#also the part where vi's telling ray not to go is based off of the flashback scene in Belle (Mamoru Hosoda)

[jvten]

vi and the puppets (part 2: ray)

hey there y'all! been a hot minute since i've posted some writing. here ya go! another MFN (My Friendly Neighborhood) / LDM (Love, Decay and Mayhem) oneshot from my mini-series :D also I'm literally rewatching streams of the game rn haha

warnings: one cuss word (the 'f' one lmao), minor depictions of violence (aka ray hittin richie with an iron lol), a little bit of angst (aka vi crying ;A; i'm sorry my child, but you know i had to do it to you)

characters: vi (5 years old here), ray, gerzwald, renee (gerzwald's wife, they both raised/adopted vi, but technically the puppets helped raise vi too hehe <3) and also richie bromine

read part 1 here!

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Nothing could be heard throughout the basement besides the pained cries of five-year-old Vi, diamond tears streaming down her face as she wandered the empty corridors, holding her teddy bear in her arms. The workers and the janitor had already gone home for the night, making the little girl think she was alone and that she would be lost forever in the basement.

However, her cries did not go unheard. One particular puppet from the My Friendly Neighborhood show approached the opening of a pipe from within upon hearing the cries that sounded so hurt they could have been screams. And when Ray saw Vi curled up against the wall, holding her head, crying, by some boxes, he crawled out of the pipe and came closer to her. It broke his patchwork heart seeing the little girl shaking, looking even smaller than usual curled up like that. Gently, he placed a hand atop her head, and she looked up at the contact. Realizing that it was him, she wordlessly reached up for the large puppet. A low growl-hum rumbling through him, he carefully scooped her up into his arms and let her lie against him as he sat against the wall.

The soft fur of his hand allowed the tears on Vi’s face to be dried quicker as he wiped them away as gently as possible. Ray could tell she didn’t know how to get out of the basement, there was a kind of fear he recognised, the fear that she would be lost forever… no, it was… the fear that she would be alone forever. That, he knew all too well.

When it became apparent that no one else would be coming here for a while, and that it would take as such to come down and find Vi down here, Ray decided to bring her to Stage 2, his workshop, turning on the lights above them so that the room wasn’t surrounded in darkness, and so that she would have a decent place to play in for a while. He grabbed some paper and pencils for her to use while they waited for someone to come get her, and at first she drew in silence.

“Ray? I… I know you didn’t mean to hurt Uncle Richie…” she soon said, rubbing her eyes. “I know you’re not bad like what everyone else says. You’re still my friend.”

Ray growled again, more despondently this time. Yes, he didn’t mean to hurt Richie… or maybe he did. How could he not? The human man had been saying horrible things about the show… about the puppets, about Gerzwald. He’d even said something about Vi. Maybe that was what triggered Ray… the fact that Richie Bromine brought shameless insult to a child, an innocent child that did nothing wrong, a child that Ray cared for so much.

It had happened two weeks prior, and it had been their half-time break on one seemingly ordinary day. They were in Stage 4, the Neighborhood set. Ray had gotten bored of going over lines — of which he had very few — and had decided to go and find Vi so he could at least have some enjoyable company during the thirty-minute break. But a pair of voices drew his attention. Richie and a crew member were standing by the building with the red doors, talking amongst themselves. Ray knew that he shouldn’t have listened in or eavesdropped, and he was going to walk away, but…

“I swear these episodes are getting more and more boring every day,” Richie had said exhaustedly to the crew member. "The movies aren’t even that good. This whole franchise needs to be more mainstream if people are going to love it. But, no, the only ones who do barely even know how to say “neighborhood”. It’s annoying.”

Ray’s curiosity had been piqued, and he hid in the shadow of the entrance to the alleyway, the dim lighting concealing him well enough.

“I don’t know what Gerzwald is thinking, constantly putting me in with the puppets. Why can’t I star with the other humans, huh? All these puppets… they’re crazy. I can feel it. They’re insane and no one except me knows it. Gerzwald is insane. The fact that he thinks this whole show about stupid muppets teaching people about kindness and friendship is just… it’s mad.”

Ray felt anger beginning to stir. He wanted to show Richie what for. Make him regret saying those things about them. About Gerzwald. Because how dare he call them crazy? However he quickly decided to leave the set for now and perhaps try to communicate to Gerzwald about this.

But he didn’t even get the chance to take more than a few steps out of the shadows...

“Besides, even if I were to star with the other people more frequently, I wouldn’t want to have to put up with Violet," said Richie, the name of the little girl redrawing Ray’s attention. “She’s the youngest on the set, damnit. And yet she’s somehow one of the main stars of the show? I hardly even get any scenes because people love her too much. She’s too hyper. Too giggly. She’s gaining more attention from viewers than me, she doesn’t deserve that attention because she can’t possibly know what it’s like for us adults to go through all this. And she’s far too annoying—”

The anger had begin to boil over so much that the large puppet had unconsciously grabbed the nearest item, a clothes iron, stepped out of the shadow of the alleyway, and… well…

“What the HELL?! You’re crazy! You’re FUCKING INSANE!”

Next thing he knew Richie was on the ground, as hurt and furious as Ray had felt. Ray dropped the iron, the plastic and metal clattering onto the floor. The crew members all fearfully stepped away from him, keeping their gaze on him as if he could attack any one of them at any moment.

And then, a few days later, Ray had been moved to the basement, to reduce any risk of any employees being hurt by him.

But Ray had remembered how much his heart had hurt when they were in the process of moving him to the basement. Not just because he would be separated from the rest of the puppets and crew, meant to be isolated so far underground… but because of the way Vi had cried that day. “Don’t go, Ray! Don’t go!” she’d cried, trying to pull him back from Gerzwald by grabbing his arm.

“Violet, dear, you have to let go—” Gerzwald had said, attempting to coerce her from the puppet, but she had only avoided any more convincing from her father, shaking her head desperately.

“You can’t go, Ray!” she’d exclaimed, tears streaming down her face like diamond waterfalls. “Please! I don’t want you to leave!” He desperately wanted to tell her that she would be okay, that he would try his best to manage down in the basement, but alas, words had never been his strong suit. It was heartbreaking, the way she had thought Ray would be leaving for good, even when Gerzwald tried to help her understand that it was not just for the humans’ safety, but for Ray as well, and that this needed to happen. It was heartbreaking how, despite being told this, she kept clinging onto him like both of their lives depended on it, like he’d disappear or vanish from sight if she ever let go. “No! Stay here! You have to stay! Don’t leave!”

It was only when Renee told Vi that she would still be able to see him that the little girl had slowly managed to calm down. She then crouched down in front of her daughter, making sure Vi would listen. “Vi, honey. I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for all of us. But you’ll still be able to see Ray, okay? Just… not as much. We can try to bring you down there with us to see him when we’re filming for the show. Is that okay with you?” When Vi slowly nodded, Renee sighed. “Change can be tough, baby, but I know you’ll be okay. And Ray will be okay too.”

It had taken a while for Vi to let go of Ray’s arm, but the large nine to ten foot tall puppet had knelt down in front of her, picking up her teddy bear that she had dropped on the floor and giving it to her, giving as much of a comforting smile as he could.

Sure, it was lonely down in the basement, but regardless of whether or not he knew he’d be moved, Ray would have defended Vi from any harmful words any day. He found it unforgivable that Richie had called Vi those things. And he would do anything for the little girl that he and the other puppets cared about so much.

Ever since he was the first one to find her at the entrance to the studio, a small baby wrapped up in blankets in a basket, well, needless to say Ray had seen things differently. With Vi around, in the studio, life was brighter, more fun, with each of the puppets holding her dear to their hearts.

He was brought back out of his memories as Vi now stood in front of him and held her teddy bear up to him, waving its hand. “Don’t be sad, Ray,” she spoke, pretending to sound like her bear, “Mr Snuggles still thinks you’re fun! And Vi wanted me to say that she loves you!”

His heart warmed even more, and he gently shook the teddy bear’s hand before bringing Vi back into another hug, feeling much less lonely now. He loved her too. He just wasn’t able to say it.

Even when Renee had found them a few hours later, looking understandably stressed from searching for Vi but now relieved, Ray knew that he could count on Vi, hoping that she felt that she could count on him too. But what surprised him was that, before they left, Renee looked back at him. “Thank you, Ray… thank you. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

And when they left, with Vi being carried in Renee’s arms and waving to him, Ray figured that if there were still a few people who cared about him, then that was all that mattered.

[shurisneakers]

harmless (vi)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader, drabble series)

Warnings: cursing, existential crisis, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader, lil bit of angst, clint barton being a lil shit

Word count: 1.9k

A/N: BUCKY BARNES IS BACK AND HAS A CONFIRMED PERSONALITY 

also omg everyone who’s been sending me ideas- ur the lomls. 

if you have any ideas for future inventions/evil plans, lemme know! i might actually end up using them

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part || Series Masterlist

Your place or mine? ;)

He stares at the text.

The right answer is mine. See you at the lair.

“Y’all are dating now?” Clint peeks over his shoulder. 

“Fuck no,” Bucky says indignantly. “God forbid.”

“Okay, man,” he retracts, giving Bucky space to turn around and face him. “What do you want to call your mini dates then?”

“Missions,” Bucky corrects him.

“No one wants to go on a mission. You volunteered to go back there.” 

“It’s for the good of the tristate area.” 

“I bet.” The snort he lets out contradicts his words. “Whole world is depending on you, Barnes. Go save them from the treachery of your crush.”

“Enemy.”

“Girlfriend.”

“Mortal nemesis.” Bucky narrows his eyes at him. “Go further, I dare you.”

“What are you gonna do? Choke me? Punch me with your metal arm?” Clint cranes his neck. “Bring it, big boy. I’m not scared of some kinky shit.”

He hates living here. 

The door is left open for him. 

This time, even though the lair is still illuminated by the green light out in the front, there’s a minor change. Sunlight streams in through a skylight in the roof. 

There’s a ladder there, leaning against the rim. It gives him an entrance to the roof, which, judging by the lack of any other presence in the lab, is where he’s supposed to go.

As he gets closer he notices there’s a note on one of the rungs.

‘Evil’ with an arrow pointing upwards.

He rolls his eyes, discarding it on the floor before swiftly scaling the steps.

“Ah, Mr. Barnes,” he hears your voice call out even before his head pops up above the surface. “We’ve been expecting you.” 

He pauses, looking around. “Who’s with you?”

Because other than the gigantic machine pointed up towards the sky, there’s only you with a visor and sunglasses. The  best way he can describe its design was that it was shaped like a pine cone, had a large antenna pointed towards the sky, two handlebars near its base to manoeuvre it with a large button in between them. 

“Just imagine I have my henchmen with me,” you urge. “I’m on a budget, man, I can’t afford them yet. Maybe when my cloning machine finally works-”

He doesn’t answer.

“It’s a James Bond reference,” you add when he doesn’t show any signs of answering. 

“Haven’t watched it yet.” Bucky shrugs. “We’re doing Star Trek right now.”

“You’re done with Star Wars?” you, receiving a nod in confirmation. “Nice. You’d find the spy shit ridiculous anyway, it’s way below your level.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He makes a mental note to add the Bond movies to the list. 

“Speaking of stars,” you begin, gesturing to the machine. “I’m going to harness the power of the sun.”

“For what?” He doesn’t bother asking how, he already knows you’ve figured out something. 

“There’s a science exhibition and my team’s stupid solar car experiment isn’t working and I need it for them to win.” 

“So build a better one.” 

“No, ours is the best and if Jeff and his stupid baking soda volcano beat us then we’re going to have a murder on our hands.”

“Your hands,” he emphasises. He has nothing to do with this.

“I said what I said, boy.” You glare at him. “This is our problem now.”

“How much power are you taking?” If it’s insignificant enough, it wouldn’t matter much. He thinks. 

“The whole thing.”

He laughs. He stops when you don’t.

“You’re taking all the energy of the sun to power your shitty science model.”

“Your face is a shitty science model,” you mimic him in a higher pitched voice. “I will do anything to win.”

He wonders which grade kid you stole that insult from was in. There’s no way they were anything older than 13. He could use it on Steve, maybe.

“Everyone on Earth will die.” He feels the need to remind you, even though there was no way it was actually going to take place. Eat shit, Clint. This superseded the tristate area.

“Not for eight minutes.” You look at your watch. “And, if Jeff dies then I win by default.”

“You’ll die too,” he points out. 

“I’ll die a winner.” You nod seriously as if that makes it better. 

He’s not that worried. Experience tells him that you’re not a mass murderer willingly. 

“You’ll die an idiot.” 

“Only if you don’t stop me.” Your lips curve into a smile. “And how will you when I do this?”

You yank the machine to point towards him and slam the button. His hand reflectively pulls in front of him to defend himself. Something hits him with enough force to send him skidding backwards slightly. 

He removes his hand carefully from in front of him, looking at you. 

Something feels off.

“You just-”

The knives strapped to his thighs suddenly feel heavier.

“Took your powers?” you finish his thought. “Yeah.”

He feels his body tip towards his left. He’s suddenly very aware of the weight of the arm. Had it been this heavy all this while? 

“You’ve barely changed,” you noted, “You’re just regular Bucky but like, 20% less beef.”

After all, he was a boxer when he was a teen. One of the best men the Howling Commandos had even before the serum.

His shoulder feels heavier though. And somehow he thinks he’s sensing things a little less. He can’t really hear the faint buzzing of the generator downstairs anymore.

“Yep, that’s real muscle.” He turns when you poke at his shoulder. He doesn’t know when you got there. “You’re like a modern day Schwarzenegger. Grade A beefcake.”

He can’t see the construction site near the horizon as clearly as he used to. 

Something about this situation makes him feel like he’s going to have a midlife crisis, even though he’s overshot the age by a huge number. No one has a midlife crisis at 106. 

“Now that we’ve established that this works,” you say, back near the machine again. When did you walk there? “Let’s show this bitch that I’m the brightest star allowed in this solar system.” 

He shakes his head to jolt himself awake, shoves aside his mental dysfunction and breaks out into a sprint when you pull the device down to aim it at the sky. 

He latches onto the side, using his left hand to pull himself up, straddling the machine.

“Excuse me,” you exclaim like it’s a minor inconvenience and he feels the machine sway wildly under him. “You’re weighing it down, get off my inator.”  

You’re shooting recklessly, trying to shake him off. It’s not dissimilar to the mechanical bull Natasha made him ride during a mission down south so she could win money off placing bets on him. They had lobster that night.

He reaches down to its side, hoping to feel maybe a panel he can rip off. He finds nothing.  

He hopes none of the rays are actually hitting anything. It’s a little harder to stay on than he’d imagined it would be, and he thinks that maybe this wasn’t the best plan. 

He changes his mind in a split second, swinging himself over so that he can climb the underside of the machine like a monkey bar. He feels like a fucking insect. How was Peter not mortally embarrassed? 

He factors in the fact that his hands are getting clammier and his grip is slipping faster than usual. Also, he can taste his lunch at the back of his throat.

“Motherfucker,” Bucky curses when his hand slips, leaving him to hold on only by his metal arm. 

“You okay?” you call out, not giving him a second to recover unless he really needed it.

He lets out a grunt, swinging his arm up and catching hold of the antenna, yanking it down and towards the machine itself. He pulls himself up so that he’s straddling the machine again. 

One more shot and-

“Very smart, Barnes,” you say dryly, letting go of the handles. 

He sends you a sly grin before sliding down the barrel, kicking the large button with his heel right before he jumps off. 

The beam shoots out, instantly meeting with metal. The device automatically gives a mechanical groan before powering down, turning off altogether. 

“I hate you,” you huff, before noting his paleness. “D’you want some water? An IV maybe?”

He dismisses it with a wave of his hand, inhaling heavily to catch his breath.

He’s tired, more so than he would have been under any normal circumstance. He feels a little dizzy, a little disoriented. 

“Don’t worry, your magic powers will be back in a few minutes or so.” You examine the bent antenna, pressing the button and sighing when it stands there lifelessly. “Once Jeff wins, I’ll send the dry cleaning receipt to you. You can pay to get the tear stains out of the kids’ outfits.”

“Your tears or theirs?” He’s relieved about the powers returning, he thinks.

“Both, bitch.” Your eyebrow quirks at his retort. Clearly, he had more energy in him than people realised; his brain seemed to be working fine. He was stronger than you thought. Good for him. 

“You’re smart. You’ll figure something out.” He lets out a final exhale before standing up a little straighter. 

“Thanks. It’d be better if you asked your billionaire tech genius to send us something, but okay.”

“It’s a middle school science exhibition. Make a potato battery or something.”

You tsk-tsk. “No points for creativity, Mr. Barnes.”

It creeps into his mind without warning. He wonders if he actually wanted the powers back. Wonders what his life could be if he maybe retired, settled down. For the brief time he feels like his pre-war self, he starts to think like his pre-war self.

“I’m not the one who’s about to lose to a baking soda volcano,” he finds time to respond, however. 

“Your face is a baking soda volcano.” You narrow your eyes at him. “I will not lose.”

“You’re running out of time. Chop chop.”

But the thought hits him. Who is Bucky without his super soldier serum? If he doesn’t have his powers then he can’t think of what use he is to the Avengers.

Who the hell is Bucky if he can’t provide a service to others? How else does he make up for being himself?

His, what he’s now deemed, afterlife crisis is starting to look more apparent.

He compartmentalises and stores it away in a box. He’ll bring it up with his therapist later. 

“I’m going to win and then you’ll be sorry you weren’t a part of it because you didn’t let me steal the sun.” 

“If you win, I’ll still be glad I didn’t let you.” He climbs back down the ladder, feeling the ache in his muscles reduce with every passing minute. 

True to your word, his powers do return a while later. 

And while he’s watching Avatar: The Last Airbender with Peter in the living room two days later, his phone beeps with a text. 

It’s a picture of a blue first place ribbon next to a toy car that looks like it’s powered by a potato battery. Beside it is an out of focus middle finger that is aimed at him. 

Congratulations, he texts back. Told you potato batteries always win.

Your face always wins, he receives in return. He can’t tell if you’re insulting or flirting with him. 

He just shuts his phone off and goes back to watching the show. 

Next part

[barely-alive-shrimp]

About PSP Jeanne d’Arc ’s historical references

You know, Jeanne d’Arc for PSP is a funny game: while clearly not being very historically accurate (orcs and magical armlets in the Hundred Years’ War? Huh, they don’t tell you about things like that on History lessons), it still contains some interesting nods to history, some of which are quite obscure. I’ve collected some of them, mostly about historical figures and some events that I consider to be most interesting. This is going to be a long post, and there will be some spoilers, but I’ll put a warning so you could skip that part if you haven’t played the whole game yet. Oh, and sorry for any mistakes – I’m not a native speaker, so I hope there won’t be too many of them. I tried my best :P

[Note: I kept referring to her as Jeanne d’Arc here, although, as far as I understand, it is more common to call her Joan of Arc in English. I’ll leave it as it is, if you don’t mind ^^’]

Okay, I think I’ll start with the characters. There are quite a lot of characters who were based off real people: aside from the most obvious ones (Jeanne d’Arc, Gilles de Rais, Henry VI, Charles VII and some others), we have the following (I tried to find some paintings and pictures where possible):

Jean and Bertrand are based off Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, who were Jeanne’s trusted allies during the Hundred Years’ War. They both had great respect for Jeanne and escorted her on her journey to the dauphin.

Colet’s prototype is most likely Colet de Vienne, a royal messenger who also escorted Jeanne d’Arc on her way to Chinon. Little is known about him, other than that he was accompanied by an archer named Richard – probably a prototype for Marcel. I guess they changed his name so he won’t be confused with the other Richard, who is also a playable character. By the way, it seems that the name ‘Marcel’ means “little warrior” in French, so if game developers chose that name intentionally (and I think they did), that’s a very nice little touch!

Étienne de Vignolles, more known as La Hire, was among France’s best commanders and was one of Jeanne d’Arc’s most trusted allies. Described as quite an arrogant man, he was a fearsome warrior and fought alongside Jeanne at Orleans and during the Battle of Patay. You can also find this prayer of his: “God, I pray Thee that today Thou wilt do for La Hire that which Thou wouldst have La Hire do for Thee, if he were God and Thou wert La Hire.” – perhaps, much like his in-game version, he did have a habit of talking about himself in the third person.

Richard was probably based off Brother Richard, a Franciscan monk who knew Jeanne. I couldn’t find any other information about him, though, except for this design for an opera.

The next one is a bit of a stretch, to be honest. It seems Bartolomeo does have a historical prototype, but it’s not clear who it was; he may or may not be based off Bartolomeo d'Alviano, an Italian captain who fought on the side of Spain against France. He didn’t have much to do with the Hundred Years’ War, though; moreover, he was born after Jeanne was burned at the stake.  

Robert de Baudricourt was a captain of the royal garrison at Vaucouleurs. When Jeanne d’Arc came to him, saying she has a mission from God and asking for assistance, he was very skeptical at first, but since Jeanne was very persistent, he eventually provided her an escort to visit the Dauphin. The game didn’t change it much.

John Talbot was an English military commander known as “English Achilles” for his bravery. Despite being one of the most feared warriors, he was respected so much that when he was captured, Charles VII released him without asking for ransom.

Sir William Glasdale was an English captain who commanded the troops in the fort Les Tourelles. Jeanne d’Arc wrote a letter to him, pleading him to lift the siege of the fort, but he refused to do so, and Jeanne’s troops started the assault to take Les Tourelles back. During the assault, Glasdale fell into the Loire River and drowned, as his armor was too heavy. 

Both Georges de La Trémoille and Arthur de Richemont were indeed Charles’s trusted servants. Georges also survived an attempt of assassination – as described, “thanks to his obesity”, and, as you can see in the game, the developers had that part in their heads, as well. :) Here’s a picture of Arthur de Richemont, I couldn’t find any paintings of real life Georges de La Trémoille, but I’ll add a picture of his in-game version a bit later.

There’s an interesting detail about Charles VII himself: have you ever looked at his in-game portrait and thought: “Man, they didn’t have to draw him such a big nose”? Well, that’s probably because real Charles VII was actually described as a man with a big nose! That’s another “well done” to the game developers.

As for Bedford – his actual name was John of Lancaster, ‘The Duke of Bedford’ was only his title. I don’t know, maybe that’s obvious, but I spent a good part of walkthrough thinking Bedford was his name. His real name not being mentioned and all the other characters calling him just “Bedford” certainly didn’t help. :P

                                                             * * *

All right, now I’m going to dive into some historical events and characters’ relationships that might spoil some events of the game for you. Please, go to the “SPOILERS END” mark if you haven’t finished the game yet and want to see everything for yourself.

                                                          SPOILERS

  Okay, first of all, the game heavily implies Charles VII had a difficult relationship with his mother, Isabeau of Bavaria. Real life Isabeau of Bavaria claimed that Charles VII wasn’t the trueborn son of Charles VI, thus couldn’t be the rightful king of France, so I doubt the queen loved her son very much. The game tries to explain it with the demonic possession of Isabeau – still, her last words before she was (presumably) killed by Henry VI/Gilvaroth were confusing and quite out-of-nowhere to me.

Georges de La Trémoille disliked Jeanne d’Arc and, as some historians believe, was involved in a plot against her that ultimately led to her death – both in real life and the game. Of course, we all remember that in the game it wasn’t Jeanne who ended up at the stake…

The Battle of Patay (June, 1489) was one of Jeanne d’Arc’s greatest victories during the Hundred Years’ war. In this battle, the feared “Terror of French” John Talbot was finally captured. I’m not sure if this one was intended or not, but this stage in the game is the last time you see Talbot – well, not until he suddenly reappears late in the game, only to help you and never to be seen again. 

Do you remember the part where Liane went overwhelmed with her great power and responsibility (hehe) and tried to recapture Paris by herself? Real Jeanne d’Arc also tried to break the siege of Paris, but the attempt failed and she and her troops were ordered to withdraw. After that, the nobles’ disappointment with her had reached its highest point, and Jeanne’s fate was pretty much sealed – much like Liane’s. 

And, of course, the darkest nod to the history is Gilles de Rais, known as a serial killer and possibly a pedophile (there are some historians who believe he was framed, but that’s not the point for now). On the other hand, in-game Gilles is a nice and noble guy and never betrays you or does something violent. At the end of the game, he sacrifices himself so Gilvaroth would be trapped inside of his body, and, considering the real history, the demon probably got him in the end. This reference is more well-known and has been discussed at several forums, but I still cannot help but mention it. 

Also, on a less disturbing note – see how Gilles is drawn with a lily? That’s because Charles VII allowed de Rais to add this flower on their family crest, which was considered a great honor, as lily symbolized the power of the Crown (that’s what I heard, at least). 

                                                    SPOILERS END

 These are the most interesting historical references of the game, in my opinion. Thank you for reading and feel free to correct me and/or add the details I’ve missed! My DM is closed for now, but you can correct me via reblogs, if you want. ^^

[vintagesimstress]

V. Adding missing body parts / Frankenmeshing / Finishing touches

(Previous: IV. The most useful meshing tools in Blender)

I know I promised to finally talk about uv maps, but I realised I forgot to cover some tiny, but important meshing-related details. Originally I hoped I could mention them in the parts dedicated to uvs or clones, but somehow they didn't properly fit into any of those topics, so I decided it'd be better to make a separate post about them. I probably will have to re-mention some of this stuff later though, so sorry in advance for anything being redundant!

1) Adding missing body parts

I mentioned a long time ago that my dress, being made from a top, comes without legs. It's not a problem, as it's supposed to be floor-length anyway – but what if it wasn't? What if it reached e.g. only until knees? Or what if you accidentally (or not) deleted/messed up some other body parts, like hands or neck, and wanted to replace them?

To fix this, first of all we need to get the right body meshes from S4S.

It's almost the same steps as in the very beginning, when we were getting the top which we used as a base for the dress. Open S4S, choose 'Create 3D mesh' under CAS and then click the CAS button. Just as back then, you'll see a list of all EA CAS assets existing in your game.

To find meshes of different body parts, type 'nude' in the box in the top right corner. No worries, it's The Sims, everything is safe for work (a.k.a. Barbie-style).

Now you have to select whatever it is that you need. Let's stick to the idea of a knee-length dress in need of some legs. Click the female naked bottom (if you're not sure which one is which, hover over the picture; it'll tell you if it's yf – young female – or ym - young male) and then hit 'Next'.

You'll be asked to name your package, but – just like in case of the top – it completely doesn't matter. It's only the mesh we want – once it's extracted, we can delete the package file.

Now that the package is created, you can access its data. Again, just like in case of the top: go to 'Meshes' and click the 'Export mesh' button. Make sure NOT to change the LOD!

You can close S4S now – that was all we needed from it.

Before we go back to our mesh, I suggest we open the newly extracted legs' mesh, select all the vertices (a) and remove doubles (w, choose from the list). By default each mesh coming straight from S4S is cut in certain places (I guess wherever there are cuts in the uv-1?) - and in case of a naked body such cuts are most definitely not needed.

Save and close.

Now, open the mesh which needs the legs. For this tutorial, I cut off the bottom part of the dress I was making. As you can see, it's very legless.

Go to Object Mode (tab), open the 'File' menu and choose 'Append'.

Now you have to find your extracted legs' mesh. However, you'll notice that just selecting the right blend file isn't enough – when you click it, it opens like a normal folder, making you choose from more specific contents of the blend file/package. Here comes the tricky and very important part: the mesh data sits in the 'Object' folder, NOT in 'Mesh'. When you open the 'Object' folder, you'll find inside the file you're looking for: s4studio_mesh_1. Select it and click 'Append from Library'.

Kaboom!

As you're going to join the legs with your mesh anyway, you can safely delete the bone_shape.001 and rig.001. You don't need them and they'll just be making your blend file bigger. It's only the mesh that's necessary.

Now we need to edit the appended legs by deleting the parts which we don't need. Select the legs' mesh, go to edit mode, turn on the x-ray and select (b) everything which will be hidden underneath the skirt. Leave some margin though!

Delete (x) the selected vertices and go back to object mode.

As you can see, right now your dress and the legs are separate from each other – in other words, they are separate cuts. And while some (...many...) EA meshes include several cuts, they are never cut in this way. We need to join them.

Select the legs' mesh on the right and, while holding shift, the dress' mesh. Then simply press ctrl+j. That's all! The legs are where they're supposed to be.

In case you're interested, if you want to do the opposite – turn a part of your mesh into a new cut – select that part, press p and choose 'selection' from the drop-down menu.

Of course, appending isn't limited to saving your dresses from leglessness. As mentioned, the same principle can be used for adding any other body parts... Or even clothes.

2) Frankenmeshing

There's not much I can say to it right now, without going into cuts, weights and uv maps, but if you want to try it, that's your starting point. You extract a couple of meshes from S4S, open one of them and then append the other ones. Depending on what it is that you're frankenmeshing, it might take some time to clean the meshes (i.e. delete the unwanted vertices). In most cases it's also very important to connect the vertices of the separate parts once you join the cuts! If you combine top A with sleeves B, or top C with skirt D, you have to merge the vertices where those parts connect – otherwise it'll at the very least look weird, and that's only a best case scenario.

3) Closing the mesh

I kind of mentioned this one last time, but I guess it won't hurt to explain it once again, this time properly. Whether your dress is short or super long, if you look at it from the bottom, you'll see that it's... Empty. Transparent. Unfinished. The legs – or feet – are ending apruptly, as if cut by a saw. We don't want to see it. That's why we need to close it.

(I remember when I was just learning to mesh I found this part super weird. I thought I'd rather not cut the legs, but duplicate the skirt and flip direction, to make it have both sides, just like in real life. While this idea is not completely ridiculous and can even be useful in certain cases (e.g. when you're making a half-transparent skirt – if it's see-through, you do need the legs to actually be underneath), there are two big reasons why you shouldn't do it: one, it might be very hard to get rid of any clipping, and two, the polycount could potentially kill you. Just in case you're having similar thoughts right now :) )

Select the lowest row of vertices. It might be a bit tricky now that the legs are appended – you might want to separate them into a new cut for a second, just so that they wouldn't be getting in your way. Or just hide them with h. Another easy method is selecting the row on the uv map, but we haven't covered this one yet, so let's stick to separating legs for now. Turn the x-ray on and, while in front view, select the row.

As mentioned last time, this lowest row is supposed to be a sharp edge, so before you proceed, mark it as sharp (ctrl+e)!

Turn the camera a bit to see what's going on underneath. Now extrude the vertices (e) and scale them (s). Click wherever.

As you can see, the new, extruded circle is selected now. Press alt + m to merge those vertices and, from the drop-down menu, select 'at center'.

Personally I don't like it when the bottom of a dress is so completely flat, so I move that middle point a bit higher, along the z axis (g, z). That's also one of the reasons why I left that leg margin earlier. I guess you don't have to do it, but I think it makes it look a bit more natural.

If you separated the legs, you can once again adjoin them to the main mesh now.

It's very important to close any open ends your mesh might have. The bottom of your dress/skirt, cuffs, necklines, sleeves if they're short – everything must be closed, otherwise you'll notice it in the game, sooner or later. It's fine if you don't do it now – you might want to wait until you're done with uvs and weights – but eventually you have to do it. Just for a little crack, here's a screenshot I took while testing one of my dresses. It's floor-length, so it shouldn't matter if it's closed or not, right?

That’s how it ends.

***

The long-awaited uvs tutorial will follow very soon, unless I suddenly get some urgent project to work on. I know how badly it's needed, so it's scheduled now, like any normal job-related stuff. And as hard as it might be to believe, I'm actually quite good at meeting deadlines if they're set in stone – I might not enjoy it, but I get stuff done on time. Stay tuned!

(Next: VI a. UV_0)

[busdriverwithagun]

The bus arrives at the front gates.

A woman in a green camouflage uniform walks up to the bus. She knocks on its door.

The window of the the limousine hologram is rolled down by guns holomatter avatar.

Identification please.

Oh right. Right right.

Gun pulls out a counterfeit ID card from his pocket.

The solider takes the card and inspects it. After checking both sides, she runs her hands over it to check for any marks.

She hands the ID card back to gun.

Go on through.

Gun flashes her a brief smile before rolling the holograms window up and driving into the base.

She looks over her shoulder as she drives away before sighing in relief.

Thank god everything survived that fall. Would’ve had to go in as a prisoner or some shit otherwise.

Oh, like you would complain. You would find it fun.

No I. Uh. Ahem. Oh would you look at that, we’re here!

Gun quickly seized the opportunity to escape arty’s comments by walking the holomatter avatar out of the bus.

A pale man in a lab coat walks out to greet gun. Gun glances at him before pulling a pair of glass out of their pocket and cleaning them off with a handkerchief.

Ah, Mr. Foirerm! Welcome, welcome! I hope your trip was…

The researcher looks at the surrounding desert.

Uh. Pleasant?

Gun looks at the glasses and puts them on after determining they are clean.

It certainly reminded me how lucky I am to have air conditioning.

Oh! Good, good good good. In that case!

The researcher gestures in towards the base.

Lead the way.

As gun enters the base, a line of text is written out on one of the panes of glass on the glasses.

‘Good’ has certainly taken another meaning lately.

‘Indeed it has’, gun thinks to herself.

These bus cryptids have been getting increasingly harder to deal with. Just this morning, two of them showed up, blew a hole in our wall, and left with three of our jets!

Your jets? I thought GBIs speciality was buses?

Oh, it is. We’ve had to… diversify to hold those damned cryptids at bay. A war is becoming more and more likely, and we don’t have much chance of winning it without a military. Unfortunately, we can’t make a military without diverting essential resources from our current operations. So, I decided to ally with an existing military! And what better one than the most powerful military on the planet?

The researcher wears a proud look on his face. An unearned one, gun thinks to herself.

‘The only think someone wearing a GBI logo can be praised for is defecting.’

So. I trust that’s been going well?

Oh, yes, absolutely! The military funding at our disposal combined with our research has yielded incredible results.

The researcher continues walking before stopping in front of a room with three metro buses.

These are the Crown Jewels of the cooperation between us and the US. They not only have advanced artificial intelligence driving them, but also the ability to shift forms. One moment, they’re a bus driving down the road. The next, a fighter jet taking off. These buses are going to make those cryptids regret the thought of crossing GBI.

My god! That’s. That’s incredible! A couple hundred of these things alone could make bus cryptids practically nonexistent!

The researcher raises his pointer in contradiction.

We only have the three, unfortunately. The… metals required to make them is not something we have large supplies of currently. It’s a very challenging resource to find, making mass production unattainable.

He goes around to the other side of the bus.

Still! Three of these things could still win us a war!

Oh, abosultely!

After glancing after the man in the coat, gun quickly turns one of their avatars fingers into a small drill. Once a hole in the hull of the bus is made, gun makes a hole on the side of the avatars arm appear so they can take out the small drone stored inside. After placing the drone in the hole, gun fills up the hole before walking around the bus to join the researcher.

Drone is active. Beginning scan now.

Gun speak in a whisper to arty.

Hold off on the scan until I leave the base. I don’t want to them connect the dots of me being here and the drone appearing.

Gun clears his throat to get the researchers attention.

So! Where we, exactly?

Oh, right right! My apologies, I was just admiring the hull. It feels like nothing more than typical steel! I can’t help but be proud of it in all honesty.

The researcher gestures towards the door.

Anyways! This way.

As gun followed him down the hallway, she makes the avatar sneeze to activate the X-ray function of the glasses.

Bless you.

Gun, under the guise of inspecting the minimalistic architecture, takes a quick look around. It takes practically no time whatsoever to find the closet computer.

Gun slows their pace. They bend over and clutch their stomach.

Ohhhh. This. Yea no this isn’t good.

Are you alright?

I’ve definitely been better. Where’s- ack. The bathroom?

On your left. It should be labeled clearly.

Gun walks to the bathroom, keeping his hand on his stomach the entire way. He checks the hallway, and sees that it’s empty. He then quietly runs to the security room.

Alright hands goes through the door aaaaaand…

The avatars arm goes through the door and unlocks it.

There we go! Ok, time for the fun part then.

Gun opens the door. A solider swivels in their chair and attempts to rise out of it. Said attempt is swiftly denied by a bullet to the head.

Gun enters the room and removes the corpse from the chair. She briefly glances at it and grimaces.

Hm. Deserved better than to be cannon fodder.

As gun sits down, he pulls a usb drive out of their shoulder. They plug it in, and begins his search for access to the base intranet. A couple minutes pass and he has still found nothing.

Gun, you need to go soon. The bathroom excuse will only hold up for so long.

Not before I find these schematics. I can’t let the higher ups at GBI get their hands on something like this.

Well, you’re not going to find them in the security room. Besides, the contamination alert will force him to leave his computer behind. You’ll have easy access at that point.

Alright. Fine. They can wait, I suppose.

Gun wipes the security logs from their break in to the base and gets up to leave. They put the corpse in the supply cabinet and walk through the door, closing it behind them.

After entering the hallway, gun continues to fake stomach pains. She keeps her hand on her stomach and hunches over a bit. Finally, she meets up with the researcher again.

You feeling better?

Not in the slightest. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to cut this four short.

Are you sure? I still haven’t sh-

Gun holds their hand up. They put their fist in front of their mouth and moves their head like their about to throw up.

Oh oh oh nevermind. We can reschedule. Do you want me to walk you out?

Gun nods.

They walk down the hallway.

So. How far along are these buses of yours?

Oh, I’ve only gotten some positive test results last week. Still checking to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

Does anyone else know about them?

No no, not yet. I don’t want to promise a weapon that I’m not sure is functional.

That’s a fair point.

They arrive at the entrance to the base.

Well, this was an exciting trip. A shame I didn’t get the full experience. Another time, hopefully.

Do have a safe trip!

Gun walks the avatar into the bus. Once on board, he shuts the avatar off.

Ok. Arty, just go ten miles out. I’ll make the alert from there.

Got it.

The bus drives away. After ten going 7 miles out, it drops the cloak.

God, they stood no chance! Didn’t even pat me down or walk me through a metal detector!

Gun laughs to themselves.

Oh, it’s been too long since I’ve infiltrated a building. Arty, do tell me when we get to the ten mile point will you?

Uh huh. Sure.

Ignoring vis tone, gun turns her attention to the symbol on the holomatter generator. It doesn’t resemble anything she’s ever seen. No, actually, it does remind her of… space, for whatever reason. Strange.

[may8344]

The Journey of a Forgotten Soldier (Levi x OC)

Relationships:

Alana Frey (OC)Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/Original Female Character(s)Levi Ackerman/Alana FreyFurlan Church/Original Character(s)Furlan Church/Alana Frey

Characters:

Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)Furlan ChurchIsabel MagnoliaAlana Frey (OC) - CharacterErwin SmithHange ZoëPetra RalGunther SchultzEld JinnOluo BozadoKeith ShadisSpecial Operations Squad | Squad Levi

Additional Tags:

Graphic Description of CorpsesBlood and InjuryViolenceMurder

Summary:

Alana Frey, a girl born in the Underground City, longed to see the true sunlight every morning that she would wake up. Alongside her comrades: Furlan Church, Isabel Magnolia, and Levi, Alana’s life as a thug continued with no way around it; until the sudden day she and her companions were offered the deal of a lifetime.

“Once you complete this job, not only will you be generously compensated for your work,

but you will also earn the right to live above ground.”

Word Count: 2.3k

---

Chapter 13: I’m Not Leaving

Alana’s skin was turning cold and paler as the two conscious soldiers were racing back to the Supply Wagon. Levi let out an annoyed click of his tongue, gripping his reins tighter as he realized how far away they were from base. “Tch, hurry up!” He called to the cadet behind him, “We have to get there before she loses too much blood!” The upset soldier had already lost the other two members of his family, so he was definitely not losing her too. 

Both picked up the pace. After a couple of minutes, the brunette, Kurt Grinzor, began to see the grouped Scouts up ahead. “I see them! We’re going to make it!” His voice was shaky, but relieved. The cadet had gone through his own traumatic moments before meeting up with Levi, so he was grateful to see a ray of hope. 

Once they finally reached the wagons, the men were greeted by the sights of other wounded or terrified soldiers. With no time wasted, the ravenette quickly ran to the wagon to find medical supplies. However, he struggled trying to find the right materials and bandages. Another soldier witnessed Levi’s troubles and quickly moved to help. The two of them began to try to wrap Alana’s injuries--mainly the other soldier due to Levi’s lack of medical knowledge. Tilting his head down, the silver-eyed man leaned his ear by her face to try and hear her breathing. 

Alana’s breath was shallow as she struggled to breathe and her face was contorted in pain. Her long, dark hair had fallen out of its braid, lining around her sweaty face. She was a complete mess compared to her normal, tidy self. 

Levi was at a loss of words. So many things had happened to him over the span of a couple of hours. The initial shock of finding his ravenette friend again had worn off as he began processing the fact that they were the only ones left. How was he going to break the news to her about their lost comrades?

How was he going to tell her that he was incapable to protect the man she loved?

“Le...vi?” A small whisper resonated in the air. The mentioned man jerked his head to the voice. His silver eyes were met with bright, diamond blue ones. She looked dazed and unable to focus her vision completely. A stray tear fell from her eye as she cringed in pain. “It... hurts. Where are we…?”

Levi’s calloused hand quickly grasped onto her cold, soft one, giving  it a tight squeeze, afraid that she’d disappear if he let go. Words were never his strong suit, but he felt the need to at least say something. “It’s okay, I’m here. We’re heading back soon, and we’ll get you help. Stay with me, got it?”

Her face eased at his words while she gave him a reassuring squeeze of her hand. 

[~]

Like Levi had said, the entire Survey Corps began to return to the walls about half an hour later. The raven haired man followed closely to one of the horse drawn wooden wagons that Alana rested in. He made absolute sure that he wouldn’t take his eyes off of her; not even for a second. Thankfully the weather seemed to completely clear up as they continued their journey back. The Scouts were met with an occasional Titan on the way, but none that they couldn't deal with in the end. 

As they neared Wall Maria, the Garrison soldiers began to raise the gate. The remaining Scouts were led into the inner safeties of the wall and were greeted by the crowds of civilians belonging to Shiganshina. However, there didn't seem to be a single perky face. Some were screaming the names of their children, their family, or loved one. Some were looking at the injured soldiers with disgust and anger. According to them, the Scouting Legion was nothing more than a joke and a waste of taxes. 

To them, everyone should remain inside of the walls. 

“Joseph! Joseph, where are you!?” An older lady began shouting from the sides, searching for her son. Slowly, she limped her way towards the moving Scouts and begged them for answers. Unfortunately, she was met with the shake of a head, signalling that her child was one of the many sacrifices for humanity. The woman sank down to her knees and covered her tearfilled face while the rest of the soldiers continued on their way back to headquarters, ignoring most of the screams and cries from the rest.

Alana, though barely holding onto consciousness, was rattled awake from the large bumps of the wagon against the ground. It wasn’t the most comfortable ride, but she had endured worse. Although she couldn’t see completely over the sides of the wooden cart, she was able to see some heads of the civilians. So many of them were angry, but she caught sight of a certain boy, accompanied with a girl, in the crowd, who was trying to sneak a peek at the Scouts. 

The youngling had shaggy brown hair and emerald green eyes filled with amazement. A toothy grin was spread widely across his face until he realized how there were certainly less soldiers than there were the day they left. Shock filled his features, though it was obvious he still had admiration for the regiment. 

‘He reminds me of Isabel’ she thought to herself as a light smile made its way onto her face. After all, her redheaded sister’s smile was always very contagious. 

 [~]

Once the Regiment reached their headquarters in the interior of Wall Rose, Levi quietly accompanied Alana to the infirmary room. There were countless injured soldiers being taken care of by the nurses, who were scampering around with medicines and medical supplies. The wounded ravenette was carefully set on one of the beds as they worked to redress her bandages and stitch up her open wounds. 

The process seemed to take hours for Levi as he was forced to wait outside until she regained consciousness. He leaned against one of the hallway window sills racking his brain for a way to speak to his female friend. Typically, the silver-eyed thug wouldn’t have a single issue when it came to his blunt, quick remarks, but now he was struggling. Not to mention, he also had to deal with the agonizing pain of losing Furlan and Isabel mere hours ago that was sinking in.

“Yo, Levi,” a voice broke the silence. It was Hanji, who gave him a small wave as she walked down the hallway towards him.

The ravenette’s silver eyes darted towards the sudden noise, recognizing who was speaking. It was the female that he was forced to talk to the previous night. However, this time, he didn’t have Furlan anymore to guide his conversation. Instead, he chose to remain silent, not in the mood at all to talk to her.

“Silent treatment, huh?” Hanji questioned with a half-assed smile as she put her hands on her hips. “I’m happy to hear you survived. You really are the hope of humanity.”

“Shut up, shitty glasses.” He snapped with annoyance. 

Her face dropped slightly at his harsh words. Remembering what she came here for, the brunette’s head drooped slightly. “I heard about your friends. I’m really sorry for your losses.” 

Levi’s eye twitched at her words. “The hell you are. You don’t give two shits if they survived or not. They were nothing more than death fodder for you.” Although his words were harsh, he couldn’t care less. Instead, he just glared at her with his menacing gray eyes. At this point, he couldn’t help his attitude towards the brunette. Too many things were happening, yet none of them seemed to go in his favor.

“That’s not true! Every soldier here is like family, you included!” She argued back.

“I’m not part of your shitty family, nor will I ever be. Now get the hell away from me.”

Rather than arguing back, Hanji held her tongue and nodded. She was aware of the mental pain and trauma death could cause, not to mention the fact that he wasn’t close to anyone else here other than his injured companion. Turning on her heel, she headed back towards the barracks. 

About half an excruciating hour later, the nurses gave him an ‘all clear’ as they allowed him to walk inside of the infirmary rooms. He trudged his way into the room, scrunching his nose at the hospital-esque smell of disinfectants and medicine. While Levi loved having everything spotless, this was definitely not his favorite smell. His steel gray eyes darted around the room, making contact with all of the wounded men and women. They seemed more stabilized now, but most still have faces of discomfort. 

But then his eyes met hers.

Alana was in more of a comfortable outfit, stripped of her uniform. Her hair was still down and quite messy and she was sitting up with pillows stacked behind her for comfort. From this position, the bandages wrapped around her were completely visible. Although her face was full of scratches and bruises, she gave her ravenette friend a small smile.

Levi, however, remained quiet as he pulled up a small, wooden stool and sat next to Alana’s bed. His pained eyes watched her carefully, analyzing the poor girl’s injuries. ‘This wouldn’t have happened if I were able to keep all of them safe. If only I had stopped them from coming along.’ He thought.

“Levi? What’s wrong? Do I really look that bad?” 

“You look like shit.” He replied nonchalantly.

“Ouch, you don’t have to be like that,” she strainfully laughed. “Where are Furlan and Isabel?”

His breath hitched in his throat. Though he tried to picture a response earlier, nothing was coming to his brain now. Her eyes were so pure and innocent. Her angelic smile wasn’t prepared for the news. However, he had to say it somehow. 

“They’re gone.”

Die Stühle liegen sehr eng

You and I talk all the night long

Alana’s face dropped and she gave him a blank stare. “What… What did you say?” 

“They died during the expedition.” He responded with as straight of a face as he could manage, though his voice was low and pained. Behind his hard, steel-gray eyes, millions of emotions were threatening to flood out.

Dieser niedrige Raum ist nicht schlecht

We comrades have stories to tell

“You’re kidding, right?” But deep inside, she knew he wasn’t joking. Levi was always a blunt and serious man; he hardly ever joked around. Before she knew it, tears shone in the corners of the girl’s eyes. “I bet… I bet that they’re outside right now.” Her voice trembled as she kept talking. It was a strong habit of hers to try to smile and talk during a sad situation, but this had hit differently. 

This time, half of her family was gone. 

So ist es immer, that in the evening time

We drink and we sing when our fighting is done

Alana’s clenched onto her hospital blankets tightly. A small whimper left her throat and she squeezed her eyes together, trying to block off her threatening tears. “It’s just… It’s just a joke.” She sobbed out as her breathing became more rapid while her hands searched for something to grab onto, resulting in her tightly hugging herself. On the verge of a panic attack, the ravenette began picking and scratching at her restricting bandages around her arms while trying to pry them off. “They’re not- they can’t be.” She sobbed, now switching to pulling at the loose strands of her hair with her shaking hands. 

So ist es immer, we live under the burnt clouds

Ease our burden, long is the night

“It’s not.” He fought back, clenching his jaw tightly.

“They’re not dead!” She snapped her head towards him and screamed through a cry, not caring that there were others around them. “They’re not, they’re not, they’re not! Stop fucking telling me lies, Levi!” With bared teeth, Alana gave him a deadly glare, but behind her threatening eyes, pain was completely evident. 

“Lana…” He mumbled, not knowing how to help the trembling girl. “I made the wrong choice-”

Da die Sterne nicht leuchten

We are stars and we'll beam on our town 

“I said stop!” Her hands flew up to her necklace, gripping it for dear life. It took her a couple more deep breaths--a grounding technique of hers--to calm herself as much as she could manage. Once the fight had left her gaze seconds later, Alana pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes to try and conceal her tears. “Please…” she begged, substantially quieter, “just stop.”

Levi’s mouth snapped shut at her plea. Never had he seen his friend act this way, even in the Underground. Besides, he hasn’t been able to mentally recover from the difficult blow either. Instead, he stood from his chair and awkwardly engulfed Alana into a side hug. One of his arms snaked around the smaller girl’s waist and the other gently wrapped around her head. He calmly and lightly threaded his rough fingers in her silky black hair. While he was never one for physical affection, this time was different. He didn’t want to let go.

Not again. 

“I’m here,” he mumbled against the top of the shaking girl’s head. “And I’m not leaving.”

Although it wasn’t much, the younger girl found comfort in his embrace--as well as words. When she nuzzled her face into his chest, the smell of peppermint and cedar were still prominent to her, despite the fact that he didn’t have the chance to bathe since the beginning of the expedition. Recognizing the familiar smell and being engulfed by his warmth, she left the remainder of tears stream out until her eyes were red and dry. 

Schauten wir das Licht selbst an

Sing with hope and the fear will be gone

---

(A/N) As much as I hate to say it, this is the last chapter I had prewritten since I've started. Starting now, this may be done sporadically or--at the worst--left on hiatus for a while. I've been decently busy in life and I just need to catch up on all of my things (including waiting for SnK manga and anime). For all of you now, thank you for sticking with this story and supporting me! It means more than I could ever express through my words. Love you all <3

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 

[attract-mode-collective]

Nothing Sez “Student Game” More Than The Dinosaur Evening News (that’s a good thing, btw)

The above is Mediazoic, which takes place in an alternate reality in which dinosaurs have come back to rule the earth and they've hired you, puny human, to make sure their televised broadcasts are dino family safe.

You moderate comments left on message boards, censor full frontal dino nudity, and so on. It's a student game alright, and one of my top picks from the NYU Game Center Student Showcase2018!

I was also fond of Dreams For Your Computer because CRTs, magnets, and cats...

... Here's what it looks like in action, btw.

Though the one game that I liked the most, and which would actually fare well on the marketplace, would have to be Static...

And honorable mention goes to an updated take on Flight Simulator, which recreates a 6 hour long commercial flight as a passenger...

... The best part was the look on Stephen Totilo's face, who kinda didn't get it.

When was the NYU thing btw? Over two weeks ago, and it’s been even longer since the last update. Sorry about that. You know the deal: a million, billion things going on. As usual.

Hence why it’ll take not just one, but two bursting at the seams posts, to cover the second half of May! So onto part one…  

Please, please, PLEASE let these Game Center CX Blu-rays have an English language option (via miki800.com)...

Not a day goes by in which I don’t wonder how that guy who appears in the instruction manual for Bomberman B-Daman is doing these days (via videogameartarchive & videogameartarchive)...

I really love the “are you for real?” vibe that Samus gives off in the instructions for the original Famicom Disk System release of Metroid (via nintendometro)...

If you’ve ever wondered what a pair of bosses from Mega Man 9 & 10 would look like with 8’s 32-bit sheen, well here ya go (via mendelpalace)...

A print ad for the Famicom adaptation of Akira that wasn't all that hot (via videogameads)...

Though whenever anyone hears the words “Akira video game”, this is basically what immediately comes to mind. Anything else is a disappointment, no matter what (via aaronkraten)...

Welcome to the rabbit hole that is the Memorex VIS (via @ColinWilliamson)...

Is the soundtrack to some ultra-obscure home banking software for the Mega Drive worth a listen? You goddamn right it is (via mendelpalace)...

… The accompanying article is also totally worth a read.

It’s the Battletoads X Blue Swede mashup that you can’t believe hasn’t been done yet (via SiIvaGunner)...

Replace Link with myself & Navi with my iPhone, which I use as an alarm clock, and you have earlier this morning in a nutshell (via nintendometro)...

“So where you going?”

“Down a road. A low poly road…”

“Where you headed towards?”

“Whatever’s at the end of this street. This low poly street...”

“If you look up, what do you see?”

“Low poly buildings, under a low poly sky. Who knows, maybe there’s some low poly birds up there, behind those low poly clouds…” (via pmpkn)

From looking at low poly skies to soaring high above them, but what a difference an arcade board makes huh (via kazucrash)...

This is what Metal Max 2: ReLoaded on the DS looks like, at its normal resolution...

And this is what it looks with the resolution bumped up (via gaucheartist)...

Is this sprite of a BMX biker animated unusually well or am I just out of touch when it comes to 2600 software? Granted, it does come from a game made in 1989 (via segagenesisevangelion)…

According to the law: “NO JUMPING” (via vgadvisor)

“Hi guys.” (via beowulf-ultra)

Such a heartwarming scene (via @PicturesFoIder)...

This is what VR looked like many years ago, which is basically how it still looks today as well (via peazy86)...

It’s Yuji Horii, from way back in the day, presumably before he had created Dragon Quest (via videogamesdensetsu)...

Why yes, I have heard of the Ocelot Arcade System, by virtue of it being Quality Simon Carless content...

... BTW, “Quality content” is in reference to this. Moving on: yes, I've also heard of VecFever. It plays games that you might be familiar with, since it emulates old vector MAME titles...

Meanwhile, am only just learning that Tiger released their handhelds in Japan under the Game Vision label (via segacity)...

The Sega Dreamcast: it's thinking... about you, cuz it cares about you (via posthumanwanderings)...

"Wait… was he always there?" asks the official Sonic the Hedgehog Tumblr (via sonicthehedgehog)...

And the final nail in the coffin for this gag came courtesy of the official Sonic Tumblr as well (via sonicthehedgehog)...

"Good news everyone skyrim has been ported to the Bethesda offices carpet" 

"Who the fuck designed support pillars to obstruct a quarter of the hallway?" 

"Bethesda" (via mysteriouslypeculiar)

Yet another "it's funny cuz it's true" (via highlandvalley)...

So annoyed that I only find out about this Games Glorious shirt on the very last day of kylefewell‘s Japanese extrusion (via miki800.com)...

Not a fan of the game (don’t hate, I just don’t find it very enthralling), yet for whatever reason, I REALLY want this vintage Mappy sweatshirt (via namcomuseum)...

When video game attire looks plausible IRL (via @cvxfreak)...

Much like with regular attire, with cosplay, sometimes it’s all about the accessories (via frankiebalboa)...

Don’t think I’ve ever seen this piece of Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter art before (via segacity)...

For those who dig POC, as well those who dig VF, and also those who dig FV... that last one's Fighting Vipers, BTW (via fightersmegamix)...

It’s a crying shame that Fighting Vipers is such an unknown commodity these days (via kazucrash)...

Virtua Fighter vs Virtua Fighter… Kid (via segacity)...

It’s a crying shame that Fighters Megamix is such an unknown commodity these days (via segacity)...

So hyped for RPG Time, based solely upon the headline image used for this 10 ten list of BitSummit games (via @indiegameweb)...

Please enjoy yet another thing that I originally posted on a Saturday late at night, whatever time it might on your end right this second (via contac)...

Been a while since I’ve seen the handiwork of Joe Bleeps, largely since it’s been a while since I’ve been collecting Game Culture Snapshots; the man has certainly stepped up his game (boy mods) since way back when (via kotaku.com)...

Am also very much impressed by the Game Boy Macro, though once again, am super irritated that GBA games do not rest flush with the DS Lite’s body...

An example of function over form I guess (@gamesyouloved)...

Familiar with Line Wobbler? Ever wished you could play it on the go? Are you into demakes? For the Game Boy Advance? (via @diskmem)

Today’s corrupted GBA boot up sequence is (via corruptionasart)...

Can anyone tell what Famicom game we’re seeing that’s all glitched out? (via mendelpalace)...

My fave part of this NES 2 print ad is how, in order to truly drive the message of “EVOLVE OR BECOME EXTINCT” home, whomever felt it necessary to include a little picture of a dinosaur (via nintendometro)...

Was this an ad for the SNES? I ask because it’s considerably more sophisticated when compared to what you usually encountered in gaming rags at the time (via nintendometro)...

This ad for the GoldStar version of the 3DO, hailing from Korea, makes me so proud to be (half) Korean, you have no idea (via notablegamebox)...

This Space Invaders tribute piece is like the cover art to some 80s heavy metal record (via shmups)...

Meanwhile, the album art for the Metal Black soundtrack feels more Pink Floyd-ish than anything else (via reportal)...

As amazing as it would have been to attend a ZUNTATA concert 20 years ago, I desperately wanted to see them perform various Darius cuts live just the other week (via miki800.com)...

This cover art for a tribute album celebrating 25 years of Mega Man is still quite good, 31 years after the fact (via rnn-draws)...

My recommended reading this time is a comparison of all the various Mega Man sprites that have been, including a few that you may not be familiar with (via retrovania-vgjunk.blogspot.com)...

Apparently there was a Mega Man boss that was part arcade machine, but he only appeared in some mobile game, for f's sake Capcom (via mendelpalace)...

Guess now’s a good time to share another random game canter pic (via gogopri)...

Pathos at the game center, even among Sailor Scouts (via funnysailorm00n)...

A pride & joy of my personal collection is both the original retail Japanese release of Jet Set Radio & the available via Sega Direct only edition: De La Jet Set Radio (via videogameartarchive & videogameartarchive)...

Here's an alternate take on it’s alternate cover star (via @Drooling_Demon)…

Putting together the necessary gear to properly grind the streets of Tokyo-to (via kiroziki-cosplay)...

JSR tales place in a fictionalized, idealized interpretation of Japan, whereas this gif is a very realistic take, yup (via dehtyar)...

Meanwhile and elsewhere, somewhere in the United States of America it would seem (via behexagusthegreat)...

There's still dinner time in the future (via kirokazepixel)...

My contribution to #WorldGothDay (via it8bit)…

From dark & dreary, to warm & fuzzy, yet still black & white (via this old post from a few years back)...

Old photos of a Japanese school kid obsessing over the Famicom are somewhat dime a dozen, but the PC Engine? A very rare treat (via gamingremembrance)...

From black & white photographs of Japanese 80s kids playing consoles, to a full color animated gif of US 80s kids at the arcade (via tvneon)...

Time to wrap things up by touching upon something that kept me awfully busy over the past few: Death By Audio Arcade X Dreamhouse II. Here's a rather mysterious image that appeared on the FB event page, and which was utilized in my promotional push...

... Did it work? You’ll have to find out in my part 2 of my Attract Mode X Tumblr: May 2018 recap! Due tomorrow. Maybe.

[survivormagictreehouse]

Episode 1: “Why is my tribe all these musty men and Ruthie?” -Ali

-I'm writing this pre-cast reveal and I'm scared shitless. Dear future Jess, Don't puke before tribals because of anxiety. Don't let the m*n tell you what to do. Don't get in your head and trust your gut. Sincerely, Pre-Cast Reveal Jess.

- Now where do I begin.... It's day 2? I believe.... in this game and I've already spiralled and showed the signs of a future crackhead. In all seriousness though, I've calmed down and the initial shock of cast reveal has worn off. I was a bit shook seeing some of the people in this cast playing. I've literally hosted a large chunk of these people so I REALLY HOPE NONE OF THAT COMES TO BITE ME IN THE ASS (I don't think it will). I hope people realize I wasn't really paying close attention to their games when hosting.. and if I was... I have the memory of a pebble. I'm sure none of that will have an impact on anyone besides maybe Ali. BUT ALI IF YOU ARE READING THIS.. DAY 2 JESS REALLY WANTS TO WORK WITH YOU! Now lets talk about my tribe: - We got Rachael/Zach who are super close or at least have some sort of connection through his sister. - We got Birch/Keegan regardless of whatever they are pushing about doubts with each other I can see them cleaning that slat in the name of numbers. - Me and Gavin because I'm the only one he knows in this game. - Possibly me/Timmy if he wants to work with me. - Possibly me/Chips hoping he remembers I did show how blindly loyal I was to him the last game we were in.... - Bodhi might be in with people like Zach (who he was hosting) and Rachael. - John honestly... I have no idea about. He's such a wild card for me. My overall thought process and game plan right now is... BLUID THOSE RELATIONSHIPS! I think I proved with my challenge performance I am an asset to this tribe but I want to show people I can be an asset to them. I can see us swapping at 16 so I'm going to be around this tribe for a bit so I need people to want me around. So far I'm getting along with Keegan he seems like a cool cat. I'm also aware he's probably a cool cat in everyone's eyes but for right now.. I really like him! Birch is definitely a social beast. From what I remembered they were an extremely social player in the season I hosted them but they are very transparent with their information which does scare me. For the time being though, I'll attempt to work my magic with them and build that trust so the information spills to me.. Rachael is a queen. I really want to work with her because I do see similarities between our playing style which is something I always gravitate towards in games. I'm naive and I do know she has other people higher up on that trust-ladder based off of initial relationships but I do hope to somehow climb that. Although I do know she will be a power play in this game, I know I'm going to need other power players around me to ensure there is a target ahead of me. She also brings connections which typically brings in information. So rather than be a crackhead and go for her (which is what cast reveal night Jess thought about) I'm going to try and work with her. Zach.. honestly, I don't know how much I have in common with a teenage boy so that might be a road block between us. He is one of those key-relationships I hope to build off of through Rachael. I will also die if Rachael/Zach aren't that close and I'm just rambling shit right now. Gavin is one of my FIRST ORG friends and I'm SO HAPPY TO SEE HIM PLAYING THIS GAME. I don't think anyone right now knows we are close but I'm not afraid to cut him if it means I go further in this game. I'm not really sure about my tribes chances for this first immunity challenge. Everyone aside for a few people on this tribe seem like they have their shit together in this challenge. I know the "movie trivia" crew snapped hard and my back hurts from carrying my tribe but.... our chances of winning rely on Timmy (who is on vacation), Gavin who is probably working or something, and Bodhi who is hosting currently. So to say I'm confident.... would be a giant ass lie. I'm excited for the idol search to open up SO BAD.

-Cast is revealed and game starts in a half hour. I’m feeling excited. I hope I do better in this season than the game I did last, 17th. Ughhhhhh, grosss

- I’m having fun doing the quotes, it’s interesting. I feel like I’m getting along well with everyone. I’m trying to talk to them all and interact. If I’m amusing they won’t get rid of me. Right? Right? Somebody tell me I’m right

-Okay tea time!  I'm really excited. I had to add A LOT of people I have never talked to before and I always like doing that because I LOOOOVE playing with people that don't know how I play and also getting to know clean people and starting with a clean slate! The only people I had added on my tribe are Jay and Ali and I LIKE that!   I'm excited to talk to people, scope everyone out a little and see what I need to do.  This game and the theming is SO CUTE and I can't wait to see what all happens next!

- https://youtu.be/MY-s5k1n7sI

why is my tribe all these musty men and ruthie what did i do to deserve this.

https://youtu.be/LPxSC_ZjZIc

https://youtu.be/ojw9T8GsbaA

-That 36 person cast twist not being real...big disappointment, I was hoping for a huge mess where someone cries. But 20 people, good size. My tribe seems like good people so this should be exciting.

- So we lost the first immunity challenge. Seems like it’s unanimous for John to go. Works for me as he is who I wanted out when I woke up this morning since we hadn’t spoken. He keeps saying he wants someone who was weak in the challenge out and didn’t tell me a name but told Rachel, Bodhi. Funny thing is, John did worse in his challenge than anyone in the quotes group so therefore his own logic can be used against him.

-AHHHHHHHHHHH MY PEOPLE ARE HERE I DON"T KNOW WHO I WANNA WORK WITH. There is king ali, my bae Austin, bestie jay, and really old time friend Collin in this one tribe. I'm not even counting people on the other tribe. I'm gonna lose so hard. I'm crying tho

-When I was meeting my tribe for the first time I was thinking that we have a very good group here. I'm glad to see Bodhi again cuz I haven't seen him since Trinity: P&P a few months ago. I think that with the additions of Birch and Keegan to our tribe I think we're gonna win some challenges. So I'm hoping for the best and not the worst for this team.

- So we're all waiting for the results of the 1st challenge, and I'm feeling a little nervous that my tribe may lose, but I'm hoping that we do win because I want this season to start off on a good note for my tribe. I'm just hoping that we pull this off and not blow this.

-the way i was offered a final 2 within minutes of joining the tribe chat. hopefully this ages well and you get to see me and bodhi succeed :)

- John is too damn messy and has got to go. PERIODT.

https://youtu.be/L1-ZBhnUQ7U

-I love my Tribe!! I'm super excited to play with Keegan and Timmy again! I'm trying to get closer with everyone else since I haven't played with them before. I'm also kinda nervous for the challenge. I have a weird taste in music so we will see how this goes. I really hope I'm not first boot. I haven't had good placements in my last couple of games, so I'm hoping for better this time! This cast is iconic.

-So my mom got my drunk before the challenge and then tried guilting me into not doing the challenge. we flopped anyway. we are currently pulling ahead in the Movie challenge but it's still early so idk. I really hope we can get the next 2 challenges. I don't wanna be first boot.  

- Ahoy matey! me got cursed t' only talk like a pirate in thar tribe chats n' me alliance chat. So me’m doing dis confession like a pirate. So anyway. me’m in a alliance Wit' Keegan n' Jess. As far as me know our jolly crew only verily talked t' each other. So dis works out. Our jolly crew also lost which SUCKS. me verily hope me’m nay first boot. me might sail after John. All me conversations wit' him be painful. So that’s fun. me like all hands so dis will hard. But let’s see what happens! Birch signing off.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Iq3ANGs8M&feature=youtu.be

- Here’s the Tea Link: https://youtu.be/X3J2e4ffmiY

- https://youtu.be/Q80k6g4QUIk

Kinda bummed the movie challenge didn’t go so well hope we don’t have to go to tribal this early

-Hello hello! I am SO happy to be back in atomic Survivor! I feel like things are off to a really nice start and I'm hoping that will continue. For now I'll do a little assessment of my tribe before we find out results for the first challenge. Ali - I've seen him around in the community a lot for years, im pretty sure I was around when he played his first game. But I don't remember if I've ever had the chance to actually play WITH him. He's such a nice guy I've loved talking with him so far Austin - Lmao the funny thing is I actually talked to him for the first time ever like a week ago. A real lucky break that he and I were both part of this casting twist. We immediately started talking and agreed to look out for each other. Cindi - this is my first time meeting her ever! She seems really rad and we've just been talking about life and tattoos and shit lmao. I can definitely see myself working with her in the future. Collin - y'all I LOVE Collin. I just played with him in Mesopotamia, and even though he voted me out I never had any bitterness towards him cause he's just that nice. He's definitely been the person I've talked to the most so far. We have a lot in common and I really want to trust him. But I am still a bit wary bc of Mesopotamia. Czern - I don't really have a read on him yet. Haven't spoken to him too much. Dan - Same as Czern but I haven't spoken to Dan at all Vi - Vi is such a ray of sunshine, I've loved her ever since I met her in Tashirojima. In fact my biggest mistake in that game IMO was voting her out. I'm 100% working with her this time. Ruthie - It's been so long since I've talked to Ruthie and I'm so glad that this game gives me the chance to reconnect with her. An absolute legend and one of the nicest people I've ever met. I haven't talked strategy with her yet but that'll come soon lol Timmy - Yo he DESTROYED that music challenge and I'm super grateful for that. I've talked to him a little bit and he's pretty nice but I don't really have any further opinions on him lol

- Reallllly glad we didn't have to go to tribal tonight. I've been really busy today so it would've been a really rough time. But instead I got to enjoy my day, but of course I socialized with my tribe. I feel really close with Collin, Ali, and Ruthie. Granted those are relationships that started outside of this game, but they're relationships nonetheless. I really vibe with Austin too, even though I talk to him a little less, we're bonded through that opening twist. And the best thing is Austin mentioned vibing with all those people + Vi (who's great as well, I just haven't talked any strategy with her yet) so I smell an alliance starting sometime soon. I just feel really well about the start of this game and im hoping it can last.

-First confessional of the season! I debated making a video but then I realized that's a lore more work and harder for me to have actual organized thoughts. Going back to the start of the game: I know RACHAEL, BIRCH, CHIPS, JAY, VI, CINDI, DAN and RUTHIE. The only person I don't know anything about is CZERN. So I've got a pretty stacked cast of people I can potentially work with moving forward. But I currently have three goals for this season: 1. Make the merge or swap so I can play with VI. Even if we don't work together, I'd love to play with her! She rules! 2. Make sure JAY gets voted out before myself. As a fellow winner, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE. 3. Make sure DAN gets voted out before myself. He's a sneaky snake and I won't ever trust him after Nova Scotia. First off, I'm in an awesome alliance with BIRCH and JESS. It's only three people so it's not a clear majority but it's a good start. We formed this literally 10 minutes after the challenge had ended. Speaking of the challenge, it was a fun challenge but we did lose. However, JESS, RACHAEL, CHIPS and myself were the only ones who won our portion of the challenge, so I've been subtly hinting that I wouldn't feel right if any of us were voted out. GAVIN told me that TIMMY and BODHI didn't contribute much of anything to their part of the challenge, so that's a possible decision when it comes to this tribal. However, JOHN has been very difficult to have a conversation with and I've been told that him and BODHI won't vote for each other. So right now it's just working with JESS and BIRCH to determine what the best option is moving forward. I'm thinking I can get RACHAEL, ZACH and GAVIN on board with whatever we decide. Tune in later for some more thoughts.

-I wanna say it’s be super eventful but not really. Just a few small things: CHIPS has been telling everyone everything. He told JOHN he was the vote. He told JESS about the GAVIN thing. He needs to learn to keep things to himself if he doesn’t want to be gone next. JOHN tried throwing ZACH under the bus for not being good in challenges. I had a call with BODHI and apparently ZACH is a comp beast. So that’s not happening. If everything is as planned JOHN should be the unanimous vote. I might throw a stray vote on CHIPS just in case of an idol play but I’m undecided.

So this round I got super close with Austin and Collin, and close with cindi, and okay close with everyone else. I killed it in the music challenge because I  did not feel confident I wouldn’t go home if we lost. I need to tighten my bonds and hopefully make a solid group before the next round. I have no real targets atm but Ruthie and I have yet to speak so that’s awkward. I kinda wish I was on the other tribe because I feel like I’d vibe with them better. I had to make sure I was the first to go into the treehouse because I wanted to be open and transparent about what happens in there and make sure that nobody else got to go in and change what actually happens. I’m very excited for the next few rounds tho!

https://youtu.be/e_oVLgNr4ro

Okay so first round is going pretty good so far . I cant believe they put me on a tribe with vi which is amazing bc ride or die right there. I know ali vi collins and jay are def ppl I wanna work with in this game . I mean my whole tribe is great . Dan I know is a wild card and he seems like he wants to work together but I'm not sure if I can fully trust him since he did vote me out last seasons with telling me a damn thing . Cindi was almost in my duplicity season I'm on production for so I know her a bit as well. I know she would probs go with Rachael at a swap or merge which is dangerous .THANK GOD we won the first immunity and I dont have two sorry about a vote bc if I'm honest it would be HARD to decide on a name . Let's see what happens tho I'm ready to play and ready to win

Honestly it seems pretty slow starting. Just working on getting to know the tribe at this point. I really like Collin and Ali but beyond that I'm not getting like amazing vibes from the others. I'm not getting bad vibes either though, just neutral positive vibes if that makes sense

okay, so i have been focusing on getting to know my tribe-mates the past few days because in this game, connections are your lifeline. but, i also didn't want to come off too strong and be perceived as "too social" from the get-go *cough* keegan the snake *cough*. so, i laid back, talked to people (some more than others), and tried to focus on winning immunity. unfortunately, when immunity slipped through our fingers, i quickly got to work socializing and making sure i wasn't the one to be blamed for our loss in our challenge. i felt that i contributed a lot and tried to start discussions and debate about our quotes, and felt as though i didn't get much back from my team. so, i made sure that people knew my group wasn't very communicative and had they communicated more, we could have totally won. i didn't push for a name to begin the round, but i did make sure to let people know who i hadn't talked to in hopes of getting one of their names on the chopping block this round. i made sure to reach out to everyone (even those who didn't reach out to me or seem invested in the game, nor our conversations) because i don't want someone to spread my name as a result. then, it seemed to narrow down to john and timmy. also, it was obviously leaning towards john leaving this round. however, it was not until about a few hours before day change that john had FINALLY heard that his name was going around due to the fact that it was TRULY IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK TO HIM. funnily enough, this information came directly from chips--someone who i haven't talked to much. thankfully for me, john decided to tell almost everyone exactly what chips had said and no one was pleased to hear that. so, i worked my magic and made sure people were upset that chips tried to throw us all under the bus--because i need to make sure there is a target for next round that isn't me... DUH! later, i asked john what he wanted to do, and he sat there completely clueless. i was completely dumbfounded at his reluctance to say a name when his ass was CLEARLY on the line. eventually, i worked a name out of him, and he said bodhi (who was the only one who wanted to keep him earlier today)... so i obviously went right to bodhi and made sure he knew so i could build some trust with him going forward in this game since talking to john literally made me lose brain cells by the minute, i wanted to make sure he was the one leaving tonight. so, i am hoping everything goes according to plan at tribal tonight, but as long as i don't leave, i am golden with whatever. until next time... xoxo, gossip girl

So basically I'm not in town right now... and IbhopenI can trust people not to vote me until I get back and am less busy. I really bombed the challenge by getting 0 points for my tribe but we won that part... because the other people carried. Good stuff. Anyway we are voting John because he doesn't communicate well and has kind of mansplained the potential different vote? If its true then woohoo I got another round. Also! I got am advantage from idol hunt and thats nifty. 

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Click HERE to watch both out PREGAME and ROUND ONE cast assessments!

[xoheatherkw]

Just For Show - Camsten Fic

Hi Alyssa @stitchedatbirth Here’s your stitchmas fic! I really loved your idea that Kirsten wouldn’t keep the fake amnesia a secret from Cameron, and I ran with it. Set immediately after 3x10. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

Thank you Sheila & Alyssa @stitchmasinjuly for organizing this for the Stitchers family. And a quick thanks to my trust beta and cheerleader @your-stitcher-thursday 

~Later that night~

Kirsten took a deep breath before knocking swiftly on Cameron’s door.

She went through one last mental check while waiting. Overnight bag, check. Phone with notes typed up, check. Cameron’s keys (in case he didn’t answer), check. Nerves, also check.

She was about to unlock the door when Cameron opened it.

“What are you doing here?,” he deadpanned.

She pushed her way through, just like she had so many times before.

“I wanted to see if you were okay. You seemed pretty upset earlier today,” she responded. Kirsten set down her bag and kicked off her shoes, right around the corner from his entryway.

Cameron watched her make herself at home in his apartment. It’s almost as if… no, it couldn’t be.

“I’m fine,” he responded curtly.

Kirsten walked up to Cameron, still standing in his open doorway, and showed him her phone.

ACT NORMAL

I need to sweep for bugs.

Cameron nodded slowly, unsure as to what was actually going on. “How did you know where I live, anyways?,” he inquired.

Kirsten pulled up her encrypted app and started sweeping his apartment. “Camille told me. She said we were friends.”

Nothing came up on her sweep of the entryway to kitchen, so she continued on towards his living room.

“Yeah, we were something like that.” Cameron closed his front door and followed Kirsten to the living room.

“Apparently Camille is moving in with her girlfriend. She seemed nice when they were over earlier.”

Kirsten noticed the flash across her screen, notifying her that a listening device was within five feet. She held up her index finger to motion for Cameron to be quiet.

She looked under the lamp and around his end table, coming up empty. She checked along the underside of the couch, also nothing. Next she checked the TV stand. “So are you a Star Wars fan, based on your choice of movie?,”she asked, pointing at the collector’s edition boxed set that was next to his blu ray player.

He was just in the middle of watching Star Wars Episode VI before Kirsten had showed up unannounced. “Absolutely! Episodes IV through VI were clearly the best, although I was pleasantly impressed by Episode VII. And Episode VIII will be out later this year.”

“Yeah, Camille told me they’re making the next three. I’ll have to check out VII. Is this the one with the ewoks?,” she asked, motioning to his TV.

“Ahh yes, the teddy bears of the Star Wars Universe. Yeah, they’re in this movie.”

“Teddy bears? Ewoks are freaking awesome,” she exclaimed. “They’re like badass ninja teddy bears, clearly superior to ‘just teddy bears.’ They’re definitely my favorite part of that movie.”

Cameron chuckled, because of course she would love ewoks. Although they had an eerily similar conversation when the two of them did a Star Wars marathon on a holiday weekend, just a few months ago.

Coming up short on the TV stand, she inspected his coffee table and discovered a small electronic device, tucked on the inside of one of the coffee table’s legs. It couldn’t have been larger than the size of a dime.

You wouldn’t have noticed it unless you were specifically looking.

Cameron’s eyes widened at the discovery. Just when he was about to ask, Kirsten pulled up her phone and scrolled down to her next message for him to read. She thought this through, coming up with a response just in case she found a bug.

Remember, act normal!

Destroy it some other time.

I need to sweep the rest of your apartment. Pack a bag so we can go somewhere to talk freely.

Kirsten carefully put the bug back under his coffee table and continued her scan of the apartment.

“Since Maggie gave everyone some time off, can you explain exactly what it is that we do in the lab?” She attempted to keep the conversation away from what she was actually doing, and away from what she actually wanted to tell him.

Cameron led the way into his bedroom and grabbed a small overnight bag from his closet. “Didn’t Maggie brief you on that today?”

“Well she did, but I don’t think my brain was focused enough to really process what she said.”

Cameron nodded, and started pulling clothes out of his drawer and into his bag. “Fair enough. Basically  we solve crimes by inserting your consciousness into the brains of victims that the NSA acquires from the LA county coroner’s office.”

“You put my consciousness into people’s dead, degrading brains?” Kirsten feigned a look of disgust, which illicited a chuckle from Cameron.

“Sounds icky when you put it like that, doesn’t it?”

“Just a bit. So how does that work, exactly?” She finished the sweep of his apartment, only detecting the one bug in the living room.

“The brain is a bio-electrical device and we have protocols to slow down deterioration of the victim’s brain. That allows us approximately forty-eight hours to stitch in and get information. When you stitch in your body projects an image of yourself, as if you were actually there.”

“In that suit? The one that my mother woke up in,” she clarified.

“The one and only.”

“What exactly does the suit do? Other than make me look like a badass catwoman.”

“Badass catwoman indeed, or as we like to call it in the lab, the Rev 2. It’s the badass version of the prior one. But it does serve a functional purpose. The material is a mesh polyester fiber coated in: zinc and blackened nickel over copper. It helps with conductivity between your suit and our sensors.”

“So I stitch in, dressed like catwoman. Wait, do I have to wear the ears and stilettos too?”

He let out a good laugh. “Not necessary, no. But if cat ears and stilettos are your thing, I’d save it for Halloween.”

“Fair enough. So I what… access and interpret the memories I see? I would say that’s impossible, but I guess that’s because I’ve-never-studied-neuroscience-unlike-Cameron.” She smirked at him, continually dropping hints as she went. “Plus Maggie told me I’ve been working with the team for two years.”

He narrowed his eyes and wondered just exactly how much Kirsten remembered. That couldn’t be coincidence.

“How long have you been with the team, Dr. Smartypants?,” she asked.

“Maggie brought me on five years ago, to run the lab and work on perfecting the technology. We ran test stitches for about a year before gathering enough data to get up and running.”

“I see. Maggie said the Stitchers program has been developing for the better part of twenty years, and that my parents both worked on developing it.” Kirsten pulled up her phone again, and scrolled down farther.

All packed and ready to go? I have a plan to get out of the city for the weekend. We need to talk.

Remember, destroy the bug later. When I’m not over, so it’s not as suspicious.

Cameron grabbed his cell phone charger and stuffed that in his bag as well. He nodded and led her out of the bedroom.

“Well I just wanted to stop by to see how you were doing. Would you mind driving me home?,” she asked.

“Sure thing,” he answered cautiously.

They went down the elevator to his parking garage in total silence.

By the time they got to his car, he couldn’t take the suspense anymore. He opened his mouth to ask a question, then promptly closed it. He pulled out his phone and typed a quick question in his notepad to Kirsten, then showing her the screen.

Is it safe to talk now?

She shook her head no. She got out her own phone again, and scrolled farther down. She really had anticipated every scenario.

Not yet. I need to disable the GPS on your phone, so you can’t be tracked. I double checked my phone, GPS tracking is off.

Give me your phone. You drive us to Union Station, we’re leaving your car there for the weekend.  

He nodded and handed over his phone. Luckily he had been to Union Station plenty of times, he knew the way without GPS.

Kirsten worked quickly, disabling both the conventional GPS tracking and the embedded, behind the scenes, tracking. Cameron pulled into the parking structure and Kirsten had her next message up to show him.

We’re each getting a ticket to San Diego, it leaves at 8:25pm. Use your credit card, to leave a paper trail.

We’ll go inside, then I mapped out a route that will skirt along the security camera’s blindspots. We’re actually going to get a rental car and drive up to the mountains. I already fabricated ID’s for us, and took out cash.

Once we get to the rental car and I sweep that for bugs, and disable their vehicle tracking system, then we can talk freely.

She raised an eyebrow in question, to make sure he understood. He nodded in acknowledgment, and they carried out her very well laid out plans.

It was easier than she thought to get around the security cameras. She couldn’t do much about cameras on the street, but she would at least make it difficult for anyone that tracked their movements after the fact.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Cameron waited patiently while Kirsten disabled the vehicle’s tracking system. Or he thought he was waiting patiently. She, on the other hand, could feel him staring at the back of her head.

“Calm down, girlfriend. I’m almost done,” she said.

She finished within a few minutes, making sure to tuck the wires back into place. “Alright, we’re good. We can talk,” she said.

Cameron exhaled loudly. “Kirsten! What the heck is going on?!”

She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Cameron, we have a lot to talk about, and we have a few days to really talk things over. But I thought you’d like to know, I remember everything.” She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face.

Cameron, on the other hand, didn’t look convinced. “You remember? Just like that? My mother said she wasn’t sure if you would get your memory back at all, let alone this soon.”

“I didn’t exactly lose my memory. I was a little foggy after getting out of the stitch, but there was no real memory loss. We have all weekend to get into what’s going on, but I can prove it to you. You told me something very important before you closed the corpse cassette on me. I’ll tell you what you said, and you tell me what I said. Deal?”

He eyed her suspiciously, but agreed. “Deal.”

She ran her hands up to frame his face, running her thumb along his jawline. “I love you.”

Cameron let out a shaky breath. Her still present grin seemed to be contagious, because he was beaming as well. “I know,” he replied. He reached across the seat, resting both his hands on her knees.

She circled her arms around his neck to pull him closer. “Well played.”

“It’s really you?,” he asked.

“It’s really me,” she confirmed.

“Then why didn’t you say anything after your briefing with Maggie?” He pulled back to bring her hands in his.

“That’s where it gets complicated,” she started. “No one can know that I remember. Not Maggie, not Linus, no one in the lab. Promise me you won’t say anything?”

His eyes went wide. “Of course, I promise. What’s going on?”

“My father and your mother have been working together for years, right around when the Stitchers Program started with Maggie, my mother, and Ed. Stinger’s been a double agents of sorts, and I’m not entirely clear on why your mother is working with him. I guess she initially helped him out with the neuroscience and nanobot aspect of developing the technology. But my presumption is that her real goal is to get you to leave the program. Didn’t you say she’s been pushing you to accept an opening at MIT?”

“Well yeah, but I didn’t think she would resort to scheming with your father to do it!,” he exclaimed. “Wait, what are they holding against you that you need to lie to everyone?”

“My father threatened you, saying that if I didn’t cooperate with their plan, that he would kill you and make it look like an accident. Then he said if that didn’t work, he would go after Ivy too, because apparently he’s the devil incarnate and not above murdering his own daughter. I couldn’t risk you.”

He almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But then again, Stinger murdered Blair’s son to get a message to Kirsten. “That’s just… wow. And your mother, does she know what Stinger’s been up to?”

“She assured me that she does not. Although she has a slew of follow up tests with Ayo and your mother. Nothing like evolving the human brain centuries to make you a guinea pig. She’s also doing some reconnaissance to figure out more of Stinger’s plan.”

“Reconnaissance, how?” Granted they had been apart for seventeen years due the stasis pod, but Cameron didn’t think Stinger would willingly share his deep, dark secrets, not even with his wife.

“Telepathy,” she answered.

“I have to revisit that some other time, because that’s the holy grail for a neuroscientist. Studying the changes in synapses and what areas activated to gain that skill.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to geek out when we’re back at work. But even with his threats, I knew I couldn’t keep this from you. You’ll just have to play it cool until we can fake start a relationship.”

“So we’re fake dating now?” He teasingly ran his thumb across the back of her hand, and added a wink for good measure.

“No, more like dating in secret.” She pulled him in closer, the lips just inches apart. “Do you think you can handle that?”

He could feel her breath on his lips, it was intoxicating. Especially after he had given up all hope of Kirsten remembering the last few years, remembering him. It had only been a few hours, but he wasn’t a fan.

“I think I can handle it,” he agreed. He closed the gap and pressed his lips lightly to hers. She smiled into the kiss and threaded her fingers in his hair. He deepened the kiss and his arms circled her waist.

Much too soon for his liking, Kirsten pulled back slightly. “I’ve been wanting to do that all afternoon,” she admitted. “And we’ll have plenty of time for that this weekend, but we should get going. I figured we could come up with a game plan this weekend, figure out where to go from here. Together?”

He put the car in drive, then interlaced their fingers. “Alright Stretch. Together.”

[real-life-pine-tree]

Leo Will Never Know: Survival Duels and Bio-Bands (5/?)

In an alternate timeline, Yugi indirectly prevented the events of Arc-V from ever happening. But how could this small change have an impact on a few selected people? A spin-off of the Arc-V Aftermath series. Based on the hilarious comic by @justanotherotakuandartist​​. Co-written with @violetganache42​​.

Michael and Ray's final year was rather interesting because four students from the foreign branches were invited to attend: Adrian Gecko from East Academy, Axel Brodie from West Academy, Jim "Crocodile" Cook from South Academy, and Jesse Anderson from North Academy. However, Professor Thelonious Viper's exhibition match between Jaden and Jesse was an example of what was in store for Duel Academy: Survival Duels. Students must wear these hard-to-remove wristbands called Bio-Bands that can keep track of their data and send them to Viper to help him determine if they will stay or be expelled. There was only one way to remove them, but let's just say that method was too…violent.

However, at the moment, Michael and Ray were more focused on the exhibition match. Jaden and Jesse were acting a little too friendly towards each other, constantly complimenting each other's strategies and cards.

"Are they...flirting?" Ray ultimately realized.

"Looks like it to me," Michael answered.

As they watched on, they were getting more convinced about something. Is Jesse the perfect match for Jaden? Because it definitely looks like it.

"Sorry, you're gonna halfta wait," Jesse said.

"Me, wait?" Jaden asked. "If you won't summon it, then I'll force it out!"

For the remainder of the duel, Jaden's LP decreased rapidly, but managed to turn things around when Elemental Hero Air Neos destroyed Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth; Jesse wanted to special summoned Rainbow Dragon...but took it back, saying that he was bluffing and he ended up losing the rest of his Life Points. Viper returned to congratulate them on their exhibition match and then proceeded to explain the students about the mandatory Survival Duels and the Bio-Bands to determine the students' fate of staying or leaving Duel Academy. Afterwards, Chancellor Sheppard tried to explain how Michael and Ray don't need to wear them since they're the best students in their class, but Viper wasn't having it because mandatory means mandatory.

"All students have to participate," Viper said. He proceeded to grab Ray's wrist to put a Bio-Band on her. "No exceptions."

Suddenly, Ray began to have a panic attack, preventing Viper from putting the Bio-Band on her as she slapped it away. After witnessing Jaden and Jesse's exhibition match, she feared the risk of getting shocked like last time. This was why Sheppard didn't want her and Michael to participate; they may be the best students, but she was easily prone to getting worried and scared if she spotted something extremely concerning.

"I apologize for Ms. Akaba's behavior," Sheppard said. "She had an unpleasant experience with mental abuse last semester, so she gets panic attacks whenever she sees electro-shock devices."

"Very well," Viper said, releasing his grip on Ray. "But what about Mr. Lindonson?"

Michael immediately got tense after listening to that question. If he does wind up wearing the Bio-Band, there was a certain chance Ray may freak out if she sees it…unless he doesn't duel a lot. He realized how there is a fishy scheme unfolding and these Survival Duels are a mere disguise in order to fulfill it.

"I'm alright," Michael said, holding out his left wrist. "I'll take part in these Survival Duels."

"Are you sure?" Ray asked.

"Trust me," Michael reassured, looking at her deep in the eyes.

Ray could tell from his face that he had a reason for accepting to take part. Nodding her head in assimilation, she stepped out of Viper's way so he can attach the Bio-Band on Michael's wrist.

"You made the right choice, Mr. Lindonson," Viper said.

"I know," Michael replied. As long as he rarely dueled, he should be fine from any possible injuries.

Several days later, the Survival Duels have begun and it was taking a toll on a lot of Duelists. It began one night when Axel abducted Syrus, who was briefly promoted to Obelisk Blue, and challenged Jaden to a duel or else his friend will fall into the ocean. The Elemental Hero/Neos user won, but both Duelists felt weak and he fainted shortly after Jesse and Hassleberry rescued the Vehicroid user. By the next morning, Jaden was reenergized as he wolfed down his food like he always did, but Fonda advised him to not duel for a few weeks. Shortly thereafter, Hassleberry and Jim dueled each other because the electromagnetic energy waves affected the Ra Yellow student's dinosaur DNA, landing both of them in the nurse's office after Jim won.

Michael and Ray have heard what was happening to their friends, but they weren't the only ones losing energy. The students all over Duel Academy were getting drained so bad that they started acting delusional; at one point, Syrus mentioned that he was a wimpy sidekick with nothing important to move the plot along. The couple got suspicious about these Bio-Bands because they were making everyone think they were characters in a TV show. Their behavior was in a very similar manner to the comedic style of a British creator of a popular online abridged series.

At the same time, they also got invitations for a tournament Adrian was hosting in the Obelisk Blue dorm. Needless to say, the two weren't interested.

"Should we go?" Michael asked.

"I'm not sure," Ray admitted. "We're trying to stay undercover, so it might be a bit suspicious to attend the tournament and not participate."

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Michael asked.

"Well... What if we just hang out in my dorm?" Ray suggested.

"An Obelisk slumber party?" Michael asked. "For discussing dueling strategies?"

"Uh... Sure!" Ray answered, sounding a bit too cheerful with that outburst.

"Great," Michael answered. "We could use a break to take our minds off of these Survival Duels."

On the night the tournament took place, Ray and Michael hung out in her dorm room to discuss new strategies they can come up with and experiment through tabletop duels. He was right about them taking a break from Survival Duels… Maybe a little too right. His girlfriend seemed to be showing subtle hints of a change in behavior as they dueled.

"Uh... Ray?" Michael asked, noticing his girlfriend was staring at his chest. "My eyes are up here."

"What?" Ray asked. It sounded like she was snapping out of a trance. "Sorry. I use Hope Dragon Flower's special ability to special summon Arcana Force VI - The Lovers-"

"That's Hope Dragon Wind," Michael corrected.

Ray looked down on her side of the field to see her Wind dragon, not Flower. She lifted her head up and apologized, with a light hint of blush forming on her cheeks. Michael noticed she was a bit off tonight, but he wasn't sure why.

"Are you alright?" Michael asked.

"I'm not sure," Ray admitted. "But you sure have grown over the past four years."

"You too," Michael agreed. "You survived electro-shock abuse and managed to recover from that. I'm amazed on how well you recovered."

"That's not why I meant..." Ray shyly admitted.

It was true that the two have grown during their time at Duel Academy. When they first attended there, they were young teens who were childhood friends and had no idea the amazing surprises and changes Ray would bring with her talent for sewing and natural fashion instinct. Now they are legal adults who were the best students—along with Jaden, who was Duel Academy's best Duelist—and have been dating for a couple years. However, it wasn't their personalities that have matured; their bodies have as well, which the Hope Dragon user was referring to.

Michael blushed, realizing what Ray was talking about. "Are you saying you want a break from dueling?" He asked, taking note on Ray's now-longer hair.

"Of course," Ray answered. "I am getting a bit tired from all these practices."

Michael was preparing to organize his cards and put them away when he heard a noise from across the table. He lifted his head up see where it came from, only to be surprised by a kiss from Ray, who had reached to his side to lock lips with him. As he dropped his cards, he almost instantaneously gave in as his left hand caressed her right cheek, with her arms wrapped around his body and her hands firmly grasping onto his shoulders.

Not too long after that, Viper was in the old research Super Animal Learning—or SAL—lab where Wheeler the Monkey was being experimented on a couple years ago. Inside it contained the equipment used for the Survival Duels and a canister filled with some kind of liquid containing orange fluid-like blobs and a mysterious eye.

Suddenly, a large blob had materialized in the canister. "What's this?" Viper asked aloud.

He noticed the large blob reflecting off of one of the computer screens that was monitoring various locations of Duel Academy and the jungle underneath the lab. He got off from his seat and walked over to the canister to see the shut eye surrounded by the orange substance, with one of them more voluminous than the rest. He assumed that this must be from all the students that attended Adrian's tournament.

"Well done, Mr. Gecko," Viper said. "I thought the procedure would take the whole school year to complete, but your plan seems to have sped up the process."

The next morning, a sleeping Ray slowly woke up to hear faint sounds within close proximity. Her eyes gradually opened wider to help wake her up and she could make out that she was in bed with someone as heard by the barely audible snoring and seen by the blanket covering the two of them; however, she felt the fabric covering her entire body from the neck down and his body from the torso down with their bare skins. She asked herself if they did what she thought they did last night, with a voice stating the usual four-word sentence to basically answer her internal question.

"Leo will never know..." Michael muttered in his sleep.

Ray's eyes then shot wide opened as she quickly remembered what happened last night. What started as innocent kissing gradually became more passionate. He untied her pigtails as their uniforms were discarded and the next thing she knew, they were in her bed having sex. Although she enjoyed having her first time doing it with him, she immediately got worried about what may happen as a result of them losing their virginities; will she end up getting pregnant?

"Michael?" Ray asked softly, stroking his hair in hopes of him waking up. "What are we going to do now?"

No response except the sound of him still snoring. Did the two having sex tucker him out that much? Ray smiled, admiring how cute her boyfriend looks in a relaxed state.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. "Ray? Are you up yet?"

Ray bolted upwards, covering her nude body with the blanket because she recognized that voice anywhere: it was Alexis. Was there something important that she wanted to tell her?

"Don't come in yet!" Ray exclaimed, feeling incredibly nervous. "I'm not dressed yet!"

She jumped off the bed to grab her clothes off the floor and ran into the bathroom to get dressed. Alexis politely waited outside of the dorm room to give her privacy, but she couldn't help but notice how worrisome her classmate sounded. Regardless, she needed to tell her about what happened to most of the Ra Yellow and Obelisk Blue students after Adrian's tournament.

Ultimately Ray was able to get dressed and she left her dorm as she tied her hair up in pigtails. "Sorry about that," she said, sounding a bit tired. "So what did you want to tell me?"

"It's about Adrian's tournament," Alexis explained. "By the time it was done, nearly everyone participating in it passed out."

The news shocked Ray; at least what happened last night was actually a good thing since she and Michael didn't participate. She followed Alexis inside Duel Academy and into the gym, where they met up with Jaden, Jesse, Syrus, Hassleberry, and Jim. They looked down onto the gymnasium floor to see the unconscious students scattered everywhere in sleeping bags and blankets; the number of casualties was so high that bot all of them could fit into the infirmary.

"Ray!" Jaden exclaimed, rushing over to the Obelisk Blue junior fashion designer. "You're alright!"

"Of course I'm alright," Ray said. "I ended up having a small sleepover with Michael last night."

"A sleepover, huh?" Jaden asked. "Sounds pretty sweet."

"Yeah..." Ray agreed, blushing slightly. "It was."

After that exchange, Ray and the others stared at the students who fell victim to the Bio-Bands, which frustrated Jaden because of the recent events going on at the school. They all decided to talk to Crowler and Bonaparte—who had joined the Academy's faculty last year—about where Sheppard is, only for them to find out he was away and left the two in charge until he gets back. Without any idea on how to stop Viper, Jaden and Jesse explained how everyone was losing energy and how the Bio-Bands are irremovable unless if it resorted to a brutal last resort.

At that moment, Syrus noticed Ray's bare wrists. "Hold on," he said. "Ray, why aren't you wearing a Bio-Band?"

"Because I thought they were electro-shock devices," Ray explained. "Ever since that incident with the Society of Light, I've been getting panic attacks whenever I see those devices." Her hand slowly moved to her neck. "I was afraid of falling victim to another round of abuse."

She never forgot her first panic attack during the Genex Tournament back when Syrus lost to Zane. Seeing the two getting shocked whenever they lose Life Points was one thing, but seeing her Ra Yellow classmate pass out from electrocution took the cake as it fully triggered her.

"Panic attacks?" Jesse asked.

"It's kinda a long story," Jaden replied. "Right now, we need to focus on our current problem."

They then went to the Obelisk Blue dorm to see if Adrian was awake; after his victory against Chazz, they collapsed from energy loss and were now recovering in the dorm room and the nurse's office respectively. Fortunately, despite being bedridden, he was conscious enough to tell them the location of Viper's headquarters. He informed them the Venom user was residing in the SAL lab in the forest, with Syrus commenting that their encounter with Wheeler was "a weird episode". They then left the dorm to make their way to the forest, unaware that this was a distraction for Adrian to infiltrate the old lab on his own.

"So Ray, where's Michael?" Jaden asked.

"He's still sleeping," Ray answered.

Her companions started to grow concerned about Michael still sleeping; he's usually not the kind of person to oversleep like that. "You sure he's just sleepin'?" Hassleberry asked.

"I'm sure," Ray replied. "He was perfectly alright last night after..." She blushed.

The gang wondered what Ray was going to say until Alexis remembered stopping by her dorm room earlier. She asked her if she was okay because she sounded extremely fidgety through the door. "I think I saw someone in your bed," the Ritual user recalled. "Was that Michael?"

Ray wasn't sure how to respond, but her blushing face said everything her friends needed to know. "You slept with him, didn't ya?" Jesse asked.

"Okay, yes, I did!" Ray admitted. "But it's not a big deal!"

"It kind of is," Syrus said. "What if that's why Michael is sleeping heavily?"

He does have a point; sleeping with someone and not fully waking up due to the heavy slumber was kinda important to recognize. Ray remembered that Michael did speak in his sleep and concluded that their first time must have exhausted him.

"The poor guy must have been wiped out," Ray said. "Although it was pretty exhausting for me too. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was a flash of light from Michael's wrist-"

Her sentence was cut short as her face changed into an expression that says, "Oh, crap". The other six students saw her shocked realization at what she didn't finish stating. Just as Jim was about to snap her back into reality, she blurted out how the Bio-Bands can apparently drain people's energy through sex and not only duels.

"But Michael wasn't like the other students from the tournament," Ray recalled. "He never passed out. He's just sleeping."

"Are you sure?" Alexis asked.

"I heard his light snores," Ray answered. "I know he's sleeping."

She has known Michael for over ten years and can tell he was sleeping to regain his strength after last night based on what she determined. They all settled on checking up on him once they've dealt with Viper.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the SAL lab and entered through an automatic door which was opened by Viper, who was setting up a trap for them. After searching the interior of the building, they came across an elevator that leads to the basement. Jim's device detected high levels of electromagnetic waves, meaning they were on the right track. With Jesse taking charge as leader and reminding everyone to stay alert in case of traps, they gathered into the elevator and descended down into the basement, which looked more like a jungle than an actual basement.

"What happened to Chazz last night?" Ray asked.

"He dueled Adrian last night," Jaden answered. "Apparently he got suspicious about his motives."

"Well I hope Chazz is alright," Ray said, sounding a bit sad.

"You still like that guy?" Hassleberry asked.

"He was originally in Obelisk Blue," Ray said. "I know he's now in Slifer Red, but I believe us Obelisk students have to stick together and look out for each other."

This was a belief she stood with throughout her time at Duel Academy, as seen when she helped Damon and Belowski during the Genex Tournament. After all, those who were ranked in Obelisk Blue will always be an Obelisk student in her eyes, regardless if they end up in different dorm or not.

Shortly after the elevator reached the floor of the basement, the doors opened to let everyone out and into the artificial jungle. They split up with Jim, Alexis, and Hassleberry heading in one direction and Ray tagging along with Jaden, Jesse, and Syrus in the opposite direction. As quickly as they begun the search, the lights went out, which was the result of Adrian successfully infiltrating the old lab and hacking the control panel to kill the power in the basement and all but one of Viper's cameras.

The search ended up with a rocky start for both groups; Hassleberry and Alexis ran for cover while Jim and his pet crocodile Shirley were fighting against a tiger that was about to attack them. As the two students ran, Alexis fell through a trap door. At the same time, Jaden got separated from Jesse, Syrus, and Ray in the heat of the moment, only for him to be lured into a trap set by Mr. Stein, a professor in Duel Academy. He took the Slifer Red student to the locked door and challenged him to a duel; if Jaden won, the door will unlock and open, but he'll also find out soon enough that it comes with a terrible price.

Throughout the duel, Mr. Stein used a Scab Counter archetype to take control of Jaden's Elemental Heroes and Neo-Spacians through the effect of Scab Scar Knight and kept bringing back Scab Blast from the Graveyard to inflict more damage to him. The professor also blamed him for having the students sleep in class and not showing up at all because he was the Academy's best Duelist, without showing any care if the student didn't mean to do it. He believed everyone was following their role model's footsteps, with Alexis being the last student to stop attending class; however, Michael and Ray always showed up on time to his classes and paid attention to the lessons, making them his favorite students. Speaking of Ray, she returned to the elevator with Syrus and Jesse, who informed the two that the killed power must have also deactivated it as well. They then heard Jaden's voice from across the basement and ran to where it came from.

As Mr. Stein continued to accuse Jaden, a hologram of Viper interrupted them to show Alexis trapped in a room that was filling up with water. The more Life Points Stein loses, the faster the water fills up until she drowns when his LP reach 0, disturbing the two until they were shown footage of why Alexis stopped going to class. She told Jasmine and Mindy that she didn't like the lessons being taught, prompting the teacher to continue the duel. At one point, he activated his face-down Scab Scream to destroy Elemental Hero Neos and tributed Scab Scarknight to special summon Scar Knight, his most beloved card and Spirit Partner. During his time as a pro Duelist, he would use its effect to win multiple duels; consequently, it became more battle-damaged as his views on life altered. His exhaustion from getting a teaching degree didn't help, especially during his unfinished duel against The D, causing him to retire and become a teacher at Duel Academy.

Meanwhile, with Hassleberry and Jim, they haven't had any luck in finding Alexis, but Shirley found the trap door in which she fell into. Although they weren't able to open it, she led them to the waterfall that was most likely filling up the room below. She and her owner swam underwater to find said room and demolished the wall to rescue the Obelisk Blue student. Jaden saw this and can now finish the duel without any worries. He ended his turn by summoning Chrysalis Larva and playing a face-down. Stein used Scar Knight's effect to destroy itself and all monsters on both sides of the field to result in a draw, but the face-down Cocoon Veil protected his opponent from any damage by tributing Larva, causing him to lose. He saw Scar Knight fall onto the bridge and picked it up, but the Bio-Band drained his energy and he fell into the abyss. Jaden tried to rescue him, but fell unconscious as his Bio-Band sucked his energy out as well to feed the devilish eye.

[archiveofolives]

Ring of Keys and Other Stories VI

A/N/SUMMARY fun fact: i finished the first draft of soulmate/soulbond in a day. which should tell you that i feel very nice about this fic and it’s my favorite bc of that. set in yavin 4 between eadu and scarif in the canon timeline. inspiration also comes from one of my most favorite films and love stories of all the love eterne (whose influence is also in the last fic if you know where to look)

RATING/WARNINGS pg or smth idk/n/a

WORD COUNT 3,484

AO3 here

—

The hangar bay was empty. There were no technicians, no rebels, no ragtag crew standing around, screaming and shouting at each other near the cargo shuttle they’d commandeered from Eadu. After the long journey from Jedha, after the life and death situations they’d put themselves through, there being no other path to take, the silence and the emptiness were suddenly so jarring. That was the point that Baze realized that an empty hangar bay with an empty cargo ship with no soul to speak of was the picture definition of depressing.

How apt that he should choose this point in his life to philosophize when he’d pretty much lost what was equivalent to everything. His past, his home. About the only reasons why he was still standing on his own two feet were Chirrut Imwe and the rebel crew they were suddenly a part of. So did that make those idiots his friends?

Baze chuckled suddenly, but they weren’t as bad as they looked; the captain turned out to be competent, his droid the same, the girl managed to earn his respect and even the pilot hid a little fire in himself. People like that, he could learn to appreciate.

Besides, Chirrut seemed to like this dysfunctional group. People Chirrut liked, Baze could learn to like, as well. Where was Chirrut, anyway? Alliance Intelligence—or whoever it was who debriefed them—couldn’t be all that interested in the life of a blind man, could they? Unless they’d made the mistake of asking Chirrut about the Force.

The thought almost made Baze want to laugh if he just didn’t feel so stupid doing it alone where no one else could hear. He decided to wait for Chirrut outside in the hangar bay, exploring its high walls, the panels and screens, and the toys—parts, really, and tools and equipment—lying around, out in the open where they could kill a person, safety warnings be damned. When he’d run out of pipes and plates to knock his fist on, he decided to move onto the open cargo shuttle and tour himself. He was familiar with its interior of course from the days he was away from Jedha. The layout and terminals were all pretty much standard issue (he realized then that the Empire, for all its invasiveness, didn’t quite bother personalizing all their possessions) that he didn’t need more than 10 minutes to reacquaint himself to the ship.

He stepped out. Still no Chirrut. Which volume of the journals was he at now? A deep sigh escaped Baze as he wandered over to a heavy turbine on its side that must be about his height, propped atop two ridged transformers that must be big enough to contain a child each. He sat down on one of them where he could best keep an eye on the entrance to the bay. Folded himself forward to get comfortable, praying hands finding his nose and his mouth.

Before he could stop himself, he closed his eyes and started to breathe deeply. In spite of his divorce with the faith, meditation was still a large part of his life. It was a difficult habit to break, having been a part of his daily routine in the days of the Temple, and even as a skeptic, he could find some nugget of peace with himself in it. His red armor wrapped around his collar made it a little difficult to focus, but it could be managed.

Could be forgotten with the rest of the gray hangar, the echoes of footsteps, of distant commands, the fragrance of leaves, of the strange forests that surrounded them, that seemed inescapable. But there he was, floating in the void of his own emptiness, away from the world and alone…

He heard him first before he saw him, as always—like a drop of water that sent a ripple all across his senses and roused him from his deep trance. Baze felt like a statue coming to life after a long century of slumber. His eyes opened to the sound of his steps and the tip of his staff—and true enough, when he turned, he was there, smiling as he would, a female pilot at his side, all but ready to lead this blind man by the hand. Little wonder then that Chirrut should look quite happy and amused. He felt the familiar tugs of his own smile knocking on his cheeks but self-consciousness squashed that like a bug. The flush of relief was an entirely different species, though, and he permitted himself that much.

He folded his arms on his lap while he watched his friend’s progress. The woman caught sight of him, then.

“Oh your friend’s here,” she announced. She was young, idealistic by the tone of her voice.

“I know,” Chirrut assured her. Then with a theatrical whisper that was meant to be carried out to the audience, he leaned to the pilot and explained, “I can smell him from here.”

“I heard that!” Baze snapped.

The pilot looked like she was caught between laughing and blushing but she powered through. “Can you find your way from here? He’s just straight ahead.” She even pointed to Baze on the occasion that the blind man could see her.

“I can do straight ahead,” Chirrut assured her pleasantly. “Thank you, Shara.”

She waved to the sightless man and then to Baze who lifted his brow. While she hurried back the way they came, Chirrut started forward with his uneti staff held away at an angle, one end at the ground. Snakes of cables and discarded canisters and valves littered his path but he kicked away those he could and hopped over those he couldn’t. Baze watched with no expression.

Once Chirrut arrived, he stretched out a leg to mark his finish line. The younger man didn’t stop walking until it hit his tummy. A hand wrapped itself around his ankle on instinct lest he overbalanced. Chirrut’s fat cheeks restrained a laughter from within.

“You want to sit? What took you so long?” Baze asked with a frown, shifting aside while Chirrut tested the side of the transformer with one foot, and then the turbine’s frame next to it.

With hardly a breath of warning, he flew in two kicks, turned in the air and landed quite impressively on his ass. “I got lost along the way,” Chirrut answered cheerfully, staff meeting the ground with a sound tap. “It’s a big place and I took the wrong turn.”

“Mhm.”

“Did you see the giant water fountain in the middle of this base? It’s so huge, it’s big enough to fit a full-grown Hutt!”

“I’m sure.”

Chirrut clicked his tongue and frowned. “You’re no fun.”  

Well, Baze was also sure of that.

He clipped Chirrut’s ear between his fingers and yanked it down. Chirrut yelped, catching his ear before it fell off. He started laughing again.

Baze shook his head, smiling slightly at the blind man. “What sort of questions did they ask you?”

“I think they were mostly concerned about whether or not I was a Jedi,” Chirrut said. He frowned after, tilting his head to one side, brows knotted in deep conversation. “Now I wonder if I should have just said yes. I think they were looking to hire me. That would have made a good income.”

“What use is a good income if you’re going to be dead before you spend it?” Baze asked, one brow up again.

Chirrut turned to return to him the same expression. “I guess you haven’t figured that out yet, have you?” Baze responded by jabbing the side of his head with a strong finger. Chirrut grinned impishly. He knew he got him there. “Well, what did they ask you?”

“They were interested about my cannons.”

“Were they looking to hire you for that?”

Baze frowned, the corners of his lips pulled low. He shrugged and said, “Who knows?”

“Well, it’s definitely not for your winning personality.”

Definitely not. Baze smirked and nudged the man beside him. “You know I’m expensive.”

“Sounds just like the thing a jobless man would say.”

This time he snickered with his cheeky partner. When he shoved him sideways next, it was with the fullest preparation of meeting Chirrut’s blocking forearm, which felt not unlike slamming into a wall, even as Chirrut was shaking with laughter. It felt good to be talking like this again—as if the entire galaxy wasn’t about to come down on them, as if they hadn’t been quite literally chased out of their own home. A home they no longer had.

It hit him then that this was the second time they’d lost a home. He couldn’t say which was worse, though. The first time had been harder, but this time, there was nothing and nowhere they could go back to. No street, no rubble, not even a piece of carpet on which to sleep.

He didn’t even know what was going to happen to them from here on out. A leaf in a storm would probably be a good analogy to their present situation. They’d survived Saw’s rebels, they’d survived the Death Star—one of the few who could say that—and they’d survived the Empire and the Alliance on Eadu. Now they were stuck here in Yavin 4 for no other reason than that they were dragged along. They had no choice. It was run or die, sink or swim.

Baze wasn’t one to panic—that had always been one of his greatest strengths even when the galaxy was already giving him every reason to tear his hair off, screaming. But he wasn’t young anymore and he wasn’t getting any younger either. This life of constantly fighting for food, shelter, survival, day in and day out…it wasn’t meant to go on forever. Just when he thought he’d finally figured it out for Chirrut and himself, here comes a death ray destroying everything they’d built. And then they were back to square one again.

He heaved out a great sigh, staring into nothingness. “How did we get here?” he asked, wearily.

He wasn’t really expecting any answer, but apparently questions were part of Chirrut’s expertise. Bless the man really for still finding reason to smile in spite of their circumstances. Head tilted a little towards his partner, he said, “It’s the consequence of being alive.”

That was true, and Baze was glad for it. Being alive meant more days of worrying and fighting but it was far better than being dead and non-existent. In fact, death and non-existence would be far worse. Baze could never do that to Chirrut—leave him alone again to fend for himself in this vast galaxy, just because this time he’d been too slow, too weak, too stupid. Just because he’d failed. Jedha had already given him too many names to pray for, sagging him under their weight. He’d heard him muttering them even in his sleep, on the flight to Eadu from the ruins of Jedha. That was enough.

“What do you think happens now?” Baze asked.

Chirrut shrugged. “Who knows? No one can tell the will of the Force, we can only follow it. The Force led us to the Holy Quarter to rescue Jyn. It brought us to Eadu for the same reason. Now we’re here.”

“So you think we’re all here just to,” Baze was the one who shrugged this time, “protect Jyn?” He nodded to the entrance to the hangar. “She looks like she gets into too much trouble for her own good, but not someone who needs a sitter. Much less two.” Besides, he was already looking after one fool who liked to fling himself headlong into battle. He wasn’t sure he needed another.

“I think we’re here for another reason,” Chirrut said, furrowing his brows, looking like he was inspecting his dangling feet. “The Force brought us to these people for a reason.”

“You saying the Force wants us to join the Alliance?” Baze’s brows flew.

“Not the Alliance,” Chirrut explained quietly. “But the rebellion.”

His meaning was plain to Baze, but the man still found enough reason to pretend that it wasn’t. In all the time they were running and fighting, he never felt that cold hand of dread wrapping itself around his heart. Funny that it should come now, when they were supposed to be safe among friends. Besides, wasn’t this what he’d been dreaming of in the past? A chance to finally bring revenge to the Empire’s doorstep.

“You think…Jyn is going to keep fighting? No matter what the council says?”

Chirrut raised his eyes to look blindly ahead of him. “I know she will.” He had seen through her heart of Kyber.

Well, that was it, wasn’t it? The truth as plain as day. Whatever it entailed, he didn’t know—but Baze knew for sure that he could finally breathe in relief. The uncertainty had lifted, and the inevitable has come. Now he knew what they were going to do. And what he was going to do.

Whatever gave him the idea, he couldn’t say. Probably some childhood tale from all those old holocrons, during the days they were still learning verses. But whatever it was, it made him glad that he kept a piece of blade in one of his many pockets, and that they’d gotten into the habit of salvaging whatever could be reused and repurposed while they still had the chance.

Baze reached back to his wavy, oily locks and carefully snipped off a finger’s width. The crisp sound drew Chirrut’s attention towards him, like a bird turning so suddenly. “What’s that?” he asked, curious.

“None of your business yet,” Baze muttered, looking for something to pin his hair in.

Chirrut nudged him with a toothy grin. “You’re my business.”

Baze eyed him incredulously. “Are you trying to look cute?” he asked. “Now’s an inappropriate time!”

“I wasn’t saying anything like that,” Chirrut said, sulking like a boy and doing well at it. He was always so good at impressions. He made a bed for his chin with his two hands on his staff and pouted at an unseen object.

Baze snorted, shaking his head and smiling slightly. Eventually, he managed to produce a synthetic red cord from one of his other pockets which he tied around one end of his lock of hair, making it easier to knot the rest in a nice and tight braid. Chirrut started humming a song soon after, tapping the heels of his shoes to the transformer in different configurations to provide the beat to his rhythm. Baze always thought that he had a good singing voice, that he could carry a tune.

He was in the middle of a second repeat of the song when Baze finally jumped off to his feet and told him, “Give me your hand.”

“In marriage?” Chirrut asked, jesting. Excitement filled his smile at the opening Baze had walked right into. He sighed, but that only caused Chirrut to grin wider. Baze couldn’t say if the blind fool would ever get tired of these jokes. He didn’t think he ought to, of course. “We’ve been through this a number of times, Baze.”

“We’ve been through this a number of times!” Baze echoed him to agree although their contexts were definitely different from each other. Chirrut held out his left hand anyway, the one without the impeller gauntlet, and Baze draped the length of his braided lock over the back of his wrist. He made a few measurements and a few quick adjustments with the cord and the end knot.

It didn’t take him long to finish the bracelet after, wrapped loosely around Chirrut’s pulse. It was his hair woven and stitched with the cord, locked with a complicated knot he’d learned from the streets. “There,” Baze said, wiping his hands on his suit and putting away the blade and the little that was left of the cord. “Now you can look.”

Look, of course, was a subjective command here. Chirrut’s idea of looking was running his finger down the plaited locks and testing its width. His brows met in intrigue. “This is…” He brought the bracelet to his nose and sniffed the familiar smell. “Your hair!”

“Mhm.”

“This means ‘til death do us part.” The gravity of which was not lost on Chirrut, who stared perfectly straight at Baze in surprise, as if his milky blue eyes had been suddenly cured.

Baze gave him a small smile. “It seems that you know what’s going to happen now, and I think I do, too—but I’m not the one who’s attuned to the Force here.”

“Baze…”

Baze scratched his head briefly, feeling the part where he’d taken his hair. “The point is,” he continued, “and I know this is a redundant symbol, but whatever happens now, what’s important to me is that you’ll always have a part of me with you.” He slid his hands onto Chirrut’s palms and let the man hold him.

Looking at his blind eyes, he said, “I just can’t bear the thought of you alone without me.”

He always loved the kind of smile that Chirrut put on every time he bared his soul and opened up his weakness. It was at once shy, at once comforting, but the entirety of it was drawn by a deity of love. “Stop being silly,” he chided him softly. “When you left, you came back—because there’s no world that can exist without you beside me. The Force brought us together. And what the Force brought together, no creature, no worldly thing can separate.”

He raised a hand and laid it lightly on the side of Baze’s face, stroking his tired skin. Baze wanted to close his eyes and pour himself into the softness but he wanted to look at Chirrut’s face, too. “Where would I be without you? Nowhere. It’s a fallacy, Baze. It simply won’t work.” His smile stretched out wider, and Baze grinned back.

They kissed, Baze pulling his chin towards him, Chirrut’s breath shuddering under his mouth, eager to pour out the same love through his lips. It was mind blowing, an embarrassment towards them, how little they’d shared a kiss since they escaped Jedha. It was no wonder they were constantly so starved for each other whenever they were alone, no matter how long they spent together or how hard they kissed. Damn the Death Star if it thought it could get in the way of all that was good to them. It may take away their home, their family and friends and past—but they would kill it first before they let it separate them permanently.

Baze pulled free with a wet smack and a heavy breath pouring out of his mouth. Chirrut was catching his own heart even as they connected their foreheads to each other.

“No matter what happens,” Baze growled, looking closely at his love, “I’ll never leave you. I promise.”

“You can’t!” Chirrut reminded him, laughing. They kissed again, hands on their cheeks, lips in perfect unity. They kissed sweetly with the bliss of a reunion after such a long parting. Nothing mattered in their little pocket of the galaxy. Not the heat, not the scent of fuel or of alien trees in the forests.

Not the hurrying footsteps and the excitable, “Mr. Malbus, Mr. Imwe!” Sadly, the shouting was an entirely different story altogether.

The end to such a perfect kiss came abruptly, flesh torn so rudely without the last negotiations for more. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know, I didn’t see!” the visitor cried.

It was a rebel at the entrance to the hangar bay, waving his hands to the Guardians while he averted his eyes, as well. Baze looked at him with immense disappointment while Chirrut sighed, head bowed low. “Y, you can forget I’m here,” he insisted stubbornly. “I, I was just looking for the captain—!”

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to knock?” Chirrut demanded sharply, using the voice of an angry parent. The rebel started to stammer again but that was only because he couldn’t hear Chirrut gasping for breath and see his cheeks aching from grinning. Baze groaned, ducking under a hand to hide his own mirth from the poor flustered man.

“I, I said I didn’t see it, okay? I didn’t see it!!” Which made Baze wonder what he thought he was seeing. Well, too late for that, Chirrut was already laughing uncontrollably. What a shame. And that had been a very good kiss. Probably the last they’d have in a while.

They’ll get another chance after all this is over. He swore that on all the stars above them.

“A, anyway!” The rebel persisted stubbornly, even though he was blushing like the lavas of Mustafar. “Where’s Captain Andor! They said he was looking for volunteers.”

[boyjadzia]

omg sara @shinelikeastarlight tagged me to do this super long tag game hlep

tagging: @void-for-president, @the-alexandrian-alchemist, @starboysisko, @magnmite, @yacobeanreign (of course only if y’all want)

last text sent: "cool [thumbs up emoji]”

list three favourite colours: ???? don’t do this to me

what time did u wake up at today: 11am, it’s reading period don’t judge me what were u doing last night at midnight: playing drunk rock band name something you can’t wait for: this godforsaken quarter to be over when was the last time u saw ur mother: over winter break/new year’s one thing u wish u could change abt ur life: the crippling depression/abandonment issues are getting kinda old, I’d like to feel like I have a stable community/family who love and support me whats getting on ur nerves rn: the discourse favourite tv shows: star trek (all of them but esp DS9), idk I’m sort of obsessed with yuri on ice at the moment, those two are the main ones tbh? first best friend: my girl India who doesn’t have a tumblr but we’ve been best friends since we met on the playground at age 5. our moms are also tight. listening to rn: nothing, the sound of my laptop fan straining to keep my computer from bursting into flame

3 fears: never having a group of people I feel I can call family, never being in love, cavities

4 turn ons: self-awareness/humility, being sensitive about & respectful of my dysphoria, trust/willingness to be vulnerable, being honest & vocal about what you like 4 turn offs: being boring, being insensitive/distant, not being conscientious about how you interact with my body (i.e. assuming you can just treat my body the same way you’d treat a woman’s body and that’s a-ok), heterosexuality of any kind sexual orientation: gay tbh senior year quote in my year book: oh god some generic hillary clinton quote about feminism I don’t even wanna remember it first thing i notice in a person: ?? what they look like? shoe size: 7M/9W (US) eye colour: hazel hair colour: brown favourite item of clothing: probably my leather jacket, close runners up are my high-waisted black jeans that look good with pretty much anything and my crop top that says “I got to second base at Jonah’s bar mitzvah, January 7th 1978″ what colour of underwear i’m wearing rn: blue/brown/white stripes favourite season: whichever one has like 60-70F weather, used to be summer but now that’s spring lol how much time i spent on designing my blog: not much I just picked a theme the reason i joined tumblr: this is pretty sad but... I wanted to make friends do i ever get “good morning” or “goodnight” texts: only if I’m like talking to someone right before going to bed when did i last hold hands: don’t remember how long does it take me to get ready in the morning: depends, anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour have i shaved my legs in the past 3 days: LMAO try the last 4 years where am i rn: on my couch do i like music loud or at a reasonable level: reasonable, loud noises are scary 3 things i love: my friends, dogs, idk earth? how i feel rn: I need to gtf to sleep lol something i rlly, rlly want: to feel like I don’t have to radically change my body to be attractive to the people I want to attract 3 things that upset me: feeling like I’m hurting or burdening other people, straight men trying to hit on me, the persistent feeling that being transmasc somehow makes me a bad person what i find attractive in other ppl: appreciating subjects other than your field of study, confidence, ambition, someone who’s accomplished interesting things in their life, being friendly, genuine & not condescending 3 habits i have: staying in bed all day on days when I don’t have to do anything, only eating part of my lunch during lunch time and eating the rest for dinner, carrying off ridiculous amounts of free food from events something i fantasize abt: feeling comfortable and secure in my attractiveness vis a vis how my body looks, and in my presence in gendered spaces something im talented at: singing, memorization, embarrassing myself the blog i give the most notes to: idk, probably sara tbh last person re-blogged sth from me: I haven’t checked my notifications in a while o_0 do  i smoke/drink: I drink with friends my favourite food: I’m a big fan of things with cheese in them. also guacamole. my favourite dessert: it really depends ugh I guess cake? what i did yesterday: had my last day of classes, went to work, went to an award ceremony/opening gala for an integrated DNA technologies sponsored exhibit at the field museum (it was so fancy I felt so grown up and fancy), went to kat’s birthday party number of kids i want: ???? number of siblings i have: none something thats constantly on my mind: trangst (trans angst)

last person i messaged on tumblr: teddy (void-for-president) can i drive: nope :/ what state or part of the world do i live in: Chicago, from Brooklyn am i in school: 3rd year undergrad do i get grossed out easily: not generally, but certain specific things will do it (ex. dead animals especially FISH) somewhere i would like to visit for a week: hm maybe go back and see Alaska again? check on that mountain biking trail I helped build in 10th grade i’ll love u if: make an effort to spend your free time with me/take the initiative in telling me that you value my being in your life last show i binge-watched: I binged legend of korra over winter break, probably that what words upset me the most: idk I guess people telling me I’m wrong for existing in the spaces that I occupy? what words make me feel best abt myself: when people tell me they value having me in their lives and that I make them feel good about themselves a wish that i’ve wished for repeatedly on 11:11: that’s not a thing that I do :/ who i would switch lives with for a day: idk maybe someone who’s already gone on T and sings just so I could get a sense of what the voice change is like for a singer? or like. a famous celebrity or something. my favourite ice cream: green tea I think? allergies: minor allergy to raw eggplant I think, every time I eat undercooked eggplant my mouth starts to feel like it’s swelling up, not like my throat is being blocked off but just my mouth starts to hurt quite noticeably sexiest person to come to mind immediately: alskdjfsldk this is really hard uhh uhhh ok see my first thought is like star trek characters but I can’t say that ok let’s go with john boyega he’s gorgeous and seems like a ray of sunshine my childhood career choice: biologist! one of my insecurities: that being transmasc nonbinary and still participating in some women’s spaces/not letting go of some aspects of womanhood makes me a bad person and specifically is harming transfeminine people how many blogs am i following: just over 100 I think how many tabs/different windows do i have open at this very moment: 2 windows, this is the only tab open in this window because my internet sucks and tumblr is a monster website, the other window has 13 tabs coke or pepsi: not super into either, I guess coke although my aunt used to work for pepsi so I should be loyal tea or coffee: tea movie or book: movie probably, I don’t actually read that much it’s embarrassing, although frankly I don’t really watch movies that much either a sense i would be willing to lose: none omg! I guess if I had to pick taste? since taste is mostly smell anyway quote i live by: I don’t really? type of accessory i wear the most: does the leather jacket count? otherwise none last awkward situation i found myself in: I kept trying to pet eva’s dog today but I just ended up scaring her what time is it rn: way too late

a song that made me cry: hallelujah by leonard cohen, not actually, just like made me v emotional (yes I’m thinking abt that yiddish cover) first song u ever sang at karaoke: are we talking like legit karaoke at a karaoke place or like hanging out in my best friend from middle school’s basement singing along with her CD of karaoke tracks for the hottest hits of the mid-2000s bc I don’t remember the former but the latter was definitely sk8r boi

[ciathyzareposts]

The Black Gate Bonus: The Books of Britannia

One of many in-game books that make in-jokes and build lore.

         I’d have to look through my notes to see what game first offered full-text books–not as plot devices but just as random background flavor and world-building. It might have been Ultima VI. But even if they appeared in earlier games, Ultima VII is the first game to treat them this extensively, with at least a couple of dozen different titles found on desks, nightstands, and bookcases throughout the homes and workplaces of the Britannian people. The castle alone had more than 15 different books.

     Ultima VII admittedly doesn’t do as well with its books as many later titles. Many of them are goofy, or simply analogues of real-world titles, and not the world-building tomes that we find in, say, The Elder Scrolls series, the Infinity Engine games, or The Witcher series. Still, they’re fun and deserve some additional attention and analysis.

I thought I’d use this entry to organize that analysis, adding new books as I find them. I’m excluding some “plot” books that don’t have much text (like Morfin’s register of venom sales). I’ll add notes to future entries when this one has been updated. The books I’ve found so far are:   The Apothecary’s Desk Reference by Fetoau. A book that accurately describes which potions have which effects. Very useful.

The Art of the Field Dressing by Creston, with a forward by Lady Leigh. It has some advice about cutting cloth into strips to bandage wounds, something that actually works in the game. While Lady Leigh is later found in the game, I don’t believe Creston is.

The Bioparaphysics of the Healing Arts by Lady Leigh. The bible for in-game healers. I believe Lady Leigh will be found later in Serpent’s Hold.

The Book of the Fellowship by Batlin of Britain. The first page of the game manual–the one time it makes sense for a real-life book to appear in the game.

Chicken Raising by Daheness Gon. A relatively useless instruction manual for raising chickens and producing eggs. The anatomical advice seems accurate, but I’m not sure how it helps in-game. Found on the shelf of a farmhouse, which makes sense.

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang by Ian Fleming. The real-life 1964 book by the author better known for creating James Bond. Lead Ultima VII writer Raymond Benson later went on to become the official James Bond writer from 1997-2002.            

With a couple of syllabic substitutions, this could easily have been a James Bond title.

          Collected Plays by Raymundo. An anthology of plays by the guy who runs the theater in Britain. Play titles include Three on a Codpiece, The Trials of the Avatar, The Plagiarist, Clue, and Thumbs Down. “Raymundo” is the in-game avatar of lead writer Raymond Benson, and at least three of these plays are real plays written by Benson. Clue is a 1977 musical based on the board game–a full 8 years before the Tim Curry film. The Plagiarist and Thumbs Down are more obscure; I’m not sure when or if they were ever staged, but they were published as short stories by Amazon Shorts in 2006. Three on a Codpiece is described in-game as a performance art piece in which audience members “tear an undergarment into tiny pieces, after which they are placed in funeral urns and mixed with wheat paste . . . then the audience may glue the pieces anywhere on [the actor’s] body that they wish.” One Ultima site suggests this might be a reference to Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1965).

A Complete Guide to Britannian Minerals, Precious, and Semi-Precious Stones by B. Ledbetter. The book discusses some of Britannia’s natural resources, including veins of gold and lead. It is notable for a paragraph on blackrock, a “recently discovered” substance with little practical use, rumored to have a “profound effect” on magic. This will of course become a major part of the game’s plot. I don’t believe Ledbetter appears in-game. I thought it would be funny if it was the guy who runs the jewelry shop in Britain, but his name is Sean.

The Day It Didn’t Work by R. Allen G. A collection of essays about “overseeing a group of well-meaning misfits in a mechanical environment.” An obvious joke about Richard Allen Garriott and the staff at ORIGIN.                Everything an Avatar Should Know about Sex. This book is blank after the title page. Ho-ho-ho. Or maybe it’s not a joke and it’s foreshadowing the upcoming unicorn encounter.

            The Honorable Hound inn register. The guest list for this Trinsic inn has four recent names: Walter of Britain, Jaffe of Yew, Jaana, and Atans of Serpent’s Hold. Jaana is of course the Avatar’s companion going back to Ultima IV. I don’t believe the others are ever seen or heard from in the series.

How to Conquer the World in Three Easy Steps by Maximillian the Amazingly Mean. The ravings of a “megalomaniac cleric.” He plans to acquire VAS CORP (“Mass Kill”), which he thinks will make everyone fear him, and that not even Lord British himself is immune. I’m pretty sure that Lord British survives a VAS CORP (which is a real spell). Lord British doesn’t even die from VAS CORP IN BET MANI (“Armageddon”). Also, there are no “clerics” in this setting. As an aside, I wonder if employees of Vascorp Network Solutions know that to a portion of the public, their name means “Mass Death.”

Hubert’s Hair-Raising Adventure by Bill Peet. A real 1969 children’s book by a real author. It tells in rhyme how the proud lion Hubert had his mane scorched in a series of escalating misadventures. We learned about its presence in Britannia in Ultima VI, where Lord British spent every night reading it to Sherry the Mouse. I don’t know which idea is worse: that the adolescent Lord British was carrying the book while hiking through the English countryside, or that he later went back for it.              

It’s good that Lord British has priorities.

            Jesse’s Book of Performance Art by Jesse. A “controversial and eccentric Britannian actor” who has published a book of “scripts” for performance artists and argues that performance art is basically the same thing as acting. Jesse is an NPC in Britain who jokes about playing the Avatar and having only three lines: NAME, JOB, and BYE.

Key to the Black Gate. A cluebook to the game, found within the game (but without any of the actual text). Probably meant as a subtle in-game advertisement. Can you imagine needing a cluebook to solve this game?             

A crummy commercial?!

             Lord British: The Biography of Britannia’s Longtime Ruler by K. Bannos. The biography frankly acknowledges that Lord British is from another world. I wasn’t sure that was public knowledge until now. He entered Britannia through a moongate and became one of the rulers of the eight kingdoms of Sosaria. The people proclaimed them the king after he successfully dealt with Mondain, Minax, and Exodus. The book recounts his role in Ultima IV and Ultima V but ends just as the gargoyles become a threat in Ultima VI. Unfortunately, the text also re-affirms the idea that the Avatar is the same hero as the one who defeated Mondain, Minax, and Exodus–the dumbest retcon ORIGIN ever introduced.,           

Part of Lord British’s bio. A party of Fuzzies defeated Exodus and nobody can convince me otherwise.

              Mempto Rays: A Qualitative Study in Metaparaphilosophical Radiation by Mempto. Some rantings about Britannia always being bombarded by radiation “lethal to all non-living matter.” Probably meant as a send-up of pseudo-science in the modern world.

No One Leaves by R. Allen G. This sequel to The Day It Didn’t Work is a humorously-phrased paragraph about missed deadlines and forced overtime.

No Way to Jump by Desmonth. A treatise on tropes found in adventure stories. This is probably another in-joke about game development. After all, Ultima VII, for all its realism, does not allow the Avatar to jump. The issue continues into the present day and is found on TV Tropes as “The Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence.” Note that Ultima VIII does feature jumping and jumping puzzles.

On Acting by Laurence Olivier. Philosophical notes on acting “written by a noted thespian of a distant land.” The text notes that it was apparently “one of the many brought to Britannia by Lord British.” Why was the kid hiking with half a library on his back? Anyway, Sir Laurence did in fact publish a book of this title in 1986.

Play Directing: Analysis, Communication, and Style by Francis Hodge. A “respected textbook” written by “an eminent professor emeritus from a university in a distant land.” It is in fact a real-world book, published in 1971 by a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Probably someone that Raymond Benson or someone on the staff at ORIGIN (which was based in Austin) knew. Hodge passed away in 2008.

The Salty Dog inn register. This inn and tavern in Paws lists seven recent visitors: Addom of Yew, The Avatar, Jalal of Britain, Tim of Yew, Blorn of Vesper, Sir Dupre, and Penelope of Cove. Addom is a traveling merchant who later shows up in Moonglow and plays a role in that city’s plot. To my knowledge, Jalal and Penelope never appear in the game, although I think Jalal appears in another register. Tim of Yew is also an unknown (there was a bard named Tim in Ultima V but he’d be long-dead). Blorn is an anti-Gargish racist who we later find in Vesper. The idea that Dupre recently visited a tavern is entirely within his character. The most disturbing entry is that someone is wandering around passing himself off as “The Avatar.”

Thou Art What Thee Eats by Fordras. A nutritional analysis that pre-dates the Atkins crazy by suggesting meats and vegetables ahead of carbohydrates. The author recommends certain foods in order, and I think it roughly corresponds with how filling those foods are in-game. 

The Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. This is a real book by a real author, originally published in 1984. As best I can tell, it’s a real book about English grammar and syntax, but all the examples are vampire-themed and there are vampire illustrations. If there’s something deeper going on, someone’s going to have to tell me. I suppose if it actually gets people to read a book on grammar, there are no bad ideas.             

Go figure.

           Tren I, II, III, IV . . . XVII. An autobiography by “the obtuse mage” which “reveals Tren’s life in all of his incarnations as he continually strove to possess more powerful beings.” As far as I know, we never meet a mage called Tren, nor do we ever see an application of magic that involves possession of beings. 

Up Is Out by Goodefellow. A treatise on gravity and mass, including “falling apples.” It’s a clear analogue to Isaac Newton, but I otherwise don’t know if the title and author are a reference to anything. If Goodefellow is an actual Britannian trying to research physics, his life is going to be rough.

Vargaz’s Stories of Legend. This anonymous book is subtitled Reasons Why One Should Never Build Doors Facing North or West. The book has two stories, one about a plague of locusts foretold by Father Antos (Ultima II and IV) which destroyed houses with north-facing doors. The other tale suggests that monsters fleeing sunlight are more likely to flee east and thus invade houses with west-facing doors.

The Wayfarer’s Inn register. This tavern in Britain lists five recent guests: John-Paul of Serpent’s Hold, Horffe of Serpent’s Hold, Featherbank of Moonglow, Tarvis of Buccaneer’s Den, and Shamino. I later found Shamino shacking up with an actress, so he probably only had to stay for one night. I don’t believe Tarvis or Featherbank appear in the game, but John-Paul is in fact the ruler of Serpent’s Hold and Horffe is his Gargish captain of the guard.

What a Fool Believes by P. Nolan. The book only has a brief paragraph, describing it as “the story of a bard, a blonde, and a bottle . . . a classic tale of the war between the sexes.” There’s a song of this name, of course, recorded by the Doobie Brothers and Aretha Franklin among others, but it doesn’t mention a blonde or a bottle and has no association with anyone named “Nolan” (although, in a weird twist, the R&B artist Nolan Porter did cover the song, but not until 2011). 

The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum. The real book from the real world, except that in the real world, the author is L. Frank Baum. It is given a quick summary in-game. I assume it’s in Lord British’s castle because I stole it for him as part of an Ultima VI side-quest.

         source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-black-gate-bonus-the-books-of-britannia/

[terryblount]

ASUS ROG Strix G G531GU Gaming Laptop – Review

Tis the season of the gaming laptop refresh for 2019. And in Malaysia, the refreshes has now only begun.

ASUS ROG continues to shower the market with a big variety of gaming laptop ranges. Now, they are adding an even lower entry point to the ROG lineup with the ROG Strix G. Purely premium no more, as the ROG Strix G line offers brevity of variants for specs that most reasonable people would- and could- pay for.

After weeks of testing it out ahead of its launch in Malaysia, we can say with authority that the ROG Strix G is the new benchmark for great gaming laptops within a reasonable budget.

Note: The particular model we review here is the G531G-UAL078T for Malaysia- a distinction we need to make as features and specs vary for different regions.

Hardware

The whole ROG lineup this year has a new bold design. Partnering up with BMW Designworks, the laptop looks like a simple, muted grey rectangle from afar, but boy does it have details that only will be appreciated with your hands on it.

There is a series of flowing lines on top that is part sticks to the base of the laptop. Brushes of two asymmetric parallel lines make up the texture of the top of the body and its keyboard surface. Those brushes made it look more premium than its plastic shell suggest. For an even more subtle detail: the bottom piece has this subtle ROG motif, the pattern seen in the default wallpaper.

But more importantly: all the vents are functional. There’s two on the back, and one on the right side located the furthest possible from your hands.

There’s another point of asymmetry that serves both form and function. The oddly-shaped bottom bezel there has a purpose. Close the laptop lid and you can see your usual indicator lights like the AC plugging in and hard drive activity, through that gaping hole.

It’s a neat aesthetic, and from afar it’s not anything tryhard or overtly designed.

That said, ASUS didn’t just forget to put the flashiness here. Around the bottom front and sides of the laptop is a long strip of RGB lighting. Though it’s a one-zone RGB lighting.

Essentially, it’s RGB underglow. Yeah, like those neon lights you can put on cars in a Need For Speed game. You can disable it of course, but putting the laptop to sleep and have menacingly glow and blink in red tempting you to fire it up again is pretty cool.

The keyboard lacks a numpad, but the keys are big, sturdy and also a bit clicky. The touchpad is also surprisingly good too. The mushy-feeling touchpad buttons actually have a good click to it.

As for I/O ports, the ROG Strix G has you covered.

1 3.1 Type-C USB

1 3.1 USB

2 USB

LAN

HDMI

However, I have one gripe: there’s no USB port on the right side. I mean, having a port-less side looks sleek, but it also means if you don’t have a wireless mouse and right-handed then you will have a cable crossing over the laptop. Not a deal-breaker, but definitely annoying. It would be fine if there’s one regular USB port at the back alongside some of the I/O ports there.

There is no built-in webcam either.

Software

The ROG Armoury Crate is a one-stop app for all your unique software features on the ROG Strix G. Monitor CPU/GPU usage and temperature? Check. RGB customisation? Check. Adjust the app settings from an app on your mobile device? Ooh. Install other apps on top of the app? Huh. Install simple games through the app? Wait, it can do that too, for some reason.

Anyway, the main functionalities of the app should be enough for most of your needs. You can set up multiple profiles bounded to specific games, and if you have an Aura Sync-compatible device, then you can have those RGB patterns match up with the ones on the laptop too.

And if you don’t like the huge thump sound effect on boot up and the menacing red glow, you can turn those off too in the app. There’s a lot of options available here, and options are always a good thing.

The only drawback here is how incessant the McAfee Antivirus software pre-installed in the laptop can be, prompting you with huge boxes to subscribe to their services.

Gaming Performance

The ROG Strix G G531G-UAL078T is the highest spec of the Strix Gs with a 15.6″ display in Malaysia. And here are the main specifications you need to know:

CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX1660Ti 6GB GDDR6

RAM: 8GB

Storage: 512GB PCIE NVME M.2 SSD

Display: 15.6″ 1080p IPS panel, 120Hz refresh

Price: RM5,499

So how good is the GTX 1660Ti? A big bump of power compared to the previous gen’s GTX1060. Paired with the 9th-gen Intel Core i7, this baby can run AAA games at 1080p at Ultra for 30fps with ease. If you prefer 60fps, 1080p at High is also pretty much guaranteed.

Playing new games like The Division 2 should not be a problem, even in Ultra settings

The Division 2, a game that was released this April, looks so, so much better than what I saw on the PS4, and it runs so much smoother. All of the usual suspects in our regular games benchmark, ran well, hitting 60fps for the most part. The ones that don’t is mostly due to its RAM capacity.

Even without dedicated ray-tracing hardware, games can still look pretty good- a good thing to know if you cannot afford those laptops with RTX cards. The CPU is blistering fast, waiting for the AI to finish their turns in Civilization VI is so quick you don’t have time to check notifications on the phone.

And I have to say, this thing handles the heat quite well. The hotspot during intense gaming is anything above the keyboard and the ridges on the right. These are where the big copper heatsinks are letting off the heat, and anywhere else on the surface is fine for the touching.

Even in the highest load we could throw, the ROG Strix G sits around not more than 80 degrees Celcius. This is some great thermal management here.

Besides that, the 120Hz screen should be a big plus for esports goers and competitive players, Of course, the power under the hood is still not enough to push AAA games at the 120fps cap, but low-spec requirement games like Warframe or esports games like CS:GO, Overwatch and Dota, which requires lower specs (and usually played on low settings) should reap the benefits of the fast refresh rate. Faster movements, better reactions, better gameplay. As long as you get good, that is.

One bit of concern is the size of storage and RAM. The Strix G comes with a 512GB SSD. Thankfully, the SSD is blazing fast so running Windows 10 is a smooth operation. Loading up a one-million-pop city in Cities: Skylines takes less than a minute. Texture streaming or in-game loading issues rarely happened.

The downside is, 512GB is not enough. Our list of 11 benchmark games easily took up all the space, and if you’re going to use this other than just gaming, that space is too limited.

We don’t see any major bottleneck with the 8GB RAM from our time with the laptop. But there are dips in framerate when running a very populated park in Planet Coaster or a city in Cities: Skylines. So you better gear up for an upgrade when the next generation of consoles, and next-generation games, arrive, which will probably need double the RAM.

On the positive side, you can totally upgrade both storage and RAM. You will have to open the whole back panel, but there are extra screws and a SATA cable included if you need to plug a regular old HDD. And there’s another empty slot of RAM.

However, don’t expect a big battery life. Our usual Le Mans 24 Hour video stress test has the battery run flat at 3 and a half hours, but daily light usage can take you more than that.

Pricing And Value

Now, the pricing. The ROG Strix G G531GU is the second-highest variant available in Malaysia.

Having the GTX 1660Ti rather than an RTX card surely helps it priced under the RM6,000 mark- anything above that should be premium gaming laptops. So this one sits in the sweet spot of a reasonably enough pricing for most people.

But the GTX1660Ti instead of the one-step lower version GTX1650 puts it comfortably above the RM5,000 range. So this is in the upper tier of the mid-range gaming laptops price-wise. We haven’t tested a GTX1650 ourselves to see how big of a difference the two GPUs are. So we can’t tell if the price bump between the two is justified enough with the price hike.

On its own, the ROG Strix G G531GU is well worth the money just for the fact that it can still run new AAA games at relative ease. It’s a good bump of performance compared to the previous generation’s offering of the 8th-gen Intel Core i7 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, which occupies the same price point last year.

Again, we recommend investing in an extra stick of RAM.

Verdict

Equipped with the newest generation of the tried-and-true Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU, The ROG Strix G is a solid choice for any gamer out there. In particular, the ROG Strix G G531GU is definitely the new benchmark for mid-range gaming laptops capable of AAA gaming.

The sleek design and underbody RGB glow is a striking look without getting too gaudy, though there are a few compromises that stop it from being perfect. But that’s the nature of gaming laptops- there’s always a compromise.

But what ROG didn’t compromise is gaming performance. Want to play AAA games on a laptop, not spend over RM6,000, have it look pretty and run games all smooth? There’s plenty of good choices out there, and the ROG Strix G G531GU is one of the best.

Review unit provided by ASUS Malaysia

ASUS ROG Strix G G531GU Gaming Laptop – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[optometrist0]

Refraction Eye Exam

Contents

Tells your eye doctor exactly what

But they’re not medical-grade. you

Eye exam. refraction

Void where can

<img src='https://i.ytimg.com/vi/36uqf9GwUdw/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEXCPYBEIoBSFryq4qpAwkIARUAAIhCGAE=&rs=AOn4CLABF36wZoXCWp26hVlCXXj974blIQ' alt='eye exam. refraction‘ class=’alignleft’>Shop Costco.com for electronics, computers, furniture, outdoor living, appliances, jewelry and more. Enjoy low warehouse prices on name-brands products delivered to …

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Refraction assessment. To determine your prescription for glasses, your doctor does a refraction assessment. He or she asks you to look through a mask-like device …

A refraction test is given as part of a routine eye examination. This test tells your eye doctor what prescription you need in your glasses or contact lenses.

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An “online eye exam” on the other hand, consists of one test – refraction. …

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from http://bestoptometrists.net/refraction-eye-exam-5/

[real-life-pine-tree]

Leo Will Never Know: The Society’s Influence (3/?)

In an alternate timeline, Yugi indirectly prevented the events of Arc-V from ever happening. But how could this small change have an impact on a few selected people? A spin-off of the Arc-V Aftermath series. Based on the hilarious comic by @justanotherotakuandartist​. Co-written with @violetganache42​.

Michael and Ray spent the rest of their second year as a couple instead of best friends. Their first date was during Duel Monster Spirit Day, an annual festival held at Duel Academy with Obelisk Blue becoming a café, Ra Yellow having food stands, and Slifer Red holding a cosplay duel tournament where Jaden dueled against a girl who may or may not have been the real Dark Magician Girl. They also got glimpses of other events, such as Pierre the Gambler showing up to duel Alexis, the next two Shadow Riders showing up with the mysterious disappearance of Professor Lyman Banner, the rise of the Sacred Beasts, Chumley heading to Industrial Illusions for a program he got accepted to, and Zane’s graduation match against Jaden where he passed the title of Duel Academy’s best Duelist to the Slifer Red student.

By their third year, more students started attending, including Tyranno Hassleberry from Ra Yellow—who has dinosaur DNA after a rock slide damaged his left leg—and two more Obelisk Blue students: a mysterious teen named Aster Phoenix and his manager known as Sartorius, a fortune teller and leader of an organization called the Society of Light, which was going to be Duel Academy’s next threat.

As for Ray, things were going well for her. Her student uniform repair service had become a success thanks to Chazz telling the other students about the handiwork she did to his trench coat. So as more students asked for custom repairs and alterations, the young Akaba girl started to wonder if that’s what her future could be: a fashion designer.

However, despite her successful business, she couldn’t stop thinking about her issues with Kaiba. Although she was now living a pretty great life since the day she and her father got a new house, it was because of him that she ended up growing up with a crappy past throughout her childhood. If it wasn’t for him, Leo Corporation wouldn’t have gone bankrupt and she wouldn’t be forced into poverty. At the same time, she also wouldn’t have met her boyfriend and become an idol all over Duel Academy. Her conflicting dilemma was more confusing, frustrating, and overwhelming than just straight up conflicting and she needed to resolve this now. Recently, she has been hearing rumors of Sartorius’ ability to see into the future through Tarot card readings. She eventually decided to pay him a visit and figure out if he can do anything to help.

“So what do you say?” Ray asked the rumored prophet. “What’s my future?”

Sartorius drew a card from his deck and revealed it to Ray. It was the Trap card Reversal of Fate. “You seem unsure of your life,” he stated. “You were meant to become a famous Duelist thanks to the success of Action Duels.” He revealed the card Arcana Force I - The Magician. “But because of an unknown force, a chain of events occurred, resulting in a complete change in your destiny. However…” He drew a third card from his deck, but he did not reveal it. “There is darkness in your future, for this card is Arcana Force EX - The Dark Ruler.” He proceeded to shuffle the cards into his deck, unaware that he accidentally dropped the third card he drew.

A darkness in Ray’s future? But how is that possible? She explained that this unknown force was caused by a person named Seto Kaiba and he had rejected Leo’s idea of Action Duels because Solid Vision with mass could lead to world destruction; his introduction of Duel Disks to the public led Leo Corporation to bankruptcy and her and Leo broke. She was glad her life was rebuilt, but she couldn’t stop thinking about this darkness. If she wants to stop it, how long will it take before it overtakes her? How come she was completely unaware of it while Sartorius knew of it from the moment they met? Was seeing him even a good idea? If so, then what can he do to help?

“What can I do to stop this darkness?” Ray asked.

“By embracing the light,” Sartorius answered. “As long as you stay towards the light, darkness will never touch you.”

“Embrace…the light?” Ray asked.

Sartorius took out a second deck of cards. “It’s that simple,” he explained. “All you have to do is accept your new destiny.”

New destiny? Was he referring to the one she was forced to create the past decade? Ray’s internal questions then turned to assumptions. If that’s the case, then it shouldn’t be too challenging; after all, everyone knows that light is the opposite of darkness, and as long as I embrace it, I’m sure to have a bright future for myself and with Michael. Besides, his second deck must have a way to help me fulfill this simple task. As she stared into the second deck, her thoughts were cut off by the sound of Sartorius’ voice.

“Go ahead,” the prophet said. “Follow me to the path of the light. It’s the only way you can accept your new destiny.”

Ray willingly accepted his advice, becoming one of the first members of the Society of Light. She was given a brand new deck as a symbol of her acceptance to Sartorius’ words, but her original deck containing her Hope Dragons unknowingly dropped to the floor.

“That’s a good girl,” Sartorius said. “You have made the right choice.”

“Thank you, Sartorius,” Ray replied.

Shortly after that, the plan to expand the Society of Light was properly initiated as Chazz was defeated by Sartorius in a duel. His psychic ability and his powerful Arcana Force XII - The Hangman were what brought the dark-haired Slifer Red student to his demise and he became a new member after admitting he still wanted to defeat Jaden. He was given the task of converting students into Obelisk White, a ranking specifically made to denote oneself to the Society of Light, which included Alexis and Bastion, whom were both defeated in their duels against him.

Spending time in the organization was interesting for Ray; because she wasn’t fully converted like the others, she was given special accommodations. Instead of the standard female Obelisk White uniform, she wore a white dress with the upper half being a sparkly silver color, a pair of white heels, and a silver chocker necklace. Little does she know, they were actually cover-ups so that she doesn’t get suspicious of Sartorius hiding the truth from her.

“I don’t get it,” Chazz told Ray at one point. “You’re part of the Society of Light, so how come you don’t act like it?”

“I…don’t know,” Ray admitted, speaking in an emotionless tone. In all honesty, she hasn’t felt a lot of emotion ever since she joined the group.

Meanwhile, Michael hasn’t seen Ray for quite some time since he saw her starting her own uniform repair service, and he was rather concerned. The Genex Tournament was coming up soon and he wanted to ask her if she was participating in it. They also have a scheduled field trip to go to their hometown of Domino City. So many students from Obelisk Blue and Ra Yellow were “embracing the light,” Jaden finally returned with his NEOS card he won in a card-designing contest years ago and won in his rematch against Aster, and rumor has it that Zane has had a negative change of heart as he has become sadistic and disrespectful of his opponents. Basically, the whole ordeal that has been happening lately was a big deal for Michael.

“What are we gonna do, Odd-Eyes?” Michael asked his trusted partner. “I haven’t heard from Ray since that weird society showed up. There has to be some way we can figure out what’s going on.”

Most people wouldn’t see it, but Odd-Eyes saw something small within the distance. Michael asked what he saw and the teen headed towards where it was, only for them to find Ray’s Hope Dragon deck and an Arcana Force card. The Obelisk Blue student was frightened by what he saw; his own girlfriend joined the Society of Light? But why would she do something like this?

“Something’s not right,” Michael said as he picked up the cards. “Ray would never abandon her Hope Dragons. She-” Then he realized the lone Arcana Force card was actually Arcana Force VI - The Lovers. “What’s this?”

Michael’s gaze shifted towards Odd-Eyes Dragon, realizing his girlfriend may or may not have been tricked. “We need to find Ray,” he decided.

The onion-haired teen headed towards the now Obelisk White dorms to find Ray. With everyone in the Society of Light dressed alike, the only way he can find her is her hairstyle. He inadvertently stumbled across some of the organization’s members, much to his luck, who all want him to join. Fortunately, he was smart to know not to duel any of them because losing against them means he automatically becomes a member himself.

“Where is Ray Akaba?!” Michael demanded.

“I’ll tell you,” one of the members said. “But only if you defeat me in a du-”

But Michael grabbed the student by the jacket. “I don’t care!” he exclaimed. “Tell me where Ray Akaba is!”

Michael wasn’t usually the kind of person to resort to violent tactics like grabbing people’s clothes, but when Ray could be in danger, he has no choice but to do whatever it takes to make sure she is out of trouble and not injured.

“Very well,” the student said, causing Michael to release his grip. “I will take you to Lady Akaba.”

Lady Akaba? What is he even talking about? Michael obliged, still worried about Ray, as he followed the student up to the highest room of the dorms. As the door opened, he immediately noticed how elegant the room looked. There was a girl wearing a dress, but the Obelisk Blue student couldn’t who she was. What made her even unrecognizable was the makeup she was wearing; her skin appeared pale and her lips were a glossy bright red. Her hair was also tied in an elegant bun near her neck and held in place by a silver hair clip. Was this really Ray or was this a human-sized doll? Michael wasn’t sure why, but the choker around her neck made him more concerned.

“My god…” Michael said. “What have they done to you, Ray?!”

No response… At least, no verbal response. All she did was activate her Duel Disk while having an emotionless expression.

“Ray?” Michael asked, sounding concerned.

“It’s no use speaking to her,” the student explained. “Lady Akaba is the Society’s best member. She was never fully converted like the rest of us, so Sartorius gave her special privileges and groomed her into the perfect Duelist.”

Perfect? There’s clearly nothing perfect about what Ray has transformed into, thought Michael. She was imperfectly perfect the way she was and now this Sartorius person—no, monster—has molded her into something she isn’t. She’s too beautiful…too deadpan…

“Too much like a dog!” he yelled out as he too activates his Duel Disk. If he can’t bring Ray back through words, then a duel will surely snap her out of it.

Luckily Michael’s opening hand was perfect. “I’ll start things off with an old friend,” he said. “Say hello to Xiangsheng Magician!”

Xiangsheng Magician was a Level 4 LIGHT Spellcaster monster with 500 ATK and 1500 DEF; in another timeline, she would’ve been more than just a regular effect monster. Her effect allows her to reduce an monster’s ATK to 0 if the opposing monster targets her for an attack. She can even make her ATK equal to an allied monster’s current ATK, but it can be done once per turn.

“And since I can’t attack on the first turn, I’ll have to end it right here,” Michael said as he placed two cards face down.

Ray started her turn by drawing a card, all without saying a single word. She still stared at Michael with her expressionless eyes as she summoned a monster without looking at her hand and Duel Disk. As it appeared on the field, the Obelisk Blue student was baffled at what he saw; he hasn’t seen it before nor does he recognize the archetype she was using.

“What the…?” Michael asked.

“That’s White Fate Fairytear,” the student explained. “The White Fate fairies are Lady Akaba’s signature cards. Sartorius gave those cards to her because of how perfect she is.”

“But she’s not!” Michael insisted. “Ray Akaba is anything but perfect, but she refuses to let her flaws stop her! It’s like what she always says: Akabas never give up! Doesn’t that phrase ring a bell, Ray?! Remember all the times you said that to me?!”

Ray said nothing and his only answer was a blank emotion from her face. She then gestured her right arm forward and pointed at Xiangsheng Magician for White Fate Fairytear to attack her, initiating her Battle Phase. As the fairy prepared for her attack, Michael activated his monster’s effect.

“I activate Xiangsheng Magician’s special ability!” Michael declared. “Use your magical arrow to drain White Fate Fairytear of all its attack points!”

Using her archery skills, Xiangsheng fired her arrow at Fairytear and drained its ATK to 0. As a result, Ray took 500 damage and her Life Points slightly lowered to 3500. She ended her turn with two face-down cards as well, passing the turn to Michael, who was still trying to break his girlfriend free from her state. He drew a card and scanned the four cards in his hands. He knows Fairytear must have some kind of ability, so he had to strategize and play his moves carefully.

“This isn’t like you, Ray Akaba!” Michael said. “You’ve seen me use Xiangsheng Magician countless times, so you would know about her special ability! But I’m gonna snap you back to your senses by the time this duel is over!”

The two continued the duel and there was no luck on getting Ray out of her inexpressive state. Surprisingly, during the times she attacked, none of her monsters used effects, so the White Fates were normal monsters in actuality. Earlier, Michael came up with an idea to bring all four Hope Dragons onto the field. He doesn’t have Polymerization, but Astrograph Sorcerer does have an ability that can have his owner use him as a substitution for Polymerization. Hopefully, Fusion Summoning Hope Dragon Nature will get her out of the Society of Light.

However, luck wasn’t on his side. Due to the White Fates’ support cards involving a lot of swarming, Michael was quickly losing life points. But ultimately, he was able to draw the right card. He smirked, glad he was finally able to put his plan into action.

“Ray, I’m gonna bring you back to your senses,” Michael said. “And I have just the card to do that: Astrograph Sorcerer!”

There was still no answer from Ray as her opponent used Astrograph Sorcerer’s first effect to Special Summon him since his previous monsters were destroyed.

“Astrograph Magician who governs space and time, use your abyssal power to overlay my desires!” Michael chanted as he revealed Hope Dragons Flower, Bird, Wind, and Moon from his hand. “Combine the four Hope Dragons into their true form!”

By banishing Astrograph Sorcerer and the four Hope Dragons, Michael was able to bring out Hope Dragon Nature onto the field. He was hoping this will create some kind of reaction from Ray.

“You see this?” Michael asked. “Your Hope Dragons are crying! They don’t like seeing what you have become! You might have been brainwashed into thinking you’re beautiful, but you’re not! You have developed an ugly heart!” By this point, the onion-haired teen was in tears. “Please… Give me back my girlfriend…”

A single tear was seen from Ray’s left eye and flowed down her face, removing a streak of her makeup. Her face was slightly expressionless, but it was showing signs of emotions from her. Was it working? Is she finally breaking free from her hypnosis?

“That’s it, Ray!” Michael encouraged. “You told me you like the Hope Dragons because they represent your beliefs! You never gave up hope when you lost everything, so you better not give up now!”

Just when it looked like Michael’s plan was working, the sound of an electric shock was heard from Ray’s choker, causing her to scream in pain. He realized that she wasn’t brainwashed or partly converted; she was mentally abused! Sartorius took advantage of her vulnerability to make her into the “perfect” Duelist against her free will through manipulation and exploitation. Her choker was actually a shock collar in disguised that sent volts of electricity to her every single time she displayed any sign of emotion. Her torture prolonged up to the point where her mental state was too damaged and weak to fight against it, leading her to become a blank slate. Underneath the sugarcoated treatment she got was the bitter, inhumane sadism of a savage fiend.

“Ray!” Michael exclaimed as he rushed over to his girlfriend. “Don’t worry, I’ll try to remove this thing!”

The only question he had was how he was going to remove the collar if it kept shocking her. If only he had rubber gloves on because rubber doesn’t conduct electricity. The student told him that the collar is easily removable, but it was only possible if he told her to be temporarily emotionless or find the remote to deactivate it; either way, he should be able to get it off her neck. Michael believed Sartorious may have this remote and asked the student if it was in his room or if he brings it along with him.

However, Michael realized that there wouldn’t be any way for Sartorious to constantly monitor Ray if he was too busy converting the other students. “Unless there isn’t a remote,” he said. “It’s automatic, isn’t it?!”

The student laughed in amusement. “Okay, you got me,” he said. “The shock collar is controlled by the brain.”

Michael should have known the collar was automatic; if it was remote controlled, then this task would have been a lot easier. Of course a psychic like Sartorius would control it through the brain. Then he was given himself a choice: tell Ray to be emotionless for only a few minutes or rip the collar off while facing the risk of getting himself electrocuted. They have endure a lot of danger and misfortune, from Doma to the Shadow Riders. Whatever decision he makes, he will rescue his girlfriend.

“Ray, you’re gonna have to stay emotionless for a few minutes,” Michael said.

“N-No…” Ray said, reaching up to the collar. “I can’t… I have to end this!”

Was Ray going to rip the collar off herself? She was, but she can’t. The shocks have left her in severe pain the past few days and her body was too weak to even move. The Obelisk White student tried to sneak away; Michael spotted what he was attempting to do, but there was a girlfriend in need of saving. He at least had a good image in his head of what he looked like just in case if they crossed paths again.

“Calm down,” Michael said. “You have to trust me.”

Ray simply stared back into Michael, afraid of what might happen to him. If he gets hurt, she may blame herself for it; however, the two have known each other for years and have trusted each other in many kinds of situations. She let out an exhale before her face turned stoic again, resulting in the shocks to stop.

Michael wasted no time removing the shock collar from Ray, causing his girlfriend to hug him. “Thank you,” she said, her throat sounding hoarse from all the shocks she received.

Michael hugged her back before the weakness in her body became too much for her as she fell unconscious in his arms. She needed to see Nurse Fontaine immediately, so he picked her up in his arms to bring her out of this hellhole. Once he was out of the dorm, he ran as fast as he could to Duel Academy to make sure she gets medical attention. He sped his way down the halls and stopped in front of the nurse’s office, where Fonda opened the door to see Ray passed out in his arms. She helped him get the Akaba girl into a bed so she could rest; at the same time, he took off her heels, untied her bun to let her wavy hair down, and dampened a facecloth to remove the makeup from her face. Without the fake image Sartorius created, she actually looked beautiful with her natural appearance and features.

“Sleep well, my princess,” Michael said, speaking in hushed voice as he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. He desperately hoped Leo would never know about this.