#but she doesn't talk up how advanced her tech is because it's from Last Year

[ganondoodle]

I was at first in love with totk, and I still think mechanical wise, its quite impressive

And when I collected all the tears and saw the "story" I genuinely got upset in a good way (at first), because man! Did they really got the balls to go that far? Is there nothing I can do for her? Now I MUST do all the temples, see how it plays out and --oh, I've got this cutscene already. Why are all the people so dumb about Zelda, I KNOW where she is, Link say something-- Link??

After finishing all the temples and almost falling asleep, I stopped playing the game, looked up the last boss and remaining cutscenes and went "Thats it?"

Watching other people (including you) being critically about so many things, both character and mechanical wise, I've almost startled myself with a realization what the gnawing feeling I constantly had, actually was.

Totk feels like a fanfic.

And don't get me wrong, I love fanfiction, I think its great and important, I adore fanfic writers, I love finding gems, I love reading self indulgent stories, see new spins and interpretation of characters. I love the casual, the passion, the creativity!

But totk gives me the same feeling everytime I am reminded that Fifty Shades is a Twillight fanfic.

The world is there. The faces I know and grew to love are there. But everything is ever so slightly different, uncannily so. Just how some characters talk, how they act, how they were placed in the story. The Zonai appearing out of nowhere, but no, they always had been there you see, they were these super magical advanced people but they all died, the king is so tragic. And you see, the king is super cool and powerful and-- oh I dont get to interact with him outside of the tutorial. Did they try to do another King Rhoam-- but wait, that only worked because we didn't knew he was a ghost-- totk wait stop why do you take him out of the story, why couldn't he be a companion, he IS ABLE TO TALK THROUGH THE ARM LET THE OLD GOAT COMMENT ON STUFF?? If you bring up all this ancient stuff and you still got a ghost lingering, let him talk?? (I never ended up getting Mineru but I smell wasted potential as well)

Im not even mad, I am disappointed. It feels like the devs saw what all the lore hunters got attached to and talked about and then just... took the "cool". All the Zonai stuff could've easily been Sheikah tech, but got just reskinned to look more exciting instead of being its own thing.

Like... at this point I prefer what fans are doing over what Totk gave us. The characterization of Rauru (and everything Zonai), projects like you do of what totk couldve been, the little nuggets of actual highlights and details of love fans find in the game. I found much more enjoyment in these concepts than I got from a 70bucks game. And thats depressing.

I love fanfiction. I dont love it when my corporate 70 dollar, six year development, console exclusive game feels like a story that passionate fan couldve written miles better in a week (and I've already seen much cooler and interesting rewrites and ideas).

Zelda has been a huge part of my childhood and its depressing seeing it treated like that. It always was about the story, the epic, its The Legend of Zelda for crying out loud. To be courageous to enter a dungeon, to be wise and solve all the riddles. To become powerful over the journey you embarked on. Zelda to me is the campfire story you tell to others and go into the woods or the beach and imagine what monsters you would slay. Zelda is not the sandcastle you build in the sandbox and then add dinosaurs and star wars ships because you didn't had any other toys, and just stumble into and over some story to entertain yourself until lunch is ready.

I'd have an oracle of seasons over another totk any day at this point. They should've just make the mechanics of totk its own thing, but I guess they were scared it wouldn't sell if it doesn't have a Mario or Zelda skin straped over it.

Anyways, sorry for the mini rant - love your art, love your thoughts and insights, and I am looking forward to see more of it - Zelda related or not (your original characters look amazing, I adore your style sm)

Hope you have a great rest of the day!

*nods along through this entire rant*

idk how many of my rants you have read but yeah ... yeah ... and the further you think about it the further it all falls apart, the wasted potential of it all and the goddamn audacity of them to do those interviews in which they make it EVEN WORSE is just

i know the expectation for a direct sequel to botw was huge and understandbly so but i really REALLY think it would not have been that hard to make it a good follow up even taking into account that totk was originally a DLC, pretty much all of botws aspects could have been developed further, i dont know what could have happened to make totk have turned out like this .. literally it feels like something had to have gone wrong, its like someone who doesnt know zelda nor botw at all was given a few prompts and then just made some generic fantasy story while the rest worked on ultrahand for 5 years

the technical impressive things ARE technical impressive, but i dont think it was necessary nor served the game well in any way (and i LOVE building games- however totk is neither a building game nor a story game nor a zelda game nor an exploration game nor a sequel imo) but zelda, this zelda, is not made for that and i cant help but think it was mainly to encourage people to make some ridiculous mechs so it can go viral on tiktok (not trying to discredit them, it IS cool what they are doing but i .... have my doubts if zelda is the right place for that)

ill stop there bc i have ranted so much about everything i dont wanna repeat it here again; it just doesnt feel like a real game (derogatory), it feels extra bad bc i was not really into zelda when botw came out and while i did get it as soon as i could (months after release since i just started a minijob and didnt have the money) i only over time grew to love zelda this much again, devouring any theories and anything about it bc i loved it so much- i was never into it like this when a new title was announced and dont own any special editions so i bought the totk collectors bc i was just so damn excited for it after the 2019 trailer dropped (god i want that time back ... it looked so much more like it was going to be an actual sequel) even if i was already worried it wouldnt be good at that point given how much i started to sense stuff i dont like about the newer trailers

i recently sold it at our local gameshop bc it was like a thorn in my side given how expensive it was and how dissapointed i was in the game, i genuinely think that, technical impressiveness aside, totk is the onyl zelda i truly cannot stand (for alot of reasons) and im genuinely worried for the future of the franchise

i bought an Oki (Okami) figurine for what i got back and i feel much happier with that :3

(also on a note, i did finish the game two weeks after release but stopped playing it right then and hadnt touched it since, i also streamed all of what i played and its still up if you want to see my slow descend into madness fjkdhkdhjk though its been a long while since then and i by far did not talk about everything back then, just what my most immediate frustrations were while still playing)

(also the gameplay isnt as good as people make it out to be, so much is so frustrating and punishing to use i am kinda baffled it got through like that and most people call that its best aspect ..... though i guess if the rest is so much worse even mid gameplay can seem good ooooooooh how dare i)

also thank you for liking what i do!!! <3 it means alot to know it is appreciated by someone :D

[presidentdisastraofgallifrey]

Zagreus liveblog

(This one will be long, y'all)

Poor Charley, she needs a break

OF COURSE there's an Alice in Wonderland theme

Thank you @daughterofheartshaven for telling me in advance this would be the Brigadier because my first guess at random guy we're supposed to know was Brax

Oh! THAT'S where the Zagreus bread reference came from!

Even amnesiac (again), he's so quirky I love him <3

Awwww the tardis is projecting itself into memories to help

Oh, this is delightfully creepy

Going back and forth is a bit confusing, though

Whyyyyy is it always Alice in Wonderland? I like my stories to have just a trace of logic

Schrodinger's cat is incredibly Time Lord, though

Ok, this whole history thing is clearly meant to be one of those dream sequences where all the characters have familiar faces, but it doesn't really work in audio so I have to keep the cast list open while I listen

OH! Cassandra really is historical to Gallifrey and was just turned on the vampire world! Why is the lore in this universe like this??

Oh, THIS time the Doctor will be changed permanently. Uh-huh. I totally believe you

Rassilon is so evil I love it!

Ah! Sudden vampires!!

I LOVE the glimpse into ancient history, this is so good!!

@the-worms-in-your-bones's lore notes are going to be so incredibly long for this one

"Gallifreyan elite" oof

Oh do the higher houses become the chapters?

Oh no! Sudden evil tardis!

Omega and who?? Did they just name the Other?

Oh the idea of the vampires as the innocents is so delicious

I do like the idea of vampires only being humanoid to blend in

I do not like the idea of Rassilon making other beings into humanoids

I don't get this divergent universe thing, but it sure does horrify me

The idea of tech replacing naturally occurring magic omg

How much of the tardis has the Doctor destroyed over the course of his life??

"Through every civilized society in the universe. Oh, and the Time Lords" lmao

The idea of the tardis, his one constant, his home and safe place, betraying the Doctor is so sad

Gallifrey being turned into an amusement park long after its death is hilarious, we should talk about this more

Not even getting into what they mean by a dead star though

Or how these machines could have lasted billions of years

McCoy does grief so, so well

{not typing them up but I did have several sentences here trying to figure out where and when we were this story is confusing as hell}

Eight being helpless makes me feel things

Ah! Romana so suddenly I have whiplash!

And writing her actual, literal fanfic ffs

I guess she needs a hobby but STILL

Ok she knows Brax by now, that's good to know

She's so dramatic, I love her

"...the fate of the universe, they can all go hang-" because she's busy writing

AH Brax's giggle

Leela!!!!!

Did she just casually break into the President's room?

Also you would think Romana of all people would not call people savage

Ok in reality this is a writers' failing, but my new headcanon is that Time Lords have a term for aliens from pre-time travel civilizations, translated here as "savage." It would go with this story's themes

Oh! The Death Zone!

I am fascinated by the theme song being more or less broken each time we hear it

Oh Romana is so bossy!

And judgy!

"Sorry, didn't you know?" RUDE

Picturing Leela crossing her arms and tapping her foot as Romana insults her

"Daleks and yeti and quarks, oh my" lol

OF COURSE Rassilon built himself a private Matrix dwelling

Wait what does she mean this isn't unexpected? Did she think Rassilon would just call on her one day?

Why are the writers so awful to Leela's characterization?

Love Romana being so offended at Rassilon and dropping all reverence

Oh WOW! She was so ready to die, just like that! She was writing fanfic in her room ten minutes ago

"I shall carve my name on both your hearts" oh that's hot

Charley is surprisingly good at explaining this nonsense

Oh Romana, you really are so Time Lord here, ready to kill your best friend as a practical solution

The Doctor's definition of friendship being "caring for someone else more than yourself" really does explain so much

I don't love the tardis being anthropomorphized, but I do love her being hurt and jealous

Oh my he jumped right to goading the ship to torture him

He's either too used to being tortured or into it, and both are concerning in the context of his life

Wait the demat gun was a Rassilon thing? Did I know that? I don't think I did

He's so heartbroken :'(

STOP WITH THE SAVAGE

"inorganic polymers that nature has forgotten" is a hell of a line

Big missed opportunity here for Rassilon to go "Doctor Who? This is Zagreus now"

Romana BE NICE

Ooooh yes love Leela being shot

The misogyny about the girls: not cool

The Doctors ganging up on Rassilon with the conses of his quences: very cool

"A whole universe in your dungeons?" "Several, in fact" oh that's chilling

HE HAS AN ACTUAL TIME KNIFE OH NOOO I'M WHEEZING HELP

The Doctor being stabbed yes

"Rushing to my doom? You should know me better than that" I mean...the whole series they're about to make about you says otherwise

Romana doesn't see tardises as sentient, interesting (but not out of character from the show, which suggests the Doctor's personification is treated as an odd quirk)

Oh are they flirting?

Though it is a bit out of character for Leela to misjudge a wound that badly

Oh I love Eight being tormented

I don't like Charley so much here; not for killing him, but for immediately jumping to he must not really love her

(though she is only 18 I guess? I still don't like it)

I enjoy the Anti-Time voice buzz

"Our duty is to the inevitability of events" is interesting, as is "the timeline is not yours to write." Since when, Ma'am?

Oh dang, the Doctor is so vengeful!

Yes still with the "My Lord"

"I haven't even ravaged the cosmos yet" lmao

I am Concern, things seem far too ok at this point

Oh, I actually do like the idea of him going to make peace with the divergents. It's very Doctor

Never meet your heroes, for real. No wonder the Doctor is bitter

"He listens, but he does not hear" accurate

This parting doesn't actually seem as bad as everyone made it out to be. He was a bit harsh to Time Lords and Romana personally, sure, but they still seem to be friends who understand each other. It's tragic, but she doesn't seem resentful

Wait, no time travel in that universe even with a tardis? Fascinating!

(Does that mean they didn't time travel within e-space either?)

[triscribe]

Normally I just nod at statement posts like this, Like and Reblog, and go on my merry way.

But today, I feel called to Speak

If I ever reach a position of requiring the services of a professional PR person, I hope they go into the task with half as much enthusiasm and canniness for sniffing out Opportunities as my mother. This woman will find any opening in a conversation to mention my writing, and my novel, and all my plans for future projects, always with the intention of Getting Me Out There via word of mouth. And it does work! I think about a third of the books I've sold these last four years is a direct result of her bragging efforts.

A few days ago, at an event related to her job, she happened to cross paths with someone reasonably well placed in the hierarchy of the local Google offices, a tech-oriented muckity-muck with a daughter about to hit high school who'd like to be a writer. And of course my mom took that opportunity and ran with it, not only securing an agreement for this woman to work with her on some other things in the near future, but also making the offer to put her daughter in touch with me, so that she might benefit from some assistance/words of wisdom/etc from a former kid about to hit school who started working on a book.

And folks, for once, I am so glad Mom volunteered me for something without my advance knowledge or agreement.

Because from what little I've picked up, between her recounting of this conversation and my own brief texts with the well-meaning parent in question, this poor kid needs some words of wisdom. She is in the good place of having a parent who wants to help and be supportive of her goals, but the bad place of that parent being a techie, with zero knowledge of how to actually provide said support.

We're talking putting her kid in touch with a ghostwriting organization, telling me 'oh she doesn't have any content yet but maybe by mid-August we can arrange a meet-up!' I have no idea if there's anyone else in this girl's life who can share what it means to write, and I'm frankly about to get entirely too invested in trying to be that person if there isn't one already.

Because you can't be a Writer with automated computer processes or other people supplying words for you to slap your name onto.

There exists the saying 'we must suffer for our art', and I know it's traditionally meant as powering through disabilities or poor mental health - forget that. In my mind it's really 'the ideas will come and if you don't do anything with them then they will haunt you for all eternity'. You imagination, your muse, your gift, it will seek to consume your every waking thought, and the suffering comes in learning to leash and wield it, or in fleeing before its onslaught, or in succumbing and losing all else as your life spirals out of control.

AI will not help this kid write the story she wants to discover within herself. Her mother will not be able to pay for her to become an author.

She needs to know there is a well-trod path of bare dirt and time-smoothed stones, as old as humanity itself, and it must be walked if one wants to truly be a writer, rather than the new, gilded and gleaming stepladder, a poor facsimile of hard work and effort that will break under its own weight soon enough.

We must lie on the floor and have wretched visions

You will not use AI to get ideas for your story. You will lie on the floor and have wretched visions like god intended

[crystalleoi]

5C

[zoeykallus]

Crosshair – My Beloved Enemy 5 – Rebel Darling

Crosshair x Female!Reader (FF)

Warning: SMUT 18+ /Minors DNI/ NSFW

SMUT 18+/ Orgasm Denial/ Dom-Sub/Dom Crosshair/ Cunnilingus/ Vaginal Fingering/ PiV Sex/ Slight Praise Kink/ Overstimulation/ Multiple Orgasm/ Dubious Consent/ Bondage _____ Author's Comment: Damn, this chapter took me longer than expected. I actually had some free time the last two days and I was just writing this thing for what feels like 48 hours. I wanted to get the Crosshair Smut scene just right, Crosshair style if you will. I wrote it, erased it, wrote it again and erased it... and then wrote it again saldkjbfhskjfdk. I'm still not content with what I did. It feels different from what I usually do, but Crosshair is different too, right? Well, at the end I've gotten carried away at the smut scene so, there is a lot of it in this one. Have fun! _____

What Happened Before:

Part 1 - Crash Landing

Part 2 - Hot And Cold

Part 3 - Hello Kitten

Part 4 - Look Who’s Back

Part 5 - Rebel Darling

Your shuttle was simple, it had no weapons but was a pure personnel transport shuttle, you had a real sleeping area with a bed and not just a bunk. You had your own refresher and even a small kitchen.

A little nervously you showed Crosshair around. You knew you were alone with him now, sooner or later you would get close, you felt it tingling under your skin. It was exciting but also a little intimidating.

You thought about Tech's reaction for a moment, and you felt a little sorry for him. But he had his chance, your night together had been almost six months ago and since then he had either avoided you or treated you purely as a friend. He hadn't responded to your advances, now he had to live with the consequences. You didn't want to wait forever for him and if you were honest you felt much more attracted to Crosshair anyway, even if you didn't think you would see him again until recently.

When you had shown him everything, you finally sat on your bed at some point. Crosshair had already taken off parts of his armor to make himself more comfortable.

"The bed smells like you" he said and smelled unabashedly at your pillow "Smells like your perfume and your shampoo".

A little unsure you looked at him "Sorry. I can make the bed fresh if you want"

He laughed, "No, no, I like it, it smells good"

"Are you going to stay with us now?" you asked quietly.

Crosshair looked up from your pillow to you.

"For now, yeah. Depends on if the boys can get used to me again. As you know, we didn't exactly part peacefully."

You nodded slowly and said, "I'm sure Wrecker will be happy. Echo won't be a real problem either."

He smiled knowingly, "But Tech will probably be on the fence. Did you see his face earlier? He's jealous as hell."

You shrugged and said, "Yeah, maybe so. But he doesn't really have a right to be jealous or to choose who I spend my time with, that ship has sailed".

Hunter looked up when he heard Tech coming back from the cockpit. He stopped next to Hunter's bunk. The sergeant sensed his brother's unease all too clearly.

"You want to talk about it now, after all?" asked Hunter quietly.

Tech snorted, "Why do we just take him right back. He's almost killed us all several times. It is not really sure at all if that was because of the chip. How can you trust him again right away?"

Hunter sighed and sat up in his bunk.

"Tech, I know you're right and we have to be careful. Right now, though, you're only so hostile towards him because you have feelings for Y/N"

Tech nervously stepped from one foot to the other and said, "In part, yes, that may be, but that still doesn't change the facts. We don't know if we can really trust him"

Hunter nodded slowly and said quietly, "I know. Rest assured, I will remain vigilant about Crosshair."

After a pause he asked, "Why didn't you ever tell her, it's been almost half a year since your night together and she kept trying to talk to you. As sorry as I am that you are so upset now because she is in her shuttle with Corsshair- it's your own fault."

Tech sat down on his own bunk across from Hunter and slumped his shoulders.

"I know. It was a wonderful night and I had never felt so alive and happy before."

Hunter looked at him questioningly, "Then all the more reason I don't understand how you handled the situation"

Tech lowered his eyes and stared at his hands resting on his thighs.

"I was... overwhelmed. What I felt was not logical and could not be logically explained, it was so intense that it.... scared me. I just wanted to be with her to spend my time with her, I thought about her day and night, I still do. But when, out of sheer cowardice, I suggested we keep it a professional relationship and she agreed to it, something inside me broke and I just wanted to escape."

Hunter looked at his brother with concern and compassion.

"You should have asked her. She was probably just as scared as you are, that's probably why she agreed. I'm very certain she was very fond of you."

Tech snorted, "Now she's very fond of Crosshair. Crosshair of all people."

You were already naked, just like Crosshair, it had happened so fast, the clothes had fallen off within seconds. He had just looked at you, with that glint in his golden brown eyes, then he had literally thrown himself at you and you had let him, completely overwhelmed by his commanding presence.

The Sniper was half over you, kissing you fierily, and your heart was beating so fast that you were almost dizzy. His bare skin against yours was incredibly warm, the muscles beneath, firm and wonderful. Crosshair was deft, with his fingers and his lips.

Out of the corner of his eye, he seemed to have spotted something on your nightstand, a silk scarf of yours. He reached for the long piece of fabric and smiled mischievously.

"Hmm, how convenient."

The next moment he grabbed your arms, pushed them up over your head, wrapped the scarf tightly around your wrists several times, and finally tied them to the headboard of the bed. You had wanted to say something, maybe even protest, but your voice caught in your throat.

He finally looked at you with a smirk of satisfaction.

"Normally people agree on a safeword for something like this, but I don't think we need one".

Looking at him questioningly, you finally found your voice again and asked quietly, "Safeword?"

"Yes. Never heard of it?"

You shook your head.

"It's a word you agree on, when one of the people involved disagrees with something, they say the safeword and the other one stops"

You blinked nervously, your heart still beating so wildly in your chest.

Crosshair saw the uncertain expression on your face.

"You're not scared, are you?"

"No," you said a little meekly.

Testingly you moved your hands, the soft fabric was gentle on your wrists, but you definitely couldn't free yourself on your own.

Your gaze shot back to him as one of his hands moved up over your belly, slid over your breasts and stopped just above your thumping heart.

He smiled.

"Your little heart is beating wildly, Kitten. You don't have to be afraid of me.Just let yourself go, I'll make you feel good, just forget about everything else for a while," he spoke softly to you, in his deep voice.

Crosshair climbed over you, his hardening length pressed against your skin, his hands traveling up your sides to your breasts, kneading them, gently feeling the hardened buds.

A soft moan came over your lips, half swallowed by Crosshair when his lips were suddenly on yours. His kiss was demanding, urgent, dominant, you melted away under him. He broke free of the kiss and moved his lips over your chin, further down to your neck. The touch made you shiver.

"Are you afraid?" he asked quietly.

You shook your head and replied, almost whispering: „I want this... you so much, that the thought of this is already making me... shaky.“

A smirk appeared on Crosshair's lips. The answer pleased him.

Covering your collarbone with gentle kisses, he murmured, "Good girl."

He slid a little lower and his mouth wandered to the mounds of your breasts, kissing them teasingly, his lips wandering to your buds that had already erected in anticipation. When his lips closed around one of the nipples and a hand closed around the other breast, a sweet whimper came out of your mouth. He suckled at the sensitive flesh while his hand gently kneaded your other boob. He switched back and forth between your breasts, listening to the aroused sounds he elicited from you.

"Such a good girl, making such wonderful noises for me," he spoke with satisfaction, his lips wandering over your belly, further down. The further down he wandered, the faster your heart seemed to beat.

Finally his shoulders were between your thighs and his face hovered close over your pussy. You could feel his hot breath on your wet folds and felt your juices gathering.

His gaze wandered over your wet glistening womanhood and he smiled like a hungry predator.

Crosshair's hands slid gently over the insides of your thighs and he looked up at you mischievously.

"I'm curious how you taste," he cooed.

His words made you shiver again.

The fingers of his right hand moved further inward toward your pubic area. Teasingly, gently, testingly, his fingers slid through your folds. An excited sigh escaped you.

"Look at you, so wet, all because of me. I like that, Kitten."

Heat rose to your face and your ears grew hot at his words. It was exciting but you also felt a thrilling shame rising inside you. You were completely naked, he saw all of you and he liked it, an incredibly uplifting feeling.

"I will make you squirm under me and beg for my cock," he promised you in a husked voice.

His words were exciting, but also made you a little nervous. You hadn't had much experience yet and what you had done with Tech had been completely different, mainly because of the alcohol influence and because Tech was a completely different guy.

You winced under his touch as Crosshair quite suddenly flattened his tongue and licked up your pussy in one broad stroke, lingering on your pearl and making your legs tremble. He repeated the motion, taking in your taste, your intoxicating scent, everything about you that he could take in, he did - desperate for every part of this ravishing thing that was you. When he repeated the slow lick a third time, his hands gently squeezed your thighs and before you knew it, Crosshair was plunging in, licking and sucking on your clit like a starved man.

You yelped, partly from surprise, partly from pleasure, automatically your hands squirmed in their bonds, but you couldn't free them.

Your hips tilted unconsciously towards him, triggered by the pleasure you were receiving. His stubble burned a little on your sensitive skin, but somehow that only increased your arousal. The way you kept frictioning against his face, along with the perfect little whimpers and moans you let out, made Crosshiar harden quickly, his shaft swelling with desire and growing impatient. As he continued to take care of you, his hips began to grind into the mattress, needing some form of contact. Crosshair was furious with himself, normally he was in much better control, but now he felt so incredibly needy, you made him feel needy.

Your breath hitched when you saw what he was doing. The fact that he was getting hard and needy just by licking you, was flattering and exciting.

A squeek escaped your lips as he unexpectetly shoved a finger into your wet, heated entrance.

"Kitten you're pretty tight," he murmured against your pearl and the vibration almost sent you over the edge.

He raised his head and stopped for a moment, looking at you. You looked down your body at him with a pleading look.

"Please... don't stop, I'm so close," it came over your lips.

He grinned teasingly.

"I know, I felt your pussy getting tighter".

"Please, Crosshair...:"

He laughed, "I told you I'd make you beg me, didn't I".

You huffed, trying to free yourself from your restraint.

"Now now, don't do that! Be a good girl, tell me what you want, ask me for it and I'll give you what you want."

He grabbed your thighs with both hands and held them apart, holding you spread out like a buffet in front of him. Again and again he sucked your pearl, twitched his tongue through your folds, teasing, making you twitch and squirm. Brought you again and again to the edge only to let you hang and grin at you.

„Crosshair Please!“

"Please what, my sweet, little Kitten?" he asked with an amused undertone.

You could feel the heat on your face as you said, "Please let me cum."

Crosshair looked at you with a smirk.

"How do you want me to make you cum? A special wish?"

Your entire abdomen seemed to be pulsing, the tingling under your skin was almost unbearable and the throbbing of your aching pearl, craved relief so much that you almost snapped at him as you said, "I don't care just do it, please!"

He laughed: "My goodness, are you going to show your claws again? That' s all right, your paws are tied up anyway," he teased you.

He was close to going crazy himself only he could hide it much better. His hard, throbbing cock had been leaking pre cum onto the sheet beneath him for a while.

"Crosshair, I'm about to go nuts here! Please!"

His expression softened, his eyes darkened with desire as he asked you, "What exactly do you want? Tell me? If you say it, you'll get it."

"Fuck me! I need your cock...:"

His eyes got even darker and wider, he immediately crawled over you, pushing himself between your spread legs and lined his cock up at the entrance of your swollen, throbbing pussy.

"Yes, yes, please..." you breathed.

Crosshair smiled very pleased with your reaction. His tip touched your folds, parting them as he slowly advanced and plunged into your cleft. He was big and girthy, veiny. You had only caught a glimpse, but you felt him all the more clearly instead. It was quite a stretch.

He eased in, slowly, giving you time to adapt even if it was hard for him to hold back. When Crosshair was finally completely sunken into you, he paused, breathing in a controlled manner, looking at you. His lips kissed your chin, along your jaw to your ear, and finally whispered, "Oh my little, kitten, you feel amazing."

His words tingled under your skin.

"Such a good girl, taking me all in," he cooed and gently kissed your earlobe.

Your thighs trembled as you closed your legs around him and pressed against him, trying to show him that you were ready. He lifted your pelvis and pulled a pillow over to slide it under your bottom, slightly elevating you so he could get deeper inside you.

A whimper came from your throat, the feeling of him filling you completely was overwhelming.

Crosshair finally began to move inside you.

You whimpered under him and bucked your hips, desperate, wanting, with a soft cry of his name, Crosshair smiled down at you, confident and knowingly as his hips dragged backwards. The slow pull of his cock against your sensitive entrance had you whining below him as your hips chased after his, only to loudly cry out when his hips snapped forward again, startling you.

He repeated these slow drags and quick thrusts for several times until you were writhing beneath him, slurring drunken from arousel and pleading for more, much more. Little did you know that he would give you more than you asked for.

Crosshair teased you until a cry of, “Cross, Please! I beg you!”, left your lips and he finally caved, pretty desperate to give you what you wanted anyways.

Your words had him growling out your name deeply, like an animal, as his hips sped up to a steady rhythm, the sounds of him dicking you down filling the air. His grip on your waist tightened slightly as his cock pounded away and you were shocked by the fast pace he had set. Unexpected yet not unwelcome.

Quite involuntarily, your hand wanted to slip down your body to caress your pearl, but you could only struggle against the restraints with a groan.

"Let me do it," he said, as if he knew instinctively.

His hand slid down your tummy to find your clit, rubbing in tight circles that had you crying out loudly and breathlessly for more. Your hips bucked in time with his thrusts as his cock moved inside you over and over. You were so close to tipping over the edge and your eyes met his as you simpered out, “Crosshair, please I’m so close. I need you Crosshair....”

„Oh I know Kitten, I can feel, see and hear it and it's the most beautiful thing in the galaxy“, he said hoarsly.

Shifting his weight his pace slowed as his free arm slid under your body to grasp at the back of your neck and he leaned down, his chest pressing into yours as his lips caught yours in a searing kiss, making you taste yourself on his lips and tounge.

His adjusted position allowed him to press even deeper into your tight slit, brushing up against that sweet spot inside you, hitting it again and again, on each thrust. He swallowed down your cries as you tipped over the edge, your womanhood spasming and clenching around his length, his fingers at your pearl working you through the orgasm.

You wiggled below him, pressing the two of you together impossibly close, you whined into his mouth as his fingers continued toying with your clit, prolonging your pleasure. Muttering a protest against Crosshairs lips at the overstimulation your were silenced by him pulling back just enough to whisper, “It’s alright kitten, i got you. You can give me one more, I know you can do it, my good girl, my sweet little kitten.”

His words sent a heavy aftershock through your body and your walls fluttered much to Crosshairs delight as he let out a deep moan. His slow, sensual pace continued and your pussy squeezed constantly around his length as the stimulation on your little bundle of nerves got to be too much.

„Crosshair“, you moaned hoarsely „I can... I can't... too much...“

„Yes, yes you can“, he cooed „Such a good girl, be a nice little kitten, cum for me again“

Your hands clenched, struggeling against the restraints, as you attempted to smother your noises as they grew in both frequency and volume the closer you got to your second high, carried by his words.

As Crosshair slammed into you particularly hard, you couldn’t hold back the blissed out noise that slipped over your lips and your eyes rolled back into your head. Crosshair repeated the motion causing the same reaction as you lost yourself in pleasure, feeling like losing your mind.

“You like that? Want me to give it to you like this until you cum for me my rebel darling?” He questioned, continuing the same motion and increasing his speed without waiting for a response.

The word rebel had you confused for a fraction of a moment, but you couldn't focus on anything but the feeling of him inside you.

Though it was just as well since you were fairly incapable of responding to him as your eyes glazed over, feeling close to your second release. The hand that had been on your neck, placed itself over your mouth. You blinked in surprise, distracted for a moment, staring into his face.

"Listen carefully, Kitten, can you hear how wet you are for me?" he asked you, breathing heavily.

Yes indeed you could. Now that he was silent, preventing you from making sounds of pleasure, you could hear it abundantly clear, the sound of his wild thrusts in your slick pussy. His words, aswell as the obscene wet noise, spread heat in your face and ears.

As if determined to wreck you with pleasure, Crosshairs fingers sped up against your clit, rubbing furiously and causing your whole body to tighten - spiraling higher and higher until it was all too much and your body went limp. You felt a rush of liquid as you gushed around his thick cock and the obscene squelching noise that filled your bedroom as the clone fucked you through your orgasm caused an embarrassed moan to escape you, muffled by his hand.

At the feeling of your weak, swollen pussy, clenching around his cock, Crosshair thrust a few more times, until he stilled deep within you as he reached his own peak. His cum shot out in ribbons, filling you up more than you thought possible.

@twinkofthedink

@tazmbc1

@kristinainspace

@ladykatakuri @inthemoshpitt

@whore4rex

@rexandechosandwich

[ellavi-a03]

Ok some scenarios of the pacifist (no sh*tty stuff happenin) au:

(Nora Wells)

Nora is 31 years old, single, and a psychology professor at a university.

She gets attacked by cancer again, last time was when she was 22.

Sir Talbot is her doctor (again). He still has a good reputation but she does wonder why he isn't promoted (like be assigned on a more high tech hospital or smth)

Sir Talbot is 40, and single. Abby broke up with him 5 years prior. (Not the other way around)

Nora gets some check ups and is thankfully not on er again. When interacting with the doctor, she's kinda relieved that those stares and looks she gets from him aren't there anymore. (She brushed off the feeling before, but its nowhere now)

They talk bout stuff, and prescribe medicine and stuff. She asks him on why he still works at the same hospital, he states that he decided to stay there.

Weeks later, Talbot asks her out for coffee. She thinks its odd since they're doctor and patient, but hey, they going out as friends and they both adults too.

(Isaak Talbot)

Isaak is 40, single, a doctor. The best doctor in the hospital he's currently working on.

He didn't kill Dana (the victim that Nora saw him kill), Cuz he noticed Nora wake up before he had a chance to enter. (So no stupid crap happening. Oh, and he completely ignored his lust for Nora)

Dana is alive in this au, she miraculously survived and he kinda shocked since he thought there was no chance for her to live. Same for the patients he was about to target (well, he does kill them by euthanizing, right?). Because of some stuff like this happenin, he doesn't do non-consensual euthanasia anymore.

Abby broke up with him, cuz despite him being "nice" and stuff, she just drifted away from him.

Isaak took this break-up hard. Not because he loved her, cuz his pride broke. Like a sudden punch to the stomach.

Months after the breakup, he got a therapist. He did more or less "confess" his sins (More of a what if, and well you know how he manipulates) to the therapist. And well, atleast the therapist explains to him in detail the difference between lust and love, and givin him some life advice cuz he had a sh*tty childhood and stuff. (How ironic to be a doctor that gets treated by another doctor)

Then well, he is doing better now. He's still working on it. He does get the opportunity to work on a more advanced hospital but he says no.

Years later, he has Nora as her patient again. But that fire (lust) doesn't return. Yes, he admits that she became more beautiful throughout the years, but not like when he was 32 (he is a damn fuggin simp back then, but he still is now. Just he has self control, and doesn't force the sh*t out of things).

Interact, doctor-patient things.

Then he asks her out for coffee.

They have a good time. And they become friends.

Then cue the slowburn romance and stuff.

(Other characters)

Aiden is alive and well. Isaak is his superior.

Mr and Mrs. Wells are proud of their kids.

When Nora and Isaak start dating (prolly after 100+ dates in the span of 1.5 years), Mr and Mrs. Wells takes time to approve knowing the age gap. While Aiden is supportive of Nora's decision. (And hey, he's the secret wingman here)

And Isaak murders is not exposed. Yet.

Dana is alive, and well has a job and stuff. She still hangout with Nora, despite knowing Nora's busy schedule.

Basically everyones happy here

Also They will have Mina when Nora's 35. (Got married at 33, while Isaak is 42)

WAIT THIS IS REALLY CUTE ACTUALLY I MIGHT NEED TO WRITE IT (with credit of course)

How funny is it that while reading this I had the jokey thought of Nora’s students all going “Oh, she’s seeing someone. She’s DEFINITELY dating someone” and once she announces she’s going on vacation for her honeymoon SO MUCH MONEY GETS PASSED AROUND THAT DAY.

Thank you SO MUCH for this ask, I definitely need to write this. I need some fluff and humor in my life after having completed TSOH and started Mortuary.

[yusuke96universe]

What If Bulma Got Her Wish!

This is a scene based on a What If discussion that I had on one of MasakoX's recent Gero and Frieza video. Basically, it goes Goku fires multiple Kamehamehas instead of just one as Bulma and or Yamcha instructs, which gets the gang out a bit sooner than the early series. They all go to stop Pilaf before he can summon the Dragon, but Goku catches a glimpse of the full moon and transforms into a Great Ape, which pretty much plays out as the same with Goku getting his tail cut off and Pilaf's castle destroyed, but the difference here is that Bulma now gets to make her wish for Prince Charming to come and sweep her off her feet, but Shenron concludes that her perfect boyfriend would be the one she will eventually end up with and so forth summons a bewildered Teenage Vegeta, but because of the wording she used he is summoned in his royal garbs, black Saiyan armor, with jewelry, and a bright red cape, not exactly the type of 'prince' she was imagining, but she'll roll with it since he's cute. The problem with this is that it means Vegeta doesn't have his scouter, meaning that he is completely stranded on a backwater planet he has never even heard of with no means of contacting anyone to pick him up.  Vegeta wants off this planet as soon as possible and doesn't want to wait a year for the Dragon Balls so Bulma in full flirty fashion, offers her Family's resources and her brilliant mind to the task, Vegeta is all business and ignoring her advances, at least she'll prove useless due to Earth's low tech, then she'll be rejected at every turn in very cruel fashion. Until that point Vegeta is going to just play things smart and not kill everyone in sight out of anger. Yamcha, Puar and Oolong go with them like the original, but this time Yamcha isn't Bulma's boyfriend, but simply the guy that Vegeta is somewhat willing to talk and somewhat listen to as he is judged to being the top brass of the rag tag group of adventurers that foolishly summoned him. Goku still goes to Master Roshi's island and everyone will still meet at the tournament.  Vegeta concludes that he'll just have to wait a year and isolates himself from everyone else as they prove to be useless to him. He just decides this will just be an unexpected vacation from the Frieza Force. Bulma gets fed up with him and rebounds onto Yamcha, at least for now. It doesn't take long for Vegeta to start scheming after realizing the unique opportunity that just fell into his lap of getting any wish he could possibly want with his only competition being the weak natives.

The gang invites Vegeta to the World Martial Arts Tournament, but he shows next to no interest, but on a whim, he decides to check it out as a means to take a break from his thoughts on conquest. He's not expecting much, but Saiyans still love fighting. He is late because he was told he has to wear street clothes and somewhat blend in if he wanted to come and so he arrives during Goku's first match, where his tail grows back. Sending his mind racing! He figures out that Goku must be some no-name low level that got lucky getting off the planet and since then has been so weak that had been corrupted by the Earthling's useless sentiments and ideologies, blah blah blah, but as he continues to watch the fight he quits thinking about classes and intergalactic politics because of just how Goku is simply having the time of his life in these fights, he really is a Saiyan after all and as young as he is, it might not be too late to 'save him' he could one day even prove useful to Vegeta, but it would take a lot of work. (but that is for the RR Saga where Vegeta will start indirectly testing Goku as his Saiyan Prince by manipulating the RR army however he sees fit as both sides collect HIS Dragon Balls for him.)

This is a picture of Vegeta attempting to reveal Goku's Saiyan origins after the tournament ended, but it was just way too much for Goku to possibly comprehend so Vegeta just reveals that the belt around his waist is in actuality a tail just like Goku's which catches his attention, but before Vegeta can continue his talk Goku's tail has grabbed hold of Vegeta's and he is just swinging around upside down on it. Vegeta's response is his usual scowl and crossed arms, but Vegeta opens one eye and since Goku back is facing him, for the first time in the series does that face make a soft expression at the boy having more fun than he should. He gives up on talking to Goku for now and to just enjoy the brief moment while it lasts. (casual reminder, Vegeta here is still evil, but he is not made of stone yet as he is still only a teenager and not a hardened adult, like he is when first introduced) All in all, Goku's simple and overall fun/ easygoing nature is both a bane to Vegeta, but refreshing at the same time.

Side note: Vegeta's philosophy will be in direct opposition and conflict to Master Roshi's philosophy of Martial Arts. So how will this influence the Dragon Team, especially Goku? Vegeta might believe he is unsusceptible to Earth's ways, but Goku and the others have a way of rubbing off on others. I think Roshi would take a keen interest in Vegeta, not just because of how powerful and twisted he is, but by how young he is, seeing him as someone who has been misguided like Tien.

[houseisekai]

House Isekai: A Realm Reborn - Part 2, Through the Maelstrom (3 of 3)

House Isekai ARR Masterlist Here

—

Client: Hilda Valentin Goneril

Refusing to work with the newly reformed House Isekai due to Class VII, Duvalie takes her orders and storms off to Goneril territory, trying to get home faster. Not wanting to leave Duvalie completely alone, Raelyn and Fireteam Alpha-Nine accompany her.

Reports indicate of a giant serpent-like beast terrorizing the ocean trade routes near Goneril territory, and an unknown entity accompanying it…

--

[Respite and Sunlight - Fire Emblem: Three Houses OST]

The carriage carried a group of knights as it made its way towards the fishing town.

As the horses leisurely drew the carriage forth, the dirt kicking up on the path, the driver turned his head and shouted out.

(Driver) "We're almost there, milady."

Hilda sighed as she stretched, putting her head back onto the carriage.

(Hilda) "Finally. That took forever."

She looked around and noticed the two knights accompanying her were calmly sitting still, not saying a word.

(Hilda) "Am I seriously the only one who noticed?!"

(Knight 1) "No milady, we feel the same. Now isn't the time to be lax, however."

(Hilda) "Percy, I remember you being the one telling me that this town wasn't anything to be concerned about!"

(Knight 2) "It was, until that letter came in. We only put the request out three days ago, how could mercenaries possibly have responded that fast? And I do not like the descriptions of them either..."

(Percy) "I agree with Jonas. Tech that looks too advanced for random mercenaries to have? This seems like it's a trap..."

(Hilda) "I sincerely doubt the Separatists would cause any trouble for the Alliance. And what strategic importance would a fishing town like this have?"

(Jonas) "I think that's all the more reason to be wary, milady. Besides, orders from Lord Holst were specifically to-"

(Hilda) "Yeah yeah, I know, make sure I'm safe and everything. It's when we get out to the ocean, you guys can start doing your jobs properly."

Jonas looked at Percy, in which his response was just a shrug.

(Percy) "Hmph. I wonder what those mercenaries are like..."

...

Duvalie woke up and quickly looked around before her shoulders relaxed. They were still inside the building the Class VII members led them to.

Duvalie noticed the ODST's were already awake.

Dutch was near the window, looking at the small blue device curiously.

(Dutch) "Hell is this thing?"

It was making a small static noise, Dutch poked at it until Mickey came close and examined it himself.

(Mickey) "Looks like a jamming device of some kind."

(Buck) "Yeah, it's messing with my helmet's visor a little. You think a fishing town like this would have something that'd warrant a jammer?"

(Romeo) "Oh, you're finally awake."

The ODST's turned to Duvalie who picked up her sword and shield.

(Duvalie) "No one bothered to wake me up?"

(Mickey) "Hey, Fie's orders. Not ours."

Duvalie rolled her eyes and noticed Raelyn and Class VII were gone.

(Buck) "They said they were going out to patrol the area, wanted us to stay in here in case someone tried snooping around."

(Duvalie) "Guess that's fair enough."

Duvalie stood next to Buck, both of them not saying a word while Romeo cleaned his sniper and Mickey and Dutch were still examining the supposed jammer.

(Buck) "So...what exactly is your problem with those kids? If you don't mind me asking."

(Duvalie) "Ugh, we were enemies during a war, then we fought alongside each other and thats IT. Don't wanna talk about it. And we're NOT friends."

(Buck) "Alright, I believe ya. Dunno why you have to say it so forcefully."

(Duvalie) "Because it doesn't go through THEIR thick skulls! I DON'T LIKE REAN EITHER!"

(Buck) "Listen, Duvalie. I am right next to you. Stop frickin' screaming."

(Dutch) "Plus, you're making it harder to figure out what this is."

Duvalie and Buck turned to Mickey and Dutch who were still staring.

(Duvalie) "What in the hell is so fascinating about it that you two are still looking at it?!"

(Mickey) "Because, I don't think it's just a jammer. It's something else..."

That caught everyone's attention.

(Romeo) "...What makes you say that?"

(Dutch) "It's making some static noise, and it's sticky too. What kind of jammer is this small?"

(Duvalie) "Huh. I don't think we had anything like that in our world, so where did those brats...?"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

(Raelyn's voice) "We have returned."

The door opened with the members of Class VII and Raelyn.

(Fie) "Coast looks clear, and looks like we already got someone to help out with the Serpent problem."

(Buck) "Damn, that was fast."

(Raelyn) "I recommend we hurry, lest we make the townsfolk angry again."

Everyone grabbed their equipment and left the house, Class VII leading the way.

(Mickey) "Hey, so those blue things you put in the house, what exactly are those?"

(Laura) "It's best we not say just yet."

(Dutch) "That's...reassuring."

(Elliot) "Anyways, we visited the tavern from yesterday and he said someone wants to see us there."

(Fie) "And you can leave your weapons down, it won't be a fight."

(Duvalie) "What makes you say that?"

As they were walking to the tavern, Hilda and her two knights exited and saw them.

[Musica Universalis - Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers OST]

(Hilda) "Oh my gosh!"

(Elliot) "Ha, aren't you a sight for sore eyes?"

(Laura) "It's been quite a bit hasn't it, Hilda?"

(Fie) "Yo."

Hilda smiled as she ran up and grabbed all three of them into a hug.

(Hilda) "It's so good to see you guys again!"

(Percy) "Hey...you were with the professor when you came to Derdriu all those years back!"

(Jonas) "Don't think we've seen their friends though."

Hilda noticed the new group behind Class VII and raised an eyebrow.

(Hilda) "These your friends?"

(Raelyn) "Raelyn Amuto, at your service."

(Duvalie) "...Duvalie."

(Buck) "Call me Buck. Squad behind me is Mickey, Dutch, and Romeo."

(Elliot) "Hopefully, we just got here super recently ourselves. Though, Rean and the others can watch over them."

(Hilda) "Wait, everyone else is here?"

(Raelyn) "Not exactly."

Raelyn quickly caught Hilda and her knights up to speed.

(Hilda) "I see...So it's happening again?"

(Laura) "That's what we're here to investigate. Originally we came here to see what was blocking communications from Sitri to us, and find out what teleported this group here."

(Elliot) "After a day of investigating, we think it may actually have to do with the serpent problem you're having."

(Buck) "Huh, isn't that convenient."

(Duvalie) "When exactly did this problem pop up anyway? We only got here three days ago."

(Hilda) "Hm...I think it was about a week ago. Same time Claude let us know something was coming from the Tower, actually."

(Romeo) "...Too convenient."

[Briefing Time - Trails of Cold Steel 3 OST]

(Raelyn) "It seems to line up with our arrival. Has there been anything in the past House Isekai and your Houses have fought that can cause this amount of trouble?"

(Hilda) "Too much to count..."

(Laura) "It wouldn't be the first time for us."

(Fie) "I think we can kill two birds with one stone here then. We can investigate that Serpent and determine if it has anything to do with our problems."

(Hilda) "Sounds good to me."

(Dutch) "So...how exactly are we going to fight a giant water monster? Our gear isn't equipped for aquatic fights."

(Percy) "We have that taken care of. We're going to use a boat and investigate it the old fashioned way."

(Duvalie) "...That is the worst idea I've ever heard."

(Buck) "Inclined to agree with the lady. That seems a good way for our asses to get eaten out there."

(Elliot) "I'm kinda drawing a blank on what else to do. It's not like they have any high tech boats."

(Jonas) "Unfortunately, he's right. All of our efforts on expanding our sea travel has been fruitless, or its too early to tell. It only has been two years before we began these projects."

(Raelyn) "Us Space Marines are engineered to breathe underwater."

(Romeo) "Damn, is there anything you guys can't do?"

(Raelyn) "Have good luck."

(Duvalie) "Was that a joke?"

Raelyn's head slowly turned to Duvalie.

(Raelyn) "It is the last thing I would joke about. You all being near me already carries a risk of a violent death, including myself."

(Dutch) "What, your gun malfunction on you in battle a lot or something?"

(Raelyn) "It is a curse our Chapter seems to suffer. For one reason or another, something unfortunate happens, and I guarantee you it will happen when we attempt to hunt this beast."

(Hilda) "Jeez, quit that downer talk, we'll be fine! We've survived plenty worse than just some monster. Heck, it's not even our first monster we've fought!"

(Laura) "If that is the case, where is this boat?"

(Percy) "This way."

Percy and Jonas led the way to the docks, everyone following them.

Fie looked behind them and saw a small boy and girl staring at them. Specifically Raelyn.

She noticed an older girl walk up to them, she couldn't be older than 15. Fie put a mental pin on them and quickly followed along.

The older girl knelt down to get on their eye level.

(Older girl) "Hey, why are you staring at them so intensely, they didn't say something to you, did they?"

(Young girl) "Nuh uh, Mila! The big yellow man was super nice!"

(Young boy) "Yeah, he helped her out and everything!"

Mila had short brown hair and a small stature, carrying two daggers on her back.

(Mila) "Did he now...?"

...

The group took an Alliance controlled ship out into the coast, being helmed by the local garrison.

They set out to the last known location to where this Serpent had been reported, which fortunately was only an hour away from the town.

The day was bright and the winds were strong, and not a cloud in sight.

They skipped across the waters with relatively little trouble.

Hilda stood next to Class VII while everyone else was scattered.

(Elliot) "Man, I can't remember the last time we've been out by the sea."

(Laura) "A shame it wasn't for a more pleasant reason."

(Fie) "Oh, hey Buck."

Buck walked up to Hilda, followed by Raelyn and Duvalie.

(Buck) "Mind if we ask you something, miss Hilda?"

(Hilda) "What's up?"

(Buck) "Who exactly are these Separatists your townsfolk are so quick to anger about? An insurrection?"

(Laura) "I remember hearing about it while we were investigating the area as well."

Hilda frowned and looked back out to the sea.

(Hilda) "After House Isekai left Fodlan, our three nations decided to form a temporary pact in order to fix the damages done by Those Who Slither and the Church. It...hasn't been easy.

For the first two years, the Empire and Kingdom were at war, until it suddenly stopped with the Church to be the ones on the offensive.

The Battle of Gronder had all our blood shed, and its nothing that everyone can easily forgive with how recent it was.

So when news that we'd all be fighting as one, it made our citizens outraged. The only people who knew the truth about Zanado and Byleth was our militaries..."

(Elliot) "So, these Separatists...-"

(Hilda) "They've been wanting us to split up and leave each other be, just like it's always been. The Alliance has a mixture of Imperial and Kingdom Separatists, and Claude has been doing his best to keep the neutrality. It hasn't been easy, in addition to the Zanado Tower acting up again."

(Raelyn) "Which is why you sent this letter of the Serpent to Garreg Mach, correct?"

Hilda nodded.

(Hilda) "And if it requires House Isekai's help again, I fear the worst..."

(Laura) "Rest assured, we will do everything in our power to help Fodlan."

(Buck) "Not sure how long we'll be staying but, might as well. It's either that or be stuck here."

(Duvalie) "Wait a second, if you guys were stuck here before and got out, then how did you get in?"

(Fie) "Teleportation with the help of the Doom Slayer."

(Hilda) "Wait, he was the one that set you guys up with that?!"

(Raelyn) "I am not sure who he is, but perhaps he can teleport us out of here."

(Buck) "With how troublesome everything sounds, I sort of doubt it'd be that easy to get out of here."

(Fie) "Only one way to try."

Fie reached out a small crest of House Isekai's logo and pressed the center.

...Nothing happened.

(Fie) "Uh oh."

(Duvalie) "W-What does that mean?"

(Elliot) "Huh? That's how we were able to teleport from our world to the base! Why isn't it working?"

(Hilda) "Does that mean you're stuck here too?"

(Buck) "Well, that's fantastic..."

Dutch, Mickey, and Romeo were listening into the conversation.

(Dutch) "They got Insurrectionists to deal with too?"

(Romeo) "Great, that means we'll be here even longer."

(Mickey) "Their teleportation isn't working, so what is the cause of-"

(Percy) "Hey, we need everyone up here!"

[Dark Clouds Gather - Fire Emblem: Three Houses OST]

The groups looked up and went to the top deck where the wheel was. Percy and Jonas stood near the captain.

(Hilda) "What's the problem?"

(Jonas) "The skies in front of us are suddenly starting to darken."

(Captain) "The weather the way it was, this was too fast for it to suddenly darken! Something's about to happen!"

(Buck) "...Motion tracker's picking up something!"

The ODST's turned on their visors, blocking out their faces while Raelyn silently looked at his tactical display.

(Raelyn) "I am detecting something as well."

(Romeo) "Hey, remember that conversation about your luck from earlier? Suddenly beginning to believe it..."

Everyone drew their weapons as the crew of the ship shouted, readying cannons and bows.

Hilda drew out her relic axe and looked in the water.

(Hilda) "Where exactly are you sensing this thing?"

The ODST's had their weapons drawn, slowly looking to their left. The movement was quickly circling around them.

(Elliot) "U-Um, how big is this Serpent, exactly?"

(Percy) "Not sure, reports are inconsistent."

(Raelyn) "If it is as big as we expect it to be, what's stopping it from tearing this boat in half?"

Raelyn readied his Bolter and quickly turned around to the back of the ship, finally seeing a shadow.

(Buck) "ON OUR SIX!"

Only the ODST's and Raelyn turned to the back at first.

It took everyone else a second to realize what Buck meant, turning around and facing the same direction.

[Wreck to the Seaman - Final Fantasy XIV OST]

The shadow quickly vanished underneath the ship, making everyone nervous of what its about to do.

The ODST's and Raelyn paid attention to their motion tracker, and realized it was suddenly in place.

(Romeo) "Why the hell's it stopping?"

(Raelyn) ...!!! "It's not! CAPTAIN, TURN YOUR SHIP TO THE RIGHT, NOW!"

The captain quickly got on the wheel and steered right, the wind forcing the ship to make a hard right.

From the waters emerged a massive serpent, the water splashing onto the ship and blowing back some of the crew members.

The waves rocked the ship violently, almost tipping it over.

(Elliot) "AGH!"

Elliot lost his footing and was about to go overboard before Dutch grabbed his arm.

(Dutch) "Hang on kid!"

The ship barely managed to balance itself, throwing itself back with a force that made everyone lose footing again.

Duvalie was the first to stabilize herself when she realized the serpent was staring at them.

As the serpent opened its mouth, it was about to strike before Duvalie leapt forward and hit its face with her shield, making it stagger back and roar in anger.

Duvalie used the force of her attack to launch herself back onto the ship, twirling her sword.

(Duvalie) "Little help?!"

(Percy) "FIRE THE CANNONS!"

Crew mates rushed to the cannons and lit the matches.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The cannons opened fire, most of them missing their mark while only one managed to hit the torso of the beast.

Raelyn and the ODSTs rushed to the side and held the triggers of their guns, the bullets rushing towards the head.

The serpent dove underwater to dodge the gunfire.

(Crew) "IT'S COMING AROUND THE OTHER SIDE!"

Its head emerged from the water on the opposite side of the ship, its head about to strike into the heart of the ship before Laura ran to the middle and swung her sword upwards, the blow knocking it away.

Fie used her gunblades to fire at its head as well, but the bullets deflected off the scales and it dove back underwater, this time no one being able to see where it went.

(Buck) "Dutch, Mickey! Heavy weapons, NOW! Romeo, crow's nest and snipe that son of a bitch!"

The ODST's nodded and quickly did as they were told, Raelyn going to Duvalie with his Bolter still raised.

(Duvalie) "Hey, Amuto, got any ideas?"

(Raelyn) "One, but with my luck-"

(Duvalie) "Grr, SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR BAD LUCK! It's either that, or we let the ship get torn in half!"

(Raelyn) "If that is the case, please hold onto this."

(Duvalie) "...Wha-"

Raelyn put his bolter into Duvalie's arm, almost making her tip over from the weight.

(Duvalie) "HUARGH!? H-HEY...W-WHAT TH HELL?!"

(Raelyn) "I will be right back."

Raelyn pulled out a knife and looked over to the side.

(Hilda) "H-Hey, what's the yellow guy doing?!"

(Elliot) "Huh?"

Elliot, Fie and Laura turned around and saw Raelyn peeking over the edge.

(Fie) "What is he...?"

(Laura) ?! "WAIT, ARE YOU GOING TO?!-"

(Raelyn) "BROTHERS, SISTERS! PREPARE FOR ITS RESURFACING!"

[Through the Maelstrom - Final Fantasy XIV OST]

Raelyn hopped over the ship's edge and dove straight into the water.

He quickly looked around, and noticing a shadow emerging from the depths as it was rushing upwards at him.

He did everything in his power to swim away from the ship and-

(Buck) "The hell is he-"

Everyone saw Raelyn shoot upwards as the Serpent's mouth grabbed him, the Space Marine now in its teeth.

Although it tried to devour him, the armor's weight and size made it extremely difficult to do so.

(Elliot) "OH AIDIOS!"

(Percy) "Is he insane?!"

(Romeo) "QUIT STARING AND FIRE DAMN IT!"

Romeo cocked his sniper's handle back and pulled the trigger, the shot ringing out across the air as the bullet attempted to hit the wildly flailing serpent.

Raelyn was being thrashed around, the teeth unable to go through his armor. He swung his knife into the beast several times to no effect despite it piercing the scales.

(Raelyn) "INCOMING!"

Having no option, he grabbed the beast's upper jaw and slammed his fist onto it, the force of the blow knocking the beast's head onto the ship.

The ship almost submerged itself into the water from the sheer weight of the serpent's head.

Everyone managed to keep their footing, letting Duvalie, Hilda, and Laura strike fast.

Duvalie dropped the Bolter and let it slide onto the floor as she stuck her sword into the teeth, breaking a few off and letting Raelyn awkwardly roll out of it's grasp.

Hilda smashed it's skull with her axe overhead, Laura swinging her sword sideways to strike at its mouth.

It recoiled back in pain, tipping the ship over again.

Raelyn was about to get on his feet before the cannons from the right side slid over and hit him back into the water.

(Hilda) "Wow, he wasn't kidding!"

The Bolter slid over into the water and landed near Raelyn, which he quickly grabbed and looked for the serpent again.

It was coming through the other side, but it was only now he realized how huge it was.

The tail was coming near him, and he rushed over to grab it as the tail violently dragged him along the water.

Dutch grabbed a Spartan Laser while Mickey had a rocket launcher, both of them checking their motion trackers.

(Buck) "Right side!"

Romeo reloaded his sniper and quickly spun around, being the first one to see the serpent emerge and fly towards the boat.

(Romeo) "It's gonna ram us!"

(Dutch) "Like hell it is!"

Dutch's Spartan Laser began to form a red line as it whirred up making a high pitched activation noise.

Mickey fired first, the rockets flying off and trying to lock onto the serpent. They went into the water as it nimbly swerved to the left and right, the waters catching the explosion.

Raelyn held on as the water's currents fought against him, using one hand at a time to climb up the serpent until he got near the eyes.

The pupil looked directly at Raelyn and widened, realizing he was there.

Raelyn's hand with the knife stabbed directly into the eye, making the serpent thrust upwards into the air, roaring and shaking into the air.

(Dutch) "GOTCHA!"

With another second passing, the Spartan Laser shot out a force even stronger than the cannon, a burning red beam of death searing through the Serpent's skin, making it drop into the water dead.

(Buck) "Good work, gentlemen."

(Elliot) "Whew, is everyone okay?"

(Percy) "Check on the equipment and for any wounded!"

(Jonas) "Captain, get us closer to the body we need to-"

Jonas stopped midsentence when he looked up.

Percy noticed it and turned around, seeing what he was staring at.

[Blinding Indigo - Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers OST]

"An assassin from our homeland? Or a foolish trespasser upon these waters?"

(Jonas) "What in the hell?!"

(Percy) "SOMETHING'S UP HERE!"

(Buck) "OPEN FIRE!"

Fie and Buck pointed their guns and pulled the triggers, the bullets passing through the aquatic creature's body, letting them drop onto the floor, water splashing from the impact.

"Very well. Then Her power shall crush the miscreant that dares pollute these waters."

The creature began glowing, making the clouds above them start pouring rain and the water glow as well.

The Serpent Raelyn was still attached to started glowing a pale blue, the wound quickly regenerating. He was quick to aim his bolter and open fire on it, but had no effect.

Hilda and Laura ran up to it with their weapons swinging overhead, it quickly teleporting away as it vacantly stared at them.

Elliot was about to cast a spell with his staff until he realized the rain was forming puddles on the ship, slowly bubbling.

(Elliot) "Uh, guys?!"

Birds made of water emerged from the puddles and flew at Elliot, the force of the impact making him fall onto the floor.

Romeo immediately turned his attention to the bird and pulled the trigger.

The bird exploded into water, it calmly splashing down onto the ship.

Hearing something behind him, he reached for his pistol and spun around, pulling the trigger.

The bird exploded, and it was then he realized a puddle was beneath him.

From the puddle emerged a wolf-like creature that leapt up, knocking Romeo off the tower.

Before he could land, Duvalie caught him and set him down to the floor and raising her shield as the wolf leapt on top of her.

Its teeth was made of water as well, but Duvalie didn't want to find out if it hurt just as bad as a real wolf, so she plunged her sword into its body making it explode.

Mickey switched to an SMG and opened fire on the other puddles before anything else could show up, Buck and Fie joining in while Hilda, Laura, Jonas, and Percy fought other wolves.

Dutch was about to switch weapons before hearing the water explode behind him.

The Serpent was glowing the same blue as the winged creature, Raelyn still on top of it, stabbing it with his knife.

(Dutch) "Oh for the love of-"

He aimed his Spartan Laser at the Serpent again, only for the shot to be taken and hitting birds that flew in the way.

Elliot rushed over and healed Romeo of any injuries, making him push away the staff.

(Romeo) "Stop healing me and get to killing these things!"

Romeo reloaded his pistol while Duvalie dispatched of another wolf that was trying to attack from behind.

(Duvalie) "They just keep coming!"

Meanwhile, Raelyn lost count of how many times he stabbed the head of this beast, it would not stop moving.

It tried ferociously to be rid of Raelyn, eventually dunking its head back underwater and using the tail to swipe him off.

Raelyn flipped several times underwater, trying to steady himself as the Serpent bit Raelyn again, this time half his body inside it's mouth.

He said nothing as he remained calm, putting his bolter into the mouth before he was thrown out of the water and into the air.

Raelyn broke through the top deck and landed onto the bottom, creating a massive hole on the top part of the ship.

The Serpent's tail slammed onto the side of the ship as it wrapped its head around to the front deck of the ship.

Dutch aimed the laser at the head, until realizing it was too close to the ship.

(Dutch) "Damn it, I'd just rip this ship apart if I took the shot!"

Fie hopped onto the Serpent's back with both her gunblades anchoring her onto it, making it twitch only a little.

She pulled the triggers several times as the bullets went into its body.

It loosened up its grip on the ship, Laura using her sword to chop off part of the tail, making it roll over and tripping some of the crew and water-formed creatures.

Buck picked off one target after the other, struggling to reload.

A wolf jumped onto him, the teeth scraping against his helmet's visor as he grabbed his knife and plunged it straight into its neck, making it disappear.

As he got up, he noticed that the winged creature only staring at them.

(Buck) "The hell is this thing?!"

Elliot tried to heal any injured crew member he could while Hilda, Percy, and Jonas covered him.

Slamming his spear into a wolf, Jonas turned to HIlda.

(Jonas) "What do we do?! There are too many of them!"

The ship slowly began to crack loudly as the serpent's grip refused to let go.

(Captain) "At this rate, the ship is going break!"

(Percy) "Wait, wheres your yellow friend?!"

(Duvalie) "Think we saw him make a hole into the lower decks!"

(Dutch) "Then what is he-"

Cannons fired onto the serpent's side that was directly next to the ports, before an entire cannon was thrown out, a rope attached to it making the serpent drop from the weight.

It finally loosened its grip and struggled to get the attached cannons off of it.

(Raelyn) "The rope will not hold, TAKE THE SHOT BROTHER DUTCH!"

(Dutch) "GOTCHA!"

Dutch grabbed his Spartan Laser and charged it, aiming at the head.

Multiple puddles formed around Dutch before the others rushed to it and stuck their weapons inside.

As several birds were about to fly into the shot again, Raelyn emerged from the lower decks and opened fire with the bolter, the shots thundering out and completely shattering them into droplets.

Dutch's Spartan Laser kicked back as the beam hit his target, its head being completely blown off, making the serpent's body go limp and dissolve into the water.

The winged creature suddenly stopped glowing, making the ODST's spin around and open fire, the bullets going into the creature.

Hilda, Fie, Laura, and Duvalie swung their weapons at it, the streaks of their weapons severing it.

Elliot's staff formed into a violin-like shape as he casted a spell that formed a circle of light, blasting upwards and making the creature finally dissipate into the air.

[End Song]

The weather finally began to clear above them, everyone now trying to catch their breath.

(Dutch) "Lord, can you please get us out of this ocean now?"

The ship began to making an uncomfortably loud screeching noise before crewmates were on it, trying to fix the damages.

(Dutch) "...So was that a yes or no?"

An explosion occured where the serpent's body was, a mixture of the rain and saltwater pouring down onto them. A tiny rainbow formed from the storm in sight of the direction back to the town.

(Dutch) "...Amen."

(Fie) "Ugh, finally."

(Elliot) "That wasn't like anything we fought before..."

(Hilda) "Whew...to be fair, don't think we ever had to fight in the ocean."

(Duvalie) "So, do any of us have an idea of-AAAAAGH!"

Duvalie suddenly fell to one knee, grabbing her head.

(Buck) "H-Hey, what's-URGH!"

Buck quickly followed suit, then the ODST's fell to one knee as well, mimicking her action.

The members of Class VII and Raelyn were soon to follow, their heads pounding as their vision suddenly faded to white.

...

...

It was an empty lake with a strange platform in the middle, the sun was bright and the skies only had a few clouds.

And going towards that platform was a blonde-braided man and a small floating companion.

(Paimon) "Hm...Is it a good idea to mess with this?"

(Aether) "It's where the villagers told us that this...thing was, so it's not going to get rid of itself.

(Paimon) "Yeah, but still-"

Before they could continue their conversation, they heard something appear behind them.

It was a small floating creature with a staff, laughing maniacally.

(Aether) "Damn it, why now?"

Aether's sword materialized into his hand and was about to swing before a bright light appeared in front of them, catching the both of them off guard.

(Abyss Mage) "Eh?"

(Aether) "What the?-"

The bright light made the both of them step back, Aether accidentally triggering the platform, and the weather suddenly clouded up.

(Paimon) "Uh oh!"

(Aether) "Damn, now we have to deal with this-"

Before he could finish, the bright light exploded and made the air push them back, before slowly pulling them in.

The Abyss Mage and whatever was summoned with the platform was sucked into the light.

Aether and Paimon came dangerously close to before he shot a powerful gust of wind out of his hand, making him fly further back as the light quickly disappeared.

The weather returned to normal as he got up trying to catch his breath.

(Paimon) "What the heck was that?!"

(Aether) "I...I have no idea..."

Everything started to turn into a static mess as Aether and Paimon slowly faded out of view...

...

(Hilda's voice) "Hey...HEY!"

Everyone's vision returned to them as they looked around confused.

(Percy) "What was that about?"

(Buck) "Alright...we all saw that too right?"

(Duvalie) "Agh...you mean that lake platform thing...?"

(Laura) "I...saw it too!"

(Raelyn) "As did I...None of us possess any psychic abilities I am unaware of, correct?"

(Mickey) "If I had the ability do that crap, I would've in that fight!"

(Hilda) "What are you guys talking about?!"

Everyone turned to Hilda and her knights. It seemed they were unaffected.

(Fie) "You...didn't see that?"

(Hilda) "No, you guys just all reached for your head at the same time!"

They all looked at each other now.

(Elliot) "Was that some kind of dream?"

(Dutch) "Looked more like a memory to me."

(Romeo) "Memory of what? Who the hell were they? And what was that winged bastard we were just fighting having to do with that?"

(Jonas) "Captain, take us back to port."

(Captain) "No need to tell me again. RAISE THE SAILS, LET'S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Everyone slowly rose up, with Raelyn helping Duvalie up.

They all remained quiet on the ride back.

An hour passed as they finally reached the shore, reaching for their heads.

(Laura) "If we go to another ocean, it will be too soon..."

(Fie) "Let's go head back to the building and-..."

Fie frowned as her ARCUS unit was now beeping.

(Fie) "...Someone's been inside."

They all reached for their weapons and slowly approached it, including the door.

Percy and Jonas quickly scattered the townsfolk, Hilda drawing her axe and joining them.

The ODST's went near the door and silently held up their weapons, turning to the others and nodding.

Duvalie raised her shield and was the first one in, kicking down the door and drawing her sword.

(Duvalie) "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

(Mila) "AAAAAGH!"

The young girl fell backwards, completely terrified of all the weapons suddenly pointing at her.

Romeo and Raelyn looked around the room to make sure no one else was present.

(Fie) "Hey...you're that girl who was talking to those kids."

(Mila) "I-I'M SORRY! I DIDN'T MEAN TO MAKE YOU ANGRY! I WAS JUST CURIOUS!"'

Fie turned to the blue devices she stuck on the walls and back to the girl.

(Mila) "U-Uh, I was just wanting to talk to the big yellow guy!"

Everyone turned to Raelyn, who looked back at the girl.

(Raelyn) "...What is it?"

(Mila) "I-I was just wanting to thank you for helping those kids? From yesterday?"

(Raelyn) "...Ah. I do not believe she means us harm."

Everyone slowly put away their weapons while Raelyn took off his helmet and knelt down.

(Raelyn) "Why did you break in here?"

(Mila) "The door was open, promise! At first I checked to see if you were home and...well, then I got curious."

(Elliot) "You could've gotten hurt! You're lucky it was just us, I don't think other mercenaries would be nice enough to let you go unscathed!"

Mila was about to say something before noticing Hilda.

(Mila) "M-MILADY!"

She quickly scrambled to get on one knee before Hilda sighed.

(Hilda) "Hey, come on kiddo. Get up, no need for that around me."

(Mila) "Are...are you guys just mercenaries?"

Raelyn cleared his throat to catch her attention.

(Raelyn) "Yes, we are. Do not mistake our intentions, we were just for the coin. But...give the children my regards. My name is Raelyn. Yours?"

(Mila) "M...Mila."

Raelyn nodded.

(Raelyn) "Then I will see you home. Everyone else we should prepare to get moving."

(Buck) "Right. Pack it up ladies, let's get ready to move."

(Dutch) "On it."

Mickey and Romeo nodded and checked around the house for leftover equipment.

Duvalie shrugged and stood in the corner with the members of Class VII. Hilda stayed with them as Raelyn walked out with Mila.

Fie activated her ARCUS unit and checked the screen.

The blue devices started to beep rapidly, making everyone turn around to see what the noise was.

(Mickey) "So...now can we know what that is?"

(Fie) "Yup. First we just gotta get away. No evidence and all that."

(Mickey) "...Oh, that explains why it looked familliar."

(Duvalie) "Huh? W-What is it?"

(Buck) "...Are we safe-"

(Fie) "I gotta push the button first. We're fine. We put these here last night in case we had to leave early."

(Elliot) "We made sure this building was abandoned and out of the way of everyone."

(Hilda) "Uh...what are they talking about?"

(Laura) "We have our things, let us get moving."

...

Raelyn walked alongside the girl, his helmet underneath his arm.

(Raelyn) "Mila, do your parents know you like to snoop around like this?"

(Mila) "Hah...y-yeah. It wasn't for anything bad, I promise!"

(Raelyn) "Hmph. Those children, who are they to you? Siblings?"

(Mila) "Nah, they're orphans. From the war..."

(Raelyn) "War?"

(Mila) "You know...the Five-year war? The one with the Church and Empire?"

(Raelyn) "Ah. My apologies, it seems I forgot."

(Mila) "Are you really mercenaries? Figured you would've remembered that at least."

(Raelyn) "...I am. My age is getting the better of me is all."

Mila raised an eyebrow at Raelyn's half assed excuse.

(Raelyn) "Regardless, you did not answer my question."

(Mila) "Oh, right. Well they were kids that were on the streets for a while. None of us really knew what to do, so I became friends with them! They ended up following me around everywhere for the past three years."

(Raelyn) "Then you have a good heart it seems. What are their names?"

(Mila) "The boy is Emil, and the girl is Lena."

(Raelyn) "Well then, take care of Emil and Lena. They are going to need you for the coming times."

(Mila) "Yeah..."

Raelyn stopped following when Mila approached a door, assuming it to be her house.

(Raelyn) "Take care then, Mila."

(Mila) "W-Wait, where will you guys go?"

(Raelyn) "I cannot say. Wherever the wind takes us I suppose."

(Mila) "Will...we see you again?"

Raelyn put on his helmet and turned to her.

(Raelyn) "If the Emperor wills it, then yes."

(Mila) "Emperor? Like, Emperor Edelgard?"

(Raelyn) "Er...different one."

KABOOM!

Raelyn turned to the source of the explosion, seeing his group semi-casually walking away from it.

(Mila) "What the?!"

(Raelyn) "Get inside. I will investigate."

Mila nodded and quickly went inside while Raelyn walked over to the group.

(Citizen) "Good goddess, the building collapsed on itself?!"

(Citizen 2) "No one was hurt, were they?"

(Citizen 3) "N-No, just-" cough cough "Some dust!"

(Fie) "Aaaand that's your answer to what they were."

(Duvalie) "Bombs?!"

(Laura) "We wanted to cover our tracks."

(Raelyn) "Would that not make them suspicious of us even more?"

(Elliot) "No more than they already were."

Buck's visor picked up signatures to their side, quietly watching them.

(Fie) "There's been people watching us ever since we arrived."

(Dutch) "Think it's those insurrectionists?"

(Hilda) "Too early to tell. We'll investigate things from our end."

(Mickey) "Well, good luck to ya then, ma'am."

Hilda nodded and went joined Percy and Jonas who were looking at the collapsed building.

(Buck) "Well then, mission accomplished on our end. Wonder how the other kids are doing."

(Duvalie) "More importantly, I want answers to whatever the hell's going on with this talk of separatists and that vision thing."

As they walked away from the town, Mila watched from the window.

(Mila) "Just who are you...?"

PART 2: ENDED

TO BE CONTINUED…

[Lost in Paradise - ALI]

Gotta get it homie gotta move it If you gonna do it then, push everything to the side Everybody just talk nobody really do it You should keep a secret until you actually do it No need to double check with someone Use your judgement only, break the walls Let’s do flashy fake More Cool, keep it low, prove them wrong I won’t give up the fight in my life 'Cause my life is living for love I won’t give up the fight in my life Stand off and groove on time Tokyo prison Going to relight your feelings When times get too rough Night and day are fading Going to relight your feelings There’s no time to explain Gimme your love Access to your love Oh yeah Lost in paradise Night and day are fading out When times getting rough Access to your love Lost in paradise Night and day are fading out Keep on dancing now Hеy hey hеy hey heyeah

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Avengers Endgame

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where Today We Are Continuing Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe...

And Today We Are Looking At The Big One...Yep, We're Finally Here...Avengers Endgame...

This Film Sees The Grave Course Of Events Set In Motion By Thanos That Wiped Out Half Of The World And Fractured The Avengers And Guardians Of The Galaxy's Ranks Compels The Remaining Members To Take One Final Stand...

Will They Succeed?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Avengers Endgame...

The Film Starts On The Barton Family Farm As We See Clint Barton Still Under House Arrest, Training His Daughter, Lila To Maybe Become The Next Hawkeye...

Yeah Right, We Know That Kate Bishop Is Most Likely Going To Be In The Disney + Series...

While His 2 Sons Play A Game Of Catch And His Wife Velma Dinkley Prepares A Picnic But As He Talks To His Wife For A Second Barton Turns Back To Not Only Find His Daughter Gone But His Wife And Some Too As They're Now Casualties Of The Snap Heard Around The World...

3 Weeks Later On Board The Benatar, Tony And Nebula Start To Run Out Of Supplies On The Ship, So He Uses His Iron Man Helmet To Chronicle Their Final Days With The Hope It'll Be Found By Pepper...

However As Tony Goes To Sleep, They Are Saved By Captain Marvel Who Takes Them Back To Earth...

Reunited With Pepper And The Other Avengers, Steve Asks If He Knows Where Thanos Is Only To Erupt Into A Furious Rant Where He Mentions Thanos And Their Civil War Fight Before He Faints...

And Thank God For That, As Anymore Out Of Tony's Mouth And I Would Have Punched Him...

Locating Thanos On An Uninhabited Planet With Help From Nebula, They Discover That While He Has The Gauntlet The Stones Are Missing, Which Leads Him To Explain That They Would Have Been Nothing But A Temptation If He Had Kept Them So, After Serving Their Purpose He Had Them Destroyed...

They Believe Him To Be Lying At First But If There's One Thing Nebula Knows Her Father To Be It's Not A Liar, So Thor Decapitates Him...

Five Years Later, Earth's Remaining Population Attempts To Persevere Against Such Catastrophic Losses But Things Start To Change When Scott Lang Is Released From The Quantum Realm, Disoriented And Confused About What Has Happened...

Visiting A Wall With All The Names Of The People Who Vanished To See If His Daughter's Name Is Among It, Thankfully It Isn't, So Racing To His Ex's House, Scott Discovers That Cassie Has Aged From A Child To A Teenager...

Trying To Make Cassie Stinger A Little Fast There, Marvel?...

Arriving At The Avengers Facility Where He Talks With Cap And Widow, He Explains That He Experienced Five Hours And Not Five Years While Also Talking To Them About The Quantum Realm And How It Could Allow Time Travel...

The Three Visit Tony At His Lakeside Home Where He Lives Now With His Wife Pepper And His Daughter, Morgan Where They Ask Him To Help Them Retrieve The Stones From The Past In An Attempt To Reverse What Thanos Did, But Tony Refuses, Worrying About What Will Happen With His New Life If He Does...

So They Turn To Banner Who During Those Five Years Has Restarted His Research Into Gamma Radiation And Used It To Morph His Body To Have The Appearance And Strength Of The Hulk While Retaining The Intelligence And Control Of Banner Digivolving Into Professor Hulk!

But As For The Quantum Realm, Banner Says That Quantum Physics Is Outside Of His Area Of Expertise But He Agrees To Help Them Try..

Meanwhile At His Lakeside Home, Tony Does Dishes Only To Discover A Photo Of Peter Parker Which Makes Him Change His Mind And Look Into Time Travel And It Turns Out It Is Possible...

Returning To The Avengers Facility The Next Day, Tony Tells Steve That He's Agreeing On The Condition That In Trying To Reverse What Thanos Did It Won't Reset What Has Happened Since Then As He Doesn't Want To Lose His Daughter With Cap Agreeing The 2 Men Set Their Differences Aside And Get To Work...

Banner And Rocket Fly To New Asgard In Norway Which Is Home To The Asgardians That Are Left Including Valkyrie And Korg And Miek Who Survived...

But As For Thor (Who Has Put On A Considerable Amount Of Weight, Become An Alcoholic And Spending Most Of His Time Playing Fortnite)...

I Always Saw Thor As An Overwatch Guy But If That's His Game, Hey I'm For It!...

He Gets Upset At The Mention Of Thanos' Name To The Point That He Wont Go With Banner But When Rocket Mentions Beer, He's In...

Meanwhile In Tokyo...

Barton Who Now Goes By Ronin, Attacks A Group Of Yakuza Only To Be Confronted By Widow Who Wants To Bring Him In, But Wanting Nothing To Do With The Plan At First Barton Eventually Changes His Mind And Goes With Her...

Back At The Avengers Facility, Banner And Stark Complete Construction Of Their Own Quantum Tunnel And Advanced Tech Suits As The Team Prepares For Test Runs With Barton As The Test Subject...

And It Works, Barton Is Sent Back To A Time On His Farm Before The Snap Which Leads Them Into The Next Phase: Determining The Location Of Each Infinity Stone In The Past Which Proves To Be A Problem As They Only Have A Small Supply Of Pym Particles To Do So...

Deciding To Go After The Time, Mind And Space Stones During The Battle Of New York, The Reality Stone On Asgard With Jane Foster, The Power Stone On Morag With Star Lord And The Soul Stone On Vormir...

Their Destinations And Teams Are Set With Tony, Cap, Banner And Scott Going To The Battle Of New York, Nebula And Rhodey Going To Morag, Barton And Widow Going To Vormir And Thor And Rocket Going To Asgard...

Starting With Team 1 With Stark, Cap, Banner And Scott, Banner Visits The Sanctum Sanctorum Where He Meets The Ancient One Who Doesn't Want To Give Him The Stone At First But After Hearing That Strange Gave Thanos The Stone, She Gives It To Banner Realizing That It Must Have Been For A Reason...

Infiltrating Stark Tower In The Aftermath Of The Battle Of New York, Lang Plants Himself Onto The 2012 Tony Stark As Him And The Other 2012 Avengers Head Downstairs Only To Be Confronted By Alexander Pierce Who Wants The Tesseract And Loki...

But Scott Causes A Distraction By Sending 2012 Tony Into Cardiac Arrest Which Leads Our Tony Stark To Get The Tesseract But When 2012 Hulk Bursts In, Past Loki Manages To Get The Tesseract Which He Uses To Escape To His Disney + Series...

But As All That Happens, Cap Manages To Get The Loki's Scepter From Brock Rumlow And Jasper Sitwell Only To Be Confronted By 2012 Cap Who Believes He's Loki...

(Start At 0:16, End At 1:48)

Regrouping With Cap, Tony And Lang Tell Him That They Screwed Up But Tony Realizes That He Knows A Place Where He Can Not Only Get The Tesseract But Pym Particles Too, So Giving Scott The Scepter, Tony And Cap Travel To Camp Lehigh In 1970...

Arriving In 1970, We Get Our Last...Stan Lee Cameo..

Stan Lee Cameo!

A Moment Of Silence For A Great Man...

Splitting Up, Tony Gets The Tesseract In The Place Where Cap And Widow Found Arnim Zola In Winter Solider But While Down There He Runs Into His Father, Howard Who Is Looking For Arnim While Also Talking About The Birth Of His Son Which Is Expected Next Month...

While Talking With Howard, Tony Sees His Father In A Whole New Light And Now Understands What He Went Through Being A Father Himself Now But As Tony Makes Up With His Father, Cap Distracts A Young Hank Pym So He Can Get The Pym Particles Necessary To Return...

So With Everything In Hand Tony And Cap Leave 1970, Which Takes Us To Asgard With Thor And Rocket But As Rocket Gets The Reality Stone, Thor Runs Into His Mom, Frigga, Who Realizes That He's From The Future...

Attempting To Tell Her About Her Soon To Be Coming Death At The Hands Of Malekith, Frigga Doesn't Want To Listen Insisting That Thor Fix His Future Rather Than Hers, So With Rocket Having The Reality Stone In Hand, Thor Reclaims Mijolnir Before Saying Goodbye To His Mom And Leaving...

Now On Morag, Romanoff And Clint Use The Benatar To Fly To Vormir To Get The Soul Stone While Nebula And Rhodey Knock Out Star Lord In A Scene That Ruins One Of The Best Scenes In The Original Guardians Movie...

Thanks Alot Russo Brothers...

And They Get The Power Stone And Rhodey Returns To The Present However, Nebula Becomes Incapacitated When Her Cybernetic Implants Link With Her 2014 Self, Allowing The Thanos Of That Time To Learn About His Future Successes And The Avengers Attempt To Thwart It...

Determined To Rebuild The Universe So No One Will Remember What He Has Done, Thanos Replaces Present Day Nebula With 2014 Nebula As Barton And Widow Arrive On Vormir And Learn The Price That Must Be Paid Which Leads Them To Fight Over Who Will Make The Sacrifice...

Eventually It's Widow That Sacrifices Her Life For The Soul Stone...

Well, I Guess That Black Widow Movie's Not Happening...

O.....Kay...

With Everyone Reuniting In The Present They Are All Saddened At The Loss Of Black Widow But They Realize That They Must Not Let Her Sacrifice Be In Vain And Continue Their Plan...

Creating A Nano Gauntlet To Harness The Stones They All Have A Debate Over Who Will Unsnap Everything But Eventually It's Banner That Does It Because Of His Physical Form And His Relationship With Gamma Radiation...

But Despite Unsnapping Everything, 2014 Nebula Activities The Quantum Tunnel And Brings 2014 Thanos' Ship Into The Future Where It Blows Everything To Kingdom Come...

Yeah, They May As Well Have Done That...

Convincing 2014 Gamora To Help Her, Present Nebula And Her Kill 2014 Nebula After She Refuses To Help Them...

Ok, I Know They Made Their Own Time Travel Rules Here But Seriously, With 2014 Nebula Dead, Future Nebula Should Be Dead As Well...

With The Avengers Separated, With Thor, Tony And Cap Being Up Top So They Decide To Attack Thanos On Their Own But Thanos Outmatches Them And Summons His Army From His Warship, But Luckily They Have An Army Too...

Shortly After That, Captain Marvel Arrives On The Scene And Destroys Thanos' Warship, But Thanos Overpowers Her And Gets The Gauntlet...

And So, With Thanos Defeated, Tony Is Weakened By The Raw Power Of The Stones Before Succumbing To His Injuries After Being Comforted By Pepper...

After Tony's Funeral, Thor Appoints Valkyrie As The New Ruler Of New Asgard As He Joins The Guardians Of The Galaxy...

Only To Not Appear In Guardians Vol.3 But His Only Movie Which Chris Hemsworth Is Only Doing To Wrap Up The Character...

And Cap Returns The Infinity Stones And Mijolnir Back To Their Original Timelines Only To Decide To Stay In The Past With Peggy Carter While Back In The Present An Old Cap Passes On His Shield To Sam Wilson To Tie Into That Disney + Series As Our Film Ends...

While There's No Mid Credits Or End Credits Scene, That Was Avengers Endgame And What Can I Say About It?..

Despite Everyone Being Divided On It, I Absolutely Enjoyed It, The Story Was Interesting, The Characters Were Well Written, I Thought Thanos Was Equally Good Here As He Was In Infinity War. However, Some Of The Time Travel Logistics Kinda Had Me Questioning Things Still Though I Say See It...

Next Week We Finish Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe By Looking At Spider-Man Far From Home, Till Then, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

[jamiebluewind]

Charatcter Descriptions and Summary 2.13

As always, let me know if I need to edit or add anything and tag/ask/PM me about art and stories so I can check them out! I'll try to add warnings later. Also, we have 8 episodes left including this one, so the last one should be number 20.

***

Things

Dusk Moss

Hallucinogenic moss with very few alchemical properties that puts the user into a state of lucid dreaming where they are also concious of waking world (basically fantasy marijuana)

Is a flammable powder that cannot be unlit once lit

Crumpkin said his brother swears by it and that everyone should try it at least once.

It will even you out if you take a little bit and a quarter of teaspon will send one of them on a trip all day (so what about the size and race of the person?)

Can buy in a massive block from Tinkerer's Hall where a dose of the powder can be shaved off the block to use

Mystery Rune

The rune was abjurative magic: metamagic school (instead of protection, wards, and shields) which shapes the nature of magic itself. Specifically, the rune involved curses and a way to mask powerful curses and spells. One can take a tremendous amount of spellcraft (or the ability to cast multiple spells), put it into a curse, and have the curse ride under other curses. In other words, if connected to an object, the object would have been "cursed" to be a vessel for a wealth of other spellcasting (flash drive), but hidden under another curse (advanced encryption and a virus).

The larger and more permeable the curse, the more able it is to ride under another curse.

The curse on top (dummy curse) works best the more widespread, static (can't be easily ended or doesn't have random frequent spell effects), ambient, and passive it is like using a magical landscapes or creatures instead of a spell made by a spellcaster.

***

PCs With Datemates

Kristen

Took a picture on her crystal of the unknown goddess mural (originally wondered if it was a tequila advertisement)

Kissed Tracker and the tree she was hiding behind

Wanted rosé with the cold fratatas, but thought it was weird that he put both kale and spinach in them (as did Tracker)

Looked through the medical papers Adaine and Riz found and figured out how to cure the Kalina infection (greater restoration due to studying records or a tinsure that requires dusk moss, the alchemical supplies Gorgug got from the tinkerers, some things Adaine can pull from her jacket, and one or two things they'd only be able to find beyond the wall)

Her and the group decided on the tincture method despite the risk of curing behind the wall as she can only cast greater restoration once per day (only one 5th level spell slot and 5 infected: Tracker, Sandra Lynn, Ragh, Riz, and herself), but the option of using greater restoration on herself and Riz while leaving the others behind or inside Van was discussed (side note: could she team up with any of the locals bards/clerics/druids/artificers/celestial warlocks who know greater restoration and teach them the specifics of the altered spell while they wait on the others to get back?)

Suggested they pretend they all died after they take the tincture in order to give them an advantage due to Kalina thinking the party was cut in half (all but Adaine agreed)

Owns little handcuffs with her and Tracker's initials on them

"I don't know why I'm saying this, but Go Ball."

Assumed that the team in hell were just stuck in a waiting room, possibly drinking pina coladas

Investigated where Aelwen, Adaine's mom, and Killian entered the briar wall. It was much more tangled, far from Arborly, up a cliff with difficult rocky terrain between them and the temple. It was a place where they wouldn't be looked for, but it would take them longer to get there.

Tracker

Said the thing with Vraz made her werewolf issue with the Shrine of Thorns the second weirdest thing that's happened

Started transforming after glancing at the uncovered mural image of the unknown goddess, growling as half her head transformed as she fought changing before rolling off and hiding behind a tree (per Kristen's suggestion)

Couldn't go to hell because she couldn't enter the shrine

Gorgug

Got springs put in his shoes by the gnomes which gave them thick rubbery soles (Spring Coiled Sneakers of Bounding) and also asked for shock thing from tinkerers which would have a spare the dying effect (unknown if he got it)

Wears size 19 canvas shoes

Looked through a big log book with the alchemic ingredients in tinkerer's shorthand before buying the same alchemical ingredients that Killian bought (magnesium, antimony, and mercury which are used in magical candles) for 350 gold. Killian also bought two huge blocks of dusk moss incense (600 gold for both which he split cost wise with Fabian), but he was nervous about buying it (dusk moss details above).

Explained cell towers to the tinkerers

Considered jumping into space to either get to or place a satellite

Found a picture of his parents launching their satellite into space (Wilma and Digby giving double thumbs up, the van tipped on it's nose with it's back doors open to launch the satellite from the back of it, a lot of papers and a mobile desk in van's glovebox) and found space tech-esk routing info for the satellite in Van which allowed him to make a satellite phone

Originally left his crystal and the info with the tinkerers (original timeframe 1-2 days), but came back to help which speed up the process

Was curious why Gilear wasn't infected by Shadow Cat like Sandra Lynn and was later sorry he brought it up

When they found out they couldn't enlarge/reduce Van, he considered making a massive vest with massive pockets he could wear that everyone could jump in before they used enlarge/reduced on him, but the idea was scrapped

Suggested that if they played dead after taking the tincture to not warn Gilear so he wouldn't be acting when they "died".

"Hey, this is based on nothing, but I feel like Gilear is dead."

Believed that hell wasn't as bad as people said it was, just unfamiliar and like 5 degrees hotter

Ran into the briars after the portal closed

Likes a hot hot tub because warm ones just makes him wonder what's cooking in there

Was up all night sweating with his hoodie off (first time in a long time) working on his phone before finishing up the crystal pack (made his phone into a satellite phone). He felt pretty good about making it work.

Got a slew of unread messages once he turned his phone on (few old ones from Zelda, some from his parents checking in, and tour stuff)

Called Zelda with a video call, putting his hoodie back on as it rang and rang (most of the call is in Zelda section)

Told Zelda he loved her for the first time (after she said it first). Said he wished he was there, but hadn't figured that technology out yet and admitted that he might not have service once they went into the forest ("I'm here to communicate")

The gnomes erupted into cheers over the crystal working, but he was equally exciting over Zelda saying she loved him. They popped some gnome wine (pink fizzy champagne that smelled like cloying sweet strawberries) and shared it with him in celebration

Got a bunch of DMs from the other seven maidens saying "Way to go big guy"

Zelda

Was at Ostentata's house at night for a party (everybody was telling the story of when Gorgug jumped the fire elemental there and when he backyard wrestle smashed the beer pong table while time was stopped) when Gorgug called

Told her adventuring party he was calling before she went outside, but they followed

Answered her phone while still wearing her earbuds and assumed he was back, but was told he figured out how to make his phone work. He did it because he felt like it was important to be able to talk to her, the world, and her (not because it was part of the quest). She asked if they had cell towers, but Gorgug said that he had been working on artificer stuff and used his parents' satellite.

Started crying over Gorgug doing a whole bunch of new science to make his phone able to call back, apologized to him over getting upset, and said she missed him and he was the best

Was embarrassed by the other maidens eavesdropping (they called out "Good lookin out Gorgug! Stand up thing to do! You did it!"). Gorgug went on speaker and said "Well hello guys!" before she shooed them off to talk to her boyfriend

Made sure that Gorgug's friends weren't in danger over him working on his project, but was reassured that he was having down time and it would also help them in the long run

Told Gorgug that she loved him for the first time and freaked out (insulting herself) before he said that he loved her too. This was followed by her saying "oooh I just wanna... I just wish you were here."

Said the Red Waste was super hard, but they were done and thought they would get a good grade on it

Called Gorgug cool (and was called cool by him). Said what he did meant a lot to her. The call ended with one last quick I love you from Gorgug.

Fig

Subpoenaed to be a witness for Gortholax before a tribunal due to him being negligent for his infernal domain (after his 9th and final request for appearence lapsed). The print of her subpoena got so fine that it was mostly illegable without a magnifying glass. It was also in infernal (which she can read)

Asked Vraz if she could leave the door to hell open with them following later (left open, but was yelled at)

Considered disguising herself as Gortholax and offered to disguise herself as a famous lawyer from billboards to help Gilear

Wanted to know more about law so she could defend Gortholax domain and yelled "THE CHOSEN ONE!" when she discovered that Gilear knew the law

Wanted to start a grass roots campaign about the demons working with the nightmare king (as devils hate them both)

Asked her mom why Gilear wasn't infected and discovered her parents had slept together many times, but not in the last 3 years

Got upset with Riz over his opinion on devils (quote in dialogue link)

Had to be the first through the portal to hell, but straddled the flaming doorway with Riz on her back to try to keep it open

Tied a rope around Hangman so she could wakeboard while smoking a clove, library card behind her right ear

Thought Gortholax's home was tasteful and knew the door code.

Blamed herself for the quality of Gilear's life (quote in dialogue link)

To Vraz "What going on with you? Do you need a hug?"

Lit a cigarette in court, told them that Gortholax was trapped in a gem, put her feet up, and said Kalina the Shadow Cat used a proxy to trap Gortholax with the assistance of demons (but was able to hide the fact that she was the proxy from Vraz)

Asked for help getting into the forest of the Nightmare King, but got yelled at because calling a recess does not mean the trial is over

Cut her arm and offered the tribunal her blood as proof she was Gortholax's daughter, but the blood sizzled when it hit the ground and either summoned or created an imp which served as proof

Ayda

Told Adaine what the rune was (details below)

Still working on plane shift

Got upset over Fig getting sucked into hell, insisting that they had to go rescue her "Well, we should do whatever we can to make it happen as fast as possible because I'm going to get another kiss, whatever happens"

Said Fig's lips are the softest things she's ever felt (grossing out Adaine) and "If I don't smell Fig's hair again, I'm going to incenerate"

Asked Adaine for advice as the Oracle, wanting to know how many potential futures there were were Fig wouldn't want to kiss her or be around her anymore and if they could be avoided. She was also worried that Fig might have kissed her, but not felt attracted to her.

"If we kissed a bunch of times over the course of an hour, does that mean we are girlfriends or wives?" (potentially but ask to clarify)

Was worried that she would look sad, weird, or not normal from a social standpoint for asking Fig to clarify if they were girlfriends (to which Adaine said she was not and was in face very very cool).

Worried about her mind being foreign to other people and despite not being the same as Adaine, felt better after talking to someone who understands not being like everyone else.

Told Adaine "You're a very special person to me and your friendship means the world to me. I hope we study magic together for a long long time" and that she loved her.

Has notes on how her brain works and built an entire friendship section in the library because she was so lonely.

Went to the Synod to be alone because she lived "on a dirty pirate island"

***

Other PCs And People In The Party

Adaine

Released an aura in the crime scene and might have put on gloves

Found the non detection runes her mother had placed (to keep elves off the trail) and the remains of two rituals, one to kill Killian and one to put the Devil's Heart (with Gortholax) inside Killian. The rituals happened 24 hours appart, meaning they left the night the teens arrived or her mom knew to kill Killian before Aelwen arrived.

While looking for something in the room (something nice her mom might have said about her), she found a blank piece of parchment on a small desk and revealed a message using "the pencil trick" ("Aelwen is with me. You are betrayed. You have no other choice darling. Come with us.") which she believed was probably for her dad. Later got the original copy (wrote out for a sending spell) by using mend on ashes she found in a trashcan

Suggested a cold fratata picnic

Pulled beautifully printed pamplets out of her jacket for Fig's grass roots campaign, but they had a typo so she tossed them

Told the group to give a thumbs up to someone who had the message spell (currently only Fig and Adaine) if they had something to say to keep it from Kalina

Was caught by briars and ejected from the hell potral, keeping her from entering, but decided that heaven and hell were just reflections of each other so she wasn't worried

On dusk moss, said "I've heard it's good for anxiety." and suggested that they all got high while waiting on their friends to return from hell (but was unable to convince the others)

Discovered that the unknown goddess' spellbook had a distinguishing mark on it, an occult rune that was in a lot of stuff at Compass Points (which Ayda would have studied) and on the coin given to Kalvaxus (more info under mystery rune)

Liked a hot tub that started off very warm at first and then got more comfortable

Messaged Ayda late at night for help "Avast ye scurvy devil. How is plane shift going? Also, need info on rune. It looks like [x]" (answered back "I'm not a scurvy devil. Let's use the synonym. Right jacket pocket.")

Found a key made of glowing blue crystalline energy in her pocket as the keyhole on a nearby door started glowing slightly blue.

Was given a scroll with a first level spell by Ayda that granted her access to the Synod of Spyre which is a meeting place for wizards

Told Ayda "I think your great",  made her laugh by telling her that curses were "ten a penny", and told her that she enjoyed talking to her about their magic as Ayda is someone who gets it and is not mean to her

Asked Ayda to tell her everything (about the kiss), but then realized that she didn't want or need to know everything. She did say (about Ayda and Fig) "I support this. I am happy about it. I am amazed. Oooo she's secretive!" and that while on a macro level, some people will kiss without caring, Fig wouldn't because she cared about everybody (she did kiss those two older guys though?)

Admittedly that being oracle only let her help out a little every day and occasionally she got a terrifying vision, but she doesn't know when the event will occur or what will cause it

To Ayda, "If you like a person and they like you and the relationship is good, it shouldn't matter how other people feel about it? I think."

"I want to be alone and also surrounded by my friends at all times."

Riz

Worked the crime scene in the Owl and Harp with Adaine (putting on gloves before starting)

Found that the rituals were specifically to get Kalina into Silvar by bypassing the need for permission from a devil authority by using petrismosis to move from an infected creature into a gem to commandeer the devil within it

Petrismosis: The body's ability to start having elements of the magical gem within it to start permiating orgainic membrane; the process of an organic body and gem to become one which includes osmosis of blood to gem (ragh mom constrantly fights against the being within her gem using her rage, blood, and soul)

Told Adaine "It's great to fin- be around someone who just focuses up. Me and you? Everybody else is super horny. Super emotional. But me and you? *slaps hands together* No emotions between the two of us." (she was looking for something nice from her mom)

Discovered that Adaine's mom had packed WAY more rations than they needed to get to the temple, some alchemical ingredients, and all primary work, leaving only hints behind as well as some research and medical diagrams (which Adaine and Riz took). The medical diagrams were extremely old velum grave robber level medical stuff written in a character based pictogram language (think hieroglyphs, almost like emoji) that was most likely centaur. One medical diagram was of a disected and dismembered centaur with dark, very scary looking cat symbols (refered to as the disease or infection) behind eyes, in ears, on tongue, deep in sinuses, and on spine. It also showed that the brain was carefully taken apart and looked at, but the infection was not present there.

He and Adaine deduced that Kalina could only look through one person at a time using their senses and couldn't get into their brains, but could cause paralysis. The only safe place would be the moon haven/Kristen's hallow, but Kalina might be able to ride one of the infected into the haven if she was actively trying to do it. They could however talk anywhere using telepathy (such as the message spell).

Was worried about going to hell while infected, but later said "I meantioned that I was concerened about going to hell and her possibly being able to see the trial, but hell is also bad so I don't really care if they end up fighting and killing each others. Let's just go to hell. Also, they're super far along already. They have Gortholax and they're in. So it's not like... yeah."

Might have internalized racism/goblinphobia and has bias towards devils (both from his reactions in this episode and his reaction to Gortholax in season 1)

Suspicious of devils and doesn't think they should be super cool with them (quote in dialogue link), later becoming upset over what Hangman said about goblins ("Oh like goblins have such a great reputation.") and the others reaction to his and The Hangman's statement.

Road into hell holding onto Fig's back.

Upon seeing Gilear knocked out, said "See I told you that hell was bad! I mean, this is awesome, but this is bad." Pointed out the irony of Gilear getting mad at him a long time ago for stealing the first aid kit that gave him the healing feat.

After Hangman said the evil souls were murderers, thieves, and liars, he started sweating and said "Liars huh?" (side note: Riz has actually done all three)

Grabbed Gilear's face and investigated him to figure out why he was so confident (he said no to an offer from Sandra Lynn). Hissed at Gilear and then apologized, saying they were in hell, it was weird, and the things said about goblins earlier made him feel kinda crazy

Hissed at Vraz repeatedly, even after she threatened him.

To Vraz "Well I'm Riz The Ball and I'm just gonna ROLL WITH THIS! We're here! We're here for your trial thing! *hiss*" Is held back by Gilear while Fig tried to push him forward towards Vraz (told her to stop it)

Hissed at Vraz again (when she was mean to Fig) saying Vraz calling somebody in the middle of a trial was weird before the pair got in another hissing/screaming match. Asked The Hangman to hold him back and got his foot run over.

Fabian

Ownes 250 to 312 pairs of shoes (depending how many have been thrown away or given to childen), has size 5 feet (and is self conscious about it), said he had delicate feet and was lithe and dexterous, and his father had small feet and mother had normal sized feet

Said "god damn it" when he discovered Krumpkin wore the same size shoes as him, lied and said he had big toes and wore a 5.5 because he didn't to exchange shoes with a gnome, and quietly said "...let's go" when Gorgug asked if he wanted little bells on his shoes (side note: was he teased in the past?)

Completely confused by tinkerers logbook, so he deferred to Gorgug. Tried to help by rubbing his sheet on the gold coins they were buying supplies with, but nothing happened

Was nervous about buying or using dusk moss, saying he knew a guy who tried it while wearing a hat and now he always felt like he's wearing the hat. Told the rest of the group "We bought so many drugs." when they dot back.

Fabian's bardic "You feel the power of Fabian's support and care for you" (the explanation of his new stats is linked below)

When asked if he wanted to stay in the Tinkerer's Hall, he answered "Absolutely. With all these weird little men and women. No thank you. Ragh, let's go!"

Has a bunch of private stuff on his phone that he doesn't want anybody seeing

Tried to ride Hangman into hell, but caught by the briars and ejected as the portal closed

Told Hangman "You are literally the sweetest meanest thing ever."

Mutters "Go off The Ball, go off" while Riz was in a different dimension from him (yelling at Vraz in hell)

Said he didn't worry about his father as he was thriving, but he missed him. When told he could get word to him, originally assumed Bill would be busy, then agreed but asked Hangman not to be needy about it, then tried to pretend that he was cool either way and that he didn't need it and it wouldn't fill him with joy, then admitted that it would fill him with joy, and finally just asking "yes please do it"

Likes a warm hot tub due to it being better for his skin and he can stay in there longer

(Multiple quotes can be found in the dialogue link below)

Hangman

His presence (a devil) closed the portal to hell, seperating him from Fabian. He could still talk to Fabian telepathically, but freaked out. When asked to turn it down, he replied "I can't turn it down, I'm sad!"

Said that the portal was created for the dark tribunal and afterwards the devils are required to deposite them from where they came from

Gave Gilear his mark by making his eyes glow dark red pinpricks and etching an infernal ruin of blood and fire on his forehead

Got pissed off over Gilear having to ride on him, but did it to stop his complaining. Meanwhile, Riz also road on him (with a "Huzzah!") and Fig tired a rope around him so she could wakeboard on her skateboard behind him

Approved of Riz hissing at Gilear

Said the souls falling into The Bottomless Pit were evil and of murderers, theives, and liars

Got the tribunal to allow them to stay at The Bottomless Pit (as Fig was both Gortholax's daughter and she had passage there) instead of prison

When he was told only Fig was going to go in the hot tub, he pouted and said "I want to go too!"

Offered to send word to Bill Seacaster for Fabian

Gilear

Made fratatas (with both spinach and kale) immediately, but they all got very cold due to the teens being away for hours (were so cold that they thought he put them in the freezer)

He was not "the face" when he worked in Fallenel at the elven counsel (where he said he was a glorified paralegal), but was still an expert in international and interplaner law

When Fig told him that it was his moment and she needed him, he immediately replied with "Nope!". He eventually gave his word to help, but was confused about how they got into trouble in Arborly, discovering the trial was both in hell ("what? what? oh no.") and delivered by a really keyed up woman who was probably working through something ("I...what have you done?")

From Adaine's jacket, was given a barrister wig from Fig ("None of the cultures I've worked for use these wigs"), a gavel from Kristen, and a black robe from Adaine

Found that the subpoena had no clause concerning ther souls, but hell would send people to get Fig if she didn't go

Wears boat shoes and had a powerful aura of disease coming from his feet (again Gilear DOCTOR! or have a healer greater restore!)

His bald spot was hit by a bit of fire before a blast of fire hit him and knocked him out, setting his wig on fire. He was healed by Riz, but left with burns.

Was given the Mark of The Hangman, which was an infernal ruin of blood and fire etched on his forehead which caused a red force field to appear that protected him from the fire as long as he was with The Hangman

Noticed how Fig was acting (library card behind ear) and started asking her questions, but she dodged them until Riz confronted him about his confidence and got him to confess "I got confidence because Sandra Lynn asked to sleep with me and I said no!" Said that he and Sandra Lynn talking until morning and towards the end she made an offer, he said "No. Thank you", and everyone was still happy and fine afterwards

Told Riz he was very scary and intense sometimes, resulting in Riz hissing at him

Did not actually help during the trial due to fear.

(Has multiple quotes in dialogue link.)

Sandra Lynn

Covered for the teens messaging by talking about finding where Adaine's mom entered the forest as the teens nodded along

Had to explain to her daughter that her and Gilear slept together, but she could have gotten the Kalina disease anytime in the last 3 years and Gilear wouldn't have been infected ("I love you. It's weird. Sorry for all this weird info.")

On Kristen attempting to handcuff her "So help me god Kristen Applebees. I understand that I work for you, but so help... wow."

No longer with Jawbone, but ended on good terms

Was very kind to Gilear the first night in Arborly. She offered to sleep with him at one point and was turned down.

When she asked what the teens were messaging about (dusk moss), Kristen said Spring Break and suggested Sandra Lynn have a spa day with a hot tub soak and a massage with cucumbers on her eyes. Gorgug suggested cucumbers on her ears. Fabian said they should get the weird gnomes to pound her (dear god Fabian! XD) with Kristen saying "gnomes all over your body", Adaine adding that they would walk on her back, and Fabian adding that the little shoe bells would be meditative

Ragh

Asked for a lost spring from the tinkerers

Wears a size 17.5 shoe (quote in dialogue link)

Was paranoid about buying dusk moss (ARE YOU A COP!?), but after Crumpkin's reaction, he grabbed Fabian and Gorgug's arms and said "I think drugs are legal here"

Took a solid chunk of dusk moss and was found staring at his hand ("My hand is just little animal on the end of your arm")

Came into the van later, shirtless and looking like he'd sweat ten gallons. Said "Everything in the world is connected", (on Adaine thinking of trying it) "Adaine, for real? I can never be anxious again because I don't even know if I can ever be fully in my body again.", and (response to Fabian saying it sounds scary) "No no. I'm part of the universe dude" before drinking a glass of water and going off to go to bed.

***

Gnomes

Crumpkin Springbill

Head Tinkerer of the Tinkerer's Hall of Arborly

Confused as to why anybody would be mad about people buying or using dusk moss

Told Gorgug that it would take a long time and a lot of materals to build a cell tower

Size 5 shoes (but likes a little toe room) with curled toes so he can puts little bells on them (sounds like the general style of shoes for the gnomes there as well)

Said hello to Zelda enthusiastically over a video call

Polly Pullypad and Osmand Wobbletrouble

Accidentally flew into where they stacked all the old pots and pans (Polly)

Brought Gorgug his altered shoes back and bowed to Gorgug

Asked to examine Gorgug's crystal in exchange for the spring shoes (Osmand)

Suggested they try to skip building a cell tower and connect directly to a satellite

(Unnamed Twins)

Shallower cone hats with tufts of fur on the ends of springs

Took gorgug shoes off his feet

***

Devils

Vraz the Mean

Sarcastic erinyes with a +13 insight and a beautiful but uncannoy vally porcelain face with a beauty mark

When Fig and Kristen asked if she could leave the door open so they could follow "Are you guys having a fun time? BECAUSE YOU SEEM PRETTY FUCKING GLIB! Keep your sass to yourself!", but still left the door open

Got hissed at by Riz a lot (multiple quotes in dialogue)

Said she is having a bad time between her title (Vraz The Mean), species (Erinyes), running hell, and her title (Arch Secretary)

Called the tribunal into order (with her two co-jurors in a room with a small 3 seat judges bench), stating that it concerned the issue of Gortholax's infernal negligence

Tried to call her boss Blozo, but he couldn't come due to traffic

Found that being trapped in a gem counted as extenuating circumstances and he would not be punished, but they needed a new regnant for the Bottomless Pit so they called a recess while they consulted the bylaws.

Yelled at Fig for asking for help after the recess saying (in a durr voice) " *points at temple* Do you know what words mean!? Do you know what words mean!? *jacking off motion* Huh?"

Was going to imprison "the mortals", but was convinced by Hangman to put them under house arrest at The Bottomless Pit

Kystrona (Ky-stron-ah) The Chained

Vaguely humanoid figure that is just like

A person with chains coiled where arms would be as well as the torso and head, making a massive mound of chains

Moved with a lot of strain (including trying to shrug) and voice is muffled from all the chains

Lorzug (lore-zug) The Impaled

Bone thin naked person with incredibly pale skin and translucent vains all over

Impaled through the stomach about 10 feet up a jet black iron spike as they kick and scream

Only responded with screams

Retch Rot

Tiny blood red imp with a scorpion tail summoned by Fig's blood (calls her mistress)

Might look like a red Boggy with really long legs for his size (Ally wondered if he looked like "a really famous mouse", including suspenders, but I personally give Emily's description more weight as she is in fact in hell as Fig)

Valet to Fig while in the Bottomless Pit

Wanted to show them to their quarters and the many doors of The Bottomless Pit (but had to make it clear that the doors were just rooms in the pit and not portals)

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Other Stuff From 2.13

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[To be added]

[apocalyp-tech-a]

I have been reading your fic but ahhh. I really, really feel bad for Tech. Layna is an absolute hypocrite with abandoning Tech without talking to him about it, while throwing a fit about him leaving before they even had a set relationship. At this point I don't think she deserves Tech in any way at this point, as she has abandoned him and done what she asked him not to. I hope he gets an apology from her and doesn't just back down from how she hurt him when they eventually meet together, as he really deserves better from her - especially when she demanded the same from him.

Sorry, I'm just solely on Tech's side and am very :/ about Layna.

Thank you so much for reading An Unusual Alliance! And also for messaging about it! I truly appreciate it! <3

You made some accusations toward Layna, so let me address them.

Layna is not a hypocrite. Layna is suffering from a lot of ordeals that happened to her over the years: parents dying, stuck with nasty grandfather on hell planet, forced in to the Empire, Koratis Major, the Stormer, Ska Gora, Jonath, Neme, Deron/toxin, sister turned against her, never met nephews, nightmares, hallucinations, and the failure of every remedy she tried WITH Tech, just to name a few. Why do you feel bad for Tech, but not for Layna for all that she has suffered? Her solution to leave was a last resort, to see if she could fix it somehow herself. If she told Tech she was leaving, he would have tried to stop her, he would have insisted to go as well, she could not have that especially with her hallucinations. The past few chapters were a journey that she needed to do on her own, a quest one might say. Just like Tech needed to be off on his own to come to his realizations. I would not say she threw a fit as you mentioned, but what Tech did was wrong and she reacted accordingly. Nor would I say she did what she asked him not to or demanded from him - she never asked or demanded him not to leave, she was just worried that he would because of her feelings of love for him. She did not abandon him the way she was. Layna left a very sober and honest holorecording whereas Tech left without a word and without so much of a thought toward how his leaving would make her feel. However, Layna absolutely took his feelings in to account and apologized in advance in the very heartbreaking recording.

True love isn't about who deserves who or what. Love is love. You don't give the cold shoulder to someone you love and who you know loves you back unconditionally, especially when you understand they were going through some mental issues and are in pain. And in her mind, everything she is doing is to save Tech, not to hurt him. His problem isn't that she left, it is that he could not find a solution with his exceptional mind to help her and prevent her from taking such a drastic measure. And unfortunately some of his feelings of loss are resurfacing as a result. Yes, he will have some pessimistic introspection about it, but ultimately he loves her, 100%.

I get it, you are protective of Tech, you want the best for him. So do I and so does Layna. I sincerely appreciate that my story made you have emotions enough to write about them to me. Even if I don't agree with them all. I do hope you continue to read the story though, because I think the emotional investment will pay off eventually. I did a much more detailed defense of Layna in the comments on that chapter (43) if you would like to take a gander at them a little bit more involved than here.  

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33383293/chapters/95287252

Thank you so much again for reading!!! <3<3<3 Don't be afraid to bring up more discussions, I'm very happy to talk about my stories or Star Wars in general! :D

[mummified-game-review]

2064 Read Only Memories: A Review

If you haven't played this game, then are there other point and click, cyberpunk kidnapping, mystery games that came in the Racial justice bundle that you think I should check out? Let me know all about them in the comments.the garden center of my closest hardware store and I’m trying to decide if the start up cost of 15 bucks in in my budget.

Welcome back to another video game review here on Mummified Games. Today were going to be taking a look at the modern Point and Click Mystery game 2064: Read Only Memories. By Midboss.

This game has a lot of charm to it. I Love how this game presents itself. The Music, art, story, and voice work, is all great and do a really great job of pulling me in. I did not want to stop playing. This was the first time where I was like okay maybe i play for 2 hours. And then write the review. But sadly there was no way I could do that if I wanted to make my deadline.

So the game is a future cyberpunk scene where Humans have found a way to cybernetically and biologically augment their bodies. Sort of just like every other Cyberpunk cenario. Just par for the course at this point.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

But what's great about this game is that it's not overly burdened with the constant narrative of life sucks and there's inequality and class disparity.

It's not dystopian cyberpunk, it's more optimistic. People seem to really be jammin with the future that they find themselves in. For the most part.

So it's your standard affair people are making so many augmentations to themselves in so many different ways. That there is a rebel group that is coming up that wants to see humanity return to who they were.

Not like a full blown god's perfect image, it's not a religious thing. But still embracing tradition and what makes humans human.

I don't know if we have the science to make Snake people then I'm all for it.

Ooo la la.

There are Robots that this big company is making that are designed to Walk like the humans, talk like the humans. But it's all just fancy code. And then the game tells you about one scientist that is working on transcending that limitation of just fancy code. And make something new.

Story intro out of the way, The scene opens with your less than standout apartment and you learn that you are a journalist, sort of.

And after you go through a nothing of a tutorial. As in like it's almost not even there cause it's so basic. You write a report and then go to bed.

INCITING ACTION

In the middle of the night a little blue robot hacks your door. And breaks into your apartment. Interfaces with your computer, cleans your apartment and also tries to clean the old computer, bricking it in the process.

You wake up and they tell you that they have selected you out of all known contacts of their master to help them track their master down. He was Captured last night and you need to join the robot to track down their master.

The robot's name is Turing, probably named after the real person Alan Turing the Computer Scientist.

A note about the dialogue and interactions with Turing. ALL THEIR LINES ARE VOICED! This game gives you so much during the process. There is a lot of reading to be doing in this game and luckily it's not all put on you.

I don't want you to think that I don't like Reading. Or that I think reading is hard. But if I'm meant to put multiple hours into a game. Doing nothing but reading for the entirety of it can get tiring

So I'm glad that so much is fully voiced. Gives you the chance to look down and tweet your love of this game for a second.

And that if there is a name or something that comes up you instantly know how it's meant to be pronounced. Instead of having to wait till you say it outloud in a video game review and suddenly everyone thinks “wait Tony, you say its like that? Wow okay”

Look, I have yet to hear anyone talk about Itch in casual conversation so I have no idea if you need to add the Dot I O to the end of it or if I sound like a Boomer who says out loud Dot Com at the end of every website name. “Yeah i just look it up on Google Dot Com”

I'm trying here folks I really am.

So after Turing tells you about what they need you join them on their mission to track down their creator and figure out what's at the bottom of this whole thing.

A note about the profile creation scene, it's quite funny and I thought it was super cool how they include multiple ways of character settings.

There's nothing visual that you can do to change your character so there's that. But Turing asks you for your name, you just type it out and I was excited for maybe a robot voice that was going to try to pronounce Mummified but it didn't go well.

Asks you for your pronouns, Yes! I love it. I would expect nothing less from a developer like Midboss. The people who host the Steam Summer of Pride Sale for the last couple of years Highlighing Queer games.

But the fact that they don't just limit to just He/Her/They but also Zir, and another one that slips my mind. And also an option to input your own preferred pronouns. SO COOL!

And I was ready to maybe answer one more silly question. That's where I was thinking the game would take things, assuming based on its sense of humor and the jokes that would come up in this game.

But no it was a real question about dietary needs and restrictions, to be kept in mind when out and about and talking about food. Holy crap that's so cool.

So the game gives you options like Omnivore, Vegetarian, Vegan, Halal, Gluten Free Dairy fr

What a super cool thing to include in your game. This just adds to the inclusion that is offered to players of all different ways of life.

So I just hunted down the list of food options in the video recording I took of this game and I'm reminded of just how funny this game is.

There are great jokes in this. There are subtle allegories to our own real world things in this game.

Turing says they found a better door that you could use to replace the current door you have due to its sub standard encryption features to prevent people from hacking though. And they recommend a particular model of door and mention it has over 300 reviews on Congo.

Wait... Congo. HA! Okay that got me. Cause you know Congo the river. And the Amazon river. I thought it was funny.

Also there is a joke about the Creator having a list of different things on the TV that they were watching like Ted’s Tech Tips. That one got me, because it might not be a thing but I'd like to think it's a nod to Linus Tech Tips.

This game is filled with great cute jokes. There are a couple of options that the game gives you when you wake up to see a strange robot in your room, some of the reactions are more fearful. And while reading them as an option I thought to myself WHY?

This little friend is Cute as hell. There's no way I would be scared of them. Their cute faces and little arms. I love them so much.

So the story is sound and the writing in it is so well done. The voice acting is great as well. Turing sounds innocent and has a cute childish nature to them, but they’re not dumb to say the least, they’re still the most advanced AI program in the world.

The gameplay is also stellar. Most of the interactions with things in this world are done with 4 different options.

Look: The game will give you a description of what the item, thing, person, whatever is.

Talk: If it's a person you can talk to them. Or sometimes things have voice commands.

Take/Touch, you might be able to pick something up or turn it on. Computers would take you to another window and you could do other things inside it.

Use time on: At the start of the game you're given an ID card and you pick up a pair of headphones in your apartment. The id could be used to get you places or scan for whatever might come up. Or you can connect your headphones to random things to hear stuff. What's funny is that you can use your headphones on almost anything and you can get some description of what you hear.

Real basic stuff. Like it's described. It's a Point And CLick Mystery Game. A lot of the game is being given a scene and you can talk to people in it, or interact with the things on the static screen.

Everything in this game flows so well together. Nothing takes you out of the experience. Its a story that takes you in and doesn't let go.

I think this is a game that I can fully recommend to people no matter what. If you have it. If you were curious about it. If you’ve never heard of it. Any range of feeling and knowledge of this game I highly recommend you go check it out.

If you have this game tell me your thoughts on it. Do you think Jessi was a jerk or if she is justified in her standoff-ness in her attitude?

If you haven't played this game, then are there other point and click, cyberpunk kidnaping, mystery games that came in the Racial justice bundle that you think I should check out? Let me know all about them in the comments.

In the meantime. Ah gee folks i really am thinking hard about that jade Plant. I'd love to get one. But my cable bill is coming and I know I need to take care of that first. Oh well. Maybe next month.

You all do the Youtube Dance, Like, Sub, Bell, Comment, and share this video with someone you know.

And as always hackers, Keep Digging, and we’ll make it out sometime.

See you in the next one.

[curegbm]

Ajit Pai IS MAKING LOTS OF ENEMIES ON THE ROAD TO 5G

In moving to free up Wi-Fi and bolster superfast service, Pai has alienated some industries, congressional committees and Trump Cabinet leaders.

Photo caption: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai takes a drink from a mug during the commission vote on net neutrality in 2017. | AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

John Hendel, Politico, Jul 8, 2020

FCC chief Ajit Pai is angering a lot of powerful people as his chairmanship hits its fourth and potentially final year.

The Pentagon, the Commerce Department and the Department of Transportation. Electric utilities, airlines and the auto industry. Public safety officials and weather forecasters. Top lawmakers of both parties, including an ally of President Donald Trump’s who controls the FCC’s purse strings on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

And most of that is because of actions Pai has taken this year.

Every FCC chair makes decisions that draw criticism, from judging proposed mergers by broadcasters and cellphone companies to setting rules for net neutrality and robocalls. But the barbs coming Pai’s way have multiplied in recent months as he leads the commission in divvying up billions of dollars’ worth of wireless spectrum for a new generation of Wi-Fi and 5G wireless service — moves that are leaving a lengthening trail of winners and losers and putting Pai's decision-making and career experts under the microscope.

The clear winners include Comcast, Facebook, AT&T and other Silicon Valley and telecom titans that say Pai’s policies will help the U.S. vie with China for technological supremacy. To his allies, Pai is heroic for taking on parochial interests keeping America from making the objectively best uses of its digital resources.

To his foes, however, he’s going rogue in ways that waste taxpayer money and could endanger public safety.

Some of them are expressing their criticisms of Pai in deeply personal terms.

“I wouldn’t take him with me to buy a car because he’d pay full sticker price and then try to give the salesman a bonus,” Senate appropriator John Kennedy (R-La.) said earlier this year, criticizing Pai’s plan to offer satellite operators billions of dollars to give up their airwaves for 5G. After Pai approved another 5G plan over the Pentagon’s objections, Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) hinted that “when people try to push bad policy through in the middle of a crisis, without much coordination with seemingly anyone else, it makes me wonder about their motives."

Critics blame a tunnel-vision regulatory culture that they say Pai has leaned into as agency chief.

The FCC embodies “very much a regulatory capture mindset” and “arrogance,” said Joy Ditto, who recently led the Utilities Technology Council in an unsuccessful airwaves fight with the commission on behalf of electric utilities. She accused the agency of putting its faith in tech and telecom companies’ promises of improved internet connections, at the expense of safety concerns from other spectrum-dependent industries.

They literally believe in their heart that nothing that we said is true … that’s just very dangerous thinking,” said Ditto, now the CEO of the American Public Power Association, in an interview. “The impression was ‘We’re smarter than you, you don’t really know what you’re talking about because you don’t have our level of expertise.’”

Similar complaints have come from Trump’s Defense and Commerce departments — despite the praise Pai’s decisions have received from administration leaders like Attorney General William Barr and White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, upbraided Pai during a June 24 oversight hearing for siding against federal experts on battles over weather forecasting, aviation, transportation safety and national security. She stared down the agency chief as she rattled off her concerns, then laughed in seeming exasperation and told him that the FCC shouldn't be the "default agency" to decide contentious calls in a vacuum.

"It seems to be that the agency has narrowed its interest in the standard for public broadband policy," Cantwell lamented. "Today the FCC dismisses national priorities and defaults to the belief that the highest and best use of spectrum is always terrestrial broadband."

Senators continued to grill Pai over similar issues throughout the hearing, which stretched past three hours — prompting the sometimes heated agency chief to scoff over what he dubbed "absolute nonsense" from critics like the Pentagon.

'Driven by the engineering'

Pai dismisses much of the criticism, telling POLITICO during a June news conference that he and his agency have to make tough calls because of a lack of readily available airwaves. He emphasized the agency's mandate to free up the communications resources for the private sector — a process he said is motivated by objective, expert analysis and includes all necessary consultation with others.

"We’ve been driven by the engineering," Pai said. "Not the politics, not the press releases, but what are the facts?"

"That is what 5G leadership is, focusing on the facts and coming up with a solution that delivers better return on the value to the American people for the resource that belongs to the American people," added Pai, who has spent years pushing the goals of speeding ahead advanced wireless networks and rural broadband service.

It doesn't hurt, however, that Pai's effort has the strong backing of the president. At a White House speech in the spring of last year, Trump stood with Pai to his right, applauding the agency chief's "fantastic job" and making his 5G mandate clear.

"The race to 5G is a race America must win,” Trump said. “My administration is focused on freeing up as much wireless spectrum as needed.” Then he ribbed Pai about the possibility of pushing the effort even further: "I guess at some point we're going to be talking about number 6," Trump said. "You think that's true, Ajit?"

Pai, who became a commissioner in 2012, found himself embroiled in partisan tussling soon after Trump elevated him to chair in January 2017. Defying death threats and Democratic outcry, he repealed Obama-era policies such as the FCC’s old media ownership restrictions and net neutrality regulations — defending the latter decision by starring in a deliberately dorky video designed to go viral. If his policies drew attention, so did the “cartoonishly large” Reese’s coffee mug he drank from during the net neutrality vote.

But as the airwaves are squeezed by his latest policy moves, Pai is alienating sectors beyond the usual communications players. These more complicated spats don’t fall along traditional partisan lines, and sometimes put Pai at loggerheads with Trump allies like Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and top Hill Republicans.

Photo caption: President Donald Trump shakes Pai's before delivering remarks on 5G deployment in the United States in April 2019. | Tom Brenner/Getty Images

An April vote to open an entire band known as 6 GHz for Wi-Fi drew applause from cable giants like Comcast and Silicon Valley titans like Facebook. But electric utilities and public safety officials cried foul, saying it could disrupt their use of the same airwaves for critical infrastructure services.

That same month, Pai bucked the bulk of the Trump administration by approving a plan by the Virginia satellite company Ligado Networks to repurpose its existing airwaves for 5G service — a project that the Pentagon and DOT say could upend the nation’s GPS signals. He also overrode objections from the DOT and automotive interests in advancing a plan to allow Wi-Fi service in a slice of spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band that had been set aside for vehicle safety.

In the coming months, the FCC is expected to hold votes completing the transportation plans and addressing unresolved issues in the 6 GHz Wi-Fi debate.

Spectrum divides multiply

The groups on the losing ends of these fights complain that Pai and his agency are ignoring their valid concerns.

“All of the pleas of safety experts in transportation ... we have effectively been shut out of the discussion,” Shailen Bhatt, who represents automotive and transportation interests as CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society, told POLITICO. “I don’t understand why appropriate respect and consideration is not being given to the U.S. Department of Transportation.”

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) lamented that Pai took seven months to reply to one of her letters in which she voiced concerns about how his airwaves agenda might squeeze utilities and emergency responders. She suggested the delay was because Pai “failed to adequately cooperate or consult with these entities.”

Following the FCC's Ligado approval, the Pentagon also complained about feeling ignored.

“There was not a give and take, a back and forth that we typically go through,” DoD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy told Senate Armed Services lawmakers during a May 6 hearing probing the FCC’s Ligado approval.

The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, on behalf of the executive branch, has asked the FCC to redo its Ligado’s decision, suggesting that Pai's sign-off "represents an unexplained break from the healthy respect that NTIA and the executive branch have generally received from the Commission."

Pai has repeatedly sought to tamp down such fears and challenged some of these narratives. Regarding Ligado, he told Congress that the FCC had reached out to top Pentagon officials prior to announcing his proposed approval. In June, he received a briefing from Defense, Transportation and Commerce officials, which included classified information from defense officials.

In speeches and news conferences, Pai said he seriously vets critics’ objections, even when commission votes don’t concede to them.

His allies agree.

“We are asked to make the tough calls," Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said during a recent event.

Pai has won plenty of praise from traditional telecom analysts and observers, including some public interest groups that slammed his earlier deregulatory moves. They said the Pentagon, auto industry and utilities represent overly cautious hoarding of airwaves, and that Pai is brave to confront these turf wars. All five commissioners voted unanimously on most of these spats.

“The FCC is the expert agency that’s charged with making these decisions,” said Ligado CEO Doug Smith, who has suggested that the Pentagon’s campaign against his company’s 5G plans contradicts objective analysis from within the administration (a case receiving some validation from internal emails obtained by POLITICO). “They’re an independent body. They have to balance all the different competing interests.”

The advocacy group Public Knowledge, which receives some funding from Ligado and tech and telecom interests, argued that people should defer to the FCC’s engineering expertise, calling that "key to our success" in 5G. They led a letter rallying groups behind that idea.

A split administration

A widely acknowledged administration civil war over the airwaves, meanwhile, is making Pai’s job harder.

In the U.S., the FCC regulates commercial airwaves while the Commerce Department’s NTIA is supposed to oversee federally held wireless spectrum — and help mediate some of these fierce 5G fights. But the NTIA has lacked a Senate-confirmed leader for more than a year, and Cabinet agencies like the Pentagon and DOT have grown more outspoken about their spectrum grievances.

The dysfunction has caused some to argue the whole system may be busted and require creation of a brand-new government agency.

A Commerce Department advisory group is preparing a report contemplating such a possibility. “We generally reached agreement that the country’s current approach for managing the use of spectrum is no longer effectively serving the needs of the entire stakeholder community,” Jennifer Manner, a satellite executive preparing that report, told advisory group colleagues in April.

Even so, Pai should have clued in the executive branch and industry stakeholders when formulating the priorities in his 5G strategies, concluded a Government Accountability Office report issued at the end of June, questioning a lack of measure benchmarks driving Pai's agenda and a set of ambitions seemingly developed in a silo.

One challenge is disagreement over what data really counts. Ditto, the utility industry representative, once urged the commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to agree to hash out the differences between telecom and utility interests — but said that idea went nowhere. “The first time I went to kind of float that idea to some FCC staff, it was like I was suggesting killing their firstborn,” she said.

Still, the FCC has since shown some openness. O'Rielly wrote the DOE in June with Pai's blessing, proposing an interagency partnership on airwave efficiency.

But Ditto counts herself among those who say radical FCC overhaul may be the only solution.

“I don’t think it can continue in its same structure because we’re going to keep having these misguided proposals put out there that are going to put our country back,” she said. “I think ultimately you’d need legislative changes.”

Photo caption: Pai testifies during a hearing before Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in June. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Pai?

Pai’s own future, meanwhile, is an open question amid widespread expectation that he'll depart if Joe Biden wins the White House in November. Even if Trump wins reelection, many expect Pai will step aside before being forced to leave following his term's expiration in 2021.

Many former FCC leaders went on to represent industries that benefit from the commission’s decisions under Pai: Former Chair Kevin Martin is a top lobbyist for Facebook; former Chair Michael Powell heads cable industry trade group NCTA; Meredith Attwell Baker leads wireless trade group CTIA and Jonathan Adelstein heads the Wireless Infrastructure Association; former Commissioners Robert McDowell and Mignon Clyburn helped shepherd through T-Mobile's recent high-profile merger.

Pai himself is a former Verizon lawyer, a stint that many of his critics are happy to invoke. But the traditional telecom players say they are thrilled to see Pai making these hard choices that have infuriated some lawmakers and industries throughout Washington.

“You’ve been a leader on making sure we get the spectrum we need,” Adelstein told Pai during a virtual conference in mid-May. “It’s always a challenge with different competing demands.”

Pai, in turn, told the wireless conference attendees: “The FCC’s gotten in place a lot of creative spectrum bands that you can use as you see fit.”

Pai has brushed off talk about his own future, although rumors about a possible political run long hounded the native Kansan. He likes to joke about replacing TV star Judge Judy.

National Association of Broadcasters chief Gordon Smith offered lighthearted acknowledgment of the political rumor-mongering during a May event.

“I think you should be going to the White House,” he told Pai. “I’d be happy to be your vice president."

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/ajit-pai-enemies-5g-351803

==

CBRS PAL auction poised to emerge a doozy, possibly raising $10B

Monica Alleven, Fierce Wireless, Jul 7, 2020

Even though the CBRS 3.5 GHz auction is part of a shared spectrum paradigm that some considered to be part of a grand experiment, it’s lining up to be a doozy, with 271 qualified applicants that could collectively bid anywhere from $4.4 billion to upwards of $10 billion based on analyst estimates.

The FCC released the list of qualified bidders on July 1, and it includes the usual suspects: Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Comcast and Dish Network; Dish is bidding under the name Wetterhorn Wireless.

But there’s a long list of not-so-usual suspects in this auction. Raymond James analysts noted that it’s the largest number of bidders since Auction 5, the original PCS C Band auction, in the mid-1990s that attracted 255 bidders. The PCS auctions kicked off a Wild West of sorts in wireless, creating myriad licensees and service providers across the country until consolidation whittled the number down to the current handful of nationals and remaining regional service providers.

Because the CBRS auction, dubbed Auction 105, includes 22,631 licenses and they’re the size of counties, a lot more entities are eligible and interested in bidding than auctions in the intervening years. Utilities, rural service providers and universities are in the mix along with traditional bidders. 

In terms of supply, Auction 105 offers a total of 70 MHz of available spectrum compared to the C-band Auction 107, which will offer 280 MHz when that gets underway on December 8. 

Even though supply will be relatively low in the CBRS auction, demand could be quite high, given the 271 qualified bidders versus 23 to 70 bidders in the previous five auctions, noted Raymond James analyst Ric Prentiss.

RELATED: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Cox, Charter among CBRS bidders

In fact, the vast majority of bidders in Auction 105 are small and have applied for rural (75 bidders), small business (7 bidders) or very small business (129 bidders) bidding credits, according to Raymond James. The other 60 bidders include the aforementioned usual suspects, as well as 11 public energy companies.

Some familiar names on the qualified bidding list include Chevron, Bluegrass Consortium, Cincinnati Bell, Cox Communications, Deere & Company, Duke University and Health System, Frontier Communications, Hawaiian Electric Company, Inland Cellular, Midcontinent Communications, Puerto Rico Telephone Company, San Diego Electric Gas and Electric Company, Shenandoah Cable Television and Windstream Services.

The applicants that did not qualify include Corning, Dallas Independent School District, Mile High Networks, the University of Kentucky and Montana Internet Association, to name a few.

Some industry analysts have predicted the CBRS auction gross proceeds will amount to $4.4 billion at $0.20 per MHz-POP. But Raymond James' estimate is significantly higher.

“With such a diverse group of qualified bidders and limited supply, it is hard to gauge potential pricing, but we would expect gross proceeds for Auction 105 could be in the $8 - $10B range, with the C-band auction expected to produce dramatically higher bids,” Prentiss wrote.

CBRS spectrum is expected to greatly increase the number of private networks in the U.S. Expectations also are high for a healthy secondary market as PAL licensees seek to lease their spectrum to other entities.

Per the FCC’s rules, any frequencies designated for priority access that are not used by a PAL holder may be used by the General Authorized Access (GAA) users. Spectrum Access System (SAS) administrators like Federated Wireless expect a secondary market for PAL licenses will develop as PAL winners build out their networks and find areas where they have excess capacity.  

RELATED: Editor’s Corner—Early CBRS deployments: Indoors or out?

The CBRS band started out as the “Innovation Band,” which still lives up to its namesake to various degrees. It’s not exactly the same as it was when the FCC created it under Tom Wheeler’s chairmanship.

When the Trump administration took over and Ajit Pai was appointed chairman of the FCC, he assigned a sort of “do-over” for the band to fellow Republican Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, who set out to make it a more 5G-friendly band as the rest of the world went gangbusters on mid-band spectrum for 5G. In the U.S., the 3.5 GHz band is the nearest-term opportunity for operators to acquire new mid-band spectrum for 5G, the next closest opportunity being the C-band.

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/cbrs-pal-auction-poised-to-be-a-doozy-possibly-raising-10b

--

Related Posts:

An Exposé of the FCC: An Agency Captured by the Industries it Regulates

GAO 2012 Mobile Phone Report to the Congress

FCC: Why We Need Stronger Cell Phone Radiation Regulations--Key Testimony

"We Have No Reason to Believe 5G is Safe" (Scientific American)

Scientific American Created Confusion about 5G's Safety: Will They Clear It Up?

5G Wireless Technology: Is 5G Harmful to Our Health?

5G Wireless Technology: Millimeter Wave Health Effects

Scientists and Doctors Demand Moratorium on 5G

--

Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D., Director

Center for Family and Community Health

School of Public Health

University of California, Berkeley

Electromagnetic Radiation Safety

Website:          https://www.saferemr.com

Facebook:        https://www.facebook.com/SaferEMR

Twitter:            @berkeleyprc