#still not a total hack job but not great

[ms-hells-bells]

do not try to cut side curtain bangs with office scissors

[brehaaorgana]

ADHD money/budgeting system I'm currently using for my benefit is going well (I've been using it for like half a year now?), and I wanna recommend it.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT. 10/10 do recommend. Uhhh rambling about it and my generic disclaimers + gushing extensively under the cut but TL;DR I think it's great for ADHD ppl, I've used it for 6+ months now and I find it super SUPER helpful. also weirdly fun.

DISCLAIMERS:

Budgeting helps you understand/know your money, it can't make money appear where there is none.

Everyone should learn to budget even if you don't have much money (especially then)

This is NOT a magic trick solution. Just like everything else, it is an assistive tool. This is one of those adult things we can't simply opt out of without negative consequences, though.

My advice is based on something I am currently able to do. That is, I can spend an amount of money on this specific thing that works well for me. If you have no extra money to spend then previously I was tracking things in a notebook. So you can still do this.

I believe Dave Ramsey is a fundie fraud/hack and no one should listen to him about money.

DID YOU KNOW THEY CANCELLED MINT???

Okay? OKAY.

Ahem.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT.

It is called YNAB for short. The first 34 days are your free trial, and that is my referral link. If anyone uses it and then signs up for a subscription, we both get a month free. Also you can share a subscription with up to six people (account owner can see everything but individuals can pick and choose what they share amongst each other) so like...idk your whole polycule can be on one account. Or your kids. Whatever.

If you are a student, it's free for a year. If you aren't, a subscription is $99 for a year (paid all at once) or $14.99 monthly, which is equivalent to paying Amazon prime. Go cancel Prime and get this instead tbh.

They got a whole article just on ynab and ADHD. They also have like...a big variety of ways to access their info? They have a book, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, blog posts, q&A's, free live workshops you can join (you can request live captioning), emails they can send (if you want) a wiki, and so on. They got workshops on all kinds of topics!!

So whatever ends up working for your brain. It also has a matching app.

If you lost Mint this year they have a gajillion things for moving from Mint.

Also they have a "got five minutes?" Page which has a slider so you can decide how much attention/time you have before going on lol:

They only have 4 rules of the budget, they're simple and practical, and it doesn't get judgey or like...mean about your spending.

1. Give every dollar a job 2. Embrace your true expenses 3. Roll with the punches 4. Age your money.

THEN THEY BREAK THESE DOWN INTO SMALL STEPS FOR YOU! They even have a printable! Also these rules are great because there's built in expectations that things WILL HAPPEN and it's NOT all or nothing with a fear of total collapse into failure. Reality and The Plan don't always align, especially if you have ADHD. So it's directing our energy towards the true expenses and not clinging to The Plan!! over reality.

You can automate a lot of shit (you can sync with your bank accounts just like mint, but also automate tagging the categories of regular expenses/transactions). And if for whatever reason you accidentally do something that makes the budget look weird or wrong:

A) you can usually fix it somehow OR b) they have like, a button you can press that gives you a clean slate and archives the previous version of the budget for you.

So if you forget for a few weeks or months, or accidentally input something wildly wrong, or just don't want to look at a really terrible month anymore and feel like you need a fresh start you can usually either fix it or start fresh which is really nice.

The app also (for whatever reason) scratches my itch to have things like...have incentives or little game-like goals in a way mint never did? I don't know why. Filling up the bars or putting money into the categories to cover my expenses is satisfying lmao. You can also make a big wish expense category for all the fun shit you want, and fund it whenever you can and then you can see the little bar go up and that's fun.

Anyways I've been using it for like 6+ months now and I think it's really helped me when I use it.

[dyns33]

No Fear

Being a while since I wrote about Homelander. I want to do a second part for this story, but I'm not sure about the ending yet.

Homelander didn't have a soulmate.

That was what was written in his file, written by scientists who had brought him into the world, raised him in a lab, studied him for years, in order to make him the ultimate superhero.

If you had asked Y/N for her opinion, she would have said that they hadn't done a great job, and that the report could be thrown in the toilet.

For the most part, Frenchie's partners seemed to agree with this conclusion.

When he had called her to ask for a favor, she had hesitated. Vought was a big fish, and Y/N had never liked fishing.

The job paid well, as well paid as it was dangerous. But that wasn't the problem. because danger didn't scare her. She wasn't afraid of anything.

If she had to thank her father, it was for showing her that soulmates were bullshit, that no one should be trusted, and that there was no reason to be afraid.

The worst thing that could happen was death, relentless, certain, and since she had died in their basement during the time he had kept her locked up, there was nothing left to make her tremble.

If she hesitated, it was because she didn't know Frenchie's companions well, he wasn't always reliable himself, and she hated wasting her time with undoable jobs.

She had followed from afar the adventures of the small team against the big bad corporation that created fake heroes, and they had never really had any results.

For her part, Y/N didn't give a damn about the supes. She had no direct grievance against them. They were assholes like billions of others in the world, the only difference being that they were harder to kill.

Butcher's rage against Homelander was understandable, after what he had done to his wife, his soulmate. If he didn't try to stab her in the back to achieve his ends, everything would be fine.

The supe didn't have a soulmate, since he was superior to everyone, he came out of a tube and he had no soul. It was possible to use the information to hurt his fragile ego in constant demand for love, but nothing else.

It seemed smarter to avoid annoying Homelander, or even if possible not to attract his attention so that the job would go well.

But Butcher was not able to keep his distance nor his tongue in his pocket, to the point that his best enemy could recognize his scent on other people.

"How's dear William ?" Homelander purred as if everything was normal, while he was alone in the Vought elevator with Y/N, who had posed as a delivery girl.

"Dying but still a pain in the ass."

"I don't think we've met before. He recruits into his little gang of losers and they send them to get killed instead of him ? That's heartbreaking."

"Hmm." was Y/N's response who hadn't looked at him for a single second, focused on counting the time left for Serge's creation to hack the building's systems.

"… Excuse me, I'm telling you I'm going to break your neck."

"That's great, big guy. I would believe it if there wasn't a camera, no proof that I'm a criminal or a danger, and you didn't look like you were totally having a blast. This is my floor, bye."

She even had the audacity to pat him on the shoulder as she left, which left him speechless.

It had really happened without her thinking about it. The problem with being afraid of nothing and not caring at all about Homelander.

If she had been a little more interested, Y/N would have known that he hated being ignored more than anything, but that he was also very intrigued when people weren't scared in front of him.

Since he didn't have a soulmate, he quickly and dangerously latched onto people who made him feel something other than disgust.

It was Frenchie who had insisted on installing surveillance cameras in the small apartment she was renting for the duration of the mission, since she refused to stay with them longer than necessary.

Half-laughing, she had told him that he was a pervert. Since she didn't see the need for this surveillance at all, Y/N had never looked at the footage.

No point in looking at empty rooms or herself sleeping, the rare times she was there.

"Maybe you should look, love." Butcher muttered with a serious look that he rarely displayed, almost as if he was worried about another human being.

"Because you have access to the images ? Do I have to charge you a subscription ?"

"Haha, you're not my type. But obviously, you had an effect on the super cunt."

Since the elevator, Y/N had seen Homelander two or three times. They hadn't really talked, she had continued to talk to him as if he were just a harmless guy with a big maniac smile and his eyes that never left her.

There had been a tiny change the last time. A strange feeling in her chest, a buzzing in her ears, and Y/N had felt like he was coming, which was impossible.

With his vision passing through walls, his sense of smell and his obvious paranoia, Homelander also always seemed to know where she was.

That didn't explain his recurring presence in her apartment.

He had first come when she wasn't there. According to Billy, the supe loved doing that, to study the enemy, mark his territory, prove that he could do what he wanted.

Like a big cat, Homelander could be seen wandering around the rooms, touching absolutely everything, searching the fridge, testing the couch, sniffing her clothes.

Y/N wasn't going to pretend that it made her happy. But they were just objects, nothing really important. While he was having fun like a child, she could enter protected areas with the certainty of not running into him.

The problem was rather when he came while she was there.

Sometimes while she was showering, he could be seen through the window, or who remained in the entrance, staring at the wall, before leaving. It was ridiculous to feel uncomfortable, because he could see through her clothes absolutely all the time.

More and more often, he came while she was sleeping. Y/N had had nightmares for a large part of her childhood. It still happened sometimes, waking her up with a start, feeling stupid.

While she was tormented by her inner demons, her body continued to not give a damn about the superhero standing right next to her. Sometimes, when she was agitated, he would put his gloved hand on her cheek, as if he wanted to reassure her. You couldn't say that it had any effect, but it seemed to please her.

He didn't touch her as much as he could have. Most of the time, he just looked at her, standing more or less close.

Obviously, he sometimes talked to her. The video didn't pick up the sound, so it was impossible to tell what he was saying.

Homelander was in the middle of a long monologue when he strangely froze, leaning over Y/N, and kissing her without warning. A quick, simple kiss, so simple that it hadn't woken her up despite a slight flinch.

It had been several weeks already. Since then, he came regularly, almost all night long, and by hacking into a few surveillance cameras, it was obvious that he also followed her during the day whenever he had the chance.

Y/N had often had this strange feeling when he was around, without ever being able to determine what it was.

"… Shit." she murmured as she looked at the images.

"Shit indeed."

"This is going to be a problem, a real problem. I mean, he was already keeping an eye on Butcher, so now it's going to be impossible to move without that motherfucker on our backs."

"We could use that."

"No, Butcher !" Hughie said with his expression of constant worry that was bordering on constipation. "It's too dangerous !"

It took Homalander coming just to save her for Billy to admit that there was indeed a problem.

For the cunt to save him from the explosion of Stilwell's house to laugh and show him Becca and Ryan, okay. But for him to break the sound barrier, traveling all over town, just to catch Y/N, when he had no way of knowing she was in danger ?

That bastard was known for having no heart, but at that moment, he thought of his wife, he thought of what she had been through, and even if he didn't know Y/N well, he didn't want her to end up like that.

"You have to get out of here."

"And what ? I hide in a zinc-walled dungeon for the rest of my life, praying that he doesn't find me or that he gets tired of me ? Please, Butcher. Because he will get tired of me, I'm sure of it."

She wasn't sure. She knew these types of guys. For a long time, she had hoped that her father would come to his senses and let her go. Then she had stabbed him thirty-two times before burning down the house.

After several attempts, it was obvious that it would not be possible to do the same thing with Homelander. But he hated humans, it could only be a passing fascination.

A way to fill the boredom and emptiness, since he had no other women to harass, all the others having been killed or committed suicide.

Running away could have been a good option, since it would have indicated that Y/N was afraid and it would have been a disappointment to Homelander. But he could have still chased her away just for that.

"Why does it always have to end like this with you Serge ?"

"What can I do, chérie ? It's all your natural charm. You broke my heart the first time we met, so it's not that incredible that you seduced the great fucking Homelander."

"You fall in love with everyone. He hates 'mud people'."

"You're not 'people'. I shouldn't have brought you here, désolé."

Frenchie spoke to her as if she were already dead. The whole team looked at her with sad and resigned eyes.

The receptionist looked at her the same way when Y/N showed up at the reception of the ridiculous Vought tower, asking to see the flying cunt. In fact, the request had made the woman laugh at first, a mocking laugh, but she had still called Homelander's apartment, and that's where she had looked panicked.

But maybe it was more about the fate he had reserved for her for speaking badly to Y/N, and not for the future of the woman who got into the elevator, armed only with her courage and a small knife hidden in her shoe.

Homelander's bright blue eyes looked at it with a small smile, as if he found it adorable, before returning to her face.

"We need to talk." Y/N said calmly as she stood in the middle of the hallway.

"I think so."

And if at the end of their little discussion, there was no way to reason with him, then one of them wouldn't be leaving this apartment, even if she had a pretty good guess as to which one it would be.

[ditzyredrobin]

Whispers in the Back of Your Mind

A prompt I was gifted recently—

Just Jason’s relationship with the pit. But it’s sentient.

-

Ra’s had called it Pit Madness for a reason, Jason realized, when the toxic green had finally begun to settle, and he was officially back in the driver's seat. After attempts at better coping skills and shit, when it wasn’t riding him, driving his insecurities.

It was like the devil on your shoulder, whispering (or sometimes screaming) at the back of your mind, pushing and prodding and waiting for a slip up, to take charge again and run you off road and back to square one.

Which, in the grand scheme of things, was not bloody optimal, but it wouldn’t happen again.

It couldn’t happen again.

In the last year, its call has become progressively less of a struggle to drone out—less of a scream and more of a mosquito he couldn’t catch, buzzing and humming (although just as out for blood).

Was it annoying? Yes. But intolerable? No.

It sure as hell beat just back from the dead Jason, when he was mindlessly out for blood and destruction. Him or the Joker and all that jazz.

Today, though, was a particularly bad day.

“Damn it,” Jason hisses, nearly dropping the wrench on his face again, trying to work a rusted out bolt from the Batmobile’s undercarriage. Something that shouldn’t be an issue in the first place if Bruce did his damn job. “Son of a mother-“

“Do you want some help?” Uh-oh.

Kill the Replacement, it hissed.

Tim was here because of course Tim was here. Today of all days, the former Robin had to show up, the shittiest of shitty days. Tim fucking Drake everyone.

“Shut up,” Jason hissed under his breath, gritting his teeth.

From under the car, Jason could see Tim freeze. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

“What?” Tim’s voice was half hoarse, although he quickly cleared his throat.

Fuck.

“Sorry, that’s not-“ Not meant for you. “I’ve got it. This damn bolt is stuck because someone has been slacking in the tune up department.” He snaps, shooting a pointed look at Bruce, who was currently perched at the super computer, typing away.

If he heard (which he totally fucking did) he made no attempt to acknowledge it.

Kill, kill, make him pay.

They were past this. Well, maybe not past it entirely, but things were better. They weren’t exactly friends, more colleagues, but Tim had grown accustomed to asking for back up muscle on cases, and Jason, on occasion when to Tim when he needed a little hacking help.

It was a delicate balance, their relationship, but it was getting better.

The biggest issue came down to the Pit (because it was always the Pit). It latched on to his insecurities, his pain, his betrayal, his anguish, all the emotions and thoughts that came from his death.

And Tim? Tim brought back all of that.

While he was okay with Tim now, the Pit didn’t acknowledge their truce. It was still out for revenge.

Normally, it was easy to ignore and find ways of coping, today was just a spectacularly shitty day.

The Replacement must die.

The last bit caused a spike of pain behind his eye. Great.

Jason suppressed a groan and dropped the wrench beside him on the ground. Tim flinched at the sudden sound, muscles going taught as a bow string, ready to kick ass if needed (that was not going to happen).

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to cause an issue. I just thought—“

“It’s fine.”

Tim flinched. A pang of guilt welled up because damn it, he didn’t mean to lash out. He had issues but, right now, none of those issues were actually Tim’s fault.

Deep breath in, hold, deep breath.

Okay, redo.

Jason slowly rolled out from under the car, where Tim was watching, waiting stiff and ready for a fight. At this point, Bruce had stopped typing, listening, like the nosey bastard he was.

Jason held his empty palms up and open, posture relaxed and open. No harm intended.

“Sorry, that wasn’t—that came out wrong, I’m sorry.” Jason corrected, voice low and slow. Tim had a hard, unreadable expression on his face, watching Jason like a hawk. “I’m pissed but not at you. I’m pissed at the old man for not doing his fucking job and making me fix it.” He said carefully, while the Pit screamed. “This has nothing to do with you. I’m sorry.”

A little bit of the tension eased from Tim’s shoulders but it didn’t fully dissipate. Which, fair. If that’s what Timmy could give right now, he would take it. After a long moment of studying him, Tim slowly nodded. “Thanks.”

With that, B went back to typing and Jason looked back to the Batmobile with a sigh. “Still think you could give this bolt a look. My shoulder is sore as fuck from trying to crank it.”

Tim smiled a hair, “Are you sure you’re not just getting weak in your old age?”

“The fuck you just say to me, pipsqueak?” Jason barked with no bite.

“You heard me, or is your hearing going too?”

“You little shit.” Tim grinned.

[dairy-farmer]

SPEAKING of my Andriods Nightgaurd ficlet? And my ongoing campaign of Sexy Civilian!Tim encounters?

:Dc

Night Gaurd Tim? owo? Jason doesn't die. But Tim's dad still does. New Dad is rich but An Asshole. So Tim studies like mad to get outta there. Lands a shotty apartment in HIS name. And a job!

That the Riddler destroys.

Okay... second try... SECOND job! Two-face. MOTHER FU-!

It keeps happening. He starts taking potshots at goons. He WANTS HIS PAYCHECK, damn it. He's tired of cheap ramen!

One of his Dad's old buddies see's him on a viral clip. He... *awkward cough* maaaay have swung a bat at Condiment King. To be FAIR... the shot super staining GOO all over the fashion line Tim JUST unboxed. He may have snapped a little.

But! It lands him a job!

Night Gaurd~ *jazz hands*

It's not like he sleeps at night anyway! Might as well get payed! He gaurds the satellite building used for staff overflow. It's only really in USE during certain seasons. But the don't want squatters or stolen company secrets.

O7 got it.

What he DOESN'T realize? That building has an EXCELLENT vantage point line of sight from certain parts of the roof. It's been part of the Bat's intersecting patrol paths for YEARS.

He doesn't notice them, at first. But they notice him. He's the cutie in uniform. Background check reveals some memes and that he used to be their neighbor etc.

Now, this can go one of two ways~ "Ivy assisted Fuck Seduction" or "I swear to GOD I WILL TRESPASS YOU-" It? Depends on if you want Timmers to notice! That waaait a second *squint*

Why does the roof... look EXACTLY the same as it did 8 days ago. Because he has freakishly good memory. Leading to him realizing the cameras? Hacked. There are 17 randomly played "night footage" banks. Son of a- *keeps open roof access to find the Bat's mid patrol Bat Burgering" YOU. #TheyCanExplain?

Or! Ivy, miffed that Bats made her MISS her girlfriends BIRTHDAY, decides? Fuck you in particular, actually. And hits him with a Pollen bomb.

He was standing RIGHT in front of the intake vent for the air conditioning. The whole BUILDING gets dusted. Not as concentrated, since it's spread out. But still exposer. Tim? Starts feeling off. Fever maybe? Weirdly horny. Really distracted, actually...

The Bat's? Drive Ivy off. Okay, who was hit? Everyone gets their antidote. We good? Let's head hooo-OMG! THE GAURD! FUCK.

And yep. Too late for an antidote too be effective. But don't worry Really Hot security Gaurd! They will- stop shoving! No you will not! I will-! No you have-! I said I WILL *Sibling jostling for the right to Help Tim*

Batman, NOT allowing himself to be distracted by gorgeous legs or the TIGHTEST little- Regardless, NOT letting himself getting distracted. Lends quite literally a hand. Gotta get that consent. For medical assistance. Because Bruce TOTALLY hasn't been fantasizing about taking this boy apart. Rocking his world then buying him breakfast.

He's just here to lend a dick in these trying times. Hero's duty and all.

And once Tim? Bat Fan and Bi Disaster realizes he has fucked the Bat's and they seemed REALLY into it? :Y he uuuh *cough* I mean, he's just SAYING... no one said you had to STOP... options THERE...

Now? They REALLY like that building. Great rest stop. Grab a bite to eat, drink something, fuck the night gaurd, take a nap, you name it!

Tim REALLY likes his new job. He's great at it.

-🐼🐼🐼

tim being the shared fucktoy among the bats❤️

[skye707]

Don't mind me but.. in that question where Danoriddler is "Hacking" with his little and cute pink cat Earphones, i read in his glasses "Hack Dad" instead of Hack dat? And in took me this long to realize, but yeah the question is, who of the riddlers is most likely to know about technology (?

(I love telltale grandpa but i genuinely feel like he would be like some older ladies who ask hers sons if they know how to send a voicemail to her friends 😔)

When you mentioned the part about Telltale being the older lady of the group who doesn’t understand technology, my dumb brain thought you meant that’s how he would hit on older ladies. This ask is good anon, but my idea might have the potential to be great…

Unburied - He’s moderately good with technology. Not a total computer genius but enough to get around. He prefers puns and word puzzles.

ZY - This guy ranks pretty high on the technology smarts. I believe he would make his own computers and I know he programs his own little robots. How well they work is another question, but that’s still saying a lot.

Dano - He's literally a little computer nerd. I hc that he also acted as an IT guy at his job, pre-riddling. He needs that kind of knowledge to hack into and sift through emails detailing dirty dealings.

YJ - He thinks he's such a tech guy, but in reality, he thinks resetting his password is a great example of his skill. Don't get me wrong, he is tech savvy, but if you asked him to build a computer, he'd look at you like a lost puppy.

Gotham - Not a computer guy. He knows bodies, not technology. Of everyone in the house, I'd say he's the most incapable. So, how do I create a...folder?

BTAA - Hack master. Girl, you don't know about his skills. Rivals Dano in his ability to hack into places he's not supposed to be. Loves to know everyone's dirty secrets for no good reason.

Arkham - So, we know he's good with heavy machinery, but he also shows himself to be pretty good at jamming signals. He didn't become the GCPD's data guy for nothing. Also likes to dig up secrets for no reason.

BTAS - Less malicious hacking for this guy and more creation. He loves putting pieces together and having them work in harmony to make something work, especially coding for a game. Honestly, his favorite part is when people get the chance to put his creation to the test.

Telltale - Okay, he could be good with computers. However, as funny as it might be, he was born a little too early to get a natural affinity for computers. If he put his mind to it, he could be just as good as any of them, but, honestly? He likes building the little puzzles and things. That's what does it for him.

[spooky-salesman]

Aloise Anastasia ~ Requiem Repetition (GW!AU)

Daughter of Arabella Anastasia and Dio Brando

Neglected by her mother and her father literally doing nothing but fucking around in Egypt (and then dying.) She raised herself and honed her own technology abilities. Defecting from her mothers gang to Passione, and realizing that there’s more to her life. (More undercut)

FIRST. Requiem Repetition is a AU that basically takes place in an alternate Golden Wind. Basically a everyone lives including La Squadra. During the world reset, Giorno gets dragged through a gap in time and is sent to this universe with all his memories.

Was part of a team of assassins from a completely separate gang, one that directly opposed Passione. But after a fight against Bruno and realizing that her job and her relationship with the opposing gang really give her no ground and respect. She decided to switch over too Passione.

Originally doing fine without a stand, her work was all about being as swift and quick as possible. Since she wasn’t a stand user no one could really tell her presence. Leading to simple ends to stand users and non stand users alike.

She has a multitude of technological range, such as a personal bot named B2, a rail gun, magnetic boots as well as gloves, she’s also well geese in hacking and is in general, a mechanic.

Her stand ability Coco Hooves, reflects not only the creative side of her, but her forgotten memories of childhood isolation.

Coco Hooves has the ability to manipulate matter, and antimatter. Matter manipulation takes a lot of stamina, and later on the antimatter manipulation physically hurts her. Some examples of matter manipulation

- freezing water

- making metals reach boiling points

- turning rocks into lava

- changing things shape and form

-changing objects or other peoples chemical formulas

- telekinesis- being able to move objects without physically picking them up.

Antimatter manipulation

-Conjuring lightning

-making miniature black holes

-creating auroras

——-

Her personality is bubbly and very, very, extremely overwhelming. Despite having literally annihilated people she’s still extremely happy all the time and enjoys making others smile. Though this is mostly because she’s a people pleaser all the time and her fawn response never ever turned off since childhood.

When she is on a mission however she is totally serious, not even stopping to make jokes. She wants the jobs done as cleanly and neatly as possible. She’s not above using pure brutality and pushing peoples buttons to get information.

She is overly trusting and not very cautious, her fatal flaw is her genuine kindness.

Some important relationships

Caedesa - childhood bestfriend, Caedesa has a one sided attraction to her

Giorno - half brother, don’t discover this until Giorno sees her birthmark.

Illuso- general love interest, the two somehow make a great pair

Ghiaccio- 2nd person she’s closest to out of La Squadra

Protille, Incuba, and Viola - part of her own hit man team that she integrated into La Squadra

Arabella - her terrible mother who has a VERY powerful stand and also has stand arrows, as well as a secret requiem one.

Achilla- her half sister on her moms side, does not have the joestar birthmark. Her stand is the ability to manipulate fluids. (Water, blood, soda, mercury etc.)

Relationship charts :3 (still have to do one with the other ocs)

[utilitycaster]

Is there any class/subclass you’d like to see a D20 cast member play? One of the Intrepid Heroes or otherwise? (Also, I always love seeing the RQG love because that’s what got me into APs!)

I used to have a wild-ass spreadsheet of all the AP characters I knew by class and I suppose I still do but haven't been updating it, which is to say, it took me a minute to think through what the Intrepid Heroes cast have done; it's also wild in that technically, they've only done 5 settings as the intrepid heroes and at most 6 characters (since Emily and Zac used their backup ACOC characters and Siobhan and Murph played new characters in TUC 2). And on top of that, there's sidequests, NADDPod, and guesting.

I would actually love to see Brennan play a wizard. With the exception of Raphaniel he tends to play martials as a player which is interesting because he does wizards so well.

I would also like to see Lou as a warlock in...not Neverafter. Lou is fantastic at the charisma casters so I'd like to see him give another run at it in a season I enjoyed more, to be totally honest.

Emily has only ever played cleric as a base class for a multiclass (for sorcerer, monk, and wizard) and I'd like to see straight-up cleric especially since she's talked about being a religion major while not being a religious person.

Zac is famously a fan of martial classes and did a great job as paladin so I'd love to see him take on ranger, since he's done most others at least in multiclass.

I actually most want to see Siobhan and Ally in more non-D&D systems. Siobhan was great as Imelda Pulse in Mentopolis and it felt like Ally's style is best in looser systems as well like Mythic and Monsterhearts - I'm excited to see them in a Kids on Bikes hack for Never Stop Blowing Up.

Murph is tough because I'm just like. Murph I know you are busy but could you do a sidequest PLEASE. Also, weirdly, with the exception of Kugrash and Cody, who have this script flipped, he tends to play full casters as super unhinged (see: naddpod) and most of his martials as at least somewhat more hinged (Riz, Barry, Theo). I would like to see him play an absolutely bonkers martial class character.

Finally: would love to them bring back a NUMBER of people but Surena Marie and Jasmine Bhullar are top of my list of not strictly Dropout people; I also didn't love Mice & Murder but I'd LOVE to see the Dropout folks who haven't been in anything else for D20 come back.

[fantasyfantasygames]

SPULTURATORAH!! 2ND EXTERMINATION

SPULTURATORAH!! 2ND EXTERMINATION, Keetoms, 2024

Hot. Off. The. Presses. Directly into my hands before the edges were even trimmed or the cover placed on it. Seven hundred pages of raw ancient retro-future. The author gave this to me on January 2nd and it took me until now to actually read the whole thing.

SPULTURATORAH!! 2ND EXTERMINATION (S2E from here on out to avoid overwhelming us all with Teh Capslock) is a gonzo mashup of different game styles, settings, and genres. The original game (S1E, I guess) is a classic of maximalist game design in a tiny package. In fact, it's so small that there are more pages in S2E than words in S1E. That's ultra-maximalist game design for you.

So what did they do with the 698ish new pages? A lot, thankfully.

30 pages total of ToC, index, thanks, and license. It has its own bespoke license that I am not good enough at lawyer to understand.

10 pages of extra explanation for the original ruleset, which honestly it needed.

20 pages of gonzo backstory for King Gilgamesh. I appreciate that they did not in fact explain where he got the Levitating Darkness Throne. They did a great job folding in the new chapter of the Epic of Gilgamesh that was discovered only recently.

A 40-page adventure set in the Ziggurat of Ur, complete with a Narrative Dungeon linking this place to the Eternal Realm of Narrative Awesome.

9 pages of random-roll tables you can use for Trait One, Trait Two, and Trait Prime.

2 pages to explain the difference between what you can use for the numbered traits and what you can use for the prime trait.

30 pages of alternate uses for TRAIT ZIGGURAT BARLEY.

18 pages of equipment.

31 pages of vehicles and riding animals.

2 pages on currency.

14 pages of hacking rules.

7 pages of rules clarifications from the unofficial 1.4th edition. Nice to see them supporting fan works.

114 pages of monsters, each of which is a mutated version of King Gilgamesh from another universe or a shattered piece of our own, come to drag you back to his den and devour you. There are big ones, scaly ones, porcupine-like ones, multiple fragmented body parts moving together, one rolled into a beholder-like shape, one fused forever into a throne of pure orange light, all kinds of stuff. I like this.

A 6-page writeup of the God Shamash, which is sort of unnecessary but interesting anyway.

A 4-page running edge-to-edge map of Babylon and its rivers

8 pages of word jumble. I think it's a code. I am not entirely certain.

115 pages of adaptations from S2E to other rule systems: Deadlands, Torg, Fate, Altaplana, Numenera, Dungeon War, MSR, and Fantasy Wargaming: THLOA.

Good lord 700 pages is a lot of pages.

1 page accidentally taken up by a single dangling word ("it") at the end of a sentence. I have been there. Doing layout sucks sometimes.

96 pages of color art plates. Right in the middle of the book. The rest of the book has no art. The center has almost 100 solid pages of pinup Babylonian future barbarian blade hunter psychics. It's all the work of one mad genius who is credited as a bunch of black rectangles with diacriticals above and below them

A 3-page essay on why Nobilis is the greatest game ever, which has an acrostic that disclaims the entire section.

4 pages of detailed wargame rules.

22 pages of domain management guidelines.

12 pages of "spoilers". I still do not know what most of these mean.

A 2-page spread of Gilgamesh's family tree.

15 pages of writeups for miscellaneous folks on said tree.

28 pages on the language used in ancient Babylon, complete with cuneiform how-to.

A 16-page "node map" of the retro-future Babylonian cybernet that leads to outer space, where the planets are manifestations of deities.

21 more pages of detail covering the strange planets of our solar system as the Babylonians knew them: their cities, their rulers, little adventure seeds, advice for GMs for running stories in them. I do kind of wonder if someone else wrote this section.

1 page of probability notes, which is all you need for a 1d6-roll-under system really.

An 8-page character sheet, which is a bit excessive for characters with 4 traits.

2 pages that just contain the original game.

I will admit - there is actually too much in this game. I'm not sure it would have worked to make it a string of 50ish short supplements, but it's still an awful lot to absorb. The "maximal game, minimal package" has turned into "ultra-max game in a doorstop package". If S3E ever arrives (presumably with three exclamation points) I hope they do some judicious trimming.

I have no idea if this behemoth will make it to stores, or whether the shipment will collapse under its own gravitational pull and become a black hole. Either way, heck of a collector's item.

[crazy56u]

Okay, the app is starting to become self aware, I feel…

Addison, cut your losses with Tom.

“Look, I gotta go, Ben needs me, he totally didn’t just black out from too much coffee.”

Plot twist: Herbicore is poisoning the pumpkins, that’s why Steve’s wife has that cough.

I technically called it!

“Look, Connie, I finally figured out what the plot is, this weed eater shit is gonna kill everyone!”

Oh, great, Peacock’s running ads now.[/joke]

“I’m Chet Barlow of Herbicore, asking you to come to Denver. We’re not Detroit.”

…why does your brother look like a sex offender?

Joe doesn’t even know what’s going on, he is drunk as shit.

Why is this two weeks in a row where puns are plot points?

If only ad blockers existed in the 1980s…

“Do you think Chet knows his weed killer is dangerous?” Ben, he’s a CEO in the 1980s. Sucker’s bet.

Ben, if you don’t say a name now, Connie is gonna drop this story.

“He called you on that pay phone, right? Late night when he needs your love?”

“There’s no such thing as a dead end.” I name at least five Looney Tunes cartoons that would disagree.

Oh, goody, an inside job. So, calling it now: Just like in “Roberto!”, that guy is fucking dead now.

Okay, now I feel bad about calling Robbie a sexual predator…

I have a sinking suspicion their boss might be in on this…

“We need to keep this between the two of us. Now, if you know any ghosts, they can get lumped in as well.”

I admire the fact that Robbie didn’t opt to just bail.

“Who says I’m afraid?” “Is it your brother?” “…” “Okay, so you are afraid.”

I love how they are openly having this loud ass conversation in public.

Now, how long until Ben draw the connection between “this is killing farmers” and “Steve’s wife has that cough”.

Oh, goody, Chet is basically Gideon. God fuck, can’t he go away…

“I’ve seen people disappear. Sometimes in bight blue glowing light, they get replaced with other people and they don’t remember shit!”

“Look, we tried, it’s not like the episode isn’t even half over yet.”

And Steve becomes plot important!

“Herbicrop? I love that stuff, I’m swimming in tumors!”

Steve, your wife is fucking hacking up a lung, and you act like they’re spewing bullshit.

“Everything’s gonna be alright.” Episode is half over, there is a shoe yet to drop.

Ben, never do that again.

Davidson is 100% in on it, that was too fucking coincidental.

And it’s gonna be Robbie’s car in 5… 4… 3…

We are now 100% “Roberto!”

Ben, Connie is experiencing PTSD, maybe calm down.

…Connie, I think we both know that’s not what actually happened…

“Rule three: Fuck this job.”

Connie, if you think Ben is gonna stop, you are sadly mistake . [And sound goes off.]

Ian and Tom, stop pretending Magic isn’t gonna be the one to lose their job, just because he was pissed off, it doesn’t mean he’s letting anyone else take the fall under the bus.

And Ian, rightfully, goes the fuck off.

[Sound goes on.] And it’s time to get crunk.

…it only now just hit me that Addison never told Ben that… it been like two fucking episodes!

“What happened?” “What didn’t?”

Ben, unless your unknowingly leapt into the guy that planted that car bomb, stop blaming yourself for shit.

Now, that just sucks for Robbie: him dying is the Canon Event.

…or Robbie just fucking hates cars.

“Hey.” “I thought I fired you.” “I love how you thought that would work.”

“Look, I don’t care if Robbie is still alive, I still fired you.” “We both know I ain’t accepting that, Connie.”

“Look, Connie, I also suffer from being depressed about my actions.”

[Sound goes off.]

“So, is this the end of Quantum Leap?” NBC, YOU ARE IN THIN FUCKING ICE NOW

Tom, even if I already know the punchline, you should be the one to go.

“I wish there was another way.” Tom, you dumb idiot, you basically just gave Magic the go ahead…

[Sound goes on.]

Cut to The Pink Hotel.

“…so, you’re telling me I blew up my car for fucking nothing.”

I love how Robbie was willing to leave the country despite knowing he could’ve ended the episode early.

Look, Robbie, sometimes you gotta “Scorpion and the Frog” this shit.

I also love how the pink lighting is making Robbie look more depressed.

This is now a heist movie.

“What do you mean ‘Leverage the door’?” It means grab a flat thing, and break the door.

I love how the key to saving the day is just breaking shit.

I love how Ski Mask is acting real fucking cool right now, as if Ben isn’t gonna kick his ass.

Ben, I hope to fuck you rolled a Crit Success on Fast Talk.

And now Wyatt fears God.

…and is probably gonna meet him face to face.

Ben just kicked cancer’s ass.

And Connie pulls the Columbo maneuver.

Chet is about to get fucked by a pumpkin.

“It’s you.” “It’s always me.” …annnnnnd now my brain is trying to craft a Quantum Leap/FNAf crossover.

And Ben dips.

[Sound goes off, fuck you Tom.]

“Look, Tom, be honest, we both knew Ben was gonna win out in the end.” “Honestly, same.”

And now, for the most obvious ending of the episode!

“Look, Tom saved our asses, but Gideon wants someone fired. And it can’t be Ian, and I ain’t firing you, and Addison wasn’t even in this subplot, so… … … (leaves)”

And we end with a dedication to Matt Dale. Watch as NBC promptly fumbles the bag, and cancels the show next week…

So, next week’s a two-fer, Magic is quitting, and Gideon is still fucking here!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

[krikeymate]

Would you still say being obsessed with someone is bad when you have a perfectly normal and functional life? Like having a great job, hobbies, social contacts etc.? Cause I do BUT I totally follow Jenna‘s mom and know more about Jenna than I probably should. And to you, is there a difference between being obsessed with a celebrity and a fiction character? Because, like, aren’t we all obsessed with Tara & Sam here? :P

Obsession by its very definition is having an unhealthy and extreme interest in something. Fans use the term obsession all the time, as do I, but it's supposed to be hyperbole, a way to declare that we really love something. I have a feeling you're just leading a normal life and having a fave celeb.

Here's a scenario for you: several years ago, a fan hunted down and catfished Katie McGrath's brother, in order to try and meet her. People go out of their way to steal from celebrities, or hack their devices, or share their private photos or nudes. They stalk and hound their family and friends. These are extreme examples of Stan/obsessive behaviour.

Following her family members on social media, who are open accounts, and are choosing to share what they do - normal, not weird. Trying to DM them or leaving creepy comments, problem. Deliberatly hunting down information and going out of your way to be at the same place as where they or their family/friends might be, outside of specified events, that's pushing a boundary and I would say that's not ok.

Anon, are you spending hours crawling through every mention of Jenna to absorb every scrap of information about her? If so, you might have a problem. If not, if you're just coming across that information which is freely given, or from others, or because you're following fan accounts, there's nothing wrong with that. How those other people get that information is another matter entirely of course, but we're talking about your relationship with your interest.

There's definitely a different between 'obsessing' over a real person and a fictional character. Real people get hurt, they have boundaries and private lives that need to be respected. Characters are just characters. As you say, we're all obsessing over Sam & Tara here. As with anything however, the moment is starts to seriously impact your mood or begin to affect your life, it becomes a problem.

[blaperile]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon (reactions pages 408 - 475)

Alright, we've read the latest 2 updates .

I mentioned last time that I wasn't really sure whether I would feel "ready" to be typing any update reactions again, like I used to do.

Well, there is actually a few things running through my mind right now I want to write down already!

So without further ado, I suggest I just get to "the point" :B

I absolutely LOVED these pages!

Before I started, I was a bit afraid, due to there being a new creative team, that perhaps things would suddenly feel very, very different.

Now, I would say it DID feel a little bit different, but in a good way!

The art style especially was marvelous. It looked just so classic Homestuck! With the Sprite Mode, and Hero Mode-like imagery.

But also something that seemed to be a new kind of art style? I'd say it felt kind of like a mix between Sprite Mode, and Hero Mode, and kind of reminiscent of Problem Sleuth style!

I totally approve of that. It's "new", but feels so classic MSPA.

Story-wise I'm also very happy! I wasn't expecting so many new pages already, with focus on so many different characters. That was amazing.

It felt like a great continuation of where we left off with these characters. Maybe something DOES feel a little different, but only in a good way, with how many references there were to classic things that came before (His Honorable Tyranny, coin flip, Problem Sleuth-like art style, Jailbreak scene, references to the pirate ship adventure of John and Sollux, DEAD panel, pesterlogs, John and Roxy being rendered in a kind of Dad and Mom like manner on Jane's screen)

To me, it feels like this new "Homestuck: Beyond Canon" team is honoring even more what came before than the "Homestuck^2" team did (and tbh, IMO those guys still did a really good job).

I absolutely loved that Sollux made his glorious return, after having only appeared for a brief gag in the "prologue". While seeing him with Aradia was always cool, it's nice to see him interacting again with other people by himself too.

Speaking of which, I love how he basically didn't give a shit about John, just like how in the good old days on the Troll meteor Sollux was the only one not interested in speaking to any humans.

A bit sad that he didn't tell John about Calliope, Aradia and Davebot's escape from the Candy reality, but then again, there's nothing really any of them can do about it (other than entering a SBURB session, me thinks?), so maybe they really are better off (for now) thinking that Dave is dead.

I assume the original creative team had a very different direction they wanted to take, perhaps with John really meeting Rose, Jade and Kanaya after he left Roxy, and Vriska and Vrissy being stuck in Crockerjail for a while longer.

But still I felt the new team handled this very well with the return of Sollux and the Jailbreak references.

I'm a bit bothered by how exactly Jane figured out all this information about what John, Roxy and Calliope were up to and what they talked about, though. Like ok, maybe her team hacked into John's phone and saw he was meeting up with Roxy, but how did she know what they talked about in person on the meteor? Are there cameras/microphones planted there?

Anyway, it seems like the team is eager to "get to the point" in going to the meteor and bringing Vriska there, for whatever will happen. I hope it won't lead to the meteor's destruction (and dear precious Sollux getting hurt so soon after he just joined us again :( )

I think that's about it what I want to share for today! I'm really excited to see where "Homestuck: Beyond Canon" goes next, and I will make sure to update my "Homestuck Multiverse From The Perspective Of" tally soon.

[quetzlepretzel]

Videos Games #1, 7/30-8/5

I've always wanted a place to blab about whatever random game I'm playing. Livetweeting didn't work out, but maybe something like this will? If you don't want to see these posts, please block/filter the tag: #quetzlegaming

Games from this week: Pokemon Polished Crystal, Fool's Gold, Infinite Fusion. Palia MMO, and House Flipper (I fucking LOVE Johto)

Pokemon Polished Crystal

I've got two badges and I just hit Goldenrod! Been loving all the upgrades this hack added to the main game: most HGSS stuff like Lyra, Proton, etc, mild "alt colors" for pokemon based on their DVs (you can see it most clearly in my slightly green Furret there), expanded route maps and hidden grottos... Oh there's in game wonder trade too! That's how I got Skarmory and Clefairy. The last egg there is the Odd Egg, still wondering what 'mon I'm gonna get from it. Pokemon Fool's Gold

Wild looking, ain't it? Fool's Gold is a bit like... if every pokemon in Johto was a "regional form", including its OG cast. From left to right, that's Pidgeotto, Jolteon, Wartortle, Quilava, Corsola, and Houndoom. (Pidgeotto and Quilava are shiny, too.) (Yes I'm playing with the built in shiny code active). They're a pretty great team, have carried me through six badges. 🥰 Literally every pokemon is different, and I've loved playing through the game and seeing familiar faces with a fresh coat of pixels. Pokemon Infinite Fusion

I went with a bit of a theme, obviously. Can you guess it? Can you guess all my favorite pokemons just from looking at one image? Jokes aside, I kind of loved how this team turned out in the end. Two witches and their familiars uwu. I played on the most chaotic randomizer settings, and I lucked out with it being generous with the eeveelutions. I beat IF this week, clearing Mt. Silver on Thursday. I know there's still some postgame stuff to do and I may get back to it eventually, but I think I'm ready to shelve the game for now. Some of the route design got hecka frustrating by the end. Man, I love Johto. Palia MMO

I got in on the open beta this week! Just finished building my starter home last night. Really love the art style and environment design in this one, and goooosh the townsfolk are so cute. I already want to marry Jel. It's really scratching that farmer game itch, and I'm sure once they implement more minigames and areas to explore, I'm gonna get totally obsessed. Hopefully they'll have controller config set up for PC by full release, cuz my wrists are BEGGING me to play less KB+M games. Speaking of... House Flipper No pics for this one. I'm still in the early stages of the game where I only fix homes, not buy and flip 'em for sale, so I ain't got shit to show off. But GOSH it's like if they took AC's happy home paradise, mashed it with powerwash sim, and made a game *just* for me. It's so cathartic- at least when I'm not yelling at my customers for making TERRIBLE decisions that strip away any and all character in the home (yes, I'm complaining about the Michael B. job, you're a MONSTER sir/ma'am/they'm). Looking forward to making my first barbie dreamhouse at a later date.

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 27

"That could be our new slogan," Emiko mused, totally serious. As she'd been silent for a while, her fellow genin and the Chuunin treating them to breakfast at her house gave her strange looks. Then she clarified. "I was just thinking about our mission. I think I know how we should advertise to clients." She held out her hands expansively. "Konoha nin! Providing permanent solutions to temporary problems since the first year of the ninja."

Aiko choked on her breakfast muffin, hacking and banging lightly on the table with her palm. By the time she could breathe again, the genin had dissolved into hysterical giggles. Ken held up a hand to catch the milk leaking out of his nose, glaring weakly at Emiko for her poor timing. Luckily for him, his hatred of the (incredibly flattering and practical) masked outfit had led him to getting a lower-cut shirt that didn't get any of the milk spray. The girls had also gotten new clothes, but they had kept what she'd gotten them for wear outside the village and still wore them occasionally.

"No. 'You get what you pay for'," Akira deadpanned with a pointed look at Ken. He looked offended.

'Not the worst way to deal with the problem of first mission death.' She joined them in giggles that were as dignified as she could manage. 'Humor is a great coping mechanism.'

A door banged open down the hall, and Karin stumbled out in her blue pajamas, rubbing at her eyes. Akira managed to stop laughing long enough to give her and up-and-down and raise one eyebrow. Probably at her seriously impressive bed-head.

It also could have been the other girl who followed behind her from the master bathroom yawning, short black hair wet and wrapped up in an oversized fluffy purple bathrobe and white bunny slippers.

"Good morning, Aiko-san," Hinata managed, finding herself a seat at the table and flopping over weakly. She wasn't a morning person. "I didn't expect to see you back so soon." Karin grunted unhappily, finding herself a teacup and putting water on to boil. Aiko wordlessly pointed at the highly caffeinated tea she already had ready. Hinata poured herself a cup lightning-fast, dragging it to her body as if to protect it from the interlopers.

"So, this is your team?" Karin drawled, eying them. She looked unimpressed. Ken gave her a stink-eye in return, mopping up milk with his napkin.

"Hai. Emiko, Akira, and Ken. This is Karin and Hinata." Aiko gestured as was appropriate, raising to let her cousin take her seat since she was finished. "Dishes?" Akira wordlessly stood to help her gather them, taking up the job of rinsing while Aiko washed them in the other side of the sink. She handed the clean dishes to Ken to dry and put away in the cupboard. Emiko stretched, before checking the time and yawning. "It's late enough that I think I can go home."

"Alright," Aiko noted. "Have a good nap." She slid back into her chair, ignoring Karin's incredulous expression at her dirty mission fatigues.

The older redhead made a face. "I just thought of something. Aiko, please tell me you'll let me pick out your kimono for the spring festival."

She furrowed her brow. "Is that really coming up already?" Hinata managed to drag herself far enough off the table to nod, thoroughly unbecoming bags under her eyes.

The other two genin filed out soon after Emiko. They had made it to the village at about four in the morning. Shinobi had been out and about, along with several artisans and bakery workers, but not that many of them. Their mission report wouldn't be given until much later in the day, after the genin had a chance to rest. But no one had wanted to try to sneak into their house past hyper alert, sleeping parents. That didn't end well even when the parents in question weren't armed. (and almost everyone is armed in a shinobi village).

Aiko didn't take the chance to sleep. She was used to going without for longer times, and she was relatively certain that she would be meeting the person her shishou wanted her to meet today. As soon as her genin were gone, she took a long, luxurious shower. It may have been foolish and wasteful to do so directly before she went to the training grounds, but she wasn't fond of sticky day-old clothing.

Said clothing—all dark grey this time—hit the tile in a stiff pile. Since she wasn't planning on leaving the village, she indulged herself with Karin's scented shampoos and body wash.

It really was an indulgence for a ninja… they were scented like vanilla and contained glitter. It was shameful. Her normal soaps were harsh and had scents like 'forest', 'earth', and 'ocean'.

She used the glittery stuff anyways, and felt inordinately content. If she'd had more time, she might have painted her nails and gotten a mani-pedi.

'Thank all the kami for Hinata,' she mused when she stepped out and discovered the pile of luxurious jewel toned towels clean and ready for use. Since Naruto had left, someone else had to pick up the chore of laundry, and she was terrible about it. Karin was willing to do most of the housekeeping, like scrubbing and dusting. Aiko did most of the cooking and stocked the kitchen. Hinata had naturally slipped into the other chores as if she had always been there to water herbs and scrub out bloodstains.

Barefoot and clean, she toed the dirty clothes into the hamper before pulling out her own bathrobe and tossing her towel over the rack. Much happier now that she felt fresh, Aiko found one of her most definitely 'off-duty' uniform combinations- a still demure grey set of leggings with a short-sleeved pink tunic. She tugged her hair into pigtails with pink elastics, her black boots on her feet, and grey fingerless gloves over her hands before giving her reflection a grin and a thumbs-up.

"No stupid Chuunin vest today," she decided. She wouldn't need it to work on her chakra chains anyway. She did strap on her practice sword over her back, but didn't take any other weaponry or sealing equipment with her before she flounced out the door (tucking her lunch money into her bra for safekeeping) and headed straight for her usual training grounds.

She was less than surprised to be the only person there. Although she would normally start working out on her own, Aiko stretched out on the grass and tucked her hands behind her head. Then she cloud-watched, barely awake and content.

Time passed out of consciousness. It could have been minutes, but it must have been hours before she felt the flicker of two chakra signatures arriving via shunshin. One of them was very familiar. One was not.

"Hey shishou." She waved lazily with her index and middle fingers, cracking one eye open to peer up at his companion.

'Hellooo, nurse!' some voice from a far-off place in her brain called.

The hunk next to her sensei… just, wow. Dark, soulful eyes, messy brown hair, and a chin that could have been carved from marble peered down at her from its perch on broad shoulders. She grinned stupidly. 'Shame about the unflattering face-framing metal piece.' He also looked like he had dressed out of Kakashi-shishou's closet, which appealed to her for some reason.

Aiko stood up hastily, brushing off her clothes. "Hello, I'm Uzumaki Aiko. Please take care of me." She bowed politely to complete the traditional introduction.

Her sensei snickered rudely.

"I know." The man who could only be Yamato eyed her critically. "Yamato. I will be helping you today." He wasn't particularly impressed. He'd heard a lot about this kid second-hand, and he'd expected more. This was the girl that his senpai had left ANBU for? Bit underwhelming. She had pigtails and glitter all over for Kami's sake. He clenched his jaw imperceptibly. 'Kakashi-senpai, I won't let you down! Even if this is all I have to work with. I will impress you somehow.' He was, after all, senpai's best student.

The somewhat chilly reception took her aback. When she looked to her shishou for reassurance, she saw nothing helpful there, though she did note that her new training partner's expression tightened further. She scowled. 'Fine. I don't care if you're a hunk. You're going down.'

Aiko took a moment to construct a profile of the man in front of her. He was somewhere between 17 and his early 20s, had been a member of ANBU for most of that, and was socially impaired. He was highly skilled, and of above average intelligence.

'This is going to be like taking candy from a baby. Slightly morally dubious, but hilariously easy and easily hilarious.'

"You'll remember what we talked about?"

Yamato nodded, giving Kakashi his full attention and a sheepish smile, rubbing at his neck. "Hai, senpai!"

"Superb. Play nice, kids." Book already out, her bastard of a shishou just abandoned her to an eighteen year old who looked to have a grudge against her for some reason.

'Shishou, I will get you back for this.' He knew what was going on, she was sure of it.

"Alright then. Let's see what you can do." Yamato clapped his hands together, businesslike expression on his face. "Wood style!" The two pillars that rose above the tree line were probably supposed to impress her.

She twitched. 'Why do boys always shout out what they're doing? I mean, I know it's supposed to be a mnemonic device to make learning jutsu easier, but at his level this guy should really be able to do that without telling everyone and their dog what's going on. How embarrassing.' Wordlessly, she visualized two shining chakra chains coming from her back, wrapping around her arms and shooting out twenty feet to pierce the pillars he had summoned, splitting them in half with a terrible crack.

Aiko grinned up at his mildly surprised expression. "You'll have to do better than that," she taunted. "What's the idea here? I thought you were going to teach me to be gentle, Yamato." She faked an innocent posture (with calculated adorable pointed-in-toes) and an ever-so-slightly breathy tone, interlacing her fingers and tilting her head to pout up at him. "Is shoving all that hard wood at me really the best way to teach me restraint?"

He sputtered incoherently.

'Point one to Aiko.'

"Anko…" Shizune groaned, rubbing at her head, and wishing that Tsunade-sama was around to deal with this. "You frightened the Academy students… and teachers."

It was a bit unconventional to have this conversation in her office at the hospital, (especially since the only chair other than hers had been borrowed from pediatrics) but she didn't really want to have the younger woman disciplined through official channels. She was somewhat fond of the snake summoner and a little protective—poor Anko had been poorly done by so far as Konoha was concerned. After her traitorous sensei had abandoned her, Anko had been looked on with suspicion. Official reprimands would hurt her more than they should.

Besides, she was waiting on results from some bloodwork from an academy student of dubious parentage who had displayed symptoms of a certain rare genetic disorder. She didn't want to leave her office for too long. That paperwork could corroborate her hypothesis. It would explain so much…

The other woman scowled irritably. "Well, Hokage-sama told me to find a child!"

Shizune blinked wearily. "What?" That… that didn't sound like something Tsunade-sama would say.

Anko nodded seriously, eyes closed and arms crossed. "Yes. She told me this morning that I needed to find a student to teach snake-summoning and my special taijutsu. I only know one child in person, and I'm not going to fight Hatake for her. So I went to the place where I knew children could be found!" She held up a finger. "I wanted to find the best one!"

'Why me?' Shizune bemoaned. Outwardly, she just sighed in understanding. "I don't think that's what she meant. First of all, it would take years to get an Academy student up to the level where they could hope to use summoning. That takes a lot of chakra. Therefore, you'd be better off with a student who is already a genin, ideally one without a regular sensei so they have plenty of time to work with you. If you do pick a student who has a sensei, make sure they're one who doesn't spend too much time working on a family style or something. Secondly, that's not how you find a student." She deadpanned. "You're going to have to talk to one. Not just stare silently and test their reflexes with senbon."

After a moment's thought, she added, "and it tends to unnerve people when you don't blink. Remember to do that."

She looked thoroughly unimpressed, but Anko seemed to have absorbed the lecture.

"Where am I going to find a child if I can't use the Academy?" she whined. "I don't work with any, I don't know anyone with one I can borrow, and I've never seen one in the places I frequent."

Shizune shrugged helplessly. 'That may be because you spend all your free time at the bars and adult bookstores?' Then there was a knock on the door. Before she could call out for the person to enter or wait, the door flung open and Uzumaki Karin stomped in, a stormcloud practically visible over her head. "Here," she said brusquely, tossing a clipboard onto Shizune's desk with a clatter. "Enjoy. I'd stay and chat, but apparently I need remedial instruction on bedside manner." The sneer that accompanied this statement was vicious.

The door slammed shut before the two adult women could blink.

"Sorry about that," Shizune laughed. Poor grumpy Karin. She was-

"She's perfect," Anko breathed. She stood jerkily, letting her humorously undersized chair fall over with a clatter. She moved with enough speed to confuse an unwary observer into thinking she'd used shunshin, pinning Karin against the wall with one hand and grinning ferally into her face.

A lesser genin might have frozen in the face of a larger, mentally unstable predator. Karin reflexively head-butted the other woman and bonelessly relaxed before twisting to the side and nearly escaping before Anko slipped around and pinned her again with one hand under Karin's chin, the other on her shoulder. Karin might have kept struggling… if it weren't for the black-scaled snakes twisting around her torso.

A wise woman knew when she was outmatched by someone dangerously crazy. Karin went limp, tilting her head up and exposing her vulnerable throat.

The crazy woman who had assaulted her licked her lips slowly, leaning in so close that warm breath (scented like candy apples) washed across Karin's face. "I want you," she crooned, stroking Karin's face. Karin blinked, straining to look down and investigate the softness she could feel pressing against her chest. "To be my student." She relaxed. That made much more sense. But it was mildly disappointing as well.

Karin was an equal-opportunity pervert.

"Would I get to use snakes?" At the affirmation, Karin shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

Anko froze. That wasn't what she'd been expecting. First, the teacher made vaguely sexual advances on the young girl who needed to learn the ways of the world. Then the student blushed and demurred, maybe struggling a little. Then-

'Ah,' she realized. 'I'm getting this mixed up with Icha Icha Teacher's Pet. I think this is okay.' Anko nodded decisively, remembering to blink after a few more seconds. She'd never had a student. She had been asked to test a genin team once, but it hadn't worked out.

Something about quitting the shinobi force to get away from her or something.

"But," the redhead she had recently accosted added. "I have two conditions. "Firstly, you have to teach my friend, too. Secondly…" she paused. "Tell me who the hell you are, and why should I want to learn from you."

It was the beginning of something beautiful, Anko just knew it. She grinned toothily. "The beautiful, busty and talented, Mitarashi Anko, your new shishou and personal hero!" she struck a pose. The redhead blinked, glancing down at the snakes unwinding from her body.

"Sounds good." This Anko person was pretty busty. She could be telling the truth about the rest, and it was the first offer Karin had gotten from a potential teacher with combat abilities. Being a medic was all well and good, but it wasn't what she had envisioned when she had joined the ranks of shinobi.

It was almost time for the lunch break, and she was working as efficiently as possible. Tsunade had the short warning of her secretary making an alarmed sound on the outside of her closed door, but she wasn't entirely prepared to have her door slam open. Sasuke jerked from his position curled up on the couch with a book, doing his best to look alert.

"I have arrived, triumphant once more!"

She groaned, rubbing at her forehead and wondering just how her sensei had dealt with these lunatics for so long. No wonder he'd gone around the bend. She envied his retirement.

"Hi, Sasuke-san!" was quickly followed by a squeaked, "Hello, Uchiha-san."

She didn't want to look. She didn't, really. But she had to. There was Anko, standing with her legs wide apart and a girl over each shoulder, torsos hanging down her back and held up with one arm across each of their thighs.

Her poor student stared dumbly, perhaps unduly interested in all the adolescent booty on display, nicely framing Anko-chan's cans. Then he stiffened like someone had hit him across the face with a brick, turning away and concentrating on his book like his life depended on it. His only reply was a grunted "Hn".

The poor thing was feeling hormones hit him like two tons of rock. He was at that age. Tsunade, however, was less easily distracted.

"Kai!"

When nothing changed, she had to abandon the hopeful idea that she could solve whatever the hell this was by hitting Jiraiya.

"Hokage-sama! I found not one but two students!" She grinned cheekily. "How's that? Shizune-chyyaaaan told me that I'd be better off with a student who was already graduated from the academy."

Tsunade stared flatly. "I'm afraid to tell you that I can't identify my kunoichi by ass," she deadpanned. "Jiraiya never taught me that forbidden technique." 'He did offer, multiple times.' "Who exactly have you found to be your student?"

'And did they actually agree? It's not normal to physically carry them around like sacks of rice.'

"Um…" Anko glanced down. "I never asked their names, actually."

'Idiots, one and all.' She groaned, exchanging a sympathetic glance with her younger student.

"Uzumaki Karin!" emanated from the vicinity of Anko's back. She vaguely noted the long red hair hanging down around by the jounin's hip. That still didn't answer… "Um, um… Hyuuga Hinata, Hokage-sama," came a much quieter voice, rising in slight panic towards the end.

Anko dropped the girls onto the floor, spinning around to check. "What, really?"

Tsunade peered over her desk, mildly interested. She'd heard a fair bit about this girl, but nothing that indicated someone like Anko would take interest in her.

It was actually a bit scandalous—the first Hyuuga heir in recorded history ever actually being declared unsuitable to inherit and marked for the Branch clan to prevent her from ever inheriting. It was an unnecessarily vicious blow. Like many other ass-backwards clans, the Hyuuga were sexist. They allowed women to inherit, but not to form Branch clans. Normally, neither of the girls would have been branded. The girl who didn't inherit would have been married off to another main family member.

'Actually,' she mused, 'that makes some sense. Anko-chan might have sympathy for another outcast.'

The Uzumaki rubbing her ass fit the same pattern as well, in a way. She'd come from outside the village and stayed on the grace of her 'cousin' and the Sandaime.

"Alright," she said, eager to get these people out of her office. "I approve. I assume you've talked to Kurenai about borrowing her student?"

Anko opened her mouth and took a breath, eyes flickering around the office as if looking for an escape. Sasuke made a rude noise, curled up as he was like a cat in between the cushions of the couch Tsunade had made him bring from her home. (It made nap time much more pleasant).

"Take care of that," she said dryly, turning back to her work. "I expect to hear good things about you two." Then she thought better of that. "You too, Anko. Behave. Don't think I didn't hear about you attacking a group of Academy students on recess break this morning."

Hinata shot her new teacher an alarmed look. Anko rolled her eyes, twisting a kunai around her fingers.

"Good god, what happened to you?" Temari blurted out when she bumped into her target by coincidence outside the Hokage tower. Then she winced. That wasn't how she had intended to start subtly gathering information. (Her reconnaissance yesterday had been inconclusive).

Luckily, the other girl didn't seem to care. She shrugged, tugging her fingers through a pigtail and dislodging what looked to be woodchips. "Training," she said matter-of-factly before nodding at each of them. "Temari-san, Gaara-san, Hare-san." The ANBU member on the wall twitched, relocating before Temari could turn and catch sight of her escort.

"Hello," Gaara said, somewhat unexpectedly. It was abrupt and awkward, but hell if it wasn't a try. Temari resigned herself to a Konoha in-law, stomach sinking when the girl smiled at him.

"I didn't expect to see you again." She crinkled her nose up at him. "Ah, sorry about what happened last time." She clasped her hands and fidgeted in a way that Temari was disgusted to notice was absolutely adorable. "Kiba-san has good intentions, but I'm afraid he can be a bit… abrasive."

That was a polite understatement. Aiko had been too disgusted with his ham-handedness to maintain conversation with him for long, especially when he tried to take her up on her offer to sit with her. She'd mostly said that to pacify him, not because she was interested. Kiba was such a flirt—all the girls in their age group knew not to humor him. So she had left.

"I'm afraid I don't know your name." Temari gave a thin smile.

It was reciprocated. "How rude. Uzumaki Aiko, very nice to meet you." She winced slightly, one hand drifting over to her left hip. "If you'll excuse me, I was actually on my way to a medic nin."

Well. Sasuke might not technically have that title yet, but she'd rather let him practice on her than go to the hospital. She didn't dislike it like many older ninjas did, but it was much easier to cut through all the bureaucratic crap. Besides, Sasuke was always at least accommodating when she offered to be used as a practice dummy.

Omake

Sore, bruised, and mildly more irritable than usual from a particularly vicious kenjutsu lesson, Sasuke tugged as patiently as possible on Tonton's leash. This was without a doubt the most undignified part of his apprenticeship.

Getting alcohol and lunch for his shishou? Sure, why the hell not. It wasn't that far out of his way. Having to work in the hospital with leering nurses? It was perhaps a bit below him, but it allowed him to practice the essential skills that led to the S-class jutsu Tsunade would teach him when he was powerful enough.

But walking the pig when Shizune was leading surgery… Sasuke shuddered. A small group of civilian girls in those idiotically impractical dresses that were apparently fashionable now giggled at him, jostling each other and whispering pointedly. 'At least the idiot is out of the country,' he consoled himself. Kami only knew that Naruto would never let him live this down.

[bongaboi]

Los Angeles Dodgers, all of them, are World Series champs

Los Angeles Dodgers, all of them, are World Series champs

Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer Oct 31, 2024, 02:32 AM ET

NEW YORK -- The 2024 World Series is over: Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers are champions in five games, the first title for him and, for the team, the eighth in franchise history.

There were heroes and goats, as there are in every Fall Classic, but no storybook showdown of Ohtani versus Aaron Judge. There were dramatic grand slams, stunning comebacks and horrible defensive miscues. The New York Yankees' title drought reached 15 years, and their captain, Judge, faced struggles that sometimes reached nightmarish levels.

In the end, what we got was a pure baseball matchup decided by baseball factors, and mostly by the fact the Dodgers had more good players than their opponent. They earned it -- as a group.

"They were the better team in this series," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, while praising his own heartbroken club.

This championship, and the way Los Angeles achieved it, is less about the names on the marquee and more because of the ensemble. It belongs to them all, as much to the supporting cast of Teoscar Hernandez, Gavin Lux and Max Muncy as to Ohtani and fellow stars Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts. To anonymous relievers as much as more heralded starters such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty. None of this is by accident. The Dodgers won this way because they were built to win this way.

Every season, the Dodgers rank near the top of the majors in categories such as rookie WAR and in total appearances on the transaction wire. Think about that: With all of the resources poured into the L.A. payroll -- the Dodgers spent more than $1 billion this past offseason -- the Andrew Friedman-led front office never stops tweaking the roster mix, addressing needs both immediate and imagined. The Dodgers excel at turning other teams' excesses into gold, with journeymen such as Ryan Brasier, Brent Honeywell and Anthony Banda becoming crucial contributors to the bullpen. Every bit as much attention is paid to the bottom 10 slots on the 40-man roster as it is to the top three.

"It's about getting the right players, the right people," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "Talent is a lot, but it's not everything. You still have to be cohesive. I just think we do a great job of getting the right players in our clubhouse."

The Dodgers have as much star power as any team we've seen in recent years, but they could never be accused of taking a stars-and-scrubs approach, or constructing a top-heavy roster. Depth or stars? We'll have both, thank you.

"We have a culture here at the big league level," Roberts said. "But the scouting and player development is second to none."

After a second title in five years, the Dodgers, from top to bottom, are what Roberts says -- second to none.

THIS WAS SUPPOSED to be the Ohtani-Judge World Series.

Just look at the cover of the official program. On the left is Ohtani, his face exuding focus and exertion, his arms pointing behind him in the act of the backswing that completes the arc of one of his mighty hacks.

Judge is on the right, his mouth open in the midst of a shout, his head turned as he presumably looks at the bedlam in the dugout in the aftermath of one of his missile-like blasts into the farthest expanses of Yankee Stadium.

It would be Ohtani vs. Judge, in the ultimate version of a baseball hero's journey, one with no antagonists but two protagonists on a parallel odyssey in pursuit to slay the same dragon: a career-first championship.

Thus was the hook for the resumption of baseball's most prolific Fall Classic matchup, Yankees-Dodgers, the dream showdown between two of baseball's most storied franchises.

The hype wasn't without justification. This truly was an unprecedented clash between perhaps the best-right-now players in the sport, starring for marquee franchises in the glitziest of markets and biggest of stages. Together during the regular season, Judge and Ohtani hit .315/.423/.672 with 112 homers, 274 RBIs, 256 runs and 69 stolen bases. That's from two players.

This pairing of the game's two best players just hasn't happened very often in World Series history. It's easy to lose yourself in a debate about just who was considered the best in the game at any point, but the clear precedents are few: Ty Cobb vs. Honus Wagner in 1909. Ted Williams vs. Stan Musial in 1946. George Brett vs. Mike Schmidt in 1980.

Let's imagine the Platonic ideal as the climactic scene of "The Natural," when Roy Hobbs -- "the best there ever was" -- homers into the stratosphere, turning another Knights disappointment into an instant pennant. We've never had that payoff -- a championship-winning, come-from-behind home run blasted by the game's best player.

None of the superstar matchups we highlighted had the type of payoff we might dream of, and most of them disappointed altogether. In the just-completed 2024 showdown, while Ohtani played well as a stalwart at the top of the lineup, his series was most noteworthy because he popped his shoulder on a slide, bringing the term "subluxation" into the mainstream. And Judge, homerless until the clinching game, was astonishing to watch for much of the series, after a season in which he recorded one of the best offensive showings in history.

"He's a great player," a sympathetic Roberts said after Game 4. "I have so much respect for Aaron. There's probably a little bit of maybe trying too hard right now."

That's baseball, though, isn't it? When we zero in on a star matchup like Ohtani against Judge, that's the possibility we're teasing, even as we know the nature of the sport itself makes the realization of the dream scenario so unlikely.

In fact, the most cinematic moment of the series was not produced by Ohtani, Judge -- or even each team's next best player, Betts or Juan Soto. That belonged to yet another star, Freeman, in a postseason when his injuries threatened to keep him out of the lineup. His two-out, Game 1-ending grand slam evoked immediate images of 1988 Kirk Gibson and inspired Joe Davis' epic, instantaneous Vin Scully homage.

There's a lesson in there, both about baseball and about the Dodgers. No matter who we zero in on, it's never about only one person. Anybody might be the one to realize a boyhood dream.

"Those are the kind of things, when you're 5 years old with your two older brothers and you're playing whiffle ball in the backyard," Freeman said, "those are the scenarios you dream about. Two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game."

As for Ohtani, he went 0-for-4 in the clincher and struck out with the bases loaded in the sixth. It didn't make his night any less sweet.

"The success of the postseason is very similar to how we were able to pull it off during the regular season," Ohtani said, via interpreter Will Ireton. "Again: The strength of the organization. Extremely honored to be a part of this."

CONSIDER THAT 29 different Dodgers played this October. Nearly everyone had meaningful roles along the way, including a bright-eyed rookie named Ben Casparius, who began October with all of three big league appearances under his belt. He ended up making a start in Game 4 as an opener.

This is every bit as much a characteristic of this era of Dodgers baseball as the presence of household names Ohtani, Betts, Freeman and Clayton Kershaw.

"It takes a lot to get here," Kershaw said. "Regardless of the talent level, everybody just assumes that we're going to show up, win 100 games and win the World Series. It takes every last guy."

Since the start of the 2021 season, the Dodgers have had 68 instances of a player recording at least one bWAR. Only the Brewers and Rays (69 each) have more. But the Dodgers have also had 17 instances of a player reaching an All-Star level of four BWAR, second only to the Astros (18). L.A.'s success is built on stars plus depth.

During the 12 full seasons since the Guggenheim Baseball Management group assumed control of the Dodgers, they've won 99.2 of every 162 regular-season games they've played. During the wild-card era, no team has done better over such a span, one that has included 11 first-place finishes, a 12-for-12 presence in the postseason bracket, four pennants and, now, two World Series titles. And there is no question the Dodgers' economics might play a role in the team's staying power. According to Cot's Contracts, the Dodgers have sported a top-five payroll in all of those seasons. Yet other teams make huge payroll splurges -- including the past two teams they beat, the Yankees in the World Series and the Mets in the National League Championship Series -- and the Dodgers are sometimes outspent by one or two competitors.

A level of investment measuring in the billions sets a clear expectation for everyone who dons Dodger blue: to do what they did Wednesday -- win it all. That expectation isn't just carried by Ohtani, Betts and Freeman, but everyone who steps into the clubhouse. They would have it no other way.

"You've got a lot of good people that care about winning and that want to win," second baseman Gavin Lux said. "None of them have egos."

The Dodgers' stars, including Ohtani, outperformed their New York counterparts, especially Judge, in the Series, but that was mainly because of Freeman's massive output as World Series MVP. That certainly played a part in L.A.'s triumph.

But in terms of the headliner matchup, at no point did this feel like an Ohtani-versus-Judge World Series. If anything, it was the Freeman series, but of course he isn't going to claim that title.

"Sitting here now, I've just been blessed to be able to play this game a long time and be in certain situations because of the group of guys, the organization," Freeman said. "Just from top to bottom, to be put into a situation. … I mean, I got asked about the RBIs, and the RBIs are because there were guys on base. That's my teammates."

NO TEAM LOST more player games to injury in 2024 than the Dodgers. Even as they sprayed champagne and whooped it up in the clubhouse at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, the Dodgers had more than an entire upper-tier starting rotation on the injured list.

That's why Roberts -- whose postseason decisions have been maligned by Dodgers fans and detractors alike over the years -- deserves so much credit for this run. It's not just that Roberts, along with pitching coach Mark Prior, was able to navigate around the losses in the pitching staff. It's also that the skipper, as usual, folded in rookies such as outfielder Andy Pages, Landon Knack, Casparius and even Yamamoto, not a traditional rookie but a rookie nonetheless. It's also that when the Dodgers splurged at the trade deadline, adding Flaherty, Tommy Edman and Michael Kopech, they all fit so seamlessly on and off the field that it's easy to forget they didn't join the team until the end of July.

No game showed it more acutely than the Dodgers' Game 5 win against San Diego in the NL Division Series, when the big three went a combined 1-for-10 but four relievers backed Yamamoto on a two-hit shutout and Teoscar Hernandez and Enrique Hernandez hit solo homers for the game's only runs.

"He lets you be the player that you'll always be," Teoscar said of Roberts. "He lets you have fun. His communication with his players is one of the best that I've had in my career. I think that's why he's so special for this team and the players."

Roberts' masterpiece was Game 5, when he had to work around Flaherty's too-brief outing and a bullpen with perhaps too few adequately rested arms. So Roberts rode relief ace Blake Treinen for 42 pitches -- seven more than he got from Flaherty. And then he turned to Walker Buehler, his Game 3 starter only two days before, to slam the door in the ninth.

"That's one of the best games I've ever seen managed," Freeman said. "That was special."

Through it all, Roberts spreads the credit steadily away from himself, even as he joins the short list of managers who have won more than one World Series, a list made up almost entirely of current and future Hall of Famers, including Dodgers legends Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda.

"Humbling," Roberts said. "Never thought I would be in that same conversation. I'm a part of a great organization, a lot of great people around me supporting me, and we've won a lot of ballgames. This is something I really wanted. I wanted this one."

If Roberts required validation that perhaps the team's shortened-season 2020 title did not supply -- he has it. He might just be another high-profile cog in the Dodgers' immense apparatus, but he's a vital one. He's also the manager of a dynasty.

This championship -- after a grueling marathon of 162 games plus a month of playoffs, cannot be diminished. It took all of the Dodgers to make it happen, right to the end.

When the Dodgers spilled out of the third-base dugout after the final out, Ohtani, Betts and Freeman were in the middle of the pile. So too were Casparius and Knack. Baseball's latest championship doesn't belong to any one of them, but all of them, under a banner dyed a rich Dodger blue, just how it was drawn up all along.

[taifasinternshipblog]

Recap of the past couple weeks

I am going to be very honest when I say, I have totally forgotten to update my blog. I'm not sure if these blogs will be checked but it totally slipped my mind in the chaos of the past couple of weeks. My job is basically the same monotonous tasks of checking in devices and asking customers questions and guiding them. A lot of it too is just people coming in either being "hacked" (they let someone from a number they called install a remote desktop software and got their banking information stolen) or they forgot a login/email doesn't work. And there is also a lot of sending devices out and checking them before they get sent out as an open box item. The highlights of what has happened was, I successfully used chkdsk to fix a corrupted SD card for a customer (surprised everyone). A customer brought in a "broken" desktop where their update got interrupted, after running bootrec there was no installation to be found of windows even though the partitions were still in but one disk turned itself into the "raw"" format. We ended up having to install windows though the customer wanted to keep their old data. I also tried to troubleshoot a desktop that was not booting up but even taking out each ram stick individually and a few other troubleshooting tasks did not fix the issue so I left it to the hands of the advanced repair agent.

My position is great for getting my foot in the door, but at the same time it feels like IT for beginners. I hope that an advanced repair agent position opens up in the near future that I can apply for. They are the people who are actually fixing things and troubleshooting. But I am glad that I am getting experience in some capacity that I can expand on in the future.