsing reblogs so posts look more like other social media isn’t gonna work as a feature but they will probably roll them back a little and at least add a toggle off for it if they try it and enough people submit feedback. Edit: this is actually less of an issue, most of the discussion is based on a misrepresentation of what’s happening. They’re just making it easier to scroll past long posts. EDIT AGAIN: actually some people already have the initial roll out of the feature and it. Is bad.

I think submitting feedback is a takeaway. There was a pretty clear effort to just remind the user base that there are real humans on the other side of a paycheck having to read and respond to the inputs of every feedback method on the site, which is fair. It’s easy to be an asshole online in any semi anonymous platform and that is something that tumblr culture takes a certain bloodthirsty pleasure in.

And yes, of course, user complaints about issues such as accessibility and the many ongoing glitches and bots and the search function, etc. are valid and do need to be addressed. But at the very least it would be cool if we as users maybe try to cultivate a slightly less pitchforky social norm when submitting feedback about changes to the site. The ceo is not reading every @ to his blog. One of his employees is. The people reading all of the feedback are just people doing their jobs. All jobs suck under capitalism, maybe we could try not to make their jobs actively worse.

Would you be rude to an overworked server in a restaurant? No? Cool also try to not be a dick to the person getting paid to answer customer or user complaints.

Related to that, funding. Many current and former members of staff have been pretty frank about funding in the past. The company is trying to at the very least breakeven, which not a single company who has owned tumblr has managed because the hosting fees for this site are insane due to all of the stuff on it.

If they don’t get it to breakeven they’ll hopefully best case just open source the website which is a method they’ve done in the past. And it would probably work, and then the website would to my understanding be being maintained by users. Now this is where my understanding gets fuzzy so anyone with more knowledge of how this would shake out feel free to chime in. But my understanding is that the source code for the site would be opened up and maintained by the community likely through mostly volunteer work. I would guess largely uncompensated.

So personally I think maybe the vitriolic response to every change they make going forward to try and monetize the site and pay even some of the cost of operation is perhaps a bit overblown, because they’re still trying to find a way to keep paying those people to work on tumblr, and I think people continuing to be paid for the work they do is better than volunteers doing unpaid labor.

I do also think there’s a secret third option for automattic and every other company finding themselves with a worse outlook now the Silicon Valley bubble has started to really burst, and that is for all existing staff members to unionize and then turn the whole thing into a worker coop. Much more stable organizational structures. Worker coops are also one of my favorite short term solutions to many other systemic problems we are currently experiencing.

I do hope this site continues to exist for many years, especially as it is one of the only places on the internet where the culture makes it safer to talk about some of the more permanent and long term solutions to various systemic issues that function within societies. Also funny text posts.

[deepdreamnights]

More video tinkering with Vidu 1.5

Vidu hit 1.5 this morning for testing, which I get access to as part of the artist's program. While making raw material for a "Big Professor" project-

(Shown here to establish a 1.0 baseline)

-I nuked most of my credits, I've still got enough to try out the new features and give you all a rundown of them.

First major change is resolution options. Fast, 720, or 1080. Shown here is my first attempt at a 1080 gen, using the same prompt as above. While most vids in this post will be gifs for ease of use, this one is an MP4 to provide full evaluation.

Ignore the odd playback speed, since that's something you'd fix in post. The gif at the start was one of my most stable renderings of Big Professor under v1. Got some minor wonk in the details, little distortion around the prof's claw and the kid in the first half second, but otherwise well above the average of the 1.0 versions I've been working with, especially the clarity on the button text.

The second one is a re-run of the same prompt, minus some detail issues with one shin, the level of consistency is promising.

720 can go up to 8 seconds, 1080 tops off at 4. At present, 1.5 does not have an upscale function. If you're not tinkering to test out prompts I'd generally recommend 1080, even for lower-res projects, for the purposes of being able to crop and/pan.

For most of these, assume I'm using either 720 or 1080 gens.

Multi-Subject Reference-to-Video

THIS is the big winner of the setup. Previously, ref-to-video only could handle a single referenced subject image. The current setup now allows you to reference up to three per generation.

Those can be characters, props, or settings, and it can be used for morphing effects. This is good, because first-frame-last-frame is more finnicky than reference-to-video. The obvious use is to create multi-character scenes, and it works well for that:

But it has other uses. For example, here I used:

And while this one was reversed and trimmed, it displays the potential for using the feature for transformation sequences. The backgrounds are especially helpful, since Vidu's internally-generated toon backgrounds are very modern and digital-painting-looking (the gif of Mrs. Nice turning back and forth into Mrs. Nautilus at the top of the section didn't use a background image reference) and as always, I like it retro.

To that point, using the more comic-booky Mrs. Nice control drawing didn't work near as well as the more period-accurate one:

And while I'll personally be cutting out frames to produce a more accurate 1980s TV animation look, the raw fluidity is bound to appeal to the majority of users, and minor issues like the color of Mrs. Nice's blouse changing mid-transformation are easy enough to fix manually (though if a flaw looks enough like a traditional animation screwup, I might just leave it in)

And another fun feature? Movement amplitude control.

In my last post about it, I said Vidu likes to move, and if you need a more subtle shot, like this one, setting the movement amplitude control to small is your move. (Funny how the robot interpreted the book binding as a mouth.) If something's too static you can up the movement as well, but I haven't had that problem much.

In terms of generation quality, 1.5 is a good but not huge leap up from 1.0. at least in terms of what I've made so far. Aesthetics are very similar, but issues of tearing, distortion, and wonky action are lessened.

And it's way better at understanding triceratops, so thumbs up there.

This is one of my wonk-tests, but man, check that walk cycle. This is why the movement controls are important, sometimes when set to auto a dialog scene becomes a weird chase.

Now, in terms of generation costs (and this can always change), 1.5 seems more expensive but in the end it works out more or less the same.

A 1.0 quality 8-second gen upscaled to max res would be 24 points (16 for the quality 8-seconds, 8 for the upscale), and an 8-second 720 render is also 24 points (as is a 4-second 1080).

Yeah, you don't want to use "Fast" in most cases. While both the 720 and fast versions here both have flaws (Bruce's disappearing popcorn bucket, etc), the 720 res version is substantially more on-model for both characters.

To close out, a bit of fun wonk. To try out the effect, I prompted using a "Specialist Matt Trakker" G.I.Joe/M.A.S.K. crossover figure as a character reference, to see if it could translate a character from toy to live action. And it can-

Though it is very, very literal.

The combination of live action-esq person and accurate G.I.Joe joints is harrowing, but there's potential there for some wild variants on the Toy Story/A Christmas Toy/'Wynona's Big Brown Beaver'-Music-Video-by-Primus concept.

[cipheralreviews]

Game Review: Tetris Effect: Connected

General opinion: Positive.

Tetris Effect: Connected is, obviously, a tetris game, with a modern graphical twist. It has classic and VR modes, both of which have their own pros and cons, but are also both worth checking out if you have the ability to. With several different modes, Tetris Effect: Connected offers a lot of different styles of gameplay for varying skill levels.

Starting off, I want to give the game devs credit where credit is due: this game absolutely slaps for it's visuals. A tetris game in the Unreal engine is certainly a choice to make, and they pulled it off really well. Sparkly particles, glowing animations, and surreal visual effects bring a magical experience to a classic arcade game, no matter if you play it in VR or on your screen.

It has both a main campaign where you play through different levels in a story-like sequence, as well as other, more casual AND more intense gameplay options. Marathon modes through themed levels, gimmick modes where you clear "corrupted" blocks or deal with mind boggling effects, and calm modes where you have no game over are all available to play, giving variety for any kind of player.

On top of this, they have colourblind modes of various kinds for the game stages themselves. You can play with classic colours, custom level patterns, or modes that add patterns and colours that make it easier to distinguish the blocks from each other. There's also multiple difficulty levels, ranging from beginner to hard, so you can adjust how many lines you want to clear per level.

The final point I want to praise is the audio experience. It's amazing. There's unique, original tracks made for the game, and the "title song" (used colloquially because it's not actually the title screen song, but it is the one from the first level in the story mode) is ABSOLUTELY incredible in my opinion. Heavy beats that are influenced by the ways you turn, flip, and drop blocks paired with each level having individual themes to them that inspire and match the music playing make it both engaging as well as good to listen to on its own.

And now the negatives...

One major issue I have with this game is that the story mode does not have options for speed, nor do they have a "no game over" setting. This means people like myself, who have visual processing issues as well as mobility issues, have a harder time clearing levels and unlocking the next theme in line. Some levels have rapid speed ups and slow downs that are a bit jarring, and while I understand the fact they might not be able to give the option to not change the speed, I'd have really liked if they'd given an option to have no deaths. It meant, for me, that I got stuck on several levels that I otherwise would have really enjoyed because they went from speed level 3 to speed level 8 or higher all within one lines difference. Having this option for the story mode would have improved the experience immensely for me, as I'm still stuck on the last level in the easy mode.

The only other thing I'd add as a problem is that if you're photosensitive, it could get painful very fast, especially in VR mode. They do have options to turn down or off particles, change graphics settings, etc. but that doesn't change the fact that there are strobing lights on some levels that you cannot turn off.

The above limits the people I can truly recommend the game to, which is genuinely unfortunate, because I know several people who would LOVE this game, if it had the accessibility features mentioned.

Final notes

Overall, it's a great game that brings a really nice, fresh twist on a game that's a decade older than I am. It really justifies itself as an iteration of tetris, much like Jacob Geller has said.

If you liked this review, please go and check out Jacob Geller's video Tetris Effect And Other Games With Immaculate Vibes! It's the video that introduced me to this game, and he makes some really interesting observations on tetris and marble games, and how they interact with their history.

Additionally, I post these in my free time, but if anyone has movie, game, or series recommendations, please feel free to send them in! I really do love reviewing media, and if I can turn this into an actual job it would be incredible.

[juniperwoodwell]

Dedication

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 |

Kylo Ren x F! Reader

Word count:5k

Warning(s): I'm not sure rn, proceed with caution I guess.

Summary:As a Captain in the First Order, Y/N has never been one to bring attention to herself unless it was commanding her squadron. What happens when a personal hobby make's her prey to one of the most feared men in the universe?

A/N 1: I'm so sorry this took so long to get out! I had a hard time writing these few week. This is only half edited because an hour ago my mom went to the hospital, but I wanted to get this out for you guys. I will edit it in the future! ❤️

A/n 2: Btw, I decided to try something else for splitting up the scenes , any words in bold red letters is the beginning of a new scene. Lmk if you like that better than the dots.

"You're right on time."

 The deep tone of his distorted voice sent shivers down her spine. She stared at the back of the mountainous man in front of her; swallowing her nervousness, she cleared her throat and stood beside him.

"What can I do for you, sir?"

Kylo turned his head slightly to analyze her momentarily, then looked back at his ship.          

"Why did you disobey direct orders?"

"I-I don't understand-"

"You snuck onto my ship while I was away and after hours."

Y/n bit her lip and sighed;

Well, might as well get this over with.

 "I know the risks, Sir, But the information I gathered was vital to my success. I don't want to disappoint you." Her last sentence was mumbled, admitting that hurt her pride.

Kylo hummed and nodded. "Well, since you disobeyed my orders, there will be a punishment." His tone darkened.

"I understand..." This was it; my desire to always succeed would be the end of me.

 "You will do a pre-test. No data pad, no notes."

 "What?" Her head snapped in his direction; she expected to be dead already.

"You heard me. Let's go."

 The inside of the Silencer was cramped, to begin with, but now it was almost suffocating.      

Kylo sat in the Pilots seat; his presence alone seemed to fill the tight space with a tense atmosphere. Y/n stood beside him so she could access the flight computer.

"I-Is this necessary, sir?"

 Kylo had his hands folded in his lap and nodded. "I need to see you doing it. It'd be useless if I were down there."

Y/n nodded, rolling up her sleeves. "I do suppose so, Sir."

"You may start."

Kylo's POV: (-Example- : Y/n's thoughts)

"You may start."

He watched as she crouched down and turned on the flight computer; no better option other than the floor, he supposed.

He didn't care if she got it right or wrong. He was too caught up in his thoughts;

She was certainly strange. She's always so anxious around me but still manages to back-talk me.

He closed his eyes as he began listening to her rushing mind. It brought some sense of calmness to his constantly overwhelmed one.

- Shit, If he knows about last night, what else does he know? Does he know about my mother? -

He opened his eyes and turned his head, looking at her profile. Her eyebrows were knitted as she worked on the computer.

Her mother? Does she mean her biological or stepmother?

"Your father isn't your biological father isn't that correct?" He asked, watching as she turned to him.

Shock etched into her attractive features. "How'd-"

"I did a background check on you when you requested this assignment."

"Oh, well...yeah. My mother divorced him and left us both. My bio father is unknown."

Kylo hummed. "Does that mean your father's wife is your stepmother?"

Y/n nodded, Turning back to the computer. "She's more of a mother to me than my real one."

"Oh? And why's that?" He smirked as he watched her physically tense up.

-Oh, Fuck.-

 "I...Well. My biological mother was hardly there for me growing up, and after she married Raife, my father. She only became more distant. Then divorced my father to join the new republic, and I haven't seen her since." She sighed. "My stepmother took me in as her own; she was super protective of me as a child and was against me joining the first order."

- Why am I spilling my secrets to him!?-

Kylo chuckled at her thoughts, though it came out as a distorted crackle, catching her attention. "Your mother joined the new republic?"

Y/n sighed,

-Too much information, dumbass. Way to dig your own grave. Again.-

" Yeah...She's some big-shot counselor now, but like I said. But as I said, I haven't seen her since the divorce- Oh, wait- Actually, that's a lie. She did try to reconnect a few years ago, tried to convince me not to join the first order, but I told her to politely fuck off."

Kylo sensed anger in her tone as she fiddled with the computer. "I see."

Silence filled the space; Kylo shut his eyes and listened to Y/n's mind, He searched for more information about her mother, but her mind was so filled with overwhelmed thoughts that it made it difficult to navigate. Kylo had never experienced such an active mind; It fascinated him.

The silence and his investigation were interrupted when a bang echoed in the cockpit, followed by a hissed-out curse.

"Fuck!"

 He opened his eyes to see Y/n standing now, rubbing her head. Frustrated by something,

 How is it that every time I'm one way, she manages to be the complete opposite? Like now, I'm the most relaxed I've been in weeks, and she's completely stressed out and frustrated.

"Are you alright?"

He asked suddenly. Startling them both, It's a very known fact that Kylo Ren is not one to care for others,

 "Y-Yeah, Sorry, Sir. Low ceilings."

He stared at her momentarily, an idea forming in his mind.

Y/n's POV:

This whole situation is bull- Why is he asking so many questions? Why this freaking Pre-Test as a punishment? Does he really need to be here? Why is he asking about my mother?

-ERROR: INCORRECT-

The screen showed those words in bright red lettering; she groaned softly.

This is stupid.

She ran her hands over her face and stood up. Too frustrated to remember the low ceilings,

"Fuck!" She cursed when her head collided with the durasteel ceiling.

 "Are you alright?" His voice startled her, making her gasp and turn to him.

"Y-yeah, Sorry, Sir. Low ceilings..." She was shocked by his sudden concern, but what happened next made her want to scream as if she'd just seen a ghost.

 Kylo grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto his lap; Her back faced him as she straddled his right thigh. Blush crept up her neck and face; she turned her head to look at him. Unsure of what to do.

"Does this help?" He asked,

"What?"

"Does this help? With how you were crouched, I could assume that was uncomfortable, making it difficult for you to focus." He spoke calmly as if what he'd just done hadn't almost caused her to have a heart attack.

 "O-Oh...Uh." She looked at the computer, the angle was better and would relieve stress from her ankles, but the warmth from Kylo's thigh made her believe crouching might be the safer option...

Y/n wasn't the most active woman in the world; she preferred to focus on her work over fulfilling any personal pleasures, Minus her Starship hobby. But this sudden contact with someone made her realize how touch-starved she was.

"Yes...It does help. Thank you, Sir." Kylo nodded, and she continued her work; in truth, being beside him earlier was nerve-wracking, but now sitting in his lap? Oh...It was worse. It was distracting and made it even more difficult to focus, especially when he'd move his foot, flexing his thigh. Or when he'd roll his shoulders, brushing his chest against her back, causing goosebumps on her exposed forearms. The proximity was becoming too much; she couldn't concentrate.

 Y/n sighed and shut off the flight computer, running a hand through her hair.

"What's the matter?"

Y/n looked over her shoulder, shrugging. Could she tell him that he was causing her to feel slightly turned on? No! Of course not! He's her boss...Technically. So she went with the half-truth, avoiding the embarrassing stuff.

"I've done this test sixteen times now; It's much more than I thought it would be. I can barely remember any of the small details; I'm practically guessing half of it." She sighed again, her shoulders slumped as she spoke, "I give up; I'm sorry, Sir." She began to stand up, but Kylo wrapped his arms tightly around her front and pulled her flush against him. They were so close she could hear his breathing, undistorted. It was calm.

 "You aren't allowed to give up, Capitan. You're here to prove that you are exactly as everyone says you are. You're constantly being praised for your piloting and engineering skills. You're apparently so good at what you do that the Supreme Leader permitted you to train a squadron of pilots from childhood, these children are orphans, and you're training them to be loyal to the first order by acting like a mother. Which is proving to work better than Hux's brainwashing method. It infuriates him; it's...very amusing for me."

He paused, his grip on her loosened slightly. Y/n was shivering; she wasn't cold, though...How could she be? Kylo radiated heat like a fire. It was from a combination of things, Fear, curiosity, surprise, and arousal. To name a few. He must have noticed this, she assumed, since his grip tightened and pulled her impossibly closer. "One little ship shouldn't be all that difficult for you." She sighed, nodding her head.

"I know.."

"Then why is it?"

She shrugged. "It's stressful; what you've asked me to do is...it's foreign to me. And you...Sir," She bit her lip to stop herself from digging herself a deeper grave. But he was persistent.

"Go on?"

 She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I-...I am afraid of you. Sir."

 "As you should be. But you aren't right now, are you?"

 She shook her head, "No, Sir."

 "Then what are you afraid of?"

"Honestly? Even though I am afraid of you most days, I have a lot of respect for you, and now that I have this assignment, I'm afraid of disappointing you and not meeting your expectations."

Kylo nodded, "I wouldn't have approved your assignment if I wasn't confident in your abilities. Unless...They're all lies, and you've somehow managed to fool everyone and are secretly a rebel spy?"

Y/n gasped, turning her head to gaze into the dark visor of his helmet. "I am NOT like my mother. I would never betray the First Order."

Kylo chuckled, "Good to know where your loyalties lie." Y/n could feel the vibrations of his distorted chuckle; she realized now that he was teasing her,

"Is this amusing to you?" She asked, turning her head to look out the windshield, crossing her arms over her chest, accentuation her breasts.

 Kylo inhaled sharply, covering it up by teasing her once again. "Yes, very much so. You're something else, Captain Seinar"

She huffed and absentmindedly rested her head against his shoulder. "I could say the same for you?"

"Oh? How so?"

"Well...for one. You haven't killed me yet like I've expected you to...Multiple times-" "I have no reason to." "But I've sassed you, talked back to you, disobeyed your orders. I was late, and you destroyed a hangar terminal. You have literally killed for less."

It was his turn to shrug. "...I didn't destroy the terminal because you were late. I apologize if I gave you that impression. Hux had informed me that they lost the location of the scavenger girl. You just happened to show up, and I needed an excuse." Y/n put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. "Is this amusing for you?" His tone sounded playful as he mirrored her words from moments before.

She shook her head, but her expression betrayed her, unable to contain her smile.

 He chuckled. "To be honest, you are a valuable asset to the First Order. You've managed to make yourself indispensable. It'd be a waste to kill you."

"O-oh..."

"So, what else then?"

"Well...For instance," She lifted her hands to accentuate her point. "It's very out of character for you, sir."

 "Maybe for you and everyone else, it is."

 "What? Are you saying you're actually kind and considerate?"

 Kylo scoffed. "Not usually. But somehow, you've managed to bring out that side of me-" As he was about to finish his sentence, Y/n's watch beeped, indicating that the hour had finished. "You did well; I'll give you an extra hour tomorrow." Kylo let go and helped her stand. He lifted his hand above her head before she could bump against it again. "Thank you, sir."

When she returned to the lounge, the only one there was Miya; when she saw Y/n, she stood up and rushed over to her.

"Where the hell have you been?" She scolded.

 "Miya-"

"You missed lunch and dinner, and you're back late! We were worried Sick! "

"A lot happened. Can I explain in the morning? I'm exhausted."

 Miya signed, "Yeah, fine. But I want a full explanation."

"Yes, Ma'am," Y/n Yawned and trudged back to her room. She signed, "So many questions; why does he make everything so difficult." slowly, she peeled off her work clothes as her stomach grumbled. "Shit- I'm starving." She changed into something comfortable and then went out to the lounge.

 As she was scrounging around for a snack, a heavy knock echoed through the room; y/n gasped at the sound and then quickly opened the door to find a trooper standing there holding a black cafeteria plate with a matching lid.

"Captain Seinar?"

"Yes?"

"This is for you."

"Uh? Are you sure? Because I canceled my meal delivery."

 "Yes, Ma'am. But I was ordered to bring it to you."

"By who?"

"Kylo Ren, Ma'am,"

Y/n scoffed. Really?  "ah, alright. Thank you." She took the food back to her room and sat it on her desk. She crossed her arms and stored at it.

"Why in the world would he have someone bring me food? Is he sorry he made me skip dinner? This man, I swear. one minute he wants to slice me In half, and the next he's acting as though he's my friend or something" She shrugged and sat down at the desk. When she opened it, there was a note written on real paper; this surprised her because It was rare to see actual paper since everything has become mostly digital. It read,

You did well tonight. Meet me in the hangar right after dinner tomorrow. You'll do your two hours then. Enjoy this; You deserve it.

Y/n stared at the note in awe, "This man is not who people say he is. Goodness." Cautiously she began to eat the meal.

The next morning went suspiciously well. Y/n woke up before her alarm, made it to breakfast, and taught classes. It wasn't until after lunch that things started to go downhill. She had gone to her office to do paperwork; the office was the equivalent of a large closet.

 A knock on her office door startled her from the report she had been writing.

 "Come in."

The door slid open to reveal Kylo Ren. She stood up quickly, "O-Oh, Hello, Sir. How can I help you?"

"I need your help with a ship."

"Your silencer?"

 He shook his head slightly. "My command shuttle. Come, I'll explain more on the way."

She nodded and followed him out of the room. He explained what was wrong with the ship, and he took her to the hangar.

 Y/n placed her hands on her hips as she stared at the large ship.

"Huh..."

"What is it?"

"Oh- Uh. Sorry. I just assumed it'd be in worse shape. You have a reputation for destroying things when stuff is inconvenient to you."

"I chose to find you first."

"Ah."

Kesta came down from the ship when she saw Y/n; her eyes lit up.

"Oh, Good. You're here!"

 Y/n offered her a soft smile. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Of course, Though. We've practically torn the cockpit apart trying to figure out what's wrong with the damn thing. So watch your step."

"Thank you. I will." 

 Kesta was not kidding. There were wires hanging down from the ceiling. The control cover was taken off the dock and sat to the side. Wires were littered all over the floor as well. "Goodness..." She trudged her way through the mess and went over to the dock where the flight computer resided.

Y/n wasn't unfamiliar with the Upsilon class command shuttle. It had just been released the year she joined the first order, and when she did her engineer training, one of her tests was to program it. Her programming came in second to a punk who decided he'd steal her idea, which in turn made it look like she stole his.

 So in truth, this was her creation, but no one knew. She nodded to herself, then exited the ship,

"Well?" Kesta asked, walking up to Y/n.

"I think It's the wing retraction gear. When it starts up, does it make a high-pitched screeching?"

Kesta nodded.

"Then...Yeah, somethings wrong with the wing retraction."

"Would you mind taking a look at it?" The older woman asked; y/n internally groaned. This could take hours.

"Yes, Ma'am. I'll need some tools, though."

Two hours of screwing and unscrewing bolts, rewiring the wing retractor, and then having to do it again because she forgot that it needed to be wired to a different input. Kylo had left as soon as she got her tools, and Kesta left after that.

Tiredly y/n sat at the bottom of the ramp on the ship; she wiped her forehead as she sighed. A shadow eclipsed her, and she looked up to find Kylo looming over her. Quickly she stood up, almost stumbling forward into him. Catching her balance, she spoke,

 "I-I wasn't slacking, Sir."

 The new familiar crackle sounded softly between the two. "No. I didn't think you were."

 "Ah. Well- Is there anything I can help you with?"

He shook his head slightly. "Is it fixed?"

 Y/n looked over her shoulder and nodded. "Yes, Sir."

 "Good. You may go."

She looked at him confused but then shook her head. "Yes, Sir."

Before she could walk passed him, he grabbed her arm, Wo- Deja Vu. "Do not worry about Hux's order. Continue the way you have been."

 She looked into the dark visor with an uncertain expression. "Are you saying that just because it would only piss him off more?"

 "Yes. But also because I meant what I said. It works." She looked away and nodded; before He let go of her arm,

He said, "Go to the infirmary."

 "For what?" She asked; he tilted his down, and she followed his gaze. Her dark grey shirt was stained a deep red on her side. "Oh- Wow. I didn't even feel that."

"Obviously."

She glared at him. "Thank you for noticing. I'll go now." He nodded and let her go.

"Are you kidding me?" A short, blonde-haired woman in a white doctor's coat walked up to Y/n as she entered the infirmary. "I swear, You're here every week, Y/n. What'd you do this time?"

"Hi, Sara...I was fixing Kylo Ren's command shuttle and must have cut myself. Not sure how it happened."

Sara rolled her eyes. "Must have is an understatement." She said as she slightly lifted up the hem of Y/n's shirt. "Come on. I'll fix you up."

"Thank you-"

"You'll be paying me."

Y/n laughed softly and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, don't worry."

Sara lead Y/n to a bed and closed the curtain. "Are you doing alright?"

 "What do you mean?"

 "I mean, You're the center of everyone's gossip recently."

"Because of my new assignment?" Sara nodded as she disinfected the small but deep gash in Y/n's side; Y/n gritted her teeth, "Y-yeah. It's...complicated. At least I'm not dead yet." She joked, earning a glare from Sara. "Sorry- It's nothing though. Just lots and lots of studying." The doctor hummed as she began to stitch up the wound, causing Y/n to grasp the firm mattress.

"...You must not know then."

"K-know what?"

 "There's a rumor growing around that you're screwing him. Especially since last night."

 "...last night?"

"Yeah, One of the engineers told me he saw the two of you inside his ship." Y/n groaned. "Is it true?"

"No, of course, it's not Sara. He found out I snuck onto his ship while he was gone and made me do a pre-test as punishment. He had to be there to observe my progress."

"But did you need to be sitting in his lap?"

"How much did this engineer see!?" Y/n exclaimed, wailing her arms around; Sara glared at her. "Sorry.."

"He saw enough to spread some nasty rumors." Y/n sighed and began to explain everything to Sara from the beginning, and by the time she was done, Sara had finished stitching and bandaging her side.

"Are you sure you can handle this?"

"I...I'm not sure. Tomorrow is test day, and I don't think I'm going to succeed; I'm too far in to back out now. This might be the last time we see each other."

 "I want to say don't be so dramatic, Y/n...But who knows what he'll do to you if you fail."

 Y/n scratched her head. "Yeah... I know."

"How are your nightmares?"

 "Oh-...Good." Sara knew she was lying but didn't persist. They knew each other well enough.

"Okay, You're all set." The women stood and exited the area; a few of the nurses looked at Y/n harshly. She avoided their gazes, and Sara walked her to the door. "Just be careful. Rumors like these...They grow legs."

"I know. Thank you. I'll send you the money tonight."

It seemed as though everyone's eyes were now on her as she made her way through the long tiring halls. Checking the time, she decided she could change out of her stained shirt and then go teach her flight lesson.

Walking into the lounge, she bumped into Callisto,

"Hey! Where have you been?"

"I'll tell you later, Cal. I gotta change and go to my next class."

 "Wait- No. Hang on. Is that blood?"

"yeah, It's nothing. I'll be fine."

"Did he do that to you?"

"Who?"

 "Kylo Ren."

"What? No. I cut myself while fixing a ship."

Callisto sighed. "I swear-"

"Cal. He didn't do anything. Now I have to go."

"Fine. But you're coming to dinner, right?"

She didn't give him an answer as she went to her room.

"Captain!" Dante's voice alerted the woman as she wrote down a report on her data pad.

"Yes, Dante?"

 "General Hux wants to see you. He said for you to go to his office in the command center."

"Now?" Dante nodded. "Okay."

Quickly she gathered her small group and told them they could go back to their dorms and that the training was canceled.

 Nervous didn't even begin to cover what she was feeling the moment she stepped through the command center's doors.

Cautiously she knocked on Hux's door.

"Come in."

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into his office.

 "You asked for me, Sir?"

"Yes. Take a seat." She nodded and sat down in a chair across from his desk. "Is your assignment going well?" He asked as he linked his hands together on his desk and leaned forward.

"Yes, Sir." She kept her expressions blank.

"I was informed that you snuck onto the Silencer after hours. Is this true?"

 Shit. She nodded, "Yes, Sir."

"Why?"

"Because I needed more information."

 "I was also told that you stole a copy of the ship's programming. Is this true?"

 "Y-Yes...Sir."

Hux hummed and sat back in his seat. "I respect you and your reputation Captain. But this is something I can not allow to pass. You will be completely suspended for five weeks, Along with your personal project."

 "Which one, Sir?"

"Your squadron." he paused as he glared harshly, making her want to crawl away and hide. "If you choose to do such things again, I will have you fired and your squadron terminated."

 "But you can't-"

"You're dismissed." biting her tongue, she stood and left.  

                                                                         When she exited the control center,  she got lost in her thoughts.

How could he have known? Did Kylo tell him? Maybe Cal's right. He is just toying with me.

She was stopped in her tracks by a firm hand grasping her shoulder; she turned to see one of the Knights of Ren. Cardo, she believed.

"Captain Seinar."

 "Y-yes, sir?" She turned to face him as he let her go.

"Kylo Ren has ordered me to find you and bring you to him."

 "O-Oh. Alright."

 Anger slowly started to boil in her bones as they made their way to where every Kylo was.   

The room they arrived in seemed like a recreation room. She noticed how the other five knights were there and turned to her as she entered. Cardo continued to walk through the room to another in the back; Y/n kept her head down as she followed him.

Kylo Ren stood in Infront of a large Transparasteel window that looked out into the vast expanse of space.

"Here she is."

 Kylo nodded and waved him off. Cardo left the room, closing the door behind him.

 Y/n stared daggers into the back of his helmet, her fists clenched tight by her side.

 "Is something the matter?" His voice bounced off the walls.

"All that shit you told me yesterday was just a fucking lie. Wasn't it? You've been trying to ruin my life from the moment I requested to look at your damned ship."

"I do not know what you mean." He turned around to face her.

"Bullshit! You have changed my schedule twice already, stressed me out beyond compare, and told Hux that I took a copy of the ship's programming plus that I snuck on board after hours!" Her strides were quick as she made her way over to him, and her chest was heaving. She stared up at him, face red with anger.

 "I did no such thing."

 "Liar! He's suspended me for over a month and my squadron as well. He told me if I slip up again, he'll fire me and that he'd terminate my squadron. You can't fucking handle someone being better than you at something, can you!? You're getting exactly what you wanted!" She yelled colorfully.

 Kylo took a step in, their chests brushing against each other. His voice was low as he spoke,

"Watch it."

 She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "what're you gonna do? Kill me? Please, that'd be a mercy."

He chuckled darkly. "That mouth of yours...It could get you in some serious trouble." He grabbed her arm and slammed her against the nearest wall, caging her in. Her anger was washed away in an instant, and fear now occupied her mind.

"Come now, where's all that fire?" She took in a shaky breath, "What's wrong? Are you scared I may actually kill you?" She looked away, but he grabbed her chin, holding her in place. "I meant every word I said to you. I would never jeopardize your position; I know how hard you've worked for it."

 "But-"

"I did not tell Hux what you did. That was between us, and It does not involve him." He sighed as he noticed the fearful look in her eyes. He let go of her chin; she seemed to relax some, but her mind continued to rush. "He has no proper authority to fire you or terminate your squadron, and if he tries, I will intervene."

"Why?" Her voice was soft and quiet.

"Because, as I've said, you're a valuable asset to the First Order. It'd be foolish to do away with you."

She nodded, biting her lip. "I'm sorry for practically screaming at you. It wasn't fair of me to assume you did those things without asking you."

"You're very good at that."

 "At what? Assuming things?"

 "No- Owning up to your mistakes."

 Y/n looked down at her feet, but Kylo lifted her chin with his thumb. "This brings up a problem, though."

 "...And that is? Sir."

 "We possibly have a snitch." He let her go and pulled away, turning to the window.

 Quickly she controlled her breathing and stood beside him.

"Did you tell anyone?"

 Y/n had to think for a moment; she gasped when a name flashed through her mind.

 Callisto.

 "I-...Yes. My best friend. Special Forces Pilot Timothy Callisto, but he goes by Cal." She turned her head to look at Kylo, and he did the same. Her eyes were filled with worry and desperation. "He wouldn't..."

"It's a possibility."

"But-...We've been friends since the academy. He wouldn't betray me."

 "You put too much faith into people."

She scoffed. "How would you know."

 "I just do."

 They stood there quietly for a while.

"What did you want me for, sir?"

He let her question linger as he turned away from the window and took a seat at the table that sat to the side of the room. "Join me." He said, motioning to the seat in Infront of him. Sitting down, she fiddled with her hands, suddenly anxious.

"I would like for you to join my division."

"Like the knights?"

He shook his head. "No. Like as my second in command, as in...Being my wingman and Captain."

She looked at him in disbelief. "I-...sorry. What?" she tilted her head slightly. "Why?" she asked.

"Because someone with your skills deserves to work with people of your same standard."

"Are you saying that my friends in the special forces aren't of my standard" Her tone had an edge to it as she spoke.

 "That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean then."

"The special forces are the best of the best when it comes to the first order. But you, you're something-" His words are interrupted by the door opening.

 "Apologies, Sir. But you're being summoned to the supremacy." One of the knights spoke. Kylo turned his head to the knight and then back to Y/n.

"Thank you, Ap'lek." The knight: Ap'lek. Nodded and closed the door.

 Kylo stood, offering his hand to her. "Think about my offer." His voice sounded soft behind the mask, but she thought she had just imagined it; sighing, she took his hand and stood.

"Thank you, Sir. Do you know if you'll be back in time?"

Kylo hummed, looking down at her hand that was still in his own. "I am...unsure. If I am not. I will have Ap'lek accompany you."

Y/n froze, and her hand subconsciously gripped his. She stared into the visor, anxiety etched in her features.

"Is something wrong?"

She gulped and shook her head. When she went to pull her hand away, he grabbed it tightly,

"Do not lie to me." His commanding tone made her look away,

 "...I'd prefer not to do it at all than have to do it without you." her confession surprised them both. "I-I mean the ship, of course; I...I'm just used to you now. It'd be awkward with anyone else." She explained.

 A static crackle echoed off the walls. He was laughing at her. She met where she assumed his eyes were and rolled her own, a smirk on her lips.

"You should go. Don't want to make the supreme leader angry."

 "How would you know it's the supreme leader?" He asked teasingly,

 "Why else would you go to the big man's ship?" Another crackle and a nod from Kylo.

"You are right, though. I should. I will try to be back before our scheduled time, but if I'm not. Don't worry too much. Ap'lek is a man of few words, and he's the...Nicest. I suppose, but he'd deny it. He's just polite." Y/n nodded,

"I understand. Thank you, Sir. Good luck." She offered him a smile, and he gently squeezed her hand before letting go and leaving the room.

Tag list:

@kylowritten

@capitanostella

[pussyandpetrichor]

Oracle Re-remaster

So, the Oracle got fucked in the Pathfinder 2e Remaster. It is *stronger* but it also has such a fundamentally different playstyle that for people who liked the class before, it was a major disappointment and for people who didn't, many of them would still prefer to play a Divine Sorcerer.

This sucks because now no one is happy.

The major problems with the Legacy Oracle were two-fold, but both focused around the Curse and the curse being unable to be consistently used in the same way throughout the day.

The Minor Curse could not be eliminated so you were limited in how many times you could use it.

The Overwhelming Curse making you completely unable to use some class features for the rest of the day

Other than those, I was expecting to see mostly just fixes that came with changes to the system, and in fact thought that they were going to be fixed by the changes to refocusing.

If you can now refocus freely, why not simply allow the curse to be lowered to 0 and the Overwhelming to be undone with Focusing on the first place.

Apparently some people had a problem with focus spells being attached to the curse, which I understand, but for me would have stopped being an issue if the curse could be reduced to unaffecting you.

And in the lead-up to the book's release, I thought that was exactly what we were getting. Maybe some tuning up of the Focus spells to make them even more useful to counteract the negative effects of the curse.

To them, I think they did that with the Cursebound Actions. Making those actions no longer spells freed up especially the Oracle Archetype to be considerably more useful and gives you a second separate pool of encounter abilities. That's a lot of power they gave us, and the extra spell slot per rank is pretty big, too (though I think the Cursebound Actions is bigger). The downside for me comes from the Curses themselves.

A lot of the detriments are now really fucking debilitating: Clumsy? Stupefied? Enfeebled? Holy shit. That makes, to me, the Oracle unplayable. And they lose the sense of being unique. It's now just a penalty that anyone can get and they all suck instead of a tailored curse to your specific mystery.

And the Benefits from the Curses all got turned into Cursebound Actions. Some of them got tuned up a little, but in their costing an action and no longer being constant you cannot use them as much, meaning, by my reading, they're actually worse. The higher level ones are often very powerful, I'll give them that, but I don't play a lot of high level campaigns and the fact that everyone has access to them means that the flavor of individual mysteries is gone.

The Battle Oracle's focus spell is now out performed by a level 1 general feat or ancestry feat. The Ancestor Oracle gets -1 to -4 on all dex checks and DCs (including Armor Class) meaning you're going to be at especial risk of crits to reflex saves and attacks and not going to have finesse or ranged non-spell attack options. So you have to use your cantrips on at least one ranged attack spell (i prefer to only have saving throw cantrips and use actual strikes to target AC) and you also cant afford to be stuck in melee because your armor class sucks worse than anyone else in the game.

So, I propose a few things:

keep the curses mostly working the legacy way

allow you to reduce them from "overwhelmed" to nothing with refocusing

make Cursebound Actions into Focus Spells. Or, they can continue to not be Focus Spells but their interaction with the curse is alongside the Focus Spells. This will allow the Archetype to still get its improvement of allowing you to use your curse effectively without having to use a poor spell proficiency.

use the terminology of cursebound 0-4 instead of inactive, minor, advanced, major, overwhelmed.

I honestly don't think the extra spell slot is necessary, but if you think it is, feel free to keep it.

It's possible some of the cursebound feats will be less used this way on account of not being a separate pool of abolities from your focus spells, but as someone who enjoyed the class before them, I personally won't miss them much.

[holofoiltowercard]

The Journey of The Tarot Haiku

I: The Magician - Resources

I used a variety of tools and resources in creating the book, so I thought I would share the most important ones.

At one point I purchased Scrivener because I heard good things about it, and initially I was planning to use it to create the book, only to discover that it didn't support the type of layout I wanted to design. I was stubborn, however, and decided to use it anyway because the way you can create folders and pages in it really appealed to the creature in me that wanted to squirrel away the poems like nuts for the winter. I also used it to manually keep track of my progress, and I still love opening it to go through all the folders.

To make sure the syllable count was accurate, I used this Syllable Counter to double check as I was typing down the poems. I tried others, but some of them were inconsistent, and this one was really easy to use!

I used to draw extensively and did digital art, and in the course of looking for software, I purchased Clip Studio Paint, which can be used for digital art as well as designing printable volumes like comics and zines. I was first and foremost going to concentrate on the Tarot cards in my poetry project, but eventually decided to supplement them with more poems explaining the fundamentals of reading and understanding the Tarot, so the next step was to create some digital illustrations to accompany those. I ended up learning about vector art because I wanted to create crisp images that could be resized if needed, and then went on to design the original manuscript using CSP. For the longest time I thought I would be using that for publication, but it did not have a working Table of Contents and I worried that any reformatting might take it apart, so I didn't use the manuscript, just the digital illustrations I made.

The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck is a registered trademark of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., but the illustrations are technically public domain, so you can use them for different projects and products. Because I wanted to feature the cards in my book but I only had access to a Hungarian language version of the deck (and so my scans would have shown Hungarian text), I purchased a set of high quality scans of the original Rider-Waite Tarot from ElementalEmpress on Etsy. I first used these in my project proposal and later in the manuscript.

In some of my posts, you might have noticed a Tower mandala watermark. I commissioned the design from Mixtichin - check out their Square Space or their Ko-fi if you want cool mandala designs! (The holofoil effect was my doing.)

I ultimately decided to self-publish by signing up to Kindle Direct Publishing, and there I downloaded Kindle Create in order to prepare my manuscript for publishing. This was the point where I realized that my original manuscript created in CSP might not survive a reformatting and the non-functional Table of Contents would be irritating, so I fired up Microsoft Word and recreated the entire manuscript from scratch. Thankfully I figured out how to do upside down text in it, which is how the ebook retains the original ergodic layout. I had to convert it to PDF using the built-in conversion function because Kindle Create is very fickle and will not sometimes recognize completely legitimate DOCX files, but that turned out to be for the best because I had an image heavy layout and could thus use the Print Replica option. Kindle Create is kind of vital for KDP projects because it will take care of things like borders, trim, bleed, etc. and when I got the hang of it, submitting the paperback and hardcover became much easier.

Last but not least, I used this website to convert PNG to PDF because KDP asked for the cover to be submitted as a PDF, but whenever I tried to open the PNG and use the convert to PDF option in the menu, it came out the wrong size. Once I converted it using the above linked site, however, the size was perfect and I could proceed with publication!

This is all I could think of for this post - see you next time!

Buy the ebook

Buy the paperback

Buy the hardcover

[everygame]

Ninja JaJaMaru-kun (NES)

Developed/Published by: Jaleco Released: 15/11/1985 Completed: 30/03/2023 Completion: Beat all 20 levels before it loops. Version Played: Switch Online Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Ninja JaJaMaru-kun is a series with absolutely no name recognition in the west, even if ININ have put out one of their stupid retro collections of the series where you don’t get all the games unless you buy a specific edition, instead of just, you know, putting out the games in one simple package (if you search for “Ninja JaJaMaru” on the eshop, you get four different options, and you have to buy two of them to get all the games. But makes sure it’s the right two!)

Of course, you could forget all of that and just download the first game via the Japanese Switch Online service, like what I did, because… like me, you don’t have any nostalgia for this series at all. It’s not like it’s Turrican or something (that’s got three different confusing collections thanks to ININ.)

I suppose what makes Ninja JaJaMaru-kun interesting though is that it was a huge success in Japan selling over one million copies–and this, remember, is coming just a couple of months after Super Mario Bros. was released. This would probably make it surprising that it never came out on NES until you realise that City Connection, Jaleco’s previous title, wouldn’t make it out in the US until May 1988, nearly three years after its original release, by which time Contra, Mega Man and Castlevania have all come out, rendering the simple arcade thrills of a wee car driving (or a wee ninja jumping) around a bit old hat. And, to be honest, there’s enough of a similarity between City Connection and Ninja JaJaMaru-kun as side-scrolling platformers that if you had to release one, you’re probably going to release the one that everyone understands (cars) rather than the one with a more specific cultural reference point (ninjas.) Even 80s ninja action films were having their last gasp by 1988 (American Ninja 2: The Confrontation probably the last notable release, and that came out in 1987 and didn’t do that well.) Although I suppose they could have tried to claim JaJaMaru was a reptile of some sort and ride the rising Turtle craze...

That all said, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I quite liked Ninja JaJaMaru-kun, to the point where I would happily say I liked it quite a bit more than the NES port of City Connection. It’s an extremely basic little platformer, something that clearly speaks to the pre-Super Mario Bros. era of Mappy and Ice Climber. Every level features eight enemies, two on each of the four levels of the level (er, look at the picture if this doesn’t make sense) with for the majority of the levels the last top right enemy a “boss” that’s a bit harder to kill (until in later levels they turn into a normal enemy and aren’t quite as bad, somehow.) You can jump, and shoot shurikens that don’t travel especially far, and to get between the different levels you can destroy platforms above you, which sometimes expose power-ups (or bombs, if you’re unlucky). Ninja JaJaMaru-kun only dies to being shot by enemies, not touching them, and for about half the game, you can just shoot the enemies, but from then on you have to stun them by jumping on their heads (or by manufacturing a way to make them drop a level and fall over) so you can shoot them.

Oh, and the power-ups are things like a little cart (?) that allows you to just run into all the enemies at full speed. And if you collect three… you ride a giant frog (???) that freezes all the enemies and allows you to jump about eating them–basically making beating a level trivial.

Additionally, at the top of the screen you can see the “Catfish Pirate” and Princess Sakura who you are, ostensibly, trying to rescue–which you can only do in a special bonus level where you get to shoot your shurikens upwards at the Catfish Pirate, accessible if you collect three sakura petals that Princess Sakura infrequently drops during normal levels. Which you can’t hang around waiting for, because if you take too long in a level the Catfish Pirate starts going mental chucking bombs at you. 

In description, it doesn’t really sound like all that, and it’s honestly a bit… kusoge-adjacent, considering it’s got jerky scrolling, poor animation, dodgy collision detection and really not that much going on. But it’s sort of weirdly pleasant to play once you get into it, with the “jump on an enemy to shoot them” mechanic quickly becoming second nature making clearing off levels efficiently feel quite rewarding. It’s not all gravy; sometimes the boss enemies are going to juke you in way that feels genuinely unfair, and you can sometimes get caught in little collision-loops that just end up in your death.

But I can kind of see why this was a phenomenon–at least at a time when Super Mario Bros. hasn’t yet set the tone for everything yet to come. 

Will I ever play it again? I can’t imagine I will, and it hasn’t done enough to make me put up with ININ’s bullshit to get the sequels.

Final Thought: “But wait,” you might be asking “what’s the deal with the giant frog? I mean you kind of just glossed over that.” 

Well, turns out it’s a reference to The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya, a series of Japanese books that was published in the early 1800s, in which a giant frog that lives on a mountain teaches the main character magic, including the ability to summon and ride giant frogs. This apparently also inspired some characters in Naruto, and is probably also why that Pokemon Greninja is a ninja frog. The more you know!

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[arkenforge]

New Year, New Toolkit – Public Update v0.4.1.150

Howdy folks! There’s a change in the air. after the release of the v0.4.0 and v0.4.1 updates, we got a lot (I mean, a LOOOOOT) of feedback about the changes we made. It’s safe to say that most of them were quite negative, and we agreed with a lot of it.

The current v0.4.1.0 Toolkit was designed with the wrong ideas in mind. It was a workhorse tool that could let us more easily create our content internally, and it was a tool that could allow new features to be easily added through the Hand’s simplistic menu system. There’s one major thing we didn’t design for: the user. We spent all our time building a tool for us that could do the things we wanted it to, we ended up with a UI that we could easily work with (since we designed it), but was scary and intimidating to new users, and required multiple tutorials to start understanding where to even begin.

We’ve spent the last year fixing that.

After a year of pretty solid development, we’re ready to fully unveil the new Master’s Toolkit to you. It’s got all the great new features from the v0.4.1.0 Toolkit and more, but in a form that’s much easier for all users, new and existing, to jump in and understand. We’ve assembled a collection of some of the fanciest new features below. The full patch notes will be listed after.

We’ve also assembled some tutorials for you to get started with, which can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkNo24w-R8iIwUUOixmR3aS27NWbFcLRp

And finally, all active and expired trials have been reset. If you weren’t a fan of the last version of the Toolkit, feel free to jump in and give this one a look. You won’t be disappointed!

Ok, let’s dive in!

A New UI

We know, we know. “Arkenforge changing their UI? We’ve been down this road before.” And while yes, that’s true, as we mentioned above this time it’s 100% for the better!

The first thing you’ll notice is that there’s no main menu. We’ve moved to a similar system that virtually every other map builder and VTT uses – a side panel. Now all Toolkit functionality and content can be easily accessed from the side panel.

The side panel has two tiers, with a third tier showing the available options. This design is significantly cleaner than the old design. You can easily see what’s going on, and what options you have available to you.

We’ve chopped off the Hand

The Hand was a programmer’s dream. Any option could be added to any of the menus in seconds with a single line of code. Unfortunately, each option you selected would bring up its own popup slider. If you selected something, you had no concept of what its current state was, and you couldn’t easily adjust multiple values at once. This was one of the major issues that we’ve tried to solve with this update, and we’d like to think that we’ve succeeded.

You can now easily see the values of your selected content without needing to open up 20 different popup sliders. It’s also much easier now to see all of your available options!

The Wheel, but straightened out

As we mentioned in the post about our v0.4.0 update, the Wheel was a much beloved feature that provided an easy way to manipulate content, but became too limiting for the raft of new features that we were bringing out. We’ve now added in the Quick Access Menu, a row of buttons above your selected content that can be used for simple manipulations, and to quickly access the side panels for more advanced manipulation options.

Each button in the menu can be enabled/disabled and reordered to best fit your needs.

You’ll also notice a shortcut icon at the top of every side panel menu. Enabling this will provide a link to that menu in the ‘quick access menus’ section of the Quick Access Menu.

Widgets

Those users from the v0.3 days may remember the widgets of old. These were simple panels that could be turned on or off as needed, that provided core functionality to the Toolkit. After two years of v0.4, we’ve brought them back :)

Widgets can be found along the top of the screen. If you want to disable or recolour any, you’ll be able to to so from the Widget Settings panel. We’ve selected a small set of widgets for this initial release that should provide most of the functionality needed for the standard user. Those widgets are:

Map Functions

Fog of War

Time of Day

Map Levels

Bookmarks

Player Screen

Ping

If you’d like to learn more, we have a video available here: https://youtu.be/QldOgyG7yQ8

Layer Stack

One of our most heavily requested features over the years has been a layer stack – the ability to see all content that’s been placed on the map. We’ve held out in the past due to optimisation limitations, but with our huge new Toolkit optimisations we’ve finally been able to add it in!

On top of showing all content on your current map level, the Toolkit will even point them out for you if you hover over them! Any content here can be selected by clicking on it, and you can hold Ctrl of Shift to multi-select from the list. Finally, we’ve added a handy search bar at the top so that you can only show specific content.

New Effects System

Our Effects system in v0.4.0 was a big hit, and we’ve been really keen to expand it. The UI left quite a lot to be desired, so we’ve come up with a new system that will make managing effects on your content a breeze!

All effects active on an object will now show in a list. You can easily view and modify the properties of any effect, and enable/disable and remove them as needed.  You may have noticed that we’ve added the ability to stack multiple of the same type of effect! This can lead to some fin behaviours, especially if multiple float effects are in play.

On top of this new system, we’ve added a whole bunch of new effects for you to play with:

Blink. Makes content appear and disappear at regular intervals

Line Scroll. Tile scroll, but for lines

Pulse, Scale up and down at regular intervals

Light Flicker. The current flicker effect for lights that you know and love

Light Blink. Blinks the light on and off, like a broken halogen light.

Sound Trigger. Triggers an assigned SFX when the trigger condition is met

MP3 Support

Another of our long-awaited features. We’re incredibly happy to say that you can finally import your own mp3 files into the Toolkit! No more conversion to OGG or Wav

These are just some of the new improvements we’ve made to the Toolkit! | Hit the link below to also read the full Patch Notes for the update! https://arkenforge.com/new-year-new-toolkit-public-update-v0-4-1-150/

[csp-ethicaldilemma]

Part 4: Community Response

This is part of a school assignment on ethical dilemmas in business. It is for educational purposes only.

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 5

The community response to both of Clip Studio Paint's announcements was unprecedented, exiting the social media sphere and entering artist and business spaces alike for debate.

Version 2.0 Pricing Announcement

The most common reaction to the Version 2.0 announcement was actually confusion. A lot of the software's customer base consists of casual users who make art as a hobby, and this includes young teenagers. Many of these users did not understand the complex new pricing model, how (or if) it would affect their ability to use the application, or what was even changing to begin with. Diagrams began popping up in online circles attempting to explain what was going to happen, especially since the chart on CSP's website was unclear in terms of what artists should do about the updates.

As explained in a Gizmodo article released the same day as the initial announcement,

"Existing users of version 1 can purchase a perpetual license for version 2, but they won’t have access to feature updates from 2.1 and onward. Developers will also discontinue support for the perpetual license users when they eventually release version 4. Those looking to keep receiving new features will have to buy a one-year update pass, but the company has not revealed what price points we could see from any of these options."

This model, once deciphered, caused considerable frustration among users, especially since the Version 2.0 perpetual/one-time purchase license for Clip Studio Paint EX (the same one that would be denied access to feature updates after Version 2.1) would cost over $200.

As confusion turned to anger mixed with genuine hurt at what was perceived as blatant disrespect from an otherwise reliable software, the response became overwhelming. Artists took to Twitter to vent their frustrations (in many instances to somewhat humorous effect), with this screencap from Megamind being a popular response comparing Clip Studio Paint's new pricing model to that of the Adobe suite:

Further responses take much the same tone, regardless of location. One user even posted a compilation of responses in different languages with the caption "I love how everyone united."

Artificial Intelligence

An article from The Verge delves a little deeper into the source of the AI controversy: "the Japanese art community has been especially hostile toward the concept of autonomous image generation—and Celsys is a Japanese company." In fact, the debate has been so intense that many artist spaces have banned the use of AI in its entirety, according to a blog post by Andy Baio. "Left unchecked, it’s not hard to imagine AI art crowding out illustrations that took days or weeks for someone to make," Baio said.

In September of 2022, Fur Affinity, an art site for fans of anthropomorphized drawings of animals known as "furries," banned AI-generated art on the grounds that it "lacked artistic merit." Also in late 2022, art and animation portal Newgrounds updated its guidelines for much the same reason: "We want to keep the focus on art made by people and not have the Art Portal flooded with computer-generated art."

While the ethics of AI generated art remain ambiguous, this marks a recent trend, in artists' spaces, at least, of banning AI art altogether. "We at Animé Los Angeles do not condone or accept an form of AI-generated art piece being used within our promotional materials nor being sold in our Exhibit Hall or Artist Alley," reads a statement by Animé Los Angeles. Anime NYC, another huge anime convention, has taken the same route, according to ARTnews.

Responses to Clip Studio Paint's announcement of the AI feature ranged from anger to disappointment (to triumph, largely from NFT shill accounts). As one user pointed out on Twitter, "When this releases and until it is shut down, the legitimacy of all art made with the program can be called into question." "Use Ibis paint x instead of this stinky little program," was a suggestion offered by another user. Others begged CSP to do better, pointing out the potential for future lawsuits and imploring the company to "listen to the community" (source).

The issue of legality is an important one, especially since generative AI art is such a new technology. One AI user even discovered photos from private personal medical records in an AI data training set. This alongside many instances of intellectual property theft in AI begs the question of where the line is drawn, and when AI data training becomes illegal or even dangerous.

Personal Thoughts

In the time between Clip Studio's announcement of these features and its amendments, many users suggested retracting financial support or moving on to other applications entirely. Free or "freemium" platforms such as Medibang Paint Pro, Ibis Paint X, and Krita were listed as options. This is, in my opinion, the best way to make a company listen to its users on ethical concerns such as these. The loss of financial support, and, more importantly, the possibility to regain that support, is a key motivator.

Others suggested pirating the software, which is, of course, another ethical matter entirely. In my opinion, it has the potential to be less effective in the long run, since many people don't know how to pirate, don't know how to pirate safely, or will decide it's more trouble than it is worth. Companies can also instate anti-piracy methods, especially when piracy websites are publicized online. Free and freemium alternatives are easily accessible, legal, and stands on solid ethical ground.

As an artist myself, I must admit a level of personal bias with regards to the AI issue. I am of the belief that AI generated art, when trained on non-public-domain works (that is, works protected by Copyright), is detrimental from a moral, legal, and ethical standpoint. Copyright as a whole was introduced to protect the artist's right to create, and I believe that using protected works to train and profit off of AI art spits in the face of why intellectual property exists. That said, I do believe that public domain works, royalty free images, and art that is used with consent and compensation can be used to train AI art ethically. The issue is that this is not how AI art is being used, and there are very few ways to regulate it.

For these reasons, I personally believe that the decision being made on many artists' platforms and in many artists' spaces to ban AI art altogether is the best course of action. Until these images can be regulated to where they are consistently created in a morally and ethically sound manner, I do not think it is safe or even advisable to host these images or allow them to be used for profit, especially if future legal issues arise.

Sources

[leefi]

@staff if you want to maintain and grow your user base you have to lean into what makes tumblr unique, not introduce half-baked ideas from other websites.

Marketplace replacing the blog on the main app UI makes no sense:

1) This is a blogging website and you're moving its most personal, primary function in a less trafficked area just to draw attention to a feature that isn't even complete yet. Put profiles/blogs back where they should be and have Marketplace populate the upper right corner - it takes 3 (3!!!) taps to access drafts. This is just bad UI. You can drive more traffic to Marketplace without annoying your users by adding unintrusive visual reminders while scrolling and incorporating a smaller place to access it from high-trafficked areas.

2) The ideas you have for it are very cute but as I mentioned it's barebones right now. I don't even see Blaze listed as a purchaseable in the app version. If you want to keep emulating tiktok introduce more gifts you can give to other users. I think it's a very neat idea.

Lives are a terrible idea:

You have no architecture for livestreaming. You have never been a video-sharing platform. People do not think of tumblr when they want to watch a stream. They will not start thinking of tumblr when they want to watch a stream. Your only external marketing is your social media posts on other websites.

I’m going to assume you’re building this feature from the ground up. Live-streaming has been going through a major shift in the last few years and I’m sorry but tumblr is not the place it is going to take off. Twitch is the OG live-streaming platform and it is suffering. YouTube is still trying to gain a foothold after entering the market 3 years ago. To users it looks like you’re throwing a bunch of popular ideas at the wall right now and seeing what sticks - but this is an incredibly clunky, annoying, high effort-low reward one.

Rather than build your own Live features, improve integration with existing big hitters. Your Twitch integration is already pretty good - all I'd advise would be to find a way to access the chat as well. Add in TikTok integration as well as YouTube integration (you may already have this, I haven't tried it). It doesn't have to stop at lives - for example, Instagram users are able to post TikToks to their stories directly from the app. You could do the same with uploading from tiktok directly to tumblr.

Making the site more attractive (and growing your userbase in a more efficient way):

In-app image editing options (cropping, rotating. You could even make this fun by adding a few tumblr-specific filters that reference site culture)

Improved video uploading & player - offer increased video size for subscribing users.

Improve tag/search function, ESPECIALLY within blogs. People are sick of not being able to search tags on their blogs on mobile, or searching for a post they know they made and having nothing come up. Incorporate more filters beyond post-type (i.e. option to see posts made by a specific user). Expand popularity timeframes (i.e. All Time, Recent, Past Month, Past Year). Look at Reddit's content sorting for inspiration.

Completely lift the NSFW ban. Introduce more robust content moderation filters, and funnel money that's currently going into useless features like Live into content moderation.

Look to Discord Nitro for subscription feature ideas such as animated avatars

Improve the Tipping function - take inspiration from Patreon and Ko-Fi. Maybe introduce a way to subscribe to blogs (can look at Twitch for inspiration for this - custom emotes, etc.)

Re-introduce search function to the main hotbar

Re-introduce editing a post on mobile even if you hadn't added anything after it's been published. Why did you disable this? People want to change tags or add a thought later.

Integrate with Discord - people can visit blogs right off the platform (see photos below)

I love this website and understand it needs to turn a profit, but you can do this without alienating your users!

[elfwreck]

^^^^ This

Linux has many wonderful features. (There are reasons it doesn't have widespread adoption among the general public, and those reasons are not all "because the general public is full of lazy idiots." But we'll set those aside for now.)

It does not matter how perfect Linux could be for school computers when the school is looking for the lowest-cost option and there are sales reps from Google willing to provide computers below cost and tech support to explain exactly how to turn a computer with internet and cloud storage into a restricted zone that feeds Google's endless data-harvesting habit.

I never used punch cards; I came in a bit late for that. I learned cassette drives, two kinds of floppy discs, and a couple types of external storage drive before the current flash drive system came into play. I had to understand "where is this content going? Where is it stored, so I can find it next time?" as the first skill for using a computer.

Kids whose first computer experiences are smartphones and Chromebooks don't need that. Are specifically not told that; neither Google nor Apple wants their tech-buyers thinking about where and how their data is being stored. You open the device, and it's right there.

Many kids learn how it works. Most don't, because they are busy learning what they need to get through school, and "where is this data stored?" is meaningless information to them. It doesn't matter "where" it is; it matters how they can get to it - which is "open the device anywhere that has 5G access."

Unless some nice nonprofit org is volunteering to outfit schools with several hundred inexpensive Linux laptops, plus tech support to get all the kids set up on them and keep them updated, kids are going to continue to grow up with constant computer use and basically no tech literacy.

We need to lay more blame for "Kids don't know how computers work" at the feet of the people responsible: Google.

Google set out about a decade ago to push their (relatively unpopular) chromebooks by supplying them below-cost to schools for students, explicitly marketing them as being easy to restrict to certain activities, and in the offing, kids have now grown up in walled gardens, on glorified tablets that are designed to monetize and restrict every movement to maximize profit for one of the biggest companies in the world.

Tech literacy didn't mysteriously vanish, it was fucking murdered for profit.

[ibmarketer]

Pismo Review: AI Assistant With Rewrite, Proofread & Translate Instantly!

Especially in today’s environment, superior tools plays an important role in terms of communication and in the field of writing, tools that have the potential to make a great difference is valuable. One of those tools is Pismo, meant to bring the AI possibilities to writing by providing proofreading, rewriting, and translation capabilities. In this Pismo Review & [lifetime deal], we will check out this tool, how it works, some of the advantages, real user experiences, as well as why this is definitely for everyone, from business to individuals. But as you continue, you will understand how Pismo could operate your personal digitized assistant and help you become more effective in your work as well as how you get to enjoy an exclusive lifetime deal on this product so that anyone can use Pismo.

Try it now & get lifetime Deal

What is Pismo?

In this paper I am going to present a short overview of Pismo – the intelligent writing assistant based on artificial intelligence algorithms. Its main function, therefore, is to assist users in developing meaningful written content quickly and effectively. No matter if you should create an e-mail, a blog article, product descriptions or any other text, Pismo supports by grammar check, content redrafting and translation.

Key Features of Pismo

It is for this reason that pismo has other features that make it different from other writing instruments. Here’s a closer look at some of the standout functionalities:

1. AI-Powered Proofreading

Probably, the single greatest strength of using Pismo is its ability to check the text for grammar errors. The first review it improves spelling, grammar, and punctuation so as to make the employees’ writing correct before sending mails. This feature is especially beneficial for those who have to convey messages in the situations critical for their practice.

2. Content rewriting and expanding strategy

Pismo is an app that helps a user fine-tune texts by making them more coherent and interesting. When you have need to elaborate on the concept or if you need to revert large block of text into a concise presentation Pismo’s AI can help in constructing the content of which would in one way or another would appeal to your audience.

3. Translation Across Languages

Looking at the facts that the world is gradually turning into a global village, language becomes one of the influential impediments to communication. Pismo solves this problem by providing an option to translate the text into different languages with a high level of ease. This feature is particularly useful to business and individuals conducting business with their counter-parts from foreign nations or with Foreighn speaking clients.

4. Seamless Integrations

Pismo works well with other apps you probably use frequently, including Google Docs, Slack, Outlook, and Figma. This makes Pismo one of easy to use tool that can be accessed anytime without having to quit ones tasks and this makes it very efficient.

5. Custom Prompt Creation

New to version 4.5 users can create simple macros that allow the transformation of keywords into ready-made prompts or document templates. This feature helps save one’s time and helps to be consistent – this aspect is very significant for businesses.

Why Choose Pismo?

Comparing the use of Pismo to other writing tools depends on the distinctive characteristics of the application together with the general satisfaction it provides. Here are some compelling reasons to consider Pismo as your go-to writing assistant:

Enhanced Productivity

Pismo allows users to earn more with fewer efforts which makes productivity high. Built with a powerful combination of artificial intelligence and neural networks, Pismo helps to reduce the time you spend on proofreading, rewriting, and translating yourtexts so you could concentrate on more important work. This efficiency is very effective for freelancers, marketers and any other kind of professionals that wear many hats.

Cost-Effective Solution

There is a one-time payment offer which indeed makes the service very cheap for people who need professional writing services in their life. Unlike most providers that require the user to subscribe to several services in order to get all the features they want, Pismo integrates these services into one affordable package.

User-Friendly Interface

Epistle’s interface is as follows: It is user-friendly. In fact, even if you’re not a technical person, you can move around the platform comfortably. At the same time, the clean and transparent design means that key assets and more tools are easy to find and navigate through.

Ongoing Development and support

Thus, Pismo being a funded startup is always eager to become even better. Loos is available regularly for updates, with new features, and efficiency in customer support services. This focus on development means that Pismo remains on-top in order to effectively meet user needs.

User Experiences

Knowledge of how this phenomenon has influenced working tactics of those users can help to gain deeper insight. Here are some testimonials and experiences from real users:

Freelancers

Freelancers have realised that Pismo is a game changer in their writing mechanism. Some of the pros mentioned include: More time to allocate to other works, lesser time spent on editing and proofreading, and increased efficiency, and ability to take more jobs, and meeting deadlines. The translation feature has also provided for the opportunity of working with clients with various linguistic abilities.

Marketing Professionals

Marketing professionals can make good use of the opportunities that Pismo offers in terms of helping to create powerful and engaging content in short order. While using Pismo marketers would be able to effectively write emails, blog entries, social media posts, and so on ensuring that they complement other material generated with a usual, preferred tone or style and possibly the minimal time spent on rewrites. Specifically, prompt creation specifically in the system has been used much to ensure consistency in the tone of various communications.

Small Business Owners

Customers and stakeholders rely on Pismo for communication in their small businesses. They are able to assist them write professional and convincing emails and product descriptions that will capture and turnaround clients. That means through eradicating the language barrier, Pismo has been in a position to assist the small business reach the next level of venturing into the other marked regions.

How Pismo Works

Getting Started with Pismo

There are not complicated instructions when using Pismo. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get started:

Sign Up: Please go the Pismo website and register account. The lifetime deal option allows access to every feature of the program, and the users can make payments only once in the course of the plan.

Integrate with Your Tools: To help improve your writing experience, link Pismo with your desired writing applications like Google Suite or Slack.

Start Writing: Start inputting your text in any actively used application You can ever Pismo’s hotkeys or commands for proofreading, rewriting or translation.

Customize Prompts: Use most used phrases or templates and come up with new prompts that would actually increase the speed in writing.

Using features Successfully

To maximize the benefits of Pismo, consider the following tips:

Regularly Use the Proofreading Tool: It becomes a good practice to run all your text through Pismo’s proofreading option before the final step. It will enhance the quality of your communication in a great deal.

Explore Rewriting Options: In creating contents, use the rewrite option to discover more techniques to convey your thoughts. This can result and more effective and stimulating writing.

Leverage Translation for Global Reach: Do not put off using the language translator if you are interacting with international customers. Whenever a message is well transmitted it becomes an opportunity to get an opportunity.

Plans & Features of Pismo

Pricing Structure

Currently, Pismo has a lifetime subscription offer that offers tremendous value to people interested in a versatile writing tool. Here’s what you can expect from the pricing structure:

Lifetime Access: A single payment grant for non-recurring use of all the present and future enhancements of the software. Pro Plan Updates: Get automatic boosts to the Pro Plan at no extra charge. No Codes or Stacking: Identify the most suitable plan with no codes or stacking procedures to satisfy the need of each strategy. 60-Day License Activation: You should activate it within 60 days of purchase to make sure you get the access. Upgrade/Downgrade Options: Customers can switch in between the license tiers within the promotion time or within 60 days since the purchase was made.

Try it now & get lifetime Deal

Key Features Included in All Plans

Writing and Translation Assistance: Full service for proofreading, rewriting and translation, regardless of language.

Fast and High-Quality Replies: Speedy replies enable you to keep up the flow of work in writing projects.

Hotkeys for Quick Use: This means to use the desired configurable buttons to get to Pismo’s features as soon as possible.

Integration with Any Text App: Complements common software, making your current processes even more efficient.

Unlimited Custom Prompt Creation: Customize by setting up an endless number of custom prompts per repetitive tasks.

Why the Lifetime Deal is Worth It

The usage of the lifetime deal for Pismo is one that is still advantageous to the users. Here’s why:

Long-Term Savings

A lifetime deal is a means that clients do not have to meet recurring subscription costs. This is particularly useful for those who working in writing jobs or who need writing tools for their businesses or freelancing on a daily basis. Unlike some of the other software that charges user for updates and new features, with Pismo you actually make one payment and sub sequentially get access to all update and features.

Opportunity to Use Fascinating Innovations

At Pismo, we are dedicated to continuously improving our AI technology writing tool, which means as a lifetime subscriber, you get access to future improvements. This commitment makes certain that the investment hold its value for longer.

Finance for Developing Organizations

To small businesses, being able to call on a reliable writing assistant is sure to have a positive effect on communication productivity and customer relations. The lifetime package has no further costs of establishing and using Pismo making it easy to plan and allocate more resources in other areas.

FAQ

What is Pismo?

Lithuania-based Pismo is AI-based tool that provides proofreading, rewriting and even translation assistance for messages written on different channels.

How does the lifetime deal work?

The lifetime deal means that customers can access all the current features and any future feature without any annual or monthly subscriptions.

Can Pismo work with other application?

Indeed, Pismo dovetails well with other commonly used applications, including Google Docs, Slack, and Outlook where you can also find its features.

Is my data secure with Pismo?

Indeed, Pismo meets all GDPR requirements and your data is localized within the EU ensuring its protection.

What kind of assistance does Pismo offer to its customers?

Users can chat with customer support staffs if they have any question or if they face any problem with the platform.

Conclusion

First of all, it has to be noted that Pismo is an incredibly helpful application for anyone who is in need of the tool to improve the writing skills. Yes, considering all that it offers, accompanied with its powerful features, and easy to navigate, the lifetime deal is definitely one worth making, as it will significantly revolutionalize the way you communicate. If you are an independent worker, a business person or a marketing specialist, Pismo will allow you to work more efficiently. That being said, if you are really itching to improve your writing prowess then this probably be a must-have for you. Experience the efficiency you can get into your every undertaking by selecting Pismo now. In conclusion, applying this AI assistant capabilities matches the goals of the Pismo Review which in result can drastically enhance your workflow and save you from language barriers.

To know more, Click 👉👉 Instant access

[moonlight0507]

part two

Maybe saying that to Jack was a mistake. His insistence on being your closest subordinate had only worsened, if that were even possible. He burned through chores and tasks even faster, sticking by your side like glue. As you tried to escape his presence at least for a minute, you found yourself on the outskirts of the village by the abandoned bones of giant creatures and in the dark rocky valley where most lion-folk wouldn’t dare venture. 

In between two small cliffs, you were abruptly yanked up in a tiny cranny where a familiar hyena quickly motioned to keep quiet. It was a small little nook he found off the ground, a cool shaded perch nestled between the larger rocks. Holding a single finger up to his lips in a shushing motion, he grinned when he heard the wolf calling your name was getting further and further away. After a moment, he finally relaxed, sighing loudly, “Man, I thought that beefcake would never leave! Seriously, who’s he think he is? He’s practically trying to rob me of my top spot! I’ve worked my tail off for this place beside you, you know? Jack won’t ever understand, he could only dream of getting on my level with you! I kept my promise, you know.” 

“Hm?” When you turned your head to look over at him, he was gazing at you with those gray eyes, watching you intently. Before a content looking smile steadily overcame his features. 

“My promise, you remember, don’t ya? When you used to take care of us and the other kids, just because you were the oldest and the strongest. So you’d go out and make those dangerous rounds into the kingdom all on your own, and you’d always come back with just enough food for us to share. But you were always injured somehow.” In this small space, he had to sit curled up, bending his knees but using them as a spot to lean the side of his head against. He continued to smile at you, giggling at those mysterious memories in his head. “It worried us sick when you left, and when you came back scratched up we couldn’t stop cryin’. So one day, I promised you that I’d get stronger to help you out and… Well, I’ve kept that part of the promise. Now the only part left is the part where I swore we’d live in a huge fancy palace one day where you didn’t have to go out and do the hunting!”

So Ruggie was close to the real chief, even before they became leader of the clan… It made you feel slightly guilty for taking up this moniker. But you had no choice when you were tossed into this world with no warning. However, even if Ruggie couldn’t fulfill this childish promise, you would. It was the least you could do, not just for yourself, but for the rest of the hyena-folk. He helped you so much in that first week. Leaning your head against the wall, you responded quietly, “I’ll make sure you get to live in a palace someday soon, Ruggie. I promise.” 

“Don’t say that, or I’m gonna hold you up to it! Besides, I promised first. Make up your own.” He laughed, playfully bumping his shoulder against yours as a cheeky grin spread on his lips. After a moment, he waited, gazing at you impatiently as he tilted his head and rested it back against his knees. “Well? C’mon, tell me, what’re you gonna promise to me?” 

“What should I promise you…?” Tapping your finger against your chin, you pondered on the thought. What would Ruggie want? Scratch palace off the list, because he already claimed that. An abundance of food seemed like an option, but you rather not risk promising him that and watching the land run out of resources. Promising him a place in the pride lands was a bit too much on the nose. It would just make you seem suspicious when you would eventually get all the hyena-folk access to the pride lands. Finally, after a few moments of thinking with no ideas, you shrugged and inquired, “Well, what do you want, Ruggie? What can I give you?” 

That cheeky grin grew wider, stretching across his face as he averted his gaze, beating around the bush and drawing out his words for further suspense. “Welllll… Actually, there is something I can think of, call me greedy.” 

Rolling your eyes, you scoffed, feeling your own smile begin to form. “Okay, greedy, what is it?”

If you took a peek, you could see his short brown tail moving side-to-side rapidly as he lifted his head, “Swear you won’t laugh? Even if it is mushy and stuff?” 

Amused, you gave a soft chuckle, “I swear, I won’t laugh. Even if it’s mushy.” 

Shifting so he was facing you with his legs crossed, he began somewhat hesitantly, almost nervously, before gaining a bit of confidence the more he went on. “I want you to promise me that I’ll always be your number two, and you’ll always let me stay beside you.” 

Raising an eyebrow, it suddenly hit you. Ruggie was jealous of Jack! At that realization, a small laugh escaped your lips as you poked him, pestering him for a response as you teased, “Aww, were you jealous of that big bad wolf~? Is that it? I should’ve known! You’ve always been sticking by me, then Jack comes and ruins your flow. Who would've guessed?” 

“Shut––! I’m not jealous!” He hissed, growing embarrassed. “You promised you wouldn’t laugh, you lyin’ little––!” 

Laughing and giggling reached your ears, causing you and Ruggie to both freeze. His semi-round ears perked up, both of you listening intently to the voices. It sounded like two children, but it wasn’t familiar. Leaning your ear closer to the stone wall, you listened to the voices that were getting closer and closer, almost directly below the hiding spot you were in. 

“This is it. Just like my uncle said!” One of the voices whisper-yelled, as if they were worried about whatever may lurk just around the corner, or just above them. It sounded like a young boy. But none of the children you had encountered in the village sounded like him, and you met practically all of them. 

The second voice piped up. It was the voice of a young girl. “It’s so creepy… People really live out here?” That implied they were children not from the outskirts. 

Then you were reminded of a scene from the original story. The young prince, son of the majestic king, heard a secret from his uncle, the second prince. The second prince told him of a graveyard full of bones among the outskirts, just past the kingdom’s reach, where only the bravest of souls ventured and returned from. The young kid prince, being such an ambitious child, foolishly snuck out to the outskirts with his friend. There, they were attacked by the hyenas, for the outskirts were their territory. The only reason the two children and royal attendant who arrived late to save them, were not killed, was because the majestic king arrived just in time to fend off attacks and warn the hyenas to never attack his son again. That scene was about to happen, right now.

As the two children, the kid prince and his friend, went back and forth, you and Ruggie exchanged glances. Steadily a grin spread on the hyena’s face as he mouthed: fresh meat. 

Before he could even think about moving, you held up your hand, motioning him to keep still and quiet as you detected an additional pair of steps. Steps coming quickly, heavier, meaning it was someone in a rush. Someone heavier than a child. “Wrong! The only thing we’ll be doing is going home! We’re way beyond the boundaries of the kingdom!” 

The royal attendant that served the king himself, there was no mistaking it. It was happening.Silently, you and your right-hand hyena listened to the slight bickering and scolding occurring between the young royal and the attendant. As much as you wished to end the king’s royal lineage here, which would allow Leona to take the throne once Falena passed, that would take far too long. The kid prince couldn’t die here. He needed to remain alive, that way you could be sure to kill two lions with one stone later. Besides, killing the two later by staging the accident was much more preferable to killing the young prince in cold blood while the king remained alive and could wreak havoc in revenge. 

Ignoring the continuous conversation down below, you looked over at Ruggie who appeared antsy. “Now?” He whispered impatiently. 

You shook your head. You didn’t want to face the majestic king alone if he really was strong enough to make people fear him. So, turning your attention to Ruggie, you replied in a hushed tone, “Backup first. No wolf in this royal business. And I want them alive.” You grinned, giving him the sign to go. “Scare them good.” 

The royal attendant quickly attempted to usher them away, but the two children stubbornly refused to budge. “Right now, we’re all in very real danger––!” 

Interrupting him was a whistle. A slow quiet whistle in an ominous tune, carried on by the wind which seemed to make it echo throughout the entire area, bouncing off the bones and walls of the rocky terrain and carrying it beyond. Any hyena-folk or a wolfman within close distance would be able to pick up on the whistle with their ears, and those of the clan might be able to decipher its message. Backup needed. Only hyenas, no wolf or lions. Capture guests alive. 

The whistling had caused the three unexpected guests to become paralyzed in fear, you could see the hairs on the back of their neck were raised in alarm. First they heard Ruggie, who’s whistling had turned to cackling at their expressions of freight. 

You too couldn’t contain your laughter at their pure fear. “Heh, Ruggie, when I said give them a good scare, I didn’t mean to the point of making their souls leave their bodies.” 

The hyena shrugged, giggling as he followed you when you stalked closer to the unexpected guests. “Gee, boss, what can I say? It’s not my fault it’s as easy as stealing candy from a baby.” 

You ignored the other two, and honed in on the kid prince, the protagonist, the hero of the story. Too young to fight back, yet one day he’d be powerful enough to defeat even Leona. “How unexpected to be greeting the son of a king.”

The three had nowhere to run, not when the reinforcements arrived. Soon, they were surrounded by a good number of hyena-folk. One thing you learned about hyena-folk is that they were small and gaunt due to lack of nutrition, but they worked frighteningly well together in groups to defeat much bigger and stronger opponents. As you focused solely on the little prince, you examined his features as he bravely stood in front of his friend. There was a healthy glow in his bronze cheeks, and his hair was unlike his Uncle Leona’s. His short messy locks were thick strands of a bright orange that faded into yellow, and he had big brown eyes that never broke eye contact with you. “Two children and a servant of the king’s. I know exactly who you are.” 

The royal attendant interjected, stepping between you and the two lion-kids. “Let them go, chief! We did not mean to step on your land. We will leave immediately!” No matter how he spoke, you could tell he was scared but his tone and the way he stepped back each second when you didn’t stop moving forward, forcing the two younglings behind him to step back as well. Had he been a hornbill bird like in the original tale, his feathers would surely be all ruffled by now. “If you do this, you will start a war with Falena!”  

“Hyenas and lions have been at war since anyone can remember.” Removing your knife from its sheath, you gripped its handle in your hand. In its reflection, you could see Ruggie and the other hyena folk appearing fidgety and ready to sink their claws at any given moment, while dread and terror crept onto the faces of the three in front of you. “But with this… I can cause the kingdom a tiny shred of grief, just as they have caused the village a world of pain.” All you wanted to do was knick them, a cut small enough to draw blood, but when you lunged forward, the royal attendant threw the long blue sleeves of his cloak at you, effectively blinding you but only for a moment. 

As soon as you lunged, so did the others. Those hyenas closest to you, instantly removed the royal attendant and pinned the squirming man to the ground. When you could finally see again, it revealed you were correct on your guess. The two lions had run, with some of your own chasing behind them until they were led to the underground tunnels. Placing your knife back at your hip, you scowled at the royal attendant now restrained and unable to help those he was tasked to protect. “Keep him there, don’t let him go. The rest of you, after them!”

From where you remained, you could hear and see the hyena-folk running about, in and out of the maze of tunnels. They were small, yes, but the children were smaller, so they’d no doubt get away until they were cornered, just as they did in the original plot. But this was exactly what needed to happen for the plot progress. There was no point in changing the plot now. It was best to change the plot when you could reap the most, and that was not now. It was a loss required to win in the grand scheme of things. 

It didn’t take long for the two lion-children to reemerge from a hole in the ground, leading the two to become surrounded. The two huddled together, fearfully scanning the faces of the dozens of hyena-folk that surrounded them. 

Three. 

The young prince bared his baby fangs, letting out a squeak of a roaring war cry. A pathetic example, probably puny compared to his father. Speaking of which, he should be here soon, judging by how the royal attendant was gone meaning he had somehow escaped the grasp of his hyena captors. That attendant would probably be sending out an alert by now. 

Two. 

You watched, unimpressed as the hyena-folk present broke out into laughter at the cub’s tiny yeowl, their heightened anxiety only doing more to add to the hyena’s howling cackles. Even Ruggie was doubled over in laughter, but you knew better than to lower your guard right now, especially as a few of the underlings poked and prodded for the little prince to do his war cry once again. 

One. 

You grabbed Ruggie’s collar and pulled him back just the young prince opened his mouth, and a much powerful louder war cry like a terrifying roar could be heard that echoed in the space all around them. Just in time, you watched as the hyena-folk stepped back in alarm at the sudden noise. Towards the back of the crowd, you could make out the scene of some of your own men and women being flung to the side like rag dolls by a mightier figure. It was clear by just that glimpse, that this was King Falena, and he was stronger than even Prince Leona and former royal guard Jack. You couldn’t watch these people get hurt anymore, so you whistled, instantly signaling your kin to back away as the lionman’s ears perked up at the noise from your direction. 

When he rushed forward to stand closer to the two children, you nodded at your kin to step further away, giving him plenty of space and no one within radius to attack. Their brown and black semi-round ears were flattened as they kept their distance, none daring to attack, not that you would make them right now. You felt Ruggie’s hand on your back, he too kept low and didn’t engage. 

When the king’s brown-eyed gaze turned to you, it held nothing but pure fury. Now that you were looking at the majestic king of the tales, he really did look like his son, the similarities were uncanny. But King Falena didn’t look anything like his brother, Prince Leona. Falena had bright brown eyes that must’ve been usually filled with kindness whenever his son wasn’t in danger, Leona had watchful green eyes that felt they were judging you with every move you made. Falena had a long warm-colored mane with sand-colored fur on his lion traits, while Leona had a dark mane with dark brown fur on his lion traits. Falena had a stature and was built with an incredible strength that must’ve even greatly surpassed your wolf guard, and while yes Leona had a sure strength himself he was only a few inches shorter than Jack. It really was no wonder Leona had never won the crown through ritual combat. No matter how you saw it, Leona couldn’t beat Falena through a battle of brawn. However, a battle of brains may have a different outcome… 

“If you ever come near my son again––” 

You stood your ground as he stood close, his face merely inches in front of yours. Behind your back you gripped the dagger in your palm, resisting the urge to plunge the weapon through his eye. Imagine that, if you could give the king a scar matching his disgraced brother. It took everything not to snap back, attack him for all he and his kingdom had done by leaving the hyena-folk to rot. But somehow, you didn’t lunge forward. You only nodded slowly, answering firmly, “No, Falena, never again.” Patient. You needed to be patient this time.

“You’ve been warned, chieftain.” Falena growled before turning around, giving his son one last firm look before silently escorting them through the crowd of hyenas that parted ways for them to take their leave. 

Once they were gone, you gazed around, seeing the hyena-folk help the injured and wounded by Falena’s short rampage. Behind you, Ruggie emerged, moving in front of you to do a once over, despite knowing you had barely even touched anyone throughout that entire ordeal. “Are you good?” 

“Yeah, I’m good. Perfectly fine…” Just then, your gaze traveled up to the cliffs. High on the top of the rocky terrain, was that familiar lionman, the second prince, gazing down at the scene with a slight frown. When his green eyes flitted over to you, you frowned in turn as a small smile appeared on his face before he promptly disappeared away from sight. “Ruggie, you stay and help the others. I have to have a little talk with our prince friend.” 

It didn’t take very long to reach the top of the cliff where you found the second prince lounging in the shade. Leona didn’t spare you a glance, and he didn’t even open his eyes, but you knew he was awake. When his ear slowly flickered, he sighed, “Why didn’t you kill them?” When you blinked, his eyes were open, those green orbs gazing at you intently. “You had the perfect opportunity. Yet you hesitated.” 

Begrudgingly, you sat down across from him, frowning at his lazy form. “Because I know you have a better plan. A plan that will get rid of both Falena and his son.” 

A sly grin made itself visible on the curve of his lips, and you felt that you made a mistake before the words even left his lips. “I never once told you that, or anybody about that.” Shit. Sitting up before pushing himself up to his feet, he slowly began to circle you as he mused, “You know, you always seem to know what’s going to happen, before it happens. Somehow, you were able to get this far without any of your clan noticing you aren’t the true chief. You’re always looking at me with this wise-ass look, like you’re so proud that you can predict what comes next. When we first met, for a brief second there was a look of… disbelief on your face when you kept staring at me. After pondering on the possibilities after our last meeting, I think I figured you out. It sounds insane, but then again, I’m not completely sane if you haven’t noticed by now. But you aren’t even from this world, are you? You had this foreign scent on you when we met, it was something I couldn’t name even if I tried, but now all you smell like is hyena. Then I looked into it. I went down to the kingdom’s marketplace, I even contracted merchants to bring me sweet-smelling products from all around the world. But nothing matched that scent you had on the first day, nothing at all. At least… nothing in this world.” 

You went still as he stopped pacing, and opted to plop close down beside you. Incredibly close, so much that his arm that propped up half his upper weight was against your arm. You could feel his warmth, but his close proximity made you squirm in place. You didn’t move an inch though, because even scooting over an inch would be giving him a sign that you would bend to his will. 

As he leaned against you, you glared at his amused expression. That cocky smirk was on his lips, because he knew he had you in his claws. When he spoke, he was so close that he only had to speak in a low and husky whisper. “This time, I brought a proposal instead of an offering. But I want to hear you tell me what it is I’m planning.”

You were silent. 

“Well?” 

Under the pressure, you finally relented. “Fine. But only if you answer one question I have.” 

It only took a second of consideration until he hummed, “Of course. That’s only fair, chieftain.” 

Taking a deep breath, you averted your eyes away from intense green-eyed gaze, attempting to forget the fact that his face was literally inches beside yours. There was no point in hiding it from him anymore, was there? He already knew everything. “My guess is that you’ll want to do it in the gorge. You’ll have myself and some of the other hyenas start a panic with wild wildebeest grazing on the grass. There’ll be a stampede, and you’ll have the little prince down there waiting. When his old man goes to save him, you’re hoping he and the prince get crushed by the stampede. If not, at least it’ll weaken them enough to finish off quietly and stage it as an accident.” When you glanced at him, you could see his grin had grown. “Did I get all that right?” 

“Everything down to the smallest minute detail.” He chuckled, somehow finding this tense exchange amusing. His tail swished slowly side to side, and you couldn’t help but notice how pleased he looked with himself. “Now, your question.” 

You paused, carefully considering how to go about wording this specific inquiry. All the while he continued to watch you, never once taking his eyes off you. Until finally, you had it. “Why’ve you kept me alive? If you knew I wasn’t who I said I was, you could’ve told the hyena-folk by now. You would’ve been a trustworthy figure then, at least in their eyes. They’d follow you, just like you want. You never needed my help. Besides, if you knew I knew stuff about the future, wouldn’t that mean I was a threat to your plan?” 

“You see me for the wonder I am.” Noticing your confusion, he continued, “You don’t know what it’s like to be the second born, when your entire kingdom scorns you just because you were born a few years late. But now…” He chuckled, holding your chin between his fingers and forcing you to look him in the eye. “With meticulous planning and suffering through years of denial, I’ll become King. I’ll get everything I ever deserved and more. And should you help me achieve my vision, I promise you, you will do more than justsurvive. You shall thrive. But without me, you won’t get a thing… If it's agreed, shall we go then? Let’s inform your beloved little village of the coup of the century that will take place tomorrow.” 

✧   ✧   ✧   ✧   ✧

To say the clan rejoiced at the news felt like an understatement. They were elated, it led to partying and laughing all night, all of them eager to follow your command and the second prince’s plan if it meant that they could finally improve their way of living. Even Jack, who you thought you might have to deal with his refusal due to his strong morals and all, only silently listened to the declaration by Leona before approaching you and announcing he’d follow what you decided. 

It wasn’t much of a choice anyways. You’d get to survive and live in splendor, and you’d improve the lives of so many hyena-folk that may have later died of sickness or starvation, all in exchange for the life of a king and his son. When the day arrived, you sent out the able-bodied hyena-folk to prepare. Burn the wild wall of thorns between the cliffs and the desert, have a few posted at every potential escape route, place watchouts on top of high cliffs so they could see everything, and above all was the warning from you to the clan. Do not let the young prince escape, because if he does, then hope for the lion-folk will live on and he may one day grow to be as powerful as his father. 

When everything was prepared, you waited. You had assembled a small team to rile up the wildebeest, which consisted of yourself, Ruggie, Jack, and two other small groups of three hyena-folk currently positioned on other sides. You would frighten the creatures simultaneously, flanking from the back, the right, and the left, forcing the gigantic horde to go down into the gorge where they’d create a deadly stampede, trampling anything in their path. 

Jack gazed at you silently, before he murmured quietly, as if to himself, “Is it alright to really be doing this…? To kill the king and the prince? I know you said it was, and I trust you, but…” 

“Jack, you’re way too soft. It’s an eat or be eaten world! If you’re so worried about it, think about it this way. Those two lives will allow countless hyenas and outcasts like me and you to survive.” Ruggie scolded, watching as the white wolf slowly nodded. While waiting for the signal, he glanced at the wildebeest grazing on the grass before looking at you. “You know, I knew you were ruthless, boss, but going along with Leona’s despicable plan? I mean, not that I’m opposed to it, but it was surprising at first, is all.” 

“I do whatever I have to for…” Me. “You and the others.” Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed a figure on an opposing cliff. It was Leona, who was staring you down with a devious sort of smile. He must’ve already left his kid nephew down in the gorge. Quick to change the subject, you announced, “There. Let’s go. Jack, signal to the others.” 

Obediently he fulfilled his command, standing upright from his spot leaning against the boulders and rocks they hid among. When he whistled, it rang in the air, immediately alerting not only your allies on the other side of the herd but also the wildebeest that shot up in alert. 

It took one stone from you, a stone tossed at full speed, smacking the hind leg of one of the closer wildebeest, causing it to let out a deep pained noise and instinctively react by kicking about wildly, causing a chain reaction of confusion and alarm to those around it, which only spread further and further. Jack’s whistle was the sign to attack, and having already made the first move, you stood back as you watched Ruggie, Jack, and the two other hyena groups jump out of their hiding places and cause even more of a panic throughout the entire herd as they scared the beasts with their spears and knives. 

You watched as the wildebeest began to scatter in the opposite direction of yourself and the clan members, leading them right into the gorge. They moved as a group. One thing about wildebeest, is that they traveled in herds with numbers ranging anywhere from a few hundred to a couple of thousands. They were so numerous and sizable creatures that caused the ground to shake when startled and running. It would be very very difficult to survive a stampede of such magnitude, maybe that’s why Leona chose such a demise in the first place. 

When all of the wildebeest had been chased off the flat and into the gorge, you stood beside your subordinates and paced at the edge. Ruggie and the others looked excited, almost as if they were having fun, especially because they managed to catch and kill one of the straggling creatures. Jack looked down at the gorge, frowning but doing nothing else until he inquired, “What next, boss?” 

You couldn’t be at ease until you knew that both King Falena and his prince son were dead. You didn’t want to imagine the prince getting away, which would lead you to years of sleepless nights as you would have to plot a way on how to track him down through the desert and send people to kill him. “Good job, everyone. Now, go out to individual posts along the desert. Make sure the entire perimeter is covered. The king and the prince cannot leave that gorge alive, got it?” 

A chorus of hums and giggles responded, “Yes, chief.” 

Once they all departed and you were alone, you slid down about halfway into the gorge. You weren’t on the ground floor, so you weren’t concerned, but for now to avoid being seen, you would keep behind boulders and rocks to blend into the environment. At this point in the story, the second prince would feign horror as he goes to inform the majestic king of the stampede occurring with the young prince trapped within the gorge. The two brothers would rush to the gorge to save the young prince. For now all you could do was follow the cloud of dust and stragglers the stampede left behind, keeping low and against the wall so you would not be spotted. 

The gorge was massive, so you continued for a few minutes, all the while reciting the rest of the story from your childhood in a low mutter. “When Falena and Leona get there, they see the kid prince hanging onto a branch during the stampede. Falena jumps in to save his son, dodging almost every hit by the wildebeest. As he’s right next to the branch, he’s hit, knocked down and the branch breaks. Before the kid prince can fall to his death, his dear old dad jumps and catches him. When he lands, Falena is hit again, dropping his son. Falena manages to get up and pick up his kid, putting him on a ledge right before he’s swept away in the stampede. The prince watches in horror, looking for his dad, until he sees Falena jump out and cling to the steep wall of the gorge. He struggles to climb up, obviously weak from being hit before, but he reaches the top and there at the top… is Leona.” 

Leona. There was Leona across the gorge standing upright and looking down at the figure beneath him as if they were nothing but a speck of dirt on his feet. Just below him, nails dug into the rocky walls and slipping, was King Falena. You couldn’t hear what they were saying over the thousands of hooves stomping against the ground, but you didn’t have to hear a word in order to know what was going on. This was the moment where the majestic king died. In an instant, Leona lunged forward slightly, digging his nails into the flesh on the back of the king’s palm, which caused him to emit a roar of pain. You knew what came next. You averted your gaze to the side as you heard his plummeting scream, and then it was silenced, drowned out by the continuous running wildebeest. Long live the king. 

One down, one more to go. The cloud of dust left behind in the stampede’s destructive wake, concealed the bottom of the gorge from your sight. You need to get down there now. You needed to see Falena dead with your own two eyes, and you needed to make sure that the kid prince he left behind would not live to see tomorrow. Upon finding your way in the dust, you squint to see past the sandy clouds, and one of the first things you could make out upon searching the ground was the king’s motionless body on its side right under the broken branch. Yet neither of the princes were anywhere in sight. 

Continuing forward, you felt your nerves spike. That kid prince must have ran–– and you could only hope the story would truly divert from its original course here and now. You could only pray to whatever cruel god there was that allowed you to be thrown into this world, that all your preparations worked to stop the runaway prince. 

When you heard a footstep, you froze, hand hovering over the dagger at your hip as the approaching shadow in the cloud of dust got closer and closer. However, when it was revealed to be Leona from the ashes, your shoulders slumped, relieved of the tension. No breath of relief, because you could not be relieved when knowing that the job was not done yet. However, that tension immediately went straight back into your system when you noticed the red on his hands. By now he had already noticed you, he probably was aware of your presence far before you were aware of his. Hesitantly you gestured to the blood on his hands. “What’s that from…?” 

“A finished job. It’s not mine.” He answered with an ominous smirk. Steadily he stepped closer, before announcing in a melodramatic tone, “My brother’s death is a terrible tragedy, but to lose my nephew who was swept away in the stampede and whose body was never found… For me, it’s a deep and personal loss.” No longer could he hold in his laughter as he stood right in front of you and concluded, “So it is with a heavy heart that I assume the throne. Yet out of the ashes of this tragedy, we shall rise!” 

You frowned, prying your eyes away from his hands and to his face full of wicked mirth. “And the body?” 

Sighing, he rolled his eyes but answered in a slight chuckle, “I knew you’d worry about that. So I had your clan dispose of the body, in the desert where no one will find him and his remains will be plucked by the vultures.” 

At that moment you froze, eyes going wide. That… That might have been the fate that would have awaited you…

When he stepped closer, so close that you were practically up against his chest. You winced when he tapped the bottom of your chin until you looked up at him, painting the bottom half of your face red with the blood smeared on his fingers. Blood that was not his, whether it belonged to the king or his son, you weren’t entirely sure, and you’d rather not know. “That won’t happen to you, I wouldn’t let it happen.” He spoke, as if he sensed your current fears. Just then, another delighted smirk grew on his face and that familiar spark of desire reignited in his eyes. He had the throne, the kingdom, what else did he want? What else could he possibly gain? “I promised you that you’d thrive, didn’t I? Well, now that the throne belongs to me, I’ll make good on that promise. Your reward is the opportunity to be my royal consort.” 

Your stomach dropped, feeling dread settle in the pits of your gut as his thumb moved to rub small circles on your cheek, covering you in more red. Only a small choked whisper could escape your throat. “What?”“Be my consort.” He repeated casually, looking down at your stunned expression with amusement that made him chortle. “What better way to unite two, lion-folk and hyena-folk, then by matrimony between two leaders? You get a life of splendor and continue to hold power, while I reign as king with you by my side. It’s like… killing two lions with one stone, isn’t that right, my Little Chieftain?”