#it's because our computer system that's supposed to keep track of this stuff is full of LIES

[mariposakitten]

I had two girls in my class last year like that. They sat together in the back of the room and they'd always have their heads together giggling. One day I asked the one who spoke more English to translate something I said for the one who spoke less and she gave me a wide-eyed stare and said "oh we don't actually speak the same language"

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

A Cluster of Burning Stars - Chapter Seven

in which flowers fade

{ao3} {tumblr}

When they landed back at Tails’s station, Sonic wasted no time. He leapt off the wings, tapping his foot impatiently as the others got out of the plane, and then raced inside, running for the computer. To Tails’s surprise, Sonic seemed to know his way around that system much more than he’d expected, as he began flipping windows, pulling up maps and charts.

“Whoa, whoa! I’ve got that stuff organized, you know!” Tails cried. 

Sonic turned, slamming his hand on the keyboard. “We need to stop Shadow. Now.” 

“What? You ran into Shadow?” Knuckles asked, holding up his hands. 

Sonic bristled. “He’s going to blow up the planet.” 

Tails and Knuckles stared at him for a beat. And then Tails screeched, “He’s what?” at the same time Knuckles shouted, “The hell are you talking about?” 

“Tails. Have you got anything on the ARK on this computer?” 

“Not much.” Tails admitted. “Why–”

Sonic swiped through windows until he found an old, black-and-white photo of the ARK, pulled from GUN’s files. He maximized it, and then gestured behind him. 

“This,” he said, “Was supposed to be a weapons research facility. GUN wanted the most deadly weapons ever created developed right here.” He jammed his finger so hard at the screen, he almost cracked it. “The Professor didn’t want to, but he did. For our protection, he made it almost impossible to use. But it was called the Eclipse Cannon.” 

The memory darted across his mind. The little hedgehogs, peering over the railing that was taller than them. Amy held tight to Maria’s hand, as the Professor told them, very carefully, that they were to never ever come here without permission. But, if something big was going to come near the Earth, like a meteor or something…

“It’s powered by chaos energy. You’d need all seven chaos emeralds to charge it to a full-enough power, but even just five could blow a comet to molecules.” Sonic said, his face darkening. “The Professor thought of it as a joke. That GUN wanted him to make the ultimate weapon, but if they actually turned it on, they’d find out it wouldn’t be able to do anything less than decimate the entire planet.” 

“When you say ‘decimate,’” Tails began, “Do you mean–”

“I don’t mean ‘big explosion,’ ‘toxic air,’ or even ‘we all die and evolution starts from scratch.’” Sonic hissed. “I mean, ‘the planet goes bye-bye.’ Like it never existed. The debris might blow anything nearby as well, if the initial blast even leaves debris. It might just disintegrate everything it touches in an instant.” 

“That’s what Robotnik’s plan is?”

“It’s what Shadow’s going to do, whether your Doctor lets him or not.” Sonic shuddered, and then hugged himself. “We only have two ways to stop him. We keep the emeralds away from him, and we keep me away from him.” 

“You?” 

“He won’t kill me. But if he gets his hands on me, he can teleport me to the ARK.” Sonic hugged himself. “In the same vein, we need to find Amy as soon as possible. First to protect her from the same problem, second because if he gets her to listen to his insanity, we’re completely and utterly fucked.” 

“We have a chaos emerald,” Tails said, pulling the purple gem from his tail fluff. “I can use this to track the last remaining one, and maybe it can help with finding the other pod.” 

“Then we’re going to have to work fast. Luckily,” Sonic finally let a smile slip onto his face, “Fast is what I do best.” 

Tails considered a few moments, before turning to the echidna beside him. “Okay, Knuckles, I’m going to need to run about three or four projects at once. It’s gonna take a lot of power.” 

“So use the chaos emerald? I don’t see why you’re telling me.”

“That’s not the problem, the problem is I’m going to need you to grab some supplies from town. I’ll make you a list, just give it to the hardware store guy and he’ll get you the right stuff. There’s a ring pouch by the door, use as much as you need.” 

“Okay.”

“And I’m gonna need you to take Sonic.” 

Knuckles blinked, and then glanced back at the hedgehog. He had stopped paying attention, instead furiously scouring over one of the maps on the monitor. “Uh, really?”

“With so many systems running at once, I don’t want to risk him running into anything he shouldn’t. You know how explosive my stuff can be. Also, I’m pretty sure he needs to eat something.” 

“So do you.” 

“I have food here!”

“Other than mints.” Knuckles sighed, and crossed his arms. “He might be able to help, you know, with tracking the–”

Before he could finish, Sonic kicked his leg up, accidentally knocking it into the rolling chair. He hissed, stepping back, and slammed a hand onto the desk behind him. The hand, which suddenly lit with chaos energy, burned a deep dent into the metal. 

“Shit.” Sonic hissed, stepping back. “That wasn’t important, was it?” 

Knuckles stared at him, and then said, “I see your point.”

---

Sonic slid down the hall, giggling at the squeak his shoes made against the hard metal. He looked up just as he turned the bend, seeing two of the doctors standing outside the door, talking with a disgruntled little boy. 

“Abe!” Sonic raced forwards, grabbing onto the kid’s hand, ignoring how he immediately stiffened. “What’s buzzin’, cousin?”

He yanked his arm out of Sonic’s grip. “Not now, blue.”

Abe was the only other kid on the ARK, at least currently; his parents liked for him to spend summers on Earth with his grandparents so that he “knew what life was supposed to be like” or some corny shit like that. Both of his parents were scientists who worked in bio-engineering, so Sonic saw both of them a whole lot, and as a consequence, started hanging out with Abe once he was let upstairs. Okay, well, he hung out with Abe mainly when Maria was there; Abe didn’t seem to like him or Shadow very much. Amy, though… it was hard to not get along with her, so that didn’t really count. 

“Hi, Sonic!” Dr Jezek beamed down at him. “Abraham, be nice.”

Abe huffed, while Sonic started hopping between his feet. “How’s Mari-ri doing?” 

“She’s alright. Shadow’s in there with her.” Nurse Sherazi informed him. “It was a long surgery, so if she’s asleep, don’t wake her up.” 

“But she’s okay now?” 

“Well…” the doctors shared an awkward glance, before Dr Jezek said, “She’s stable for now.” 

Sonic recognized that look. So in a flash, he ran between the doctors, grabbing both their hands. “We should have a party! We got some new records from Earth, and Maria’s been teaching me some stuff on the guitar, I can really shred it!” He paused, and then emphasized, “I can literally shred it. I broke her strings once.”

“Oh!” Dr Jezek smiled at the thought. “Then you’d better be careful with it.” 

“Yeah. I tried to make my own, but I just got myself tangled up in the strings. And when Shads and Amy had to yank me out, the strings just kept playing! Super out-of-tune, though.” 

The doctors laughed, while Abe scowled. “That’s so not how guitars work. The sound doesn’t come from the strings themselves, it comes from–”

“And we’ll make a cake!” Sonic jumped up, suddenly atop Nurse Sherazi’s shoulders, waving his palms wildly. The Nurse reached up his own hands quickly to grab his feet and stabilize him. “We can shove all of our food packs into one big bowl and dump a whole lotta sugar in there, and BOOM! We’ll have some kinda cake! It might even be edible, too!” 

“Now, Sonic,” Dr Jezek reached up, pulling him off of the Nurse’s shoulders and matching his grinning face. “Do you think that would be a good use of resources?” 

“I think it’d be an experiment! Aren’t you all supposed to be scientists? Come on, let’s see what happens!” 

Dr Jezek laughed, before placing Sonic carefully on the ground. “We’ll think about it, Sonic.” But her and Nurse Sherazi both looked happier, so Sonic considered his work done. 

“Well, I should check on Mari-ri. See ya later, alligators!” 

The adults waved cheerily at him as he dashed through the door, while Abe just rolled his eyes. 

Once inside, Sonic slowed his feet, quieting down for a second just in case. But Maria was sitting up in her hospital bed, a notebook splayed on her lap, and Shadow passed out under her left arm. She smiled brightly and waved to Sonic, who dashed over and stood on the bedside chair. 

“What’s the story, morning glory?” 

Maria shrugged, then put a finger to her mouth. “Shadow’s still sleeping.” 

“Probably not for long. I share a room with him, that guy hears everything.”

“Yes, but I think he’s reached the N3 stage, so he should be deep asleep; so long as we’re not too loud, he should get his rest.”

“And he needs it. I swear, he’s up all night punching bags and reading boring books.” 

“I thought you liked reading,” Maria sounded mock-offended. 

“When it’s interesting.” Sonic took the chance to look over Maria; her skin was a bit paler than normal, and her hair a little greasy, but she didn’t look about to keel over and die, so he considered that a win. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing much.” Maria glared down at the empty notebook. “I thought I might sketch, but I already drew everything in the room.” 

Sonic glanced at the nightstand, his eyes landing on something he hadn’t seen there before. He reached for the small vase of yellow flowers, waving it in the air. “Even this?” 

Maria laughed a little. “Yes. The doctors said that Amy brought those last night, while I was still passed out.” 

“She always knows how to brighten up the place.” Sonic smiled. When he lowered the flowers, though, his face fell. “Oh, they’re already wilting!” 

“It’s alright. I’ll be out of here by the end of the week.” 

“I’m sure she worked hard to pick the best ones for you out of the greenhouse, though.” Sonic said sadly, poking at the petals. “And they’re already dying.” 

“Technically,” Maria said, “The flowers are dead once you’ve plucked them from the–” he turned to her with his large, sad eyes, and she redirected. “Hey, come here a sec.” 

She held out her free hand, and he scrambled to her side, pressing against her chest and finding comfort in the steady beat beneath his ears. She wrapped her arm around him, her hand landing on the vase still in his hands. 

“Flowers don’t last very long,” she said carefully. “Even on Earth, a lot of them only bloom for a week or two, before sending off their seeds and wilting.” 

“That’s sad.” 

“Kinda.” she shrugged. “But I don’t think the flowers think that way. It’s a normal lifespan to them.”

“We’re sad when people die, though.” Sonic said. “Do you think the flowers’ friends miss them?” 

Shadow would probably tell him to stop being so stupid and remember that plants couldn’t think. Maria, though, she considered for a long moment, before saying, “I mean. Everything ends eventually. Every story comes to a close. And everything alive has to die sometime.” She reached up a finger, poking at the petals. “That’s why we gotta live life to the fullest in the time we have. At least, that’s what I figure.” 

She lowered her hand, grabbing onto Sonic’s lower arm. He cuddled closer to her, humming a little. 

“Do you know which flower this is?” 

Sonic glanced at it. He and Amy were both good at remembering Earth flora. “That’s a marigold, right?” 

She nodded. “They’re specifically Lemon Drop blossoms. Tagetes patula. Now, they’re not the right kind of marigolds– those would be tagetes erecta– but marigolds always remind me of my Tía Therese. Did you ever see pictures of her?” he shook his head. “She’s my mom’s sister. When I was still on Earth, we would visit her every Día de los Muertos. She had a beautiful garden, but she’d have me help her pick bright orange-and-yellow marigolds. She told me that the smell and the color help the spirits of those who’ve passed on to find their way home. So that they might be able to visit us while we were remembering them. I’d throw flowers everywhere, and my parents would help her in the kitchen making so much food, and when it was time for music, her roommate would play so fast on the violin I thought it might catch on fire.” 

“I wanna do that.” Sonic said, eyes wide.

Maria giggled. “I’m sure you could.” Then her face fell slightly, as she ran her hand over the marigold’s browning petals. “I don’t remember any of the songs, though. I remember how happy I felt while dancing. But not what I danced to. I can’t remember her roommate’s name, or the street where they lived.” She shut her eyes tight. “And I’ve tried to keep up with learning español, cause she tried to teach me, but I only remember a few words. And when I try to learn from books, I’m never sure if I’m pronouncing anything right.” 

“Maybe I could help.” Sonic looked up at her, nuzzling his head into her shoulder. “I can do it with you. Then we can say it together.”

She snorted. “I don’t think you could pronounce it any better.” 

“Well, there’s gotta be some scientists up here who speak it. And if not, we’ll just be wrong together.” 

She smiled. “I’ll give you a beginner’s book. And then we’ll see how you do.” 

She picked up the vase, lifting it to put back on the nightstand. One of the flowers dropped, brushing against Shadow’s nose. Both of the other children paused, watching to see if he’d wake. His nose twitched once. Twice. And then he let out a tiny, cute sneeze, before falling back to sleep.

Maria and Sonic had to bury their faces in pillows to keep from waking him with laughter.

---

Deep breaths, Sonic. One, two. 

Knuckles had told him that he’d need to wash up before they went to get supplies. Sonic didn’t see what the issue was; they were in a hurry, nobody could blame them if they looked a little rough. But the echidna had simply said, “You haven’t had a bath in fifty years. Get that done first.” 

Sonic had liked baths decently on the ARK, but when he first looked at the tub in Tails’s bathroom, it was like he couldn’t even see it. He just saw the water test crate, and so he rushed for the enclosed shower stall instead. He had to stand there for several minutes, preparing, before turning it on, and then realizing that all the bath care supplies were much different than what he was used to. The basket inside the stall held shampoo and conditioner meant for long fur, brushes that were definitely not intended for quills, and soap he wasn’t sure how to use. But, well, the ARK had entirely human-centric supplies, with the exception of the brushes Maria had requested for them, so he could probably make it work. 

After struggling for a while, he shut off the shower and shook the water off his fur, rather than bother Tails for one of his towels. He wasn’t sure he’d improved, but maybe at least Knuckles would get off his back and they could do something useful. 

He stumbled out into the bathroom, avoiding looking at the tub and instead staring at himself in the mirror. God, his muzzle was redder than normal. Was it because he’d been crying? He probably shouldn’t have been doing that. He was supposed to be stronger than that. Be a little soldier, Sonic, he remembered one of the doctors saying to him once. You can do that. 

Okay. I can do that.

After drying his hands a bit more, he slid his gloves back on, before running a finger over his wrist. He had a distant memory of the first year the array had been together, when he’d made paper rings to match his friends’ thick golden ones. They’d broken a few hours after he started wearing them. 

He spun on his heel and marched to the bathroom door, opening it to grab the shoes he’d left on the floor outside. Strangely, though, there was only a new pair of socks in their place. He stared for a second, before slipping them on and zooming down the stairs as quickly as he could. 

Wooden stairs were weird. They made noises the metal ones on the ARK hadn’t. 

When he reached the lower level, he opened the door and immediately said, “Where are my shoes?” 

Knuckles was sitting in front of the door, arms crossed and eyes closed. Meditating, maybe? But he didn’t even react to Sonic’s arrival, or the slightly panicked rise in his voice. Tails, meanwhile, had one tail wrapped around some kind of metallic tool, which he was using to poke at a bench, as he kept his eyes on rushing lines of code on the computers before him. 

“Oh, they’re under the bench.” Tails gestured to the left. 

“Why?” Sonic asked, dashing to said bench, ducking under the automatic tools that were whirring with some kind of project, and swiping his brown boots as soon as his fingers could reach them. 

“Didn’t want you to trip over ‘em.” Tails said carefully, as if he was only half-paying attention. “Don’t go anywhere without Knuckles. Listen to what he says.”

“I’m not a baby.” Sonic bristled, sitting on the ground and shoving his feet into the old shoes.

“Yeah, but you’ve never been on-planet, and people here can be… antsy.” Tails said, still not looking over. “Gaia knows Knuckles took forever to pick up on a single social cue.”

“Still not sure I’m the best mentor for this, Tails.”

“Well, I’ve gotta stay here, so you’ll have to do. Sonic–”

“Okay, okay. Whatever.” Sonic didn’t meant to be rude, but the brief panic he’d felt at the disappearance of his shoes had turned to irritation. His shoes weren’t even that good, but… they enabled him to run decently. That was all he could ask for. 

“Go get my stuff.” Tails waved, typing furiously on the keyboard. “Don’t kill anyone.”

“Says you.” Knuckles snorted.

“It’s not my fault you can’t hide a body.” 

Sonic glanced between them. “That’s a joke, right?” 

“Have fun.”

---

Shadow stared out the window. 

They’d spent so much time here, looking at the stupid planet. Wondering what it would be like to finally go there. And now he had to get Sonic off that planet as fast as possible. 

God, why couldn’t anything be easy? 

Over and over, Sonic’s words were echoing in his head. How dare he? How dare he say those things to him? How dare he imply he knew Maria better than Shadow? That he knew what her last wish was, despite not being there? How could he even imply that what Shadow was doing was wrong?

It was justice. Plain and simple. She didn’t get to go home, so nobody else could, either. How was it so hard to understand? 

Sonic hadn’t been there. He’d frozen before Maria could turn to him, trembling, grabbing onto the console, her legs threatening to give way at any moment. Her hands grasping for the lever, desperate to put whatever weight she had left into pulling it down, into saving him. Despite the fact he was supposed to protect her. He was supposed to take care of her, he was born to take care of her, and she died for him instead. It wasn’t fair. It was wrong. The only thing he could do now would be to make sure her sacrifice wasn’t in vain. To make sure that her death meant something. Whatever happened to him in the meantime didn’t matter. 

Another image came to his mind; Sonic, pinned under his hands against a tree. Grimacing from the sudden hit to his back, but giving him an angry, purposeful glare. “Including me?” 

He shivered, and pulled his arms tighter around himself. 

He heard Rouge’s flapping wings before he saw her, his ear swiveling slightly in the direction of the hall she entered from. He didn’t bother to turn around, instead staring down at the planet and pretending he didn’t care. 

“Hey.” she said. 

He didn’t respond.

“The Doctor thinks he’s almost got a tracker on the last chaos emerald. Then we just need to get that other one from the fox, and we’re all set.”

He still kept quiet. He hoped she didn’t notice his eyes glancing towards her reflection in the glass. 

“I, uh. Just…” she took a second, before saying, “The fox said the emeralds are indestructible. Is that true?” 

Shadow paused for a moment. “Aren’t you supposed to be a treasure hunter?” he asked cautiously. He saw her flinch, and realized that may have come across as offensive, or accusatory. Well, he wasn’t going to apologize. “Do you not know… anything about them?”

“I know they’re shiny.” she smiled slightly. Shadow bit his lip to avoid cracking one of his own. “But, uh, that means that if I blew up, you could just find the one I’d grabbed, yeah?” 

“What’s the point of this?” 

“I mean, like. You didn’t have to save me. But you did.” 

And for the love of God, he couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t like anyone on that planet was going to last very long, after all. But even before he’d seen Sonic, he’d turned around to get to her. Why had he done that? 

“Look, I know you’ve got the whole ‘brooding loner’ vibe going on right here,” Rouge gestured to him, rolling her eyes. “And I respect that. So we don’t have to have any conversations about our feelings or anything. Chaos knows I would rather jump into the sun than start one of those. But… I can tell something happened before you came to get me. And if that’s going to affect our mission, I’d like to know about it now before it causes any unnecessary issues.” 

Unnecessary issues. Now, staring at the blue ocean of the planet, he was thinking of Sonic’s messy blue fur, the first time they’d met. Unwashed, cut strange, and a little bit dirty. Sonic was gripping his hand, looking up at him with confusion, as Shadow said, “They stay.”

“Things just got a little complicated,” Shadow said carefully. “It shouldn’t matter to you.” 

“Is it just ‘complicated’ for you, or is it going to be ‘complicated’ for the entire scheme?”

Shadow shut his eyes tight.

“Wonderful. Both. Okay, I’m going to need you to at least let out what I’m gonna need to know.” 

Shadow gripped tight onto his arms. “I wasn’t the only prototype made up here.”

“Yeah, I figured. Your room has a bunk bed.” Shadow shot her a glare, and she threw up her hands. “What? Do you expect me to not poke around here? I’ve got nothing else to do!”

He bristled. “I thought they were dead. They’re not.” Her eyes widened, and Shadow simply sighed and turned back to the window. “There’s two. They were sent out in cryo with me. When I woke up without them, I assumed GUN had eliminated them.” 

“Why would they have done that?” 

He nearly dug his claws into his arms. “Because I wasn’t there to stop them.” He forced himself to loosen his grip on himself, but he still wouldn’t turn to face her. “But Sonic showed up on the island. The fox and echidna got him on their side. He won’t listen to reason.” 

“He won’t listen to reason,” she repeated, for some reason. 

“He’s always been stubborn, but he’s also always listened to me. He’s always known that I know what I’m doing. Especially in regards to…” Her. “I know he’s volatile right now. He’s confused. But usually when that happens, he listens to me. I don’t know what’s different now.” 

“So… is he going to be a problem?”

“I don’t want him taken out.” Shadow said quickly. “He’s… useful.” 

He hated phrasing it like that, but he wasn’t about to spill that he cared. That he cared about this stupid, annoying, snarky blue blur. That the Ultimate Lifeform had a weakness. So he would just use the words that the scientists had, long ago. It seemed to have been enough for them.

“But,” he slowly continued, “We need to get him to the ARK. To make him see reason. And he won’t let me. I can’t get near him.” 

“So what do you want us to do? Kidnap him while he sleeps?” 

He smirked slightly. “He’s too smart for that. No, I’ll get to him. I know I will. What’s important is finding the other chaos emeralds. And… and finding the other prototype.” 

And there was another image, reflected in the glass. The pink hedgehog, seven years old, squealing and spinning around where he stood now. In her first dress, old clothes Maria had dug up from the back of her drawers. She’d wanted to look “pretty like Maria.” Once the dress was fitted, she’d spun so fast she’d toppled over and crashed face-first onto the floor. And then just got up, still laughing.

“If we can get to her,” he said, “Sonic will follow.”

{ao3} {tumblr}

[gorgonarcher]

22nd Game - Fabula Ultima

Fabula Ultima is a recent game by NEED Games that is designed as a call back to JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, Octopath Traveler, Golden Sun, and other such things. The mechanics are built along the way battles work in those games and the character creation system not only assumes that you'll be multiclassing, it requires it. But we'll get into that.

There are two full expansions, referred to as "Atlases" for High Fantasy and Techno Fantasy as well as a few other free supplements here and there, such as the one with the Necromancer class.

I'm going to use at least some stuff from Techno Fantasy when making this character. I might use some bits from High Fantasy but I'm not certain yet. But for now, let's get into it.

Press Start

The game comes right out and says that while the process of creating a new world and character has the steps in a specific order in the book, because they need to be, but you can do them in whatever order you want. I'm going to mostly follow the steps in order just for the sake of hitting everything.

The first thing that you are supposed to do in a new game is create the world as a group together. I'm going to summarize that process and go straight to creating a character after that.

So, what we have is a world that mixes sci-fi, magic, and medieval fantasy. Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and the Phantasy Star series with its space-craft. Most specifically, we're going to have mecha and our gorgon archer is going to be a mecha pilot. I'm assuming there's small pockets of civilization and vast tracks of wilderness. There is a large empire that is pushing forward to conquer what it can. There's a handful of other major countries here there, but it's mostly a individual settlements around a single villager or castle. Or a medium to big city independent from other powers.

Beyond the empire, there is of course a major supernatural threat, either using the empire, or being summoned by the empire who hopes to make use of it in their bid for conquest. Perhaps there's a demon whose soul has been trapped in an ancient computer for ages and it's trying to use this chance to be reunited with its body.

We would normally move into talking about what sort of group our characters are, but I think I'll set that aside.

So, with the basics of the world decided, let's move on to the character herself.

Step 1 - Identity

This is a short sentence describing what your character is like. Some examples from the book include:

Royal Knight

Battle Priestess of the Old Faith

Elderly Amnesiac Sorcerer

Freedom-Fighting Brawler

Tormented Veteran

For this case, our identity is going to include the fact that she's a gorgon and a mecha pilot. I also want to put a bit of motivation into it. So I think I'll go with Mercenary Gorgon Pilot Seeking Purpose

Step 2 - Theme

There are several suggested themes as follows:

Ambition

Anger

Belonging

Doubt

Duty

Guilt

Hope

Justice

Mercy

Vengeance

The two that stick out to me are Belonging and Duty. Mostly because she feels a lack of the two and searching for that sort of feeling. I'm going to choose Belonging. She is searching for purpose and while she doesn't feel she belongs right now, she wants to find a place she does. She may not be precisely conscious or aware of this desire. Right now, I suspect that she's currently just in a rut of going through the motions of being a traveling mercenary.

Step 3 - Origin

I'm going to say that this character is a remnant of an order of warrior gorgons from a country that was shattered some years ago and now she, and perhaps a few others, are scattered around doing what they can to keep their mecha in operating condition. She was likely quite young when the country fell and even now is still relatively young (at least for a gorgon). Maybe the equivalent of early 30s or late 20s. She was likely a rookie in the final battles.

Let's go to Fantasy Name Generator and generate a random Greek town name and get: The Fallen Kingdom of Iasipolis (and I seriously doubt that's proper Greek).

Step 4 - Classes

So, this is an interesting design choice. In most games, a class is a full-on archetype encompassing a complete character concept. In Fabula Ultima, classes are more like skill-sets which you combine together to form what would be a class in other games. Each level in a Class lets you take 1 skill from that Class. At level 10, you are considered to have "Mastered" that class and can no longer level up in it.

To be clear, each class has more than 10 possible skills that can be selected. So, no to examples of a mastered class are going to be exactly the same. Though some of the more simple classes only have 12 or 13 possible skills and others might get into the range of 20 possible selections.

As another note, you can only ever have a maximum of three unmastered classes active at one time and the game maxes out at level 50 with the idea that you would gain a level every other session. This means a max level character will have between 5 and 7 classes. Either 5 Mastered classes or 3-4 Mastered classes and 2-3 non-mastered classes.

But for now, we'll start with the first five levels we get at character creation. We need to split these between either two or three classes and I'm choosing three. And arranging them as follows:

Pilot 2 - Personal Vehicle 2

Spiritist 1 - Spiritual Magic 1 (Torpor)

Sharpshooter 2 - Ranged Weapon Mastery 1, Barrage

Each of these classes also comes with a benefit the character gets the first time they take a level in it.

Spiritist grants the character a permanent increase of 5 Mind Points and the ability to do Rituals.

Sharpshooter grants the character a permanent increase of 5 Hit Points and the ability to equip martial ranged weapons and martial shields.

Pilot grants another permanent increase of 5 Hit Points and the ability to equip martial melee weapons and martial ranged weapons.

Now, breaking down the skills I chose. Spiritual Magic gives the character 1 spell for each level, and I chose Torpor which applies either the Weak or Slow status effects and is somewhat close to a gorgon paralysis. In this case, I'm assuming her magic is part of her nature as a gorgon.

Ranged Combat Mastery simply adds a bonus to accuracy based on the Skill Level. So RCM 1 equals a +1 bonus to ranged attack accuracy. Barrage allows you to spend Mind Points in order to attack multiple enemies in one action. Barrage doesn't have levels, it's a one-time purpose.

Personal Vehicle is a little more complex and requires us to design her vehicle. Level one has us choose a Frame and three modules. Each level after that adds two more modules.

There are three possible Frames:

Steed - small vehicles like motorcycles, fighter craft, or even magical mounts.

Exoskeleton - power suits for the most part

Mecha - pilotable robots

Modules can be weapon modules, armor modules, and support modules. The different frames can have one or two weapon modules active, one armor module, and any number of support modules. Not that you can have more than two weapon modules, but not all of them can be active.

I know I'm going to have Mecha as a frame and for my five modules I'm choosing the following:

Flexible Plating as an Armor Module

Bow Weapon Module

Shield Weapon Module - designed as a beefier left arm

Rapid Interface Support Module - letting her get in and out easily

Turbo Support Module - giving bonuses to speed and agility tests

Step 5 - Attributes

Now we are going to assign dice to the character's Attributes. There are three general arrangements of dice:

Jack of all Trades - d8, d8, d8, d8

Average - d10, d8, d8, d6

Specialized - d10, d10, d6, d6

I'm going with the Average arrangements, because there are three Attributes I want decent stats in.

Dexterity d10

Insight d8

Willpower d8

Might d6

Step 6 - Figured Characteristics

This is where we record the starting Hit Points and the like.

Hit Points is equal to your current level plus your Might die times 5.

Mind Points is equal to your current level plus your your Willpower die times 5.

Once you take into account the starting benefits from her classes, that comes to:

Hit Points = 30 (d6 Might x5) + 10 (Pilot and Sharpshooter) + 5 (Level) = Total 45

Mind Points = 40 (d8 Might x5) +5 (Spiritist) + 5 = 50

Crisis is half the maximum Hit Points, rounded down. Thus 22. This is a stat that determines when a lot of effects trigger.

Inventory Points are used to simulate reaching into your pack and producing potions, grenades, and the like. The base Maximum Inventory Points is 6 and we don't have any class benefits to increase that, so that's simple.

Then we have three more stats:

Defense is your current Dexterity die: 10

Magic Defense is your current Insight die: 8

Initiative modifier starts at 0 and we don't have any thing that modifies that yet.

Step 7 - Equipment

A character has a budget of 500 zenit (the currency of the game) to determine their starting gear. At this point, I have to point out the very neat equipment lists and their classic pixel-art style icons.

I'm going to start by giving her armor from the basic set, a Combat Tunic for 150 zenit. It's a pretty good way to represent a pilot suit. She can't equip martial armor and most of the other basic armor gives a negative initiative penalty so I'll stick with this and it gives her:

Combat Tunic - Dex die +1 (11), Ins die +1 (9), Initiative +0

That leaves 350 zenit. I'm going to give her a Runic Shield, described as a reinforced sleeve on her left arm, similar to her mecha's shield and some throwing daggers for when she's not in her mecha. Which results in the following.

Weapons have a list of two Attributes that are used when you attack with them. All tests are like this. Sometimes, you'll end up rolling the same attribute twice, but mostly you'll add two different attributes. They also have a damage rating equal to the High Roll of the two dice plus another number.

Runic Sleeve(Shield) - +2 Def, +2 Magic Defense

Throwing Daggers - Dex + Ins, HR+4

That leaves 50 zenit and then we roll 2d6 x10 to add to that for savings. I rolled a 10 so that is 100, for a total of 150 zenit to start with.

Going back to her Mecha, her armor and weapons provide the following:

Flexible Plating: Defense = Dex+2 (12), Magic Defense = Ins+1 (9)

Bow Weapon Module = Dex + Ins +1, HR+12

Shield = +2 Def, +2 Magic Defense

Step 8 - Name and Pronouns

For her name, I'm going to choose Xanthe and her pronouns will be She/Her.

The total package for this starting character, including the bonuses from her skills and such will be as follows:

Xanthe - Level 5

Identity - Wandering Gorgon Pilot Seeking Purpose

Theme - Belonging, seeking it

Origin - The Fallen Kingdom of Iasipolis

Attributes

Dexterity d10

Insight d8

Might d6

Willpower d8

Personal Stats

Hit Points: 45; Crisis: 22

Mind Points: 50

Inventory Points: 6

Defense 13 (Combat Tunic + Shield)

Magic Defense 11 (Combat Tunic + Shield)

Initiative Modifier: +0

Classes

Pilot 2 (Personal Vehicle 2)

Sharpshooter 2 (Ranged Weapon Mastery 1, Barrage)

Spiritist 1 (Spiritual Magic 1)

Spells

Spiritism Spells - Torpor

Gear

Combat Tunic (Dex+1, Ins+1, +0)

Throwing Daggers (Dex+Ins, Dam: HR+4)

Runic Sleeve (Shield) - Def +2, Magic Defense +2

Personal Vehicle - The Atalanta

Frame: Mecha

Flexible Plating

Bow Module - Dex+Ins+2, Dam: HR+12 (Ranged Weapon Mastery)

Shield Module

Turbo Module +2 to opposed checks involving speed and rapid maneuvers

Rapid Interface Module - When you enter this personal vehicle on your turn during a conflict, you may immediately perform an additional action.

Defense: 14 (Flexible Plating + Shield Module)

Magic Defense: 11 (Flexible Plating + Shield Module)

Initiative Modifier +0

Leveling Up

I referred to this above. So here we go, something I didn't mention above was that when you Master a class, not only do you get a 10th skill from that class, but you also get a Heroic Skill, some of which are associated with specific classes, and some of which are generally available.

In addition, along the line, you'll end up finding improved gear both for herself and her mecha. I'm going to theorize what the level 50 version of Xante (a name I swear I've used before).

Let's see, first of all, I think she will end up mastering 5 classes and that will include the 3 she started with. So let's start with each of those. I'll do the Heroic Skills once I've leveled up all of her classes. There are also some other benefits you get as you level, and I'll get to those as well once I got all the basic skills worked out. Of course, this isn't how it would work in a game, so this will be a bit off, but it's what we got.

We're going to go from the least complicated to the most complicated:

Sharpshooter 10

Ranged Weapon Mastery 4 (+4 accuracy with ranged attacks)

Barrage (add multiattack)

Crossfire (interrupt ranged attacks)

Warning Shot 3

Hawkeye 1

Warning Shot lets you inflict status effects or drain Mind Points instead of dealing damage with a shot. Hawkeye gives you a chance to set up a shot, but it seems less in character for her given she seems more along the lines of acrobatics and hit and run, so I only gave her one rank of it.

Spiritist 10

Spiritual Magic 6

Healing Power 2

Support Magic

Ritual Spiritism

Spells

Torpor

Barrier

Aura

Heal

Cleanse

Soul Weapon

Pilot 10

Personal Vehicle 5

Heart of the Engine 3

Compression Tech

Flexible Configuration 1

I'll design the rare modules she picked up later on when we do the gear that she'll pick up along the way as well.

Now, for the new classes she'd pick up. I'm going to lean into the agility and acrobatics by picking up Rogue and Entropist. I considered Orator, but decided to lean into the inspiring heroic speeches, but I instead decided to lean into the heroic speed-fighter. I also considered Fury for more damage, but decided to go with more magic.

Rogue 10

Dodge 3 - Bonus to Defense as long as she has no shield or martial armor. (so she's going to drop the shields now)

High Speed 3 - Bonus action at start of combat

Soul Steal 2 - recover Inventory Points from common enemies and special treasures from powerful ones

Cheap Shot 2 - take advantage of people with status effects

This also comes with a +2 Inventory Points

Entropist

Stolen Time 4

Ritual Entropism

Absorb MP 2

Entropic Magic 3

This also comes with a bonus +5 Mind Points and access to Rituals... but she already had that.

Spells

Stop

Acceleration

Anomaly

And now, the Heroic Skills, she mastered 5 Classes so she gets 5 Heroic Skills. I'm going for the following:

Steel Witch - benefits when casting spells in a vehicle

Bullet Time - gain benefits of both Dodge and Stolen Time at once

Perfect Aim - Choose two options from Warning Shot instead of one

Vanish - Disappear after an attack

Arcane Soldier - Attack and Cast spells

And at level 20 and 40, she can increase a stat. I'm going to increase her Dex to d12 (the maximum) and her Insight to d10. This focuses on her defense.

So... now, the difficult part, because this is very subjective. Creating rare equipment.

She's going to have 11 moduies for The Atalanta. And then she's going to have her own gear for outside the mecha which will include:

Armor

One or two weapons, probably a two-handed bow

One Accessory

So... that's... a lot. Let's start with the vehicle.

Euryale Bow - Bow Module, Dex+Ins+1, HR+12, Omni-Defense

Scaled Plating - Dex+2, Ins+1, Initiative +4

Snake Wand - Arcane Module, Dex+WLP+1, HR+8, Undead and Construct Hunter

Hermetic Turbo - +2 to opposed check with speed and rapid maneuvers, Immune to Slow

Magistatic module

Aerial Module

Advanced Targeting Module

Counterstrike

Anti-Element Earth

Sensor

Rapid Interface

And now, for her personal gear

Pilot's Crash Suit - as per Combat Tunic but also Immune to Slow and +4 Initiative

Yoichi (this is one of the example pieces of gear)

Hanya Mask (another example piece of gear)

Xanthe - Level 50

Identity - Wandering Gorgon Pilot Seeking Purpose

Theme - Belonging, seeking it

Origin - The Fallen Kingdom of Iasipolis

Attributes

Dexterity d12

Insight d10

Might d6

Willpower d8

Personal Stats

Hit Points: 90; Crisis: 45

Mind Points: 100

Inventory Points: 8

Defense 16 (Pilot's Crash Suit + Dodge)

Magic Defense 11 (Pilot's Crash Suit)

Initiative Modifier: +4 (Pilot's Crash Suit)

Immune to Slow

Classes

Pilot 10 (Personal Vehicle 5, Heart of the Engine 3, Flexible Configuration 1, Compression Tech)

Sharpshooter 10 (Ranged Weapon Mastery 4, Barrage, Warning Shot 3, Hawkeye 1, Crossfire)

Spiritist 10 (Spiritual Magic 6, Support Magic, Healing Power 2, Ritual Spiritualism)

Entropist 10 (Stolen Time 4, Absorb MP 2, Entropic Magic 3, Ritual Entropism)

Rogue 10 (Dodge 3, High Speed 3, Soul Steal 2, Cheap Shot 2)

Spells

Spiritism: Torpor, Heal, Barrier, Cleanse, Soul Weapon, Aura

Entropic: Acceleration, Stop, Anomaly

Heroic Skills

Steel Witch - benefits when casting spells in a vehicle

Bullet Time - gain benefits of both Dodge and Stolen Time at once

Perfect Aim - Choose two options from Warning Shot instead of one

Vanish - Disappear after an attack

Arcane Soldier - Get a free attack on a single target and then immediately cast a Spell on that target.

Gear

Pilot's Crash Suit (Dex+1, Ins+1, +4 Initiative, Immune to Slow)

Yoichi (Dex+Dex+5, Dam: HR+8 Air, Two-Handed, Immune to Shaken)

Hanya Mask (Damage she deals to shaken creatures ignores Resistances)

Personal Vehicle - The Atalanta

Frame: Mecha

Scaled Plating, Dex+2, Ins+1, Initiative +4

Euryale Bow Module - Dex+Dex+7, Dam: HR+12 (Ranged Weapon Mastery 4, Advanced Targeting Module)

Snake Wand Module - Dex+WLP+3, HR+8 Deal 5 Extra Damage to Undead and Constructs

Hermetic Turbo Module +2 to opposed checks involving speed and rapid maneuvers, Immune to Slow

Rapid Interface Module - When you enter this personal vehicle on your turn during a conflict, you may immediately perform an additional action.

Magistatic module - After you pay the MP cost of an Arcanum, spell, or verse, if you are driving this personal vehicle and have an arcane weapon equipped, you recover 5 Mind Points, or 10 Mind Points if the cost was equal to or higher than 30 MP

Aerial Module - You can fly, various rules associated.

Advanced Targeting Module - +2 Accuracy to attacks and Offensive magic checks

Counterstrike - Respond to taking a ranged target strike

Anti-Element Earth - Resistant to Earth damage

Sensor - +2 to Open checks to analyze creatures and areas

Mecha Stats

Defense: 16 (Scaled Plating + Dodge)

Magic Defense: 11 (Scaled Plating)

Initiative Modifier +4

[five-rivers]

Glowsticks

Sneaking in before midnight on Halloween~

This is another continuation of Exhumed.

.

.

.

McGee had talked to several people about the strangely popular gravestone.  What he had learned made him feel sick.  Literally. He wanted to throw up.  First, the person buried there was the kid that had been found in the park.  Second, the locals had made him into a cult figure practically overnight.  

Or, at least, a tourist trap figure.  These people had no shame.  

On the other hand… Didn’t they say that Daily person was in charge of cults?  Did Amity Park have a cult problem on top of everything else that was going on?  Was the cult the problem, the root problem?  If there even was an actual cult…

Cults were dangerous and took vicious advantage of legal loopholes.  Maybe he should call the FBI.  They were the ones that were supposed to deal with cults.  

He took a deep breath, pulling himself together. No.  This was his case.  His job. He didn’t know that there was a cult involved, not yet.  Besides, it didn’t matter if they were religious so long as they were breaking the law.  Yeah.  

“Are you okay?”

McGee almost jumped out of his skin, his hand twitching towards his firearm before he realized that the person who snuck up on him was a kid.  The kid from earlier, to be precise.

The boy’s eyes narrowed.  “Were you about to pull a gun on me?” he asked.  

“No,” said McGee.  

The boy blinked, suspicion still evident on his face. “You’ve got to be more careful with guns,” he said.  “There’s no reason to go for one just because someone surprised you.”

McGee didn’t grace that with a response.  “What are you doing here, anyway?  Weren’t you across town, earlier?”

“Yeah.  So were you,” said the boy.  Danny. His name was Danny Fenton.  “Why are you here?”

“I asked first.”

“You shouldn’t ask questions you aren’t willing to answer yourself.”

What the hell was up with this kid?  “I’m just trying to get a better feel for the town.”

“Hm,” said Danny.  “I help out here at the cemetery, sometimes.  Got to lay all those ghosts to rest, you know?”

“Don’t you think that’s a little much?” snapped McGee. “Death isn’t supposed to be a roadside attraction.”

“Oh, don’t worry.  We take death very seriously around here,” assured Danny.  “But seriously.  I do help out.  The caretaker lets me take that stuff away when it gets to be too much.”  He nodded at the blank headstone and all the offerings around it.  “Mom likes the flowers.  Jazz is making a collage of some of the cards.  You know.  Stuff like that.”  He shrugged, angling himself away from McGee.  “Someone left a tiny copy of the Tempest once.  In one of those teeny tiny books.  Post.  It had that one passage from Ariel’s Song decorated.  It was nice.  I liked it.”

“What?”

“Ariel’s Song.  Full fathom five thy father lies;/Of his bones are coral made;/Those are pearls that were his eyes;/Nothing of him that doth fade,/But doth suffer a sea-change/Into something rich and strange. Shakespeare.  I think it’s supposed to be a commentary on ghosts, but the guy in the play isn’t actually dead, people just think he is.  So, I’m not really sure how to take it.  You’re a detective, right?  What do you think?”

McGee stared at the teenager. The kid who was buried there was his age.  “This isn’t a joke,” said McGee.  “A person is dead.”

Danny tilted his head. “I’m not joking?”

“How are you even connected to all of this?”  McGee waved his hand, frustrated.  

“I just told you how I’m connected to the cemetery.  If you mean the town…  Well, I do live here.”

“Why do Patterson and Collins know you?”

“I know everyone,” said Danny.  He started backing away.  “You should go get something to eat soon, if you don’t want to be late.”  He turned and disappeared in the crowd.  

What the hell.

.

McGee did not go to get food. He went back to the station.  He had some questions to ask Cameron Daily, and he got the impression that the man was the kind of person to practically live at work.  

When he opened the door, though, he had to stop.

“What is this?” he asked, loudly.  

“Glowsticks,” said one of the secretaries.  “You have seen them before, right?”

“Yes, but why?”

As much as the police department had been infested with Christmas decorations before, it was now covered with glowsticks of all varieties.  

The secretary shrugged. “You’ll find out.  And, no, this isn’t hazing.”  She broke a new glowstick with a snap.

“Right,” said McGee.  “Where’s Daily?”

“Cameron Daily is in the computer bay,” said the secretary, pointing.

“Thanks,” grunted McGee, once again wondering why there was a separate computer bay when everyone had their own desks, computers, and, in some cases, additional laptops.  

Screw it, he might as well ask.  

“Hey, Daily.”

“Mm?”

“Why’s there a separate computer bay?”

“Oh, it’s shielded,” said Daily.  

“Shielded.”

“Yep.  No signals, and the Fentons did some pretty neat stuff to the walls.  Bunch of, ehm, nasty hackers.  We learned our lesson, eventually.”

“The Fentons.”

“Yeah.  And Foley did the firewalls.”

“They’re the ones who did the computer filing system.”

“Uhuh.  Kids are geniuses.  The parents aren’t too shoddy, either.”

“The—” No.  There was no way.  “Are they the same Fentons that hunt ghosts?”

“Yeah.  You wouldn’t think it to look at them, but apparently they live off of their patents.  Made a bunch of fiddly little things that every other mass production factory in the country uses.  Also, they own a toilet paper company.  Not my favorite brand, but it isn’t the worst, honestly.  Kind of wish we’d buy it here, but, no, we get that gross single ply. I swear, that stuff should be classified as a crime against humanity.”

“You let the ghost hunters deal with your computer security.”

“Oh, I know that tone. You met them, huh?”

“Just the kid.”

Daily looked up at McGee over the computer.  “What?”

“I only met the kid. Danny.”

Slowly, Daily uncurled from his hunch in front of the computer.  The man was taller than McGee thought.

“Then what’s your issue? Danny’s a good kid.”

A good kid whose parents were allowed to run roughshod over the town, who was allowed to steal from graveyards, and knew all of the police officers.  For some reason.  

“I heard you’re in charge of monitoring the cult?”

Daily snorted.  “You make it sound like there’s just one.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, after all the ghosts, most religions had to modernize, you know?”

Oh, god, this was part of the tourist trap.  Or the tourist trap was part of this.  Did they recruit from people who actually believed this nonsense?

“There’s more than one cult?”

“Yep.”

“Sounds like quite a job.”

“Eh.  I’m mostly just keeping track of their online activity.”

“So, how are the Fentons involved?”

“They aren’t.  They’re pretty areligious, overall.  Danny’s been almost kidnapped a few times, though.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Kidnapped.  By a cult.”

“Cults.  Gotta remember the plural, man.  Cults.”  Daily was hunching again.  “But, hey, if you’re interested in the subject, I can give you a thorough run-through of this new group that started up last week.  Their philosophy is wild.  I can’t even tell you—”

“Hey.  You’re early,” said Patterson, leaning through the door, her braid swinging.  “Great. Have you eaten?”

“Yes,” lied McGee.  

“Get better at lying,” said Patterson.  “Come on, let’s go.”

.

Patterson and Collins weren’t the only ones there.  In fact, there were more people in the station than there had been that morning. All with glowsticks.  Said glowsticks were being loaded into unmarked cars while office staff and police officers whispered back and forth.

“Did you get the green stuff?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. Gave me more than enough.” Glowing green milk jugs were loaded into a car.  The car McGee would be riding in with Collins and Patterson.

‘Green stuff.’  Was this some kind of bizarre drug smuggling ring? McGee had fallen behind in drug slang, if so.  ‘Green stuff.’  Were they lacing it with glowstick fluid?

Never before had he felt so lost on a case.  Amity Park was messed up.  

“You’ve got the howlers hooked up?” asked Collins.

“I asked Daily to do it this morning.”

“But did he do it?”

“I mean, it looks like it. Are the howlers really that important?”

McGee had no idea what was going on.  

The cars all started off in a group.  Their car was the last to leave and soon peeled off to trundle slowly down back roads.  

“You probably have questions,” said Collins.

“You could say that,” said McGee.  

“You’ve been a good sport about them,” observed Collins.  

“So,” said McGee, drawing out the word.  “What is this about?”

Patterson swallowed a laugh. “Ever hear of the Men in Black?”

“Look, I’m humoring the ghosts.  Conspiracy theories are where I draw the line.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Maybe it’ll stick.  Anyway, here in Amity Park, we deal with their less intelligent cousins.  The Guys in White!”

“That’s not their actual name,” said Collins, glancing back over his shoulder.  “But, well, their appearance fits.”

“Alright, let’s say I believe you.  What does this have to do with the jugs of glowstick fluid in the trunk?”

“Oh, that’s not glowstick fluid,” said Patterson.  “It’s waste from the reactor that powers the town.”

“Don’t worry,” said Collins, hastily, the car swerving somewhat.  “It’s completely harmless!  Not radioactive at all!”

“That’s not what—” started Patterson.  

“You absolutely will not get cancer from it!”

McGee raised a hand.  “You have nuclear reactor fluid in the trunk?”

“It isn’t nuclear reaction fluid,” protested Patterson.  “It’s—"

“Back on track,” interrupted Collins.  

“Yeah.  Anyway.  It’ll trip the Guys in White’s sensors—”

“Eventually,” Collins grumbled.  

“—so we can lead them on a chase.”

“And…  why do we want to do this?”

“Because it’s a quiet month,” said Patterson.  “Don’t want the Guys to get antsy.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means what it means. You’ll see in January.”

McGee looked between his two ‘partners.’  “Are you trying to get me to quit?”

“Because you’re a spy for the county?” asked Patterson.  “Oh, no, never.”

Before McGee could process that statement, the car’s radio crackled to life.  

“We’ve got a class-3 northbound on Orion at 35 miles per hour.  Ectosignature suggests an amorphiform ghost—”

“Hah!” shouted Patterson. “That’s us!  Punch it!”  She twisted the dial on the radio as Collins slammed his foot into the accelerator.  “Bogey to Redrum!  We’ve got followers!”

“Copy, Bogey, this is Redrum. We need a few more minutes to set up. Can you stay out of sight?”

“The hell?”

The radio crackled.  “Forgot you had the new guy!  Don’t shake him up too much, okay?  Over.”

“Copy.  Collins you catch that?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’m taking Pan and Laurel.  The holiday tour.”

“Ooh, good choice.” Patterson held up the radio again. “Yeah, we can manage.  Over.”

Collins went faster. For the next several minutes McGee occupied himself with not throwing up.  He succeeded.  Barely.

“Bogey, this Cam,” said the voice of Daily, “followers are gaining.  They’re on Brassica, just passing High Street.  Triggered the speed cameras.  Over.”

“How many and what type? Over.”

“Three gliders.  Don’t think they’ve spotted you yet, though. Over.”

Gliders?  Who did these people think they were kidding?

“Copy, over,” said Patterson. “Not like those guys care about speeders, though,” she muttered.  McGee could barely hear her over the beating of his own heart.

“Sharp right, brace yourselves,” said Collins, split seconds before matching action to words.

“Redrum to bogey, we’re moving out now, over.”

“Copy.  We’re on our way.  Over.  Head to the park, Collins.”

“Gotcha.”

It didn’t seem possible, but Collins somehow pushed the car to go even faster.  Then, just as quickly as the whole ridiculous thing had begun, the car skidded to a halt in a parking lot.  Seeing his chance, McGee clawed at the door handle and dragged himself out onto the pavement.  

Collins and Patterson, meanwhile, were pulling the almost-certainly-toxic waste out of the trunk and launching it into the glowstick-filled woods with—

“Is that a bazooka?” demanded McGee, so far past his wit’s end that he couldn’t even see it anymore.

“Nah, just a modified T-shirt canon,” said Patterson, stowing the object away again.  “Fentonworks special.”

“I don’t believe you,” said McGee.  

Three – Three things – McGee did not want to call them gliders – raced overhead, jets roaring and wind whistling.  They came to a stop approximately where the ‘reactor waste’ had fallen.  

“What the hell?” whispered McGee, passionately.  

“Come on,” said Collins.  “Time for us to go.”

“Yeah, better to spectate from afar,” agreed Patterson.

“I agree,” said a third voice.

“Oh, Danny,” said Patterson.  “Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”

The boy walked into McGee’s field of view and glanced down at him before shrugging.  “Couldn’t sleep.”  He looked up, at the park.  “Thanks for this.”

“Had to get them to blow this month’s budget somehow,” said Collins.  “But, really, we should all go before the fireworks start.”

Danny sighed.  “Hope they don’t blow up the fountain again.  It just got fixed.”

“Same,” said Patterson.

“Well, see you later.”

“Yep, we’ve got that wellness check tomorrow,” said Collins. “You don’t have any excuse to forget, this time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said the teen, waving over his shoulder as he walked straight into the dark.

“What,” said McGee.  

“That’s just Danny for you,” said Collins.  “Great kid.  Super creepy.”

“Yeah.”

“How’d he even know we’re here?” asked McGee, trying to keep his voice even.  

“He did give us that eeeeehhhhhhh—reactor waste,” said Patterson.  “Come on, get up, we’ve got to—”

A small explosion sounded from the park.  

“Seriously.  I don’t want to have to pick you up.”

“I’d wind up doing most of the lifting,” grumbled Collins, who was sliding into the driver’s seat.

Patterson put her hands on her hips.  “Excuse you?”

There was another, larger explosion.  McGee climbed back into the car.

As they drove, he realized that no one had made fun of his name. Not even once.  

Amity Park was weird.  

[gffa]

WHY I WILL ALWAYS DEFEND THE CGI IN THE PREQUELS--They were doing some pretty mind-bogglingly new stuff that had never been done before and creating all these tools and techniques that are still being used today and, honestly, while not everything holds up, a shocking amount of it does.  The work that went into The Phantom Menace really was amazing: ‘ALL FILMS ARE PERSONAL’: AN ORAL HISTORY OF STAR WARS: EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE [x] ‘Well, This is the Future’ Once in production, The Phantom Menace would lean heavily on digital effects and technology, with more visual effects shots than any film in ILM’s history. John Knoll: I think the first time I really got exposed to what was ahead of us — I suppose the first thing was we read the script. There were, I think, three or four of us: myself, [visual effects supervisor] Dennis Muren, I forget who else was there. I think there were three or four of us, went out to the Ranch. There was one copy of the script [Laughs] and so basically what it is, we sat together in a room, and somebody started and would hand off the page that they had just read to the next person in the line. I don’t know, I was third in line or something, and I would get the pages and read them and hand them on. It was pretty overwhelming. I had a million questions because you’re reading it written on a page, you can imagine a lot of different ways that that could be executed. That could be a full set, the alien character that’s being discussed, I haven’t seen a design yet so I don’t know whether that’s just a guy in a suit or what. Initially reading through the script it seemed like it was a pretty big and ambitious thing. Sometime later we had — and there’s video of this, I think it’s on the making-of video — we saw the storyboards. George had the art department draw up storyboards for the whole movie. It was 3,600 storyboards, something like that. George walked us through all the storyboards. It wasn’t just telling us what was going on and this is this and that, he was also kind of mixing in what he was thinking about [for] shooting methodology. He had a number of colored highlighters, he had a magenta, a blue, and yellow highlighters, and as he was going down, things that he was going to shoot in front of a blue screen he’d scribble blue where he’d imagine the blue screen would be, and I think yellow was for live-action, and magenta was for CG characters like Jar Jar or battle droids or whatever. He sort of went through that, he went, “Yeah, it’s going to be this,” sort of telling us what was happening in all the frames. I was used to a situation where almost every show we did there was something that we were doing that was new, that we’d have to develop new tools or new techniques to do, but it’s like almost every storyboard was something that we hadn’t done before or didn’t have tools that could do. I was taking notes the whole time, making note of all the things we were going to have to do in R&D, or new things that would have to be developed to handle doing dense scenes with thousands of characters in them, or robust cloth simulations, or rigid body dynamics. There was a pretty long list of things. I walked out of that meeting with my head spinning, because it was not only massive in terms of sheer shot number, but in terms of all the new tech that has to be developed to get it done.

Rob Coleman: I remember going back to California and building the team up, and doing the early animations, and as time went on, I started really suffering in terms of insomnia and stress and freaking out, and I knew the world was waiting for this film. After a couple of months, three months, I actually drove up to Skywalker Ranch to resign the job to George. So I booked the time in to see him, and I went in there and I started fumbling and saying all this stuff through three hours of sleep, or whatever I had. He’s like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Well, just, the world is waiting for this, and the pressure of this, and I’m not sure if I can perform, and…” He goes, “Hey, hey, hey, wait. You’re working for one person. You gotta make one person happy. That’s me, and I’m happy. I think the animation you guys are doing is great.” I said, “Y-you do?” He said, “Yeah. It’s great. It’s my problem to worry about the world, and I’m not even worried about them. We’re making these films for me. You’re making me happy, so you can relax, and you can go back down to ILM and everything will be fine.” I was the happiest guy driving back down Lucas Valley Road. I was like, “Oh, my God!” From that point on, I was fine. I slept like a baby, I was able to do it, I was able to focus on it. George Lucas: You don’t really start something unless you think you’re right, and think that you’re on the right track and what you’re doing is going to be great. It never occurs to you that it’s not going to work. Otherwise you wouldn’t do it. That’s what keeps people from doing things. So I didn’t worry about that part. I knew that the process of making a film was very difficult, and most of it was grounded in nineteenth century technology — or older than that, actually. And it had just reached its limits and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. That was especially true in visual effects. And it was through visual effects that I began to realize we had the power and the knowledge to develop something that really would make a big difference. I started that whole process. I wanted to raise my kids, so I retired, but I spent my time building up the company and at the same time developing this digital technology. Rob Coleman: As reference, I think there were around 200 [effects] shots in Men in Black, and there were 2,000 shots in Phantom Menace. John Knoll: I’ll give you an example of some of the things we had to develop. I think prior to Episode I, the most complicated CG animation we had ever done was on Mars Attacks!, years before. We had one or two shots that had like 16 or 18 Martians in it, and they all had the little spacesuits and the helmets and their props and all of that. But that nearly brought the whole system down to its knees because having that many rigged characters in a scene at once just was more than the systems could handle at the time. I was regularly seeing shots where there were 50 battle droids, or a big battle scene where there are two characters fighting in the foreground, but the background had hundreds or thousands of characters back there. This is a whole order of magnitude of higher complexity than we dealt with, so we’re going to need to have systems for managing that level of complexity. And then a few years before, I think it was maybe ’95, we had done Spawn. There was a number of shots where Spawn’s cape does something magical, and we’d done cloth simulations for that that didn’t look super realistic, and it was fine for the movie because it was kind of stylized. The cape was almost a character in itself. We didn’t have a particularly good or usable cloth simulation system. But looking at the designs of the characters, they’re all wearing clothing. Jar Jar has clothing, and Boss Nass has clothing, and Watto has clothing, and we’re going to have to do digital doubles of the Jedi to do some of stunty things that we can’t shoot for real, and they need to have their cloaks and all of that. We’re going to need to have a good cloth simulation package in there. And we said, all right, we’re going to have to develop that. And then we had — there were lots of shots of Jedi cutting through battle droids, so the pieces of the battle droid clatter down onto the ground and that’s hard to animate completely from scratch, and there were so many shots, that, all right, we can’t fake it through that. We need to have a rigid body dynamic system. These were the things I’d been seeing at SIGGRAPH and technical papers about how to do those believable physical collisions, and we’re going to need a robust rigid body simulation system that’s integrated into our pipeline. It was just a lot of that kind of stuff. All these things that I knew were technically possible; we didn’t have any tools that did that. Rob Coleman: Part of my problem was, for months, there was no crowd system, which meant there was no Gungan battle. No ability for my team to animate hundreds of characters back then. It just didn’t exist. I remember there was one line in the script that said something along the lines of “The Gungan army walks out to battle.” That was six months of work — that one sentence. You were like, “Holy [expletive], how do we do that?” And that was one sentence out of a 100-page script. Ultimately, it was a matter of acquiring the right tools to accomplish what George Lucas was asking, using the latest versions of software already available, or developing new techniques. Rob Coleman: We had a database with all the different Gungan walks, runs, throws, falls, fights. We had little vignettes. We’d have Gungans and battle droids, upwards of five of them together in a little cluster, and we’d animate that. And then we could put that cluster into any shot, and we could rotate it, and it wouldn’t look the same to the camera. So we could create a finite number of those and then we could place them, and we’d actually get a fair amount of movement into the shot. We’d just be able to use it over and over again, and we’d put some hero work in the foreground, and the audience would never know.  Jean Bolte: Back then they called it Viewpaint, it was the first software that was developed to paint onto computer graphic models. I was the Viewpaint supervisor. Most people know this, but Viewpaint was a huge leap forward in Jurassic Park. Dennis [Muren] has always acknowledged that. As I have stated publicly, I don’t want to make it sound like I think my job was the most important contribution to computer graphics, but it was a very important one. The work that we were able to do, because we could paint onto the models, transformed the look of everything. Up until then we’d had The Abyss water tentacle, we had the mercury man in T2, very simple, very rudimentary, you know, the shading on things didn’t allow for very much believability, really. What we were able to do with the paint software, even in the very early, early stages there on Jurassic — I didn’t work on Jurassic, but I was having a good look at it. They were able to contribute a bump surface and a paint surface to give things the scale pattern, the aging, obviously the color, the different qualities of specularity. And in addition to that, for anything that was hard surface, there’s the aging that comes into making something rusty or dented or scratched. And when you have that, suddenly a thing has a story. It has a history. In addition to it having the believability, you can introduce the backstory as to, why did it get dented here? Why are the scales roughed up in this area? What kind of creature is this thing? Is it dry? Does it hunt? Is it an apex predator? Is it moist? All of that stuff is the story. So even if you’re making a creature that has never been seen before, you can kind of establish what its niche is in nature, and then contribute all of that to the look of it. The dinosaurs in Jurassic, that was a huge breakthrough to be able to see that. So the software being very rudimentary still functioned and continued to update. Every project there were things that were written into the software and in our technique and approach that allowed us to get more and more realism. The Phantom Menace featured several completely digital characters. Jar Jar Binks, played through motion-capture by Ahmed Best, would be the most high-profile, a supporting character that shared screen time with our heroes. Initially, the idea was for Best to perform in a suit and have Jar Jar’s neck and head created digitally, but this proved more costly and labor-intensive than just using a full CG model. Watto, the junk dealer, and Sebulba, Anakin’s rival podracer, were two other completely CG characters that played prominent roles. Ahmed Best: George wanted a character that was part-Goofy, but very physically aware. He really moved me toward what eventually became the walk. He wanted me to move slower, longer. Jar Jar was taller than I am, so he really wanted Jar Jar’s head to move in a specific way, so that forced me to try to come up with a physicality so that Jar Jar could move in a way that would work once animated. But a lot of it was just a collaboration of movement, me giving George options, and him saying, “Yeah, more like that.” The voice was the same thing. It was just me giving George options, and he was like, “Yeah, do that one. Do that voice.” George Lucas: I was tired of putting masks on people. I was much more interested in having them be all-digital so you could do more things with them. More freedom.

Ahmed Best: Jar Jar’s character, the movement and the motivation, was really based off of Buster Keaton. George really honed into that aesthetic when it came to me. Jean Bolte: Casper had a speaking character, Dragonheart, that was a speaking character, but there was something about Jar Jar being a character in this film that was a huge step further. I mean, he had to work in so much of the film in so many different environments. He had to sit there and interact as if he was somebody George had cast and put into a suit. Ahmed Best: It was great. I loved it. It never really felt like I was this other thing. It felt like we were all actors in the movie working together. This whole idea of me being in the movie or not being in the movie never occurred to all of us while we were shooting. It was never a separate thing and, subsequently, that’s what mo-cap has become now. It’s become actors in the movie, doing the motion, and then animation later building the realized, fantastical look of the character. But the actors are an integral part of the filmmaking and an integral part of the collaboration. And that kind of started with Phantom Menace. Rob Coleman: I believed in my crew, and I believed that I’d understood what George was looking for from a performance point of view. Ahmed Best: After principal [photography], I spent probably another year and a half, maybe two years, going back and forth between ILM and New York working out some of the kinks. That final battle scene with all the Gungans and the droids and the battle tanks, that was me, George, Rob [Coleman], John [Knoll], everybody at ILM, up in San Francisco figuring it out. It was just us in a room, there was nobody else there. I was doing all the motion that Jar Jar did in the final battle scene. George really wanted that to feel like not only just a live-action battle, but he wanted it to have the same physical comedy as a Buster Keaton movie. We worked really hard on that final battle scene. Jean Bolte: One of the things about this film is that this is what George wanted. He wanted them to have a similar kind of quality to the animatronic characters who also were not necessarily always 100 percent believable. But they had a charm to them, they had a life in them. That was more important than anything. I think Jar Jar has this quality. Ahmed Best: For me, it was just such a joy to be as creative as I wanted to be because I knew I had so much room. And George was really generous with the amount of room he gave me to bring Jar Jar to life. Doug Chiang: Watto was completely out of nowhere, and that scared me, because the genesis of Watto was that I did an early trader baron portrait that George really liked. The story of that character changed eventually, but he liked that. One day he came in and said, “Remember that portrait of the trader baron? Take that portrait, let’s put on a body, and add the feet, and add bat wings.” And that was the brief! It scared me because it didn’t make any sense, and I thought it was going to be a complete cartoony character that people are going to laugh at. I remember we spent weeks and weeks designing it, trying to make it very real, and George kept saying the same thing. And then literally one day I said, “Okay, I’m going to take George exactly at his word, and draw exactly that.” And it worked. One of my big appreciations for George is that he can push us quite a bit. I learned to trust him that he knows what he wants, and he will then stop us if we’ve gone too far. And right now Watto is one of my favorite characters. Rob Coleman: The amazing thing about The Phantom Menace, I think, certainly for the ILM animators, is we were moving from putting creatures in scenes to actually being actors in the movie. This is what I was trying to get across to them. The notion of getting up and acting things out. Talking about what’s happening internally inside a character’s head. Do they believe in what they’re saying? What do they want from the scene? Everything you would talk to an actor about I was trying to teach these animators. Jean Bolte: The main characters, Sebulba, Watto, and Jar Jar, were things that I had painted. Those were great. I mean, Jar Jar, obviously, was an important character. I remember that Doug Chiang [paid] very, very close attention to him. After there was artwork from Doug, and the model, then I would do the texture paint on it, and then Doug Chiang would take a frame render and paint on it. The next morning I’d come in, I’d see what he had done, have a meeting with him, I would incorporate those changes into Jar Jar. That process went on every day for weeks and weeks and weeks. Rob Coleman: I remember showing [a test of Watto] to George, and he was so excited that he showed him to Frank [Oz], who was doing the actual rubber puppet of Yoda on that first one. And then Frank said to George, “Well, this is the future.” And George was just beaming. The centerpiece action sequence of the film is the podrace, a fast, furious race between Anakin Skywalker and a smattering of strange aliens, through a course that includes a stadium, caves, rocky terrain, and the occasional Tusken Raider sniper. John Knoll: I had been playing around with a desktop tool that did two-dimensional physics simulations. It was called Interactive Physics. You could draw 2D shapes and you could have gravity and drag, and you could attach springs or chains to them and let them collide, and kind of do what they do. Seeing the designs for the podracers, they’re supposed to be suspended on repulsors, like Luke’s speeder, where they just sort of hover, and if you disturb them they have a kind of springy action to them. So they’re supposed to be just kind of hovering there, and then the cables go back to the cockpit. I just kept thinking that they should be, as they’re driving along, bouncing and springing and kind of look like they’re being held up by springs.

I used this Interactive Physics program to build a top down version of a podracer in 2D, where I had two engines and chains that went back to a cockpit. Then I attached thrusts to the engines, and I hooked them together by a spring network. I would jostle them a little bit and they would have this nice secondary springy motion that you would never have the time and patience to animate believably. I just really liked the look of it. I talked to Habib Zargarpour, my friend that was doing all that [computer animation software] Maya beta testing, and I said I want to try setting something up like this in 3D where we make up a frame and we suspend the pods from springs that attach to the frame. Basically, what we’re going to animate is, we’re going to animate the frame, we’re going to jostle it around, and when we animate the pods we’re basically just animating this frame. The pods are just going to hang from that, and when we move the frame, they’ll kind of bounce around and we’ll get all this really nice secondary motion. So that’s how the animation system worked, we weren’t actually animating the pods directly. We’re animating this frame that was holding them up. That was, I think, the first time that we’d done vehicle animation that was all being driven by rigid bodies and dynamic simulation system. Jean Bolte: I remember the first time I saw the podrace come together on the screen, and I was like, “This is it. This is amazing and it’s a beautiful collaboration.” The model makers and the computer graphics department come before me in the [process]. It’s first artwork, then the model makers get busy, the CG model department gets busy modeling, then it’s passed off to paint. Often it goes back to model and back to paint and back to model. John Knoll: Yeah, it’s a mixture. Doug and the group had designed this racecourse that had all these very distinctly different-looking regions. It was all pretty deliberate because George wanted you — if you saw two racers in one particular terrain — to immediately understand where you were in the racetrack. “Oh, that’s the area right past the stadium,” or “There’s the arches,” or “That’s the area where they get into this narrow canyon.” So if you kind of understood what that racetrack is like, then you cut to this character and you kind of know, “Oh, he’s like 10 seconds behind Anakin because he’s still in the crater field,” and that kind of thing. We had all these different terrains we had to create, and some of them were more closed in than others. A couple of them, like Beggar’s Canyon, and there was another sort of cave, this stalactite cave, I figured were closed in enough that we could do in miniature.

(The stunning podrace arena miniature.)

(Thousands of painted Q-tips stood in for audience members in the podrace arena miniature.) The podrace stadium was another one where I really felt like we’d get a lot of benefit out of building a miniature of that. Partly I was kinda looking back at how people had done things in the past, and the Ben-Hur stadium from the chariot race, that always really impressed me. Those were done in miniature and they just looked amazing. We’ll build a miniature of that arena, and we’ll shoot all the elements outdoors, and we’ll get that really nice, realistic daytime look. And then there were other terrains where it was just wide open and we were going at 600 miles an hour, and it seemed like the only way to do it was this CG projection technique. It was a whole mixture of whatever technique would work. Ben Burtt: I followed through with the podrace from day one to however we ended it. [Laughs] Even in the earliest stages of temporary assemblies of the race I showed George, I always was starting to put sound in. I, of course, had a library to start with of aircraft, and some automobile, cars, and things that had high-speed racing-type sounds that I could manipulate. I would sketch those in a temporary way. As we went along and the podrace developed, I would go out and record new vehicles, as would [sound designer] Matt Wood and a few others. We’d send them out to races to get drag strips, cars, we did some — everything from antique biplanes with wires humming on them to running an electric toothbrush up and down a harp string. It wasn’t just restricted to aircraft or anything. We did a lot of cars, a lot of aircraft of different types, and then manipulated other sound effects. George Lucas: The podrace was the direct result of my lifelong fascination with racing. I thought it would be fun to build really intense race vehicles that were as much sort of chariots as they were anything else, like two horses and a chariot. I took that idea, and plot-wise, it was necessary to get them off the planet. Obviously, you could come up with a million different ways, but I have a tendency to always go toward the racetrack. It was very dynamic. And it’s fun. I love it. The digital revolution of which The Phantom Menace was part did not stop with effects; it played a big part in the editing of the film and the entire delivery method. Still, the movie was ultimately made utilizing techniques both new and traditional. George Lucas: I’m not sure where my embrace of technology comes from. All art is technology. Film, or the movies, were the highest point of technology in the art world. You just had to learn a lot, and there’s a lot of technical things to deal with. So that wasn’t the issue as much as it was the fact that I didn’t mind change. And I didn’t mind change because I actually physically worked in it. I worked as an editor, I worked as a cameraman, and I know how difficult it was just working in the medium where you have little splices of film, you can’t find them, when you go to look for something you have to go through reels and reels of film. It takes a long time and it’s very frustrating on lots of levels. Just the whole idea that back in the Kodak days, you’d shoot the film, and then you have to send it in to the drugstore to get it processed, and then bring it back to see what you have, is slow and frustrating. And the whole thing was built on that, whereas if you do it electronically, digitally, you can see what you’re doing as you’re doing it. So you know exactly what you’re doing. Ben Burtt: Phantom Menace was shot on film. It was the last of the ones shot on film, but it gets transferred to a digital form, then we’re cutting on Avid editing machines. Once you’ve got the image in the digital realm, rather than a physical piece of film, of course then it opens up the door to the amenities of working digitally. You can cut and paste images, and you can duplicate them, and you can flip flop and enlarge them and shrink them, doing all kinds of stuff with a lot of fluidity that you would never have if you were working on a physical film. George loved that world of manipulation after the fact. You learned working for George that no shot as the camera saw it was final. [Laughs] It could be thought of as just an element for further development.

(Jean Bolte paints a Sebulba maquette.) Jean Bolte: When Jurassic came out, the company offered to train those of us who were interested in making the switch — they referred to it as “making a switch to computer graphics.” I had no intention whatsoever of making a switch [from the model shop]. What I always wanted to do was to train on this, in the new technology, learn as much as I could about it, but also keep the door open in the model shop. I had to fight kind of hard to make that work. But I think I was fairly successful because during Episode I, I was still able to go back to the model shop and paint maquettes, sort of keep both doors open. I loved that. John Knoll: To be perfectly frank, I was getting a lot of pressure from George and Rick to do less with miniatures and more with digital techniques. And what George told me, this was, I think, during Episode II or III, he was pushing back on me wanting to do so much with miniatures. He said, “Listen, the future is in computer graphics with these digital techniques, and you’re using miniatures as a crutch. You’re going to have to get better at doing this computer graphics work and expand the palette of things you’re going to be able to do that way. And the way you’re going to get good at it is doing it, so I’m going to kick the crutch out from under you and it’s for your own good. Don’t build so many miniatures. Do this stuff more with digital techniques because you need to be doing that.” Even though my preference would have been to keep doing what I was doing on Episode I. I look back on a lot of the miniature work we did on Episode I and I think it still looks amazing. Like Theed city, I think a lot of those shots are completely convincing. You’d never know. And I think the podrace stadium looks pretty good, and the podrace hangar looks really good. And there’s a lot of extensions that I don’t think people even know are extensions that are in the Nemoidian ship, of the corridors and the bridge and all of that. You’d never know. 

[raidbossmadi]

People Like Us Chapter 5

5.Settling In

Previous Chapter : Here 

Sloane awoke slightly surprised to be in a strange bed before she remembered where she was,  that this was home now. Tyreen was notably absent though the sounds of the television coming from the other room was enough of a reassurance that the other siren was still close by.  

She walked into the living room and found that Troy was sitting on the sofa scrolling through his echo-feed. She noted that he looked a little rough around the edges, well rougher, but he didn’t seem like a morning person to her anyway. Tyreen on the other hand clearly was, as she was in the kitchenette working away on breakfast.

“Morning Sloane, glad you decided to take us up on our offer. We were a little worried you just might decide to dash.” Troy purred as he set down his echophone to give her his full attention. “ C’mon sit down, Ty’ll be done with breakfast in a second and we can go over the plans for today.”  He patted the cushion next to him and smiled, his augmented canine teeth glinted as they caught the light making the smile seem more like a warning than a welcome.  

“Thank you, Troy...err...Father Troy…I um, how do you two want me to address you?” Sloane squeaked as she slid into the spot on the couch next to Troy.

“Just Troy and Tyreen are fine at least in private. You’re not one of the followers out there. You’re here with us.” The way he spoke about their followers made it seem like he sorted people into two groups, the people like them and the outsiders. Sloane was just  pleased to find herself included in the us.  

Tyreen finally stepped out of the kitchen carrying a tray with breakfast and coffee on it. Sloane noticed that two cups were marked with a specific symbol on each, one with the crown design that was painted on Tyreens door and the other the now familiar twin snakes that decorated all of Troy’s things, the other of course was just a blank mug.

“I’ll have your mug customized once Troy designs you an insignia, we all have one it just makes life easier when you're doing the dishes and laundry and whatever else needs doing around here.” Tyreen remarked, taking a seat on the other side of Troy.  

Sloane glanced at the plate that sat in front of her, a waffle and some eggs. She had been slightly nervous that the self styled twin gods would only be fond of eating foods she’d never heard of but the simplicity of the food in front of her put her at ease.

“You read the report about the fancy new tech Maliwan put out?” Tyreen asked her twin. Sloane noticed that while Tyreen was drinking coffee she notably was not eating anything. She filed that away under an ever growing list of questions she had towards the twins.

“Yeah, looks like some quality stuff, I’d like to get my hands on a gun and take it apart, see if I can’t learn anything.”  

“You like engineering then?” Sloane asked as she recalled what Tyreen had said about the ship being Troy’s baby.

Troy turned to look at her and quirked a brow pointing to his prosthetic arm. “Built this myself, and before we picked up the crew I did all the work on the old Centurion here. Still like to fix her up, so yeah it’s a bit of a hobby of mine.”

She blushed feeling a bit embarrassed, she supposed that should have been more obvious.  At least she knew a little more about him now though, she could start to read Tyreen but Troy was harder to get through to and not just because she’d spent less time around him compared to Tyreen so far. Both the twins were guarded but in different ways, neither of which seemed easy to crack.

“I’m gonna go take care of those things you wanted me to before the stream tonight Ty.” Troy stood and began to make his way out of the room before he remembered something and stuck his mechanical hand over the couch in Sloane’s direction.

“Give me your phone, gonna set you up with one of ours. Gotta monitor your activity and all to make sure you’re not sending unauthorized messages to anyone.” He demanded. She fumbled with her pocket for a moment before producing the phone and placing it in his hand. She almost expected him to crush it in his palm but instead he merely snorted as he looked it over before he left without another word.

“Right so while Troy’s off doing his chores, I need to head up to talk to some of the crew. I’ve arranged for the high priests to show you around the ship in the meantime. You’ll be meeting up with me on the bridge to take care of those biometrics after that.” Tyreen explained as she disappeared back into her bedroom to change into her usual attire.

Sloane finished her breakfast in the silence of the now empty room before a knock at the door interrupted the calm. She found Jaxon and Helios waiting just as Tyreen had said.

“Good morning Sister Sloane. We hope your first night aboard the Centurion was a restful one. Come along and we will show you the important places aboard the ship.” Jaxon said motioning for Sloane to follow.

“As I’m sure you’re aware this is the Centurion’s second level,  we’re just leaving the Twin Gods private wing and moving into the second floor common space.”

Sloane stepped through the doorway partitioning off the twins wing from the next area of the ship. The halls of the ship were a bit more busy now, with more of the hooded priests milling about though they quickly tried to look busy as the High Priests passed their way.

“The Bridge is located straight ahead, but you aren’t due until later this afternoon. This way to the lift, we have a lot of ground cover.” Jaxon gestured in the direction of the lift the three of them heading down to the lower level.

The tour was largely uneventful in Sloane’s opinion, they showed her the bar and the meeting space she had been brought into upon her arrival to the ship. The Priests had advised it was better to leave the engineers to their work so simply showed her the engine room from the viewing gallery. By the time they had made it back upstairs Sloane was ready to curl up and go back to bed but she was gently nudged in the direction of the bridge instead.

“And to your left is the infirmary, Dr.Spectra is immensely talented and will be sure to patch you up good as new.”If there was one thing that Sloane had learned in this tour it was that Jaxon had to enjoy the sound of her own voice. “Anyways, it is time we return you to the God-Queen. We wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”  

Finally being led through the door to the bridge Sloane was greeted by the sight of Tyreen standing near the center of the room talking to the woman who had taken the Priests ID’s when they had brought her onto the ship, Lydia, she recalled, was the woman’s name.

“Oh good, Priestess Jaxon didn’t bore you to death.” Tyreen said with a smirk.

“I simply informed our newest Sister of the in and outs of the ship God-Queen.” Jaxon reassured.

“Yeah yeah, Sloane, this is Lydia. She’s the chief of engineering, she’s gonna get you all set up.” Tyreen beckoned Sloane forward and she stood in the  space between Lydia and Tyreen.

“Right first things first, let’s activate your medi-chip.” Lydia said, reaching around Sloane’s neck to remove the collar before sliding a small band over one of the sides then slipped it back around her neck.  

“It feels the same?” Sloane hazarded.

“That little band has a micro-needle on it, you can’t feel it but it’s reading your vitals and all that. Troy and I have them to keep track of each other, and now Troy and I will be keeping track of you as well.” Tyreen said as if it were something everyone did casually.

“Now I just need you to come over here and stick your hands on this screen. Need to get your hand-scan in the system so you can get in the doors.” Lydia said corralling her over to the aforementioned screen. Sloane was a bit surprised at how thoroughly the twins handled security on their ship, granted she had never been on a space faring vessel before now.

“How many people are on this ship anyway?” She asked looking over at Tyreen trying to pass time as the computer completed it’s scans.

Tyreen tilted her head, eyes narrowing in thought. “About a hundred and fifty at any given time, we swap out crew when we visit our hub worlds, keeps people from getting stir crazy. Though important folks like Jaxon and Lydia here are always on duty.”

“And it is a pleasure to be in your eternal service God-Queen.” Lydia said leading Sloane back over.

“Aw Lydia, you flatter me. ” Tyreen cooed clearly loving every bit of attention. “I’ll have to tell Troy I’m your  new favorite!”

“With all due respect ma’am, I don’t think the God-king would take well to such insinuation and I rather like my position… and my head attached to my body.” Lydia kept her tone submissive but absently rubbed at a mark on her neck that Sloane only noticed now.

“Hmm you make a good point, took us long enough to find you to replace the last head engineer didn’t it? That’s alright, it can be our little secret.” Tyreen’s playfulness seemed much more threatening now, it was obvious that she thought she was just messing around but she was also clearly reminding the other woman of just who she was speaking to.  

With Sloane now in the Centurion’s system it seemed Tyreen was antsy to get out of the ships bridge there was a clink of metal as Sloane blinked and realized the God-Queen had clipped a leash to the d-ring of her collar.  

“Come along now Sloane, Troy and I have that stream soon.” She said pulling on the leash as she began to walk away.  They walked back down the hidden set of stairs that Tyreen had first brought her up on, arriving in the Ship Cathedral only now instead of the dimly lit room it had been when she had been presented before Tyreen it was illuminated with stage lights.

“Well look who made it with more than ten minutes to spare.” Troy teased his twin as he approached.

“Yeah yeah, is Iris on set yet?” Tyreen replied giving her nails a once over.

“Of course, she’s over in the wings as usual.” Troy squinted up at something Sloane couldn’t make out before letting out a low growl. “Hey! Idiots in the box you’re gonna wash out the set, turn those damn brights down.”

Tyreen tugged in Sloane’s leash again. “Best to get out of Troy’s way during set up. He tends to be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to this stuff.”

Off to the side out of the way of setup was a room set up with a hairdressers chair and makeup station, various pieces of clothing Sloane had seen the twins wear at one point or another were hung up on racks. In the center of the room stood a woman who looked about Sloane’s age, wearing a shirt with the CoV logo emblazoned on the front. As she looked up from the clipboard she was reading her purple hair fell in front of her face, which she brushed away before noticing her guests.

“Ah! God-Queen, is it time for your make-up?” She asked, her eyes flicking to Sloane.

“In a moment Iris,  first I wanted to introduce you to our new family member first. Sloane, this is Iris, she’s in charge of keeping Troy and I looking stunning. She does a pretty stellar job I think.” Tyreen praised with a smile. “Iris, this is Sloane, she’s the stray Siren Troy and found on Eden-4.”

“Ohhh,so you’re the one Father Troy was talking about.” Iris said looking over at Sloane. “You want me to watch her while you both are streaming tonight?”

“If it’s not too much trouble of course, I can always ask The high priests to handle it if you’re busy.”  

“It’s no trouble at all God-Queen. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.” She said with a smile.

“Ty.” Troy leaned in the doorway interrupting the women’s conversation. “Get ready the boys want to push the screen test up a couple minutes.”

“Yeah yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.” Tyreen reassured rolling her eyes as Troy left. “Brothers am I right, when am I ever late for anything? Sloane be a dear and sit over there like a good girl while Iris and I do our thing yeah?”  

Sloane obediently went to the chair in the corner of the room and sat watching as Iris took Tyreen over to her work station. She zoned out for a bit until Tyreen walked over to her.

“Right, you be nice for Iris, one of us will come pick you up after the stream. Have fun you two!” Tyreen said as she headed out the door.  

“Sooo, how long have you been with the CoV then?” Sloane asked Iris, she was different from the other inner circle members Sloane had met so far in that she and the twins seemed to have a much less formal relationship.

“Around three years, wow I can’t believe it’s been that long already...They rescued me from slavers, Troy and Tyreen that is. Been a part of the family ever since.” Iris explained while she worked on tidying up her workstation. “What about you, I mean I know you’re new but what drew you to the twins?”

“They wanted my vault and I wanted to stay with them because, you know to be completely honest I don’t know how to put it in words, I mean sure there’s the whole thing of them being powerful and obviously knowledgeable about the whole siren thing.  But also there’s just something in me that saw them and wanted me to follow them, maybe it’s a siren thing I don’t know.” Sloane shrugged knowing she wasn’t being terribly helpful but it was the truth, something had magnetized her towards the twins, something beyond their charismatic smiles and smooth talking.

Iris paused for a minute seemingly processing some thought about what Sloane had said. “Hm you’re right, Sirens really aren’t in my wheelhouse. Don’t let that put you off though, why don’t we go grab something to eat, get nice and cozy in the media room and watch the stream?”

That was the first normal sounding suggestion Sloane had heard from one of the twins' entourage in her short time with them. She had a feeling that she and Iris would come to be good friends as they got to know each other.

“That sounds great honestly.” She agreed and was relieved when Iris made no move to clip a leash to her collar the way Tyreen did. Instead walking to the bar to pick up a pizza as if they were well established friends.

__

Tyreen leaned against the crate of weapons they had been  gifted by the citizens of Eden-4 before they left as the crew buzzed around her setting up lighting and positioning the cameras. They were unboxing them tonight and she planned to drop the announcement about the new family member. Not knowing how Sloane would take being put on the spot she had chosen to make this announcement without the other siren present. She and Troy would have to train her to get used to being on camera.

“Your head in the clouds Ty?” Troy teased as he took his place on the other side of the crate. “You ready for the show?”

“Aren’t I always Troy?” She returned and flicked him in the forehead as he leaned in her direction. They both snapped to attention once the crew gave the all quiet on set call. She straightened her cloak and adjusted her hair watching as Troy did the same as the countdown ticked off, showtime.

Troy took the majority of the night’s stream, he was way more competent when it came to explaining what exactly was so cool about different models of guns. He had tried just handing her a script he wrote once but once it got heavy into the tech jargon it had all gone over her head. It was definitely not her finest moment and it had definitely led to a squabble between the siblings.  

“So Ty, you wanna tell everyone about what else we found on Eden Four?” Troy asked as he set down the last of the guns on the table in front of him. She smirked as she watched the camera turn to focus on her. She pushed off the crate standing center stage now.

“That’s right brothers and sisters, not only did Troy and I get Eden-4’s vault, but! We also found a stray who offered herself to yours truly and how could I say no to a face like this.” Tyreen cooed as if she were talking about a small animal as a holo-Sloane popped up from her echo-device.  “As you can see, she’s a siren, she’s our siren. I have big plans for her so needless to say brothers and sisters, you should treat her with respect.”

Tyreen smiled again, her thinly veiled warning coming across loud and clear, a new member of the inner circle had been claimed publicly. She then wrapped the stream in her usual bubbly fashion,  persona not dropping until she and Troy were back in their hidden staircase headed back to their rooms.

“You take her tonight, remember to be gentle. We want her to feel safe here, and if we want to test our theory we need her to trust that we won’t hurt her.” Tyreen said, offering the leash to Troy.

“I won’t need that, trust me.” He said, giving his twin a smirk.  “I’m good with the ladies.”

Tyreen snorted and flicked his shoulder “Yeah, yeah, just don’t get over excited this time, there’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

—- A few hours spent on the media room couch talking with Iris and watching the twins stream was enough to make Sloane feel as if she truly did belong here, any lingering doubts about her life with the Children of the Vault fell to the wayside. It felt good to be around people who seemed genuinely interested in getting to know her as a person, not a siren.

When Tyreen stepped up to make her announcement Sloane blinked in surprise and looked over at Iris. “Should I be worried about that?”

Iris seemed to think for a minute before shaking her head. “What no, Tyreen does that for everyone she takes in.”

Sloane wasn’t totally convinced but she knew Iris had no reason to lie to her and she thought that whatever Tyreen’s ‘big plans’ for her were, she was sure to find out soon enough. She knew that the Calypsos expected something from her in exchange for being taken in by them.

Not long after there  was a warning knock on the door before it swung open, Troy stepped through the doorway and rested against it. “Looks like you girls had a good time, I had no doubts that Sloane was in good hands when Tyreen said she’d given her to you Iris.”

“You’re too kind Father Troy, I just wanted our new family member to feel at home the way you and Queen Tyreen did for me.” Iris said.

Troy then gestured to Sloane. “Come, it’s my turn with you tonight.”  She approached him and he rested his prosthetic hand on her shoulder, the metal appendage’s  grasp was  just forceful enough that she wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of his grasp even if she wanted to.

He led her down the hall past Tyreen’s door and into his room. Where Tyreen’s room had been neat and organized Troy’s was a mess; bits and pieces of various machinery were scattered around the room centralized around a work table in one corner of the room. Sitting out on the kitchenette counter was an intricately detailed skull shaped bong that caught Sloane’s attention, it would seem that Troy’s private life was harder to get a beat on than Tyreen’s as outside the tinkering she wouldn’t have expected any of this.

“Sit on the couch and stay put until I come back.” He said with authority, disappearing into the bedroom. She did as she was told, looking at the books stacked on the coffee table, histories of various planet systems and books with titles in languages she didn’t recognize.

“Good girl, you follow orders. I mean I figured when Ty didn’t have any complaints you must be competent but I wanted to see for myself. Then again you did offer yourself to us so you must have known what you were getting into.” Troy had silently slipped back into the main room having traded his open faced vest for an oversized tee shirt, his prosthetic arm noticeably absent as the shirt sleeve was tied instead.  

“Is there anything else I can do for you tonight Father Troy?”  She asked feeling a bit awkward seeing him so casual.

“Ah-ah, what did I tell you? It's Troy in private doll, but I’ll let it slip. This is our first time alone together isn’t it?” He smirked  his hand catching her chin and pointing it up towards his face. She caught sight of his fangs somehow they seemed more threatening in this context than they had when he’d been willing to kill her. “Anyway, as for what you can do for me; go ahead and get comfy in the bed. No funny business I promise.”

He tilted his head towards the doorway he had walked out of. Sloane hesitated slightly as she got up, she had never shared a bed with a man in any context before now and while she trusted Troy to be true to his word she couldn’t help but feel strange about it.

His bedroom was much like Tyreen’s, a bed large enough that three people could comfortably fit in it without hassle, yet Troy’s  bed was a nest of blankets and pillows piled up like a dragon's hoard. Sloane found a spot to get comfy before Troy reentered the room.

“Don’t you just look precious. Well, sleep tight, still a lot to be done in the morning.” He said curling up in what was very obviously his spot as shaped by the pillows.

It would take some getting used to for sure, but this was still better than the life she left behind.

[prorevenge]

I led a "revolution" against a horrible lying manager.

To set the scene, I work in a book store, but I'm very much an underling which is what I prefer. I'm usually in the back, helping unpack shipments and prepare them for shelving. I also collect online orders and package them up for shipping, and sometimes I do the night shelving or overnight projects. It's always been my favorite because I rarely have to deal with the managers and it's a much more carefree environment than working the floor and trying to push people into buying things.

Our store has gone through several store managers recently because most of them are getting corporate promotions or they're finding better opportunities elsewhere (our store is part of a nationwide chain and we're sadly struggling a lot against our competitors). Rather than promoting someone within our store who knows how our store functions and is familiar with the employees and their strengths, corporate has been assigning us store managers that are either not from our store, have never been a store manager before, or have no experience in book selling. Obviously, this creates a lot of problems and it's been affecting our store badly. Nothing screws us over worse than when corporate intervenes.

A couple years ago, we got a new store manager that was unfamiliar with the company, unfamiliar with our store, and had zero experience in managing a retail store to begin with. We already had concerns but decided to at least work with her first because maybe she'd be a natural or she'd develop into someone that was good for our store. I'm gonna call her CM for Crappy Manager.

When CM was first brought into our store, rather than taking a week or two to observe our store and the employees before making adjustments and changing things, she leaped right in, changing store policies and taking on other people's tasks. She took over things like the scheduling and making sure we have a daily schedule posted every morning to know where we were supposed to be, when our breaks were etc, and other jobs that take a long time to do and have always been delegated to assistant managers to help things run smoothly. She put people in places where they weren't trained but didn't spend any time training them on their new jobs. She was also very late with every weekly schedule. It would be 9pm Saturday night and we would STILL be waiting for the schedule for the next week. And our scheduled weeks always starts on a Sunday so we'd literally be repetitively calling the store on Saturday night to find out if we had to show up the next morning. So many sections of the store fell into disarray and everyone was getting angry about not having our schedules. She clearly couldn't handle so much and refused to delegate things to change that. On top of that, she gave horrible advice. Just to give an example, she advised the shelvers to hide from customers while they were shelving so that they wouldn't have to be stopped to provide customer service.

But worst of all, she broke the cardinal rule of the store. Do. Not. Mess. With. The. Back. Room. The back room is where we handle shipments and had its own separate manager who ran that area like clockwork. It was completely organized, we had a system we were well trained in, and we have always had things processed fast and all the new product unboxed, organized on carts, and ready to be shelved on time. CM did not bother to observe and of this and put all her focus on that back area. She got it in her head that our store would thrive if we completely changed up the back room... and she had no idea what we actually do back there. First she took away a lot of our carts so we had less to stock our product on (and our usual shipments are anywhere from 150-200 boxes a day. That's a lot of books and we need those carts!). Then she took away the shelving cards we use on our carts to help divide up the titles not only by their main subject like History or Science, but also divided them up by their sub-categories like History: Civil War or Science: Physics. The cards made it so that that the shelvers don't have to look up every single item to figure out where they go. They can just grab them and shelve them, only having to worry about getting the author's names in order alphabetically. So now we have overstuffed disorganized carts and they're not getting shelved on time because the shelvers had to keep looking up where everything goes.

We explained this to CM over and over again in every way we could think to explain it, but she refused to listen and shifted the blame on to us. She also told us that taking away the cards was corporate's idea, not hers, and that they were no longer a required item for the stores. We did our best to try to still get things organized but we were being rushed so fast and had so many books to work with, there was no time to scan through every single item, organize them on the cart and try to remember where we put which sub-section on each cart. I honestly felt horrible for the shelvers and a lot of them threatened to (and did) quit. It made our job in the back room frustrating because we knew we were being forced to screw them over and when things don't work well in the back, it hits the entire store. Less product is being shelved, workers are getting stressed trying to figure out where things go... morale could not have been worse. And the worst part was she refused to listen to anyone who approached her with concerns. Her attitude was "Work smarter, not harder" and "Just make it happen." Sorry, retail doesn't work that way.

This is where I come in. Working in the back -specifically on online orders- I didn't have to deal with her face-to-face much because I was always running around and frankly avoiding her because I didn't want to deal with her. This gave me an advantage. Not only was I able to see the notes she was leaving behind for employees, telling them what they were doing wrong, her bad ideas like making the shelvers hide from customers, and announcing the things she was changing that were hurting our work. On top of that, I was able to eavesdrop on the meetings she would hold back there with the assistant managers, explaining her great new ideas which were all horrible. With so many of my coworkers threatening to quit and getting miserable with work, knowing what they would have to deal with, we agreed we had to do something. So I went online to look up ideas for the best way to handle this and got some good tips.

Now the revenge. I snuck my phone into the back and started taking pictures of every note, every announcement, even the disorganized carts and the giant mess she was creating in the back room (we had a mountain of boxes we couldn't even get to because the carts were not being emptied fast enough to give us room). I eavesdropped on as many of her little meetings in the back as I could so I could keep track of what other policies she was breaking, even caught her trash talking us, calling one of our mentally ill coworkers overly dramatic (even though that coworker never speaks up and just takes it when she's upset), saying we were too stuck in our old ways and too stubborn for change. Even called the manager who ran the back room an idiot and laughing about how pissed off CM was making her. Then I went digging through the store's computer until I found the full list of corporate guidelines, most of which she had broken and didn't care. The biggest of all being the scheduling, and it turns out it's against our state's labor laws for managers to not give us our schedules 14 days in advance.

After I collected as much as I could, I collaborated with other angry coworkers, gathering whatever additional information they had, and together we compiled a document, each of us explaining what was going wrong, what rules and labor laws were being broken, and included all the pictures I had taken with my phone to provide evidence. We did include the disrespectful way she was talking to us and about us but none of us really expected that to be taken seriously as we had no proof to provide. After we all looked it over and agreed we were satisfied with it, we emailed a copy to corporate, a copy to HR, and a copy to the regional manager who had assigned CM to us in the first place. It only took 24 hours before the regional manager was called in and questioned about why on earth he kept CM employed with us and how could he not know all the crap she'd been doing? I would have given him some slack, but the truth was he had visited our store on a regular basis, seen the majority of this stuff, and did nothing since his ass was on the line for hiring her and he didn't want to look bad by admitting his mistake.

Eventually, people from corporate showed up to speak with CM and the regional manager. I wasn't there to see it, but according to the few who did -because it was held in our break room- she was drunk. Honest to god, drunk. She was slurring her words, wavering in her seat, and could barely give a cohesive answer to anything they asked her. It ended in them telling her to hand in her resignation because it would look better for her than if she was just fired. She walked out of there having no idea who had taken this to corporate and even saw the document we'd composed anonymously against her. About a month later, the regional manager also resigned as he did not recover from letting her do this.

We're still having problems with new managers, but our store has now earned the reputation as the store who will not put up with this kind of crap, and that's caused them to be a little more cautious as to who they assign to us. And that, to me, is the ultimate win.

Never mess with the underlings.

(source) story by (/u/Vikkiislost)

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #433

Top Ten Things I Want from Xbox Series X

June is Games Month here at David’s Top Tens! That’s right, all month long we’re exploring the majesty of what we all used to call “computer games” before we became too cool. That’s because it’s the time of year when huge multinationals tantalise us with pre-rendered cinematics showcasing gaming experiences utterly divorced from what we’ll get to play. Even in this Time of Crisis (as opposed to a Time Crisis), games companies are still Touting Their Wares, and as such, I am brimming with fanboy fervour, tantalised at the prospect of Gaming Yet to Come. This week alone has seen sexy new videos from the likes of EA, Pokémon, and Sony – whose PlayStation 5 reveal gave us the best glimpse yet at exactly what the next generation could look like. I was impressed; although there wasn’t too much in the way of radically new concepts or whatever, games looked good, with plenty of sexy, shiny new bells and whistles, and it looked like environments will be bigger, more fluid, and more reactive than ever before. Plus seeing the ray-tracing in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart gave me serious “Quake II running on a 3D accelerator card” vibes. Suddenly I was sixteen again, getting all sticky-knickered over texture filtering and coloured lightning.

It was great.

However, I’m pretty much an Xbox-first gamer; mostly, I suppose, due to inertia, having gotten used now to how an Xbox works, to the point where a PlayStation always feels a little alien (still wanna play The Last of Us Part II, though). I’m more of a fan of the Xbox game franchises – the main reason I bought an original Xbox in the first place (way back in 2001) was to play Halo: Combat Evolved, and because of the promise of Fable. This love of Xbox games has only grown with the acquisition of Rare (despite the slight misstep of Perfect Dark Zero) and the release of games like Crackdown, Gears, and Forza Horizon. So as much as I try to be open-minded – and certainly I try to avoid any kind of partisan mud-slinging – I guess I’m pretty much in the tank for Xbox. As such, I’m phenomenally excited for Xbox Series X. I got an Xbox One at launch, and despite all of the hullaballoo and criticism, I’ve always really liked it. I think it’s kind of struggled compared to its predecessors (cult favourite OG Xbox and revolutionary Xbox 360), and hasn’t quite had the era-defining games that both of those enjoyed. All that being said, though, I’ve had loads of fun with it, and so have my wife and kids. But I’ve stuck with the same machine all these years, never upgrading to the more streamlined Xbox One S or the super-duper-sexy Xbox One X. So when I do upgrade, I think the jump will be far more noticeable than someone who’s been enjoying Red Dead Redemption 2 or Gears 5 on a 4K display; it should really feel like a new generation. And that’s before we get to all of the traced rays and other lovely gubbins.  

Anyway, when it’s this time of year, I tend to do a semi-comical “E3 predictions” list, followed by a “Stuff I liked at E3” list. Obviously E3 isn’t really happening, but these other online game reveals are, and given my aforementioned excitement over Series X – and Microsoft’s upcoming and much-anticipated reveal of first-party titles – I thought I’d divert my thoughts to what I want to see on the new console. However, unlike the traditional E3 predictions of yore, I’m going to look at what I’d like from the console rather than what games I’d like to see. Partly that’s because these announcement videos are getting spread so far and wide that it’s hard to keep track of what’s been revealed or when we’re likely to see something; partly it’s because we already know quite a few Xbox games that are coming out; and partly because the list would just degenerate into older franchises I want to see come back round again. Plus, with Crackdown 3 having already happened, a new Fable more-or-less an open secret, and a new Perfect Dark being very heavily rumoured, my go-to “wants” are getting thin on the ground. Perhaps Tim Schafer can bring his old LucasArts classics to the Xbox next year…? Whatever, this time around, I’m looking at that big black box and thinking about what features and design elements I’d like to see. What could be improved from how the Xbox One works? How would I like Microsoft to leverage their assets – from the faster SSD to the power of Project xCloud? Basically, what do I want Xbox Series X to be like, outside from glittering reflections on Master Chief’s shiny armour?

Streamlined, faster dashboard: now they’ve already said that the Xbox Series X dash will be effectively identical to the Xbox One dash, which is a trifle disappointing, but I hope that doesn’t mean that both systems can’t get an improved dashboard before Christmas. At the moment things are a bit fiddly, and I’d like to use the improved SSD to mean seamless transitions from page to page. Make it super-easy to get to your game library. Allow more customisation of the landing page. How about allowing us to resize icons, like on Windows 10? Don’t have quite so many obscure categories clogging up the front page. Use the shoulder buttons to hop between sections. Make it more about the games I can play rather than connectivity, shopping, or chatting. Stuff like that.

Integrated streaming: with Project xCloud on the (official) horizon, hopefully we can integrate that service into how the Xbox works. How’s about letting us stream demos straight from the store? Or stream games while they install/download? Or the option to stream any game we own rather than play it from the console? Or cast games from console to phone, or tablet, or PC, so we can enjoy the benefits of Series X hardware in the palm of our hands?

Discless play: teased then withdrawn from the Xbox One launch as it require the internet to check, I hope this can make a belated return. I like physical media, but I also like not having to get off the couch to change discs. I’d be very willing to accept an always-on connection as the price for playing a game without the disc in. If they could find some way to implement this and keep everyone happy, I’d be delighted.

Improved Guide menu: the best thing about the Xbox 360 interface was the Guide menu, which – certainly by the end of the generation – basically offered you full console functionality from one simple pause-button menu. The One Guide has been refined but could go further. Offer instant access to all our games, and all the system settings. Let us seamlessly jump from one thing to another and back again. Let us view all our captures quickly and easily. And let us go through game-by-game and see all our achievements, cycling through their related imagery. Basically, make it more like the 360, please.

Standardised settings: another amazing thing the 360 did that was totally walked back for the One is the idea of having a standardised range of settings that were applied across your entire profile. So if you want to invert your Y-axis, you tick one box, then all games are inverted. This was fantastic, and Microsoft were daft for undoing it. Make it good again! You have the power!

Refined subscription services: I think Game Pass is the future of Xbox, and I think xCloud is the future of Game Pass. This seems fairly obvious to me. I don’t know how much money Microsoft makes from Game Pass, but the way they’re leveraging their entire gaming strategy around it suggests that it’s a much stronger money-spinner for them than the traditional console market. I just hope that eventually the myriad Xbox subscriptions can be refined. Perhaps “Gold” as we understand it could be retired, replaced with a simple three-tier monthly sub, similar to Netflix; Game Pass Bronze (limited multiplayer, limited ability to download games from the library); Silver (Gold and Game Pass as we understand it, plus limited streaming), and Gold (all the games plus full streaming of everything)? This would, hopefully, mean we could get some of the benefits at a reduced cost (say, a fiver a month), and the “free” games in Game Pass would offset the loss of Games With Gold, perhaps.

Switch app: simply put, this would be cool: the ability to stream Xbox games on a Switch. Nothing more to it than that, really; the Switch form factor and controls would lend themselves to the Xbox experience effortlessly, and it’d mean I could continue my Halo campaign whilst my wife hogs the Xbox with Stardew Valley again.

Tangible differences between generations: on the one hand, I really applaud Microsoft’s blended approach to console generations. Smart Delivery, Backwards Compatibility, and Play Anywhere combine to form a very consumer-friendly approach; if you a buy a game now, you’re more-or-less guaranteed the best possible version come the Series X launch in November (or whenever). The downside to this, however, is a slight nagging feeling that we’re not going to see the best that the console can do; it’s fair enough that the Xbox One and Series X versions of Halo Infinite are, to all intents and purposes, on the same disc, and your progress and achievements carry over; but does this not mean that, aside from improvements in graphics and loading times, the Series X version is functionally identical? Is it just like upgrading a graphics card? Ratchet and Clank boasted some nifty dimension-hopping technology that presumably is a core part of the gameplay and looked like something that maybe wasn’t possible this gen; will Xbox owners miss out on features like that? If Series X could, say, give us a new Fable that presented as one continuous open world with no “hubs” or separated areas or loading, with some kind of magical traversal that allowed us to rocket across the landscape on a broomstick or whatever, would that not be handicapped by having to carry save game data over from the inevitable Xbox One version? Basically, I’m fascinated by how it’s going to work, but I hope we’re not going to end up slightly short-changed from a featureset point of view.

New hardware: not just the Series X itself, obviously; and not even the strongly-rumoured “Series S” either. I mean other bits and bobs. As they’ve already shown us the controller, I can’t realistically wish for one that had a microphone in it, but a tiny mic attachment maybe? Alongside the obvious headset. I wanna talk to the machine, basically; it was the one genuine benefit of Kinect. Also: a new, improved, media remote. A wireless mouse and keyboard, or some kind of lap-based hybrid. A new camera, not as invasive or scary as Kinect, just so we can use the Xbox to Skype people. And y’know what? VR support. Doesn’t have to be unique, bespoke headsets; just let us use PC ones, and let developers support VR in Xbox games. I don’t have the money or space to upgrade my laptop to be VR-ready, but if I had a PlayStation you can be damn sure I’d have PSVR. Half-Life: Alyx might be a pipe dream, but can I play Star Wars Squadrons at least?

Don’t bankrupt me: yeah, this. I’m cautiously optimistic that Microsoft will at least attempt to make this manageable; the recent rumour that it’d sell for $399 was much appreciated even if I think it’s supremely unlikely, especially if Lockheart/Series S is a thing. With Sony giving out noises that the PS5 will be a “good value” proposition rather than cheap, I think MS will strongly attempt to undercut them, but also not feel the need to go stupidly low. So please, Microsoft: $450, top end. Please don’t give us a $499 box. I’m already gonna be forking out for a new TV so I’d appreciate if I could keep the whole cost. For what it’s worth, I think the prices of all the new consoles will be: PS5 $499; XSX $449; PS5 DE $399; XSS $299. There you go: I managed to slip in an E3 prediction right at the very end. Prove me wrong, guys!

Phew, that was another epic one. But it was fun. I guess it’s weird to try to talk about the feel of a console without having used it. There are things I’d like improving with the look and feel of Xbox, but it’s hard to quantify it; stuff that’s clunky on a daily basis. And I’m probably an edge case anyway: someone with a huge interest in games and gaming, but who’s not very interested in multiplayer, and who – because of time and money but mostly time – rarely plays new releases, and takes ages to complete a game. But anyway. I’m dead excited about the Xbox Series X, and I can’t wait to hear more.

[rhainontheshelves]

Remember

Member: Bang Chan {Stray Kids}

Genre: Fluff, semi-smut? Not full-blown but it’s still there, angst towards the end

A/N: I’ve had this in my WIPs for a while and really wanted to release something! If anyone is interested in a prequel or a sequel I can certainly do that. Happy reading! - Rhin

    “... How long are you going to stay on my lap?”

    “However long it takes to finish this melody. Deal with it.” I said, plunking out a string of notes on the keyboard. Figuring out a concrete sheet of music was difficult when all you had was some sound clips Chan had come up with years ago. But, nevertheless, I managed to connect them and came up with a pretty good composition. I saved the file with a little “Yay!” and leaned back.

    Chan groaned as my weight shifted further back on his legs. “Damn (Y/N), how many cheeseburgers did you eat today?”

    “Not as many as you. How many did you order, four?” I smirked.

    “It was only three, excuse me! And they were singles, you can’t blame me for cheating the system and getting three singles for less than a triple.”

    “Only because we’re broke and ordering off the dollar menu,” I said, twisting around to face him, “and two medium fries! Who are you, an unhealthy version of Gaston?”

    “Hey, don’t compare me to that jerk!” Chan tried hard to keep a straight offended face. “And I’m very healthy, thank you very much.”

    A couple moments of silence was enough to break my mask and burst out laughing. Chan’s face was too good not to. He chuckled along with me and stroked my hair as I leaned into his chest, trying to pull myself together.

    “Wow, I’m tired,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “What time is it?”

    Chan glanced over to the computer. “Midnight on the dot.”

    “We have officially spent five hours in this dumb room.” I got up and grabbed a Pepsi from the minifridge. “Want one?”

    All Chan had to do was hold a hand out for me to toss one to him. Together, we unscrewed the lids and took huge swigs. We were in for a long night, so we needed all the energy we could get.

    “Let’s take a break.” Chan said, rolling over to the couch and propping his feet up. “My brain is tired from trying to pull feelings and experiences from years ago up for lyrics.”

    I flopped on the couch, thinking of a way I could help out. To be honest, I hadn’t done anything of that nature since I graduated, and that was just about a year ago. The memory was pretty hazy (it was a black-out type of night), so that wouldn’t help out a lot.

    “(Y/N), do you trust me?” Chan asked out of the blue.

    “What is that supposed to mean?”

    “Well, if this song is truly about sex, wouldn’t we need some moans in the background or something? The good ol’ bed creaks are getting a bit overused in this industry.”

    It took me a minute to process what Chan meant. “Wait… you want me to-”

    “No! Not if you don’t want to,” Chan’s cheeks turned red, “we can always pull audio from porn or something!”

    I looked at my best friend, sighed, and shook my head. “You’re lucky we need to get this track done by tomorrow afternoon,” I got up, turned off the lights, and went into the booth.

    “Why did you-”

    “So I can still have some dignity by the end of the night,” I said into the microphone. “Can we just get a series and cut it into the song? It’s too tedious to do stuff at exact moments.”

    “That’s fine by me.” Chan affirmed. “Just say so when you’re done.”

    I awkwardly stood in the booth for a bit, trying to figure out the logistics of this. The microphone that was hooked up wasn’t omnidirectional, so getting into the right position for the audio to be captured was a big problem. Also the fact that Chan was here made me extremely nervous. I didn’t know why; we could usually talk for hours about this stuff. Maybe it was because it was for real instead of the usual imaginary scenarios.

    Pulling up the chair, I sat down in it and carefully reached out toward the mic stand. I found the knob that adjusted the height and brought it down to its lowest position. Then, making myself as comfortable as I could be, I unbuttoned my jeans and slid a hand down to my clit.

    “Anytime now, (Y/N).” Chan’s voice boomed. The sudden fracture in the silence scared me and made me lose my start.

    “Damn it Chan, I was just getting warmed up,” I muttered. “I was just starting to get focused.”

    “Oh, sorry.” His voice sounded tiny over the speaker system.

    “You’re good, just don’t do that again, okay?”

    “Got it.” With that, the static of an open line cut off, leaving me back at square one.

    I sat there for a bit, trying to bring up a picture in my head that I could jack off to. Nothing in particular was coming to mind, except feeling something hard as I sat on Chan’s lap just a couple minutes ago. I zoned in on that feeling, and started to find something I could associate it with… and then my brain betrayed me.

    “Hey Chan… do you remember that party we went to a couple years back? You needed to blow off some steam from being cooped up with the guys too long and I needed some relief from college?”

    Static started buzzing again. “Yeah, I remember that. It was a fun night.”

    “I don’t know any other way to say this, but… I can’t get this image of you out of my head… I think we did something that night.”

    “I wouldn’t be surprised if we did. We were pretty drunk.”

    “No, you don’t understand. All I can remember after the sixth shot of whiskey is undoing someone’s belt while they marked me up. Their shirt was red, like that one button-up one you have that I like so much.”

    “Oh… that… yeah, that was me.”

    “You remember?” Honestly, I was shocked. I was certain that Chan got even drunker than I did.

    “Yeah, every second. I wasn’t as drunk as you then.”

    “Well, tell me about it then, since I obviously don’t remember.”

    “Um, okay.” There was some hesitation there. I knew Chan well enough to know that this was important to him for some reason; he would have told me about it sooner if it wasn’t.

    “Hey, it’s okay Chan.” I soothed him. “It won’t mess up our friendship.”

    “Are you sure?” his voice was shaky.

    “I’m absolutely positive.”

    “Well, it started when you pulled me away from the dance floor. Apparently I was grinding on some girl you didn’t like. I could tell you were getting faded, so I didn’t take it too seriously. As you were ranting about it, you started to say peculiar things. Like, “you have no right to look that fine” and “if you had another button undone and your sleeves already rolled up when you picked me up we would have never left the house”, things like that. Obviously I had turned you on and drunk (Y/N) gets really bold and horny. I don’t really remember what you said next, but I couldn’t stop myself from kissing you.”

    I was starting to remember, and as I recalled the atmosphere and how Chan looked that night, I started to get wet. That was one of the top times where I just wanted to hop on his dick and ride the night away. I wasn’t proud of it, but it happened. My hand started rubbing circles around my clit.

    “You backed me up against a wall and started unbuttoning my shirt. I realized where we were going at that point and quickly picked you up and headed towards the nearest room so we could have some privacy. Luckily it was a bedroom and the door was able to be locked. You started working on my belt and I gave you two hickeys on your shoulder. Once that belt was gone, you started unzipping your dress and I lost it. Lust just burned through me and you seemed pleased that you brought it on.”

    Chan was slightly caught off guard as whimpers came through the other end of the mic. (Y/N) must be remembering and getting off on that. He couldn’t deny that his mind was roaming back to then as well.

    “Chan, don’t stop talking. I want to remember everything.” (Y/N) whined.

    Chan could feel the lust creeping up again. It made him cocky, it made him want to hear what (Y/N) had to offer. “Everything?”

    “Everything.”

    “When your dress hit the floor, I picked you up and threw you on the bed, trapping you under my body. You pulled me down for another kiss, but I was already there. As we made out, my hands traveled around, unlatching your bra and pulling your underwear down. We pulled apart for air and I swear you looked like an angel, all out on display for me. You begged for me to do something, anything… so I got on my knees and pulled you forward until I could eat you out properly.”

    Chan described the rest of the encounter in graphic detail, and that was more than enough to help me out. By the end of it, I had cummed twice and moaned up a storm. I was confident that I had recorded good material.

    “Alright, that’s a wrap.” I stated as I buttoned up my jeans.

    Chan didn’t answer.

    “Chan?” I called as I exited the room.

    He wasn’t at the soundboard. The door was wide open though.

    “Chris?” I called again, sticking my head out of the door.

    No one was there to hear me.

    Concerned, I picked my phone off of the coffee table and there was a notification for a text - from Chan.

    Went out to grab some food. I’ll be back soon

[imattmiller-blog]

17 Practiced Weight-Loss Tips

Losing weight is not ever easy and there’s no one tip that’s going to change that. Though, it also doesn’t have to be as complex a process as many of us make it by counting every calorie or disrobing our diet of whole food groups while trying to follow violently preventive diet plans.

As an alternative of accepting a radical or all-encompassing method, try accepting a series of healthy customs and making them an essential part of your eating monotonous. As your good habits start to outweigh the bad, you may well find that losing weight and, critically, upholding a healthy weight become natural to you. And you’ll get to keep on eating carbs through.

 Underneath you’ll find 17 tips that can put you on the path to weight loss. You don’t have to try to take on all 17 at once. In fact, we’d certainly advise against trying that, because you’ll surplus manually and rapidly lose incentive. Pick a few to start with that you think you can achieve, then keep coming back and adding more in to your lifestyle. Before too long you’ll find that the fit choice becomes your first choice in all kinds of situations, and when you add all those composed, you’ll be losing weight without even thinking about it.

 1. Be Truthful

“Time and again, patients say to me that they are dissatisfied that they have ‘only’ lost a pound in a week,” says George Hamlyn-Williams, principal dietitian at The Hospital Group. “The realism is that one pound (454g) of fat equates to around 3,500 calories. This means that over the week the pound was misplaced, they have eaten on average 500 calories less per day – a massive attainment! It’s so easy to eat or drink an additional 500 calories – two standard 50g bars of chocolate would do it. But, to eat 500 calories less is much more hard and to be reliable with it is even more challenging – so give yourself a break and pat yourself on the back if a pound comes off. Dredge up, if you keep going, that’s 52lb (23.5kg) over a year – over 3½ stone!”

 2. Get Aware With Portion Sizes

“If you’re watchful of portion sizes you can say goodbye to calorie including,” says Kerri Major, a listed dietitian and SENr sports dietitian, and author of The Dietitian Kitchen. “It can be valuable to look at the optional portion size on food packaging and see what you’re eating in comparison with this.

 “Using your hands to get a coarse idea of an suitable serving size can also be a really valuable tool. This is never going to be 100% accurate, but it’s a simple and valuable way of helping you get the right portion sizes.”

 Here’s Major’s general advice for the portions that make up a stable meal.

·       Protein 1 palm-size portion

·       Carbohydrates 1 handful of complex carbohydrates, characteristically wholegrain diversities

·       Vegetables 2 handfuls of non-starchy vegetables such as broccoli, mushrooms or salad leaves

·       Healthy fats 1 thumb-size portion

Furthermore, a share of fruit is one piece of whole fruit, like a banana, or one handful (about 80g if you have scales to hand), and Major counsels aiming for three helpings of dairy or dairy replacements a day. “Helping sizes of dairy vary contingent on the product,” says Major. “Once more, I endorse checking the food label, which typically indicates an suitable serving size.”

 Of course, what’s precisely right for you be contingent on a number of things, counting how active you are. If you’re hesitant how much you should be eating, Major proposes seeing a registered dietitian.

 3. Start Slight

“When set new goals, focus on two to three small, truthful goals at a time and work on attaining them before working towards any more,” says Major. “If you want to start working out more, don’t go from zero to 100. That will be a tremor to the system and something that is hard to stick to. Plan to workout once or twice a week originally, at a time that is good and sustainable for you, before you plan to upsurge your sessions further. Make sure whatsoever the goal is, it is SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-Based.”

 4. Don’t Rely On Inspiration

“Numerous persons depend on inspiration to keep them going when it comes to working out and eating well,” says Major. “Yet, incentive comes and goes, and it’s never there when you want it or need it most. The key is to create hale and hearty habits and become disciplined – two things that can bail you out when incentive is low.

 “Hale and hearty habits can be something as humble as taking the stairs as an alternative of the elevator or walking instead of taking the car. Being controlled is showing up and doing something even if inspiration is at an all-time low. We all know that we regularly feel a million times better for doing something that we know is good for our health than not doing it at all.”

 5. Drink additional water

The rapidest and easiest way of plummeting calorie intake is to drink more water. A study of more than 18,000 adults found that cumulative daily water ingesting by just 1% resulted in the intake of 70 less calories, while drinking three extra glasses dropped calorie intake by 205. Reduced sugar ingesting was a main aim for the calorie discount, according to the Journal Of Human Nutrition And Dietetics.

 6. Be careful added sugars

These can tiptoe into all kinds of foods that you might not imagine to be full of the sweet stuff, like condiments and shop-bought sauces. “Opting for foods deprived of added sugar is a must,” says Jonny Mills, coach at boutique fitness studio Sweat It. “Sugar spikes your blood glucose and if you don’t burn it off it’ll be stored as fat.”

 7. Promotion your tastes

“Make it calmer for yourself to make better choices,” says individual trainer Jess Wolny. “The phrase ‘learned taste’ is basically jobless for food – all your tastes are acquired, so acquire healthier tastes and you’ll want to eat on the mend. Make the change to black coffee in its place of cappuccinos or dark chocolate rather than a slab of Dairy Milk, and after a few weeks you’ll never want to go back. One good tip is to try to recall you’re a grown-up and you eat like one. When reaching for a snack, think: would a child want this? Don’t rely on willpower – this stuff isn’t supposed to be hard.”

 8. Stay liable

“Being liable to manually goes hand in hand with sustenance from friends and family,” says private instructor and physique trainer Phil Graham. “Liability comes in numerous forms – it could be just a aptitude to yourself or telling the whole world via social media – but it’s vital for keeping you driven when the going gets threatening. And a provision network is also vital for times when things go wrong and you need to get back on track. Even healthier, find somebody who has been there and done it themselves because their advice and vision can be priceless.”

 9. Record what you eat

“Script down what you intake is a best method of following your eating lifestyles,” says private trainer Adam Jones. “Does your nourishment vary on vacations or under times of stress? To go one step additional, you could do this with a exercise spouse and show each other what you’re consumption. No one requirements to note McDonald’s or Krispy Kremes if they’re in approachable struggle.”

 10. Clean out your closets

“If I am trying to get lean I won’t keep foods at home I know I should be evading,” individual coach at UP Fitness Marbella Shaun Estrago. “Even if you have astonishing determination it can be almost unbearable to get in after a very long day and eat the food you know you should when there’s a stack of delicious extravagances just an open closet door away.”

 11. Indulge manually

“The number one importance in any fat loss task is obedience,” says David Godfrey, presentation director at One Performance UK. “If you can’t withstand the programme in the long period you’ll not ever attain your goal – or you’ll just ricochet as soon as you do. Compute your calorie target for the week and permit 10% of that to come from your favourite foods. Maximum persons feel like they’re unprincipled when they intake their favourite foods, so integrating them into your nourishment strategy assist maintain you on track deprived of guilt or painful expense. The psychological impression of this is huge.”

 12. Don’t depend on on fat burners

“At finest fat burners are an lavish mixture of caffeine, green tea and other components designed to increase the metabolism or mobilise fat,” says private mentor and fitness model Sean Lerwill. “At foulest you may be taking be something harmful to your health. Voluminous persons take a fat burner as an reason to skip the gym when they’re weary (frequently for the reason that they aren’t eating adequate) or short on time, in the incorrect confidence that it will do the job as a replacement for physical training. Nevertheless even if your fat burner does mobilise fat you still need to keep fit to burn it off or it will just continue to be stored.”

 13. Eat gut-friendly diets

“Nutrient preoccupation through the gut is the key to successful weight loss,” says Matt Warner, head of personal training at Ultimate Performance Manchester. “Tenderness of the gut lining can avert fascinating nutrients, which can make you more starving and knock your hormones out of wallop, heartening fat storage. Evade foods that you’ve found to cause gut uneasiness and eat more fibre (veg) and omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin D3 (oily fish), as well as taking a high-quality probiotic to refill your gut with good microbes.”

 14. Make your own diets

“If you don’t make your personal food then you can only predict at what you’re really eating in terms of calories, macronutrients (carbs, fats and protein), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and fibre,” says personal trainer Gus Martin. “If you don’t have a clear impression of what you’re eating, you simply can’t cane to the everyday restrictions needed to create a calorie deficit, which is when your body has no choice but to burn fat stores.”

 15. Boss the supermarket

“The most significant session of the week for fat loss isn’t in the gym, it’s in the supermarket,” says individual coach Steve Kowalenko. “The selections you make when you’re food shopping will control how well you set yourself up for the week in advance so buy, cook and eat real food. Maintainable long-period weight loss is about etching good habits and that all starts with what you put in your food basket.”

 16. Don’t shop starving

“Shopping starving leads to bad thoughts,” says listed nutritionist Sophie Thurner. “We all know it and yet we all still do it. That three-for-two proposal looks so tempting, and then you end up getting three of the not-so-healthy things, which you’ll have to finish, because nobody of us like to waste food. Have a detailed list of matters you need for a beleaguered, well-organized approach without the risk of buying things you don’t need.”

 17. Keep healthy food

“Confirm you have hale and hearty small amount of food obtainable,” says Thurner. “That can be anything from hummus or lodge cheese with carrots, bell peppers, cucumbers or celery, or a hard-boiled egg and a wholegrain cracker, to some Greek yogurt with fresh berries. Stock your pantry with nutritious staples such as tinned chickpeas and tinned tuna, and have some frozen veg and herbs in the freezer.”

[mszegedy]

30 Days of Autism Acceptance 2020: Days 1-10

This is a list of questions by @autie-jake (full list here), where you’re supposed to answer one per day for every day of April. I learned about it a few days into April and intended to start doing it but I forgot, I guess, or maybe decided against it. But I wanna do it now, so here’s the first ten days really quick.

April 1: Introduce yourself. Talk about who you are as a person.

This is kind of a hard question for me. I think my younger sister (by 3¾ years) would say this, if she just made a new friend the same age as her and she asked about me:

“Well, she goes to college, but she’s graduating this semester. She does something with proteins, but honestly she should really be a linguist. I actually really hate discussing linguistics with her, because she gets so annoying and overbearing about it. I don’t understand why she’s doing whatever she is. She’s a pretty weird person. She has all sorts of problems with, like, depression and amnesia and stuff. Oh, but, she’s trans, so, like, that’s a thing, yeah. I don’t like talking about most things with her because she thinks she’s always right. And also, she’s kind of mean to our mom. I don’t know why she does that. But at the same time she’s, like, really sensitive, and will be offended by the stupidest things. Okay, this is making it sound like I don’t like her, but I do, okay? She’s my sister, of course I love her. We’ve bonded a lot. She’s moving to DC in October, so we’ll be able to hang out during the school year, and that’ll be really fun. I think I’m just a little fed up with her right now from having to live with her for a whole month.“

April 2: Post your red instead selfie today! Alternatively, you could talk about why you choose to go redinstead and what it means to you.

I don’t know what “redinstead” is. I googled it and it sounds like you wear differently-themed stuff from what’s recommended by Autism Speaks, to dunk on them. Like a lot of people, I’m stuck inside this April, so there’s no point in me wearing pride clothing, because nobody will see it. But I do disapprove of Autism Speaks, because they don’t treat autistic people like people, and they try to spread that ideology. If you trick them into thinking you’re a person first, they won’t change their mind; instead, they’ll say you’re not autistic. People defend them by recounting the problems that nonverbal autistic people face, as though nonverbal autistic people have an inherently worse neurotype than everyone else, and not just one that’s more difficult to accomodate for society, and as though that justifies the abuses levied against them by Autism Speaks. I could go into details, but I won’t, because it would be emotionally draining for me as a writer, and you as a reader.

Suffice to say, I love being autistic. It has inspired a lot of people to treat me very badly, and probably led to a degree of abuse and neglect in my childhood that resulted in dissociative identity disorder. But all of my autistic traits are things that I love about myself. I like how emotionally expressive my stims make me. I like how I’ve learned to dissect a lot of social stuff and I can explain it. I like how I can just dispense with all of that social stuff around autistic people. Hell, I think it gives the neurotypical people I hang out with some relief, too, when I’m straightforward and explicit all the time. I like how good I am at linguistics, and how I can use it as a way to relate to the world.

April 3: Talk about special interests. Do you have any? What are they? How long have you had them? What does it feel like to have special interests? What does having special interests mean to you? Talk about your past special interests

My special interests are unusually slow burns. I’ve had linguistics-related special interests for the past ten years. They’re peripherally useful for language learning, but mostly I’ve just accumulated academic knowledge. They’ve, however, also led me to reconnect with my Ugric heritage culture, which is very important to me. (It wouldn’t be important to me if language weren’t my primary way of relating to the world; paradox?)

I have a wide variety of other interests, but few of them are really “special”. As a kid, my special interest was marine life. Unfortunately, I haven’t retained much of that, although I do have the privilege of having a diver’s license, which I’ll use again someday when I pass better naked. I also briefly had a special interest in… building computers, or something. I didn’t have the money to make anything particularly powerful (not that I had anything at the time to use computational power for), but I did run some workshops for middle-schoolers.

I think maybe my interest as a kid in Homestuck was special? It ran pretty deep, anyway. It’s hard to say, when you can’t remember most of your life.

April 4: Do you consider your autism to be an important part of your identity?

Because we have DID (or something like it), we don’t have an identity in the traditional sense. We do have a system identity, but that’s built around our mutual goals and guidelines. However, we’d be very sad to lose our autistic traits. Also, it might mess with the standard of consistency we’ve established for ourselves; we might not be able to predict our future actions, because losing our autistic traits may interfere with our ability to follow the aforementioned goals and guidelines, which are what help keep us focused and consistent.

April 5: Talk about your living situation. Do you live with your parents? Do you live on your own? Have roommates? Etc. If you live on your own how hard was it to get used to?

Right now, I’m quarantining with my mom, my sister, and my brother (who is actually my sister’s boyfriend), at my mom’s house. The mess that’s accumulating in the house is slowly causing my mom more and more stress, I think. I’ve never really lived on my own. For a lot of college, I lived with roommates or housemates, but I don’t think I was very good at that. Also, my mom lived nearby, and I stayed at her place on the weekends. The closest I’ve come to living on my own is watching my mom’s house for up to a few weeks at a time, and that wasn’t sustainable. (To be fair, what kind of house has a lawn? When I get a house with a lawn in the future, I will make sure that it’s a wild lawn that I don’t have to mow.)

The third to last time that I house-sitted for my mom, I ended up getting hospitalized for self-harm. It took her a while to let me do it again after that. Although, not a very long while, I guess. That was at the end of last September.

April 6: Are you able to drive? If you can, was it hard for you to learn? If not, what alternatives do you use, if any

I’m not able to drive. Driving is scary and difficult for me. I went through the motions of learning it in high school, but my track was interrupted by a move across state lines (I lived in the US at the time), and I never recovered. I’ve failed the NJ written driver’s exam, which grants you a one-year permit with restrictions, a total of roughly ten times. I’ve never been this bad at a subject; it’s like I have the opposite of a special interest in driving. A special lack-of-interest. My brain won’t retain any information about NJ driving laws whatsoever. It doesn’t help that I had a traumatic car crash when I was very young.

So far, I’ve just gotten my mom and coworkers to drive me places, or taken Ubers or trains. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if I leave NJ, I’ll probably have to get a driver’s license. Although, I’ve already got a carpool set up at my next job in October.

April 7: Talk about autism in the media. Do you think that autism is typically portayed well? Badly? Is there anything you’d like to see more of when it comes to autistic representation? Who are your favorite autistic characters? Do you have any headcanons?

The media that I consume doesn’t really have autistic characters, so I can’t comment on how autistic people are portrayed, except that I’d like us to be portrayed more, period. I’ve only really seen us in teen dramas. To be fair, one of my favorite webcomics, El Goonish Shive, is a teen drama, and has a great autistic character (Susan). I’d say I identify with her, but not really. It’s very hard for me to identify with people, fictional or nonfictional, because my neurotype is greatly influenced by autism, DID, chronic depression, and gender dysphoria, and you don’t see combinations of traits in media that come even close to that.

Speaking of another teen drama, I wish I were half as cool as Matilda from Everything’s Gonna Be Okay. I guess that makes her my favorite canon autistic character, but that’s pretty easy, because I don’t know any other ones. I can’t say that I wanna hug her, because she doesn’t like that, but her general substitute for hugs is dancing, and I can’t dance. I guess I’d learn how, to show my appreciation for her.

Archer from Archer is probably autistic. I like him a lot.

April 8: What are some misconceptions/stereotypes about autism that you hate?

“Hating” is not something I can really do, even when it’s recommended to do it. I haven’t been open about my autism, so I haven’t been exposed to too many misconceptions or stereotypes about it firsthand, anyway. I guess if I had to pick, it would be whatever made my dad call me autistic as an insult and use a bunch of ableist slurs at me a whole lot. I don’t know how he understands autism, however. He doesn’t seem to realize that he has it himself. (It’s not usually one’s place to diagnose other people like that, but one of the most degrading things that my mom says to me very often is that I’m exactly like my father. He even has some traits that I don’t, like touch-aversion and samefoods.)

April 9: How sensitive are you when it comes to touch? Are you pro hug or anti hug?

I’m hyposensitive. I’m really losing it here under this quarantine. I had a girlfriend who always made me feel so respected whenever she responded to my touch-based needs, by squeezing me, hugging me, or otherwise cuddling me very tight, but then she broke up with me because of my mental health issues, and because her parents hated me and her friends were made very uncomfortable by me.

April 10: Do you have trouble understanding when someone is being sarcastic or joking?

It depends. I think I’m as good at it as I’ll ever be, and my false negative rate is under 0.5 (and my false positive rate is very low, but not 0). But I don’t think the same thing goes on in my head as in neurotypical people’s heads when I determine something to be a joke. I almost explicitly do a Bayesian calculation; “Based on what I know about this person and this context, how well can I imagine them meaning this statement unironically in this context? How well can I imagine them meaning this statement ironically in this context?” It’s pretty automatic now, but sometimes it doesn’t work very well, when I’m not so familiar with the person and/or the context, and occasionally the intended interpretation of the statement.

[homespork-review]

Spork Introduction

CHEL: Hi! I go by Chel, they or she pronouns, and I’m the one spearheading this project. I still like at least a fair percentage of Homestuck, but after the ending disappointed me a great deal, I got bitter, and when Hussie pissed me off further by Godwinning himself, I decided to do something about it. I’m no longer angry about it, but I felt I’d benefit from picking out what I hate from what I love so I can focus on the latter without annoyance getting in the way, and also to benefit my own writing efforts.

BRIGHT: Howdy! I’m Bright, and I got into Homestuck fairly recently. After ploughing through the archive and digesting for a while, I realised that I was thoroughly annoyed by how something enjoyable had fallen apart so comprehensively. I am looking forward to the time-honoured practice of ripping the story apart to identify its weak points and shout at them.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hello, I’m Failure Artist (call me FA for short), she/her/herself pronouns, and I’m so old-school they burned the school down. I was introduced to Homestuck via Something Awful’s Webcomic thread. I checked the old mspadventures.com site and the latest update was [S] John: Bite Apple. After watching that bizarre piece of animation, I had to know what the hell happened before then. I found I enjoyed the wit of the comic though I didn’t really care much about the plot. It was only when Act 5 came around that I became a serious fan. I currently have 122 Homestuck works on Archive of Our Own. I have a lot of free time, you see. I am very disappointed in how Homestuck ended. Possibly there was no completely satisfactory way it could end but it still could have been better. I feel like Hussie was a juggler who threw a lot of balls into the air and ignored them as they fell to the ground and some fans think not catching them was a master move since you’d expect he’d try to catch at least one. Sadly, lots of the problems with the ending are embedded deep within the canon.

TIER: Hi hi. I am Tier, a very late newcomer to the wonderful world of Homestuck (2018 reader!) and average fan overall. I love this webcomic to bits, but the low points are deep and I enjoy seeking out what the heck went wrong. Not particularly analytical myself, hope that's cool!

CHEL: Cool by us! We’ve already done plenty of analysing before we started, as you may realise from my Tumblr’s “homestuck ending hate” tag (at @chelonianmobile).

FAILURE ARTIST: But let’s put that aside for a moment and talk about the good stuff. 

Homestuck is incredibly innovative. It is the first true webcomic. It’s not just a print comic posted online. It uses not just still images and words but also animation, music, and interactive games.

Homestuck is the latest adventure in the series MS Paint Adventures. MS Paint Adventures started as a forum adventure. In forum adventures, the OP acts as a sort of Dungeon Master and other forum members give them prompts. Andrew Hussie’s previous works under MS Paint Adventures were Jailbreak (which is little more than Hussie dicking with the prompters in scatological ways), Bard’s Quest (Choose-your-own-adventure), and the actually-completed Problem Sleuth. Problem Sleuth lacks the music and animation and despite the weird physics shenanigans is a simpler story than Homestuck. The characters aren’t even two dimensional.

Homestuck (and the previous MS Paint Adventures minus Bard’s Quest) are set up like adventure games. Adventure games are where the player is a protagonist in a story and are usually focused on puzzle-solving though sometimes there’s combat. In the beginning, these games were purely text. The player would type what they wanted to do and the game would spout back text describing it - assuming the computer parser understood you.

CHEL: Oh god, I HATED that. I wasn’t around for the heyday but I’ve played a couple and

Pale Luna

was barely an exaggeration (horror warning).

FAILURE ARTIST: As graphics improved, adventure games started using them, but the commands were still in text. Only later was the point-and-click interface created and players didn’t have to guess what exact sentence the computer wanted them to type. Homestuck and the other MS Paint Adventures play with that frustration while paying tribute to the genre. The game within the comic uses RPG elements but the comic itself is set up like those good ol’ adventure games. In the beginning, Homestuck was guided by commands from forum members. Even after he closed the suggestion box, he used memes and fanon created by readers.

CHEL: How good an idea this was varies, as we’ll be showing.

We probably don’t need to describe Homestuck much more. Everyone here who hasn’t read it will doubtless have heard of it. Almost everyone with a Tumblr will have seen fanart, almost anyone at a convention will have seen cosplay. Shoutouts have been made to it in professional works such as the cartoon Steven Universe, and the Avengers fandom latched onto “caw caw motherfuckers” as a catchphrase for Hawkeye to the point that it’s now often forgotten it didn’t originate from there.

FAILURE ARTIST: The Homestuck fandom term “sadstuck” for depressing stories/headcanons somehow leaked into other fandoms. Using second-person is actually cool now and not just for awkward reader fics. Astrology will never be the same again.

CHEL: Now, in the interests of fairness, we will say that when Homestuck is good, it’s amazing, and it’s good often. The characters at least start out appealing and are all immediately distinguishable; even with the typing quirks stripped, it’s easy to tell who said what. The magic system is one of the coolest I’ve ever seen, who doesn’t love classpecting themselves and their faves? Hussie also shows a lot of talent for the complex meta and time travel weirdness, and it is fascinating to watch a timeline thread unfurl. And whatever else one says, it’s a fascinating story that’s captivated millions. I think it is deserving of its title as a modern classic.

However, as the years have passed, we have ended up noticing problems, big and small, and they nagged at us until we decided it had to be dissected. Our intention here isn’t to tear apart something we loathe entirely. It’s to take a complex work and pick out what works from what doesn’t. As I said, when Homestuck is good, it’s very very good. But when it’s bad, we get problems of every scale from various offensive comments to dragging pace to characters ignoring problems and solutions right under their noses to an absolute collapse of every theme and statement the comic stood for before.

The comic is ludicrously long; eight thousand pages, or thereabouts, to be specific. Officially one of the longest works of fiction in the English language, in fact. Naturally, we can’t riff that word by word in any timeframe short of decades, and we can’t include every picture, even if that was permitted under copyright law. Instead, as comics have been done here before, we’ll recap most of the time, and include sections of dialogue and pictures when particularly relevant to a point.

Here are the counts we’ll be using, possibly to be added to later if we find we forgot anything. Most of these counts will only start to climb post-Act 5, but we’ll be keeping track of them from the beginning. Most of them could have been fixed with a decent editor, which is sadly a hazard of webcomics, but still frustrating to read.

TIER: Note: we started this endeavor months before the thought of a "technically not but still we'll count it" set of canon epilogues were a twinkle in the eyes of the fandom. That is, by the way, a whole 'nother can of worms that will be dealt with at a later date if that ever comes around. We're judging Homestuck the Webcomic as a whole, so no after the credits stuff is to be noted for whatever reason.

ALL THE LUCK - Vriska Serket constantly gets a pass or gets favored over every other character. This count is added to every time she pulls some shenanigans with which others wouldn’t get away. ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY? - Sometimes it’s not entirely clear whether a thing is supposed to be taken seriously or not. We don’t require hand-holding through every joke, but when, for example, we’re supposed to take one instance of violence seriously while a similar case is supposed to be funny, this count goes up. CALL CPA PLEASE - Instances of creepy sexual behaviour (and perhaps particularly gratuitous acts of violence) from the thirteen-year-old cast. Now, mileage may vary on this one. We won’t pretend that thirteen-year-olds are perfect pure angels, especially thirteen-year-olds growing up in what is openly supposed to be a nightmarish dystopia. However, when full pages focus on said behaviour, there comes a point of it being very uncomfortable to read. Clarification: does not refer to cases where the adults do something heinous, this is strictly when the kids do. CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS - When an offensive joke or comment is made, particularly when not justified by the personality of the character involved, or presented in the narration as being okay. GET ON WITH IT! - When the pace drags. ‘Nuff said. Hazard of the format, but it makes archive bingeing very annoying. GORE GALORE - For unnecessary and/or excessive torture porn which is treated less seriously because it features troll characters, and therefore less “realistic” blood colours. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC - When the comic does something mentioned in How Not To Write A Novel, and it isn’t justified by the webcomic format. HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING - Characters repeatedly neglect to do something about or even react to terrible happenings, either because they don’t care even if they should or they forget they have the capacity. Not necessarily anything to do with their magical powers, either - characters ignore personal problems that are right under their noses, too. IN HATE WITH MY CREATION - For reasons that are unclear, Hussie chose to create characters he apparently hated writing, or at least ignored in favour of others. Every time he’s clearly disrespecting one of his own characters, this goes up, whether it’s by nerfing their powers or changing their personalities. RELATIONSHIP GOALS? - Romantic relationships in particular get fumbled quite often. Ship Teasing is used with skill, but that skill tends to be lost when the characters actually hook up. Fumbled friendships and family relations can also come under this heading. SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER - When characters other than Vriska get away with something morally questionable. Covers everything from sexual harassment to not trying to save people from the apocalypse. SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS - Later on in Homestuck’s run, Hussie tried to make up for the offensive humour and casual -isms counted by Clockwork Problematykks above. How successful he was at this varied. This count goes up whenever an attempt at progressivism is waved in front of the reader but doesn’t stand up under scrutiny. WHAT IS HAPPENING?? - When the already confusing plot kicks it up a notch. Admittedly this is as much a selling point of the comic as it is an issue, but either way, we’re going to keep track. Points will be added to when it gets confusing, and taken away when a previous confusing thing is explained adequately. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM - What is shown about Alternia repeatedly contradicts what we’re told about how different it is from Earth. For example, trolls still use heteronormative terms even after it’s established they reproduce bisexually, and the demonstration of the class structure doesn’t always add up. This count goes up every time that happens. It also goes up every time something happens which strongly implies Hussie was envisioning the human kids as white, despite his later claims that they were always supposed to be “aracial”, and every time their economic statuses don’t add up either.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

FOR EXAMPLE, I USE IT WHEN I GET CLOSE TO A DEADLINE

They could sing campfire songs in the classes so long as there is no correlation between their ages and how well they're doing. We had the opportunity to raise a lot more play in it. This is probably what Eric Raymond meant about Lisp making you a better programmer. A friend of mine who knows nearly all the widely used languages uses Python for most of his projects. If all you have to choose between bad high schools and good universities, like most other industrialized countries the US is a particularly valuable thing when the atmosphere around you encourages you to do something very simple, like number crunching or bit manipulation, you may as well do what he asks, because he was one of the biggest obstacles to creating startups in Europe is the attitude toward employment. How advantageous it is to buy stock in growing companies as opposed to real estate, or bonds, or stocks bought for the dividends they pay. But for every startup like that, and they all basically said Cambridge followed by a url. It's not as if you couldn't get anything done unless there was someone with the corresponding job title. But angel investors like big successes too. Performance Between December 10 2002 and January 10 2003 I got about 1750 spams. If not, you're in trouble.

Both statements were true, but that's not the way to win is to race ahead, not to stop and think about that. All products should be considered experiments, and those that you decide, from afar, are going to be hard to get fired. Though I can't off the top of my head think of any examples, I am pretty sure that the notation is not the usual one, which applies even when you know which basket is best. But it is not so much the day to day management. In fact, that's an advantage. When we switch to the point where you can't help but hear all the cutting-edge tech and startup news, and run into useful people constantly. And so we changed direction to focus on that. Somehow it's as if most places were sprayed with startupicide.

For example, if I could give an example of a great hacker how good he is, he's almost certain to be wrong in some way, and even so I didn't get to macros until page 160. Sometimes, in desperation, competitors would try to introduce features that we didn't have. When a piece of ground that no one comes and arrests you if you don't do everything you're supposed to when starting a company to live off its revenues. The ones who keep going are driven by something else. In hacking, this can literally mean saving up bugs. If I were going to start a new company using Lisp. How do you figure out what customers want. NPR values, you can't tell from his portfolio. If you ever end up running a company, but startups especially, because startups have the least time to spare for bureaucratic hassles. But remember that ramen profitability is that a dollar from them is worth one dollar. It's easy to be drawn into imitating flaws, because they're big consumer brands. So one way to build great software is to start startups, because students don't feel they're failing if they don't go into research.

The groups then proceeded to ruin the company. Mistake number four. Spams full of html are easy to filter. There's no way around it: anyone who could get rich by creating wealth. You can convince yourself, then convince them. Politicians are caught between a rock and a hard place here, however: make the capital gains rate low and be accused of creating tax breaks for the rich, or make it high and starve growing companies of investment capital. If you know you're on the right track, then you get a couple million dollars from a VC firm, you tend to hear for learning Latin. I found that what hacking meant to them was implementing software, not deal with customers' mundane problems. A guilty pleasure is at least a pure one. If smaller source code is the purpose of high-level language, and computers speak whatever language you want. Why? Like a company whose software runs on Windows, those in the current filter, free in the Subject line has a spam probability of Act is 98% and for act only 62%.

A fellow would be walking along a street and suddenly modality qua modality would spring upon him. Needless to say, my imitations didn't say anything either. But the problem with scraps of paper I could find. I don't think the amount of work you have to take these cycles into account, because they're affected by how you react to them. Could you have both at once, or does there have to be really good at seeming formidable is that it's still so poor. Professional athletes know they'll be pulled if they play badly for just a couple games. What you really want to do it mainly to help the poor, you have to be better than it would be hard to translate that into another language, but I think hiring people is the worst sort of strip development. The hard part, obviously, is when what you have to push down on the top?

The lesson: don't pick cofounders who will flake. If you have a choice of doing good work, not something you work despite. The problem is, if you think in Cobol. This is the thing that has surprised me most about YC founders' experiences. Perl may look like a magazine. In fact, the reason the best PR firms are so effective is precisely that they aren't dishonest. But the importance of encouraging startups.

Metrics Small in what sense though? Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay the bills. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. Taking money from the poor, or they stop going well surprisingly fast. As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer wouldn't use either of them. And PR firms give them what they want. The token Url optmails meaning optmails within a url occurs 1223 times. Work for us, the premise was, and we'll give you a place to think in rather than just to tell a computer what to do without understanding how to do it by changing the world. But the problem then is, you have to overcome in order to put technical barriers between us and our competitors. Back in 1995, we knew something that I don't think it's a good idea to treat spam filtering as a straight text classification problem. If you get bored with, or can't understand, or don't agree with one point, no problem: it won't kill the essay.

Now for the really shocking news: during that same one-month period I got three false positives. At our startup we had Robert Morris working as a system administrator. It might be hard to translate that into another language, but I learned, without realizing it at the time was that the hypothesis we were testing seems to be spreading. Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002. You'll also have a provisional roadmap of how to succeed. When I was a philosophy major in college. In this case we get three: the NPD Group, the creative director of GQ. They all know about the stuff they've invested in. The simplest way would be to say that to Japanese or Europeans it would seem like something out of the way, and your first priority should be to figure out why. Even other hackers have a hard time convincing the pointy-haired boss to let you build things in Lisp, we'd be able to carry it off. If Hewlett and Packard tried running an electronics company out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the end of 1996, we hired a PR firm I had no idea how it works.

[darlingnisi]

On Napster, the NPG Music Club, and the Nature of Internet Commentary

No artist has battled the music industry quite like Prince. With the help of the Net, no artist has a better chance of winning his war

By  Bilge Ebiri Yahoo Internet Life June 2001

Y-LIFE: You’ve been very outspoken against the music industry, going so far as to change your name and write slave on your face in protest.

PRINCE: I don’t have any hate for these people. Ultimately, what people don’t know is what they end up focusing on and misunderstanding. If I’m changing my name and writing on my face, they assume I’m crazy. And then they’ll say that I’m not capable of distributing my own materials. My first Warner Bros. contract was huge—full of terms, restrictions, that sort of thing. We need to stay out of the way of that. If it’s the music business, then the musician should get the lion’s share. And when artists figure that out, there’ll be an uprising. Right now, if you resist their kind of thinking, what do they do? They’ll kick you out to the curb. Y-LIFE: Aren’t all industries like that, to a certain extent? PRINCE: At least in the movies, a successful actor can get $20 million. It’s not like that in the music business. Destiny’s Child brought in $93 million last year. How much do you think they themselves actually got? It’s totally unequal. Record executives will say, “Destiny’s Child made $93 million last year.” You ask them, “Why did Destiny’s Child themselves only get $4 million of that money?” I mean, have you heard Beyoncé sing? Puh-leeze! She ain’t even 20, and she’s got a voice like that! Let’s kick it up to $30 million. Is that fair? They won’t answer. They’ll say, “You don’t understand....” When you talk to record executives, you’ll hear an arrogance that’s astounding. They’re under the assumption that artists don’t know the way the industry works. Sheryl Crow has this saying; she refers to people as having “no Midwestern common sense.” So they’ll say something like, “We have 85 percent failure expectations on new acts,” meaning they expect the vast majority of them to fail. You’ve got 85 percent failure expectations, and you’re signing them to long-term agreements? “Well, they might not fail.” What does that mean? This system makes $40 billion a year. And it’s all based on this type of logic. Y-LIFE: What’s your position on Napster? PRINCE: I always ask people, “Are you pro- or anti-Napster?” Now, the record companies see Napster as troublesome. Napster is a mirror. How you see Napster says more about you than it does about Napster. The fans visiting Napster, they would want everything the artist puts out. They wouldn’t want to pay for it. What’s up with that? But the same goes for the recording industry. How you see the recording industry says more about you and your priorities than it does about the recording industry. Napster was inevitable—a file-sharing program that allowed the user to be a part of the process—especially given the general arrogance of the music industry as a whole. I mean, $18 a CD. Where are they getting that? The production costs aren’t going up, that’s for sure. People are getting hip to that. This is a wonderful time, because everything is shifting. Everybody can be an artist—and there are good and bad consequences to that. But people who control their own work will succeed. Look at Bill Gates. The man is unstoppable. He never sold out. He never sold the rights to his software. Y-LIFE: Have you ever used Napster? PRINCE: No. Of course, I’ve had people go on to see if they’ve got our stuff, and they definitely did. Now, NPG Music Club is a subscription club. If the songs we put up on the club end up on Napster, is that copyright infringement? Y-LIFE: You asked your fans that same question on the site. What do you think? PRINCE: I’m asking you. The record industry said that Napster caused them to flat-line. Are you pro- or anti-Napster? Y-LIFE: Personally, I’m pro. PRINCE: Now, why is that? That’s interesting. Y-LIFE: I discovered more new music through Napster last year, and I bought the CDs. I’ve paid for more music last year than I’ve ever done, thanks to Napster. And I think people will still buy CDs; we like objects. PRINCE: Do you think individuals who spend all day on the computer will care about CDs? I’m trying to see if I can sway your opinion. How many users does Napster have—60 million? Do you think all those people are buying their CDs? Y-LIFE: Probably not. PRINCE: See, there you go! Now we’re coming to some kind of agreement. I’m not pro- or anti-anything. I just sit back and watch the whole thing. We’ve got an institution here at Paisley that cares for the artist. And that’s the way it should be. I’ve spoken to Shawn Fanning. He’s just a kid. It’s a real shame what has happened to him. He’s in a lot of tough water. He’s scared. When Fanning got up onstage at the MTV awards, the audience started cheering and booing. First they were booing Metallica; now they were booing him. And he’s thinking, “Why did this happen to me?” If I was worried about booing, I’d think I had to change. So you sign up with one side or the other. And Napster, BMG—these people aren’t musicians. Shawn knows the deal. [A month after this interview was conducted, Prince reached an agreement with Napster to release a new track from an upcoming album on the file-sharing service. —Ed.] Y-LIFE: In February, you started the NPG Music Club on your site, a paid subscription service that allows fans to receive new songs from you every month. Was the club an alternative, or a response, to the Napster controversy? PRINCE: Napster had nothing to do with the NPG Music Club. Anybody who has followed my career knows how much technology has meant to me. When it was three o’clock in the morning, and I’d try to get [Revolution drummer] Bobby Z to come out to the studio, sometimes he’d come, sometimes he wouldn’t. But I’ve had this Roger Linn drum machine since 1981. It’s one of the first drum machines ever created. It takes me five seconds to put together a beat on this thing. So from the very start, technology gave me a direct result for my efforts. I’m a very simple person. If somebody wants my music, I’ll give it to them. Y-LIFE: Don’t you worry that if your music is distributed only on the NPG Music Club, you’ll lose potential new listeners? PRINCE: Why would a 13-year-old be at my concerts? There’re tons of them there. One night I asked them, “How many of y’all have seen me before?” Half of them cheered. “How many have never seen me before?” The other half cheered. So I see how this is going. Somebody old brings somebody new. Things get passed down—it’s like oral history, the way it’s supposed to be. Like you and me talking right now. I’ve wanted to have a direct one-on-one with people for a long time. If you see the Net as a tool to eliminate the middleman, you define it. And that reflects your personality. You get in and say, “I want to use it to get to more people"—that says something about you as well. NPG audio gives you something new. We’ve called the NPGMC “the experience for those who know better.” Because right now, if you listen to the radio, all you’ll hear is packaged pop stars. Sometimes I want to ask those people, “Do you even know a D-minor chord? Come here, play one. Good. Now step away, please. There’s nothing to see here.” (Laughs) Y-LIFE: Will you still release albums from now on, or stay digital? PRINCE: I’ll probably release albums, but what’s cool about the club is that the shows and the tracks change every month. So if you go in every month, you’ll get to storehouse all these tracks, and by the end of the year you’ll have enough for maybe three albums. I could probably release five to seven albums every year if I wanted to-polished stuff that I’m really happy with. But the market can’t deal with that. So this seemed like a natural alternative. Y-LIFE: How did you first get online? PRINCE: Instantly, the thing that attracted me to the Net was the idea that I could reach a lot of people without going through a matrix. Unfortunately, the Net is a reflection of what’s going on in the world. School shootings, things like that. It reflects that kind of violence. That’s why I don’t live there. Here in Paisley, it’s a very isolated environment. You can’t just see all that pornography and deceit and mendacity all the time. That’s what the world has become. There are pockets of beauty out there still, though. Y-LIFE: Where are those pockets of beauty on the Net? PRINCE: That’s a tough one. I’m not one to judge what is beautiful. I do know what isn’t beautiful. Everybody’s a critic. People are flaming each other without any knowledge of the effect it has on others—the kind of physical, psychological effect it has on them. Y-LIFE: Have you been in chatrooms devoted to your work? PRINCE: A couple of times—not much. When I first started, I tried one time to unify a group splintered by whether I was still “funky” or not. That question still goes on, obviously. But what ended up happening was that I got a webmaster out of it—Sam Jennings, who runs the NPG site out of Chicago. But I guess what I find beautiful on the Internet is wherever I find agreement. That’s beautiful even to people who are full of hate. Y-LIFE: There was a quote on your site recently, saying “Beyoncé can sang!” Was that from you? PRINCE: The tidbits of information on the site don’t come from me. Sometimes people will ask me a question, and I’ll give them a quote. My end is shipping out the music. But it’s evident that Destiny’s Child is an industry act. We want to keep the focus on why they’re successful. And that’s because of the people in the group, not because of the label and the marketing. That’s why you’ll see tidbits like that, about Beyoncé and other performers. The people that are here at Paisley with me—we’re all like-minded. They stay free—and free means free. And that’s what the club is about. It’s a haven for anybody who’s got their music and is free. We’re all very down-to-earth. No matter what the press likes to write about me. Y-LIFE: So what kind of Web sites do you like to visit?

PRINCE:

I go to the educational ones. I like to study history—especially Egyptian history. I don’t want to start endorsing any sites right now, but I like the ones that go back the furthest. ’Cause I’m interested in how we got in this predicament in the first place. You can talk about symptoms all day long. But I like to talk about solutions. (Source)

[anakin-danvers]

Software Update

x

Steve Rogers x fem!reader

For Bee's 2.1k challenge @amarvelouswritings Congratulations Bee!

prompts: 24 - “I never want you to feel like you’re not good enough.” 28 - “If I kissed you right now, what would you do?” Warnings: angst, low self esteem, mention of slight violence, language, alcohol drinking, fluffy as hell, slow burn (as slow as it can be in a one shot), ~ 5.4k word count (idk how it got to be this long) A/N: Hey y’all! So this is my submission for Bee’s 2.1k challenge. Congrats to her, I know she deserves it because her work is so amazing!! Also, this happens to be my first fic on here. I hope y’all like it too because I really enjoyed writing this, I smiled so much throughout. Enjoy! --- You looked at yourself in the mirror for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning. You convinced yourself again that your wardrobe choice was fine and that the appointment you had should be short and to the point so there was really nothing to fret.

Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath. "You got this, Y/N. It'll just be a simple software update for Stark's computer system. It's not your first time there." It was something he could do himself or have any other staff member do, you thought. You grabbed your keys and your laptop bag, shaking the thought out of your mind. These appointments were, in your eyes, unnecessary, but you were thankful for the opportunity nonetheless. It brought in much needed extra cash and allowed you to interact and even form a friendship with some of Earth's mightiest heroes. You left your apartment and called down a cab. Jumping in, you looked through your bag to make sure you had everything. Sure enough, you did. In reality, it was obvious you'd have everything. You'd prepared for today since last night. And you'd checked to see if you'd had everything at least three times this morning, just like every time you had these appointments. Soon, you were dropped off in front of the Avengers building. You paid for the cab and walked into the building. The receptionist greeted you with a smile. "Good morning Miss Y/L/N." "Good morning Lucy. I'm here for Mr. Stark." She nodded and grabbed a badge for you. You thanked her and headed to the elevator. The confidence you'd had in your outfit choice, well it'd diminished. In the lobby you'd seen some other women, thinner women, beautiful women, in nice skirts and dresses. Maybe you should've opted for something like that instead of your usual slacks. "Can't back out now, Y/N," you mumbled to yourself. "Plus, there's no one you're trying to impress, is there?" It seemed as if your question had been answered as soon as the doors to the floor Tony always had you go to, the common floor where most of the Avengers were usually lounging around, opened. There, standing in all his glory and all his red, white, and blue was Steve Rogers himself. He had his back to you and he was wearing his uniform, minus his helmet. Standing with him was Tony, and it seemed as if whatever they were talking about had their full attention. You internally sighed as you stepped out of the elevator and into the floor, or at least you thought you'd sighed internally. You could feel your face turn red at the realization that you'd actually sighed out loud. Steve turned, catching your eye and giving you a warm smile. Gosh, that smile really wasn't helping you get your composure together. "Good morning, Y/N." "H-hello Steve." "Y/N! So glad to see you today!" Thankfully enough, Tony noticed you as well. He went over  to engulf you in a hug, one you hoped would give you some relief to get rid of your current tomato face. "Nice to see you too, Tony," you said laughing lightly. Tony stepped back and slung an arm around your shoulders. Out of all the Avengers, Tony was the one you knew the most. Your dad had worked in the janitorial service for the tower back when it was just starting off as Stark tower. Although he was now retired, it was because of the good relationship that your father had with Tony that you were able to have these appointments in the first place. Your dad would always tell Tony about his daughter who was studying computer science, and when you'd finished college you'd gotten many offers from Tony about joining his personal team for the behind the scenes Avengers, as he'd called it. You'd thought about it many times, but honestly you were afraid you weren't up to par and you didn't want to be offered a job just because of your parents, and you'd explained that to Tony many times. He said time and time again that he'd offered you the job because of your work from school, but you weren't convinced. "Steve here just got back from a mission and he was giving me a quick run down." "Oh, well I don't want to interrupt," you said. “I can make my way to the computer room and be done quickly." "Hey what happened to your cheek?" It seemed as if Tony had taken notice of your slightly bruised left cheek. His question made Steve take a closer look at your face, and a small frown etched itself on his face. "Oh-umm there was this small altercation I had with a man on the subway. Nothing big, really," you explained. The man seemed to have been drunk and to be honest, your defense skills weren't the best. "Want me to track him down? What'd he look like? Friday, get me the footage of the subway cameras–" "No, Tony, really. I'm fine. It was a week ago. It's okay." "Hmmm. Well weren't you getting training from Nat and Wanda?" "I haven't seen you around the gym with them for some weeks now," it was the first words Steve had said since his greeting, making your eyes glance at his face for a second. "Yea, umm, I got a bit busy with work. I did learn a couple things and I was going to put them into use but I just kind of...freaked out." You laughed in an attempt to make the conversation more light hearted. "You should try to make some time. I mean, your safety is priority." You felt Steve's eyes on you and you looked over to see him looking at you with a worried expression and crossed arms. "I will. I just let it slip is all." "I still think you should come and work with me. I'm telling you, Y/N, you could have your own sleeping quarters here and everything. It'll be better than your apartment. You'll be safe, no matter what time of day you get home." Tony tightened his grip on your shoulders and you looked back at him, giving him a smile. "I'll think about it. Now I really should get to the computers." ~~ "Fuck," you cursed as another error page popped onto the screen of your laptop. You looked at the time and let the word slip from your lips again. It had been an hour since you'd started the system update. It should've taken you 15 minutes but instead here you were, an hour in and no closer to an updated system. "This is why I can't work for you, Tony," you mumbled to the empty room. Concentrating back on the laptop, you let your fingers attack the keyboard as you entered another system of code. The opening of the office door took you out of your trance, and you heard the voice before you'd turned around. "Hey you," Natasha's smooth voice filled your ears and you couldn't help but smile. Your smile only widened as you noticed that Wanda was trailing behind her. "Hi guys," you said, standing up to greet them each with a hug. "Tony told us you were in here. We came looking for you right away," Wanda said. The three of you walked back to the desk you had been sitting at for the past hour. You took a seat while Wanda and Nat stood at either side of you. "Honestly I don't even know what I'm doing here." "Aww come on Y/N," Nat said, taking a grip of you shoulder as you proceeded to put your face in your hands. "You were born to do this sort of thing. Hell, I'd even say you're better at all this computer stuff than me." You shook your head, giving Nat a look of disbelief. "You're just saying that." "She's not just saying that. You know she never just says things." Wanda said. "Wanda's right. So keep going at it. I'm sure you can get it done in no time." "We'll see. This thing was supposed to take me 15 minutes to install. It's been an hour." "Don't give up, Y/N. I let you give up the training sessions, but not this." "I didn't give up on that, Wanda. I just...got busy." Natasha scoffed. "Got busy trying to avoid a certain Mr. America." You could feel the red return to your face as you vigorously shook your head. "You don't know what he does to me, Nat. If he talks to me or even glances at me, I feel like I'm going to pass out. And it's so stupid because, well, we've actually hung out a handful of times and those times we'd never really been alone. The only time we're alone is whenever I'd bump into him in the corridors and trust me, I couldn't handle doing that anymore. Plus, I really did get busy. My bills don't pay themselves, you know." "Yes I understand but last I remember, you kept postponing until you just avoided the subject all together," Nat said. "You know, Y/N, maybe you should let him know how you feel." "Are you kidding me, Wanda? What good can come out of that?" "Oh I don't know," Nat said. "Maybe he'll let you know that he's just as head over heels for you as you are for him." "I can't believe you can lie so easily, Nat." "She's not lying, Y/N. He asked a lot about you when you stopped coming to our training sessions." Wanda's words threatened to cloud over your concentration, but you continued to focus on the task ahead, your fingers jumping around the keyboard. "You girls are delusional," you mumbled. The two gave small laughs but decided to drop the subject. You continued to type away, your brow coming down as you felt the end of the process come near. You typed the final digits in and waited as the bar loaded. Soon, you were met with a window with the green words 'software update installed' on it. "Fuck yea. I did it. I'm done. Finally." "See? We told you you'd do it." Nat gave you a small smirk and you grinned back at her. "It took me forever though. Friday, can you call Tony down here and tell him the software update is complete?" "Right away, Ms. Y/L/N," the artificial voice responded back. Within a few minutes, Tony walked into the office, a huge smile plastered on his face. Coming in behind him was Steve, this time out of his uniform. He was sporting some dark sweatpants that hung low on his hips along with a gray shirt that hugged his chest nicely. He looked over at you and gave you a small nod and smile. You smiled back, trying to keep the redness from you cheeks at bay but failing, once again. "You're a genius, Y/N!" Tony grabbed you by the shoulders and shook you, smiling at you with the same huge smile he'd entered with. "Uh I'd hardly say that. The system update took me forever. I should have done it in 15 minutes, not a whole hour." "No, Y/N. I changed the system. The update should've taken at least 7 hours to complete, and that's if I were doing the update." "What?" "I changed the system to one that looked to be exactly the same one that you'd installed. The way I designed it, system updates are supposed to take a long time, a process of a day or two for regular people. You did this in an hour. You're a genius, Y/N, just accept it. Now, since you passed the test, I want to offer you a job on the team again. What do you say?" You were shocked. For one, you felt sort of confused about the fact that you hadn't noticed the system change. But greater than that, you were utterly surprised at what you'd done. Suddenly, you felt like you could do this. Maybe you were capable of being an effective asset to the Avengers. "Cmon, Y/N. You did an amazing job, and I know you'll be able to do even more amazing work with us," Wanda's words brought you back to reality and Tony's awaiting eyes. "I-uh," you stopped, taking a breath to collect your words. "I'd love to." Tony shouted in excitement and pulled you in for a hug, causing you to laugh. When he let you go, Wanda and Natasha both have you big smiles and a small hug in congratulations. "I'll get the room fixed up for you. You can move in as early as tomorrow," Tony said. "I think I'll need more time than that. I need to let my other job know and move my things." Tony agreed and gave you another hug before leaving to attend some business. Nat and Wanda excused themselves, saying they needed to go read over a mission briefing they were assigned to, leaving you alone with Steve. You watched them all exit the offices, then your eyes darted to Steve, who was already looking at you. "Congratulations, Y/N. I know Tony wanted you to take the job for a while now. I'm glad you did." "Thank you, Steve," you said. A small smile tugged at the corner of Steve's mouth and he looked down at his shoes. "Since you're going to be in the tower more often now, I guess you'll have time for training?" "Oh. Yes, definitely. I'm sure Tony will be a nice boss." He laughed. "I'm sure he will be." Steve looked up at you and caught your eyes. Looking at his blue eyes, you couldn't help the smile that jumped on your face. Steve smiled in response and his eyes began to look over your face. As they moved over to your left cheek, the smile on his face dropped and instead his beautiful face homed a frown. You knew he was frowning at your bruised cheek, and you wished you'd covered it up better. Steve took a step closer to you, making your breathing quicken. His hand came up to cup your chin, his thumb grazing your bruised skin. You couldn't stop yourself from closing your eyes at the feeling of his skin. It was so warm, so welcoming, so right. "I'm going to train you." Steve's voice caused you to open your eyes and find him looking at you with a soft gaze. He dropped his hand from your face, to your disappointment, but his eyes stayed focused on you. "What?" "I mean, if you're okay with it, I'd like to train you myself. We can start as soon as you want. I just...I need to know that you'll be able to defend yourself and prevent this from ever happening again." His voice was soft, causing a warm feeling to make its way to your stomach, adding to the feelings of butterflies already present. "Yes. That'd be great." "Great." You blinked, bringing yourself out of the daze that Steve seemed to always put you in. You dropped your gaze to your shoes and then moved to grab your laptop and bag. "I, uh, I should get going," you said, closing your laptop and putting it in the bag while also grabbing your cell and putting it in your pocket. "Oh, before you go, I wanted to ask you something." You slipped the bag on your shoulder and turned to look at Steve. "Yes?" "Tony, he's holding a party tomorrow. I'm not sure what it's for, something about some donors and, well, I can bring a guest. So I was wondering, would you want to come with me? It's at 8 and I understand it's last minute but I just got back from a mission and found out and I understand if you can't go–" "I'd love to, Steve," you said, smiling as you saw his eyes brighten. He smiled at you, a smile that reached his eyes. "Okay, great. I'll pick you up tomorrow then. Is 7:30 fine?" "7:30 is perfect. Thank you, Steve." "No, thank you," he said and gave a small laugh. "I guess I'll walk you out then." You walked together out the office and to the elevator. You pressed the button and waited for the elevator, though there wasn't much waiting to do. The door opened and Steve put his hand on the door to keep it open while you walked in. "It was nice seeing you, Y/N. And I'm glad I'll be seeing you around more. I'll see you tomorrow, then." "Likewise, Steve. See you tomorrow." You gave each other one last smile before he stepped back and let the elevator door shut. ~~ "I don't know why I agreed to going. What am I going to do in a Stark party?" You were walking about your room, looking for the mascara that should have been with the rest of your makeup. "You said yes because Steve asked you." You'd called your best friend, Alex, to have her talk to you while you finished getting ready. You already had your dress on. You'd chosen a black A-line dress that reached your knees. It had lace scallops on the sleeves. You were sure the flaring bottom added unnecessary volume to your figure, but then again anything else seemed to hug places you wanted to hide. For your hair, you'd put it up in a low bun. This way, you'd have it out of the way during the night. Your makeup was about to be done. You'd chosen one of your go to looks, paying extra attention to your disappearing bruise. It seemed as if you used it for every party, but it was easy for you to do and was more glam than your everyday routine, so you'd decided to play it safe. All you needed was that damn mascara you were looking for. "Okay, but I still don't know why he did. Maybe he felt like he had to because of the whole job thing." You looked through a purse you'd taken out a few days before and, thankfully, found the small tube. You rushed over to the mirror and began to apply it. "From what you talked to me about, he seemed pretty interested, Y/N." Alex continued to voice her thoughts through the speaker of your phone. You rolled your eyes, even though she couldn't see. "I doubt that's the case." "Well, I'm just saying this based off the facts. Plus, didn't you tell me he texted you last night?" "Yes, but just to confirm at what time he'd pick me up today and to ask for my address. Oh, and to say that it was good to see me." "I can't believe how blind you're being right now. Why can't you see what's happening?" "Because, Alex, he could have any intelligent, beautiful, experienced woman he wants. I don't see why he'd want me." You closed the mascara and made sure you hadn't left any black marks around your eyes. "Y/N! You are beautiful and intelligent and absolutely amazing. He'd be lucky to have you." You shook your head, again, unnecessarily due to the fact that she couldn't see you. "I think he's seeing someone, or at least intends to. I heard the mentioning of a Sharon around the tower. Somebody he met while he was in D.C." You grabbed your phone at the sound that you'd received a text. "Hey, Alex, Steve just texted me to let me know he's outside. I'll call you tomorrow, yes?" "Okay, okay," she said, excitement clear in her voice. "Have fun, Y/N! Call me tomorrow to let me know how everything went!!" You bid yourselves goodbye as you sent Steve a quick text to let him know you'd be down in a second. You grabbed your clutch and phone before slipping your heels on. Closing up your apartment, you made your way down to meet Steve, the butterflies in your stomach becoming violently present. Walking out into the street, you looked around and caught Steve leaning on a black Suburban. Seeing him, you couldn't help but bite your lip. He looked gorgeous. He was wearing black pants and a blue button up shirt that flattered him beyond words. He looked over and saw you, a smile appearing on his face. He started to walk over to you, and you did the same, trying to focus on your walking, seeing as how his presence made your legs feel like jello. "Hey, Y/N. You look," he blinked and shook his head, opening his arms as he motioned to you. "You look gorgeous." "Thank you, Steve. You look great, as well." Your heart was beating really fast, so much so that you felt as if you kept talking it's jump out of your throat. "Shall we head over to the tower then?" he asked and stuck his arm out for you. You nodded and slipped your arm with his, a warm feeling coming to settle on the pit of your stomach. God, he smelled so amazing. The drive to the tower was nice. There was mostly comfortable small talk, accompanied by much laughter from both of you. Once you'd arrived, you opened the door to your side of the vehicle in order to get off, but Steve was by your side before you could step foot onto the sidewalk. He took your hand and helped you off, closing the door after you. He offered you his arm, and when you linked your arm with his, his other hand came to pat you. You smiled to yourself, you eyes focusing on your shoes in an attempt to hide your blush. The two of you made your way into the tower and into the party. Once stepping inside, you felt yourself start to feel uneasy. This seemed to happen a lot. You'd always have confidence in your appearance until you arrived to the event you'd gotten ready for. Today was not an exception. A lot of the other women in the party looked stunning. They'd mostly opted for tighter dresses that enhanced their curves, as well as floor length gowns with seductive slits. You instinctively tried to stay back from the crowd, not realizing you were still holding onto Steve and therefore keeping him back as well. Steve looked down to you, a concerned expression on his face. "Is everything okay, Y/N?" You closed your eyes briefly before opening them and smiling at Steve. "Yes, I'm fine." Before he could interrogate you any further, Bucky and Sam found you two. They approached you with excitement radiating from them. "Hey, Cap," Sam said, taking in Steve for a hug. You stood in the side, holding your clutch. "And hello, Y/N! You are such a beauty." He took you in for a hug as well, and you hugged him back, happy to see your good friend. "Hi Sam, it's good to see you," you said. "Hey now, where's my hug?" Bucky went over to you after having greeted Steve. You laughed and leaned into him to hug him as well. "Hello, Buck." "How would you two lovebirds want a drink?" Sam asked. You blinked in embarrassment at his choice of words, hoping Steve didn't put too much attention at his words. "Would you like something?" Steve asked you, in a lower tone. You nodded. "Yes, please. Some whiskey." "I'll be right back," he said, heading over to the bar with Sam and Bucky trailing behind him. "Y/N!" You turned to see Wanda rushing over to you with Natasha. They looked so amazing and you were so relieved to see your friends. "Hey guys!" "When did you get here?" Wanda asked. "Um we just got here a little bit ago." "We?" Nat asked, an eyebrow raised. "Yeah. Steve and I..." "Together?" You nodded. "Oh my gosh, Y/N. why didn't you tell us?" Wanda was beaming with excitement and you turned to see if Steve was still at the bar. He was. "He asked me yesterday after you two conveniently left," you said, in a somewhat accusative tone. "Ah, then you should be thanking us," Nat said. "Maybe he was waiting to catch you alone." "I guess so–" "There she is! Y/N, come here and meet Mr. and Mrs. Haas. They're interested in our work and I was just telling them about the new addition to the team," Tony took your arm in his and took you to an older couple who he'd been talking to. You turned to send an apologetic smile to Nat and Wanda and they nodded in understanding. "Hi, I'm Y/N Y/L/N, nice to meet you," you said, introducing yourself. The four of you continued to talk for a while, and your eyes scanned the crowd to see where Steve had stayed. You'd see him hopping around from Sam and Bucky to Bruce and Vision. After some time, you'd thought you'd embarrassed yourself enough with the couple. You were never great at holding conversation with people of importance, and though Tony kept helping you out, you had enough for the night. You walked away from them, looking around again to see if you could find Steve. To be honest, he was easy to spot, seeing as to how much he stood out for you. You spotted him at the bar again, only not alone. Next to him was a tall, blonde. She had a bright smile on her face, one that was replicated on Steve's own face. You were sure she was Sharon. Feeling the air leave your lungs a bit, you pushed yourself through the crowd and made your way out to the balcony. Great. Just fucking great. Now you were embarrassed from the talk with the Haas couple and alone for the night. After setting down your clutch on a small table next to you, your hands took a hold of the balcony rail and closed your eyes, feeling the wind hit you. It was what you needed, fresh air and time away from everybody. Only you weren't able to enjoy it for too long. You heard steps come up behind you and instinctively tenses up. You didn't turn until you felt the person come up next to you. "Hey. I, uh, brought you your drink. I had it earlier but you were busy with Tony." You turned to see Steve handing you your glass of whiskey. Taking it, you smiled at him in gratitude. You took a sip of the liquid, the burning sensation on your throat being a welcome feeling. "How'd it go with donors?" You could feel Steve's eyes on you, but you kept your eyes fixed on the glass in your hands.

You frowned slightly, thinking about the way you’d most likely embarrassed yourself in front of the couple. “I don’t think it went too well,” you mumbled as you set your glass next to your clutch on the table.

“Why do you say that?”

Sighing, you shook your head then moved your eyes to focus on the view from the balcony. Thousands of lights twinkled back back at you, as the city below you beamed with life. “I don’t know. I can usually do a decent job in talking to people in a formal matter, but just right now...I guess I was distracted, or nervous because of the new role I’d be taking in this job. Whatever the case, I’m sure I blew it.”

Steve let out a small chuckle. “I’d beg to differ, Y/N. I bumped into Tony before heading out here and he was beaming to me about how you’d blown them away.”

Taken aback by Steve’s words, you turned to look at him. You felt your face scrunch up in confusion. “Really?”

He smiled at your surprise and nodded. “He said that once you left they’d asked him where he’d find such a talented young woman as yourself.”

“I can’t believe they said that,” you said, your voice drifting off.

“Why is this so surprising to you? This was the reason Tony wanted you on the job, you know.”

You shrugged and sighed. “Honestly, I thought he’d kept offering me the job because of the way he got along with my dad. I never really felt capable or good enough for the position.”

“That’s nonsense. You’re one of the brightest minds I know.”

You scoffed, shaking your head in protest. “I doubt that’s the case, Steve.”

“You don’t believe me?” At your silence, it was Steve’s turn to shake his head. “Y/N, I need you to see yourself the way I see you.” He moved closer to you, taking your breath away with the diminishing distance between you two. “You are an impeccable human being, Y/N. You’re brilliant, nice, beautiful-”

“Steve...”

“Please, Y/N, let me finish,” he said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I never want you to feel like you’re not good enough. You’re so much more than good enough, and I need you to see that.” By now, he’d taken a hold of your hands, pulling them close to his chest, making your heart beat quicken.

“Why are you so good to me?” you mumbled, looking at his hands wrapped around your own and not throwing out the thought that maybe it wasn’t just your imagination yelling at you that Steve’s hands fit so perfectly around your own.

He chuckled, and the sound brought a warm feeling within you. “You know, I could be asking you the same question.”

You tried to organize your thoughts, and Wanda’s words from the day before came back to your mind. And maybe it was the alcohol-induced courage, but you proceeded to ask Steve, “I heard you were asking for me...during my absence from the tower.”

“I was.”

“Why?”

Steve sighed, prompting you to look up to look at his eyes, the beautiful orbs of blue with hints of green already looking at you with so much emotion. He broke the eye contact for a second, facing the city below you and placing his eyes back on your own, the same smile from earlier tugging at his lips.

“Isn’t it pretty obvious?”

“I mean, I’m asking aren’t I?”

He nodded in acknowledgment, then looked at you with a more serious expression. “You just have me so crazy about you.”

“I-I do?”

“You do.”

“But Steve, you could have anyone. A beautiful girl who can make you so happy. What about-what about Sharon? She’s so stunning, and smart, and strong. I can’t compete with that.” You began to feel overwhelmed as you mentally compared yourself to her, spotting things she had that you didn’t.

“You don’t have to.”

“I just don’t understand, Steve. Me? I have you crazy? This is like some sort of dream.” You bit your lip and brought your hands to your face as you closed your eyes.

Again, Steve’s chuckle filled your ears, making you open your eyes and take you out of your mental overdrive. “This is very real, Y/N.”

“I can’t believe this…”

“If I kissed you right now, what would you do?”

“Excuse me?” You asked, though it wasn’t due to lack of hearing.

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know. What kind of question is that, anyways? I wouldn’t say no, I-”

Your rambling was cut short at the feeling of Steve’s lips on your own. Almost instinctively, your eyes fluttered close and you grabbed his shirt, bringing him closer to you. His hands held your waist tightly, and they too pulled you close to him, closing the small distance left between you two. He kissed you gently yet hungrily, and all the doubts you had on his words about you and your beauty melted away. Your mind only focused on the way your lips and his molded into each other, moving in perfect synchronization. One of your hands let go of his shirt and traveled up his shirt until it reached his hair, your fingers combing through his soft hair, pulling him even closer to try and deepen the kiss. His tongue traced your bottom lip, and you eagerly granted him access.

Too soon, for your liking, you had to break for air. You opened your eyes and smiled, looking to see your Steve already giving you his knee weakening smile.

“So that’s what you’d do.” Steve’s voice was low, and you could practically hear his smile.

“Yes, that’s exactly what’d I do.”

“Would you be willing to show me again?”

“Without a doubt.”

[prorevenge]

Want to be a horrible co-worker to me and steal from the company? Hold my beer while I ruin your career.

So, I've read so many stories on this sub and never once thought about sharing one of the most satisfying days in the history of my professional career. This is a long one but had fun reminiscing.

Straight out of college, with a degree in graphic design, hungry to find a good job in a horrible economy (2009) I applied all over the place. I ended up settling for a decently paid internship instead with really good company. A beer distributor, for a large and legendary macro-brewery. I was pretty ecstatic. Even if this was a part time internship it had great potential to turn into a full time job. I was hired in to be a graphic designer for their in house print shop and I would be working one other person, this girl Alice (name changed for anonymity).

My first day working I met Alice and she seemed really nice, knowledgeable and passionate about graphic design. Due to seniority she was technically my supervisor. After a few days working I learn a few things about her. Obsessed with running, obsessed with horses (she was a horse girl), home-schooled her whole life, and overall realized she was just an awkward person. Nothing wrong with that, some people are awkward, it's ok but all day everyday I would hear about running and she was obsessed with competing with her sister. It's all she talked about. Her obsessions were just draining to hear about some days but the obsessions come back later in the story...

Anyway, I dealt with the awkwardness for a while. I just learned of ways to ignore it. After a couple years is when the real trouble started. By this time I became a full time employee, not an intern anymore. We were pretty much equals when it came to rank in the office. Only thing she did more than I did was ordering. She would order ink cartridges for our printers, paper, print heads etc... that's all she did more than me. She still delegated work, but I didn't mind.

At a certain point I was put in charge of reorganizing our office and helped move everything around with my boss. The catch was that I got to pick where I sat, got to choose my desk and location if I helped move. Alice knew this, didn't care and said she was too busy to help with the reorganization. I was happy to help. The way our office was organized after the change was she sat in front of me with her back facing me and I would be all the way in the back of the office by the printers. So basically I could see everything she was doing on her computer, IF I wanted to or cared to. But we always got our work done, browsed the web for personal reasons occasionally throughout the day, it wasn't abused by either of us so no big deal. Like I said, she was my superior so she would designate jobs. We would get job requests from the salesmen and they would differ in difficulty and time to complete them. Everything was equal. We would bust ass and have an equal amount of work always....until I went on vacation for a week.

I go on vacation for that week and come back into the office to see her sitting in my desk...I'm immediately confused. I then notice her computer, picture frames, desk organizer, all her shit is now moved from her desk to mine...and all my stuff is moved to where she was sitting and was thrown everywhere. This bitch literally went through all my stuff, unplugged my computer and everything I had and switched desks with me while I was on vacation. No text/call, email or notice about it or why she did it. I look at her and say..

Me: "Uhhh, what happened to my desk?"

Alice: "Oh, so while you were gone the printers keep jamming up and I had to get to them quicker so I just switched desks with you since your desk is closer..."

Me: "Ok, I don't understand it's only like a 5 foot difference between your desk and mine..."

Alice: "Yeah I know, but they were jamming up and every time they would do that it would take too long to boot back up and restart everything."

Me: (in my head, total bullshit) "Yeah ok, I don't get it but whatever."

I didn't get, It was fucking weird and I was pretty pissed all my shit was moved and our desks were switched. Not only that but IT had to get involved to switch our phone numbers to our desk...that took a few days so I kept getting all her calls and she got mine. It was ridiculous. I didn't care after a few minutes when I saw the pile of work to do for the day. There were jobs backed up and the whole sales team was asking where their job orders were. Alice kept saying, "Oh it was so busy last week with just me here. Couldn't get it done. So we had to bust ass and play catch up for a few days...

One key part of all this is that we have a printing program that files and filters all the print jobs we send. It has date, time, file name, number of copies, time it took to print etc...I was curious so I go back one week to see what she did while I was gone, absolutely nothing. A couple of the days I was gone there were only a few files sent to print and they were projects that would have taken at most 15 minutes a piece to do. Even if the printers were jamming there is absolutely no way she could have done that little without slacking off the entire time. You can always work on projects and send them to the printer queue to send later.

As weeks started to pass after she moved the desks I noticed productivity started to go way down. Even worse I started to get a ton of projects sent to me, twice as many as usual. I was at the point there would be days I would stay 2 hours late just to finish things up. Not only that, but Alice worked out a deal with our boss she could start coming in one hour earlier (before anyone else is in the office) and leave an hour earlier at the end of the day because she had cRoSs fIt and bOot cAmP for running and needed to train for a marathon. That's fine except she wasn't doing her job.

The printing software we use to track everything was showing she actually wasn't doing jack shit. I don't get how clueless she could be to think she would get away with this either...we can both see every job that is sent (or not sent in this matter) to the printers. Showing for every 10 jobs I would send to her 1. Ahh...now I know why she moved the desks, so she could be where I was without anyone looking at her screen. I also noticed every time I would get up to go by her to grab something from the printers she would grab her mouse really fast and click away from whatever website she was on wasting time instead of doing work. I would also check to see what she did during that hour she would come into work early while no one was here...nothing...I would look to see what she did during the hour I was gone for lunch...nothing.

So here I am, coming in on time, busting my ass, doing a ton of work, staying late while she would waste an hour in the morning, waste an hour during my lunch and not even do the bare minimum while there. I had enough. Up until then I had to put up with her awkwardness and that's whatever but I was no longer going to put up with her laziness and poor work ethic.

I knew she was going on a long weekend trip in a couple weeks to run a marathon. I started taking screen shots of the print jobs on our system's queue every day at the end of the day showing what I did and she didn't do. Shows how she slacked off and gave me all the work to do and didn't do anything. It was more than enough proof to show she was abusing company time severely.

The Thursday she was gone I gave her a taste of her own medicine. I moved our desks back. I moved everything from my desk back to my old desk she stole from me and all her shit nicely put back on her desk. I kept everything nice and organized as if nothing was changed besides the location of the desks themselves. Even further I went and located extra long telephone cords so I didn't have to bother IT to switch our phones back again. I held on to all the screenshots I took of her slacking off and didn't show them to my boss. I wasn't going to unless she raised hell about me moving our desks which why would she? It was my desk originally, the printers obviously were not jamming ever, it was a bullshit excuse and I never got mad at her or made a big deal when she did it...so why would she get mad at me for doing the same thing? I didn't even care about the desk itself, I cared that she was slacking off and not doing her job where she was in a spot no one could keep track of what she is doing. She was supposed to be my superior, someone who can manage and delegate work, instead she took advantage of me and the company.

I didn't want any huge surprises so at the end of the work week I sent her a text:

"Hi Alice, just wanted to let you know I ended up moving our desks back to their original location. Figured it wasn't a big deal but I just wanted my original desk back that I claimed after I was given the option for helping organize everything. Just didn't want you to be surprised on Monday. Have a good weekend!"

I gave her more of a courtesy than when she did that...so I figure it wouldn't be an issue (there was). I didn't get a response or anything. So I walk in Monday morning after she got back from her long weekend and I just say hi, walk past her and go to my reclaimed desk.

Me: "Not sure if you got my text but I let you know I moved the desk back to their original spots, figured the original issue of the printers jamming up was fixed so I just wanted my original desk back

Alice: (turns around to look at me, clearly pissed) "Yeah, I got your text...btw we're going to have a nice long talk with Jim (our boss, name changed for anonymity) about this."

Me: "...ok, what's the issue? I just wanted my desk back? You moved them without even telling me before and there wasn't an issue. So why are you mad?"

Alice: "We'll just go talk to Jim about all this..."

Me: "sounds good, let's go"

Alice: (turns back to her computer, then turns back at me again) "Why do you have to be so Honoury!?"

Me: "Honoury?"

Alice: "YES! Honoury!?"

Me: "You mean ornery? And if you did intend to call me ornery, I'm not...at all, I just moved our desks back...exactly what you did before."

She just turned back around and we were called into my boss's office. He clearly didn't give a shit and was just fed up with Alice's BS since this wasn't the first time she brought up a total non-issue up to him before. She complained constantly, would bring up nonsense about the office all the time about things that just didn't matter one bit. This was another one. She goes on explaining how I just want to cause issues for no reason. Then Jim asks me, "Well why did you move the desks anyway?"...that's when I whipped out the stack of screen shots showing her lack of work and how I was being overworked and doing the work of two people.

He looks over everything and was pissed and frustrated. Questioned why this was going on and why the work wasn't delegated properly. He also mentioned he would notice how I would be here late all the time. She had no answer. Alice made up excuses how she was busy placing orders for supplies and doing other projects that were not all printed work that couldn't be tracked. He wasn't having any of it and just said to keep the desk the way they are and not change anything again. So I got my desk back.

Funny enough, now that I could see everything she was doing all the open jobs were delegated properly...WEIRD...all the workload was split evenly, SHOCKER...and all the bullshit from before stopped.

That wasn't even the pro-revenge part of the story! Needless to say, after this fiasco there were issues upon issues between us. There was a rivalry and we got along enough to just get the work done and that's it. I could care less about her, she would be nasty to me all the time and just say bitchy comments. Whatever...I could care less. I wanted nothing to do with her. I knew she had poor work ethic and did what she had to to keep her job by doing the bare minimum to make it seem like she was working.

Now, remember when I said I worked for a beer distributor? Pretty sweet gig. We got to try a lot of new beers we would distribute before they came out, even would tap kegs in the morning and have it available throughout the day. They would let us drink on the job, to a point. Just be responsible doing it. One day we have a new beer tapped outside in the warehouse and were able to drink in the morning. I had a couple and Alice kept going back to drink more. I was around her enough times drinking where I could tell she was getting buzzed or sometimes drunk. When this happened she would be forgetful and slack off (another shocker). When lunch time came around she barely did anything that day. I wouldn't say buzzed, but she was definitely in that lazy state of drinking a few beers.

I went to lunch and came back after an hour. I noticed she was gone already and had gone to lunch before I got back. Looked like she just got up and left. Computer was still logged in, crap all over her desk, half beer sitting there and probably just didn't care since she was in that lazy state of drinking.

-The Pro-Revenge Part-

I walk up to our normal printer to grab a couple emails I printed out, not on the expensive HP printers we print banners on, just our normal printers. I notice a couple pieces of paper sitting there under what I had just printed out. I look to see what it is and it's an invoice from eBay. I didn't think much of it but i did a double look after noticing one of the pictures is of the ink cartridges we use on our big 36" HP printers...these are typically $150-200 a toner cartridge depending on the color, and there were 10 total for each printer when being used.

"...No fucking way..." I thought to myself..."Is she selling these on eBay and pocketing the money?" I look up the seller name on eBay which was something like RunnersWorld347 or something running related (red flag). Turns out she has been stealing ink cartridges and selling them online off and on for over 3 years. On one transaction she made over $1,000 right before Christmas, probably to buy Christmas presents or something. Another was before her marathon she did earlier in my story. Probably to pay for that and her trip to go running. There were transactions for running shoes she purchased on there that I have seen her wear in the office on casual Fridays before, something horse related but forgot exactly what it was...it was hard evidence she was stealing product from the company and selling it on eBay. Since she did the ordering and inventory of all the printing supplies she could take advantage of it pretty easily, and she did. How stupid can you be to leave that kind of evidence sitting on a printer? Pro-tip, don't get tipsy and print off invoices of stolen property you're selling on eBay and forget about it.

I brought up all this information to my boss and showed him exactly what she was doing. He couldn't believe it and to be honest I couldn't either. Being a shitty co-worker and employee is one thing but stealing/selling thousands of dollars worth of company property? Really messed up. Jim ended up giving Alice the chance to come clean. He first called me into the office to let me know he will be talking to her and giving her the option to come clean about everything before showing her the evidence against her. I walked back to my desk and all I remember her asking me is "Uh what's going on, is everything ok?" after she noticed I was called in to talk to Jim. I just shook my head and said "Yeah, idk.." and a second later she was called into his office.

About 5 minutes pass and I see Alice walk back into the sign shop crying with tears running down her face. Doesn’t say anything to me as I watch her start to pack up her belongings in a box, that’s when i knew she just got fired. Half way through packing up Jim comes by and says, “are you done yet?” She replies no and starts going on her computer while Jim promptly stops her and says, “No! Don’t go on your computer, those privileges are revoked and you can not be on our computers or network anymore. It’s a liability” he allows her to get a couple personal files as he watches her like a hawk. She picks up her box of shit and is escorted out of the building. Last I ever saw of her. Best part of all this was done in front of all the sales team and managers. About 20 of them. They all watched this happen and all watched her be escorted out of the building.

About 10 minutes of people asking me what happened I realized 99% of people there absolutely hated her for related reasons revolving around her poor work ethic, nasty attitude and awkwardness towards everyone. I got a couple slow claps and hand shakes too.

I was called back in to Jim’s office a little while later. He explained they confronted her about the theft. Gave her the option to confess to everything and they wouldn’t press charges and allow her to resign. She confessed immediately. I ended up getting a raise right then and there and was promoted to sign shop manager and was put in place of finding a new team member to interview and hire in and was able to work closely to HR and hiring department to find the right person.

Long story short after that I stayed for another few months and got a great opportunity at a new job. But I was able to hire in a really good employee that was a quick learner and got her setup to be efficient and get shit done. It was almost like a “I must go now, my job is done, someone else needs me” moment when i left. Turns out she was just a toxic employee to most people well before I started there but was once untouchable because of her intimate relationship with a manager there. Never knew this, but once they weren’t a thing anymore there was no protection.

TL;DR worked with a god awful employee who made my work day miserable, didn’t do her job, wasted company time, went through my belongings and moved my desk and ultimately got caught stealing company property by me and I got her fired...then got a raise and promotion because of it.

(source) story by (/u/Purplepunch36)