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wenevergotusedtoegypt · 5 months ago

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Well. I'm back on the job market as of 1 week before what was supposed to be my first day.

This whole experience has just been so freaking weird from start to finish. At first it felt like complete and total hashgacha pratis. I wasn't even seriously looking for anything because it was during the time 5yo didn't have a para yet and I couldn't so much as commit to an interview. And the job title wasn't even something I would normally have clicked on. But I clicked on it solely due the organization it was for and discovered that the job title seemed to have been poorly chosen because the actual work was mostly in my actual area of expertise. And then I applied and they offered me an interview a week from the date of offer. I had absolutely no idea if I could actually commit to that interview because I had no idea when 5yo would have a para, but I did anyway, and his para ended up starting the day before the interview. Besides the job title, the other reason I wouldn't normally have applied for the job was that it wasn't full time, but extremely uncharacteristically, I somehow missed that fact and found out during the interview (mortifying but apparently other applicants were significantly worse all around). And then it was just like, this is so clearly HP, maybe it does make sense to start mornings later (and not need to find a morning sitter, which has proved near-impossible in the past) and have Friday off, technically we can afford this even though the salary cut would be a blow to my ego and it would've been nice to have more money. Fine. I'm doing it.

That was 2.5 months ago. I only had the one interview because it was a very small organization but the whole hiring process was super schlepped out. Over time I started realizing that the two people I'd be working under were regularly not on the same page as each other to an egregious extent. Person A told me that Pesach is the slowest time of year, to the point where I probably wouldn't need to take any formal time off to prep. Person B then told me that actually, most years, that's the busiest time of year. I also was told about 4 different versions of what the position entailed, ranging from it being primarily my area of expertise, to a 50/50 split between my expertise and admin, to 100% admin for the first few months and then transitioning to my expertise, to admin-dominant for at least the next few years.

I really probably should have pulled out sooner - they also didn't offer health insurance and were paying me less than I was worth even considering the reduction of hours - but again, so much of it felt like such obvious hashgacha pratis, I was frustrated but didn't really seriously reconsider accepting despite the downsides and the fact that clearly these people were a bit of a mess.

But the turning point was when I received the contract and realized I'd forgotten to discuss PTO. They were only offering me half the vacation days I had at my old job, a number lower than I'd almost ever seen in other job ads recently, and had a stipulation that no vacation could be used until after 6 months, which I have never seen in my field in 2024. I politely wrote back requesting more vacation days and explaining why I was making this request (to partially balance out the blow that was the reduction in pay from what I'd expected to make and lack of health insurance, which was 80% covered at my old job). I also asked to have the 6-month requirement waived.

Person A wrote back almost immediately saying yes, of course, no problem! We'll send a new contract. But then 3 days later I got what came across as a fairly stern email explaining that actually they could not give me additional PTO, though we could revisit that in a year, and that in fact, they were being extremely generous considering the total number of days off I had per year, which they enumerated.....and apparently, the Fridays that I was not going to be paid to work, which were already accounted for and then some by the lower salary, and which could not be used at will or in a row by definition, were supposed to balance out the lower PTO?? It was really ridiculous logic, but I was still kind of in this zen "this is all so clearly hashgacha pratis" zone, so I wrote back that I could accept the lower number of vacation days for now. They had also said we could have a Zoom meeting to make sure we were all on the same page, which seemed unnecessary to me at that point and I said so, but told them if there was something they felt still needed to be discussed I had availability at X times.

I expected this meeting to be just them reiterating that they can't give me more vacation days but we can revisit it in a year, and me being like yes ok.

That was not what it was.

It was a confrontation, in which they both backed me into the proverbial corner and declared that they were "taken aback" by the "tone" of the email in which I had tried to negotiate more vacation time.

Now. In the past, I have gotten professional feedback that I need to be more flowery with my emails because people who don't know me as well can take my matter-of-fact style as blunt/rude, even when there's nothing objectively rude about what I wrote and people who do know me wouldn't read it that way at all. But. BUT. I wrote and rewrote and edited and reedited the crap out of that email to make it nice. It was literally. just. a normal benefits negotiation email that a normal new hire should be considered perfectly justified in sending. And I graciously accepted their denial. But there I was, being forced to defend a very normal request? Asked in a very normal way?

And it was like they were taking personal offense to the fact that we had gotten to this stage and I wasn't satisfied enough with what was on the table. Person B especially. She zoomed in on specific phrases and demanded that I explain them, like why I'd said I could move forward "for now" with the number of vacation days. Because. You guys. Literally told me we will revisit the issue in a year??? And I was just acknowledging that reality??? Person B asked if I would be satisfied if nothing changed in a year, declaring that there was no way that I would get more vacation days at that point, because Person A is [fancy title] and has been there for 3 years and also only has that many days. Which. One, I notice that she didn't mention that she herself, also with a fancy title, and who has been there significantly longer, only has that many days. HUH. Two, why the f would you (you being Person A though) offer to revisit it in a year if there is no way it's going to change, and get mad at me for the crime of taking you seriously? And three, that sounds like a Person A problem? Because she is the [fancy title] and she could've negotiated more for herself upon hire and she didn't. That doesn't mean I'm not allowed to try.

Anyway, the whole experience was deeply unpleasant, and so out of left field that all I could think to do in the moment was to try to make nice, avoid burning any bridges, and process what the heck just happened afterwards. At the end of the meeting, Person B said, "Ok, the two of us are going to talk and we'll get back to you." I was floored, because what was there even to get back to me about? They wanted me to explain and defend my attempt to negotiate in all its minutiae, I had done so, and it's not like the benefits themselves were up for discussion. I told her I was confused, what were they going to get back to me about, were they reconsidering the offer of employment? Person A jumped in all, "Oh no, of course not, I think we're all good! Everything is good!" but Person B did not elaborate or concur.

I like 75% expected they were going to revoke the offer, and kind of almost hoped that they would so that I wouldn't have to make my own decision about what to make of that absolute narishkeit. But not long afterwards I received an updated offer letter waiving the 6 month requirement and that was it.

At that point I decided that I would give them 2-3 months to see if they could exceed the now very, very low bar of my expectations, and if not, begin job searching in earnest again. But I was absolutely dreading my start date.

And then came yesterday, 1 week before my first day. Now, as background, I had been told that I would normally be expected to work in person twice a week, and only very occasionally 3 days when needed. I had asked them which 2 days I should expect to come in so that I could arrange a babysitter accordingly, and they had told me that I could choose according to my needs, and just let them know. I told them Tuesday and Wednesday. They said ok. They asked whether Monday or Thursday would be preferable for the occasional 3rd day, and I said Thursday. I hired a babysitter whose hours were calculated according to the assumption that I would be commuting on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

So I get this email yesterday morning. Informing me not to come into the office Tuesday and Wednesday next week, but rather only Thursday, with no acknowledgement whatsoever that this was counter to the arrangements we had discussed and no explanation as to why it couldn't be one of my regular days. I know why, though - it's because these 2 people work with each other to arrange which days they want to be in the office each week, and I realized then that I was never going to be part of that discussion, just expected to follow their whims, despite what we had discussed before. They were not seeing me as equally worthy of consideration.

Oh, and the other part. They also informed me that in my 2nd week of work, there was an event on Wednesday starting at 5pm that they expected me to work. This event would be at a location significantly further from where I live than the office is and they apparently didn't consider it relevant to tell me until what time I would be expected to stay just yet (so, like, thanks for the heads up but how am I supposed to make arrangements, exactly?). My husband does not get home til 8:30-9 on Wednesday nights and has no flexibility to leave early, and they theoretically knew this from previous discussions. They also knew that I have little kids. But for some reason, even though I'd had the basic job offer for about 2 months prior to the event, and even though this event had definitely been planned well in advance, they didn't feel a need to let me know that they'd require me to work a weekday evening event specifically on a day of the week that it would be incredibly difficult for me to work in the evening.

Now, in a normal freaking workplace, I would simply bring up these scheduling concerns. What a thought! But these people could not handle standard benefits negotiations because any hint that I wasn't fully satisfied with current arrangements was personally offensive. So. You know.

The entire advantage of accepting a less-than-full-time job was supposed to be that I would have to worry about childcare less. But it was at this point patently obvious that these people would think absolutely nothing of making my schedule completely unpredictable on a regular basis and also would not be remotely open to pushback about it. I couldn't just put my head down and give it 2-3 months and then look for something else because I would constantly be stressing out trying to sort childcare. Which should have been the one single solitary non-problem in this position!

So I let them know that it doesn't seem like this is going to be a good fit and I regretfully have to withdraw my acceptance - I am receiving too much conflicting information about, well, literally everything, and it seems like they need someone who is able to offer a level of flexibility in their schedule that I simply do not have at this stage in my life.

I'm sure they are royally pissed and telling themselves the fairytale that they tried so hard to accommodate me and make me happy and I totally misled them about being satisfied with their offer and then screwed them over at the last minute. That's not what happened - despite everything, I was gung-ho until that unbelievably disturbing meeting - but that's the narrative they'll be bouncing off each other to avoid admitting that they totally botched a good hire.

It's been 27 hours since my "resignation" email and they haven't bothered to reply. Really regretting missing out on a workplace that is such a paragon of professionalism! 🙄🙄🙄

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fuck-customers · 1 year ago

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Holy shit, today was wild.

So after our previous general manager left, O came in as a temporary replacement. I’m not sure if he’s staying on as permanent at this point or what; idk if anyone knows. For some reason, not all of his managerial privileges (idk if that’s the right word) are working in the system. So like he can’t make schedules and whatever other stuff it is that managers do (I’m just a cashier I have no clue). S, the highest up assistant manager (idk if that’s actually a thing but there’s always been one at our store), decides to do O a favor and make the schedules until things get sorted out. O’s been here around two months, with S still doing the schedule and other duties that O should be doing all the while—with O being paid the general manager’s wages and S getting paid his regular wages—and like at this point idk if O just has decided he’s fine with having S do the heavy lifting or if our company is just having some wild issue that can’t get this system error with his account fixed.

Our last person who worked print on weekends left, leaving us scrambling on the weekends. Finally, we get a new guy who’s gonna take the weekends. Store opens, and the guy doesn’t show up (apparently he misremembered/misread his schedule and ended up coming in an hour or two late). So I’m at the register, assistant manager K is at shipping, and S is at print. All S and K know how to do with print is give people stuff they’ve already ordered, and I know jack and shit about print so I’m staying over in my corner. A woman comes in, and she got her order yesterday, but it’s the wrong size. She’s upset and is on a deadline and needs the right size ASAP. S says he can give her a refund and transfer her order to a nearby store, and we’re all apologizing coz yeah that’s definitely a rough situation.

Idk exactly what happens next, but more customers start coming in and going towards print after a while, with that first woman still there. S is getting overwhelmed, so he calls O and asks for his advice. O tells him that this is all his fault, and that it’s his responsibility to make the schedules and make sure that there is someone at every station. So S just leaves the print station, tells us he’s done for the day, and goes into the manager’s office (which is basically his office at this point because—as we’ve established—he’s doing everything O should be doing), leaving K and I kinda freaking out as we try to figure out what to do. At one point K even goes into the office and starts arguing and yelling at S (K’s super chill and I’ve never heard him yell before).

Eventually S cools off. Between O and that first customer (who I heard another customer refer to as “the devil” on her way out when talking to her husband), he just couldn’t put up with all that shit. S is a very calm and nice guy. When I found out there’d been an error on my part that meant I’d been getting paid for my lunch breaks for a YEAR (this was between the previous GM leaving and O arriving), S told me that it was okay because I’m worth it and now I know what happened I can make sure it won’t happen again.

I’m good friends with another assistant manager, and she received a text from O that we think was meant for S saying that he’s a leader and needs to learn to take responsibility and own up and whatnot. To top it all off, my friend also shows me a text O sent in the manager group chat:

“To be an effective leader, you have to be a really good listener and not to what's being said, but to what's not being said. You have to be really observant. That was a big transition for me.” — Kobe Bryant

S is still working here, but any GM duties are now O’s problem. He’s done with doing him favors.

Posted by admin Rodney.

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carries-corn-syrup · 1 month ago

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fic question:

if amber and stu met, how do you think they’d interact?

gift for @slashherslut, the original stu x amber shipper ♡

warnings/before you read: fairly large age gap (amber is 18 for the sake of me not getting cancelled), rarepair that isn’t widely considered, porn with plot, oneshot, op’s first smut, might be ooc on amber’s end because i need to rewatch 5, voice kink if you squint

the best decision amber made, by far, was making an account on that online ghostface forum that richie recommended. one of the admins greeted her warmly and set her up to get started. immediately, she found discussions in cryptic hyperlinks that caught her eye.

these discussions usually brought up one of the killers in the original stab- stu macher. constantly overlooked in later movies, left out of the narrative, seemingly on purpose? what could it mean? amber typed out only three sentences.

> i think stu’s still alive. tvs weren’t 50 pounds back then: i owned a vcr from 1994, it was only 37. weighed it myself. <

within the span of five minutes, a reply from the original poster, “mach_iavellian”, responded:

> so did i- the one from my house was almost 40 pounds. it fell on my dad when he was assembling it- he was fine. just a concussion. <

amber’s eyes lit up. she finally felt right. she finally felt seen.

the next couple of days, she lurked on the forum. “mach_ivellian” became an online friend of sorts, and someone she could vent her vitriol on the newer stab movies to. he always listened. he always agreed, giving his reasons to think the way he did.

in time, she started to learn more about the enigmatic user. that he was apparently 37, he worked for a “protection agency” known only as “atrophy” (a name which gave no relevant results on amber’s search engine) and that him and his best friend were part of the first massacre. also, that he still lived in woodsboro. ..surprising, considering all he’d been through in that town. according to him.

amber decided to do some more digging. what did he mean, “part of” the massacre? wouldn’t he say “victims of?” why did he pick that word for his username? was it just to be edgy? the user gave her one request: “use tor. you’ll find everything you need to know.”

she searched up “atrophy protection services” immediately on the browser. a page for a…. hitman service came up. the names matched, though. she needed to learn more. she scrolled through the list of “participating protectors in your vicinity” until one caught her eye.

- s. macher. 37 y. o. elite-tier “rhino”. supernaturally fast reflexes. good with hand-to-hand and sharps. unpredictable behavior.

she forwarded the link to the forum user, who sent only a nodding emoticon. she found her mark.

but, by extension, so did he.

she decided to meet up with him. now that she knew that she was actually talking to one of the perpetrators of the ghostface attack? the original one? the massacre that started it all? she was ecstatic. they traded addresses over private messaging. amber searched up stu’s new address on a real estate website, only to find that it was a small, cramped housing project commissioned by the state. she almost felt bad for him. almost.

the man at the door was not what she expected. nearly seven feet tall, a black hoodie beneath a kevlar vest, dark camouflage pants, and- strangest of all- an armored mask that obscured almost all of his face, save for his piercing deep blue eyes.

“you planned on meeting up with me,” the man finally spoke after a quiet pause. his voice was low and gravelly, raspy almost- like someone ripped out his larynx, tore it apart, and sewed it back together. his voice alone made a strange, warm feeling settle into amber’s stomach. something she’d never felt with a boy her age.

“i did,” she responded awkwardly, letting the man into the house. he seemed melancholy, seeing his house after so many years. he stood, almost idly in the entryway before moving quietly to the dining room and sitting on one of the chairs.

“sitting” was a generous word, though- he was moreso lounging, spreading his legs and relaxing his neck against the back of the chair in such a way that made the fuzzy feeling in her abdomen intensify. his breaths came out in huffs that bounced off of his mask. “…i bet you pictured me the exact same as the way i was back in ‘96. young, dumb, inexperienced.. i’ve matured, trained- i’m better than i ever was then,” the man broke the silence again, aligning his neck to make eye contact with amber, who was leaning awkwardly in the doorway. she must’ve been doing something wrong, because the masked man straightened his back and tilted his head.

“..you’re making a very weird face, amber.”

in reality, amber was picturing the filthy things she wanted the man in front of her to do- pounding his cock into her sopping cunt, his hands migrating from his sides to her neck. choking her. keeping her from making a single sound. keeping her quiet and obedient. what kind of sounds would he be suppressing with hands like those… moans? screams? maybe he could use his knife. the very knife that killed so many…

“you alright?” that breathy voice against the mask asked amber, shaking her out of her dirty thoughts. she hesitated, uncharacteristically.

“..yeah, i’m.. i’m fine. just forgot something, that’s all,” she laughed nervously, trying desperately to save her situation.

“one of the questions for the interview?” he asked gently. amber’s mind lurched. he thought he was here for an interview. about the massacre, i bet, she thought to herself.

“so.. when are we starting?” stu asked, still making eye contact with those mariana trench-blue eyes. amber didn’t want to tell him that she wanted to hook up. she had to, for the sake of attempting to be a good person, but she wanted to keep him in the dark, just for a while more.

“…whenever you’re ready. i have a pc in my bedroom, so we might need to go up there if you’re not comfortable with my.. er.. class hearing your voice,” amber responded warmly, finally chasing the thoughts out of her head, ignore the pounding feeling in her core. her plans were delayed, but that was alright, in her eyes. they’d come to fruition soon enough.

“so,” stu attempted to make small talk as he followed her up the stairs, “you mentioned this… me coming here, i mean, being part of a project for your high school. but you said to me that you were eighteen. that’s.. past high school, isn’t it?”

“i was held back a grade,” amber shamefully replied once they reached her room. “had to repeat 8th.” stu chuckled to himself at the information, exhaling in stuttering puffs through his nose. at her failure. “i’ll take your word for it,” he said sitting cross-legged on her mattress. it creaked in the anguish of someone that tall (and heavy) sitting on it that way. she wanted to see him lying on that mattress. hands cuffed together, behind his head, writhing and painfully erect. whining in that deliciously breathy voice. wearing nothing but that featureless mask. what he had under it, amber fantasized quietly, before-

“you’re making that face again. what’s on your mind?”

“n.. nothing, mr. macher,” she responded after an awkward beat of silence, gritting her teeth into a smile that must have looked uncomfortable. her thoughts were getting to her.

“is that so?” he cocked his head so that it aligned on his neck. he sat up a bit more and slowly removed his kevlar vest. “..you’re really eyeing me up. like you’ve got something you wanna say to me,” he nearly muttered as he took off the heavy garment.

just as amber suspected, he was wearing a themed sweatshirt, probably from spencer’s or the halloween store across town that was only open for a few months in the fall. she wanted to butt in and ask him to take everything off, but that might elicit the wrong reaction. the last thing she wanted was to make a bad first impression on stu macher. but those damn thoughts came clawing back into her mind- his face, when he was her age though, in a blissed-out expression as he bucks his hips senselessly through the remainder of his orgasm. maybe it was all scarred-up from the tv. that made a pleasant shiver run through her.

“let’s just start the.. the interview, huh?” amber asked. stu nodded compliantly, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. in reality, amber had tons of questions to ask him. how did he survive the television? how did he survived being stabbed that deep? why did he choose the victims he did? why did he spare randy? is billy loomis still alive? how did he fly under the radar for so long? how did he become a hitman? could she take a job like that? she wouldn’t let her urges take over just yet- she couldn’t. over the course of about an hour, she transposed every answer to her questions. he even handed her a small piece of cardstock with numbers to call if she wanted to sign up for atrophy.

“thank you for answering my questions, but i.. didn’t actually want to interview you, mr. macher,” amber’s stomach dropped and turned itself in knots as she uttered those dreaded words. his brow dropped, then furrowed slightly.

“..what? then.. then why’d you ask me to come here? what’s this “project” about? …is there someone i need to kill? cuz sidney prescott’s off the table,” stu responded cluelessly. amber finally decided to make one move on him- a risky move.

“i asked you to come here because i found a yearbook from my school dated to 1996 on ebay. you are, er, were really hot back then,” she finally admitted. “i didn’t want to interview you, mr. macher. i.. i wanted to..” she couldn’t even bring herself to say it. she must have sounded like a stalker. she must have sounded like an insufferable creep. but stu’s eyes only widened beneath the mask as the gears turned in his head. attempting to find the answer on his own. stu could only say one phrase as he was considering what she said, weighing his options.

“..you really see me that way, amber?”

she nodded only once, standing up from her chair at the desk and leaning against it. “the case fascinates me to no end. being with someone who was a part of it? even just for a night? god, i’d.. i’d feel so lucky. if you, like, reject me or whatever, that’s fine though. i won’t take it personally.. i promise,” she finally said it out loud. in all honesty, she probably would take it personally if he rejected her, but she’d never take out her anger on him.

she saw him smile through the mask. he must not have heard that in a while. that he was desired that way. he motioned with two of his fingers for amber to sit on the mattress. she immediately complied. he looked at her face for a silent moment.

“i didn’t realize you were this pretty up close. you remind me of my first girlfriend, back when i was your age,” his gaze softened through the eye holes in his mask. amber wanted to slip the thing off of his face, finally feel his lips on hers, but the looming thought that he’d change his mind and leave still crossed her psyche.

“i just have one question before we, y’know, get started,” he said, pulling down the hood of his sweater.

“have you done this before?”

amber sheepishly shook her head. she knew there was no need to be embarrassed- she turned 18 eight months ago. stu only nodded, knowing how he needed to approach this now.

he moved to stand off the edge of the bed and gently pushed amber onto her back, but she stopped herself on her hands to look up at him. he undid his heavier layers first, keeping his shirt, mask, socks, and black briefs on. then he helped amber with her clothes, save for the mismatched lingerie she was wearing. under the shirt that hugged his figure in a remarkably attractive way, amber could make out toned muscle. so that’s what the website meant by “rhino”, amber thought to herself.

he pulled amber up so that their hips were touching. she was already wet through her underwear, and stu took notice.

“.. damn. were you thinking about me like this the whole interview, sweetheart?” he asked almost mockingly, rutting his hips against hers. amber only nodded, the new friction from his hardening cock against her clit already making a moan want to escape. he knew that she was thinking about him like that. he knew the face she was making was one of lust. he was just leading her on, making things more difficult on purpose. mocking her.

“pretty baby… ‘m gonna pound you.. gonna fuck ya dumb,” he quietly muttered under his breath, finally pulling his briefs down and sighing in relief once they hit the floor. soon after, he removed his shirt. he was in nothing but his armored mask now, but the scars running down to his collarbone and adam’s apple- like cracks in porcelain- left little to imagine.

he sighed dreamily before gazing down at amber’s still-clothed cunt. soaking wet through her panties, arousing by itself. slowly, almost too slow even for him, he pulled them off of her hips, down her thighs. she playfully kicked them off. beneath his mask, he was probably chewing his bottom lip. he audibly whined as he lined up his already-throbbing cock with her warm, already-lubricated hole. just the contact alone was enough for him at that stage.

as soon as stu pushed into her, filling her up completely, amber nearly screamed as she felt the rip of her innocence being taken away. she could feel every vein, every ridge, and as soon as his hips started moving, shameless moans and sighs started spilling from amber, nearly subconsciously. as he started getting into his rhythm more, stu started making the filthiest sounds she’d ever heard a human make. loud groans and high whines that made his raspy voice break as he pounded into her ruthlessly. and he had no shame. he didn’t ever cover his mouth or muffle the slapping of his skin against hers. he squeezed her hips with both of his hands, trapping her impossibly close against his abdomen. it felt like amber was holding on for dear life to a brick wall. eventually, his legs almost gave out due to the pleasure alone, so he instead knelt on the mattress and motioned amber to turn onto her stomach.

she obeyed immediately, and the feeling as he penetrated her again was new, somehow, her already-tightening hole clenching around stu, making him groan and gasp, before-

“i think ‘m gonna cum, sweetheart.”

something snapped within amber then, something she’d never felt on her own when she saw those pictures of the crime scenes and imagined she was there. a hot coil, a spring coming undone- a scream. she felt out of her body before the thick, intruding thing wedged between her thighs pulled out and hot fluid spilled onto her back in bursts.

amber woke up later that night, still nude but clean. the man she slept with was next to her, the armored balaclava on the nightstand. he was facing away from her, breathing heavily. he must have been asleep, she thought to herself, but before she could sleep on her own, he rolled onto his other side to face her.

his face was scarred, almost to an extreme degree, but beautiful in its complexity. those same scars on his neck extended up to and converged at his face, and as she looked down at his form she could see other marks. stab marks. the only thing he must have left of billy.

she finally knew what became of stu macher. and in the morning, when he inevitably left, she was going to call up richie and thank him for the best recommendation of her life.

#rarepair #darkship #scream 1996 #op is a proshipper #op is a darkshipper #antis dni #scream #canon x canon #amber freeman #stu macher #pwp fics #first fanfic

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vegancas · 26 days ago

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got a job interview tomorrow for a different grocery store than the one i used to work at and a phone interview for a grad program on monday, and i would be so lucky to get either job at this point, but i can't lie, i don't want either job. grocery store means working around meat again and grad program means working in the city. but i have to take either job if i can get them don't i, I've already been unemployed for like 3 months, i can't go on much longer like this. especially not when my parents are getting all this work done on their house and need me to help out. my dad was so close to retiring but if i don't get a job soon he'll go back to work.

i just wish i had thought more about my future/career when i was younger. like i wish i had actually got some good experience doing things so that getting a job now would be easier and my options wouldn't be so limited. like i'm glad i'm doing this admin volunteering now, but that still probably won't help me get a job for at least a few more months. which will be fine if i get the grocery store job and not matter if i get into the grad program (bcos I'll probably have to quit the volunteering altogether and not really use the experience at all) but i still need a job in the meantime!!!!

i'm just so sick of applying for jobs and then never getting anywhere with them, and i wish i didn't suck so bad at interviews!!!!!! i really got lucky with my first job bcos that interview was just, barely even an interview, and they probably didn't even contact my references before giving me the job, but also i was lucky because they were definitely hiring for a whole bunch of roles at the time too.

and anyway my parents came over tonight and my dad was talking about writing different wills for himself and what's going to happen when he or my mum eventually die and if one of them needs to go into a nursing home and all this legal and tax related stuff that could be of very little concern at all if i just had a job and an income that could make those things easier to deal with. i mean even my old job wouldn't have been that much help with it all but at least it was something!!! it's lucky we still have the home loan that we took out a few years ago in my name and that we can redraw on that for stuff if we need it but i'd much rather just pay for things cos interest rates really do suck!!!!

#misc.txt

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not-poignant · 1 year ago

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hi pia i just wanted to respond to what you said in your tags about the burnout w chronic illness. and i dont mean to condescend or blame but i think your burnout came about because you are an absolute beast of a writer!!!!! the amount of words you were pushing out consistently had me wondering what kind of spell you must’ve been on. (in a good way, except it turned out to be harming you) you worked really really hard for a long time, i think harder than many healthy people even (my chronic illness could never). i know you also enjoyed writing (we enjoyed it too!), but that workload honestly never looked sustainable. the astounding part is not that you burned out, but that you managed to push for so long, despite your handicaps and hardships. want to be careful not to sound like im praising/blaming you. but you’re really just build different than a lot of folks. i hope you had time to recharge so far and keep taking it easy. i do miss your updates but i can assure you im fine waiting, as are your other readers! its really okay! get better soon 💐🐀💓

Hi anon,

This is very kind of you to say, but tbh, I don't think many people know how much some writers can, well, write.

I might seem like an over-achiever, but there are writers out there who easily write around 6000-10000 words per day, and release a book per month. I have met successful authors who aim for 150k or 200k at NaNo, because 50,000 words is 5 days of work to them.

It's hard for me to comprehend, because I know I can't do that. But likewise, I think many folks don't realise that I actually used to write a lot more than I do now!! For some years it was normal for me to write 50-80,000 words every single month. NaNo was a joke. That caused burnout, and so I adjusted down to a 25,000 minimum monthly wordcount which sometimes felt so easy that it was absurd. I now have a maximum which I have to adhere to per month (50k), because it's too easy to go past it.

For me, writing is relatively easy. It's still work, yes. I still need to put time into it. But I don't need to put in the same amount of time as someone who hasn't done it for thousands and thousands of hours. I don't need to put in the same amount of time as someone who can only touch type at 80 wpm, when I touch type at 120-150 wpm.

The amount of stories is an issue, and the number of chapter updates is an issue, but the actual output re: words themselves really isn't. In fact I've written more words this month than I did last month already, and will very likely hit my monthly minimum with the next chapter.

The things that contributed to my burnout are multifaceted. Getting a puppy. A death in the family. Not having access to the mental health drugs I need to function for a long period of time. Friendship disintegration. These things can cause burnout in anyone, even if they are working very sustainably, because they all require separate labour on top of the labour that someone is doing for their job.

When I come back from hiatus, I will not be writing less. I don't believe the wordcount is the issue and haven't for a long time. I will be scheduling out less chapters, because admin is overwhelming to me. If you told me that my job wasn't writing anymore, but I had to schedule + figure out when to post twice as many chapters, I'd fail, lmao.

So I will be addressing admin stuff! But the amount of words I was pushing out, anon, was completely sustainable, and in fact a highly reduced number compared to what I was pushing out 6/7 years ago. Anon, I have been pushing out this many words or more for 5 years without stopping until now. It's felt comfortable. It's been so much less than what I used to make myself write.

So yeah, again, it can be hard for people who don't do this professionally to imagine writing at this level. And all professionals are different. I couldn't write 150k for NaNoWriMo, but the people writing 100k a month find that extremely easy to do. How I feel about their output - that it's impossible (because it is for me) is not how they feel about their output. For them writing 50k a month to make it easy might be extremely laughable to them, like, 5 days of work and then they get 25 days off. That's sometimes how I've felt about 25k (though it's more like 10 days of work to me - which is great, because I have chronic illness lol, so I need a lot of rest days and periods).

The amount of words I was pushing out consistently will be the amount I go back to because that is truly the most sustainable part of my job. I don't expect folks who haven't plugged in as many hours into writing, and who haven't written millions of words to understand, but the fact is the more you do something, the faster you get at it. The more practice you have, the more competent you become.

That was actually how I knew the burnout was so bad, because the easiest part of my job - the words + the writing - was impossible last month, and I only ended up with 14k for the first time in 5 years, and had to make a call.

The reason the hiatus is so frustrating is that so much of it is being caused by external factors, and not actually the job itself. Like yes, I am working on too many stories, and I can address that, but I was actually doing much higher wordcounts when I was working on less stories.

It's all the extra stuff that becomes very overwhelming! But I'll get there anon, and my wordcounts aren't going anywhere.

#asks and answers #pia on writing #no one else can decide what is causing my burnout except for me and my therapists #and someone else being like 'i couldn't imagine writing your wordcounts so it must be that' is like #it's kind of you to want to problem solve it anon but that is not the problem #those word counts are actually the *solution* to #a different kind of burnout i had 5-7 years ago lmao #if a person cooks dinner every night all their life #and then has 20 other things in their life go wrong #so they can't cook dinner anymore #the thing they need to permanently stop is not cooking dinner #it's the 20 other things #aslkfjsda that's where i'm at #administrator gwyn wants this in the queue

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ozonelasher · 1 year ago

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GET TO KNOW YOUR ADMIN !!

(i don't actually have a mun fc so you're getting shiny azumarill because. i like it :3)

name — Ana!

pronouns — she/her primarily but they/them is fine too

preferred comms — tumblr IMs are preferred for OOC talk/plotting, & my discord is open to mutuals if they'd like :3

name of muse — Kaki

experience in RP — honestly i've been rping since i was probably too young to rp on the internet 💀 i started on deviantart (which like. oops but also i was like 9) and then started rping on tumblr likeee ~2015 or so. i actually first started writing Kaki on tumblr in like 2016, and then kinda started writing on twitter in 2019 when the RPC on here started to wane from its peak. i came back very recently because i got tired of the limitations of writing on twitter

best experiences — as of recent, i've had a few really really fun crossover threads on twitter that will stay with me forever atp. one was a real slowburn romance plot with a spike spiegel, and another was of isekai plot with desmond miles from assassin's creed that ended up being really fun and sweet. i also have a really cute ship going with a friend's DB OC on twitter, too. oh kaki and her tendency to adopt men two heads taller than her ❤️

pet peeves/dealbreakers — trying to force OOC scenarios/behaviors onto kaki or otherwise just making it clear you don't respect her character outside of writing will really sour me in terms of trying for future interactions. i doubt this will happen here as it's mostly a problem i've had on twitter but JUST IN CASE!!! i'm mostly talking stuff like, oversexualizing her because she has muscles ("step on me, m*mmy" & such comments are a HUGE no-no), assuming she's overly aggressive/belligerent, or on the flip-side, babying her like she's a cutesy helpless waif. she is a 30+ year old woman with thoughts and feelings and i would like her autonomy to be respected.

muse preference ( fluff, angst, smut ) — HONESTLY i'm down with anything as long as it's interesting. on my own i tend to write adventure-drama type plots (the dbz fic i'm working on is just a space opera tbh) with a splash of horror of some flavor, usually with anti-capitalist/fascist/imperialist messaging. i think the one thing i should mention is that i do really enjoy when there's a conflict or overarching storyline happening in longer plotted threads; it just keeps me more engaged.

plot or memes — both are good and work tbh. memes can be good for breaking the ice or actually figuring out a dynamic in practice, but if we want to go for something more in-depth, i do prefer some plotting (even if it's just planning points A and B and then just improvising how our muses get there)

long or short replies — quality > quantity. even if your response is like 3 sentences or less, if it moves things along, it's fine with me (:

best time to write — i tend to write more at night or on the weekends. really just when i'm not dead tired 😭but also if i really get into the plot of a thread, i'll get kinda hyperfixated on it and respond in like 3 seconds. my fault

are you like your muse? — In a lot of ways, yeah. Kaki is an OC i've been developing for like at least a decade now, and a lot of her experiences are drawn from things I personally have experienced (albeit, greatly exaggerated lmao), and the kind of character she's become is a projection of my beliefs and how I feel about the current state of the world. Writing her is a bit of a catharsis for me, really.

TAGGED — @pzfr

TAGGING — feel free to do it if you'd like :3

#ooc.#meme response.#yay yippee yahoo!! this was fun to do!

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fizzingwizard · 1 year ago

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work n stuff

This was crunch week at work before graduation. I usually stay late to do stuff, but boy, did I stay late this year haha.

First off we have one teacher who's had to leave for the rest of the term for very valid personal reasons. On top of that, one of her coteachers is being sent to another campus for half or all of every day for reasons I don't actually know. So in her class it's kind of just her third co-teacher. But fortunately the company had time to anticipate for that and they put a leader in her class to train some new teachers while helping the class. So things aren't normal for them but they're stable.

For me things were normal until Wednesday when my coteacher called in sick. My other coteacher was also noticeably sick though she came to work. I was sick last week, and took Monday off. The rest of the week I felt so crappy, mainly just full body exhaustion which is rough when you're on your feet with demanding little ones nipping at your ankles all day. Fortunately I've been fine since Sunday.

On Thurs the same coteacher was still too sick to come in, and my other coteacher ended up going home around noon. Then another teacher went home at the same time because her daughter had a fever. There were also some part-time subs calling out during these days as well. So we were suddenly extremely short-staffed.

Thursday was the worst because no one had anticipated so many teachers being out, especially with my class, and all the help had already gone to other classes. The teacher whose daughter got sick had to leave her class with one coteacher and a sub. Until noon, I had my sick coteacher and a rotating round of subs coming from our other school. They have their own job at their campus and can only stay for an hour at a time and honestly are not helpful. They're good people and teachers, but they don't know our kids or our routine and they're used to older children. I hate getting them for subs except when they were former teachers at our school first.

After co-teacher went home, I had the rotating subs, and... a secret third person! no really. No one knew who was supposed to cover for my co-teacher. It was the admin assistant for a while, until she suddenly said "A visitor is here, I need to go." She would be coming back so I said okay and we would just power through what time she was gone for.

But like five min after that the rotating sub said "I'm supposed to be back at my campus now" and no one had come to cover for her?? The admin assistant was with a visitor, and the manager was also with a visitor! There was no one even to talk to and I had my ENTIRE class in the hallway basically by myself. I couldn't tell this sub she could leave because it would leave me alone with all these two and three year olds IN THE BATHROOM. I don't even have Nanny iPad to help bah.

So I called for the visiting leader, who ran out to help. Then another class teacher said "Oh, so and so from my class is supposed to help you now, and I was going to send her, but no one came to cover in my class for her." So while I was dealing with my own kids, the leader, the manager, and that class teacher were standing in a circle in the hall talking for what felt like forever about what to do. That was one of the most stressful ten minutes I've ever spent at this school x'D or probably anywhere tbh! I have "the difficult class" this year and they're hard enough to manage with all three of us regular teachers there and healthy. Now it was just me!

Finally something got decided and you know what I don't even remember what it was in the end. The point is we survived the day somehow. It was really nuts. Really nuts. The leader though now knew my situation and she kept checking in and helped with lunch clean up and putting out the futons for nap time.

Her being there was a good thing for me, because she kind of validated my feelings about these crazy times. She even went to the manager and asked her to figure out what would be done in the event both of my coworkers were out sick on Friday too and to tell me ahead of time so I could have some idea and not just be surprised by it. To some extent that's not possible because people call in sick in the morning of the day they'll be out. But when you can plan in advance, you should, I think was the message, which is one I really agree with. It seemed to make the manager think about me a little. I had to stay even later than I'd planned, because since my coworkers were gone, I was the only one there to organize all the kids' belongings that they need to take home after graduation, which is a big job: they have a lot of stuff. The manager came in at one point and helped me sort some crafts.

Then, on Friday, both my coworkers did call in sick, so I was on my own again. The teacher with the sick daughter was also still out, and of course the other two teachers mentioned in the first paragraph were still gone. Being so understaffed, I thought for sure I'd lost prep time in the morning to cover their shifts. But I didn't, and I found out it was because the manager did it instead. I think that this was probably due to how crazy a week I'd had especially Thursday, and looking at a crazy Friday too... She took pity on me xP

Friday was easier even without both coteachers because I had finished almost all of the graduation-related stuff, and my two subs were people who are used to our school and know our kids. It wasn't the same but it was much smoother. (Also Thursday was a school event day so it was a little extra craziness on top of all the rest.) I am disappointed that I haven't been able to enjoy my last days with my kids. Normally I'd take it easy and just do fun stuff with them. But I have too much work to do so I'm constantly doing things instead of playing with the kids. I gave everyone hugs and did my best anyhow.

Grad prep this year was especially difficult because the whole staff changed this year except me and two other people, one of whom was one of the teachers out sick, so it was just the two of us actually plus the manager. No one else was familiar with how to wrap up the year. There was a bit of confusion but I am lucky that everyone I work with is a hard worker and helpful to others, so it seems we got everything done. Not as wonderfully as we'd have liked but good enough. I still have some work to do next week but then I have a little break before starting to prep for next year.

In sum, while this week was kind of a nightmare, I'm lucky that I felt really healthy during it so I didn't struggle as much to pick up the slack. And I'm grateful the leader was visiting and validated my stressed out feelings. I'm kind of proud of myself too because I got three teachers' work done with only a few mistakes (still make a few though ;_;) and I did my best to help other classes too, because mine was obviously not the only one shortstaffed and rushing around all week hahaha.

Fell asleep as soon as I got home every night. Now I just wanna veg and play games this weekend. Gotta do some cleaning too though. Cheers to the new term... lol

#work

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yeonchi · 2 months ago

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Koei Warriors Retrospective Part 22: Dynasty Warriors 8 Spinoffs (Empires/Godseekers)

Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires (真・三國無双7 Empires) Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch Release dates: Japan: 20 November 2014 (PS3/PS4/Xbox One)/27 February 2015 (PC)/26 November 2015 (PS Vita)/9 November 2017 (Switch) USA: 23 February 2015 (PS3 - digital only/PS4/Xbox One)/27 February 2015 (PC)/24 November 2015 (PS Vita - digital only) Europe: 27 February 2015 (PS3 - digital only/PS4/Xbox One/PC)/25 November 2015 (PS Vita - digital only)

(original USA release date was 27 January, original Europe release date was 30 January)

2015 saw the beginning of Koei Tecmo's (or specifically, Omega Force's) creative slump, or burnout, brought about by the New Normal Copium that had infected the company and its fanbase since 2011. That year also marked a watershed moment for the Koei Warriors Rant Series as I learnt (or rather, confirmed) that fans, who are shallow enough to lap up what Koei Tecmo gives them, don't care about other fans who want to see better from Koei Tecmo and get their PC/Vita ports or English dubs. OK, some of it started in the tail end of 2014, but still.

2016 was the year I decided to begin advocating for people who support #NoDubNoBuy by becoming an admin on the page English dubs in Japanese games or no buy (even though I don't actually support the hashtag myself), later renamed to English Dubbed Game News (EDGN). At the same time, I transitioned the Koei Warriors Rant Series to its successor Dub Logistics, expanding the scope of the former to cover English dubbing in general and giving it a fixed format (in the form of responding to if... then... statements relating to the subject).

It was also the year when Koei Tecmo's creative slump/burnout brought about some weird localisation names for games; Berserk Musou ベルセルク無双 became Berserk and the Band of the Hawk (too mouthy), Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin 進撃の巨人 became A.O.T.: Wings of Freedom in Europe (like anyone who hasn't heard of the series will be attracted by the name A.O.T.)* and Shin Sangoku Musou Eiketsuden 真・三國無双英傑伝 became Dynasty Warriors Godseekers (too pretentious, will explain later).

Let's get on with the spinoffs for Dynasty Warriors 8 before my brain explodes.

* Before we go on, I just wanted to state that apparently, the A.O.T. thing in Europe came about because of a copyright opposition claim from an online gambling company that occurred when Atlus was attempting to register a trademark for their Attack on Titan game, so maybe I was a bit hard on Koei Tecmo there.

Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires

If vanilla 8 and Xtreme Legends were largely based on vanilla 7 and its Xtreme Legends expansion, you can bet that 8 Empires is even more based on 7 Empires. So how is this Empires game different from the last one?

First of all, a new character, Xun Yu, has been made playable for Wei and like last time, the DLC weapons from vanilla 8 and Xtreme Legends are assigned to Sun Quan, Xiaoqiao, Meng Huo, Yueying, Wang Yi, Lianshi, Liu Shan, Guan Suo and Deng Ai, with new EX and Musou Attacks being given to them and their old weapons being relegated to edit character exclusives. About this decision, I have to ask, why? Why are they getting their weapons changed even though 8 made it so that everyone had their own unique weapon? Why couldn’t they have just left the DLC weapons as edit character exclusives or created new characters just for them?

You honestly have to feel for Yueying in this scenario. She got decloned in Next only to have her weapon replaced again for this game, and it's not very good in its implementation. Sun Quan and Xiaoqiao's new Musous are based on their old ones even though their old Musous work just as fine with their new weapons. Once again, all the details are in the Dynasty Warriors Weapon Moveset Power Rankings.

The old generic officer EX and Musou attacks from 7E are also there as well. New generic officer Musou and Rage Attacks have been made for the Great Blade, Throwing Knives and Talisman Cards (even though practically no generic officer used them in the main game), but the EX Attacks follow those of their weapons' primary users (Guan Ping, Wang Yuanji and Zuo Ci). I mean, I guess it saves Koei Tecmo time and effort making EX Attacks that are the same as the Musou Attack, but the generic officers using swords and spears don't even get an EX2, let alone any other Musou Attack.

The scenarios available for Empire Mode are the same as in the last game. Let's focus on what's changed since then.

Instead of Food, Info and Gold, you have Materials, Gold and Troops, which are given at least four figures at the start of each scenario instead of two figures. Materials are normally used to construct facilities or fortify bases in battle (in Free Mode, this uses Bonus Points). Troops are allocated to officers before you set out for battle, and you can allocate as many troops as you want to each officer depending on how you want the battle to start off.

Supporters are removed from this game and random events are basically just people introducing you to other officers, rulers receiving bribes from their subordinates or being invited into a kingdom. That's it.

The Fame system from the last game has been changed into the Ways of Life system. Throughout a campaign, performing certain deeds will earn you Titles, which are divided into five categories - Brave, Resourceful, Benevolent, Villainous and Other. Obtaining a combination of Titles will promote you to a new Way of Life. The most basic Way of Life is Ordinary Man and you can continue earning new Ways of Life as you go down the tier list, with some Ways of Life being harder to earn than others and some only being obtainable by either male or female characters (due to their respective Titles being earned the same way).

Take note that you can only earn Ways of Life going down the tier list; you can't earn those that are above the tier or in the same tier you are already on. For example, if you earn Raging Commander (Tier 2) from Ordinary Man (Tier 0), then you can't earn Many Faceted General, General Amid Chaos, Loyal Warrior or Calm Traitor (which are all Tier 1). If you earn High Spirited Commander (Tier 15), then you can't also earn Undefeated Veteran (also Tier 15). You can aim for a specific Way of Life down the list and earn other Ways of Life on the way to it, but you'll want to be careful not to do things that will lead to you getting a Way of Life that you didn't aim for.

Also tied into this is the Virtue system, which can increase or decrease based on the actions you take in a campaign and lead to you being either good or evil depending on which direction you go. The exact Virtue value is not shown, but Level 1 Virtue is from 1,000 and Level 2 Virtue is from 3,000 in either direction. The maximum Virtue value is 9,999 in both directions.

At the end of a campaign, you can save your CAW's Way of Life and the four favourite stratagems that they used (outside of the two provided by their ability type). You can also set Ways of Life for other CAWs in Edit Mode as you earn them in Empire Mode.

Ways of Life will dictate a character's Virtue and how they behave when they are an NPC in Empire Mode. It also determines the stratagies and stratagems that playable and generic officers can perform, whether you play as that character or you have that officer in your kingdom. There are a total of 55 Ways of Life in 36 tiers.

Under Personnel, when promoting/appointing officers as a Ruler, you can assign up to 9 subordinates to your Prefects and give them more than one territory for their postings. This game also gives you the option to step down as Ruler, something that wasn't implemented in the last one. Speaking of which, Vagabond Units can have up to 10 officers including yourself, but you're limited to deploying eight officers in battle when you raise your banner.

Skirmishes from the last game have been split into Raids and Quests. In Raids, three officers including yourself are deployed onto a battlefield and the minimum requirement for a Raid to be successful is to occupy the enemy's secondary camp, though it's likely you'll continue to occupy the enemy's main camp anyway.

Quests are only available when you're a free officer, a vagabond unit leader or an ordinary officer/lieutenant in a kingdom. Each territory will have numerous quest battles you can choose from. The various types of quest battles are exterminations, suppressions, rescues, escorts, guardings, defences, raidings, infiltrations and assassinations. Each type of quest battle has numerous tiers going up to 6-star difficulty, and completing the 6-star quests will give you a special event after it. Honestly, even if I'm playing as a ruler, I wish I could still be able to do some quests.

When you're an officer in a kingdom, your ruler will set an invasion target and the month in which it will happen. If you choose not to fight in that invasion, then nothing will happen, the game claiming that "the military gains from the battle were lacking". Unlike the last game, your kingdom can't seem to invade other territories without you and if you're a ruler, you can't just send your subordinates into battle and hope for the best - you actually have to play the invasion battle, even if it's someone other than yourself.

During an invasion battle, you can choose to withdraw after occupying the secondary camp and it will still count as a successful raid. If the area you're invading has a ruler or a prefect (or you're playing in Free Mode), then the victory condition is to defeat the commander, which would be the ruler or the prefect, otherwise you just have to occupy the enemy main camp. If there's an enemy commander, then you have to be the one to defeat them, unlike the last Empires game where your allies can do so.

During a defensive battle, if your secondary camp is occupied and you manage to hold out until the time limit expires or you withdraw, it will result in a narrow victory (辛勝), where your territory won't be taken but it will suffer damage and your allies may be captured.

Initially, defensive battles were 5 minutes long. After some updates, they became 90 minutes long like invasions, but if you manage to cut the enemy's troop strength by half, you will have the option to end the battle there or continue on to take the enemy main camp. Even if you decide to withdraw after that, you'll still claim the victory. Honestly though, there was no need to extend defensive battles to 90 minutes. 30 minutes would have been good enough.

If you're above the officer rank and there is a vagabond unit in your territory or kingdom, you can set out to subjugate them and it'll basically be the same as an invasion battle.

The marriage system receives an overhaul in this game as it now allows married couples to... have children. How is babby formed? By combining the features, armour and moveset settings of the two parent officers. At some point after you get married, there will be an event which shows you and your spouse living in complete marital bliss. 6 months later, you will receive a report that your child has been born (never mind the fact that the mother's probably been in a few battles during this time). You'll find out your child's gender and you can give them a name. It's only 24 months after that your child CAW is generated and ready to head out into battle. If you want to make sure that the child you want has the right features, you can save a month before that and load from that save if you're unhappy with the result. Better than giving your baby plastic surgery, I suppose.

Just as you're unable to divorce or remarry in this game, you can only have one child per campaign, regardless of whether they end up dying somehow. Given how your vagabond unit can have up to 10 people, with your spouse, sworn siblings and child, if you decide to rebel, I think it would be great if you could have up to four children in one playthrough. Here's how I would implement it - if you want to have a baby with your spouse, then you just need to interact with them (specifically that, who would want to have sex with their spouse every time you have a battle or a banquet) to raise their friendship level from S to SS. That will then lead to the complete marital bliss event and things can go from there. Once your child CAW is generated, you can repeat this process up to four times. That way, you can choose not to have a child if you don't want to, unlike how this game forces you into having a child every time you get married.

At the end of a campaign, you can save your child CAW, but the information regarding their parents isn't saved. Kind of makes sense if your character ends up marrying someone else in another campaign - it'd be a pain to record half-sibling lines.

The town roaming system has been removed and the Blacksmith, Item Shop and Academy are the only shops available in this game. Items and stratagems are tied to territories and how many Item Shops and Academies you have in your kingdom, whether they're stacked in one place or spread out to different territories. Some basic stratagems are available without requiring any Academies to be built, but it's not like you needed to know that because characters may have them by default.

The weapons available at the Blacksmith are dependent on what characters are in your kingdom/vagabond unit. Having X amount of Blacksmiths will allow you to purchase weapons up to X rank. Only normal weapons can be purchased, including the DLC weapons from the main game. The rare unique weapons are obtained as rewards from quests, gifts from subordinates or family or rare random drops when you defeat officers using Musou/Rage Attacks or Fire/Ice/Thunder Strike stratagems.

Weapon attributes are fixed and cannot be changed. The lowest level weapons that have attributes are fourth-rank weapons with one attribute at Level 2, with the highest level normal weapon being sixth-rank advanced weapons with five attributes at Level 8 (the new weapons in this game only go up to three attributes at Level 6). The strongest weapon, a six-star unique weapon, has five attributes at Level 10 and a special attribute to make six. There are three copies of each weapon to allow for Heaven, Earth and Man affinities.

Characters can equip one saddle/collar for animals (including DLC animals from the main game) along with six items. The Dragon's Spleen, which gives you an extra Musou Gauge, becomes useless once your character goes past Level 24 because the game locks you to three Musou Gauges max. Some items are also obtained after completing 5/6 star quests.

The stratagem system has also received an overhaul from the last game. Up to six stratagems can be carried into each battle. A new Stratagem Gauge has been introduced, starting off with 4 units before maxing out to 8 units at Level 32. Basic stratagems, consisting of the categories Battle, Construction, Recover, Leadership and Strategy, can be reused after a cooldown time when you have enough units to do so.

Large Scale stratagems are similar to the last game's implementation as they can be used once per battle, whether by you, your allies or the enemy. Activating a Large Scale Stratagem requires 1-3 allies to temporarily withdraw and that many bases to be defended for a preparation time of 60 or 120 seconds (Repair All is 20 seconds). If the officer activating the stratagem is defeated or any of the required bases are occupied, the stratagem will fail and cannot be used again for the rest of the battle. Some Large Scale stratagems can cause damage to the entire battlefield or can buff the abilities of all your allies. Some stratagems may be more effective depending on the weather effects, which can also be altered by constructing altars.

Aside from fortifying bases, whether by levelling them up or changing them to supply/offensive/defensive bases, you can also use bonus points to equip yourself with special items before starting a battle. A note - the Gold Inlaid Urn costs 500 points and it supposedly boosts (doubles) the amount of Bonus Points you earn, but when playing normal battles, you only really get 200-400 points back when using it, so there's diminishing returns where that's concerned.

Regardless, thanks to the Bonus Points being easier to earn, you can easily begin new scenarios with all your weapons, items, stratagems and even all fixed policies/strategies. You can even begin with up to 50,000 initial resources or with an initial level of up to 50. Bonus Points can also be used in the Settings to prepurchase weapons, items and stratagems for all campaigns. You only need like hundreds of thousands of Bonus Points to get them all instead of playing multiple campaigns.

Pressing Select/Options during the Strategy phase allows you to do a quick save, which will be overridden every time you do it. You can also load your game from the quick save.

Free Mode is finally back after being absent since 6E, allowing you to play invasions or defensive battles with whatever combinations of officers. Invasions also allow you to add up to eight reinforcement defenders who will come in when enemy officer troop levels are low.

You can also play any quests you have played in Empire Mode, but keep in mind that a lot of the time you'll be fighting against unit commanders. Guarding and infiltration missions take place in the main game's Xuchang map while assassination missions take place in the main game's Luoyang map.

Raid Scenarios are a new addition in later updates of this game. These are extremely hard challenges that, despite the stated reward of 500-1500 Bonus Points, can easily earn you thousands of Bonus Points, especially when used with the Gold Inlaid Urn (the only mode where using it doesn't give you diminishing returns).

Dauntless Conqueror (万夫不当) requires you to defeat the enemy commander while defending your main camp.

Enemies Abound (四面楚歌) requires you to occupy all enemy bases while defending your main camp. Occupying highlighted bases and defeating highlighted officers allows allied reinforcements to arrive.

Swift As Lightning (電光石火) is the same as Dauntless Conqueror, but you start off with two minutes and you extend your time by defeating enemies and occupying bases. Defeating an enemy officer or every 200 enemies gives you 20 seconds, while occupying an enemy base gives you 80 seconds.

Elusive Knave (神出鬼没) requires you to defend your bases from the enemy for 15 minutes. You start off with two bases and two other allies, but if you occupy an enemy base, that adds to the number of bases you have to defend (but you can't occupy the enemy main camp). Enemy reinforcements will arrive periodically, but if you enter the highlighted base when the notification appears, you can stop them from arriving.

Persistence Pays Off (臥薪嘗胆) is similar to Elusive Knave, but you're given 20 minutes, three bases (other than your main camp) and three other allies and you can take the enemy's main camp. Every so often, an enemy officer will appear to raid each of your bases. If you manage to defeat two of them or hold out for a certain amount of time (you can lure enemy officers away), the raid will end and the remaining enemy officers will be weakened enough for you to be defeated easily. The defeat condition is if you have less than three allied bases not including the main camp. I assume you have to defend your main camp as well and I wish that was made clear, because just saying "three allied bases" is confusing when you actually start off with four.

Raid Scenarios are notoriously difficult because the enemies hit hard and you're only limited to Level 50. The Japanese wiki says that they are all equivalent to Chaos difficulty, but I would argue that it's more equivalent to Ultimate difficulty from 8XL because every enemy officer has hyper aura. Swift As Lightning is the only scenario I could conceivably do with just a high level weapon and Red Hare (no cheats or trainers) because the difficulty is more equivalent to Hard/Chaos, plus enemy officers aren't in hyper mode. The lack of weapon customisation is also a detriment to playing this mode.

Now then, onto Edit Mode now and you are able to create 17 groups of 50 CAWs, making for a total of 850. With a total of 811 playable and generic officers able to be replaced, you could replace every officer in this game (with or without playable officers) and still have some space left for your own CAWs. 5 officers from XL are not included in this game and they are Yu Ji (8XL calls him Gan Ji), He Ping (miraculously, he's not in the Encyclopedia in 8XL but he is in the bodyguard list under Wei between Ge Yong and Han Ying with the skill Allied Charge), Sima You (Sima Zhao's second son and Sima Shi's adopted son), Cao Mao (from Wei Emperor's Last Stand) and Zhuangzi (aka 南華老仙). Groups can also be renamed if you so wish.

Take note that you need at least 300 officers to create a scenario or play the A Gathering of Heroes scenario, so if you turn off Common Officers (generics) in the Appearing Officer Settings, you might get a message saying that you don't have enough appearing officers. If you do have enough CAWs for this (and even if you include playable/famous officers you need at least 217), make sure that Replace Famous Officers and Replace Common Officers under Created Character Settings are set to None.

When CAWs replace officers, they take on that officer's name regardless of whatever name you set for them, but you can name them the same as that officer if you like (Asian versions let you instantly name CAWs after anyone in the officer list, same as in 7E). Officer replacements are not reflected in Free Mode or the test battle, so it might get a bit confusing if you randomise the officer list for invasions and defensive battles.

Combine Customizations in the menu is basically how children are created in this game, and you can use it in Edit Mode to create randomised combinations of any two edit characters, whether male or female. Selecting None for gender randomly picks one of the two.

When creating officers, you can now press Select to randomise your character, and by that I mean give it a random design that's been pre-defined so it's not truly random. There is a Preset setting under Face that has the randomised faces, though frankly, that should have been moved up a level so people can select one of the pre-defined designs if they want to.

When defining moveset settings, the settings for the Musou Attacks are now independent of each other, so you can give CAWs two regular or alternate Musous along with an aerial Musou. Rage Attacks are also defined here as well.

An idea I had for this game was that when you had a weapon that was part of a previously cloned moveset, you could splice the two EX Attacks from different officer movesets. For example, for the Sword, you could splice Cao Cao's C1 EX with Sima Zhao's C3 EX. For the Twin Swords, you could splice Lu Xun's C3 EX with Liu Bei's C4 or C5 EX. For the Rapier, you could splice Yuan Shao's C4 EX with Sima Shi's C2 EX. The only downside I can see would be for other cloned weapons like the Spear, Iron Fan or Feather Fan; in 7, most characters with those weapons had their EX Attack spun off from the C3, so if this system were implemented in this game, they would be stuck with Ma Chao, Xiaoqiao or Zhuge Liang's C6 EX.

I also wish there were different Musou variants as well, like Ding Feng's regular Musou with and without the Gloves, Pang De's Musous from 7XL when he had the Twin Axes, or Daqiao's Musous from when she had the Iron Fan.

Movesets can be directly mirrored from characters as well, but the problem is when you want the old movesets from the characters that have had their weapons changed because they aren't in the list, so you would have to set them manually.

All the costumes and armours from 7E, whether they were preloaded or DLC, are included as standard in this game. A lot of costumes had originally been carried over from 6E, plus there's a bunch of costumes that originally came from in 4E/5XL/Online Z. A fan has made a website containing all the edit parts for CAWs available in Edit Mode, including DLCs and edit parts for banners, warhorses and soldiers. The amount of effort that has gone into making that site, which also contains a random warrior name generator made in JavaScript, is absolutely autistic and I, for one, love and appreciate it.

Like with 7E, guest officers and units can appear in your Empire Mode campaign if you're connected online and you can also upload and download officers. At the same time, you can also save or load individual characters from your save data. This is a big game changer for PC gamers because by saving character data to your computer, you can easily share it with others. The only downside is that you can save a maximum of 30 CAWs at a time when each group can contain 50, so if you want to back up all your CAWs, you might want to create subfolders for them or annotate the save files (just make sure that when you import them back, the filename is in the format EditBushouSaveXX.dat, where XX is a two-digit number between 00 and 29).

For the English version, there is a website called Another Side of History where people have submitted their CAW data for this game. For the Chinese version, Gamersky has a bunch of CAW saves along with a system save from someone who created 700 generic officer replacements and original characters. Trying to recreate characters between versions was a tiring process involving creating them from scratch and following the settings from one version because the save data isn't compatible between versions, but that's on me.

I honestly wish Koei Tecmo created a Windows program that would allow people to create CAW saves, compatible with the English, Chinese and Japanese versions of the game, using dropdown boxes without having to fire up the game or go back and forth between menus every time. Maybe that way people could easily convert CAWs between versions as well.

On the PS3, you can import officer data from the Edit Mode Demo/Free Alliances Version of this game or from 7E on top of officer data from this game. Unless you select to import your 7E system data when you create the save data for this game on first startup, generic officer swaps will not be automatically registered.

If you're playing this game on the PS4 or the PS Vita and you want to transfer your 7E CAWs to it, you will need to get the Edit Mode Demo/Free Alliances Version on the PS3 (if not playing the actual game itself), load them to it then upload the save data to the PSN. Then, when you start this game up on the PS4 or the Vita, it will ask you if you want to download your data from the Free Alliances Version, whether from the PSN or on the console itself.

On the PC, Register Officer can now display all CAWs in an Empire Mode campaign save, whether it's your characters, downloaded guest characters or Koei Tecmo-created characters from the DLC scenarios. The console versions just limit it to visiting officers like 7E.

Edit Mode also allows you to create custom banners, warhorses and soldiers. For banners and soldiers, you can select from 80 symbols, pick a letter/number/symbol to be displayed (yeah, Asian versions do it better because you can put a kanji on it), or you can register your own original image. Original images need to be in JPEG or 24-bit BMP format and ideally, they should be at a size of 1024 x 1024. Why aren't PNG files supported? Why can't I have transparency in my original images? I tried adding an alpha channel to a BMP file to get some kind of transparency but it didn't work. Why not just support PNG files in the first place? Oh, whatever.

Custom scenarios can also be created as well. You can create your own kingdoms, add (update) or remove CAWs from appearing in it and even set the recommended characters. Custom scenarios are saved to your save data/computer so you can share them just as you would CAWs, then by using that data to start a new Empire Mode campaign, they can register your CAWs to their system.

All the voice lines from playable characters, generic officers and CAWs in this game make the case that the Gallery should also have voice line sections for them, like in 6E. For some reason, a bunch of generic officer lines are reused from 7E and I can't tell if any lines from 8XL are in there. The fact that Hisao Egawa was one of the generic officer seiyuus since at least DW4 with no breaks should really be saying something.

As always, there are DLCs available in this game and the costume, BGM and wallpaper DLC packs from the main game are transferable to Empires. New DLC content includes new parts and voice packs for CAWs in Edit Mode, new scenarios for Empire Mode that also recycle the DLC from 7E, and new castle/residence interior packs.

There are three special scenario DLCs that add three new battlefields, Jiangdong (DW4), Hanshui (DW5XL) and Jiange (DW8 Xiahou Ba's Journey), along with their associated event battles.

There are two hairstyle packs among the new DLC edit parts. The first pack contains hairstyles used in SW4, while the second pack contains original hairstyles.

Speaking of the voice packs, 7E had one set of voices preloaded with an extra one available as DLC, while 8E has two sets of voices preloaded with two more sets available as DLC. Each of the DLC voice packs will have the same voice lines as one of the preloaded voice packs (not the exact same one as its counterpart), just with a different seiyuu. Also, I'm pretty sure this is the first time that Koei Tecmo haven't gotten any of the seiyuu voicing playable characters to voice any edit packs. Considering how CAWs can be transferred from 7E, I would have hoped that the voice packs from that game were reused, even if some lines need to be recorded or rerecorded, but since I mostly played 8E before 7E, I prefer the voices in this game better.

As I've said before, demos are available for this game. Japan had an Edit Mode Demo for this game, then a Free Alliances Version was released worldwide, replacing the Edit Mode Demo for the PS3 and PS4 (it is still available on Xbox One).

In the Edit Mode Demo, the DLC movesets from the main game were the only ones that weren't available for CAWs, plus you couldn't create custom units or scenarios. It was really for you to create CAWs and test them before you transferred them over to the actual game.

The Free Alliances Version gives you the option to play invasions and defensive battles in Free Mode. Edit Mode, however, is limited; you're limited to a maximum of 4 groups for 200 CAWs, plus the weapons you can use or set are limited to the ones originally belonging to characters whose EX weapons were changed in this game along with 21 other playable characters. You're also limited to 14 armour sets and one voice set for both males and females along with 8 maps for Free Mode. Everything else is unlockable by purchasing DLC.

They made a freemium demo for a retail game.

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Given how the Free Alliances Version serves as the only demo for this game in the West and is also meant to allow you to transfer your CAWs from 7E to the PS4 or Vita, what happens when one of your CAWs has a part that isn't available because it's locked behind DLC? Frankly, Koei Tecmo shouldn't have bothered with the Free Alliances Version and just made the Edit Mode Demo available in the West. At least then you would have all the CAW parts without needing to purchase DLC, which if you bought them all, would end up costing more than if you just bought the actual game in the first place. And people wouldn't need to buy DW8E on the PS3 via PSN just to transfer their data.

So anyway, what's the localisation situation like for this game? Like 7E, it was localised with Japanese voices and English subtitles. I'm sure this has happened in 7E as well because Rubicon Solutions was involved in the translation, but some of the battle messages have really strange grammar and wrongfully-interpreted context:

(when an officer is defeated) "(officer) is temporarily withdrawing due to (character)!"

(when you defeat an officer to prevent a stratagem from occurring) “(name) prevented due to (stratagem)’s defeat!”

(you successfully raid an enemy) “Captured the secondary camp! Successfully raided the (allied forces)!”

(you invite someone to join your kingdom, but they decline) “You declined the offer from (name).”

(an enemy admires your skill in battle) “(player) has taken an interest in (enemy, blue text)’s struggle!”

If you have a CAW on the enemy side with the Pure 1 voice, their encounter line is translated as their "grateful for assistance" line. Nuff said.

Also, the officer lists in this game aren't actually sorted by alphabetical order. The officers are grouped by the starting characters of their surnames and they can be filtered by force, but they're actually grouped by how their names are pronounced in Japanese according to gojūon (五十音) order. Conversely, in the vanilla game and XL, the officer biographies in the Encyclopedia are sorted in alphabetical order, but the Change Bodyguard lists are not. They're not even sortable by cost (check). Hey, surely you people know how primary and foreign keys in databases work, right?

Here's the kicker. When this game was initially announced 3 November 2014, Koei Tecmo stated through a Tweet reply stated that this game would also be localised with English voices and dual audio options. Over two weeks later on 20 November 2014, Chin and Koei Tecmo issued a correction stating that the game would actually not be dubbed.

Going into conspiracy brain mode here to say that I don't believe that this wasn't a deliberate attempt by Chin and Koei Tecmo to create ragebait. There is no way that Koei Tecmo let this piece of misinformation out in the open for 2-3 weeks and nobody within the company pulled them up for it earlier. Putting aside the fact that no other explanation was made as to why this game, or other games, weren't dubbed, no retraction or statement to say "we jumped the mark" was made within two days of that announcement (and I'm being generous here); no, it had to be made over two weeks after that when Chin had a "stressful" week of all excuses. I should point out that Chin followed this Tumblr after I tagged him in a couple of early posts for the Koei Warriors Rant Series.

The main problem I had wasn't with Koei Tecmo not dubbing this game - DW Empires games are mostly made up of generic lines and there's no story to them unlike the main games - but the way in which they handled this pissed off a significant amount of fans including myself. No, my main problem with this was how the fans, specifically sub fans, reacted to this news.

Back in 2014, Koei and Tecmo's Facebook pages were separate. In September 2016, the Koei page was merged into the Tecmo page, resulting in the former page being deleted and the latter page becoming its current title, Koei Tecmo Games. When the announcement was made on the Koei Facebook page (which is now obviously deleted), selfish sub fans were actually celebrating this, saying that it was good news that the game wasn't dubbed. That made me so angry that after finishing an instalment of the Rant Series stating my thoughts on the news, I quickly began writing another instalment calling out a number of these disgraceful comments and also giving my thoughts on other comments.

Just wanted to give a shoutout to old mate eonflamewing for their replies on the latter instalment. Their Tumblr has been deactivated and there's been no other activity on their other socials for the past few years, but eonflamewing called me out for being inconsiderate by posting comments with people's names and profile pictures uncovered because I wanted them to be held accountable for their comments (and also, the comments were posted on a public social media post and there was no other identifiable information that would have constituted doxing), then when I justified my position to them, they actually had the gall to say that I owed them courtesy and respect when neither they nor the sub fans earned or deserved it. But what else could you expect from someone who said "I hope Xun Yu doesn't get dubbed" in the tags of a post sharing the game's announcement before responding to my post?

This was a watershed moment for me and the Koei Warriors Rant Series as I got to see the true face of Koei Tecmo and their fanbase. Now this might strike some readers as harsh, but I believe everyone involved in this story should commit seppuku.

Although this game was only released in the West digitally for the PS3 and the Vita due to the lack of an English dub and the impending death of those consoles, there exists an English physical release for the Vita in Asian regions.

Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires was enjoyable, despite the way Rubicon Solutions screwed up the localisation or the way that Koei Tecmo handled their misinformation. Unfortunately though, despite the improved CAW system, the changes that were made since 7 Empires have made this game tedious to play for long periods of time; invasions and defensive battles have to have your participation otherwise your army just gives up. The fact that the Musou and Rage Gauges take so damn long to fill up in this game doesn't help either. Also, on PC, the game crashes when I'm playing for long periods of time and I haven't saved in a while.

Dynasty Warriors Godseekers

Dynasty Warriors Godseekers (真・三國無双英傑伝) Platforms: PlayStation 3 (Japan only), PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4 Release dates: Japan: 3 August 2016 USA: 31 January 2017 (digital only) Europe: 1 February 2017 (digital only)

So, yeah, Godseekers. This was a thing.

As you can see on the Japanese cover I used for that game (I used the Vita cover because I couldn't find a matching PS4 cover), Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires, by virtue of its Western releases and the PC/Vita ports, celebrated the 15th anniversary of Dynasty Warriors 2's release, and thus the 15th anniversary of Shin Sangoku Musou, along with the 30th anniversary of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, the games that ended up inspiring the Empires games in the first place. And then somehow, Koei Tecmo decided to announce this game as another anniversary title. Bit late for that, don't you think?

(You could also make the argument that this game celebrates the 15th anniversary of Dynasty Warriors 3, but then we'd be here all day counting anniversaries and I've done enough of that in my personal project as it is.)

This game is apparently similar to or a successor to the Eiketsuden series of games that were released in Japan for the PC during the the late-90s, both based on Three Kingdoms China or Sengoku era Japan. It's also been compared to Dynasty Tactics (三國志戦記), which, along with Eiketsuden, are action-focused turn-based games, like how ROTK is a strategy-focused turn-based game series. With the Eiketsuden games never seeing a release in the West, you'd think this game would get an English name that reflects its title, something like Dynasty Warriors Heroic Legends?

They named it fucking Godseekers.

I sneered at the name when I first saw it back in late-2016, and now that I've actually played the game over eight years later, let me tell you why I think that name is so pretentious; the only "god" in this game, Lixia, is part of the main party and what they are "seeking" are actually her balls- I mean, her orbs. Godseekers implies that there are other gods to be sought when there actually aren't.

Anyway, the characters for this game. Joining Zhao Yun in the main party (because of course he's the main character) are original childhood friend protagonist Lei Bin (雷斌) and "god", or rather, mystic Lixia (黎霞).

Most of the characters from DW8E return (with their weapons from that game) with a significant number of cuts mostly pertaining to characters debuting in newer games or outside the game's timeline:

Wei: Pang De, Cai Wenji, Wang Yi

Wu: Ding Feng

Shu: Yueying, Xingcai, Liu Shan, Guan Suo, Bao Sanniang

Jin: Zhuge Dan, Zhong Hui, Xiahou Ba, Guo Huai, Jia Chong, Wen Yang, Zhang Chunhua

Other: Zhang Jiao, Meng Huo, Zhurong, Zuo Ci

A total of 20 characters are cut in this game.

The timeline of this game begins just after the Yellow Turban Rebellion and loosely follows the story of Liu Bei's forces up to right after the capture of Chengdu. They also join up with Sun Jian, Sun Ce and even Cao Cao for a bit as well. As such, the decision to retain certain characters is interesting, such as the Sima kids, the Shubabies and Jiang Wei. Add Lu Xun and Zhu Ran to that list and you've easily got 10 more characters that could also have been cut.

As you play through the game, there are three types of battles that can be played; there are story battles, free battles (of which each battlefield has three) and Mirror of Bonds/Path of Destiny battles. Some characters are unlocked as you play through the story and many characters will come and go until they are actually unlocked. The characters playable in story battles are largely fixed, particularly Zhao Yun and Lei Bin, which is why they end up with higher levels at the end of the game than everyone else (and also why they can't swap starting positions with anyone else in your party during story battles).

Mirror of Bonds/Path of Destiny, which is introduced from the third chapter onwards, is the key to unlocking most characters in this game. Characters' paths are unlocked as you pass through the story and each time you fulfil certain conditions (clear a particular scenario, deploy a character a certain amount of times, unlock another character, activate synchro between characters, have this much amount of gold/weapons, have this character above a certain level), you can unlock a new event for that character. Take note that certain characters' paths affect or are affected by those of other characters, so sometimes if you fulfil the unlock conditions, some events may not be unlocked until you reach a certain point in another character's path, which for some characters can only happen after starting a New Game+.

Playing the events gives you rewards like gold, skill points and items, plus completing each character's path will unlock their wallpaper. Mirror of Bonds/Path of Destiny battles are also unlockable and it's either through this or completing their path that will allow you to unlock their character.

At the merchant, you can buy and sell items and weapons. You can also temper weapons to upgrade their attack strength, or reforge two weapons, which is really just Weapon Fusion from 8XL. Both of these cost exorbitant amounts of gold. Up to 1200 weapons can be collected in this game and characters are limited to using their EX weapons from 8E. Weapons can have four attributes out of 13, among them 6 elemental attributes and an attribute that adds to characters' mobility.

Up to three items can be equipped to each character to take into battle. They can be used to recover health or Musou, buff attack/defense/speed or remove elemental debuffs.

The Bagua Spring/Skill Tree is where you can use characters' skill points to buff their stats and unlock skills that can enhance your skills during battle. With the amount of skills that can be unlocked and the amount of points required to unlock all of them, this is a better implementation of skill points compared to DW7. Up to three skills can be equipped per character.

Up to five characters can be in your party for each battle, though some story battles may enforce having less characters. You can decide what position each of them can start in before starting a battle.

During battle, each character can choose from three options; attack, defend or use an item. Characters have 8 energy at the start of each battle. Each of their attacks (which are named and correspond to four out of six of their Charge Attacks plus three Musous) costs energy to perform and they each have their own effects and areas of effect. Characters recover 3 energy at the start of their turn. If you select the same move multiple times in a row, the move will be performed once but will deal as much damage you give them.

At the top of the screen is a gauge that fills up as you perform attacks. Once the gauge is full, it's morphin' Synchro time. Once you have your required characters ready in the character's Synchro Area (each character has a different type and with it, a different Synchro Area formation), you activate the Synchro Mode/Resonance sequence. Each character within the Synchro Area recovers 5 energy and can prepare their attacks as normal. Even characters who had previously moved during the current turn can move again. Once your other characters are ready, the last unit you set attacks for will decide the location of the final Synchro Attack. For this, you just need to set the centre of a 3x3 grid to anywhere within five spaces in any direction of that character's location; if you set the centre of the 3x3 grid to the edge of the selectable area and there are enemies outside of the area, they will be targeted by the final Synchro Attack as well.

Once you've confirmed everything, each character will perform their set attacks, then they will come together for the Synchro Attack. As each character performs their Rage Attack loops on the enemies in the selected grid, you can spam Circle (Japan/Asian versions)/Cross (Western versions) to add a damage bonus of 20% per character in the attack, then they will finish it off with their Rage finishers.

A lot of times, particularly when your characters are at higher levels, you'll gain enough Synchro/Resonance Charge to be able to do another one in the next turn, if not another character in the same turn if you didn't bring your entire party into it. So even spinoffs can't help being easier the more you play it.

During story battles there will be times when the story wants you to use the power of Lixia's orbs in a particular area. They're just scripted events that are there to move the story. It's not like you can use the orbs in other battles to rain down fire and fury on enemies.

In the options, you can set to see the attacks happening from a bird's eye view, or from a normal view like the main games (even though it's only you performing attacks next to enemy spaces). You can also set to skip the attacks from from NPCs or everyone. The Synchro Mode attack sequence can be skipped as well, but do note that it will skip the damage bonus sequence as well.

In the end, you'll fight Chiyou (蚩尤), who was resurrected after the five orbs are brought together; it turns out that Chiyou scattered his body into the orbs and used his heart to possess Lixia upon his defeat a long time ago and the Yellow Emperor sealed her because he had no way to separate them. The party puts up a good fight against Chiyou, but they are unable to stop him; Lixia, who had managed to regain control, uses her power to recreate the world, but without herself in it, sacrificing herself to defeat Chiyou. And so, the reset button has been pressed.

After the game's final cutscene, you'll be able to play the New Game+ by reloading from the cleared save file. In New Game+, you'll be able to go to all the unlocked locations and freely replay story battles and Mirror of Bonds/Path of Destiny battles. Of course, you'll maintain all your weapons, items, character growth and Mirror of Bonds/Path of Destiny progress, plus you'll unlock the Ultimate (not Chaos) difficulty for battles, where every enemy is on the maximum level of 100, but you'll be able to gain 5 times the skill points and a lot of weapons and items after clearing the battle.

Also, at the end of each chapter in the story, there is an intermission cutscene narrated by Lixia. In New Game+, these intermission cutscenes will be narrated by Lei Bin, and so they alternate each time you start another New Game+ playthrough.

As is the standard with the New Normal Copium, Godseekers was released with Japanese voices only. Back when the game was announced in Japan, I said that this game should receive an English dub, then I stopped giving a shit after I saw the Western launch trailer and realised how forced the release and localisation of this game felt to me. And then Jerz, a #KTFamily YouTuber, came out and said this:

Back then, I used to watch Jerz's Let's Plays of Dynasty Warriors 8, but seeing him post that made me lose my respect for him. Koei Tecmo didn't even announce the localisation status of the game when that trailer was posted and he just assumed that people were complaining about the game not being dubbed when there was no confirmation of it at the time. And that's not even going into how much of a heartless #KTFamily shill this made him look. Frankly, according to tmma1869, a good friend of the Rant Series, more people were hating this game because it wasn't Dynasty Warriors 9. If this were any other Warriors game I would have told Jerz to have some empathy.

"But Koei Tecmo didn't have to localise this game! We should be grateful that they're even localising this game! If you keep complaining about games not being dubbed then Koei Tecmo might just decide not to localise their games in the West at all!" Yeah, throughout my time doing these rants, I've seen arguments like these being parroted by opinion-neutral fans, aka in this context, fans who don't care about how games are localised and naturally veer toward the sub side of the localisation spectrum. These people do not understand how corporations work (as much as I didn't back then).

Even if Koei Tecmo were to stop publishing games to the West, or even go bankrupt altogether, it'll be because of other factors (mostly relating to their main Japanese branch) and not just because of me or fans in the "vocal minority" who complained about games not being dubbed. And if it actually was because of them, it'd just make Koei Tecmo look like pussies for not being able to take criticism. Koei Tecmo shamelessly continuing to exist as they are is the best outcome for everyone, much as I hate to say it.

Hey, unpopular opinion, but fans in the "vocal minority", including myself, ARE grateful that the games are being dubbed. We wanted official explanations as to why some games weren't dubbed. We wanted Koei Tecmo to localise their games with dual audio options in Japanese and English. And most importantly, we wanted Koei Tecmo and their fanbase to do better. We complain about things because we are fans and we want things to be better, and fuck anyone who doesn't think we're "real fans" just because we do, that we should just suck it up and accept whatever slop Koei Tecmo is feeding us Western fan dogs.

"But Koei Tecmo doesn't owe you anything!" True, but we don't owe Koei Tecmo anything either. Corporations are not your friends, even if they make something you like.

And by the way, Chin Soon Sun (inspchin) announced his resignation from Koei Tecmo Europe in November 2016. As much as I respected his work for the fanbase, I couldn't help but say "good riddance" when I heard the news.

That being said, Dynasty Warriors Godseekers is an alright game. It is a bit challenging at the start of the first playthrough, but as you continue playing on Easy, you'll eventually get to the point where it's easy enough that you can sweep away enemies in one hit, just like Dynasty Warriors 8. I almost couldn't play the first level of this game until an RPCS3 update fixed the issue with this game constantly crashing on it.

Apparently, development on this game started in 2015 as Omega Force wanted to create a game in a different genre than the usual hack-and-slash action format. Also, is it just me, or does this game feel like it could have been a mobile game?

So if this game was developed during 2015-16, then this supports the theory I had about this game being forced out (in its release and localisation) during the midst of a creative slump/burnout; from my counts, Omega Force had 37 releases and ports out of 15 games in the Koei Warriors series (expansions merged together) during 2011-2014. Probably explains why this game was only released digitally in the West, even on the PS4. They didn't bother with the PS3 at this point because it's a dead platform and everyone's focused on the PS4.

Honestly, as fine as the game was, I think Koei Tecmo should have put their efforts into developing a new mainline instalment. Same goes for when they released DW Advance, Mahjong, DS: Fighter's Battle, Samurai Warriors Katana and Warriors All-Stars, which we'll get to soon enough. They didn't need to be chasing trends and clout all the bloody time.

I don't talk about mobile games (or online games for that matter) in this retrospective series and one reason is because they are usually live service games and the damn things go offline when the developers want to move onto something else. Sometimes developers do make sure that the games can be playable offline (like Doctor Who Legacy), but other times, all that would be left are content made by fans, including let's plays, walkthroughs and wikis.

During DW8's generation, Koei Tecmo collaborated with mobile game developers and publishers to release several Dynasty Warriors mobile games based on modern era games. These included Blast, Unleashed, SLASH and Blazing Battles (there's also the 100man-nin social game series, but that was mostly for Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi).

I want to briefly talk about Unleashed for a minute because I want to mention a quick something. Dynasty Warriors was developed by the Korean-based NEXON and hence, it was released with Japanese and Korean dubbing. Back in the Rant Series days, I asked NEXON on the game's Facebook page if they would consider implementing English dubs, and the reply I got was basically, "We'll think about it." That game only lasted until 2020-2022 and no English dub was ever implemented. Oh, how naive I was.

And another thing - speaking of calling out Koei Tecmo and their fanbase for their bullshit, some people might ask if I've ever been banned from their social media because of it, whether directly on their Facebook page or indirectly as a result of my rants. The answer is... no, I never got banned from their pages, but I stopped commenting on their Facebook page towards the end of 2017 because I got sick of trying to change Koei Tecmo or their fanbase when nobody would make an effort or commitment towards doing it.

From my research, I found a couple of people who were banned from Koei Tecmo's official Discord server for criticising their business decisions. Profar was banned for criticising Koei Tecmo's PC ports, specifically the broken graphics on DW8E, while Jotamide was banned for apparently posting the same information about KT charging for changing hairstyles in DOA6 (and even had an opinion-neutral tell him to STFU about it). Even Koei Tecmo's Facebook page isn't that much of an echo chamber.

Yeah, Koei Tecmo's official Discord server is just a #KTFamily shill echo chamber, change my mind. I never posted links to this series on KT's official socials or tagged them in my posts, nor do I have any intention to because let's face it, my "commit seppuku" comment in the 2014 Rant Series pilot would probably have gotten me banned from Koei Tecmo's Discord server instantly if it was a thing back then, let alone my long-winded critical, yet nostalgic rants. I want to hold Koei Tecmo and their fanbase to account, but like I said, why even bother to convince opinion-neutral sheep to change their opinions because the changes you want to see won't affect them?

Sharing the history of the Koei Warriors Rant Series while doing a retrospective of the games that were released a decade ago while I was writing those rants has been as cathartic as it was vindicating. However, we must get back on track next time and go back to Japan, for in the years that DW8's generation was stretched out, there is a game we still haven't covered yet - Samurai Warriors 4.

#dynasty warriors #dynasty warriors 8 #dynasty warriors 8 empires #dynasty warriors godseekers #koei tecmo #koei warriors #koei warriors retrospective

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crinkle-eyed-boo · 2 years ago

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When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass it on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love! 🩷

ILYSM, Marshmallow. Thank YOU for the part you played in all of these <3

Own the Scars - My first baby. Looking back, I can't believe the audacity I had dropping a 145K slow-burn fic where Louis went through rehab as my very first fic in this fandom when I didn't know anyone. 2018 me was BRAVE.

There's Such a Lot of World to See - Claiming a prompt from a fic fest where the admins disappeared into the ether turning into the definition of the whole "write the fic YOU want to read" trope. Doctor!Louis MAY be my fave Louis I've written. (This fic absolutely wouldn't have worked without Maggie's beta work as a non Whovian who was actually VERY GOOD at Doctor Who!)

Let Our Hearts Collide - I'll always be sad this one suffered a bit in the wake of the fandom brouhaha that surrounded that year's Big Bang. I'd wanted to adapt While You Were Sleeping from the moment I got into Larry fic and I'm so proud of how it came out. I think this is my favorite Harry I've written and I loved being able to really dig deeper in regards to his journey.

No Bunny But You - A silly little idea that was inspired by a smoke break outside of my office that both helped me break out of writer's block AND proved to me that despite my initial protestations, I can write something angst free when I put my mind to it.

Mine Would Be You - My entire heart and soul on the page. My love letter to New York City and a rumination and reflection on my 20s. Harry and Louis handing me gift-wrapped material in the form of Fine Line and Walls. Sometimes it still feels like I'm recovering from it, even three years later.

#My fic #28th Appreciation

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jamestkirkish · 3 years ago

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As promised: why i’m freaking out about a 45 year old dad from New Jersey wearing a cheerleader outfit and why i’ve been waiting for him to do this since i was in the 8th grade.

Which is obviously more about me than it is about him/them, being as they’re someone I have never met or spoken to.

But sometime around 2005 or 2006 - and I’m not fact checking myself, so historians feel free to correct - I read something somewhere. I don’t know if it was a quote or a link, if it had been posted on GSB or INO? Like idek if it was before the admins realized they were going to need to make a whole new site. But I know I was about 13 years old and I learned that Gerard Way used to go to art school in full drag.

I was 13 years old and had no idea what was going on. Had never heard the words ‘pansexual’ or ‘nonbinary’. I thought something was wrong with me.

But as far as I was concerned, Gerard Way was the prettiest person I’d ever seen

(honestly it’s still true, and I really don’t mean it in a creepy way, nothing nsfw, just like ... statement of fact)

and I desperately wanted to see Gerard Way as a girl.

And I had been working so hard to come to terms with the fact that I thought I must be bisexual (and that still wasn’t right) and so scared all of the time. Because ‘05/’06 was a lot different than 2022.

And just a couple years before that I had dressed up as a hobo for Halloween. And I was a boy hobo. I’d drawn a beard onto my face with one of my mum’s eyebrow pencils. I posed for a picture as if I was a boy. They hold their bodies differently. And obviously I did a good job because my mum made a big deal about how I looked like a boy, as if it was a bad thing and had me pose again ‘normal’.

Sometimes people called me a tomboy.

I don’t think I’d even heard the word ‘transgender’ yet. But I knew about cross dressing. I knew I wasn’t a boy. I still wanted to look more like a boy. I was trying so hard to be a girl.

Still, I was 13 years old and had no idea what was going on, but I wanted to see Gerard Way in the best damn dress he owned. Because maybe it would make it okay. Whatever was wrong. Because at this point I’d already promised him(myself) that I was going to keep fighting. Be invincible.

I didn’t understand why, if they were fine dressing up for school why they couldn’t now(then). When I already thought they were the bravest person. Much more brave than I could ever be.

It never occurred to me to think about whether Gerard may or may not want to be a girl in any permanent sense. Maybe because I don’t want to be a boy. But I’m not a girl. And since I don’t actually know them, y’know ... projection.

Regardless, ‘Gerard Way needs to wear a dress on stage’ had been something branded into my brain since then.

And he finally did.

This year I came out to my mum as pansexual and nonbinary. This year I finally started dressing like myself again, started trying to look like how I really wanted to look (and feeling weirdly vain and conceited about it).

And fuck - we’re really doing it. I still think they’re the bravest person. So much more brave than I am. But damn I have to keep trying.

So there’s this singer in a rock band who’s 15 years older than me who I’ve not spoken to once in my whole life, but it really feels like we’ve been going on this journey together. And that’s weird, but whatever. I’ve never felt more validated by another human being in my whole life.

#damn i've never gotten so emotional on this website in my life #about #shit i say #one of a million mcr stories in my arsenal #lgbtq #mcr #sulu is texting #my chemical romance #gerard way

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legolasghosty · 2 years ago

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bestie, beloved, how about 5 headcanons (or more) about jatp + extended characters going to a summer camp? 👀

Hello my love!!!!!!

Oh gosh, a summer camp au for summer camp au royalty... No pressure! /lh

Okay I'm basing this roughly off a day camp I went to for a few summers when I was younger, so hopefully it makes sense?

Ray and Rose own and run a kids day camp. Ray mostly handles the admin stuff and Rose does the people and kids stuff. They mightttt have met in college and both wanted to do the same thing and decided to team up, decided they should get legally married cause it would make it way easier to buy the property together, and then fallen for each other as they built the camp.

They had a little wedding ceremony about a year after the camp opened. Everyone was kinda confused cause they either thought they were already married or were confused by the lack of paperwork and an actual person who could legally marry them(Their friend Trevor did the ceremony. The guy is many things but he didn't really have the license for that and it didn't matter).

So the Molinas live at the camp year-round, they have a house on one side of the huge property. Julie and Carlos would mostly be campers in the summer, and Julie started working as a counselor in training (a CIT) once she aged out. Carlos still has a year or two until that happens.

They also rent out various spaces around the camp for events and retreats and stuff during the off-season as well.

Alex came to this camp for a few weeks every summer with a group from his church and always loved it. He stopped going to church after coming out cause... stuff. But the camp still held a special place in his heart, so when he was looking for a summer job and noticed stuff on the camp website about them being LGBTQ+ friendly, he applied to be a counselor.

Reggie really needed a summer job, Luke's mom was demanding he get out of the house or Bobby's garage sometime, and Bobby just wanted to spend the summer with his friends, so they all applied too.

Willie came a few times in middle school when they started doing horse camp, cause it was fun and way easier to ride out in the woods than in LA. They wanted a good summer, so they applied to work with the horses as a riding instructor.

The groups of kids are put with a counselor and a CIT for the week, mostly grouped by age. Julie ends up being Reggie's CIT and they basically switch roles cause she knows the camp better and he's better one on one with the kids that are having a hard time.

Bobby is startled to discover that the Molinas who run the camp are also his dad's friends the Molinas. He and Julie haven't talked much in years, but they reconnect over the summer and have a great friendship!

His CIT, Flynn, is Julie's best friend and an absolute legend with the kids. They all think she's awesome. Every group has a color and Ray makes sure Flynn has the same color for large chunks of the summer cause that way she can braid colored strands into her box braids for her group and doesn't have to change them every single week.

Luke ends up helping Rose with music activities instead of counseling, which is fine by him! Rose got pretty sick a couple of years ago, so while she's mostly recovered now, her family has convinced her to stop doing literally everything herself. So Luke is her assistant for a lot of the music activities.

Alex, after a long conversation with Ray and a couple of lessons, takes one of the groups of horse camp kids. Fortunately he isn't in charge of teaching anyone to ride, just keeping them together and making sure everyone gets lunch and stuff. And the riding instructor his group usually gets paired with is really pretty...

Ray and Rose immediately notice the sparks between Alex and Willie at breakfast in the mornings and start pushing them together on purpose. They're matchmakers :D

The gang quickly bonds and spends as much time as they can hanging out. Mostly that's at breakfast before the kids arrive for the day, but they find other times to hang out in the evenings and stuff too. It doesn't take that long for them to start having regular sleepovers at the Molina's.

The camp mostly runs during the day, but there's a chance for the kids to sleep over one night per week. Technically all the counselors are supposed to stay with their groups in the big circus tent where everyone sleeps, but Rose and Ray tell the gang to go sometimes once all the kids are asleep. They can take care of the kids, let the teenagers go have some fun.

Lots of other chaos ensues but this is already really long so... I guess let me know if you want more?

Dang sorry this got so long! Love youuuu, hope you like it!!!!

(Send me an AU and I'll give you 5+ headcanons/thoughts about it!)

#legolas tag #legolas ask #legolas answers asks #I really hope the day camp concept makes sense #Like where the kids get dropped off in the morning and picked up in the late afternoon?#Idk this is based on a camp I went to when I was younger so...#I promise you stuff like this exists!#Oh gosh I just realized that they would all have camp names....#Dang it this post is too long already!#okay we'll just do it down here #in no particular order #Rose is Petal Pusher #after the band she was in in high school #Ray is Flash #and he always jokes about how he's the slowest man alive with everything other than his camera #Luke is Rush #cause of course he is #Julie is Butterfly #Alex is Sticks #like drumsticks but Willie likes to joke that it's like the river Styx from Greek mythology #Willie is Wheels #which they find hysterical cause they're working with horses #Reggie is Labrador or Lab for short #cause he's a puppy :D #Bobby is Turtle #cause he hard on the outside and soft on the inside :D #Flynn is DJ #cause yes!#okay shutting up now #sorry!!!!!

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quaranmine · 4 years ago

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New World, New Faces

When the hermits moved to their new world, they were excited to welcome two new members. But maybe one is an old friend instead . . .

Grian hasn't seen Pearl since Evo. It's a shock.

No romantic relationships or content warnings. Mainly emotional hurt/comfort, but probably more emphasis on comfort. Hermits: Grian, Pearl, and Mumbo primarily with a little bit of Scar and Xisuma as well. Reblogs appreciated and AO3 link in reblog!

Words: 3893

◑ ━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━ ◐

These days, Grian was pleased to say that the Watcher’s didn’t occupy his mind nearly as often as they used to. Except on certain late nights where he lay in bed and thought of before, his time was mostly spent having fun--scheming, pranking, building, planning, mining, laughing with friends. It wasn’t something he could forget, but the hermits had become his new home, and as years passed the edges of those memories had dulled a bit.

The other times where the Watchers occupied his mind were update days. Since joining hermitcraft, Grian had gone through several updates with the rest of the server. Sometimes they moved to a new world, and sometimes they stayed in their old one. No portals of bedrock ever appeared, but Grian always thought of them just the same. It always felt like maybe, just maybe, one day he’d turn around and see their signature portals once again.

Watchers didn’t always leave portals to update worlds. Grian hadn’t known that until he’d been put to work as a Watcher himself. Oh, the Watchers were still in charge of updating worlds, but they often did it more subtly, without grand towers and quests for portals. It’s hard to retain status as a myth when everyone knows your calling card, afterall. Admins always knew when it was time to update. Grian hadn't, back on Evo, because he’s always been told.

It turned out Evo had been different, and Grian didn’t know how to feel about that. Evo wasn’t the only world to receive special attention from the Watchers, but it was one of their favorites. Why them, though? Why did the Watchers keep such a close eye on their world in particular? Why were they left towers and clues and prizes and punishments, when other servers were mostly left alone?

Why did they kill everyone and kidnap Grian?

◑ ━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━ ◐

Grian stood in a group with the other hermits, eagerly waiting for the move to the new world. He bounced a little in anticipation. He was excited for the new update--he knew very little about its contents, but it seemed like there would be some new building blocks to play with, according to Xisuma.

He already had plans for the new world--new bases and new shenanigans. Grian was excited to build close to his friends. Xisuma had informed them that another update would come in a few months, and for the hermits to stick close in the time being so that new land would be freed up for the coming update. Grian had already known about the second update for a while, as all Watchers do, but he let Xisuma handle all of this as admin. Those days were behind him, now, and there was no reason to start exercising Watcher powers in a world that was carrying on just fine on its own.

“Is everyone ready?” Xisuma shouted over the chatter, trying to do a headcount. “Hey!” he shouted, trying to get everyone’s attention. Slowly, the chatter quieted.

“Looks like it,” said Iskall.

“Good,” Xisuma said. “Now, before we go, I wanted to remind you that we have two new people joining us this time. I’ve already made arrangements with them prior so they’re gonna be waitin’ for us when we go through.” He grinned. “Be on your best behavior for me, alright?”

“I’m always on my best behavior,” Keralis replied, and Xisuma rolled his eyes fondly.

Grian smiled, remembering his welcome to hermitcraft a few years ago. Unlike this time, nobody had been expecting him. Grian hadn’t been invited like these two new hermits had been, he had just been there when the hermits arrived on their new world. None of the other hermits knew quite why he was there, but they’d all accepted him graciously nonetheless.

Grian liked that memory. The truth is, he’d fled the Watchers and picked an uninhabited world at random, not realizing it had already been reserved by Xisuma. That was a failure on his part as a Watcher, because he was supposed to know about stuff like that. But he had been too busy running to worry about it and besides, there was nobody on hermitcraft to punish him.

The hermits had welcomed him with kindness and made him part of their family. Now he’d gladly do the same for these new soon-to-be hermits.

“Okay . . .” Xisuma said, typing something into his admin panel. “I’m just setting up the portal now.”

They were all gathered in the shopping district, right in front of the Town Hall. Grian took his chance to take one last glance around at the world. The diamonds in the trees glittered in the morning light, sending little reflective shards of light scattered on the ground. Moving worlds was always bittersweet, because it meant parting with the things he’d worked hard on and the places he’d made memories at. But it was also one of his favorite things to do, because it gave everyone a blank slate to work with, sparking endless new creativity.

“I wish I could take some of those with me,” chuckled Scar, as he walked up next to where Grian was standing. He pointed at the diamonds.

“Well of course you want them, Mr Mayor!”

“Uh-uh,” Scar said. “I’m not the Mayor anymore! This is a new world.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to see what we get up to in the next one, huh?” Grian asked. “Do you have any plans?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Scar teased.

“I guess I will.”

“Do you have any plans?”

“I don’t know,” said Grian. He thought for a moment. “I might make a cave base. I guess I’m waiting to see what’s out there for inspiration before I start.”

“Well, I look forward to seeing it,” Scar replied. “Oh! It looks like Xisuma is ready.”

Grian looked up, to see X opening a portal. It wasn’t a nether portal, nor was it like an End portal. It wasn’t a Watcher portal either, but an Admin one. Grian had come to realize that Watchers supplied Admins with the means to move into updates on their own when they wanted to. The bedrock portals and scavenger hunts were reserved for their favorite worlds--their toys.

Sometimes the Watchers liked to flex their powers, but the universe is not kept running smoothly if all your time is spent flexing. Grian brushed away the thought, choosing to focus on his friends in front of him instead.

One by one, the hermits stepped through the portal, which swirled light blue and hovered just slightly off the ground. Grian hung back, wanting to be one of the last ones through. He wanted to make sure everyone made it through alright, but Xisuma had to be the very last person, since he needed to close the portal. When it was finally his turn, he gave Xisuma a smile and walked forward.

Grian stepped through, into the bright sunlight of a village, and was surrounded by the voices of his friends.

◑ ━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━ ◐

Spawn was a village in a grassland, next to a swamp and overlooking the ocean. It looked a little plain, but the hermits hadn’t left their mark on the world yet. Behind Grian, Xisuma stepped out into the new world and the portal vanished behind him.

Everybody was crowded around a ditch chattering, apparently exchanging greetings with the two new hermits that stood inside it. Grian held back for a moment, taking it in and basking in the sounds of his friends’ voices. Finally, he wasn’t the new one anymore--a few people had rejoined the server in the last world, but they’d all been old friends, not new ones. That had left him being the most recent addition, not that anything felt like it was recent anymore.

Grian was already thinking of ways to prank the new hermits and draw them into the life of the server.

“Alright Mumbo!” Xisuma said. Grian grinned. Mumbo was supposed to introduce them. Mumbo, of course, didn’t know this, because where’s the fun in that?

“Oh-oh me?”

“It’s go time!” Cleo said.

“This is it!” said Xisuma.

“I’ve clearly very obviously been put up to this,” Mumbo started. “And because everyone thought it’d be much funnier to have me bumble through it without really knowing what I’m talking about, and that is definitely going to be the case!”

The hermits chuckled. Grian walked around the back of the group to try to catch a glimpse of the new people below.

“We do have two new hermits,” Mumbo said, “down in this crevice.”

Grian caught a glimpse of red and brown hair.

“GeminiTay-”

Grian’s world stopped and he felt his breath catch in his throat. She had her back to him, but he’d recognize her anywhere. Her brown hair spilled out from behind a black hoodie.

But she’s dead.

Was this some sort of cruel trick from the universe?

“-and PearlescentMoon.” The rest of the hermits cheered at the announcement, giving the new members a warm welcome. Grian said nothing, his mind spinning a mile a minute.

There was no way it was actually her. The Watchers . . . the Watchers had killed her, and every other Evolutionist. Grian didn’t know why. He would never know why, because with the Watchers it was always “you can’t possibly understand.”And Grian couldn’t. When Grian had finally escaped them, he tried to go back to Evo. It was a foolish attempt, one that would certainly have endangered the lives of anyone there, but nobody had been left there and the buildings were all destroyed and overgrown with vines and Grian had been forced to conclude the heavy truth that all of his old friends were gone.

He didn’t remember what he did after that. He just ran.

Before he could stop himself, the words came tumbling out of his mouth. “Pearl? Is that really you?”

She turned, hearing her name and--it was. It was her. Her hair had blonde highlights around the bangs now, but he’d recognize her anywhere, like her face and the faces of all the other Evolutionists were seared into his brain.

“. . . Grian?”

Grian just stared.

The other hermits had caught onto their mini debacle, and were watching them. “Grian, do you know her?” Mumbo asked.

“Y-yeah, I do,” he stammered.

“Grian?” Pearl shouted, and in an instant had scrambled up the ditch. She stopped in front of him, face pale and eyes wide, like she’d seen a ghost. Maybe he was a ghost, maybe he’d died the day they took him from Evo.

“Pearl,” he whispered.

Suddenly she threw her arms around Grian in a hug and squeezed. “Oh, it’s been so long,” she said, voice muffled.

Grian froze, but slowly reciprocated the hug. He felt numb and like he wanted to cry and scream at the same time, hands shaking, but Pearl’s warm embrace drew him back down to reality.

Pearl pulled away, blinked tears from her eyes and met Grian’s stare. Then, her gaze drifted further down, landing on his folded wings that peaked out just above his shoulders. Tentatively, she reached out to stroke a feather. “What happened to you?” she asked softly.

“I thought you were dead,” Grian said by way of answer.

“Well, I’m not,” Pearl said, and for a moment Grian almost didn’t believe her, and grabbed her wrist tightly, just to see if it was real. Pearl let him. “They took you,” she said.

Grian just looked at the ground, uncomfortably aware of how many people were watching him. Ironic, almost--he didn’t want them watching him so that they wouldn’t know about the Watchers. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the hermits. He did. He’d trust them all with his life a thousand times. He just . . . didn’t want to explain. The hermits were a good bunch. The unspoken rule was that you didn’t ask about anyone’s past unless they spoke first, and Grian knew they’d abide by that for him as well. But he could do without the turned heads.

“Alright everyone!” Xisuma shouted suddenly, startling Grian. “Let’s go, let’s get to work, this season won’t start itself!” Slowly, the hermits began to disperse, branching off into groups. “How’re ya gonna start the season if you don't chop down a tree? I’ll get to work protecting these villagers.”

Xisuma threw a glance over to them, and Grian mouthed a thank you. Xisuma just nodded, and left them alone. Grian was overwhelmed with relief at the admin’s gesture.

He turned back to Pearl.

“I-I can’t believe you’re actually here,”Grian said. He smiled and the moment he met her gaze, his eyes began to blur with tears.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” she cried. “When we got back from fighting the enderdragon you . . . you were just gone. They left a note for us . . . said it was necessary for you to be taken. All in rhyme, of course.”

“Of course it was in rhyme . . .'' Grian muttered, suddenly very angry. All the Watchers and their unknowable ways, always distilled down to some pithy saying. A life-changing event relayed to his friends in another stupid little poem. He’d written a few himself and despised it.

“I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again. Do you . . . do you mind if I ask what happened?” Pearl asked. “I’m just happy to see you here but I-”

“No, it’s alright,” Grian said with a sigh. “They took me after I fought the enderdragon, and said I was going to be one of them. I didn’t want to go but-well what could I do? So I went with them, and they promised to let me hang around the server. They lied to me, they never let me Watch Evo.” Grian paused, and felt the cool trail of a tear dripping down his cheek. “They later told me you were all dead.”

“Oh, Grian,” Pearl said, and pulled him into another hug, and that was it for him. He began to sob.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “It’s just a lot-”

“I know, I know,” she whispered.

“They-they . . . I didn’t enjoy it there. So I, I ran away. I tried to visit Evo but--there was nobody there. I figured they told the truth then, that you really were dead. I ran and found the hermits and I’ve been living with them every since, and oh they’re so wonderful but I could never forget-”

“It’s okay.” Pearl comforted. “I know, I know. We came home after finding the dragon and our place was ransacked, and we were given instructions to leave. And . . . eventually after we left, the group disbanded and we went our separate ways. But, we’re all alive.”

“Really?” Grian asked.

“Yes.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Can I- can I see them?” he whispered. It felt forbidden.

“Of course!” Pearl exclaimed. “I’ve kept in touch with everyone, I’m sure Xisuma could help you visit if you asked.”

“Xisuma . . .” Grian thought aloud. “I haven’t told him,” Grian admitted. The admin certainly knew something was up with Grian, because players didn’t normally randomly appear in worlds they weren’t supposed to, but he’d welcomed Grian with open arms to the server and never asked a single question.

“I’m sure he would understand.”

“He would, but Pearl, I don’t want to put anyone in danger! I’m not supposed to be here!” Grian hissed.

“So then don’t tell him everything. Just say you want to visit some people. He’ll understand, I know he will,” she replied. Grian pondered it for a moment. She was right--he could just ask to visit someone. Other hermits did it all the time. Maybe--maybe a few server hops wouldn’t cause a problem. Maybe this was something within his reach, after all this time. The thought exhilarated him.

“But please,” Pearl added. “Please tell someone else, not just me. How long have you been hiding?”

Too long.

Grian didn’t answer, and the two of them stood there and listened to the crash of the waves on the nearby shoreline. The air was hot and salty, and in the distance he could hear Xisuma opening and closing doors in the village.

He didn’t know what he felt, it was like too many emotions had happened in too short of a period of time and left him burned out like a forest after a wildfire. His hands had stopped trembling, but he felt deeply tired.

Happy. You feel happy.

Grian’s communicator chimed from within his pocket. He withdrew it.

GoodTimeWithScar > Grian: are you okay

Grian smiled, and typed a response.

Grian > GoodTimeWithScar: yes

“Who was that?” Pearl asked.

“Scar. He wanted to know if I was okay.”

“Are you?”

Grian met her eyes. “I am now.” It was close enough to the truth. Grian shifted his weight between his feet, suddenly restless and tired from trying to process all this new information. “Speaking of other hermits, we should get going, yeah? We can’t let them get all the resources without us!”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she chuckled. The hermits had already spread out seeking resources, but not too far yet; Grian and Pearl could still see several of them talking to each other across the field.

“Pearl, before you go--” Grian started, looking serious. “Build next to me, alright? I...I want you to be around.”

“I promise,” she replied.

◑ ━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━ ◐

“Why are you following me?” Grian knew why, but he wanted Mumbo to bring it up. He was torn--on one hand, he truly appreciated his friend’s concern. It was nice that others were looking out for him, a warm reminder of what their little community stood for. On the other hand . . . he’d really have just appreciated being left alone.

“You look like you have a purpose!” Mumbo exclaimed instead.

Huh.

Grian shook his head. “I’m just heading north,” he replied, shielding his eyes and looking up to see the position of the sun.

“I was just like, ‘Man, it looks like he knows where he’s going,’” Mumbo continued and Grian laughed.

They walked to the edge of the swamp, and began to cut down the trees. Starter tools were a necessity in a new world, and they had no stone.

“Ugh, I have to take down this whole tree, and then I have to replant it,” complained Mumbo.

“Wait-why have you got to replant it?” asked Grian incredulously, while getting wood for himself and not replanting the tree.

“Well I-I can’t just deforest things!”

This is going to be SO much fun to tease Mumbo with.

“Whatever you say, tree boy.”

They continued to work, getting wood, and then venturing into a shallow cave to get stone. The whole time their coms kept buzzing, buzzing, buzzing with combat death messages. Just another day in the hermitcraft world, thought Grian. Have they declared a spontaneous war up there? Either way, Pearl and Gem were getting the full introduction today, he thought with a chuckle.

Exiting the cave, they spotted a shipwreck not too far away, and decided to explore it. Grian pulled out a soggy buried treasure map, and they decided to go after it in a boat. Grian wanted to relax in the boat, to just breathe in the sea spray and try to calm his still-racing thoughts, but unfortunately Mumbo was the driver, and he was not a very good driver if you asked Grian. Grian had been tasked with navigation, which was a difficult thing when the driver couldn’t see the map you were describing.

The loot was good, and they divided it between themselves and then struck onward in the boat, this time with Grian commandeering the vessel. They looped back around to the shipwreck only to find a group of hermits that were a little too late to the prize. Pearl, Ren, and Doc were gathered around the boat looking a bit disappointed.

Mumbo and Grian decided to taunt them.

“Who got the loot?” shouted Ren.

“We got the loot!” Grian shouted back.

“Oh it was you guys,” said Pearl. Grian stuck his tongue out at her and cackled.

They looped back around to show off the Heart of the Sea, but Mumbo dropped their only diamond by accident and that was when Grian decided to steer the boat away before they lost any more valuables.

“I can’t believe you dropped the diamond,” Grian sighed.

“I was flexing too hard, I’m sorry!” cried Mumbo.

It was too comical, and Grian couldn’t be mad at his friend. They rowed on, closely following the coastline. After a few minutes, however, Mumbo asked a question.

“The new hermit, who we just saw with Doc and Ren--Pearl--is it. . . is it okay if I ask how you know her?” Mumbo spoke gently, knowing he was treading around a potentially sensitive topic. Grian knew the topic would have come up eventually, after he’d basically had a breakdown in public when he saw her.

Grian stopped the boat, and looked into the water, not at Mumbo’s face. “Yeah, I figured you’d ask. We used to be on a world together. The . . . the world I was at before I came here, actually.” It wasn’t the full truth, since he’d been to many worlds as a Watcher and had lived on the Watchers’ world for a while. But Evo had been his last home.

“Oh,” said Mumbo.

“We were friends,” continued Grian. “We were close. But I was told she was dead. Clearly, though,” he just simply gestured instead of finishing the sentence.

“Clearly she’s not dead,” Mumbo finished. “I see. Who told you she was dead?”

“Someone who didn’t have my best interests at heart.” Grian had never fully told his friend about what had happened before he joined hermitcraft, but the other man knew that it was a difficult past and had comforted him on more than one occasion--mostly after he’d first joined and the pain was still fresh. It had dulled with time and Grian had become more and more adjusted to his new life.

Seeing Pearl again was a miracle, but it sure sharpened the pain.

Grian rested his elbows on the side of the boat and pressed the heels of his palm into his eyes. “It wasn’t just her, either, they told me everyone on the server was dead. And-they’re all alive. All of them. It’s fantastic news, brilliant news, I’m just-”

“Thinking of the people who didn’t have your best interests at heart?”

“Yeah.”

Mumbo laid a hand on Grian’s shoulder. “I don’t know who they are,” he began, “but I know they’re not here now. You have us now, and you have Pearl here too. That all is in the past.”

Grian stared out over the water, watching as the sunlight sparkled and danced over the waves. “You’re a good friend, you know that right?”

“Well, I do try to be,” Mumbo chuckled. “Now-I think we should probably go pick up Scar over there, I think the poor man is going to drown!”

“Oh no!” Grian said, and scrambled for the oars, and then they were off.

◑ ━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━ ◐

When Grian, Impulse, Scar, and Mumbo created the Boatem Pole, Pearl was there to join them.

When Grian woke up in his makeshift camp the next morning, he was happy to see Pearl setting up her own starter base on the other side of the Boatem Pole.

When Grian showed up at Xisuma’s base two days later, he asked for permission to visit other servers.

#hermitcraft #hermitblr #grian #pearlescentmoon #hermitcraft fanfic #mumbo jumbo #hermitcraft season 8 #quara fanfic

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thoughts-on-bangtan · 4 years ago

Text

Let’s talk: Vlive Asks and comment/chat discussions

From @cottoncandykings: Hello! As u probably know jimin just went live recently and again he mentioned mandaggo and discussing about doing it with tae. I just find it so weird though. I mean jimin keeps constantly mentioning it and its not like vminnies were begging or dying for a vmin live everyday even before jimin mentioned it last year. Even now most including myself dont really care that much ofc i m happy if they do one together. But the way jimin keeps mentioning it is so weird. Like surely if he wanted to do it so badly he could have talked to tae privately and arranged it by now. And if tae is the one that doesnt want to do it then idk why jimin is pushing it. But what was really weird to me this time was that he said there were lots of comments about mandaggo yesterday in zoom call and yet they didnt mention it yesterday but suddenly today without prompting he talks about it. I also hope no one spammed the zoom call chat or the vlive chat with requests for vmin live (i didnt see any) bcoz thats just unnecessary and demanding. I hope vminnies wont demand/ ask for another memeber when one of them is live. Its just disrespectful. This turned into a rant sorry. Do you think it was weird too?

Since Admin 2 can’t type their thoughts themselves, I’ll relay their thoughts to you instead, since they had more thoughts/opinions/ideas in regard to this than I do, to be honest.

Admin 2 is sure that there is a good chance that we will get a vmin vlive sometime soon, which I know contradicts their original opinion and post from a few months ago, but there’s a reason for it. During the zoom meeting between BTS and ARMY they noticed something I don’t think anyone else noticed, or at least neither of us has seen any vminnies mention it anywhere, which in conjunction with Jimin’s vlive today and saying how he’d talk to Tae about doing a mandaggo vlive again, as well as another observation a little while ago, leads them to this conclusion.

So, the observation from the zoom meeting. Basically at one point when the question of Jimin doing a vlive arose Tae looks at Jimin and then he nods while smiling which in turn makes Jimin smile as he turns away from Tae and back to face toward the camera before answering the question and saying how he’ll come visit us the next day. Which he did.

Then the other observation from a while ago, this one being from their OT7 vlive celebrating their BBH100 #1 on June 29th where at one point Jimin says something but slips into satoori after which Tae encourages him to say that again but this time in the Seoul accent, so the way they actually should speak, which Jimin says isn’t difficult but he doesn’t actually end up repeating what he said.

And lastly in today’s vlive Jimin mentioned how he’s using satoori quite often but that he isn’t all that good at doing it on command or at teaching it to others, which is something he’d have to do for mandaggo but I’m sure he’d manage just fine if the time came for it.

Based on that Admin 2′s thoughts are basically that Jimin really meant it when he said, last year, that he’ll bring Tae around for a vlive, that it wasn’t a joke or a way to tease us with something he knew he wouldn’t be able to deliver, but rather that up until this point they weren’t quite sure how to do it. Which sounds a bit odd, I know, but what they mean is that if vmin were to just sit down in front of the camera and were supposed to just talk based on what the chat would give them, it would likely just turn out awkward and weird and no one, including them, would really have fun. Even more so when we take into account how idiotic the chat is during regular vlives so now imagine if those two were to do one together that’s just a casual chat. It would likely end up in disaster and honestly I wouldn’t wish it upon them to read all those awful comments that they would likely get, even worse ones than they already get normally, to be honest.

But now that the whole satoori thing was brought up, and Jimin actually mentioned mandaggo and wanting to bring it back after so many years, Admin 2 thinks that they must’ve finally figured out a solution to their problem, if you can call it that. Doing mandaggo would basically mean they would have an activity, something to do similar to how they did those ASMR videos for the Japanese Fan Club which were fun and cute, and so Admin 2 thinks that perhaps chances are we will finally get the vlive we’ve waited for so long (though like many others I’ve long given up the idea).

Another confirmation is that during his vlive today Jimin basically said that he only came by for a little while since they are quite busy and had to soon get ready for work with the other members but that he’ll return in two or three weeks for a more proper, longer, vlive. So, he could’ve treated today’s vlive as the promised one but instead he saw it more as a bridging one between the zoom meeting and the proper vlive he wants to do, so is it the farfetched to think that he had proper plans for a vlive, like doing mandaggo, but it just wouldn’t have worked out time wise today so he moved the actual vlive he wanted to make to a later date?

One last thing (well two actually) that has nothing to do with this question but Admin 2 wanted me to include it anyway is that one, have you noticed how Tae and Jimin were both on weverse around 3 am (until almost 4am (also both of them posting a comment to some post at 03:41 am KST)) one after the other (though with one day of a break in between them) recently and then also two, that Jimin was up until like 6 am (since he posted on weverse around that time) on the 8th and then during the zoom meeting Tae answered a question by saying that he’d been awake until 6 am the previous day (also the 8th) since he wanted to see the sunrise? Which is also something an anon mentioned to us. Curious, isn’t it?

From anon: I request both admins to please post this ask. So jimin wwnt live today and one of the accounts on twt posted a screen cap of them commenting 'touch your hair if vmin is real' in the live chat and jimin's reaction to it. Now idk if it is an edit or real. No matter i just want to say its not ok to bring up ships in front of the members no matter which ship it is. We dont know the reality of their relationship so lets not make them uncomfortable. Its not a joke. Its not funny. Be respectful the members are real people.

(Admin 1 taking over from this point onward) This ask nicely ties into the last one that’ll be further down in this post since they cover a similar issue of sorts. But let’s start with this one asking about, essentially, vlive comments and the things fans ask/comment, which also ties in with the above ask as well.

The thing with the vlive chat, and especially comments/questions that are like anon said, questions or “commands/requests” about touch your hair if XYZ ship is real or cough twice if you love XYZ member or, likewise, comments such as where is XYZ member or what are the other members doing, unfortunately those have been a steady and unchanging part of the vlive chat since basically forever. It’s been an issue on and off with different intensities though I feel like it’s gotten worse again this year. Particularly if we look back at the vlive Tae did with Hobi and Yoongi and how essentially the entire chat was filled with comments related to Xkook and not much else.

If my memory doesn’t fail me we once even had a situation some years ago (2016) where the chat during Hobi’s vlive was so bad, as in so full of questions about that other members instead of him, that you could see he was upset about it and eventually he handed over the vlive to Jimin, whom the chat had requested Hobi to visit, and Hobi just left. And I can’t blame him for it since the chat must’ve made him feel like basically no one cared about him so what was even the point of him being there, right?

Personally I’ve long given up looking at the comments during vlive because they just make me cringe and feel bad for the members, especially when I think back to vlives such as Yoongi’s D2 one last year where he was so excited to talk about the songs and the process of making the mixtape and yet so many of the comments were just unrelated nonsense and annoying request like speak english or can you say my name or say hello in XYZ language. If it makes me question why the people posting those questions are in the chat, why they are fans to begin with, imagine what the members must feel like, how discouraging that must feel like. After all they are musicians and yet so rarely do they get questions about that. Or rather they do get them but they are just drowned out by nonsense. Which is a shame. And also very disrespectful but any attempts that were made to remind people to be respectful, to remember their place as fans, to focus on the member that’s doing the vlive instead of asking about the others, and to keep ships away from the members have failed because some don’t care and will continue to not care.

From anon: what are your opinions on the Qs that were asked during that zoom meeting thing between BTS and ARMY?

Now I’d like to preface my answer to this last question by saying that by no means do my grievances come from a place of jealousy or anything. I’m very happy for all the ARMYs that won their spot, that they got to participate in the event and that BTS got to see ARMYs again even if only on screens and not in person still. No, my issue stems from something completely different, and I don’t want to say that the system chose the wrong people, because that would be mean and also who even knows how the winners were chosen, if it was pure luck or there were some actual criteria that went into the process, but the fact is that only a select 200 ARMYs got that spot out of however many that applied, so basically for some this was a once in a lifetime chance, right, even just getting this close to asking Bangtan a question and have really great chances of having them give you an answer while acknowledging you somewhat instead of just seeing pure words on a screen, you know what I mean?

Now imagine you are one of those 200 ARMYs and you get the chance to fill the chat with questions along with the other 49 participants of your session and you decide that asking questions such as what it’s like for Jimin to work as angel, if Namjoon ever broke a bicycle, or why JK smells the crowns of the other members heads? Or even worse, you decide to ask about JKs shower routine and in which order he washes his body? And sure, the “fault” doesn’t fall completely on the ARMYs alone, after all it’s the members who read out those questions and not some magical off screen entity, and since I wasn’t part of the event I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty that no one asked any “proper” questions, but if those were the questions that ended up being read out loud, is it that hard to guess that likely all the questions looked similarly?

Which brings me to my main grievance of it all: have you forgotten that you are fans of musicians and not reality TV stars or vloggers/influencers? I know there were likely no rules for what questions you could or couldn’t ask (except for probably ones that were 100% about shipping or far too personal), but really, you get to ask your favorite band a question, something you might never, ever get the chance to do again, and your first thought isn’t to ask about their music but instead about some unimportant nonsense like the angel question or if they differentiate between the clothes they wear at home and those they sleep in? Like sure the angel one was kinda funny, maybe, and Jimin handled it in a cute way, I applaud him for it, but was that really necessary?

I know someone asked JK about Decalcomania, as well as Tae about his mixtape, and Yoongi/Jimin about Tony Montana (season 2), but other than that were there any other questions about their music? Perhaps I’m overthinking things, maybe I’m exaggerating and maybe I’m the only one who sees an issue with this, but if I would’ve won a spot, I’d rather have asked something about their process when writing lyrics or creating beats or how they prepare when learning new choreographies, what it’s like to be on tour (though perhaps that would be a mean question seeing as tours aren’t really something that’ll continue being possible for a while still), you get the point.

It makes me wonder if it was just bad luck or if it had something to do with how old the participants were (I saw some being as young as fifteen), which isn’t to say that teens can’t ask smart questions because they definitely can just like adults can ask stupid ones as well, but somewhere something, in my opinion, just went weirdly. And maybe that was the point of it all, for the event to be casual, funny, lighthearted, but my question then is when is the time for music discussions? For fans to ask those types of questions that actually have something to do with the boys careers? When even journalists aren’t asking them proper questions, ARMYs aren’t either, so what is the point of it all then?

Then again, after the event concluded and Seokjin came onto vlive he seemed so happy and excited, so maybe they had fun (I mean they seemed to have fun) and didn’t mind at all that the questions were lighthearted and silly, maybe I’m the one making mountains out of molehills. I don’t know, but anon wanted to know my thoughts/opinions, and this is them. Once again, I don’t mean to be mean toward the ARMYs that got rightfully in, that won, and I don’t want to insult them for the questions they asked, perhaps I just expected/hoped for something a little different? And perhaps I’m the only one. I don’t know.

#answered ask #BTS #vmin #jimin #Vmin vlive

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