#man literally was not actively in the main game for at least like 20+ days!!!

[white-weasel]

The way final 4 fire making sucks is two-fold. The concept as a whole just bleh and takes away a vote for a round in a game all about voting people out. However, fire became an even worse thing after Chris Underwood gave up immunity and put himself in fire and contestants have misunderstood the purpose of the move and decided winning in fire = winning the game ever since

[thatonepikminperson]

How to beat the Final Area of Pikmin 3 in One Day (With Pictures!)

Yo guys, random I know, but hey if I can help other players through the most annoying part of the Final Area, then I SHALL! (Spoilers Below!)

Pikmin Set-up

Yes, we have to have one of those. If you are on any other difficulty other than Ultra-Spicy, it should be 10 Reds, 20 Rocks, 20 Yellows (Can be lowered to 10), 20 Winged (At least 8 though), and 30 Blues.

If you are Ultra-Spicy, bring 10 Reds, 10 Rocks (10 Minimum), 10 Yellows, 10 Winged, and 20 Blues

Who to put on the Olimar?

For this strat, for the love of god, don't put the Winged onto Olimar please. Use either Reds or Rocks (If Ultra-Spicy, you can use Blues). Also, don't charge him, throw as fast as possible. Charging will get like 5 on there as the cutscene activates rather quickly, but you can get a few extra on Olimar if you throw.

General Advice

Okay, for starters, don't have Olimar get absorbed. With the loop tip below, it should be easy. If you fail at this, it's okay. Just reset the day and try again. Another thing, it's okay to kill stuff, please do, but know that some enemies (Like the swooping snitch bugs) can be skipped. Also do not undervalue the power of Go-Here! Seriously, it's a life savor.

BIG ONE HERE. When you first enter the Mysterious Life Form's tree, and it gets near Olimar, it will give a fake warning message at first. The messages can help, but sometimes, they... they don't happen. At all.

So, pull out your ears and turn up the game volume because guess what, the most reliable way to figure out if you need to move Brittany is to listen to the music! It never lies to you, and will ALWAYS get more intense if Olimar is in danger. Trust me on this one the music is a L I F E S A V E R !

Example of there being no message that Olimar is in danger, but the music tells me he is!

How to loop the Mysterious Life Form forever :D

No, really, it has TWO LOOPS. AROUND THE SAME AREA TOO.

Loop #1

This is what we'll call Loop 1, or the more reliable loop. It's shorter than Loop two, but as long as you go to the two points when the music gets all intense, you should be fine. There are no real shortcuts for the Plasm Wraith to take, which makes this loop a bit easier than loop 2. SPEAKING OF WHICH

Loop #2

Loop 2 is WAY longer than Loop 1, but requires the bag to be pushed down and more precise locations than Loop 1. The reason for that is that the Plasm Wraith has access to a HUGE shortcut, located here

For me, I don't tend to use this loop, but if you like it, then use it

Dark Room Advice

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT LET BRITTANY IN THIS ROOM UNTIL YOU ARE READY. DO NOT PUT OLIMAR IN THE WATER, THE PLASM WRAITH WILL START TO TARGET THE OTHER TWO CAPTAINS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T LET BRITTANY PAST THIS POINT UNTIL EVERYTHING IS READY!

Okay, we good? We good!

Remember those Blue Pikmin? YEAH USE THEM NOW FOR THE BRIDGE! The Pikmin will have to take multiple trips, but it's faster, trust.

Also, Also, you will have to use your ten Yellows to light up the room three times, the most important one being this one.

After that, gather your Pikmin and get them off of the main route to the end, and have Brittany lure the Wraith where it A. Can’t take any shortcuts and B. Brittany can make a run for it. The corner that we go around slowly in Loop 2 works wonders for this.

Once there, HAVE BRITTANY BOOK IT TO THE END DO NOT STOP RUNNING! You can add more Pikmin to Olimar once they get in the dark room. After that, you should be free as hell.

And Congratulations, you did it! Now beat the hell out of the Wraith with literal parasite rocks and save our lovely man, (and also all of Koppai I guess.)

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Glass Onion is a fun movie. It promises a fun, colorful, campy homage/parody of the murder mystery genre, and it delivers exactly that. Clearing that bar (delivering what is promised) is both a bare minimum and something that projects on the areas of my interest have failed to clear for the past few years.

So, yeah, I watched Glass Onion and I enjoyed it very much. After about a day of letting the experience sink in, I think I can understand both the passionate praise and the passionate loathing. For the most part.

Glass Onion is a sequel to Knives Out, and as first sequels go, it's pretty good. It's not the exact same story of the last one, but with different characters, even if there are similarities (i.e. the working class main heroine), and just that makes it better than at least half of every sequel I have ever watched. But it's also not as good as Knives Out. It's definitely NOT better. It's not terrible, it's not a huge drop in quality, but it isn't as good.

While Knives Out has a good pacing, where the rhythm of the story starts slow and mounts higher and higher towards the ending, Glass Onion has a very slow beginning, only really starting to pick up about the 45 minute mark (in a movie that is 2 hours and 20 minutes long, I really think they could have shaved 20 minutes off the beginning of the film and it would have made for a tighter experience). We get a few minutes of big tension and then it slows down again to fill us in on the backstory (here I feel Rian Johnson's infatuation with plot twists is a drawback; considering the twin sister plot is very cliched -which is fine in a story that hinges around the most obvious explanations being right- I feel the story would have benefited from the audience knowing from the get go that Helen was posing as Cassandra. It would have been more traditional, but it would have added much to the initial tension, proverbial bomb under the table and all). The climax and ending of the movie IS long, but I think that is fine because it is focusing on the catharsis we are experiencing vicariously through Helen (this is one of the reasons why I will forever defend Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Sometimes a movie can be just about catharsis, and if it delivers that, then it hasn't failed. I digress).

Characters. While both the characters of Knives Out and Glass Onion are rich entitled assholes, there's a variety and richness to the ones in the former that is absent in the latter. Harlan's family in KO shares their heavy dependence on his money, but in different ways. Harlan's daughter possesses more depth of feeling and strength of character than his son. The son is resentful because he's a little man. The daughter in law and the son in law are both leeches, but their ways of facing life and their relationship to the family are very different. The Gen Z grandchildren are radically opposite in their political views, but both engage in completely performative forms of activism. Ransom's attitude serves a completely different form of dishonesty and laziness than the rest.

In Glass Onion... the assholes are just stock characters. Very much like the game Clue that the movie pokes fun at, they are the scientist, the senator, the passé diva, the overworked secretary, the trashy entrepeneur and his trophy wife. They are all opportunistic, worthless assholes, but there's little to differentiate them and justify their inclusion other than filling the screen and adding star power. What does make the difference, character wise, between Peg and Whiskey? What does Lionel really want out of the money and power he seeks? What has Claire of distinctive other than wearing beige?

Speaking of which, costumes. They are fun, eye catching and suited to the characters... for the most part. We get that Claire is beige, we don't need to have her LITERALLY wear only beige all the time. You can throw some white and navy blue or black in the mix and you'll still get the message across without making it cartoonish. Benoit Blanc! Look, his costumes are a lot of fun, but I have a hard time believing the man who dressed in the most plain and boring colors possible in Knives Out just dresses like that in summer. I'm certainly not demanding he wears only neutrals, but Glass Onion!Blanc gives the vibes of someone that would dress in winter as the male version of Linda.

Glass Onion is not a perfect movie. But it remembers that light is an essential part of film (the sequence under the lighthouse lighting is beautiful) and in that way it looks classy. It remembers that plot holes and inconsistencies need to be papered over instead of highlighted: the plot of the movie hinges on Cassandra being both a good reader of human nature (knowing which people will connect well with other people) and a terrible reader of human nature (the email is one of the most stupid moves conceivable), a clever, foreseeing entrepreneur (she was the one to have the brilliant concept of Alpha that made Bron a billionaire) and a person who cannot look ahead to the future (she doesn't ensure she has a paper trail that supports her intellectual property in the company, even living in a post social-network world). The movie is aware of this, so it heavily moves the focus onto Helen and her revenge quest. It remembers that audiences would rather be pandered to than abused and belittled (YMMV as to how much the "burn the rich" message can ring as genuine in a 40 million dollar movie or as just panem et circenses). It remembers that satire needs to make the caricature of the satirized recognizable and realistic enough, and that a movie in a genre is indebted to the genre and cannot act like it has invented it (I'm staring at you, Don't Worry Darling, on both accounts). It understands that attention to detail can elevate mediocre material and that people do notice, even if they cannot articulate it (this goes from the infamous Starbucks coffee cup on the set of GoT to the absurd carelessness and sameness of late MCU productions).

And that is, sadly, nowadays, a somewhat tall order to fulfill. So I understand why people are going crazy over this movie. I also understand why that irritates the hell out of others.

In the end, Glass Onion is a fun movie. And that was enough for me.

[millenialfanfictionaddiction]

Go Go Let's Go! Let's Go! Dateko! (Pt.1)

⚠️THIS FIC IS 18+ NSFW, MINORS DNI ⚠️

Warnings: Swearing

Word count: 7000+

"You're looking at the face of the new captain of Date Techs iron wall" your son Futakuchi Kenji shouted as he burst through the front door of your humble abode.

"So they really went with you huh" you snicker "good maybe now you'll finally learn some respect for Moniwa and those other nice third years"

Kenji huffed as he set his bag down taking off his school tie and jacket.

 "You know mom, most parents would be like 'oh my god Kenji I'm so proud of you we can order your favorite tonight I love you so much you sweet sweet child'" he mocks as you stare at him trying not to laugh.

"Since when has that been our relationship Kenji" you smile as you proceed over to your son.

You grab him forcing him into a tight squeeze "Oh I love my boy so much you are so precious I can't wait to go cheer for Date Tech every single game now" you gush as he tries to force his way from your grasp.

"Eww mom please stop" he says as he gags "I didn't mean that supportive. Please don't show up at our games."

"I don’t know Kenji those team mates of yours really do like me" you snicker as you turn around "I wouldn't ever want anyone to think I don't support my precious baby boy."

Kenji rolled his eyes as you laughed. You had always had a really good relationship with your son. You had him at the age of 20 while you were in a relationship with his father. Unfortunately the relationship didn't work out and his father left the area. You didn't see him much and neither did Kenji. You struggled as a single mom, finding your main support in your parents. You had a great relationship with them and the 4 of you together made up a tiny happy family.

Your parents helped you finish school while your mother watched Kenji. You graduated and getting the job you had worked years for. Now that you were established, things were going well. Kenji was doing well in school, playing volleyball for one of the top schools in the Miyagi prefecture and you were working long hours at a job you loved. No matter what you always made time for your son. He didn't really want you to attend his games so you would occasionally sneak into one watching from the nosebleeds. You loved seeing your son doing what he loved and you always encouraged him.

"So what does a team captain do" you ask as you place the order for your son's favorite take out.

"I mean I run pratices, lead drills and encourage the team" he says nonchalantly as he looks over his school work.

"Not a strong suit of yours Kenj" you smile as he shots a death glare at you.

"Well it's alot easier now that we have a manager to help too" he says.

"Oh you found one then?" You smile

"Yeah Nametsu Mai, she's a second year. She will be doing a lot of the note taking and helping with set ups. Also it's nice to have someone making bentos for the team" he says.

You look up from the bills on your counter "wait she's doing all that alone? That poor girl why does she have to do all that?"

"It's her job mom chill" Kenji says as he laughs at your outburst.

"And your job Kenji is to make sure your team runs efficiently so I expect you to be helping you" you turn as you raise your eyebrows at him.

"Mom ser-" Kenji starts as he sees the glare in your eyes.

"I'm 100% serious Kenji. If you don't help that girl I swear to God that I will be front and center at every single match. Every single tournament with a giant sign in the shape of your face and a shirt that says 'I'm Futakuchi Kenji's number one fan'" you glare as his eyes widen.

"Ok mom ok ill invite her over to help her my god you're mean" he says as you smile.

"I'm off Friday so I can help you make bentos too. You really suck Kenji at doing anything domestic" you smile as you walk to the door to get the takeout you ordered.

Kenji shakes his head as he groans.

Thank God I'm only captain for 1 year he thinks as he signs going to help you get the food.

Friday approaches quickly as the team gears up for their first round of tournaments

"Mai" Kenji calls as he motions for her to come over

"Yes Kenji?" Mai says with a bright smile

"So I want to help you prepare meals for the team for the tournament" he says.

The team stops. Mai looks at him in shock. Middle blocker Aone Takanobu just stares. Fellow outside hitter Obara Yutaka smiles as Libero Sakunami Kōsuke looks on in complete shock.

"Stop looking at me like that! I'm a helpful person!" He screams as they all go back to their activities.

"Ahh it's ok Kenji I really don't need he-" Mai waves shaking her hands.

"Just come to my place tonight ok" Kenji says as the gym doors suddenly burst open.

Coach Oiwake Takurō just shakes his head as he witnesses to former 3rd year volleyball players parade into the gym.

"Well hello our precious underclassmen" Former Middle blocker Kamasaki Yasushi shouts as he walks over to the team.

Kenji just shakes his head "you guys really must lead boring lives if you always have to come bother us during practice. Haven't you found a job yet Kamasaki?" Kenji smirks as he sees the third year began to get heated.

"And here I thought you changed Futakuchi" he says as he goes to grab the captain by the collar. 

 Suddenly someone yells "Aone" and Aone goes to break up the fighting duo.

"Still no respect for your upperclassmen I see" Former captain Moniwa Kaname says with a laugh.

"Well since you're here you might as well make yourselves useful" Kenji says as he stares at Kamasaki "go block for me."

Kamasaki loosens his tie as former wing spiker Sasaya Takehito says as he shakes his head "not again."

Practice ends as the team clears the gym. Mai and Kenji walk to the Futakuchi residence. 

 As they approach, Mai looks at Kenji.

"You really don't need to help me" Mai says "it's my job as manager."

"I know Mai but you see- umm well my mom kinda insisted I help you" Kenji says "she's a bit- much."

They walk to the front door as Kenji opens it. Y/N comes running from the kitchen to greet her son and hopefully their team manager.

"KENJI I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DIDNT BRING-" you stop as Kenji just stares at you.

"Oh hello! You must be Mai!" You say extending your hand to the young girl.

"Hello Ms. Futakuchi! It's so nice to meet you" Mai says as she bows, saying Y/Ns hand.

"You as well! Kenji you didn't tell me how cute she was! You must get attention for all the boys" you smile as Mai blushes.

"Mom seriously" Kenji says as his face turns read and he walks away putting his and Mai's bags on the floor.

"What? It's true! But take it from me honey, boys are nothing but trouble! Look at Kenji" you say as you smirk to your son, Mai trying to hide her giggling.

"Ok mom did you just invite her over to ridicule me?" Kenji says to you completely unimpressed

"Nope I can do that without inviting her over! Now let's go to the kitchen Mai" you say as you lead the young girl to the kitchen.

You and Mai work to prepare bentos as you put Kenji to work where you need him.

"Honestly Kenji just stay out of the way" you shout.

"Mom why did you even ask me to invite her over?! I'm literally doing nothing" he says as he sits at the table

"Yes and you're terrible at it" you roll your eyes.

Mai finds your relationship with Kenji amusing and lighthearted. She can tell you have a great relationship with your son and you both feel comfortable picking on each other.

"Ok that's the last of it Mai. You did such a great job! The boys are so lucky to have you. And if they ever say anything rude to you, you let me know and I'll take care of it" you nudge Mai as she giggles.

"Oh don't worry Ms Futakuchi, Coach Oiwake makes sure they appreciate me" she smiles.

"Coach Oiwaka? I don't think I've met him" you turn slowly looking at Kenji

"Why would you need to mom? You always tell me you're happy to get rid of me to whomever will take me off your hands" he says to you in a mocking tone.

"Still! Is he cute?" You say as Mai laughs out loud

"Mom we are not having this discussion " Kenji says as he places his hands over his ears and walks out of the kitchen.

"Well is he?" you say smiling at Mai.

"For an older man, yes" she says giggling "he's been divorced for a few years now. No kids to speak of. He's pretty dedicated to being the coach"

You smile. It's been forever since you've been out with a man. After Kenji's father left, you were top focused on your career and school to even consider dating, let alone be intimate. It had been at least 5 years since you last had sex. Honestly you weren't even sure that was accurate.

"Ms. Futakuchi" Mai says to you as you stare off into space "umm Ms. Futakuchi?"

"Oh gosh I'm sorry Mai! Just thinking. How about we keep the bentos here and I'll bring them tomorrow morning before you leave?" You smile as Mai nods.

"Heck maybe I'll even get to chance to see this gorgeous coach of yours" she winks

"LA LA LA MOM I CANT HEAR YOU" Futakuchi sings from the other room as you both laugh.

Saturday morning approaches as Kenji leaves early to help load the bus. You leave the house at 7:30 in your leggings and old date tech t shirt, figuring it would just be a quick stop to drop off the bentos and back home to enjoy a day free from Kenji and responsibilities as an adult.

You arrive at the school and see the bus outside. It seems like the team is in the gym so you quickly grab the box making your way to the gym. You start to press the door open as you enter slowly.

Coach Oiwake looks up from his notes to see a beautiful young women standing holding an entire box of bentos.

Who are you? And how in the world are you so attractive?

"Kenji you jerk get over here and help your poor mother" you say sarcastically as the team snickers.

"More like 'poor me having to deal with my MOM showing up to my volleyball gym’" kenji rolls his eyes as he quickly walks away from you.

"Love you too sweetheart" you blurt out as every laughs and Coach Oiwake smiles.

"Futakuchi is this really your mother?" Coach says as he watches Kenji out the bentos on the floor.

"Unfortunately yes" Kenji says as he rolls his eyes rejoining his team.

You turn to walk out as Coach Oiwake stops you.

"Mrs. Futakuchi, hello I'm Coach Oiwake Takurō" he says as he extends his hand to yours.

"Oh no 'Mrs' please. Just Y/N" you say as you blush.

The team is observing your interactions.

"Awe that's so cute" Mai gushes as Obara places a hand on Kenji's shoulder.

"Man I don't blame coach at all. Your mom is hot" Obara laughed as Futakuchi glared at him.

"Can we please load the bus and stop talking about my mother? Kenji says.

"Well Y/N we very much appreciate you helping Mai with the Bentos" Coach Oiwake says to you as you smile.

"Don’t mention it Coach Oiwake! Kenji should be doing it anyways AS THE CAPTAIN" you sarcastically shout to him as he walks by you.

Coach Oiwake laughs "I can see where Futakuchi gets his whit Y/N and please call me Takurō."

You smile.

"I hope you'll be able to make it out to the tournament this weekend. I know the boys would appreciate the support" Takurō says as Kenji snaps his neck around.

"Oh no coach my mom is busy this weekend right MOM" Kenji says as he bores holes into your face.

"Actually I don't work this weekend Kenj! Hey that's a great idea! I'll come to support our boys" you shout as you go to hug your son.

Takurō laughs as he watches how cute you interact with your son.

"I look forward to seeing you there Y/N" Takuro says as he turns around winking at you.

Is the coach really flirting with me? you think as you giggle to yourself.

"Oh my god" Kenji shouts as he walks away "Oh don't worry sweetie I promise I won't cheer too loud for my precious angel" you tease as you bid the team and Kenji a farewell.

Damn I need to get to know her Takurō thinks as he smiles as you walk away.

taglist: @axoxtxhxh​

[leafs-lover]

Because Two People Got Drunk: 12

Series Masterlist

Summary:  You take your first trip away without Oliver, and explore your relationship with Fred

Warnings: Angst, smut, male and female oral sex, swearing,

Word Count: 3400

Chapter 12

February 16, 2022

There is a knock on the door at about 9:30am, you’re still in your sweats, hair in a loose messy bun as you hold Oliver. If your being honest you likely have spit up somewhere on you. You open and see Sid and Kathy on the other side letting them in.

Fred walks up behind you “hey guys” he is dressed in jeans and a Nike hoodie with a ball cap. So casual yet, all you can think about is what’s underneath that sweater. The last couple weeks there have been glances, and grazes that you originally told yourself was an accident but now you aren’t so sure. “Thanks for watching Ollie.”

“Watching Ollie?” you question. Based on your clothes you clearly had no idea you were going anywhere.

“Yeah it’s all-star break, so we’re watching little man while you and Fred take a trip. You leave at noon” Kathy says.

You stare at Fred “go get ready, I’ll pack up Oliver’s things” he says grabbing Oliver from you. You try to protest but Fred basically pushes you in the bathroom forcing you to get ready. After showering and doing your hair and makeup you head to your room to pack and get dressed. Although you have no idea what to wear or pack because you have no idea where you are going.

Kathy sees you walking down the hall; since your room doesn’t have an ensuite, and she follows you heading to the closet. She begins pulling some items “does everything in here fit?” she questions as you nod.

She grabs a couple different outfit choices mostly casual choices. Some jeans, a few light sweaters, a pair of track pants. You wander off to get your makeup and hair supplies and return as she is zipping everything up.

“Where is he taking me?”

“He just wants to show you he appreciates you, and thought you deserved some time away” she shrugs zipping the suitcase up.

“If Oliver’s basinet is here, where is his clothes and stuff?” she questions noticing the room is full of your belongings.

“Well I obviously have a lot of clothes leaving no space for his stuff. So his dresser and closet are in the room that will eventually be his once we move him into his crib, we just aren’t ready for that yet. He’s only 3 months"

“So he sleeps here and you take him to another room every day to get dressed?”

“Well if I had space for his clothes in here I would, I barely fit all my stuff in here.” 

“Have you been looking at apartments?”

“I’ve looked online at some but I’m not really seeing something the size I want within like 20 minutes of here. Not a whole lot out there.” There is a silence before she finally asks what you feel like she has been holding back.

“He told me about the date, said he thought it ended pretty bad. You want to talk about it?”

“Not much to say. He was a douche, spent the whole time talking about himself, was rude to the staff, and when he found out I was only here for a short time he made multiple comments about hooking up. When I took my jacket off and he saw my dress he actually said damn. Just wasn’t a good time, but also made me realize I’m not ready for something right now.”

“Maybe you just need the right person” she says wheeling your bag out to the door.

You look over Ollie’s pile of stuff “Fred did you pack -"

“Yes I packed every single item he needs. And I gave them a key in case I forgot something or he runs out. They are capable adults and Oliver is going to have a great time just like us.”

You pick up Oliver. “This is literally the first time one of us isn’t with him, and we are going for a night too, like not just a couple hours an entire night!” you say tears forming.

Fred pulls you both in tight stroking your hair. “Come on (Y/N/N) you can do this. But the longer you put this off the harder this will be."

Finally you say goodbye and climb in the car as Fred loads your suitcase “geez what did you pack?”

“Nothing Kathy did it all" you say lightly as tears roll down your cheek. Fred climbs in the car and cups your face in his large hands, wiping your tears with his thumb. “You’re fine (Y/N). You’re an amazing mother but you deserve some time without him to recharge your batteries. This will be good yeah?” you nod as he kisses the top of your head. “Oh it’s not one night, were going for two" he says as he puts the car in drive before you can object about leaving Oliver that long.

3 hours later you arrive at Glendorn lodge, it is a large property set on the border of the Allegheny National Forest. They have a few winter activities including snow shoeing and cross country skiing along the trails. You can only imagine the experience in the summer out of the beautiful lake. They have an amazing chef onsite with in room dining options available.

Fred has booked a 4 bedroom cabin with its own fireplace, pool table and games room. It’s a little further from the main resort providing you with privacy throughout your stay. He takes your bag to the master, even though his room also has a king sized bed, yours is slightly larger.

You start unpacking and realize that when you walked away Kathy replaced some of your clothes with some tighter more revealing options. Options you hadn’t worn since before you started breasfeeding, since before you had Oliver. And she also packed some lingerie, like 5 different options as well as revealing matching underwear sets. You groan in disapproval “what was she thinking” you mumble to yourself. After unpacking you venture out and find Fred in the game room “wanna play" he asks nodding to the pool table.

Your first turn you line up the pool cue and connect with the white ball, it goes bouncing off the table “if you expect me to let you win you have to at least try" he jokes picking up the ball. He places it back in the same spot “you get one redo."

You start to line yourself again as you feel Fred come behind you helping you stand and bending your elbow properly. As you follow his directions you rub your ass against his cock “yeah just like that” he chokes out stepping back; definitely haven’t been imagining things you think to yourself.

You connect with the ball ultimately sinking it before missing your next one. You move out of the way as Fred walks up to the table, he lines himself up with the ball and gets into position. You stare at his muscular form as it stretches over the table before connecting his cue to the ball, his shirt rising up slightly in the process. His ass is beautifully on display as he leans forward causing your mouth to water. Fred ends up winning the game, but not until he had a few scratches. You think he was trying to delay the game to give you a chance to win.

After the next game you order dinner to be delivered and you head to change. You decide to wear one of the dresses, not that you really had a choice because of Kathy. You opt for the black chiffon dress with lace sleeves. The dress is short stopping a few inches above your knees and is very low cut, too low cut for a bra. You pair it with your red stilettos loosely pull your curls back, then you make your way to the living where you see your dinner waiting on the table.The lights are off, the only thing illuminating the room is the fire Fred just started in the fireplace.

He hears your heels and turns around “Jesus fuck" you hear him whisper. “Kathy swapped a bunch of my clothes while I left the room” you explain “so I basically only have dresses.”

“You look stunning” he says as you smile.

“You look pretty good too” you respond.

He is wearing a white long sleeve that accentuates his muscles. And a pair of grey jeans that are just tight enough for you to remember his thick thighs underneath them. “No I am wildly underdressed compared to you."

You smile as you walk further into the room. When you walk by Fred he grabs your hand to stop you and places a light kiss on your cheek.

Dinner goes smoothly and you move over to the couch sitting beside Fred, his arm draped over the back of the couch as you face him.

“How do you think he’s doing?” you ask.

“Nope. We aren’t going down that road. Stop feeling guilty for doing something for yourself. Everyone needs a break.”

“I just miss him. He is an amazing kid” you sigh.

“Yeah he really is. I never thanked you.”

“For what?”

“Making me a dad. It’s my single greatest accomplishment. Like nothing else in my life will matter or compare because I have him. He is the best.”

You don’t respond but a smile comes across your face. Fred’s hand moves to rub the back of your neck, a soft moan leaving your lips.

Fred sits up setting both your glasses down on the table “turn around" he says softly. He brings his hands up and begins massaging your neck and shoulders.

“Fuck you’re so tight.”

You laugh “not the first time you’ve said that.” Fred laughs.

He slides his hands under the back of your dress as best as he can while he dives in deeper pushing on your knots. You lean forward from the pressure and put your hands down at your sides seeking something  to grip, something to hold yourself steady, grabbing a hold of his thigh. You hear him exhale before continuing for a few more minutes.

You keep your hand locked on his thigh until he stops and removes his hands from your neck. You become aware of the situation around you, and the path it is heading. “I should get to bed” you say lightly before retreating to your room.

You undress and step into the shower, trying to cool yourself down from that interaction. You become aware that a cold shower isn’t going to be enough and slip your fingers down into your folds.

The next morning you get ready and put on a pair of skinny Jeans with a black low cut sweater. You would normally wear a shirt under it but Kathy didn’t pack one so your boobs are practically exploding from it. Fred tries to not stare, but he does a very bad job as he holds your coat out for you. “After breakfast we’re going to explore the grounds” he explains.

“Ooh I’m excited it’s so pretty here"

After exploring he takes you on a quick drive to a nearby spa for a couples massage. You strip out of your clothes and cover yourself in a robe, you walk into the room and see Fred sitting in his boxers, looking at diagram on the wall. He hears the door and looks to you a smile crosses his face. He watches as you walk to the other side of the room, your back now to him, as you pull your robe off leaving you in only your purple thong. He turns his head to give you some privacy as you make your way to your table, but you still feel him looking from the corner of his eyes. Once you are under your sheets Fred stands, you stare at his abs and his V that leads below his boxers. You are practically drooling while you watch him slide under the sheets.

“That massage was amazing, I haven’t had one since you last took me” you say hanging your coat up in the cabin.

“Seriously, you should go more.”

“I know I really should” you reply. “I’m going to take a nap though, massages always make me sleepy.”

“Okay, dinner will be here at 8.”

When you wake up you shower and do your makeup routine but add a little extra to make your eyes pop as you loosely curl your hair. You head to your closet and decide on a royal blue skinny strap dress . It has a v neck and stops above your knee, with an asymmetrical hem. You pair it with some black heels before making your way downstairs. Fred has the fire lit and blankets set up in front on it with some pillows, soft music plays. The food is waiting on a tray on the floor.  You see him in a pair of grey dress pants with a button up shirt tucked in; he purposely left the top button undone, you gulp at the sight of him.

“Wow" you say causing him to look up, his eyes go large as he takes you in “that’s supposed to be my line" he says smiling “you look amazing”. After dinner Fred clean the plates and returns back to the blankets sitting close to you. You sit there drinking and laughing, you don’t realize how much you’ve had until you pour the remainder of the 3rd bottle into your glass.

“Wow, been a while since we drank this much” he jokes.

“Yeah last time was when we made Oliver” you laugh. You look into his eyes as he hesitantly leans in pressing a light kiss to your lips. You feel his lips gently brushing yours as you give in, wrapping your hands in his hair. He quickly deepens the kiss, as your mouth allows entry for his tongue. He makes quick work of your dress, pulling it off of you revealing your matching strapless black lace bra and thong.

He smirks as he stares at you “I really like what Kathy packed" he says as you both laugh lightly as he kisses your neck. He pushes you onto your back and licks a stripe between your breasts and begins placing kisses on you as you hastily unbutton his shirt.

He unclasps your bra and dives in sucking on your nipple while rolling the other in his hand “mmmm" you moan as your back arches. He slides down peppering kisses down your stomach. When he reaches your thong he kisses your core through the fabric. He bites it and pulls it down to your thighs with his teeth before allowing his hands to pull it the rest of the way. He returns his mouth to where you need him most and licks up your slit feeling your wetness he says “you really did need this eh babe?”

You nod barely able to form words as he licks your folds then begins sucking on your clit. He brings two fingers down and spreads your folds open before thrusting them in you.

You bite your bottom lip as he looks up at you “no baby I need to hear you" you let go and begin moaning his name. He brings your legs on top of his shoulders as he breathes on you. His tongue begins sucking on your clit before he dives lower his tongue licking the inside of your walls. Your hands reach down to grab his hair “Freddie” you groan out as he continues to lick inside you. His other hand comes up to play with your nipples, pinching it as he continues to pump in and out of you slowly.

Your orgasm begins to build as Fred’s pace doesn’t stop, when he recognizes the signs; your thighs tighten around his head. He continues to lick the inside of your walls as your orgasm comes, you grip his hair tighter as you feel yourself spasm around him, filthy sounds leaving your mouth. He doesn’t pull back until you are done, he climbs up you and you see your juices glistening on his lips and beard. He locks your lips into a kiss where you can taste yourself.

“Mmm Fred” you moan. You push him onto his back and straddle him, leaning in to give him a deep passionate kiss. His thumbs rest on your thighs as you see his bulge pressed against his pants as you undo his belt and zipper. You slide his pants and boxers down allowing his hard cock to spring free and slap against his stomach. You use your thumb spreading the precum around before bringing your lips down. You lick the underside as he throws his head back before you finally wrap your lips around him.

It’s been a while since you’ve had him in your mouth, the first few times you bob you gag slightly before getting reacquainted with his size. You set a steady pace, Fred’s hands come to your hair wrapping them in a makeshift ponytail as you pick up your pace. You swirl your tongue around rising up almost completely before you drop your mouth taking him completely in. You bring a hand to massage his balls as you deep throat him “fuck I’m gonna" he pulls you off of him before he can finish. He pulls you up to him and pulls you in for a deep kiss before rolling on top of you.

He pulls away “do I need a condom?”

“I’m on birth control” you state.

“Yeah I heard that before" you both laugh.

“I’m on a different method, one that is more effective with no human error.” He nods before leaning back down kissing your neck. He behind to line himself up when you place your hand on his chest to stop him.

“Do we need one for…” you trail off as he looks at you questioningly “have you been with anyone else?”

A light smile crosses his face, “not since before I met you.” He takes his hard member and teases your slit, stroking up and down it capturing some of your juices.

“Please don’t tease me" you whine as he pushes into you gently, not going all the way. He takes a minute and kisses your shoulder and nips below your ear as you gasp.

“You okay?” he questions and you nod “yeah, just been a bit. I’m okay” you answer as he pulls back and gently pushes into you again. Your legs wrap around his wide hips as your back lifts slightly.

He keeps the pace each thrust going a little bit deeper but never all the way in “I’m not going to break” you whisper. He stares at you “I promise”

“First time since a kid, everything had to readjust in there. Just don’t want to hurt you.”

“You aren’t, if that changes I’ll let you know. Please” you whimper

He pulls back and pushes in bottoming out inside you as he does it again. He reaches to grab one of your legs hooking his arm under your knee.

“Fuck my skat" he says “you feel so good.” He says continuing to thrust inside you.

He looks down, releasing your leg and kisses you deeply. You groan into the kiss as he thrusts into you. He looks into your eyes and continues his pace, a gentle passionate pace.

You feel your orgasm approaching as you rake your hands down his biceps “I’m close" you whisper as Fred brings a hand to your nipple and begins to pinch it between his thumb and index finger. You remove one hand from his arm and slide it down your body to your sensitive bud and begin rubbing it.

“Kom nu skat" he whispers in your ear as you begin to clench as your walls tighten. He rides you through your second orgasm of the night, as you come down he pulls out spilling his load on your stomach. Fred collapses beside you for a moment before standing to put on his boxers. He hands you a damp wash cloth as he turns to leave.

“Wha?” you begin to question.

He stops and looks at you “I’m just getting my toothbrush I’ll be right back” and he smiles. He returns and finds you in the bathroom brushing your teeth in his shirt. You reach up to grab a cup to rinse with and he sees your thong slightly showing. His hand slides over to your ass and grabs it as you turns into his chest. He kisses your temple as you saunter off to bed. He slides in beside you and pulls you in close, you immediately doze off.

Night One Outift:

Night Two Outfit: 

Next Chapter

[tellywoodtrash]

immj2 23.12.20 lb

V is talking about helping out some destitute mothers and riddhima is like omgggggggggggggg, he wanted the money to help them outtttttttt 😭😭😭 man, she’s suchhhhhhhhhh a fucking idiot. changes her opinion at the drop of a hat; as long as she had heard just “mera kaam” she was like OMG HE WANTS TO BLOW UP THE PLACE, the moment he said “gareeb maaon ki madad” she’s assumed that allllllll the 5 crore he’s asked for are purely for charity. sis, the middle road, have you everrrrrrrrrrr heard of it???

now she’s convinced ki yeh vihaan nahi vansh hai. because apparently only vansh holds the opinion that gareeb maaon ko madad karni chahiye............. no one else in the world has such charitable thoughts???? re devaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

everyone is dancing, and vansh is just standing there checking his phone. lmao, meeeeeeeeeeeeee.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 🥰🥰🥰

anyway, dadi brought riddhima to him and now they shall have the *~~~~~third~~~~~~* OTT dance performance in 24 hours. why don’t you channel all this energy into some competitive ballroom dancing or something. at least that’s a productive use of your time, unlike........... everything else you losers do all day.

but they hot, so i’m not reallyyyyyyyyy complaining. yeah babiesssss, press up against each other and run your hands alllllllllllllllll over. mmmmmmhmmm.

EYE SEX EYE SEX EYE SEX  EYE SEXXXXXXXXXX

light chali gayi. the oberois ke zamaane ka ghatiya fusebox abhi tak badla nahi tum logon ne??????????

kabir and vansh are missing.

ok we found one of them.

aaaaaaaaand he’s activated the bomb.

ok i can’t watch this santa shit without cringing, so imma fwd to when the action happens.

RIDDHIMA LOOKING AT SANTA AND SAYING IT’S VIHAAN’S CHAAL. SIS.............................. YOU CAN’T TELL FROM A SINGLE LOOK AT THIS PERSON THAT IT’S KABIR?????????????? I............. HADH HOTI HAI BEWAKOOFI KI.

kabir!santa is giving dadi gift and riddhima’s making her way towards them.......................

................ when she’s intercepted by a whole other santa, who’s a chappal chor.

how the fuck vansh!santa know that there’s a bomb in her shoe anyway???????????????

EITHER WAY I’M DYING OF SECONDHAND EMBARRASSMENT SEEING VISHAL AND RRAHUL IN THE WORST SANTA BEARDS EVER SO I’M FWDINGGGGGGGGGGG

this episode just wants to fucking kill me by cringe. pls god stop doing this to my hot boys. please. 

he’s taking off the santa suit anddddddddddd..........

(i know we’re all very excited at the prospect of V taking his shirt off, but please note, ki kabir!santa has switched out for mummy!santa. how??? no one knows or cares.)

also, i wish my skin healed that quickly from the 20 bumps and bruises and mosquito/chandler bites i get in a day.

lmao the camera just did a TIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTT closeup into his lower back and while i am delighted, i also wish it was framed a lil better so i could also see dat ass in those pants. 🍑🍑🍑

anyway riddhima is like:

poora outfit pehen ke hi bhai bolega. till then we have to stand here and watch him getting dressed. again, i’m not complaining, but i would prefer the reverse..............

ishani’s like riddhima ke shoe mein bomb?!?!?!!? whattt?!?!?! who could do such a thing???? whooooooo would wanna kill riddhima?!?!? lmaooooooooooooo as if her own bitch ass (along with every single other person in this house other than dadi) hasn’t been trying to fucking murder riddhima on a daily basis. y’all have some nerve looking this shocked.

he’s like i know who did it, vansh knows everything blah blah, i hacked everyone’s phones and it took me time but i found out who purchased bomb making materials........ EXCUSE ME BUT EVERYONE IS VERY VERYYYYY CHILL AND NON-BOTHERED ABOUT THE FACT THAT HE HACKED THEIR PHONES????? THEY’RE JUST USED TO IT, HUH, LIVING IN THIS SURVEILLANCE STATE THAT IS UNDER THE DICTATOR VANSH RAISINGHANIA????? THEY’RE LITERALLY LIKE DEAR LEADER NE KIYA HAI, TOH ACHCHE KE LIYE HI KIYA HOGA..................

anyway he found a piece of the sandal heel somewhere, and idk how but understood ki it’s riddhima’s sandal and that’s the one with the bomb and oh my god this is the stupidest fucking episode of this show i’ve seen so far, and that’s really saying SOMETHING,coz every episode of this show is a new and unique type of stupid.

anyway, long story short.................

this..... i......... god. this stupid fucking show. the explosion wasn’t THAT long also ki allllll this coulda happened without anyone noticing.

anyway Mummy did it coz she knows one of them gonna get fucked up rn and if kabir is thrown out, there’s no way back for him. she can do emotional drama blah blah.

Mummy doing maaaaa wali drama ki riddhima insulted my kokh ka sagaaaaaa, so i did this blah blah and lmao vansh like list khol hi dii hai toh pooori ki poori ginwa deta hoon ki kya kya paap kiye hain kabir ke naam pe.

ooooooooooooooooooooop. OG Maa ka murder waala sach baahar aa gaya. how he knows? no1 currrrrrrr.

didi ko finally realize ho gaya ki this her main man, not a humshakal.

bhai ALSO realizing ki this his main man, not a humshakal.

mummy doing acting and kabir also joining in with support role ki nahiiiiiiiiiiii, it can’t beeeeeeee. (vishal doing some solid acting in this scene, he really deserves so much more from this show than these bits and pieces to perform.)

vansh like achchaaaaaa????? tu bada bol raha hai........ ab bol.

kabir be like ab toh aadat si hai mujhko aise jeene mein; har hafte, do hafte isne merepe bandook nahi taani toh thoda off sa feel hota hai mujhe. like he doesn’t really appreciate or value me anymore. iss se apnapann lagta hai.

anyway vansh like, ok anyone wanna tell me the truth NOW?

yup. feeling very truthy rn, with a gun pointed at raja beta’s kanpatti.

oh man, poor baby. he knew it, but still couldn’t be easy to hear it.

someone hold her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

these two be like daaaaaaang, we gotta up our game if we wanna survive in this house. our plans are all hella weak and amateurish compared to the shit going on here.

december be the month that dadiiiiii really came into her own with the slapping. errrrrryone getting slapped around here. lord when will she slap the fuck outta vansh for HIS never-ending bs, that’s the episode i’m waiting for with bated breath. 

she’s yelling at vansh to call the police and curiously...................

INTERESTING. VERY INTERESTING. that he’d trust kabir of allllllllllll people to arrest his own mom?????????????? seems hella sus to me, girls. kuchhhhhhh toh gadbad hai. either vansh has more of a plan to make these two’s jeena mushkil, ya *excited gasp* KABIR AND VANSH ARE A TEAMMMMMMMMM FROM THE START. (i know it’s not the case. they’ll never give me that. but a girl can hope. i would die of happy if it came true!)

kabir doing some ghamasaaaaaaaaan acting about how he’s heartbroken that his own mom is a criminal, yadda yadda yadda, MY QUESTION IS, WHEN DID HE EVEN GET REINSTATED TO DUTY, THAT HE HAS THE RIGHT TO ARREST HER???? I’M TELLING YOU THIS IS ALL SO SHADY AS HELL.

ofc dadi is due for a swooning fit now.

uss confusion mein..........

sis, you really need to go to therapy about this fucked up tendency you have to keep jumping in front of bullets for this dude. like......... ppl want to shoot him for a reason. it’s coz he deserves it. how many you gonna intercept like this????? like, let him also catch a bullet or two once in a while. it’ll knock his akad down a peg or two.

anyway yeah. he finally fucking told her.

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Kurgess the Strong Man

Neutral Good God of Bravery, Competition, and Sports

Domains Community, Good, Luck, Strength, Travel Subdomains Agathion, Competition, Family, Fate, Home, Resolve, Self-Realization, Trade

Inner Sea Faiths, pg. 64~69

Obedience: Find the nearest boulder, log, or other unattended object that you can reliably lift over your head, and hold it up high for the duration of the obedience while meditating on the ennobling nature of sports and tests of physical might. If you are interrupted at any time by any creature or person, you must challenge your interrupter to a contest of strength, speed, or stamina, with the boulder or another object of your obedience used as the main focus of the competition. Benefit: You gain a +2 sacred bonus on Acrobatics and Climb checks, regardless of who wins the competition.

Obedience: Be a jock. Auto-succeed if you’re a Str-based martial fighter. I appreciate that Kurgess allows even the physically weak to take part in this Obedience (the path to fitness can be walked by anyone after all), and through constant practice one hour each day, your noodle-armed nerd caster may yet gain some Str and Con from their dedication. It’s not a particularly intense workout, mind, but the dedication to doing it for an hour every single day is something the DM should reward! At least until their Str/Con reaches maybe 13, at which point more strenuous activities would be necessary to raise it higher.

Anyway, easy enough to do if you own literally any item or have access to something you can grab and lift. You may look a little kooky doing it, but other Obediences get much weirder than just doing squats and lifts with whatever you have laying around. You’ll just be the local health nut! One who’s weirdly into challenging people to sudden competitions. Your party may quickly learn not to interrupt your meditation lest they get pulled into a 80s training montage, but if some poor citizen or wandering monster prods at you, you’re spurred on by your god to challenge them. Note that this says any creature, so even a non-sapient creature that was just snuffling around gets challenged, even if it can’t understand you.

No word on what happens if the intruder declines the challenge, or cannot accept it in the first place. Maybe you just automatically win? Not very sportsmanlike to declare yourself a victor like that, but it’s also not very sportsmanlike to force someone else into a competition they want no part of. I’m sure Kurgess will understand; not everyone is built for the life you’ve chosen to live!

Benefit’s bad. It’s half the strength of other benefits on two skill checks that are rarely important (Acrobatics can be extremely useful but isn’t as flexible as, say, Knowledge or Sleight of Hand). And... god, you know. I like Kurgess as an actual character, but this benefit is just a small taste of what’s to come. Brace yourselves, because it’s going to get pretty bad from here on out. 

Boons are acquired slowly: the first once you reach 12 hit dice, the second at 16, and the third at 20. However, the Evangelist, Exalted, and Sentinel Prestige Classes can be entered as early as level 5; doing so grants you the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14 instead. As Kurgess is a true deity, you earn the right to enter the classes earlier than those who serve fiends!

-------- EVANGELIST --------

Boon 1: Blessed Runner. Gain Longstrider 3/day, Cat’s Grace 2/day, or Haste 1/day.

Starting strong, at least! I’m talking of course about Haste, whose power as a buff is nearly incomparable and useful at pretty much every level of play. Longstrider adds a comparatively meager +10ft to your land speed, and Cat’s Grace gives its target +4 to their Dexterity, and though they have a duration that’s an order of magnitude longer than Haste (Longstrider especially, lasting an hour/level), their functions don’t hold a candle to the extra damage output you and your martial allies get from Haste. The only competition it really has here is if two of your allies need increased Dexterity stats for a good long while, but you’ll never see me turning Haste down whenever it’s offered.

Boon 2: Strong One. You gain a +2 sacred bonus on all Strength-based skill checks. 

Just skill checks? Not even Strength checks in general? Eurgh. Couldn’t even spring for, like, just a +2 to Strength.

Strength-based skills are Climb, Swim, and... wait, what? It’s just Climb and Swim? Well, congratulations I guess. At level 11 you’re finally getting that +4 to Climb checks you should have been getting at baseline. Absolutely--ok you know what? Here’s what I’ll do.

--Patch Notes: Strong One now grants a +4 sacred bonus to Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, Ride, and Swim checks. There! Now it rolls thematically into the Darechaser Prestige Class and is actually good! Not the best Boon out there, but on par with what some Evangelists get.

Boon 3: Farmer’s Brawn. Treat your carrying capacity as though your Strength ability score were 3 points higher than it actually is. 1/day as long as you are wearing light, medium, or no armor, you can lift up to two unconscious or dead Medium or smaller creatures and their equipment onto your shoulders and still move up to your base speed, ignoring the added weight. You cannot both attack and move in the same round while carrying one or more creatures in this way. You can carry these bodies in this way for a number of rounds equal to your Hit Dice; afterward, they encumber you as normal.

The amplified carrying capacity grants you, on average, about 25 more lbs to your maximum load depending on how high your Str was before. Neat! This should have been part of Strong One, though, even with my little buff. Also, carrying capacity rarely matters at the level you get this ability at, either because of Bags of Holding or because nothing really becomes worth carrying aside from what you already have. Aside, I suppose, from unconscious allies.

This is just... A flat bonus to Strength would have been better than whatever this is. An emergency tool of rescue, I suppose, Combine with Longstrider or Haste to grab your fallen allies and get out of there! Oh, wait, no, because “still move up to your base speed.” So there goes that. Also, despite the fact they don’t encumber you, you’re still basically staggered while carrying them (you can still take two move actions, though!). ALSO also, this ability only lasts for around a minute and a half, which is pathetic if you’re using this ability for its intended function (narrowly escaping a complete party wipe); it’s likely to cut out about halfway out of the Evil Lair.

I suppose there’s the utility of just picking up whole entire enemy bodies and running off with them, but seriously, just...

--Patch Notes: Farmer’s Brawn now reads “Gain a +4 sacred bonus to your Strength. Once per day, you may carry two Medium or smaller creatures or corpses and all of their worn equipment without counting them towards your encumbrance for 1 minute per HD you possess.” 

-------- EXALTED --------

Boon 1: Holy Strength. Gain Enlarge Person 3/day, Bull’s Strength 2/day, or Rage 1/day.

Oh hey! All three of these are good and useful at any level! Rage can whip a whole party into a frenzy at once, giving them +1 to attack and damage rolls with melee weapons and giving them +1 HP per HD they have, at the comparatively minor (but still noteworthy) cost of -2 AC. Having a legion of summoned creatures, some hirelings, or just a party with a decent number of martial fighters can expand Rage’s usefulness even further... but a meager +1 to a whole lot of people is only useful if you, well, HAVE a lot of people. If you don’t? Bull’s Strength gives +2 to attack and damage rolls for minutes at a time, and has the added utility of beefing up someone’s carrying capacity and skill at lifting and throwing things around.

Enlarge Person is really the way to go if you have (or are) a powerful melee fighter on your side, though. A nice +2 to Strength is secondary to the delicious, tasty +5ft of reach, letting the target hold a much greater area within their threat radius. Knowing that you always have this spell on hand (3/day with a 1 min/level duration basically means you have it every time you need it) can prompt your primary tanks to take feats like Pin Down and Step Up to make themselves into inescapable tar pits of pain.

All three of these are good and flexible choices! Excellent! Now lets see what else Exalted can do...

Boon 2: Coordinated Escape: 3/day as a standard action, you can shout an inspirational command that affects you and any allies within 60 feet for a number of rounds equal to your Hit Dice. During this time, affected characters can use the withdraw action to move up to triple their base speed (instead of up to double their base speed).

... run away real good, apparently? The ability is described as showing Kurgess’ wisdom, fleeing from a fight that cannot be won rather than standing and accomplishing nothing, but like. He’s the god of bravery! Eurgh. At least there’s the amusing use of using withdraw to get CLOSER, since it essentially gives you an extra move action. And, for what it’s worth, it IS a decent escape tool, provided the enemy you’re running from has no way to catch up with you or slow you down. Much like the original Farmer’s Brawn, this ability just kind of doesn’t represent a god of sports and athleticism, which is what drives me nuts.

... well now that I think about it, using it exclusively for a sporting event like football or some other “keep-away” type game would be hilarious. But, still:

--Patch Notes: Coordinated Escape has been renamed to “Audacious Escape” and now reads “3/day as a standard action, you can shout an inspirational command that affects you and any allies within 60 feet of you. Any creature affected by this command can move at double their movement speed for one minute, and while they’re affected by this ability, their movement does not provoke Attacks of Opportunity.” Capped the time limit and shrank the movement buff, but made it a far more powerful defensive OR offensive tool.

Boon 3: Break the Anvil: 1/day, you can perform a disarm or sunder combat maneuver with a +4 competence bonus against an adjacent creature and a weapon it holds. If you succeed, the creature’s weapon is simultaneously damaged and disarmed, as though you had succeeded at both combat maneuvers simultaneously. If you exceed the target’s Combat Maneuver Defense by 10 or more, the target drops the items it is carrying in both hands, but you only sunder the weapon you initially targeted. If you don’t have either the Improved Disarm or Improved Sunder feat or a similar ability, this attempt provokes attacks of opportunity as normal; however, if you have one of the feats or a similar ability, this attempt does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Alright I’ll admit, this is a... well, it’s not a complete letdown. It can be pretty good! Or, it would be better if it were attached to the Sentinel, rather than the caster-focused Exalted. And also if you could use it more than once. Needing to invest in Improved [X] (or at least Dirty Fighting) to avoid being slapped for your attempt to do something cool is also kind of a letdown. Now, I’ll admit, sundering at this level is very difficult to actually make viable, as most enemies you’ll face will have either enchanted weapons (which are very difficult to damage), skymetal weapons (again, difficult to damage), enchanted weapons made of skymetal (basically impossible to damage without one of your own), or no weapons at all (either because they use natural attacks, or use magic)... but that’s why this ability is also attached to disarm, which IS viable even at high levels, because knocking an enemy’s weapon from their hands and allowing an ally to pilfer it can render a great many foes impotent.

It does also require you to be adjacent to someone, though, which means you, the caster, must put yourself in arm’s reach of an enemy. And probably the BIGGEST weakness is that enemy CMD at levels 15+ can get ridiculous, so you’re going to have to focus at least part of your build on it, augmented by either spells or feats or, more than likely, both. The +4 bonus you get from Break the Anvil--which I have to admit is a really good name--is certainly some help here, but you’ll still need to build around it if you really want it to work.

--Patch Notes: Break the Anvil can now be done 3/day.

-------- SENTINEL --------

Boon 1: Master of Games. Gain True Strike 3/day, Bear’s Endurance 2/day, or Heroism 1/day.

It’s been one week and True Strike is still bad, even for the martial-focused Sentinel. Let’s just ignore that.

Bear’s Endurance is the weakest and least flexible of the ‘animal aspect’ spells, granting a +4 bonus to Con which translates to a whopping +2 HP per HD and +2 to Fortitude saves, and basically nothing else. It’s a bandage when someone’s suffering from disease or resisting a poison, and while it may occasionally save someone from being Blood Drained to death, it doesn’t justify taking Endurance over Heroism.

Heroism is a great buff to just use on yourself right before entering the final stretch of a dungeon, or even just after entering the front door. It’s a +2 bonus to attack rolls, skill checks, and most importantly saving throws and lasts for a tremendous 10 min/level, meaning it lasts two hours when you first get it and only rises from there. There’s no reason to take anything but Heroism, and little reason to not have it running the instant you enter hostile territory.

Boon 2: Reveal Frauds: You can, as an immediate action, activate Discern Lies as a spell-like ability. You can maintain this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to your Hit Dice, but these rounds do not have to be consecutive.

I had originally wished this ability had been granted to the Exalted instead... but a character going into Exalted likely started as a Cleric, so their Wisdom is probably already sky high and augmenting their Sense Motive to similarly heavenly levels. Thus, Sentinels gaining this power isn’t as bad as I initially thought, especially since it can be used as an immediate action in response to someone opening their lying gob to speak. Discern Lies doesn’t reveal the truth, nor will it ping you if the target is being evasive or changing the subject (such as by answering your question with a question of their own), so you have to keep on top of that. That being said, this ability has three advantages the vanilla spell sorely lacks which elevates it from ‘sometimes good’ to ‘indispensable:’

1) The lack of components means there’s absolutely no tell that you’re using this ability, aside from perhaps you focusing too hard on them. That means your target has no idea you’re using magic to read their speech; they may conclude you’re simply that good at reading their tells.

2) The casting time of “immediate action” means you can use it right when someone talks, rather than needing to prepare it beforehand. You can catch them in a falsehood without alerting them to the fact you’ve done anything supernatural.

3) The on-off nature of the ability means a hostage you’ve taken can’t simply wait out the duration of the spell. You can shut it off the instant they stop speaking and turn it back on when they start again; a canny caster may know the duration of the vanilla Discern Lies, but your version can be raised or lowered more or less at will.

While it won’t truly help you in a fight, this makes you an amazing interrogator, and not even necessarily a mean one! Just throw your arm around some badguy’s shoulder in the middle of a party or a bar and chat them up all friendly-like, sniffing their every word for a hint of falsehood. Sometimes, knowing what’s false helps narrow down what’s true.

--Patch Notes: None. Good as-is!

Boon 3: Unchained Savior 1/day as an immediate action, if an ally within 60 feet of you would normally take enough damage to fall unconscious or die, you can move to an adjacent space and intercept the killing blow, taking the damage in your ally’s place. If the attack would have inflicted any effects other than hit point damage, those effects are negated. If the damage would bring you to negative hit points, you are brought to 0 hit points instead, and the remaining damage is negated. Any attacks of opportunity you provoke by moving in this way are resolved after you take the damage from the intercepted blow; you take any damage from those attacks as normal.

Ohohoho, it’s been nearly two years since we’ve seen a Boon like this! Unlike Milani’s Martyrdom, though, this ability has a MUCH shorter range, a MUCH more restrictive activation condition (it only activates in response to damage!), and doesn’t save your life if you fall in the line of duty.

But you know what? It’s still a damn solid power. Your tankiness will absolutely allow you to survive a blow that could outright kill an ally of yours, but even if the attack COULD crunch you instantly, Unchained Savior flat out stops your HP from going below 0 from excess damage. 1000 damage, 100 damage, or even just 1 extra damage are all turned to Nothing as soon as your HP hits 0, AND this ability negates all extra effects from the attack, such as diseases, poisons, or additional spell effects. This, very importantly, means that even the dusting effects of Disintegrate and Destruction are negated!

Leap in the way of that 40d6 damage without fear! Well okay, SOME fear, since being dropped to 0 still means you’re unconscious. Unless you have Diehard or Ferocity. Y’know what? If your martial build doesn’t have Diehard, it probably should if you’re gonna walk around as an Unchained Savior! Just imagine the look on your enemy’s face when you tank their best shot and just keep coming.

Oh, also, since this power puts you adjacent to your ally, you’re probably now in slapping range with whatever attacked them in the first place. Draw your javelin and show them that you can give just as well as you take!

--Patch Notes: None! A 10/10 ability, Kurgess! Now if only you had this power while you were still a mortal, eh? Haha ... ha... ha... hwoof....

You can read more about him here.

[acaciapines]

tagged by @mattieandmatter! thank youuu <3

1. why did you choose your url?

i picked it when i was super into the transcendence au and acacia was my favorite triplet. now i keep it ‘cause i like the name acacia and it works as a url and i dont see any reason to change it, except on those random days where i feel guilty for stealing someones oc. but like. acacia is a tau oc at this point and if people ask who she is i explain, so like. eh. its fine.

2. any sideblogs?

no. everything i like goes on one blog. i dont really post enough to need a separate blog, and i have a tag system for me to go through and find posts so. no need for a sideblog!

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

way way too long. like 7 years i think?

4. do you have a queue tag?

i dont even use the queue. posts are reblogged and made as i feel like it.

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

i think a friend of mine had a tumblr and told me to join so i did, but now i havent talked to that person in years and she doesnt even use tumblr anymore, so.

6. why did you choose your icon?

its a margay, and they’re my settled form! but literally neither of my daemons take margay form so at this point it’s basically just my fursona.

7. why did you choose your header?

no idea. when i joined i was super into gravity falls and i think that was just a picture that fit okay as a header, and i dont feel like changing it.

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

this one back from the cipherhunt days.

9. how many mutuals do you have?

i dont know. i think somewhere between 6 or 8? if people wanna talk to me its not like we need to be mutuals, i dont follow many people.

10. how many followers do you have?

222. a nice even number! i like that.

11. how many people are you following?

103, and i’d guess maybe half of them are active? i dont follow that many people ‘cause i dont want my dash to be unusable since im one of those people that scrolls all the way back to where i left off the night before.

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

i mean. ive been here for so long im gonna say probably?

13. how often do you use tumblr every day?

like, 3-4 hours a day? maybe more. i dont know i dont keep track.

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

i think the closest ive ever come is disagreement over the interpretation of fanfic njrfdg so not really a fight, or at least i didn’t consider it one and im pretty sure (and hope!) the other person didnt either. but man do i interpret daemorphing differently than the people who talked about it on my daemonfic trends post. for the record im now on the 20th fic in that series and i stand by everything i said in my trends post. but also i can now add that actual main plot of daemorphing fucking rules if you like stories about war and what it does to a person, many different aliens learning about each other and how to live together, and literally amazing yeerk content go read it.

15. how do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

dont care for them, they just make me stressed for no reason.

16. do you like tag games?

theyre fun! if im tagged in one i’ll do it.

17. do you like ask games?

a bit, but i dont really do them ‘cause i’d rather talk about like. daemons n stuff. i like answering all the asks people have sent me about daemons bc i adore talking about daemons.

18. which of your tumblr mutuals do you think is famous?

uhhhhhhh idk. theinternationalacestation? talked to her through her tma fics and i feel like if youve read tma fic youve probably read at least one of hers. is that fame? i guess on some levels. also here is my monthly talk about hope etc go read hope etc please read hope etc i need everyone to read hope etc so i can talk to people about it.

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

nah.

20. tags

ah yes the most stressful part of any tag game. including other people. i’ll tag @mackerelgray if u wanna do it and anybody else who feels like answering some questions about their blog, like. youre free to do so as well.

[whetstonefires]

Same anon as Seph anon, thanks for answering my ask! Ahahaha I really did go a little wild with the chance to ask one of my favorite authors about one of my favorite characters... so, here's a more restrained version of that for another one of my faves I guess cause it's just a pleasure reading your responses. Tifa Lockhart. 4 (because i see her as kind of a person who'd be into the idea of romance?), 5, 14, 18, and 20.

Oh well hey again! Glad you liked the last one. Aww, thank you. 💗 Enthusiasm is always nice. More opinions by me, then! ^^

4. Best places to kiss on their body

Haha I agree Tifa’s a romantic in both the general and narrow senses but ooh, spicy. 😆 Hm.

I think Tifa would like kissed...just below the corner of her mouth, and on the insides of her forearms, and in her palms and knuckles because her hands are so much of her, and would be so easy to see as things that don’t need or deserve tenderness because of their power. And on her hip, at the outside hinge, just below where her belt rests in her main outfit.

5. Guilty pleasures

Unlike Sephiroth, Tifa does guilt a lot. She’s also a lot better than he ever was at pleasure. Both are highly contextual. They change.

More than once, it’s been Cloud. When she was fifteen and sick with feeling trapped in this dead-end town, her promise with that awkward boy next door who’d acquired a certain mystique through his standoffishness and big dream was a vehicle for fantasy that she’d have been mortified if anyone suspected.

When they were traveling the world and she knew something was wrong with him, with what he remembered, and she wasn’t saying anything because she was too afraid to find out what was wrong with who--she was still happy to have him there. Her person. Hers. Leaned into enjoying it more than she would have, if she hadn’t felt like it was going to be snatched away, somehow.

When she first lived in Midgar, it was pain, and blood on her knuckles. She went looking for fights, in those first months after she healed up from Masamune, and the slums had plenty on offer. She knew it was a waste of herself and her training, a stupid risk and a cruel choice, but it was the only thing that felt real.

That was how she first came to the Heaven--not as terrorist, or potential owner, or interviewing for a position as a barmaid. She was looking for a brawl.

In the days after Meteor, it was sweets. She’s always been active enough that indulging her sweet tooth only twinged her a little on an internalized-weight-bullshit scale, but when the main engine of industry had just been crushed and there were refugees on every side and she was spending most of her waking hours trying to mitigate the suffering in the aftermath...spending outsized chunks of her share of the enormous heap of gil the team had accrued traveling the world on getting A Whole Ice Cream all to herself felt more like a crime than half the people she’d beaten to death in her time, but it was one she went ahead and committed.

14. Ingrained habits/forces of habit 

Tifa has many good and responsible habits. She does dishes promptly, without thinking twice. She does her kata every morning. She’s good at forming habits, and keeping them up.

She’s also good, of course, at habits she doesn’t want. Patterns of rumination that aren’t good for her. Habits of avoiding a subject or a problem that bothers her, until it’s a bigger problem than it started as simply for her habituated inability to confront it.

And if she doesn’t change contexts after she loses someone, it takes a long time for the habit of expecting them there to go away. She never quite stopped expecting to see Cloud when she was leading the team after the Northern Crater, and it took until after she’d spent a few days with him in Mideel to stop looking for Aerith.

18. Things they’ll never admit 

They’re mostly silly or obvious, or both. She thought Sephiroth was cool and Zack was hot, when she was sixteen. She really did believe Cloud wasn’t real, for long enough to matter, even though it was Sephiroth who said it.

There’s one that isn’t. She tries to be sorry, for everyone and everything that was lost and broken in the road to ending the old world, and she can’t. It’s sad, and she wishes it hadn’t had to happen, and she’d never have done it, but she wouldn’t wish any of it undone, if it put Shinra back in power.

Even the people she loved. Her town, her Midgar friends, Aerith. She’s given her heart to the future, and she’ll let go of everything from the past if that’s what it takes to build something new. Nibelheim was a cage for her anyway, dear as it was and dearly as it loved her. It’s easier to leave behind than she thinks it should be, now that she isn’t alone in the emptiness of its destruction, or strangled with a hopeless need for vengeance.

She has Cloud left, from those days, and that’s enough to live on.

But she thinks even Barret would give it all up, everything they have now, just to have the massacre of Corel unmade. And maybe Cid or Reeve would agree with her, but she doesn’t want them to. So she’d never tell anybody.

20. What-ifs/Alternate Timelines 

There’s a lot you could do with alternate-timeline Tifa but only three things that I’m persistently interested in.

First, she realizes she can leave town, too. Like...she clearly more than a little wanted to, and felt that she had to stay. Leaving town to seek your fortune and become a hero or whatever is only for boys. So she was living vicariously through Cloud, in canon.

The natural thing as a fic writer is for her to also try for SOLDIER, which I’ve seen done, though in character terms it’s a little less likely, assuming it’s even an option. I tend to assume Shinra only recruits men for active combat roles (which Turks technically are not even tho they actually are) because that’s what we’re shown, and while you can headcanon around that because of helmets and so on, I’ve never felt that ‘pretending the fascists aren’t as sexist as they seem’ was really a strike for women’s lib in transformative fandom? Shinra is not a positive environment. That’s a fact I’m happy to let stand.

They might make an exception if you were good enough, tho, and Tifa is very good.

Second scenario, Zangan doesn’t turn up at just the right moment to get her out of the reactor before Hojo swoops in, and she gets picked up with the rest of the survivors for the Sephiroth Copy Reunion Project. I started writing this one. It’s uh. Dark.

Third, she doesn’t wind up in Midgar. There’s suggestion in the game that Zangan brought her there to get treatment for her stab wound but it’s literally the other side of the Planet so I mostly ignore that on the basis that it’s absurd and adds nothing of value to the story, and assume she made it there on her own.

But in this AU he left her with one of his 127 other students and they bonded while she was healing up, and got into contact with some of the others who knew how to contact some of the others, and all these people knew people of their own, and Zangan-Ryu became a Mass Movement without actual Zangan’s direct involvement or support, at least not until later on.

Because I think it’s wild that this man wanders the world dropping in on his scattered collection of disciples one at a time, meaning Tifa is part of a fairly large community with whom she is not at all acquainted, and there’s potential there that I’ve never seen built into.

Tifa fomenting provincial insurrection potential. :D

[gh0stbird]

Okay Now Do The Rest

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

Bright but argumentative. I was never afraid of pointing out things I didn’t feel were fair hfhddh

When we were learning numbers kids would often write 91 for nineteen, just flip them, y’know, and Ms. Potter yelled at the class for it. Baby Generiq went into it about how it was an understandable mix up because you do say the number first. In twenty-three you write the two first, so in nineteen it’s easy to assume you would write the nine first.

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

Tired.

8. movies or tv shows?

TV shows. Every book adaptation should also be a series not a movie. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

9. favorite smell in the summer?

Honeysuckle and sunshine

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

Floor hockey! My friend and I used to be brutal and swing at each other’s shins going after the ball. Also it was reminiscent of golf, which I competed in.

12. name of your favorite playlist?

I have an untitled playlist I cycle my current music in and out of, but Newton’s Third Law is my favorite named one!

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

I don’t- I guess the yellow smarties. Don’t come for me they taste like lemonade.

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

I assume this means assigned book and not the reports we got to pick for ourselves. Ah, Night was good. Lord of the Flies was fine but way overhyped. Again, don’t come for me.

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

If I can tuck my legs into the chair I am sitting in that is ideal!

18. ideal weather?

When you know it is going to rain and you get to stay home

19. sleeping position? (Skipped on accident)

I reeeally like pressure, so either against something or on my stomach.

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

Phone notes and a notebook! Sometimes a blank document but I always find it strangely intimidating

21. obsession from childhood?

Warrior Cats, Percy Jackson, and Maximum Ride were my big three!

22. role model?

Aa I try to straw from people I want to copy, but there are talents I look up to. Rachel Chavkin is a brilliant director, and there are so many artists and authors I look up to and who inspire me.

24. favorite crystal?

Obsidian because it’s black like my hea- I’m kidding, I do love obsidian, but it’s Rose Quartz because it’s a very very pretty, soft pink and makes me happy.

25. first song you remember hearing?

The mobile above my crib played Imagine by John Lennon. My childhood room was themed after it as well!

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

Swim or sit in the sunshine. Ben and I usually go driving with the top down as well.

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

Walking through fresh snow is amazing, so are snowball fights and building snowmen.

28. five songs to describe you?

Oh fuck yes

Hurricane - Hamilton

The Reckless and the Brave - All Time Low

Almost There - The Princess and the Frog

All This and Heaven Too - Florence + the Machine

Facade - Jekyll and Hyde: A Gothic Musical Thriller

30. places that you find sacred?

I don’t typically find places sacred, but certain headspaces are very special to me, and time spent with loved ones means more than enough to be considered sacred.

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

A black blazer with a white button-down and a skirt.

32. top five favorite vines?

I am in Missouri (misery)

I love you, Bitch

I want a Church girl

Obama’s “I know because I won both of them”

I won’t hesitate, Bitch!

33. most used phrase in your phone?

“No worries”

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

That fucking PFI bandana boot sale I stg

35. average time you fall asleep?

Somewhere between 9:00 and three in the morning

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

Some girl doing bunny ears on her friend. I don’t remember what the caption was

38. lemonade or tea?

Both. Mixed together. It’s called an Arnold Palmer and it is my favorite drink

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

Lemon cake!

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

We duck taped out principal to the wall once. Also some kid broke their tray over another kid’s head at lunch one time.

41. last person you texted?

The family group chat, though Beau if Discord counts

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

I wear a lot of leggings so jacket pockets!

44. favorite scent for soap?

We had some Lily of the Valley hand soap that was amazing

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

Fantasy, I think! I’ve never done super heavy into the other two. Though I definitely don’t want to ignore sci-fi because two of my favorite stories are a little science-fiction-y

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

A t-shirt and shorts

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

A banana. Generally accepted as a fruit and kind of just rolls with it, but is actually a berry

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

I fucking hate Hamilton-ing on main, but

“And when my prayers to god were met with indifference, I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance!”

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

That changes every time Beau and I play HetaOni together, but I have fucking lost it for at least five minutes the last two sessions.

51. current stresses?

I dunno, man, life? My hair could use a wash

52. favorite font?

Covered by your Grace and I’m a big Spectral baby. These are both google docs! I don’t know if that makes a difference.

54. what did you learn from your first job?

Patience is important when teaching material, but never be afraid to find another approach better suited to the person you’re tutoring.

55. favorite fairy tale?

Robin Hood!

56. favorite tradition?

My family does homemade Springfield cashew chicken for Christmas!

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

Uhh lots of self-acceptance shit no one really wants to read

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

I can pop the joint at the center of my foot

That’s all

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

I sort of like my role as mom friend, so maybe I could keep that role in a sort of action-based anime that followed a group of friends

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

“I am not the protégé to waste your time on; I'm complete!” Jekyll and Hyde: GMT

62. seven characters you relate to?

Haha

Lisa Carew - Jekyll and Hyde: GMT

Japan - Hetalia/Oni

Garnett - Steven Universe

Hfhddh that’s all I can say that aren’t my own characters

63. five songs that would play in your club?

I Don’t Like Clubs, but

Overwhelmed - Royal + The Serpent

Backseat Serenade - All Time Low

Go Big or Go Home - American Authors

The Nights - Avicii

Tempo - Lizzo

64. favorite website from your childhood?

Webkinz!

65. any permanent scars?

Yep - One from a bad bike wreck. My body rejected the dissolvable stitches so it’s a lot bigger than it was supposed to be

66. favorite flower(s)?

Lily of the Valley, daisies, Day Lilies, and Dandelions! I also love honeysuckles but I don’t know if those count.

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

Accidentally drank rancid milk once!

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned? (Haha, nice)

The fastest, free way to fill up your potions on Wizard101 is to play Potion Motion to level three.

70. left or right handed?

Right handed

71. least favorite pattern?

On myself, animal print

72. worst subject?

I’ve never been intuitively good at History, I do think it’s interesting though.

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

I don’t like to take it until I can’t move without it.

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

Kindergarten? I had mono and then scarlet fever twice, so my baby teeth were pretty much ruined and they all fell out very fast.

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

Curly fries!

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

Kalanchoe’s, it literally Window’s Thrill. These babies are fairly temperamental outside and love partial sun, so the window is the perfect spot for them. And! If you keep them happy! They’ll bloom! My personal favorite is the pink bloom.

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

What’s wrong with coffee from a gas station? Also I don’t like seafood.

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

Earth tones!

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

Lightning bugs

82. pc or console?

PC!

84. podcasts or talk radio?

Podcasts - talk radios actually tend to get under my skin for n o reason

84. barbie or polly pocket?

Barbie, but let it be known I was brutal with mine. We did human sacrifices and the like.

85. fairy tales or mythology?

Mythology!

86. cookies or cupcakes?

Cookies, but I’m a slut for whipped frosting

87. your greatest fear?

Losing control!

88. your greatest wish?

A life beyond where I am now. Haha Stop chasing new down the hallway you’re so sexy haha

90. luckiest mistake?

Logged into Omegle in like 2015 and some rando asked me to join their Doctor Who roleplay. Luckiest moment of my gd life.

91. boxes or bags?

Bags! They’re easier to store

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

Sunlight! But in the late afternoon when everything is bathed in orange.

93. nicknames?

Mom is the most prevalent!

94. favorite season?

Fall into winter. Peak leaf crunch!

95. favorite app on your phone?

Discord or Notes

[sheliesshattered]

Fic meme

I was tagged by @primarybufferpanel​ -- thank you darling, this was a ton of fun to do!

This got a bit long, so I’ll put the people I’m tagging here at the top:  @claraaoswald​, @ambitious-witch​, @someillplanetreigns​, and @junoinferno​, if you feel like playing!

My AO3, my old non-updating fanfiction.net

Fandoms I’ve made fanworks for: Oh lord. I’m only going to count fanfiction that has actually been posted, but if I tried to count up every fandom that I’d started writing for and left unfinished fragments languishing on various harddrives and googledocs over the years, it’d be at least double this list. I have two pseuds on AO3, with the fics roughly organized by fandoms that I post about on this Tumblr account (sheliesshattered) and fandoms that pre-date my time on Tumblr that I don’t post about very much (glasscannon). Putting all the fandoms together in one alphabetized list:

Black Sails - 5 Doctor Who - 8 Firefly/Serenity - 1 Game of Thrones - 1 The Hobbit - 1 The Hunger Games - 1 Iron Man - 2 Law & Order: Criminal Intent - 1 Mad Max - 2 Once Upon A Time - 1 Poldark - 3 Star Wars - 3 Twilight - 7 The West Wing - 1

Number of fics: 38, including a big unfinished epic that I never moved over from ff.n, and don’t plan to unless I finish it someday.

Fics I spent more time on: I’m not even quite sure how to measure this. I’m a slow writer, and a single story can easily hold my attention for years at a time, or be something I return to when there isn’t a newer fandom temporarily consuming me. I don’t tend to keep track of how many hours I put into a fanfic, though. The unfinished epic I mentioned is probably near the top of that list, and was a huge part of my life from 2009 to 2013. Other contenders would be the All Hands series (written with PBP!), and Truth Universally Acknowledged, particularly if you include all the massive world-building that went into that one. 

But really probably the one I’ve poured the most hours into, between research and writing, is a Doctor Who epic that hasn’t yet seen the light of day, called Home The Long Way ‘Round. Because I have such a habit of starting long stories and then not finishing them, I’m making myself get that one completely done before I post any of it to AO3, so I don’t have anything to show for it yet, but I’ve put a ton of time into it over the last five years or so. Hopefully someday I’ll actually get to share it. :)

Fics I spent less time on: Like I said, I’m a very slow writer, so any time I can turn out a story in a matter of days I’m just absolutely shocked. I wrote The Message over the course of about 24 hours, which is probably the fastest I’ve ever finished anything in my life ever, lol.

Longest fic: The All Hands series is sitting at 126,800 words, and PBP and I have more finished for it that we’re hoping to post soon-ish. The unfinished epic made it to almost 119,000 words before I ran out of steam. Truth Universally Acknowledged racked up about 54,000 words before my co-writer and I took a break from it, and probably triple that in world-building bibles and timelines, etc. On the works-in-progress side of things, Home The Long Way ‘Round is sitting at about 40,000 words currently and only about a third of the way done, and the For As Long As We Get series is at 21,000 words between what I’ve posted and what I’m still working on, and will definitely continue to grow.

Shortest story: 10 Seconds, at 208 words. Also one of the very first fanfics I ever finished and posted online.

Most hits: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by like a factor of 20 vs anything else I have on AO3. It’s the only time I’ve written for the main pairing in an active fandom (tho my purview in the co-writing was more on the secondary pairing), and that translated to a stupidly large number of hits. Fanfiction.net doesn’t count hits the same way, but the unfinished epic is sitting at about 3500 favs.

Most kudos: Setting The Stuns’ls, the first in the All Hands series -- which is SHOCKING considering that’s a tiny rowboat of a fandom, for a non-canon background pairing that has literally about 30 seconds of shared screentime, and the two romantic leads don’t so much as kiss over the course of 94,000 words (longing looks, significant hand-touches, mutual pining, definitely, but kissing, not so much).

Most bookmarks: Truth Universally Acknowledged, by a long shot.

Fic you want to rewrite or expand: I don’t tend to edit a story once it’s been posted, beyond correcting a typo or adding a missed word. Once it’s published, it’s finished and I don’t change it significantly. I do have quite a few (so, so many) unfinished stories that I would love to finish up at some point.

Total words combined: Counting only published fics, including the unfinished epic (and a companion piece for it) that lives only on ff.n, I’m currently at 376,542 words total.

Fav fic you wrote: How can you make me choose between my children like this, honestly?? Siiiigh. I’m with PBP, whatever I’m working on currently is usually my favorite. I’m having a ton of fun with For As Long As We Get, and can’t wait to publish the next part of that, hopefully sometime this month. I’m incredibly proud of All Hands, and that occupied such a specific time in my life that I’ll always think of it fondly. I’m exceptionally happy with the character voices and use of language in both Breathe Again and Upon This Rock Will I Break Myself, Until It Shows Me Your Beloved Face, and tend to feel like they don’t get enough love vs how much I love them. But my one true favorite is and will always be Home The Long Way ‘Round, and hopefully I’ll actually be able to finish it and post it someday.

Share a bit of your WIP or idea if you have anything planned: Again, how can I possibly choose just one?? Even just within the Doctor Who fandom, I currently have more than half a dozen stories actively in progress. But since I’ve talked it up so much without being able to link to it at all, and just declared it my all-time fav, I’m going to break one of my own rules and post the whole first chapter (eek!) of Home The Long Way ‘Round behind a read more:

Chapter 1: Orange Dreams

The sound of the wind is whispering in your head Can you feel it coming back? Through the warmth, through the cold, keep running ‘til we’re there. We're coming home now, we’re coming home now. —Home, Dotan

 The winds shrieked and howled around her. Clara had never been in a tornado, but she imagined it would feel like this to stand in the eye of one. She could see gusts lifting the tops off the sand dunes in shimmering ribbons, gold against the orange sky. The waves of airborne sand dissipated a few feet from her, leaving only a jagged grittiness in the air.

A woman with long blonde hair was yelling at her, her words ripped away by the wind.

“Tell me again!” Clara called back to her. “Tell me how to find home!”

“It’s just physics!” the other woman shouted, taking a step closer; they were nearly the same height. “No information can ever be lost! Start from zero, and run the math! We’ll be waiting on the other end of that equation!”

There was something Clara desperately wanted to tell this woman who looked at her with kindness behind the steel of her eyes, but in that moment, the words wouldn’t come.

“Look!” someone yelled behind Clara, and though she didn’t want to take her eyes off her, she instinctively looked up, following the line of the other person’s arm up into the gathering storm-whipped dusk. There, silhouetted against the last of the light, was the unmistakable blue boxy shape of the Doctor’s TARDIS, spinning quickly as it flew away—

Clara jerked awake, her heart hammering against her ribs, already sitting up and pulling off her sleep mask before she realised what had woken her was the sound of the TARDIS materialising in the sitting room of her flat. She took a moment to catch her breath, trying to hold onto the details of the dream. In the other room, the TARDIS’s familiar wheezing and groaning came to a stop with a soft thud, followed by the squeak of the door.

“Doctor?” Clara called, not bothering to hide the sleep nor the annoyance in her voice.

He poked his head around her bedroom doorframe, grey hair awry and his most innocent expression plastered on — which meant he knew he was waking her and felt at least marginally bad about it. “Hello, Clara. It’s Wednesday,” he said pleasantly, by way of explanation.

“Is it?” she asked, deadpan.

“Technically.”

“You do know that I have to work today, don’t you?”

“Not for another six hours. So come on, up-and-at-‘em, plenty of time to go out and save the universe and still be back in time for your morning coffee. I’ve an adventure that simply won’t keep, so come on!”

His excitement was infectious, as he must have known it would be, but Clara clung to her annoyance a little longer, mostly for show. “You have a time machine: everything can keep,” she replied, but waved him off before he could launch into a lecture on all the ways that statement was false, at least from a temporal physics standpoint. He lectured anyway, hovering outside her bedroom door as she dressed, though Clara expected it was mostly to keep himself from pacing in anticipation. She followed more than half of it, and worried a bit over how often she let him babble on about the minutiae of time travel these days.

By the time the universe had been set to rights — or at least one small blue world, home to a race of sentient seahorses, that had been facing imminent extinction in the form of a rogue exoplanet — she had nearly forgotten her unsettling, vivid dream.

--

Given the recent events on Skaro, Clara was unsurprised when bits of her experiences there began to filter into her dreams. Truthfully, she had expected to dream of it more often than she did, but in the weeks that followed, more nights than not her sleeping mind instead conjured up the strange orange landscape. She revisited that screaming sandstorm so often it became almost comforting, and before long, other dreams joined it. 

Clara was leaned against a railing on a high balcony, overlooking a large city coming alight as dusk crept on, a rusty sunset that stretched the width of the horizon bathing the world in amber. The woman with the serious eyes and long, straight blonde hair stood beside her, in the middle of a conversation, as happened so frequently in dreams.

“Alright, but what about the last stage?” Clara asked, elbows resting next to hers on the railing. “That bit depends on us actively doing something, and you know we can’t rely on my knowledge. I can’t take any of the engineering or navigation with me, so it’ll be down to him.”

“And he loves a good puzzle,” the other woman said confidently, flicking her hair over her shoulder with a twitch of her head. “He’ll want to find us. He’ll figure it out.”

“Before I die of old age? Are you sure? My mother was one of his professors at the Academy, I’ve seen his test scores. I think we need a fail-safe.”

“He did graduate,” she pointed out reasonably.

“He passed his exams with a fifty-one percent on his second attempt! No, we can’t assume he’ll have all the baseline information to even consider such a solution, much less actually accomplish the maths. We have to find some way to hide it with me,” Clara said. “Or in his TARDIS.”

The woman was silent for a long moment, her mouth set in a thoughtful line. On the distant horizon, the sun had finished its slow descent, but below them the city was coming to life, the light not so much fading as changing sources, becoming ever so slightly more golden.

“By that point in the timeline,” the blonde woman said, speaking slowly, still thinking it through, “you’ll have been exposed to his timestream and to the crack in the universe, so some of your memories will probably start leaking through. If we structure the extraction the right way, we might be able to embed a particular thought or moment into your consciousness before you go into the Schism.”

“What’d you have in mind?” Clara asked, turning her head to look at her.

“This conversation?” she suggested, laughing, her broad smile transforming her face. “No, a phrase would be cleaner, I think.”

“‘Run the math, you idiot boy’?” Clara suggested, also giggling.

“Oh yes, that’d go over well! No, if you want him to do something, call him clever. Works every time!” she laughed, leaning her shoulder into Clara’s.

“The horrid thing is that I know the temporal physics for this is part of my mother’s coursework,” Clara groaned. “If he hadn’t slept through so many of her classes, this would be a non-issue!”

“Ah, but a Doctor who was always responsible? What a boring universe that would be!”

Above them, the stars were beginning to come out, though the glare of the city obscured them. Through the haze of the dream, Clara couldn’t find any constellations she recognised. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I was the one who helped him steal that box in the first place.”

“And if he could take half a moment to remember that,” the blonde woman said seriously, “he might realise the role of his TARDIS in all of this, and start to think of the solution that way.”

“‘Run the math, you—”

“Clever.”

“—boy, and remember when you met me’?”

The other woman nodded, considering. “That could do it. Your chronodeterminate conjugation won’t work until you come into contact with at least a little regeneration energy. Assuming you choose regeneration on Trenzalore, it might start kicking in then, in plenty of time for the last stage.”

“Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me,” Clara whispered up to the distant stars, cradling her chin on her arms against the railing.

The woman mimicked her position, the golden light of the city and the silver light of the stars catching in her long pale hair. “It’s just physics,” she murmured back. “Start from zero and run the math. I’ll be waiting at the other end of that equation. We’ll all be waiting.”

--

As unsettling as they were, at least the orange-tinged dreams were better than nightmares of Daleks, of being locked in the Dalek casing, unable to convince the Doctor that it was her, it was her, she wasn’t a Dalek, she wasn’t a Dalek! Dreams of the Doctor peering at her down an eyestock, this face or the last, or any of the others buried deep in her subconscious, hearing her but not knowing her, seeing her but not saving her.

Clara grasped for that orange sky, let it carry her away in bronze sandstorms, golden cities slowly coming to life, and starlight caught in tawny hair.

--

Monday morning third period found her Year 10 students taking an essay exam while Clara doodled on a scrap piece of paper, trying to pull images and phrases out of the orange haze that had taken up residence in her slumbering hours since Skaro. There were bits that tugged at her memory, like a song she couldn’t quite place but whose tune was intensely familiar.

She’d written Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me across the top of the page, and her eyes strayed to it every few seconds. The phrase had stayed with her after she woke, and had been on the tip of her tongue ever since, as though it was a message she was meant to deliver. Below it she’d rewritten the phrase, but crossed out six words: Run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me.

It was too close for comfort to the phrase that had, in retrospect, changed her life, sent her on her current course. The Maitlands’ mnemonic for their wifi password, which she’d said out loud during that first phone conversation with the Doctor, had caught his attention somehow, and it wasn’t until she jumped into his timestream that she understood. It was the last thing she’d said to him before sacrificing herself to save him. Every fragment of her scattered through his timestream had said it to him at some point as well, the words reverberating endlessly up and down his timeline.

Why her dreams would dredge it up now, and in such a strange context, Clara had no idea. They didn’t feel like random images, but more like memory-dreams, like the bits of echo lives that filtered through to her sleeping mind from time to time. It had to mean something.

Half way down the scrap paper she’d written: It’s just physics. Start from zero and run the math. Below this was the very helpful ??? and Clara idly traced over the question marks again. Physics was still a foreign language to her, despite how much the Doctor prattled on about it at times. She could bring this to him, she mused, but what was it, really? Her subconscious doing backflips in the wake of Skaro, that was all. No grand mystery to solve, no universe-altering secret code, just her. She wouldn’t bother the Doctor with this quite yet.

Besides, she was certain she could tease this apart on her own, follow the clues to their logical conclusion without his assistance. The dreams were insistent, and felt familiar, but Clara was sure she’d never dreamed of the blonde woman and the orange sky prior to Skaro. That was the next clue, then, and she jotted it down on her scrap paper. Something had changed after Skaro, something that caused her subconscious mind to dredge up these particular buried memories. 

She needed more information. Dreams about her echo lives were always stronger when she was aboard the TARDIS travelling in the Vortex, sharper and easier to remember. Maybe these orange dreams would be, too. And maybe the TARDIS itself would have some answers for her.

--

Of course, she didn’t sleep aboard the TARDIS very often, with her insistence on returning home for a week of Real Life in between their Wednesday trips. But the Doctor was never adverse to her sticking around longer than she’d planned, and in the end it didn’t take much to convince him: 

“I’ve a staff meeting at work that I’m dreading,” Clara told him on that next Wednesday, when they returned to the TARDIS after their latest outing. “So what do you say I have a little kip and then we squeeze in another adventure before you take me back to face my workday?”

She thought for a moment that the Doctor might question the change in their routine, but he seemed thrilled about the idea. When he announced that he had some tinkering with the engines he’d been putting off that should keep him occupied while she slept, Clara made an excuse to linger in the console room — “just going to finish reading this chapter, then off to bed” — until after he’d gone. Once he’d disappeared down the corridor and around a corner, she quietly set aside her book, then slipped out of her armchair and down the stairs towards the console. The rotors hummed overhead, and somehow Clara knew the TARDIS was aware of her, and was curious to see what she would do.

Carefully clearing her thoughts, she made her way over to the telepathic circuits, pushed up her sleeves, and slid her hands into the strange interface. Focus was the key, she knew, and she was nothing if not focused. She closed her eyes and held two very specific thoughts in her mind: the sand-whipped orange sky in her dreams, and the clear question, Where, please?

She hoped the please would help.

It was a long quiet moment with the circuits warmly cradling Clara’s fingers, and then something on the console beeped. Her eyes flew open and she carefully extracted her hands from the telepathic interface before pulling the monitor down to eye level.

Gallifrey the screen read in English, below an image of a startlingly red-orange planet. Immediately prior to the Time Lock.

Clara felt her heart thud painfully against her ribs as she read the brief text again. She’d been dreaming of Gallifrey? She knew she’d had an echo life on Gallifrey, but she remembered that interaction with the Doctor, and it happened indoors. She had never before dreamt of the Gallifreyan sky. Had it been buried somewhere in her subconscious with the rest of her memories of that life? Why surface now?

More confused than ever, she clicked the screen back to the desktop, unreadable Circular Gallifreyan floating idly across the display. Perhaps she should bring this up with the Doctor — it was his home world, after all. But the whole point of this had been to dream while they were in the Vortex, and if she didn’t get a move on, he’d be ready for their next adventure before she’d even managed to fall asleep. She could talk with him about it later. 

And if things worked tonight as she hoped they would, maybe she would even have a bit more information to bring to him when she did.

--

“Fire suppressant in Pod Four!” 

The frantic call was quickly overwhelmed by the sound of the requested suppressant dispensing from the ceiling. When it ended, the speaker, dressed in the dark red uniform of a technician, brushed soot and foam off his shirt. 

“It hates me, that one,” he said, nodding at the unassuming gray cylinder in the open pod in front of him. It was devoid of features, even its doors invisible now in the wake of the fire, two meters tall and one meter in diameter, just like all the other patients in the workshop. But somehow it did seem to be glowering at him.

“And it always will, stop wasting your time,” his coworker said flippantly. He was perched in front of a console on the other side of the room, deep in his own repairs. “Just get the Impossible Girl to do it, she’ll have it eating out of her hand by lunchtime.”

Their conversation occurred in the time it took Clara to enter the large oblong workshop and make her way to the far end where the two were working. “I heard that,” she said seriously, earning a guilty-looking jump from the man who had spoken most recently. She continued over to Pod Four and leaned against the outer casing, arms folded over her uniformed chest, one booted ankle crossed over the other. “What did you do now?” she demanded of the first technician.

He looked at her with wide eyes, more out of genuine fear than mock innocence, in her estimation. “I just told it—”

“You what?” she snapped, in a tone she usually reserved for misbehaving students.

He wilted a little but started again “…I told it to—”

“Told it?”

“…to give me access to the logs,” he mumbled, dropping her gaze.

“Told it to give you access to the logs?” she asked, voice harsh. “Well first off, Number Four here prefers male pronouns, respecting that might put you on better footing. And secondly, as with all TARDISes, you’ll get a lot further if you ask rather than tell.”

Behind her, the other tech scoffed. “They’re machines, we shouldn’t have to baby them like that. An access request is an access request.”

Clara turned her head to pin him with an icy glare. “Some days I cannot believe I let you work here,” she told him bluntly. “They aren’t just machines, as you very well know. Yes, there’s hardware we need to be able to work with, but that’s nothing more than a radio, at some level — only instead of radio waves, we’re using oswin waves to talk to pan-dimensional beings so large, they can’t have a physical form in this dimension. Who, with a little extra energy, can take us and an infinite amount of folded space to nearly any point in spacetime. Just think about the massive intelligences that speak to us through each of those machines!

“But more to the point,” she said, turning back to the tech still covered in soot, “you have to understand their viewpoint of the universe, and their understanding of time. A Time Lord telling a TARDIS what to do is akin to creating a fixed point in spacetime. It’s in their nature to want to avoid fixed points. Ask instead, let him find his own way ‘round to it.”

Before the beleaguered technician could reply, there came a polite knocking from the far end of the room, and Clara turned to see a soldier standing in the doorway of the workshop, looking a little out of his depth. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have a message for—” he paused to glance down at the datapad in his hand, “for the Oswin. From the Lady President. Top priority.”

Clara was moving towards him before he’d finished speaking, curious and concerned, her attention focused on the message in his hands. But the dream faded out before she reached him, her mind moving on to something more abstract, more difficult to hold on to.

When she woke in her bed aboard the TARDIS, she stared at the ceiling with fond frustration. “If that was your attempt at help,” she whispered to the ship, “then I do not understand the message.”

--

It still wasn’t enough to bring to the Doctor, she decided later that day, watching him spin around the console room in the afterglow of a successful adventure, people saved, the universe bettered. So she was dreaming of Gallifrey, what of it? Many of the details in that last dream matched up with what she remembered of her interaction with the Doctor in that life. And while he occasionally enjoyed comparing memories of all the times her echoes had met him, she’d found he wasn’t especially keen on discussing the one in which she’d helped him steal the TARDIS and leave Gallifrey. Susan continued to be a point of pain for the Doctor, all these centuries later, and Clara understood him well enough to know better than to pick at that particular scab.

Still. That phrase was on a loop in her head: run the math, you clever boy, and remember when you met me. The emphasis on their meeting hadn’t been part of the original phrase, and now she was dreaming of the life in which they’d met face to face for the first time, from the Doctor’s perspective. Clearly they would have to discuss it at some point. 

Eventually, but not yet.

[margoshansons]

Even numbers for the fic writer game?

2) Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

I have not yet done true enemies to friends to lovers and I need to do it because I love it so much.

4) How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Oh man. So many. I have Alfie’s fic Chaos Theory, Stella’s Fic, my Bucky Barnes found family Fic and literally so many that are half outlined. I always have at least five to ten ideas running through my brain at any given moment. 

One I’m really excited about that isn’t OC related is a Bellarke Much Ado About Nothing AU, with Bellamy as Benedick, Clarke as Beatrice, Raven as Hero, Finn as Claudio, and Roan and Ontari as Don Pedro and Don John.

6) Share one of your weaknesses.

I am awful at writing action scenes. I actively go out of my way to avoid them. (Like making Jas faint during the Mutliplex fight). I am also really bad at tagging dialogue.

8) Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about”

Cisco smirked at her response, “please, you practically drool all over him when he’s in the room.”

She shook her head, “Barry’s my best friend, that’s all,” She began, sticking her tongue out at Cisco, “and I do not drool”

This is such a sibling interaction and I could see the entire scene unfold before my entire eyes. Plus, I’d never been good at writing Cisco, and then this scene happened and It just felt perfect.

10) Which fic has been the easiest to write?

Surprisingly, Chain Reaction. I wasn’t expecting it to be so easy, but Jasmine’s character really just flew off the pages for me.

12) Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

Legends of Tomorrow: “Phone Home” or “Legends of To-Meow-Meow”

Both of them are meaningful but hilarious while playing with traditional tropes and just going batshit crazy. It reminds me to not take my work too seriously.

14) What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Don’t name your characters using the same initial or with phonetically similar names. 

Fuck that! I will name my characters however I see fit. It stifles creativity and if you have a name that would work, then use it! 

16) If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Look, you know it, I know it, the entire community knows it. Bellarke for life baby!

18) Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

I use outlines, OneNote, character worksheets and timelines to keep everything in check. I am a very messy and disorganized person so the more I can organize my thoughts the better. 

20) Describe your perfect writing conditions.

Just me, a coffee, my bedroom, a comfortable chair, my headphones, a good playlist and people to talk to and bounce ideas off of. (but they stay quiet or are virtual)

22) Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

a soft melody left her lips, rising up through the cold air, her breath creating a cloud every time she let out a note.

Cosette reached in her pocket to grab the forty-sous. Her hand came up empty. Oh no. What was she going to do now? 

Her sore throat burned as she swallowed down her nerves, anxiously pulling the ragged shawl closer around her shoulders, the frayed threads barely keeping the garment together while she reached down to grab the wooden bucket, water rushing over her bare feet, freezing her already cold legs. 

Y’all, this is from the archives, so I hope you enjoy this.

24) Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

When I was starting out yes. Now I don’t unless I plan on not continuing it. Every piece of writing you put out is valuable.

26) Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I try to as much as possible! I don’t really get many offers to beta, but when I do, I try my best. I’m a pretty harsh editor and I know what I like and don’t like so I try to be supportive with a hint of “this kind of sucks but I respect your decisions”

28) Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

@probably-voldemort : I’ve mentioned them so much on this site, but they are honestly one of the most talented writers I’ve ever encountered. The way they detail every character’s thought process and the dialogue and the ANGST. It’s all just *chef’s kiss*

@cassercole : Liz is so fantastic as coming up with unique ideas and making you care about the characters she creates. Like, I was really on the fence about Bucky, until I read RIM and then I was like, ‘I get it now’

@ocfairygodmother: The og and the person who inspired me to join the OC community, Jan is so talented at creating her own canon and then making it work with already existing canon. Like Entreat Me Not To Leave is my main source of Outlander news now. I don’t even watch the show anymore because her fic replaced it in my mind.

30) Do you accept prompts?

Absolutely! I just may not get to them for a while haha.

32) How do you feel about smut?

Alright look, I’m not good at writing it, and I’m not a fan of reading it. I just have a really complicated relationship with sex in general and I’d rather keep it out of my writing until I know more about it.

34) What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

FUCK THAT!!! 

YOU KNOW WHAT’S SEXY? CONSENT!!

36) Which is your favorite site to post fic?

AO3 for life BABYYYY!

38) Talk about a review that made your day.

I don’t get that many reviews, but literally any of them make my day. I just love it when people show interest in my writing! 

40) Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

Oooh, Okay. I’m hoping you mean Chain Reaction, since that’s what I’m working on right now, and while the ending is FAAAAARRRR away, I think I have a good alternate ending. (I’m probably gonna cut it off at Crisis or just skip over season 6)

Barry and Iris end up together, Eddie comes back to life and ends up with Jasmine after Crisis.

FANFIC WRITER ASK

[frighthouseofalighthouse]

I'M GONNA DO IT TO EM' ALL ASKS THAT YOU REBLOG TONIGHT TILL 10 AM TOMORROW.... DO THEM!!!!

Hey, you had to do it to ‘em! Here they are starting with the most recent.

“Weird asks that say a lot”

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

Coffee mugs because you can use them for everything. Teacups are too small for a proper cuppa.

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

Chocolate bars always.

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

Bubblegum, which I miss so much. I haven’t had it in over 2 years bc of my braces

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

I didn’t go to public school but all the adults who dealt with me said I was sociable and tried to get everyone to do the group projects but no one listened so I ended up sitting alone reading and quietly doing the project.

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

Glass BOTTLES make it taste superior.

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

Pastel boho preppy goth best describes my style.

7. earbuds or headphones?

Earbuds, but only rubber tipped ones. The plastic ones never fit in my ears. Also headphones never cover my whole ear right. :/

8. movies or tv shows?

TV shows keep my attention span better.

9. favorite smell in the summer?

Brewing thunderstorms.

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

None. But trampoline if I had to pick.

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

Scrambled eggs, peanut butter toast, and some kind of fruit.

12. name of your favorite playlist?

My main one is Things You Love. My one for writing is Queen And Country, and my other two favorites are Summer Songs and A Queen Knows How To Fight A War.

13. lanyard or key ring?

Key ring, lanyards get in the way.

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

Swedish Fish or Sour Patch Kids.

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

OH MAN. To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451, The Grapes Of Wrath, and The Handmaid’s Tale were definitely my top 5 in English class.

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

Curled up sideways in an armchair with my legs slung over the arm. Sitting normally sucks.

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

Either pair of my black boots, or my pink floral Skechers that I wear to work.

18. ideal weather?

60 degrees, cloudy, windy, with a chance of rain.

19. sleeping position?

On my right side, arms around a fluffy pillow, one leg out straight and the other drawn up with my knee to my chest.

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

Laptop. I’m trying to exercise my hand and wrist so I don’t tire as quick of notebook writing, though.

21. obsession from childhood?

History, Nancy Drew books, Harry Potter, and ghost stories.

22. role model?

The person I am but don’t think I am.

23. strange habits?

Pulling my shirt collar up over my nose and mouth/putting it in my mouth and chewing on it.

24. favorite crystal?

Amethyst, my birthstone! Close second is blue goldstone. (Have you ever seen it? It looks like the universe. I have a worrystone made of blue goldstone and it’s one of my prized possessions.)

25. first song you remember hearing?

Something from church probably. Outside of church probably one of these: If I Had A Hammer // Peter, Paul and Mary, Puff The Magic Dragon // Peter, Paul and Mary, Scarborough Fair // Simon & Garfunkel, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald // Gordon Lightfoot.

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

Sit in the shade.

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

Drink tea, read, and play either Pokemon or Nancy Drew and the Clue Benders Society on my 3DS.

28. five songs to describe you?

The Pines // Roses & Revolutions, I Am Here // Pink, Walk Me Home // Pink, Call Home // Heathers (not the musical), Traveler’s Song // Aviators

29. best way to bond with you?

Talk to me about history, crime, musicals, books, or tv shows

30. places that you find sacred?

Natural swamps. Libraries. Old, overgrown gardens. Anywhere historic. Pine forests at dusk. Anywhere under a clear night sky.

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

A plaid shirt, black leggings, and black boots with dark neutral lipstick and a black choker.

32. top five favorite vines?

Fre she vocado, BENTLEY NOOOOO, uhhh I sure hope it does, the one of Lin Manuel-Miranda trying to brainstorm, and this bitch empty YEEt

33. most used phrase in your phone?

Idk how to find this out

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

Idk if this is just a local thing here but WOW ITS NATURESTONE

35. average time you fall asleep?

12-1 nowadays.

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

I can haz cheezburger

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

Depends. Suitcase for things like my laptop that are better protected than in a duffel bag, but duffel bag otherwise because they’re easier to carry.

38. lemonade or tea?

TEAAAAA

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

Both please

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

My house? We had a safe word when we did math. It was “quokka.” If we got overwhelmed we’d say it and then stop and look at pictures of quokkas.

41. last person you texted?

My friend and coworker.

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

Jacket pockets.

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

Cardigan or hoodie

44. favorite scent for soap?

Lavender

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

Fantasy. It takes me a bit to get into fantasy books usually, but sci-fi is hard to follow and superhero is mostly predictable.

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

Fuzzy pants and a t shirt

47. favorite type of cheese?

Muenster, parmesan, or goat cheese

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

Raspberry

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

“I have no country to fight for. My country is the earth, and I am a citizen of this world.” - Eugene V. Debs

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

A weird local political ad a couple years back.

51. current stresses?

My recent breakup, an overnight shift I work on Wednesday night, and trying to find time to go out to a corn maze with my friend.

52. favorite font?

Baskerville or Georgia.

53. what is the current state of your hands?

Covered in small cuts and scrapes from work, nails picked short, black nail polish mostly peeled off.

54. what did you learn from your first job?

babysitting job: Kids suck never have more than one. Retail job: being on your fee it hardddd

55. favorite fairy tale?

Beauty and the Beast or Rapunzel

56. favorite tradition?

Looking at Halloween decorations

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

Cutting, being manipulated by my dad, and letting other people make me believe I wasn’t good enough (still working on that one)

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

Writing, puzzle-solving, singing, and calligraphy

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

“Oh shit waddup”

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

One of those preppy gothic private school animes with a dark secret lurking around the corner

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

Book: “Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance. You have to work at it.” - The Handmaid’s Tale. Movie: “It’s not about deserve. It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.” - Wonder Woman. TV Show: “I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself.” - Doctor Who.

62. seven characters you relate to?

Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Remus Lupin, Richard Gansey III, Blue Sargent, Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury.

63. five songs that would play in your club?

Same five that I said describe me.

64. favorite website from your childhood?

Webkinz and the old American Girl site circa 2009.

65. any permanent scars?

One down my chest from heart surgery as a baby, lots from self harm on my arms/legs, some on my left knee from falling as a kid, and one on the back of my right heel from being pecked by a goose at the fair when I was 11.

66. favorite flower(s)?

Sunflowers, roses, and dahlias.

67. good luck charms?

Myself.

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

Ranch anything.

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

Jellyfish have no brains and no heart.

70. left or right handed?

I’m third generation left handed!

71. least favorite pattern?

Vertical stripes.

72. worst subject?

Math.

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

Wendy’s fries and chocolate frosty.

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

7. Usually I just ignore it because I have a “high pain tolerance” (which means I like to put myself through minor pains because I think I deserve it)

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

Age 5. I was trying to blow up an inflatable ball and it came out.

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

ALL POTATOES EXCEPT POTATO SALAD

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

Violets.

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

Neither, both suck equally.

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

Never had a school id so I guess the license

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

Earth tones for me

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

...They are literally the same thing

82. pc or console?

PC

83. writing or drawing?

Writing. I absolutely cannot draw.

84. podcasts or talk radio?

Podcasts, talk radio is so obnoxious.

84. barbie or polly pocket?

Barbie. The clothes are easier to take on and off. I used to accidentally rip polly pocket clothes all the time.

85. fairy tales or mythology?

Mythology. I like it because it explains things, it’s creation stories, its origins. Fairy tales are just fantasies or cautionary tales.

86. cookies or cupcakes?

Cookies.

87. your greatest fear?

Rejection, drowning, and clowns.

88. your greatest wish?

To be a semi-successful author and historian.

89. who would you put before everyone else?

My mom.

90. luckiest mistake?

Not succeeding in killing myself!

91. boxes or bags?

Bags.

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

Dim lamps if they have yellow bulbs. I hate white lights. And also fairy lights yes please.

93. nicknames?

Ellie, Ell, Little Lion, Lioness.

94. favorite season?

FALLLLL

95. favorite app on your phone?

Tumblr, Spotify, or Instagram.

96. desktop background?

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

6.

98. favorite historical era?

Revolutionary War-era America or late Victorian England.

THIS GOT REALLY LONG AND I DONT WANNA HIT THE TEXT BLOCK LIMIT SO IMMA DO ALL THE HALLOWEEN ONES SEPARATELY, MAYBE IN THE MORNING.

[countjason]

Jason’s 9th Annual Post/Pre-Year Review/Goal

It’s that time of year again, the only reason I have a tumblr account is this annual reflection and goal setting exercise I do each year.  This represents the 9th year I’ve done this in some form or fashion so let’s kick off the goals from last year and where I stand:

Get a new job – This one is important since 90% of my waking existence is at a job.  If I’m not happy there, it’s too my core and I’m not happy in general.  I wish I was better in this area since Caitlin works in the funeral business and has a better appreciation toward the little things but it’s still a thing since it is 90% of my waking life and I’ve worked since I was 16 yrs old.   I would obviously like to get paid what I feel I’m deserved too – not just get a job to get away from another job.  

(Accomplished) – As I recall, this was 90% expected to be achieved at the time I wrote last year’s goals since I was actively looking but this happened REALLY early in 2019.  I remember trying to get a raise as a program manager at Aero Simulation Inc after being a project scheduler (most…boring…job…ever!) and being told I need at least 10 years’ experience in the simulation industry before even being considered.  They handed me an annual raise, sent me off on the 2-week shutdown vacation and the wife and I went to Ashville.  

Upon my return, I got notified that I was hired to start at Smartronix – this hands down was the best timing and possibly the best move I have ever made.  I’m so happy working at Smartronix and working as a real program manager after what felt like an eternity working at places and either doing lesser jobs, jobs I didn’t have any interest in doing all for the sake of paying for my family, being bored to tears, or underappreciated and under paid.  

Vacations – I have a cruise planned in May which is almost paid for and I would like to eventually go to Las Vegas.  I wouldn’t want to go to Vegas without a little money in my pocket, but we’ll see.  I also have the Bristol night race in August which represents the final bucket list race I could want to do with my Dad.  Does that mean I’m done after Bristol? Probably not but I could certainly wish my Dad off should he die knowing I got him there, Talladega, Daytona, Homestead, and Atlanta.

(Accomplished) – I did go on the cruise and that was fun.  It would have been better with the drink package which is just a lesson’s learned for cruising next time but it was a fun experience considering I missed cruises in the past.  I did not go to Vegas and that’s still a hard sell with my wife considering she doesn’t want to go as much as I do.  Maybe I can convince her one day considering all the other vacations we’ve had that were compromises.  

Bristol was everything I expected and more.  

Adam told me that Dad wasn’t doing so well and this race, in all likelihood, represents the last race I go with Dad.  So for this, I booked suites which was the best!  I think Dad and Adam were happy.

School – I got a long way to go for a DBA but I’d like to get the main classes started in 2019.  I gotta wait until money isn’t so tight or there are options like tuition assistance but I’d like to get started in that.

(Failed) – This goal trailed off early after it became apparent I had to still pay for Caitlin’s school.  Now, to be clear, that’s not the only reason, I was sorta going down the DBA route at first because it was something to do since I was getting bored but may get at it again in the future just not now.  I don’t really have a pressing reason for a DBA career wise and there are other fish I could fry which I’ll discuss shortly but let’s put it this way, what I am about to do to cure my boredom is not something my wife is thrilled about….

Find more friends – A lot of my friends 8 years ago I don’t really relate to now.  I’m simply not the same person. Those people, in most cases, are the EXACT same people and we don’t relate.  Going back to 90% of my day with work, I need to find work friends but certainly not at my current job where everyone I work with me is 20 years older than me or are unsociable.  I mean it can’t get any worse than now where I have a co-worker literally 5 feet behind me and insist to communicate primarily through email.  Even if it’s not “work” friends, I need friends that have the same goals, likes, and what not.  That’s why I like people like Eric or James– they have ambition in areas I like today. I still need to find a NASCAR buddy too but that’s surprisingly hard.

(Failed) – I wouldn’t say I gained more friends.  I have the same friends as I previously did and while I get along with people I work with, I wouldn’t go so far as considering them “friends”  

Health – Anyone that says getting older doesn’t suck can blow me.  I know less than 5 years ago, I could run in the morning and had gym buddies which motivated me.  Granted I was walking around like I was crippled half the time afterward, but it was fun.  I really don’t have that same motivation these days.  I still go to the gym periodically but not as I used too.  I joke about my fat head so maybe in 2019, I’ll find that extra gas in the tank and while I’ve accepted not being 180 lbs again, maybe just looking better which will make me feel better as well.  

(Not accomplished but not failed) – I would say it’s improving. Since the wife got pregnant and she had to stop drinking, to support her, I did the same and already lost 20 lbs. I’m pretty sure the rate I’m going I’ll lose another 20lbs by May so while my health improved, early this year, I really didn’t try that hard and my weight reached a point where I started to become self-conscience. This goal always ends up on my list and will likely again.

Financially working in the right direction – To get my house, I had to use retirement money.  To fix the carpet that got destroyed in Caitlin’s library, I had to use more.  I have quite a bit of old debt and new debt that is higher than I like but there’s always been this assumption that I’m just waiting for the right job to pay me what I deserve, AND Caitlin will finally pull her weight since I support her. Once one or both those things happen, we will be able to work off that debt and maybe see the chances of retirement….eventually.  

(Accomplished) – The new job helped out SIGNIFANTLY!  I finally am getting paid what I’m deserved and as such, I feel much better financially.  I still have some debt to pay off and Caitlin is STILL in school but overall, this goal has moved rather well for the things I can do and control.

Potentially Move? – Given the job prospects, I’ve been looking at opportunities to leave Florida. I am so over “hot, humid, high of 100” every-freakin-day.  Part of the upcoming North Carolina trip is to expose Caitlin to the cold. If she tolerates it, the option to move up north is more present. I mean hell, our house is an igloo anyway.  Even still talking about moving north, moving east in Florida has the same possibilities. I know 2019 may be too soon given the dependency I have with Caitlin but given the right situation, it’s entirely possible.

(Failed but…) – With the new job and it being in Tampa, I did not move.  Don’t get me wrong, I still hate the “hot, humid, high of 100” every day but the current salary and baby situation (more on that), changes things a lot.  

Help Caitlin – I could jokingly say “well this is a huge project” but I don’t mean it like that.  She’s been fighting her demons and I’ve been helping.  I would also foresee myself assisting in her passing her classes and exams she needs to take but that’s really all on her and if she asks for it. In all, I just hope to continue to be a good(ish) role-model and help when I can.

(Accomplished…I guess) – Depends on who you ask.  While I did try to help her study from time to time, it wasn’t consistent and it really was something Caitlin should address more than me.  With drinking and the baby, I stopped drinking, as I said, to support and help and I think that’s helping her as well.

Iracing – 2 more to 10…geez, we’re hitting the bottom of the barrel now.  This is just a hobby, be it an expensive hobby I built up, but I hope to continue doing well in the game and not get bored with it lol.  It’s just too expensive to not.

(Failed) – I play it but I haven’t played it like I think I meant to with this goal in mind.  I did get bored with some of it but not for the lack of desire to race, on the contrary, it made me want to race for real.  

House Upgrades – I would like to upgrade the floors in the man cave and the bedroom in 2019.  

This is a lot of work and shifting of things since I have the master bed which is huge in one room and the racing rig and desk in the other.  I have the supplies sitting in the corner collecting dust waiting to be done, but I would need to shift so much around to do it, I’ve told myself it can only be done if we move.  We’ll see, not putting a lot of hope in this one but it’s number 10 on the list.

(Accomplished) – I did complete the floor in the man cave and the bedroom.  

***

Now for 2020 goals and this one has significantly different legs than the last couple years.  

Be a good dad – That’s right all, after 38 years of life, the wife and I decided to become parents.  

At the time of writing this, my wife is 10 weeks pregnant and we’re expecting “baby bat” in July 2020.  We won’t know gender until later but we’ve already started thinking about names (Dante if it’s a boy or Nadja if it’s a girl).  I hope that regardless, we can do this which I think we will.  We’re currently planning on converting the library (Caitlin’s space) into the baby room and starting initial baby stuff now.

Begin my race car career – wait what?  That’s right, after playing iracing for awhile and getting a decent raise at work, I decided to purchase a Legends car and will start my racing career in early 2020.  I started “Head2Bed Racing” as the name of the race “team” in honor of Dad and I look for this to be my new hobby/equivalent to a bowling league.  

http://head2bedracing.com/index.html

My goal is to be in the top 10 in points at season conclusion. I don’t have a goal to win just yet, I’m more concerned with racing and keeping the car under me.  I would hate to damage the car to the point that would end my racing for a while.  I already know I won’t be able to make all the races scheduled and I don’t know how I’m going to drag my wife into this (I hope she does and doesn’t want to leave me – lol). Wish me luck.

Vacation – This is ambiguous.  I don’t have hard plans just yet but I know my window of reasonable opportunity is closing fast with a baby on the way.  I need to talk to Caitlin about this one more but I’d like to find something we can do either before she gets too big and becomes the boulder from Indian Jones... 

or, if we can pawn the baby to one of our parents, do something post pregnancy.  Caitlin’s mom probably wouldn’t mind the later.  

Health – The goal for 2020 given the wife is pregnant and not drinking is get my weight to 225 lbs.  This is for a few reasons – 1) I looked pretty okay at that weight looking at older pictures 2) That will inevitably have impact to racing a Legends Car as my parents so kindly pointed out 3) It’s a reasonable goal that I should be able to accomplish relatively early in 2020.

Professional Development – I state it like that because I don’t exactly know the exact goal to accomplish this.  I don’t want to restart the doctorate program just yet, I don’t know if I’m eligible for the PgMP certificate yet and even if I was, I haven’t committed myself to studying to the level I need to and even if I got it, I don’t know the career impact.  I’ll leave this open ended for now and see what I have to say next year.

Pay off Debt – With the new job, I “should” be able to clear off a lot of debt.  This will help in the goal later in getting Caitlin a new car and a new house before the kid hits 3 years old.  

Friends (again) – I would like to find more friends.  This, in theory, should occur because of the phases in life after getting out of the Navy.  The first phase was my hair-on-fire party all the time phase.  That ended shortly after settling down with Caitlin. Then there was the “retirement” period (I don’t know what to call it) where I stopped going out and the friends I did have before sorta just went away so it was just myself and Caitlin.  With me getting a new hobby here in actual racing, I’m hoping to meet friends that way and with the kid, we may somehow meet other parents and meet people that way too.  Bottom line, I need to be better at these whole “friends” thing.  

I normally try to shoot for 10 but I’m coming up short and I don’t want to set goals for the sake of setting goals.  I already failed several last year so if I focus on what I have coming, I’ll be better suited to accomplish the goals.  So here we go, 2020…another decade.  Let’s do this!

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles About Fighting Games

I... honestly don’t know where to begin with this Rambling. I’ve been trying to think of a decent intro for over a week now and I just can’t be bothered to write a hook.

I guess I should start with myself.

Hello folks, I am Allen X. I do opinion pieces on the internet that I call Ramblings, write silly fanfictions about cute girls punching things, attempt to write original fictions about cute girls punching things, and very occasionally write fan lyrics to video game OSTs. And today’s Rambling is about fighting games and my current thoughts on them as of late. 

I’m a huge fan of fighting games, been playing them since Tekken 3 and Soul Calibur 3, the latter being one of my favorite 3D fighting games period. After that I got into Blazblue around the time Continuum Shift came out, and I’ve played every game in that series since, becoming a massive fan of Air-Dashing fighting games. 

I’m not a huge fan of ranked listings, but here’s a quick list of my 5 favorite fighting games just so you all understand where I’m coming from. So in no particular order:

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown

Blazblue Chronophantasma

Soul Calibur 3

Dead or Alive 5

Under Night In-Birth Exe Latest

So with that list I hope you understand I’ve played a lot of fighting games in my time. That list is just a fraction of the games I’ve played over these last ten years.

And folks, I don’t know how to feel about modern fighting games at the moment. 

I think the current games out are fine, but as a fan of fighting games since the early 2000s they just don’t scratch a certain itch. I couldn’t tell you what it was, but nowadays fighting games just feel very bare-bones. Most of them only have an online mode, a training, maybe a combo/mission mode to help learn combos, and then maybe an arcade/story, with that story mode being bare in some way, shape, or form. It’s just feels empty nowadays.

But... I think I should give an example before going further. And I think the best game that shows my... conflicting feelings is Blazblue Cross Tag Battle. 

And where to begin with Cross Tag? This was a game that literally came out of my dreams and into reality. An actual pipe dream that I and many other fans of Arc System Works games jokingly wished for. Under Knight In-Birth, Persona 4 Arena, Blazblue, all in one game. It sounded like the wildest of wild dreams.

And then this trailer dropped. And I lost my shit. I think everyone lost their shit. 

I screamed.

I jumped out of my chair.

I nearly broke my damn tablet in shock seeing this trailer. 

And Ruby Rose was being added? Something that Mori and Ishiwatari had only teased about in passing? 

I... I needed some air after watching that trailer.

I needed a drink and some food. 

I’m pretty sure I lost three pounds from that trailer, and I’m barely 115 pounds, I need to keep all the weight I can put on. I was so excited to play that game after that. A crossover of three of the best 2D fighters in the 2010s and one of the most popular niche IPs of the 2010s, all together in one game, with unique character interactions. And an English Dub. Finally, a chance to hear Patrick Seitz, Cristina Vee, David Vincent, and more back where they should had been in Central Fiction. It was just... a magical time to be a fighting game fan.

And then I actually played the game... and boy did I have opinions on it.

I did a Rambling about this game last year after playing a bit of the beta. My overall thoughts, aside from my gloating, were that I felt it was lacking in complexity, but had potential to maintain my attention if they could meet a few of my expectations. And not much of my opinion has changed since then. If anything, I honestly wish I got off my butt and wrote more about this game while it was still fresh in my mind. 

But, back to my original point, this game is a good starting point in a lot of my conflicting feelings about fighting games nowadays, and I think I should start by discussing...

My Expectations

Last year I had three main expectations for Cross Tag. Those being a story mode that was more entertaining than insightful, free DLC of some kind, and a fulfilling single player experience. These are the three main things I want in most fighting games, as I’m not into the competitive seen outside from online get-togethers nor do I have a positive opinion of the competitive side of the FGC to begin with. So, how did Cross Tag stack up?

Well, I can happily say that at least two out of three isn’t bad. 

But I should probably break this down a little, as again, these three points are what I look for in most fighting games.

The Story Mode

Much like I hoped, the story modes were relatively simple and didn’t get too deep into everyone’s lore and backstory, which is honestly for the best. I’m a fan of Blazblue’s story, I really am, but I wouldn’t wish for that encyclopedia of lore known as the Blazblue world-building and the mini encyclopedia of lore that is Under Night and RWBY world-building mashed together. A fan of all these series I am, but that would had been much.

That said, the story modes were great. I was cackling at almost every interaction. Ragna squaring up to Kanji and Wald, Ruby being an absolute weeaboo when she confuses Yosuke and Yukiko for a ninja and geisha respectively, Ragna being surrounded by all the robo-girls save for Labrys, Hyde just... dealing with everything in his story mode, Weiss and Orie teaming up to take down Ragna in the name of justice. The list goes on, but the point remains. I loved a lot of this mode, my only real wish being that it was a little longer and didn’t focus solely on the main character of each series. I was also hoping for something a little more... grounded. Well, not something so ridiculous as some weird AI/Goddess controlling everything behind the scenes and forcing everyone to fight anyway. I know with the Cross Tag 2.0 update coming there’ll be a new story mode, and I hope it’s a little more inclusive than this one. I’m also hoping for a bit more replayability too. This story mode was fine, but I’d like to see something I could come back to and want to come back to. 

To give an example, I think Continuum Shift Extend had the best story mode of any fighting on pure replay value. There are at least 20 didn’t character perspectives in that mode with alternate endings and gag endings included. Each character has a decent arc and narrative, they occasionally run into other named characters and have their timelines mix, and there’s even a retelling of the previous game with some added bits thrown in. I know I said Chronophantasma was my favorite of the Blazblue series, but Continuum Shift had the most love put into it. I’m not expecting something of that extent in Cross Tag 2.0, but something at least trying to reach that would be great.

Ah, but moving on.

Free DLC

This one’s a real technicality and I’m tempted to not count it, but for the degenerates like me that bought the original season pass, we also got to enjoy Seth, Heart, Teddie, and Naoto K. for free. That’s... not exactly what I was hoping for in my old post, but we did get something out of it. In the future I hope that Cross Tag will follow something a little closer to how Samurai Shodown handled their season passes, letting early adopters download it for free on the first day or week before charging as a reward for those giving it a chance... or at least running the the store page quick enough. 

In all seriousness, I do hope for something to the effect of the reason of Season 2′s characters being either cheap or free for the first few days before charging whatever retail price they set it to. It’d just give some incentive to stay up to date on the game and encourage people to actively play it.

But sadly, two out of three meant I didn’t get the main thing I wanted, which was...

A Good Single Player Experience 

I had mentioned I wanted something akin to Chronophantasma’s Abyss Mode or Persona 4 Arena Ultimax’s Golden Arena Mode. Something with a leveling system or that had some replay value to it for the single player folks. Sadly, I didn’t get that. Like many current fighting games, Cross Tag is rather bare-bones with the content. There’s not even a basic arcade mode, a staple in every ASW fighting game. I’m... disappointed by that. And this isn’t the only game either. I believe it took Street Fighter V an entire season to get an arcade mode. Tekken 7, a series known for its wild mini games, barely had anything beyond a story mode, a very bare bones arcade mode, and a treasure mode that... just didn’t feel fun to play. This is from a series where the last numbered series had an expansive 3D-esque brawler mode for it’s story mode with special items and costumes that gave some really wild effects. Soul Calibur 3 had a mini Fire Emblem-esque strategy game with Swords and Soul Mode where you got to create a character with a pretty original moveset all things considered, several movesets in fact. But sadly... a lot of that is starting to go away.

I just feel like with the push toward competitive play a lot of fighting games aren’t bothering to keep in mind casual players, and that saddens me. I don’t play too many fighting games for the sake of getting better, but that’s where we’re going. I want to say that’s bad for business, but Street Fighter is pushing out season 4 and EVO is still one of the biggest and most marketable events in the FGC. Maybe I’m just being an old man yelling at those darned kids and their bare-bones gaming content. I’m willing to accept my 25-years-old mindset is a bit old fashioned in the year of 2019 where time and technology is blitzing by and those in our mid-to-late twenties who have been playing games since the 90s are seen as the old men in the gaming community, but I just had to get my thoughts out. ...

...

...

God, I miss the line breaks Tumblr use to have, makes these closing statements a lot easier.

Anyway folks, with all that said I think I’m going to call it here. For those expecting the Weekly Update it’s been a real slow week, so not much to report. Consider this Rambling my update. I’ve finally gotten through the first chapter of Arifureta and honestly that’s all I need to read to get an idea on the Rambling I want to do for that series. I bought 6 volumes of Tokyo Ghoul:re against my better judgement, so expect me to talk about that next week. And slowly but sure I’m getting some notes together for the Taboo Tattoo Rambling. So look forward to all that and I’ll see you all later.

[sailor-cresselia]

The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Eps 07-08

...so I guess I’m liveblogging my notes now. This is a thing that’s happening.

Eh. It’ll let me keep easier access to them if I do this, so I might as well.

-

You wanna know something that’s driving me up a wall with regards to the early OP? Kiriya is entirely in white. Like, Emu is in his red pants and yellow shirt under his coat, and at least Hiiro and Taiga get to have their darker pants and shirts underneath their coats, but Kiriya is in just white. It’s super disconcerting.

...actually, Taiga’s ‘action’ shot of him twirling his gashat looks like it could have come from his episode zero special, since he’s clearly wearing dark purple scrubs under the white coat, and it’s in that same alley that they had him doing the simulation in. Huh.

But Kiriya. White leather jacket. White, normal length pants. Super disconcerting.

–––

I love how sometimes, like here on the beach against the two collabos bugsters and ‘the black ex-aid’, you can tell that those transformation cutscenes are actually happening!

Like, sometimes after a Brave level up sequence, you’ll see him stepping down and putting his arms down from his door-opening pose. And here we have Ex-Aid dropping down from mid-air, now wearing the Gekitotsu Robots armor. It’s a nice touch.

–

…okay, so. It’s not just an issue with Google Translate that keeps turning ‘bugster’ into ‘bug star’ when materials for Ex-Aid get auto-translated. Toei does it themselves. The English sub-heading on the report Kiriya reads to Jungo says ‘Grade confidential report of the bug star virus infection by Ministry of Health’. I’d thought it might be G.Translate having issues like it does with names, but apparently not. (How many ways can the auto-translate try to write gashat? Who knows? It’s about as many different ways as it can try to write Emu’s name.)

Speaking of this scene… Kiriya used to wear normal clothes!

Well, he used to wear non-floral buttonups, anyway. And intact pants, though they were still rolled up to a capri length, the same way his tattered jeans are. The shoes are the same, and he’s wearing a regular labcoat – and properly, he’s using the sleeves and everything!

–

So. Parad. As anyone who has seen my writing knows, I hecking LOVE Parad and all the potential he brings to the table.

In Episode 3, he showed up to tell Graphite to chill, and dared Taiga to collect all the gashats. He and Graphite teleported out – right after Graphite told Parad that he’s weird – and Emu showed up chasing the patient of the day.

Episode 7. The Lazer vs. Genm Black Ex-Aid fight. Kiriya launches a finisher, a veritable storm of arrows. KUROTO AIN’T DOING SO HOT. He’s getting hit by a lot of energy arrows, right up until Parad NYOOMS in behind the smokescreen of fire.

Like, literally zooms into frame – not even a teleport, there’s a motion blur that’s in the shape of his silhouette there.

He holds up ONE HAND and blocks the remainder of the arrows.

And he smirks. Didn’t seem to even really be bothered by the fire and energy hitting against the general area – because it wasn’t hitting him. It was all being blocked just before it made it to him.

He bought Kuroto enough time to get out of there before the smoke cleared, and Kuroto was already detransforming when Parad stepped in.

(…oh man, the attack was still ongoing at that point… If Parad hadn’t interfered, Kiriya might have accidentally killed the guy he was trying to expose a few years early.)

So. With that said…

Parad clearly has shielding abilities, and as far as I know, none of the other bugsters have that.

Graphite has his fire attacks, and Lovelica has his. Er. Mind control. (Because of course the otome game has mind control.) But Poppy gets free transformation between her bugster and human guises, and the other two seem to need a bugvisor to either stabilize or access their ‘monster’ forms, despite being the other two complete bugsters.

Parad, who is technically ‘incomplete’, never came directly after the Riders until he had his Gashat Gear Dual.

What could he have done if he had an offensive skill?!

And doesn’t it just make sense that, without a fully realized game of his own, Parad gets most of his makeup from Emu? Because whether you place him as originally being the bugster from Mighty Action C or from Emu’s original idea for Mighty Brothers… neither of those games were finished. They were a demo or hadn’t moved past the concept stage, respectively. He doesn’t have a defined source material to draw powers from.

So, the bugster that would eventually be known as Parad, whether we say he was really there like he claims, or if he’s just… using Emu’s memories as if they were his own, still gets most of his identity from an eight-year-old.

One who, not long after being infected, was hit by a car.

It makes sense that his imaginary friend would have the ability to stop that, doesn’t it?

Emu and Parad do share the drowning imagery, after all. We see it more with Parad, but… down the road, when Emu is describing how scared he was after being hit? They use that same drowning shot, but with eight-year-old Emu. After it was used for Parad.

–

Back on track to episode 7, there’s also how, at this point, Parad has just jointly ruined Kiriya’s credibility and protected Kuroto’s identity as The Dark Ex-Aid. Kiriya, Hiiro, and Emu have all seen him in the vicinity of/being not-Genm, and Taiga saw him with Graphite in episode 3.

So, after he teleports away here, all four of our main riders have seen him in association with the bugsters, and have seen him teleport. AKA, they all know he’s a bugster.

They just have no idea who he is yet.

–––

Episode 8

So, the first half or so of the episode is pretty much standard fare – patient, bugster, Taiga being a dick, etc.

When Emu asks if Taiga’s holding the patient hostage in order to get his and Hiiro’s gashats? Taiga doesn’t answer.

Because he’s not holding him hostage. Taiga fully intends to destroy the bugster whether or not they show up – but he’d prefer to get the gashats first. Two birds, one stone. This is a simpler way to get them all at once.

–

You know, I’m still not sure if Zero Day, when numerous people were lost, is the same day as when Saki died. What Hiiro says implies it was, but we never really get a good description of when it happened. It’s clearly around the same time, since in Episode Zero, Kuroto said that they would ‘stop propagating the virus for now,’ after it was already a forgone conclusion that Taiga wouldn’t be able to save Saki. But does that mean that there were numerous other people who died that same night? I’ve never been able to tell.

(At least ep 4 finally showed me the confirmation of when Kiriya blackmailed his way into getting a Driver – three years before the show, and thus two years after Zero Day. Jungo died on Zero day in an ‘accident,’ so Kiriya had been living with that guilt, and with knowing about the bugster virus, for two years before he first confronted Kuroto. Interesting.)

–

Parad: (To Kuroto) Okay, so, I know you designed the protogashats and all, and they’re super powerful, which is awesome. But why the hell are you still using that thing? You’re gonna kill yourself.

…Hm. When Parad starts off, saying how the protogashats are powerful, he’s looking at his game, and smiling. When he mentions that Kuroto’s using one, he starts to set his game aside. When he says that it’ll destroy him… he turns and looks directly at Kuroto. With an incredibly judgemental look.

Learn from Taiga and Kuroto’s examples, kids. Don’t use protogashats.

(For the record, Excite’s translation of the line is “you’ll end up destroying yourself”, and RTA’s is “it will ruin your body.” Those are… slightly different implications, guys.)

… Kuroto why is your phone ORANGE.

–

Taiga: Oh, good, you two showed up after all.

Emu: I’m just here to save the patient.

Hiiro: I’m here to kick your ass, Hanaya.

Taiga: The one to get all the gashats… will be me.

–

…hold on.

Hold on a minute.

Taiga wanted to be the only Kamen Rider so that nobody else would have to suffer the way he did. But there was – theoretically, anyway – only the one protogashat when he was first active. They only ‘recently’ were able to get ten – and Taiga’s been out of the loop for five years. We were told about the ‘collect all ten’ aspect by Poppy, who’s been allied with the MoH and ‘good’ Kuroto.

Taiga… was dared. By Parad, who was with Graphite.

Would Taiga be using this same method if it weren’t for Parad? Would he be trying to take all the gashats by force if it hadn’t been told to him by the guy who was with his arch-enemy?

Yes, he doesn’t want anyone else to be a Rider. But nobody else seems to care about the collect ‘em all aspect they’ve been told about – Kiriya went for Giri Giri Chambara because he needed LEGS, but it was also about 50% incidental. Hiiro is dead set on being the only rider because he doesn’t think anyone else is qualified. Not to say he’s wrong, since he is the only one of the four who’s supposed to be here, but he’s also being an ass about it. Emu would just very much prefer that nobody die, thanks.

Would Taiga be so concerned with getting all of the gashats to keep the others out if he hadn’t spoken to Parad?

–

Hiiro has a lot less… skill as a Rider than the other four, doesn’t he? If a tactic he’s trying doesn’t work, he doesn’t try something else – he just keeps trying the same one again. I know that’s probably a surgeon habit – do it the same each time, to minimize the chance of error. But these ‘operations’ are anything but standard. Each and every other one of the Riders is able to improvise. Hiiro picks up on it a little more, by the time we hit the 20’s, but never to the extent of the others.

Here in ep 8, he tries using a boosted attack with the Doremifa Beat turntable – scratching it once or twice, and trying to use the sword beam. Over and over. Taiga dodges each and every attack. Everyone else varies their techniques, even just a little. Taiga’s always made good use of the multiple modes of his assorted firearms. Genm has his assorted OP weaponry – currently, Shakariki Sports and the Bugvisor’s chainsaw mode. Once Kiriya gained actual limbs, he’s damned good with the scythe mode and the bow and arrow mode of the Gashacon Sparrow. And Emu. Well, Emu is Emu, and has made good use of the Gashacon Breaker’s sword and hammer modes since day one, as well as the energy items and general genre savvy with regards to who they’re fighting.

I think it’s a little telling that during fights where nobody is being particularly targeted, Hiiro is often the first to go down. Kiriya spent episode 6 unconscious in the hospital because Kuroto singled him out for a beat down in episode 5, and that’s the only reason he was the first out of the ep 5 fight. Then it was Hiiro, and then Taiga.

Either Hiiro withdraws first out of safety concerns, as in episode 3, or he goes down first, as seen here in episode 8 against Taiga.

–

And then here comes the curveball. Once Taiga’s beaten Emu and Hiiro, we get a mirror conversation both there, and with Kiriya and Kuroto on what it means to use a Gamer Driver.

Taiga throws Hiiro for a loop, one that’s not helped by Emu having exactly zero idea what he’s talking about.

Kuroto throws Kiriya a nice little distraction, to keep the heat off of himself.

–

Learn from Taiga and Kuroto’s examples, kids. Don’t use protogashats. And DEFINITELY don’t use them like Graphite!