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teawaffles · 3 years

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Albert’s Drinking Contest: Chapter 2

“——This is, the twentieth!”

Announcing the number of glasses he’d drained, Moran set his empty wine glass on the table with a thud.

He was still clear-headed, and able to hold a conversation. But those wild features of his were now flushed, as red as the copious amounts of wine that had entered his stomach.

“Ready to give up now, Albert?”

In his tipsy, trembly vision, Moran beheld his opponent before him.

But far from giving up, Albert was completely sober. There was no discernible change in his complexion; as if he’d started drinking right there and then, he tipped back his glass, and downed his wine with ease.

With that, they were now tied at 20 glasses each. Ignoring the man staring at him with twitching eyes, Albert called out to Louis, who was still serving as their waiter.

“No matter how many glasses I drink, this profound flavour never ceases to delight. To have procured such an excellent vintage — your selections are exquisite as always, Louis.”

“Thank you very much. As I recall, this is an import from America.”

“Ah: I’ve heard that the French vineyards are still afflicted with blight. [1] It’s a pity we won’t be able to enjoy their splendid red wines for some time to come; but it’s also our good fortune to have learned about the quality of wines from the New World.” [2]

“…………”

Albert was being much too relaxed, and had even started to digress into areas completely unrelated to the match; hearing that, Moran shot him a look of displeasure.

Incidentally, the challenge had been much too great for Fred: he’d been the first to pass out, flopping onto the table with his glass in hand. Immediately after, they’d covered him with a blanket so he wouldn’t catch a cold, and the man was presently fast asleep.

“Well then, both sides have managed to consume twenty glasses. It seems both of you still have room for more, but…… if I were to speak from an impartial standpoint, you appear to be at a slight disadvantage, Moran.”

Having observed their match, William leisurely shared his views.

Moran knew his analysis was unbiased, and that was precisely why he let out a groan of frustration. His face flushed, he grabbed the bottle of wine, intending to pour his next drink; but when he realised that not a single drop had trickled out, he waved the bottle in the air.

“Sorry, Louis. It’s empty, so could you bring a new one?”

“Understood.”

Louis promptly retrieved a fresh bottle, and with brisk efficiency, filled both their glasses.

“This’ll be, the twenty-first.”

As soon as his glass was full, without any intention of savouring the wine, Moran chugged it all in one breath.

But the next moment, he was swamped by an intense wave of vertigo: somehow, it seemed he was much nearer his limit than he’d thought.

In contrast, Albert merely tilted his glass, observing the colours and clarity of the freshly-poured wine. Then he swirled it once, bringing it near his nose to savour its aroma, and took a sip to taste.

“Is this a Madeira?” [3]

Standing beside them, Louis revealed the bottle label with a smile.

“Indeed — your wine tasting is accurate as always, nii-sama. Would you like some salted cheese to complement it?”

“I’d prefer to pair such cheeses with a sweet port. [4] Or perhaps we could have a chicken with that, like Sir John Falstaff.” [5]

“In exchange for one’s soul, indeed.” [6]

Watching the two brothers quote Shakespeare as they chatted, Moran was incredulous.

“……Y’know, this is a drinking match on which I’ve staked my dignity as a man — not some wine-guessing quiz at a party,” he protested.

However, in a long-suffering gesture, Albert merely shrugged.

“Although this is an earnest match, Colonel, it’ll become a dreary affair if you leave no room for entertainment. Moreover, this wine was used to toast the American Declaration of Independence, making it perfect for tonight’s celebration.” [7]

At that bit of trivia from Albert, Moran looked positively fed up.

“Oooh, if you have so much time to share your vast knowledge, then why don’t you hurry up and drink already?”

But far from being put out, an elegant smile rose to Albert’s lips.

“Oh dear; you’re in an awful rush, Colonel. Could it be a sign that you’re nearing your limit?”

“Wha……! N-No way. I can still continue.”

Albert had hit right where it hurt, and Moran uttered a groan that was rather different from before. It seemed his opponent had observed his giddy spell from earlier.

Although the match was far from over, Moran was now consumed by a crushing sense of defeat. Seeing that, Albert made a show of draining his glass at a leisurely pace.

Even after downing a substantial amount of wine, the eldest son of the Moriarty family was unruffled, and Moran shot him a complaint.

“You’re not actually drinking some deep red tea instead of wine, are ya?”

Perhaps it was because the liquor had addled his brain, for Moran put forth a suspicion that he wouldn’t normally have entertained.

To that, both William and Louis burst into laughter.

“That’s a very unique deduction, Moran,” said William, as he struggled to rein in his mirth. “But even I can’t devise a magic trick like that.”

Louis was also trying very hard to suppress his amusement. “I filled both your glasses from the same bottle: how could it be that alcohol came out one time, and tea the next? It’s so unlike you to even consider such a ridiculous idea, Mr Moran. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s time to cut back on the liquor?”

“S-Shut it. I was just saying. And I’m not giving up now.”

Their teasing had completely soured his mood. Glancing to the side, he saw Fred, who was sound asleep.

“Somehow, I think he might’ve just laughed at that too……”

Moran gazed at the man he thought of as a younger brother, dead to the world with a peaceful look on his face. Then he fixed his blanket, which had slipped a little out of place.

When his two brothers had finally managed to regain their composure, Albert spoke up.

“In fact, Colonel: it would better protect your good name if we were to pretend that outlandish trick was true. Or perhaps we could give you a handicap, and allow you to alternate between wine and tea.”

“You don’t say. Then I’ll have two drinks the next round.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, coming from you. If you’re the one to set up the cause of your own defeat, then it’ll make a convincing excuse to others, I see.”

“Urgh……”

No matter what he said, Albert had a ready riposte. As such, Moran swallowed his frustration, and returned his focus to the match.

“Anyway: Louis, keep it comin’, please.”

Seeing Moran try his utmost to put on a brave front, Louis was even beginning to find that a little cute; muttering his acknowledgement, he proceeded to fill Moran’s glass once more. Then, with great force, the man poured its entire contents down his throat.

“…………”

The alcohol burned like fire as it flowed into his stomach — all of a sudden, Moran came to his senses. Placing his glass on the table, he pondered.

His vexation at the Moriarty brothers’ teasing. His alcohol-induced befuddlement. And above all, Albert’s ability to hold his liquor, which had far outstripped his expectations.

His irritation at those three things had wound up completely flustering him. But once Moran calmed down and took stock of his situation, he realised William was right: he was clearly on the back foot.

Until now, he’d been unconsciously averting his eyes from his predicament by being oddly stubborn. But this pickle wouldn’t resolve itself if he just kept running away. If he continued to drink without a scheme in mind, then in his mind’s eye, he could see the outcome plain as day: he’d be out like a light in no time.

However, if he lost, then he’d have to listen to anything the victor said. Moran had originally set that rule as a way to spur himself on, thinking that there’d be no way he would lose. But now, it had lost virtually all effect in rousing his will to fight — all that remained, was the dread of what Albert would make him do upon his defeat.

He absolutely had to win. But the way things were going, it was all but certain that he’d lose.

In that case, the only option left would be——.

Within him, that conflict crystallised into a single decision.

“William,” he said. “Won’t you join in the match? Or rather: please, join.”

“Me? But why?”

Up to this point, William had been serving as an impartial judge, and he asked that with curiosity. But Moran did not answer; instead, his expression twisted into a bitter one as he continued.

“That’s not all. On top of you joining in…… If you’re agreeable, Albert, let’s ignore the count thus far and start afresh……. This is, truly a personal…… request from me.”

That faltering reply was very much unlike him, and William broke into a meaningful smile.

Moran’s decision — was to request that they increase the number of participants, and restart the game.

Despite his frustrations, Moran was well aware that he wouldn’t be able to beat Albert alone. Hence, he thought he’d bring in more opponents to counter him: even if it was just one more person.

The other part of his plan was to reset the match. If Albert agreed to that, then compared to the two existing players, someone joining in halfway would naturally have the advantage. But from Moran’s point of view, even if he was defeated, it would still be better than having Albert directly exercise his “winner’s privilege” on him — such were his complicated emotions. It was an absurd request, to be sure; but at least he hadn’t proposed having Albert compete against the combined total of both his and the other participant’s tally: perhaps that was a reflection of whatever faint scraps of self-respect Moran still had within him.

Perceiving Moran’s complex tangle of emotions, William placed a hand under his chin and pondered.

It’d also be fun to take on his suggestion. Although he did have his role as the judge, it wasn’t as if the match had any strict rules to begin with — they could easily do without one.

However, if he were to join in, and the match were to be restarted, then both Moran and Albert would be at a disadvantage. When it came to wine, he knew his elder brother’s stomach for it was bottomless; but still, it was clearly unfair to have a new and virtually-sober participant waltz into an honest drinking match. And yet, then again, he didn’t want to dismiss Moran’s “request” out of hand.

In this situation, the best option would be——.

But the instant William made his decision, and tried to voice his answer, Louis quietly raised a hand.

“Hold on a minute. Could it be that you were thinking of taking up his suggestion, nii-san?”

“……Yes, I was just about to say that. Seeing as Albert nii-san doesn’t appear to have any issue with that.”

William looked at his older brother, seated across from Moran. Then, Albert flashed them both a slight smile. Although it would mean that he would gain a new opponent, and the contest would start again from the top, it seemed he didn’t mind one bit.

Registering Albert’s generosity, Louis pointed at himself.

“In that case, may I participate?”

“……You, Louis?” Moran asked.

Louis proceeded to explain himself briefly. “I cannot countenance the possibility — however slight — that after joining the match, my brother will end up drinking too much and impacting his health. Hence, I believe that issue will be negated if I were to join the match in his stead.”

“But in that case, I would end up worrying for your health, Louis,” said William, furrowing his brows slightly.

At his brother’s kindness, Louis unwittingly cracked a smile.

“It makes me very happy to hear that. But it’s rare to hear Mr Moran make such a serious request, and so I can understand how you’d want to help him out. Of course, as Mr Moran said: this is only if you’re agreeable, Albert nii-sama.”

“Alright. Having heard that much, I shan’t object,” replied William. “What about you, nii-san?”

His elegant smile unfaltering as ever, the eldest son of the Moriarty family nodded.

“I don’t mind. If you’re certain, Louis, then I shall respect your decision.” Then, Albert’s expression turned solemn. “However, as you mentioned yourself, you absolutely must not reach the point of destroying your own health. Even though the colonel can’t help it, Louis, my condition is that you cannot drink recklessly. Is that alright?”

“Understood, nii-sama. ——Well then, it’s settled.”

Nodding in assent, Louis quietly took a seat beside Moran. Absorbing how his ridiculous request had been granted, more than gratitude, Moran’s expression was one of astonishment.

“Is this really alright, Louis? I know I was the one who asked, but Albert’s no pushover. If we lose, then you’ll have to suffer the forfeit too……”

However, Louis smiled wryly as he replied.

“I already knew that when I asked to join, didn’t I? To be honest, I don’t want to stand opposed to either you or Albert nii-sama. But now that I’ve made my decision, I have no intention of going down without a fight.”

“……Louis.”

That resolve had shaken Moran, so much so that he began to tremble. Watching him out the corner of his eye, Louis filled both their glasses; then Albert too filled his glass by himself, and raised it toward the two of them.

“Well then, once again, let’s give it our all.”

“I won’t be holding back either, you two.”

“Oh, both of you will be sorry real soon.”

Having gained a dependable ally, Moran’s enthusiasm was now back in full force.

Looking at the three of them, William spoke.

“So with Louis’s entry, the contest shall start again from scratch. But for both Moran and Albert nii-san, the next glass will be your twenty-third: please take care not to injure your health.”

With that word of caution from William, the drinking contest had resumed.

Footnotes:

[1] French vineyards had been devastated by aphids in the mid-19th century, and then fungal diseases after that. (Wikipedia)

[2] The “New World” refers to the Americas, in contrast to the Old World, or Eastern Hemisphere of the Earth. (Wikipedia)

[3] Madeira is a fortified wine made on the Madeira Islands, off the African coast. (Wikipedia)

[4] Port is a fortified wine produced in the Douro Valley in Portugal. (Wikipedia)

[5] Sir John Falstaff is a character featured in several of Shakespeare’s plays. (Wikipedia) He is renowned as a drunkard and glutton, whose favourite food is capons — roosters reared specially for their meat. (BBC article)

[6] A reference to Faust, who traded his soul with the Devil in exchange for worldly pleasures. (Wikipedia)

Aside: As far as I can tell, this line doesn’t actually appear in Shakespeare’s works. But in the legend of Faust, Faust makes his pact with the Devil via the demon Mephistopheles — who is mentioned in Shakespeare’s play The Merry Wives of Windsor (Wikipedia), which stars Sir John Falstaff as its main character.

[7] This is apparently true: Wikipedia

#moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #yuumori #english translation #a study in scarlet

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sleeping-on-cracking-ice · 4 years

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Y/N gets attacked and Chishiya is sure she will handle everything but when he sees her later there's blood everywhere, later he finds out that attackers actually cut her cheek really deepy and she will probably have a scar. He feels guilty and try to make it up by bringing something special (like cute pictures of cats bc he remembers when she quietly told Kuina that she loves cats) and from that day he is always trying to make sure that Y/N is doing fine. (2/2)

Of course! Here you go!

A Ginger Cat | Shuntaro Chishiya

{Alice In Borderland Masterlist}

Characters(s): Chishiya (ft. Kuina, OC, Ann)

Summary: You get hurt during a game, but Chishiya thinks that you can handle it yourself. Later when he discovers that you were injured more worse than he thought, he brings you something to cheer you up

Warnings: swearing, blood

Word Count: 4.6k

*reader is female

The registration room had an eerie aura, you swore you could’ve heard a pin drop in there. Nothing was moving except the occasional piece of dust flying past in the breeze. You stood with your back to the wall, glaring up into the bright florescent light that had seemed to become an all too familiar ongoing theme of these homicidal games.

The wall was cold and rigid along your spine, but you put up with the small sharp pain. There was nowhere else to wait, besides on the disgustingly dirty floor. You had to gain as much rest and strength before beginning the game.

Kuina sighed heavily to the right of you, glancing at the game phone she had picked up a few minutes prior and rolling her head back against the wall in boredom. Chishiya stood next along from her, earbuds lodged in his ears and blasting loud music while he held his gaze strictly on the ground in front of him.

“Come on,” Kuina groaned, stretching her hands above her head. “When is this game starting? We’ve been here for a solid half an hour.”

She walked to the entrance of the registration room and peeked her head out the door. “I’m surprised no one else has come. Maybe it’ll be just us,” she suggested, turning back to you and Chishiya.

“That sounds great, until it’s a game of hearts,” you bluntly stated, fiddling with the fabric of your shirt. Chishiya and Kuina both turned to you, sudden concern on their faces at your accusation.

The room fell quiet once more, until a familiar voice echoed through the room from all your phones simultaneously.

“Registration is now closed,” it spoke. “Game: Mice, Cats and A Dog.”

You frowned at the strange game name, having heard nothing like it before. You felt a feeling of relief wash over you as a five of clubs card conveyed itself on your screen. You were anxious you had accidentally manifested it to be a hearts game with your sly comment earlier.

“Rules: Players are the Cats. There are three live Mice to catch, each hiding in different areas around the building. Once found, the Mice must be killed using your own preference of weapon that is available on the table in the registration room.”

All three of you glanced towards the small table positioned next to the phone table that was scattered with small weapons that would hardly be enough to hurt a human. You had been wondering why they had offered such shitty weapons.

“Although, you must avoid the Dog’s gaze, for it will kill the Cats on sight.”

Your heart dropped at that last statement. You were to be hunted.

“You have an hour to kill all three Mice and return to the lobby with the bodies. If you fail to do so, all exits around the building will be closed and several more Dogs will be released and finish off the remaining players. You have ten minutes to position yourself in the building before the Dog is released.”

The list of rules on your phone screen shifted to a timer for ten minutes, already beginning to count down. You turned to Chishiya and Kuina.

“Any strategies?” Kuina asked, looking between you and Chishiya.

You pursed your lips in thought. “Split up. That seems like the most logical option. It will be quicker to find the Mice then,” you proposed, crossing your arms over your chest and scanning over the small map nearby that disclosed the layout of the deserted hotel the game was taking place in.

“But then the “Dog” will have more of a chance to find us if we split up,” Kuina argued. Kuina always focused on the safer route to ensure everyone’s survival rather than the easiest.

“No, it will be worse if we’re together, cause it can kill us all at once,” you retorted, walking over to the weapon table and starting to scan your options.

“I agree with Y/N,” Chishiya spoke up, pushing himself off the wall and strutting over to stand next to you and help pick a weapon. “I played a game very similar to this one. The best option is that we separate. Only then do we have a chance of finding the Mice in the time limit.”

Just as he said it, the phones all announced you had nine minutes left until the hunter began searching for you.

“One mouse each, and if you find yours early, keep searching so we can speed up time.”

You nodded at Chishiya’s command, snatching a small hammer and a pocket knife from the table for your weapons. You all walked out of the registration area (the front desk of the hotel) and into the empty lobby, watching as the hanging chandeliers glistening against the moonlight shining through from the obnoxiously big windows.

If anything could have gotten worse, you had to find tiny mice in a huge hotel in the complete darkness of night.

***************

You took to the upper bar.

The area in itself didn’t seem that big. But when you found it, you realised that it would be incredibly hard to find a single mouse in the cracks and small spaces between all the furniture. The eerie aura didn’t help much.

You sighed in frustration after searching underneath yet another couch. “What the fuck is this game? How the fuck am I supposed to find a rodent in a huge place like this?” you whispered angrily, flopping down on the couch dramatically.

It had been around forty-five minutes since the “Dog” had been released, but you have always been quite confident in your escaping and hiding strategies, so you weren’t too worried. The only thing you were concerned about was finding a mouse. Chishiya and Kuina had to have caught theirs by now.

A small scuttling noise cut you from your thoughts. You snapped your head towards the bar, where the sound was emitting from. A wave of excitement filled you, becoming hopeful that the noise was the mouse you were searching for.

You stood from the couch and quickly walked towards the bar, making sure not to make too much noise in case you alerted the rodent. The noise seemed to have come from behind some bottles beneath the counter. You crouched down on your knees and looked along the shelves, scanning for any sign of movement.

“Come on little mouse,” you taunted, becoming frustrated. When you noticed the flash of illuminated eyes staring holes into you through the glass of a tequila bottle, you quickly snatched the neck of the bottle and pulled it from the shelf, locking eyes with a desperate mouse with it’s back half stuck in a mouse trap.

The mouse shook violently against the trap, letting out small squeaks of pain and glaring at you with fear in it’s eyes. Although, it’s most noticeable feature was a large cross that almost seemed burned into it’s lower back. The cross had no fur or skin along it.

“This has to be one of them,” you reassured yourself, reaching to pull out the small pocket knife.

You picked up the mouse trap and hissed as the mouse managed to nip a part of your finger in defence. “Little shit,” you muttered, before pressing the point of your knife against the mouse’s back and pushing in harshly to kill it.

You hoped that you would just end it’s life and that would be that. But of course, the game had to throw in some sort of twist.

As you stabbed the small rodent, a impossibly loud screeching sound emitted from it’s tiny throat, making you drop the creature in shock and cover your ears.

The animal screeched and screeched, pain dripping from it’s cries that echoed across the room angrily. You began to panic, realising that there’s a chance the hunter could hear you. But maybe that was the point.

“Shut up!” you yelled over the mouse’s cries. You pulled the knife swiftly from the mouse’s fur and continued to repetitively penetrate it’s skin, mercilessly making it shut up while blood splattered across your angered face.

You breathed heavily once the room had fallen silent once again, staring down at the mutilated dead rodent. For a short moment, you felt bad for ending it’s life so unpeacefully.

Your head snapped up to look over the bar when sudden heavy footsteps made their way down the hall outside the bar. Your heart leapt to your throat and you turned to press your back against the bar, keeping your head down so whoever it was couldn’t see you.

You cringed as you picked up the remains of the mouse, holding it tight in your hand so you wouldn’t drop it. If Chishiya and Kuina had finished their halves, all you had to do was get to the lobby and you would be fine.

You placed your spare hand over your mouth to quieten your breathing, listening to the footsteps of the stranger who brought themselves into the room. The rapid movement of their feet made you anxious. You had never encountered a hunter that could run as fast as that.

You heard them flip a few tables over, hearing glasses smash against the walls aggressively. You closed your eyes tightly in realisation. The attacker was trying to make it harder for you to leave quietly if you were in there.

When the room fell quiet, you slowly peeked your head over the top of the bar. You managed to catch sight of the hunter themselves.

They seemed to have resembled the body of an older male, fit and tall. They had long, baggy pants, a black t-shirt while holding a machete that easily was as long as your arm. But most oddly, they wore a mask that conveyed a snarling German Shepherd.

The hunter was preoccupied over by the lounged area, looking behind the back rests of the couches and underneath coffee tables.

‘If I stay here any longer, they’re guaranteed to find me,’ you thought to yourself.

You decided you were going to attempt to leave. You had more of a chance of surviving by running than hiding.

You lifted your legs and trudged towards the edge of the bar, ducking underneath the table that was placed at the end before slowly rising to your feet. A quick glance down at your hand was enough to reassure you that you hadn’t dropped your ticket to a few more days of staying alive.

You kept your eyes locked on the hunter, making sure they didn’t turn their back as you were trying to leave. You thought you had almost made it before you miscalculated your step and tripped over a shattered glass on the ground, making you stumble forward and a loud noise erupt from the impact from your shoe to the glass.

As soon as you regained your balance, you didn’t even bother checking if the hunter had heard, you knew they did. You immediately took off running, holding your pocket knife in one hand in fear. You weren’t even halfway down the hall running towards the lobby before you heard the Dog’s footsteps behind you, trailing close and fast.

“Chishiya! Kuina!” You screamed out, picking up your pace and holding the body of the dead mouse close to your chest to make sure you didn’t drop it.

There was no way they were going to help you now, especially against someone like that. You were on your own for now, so you put faith in your own legs to carry you all the way down to the lobby.

Your heart was racing as you almost fell down the flights of stairs, so desperate to get away. At some point, you glanced upwards and saw your pursuer on the flight above you, making you feel sick.

“Fuck,” you gasped out, quickly scrambling down the darkened stairs. The blood of the mouse’s corpse seeped through your fingers as you held it in a tense fist, dripping down your arm grotesquely.

As you neared the ground level of the hauntingly big hotel, you stumbled as you jumped the few remaining steps and saw a sign that had an arrow labeled “Main Lobby” pointed to the left. You took in that direction, glancing behind you to see the “Dog” hot on your tail.

But unfortunately, you took too long to look at the sign. The “Dog” quickly caught up, grabbing an aggressive fistful of the back of your shirt and yanking you backwards towards them. You were too scared to scream. The air was forced from your lungs as you were pulled back, landing on the ground with the “Dog” suddenly standing over you, feet planted on either side of you.

Before you could even think, their machete plummeted down towards your face, making you flinch your head to the right, narrowly avoiding the blade. Although, the edge of the sharp metal managed to graze your cheek, creating a long gash along the side of your face.

The “Dog” continued to attempt to stab you in the face, stumbling above you as you attempted to kick their legs out from underneath them. In a sudden desperate attack, you kicked with all your might at their locked knees and they let out a yelp of pain as their knee buckled harshly backwards. You took the opportunity to run, not even giving them a second glance. You knew they’d already be back on their feet, after you again.

As you neared the humongous room that was labeled the lobby, you saw Chishiya and Kuina by the big doors that led inside. They seemed to have been banging their fists against an invisible force, separating you from them. The game must have locked them in when they placed their dead mice in the box that was located in the centre of the huge hall.

Their faces changed their hopeful expressions when they saw your pursuer, the blood running from their cheeks, making them pale. As soon as you entered the lobby, passing through the invisible force with ease, they followed behind you quickly.

“Hurry! Throw it in!” you heard Chishiya cry to you desperately behind you. You glanced back to see him slowing down, holding out his taser towards the “Dog” in case they managed to reach you. The electric light of his taser lit up significantly in the darkened room.

Once you reached the small white box placed on the table in the centre of the room, you shoved the disgusting remains of your victim inside, watching as it landed on top of two other mice.

Everything froze. The “Dog” immediately stopped running, dropping to their knees and face-planting onto the ground in front of Chishiya. All three of you stopped in shock, heavy breaths filling the air. Had you done it?

“Game Clear. Congratulations.”

The collar around the “Dog’s” neck exploded, blood splattering the walls and coating the gorgeously patterned carpet with it’s own artwork. You had seen it many times before. Once more couldn’t hurt.

“Took you long enough,” you heard Chishiya smartly remark. You glanced towards him, raising an eyebrow. He looked smug, as always. Not a single scratch on him.

“Give me a break, I had to face someone three times the size of me,” you remarked, rubbing your face tiredly. Your adrenaline had calmed, and now the pain of your deep gash on your cheek settled in. You hissed as your palm grazed it, pulling back and looking at your hand to see blood across it.

“Shit,” you rasped out, wiping your hand on the material of your pants.

“You okay Y/N?” Kuina questioned, walking over to you. You shook your head, dismissing her. “Yeah I’m fine. Just a small gash. It’ll heal soon enough,” you reassured.

“Are you sure? That looks quite deep,” Chishiya commented, strutting over and using his hand to push your chin to the side so he could look more closely at it. The feeling of his hand placed so gently on your skin made your heart suddenly race, and you panicked and pulled your head away before he could even see your wound.

“No, it’s fine,” you insisted, attempting to hide your embarrassment. “Let’s go back. It’s getting late, and I’m tired and hungry.”

***************

You stood in your bathroom, attempting to wash your clothes that you wore at the game earlier. You were soaking and scrubbing them in the bathtub. No matter how much blood seeped from the fabrics, it never seemed to be clean enough.

You grunted, annoyed and tired. Kuina said she was going to spend some time out nearby the pool with Arisu and talk to him about his game. Chishiya didn’t say where he was going, but you assumed it would be the roof or something away from everyone else.

A wet feeling along the side of your neck made you suddenly flinch and hit your skin, worried it was a weird bug of some sort. But your eyes widened when you brought your hand back and saw the concerning amount of blood spread across your palm.

You stood up from the side of the bathtub and leant against the sink, looking to the large mirror. “For fucks sake,” you sighed out as you caught sight of your large gash again. “This has been bleeding for hours. How do I make this stop?”

You winced as the moist towel you used earlier was once again dabbing along the skin of your face, collecting up the annoyingly large amount of blood percolating from your cheek. You were becoming afraid that it wasn’t going to stop at all, but you were too stubborn to go to Ann for medical help.

You’ve seen her weird dissection obsession, so you felt uneasy putting the trust of your health into her hands.

The blood dripped quicker the more you attempted to clean it up. Soon, there were miniature blood puddles scattered around the sink as you kept trying to clean them.

*********** “Hey Usagi, have you seen Y/N?”

Chishiya was making his way around The Beach searching for you. He usually liked spending his late nights having a drink with you in a quiet corner of the ground floor pool. Although, he hadn’t been able to find you and he was getting worried. You usually were either down in the lobby or with Kuina after games.

“No, I haven’t. Sorry Chishiya.”

He huffed annoyed, thanking Usagi and walking away from the dance floor. He thought he should check in your room as a last resort, but if you weren’t there, that’s when he would really worry.

He slowly made his way up the multiple flights of stairs, passing by a few people on the way. During the walk, he zoned out in his own thoughts, his mind filing with you.

How would he ever tell you how he felt? He believed you only saw him as a friend, an annoying one at that. Especially since you happen to banter a lot with him. The thought made him smile, he loved that you didn’t take his bullshit seriously and treated it like a game.

‘How do I let her know that I truly do care for her?’ he asked himself, fiddling with the drawstrings of his white hoodie as he strolled down the brightly lit hall. He hadn’t ever been the best with emotions, so how could he show that he was genuine about his romantic feelings towards you?

When Chishiya reached your room, he lifted his fist to knock on the rotting wood, freezing suddenly. Why was he hesitating? He’s done this so many times before, why was he suddenly nervous? He shook his head, embarrassed for catching himself in these thoughts. He had worked himself up again.

He knocked on your door loudly three times before calling out to you. “Y/N? You in there?” The silence that followed his call made him anxious. He knocked again, this time more persistently.

“Coming!” he heard your muffled voice call through the door. He stood back from the door as you opened it, giving you a small smile. But it soon disappeared from your face when he locked eyes with the bloody tissue that you held to your cheek.

“Hey Chish,” you groaned out, lazy eyed and turning back into your room, leaving the door so he could come in. Chishiya rushed to you quickly. “Wait, Y/N. What’s going on? Why are you hurt?” he asked frantically, pulling on your shoulder to get you to look at him.

You brushed his hand off of you. “It’s fine. Just a small gash from the game earlier. It started bleeding again,” you said, giving him a stare.

Chishiya shook his head and cupped your face, avoiding your cut, to have a closer look. “No Y/N, that doesn’t look okay. It’s bleeding way too much.”

You stayed still as he replaced your hand holding the tissue on your face with his own, being as gentle as he could as he cleaned the blood gathering around the gash.

“Here, sit down on the bed,” he muttered, indicating towards the end of your bed. You both shuffled over and sat down, Chishiya still holding the tissue on your face.

You could feel his hot breath against your lips as he examined your wound. His dark eyes glistened in the dim light of your hotel room. He looked ethereal. But he took a quick glance towards your eyes, snapping you from your daze. You hissed as he caught a bit of the gash on the tissue. “Sorry,” he apologized, moving his hand to your chin to readjust your position.

He then sat up and walked towards the bathroom, walking quickly so the blood of your injury didn’t drip too much. As he was there, you heard a soft gasp. He probably had found the blood-covered sink and towels.

He returned back with a clean towel that he found in your bathroom cabinet. He held a somewhat annoyed expression on his face. “Why didn’t you tell me this? If I knew it was this bad, I would’ve helped you out.”

You shrugged your shoulders. To be honest, you weren’t too sure why you didn’t tell Chishiya or Kuina. It just didn’t seem that big of a deal.

“You’ll need some stitches,” he concluded, holding a clean towel underneath your cut. “Also, stop using tissues to clean the blood. They flake easily and can stick to your injury.”

You nodded, looking down in embarrassment. You wish Chishiya didn’t find you like this. You hated making anyone else worry about you when it wasn’t entirely necessary.

“Look at me,” he demanded, bringing your head up with a gentle hand on your neck. Your breath got caught in your throat as he wiped around your cheek, cleaning up any excess blood.

“Come on. Let’s get you to Ann,” he said, standing up and holding his hand out for you.

You took his hand and he pulled you up playfully, making you almost stumble into him. You glared at him. “Wow. Even when I’m injured you’re still a bully,” you teased. Chishiya smirked and winked at you, making you roll your eyes.

And yet, the whole way to Ann’s medical room, you didn’t let go of his hand.

***************

You woke as the sun hit your eyelids, illuminating your room with bright rays of light. The sun was strangely gorgeous that morning, so you woke up in a good mood.

You sat up and stretched, letting out a large groan as your bones popped in your back. Although a wince made its way onto your face as you yawned, making the skin of your treated gash stretch.

Chishiya had told Ann to place a protected medical patch on your cut, since he thought it would be better than just leaving it in case of it getting infected or worse during your next game. So for the time being, you had a flat piece of cotton taped on your face. Ann said to only leave it on until it had certainly stopped bleeding through, as well as to change it around two or three times a day.

When your eyes finally adjusted to your surroundings, your sight landed on a strange scene in front of you.

At the table on the end of your bed, there was a small plushie of a ginger kitten. The makeshift fur on the stuffed toy was slightly dirty and it was missing a bead for an eye, but it still remained strangely comforting.

You crawled to the end of your bed and reached out to grab the plushie, bringing it close to you and looking over it for anything. Who knows? Someone could have put it in your room as a trap.

But it was proven safe when you noticed the small, neat writing on the end of the kitten’s tail, which read ‘Chish’.

You chuckled at the childish toy, realising Chishiya must have snuck it into your room while you were asleep.

“Idiot,” you laughed, “Can’t tell me he likes me as his friend but he can put enough effort into finding a stuffed cat in the Borderland for me.”

It felt special, because you knew Chishiya would have had to go into deserted Tokyo to find such a gift for you. You looked on the table and saw a small piece of paper. You frowned and reached out for it and opened it.

‘Here’s a stupid plushie for your troubles. Kuina said you liked cats so I thought you’d feel better with this xx’

You laughed at his half-hearted message. Chishiya never was that good with words, but he didn’t have to be in order for you to understand how he felt towards you.

Although the plushie was a bit beaten and battered, it still brought such a sense of home to you.

***************

You sat in the lobby, watching everyone scuttle around. Your usual drunken party group passed through every now and then, which was always good entertainment.

You jumped as you felt a pair of hands suddenly grip onto your shoulders, quickly moving to your eyes and covering them.

“Guess who?” the stranger asked cheekily, making you relax when you recognised their familiar, cocky voice.

“Get your hands off me Chishiya,” you giggled, pulling on his hands and turning around so you would face him. His face held a big smile across it, which was so unlike his usual neutral expression.

“What’s got you so happy?” you questioned, raising your eyebrow. Chishiya pulled away from your face and jumped over the back of the couch so he was then sitting beside you.

“Nothing, I’m just happy to see you,” he admitted, laying his head on your shoulder comfortably. His boldness was rather prominent then more than you had ever seen.

“How’s your cut?” he asked, looking up to examine the patch on your cheek. You shrugged it off. “It’s fine, not too bad now.”

Chishiya smiled, and suddenly leaned forward and left a lingering kiss on your good cheek, making your eyes widen at his action. “That’s good,” he gushed and continued on like he didn’t do anything.

“Yeah. Um...” you muttered awkwardly while rubbing the spot on your face where he kissed. “I wanted to say... thanks for the gift earlier,” you said, placing an arm around his shoulder comfortably.

Chishiya beamed happily, but tried to hide his blush by turning away from you. “No problem,” he mumbled out, trying to sound like he didn’t care.

You laughed at his response. Chishiya may have not been that good with words, but he didn’t need to be for you to notice that he really loved you.

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21st-century-entertainment · 3 years

Text

MMORPG RECOMMENDATIONS

written by Galiza, Monica 03/19/2022

Have a boring day or a stressful life? Want to interact or socialize with strangers online? or want to improve your skills? Test your skills in playing an MMORPG. The MMORPG or the massively multiplayer online role-playing game has advantages over more traditional kinds of training because players learn by doing a very hands-on way. Not only for enjoyment but playing online games also proves that it may improve your ability to multitask. If you feel lonely, you can interact with other players and play with them. Studies have indicated that compared to non-gamers, experienced gamers are better at tracking objects. Filtering out irrelevant information, switching from task to task, detecting changes in visual layouts, and 3D mental rotation.

Here are some recommendations that you can play on your smart phones and are available at the play store:

TORAM ONLINE

Size: 2 GB + increased every update.

Description:

Toram Online is a Free to Play Full 3D MMORPG. You can freely customize your characters, weapons, armors and skills in this game. Players will explore the mysterious world that was once split apart by the cataclysm and find the secrets of the world. Create your own characters and go on an adventure with your friends all over the world! There are no "Classes" in Toram Online, so you can equip any weapons and armors you like. Also, you can acquire different types of skills according to the purpose. For example, you can create a character that can cast magic skills when you equip a sword, and create a character specialized in creating items. There is no rule for customizing your characters!

MIR4

Size: 152 MB + GB Resources

Description:

MIR4 is a free-to-play open world K-fantasy MMORPG that can be cross-played on both PC and mobile devices. MIR4 is full of action and features numerous large scale clan PVP battles.

Choose from the 4 classes to fit your gameplay style. Whoever you choose, a legend will rise. Warrior pulverizes enemies with a heavy great sword. Sorcerer wields magic with the power of the elements. Taoist supports party members with divine recovery spells. Lancer is a specialist that can attack and defend simultaneously using a long spear.

Arbalist which is the only long-range physical attack type class

You can also earn real money in MIR4, players mine an in-game currency called Darksteel by literally “mining” it in the game. Darksteel can be exchanged for utility tokens called DRACO by “smelting” them. But you need to grind first to reach the requirements for mining.

THE LEGEND OF NEVERLAND

Size: 67 MB + GB Resources

Description:

Legend of Neverland is a brand new anime-style mobile MMORPG. The game has filled the current void of open-world MMORPG and is somewhat a signal that we’re moving to a new phase. There are 4 different types of classes in the game namely the Gladiator, Archer, Craftsman, and Scholar. Each class can switch to 3 different types of weapons so basically, the classes in the game are just formality. The starting tutorial of the game will let you test out the different weapons you can use in Legend of Neverland.

GENSHIN IMPACT

Size: 6.64 GB

Description:

Genshin Impact is an open-world, action RPG developed and published by miHoYo for PC, iOS/Android, and PS4/PS5 platforms. The game is free-to-play with a gacha monetization system in the form of Wishes. The game features an anime-style open-world environment and an action-based battle system using elemental magic and character-switching. The player can control their character and perform actions such as running, climbing, swimming, and gliding which are limited by stamina. Some characters possess abilities that can alter the environment, such as freezing water to create an ice path that can aid the player in traversing terrain. Many teleportation nodes exist throughout the world that players can warp to as a form of fast travel. Among these are landmarks known as Statues of The Seven that can heal and revive characters, and provide benefits such as increasing player stamina. Items such as food and ore may be procured from the open world, while enemies and treasure chests drop other types of resources that may be used in enhancing a character's strength. Players can obtain food from hunting animals, gathering fruit and vegetables, or purchasing them from a store. Ingredients that can be cooked into meals that regenerate characters' health or boost various stats. Players can also procure ore that can be refined and then used to create weapons or enhance their strength.

RAGNAROK X: NEXT GENERATION

Size: 2.68 GB

Description:

Ragnarok X: Next Generation is a mobile game based on Ragnarok Online. Ragnarok X: Next Generation featuring GVG guild war, a true test of your teamwork, various job routes, more cool mounts and many more. There are lots of activities and interactions when you play the game and if you’re a newbie you might be overwhelmed with all of that information. It will try to put everything in detail, the complete strategy guide and walkthrough that will help you in every step when you play the Ragnarok X Next Generation from start to basic info like classes, equipment, weapons, and many more. The classes are consist of 6, Swordsman, Acolyte, Mage, Archer, Thief, and Merchant. These can be upgraded by leveling your job. There is a lot of events that will be implemented so you can't miss the exciting rewards.

#mmorpg #mobile games #toram online #mir4 #THE LEGEND OF NEVERLAND #genshin impact #RAGNAROK X: NEXT GENERATION #entertain #entertainment

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hermitdyke · 3 years

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Please do go off about metanarratives and colaborative storytelling in LL if you want king, my analisys loving heart is curious and interested

Anon thank you so much I was really unsure to share this. Warning for 3L and LL spoilers.

3rd Life and by extension, Last Life is a great example of a Metanarrative and an Emergent Narrative. The definition used of metanarrative for this is “An overarching account or interpretation of events and circumstances that provides a pattern or structure for people’s beliefs and gives meaning to their experiences”. An Emergent Narrative is “any video game storyline that is not written into the game by its developers, but emerges from the player’s interactions with various gameplay subsystems”.

Taking these definitions and placing it in the context of a collaborative Lets-Play series with multiple creators recording and taking part, allows us to analyze a complete storyline and find relevancy and meaning to the things the characters do/say/own, even if seemingly inconsequential from the start.

Multiple Perspectives and Metanarrative

The collaboration of 14 and 17 creators for each series is crucial in understanding how the story functions as it does. The individual’s viewing of a single point of view or POV of any single player reveals an amount of new information, interactions, and conflicts. The viewer’s knowledge of the single character’s experiences is about the same. When viewing multiple perspectives, the story expands significantly, showing different relationships between everyone and provides context to events that one may not have seen in the single POV.

For example, in viewing Impulse’s finale episode for 3rd Life, viewers may be confused or lost on why Bdubs attacked and took Impulse’s final life over a clock that Scar had given him. If the viewer had not seen Bdub’s first episode, they would not have realized the relevance between Bdubs and Scar with a clock, being that one was given to him at the very beginning from Scar during an early mining session. Viewers would also not know unless they had viewed Scar’s finale that the clock that was given to Bdubs was taken off of Impulse after losing his yellow life.

Immediately, the lack of viewership on multiple perspectives limits the scope on why the event is relevant, and the viewer may find the story ending dissatisfying, when in fact it is incredibly false. The cross-analysis of perspectives and events gives meaning to this otherwise simple event and forms a narrative from a simple item in the game- an Emergent Narrative.

Emergent Narratives, Lives, and Boogeymen

The term “subsystems” in the definition of Emergent Narratives is another way of describing a game’s mechanics. 3rd Life and Last Life differs from vanilla Minecraft in that they’re playing in a limited life, hardcore system, with the random threat of the Boogeyman and a proximity voice-mod. Without these, the narrative would be dramatically different, although it is possible to form an Emergent Narrative using vanilla Minecraft (DSMP!Eret’s Betrayal is a popular example). Because of these features and players interacting using these features, a narrative emerges from what in any casual Lets Play, could be considered a “bit”. This is what makes 3rd Life and Last Life stand out.

In 3rd Life, an emergent narrative is formed when Ren asks Martyn to kill him, despite Martyn being green and him being yellow. Ren’s use of the red life mechanic provided him a way to protect Renchanting under the threat and pressure of Scar. Ren (the player) judged being able to attack anyone at will overruled the safety of having multiple lives, and that he now poses as a new threat to the server. They also use a vanilla mechanic in renaming the Red Winter axe so all members could recognize their newfound power and creating a desirable item in their alliance. In “proving his loyalty��, Martyn and Ren’s storyline really kicks off and starts to conflict with the other members as a new power on the server.

A recent example in Last Life is from Scar’s perspective and goes to show just how possible it is that Last Life can/will follow a similar route as its counterpart. Bdubs in his first episode asks Etho, “if you were the Boogeyman and I died to a mob in here, would you be like, ‘man”, is that a consideration you’d make?”, “..like I missed my chance, should’ve taken them when I could. (Timestamp: Bdubs Last Life Episode 1, 17:20-17:38)

This is ironic, considering that Bdubs at the time was the Boogeyman. An episode later, one of the two boogeymen of the session, Joel leads Lizzie into a trap, getting in a few hits, only to fail and lose a life himself. The damage that he dealt to Lizzie weakened her was only after killed by a mob, and brings the scenario Bdubs suggested into reality.

Without the use of the limited lives, Boogeyman system, and the limited Enchanting table resource, this narrative thread would not have worked. And in the Metanarrative of the story, unless the viewers both viewed Bdub’s and Joel/Lizzie’s perspectives, they would not have found relevancy in this scenario.

Lack of Script

The most important part of the Metanarrative and Emergent Narrative is that no one knows that these events are important or are going to amount to something in the end. It is the viewer’s knowledge and creators’ forethought of the series to see the narrative emerge from just a couple of friends playing a video game and starting a war, to developed characters with an overarching storyline in a limited episode run. At the start, none of the stories was intentional. The individual’s interpretation of the events and forming these connections between one or more perspectives is the real storyline, and if the creator wants to support this discovered story, they can (Martyn and Scott’s 3L endings).

A great example of this inability to script events is in Bdubs’ 3rd Lift perspective. In his first episode, he passes by a cliff face with a pond below. As he approaches and looks down the cliff, he says, “Nobodies against each other, y’know, it’s just kinda hanging out.” As he passes by and down the hill, “Eventually, once we get down lower, like once you’re on your third life, I think then its vengeance time.” (Timestamp: Bdubs 3L Episode 1, 12:41- 12:51)

Because of his experiences and the events unfolding in 3rd Life, the irony is not lost when he is killed just at the bottom of the exact same cliff by Grian and Scar as revenge. These seemingly irrelevant events in the moment form patterns across the entire series, with some underdeveloped locations, suddenly becoming relevant. A seemingly irrelevant moment is now much darker and holds so much more meaning to the character.

What does this mean for Last Life’s story? Is there an Emerging Metanarrative?

Narratives can be found anywhere, and in collaboratively playing an open-world sandbox game, there’s almost no avoiding it. With the start of Last Life, any of these seemingly casual conversations or collected items could have any sort of meaning in the future. This happened in Scar’s episode this week where he worries that he’ll drop from 5 to 1 life and get boogeyman “Oh no- we’re gonna lose all of our lives, aren’t we? We have five lives and by the end of this I’m gonna be a red life.”(Timestamp: Scars LL Episode 2, 4:54-4:59)

Only in the end, for both him and Joel to be Boogeymen, and for Joel to drop to red and lose his alliance with Scar. The catastrophe of the episode essentially avoided Scar, even though he was constantly at the forefront of the conflict. These small off comments, seemingly inconsequential are now made relevant and active conflicts between the characters.

And there’s plenty more of these events across 3rd Life, and predicting what is to come is nearly impossible (though I do have my own ideas).

-Comments made towards Etho’s tree and wool base, only for both to be burned multiple times, and all of Etho’s deaths being related to fire.

-Martyn to BigB in early episodes, wanting to track down Ren and their relationship and building of Renchanting/Dogwarts

(Personal theory- there are currently 3 wither skulls on the last life server, belonging to Grian, Etho, and Pearl/Scott. Currently, they are irrelevant, but there are THREE WITHER SKULLS, with the entire server having easy access to soulsand.)

#3rd life smp #last life smp #last life smp spoilers #3rd life smp spoilers #emerging metanarratives is such an interesting concept to me

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tartagilicious · 4 years

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the dangerous fellows boys and an mc that takes care of their younger sibling during the apocalypse

long title but fun concept ! it’s been a while since I’ve played, but I hope everything is correct — that said, this also contains spoilers 💃 requested by @sydisticsyd

* just a reminder, I don’t normally take df requests! I’ve moved on from the game, and this was a special case where I wanted to do something nice. ty <3

Ethan:

- There’s a long-running headcanon that he has younger siblings — most notably a sister if I’m remembering right, so in this case, so will you!

- when he saves you from a zombie in that convenience store the first time he meets you, the last thing he expects is for you to push a smaller child into his arms as you run.

- he immediately recognises her as your sister by the similar features you share, but her assumed age throws him off. looking around 5, she behaves extremely well under pressure, though that he can at least wrap his head around more than the fact that you’ve been holding out all of this time.

- his own instinct as an older brother makes him more defensive towards Scarlett and her absolute need to send you away. Scarlett doesn’t care much about Ethan’s opposition, obviously, but he does all he can.

- your shared affinity for family made it easy for you to bond from then on. you became a duo that worked well and stuck together, all while of course looking after your sister, who had begun to trust Ethan as if he really was her brother.

Harry:

- As an only child with problems at home, seeing such an obviously strong bond between you and your sibling warms his heart. even seeing you interact makes him incredibly happy

- He fights Scarlett 10x harder knowing that there are two lives on the line, and Scarlett, while mean, is not heartless — his point of views appeal to her. But, it’s arguably solely him that gets her on your side

- You grow close naturally after he stands up for you for fervently, and you really appreciate how gentle he is with your sister. in the middle of an apocalypse, you naturally have to be wary of any other survivors around her.

- He willingly gives up parts of his own rations to make sure she’s full every meal, and keeps her entertained to the best of his ability. In a way, it’s his way of having the company he never got? plus, he totally loves kids and you can’t tell me otherwise lol

Eugene:

- Probably hates kids tbh, but!! he’s not heartless. they rescued you both from being killed by zombies, and they’ll keep you safe. That’s basically a given, especially when there’s a kid at your side.

- The last thing Eugene wants is to see the poor girl more traumatised than she probably already is, after all.

- he’s not amazing with kids so he won’t exactly go out of his way to be nice, or spend time with them, but being close to you means it’s a sacrifice he has to make I guess?? I think he’d do it. I can imagine that your sister notices his reluctance though lolol

- regardless, they’d become quite close as time goes on ! in an environment like that, it would really help to limit rocky relationships. plus, you can’t tell me that the boy wouldn’t get a little bit attached to you both after a while-

- Eugene’s like a doting older brother when it comes to her, all while retaining his signature tsundere vibe with everyone but you. they have a handshake and she likes to ride on his shoulders !!

Zion:

- before you come along, he basically hates everything and trusts no one 😭 but even the big brood cares about how a kid sees him. he’s a bit sympathetic to your younger brother (in this case) because while he himself may have not had a great childhood, he can barely imagine living through an apocalypse at such a formative age.

- the issue of you being cast aside once you’re rescued is pretty much non-existent, what with Zion’s views and Scarlett’s suck-up ways. No one can really argue once she’s put in her place by the only person she listens to, after all.

- he’d honestly try his hardest from the get-go to be there for your brother, of course with your support and all of that. I can imagine he’d be a little shy to ask this to you, someone who’s essentially a stranger, but you’d both come to appreciate it.

- Zion is actually surprisingly good with kids. he’d find ways to keep your brother entertained that are still apocalypse friendly, to the point where your brother would be almost glued to his side — though, it’s situational if that would bother you, really.

- if your brother wanted to room with Zion, he would totally give up his blanket for the kid 😭💕 maybe even let him read some of the comics he stole from the library?

Lawrence:

- shit, can he kill with a child around? 🤔 much to think about. and would he have to eventually kill your brother too?? maybe he’s in over his head.

- no but I really do think that if you as a player had a younger sibling by your side over being alone,,, it would lessen the chances of Lawrence deciding to go absolutely insane. he has to respect the child, and also your inborn wish for your brother to stay alive lol

- Lawrence is kind of shaken by the development, but he would definitely try his best to get close to him while he can, though. of course, all while being kind and supportive and being loose on particular rules with him so he gets a good impression in

- but kids are perceptive when they want to be, so don’t tell me that your brother wouldn’t get bad vibes from Lawrence even after all that stuff 😐 he would know right after Judy disappears that Lawrence is up to some sneaky shit

- an extra candy bar and fake sweetness won’t pass him lol

- would Lawrence think about killing your brother if he were in fact that smart? no. it would be a liability, but the entire point if his killing spree in the first place is to keep you with him. there’s no way you’d ever want anything to do with him if he killed one of the only people you have left. and even if he did manage to pull that off, it’d arguably make you more miserable than when he kills all your friends

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girl4music · 2 years

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Thinking about switching to Apple Mac… what do I need to know as a lifetime Microsoft Windows user?

So my fully spec’d out Dell XPS 15 9500 packed it in recently after almost 2 years of use (horrific, right? 😲) due to a Windows 11 BIOS update wiping my service tag and making my OS nearly non-functional. It will not let me reprogram the service tag through the BIOS settings so my £2, 500 laptop is now virtually useless since I cannot access the features of the OS within manufacturing mode. Instead of calling up Dell Support (warranty has expired - go figure 🙄) and getting it fixed or even getting it replaced, I’ve been considering switching to an Apple Mac. There’s a couple of reasons why I want to make the switch:

1. Quite frankly, the main reason is I just don’t want to deal with Microsoft Windows anymore. It’s just gotten so bad lately with the constant updates and “upgrades” to Windows 11 that I feel like any Windows PC/laptop I buy no matter how high-end it might be… Windows 11 will just ruin it. And downgrading the OS is going backwards. I don’t want to do that. I like the latest and should-be greatest. But there’s nothing great about Windows 11. Navigating around the OS itself is buggy and laggy as fuck because there’s so many problems that come with “upgrading” to Windows 11. And I know if I buy another Windows PC/laptop, the operating system will either be installed with Windows 11 out-of-the-box or Windows 10 will eventually force me to upgrade to Windows 11. I don’t want to deal. Yes, there will be things I’ll miss about using the Windows OS which are in my comfort zone… but at this point I’ll take the kicks for the ticks because there’s just too many restrictions/limitations as it is so it makes even the familiar and enjoyable parts of Windows frustrating and many of the Windows-only compatible programs/applications I love to use like Microsoft Word and Windows Media Player are bound to these restrictions/limitations. In a nut-shell: Windows is not user-friendly for me anymore. So making a switch is necessary for me.

2. Another reason is I own an iPhone 13 Pro Max so going into the Apple ecosystem should be a seamless transition as far as it’s compatibility with another Apple device goes (please let me know if this is not the case as I don’t know) and that will save me so much time and energy because working an iPhone with Windows is a hassle. It is not easy transferring back and forth from an Apple iPhone to Windows PC/laptop with Microsoft and Apple being rival companies since forever. Suffice to say, I did a system restore on my laptop about a month ago to try and fix some of the bugs Windows 11 has given it, so I’ve lost all my programs/applications and settings. Specifically my 200+ iTunes library playlists which would be massively time-consuming to recreate every single one over again when I could just plug in my iPhone to my laptop and easily transfer them to it. I do have my music, video, photo and document files backed-up to a Seagate external hard-drive, which is compatible with both Windows and Mac, so it’s not an issue for me that I cannot access my files on the laptop anymore due to it constantly being in manufacturing mode because I can still access them on my smart phone and my smart TV. All I would need the laptop for is to download, sync and upload those files to those other devices and to the internet. Plus I also own an external CD/DVD drive which is also compatible with both Windows and Mac just in case I want to do some more TV show ripping. I still have the 3 final seasons of Charmed to store on my external hard-drive and to eventually sync to my iPhone along with Xena and Buffy. Yes, I am that kind of person that likes my favourite TV shows on every device at once because I can’t stand streaming and projecting. It’s slow and a pain in my pocket. I’d rather just have all the video files on all my devices to watch and edit whenever and wherever. That is convenient for me.

3. I’ve been researching about Final Cut Pro because I’ve wanted to get back into video editing my favourite TV shows again and making gifs for them to upload to Tumblr. The way that Final Cut Pro functions so simplistically seems to be right up my alley because I’ve always found it a struggle learning the complicated process of working Adobe Premiere and Photoshop beyond the basics. So I feel like Final Cut Pro would be much more suitable to my needs as a video editor and gif maker and the improvements in speed and efficiency (Adobe programs are crash beasts) will certainly be a great deal more worth it than Premiere and Photoshop ever were to me. Plus - you buy Final Cut Pro once and you have it for always VS monthly payouts to Adobe to keep Premiere/Photoshop and you can do both video editing and gif making on Final Cut Pro so no need for 2 separate programs to do 2 different essentially similar things.

4. Mac’s are quick and quiet simultaneously. They use just as much processing power as a Windows PC/laptop does but the machine is practically silent no matter what you do with or on it. I can’t count how many times I’ve opened up my Dell XPS and just messed around in the OS without opening any programs/applications and the fans on it revved like they were in a monster truck rally. Then I would open internet tabs on websites that automatically played videos and gifs like Tumblr and it would start crashing and self-closing on the application or sometimes even shutting down the machine itself. It was getting beyond aggravating to keep using it when it’s power functionality just wasn’t up to what I paid for it. With a Mac, not only will the compatibility with my iPhone be unrestricted and unlimited straight away… but it will also be extremely quick and quiet straight away.

5. Safari VS Windows Explorer/Google Chrome/Mozilla Firefox or any other Windows-based internet browser is night and day difference. Using Safari on my iPhone is a breeze like the fucking wind. It is so fast and efficient and useful and attractive… it absolutely floors any other kind of internet browser I have ever used on it. Which makes me really excited for how it’s going to work on a Mac laptop. If it’s this great to use on an iPhone with an 8th the processing power of a Windows PC/laptop - then I’m sure it’s out of this world to use it on a Mac. Having a really great internet browser matters to me because I am on the internet for all sorts of reasons. Yes, I primarily use the official social media apps for interacting with social media but there are times when I want to use the browser-based version. The actual website. And trying to do that with Chrome or Firefox, or at the very least, Explorer… is horrendous. It is so slow, the tabs and bookmarks are messy, and things just don’t work the way I want them to work. Then I use Safari to do all of that on my iPhone and it’s fantastic. It keeps up with all the browsing I do on the internet no matter how many tabs or bookmarks I have open on it. It’s significantly better than Chrome which is my default browser on my laptop. That’s always been the speediest and most efficient internet browser to use on a Windows PC/laptop but it still doesn’t compare to the ease-of-use Safari gives me on my iPhone. Moving to Mac from Windows will give me Safari immediately. No need to download it. No need to do any updates (I’m guessing - please tell me if I’m wrong) and I really would love to use it on my laptop.

So given these are the reasons why I would want to make the switch from Microsoft to Apple and Windows to Mac… what do I need to know having only ever used the former before aside from with my iPhone? What will I miss? What won’t have a Mac OS replacement? Do the programs/applications and settings function so differently that I won’t get used to them at all? Please let me know what I need to consider before I buy and get rid of the trash I have.

#windows to mac #microsoft to apple #windows pc #laptop #windows 11 #macintosh #safari #final cut pro #apple ecosystem #iphone 13 pro max #microsoft ecosystem #Dell XPS #power functionality #what do I need to consider?#before I buy #making the switch

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lovenhlboys · 3 years

Text

From A Distance (E.Pettersson X Reader)

Chapter 3

Masterlist

Get added to taglist

A/N: Hellooooo there!!! here is the next chapter, sorry it took me so long, I hope the others will not take nearly as long!! anyways, I really hope you like it and lmk what you think PLEASE!!! Also biggest thanks to Ash cause like, why not, she’s helped me with this and literally everything😂😂

ALSO this one is from both of their POVs, so the change in POV is signalized by:

Y/N= regular ELIAS= italics

(any other info is on the masterlist)

Warnings: lots of cursing, mentions of Pretty Little Liars, another attempt at Swedish (if its wrong pls lmk) I think thats it, if you think I missed a warning please inform me!!!

Summary: Brock has a plan... he executes it.

Word Count: 2.7k

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ———————— >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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

PRESENT (thoughts) ---------------

For you, your hardcore crush on Elias was very secretive. Only you, Quinn, and Marky know about it and you are not about to tell anyone else. Elias, he’s so funny, his humor is the exact same as yours and he never fails to make you laugh, even though he barely talks to you. He makes fun of your brother, just like you, and is extremely quick-witted with his comebacks.

And as for Elias, he's the only one who knows about his feelings, because he has worked hard to suppressed them. She has the best laugh. Elias tries his hardest to make her laugh whenever he can because every time he hears it makes his chest fill with warmth.

He has the best style and it’s so fun to see what he wears. Every once in a while there are a few questionable items, but overall, he always looks great. You love to see that he’s willing to take those fashionable risks. It’s better than what every other hockey player wears. The go-to of shorts and a t-shirt with a beanie.

She looks amazing in everything that she wears without even trying. She could be in a dirty sweatshirt and sweatpants and he would still think she was the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. Her hair, her shoulders, the curve of her hips and back, all of it was perfect. But his favorite thing had to be her legs, they went on for days and the contour of her muscles was so beautiful to him. Safe to say any day she wore shorts, Elias had to try extra hard not to stare.

He has the most beautiful face you've ever known. His jawline was immaculate, like nothing you'd ever seen. His light golden blonde hair was so unique and it reflected the light in the prettiest way, at every angle. His smile, while dorky, was also something you couldn't stop yourself from staring at, always making you smile too, at how adorable he looked when he was happy.

She is totally off-limits.

He doesn’t like you.

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

PRESENT

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

You loved your brother, but my god could he be stupid sometimes. He’d texted you TWENTY minutes ago to meet him in the break room and he still wasn’t there. You’d texted him 7 times and he hadn’t responded. You had started to text him an eighth time when the door opened.

“There you ar- Oh. Hi Elias, what’re you doing here?” instead of your brother, like you had thought, it was the gorgeous swede, wearing a pair of glasses that complemented all of his features, a light blue sweatshirt, a backwards snapback, and a nice pair of black sweatpants...needless to say he looked quite sexy. Especially compared to you, you were wearing one of Quinn’s Canucks sweatshirts (that you definitely didn't steal), leggings, you had your hair up, you didn't have any makeup on so you looked, well, not sexy (in your opinion).

“Uh, hi Y/N, um is Brock here?” he asked as he closed the door behind him and looked around the room.

“No, he told me to meet him here like 20 minutes ago and he still isn’t here,” you said.

“Weird, he told me to meet him here like 15 minutes ago,” Elias explained.

You shake your head and laugh, knowing exactly what’s happening.

“What?” he asked, reasonably confused as to what’s going on.

“Elias can you do something for me?” you asked, he nodded. “Go try and open that door, please,” you instructed him.

He walked up and just like you were thinking, the door didn’t move.

You laughed again then shouted, “OH, FUCK YOU BOESER!!”

“What’s happening right now?” Elias said tugging at the door still.

“Brock is a FUCKING CHILD is what’s happening, he locked us in.”

“What? Why?”

“Who knows?” you, that’s who. You knew precisely why Brock would want to lock the two of you in together. Because his best friend didn’t like you and he wanted the two of you to get along. You pulled this trick on Brock and his friend Julia, in high school when they had a big fight.

“Well, how long will he keep us in here?” Elias questioned.

“Why, do you have somewhere to be?” you asked him.

“No, I’m just wondering.”

“Don’t want to be alone with me that long?” You said with a laugh, even though you weren’t joking (he didn’t have to know that).

“What? No, why would you think that?” he seemed genuinely upset at your suggestion.

“I don’t. It’s just- never mind” you stopped yourself.

“Y/N, what is it?” he pushed.

“I don’t know,” you said, then you gave in to his request, “it’s just that you never want to be alone with me, and you never talk to me, I just assumed you didn’t like me”

Elias let out a loud laugh and sat down next to you on the couch, “Why wouldn’t I like you? You’re my best friend’s little sister.”

“Well let’s see the evidence shall we…”

You went on to describe the events of the summer party at Bo’s house in August of 2019. The night you felt confirmed your suspicions that the swede didn’t like you.

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

FLASHBACK

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

It was early August so you were wearing a white short-sleeved blouse with pink flowers, and a white denim mini skirt. You and Brock had arrived late because Brock was trying to get his hair all “floofy and perfect”

As you walked in, you said hi to everyone, made your rounds of greetings. Once you finished, you ended up right where you thought you would, talking with Thatcher and Troy. As you were talking, you made eye contact with Elias across the room and waved at him. But he didn’t wave back or smile or nod like you were expecting, he rolled his eyes and turned around.

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

PRESENT

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

Elias stopped you there

“Wait wait wait, that’s is not what happened” he dismissed your details of the story.

“Yes, it is! I waved and you looked so annoyed!” you insisted.

“Ok, this is what I remember...”

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

FLASHBACK

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

Elias was talking to Brock about God knows what. Brock was in the middle of talking when he glanced over and saw Y/N, Troy, and Thatcher all talking to each other. He was looking at Troy who was pointing at Y/N and Thatcher making kissy faces. Implying what he was afraid of: Thatcher and Y/N were together in some way. So yeah, he rolled his eyes and turned around, because he was a little hurt and a lot jealous. (though that's not exactly what he told you)

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

PRESENT

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

“I rolled my eyes and turned around because I thought It was so ridiculous to think that you would ever like Dems,” liar, “like I thought Stech was being stupid, that would make no sense YOU liking HIM,” he laughed, he’s a lying liar who lies. Though he did think that wasn’t even possible. Having seen how annoyed she gets around Thatcher now, the thought that she’d ever like him in a way that was anything more than ‘annoying friend that I have to deal with’ Seemed inconceivable. She is so far out of his league it’s not even funny.

You didn’t say anything, just looked down at your feet. The boy you have a very hardcore crush on right now is talking about his good friend that you had a minor crush on back then.

Elias could apparently tell you weren’t telling him something “...Y/N”

“Mhmm” you hummed, still no eye contact.

“What is it?”

“Uhh, so, here’s the thing,” you said sounding quite guilty, “I may or may not have, you know, hadacrushonthatcher… back then” you mumbled.

Elias was silent for about 5 seconds and it felt like you had died and come back to life within those seconds. “I’m sorry, did I hear that right?”

“I don’t know,” you turned to the door, “hey Brock, now that you’ve humiliated me, may we leave? I would like to go home and wallow in my self-pity.”

“No, wait Y/N. It’s fine, why does it matter? You don’t like him now?” he correctly assumed.

“God no, ew,” you scoffed.

“Ok, so why does it matter?” he genuinely wanted to know.

“It doesn’t, I guess. I just don’t want you to think I like him is all” God he’s going to figure it out.

“Yeah, no. I’ve seen how annoying he is'' Elias replied. Thinking the only reason she didn’t want him to know was that you liked a certain friend of his. The other Swede in the group. Since the incident at Brock and Y/N’s place, he has come to learn that they aren’t together, he’s familiar with the term “cuddle buddies” now which doesn’t make any sense. But he can’t deny how Y/N and Jacob act around each other. Sure, Quinn explained that they don’t think of each other as anything more than that. He even said that Marky goes on dates all the time. Even still, he knows he’ll never be the one Y/N has her eyes on, and even if she went crazy and did think of him that way, he could never act on it. Brock would kill him, and as he keeps having to remind himself: his friendship and on-ice chemistry is too important to risk.

“Yeah well, Marky’s great too,” he said, pulling your attention from the way he looked in those glasses, and that hat...damn.

“...Yeaaaah?” you said, suddenly quite confused as to where he was going with this. You nodded your head, wordlessly telling him to continue.

“And, uh, I think he’s great… really…. great'' he almost seemed annoyed by what he was saying. More importantly, you were extremely lost.

“Elias, stop being vague. You're confusing me,” you said plainly.

“What Y/N, do you not know what I'm getting at?” he said, assuming you knew what he meant, continuing to stay all vague and Swedish.

“Obviously not,” you rolled your eyes and looked back at his still annoyed face.

“You and Marky? I think he's great...you know…” he paused and took a deep breath, then mumbled, “for you”

You burst out laughing, “Elias Fredrik Pettersson”

“Fredrik?” he whispered to himself with a smirk at the way you said his full name.

“I’m not dating, nor do I want to date Jacob Markstrom.”

“Yeah right,” he said in his classic sarcastic tone.

“I don't! Our personalities clash so bad! Have you not noticed that?” you shouted trying to make it clear to him.

“I mean, I don't know” his face was turning red at his seemingly wrong and laughable accusation.

“Ok, Elias, look at me,” he did with his goddamn beautiful eyes, “Think about it,” you told him.

And he did as you said.

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

FLASHBACK

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

One night, in particular, stood out, it was about 4 weeks ago and the Canucks were on the road. Quinn and Elias were sitting on Quinn’s bed. The door burst open, Y/N ran in, Jacob following close behind.

Y/N sat next to Quinn and tucked her head into his neck.

“Woah, Y/N/N what’s wrong?” Quinn held her head and hit pause on the episode of Pretty Little Liars they were in the middle of watching. Elias turned and watched the events, knowing he’s most likely going to just be an observer for the rest of this interaction

She pulled her head out of Quinn’s neck. At this point all of them were sitting up, Jacob on his bed, the other three all on Quinn’s, “Marky is an ASS,” she said, looking directly at Marky.

“I am not, she’s being a drama queen,” he defended himself.

“I’m sorry have you met her?” Quinn laughed, “She’s literally the complete opposite of a drama queen”

“Fine, ask her what happened then” Jacob gestured at Y/N.

“Y/N/N” Quinn asked her to continue.

“Well” she started, “this dumbass Giraffe tried to get me to talk to the ever so beautiful Gabriel Landeskog.”

“How is that so horrible, he’s such a nice guy?” Jacob seemed genuinely confused.

“I’m not social Marky!! I don't do that, he so hot and I looked like an idiot.”

“No, you didn’t. oh my god,” Jacob said, rolling his eyes. “du är precis som Elias (you are just like Elias)”

“aj (ouch)”

“God, I hate it when you guys do that” Quinn whispered.

Y/N continued, “JACOB, I said, and I QUOTE, ‘Woah, damn’ and then stood there staring at him like an IDIOT”

“You did not?” Quinn said, laughing.

“Huggy, I swear to god, I will slap you” she turned and looked at Quinn with legit murder in her eyes.

“Ok, but yeah, Marky you don’t do that shit to Y/N. She’s just like me, we don’t socialize well.”

“I don’t get it, like I know you’d rather stay in when I want to go out, I just didn’t think it was this bad.”

“Fuuuuuuuuck,” she said, shoving her hands in her hair, “I looked so stupid. And did I mention HE’S HOT”

“Wow, you really have a thing for Swedes, huh?” Quinn quipped.

Her eyes widened. “Quinn Hughes, shut the actual fuck up” she shoved the giggling defenseman. Quinn just stayed laying down and continued to laugh, he then looked at Jacob with a knowing glance and a grin, and Marky giggled. Elias assumed it was because Jacob was aware of Y/N’s feelings.

Elias had been observing this interaction from afar, afar meaning about 2 feet away on the opposite side of the bed. He completely agreed with her, if he was shoved into an uncomfortable situation with someone he’s never met, he’d act just about as stupid as she did. And even he had to admit, Gabe Landeskog is hot as FUCK.

“Ok, Y/C/N/N, I’m sorry. But I didn’t know it was that bad. Side note, how come all of my close friends except for like 3 are super antisocial. I mean look in this room. You three are the exact same.”

“Wow… this right here, THIS is why you are only good for hugging” she gets up and walks over to the other bed where Marky is sitting.

“You’re so sweet to me, you know that?” sarcasm evident in his tone, he hugs her.

“Marky, you know I’m not sweet.”

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

PRESENT

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

Elias grinned to himself at that. She was right, she’s not sweet. She’s not mean but she surely isn’t sweet. Just like him. And she was the perfect amount of smartass, beautiful, loving, funny, antisocial, tough, and strong. She was literally everything he could’ve wanted.

Before he let himself get too lost in that thought of her again, he responded “ok, yeah I guess.”

“Didn’t Quinn tell you that I don't like Marky like 10 times?”

“Yeah, but I just- the way you guys act around each other. It just would make sense.”

“Well, now you know.”

Silence filled the room once more, you looked over at Elias. he was smiling and looking down at his hands. You continued to be mesmerized by just how beautiful the boy in front of you looked. With his backwards snap back and sweats, it seemed as though he had just thrown on a random outfit, and to anyone else that was probably what they would think. But that didn't matter to you, he was just so pretty and it filled your brain with too many thoughts. thoughts that you knew you shouldn't be having about him because he clearly wasn't your biggest fan. But that got you thinking even more (which is dangerous), he was acting different, it seemed as though he had let his guard down. He's never done that with you, in fact it felt like when you were around him, his guard was reinforced. He looked a little softer, sweeter, the guy you met at the Dice-and-Ice gala, you think. All you wanted was for that guard to stay down, giving you access to the guy you had a crush on, not just his hard outer shell.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ———————— >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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#from a distance: series #give feedback 😁#elias pettersson #hockey #nhl #vancouver canucks #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #elias pettersson imagines #elias pettersson imagine #elias pettersson x reader #elias pettersson fic #vancouver canucks imagines #vancouver canucks fic #vancouver canucks imagine #nhl fic #hockey fic #hockey imagines #hockey imagine

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gingermintpepper · 4 years

Text

After thinking it over for a bit, I've decided that I might as well do a proper underrated 3DS game rec list. I'm a bit of an ATLUS junkie and that's gonna be pretty disgustingly apparent in this list, but it's not my fault that they released hit after hit and all of them were duly ignored.

Due to tumblr's 10 image limit (and my struggle to keep motivated to do one thing for more than three hours) I'm definitely gonna have to break this up into parts and I'm fairly certain one of these lists is just gonna be MegaTen games lmao but I'd like to let people know about these excellent titles and see if I can't at least get people interested in them so they can get more traction.

So, without further ado:

Some 3DS Games that were criminally slept on (part 1)

Monster Hunter Stories

God, where do I begin with this game. Well, the basics: It's a JRPG spinoff title of the now widely successful and popular Monster Hunter series featuring a different take on interacting with the varied and intricate monsters populating the world: Riders.

Yep, instead of hunting the beasties, you play as a young rider who's completed their intiation ritual and can now bond with 'Monsties' as they've cutely labelled the usually ferocious monsters of the wilds. The great thing is that you still fight Monsters--tons of them in fact but this isn't a paid review and in my humble opinion, the most impressive thing about this game is the visual style. The landscapes, the armour, the way they redesigned and 3DS-ified the classically hyper realistic and monstrous beasts to not only be absolutely adorable but still capable of being intimidating when the time calls for it, the stellar animation of special moves and combination attacks--it's delicious, nutritious, stupendous, I can and will consume it like it's part of my recommended caloric intake.

It's very akin to Pokemon in the way its basic gameplay premise is set up, however, instead of catching--or even indeed befriending--the Monsties in the game, you rummage through their nests and steal their eggs, later hatching them and getting yourself a brand new lightly kidnapped monster pal!

Other general things about the game:

Pros:

The armour and weapon sets for both male and female characters slap along with the general character customisation options. They're incredibly diverse (though limited in body type) and you can switch around traits and features whenever you want from your house.

The POGS--these porkers are everywhere and they serve as tiny little achievements for exploring every odd and end of the world. Also they have little outfits. They're so cute. 🥺🥺

You can actually ride the Monsties. All of em. Or, at least the ones that you have available to be your buddies. They all have exploration skills and traits that not only make exploring much more interesting but encourage you to swap out your active Monstie and play around with your options a bit.

Y'all breeding Monsties is complicated and I live for just how intense and ridiculous you can get with optimal builds for these things.

The story is really competently put together! The characters, character designs and even the internal conflict with your starting trio of characters is really compelling along with the mystery of the blight that's infecting Monsters across the world. It's not anything worth awards but it's compelling and it makes you care about the characters if that's what you're in the market for.

Amazing sound design, expansive world, everything about the presentation of this game oozes that Monster Hunter charm even if the art is cutesier than usual. You'll never get bored of its stellar visual presentation!

Available for around twenty quid on the Google Play store, so if you want, you could actually get the full game on your smartphone or tablet. Note though that it would be a battery nuker.

Cons:

If you're on a regular 3DS, frame rate drops are a given. This game kinda pushes the visual capabilities of the 3DS to its absolute limit--a lot like Okamiden did back on the DS.

One save file :( It's pretty much for the same reason as above but still.

If you're playing as the girl, you can't get male armour and vice versa. Since there's only one save file, you'll never be able to have all of the armour sets in a single playthrough and that's criminal because both of the sets for the genders are absolutely breath-taking, thank you.

I 👏can't 👏make👏my👏 own 👏Palico👏

Multi-player for this game is pretty dead seeing as it's almost five years old by now and never got much press or traction. Usually this wouldn't be an issue - this game is 99% singleplayer and you don't really need to fuss about with multi-player to have fun, but if you want to collect all the Monsties, you'll need it since the only way to get Glavenus is through pvp achievements. :/

Final thoughts: Play it if you find yourself getting tired or disappointed with 3DS Pokemon games but still want something that feels as fantastical as Pokemon. It outshines the 3DS Pokemon games at every turn and I will never be over just how thoughtfully put together and fully realised these games are. Of course, if you've ever played Monster Hunter, then you know just how intensive these games are with the lore, biology, cultures and world of their Monsters but seeing that translated into JRPG format was just very sobering and it's a game that, to this day, continues to awe me with just how much love and attention went into it.

Last note: If you're still unsure about it, there's a demo available on the e-shop of the 3DS that allows you to play through the entire initial area of the game. Your data does carry through to the full release and to give you an idea of how much I've been able to squeeze out of it - my playtime for that demo is currently sitting at 22 hours. Make sure to get a hold of that Cyan-Kut-Ku!

7th Dragon III Code: VFD

The title may sound intimidating but the premise is not! A mysterious disease called Dragon Sickness spread by the Dragonsbane flowers that have cropped up all around the world. You and your team are recruited by the Nodens game company after you display extraordinary prowess in their hit virtual reality game 7th Encount. As you go through the adventure, you are tasked with finding out the truth behind the Dragon Sickness and asked to stop both it and the Dragons that are destroying the world.

This game is fun. It's another turn-based JRPG however, in this game you create all of your characters yourself from the myriad of classes available to you from the jump. Different classes of course have very different specialisations - Samurai focus on high powered cutting damage with their swords, Duelists are summoners who can influence the element of the battlefield as well as summon monsters from each element, Agents can hack into your enemies and inflict a barrage of nasty ailments, just to name a few - and you are given three teams of three characters each to experiment with different team comps and find the balance that works for you. There's also a wide variety of Dragons to hunt and kill in the game, which directly affects how infected your world is with the Dragon Sickness causing Dragonsbane. Along the way you will also come into contact with many interesting characters, concepts and confrontations that will make the task of saving the world all the more imperative.

Pros

1. The character creator and differing classes give way for tons of experimenting and playing around with your own unique approach to combat and carrying out your missions. Granted, 'character creation' is generous, it's little more than palatte swaps but the classes are really where VFD shines. Eight main classes may not sound like a lot, but the expaniveness of the character skills, their synergy with their fellow classes and the uniqueness of some of the classes in and of itself allows for so much flexibility and creativity in approaches to even tougher bosses. It also encourages the switching about of your party members to really finagle with the options available to you.

2. God this game is pretty. The locations, the character art, the creature design - all of it is gorgeous and this game capitalises on every bit of the 3DS's presentation limitations as it can.

3. You can romance anything and everyone - yes, you can even be gay/lesbian/poly in this game. In fact, one of the main characters - Julietta - is gnc and he's a constant source of joy as well one of my personal favourite characters, right behind Yuma.

4. Exploration is very very forgiving as the game has healing spots and teleport nodes all over the world to allow for quick, seamless travel between quest points without feeling like anything is too much of a hassle. There are also special enemies that allow for quick grinding as well as quick farming of money. In general, the game does a really good job of making sure that the grind is never unbearable or inconsiderate of your time.

Cons:

1. This is the fourth game in a series the West has never seen any other title for, and from the looks of it, will probably never see any other titles for. Because of that, there are some elements that may seem confusing or revelations in the plot that may seem to come out of nowhere.

2. While the visuals are great, the OST of this one is pretty short making for a lot of reused soundtracks that can get really annoying if you're like me and need your audio to be interesting or consistent so it doesn't distract you too much.

3. This one isn't really a con but it is divisive: This game gets pretty difficult at times. A few of the main dragon enemies including and especially the final boss can give you a serious run for your money in the annoy-o-meter in terms of the kind of absolute JRPG fuckery they can pull out of their magic bag of bullshit movesets and while I generally enjoy that kind of thing, I know it's not for everyone. Most regular combat shouldn't be too tricky once you have a team comp that works well together but you also need to pay attention since the same team that carries you to victory one time might be worth beans against another dragon.

Final thoughts: This is... a really good game. Interesting story, really interesting characters, pretty world and a battle system that really makes you sit down and think. There's also a demo for this available in the e-shop and while your data doesn't carry over - you do receive multiple perks for carrying over your demo data including some exclusive items that, while not game breaking, do help a ton in the early stages of the game.

This isn't a final list by any stretch of the word; I only have the energy to do these two right now, but the next games up for coverage are Ever Oasis and Stella Glow! If you're interested in my full plan of games I want to cover here then my current lineup includes: Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, Project Mirai: Deluxe, Culdecept Revolt, Alliance Alive, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Etrian Odyssey V, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse.

Finally, if anyone has played any of the games I mention, cover or plan to cover PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME, I AM SO LONELY IN MY FORTRESS OF SAND. On a serious note, I'd love to hear what other people who've played these games think!

Thanks for reading,

-Ginger

PS: @feralpeacock Because a million years ago, on my first underrated games post, you asked that I remember you. :D

#ginger rambles #ginger talks about video games #monster hunter stories #monster hunter #code dragon iii vfd #video games #3ds #underrated games #These take so much energy to make holy shit #There are so many more amazing 3ds games I could talk about #But I legit just don't have the braincells for #Also I know Apocalypse probably has the biggest audience that played it out of all the games listed #But it's criminally underrated because it was different #So it's probably going to get it's own little review thing #Yeehaw

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felassan · 4 years

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Insights into DAI’s development from Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

The book is by game industry journalist Jason Schreier (it’s an interesting read and well-written, I recommend it). This is the cliff notes version of the DAI chapter. This info isn’t new as the book is from 2017 (I finally got around to buying it). Some insight into DAO, DA2 and cancelled DA projects is also given. Cut for length.

BW hoped that DA would become the LotR of video games. DAO’s development was “a hellish seven-year slog”

The DAI team are compared to a chaotic “pirate ship”, which is what they called themselves internally. “It’ll get where it needs to go, but it’s going to go all over the place. Sail over here. Drink some rum. Go over here. Do something else. That’s how Mark Darrah likes to run his team.” An alternative take from someone else who worked on the game: “It was compared to a pirate ship because it was chaotic and the loudest voice in the room usually set the direction. I think they smartly adopted the name and morphed it into something better.”

A game about the Inquisition and the large-scale political conflicts it solves across Thedas, where the PC was the Inquisitor, was originally the vision for ‘DA2′. Plans had to change when SW:TOR’s development kept stalling and slipping. Frustrated EA execs wanted a new product from BW to bolster quarterly sales targets, and decided that DA would have to fill the gap. BW agreed to deliver DA2 within 16 months. “Basically, DA2 exists to fill that hole. That was the inception. It was always intended to be a game made to fit in that”

BW wanted to call it DA: Exodus, but EA’s marketing execs insisted on DA2, no matter what that name implied

DAO’s scope (Origin stories, that amount of big areas, variables, reactivity) was just not doable in a year, even if everyone worked overtime. To solve this problem, BW shelved the Inquisition idea and made a risky call: DA2 would be set in one city over time, allowing locations to be recycled and months to be shaved off dev time. They also axed DAO features like customizing party members’ equipment. These were the best calls they were able to make on a tight line

Many at BW are still proud of DA2. Those that worked on it grew closer from all being in it together

In certain dark accounting corners of EA, despite fan response to DA2 and its lower sales compared to DAO, DA2 is considered a wild success

By summer 2011 BW decided to cancel DA2′s expansion Exalted March in favor of a totally new game. They needed to get away from the stigma of DA2, reboot the franchise and show they could make triple-A quality good games.

DAI was going to be the most ambitious game BW had ever made and had a lot to prove (that BW could return to form, that EA wasn’t crippling the studio, that BW could make an ‘open-world’ RPG with big environments). There was a bit of a tone around the industry that there were essentially 2 tiers of BW, the ME team and then everyone else, and the DA team had a scrappy desire to fight back against that

DAI was behind schedule early on due to unfamiliar new technology; the new engine Frostbite was very technically challenging and required more work than anyone had expected. Even before finishing DA2 BW were looking for a new engine for the next game. Eclipse was creaky, obsolete, not fully-featured, graphically lacking. The ME team used Unreal, which made inter-team collab difficult. “Our tech strategy was just a mess. Every time we’d start a new game, people would say, ‘Oh, we should just pick a new engine’.”

After meeting with an EA exec BW decided on Frostbite. Nobody had ever used it to make an RPG, but EA owned FB dev studio DICE, and the engine was powerful and had good graphic capabilities & visual effects. If BW started making all its games on FB, it could share tech with sister studios and borrow tools when they learned cool new tricks.

For a while they worked on a prototype called Blackfoot, to get a feel for FB and to make a free-to-play DA MP game. It fizzled as the team was too small, which doesn’t lend itself well to working with FB, and was cancelled

BW resurfaced the old Inquisition idea. What might a DA3 look like on FB? Their plan by 2012 was to make an open-world RPG heavily inspired by Skyrim that hit all the beats DA2 couldn’t. “My secret mission was to shock and awe the players with the massive amounts of content.” People complained there wasn’t enough in DA2. “At the end of DAI, I actually want people to go, ‘Oh god, not [another] level’.”

It was originally called Dragon Age 3: Inquisition

BW wanted to launch on next-gen consoles only but EA’s profit forecasters were caught up in the rise of iPad and iPhone gaming and were worried the next-gen consoles wouldn’t sell well. As a safeguard EA insist it also ship on current-gen. Most games at that time followed this strategy. Shipping on 5 platforms at once would be a first for BW

Ambitions were piling up. This was to be BW’s first 3D open-world game, and their first game on Frostbite, an engine that had never been used to make RPGs. It needed to be made in roughly two years, it needed to ship on 5 platforms, and, oh yeah, it needed to restore the reputation of a studio that had been beaten up pretty badly. “Basically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that we’ve ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did. With tools that don’t exist.”

FB didn’t have RPG stats, a visible PC, spells, save systems, a party of 4 people, the same kind of cutscenes etc and couldn’t create any of those things. BW had to create these on top of it. BW initially underestimated how much work this would be. BW were the FB guinea pigs. Early on in DAI’s development, even the most basic tasks were excruciating, and this impacted even fundamental aspects of game design and dev. When FB’s tools did function they were finicky and difficult. DICE’s team supported them but had limited resources and were 8 hours ahead. Since creating new content in FB was so difficult, trying to evaluate its quality became impossible. FB engine updates made things even more challenging. After every one, BW had to manually merge and test it; this was debilitating, and there were times when the build didn’t work for a month or was really unstable.

Meanwhile the art department were having a blast. FB was great for big beautiful environments. For months they made as much as possible, taking educated guesses when they didn’t know yet what the designers needed. “For a long time there was a joke on the project that we’d made a fantastic-looking screenshot generator, because you could walk around these levels with nothing to do. You could take great pictures.”

The concept of DAI as open-world was stymying the story/writers and gameplay/designers teams. What were players going to do in these big landscapes? How could BW ensure exploring remained fun after many hours? Their teams didn’t have time for system designers to envision, iterate and test a good “core gameplay loop” (quests, encounters, activities etc). FB wouldn’t allow it. Designers couldn’t test new ideas or answer questions because basic features were missing or didn’t exist yet.

EA’s CEO told BW they should have the ability to ride dragons and that this would make DAI sell 10 million copies. BW didn’t take this idea very seriously

BW had an abstract idea that the player would roam the world solving problems and building up power or influence they could use. But how would that look/work like in-game? This could have used refinement and testing but instead they decided to build some levels and hope they could figure it out as they went.

One day in late 2012, after a year of strained development on DAI, Mark Darrah asked Mike Laidlaw to go to lunch. “We’re walking out to his car,” Laidlaw said, “and I think he might have had a bit of a script in his head. [Darrah] said, ‘All right, I don’t actually know how to approach this, so I’m just going to say it. On a scale of one to apocalyptic... how upset would you be if I said [the player] could be, I dunno, a Qunari Inquisitor?’”

Laidlaw was baffled. They’d decided that the player could be only a human in DAI. Adding other playable races like Darrah was asking for would mean they’d need to quadruple their budget for animation, voice acting, and scripting.

“I went, ‘I think we could make that work’,” Laidlaw said, asking Darrah if he could have more budget for dialogue.

Darrah answered that if Laidlaw could make playable races happen, he couldn’t just have more dialogue. He could have an entire year of production.

Laidlaw was thrilled. “Fuck yeah, OK,” he recalled saying.

MD had actually already realized at this point it’d be impossible to finish DAI in 2013. They needed at least a year’s delay and adding the other playable races was part of a plan/planned pitch to secure this. He was in the process of putting together a pitch to EA: let BW delay the game, and in exchange it’d be bigger and better that anyone at EA had envisioned. These new marketing points included playable races, mounts and a new tactical camera. If EA wouldn’t let them delay, they would have had to cut things. Going into that BW were confident but nervous, especially in the wake of EA’s recent turmoil where they’d just parted ways with their CEO and had recruited a new board member while they hunted for a new one. They didn’t know how the new board member would react, and the delay would affect EA’s projections for that fiscal year. Maybe it was the convincing pitch, or the exec turmoil, or the specter of DA2, or maybe EA didn’t like being called “The Worst Company in America”. Winning that award 2 years in a row had had a tangible impact on the execs and led to feisty internal meetings on how to repair EA’s image. Whatever the reasons, EA greenlit the delay.

The PAX Crestwood demo was beautiful but almost entirely fake. By fall 2013, BW had implemented many of FB’s ‘parts’, but still didn’t know what kind of ‘car’ they were making. ML and team scripted the PAX demo by hand, entirely based on what BW thought would be in the game. The level & art assets were real but the gameplay wasn’t. “Part of what we had to do is go out early and try to be transparent because of DA2. And just say, ‘Look, here, it’s the game, it’s running live, it’s at PAX.’ Because we wanted to make that statement that we’re here for fans.”

DA2 hung on the team like a shadow. There was insecurity, uncertainty, they had trouble sticking to one vision. Which DA2 things were due to the short dev time and which were bad calls? What stuff should they reinvent? There were debates over combat (DAO-style vs DA2-style) and arguments over how to populate the wilderness.

In the months after that demo, BW cut much of what they’d shown in it. Even small features went through many permutations. DAI had no proper preproduction phase (important for testing and discarding things), so leads were stretched thin and had to make impulsive decisions.

By the end of 2013, DAI had 200+ people working on it, and dozens of additional outsourced artists in Russia and China. Coordinating all the work across various departments was challenging and a full-time job for several people. At this sheer scale of game dev, there are many complexities and inter-dependencies. Work finally became significantly less tedious and more doable when BW and DICE added more features to FB. Time was running out though, and another delay was a no.

The team spent many hours in November and December piecing together a “narrative playable” version of the game to be the holiday period’s game build for BW staff to test that year. Feedback on the demo was bad. There were big complaints on story, that it didn’t make sense and was illogical. Originally the PC became Inquisitor and sealed the breach in the prologue, which removed a sense of urgency. In response the writers embarked on Operation Sledgehammer (breaking a bone to set it right), radically revising the entire first act.

The other big piece of negative feedback was that battles weren’t fun. Daniel Kading, who had recently joined BW and brought with him a rigorous new method for testing combat in games, went to BW leadership with a proposal: give him authority to open his own little lab with the other designers and call up the entire team for mandatory play sessions for test purposes. They agreed and he used this experiment to get test feedback and specifically pinpoint where problems were. Morale took a turn for the better that week, DK’s team made several tweaks, and through these sessions feedback ratings went from 1.2 to 8.8 four weeks later.

Many on the team wished they didn’t have to ship for old consoles (clunky, less powerful). BW leadership decided not to add features to the next-gen versions that wouldn’t be possible on the older ones, so that both versions of the game played the same. This limited things and meant the team had to find creative solutions. “I probably should’ve tried harder to kill [the last-gen] version of the game”, said Aaryn Flynn. In the end the next-gen consoles sold very well and only 10% of DAI sales were on last-gen.

“A lot of what we do is well-intentioned fakery,” said Patrick Weekes, pointing to a late quest called “Here Lies The Abyss”. “When you assault the fortress, you have a big cut scene that has a lot of Inquisition soldiers and a lot of Grey Wardens on the walls. And then anyone paying attention or looking for it as you’re fighting through the fortress will go, ‘Wow, I’m only actually fighting three to four guys at a time.’ Because in order for that to work [on old gen], you couldn’t have too many different character types on screen.”

Parts of DAI were still way behind schedule because it was so big and complex, and because some tools hadn’t started functioning until late on. Some basic features weren’t able to be implemented til the last minute (they were 8 months from ship before they could get all party members in the squad. At one point PW was playtesting to check if Iron Bull’s banter was firing, and realized there was no way to even recruit IB) and some flaws couldn’t be identified til the last few months. Trying to determine flow and pacing was rough.

They couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of DAI. “I think DAI is a direct response to DA2,” said Cameron Lee. “DAI was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point that we went too far... I think that having to deal with DA2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”

At this point they had 2 options: settle for an incomplete game, which would disappoint fans especially post-DA2, or crunch. They opted to crunch. It was the worst period of extended overtime in DAI’s development yet and was really rough: late nights, weekends, lost family time, 12-14 hour days, stress, mental health impacts.

During 2014′s crunch, they finally finished off features they wished they’d nailed down in year 1. They completed the Power (influence) system and added side quests, hidden treasures and puzzles. Things that weren’t working like destructible environments were promptly removed. The writers rewrote the prologue at least 6 times, but didn’t have enough time to pay such attention to the ending. Just a few months before launch pivotal features like jumping were added.

By summer BW had bumped back release by another 6 weeks for polish. DAI had about 99,000 bugs in it (qualitative and quantitative; things like “I was bored here” are a bug). “The number of bugs on an open-world game, I’ve never seen anything like it. But they’re all so easy to fix, so keep filing these bugs and we’ll keep fixing them.” For BW it was harder to discover them, and the QA team had to do creative experimentation and spend endless late nights testing things. PW would take builds home to let their 9 year old son play around. Their son was obsessed with mounting and dismounting the horse and accidentally discovered a bug where if you dismounted in the wrong place, all your companions’ gear would vanish. “It was because my son liked the horse so much more than anyone else ever had or will ever like the horse.”

MD had a knack for prioritizing which bugs should be fixed, like the one where you could get to inaccessible areas by jumping on Varric’s head. “Muscle memory is incredibly influential at this point. Through the hellfire which is game development, we’re forged into a unit, in that we know what everyone’s thinking and we understand everyone’s expectations.”

At launch they still didn’t have all their tools working, they only had their tools working enough.

DAI became the best-selling DA game, beating EA’s sales expectations in just a few weeks. If you look closely you can see the lingering remnants of its chaotic development, like the “garbage quests” in the Hinterlands. Some players didn’t realize they could leave the area and others got caught in a “weird, compulsive gratification loop”. Internet commentators rushed to blame “those damn lazy devs” but really, these were the natural consequences of DAI’s struggles. Maybe things would have been different if they’d miraculously received another year of dev time, or if they’d had years before starting development to build FB’s tools first.

“The challenge of the Hinterlands and what it represented to the opening 10 hours of DAI is exactly the struggle of learning to build open-world gameplay and mechanisms when you are a linear narrative story studio,” said Aaryn Flynn.

“DA2 was the product of a remarkable time-line challenge,” said Mike Laidlaw, “DAI was the product of a remarkable technical challenge. But it had enough time to cook, and as a result it was a much better game.”

Read the chapter for full details of course!

#dragon age #bioware #video games #SW:TOR #mass effect #I've seen plenty of this info discussed in articles/thinkpieces and on online communities over the years #but it's nice to read it first hand #some very insightful stuff here #these behind the scenes looks are very valuble #a lot of DAI's elements make sense given the context and what was going on in the background and the tech challenges they faced etc #be kind and respectful to devs folks they're human beings #also in general this book is really interesting and easy to read #funny in places too #it has lots of other chapters on lots of other games including Stardew Valley #I def recc buying it #anyway hope this post is useful/interesting to someone!#oh and as always support good treatment of game devs #crunch culture in the industry is harmful and exploitative

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #156

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making the clown prince of crime himself, the Archer of Shinjuku! Like the Caster of the Timeless Temple, a lot of pseudosingularity servants have their true names hidden. Personally I think it’s a dumb mechanic, but for the interests of keeping up appearances we’ll hide their names in the opening posts as well. That being said, it’s hard to go in-depth on a character and their abilities without revealing their identity, so expect spoilers below the cut.

Check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: Introducing the most problematic design since Literally Every Child Servant!

James Moriarty is a Mastermind Rogue for perfection in deception, as well as a Divination Wizard because some things you just can’t plan for. But you can take credit after the fact, and you’ll look super smart for doing so!

Race and Background

Despite your reputation, you are a Human, giving you +1 Dexterity and Wisdom. You also get Sleight of Hand proficiency for better burgling, and the Keen Mind feat for +1 Intelligence and a bevvy of brain bonuses that will make your DM’s life harder.

You started your life as a professor, but tbh it’s a lot easier to just grab the Criminal background. It’s also a lot more useful, giving you Deception and Stealth proficiency.

Ability Scores

No surprise here, but your highest score is going to be Intelligence. Your best crimes are basically “I wonder what this would do”, you’re like the mathematics version of a mad scientist. Aside from that, your Charisma is also pretty good, manipulating others is your go-to method of crime. After that is Wisdom, because playing people only works as long as you know you’re not being played. Your Dexterity isn’t amazing, but we can fix that later with magical nonsense. Your Constitution is bad, but your Strength is worse. You’re an old man, andyou definitely feel like one.

Class Levels

1. Rogue 1: First level rogues get a ton of proficiencies, like Dexterity and Intelligence saves, Perception, Insight, Performance, and Persuasion. The first one lets you hunt a bit easier in the dark streets of Shinjuku, while the other three make your manipulations more magnificent. You also get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus in Deception and Persuasion.

You also learn Thieves’ Cant. It’s a language. More usefully, you can make a Sneak Attack once per turn by using a ranged or finesse weapon on a creature you either have advantage on or you have an ally next to. Right now this adds 1d6 to your attack damage, but it’ll grow as you level up.

As far as your weapon goes, a hand crossbow might be an understatement for your coffin, but you’re nothing if not practical.

2. Wizard 1: Going over to wizard right away gives you Arcane Recovery, letting you regain a little bit of magic over a short rest once per long rest.

To make that more useful, you also get Spells that you can cast and prepare with your Intelligence. Message will carry your schemes to your minion’s ears, Prestidigitation is simple sleight of hand tricks to wow yokels. True Strike actually kind of has a purpose since the advantage matters for your sneak attacks but not really because there’s like eight other ways to get a sneak attack that aren’t as bad. Cause Fear strikes at the heart of foes and allies alike. Mage Armor lets you wear a suit into combat like a nerd. Magic Missile gives you a plethora of magical bullets that can’t miss. Disguise Self gives you a magical disguise kit. Feather Fall lets you catch Guda and land without breaking a hip, and Unseen Servant lets you expand your criminal empire with a lackey of your very own!

3. Rogue 2: Last level was a lot. Let’s calm down a bit with a simple bit of roguery. Cunning Action lets you dash, disengage, or hide as a bonus action, freeing up your main action for attacks or spells.

4. Rogue 3: Third level rogues can pick their specialty, and as a Mastermind yours lies in manipulating others for your own gain. You’re a Master of Intrigue giving you proficiency with disguises and forgery. You can also mimic the accent of a creature you’ve heard for at least one minute, well enough to pass yourself off as a native

You’re also a Master of Tactics, letting you help as a bonus action and with a range of 30 feet.

On top of that, your Steady Aim makes True Strike useless, giving you advantage on one attack as a bonus action, plus you have to use up your movement.

5. Rogue 4: Use this Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Dexterity so you can actually shoot people. Also, while you only get one attack per turn, you can always flavor your sneak attack as a burst of gunfire. You’re certainly going to do enough damage to qualify as multiple shots.

6. Rogue 5: Fifth level rogues get an Uncanny Dodge as a reaction, halving the damage of an incoming attack. You fight berserkers in Armani, you’ll need it.

7. Rogue 6: Your second round of Expertise will double up on your Thieves’ Tools and Performance for extra manipulation and safe cracking.

8. Rogue 7: Evasion is a good skill. I don’t think I say that enough,but it is. It turns your failed dexterity saves into successes and your successes into no-sells. If your big plan is dropping a meteor on the world, you’d better be ready for the splash damage.

9. Wizard 2: Second level wizards get their specialty, and Divination wizards are the masters of planning. And from a player’s standpoint they make planning so much easier. You could meticulously plan your enemy’s downfall over the course of days or weeks, or you could just slap a 1 to their wisdom save with six seconds of preparation thanks to Portents. You get two d20s each day that you can use in place of a d20 roll near you. Ruin someone’s skill check, guarantee your critical hit, whatever.

You also get more magic! Alarm is our go-to for low magic builds, but it’s also super useful for traps You can also Comprehend Languages because you’re pretty well-learned.

10. Wizard 3: Third level wizards get second level spells, like Enhance Ability to make your disguises even more perfect and Magic Weapon to make your Noble Phantasm a bit more noble.

11. Rogue 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for more gooder shooting.

12. Rogue 9: Your next bout of Mastermind goodies makes you an Insightful Manipulator, letting you spend 1 minute to observe a creature in two of four ways; their intelligence, wisdom, charisma, or class levels. You might also learn some backstory, which’ll make your DM’s life even harder! Or easier, depending on how you use it.

13. Rogue 10: Use this ASI to bring your Intelligence up for better spellcasting. Most of your spells don’t actually need your intelligence, but it also helps you show up Holmes, so it’s rewarding in its own right.

14. Rogue 11: You now have Reliable Talent, so every skill check you’re proficient in will always come up at least a 10 on the die. Yes, this does mean you’re scary good at making people do what you want.

15. Rogue 12: Another ASI! Bump your Dexterity up one more time for even gooderer shooting and AC.

16. Rogue 13: Thirteenth level masterminds are masters of Misdirection, using your reaction to shift an attack to another nearby creature instead of you. Let the brutes fight it out, you’ve got schemes to hatch!

17. Rogue 14: Your Blindsense lets you sense invisible creatures within 10 feet of you. That’s not a great range to work with a ranged weapon, but at least you’ll know when an assassin sneaks up on you.

18. Rogue 15: Your Slippery Mind gives you proficiency with Wisdom saves. That feature name sounds really weird though, it sounds like it should help with lying or something. Oh well.

19. Rogue 16: Use this last ASI to bump up your Charisma for slightly better manipulation.

20. Rogue 17: Your capstone level is also the level you get the last mastermind goodie! Your Soul of Deceit lets you rewrite any attempts to read your mind, matching your deception check versus the reader’s insight check. On top of that, magic will always say you’re telling the truth, no matter what you’re really saying.

Pros:

Soul of Deceit is super useful for you, as it basically makes it impossible to tell if you’re lying. Without magic, people have to be your deception check, and when they’re facing off against a roll with +15 and advantage they’re going to have a bad time. Basically, unless you’re going up against another rogue with expertise in insight, you’re pretty set. What’d’ya mean we already made one like that?

Portent is just really good. Especially for classes where every hit counts. That’s it, it’s just busted.

Beyond simply lying, you’re good at manipulating people, reading into their wants and needs, then stringing them along for your own gain. Insightful Manipulator lets you read people at a glance, and your Keen Mind means you’ll remember what you learned long after the people you learned it from forget you.

Cons:

You are super squishy, with exactly 100 HP at level 20. Try not to go over any waterfalls, it won’t end well for you.

Despite hitting hard enough to count as a barrage, you still technically get only one attack per turn. Missing your shot is a huge letdown, so just... don’t do that?

Your limited spell slots mean you need to be careful with how you use them. The guaranteed damage of Magic Missile is tempting, but you should probably pace yourself.

#FGO #D&D 5e #Fate Grand Order #DND #Archer of Shinjuku #Rogue #Wizard

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protagonistheavy · 3 years

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List of little things that I'd love to see improved upon in the next Pokemon Legends game, whatever it might be:

Better menus. Way too many menus in this game are navigated in text boxes, rather than an actual menu. The biggest issue with this is that these text boxes are limited to like, six total options per page. So you end up with menus that are like three options, an option to list more options, and a back button. This is disgusting. It's the year 2022 and Game Freak is pulling shit out of a commodore 64.

A settlement that you develop on your own, to your own design. Essentially adding farming and land development mechanics as a side-game, which is used to progress things like item availability and upgrades. Caught pokemon is essentially your resource for expanding things, with specific types required to make certain structures. Recruit NPCs to town to add more life, and make this the central hub that the player operates from, giving them choice to place things wherever they want.

I know this might be random but PLEASE let me run around a pasture of my pokemon. For the life of me I cannot BELIEVE they would make this whole pasture, populated with random pokemon youve caught, but then hide it behind a fucking twig fence. HOLY SHIT Game Freak. Just let me go in there and run around. Let me see my pokemon.

More interactions with pokemon in general. Jesus Christ why is it always up in the air whether or nor we're allowed to just pet our fucking pokemon. I dont care at all how stupid or silly or simple the brushing/cleaning shit is, just keep it in the game, permanent, done, stop removing it lol.

Let pokemon follow you!! For gods sake ANOTHER mechanic that EXISTS IN THE FRANCHISE that Game Freak seems to be unable to keep around. Just let a pokemon run behind you! It's that simple!

More complex but I think this SHOULD happen: make every possible pokemon a ride pokemon. Let people ride their favorite pokemon and use them to navigate. You can still restrict when these mechanics become available, super easy, but otherwise this should just wholesale replace specific ride pokemon. Get creative! If a pokemon can't be mounted like a horse, think of different ways it could move a trainer, like carrying them in their arms or on their back, or using psychic powers to levitate them, or making a bubble they sit on that the pokemon pulls like a carriage -- have fun with it, let that be a thing for players to discover, give pokemon distinct advantages for navigating different terrain.

Better button configuration. I complained about this before but there's no reason to have an entire map button when you have a whole pause screen of different features to move between. Throwing pokeballs and the like feels great, but it's really clunky trying to navigate so many items at once; maybe items should be equippable and limited to just six at a time -- and maybe pokeballs need their own selection separate from items, I dont think a third menu you rotate through would mess up the pace.

Give us a mini map. Open-world video game basics. Am I missing a prompt to put this on screen lol? Cant believe this isnt in the game, it would make navigating to places so much easier rather than stopping, checking a map, aligning myself in a direct line and then brute forcing my way to that location. The pin system needs an overhaul too, you only get one pin that will make a chevron for you to follow, everything else is purely for note taking.

More life in the wild areas. I want to see more pokemon interacting with each other, discover unique interactions and moments if you find pokemon in the right situation. More NPCs with better stories, more trainers running around that you can stop and fight. More towns, more locals. I want to go into a big city and STILL find pokemon to catch, they should be all over the place.

Sky and water pokemon need some reworking in how you navigate around to catch them. Long-distance feather balls are unreliable, so often I end up bonking a pokemon because I'm maxed out at the distance at which it can register catching a pokemon. Water pokemon are sometimes impossible to see and without any cover to hide behind, you almost always aggro them... There are some strats to work around this, but this really feels like it shouldnt be so complicated, I pretty much never go for these pokemon because it's not worth the effort.

A stamina bar so that we can actually see how long we can sprint lol. God why is this is an issue. Im not even sure the game NEEDS stamina, just let me run lol. There's so many little pokemon shits attacking me and stun locking me, and I can almost always pop open a ride pokemon to rush away, so why not just let me run around when I want to run.

PRETTIER LOCATIONS. I struggle so hard to take pictures in this game because all of the areas look so shitty, almost no where nice I can pose my pokemon and appreciate them. And while I'm on it, give us a proper photo mode, I cannot believe how shitty the photographer is when we've had so many different "take pictures of you and your pokemon" things in the past. UGHHHH just stop trying to restrict the player! Let us move the camera! Let us pose the pokemon easily! Let us change filters on the fly! Stop making these dumb rules that exist just to say "whoaaahoa we don't want you to have too much fun!!" Like what are they afraid of when they make the camera so goddamn strict and unforgiving? Oh are they doing the world a service but making sure you can't take upskirt pics of Gardevoir? For fucks sake just let people have control over their creativity lmao. People want to look at their pokemon! Pokemon Snap clearly proves people like just capturing pics of their pokemon! Let people have this!!!

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fortheloveoffanfic · 4 years

Text

Groupie

Shane Falco x Reader (A/n- The things I do at 1am. Idk if its any good. Also, I feel like it’s important to mention that I don’t know squat about about football, so every one of these terms came straight from google)

Masterlist

Her bright, wide eyes followed him around the lush, green field, sectioned off with the distinct white markings. Her mouth hung agape in anticipation as she clutched her half drank beer tightly. It was easy for Y/n to identify him as Shane moved strategically around the field, not just by the bold number ‘16’ printed on the front and back of his bright red, currently grass stained, t-shirt, but also by his build, the way he carried the ball as he ran and really, just everything about him. She would know Shane from a mile away with the pouring rain blurring her vision.

Y/n’s heart thumped erratically against her ribs and she bit down on her lower lip, gnawing a little harder every time things got too close to being in the other team’s favor. The score was already neck and neck; the Sentinels only had a three point lead and the final quarter was dwindling down to the end. Just one misstep could have Ohio tying, or worst yet, taking the game home. And Y/n knew how that would go, the entire team would beat themselves up about it for months, and she hated the thought of them being down. Worst yet, she hated the thought of Shane carrying that with him; he put his heart and soul into each game, and would often spend far too much time thinking up alternate plays.

The losses were his, the wins were the team’s.

At some point, right about when the clock had ticked down to three minutes being left, Ohio took control of the ball again, and their running back nearing the end zone at an alarming rate. A chilly silence befell the mass of Washington supporters, mostly because everyone, herself included had started holding their breaths. The timer was growing closer to zero and that would be the last touchdown. Y/n swore that her toes curled in her Chucks and she was clutching the cold can so tight that it was hard to believe none of her beverage had spilt out. It was heartbreaking to even think that the Sentinels might lose. “Come on,” she whispered under her breath, buzzing in her place, too anxious to even think about taking her seat. Y/n’s jaw was clenched, and beside her, she could vaguely hear an older man literally praying for things to take a turn.

There were advantages to having lower level seats, the ones nearer to their field. One of them was seeing the action unhampered, everything unfolded before you, like it was happening, just for you. Box seats were great, but club seats, that was where nothing missed you. Everything was in real time; every pass, tackle and touchdown. Right there, before your eyes. That was what Y/n loved, and she was reminded of just then when the, happening so fast and in slow motion all at once, one of their players tackled Ohio’s running back, sending him to the ground, seizing control once again. The ball sailed through the air, and she gasped excitedly, when a familiar figure grabbed it in leap, bounding towards the last touchdown of the night.

Merely a handful of seconds had passed when a cheer of victory erupted around her, and Y/n joined them, jumping up with her hands in the air as Shane dove onto the grass, the commentator ecstatically announcing, “And Falco scores the final touchdown of the night, the Sentinels have taken this one folks! What a great game!”

Even as the team gathered at the center of the greenery, hoisting key players of the evening on their shoulders, and dunking coolers of Gatorade on each other, the fans kept chanting exuberantly. That time, when Y/n’s heart quickened, it wasn’t anticipation, it was from exhilaration. She wanted nothing more than to just bypass every barricade and security guard and just make a mad dash into a pair of bulky arms, planting a celebratory kiss on his lips, but Y/n knew she couldn’t, at least, not without chancing an arrest. So instead, she waited.

“Oh wow,” she gasped, looking around at the mess that was the locker room. Most of the clothes had been removed, along with the bags of the other players who’d already left, but there were still used, damp towels, forgotten jerseys and water bottles littering the benches and worn tiled floor. Men. “That’s gonna hurt tomorrow,” Y/n winced sympathetically, noting the darkening bruise on the shoulder of the man before her.

“Hurts right now.” At the sound of her voice, the only player left behind, the man of the hour and quarterback himself, Shane Falco, turned to face her. He was only wearing a towel, wrapped around his waist, most of his hulking frame deliciously exposed. There was an ice pack resting on his shoulder and his hair was still damp, though Y/n couldn’t tell if it was sweat from his shower. “What’re you doing back here?” He probed, an amused glimmer in his eyes and a bewildered smile quirking his lips, “There’s a rule; no ladies allowed.”

“Oh,” Y/n mouthed with a shallow nod, pushing off from where she was leaning against the door frame. Unfolding her arms, she absently tugged on the hem of her thin red t-shirt, bringing the scoop neckline low enough to tease wandering eyes with a nice view of the top of her cleavage. And of course, just like she expected, his dark gaze fell, right where she wanted it too. “No exceptions?” She probed innocently.

“Well…..” Shane trailed off for a minute as Y/n sauntered in his direction, swaying her hips as she inched closer. His eyes roamed her form, taking everything, starting with her smooth, exposed legs, then upwards to her tight t-shirt with his number printed across her breasts and her loose ponytail swept to the side, brining attention to the delicate column of Y/n’s neck. “I guess…..” he stuttered, clearing his throat, licking his lips, “I guess…..there could be one exception. Depends really.”

A breathless smile teased her pink lips and Y/n arched her brows, “Yeah?” She taunted, “Like, for a groupie. I mean, she’s a huge fan.”

Huffing a soft chuckle and looking away for the slightest second, Shane fought a wide grin, itching to get his hands on her. But he waited though, opting to look at her again, with a stare so intense and Y/n swore he would pounce at any given moment. “It could be arranged,” he reached to rub the back of his neck, wincing at the pull in his sore muscles when he did. “Especially if she’s hot.”

Y/n giggled, finally getting within reach, letting Shane reel her in with hands planted firmly on her waist, “You think I’m hot?” She smirked, mischief dancing her eyes as she looped her arms around his neck, pressing herself to his broad chest.

“Smoking,” he emphasized, large, calloused hands roaming her denim clad ass, brushing the hem of her faded shorts.

“Just smoking hot?” Y/n tilted her head, to the side and even on her toes, her height, especially in flats, was barely enough to meet his lips.

“Smoking hot…..” Shane bent lower, just so his lips would hover over hers, “Gorgeous, intelligent, sweet, looks great in my jersey and the best cheerleader a guy could ask for.”

Nudging herself closer to him, Y/n anticipated the moment where he’d finally lay his lips on hers. She glazed his features, drinking in every inch of his face. Her favorite face, the one she’d fallen in love with. The boyish smile, the bottomless eyes and that bit of hair that always framed his perfect face. “I’m not a cheerleader,” she quipped, her tone light and teasing.

“You’re my cheerleader,” he growled, capturing her mouth in a hungry, fervent kiss; his tongue glazing over hers in between moments spent with Y/n nibbling on his lower lip. He tasted exactly like you expected your favorite person in the whole world to, so sweet that stars danced on her closed lids and a distinct warmth spread bloomed in her chest. Her wispy fingers laced in his damp hair and she couldn’t help but try to close the inexistent distance between them. That was definitely her favorite part of a game. Well, maybe, post-game. “Thanks for coming tonight.”

“I told you, I’m a groupie. A good groupie doesn’t miss big games,” even when they broke, Y/n and Shane lingered contentedly in each other’s arms, not caring that someone could walk in at any given moment, catching them in the midst of breaking the ‘off limits’ rules. “Besides, I’m totally in love with you so…..”

“Oh you’re in love with me?” It was his turn to tease, earning himself a playful slap on the shoulder, “Well, it just so happens that I’m totally in love with you too.”

“Good,” Y/n laid her palm on the back of Shane’s neck, pulling him in for another feverish kiss. "I almost forgot," she sighed when they broke for another breath, "Congratulations on the game tonight."

"Thanks," Shane chuckled, going in for yet another kiss, that one intent on the crook of her neck, frowning when Y/n stopped him, "What? It's not like we've never done it in here before."

"Yeah, but don't you wanna celebrate with your team? They're probably waiting for you at the bar."

"They'll have to wait a little longer," smiling against her pursed, kiss-swollen lips, his rough, stocky fingers eventually reached between to undo the brass button of Y/n's shorts, "Cause right now I'd much rather be celebrating with my favorite groupie."

By then, the ice pack numbing his shoulder had fallen noisily to the ground, melting and unnoticed. Y/n's fingers toyed with the ends of Shane's hair, the other sliding forward to cup his neck, "Glad to hear it," she mumbled between kisses, "Cause I'd rather celebrate with my favorite quarterback."

*****

Tagging- @harrisongslimited @magnificentclodpiebanana @keandrews @greenmanalishi @rdjloverxxx @danceoftwowolves @planetkt @wheretheriversrunintothesea

#keanu reeves #keanu reeves fanfic #keanu reeves x you #shane falco #the replacements #shane falco x reader #keanu reeves x reader #the replacements 2000 #keanu reeves y/n #shane falco x you #shane falco x y/n

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