#The right music is a big boost; choose wrong though...

[flaskoflethe]

Despite common belief, loud music doesn't actually help your brain focus! What it's actually doing is making you too unaware for the horrors to get you, so they give up and hunt elsewhere.

[not-goldy]

just because he sings all JMs songs on his live- to promote his music to his unique fans, boost his reach, generate sales from the free ad and marketing- doesn't mean he supports him."

LMAO NO WAY you really think jungkook put jimin's songs out to a bigger audience? how insulting wow. i see now you are one of those jikookers who think jungkook is the bigger artist between the two right... right... how could i forget those stream increases after those handful of lives (never happened btw nice reach jungkook!) or how it boosted jimin's sales (never happened again) no you're right so kind of superstar jungkook to help poor jiminie lmfao give me a break. honestly a shame god free jimin from the likes of you

Screech like a pterodactyl all you want numbers don't lie. And i know you are dumb but Unique fans simply means, in marketing terms, fans of Jungkook who are not fans of Jimin or BTS.

You, as a solo, will count as a unique fan of Jimin while I by virtue if being both Jk Stan and Army as will not count as Jm's unique fan even if he's my bias because I fall within the intersect on the fan venn diagram.

Common sense, should tell you- you don't need to be a marketing expert for this- cross promoting eachother to eachother's unique audience is good for business. If not, hybe wouldn't spend so much money building a platform like Weverse using BTS's massive fan base as leverage and even sometimes deliberately sending notifications of other groups to us acting like it was an accident.

Since they have the same fans, there would be no need for any BTS member to show up on Suga's shows to promote nothing yet here we are- does that make Suga a bigger star than Jimin or Jungkook or any member he features on his show?? Are you stupid?

You are wrong and you know it. Your toxic ass tryna create drama but no one's falling for it mate 😹

I'm glad you enjoy my emojis and gifs- they are cute aren't they😊

Now take your attention seeking drama queen crown off to the misery lounge and bitch complain to the other miserable folks in your band.

You will sit here and complain about Jimin not being pushed and supported and given the same treatment as Jungkook yet turn around puffing your chest out alleging Jimin is bigger and needs no damn support from no one let alone Jungkook.

Choose a struggle. Choose a narrative and stick with it. If JM is big and powerful and successful all on his own why the hell does he need assistance from anyone at all?

And I agree he doesn't need Jk's assistance. What is that going to do for him? Why give Army and Hybe trouble for focusing their energies and resources on the poor helpless ones with the actual problems who need help and support from fans and the company?

Since Jimin got his degree and he knows everything- don't you think it makes sense why Jungkook should be pushed and supported by well everyone? Poor Jungkook he needs to be pushed to be put on the same scale as his successful hyung because he is lacking.

Guys like share and comment Jungkook needs all the help he can get

And turn out your pockets we need money for studio

While we are at it the Pride fight for love shirts are out

Let's do our thing and sell out. We need the money to buy handcream. And keep streaming to keep him on bb🥂

Yall keep setting Jimin up it's crazy

If he wasn't my bias, I wouldn't even want to mention him post him or talk about him to avoid attracting lunatics like you.

Makes a lot of sense why Big OT7s stay far away from Jimin. His solos are toxic as fuck.

And to think, we show random kpop idols love just because BTS mention them or talk about them.

Too many of us had no choice than to accept Jikook just because Jimin fucks with jk. We all have our own ship preferences and yet here we are.

Not long ago I had my own people call me out for supporting Taemin when he'd been accused of making colorist remarks. I could Stan the devil if Park Jimin smiled at him just once. It's crazy the vitriol and hate towards Jungkook even though he's Jimin's favorite- a fact he's made known and iterated over and over.

Naa Jimin, it's time to put timberland boots in the guts of some of your so called Stans. They can't call themselves your stans and hate your family it's crazy.

And I used to hate Army for hating on Jm stans and solos but godamn I'm gonna have to jump on that bandwagon.

Free Jimin from Me, Mr Jimin will pick me choose me over your pathetic ass any day. Wanna bet?

Talking bout yea Jungkook did all that for Jimin but it was in the pandemic years ago- well Hobi went to support him eons ago what's up?

Jk sent trucks to his friends a while ago. So what's your point?

Jimin earned BBs months ago what's your point?

Hybe abused and traumatized him years ago, what's your point?

Nothing you say matters hereon, from your own logic, since they happened years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes ago- so again what's your point bringing any of them up?

You're gonna act like you know shit when we only know what these men CHOOSE TO MAKE PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE.

Imagine judging someone by the little to no knowledge you have of him and what he does behind the scenes.

Not too long ago he was an asshole and fuck boy with zero social skills- now suddenly he's the model friend sending out trucks and buying jewelry for his friends??

YOU AINT SHIT

[twh-news]

Deadline’s Tony Award Picks & Predictions 2021: ‘Jagged Little Pill’ Or ‘Moulin Rouge’? Hiddleston Or Gyllenhaal? Choices For A Most Unusual Year

[Speculations on the 74th Tony Awards. Remember to take with a pinch of salt]

I'm glad I took notes. Looking at the roster of nominees for this year’s too-long-delayed Tony Awards is all the reminder anyone could need of just how interminable Broadway’s Covid pandemic shutdown has seemed. Productions and performances from the 2019-20 season, many reviewed nearly two years ago, are calling out – some more forcefully than others – to be remembered and honored. As I said, I’m glad I took notes.

This Sunday, the Tony Awards ceremony will be livestreamed on Paramount+, then immediately followed by the two-hour CBS concert special Broadway’s Back!, a celebration of Broadway’s recent reopening after the shutdown of 16-months (or 17 or 18 depending on which shows you decide were the official comebacks). Pre-pandemic, the Tonys originally were scheduled for June 2020, but March of that year brought the sickness and an abrupt shutdown of the industry that would leave a mere 18 productions eligible for the awards, down from 34 the previous year. The awards were postponed twice, most recently – thought it certainly doesn’t feel recent – a year ago when the nominations were announced.

As many as 16 shows scheduled for spring 2020 fell out of the Broadway schedule (and Tony competition). Some – including Six, which was supposed to open the very night of the shutdown, and Girl From The North Country, which like the revival of West Side Story had opened but had not yet fulfilled its Tony voter requirements – would certainly have made at least the Best Musical race a healthier contest.

So the Tony organizers – the Broadway League, the American Theatre Wing, CBS – had some big decisions to make, even after the year-long postponement that seems, in retrospect and at least to me, wrong-headed. First up was how to get the network to continue its broadcast tradition for an annually low-rated event that this year would, quite literally, be a mere fraction of its former self.

The answer – and we’ll know Sunday whether it was a good one or not – was to essentially split the difference. A few big awards – Best Play, Best Musical and Best Revival of a Musical – will be announced live during the CBS special (and also streamed on Paramount+) but the bulk of awards are set for livestream only, a move that seems at odds with Broadway’s recent endeavors to position itself as something not just for wealthy New Yorkers and spend-happy tourists. Paramount+ does, in fact, offer a free trial period, so Broadway fans who don’t want to pay for a streaming service can watch the show without spending a penny – just make sure to cancel before the trial ends – but still. The visuals, as they say, aren’t great.

Certainly in some ways, this split decision – the livestream-broadcast hybrid – makes sense. The abbreviated roster of nominees and the year-long delay was always going to be a tough sell to CBS, and just as certainly Broadway fans want to see how even some of the less ballyhooed competitions play out. What will Moulin Rouge‘s Aaron Tveit – the sole nominee in the Lead Actor/Musical category – say when he takes the stage? And which of the nominees for Best Original Score will prove literally memorable? That category includes no musicals – repeat, no musicals – since each of the Best Musical nominees were of the golden-oldie jukebox variety. That left the plays to handle the Original Score burden – and left Tony voters trying very, very hard to mentally summon just what, exactly, the incidental music of The Rose Tattoo actually sounded like.

As a commercial move to promote the reopening of Broadway (and boost much-needed ticket sales for Broadway’s current line-up, even if it includes only a few of this year’s Tony nominees), both the postponement of the ceremony and the expansive concert special seems justifiable. The Tonys have always been as much an advertisement for sales as a recognition of achievement. But as a way to celebrate the productions and performers who hit the stages prior to the March 2020 shutdown, the decision feels less defendable. Even without CBS, a livestream or digital Tonys last fall would certainly have felt more immediate (and, in a way, hopeful), with nominees still fresh in minds and everyone – including, I suspect, more than a few in competition – still feeling fully invested.

So. After racking my brain, checking my gut and deciphering scribbles in old notebooks, my picks and predictions in selected Tony categories are as follows. Of course, the only sure bet is Tveit – though even that one-nominee category could, theoretically, see an upset: Tony voters could choose not to give that award at all. Won’t happen, but after the last year and a half, is anyone still capable of being surprised?

--

BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY

Betrayal, Harold Pinter; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Terrence McNally; A Soldier’s Play, Charles Fuller

Will Win: A Soldier’s Play | Should Win: Betrayal

The beautifully performed and directed Betrayal was a revelation – a Pinter play as downright entertaining as it was thought-provoking, but Fuller’s long-in-coming arrival on Broadway with his modern classic A Soldier’s Play all but demands a win. Of course, Broadway could choose to honor McNally, the beloved stage icon who passed away from Covid last year, and whose Frankie and Johnny remains an essential part of the American canon. Still, for me, Betrayal is the production that stands out.

--

BEST PERFORMANCE, LEAD ACTOR/PLAY

Ian Barford, Linda Vista; Andrew Burnap, The Inheritance; Jake Gyllenhaal, Sea Wall/A Life; Tom Hiddleston, Betrayal; Tom Sturridge, Sea Wall/A Life; Blair Underwood, A Soldier’s Play

Will Win: Hiddleston | Should Win: Sturridge

Hiddleston was terrific in Betrayal, and has every right to the trophy, but for me Sturridge in A Life gave the most powerful performance in the category as the grieving father whose family was destroyed by a single instance of atrocious happenstance. Other devotees of Sea Wall/A Life might choose first-time nominee Gyllenhaal (and I’d have no serious complaint there), and Underwood is certainly a popular and enjoyable actor (though saddled with the least interesting plot-device character in A Soldier’s Play). Barford and Burnap are extreme long-shots, leaving a four-man race with Hiddleston the likely winner if only by a slight edge.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Rell, the Iron Maiden build (League of Legends)

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

I SHOULD BE MAKING AKALI RIGHT NOW :))))))

I did a coinflip with Rell: it was either her or Akali and she ended up winning. I’m honestly super hyped for Rell which is odd because I don’t really play tank supports. I find Leona and Nautilus boring as sin, though I do enjoy Galio and Maokai on occasion. I guess I’ve just been playing in top lane a lot more and I want a big bulky tank who I can dive into teamfights with as a support.

Also the memes for this champ are freaking golden.

But Rell presents a very unique kit that has a lot of potential in D&D. Basically I get to make a character other than Nunu & Willump who rides a mount and I get to stick everything I can remotely justify as being Ferromancy onto this character.

GOALS

Run ‘em all down - Rell is the third champ to have a mount. Aren’t horses just the best?

We fight together - Your outside may be cold but connecting to people is how you move on from trauma... or use that trauma for a massive stun in a teamfight.

I’ll bust you down to scrap! - Rell’s quirk is Ferromancy, the magic of manipulating metal, most specifically through magnetism. Fucking magnets; how do they work?

RACE

Rell is a human... but we can’t always go for Variant Human, so let’s spice it up a bit! She may not have divine blood but I’m sure someone at the academy had healing magic. So since she’s a support with eyes aglow with energy why not go for an Aasimar? More specifically a Scourge Aasimar. Your Charisma increases by 2 and your Constitution increases by 1.

Your glyphs give you a big mix of magic from your friends back at the academy: Darkvision for darkvision, Celestial Resistance for resistance to necrotic and radiant damage, Light Bearer for the Light cantrip, and Healing Hands for a bit of healing magic. Your Scourge subrace also gives you Radiant Consumption at level 3, which I’ll cover when you get there.

If you’re set on playing a human: A Variant Human (+1 CON, +1 STR) with either the Mounted Combatant feat or Heavy Armor Master feat would make sense. There are other feats to consider but these would be the most in-character for Rell.

ABILITITY SCORES

15; STRENGTH - Iron stands eternal, and iron is heavy.

14; CHARISMA - You may be a grouchy teenager, and you may also be incredibly awkward when hitting on people, but Charisma is considered as “inner strength” in 5e. You’ve certainly got plenty of that!

13; CONSTITUTION - You are a tank after all, and with the +1 from our race that equals a 14 for a nice boost to HP.

12; DEXTERITY - As heavy as iron is you were trained for peak physical condition. DEX is tied to many things, notably Initiative which is very important for a frontliner.

10; INTELLIGENCE - You went to an academy, but it was a Noxian war academy. Still it’s possible that you got some history lessons.

8; WISDOM - You’re a hothead in both the metaphorical and literal sense. You think asking questions is on the mind of a teenager who’s angry with the world?

BACKGROUND

There’s a lot of backgrounds that would fit Rell, though unfortunately nothing edgy enough like “Test Subject Turned Human Superweapon.” But considering your lifestyle of roaming the Noxian countryside Outlander is probably pretty accurate. You get proficiency in Athletics and Survival and while you’d normally get a Musical Instrument I’d actually suggest you grab Smith’s Tools instead because... yeah duh. You can also learn a Language of your choice so pick whatever you think would constitute Noxian.

Your Wanderer background feature will make sure you survive and thrive on the Noxian countryside. You always remember the general layout of the land, and you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day. And you can even rip some iron out of the earth to make them bowls and cups to eat and drink with!

(Concept art by Riot Games)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - PALADIN 1

Starting off as a Paladin because even if proficiency in Wisdom saves is weird we need the Heavy Armor proficiency because... yeah duh. Speaking of proficiencies take Intimidation because you’re a murder-hungry metalmancer, and I dunno Medicine would make sense since you’re a support and all.

You also get Divine Sense, as the magic in your veins helps you detect celestials, fiends, or undead. And because you’re a support you can use Shattering Strike to heal thanks to Lay on Hands. I could explain both these abilities in detail, but I’m also an angry teenager who’s sick of explaining abilities with insanely long descriptions that you can read for yourself.

LEVEL 2 - PALADIN 2

Second level Paladins get their Fighting Style, and of course for a tank support Defense would be best for more AC. You also get some Ferromancy Spellcasting. (Well technically Divine spellcasting but don’t tell anyone that.) You can prepare a number of Paladin spells equal to your Charisma modifier plus half your Paladin level:

To sharpen your lace (or more realistically pike) a little more Divine Favor will make every blow hurt just a little bit more.

Heroism will help in times of strife to let your anger take over any fear.

To manipulate armor to block some more blows Shield of Faith will increase the target’s AC for a time.

To stun with Attract and Repel Thunderous Smite will do damage and knock enemies prone, making them easier to hit and forcing them to spend time getting up.

But of course you can just as easily ignore all of that in favor of Divine Smite, channeling all your magic and hatred into a burst of Radiant damage on your weapon attacks. Particularly effective against undead!

On Rell’s weapon: I’d suggest a Pike over a Lance because a d12 isn’t worth Disadvantage in melee range, even if you will eventually be performing mounted combat. Feel free to have a lance as backup for when you do start riding a horse.

LEVEL 3 - PALADIN 3

At third level you can choose your Sacred Oath, and I know how much you hate Noxus but Oath of the Crown actually has some pretty good abilities for our purposes. Yup of all the champions to break out the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide for it’s Rell.

You get two Channel Divinity options: Champion Challenge makes enemies unable to move more than 30 feet away from you for a Magnetic Overload, and Turn the Tide will heal everyone of your choice for a d6 plus your Charisma (if they’re below half health) for some Redemption saves.

But both of these Channel Divinities are admittedly situational, so if your DM allows Tasha’s rulings then Harness Divine Power will also let you recover a first level spell slot. Speaking of spells as a Crown Paladin you get Command to twist your enemy’s armor to your whim, and Compelled Duel for a single-target Concentration version of Champion Challenge.

And as a Scourge Aasimar you get now get Radiant Consumption. As an action you can unleash the magic within you, glowing violently and doing Radiant damage equal to half your level to everyone around you. Additionally, once on each of your turns you can deal extra radiant damage when you damage an enemy with an attack or a spell. The extra radiant damage equals your level. You can only go all out just once per long rest, so if your ever wonder why anime protagonists keep their ultimate attack until the end of the fight: it burns you so much you can only use it once.

LEVEL 4 - PALADIN 4

4th level means another Ability Score Improvement but instead we’re going to be taking a Feat. You’re probably thinking we’re going for Mounted Combatant, right?

WRONG! We’re taking Heavy Armor Master, because you can literally control your armor to make it stronger! Your Strength increases by 1 and any damage you take from non-magic weapons is reduced by 3!

You can also prepare another spell, but we’ll wait for...

(Concept art by Riot Games)

LEVEL 5 - PALADIN 5

5th level time for Extra Attack. Two attacks in a turn to pretend you’re the ADC!

Also time for HONSE! Find Steed lets you summon a Warhorse, and others but a Warhorse is probably the most accurate representation of your mount. The steed is considered a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice), and its intelligence is set to 6. It can also understand one language you can speak, which is good because you can speak to it telepathically.

You can make any spell that only targets you also target your steed, and when it drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You can dismiss your steed at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, casting this spell again summons the same steed, restored to its hit point maximum.

And thanks to your subclass you also learn Warding Bond to bond with an ally, and Zone of Truth to get the Black Rose to admit to what they did. Technically speaking you can’t put a ring on your horse, but as a DM I’d probably allow you to make a 50 gp platinum horse shoe to give the honse a Warding Bond.

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 6

6th level Paladins get Aura of Protection. You and everyone within 10 feet of you gets a bonus to saving throws equal to your Charisma modifier, because iron stands eternal and so does teenage angst.

You can also prepare another spell like Aid to steel your party’s resolve for any danger. Metal pun unintended.

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 7

Here’s why we aren’t taking Mounted Combatant. 7th level Crown Paladins get Divine Allegiance, allowing you to use your reaction to take damage for a creature within 5 feet of you. They take no damage, but the damage you take can’t be reduced or prevented in any way.

Sure a 5 foot aura is just objectively worse than the Redemption Paladin’s 10 foot Aura of the Guardian that does literally the exact same thing (pro tip: ask your DM to just increase the range of the aura), but you know what’s always within 5 feet of you? Your horse. So feel free to take hits for your trusty mount. And if an ally is nearby you should probably tank for them too.

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 8

8th level means an Ability Score Improvement. We’re still riding around in big bulky armor so more Strength to carry that armor would be nice.

You can also prepare another spell like Lesser Restoration for some Tenacity.

(Concept art by Riot Games)

LEVEL 9 - BARD 1

How’s this for a surprise? Multiclassing into Bard gives you proficiency in one skill, and one musical instrument. Take Animal Handling because you literally summon a horse for yourself, and a Noxian War Drum.

Bards get Bardic Inspiration: d6s equal to your Charisma modifier to help support your allies. They can add the d6 to an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw they make. Buff up their armor, or weaken the enemy’s armor!

But of course as a Bard you get more Spellcasting! Check page whatever-it-is for how multiclassing works. You get two cantrips from the Bard list: Mage Hand will let you magnetize an object closer to you, and Vicious Mockery will let you yell angrily at the enemy not to hurt your friends.

You can also learn 4 spells from the Bard list: you are a support so you can take Cure Wounds for some Summoner: Heal. Disguise Self will help you if Noxian police are looking for you. And both Earth Tremor and Thunderwave will help you manipulate the metal beneath your enemies’ feet and sunder the ground beneath them.

LEVEL 10 - BARD 2

You have a little bit of everything in your glyphs which means Jack of All Trades will always be able to help you. You can also recuperate after a long night on the Noxian countryside thanks to Song of Rest.

You can also learn another spell but we will wait for...

LEVEL 11 - BARD 3

Third level Bards can choose their Bardic College and you did go to the academy to become a weapon after all. College of Valor Bards are instruments of war with Combat Inspiration, letting allies use their Bardic Inspiration to hurt more with their swords or defend themselves better with their armor. “Fight like you mean it. Die for something that matters!” You do also get some skill proficiencies but... you already had them.

You do get Expertise in two skills however! Intimidation comes naturally to a living weapon, and even though it’s technically not a living animal in LoL you still need Animal Handling for your mount from Find Steed.

And finally you can learn spells. If you want the honest truth the only reason we took Bard levels is for Heat Metal, the obligatory Ferromancy spell. But you can also grab Hold Person to lock a foe’s armor in place.

LEVEL 12 - BARD 4

4th level means an Ability Score Improvement, and since we’re now investing in the spellcasting side of things I’d recommend some Charisma to make that better. Remember that more Charisma does mean more Paladin spells, so be sure to hop back there to prepare more.

Because I’m not going to tell you what to prepare, as we need to concentrate on your new cantrip! You are the ferromancer, so Mending is kinda obligatory. You can also learn another spell but again we shall wait for...

LEVEL 13 - BARD 5

5th level Bards get Font of Inspiration, letting their Bardic Inspiration come back on a Short Rest. Which is good, because your Bardic Inspiration increases to a d8!

You can also learn third level spells now which means we can finally take Mass Healing Word to further our support role, and Hypnotic Pattern for a massive team-wide stun.

(Artwork by @Cookie3v3 on Twitter)

LEVEL 14 - SORCERER 1

You were born with magic after all, so I’d have to go into Sorcerer at some point. It’s just that the other levels were more important, and this kinda ends up being more for flavor than anything. Regardless you get your subclass at level 1 as a Sorcerer and hey I actually get to use the Clockwork Soul for a Ferromancer. You can Restore Balance at level 1, denying Advantage or Disadvantage and turn it into a straight roll.

Oh and hey: more Spellcasting! But this time with a side of Clockwork Magic for Abjuration or Transmutation spells. Since both the spells you’d normally get a little iffy I’d suggest replacing them with both Absorb Elements and Shield for some Magic Resistance and Armor.

You also get four cantrips and two leveled spells. Fire Bolt lets you fling a piece of molten metal at the enemy, because you may as well have a ranged weapon. For some basic metal sundering from the ground Mold Earth will let you manipulate small pockets of iron in the soil. Message will let you coordinate with your teammates without yelling everything in /all. And because you’ve got a ridiculous amount of cantrips you may as well grab Prestidigitation for basic magic manipulation.

For your leveled spells Magic Missile will let you fling metal with the utmost precision, and Burning Hands for burning metal addressed to “whom it may concern.”

LEVEL 15 - SORCERER 2

Second level Sorcerers get a Font of Magic. You get 2 Sorcery Points that can be converted into spell slots... for now. So basically you get another first level spell slot!

LEVEL 16 - SORCERER 3

3rd level Sorcerers get their Metamagic. These are features that use your Sorcery points to augment your spells: to make sure that no one lives to hide the tale of the academy Heightened Spell will give an enemy disadvantage on their first saving throw against one of your spells. Alternatively if you want to both stab and smash Quickened Spell will let you cast a spell as a Bonus Action, to really maximize your APM.

You also get more Clockwork Magic, but since you already have both Aid and Lesser Restoration I’d instead suggest taking Levitate for some reverse-magnetism, and a little spell from Elemental Evil called Maximilian’s Earthen Grasp.

If your opponent doesn’t know how magnets work then Blur can really mess with their ability to hit you. And you know I haven’t taken Flash yet so... Misty Step!

LEVEL 17 - SORCERER 4

Fourth level Sorcerers get an Ability Score Improvement and well we did invest in 3 different spellcasters, so increasing that spellcasting with more Charisma would probably be smart. Remember that more Charisma means more Paladin spells! As well as a stronger Paladin aura and more Bardic Inspiration.

You also get another spell known and honestly there are a lot of great ones at second level of Sorcerer but Shatter is the best for ripping through metal. You also get another cantrip because I guess Sorcerers don’t have enough cantrips: if you get surrounded you can sunder the ground as if swords were bursting around you... in a Sword Burst... yeah...

(Artwork made for Riot Games)

LEVEL 18 - SORCERER 5

5th level Sorcerers get third level spells and I’d hate to admit it but both Dispel Magic and Protection from Energy from Clockwork Magic do make sense for Rell.

But you know what we don’t have enough of? Ground-based attacks. So take Erupting Earth, because your magic is Ferromancy. Not Fireballs or Haste, both of which would probably honestly be stronger. Honestly feel free to drop some of your early Sorcerer spells, because you’ve got more than enough spell slots for the big stuff.

LEVEL 19 - SORCERER 6

6th level Clockwork Soul Sorcerers get the feature we kinda went into this subclass for: Bastion of Law. As an action, you can spend 1 to 5 sorcery points to create a magical ward around yourself or another creature within 30 feet.

The warded creature gets a number of d8s equal to the number of sorcery points spent to create it. When the warded creature takes damage, it can expend any number of those dice to roll them and reduce the damage taken by the total rolled on those dice. This is going to be one of your main supportive features... atop of all your other “main supportive features.”

Oh and you’d get more spells but I kinda want...

LEVEL 20 - SORCERER 7

7th level Sorcerers can learn 4th spells like Sickening Radiance for some good old-fashioned war crimes, and Fire Shield which was added to the Sorcerer spell list thanks to Tasha’s! Clockwork Magic also lets you weaponize your horse with Summon Construct, but I’d suggest grabbing Banishment as your other spell to lock the weak away like they did to the Null.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Fighting together? Guess it's not too bad - You’ve got plenty of good assists. Bardic Inspiration and Bastion of Law shields, and a big pile of spells to help the team.

Nothing gets in; no one gets out - Turns out that manipulating metal means very little can get at you. Strong AC, very good range with Reach to play keep-away in melee and a horse to run around, and of course Aura of Protection to turn your weakest save into a +5! And decent HP to boot!

This is who I am now - It wasn’t my intention when making the character but... turns out Jack of All Trades does in fact make you a jack of all trades. Decent skill checks all around and a crazy good Intimidation check means that while you maybe won’t be the first choice you’ll always be up for the task.

CONS

“Excellence is measured in sacrifice”... or whatever - Three way multiclassing gives you a lot, but not a whole lot of it. Your spell slots go all the way up to 8th level but your best spells max out at 4th level. Smites exist and you can always melt down your spell slots, but perhaps it would’ve been smarter to lessen the number of classes and get more value out of what you have.

That's... that's cool... I'm cool... - Ever heard of the concept known as “choice paralysis?” With so many spells to choose on top of subclass features that take your actions it can be hard to pick what’s right in every scenario. Woes of playing support, where you need to think of everything at once. Can’t just run in and stab.

The helpless fight; the hardened live - Jack of All Trades is good for skill checks... not for combat. You can fight, heal, and sling spells decently but don’t really stand out in any particular area. You’ve got a hundred different tools to deal with the rabble but when your friends go All Out you’ll likely be stuck getting assists.

But you’ve got all a girl could ever ask for: a cute pony and enough armor to survive a ballistic missile. You were built to be a weapon and a damn good weapon you are: as sharp as you are sturdy, and as versatile as you are resourceful. Who cares if you’re a little rough around the edges? You’re sixteen! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you! Minus the lingering trauma of being tortured by your own mother... Eh. Who doesn’t have a tragic backstory nowadays?

(Artwork by @dreadstardraws on Twitter.)

[kaiju-z]

Seon Adventures Episode 38: Bathhouses and Bonds

After a month of travel, successfully retrieving the King’s Blade, Ena, learning who their client is, i. e. Akar’Niel and choosing to learn more about the circumstances of the mass elimination of dwarves and dragonborn on Seon, the party have reached Guan.

And straight off the bat, no pun intended, the group discover they are followed by an imp. After a quick discussion on whether to take it down or not, Malak stils his hand from sending the denizen of Hell back home, as it approaches the group.

Through a quick inspection of the party, the shape changing critter flies over to Mournimar and delivers the Tiefling Ranger a Sending Stone, of a blue diamond make. After which it does a JoJo pose and poofs.

As stated previously, this was a Sending Stone, allowing someone to cast 2 sending messages a day. But only to the person that has the other one. Rocky Talkies, as Malak puts it. (Or Hayden, I’m not sure. They’re both wholesome and we love them).

Mournimar gets that explained to him and calls the person that gifted it to him. And he hears a familiar voice from the other end say " Well you are alive, then!”. Much to the tiefling’s frustration, he recognizes the voice as that of his ex-boyfriend, Lazarus, follower of Potencia.

Mourni tries to ask what he wants, but instead Lazarus does the “kh-kh” noise (you know the one, where someone does a double pistols and a wink???) and that’s about all the messaging that goes on for that day.

Again. Much to Mournimar’s frustration.

Malak suggests getting rid of the stone. But Mournimar wants to keep it.

Luck suggests flipping a coin and he even brings one out from his journal bag. But Jun suggests Mournimar hold onto it and in the end, they agree on that.

(Also Mournimar gets a praise from Jun, which makes him feel validated).

The rest of the day passes uneventfully and they carry on, as the ground beneath their feet becomes more and more rocky. WIth the most perceptive in the party taking note that there’s a slight silhouette in the near distance of a town.

During the night, Belli receives a dream, like everyone else, but Mournimar, before her. As everyone had kept their dreams to themselves, for the following day, the group find themselves walking into a small and cozy town, which Arryn guesses would be Sodinvorg, most likely.

Very different from what the group had been used to so far. In a wasteland such as this (which funny enough is the right temperature for Luctan to feel at straight up at home?!) Sodinvorg’s constructed of tall buildings made out of clay, all painted red, white or red and white. Most split in multiple flats as they can tell from the windows. A variety of people in the windows, mostly Yuan-Ti, Kobolds, Tabaxi and Lizardfolk.

People here know each other and are close, mingling with each other.

Notable locations are the bathhouse, the tavern and the marketplace.

Luctan makes a b-line for the bathhouse, all excited and swept under the positive nostalgia of the enviroment he find himself in, with Jun joining him, all the while Belli would go and buy certain supplies. Cement included for some reason?! And then go to the apothecary.

A pair of young lizardfolk women run the bathhouse, which the pair of Jun and Luck can discern is constructed very intricately and with a style to it. (The place is essentially a roman bathhouse.)

Mournimar woud go to the Rolls and Scrolls place, where one could buy spell scrolls and delicious breads, as advertised, while Malak would check with the antique shop.

Inside the bath house, Jun takes on her mask of a beautiful Drow woman, named Valencia, having noted that there aren’t really any humans in the area.  Valencia is a bit posh. Long white hair in a bun.

As they score themselves a place in the bath, The Disguise Duo enjoy a relaxing bath, unbothered by the cramped and crowded enviroment, as they are  confident about themselves and their bodies.

No juicy gossip in the area and even if there was, a loud comment about Mommy Milkers from another of the patrons would distract the duo.

Arryn eventually joins the two, but after an unfortunate bomb dive goes wrong, he leaves, as the pool was too shallow for any acrobatics. Luctan’s Healing Word aids him in recovering from at least the physical pain, at least.

The duo have another talk, where Luck learns of Jun’s origins. Though she began her careers in Sa Doma, she was originally from  Elmeria. Which, to say the least, was a neat coincidence, as the party had gotten their initial name there, when asked by Morticia.

Jun would share that, given her race as a Changeling, few doors were truly open for her, as a Shapeshifter in a world that had a bias against them, and so, the bounty hunting life and that of an escort were ones that she could slip into easily. Luck would bemoan her fate, how opportunities were taken from her due to things she couldn’t help. But was glad for her being able to make the best of it.

“When one door closes, another opens”, the two would agree.

Luck would tell her his story, in turn, being candid about the facts, though, naturally, given they were speaking around others, he’d of course avoid using the “H” word as to where he had come from. Besides, the yalready knew about that from the fight at the barn.

Luck would come to a point, admitting that he was unsure what to do with himself now. He was content helping people, but he had no plan on what to do with himself now, when he didn’t take on the rest of his revenge quest.

Jun encourages him to take the time and consider. And she’d admit that conversations weren’t generally something people would approach her for, given her non-violent work ethic.

But Luck would compliment her for her talk, appreciating being able to talk openly with her on matters. Jun would note that he was about the 3rd person to praise her for that.

Meanwhile, at the Rolls and Scrolls, Mournimar spends big money on several rolls and scrolls, making Matiro, the Yuan-Ti’s day with all the cash that comes his way.

Feather Fall, Aid, Calm Emotions and Find Steed are all bought and paid for by the Ranger, with the latter three being bought for a collective 500 gold.

Furthemore, the tiefling buys 7 loafs of bread, for the party and Arryn.

And then. Before he leaves, Mournimar leaves the man a tip of 5 platinum. And upon leaving, he can distinctly hear the Yuan-Ti scurry off, screaming to a friend: “PHILLIP! I’M IN LOVE!”

At a convergence point, Mournimar gets a gold piece from Jun and a pat on the head. Getting validated by an older female figure boosts his morale. Quite evident from his tail wagging like crazy.

From the calico Tabaxi, Jolly Sunrise, proprietor of “ Happy Belly Rubs “, Belli gets a healing herb, a root that healing potions are made from. 

(It is at this point that we spend 10 minutes on Tabaxi bathroom name jokes. It’s just-you had to be there.)

Jolly makes a “Jolly Secret Rub”, which gives the party 1d8 Temp Hp. Gives special smelling salts, which are used as Spare The Dying as a bonus action. 165 worth. And lastly, upon Belli’s request, she delivers onto the Half-Orc Bard a pair of extra spicy peppers, referred to as “Dragon’s Breath”.

“Don’t give it to halflings. It could genuinely kill them.” she would note.

Also Belli learns that Jolly has a tiefling brother. Due to his fire resistance, she had learned that these could kill anoyone, without fire resistance. (Though that could’ve been a joke0

After the bread, the party go to the Cozy Leaf. An older tabaxi man, orange and graying around the nose, heads the place. He has a menu. There’s coffee, milk, honey milk. Maple Milk! The man’s name is Leaf On The Water. He has a strange clockwork device playing relaxing music nearby, giving the place a wholesome atmosphere.

His Grandson, an Artificer, built this contraption. Travels and sends new stuff to the old cat.  There’s a stick figure drawing at the counter, drawn by the youngest in the family, his granddaughter. The grandson is taller than him. Grandson is 30. Grand Daughter is 3.

There’s even a portrait that gets showcased of the family. One big orange family. Himself, his three kids and his two grandkids.

Most of the group, but the bearded ones, get themselves a warm beverage. Honey Milk and Maple Milk.

While the patrty slowly unwind for the day, Belli asks Jun if she has any expertise with chemicals. Interesting enough, the Bloodhunter does have skills with alchemy supplies. And the two work on making  pepper spray. Super. Spicy. Pepper Spray.

Malak find himself buying several items from the antique shop, run by the kobolds Zett and Nix, Red and Bronze respectively.

From the items presented to him, he takes what he could consider lucky charms.

Among them a coin of a strange material, a stone figurine of a snake, as well as a small silver rod with no decoration. It makes a harp noise. Notably,  the rod gives off faint evocation magic.

Before purchasing these, he asks the Kobolds, just to be sure, that they hadn’t pilfered these from any gravesights and the like. They specify that any item they have in their shop has been brought in from families, who found no use for them.

They are established businessmen here. And the price for the collection of items bought is 25 silver. Enough to cover rent for the month.

Malak thanks them in Draconic and leaves after the monetary exchange.

At the end of the day, as everyone prepares for the night’s rest in the tavern, Jun keeps an ear and eye out for gossip, while Mournimar takes a single room for himself (and Morgan).

One, where he has himself his own little dream.

End of Episode.

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[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

You can’t possibly come in a T-rex costume to your own wedding

crackfic taken very seriously, pairing: saiouma, words: 1813

from orginal tags: Wedding Planing, how did it spiral down to that, Slice of Life, I should not have taken the wedding prompt, The Author Regrets Everything, except for the “do you ever wonder about...” but this is the part that you will hate

I don’t even know for what event I’ve made the T-rex trilogy anymore, but enjoy

No. No way. This is not an option. No. Stupid. He can't possibly be actually considering that. Momota must have been trying to prank him and he will not fall for that. His relationship with Shuichi is the one thing he can't afford to fuck up. This includes their wedding day, it has to be perfect, no foolishery that could destroy that, definitely not a T-rex costume. Not in a thousand years, even if he already had one and maybe deep down would want to wear it on big occasions instead of a boring suit, not on the wedding.

He had to admit it at least to himself. All of his life he's been a clown, never a serious person, there was a lot of dumb and irresponsible things he did just for the hell of it. That's the part of him that Momota knew, but there was more. Something he definitely wouldn't show in front of others. That is - he cared about Shuichi. A lot. It wasn't just some sort of fascination, they wouldn't be getting married if it was about curiosity or the looks, that could have been what initially brought them together. Now he couldn't imagine life without the other.

The years they spend together, it was already eight that they knew each other and five of dating. So much time is bound to change a person. Their beginings were... shaky, both of them had issues and they were still in high school at the time, so nobody believed they would last. But they learned from all the misunderstandings, fights and especially that one time when they techinically broke up, but made up soon after, if nothing else, then that incident surely taught them to communicate with each other. Therefore, what Momota was trying to tell him really didn't make sense. He was not only telling him that Shuichi was into dressing up as a dinosaur, he was telling him that he accidentaly discovered something Shuichi was hiding even from him and that it would be a good idea to use this knowledge to make a "nice" surprise for Shuichi and wear said costume to their wedding.

He took in a deep breath, whether Momota was serious or trying to prank him or whatever, he didn't have the strenght to think deeper into it, but at the same time he had to hold in the urge to punch that idiot. He thought that by know they were over their conflicts from school years or at least that Momota valued his friendship with Saihara enough to respect his relationship with Ouma, but apparently not. Doing something like this would obviously make him look like he wasn't serious about the marriage and most likely tear them apart and yet the astronaut had the gall to suggest him doing that. It was disrespectful to Shuichi's privacy (if it was true), too.

Masking his anger with a fake smile he promised to himself that he's going to hold on to that grudge, perhaps trash the guy's wedding when the time comes, assuming that he ends up having the balls to propose... it's more likely that Harukawa will, it was clear who's wearing pants in that relationship. For now, he told him that he'll "think about it" and that "it could be fun". Which, little did the spaceman know, was a code for "I'm gonna talk about it with Shuichi as soon as I can and avoid any and all unnecessary drama you could cause with this ploy."

Feeling mentally exhausted after Momota left he sat dawn on the couch and sighed. How was he going to approach the subject?

It could be said that Momota was always there, technically they all knew each other since the beginning of high school, but Kokichi was distant for the first two years while the other two became friends right away. It was obvious that Shuichi considered him a dear friend, it would be wrong to start with accusing the guy of having ill intent. It would be just cruel and unnecessery, they already had arguments about Ouma not mixing well with his boyfriend's friend group in the past, it resolved with an agreement that they don't have to like each other's friends, it's enough if they don't fight over them.

They both have their own judgement and free will, it's a part of trusting your partner to let them be and don't be forceful about who they should hang out with. Controlling behavior is such a big red flag and they were above that. Yeah, jealousy on his part and wanting people he cared about to get along on Shuichi's side started the argument, but what they did was talk it out. So yeah, implying that perhaps Momota wanted to sabotage their wedding was not an option. It would make him the asshole who made Shuichi choose between who's side to take.

He didn't want to accept that, but he knew what he had to do. Looks like his plans for the evening just got interesting.

Busy as a bee,it was usual for Saihara to come back late, but recently he was trying to come back home earlier, but the part that worried his soon to be husband that it was not to rest, did he ever? He was coming home to do more work related to wedding preparations or he was sneaking his real job in, Kokoichi was doing his best trying to stop the latter, knowing that this workaholic habit has to stop and made sure he had equal share of the first one. Actually, they tried to do most things together, when it came to the wedding it was of great importance to them for everything to be mutually agreed upon. They mastered the art of compromising a long time ago and knew their preferences well enough, which could cause people to wrongly assume it would be a piece of cake.

Bad wording. The thought of cake made him slightly nauseus. How many cakes you have to try before you pick one? How many places you have to see before you know which is the right one? How many designs of an invitation do you have to look throug before they make you choose between two nearly identical? What about decorations? Music? Having to learn the first dance? Panicking in the dressing room while trying on a suit, because you've seen the price and you don't deserve to wear it just as much as you don't deserve the love of your partner, but you can't stain this shit with tears and you start to doubt if the last five years was just a dream and you're gonna wake up being a teenager with nobody who'd care and acne again?

Do you ever wonder about those things?

Anyway. Shuichi coming home meant he had to get moving, today they had plans, they were going to visit his uncle to personally hand him the invitation. Good thing, that he lived close, but even better that not next door. Coming over for dinner was not a problem, but they had their privacy, it was perfect.

First though, he had to prepare a relaxing bath for Shuichi, he needs a break before continuing the day and won't give it to himself, so somebody else has. If the whole purpose wasn't for his fiance to rest, he'd gladly join him in it too, but maybe some other time.

Meeting partner's family seems to be the thing that always make people nervous, but reality is that after a while it becomes normal, it depends on how confident a person is, some people relax after making the first impression or maybe that just happens in books he read and it's normal to need more time like he did, but nonetheless it fades and eventually there's nothing to be nervous about, because at this point they'd either openly disapprove or started to treat you as a part of the family. For reasons unknown to him he got accepted and got called "son"which felt weird.

Today wasn't a typical visit, though, so a shred of familiar nervousness appeared. With how much of a big deal they did out of engagment everyone knew about them getting married, so technically it wasn't like they were breaking the news. Hell, he consulted with and asked for approval of Shuichi's uncle as the closest family he got before proposing. And yet it felt as if he was doing it for the second time. This time, thankfully there was Shuichi with him, it was always easier to face situations that challenged their insecurities together. Especially situations that stressed them both out, it boosted their protectiveness of each other and with the mutual support built they could face anything, even Shuichi's parents when they visited once. Speaking about them, they weren't invited.

He quickly realized that his worries were baseless, the man happily accepted the invitation and congratulated them, deep down he knew that he shouldn't expect any diffrent, but he still was relieved.

The rest of the evening passed in more relaxed atmosphere. They talked a bit more about details of the wedding and plans for the honeymoon - they were going to spend two weeks by the sea before coming back to the mundane life. During that conversation he managed to bring up the subject of costumes in a subtle way.

Casually, after taking a sip of his tea, he looked at Shuichi to see his reaction and dropped the bomb. "We could indulge in some untraditional aspects, for example apply a theme, some people pull that off pretty well, I've seen a couple get married on a boat with a Love Live theme or some others had everyone wear costumes and it was just stellar. Our is going to be rather small, roughly thirty people, so that would be doable."

He din't have to say that it's because there would be no one to come from his side as he's an orphan, it hung heavy in the air anyway, so he kept speaking to chase it away. It was impossible to tell if Shuichi's eyes widened because of the mention of costumes or at what his last sentence implied.

"It's just a random thought, since everything's decided by now and we kept it pretty simple, but it's such a special occasion that I understand wanting to have an extravagant wedding and even take said extravagance to another level, why not, it is once in a lifetime."

Shuichi didn't have any strong reaction to that and only asked if he's pointing at something in a tone that suggested nothing, it wasn't nervous at all and Shuichi sucked at hiding his emotions. The only possible conclusion was that he had no idea about the whole thing.

"Silly Shumai, I said it was a random thought, didn't I?"

[nickward]

Do you feel like if just one of your songs blows up on tiktok, all your problems will be solved?

The opposite lol. I have zero desire to have the tik tok come up. It just seems so hard to sustain, and also – if I have imposter syndrome now (being self-made), then I can't even imagine if I literally had a song go viral, due to some algorithm happening to work in my favour. I know artists/bands who have had songs blow up on the platform and it seems like more of a burden than a blessing to be honest. Labels get involved and force you to engage with the platform more etc. Also it skews your idea of who your organic audience/following is, compared to how many people are passive streamers from tik tok.

There was definitely a period where I felt a bit of peer pressure to get into it (I even made an account), but over time I've realised that I just want that slower, organic growth. I don't care if it takes me years! That way, you're connecting with people over the music and the story, not just the virality or trend it's attached to. I may be completely wrong though. If I looked through a list of my favourite artists, most/none of them are on tik tok - because the music is strong enough on its own that it doesn't need that viral boost.

There was a whole year of my life (2019!) when I was obsessed with trying to make a hit song and I ended up making absolute garbage and not much of it. It was miserable. It was only when I started making the first EP that I just gave up on that idea. Not to say that I'm done making pop music - I'm just done making music for anyone else but myself. I also understand that it's coming from a place of privilege - to not worry about making a living off music (right now). I'm still living at home and I work in hospitality at the moment - thinking of quitting soon though.

I watched a Ted Talk a while ago where JGL said "If you make art for the goal of getting attention - you will never be creatively fulfilled". That stuck with me hard and I think it's relevant to this question.

The main issue is when people compromise their art for the possibility of tik tok success. There are literal musical formulas that people follow to try make hits on the platform. Either that, or people just force random features/remixes with already established tik tok artists. That's when it becomes a problem, I think. I don't think music should be created with the assumed idea of success. It's pretty see-through when artist has designed a rollout or project around the idea of tik tok. I think it's holding Aussie music back right now. Prioritising trend-based success over innovation. That JGL quote is so true.

The idea of fulfilment runs even deeper than that I think. I've met incredibly successful artists who never had that "itch" scratched by success. It's the human condition to always want something more. I think it's especially prevalent in artists. A big void that may never be filled by music or success. It's more about internal success and fulfilment. I definitely see this happening to me in the hypothetical scenario that I am successful. None of the wins are ever enough. It's always 'onto the next thing'.

Okay, I may sound very old and bitter and boomer so please take this all with a grain of salt. Do whatever you want! If you want that tik tok come up then good for you - there's no objective reason why you should or shouldn't. it's just up to you! These are just my takes. This turned into a mini-rant but I just have a lot of opinions about it! Also as a musician, this convo comes up a lot. I can't help but relate to the theory of 'what goes up must come down'. It's also worth noting that some people don't choose to have a tik tok song. Sometimes it's an accident, and their 8-minute bedroom dance track from 2017 is suddenly a viral hit. Also there might come a day when I take back all of this and just roll with it. Maybe it's better to adapt to the modern industry rather than possibly get left behind. Big questions.

This is terribly written and formatted but it's a stream of consciousness joint. Great question!

[pixiegrl]

Somebody’s Gonna Love You

Luke's not ready for Ashton to spend the night and find out his secret but Ashton does anyway

A prequel of sorts for the Lingerie Luke series

Also on AU at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27032632

The first time Ashton spends the night, Luke’s not expecting it. They’ve only been officially dating for a few months, tentatively taking their relationship from friends who occasionally kiss to boyfriends . It’s made Luke giddy, makes him feel like a teenager with a crush again, like the 15 year old kid who’s heart fluttered when Ashton walked into band practice, who stopped breathing when Ashton would casually brush against Luke during a show, not a 23 year old adult with a career and a boyfriend.

It still makes him smile, full of shock and awe that Ashton would pick Luke. Of all the people in the world, Ashton would choose Luke to be with. That apparently Ashton’s liked him for so long, since that first day at the movie theater and that he wants their relationship to be serious. Luke can picture a life with Ashton, is already imagining what it would be like to wake up next to Ashton, make coffee in the morning, whine until Ashton cooks him breakfast. Luke’s picturing being able to kiss Ashton whenever he wants, cuddling up next to him on the couch at night, listening to Ashton whine about how cold Luke’s feet are but making no move to change their positions. In the dark of the night, when Luke’s feeling his loneliest, Luke pictures their wedding, what it would be like to stand up in front of their family and friends, tell them all how much he loves Ashton. Luke knows it’s too soon, they’ve only been dating for so little time, but Luke’s known Ashton for years. He’s loved him for so long that it’s so easy to picture a full life with Ashton, a life where he gets to bask in Ashton’s love, gets to tell Ashton how much he loves him over and over again.

However, Luke and Ashton haven’t spent the night together since they started dating. They’ve managed to start their relationship during a break from tour, hanging in the limbo of coming off an album and starting to create new music and it’s allowed them the freedom to explore the change in their relationship and go on dates and spend time together. Luke’s enjoying it immensely, for getting to spend time with Ashton, with Petunia, having lazy days at home, dinner and coffee dates with Ashton. It’s been nice, getting to feel like a real person, being able to take the time to just breathe and enjoy having a boyfriend.

Luke doesn’t have a problem with Ashton spending the night. In fact, he’s thrilled by the idea of Ashton staying over, getting to cuddle up to him and wake up to kisses, sitting outside on Luke’s patio and drinking coffee with the sunrise. It’s just that...Luke needs time to prepare for Ashton to spend the night. Both physically and mentally.

Luke’s been wearing panties. There’s no easy way to put it. It had started years ago, sometime after they made Sounds Good Feels Good , when Luke had started to grow his hair out and was wearing makeup. Michael had dared him once, to put on the silky underwear and wear it during a show. Luke had taken the challenge but hadn’t expected just how right it had felt, standing there on stage, in front of millions of people wearing the panties and glittery eyeshadow. Luke had started buying his own pairs after that, going into whatever Target or Walmart they were near and buying whatever he could that looked soft and pretty and floral. He’s been doing it for years at this point, almost completely replacing all of his boxer briefs with the panties now, creating his own perfect collection.

The thing is though, none of the other guys know about it. Sure, there was the dare, but Luke hasn’t told them about what he’s done since then. Whenever they share hotel rooms, Luke always changes in the bathroom, making sure to keep it out of sight. It just feels right , looking at himself in the mirror, the lace and bows, framed in softness. There’s a feeling of being at home in his own body when he feels them, feeling like he can finally breathe .

Which, therein lies the whole problem for Luke really. Even now that they’re dating, Luke hasn’t told Ashton about it yet. Whenever they hook up, before they were dating and now that they are, Luke is very careful to not wear them. He doesn’t know how to talk to Ashton about it, isn’t sure how that conversation would go. What would he even say, “Oh by the way I like wearing women’s underwear because it makes me feel beautiful and at peace?” How would Ashton even take that? What if Ashton takes it the wrong way, thinks its something sexually charged for Luke when it’s only part of the equation? What if Ashton decides Luke’s too weird to date once he finds out?

Luke’s spent an agonizing amount of time thinking about how he’ll tell Ashton, but he never expected for him to just accidentally find out. They’re wrapped up a movie night with Michael and Calum, catching up on the Marvel movies they’ve missed while busy and it’s late. Calum’s half asleep already, head resting on Michael’s shoulder, unbothered by how Michael keeps jostling him whenever he points excitedly at the scene. Luke’s got his head in Ashton’s lap, dozing while Ashton plays with his hair. He’s content like this, Ashton’s fingers scratching at his scalp, warm and loved.

The movie wraps up and Ashton leans down to whisper to Luke. Michael’s arguing with a half asleep Calum about whether or not Civil War is a good enough lead in to the rest of the current MCU.

“Can I spend the night?” Ashton asks. He sounds worried and anxious, like he’s unsure if he can ask this of Luke. Luke wants nothing more than to have Ashton stay, to never have him leave. Luke can’t believe Ashton even has to ask, that he’s even unsure of Luke’s own desires.

“Of course you can,” Luke whispers back, turning to face Ashton. Ashton smiles, pressing a kiss to Luke’s temple and Luke’s shocked by the look of wonder on Ashton’s face. It surely can’t be for him. He’s just Luke, stupid silly Luke, baby of the band.

Ashton nudges Luke off his lap, clapping his hands and starting to shoo Michael and Calum off the couch, even as Michael is caught between half hearted protests and shooting them both a suggestive wiggling of his eyebrows.

Ashton finally manages to get them both out of the house with the promise of continuning another night, shutting and locking the door behind them.

“Aren’t you going to get up?” Ashton asks, lips quirked up in a smile when he sees Luke still curled up on the couch. Luke reaches out towards Ashton, smiling sleepily.

“Carry me? Too tired to stand,” Luke mumbles. He’s not expecting Ashton to oblige him, cross the room in a few strides and scooping Luke up into his arms. Luke lets out a squeak, flinging his arms around Ashton’s neck at the sudden movement. Ashton snorts, pressing a soft kiss to Luke’s cheeks, his forehead, his nose. Luke giggles, leaning forward to capture Ashton’s lips in a soft kiss.

Ashton stops on his way to the stairs, kissing back. Luke tilts his head, trying to deepen the kiss.

“If you keep distracting me, we’re never going to make it up the stairs,” Ashton mumbles against Luke’s lips. Luke laughs, pressing a kiss to Ashton’s jaw.

“Maybe that’s my goal.”

“Please, like you’d have sex in anything but a bed. And besides it’s late. You deserve a bed, someone who can take their time to worship you. I would just fall asleep on you.”

Luke giggles, kissing Ashton on the lips again, “How romantic of you sweetheart.”

“Don’t make fun of me. You’re dating me.”

“I never said it was a bad thing,” Luke says, pressing kisses to Ashton’s lips to try and placate him. Ashton only pouts for a few moments before finally pulling away and continuing up the stairs, letting Luke press kisses to his jaw and neck along the way.

It isn’t until Ashton’s laid him out on the bed, is tugging off Luke’s T-shirt and kissing down his chest that Luke even remembers that he’s wearing the cotton panties. They’re pink, covered in little flowers, bright and vibrant, edged in lace with a little bow in the center. They’re cute, Luke’s favorite pair, and he’d wanted to wear them for the extra boost of confidence for his date. It’s just that wearing the panties have become so natural to Luke, just part of who he is now, that he forgot in that moment that Ashton doesn’t know about them.

“Ashton, wait…” Luke starts to say, but it’s too late. Ashton’s already tugged Luke’s sweatpants down, getting an eyeful of the panties. Ashton pulls back, looking down at them. He’s running his fingers along the edge, just barely brushing against the lace.

Luke tries to prop himself up and out of Ashton’s touch. He’s afraid suddenly, filled with a sense of worry that Ashton won’t love him anymore. That Ashton will decide that he doesn’t like this part of Luke. Luke’s weird and different, he’s always known that, head in the clouds and unable to talk to people without shaking or stuttering some days, but this is out there , it’s more than just different and maybe it means that Ashton will decide Luke’s not worth it.

“Did you put these on for me?” Ashton asks, slipping his fingertips under the waistband. Luke whines, arching slightly into the touch. Ashton smiles softly, lips just barely turned up.

“No I...I wear them all the time.”  

“Since when?”

“Since Michael dared me to wear them on stage.”

Ashton looks up at Luke, head cocked to the side. He reaches out, grabbing a hold of Luke’s hand and kissing the back of it gently. Luke doesn’t realize he’s shaking until then.

“That’s been so long Lu. How didn’t we know?”

Luke shrugs, “I was careful about it. I didn’t want anyone to know. It felt like...too much. Too big of a part of me to share.”

Ashton makes a noise at the back of his throat. He leans down, pulling Luke into a soft, open mouth kiss. It’s warm, Ashton holding onto his face in both hands, and heated. Luke’s dizzy from the love he feels.

“Why?” Ashton asks, pulling back, still holding Luke’s face in his hands.

“Why what?”

“Why do you wear them? Why didn’t you tell me ?”

“I just wasn’t sure how to bring it up. Like it’s not something I can just mention and I was so careful on all our dates. I didn’t want you to know.”

“Luke, I’m your boyfriend. I love you.”

Luke’s eyes feel wet, “I just wasn’t ready. It’s not...it’s not a kink, it’s not like one of those porns Michael used to show us. I’m not wearing them to be hot or attractive, even if I do feel like that sometimes. They just feel right. I put them on and I see myself in the mirror and it feels...like coming home. Like I see myself and it all falls into place. I don’t feel like Luke Hemmings, the rockstar . I just feel like Luke . They make me feel...beautiful. I feel beautiful when I wear them. And I didn’t know how to tell you without it being weird.”

Luke sniffling now, desperately trying to hold in his sobs. He doesn’t know how to explain it, the feeling that wearing the panties gives him. Luke never feels perfect, always feels too clumsy and large and loud. He takes up too much space, too much time, too much energy from everyone, especially Ashton. He’s just too much. But the panties, they make him feel like he can breathe. It’s the first time in a long time he’s felt comfortable in his body. And somehow, even though it’s Ashton , it feels too personal to tell him that.

“Oh Luke. Sunshine,” Ashton says, pulling Luke up and into his chest. Luke starts crying then, tears spilling onto Ashton’s shirt as he clings to it. Ashton keeps whispering into Luke’s ear, soft encouragement and praise, rubbing at Luke’s back.

“It’s so stupid I don’t know why I’m crying. You just wanted to do something fun and sexy and I had to be me. ”

“Luke, honey, I love you. There’s nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. You are truly so wonderful and golden. You’re the light of my day, the light of my life . I love you in whatever form you are and this is simply just one of them. If it makes you happy, if it makes you feel good, then what’s the harm in it,” Ashton says, cupping Luke’s face in his hands to press a kiss to his lips again. Luke whines slightly into it. He’s so overwhelmed, by how exposed he feels, by the love Ashton feels for him. He can’t even find the words to explain how he feels, instead pulling Ashton into another hug, wishing I love you , over and over into Ashton.

Ashton presses another kiss to Luke’s temple, stifling a yawn. “Can we go to sleep now?”

Luke frowns, “But I thought you wanted to have sex.”

“I just wanted to spend the night with you. I want to cuddle you and deal with your cold feet and spend breakfast with you. Sex is nice, but getting to just sleep next to you, wake up to you? Even better.”

Luke snorts, “How domestic of you.”

“Isn’t that what everyone wants?” Ashton says. The sincerity in his voice throws Luke off guard. The idea that maybe he and Ashton are on the same page, that they’ve both been dreaming about the future and the what if’s, thrills Luke. He wants forever with Ashton and the concept that Ashton wants that too is just too much.

“You can’t say sappy stuff right before sleeping.”

“How about this? We go to bed and in the morning, we discuss the concept of moving in together or getting a new place or something.”

Luke’s breath catches. The look of utter love and devotion in Ashton’s face is just too much.

“Ashton, I love you,” Luke whispers. Ashton grins, kissing him again.

“I love you too. Now, bedtime. You’re cranky if you don’t get enough sleep.”  

Luke huffs, but allows Ashton to pull off his sweatpants, give him another kiss. He tugs his own shirt off, handing it to Luke without asking and tugs off his jeans. Luke realizes that Ashton wants Luke to wear his shirt. Luke blushes, tugging it over his head before he can rethink it. Ashton grins when he sees it, snagging Luke’s sweatpants and pulling them up. He flips the light off, crawling on the bed next to Luke and manhandling him into the perfect position for cuddling.

“Yes.”

“To what?”

“Moving in. I want to move in with you.”

“Good. I already have places picked out that would be perfect for us. We can start hunting in the morning,” Ashton mumbles, sleep tired, as he presses a kiss to Luke’s shoulder. Luke kisses Ashton’s hand in return. He loves Ashton so much it’s overwhelming. It feels like coming home .

[independentartistbuzz]

Good Music, Good News 3.0

We continue to be touched and moved by the depth of sharing and Good News that is coming from the Cyber PR Music camp.  Nd we are not surprised.  Ariel and her team have sent us some of our favorite gems over the years. We are pleased to bring you part 3 of our 4 part series.

Please Follow the Spotify Playlist below to hear all of these amazing tracks.

[HERE]

Thanks to all of the artists who shared their music AND their good news.

Mara Measor | “Love Will Find You”

Is Now An Expectant Mother During A Global Pandemic

I had a miscarriage back in February, right before the pandemic hit. Then was able to get pregnant again a few months later! We had another scare at our first ultrasound and was flagged with a higher risk of our baby having chromosomal abnormalities, but upon further tests the concerns were cleared. And I'm finally getting used to the idea of having a baby boy next year. It's been such a roller coaster, but I'm riding it. :)

John Ellis on behalf of Val Starr & The Blues Rockets | “Whether Blues (2020)”

Experienced Loss, Family Members With COVID & Made Music To Heal

Our daughter-in-law came down with Covid and is still fighting it, and our granddaughter Ariella tested positive as well, but being eight years old, she didn't really exhibit any symptoms.  Lost a couple of friends to pneumonia and strokes, cancer in some other friends, car accidents wracked up a good friend, and then the election happened.  Life rolls on, faith in our Higher Power keeps us sane, and had a lot of time to work on recordings this year. Val Starr, my wife and bandmate, has written a great blues song that we'd like to share with you about all of us pulling it back together again.  Called "Whether Blues" , whether you're right, whether you're wrong, don't mean a thing till we get along"

Tabitha Chapman | “Celebrity Boyfriend”

Got A Publishing Deal

I am immensely grateful to God that despite the hardship, sorrows, pains and restrictions that typified the year 2020, I was able to release 3 singles, and I also got myself a publisher.

Valerie Romanoff | “Pink Skies over Still Water”

Created An Online Music Festival About Mindfulness & Meditation

Without the hustle of preparing and traveling for my live events with the Starlight Orchestra, I stayed home and developed a way to share the energy and messages in my Healing Music albums. I came up with an online show called "Groove Into Bliss: Musical Meditation & More" where my guests and I talked about the benefits of relaxing and releasing stress, the power of music to open the channels to well-being, and offered guided meditations.  We spoke of tips and tools for positive thinking, manifesting the life we desire, and the many ways we can use music to boost our joy! Through the online show I made many connections and was invited to be a guest on many high-vibe broadcasts and events, and I was invited to wrote a chapter in an upcoming book titled “The Wellness Universe Guide To Complete Self-Care: 25 Tools For Happiness.”

Apostrophe Music | “Keep the Hope Alive!”

Released Home-Recorded Music During The Pandemic

I released whilst we were in the heart of the lockdown during the month of April. As India went into a historic lockdown with over 1 Billion people being asked to stay indoors, the air of anxiousness and uncertainty brought out this song called Keep The Hope Alive! The only feeling we all had at that moment in time. 

I felt like it was a message that needed to get out there and once we recorded it out of my home studio (no access to studios because of the curfew lockdown situation) I posted the song on to Youtube and Facebook with a video and subsequently after that we did an official audio release in July. So this is the story about this song I released as the whole world went into lockdown.

Len Seligman

Turned The Tragedy of Losing His Mother Into Beautiful Songwriting

Like a lot of songwriters, I was moved to write a song about COVID-19. While neither my health nor economic situation suffered, the pandemic made it so that I could only visit my mother a couple of times in the last 6 months of her life, despite her living just 20 minutes away. She died in September at the age of 97.

When I looked inside to see what story I wanted to tell about the pandemic, I quickly knew that it would be about the beautiful ways people have shown up for one another. Yes, there's been enormous suffering, but it's also been extraordinary to see the tremendous upwelling of compassion that the suffering has brought out. That is what inspired this song.

Steve Andrews | “Where Does All The Plastic Go?”

Had A Successful Release That Led To Idea for Ocean Aid Concerts

My song “Where Does All The Plastic Go?” is getting included on playlists on Spotify, getting great reviews, and opening doors for me in unexpected places. This is wonderful because I'm thinking big and also came up with the idea for Ocean Aid Concerts to raise awareness of threats to the oceans. I am leading the way with songs on the subject of plastic pollution and my song could be included in any concerts that happen.

Richard Strange | “Christmas of Hope”

Used Hopeful Christmas Anthem To Fundraise for Charity

We (Musicians Together & Sweet Charity Choir) released Christmas of Hope, a single produced in aid of Help Musicians UK, last Friday December. We are donating the proceeds to Help Musicians UK, a charity that you may be aware of, specifically to their 3rd hardship fund. Some quotes from the charity's CEO, James Ainscough: “Music has been a unifying force that’s supported and entertained us all this year, more than ever before.” "But for tens of thousands of music creators across the UK the impact of lockdown and social distancing on their ability to earn, to create and to connect, has been disastrous for their finances and mental health.” "This 99-year-old charity has been in the privileged position of financially supporting over 21,000 musicians this year and we couldn’t have done it without the generous help of music lovers across the length and breadth of the country.”

Jody Whitesides | “A Perfect Man”

Created Deeper Relationships With Fans

I have been changing my approach to music this year. In doing so it increased the response I got from people on social media and via email. The most powerful thing was having a female fan tell me that the song “A Perfect Man” had brought her to tears. The reason, she could feel the love of the person singing to his counterpart and how he didn’t want to be put on a pedestal to fail the love of his life. Which is the main theme of the song. It was great to hear it hit home with a fan.

Andrea Kremer (The Aeon Wanderers) | “Don’t Say Anything”

Formed A Musical Duo via Facebook Groups

After 20 years promoting other people's music for a living, I partnered with a multi-instrumentalist/songwriter that I met in a Facebook music group, and we formed a musical duo called The Aeon Wanderers. My bandmate lives in Scotland and I live in Boston, so even before COVID-19, we were working remotely, collaborating on lyrics in a Google doc and doing videos "together" using green screens. We started by recording covers, but soon we were working on originals, and in August 2020 we released our debut album, "Fictional Histories." Being on the artist side of the equation rather than the marketing side has been eye-opening and fun!

Barbara J. | “Merry Christmas, Darling”

Has A Holiday Release Airing on World Indie Network Radio

My Christmas cover single, "Merry Christmas, Darling," has been selected to air on World Indie Network Radio's (WNIR) Holiday Spectacular Radio Special! This song, a holiday classic from The Carpenters, also serves as the pre-release to my Carpenters cover album, which I plan to release early next year.

Raphaela Gilla | “Michael’s Mantra”

Guided A Troubled Fan Through Meditation And Towards Healing

One of my fans wrote me a message that she was not feeling well and asked me if I could help her. I felt that the really needed help and gave my phone number immediately. In our conversation she told me that it was hard for her to breathe, and she felt a lot of fear. I could hear her breathing heavily.

I guided her into a meditation – I guided her to consider her breathing as an angel's feather. This opened her breath tracks to the earth and to the sky. I noticed how she slowly began to relax and began to breathe deeper. She cried out of relief, thanked me and asked me about my fee. I told her that this is a gift from me to her. It was a very touching moment.

We stayed in contact. Since then, she grows and feels better.

John Mueller | “I’m Doing Fine”

Brought Joy With His Latest Release

My fave moment of this challenging year was when a complete stranger wrote to me that they heard my new track "I'm doing fine" and how it was uplifting to them and brought some joy. I appreciated they took the time to notify me and to bring joy with my music is my ultimate goal. Getting this release out there and the entire album "You are Here" its included on during this year made a positive note for 2020.  

Nia Ocean | “This Christmas”

Channeled A Christmas Song To Help Us All Shine Our Inner Light

About two weeks ago, I saw an insta story from a dear friend of mine which literally “woke me up”! I got so inspired that the next day I had written a whole song, a Christmas song that is. The song is called “This Christmas'' and I made it really to remind us that WE make Christmas what it is.. our spirit, our love, our cheer, it’s OUR light that gives it all meaning. So even though 2020 has been a tough year, we can still choose how to end it. It’s easy to expect and allow for Christmas 2020 not be special because it will be so different due to quarantine, limited travel and lost loved ones, but this song is a ray of light in these times of darkness and difficulty, reminding us of what matters most and that we all have a light within us to shine and share with our ourselves , our dearest ones, and the world...especially this Holiday Season.

Stay tuned… There’s more Good News Coming!

[tigerkirby215]

5e Gondar, the Bounty Hunter build (DOTA 2)

(Artwork made for Valve Software.)

And here you were thinking that I wouldn’t actually make a DOTA 2 build; that’s where you’re WRONG! While this is sort of meant as my April Fools joke build I did actually play DOTA before migrating to League. I still love all the characters and I do genuinely think the gameplay has some strengths over LoL. The community...? Well, it exists.

Regardless back when I played DOTA I mained Bounty Hunter, which is rather ironic given I fucking hate League’s counterpart Bounty Hunter of Pyke. Gondar (yes his name is Gondar) was an extremely fun stealth assassin with a very unique passive to keep tabs on enemies at all times and inflate his teammates’ wallets. And apparently they magnified that even further by allowing Bounty to steal other heroes’ gold now with Jinada? Sweet Zeus Valve calm down with the feature creep...

Regardless: happy 5 days after April Fools! Hoes mad that I’m acknowledging DOTA’s existence.

GOALS

You can't fight what you can't see - DOTA is a lot more willing to give people invisibility. Helps when you can buy a gem that lets you see all invisible enemies.

The realm's justice - Jinada, que pasa? We need to be able to do big damage to critical points that weaken our enemies in a fight.

You can run but you can't hide - Your ultimate ability will be to track people down like some sort of... person who tracks people down for money.

RACE

Back in the Warcraft days Gondar was a Goblin, so a Goblin he shall be! As a Goblin you get a +2 to Dexterity and a +1 to Constitution, and Nimble Escape to get half of what a Rogue can do with your Bonus Action to Disengage or Hide (but not Dash.) And you get a nice bonus to take down big bounties (big in the literal sense) with Fury of the Small, allowing you to do extra damage equal to your level to a creature that’s bigger than you once per Short or Long Rest!

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Is your refrigerator running? Well you’d better go catch it, because there’s a bounty on its head!

14; WISDOM - Wisdom is tied to tracking, and spoiler alert? We’re going to be doing a lot of tracking.

13; CONSTITUTION - We kinda don’t need anything else so may as well use that +1 from our race to get a nice boost to our HP.

12; INTELLIGENCE - Practical intelligence never hurt when tracking down gods and demons.

10; CHARISMA - You need to be able to talk to the people giving the bounties.

8; STRENGTH - You’re a small man with small knives.

BACKGROUND

Man, if only there was a background for a Bounty Hunter! We’ll be going for Urban Bounty Hunter from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide because just because the name says “urban” doesn’t mean you can’t prowl around the Radiant jungle too. You can choose your proficiencies among a small list: I opted for Insight and Stealth. You also get proficiency with two musical instruments or gaming sets: I’d maybe ask about languages instead? But honestly pick your poison.

Your feature Ear to the Ground gives you plenty of information about whatever bounty you may be tracking, as you’ve got contacts in all places to slip you information about where a giant fishman may be. “The Tidehunter becomes the hunted.”

(Artwork made for Valve Software.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - FIGHTER 1

You level Shuriken first on Bounty, you go for CON saves first in D&D. Along with those CON saves you also get proficiency in two skills from the Fighter list: Acrobatics will help you survive and Survival will also help you survive! But it’s mainly useful for tracking.

As a Fighter you can choose a Fighting Style at level 1: for a quick Shuriken Toss Superior Technique will let you grab the Quick Toss maneuver as well as a d6 Superiority die to use on said maneuver. It doesn’t take a lot to push Q and click on someone. Remember that your superiority die come back after a Short Rest, as well as a long one.

Finally as a Fighter you can hold onto a Bottle to use for a bit of Second Wind, healing for a d10 plus your Fighter Level as a Bonus Action. “A prudent hunter knows when to strike.” This ability also resets after a Short or Long Rest.

LEVEL 2 - FIGHTER 2

Second level Fighters can up their APM with Action Surge, allowing them to take two actions in a turn. The Wiki says the trick of attacking people during Shadow Walk’s Fade Time is still a thing, so yeah pro tips from a League player!

LEVEL 3 - FIGHTER 3

Third level Fighters get to choose their Martial Archetype and truth be told I just want to be able to throw more shuriken, so Battle Master it is for four more Combat Superiority dice! You can also learn three more Maneuvers other than Quick Toss: Disarming Attack will let you knock an enemy’s weapon away with Heaven’s Halberd, and both Commander’s Strike and Distracting Strike are good to team up with your allies to play support. “My allies have earned their keep.”

But of course the most important feature is Student of War; no shmuck politician is going to hire you unless you have Calligrapher’s Supplies proficiency to fool a god to sign off his power to you!

LEVEL 4 - FIGHTER 4

How about we slow them down a bit? The Slasher feat will increase your Dexterity by 1 but also allow you to slow enemies hit by 10 feet. Additionally if you crit you cripple them, giving them disadvantage on their attacks! This only works with Slashing damage, so technically you can only slow in melee range with a Scimitar. But if your DM is cool I’d totally allow Darts that do Slashing damage to slow at range!

(”Twin Blades Assassin” set made by motenai and T_Vidotto. Made for YYF.)

LEVEL 5 - RANGER 1

First level Rangers get proficiency in one skill from the Ranger list: increase your map awareness and buy some wards for Perception. Additionally you get Deft Explorer from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, which grants you the Canny ability for two language proficiencies and Expertise in one skill of your choice. Your languages don’t matter too much but guess what? Survival is still used for tracking down bounties!

Speaking of those bounties you can mark them with not quite track thanks to Favored Foe. When you hit a foe you can choose to mark them and make them take an additional d4 once per turn for up to a minute! You need to concentrate on this effect though so you can’t just fire-and-forget like in DOTA, and can only use it a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus.

LEVEL 6 - RANGER 2

Second level Rangers get to choose a Fighting Style and you know what’s good for tossing shuriken? Thrown Weapon Fighting, letting you draw thrown weapons for free and giving you +2 damage to said thrown weapons!

But of course the main appeal of being a Ranger is the Spellcasting! You can learn two spells from the Ranger list: for a not quite stun that certainly isn’t mini Ensnaring Strike lets you throw a shuriken (or stab with your sword) to root an enemy in place. Alternatively if you want to track people super good Hunter’s Mark gives you advantage on Survival checks to track the person you marked, and also lets you do an extra d6 every time you hit the enemy!

It’s of course worth mentioning that both these spells require Concentration which means you can’t use them along with Favored Foe, but most of the Ranger spell list is Concentration.

LEVEL 7 - RANGER 3

Third level Rangers get to chose their subclass, and I hope you weren’t expecting Hunter just because the character is literally called “Bounty Hunter.” No we’ll be going for the Monster Slayer subclass, because certainly you only hunt monsters who have a price on their head for a reason, right? Regardless Hunter’s Sense will let you know what an enemy’s weaknesses are just by looking at them (and perhaps peeking at their inventory) with your Action. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier and regain all expended uses at the end of a Long Rest.

But what we’re mainly here for is Slayer’s Prey, for more tracking marks! As a Bonus Action you can put another mark on a foe within 60 feet to make them take an extra d6 the first time you hit them! You can only have one target marked at a time with this ability, and it ends if you take a Short or Long Rest. This stacks with both Hunter’s Mark and Favored Foe, so pick your poison to do as much as you can to your foes!

You can also learn another first level Ranger spell like Snare, to set up in advance for bounties you know are coming. You get a lot more magic too: Monster Slayer Magic provides you with the Protection from Evil and Good spell, which is helpful for hunting down demons and fiends. You can also cast Speak with Animals once per day thanks to Primal Awareness, just in case you’ve been hanging around with Enchantress.

LEVEL 8 - RANGER 4

4th level Rangers get another Ability Score Improvement, but we still kinda need to be able to turn invisible? Good thing Shadow Touched lets you increase your Wisdom by 1 and gives you the Invisibility spell along with one Illusion or Necromancy spell of first level.

What first level spell will we be taking you may ask? Why if only there was a spell to squeeze more gold out of your bounties. Oh wait! Distort Value from Acquisitions Incorporated, allowing you to sparkle up your bounties for more gold! You can cast both of these spells once per Long Rest without using a spell slot, and can also cast them freely with your spell slots.

(”Desperado in the Shade” set made by HeeJae.)

LEVEL 9 - RANGER 5

5th level Rangers finally get their Extra Attack. It’s about damn time to pick up some attack speed as a Martial Fighter.

You can also learn another spell like Locate Object, because sometimes items have bounties on them too. Speaking of spells Monster Slayer Magic gives you the Zone of Truth spell, and Primal Awareness gives you one casting of the spell Beast Sense, in case you want to ride along with Lifestealer.

LEVEL 10 - RANGER 6

6th level Rangers get Roving from Deft Explorer, increasing their movement speed by 5 and granting them a Climbing and Swimming speed equal to their walking speed, meaning you can follow your bounties through any terrain. Additionally Favored Foe increases to a d6 of damage, so while it’s still not really comparing to Hunter’s Mark it’s still helping!

LEVEL 11 - RANGER 7

7th level Monster Slayers have a Supernatural Defense against magic and crowd control. Whenever the target marked by your Slayer’s Prey feature forces you to make a saving throw or if you try to escape their grapple, you can add a d6 to your roll.

You can also learn another second level spell like Lesser Restoration, as a Dispel is never a bad thing to have.

LEVEL 12 - RANGER 8

Striking foes from the shadows is all well and good but you haven’t got many ways to keep yourself safe. (Other than using your Bonus Action to Disengage I guess.) The Mobile feat will speed you up and let you avoid hits after cutting a foe’s heels!

(“Giant Hunter” set made by Jigglypuff.)

LEVEL 13 - RANGER 9

9th level Rangers get third level spells! This means you get:

Magic Circle from Monster Slayer Magic.

Speak With Plants from Primal Awareness.

And Revivify from the Ranger spell list (thanks Tasha’s), in case you need to help someone Buyback their respawn.

LEVEL 14 - RANGER 10

10th level Rangers are Tireless thanks to Deft Explorer. You can recover Exhaustion on a Short Rest, and can use an action to give yourself a boost of Temporary Hitpoints a number of times equal to your Proficiency bonus, which resets at the end of a Long Rest.

You also get more ways to turn invisible with Nature’s Veil, which lets you turn invisible until the start of your next turn. Like Tireless you have a number of uses equal to your Proficiency bonus, which come back at the end of a Long Rest. “Unseen.”

LEVEL 15 - RANGER 11

11th level Monster Slayers carry a ministun to deal with casters. When you see a creature casting a spell or teleporting within 60 feet of you, you can use your reaction to try to foil it with Magic-User’s Nemesis. The creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC, or its spell / TP fails and is wasted. You can only use this ability once per Short or Long Rest however, so be sure to stop the enemy from using a teleportation scroll.

Additionally you can learn another spell like Nondetection, for protection against wards.

LEVEL 16 - RANGER 12

12th level Rangers can grab another Ability Score Improvement: even though we have an uneven Wisdom score I’m still going to suggest maxing out your Dexterity first for the highest possible AC, damage, and dodging skills.

(”Hunter with No Name” set made by BigTuna, Vermillion-Wlad, and Stefco. Made for Funn1k.)

LEVEL 17 - RANGER 13

13th level Rogues can learn 4th level spells. You get Banishment from Monster Slayer Magic, but much more importantly you get Locate Creature from Primal Awareness for some proper Bounty Hunting! We’ll also be taking Locate Creature as our learnt spell at this level: one may say that it’s not the most useful spell, but if you need combat magic you can upcast Ensnaring Strike for a chain stun or Invisibility to dust up.

LEVEL 18 - RANGER 14

14th level Rogues see Favored Foe increase to a d8. Is this way too late for a feature that’s still arguably doing less than Hunter’s Mark? Perhaps, but Favored Foe still doesn’t cost your Bonus Action nor a Spell Slot.

You do also get Vanish to hide as a Bonus Action but... you could already do that. Oops.

LEVEL 19 - RANGER 15

15th level Monster Slayers are masters at 1v1ing squishy spellcasters, as you master the Slayer’s Counter. If the enemy you marked with Slayer’s Prey forces you to make a saving throw, you can use your reaction attack them! You make this attack immediately before the saving throw, and if your attack hits you automatically succeed your saving throw.

You can also learn another spell but honestly? Pick your choice. We got just about all the character-accurate spells we could need as is.

LEVEL 20 - RANGER 16

16th level Rangers get their last Ability Score Improvement and while it’s probably late to do this the Resilient feat in Wisdom will make sure the enemy has zero chance to CC you.

WHY NOT ROGUE

There's several reasons I opted for Ranger levels instead of Rogue levels. Firstly Bounty Hunter can crit targets even when not stealthed, and Jinada is described as "preparing" the next attack which is much more in-line with Hunter's Mark and Favored Foe. Gondar's code language is most likely Goblin speak as opposed to Thieves' Cant. And of course Ranger was the only way to acquire tracking spells like Hunter's Mark and Locate Creature.

But above all else there were few Rogue subclasses that fit Gondar. Soul Knife is perhaps the only one that makes sense but ironically enough the unlimited nature of the Soul Knife Psychic Blades doesn't fit. (Also long-ranged teleportation doesn't fit either.) Monster Slayer meanwhile brings the backline counterplay to Gondar and allows me to work in a lot of Bounty Hunter's utility abilities.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

I didn't come here to see my enemies grow rich - You have many ways to get the upper hand both in and out of combat, with both spells and martial prowess to aid you in combat. Between invisibility, Hunter’s Mark, Ensnaring Strike, or just generally tracking your enemy down you have all the tools you could need and more to get the jump on your foes.

Watch your head! - You are very strong against magic users and other enemies who force saving throws, and you didn’t even need the Mage Slayer feat! Monster Slayer is exceptionally good at giving one enemy an incredibly tough time killing you, especially if they rely on magic to do so.

Impressive technique, but not enough - A little bit of Constitution goes a long way, and a +2 to CON along with a d10 hit die will give you quite a bit of bulk in comparison to others.

CONS

A wise hunter knows patience - It takes quite a bit to set up all your marks, with several bonus actions to operate at maximum effectiveness. In fact you have an absolutely excessive amount of Bonus Actions to choose from which can make picking the right one very tricky.

My target eludes me - You also have several Concentration spells, and while your CON saves are good many of your spells are utility based you still can’t turn invisible while tracking down your bounty.

That's going to come out of my pay, isn't it? - Your Wisdom isn’t terrible but it’s not good either, and while most of your spells don’t rely on saving throws many abilities such as Hunter’s Sense and Magic-User’s Nemesis do rely on your Wisdom. I’m not saying Point Buy would be better but your Intelligence really isn’t doing much to help you.

But a good hunter knows what tool to use in any situation, and you have the tools to take out any target... for the right price, of course. Stalk your foes, strike when they least expect it, and reap the rewards for your allies. And if they're the type to complain that you're not from Runeterra simply remember that DOTA is better than League, and a LoL player can't deny.

(Comic by Nerf Now!)

[fmdkangjin]

                 famedkrp idol hc meme 〔 accepting 〕

∞ for a future (post-idol life) headcanon  ↴  〔 252w 〕

oh kangjin has thought about this a million zillion times. he really wants to move back out of the big city to a maybe, more quiet area closer to rural, maybe just on the outskirts of a city perhaps, and become a full time dancer. he’s also strongly considered working with his dance as a career staple (for instance like hoya from infinite did after leaving their group, or feeldog or any number of other talented idol dancers who went on to make dancing their primary focus as artists instead of the idol artistry life) because when it comes down to it the only thing that makes him happy regarding his craft is the ability to perform on stage, especially as a dancer. rapping is a job and once he’s done with his control and MARS is done for good he’ll never do it again, as for singing, he might sing for himself but there’s no thoughts of a solo career outside of MARS, he just doesn’t hold enough confidence in his singing voice nor the drive to make it better either. he’s put thoughts to having a family, too, though he doesn’t seem the type, kangjin really wants to settle down. lifting the dating ban is one thing but with fans you never know how dating will be received, i think kangjin looks forward to a world where he can have a serious and committed relationship without having people comb over his relationship or his partner with a fine tooth comb.

♫ for a performance headcanon  ↴  〔 224w 〕

performing is something that kangjin loves a lot, probably more than most things, the chance to dance on stage and to let the crowd feed into his performance is one of his favorite things. kangjin really needs, seeks and feeds off of approval. but he does sometimes have a very hard time and question whether it’s his dancing that people like or his body when dimensions chooses to put him in revealing outfits or conceptual pieces that seem (or at least feel to him) like they hide his whole performance more than help? fan service, especially in the form of baring his mid-drift or pectorals with open chest, that kind of costuming really brings out the worst of kangjin’s insecurities and makes him dislike performing more than he will ever make a big deal out of. he’s come to just accept it over the years but it’s his least favorite part of stage performing with the outfits that MARS often throws on him. it seems like kangjin is probably the second (if not the first) most ‘objectified’ member of MARS, or at least his costuming and body is one of the most iconic in that way. (don’t remind him of the crop top in undercover that hasn’t debuted yet but when it does, kangjin will struggle his way through it like you wouldn’t believe)

☀ for a variety headcanon  ↴  〔 220w  〕

kangjin tends to like the attention he gets during variety and live performances, especially if his costume is what he’d consider modest or at least normal, casual. he performs well in front of cameras, mostly because it’s a huge act. he’s grown to like the attention as long as it isn’t lingering or too heavy with praise? kangjin likes to win and play games and do well, it’s exciting and a small, i wouldn’t call it ego boost but it balances him a little compared to the utter pit of despair his thoughts tend to be. it’s like validation or, a brief ‘kangjin please stop being like this’ ticket lol. plus, his father has absolutely drilled into kangjin’s head that if he isn’t center stage and being focused on, he’s doing something wrong. if you aren’t first you’re last, second is just first loser, if he’s on variety and he watches it back to realize he’s been cut out (generally for not performing well or the opposite) he’s usually pretty devastated ngl.  i think he tends to have a very confident and charming, almost boy next door (who will fight you for first place) persona with variety. definitely a bit of an attention hog and he makes sure to super glue his smile in place while the cameras are watching.

◙ for an audition headcanon  ↴  〔 239w 〕

kangjin was scouted from a stage performance his father’s company put on when he was a preteen, and his rounds of auditions were less rigorous than his training with his father normally went. he had a marked amount of performance experience before his auditions, so his nerves were steady, but his competitive nature did have him on edge, lots of adrenaline that kept him tense and sharp? he absolutely aced the dance portion of his audition, he hadn’t actually prepared anything specifically for the day, but he had plenty of dances memorized for covering and also improved jazz and contemporary for them on command. it’s definitely not surprising he was given a main dancer position because it was by far the strongest part of his audition. i would say that his vocals and rapping both were on the same par, both good but nothing amazing, he was just really unrefined, since singing and especially rapping were never strong suits of his. but his rapping is better than his vocals thanks to his breathing control being better and the range command being far easier to manage with rapping than vocals. at least, at first. he does eventually train his vocals after being signed, and over the years he’s trained often and he would consider them modestly good, but it think his vocals are probably stronger than he thinks especially now. though during auditions, his rapping was his obviously stronger suit.

‼ for a career goal headcanon  ↴  〔 219w 〕

as of right now kangjin’s only goals regarding his career are just to not lose it. his personal attachment towards his music or becoming a particular kind of artist is at an all time low. the label at this point is just doing whatever they want to with him and his image, and he’s just been accepting it regardless of how much he personally dislikes any of their direction. when i say this man is disenfranchised towards his career i mean it. dimensions has a mini album in the upcoming future planned for him that he hopes to make statistically successful so that he can continue to please his father and satiate that part of him that needs approval and wants to win. but like actually, there’s no career goals. i would say maybe he hopes to improve his technique as a dancer, to do harder choreography and refine the forms of dance (like jazz or contemporary) that he’s lost some sharpness to from not really perfecting them since becoming an idol- even if he has to do it on his own, and continue posting cover dances and freestyles to MARS’s official youtube channel as well which isn’t a career goal but it is a professional one, since that’s one of the only things that makes him happy anymore.

[queenangst]

advice for high school??

advice for high school:

put yourself out there. i know high school is big and scary, but it's new. you're going to know people who you've seen all your life and people who you have never met before, probably. don't be afraid. sit next to someone new in chemistry and... bond. ask to squeeze in a lunch spot. smile at your teachers, say hello. join clubs. it's 2-4 years of your life, so find your people.

stop thinking about the numbers. this is one of the hardest things when you're surrounded by a pressured environment from all sides - teachers, students, parents. but let me tell you that you have to learn when to care and when to not. which times to fight and which times to let go. you might get your first 35 on a test. you might be ranked far behind your other classmates. not every homework has to be done well, just done at all. not every grade has to be an A, because in the end higher academic institutions care less than you think and not every "bad" grade is the end of the world. and if you don't do so hot on something, feel a little bad and then keep going. no use in dwelling, just do better next time. (sometimes just give up. don't do an assignment. take the 0. sometimes you need the time, or the break, and it's not worth doing.)

freedom. high school is the first taste of bigger opportunities in learning. choose classes you might have an interest in over what will boost your gpa or whatever. take art, take music, something creative, even if you are a stem student through and through, you don't have to do well but this will enrich your life and give your brain something different that isn't numbers or grammar or whatever. and creativity fosters community.

communicate with your teachers. some teachers accept nothing late ever period. some teachers procrastinate. actually a lot of teachers procrastinate they're really just like you. whatever the case talk to them. if you're having trouble understanding high school teachers often have some form of out of class tutoring/tutorials before, after, and even during school (such as at lunch). if you are sick, if you want them to look over a paper, if you need an extra day to finish your project and make it good, talk to your teachers. they want you to succeed. they cannot always be lenient for personal or academic reasons, but they will understand. and them knowing is better than them not.

get sleep. i mean it. 6 hours at least. 7 is good. 8+ is best. if you can't, at least sleep for some amount of time even if it's 30 minutes. if you can't sleep, still lie down for a bit in the dark and let your body rest even if your mind won't shut off. you will thank yourself in the morning.

do your damn homework. just do it. there's a lot, some of it is useless, but a lot of it is not. homework is meant to help you retain the info that you learned in class, or even learn more info that you will not cover in class.

on top of #6, read the textbook and listen in class. sometimes it's boring. just do it. you don't have to take notes but they definitely help, and notes never have to be pretty they just have to be legible to you. it can be bullet points. it can be diagrams. it can be a treasure map of weird associations. draw angry faces next to notes about dead historical figures. whatever works for you.

teachers are resources. ask if you can record lectures. see if they have a google classroom or someplace online where they post notes and powerpoints. ask for websites and further reading. ask for HELP.

study a lot, have fun a lot. i know every day is limited and you're going to be tired all the time. i know. i was there. ib was working us to the bone from the moment we went in to the very last exam. but on the weekends and after school, every now and then do something with your friends that isn't going through your math homework together. see a movie. get coffee, or boba, or tea, or whatever the hell y'all drink these days. go to a museum. find free activities. swim. talk to your friends outside of an academic environment and you will be closer and dearer. and you will not regret it.

you're allowed to disagree with your authority figures. so parents/guardians/teachers. don't overstep your boundaries but as you learn and grow there will be times that they are wrong and you are right. in many different situations... but most especially about you yourself, a person.

reach out. talk to someone when you're hurt. theres going to be a lot of new experiences in high school and some of them will be bad. please talk to your friends. your parents if you can. talk to a teacher you trust. sometimes school counselors suck but part of the job, regardless of if they are doing well or not, is listening to you, and it's meant to be confidential. and if you're worried about someone else for gods sake talk to an adult.

you are still a kid. please don't stress too much about matters that are bigger than you and things that are too much for you to control. you are almost an adult but you are not, you are grown up but you are not. do kid things. you don't need to be super strong, or super mature, or act ten years older than you are. you don't need to prove anything.

pursue your interests, and good things will follow. i mean this in every sense. your health. your mind. your attitude. your college applications. (seriously, everyone has done the volunteer hours and everyone has the grades and everyone has what you have. show that you're human.)

be awkward. be weird. there are so many different kinds of people but someone will be like you, and someone will like you. be happy, and others will see it.

don't put your burdens unnecessarily on other people. or yourself. here's the truth: if all you talk about is how bad you are, how you aren't getting anywhere in life, how the numbers aren't good enough, then no one will stick around for long. you will surround yourself in something bad that people don't want to be around. like mentioned, talk to someone. friends are the most comfortable but not always the most appropriate. im not saying to keep your thoughts to yourself, but adults > other emotional, struggling, hormonal teenagers in terms of being equipped to handle tough situations. people want to help! but when all you talk about is yourself and your trouble, and not listen to other people, talk about things that make you happy... you're going to lose something.

college is a big deal but also not. please don't worry about it until junior and senior year.

failure is inevitable. take it.

surround yourself with people who are better than you, and who you like, and who like you. surround yourself with people who you aspire to be similar to. you will do better and you will want to do better.

keep organized. good god. please do not be like that one guy in my math class. one day my classmate and i got so fed up we cleaned out his backpack for him and shoved things into folders and begged him to stay organized. folders. binders. accordian folders. just use something im pleading you. it's going to be 2 minutes before class and you realize you can't find your homework or turn in a wrinkled, stained paper. also keep some sort of schedule and task list or else you will be that guy that goes "wait we have a TEST today?"

halo effect. first impressions are important, even if you can overcome bad ones. show up on time. sit in the front even though it's scary, because midyear you'll realize you have been doing badly because you sat in the back and can't see or hear over the two girls who gossip in front of you. smile. say hello. ask questions. raise your hand. you can be wrong. you can be wrong. you can ask stupid questions.

ask your teachers if you can eat in class. my 4th period teacher (after lunch) was fine with us eating, so id take lunch to study sometimes and eat then. i always ate breakfast during 1st period bc when i got up it was too early for my body to take more than a little. most teachers are okay as long as the smell isn't strong and lasting, and you clean up. have a snack so you don't crash. don't forget to eat either. please eat lunch, and some teachers will give you snacks if you ask, and if you don't have money please just... ask someone for a share or to borrow some cash. it's okay. you need to eat.

there is so much more. school might be all you know. but stop and enjoy life. if you worry about college you're going to spend 4 years looking forward and not enough at the present, and you're going to lose your precious time. there is so much more.

you're going to change. a lot. you will be a completely different person. that's normal. you're gonna be a little embarrassed. like the person you become, and become a person you like. make good choices. be kind. have heart.

enjoy high school, kid. good luck!!! it was honestly a rewarding and wonderful time, and that was in part bc i made it so.

[bfseventeen]

Evening with Jihoon

[requested] [fluff, birthday] [Word Count: 3,242]

It’s the night of your 19th birthday. You and your friends go out to celebrate how you got older by a year again. Everything goes well until one of them finds a fortune teller on the side of the street. First, you think it’s stupid and there is no way she can tell your future. But your friends force you to sit down. 

“When I take a look at your hand, I can see that you are living a happy life but you are deeply missing something,” she starts and you kind of roll your eyes because anyone could come up with something like that. 

“You are finding the right way in school and among your friends too but there is something very big missing from your life, I can feel it,” she continues then she takes out a deck of cards. “Choose four” she orders and with a little hesitation you take out four cards from the deck.

The fortune teller looks at the four chosen cards on her little table then she turns the first one. “This card symbolizes your love life. Here the woman in white tells that you live a pure romance life which means you are not in a relationship.” Well, that’s true, you think for yourself. “Then the next card tells the future for your love life. Oh, this is actually a good sign.” She exclaims then she turns the card towards you. “This is the Cupid, which means soon you’ll find your love. Let’s see if it’s going to be successful or not.” She says and as she turns the third card, she sighs deeply. 

“Is there something wrong?” You ask, starting to believe her words. 

“This new romance that is waiting for you will not be successful at first. But if you both work hard for each other, then you can be in a long-lasting relationship,” she explains and your furrow your eyebrows. You try to put together what she means. 

“Now the fourth card will tell your weaknesses and what you have to look out for.” She turns the card and shakes her head a little. “This card tells me that you are a bit too idealistic and take things too personally. This can bring negativity into your new romance because you have to be realistic with your partner. He might be a great person but he is not perfect and he can even say things that might hurt your feelings but you shouldn’t take it too seriously. That way you can have a long and happy relationship.” She finishes then she asks for the price of her service which is twice as much as you prepared for. 

“So, what do you think?” Asks one of your friends as you continue to walk down the street. 

“Well, she kept talking about a person that I don’t even know so it feels kind of like a fairytale. Also, I don’t think I take things too personally like I’m not that type to get caught up on things...” you say, which makes your friends laugh.

“Then what are you doing now?” they ask and you don’t answer because you know they are right. 

“Anyway, where should we go next?” You ask and your friends start to look around until one of them spots a bar. 

“Ah, that seems like a good option. I heard they play live music there,” your friend says then you walk into the bar.

There aren’t that many people because this is mostly for those who enjoy live acoustic or jazz music, not necessarily for drinking and especially not for partying. It’s easy for you to find a table close to the small stage where a duo is singing love songs. 

“First the fortune teller and now these two people have to remind me how single I am,” you scoff then the drinks you ordered arrive. You take a look around the bar and notice how calm everything is. It feels nice but you wish you could make this night more memorable. 

“And now our next performer is about to come on stage,” announces the host for the night. “Please give it up to... Woozi!” Shouts the host and the small number of people who are in the bar start to clap. 

Then a short boy with a beautiful acoustic guitar steps on the stage. He looks nervous as he doesn’t even look at the audience, neither the host. Instead, he just quickly searches for the stool and trips on the cables that are connected to the speaker. He sits down in embarrassment, then he starts to play on his guitar. After a short intro, he starts to sing and with that, your heart almost stops. 

He has an angelic voice. It soothes your mind and makes you feel warm. You can’t take your eyes off of him even though he just sits there and performs. “Who is this guy?” You think out loud and your friends start to giggle. 

“I think Y/N already found the boy which the fortune teller talked about,” says one of them and you start blushing. But this is just the sign your friends waited for. When Woozi finishes his first song, your friend stands up and goes to the host. The host hands her the mic and she looks at Woozi. 

“Hello! My friend here,” she says as she points at you and you wish you could sink deep down, “she just turned 19 tonight so I was wondering if you could sing a song for her?” Woozi at first looks surprised because this is the first time that someone requested something from him, but he can’t say no. He nods with a quick smile on his face and he briefly looks at you. You try to look away but your eyes are locked for a short moment. 

“Happy Birthday,” he says under his nose then he starts to sing a song that you never heard before. While he performs, he doesn’t look at you, instead, he closes his eyes and puts his everything in the song. He is singing something that is not familiar to you and sounds more like his creation. He has encouraging lyrics that is helpful for celebrating a nostalgic birthday as you step into adulthood. 

“Again, happy birthday,” he says shyly after he ends the song and you thank him with a smile and a nod. 

Woozi plays a couple more songs. Some of them are his own and some others are covers by famous singers. He sometimes glances at you while you still can’t take your eyes off of him. Sometimes he smiles at you shyly when he catches your glance. Your friends keep on teasing you about how obvious you are, but you just can’t help it. 

“Okay, birthday girl. We had a great night out with you. Congrats for getting a year older but now we gotta run home to do important stuff. See you later,” says one of your friends suddenly as she stands up from the table and puts her bag on her shoulder. Your other friends follow her and before you can say anything in your shocked state they just leave the bar. Woozi witnesses this whole scene as he was already packing up his guitar and ready to leave the stage. You are dumbfounded and don’t know what do. At first, you think they really just ditched you because they had enough of you, but then your eyes meet with Woozi’s and you can see that he got curious about the situation. So it was their plan to leave you alone and maybe get Woozi to come and join you... but he doesn’t come. 

Instead, Woozi goes backstage with all his stuff and the night host comes on stage to announce the next performer. You feel double betrayed. But you can’t blame Woozi. You didn’t even talk to him, why would he even want to go and spend some time with a stranger.  

It doesn’t feel like a good birthday evening so you decide it would be better to go after your friends or just go home straight, eat some delivery food and watch a movie. You put down some bills on the table and are about to put on your coat when someone clears their throat behind you. You look up and for your surprise, it's Woozi standing there, with his guitar case on his back. 

“Do you mind if I join you?” He asks and you scoot over so he can take a seat. “I noticed that your friends left you, that’s not really nice of them to leave you alone on your birthday.” He notes as he puts down his case next to his chair. 

“They had to go somewhere and I didn’t want to leave yet as I enjoy the atmosphere here,” you lie as you don’t want to tell him they only left you there to set you up with a cute singer. 

“I see. I agree though, this place is really cozy and calm. Unlike other bars and clubs in this street,” he replies and you nod. 

“I’m y/n, by the way. Nice to meet you,” you introduce yourself and Woozi shakes your hand.

“Nice to meet you,” he answers and when your hands touch he looks a bit embarrassed. His hands are still sweating from playing the guitar.

An awkward silence envelops the two of you as the next performer comes on stage. It’s a female singer who sings love songs while playing on the piano. Her voice is soothing and you can feel being in love just by listening to her romantic songs. 

“She is a great performer,” Woozi says.

“I agree but you can’t complain either. You have a nice voice and I liked the melody of your own songs,” you compliment him, which makes him smile awkwardly and his ears turn red a little. 

“I composed them myself so it feels good to hear a compliment,” he confesses and takes a sip from a drink he ordered. The two of you continue to listen to the songs in silence, but then your stomach starts to growl. 

“You didn’t eat anything yet?” He asks and you shake your head. Your original plan with your friends was to get some drinks and get into the mood for the night then head somewhere to eat.��

“I’m quite hungry but I’m not sure how good the food is here,” you say and Woozi sighs. 

“Ah, that’s not good. The food here is not the best since it’s a bar for drinking mainly. There is a nice restaurant not far from here with Korean food. If you want I can go there with you,” he says as he avoids looking into your eyes. 

“That sounds good,” you smile at him and this boosts his confidence a bit. 

Woozi pays for his drink then he leads the way out of the bar. When you get out on the street, the air is fresh and cool. It makes your head feel a little better as inside it was starting to get a bit too hot and smelly. 

“It’s this way,” he points his arm into one direction and you follow him. “I’m a bit surprised, you seem so quiet compared to your friends.” He says bluntly and for a second you stop. 

“Well, I’m not sure if you are saying this as a bad thing or not.”

“No I mean it’s just an observation, I thought they were embarrassing you and I didn’t like that,” he says and your temper starts to rise. 

“Oh you know it’s not nice to say bad things about someone else’s friends. They are very close to me and I love them a lot,” you say and Woozi shrugs. 

“But they still left you so easily and you looked kind of surprised and disappointed,” he replies. You are starting to get upset at him.

“You don’t have to worry about me, I can be fine alone too,” you say, raising your voice a bit. Woozi stops and his face tells he is confused. 

“So do you want me to leave you alone now?” He asks and you are not sure that he is genuinely asking it or sarcastically. 

“Well, I never forced you to accompany me on my birthday. If you are with me out of pity not because you are actually interested in me then you can go home, I guess,” you answer him and he is taken back by your answer. 

“No it’s not out of pity, you misunderstand me. I’m actually interested in you,” he says and now it’s you who is taken back by his straightforward answer. 

“Oh... sorry. I didn’t mean to lash out on you,” you apologize but Woozi waves his hand. 

“I guess I shouldn’t have talked badly about your friends either,” he admits and you nod in agreement. The two of you continue to walk towards the restaurant and in a few minutes, you arrive. There are not many people in there as most people are in the club next door. When you step in the restaurant you can hear a little bit of the strong beats coming from the speakers of the club.  

The old lady who is the owner of the restaurant smiles brightly at Woozi when she notices him. 

“Oh Jihoon-ah, you came to eat something delicious?” She asks loudly from the other side of the restaurant. Woozi smiles in his embarrassment and greets the old lady. 

The two of you choose a table by the window and Woozi goes to the back of the restaurant to speak with the lady and to order some food. In a few minutes, he comes back with two orders of kimchi jjigae. 

“Oh that smells so good,” you say as he puts down the food in front of you. It’s hard to wait a few minutes but you can’t eat right away as the stew is burning hot. “By the way, is your real name Jihoon?” You ask and he nods with a smile.

“Yes, Lee Jihoon. Woozi is just my stage name,” he shrugs. I didn’t want to tell my name at first because it might not be as interesting as Woozi.”

“I like both actually, but Jihoon suits you better,” you say and he looks surprised. 

“Well, that’s good to hear. But I think you can try it now, I know you must be starving,” he says while pointing at your dish. He was right, you were close to passing out because of hunger. The two of you start to eat in silence and just watch cars passing by. 

“Do you come here often?” you ask when you finish your dish. 

“Yes, it’s one of my favorite places. The old lady is from Busan like me, so the way she cooks tastes similar to how my mom cooks,” Jihoon says with a faint smile as he probably thinks about his family at home in Busan. 

“That’s good then if you have a little connection to your home,” you add and he nods. 

You talk a little more about your personal lives, sharing some basic information but then you get a little nostalgic as you think how soon you are really going to enter into adulthood. This makes you open up more to him and you start sharing stories from your childhood. Some of them are embarrassing stories which truly entertain Jihoon. There are times when he laughs so hard at your weird encounters in high school that he almost falls from his chair. At first, you think he is laughing at how pathetic you are but soon you realize he doesn’t mean it like and you end up laughing with him. It makes it a lot easier to regard those embarrassing moments as some type of life lessons that are all in the past now. 

“I had a really good time and I’m glad you felt okay about sharing your stories with me,” he says as you stand by the door of the restaurant. 

“Of course. I felt comfortable sharing them with you,” you shrug as if it’s no big deal but it means a lot for both of you. 

“Y/n, I don’t want to say goodbye yet. Do you just want to walk around?” He asks and you nod happily. “But you don’t feel cold, right?” 

“No, just my hands a little,” you say as you look down on them. To your surprise, Jihoon suddenly touches your hands and he nods as he observes your hands are actually really cold. He raises your hands up and blows some warm breath on them and he rubs them together with his hands for a few seconds. 

“Does it feel better now?” He asks cooly as if his heart is not racing fast because of how close you are. When in reality he is about to lose his mind. 

“It’s much better,” you say with a shy smile and you try to avoid looking in his eyes, but you just can’t help it. For a long minute you stare at each other, then a loud honk across the street shakes both of you out of your bubble. 

“Let’s walk,” he says and he doesn’t let go of your right hand, instead he keeps it in his. 

You walk around for almost an hour still talking about childhood memories and life in general. It gets way too late and it’s time for you to go home. Since you are in the center of the city, it’s best for you to take the subway to your neighborhood. Jihoon lives in the opposite direction so you say a sad goodbye on the tracks. 

“I almost forgot that I don’t have a birthday today,” he says with a smile and you don’t understand what he means so he continues. “Spending time with you was like a gift for me as if I had a birthday today too,” he explains and you chuckle at his cheesy words. 

“Well as for me, I had really good birthday night. It was definitely special,” you answer and it makes him smile even more. 

“Y/n, please keep in touch. I don’t want this night to be just one a time thing,” he says and you nod. 

“Of course. You gave me your number just now and you have mine. We can repeat this anytime,” you say and he nods too. 

“Please text me when you get home. And again, happy birthday!” He says softly then you step in the subway and wave goodbye to him. 

[patchesthegothictramp]

Late to this, but for the 'asks for fanfic writers' post - 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 17, 24, 25 and also 35, 36 and 37! Take your time with reply and have a nice day!

Ahhh no it’s fine! I’m always happy to answer things!

1-  things that inspire you

Honestly it’s a lot of different media. Most of my ideas either come from something I played recently or listened to or watched, which usually means my ideas start as AU’s until I develop them so much in my head they barely resemble the original thing that inspired it in the first place.

2-  things that motivate you

Music that’s relevant to the fic. As a mostly persona fanfic writer, I listen to the music of that game. So if I’m writing a boss fight I’ll usually have blooming villain on repeat, if it’s just a calm scene, then Beneath the Mask. It helps me so much to get into the right mood and keeps me going.

6-  how did writing change you?

Since I started to write, I got a lot more involved with the fandom and got to meet a lot of lovely people! It’s really boosted my self-confidence too and I feel like it’s helped me develop writing skills in general, as well as observational skills since much of what I write tends to be close to canon.

7-  early influences on your writing

Hmmm.... this ones harder to answer ngl... I’m petty, so definitely a lot of it comes from just wanting to prove someone wrong through writing a whole fic that disproves them, or in the case of my very first fic, Under Different Circumstances, wanting to change canon so Akechi doesn’t die and he gets together with Akira/Ren. 

8-  what time are you most productive?

when I’m procrastinating stuff tbh. Though that being said I don’t think my writing is as good if I’m writing it instead of actually doing what I’m supposed to. In terms of quality I’d actually say it’s sort of the opposite, and also usually after I experienced something that inspires me. Recently I’ve usually been most productive whenever new p5r stuff comes out because I’m both hyped for it and it comes out when I have a lot of other stuff I should be doing so it ends up being a bit of a mixture of both.

17-  favorite AU to write

I haven’t written much since most of my stuff is longfics, but even though it might not seem like it, I love writing AU’s based on pre-existing things. I love the idea of characters from one thing being put in a completely different setting and seeing where it goes from there. Though I rarely post them because I don’t always have a fully formed idea for them, I have a backlog of AU’s for p5, such as a BNHA au, a borderlands AU, gossip girl AU and so on. And although I know they’re not popular, I really like crossovers.

24-  favorite scene you’ve ever written

Ahhhh I can’t actually say because it’s from something I’m writing for the Dark Big Bang BUT from scenes I’ve uploaded, I’d have to say probably from my mouse fic when mouse!Goro is annoying and patronising Ren in class, so Ren just knocks his pencil case off his desk with mouse!Goro inside.

25-  favorite line you’ve ever written

Damn, again it’s from my Dark Big Bang fic so I’ll choose something I’ve updated already, once again, from The Great Mouse Detective when talking about how he definitely doesn’t want to bang Akechi when he’s not a mouse:

Ren tries to play it cool and shrugs, “I’m not going to do that, he’s a mouse right now anyway,” he begins muttering to himself but this time he hopes they can hear it, “But damn it would be hot.”

35-  single story or multi-part story?

Being completely honest, I do prefer writing series. It’s easier then to separate story arcs if I’m writing something super long like Different Kind of Detective, which in it’s early days was going to be a three part story called ‘Different Kind of Detective’, ‘Different Kind of Assassin’ and ‘Different kind of Wildcard’. But also then tagging gets complicated and I’ve found people lose interest so it’s easier to keep it as one story. That being said, I think for at least one AU i have in my backlog I would make it a multi-part story.

36-  one-shot or multi-chaptered story?

I love one-shots but dear god I’m completely incapable of writing them. I start thinking about something which could potentially be a one shot but it just spirals from there... The Great Mouse Detective was originally gonna be one chapter but then when I kept on thinking about how great certain interactions would be it meant that it would’ve been too long to be one chapter.

37-  canon or AU?

For writing, sticking close canon is far easier for me. For reading, I love both equally. But in general as I’ve said earlier, I love the idea of AU’s taking place in an entirely universe, and now with Different Kind of Detective finished, I’m hoping that I can write some more AU’s.

[fellowhuman-being]

Insight on Hollywood - Fifth Harmony Related

So for fans who are “woke”, I think you guys know that whatever you read on articles, what you see on Instagram and Instagram story, or even what your most favorite artist tweets are not all real. @emisonme​ @decoding1432​ and @sun-to-my-luna​ has exposed a lot about it in their page. So you better go there to get deeper understanding about “the men in suit”.

I came across this game called “Choices” where in this game, you can choose your story based on the options given to you. Different options of course lead to different stories, but I guess the ending is still almost the same. So there is this book called “Red Carpet Diaries” in the game. It gives a little hindsight about what happened in Hollywood. If you wanna know the technical things that “the men in suit” do to their artists, you might as well just try this game and you’ll get an idea about how things works with contracts and stuff.

This game tells a story about a new actress, but the technical stuff is almost the same for a newborn singers. I’ll explain about the story a little and highlight important parts that will give you a hint to how “the men in suit” works. This is gonna be a bit long, so bear with me. (For those who don’t wanna get spoiled of the story, I guess you can play on the game first before you read this article).

These are the links to see the big picture of the story. (You can just skip if you’re too lazy and just jump to play the game in your phone by downloading it through AppStore or PlayStore lol... Or you can just jump to my article below)

http://choices-stories-you-play.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Carpet_Diaries,_Book_1_Choices

http://choices-stories-you-play.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Carpet_Diaries,_Book_2

So the story is about an actress whose talent is good and comes to LA for putting a bet on her career in Hollywood. She has a best friend whom she knows from her hometown who currently works as a Junior Agent in a big talent agency. The Book 1 basically shows about how she climbs the ladder and tries to become a spotlight in a big film and (let’s cut to the chase) she made it.

Here I will focus on Book 2 where the whirlwind happens when “the men in suit” tries to control this actress‘ life. But before that, don’t get surprised that “the men in suit” can play really dirty. I will mention it one by one later. For now, I’ll call this actress as “Ms. Queen”.

After all the success that Ms.Queen has achieved in her first film, she became a star and all Hollywood wants to work with her. Her best friend who becomes her agent got an email that a Director wants to take her as a lead in the season’s biggest blockbuster WITHOUT any casting. It’s an action movie where she will play as an agent trying to capture a former agent who becomes a villain. The filming starts with her mostly trying to perfect her hairflips when she comes out of water wearing a bikini. The director says that she will look like a sexy agent.

I remember how this also happened with Fifth Harmony. They came out straight of a talent show with no record label wanted to take them. It was all like a dream came true when Epic took them. No one even knew their songs. In their age as newborn stars, they needed to follow the instructions that sex appeals and here came all the sexy songs.

Yes, everything also seems like a dream come true for Ms. Queen that after the first stage of filming, she got invited to meet the owner of the film. Let’s just call him “Mr. V”. This Mr. V is “the men in suit” who then gives a promise to Ms. Queen to make her a star. But then at the end of the meeting, Mr. V suddenly tells her that she will have a new manager. In other words, her best friend is not her agent anymore and tells her that he has talked to the owner of her best friend’s agency and both have agreed that it’s for the best. She wanted her best friend to stay as her manager, but then Mr.V says “It’s an order!”. Thus, Ms. Queen now has a new manager named “Tad”

With Fifth Harmony, do you still remember when they were under a new management? Correct me if I’m wrong but if I’m not mistaken with the timeline though, it happened in early 2016 and all hell broke loose.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6836616/fifth-harmony-joins-maverick-management

Under the new management, Ms. Queen has a really tight schedule with endless appearances on shows, interviews, and so on. Tad (the new manager) also wanted her to “fake” date her co-star to boost the film once it is launced. Then of course after a few weeks the film is released, they can post a “break up”. They need to upload in their Pictagram (which is a replacement for Instagram in the game) through a screen in the management office that looks like a real beach. Then the next day, Tad set up a “fake” date in a fancy restaurant where Ms. Queen will have a candle light dinner with her co-star. He invited press and some photographers from gossip blogs. Tad asked Ms. Queen to “make it look real” so that the photographers who stand by can take a highres pictures and video of them looking comfy and cozy together. They are not even allowed to speak as if they were not couple-y. They need to call each other “honey” and all those cute nickname as long as the press is there.

Now, do you see where this is going? This is also what happened with the girls ever since 2016. All the whirlwind especially with “Lauren’s private life” and now even Camila does the same thing. The whole PR stunts were made as if everything looked real while it’s NOT. I don’t need to talk about which one 1 by 1 here. I think you know what I mean.

The next day, surprisingly Mr.V’s secretary calls Ms. Queen that Mr. V would like to have a dinner in a restaurant. The time has been set. But then at the last minute, before Ms. Queen goes off to the restaurant, Mr. V calls and asks to change the place to his mansion / house. He says that he has some business afterwards that it will be better to have the dinner in his house. Sounds fishy? Well, Ms. Queen is too innocent to notice that Mr. V has something up his sleeves. Apparently, during the dinner, Mr. V asks her to sleep with him. She tries to escape the house but then Mr. V tells her “You’re going to regret this. Remember I am the powerful one here.”

I don’t want to jump to conclusions though but do you still remember the rumour about L.A. Reid being accussed for doing sexual assault? I know the one who brought the case to public is not FIfth Harmony but if something happened to any of the girl, I would NOT forgive him.

https://variety.com/2017/music/news/l-a-reid-accused-sexual-harassment-sony-music-epic-records-1202426625/

The next day when Ms. Queen goes to the set, everything is crumbling. You know there is like a cabin or a container where the actors can rest during the break time, right? When Ms. Queen arrives at the set, hers is replaced with a dirty and stinky one. After that, the Director makes an announcement about the poster and Ms. Queen is not in it. Meanwhile, SHE SHOULD BE THE LEAD ACTRESS. After that, surprisingly the Director also says that Ms. Queen is not needed on set on that day. It’s like Mr. V is punishing Ms. Queen for not giving what he wants.

As if things don’t get worse already, when Ms. Queen arrives at the apartment, she gets a call from her best friend. He tells her about the news that she is bully in high school and the source of the news is anonymous. She tries to open her social media, but she can’t open it. Apparently, the password has been changed by Tad (her new manager). Then, she tries to look from another account into her real account. In fact, there is a posting of an apology from her account about what she did in the past and that she would not repeat the mistakes again. But she never even bullied anyone!

Do you think this is kind of familiar? This happens to Fifth Harmony all the time. They always ruin the girls or one of the girls’ image and build it back again later. I still remember how the image of Lauren being a weed user became viral after the incident where she was caught in the airport before she went to Brazil to sing for a show with the girls.

http://www.tmz.com/2016/12/14/fifth-harmony-lauren-jauregui-arrested-weed/

It was such a stupid news to be honest. I think with someone as smart as Lauren (someone with 5.0 GPA like the fans say), it was so stupid to bring weed in the hand carry. Could it be a punishment as well at that time for Lauren? Unfortunately, we never know....... After all, TMZ was always source of PR stunts.

Of course Ms. Queen was pretty sad with what happened. She doesn’t like the “Queen brand” that Mr. V and Tad make. She wants to quit, but apparenly it states in the contract of the film that she will be fined USD 10 million if she quits! She tries to re-read the contract, and it clearly states like that in fact.

Do you still remember when Lauren was asked about what keeps them going for 3 years and Lauren said “a contract” and the situation became awkward? I honestly laughed really hard at her reaction but she wanted to spill some tea!

You can see the full video here (watch 16:58 - 18:03)

Here Lauren also mentioned about how they performed the same songs over and over again as well as singing songs that they were “given”. At that time, I’m pretty sure they don’t have the “control” that they are talking about. It’s just to give us reassurance that Fifth Harmony is getting better year to year.

After that, Ms. Queen has a coffee meeting with her best friend (her former agent) and he tells her to just forget everything. Like indeed there is “Queen brand” out there but it’s not the real Ms. Queen. It’s for the people out there who don’t really know her. The Ms. Queen that her friends and relatives know is the complete opposite and 180-degree of that being mentioned in the press and even her own social media. Those who know Ms. Queen before all of this will know that it is NOT the Ms. Queen they know.

So, guys what I get from this game is somehow like a “slap” in the cheek, you know? I know I have always been a fan of the girls. All of them. All 5 of them. And I will always be OT5 stan. But this is also an important message for you guys, fans. This is such a reminder that we need to remember how the girls are back then when all hell hasn’t broken loose. We still remember the kind and cheerful Ally, the kind and beautiful Normani, the kind and smart Lauren, the kind and friendly Camila, and the energetic and sarcastic Dinah. That’s the real them. I know people change. But seriously, how is a characteristic changed though? It’s easy to change your habit, but it’s really hard to change someone’s characteristics. That’s why some things never change.

On the next day, Ms. Queen goes abroad to continue the shooting. But all the props are not safe. Ms. Queen tries to protest but then the Director ignores her. He ensures her that everything is safe and will be alright. So they shoot the capturing scene when Ms. Queen is trying to capture the villain by climbing up the scaffolding. In fact, the actor who plays the villain falls over and breaks his legs and ribs. All the crew was shocked including all the actors. The filming production was postponed for some time and all crews were asked to stay silent about what happened. It’s part of the contract and they were instructed there would be punishment if they breaks the rules. Ms. Queen tries to knocks the Director head but then she unintentionally eavesdrops on the Director’s discussion with his Assistant Director. Apparently, Mr. V cuts the budget on the film production so that the crews need to reduce the budget on the props as well, costing the actors’ safety! Since they were tight in budget, they could not hire a stuntman as well. Ms. Queen was angry and she told everything to the biggest Hollywood gossip show by staying anonymous. But, Mr. V knows that Ms. Queen was the source of the leak. So Ms. Queen gets fired.

Fortunately, even if she gets fired, after reading carefully to the contract, Mr. V cannot sue her for the USD 10 million. Instead, after she gets back to LA, Mr. V blocks the entire street of her apartment and she cannot live in her own appartment. Thus, she is homeless for around 3 days.

What I want to expose here is the power of “the men in suit” in controlling their artits, and the part where the NDA contract plays a role here. You can see if the NDA contract is broken, then there will be sort of “punishment” to the related person. I think this is why Dina Lapolt says that Fifth Harmony’s contract is like the worst she’s ever seen.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine-feature/7865161/fifth-harmony-2017-billboard-cover-story

The long road to liberation began with 5H hiring outspoken music lawyer Dina LaPolt at the end of 2015. “I sat the girls in a hotel conference room and for five hours educated them on trademarks, copyrights and rights of publicity,” says LaPolt, who soon helped secure them new management with the preeminent firm Maverick (Madonna, U2, Miley Cyrus). “Then I educated them about every agreement they signed, which [were] the worst I’ve ever seen in the music business.”

LaPolt successfully transferred the Fifth Harmony trademark from Cowell to the group, meaning the women now own the name, along with the right to control how it is used and to profit from any deals. (The agreement -- signed in April 2016, months ahead of Cabello’s exit -- doesn’t name Cabello in the “Fifth Harmony Partnership.” “I don’t represent Camila,” is all LaPolt will say.) She then renegotiated 5H’s contract with Epic, which she characterized as “a very adversarial” process.

Even in this game it is said that “The biggest stars are not just people. They are commodities.”, which means that the investor (”the men in suit”) can play around with the stars as long as they get the money, even if that means that the stars should give up their identity to public. After all, the stars can’t do anything against what they want since they are bound with the contract.

I hope this gives a little hints on how it works in Hollywood and how “the men in suits” control their stars. I surely don’t know th content of the NDA contracts though since nobody can talk about it, but that’s how it works and how bad the punishment can be when the rules are broken.

[sorio99]

Deltarune Chapter 1: The Official Undertale AU

At 6:00 AM PST, on Halloween 2018, the official Undertale twitter account released what is essentially a demo for the next game by Toby Fox, deltarune. Between the baffling intro, the odd relationship with the original Undertale, and the implied involvement of a certain missing doctor, everything about this game was shrouded in mystery.

And I loved it.

(Spoilers and Review below the cut)

Part 1: The Story

At first glance, most people assumed this mysterious new game would be a sequel (or possibly prequel) to Undertale. After all, it involves a number of shared characters, the titular rune was prominently featured in Undertale, and even the name “Delta rune” is an anagram for “Undertale”.

However, the relationship between the two is much stranger, and the plots are largely unconnected.

After creating an avatar and having the game unceremoniously throw it in the garbage, you play as Kris (that lovely person up there), the human child of Asgore and Toriel, and younger sibling to Asriel Dreemurr. Right off the bat, about a million questions are raised, especially since later conversations indicate Kris has at least been living with the Dreemurrs’ since they were too young to know their species, but we’ll come back to that.

Toriel drives you to school, though still get there late, and Alphys (who is your teacher here) puts you in a group with Susie, the only student to show up after you, to work together on a group project. However, when she realizes she doesn’t have any chalk, she sends the two of you to go get some from the school’s broom closet. You catch Susie eating chalk, she threatens to eat your face but doesn’t, and you head off to the broom closet.

Then things get weird.

After that, it sort of follows a plot line similar to the original: you fall into another world, there’s a bunch of monsters you can either fight or spare, and you just have to keep going up and to the left to fulfill a prophecy & get to the exit, all while dealing with ambiguously evil characters who are more silly than dangerous. It is, however, a bit shorter, with only about ten unique enemies and only three areas in the whole game. But hey, it is technically just the first chapter, so what do you expect.

Of course, what really makes an Undertale is the characters. Since you’re in a different world for most of the game, the returning characters from Undertale don’t have much of a presence outside the very beginning and very end. Instead, we focus on a handful of new characters, all of whom are pretty well-rounded and developed, with the exception of Kris, our silent, somewhat-ambiguously-gendered protagonist. Susie, in particular, goes through a pretty nice character arc, going from someone who’d casually threaten to rip your face off and eat it, to an actual antagonist at one point, before eventually working her way back to being a good guy and someone you can actually be friends with! It’s definitely the strongest arc in the game so far.

There’s also Lancer!

He’s a villain.

And not a skeleton.

Just trust me on this.

Part 2: Presentation

Just to get it out of the way, the music is fantastic. Of course it is. It’s an Undertale spinoff and, more importantly, it’s made by Toby “Radiation” “I could shit out a better soundtrack than most of you will ever even imagine” Fox.

I will however say that I prefer Deltarune’s sound design in general to Undertale, though. Don’t get me wrong, Undertale still has the better OST (for now at least), but Deltarune’s sound effects JUST beat it out in my books. In particular, I felt like the text sounds for most of the characters was, on average, less annoying than in Undertale. Again, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Undertale’s voices, but some of them could get a little ear-grating, especially for characters who talked a LOT throughout the game. Here, with the exception of one returning character (where the irritation was kind of the joke anyways), all of them work really well. There’s even a tiny bit of voice acting from a couple of the more important characters! So, big thumbs up there.

More pressingly, however, are the visuals. In case it wasn’t obvious from the above screenshots (aside from that second one of Lancer, maybe), the graphics have gotten a MAJOR glow up since the last game. Temmie Chang, aka “Most Precious Meme”, is still the main Artist for the game, and Undertale is by no means a bad looking game. However, in general, the games’ art went from “Beautiful and sometimes even breathtaking” to consistently “HOLY SHIT MY EYES ARE NOT EQUIPPED TO COPE WITH SUCH SHEER BRILLIANCE!!!”

You think I’m exaggerating, but I legit dropped my jaw at a lot of this game’s visuals. I mean, just look at this one End-game animation!

I think this one short scene has more detail and frame than Asgore’s overworld sprite got in the entirety of Undertale.

On the slight downside, however, we no longer get the full-body monochromatic battle sprites from Undertale, as enemies appear in battle almost identically to how they appear in the world. Still, with this much more detail in overworld sprites, it’s not even a slight loss.

Speaking of battle...

Part 3: Gameplay

Yep, the gameplay has gotten a major overhaul over the past three years. First, as the screenshot should make obvious, you have a team now! Yep, in addition to Kris, you can get up to three additional party members over the course of your adventure, including Susie! 

In general, what you can do in battles with Kris is mostly the same; you can Fight by hitting the button at the right time, Act in certain ways to make the enemies not want to fight you, use an Item really quick, or Spare an enemy who you don’t want to kill. You also have the option to defend, which will lessen the damage you take if you get hit during the obligatory bullet-hell attacks your enemies dish out.

Where things get really interesting, though, is the team mechanics. You see, every character is different, and everyone but Kris can use magic (although some of Kris’s ACT commands kinda seem like magic?). However, only Kris can directly ACT, with other party members only being able to preform certain set spells. So, instead, Kris can command the other party members to perform actions, or Kris can ACT while the others defend, use items, or attack. If you use a Team ACT, the other party member(s) involved won’t be able to do anything else that turn, but said Team ACTs are usually more powerful or potent as a result. The whole thing can set up for actually strategic choices in battle: In Undertale, since most enemies only had one or two ways to spare them, the most strategy you could use on a Pacifist play through was “Which enemy should I deal with first?” Here, you have to figure how you’re going to handle each encounter. Do you have Kris ACT first, then have another party member spare that monster in the same turn? Or do you act WITH that party member, and next turn be able to spare at least two monsters?

In addition to the battle system being reworked, there were a number of smaller, quality of life changes:

You now have three item categories: Items (your standard consumables), Gear (your armor and weapons), and Key Items (your cellphone and a couple other important things).

You can sell at pretty much every shop in the “Dark” world, which makes sense, since you’re mostly selling food, armor, and weapons-things people in this world would need to survive.

Each character in your party uses a different kind of weapon, but all of them use the same armor, and you can give them all two pieces of armor each, so you can stack defense and get extra boosts!

Choices are mostly presented in a cross pattern, so you just have to pick a direction and confirm to choose that option.

THERE IS NOW A RUN BUTTON AND IN THE OPTIONS YOU CAN CHANGE SO YOU AUTO-RUN AND THE RUN BUTTON IS JUST A WALK BUTTON!

And speaking of which, YOU CAN ACCESS THE MENU FROM WITHIN THE MAIN GAME! THANK YOU!

You can also have up to three save files at once, although I’ve heard each file has some minor differences in flavor-text across the game, so be on the look-out for that.

Overall, I feel like I honestly prefer the game play to Undertale. In fact, with the exception of the story (which is mostly underdeveloped because, again, this is basically just a very long demo), I honestly prefer most of Deltarune to Undertale. While it isn’t technically a sequel, per se, it does do what any good sequel should do: use the original as a starting point and just improve almost everything. It’s almost like the Bioshock Infinite to Undertale’s Bioshock, if that makes sense.

(Would that make System Shock 2 Homestuck? Am I over thinking this?)

Now, with the actual review out of the way, we can get to the main event.

Part 4: Co̞͞n̤̠͎̙̥̗n̸̰̜̳͚͓͇͍e̸͈͉̳̺c̭̮̬̖̭̗̳͠t͍͓͘i̖̺͙͇̟̫o̢̰̜̦n͈̮̼͈͎͖̦s͈͝ ̹̙̦͈̯̜A̡̟̥ņ̥͙̗d̛͙̤̦͈̹̪͚ ̺T͍̞h̡̜̝̟̬e͏̱̹̲ͅ ͕̯̰͍̜͇͍D͝oc̜t̸̺̱̯͙̠o̷̱r͈̟̣̤̯

As I mentioned before, this game isn’t technically a sequel to Undertale. None of the events of Undertale seem to have occurred in this universe, including (seemingly) things from before the game even began. This becomes especially apparent after you leave the “Dark” world and can explore town, talking to various people. Character relationships are almost universally reset, there is no mention of the “Underground”, and considering Asriel is still alive and in college, it’s safe to say there is no Flowey in this world. It could almost be passed off as a complete alternate continuity, or even a reboot, if it weren’t for a few...

oddities.

Yep, among the returning characters, Sans makes an appearance, having apparently just moved into town and never having met you before. Despite having apparently met Toriel the night before in the grocery store, and having a business relationship with your teacher, Alphys. Plus, there's the fact that what used to be Grillby’s and the Bone Brother’s house both look WAY too close to there original versions (no other building looks that similar), the fact that of ALL the returning characters, only Sans looks the exact same (no redesign, visible aging, or even new clothing), and the fact that some of Kris’s dialogue choices seem to reference things that haven’t happened in this universe, and other characters notice them acting...different.

Plus, you know, there’s Chapter 1′s ending.

Yeah.

(Plus, as you might have noticed at the top of this part, there’s a monster who is the only one in either game who looks similar to this Gaster Follower)

All of this seems to point to something much more sinister going on. And, for those who haven’t seen it, the tweets leading up to the demo’s release might just explain why.

Now, we aren’t quite sure who this is supposed to be, but judging by their vocabulary and how they type, it’s a pretty safe assumption we’re being chatted to by our favorite former royal scientist. And, sure enough, most people are assuming that this entity is at least some version of Dr. W. D. Gaster. Why is he doing this? What does it all mean? Why was the Delta Rune even slightly relevant to the plot of this chapter aside from there being three prophesied heroes?

Well, I suppose only time will tell.

Until then...

L̴͙̖̠̕è̘̝͚̯̩̘ͅt͔͎͖̝͎̼͘͢ ̷͎̮͘ù̴̹̘̮̰̙̮̮̘͝s̵̷̫̠͎̯͙̥͟ͅ ͍͍̤̟͇͕̺ͅh̨̼̼͕̠ą̶̛̦̫̼v̺͞e̸͎̭̱͍̭͞͠ ͖̩̳͕͔͚͚̝̱s̘̭̩͜͟ơ҉̥͖̯͟m̞̠͈e̷͔͖̭ͅ ́҉̤͔͎̫̣̥̱͚̲ḿ̶̩̼̙̪̻̝̥͟o̗͇̩͇̠͍͟r̡͖͇̤̗͔͈̕͠e̶̝̠͔͈̭̟ ̷̫̬̺̮͔̣F̢̗̘̟̯͈̜͖͕͈͞Ų̴͍̜͚̘̠̞͈͇̀N҉̡̣̺̝̩̘͓ͅ.̷̩̹͓̯͝

S̛̪̦͉͎̙̀h̴͇͈͡á̤̣̫̬l̷̬̤͓͈͟ͅl͚͚̙̦̙̣̱̺ ̳̗̩͍̱̤̦͈̣w̡͔é͔̝̹̻̜͎̞͝?͜҉̣̣̥̫͎͎ͅ