#the first option is annoying but fixable

[automatic-purification-system]

haven't been able to open magireco since updating the app.... oooough

[cregansdingdong]

imagine cregan and y/n breaking the bed one night just because of his sheer strength and muscle whilst pounding her, ik the conversation with the winterfell wood crafter would be awks as hell afterwards whilst asking for it to be repaired 😇😇

IM HAVING A PROPHETIC VISION, ANON.

At this point, Cregan and his boo thang are just going to have to become familiar with the man. There is no other option, because your choices are either to have this embarrassing conversation a multitude of times with multiple woodcrafters or just one. Because if y'all think this is a one-time thing, you are terribly mistaken.

Cregan is a very passionate person in bed, regardless if he's on top or not. He wants to make sure the two of you are satiated—that does mean the bed will snap like a twig under a boot i dont make the rules i just work here. Personally, I find the actual deliverance of the bedframe to be the most mortifying. Firstly, that big ass broken bed has to be dismantled and removed, if it's not fixable, which takes manpower, and then the new one brought into the Great Keep and put together. Otherwise, the woodcrafter is going to have to make a house call and show up with his tools and planks, walking toward your marital chambers which is embarrassing too :)

ɴᴏᴛ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ. (thoughts ver.)

NSFW stuff under the cut. 18+ only. I'm not responsible for the content you choose to consume. ty.

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

That familiar groan under his weight should've been the first warning sign, but Cregan was too distracted to notice. He was lapping at her pretty cunt, tongue delving as deep as he could go and as thorough as he could be without the motions being too unsteady. Alright maybe he did notice initially, but the thought was very quickly shoved to the back of his mind—especially when his pretty wife was trying to rock herself onto his nose, letting out the most quiet of whimpers muffled by their sheets. His ears were focused on her and her only.

With her pearl rubbing against his bridge and his cock feeling so strained in his trousers, no one could really blame him for forgetting about the delicate state of the bed in an instant. Last time they’d gotten particularly frantic in their lovemaking, there had been a low snap somewhere beneath the mattress, a taunt that he was probably too hefty to be moving so much. But winter was coming, a man’s gotta eat…in more ways than one.

By the time he’d recalled they should begin to take it easy on the bed, he was already balls deep behind her, hands gripping the flesh of her ass like a lifeline. He was suffocating in the best way, cock nestled inside, fogging his brain with nothing but instinct. And then she started begging. By then, well, he decided they needed a new bed anyway—six moons wasn’t too bad. Lasted longer than the previous replacement. Three harsh, unrelenting spanks bloom red on her backside as she squeezes around him, sending his blood pumping to the beat of an imaginary war drum. It would be a miracle from the Gods if she wasn’t pregnant by mid-summer. Cregan just couldn’t help himself.

Rutting against her like a man starved, the right side of the bed almost completely collapses, caving in and nearly throwing him off balance. His wife gasped, pleasure momentarily halted as she looked back at him. “Again? Seriously? I told you to write to him last time, did you?” The answer was no, no he did not. “It might have…slipped…my mind.” He murmured, trying to ignore the throbbing in his full balls. They had a silent conversation of glares and a sheepish grin. Then she concedes. “...We might as well finish then. I doubt it can get any worse.”

It could, actually. And it did. He came hard some twenty minutes later, pounding their hips together with a steady desperation. The dip of the broken side was a little annoying, but manageable. Without the support, the right beams of the canopy end up falling right down. No one was harmed, of course. It was only drapes. Cregan found it almost comical but his wife did not. It was going to be a long letter.

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

[malgomy]

new wave dreams

Malleus smiles. You know this smile. In all your time with him, you’ve become intimately familiar with his different smiles. This smile, you fear, spells your doom.

This smile is smug.

“I recall Grim whining about spilled milk on his fur,” he hums, expression deceivingly serene. “Just before he went to sleep, he was telling me about how you have to clean up yet another mess and how dreadfully clumsy his henchhuman is.”

Oh that snitch.

or;

You're clumsy, Ramshackle has outdated appliances, and Grim is incapable of keeping house secrets.

tags: 2.7k words, cross-posted on ao3 under the same name and the same alias. this is my first work on here cries have mercy on me when it comes to formatting, ok. title is from P.U.N.K. Girl by Heavenly

You have a problem.

An issue, a predicament, a conundrum, even.

See, you’ve developed a bit of a … bad habit. Grim is a very deep sleeper and ever since you’ve been thrown into Twisted Wonderland, you are decidedly not. Whether it be unnerving dreams that wake you up or just plain insomnia, you’ve spent many a night kept awake with only Grim’s incessant snoring to keep you company.

And well… it’s not like your stomach stops working either. So maybe it’s not uncommon for you to sneak down into the kitchen and make yourself something to eat, and maybe it’s not uncommon for you to sneak back into your comfortable bed and eat while under the covers. Maybe. 

You’re so used to the sound of boisterous laughter coming from the kitchen in Ramshackle that the dead of night just makes it… eery. Not to mention, the ghosts who live in the dorm have no sense of when is a good or bad time to play a silly little prank on you. Is it really so bad to want the comfort of a wall against your back and blankets trapping your warmth while you enjoy a home cooked meal? 

It’s just that… your hand might have slipped while crawling into bed and you might have spilled your cereal all over your bed while Grim was still sleeping in it. Oops. 

This is where your predicament lies. Grim is now partially awake, bleary eyed and upset at having been woken up at 2 am. Your sheets, comforter, and pajamas reek of milk. Class is at 9 am sharp, and if you leave things the way they are, you have no doubt that your room will reek of spoiled milk.

Which would be fixable, except for the fact that your biggest issue is that Ramshackle doesn’t have a laundry room.

Or… well… it does. Technically. Except you may have smacked the washing machine a little bit too hard to get it started once, and it hasn’t turned on ever since. You’ve been doing your laundry in Heartslaybul with either Ace or Deuce accompanying you ever since.

But that is definitely not an option right now! Let alone the fact that Riddle would undoubtedly take your head if you snuck around and did laundry in his dorm at 2 am, you know for a fact that Ace would have a field day if he found out why your sheets were soaked with milk at this time of night. No, Heartslaybul is certainly not an option.

Which leaves… no options at all. You suppose you could just use the kitchen sink… or maybe the bathtub? 

“I’m not cleaning this,” Grim grumbles. He’s rubbing his eyes and lets out a big yawn. Despite his insistence, he really is more catlike than anything else you’ve ever seen. When he looks up at you with his big blue eyes, you can’t help but forget how annoying he can be. Aw, now you feel bad. 

“I wasn’t gonna make you, d’worry,” you mumble back. There’s no other option, you suppose. You begin peeling the sheets off the bed. It’s heavy, and it doesn’t help that your movements have a certain grogginess to them. Just your luck, you’re starting to get tired after you already made a mess. “I’m gonna head downstairs to clean this, you go back to sleep.”

Grim doesn’t respond to you, so you assume that he nodded off even without your prompting. When you make it downstairs though, you almost trip over him running right past you.

“We’ve got a visitor!” 

You almost drop your clothes to rush over to the window. From your spot in the lounge, you can’t make out what Grim is seeing. “Huh? Who?” 

“Who else visits ‘n the middle of the night?” 

The clothes are unceremoniously dumped in the sink and you rush to the window. Sure enough, green sparks fly around a familiar silhouette underneath your porch.

Talk about bad timing. “I can’t just leave him out there, can I?” 

Grim just shrugs up at you. Ugh, your bleeding heart. How could you leave a friend out in the cold when he came all the way just to see you? The ghosts would scold you for even entertaining the thought. 

With strengthened resolve, you glance out the window one more time. Sure enough, Malleus is still standing on your porch. He’s staring intently at the doorknob, but as soon as you move the blinds, his eyes meet yours. 

You don’t even give him the opportunity to knock.

“And what are you doing out here, unsupervised in the dead of night?” You say in lieu of a greeting. You grin up at him and open the door wide as an invitation to come in. Malleus slips into the foyer, but not without dramatics of his own.

“Might it be that I’m unwelcome into your humble abode?” He sighs, forlorn and melancholic. You’d almost believe that he was hurt, if not for the fond smile he gives to you and Grim and the airiness of his voice. “I suppose I ought to make myself scarce, and hope the loneliness of my dearest friend’s rejection doesn’t take my weary heart.”

“We can’t have you dying yet, now can we? Your retainers would have my head, I fear.” You flick the lights on, and lead the way further in. “Not to mention your family — I can’t have an army sent after me at my delicate age.”

“Oho! So all you care about is your own life? Careful, should you offend me too much, I may very well send the armed guards after you regardless.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes at the dramatics. He’s too attached to you to do anything of the sort. “You’re welcome anytime, just make sure you leave your retainers a note or something.”

“That one guy’s too noisy when he doesn’t know where you are,” Grim grumbles. 

“They should know very well by now to check for me here before breaking out into a frenzy,” Malleus breaks out into a grin, self-satisfied. “I am no babe; they haven’t a reason to fret over me so often.”

Grim lets out a little hmph! at that. “Betcha they're more worried ‘bout what you’re getting up to, going out at night all sneaky-like.”

You all pause for a moment at Grim’s statement. “Y’know Grim, it’s very rare that you say something smart.”

It takes a moment for what you say to process. Grim goes from smiling to attacking your leg in the blink of an eye. 

“Hm, that very well may be it then,” When you glance up at Malleus, all you can describe his expression as is preening. “I trust that your word will be a suitable alibi then, should they assume that I’m up to mischief?”

“Oh I doubt it, with what we’re always up to? They’ll probably assume the worst as soon as you say my name.” A light hum is all that you get in response. Typical, Malleus tends to zone in and out of conversation. You lead him to the lounge with Grim still hanging off your leg, flicking lights on and fixing things up as you go. Everyone’s awake now, so there's no need to go traipsing through the dark. Besides, Malleus’ eyes seem to glow like a cats in the dark, and you don’t feel like going through that heart attack right now.

Malleus sits by the unlit fireplace, picking up a random book from the coffee table. Grim stays behind with him while you take a moment to head into the kitchen, ignoring the pile of sheets you dumped in there in order to grab some fruits. The living arrangements may be poor and decrepit, but never let it be said that you weren’t a good host. When you make it back, the fireplace is lit, and Grim is curled up in front of it. “He asleep?”

Malleus nods. His gaze washes over the fruits before settling on your face. “For me?”

“They’re chilled, but I think I remember you saying you liked ‘em better that way.”

He reaches out for a grape, plucking it from the vine with a delicate hand. He’s just about to pop it into his mouth when he pauses for a moment. “Ah.”

“What?”

“I’m not supposed to eat anything my retainers haven’t cleared first,” he sighs. “Poisoning and the like, you understand.”

You nod in understanding. You’ve never had Malleus decline anything you offered him before, but…

Wait a minute. He’s laughing. 

“That is not true!” You dump the fruits on his lap, leaving him to place them delicately on the table. Malleus hums in amusement as you settle into place by his side. “I can’t tell when you’re joking, it’s not fair.”

“No poison you could get your hands on could harm me,” he says. “Let alone anything you could disguise with the taste of fruit.”

You think he’s joking. Malleus doesn’t force you to respond, content to nurse through the fruit in front of him. He alternates between giving you a handful of berries and popping them into his own mouth.

“Why was Grim awake at this hour? I seem to recall him to be a heavy sleeper, if nothing else,” Malleus murmurs out the question, like it’s not important enough to be articulated properly.

But it is. Because this is embarrassing. There is no way that you are going to reveal to the crown prince of any nation that you spilled cereal all over your bed while Grim was sleeping in it! Not even if you were tortured. 

“Oh! I think he ate the leftover tart from Riddle’s unbirthday party,” you laugh, like a liar. “You know how it is, sugar highs and all that.”

“Really?”

“Mhm,”  you nod. “Must’ve worn off by the time you got here.”

Malleus smiles. You know this smile. In all your time with him, you’ve become intimately familiar with his different smiles. This smile, you fear, spells your doom.

This smile is smug.

“I recall Grim whining about spilled milk on his fur,” he hums, expression deceivingly serene. “Just before he went to sleep, he was telling me about how you have to clean up yet another mess and how dreadfully clumsy his henchhuman is.”

Oh that snitch. 

“It’s not important,” you rush to reassure Malleus. You wave a hand dismissively, hopefully putting an end to the subject matter. “Grim must’ve just been yapping, you know how he is.”

Before you can even process it, Malleus grabs your hand with both of his. Shocked but not uncomfortable, you don’t deign to snatch your hand back. If you didn’t know him any better, you’d say he even looks earnest. “I would be willing to lend you my aid no matter the situation, whether the problem be big or small.”

You can’t stand to look him in the eye like this. “It’s really not that serious.”

“Tell me what is troubling you, I will have it dealt with.”

… ominous. His grip on your hands is loose, his palms warm and dry. If you don’t catch yourself, you might start to lean into him. 

Also… isn’t Malleus… a dorm leader? With access to his dorm’s laundry room? Really, maybe his late night arrival was just the solution to your self inflicted problems. Is it even taking advantage of the situation if he asked you?

With strengthened resolve, you lean in conspiratorially. “Nothing I tell you can leave this room.”

---

As it turns out, Malleus does technically have access to his dorm’s laundry room. Technically.

He just doesn’t know where it is.

“Hornton, aren’t you in your third year?” 

“I’m well aware,” he shoots you a look. Man alive, is he pouting? “I just rarely have a reason to come do laundry myself.”

“It’s ok,” you tell him. Roaming Diasomnia’s halls in the wee hours of the morning with a trash bag over your shoulder filled with milk soaked sheets was never on your bucket list, but at least you have company! Even if the walls are tall and cold, Malleus is like a heater by your side. “We’ll find it together.”

The two of you, notably, do not find it together. 

In your defense, Diasomnia is big. Malleus might know his way around these halls, but you are notorious for your horrible sense of direction. Seriously, you might as well be in a corn maze. 

By the time you’ve scoured what you think is the entirety of the upper levels of Diasomnia, you’re about ready to throw in the towel. Far be it from you to ignore the sweet call of sleep. 

“Malleus, I think we should just leave it,” you murmur. “With the way things are, I’ll be ok sleeping on the ground.”

You would not be fine on the ground, actually. But you are nothing if not a liar and exhausted.

“I suppose we should check the basement before we give up,” he hums.

…

You do not want to check the basement. The apprehension must show on your face, because all Malleus does is laugh. This man laughs at you. 

“Worry not,” he breathes out between chuckles, “I won’t let any harm befall you.”

How comforting.

The door to Diasomnia’s basement is just like the rest of the dorm: cold and tall and imposing. When Malleus reaches out to open it, the door creaks open itself. Creepy.

“Can I let you go down by yourself and I stay up here with the living?” 

Malleus casts you a sidelong glance. “The safest place is by my side.”

You can’t even respond, snarky or otherwise, because he’s not wrong. 

“You go first,” you pat his arm. That way, if anything jumps out at you, he’ll get the brunt of the attack. “I’ll be right behind you.”

When Malleus takes the first step, you think you can hear an ominous thudding. But that’s probably just the paranoia speaking. 

Your descent down the stairs is marked by you cowering behind Malleus and jumping every time you think you feel something ghosting over your shoulders. On the bright side, the basement seems to be well lit with torches. 

When you make it to the bottom, you take a moment to examine your surroundings. It’s an open room, marked with chairs and a stack of baskets lined up against one wall. Along the opposite wall, however, stands the prize that you’ve been searching for all this time. Your long lost lover… 

A row of washing machines.

“Oh finally!” 

You don’t hesitate to run over to the first washing machine you see, tossing the trash bag you’ve been carrying over your shoulder onto the ground as you shed tears of relief. Not literally though, because you can only stand to embarrass yourself so many times in one night. 

Malleus hovers behind you while you punch in the code for the rinse cycle and load the machine. He offers to help, but drops it when you almost bite his hand. No way are you letting him in close proximity to your dirty laundry. Once you’ve finished loading everything up and have slammed the lid to the machine shut, you get up to face him again.

“Well Malleus, I think we did good here today,” you nod, satisfied with the outcome of your journey. “I’m glad we could discover the location of Diasomnia’s laundry room together.”

“Dismissing me already? Humans can be so cruel,” he offers his hand to you, leading you to the seats on the other side of the room. “I believe you still have quite some time left before this load is finished.”

“Don’t remind me,” you whisper. As soon as your back hits the chair, you’re slumped over. It doesn’t help that Malleus is so warm next to you. “I’m exhausted.”

Malleus hums. “Then rest. I’ll wake you when the time comes.”

---

You wake up to your alarm sprawled over Ramshackle’s couch, a gray quilt tucking you so tightly you almost fall off the couch trying to get out of it. 

On the table next to you are your clean folded sheets and a note. 

Thank you for the company last night… I enjoy our time together greatly. I suppose the time to wake you never came. Apologies. 

You don’t think he’s very sorry at all.

[morroodle]

Oh god oh fuck I have to make an important decision

Turns out my bed fucking broke a few days ago and I've been sleeping on its corpse ever since. The good news is that I actually already looked into new beds for other reasons, the bad news is I'm stuck between 3 options and am very bad at making decisions. So I'm gonna make people vote for it. Read on if you care.

Option 1: 6 drawers

Pros: has 6 drawers and bonus little cabinet thing that opens to underside of the bed. Tons of storage. Has 5 compartments in the headboard + the top. Could potentially put legos on top and in upper 2 compartments. Has 2 USB ports (my current phone charger does not use USB but that can be fixed)

Cons: I don't like the curve on the underside of the top shelf. Not a lot of space between mattress and start of shelves which is an issue because I like to build a mountain of pillows and stuffed animals. This could potentially render the lower compartments unusable. I could fix this if i stopped being weird but i will not. Not a fan of how the handles look but that is fixable. Would be hard to actually access the hidden door because of how I usually set up my room but not impossible and I would probably not use it for regularly needed things anyway so that's not a real con.

Option 2: big shelves

Pros: 3 big drawers, same as my current bed. I love the look so very much. Big shelves, could potentially put legos on upper shelf compartment and on top of headboard. Has a hole for all types of cords. Could plug in my noise maker :D

Cons: same problem with the distance between mattress and shelves as previous option. Only has 3 drawers and no hidden door.

Option 3: funky headboard

Pros: 3 big drawers. The weird door cabinet compartment things on the headboard deal with my pillow mountain issue while still having a good amount of storage! Could put legos on top shelf

Cons: only 3 drawers and no hidden door. Much less potential lego space. No holes for cords (not actually a massive issue/need)

If you would explain your reasons I would greatly appreciate it :3

I should note that I use the drawers under my bed as my wardrobe (my room is tiny and I don't have space for a real one) so I do need some drawer space. 3 is what I currently have and I make it work just fine but I would love 6 for better organization purposes. Also I hate trundles as I have absolutely no space to open it why are there so many beds with trundles it's annoying.

My current (dying) bed

This piece of ikea garbage. Sorry that's mean it actually served me really well for a while. Pros: drawers. Cons: has a stupid trundle that i literally cannot use there is no space in my room. Has weird walls around 3/4 sides of bed which I liked at first but I hate now that I have grown a bit taller. My feet touch the end wall sometimes and it's annoying. I often try and use the side wall as a shelf for my water but it's not actually big enough and has resulted in me soaking my bed way too many times. Also it is broken.

[dentistportmelbourne]

Emergency Dental Appointments: What to Expect in Melbourne

Got a Toothache? Here's What to Do!

Toothache? Broken tooth? Melbourne's got you covered.

Emergencies happen. And when they do, knowing what to expect can save you a lot of stress.

Finding an Emergency Dentist in Melbourne

1. Quick Search

Melbourne is chock-full of dental clinics. Google your nearest emergency dentist Melbourne. Bookmark their number. Done.

2. Call Ahead

Don't just walk in. Call first. Describe your problem. They'll tell you if you need immediate attention or if it can wait.

3. Know the Cost

Emergency dental care can be pricey. Ask for a rough estimate over the phone. Better to know what you're in for.

What Happens When You Arrive

1. Initial Assessment

You walk in. You're greeted. They ask a few questions. Pain level. What happened. Basic stuff.

2. Paperwork

Yep, even in an emergency. Fill out forms. Health history. Allergies. Insurance details if you have it.

3. Wait Time

It depends. Some days are busier than others. They triage. Worst cases first.

In the Chair

1. Examination

Dentist time. They check your mouth. X-rays if needed. They get to the root of the problem. Pun intended.

2. Diagnosis and Treatment Plan

They explain what's wrong. Tell you your options. Simple fix? Complex procedure? You’ll know.

3. Immediate Relief

Painkillers. Temporary fixes. Whatever it takes to get you comfortable.

Common Emergencies

1. Toothache

Could be anything. Cavity. Infection. Cracked tooth. They’ll figure it out.

2. Broken Tooth

Happens a lot. Biting something hard. Accident. They'll smooth it out. Maybe a crown or a filling.

3. Lost Filling or Crown

Annoying but fixable. They’ll replace or repair it.

4. Knocked-Out Tooth

Timing is everything. Get to the dentist fast. They might save it.

5. Abscess

Serious stuff. Infection. Swelling. Pain. Needs treatment ASAP.

Aftercare

1. Pain Management

They'll give you pain relief. Maybe antibiotics. Follow their instructions.

2. Follow-Up Appointments

Sometimes one visit isn't enough. You'll need a follow-up. Book it before you leave.

3. Preventive Tips

Brush. Floss. Regular check-ups. Avoid another emergency.

Tips to Avoid Dental Emergencies

1. Regular Check-Ups

See your dentist every six months. Catch problems early.

2. Good Oral Hygiene

Brush twice a day. Floss daily. Use mouthwash.

3. Avoid Hard Foods

Ice. Hard candy. They can crack your teeth. Be careful.

4. Wear a Mouthguard

Playing sports? Use a mouthguard. Protect those pearly whites.

The Bottom Line

Emergencies suck. But Melbourne's got top-notch emergency dentists ready to help.

Stay calm. Call ahead. Follow their advice. You'll be back to smiling in no time.

FAQs

1. What if I can't afford emergency dental care?

Many clinics offer payment plans. Ask about your options. Some might even accept dental insurance.

2. How long will the appointment take?

Depends on the issue. Could be 30 minutes. Could be a couple of hours. They’ll let you know.

3. Are emergency dentists available after hours?

Yes. Many clinics offer 24/7 services. Check online for the nearest one.

4. What should I do if I lose a tooth?

Keep it moist. Milk works. Saline solution. Get to the dentist fast. They might re-implant it.

5. Can I prevent dental emergencies?

Absolutely. Good oral hygiene. Regular check-ups. Protect your teeth during sports.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Overall, this is a short and sweet game about a unionized team of magical girls fighting for better working conditions. The beach episode was done tastefully, the villain was interesting, and there was non-binary representation among the cast. 10/10 and I would read a fanfiction about this game.

I saw this in a review of Hero Hours Contract and thought it sounded amazing and like something I needed to play. After spending maybe a little under an hour with it I can say I like basically everything about it except for actually playing it, which I'm straight up not having a good time with.

Characters? Great.

Art style? Great.

Story premise? Great.

UI? Passable, and it has some clarity issues about what effect doing certain things will have or what effect they did have, like the feedback for what you do at the negotiating table is pretty ambiguous, and it took me longer than it should've to even figure out how to tell how many of what resources I even have because it's not clearly displayed anywhere.

Explanation for how to progress through the game? Technically exists, barely, I guess? What am I supposed to be doing, playing through the normal levels and getting happiness gems to get money/free time to spend on doing stuff with people to get nebulous upgrades that may or may not actually do anything meaningful? Going through the levels in the tower that seem to be what probably progresses the story? I am guessing about all of these things because it doesn't really tell you when you start playing.

Heavy dependence on RNG? Uh, whatever the opposite of great is. Doing the normal levels seemed fun at first because there's no way to really fail, you just get better rewards for completing more stuff within the turn limit. The rewards for fully clearing a level seem to be a lot better than just mostly clearing one though, and whether or not you can fully clear one seems to come down to enemy RNG deciding to cooperate or run away from you.

And then on the tower levels that are (presumably) the story progression ones there actually is a fairly low time limit and they're very possible to fail. And the fourth one of those seems much more dependent on RNG than on any of my own decisions for whether I can beat it or not. Did my character with a random chance of getting extra attacks not get the extra attack I needed? I lose. Did one of the enemies randomly move in the wrong direction so now I can't chain my attack between the enemies? I lose. Did [insert any other thing up to the whims of RNG here]? You get the idea.

The UI stuff would be easily fixable by just putting a little thing on the screen in the home base that actually shows you how many you have of money/time/gems at all times and by actually having clear feedback when you select options at the negotiating table (which would already be much clearer with the previous suggestion because you could see the counters increase/decrease if there actually were one on the screen). It was not obvious at first that I was literally just directly purchasing money/time instead of offering gems as a bargaining chip to negotiate for more of them.

And then the actual strategy sections...well, either make them a lot less RNG-based, which is relatively straightforward, or give the player more ways to compensate for unexpected/bad things happening, which can be more complicated, both to figure out how to implement and for players to engage with if it adds complexity.

Also give me a pause menu or something so I can change the settings while I'm in the game. If it exists I couldn't find the button for it, and needing to exit out of it to see if it'd let me change the difficulty from normal to easy so I don't have to deal with the annoying level made me lose any interest in trying it again.

Great idea, love some stuff about it, but the overall execution isn't really doing it for me. The stuff I liked about it I liked more than P5R and had more fun with it overall than with that though, so that's something.

[kinosternon]

Walthrough: Reposting your old FFNet fics to Ao3

In light of recent rumors that FanFiction.Net might be receiving little/no ongoing support, and could suddenly disappear one day with very little warning, I wanted to offer a resource that might help preserve another fic or two. Just in case.

I'm already keeping a private collection of favorite fics from FFN that I can't bear to lose, but this tutorial isn't for saving other folks' fic. Instead, this tutorial is for people who might want to republish their own fic to Ao3 in a streamlined, relatively painless way.

Using these steps, I was able to upload an entire 16-chapter fic, with all the correct original formatting and without doing any fussy HTML editing, in about an hour. (And that was while making up the steps as I went along!)

What you'll need:

A link to your old FFNet account URL OR the those of the fics you want to save (no login necessary)

Access to a working Ao3 account

A web browser, permission to download zipped HTML files, and an unzipper (most computers have these by default)

How to save your fic for posterity:

Copy the link to the first chapter of the fic on FFN that you want to save. (Right-clicking the title of the fic on your profile and choosing "Copy Link" will do this.)

Go to https://fichub.net/ and paste in the URL. Press Export, then click "Download as zipped HTML." This saves your entire fic at once, no matter how many chapters, with formatting intact. Everyone thank the team who made this tool, because it's amazing.

Navigate to your downloads (or click on the pop-up that'll probably appear) and open the zipped HTML file. It will probably open in your default browser on its own, but you might need to tell it to open by right-clicking the unzipped file and choosing the desired browser. The resulting file should have all the chapters of the fic laid out one after another, with clear breaks between each chapter and the original HTML formatting (including section breaks).

Post a "New Work" in Ao3. (Can't import with FFNet, sadly, which is why this tutorial exists.) Add the title, relevant tags, and summary. (I used my FFNet summary with a note that the fic is crossposted.) Backdate the fic if desired by choosing a publishing date from around the time the fic was written.

Here's the magic part: Switch to Rich Text Mode in the "Work Text" field, then copy-paste the text from your first chapter into the Rich Text Mode window. (Note: You may see the stray space appear around italicized/bolded text, and an extra line break tends to appear between section breaks. Otherwise, though, the formatting is generally very well preserved.)

Optional detail: Hit "Preview," then "Save Draft," then "Add Chapter" to avoid posting any of your chapters till you have them all set up and ready to go.

Side note 1: Don't put an endnote on the end of your Chapter 1. Or if you do, go add a chapter 2 first, and then go back to add a chapter 1 endnote. Otherwise it'll end up at the end of your fic instead. It's a fixable outcome, but an annoying one.

Side note 2: If you use a pseud to post, you'll need to be careful to select the correct pseud for each chapter you upload, or you'll end up being listed as the author twice, once under each pseud you selected. If you notice this happening, it's because you've missed switching one in one or more chapters. This is fixable by checking the author listed under each chapter heading using the "Entire Work" button and keyword searching the username you're trying to get rid of.

While I didn't find a way to post all chapters at once, you can do it pretty quickly in the right order, without skipping, by doing the following steps in a loop:

Press "Entire work" at the top of the page.

Use your browser's "Find in page" function for the text "post chapter".

Hitting the "Post Chapter" button that appears.

Just continue the loop until there's no more "Post Chapter" buttons.

Once your chapters are all uploaded, you're done! Congratulations.

A final note

I know that this latest rumor might be blowing certain hints of FFNet's siterunners' inactivity out of proportion. I know that Ao3 isn't everyone's favorite (though I don't agree with most of those people). And I know, most of all, that some folks would rather some of their older fics not see the light of day anymore, for whatever reason.

But look. I'm a trans guy who used to be a teenage girl who (enthusiastically) wrote Twilight/Doctor Who crossover fanfic. I get it, and yet I'm still managing to stun the part of me that cringes long enough to preserve my stuff, because I think that fic should survive whenever possible.

There are options to help make the cringe factor more manageable. Use a pseud for your older stuff (like me), or to minimize any connection to your current account, you can use the Anonymous collection or the Orphan Work function as soon as you're done posting. Do whatever you need to feel comfortable.

But remember that every creative work is a victory just for existing. Please, if you can, find it in your heart (and your schedule) to preserve your work. Past!you worked hard on it, after all. And besides, you never know who might stumble across it someday exactly when they need it.

(PS: Please let me know about any other FFN preservation efforts, by the way! Hopefully this is all blown out of proportion, but you really can never be too careful.)

[llazyneiph]

Okay, so! Did not expect that post last night to get so much attention but to clarify: yes it’s real and yes it is a ‘mod’ (i use that term very loosely) that I am working on.

Before I get on with explaining what this actually is, please keep in mind that this is absolutely not a Create a World tool in ANY capacity. This is better described as a ‘World Decorator’. Even then, it certainly has many limitations because this is TS4.

So you’re probably here because you saw this post. I’m gonna address some of the reactions and explain a little more about this mod.

All in all, this mod expands lots beyond their original size, boosting all of them to 64x64. This means that a lot of the neighbourhood is now in the lots editable zone and therefore can be built upon. This pic describes it best (forgotton hollow):

As you can see, the lot perimeter has been expanded to 64x64 and now includes a huge chunk of the town square.

One thing I saw a lot of people get excited about was the possibility of placing the teleporter, and yes, you can totally do that!

And as I posted in my last post, you can definitely decorate the parts of the neighbourhood that fall into the new editable zones. (This is one of the strangerville alleys)

Now obviously this isn’t supposed to happen at all in TS4, so there are currently ALOT of bugs (none game breaking, but all annoying and aesthetically displeasing lmao)

1. Lot Overhang The first and biggest bug is something I can actually somewhat control with changing the sizing and placement 

As you can see, anything over water or a sheer downwards change in terrain will cause the expanded lots to ‘overhang’. This is somewhat fixable by terrain editing but the vertexes at the very edges of the lot will stay in place, causing extreme texture stretching visible from the interior of the lot. They wont be visible from the outside angles of the lot since they have no backfaces.

2. Lower Lots

To explain this, I first need to explain what Z-Fighting is. Z-Fighting is when two planes share the exact same world space (basically just sat on top of eachother and taking up the exact same points in space). This causes them constantly fight eachother to be seen, and causes a flickering effect.

When EA builds worlds, they cut a perfect 30x20 or 64x64 (whatever the intended lot is) hole out of their world mesh, so this doesn’t happen. Obviously we never see this since the lot fits like perfect puzzle piece into the hole. Since I’ve now expanded the lot, it’s constantly z-fighting with the world mesh and causing this flickering, or in some cases, just complete override of the world mesh (so you can’t see the roads and stuff).

To fix this, my only option was to slightly lower the lot so the world mesh would physically be ontop of it. Because of this, sims will be slightly sunken into the ground since they are walking on the lower lot. Fortunately we have the height raising hotkey (9) so we can avoid this with objects and the teleporter, so it wont affect story or modelling shots. 

I will most likely offer two mod versions. One with the lowered lots and one without the lots lowered, which you will have to fix with the terrain tools yourselves.

There are some lots (the flatter ones) that don’t need lowering at all tho! this one turned out great:

3. Unavailable on Apartments Unless there is a mod or cheat that I don’t know about, the fact that you can’t build outside the owned apartment space makes this mod pretty useless on apartments. All hope is not lost for San Myshuno tho, the flat community lots can still be expanded and built upon freely!

4. Re-appearing Public Objects

Once in a lot, there are some (some!!! a lot of the world decor objects are not what the game considers to be actual build/buy mode objects, and therefore cannot be deleted!!!) objects that can be deleted (Vlads statue, the bathrooms). But they only stay deleted for the duration that you are on that specific lot. Once you leave the lot, they will appear again. As far as I’m aware, I can’t do anything about this :(

Now you’ve read this and are probably saying, Seb, thats a lot of big bugs, whats the point? The point is that this mod will allow you to finally get more creative with your empty ass sim worlds and give the more personality. I’m currently in the process of turning Strangerville into the run down town it deserves to be!

I only started on this last night, and it might take me a few weeks to get everything perfect and lined up all nice, since I have to do this manually outside of the game. Please be patient, I will continue to upload progress shots as I work :)

[dessarious]

Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt78

Sorry this is a couple days late. I was all excited to get this story finished in the next couple installments... and then the mother of all plot bunnies hit. That gave me three options: 1) Ignore it and try to finish it out the way I’d originally thought. 2) Throw it in and have a built in reason to do a sequel. 3) Throw it in and just keep this story going indefinitely.

I’m still debating between options two and three so we’ll see what happens. Also the plot twist will be in the next part. Sorry for the wait but I need to get a few more things in order.

Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU

AO3   Beginning   Previous   Next

Chloe was trying not to stare at the window as they waited but she couldn’t help it. If Ladybug didn’t come back soon they were going to be late to the meeting with the Justice League and who knew what kind of hell that would cause. She wasn’t the only one either. Damian was suited up as Robin and straight up glaring at the empty balcony.

“She knows how important this is, she’s not going to be late.” Luka’s assurance was calm, and it was obvious he believed it. Chloe would too if not for the fact that Mari had been gone two hours longer than she said she would already, not that she’d told the boys that.

“Given that punctuality isn’t one of her strong suits I’m surprised we got to the other one’s on time.” Damian was even more on edge than normal and it was starting to make her skin crawl. She had to wonder what he knew that they didn’t. She told herself that it didn’t matter, that they could handle whatever was thrown at them. It didn’t really help. She let out a relieved sigh when she saw movement and quickly went outside to scold Marinette. The words died in her throat when she actually got a good look at her though.

“Why have you been crying?” She couldn’t help the threat in her tone. Mari had gone to see the Guardian claiming she needed to discuss what they should and shouldn’t tell the justice league, that absolutely shouldn’t have caused this.

“We’ll have to talk about it later or we’re going to be late. I’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible and getting a lecture from anyone on manners is just going to delay things.” Her tone was wrong and her body language was sadness and grief. What the hell had happened?

“But we will talk later?” Chloe couldn’t help the question. Anything to do with the Guardian tended to be off limits so she wasn’t even sure it was something she was allowed to know. She tried hard to respect that, but she couldn’t help being annoyed by it as well.

“Yes we will. I have so much I need to tell you.” Well that didn’t sound good. “Come on, we need to get moving.”

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

Discorde could tell, as soon as they stepped through the portal, that this meeting was going to go as bad or worse than the last one. Half the members were glaring at them, not even trying to conceal their anger. Great.

“Care to explain why you’re still using your lackey to keep real heroes out of Paris when Hawkmoth is no longer a threat?” Green Lantern’s hostile tone was bad enough, but the actual words had her seconds from doing something rash. Ladybug could obviously tell if the restraining hand on her shoulder was any indication.

“Care to explain why you all felt the need to come to Paris, especially without contacting me to confirm that it was in fact Hawkmoth who was arrested?” Ladybug just sounded done and that honestly worried her. “Because I wouldn’t have thought real heroes would endanger innocent people like that.”

“Are you claiming that it wasn’t Hawkmoth then?” She really hated Superman’s superior tone but she was starting to wonder if he even had another one.

“No I’m not. That doesn’t change the fact that you all decided to believe the first news report you saw and then somehow decided it would be a good idea to have a bunch of foreign heroes descended on Paris while it’s citizens are still reeling from the shock. Did you even stop to consider the type of panic having all of you show up would cause?” Some of them looked thoughtful which was something at least. The Bats and Wonder Woman were studying the others as well, though she wasn’t certain what they were looking for.

“I would think it would be reassuring for them to see capable heroes for once.” Discorde couldn’t stop the growl that came out, not that she tried that hard. These idiots were so close to death and they didn’t even see it.

“Heroes only show up when there’s a villain. You all suddenly arriving in Paris would start a mass panic that either Hawkmoth isn’t actually in custody or that some new threat is out there. Either way I can’t risk it, especially with how fragile everyone's  mental state is right now. The damage you did might very well not be fixable.” Ladybug was trying to not sound like she was lecturing them, but Discorde knew that’s exactly what she was doing. Why was another matter entirely. It was just a waste of time judging by the glares she was getting.

“Don’t pretend you know how things actually work. You’re just children playing at being heroes. You have no idea what it actually takes, let alone the sacrifices it requires.” Superman’s words caused the room to erupt. All the Bats were yelling at him while Wonder Woman seemed content with trying to glare at him until he shut up. Discorde only noticed on a subconscious level as her blood pounded in her ears and she felt the destruction inside calling out to her. How dare this pompous bastard call Mari’s sacrifices nothing. How dare he act like she didn’t know pain just because of her age. How dare he.

She felt hands on her face and was forced to focus on Ladybug who had a firm grip on her head, refusing to let her look at the targets of her rage. She could tell the other girl was speaking but she still couldn’t hear anything but her own pounding heartbeat and a mantra in her head telling her to end the people who dared insult her Bug. It wasn’t until a shrill beeping noise started that she came back to herself. She saw Ladybug’s earrings flashing between red and black and saw the panicked look on Mari’s face as she detransformed, her arms going around Discordes neck automatically as her legs gave out.

AO3   Beginning   Previous    Next

Ko-Fi

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[malefiquinn]

My Cyberpunk 2077 review

I finished the game last night and I have Feelings™ about it, so here goes my review. While the heavy spoilers (ending related) will be hidden under Keep Reading, I might mention some minor ones here and there, so read at your own risk.

Let’s get the Big Thing out of the way first: yes, the game is buggy af. The good news is most of them are visual bugs, so while annoying, they don’t really matter gameplay wise. But I did have to reload an earlier save file two times to get rid of gamebreaking bugs, both messing with main story quests. It was frustrating. And nevermind the times my car got destroyed because the game suddenly realized there were two cars occupying the same space. However I did manage to finish the game and make the choices I wanted, so it wasn’t that bad either.

My biggest complain is the blantant transphobia shown in the character creator. I know Claire exists and she’s awesome and I love her, but the cc options are just not inclusive enough. What’s the point of having them if you can’t use them anyway? Linking V’s pronouns to voice types makes absolutely no sense. And not being able to remove breasts from the female body type (or put them in the male body type) rubs me the wrong way as well, though I understand that it would involve a lot more animation work. Lastly, having body type-dependant hair styles is just plain inexcusable when the devs took the time to design genitals that are just not shown past the character creator (unless V walks around naked, I suppose). So, why bother having all these ✨choices✨ when the player can’t get a good, accurate customization anyway?

And it gets worse if we talk about romances. Real people have specific tastes and that’s completely understandable, but real life has a lot more than 4 choices in total. More importantly, bisexual people are a thing? There should have been at least one female and one male bisexual romance options in game. So to make it al worse, the constraint in gay romance options is... awful. Why have 3 types of gender-related customization if you can’t use them if you want to romance someone? I’m a cishet female who plays as a cishet female first if given the option, but I’m still bothered for the queer community (which I’m still part of btw, since I’m in the ace spectrum). It feels like being trans is more of a fetish in Night City than a real trait.

Speaking of romances, I played River’s and I found it... bit of a lackluster. I don’t find him physically attractive (shaved head and no beard are not my thing) but his voice was pretty nice and I liked his personality despite being a cop. But the main downside was the way the game treats his romance. I knew I wasn’t going to get a BioWare-style romance, but V’s relationship with River was like a sidenote and once he’s romanced, there’s just no way to interact with him again. That perhaps is the same for the other romances but there’s no replayability, in a sense that there’s no way to talk to/kiss him again or replay the sex scene, for instance. It bothered me that the game forces V to say that “she’s too busy” and apologize to her boyfriend all the time, because *I* would’ve made time to visit if there was ingame acknowledgement of it. The worst bit is that I feel like River’s romance is the least polished of them all, because Panam and Judy play important roles in main quests and Kerry is pivotal to Johnny’s sidequests, while River is... just there (also more further on, regarding the ending). So the fact that he’s like the forgotten child in the romance section while being the only cishet female option is heartbreaking.

The silverlining is that, at least, the mistreated community was het females instead of gay females. Although, this is just another example of game devs thinking about male players first.

Now the good part: what I liked

The cars. I’m not a car enthusiast, I don’t enjoy driving in real life and I’m a terrible driver in games, but I fucking loved the cars in CP2077. The Caliburn was like my game baby, I had so much fun driving around and hearing the different engines for each car, and the differences in driving... it was awesome. I got and bought *all* the available cars for the sake of it, just because I liked them so much.

The story. I love games that get me invested and this one was definitely one of those. Falling for Jackie when I knew he was not gonna be around for long was an expected, but still perfectly excecuted punch to the gut. And Johnny’s guidance and company was something I was hyped about, but still played out even better than I though it would. So to my next point, Keanu Reeves. I was thrilled to play a game with Keanu in it and it blew my mind. Those reviews that pinpoint Keanu’s acting as the weak link in the game are fucking wrong, how else you expect to see (and hear) an angry, resentful man permanently stuck in time? Even worse, when he knows the people he hated the most managed to kill him? I wasn’t happy when I learned Johnny was not a romance option but after meeting him, I’m glad that’s the case. He’s the perfect antihero-turned-best-friend for V, if you can stand him.

Stealth and hacking. Most of the time I choose the option to play stealthy and this time it wasn’t just that, it was the option to use futuristic technology at the same time. I LOVED it. Quickhacking enemies instead of shooting them is so much fun. Enemy detection is a bit wonky at times but still, I enjoyed it much better than if it had been a plain shooter. And those guns with homing shots are so cool that I wanted to play them over sniper rifles, my usual go tos.

The characters. I got invested in V’s relationships, even if the romantic aspect wasn’t as great as it could’ve been. Friendship with Kerry and Panam, clousure for Judy and Rogue, mourning Jackie, being part of River’s family, so many the fixers in existance... and Johnny, my bff Johnny. Even Alt, with her somewhat little role, was great. I was promised a compelling story and deep characters, and I did get both.

The soundtrack. Overall it’s pretty great, but my favorite songs are those related to Samurai. And it’s not even because of my love for Johnny, I really do enjoy them for their musical content. Unironically my all time favorite is Johnny’s as well, Never Fade Away. I won’t exit a car or open the menu when that song is playing.

The easter eggs. From GlaDOS and Silence of the Lambs in the Delamain quests to the Matix-esque pills of the main storyline, to Hideo Kojima and the BB in a lab, “Harvest like a Reaper” and the many “You’re breathtaking!” references (Kerry’s take was my favorite), the game presents A LOT of pop culture nods and I’m here for it. Having real life content creators around for several levels of cameos was a nice touch as well.

So without mentioning the heavy spoilers (aka ending), in my opinion, Cyberpunk 2077 deserves a 9/10. Bugs are fixable and the story and characters carry the game on it’s own because they’re just too good. The main story is kinda short and I believe Johnny’s sidequests should be part of the main story, but I get why they are not mandatory if you want to roleplay a full on dislike towards the rockerboy. But still, there are some things related to gender and romance that are complete misfires. I hope that some of those will be fixed via patches (the character creator bits), but the lack of more romance options or at least bisexual NPCs obviously won’t be fixed and that’s what keeps CP2077 away from a perfect score in my book.

Now, regarding the endings:

The one thing that truly bothered me was that the Rogue one had no real goodbyes for V. She goes into a suicide mission in space and everyone’s post-credit messages complain she just disappeared without a trace? I get she’s dying and all, but, for fuck’s sake leave a message explaining it if you cared so much about them. The game *makes* you care about the characters but doesn’t give you an option to honor that love at the end.

Also, again, romances. I played both Rogue and Panam’s endings so I know there’s no way to have a happy ending with River, which is bittersweet and probably for the best that it happens with him since his romance seems to be the least engaging, but again that makes me feel cheated. Not that they parted ways in the Nomad ending (that was sad, but sad endings are not bad), but that there is no happy-ish ending romance wise for a cishet female. People who romanced Panam obviously stay together with her and those who romanced Judy do too from what I’ve read (and no idea about Kerry’s romance), but not getting that option if you choose to be female and go for a het romance takes away from the game. Sadly. Also my last interaction with River in Rogue’s ending was fucking terrible, I liked how poetic that ending was for Rogue and Johnny until I got to the rest of my V’s life.

(But I still headcanon that River eventually joined V with the Aldecaldos in my canon ending, aka the Nomads’, despite what he said. Since his post-credit message implies he might visit her and stuff.)

As for the rest of the ending... CP2077 clearly states that life isn’t happy and that there’re no happy endings for people who live in NC, so I like that no ending is completely happy since you are bound to die anyway, but. But. It’s somewhat disheartening that the overall arc can be resumed to “all that you did served for nothing, you’re still dying so your efforts were absolutely useless.” I really don’t see how to improve it without defaulting to a happy, sunshine-esque ending that fixes everything, so I don’t know. It still wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear at the end, so... I liked it but didn’t, at the same time. Ha.

And lastly, I hoped for endgame playability and there is none, you have to revert to an earlier save to keep playing. I get why it wasn’t done, to give a definitive end to V’s story in NC, but anyway. What I really liked about this choice was that no matter the ending, V becomes no one again. They will be forgotten by most people after a while either because they leave with the nomads or because they ‘disappear’, aka die in a blaze of glory in that casino in space. Or well, sell their soul to Arasaka or commit suicide on the rooftop.

So overall, I loved this game and critics are somewhat too harsh. But I agree there are some terrible design choices and a long way of bugfixing to get to the specific masterpiece that we were hoping for.

[adamrevi3ws]

Jedi: Fallen Order

When I finished playing DOOM, I told myself that the next game I would play wouldn’t be one that pissed me off. Unfortunately, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order did not live up to those expectations.

While the source of my frustration with DOOM was mainly growing pains with its intense gameplay and action, Fallen Order mainly drew ire from me due to its unfinished and unpolished nature. Its publisher, EA, is in the same club as Ubisoft, Bethesda, and apparently now CD Projekt Red, often releasing games as broken glitchy messes when they first come out to meet quick deadlines. I’ve seen and heard how unplayable this game was at launch, and while it isn’t as bad as it was then, it still has enough subtle mistakes to ruin my gameplay experience. The main source of this and my frustration, in general, was the extremely finicky and unresponsive controls, particularly found in its two main selling points: platforming (and plot but I’ll talk about that later) directly lifted, if not plagiarized from the Uncharted games, and Dark Souls-esque combat gameplay. Nothing really lines up or “clicks” when it really needs to. Regarding the platforming, it feels like it takes a miracle to properly grab onto something and takes a thousand tries for a jump to work. When the double jump gets introduced, it really only works when the game, in its divine ignorance, feels the whim to let it work. A lot of reviewers complained about the difficult and unwieldy ice slide sequences in the game, and while I had my fair share of annoyance on a very specific ice slide, I think it’s just a symptom of a much larger problem. The combat shares this similar “the game only works when it wants to” problem. You don’t always dodge or block right when you want it to, but I think its biggest problem is healing. Instead of pressing a button and having part of your health restored, pressing said button instead “calls” your robot companion, which needs to do a special little animation and THEN you get healed, which takes a long 15 seconds. Not only does this waste a good amount of time in a game where time is absurdly precious in its hardcore combat, but every other time I tried calling the damn robot it straight up ignored me. I don’t know if this is a glitch, or it needs a cooldown period, or you can’t heal while being hit by an enemy, but it made the fights a lot more unnecessarily grating than they already are. Speaking of straight up screw you moments from the game, whenever I hit the “target” button in close combat with multiple enemies, it’d always target the farthest away enemy, for no reason. All of this is a shame because these main gameplay components are actually quite fun when they aren’t broken? A lot of the level design allows for really fast and exhilarating platforming that is absurdly fun when it syncs up, but that’s only, like half of the time. The combat can be enjoyable too, allowing for some great lightsaber duel boss fights, which can feel pretty cinematic when the combat actually works.

Outside of gameplay, the game’s unfinished nature shows itself a lot in its cutscenes. Its graphics just straight up dip and fail to fully render for 90% of these moments, often also feeling extremely choppy and cutting off a bit too soon. There was even one time an enemy was supposed to show up in a cutscene to initiate a boss fight but they just weren’t there and it was quite confusing because it felt like the main character was speaking to an empty wall. Around the middle of the game, both cutscenes and gameplay sequences would just freeze, and this is probably the first game I’ve played in a while to straight up crash on my PS4. If the developers took an extra, idk six months to actually fix this game a bit more I’d rate it a lot higher than I am now. I was actually warned about the game’s poor performance before playing, with a friend mentioning its horrible load times, but I didn’t know it’d be this bad. As my unopened copy of the infamous Cyberpunk 2077 waits on my mantlepiece for the developers to actually make it a playable game months after its release, I fear it may have the same fate as Fallen Order, still being quite a bit buggy and annoying over a year after its messy launch.

With its buggy and incohesive gameplay in mind, Jedi: Fallen Order’s strongest element is its plot. To my surprise, this is much less of a Star Wars game and more a game that just happens to be set in the Star Wars universe. Taking place between episodes 3 and 4, I kind of expected it to be an epic quest detailing the rise of the rebel alliance, but instead, I got a more generic treasure hunt storyline heavily reminiscent of the Uncharted series. Although this sounds quite disappointing, the game’s plot still soars in its great character arcs and setpieces interspersed the vague framework of its less-than-original overall plot. Combine these great individual moments with an absolutely bombastic ending and it almost makes trudging through the glitchy gameplay worth it. This is elevated by some great voice acting performances, particularly from Cameron Monaghan, who gives a movie star performance to the main character, even in a lot of moments where he doesn’t have much to work with. The setting is also a high point. Disney’s milking of Star Wars has led to a variety of media set between episodes 3 and 4, this game feels particularly special because it is more focused on the aftermath of Episode 3 rather than the buildup to Episode 4, which I think the rest of the media in this era is focused on. It’s clear that there are so many parts of the game that the studio put a lot of love in, ranging from the plot, to the memorable soundtrack (Mongolian throat singing, anyone?), to even the hilarious enemy dialogue, I just wish they put this amount of effort to make the game fully playable.

The one elephant in the room regarding this game that I haven’t mentioned so far is the game’s worlds/levels themselves. They aren’t annoyingly unpolished like the gameplay but aren’t really a labor of love either. Instead what we get is an admittedly gorgeous maze of areas within a few planets, constantly getting more twisty and confusing as you go on. It may visually resemble an open world, but it is very much a series of paths that make you go “hmmmm, should I go back to that other branching path to see if there are any healing upgrades or character customization options I can collect?” There’s nothing wrong about this MetroidVania style format, but frankly it’s not my type. A lot of the areas look visually similar so it’s quite easy to get lost, and despite each planet’s map being absurdly big, there’s no way to actually fast travel between areas, just between planets. Finally, the incentive to go back and explore isn’t particularly convincing, where the healing upgrades are a bit too well concealed and the character customization options are like, absurdly mid. This is the one time I actually wished an EA game had its own in-game currency so I could buy something cooler than “the same damn poncho you’re wearing except a slightly less boring color combination.” Come on, man! The one good thing I’ll say about the overall game world is that the in-game map highlights which paths you haven’t explored yet, making it much easier to get on track. While the game’s maze-like level style isn’t necessarily my thing, I think if the developers tried to make it a bit more interesting a lot of people would get a kick out of it.

Jedi: Fallen Order is a game that finally made me understand my college professors that went a bit too hard on my grammar mistakes when grading papers. The central content and ideas this game presents have a lot of potential, but they’re heavily weighed down by an infinite number of fixable mistakes. I give this game a 6.7 out of 10 stars.

[sass-and-suspenders]

The Patron Saint of Discounted Candy

GIF from big-brass-ego-deactivated201812

Pairing: Dr. Frederick Chilton x Reader

Words: 1,647

Author’s Note: This was based on a post by @somethingstately (but with a different ending because I have a soft spot for Chilton)

Frederick sighed as he walked down the grocery store aisle. Another Valentine’s Day had come and gone and, as usual, he had spent the day alone. His annual February 15th tradition of buying discounted candy and eating it alone on his couch in a fit of self-loathing was becoming hazardous for his mental health, not to mention his waistline.

As he made his way towards the colourful heart-shaped boxes, Frederick tried to avoid stepping on any of the rose petals, half-crushed candy hearts, and ribbons scattered across the aisle floor. No doubt these were the remnants of yesterday’s lovers and spouses frantically buying last-minute gifts on their way home from work. 

Frederick scoffed at the thought. If he was fortunate enough to be in a relationship on Valentine’s Day, he would certainly not leave anything to the last minute. No, plans would have been made months in advance; ordering his partner’s favourite flowers, making reservations at a Michelin-starred restaurant, buying countless gifts to spoil his partner with throughout the day. He would do everything to make certain his partner felt loved.

His thoughts turned to the only time he came close to spending Valentine’s Day with someone. It was during his second year of residency when he had been dating a cardiology resident. Full of excitement at the prospect of spending Valentine’s Day as a couple, he planned the perfect evening: dinner at the restaurant where they had their first date, tickets to see Swan Lake, and then back to his apartment which he would elaborately decorate with candles and flowers.

Except, on the evening before Valentine’s, Frederick had stumbled upon his partner with someone else in an on-call room. While the cheating broke his heart, it was the look on his partner’s face that had shattered it. She looked at him as if he was just a stranger who had entered the room. As if he was an annoyance. As if he meant nothing.

Frederick had spent the next three days holed up in his apartment, eating discounted chocolate and trying to drink to the point where he could appreciate the irony of a cardiologist breaking his heart.

Shaking off these unhappy memories, Frederick scanned the shelves for his preferred post-Valentine’s Day chocolates. Unfortunately, he had arrived at the store too late. The shelves had already been picked over, with only a smattering of sad-looking stuffed animals and the chocolate that tasted as if its main ingredient was sawdust remaining.

As Frederick turned to leave, resigned to his usual fate of eating dinner alone in front of the television, he spotted a lone heart-shaped box of his usual chocolate peaking out from the highest shelf.

Reaching for it, Frederick felt the pull of the stitches that now sullied his abdomen. He lowered his arm and scowled. No employee was in sight nor was a step stool. Pursing his lips, Frederick mulled over his options.

He could forget about the chocolate, but he desperately needed a win today.

He could go find an employee, but that would leave the chocolate open for someone else to take it.

He could step on the lowest shelf for a height boost, but the shelves did not look stable enough to support the weight of an adult male, particularly one whose clothes had been fitting a bit too snug lately.

He hated that he had been reduced to this -a man who was spending more time and energy than one should on obtaining a discounted box of chocolate.

A man who was missing a kidney.

A man who needed a cane.

However, Frederick realized that his cane would be useful in this situation. It was a crude solution, using his cane to knock the box off of the shelf, but it would do the trick. Though, on his first attempt, the only thing Frederick managed to knock over was a teddy bear.

Cursing under his breath, Frederick gingerly bent down to retrieve the fallen bear. As his fingers skimmed its plush fur, he noticed stuffing seeping out of a small hole in the bear’s stomach. Upon the realization, Frederick let out a bark of bitter laughter. Clearly, the universe was playing yet another cruel joke on him.

And, to pour salt on his literal wound, someone was about to grab his box of chocolate.

“That’s mine,” Frederick snapped at the offender.

“Excuse me?” You turned your head to face the man who spoke.

Frederick straightened, the teddy bear still clutched in his hand, and gestured towards the obnoxiously large heart-shaped box now in your possession. “That’s my chocolate.”

Your initial reaction was to assume the man was joking, but the expression on his face told you otherwise.

“Right, and that was made so clear by the chocolate being up there on the shelf and you being a foot away staring intently at a teddy bear,” you deadpanned, feeling a spark of annoyance at his sense of entitlement.

“Well, I was about to get it,” Frederick replied, suddenly feeling flustered.

“Look, I’m not going to argue with you over a box of chocolate. You can have it,” you said, holding out the box to him.

Frederick was momentarily stunned by your gesture; he was rarely on the receiving end of kindness these days.

“Thank you, but you should keep it. You did get to it first after all,” Frederick gave you a shy smile.

It was that small, almost hesitant, smile that made you reconsider your first impression of him.

“How about we flip a coin for it?” You suggested and Frederick nodded.

“Heads or tails?” He asked, reaching for a coin in his pocket.

“Tails.”

Frederick tossed the coin and both of you watched it somersault in the air a few times before Frederick caught it. Opening his hand slightly, Frederick saw George Washington’s profile staring back at him.

“Well?” You prompted, unable to see the outcome from where you were standing.

“Tails, definitely tails,” he lied, slipping the coin into his pocket.

You held his gaze for a moment and Frederick was worried you could see through his ruse.

“That’s lucky,” you finally said, allowing Frederick to let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “At least you’re not leaving empty-handed.”

Frederick’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“The bear?” You pointed to the stuffed animal he was still holding.

“Oh, no, this,” He stammered, a blush creeping up his cheeks. “I was just picking it up off the floor.”

“That’s too bad -it’s a cute bear.”

“He’s also damaged,” Frederick pointed out, showing you the gash in the bear’s chest.

“All the more reason why he needs a good home. Besides,” you added, studying the bear. “He’s definitely fixable.”

Frederick fiddled with the bear for a few seconds before speaking again. “Perhaps you should take him as well.”

“Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

“Okay, but then you take the chocolate.”

Frederick was opening his mouth to protest, but you cut him off.

“It’s not fair if I get the chocolate and the bear. Besides, the only chocolate left is the kind that tastes like sawdust and I can’t in good conscious let you buy that.”

“Alright,” Frederick consented, feeling a frisson of excitement as your fingers brushed his when you exchanged the items.

“I promise to take good care of the bear.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Frederick replied, not being able to muster the courage to look into your eyes. It certainly didn’t help that you managed to look lovely even in this dreadful supermarket lighting.

Sensing that the conversation had nearly run its course, Frederick blurted out the first thing that came to mind in a desperate attempt to remain in your company a few moments longer.

“Did you know that the origins of Valentine’s Day can be traced back to a Roman fertility festival called Lupercalia?”

Oh my God, I am such an idiot, he thought, wanting to fling himself into the sun. He swore he could even feel the judgmental stares of the rejected Valentine’s Day stuffed animals on his back. At least he’d had enough sense not to go into detail about what the festival involved. He couldn’t remember anyone making him feel this nervous before.

But instead of finding his rambling annoying, as the tiny voice in the back of his mind told him you would, you smiled at him.

“And yet everyone thinks that Valentine’s Day is a conspiracy invented by Hallmark and chocolate companies.”

Frederick grinned at your joke. He desperately wanted to ask for your phone number but he could feel the tiny voice in the back of his mind growing louder, telling him not to be ridiculous. Someone like you must certainly be in a relationship and, if by some miracle you weren’t, why would you ever want to be with him?

As if sensing his thoughts and deciding to take matters into your own hands, you plucked a heavily discounted box of Peppa Pig valentines off of the shelf and, after taking one of the many pens from your bag, began to write your name and number on one of the cards.

“In case you ever want to visit the bear,” you explained, handing the card over to the man in front of you. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m going to pay for these cards,” you added, mistakenly attributing the shock on Frederick’s face to your blatant disregard of store regulations.

Frederick fought the urge to pinch himself and delicately accepted the card. He would later tell you that your small action was responsible for dividing his life into before and after.

With that you said your goodbyes, remarking that you (and the bear) hoped to hear from him soon.

Watching your retreating figure, Frederick said a silent prayer of thanks. While St. Valentine might have abandoned him, his prayers had certainly been heard by the patron saint of discounted candy.

[echoise]

trembling hands. (vague steelstep, m!sidestep (Keith!)) 888 words

“It’s not just the caffeine, is it?“

Keith looks up from his crossword to where Chen is standing, arms crossed, leaning on the doorframe. Chen’s looking at his arm: elbow on the table, the tremors clear as the pen in his hand quivers.

Keith sets it down and folds his hands on top of one another on the table. The look he gives Chen is calculating, weighing options. His brain always racing, trying to stay ahead of everyone else. It’s both dangerous and captivating - both their own entries on the list.

“No,“ he finally admits, one piece of the mask he has chosen to wear breaking clean away. “The window... I was shielding my head when I went through. The shards dug in.” His voice has gone quiet, but still calm. “Severed some nerves completely.“ The look in his eyes is one of resignation.

Chen moves to sit opposite him, mirroring his hands: setting them on the table and folding them. “I’m sorry.“

Keith shrugs. “You get used to it. Believe it or not, the caffeine helps.“ His smile is wry, but hollow.

“You should still cut back,“ Chen says, casting a meaningful glance at the mug by the crossword, half empty.

“Oh, get off my case.” Keith rolls his eyes and pulls the mug closer. “I don’t harp on your bad habits.“

“That’s a lie and you know it.“

Keith doesn’t answer. Silence stretches between them, punctuated by the clink of his spoon against the sides of the coffee mug. 

“I looked into mods.“ The words come without invitation, given freely. Easier to speak now that it’s out in the open. “But I didn’t...“

“Is it fixable?“ Always practical.

“Anything is, for the right price.“ There isn’t even a smile this time. The blue eyes are cast downward, focusing on the swirling black liquid rather than the man before him. “I’d need stabilizers and sensors. They would need to be surgically implanted. But...“

“You couldn’t afford it,” Chen finishes for him. He’s intimately familiar with that dilemma. Keith’s smile returns, softer this time, so Chen dares to ask. “They didn’t try to fix it? The people who... took you.“

That hits a nerve because Keith tenses up, suppressing the tremors by grabbing the mug harder. The laugh that rises out of him is strained. “What use does a telepath have for his hands?“

“Are those your thoughts, or theirs?“ Chen’s voice is soft.

“Does it matter?“ Keith’s is not.

“Yes.“

Keith doesn’t answer, opting to pointedly chug the remaining coffee in his mug. Chen sighs.

“How bad is it?“

“Very.“ Keith sounds tired, and looks even more so. Like the conversation has weighed him down another seven years.

“Just the hands?“ Chen keeps looking at them, genuinely curious. Subconsciously flexing his own fingers, remembering how it felt when they were still real.

“And forearms.“ Keith sets the mug down and mimics protecting his face with his arms, showing how the window would have broken against them. Flat, not using his elbows like he should have. There’s that smile again, lips curved, but no emotion behind it. “Fell face first, too. I believe it wasn’t very pretty.“

“I’m sorry.“ Again. Because what else is there to say?

“Don’t.“

“I mean it.“

“I know.“ Keith rubs his eyes, burying his face in his hands for a second. Chen lets him, allows him that moment to pull himself together. A peace offering.

When he lifts his chin again, his expression is schooled back into tired nonchalance, blue eyes betraying nothing. “Are you going to tell Ortega?“

Chen raises a surprised brow. “He doesn’t know.“

“You think I would tell him?“ Keith picks the pen up again, giving him a pointed look. “He thinks I drink too much coffee and sleep too little.“

“You do, though.“

“Don’t you start.“ There’s an annoyed edge to his voice, and for some reason Chen delights in it. It’s more tangible than the carefully constructed indifference, the sleek mask of apathy and weariness that so rarely slips. “I have enough to put up with just with his mothering.“

“I’m just stating a fact.“

“What do you want, Chen?“ The words are an accusation, an attempt at riling him up, but it’s half-hearted. No real fire behind them. They both know that if he wanted, Keith could strum up an argument out of nothing: but he doesn’t want to. Neither of them wants that, not right now.

Chen hesitates a second before answering. “I’m worried about you.“

Keith sighs. “What did I just say?“

“Fine.“ Chen opts to back down. Reluctant to fight a man with so many exposed nerves, raw and tender. He quietly gets up and Keith turns his attention back to the crossword, the pen in his hand still shaking.

He gets to the door before making up his mind an turning halfway back. “I was going to walk Spoon.“

Keith looks up, surprised. “You bring him to work?“

“Sometimes.“ Chen looks him over, musing if the surprise is genuine, if he really hadn’t plucked that from anyone’s mind. Wondering if this is a good idea at all, because it’s certainly not wise. “You could come if you want to.“

Keith wets his lips, setting the pen down gently. His fingers shake less than they did ten minutes ago. “I’d like that.“

[horrorfled]

@oerginals​​ | starter | for chuck

When Scout wakes up, turns off her alarm, and see that the date reads October 30th, she wants to scream. It’s hard not to, when her phone’s been showing her the exact same thing for the past three days. It’d be one thing if it was just her phone that was fucked up, annoying sure but fixable, but she knows now that the date’s just the start. The tweets will be the same, the instagram stories, the music on the radio in the car, all of it. All of it will be the exact fucking same because either Scout’s living October thirtieth for the fourth time in a row, or she’s officially losing her mind and quite frankly she doesn’t know which of those is the less appealing option.

It’d been almost easy to explain away at first. A weird side effect of her powers, some kind of weirdly vivid dream. The kind of thing that’s annoying and kind of freaky, but no more so than anything else she’s dealt with over the past decade. Now, though, she’s not so sure. Even if this is some kind of dream situation, it’s freaking her out that she can’t tell the difference between that and reality anymore. The possibility that she’s finally cracked is a pretty distinct one, too, which is less than fucking ideal, to say the least.

Looking at Chuck sleeping peacefully next to her she considers, for a second, just letting her rest and trying to figure this out herself. The idea is dismissed pretty quickly, though, because not only does she absolutely need Chuck to talk her down from a panic attack right now, but because she also knows her wife well enough to know that she’d be pissed if Scout didn’t involve her in this. Forget in sickness and health, they should have had in weird paranormal shit and brief, glorious glimpses of normality written into their vows. With that in mind she puts her hand on Chuck’s shoulder and gives her a none too gentle shake-so sue her, she’s freaking out.

“Chuck-babe-you gotta-wake up babe something’s really wrong.”

[edenfalling]

8 things make a post

Things and stuff:

1. I bought a bus ticket to NJ today, which I will use on Tuesday the 14th. The plan is to go out for dinner and whatever with my friend Susan (as a slightly belated birthday thing -- her birthday, not mine), then breakfast or lunch with my parents on Wednesday, and then I return to Ithaca with the family's spare Camry in my care until 2019. I have also acquired a new set of Great Courses CDs in preparation for the drive. :)

2. I dropped off the rest of my church recycling sale donations, which is a nice thing to check off my to-do list.

3. I finished the beta-read I'd promised the_rck, which is another nice thing to check off my to-do list. :) (The story is another creepy-fascinating Sky High AU installment. If you like that sort of thing, you will like it a lot!)

4. I bought two five-pair-packs of sterling silver fish-hook earring hooks online last week, which arrived on Saturday. You see, I am hypersensitive to trace metals in earrings, to the point where I often have allergic reactions to surgical steel or titanium earring hooks even though they're supposedly hypoallergenic. Apparently my ears can still sense traces of nickel or whatever, and I get sore, red ears for several days after wearing some of my favorite earrings. This is annoying, and it finally occurred to me that it's also completely fixable. So I am fixing it, one pair of earrings at a time -- with the help of some fingernail scissors, a smallish set of needle-nose pliers, and a bunch of determination.

5. I wanted to get a haircut on Saturday but my hair place was tragically closed. I need to check tomorrow to see if they're just on vacation or if I need to find a new hair place. (I do not want to find a new hair place. I like my hair guy. ...Fortunately, having short hair means I can go to barber shops rather than salons, and they are so much cheaper.)

6. My fall Spanish professor STILL has not posted her textbook list online. She is also unreachable via email; every time I've tried, I get a "this email address doesn't exist" error message. *headdesk* I am going to call the TC3 advising department tomorrow to ask them what's going on and whether I need to switch into a different class, because this is getting worrisome.

7. New Hire called out on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, but she did show up on Saturday and the absence was due to her child being sick, so I am still moderately confident that she's going to work out. I'm not entirely sure why she wants the job -- she lives over half an hour away in non-rush-hour traffic, the hours are weird, and it's part-time so there aren't any benefits -- but hey, her choice. (I want her to work out so badly, you have no idea.)

8. I have my Remix Revival assignment and my Narnia Fic Exchange assignment. I know what I'm doing for the first; I just need to hash out a few details and then sit down to write. It shouldn't take too long since it's not terribly lengthy or involved.

I am less certain of the NFE assignment. I like the request! I even have three workable options off the top of my head. But all three would be relatively long and complicated, and require a bunch of background outlining and worldbuilding, and while August is my good writing month (no classes for two and a half weeks, yay!), I don't know that I have enough time. But I do want to write all three of those stories -- they are all things I have at least tangentially mentioned before, and in two cases written some exploratory snippets that I then set aside for later -- and the only shorter things I can think of that fit the prompt are things I have already written. (And now that I say this, I have thought of a fourth story option... which again is long and complicated and requires intensive background work. *sigh*) So... dilemma!

I guess I will poke at the options some more tomorrow, and try to get the Remix assignment out of the way so I will have more mental time and space to devote to whatever NFE fic I end up deciding upon.