#Mean Well Distributor

[wellforcesltd]

Exploring the Advantages of Rack Mount AC to DC Power Converters

Nowadays, the demand for reliable and efficient power solutions is higher than ever. For businesses and data centers, the choice of power conversion equipment is critical to ensuring uninterrupted operations. Rack mount AC to DC power converters have emerged as indispensable components for organizations seeking reliable and space-efficient power solutions. And choosing the right one is also critical, if you are not aware of the product.  So, choosing an authentic brand from the company like Wellforces Ltd is a safe approach as they are only dealing with reputed power supply brands.

In this blog post, we will explore the advantages of using AC to DC power converters which are rack mounted.

Space Efficiency

One of the most significant advantages of rackmount power supply is their space-saving design. These are specifically engineered to fit into standard 19-inch equipment racks, which are commonly used in data centers and network installations. By integrating the power conversion equipment into the rack, you can optimize the use of valuable floor space.

Improved Cable Management

Rack mounted AC to DC power converters streamline cable management. With the converters neatly installed within the rack, you can minimize cable clutter, reducing the risk of cable damage and making it easier to trace and troubleshoot power connections.

Modular and Scalable

Rack mount DC power supply is available in modular configurations, allowing you to scale your power infrastructure as needed. You can add or remove converter modules to match your evolving power requirements without the need for extensive rewiring or downtime.

Enhanced Reliability

Reliability is paramount when it comes to power supply equipment. Rack mount AC DC power supply is designed for robust and continuous operation. It often features built-in redundancy options, ensuring that your critical systems remain powered even in the event of a component failure.

Energy Efficiency

Many modern Rack Mount AC to DC power converters are engineered with energy efficiency in mind. They incorporate features such as high-efficiency power conversion, smart load management, and power factor correction, helping to reduce energy consumption and lower operating costs.

Improved Power Quality

Rack mount converters often include power conditioning features that can enhance power quality by stabilizing voltage levels and reducing electrical noise. This is particularly important for sensitive equipment like servers, networking gear, and storage devices.

Cost Savings

While the initial investment in AC to DC power converters may seem significant, their long-term cost savings are substantial. These savings come from reduced energy consumption, improved reliability, and decreased maintenance costs.

Conclusion

Rack mount AC to DC power converters offer a multitude of benefits for organizations seeking efficient and reliable power solutions. So, to buy such products, you can consider Wellforces Ltd. We are the reputed distributor of Mean Well switching power supplies in New Zealand, which is one of the leading switching power supply brands. You can try our Mean Well DC DC converter and see the difference. 

[brewscoop]

Discover how the Louisiana Craft Brewers Guild is driving the craft beer industry forward! Learn about the recent legislative efforts, the economic impact, and the passionate brewers behind this growing scene. Cheers to local craft beer! #LouisianaBeer #CraftBeerGrowth #BrewScoop

[catboybiologist]

"Death before Detransition" does not mean that I will kill myself if I can't access hormones or be referred to by my preferred language.

It means that there will always be another way. There will always be a stockpile, or distributors, or ways to synthesize the medicine we need. And even if that fails, there will always be community. There will always be identity. There will always be expression, and identity, or some piece of the trans experience, whether it be societal, physiological, or even completely internal, in perpetuity, that lives through every transgender person.

"Death before Detransition" means that the only way to erase my reality as a transgender woman is to put me in the ground.

We'll talk damage control and ways to help in the coming days and weeks. I welcome input on the topic as well- if there's a cause you want recognition for that will suffer under the new administration, let me know.

But for now, rest. Sleep. Take care of yourself.

I love you.

[thebibliosphere]

Minor heads up but given some new nonsense with my audiobook distributor Findaway Voices and their new ToS regarding Spotify (Courtney Milan has broken it down fairly well on Twitter), I may end up pulling the audiobooks from everywhere except Audible and my Payhip store. This means the majority of my global access and access to library services will be lost.

I’d prefer not to do this, obviously. A not insignificant chunk of my income comes from library lending when it comes to audio. But Spotify potentially being able to make translations of my work without permission or any royalties going to me (not to mention their own derivatives of my work) is hair raising.

Findaway already issued another email stating that they are ‘working to clarify any unclear language’ (it’s pretty fucking clear; they were just banking on people not reading it like they did the whole AI scraping debacle) likely due to being inundated with complaints and authors pulling their work left, right and center.

Hopefully any changes they make will make this less of a fucking nightmare, but regardless I will be pulling the books from Spotify. I’ve already submitted the changes. So, sorry if you were listening on Spotify but we live in the bad timeline and can’t have shit 🙃

I’m still going to wait on their update before I pull the plug entirely, but Jesus Fuck. Between this and Ingram Spark being a perpetual nightmare it’s like they want to drive people to Amazon.

I’m so tired.

[alexanderwales]

I'm a lover of standards, mostly because they're carefully designed semi-taxonomies that have to bump up against the real world and deal with complications that happen when used beyond scope, or when time marches forward and the assumptions the standard was made under crumble.

I was looking at a pill I take and saw that it had two symbols on it, a circle next to a pinched circle, and I thought, "huh, this must be part of some identification system", but I was confused, because 1) circle and pinched circle seem difficult to manually enter into a system and 2) order seems difficult to determine, which isn't a problem per se, but does unnecessarily lower the number of bits the engraving gives. It struck me that this seemed, on its face, like a bad standard, and I thought "there's probably an interesting reason it's like this".

Turns out there is no standard!

For purposes of this section, code imprint means any single letter or number or any combination of letters and numbers, including, e.g., words, company name, and National Drug Code, or a mark, symbol, logo, or monogram, or a combination of letters, numbers, and marks or symbols, assigned by a drug firm to a specific drug product.

This is crazy to me. The system is just "eh, make sure it's uniquely identifiable". This is caveman shit. And the system is not even "have a unique code imprint", it's

Unless exempted under § 206.7, no drug product in solid oral dosage form may be introduced or delivered for introduction into interstate commerce unless it is clearly marked or imprinted with a code imprint that, in conjunction with the product's size, shape, and color, permits the unique identification of the drug product and the manufacturer or distributor of the product.

So two pills can have the same code imprint so long as they're different colors! Fuck the colorblind, I guess? Not to mention how much it sucks having to enter some of this shit into a computer system, or how much it must suck to maintain a searchable database of drugs.

This is one of those cases where I really would have expected a bunch of intelligent people to have done their best to make a system that worked well under 99% of circumstances and then buckled under some kind of real world constraints or shifting landscapes.

Instead, it's a free-for-all, just total lack of coherent vision and respect for standards in a place where it feels like there really ought to be standards, given how regulated the industry is.

(One of the big use cases here is "person found unconscious with unknown pills", which is time critical and a case where you want a person with no training or experience to be able to correctly transmit information rather than trying to decide whether the pill's color is teal or blue, or whether the symbol is a pinched circle or a regular circle.)

(And yeah, part of the reason this has never come to fruition is because Big Pharma just doesn't want to do it, since it would mean retooling some of their production lines or something, and would also allow for less in the way of branding. They're required to put on the imprint code, so ... I don't know, smells like bullshit to me, or like a case for gradually phasing in enforcement. Hardly the most pressing issue facing the United States healthcare system, I know.)

[little-one-eyed-monsters]

Top Form goes TOO meta Part 2: Headliner TH (which represents Boom Raveewit) is officially beefing with Grand Ivory Records (which represents Smart Chisanupong)

Also, it's their AGENCIES, not the actors themselves.

When I said I wanted to be part of the JinAkin fandom, I didn't mean that LITERALLY, dear God what is happening.

Side note: this post isn't meant to spread hate, I love this show and these two actors more than I can express, and I want them to do super duper well. I wrote this retrospective because I find this situation super interesting from a business and industry standpoint. I haven't seen a company more committed to destroying their own talent's success since Attrakt torpedoed the KPop group Fifty-Fifty's reputation three years ago.

Alright, my wonderful friends-- if you haven't seen this on X yet, this whole situation blew up when Grand Ivory Records, the record label managing rights and distribution to Smart Chisanupong's music and performances, released this statement a few days after the airing of Top Form ep. 9:

This is a tricky situation and I initially discussed more about what that means for Smart and Boom here. This previous discussion was written before WeTV's formal statement just yesterday though, so more on that below.

Basically, the gist of Smart's predicament is that even before Top Form The Series was produced, he was already signed to Grand Ivory Records (GIR) as a recording artist; thus, GIR promotes, distributes and licenses all of his songs and musical performances. As a recording company however, GIR was previously uninterested in handling Smart's possible foray into acting (or any of his projects besides music, for that matter). They signed a co-management deal with Headliner TH, who is now responsible for funding and promoting Smart's acting ventures. Now, after the success of the series and Smart's increased bankability as a talent, GIR is fighting to EXCLUSIVELY handle all of Smart's projects-- music or otherwise-- moving forward.

Usually, companies loan out their talents to other agencies as a way to save money on promotions and project deals, especially for artists who they find difficult to market (as evidenced by how little GIR has marketed Smart in the past four years he's been signed to their label). Their artist still has to pay them a cut of the royalties for any projects, but they don't have to spend money to actively find new projects or promote their talents because the co-agency is doing it for them.

For example, THIS was the extent of the promos done by GIR to market Smart's new series Top Form: retweeting posts from the official social media pages:

Meanwhile, Headliner underwent a respectable marketing campaign for Top Form, activating both their modeling agency Image Future, and their new prod house Tai Lai to generate buzz for the project. Headliner launched a SmartBoom vlog series on their Youtube channel. Image Future secured separate modeling gigs for Smart and Boom for different clothing brands and product tie-ins, and Tai Lai is currently selling an official photobook for the ship:

Headliner even organized a pre-airing fanmeet for all the fans of the original manga in both Thailand and Japan:

And WeTV even went one step further and featured Smart and Boom as guests in Chuang Asia season 2, the most watched idol survival show in Asia (and the no. 1 reality show in China). This drew in a truly MASSIVE Chinese fanbase for SmartBoom:

But of course, it would be a disservice to the cast and crew to say that the success of Top Form is solely attributed to its marketing. WeTV is primarily based in China, and was only known to Thai audiences as an international distributor and licensee of Asian shows. It only recently ventured into original programming, so its foothold on Thai audiences is tenuous at best. Top Form's marketing campaign is only a fraction of what GMMTV or Mandee does to promote their shows, and Headliner hasn't really launched many successful ships (or shows) in Thailand since their inception. Top Form, and SmartBoom, was the exception:

Needless to say, GIR wanted a bigger cut of the profits.

For each project performed by Smart for the press tour of Top Form, and the series' tie-ins, GIR gets a small cut of the profits due to their co-partnership deal with Headliner. This is probably a miniscule cut though, and looking at his potential now, they are adamant to keep Smart on their roster. Why else would they be stirring up trouble even before the series has finished airing yet? RUDE.

Yes Jade, they did.

From my very amateur internet sleuthing of pages, forums and past interviews (and if anyone wants to correct me, I am more than happy to be corrected), Smart first signed to Yoma Entertainment with the intention to debut as an idol. When he and his group was placed in limbo (a common occurence for these record labels), he jumped ship and tried to join MeMindY (then a very new company, with only TharnType 2 under its roster). When he and acting partner James were informed that their promised series would be placed on filming hiatus, Smart decided to sign with GIR in late 2021.

This means that Smart has been with GIR for almost four years, with barely anything to show for it. No album, no concerts, no group to speak of. Endless hours of training and serving as support talent for other projects, before GIR gave up and loaned Smart to a relatively new acting agency (Headliner) for a project produced by an unknown house (Tai Lai), all under WeTV-- a foreign company that barely understands Thai popular culture. Now that Smart is bankable, GIR is salivating at the thought of managing all of his (now profitable) projects, including acting.

This of course, pissed Tai Lai and Headliner to all HECK:

Tai Lai posted this a few hours after GIR's announcement, seemingly disputing their claim that the dissolution of the co-partnership was mutual. They also sadly implied that this new arrangement is causing turmoil for the cast and crew. The X meltdown went from bad to worse when Top Form's Director Boss Wasa posted a goodbye message to Top Form on his IG story, despite the confirmation of WeTV's CEO that the series was originally slated for a three-season run.

And of course, everything came to a head this morning when WeTV (and all the other subsidiaries) CLEARLY DISPUTED the claim that the co-partnership has dissolved, and that GIR now retains sole representation rights to Smart.

They also emphasized the resources they've dedicated to ensuring the success of the ship, and that they're willing to fight to retain representation rights for both Smart and Boom.

Jake $ing's "I'm Still In Love With You" plays in the distanc-- oh wait, this is real life? Bummer.

So... has this impacted the fandom in any way?

Well first off, the Chinese fandom is unbelievably MAD at GIR at the moment:

There's only one fandom in this world I respect and fear an unhealthy amount, and that's the Chinese fandom. They have the numbers AND the spending power to cause significant damage to any entity of their choosing (where else would you find a fandom capable of buying out a whole collection of Louis Vuitton suitcases in 24 hours?). I've seen them turn nobodies into sensations overnight, and banish well-respected veterans that do not pass their standards.

The Chinese fandom was able to stage an active boycott in less than a day. It got so bad that GIR had to release a separate stament to assure fans that Smart and Boom would continue their projects as a pair, albeit with some management restrictions. The founder and CEO of GIR also posted this on her private IG :

Hinting that the troubles between these companies run deep. The Chinese fandom says on X that without a joint announcement from all companies clearing the air, they refuse to support any GIR products, and will only focus on supporting Smart during his Headliner promos.

Has this affected Smart and Boom's dynamic at all?

The short answer is seemingly NO. Unless both Smart and Boom are that good at acting (which they are, oh no wrong supposition 😅), they're still very funny and charming in interviews, and affectionate with one another as with the rest of the cast.

If there is trouble behind the scenes, at least there's the guarantee that Smart doesn't have anything to with all this kerfuffle. Smart is the first of the cast to always bring up the possibility of a second season, and seems very proud of the series and his ship with Boom.

Anyway, here's the saga so far. I stand with WeTV, but I have to admit, I am getting worried about the whole affair. I hope it blows over soon.

We'll see.

Now WeTV, shoot that season 2 already for pete's sake! Or that cop/vampire drama. Y'all so slow GMMTV might catch wind of the issues and grab your talents from under your noses.

[kaibutsushidousha]

The Hundred Line writing team interview from Famitsu issue 1895

Let's start off establishing what each of you do in the game.

Kazutaka Kodaka: The project was originally my idea, and I worked as the General Director and Story Director.

Koutarou Uchikoshi: I worked primarily as a Writer, and also as Director No. 2.

Mr. Togawa, Oyama, Ishii, and Koizumi, please tell us your career history in addition to your role.

Akihiro Togawa: I worked as Gameplay Director, Writer, Screen Composition Director, Schedule Manager, Task Distributor, Debug Manager, and various other miscellaneous roles. I previously worked at Atlus's Team Persona. My roles in the Persona series included Section Leader and Story Director.

Kyouhei Oyama: Aside from being a Writer, I'm the writer in charge of the off-game stories. I was originally a light novel author, but then switched to a freelance game writer job. After working as the main writer for the VR visual novels Tokyo Chronos and ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos, I was lucky enough to become a member of Too Kyo games.

Nonon Ishii: I'm a Writer and created the Invaders' language. I took a college internship at Too Kyo Games and made my employment official immediately after graduation. This will be my debut title and even I can't believe how massive of a game I'm starting off with.

Youichirou Koizumi: I'm a writer. I knew Kodaka and Uchikoshi since my novelist days and we have been working together since before we founded Too Kyo Games.

I'd like to ask Mr. Kodaka and Uchikoshi how do you feel now that development is finished (note: this interview was conducted on February 28th) and you are now just waiting for the release day.

Kodaka: I'm excited to see what people will say about it, considering that this game is in so many ways different from what I've done before. I'm relieved to see that the Steam demo has been incredibly well-received. I believe that the demo was the right marketing strategy, both for sales and for my mental health. There was a time I was worried about this selling less than a thousand copies, but not anymore (pained laughter).

Uchikoshi: Same answer as Kodaka. We tried a lot of new things, and that got us with a script not only huge but also made through a unique process. I was never capable of imagining player reactions, so no guessing how they'll feel about until I see it happen. In that sense, what I look forward to the most are the post-release reviews.

Was it decided from the get-go that the script size would be humongous?

Kodaka: One of the initial concept keywords was "a visual novel that never ends". We want to create a VN that a player could keep playing for as long as they still wanted, so we predicted a sizable script. We made a game with 100 routes and left the story branching direction to the expert, Uchikoshi. The game was envisioned as an Uchikoshi title first and foremost: everything was built upon the idea of having many routes, and it worked. I can confidently say the game is good.

Uchikoshi: However, we also made it so you don't have to play every route to fully enjoy it. Kodaka's order was to make every route feel like it could have been the true route, so we made different stories covering various genres. We want you find your favorite route and interpret that one as the true ending.

This game is Kodaka's and Uchikoshi's first collaboration. Did you discover anything new about each other working together?

Kodaka: We didn't spend the whole time in neighboring desks, and had distinctively separate tasks, so not really…

Uchikoshi: I just confirmed what I already knew: that Kodaka is an amazing director. Now I see that the reason for that is his willingness to be mean. I keep my distance from my staff, so I struggle to tell them that A was actually supposed to be B. Kodaka doesn't. He makes difficult requests and the staff listens to him because these corrections make the game incredible. I respect and want to learn from him, because that's how a director needs to be.

Kodaka: If you don't say things would be better another way, you'll only regret it later. When I talked about my struggles to a famous anime director, he said "You may think things are acceptable as they currently are, but after you put in the work to improve them, you won't feel the same way." and that really clicked with me. Since then, I stopped holding back on what I tell the staff.

Do you all have any particularly memorable correction requests from Kodaka?

Koizumi: None that I can remember.

Kodaka: That's because you only joined the writing team later. There was barely anything left to fix at that point.

Uchikoshi: Media Vision, the developer, was who had it the roughest, no?

Togawa: No, their problems passed from person to person until they reached me (pained laughter). But none of that ever felt unreasonable. When Kodaka explained something, it was always easy to agree that it would make the game better, so I was constantly feeling positive about my work. However, as the Schedule Manager, there was some internal conflict between "this is guaranteed to improve the game" vs "this will add so many work hours".

Oyama: I loved how this was an easy environment for us writers to get all of our ideas implemented, as the only condition given is that they don't suck. Whenever I had nothing to fix, I'd just come up with something funny, and if the proposal passed the "interesting" threshold, it'd be approved. So it's hard to answer about difficulties when this has been one of the easiest jobs ever.

Ishii: They even implement ideas from a total novice like me. I remember the joy I felt I saw that an idea I came up with on the spot in the middle of a meeting made it into the game.

Kodaka: That's because I'll be taking credits for my subordinates' achievements (laughs).

(laughs) What was the writing process like?

Kodaka: Due to the immense size of this game's script, we decided to split the work between the team. I wrote the main route, then based on that, Uchikoshi came up with the branching system and general ideas for what goes in which branch story, and lastly, we distributed the routes to the writers as necessary. There's only 6 of us here, but including the guest writers, I'd say the game was written by about 10 people.

How did you decide who gets each route?

Uchikoshi: Some they chose, some we assigned to them.

Koizumi: All of mine were just assigned to me without warning (laughs).

Togawa: I didn't get to choose anything either (laughs).

Kodaka: That's because you two joined later. The writers joined the project at different dates. At first, it was just Uchikoshi and Ishii, plus people who aren't here today. Oyama and Koizumi joined in this order, and Togawa was the last. When was it that you entered the team, Togawa?

Togawa: August 2023, I think. It was around that time that I sorted out our schedule and figured out that we'd need a miracle to salvage this production.

Kodaka: Meaning that by September 2023, the writer team wasn't complete yet (pained laughs).

Togawa: I rebuilt that schedule over and over again, but even my best attempts left me unsure if we could deliver the game in time. As such, I had to make Kodaka also write some side routes, and with that, we somehow managed to put the script together.

Yeah, I can see that happening when you have 100 routes…

Kodaka: Still, there were some new discoveries that would never have happened if we weren't splitting the work like this. This is my first time making other people play with my characters, so proofreading the other routes was a kind of fun I never knew before. The feeling of "Is this really what my character would do in this scenario?" is very new and interesting. It's also fun to pick out on each writer's peculiarities. For example, Uchikoshi fans will immediately be able to notice when a route is written by Uchikoshi.

This game features a cast of very unique characters. What was the process of creating them like?

Kodaka: I came up with all the characters on my own, and the first thing I had settled on was that the Special Defense Unit would have 15 students. What changed is that I intended the students to be more down-to-earth characters, but as I kept adding quirks whenever I was finding them too generic, they came to become what they are now.

Uchikoshi: Is that why the characters who join later (Nozomi Kirifuji, Kurara Oosuzuki, Kyoshika Magadori, Yugamu Omokage, Mojiro Moko) are the most eccentric ones?

Kodaka: That was the intention… we even talked about making the designs of the initial team (Takumi Sumino, Takemaru Yakushiji, Hiruko Shizuhara, Darumi Amemiya, Eito Aotsuki, Tsubasa Kawana, Gaku Maruko, Ima Tsukumo, Kako Tsukumo, Shouma Ginzaki) more down-to-earth, but I couldn't handle it. At all. Still, because I initially tried to make the initial squad more down-to-earth, the additional squad naturally came to be the eccentric side.

How did the mascots SIREI and NIGOU originate?

Kodaka: The main thing with SIREI and NIGOU was trying to do something different from Danganronpa's Monokuma and Rain Code's Shinigami. His conduct is similar to them, but I wrote his dialogue with a militaristic flavor in hopes to make him feel more petty and cunning. Being able to have Houchuu Ootsuka voicing SIREI and Ikue Ootani voicing NIGOU was also excellent for distinguishing them from Monokuma and Shinigami.

Was there any character who was easier to write or more challenging?

Kodaka: Danganronpa had characters I didn't know how to use well, but this time, everyone was easy. But I have to say Kirifuji was the one who required the most restraint. She's the one character with nothing crazy going on, so I made sure not to make any dumb jokes with her, as she'd be the one I'd use to recenter myself after going too far in one direction.

What about you, Uchikoshi?

Uchikoshi: All characters had very distinct personalities, which made them all easy to write, but Darumi's dialogue is what came the most naturally to me.

Kodaka: Did bullying Darumi come just as naturally?

All: (laughs)

Uchikoshi: I was doing the screen composition for my routes and the sprite selection for Darumi was the most fun part because all of her expressions fit just right with any of her lines. The hardest was Omokage, I guess.

Kodaka: Omokage's dialogue is annoying to type. You need to manually fix the IME conversion every time (pained laughs).

Uchikoshi: I didn't mean the conversion (laughs). I wasn't good at gauging how much Omokage was interested in killing the other characters. He was difficult.

Togawa: Omokage was the hardest for me, too. It took me until the very end before I grasped his way of thinking.

Kodaka: Omokage's character is easy to understand if you play his solo scenes. But I only wrote that after you had already worked on him…

Togawa: His solo scenes are exactly what made me understand what Omokage was like (awkward laughs).

Did you not make character profiles and background documents for your writers to peruse while writing?

Kodaka: Ishii made his own basic profiles, but I didn't make any comprehensive documents. I know this is not a good practice to have, but the script I wrote already had everything, so I made them read the story to understand the characters.

Interesting. And what character was smooth sailing for Togawa?

Togawa: Magadori and Oosuzuki as a duo. They have so much chemistry that any idea I could have naturally converted into fun dialogue when put to paper. Also, Kawana was easy to write. I love, love, love nice girls like her (laughs).

Kodaka: Honestly, Kawana is so down-to-earth that I always found her scenes lackluster when I wrote them. For that reason, reading the routes that star her was really eye-opening. I'm glad to have someone else writing her, because I couldn't make her good.

Uchikoshi: Kawana really shines the brightest when the writer is Togawa or Koizumi.

Maybe the lack of proper character profiles was what allowed them to fill the gaps so well. Now, what about you, Oyama?

Oyama: Omokage was the easiest. I couldn't understand the way he thinks, but once I realized that I don't need to understand him to write him, he became so heavily featured on my routes that you could easily assume Omokage is the main love interest of the game (laughs). Him aside, I had an easy time with Magadori and Mojiro, characters simple in what makes them tick. The biggest challenges were Takumi and Kirifuji. Characters that are too relevant to the plot are very influenced by what is happening at the moment, so very often I didn't know how to write them.

And you, Ishii?

Ishii: Since my routes were the most comedy-heavy ones, Maruko and Magadori were the easiest. Their overblown reactions to things are hilarious, and the only thing you need to add there to complete a scene is clever commentary from Takumi. Meanwhile, the toughest ones to write were the zealous pair of Yakushiji and Mojiro. I struggled with Yakushiji because I don't know how to make the delinquent archetype appealing, and my lack of wrestling knowledge added a lot of extra work when coming up with references for Mojiro.

Togawa: But thanks to wrestling documentaries, you familiarized yourself with wrestling history and techniques.

Ishi: Yes, I was indeed studying through documentaries to put wrestling moves in my story (laughs).

And what character were you the best or worst with, Koizumi?

Koizumi: I can't think of anyone I didn't know how to handle. For the easiest to write, I wanted to choose students that haven't been mentioned yet, but no, my routes have way too much Magadori, Oosuzuki, and Kawana screentime for it to be anyone else. I'm very strongly attached to these three in particular, and that makes them easy to write.

Kodaka: Since you wanted a character no one mentioned, didn't you have a rough time with Ginzaki? I remember you running out of self-deprecation vocabulary to use at some point.

Togawa: We all researched that independently, meaning Ginzaki's self-debasing lexicon will be very different from route to route.

Kodaka: I was implementing insults I came across online. Just scrolling through social media and going "Wow, this insult is GOOD!" (laughs).

In this age of stricter regulations, I feel like this game really strikes the limits of what is allowable to depict. How did the writing team delineate what it could and couldn't do?

Kodaka: I asked everyone to consult me whenever in doubt, and drew the line at specific points like "no poking fun at real wars". That said, I thought I had kept the sex jokes to a minimum, so it came as a shock to me when I saw a demo review say "too many sex jokes". In my head, the first 7 days playable in the demo had no dirty jokes at all, so my honest first reaction was "WHERE?!".

All: (laughs)

Koizumi: A huge chunk of the dirty jokes got weeded out. The initial version of the script had some really extreme ones…

Kodaka: The woman in the writing team said my jokes were too much, so I did away with them. But then she had no opinions on Uchikoshi's.

Uchikoshi: I was trying to write mine in Kodaka's style, so I have no idea why I didn't get the same reaction (awkward laughs).

Kodaka: The ultimate consequence of that was the sex jokes in Uchikoshi's scripts being more numerous and risqué than in mine (laughs).

Tells us about any memorable situations in the production process.

Kodaka: Splitting the screen composition work with other people was unusual. In my previous works, I handled all the composition on my own, but this time I was working with too big of a script… Since doing it on my own would have taken 5 years (strained laughs), I put Togawa in the schedule management role and made each writer responsible for the screen composition in their respective routes.

Togawa: The decision to let the writers build their own scenes was stressful, considering the schedule was already tight before, and a few of them had never done that before.

By the way, who had never done this before?

Togawa: Oyama and our rookie Ishii.

Oyama: As such, I had to ask questions to Togawa on the desk next to mine every time I didn't know how to do something (laughs).

Kodaka: The writing was generally done remotely, but then everyone had to come to the office to input their scripts into the screen format. Having everyone together facilitated the process of creating the cores of the game's presentation system, and let questions be instantly cleared up.

Togawa mentioned being initially anxious about distributing the screen composition work, but looking back now that it's over, how was it like?

Togawa: Everyone worked hard to follow my schedule, and working together is more exciting than working alone. The most memorable part was how fast Oyama learns. Oyama was a computer-illiterate man who only ever used MS Word. Nonetheless, when he discovered the joy of assigning visual assets to his lines of text, he evolved at breakneck speeds. It was a nostalgic experience, reminding me that I was just like him when I first joined the gaming industry (laughs).

What a heartwarming thing to say in a story about a tight schedule (laughs). Were there any other major advantages to splitting and distributing the screen composition work?

Kodaka: I feel like having to do their own screen composition made the writers learn more about the stories they wrote.

Koizumi: True. Having to select sprites and expressions for every line made me want to edit my scripts, and I could feel the story becoming better as the screen composition process progressed.

Kodaka: It does help polishing the plot. The reason why I have always been doing my own screen composition is because I still would be editing a lot regardless of who made it. I can easily imagine myself going "Nah, this line doesn't work with this sprite". Not to sound too obvious, but a story's writer is always the most qualified person to choose what expression is best placed on each line of dialogue. Building screens also teaches you to pace your scenes. And it will give you a better feel for things when you start writing your next game's script. I believe a game writer's job should always include the screen composition part.

A humanoid Commander for the Invader squad appeared in the demo. Mr. Ishii told us that he was in charge of the Invader language. Can you tell us how you came up with it?

Ishii: Too Kyo's visual designers created the alphabet and my job was to create the pronounced language. The exact mission prompt was to create a Japanese-style syllabary (48 sounds) using phonetic moras that resembled spoken French. The problem is that I don't speak French, so the first step was to constantly listen to French in multiple video apps and engrave the French phonemes into my skull. After I had enough of a notion, I lined up 48 French-sounding syllables and fit them into a kana table. With this conversion, the Invader language was complete.

Uchikoshi: I've already seen people analyzing it. 

Ishii: That was a shock to me too. Really impressive considering the sounds were assigned to the letters at random.

Kodaka: Did anyone leak the alphabet?

All: (laughs)

We didn't get to see the Invaders language much in the demo, did we?

Kodaka: They figured it out from the letters that appear together with "New Game", "Continue", "Load" etc. on the title screen.

Ishii: As the one who came up with the language, the fact that people are willing to speculate and analyze under limited information makes me really happy.

Speaking of the Invaders, buffing the ally who finished off the Commander was a pretty original gameplay mechanic. How did you come up with that?

Kodaka: I noted down gameplay ideas while planning the base plot. Things like "I want this battle to have a higher number of enemies" or "I want this battle to use the entire team". One of the ideas I jotted down there was "I want the act of finishing the enemies off to look cruel", and when Media Vision converted that into the game format, they turned into a mechanic that buffs party members.

The coup de grâce cutscene being first-person from the enemy Commander's perspective was impactful.

Kodaka: I'll have to be honest, we only made it from the enemy's perspective to cut corners. I did make an animated cutscene where the Commander appears at the end, but that wasn't part of the initial production plans. We didn't have the time or hands to make 3D models of all Commanders just for a coup de grâce cutscene. We discussed various presentation ideas and came up with the enemy POV where we could use the pre-existing 3D models of the party. By using the enemy's perspective, we were able to further emphasize how fearsome and brutal the party members can be, so that was ultimately for the best.

I'd like to ask a few questions to the Gameplay Director, Mr. Togawa, about mechanics and balance. In my playthrough, I noticed a lot of tricks that the player is able to exploit. It's a superbly polished game, really. How was the development process for the battles?

Togawa: When I joined the battle team, the first thing I did was rethink the game's experience blueprint from the start. Although the battles back them already had a core set of rules, they failed to stand out in comparison to other tactical RPGs and felt obtuse regarding extremely important parts: "what's meant to be a cathartic moment for the player'' and "what's the intended experience for this particular battle". After mulling over the question of what's meant to be a cathartic moment in The Hundred Line's battles in my head, the answers I came up with were "the thrill of wiping hordes of enemies in one move" and "the puzzle element of letting the player assemble the route to get there with some degree of freedom".

I can see that.

Togawa: The design process involved coming up with mechanics, balancing the game around them, etc. for the purpose of setting this cathartic moment as the goal and actualize a battle system that lets the player use diverse methods to reach it. For some basic examples… Including the Special Attacks for the aforementioned thrill of wiping hordes, making character abilities more niche to increase the number of options, etc.

The Invader placement on the board is also exquisite. Knowing how to beat the enemies right increases your number of actions, so things look beatable on really short turn counts.

Togawa: I care a lot about enemy placement. Initially, we had flocks of enemies near Yakushiji, the guy with the wide attack range. But making the intention there too obvious would led to the player feeling handheld and losing excitement. So we adjusted things to let the player figured out on their own how they can take out a swarm in one go.

I also thought that the element of turning party member defeat into a positive to be really well-thought-out, despite the insanity of it.

Togawa: Thank you (laughs). The mechanic of using the lives of your party as disposable tools is a conceptual opposite of traditional tactical RPGs, where you want to avoid harming your party as much as possible. I'm proud to say no one does it like The Hundred Line does. The answer to the question of "what is the battle functionality of sacrificing your friends in THL?" is one that spent a lot of time in the oven. I believe that when you reach the ending, you'll come out of it feeling that this mechanic made the narrative far more immersive.

I look forward to learning the answer to the mystery. I was also surprised by how challenging the battles were. In a September 2024 presentation, Kodaka said that story-driven games want to keep difficulty on the lower end, so I was worried the game would feel lacking to fans of the genre.

Kodaka: Sorry about that. The battle gameplay underwent a lot of adjustments after September, including difficult changes, meaning what I told you in an interview back then is simply not true for the finished version of the game. Back then, I believed the battle gameplay had hit the low ceiling for the best form it could take, but luckily, Togawa finished his screen composition duties around that same month and moved on to balance adjustment. Togawa proposed to keep tweaking the game until the last day of the contract and Media Vision was kind enough to accept those terms, resulting in the last push that elevated the battle quality. Disregard what I said in previous sessions.

Togawa: Every single battle in the game has been altered after September. I'd spend every day on hours-long conversations with Media Vision's director and fine-tuning everything. We also revised character abilities, and there's even one character that had their Specialist Skill changed post-September. There are more things I'd have liked to try with more time, but what I couldn't do here will have to be saved for the sequel… if there ever is one.

Isn't it too early to be thinking about a sequel? I mean, are you not planning any DLC?

Kodaka: None. Everything The Hundred Line could have is already packed in the game. Future plans can always change later, but if I was forced right here right now to come up with an expansion for the franchise, I think I'd do prequel novels covering key moments in the lives of the members of the Special Defense Unit. Shizuhara's backstory is already covered in Oyama's Former Lives of the SDU: File 03 - Hiruko Shizuhara's First Battle, so I suppose it'd be nice to have novels for the rest as well.

Uchikoshi: Sounds feasible. Novels aren't limited by the game's assets, meaning they can be set in places that don't appear in-game.

Togawa: Didn't Oyama want to write the story of the Commanders? There is one stand-out character among the enemy Commanders and Oyama was excitedly imagining a story where this one wins (laughs).

Oyama: I still want to write that if given the chance (laughs).

It won't be long until The Hundred Line's release. Please explain the game's appeal to the people who haven't played the demo yet.

Kodaka: I imagine they're already expecting a good story, and my play experience tells me the game is also well-made as a tactical RPG. Trying out the story and gameplay on the demo would be ideal, but what's shown there is barely a glimpse of the full picture. The 8th day marks the start of a constant stream of incredible events, so I hope the demo players are looking forward to what's coming next.

A closing message from each of you to the fans looking forward to the game.

Togawa: The Hundred Line is my first Director work. I used everything I learned up to this point to honor this title. The staff devoted heart and soul into constructing this, and I can say with my whole heart that the game is good. Please purchase it and experience the crazy world we created. I can think of one scene that will catch a lot of people off-guard.

Oyama: As Togawa just explained, so much effort went into this game that I don't even want to imagine the timeline where it flops (awkward laughs). All I have right now is a wish for success. Please, play my game and spread the word if you like it. @'ing or DM'ing me with your reviews would make my day.

Ishii: When I was first briefed on this project, I was impressed at the amount of text it took to make a visual novel, but later, my more experienced colleagues explained to me that this project was abnormal (laughs). We're delivering a title that demonstrates Too Kyo Games is as "too crazy" as the name says. I hope you enjoy the wildness of it. I'm looking forward to the reviews.

Koizumi: The Hundred Line is Too Kyo's first original IP. It'd be accurate to say the company was made specifically to produce this game, which naturally makes me invested in wanting more people to have a good time with it. Nothing can be better than seeing people grateful that the developer Too Kyo Games exists. 

Uchikoshi: Repeating something I said before: I hope you can find one route among the many to be your favorite. And to the completionists wanting to play every route: be my guest.

Kodaka: Fresh news, never revealed before: there is a route where everyone survives. I got really emotional reading this one. You're free to stop playing whenever you're satisfied, but I believe you'll have a tough time coming across another game as wild as this, so I'd like you to savor it as much as you can.

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

Links:

Design team interview

Music team interview

Special guest interview

[is-it-cute-gf-au-edition]

Hey, thanks for calling my blog "otherwise good content" when most of my stuff is focused on Ford Pines. Seems kinda like a backhanded compliment, but maybe you're just rude IRL. I'm an understanding person.

Anyway, who are you to decide what is and isn't cute? I, personally, think Ford Pines is ADORABLE! I mean, look at him!!! Someone sent me this picture of him with his head stuck in a trash can! TELL ME that isn't some America's Funniest Home Videos (pet category) shit.

Also, apparently, the other guy in the picture punched the person who took the photo? IDK who he is, but he looks like Ford, so maybe Cipher made a clone? Clone's less cute, though. Explain that with your fucking rating system

Hi,

Okay, I'm going to clear a few things up for my followers.

First of all: I really don't want to come off as passive aggressive. That's not what I'm about, and as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't help anyone to be anything but completely up front when you're on the internet.

I'm sorry if my comment seemed backhanded. I started following Jellyskink back when she mostly posted OC character designs, when I was in a hardcore comics and graphic design phase. I haven't kept up with the blog regularly since. I am truly sorry for misrepresenting you here. (I really, truly am a fan of your work.)

With that said, I am not going to be passive aggressive about this. I'm being explicit: THE FORD PINES REPOSTS ARE NOT OKAY. How do I even begin to explain that you're reposting videos of a grown human man being treated as a pet, and not even well?

I rate content based on whether the pets in them are actually displaying "cute" behavior (playful, friendly, well-trained, healthy) or if they're showing signs of distress and mistreatment. That's my rating system. The fact that people want me to "rate" an adult human man when it is, again, against interdimensional law to treat sophonts as pets/livestock and humans are a sophont species, is already kind of weird.

But, hey. I'm willing to play along. I'm a good sport. If they're pet videos, I'll check to make sure that the pet isn't showing signs of distress or abuse!

Except he definitely is.

Jellyskink, let's just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're just really bad at reading the room. I'm telling you now: Ford Pines is in obvious distress in practically all of these video clips. I don't think you care. I think you're a Cipher Loyalist and thinks the dorito can just treat Ford however he wants because he's a god. But if you're not, prove it: stop posting exploitative Ford Pines videos. They aren't even your flapping videos, you're reposting them. Go back to making cheesy OC Do Not Steal art. That contributed to the world.

Now, about the picture, since you asked:

RATING: NOT CUTE.

This is a guy who got assaulted with a trash can!! Even if this wasn't a human I'd be rating this not cute! It's horrible! And you know what else makes it not cute? You know how I always give things a bad rating when the handler or the person taking the video isn't being safe with it? Well, the guy taking the picture is 100% about to get assaulted. You know why?

THAT IS STANLEY PINES. Is he Ford's clone? I don't know - how do you count identical twins? Cipher didn't make him, they're brothers. You can literally look it up. How are you a so-called Ford Pines fan and you don't even know who Stanley Pines is? He's the sole proprietor of the anomaly distributor Pines Profundities. It's public record. He's in the New York business registry.

So, yeah. The guy taking the picture of a grown man stuck in a garbage can was being pretty stupid and is about to get punched by the man's brother, because that's what happens when you're a jerk to random strangers in New York.

[iboozi]

CALL ME YOURS pt 1

Genre: black cat! (Ish) reader / golden retriever! Jeongguk, reader is a bookstore owner, jk is just him, strangers to friends to lovers?

Summary: In which your first meeting is full of nerves and a mildly awkward conversation.

Part : 1/4

w/c : 2.7k

A/N: Welcome to…. The first part!!! I’m super excited to share this. I hope you like the gentleness of this story!! This may be a slow book, but it’s just to show there’s no rush in life.

Take your time and leave feedback <3

Also! let me know if I should make a taglist??

-Zoobi out 🪩

m.list, intro, part two, part three, part four

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 .

One.

If you were to be sure of one thing in your life, it was that books had never failed you. At least not yet. Probably to do with the fact that you were so particular with the ones you did end up reading, that hours of meticulous research would be carried out on reviews and backgrounds before you even thought about touching a physical copy. 

Believe it or not, even an oddly written blurb could throw you right off the path of cracking open the pages and entering the world of those characters. Was that an analogy on your drab outlook on life? Perhaps. But it kept you busy, and busy meant you didn’t have to think about anything else.  

The comfort that books provided was unmatched by humans. Souls of artists were most vulnerable in those fluttering pages, and to be granted a partial insight as to what fantasies they could conjure was a great opportunity within itself. 

So, that’s why you opened up a bookstore. It was nothing impressive, just stood on the end corner of what used to be a busy street. Despite living in Seoul, which housed a population of over nine million people, this was one of the streets that never seemed to attract others. 

Two years of owning the bookstore and you had seen more businesses around you close than open. That should be an obvious sign that your pride and joy was in danger of being shut down, but hey – books didn’t fail you.  

Stacking those very books up onto a neatly organised shelf in your tiny store had become your Friday evening routine and there was no other way that you’d rather spend the end of the working week. A new order of books had just arrived, after months of negotiating with your distributor. You promised that you’d really sell the books this time and you were going to make sure of it. 

How? Yet to be decided. But it was going to happen. 

Others definitely wouldn’t have tried this desperately to continue running a shop that had an end date so clear in sight, but there was nothing else you could turn to.

 No one else to turn to as well. 

However, you’d argue that this place was your home. Decorated the way you wanted your childhood bedroom to be, with soft, pastel coloured beanbags and plushies in one corner and large overgrown plants in another. Desks were pushed up against the wall for those who wished to study and the only light available would be either through the large windows at the front or the obnoxiously huge flower lamps dotted around the place – strictly no overhead lighting. 

 It was a minimalist’s nightmare, but after being restrained from expressing yourself for so long, this was your little act of rebellion. It wasn’t much, but it was all you needed. 

The shrill of the bell above the door announced the entrance of a customer. It never failed to disrupt the built up peace of your bookstore. Not only that, but the accompaniment of the splintered door grating against the doorframe procured a melodious tune of despair. 

The door was due to be fixed – and you had been meaning to do so, but you were majorly caught up with the landlord threatening to increase rent, that the idea of spending money faster than you could make it, was harrowing to you. You weren’t made for adult problems, and this one seemed to be looming over you, taunting you as day by day you’d scrabble for even some extra money that just never seemed to show up. 

You could only wince as the door caught on the rug that you had you found at the thrift store down the street- it was on sale, so you didn’t hesitate to snatch it away from the prying eyes of the grandmothers around you.  

It was ugly, for sure- the design faded from before you even purchased it, but it did the job of soaking in the water people seem to dredge in every night. More so this past week, seeing as the heavy rain that was most definitely not forecasted, brought on an array of newcomers. 

How they found the store? No idea. But customers were customers, regardless of if they bought something or not and turning on the heating slightly higher, allowing warmth to seep into their bones after a chilly night out, helped you feel somewhat more accomplished. 

Most visitors were here for shelter from the downpour and crowded around the entrance, making a great deal of noise but others... well there weren’t really others, just the occasional customer popping in to see what books you had, before popping right back out onto the cobbled street, like they were never there. 

But alas, tonight, the rain had subsided to a moderate drizzle, leaving just you and the regulars, Namjoon and Seokjin -  although you were still rather uncertain which one was which. 

The only thing you were sure of was that every Friday, around 5pm, the two of them showed up in their work attire and sat at the desks, overlooking the street, and just talked. There was the occasional laughter, but talking was what they did most. Sometimes there was handholding, and other times they shared the same book, taking turns to read out lines to one another. 

And okay, you would admit there was some jealousy in the way you looked at them, jealousy in the way that they were able to take time out of their days just to feel the comfort of each other. They fit together so naturally that looking at them for too long made your eyes hurt. It was sickening how cute they were. 

At least it was in your store. They also bought books every week, so you couldn’t  complain about them in anyway. 

The final chime of the bell reminded you of this new individual who seemed to have opened the stiff door with such ease, you wondered if you had gaslighted yourself this morning. Even after pressing the entire weight of you and your ancestors, the door only budged slightly. It took a few shoves to get it to fully open, and you had been glad that the streets were empty. 

Was he some kind of body builder? Would it be considered rude to stare?

Clunky boots and a frame swallowed in black entered your peripheral and you slowly peeked over – only to see a man somewhat your age looking right at you. He shuffled his feet, wiping off any remnants of water and stood at the entrance nervously. Dark hair was plastered to his forehead, shielding you from seeing his features, leaving you slightly disappointed. 

Hold on. 

There was no need for disappointment – what was wrong with you? An increasing heart rate only signalled your rising anxiety. New people scared you. And he was quite possibly the newest person you had met in a long time and-

“Uh, is there a restroom in here?” a smooth voice interrupted your thoughts.

You froze, looking around to see if anyone would grace this man with an answer, only realising that he was indeed focused on you. Oh man. 

“Oh! Um, yes! It’s just that way,” you pointed down the low- lit corridor leading towards the back end of the store.

He peered in the direction of your hand, nodded at you and made his way there. Unluckily for him, you had yet to grasp that a man so tall and broad could exist and happened to be standing in his way. So, when he brushed past you, a mix of citrus and rainwater wafted up into your face, so subtle – yet so delicate. 

Unconsciously, your eyes fluttered closed - to anyone else, it looked like you were trying to get a moment of tranquillity after a long shift, but there you were, guiltily trying to ingrain his scent into your memory, into your skin, so you could turn it inside out and wear it as your own.

“Hey, you okay over there?” asked Namjoon – or Seokjin.  

Time stopped. Lightly coughing and unfurling your tightly shut eyes you meekly looked up at the two men stood before you, both with very apparent smiles on their faces. 

“...Yep, all good. Can I help you with anything?” 

“Just wanted to say bye – and have a good weekend. We’re heading out now,” mused Seokjin – you were sure it was him (hopefully) – he did dye his hair often and was sporting a faded purple look (he totally rocked it).

“Oh. Um, thank you. Enjoy your weekend as well. Sorry we didn’t have the books you wanted,” 

They both shrugged – how were they so in sync? And they slowly made their way out, bumping shoulders with one another as one small, yellow umbrella held loosely over their heads did little to protect them from the heavier rain that had started up again. 

You smiled to yourself, basking in the quietness of the store once again when footsteps neared you from behind. Turning around in a slight daze, you underestimated your pivoting abilities and ended up smacking your face into a chest. A firm chest. 

Citrus evoked your nose once more. It’s funny, because you always had associated the smell as bitter and coarse, but in this moment, under the barely functioning lamp that you’d half-heartedly decorated with vines, the smell had never been so saccharine. 

A gentle touch found its way on either side of your waist, barely there, nonetheless it kept you standing straighter than you had in years.

“Woah there, steady now,”

Looking up, a small gasp escaped your lips, realising that you had forgotten the presence of the newcomer. He did look slightly different this time with his hair pushed back so you supposed you could let yourself off this time.

A small bar adorned his right eyebrow and complemented his strong forehead. But that wasn’t what you could focus on. 

No, it was the doe eyed look this stranger possessed. The look that spoke the volume of a million words and simultaneously calmed the thrashing waves of your heart. Artists had tried for years, to capture people’s gaze in paintings, but you knew that any attempt to imitate the stranger clinging on to you, would fall short – nothing would compare to the real thing.

Roaming your eyes down his face, you noticed the multitude of moles scattered across his even skin like a constellation – your very own personal one. Even the faded scar added to the look, the imperfection making him shine brighter. Only when your eyes moved to his mouth did you realise it was moving and this person was actually speaking to you – and you were practically ignoring him. 

“-id I hurt you?”

“What?”

“I asked if I had hurt you. Are you okay?” the mellow tone of his voice soothed you, right before you snapped yourself to attention. 

You pulled away abruptly and cleared your throat,

“Y-yeah, I’m not hurt. Thank you.”

And that’s all there was. Simple conversation.  It’s how you operated – minimal talk, and you couldn’t help it. You were always told that if you had nothing interesting to say, don’t say it. Luckily you learnt that at a young enough age.

You stepped back and brushed the invisible dust on your jean clad legs whilst walking back to the shelf your focus was previously on. Your heart rate was rapidly rising, and you fought to keep it at a level rate. 

Just breathe.

In.

And out. 

If the stranger noticed your odd behaviour, he didn’t mention anything of it, which honestly made you a thankful, considering your not-so-friendly attitude towards him even though you basically ogled him for what seemed like five minutes – it was only half a minute, but time passed differently in this bookstore. 

As you busied yourself with the new collection of books – they were all classics – you heard a low chuckle, and the unmistakeable sound of boots. 

They weren’t closing in on you this time, but moving in the opposite direction, towards the romance section. You stopped, slightly confused and looked back at the man as he browsed the display, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. 

Five minutes passed like this, him walking around the case a few times, picking a book up, reading the blurb and depositing it right back to its original place. You may have glanced back a few times, watching him repeat his actions over and over but, just to make sure there was no funny business going on – nothing else.

Before he could resume his pacing again, you walked yourself right over to him and stopped.

“Are you looking for something?”

This stranger, who towered over you flinched. He flinched and grasped his chest with a tattoo covered hand – which you failed to notice before – and looked towards you, shock evident on his face. 

Shit. You came off rude. Most definitely was not your intention but, it was too late to back out now. 

Looking around, you attempted to rein in the harshness of your voice and stammered out, “I mean you just seemed to be looking for a certain book, so would you like help?”

That seemed to do the trick as he lowered his hand down and sheepishly rubbed a hand against the back of his head. 

“Ah, I was just looking for a romance book. I mean-well not exactly romance, but maybe something with underlying tones of it?” he grinned at the last part, hoping not to sound as awkward as you possibly did. 

“Oh,” you nodded in understanding. Then proceeded to look at the same section of the shelf he was looking at before. 

You paused. Hummed a little to yourself and lapped a circle around the display. Halted in front of him again, and spoke out “Call me by your name,”

Your customer’s eyebrows jerked up suddenly and his mouth parted slightly. 

“You want me to call you Jeongguk?”

Jeongguk. That was his name. It suited him. Variations of nicknames shot through your head, but you ignored the thoughts and-

Wait what did he say?

“What- no, that’s the name of a book, I’m recommending it to you?” you picked the book of said recommendation and handed it right over to him. 

Grasping it in his overly large hands, Jeongguk looked down and inspected the book. Turned it over, read the blurb and flipped it right back to the front. He peeked up at you with an embarrassed smile,

“Well that makes a lot more sense,”

You smiled softly at him and mumbled out,

“It’s not a dramatic love story per se, but it focuses deeply on the emotions that comes with love, no matter how short lived it is. And it also happens to be my favourite book, so lucky you.”

At the end of your sentence, Jeongguk’s smile shot up into a grin. A full blown grin, where his pearly whites were bright on display for you and the crinkling of his eyes almost made you giggle ever so slightly. “Is that all for today?” 

You weren’t sure why you asked him that. You had actually enjoyed his presence, even his silly little pacing - and his face was a bonus that you couldn’t help but stare at. 

“Yes Ma’am,”

Oh God. The nerves were back. Your heart rate was rising. You were distracted. This interaction was going on longer than it needed to. You looked over at the clock and realised it was 30 minutes past closing time. 

You quickly snapped yourself back into the present and grabbed the book, stalked over to the cash register for a spare bag and hastily stuffed the book inside before stalking back to him and holding the bag out in front of you. 

“It’s on the house. From me to you.”

Jeongguk’s grin faltered as he slowly took the paper bag, grazing your fingers and twiddled with the handles. 

He opened his mouth to say something. Thought about it. Closed his mouth. Thought a few more seconds and said,

“I’ll make it up to you. Tomorrow. I-I’ll get you coffee and tell you how much I’ve read,”

You nodded frantically, eager to get the conversation over with and as Jeongguk made his way over to the ancient door, the rush of disappointment flooded back. 

And when the bell chimed again, you whispered your name out. It was enough to have Jeongguk turning back, with a confused look on his face. You said your name out loud once again, ensuring that he heard you correctly,

 “I’ll call you by my name, so call me by yours.”

part two

[quasi-normalcy]

I just want to take a moment to reflect on how Star Trek: Prodigy was screwed over at every stage of its release. Unlike the other series, it was actually supposed to be released on Nickelodeon as well as streaming; but I guess somehow that arrangement fell through, because it didn't air on Nickelodeon until months after it was released on Paramount+. And when I say "released," I mean, "they dribbled out the first four episodes with little to know fanfare, then went on hiatus for several months", interchanging its release schedule with Star Trek Then they dribbled out the next six episodes and went on indefinite hiatus again, before releasing the next ten episodes ten months later with little advertising. Then, while the second season was already well into development, Paramount+ randomly announced that they were cancelling it and pulling it off of the service, and off of Nickelodeon, without giving any reasons why. Fans spent months begging for a new distributor, and then when they finally got one with Netflix...they just sat on it for months at a time, re-released the first season with little to no advertising and dumped the entire second season of 20 episodes all in one go six months later, again with very little advertising. And then, Netflix sat on it for ten months, announced that they weren't renewing it, and also pulling it off of their platform again. Also, it accidentally got released in full on a streamer in France months earlier with no advertising because Paramount apparently couldn't be arsed to keep track of who they had licensed it to; and it still can't be streamed legally anywhere in Canada for the same reason. Also, there was supposed to be a line of action figures, but Paramount and/or Playmates somehow managed to bollocks that up, too.

Anyways. I hope that, someday, people actually manage to watch this series, because it's really bloody good. Like, I think that the second season in particular is the best season of Star Trek to air this century; but I can't talk about it with anyone, because it's been really, really difficult to find it if you're not an obsessive fan like me.

[ampselectric]

[beaniebooties]

TWST OC, Ami Tygeris

Credit to @/ai-kan1 for the Template!

Her father is twisted off Rajah and is a from a Wealthy Tiger Beastman Family in the Shaftlands, her mother was a traveling Merchant from the Scalding Sands, selling treasures and jewelry. So Ami herself is indirectly twisted off the Cave of Wonders.

She attends an All girls magic school in the Shaftlands.

Ami Tygeris is the only daughter of a wealthy Tiger Beastman family that are the founders of a Luxury Textile Empire. Though her father dotes on her, her beastman relatives subtly distance themselves due to her human appearance, taking after her late human mother.

Her necklace is a gift her father gave her on her 15th birthday, it belonged to her mother and is Ami's only keepsake of her.

To secure her place in the family, Ami agreed to a engagement with Kalim Al-Asim. Their parents encouraged the match, as the two families had been business partners for generations, The Asim's being the Tygeris family's main distributors of their Textiles and Fabrics. However the final decision would be up to the two heirs.

Ami confided in Kalim about her situation, Kalim feeling sympathy for her and wanting to help despite barely knowing her. They agreed to the arrangement to unify their families and strengthen their business relationship, as well as to protect each other.

---

Just for clarity's sake, I made her traditional attire based off South Asian attire as I imagine her Tiger Beastman relatives are South Asian descent. And she grew up with those relatives and never knew her late mother's family. As her mother had cut off her own family long before she met Ami's father.

I tried to do as much research as I could to make it as accurate as possible but if I got something wrong or if you wanna help I'm open to criticism! Just please don't be mean about it.

(Also English isn't my first language so I apologize if something doesn't make sense)

[nqrancia]

no thoughts, head empty, i think it’d be hilarious to call some of the jjba character your “current” boyfriend just to fuck with them. so could i get Rohan, Mista and Diego react to reader calling them that? thank youuu ❤️

“𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐡, 𝐡𝐞’𝐬 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝.”

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 : rohan kishibe, guido mista, diego brando

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 : how does your bf react to being referred to as your current boyfriend

𝐚/𝐧 : this one was fun to write, tsym for requesting diego! i’ve been brainrotting over him recently :)

𝐑𝐎𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐊

He’s not mad, he’s just disappointed.

Rohan is more than familiar with the trends of today, and is also more than aware of their stupidity. At least, that’s what he believes them to be. It’s not the initial statement that bothers him, it’s the notion that you thought he would be dumb enough to fall for the little trick you attempted to pull on him.

“I’m a bit offended you thought that would work on me.”

He won’t admit it, but he does think about that moment more than he wants to.

───

𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐃𝐎 𝐌.

Appalled, offended, incredulous. Any negative word that could be used to describe the look of betrayal on Mista’s face was the only way to properly read it. He almost immediately thinks he’s done something to wrong you, which he hasn’t, but he doesn’t know that! The man almost felt his soul leave his body. “What do you mean “current boyfriend”?!”

“Babe, did I do something wrong?”

Even his Sex Pistols are freaking out, thinking you’re leaving him. They need their snack distributor, and it has to be you. You always have exactly what they’re craving.

“Mista says he’s sorry for whatever he did wrong!”

As soon as you tell him it was just a small prank, he lets out the biggest sigh of relief he could muster. A weight was just taken off his shoulders, and he’s even more relieved that you aren’t leaving him. “Thank god! I thought this was your own messed up way of telling me you were breaking up with me!”

You have to promise that you won’t call him that again, or he thinks next time he will actually die.

“Never call me your “current boyfriend” ever again, I am your boyfriend for life!”

“I would hope at that point you’d be my husband instead, Guido.”

“Details.”

───

𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐆𝐎 𝐁.

As soon as those words left your mouth, you were doomed. Though his face was kept in a calm expression for your audience, he was internally setting everything in the vicinity on fire. “Current boyfriend”? What exactly did the phrasing of those words mean? Were you trying to insinuate that in the near future you were going to break up with him? To his knowledge, he hadn’t done anything to anger you. But your words gave him a sense of an internal panic.

After your entourage of reporters had come to interview the both of you, he immediately turned to look at you and scoffed. “Current boyfriend”? I see how it is.”

He is not taking this little prank so well. His feeling of betrayal is expressed in harsher words and blunt statements, and will act this way until you apologize properly to him. To others, his actions might seem childish, but you understood why he reacted this way. Diego wasn’t one to care what was lost as long as he didn’t need it or didn’t see a reason for its use, but you were different. He didn’t like humans, yet you were “tolerable” enough to be allowed to be his. He had found trust in you, yet his heart was still fragile.

Which was exactly why he turned to teasing to mess with you, to convince you to fold and ask for his forgiveness.

“Yes, my “current significant other” loves to watch me race. They come to every event just to watch me achieve victory. Cute, isn’t it?”

Diego won’t stop until you apologize, and you have to be as honest and concise as possible with it as well. He won’t accept a half-hearted, shell of a reason. You have to be clear with him and express your want for forgiveness. If you word your sentences correctly, you might just get him to crack a small smile.

“If there is a next time, I won’t be so nice about my teasing.”

@𝐧𝐪𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚 ݁₊˚⊹☆ - please do not translate or plagiarize my works.

[thebibliosphere]

My apologies if you have talked about this recently, but, as an aspiring author-if-i-ever-manage-to-finish-something-haha-can-you-imagine, I have a question! I discovered Draft2Digital thanks to one of your old posts and it caught my attention very fast because it looked very promising, but lately (as much as I've been able to consult with Tumblr's search, magnificent and very functional as it famously is) you've been mentioning IngramSpark more, so if I may ask! Is D2D still an acceptable platform nowadays, or is it better to go look for other alternatives? Thanks!

Oh, Ingram Spark used to be one of the only options for paperbacks other than Amazon in the US and I am moving AWAY from them because they’re such assholes.

They’re responsible for the price hike in my books and I’m 99.9% certain they’re skimming profit off my retailer discount. They also put the ability to call customer service behind a paywall ($25 per 30 minutes). You can still email them but good luck ever getting a reply. Which is an issue when they send you a box of hardback books covered in binding glue with pages falling out that they still maintain are in sellable condition and won’t issue a refund for 🙃 (yes to anyone who has been paying attention it’s been 2+ years and I’m still fighting with them over that)

Yeah, no. I’ll be a d2d author going forward. They’ve got the same global market reach as Ingram, as well as recently merged with Gardners in the UK (a big distributor)

Plus it means I can do my ebook, paperback and audio all from one place. (Findaway is partnered with d2d)

I’ll still keep Amazon separate, but that's because Amazon pays better royalties for direct uploads. Everything else I’m using d2d.

Fuck Ingram. They’re never getting another direct penny from me 😅

[dear-mimii]

pretty poison

pairing! sheriff!grayson x secretcriminal!reader

about! you, a key distributor in silco’s network, often “working” at The Last Drop to discreetly conduct deals and whatnot. until, grayson started coming around for information, you’ve had to play the role of a ditz to throw her off.

cw! literally nothing

word count! 700

an! the divider is kinda pissing me off WHY IS IT CUT OFF! anyways, yes i know cowboy sevika was left on a cliffhanger, i swear ill deliver part 2!

“leaving on break again, sheriff?”

the front desk lady asked, smiling softly while looking up from the shift schedule. grayson just chuckled in response, nodding as she double checked herself for the last time.

“just going for a coffee, Adeline. perhaps a snack too if i deserve it.”

grayson smiled as she saw Adeline grinning at her little joke, giving one last nod before going through the double doors. she felt a small pang of guilt lying so blatantly to the people she worked with, but it’s not like she was doing it out of malice. grayson needed information, information to understand Zaun better, and information about Silco and his ever growing substance enterprise.

she recalled all the previous information she was able to scrounge up here and there as she descended into the undercity, the buildings getting progressively more unkept and the streets filling with more debris and still, grimy water. grayson was surprised she had made it to The Last Drop so quickly, her brain going on autopilot on the path she had walked so many times before. taking a deep breath, once again feeling out of place in her crisp enforcer uniform among the morally grey people who often frequented the bar, grayson opened one of the doors.

immediately, she saw the girl behind the bar - you. wiping the counter with a worn rag lazily, clearly focused on something else in your mind. grayson had seen you a few times before, albeit on scattered days, but you weren’t necessarily an unfamiliar face. grayson shuffled in between tables and chairs to get to the bar, sitting on a barstool that looked somewhat stable enough to hold her body weight. she cleared her throat, drawing your attention.

“afternoon, again. can you whip up one of those espresso shots for me, please and thank you.”

you just smiled warmly, turning around to start preparing the espresso. as you did, she spoke again.

“im sure you know why im here. i only have a few questions this time.”

with your back still turned to her, you rolled her eyes. grayson and all her questions, always snooping around and sticking her nose where it really didn’t belong. just play along, act stupid, you told yourself. putting back on your persona, you turned around, handing her the espresso and rested your elbows on the counter while fluttering your lashes.

“hm, more questions? well alright then! ugh, don’t make them boring like last time!”

grayson just raised an eyebrow, taking a sip out of the small mug. “i know that you know the type of clientele that frequent your establishment. have you heard them… talk about certain shipments? things about shimmer, silco, sevika, anything relating to that group of people.”

you cocked your head to the side, looking off to the side and feigning deep thought. “huh… sevika? ohhh, do you mean the tall lady with the mechanical arm and the big nose? hmm… there’s a couple people like that around here… ah hah! THAT sevika - got it! i don’t really remember… a lot of people come here… they talk about all sorts of things.”

your tone was oh so sweet, you’re expression clueless. because little did grayson know, you knew. you knew everything. after all, an important shimmer distributor such as yourself should be aware of her business dealings.